“Ah, to come to the end of one’s life and realize one has never lived.” — Henry David Thoreau

Is life just happening to you or are you living it on purpose? Does your life and income depend upon the direction of the wind? Is it fate? Or will you pull it? You can decide what you want, add some character (doing something you committed to long after the feeling that had you originally commit wore off), follow some rules for success and start ticking off your goals as you achieve them.

When I was in my early teens, I moved to Florida with my family. I had just moved from the town I was born in and was a bit lonely, but had a few pen pals. One was a girl named Lisa, whom I grew up with. Well, I was a bit of an artist and was excited about Florida and all that it represented to me in contrast to Detroit, and drew a picture of a house I was going to live in one day. It was on stilts and the water was behind it with a boat anchored and a convertible car in the garage underneath. There were palm trees and the sun and sea gulls. I think I was trying to make her feel bad for being stuck just beneath the Arctic Circle in the Midwest and said she should move here when she grows up, as if to say, “look how great life will be.” I was too stupid to know that I was supposed to be older to do it!

We stayed in touch and nine or 10 years later when I was about 23 years old she decided to come to Florida for a few days of R&R. She was a law student needing a break. I picked her up at Tampa International Airport. We threw her bags into the trunk of my ‘67 Ford Galaxie convertible (yes, it had a 428 under the hood!). Man what a car and what a day to show off Florida to my “stuck in the north” friend! We drove over a land bridge, crossing Tampa Bay with the top down, watching the pelicans dive for fish as we sped along. We explored the beach and stopped at a waterfront restaurant for lunch. We then drove along Clearwater Bay, heading to the house to drop her stuff and get to relaxing. When we pulled up to my one-year-old house, she said, “That’s the house!” I said, “Yea, that is the house.” “No,” she said. “It’s thee house, the one in the picture.”

I had always known what I wanted as part of my picture of paradise. I never forgot. It would have been like trying to forget being hungry. I did however forget the drawing I’d sent her approximately 10 years earlier. She had it, still. We looked at it. It was the house. It was a stilt house on the water. It had the old Ford backed in underneath, along with a collectable Corvette. There was a boat out back hanging in a lift. The drawing was not the statement. It was a thing I did as a manifestation of my dream. My goal. My decision. It couldn’t not be.

Many other things happened over that decade. I noticed houses and convertibles and boats. I felt incomplete without them. They were Florida to me. I honestly never considered NOT having this life. Same as never considering whether I’ll eat today or not. It just was. It was real every time I spoke of it or doodled a picture. I got envious whenever exposed to anything close to my ideal. “I WILL HAVE THAT.” And it became real as the words went out.

Some other things happened along the way. I was not one of those workaholic schoolboys. I had a buddy who was, and he turned out fine too, owning the restaurant he worked in after school by the time we graduated high school. Soon I got faced with choices. Mow lawns or no gas. Wash windows or no party money. Detail cars or no dates or movies or mall…you get the picture. Some might say, wow what a disciplined kid. Man, was he motivated. It was never that I was wrestling with lying around vs. hustling. It was all about choices. In my mind, I never had to do anything. My Dad always said, “You don’t have to do anything but die and pay taxes.”

I’ve expanded on that. I say all you have to do is die. You don’t have to pay taxes. You CAN go to jail, an obvious choice but still a choice. I didn’t think of it as work. I thought of it as, “I choose to have this life. Money in and of itself is worthless. It’s not like you can eat it. It does take money however to finance whatever pulls you.” So I did indeed choose to have some money. That was it. Further, I was committed to a convertible, a boat and a waterfront house. I also knew that when I was someday married with kids I’d want my children and their friends jumping off a dock into the saltwater — for me, that’s the only way for kids to grow up. Please hear this: In my own private mind I thought this was the only possible way to have a life.

I was so focused that there was simply no alternative. Sure I’ve worked hard, but not as hard as the family living in subsidized housing with a constantly breaking car and very little pleasure. Look close: Working hard is easier than struggling. And finally, again, it was my only future because (this is key) it was my PRESENT for almost a decade. Most of my financial choices were driven by my desire to end the discomfort associated with my outside (no house yet) not matching my inside (I already have all this stuff).

