Quiet Your Critics, Improve Happiness and Perform at Your Best

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012

by Bob Simp­son, Syn­chronic­ity Per­for­mance Consulting

Tim­o­thy Gallwey’s 1974 book The Inner Game of Ten­nis – The Clas­sic Guide to the Men­tal Side of Peak Per­for­mance is cred­ited as intro­duc­ing con­cepts used by many of the pio­neers of per­sonal devel­op­ment and life coaching.

Gall­way dis­cusses the exis­tence of two per­son­al­i­ties that influ­ence your inner game – Self 1:  The Teller and Self 2:  The Doer.  “Within each player (per­son) the kind of rela­tion­ship that exists between Self 1 and Self 2 is the prime fac­tor in deter­min­ing one’s abil­ity to trans­late his knowl­edge of tech­nique into effec­tive action.”

Another way to look at this is to refer to Self 1 as The Critic and Self 2 as The Performer.

Our brains are fine-tuned machines that allow us to do amaz­ing things.  Give The Per­former a prob­lem and ask it for a solu­tion. With­out the obsta­cles thrown in its way by The Critic, solu­tions will appear before your eyes.

For those of us who are par­ents, we are all famil­iar with the two grumpy old guys (Statler and Wal­dorf) on Sesame Street, who sit in the bal­cony and make crit­i­cal com­ments.  As you attempt to make a deci­sion or per­form a task, the Statler and Wal­dorf char­ac­ters are con­stantly chattering:

• “You can’t do that.”
• “Where did you ever get the idea that you could hit a golf ball in the fairway.”?
• ”You can’t main­tain this pace at which you are run­ning.  You are going to die.”
• “You aren’t ready to man­age this person’s money.  You don’t have the knowl­edge or experience.”
• “You are a bum.  A loser.”

The Critic does not trust The Per­former and is con­stantly offer­ing advice, but rather than improv­ing per­for­mance, the neg­a­tive input erodes our con­fi­dence.  Con­fi­dence is our trust in our abil­ity to achieve a goal or per­form a task and with­out this trust, we con­stantly fail to per­form up to our potential.

The Critic’s inner voices gain strength from your exter­nal crit­ics:  spouses and other fam­ily mem­bers, co-workers, man­agers and clients.  We all have peo­ple in our lives who are con­stantly on our case and who erode our confidence.

To per­form at your best, you need to silence your inter­nal and exter­nal crit­ics.  You need to work and play with a quiet, con­fi­dent mind and achieve a Per­for­mance Mindset.

Have you ever watched one of your chil­dren, who is so intent and focused while play­ing with Lego, that he doesn’t notice any­thing that is hap­pen­ing around him?  This is a great exam­ple of a quiet mind per­form­ing at its best and with­out the inter­nal crit­ics.  He may play with Lego for hours but if you asked him, he’d say it was only minutes.

Dr. Mihaly Csik­szent­mi­ha­lyi describes this as a Flow Expe­ri­ence.  “Flow is the men­tal state of oper­a­tion, in which a per­son in an activ­ity is fully immersed in a feel­ing of ener­gized focus, full involve­ment, and suc­cess in the process of the activ­ity.”  (Wikipedia)  It occurs when the abil­ity of the indi­vid­ual and the dif­fi­culty of the task are equal and an indi­vid­ual is act­ing with a high degree of con­fi­dence and focus.

A first step in qui­et­ing The Critic is to change the way you inter­pret things that hap­pen around you.  The Critic is judg­men­tal.  It con­stantly assigns pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive val­ues to events and then by dwelling on neg­a­tive events, you send a sig­nal to your brain to bring the neg­a­tive images to life.

“I hate hit­ting golf balls over water haz­ards.  I can’t seem to hit a good shot over water.  I’d bet­ter use an old ball because it is just going to go straight into the mid­dle of that pond.”

Neg­a­tive self-talk, ini­ti­ated by The Critic, shifts your focus from a quiet and con­fi­dent mind­set to the pond and all its neg­a­tive impli­ca­tions.  It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that your ball will fly or bounce into the pond.

