#892 Nine sure-fire steps to double your anxiety, increase your stress and shorten your life…
Last week I sent a video of me just after I’d gone for a run. I looked like crap, but I wanted to pass along the vast advantage Dopamine and Epinephrine gives me throughout my selling day. The feel-good chemicals that flood your brain when you move your body are essential in this very mental game we call business.
Cortisol, on the other hand, will kill you. That’s the stress hormone that destroys your insides as you allow the world to tighten its grip around your throat.
I’m not qualified to give a course on stress reduction, but I can certainly tell you how to be maxed out with stress:
Think about everything you must do over the next month or so right now.
Add urgency to each item so that its deadline feels like it occurs in about ten minutes
Remind yourself frequently (that voice in your head) of prior failures and how you never get anything done on time
Breathe as shallowly as possible; way up in the top of your chest. Better yet, hold your breath as you think.
Raise your shoulders around your ears and hold them tightly in place
Grind your teeth or clench your jaw
Squint your eyes
Stay seated at your desk. DO NOT go for a walk
Drink copious amounts of coffee
What we do, day in and day out, is as dependent on our attitude as it is on our training. Dopamine and Epinephrine are to salespeople as HGH and D-Ball was to Maguire, Bonds, and the rest of the cheaters who broke records with performance-enhancing drugs, but our drugs are legal, and we manufacture them in our brain!
Unfortunately, the opposite is also true, do some or all the nine steps, and you’ll manufacture cortisol, a brain chemical that will shorten your life.
It’s all about being mindful of the nine steps and about counteracting them with hydration, exercise, meditation, and positive stimuli.
Decide right now, that you can stretch, or do yoga or go for a walk or go to the gym or whatever tomorrow. Put it in your calendar and do it. Pick up positive reading material and begin your day with it. Start a gratitude log with a daily note about something simple you’re grateful for.
Do it now. The benefits are beyond what I explained above about brain chemistry, in addition to the shot of positive brain chemistry, you will build confidence as you make a promise to yourself and keep it.
Own your sales gene…