Highlight this line: When you explain things to yourself as a choice, and you choose based upon a previous decision, circumstances feel better and you know you’re moving toward something. If you see something as “no choice,” be careful as this way of thinking can lead to becoming a victim. Once this occurs you get in the mode of things happening to you. Next, you feel powerless and give up a key ingredient to success: Accountability.

“Ah, to come to the end of one’s life and realize one has never lived.” — Henry David Thoreau

Is life just happening to you or are you living it on purpose? Does your life and income depend upon the direction of the wind? Is it fate? Or will you pull it? You can decide what you want, add some character (doing something you committed to long after the feeling that had you originally commit wore off), follow some rules for success and start ticking off your goals as you achieve them.

When I was in my early teens, I moved to Florida with my family. I had just moved from the town I was born in and was a bit lonely, but had a few pen pals. One was a girl named Lisa, whom I grew up with. Well, I was a bit of an artist and was excited about Florida and all that it represented to me in contrast to Detroit, and drew a picture of a house I was going to live in one day. It was on stilts and the water was behind it with a boat anchored and a convertible car in the garage underneath. There were palm trees and the sun and sea gulls. I think I was trying to make her feel bad for being stuck just beneath the Arctic Circle in the Midwest and said she should move here when she grows up, as if to say, “look how great life will be.” I was too stupid to know that I was supposed to be older to do it!

We stayed in touch and nine or 10 years later when I was about 23 years old she decided to come to Florida for a few days of R&R. She was a law student needing a break. I picked her up at Tampa International Airport. We threw her bags into the trunk of my ‘67 Ford Galaxie convertible (yes, it had a 428 under the hood!). Man what a car and what a day to show off Florida to my “stuck in the north” friend! We drove over a land bridge, crossing Tampa Bay with the top down, watching the pelicans dive for fish as we sped along. We explored the beach and stopped at a waterfront restaurant for lunch. We then drove along Clearwater Bay, heading to the house to drop her stuff and get to relaxing. When we pulled up to my one-year-old house, she said, “That’s the house!” I said, “Yea, that is the house.” “No,” she said. “It’s thee house, the one in the picture.”

I had always known what I wanted as part of my picture of paradise. I never forgot. It would have been like trying to forget being hungry. I did however forget the drawing I’d sent her approximately 10 years earlier. She had it, still. We looked at it. It was the house. It was a stilt house on the water. It had the old Ford backed in underneath, along with a collectable Corvette. There was a boat out back hanging in a lift. The drawing was not the statement. It was a thing I did as a manifestation of my dream. My goal. My decision. It couldn’t not be.

Many other things happened over that decade. I noticed houses and convertibles and boats. I felt incomplete without them. They were Florida to me. I honestly never considered NOT having this life. Same as never considering whether I’ll eat today or not. It just was. It was real every time I spoke of it or doodled a picture. I got envious whenever exposed to anything close to my ideal. “I WILL HAVE THAT.” And it became real as the words went out.

Some other things happened along the way. I was not one of those workaholic schoolboys. I had a buddy who was, and he turned out fine too, owning the restaurant he worked in after school by the time we graduated high school. Soon I got faced with choices. Mow lawns or no gas. Wash windows or no party money. Detail cars or no dates or movies or mall…you get the picture. Some might say, wow what a disciplined kid. Man, was he motivated. It was never that I was wrestling with lying around vs. hustling. It was all about choices. In my mind, I never had to do anything. My Dad always said, “You don’t have to do anything but die and pay taxes.”

I’ve expanded on that. I say all you have to do is die. You don’t have to pay taxes. You CAN go to jail, an obvious choice but still a choice. I didn’t think of it as work. I thought of it as, “I choose to have this life. Money in and of itself is worthless. It’s not like you can eat it. It does take money however to finance whatever pulls you.” So I did indeed choose to have some money. That was it. Further, I was committed to a convertible, a boat and a waterfront house. I also knew that when I was someday married with kids I’d want my children and their friends jumping off a dock into the saltwater — for me, that’s the only way for kids to grow up. Please hear this: In my own private mind I thought this was the only possible way to have a life.

I was so focused that there was simply no alternative. Sure I’ve worked hard, but not as hard as the family living in subsidized housing with a constantly breaking car and very little pleasure. Look close: Working hard is easier than struggling. And finally, again, it was my only future because (this is key) it was my PRESENT for almost a decade. Most of my financial choices were driven by my desire to end the discomfort associated with my outside (no house yet) not matching my inside (I already have all this stuff).

