By Bob Davies

There seems to be a mindset of disorder over the holidays. Perhaps you have been disciplined and ate clean, worked out, watched your caloric intake and did good deeds all the way up to now.

I is only natural for you to say forget it; I deserve it and then just bust out and binge. I’d say you can just about count on that happening unless you get M.A.D.

That’s right, get M.A.D. Make a Decision. It all starts with the intention. Who says that you’ve got to gain weight and that if you don’t you will be depriving yourself?

Reality is in the mind of the observer. You get to declare what your waist line is going to look like during and after the holidays. Here is how.

First, know your numbers. Take your body weight times ten and that’s how many calories you can have on a daily basis and you won’t lose or gain weight. There are 3500 calories in a pound of body fat. Divide that by 7 days and that number is 500. Subtract 500 from your body weight times ten and that’s what you will need to net out daily to lose one pound per week. Your net can be either calorie restriction or a combination of exercise.

That’s the left brain information. Now you need to right brain input. This is your attitude, your intentions, your why. You do need to identify your “why bother?” Why should you actually lose weight this holiday season? What is the benefit for doing so?

You might have a tough time identifying the Why. It doesn’t matter. You can tap into the latest in brain research and create a winning combination of right and left brain input through the use of one small intervention-behavioral contracting.

Try this and I know it will work for you. Keep your commitments to one week. Make a commitment to how many calories you will have, what types of food you will eat, how much you will allow yourself to divert, how much exercise you will do over the next seven days. Make specific and measureable statements of your promise. An example would be “I will exercise 4 times by Sunday”. Of course I assuming that you can specifically define what “exercise” means and that it is verifiable.

Next place a penalty, say a $100 fine if you don’t do what you said you would do. That’s right, for each promise you make place a $100 penalty if you don’t accomplish the commitment. Have someone else check in with you and be able to prove your results. Now you will be tapping into your genetic coding of avoiding the highest level of perceived pain. Your human instinct will compel you to avoid the pain of the consequence by taking the actions you committed to.

If you apply this and if you have someone who will hold you accountable and enforce the consequence then you will lose weight over the holidays.

I’ll hold you accountable. Send me an email at info@bobdavies.com and tell me what your weekly commitment is. I’ll keep you on track or it’s a $100 fine.

You have far more capability to create the events and circumstances in your life then you are aware of or are using. This is a start. 

Happy Holidays.

Coach Bob

That’s right. You have the choice to take on whatever mind-set you decide. You can be a victim and play into the hands of the authority or you can be the source of all that you experience. It’s just as easy to be at choice as it is to be a victim; it’s up to you.

What is a recession anyway? In macroeconomics, a recession is a decline in a country’s gross domestic product, or a negative real economic growth for two or more successive quarters of a year.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER, has a more general framework for declaring recessions.

“A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. A recession begins just after the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends as the economy reaches its trough.”

The prospect of a recession is the talk ofWashington. It’s also the talk of every major newspaper across the country. Look at the headlines from a recent paper,

“Home prices could fall 20% from 06 levels, S&P reported back in 2008.”

This report from Bloomberg News continues to state, “There is a growing economic consensus that U.S. home price declines will be larger than previously forecast and that the slump in the U.S. housing market will last longer then previously anticipated.

The real estate slump has taken its toll, with more than 31,000 jobs eliminated last year in the sub prime mortgage industry by California-based companies, including 12,000 positions at Countrywide financial in Calabasas, (and) 3,200 at New Century inIrvine.”

Let’s look to the experts, the authorities who should know.

Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve recently stated that the current financial crisis in theU.S.is likely to be judged as the most wrenching since the time that followed World War II.

Other noted authorities are sounding alarms, too. Harvard professor Martin Feldstein, former head of the National bureau of Economic Research, said recently that he believes the country is in a recession and it could be a severe one. He has also stated that the Fed needs to be more aggressive in responding to the credit crunch if a serious economic slump is to be averted.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that the housing correction will take time to work out and that it continues to cause the biggest downside risk to the economy.

For those who have predicted a “mild” slump the credit crisis that erupted last August and claimed its biggest victim with the forced sale of Bear Stearns Co. is raising doubts that this will be “mild”.

“Bear Stearns was a clear wake-up call. It resonates with everybody and highlights the severity of the stresses in the financial system, “ said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Monody’s Economy.com.

Lyle Gramley, a former Fed board member and now an economist with Stanford Financial Group said, “It is possible that we could be entering the worst recession of the post-World War II period. The threat is certainly there.”

This just in from “The Fiscal Times”;

‘If you think theU.S.economy is bad now, just wait for a few months.  Things are about to become absolutely nightmarish.  None of the long-term economic trends that are hollowing out our economy have been addressed and more bad economic news seems to come out virtually every single day.  Now there is constant talk of the “next recession” in the mainstream media.  But did the last recession ever truly end?  The number of good jobs continues to decline, more stores are closing, incomes continue to go down, credit card debt and student loan debt are soaring, the housing market resembles a corpse, the number of Americans living in poverty continues to rise and government debt is at unprecedented levels.  We are losing blood fast, and almost all of our leaders are either too corrupt or too incompetent to be able to do anything about it.  TheU.S.economy really and truly is about to go into the toilet, and if something is not done very quickly we are going to experience a complete and total economic disaster in this nation.

Americans have been promised over and over that this economic downturn is just “temporary” and that things will return to normal soon.  During this upcoming election cycle, the Democrats will swear that they have all the answers and that if we just elect them everything will be okay.  The Republicans will also swear that they have all the answers and that if we just elect them everything will be okay.

Well, both sides are lying.  The economic plans of both major political parties are a joke.  Neither of them can restore economic prosperity to this nation.

Our politicians could delay the coming economic collapse by borrowing gigantic piles of money and pumping all of that cash into the economy.  But stealing from our children and our grandchildren is not exactly sound economic policy.

Yes, theU.S.economy is in bad shape right now, but things are about to get even worse.  The long-term problems that are destroying our economy have not been fixed, and the leaks in our ship are going to continue to grow.

The following are 10 signs that theU.S.economy is about to go into the toilet….

#1 An increasing number of unemployed Americans have become so desperate that they have started to look for work overseas.  For example, the number of Americans that are submitting applications for temporary work visas in Canada has approximately doubled since 2008.  Other Americans are willing to learn foreign languages and travel to the other side of the world if that is what it takes to land a decent job.  Just

#2 When Barack Obama first took office, the official U.S. unemployment rate was 7.6 percent.  Today it is 9.1 percent.

