By Jack Perry
People often talk about being hungry, especially in the sales profession. They hunger for the sale. They hunger for success. What exactly do they mean? Being hungry is an intangible, driving force based on a personal need to achieve a goal. Think of it as a fire in the belly.
Hunger might stem from a desire to feed your family. It might come from your own ego. Perhaps you want to show your competitors or your boss that you’re the best. Your hunger might come from a desire to help people or to contribute to a charity because it means a great deal to you. Regardless of where your hunger comes from, it shows in everything you do. You can’t hide it.
Hungry people have a gleam of intensity in their eyes. They approach every task with enthusiasm and energy. And these people often achieve the highest levels of success. Why? They aren’t necessarily any more talented or smarter. They achieve success because they want it more than anyone else.
Are You Hungry?
A hungry person cannot be stopped. Their hunger brings out all the potential they have inside and they always find a way to achieve their goals. When people aren’t hungry, they don’t have any big goals. Instead of striving for more, they find it easier just to coast in that bland grey zone known as the middle ground.
It’s possible that you don’t have any really big goals and you feel that being mediocre is just fine. Perhaps you let big opportunities slip away because you don’t have a burning desire to win. For example: your sales manager offers you a big potential client but warns that taking on the project will mean extra effort and major challenges. If you say, “I think I’ll pass on this one,” then your hunger is obviously nonexistent. If you’re not hungry, you’re not motivated to pay the price for success, i.e., make the extra call, work the extra hour, do the extra repetitions in your exercise workout. You make no effort to improve yourself, your activity, or your success.
You didn’t emerge from the womb with a USDA label indicating your personal hunger quotient (i.e., Jill is a ten and Harry is a three on a scale of one to ten). But the good news is that you get to choose the amount of fire in your belly.
Look at your goals, and if you aren’t passionate and driven to accomplish them, they are just an exercise and the hungry meter reads a big, fat zero. Now, if you want to choose the path of the hungry warrior, ante up for bigger and more challenging goals and fuel them with passion and commitment.
Adopt a Hungry Mindset
Your hunger is a mindset. You have to decide to let hunger take up permanent residence in your mind. In the same way your golf or tennis coach can push you to create a driving desire to win, you can create a power-hungry mindset. In Rocky, the “eye of the tiger” was the manifestation of Rocky’s unrelenting desire to win; second place was not an option. Start the process of a hungry mindset by clearly and intensely focusing on the end result. See it, feel it, experience it, want it, and be willing to pay the price.
Keep in mind that you have to be ready to deal with people who are jealous of you. Some people just aren’t willing to pay the price to achieve their goals; some people will see you as some kind of self-appointed hot shot. They might say that all you care about is work and that you lack balance in your life. But just because you show your hunger, and you’re willing to pay the price for success, doesn’t mean that you don’t lead a balanced life.
Channel Your Hunger
Hunger is like energy. It will be wasted if you don’t put it to good use. You need to channel your hunger into a specific set of plans. Don’t allow the force of your hunger to waste itself on unimportant goals. Use your personal values and goal-setting system as a starting point. Plan the effective use of your resources that includes the bonus card, also known as Focused Hunger.
Feed Your Hunger
You can feed your hunger with good choices. Should you make a career change? Should you make the extra sales call? Should you write a book? Get specific with your choices. Don’t simply say, “I am hungry for success.” That is too general. Set specific, big, and challenging goals. Take the high road and your Focused Hunger will drive you to specific success.
Maintain Your Hunger
What if you’re hungry for a better job? Then you put all your effort and motivation into finding a position that is right for you. When you find that job, essentially you’ve reached your goal. So how do you keep your focused hunger going?
To keep your fire burning, you have to keep adding wood to the fire. That can be a new set of aspirations, a higher level of ideas, or a commitment to new paths. You can channel your hunger toward a rapid promotion in your new job. Or it can be something completely unrelated to work, such as coaching a youth soccer team or raising money for a charity. Moving on to something new can drive you to greater levels of success.
Hunger for Success
When you’re hungry, you will be amazed at the obstacles you can overcome, the solutions you can find, and the inner satisfaction you will achieve. You won’t accept lame excuses from your clients and prospects. Your competition will see the fire in your eyes and feel the heat from your intensity; your teammates and friends will want to know your secret.
Whether your hunger has faded over the years, or if you never really felt it in the first place, you can use these strategies to harness the power of focused hunger and achieve your goals. When you harness your hunger, your success is limitless.
Hungry from The Respect Factor® Series
THE RESPECT FACTOR® is a trademark of Jack Perry in the United States and other countries. Used with permission. ©2009 Jack Perry. All rights reserved
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