It All Matters

4The Power of Goals

Step 1: What Do You Really Want?

After a day of high‐powered presentations, I had to suffer through the “I told you so” speech from Richard. At the time, Richard and I had only known each other for a year. It surprises me to this day that I actually let him convince me to go sell books door to door, considering the fact that sports and my girlfriend, Cindy, were pretty much my only serious interests at the time. The previous year, I even skipped going on my summer vacation with my parents, because I adamantly refused to miss even a single baseball game. The competition and teamwork were incredibly stimulating to me…and, of course, the thrill of winning was everything.

It's funny now, looking back at that time, how the opportunity to earn some money and buy a car had completely changed my priorities. During a break from one of the presentations, I met another individual who would play a huge role in my experience. His name was also Dave, and he was one of my roommates for the summer. Having sold books with Southwestern for the previous three years, Dave's knowledge and experience were an invaluable resource for me. More important, Dave was a man of unwavering integrity and an incredible mentor for a young kid like me, who had never been away from home like this before. To top it all off, Dave was an accomplished musician.

We looked forward to the Sunday afternoon sales rallies because Dave would usually play his banjo. Dave was a great mentor to me because ...