#3 The number of Americans that are concerned that they will lose their jobs continues to hover near record highs.  According to Gallup, 30 percent of all employed Americans are worried that they will soon be laid off.

#4 The percentage of American men that are employed continues to plummet.  In July, only 63.5 percent of all men in theUnited States had a job.  Since 1948, that number has only been lower one time (63.3 percent in December 2009).

#5 Back in the 1950s, manufacturing accounted for about 28 percent of U.S. GDP.  Last year, it accounted for just 11.7 percent.  Meanwhile, manufacturing now accounts for about 25 percent of GDP in China and they now actually have more factory production each year than we do.  Sadly, Barack Obama is pushing for even more trade agreements that will send millions more of our jobs overseas.

#6 According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, after you add in all short-term discouraged workers, all long-term discouraged workers and all Americans that are working part-time because they cannot find full-time employment, the real unemployment rate should be approximately 23 percent.

#8 We are starting to see another huge wave of store closings and layoffs.  For example, the parent company of Payless stores has announced that it will be permanently closing 475 stores.  Borders is in the process of closing every single one of its 399 stores.  Also, Bank of America has just announced that it will be closing about 600 branches, and that could result in the loss of about 30,000 good jobs.

#9 Median household income has fallen for three years in a row.

#10 Americans are really starting to rack up consumer debt once again.  According to Time Magazine, U.S. consumers are on pace to collectively add 54 billion dollars in credit card debt in 2011.

So I say, why live? Why not just throw up your hands and surrender to being miserable, having financial difficulties, and blaming the politicians whose policies or lack of have put us in this no-win predicament?

Because it’s a lie! It’s a mind-set. It’s the same old submission to authority that has happened before. The recession is not real. It’s a perceptual choice.

It’s the lie of authority that creates what is called perceptual bias. In other words, the authority states something as being true, and then you and I are set up to see a world that establishes that truth.

This affects an area of the brain called the reticular activating system, which dictates what you pay attention to in your environment. The statements of authority effect your perception.

Many times in my live presentations I’ll have an audience member come up on stage after I ask “who’s afraid of snakes?” I’ll give this person an envelope with a picture of a rattlesnake on the front and ask them to open it. I’ll tell them to “trust me-it’s safe!” They open the envelope to a popping sound and movement and usually scream and jump away!

Then I show them what they actually responded to. It wasn’t real. It was their perception. They expected danger so the slightest evidence to support their expectations was exactly what they paid attention to. What they responded to was a wire in the shape of a U with a rubber band stretched across and a washer in the middle. The washer was wound tight so when the envelope was opened it unwound making a popping sound. This is called “perceptual bias.”

After the individual sees this I then wind it up again and ask them to open the envelope one more time. Of course, this time there is no scream. What was different? Their expectations were different. Their perception was different. Their mind-set is the only thing that was different.

What mind-set are the authorities creating? One of doom and gloom. You better not put that new flooring in your office right now because that’s non-essential spending and with today’s uncertain economy, the failing stock market, uncertain world status, rising gas prices, you better spend as little as possible.

You better not make that new hire or that acquisition to gain market share in this uncertain market. You better not implement that training program now. You better wait to live!

What about these authorities? Who are they any way? Are they right? If they are then how do you explain the realtor inNew Jersey, selling residential properties that is having the best year of her life? How do you explain the financial advisor and the estate planning, asset protection attorney who are having the greatest years ever in their businesses and are taking a 2011 $100,000 Mercedes for a test-drive as they upgrade their personal vehicle? How about the small business owner that just signed two major agreements with clients and is now buying a new Bonanza airplane as he redefines his wants versus needs? What about the doom and gloom?

Let’s take a closer look at how humans respond to authority. Up until about five years ago it was thought to be impossible to grow new nerve tissue, that is, until it was done! The mind-set that nerve tissue could not regenerate was destroyed when the protein ocumodulin was discovered to generate this process. Doing what was thought to be impossible destroyed the old mind-set.

Consider the now famous experiments of by Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram. This experiment measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure that instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. He described his findings in detail in his 1974 book, “Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.”

Obedience is a basic element in the structure of social life. Some system of authority is a requirement of all living. For many of us obedience is a deeply ingrained behavior tendency and overrides ethics, sympathy and common sense.

Milgram set up an experiment to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist.

“Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’ strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and with the subjects’ ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not.” (StanleyMilgram)

The basic experiment was to be a study of memory and learning. One participant was designated as the “teacher” and the other as the “learner”. The experimenter explains that the study is concerned with the effects of punishment on learning.

A list of paired words is read and whenever a mistake is made the teacher is to deliver electric shocks that escalate in degree. The shocks consisted of levers labeled from slight shock, moderate, strong, very strong, all the way up to severe and two levers labeled simply XXX.

What the teacher didn’t know was that the learner was an actor, never receiving any shocks at all. This experiment was focused on the teacher, not the learner.

With each incorrect response the teacher was instructed to execute a higher voltage, a more painful shock. As the actor (learner) would appropriately scream in agony, the experimenter simply gave the teacher one of the following responses;

1. Please continue with the next higher shock level.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice, you must go on.

The prediction was that virtually all of the subjects would refuse to obey the experimenter as the learner was in extreme pain. They expected only 4% would reach the level of 300 volts.

What they found however was quite the opposite. Dr. Thomas Blass of the University of Maryland Baltimore County performed a meta-analysis on the results of repeated performances of the experiment. He fount that the percentage of participants who are prepared to inflict fatal voltages remains remarkably constant, 61-66% regardless of time or place.

Professor Milgram elaborated two theories explaining the results. The first is the theory of conformism describing the relationship between the group of reference and the individual person. A subject, who has neither ability nor expertise to make decisions, especially in a crisis, will leave decision making to the group and its hierarchy. The group is the person’s behavioral model. This is also referred to as “group think”.

The second is the agentic state theory, wherein, per Milgram, the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person’s wishes, and he therefore no longer sees himself as responsible for his actions. Once this critical shift of mind-set has occurred in the person, all of the essential features of obedience follow.

What you see here is the common theme that obedience to an authority is anchored in forfeiting your responsibility over to that person. You may not be an expert on the economy so you forfeit that over to authorities and then you behave accordingly.

