To transform regret into something positive, you create distance from the regret. You can do this through space, time, and language.
I read The Power of Regret by Daniel Pink a few weeks ago. I learned our regrets could improve decisions, boost performance, and deepen the meaning of our lives.
Daniel Pink provides four core structures of regrets:
Foundation regrets – our failure to be responsible, conscientious, or prudent, which sounds like “if only I’d done the work.”
Boldness regrets – our failure to take chances, which sounds like “if only I’d taken that risk.”
Moral regrets – our failure to rise above temptations, which sounds like “if only I’d done the right thing.“
Connection regrets – our failure to recognize and honor the relationships with others that give our lives purpose, which sounds like “if only I’d reached out.”
To transform regret into something positive, you create distance from the regret. You can do this through space, time, and language. This process is called “self-distancing,” which is a way to examine the regret dispassionately without shame…and to extract from it a lesson that can guide future behavior (pg. 178).
You do not need to experience regret before learning from it. Self-distancing builds on the idea that it is easier to solve other people’s problems than to solve ours. If you anticipate a regret your future self may encounter before it occurs and take the appropriate action, good things will happen.
The late Intel CEO, Andy Grove, was known to embrace self-distancing. He usually asked himself, “If I were replaced tomorrow, what would my successor do?” This exercise allowed him to live briefly in the future and look at the challenge through a different lens. With an imaginary person now with the challenge, it empowered him to find creative solutions to the problem.
One of my mentees anticipated his regrets and applied the concept of self-distancing to spur the growth of an account.
When he started managing the account at the beginning of the year, he asked the previous account team: “what do you regret most about this account?”
The team described in detail the chances they wished they had taken. The discussion had all the elements of boldness regret: “if only we had taken that risk.”
My mentee was determined to limit his regrets by anticipating them. He analyzed the previous account team’s missed opportunities and created a new path to unlock growth in the account.
I am happy to share he is on track to outperform his quota at the end of the year.
What’s interesting about the story above is that I was leading the previous account team. My mentee learned from my boldness regret without experiencing it.
There are two actions you could take:
Identify a difficult customer situation and imagine what your successor would do. This exercise puts you in a position to solve someone else’s problem and broadens your vision to see potential blind spots.
Ask a customer stakeholder, “what is a goal you will regret not hitting by the end of this year?” Their answer may identify one or two goals at risk. This is an opportunity for you to partner with them to change the outcome.
Bonus action: Grab a copy of The Power of Regret. You will not regret the decision 🙂
Nkọwa okwu is completely free and offers more than 8,000+ Igbo words, 2,000 Igbo example sentences, 1,000+ audio recordings, supports 17 dialects, and renders Nsibidi script above all words. Nkọwa okwu started as a dictionary because it’s tough to find high-quality, advanced, robust, Oxford-styled, Igbo-English dictionaries outside Nigeria.
Ozii: What/Who got you interested in building technology and how has the journey been so far?
Ijemma: Ever since I was young, I’ve been interested in how technology works. I was fascinated by how digital clocks could tell time, how microwaves could create heat, and even how magnets could distort colors on CRT TVs. But I specifically became more interested in programming during middle school and high school when two things happened: 1. I learned that my Mom programmed for her job (and has always been my biggest role model), and 2. I wanted to build my website. So most of my school memories were of me showing my websites to my friends and family. It started as a hobby to see what I could learn, and I remember being genuinely excited every time I learned a new HTML tag or a JavaScript function.
By the time I was a senior in high school, I knew that I wanted to study computer science in college, but I didn’t know what computer science was and how to use it after college. Sure, I learned to program, and I was good at it, but I didn’t know what “engineers at Google” did for their day-to-day. I knew I would learn a lot at college, so I stuck with the major. It wasn’t until my first college course where I realized that I was a minority, not just because I’m a woman but also because I’m black. The sense of excitement and comfort I found while creating websites in high school quickly faded and transformed into imposter syndrome, where I felt like I wasn’t good enough or I didn’t belong. That mindset affected me for the first half of my college experience because I wasn’t excelling in all of my classes compared to when I was in high school.
The silver lining came when I realized that I wasn’t alone. Many women, especially black women, had a similar experience as me during college. So during the second half of my college experience, I made it a point to be more intentional about my work and the people and students I wanted to guide and mentor. I wanted to see more people like me doing what I do at my school. By the time I graduated, I had got more women in the DALI Lab, which was my on-campus job that teaches students relevant skills
Ozii: What’s your theory on why the Igbo language is at risk of becoming extinct? What is the data telling us and what firsthand experience, if any, supports what the data is telling us?
