A Salesmans approach to a new week

Being a salesperson for over 20 years, I often hear this from people: “I could never be in sales.” And “I don’t know how you do it.” Well, I can’t say that it’s for everyone, but there are some notable aspects of living that sales life, that I would love to share with you.

Please enjoy my letter on Sunday Scaries..

As Sunday evening approached, I felt that all-too-familiar dread—the weekend slipping away, giving way to the looming responsibilities of a new week. It's a feeling many of us know—the subtle anxiety of stepping back into routine, the weight of unfinished tasks and new challenges. But in that moment of stress, I paused and reminded myself: every new week is a blessing, an opportunity to grow, to achieve, and to embrace the journey ahead.

There was a time when the Sunday Scaries would take over, clouding the hours leading into Monday morning. But somewhere along the way—perhaps through years of working in sales or through the clarity that sobriety has given me—I realized that this feeling wasn’t a warning of something bad to come; it was simply a signal. A signal to prepare for the important work ahead of me in the week to come.

Sales has taught me this lesson more than anything else. Meaningful Action can make things better. Action can lead to a new lead, a new connection, or a new client. Without Action, nothing will come.

In my world, people don’t want to be sold, but they do want to buy. The difference lies in how you show up. Do you push, pressure, and force an outcome? Or do you create an environment where trust forms naturally, where the decision to buy feels like an obvious next step rather than a defensive struggle?

In my early years, I thought sales was about performing—like being on a stage, putting on a show to convince someone to say yes. But I learned that sales isn’t performance; it’s connection. It’s extending your arm first, opening a line of communication, and working to understand the other persons pain, wants, and needs. It’s a game of trust, of patience, of timing. And most of all, it’s about consistency.

Rejection is part of the job, but it’s also part of life. The way you handle rejection in sales says a lot about how you handle setbacks elsewhere. Do you take it personally? Or do you recognize it as a momentary mismatch, an opportunity to adjust, refine, and try again? In that way, sales has become more than a profession for me—it’s been a training ground for resilience, for self-awareness, for the ability to keep moving forward even when the answer is no.

Just like in fasting or sobriety, where you learn to sit with discomfort instead of giving in to immediate relief, sales teaches you to endure the uncomfortable moments—to trust that something better is coming if you just stay in it long enough. It’s about energy management, about protecting your mindset, about knowing that even when a deal doesn’t go through, or a prospect walks away, you’ve still built something: a lesson, a relationship, a new path forward.

I think back to something I read in the Bhagavad Gita: "You have the right to work, but never to the fruits of work." In sales, as in life, you can’t control the outcome—you can only control how you show up. You put in the effort, you refine your craft, you learn from the losses, and eventually, the wins come. But you don’t chase them desperately; you let them arrive because you’ve done the work to make them inevitable.

And that’s how I approach my Mondays now. Not with dread, but with a reminder: A new week is just another open door to take Meaningful Action. It’s Go time.

Bring it on Monday!

TSB