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Two weeks ago, I shared the somewhat depressing details of my failed college quarterback career and what they taught me about sales. Your responses sent me further down memory lane.
Here’s another quarterback story.
No, not Tony Romo.
Jeb Odam.
My roommate at Eastern Illinois.
One weekend in the fall of 1996, he invited me to his hometown of Taylorville, Illinois.
Population: Tiny.
There were no cell phones.
No GPS.
So, I asked for directions.
“It’s just easier if you do this,” he said. “There’s only one road into Taylorville. Pull into the McDonald’s and ask them where I live.”
“Them who? The manager? You know who’s working each shift?”
“Doesn’t matter. Whoever’s working will know.”
Now, Jeb had a good sense of humor.
But he was not joking.
So, I drove to Taylorville and walked into the McDonald’s.
“Welcome to McDonald’s. Can I take your order?”
“No, thanks. Any chance you can tell me how to get to Jeb Odam’s house?”
The young lady at the counter stared at me.
Then: “Oh, sure!”
She flipped over a menu and, between Mayor McCheese and the Hamburglar, drew me a map.
Jeb was small-town famous. He left Taylorville High ranked fifth all-time in the state of Illinois in total yards.
He could run.
He could throw.
An absolute stud.
Then he arrived at Eastern Illinois.
His nickname was “The Old Man.”
He was already balding.
Most of our teammates had upper bodies shaped like a V.
Jeb’s was more like a pear.
But looks were deceiving. Jeb was stronger, faster, and smarter than I was, on and off the field. But we were both choking down the same uncomfortable truth: We’d gone from high school famous to college irrelevant.
Everyone was bigger.
Everything was faster.
The playbook was thicker.
Then, late one night, I woke to the TV flickering across our Russian-gulag concrete-block dorm room. Jeb’s face was inches from the screen.
He was watching his high school highlight film.
My reaction, in order:
Confusion.
Annoyance.
Incredulity.
Jeb wasn’t an egomaniac.
So, what was going on here?
And this wasn’t a one-time thing. About once a month, I’d wake up to high school Jeb on screen: a pasty white Michael Vick look-alike scrambling for 55-yard touchdowns and firing frozen ropes across his body.
It took me years to understand what he was doing: feeding his brain evidence.
I’ve been the best player on the field before.
I can do it at this level, too.
With better coaching, more strength, and more experience, why couldn’t he create new highlights?
That’s a useful question for salespeople.
Selling requires doing what human nature tells us to avoid:
Risk rejection.
Start a conversation with a stranger.
Follow up after being ignored. Again.
Get past “I’m happy with my current supplier.”
Without confidence, avoidance becomes our most frequently run play. Consciously or not, we retreat to account management and customer service instead of proactive, persistent selling.
That’s why our Sales Fundamentals Workshop (six months, online and in person) is designed to build confidence on purpose.
One of the most common ways ambitious people undermine their confidence is by measuring themselves against someone else’s success, or against an ideal they have yet to reach.
I know this because I do it.
The horizon keeps moving.
Their progress gets ignored.
Strategic Coach founder Dan Sullivan offers a better approach: Measure progress backward. Compare where you are today with where you started.
Jeb had a VHS highlight reel.
You have evidence, too.
You just have to dig for it.
At your next Monday sales meeting, set aside 10 minutes. Have everyone write down the dates exactly one, five, and ten years ago.
For each date, answer: Where have I grown more confident and capable?
An account you landed.
A crucial relationship you built.
A difficult conversation you led.
A brutal setback you survived.
Does personal growth outside of work count?
Hell yes.
You bring that person to every sales call, too.
Then have each person share one highlight by finishing with this question: Given how far you’ve come, what’s the next highlight you intend to create?
In the next couple of weeks, I’ll share a tool to help you build your own highlight film.
For now, rewind the tape.
Measure progress backward.
And make your future bigger than your past.
Thanks for reading.
I’ll see you back here next week.
What Losing My Quarterback Job to Tony Romo Taught Me About LBM Sales
More lessons from my less-than-stellar college quarterback career. This time, how losing my job to Tony Romo taught me about competition, confidence, and resilience—and what it all has to do with selling.
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