As you set your intentions for the year ahead, choose the path that gives you stories, not excuses, attempts over avoidance, action over perfection, experience over endless preparation. You survive failure. But you don’t outgrow regret.

We are often far more intentional with the words we use with others than the words we use with ourselves. And those private words—the ones no one else hears—the silent narration running through your head all day, just might be the most impactful words you ever use. So make them positive!

If you’ve ever wondered why some messages land instantly and others vanish without a trace, here’s the uncomfortable truth:
We don’t live in a marketplace of ideas anymore. We live in a marketplace of attention.
And in that marketplace, attention isn’t something you receive. It’s something you earn — usually in three seconds or less.

In today’s economy, the scarcest resource isn’t money. It isn’t talent. It isn’t even time. It’s attention. Here are a few quick ideas to make the most of your precious first few seconds.

How do we win attention, earn time and trust, and create instant emotional connection in a world that’s moving faster than ever? Check out this episode of the 3 Second Selling™ podcast as I discuss the science of snap judgements, why most hooks suck, how to craft a good hook and give you some real life applications. In a distracted world, your greatest currency is not how much you know. It’s whether you can earn—and keep—someone’s attention.

Are you a product peddler, or a sales detective? Today the highest performing sales people aren't engaged in solution selling. And they're certainly not spewing out features and specs. They're actively engaged in problem finding.

Join 3 Second Selling author and host David Gee as he is joined by serial technologist, inventor and sales leader Lief Larson. They will discuss how today's cluttered sales and marketing landscape requires curiosity, more listening than speaking, the ability to ask precise, strategic questions at the right time, and other forms of emotional intelligence.

This method takes prospects through a discovery process and helps uncover pain points they might not even have been aware of.

It also lowers sales resistance, gets you to yes quicker and easier, and elevates the status of the sales person.

Research shows that top producing salespeople talk about their products and services and features and specs 63% less than the average sales person.

Features and specs don’t win the day. You can’t reason your way to a sale. That’s not how our brains are wired.

Every buying decision we make is an emotional one. And as the movie Air illustrates, if Nike's Sonny Vacaro, as played by Matt Damon, hadn’t made an immediate emotional connection with Michael Jordan’s mom in their backyard at the family home in Wilmington, North Carolina, there never would have been an Air Jordan. Hard to imagine huh?!

It’s also hard to imagine Nike as an underdog, but they were during the time this film is set.

And because they earned the time and attention of Michael Jordan’s mother, piqued her curiosity, and created unique, memorable and authentic interactions they put themselves on the path to becoming people the Jordan's felt like they knew, liked and trusted. And had sales success with a legendary partnership worth billions of dollars.

Competition, for the most part, is a healthy thing. In fact, it is essential,
because it leads to innovation.

Competition is also an enemy of complacency.

If you are constantly and consistently trying to build a better product, offer a better service, provide a better customer experience, and so on, everyone benefits; your industry, your organization, your employees, and the end users of your product or service.

However, some negative things can happen as well in the name of competition.

Listen to this episode to learn how to use the competition to spur you on, to help you achieve more than you would on your own. But don’t let the competition take all of your attention. And energy. Especially if they don’t even exist.