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Knock, Knock. Who’s There? Life Lessons. | Taylor Spencer | TEDxACU


[Music]
[Applause]
real quick I need you to imagine that it
is a day much like today only you have
just awoken to realize that you’re in a
home that’s not yours in a place that
you don’t recognize so sweaty and
frazzled which is always a good way to
wake up you get out of bed and here the
constant buzzing of fans throughout your
home and a sweat trickles down your
temple you’re just trying to figure out
what is going on now it’s fairly evident
that wherever you are the air
conditioners broken and so is your
spirit because the outside conditions
are now getting to you so you still
don’t really know what’s going on but
you know what must be done you need to
find your phone and call an AC repair
guy because you’re not an insane person
that likes waking up in puddles of sweat
so you look for your phone but before
you can make that call something happens
outside of your front door that you see
on stage down the street exiting a van
is a man coming towards your home now
you’re not quite aware of this imminent
threat yet but you will be soon and as
he approaches your home he’s
experiencing a heat so intense that the
sweat that camps out on his skin has
nowhere to evaporate to and as he
approaches your front door his face is
flushed and as he swats the seventh
mosquito from his neck it just gives
them all the more motivation to get
inside your home and that’s when it
happens you hear a knock on your door
and that’s where I come in you unlock it
sporting a company badge that clearly
makes me look official and wildung a
binder that is communicating one thing
oh we’re here to do business baby I’m
your worst nightmare I’m a door-to-door
salesman and this past place I this this
memory you have of waking up is in a
strange foreign land and you find out
that it’s in the humid mosquito
populated but just wonderful land of
Louisiana and as you’re wondering how
you got here and why you’re here in the
first place just remember so am I so
this past summer I had the opportunity
to do door to door security system cells
in Louisiana various locations across
there now right off the bat a lot of you
are probably wondering why in the world
would any
to knock on people’s doors selling
expensive security equipment and a heat
so intense and sticky that it rivals the
fiery pits of Hades well that’s a great
question but to answer this I’m going to
have to refer back to my previous
internship experience and what I learned
from that previously I was a product
management assistant and my primary
duties there were to do strategic
analysis of competitors pricing
structures and then translate that data
into Excel spreadsheets sounds riveting
I know now I benefitted tremendously
from this but the larger benefit came
through these discovery of two profound
revelations that continue to help me
with my career search today one I very
much dislike sitting in a cubicle
filling out spreadsheets and two I very
much dislike sitting in a cubicle of
filling out spreadsheets so naturally
when the next summer rolled around I was
looking for something entirely different
something that would adhere to my
passion for face-to-face interaction
rather than face the screen and
something that would present a challenge
and lo and behold my brother who was a
gymnastics teacher at the time reaches
out to me and says hey this summer I’m
doing door to door security system cells
in Louisiana your interests are becoming
and ladies and gentlemen that is when it
clicked because I’ve been looking for
something entirely different from
working in a cubicle and I’m pretty sure
knocking on people’s doors in a swamp
was it so today as I walked through your
doorway I’m not going to try to sell you
a security system so I’m sorry if you’re
disappointed you can meet me outside
afterwards but what I am going to try to
sell you on is implementing the life
lessons that I learned from knocking on
doors and putting them into your own
lives these are life lessons that are
simple but they aren’t necessarily
simple to implement
they aren’t complex but they can be
complex if you don’t know they exist
these three simple life lessons are
constants they aren’t attached to any
particular line of work or personal
interest but they are attached to life
itself and all the experiences that
accompany it these are life lessons that
regardless of what you do in your life
whether it’s knocking on doors or
otherwise you can apply them to the
challenges you face in your own journey
and by doing so if you exercise these
principles it can bring you success and
many wide open doors of opportunity
so speaking of wide open doors of
opportunity first we’re going to talk
about crippling failure and door slammed
in your face I proposed to you my first
life lesson how to handle rejection now
speaking about rejection you can
probably imagine that rejection is
something we frequented quite a lot in
Louisiana as salesmen
I didn’t matter how good you were at
door-to-door sales there is going to be
someone that was willing to cuss you out
and then slam a door on your face now
similarly no matter what you do or how
good you are at doing it chances are
there is going to be a door of
opportunity you knock on that knocks you
back now hopefully without as much
cussing but you see the interesting
thing about door to door is it’s a lot
like life in the sense that you never
really know what you’re going to get on
the other side for example I might get a
man who was not afraid to share language
so colorful with me that it was as
colorful as a rainbow not great or on
the other hand I might get a sweet old
