Assurance to the Afflicted (this is a good one!)

In business (and in organizations generally) your mission is VERY important. Thereis a lot of talk these days about leadership. It is a very sexy subject and advice on the topic abounds. But, we could get a good definition of leadership from the oldest of organizations, the military. The military is a great place to learn leadership. And one way of viewing leadership is that it is, “Managing for the mission.”

This is an important characterization of leadership because it is ACTIONABLE. A lot of books, and gurus, will tell you that leadership is about character traits like charisma or extroversion. And that is just not true. Leadership is not about character traits. Leaders come in all shapes and sizes. Leadership is about action, it is about behaviors. So, to construe leadership as managing for the mission is very useful.

Obviously the first step is to define the mission. Defining the mission is the first step of all leadership. What are you trying to get done? We are all familiar with Mission Statements and most of them are quite hollow. Just like the definition of leadership, you want your mission statement to be operational.

So when Sam Walton said, “Always the lowest price,” his employees knew what to do. And when Larry Page and Sergey Brin say their mission is, “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” people know what's expected. Now, there are a number of reasons why Walmart and Google are the best in their categories. But do not sleep on the mission statement. These beautiful missions are a big part of these company's success.

A while back Peter Drucker was working with the emergency room of a hospital. Drucker is known for being a management thinker, and he was. But that does not just mean business. Towards the end of his life, Peter spent a lot of time working with not-for-profit companies like churches, universities, and hospitals.

This particular emergency room was struggling. Their performance was sub-par. With Drucker's help, they eventually came up with a beautiful mission. But it took a while. You see, when Drucker interviewed people, and asked them what they do, the most common answer was, “Health care.” In fact, most hospitals seem to say they are in the business of health care. But that is wrong. As we both know, hospitals do not take care of healthy people. Pretty much, by definition, they take care of sick people. A better phrase would be, “Sick Care.”

This is not just some cute game of semantics. It is very important. Like I have mentioned, your mission needs to be actionable, otherwise people get confused. And, as we know, confused people do not do much. For a hospital worker to say they are in health care is ridiculous. And it leads to a lot of inefficiencies.

What Drucker found was that about 80% of the patients who come to the ER cannot be helped by a doctor. Meaning, there is nothing wrong with them that a doctor's intervention could fix. It pretty much is a case of, “Take two of these and call me in the morning.” For eight out of ten people, time and rest (and maybe a pill) are the only solution. When I first heard that I had a hard time believing it. But then I surveyed people in my sphere and I'll be damned if it was not almost that exact ratio.

This does not mean we should turn people away from the emergency room. ER doctors do serve a very valuable purpose. Though it is probably not the purpose you would usually think. The main benefit, an emergency room doctor can provide his patients, is to give, “Assurance to the afflicted.” Meaning, the main benefit is psychological. Their mission is psychological. The emotion at work is fear/anxiety. (somebody should write a blog about emotions)

Physicians are not trained in psychology but, paradoxically, that is exactly the service these doctors provide. When somebody has something wrong with them, they basically want to hear a trained professional, in a white lab coat, tell them that they're not going to die. There's a lot of value to that service.

For the purposes of this post, I want to highlight the absolute beauty of this mission statement. It is completely actionable! Once these workers knew their job was to give assurance to the afflicted, they knew the exact steps they needed take. For example, they created a policy whereby everybody who comes in is now seen by a qualified person in less than a minute. That qualified person doesn't have to be a doctor. But it is someone affiliated with the hospital. Just knowing that people are aware of you, and your situation, is very reassuring. And though many people might argue the point, the truth is that 80% of the people who visit the emergency room are really looking for assurance.

With all that said, let me be very clear about one thing. Like many things, a beautiful mission statement is only obvious and simple in hindsight. The process of writing a mission statement can be very difficult and time consuming. The rub is that it will save you lots of time in the long run. That is the paradox. If you tell me you do not have enough time to create a mission statement, I would say you do not have enough time to not create a mission statement. Just sayin'.

Want LOTS of Hot Prospects?

