If you did yesterday’s exercise, you’ve integrated a powerful belief about the meaning of “rejection” — a belief that keeps you motivated and energized even when (and especially when) things aren’t going exactly as well as you’d like. However, the human brain functions on multiple levels, so you still need to inoculate yourself against habitual emotions that emerge despite your beliefs.
According to Art Mortell, author of the bestseller The Courage to Fail, the best way to do this is to create a “power mantra” — a brief phrase that you repeat to yourself over and over, thereby reinforcing the positive new belief. To be effective, the mantra should be a short (five words or less) phrase or statement that reflects and reinforces your powerful new belief. And it should be vivid and colorful, using words that produce a strong emotional meaning in you, personally. Here are some examples:
- Adversity is a maturing process.
- Rejection turns me on.
- Hostile people amuse me.
- Negative feedback jumpstarts my engine.
- I do better under pressure.
- Rain off a duck’s feathers.
- I fly above the storm.
- Cold calls are stepping stones.
- I thrive on anxiety.
- There are no bad days.
- I am worthy of success.
- Rejection equals money.
Once you’ve selected a mantra that works for you, get into the habit of repeating it to yourself in place of some of the inner dialog that’s always going on inside your head. The more you do this, the more quickly the powerful belief will be incorporated into additional levels of your thought processes. Within a couple of weeks, your old belief (and the lousy results it produced) will only be a bad memory.
Does this work? You bet. Scott Adams, the author of the famous Dilbert comic strip, used a similar method to get his comic syndicated. In his case, he wrote what he wanted to accomplish ten times, every day. He used a short sentence, similar to Art’s mantra concept. Scott credits the exercise with keeping him focused and launching his career as a syndicated cartoonist.
If you’re willing to follow the advice in the past four posts, I guarantee that you’ll be more effective at sales. The fear of rejection is like a canker eating away at your sales success. Take care of it, once and for all, and you’ll be able to sell at a much higher level than ever before.
Tomorrow something different.
