PNTV: The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino (#172)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Nerds. TV Today. You guessed it again, another great book, the Greatest Salesman in the World. Long title, great book, Og Mandino. This book is really about becoming the greatest version of yourself. Whether that's a salesman or a lawyer or a doctor or mother or a father or an entrepreneur or whatever. Great stuff. This was Og Mendino's first book, as I mentioned yesterday. 35 years old, he was a drunk derelict. Wound up working for. Getting inspired by then working for W. Clement Stone and Napoleon Hill. Ran their magazine, Success Unlimited. Wrote this book to inspire their team of salesmen and other salespeople. But again, it's really about how you can tap into your greatest self. Fun book, quick read, etc. Etc. We have a philosopher's note. Bunch of big ideas. Five of my favorite ones, as always here. Now, the context is we have a hero in this book. A young camel boy, watches the animals 2,000 years ago, his mentor and kind of adopted fathers. The greatest business person, the greatest salesperson in the world, literally at that time in this fable. And he aspires to be that as well. Long story short, he gets a beautiful chest filled with 10 scrolls. These 10 ancient scrolls hold the secret to becoming the greatest salesman in the world. We open up scroll number one. What does it say? It says essentially, create awesome habits. That is scroll number one. Rule number one of becoming the greatest foundation. Fill in the blank. Is create great habits. All the greatest among us have solid habits. We did an episode on Superhuman by habit. Tynan talks about the fact that all the people we admire, the superheroes in any domain, have applied their willpower to create habits that are now on autopilot, that help them stay at the top of their game, whether they're a violinist or a rock star or an entrepreneur or a political leader or whatever great parent. Solid habits. You want to see how tall building is going to be? Look at how deep the foundation is. It's being dug. That's the rule. Habits. We have a whole class on this called habits 101. It was the first class I taught after coming back from my little time off. I taught an introductory Optimum Living 101 reboot. And then I do a class every month. The first class I did this month was habits 101. Why is that? Because it's rule number one. You need to get solid habits. You need to use your willpower wisely. Again, all scientists tell us willpower is the greatest predictor of success in any domain of your life. But it's finite. You need to use your willpower really wisely such that you can create habits that run on autopilot. More on that in that class. For now, habits are good. How are your habits? We all have good habits and not so good habits. We've got to prune the bad habits and sprout good habits. I'll leave it at that for now. Second scroll is love. Love, period. Love everything. Love all the people in your life. Love yourself and love everything that's happening. We talk a lot about the fact that obstacles are good. Every single thing that's happening in your life is a great thing. As Joseph Campbell says, we need to say yes to it all. We can't say no to certain parts we don't like. We need to let that be fuel to the rest of our journey. Say yes to it all. Patricia Ryan Madsen, who wrote Improv Wisdom, one of the world's leading improv teachers. The first rule of Improv Wisdom is say yes. Say yes to your partner, and then run with it. We want to say yes to what life gives us and run with it. We want to love everything that comes into our life. If you're rejecting anything, you're diminishing your power. Step in. Love it. Embrace it. That's the second scroll. Moving on. I'm not sure if this is the third scroll, but it's our third big idea here today. I will persist. Until when? Until I feel like giving up? Until it gets hard? No. Until I succeed. I will persist until I succeed. That's a mantra. I will persist until I succeed. In the note, we talk about some great ideas around this. Napoleon Hill, one of Augmandino's mentors, said, if your first plan fails, try the next one. If that one fails, awesome. Try the one after that. That one fails. Great. Try the next one after that, get a little bit better, learn a little bit more. But those aren't stumbling blocks. Those are stepping stones to your success. You need to persist again and again and again. Diligently, patiently, persistently, and you're bound to be successful. Again. Work diligently. Diligently. Work patiently and persistently. Patiently and persistently, and you're bound to be successful. Bound to be successful. Too often we persist until we get the first road bump or until it becomes unfun. Whether that's creating a new habit, like meditation, we're all fired up. Yeah, I read about the research. It's really cool. You sit down, you get three minutes into your first meditation, you give up. Or maybe you get through that Day. And then it's day two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And then that little whiny voice in your head tells you, hey, I'm a little tired today. Take a day off. You, you don't persist until you succeed. We need to persist until we succeed in the little things. And what does that do? Well, that helps us build awesome habits. Good idea. Fourth big idea. I will laugh. I will laugh primarily at myself. Mandino has some great stuff. He says we're the only animal that can laugh in general, in particularly at ourselves. He says, look, life is complicated. Life is mysterious. We can't figure it all out. Don't take ourselves so seriously. Be intense. Be committed. Don't be tense. Don't be taking yourself too seriously. Laugh at yourself. Tony Robbins has a great line. He says, look, in 10 years, he may say five years. So in five to 10 years, whatever's stressing you out right now, you're going to laugh about, going to laugh at, right? So why wait? Why wait? Why waste years of your life regretting and being, ruminating and complaining about all the challenges in your life when you're going to laugh at them in the future? Why wait? We do our job. We can see now that these challenges with the proper mindset, become the catalyst to the next version of ourselves. That's how we want to approach things. Laugh often throughout the day, particularly at yourself. That's the fourth big idea. The fifth big idea is I will act now. Mandino says, I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Impress that in your consciousness, he says, there has never been a map that was so well created and constructed, or a business plan or any plan that was so well written that it would take action for you. There's no map that exists that will take a step for you at the end of the day. We need to do what needs to get done right now and right now and right now and right now. As you know, one of my favorite questions is now. What needs to get done? Now? What needs to get done? Act now. Now. What needs to get done? You're feeling great. Now it needs to get done. You're not feeling great. Great. Now it needs to get done. That's a habit we want to build to be the type of human being that can do what needs to get done, whether you feel like it or not. And paradoxically, when you do that, you then feel great and you're ready to keep the momentum going. So act now. Don't wait. It's not about tomorrow. You'll start doing this or next month you'll start doing this. Now close the gap between what you feel inspired to do and what you do. Turn off that little emotional questioning in your mind. Steve Chandler taught me once act like the most enlightened version of yourself. Imagine you're a robot with none of the emotional baggage and fear just an enlightened version of yourself. Do that moment to moment to moment to moment to moment to moment to moment. I will act now. Turn off all the little niggly fear voices and all the reasons why you shouldn't do something and just do what needs to get done. So there you go quick look at how to be the greatest salesman or fill in the blank. Whatever you are, act now. Laugh at yourself in life often. I will persist with when until I succeed. Love everything and everyone and yourself and create great habits. Hope you enjoyed and I look forward to sharing more with you soon. Have another awesome day. See you.