This post is an overview of the book

Hot Prospects: The Proven Prospecting System to Ramp Up Your Sales Career

by Bill Good

Bill Good's bio: Mr. Good suggests that you ask any good financial planner or broker, “Do you know Bill Good?” He's confident they will say yes. That's because he has spent his professional career in financial services, and he created that industry's best prospecting system. With all the mergers that were occurring, Good knew he had to make his prospecting system more general. This would insure he could market it to all sales professionals. Mr. Good is the founder of Bill Good Marketing based in Draper, Utah. This book is actually an updated version of his 1997 book Prospecting Your Way to Sales Success. The '97 book is much more thorough which, in this case, means more difficult. I have implemented both books so, if you have any questions please let me know.

Key point: Good prospects are located, not created.

Bill Good confidently claims, “The major problem in sales is not really a problem with sales. It's a prospecting problem.” Good acknowledges, “Sales skills – the ability to create desire to have the benefits of your product – and closing skills – the ability to get people to make a decision about buying your product – are vital to success as a sales professional.” The benefit of Good's system is to, “Double your income or work half as much.” And Bill says, “You won't get a two-to-three-year double just because you have merely improved your selling skills.”

The main innovation that Mr. Good created was to divide the sales process into two steps. The first is prospecting and the second is selling. He says that the goal of the two steps are not the same, indeed they are opposite. While prospecting Good advises you to take a “No” quickly and easily and move on but in the selling phase you don't take “No” for an answer. While this might seem obvious it's not the predominate method being taught in sales.

The sales landscape has long been dominated by what Bill calls, “The Old Way.” This is the school that can be traced back to people like J. Douglas Edwards. In the old way you are counseled that, “All buyers are liars,” and, “Don't believe the prospect until he or she has said no three, six, twelve, or twenty-seven times,” and “Every no gets that you much closer to a yes.” The old way focuses on closing and overcoming objections, suggesting that there is a war between buyers and seller.

Good mentions that the old way, “Did serve its purpose at an earlier time in this nation's history. Undoubtedly it came of age in an era in which the old-time peddlers could not make more than one call a day or even in a week. And in the old days, if you didn't sell on that one call, you didn't eat.” But today we live in a country of 300 million people, any of whom could be contacted fairly easily. Overcoming objections and closing the prospect can be useful during the selling step, that is to say once you have found a prospect who truly needs what you're offering. However, such heavy-handed techniques are liking to backfire during the initial prospecting phase.

To fix this situation Bill offers what he calls The Good Way and its three basic assumptions. The first assumption is that your product or service is sold, not bought. Meaning, we're not talking about Frosted Flakes and things of that nature. The second assumption is that there are enough prospects in your market area who are interested and qualified today to make it worthwhile to look for them and ignore the rest. Meaning, if you sell movie scripts, Bill's system wouldn't work because you're only dealing with a handful of motion picture companies. The third assumption relies on the basic principle that not all buyers are liars. Meaning, it's best to operate by the Golden Rule and treat others how you want to be treated. If the person says they're not interested, believe them, say,”Thankyouverymuch,” and move on.

A minute ago I said that Good divided the sales process into two steps and, while that's true, it's only part of the story. Bill actually considers there to be three phases that all sales must go through before closing, they are: Lead Generation, Lead Development, and Sales. If you're paying attention you can tell that I didn't lie. Good has simply divided the prospecting step in two; generation and development. Bill understands that you can market to the people you know but that's not the focus of his book. His is a system of cold prospecting which can be done in-person or over the phone.

The first step is to contact someone and ask them a question to see if they're interested in what you're selling. When someone says yes you have generated a lead and they go in your pipeline. The lead developer is responsible for managing the pipeline and setting up appointments for the salesperson. If you're like most people you do all three task yourself. However, Good advises that you delegate the first two task and focus only on selling. To do this takes money. But, if you follow his system you should be able to generate enough income to hire help.

Good did time management studies and found that a salesperson is worth $1,000 an hour, in gross revenue, when they're selling. So, anything they do that distracts them for selling eats into that tremendous income. Eventually, if you want to make the big bucks, you will want hire a support team. Getting someone to generate and develop leads isn't that hard and it will allow you to stay in selling mode. However, that might not be possible right now so we'll assume you have to do it all yourself.

