Liars

People often think of salesmen as smooth talking liars who are trying to cheat you.

The truth is that salesmen are some of the most honest people around.

The truth is the other way around. Salesmen don’t lie, CUSTOMERS LIE.

We knock on the door with some truth, and people lie out of their butts.

They say its not their house, when it is. They say their parents aren’t home when they are on the couch yelling for the door to be slammed in our face. They say they have no money, when they do. The salesman has to steer his way through an ocean of lies pouring out of potential customers.

Sell You

Buttercup: You mock my pain.

Man in Black: Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

Funny. Me, of all people, a salesman.

If there is one thing I’ve been trying in my life NOT to do, it’s SELL.

Trying NOT to SELL Jesus

Trying NOT to SELL myself to girls.

Trying NOT to SELL myself to employers and friends, churches, etc.

Trying NOT to SELL briercrest.

I’ve thought that generally they were things that shouldn’t ever be sold.

The last thing I’d want to do is to SELL Jesus to someone, like I was selling Pest Control. And I’d hate to SELL myself to some chick, like I was a new iPod she should consider. I’d rather just be me and have her fall in love. (I know I know, maybe that’s not working out...hahha. It’s ok, I sold myself for years like a used car salesman, and I’ll never go back)

But now, Selling is what God is asking me to do. (not girls, I mean like, for my job)

So let’s get on with it.

Is selling wrong? Convincing wrong?

Here is the first lesson God has humbled me on and opened my eyes about.

We are always selling something.

Let me explain. - it might be better to say that we are always COMMUNICATING something, and giving other people an opinion on it.

Some of it is out of our control. Some of it IS in our control.

What if I’ve been subconsciously selling myself to others as something I’m not?

I sell myself to MYSELF. I’ll say dumb crap like “you’ll never make it”, which is selling a lie. And yet I feel like I’m trying to convince myself when I do the positive “you ARE gonna make it”. The sad thing is, I’ll let myself do the negative, and I won’t even realize I’m selling myself some dumb lie.

Does that make sense?

I’ll let myself look like an idiot, and sell myself shorter than I should.

That’s not humility, thats coping out, and its not the TRUTH, but some negative attitude lie I’m buying into.

Why do I not suspect the negative, like I suspect the positive?

People try to sell me on the idea that I’m good “you’re great”

And I think “you’re only saying that”

But if they sell me on my own demise “you suck”

I think “oh man they are right, I suck”

And so goes the selling of negative messages, and our fast purchase of them from others and, mostly, from ourselves.

Can it be so wrong to sell good messages, especially true ones?

“sell” can be such a BAD word. I know. That’s how I used it to start off this thing.

To say that they are trying to SELL you something seems to imply dishonesty, or slyness. It also seems to imply that the thing being sold is cheap and people don’t just want it, so they must be sold it.

People who follow Jesus don’t want Jesus to come across as some odd cheap thing being sold at the kiosks in the middle of the Mall. Those people look down on the Jesus’ Folk with the tracks on the street corners and signs on the sidewalks and dance groups all selling Jesus like he was a new edition of the News for that day- worse, a give away offer, not even sold- like some crappy coupons people stick in your mailbox and you hate having to throw away.

The Jesus’ Folk that do the track-type stuff see it not as sharing Jesus himself so much as sharing a message about him, like journalists spreading the news that the Axis Powers had finally been defeated in World War II. They don’t understand why People who Follow Jesus don’t just jot down the message and slap it on the windshields of cars that are parked in the mall parking lot.

Is that even worse than selling Jesus? He’s a coupon?

But when they don’t use tracks, they are saying something about what they think the gospel is, they are selling it, only a different way. Like the idea that when two people talk they are always selling ideas to each other, or trying to.

When a salesman comes to your door, you are trying to sell to him the reasons that you can’t buy it, while he is selling you the reason why you should. Both are selling.

In a sense, you’re selling yourself on ideas all day long. The question that is most important remains- are you selling yourself lies, or truth? Are you feeding yourself negative generalities that are unhelpful, pessimistic, short-sighted guesses about the future, which all happen to be based on deep unresolved fears?