That’s the key here. You can participate and be a part of an ongoing recession in 2011 and obey the authorities, or you can take responsibility for your choices, for your actions and take the necessary steps to generate the successes that you demand for yourself now and in the future. Or, you can of course suffer because after all, it’s a recession! Reality is in the mind of the observer. What will you pay attention to in 2011-12? It’s your choice.

Bob Davies

High Performance Training, Inc.

Bob Davies, M.Ed. Psychology, B.S. Health, MCC Master Certified Coach

20992 Ashley Lane,Lake Forest,CA92630-5865

949-830-9192 fax 949-830-9492 Email: Info@bobdavies.com Website: www.Bobdavies.com On-Line coaching  www.bobdaviescoaching.com

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Permission granted to publish this article with Resource information included: Bob Davies High Performance Training, Inc. 949-830-9192 info@bobdavies.com www.bobdavies.com  Permission also granted to edit this article.

By Bob Davies 

It’s a chilled October day at the stadium and it’s perfect for this rivalry game. The home team is trailing 7-3 and there’s three seconds left in the game. They have the ball on the two yard line and it’s 4^th and goal. This is the last play of the game. If the defense succeeds at their goal line stand they will win. If the offense can punch it in then they will win. This is it, last play, winner take all.

 The reticular activating system of the brain is on fire. It is sending signals to flood the basal ganglia and the limbic area of the brain and generates a “flight or fight” physiology. Nor-epinephrine is released and the pupils are dilated to improve vision. The heart pumps faster, increasing blood pressure to accelerate the delivery of oxygen. Breathing increases as the lungs take in more oxygen. The sweat glands are working to cool the body. The adrenal glands secrete cortisone, blood moves from the extremities to your major muscle groups, digestion stops, you are ready to go. There is a narrow focus of attention as each member of the each team will have maximum effort or best effort on this last play.  

 This is the goal line stand. Best effort from everyone. Why doesn’t each player on each team put forth this type of effort on every play? Is this possible? The answer is yes. It just takes a certain type of brain input to generate the goal line stand physiology and effort. If you can do it once, you can do it every play. It takes focus.

Let me say this a different way. My son Tyler is taking tennis lessons. He’s seven years old. He’s learning good motor skill habits at a young age. Many times he’ll swing with correct technique coming from low to high but he’ll miss the ball. His swing and follow through were correct but he just missed the ball. He’ll get it.

During one lesson he hit a nearly perfect backhand. What a sweet and smooth almost effortless stroke with the ball going deep into the court, a winner! He had a neurological firing to produce that muscular movement resulting in the perfect shot. If he can do it once it means that he is capable of duplicating it again. If he can keep firing those same neurons they will wire together and he will have a pattern or a habit. If the athletes can have supreme effort on one play then they can have it on every plan.

I’d like to think that I’m in the speaking, training and coaching business. The truth is I’m in the marketing business. Without marketing a terrible thing happens, nothing! The other day I made 85 calls, 48 contacts, 53 actual dials and 32 emails. That’s an A rated activity day. If I can do that level of activity one day, then I can do it every day.

How about you? What is your level of effort every day? Do you want to make more money? I’ll assume yes. Then see more people. The insurance folks have a saying, Seymour Sellmore. If you see more people you will sell more people. Every industry has their numbers. The insurance folks say that you need to make 100 calls to get 10 prospects from which you will set appointments with 3 and sell 1.

At one time the pressure washer industry had this ratio;

See 15 people a day to get one demo. Make 4 demos and you’ll have one sale with the national average being $4000 per machine sold. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of these numbers but I’ll bet you could get them from CETA’s best practice program.

If you want to make more money you need to put more energy into the system and see more people. The receipt is to be very precisely prepared, well researched meaning know who uses pressure washing equipment in your territory, map out each day for efficiency and then simply execute with passion. You’ll need to have excellent measurement and tracking. You’ve got to know the score. You can’t control the mind of the marketplace but you can control your own efforts. Let me put it this way, you must control your own efforts.

Let’s go quantum!

Using two villages on opposite sides ofGenevaas their lab, Swiss physicists have taken one of the strangest phenomena of quantum physics to new heights. They sent a pair of photons along fiber optic cables, one to each village. When they measured one photon upon its arrival, the other changed instantaneously-though it was 11 miles away. This strange relationship is called quantum entanglement.

Quantum mechanics is the branch of physics that governs the very small. Your thoughts are in the quantum realm. Classical physics governs the large, the movement of the planets, and the effects of gravity, action-reaction, cause and effect.

This means that you must operate within the probabilities of both branches of physics. You must obey action-reaction, cause and effect by having enough effort and energy put into the system (classical physics) and you must obey the laws of the quantum world by having thoughts of possibilities and success. Together, you can not be stopped. Success is a certainty.

The quantum world says that everything from an inanimate object such as wood to a live entity such as man is all made of the same thing, energy. In fact Einstein’s famous equation, E=MC² states that energy (effort) and matter (results=sales) are the same. It’s like water and ice, two different states of the same thing. Everything is energy. Everything is entangled. Everything and every one is interrelated.

What you seek is also seeking you. If you want more sales then go out there and execute your plan, see more people and you too will act at a distance. You will become entangled and have an impact on another meaning you have the solution that someone is seeking. It’s all about you, your effort, your preparation, your attitude and your consistency.

Any questions?

Coach Bob

Bob Davies, B.S. Health, M.Ed. Psychology is a speaker, author, trainer and coach. His principles of performance excellence are scientifically based and guarantee results. He is a corporate CEO coach and works with individuals  to help them to coach for best effort every day.

www.bobdavies.com 866-262-3284 info@bobdavies.com Author of the book, “The 1.2% Factor-How the Small Change of Accountability Leads to Large Results!”

Imagine there is a two foot wide by twenty foot long board on the ground and I place a $100 at the end and ask you to walk across to the other side. Would you do it? Most people would answer yes.

 What are you paying attention to? You are focusing on the desired result. You are focusing on successfully reaching your goal and getting the money. This is a positive “moving towards” strategy.

 Now imagine that I take that same plank of wood and place it twenty stories high between two buildings. I tell you that this is a no wind day, gravity is not a factor and you have just as much of a chance to be successful walking across that board twenty stories high as you had on the ground. Would you do it? Most people answer NO.

What’s different this time? It’s all about how it occurs to you. Its how you observe this and the “story” you tell yourself about it. Your focus is different. At twenty stories high now your focus is on failure. You have a “moving away” strategy. Your thoughts are consumed with “I might fall off the board and die”.