Ijemma: My theory is factors like colonization, tribalism, and other elements that have no place within Igbo culture or heritage have pushed Igbo as a language to the side. English is Nigeria’s official language and the common denominator language across Nigeria for communication. This reality makes it more difficult for young Igbos to see the need to actively speak Igbo as their primary language outside of academic settings since English is the de facto language within many business transactions, government organizations, and even within many homes. In my opinion, when jobs and paid opportunities are primarily looking for fluent English speakers and skilled English writers, it makes sense to obtain the skills necessary for attractive opportunities. Also, the global state of the world is Western – entertainment, sports, education, art, etc., is increasingly Western-influenced.
UNESCO projected that Igbo would become extinct by 2025, an outdated 2012 projection that has proven to be incorrect. But a more realistic forecast that I framed my work around is that Igbo will become extinct by the end of the century. This is because generations are not effectively passing down the language. I can personally attest to that as an Igbo-American. As a kid, my parents didn’t want my sisters and me to be confused while learning two languages, so we weren’t taught Igbo. Even other Igbo kids I grew up around had a similar experience. This is such a large pattern that’s affecting young Igbos – if we decided to start a family, our children’s chances of knowing Igbo are significantly lower.
Ozii: Tell us about your platform and how it is solving this problem.
Ijemma: I started Nkọwa okwu to push back on the projection that Igbo will become extinct so that the language exists and thrives in a modern world. I genuinely believe in the Internet’s fair and open educational materials, so currently, Nkọwa okwu is completely free and offers more than 8,000+ Igbo words, 2,000 Igbo example sentences, 1,000+ audio recordings, supports 17 dialects, and renders Nsibidi script above all words. Nkọwa okwu started as a dictionary because it’s tough to find high-quality, advanced, robust, Oxford-styled, Igbo-English dictionaries outside Nigeria.
To further address the language learning crisis, we’re creating Nkọwa okwu Learning to allow students to enroll in high-quality Igbo courses at fair prices. At the same time, our instructors get paid for the Igbo courses they put on our platform. In addition, many of our community members struggle to learn Igbo in their free time, so having a platform like Nkọwa okwu Learning can dramatically ease the way we learn online. On top of that, the platform will incentivize Igbo instructors to create more Igbo content that can help others learn.
Ozii: What is the next major milestone for your platform?
Ijemma: Our next milestone is to release Nkọwa okwu Learning by the start of 2022. Releasing this platform will finally give young Igbo people the opportunity to learn Igbo online at their own pace. We currently have a small team consisting of software engineers, product designers, and a lexicographer/audio recorder working to build out the platform and the course content. Once we get closer to release, we want to find a growth marketing manager to help start marketing the platform across social media. This timeline means that we want to start being more active on social media channels like Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to attract our target market. At the same time, we also want to continue recruiting Nigerian university professors to start creating courses on the platform and start making money.
We’re also looking for investors and funding to hire committed employees to ensure that we keep our momentum moving forward. Visitors to our website can also donate by clicking on the ‘Support Us’ button.
Ozii: What’s the one piece of actionable advice you’ve received that continues to be a source of inspiration in good times and challenging times?
Ijemma: One of the best pieces of actionable advice I’ve ever received was to share my work with others. I was so worried about whether or not people wanted to see what I was working on, so much so that I would end up waiting until my work was “worth sharing” for others to see it. But what I’ve learned along the way is that people want to see you succeed, and they’re excited to see you make progress on your project, whatever that progress could mean. Once I took the advice of sharing my work often to heart, I realized that I wasn’t just publicly making progress, but I was also meeting so many unique and talented people who wanted to help me make more progress. That’s why we’ve been able to grow our volunteer community to 80+ members.
Account management is about understanding your customers’ challenges and cultivating the right relationships and sales strategies to get them to their desired destination. Going on this journey comes with risks. To mitigate the risk associated with business development, develop the right relationships at the right time.
Click play above to listen to the audio version of this article
When I was eleven or twelve years old, my parents bought me a BMX bicycle as a Christmas gift. The bike was a source of many fun childhood memories growing up in Nigeria. A few weeks ago, while vacationing in South Carolina, I rented a bike and took it for a spin on the beach as part of my morning workout.
