A woman walked into the grocery store with a 3-year-old girl in the seat of her shopping cart. As they passed the cookie section, the little girl asked for some, and her mother said no.

The little girl began to whine and fuss. The mother said quietly, “Now, Monica, we just have half of the aisles left to go through; don’t be upset. It won’t be long.”

Soon they came to the candy aisle, and the little girl began to beg for some. When her mother said she couldn’t have any, the little girl began to cry. The mother said, “There, there, Monica -- only two more aisles to go, and then we’ll be checking out.”

When they got to the checkout, the little girl threw a tantrum. The mother patiently said, “Monica, we’ll be through this checkout lane in five minutes, and then you can go home and have a nice nap.”

A man followed them out to the parking lot and said to the woman. “I couldn’t help noticing how patient you were with little Monica.”

The mother laughed. “My little girl’s name is Tammy. I’m Monica.”

The world today is testing everyone’s patience. And we have never needed it more.

Patience is an invaluable virtue, but it takes some work. We live in a world where we are used to getting things quickly, be it information or products. We want everything now -- instant gratification. This impatient attitude can cause a lot of harm -- unproductive time, stress, poor decisions and more.

Patience and impatience are also habits. Studies show that it takes 21 days to create or to break a habit. Good habits are as addictive as bad habits, and a lot more rewarding. I would like to suggest that when you change your impatience habit, you will change your life. Patience requires self-control. It doesn’t help to complain, whine or stomp your feet like children. It’s not easy to be patient all the time. It requires practice. Start by waiting in line -- and we are waiting in a lot of lines these days –- or waiting in traffic. It is better to be patient on the road than a patient in the hospital. Take control of your emotions in small situations.

Have realistic expectations. This can pertain to projects and people. A common weakness is wanting others to be better than you are willing to be yourself. If you have unrealistic expectations, your stress and anxiety can increase.

Rejection is a part of life. You can’t avoid it, and you must learn not to take it personally. Move on and prepare for the next challenge.

Analyze every failure, but never wallow in one. I always want to know why people say no, and I’m not afraid to ask. How helpful iIt is helpful to have a second opinion about where you went off the rails,. T and to think about what you could have done differently.

Remember past achievements. Look back to your past successes. How did you feel? This will help ease the rejection of today, and help you recognize that you can get past the current disappointment. How long did you have to work for those earlier accomplishments?

Finally, take a break when you feel yourself losing patience. If you’re feeling down, do something you like -- exercise, read a motivational book, listen to a favorite song. Just don’t stay away too long.

A young man came to a jeweler’s shop and said he wanted to study to become a gemologist. The young man insisted that he had the patience to learn everything the jeweler was willing to teach him. Reluctantly, the jeweler told him to return the next day for his first lesson.

When the man arrived the next day, the jeweler placed a jade stone in his hand. For four hours, the young man held the stone while the jeweler did his work.

The next day the jeweler had the young man hold the same stone. And every day after that, for over a week.

Finally, one morning the young man asked, “Sir, when am I going to learn something?”

“Soon,” said the jeweler, passing him the stone.

The young man was about to give up, but as he took the stone in his hand he felt surprised. “Why are you giving me a different stone today?”

The jeweler smiled and said, “You have begun to learn.”

Mackay’s Moral: The future belongs to the person who knows how to wait.

“I’m starving, and it’s Dave’s fault,” a manager complained to his assistant.

“What did Dave do now?” the assistant asked.

“I asked him to pick up a sandwich for me before he returned from lunch,” the boss replied. “He’s over there at his computer; so where’s my sandwich?”

Just then, Dave ran into the boss’s office and said, “You’ll never guess what happened to me at lunch today. I was at that little bistro on Main Street, when who should walk in but the president of ABC company that we pitched last week. There wasn’t an empty table in the whole place, so I waved him over and invited him to join me.”

Dave went on: “I jumped on the opportunity to remind him why he should consider working with us -- and he agreed! He wrote me a check for the retainer. I raced back here and just worked up the preliminary projections for the new account.”

“Did you remember to pick up that sandwich for me?” the boss asked.

Dave blinked and looked confused. “Huh?”

As a salesman, when I hear stories like this, I cringe. There are no jobs unless someone brings the business in. Sales are the lifeblood of any company, and it’s amazing how many people don’t get this point. Sales are even more important today during the pandemic.

Don’t get me wrong; everyone is important, but sales are critical to a company’s success. I hammer away at this concept repeatedly. At our company, we like to say that all our employees are in sales because they are selling our company every day.

Career success often depends on your ability to sell a product, a service or an idea. No matter what field you’re in, you’ll sell better by remembering these key pieces of expert sales wisdom:

-- Do your research. Whether you’re selling a book or trying to get a job, start by learning as much as you can about your industry and the people in it. The more you know, the better you’ll be able to present your product when the time comes.

