EP206: Colin Nanka - How To Use Your Failures To Succeed In Business

Michael Palmer: And I came back into the workforce and really invigorated to rebuild my brand and who I was. And from there, I just slowly charged one day at a time, one week at a time to get to where I am today. And the environment we're in right now in 2020 has a lot of the hallmarks of 2008 plus layer a pandemic on top of this. And so what I've seen and what I've learned, I'm trying to give back and pay it forward for a lot of those mentors who helped me get through 2008 and come out of it in 2009. And I think all of us have that ability to defeat the average within. You're listening to The Successful Bookkeeper with your host, Michael Palmer. Listen each week as inspiring guests share their secrets of success to help you increase your confidence, work smarter, and build a business you love. This episode of The Successful Bookkeeper is brought to you by purebookkeeping.com, the proven system to grow your bookkeeping business. Welcome back to The Successful Bookkeeper Podcast. I am your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be an inspiring one. Our guest is a proven sales leader with over 20 years of sales experience. He's a leader at Salesforce and also spent time at Xerox Corporation. He competes in multi-day, self-sustained adventure races in the world's most difficult, some would say treacherous, terrains. He's also leading the charge to defeat average in every aspect of life. Colin Nanka, welcome to the show. Thanks, Michael. I really appreciate being here. It's great to have you, and it's a real pleasure and honor to have you, and I'm so excited to have you share what you've been up to around defeating average with our listeners. Because I know they are going to want to defeat average in their lives and in their business after listening to you. But Colin, before we get into all of that, tell us a little bit about your career journey leading up to this point.

Colin Nanka: Sure. Well, so Michael, it's a pleasure to be here. We've known each other for a long time, and I think we're well overdue for this conversation. I started my career at sales— or sorry, at Xerox many, many years ago., and I started selling on 100% commission. I was at Xerox for 9 years, and then I transitioned to Salesforce, and I've been at Salesforce for the last 15 years. So I've been in sales for many of the years that I've been a professional, and then I transferred to be a sales leader, and for the last 5 years I've been enabling and training AEs, account