Universally and in every culture there’s the fundamental principle that lying is wrong. You should not lie nor should you live a lie. And that makes me wonder why that is. Why is there such universal push back against lying? Why is it so important to tell the truth?
Why? Because the truth allows us to deal with reality as it is. A lie distorts reality. So next question: What’s wrong with distorting reality? Probably nothing. It takes just as many resources to deal with a falsehood as the truth. Sometimes we have clients who say something like, “Everyone has to see me” or “Nobody wants to see me.” Perhaps you’ve gotten into an argument with your spouse, and the words always and never come into play. “You always do this.” Or “You never do that.”
Any time those words – always and never – are uttered, it’s a lie because it can never be always, and it literally can never be never. When we say those things, it begins to create a distortion of reality. When reality begins to distort, things get weird. Our stress level increases and our intelligence level goes down. Stress and intelligence are inversely related. There’s nothing wrong with being dumb as long as we understand and deal with the consequences of being dumb. Watch out for those little cues: always and never, and everybody and nobody. When clients use these words, these big superlatives (“Everybody has to see me” “Nobody wants to see me”), they’re stressors.
When stressors arise, intelligence begins to go down. Again, nothing wrong with intelligence declining as long as you deal with the consequences of that happening. For example, I had a client who was putting a ton of pressure on himself. “Man, I gotta see all of my clients. They all want to see me.” He was operating from a place of “everyone has to see me right now.”
So I pressed him on that: “Is that true? All of your clients need to see you right now?” He reflected on the question for a moment and realized that no, they did not all need to see him right now. The amazing thing was that as he expressed that and the truth came out, his stress level obviously deflated. When I pressed further about the number of people who were calling and requesting immediate attention, he admitted it was about three or four. He created self-imposed pressure that fueled an unnecessary level of stress. It was making his whole business a lot less fun.
Too often and too easily we can get in the mode of fighting fires and having fire drills all day long, and the result becomes self-imposed pressure that is not founded in reality. “I have to do this. I have to do that. There’s so much stuff on the list.” And we think everything on the list has to be done. It quickly becomes overwhelming, and stress goes up. One of the distinctions of work is that it is immortal. It never goes away, so no matter how much work you do, you will do more work. Think about that. It’s like the Midas Touch. Anything you touch turns to gold, so the list never goes away. Conversely, some people operate like they’re always behind the eight ball and convince themselves that they can never get ahead.
Let’s tell the truth: You never can get ahead of all the work because work is immortal. There will always be more work to do. In dealing with that particular reality and accepting that we’ll never get all of the work done, we have to determine what is the most important work to do. Once we can drill down to that, we reduce the level of stress we self-impose and we can deal with reality as it is rather than what we pretend it to be.
Think about your work day. Do you need to be in the office from nine to five? No. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is how you use language (“I gotta do this, I gotta do that, I have to be in the office”). Are you using words as a club to beat yourself up or are you using them to support your vision and your design? Maybe being in the office for a set time makes you feel good because you’ve always done it that way. But is it truly productive and moving you toward your design? Or is it time to break the mold and try something different? The words “always” and “never” are very dangerous. They invariably increase stress.
When these words start to come out of your mouth, stop and reframe. Don’t distort your own reality. Instead of going to a place of stress, go on offense and determine your best course of action, remembering the 80/20 rule – 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of your clients. Don’t cater to the squeaky wheel if that person isn’t in your top percent. Too often, we fall prey to the squeaky wheel, “I gotta call Mrs. McGillicuddy first because she’s gonna be on the ledge.” Yet, she may be your 150th client in regard to assets, but you feel like you have to talk to her first, and that discussion takes a lot of energy and adds stress – energy and effort best applied elsewhere. Stay focused on your 20 percent and handle that first. It makes everything else much easier and less stressful.
Invest your attention where you get the greatest probability of return, and remember: Where your attention goes, you get more of. That said, attention tends to go to what’s loudest, brightest, sexiest, but that may not be what’s most productive. Pay attention and pay the right attention.
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