What Sales and Customer-Facing Professionals Can Learn from Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
Marcus worked in sales for a mid-sized software company, and by the end of a brutal quarter with two lost deals, he felt hollowed out in a way quotas alone did not explain. He kept forcing enthusiasm onto every call, worried clients would sense any flatness and take their business elsewhere. At home, he snapped at small things, but told himself sales was a numbers game and he needed to push harder. His sister, a nurse who had read a book about wintering after a hard stretch of her own, mentioned treating a low season as real rather than shameful. During his next call, Marcus considered his exhaustion might be a season to move through, not a personal failure to fix through sheer effort.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Naming a hard stretch instead of forcing enthusiasm through it
Wintering's central move, naming a hard season honestly rather than hiding it, applies to someone whose job depends on projecting warmth every day. Telling a manager that this quarter has been genuinely hard, personally as well as professionally, is not admitting you cannot do the job; it is accurate information that shapes realistic expectations.
In commission-based roles where naming difficulty feels directly tied to whether you keep your territory or accounts.
Tell one trusted colleague or manager, plainly, that this stretch has been hard for you.
Protecting some energy instead of running on empty
The book treats withdrawing energy from ordinary demands as active recovery, not laziness, which applies to a customer-facing role by protecting small pockets of real recovery between calls rather than performing warmth nonstop. Taking an actual break between hard calls, or declining an optional extra shift, is not slacking; it preserves the energy the job's core interactions require.
In roles with tightly scheduled call volume where there is genuinely little room to add breaks without approval.
Build one protected five-minute break into your schedule this week between the hardest calls.
Leaning on colleagues instead of carrying it all solo
May describes cold-climate communities that build gathering and lower expectations into their darkest months, offered as her own respectful account of specific traditions, not a script every sales floor must adopt. A customer-facing professional can take the idea that hard seasons go better shared, debriefing a rough call with a colleague rather than absorbing every difficult interaction alone.
Highly competitive sales floors where colleagues are treated as rivals rather than potential support.
Debrief one hard call this week with a colleague instead of carrying it silently.
Winter as metaphor, not a verdict on your performance
The book leans on winter and hibernation as a metaphor for hardship, not a scientific claim about why energy dips at particular times of year. Any mention connecting mood to daylight is one area of ongoing, evolving interest, not settled fact. What holds regardless of the calendar is the point underneath: a hard season passes, and does not define your worth as a professional.
These ideas pull against each other in a real sales role. Naming a hard season honestly can invite scrutiny that makes protecting your energy feel riskier, since a manager might read both as declining commitment to the numbers. Leaning on colleagues takes trust a competitive culture does not always support. Most people in these roles manage a partial version of each, honest with one colleague, protecting small pockets of energy, while still meeting the calls and quotas that cannot wait.
Name one thing, honestly
- What would it look like to name this stretch honestly to one manager or colleague, without treating it as failure? - Where could you protect a small pocket of real recovery in your schedule this week? - Who could you actually debrief a hard interaction with instead of carrying it alone?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Debrief one hard call this week with a colleague instead of carrying it silently.