Has it really been almost a month???

Wow time is going fast. So we lost internet at our house because they putting in new cables or something. Our host dad also said it was good because then his boys would be off of Fbook, oops I mean Facebook. Sorry Jack. Haha.

Well things are winding down. I only have 1 week left to sell and that is sooo crazy. We have one week after that to deliver all of our books and my delivery week will be so awesome! These last few weeks were really crazy because I (thought I) ran out of turf or places to sell books. Turns out everything is fine. I'm going to finish the week with everything I've got because this is the time when committment counts. Everyone can start off doing something with great passion and hard work. Just think of how many people say they are going to be in the library for x amount of hours each semester. They do really well the first week, but the next week it starts to dwindle, and by the end of the semester they are spend 0 hours in the Library. If we can train ourselves to work just as hard after our peak and right through to the very end, we will have learned something that the majority of the world does not have.

This week is like a test to see how dedicated I really am, so we'll see how I fair. I'll be honest, it will be strange going back to normal life and seeing all of you. It's so strange to think about all the opportunities I have at Asbury. I met a guy from WGM this past week. He lives in Jamestown, ND, but is a missionary and he knew the Duncan twins, Elicia Moon, and several other people from Asbury. It was so crazy. Even in this tiny, barren ND city, there are Asbury connections. I love this job, and I love Asbury. I probably won't talk again until after my book summer is over, sorry.

Not sure

I don't really know the direction that I want this blog to go. In fact, my thoughts rarely have any sense of form or collectivness. It usually involves random thoughts that happen to make it from my brain to the keyboard. Blogs are funny things. Even though we want people to read them, sometimes we want to write things that we don't want people to see.

Controlling my thoughts has been quite a challenge this summer. This job teaches me so much about how my thoughts correspond to my actions. If I think about friends back home or activities I would rather do during the day then I usually don't hit my goals for the day. Figuring out how to balance the line of not going crazy and still desiring to do well has been tough the past couple of days. I keep letting my thoughts wander into how much money I'm not making and how much I am spending. It's something that I can't entirely control. I mean sure I could skimp on breakfast and save $5, but that's not the point. I've discovered that I need to just let go of all my fears of the summer. Whatever they are I just need to conquer them. Now. I want to finish strong this summer and to do that I need to just completely trust that the summer will turn out exactly the way it is supposed to.

It's amazing to me that I can learn the same lesson over and over again in one summer. Even day to day or week to week. I know it may be because I'm only human, but sometimes I really think do not understand myself. This summer is supposed to teach me so that I can carry these lessons over into my life after the summer. It's easy to focus on reading good material in the morning and praying daily when you're driving around by your self all day. I'm worried that I'm not really learning all of the things God has in store for me this summer. I need to figure out how to remember and retain different teachings from the summer. Anyway, enough of this pish posh or a blog.

What do I need to really be motivated?

I asked this question the night after I stopped work on Saturday. It was Saturday, the end of the week, and also Independence Day. As I sat on my bed and looked back at the week, I know I didn't give it my best or that I didn't work my hardest. That feeling is what motivates me the most. My summer is not about the money because I have everything I really need. It isn't about Matt anymore obviously because he's gone. So it's pretty much all on myself now. Sure there are still times when I want to quit, they occur daily. I just have to keep telling myself that I could never face my family or friends if I did. I would not be able to face the fact that I quit simply because it was hard. There would be no other reason.

Anyway, enough mental talk. Today was absolutely nuts. Austin and I have to get North Dakota state permits to sell and also city permits. We drove to Bismark to get our licenses (which is an hour and a half drive). We left straight from our HQ and drove there, got our stuff taken care of and went back home to start working. Well I went to City Hall only to discover that we had the wrong paperwork and didn't really get our state license. I drove back to Bismark only to discover that I could not get my permit until the Southwestern Company sent in a Surety Bond to back me. So 463 miles later, I started working outside of the city and finished the day with a sale. Even after all that frustration and crazy amount of driving, God still decided to bless me with success. Someone said this last week, "Success is being right in the center of God's will." How true that is. I want that so badly, but in order to get it, I have to give up everything. It's a tough process, but he's slowly churning my soul like butter. That really doesn't make sense, but this is my blog so who cares?