In the Good Way of prospecting Bill says we're just like the old gold prospectors that came to California in the middle of the 19^th century. Bill gives his definition of the term “prospecting” as: “the act of searching for something of value.” If the prospector wishes to find more gold, he has to sift through more and more dirt. Bill says, “Gold prospecting was and still is primarily the act of discarding what is not gold.” In much the same way, “In the Good Way of prospecting, the first thing you do is: disqualify nonbuyers.” Nonbuyers are the dirt and they are always more plentiful than buyers. As I'm sure you know, that's just the way it is.

To be a legitimate prospect a person must qualify for at least two of the following four attributes: interest, decision-making power, time, money. If they don't qualify they're out, just like the dirt. For this reason Bill says, “Good prospects are located, not created.”

Bill poses the following question, “What effect do you think you would have on people if, instead of attempting to keep talking to everyone you talk to, you tried to get rid of them?” As many a trainer will tell you, the prospect can smell neediness on your breath, and it makes them run for the hills. When you are the one looking to disqualify them, all of a sudden they feel less threatened and more comfortable with you.

When you initially contact someone and they say they're not interested, Good says you should believe them, thank them and move on to the next person. Bill writes, “Yes, I know it's possible to sell people who are initially not interested. But your time is much better spent letting those disinterested people go while you look for someone else who is interested.” If you don't rough people up, you can call back your list every couple months. This repetition will build familiarity and trust with your prospects and make initially resistant people more receptive.

As with many thing, when prospecting you want to know your objective. This means you want to know what kind of prospect you're looking for. In order to do that we must first define our prospects. Good talk of five types of prospects and he labels them A,B,C,D,E, in order of decreasing hotness..

First off you have A or the hot prospect. Hot prospects are defined as those willing to set an appointment with a salesperson. No appointment, no hot prospect. Bill counsels us that it is virtually impossible to create interest on the first call. Similarly hot prospects are few and far between, so it's better to shoot for someone a little further down on the temperature scale.

Next we have the B or the red cherry. “A red cherry is a prospect who is currently interested enough to receive literature from your firm, who has the funds now to purchase your product or service, and who is able to make a decision or is in the decision-making team. A red cherry is not currently interested enough to set an appointment. Many red cherries will, however, become hot prospects as long as you don't try to barge into their home or office before they are interested enough to start the sales process.” So we contact people, send information to those interested and follow-up. Hopefully you can see the need for lead develop.

A green cherry is classified, by Mr. Good, as C. A “greenie” has interest, decision-making power, and time but just not the money. According to Good the prospect needs to give you a date for when the funds will become available in order to be a true green cherry. But remember, Bill's coming from financial services so you might want to tweak that definition just a little bit. In my business, LegalShield, the invest is negligible, so I don't need to qualify people for the money. I'm looking for people that are interested in supplementing their income. So a greenie for me is someone who would like to have their own home-based business but is not sure when they'll have the time to pull the trigger. Hopefully that helps you define what a green cherry means in your business.

Then we have the D, what Bill calls the info lead. Good says, “An info lead is a prospect who requests information, but we know little else about this person.” Info leads are responding to ad or have dropped their card at your trade show booth or have registered at your website. Perhaps they have been referred to you or simply asked you to send them information during a cold call and wouldn’t allow you to further qualify them.

E is the pitch 'n miss. Good writes, “By pitch-and-miss I mostly mean a prospect likely spoken to several times and with whom you wanted to do business with.” This could be someone you have had multiply phone conversations with or someone who you did an in-person presentation for but who you weren't able to close. If you would like to do business with this person, get their permission to keep them on your mailing list and drip on them over time.

