This post is dedicated to Brenda at The Emil Rummel Agency who lights me up with her luminescent personality every time I call.

Allusions to talent are everywhere.  Innate talent and luck are inferred and whispered about behind the backs of outstanding outcomes.

We watch the night sky on a warm July evening waiting for the brilliant colors but forget about the fuse.

 The fuse that was laid and lit and burned slowly and steadily until it reached the ignition point that thrust that pyrotechnic into the sky and our view.  We marvel at what we see with no thought that the fuse may have gone out along the way and had to be relit.  It may have gotten damp, inadvertently stepped on, or had its continuous, connected line broken and repaired multiple times.  The tending of the fuse is seldom seen by those craning their necks to marvel at the ascendancy and successful display.

But it is the fuse.

The long-laid line watched and tended to be sure it continues to carry the spark is what allows the explosion to burst onto the scene.  And so it is with billionaires, laureates, and that girl who is kicking ass and crushing her sales goals.  It’s the tending of the fuse that matters. 

The Great Barry Farber taught me the expression “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard,” and I love it.  But I’d like to amend it a bit.  Hard work doesn’t beat talent.  Hard work IS talent.  Without the work; the long fuse, it will all blow up in your face.

You got this.  Own Your Sales Gene…