Show notes
The COVID-19 crisis caused many business owners to experience things for the very first time. Customers ordered to stay home. Businesses deemed nonessential and ordered to close. Many personal liberties curtailed. All of this has created a lot of fear. So what can we do to help clients overcome the fear and see past it?
David: Hi and welcome to the podcast today. Cohost Chris Templeton, and I will be talking about seeing past the fear and helping our clients to do the same. Welcome back, Chris.
Chris: Hi David, with everything that's been happening, wall to wall news coverage of every detail. There has certainly been a lot of fear in the market and rightfully so. I know that our topic today is about seeing past it, but don't you think a little fear is actually helpful?
David: Well, I think it can be, particularly for some people. Some people are really motivated by fear. And so for those who are motivated by fear, I think that it can be helpful in encouraging them to do the things that we're being told we need to do. But I think it's a fine line. And sometimes the danger is that when there is too much fear, not enough fact, or too much fear, not enough critical thinking, that we all tend to start to devolve mentally. We tend maybe not to be able to think as clearly or think straight. So I think, yes, a little fear can be helpful to some people, but overall, I don't know. I just feel as if most of us are better at making intelligent, thoughtful decisions critically than we are from a basis of fear.
Chris: It's a really, really good point. And I think a lot of people don't even realize that they're falling into it occasionally. And with what's going on now, every detail on the news, it's certainly easy to go down that road. And all of a sudden we start to behave in a way, make decisions in a way that are based on that underlying fear without even recognizing it. A balanced perspective sure does make a big difference, don't you think?
David: Yeah, I think balance is very important. I had this thought the other day about the words to the National Anthem, "the land of the free and the home of the brave." And I think it can be challenging for some people to think in terms of the land of the free, when you're required to stay home. And the home of the brave, when everything they're telling you on television is designed to potentially make you fearful. And so, it's finding the balance and recognizing that there are facts, and we need to be able to look at the facts and just think in terms of "how can we keep things moving forward?" How can we do it for ourselves to be able to think critically analyze situations intelligently and help our clients to do the same?
Chris: Well, and I think from that standpoint, it is about perspective. It is saying to yourselves, into your coworkers and your family and friends, "we are going to get through this." We don't know exactly what it's going to look like, but we know that we've been through it as a planet, in what, 1918 with the Spanish flu? And we do come back from these things. And even that, just as a starting point, in trying to bring more perspective and balance to what I'm thinking, has to be a great step in the right direction, don't you think?
David: Yeah, absolutely. And the better we get at doing that, the better off we're going to be. But right now, I mean, when I look at what's going on with our clients and with different people that I've talked to in business, a lot of the fear that I see people dealing with is the unknown. That seems to be the biggest thing. And it reminds me of childhood fears. The reason that children are afraid of the dark, is not because it's dark. It's because they don't know what's going on. It's because they can't see what's happening. And as a result, it's really the fear of the unknown. And that's a lot of what we've been dealing with over the past couple of weeks and months is that there's just too much unknown. And we hear lots of different conflicting reports. And as a result of it, people just don't really know what to think. And that's what generates a lot of the fear, because the question is, "should I go out, should I not go out? Should I approach clients? Should I approach clients? Am I going to appear insensitive if I talk to people about moving things forward and trying to continue life?" And so those are a lot of the fears that people are dealing with. It's the unknown. And it's the response that we could potentially get, which is also unknown. I think a lot of it just boils back down to unknown.
Chris: Absolutely. And you said it, the top of that statement when we are in fear, it's because we don't know what to think. And so that's where I think what we do is we really look and say, okay, how can I put this into perspective in a way that's going to help to alleviate some of that fear and really helped me to see that things are going to be better at some point, knowing that there's an end out there that can serve us. I think that thinking serves us and then we can start to put together facts that support that, that have us saying, okay, look, I know that we're starting to see the curve flatten. I know that we're starting to see professionals say that things are starting to make some more sense. And then we've got to deal with what is factual and how can that serve me? There's good, valuable information out there that can help you to feel less fearful and feel like you're moving in a direction that's going to serve you.
David: Right. And that's critical. Since we don't know, since a lot of us don't know, our natural instinct is to buy into whatever programming we start out with. And so people tend to become more entrenched in their opinions, but just trying to look at things objectively and recognizing that everyone does want to get out of this I think.
Chris: Oh absolutely.
David: Everybody wants to get to the other side of it. And so the question is how can I do that as quickly and as efficiently and as safely and as effectively as possible? So that's a lot of what the balance is. And part it, we think about what prospects and our clients are going through. It's the same stuff. They're dealing with a lot of the same issues, a lot of the same fears that we are. And so when we're able to have those conversations intelligently and to be able to say, "Hey, listen, this is what I'm dealing with. You know, what are you dealing with at the moment? How can I help?" And that goes back to what we've talked about. It's practically been a theme of these podcasts is the idea that, you know, now is a time to ask people not so much, what can I sell you, but how can I help? And when we get back to that, when we get focused on the other people, we get focused on the prospects and clients to say, how can I help them then that helps to pull ourselves out of it. When we're too internally focused, when we're focused on our own fears, our own concerns about the things that are affecting us, then it's impossible to be focused on what our prospects and clients are dealing with. And I find that by turning the attention outward, it creates a much better vibe.
Chris: Yeah.
David: Certainly for myself. And it creates a much better vibe for the people that you're interacting with.
Chris: I mean, think about it. If what I did was I called you and said, "Hey, David, just calling to check in and see how you're getting through this. I've been up and down about it. Where are you?" What a change in perspective that's going to create for a business associate, whether it's a prospect, a client. Just opening that door. I imagine for so many people, David, that this whole thing, a lot of what happens when we're in fear, is we try to hide from it. Oh, I just won't deal with it. And having that nice, easy door open, you open that door and you create a situation where down the road they call you and they say we're back up and running. Things are better. And hopefully in a more economically thriving place where they can say, Hey, I want you to know, I really appreciated that call from you. It really helped me to just kind of put things in perspective, to take a look at kind of where I was. That's huge.
David: Yeah. You talk about the idea of flattening the curve, and I think it would be really great if we could flatten the curve in terms of the fear. Because I think that that tends to peak and then a lot of the best decisions are just not even being made. I know in the early stages of this, there were some people who just sort of panicked right out of the gate, and they just stopped everything. And they were just trying to figure out what they were going to do next. I think there are a lot of us who felt like, okay, once things get back to normal, things can start to improve pretty quickly. And I'm still hoping that can be the case, but from what I'm seeing, because of the fear, even as they start opening things, what we're finding is people are like, well, I can go out now, but do I want to? Am I ready to? And so as a result of that, that could make things go more slowly. So when I think in terms of seeing past the fear and helping our clients to do the same, which is the theme of this podcast, what I'm looking at is to say, okay, how do we do that first for ourselves? How do we see past the fear. For me, a lot of it is about sort of projecting ourselves into the future and saying, okay, this is where we need to go. And of course, a lot of our podcast series over the past few weeks has been, how do I continue to move things forward in the business, utilizing technology instead of being in front of people and all that sort of thing. But part of it from a psychological standpoint, it's really looking at, okay, can I first see past the fear? Am I comfortable or confident enough that I'm going to be able to make it through it in my business? And I'm going to be able to help others do the same. And if I can then can,