In Boston, students dominate the landscape. Starbucks and backpacks for miles. I spent some time teaching English to international students, and although I was the teacher, I learned a lot about myself and in general from my students (who couldn’t believe that a small, smiley Indian was their English teacher.)

The greatest thing I discovered, besides the fact that English is hard to teach and even harder to learn, is that the learning process is complicated and full of components, a huge one being comfort. How a student takes in knowledge is important, but really, what I noticed was that a certain comfort level needed to be established before any learning could take place.

For international students especially, those far from home, in a strange land (yes, America is strange), learning a new language with new peers is daunting. Although we went over grammar well (as well as one can), we spent a great deal of time talking about their time in the U.S., their friends and parents at home, their future careers, their apartment hunts in the city, etc.

One student, Anna, from Spain, was a great student, totally open and receptive to learning, but I noticed that she always seemed a bit nervous or blue or just uncomfortable, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. We spoke after class one day and turns out she was feeling hugely isolated in Boston, away from her family, and mingling with students half her age (She was a business professional learning English for work.) I totally empathized as feeling isolated and missing my family is something i’ve always felt when I’m away, and we talked about that for a few minutes. She’s Spanish, so I knew my usual affection, something that might weird other people out, would go a long way with her. We connected and talked about her fears and from that minute on, things changed. Not that Anna was more teachable, but she was much more open to life. Big difference.

Our interaction took on a different tone, and it was as though a huge weight had been lifted simply by talking about her fears and anxieties. I saw that those few minutes dismissed any potential problems she may have had about being in Boston, and that the slightest reference to her discomfort made it disappear. Left unchecked, I think it would have loomed, dominated her mind, and the outcome would have been entirely different. I bet she would have still learned English, but that her experience would not have brought many worthwhile memories.

Once you prove to someone you care, they start to care about proving to you their end of the bargain. I knew Anna wanted to prove to me that she could be happy and learn English well, and I was glad we had a respect for each other in that regard.

Sometimes the goal (learning English) may be better served by not recognizing the goal and instead thinking about the lead-up to achieving that goal, i.e. getting students to a level of comfort, within themselves and with me, enough to want to learn English. Realizing that there’s a reason that a person is coming to a situation the way they are is a useful skill. Recognizing and acknowledging the depth of what they’re bringing with them (emotionally and mentally) is even more important.

Please forgive any grammar mistakes in this post, and just to make it useful, here’s a link to who vs. whom, so you can finally let go of (some) of your grammar frustration. Because it’s important.

Reading Zig Ziglar’s “Secrets,” I was amazed to find the story of the “Gloomy Gus” shoeshine man.

Seeing Zig approach the shoeshine station, Gloomy Gus asks “Well, I suppose you want the regular shine?” (as opposed to the “Best shine” or the “Spit shine” etc.)

Zig-(incredulously) “I can’t believe you said that! Why would you offer me the Regular instead of the Best?

Gloomy- “People don’t pay for the Best on rainy days because their shoes get muddied up later.

Zig- “It seems to me that if the Best shine gives the best protection and your business is down on rainy days, you would work awfully hard to increase the sales of your Best shine.”

It sinks in a little for Gloomy. Zig gives him a few words that improve his sales pitch and Gloomy feels better.

The lesson behind the story woke me up. Why do we sell (or pitch, or talk about) anything less than the best for our clients and consumers? Why would we assume that they didn’t want the best for themselves?

I think it’s because we’re scared. We’re scared that we’re not delivering the best and that consumers know it. We stretch to sell (reluctantly) because we don’t believe we’re delivering value to the customer.

What if we switched our framework slightly? What if we realized it’s about confidence, yes, but also about the inherent belief that we’re delivering something of value to the person; that we’re helping them acquire something they need. That we’re not only selling them something, we’re helping them by selling them something.

Gloomy’s assumption that people wouldn’t want to pay for the Best shine undermined his profession, his respect for himself, and the respect for the customers. He should have understood that people want the best for themselves and they’re willing to pay for it. Why undermine it when they aren’t?

When you think about it in this way, it feels lovely to want to sell. To want to get the other’s permission and give them what they want.

I wonder how often I’ve sold to people with a lackadaisical attitude, a less-than-enthusiastic pitch, not believing what I was saying. How many times have I decreased my chances just because I assumed someone wouldn’t want the best for themselves?