If the person doesn't fit a prospect category Good calls them a pit. “What do we do with pits? We return them to the list from which they came. I would not waste any time documenting their pitness. Just toss them back in the pond.” Bill says that salespeople spend the bulk of their prospecting time doing what he calls pit polishing. Good states, “It is virtually impossible to create interest on a single phone call or appointment. Pit polishing is the single biggest destroyer of salespeople that exists.” Strong words. Bill says to pick the cherries and toss out the pits. However, he does remind us that pits are seeds and sometimes they grow into cherry tress. So we leave them on the list and recycle the list as long as it's profitable.

If you've followed up to this point you understand these words from Mr. Good, “You are the rejector, not the rejectee.” We hear a lot about the importance of a PMA or positive mental attitude. Bill says, “Frankly, a positive attitude isn't really necessary to be a cherry picker. What you need is a 'don't care' attitude.” It's like you're on an assembly line and your job is to simply identify what each thing (prospect) is and put it in the proper box (category.)

“OK, Mr. Courtney,” you may ask, “who do we contact?” There's no single right answer to that question, only you can make that decision. There are, however, guidelines that can help. For in-person prospecting you obviously go to wherever people are, from a networking event to a mall and everywhere in between. In his system, Bill Good recommends contacting people with the phone. Of course, we live in the age of the Do Not Call registry so this isn't always so easy. It will be up to you to figure out how to navigate this terrain. One option is to canvas an area, perhaps door-to-door in a neighborhood, and generate leads that way. People that have responded to your initial offer give you permission to call them back and you should be in the clear to do so. Note: I am in no way giving legal advice, to check the current status of the Do Not Call list it's best to contact your attorney.

Because it's Good's way I will stick with explaining a methodology using the phone. To get a list of people to call you have many options. The most rudimentary way is to simply call people in the yellow pages. Another option is a database called Reference USA. This is a database of millions of homes and businesses and it's available for free at many libraries.

Good says that you want to be campaign driven. He defines a campaign as, “A series of steps or actions, taken in a given market, that produces predictable results.” Within a campaign we have different variables, all of which you have control over. They are: the list, the campaign objective, the style, the primary benefit, the offer, the message, the sound, and the numbers.

The list, as mentioned, is the people you plan to call, the neighborhoods you plan to walk, etc. Good says this is the most important variable and should be given proper time and attention.

The campaign objective is the degree of hotness you require of your prospects. This can be anything from a hot prospect to someone who is just willing to talk with you.

The style is, “The medium or combination of media used to produce the response.” To start Good says it's smart to do a phone/mail/phone campaign. This is where you call someone, make them an offer, mail desired information, and then callback to follow-up.

The primary benefit is, “The main advantage someone will enjoy if they buy your product.” As mentioned before the primary benefit of the Bill Good Marketing System is to double your income or work half as much. To create your primary benefit you must first know the difference between a benefit and a feature. People buy benefits not features.

Very simply, a feature is what the product is and a benefit is what the product does. In the case of BGMS the feature is some tricked out computer program that helps you manage your contacts. The benefit is to double your income or work half as much. I'll give you another example. One feature of a turbo charger is that it's something that you can put on your car that utilizes forced induction to inject extra air into the combustion chamber of your engine. The benefit is that it provides your car with extra power and acceleration when you need it but gives great gas mileage when power is not necessary. How about a third example? You could buy a Brembo brake kit for your car and it might have four-piston calipers and cross-drilled rotors, and those features would probably mean squat to you. What you're really interested in is the benefit of being able to safely stop your car whenever you want.

The offer is, “Something you propose to give the client in exchange for some time.” Free samples, free reports and other sales collateral are very common.

The message is, “What you actually say in your calls, ads, and written messages.” Ad copywriting is beyond the scope of this report. For instruction on how to create great copy you'll need to read this and other books. However, I can tell you this, what you say in your calls and message should be scripted. One thing all the big money makers in sales know is the importance of a script. “It's the new kid on the block who feels compelled to be unique and creative with each presentation,” says Bill. Unfortunately for them, that uniqueness and creativity is costing them a lot of money.

The sound is just that, the way the words come out of your mouth. Bill ranks your sound as second only to the list in importance. Mastering a script is one way to sound good.

