"The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself"
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
President of the United States 1933-1945
There are three key areas to consider when considering the effects of fear on your life. The first is the physical short term effect, the second is in how fear effects your life in general and the third is the devastating effects of fear on your finances.
Fear is more than a simply a mental state. If effects the chemical balance of the brain as well. When people are afraid it generates stress. Stress can cause a complete inability to act & in extreme cases can even distort our views of time and distance.
Want a good example of this? Often when someone is involved in a serious car accident they will say, "It was like everything was in slow motion", or, "Everything was in black and white". What they are describing is the effect of stress generated by fear. Fear (and the stress generated by it) will raise blood pressure. Fear causes errors in judgment and prevents us from taking the most reasonable course of action. So when we are fearful of approaching a client, asking a tough question, or 'telling it like it is' we are actually defying logic, and going against everything that we have been taught, and that we know is right.
The long-term effect of fear can be more devastating than the short term. We are all what we practice to be. If you practice baseball every day you will become a good baseball player. If you practice carpentry every day you will become a good carpenter. If you practice being happy every day, you will become happy. If you practice your presentation every day you will have a dynamic presentation that will impress your clients & set you apart from the pack. Alternatively, if you practice fear every day, you will become a fearful and angry person. People often train themselves to perpetuate these negative behaviors. We have all heard the expression that 'We are what we think we are'. Well if we are fearful, and we think that we aren't good enough, or that things are not going to happen, those thoughts truly become self-fulfilling prophecies.
The final effect of fear that we will talk about today is the effect that it has on our finances. The biggest fear that all people (not just salespeople) face on a daily basis is the fear of loss. It is a reality in today's world that their are people in our country that are in dire financial circumstances and truly have to face the fear of losing their car or house. There are elderly people right now that fear losing their spouse, and being left alone. There are parents right now struggling to care for terminally ill children, and fearing every day that they may succumb to the illness and pass away.
When we think about it in those terms, it really helps to put things in perspective. What fears do we face on a daily basis as sales professionals? The biggest fear is the same as everyone else's "the fear of loss". But as salespeople our fear is completely irrational. As we discussed earlier fear causes errors in judgement and prevents us from taking the most reasonable course of action. Why did you come in to work today? Why did you pick sales as a career? If you are like me, was to give yourself the best chance to make money. To give yourself the best chance to make money, you can't be scared, you have to ask the tough questions and ask for the deal. And until that customer has purchased a car from you they are not truly your customer, but your prospect, so remember 'you can't lose what you don't have'.
So, the next time that you feel the cancer of fear creeping into your head, banish it from your mind. Feeding the fear won't give us anything, but it will threaten to take away everything from us!
-Adam Longaker
