This topic is near to my heart because these are valuable tools that everyone should have. They can be used for business, personal relationships and high performance.
It’s crazy that these tools aren’t as popular as cooking—they are so easy and helpful. Precision tools have helped me in every aspect of life, not the least being in recovery from devastating brain injury after being rear-ended by a truck and then exposed to volatile fumes.
Key Differences
Not just relaxation: This isn’t about general practices such as mindfulness, relaxation or reframing. This is about specific tools that are more directly outcome focused. I focus on these precision tools because they aren’t getting enough attention despite being highly valuable. I feel like a baker who is in a world where people only have rolling pins and I want to teach them to use cake decorating tools.
Not just thoughts: Likewise, these are not superficial approaches such as a mental pep talk or affirmations.
This isn’t about general practices such as mindfulness, relaxation or reframing. This is about specific tools that are more directly outcome focused.
Top Down: Directly managing your thoughts or emotions is called a “top-down” approach. These tend to require effort while you’re in the middle of a challenging situation. This is a problem because that means you have less of a mental edge for sophisticated responding.
If you are trying to psych yourself to get in the right headspace to make the sale, you have less focus on the more advanced aspects of making the sale. If you are trying to talk yourself down so that you don’t get upset by someone, you are taking away your focus on the more creative and visionary ways that you can handle the relationship. It’s like trying to be a gourmet chef while physically holding the lid down on the pressure cooker.
It is fair to say that, with practice, this top-down work may get easier over time. We might find it easier to take a philosophical approach and be more objective or to keep our nerves calm in a provocative situation, but this hoped-for practice effect is often blocked by strong habitual reactions that are not so easily overcome.
Trigger Coding: Many of us have what I call “trigger coded” reactions that prevent us from reacting according to our higher aspirations. They can interfere with our concentration, relationships, jobs, safety, and much more.
These trigger-coded responses range from subtle things that we take for granted (but that interfere with us) to major limitations such as not being able to board a commercial jet or respond rationally to conflict. Many of us have many little trigger codes that, collectively and unconsciously, steer us away from important opportunities. It’s like having a saboteur hiding in the shadows interfering with your life.
Bottom Up: Trigger coding calls for something more profound than the top-down approach. The tools I offer are more “bottom up.” They enable you to condition your response for a challenge in advance. And by challenge, I mean a situation that tends to evoke in you a response that is not in line with your highest aspirations and self-interest. These tools help liberate you to be resourceful and creative in the moment.
By eliminating the need to direct your conscious efforts toward lower levels of self-control, you can focus your precious attention on your sophisticated needs: assessment, protocol and strategy (in other words, sizing up the situation, applying what you know, and coming up with creative responses based on what is emerging right in the moment). This way you are natural and spontaneous.
Road-Tested
One of the most convincing parts of my career was working with employees who had serious office politics problems. Difficult personalities, power plays, emotional abuse, and discrimination plagued many of these professionals. Working with people to overcome these hurdles gave me much interest and faith in precision tools along with other strategies for navigating treacherous waters.
I also began applying this type of approach to people in intimate relationships with difficult people (such as people with addictions or personality disorders).
With a bottom-up approach, I was able to help many people into a position where they could apply success strategies with their creativity and problem-solving abilities fully on-tap.
The Plan
As this site grows, I’ll be offering many strategies and tools for free. For folks that want to go deeper, I’ll offer background and theory as well as programs and other materials for more extended study and experience. One of the best ways to learn is through guided experiences; this is like hands-on training in the tools. Even if you never memorize any of the tools, there will always be the guided experiences to take you through the experience of applying many of the tools.