Talks with Bernie

So I thought I was learning a lot about life when I was out on the bookfield, but tonight, I got a new experience. I have been getting home at like 9:30 ish and usually Bernie is still up. We talk about the day shortly and then I try to ask him a question about his experiences. Tonight I wanted to know which summer was his toughest. He told me his third because his father committed suicide right before he went out for the summer. I can imagine that incident would have some measurable effects on one's thoughts during the day.

It gets crazier. I met a guy today that told me how he almost sold books but didn't. He then proceeded to list all the reasons why he couldn't sit down with me because he had no money and he was on food stamps. It makes me wonder if he would have been in that same situation if he had sold books... Interesting. After I told Bernie that story he told me that his mother had MS and died when he was in high school. He could have received food stamps and money from the government but chose not to. He worked at his uncle's hardware store for super long hours; some nights he worked until midnight. This was all through high school. Most of his jobs were just as tough after that. When working for the railroad he had to drive nails with a sledge hammer all day in Montana. Some days it would be 120-130 degrees and they didn't have water out there. THEN, after work they would ask if anyone wanted to work overtime unloading 150 pound barrels of railroad spikes. Of course Bernie agreed. He told me that he was always wanting or looking for extra money and that's why he always chose the crazy jobs.

After all this he told me that the toughest experience of his life was his divorce. He had two children with his previous marriage and two boys now. After these stories he told me he has sleep apnea and is only able to sleep about 6-8 minutes at a time. When he does get sleep he has like leg twitch things which wake him up from his sleep.

All that to say that I thought I had kind of a crappy day and it was hard. Then I talked to Bernie. I did not write this blog for judgment or to make you feel sympathetic for Bernie because I do not think he wants any. I wrote only so that I could have a record to say that no matter what I'm going through, it's no where near as tough as his life thus far. What an incredible man.

Halfway!

While the video is uploading.

I did a video blog in lower quality, but it is still taking forever...

So here we go, this weekend is the 4th of July! Wow! Independence day is here! I really like Jamestown and our new HQ. It's so tight because it is home of the world's largest Buffalo. (Also including 3 albino Buffalo).

On another random topic, I found out about a sweet animal today. It's kind of like a ground hog. It is called a Hyrax. It's a rodent-like animal from African and the Middle East. It could be in close competition with my favorite animal the otter. We'll see. Here's a quick shout out to things that the bookfield makes me appreciate a whole lot more:

Snickers

Reese's PB cups

(Basically any candy)

Ice Cream

Parents

Friends from school

Sleep

Rain Jackets

Shelter (especially when it rains or is hot outside haha)

The cafeteria (even though it may not seem like the most quality food, at least it contains mass quantities of unlimited eating supplies)

frisbee

sitting doing nothing

time

the internet

my car

All that to say, that I have been blessed that I can even make a list of things I am th

ankful for. So many times during the summer I catch myself wishing for more when really I have so much in my life that I take advantage of or just don't appreciate enough. This really helps put it all into focus for me.

Slacking

Yeah, that pretty much describes my blogging. Sorry guys. I know you've been hanging on the edge of your seat wondering about my latest door to door story.

As you all know (I think), I moved to Jamestown, ND. I am staying with a Southwestern Alumni named Bernie Satrom (sat-trum). He's awesome! His house is really cool too. He sold for three summers and his second and third had teams of 5 or more people. His life is pretty much what I want mine to look like when I get to be his age. He has an amazing house. I loooove it. The location overlooks the river and it's all custom built. I am going to try to do a photo walkthrough tomorrow if I have time.

