Silencing the Spirit of Resistance

Writing every day is hard. It is hard for two reasons.

1. I'm not sure I have anything interesting to write about for my audience.

2. The spirit of resistance is so strong.

My audience is entrepreneurs. Do I know them anymore?

I was feeling pretty empty in the month of July. You should know that I was on vacation. That means I was not out and about. I wasn't with my peeps, the entrepreneurs. 

Here's what happened.

I got hit with a double-barreled confidence buster. One short-term and the other long-term. The short-term confidence buster was the one month in entrepreneur isolation, vacation. The long-term confidence buster is the pandemic. It's been over eighteen months since I've been to ATDC at Georgia Tech. And although I visited the Atlanta Tech Village a couple of times during the pandemic, no one was there. 

But on my first day back from vacation, something happened.

Nick, my youngest son, invited me to a Braves game.

He is a newly promoted account executive for NewRelic. He told me he finally got his comp plan. This led to a great conversation on matching sales incentive plans to overall company strategy. 

When I finally understood the NewRelic comp terms he was using to describe his quota, OTE, and accelerators, I was impressed. The NewRelic sales plan made it very clear to Nick just what they want him to do. His priorities and goals are clear. He believes in them, understands them, and has developed his strategy to blow the plan away and make the big bucks.

I always enjoyed asked salespeople about their sales plans. It is an easy test to see if they are in alignment with the company’s goals. What surprises me so often is that many sales reps don't know how to work their plan to make money. This is the fault of the company not the rep. And that ain't a good thing. A company's reps need to be crystal clear on how to work and beat the plan. And the plan has to match the company’s strategy and financial goals.

Talking to Nick got me reignited. But I wasn't all the way back. I was still feeling empty and lacking in confidence.

Then on Monday, my first day back to work, my other son, David, gave me a call. He wanted to catch up on our motorcycle trip and see how we were feeling (really tired) and if we had fun (absolutely).

Within a short time he said, "I want to run something by you."

David is a strategist.

I knew if he was calling me he was dealing with a pretty high-level and knotty problem. He knows I am big picture and never really looks to me for detailed advice. It is always product-market fit or market expansion advice. 

He didn't disappoint. He is the founder of a new business, M Cultivo. He is serving coffee processors in developing nations throughout the world. To reach them, sell them, and support them, he needs in-country representation. 

The question revolved around how to structure a deal to continue to protect and enhance the M Cultivo brand. It was a really great discussion with lots of ideas, and that is always fun for me.

So here I was two days earlier thinking, "What do I have to offer entrepreneurs?"

After talking to Nick and Dave, I was sure I had plenty. I might not have the answers, but I do have the right questions and some pretty good experiences. And every once in a while in a conversation, God blesses me with a bit of wisdom, too.

I thanked David for asking me for advice. I told him how important it is for the health and confidence of us "older" business guys. He engaged me in a great discussion. It was a good give and take. I always recognize, however, my job is to probe and share experience. His job is to answer and take away what might work in his market.

Then there is that darn spirit of resistance.

I am reading a book called The War of Art. I'm not done with it yet, but it has already changed my life. It identified the evil spirit that seeks to defeat any chance at creativity.

This spirit is constantly present, saying things like...

• "You don't have any ideas to write about." 

• "Now is not the time to write. Read a book instead."

• "Don't you need to see your kids?"

• "How about that call you've been meaning to make?"

• "You can't write with all these other to-do's staring you in the face."

You get it. There is always something better to do than to create, to write.

But there isn't. It's a lie. It's a lie from the evil spirit, resistance. The spirit that wants me to doubt myself. The spirit that wants me to pull back and not contribute. The spirit that wants me to honor him and not the spirit of truth who is the reservoir of great ideas and topics.

I put off writing this article all day.

The reason is, I was sure I had absolutely nothing to write about. But I just started writing and look what the spirit of truth revealed once the spirit of resistance was defeated.

Every day I have to silence the spirit of resistance. And the way to do it is just get started. When I start, something supernatural happens. The evil spirit flees, and the spirit of truth takes over.