Soundbites

Shut up and sell

A lot of people believe that selling requires being a fast talker, or knowing how to use charisma to succeed. Those things do require an extroverted way of communicating. But in sales there’s a truism that ‘we have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionately.’ I believe that’s what makes someone really good at selling or consulting — the number-one thing is they’ve got to really listen well. — Sales expert Jon Berghoff, quoted in Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Let me just add...

The most fulfilled people I’ve encountered in the marketplace approach their work, in any context, with the question, “What can I add?” rather than “What can I get?” They choose worthy battles, then engage in them with everything they have. — Todd Henry in Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day

Coaxing beauty

In one way or another, your job somehow involves the work of bringing beauty out of ugliness, order out of chaos. Perhaps unassembled pieces are pulled together to make a widget used to create a product that people use. Or natural products are identified, isolated, and harvested to create something new. Sickness is treated; injustice is rectified; broken windows are repaired; cracked sidewalks are fixed. Even if your job is operating a wrecking ball, you probably aren’t doing this just “to watch the world burn.” You knock down old buildings for a purpose — to eventually make room for new ones! — Sebastian Traeger and Greg Gilbert in The Gospel at Work: How Working for King Jesus Gives Purpose and Meaning to our Jobs

Whose handcuffs?

Over the years, I’ve learned that constantly rushing around in the car from place to place causes my level of patience to drop faster than the gas tank needle in my car.... When we feel imprisoned by our busyness, we should be asking who welded and locked the shackles around our wrists in the first place. Often, the signature on the metal will be all too familiar. If that’s the case, we can take hope in the fact that the one who created the handcuffs also has the key to unlock them. We don’t have to be bound to busyness. It’s okay to say no. — Kate Motaung, Reflection Therapy blog

Holy budget

The budget is your best theological statement. It will tell you where the priorities of the

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parish are. — Franciscan priest David Couturier, leading a seminar on church management issues for priests-in-training

A date with the dollar

Has the science of economics gone too far? Has it become the “prime mover” to gauge absolutely everything by financial value? In his new book, I Spend, Therefore I Am: How Economics Has Changed the Way We Think and Feel, Philip Roscoe points to online dating to show how economic reasoning has gone too far: “The machinery of online dating sites — questionnaires, descriptions and rankings — breaks us down into our fundamental attributes, which can then be sorted and ranked. Similarly, those who use the sites lay themselves out for selection like goods on a market stall, labelling themselves with their vital statistics, qualities and preferences. It is unsurprising that those advertising themselves online are prone to the petty dishonesties of hustlers and salesmen: they grow taller, slimmer and smarter, and, judging by the briefest perusal of advertisements, display a universal enthusiasm for open fires and cosy evenings. Nor is it a oneway process. Through breaking oneself down into a list of attributes, and through the constant comparison of those attributes with others’, one becomes aware of one’s own value, and the value of others in comparison. Then, and only then, is it possible to make a rational choice as to the best of all possible partners.” ◆