TAME THE MIND

I’m white water rafting.

The river is rough.

I’m navigating the raft, focusing on not tipping over.

My heart is racing.

Afterwards, I observed the same river.

My perspective shifted.

The river isn’t rough.

The river is constantly changing.

There are calm parts.
Calmer parts.
Rough parts.
Rougher parts.

When you’re thinking about navigating the river, your mind races.

The thinking mind can’t relax.

When you observe the river, you turn the volume down. You calm down.

Why am I talking about this?

In sales, we’re attached to things.
The sale.
The meeting.
President’s Club.
The top of the leaderboard.
Cold email response rates.
Hitting quota.

Things, trips or metrics aren’t the problem.

It’s attaching our happiness to the thing that causes suffering.

You get upset if you don’t have the thing that others have or that you want.

The way out?

Detach from the outcome.

How?

Here’s a simple exercise you can do wherever you are.

Observe your thoughts without judgment.

On Slack? Observe your thoughts.

In a meeting? Observe your thoughts.

Play a game of how many times you can observe your thoughts per day.

The simple act of noticing builds your detaching muscle.

With practice, you spend less time lost in thoughts and more time noticing them.

Like a river, you realize prospects are coming in and out of your life all the time.

Same with quota.

Everything changes.

Detaching is so freeing.

Taming the mind is good skill to practice.