lady that her cookie baking skills rival
my grandma’s which was great until she
realized I was trying to sell her
something and chase me out her home with
a cane which wasn’t great but the point
is is that these challenges or
objections rather come in many different
shapes and forms so to illustrate this I
want to talk about the first challenge I
faced and Louisiana now as a new
security recruit I was basically
enlisted in a war against a local
competitor in Louisiana let’s just call
them TEDx security okay so TEDx security
is out there at the start they didn’t
really notice our presence but when they
did they did not like it when I say war
what I mean is we would pitch their
customers offer them advantages of
switching to our company if they wanted
to we would make it real easy for them
well we started finding out that as we
pitch we started getting knows more
often and in fact they started getting
hasty or – whenever he started talking
to him I come to find out that the CEO
and his employees were actually calling
all their customers and telling them
that we were a scam and up to no good
and on top of that well one of my
co-workers was actually pitching one of
those customers the CEO rolled up in his
mercedes-benz and crocodile boots got
out and tried to scare them off
now as ridiculous as it sounds this made
it really hard to get a word in with
those customers rejection started coming
more and more often and I’ll be honest
it got to the point where I absolutely
dreaded
walking up to a home seeing that TEDx
security yard sign in their yard and
knocking on their door morale was low
but slowly surely we cracked the code we
started figuring how to turn those nose
and the yeses and eventually we went
from utter rejection to selling them and
as a new guy was trying to figure out in
my head how did we make that switch so
what was different what was learned how
did this how does this apply to you more
importantly you’ve probably heard it
said before that every no you get in
life is just going to put you one step
closer to yes yeah well I agree with
this to a certain extent but I think
people that quote this leave out an
important detail you know from my
experience with TEDx security I realized
that if I let the nose affect me
negatively if I lose the energy and
vigor that I had at the first door with
my subsequent doors and if I don’t take
those rejections as lessons to better
myself
I can’t expect yeses to flood into my
life however if you have a positive
attitude if you carry the same mentality
at your 100th door that you had at your
first and if you take each rejection and
no as an opportunity to hone your skills
yeses won’t just come here or there
yeses will start coming out everywhere
did I mention dr. Seuss helped me with
my speech but the point is you will
eventually realize that rejection is
going to be a part of your life and when
you reach that flat out painfully blunt
no choose to be better not bitter and in
doing so you can look at all the slam
doors in your past and realize that
because of your positive mentality each
one of those noes did in fact lead you
to that open door of opportunity that
said yes
now this mentality doesn’t just stop
here in fact we’re just getting started
with that mentality which leads me to my
next life lesson how to keep a level
head throughout the highs and the lows
now this next story is fairly short it’s
fairly simple and it’s not about me as
much as I’d like to say I cut the level
had the entire some summer and did the
best job I could it is one of those
things that took me deliberate focus to
overcome a negative behavior sometimes
so this next story is about my brother
who no matter what happened show me what
it meant to be an impenetrable wall
focus so imagine if you will about you
are selling security systems
door-to-door who would have thought so
you were yourself our salesman so I’m
going to walk you through your daily
routine okay so you wake up eat
breakfast and I’ll get ready regular
human things and then you go to a sales
meeting around noon where you talk about
where your territories gonna be that day
so that day you decide where it’s gonna
be it’s gonna be about two hours out
from your home base so you climb in a
company van with about six other grown
men and you start driving out to your
territory on your way they’re focusing
on practicing your pitch what you can
work on for that day and then you check
the temperature and realize it’s going
to be a hundred degrees Fahrenheit and
there is a 110 percent chance of rain
which is somehow possible in Louisiana
so as you get closer you alright you
know maybe it’s not gonna rain maybe
it’s just gonna sprinkle it’s gonna be a
good day right famous last words
and as soon as your foot hits the
pavement like clockwork its top starts
raining so hard that you might as well
start practicing your pitch towards Noah
because the only security system you’re
gonna be setting up is on an arc long
story short at the end of the day you’re
soaking wet all you have encountered
that day is rejection doors slammed in
your face people cussing you out pulling
guns on you and to top it all off out
there everyone does their best to make
sure you don’t feel welcome and that
they do mean your worth they call the
police on you so now you waste the rest
of your selling time and you have to
prove your credibility so the van comes
to pick you up you climb in soaking wet
and you look around and see that
everybody else had the same exact
experience no sales now imagine that
scenario not just one day not just two
three four five for an entire week
straight raining all week nothing about
rejection no sales and oh my goodness
when you get in that van at the end of
