Are Kenyan runners born or made? This is a question that
intrigues those who follow Kenya’s dominance in long distance running. Kenya
has produced more world champions and Olympic medalists in mid to long distance
running than any other nation on face of earth. Most of these athletes come from
the Rift Valley Province of the country. There has been a raging debate where
the people of Rift Valley are genetically designed to be world beaters or it is
the environment that has made them world beaters or maybe something to do with
their diet.
But regardless of where you come from in Rift Valley to beat
the world at the biggest stage you need to practice at a place called Iten. It
is a place that athletes spend weeks and months preparing to compete with
Kenyans. Why are they coming here? Altitude? Diet ? What is the secret magic of Iten ?
One of the most important aspects of Iten is its
concentration of world beaters. It is a place where even the Kenya greats who
don’t come from Rift Valley Camp in their pursuit of a dream to beat the world.
Some of the non Kenyan World Stars who have trained here are Mo Farah and Paula
Radcliffe from United Kingdom, Uganda’s Stephen Kiprotich among others.
Iten is the Silicon Valley for mid to long distance runners.
Why would I write about this region in a sales article? Because
there is a lot we can learn about sales from long distance running. The main
reason is that to become a super star in whichever field you need to spend time
with super stars. If you want to fly high then you need to spend time with
eagles not chicken.
1. The first step of winning is spending time with those seeking to be
winners
The reason many foreign athletes come to
Iten is to practice with the Kenyan super stars. They want to do what they see
Kenyans do. But most importantly they want to be consumed by that passion for
winning that burns in the Kenyan runners. When this passion consumes you, you
will want to pursue the goals that champions want to pursue. You will want to
do whatever they do to win.
When you spend time with people aiming to
exceed their quotas, break records and win trophies you are likely to start
desiring the same.
If
you want to become a sales super star you need to have the passion and drive of
those who consistently win. You need to
care about things they care about; you need to start feeling how enjoyable
winning is. For ordinary runners they won’t be bothered to reduce their time by
a second. For champions a fraction of a second becomes an obsession. They know
records are set and broken not by minutes by fractions of a second.
2. Practicing with Champions Stretches you out
of the Comfort Zone
If you ran with those who have consistently
beaten the world, even if you don’t become a world beater, you are likely to
perform beyond what you thought your physical abilities and skills could allow.
You will be pushed to endure more than what ordinary people would care about.
You will be forced to run longer distances.
Your muscles will be stretched to points they are sore. You will wake up
earlier. You will not be allowed to enjoy pizzas and fries. This ultimately
sets you at a higher level than you were before you started practicing with the
champions.
As a sales person you need the same. You
need to spend time with those who put you in a position where you can stretch
yourself beyond what is comfortable.
3. Spending time with world beaters shapes our
beliefs
Those who have grown seeing champions
practicing and bringing troves of medals year in year out have had beliefs about
what is possible. Those who go to Iten believe that if you can beat Iten you
can beat the world.
In Iten you meet many people who believe
they can set new records, beat the world finest and achieve greatness in the
world athletics. You meet young men and women practicing without shoes with a
belief that they will shine at the world’s biggest stage and pull themselves
out of poverty. They have seen hundreds of others do that and therefore it is
not hard for them to believe the same.
Ordinary people have ordinary beliefs,
champions have beliefs of champions. Sales Super stars have beliefs of super
stars while ordinary sales people have beliefs of ordinary mortals. When you spend
time with super stars your ordinary beliefs are altered sometimes forever.
Being there seeing champions practicing,
feeling pain, being human demystify the champion as a super being. When you
discover that the champions are beings like you then you start believing you
can become like them. If you keep pace with them in the practice then you
believe you can do the same in the real race. That is how many pace setters
from Kenya upstage the stars they were supposed to set pace for.
4. Spending time with champions allows you to
model their behaviors
Sometimes you don’t need to read books on
what the successful people do and the philosophy behind their success, you just
need to watch them go about their journey of success. Watch what they do and do
it exactly as they do it and you are likely to achieve the same results they
achieve.
As a sales person you need to watch and
model the behaviors of the super stars and you are more likely to get the same
results they get. Wake up the same time they wake up, prepare for a call the
same way they do, plan your route the same way, build rapport as they do, show
care for customer as they do, follow the same steps in making the presentation,
eat the same meal etc and you will get the same results.
Iten is a great place for long distance runners to spend
time and prepare to become champions, but not necessarily a place where sales
super stars are made but form its story we can learn a lot on how to become
sale superstars. But you don’t need to
travel to Iten to be at Iten. Iten can be a place in your organization or city
where you can meet the sales champions. It can be a biography that you read, or
a grouping of super achievers you spend time with.
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