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Living on Autopilot
012 hours
Ever driven somewhere and become so involved in conversation with a passenger or something on the radio that you suddenly realized you have arrived at your destination and don’t remember the drive? It’s as if you’re memory has stopped recording, and you are on autopilot.
Your subconscious mind is so powerful it can take over something as complex as driving an automobile across town while you’re busy concentrating on something else. It’s especially interesting to note that your conscious mind has little or no memory of the trip. For all you know, there could be a stream of mangled stop signs and frightened pedestrians in your wake. The nature of your subconscious mind is such that things are happening without your awareness or conscious judgements or even memory.
Whenever possible, your conscious mind hands off tasks to the subconscious mind which is capable of most tasks. The problem is, while your subconscious mind is highly capable of managing familiar tasks, it is not so good at critical or logical thinking. It frequently makes decisions based on old, outdated information sometimes dating back as far as early childhood. I’m not sure about you, but my critical reasoning skills as a three year old were limited.
Your subconscious mind is great at managing to walk across the room because you’ve mastered all the muscular coordination, balance, and visual input to manage without your conscious mind having to engage in higher reasoning skills. Your subconscious mind stores information from past experiences so it can refer back to that information when it is on autopilot thus avoiding consulting with the more rational conscious mind.
This process works well for things like walking across the yard, driving to the mall, or negotiating daily routines at home and work. The problem arises when the subconscious mind is running programs that are based on incorrect assumptions based on past experience. When you were a child, your parents made most of life’s important decisions for you because you were incapable of considering all the important variables. If your subconscious mind has held on to the judgement that you were not competent to make decisions, you may have crippling insecurities about making decisions as an adult. It is very likely that you also picked up some strong beliefs about authority figures and the dynamics of interpersonal relationships during your early childhood as well.
If you think of your mind as a computer, what happens when your subconscious mind has a virus? What if your subconscious mind is managing tasks like communication with coworkers, customers, supervisors or family members but is doing so based on past experience and old, outdated programming? Strained relationships at home and at work are often the result of outdated programming or, even worse, a destructive mind virus.
Psychologists estimate that most of our lives are lived on autopilot. Some individuals find themselves repeating patterns of dysfunctional relationships, unsatisfying career decisions, and unhealthy lifestyle choices. Those less than optimal situations most people find themselves in usually have their origins in faulty programming in the subconscious mind.
Just like knowing your computer has a virus isn’t enough to improve its performance, mind viruses have to be removed. It takes more than just an awareness of a virus to get rid of it. In the case of a mind virus, you have to identify it AND challenge its validity in order to get rid of it.
I frequently talk about asking yourself empowering questions as a way of breaking out of self-defeating cycles and patterns. “What other way can I look at this situation?” is a powerful way to break out of old habits of thinking. It sounds simple, but admitting to yourself and others that perhaps your current way of looking at the world is flawed is one of the most difficult things you ever do.
Notice I did not ask, “Is there another way?” Phrased that way, the question may lead to the lazy response, “No, there isn’t any other way to look at this.” An open-ended question will illicit a more productive series of possibilities.
Opening yourself to other points of view is powerfully liberating and may cause you to realize just how self-defeating it can be to live on autopilot. You may suddenly realize you’ve been making decisions based on misjudgments and incorrect assumptions.
Go ahead, use your subconscious to drive to work or walk across the yard, but when it comes to interpersonal relationships it’s best to disengage your subconscious autopilot by not assuming so much.
Your Worst Enemy
23 days
Working in the mental health field for nearly 20 years, I’ve grown accustomed to asking people if they hear voices other people don’t hear. Truth is, we all hear voices in our head no one else hears.
We’re usually so acclimated to the voices in our head we barely even notice them. Hopefully, we can distinguish between the voices in our head and those of the person standing 3 feet away.
The voices in our head can be constructive or destructive. Sometimes the voice we hear in our head is the voice of our mother, father, grandparent, aunt or uncle. Sometimes the voice is a critic and sometimes its a fan. Sometimes the voice is like a play-by-play announcer just describing what it observes or the color announcer that provides opinions and commentary. The voice may be like a close friend giving advice; the advice is sometimes good and sometimes bad.
Otherwise known as our inner dialogue, these voices are often our worst enemy. Political cartoonist Walt Kelly once said through his character Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
The instant we’re exposed to a new idea, person or situation, the inner dialogue begins judging the new stimuli based not on facts but on past experiences and expectations. Like an opinionated friend, our inner dialogue sometimes gives us bad advice. Past experiences and expectations are so powerful, unless you are very careful, you’ll make decisions using faulty data based on history and preconceived ideas rather than on the facts.
