Hey Folks!  Tommy “Tahoe” Alaimo here.  Welcome back to The Weekly Six-Pack where I share the six best things I’m enjoying, thinking about, and experiencing each week.

Quote of the Week

“Writer’s block is a phony, made up BS excuse for not doing your work.”

– Jerry Seinfeld

Weekly Six-Pack
Here are the 6 things to check out this week:

1. Big news! The podcast is back and better than ever: now focused squarely on sales, start-up and career advice for millennials. I have a few great episodes coming soon. Subscribe here on Apple or Spotify so you don’t miss them and for access to my 200+ previous shows. 
2. I‘ve been reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. For anyone interested in in exploring mindfulness this is a great place to start, though a bit dense at times. 
3. I found this article super interesting on how Google is trying to disrupt higher education. I’m hopeful this presents more opportunities for low-income families to get a lift into the tech industry. 
4. I loved listening to one of my favorite sales leaders, Ralph Barsi, on The Sales Enablement Podcast. 
5. Who to follow: if you’re interested in learning more about personal finance, I’d highly suggest following my friend Jed Collins on Twitter. A former NFL player turned financial professional, he is on a mission to help the next generation with financial literacy. 
6. I’ve been ripping through Jurassic 5’s Power In Numbers album. 

This Week

‘We are entitled to our labor, but not the fruits of our labor”. Steven Pressfield references this Bhagavad-Gita quote in his book. The War Of Art. Eckhart Tolle follows up and references it in The Power of Now. It’s a pattern interrupter. A sentence that makes you stop and think.

I’ll repeat it: We are entitled to our labor, but not the fruits of our labor.

How, as a salesperson, am I supposed to respond to this?

I think it’s worth exploring today.

A big part of sales, a main reason why I chose this profession is the financial upside. The agreement that the better you do, the more you earn. And one would assume that more quality and more quantity will achieve better results.

But that’s not really how it works, does it?

The path to a deal isn’t a straight line. You send a bunch of emails, make some calls, have a few meetings, prepare presentations and you ultimately either close the deal or not. It’s impossible to pinpoint which rapport building conversation or extra discount pushed you over the edge. Sometimes you’re sloppy and still win. Other times, you do everything right and still lose. Ask any good Poker player about that notion. That’s sales. That’s life.

We can’t be entitled as salespeople.

We’re not entitled to a meeting because we sent a good email.

We’re not entitled to a next step because we prepared a pretty deck.

We’re not entitled to a deal because we handled an objection.

We’re entitled to the process, not the product. We’re entitled to the labor, not the fruit.

The writer must sit in her chair and knock down sentence after sentence before her book is complete. Steph Curry takes thousands of shots at ridiculous angles before you see him do it in a game. And no great salesperson hits quota without putting in the necessary work.

The fruits are awesome – there are few better feelings than closing a big deal. It’s healthy to celebrate when we win. But true pros are back at it the next morning.

When asked which Super Bowl is Tom Brady’s favorite, he replies: “The next one.” Why? Because Brady understands that tomorrow’s fruits come from today’s labors.

Do the labor today. The fruit will come.