When I was in my early twenties, one of my first jobs was in sales. But I didn’t just sell, I was taught to be a “sit close”, more skilled than a used car salesman, like a vulture type locking machine. No regrets for people’s situations. No concern for your wallets. Sell ​​them and sell them at the highest price to get the highest commission possible. oh yeah, the glamorous life of a home improvement salesman. At that time I had two roommates and the three of us worked for the same company. We sold very expensive sunrooms, windows and siding. And we live the singles lifestyle to the fullest. We worked maybe 25 hours a week, went out 4 nights a week or more, rarely woke up before 11 a.m., and made a lot of money for young people in their twenties fresh out of college. When we talked to our friends, they always asked about it. They wanted to know what we were doing, why we made so much money, and why we never seemed to work. And, of course, how we get the job. They would always envy our lifestyle as they fucked from 9 to 5 every day in their cubicles for a payment that could barely cover the cost of their rent and college loans. So what do you think happened to these poor souls? Well, many really tried to get the job done. Insert the thorn into our seemingly perfect working rose.

Honestly, I hated my job and my life at the time. It was miserable. To begin with, it was a 100% commission job. When you started with the company, you got what is known as a “tie.” He received a small weekly paycheck to allow him to survive. Awesome, right? Too bad you had to return it. So if you didn’t come out of the gate with guns blazing, then you were in a stream without an oar. Fortunately for me, I was very good at the job, but many of our friends who tried it didn’t do so well. Customer appointments, or “leads,” as we called them in salesman talk, often seemed more like trips to Satan’s doorstep than a friendly, neighbor visit to discuss how we could help people improve their lives. homes. Hell, a friend of mine actually had to hit a track in a bona fide crack shack. The worst part about the prospects is that there was so much pressure on us to throw each of the prospects that, going into the crack shack, he actually threw the crack heads! And if he were lucky enough to close a sale (a closing rate of 20% meant he was an All Star), he would hand over the paperwork and sit at the altar for the next three days praying that the deal “went well.” There was a three day right of withdrawal law where customers could cancel the contract and more times than we would like to admit, that is precisely what they did. After the three-day right of withdrawal, our contractors had to go out and make sure they could get the project done. Guess what, we couldn’t always carry out the construction of a sundeck on a pool deck with rotten support beams. So combine 100% commission with difficult clients and the constant threat of deals failing and you’ve got yourself a good old-fashioned stress-filled pressure cooker. Is it any wonder why we feel the need to go out drinking 5 nights a week? We were just trying to forget the fact that we had to go do our work the next day.

We all know this crazy condition of male jealousy. Our perception tells us that our garden is starting to turn brown like a cotton field on the Texas plains, while our neighbors are growing a crisp green that would make the Augusta National superintendent blush. So why do we feel this way? Why can’t we just be happy with what we have? How can we change this inevitable evil of human nature? The answer lies in our endless competing human needs. Two of which compete with each other to make us often wonder if what we are currently doing is good enough or not.

1) Stability and comfort

2) Instability and variety

So wait … We want stability and comfort. That makes sense. A roof over our head. A steady stream of income in a job we know how to do. A supportive girlfriend who is always there for us. But we also want variety. So we want to live in different places? Working new and exciting jobs? And experience many different women? It doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it? Or does it? This brings us to one of my favorite words; Balance. And with the two needs of stability and instability we always look for a balance. Too much stability and we end up in a place of boredom. Too much instability and we get nervous from anxiety, fear and stress.

What are some strategies to combat stability vs. instability paradigm?

In our health

1) This is by far the easiest to correct. If your workout is stale, change it up. Maybe you’re only lifting weights four days a week. Join a weightlifting team, start taking classes, or find a lifting partner. Visit meetup.com. There are groups for everything. And if there isn’t, you can start yours.

2) If you are someone new to exercise, the biggest factor preventing us from continuing our new commitment to fitness is that we find it too painful. The gains (weight loss) don’t happen fast enough to justify the pain of exercising. For those of us who can’t seem to find our arrogance, we just have to keep trying different ways of sweating until we find something we like to do. Believe me when I say this. If you can find a sport or class, etc., that completely absorbs you in the activity, you will soon forget the pain.

In our jobs

1) Know that growth will be crucial in this area of ​​our lives. We often make the mistake of feeling too comfortable in our work and then we turn around and realize how dissatisfied and lazy we have become. I’m not telling you to quit and start a business here, but to start looking for new challenges in your current job, or if they are not available, start looking for other job options.

2) If you have chosen the path of entrepreneur, actor, musician, etc., you should know that you are on a long-term path here and nothing happens overnight. This is a path of great variety and many ups and downs. Find a side job to give your life much-needed comfort. Your wallet and your stress levels will thank you.

In Our Relationships

1) This can be tricky. For this balance to work, a few key things are required. First, that both people in the relationship grow individually at an equitable rate. An entrepreneur dating a teacher is likely to present more challenges than an entrepreneur dating an actress. There is more variety in being an entrepreneur than in being a teacher and more comfort and stability in being a teacher than an entrepreneur. Second, both people must offer support and stability while offering variety in the experience of relationships. Often times, relationships get boring over time because we fall into very predictable relationship patterns. If your occasional Netflix night turns into a Netflix weekend, then you know things need to be spiced up.

2) The need to spread the seed. This is a very real thing for men. After all, it is a built-in mechanism to ensure the continuation of our species. I will not go into details here. For more information, check out my blogs at Utopialifeonline.com