"You're Smart Enough And Good Enough But Don't be Delusional. The Importance of Meaningful Self-Talk"
It’s 1991. These are the days when SNL was actually good. The cast was strong, and my friend Damon and I never missed an episode. It was this year a self help guru was born.
“Wait,” you ask. “Did Tony Robbins get his start on SNL?”
No. Not that self help guru. The one I’m referring to is none other than Stuart Smalley who coined the famous line, “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough and dog gone it people like me.”
We hear it over and over. Affirmations can have a huge impact on our lives and our performance. They can help create a positive state and even help us overcome depression. We need to be positive self-talkers.
However, no one actually tells us how to be our inner Stuart Smalley in a way that will yield the most impact. In fact, We are often given bad instruction on this matter making us about as effective as the satirical self affirmer Stuart.
Here’s an example.. how many times have you heard about manifestation? If you just say something enough over and over your brain will believe it and then the law of attraction will take over. Before you know it saying, “I’m a millionaire over and over again will in fact lead you to becoming a millionaire.”
Some preachers even call this name it and claim it. Hint, the name it and claim it works if you send a few bucks in to the address on the screen.
Well, this can be very dangerous. What we tell ourselves can be as important if not more important than the habit of talking to ourselves altogether.
According to leading sports and peak performance psychologist Michael Gervais, “Talent and ability are mostly equal. The difference is in the head. High performance is 90 percent mental. And most of that mental edge comes from being able to control your thoughts.”
““Talent and ability are mostly equal. The difference is in the head. High performance is 90 percent mental.””
That’s astonishing. 90 percent! It explains why we see so many talented athletes who just can’t seem to get the championship. Or we see some business person who started behind the eight ball only to rise to the highest ranks. Many of them listened to the voice in their head more than the voices outside their head.
For many that little voice in their head is what gave them the edge over the other. The most obvious example of this is Tom Brady. Tom Brady’s ability to control his mind far outweighs his natural athletic ability.
But there is such a thing as bad self talk. Your brain has a bullsh** detector. If I tell myself over and over I’ll become an NBA basketball player with absolutely no data to back this up for my brain to draw on, it’s going to be a short-lived fallacy.
Here’s a more realistic version. When I owned and operated real estate brokerages I would hold goal setting meetings with my agents. There was one agent, we’ll call him Don, who had never sold so much as $500k in real estate in a given year since he started.
Don had no natural gifts as a salesperson. Further, he had been in a previous career for over 20 year. He was a sewing machine repairman. This isn’t exactly the type job that sets you up to be the next Jordan Belfort.
As we sat down in our goal setting session he said, “Well, boss here’s my goal. I’m going to sell $8million this year.”
Like so many brokers before me I thought to myself, “You must be out of your damn mind.”
However, I couldn’t say this. After all, it’s my job to coach and build this guy up. But seriously! Eight million! What the hell dude?
As you might have guessed Don never sold anywhere close to $8MM and ended up leaving the business to do something completely unrelated to selling anything. He was delusional. He had bought into the fallacy of name it and claim it. Just trick your brain into thinking you’re capable of doing it.
Here’s the problem. Your brain is a prediction machine. It’s going to look to past successes, match them with the current goal and try to figure out a way to connect the dots. If there’s nothing to draw from the brain gets scared, shuts down and applies pressure. It won’t kickstart the necessary neuro-chemicals to ignite flow and you are left grinding it out against your brain’s will. This is a recipe for disaster.
When we tell ourselves something, our brain puts it through a screening process. It looks for associations to matchup with what you are telling it now. It will recall events or past instances that support the possibility of what we are telling it now. If it finds one, it will stick.
Michael Gervais continues, “There are only two kinds of thoughts, those that constrict us for those that expand us. Negative thoughts constrict, positive thoughts expand. And you can feel the difference. We’re looking to expand. Positive self-talk is about choosing those thoughts that proved a little more space.”
So we have to have positive thoughts and give ourself positive reinforcement, but it has to be at least somewhat realistic. There has to be some clue somewhere in our past for the brain to anchor to. Just saying we’re going to do something we’ve never even attempted, come close to and have no conceivable way of achieving is just going to lead to frustration.
However, having positive self talk that relates to things that might be just on the edges of what we perceive as possible what Steven Kotler and Peter Diamandis call “High Hard Goals” that’s another thing entirely. These are things that are hard. These things we may even think impossible, but given a certain set of circumstances we could see ourselves pulling off. That’s where we need to start the conversation.
A constricting thought is, “This is impossible. I suck at this.” However, we have another option. We can instead use what Dr. Carol Dweck, author of the book, ‘Mindsets’ says is one of the most powerful words we have, “yet.”
I’m not good at this, yet. I don’t understand how to solve this equation, yet. I’m not a good writer, yet.
Chances are you’ve solved an equation or written something before. Therefore, your brain knows you can do these things. You just haven’t done them at your desired level, yet.
This one tiny little three letter words opens up a sky of space between now and the future. This positive self-talk can really help you bounce back. It creates a more positive mental state. When our emotions are positive we expand our perspective.
Lets travel back to my former life of real estate again. Say you’re a Realtor and you’re about to show a listing you know is the one your client will love. It checks every box. It also happens to be one of your listings. It’s listed for $500,000. At 6% commission you stand to take home over $20,000 after your broker’s cut. Oh and you haven’t sold anything in a couple months so you need this one. In fact, you’ve never sold a home of this value.
You show the listing. Your buyers take 30 seconds to say, “Meh. Not the one.”
You feel the burn in your stomach. Your heart sinks. You start to question why you ever got in this awful business to begin with. Why didn’t you go to law school? Why would anyone get a ticket to ride this horrible roller coaster that is the business of selling real estate.
It’s then your client looks to you and says, “Hey. You’re a winner. You’re a champion. You’re smart enough, you’re good enough and dog gone it people like you.”
Yea. That’s unlikely. Your clients don’t care whether you or anyone else likes you. They want their dream house. The pep talk is up to you. It’s in this moment you have to stop the downward spiral and remind yourself of the bigger reality of the situation.
You say to yourself, “I got this. This moment is a moment to prove I can overcome adversity as this isn’t the first sure fire sale I thought I had but didn’t materialize. I’ve sold many houses before this and I’ll sell many more. I don’t have to go back to get my real estate license and start all over. I’ve already done that. You can only be a rookie agent once, and I’ve already been one. Now I’m experienced, I have tools and tactics to be a better salesperson, and I will sell this house just not to these folks. I just haven’t sold this house YET!
This bounce back effect is just resilience in action. If you want to build strong resilience you have to build positive self talk.
I’m a firm believer in being our own biggest cheerleader. You are the one person by your side at all times. Often instead of being our own biggest encourager we instead our our biggest critic. We say things like, “I should have done this. I should have done that.” Before long we should all over ourselves. We talk to ourselves in ways we would never talk to others. Don’t do that.
Be a self talker. All things being equal it might be the one defining factor that drives you from good to great. Make sure you’re not a sewing machine repairman setting a goal that causes your brain to shutdown. Instead, be someone who knows that they have the past experiences, natural talents and drive to achieve high hard goals. You may not have done them. You just haven’t figured out how….yet.