This week has treated me well. I sold a lot of handbooks which are our main product. These are how we really start to make money. The kids books are easy to sell, but do not yield a great deal of profit like the handbooks do. I did get a little distracted and distressed on Friday, but I'm slowly getting back on the right path. I can't believe it's the midpoint of the summer already. It's going fast. In a way I'm glad, but in another way I'm looking at all the work I need to do in order to improve and get what I want out of the summer. I need to go to sleep. perhaps I'll write more tomorrow. paz

An Airport Vacation

Here's a picture of my new home for the next 8 hours. I thought it was going to be a curse. I missed my flight from ATL to MN by about 10 minutes this morning. They told me that my later flight to Theif River Falls would be fine, and that I would have plenty of time to get to it. Well my flight from Minneapolis to TRF was at 1:00. I got the airport at 12:50 and arrived at gate F. The other gate where my flight was was A8. So I ran across the airport, but did not make it.

I was a little discouraged because I was supposed to finish up some work in TRF and get about half way to my new HQ by tomorrow. Turns out my new flight is at 9:30 and there's a connection in Hibbing, MN. Instead of feeling like I'm wasting time or wishing I would have made my flight I'm simply enjoying this time off. I've uploaded all the pictures and videos I should have uploaded during school today. The internet was $7.95 and it is super fast. It's so awesome for uploading pictures and videos. I also uploaded a lot of new pictures to flickr. I got to talk to Tyler and Marie-Claire (finally)! The best part is, I still have 4 hours! It's such a cool vacation. I'm going to watch a few movies, one of which is a dynamic reading, aka, speed reading, program. I'm really excited.

The airport is nice and I'm glad that I missed the flight because now I can just relax a little bit more before jumping back into the bookfield. Thanks for reading!

Video uploads suck

So I wanted to keep doing video posts, but they take so freaking long to upload. Anyway, I just finished my 5th week of selling! Next week is the half way point. I can't believe it. Let me try to not get ahead of myself though. This week was strange. My grandfather died on Wednesday morning so I had to fly to South Carolina on Friday for the visitation and funeral on Saturday. It kind of threw me off because in the book field, it can really throw off your momentum to be off schedule. Hopefully though it won't affect me very much.

I arrived here in Union, SC and felt a lot of mixed feelings. I felt happy to see everyone and happy to be away from the book field, but also sad because of the occasion. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people tell me that it was great to see me, but sorry that it had to be under these circumstances. I know that is the polite thing to say, but it's almost as if I don't want to talk about it.

Also, we are moving to Jamestown, ND which will be freaking amazing. We basically get a new summer. Austin and I are staying with a guy who sold books and actually has some awards that he won up on the wall. He lives in a lakehouse and we will not have to drive 2.5 hours every sunday at 6 AM. I can't wait! Anyway, sorry I haven't been writing much, there really isn't much to tell. I have some pictures and stories, but eh nothing too crazy. Anyway, I will write again soon, possibly tonight because it may get boring around here.

Week 4 and my "problems" realization

Sorry this took so long.

BEST DAY EVER!

No seriously, I had my best day in sales today. I had 7 customers for 87 units (units are $5 so, $435). If we get 100 units in a day we have what's called a burger day. Basically that means we can buy ourselves a burger before we go home instead of eating regular food. I worked from7:09 until 10:01 tonight trying to get to 100, but couldn't do it. Regardless, today was fun. I learned a lot.

During the morning, I was getting frustrated because I had about 4-5 immediate no's at the door. As I prayed to God in my frustration and vented, he led me to the next house. I had driven by this house before because it didn't look like it would be a very good prospect. I knocked on the door and a little girl named Hannah answered. She went and got her mother who was overweight, breathing with a lot of effort and a cigarette in her hand. I went through my presentation expecting her to give me some type of money objection, but she merely got up and got cash. She brought be the money and asked about buying more at the end of the summer if she could save up the money. It was a huge lesson of not judging the measure that parents will go to in order to educate and care for their children. April was the mom's name and I commend her for her hard work to earn money all to go to her children's books. It was an awesome experience. That one sale made my whole day better because I could really see true love. It was selfless and honest. I loved it. The rest of the day I simply embraced the "no's" because with this job if you dwell on the NO's you'll go craaaazy.

Another realization God gave me was that this job is fun because we only spend quality time with the cool families. If you think about it, the negative families we meet, aka, the ones that say no, are only in contact with us for about 1 minute at the door. The rest of the day we spend about 20 minutes with each family just getting to know them and hanging out. That's why I love this job. Yesterday and today have been awesome days for me because of the lessons I'm learning. I'm going to do a seven step outline and post it on here tomorrow. For now I realllly need sleep so peace!

