The Key to Winning: Win in the Morning

As I look back over my 27 year career, there is no single habit than this one that I attribute to catapulting my results from "just getting by" to achievements beyond my imagination. And unlike most shifts in habit or attitude, this particular course correction produced almost immediate, dramatic change.

My first sales job was for a company that provided fencing for both commercial and residential applications. It was not a pleasant place. The manager of the branch had a nasty habit of hurling objects across his office, screamed at people - even women, and this made for a truly gloomy atmosphere.

I had a habit of asking lots of questions and that desire to learn got me a quick promotion from residential to the more lucrative commercial sales department. At his stage in my career however I was far from successful. The rage-a-holic branch manager didn't take a liking to me primarily because I didn't fit the profile for this business which was a jock-type, preferably, in his mind, a former high school or college football player. Just before the first anniversery of my first year with this company I was offered a demotion in lieu of being fired and I declined their offer.

I went through many weeks of self reflection and sometimes self loathing. I never had an epiphany per se but vowed to myself that I would make some big changes before beginning my next career opportunity. The more I mulled over what had gone wrong I kept coming back to an experience one of the leaders in my volunteer group had shared at a meeting on the topic of winning in the morning. Interestingly, it was the weekends that served as his proving ground for this new initiative.

My friend shared the way events unfolded for him when he got up and rushed through his morning meditation of sorts. It was the sheer size of his honey-do list that got him stressed out and caused him to rush. Events continued to cascade downhill as the part he bought for the refrigerator didn't fit, his temper was short throughout the day and on and on it went.

The contrast of how the day unfolded when he began his day with a strong beginning was marked. Event's just somehow seemed to "click". Even though there was a shorter amount of time with which to do everything, he got much more accomplished.

I decided that this was exactly what I needed on my new job and made a vow to myself to have a victory each and every morning. Keeping me focused on this was the sickening feeling I got when I thought about how miserable it would be to experience another failure at a new job, which I indeed landed after some eight weeks of intensive interviews.

The sense of momentum I was building by winning in the morning which lead to winning for the whole day was how I have imagined the experience of taking off in a rocket ship. I was the number 1 salesperson in a field of a half dozen. Then in years two and three at this company I secured my first place standing; moreover, I roughly doubled my sales the second year and then duplicated that feat again in the third year.

The largest US firm in the office building security and automation field also took notice of my performance and offered me a job which I accepted. And for the next twenty three years I maintained my practice of winning in the morning with very few lapses and scored the number one results for twenty years out of twenty three. And there were a number of prodigious obstacles both inside and outside professional life during those many years.

For this salesperson, winning in the morning is the "true north" of success.