Why We Must Watch What We Sell or Buy

When was the last time you sold something?

If you are not in sales, I am certain you’d be thinking this. Oh, never! I didn’t sell any product to anyone. This question is irrelevant to me. I am in HR. I am in finance. I am in the XYZ department.

This is not connected to me. But I’d challenge that it is.

The focus of this article is on how we can sell and buy. Get rid of the trash, or invest in ourselves. What we need to do differently to maintain our sanity and wellbeing as a priority. And no, it's not about marketing. Just a new perspective to decode things. Find out how. Read on.

We are all salespeople.

Daniel Pink’s book “To sell is human” states that we are all salespeople. It was an eye-opener. Some of the concepts in the book were like they were there, all along, in front of me but I never saw them from those lenses.

We sell to our kids to study well and the benefits of it. We sell to our teams on why we must meet a deadline. We sell why a particular idea is so good. You sell to your boss on why you need a vacation. Perhaps justifying a project that went live, successfully, and hence, you need a break. You sell to your child the reasons why watching too much TV is bad for their eyes. You sell to others why you still wear a mask or stopped wearing it. If your relatives think you are successful. You somehow sold to them some tangible perceptives because of which they are seeing you as successful.

We sell our thinking, our decisions-personally, and professionally why buying something was a good decision. Some times tangible and other times, intangible stuff.

And we are sold to, every day, from the very moment we wake up. The newspapers, mobile phones, and advertising in different forms, thrust options to us, constantly. We are, of course, well aware of visible selling.

What we are not fully aware of or conscious of is the mini-stories we sell of our own kind. They may vary from situation to situation, person to person, place to place, and context to context. The product can be a thought, a thing, a service, or just time we want to buy for ourselves, for others, for work, or for just intentionally living.

What we mostly sell to.

We convince. Influence. Pursue. Sell. Everyday.

The term selling conditioned us to think that it’s always for others. We sell to others.

But the fact is that the most we sell are to ourselves.

You snooze that alarm, you sold to yourself to get more sleep.

You get out of bed, head to the gym, or for that morning walk. You sold to yourself the thought of making a healthy choice. Of getting fitter.

You’ve been preparing for that important meeting since last week. You sold to yourself that the meeting must be productive. You want to do well.

When that lunch gets postponed, you sold to yourself that working on the presentation is more important, than you eating on time.

When you avoid negative people, you sold to yourself that you’ll stay away from toxic people.

You are selling to yourself.

Sellers and buyers by nature. Why is it important?

Selling views, thoughts, opinions, and feelings, to ourselves. Buying it, and then we accept and experience it. We sell mostly to ourselves. We also, buy most from ourselves.

We tend to be constantly looking for things. Reviewing them, weighing pros and cons, and trying to establish if something is good for us or not. We seem to be planning for the present, the future, and learning from the past. When we learn from the past, we are buying something important from the experiences. In the present, we don’t have time to dwell too much. But our gut, our intuition, knowledge, and experience lead us to buy and sell. We make choices. We sell. We also buy. By nature, we are sellers and our buyers.

When you want to take a break. You just sold yourself the thought of pausing from work and getting yourself some coffee. When you do the action, you just bought into it.

When you miss your promotion, and your boss tells you that you missed the bus or the boat due to whatever reasons given to you. It’s up to you whether to buy or trash what the boss is trying to sell to you.

You must have for sure, heard someone say. “I’m not buying that!”.

The same applies to you. Everything you think or are being told by someone, is up to you, to buy or to not buy.
Some of it could be life-changing, for good or otherwise. This is why it is important you keep a close tab on what you sell and buy 'for' yourself.

Tips on selling and buying

Missing a promotion. Being rejected in a job interview. Being laid off from a job. Not being liked by someone, be it a friend, boss, team member, or anyone for that matter.

The most important aspect is what opinion we buy, to sell it to ourselves. The opinion could be ours or maybe imposed by others on us. It does not matter. What matters is whether we believe it or not, if we buy it or not.

Know this-

The control is in your hands. You buy your thought process, first and sell what you think is right for you. You sell that to yourself. What is good for you! Constructive, healthy, and positive for you.

Every decision has a direct impact on you, first.  Know the power of your thoughts. Don’t let a bad mood impact your entire day. Don’t let one bad, or three bad events conclude your thinking. Don’t buy them. Pass them on as rotten apples, amongst the good ones.

Don’t let opinions or others' viewpoints, impact you. Especially the negative ones. Don’t invest your thinking into that.

Would you buy anything that does not help you? Of course, you would not. Given a choice of truth, you will avoid anything that isn’t good for you at all costs. Don’t buy anything that does not help you.

The same thinking must apply to what you let into your mind. Anything that does not serve you, uplift you, or help you out, must not have a place in your mind. Don’t buy it. Don’t give a home to it in your mind.

Any time, you find yourself in a tough situation that is not helping you. Get sold on the thought that it is not helping you, fully. Not 10%, 30%, or 60% but get sold fully, at 100%. Don’t be divided on it. Own it and work against it.

Convince yourself, it is not meant for you. Trash it. And buy another constructive thought that could help you. Sell it to yourself multiple times until, you fully, buy it and own it. Be empathetic to yourself.

Sell it to yourself that there is no scope for anything that is unhealthy for you. Make it a habit to avoid things that don’t help. Start owning goodness, and create a trend for yourself!

Be careful about what you buy. Save your resources. Don’t go on the deficit, buying anything and everything that isn’t positive or beneficial for you.

Make your well-being a priority. In the rush of things, many a time, wellbeing takes a backseat. We know it is important but we procrastinate it. Only sell to yourself things that will compound the goodness of life and living.

Be mindful about everything you do. Be mindful of your thoughts, and your thinking patterns. Break patterns that are draining you, de-energizing you, and focus on the ones that elevate you.

If you unknowingly bought a belief that is not serving you. Be mindful and intentional about it, to trash that belief. Walk away and shun that belief. Disown it.

Buy yourself a new idea for making things better than they were. Get sold on the fact that you deserve better. Invest your time, efforts, and habits in something better.

Closing thoughts

You do not need permission from anyone else, but yourself- to sell or buy what is good for you. By doing so, you are being more empathetic, considerate, and mindful of yourself. And this could help others, in the long run, too.

Break things down, simplify, and work your way through.

Make a choice between sell, buy and trash or invest, every time.