Manifestation will occur either way. Your thoughts are electrical to chemical processes and the chemicals produced, neural transmitters have a charge and like attracts like so you manifest into reality that which you are dwelling on. You make it happen either positive or negative.

If you could change your observation, how this occurs to you, then you could change your outcome. It has to do with your WHY. What would need to be on the other end of that board for you to shift your focus from failure to success? It certainly is not the $100. What if it was one million dollars? For some that amount would create the shift but for most the answer still would be NO.

What if it was your family on the other side and the only way you could save them would be to cross that board? Would you do it then? For most that is the perceptual tipping point. No longer are you concerned with your own safety. There is a bigger purpose or WHY. Once you find your WHY you will also experience a shift in what you pay attention to.

Lets’ apply this to a common theme that many people can identify with, weight control. Doctors can talk about the obesity epidemic, the negative health effects of being over weight such as cardio vascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and a host of other life threatening circumstances all attributed to being overweight. Doctors can tell you that you’re going to die if you don’t lose weight and this still will not cause the perceptual shift for most people.

This has to do with immediate versus delayed gratification. You can overeat today, skip exercise today and tomorrow you will still be alive. Since the negative impact is an accumulative effect over a long period of time it’s just too easy to “start” later. It’s the starting that stops most people.”

You need to develop your WHY that is linked to right now, the present. I’ll use myself as an example. This may sound strange but it will illustrate my point.

For a long time I wanted to lose weight. It was a good idea but the problem was that I wasn’t heavy enough to make it much of a big deal. I just wanted to lose about 40 pounds to look and feel better. I was always exercising and my food choices were outstanding, low fat, high fiber but I just ate too much. Grilled chicken and non fat cottage cheese are good choices but four chicken breasts and an entire container of cottage cheese at about a thousand calories is just too much.

I’ve got to have my WHY that is related to the present. I found it with skydiving. I’m a pilot and skydiver. I fly out to the drop zone twice a month to make a few jumps. I jump with a group of people ranging from four to twenty. This is called formation skydiving. The most exciting position to have is to be the last one out of the plane and “dive” to the base formation that has formed in advance. You really are flying like an eagle and it’s a blast.

However, when I was heavy I would fall too fast and “go low” on the formation. This means that I was not able to slow my fall rate and I would just go right on by the rest of the group. This is a bad thing.

This became my WHY that was linked to the present. Right now I see the impact of being heavy creating a result that I didn’t like. When I lost my weight it all changed. At two hundred pounds I can dive on any skydive and be able to adjust my fall rate to match that of the slower falling group. At two hundred and ten I am guaranteed to go low.

This has been the incentive that I needed to keep the weight off. No matter what your goal is there needs to be a focus of the benefit for right now. Behavior is all about cost versus benefit, time delay versus immediate gratification.

If you can’t find your why you can use behavioral contracting to get yourself to comply with the behavior for the short term, this week. Make a specific commitment for the next seven days and designate a severe consequence for non performance. If it is more painful then the pain of the activity then this will work to shift your attention and get you to take the action over the next seven days. This will at least buy you some time to figure out your WHY!

I’m always only an email away from accountability, info@bobdavies.com plus a hundred bucks if you don’t do what you said you would do!

High Performance Training, Inc.Bob Davies, M.Ed. Psychology, Springfield College, B.S. Health, Rutgers University MCC Master Certified Coach International Coach Federation

20992 Ashley Lane,Lake Forest,CA92630-5865

949-830-9192 fax 949-830-9492 Email: Info@bobdavies.com Website: www.Bobdavies.com On-Line coaching  www.bobdaviescoaching.com

To view a 7-minute video of a Bob Davies keynote presentation go to:
http://www.bobdavies.com

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Bob Davies, named in the top 100 greatest minds of personal development world-wide by Excellence Magazine.

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Permission granted to publish this article with Resource information included: Bob Davies High Performance Training, Inc. 949-830-9192info@bobdavies.comwww.bobdavies.com  Permission also granted to edit this article.

Bob Davies

High Performance Training, Inc.

20992 Ashley Lane

Lake Forest, Ca 92630

Want to motivate yourself and others? Check this out!

Three Atlanta area researchers reported evidence confirming that there is only a 1.2% difference in the genetic coding of the genes of chimps and humans. However, there are significant differences. In any particular part of the brain only about 10% of our gene activity differs from those of chimpanzees according to researcher Katie Pollard, an associate professor with the UCSF Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics. The difference in the molecular evolution between humans and chimps is very small, but significant. “Only one in 100 base pairs is different” according to the research by Pollard and others.

This likeness presents opportunities to learn more about humans and diseases. In particular, chimps are immune to AIDS and Malaria. There are many examples of the small creating outcomes that are big. At 211 degrees water is hot. At 212 degrees, it boils. Vince Lomabardi said “inches make a champion”. Thomas Edison said “many of life’s failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Yes it’s the little things that make the difference. I can still remember as a college football coach drilling the little things, like keeping your shirt tucked in, stance and starts, tackling drills, first step drills, quick hand and quick feet drills. All these little things accumulate to give the ever so slight edge that enabled an athlete to just barely get off of a block and make a tackle.

So what does this mean for corporate leadership? It has a lot to do with coaching and mentoring. If you are committed to helping others with personal development then I want you to realize that there is only one small change that you need to make a very big difference. That is the small change of accountability.

If the brain was connected to a functional magnetic reasoning machine, fMRI, you would actually see what areas of the brain are using energy during particular tasks. Show a person a picture and the visual area lights up. Play some music and the auditory cortex is active. When someone makes a commitment the outer cortex is activated and then an area of the brain referred to as the limbic area becomes active. This means that the individual has declared their action and now the brain is searching for emotional memories of danger associated with that action that are life threatening. This is a subconscious process.

The subconscious brain fires 400 times faster than the conscious thinking mind. The individual commits to making so many prospecting calls per day. The brain sends a signal from the cortex to the amygdale, a structure in the limbic area. The amygdale sends a signal to the hippocampus searching for stored memories of danger, like rejection. This is called a cortical limbic loop and the signal comes back to the conscious mind first through your physiology, a knot in your stomach and then through your thoughts about how busy you are and you just don’t have time to prospect.

