Hi,
Thanks for joining me this week,
As a reminder:
Each week I’ll send you an actionable tip to help you become a better negotiator.
NEGOTIATION TIP OF THE WEEK
[Dealing with Triggers: Choosing Your Response]
When triggered, your reaction can range from unhealthy (e.g., reaching for your phone, smoking, overeating) to beneficial (exercising, journaling, meditating).
The key lies in identifying the brief moment between the trigger and your response.
This approach, as Victor Frankl (Austrian neurologist, psychologist and Holocaust survivor) suggested, allows you to move through life with grace, authenticity, and meaning.
It helps you become the calm centre in the middle of any storm, improving your ability to handle stress, stay present, and maintain control.
At any given time, one or more of the following things are going on inside you:
- Thinking thoughts
- Feeling emotions
- Having a physiological response to those thoughts and to what you’re thinking and feeling.
For example, if you’re having a thought that is resulting in a physiological response, such as anger, then the chemical noradrenaline is pumped into your bloodstream.
From the first moment the thought arises until the noradrenaline is flushed out of your bloodstream takes about ninety seconds.
Now, I know lots of people, myself included, who have stayed angry for a whole lot longer than ninety seconds.
This is because we keep running the same story on a loop over and over!
The key is to stay focused on your body. Ask yourself, is your:
- Heart beating fast?
- Stomach churning?
- Chest or shoulders feeling tight?
If so, then "feel the feeling and drop the story" that you are associating with whatever is causing this particular emotion.
Then:
- Resist the urge to justify or assign blame: these are defence mechanisms against discomfort.
- Allow the feeling to flow through you. This discomfort contains the solution.
- As the feeling dissipates, you'll gain calmness, enabling more objective and rational thinking about the situation.
2 QUOTES THAT STOOD OUT FOR ME THIS WEEK
“Place a higher priority on discovering what a win looks like for the other person.”
- Harvey Robbins
“So much of life is a negotiation – so even if you’re not in business, you have opportunities to practice all around you.”
- Kevin O’Leary
1 CHALLENGE FOR YOU
This week, practice the 90-second reset technique to transform your response to triggers:
- Set a 90-second timer on your phone or watch.
- During these 90 seconds, focus entirely on your body sensations.
- Resist the urge to engage with the story behind the trigger.
Then, let me know how it went by simply replying to this email - whether it was a win, a challenge or a learning. I’ll feature some of them (anonymously) in future newsletters.
Until next week,
Scott
Sunday Times bestselling author of ‘Order Out of Chaos’
Let's Transform How you Handle Critical Conversations.
