I Want to Stab Monday in the FACE!

Not Really. I actually love Mondays. It is a preverbal blank slate. You get to start fresh. Or at least that what society tells you. 

If you’re not excited about Monday and working today and the rest of the week - you are doing something wrong. Either you’re in the wrong job you have the wrong business

I was really fortunate to play sports growing up and even a little in college. I won’t make it romantic, but I was one of the 100 guys on our team for 2 years at a division 1-AA school in NYC. It was humbling not being “The Man” on campus. If I am being honest, I was not as dedicated to it as a could have been. I realized I was not going to the NFL so I doubled down where I thought I could excel.

I retired from football and started connecting with people. Other students, the city, events and really experienced college. I also learned how it was WORK to meet these people and develop real connection. I felt that if I was going to be successful, I had to get to know people.

I was not super wealthy, so I also knew that if I wanted to stay in New York or accomplish anything, I needed to WORK. Every day became an opportunity.

When I was in college during the off season, or during breaks I wouldn’t go home and visit family. I would go to Florida to work. I started to learn timeshare. But really, I started to learn business. How to be in business and what it meant to make decisions. 

You all know Timeshare, right? It is usually considered a couple of rungs below used car salesman.

Well when I started out, my boss and first mentor had me and my best friend go door to door selling time share vacations. Asking people to buy certificates for 3-days and 2 nights to a resort for $99.00. Truth was, we took $29.00 if we could get a sale.  

But it was exciting. I didn’t care that it was Orlando in July. I knew I had the opportunity to speak with 80 people. If we sold 5 the we felt we had a GREAT day!

Listen, your situation is what you make it. If you work or have a job, the only one that can change it is you. You may have responsibilities, we all do. You might have kids, or a mortgage or alimony payments or someone just died. I will tell you, there is nothing more difficult then getting started. The 2nd most difficult thing is not giving up. 

So when you want to stab Monday in the face, to me what you’re saying is, you want to stab your future in the face. 

I know I know, I should not get on a high horse like this, but seriously. I am not. We are all accountable for our actions. We all want to have more time for ourselves, for our friends, and for our families. What you’re really saying is that you want FREEDOM. You’re not going to get freedom working a 9-5 job where you punch a clock. Do you know anyone that is a millionaire that works 9-5?

So instead of complaining about the day of the week, use the rest of the day as a building block to the rest of your week. 

For a long time, it felt better to sleep all day then get up and try to keep fighting. I discovered what my “win” was. That feeling that makes you want to keep going and makes all the “no’s” or slammed doors worth it. Sometimes, that isn’t closing a sale. Sometimes that is actually giving back. 

What are you really really good at? Is that your passion too? 

So clearly, I have a passion for people. For my family, for my friends - hell even for strangers. Because really they are just friends that don’t know it yet. So when I was walking those neighborhoods in Orlando and Winter Park Florida in the middle of July, what kept me going at 3p in the afternoon was the rush of introducing myself to someone new. They may not buy anything, but my win was a real conversation. I could build off of that. The next door, I wanted to do a little more. Maybe I would try a new opening statement when they answered the door bell. Or maybe I would try a new story to connect with a bumper sticker or toy in the yard. Every door presented a new challenge. A blank slate to start fresh.

Why would people buy this certificate from me or why would they buy eventually buy a timeshare? Because it is an emotional decision. People don’t like to be sold, but they LOVE TO BUY! In this case, what they’re actually buying is HOPE. You HOPE you get to travel. You hope you will have more time to spend with love ones. You HOPE you have the money to go on vacation. You HOPE you have more TIME.

The investment you made was your time. You decided to spend 90 minutes at a resort or sales office for a free cruise or free tickets or a free VCR. Once you leave the resort, the investment you made was money - but in your head it was a future bank of memories.

You will never get to your future bank by stabbing Monday in the face. By stabbing Monday in the face, now you have wasted 14.3% of your week by writing off Monday. Or if you want to be real specific, 17 hours of your week that you could have been using to better yourself so that you could actually take that trip and build real memories. So don’t stab Monday in the face. Use Monday as the next step in your journey to making your life better. It is up to you what “better” means. But it does not mean wasting the time you have been given.