© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete 2005 revised text of Building Yourself, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's guide to living the successful life.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Building Yourself Table of Contents
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• You need not hang up the ivy branch over the wine that will sell. Publius Syrus (First Century B.C.)

The market is an important concept. Let's define what we mean by it. Whether you're a musician or a missionary, a computer geek or a corporate high flyer, you live in a world made up of billions of people and institutions. That world is larger than all of us. Exceptional people make a dent in the world from time to time, but the river of humanity follows its own agenda. From one perspective it all seems chaotic and random, so much larger than us. From another perspective, the market is so big that it's reassuringly constant. We're too smart to choose just one of these perspectives; we'll use both.

Market—isn't that a business word? Yes, but the market concept is applicable in any arena of life. Successful people build their successes by being businesslike, by thinking clearly and independently, no matter what field they're in.

Your path to success in the market is a selling process. Even if you work in a corporate setting, you must sell yourself, your goals, your ideas, your ability to contribute to the company both now and in the future. Maybe you're determined to attract and marry that one special person. Same process. Sales. A careful step‑by‑step process involving sweat. And you can't sell something nobody wants. Even when a salesperson succeeds in selling someone something they don't seem to want, the salesperson through the sales process is fulfilling some emotional need of the buyer. And the slick salesperson is really more a cliché than a reality. Successful salespeople today specialize in selling what they have first determined the buying public wants—a “win‑win” situation.

Even if you're an absolute genius, your first steps in selling what you offer must take the market into consideration. You might be convinced that people will beat a path to your door to order your new toad and squirrel flavored cookies, or to hire you as a veterinary left nostril specialist, but ultimately the market will decide. The market—the reality that is larger than you—is your foundation. Yes, you can innovate. You can discover hidden needs in the market. You can profit greatly from filling them. But you can never take the luxury of ignoring the insistent demands of the marketplace.

The market is like a road. Driving along, you'll have smooth riding in some places. You'll hit maddening construc­tion delays in others. Some of the people you meet on the road can help you. Some will get in your way. The weather changes also. Sometimes it's bright sunlight and the road is easy to find. Sometimes the road becomes slick and you run the risk of skidding. Sometimes a fog drops and you can't see three feet ahead of you. The car behind suddenly passes you, speeds up ahead, but then careens off the road and down into an abyss. But you understand all the uncertainties of the road. You can keep a steady course. You know the road will clear if you persevere, the sun will bake the asphalt hard and smooth, and the highway patrol will be distracted because they have to pick up the pieces of the guy who went off the road in the fog. You'll be able to floor it for quite some time.

What, you say? You don't want to travel along such an uncertain, difficult road? Very well, choose another reality. It's as senseless to feel threatened by the vast forces of the market as it is to feel threatened by a hurricane. You may experience a hurricane. You can batten down. You can evacuate. If your home is destroyed, you'll pick up and start again. You will. You will not hide your head in the sand and wish what is was not. Why? Because you know that doesn't work. It's the same with the market. You cannot find security by running away from the market's reality. By seeking security you will lose it. You'll become the underpaid lifelong drone whose company goes out of business 18 months before your pension benefits vest. By avoiding the difficult path of the market, you'll choose no path. And you'll get nowhere.

The market changes constantly. Every player in the market has different abilities and needs. But what every successful person has in common, beyond attitude, is a critical faculty. The successful person goes out into the market and learns as much as possible. An entry‑level person at a corporation, for example, will learn as much as possible about the corporate culture, office politics, who gets ahead, why. He or she will learn to distinguish the real movers and shakers from the play actors and complainers. If the corporation or the industry is not right, he or she will make plans to get some experience and then move on. The learning process will be constant.

At every stage in building your success, a time will come when you must step back from your day-to-day sweat and calmly assess whether you're on the right path. Your career is a precision driving machine; you're the skilled mechanic. When you get through a day of working on everybody else's machines you'll put a “Closed” sign on your door, take your phone off the hook, and give your own machine the loving attention it deserves.