Tim­o­thy Gall­wey writes:  “Get­ting it together men­tally.. involves the learn­ing of sev­eral men­tal skills:  1) learn­ing how to get the clear­est pos­si­ble pic­ture of your desired out­comes;  2) learn­ing how to trust Self 2 (The Per­former) to per­form at its best and learn from both suc­cesses and fail­ures; and learn­ing to see ‘non-judgmentally” – that is, to see what is hap­pen­ing rather than merely notic­ing how well or badly it is happening.”

Bob Simp­son is Pres­i­dent of Syn­chronic­ity Per­for­mance Con­sul­tants.  Bob can be reached on his direct line at 905−502−0100, toll free at 866−646−6002 or by e-mail at bob.simpson@synchronicity.ca.

About Bob Simpson

Syn­chronic­ity Per­for­mance Con­sult­ing has been coach­ing finan­cial advi­sors since 1998.

Bob Simp­son, pres­i­dent and founder of Syn­chronic­ity has been involved, directly or indi­rectly in the finan­cial ser­vices indus­try since 1981. He has been a very suc­cess­ful finan­cial advi­sor with Nes­bitt Thom­son Inc., a major Cana­dian finan­cial insti­tu­tion. Between 1981 and 1989, he built a busi­ness with more than $120 mil­lion in assets under man­age­ment, was branch man­ager and SVP National Sales for Mid­land Wal­wyn and has been coach­ing finan­cial advi­sors since 1998.

You can fol­low Bob Simp­son via:

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Tags: Amazing Things, Critical Comments, Doer, Effective Action, Gain Strength, Gallway, Golf Ball, Improving Performance, Inner Game Of Tennis, Inner Voices, Life Coaching, Negative Input, Offering Advice, Peak Performance, Prime Factor, Sesame Street, Statler And Waldorf, Statler And Waldorf Characters, Statler Waldorf, Timothy Gallwey
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Improving Your Business and Golf Game – Part 1 – Ten Rules On How To Win Your Major

Monday, February 6th, 2012

A few years ago, I read two books enti­tled Golf is Not A Game of Per­fect and Golf is a Game of Con­fi­dence by Dr. Bob Rotella, one of the world’s lead­ing men­tal game coaches. These books inspired me to do addi­tional research to find out what it took to become a Men­tal Game Coach, as it seemed like a nat­ural match for me as my non-family time is mostly spent work­ing with advi­sors, who have sim­i­lar men­tal game issues as pro­fes­sional and ama­teur ath­letes or play­ing sports. In 2011, I took a sports psy­chol­ogy course to become a Cer­ti­fied Men­tal Game Coach­ing Professional.If you click on either of the titles above, you will be directed to Audi​ble​.com. If you are unfa­mil­iar with Audi­ble, it is a web­site that sells audio­books. I have a gold mem­ber­ship that allows me to down­load one book each month for $14.95 per month. This is a great solu­tion if you are work­ing out or dri­ving. Both books are one-and-a-half hours in length and are prob­a­bly best pur­chased  for under $10 each if you want to try before you buy a membership. 

When I first lis­tened to Golf is Not a Game of Con­fi­dence, my reac­tion was that every­thing Rotella dis­cusses in these books can be applied to finan­cial advi­sors. In this series of arti­cles, I will dis­cuss how pro­fes­sional athlete’s prepa­ra­tion for peak per­for­mance can be used to help you per­form bet­ter when run­ning your business.

I found a great arti­cle in Golf Digest enti­tled 10 Rules For How To Win Your Major by Dr. Rotella. Below are his 10 rules and my com­ments about how each relates to your busi­ness. You can read the full arti­cle by click­ing on the arti­cle title:

1. Believe you can win.

Con­fi­dence is the num­ber one dri­ver of suc­cess for advi­sors. The past decade has been very dif­fi­cult for advi­sor con­fi­dence. Mar­kets have been dif­fi­cult, tech­no­log­i­cal change is sweep­ing your indus­try and you are deal­ing with a whole new brand of much more demand­ing clients – Baby Boomers. On the other hand, to build a great busi­ness, you need to build strong rela­tion­ships with a hand­ful (100 – 150) of high net worth fam­i­lies who need the ser­vices your pro­vide and are will­ing to pay the fees you charge. With the right focus, build­ing a suc­cess­ful wealth man­age­ment busi­ness can be a fairly sim­ple game to win.

