Sales used to terrify me.
That’s not a great look, especially when your primary job as a founder of a company is, well, sales.
You’re always selling – customers, employees, partners. Yourself.
A few years ago, I took a sales training course from Sandler sales and it changed my perspective on life.
Not only because of the techniques I learned, but also because of the work they do in helping your mental toughness. Your psyche. The one thing that, no matter how good your technique is, can destroy success before you even start.
One of the most valuable concepts I learned from my sales training in Sandler sales, was the concept of “head trash.”
The concept is simply this: that in many cases what holds us back our beliefs that inhibit our ability to move forward fearlessly. The concept is rooted in the idea that for much of life we adopt ideas from our families, our environment, our experiences, and our perceptions that color how we look at the world.
Some of these ideas are healthy adaptations and propel us towards success.
Others are, well, ‘trash.’ These ideas hold us back, preventing us from taking risks or prompting us to give up too early. They prevent us from picking up the phone, checking the balance, and confronting reality.
Perception is not reality. But altering perception influences reality
Perception, it turns out is perception. Perception is not, as the saying goes, reality.
But, altering perception influences reality.
Tony Robbins has a similar framework, which he calls “limiting beliefs.“
The idea is the same; these beliefs we have limit our ability to realize our potential and perform at the highest level.
In both Sandler’s training and Tony Robbin’s, the solution to emptying ‘head trash’ has four steps.
- Identify the limiting belief. It will usually be a pattern of thought we return to often.
- Disrupt the pattern by articulating a more empowering belief diametrically opposed to the limiting one
- When you find yourself running up against the wall of the unhelpful belief, replace the unhelpful one with the empowering one.
- Repeat until the new, more empowering pattern has crowded out the old one.
This approach is helpful.
But, as people of faith, we can do better.
A faith-based approach
I can be really hard on myself.
And, while I had some success following the process provided by Sandler & Tony, I would often find myself backsliding, then feeling guilty, then having to restart the effort.
It felt like the game Chutes and Ladders where I’d climb a ladder, only to roll the dice and end up back down a chute.
But then one day it occurred to me – I don’t have to do this alone.
In fact, I can’t do this alone.
In many cases, our limiting beliefs aren’t merely unhelpful perceptions, but actually lies we’ve come to believe through a combination of our human weakness, the devil’s guile, and generational sin.
They are unavoidable.
But, it’s easier to reject a lie than it is to break a pattern.
We’re hardwired to be repulsed by lies.
And it’s even easier to reject the lie, when we’ve got the armor of God and his grace on our side. When Truth Himself is even more motivated than we are to see the lie renounced.
What’s more, renouncing the lie and inviting/announcing the Truth provides a longer lasting ability to clear the trash in our head. While decreasing the stress that comes with feeling like ‘this is another thing you have to fix about yourself.’
‘ “When an unclean spirit goes out of a person it roams through arid regions searching for rest but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my home from which I came.’ But upon returning, it finds it empty, swept clean, and put in order. Then it goes and brings back with itself seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they move in and dwell there; and the last condition of that person is worse than the first. Thus it will be with this evil generation.”
Matthew 12:43-45 (Not enough to clear the house of lies, need to refurnish it with the Truth!)
So, the pattern becomes:
- Ask the Holy Spirit to help you identify the lie, “Lord, I know that you want me to be free, please show me the lie that’s holding me back right now…”
- Renounce it using a pattern like “In the name of Jesus, I renounce the lie that….”
- Announce the Truth using a pattern like this, “Instead, I announce the Truth that…” (it’s most helpful to reference a Scripture, since it is inherently powerful against any sort of lie or spiritual battle)
- Repeat the pattern, inviting the Holy Spirit each time you find yourself confronted with the lie.
While it may still take some time before the lie is completely eradicated from your life, you will start to feel peace much more quickly. Because, after all, it’s not up to you to fix yourself.
His grace will do that; our job is just to ‘keep showing up’ and bringing it to Him.
‘ “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.’
Matthew 7:7-11
As we do, he’ll start clearing the trash quickly and efficiently, often identifying areas in our hearts and mind we didn’t even know were there. Our perceptions aren’t reality. But, His is. And it’s super clear.
Blessedly, we can get access to it if we just ask.
God bless you.