As I peddled to the sounds of the waves crashing on the rocks, it dawned on me that my role as an account manager shares two distinct similarities to that moment:
1. Knowing the basics of how to ride a bicycle makes the risk manageable and exciting
2. Spending my time wisely and being decisive on a pathway allows me to arrive safely to my destination
Knowing the basics of how to ride a bicycle makes the risk manageable and exciting
The basics of riding a bicycle are skills that, once mastered, rarely go away. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Lagos or New York, the motions are the same. I can still vividly remember weaving my BMX bike through the dusty streets of Avu in Owerri West (see actual footage of my village in the video below), my hands gripping the handles tightly, as my friends and cousins cheered me on.
Their voices filled the sky with:
“Na you biko!”
“Abeg na me get next oh!”
“Don’t fall, oh!”
The excitement I felt many years ago in my village came rushing in as strangers on the beach in South Carolina cheered me on.
In account management, my customers expect me to have a baseline understanding of the problems they’re trying to solve. Once we set this baseline, they are more willing to collaborate to find a path towards a solution. The route is not always straightforward, which makes the quest for a solution exciting.
One of the frameworks I use to quickly build a foundation for a solution hypothesis is to ask myself: “Is this a People, Process, or Product challenge?” The answer could be one, a combination of two, or all three forces. In my experience, I’ve found that there is often one force pulling ahead of the others.
Following this mental exercise, I consult my internal and external stakeholders to help refine and improve the hypothesis. With each new data point, I’ll reduce the risk and move closer to a solution aligned to my customer’s outcomes.
Interestingly, customers don’t always expect me to have all the answers; instead, they expect me to have an informed point of view which first requires an understanding of the issue at hand.
Spending my time wisely and being decisive on a pathway allows me to arrive safely to my destination
Distractions and distracted people crowd most beaches. There were many moments on the beach in South Carolina when I almost crashed into something or someone. What saved me was the kind stranger who pointed out my blind spot, allowing me to swerve to safety at the very last second.
One of the early mistakes I made as an account manager was feeling like I needed to have a relationship with everyone.
That was exhausting!
The reality is that while someone may have a big title, to you, they may be a big distraction.
I later realized I only needed to develop and nurture the right relationships with the right people. Trying to create a genuine and mutually beneficial relationship with key executives is not easy and takes time. It also requires a great deal of thinking and giving without expecting anything in return.
In a previous post, I talked about how executives are people. And like everyone else, they have dreams and aspirations, good days and bad days, triumphs and failures, healthy and sick family members.
I’ve learned to be patient with them and, more importantly, be patient with myself. I’m constantly striving to find new and exciting ways to be a giver, practice self-care, and improve myself.
In accounts where I invested the time and effort required to nurture key executives into champions, these executives pointed out blind spots and distractions that saved everyone time and unnecessary emotional bruises.
Even better, these executives helped me be decisive on the right opportunities to pursue at the right time.
The consistent practice of active listening, goal setting, and daily routine execution are the business development skills needed to create success for your clients and yourself.
Two years ago, Chuki Obiyo, a graduate of Northwestern Law School, launched Chuki Law. This premier consulting firm creates concepts, strategies, and techniques to help lawyers at all levels sell more effectively. According to Chuki, lawyers help clients create value, protect rights, and promote justice. For lawyers to effectively achieve this, they have to sell advice. Selling advice effectively requires treating business development as a discipline. Drawing from his consultation with his clients, we explore the core business development skills he is advising his clients to develop during this quasi quarantine period and even post this period. The skills he recommends are active listening, goal setting, and daily routine execution. As you read, focus on how the skills and case studies are transferable in your field and industry.
Active listening, where the objective is empathy.
One of the strategies to get to an optimal state of empathy is to ask questions. With each question, additional data is surfaced, leading to a deeper understanding of the other person’s feelings and motivators. The following example illustrates the importance of mastering this skill:
Chuki engaged with a small law firm that received a request for proposal (RFP) from a dream prospect. After some preliminary research, this law firm discovered larger firms and other more experienced practitioners were also competing for the same business. Historically, this small law firm lost similar RFP’s and questioned whether to submit a response. The firm envisaged a mindset of “we never win these, so why bother,” concluding it wasn’t worth the time and effort.
