Flinchlessness - Mental Toughness in Sales and Life

You flinch… you lose.

Imagine skiing at over 130 mph and you catch an edge. One instinctive flinch to catch your balance and you lose any chance at winning the race.  The challenge is overcoming the protective instinct to throw your hands out for balance while maintaining stability and maintaining your line.

In a sale, negotiation or even a debate, flinch and you lose ground.  In a world of incredible speed the lost ground might be too much to recover from.

Imagine you are a sales person selling a high-ticket product and the prospect questions your intentions. Picture negotiating a deal where the other side gets the notion you might settle for less. Suppose you are debating a point and you pause with a wide-eyed blink at a critical point. In any of these three situations a shrewd challenger will likely counter punch with his agenda.

How then do you overcome instinct and not flinch?

Think of something in your job or life where you would benefit from not flinching. There are three approaches that can assist in your quest for flinchlessness:

1. Expand your risk tolerance – When speed skiing it was clear that being mentally tough would translate into better results. Overcoming the instinct to flinch on the racecourse could be prepared for in unconventional ways.

On my non-speed skiing days I would take to the slopes on short, flexible slalom skis at high speed. Skis made for slower finesse turns would become chaotic boards akin to squirrels on crack. I would train my body to relax while the skis drastically shot every which way.

In the summer I would rocket down rocky slopes on my mountain bike. Instead of putting a death grip on my handlebars I would teach my nervous system to relax and let the bike bounce and shimmy underneath me.

Expand your risk tolerance by putting yourself in higher risk situations.

2. Anticipate problems – Before your sale, negotiation or debate, anticipate inflection points, objections or problem areas. By simply being aware of what might happen during real time speed, you can get the feeling “Hot dog, everything is going as planned.” as opposed to “Oh crap, now what do I do?”

3. Breath deeply – Use simple physiology to your advantage.  Oxygenate that five inches between your ears. There’s a part of the brain called the amygdala and it is triggered into fight or flight with shallow breathing. Fight of flight is an instinctual stress response. If you hand over your reactions to instinct, get ready to flinch. Stay calm and flinchlessness is yours. So breath deep before and during your sale, negotiation or debate.

Now get out there and conquer the flinch.

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