LEARNING FROM THE PAST
Our inner dialogue has good intentions. Making judgements based on past information saves time and energy. If a metal object is glowing red, chances are, it’s hot and will burn if touched with the bare hand. Having to re-discover the pain and discomfort caused by touching hot objects with your bare hand would be disastrous to the survival of our species. Likewise, the stern look from your father means he disapproves of something you said or done.
Conditioned responses are sometimes accurate and provide us with helpful information in the decision-making process.
EXPECTATIONS
Our expectations also have an enormous influence on our perceptions and decision-making process. A colleague who is acting strangely might in fact be angry at you for some reason OR she may be upset about something entirely unrelated to you. If you’ve had negative experiences with colleagues in the past, your brain is primed to see signs of impending negative experiences in the future. When we look for the negative in others, we can usually always find it.
THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
There is a popular drawing that contains the image of both a young and attractive girl AND an older, much less attractive woman. At first glance, people typically report seeing one or the other. It usually isn’t until the opposing figure is pointed out that most people realize the drawing contains both an attractive young woman and an old hag. Our past experiences and expectations influence our perceptions of the images we see in this visual experiment. Our mental programming also influences how we treat new people we meet and even new ideas that challenge our way of doing things. Our experience of the world is unavoidably colored by our past experiences and expectations.
TAKE OFF THE BLINDERS AND TALK BACK
Our inner dialogue is, more often than not, highly opinionated. It also has a limited view of the world through what amounts to dark sunglasses.
Imagine meeting a young woman but treating like the old hag some people see in the image. Or, meeting the elderly woman but treating her like the beautiful young woman other’s see in the drawing.
Knowing we have a tendency to judge the present and future based on past experiences and expectations is the best tool we can use to build a better life or business. One of the most powerful things you can do to improve your life is to routinely ask yourself, “what other ways can I look at this?” It doesn’t matter who you are, your perceptions are WRONG more often than you realize or may be willing to admit. By remaining open to different ways of looking at people, situations and ideas, you free yourself from self-imposed limitations.
Sounds simple doesn’t it? It is simple. In fact, it is so simple many people I work with are hesitant to even try it at first. We tend to look for big, spectacular ways to improve our lives when in reality, it’s the cumulative effect of little things that hinders us the most.
photo credit: R. Smith Photography
Make Yourself Scarce!
85 days
photo credit: Steve Parker
Normally, when someone tells you to make yourself scarce, it isn’t a compliment. They want you to go away.
There is a different way to look at this. Scarcity creates value. We tend to value things we can’t get much of. Indian head pennies, for example, are worth much more than a penny minted last year; in some cases, hundreds of dollars more. Original paintings by Van Gogh fetch among the highest prices in the art world.
In the business world today, there are many things that are scarce, uncommon and even downright rare like customer service that exceeds expectations. Stellar customer service has become so rare that when we encounter it we are almost suspicious.
A young man at a fast food hamburger joint waited on me and some friends a few weeks ago. How many times has someone sold you a hamburger then come to your table a few minutes later to ask, “is everything alright?” That’s the sort of thing you expect anywhere except at a fast food hamburger joint, but this guy’s enthusiasm was truly impressive.
My prediction is, unless somewhere along the way he gets hypnotized and brainwashed into subscribing to the status quo, this young man will find his way to the top of whichever organization is lucky enough to employ him. Maybe not right away, but he will eventually find an employer that values the employee that goes out of his or her way to provide 5 star customer service even when it isn’t expected. Customer service for this young man is an art. Not just art, art that is rare and valuable. I wouldn’t be surprised if this young man ends up owning his own business because he gets so frustrated with the lack of enthusiasm others have for providing stellar customer service.
I’m not exaggerating much when I say, this kid is probably more valuable to that company than most of the senior management staff, yet he is paid a miserable fraction of the salary.
- What about you?
- How valuable to your business or profession are you?
- If you’re not at work for a week, do customers even notice?
- Is what you do art or just marking time and following the crowd?
It’s easy to create stellar customer service that is scarce. Just ‘go the extra mile’ as the old saying goes. Most people are too lazy or brainwashed by a culture that seems to value the status quo over doing anything above and beyond the call of duty.