You need to hijack this circuit. You do that through a behavioral contract. The behavioral contract consists of the check in and accountability. Accountability has two parts, the check in and the enforceable consequence for non performance. The driving force here is genetic coding. We are all coded to avoid the highest level of perceived pain. This is not an option. This is an instinct. You will avoid the highest level of perceived pain, period. The key is to make this avoidance the actual execution of the desired activity.

Here is how you do it.

Let’s say you make a commitment to exercise five times this week. It’s Sunday, your commitments are due this evening and you’ve only worked out four times. You don’t feel like going to the gym, you’re tired, you’ve worked hard all week and all you want to do is just relax.

Your brain searches and finds how painful and inconvenient exercise is. Before you avoid it however, your brain continues to verify that this indeed is the highest level of pain and it comes to your behavioral contract. Lets’ say you contracted for five workouts this week or you would pay a fine of $100. Now your brain has something to be in reference to. What is more painful, going to the gym or paying $100? Most likely you will hold the fine as more painful and away you go to the gym. You have just witnessed a behavioral contract in action.

You are still the very same genetic avoidance machine that you are genetically coded to be. You have just manipulated the gene expression with your contract. Apply this with one small action this week and watch what happens.

Use this with another person and you will be the business mentor that you’ve always wanted to be! I’ll bet that you both do what you said you would do!

High Performance Training, Inc. Bob Davies, M.Ed. Psychology, Springfield College, B.S. Health, Rutgers University MCC Master Certified Coach International Coach Federation 20992 Ashley Lane, Lake Forest, CA 92630-5865 949-830-9192 fax 949-830-9492 Email: Info@bobdavies.com Website: www.Bobdavies.com On-Line coaching www.bobdaviescoaching.com To view a 7-minute video of a Bob Davies keynote presentation go to: http://www.bobdavies.com To hear a 45-minute audio interview of Bob Davies go to: http://www.bobdavies.com NEW To view a 3:15 minute video of Bob discussing the limits of human perception, observations and the “gorilla” click here: http://www.bobdavies.com To view You Tube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/bobdavies7 Bob Davies, named in the top 100 greatest minds of personal development world-wide by Excellence Magazine. ========================================================== Permission granted to publish this article with Resource information included: Bob Davies High Performance Training, Inc. 949-830-9192 info@bobdavies.com www.bobdavies.com Permission also granted to edit this article. Bob Davies High Performance Training, Inc. 20992 Ashley Lane Lake Forest, Ca 92630

By Bob Davies

Think back to a time in your life when you gave everything you had to the accomplishing of a goal and felt absolutely exhausted and satisfied, even exhilarated. Think of the camaraderie between all on your team.

How far back did you have to go? I’ll bet that for a lot of people this brought them back to some type of athletic event as a participant. It did for me. I think back to my time as a football coach at Cal State Fullerton.

 Our staff and team had several things in common. First, we faced adversity. It was us, the little guys from a small school versus the big guys from the big conferences with the big budges and facilities. It became anUSversus THEM scenario.

 I can remember all of the hard work, time and effort that we all gave to our program. I can also remember the love and tight inclusive camaraderie between the players and staff. This is the result of an “all in” effort towards the accomplishment of a shared goal.

You just don’t find this in businesses today. Somehow people have become independent, out for themselves without regard for the total picture. Businesses have evolved to an environment where theUSversus THEM might be the employees versus management rather than the company versus the outside elements.

Whatever happened to maximum effort in a “whatever it takes” commitment? Whatever happened to an individual’s intense desire to grow, improve and learn? Benjamin Barber, an eminent sociologist, once said, “I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures…I divide the world into learners and nonlearners.”

What on earth would make someone lose their intense desire to compete, to grow, to have passion for their life? Everyone is born with an intense drive to learn and improve. Infants are examples of this. They are stretching their boundaries daily. They never decide that learning to walk and talk is just too hard and not worth the effort.

Babies don’t worry about making mistakes or humiliating themselves. They walk, they fall, they get up. They just keep on keeping on.

What could put an end to this exuberant passion for learning and improvement? It’s language. As soon as children become able to evaluate themselves and to express themselves with language then the decline begins. It’s the stories we tell ourselves that either creates or denies access to behavior.

I’m writing this on the 4^th of July weekend. The 4^th is an American celebration of freedom. This freedom we many times take for granted. The past few months have accentuated the difference between our democracy and every other form of governance.

Our police don’t shoot protesters. Our news reporters don’t disappear when they are critical of the current administration. Our elections, scandal free for the most part, reflect the true will of the people. In short, we are free. 

Every person has the opportunity to create their own mindset, their own set of circumstances and then apply enough energy to turn their desires into reality. Our economy is not perfect and never will be. There have always been cycles of the ups and downs. However, in the end, the freedom to make choices in business, the freedom to reinvent, change direction, whatever it takes, has always gotten us through. Not only that, times like these have made our country stronger.

Einstein gave us the answer to our problems when he declared E equals MC squared. This means that if you put enough energy into the system then you will create mass or in this case business results.

Prior to Einstein Charles Darwin made a significant contribution when he said that nature selects those organisms that are able to adapt to changes in a way that favors survival.

What adaptations do you need to make? Do you need to learn and sell a new product? Do you need to develop relationships with other experts and serve each others clients? Do you need to upgrade your education, certifications and licensing? What adaptations to the changing marketplace do you need to make?

If you can work your way out of a problem then you don’t have a problem. You have the freedom to control your focus, your preparation and your effort. Or, you can give that freedom away to others and allow them to dictate your state of mind for you.

I hope you take the time in your celebration of the Fourth of July to remember that at your business, your home, at the ballot box, you are free to make choices. There are not many in the world who can say that!

High Performance Training, Inc. Bob Davies, M.Ed. Psychology, Springfield College, B.S. Health, Rutgers University MCC Master Certified Coach International Coach Federation 

20992 Ashley Lane,Lake Forest,CA92630-5865

949-830-9192 fax 949-830-9492 Email: Info@bobdavies.com Website: www.Bobdavies.com On-Line coaching  www.bobdaviescoaching.com

To view a 7-minute video of a Bob Davies keynote presentation go to:
http://www.bobdavies.com

To hear a 45-minute audio interview of Bob Davies go to:
http://www.bobdavies.com

NEW To view a 3:15 minute video of Bob discussing the  limits of human perception, observations and the “gorilla” click here:
http://www.bobdavies.com

To view You Tube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/bobdavies7

Bob Davies, named in the top 100 greatest minds of personal development world-wide by Excellence Magazine.

