I Am Not Afraid at All – Wherefore in fact?

It sounds so easy and almost 'endearing' when people say to a client in coaching or counselling - if you don't like something, you change your reaction. Or, we will help you to change your reaction against this - we will help you to learn it - to condition you. 

In my executive coaching practice, I meet many intelligent executives and professionals who want to go further than just improvement, they really know what to do and still don't do it. I often call this the "weak-willed dilemma paradox". Thinking about it, deciding to do something and then not to do it anyway. 

Intelligent people can actually choose for themselves - or can they not? Well, in many cases they are quite capable of making a choice, but then, they still do not take the action they have chosen. What is then going on here?

Every improvement starts with self-insight. There are many uncertainties before, during and even after deciding. This is often driven by uncertainty in the decision and potential loss after making the decision. When uncertainty is registered as 'insecurity', one may still want so much, but on the basis of this 'insecurity' one will do everything possible to avoid this 'insecurity' and not act anyway. Not because they do not "want" to but because they want to avoid "insecurity" at all costs. This form of 'self-sabotage' is certainly not conscious, but it is very effective.

From neuroscience it has been known for years that the Amygdala, of which we have two, deeply hidden in both the left and right temporal lobe of the brain, have a stronger permanent negative than positive imprinting cycle. I once described this in more detail in an eBook entitled: "Sales Secrets" (for free available on request).

Let's take the example of a sales meeting here. For me as an executive coach it is fascinating to see how many executives and professionals are actually struggling with 'selling'. I find it fascinating but not strange, because I often call selling 'anti-biological'.

Someone who wants to sell something should actually be totally insensitive to the other person's reaction, that is to say, he/she should be totally insensitive to personal rejection, personal criticism and not to mention the many more times one fails than one succeeds in selling.

Now, however, it is true that people are not like that - people do not want to be rejected, criticised and certainly not fail. These 'situations' are often seen as unsafe and will thus (unconsciously) be avoided at all costs. This is also one of the reasons for the sky-high turnover of junior-sales people. A turnover of 30+% in organisations is not unusual.

When I sometimes inquire about an organisation’s staff turnover, I am nearly always told that the recruitment process needs to be improved quickly – by ‘reengineering’ to improve this energy and money consuming process. As so often, when an organisation has not (properly) analysed the problem, there is no solution - just an action that obviously does not deliver the desired result.

Sales meeting related negative emotions are in fact conducted through a permanent and infinite negative imprinting cycle controlled by the amygdala (see image below). When you follow the image clockwise, you can see how the permanent imprinting cycle works by confirming unwanted emotions, resulting in further negatively controlled and avoiding behaviour.

The reactions of the amygdala are biologically primarily about survival. Their goal is to warn the individual and to prepare him/her optimally for what to expect (and to do). The amygdala has a reflex reaction in threatening situations.

In the context of self-preservation, it is understandable that in acute danger the amygdala cannot afford to take some time to 'start thinking' about what to do first. 

However, we often see in coaching and counselling that attempts are made to circumvent this survival-driven reflex control, in one way or another, by teaching the person to deal with his/her 'limitation' in certain situations. The aim here is to create a reduced sensitivity through conditioning.

However, this does once more not follow the 'biology' of the individual. When the origin of the cause of the consequences (the behaviour recorded by the person and others) is not transformed, there may at best be some temporary improvement - but there is no sustainable sales and/or performance improvement based on personal transformation.

"It has become clear from scientific research that the permanent negative imprinting cycle is much stronger and therefore decisive for behaviour. Much more decisive than a similar imprinting cycle by positive experiences.”

The 'results' of learning how to deal with unconsciously stored unsafe situations are outdone by (reflexive) automatic undesirable behaviour when the Amygdala becomes active and detects a fear-related negative emotion. This can be just the questionable look of the potential customer in a sales conversation, or even the smell that is present on arrival at the office.

The reflex response of the amygdala does not mean that people have no possibility to learn situationally. This is indeed the case. A well-known example of this is consciously learning to record avoidance behaviour, for example with Sales Call Anxiety (SCA) - often associated with the resistance to calling (as yet) unknown customers.

Following a negative reaction to a certain behaviour or signal, the amygdala will do everything possible to ensure that reaction in the future will be completely prevented (learning to avoid). For the Amygdala is it a situation of 'life or death'. This is an unconscious perception of threat and the subsequent bodily reactions that drive the precursors of fear.

The amygdala is also called the 'underdog' of the brain structures. Underdog because its importance is severely underestimated, in contrast to, for example, our 'sensible and wise' Prefrontal Cortex (PFC). The 'seat' of our executive functions, which is mostly referred to when it comes to 'important' brain structures.

The amygdala is therefore a very important component of the human brain and is clearly influential in fear sensitivity and thus in personal growth and sustainable performance improvement. In general, one can say that properties with a fear component are related to the amygdala. For example:

* Resistance to change (fear of uncertainty driven insecurity).

* Xenophobia (fear of the unknown).

* Group pressure (participating in a group for fear of no longer belonging to the group).

* Regret and shame (a fear of sanction by the group, or to be personally rejected).

* Feelings of justice (fear of being held accountable for unjustly treating others).

Fortunately, we now have advanced coaching techniques that at various levels permanently transform this fear sensitivity. Even for the highly experienced sales professional it has many advantages to gain insight into their unique personal situation - good selling does not mean that without resistance it could not become better.

The beauty of these advanced coaching techniques is that clients can immediately experience that their feelings and registration of a previously unsafe situation are no longer the same - they can be remembered, but associated experiences are no longer experienced as unsafe.

Undesirable automatic behaviour is then replaced by automatically desired behaviour. When the latter also turns out to be sustainable, clients are very positively surprised.

Do you have sales experiences you want to share, or do you want to improve your performance, resilience and vitality in a sustainable way – for yourself or in your organisation? Do you want more information about available advanced executive coaching opportunities, please contact me Tel. 030-2006764 or via email [email protected].

With kind regards,

Johan F. Reinhoudt

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Johan is a certified master executive coach, effortless coach and master burn-out coach with a longstanding international executive background in health care and life sciences. In his work he focuses specifically on sustainable performance improvement and burn-out prevention/recovery through unique guidance and use of advanced coaching techniques.

He sees people as limitless potential, independent of the life they have now and would like to get. He is particularly known for his bespoke in-context executive coaching and his accelerated and sustainable executive and professional burn-out recovery trajectory.

Johan focuses his work on accelerating exceptional client outcomes through a personal transformation trajectory. He likes to work with passionate executives and professionals (including lawyers, civil-law notaries and accountants) who now want to move forward and who want to go further than just change.

For this he uses a self-developed co-active coaching five-step plan which leads to performance improvement with burn-out prevention or accelerated and sustainable burn-out recovery.

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