With the exception of a medical diagnosis, there is not a lot that’s positive about being negative. Research on the value of a positive attitude overwhelmingly demonstrates that the benefits for our health, our relationships and our businesses far outweigh having a generally negative attitude.
So let’s all be positive! Yay!
Though we have one small problem: studies show we have somewhere in the range of 40,000-60,000 thoughts every day; and of those, 70% to 90% are negative. Unfortunately, it’s part of our instinctive wiring to be negative as a survival mechanism. “What’s that? A big animal? It’s going to eat me!” (And a moment of silence, please, for our adventurous ancestors who discovered which plants were poisonous.)
So how do we get to a positive state of mind when our brains are always buzzing with so much negative activity? Because, as a dealmaker, I have found it is much easier to build trusted relationships when I bring a positive outlook to a discussion than when I am snarky and negative.
Try breathing.
Within the last several years I have embraced mindfulness as a part of my daily routine, and regularly encourage others to do the same. This is not meant to be an instructive piece on mindfulness, so I won’t get into the “how.” Plenty of more qualified people can offer you that help. But I will share the “why.”
What mindfulness has done for me as a sales and negotiation professional is create a sense of balance, calm and confidence for myself. As an example, when I am in a difficult situation and feelings begin racing in my head, I know that with a moment of focus on my breath, I can reduce the intensity of those feelings and better control my emotions. The ability for me to remain open and listen to the other party, even if they are yelling at me, is much easier if I can keep a sense of internal calm. Believe it or not, when someone is yelling, you do need to be able to listen. An expression of emotion is information that the other party is sharing. Get to the source of that emotion!
Likewise, in a crisis, not letting emotions control my decisions means I have a greater chance of solving the problem than making it worse with a bad reaction. All by breathing.
My goal has always been to help people develop skills to engage in more disciplined strategies for sales and negotiation. Going forward, I will propose the value of disciplined and mindful strategies. We can all be more successful as mindful negotiators.
