Weekly Thought – April 30, 2019
Fred tweeted long before twitter was a concept. He called them “one-liners.” His friends, his associates, even his family carried these “Fred Saids” in their minds as bywords. In diverse situations one of his wise bites always popped up. This week’s thought is an example.
BWF Project is looking for men and women who want to share their story of dealing with “What’s Next” Fred’s writings on mentoring, networking, and persevering form a foundation for decision making. If you want to participate in this research, please contact us: Brenda@bwfli.com
Experience to Experiment
When in a difficult situation, it is helpful to establish an experimental mindset. You can negotiate and navigate the experience without falling into an emotional pit. For example, I once 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 time I actually spent in pain. Without the stop watch to verify and validate, I would have said I hurt 50% of the time. But the objective data said it was a short time. I ran the watch only when I was in serious pain – four seconds! Yes, four seconds of tough stuff.
Another dental experience took awhile to fully turn into an experiment. I read about one of the tortures during World War II was conducting root canals without anesthetic. I decided to see if I would have endured. By the way, my dentist thought I was crazy and made me sign a disclaimer that it was in no way his suggestion! I made it through, but my family told me it took about 6 months for me to appear normal again!
We used this experimental syndrome to our advantage in working with a direct sales force whose big problem was door slammers. (This was in the days when door knocking was an accepted sales technique). We gave the sales force a chart of different door slammer personalities. For example, they had quick, loud, apologetic, indifferent, offensive, polite, indignant, etc. When someone slammed the door in their faces they simply checked the appropriate type box. By turning their experience into an experiment they turned personal rejection into an objective exercise.
I offered this system to a waitress at a local restaurant I frequented. The breakfast diner atmosphere drew a variety of patrons. I noticed several of the customers were gruff and even rude. I told her to make a card with columns and categories such as friendly, interested, polite, grumpy, and downright rude. One morning I sat at the counter listening as a customer berated her. When she came to refill my coffee I asked about it. “Oh, him? I was glad to see him because I was missing a downright rude and he filled my card!” She turned her experience into an experiment.
This week think about: 1) What am I facing that needs a shift from experience to experiment? 2) How does moving from subjective to objective make me more effective? 3) Who needs to hear about this system?
Words of Wisdom: “By turning experience into an experiment personal rejection can be turned into an objective exercise.”
Wisdom from the Word: “Indeed, if you call out for discernment – raise your voice for understanding.” (Proverbs 2:3 NET Bible)