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Turn An Experience Into An Experiment
When in a difficult situation, it is helpful to establish an experimental mindset, for you can negotiate the experience without feeling the full pain. For example, once I took a stop-watch to the dentist's office- not to see how much he was charging me per minute but to see how much I actually hurt. Without the stop watch I would have probably told you that I hurt fifty percent of the time. Actually by running the watch only when I hurt I found that it was a mere four seconds. I would not recommend serious dental work without anesthestic, however. My family says it took me about 6 months to get back to “normal.”
We used this experimental syndrome to our advantage in working with a direct sales force whose big problem was door slammers. We gave the salesmen a chart of different door slammer personalities. Examples of the many types were quick, loud, apologetic, indifferent, offensive, polite, indignant, etc. When someone slammed the door in their face they simply checked the appropriate type box. By turning their experience into an experiment they turned personal rejection into an objective experience.
After I had been speaking for many years I was suddenly attacked by overwhelming stagefright. I could not explain it and no one else could, either. However, one of the things that helped me most was turning the experience into an experiment. Becoming interested in the experiment relieved my mind of a great deal of the fright.
What are you facing this week that seems like an overwhelming experience? Step back and turn it into an experiment.