Cokes and Russians

Today was a strange day. I went to some new turf called Erskine and McIntosh. Apparently there are several Russian families that live in the area and the schools have Russian as their main foreign language. I ran into a neighborhood of Russians today and it was awesome. There were about 6 houses that all had Russian families. The first one I talked to said that her relatives lived down the road. I started trekking down this dirt road and discovered four enormous houses. We use names a lot in our business by saying, "Oh well you probably know ______, and they just picked these up to." Basically it's the herd mentality I guess. Associating and acting upon decisions made by others. It also gives us credibility. Anyway, 2 families bought and I have to catch up with 3 of the other families. It should go well.


I also have this line where I say, "If this doesn't seem like something you would use then you can definitely just kick me out and give me a coke." People laugh every time. Strangely enough, today I got 4 cokes! It was awesome! Usually people just laugh, but today they actually gave them to me! It was crazy. Anyway I'm going to bed. Good night!

Why worry?

Well week two is over so there's nothing I can do to change it. I shouldn't think about it anymore! Today was awesome, I got to sit down with Travis and really get to bottom of why I'm not working my hardest. I'm here, I'm going through the motions, but my mind and my heart are totally thinking about being other places. I want to be on the beach, in Tennessee, in Kentucky, anywhere but Thief River Falls, Minnesota. I realized that this kind of attitude was just focusing on all the negative things and therefore my actions were suffering from them.

Travis explained it like Asbury College. There are some crazy rules, and if you focus only on the negative ones like no dancing, required chapel, curfew, and other things of that nature then yes the college isn't very fun. However if you simply accept those things and then turn to what those things are actually doing for you like spiritual vitality and academic excellence, haha then it gets better. My freshman was just me complaining about how I didn't like it and how I wanted to transfer. I didn't have many close friends because I wouldn't allow myself to get close. I was what was keeping others away. The same thing is happening now. God is calling me to work hard this summer, to be an example for Matt and the other first years, to fully rely on him to take care of me financially, physically and emotionally. All I have to do is go out and try to actually help families and other people and forget about myself. God already knows everything that's going to happen to me this summer and his plans are in my best interests. So why not go out and embrace those things and enjoy this week to the best of my ability. I'm going to be praying more and looking for positive things all throughout the day. Perhaps I'll write a blog about them.

Today was a great day for learning. I'm going to start enjoying the time I have here instead of wishing it all away. Pray for me this week because this change will not come easily or quickly. However, if I keep persisting success becomes inevitable. Just like knocking on doors. Peace out.

I was looking for a picture for this blog and found this other blog. It's a great summary.

Some days are harder than others

Sometimes I don't want to go to work. Some days I really don't want to walk across this bridge. And some days I don't even want to get out of bed

There are days when I have trouble with everything

But every day is progress. Every interaction is important

It doesn't matter if some steps are harder than others as long as I keep making them. I know I'm headed in the right direction ;)

source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lachlanhardy/221868712/

Let's talk about food.

Well I've been thinking about how much I miss the caf food actually. Yes, it's true. I miss being able to get as much as I wanted and have so many different options.

Every morning I wake up, take a cold shower, do some push ups, then head to our breakfast spot called Dee's Kitchen. It's amazing. There are some old dudes that eat there every morning and have exact change counted out for their coffee and toast. They curse, laugh, and play Yahtzee and wonder why two young people would be in there so early in the morning. I proceed to greet my waitress of two weeks, Sandy, and order my 2 eggs scrambled with hash browns and wheat toast for $7.00 (tip included).

For lunch it's a simple kid's favorite, peanut butter and jelly with about 6 wheat saltines. Actually they are Krispy brand, which are reallllly good.

At night I have been eating a 2 fried egg sandwhich with spinach, cheese, and barbecue sauce haha. It's actually really good and cheap too! I also eat like baby carrots, applesauce, pretzel sticks, and sometimes tuna salad. I top it all off with a glass of gatorade and get ready for the next day.