Highlight this line: When you explain things to yourself as a choice, and you choose based upon a previous decision, circumstances feel better and you know you’re moving toward something. If you see something as “no choice,” be careful as this way of thinking can lead to becoming a victim. Once this occurs you get in the mode of things happening to you. Next, you feel powerless and give up a key ingredient to success: Accountability.

Now, sometimes during a class or seminar I’m conducting I’ll get asked “Jeff, can’t you just share the secrets to selling? The tricks, shortcuts, or just some really good closes?” The answer is, “Sure.” I’ve done it thousands of times. I’ve even trained competing dealers while I was employed by one of them! I’ve trained literally hundreds of competitors (at factory request or even the competitor’s request) in the mechanics and philosophy of what I was doing to make my own dealership number one in the nation in sales or customer satisfaction or leasing or service volume. I’d ask my owner, who allowed our secrets to get out (drove me CRAZY ‘til I understood the harmlessness of it), “Boss, why do you allow me to train the competition and not hold anything back?” He would repeatedly reply, “It makes us good sports. AND they won’t do it.”

“What? Everything I know, whether I refined it or not, I learned from someone else. Why wouldn’t they…”

“Jeff, listen. They won’t do it. They’ll hear it all and even take notes, won’t change on the inside and go home and say that they already do all the stuff we do. They don’t realize that who they are being speaks louder than what gets said to their staff and customers. Also, they wait for proof (more proof than the fact that we’re already dominating the market with these attitudes and systems) to come to them before they fully commit to the program. Life happens to them before the new way ever becomes a habit, which would allow them to realize their potential for success. They just plain won’t do it. Don’t hold back out there. Give ‘em a great show!”

So for years at two different dealerships, I continuously conducted facility tours and classes on what we do. I gave the participants all the answers, yet I haven’t seen enough of them change and implement anything to ever get concerned about helping the competition.

 I got to witness another distinction on another level. For the years that I ran sales departments, I did the training. I did the “green pea” class, the “remedial” class for the guys who once had it but had somehow temporarily (or worse) lost it, and I did the general training and motivation. In working with so many people over so many years, I got to watch my systems work and fail simultaneously on my sales floor. I realized that applying the medicine of selling system training to a salesperson covered in the “Teflon” of being the same person with the same beliefs had nowhere near the success rate of a salesperson ready to absorb and transform by first making some decisions. Further, I’ve seen many who become the “right person” have large sales success well before they get the mechanics of the system down. As a hard-to-avoid benefit of personal transformation, they also experienced and shared a greatly improved feeling of happiness, better marriages or other relationships, more interest in charity, their spirituality, reduced used of alcohol or other numbing substance or activity, and physical benefits ranging from losing weight or quitting smoking to just plain not getting sick as often. This combined with a mastery of the selling system has produced incomes beyond the salesperson’s actual goal.

During a management stint at a dealership where I spent nine years, I had one gentleman working for me who had been there for 16. He’d achieved tremendous growth after his first full year on my team’s program. Remember, he earned a very similar amount each year for 16 years, and prior to his “buy in” his income was naturally declining as he was within five years of retiring and he was just not “killing himself” anymore. He certainly deserved to enjoy this part of his career. I think that when he proudly showed me his pay stub’s YTD compared to last year (up 300%!), he was enjoying himself pretty well! It still makes me feel good to think that I participated in a more luxurious and travel-filled retirement for him. Another fellow in that same dealership’s used car department, with similar tenure, was already the dealership’s top money earner year after year with Salesman of the Month plaques literally covering every inch of his walls. He gladly reported that in his 1st year under my systems, he had the largest money year of his life with an approximately $50k increase over his previous best. He said that he still regrets not getting more serious about my prospecting/referral program as he would liked to have stopped being on the dealership’s rotation schedule and taking “ups” off the floor. He deserves proper credit though, as with such a successful history some would be closed to being coached. I had yet another fellow whose income grew, but not as dramatically.

He did however leave the floor to come and go as he pleased on his own schedule. To him, the extra income was nice but what turned him on was time on the golf course. This occurred after 2 1/2 years of him buying into “The System.”