To help reshape the law firm’s frame of reference, Chuki conducted a brainstorming exercise centered around generating questions only the dream prospect could answer. The goal was to come up with questions free of assumptions and seek a deep understanding of the prospect’s motivators. Next, the small law firm prioritized the list of questions and requested a meeting. In the appointment, his client went through the list of questions, not as leading questions, but to listen actively as the prospect breaks down the answer to each question. In reviewing notes after the meeting, what jumped out to them was illuminating. The prospect wasn’t so interested in the law firm’s size that would win this work. It was most interested in seeking a firm with a particular subject matter expertise. This information came to light due to the law firm’s ability to ask the right questions, listen, and seek understanding. As you can imagine, the small law firm emphasized its top-tier subject matter expertise in the RFP submitted.
The small law firm ended up winning the RFP. A few weeks after advancing the relationship, the firm had a feedback loop with the prospect and solicited some commentary on why they won. The happy client shared that the firm was selected because they felt heard. In summary, the small law firm emanated empathy by actively listening which led to winning over a prospect that became one of its top billing clients.
Goal setting, where the objective is authenticity.
One of the strategies to attain authenticity is to put pen to paper and write—the process of writing things down forces a clarity of thought and commitment. The example below illustrates this skill in action:
An attorney at a law firm had spent eight-plus years as an associate and was now eager to become a partner. After about seven years, attorneys are usually put on a path to become a partner in that firm. This attorney had multiple internal meetings and learned he was not on the way to becoming a partner, not even in the next three to four years.
He received the harsh truth that his business development was non-existent. He countered by pointing to all the great work he was doing for the firm’s existing clients but discovered new client origination mattered more to the firm.
Chuki worked with this attorney to write down goals around professional and business development. By asking simple questions such as: Can you expand your LinkedIn connections from X to 2X? After you get those connections, can we set a goal to reach out to two of those connections a week? And if they accept a meeting, how can we shape the conversation to deliver value and begin a sales conversation?
By writing these goals down, this attorney could clarify what he needed to do, how he needed to do it, and when he needed to do it. He has identified potential new business through his efforts and positioned himself as a burgeoning rainmaker. The simple act of writing goals down has changed his narrative and opened the door for more advanced conversations to become a partner at the firm. He has also built a healthy pipeline of opportunities that is giving him visibility amongst the senior partners at the law firm.
Daily routine execution, where the objective is accountability.
Success is in our daily routine, and lawyers are no strangers to a regimen. Lawyers review contracts, draft briefs and analyze memos. The recommended strategy is breaking down goals into daily activities and applying the same appreciation for routine to ensure sustained success. The example below provides additional context:
Chuki engaged with a black female attorney dealing with recent struggles to progress some of her professional and business development goals. This attorney had experienced success early and would consider herself a good business developer. However, lately, she felt she was a hamster on a wheel, moving but going nowhere.
The first activity Chuki suggested was to do a time spend analysis to understand where she was spending her time. They found that in the past, she relied on massive speaking engagements to uncover new business. However, with the pandemic, these opportunities had fizzled out.
They brainstormed activities she could do consistently related to business development. She settled on blocking out 30 minutes every Friday to send a “Have a nice weekend” email to a prospective client and existing client. The response she received from this email campaign was inspiring, so she decided to make it a daily activity at the end of her day. By being selective of the existing and prospective client, she is much more thoughtful and contextual for the email recipient. The results have reinvigorated her, expanded her network, and kickstarted conversations to become a general counsel for a corporation.
Bonus: Promote certainty, where the objective is reliability.
Living in a pandemic environment, people are looking for opportunities to add some level of certainty into their day.
One example is relationship certainty. Several decision-makers are not in a hurry to change their current vendors or partners. However, this shouldn’t mean the incumbent should be complacent. If there are activities you’ve done or completed within a defined timeline, stick to that timeline. If there are reports you’ve provided in the past, keep providing these reports consistently.
Another example is cost certainty since this period may not be a good time to raise prices as numerous industries are still recovering. Executives are looking to cut costs so they can be more efficient and lean. Partnering with clients to find opportunities to reduce costs could be a significant advantage as the client’s business picks back up.
Promoting certainty paves the way to achieve reliability with clients. When clients can count on you, you can count on them giving their business to you.
In summary, the consistent practice of active listening, goal setting, daily routine execution, and promoting certainty are mechanisms anyone could apply in their field or industry. Often, what separates ordinary from extraordinary is the “extra” we put into doing the everyday things.
A few weeks ago I had a virtual chat with my mentor, a CEO of a software company in Silicon Valley. Our discussion focused on competing in a complex enterprise sales cycle. After describing the challenges I was facing, he reflected and asked a simple question: Are you playing soccer or lacrosse?