==========================================================

Permission granted to publish this article with Resource information included: Bob Davies High Performance Training, Inc. 949-830-9192 info@bobdavies.com www.bobdavies.com  Permission also granted to edit this article.

Bob Davies

High Performance Training, Inc.

20992 Ashley Lane

Lake Forest, Ca 92630

By Bob Davies, M.Ed.
Psychology, B.S. Health

www.bobdavies.com

A friend
of mine knows that I am writing a new book on weight control. In fact, he is
creating the cover. He sent me an article titled, “MSG, a Slow Poison” which is
about MSG causing obesity and he wanted to know my opinion about the article.

Here are
some of the article highlights.

The food
additive MSG (Mono-Sodium Glutamate) is a slow poison. MSG hides behind 25 or more names, such as
Natural Flavoring.” MSG is even in your favorite coffee from Tim Horton’s and Starbucks
coffee shops!

I wondered
if there could be an actual chemical causing the massive

obesity
epidemic, and so did a friend of mine, John Erb. He was a research assistant at the University of Waterloo
in Ontario, Canada, and spent years working for the government. He
made an amazing discovery while going through scientific journals for a book he was writing
called “The Slow Poisoning
of America”.

In hundreds
of studies around the world, scientists were creating

obese mice
and rats to use in diet or diabetes test studies. No strain of

rat or mice
is naturally obese, so scientists have to create them. They

make these
creatures morbidly obese by injecting them with MSG when they are first born.

The MSG
triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates, causing

rats (and
perhaps humans) to become obese. They even have a name for the fat rodents they create:
“MSG-Treated Rats.”

When I
heard this, I was shocked. I went into my kitchen and checked

the
cupboards and the refrigerator. MSG was in everything – the Campbell’s soups,
the Hostess Doritos, the Lays flavored potato chips, Top Ramen, Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper,
Heinz canned gravy, Swanson frozen prepared meals, and Kraft salad dressings, especially the
“healthy low-fat” ones.

The items
that didn’t have MSG marked on the product label had

something
called “Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein,” which is just another name
for Monosodium Glutamate.

It was
shocking to see just how many of the foods we feed our children

everyday
are filled with this stuff. MSG is hidden under many different

names in
order to fool those who read the ingredient list, so that they

don’t catch
on. (Other names for MSG are “Accent, “Aginomoto,” “Natural
Meat Tenderizer,” etc.)

But it
didn’t stop there….however I will. The article continued to say that the food
manufacturers are aware of the scientifically proven addictive properties of
MSG and in fact that is one of the reasons that they use this ingredient, to
get people addicted to their product.

This blog is
not about the ill effects of MSG. This blog is about accountability. The
information about MSG supports a person going victim and blaming food
manufacturers for their obesity.

My response
to my friend was the MSG is not the cause of obesity. YOU are! Obesity is a
behavioral issue. It’s about your habits, how much food you eat and whether you
exercise or not.

I am not
making a statement about MSG. My statement is about taking full responsibility
for the results in your life. You are the cause of all that you experience, not
Mac Donalds or food manufacturers.

Now I’m not
saying that this should be allowed to continue. Of course we need to have
protection for our food supply and to ensure compliance with healthy
ingredients. However,

W T F

Yes, I said
it. This doesn’t stand for Why the Face or Where’s the Food. It stands for
“What’s the Focus?”

If the
focus is on blaming food manufacturers, or fast food chains, or the media then
it’s not likely that you are going to take full responsibility for the results
that you are creating in your health.

I’d
recommend that you apply W T F to every aspect of your life. What is your focus
in your business? Are you focusing on the economy, the scandals and frauds that
are happening, the problems in Europe? Are you
focusing on world events, interest rates, the real estate market, inflation,
the job market, consumer buying or any other “indicators”?

The focus
needs to be on the most productive “required daily activities” that you need to
be doing to give you the highest probability of predicted results, period.

When I
asked the attendees from an elite level conference that I recently presented
to, the International Forum, now Forum 400, what their biggest challenge was
they said seeing enough people. That’s what they were focused on!

At the end
of your day ask yourself the question, “what did I focus on for most of the
day?” If the answer is your most productive actions then the results are a
certainty.

Don’t get
seduced into being a victim and get sidetracked in terms of what you are paying
attention to. Take full responsibility for the results in your life. Take full
responsibility for what you pay attention to on a moment by moment basis. Your
family and the families of your clients will thank you!

Coach Bob
Davies

www.bobdavies.com

Would it be of value to you to learn how to influence your perception in such a way that your many disappointments just aren’t as severe as they may possibly be? For most the answer is yes.

Noted biologist, Benjamin Lipton, states that “reality is in the mind of the observer”.  This means that you have the choice to decide what meaning you will give to everything that happens to you.

 You can make up any “story” about what happens. Quantum theory supports this stating that reality exists only in states of potential outcomes, possibilities, and that it is up to you to select the outcome interpretation of your choice. Once that selection is made all other possibilities cease to exist.

Consider the following.

 John has a successful retirement planning business. He has an in-house marketing department, a client services department, administrative staff, an in-house bookkeeper and a receptionist. John has five additional advisors working in his organization. They appreciate the fact that that their clients are the firms clients and they sign non-compete and non disclosure agreements.

Fast forward two years later. Two of the advisors leave the firm and take almost all of their clients with them. John is devastated and initiates a law suit.

John is more than devastated. He is mad! He has resentment and wants revenge! John is doing what I call “Double Duty”. Not only have the facts occurred, two advisors left the firm and breached their agreement by illegally taking clients and assets with them, and he is also upset about it.

John is suffering from the three R’s, Resentment, Resistance, Revenge. This will impact his health as his body sees this as real threat to his well being and creates the release of peptides and destructive hormones that take a heavy toll on his physiology. John needs to let go!

This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t continue to do what he needs to do for his lawsuit and for the possibility of communicating with his clients in the hopes of keeping them. What it means is that he doesn’t allow this to upset him at the same time.

Here is how you gain control of your physiology and your thoughts. The first step is to realize that whatever happens to you is neutral. It has no meaning. It is your internal dialogue, your own thinking,  that gives meaning to everything that happens to you.