2. Don’t be seduced by results.

If you want to play great golf, you need to focus on the process and not the result. In busi­ness, you need to do the right things every­day and the score will take care of itself. Espe­cially in a fee-based style busi­ness, rev­enue is depen­dent on attract­ing the right clients to your prac­tice and achiev­ing con­sis­tently high lev­els of client satisfaction.

3. Sulk­ing won’t get you anything.

Is it easy to get down on your­self over the past decade? In 2008, with client losses mount­ing, advi­sors who main­tained their busi­ness devel­op­ment dis­ci­pline were flat in AUM, rev­enue and prof­itabil­ity. Those who sulked and stopped try­ing to attract new clients suf­fered 20 – 30% drops in AUM and rev­enue and dev­as­tat­ing hits to their profitability.

4. Beat them with patience.

Build­ing a great busi­ness and achiev­ing great results for your clients is a marathon and not a sprint. Set achiev­able and real­is­tic goals and be patient and you will avoid traps that pre­vent you from being suc­cess­ful or get you in trouble.

5. Ignore unso­licited swing advice.

When you have a plan in place for your busi­ness, don’t let dis­trac­tions get in the way of achiev­ing your goals. Dur­ing a typ­i­cal busi­ness year, you will be pre­sented with advice from col­leagues, whole­salers and man­agers. Cre­ate a Word doc­u­ment and store those ideas for review when you build your next one or three-year plan.

6. Embrace your golf personality.

If your busi­ness is not fun, you will have trou­ble being really suc­cess­ful. Your style of busi­ness and the types of clients you work with will deter­mine your suc­cess. Do what you enjoy and del­e­gate the rest.

7. Have a rou­tine to lean on.

Most peo­ple resist rou­tine because they feel that it robs them of flex­i­bil­ity and cre­ativ­ity. In fact, rou­tine helps you to improve focus and get more done in less time. That gives you time to really focus on being cre­ative and hav­ing fun with­out daily dis­trac­tions get­ting in the way.

8. Find peace on the course.

Your abil­ity to achieve a quiet mind will allow you to min­i­mize stress and per­form at your best. Con­flicts, frus­tra­tions and dis­trac­tions detract from per­for­mance. A great for­mula is Per­for­mance = Poten­tial – (con­flicts, frus­tra­tions and distractions).

9. Test your­self in stroke play.

Stroke play in your busi­ness is client inter­ac­tion. Just like you want to per­form well on every hole in a round of golf, you want to do the same every time you inter­act with a client. Client meet­ings are your stage for your great performances.

10. Find some­one who believes in you.

It is easy to find peo­ple who are inter­ested in your per­for­mance but do they really believe in you? Your firms, branch man­agers, whole­salers and some­times even your fam­ily mem­bers have finan­cial inter­ests in their rela­tion­ships with you. We love to find peo­ple who have an aggres­sive vision because this is what is going to moti­vate them to build a great business.

This is the first in a series of arti­cles about improv­ing your busi­ness and your golf game by Bob Simp­son, Pres­i­dent of Syn­chronic­ity Per­for­mance Con­sul­tants and Cer­ti­fied Men­tal Game Coach­ing Pro­fes­sional. He can be con­tacted at 905−502−0100 or bob.simpson@synchronicity.ca.

About Bob Simpson

Syn­chronic­ity Per­for­mance Con­sult­ing has been coach­ing finan­cial advi­sors since 1998.

Bob Simp­son, pres­i­dent and founder of Syn­chronic­ity has been involved, directly or indi­rectly in the finan­cial ser­vices indus­try since 1981. He has been a very suc­cess­ful finan­cial advi­sor with Nes­bitt Thom­son Inc., a major Cana­dian finan­cial insti­tu­tion. Between 1981 and 1989, he built a busi­ness with more than $120 mil­lion in assets under man­age­ment and was one of the first Cana­dian advi­sors to build a team.