Failure scares people. Rejection can be a painful experience. Many people are more scared to give a speech in front of their peers than they are of death itself. It seems ridiculous, but the reality is that for many many people, the anxiety associated with failure crippling.

The flipside (the Truth) is, if you embrace failure as something inevitable and natural, something that’s bound to happen, it actually becomes a good thing. Failing gets your mistakes out of the way and makes room for improvement. In sales, getting nine “No’s” out of ten gets you closer to hearing the “Yes” you’ve waited for. Along the way you’ll learn what circumstances and skills help attain success.

When I fear failure, I ask myself:

a.) Will anyone get severely injured or die if I make this mistake? No.
b.) If Earth were to explode tomorrow, would I really see Angelina Jolie or just a regular person?

Extreme? Yes. Effective? Very. It checks my state of mind, fast.

Athletes combat their fear every time they step out on the court. The enormous weight of public pressure doesn’t keep them from playing; they know that each game someone has to lose. They don’t sit on the bench each time they feel a pang of fear.

Bill Gates faced an enormous amount of rejection to get Microsoft to it’s height today. Each “No” he received improved his product and brought him closer to achieving the high standard and success we associate with Microsoft.

It takes a lot of experience to meet failure with courage. Why not get started and quickly get the pesky rejections out of the way?

As we refine our goals and come closer to picking one that meets our desires, fear sets in. Fear that we don’t know what the future holds. Fear that we don’t know what we want. Fear that we’ll pick wrong. These fears suck the creativity out of you. They feel horrible and “if you could only get rid of the fear then you could do what you want!”

It’s true. Fear halts our progress and increases our anxiety. But it’s also a signal of truth.

Fear is our natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.

As we move closer to defining who we really are and what we want out of life, our fear increases. It means we’re taking ourselves seriously. It means we’re taking our dreams seriously. We’re looking for the truth behind our experiences and that’s pretty scary. It means we’re looking at where we are and where we want to go, and realizing the road in between is long. Looong.

But that’s a good thing. Being serious with ourselves and getting scared shows us exactly where we need to be brave. It shows us the battles we need to face and that we have to face them this time- this time we have to be courageous. Fear doesn’t come without its benefits.

Feeling fear is the prerequisite to discovering who you really are. Without the fear, the path wouldn’t be worth much. Or be much fun.

In tennis, No-man’s land is not where you want to be. The space between the baseline and volley line, it’s where you’ll likely hit the least shots.

The problem with no-man’s land is that you reach too far to hit long balls and too far to hit short balls. The middle is not an advantageous position as you flail and stretch for balls that soar past you or one’s that are just shy of your grasp. You feel breathless and mixed-up.

The name itself sounds lonely and desperate, like a desert where you go to die.

When I played tennis I didn’t understand this concept. I thought the middle was the nicest, most effective place to be. Shouldn’t it make it easier to hit both long and short balls from the center? A natural hitter, I thought that positioning myself in the prime real estate nobody else wanted was an advantage.

At my coach’s behest, I consciously tried to avoid no-man’s land, but it felt like the smart place to be to prepare for whatever came in.

Pretty quickly, my tennis started to suck. I flailed around and ran speedily back to reach long balls and back as fast as I could to reach short ones. I was a chicken with my head cut off and the courts filled with little kids waiting to kick my ass. I saw that my techniques weren’t working and that perhaps heeding the advice that seemed counterintuitive to me would improve my game. I avoided no-man’s land at all costs.

I soon realized that I loved no-man’s land not because it mentally prepared to hit better, but because it didn’t force me to make a decision. The middle was safe place to be, and I didn’t have to choose my positioning based on what came in. I just hit whatever came in.

Tennis is a split-second sport. Michael Chang is intense and his feet move fast. He anticipates and makes a decision even before his opponent serves up a ball. He wins. My indecision in no-man’s land weakened everything about my game. I saw that I was scared of making a wrong decision and failing, and knew that the middle didn’t give me nearly as much anxiety as hitting from the baseline or the volley line. It was there where I could miss a shot if I chose wrong.

Being pro-active improved my game, but I also realized that failing was inevitable at times. Sometimes I chose wrong and missed shots. But at least I chose. Staying in no-man’s land was a constant failure, and the alternative of making a decision but chancing a wrong move felt much better to me.

Sometimes the things that seem most natural or smart or intuitive for us are just rationalizations because we’re scared of the alternatives. I saw this clearly with my tennis game and realized I needed to anticipate, prepare, and make the decisions that are the hardest to make-Chang-style.