Cut from Different Cloth

Every test that I took for my career change to a commissioned sales job pointed to my potential to be a TREMENDOUS success. My personality profile was spot on. My sales acumen exceeded the top agents in the industry. There was nothing to indicate that this career would stress me out to the point of nearly having a nervous breakdown (I know there's no such thing as a nervous breakdown any more -- but that seems an apt description of what I was feeling).

I absolutely love helping people. I love meeting new people and doing presentations and most of the tasks involved in running a successfully financial services practice. I was even named "New Agent of the Month" in July and was ranked 4th in the agency in Disability Income Sales. Why, then, did I come up short? I look at the people who are successful and I think to myself, "he's a pompous ass." So, maybe I'm not pompous enough. I look at others and I think, "he's so artificial." Maybe I'm too real. But I think the real reason is that all of these people, regardless of their pomp or lack of sincerity, had one thing in common -- a tremendous natural market. This is where I have to say I fall short. My natural market was weak and quickly exhausted an I simply did not have the financial resources to hang in there long enough to build my own market.

I've continued to dream about this business -- about being successful -- about client meetings and closes. I wonder if I should have tried harder to finance the venture (loans? additional lines of credit?) or if I'm simply cut from different cloth than I thought.