My Defining Moment

The summer of my freshman year of college I was an independent sales contractor in direct sales of educational products for Southwestern Company. For this job I had one week of intense sales training with students from Arizona State University, University of Arizona, and New Mexico State in Nashville, Tennessee. I did not know where I would be located for the summer until the last day of training. I ended up being sent to Fayetteville, North Carolina. I had one other salesperson as my roommate and we lived with a family for the summer whose son was doing the same job somewhere else.

Every morning we would wake up at 6am and have thirty minutes to get ready. My roommate and I would then meet or boss and several other coworkers for breakfast at the same spot every morning. We had forty-five minutes to eat and then we would do something to motivate us for the day. Then my roommate would drop me off in my territory with my bike. I had hundreds of doors slammed in my face constantly feeling defeated but once I got past the defeat it motivated me to prove to myself how successful I could be. It also made it easier knowing that I was selling a product that was valuable to parents and their children homework easier to do. I would only take one break a day to eat lunch on a curb somewhere and would work until it got dark. At the end of the day I would either have a long bike ride home or I would offer my last customer some money or a discount on their books for a ride to the house I was staying at.

I worked Monday through Saturday for at least eighty hours per week. These days were a break from our regular routine but we would still meet for at least four hours and discuss how our week was going and try to encourage each other to stick with it. Many people did quit. It was especially hard on me when my roommate quit after two weeks as well as a