The 1 Surprising Thing I Learned From Earning $1,227,646.77 in Commissions in a Single Year

In high-stakes selling, you’re often taught to believe you have to hustle and grind around the clock to be successful.

For years, top salespeople have been associated with the work hard/play hard and grind at all hours ethos. You’re bombarded with heroic stories and messages about the top performers who risked it all and sacrificed everything to win at all costs.

Here are just a few examples:

Hustle culture is flawed because it tricks you to fixate on the outside, not the inside

A study from 2019 showed that 75% of sales professionals were close to experiencing burnout and the problem has only gotten worse since then.

In 2018, the first year I started selling into strategic accounts (specific Fortune 100 companies) for a top Artificial Intelligence company, I was saying yes to everything. I was constantly hustling. I was wearing a lack of sleep like a badge of honor. I was also on the brink of burnout!

But this mindset shift changed everything.

I slowed down in order to speed up.

Instead of saying yes to all leads, opportunities, and accounts…I became extremely deliberate and intentional about what I focused on and who I engaged with. Then I developed a system to harmonize my approach.

The results were accelerating deals and far surpassing my quota (and personal expectations).

You’re taught that in order to succeed, you have to sacrifice everything in order to win, when in reality it’s about being more intentional with your TEA (time, energy, and attention).

Earning 7 figures a year for the first time proved to me I didn’t need to subscribe to hustle culture to earn life-changing income. In fact, it was when I ditched the hustle and focused on being more human, my sales results exploded. Remember, there’s a better way to operate if you make the conscious effort to go deep and look within.

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