The numbers are the easiest thing to control. This is simply the number of dials you make or the number of doors you knock on. You've probably heard it said that sales is a numbers game and it is. You can't know if a campaign works if you're making just a few calls. Bill always starts his diagnosis of a running campaign by asking how many dials per hour are being made. If the answer if something ridiculously low like five, he knows the campaign might indeed work, the numbers just need improvement. Good counsels us to keep the numbers above forty dials an hour for first time cold calls. If this leads to an average of a cherry and a half an hour you'll want to hold onto that list and keep using it. Another great benefit of focusing on 40+ dials an hour is that you'll sound better. By focusing on achieving your numbers goal, each hour, you won't sound so needy and desperate which will improve the results you get.

So, you may ask, how long does it take to find out if a person is a prospect? Good says, this is the most important question and the answer is, “Less than a minute.” He says the second most important question is, “How long does it take to find out if a particular campaign itself is a cherry or a pit?” And, to that, he says, “A lot less time than you think.” Bill informs us, “Over its life, there is only one way to evaluate a campaign: profitability.” So be sure and track your numbers.

Strong Like Bull

Peter Drucker once quipped, "What everybody knows is often wrong." My admiration for Drucker knows no limits. However, I do acknowledge he often said things that pissed people off. Many of Peter's ideas were quite contrarian, but the son-of-a-gun was usually right. It wasn't his intention to be a thorn in the side, he only wished to be accurate. But a thorn he often was. Such is usually the case when a person dares to speak the truth. Sometimes the emperor is, indeed, naked. Regardless of how that truth might make others feel.

In the early 1940's Peter was invited to studied the General Motors Corporation. Drucker spent two years inside GM and this led to the writing of his book Concept of the Corporation. His conclusions were so disturbing, the book was essentially banned by Alfred Sloan. What Peter said definitely ruffled some feathers. Of course, time has proven Drucker's prescriptions to be correct. But cognitive dissonance can be a real doozy.

At any rate, the point I am trying to make is that Drucker was correct. What everybody knows is often wrong. Let me give you one example, that is off topic. I won't get into it in this post but everyone knows that bacon and saturated fat are bad for you. At least on this subject, everyone's wrong. But I'll save that for another post.

Right now I want to talk about a different misconception that holds a lot of people back. It is a mistake that certainly has held me back. The problem goes as follows. In America, we're largely schooled to correct our weaknesses. That is to say, we often work (with much pride) to improve on our shortcomings. As it turns out, that's a pretty bad idea. A much better recommendation is to IMPROVE ON YOUR STRENGTHS.

Nobody is perfect and we all have weaknesses. The problem is we're really bad at improving in these areas. Improvement is much more likely in our areas of strength. And, improvement not only leads to better performance, it also leads to increased levels of satisfaction and happiness.

Don't get me wrong, if you have debilitating weaknesses you might need to address them. For example, I used to be an extremely shy person. I mean shy like I couldn't return a “Hello” when I was greeted by a stranger. Due to my line of work, being shy caused me LOTS of problems. So, I had to improve, on this particular weakness, because it had proven to be highly destructive. I'm still a little bit shy but it no longer holds me back.

Another example might be someone who is extremely rude. Relationships are the key to happiness and success. And, I'm sure I don't need to tell you how important good manners are. If you're a rude and angry person, you're going to have a very tough time getting to where you want to go. Of course the irony is that the rude person seldom takes responsibility for his or her behavior. Instead they tend to blame others and label them “small-minded” or “judgmental.” Listen, if your weakness is that people think you're really rude, you're going to need to become less of a jerk.

The above aside, let's now assume that you don't have any pathological shortcomings. That is to say, your weaknesses are relatively minor. As I've already mentioned, we all have LOTS of weaknesses. As long as they aren't holding you back, you should forget about them. You heard me right, go ahead and be imperfect. Trying to succeed by improving, and building on a weakness, is an exercise in futility. You are MUCH more likely to become happier, and more effective, while leveraging your strengths.

