Rob Bell

What I learned from Rob Bell:

Change is Growth.

When you have worked in sales for thirty years or more you come across pretty much every personality type under the sun. The very best personalities surprise you with a depth that is often hidden far beneath a practiced and polished surface.

Such are the mistakes made by those ivory tower masters of business who look for formulaic attributes in lieu of uncovering character. The temptation is to categorize or profile what you believe will be successful when you look for new guys. Although this is a favorite human resources sideline not even the best of them can profile how the salesperson will respond to change and adversity - Trust me.

What you really need to find out early is how they will respond to change and especially the change that they do not initiate -you need to look for a guy like Rob Bell. Rob is emotional and opinionated to the extreme (most passionate people are) with a polished surface that has been carefully hardened to fend off all but the most trusted souls.

I worked with Rob in software sales and training for a couple of years. The sales process changed, the rulers of the kingdom came and went with their versions of the silver bullet that would solve everything. They changed his territory, his title, his compensation and responsibilities like a pawn being moved around on a chessboard. Every day was a new "green field idea" and Rob rolled with the punches like a true champion always rising from the canvas to fight another day. Not that he didn't state his case about the changes at every opportunity.
The boy is, after all, a true salesman at heart with all the good and bad that title brings with it.

Occasionally he would explode in righteous indignation - cell phone calls at night with missives and exclamations about the unreasonable, illogical, unfairness of it all and then...

The next day he would put it all in perspective "This is a learning experience - it's just another personal growth opportunity".

If you ever want to see a pure example of "It's not what happens - it's your response to what happens" - then you could do no better than to sit and talk to Rob Bell for just a few minutes.

I liked the guy but more importantly I learned from the guy.

Change is Growth.

That's what I learned from Rob Bell.