that week and you look around everyone
is questioning their existence it is
awful in there and you yourself are
wallowing in regret just like I was but
then you look over and you see my
brother
who in a time where he has every reason
to be in a bad mood has a keen sense of
focus sure he’s happy when he does well
and he’s not jumping for joy when he
doesn’t necessarily but when everyone
else is wallowing in regret he is
grounded in a curious focus so
what was learned what was different in
this and how does this apply to you
there are going to be times in your life
where you come across hostile territory
places where everyone is going to do
their best job to make sure you feel
like you do not belong where everything
in your external environment is going to
be sending you negative feedback work if
you let your emotions roll your attitude
it can destroy you in contrast you may
even do so well at some points that you
lose focus of what’s important and
that’s what I let happen to me sitting
in the back of that van at the end of
the week wallowing in my breath saying
why did this happen to me I wasn’t
thinking about what was important to
focus on and I definitely wasn’t
learning how to be better from the ups
and downs so when I asked my brother how
he did it it perplexed me to find out
that his answer was so simple he said
Taylor I’m able to keep a level head
because I have built a sturdy foundation
and things like my faith my family and
my personal goals things that are worthy
of my focus and I think that’s what’s
important to have in your education in
your career and your personal life and
regardless of what you value remember to
have things that are sturdy sturdy and
worthy of your focus through the best
times and through the worst what you’ll
realize that by having these things that
are worthy to focus on things at the end
of the day you know that’s all that
matters
it helps you keep a level head and while
everyone else around you is losing their
head you in fact have a level head which
brings me to my third and final life
lesson which is how to convince someone
to buy whether it’s a product an idea or
maybe even your own personality and you
see no matter what you do in life you
sell you sell and you know really what
it means to sell to you is you’re just
trying to convince someone to see
something the way that you see it I’m
sure you all have done this before
you’re probably familiar with it if
you’re a preacher you sell the gospel if
you are wanting to take someone on a
date you sell them on the idea that
they’re not going to regret it
and if you want to get a job you sell
your personality in that job interview
life is full of sales whether you like
it or not now I do like it but I’m
guessing a lot of
don’t so even if you don’t like it
though you need to realize that the most
convincing times that you have the best
arguments you present revolve around a
few things passion what you’re
passionate about true what you truly
believe in and things that you convey
with the utmost sense of sincerity now
you see I’m passionate about finding the
value and things that help people and
then selling those things to those
people to help them so find the value
and everything believe in that value and
then sell those beliefs with the utmost
sincerity the overall focus of this
lesson be sincere and whatever it is
that you do you see my first
cancellation I experienced with the
customer I went a lot like this I was
counting commission dollars in my head
and I wasn’t thinking of him I wasn’t
being sincere on that original goal of
helping people and all would have taken
was me to lose a little Commission give
him an extra piece of equipment I would
have made the deal but I didn’t and I
lost the sell let me tell you a
cancellation is a lot like having
someone give you a freshly baked
chocolate chip cookie only for them to
take it back from you and then punch you
in the throat it hurts
just like insincerity does so when you
inevitably sell choose to be sincere and
in doing so the nose in life will be few
and far between all the yeses will be
abundant now upon returning from
Louisiana I realized something
I never stopped selling I I think I was
even selling more but I guess it wasn’t
that I was selling more is just that I
realized something I realized I always
had been selling in the first place like
we all are I realized that sells happen
in everyday situations with everyday
people and I knew how to overcome the
challenges on face in sales because of
those life lessons I learned I knew that
if I kept the level head and if I
remained energetic if I was able to
learn from my rejections and focus on
what was worthy and sell things with the
utmost sincerity that I would do well
and I knew that when life lessons came
knocking on my door I should welcome
them in because they are going to help
me out along that way now in its own
since you are all your own door-to-door
salespeople so congratulations you’re
your own worst nightmare you’re always
going to knock on doors of opportunity
and shoot your shot and give your best
pitch and when you do you’ll receive
some yeses you’ll receive some nose but
you will always receive life lessons
willing to contribute and help you
better yourself along the way so if you
get anything out of the day my hopes for
yours when you hear the knock knock on
your door and you say who’s there and
you find out its life lessons on the
other side of that door
I hope you have become familiar enough
with my life lessons and how to
implement them in your life that you
don’t have to lean in and say life
lessons whoo thank you
[Applause] [Music]
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