You can fol­low Bob Simp­son via:

    Lat­est Advi­so­r­An­a­lyst Prac­tice Growth Sto­ries

Tags: Additional Research, Amateur Athletes, Article Title, Baby Boomers, Dr Bob Rotella, Dr Rotella, Family Time, Game Issues, Gold Membership, Golf Digest, Golf Game, Golf Is A Game Of Confidence, Great Solution, Mental Game Coach, Peak Performance, Playing Sports, Professional Athlete, Psychology Course, Sports Psychology, Two Books
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The Key to Sleeping Better

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

By Norm Trainor

Many finan­cial advi­sors tell me that they suf­fer from sleep dis­or­ders. I have expe­ri­enced dis­rup­tive sleep pat­terns since my child­hood. Often, I will wake up at 3 or 4 AM and have dif­fi­culty get­ting back to sleep. My mind kicks in and will not rest. I think about my busi­ness and the chal­lenges we face. Like many high achiev­ers, I am dri­ven to achieve busi­ness goals and my focus is on what we need to do to accom­plish our objec­tives. At times, my desire to achieve those goals gets in the way of my performance.

My wife, Wendy, is a Mar­i­tal and Sex Ther­a­pist. One of the things she has taught me is that anx­i­ety is blocked excite­ment. When­ever we expe­ri­ence anx­i­ety, it is a result of los­ing touch with our excite­ment. Many suc­cess­ful finan­cial advi­sors have dif­fi­culty in dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing between goals and work­ing to the best of their abil­i­ties. They don’t wake up in the morn­ing and say “I’m going to work to the high­est level of my capa­bil­ity today.” They start out with a goal. It is the goal that moti­vates them. The pro­found point of dif­fer­ence is in the pur­suit of doing your best ver­sus need­ing to achieve an out­come. You learn to give up your attach­ments to results. If you are true to your pur­pose, what will hap­pen is meant to be. If you do your best and do not achieve your goal, it is the right out­come. This is a pow­er­ful insight and, yet, we are often left with the ques­tion, what do we do about it?

For many finan­cial advi­sors, the drive is to reach a desired rev­enue goal e.g. $150,000, $500,000, $1,000,000, etc., not to be the best they can be. You change the inner game when you pur­sue your goals as a means of ful­fill­ing your capa­bil­ity. The para­dox is that pur­su­ing a goal often gets in the way of peak per­for­mance, espe­cially when anx­i­ety comes into play. We begin to obsess and worry about the achieve­ment of the goal. As a result, we lose touch with our excite­ment about what we are doing and why we are doing it.

One of the best ways to achieve bet­ter out­put is to let go of your attach­ment to results. If you are doing your best, then being attached to out­comes can only reduce your out­put, let alone qual­ity of life. Goals are use­ful in that they give us a tar­get to pur­sue. When we con­vert those goals into objec­tives i.e. spe­cific mea­sur­able results within a stated time­frame, we can track our progress.

What is impor­tant is to keep the end game in per­spec­tive. Our work is not about reach­ing a goal. At its best, work makes us whole. It is a means of express­ing what is impor­tant to us and gives us mean­ing. We spend more time at work than in any other area of our lives. If we are not enjoy­ing our work, it takes a toll on the rest of our lives. So, next time you wake up at 4 AM and find your­self obsess­ing about work, take a minute to re-connect with your excite­ment about what you are doing and why you are doing it. This will allow you to fall back into a pleas­ant and rest­ful sleep.

Norm Trainor is the founder of The Covenant Group, a com­pany spe­cial­iz­ing in prac­tice devel­op­ment for advi­sors. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, visit his Web site at www​.covenant​group​.com.

Fol­low The Covenant Group at:

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Tags: Anxiety, Attachments, Back To Sleep, Business Goals, Capability, Desire, Excitement, Financial Advisors, High Achievers, Inner Game, Insight, Losing Touch, Norm Trainor, Paradox, Peak Performance, Performance Anxiety, Sex Therapist, Sleep, Sleep Disorders, Sleep Patterns, Wife Wendy
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