#808 Fighting Battles on the Home Front
This is not about having healthy boundaries and keeping toxic people at bay. This is about infiltrating your own boarders and fighting the enemies that reside within you.
In one of my high school seminars I was speaking about the negative voice in our head and how it influences choices. I said, “If anyone else spoke to me the way I speak to myself I’d punch them in the nose!” There was a little girl in that class who did not appear to be paying much attention but when the class ended she slipped me a note. On it she’d written “If you spoke to your friends the way you speak to yourself you’d have no friends.” Genius from a 15 year old high schooler…
Along the same lines I often hear, “Sorry Frank, that’s just how I am.” Sorry back, that’s not true. You are not genetically predisposed to be anxious or angry. These are choices; mostly learned from your parents but also from other influencers.
There is only stimulus and response, and response is chosen.
Yours may be so ingrained from so many years of sameness that it happens in a nanosecond and seems genetic but it isn’t. You did not come out of the womb with any more anger than Gandhi did. You’ve learned to respond to certain stimuli with anger but just like the voice in your head this too is controllable. First it has to be recognized and then it can be changed.
I once knew a woman who told me that she was unable to quit smoking because “I’m not like other people. I’m constantly nervous and the only thing that calms me down is a cigarette.”She’s dead now. First she suffered with emphysema and then she died.
This isn’t to say that disorders like ADD, PTSD and ADHD don’t exist. There are lots of medical conditions that require medical attention. What I’m talking about is your friend. You know the one. He finds something to be pissed off about no matter where he goes. He’s the one who says “only me.” In response to every inconvenience or any perceived slight.
I’ve come to recognize that there is only stimulus and response. That’s it; and when I reexamine my own reactions, take responsibility for them and imagine other possibilities, I grow.
Own your sales gene…