Man with 2 heads… can’t make up his mind!
Have you ever ‘known’ what you wanted to do yet have not done it? Everyone has.
I get this email the other day from a guy and he really wants to come to one of our anchoring seminars. He knows he needs it. He knows it will make him more money. He knows that the other skills we teach with it are important.
He also knows that if he doesn’t do something his life is never going to be what he wants it to be. He wants the skills. He needs the skills. He knows how it will help him and his family. Logically he gets it and knows what he needs to do.
Then something happens… He starts arguing with himself. It is like a second head pops out and begins telling him all the reasons he shouldn’t do it. This second head only thinks emotionally. It waits for life to get so desperate that there is no choice but to take action.
It is like having 2 heads.
The brain is a prediction machine. At every moment it is comparing what is going on now to what happened in the past. Then it tries to predict what will happen next. We have evolved that way and when we were living a more primal life is was a great survival mechanism.
Go here… went there before and tiger ate friend… If I go again tiger might be there… I no go there.
This ongoing prediction sabotages us in modern day life where there is really very little chance of being eaten by a tiger. We live a fairly comfortable lifestyle compared to primal man. The result is we get triggered by things that are much less life threatening but still have the primal survival response. Ask girl out… she says no… I feel bad… don’t ask out girls. Ask for raise.. Ask for job… Open a business… call a client who did not buy…
These all trigger the same survival mechanism that keeps your life frozen in time… but you still get older 🙂
Sales guys run into this all the time. Someone comes to them because they WANT what is being sold. If they didn’t they would have stayed home. The problem is that the customer has a prediction he is expecting. They run every bad sales experience they ever had in their mind before they get there… Many never make it that far. They talk themselves out of it before they leave the house.
The real problem at that point is that everything the sales guy says is being compared to the prediction in the customer’s mind. Anything that matches up will kill the deal. The whole deal is filtered through the emotions that are tied to the prediction.
Most sales guys try to use logic to overcome this problem by giving the customer ‘reasons’ to buy. You have to create a HUGE pile of reasons to overcome the prediction. When that fails they start lowering the price which also is part of the prediction that you were charging too much in the first place.
The same is true in any business or any job. The people around you are all running predictions all the time. The interviewer for the job you want has a prediction of what he wants and if you are going to fit. The sale you want to make. The person you want to date. The waiter that is serving you.
What can you do about it?
Step one is to break the prediction by doing something they did NOT expect.
Example:
Everyone has been in the situation where you go into a store and the salesperson spots you. They start walking your way and you start predicting them trying to pressure you into a sale. You run a movie in your head about how terrible that is going to feel. You then tell them you are just looking so they will go away. The closer the get the more uncomfortable you are.
Then… instead of asking if they can help they tell you, “Hey I know you are just looking around but if you need me I am over here.” Huh? They broke your prediction. Stole your excuse before you could use it. Now you have no prediction that follows that.
In that moment when your prediction gets lost you become very open to whatever happens next.
Step two is to start leading that predictive part of the brain into the direction you want it to go. The most powerful way of doing that is you elicit a state and anchor it. When you ask questions that generate an emotional response you can set a trigger on that response and use it later. You push the button and they have the emotion.
Step three is to used that trigger to create a new prediction. For instance:
I have an idea I want you to look at (Hit button)
Now the idea is associated by the brain to the new feeling. If that is a good feeling then they will have a good feeling about the idea because their prediction about the idea has changed.
Just stop for a moment and think about how many areas of your life you could use that one simple concept.
I know what you are thinking….. How can you learn this?
The best way right now is to Join our Gold Members Winner’s Circle
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Tom and Kim
