#2019 Taking a Punch
I just watched the Mike Tyson documentary. Mike is responsible for my favorite quote of all time. An interviewer told Mike he'd seen his opponent training and that the guy was watching a lot of Tyson footage and had a very good plan to defeat the champ.
Mike looked at him and said, "Everybody got a plan 'til they get punched in the face."
I am an assiduous planner. I teach planning to all of my coaching clients and check on those plans. I cannot imagine showing up on Monday without having spent time on Sunday reviewing my goals, projects, and other inputs, and sketching out a plan for the week.
Planning has saved me a lot of embarrassment throughout my career. I'm good on my feet, but I never wing it. Whatever it" is, I think about it, imagine the outcome I want, and then walk back the steps to that outcome and commit them to paper.
Sometimes, I even imagine a devastating outcome. I taught this technique to a sales team. It's something I learned from an audio series I bought (on cassette tapes) from Nightingale-Conant a million years ago. It's called
The Best Kept Secrets of Great Communicators by Peter Thompson. Like me, Peter was an NLP practitioner, and I learned a lot from this series, including this idea of beginning with a devastating outcome.
His method begins with a simple sentence: "If only I would have…"
The idea, let's say for a salesperson, is to imagine oneself at the end of the month having achieved about 10% of quota. He instructs us to sit in that failure; to imagine how lousy it is, and really feel that. Then, while wallowing in those bad feelings, write the phrase, "If only I would have…" and begin writing down those regrets.
If only I would have written a plan
If only I would have made five more calls a day
If only I would have stopped by a dozen clients
If only I would have asked for a few referrals
If only I would have started an hour earlier each day
If only I would have turned off notifications while prospecting
You make this list in a stream-of-consciousness style, writing sentence after sentence as they enter your mind. When you're done, you'll have a plan to move forward.
Getting back to Mike, you also have to be ready to get punched in the face. I had a great plan for this past autumn. It included hunting with my mates, running, gym workouts, and a couple of nice trips. Then I took a punch in the face – I broke my right collarbone. Hunting was out, as was running and lifting. The trips were cancelled, and I had to rely on my darling bride for transport.
It was time for a new plan that included lots of vigorous walking, more reading, sitting in a duck blind sans gun (but with my friends), and getting used to throwing the ball for my pup left-handed.
I also got a lot closer to Deborah. We usually have our own appointments and errands each day, but now we were forced to do them together, and it turned out to be a blessing. In fact, we kept those habits and now do more of our errands together.
Adjusting after the punch is as important as having a plan to adjust in the first place.
As I said, I can't imagine starting a week until it's finished on paper, but when that left hook comes, I'm ready to change course and make the best of what is in front of me.
It is analogous to the US Constitution. It guides us, but when things happen that were not part of the original plan, we make amendments.
Duck when you can, but when you get hit, don't go down. Get out of harm's way, reevaluate, and make some adjustments.
Own Your Sales Gene…