This weekend I took my kids to see the movie Inside Out. If you haven’t been, even if you don’t have kids, I really recommend that you go. I also advise that you take a box of tissues with you. The gist of the story is there are different people (voices) inside your head: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear. They all work together to create our emotions and how we react to different situations. This film focuses on a little girl and her experiences from the time she is a child until she is a pre-teen and moves to a new city. The girl’s emotions face challenges as soon as they get there. Joy wants to make sure that the girl is happy, and will do anything- at any cost, to make this happen.
Joy and Sadness try to do what they feel she needs and, in the midst of it, get thrown from front and center in Headquarters into the depths of Long-Term Memory. During this time Anger, Disgust, and Fear are all that is left, and they are in charge of her actions.
I’m sure you can see how this might be problematic and have probably felt similarly out of control during a difficult situation. How we choose to handle challenges, changes, and opportunities says a lot about us and how we show up to others.
It’s like anything in life, and especially in sales. We are going to have times of Joy when we close a deal we have been working on or meeting our goals, Sadness when we lose a sale or missed a goal, Anger when people won’t call us back or are being difficult, Disgust when things just don’t go our way, and Fear that we won’t make our goal. Sometimes we have to go through hard times and challenges before we experience joy and success.
The important thing is that we allow these feelings to happen in a healthy way and that we keep working so that we can experience happiness and satisfaction in the end.