So, what are your strengths? Actually, that's a really tough question to answer. Drucker was a management consultant for something like 60 years. He worked with some of the greatest leaders this world has ever known. And Peter said that people were more often wrong about their strengths than they were right. Drucker prescribed one activity to help discover your strengths and weaknesses. He called it the Feedback Analysis. I won't go into too much right now because I'm actually going to stray from Drucker in this post. But, as a quick overview, Feedback Analysis is the discipline to write down your expectations, whenever you make a decision or create new plans. Then, 9-12 months later you look back at the expectations you wrote down and see how they compare with reality. Done repeatedly, Peter says Feedback Analysis will make your strengths and weaknesses very clear to you.

As I've said a million times, I am a big fan of Drucker. And I do recommend the feedback analysis. Very few people take the time to write down expectations, and feedback reality against those expectations. It's a big part of the reason people repeat the same mistakes over-and-over. So please do utilize feedback analysis. But right now, there's another resource I want to call to your attention.

If you read this blog, with any frequency, there's a good chance you've seen me make reference to a gentleman by the name of Martin Seligman (in fact I mentioned him two weeks ago in the post titled True Grit). If you've never once seen this blog before, you still may know who Seligman is. He's a really big deal. Marty is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the world's preeminent expert on flourishing. Something I wrote about in this post: PERMA-net-GLEE

As it turns out, Seligman has created an OUTSTANDING resource that is available to you and I. If you go to Marty's website you can take a free test that will tell you your strengths. I've taken the test multiple times and I can't recommend it highly enough.

I now try to remain focused on my areas of strength. And I forgive myself for my areas of weakness. Incidentally, the whole “self-esteem” movement had it wrong. Self-esteem doesn't really help, even though “everybody knows it does.” What really seems to be important is not self-esteem but self-compassion. Again, this is something I will save for another post.

For now all I will say is that Seligman's strengths information, and test, allowed me to be myself. It allowed me to forgive myself for my weaknesses (self-compassion). It allowed me to accept that no one is perfect. It helped me realize that perfection shouldn't even the real goal. Ok, enough with the chat, here's a link to Seligman's site: University of Pennsylvania

Please go there and register. It's free. Once you're registered, and logged in, the strengths test you want to take, is called, “VIA Survey of Character Strengths: Measures 24 Character Strengths.” It's under the section titled "Engagement Questionnaires." I promise you, this is time well spent.

Lastly, to be thorough, and complete, let me tell you of another option. Another option is that you can utilize the strengths test available through the Gallup organization. This post has gone long enough, so I won't explain the Gallup stuff. But you will see it in a future post. So stay tuned.

The Lizard Brain

Emotions. What are they? They're important, that's what they are! Have you heard heard of a gentleman by the name of Seth Godin? Godin possesses an excellent business mind and is the creator of a blog I only wish I had. You can find him here: Seth Godin's blog

One subject Seth often talks about is The Lizard Brain. The lizard brain is the primitive part of the brain called the amygdala. Only certain animals have an amygdala and it's where our emotions come from. It's located at the base of the skull, at the top of the brain stem. The reason I mention the geographical location is so you know the amygdala's proximity to the logical part of our brain. The logical part of the brain is located in the frontal lobes. As the name suggested, the frontal lobes are located at the front of the brain, just behind the forehead.

Now, I didn't give you brain topography to bore you. If we know where the brain structures are located, we have an easier time understanding why emotion trumps logic in so many instances. Being at the base of the brain, the amygdala (emotions) tends to control the body much more than the frontal lobes (logic). So, that's why, when we're in a highly emotional state, it's hard to think clearly.

But I began with the question, what are emotions. I won't get into some long discussion about what emotions are. But I think it is useful to be aware of where emotions come from. You already know that emotions come from the amygdala, but we need to take the next logical state. You see, the amygdala is a brain structure, so it produces thoughts. Yes, our emotions come from our thoughts. Sometimes it may not seem that way, because we tend to feel our emotions viscerally. However, one thing I can assure you is that our emotions come from our thoughts. This is something we can learn from cognitive psychology and people like Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, and Noam Chomsky.

