Successful Sales Attitude - Anger Management

Successful sales professionals are well rounded individuals who work as much on their sales techniques as their personal issues. It takes an emotionally stable person to connect well with many individuals. And we all know connecting with many individuals from various backgrounds and behaviors is what it takes to make it in sales.

It is easy to be judgmental and angry over things that people do seemingly to you. The more difficult path is a broadened perspective recognizing that it may not be what it appears. It is the stronger person who is able to be compassionate and loving and truly in touch with their healthy emotions.

Broadening your perspective requires a patient, tolerant, and compassionate mind, a mind open to exploring alternative ways of seeing and acting. Broadening your perspective helps you perceive possible reasons for things that occur in life. Though there is no perfect antidote to anger - patience, tolerance and compassion (PTC) helps manage it.

The following saying gives me a better perspective on situations:

Please provide me with the patience to listen, understand, and accept that life is simply not perfect, but through patience I can see life as perfectly simple. Give me the tolerance to appreciate the ups and downs of my daily tasks. And as long as I am working with people for a greater cause, I will always be tolerant and understanding of their situations. Allow me to demonstrate my compassion and loving kindness in all situations and to all people. I speak these words because life is short and wish to live a peaceful and happy life. And I wish the same for others.

Let’s examine how we can apply these sentiments to a real life situation by using the example of driving.

For instance: You leave for work and are running a little late. While driving, the person in the next lane pulls in front of you. Do you react out of anger or compassion?

Many of us do react out of anger. But why? Fear. We become afraid of an accident and our reaction is one of anger. Or we may be angry because we were afraid our brand new car being damaged. Again that’s fear.

What possible causes could explain the person merging into your lane, seemingly without regard for your presence?

1. They could have been late, just like you.
2. They didn't see you because you were in their blind spot.
3. They made a mistake and just didn't look.
4. You sped up because you were late and didn't really want them to come over.
5. Someone veered into their lane pushing them into yours.

Now let’s analyze each possible reason for this near-accident from a broadened perspective. Maybe the other driver was late, just like you. So, you could have shown a little patience and not been so judgmental and intolerant.

Perhaps they didn't see you because you were too close. We all need to exhibit tolerance and compassion for one another’s blind spots.

Maybe they simply made a mistake and failed to look carefully. Again, we all make mistakes, don’t we?

Maybe you were impatient and sped up subconsciously, not tolerating their attempt to pull in front of you. How often do we have a role in the negative behavior that we blame others for?

Or someone may have veered into his lane, forcing him into yours. So, cut him a little slack. Often events occur due to a

preceding event that we may never see or know about. Try a little PTC. A broader, PTC perspective relieves stress and anxiety by helping people see possibilities that get overshadowed by anger and fear.

Anger is often a masking emotion. Anger covers other emotions more difficult to express. In Western culture, for men, anger is often more acceptable emotion than what’s hiding underneath. Depending upon the situation, peeling away the mask of anger you may find fear, as in the example of road rage. However, in a situation where a friend, customer, or co-worker says something that upsets you, anger may be covering pain and hurt feelings. There are many reasons for anger, but I challenge you to uncover the true emotions and take the broader perspective.

With road rage we don’t have the opportunity to truly communicate and get through the emotions; however, within relationships, I highly encourage good communication to work through difficulties.

Use your great sales skills of communication like, listening, questioning, reading body language, and speaking. Remembering Patience Tolerance and Compassion should help you get into a place where you can really begin to listen and communicate.

Life is too short to waste on what could simply be misunderstandings.