"Being is seeing in the human dimension."
-- Stephen R. Covey
Last night, I had a dream. It was strange as almost all of my dreams are. In this dream, I was hired back into the auto business at a dealership. They knew that I had a wealth of experience from the past and they also knew that I had not worked in a dealership since early 1997.
I haven't got a clue why I was in this position as a commercial salesperson, but maybe they gave me a crazy amount of money or something. Anyway, being out of practice didn't stop me from making a sale in my first few days. A customer bought six units from me and the dream really begins in the office to do the paperwork to deliver the vehicles and the customer is there with me.
I was left on my own to do this, and I was doing the best I could. I couldn't seem to get any help. The manager or person assigned to help me get up to speed was not there this day. I went to his boss and reminded them that I haven't done this in a lot of years and I don't remember all the forms that are needed and I'm sure that there are many more I've never seen, as when I was in the business before, there were more forms almost every year.
I was calm and collected most of the time, but now I was getting frustrated. Why wouldn't they help me? Then I see the finance people in their offices, and one of them had a customer they were doing the paperwork for and I inquired with this boss I was talking with as to why I was doing this paperwork and not the finance department whose job it was to do that.
Here I have a customer buying six units and the dealership seems to be disinterested in that and focused solely on whatever they were doing. They would listen to me as I asked for help but do nothing. I didn't understand. How did they expect me, even with all the experience I had from the past, to get this done legally and cleanly without any assistance? It just didn't make any sense.
It reminded me of a story my mother told me when I was young. She wanted to learn how to swim but never had the chance. When she was older, she had the chance and the person that was to help her pushed into the water and told her to swim. When she made it out of the water, she became deathly afraid of being around water except where she could stand up in it and hold on to something.
Regarding this dream, have you ever been in a situation like this where you are expected to do something, and even though you have skill and ability, you're in very unfamiliar territory, and then tossed in and told to swim?
I remember a dealership in Washington that I worked at for just a few months where I felt that way. I couldn't wait to get out. I was lost and felt awful, and I felt like the people around me were trying to sabotage me. The managers didn't seem to care. It was a very strange place.
There was another one in recent years where we were doing a full-time consulting gig to resurrect a failed commercial truck department. This is not paranoia I assure you, but others in the dealership went way out of their way to give us no support or help. The dealership paid us a lot of money and then fought us all the way. It was stupid and crazy. And, it was real. It was happening. But my partner and I were determined and we did the best we could under those conditions. It is still a failed department today.
So, how good can we do under these kinds of conditions? Not so good probably. We all need support. We all need assistance. We all need to feel valued. We all need to be encouraged. We all need training. We all need love. That last word is something that just isn't used much in business, but it is so important. We are all human beings, each on an individual journey and yet we come together to do things where we intend to co-create together. And, when we have that feeling of understanding, support and caring, we all thrive.
How can you be of service to someone today? How can you show some love? How can you build a better team? How can you be more considerate or understanding? How can you share more joy? How can you help another to succeed? How can you help another to thrive? How can you help?
We Need Each Other To Succeed And Thrive.
Spread Some Joy Today--by loving people more. Giving them the benefit of your love and your understanding.
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