Look around you. The businesses and professionals that thrive, even in a down economy, are the ones that provide something competitors aren’t providing. Its time to get busy creating scarcity by doing something your competitors aren’t doing — even when you’re tired, even if its Monday morning or Friday afternoon, even if you don’t think it makes a difference.
WOW Me or I’m Gone!
127 days
The most successful companies in the world are ones that WOW their customers. They don’t all WOW in the same way, but they all go out of their way to impress the socks off their customers and potential customers.
There are different ways to WOW customers. Wal-Mart WOWs with low prices, Apple WOWs with innovative bells and whistles, Starbucks WOWs with the coffee shop experience, zappos.com WOWs with free shipping and easy return policy.
All of these companies have one thing in common; in certain areas they blow away the competition. Notice I said “in certain areas” not “in all areas.” Virtually all of those companies fall short in areas -but not in their core competency. In their respective core competencies, these companies clearly outshine their competition.
What makes Wal-Mart so attractive is their relentless attention to low prices. Most small businesses can’t compete on price. For most small businesses, to compete based on price is like getting into a race to the bottom in which all the competitors will ultimately lose.
The experience of using an Apple iPhone surpasses by far that of using a prepaid, disposable phone that you buy at a department store. The phrase “there’s an app for that” gets at the heart of what an iPhone can do and that is, NEARLY EVERYTHING. Apple is in the business of putting a product in your hands that will do so much to make your life easier you may wonder how the human race ever survived this long without Apple’s advancements.
Starbucks is not in the business of selling cheap coffee. If you want cheap coffee, there are plenty of other places to find it. If you frequent Starbucks, chances are it isn’t for the cheap coffee. Is probably for the ambience, the made fresh while you wait experience. You can get a cappuccino from most convenience stores but it’s nowhere near the caliber of what you will get at Starbucks.
zappos.com competes with the bricks and mortar shoe stores in the mall by making it almost as quick and easy to shop online as it is to drive across town to the mall. Their no-hassle and quick turnaround policy for returns makes it less trouble to send shoes that don’t fit back and get a replacement pair in a surprisingly short period of time.
How about you? In what area do you WOW your customers. What is it that you do that makes your customers tell their friends about you?
Failure to WOW in at least one area is very predictive of failure. Chances are, there are dozens of people out there who do exactly what you do. If you ever expect to stand out from the crowd and thrive as a business, you’re going to have to focus more on finding things your customers want and need and less on selling them what you have. By getting out of your box and into your customer’s world of needs, wants and desires you will find new opportunities to WOW them. It’s the business that WOW customers that survive and even thrive despite the ups and downs of the economy.
How do you WOW customers? Easy, do something they don’t expect which will make their lives and experience with you better than they expected. It sounds cliché, but EXCEED EXPECTATIONS must become your mantra if you really want to succeed in business and leave your competition in the dust. If you don’t exceed expectations, someone else will. Find the one or two areas where you can absolutely blow the doors off your competition then focus on delivering a product or service that WOWs your customers and potential customers.
How to slowly kill your business!
1218 days
“I never worry about action, but only about inaction” -Winston Churchill
The problem with procrastination and inaction is its difficult to see the damage they cause in terms of lost opportunities.
It is unlikely that Netflix was the first to consider renting DVDs by mail. They were just the first to take the actions required to launch the idea.
What holds people back? In most cases, its fear of failure. Fear of failure is deeply ingrained in our psyches by the time we reach early adulthood, perhaps even younger.
In reality, only a small part of what we worry about is legitimate. Most of our fears and worries never manifest. In fact, in keeping with my devotion to the Pareto Principle, I submit that only 20% or less of those things that seem to hold us back are ‘real’.
I remember years ago having an ongoing discussion with a co-worker regarding “perception vs. reality”. Some 20 years after that discussion, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that perception is and is not reality.
On one hand, perception is not reality, its only our perception of reality. Clearly, perceptions are colored and distorted by our experiences and expectations.
At the same time, perception IS reality IF we accept our perceptions as reality. Our perceptions can and do limit our options even though they are heavily shaded by our experiences and expectations -if we accept them.
Most limitations are in our heads and have very little basis in reality and fact. The few limitations that are real can usually be addressed and compensated for.
What’s holding you back? You are. If you’re waiting for the light to turn green you’ll be waiting for a while. There are always going to be red lights of limitations in your head. Go ahead, do it any way. Most of what you are worried about isn’t real and probably won’t happen any way. Even if you do experience failure, chances are it won’t be catastrophic. You don’t have to get it perfect, just get it going.