-- Profile your buyers. Your product should fill a defined need. Don’t start selling before you understand your customer’s mindset. First, analyze the kind of people who might benefit from what you have to offer. Do they already use something similar? Do they need to be educated about what you can do for them? Find out where they are so you can target your sales efforts effectively.

-- Tailor your approach to match individual buyers, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all attitude. Spend some time getting to know their personal priorities and professional preferences, and what they’re looking for when they consider products like yours. You’ll do a better job of selling to them if you focus on satisfying their requirements instead of yours.

-- Listen more than you talk. Don’t think of sales as the art of pressuring a reluctant customer into buying something he or she doesn’t want. You’ll get better results by asking questions about your prospect’s problems and really listening to his or her needs. Then you’ll be better able to position yourself effectively.

-- Follow up. Persistence pays. Don’t make a pest of yourself, but check in regularly with your customers and prospects to find out what they need. You don’t want them to forget about you.

-- Develop your sense of humor. You don’t have to memorize a string of stale jokes, but you should learn how to see the humor in most situations. If you can make a customer smile, your job is halfway complete.

-- Stop selling, and let them buy. Most people like to buy things, but dislike being pushed into a purchase. Don't be overly aggressive with your idea. Be ready to answer questions and present your idea as an opportunity.

-- Manage your time wisely. Keep track of how much time you spend on your sales process. Identify the activities with the greatest potential, and maximize those while delegating or cutting down on any that don’t add value. Look for ways to use your time more efficiently every single day.

-- Deal with rejection. No one makes every sale. Rejection is a part of life. Deal with it and move on.

Mackay’s Moral: Don’t just make a sale, make a customer.

In the Upper Midwest, a sure sign of spring and fall is when geese fly overhead, often honking loudly. I recently discovered the reason.

Turns out that professor Margaret Kuhn’s research revealed that in order to fly long distances, geese rotate their leaders, and they only pick the ones that can handle turbulence. The other birds honk, not from discomfort, but to encourage their leader.

I’ve shared lessons from animals over the years. Sometimes, they seem so much more advanced than humans; other times, we learn how not to handle problems. Here are some examples.

If a lobster is left high and dry among rocks, it does not have enough instinct and energy to work its way back to the sea, even though it may be only a few feet away. It waits for the sea to come to it and will die in its tracks.

There are also “human lobsters” in the world who are stranded on the rocks and won’t take a risk. They choose to procrastinate instead of grabbing hold of the problems they face.

Lesson: Taking risks is part of life. Not taking risks can kill a career.

Thomas J. Watson Jr., who built IBM into a worldwide power, loved to retell a story attributed to Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. Each year, a man fed wild ducks at a nearby lake before they flew south for the winter. This encouraged some of the ducks to stick around and grow fat and lazy.

The moral is that you can make wild ducks tame, but you can never make tame ducks wild again. And Watson wanted to encourage “wild ducks” at IBM to confront conformity.

Lesson: Letting someone else take care of you prevents you from maximizing your potential.

If you place a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately jump out. However, if you put a frog in room-temperature water, it will stay put. But if the water temperature gradually increases by 5 to 10 degrees, the frog continues to stay and becomes groggier and groggier until it can’t climb out of the pot. The frog will sit there and boil because its sense of survival is geared to sudden changes in its environment, not slow, gradual changes.

Lesson: Pay attention to changes in your environment or prepare to get burned.

In an experiment, four monkeys were put in a room with a bunch of bananas hanging overhead. Every time a monkey tried to climb up and grab a banana, it got drenched with cold water. Eventually, the monkeys caught on, and they quit climbing up after the fruit.

But then, the monkeys were replaced one by one. As the new monkeys tried to climb up after the bananas, the older monkeys would prevent them from climbing. In time, all the original monkeys were replaced. And amazingly, none of the newer group ever tried to climb up to the bananas, even though none of them had ever been splashed with the cold water.

Lesson: Don’t avoid new opportunities just because others have failed or you have been warned not to even try.

Ants work as a team in tackling prey, carrying food and building complex underground tunnels. They work harder than many species just to get through each day, and they do it as a team. No one gets left behind, and no one carries all the weight while others just sit on the sidelines.

Lesson: When you share the burden, you share the rewards.

Zookeepers found a kangaroo wandering outside its enclosure in the wee hours of the morning. They coaxed her back into the enclosure and added a few extra feet of fencing on top. They thought they had solved the issue until they found her wandering outside again the next night. They increased the fence to 20 feet and figured that would be too tall to leap over.

But the next morning, the kangaroo was free again. Another 10 feet of fencing went up, and the zookeepers thought their problem was solved.

A koala had watched the process and was more amused each day. “How high do you think those humans are going to build this cage?” he asked the kangaroo.

“Who knows?” said the kangaroo. “I wonder if they’ll take some of it down once they realize they keep leaving the gate unlocked.”

Lesson: Make sure you’re solving the right problem.

Mackay’s Moral: Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?