Picture this: You’ve finally gotten in touch with a prospect you’ve been reaching out to for months. The prospect decides to schedule a call with you to learn more about your services. The week leading up to the call, you prepare a presentation. You also make a list of what you might ask the prospect. When you go to bed at night, you play out how the conversation might go in your head. You think of answers to the hypothetical questions the prospect may ask. And overall, you’re more excited than my puppy when I say the word, “Cookie.”

The day prior to the meeting, you get an email from the prospect. He has an unexpected conflict in his schedule and asks you to reach out in two months to reschedule.

Two Months?!?!?

What do you do? How do you feel?

Of course, you reply to the prospect and say, “Thank you for letting me know. I will set a reminder and follow up with you in May. If anything comes up in the interim, please feel free to reach out.” But when you hit send, you realize, you’re crestfallen. Then you remember a quote from Leo Tolstoy, “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” And you reframe your thought process.

Patience and Time

It’s easy to feel down and dejected when things don’t go our way, especially things we’re looking forward to. But that’s life. And who knows what will happen in the next two months? The prospect may uncover a different problem you can help with. You might learn new skills that will help you make the sale more easily.

Until you were able to reframe your thought process on the situation, the happiness completely disappeared. But then you also realized the email didn’t say, “Never reach out to me again.” There was a specific time frame. You’re capable of being patient and hopeful the time will pass and you’ll still be alive.

Then you remember another Tolstoy quote, “Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.”