Interesting.
My exposure to lacrosse is limited to its appearance on ESPN SportsCenter: Top Ten Plays. It wasn’t a sport I went out of my way to watch. And if I were to, I’d have to learn the history, techniques, and rules of the game.
My mentor could see my thoughts drifting, so he rephrased the question:
Are you trying to get your customer to buy in the way you sell, or are you trying to get your customer to buy in the way your competitors sell? In other words, are you playing soccer, or are you playing lacrosse?
My mentor and I both share a passion for soccer, as we both grew up playing and watching it religiously. He knew the analogy would resonate.
The point he was making was although the customer may be intrigued by lacrosse, it didn’t mean they wanted to play it. It could be that my competitor introduced prospects to lacrosse because they got tired of losing at soccer. By playing along or trying to get the customer to buy in the way my competitors sell, I was expending valuable resources instead of investing in my soccer game. If I continued to go down this path, it’d be a severe case of self-deceit because it’s playing a game where the opponent sets all the rules, so I was bound to lose. I had to make a change.
After some deep self-reflection, I worked with my team to refine my approach and strategy. Here are some of the steps I’m taking:
Dedicating additional time to deeply understand my customer’s business outcomes by scouring through financial statements, interviews, press releases, social media, investor decks, etc.
Developing a point of view from the perspective of achieving each business outcome.
Validating and refining that point of view by speaking with key stakeholders within my customer’s organization, from the executive to the executive assistant.
Crowdsourcing feedback and the best ideas from experts within my organization to further refine the strategy.
Applying critical thinking and asking tough questions to earn trust and mutual respect in every interaction.
Proactively sharing ideas to solve business challenges even if there are no complete solutions to offer…yet.
These steps are netting positive results and rekindling the customer’s passion for soccer. The customer is fortifying their defense in preparation to mount a counter attack and score some business goals.
On a side note, Real Madrid, if you’re reading this, I’m patiently waiting for that invitation to try out or a free ticket 🙂 Thanks!
I have been working from home since late February, which means I have had to adjust my way of selling while social distancing and observing the shelter in place order in Seattle. Below are three ideas that have worked for me as I adapt to the new normal of working from home and unable to visit clients face to face. If there are other methods or strategies you’re applying to generate positive results, please share them with me.
1/ Sell with empathy. We are in the midst of social distancing, not empathy distancing. Almost every salesperson, including me, likes to think they connect better with potential clients face to face instead of virtual. The reality is that how we show up is usually consistent regardless of the communication channel. Also, it is times like these where there is uncertainty and crisis that reveals our true self. Now more than ever, investing the time to master social and emotional skills will benefit our customers, employers, and most importantly, ourselves. According to a study by McKinsey Global Institute, one of the fastest-growing skills that employers will demand by 2030 is social and emotional skills. They define “social and emotional” skills as “soft skills,” which include: advanced communication and negotiation, empathy, the ability to learn continuously, to manage others, and to be adaptable.
So what does it mean to sell with empathy?
Selling with empathy for me means walking a mile in someone else’s shoes even if the shoes do not fit. Having empathy is not just the ability to understand the feelings of the other person; it also involves sharing the feelings. Selling with empathy is also about having compassion for these executives navigating these complex challenges. These executives are responding to this crisis with improvisations as there are no playbooks, so be patient and compassionate. Your goal should be to make a genuine connection not just a sale.
2/ Find opportunities to help your potential client execute ideas faster. If you’re in enterprise sales, you’re probably familiar with the concept of Time To Market (TTM). It means the length of time it takes from a product being conceived until it’s available for sale. The companies that can bring the best products to market the fastest often gain the lion share of the market segment. As executives and decision-makers meet internally to explore ideas of how to navigate the challenges that this pandemic is having on their businesses, they will seek partners to help them not just go from idea to revenue, but idea to survival in the shortest time possible. Once you have developed a deep understanding of your potential client’s challenges (because you’ve mastered selling with empathy :)), you will be able to provide a valid and refreshing point of view of why you’re the right partner to execute the ideas.
3/ Insert humor. We all know the saying that laughter is the best medicine. As our potential clients deal with the pressures of today and uncertainties of tomorrow, a good laugh could be the highlight of their day. You don’t have to be a stand up comedian with a special on Netflix to make people laugh. You do need some creativity though. For example, I wore a t-shirt with my client’s logo during a video conference meeting. During my introduction, I shared that although my employer pays me, the company I really work for is my client, hence the t-shirt I was wearing. They all had a good laugh. Mission accomplished.
