Have you ever seen the show "Naked & Afraid?" Two contestants strip down, head into the wild and basically starve for three weeks until someone comes to pick them up. Every time I see the show, I wonder how the contestants can call themselves survivalists when they can't hunt or find a consistent food source.

Then recently, it struck me that the contestants are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing: surviving.

To survive for a short time in the wilderness, you really only need fire and water. The contestants always have water; I'm pretty sure the show producers see to that.

They also need fire to boil water, keep them warm at night and help keep the bugs and wild animals away. Even if it takes days to make a fire, they won't stop trying and once they get it going, they make sure to protect it, foraging for firewood and putting in the effort to keep the fire going.

To be fair, the contestants do look for food but most of the time they have to decide whether the necessary energy expenditure is worth the effort. Let's face it; most people have some extra fat on them, so they're not going to starve in three weeks. They make the choice to simply survive. That's the goal of the show.

The goal is not to thrive out there. Trust me, if the contestants were dropped in the middle of the wilderness with no expectation of a helicopter or boat coming to pick them up, they would put a lot more effort into finding food, or they would die trying.

You might be wondering by now, what does this have to do with car sales?

The difference between surviving and thriving is really a mindset. If you're a car salesperson and your goal is to pay the bills every month and be comfortable, then you're surviving. You do what you have to do to reach your goals, but you're never going to be super successful because the necessary expenditure of energy to improve your situation isn't worth it to you.

If you want to thrive, you are willing to expend extra energy to exceed your goals or die trying. You log every customer inside your CRM, you do your follow up - make the extra phone calls and send out the extra emails. You keep in touch with your customers consistently with informative, relevant information, send out thank you notes and ask for referrals. You're nice to everyone because you never know who will be your next customer.

With a survivalist mindset you may want your situation to improve, but you're really hoping that someone or something else will magically appear and improve the situation for you. You're waiting for the helicopter.

With a thriving mindset, you know the helicopter isn't coming. You accept 100% responsibility for propelling yourself from your current situation to a better one.

The mindset you choose is up to you. Are you naked and afraid, or do you prefer to thrive?