Our minds are like the garden before it is planted. You can choose to fertilize your mind with positive brain food or you can let it become neglected. When you are in business for yourself or you are a sales rep for someone else — it is so easy to forget or procrastinate about feeding your mind. Before you know it, it has been months since you’ve picked up a book or listened to a motivational tape.

So your mind allows weeds to grow — negative thinking — and it quickly chokes out a positive attitude.

Brain fertilizer consists of reading 30 minutes a day of positive, mind-stretching material. It means listening to personal development tapes in your car instead of listening to the radio constantly.

And television — if you decrease your television viewing time by one hour per day at the end of the year you have given yourself 45 eight-hour days. What are the opportunities that could arise from all this free time?

Creativity, stress relief, exercise, and thinking time are just a few of the possibilities.

In sales it is extremely important to maintain a resilient, positive attitude. Because sometimes things don’t always go your way and you have to be able to ride out the storm. To create and maintain a successful business or selling career you must continue to expand your potential, take chances and learn at every opportunity.

There is a quote, “We are all like tomatoes — we either continue to grow and ripen or we rot.” What kind of tomato are you?