I write all this because tonight, Betty, our land lady, brought home some donuts for us to eat. After my regular meal I had three of them and felt like they were the best I had ever had. It was incredible. It's so amazing how good food tastes when you eat eggs twice a day a some kind of meal with wheat bread three times a day. If you are reading this and you have the option of making your own food with your parents money, or simply going out to eat, enjoy yourself. I envy you. Soon enough though all of my saving will pay off! Anyway, I better go to bed.

Just a quick note, yesterday sucked hardcore. I had like 11 straight people tell me no at the door, most of which cut me off and closed the door while I was talking. I also didn't have any sales, but hey it's part of the job! Today was better, I had 2 sales and tomorrow will be my best day of the week, leading to my best week ever! I'll let you know how it goes. You guys are awesome for reading this, but you should seriously leave some comments. I'd like to know who's still reading this thing haha. peace out.

Slow to fast

So last week felt like forever, but this week is really flying by. I can't believe it's going to be Wednesday tomorrow!

After our Sunday meeting and talking with Matt Poole, he seemed positive, but a little worried. I reassured him that things would get better as long as he kept working and he agreed to work hard this week. As I went home that night I figured I would try walking so I could see how it was to be like Matt, Anna, and Jared. Well it turns out I picked Monday to walk and it rained. Oh well. It also turned out to be the day that Anna was assigned to follow me. We have follow days when we have a zero sale day. I've never had anyone follow me before, but it really changed me. It kept me accountable the whole day and made me actually work the way I was supposed to. I couldn't stop, I couldn't be lazy, I had to always work hard because she was right behind me recording my every move. It was awesome.

Well today I went out and had a customer, presentation, then a contact for both goal periods (we divide our day into 2 hour segments because it is much easier to work for 2 hours than it is for 14.) So from m7-9 I had a sale and from 9-11 I had a sale. Then things got slow and I just kind of coasted until about 4:30. Then I had a little pity party, bought myself a Dr. Pepper and a Snickers and went back to work. By pity party I mean I didn't feel like working so I moved slow and didn't have a good attitude. Well God is so good that he decided today would be a good day to show me that even though I slacked off, he was still going to bless me with have 5 total sales. I was a little mad because I felt like I totally didn't deserve any sales for slacking off.

I talked with Travis and I really need to fully commit to being here. It sucks being halfway committed to something. Especially when it involves going door-to-door for 14 hours. Anyway I need sleep. Hopefully I'll get to write more later. Peace.

Week completed

Wow this week seems like it took forever. The good news is that next week will be faster and the next week even faster. This week will probably be one of the toughest of the summer just because I'm trying to nail down good habits like waking up at 6 and working until 9:15. I worked really good hours this week and saw a lot of people. Now I just have to work on listening to everyone so that I can better help them and sell more books. I really hope that Matt Poole is doing ok. We are in different HQ's so it's tough to know how he's doing.

Tonight we are having some awesome pizza and I am so excited about it. I'm also ready to get some good sleep and have a sweet day off tomorrow. This job is so strange. I don't really want to write anything else tonight. sorry. If you guys ever have questions about book stuff feel free to post questions in the comment box. peace.

It gets better!

Today was awesome. I was able to stay focused for most of the day. There were still times when I was frustrated and began to think about going home, but ultimately I could never do that. The shame and excuses that I would have to tell my friends and family would be unbearable. Gas is killing me right now because I was working country this whole week and driving like 150 miles everyday. Tomorrow and the next couple of weeks I'll be in the city so it won't be as bad. On a more positive note, I had 5 customers today and made about $160 today. I met some awesome families. In fact, one mom was my favorite mom of my career so far. I started talking to her at about 7:30 and then just kept talking until like 8:10. Usually demonstrations or presentations take about 20 minutes. Oops. I could have stayed there all night because she was just that type of person that made you laugh and was completely transparent. She was confident, loving, and funny. Three great things that I am striving for everyday. Gas is killing me right now because I was working country this whole week and driving like 150 miles everyday. Tomorrow and the next couple of weeks I'll be in the city so it won't be as bad.

