Free Living the Significant Life by Peter L. Hirsch, Robert Shemin Page A

unique talents and special gifts, purpose, goals, dreams, and aspirations. You must know that what you are doing is making a difference, that you and your efforts are making a real contribution to others. After all, if you don’t believe in yourself and in what you’re doing, who will?
    Everything Is Sales
    Belief is the key to successful sales. Every business, career, occupation, and enterprise of any kind is about sales. In fact, every interaction you have with all of the people you come in contact with each day in your personal life involves sales.
    Many people don’t want to hear that everything is sales. That’s because most people are in the habit of saying (or thinking), “I can’t sell,” “I don’t like to sell or be sold anything,” and “I won’t sell.” (How’s that for no possibility?)
    Perhaps that’s why we pay salespeople so much. They’re the Green Berets of business: “It’s a dirty job—but somebody has to do it.” Since nobody wants to sell, it’s obviously one of the most dangerous and risky jobs around, so those high income–earning salespeople must be getting hazard pay!
    Just for fun, next time you meet someone who says he doesn’t like or want to sell, ask him to tell you more about that. Then sit back and listen as he spends the next five minutes or more masterfully selling you on how he can’t sell.
    Everything is sales.
    We sell our friends on going with us to the movie we want to see, the restaurant where we want to eat, and the dessert we want to share. We sell our kids on believing in themselves and on cleaning up their rooms. We sell ideas, concepts, thoughts, opinions, and feelings. Teachers sell knowledge and discovery. When we first met our spouses, we sold them on the idea that we were worth dating and eventually marrying.
    But the most important sale of the day is what we sell to ourselves.
    When people say they can’t sell, it’s simply not the truth. What they are really saying is, “I don’t believe I can sell. I don’t believe in myself.” And you know what? That’s just not true, either! They believe, all right: they have a negative belief about sales and a negative belief about themselves. And every negative belief, no matter how artfully conceived or rationally explained, comes down to being one big, nearly universal, negative belief that every single person on the planet shares: fear.
    Fear: Friend or Foe?
    The enemy of a powerful belief is fear. Fear is what hurts us, because it stops us in the successful pursuit of our goals and purpose. Fear is what each of us must learn to conquer.
    There are schools of philosophy that say, “Love your fears.” That doesn’t make much sense to us. We all have fear. Some of it’s healthy, too. But love it? We’d rather lose it.
    Let’s make a distinction here. It’s good to have some fears, such as being afraid to step in front of a speeding truck. We should be afraid of things like chainsaws and other power tools, guns, cars going 120 miles per hour, 220 volts of electricity, tornadoes, drunk drivers, war, and things like that. Those are pretty healthy fears. They compel us to act with great respect and to take care when crossing the street, sawing logs, or repairing an appliance. Those fears motivate us to take positive action. It would be foolish to be fearless in those and many other situations.
    What examples do you have of fears that strengthen you, keep you aware, and support you in your life and your work?
    The point is that fear in itself isn’t good or bad. Just like beliefs, fear can be either healthy or unhealthy. Fear is a tool, and as with any tool that can be used to build or to destroy, the quality of how it serves you or undermines your efforts is up to you. It’s just another choice.
    In most situations (other than crossing the freeway, rewiring your home, and other