You can assign any type of meaning to anything that happens to you. What are some possible interpretations that John can have related to his advisors leaving? Try these positive meanings:

1. This is a lesson to me about developing a relationship with my advisors and with the clients that may have prevented this from happening in the first place.
2. These clients were never loyal to the firm and although I’m sorry to see them leave I realize that life will be easier without them. Plus they were never a source of referrals anyway.
3. This will be the motivation that I need to replace these assets and further grow my business.

Here are some negative interpretations:

1. How dare these advisors leave me and steal my clients. They will pay for this.
2. I’ll call every client and tell them that this was an illegal action and that they are the firms clients and insist that they stay.
3. This is terrible horrible and awful and I’m calling my broker dealer.

All of these are possible realities waiting for you to make a selection. Which set of meanings best serves you?

 Here is a model for you to use for future disappointments. Visualize three circles. Circle one, something happens.

This is neutral. There is no meaning in whatever happens.

You are stuck in traffic-it doesn’t mean anything until you say so.

Someone lies to you-it doesn’t mean anything until you say so.

Someone doesn’t do what they said they would do- it doesn’t mean anything until you say so.

A large case you are working on gets stopped because one of the clients’ other advisors doesn’t understand how you are using a large premium financed insurance policy inside of an off shore super freeze trust to protect an estate from tax liability- it doesn’t mean anything until you say so.

You have a teacher conference for your son or daughter in school and the teacher is rude- it doesn’t mean anything until you say so.

You travel cross country for a company conference that gets cancelled while you are in the air due to a bad weather forecast- it doesn’t mean anything until you say so.

The list can go on and on. Circle one is just the facts. Something happened. Circle two is where you make up a story where you give meaning to the facts. Circle three is where you live your life as if your meaning was true. If this leads to the three R’s, the I say change your story.

You live in a world where multiple realities exist so it is up to you to take responsibility for the story you make up about what the facts mean. The facts are that two advisors leave your company and take their clients with them. That’s it. It is not terrible, horrible and awful. It just is.

The fact is that you are in traffic. Period! You are going to be late for an appointment, you hate wasting time, this is terrible is all a conversation that you are making up that does nothing for you but make you upset.

Here is a tough love core principle: “I am the source of all that I experience-versus going victim and blaming others.”

You are the only one who can make you upset. Again, I’ll emphasize that this doesn’t mean that you don’t take the appropriate actions, but what it does mean is that you don’t do double duty. Not only does the fact occur but you are also upset about it. Change your story. Find to benefit or positive out of everything that happens to you. There are two structures in the limbic area of the brain called the septum and the amygdale. When the electrical activity is in the amygdale you have a shut down of the receptor sites for endorphins and dopamine, the feel good chemicals that the brain naturally releases.

When the electrical activity is in the amygdale you are upset and are not able to be your best. However, you can shift which area of your brain is being stimulated simply by shifting your thoughts. This is much more than wishful thinking or unrealistically positive thinking. This is based on physiology. You owe it to yourself and to your clients to be the best that you can be. You are a protector of lifestyles and dreams. It is your responsibility to be at your best. Protect your thinking and select powerful interpretations. It’s your choice.

Bob Davies

This seems like a simple question yet it has multiple answers. Science would argue that the cause of procrastination and avoidance lies in cortical limbic loops. The outer cortex of the brain, the executive thinking part of the brain generates the intention. It then sends action potentials through thousands of neural networks as it searches for the activities necessary to achieve the desired results. Next it conducts an instant search for any links to pain of those activities by sending an avalanche of neuronal excitation to the limbic area of the brain, the amygdale, (fear and arousal) and on to the hippocampus for memory retrieval. 

The result is unavoidable and predictable. For every action that you need to take there will be a link to a previous or anticipated experience of discomfort. Your brain then magnifies this to become a catastrophic threat to your very survival so you are left with only one move, avoid. 

Psychology now steps to the forefront and you justify your avoidance with rationalization and you never know that you are doing so. This is the instinct that is present in all of life called the “survival mechanism”.

Your instincts just didn’t show up today. They are the result of millions of years of genetic selection for those traits that give you a competitive advantage and increase your chances of achieving your purpose for living-to pass on your genes. 

I call this evolutionary debris. At one point in time every instinct that you have gave you this competitive advantage. Throughout evolution you are a part of gene selection. It is natural for you to view the world through the lens of negativity, fear, doubt, distrust and blame. It favors survival to see the danger in a circumstance and avoid it long before you are conscious of doing so. 

This is a currently hotly debated topic in the scientific field. I’m referring to free will versus determinism. In other words, who controls the choices you make. Do you think you do?

Numerous studies display precognition. Scientists armed with a functional MRI device can see in real time how your brain is firing. Long before you are conscious of making the choice to press button B on a computer your motor cortex has already fired. Your choices are subconscious processes based on genetic coding and previous neural networks of memories of past experiences. 

This process is what enables survival. A caveman looks up and sees a lion. Long before he is conscious of the danger he has initiated his fight or flight response. He is fifty yards away in a full sprint before he becomes conscious that his life is in danger. These subconscious networks, cortical limbic loops of emotional memories are one hundred times faster than any conscious processing.

The reason for this is because the cave man who couldn’t generate this preconscious response and stood there wondering what the lion had in mind never lived to pass on their slow moving network.

What does all of this mean to you? It means that your work is cut out for you if you want to create new habits and enjoy new results. All of your genetic wiring is geared to safety and to staying the same. The word that describes this is homeostasis. Homeo is Latin for same and stasis means state. Our evolution has us stay the same. Keep the same body temperature and initiate a microscopic assault on any foreign tissue that enters the body.

This is good. If you inhale the Ebola virus you will certainly be thankful that your body immediately begins a release of antibodies into your lungs. You don’t have to participate in this non conscious process. You don’t need to understand it or believe in it. It is an instinct. 

Suppose you need a kidney transplant or you will die. That’s a foreign tissue. Will your body realize that an exception needs to be made? The answer is no. Your instinct will trump your intention. You intend to live and your instinct sees the foreign tissue as a threat to be attacked to save your life. 

Can you have a kidney transplant and still survive? Yes, but not without an intervention. The intervention are drugs that suppress the immune system. If you are ever in a situation where instinct is in conflict with intention then instinct will always win unless there is an intervention. 

For example, intend to run up a flight of stairs as fast as you can without breathing heavy and increasing your heart rate. Can’t be done. 

Imagine I have an air puff gun and I puff a blast of air into your eye. You will instinctively blink. Now let’s do this again. I tell you what I’m going to do and I ask you to give me your word that you will not blink. Here we go. What happens? Instinct trumps intentions, you blink.