So how did these people as well as thousands of others improve their lives, make hundreds of thousands of dollars more per year and actually have a life? They started with a decision. When you think of it, everything does. How does the woman in the weight loss ad go from being too heavy to 150 pounds lighter and bikini-proud? A lot of things happened but the first one was a decision. The decision was not to deprive herself of one of life’s pleasures like eating can be for any of us. Her decision was to feel good and look good. After that, she didn’t have to use will power or “white knuckle” her way through having only one bite of dessert. It was clear to her. She made a decision. She set a goal. She pictured the end result. She was specific in her end result (size 1, 120 lbs, be able to run 5 miles by Jun 5, etc. etc.). We’ll get into affirmations a bit later.

She DID NOT just say, “Give me a diet and tell me what to do in the gym; thanks, bye!” If she did, she’d have the “system” but she’d also have a 99% chance of failing because of the way she would have been talking to herself and because she wouldn’t have had a CLEAR and SPECIFIC end result stated and written and perhaps shared. When the dessert was in front of her, her willpower would only be able to do so much for her. Plus she would have been miserable at best with all of that deprivation. She would not have been trained to stay focused on her goal. She would not have realized that it’s ALL a decision, a choice. Plus, her subconscious would have been working against her. More on that later, too.

By stating her goal and picturing the end result, she did not have to fight off her dessert urges! She simply chose her “new” vitality and body! She was not saying no to a second bite, but she was saying yes to the bikini or health or that happier marriage or whatever personal reason she originally decided. There is a pointed and specific way to do this and anything else you want in life. We are about to dig into it. This above example is also why I’m not just throwing a selling system at you. I don’t want you to fall off of your diet and exercise program in the middle of it. When you do this stuff and do it right, coming from and going to the right place, it can make you a millionaire and it will be easier than your lowest paycheck months have ever been! To just give you the diet and gym instructions without the groundwork laid out will not do the trick. If you are willing to pay the small price and follow these instructions to a “T” you will never believe it isn’t part of every school’s curriculum. You are about to make a choice right this very minute. This can be the moment (RIGHT NOW) that causes the rest of your life to be what it will be. You get to decide what you want to use your life for. You get to be a victim or accountable for what happens next. You are about to do everything on purpose.

Good thing those competitive dealers that I toured over the decades didn’t get this part first! My owner’s dealerships may have fallen to #2 under my watch!

Now, sometimes during a class or seminar I’m conducting I’ll get asked “Jeff, can’t you just share the secrets to selling? The tricks, shortcuts, or just some really good closes?” The answer is, “Sure.” I’ve done it thousands of times. I’ve even trained competing dealers while I was employed by one of them! I’ve trained literally hundreds of competitors (at factory request or even the competitor’s request) in the mechanics and philosophy of what I was doing to make my own dealership number one in the nation in sales or customer satisfaction or leasing or service volume. I’d ask my owner, who allowed our secrets to get out (drove me CRAZY ‘til I understood the harmlessness of it), “Boss, why do you allow me to train the competition and not hold anything back?” He would repeatedly reply, “It makes us good sports. AND they won’t do it.”

“What? Everything I know, whether I refined it or not, I learned from someone else. Why wouldn’t they…”

“Jeff, listen. They won’t do it. They’ll hear it all and even take notes, won’t change on the inside and go home and say that they already do all the stuff we do. They don’t realize that who they are being speaks louder than what gets said to their staff and customers. Also, they wait for proof (more proof than the fact that we’re already dominating the market with these attitudes and systems) to come to them before they fully commit to the program. Life happens to them before the new way ever becomes a habit, which would allow them to realize their potential for success. They just plain won’t do it. Don’t hold back out there. Give ‘em a great show!”

So for years at two different dealerships, I continuously conducted facility tours and classes on what we do. I gave the participants all the answers, yet I haven’t seen enough of them change and implement anything to ever get concerned about helping the competition.

