[Erin Pavlina]

Let me just jump in here with a little clarification about what we did that I don't think Steve had time to mention (he wrote that blog post much faster than usual).

First of all, these time share salespeople position themselves at the top of the escalators so you can't avoid them. We run into them often. We began noticing how anxious these people seemed, like they had a quota to fill, they actually exuded fear. Perhaps it was fear of rejection, but my intuition told me they were more afraid of their bosses than the people they were approaching.

We have no problem with people in sales who loves their sales job. Passionate people are happy people. What we saw in these particular people, however, were people who were doing something they didn't love. They exuded fear, not excitement. They exuded panic, not enthusiasm. They did not personally care about the product they were selling and did not personally believe it was a worthwhile product to have.

We felt great compassion for them. In an attempt to reach their souls we decided to engage them in a manner they weren't expecting. When the woman asked me if I wanted free show tickets and I replied that I was actually looking for time shares, she got really excited. But I told her I was just kidding, that I knew she was selling timeshares and just wanted to connect with her for a moment. She laughed and her real self came through for a moment. I stopped to talk with her and she confided that she hated her job and wished she could be doing something else. She made sure the other salespeople couldn't hear when she said that. I replied, "Anything is possible. Figure out what you really want to be doing and do it." She smiled wryly and said, "Yeah, someday!" When I left her I could see she was lost in thought and she had a smile on her face.

Steve's encounter was a little different, as the woman he spoke to didn't "wake up" when he "shook" her. What he said to her didn't seem to register at all.

We don't make a habit of going around bothering people or trying to make them feel bad about themselves or their line of work. But when we look at people we see their souls, not their jobs. And if they seem unhappy then we do try to help. That's our nature. If you were having a nightmare, wouldn't you want someone to wake you up? Even if it meant a little shaking up?

Anyway, my point was, if people are happy in their jobs we don't care if they're digging a ditch or running a country. But when we see people in the grip of a nightmare life that they don't even want for themselves, yeah, we're going to try to wake them up.