 So you intend to create an alliance with an estate planning attorney, an accountant, a realtor, a lender and a property and casualty specialists. Your intentions are to send some introductory emails, set up some lunch appointments, select your team and then develop a seminar marketing plan for the rest of the year that you will each market to your own data base.

 You have your assistant go through your book and identify all of your clients other advisors on record. You call them first. The first call you find that you can’t get past the receptionist. The second call you get through but the attorney doesn’t care that you share the same client and is too busy to spend time with you. The call after that the accountant says you’re the fifth advisor to call him and he’s not interested. You get a series of no’s ranging from rude to apathy. 

Now your brain has had a steady firing in the area called the anterior cingulate. This is the area that gets fired on when you are in real physical pain. Rejection is viewed by your brain no differently then physical pain. Rejection is physical pain.

You intend to continue to make contacts to make this happen. You love the idea of servicing each others clients and referrals as the category expert. Your instinct however is to avoid pain. So you get very busy with other priorities and just don’t have the time to pursue this but you will get to it later. 

Sound familiar? 

Try this. Use a behavioral contract. Allow your instincts to continue to rule your behavior. The most powerful instinct that you have is the avoidance of pain and the seeking of comfort.

 Make a specific commitment to a small part of that intention. Commit to making 30 minutes of calls in this area on Monday and add a penalty of $100 if you don’t. Now look at what you just mobilized. Your brain will now make an instant pain comparison. Visualize the scales of justice. There is the pain of the activity versus the pain of the penalty for non performance $100. Your compelling human instinct is to avoid the highest level of perceived pain. If the highest level of pain is the $100 fine then you will be compelled to avoid it. You avoid this high level of pain by doing what you said you would do and making the calls.

Now you have aligned instincts with intentions. Until you do this you will be like a dog. Do dogs love bones? No, they love meat but they settle for bones. Don’t settle. Use behavioral contracting.

 When I ask that question I get a variety of replies such as, my family, doing the right thing and world peace. For the commitment part I hear answers such as prosperity, health, to give to others, gratitude.

This may be the illusion that people are operating under but let me restate that it is an illusion, a lie. If you want to know what someone is committed to all you have to do is look at what they have.

If a person is miserable then they are committed to misery. If a person is in a struggling relationship then they are committed to being in a struggling relationship.

If a person lives in clutter and chaos then that’s what they are committed to. All the rest is a lie!

I’m having this conversation with you without judgment. This is not good or bad, it just is. It’s all about genetic coding and pattern recognition. We are genetically coded to recognize what can hurt us and to avoid. We are coded to save time in our response by recognizing patterns and responding well before we are conscious of the threat.

Our five plus million year’s evolution has us coded for survival, not prosperity. Any trait that favors survival, thus the passing of our genes is copied and passed on.

Consider these numbers. It has been estimated that we have 100 billion brain cells, each capable of tens of thousands of interactions with other neurons. We are bombarded with 100 billion bits of information per second. Of this we pay attention to only 2000 bits of which seven can make it into our short term memory and we can take action on only one input at a time.

Humans have a very limited perceptual capacity. We can see only certain wavelengths of light whereas other species can see frequencies that are beyond our abilities. Same with sound, hearing and all of our senses. Since we have such a limited capacity evolution has taken our small bandwidth of perceptual ability and dedicated it to seeing danger. We are predisposed to be negative and see what can hurt us, not opportunities.

I can put what motivates all of us into one phrase;

All human performance is the avoidance of pain or the seeking of comfort.

This is what dictates what makes it into our bandwidth of awareness. We are coded to see danger. Our brain is designed to recognize the highest level of perceived pain and then compel us to avoid.

So what does this mean to you on a daily basis?

It means that you will have a difficult time having your actions match your intentions. I’ll assume that you have a business plan for next year. You have your goals, objectives, and activities that you need to accomplish to reach those goals.

Now you plan for the next seven days. Before you can take an action your brain searches like a computer for any link of those actions to pain. When you find the link to pain, and you will, your brain compels you to avoid and then you justify the avoidance with rationalization and you never know that you are doing this. You think that the truth is you were just too busy!

Do dogs love bones?

No, they love MEAT but they settle for bones. We are all avoidance machines. We avoid making prospecting calls, calling on potential high net worth house holds, developing strategic alliances with attorneys and other financial experts all in the name of being too busy.

The reality is that we are settling for mediocrity because of human nature’s limitations. Make not mistake about it, we are all driven to avoid pain and seek comfort.

You can not fight this human genetic coding. All you can do is surrender to it and use it to your advantage. Here’s how.

Identify one activity that you give your word that you will do by the end of the week. This should be an activity that you are capable of doing. It must be realistic. It should also be an activity that you most likely would resist tacking action on and would not do without some special treatment.

Now let’s leverage human nature. Since we know that our genetic coding is to recognize the highest level of perceived pain and avoid it, let’s leverage this by placing a higher pain on the activity.

For example, imagine that your commitment is to call a wealthy individual who is on the board of the city hospital foundation along with you. This person knows who you are, what you do yet is not a client.

Your brain searches this activity and links it to being very dangerous. That’s right; being rejected or embarrassed is viewed as dangerous. You are therefore compelled to avoid this dangerous activity and then you justify with rationalization.

This is the way that it should be unless there is an intervention.

Let’s change your approach. Send someone an email that you will call this person by the end of the week and if you don’t you will pay them $100. Send it to me; I’ll hold you accountable for $100! (info@bobdavies.com)

Now your brain acts in this manner. The outer cortex is the executive thinking area and it contemplates making the call to this person. Immediately there is a connection to the hypothalamus (memory of past experiences) where you search for any past experiences of prospecting and danger. You find an example of great rejection and there is a shot of excitement in the limbic area of the brain referred to as the limbic system or more specifically a structure called the amygdale. This is the emotional area of the brain and it creates this tremendous non-conscious command to avoid. This is called a cortical limbic loop.

After you place a $100 consequence on this action, you will have a different cortical limbic loop. You will still be avoiding the highest level of perceived pain but this time the avoidance will be the avoidance of the fine by taking the action and you make the call.

Guess what, it was easy. The prospect tells you he is glad that you called.

Try this. It is called Behavioral Contracting. It works almost 100% of the time. Avoid your way to the top. Remember, I’m only an email away.