Hot New Item

Power of Sales Magnetism



Selling Is Changing – Are YOU?
+ Add to Cart

Free Monthly Newsletter

Register Now

Upcoming Seminars

Richmond Area
How To Plan 2009 In 20 Minutes…And On One Sheet Of Paper
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Seminar Registration

Raleigh Area

Articles on selling, marketing and branding, success, motivation, sales management, communication, prospecting, relationship building, and more.
Read more articles.

We welcome you to reprint these articles in your newsletter.

Are You Sabotaging Yourself?

By Will Turner

We are all creatures of habit. We get up and get ready for our day in the same predictable way every single day. We go through our daily rituals in amazingly similar ways on a day to day basis. Think about it. What steps do you go through when you take a shower? Do you stand under the shower head a certain way? Do you soap up your various body parts in the same sequence day after day? Do you shampoo and rinse in a predictable pattern?

The same process happens as we go through the many activities throughout our day. We’re cruising on autopilot. In fact, up to 85% of our day is often done with little conscious thought and effort. It impacts our thoughts, our actions and our results.

The problem that can arise from operating on automatic pilot is that our habits may not be as effective or productive as we would like them to be. So how can we improve? In his book, Self Matters, Dr. Phil McGraw notes that our self-talk impacts everything we do or don’t do. Our self-talk can be defined as our attitudes or beliefs that are really at the core of who we are, how we behave and what results we achieve. Our self-talk or attitudes can, in fact, cause us to act on autopilot throughout our day. Often, we stay on autopilot without consciously realizing we have other choices.

To start to understand our inner thoughts and how they impact us, Dr. McGraw suggests we “turn our ear inward” and write down all the thoughts that are going through our head. Try this exercise for a day and be prepared to be surprised by the results.

Once you’ve written down your self-talk, give it a litmus test. Evaluate or test out what you say to see if it is true and factual. Challenge your self-talk. To move forward, you must replace negative thoughts and behavior with positive ones. But you must understand the negative ones first and determine what satisfaction holding those thoughts are providing you. Often times, we are trying to please the “authority” figures in our lives and we are not being true to ourselves.

To replace the negative self-talk, we must challenge it with what Dr. McGraw calls the triple A - an authentically accurate alternative. For example, if you have called a client and they have not returned your phone call. Your self-talk could be something like, “He doesn’t think I’m doing a very good job. He is going to stop working with me.” This is not a good conclusion based on the fact that he didn’t call you back. If you have other data, it can be evaluated in context.

Make sure you listen to what you say. Ask yourself, “Is it a true fact or an assumption on your part?” Challenge all of your negative self-talk and come up with an authentically accurate alternative. In the example sited above, the reasons why your client hasn’t called you back may be numerous and not related on their perception of you. The client could be busy, may not have received the message, or a number of other explanations.

Will Turner is the Founder and President of Dancing Elephants Achievement Group, an international sales training and consulting company. Will is a sales expert with 25 years of sales, marketing and sales management experience. Will created the Sales Magnetism program and co-authored Six Secrets of Sales Magnets. He can be reached at or 804-254-4122.

© Dancing Elephants Achievement Group 2003

532 Words