The thing of it is, like many things, our emotional thoughts are products of habit. The way the amygdala responds, to any given stimulus, tends to be a matter of habit. Habits are automatic and they don't really require reflection. For this reason emotions seems to be automatic and we're not always aware that they are, indeed, a byproduct of our thoughts. So, the emotional brain is running an automatic script, just below conscious awareness. The good news is, we can tune into the emotional thoughts and fix them when necessary.

You see, the lizard brain basically has one job, and that's to keep us alive. Most life and death situations are very urgent and don't allow for much reflection. If a bull is charging at you, you don't have the time to contemplate friction and wind velocities. You just need to get the hell out of the way! So, the lizard brain is geared for immediate action and it isn't too concerned with accuracy. It's ok for the lizard brain to be wrong, as long as it keeps you alive. This is the concept of false positives. And it led to the coining of the phrase, “Evolution favors anxious genes.”

If the lizard brain detects danger, and makes you react, but there was no danger, no big deal. Better to have a false positive and react than to miss a signal and not react. Do you follow me? By missing a signal, and not reacting, it's much more likely that you will be harmed, perhaps killed. Conversely, being hyper-vigilant increases your odds of survival. There's only one problem here, humans no longer live in the wild.

You need to understand that the human brain was designed for a time when humans lived in the wild. This was a time when a person's life could be put in danger on a daily basis. So being hyper-vigilant was a adaptive strategy. But today, we live in very different times. Most Americans can go their entire lives without a serious threat to their existence. We no longer live among bears and mastodons or whatever. We live in track homes, with deadbolt locks on the doors. What's more, we have 911, ambulances, and emergency rooms, to help us, if we should get into trouble. God bless America! But the hard-wiring of the emotional brain doesn't know this. The amygdala is literally wired to be hyper-vigilant.

Knowing all this, I've developed a method of coping with my emotions. When I feel anxious, I assume I'm being overly sensitive. That is to say, hyper-vigilant. And, my assumption is usually correct. I say this because lots of people aren't aware that evolution favors anxious genes. Too many people put WAY too much trust in their emotions. Obviously we're talking about anxiety here but the lesson applies to other emotions as well.

I believe it is this hyper-vigilant lizard brain that causes all sorts of unfounded fears. The list is practically endless. You've probably heard the worries, which some people have, that the fluorine, in our tap water, is poisoning us. It's total bologna but people believe it because of the overly sensitive amygdala. (Incidentally, you may have seen the recent episode of Parks and Recreation when they spoofed this very topic. "H2 Flow" Funny bit.)

Let me give you another example. A little over a month ago we all had Halloween and many of us went Trick-or-Treating. I'm certain you've heard the one about razor blades in Halloween apples, right? A related tale talks of candy that has been tampered with, and poisoned. Well, here's a news flash, it ain't true! Sociology professor Joel Best studied every shred of evidence he could get his hands on. And there wasn't an ounce of data which confirmed that Halloween tricks had ever been tampered with.

There was, indeed, a child who had died after ingesting heroin on Halloween evening. But upon further review it was discovered that the child had simply gotten into his uncle's hidden stash. Professor Best looked hard, but couldn't find any evidence that Halloween candy had ever been tampered with. So why does the urban legend persist? I'm telling you it's because of the lizard brain. Anxieties mission is to keep you alive, not to get things correct. From the amygdala's perspective false positives are not a problem. But, from a social perspective, they're a big problem. If you think the government is trying to poison you, or your neighbors are putting razor blades in candy, then you're just paranoid. And paranoia IS a problem in society as large as ours.

So I encourage you. Next time you're feeling nervous allow yourself to consider the very real possibility that your amygdala is simply being unnecessarily sensitive. I'm willing to bet the assumption will prove to be correct. And, you'll feel much better :)

True Grit

One of the hottest researchers on the planet, right now, is a lady by the name of Angela Duckworth. If you don't know who Ms. Duckworth is don't fret, I'll give you the update. Angela is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Penn as it's called. Along with people like Martin Seligman and Aaron Beck, Penn is one of the top psychology schools in the world.

