SEMINARS
April 2005 |
Welcome Richard
to April 05's SHACK ATTACK
from John Shackleton - inspirational speaker. This
newsletter is designed to provide you with inspirational
messages to keep you focused and motivated to achieve your
goals. Please let me know if you enjoyed it and if you can
think of any way in which I can improve it. My contact
details are on the bottom of the page.
Does Your Self Image
have a Virus?
I like to think of the self image as a bit of software we have in our brain which was designed to help us deal with the world around us. Unfortunately it sometimes gets damaged and, as software sometimes does, it develops a virus. Any information we receive about the world comes to us through our 5 senses. We use our senses to give us large amounts of information about what's going on around us and we then pass that to our brain to determine how we should react. I like to think of the self image as a kind of filter that we run this information through before we send it to our brain.
Imagine that while you were reading this article, without you knowing, someone passes you a note. You read the note and the information on it says Please call Fred Smith, he wants to talk to you about the ABC account . Our eyes see the words and pass these words along to the brain via the self image and that's where things can start to go wrong!
Lets assume that today has been one of those days. You didn't sleep well last night, so you slept through your alarm and as you rushed breakfast you shouted at the kids for no real reason. The traffic was hell and your usual parking space was taken. The work you had planned for today has to be shelved because someone has changed the goal posts AGAIN! Your boss ticked you off in front of everyone because things have just been so busy that you weren't able to get his project finished on time and to top it all, the computer system has been down all morning. Some of these things can easily make you feel inadequate, unable to cope and can conspire to attack your self image and in this case give it a virus.
As the words on the note pass through the self image filter, the virus adds its own comments to the note and so the brain receives the message as : Please call Fred Smith (Oh God I hate him he always makes me feel so inadequate. I know I've been here longer than he has but he seems so able to cope with everything and I can't). He wants to talk to you about the ABC account (I expect he wants to have a go at me because I seem to have upset the customer. I always seem to screw up the really important jobs).
Now all this information goes into your brain for analysis and then your brain will decide on the actions you'll take. What type of solution do you think your brain will come up with? Do you think that you might procrastinate a little? Might you have a few negative thoughts about Fred Smith and get a bit aggressive even before you pick up the phone? Do you think you might have started looking for excuses why you can't phone him right now? Will you be looking for someone else to blame for the customer being upset? Might you even start searching your memory for some negative information about Fred that you can throw back at him if he starts an argument?
The decisions that you make about your actions are tainted by the spin your self image puts on the input your brain receives. When we lose self belief and don't value ourselves, we may start to doubt our ability to handle stressful situations. We can assume that things are worse that they actually are and blame ourselves for what has gone wrong. If we do this then our brain will take the information it receives as the truth, it won't consider the judgements you've made as good or bad, right or wrong. It will take what your self image tells it and perform it's job which is to create a solution to the problem and help you to react accordingly. I think this example really highlights the importance of monitoring our self image and taking actions to build and develop it. If we can protect and enhance our self belief, particularly during times of high stress, then we are far more likely to react to incoming information appropriately.
So, in times of high stress we must keep working towards our objectives but protect our self image from developing that virus. We can achieve this by applying our own anti-virus solution to our self image, using some positive self talk. We can tell ourselves that we are good at what we do, we can cope with difficult situations, we aren't to blame for every problem that presents itself and we deserve the success that will come from all the quality action we are taking. If we spend some time talking ourselves up and reviewing positive evidence of our past successes, we can stop the virus from developing.Seeing is believing
If you've seen me speak recently you'll know that I usually tell a few stories from my life to illustrate the points I'm making. Many people ask me about those stories particularly the one about the lady who believed All men are bastards and the one that illustrates how fear controls us, I like to call it Adrenaline is brown . Well if you'd like to try those stories on other people you'll soon be able to hear them again and view a short video on my web site. The audio clips will be available in a couple of weeks time but to view the video click here >>
Thought for
the month:
When coaching people I sometimes find
that when we agree an action plan they say to me "I'll do my
best". I always paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill and reply
with "Doing your best isn't what counts, doing what is
necessary is what I'm interested in".
What's new:
I did some analysis recently and
discovered that more than 75% of companies that have used me
recently for a keynote speech, use me again to run further
presentations and workshops with their staff. With this in
mind I thought I'd let you all know 3 of the most popular
workshops I run and what they contain:
Getting exactly what you want. A programme that takes people through a goal setting process that ensures total commitment . How can we get people to be totally committed to their goals? By persuading them to commit to a consequence they will pay if they don't achieve their goal. If the goals and consequences are made public so that everyone knows what everyone else is aiming for and what is at stake, then we get commitment. This produces an environment where people support and encourage each other through the 10 week programme and keep each other honest. I also keep in touch with everyone throughout the programme to ensure they stay focused and motivated and which ensures that people get exactly what they want.
Common sense selling. Consider the following 3 statements: 1. People buy from people they like. 2. People will like us if we feed their hunger for self worth. 3. Everyone is hungry for greater self worth. Assuming these statements to be true, the simple solution to achieving better sales results is to help people to like themselves more. Many people would say that was common sense but in my experience as a customer, very few sales people do it, it's just not very common! This programme outlines the psychology behind building the self esteem of others and discusses the ways in which we can get everyone we meet to like themselves more and therefore give us a better chance of selling to them.
Coaching the sales team. The skills used by a sports coach can be used by any manager to help their staff to grow but many managers, especially people from a sales background, find it extremely difficult to do. This is because pure non-directional coaching is, in many ways, the complete opposite of selling, however it is probably the most powerful way to help others to develop their skills. This programme takes managers through the necessary attitudinal changes required to run a good coaching session and then outlines the 4 simple steps to help them to get more from their coaching sessions and therefore better results from their staff.
If you feel that one of these workshops would help in your organisation then please feel free to contact me and I can send you further details.
Once again, I'd
love to finish by wishing you luck - but I don't believe
in it,
so I'll wish you all the success your prepared to work
hard for.
| Web site:
www.JohnShack.com Telephone: +64 9 482 0798 Mobile: 021 366 669 Email: John@JohnShack.com |
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