 I got to witness another distinction on another level. For the years that I ran sales departments, I did the training. I did the “green pea” class, the “remedial” class for the guys who once had it but had somehow temporarily (or worse) lost it, and I did the general training and motivation. In working with so many people over so many years, I got to watch my systems work and fail simultaneously on my sales floor. I realized that applying the medicine of selling system training to a salesperson covered in the “Teflon” of being the same person with the same beliefs had nowhere near the success rate of a salesperson ready to absorb and transform by first making some decisions. Further, I’ve seen many who become the “right person” have large sales success well before they get the mechanics of the system down. As a hard-to-avoid benefit of personal transformation, they also experienced and shared a greatly improved feeling of happiness, better marriages or other relationships, more interest in charity, their spirituality, reduced used of alcohol or other numbing substance or activity, and physical benefits ranging from losing weight or quitting smoking to just plain not getting sick as often. This combined with a mastery of the selling system has produced incomes beyond the salesperson’s actual goal.

During a management stint at a dealership where I spent nine years, I had one gentleman working for me who had been there for 16. He’d achieved tremendous growth after his first full year on my team’s program. Remember, he earned a very similar amount each year for 16 years, and prior to his “buy in” his income was naturally declining as he was within five years of retiring and he was just not “killing himself” anymore. He certainly deserved to enjoy this part of his career. I think that when he proudly showed me his pay stub’s YTD compared to last year (up 300%!), he was enjoying himself pretty well! It still makes me feel good to think that I participated in a more luxurious and travel-filled retirement for him. Another fellow in that same dealership’s used car department, with similar tenure, was already the dealership’s top money earner year after year with Salesman of the Month plaques literally covering every inch of his walls. He gladly reported that in his 1st year under my systems, he had the largest money year of his life with an approximately $50k increase over his previous best. He said that he still regrets not getting more serious about my prospecting/referral program as he would liked to have stopped being on the dealership’s rotation schedule and taking “ups” off the floor. He deserves proper credit though, as with such a successful history some would be closed to being coached. I had yet another fellow whose income grew, but not as dramatically.

He did however leave the floor to come and go as he pleased on his own schedule. To him, the extra income was nice but what turned him on was time on the golf course. This occurred after 2 1/2 years of him buying into “The System.”

So how did these people as well as thousands of others improve their lives, make hundreds of thousands of dollars more per year and actually have a life? They started with a decision. When you think of it, everything does. How does the woman in the weight loss ad go from being too heavy to 150 pounds lighter and bikini-proud? A lot of things happened but the first one was a decision. The decision was not to deprive herself of one of life’s pleasures like eating can be for any of us. Her decision was to feel good and look good. After that, she didn’t have to use will power or “white knuckle” her way through having only one bite of dessert. It was clear to her. She made a decision. She set a goal. She pictured the end result. She was specific in her end result (size 1, 120 lbs, be able to run 5 miles by Jun 5, etc. etc.). We’ll get into affirmations a bit later.

She DID NOT just say, “Give me a diet and tell me what to do in the gym; thanks, bye!” If she did, she’d have the “system” but she’d also have a 99% chance of failing because of the way she would have been talking to herself and because she wouldn’t have had a CLEAR and SPECIFIC end result stated and written and perhaps shared. When the dessert was in front of her, her willpower would only be able to do so much for her. Plus she would have been miserable at best with all of that deprivation. She would not have been trained to stay focused on her goal. She would not have realized that it’s ALL a decision, a choice. Plus, her subconscious would have been working against her. More on that later, too.

By stating her goal and picturing the end result, she did not have to fight off her dessert urges! She simply chose her “new” vitality and body! She was not saying no to a second bite, but she was saying yes to the bikini or health or that happier marriage or whatever personal reason she originally decided. There is a pointed and specific way to do this and anything else you want in life. We are about to dig into it. This above example is also why I’m not just throwing a selling system at you. I don’t want you to fall off of your diet and exercise program in the middle of it. When you do this stuff and do it right, coming from and going to the right place, it can make you a millionaire and it will be easier than your lowest paycheck months have ever been! To just give you the diet and gym instructions without the groundwork laid out will not do the trick. If you are willing to pay the small price and follow these instructions to a “T” you will never believe it isn’t part of every school’s curriculum. You are about to make a choice right this very minute. This can be the moment (RIGHT NOW) that causes the rest of your life to be what it will be. You get to decide what you want to use your life for. You get to be a victim or accountable for what happens next. You are about to do everything on purpose.

Good thing those competitive dealers that I toured over the decades didn’t get this part first! My owner’s dealerships may have fallen to #2 under my watch!