When you were in school or first starting out, you probably had a job that required you to work weekends or holidays. There’s nothing more frustrating than having to go into work on a Saturday afternoon when you knew your friends were going out Saturday night—and you’d see their pictures on social media.
But you went to work anyway. You had college to pay for, or an apartment to rent, or you were saving for a reliable car. You made sacrifices to get to your goal. You gave up something to succeed.
Let me be the first to tell you: you made the right choice.
It may surprise a lot of people, but when I was growing up, I was one of the poorest kids in my school. That’s not a knock at my mother, who did the best she could (and then some). It’s just a fact. It stayed with me and still drives me. If you know how it feels to be poor, you never want to feel like that again. This knowledge also helps me when I’m working with female business owners who might be struggling themselves.
I literally had no social life in the first years of my business. I was in the middle of nowhere doing training while my buddies were at the club, pushing me to come. But I was too busy building the business to join them, even though I definitely wanted to. Erecting a legacy requires sacrifice and commitment.
What I’ve always believed is that you have to put in the time and effort to achieve anything great. You have to be willing to give up the short-term fun for the long-term security.
People’s misperception of me can be a little frustrating because I know how hard I’ve worked to get where I am. The funny thing is, the success of Pure Romance has bred in people the false impression that I was fortunate to have chosen a product category that everybody was into, that sold itself—which is so untrue. We had to change social behavior to get where we are. I had to eat a lot of crap along the way from business owners who thought we were somehow beneath them. But the reward ultimately came, and that’s what you need to see as an aspiring salesperson.
by Chris Cicchinelli | May 4, 2021
TEAMWORK
So, remember what you want most—an evening out with friends, or an evening making money. Long-term goals can require short-term sacrifices, but in the end, it’ll be worth it.
