Welcome to the December 8th edition of Faith & Life Lessons.
You will see this email full of tidbits from my week. My goal is simple. I hope that from how I live my life, you can find a thing or two that helps you as you try to live a life that matters. I am always trying to do one thing - make Christ-focused decisions in love, work, and life. And this was my week.
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The Story of My Week.
A couple of things happened during the week that gave me additional insight into who I am and how I tick.
I don’t like open loops, especially open loops that I don’t control.
Open loops are typically tasks or assignments that have not been completed and until they are completed, they remain open loops.
Open loops have to be closed - that’s me.
Closing it - that’s the approach unique to me.
Something happened during the week and someone told me that I should send an apology followed by reasons why it happened.
According to the person, providing reasons would make it clear that it was not really my fault.
That is creating an open loop. I want to close the loop.
To do that, I simply apologise.
Yes, I apologised without adding a reason.
Why? Because sometimes, giving reasons is seen as an excuse. I have a principle, “never ruin a good apology with a lame excuse.”
A lame excuse can re-open the loop that the apology was trying to close.
An apology means I am taking responsibility.
And sometimes, that is what the other person wants.
Yes, I took responsibility because I was the one who stood in front of the other person - even if I was not the one who caused the blunder.
And closed that loop.
Things I Learnt
1—Adapting What Makes You Succeed: Someone wanted to speak with me about an initiative they wanted to promote with their sales team.
According to them, they were getting pushback from the sales team.
They wanted the sales team to start a referral program with their clients. For every prospect their existing clients referred who buys from them, the existing client would get a cashback towards the payments on whatever is outstanding on their previous purchases.
The cashback would come from the commissions that would have been paid on the new prospect’s purchase.
In simple terms, the sales agent would share the commission for the referred buyers with their existing clients.
They didn’t want to do that. They wanted the company to give their clients the cashback from its profits.
I smiled.
The very thing that helps them to succeed as a salesperson is holding them back from succeeding in this situation.
To succeed as a salesperson, you need to have a strong desire to look out for “Number 1”, yourself.
The problem is that they didn’t understand that this also plays with their clients. Their clients would be more willing to give them “convertible” referrals if they knew there was something in it for them.
The sales guys needed to remember that - 100% commission share on 0 sales is N0, while 30% commission share on N50m sales is actual money.
A little bit of big-picture thinking might have helped them see this.
2 - When God Sends Comfort: A friend of mine called me during the week. The reason? I had been on her mind.
We had a good conversation and it was an encouraging call.
It was a reminder that God knows when we need comfort and will stir up people to do that.
I am grateful to God.
And I am also grateful for friends that respond to God’s promptings.
Postscript
May you have a bigger vision for your future than whatever you see in your present. Amen
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Tola - The Everyday Disciple
I help Christians like you who want to live intentional lives incorporate their faith into everyday life so they can make Christ-focused decisions in all areas of life and truly live to make an impact and make God happy.
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