When I was a sales manager for a large corporation, other managers would brag about their new “All Star” sales rep who was enthusiastic, smart, determined and had a great first quarter.
My response was always the same – “Come see me after they’ve had 3 or 4 quarters and let me know how they’re doing.”
I had learned that anybody can do anything for a few months. And any sales rep can get lucky and have a breakout first quarter.
When I first began making good money in sales, I made a big mistake. I increased my recurring monthly expenses in response to having a one time big commission because I assumed I’d continue blowing out my number and getting big commissions. I moved to a more expensive home. I bought new cars. I hired a dog walker and a gardener. I did major home improvements and took out big loans.
In time, I learned that having a good month or quarter didn’t mean that every subsequent quarter would be good.
During the past two years of the Covid pandemic, I see the same type of mistakes repeated over and over.
The news reports a story – based on a survey, an article, a tweet or a non-peer reviewed study and makes a prediction.
The prediction is how we know have a”new normal” or we’ve “crossed a threshold” or “we’re on the upswing (or downswing)”.
Nope.
It just that something happened. Once.
It could be that these predictions will come true. Then again, it could be that these predictions and conclusions have been hastily inferred without any clear understanding of statistics, probability or even common sense.
I refuse to be led down these paths.
Sometimes the perpetrators are innocents – like I was once, they are young, naive and inexperienced.
Other times they are manipulators – sensationalizing whatever they can to draw clicks, eyeballs and market share for profit.
Sometimes they are politicians who will say anything to ensure they get re-elected.
To avoid getting sucked in I do two things:
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- Avoid the information altogether by not watching, reading or discussing news.
- Analyzing the few news sources I do follow by digging into the studies, data, analyses and conclusions drawn by the authors.
- Saying “I don’t know” and “maybe” a lot. Because that’s quite often the case.