A Matter of Perspective

by Graham Denton

One often overlooked element in achieving success is the mental perspective that you bring to the question of time. This has an indirect bearing on the way you manage your schedule; more importantly, it establishes attitudinal benchmarks for what you can reasonably expect to

achieve as you work toward long-term goals and short-term objectives. To the salesperson, keeping these long-term and short-term end points sorted out can be a critical factor in the efficiency of time management. In addition, according to at least one respected sociologist, Edward Banfield, the ability to do so is a fulcrum of success.

As Brian Tracy notes in his book Advanced Selling Strategies, Banfield's research indicated that upward social mobility is largely determined by a person's "time perspective." Successful people have a long time perspective. They take the long term into consideration even when they are planning daily or weekly events. They allocate time and resources with that distance in mind, and they make individual decisions about what to do or not do based on where they want to be five, ten, or more years from the present. They're not dreamers, but planners. They know that the longest journey is composed of tiny steps, and they think about each of those steps as contributing to the journey.

People with a short time perspective are trapped in the present. They give little thought to what tomorrow or next year (or next decade) might bring, because they're intent on collapsing the distance between anticipation and result: like the happy-go-lucky brothers in the Three Little Pigs fable, they don't have time to build a solid house, because they're having too much fun. A Freudian would say that they prefer immediate to deferred gratification. Because of this, in Tracy's summation of Banfield, they make "short-term choices that lead to long-term hardships."

Tracy calls this finding "one of the most important in all the research on success." What it means to the business person is that, if you expect to be satisfied and comfortable many years down the line, you need to keep that end point in mind on a daily basis, and "be willing to pay the price, over and over, for months and even years before you achieve really worthwhile goals."

How many months or years? Tracy believes that whatever you are doing, you must be prepared to commit yourself to it for five full years if you expect to become proficient enough to achieve results. He's speaking here about your sales career in general, but the lesson also applies more specifically to perfecting skills and habits. Whatever you do every day, you should be ready to commit to it fully for at least five years before you can reasonably expect significant gains. They may come earlier, of course-in which case you'll know you're doing something right. But for consistent, repeatable success, remember the five year rule. The long-term commitment, all by itself, Tracy believes, "will completely transform your attitude toward your education, your daily work, your customers, yourself, your community, and everything else you do."

One interesting sidelight. Banfield was the same sociologist who, in the 1950s, analyzed the persistent poverty of an Italian village he called Montegrano. The residents were classically focused on short-term objectives. Banfield's analysis of the reasons remain controversial, but one thing is clear. If you're looking toward the pleasures and pains of this day's existence, you may create religion, conversation, families, hard work, and good wine. You will not create a selling class with six-figure salaries.