“You don’t stop laughing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop laughing.”—Michael Pritchard
Bonus: When it comes to staying connected, meet your customers where they are. One of my customers said their preferred method of staying connected is through Telegram, so I downloaded the app. Another said text📱 messages, so we became texting buddies. Another said Slack, so I joined their channel. Another said phone calls☎ , the other said email📧 , and her colleague said fax machine📠. Just kidding about the last one, no one uses fax machines anymore; but if they did, I’ll get a fax machine.😁 This concept of meeting your customers where they are would hold true even after things get back to normal. My recommendation is to discover your customer or potential client’s preferred method of staying connected and adapt to it.
PSA: During this pandemic, let’s all follow the recommendations of medical professionals and do our part to flatten the curve. Also, keep doctors❤ , nurses❤ , and first responders❤ in your prayers.
Happy selling, and be safe.
Amazon Web Services is hiring sales professionals. If interested, find job postings here and send me a note. Happy to refer and coach you through the process.
Last week Monday, I exhausted every means possible to get a hold of a client involved in a deal I was spearheading. I emailed, called, texted, and left a voicemail, but he did not respond.
The next morning, he replied to my text apologizing for being unreachable since he was stuck in back to back meetings. He then suggested we set up a call for 5pm later that day. I asked for an earlier time in the day, but he was firm that he was only available at 5pm. This was a problem. I had a soccer game starting at 5:10pm, and knew our conversation would take at least 30 minutes. There was also a looming deadline, so it was critical we spoke soon. I had to decide whether to take the call at 5pm and risk missing the soccer game or reschedule the meeting to a different day and risk missing the deadline. Playing soccer brings me a lot of joy, and I also thrive on going above and beyond for my customers, so this was a difficult situation.
This dilemma reminded me of a conversation I had a few weeks back with my mentor. He encouraged me to prioritize self-care as part of my daily routine to live a more balanced life. He shared that more than exercising regularly, self-care is any activity that we deliberately do to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health. According to Forbes, neglecting self-care means not knowing your worth. By making time for self-care, you “maintain a healthy relationship with yourself as it produces positive feelings and boosts your confidence and self-esteem.”
The common challenge with self-care is making adequate time for it. Tchiki Davis, Ph.D, author of Outsmart Your Smartphone, recommends twelve strategies to get started with self-care. To resolve my earlier dilemma, I relied on her “say no to others, and say yes to your self-care” strategy. Below is how she explains it:
Learning to say no is really hard; many of us feel obligated to say yes when someone asks for our time or energy. However, if you’re already stressed or overworked, saying yes to loved ones or coworkers can lead to burnout, anxiety, and irritability. It may take a little practice, but once you learn how to say no politely, you’ll start to feel more empowered, and you’ll have more time for your self-care.
I told the client that 5pm wouldn’t work since I had a soccer game starting at 5:10pm. I suggested we reschedule for the next day, and he accepted. In parallel, I worked to ensure we had enough runway so we could still meet the deadline.
The soccer game started promptly at 5:10pm, and by the end of the first half, my team was down 1 – 4. During the half time break, I encouraged the guys by reminding them we were better than our first-half performance. All we needed was to focus on getting one goal at a time. Within the first 5 minutes of the second half, I scored our second goal, getting us to 2 – 4. We made some technical changes, which allowed our team to score three more quick goals within ten minutes, putting us ahead at 5 – 4. I then added another goal with five minutes left in the game, putting the score at 6 – 4. Our opponents got a quick break and scored a goal with two minutes left, putting the score at 6 – 5. Knowing they would increase the pressure, I reminded the guys that offense is the best defense. Since our opponents committed more of their guys to attack, it left their defense vulnerable. We took advantage, and my teammate provided a perfect through pass. I then dribbled past two defenders before hitting the ball past the goalkeeper on his left side. The score was now 7 – 5, with twenty seconds left in the game. When the referee blew his whistle to signal the end of the game, we had managed to come back from three goals down to win the game 7 – 5. I thought to myself, had I taken the call and missed out on the game, I wouldn’t have been in a position to help my team and be a part of such a memorable comeback story.
The next day, the client asked about the soccer game, and I relived the drama all over again. Even better, we met the deadline, deepened our connection, and progressed our discussions. This experience was a reminder to prioritize self-care because it earns trust with clients and it is good for business.
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