In the summer prior to starting my second year I worked door-to-door in America, selling educational books and software packages. I feel it is important to mention this experience in my journal as it has had such a large impact on me. Working as a South Western dealer helped me to understand a lot about myself and I fee I developed very much as a person whilst I was working in America.
I worked in the Senoran desert during their summer which has led me to believe that unless I am actually caught on fire I don’t feel I could ever be to hot. My mastering of the elements, come burning sunshine or torrential desert rain storms, has filled me with the realisation that I can do anything, no matter what the situation may be. I woke at six every morning and worked from around half past seven, again in the morning, until half nine at night before finally getting to sleep at eleven for a total of ten weeks. I feel that no working hours demanded of me could possibly push me as hard. Considering for the duration of my working days I was cycling, walking and jogging in forty to 50 degree heat the experience has left me feeling that I can literally do anything demanded of me.
At the start of the summer I really just wanted to go home. I arrived in Nashville later than the rest of my team, ready to attend a video sales school by myself rather than an energetic lecture and practice based sales school surrounded by 300 cheering and whooping enthusiastic students. After half of the recommended training I headed to Tucson where I would be selling books, again on my own, to meet up with my team. When I arrived at the airport my manager was an hour late in collecting me and I had no way of contacting her. At this stage I really, really wanted to go home and felt stupid, alone and scared. After a doughnut day (no sales) on my first day the realisation that I may make no money and actually have to go home hit me. I spent most of the afternoon in hysterical tears, quickly building up a huge phonebill after spending a long time on the phone to my mother.
For the rest of the summer I cried just about every day. This challenge was possibly the hardest I have ever undertaken. There wasn’t a day when I didn’t want to go home until about three weeks in. I sold twenty five customers in a week. It wasn’t just the best in my team but the best in the organisation, that included everybody in Arizona from South Western. I was filled with an overwhelming determination to complete the summer. One of the main reasons I completed the summer was simply to be able to write my summer’s experience on my CV. That and the fact I knew how disappointed I would be with myself if I quit and arrived home to a face full of ‘I told you so’s.
Selling books with South Western left me what felt like completely anialated by exhaustion by the end of the summer. And possibly with a lot of taco bell induced fat clogging my arteries. However, the skills that I learnt and experience I gained have changed my life quite literally. I have run my own business, worked eighty hour weeks, dealt with more rejection than I thought was possible and had a business turnover of $15,000 within the space of 10 weeks, and enjoyed it. Having done this I feel that there is nothing that I cannot do and I can achieve anything that I want in life. I have also proved to myself that I have an amazing amount of determination purely through completing the summer.
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