I love what God is teaching me about being disciplined and finishing what I start. I want to be the type of person that learns to accept my situation and pushes through no matter what. I saw this today on someone's porch, "Want what you have and you'll always have what you want." It really made me think about my priorities and why I'm out here for the summer. While those things may seem cheesy in normal life, when you're working 14 hours a day and getting rejected 95% of the time, the little things in life stop bothering you and all you care about are the intangible aspects of life. I love it. I love this job, I love the people, and I love God. Goodnight.

Follow Day

Today I got to follow Simba and it really taught me a lot. The first day I had no sales, the second I had 3 pretty good ones, and then yesterday I had one weak sale which means they didn't put down less than half of the total cost. Today, I made one sale but followed most of the day. Simba worked the whole day except from 1-3 when I worked. The day was slow. That's an understatement. We talked and sold one mom first thing, then didn't see another prospect until 2:45. That's when I made my sale. I learned that no matter what we have to keep pushing ourselves and maintaing the positivity because it all pays off from 5-9. We had a ton of people to see and we ended up getting 4 more customers during the 5-9 (what we call gravy) period. We call it gravy because most of the buyers work during the day, so after they get off work at 5 is when we move in to make the majority of our sales. We use the day to figure who to talk to during the gravy period.

This job just gets better. Everyday is a new opportunity to learn and grow. I heard a really good quote during sales school, "The most frustrating times in our lives are signs that we are about to grow." Not matter how frustrating or lonely the day can be I'm going to keep that in mind and try to focus on others instead of own circumstances. Bedtime. Peace

Here's your learning day!

Well today is exactly what the title says. It's like God looked down and thought that I needed some tough love. I did! Today I really broke down at about 5 o'clock. Let me define breakdown.

My day started out with a sale which was way positive! Then I went through a huge dry spell and didn't really see anyone. I had to set up my bank account which took about 2 hours and then was so tired i was driving off the road. So I took like a 30 minute nap. You're not supposed to, but hey it's my summer right? I'd much rather be not tired and driving off the road than make like 30 bucks. Well then at about 5 I had only talked to 11 out of my goal of 30 people I was trying to see. Usually we have 30 contacts (people that we talk to that have kids aka prospects) and 15 presentations (people with kids who actually see the books). So a senior citizen we talk to wouldn't count as anything. We also break our day into what we call goal periods. These are two hour blocks that we use to keep our sanity. We view our job as like 9-11 getting 6 contacts, 4 presentations, and 2 customers each goal period. Those are our goals, but as soon as the goal period is over we start all over.Does that make sense? It helps us keep our accountability so that we can track how hard we are working to see people each day.

Anyway, I had 11 out of 30 at 5 o'clock which meant that I would need 19 in the next 4 hours. I was stressed out and had no motivation to continue. I started thinking about calling Nate and telling him that I was going home, but then I thought about all the people I would have to face when they heard that I was quitting. It was overwhelming and I just broke down and started crying. (Weird I know. Things get very emotional on the bookfield.) So I just prayed to God that I knew he wanted me to rely on him to be my happiness and joy, but I didn't know how. I needed him to show me how to continually talk to him and see things through his eyes in order to continue working. well like 5 minutes later I snapped out of it and just started thinking about selling books again. Turns out I got 31 contacts on the day and had 2 more customers tonight. The customers were big customers that I needed because I was running out of cash. Here's a funny thing. If the customers pay with a credit card I never see the money, but if they use cash or a check, then I get to use to deposit to live off of. Well I was getting a little worried about it last night and today, but God came through once again and I collected 522 dollars today. That should last me for a while. Haha. Anyway I have to go to bed now. I am going to be wiped if I don't. I hope you enjoyed this blog. It was written frantically and probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I can try to explain more later. peace.

Recorded Journals

hey guys, as promised i have a few voice clips from sales school. OK I am having some technical difficulties so I'll just write for tonight. I am so excited for tomorrow. It doesn't matter to me if I have 1 customer or 10 customers because this week I am only working on hours this week. I really want to lead the way for Matt Poole to follow. I want him to see that I'm committed to working this job to the best of my ability to serve others. I know this is short, but I have to go to bed. Mrs. Jones is waiting for me...