The character trait, or attribute, that Duckworth is known for is something called, “Grit.” Why is it called grit? Because that's what she named it! Why did she name it grit? She took the name from the movie True Grit. Duckworth defines grit as, “Passion and perseverance for long-term goals.” And what psychologists are finding is that grit is more important than talent when it comes to high achievement.

A lot of people think that talent trumps all. They think that the key to success and achievement is your native talents. The quintessential example being Tiger Woods. Many people thought Woods was the world's best golfer because of an inane talent which he possesses. But, if you know Tiger's story, you know this isn't true. The fact is, there was nobody who spent more time at the driving range. Woods practiced longer and harder than anyone else. He had grit. Psychologist Christine Carter points out, “Tiger Woods had been working on his golf game for 15 years when he became the youngest-ever winner of the US Amateur Championship.” Perhaps you've seen some of the photos of Woods as a youngster.

The person who seems to be Duckworth's favorite example of grit is the actor Will Smith. Angela is fond of the following quote from Mr. Smith, “The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things — you got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there’s two things: You’re getting off first, or I’m going to die. It’s really that simple…”

In physics we know that Distance = Rate x Time. To this, Duckworth saw a correlation and thought that distance was an apt metaphor for achievement. So, Angela has come up with a sister equation of her own. It is, Achievement = Skill x Effort. And Duckworth's mentor, Martin Seligman, says that if you truly understand Duckworth's equation, you'll see that ALL the leverage is in the effort. Because, not only does effort multiply any given skill, it simultaneously increases our skill level. That is to say, we get better through practice, which is certainly a form of effort.

This is all, very much, related to the concept of “Deliberate Practice.” A concept developed by Anders Ericsson at Florida State University. Ericsson discovered something he called the 10-Year Rule, which has subsequently become known as the 10,000 hour rule (Malcolm Gladwell talks about it in his book Outliers). Ericsson found that elite performers, in any field, have spent, on average, about 10 years developing their craft. More specifically, it was 10 years of deliberate practice that had taken them to the top.

Now, 10 years, or 10,000 hours sure seems like a long time, and it is. But there's no way around it. Nevertheless, you don't need to stress-out. What Professor Ericsson is talking about is Elite performance. You know, like Mozart, or Martha Graham. People that are the best in the world. And, in order to arrive at that destination, a person does need to persevere like crazy. Indeed, they need grit.

But you might not be interested in being the best in the world. You might be happy to "settle" for an above-average level of skill. Very well. The road map remains the same. The key is still deliberate practice. Perhaps "only" three year of practice instead of ten. But the thing is this. Deliberate practice is quite difficult. It isn't simply going through the motions.It's work. It's hard work. Because focused and disciplined practice is require, achieving your big goals requires grit more than anything else.

Yes, grit is very important. So naturally, the next question should probably be, how can we become more gritty? The short answer is, we don't know. But it's a problem that Duckworth is working on. As of now, the best idea Angela has heard, for building grit, is something called the Growth Mindset. The Growth Mindset was developed by Carol Dweck and it's something I wrote about in this post: Mindset

Going back to Duckworth's formula of Achievement = Skill x Effort, we know that it's largely about the effort. Duckworth says we can replace the word "effort" with “time on task.” Meaning, achievement is largely about how much time you're willing to devote to a task. And it isn't just the time we spend, but it's the amount of time we spend in deliberate practice. Because it's so difficult, most people can only get through a few hours of deliberate practice per day. Then we need to rest and recover. Which is why it's better to think of the 10-Year Rule rather than the 10,000 Hour Rule. This most certainly is not an invitation to become a work-a-holic and cram in those 10K hours. You need time to rest. So really, it's about consistent effort over time. As plain and mundane as that may sound, it's the real key to high achievement.

If you read my report on Carol Dweck's book you know that you can either "get-better" or "be-good." The idea of all this work (Duckworth + Ericsson + Dweck) should leave you with one prescription. Put as much time-on-task as possible with your focus on getting-better NOT on being-good. Then rest and do it all over again. If that sounds like too much work, you're always welcome to settle for mediocrity.