Don’t blame God or fate or the person to your right. Take responsibility for the hilarious things you try to sell yourself .

Knocking On Doors

I thought it was Knocking On Doors.

I’ve always been so shy in those kind of social situations.

Knocking on a door for the first time is like standing before a firing sqaud. I’d come to a new friend’s house, and sit across the street for fifteen minutes examining the surroundings, and weighing all the evidence... determining if I was at the right house.

If i knocked on the wrong house apparently the sky would fall in on me, leaving only a mangled left foot. If it looked like i might end up knocking on a wrong door, i'd just end the friendship.

I was wrong.

That was the easy part, still is. i should know, i've done it now for almost two full weeks.

It takes you two full weeks to know everything about anything, a relationship, a marriage, kids, all of it.

I recommend using the first two weeks of anything to base your entire estimation of it on.

side note: sarcasm is also sweet.

My first day of selling i found my finger pressing doorbells and my hand knocking doors and my face smiling and speaking and selling and doing and- no sky falling, no left mangled foot.

I don't hate knocking on doors.

I kinda like it.

even the "no soliciting" people can be fun, and you can laugh when you hear people yelling at you through the window.

I like the Knocking On Doors part. I've knocked on hundreds of them already. for real.

Don't know why it was so easy

(i doubt i've grown up or anything... the bank still scares me..)

I guess i just told myself it's time to let the "boy" die in that regard and i'm gonna do this, even spend the whole summer doing this, and so i'd better ignore all that emotional stuff and just get a going.

done and done.

1st lesson learned is:

1. Direct Selling (door to door) is the hardest job in the whole world mentally.

I thought i was pretty strong in the whole brain department... strong minded, strong willed - all that good stuff that can be bad stuff when you step on others.

I was wrong. My mind has gotten so smashed, crashed squashed and crumbled,

you'd not believe it unless you've done sales before.

Sales is the hardest profession.

Other jobs you can suck at and earn money.

Other Jobs you get paid for what you know.

Other Jobs are easy, you only need to work hard to do well, to get paid.

sales you can work hard and with all you've got and have nothing to show for it.

that is hard.

I've learned that sales is harder than i thought, and my mind is a weak, shaky, flighty thing.

2nd lesson learned is:

Salesmen are great people, a piece of the best.

Ultimate lesson:

It's not knocking on doors...

I hate sales.

I thought I liked sales and hated knocking on doors and bothering people, but I had it wrong. I like bothering people, I just HATE sales.

Sales sucks.

Everyday I go through a roller-coaster of fear, then I hate this, then ‘this is easy’, then ‘this is fun’, then ‘I hate this I hate this’, then ‘I’m never going to make money’, then ‘I’m gonna be the best ever’ then ‘I’m wasting my time, I hate this’ then ‘get yourself back in this game’ then ‘why can’t I be doing something I like and getting paid for it, rather than doing this and not getting paid for 90% of it?’ then ‘I’m doing this, I’m not doing this’ “im going to quit’ then ‘how do they do this all summer” ‘what time is it- are we done yet?’ then “I’m so awesome at this!” then “I’m quitting soon”.

And on and on.

And that’s on a good day when you don’t get stuck in a pity-party.

Knocking on Doors is fun, it's sales that is the worst stupidest job in the world, and there should be a statue of every man that does it.

I hate it.

But I’m not quitting.

I kinda want to see what happens if I just keep going.

Will I make no money and learn nothing?

Or will I learn ‘everything’?

I think I need to do this. I need to not quit. I need to follow this through all these hard days where I feel like I’m holding my mind and self-worth together with strands of cheap tape.

Who will I be after a summer of knocking on doors, by the hundreds? A summer of mental fight- of mastering my self and emotions?

I don’t think I’ll quit, though I can lie and say I’m not results-driven and pretend I’ll stay it out no matter what. But I don’t think I will. I think I WILL stick around. I want to know who I will be if NO MATTER WHAT,

I just keep

Knocking On Doors