Confessions of a City Slicker

Been meaning to share this for some time now, just didn’t have the time to write about it.

This is what I think is the simplest and most valuable piece of advice that Anthony Robbins shared during his recent seminar in Singapore.

"If you want to change your outcome, change your physiology or shift your focus"

So what does Andre Agassi and a brick wall have to do with this?

Agassi took on Anthony Robbins as a life coach during his losing streak.  What Anthony Robbins did was show Agassi a video tape of his match when he won the Wimbledon and showed him another one during his losing streak.

During the Wimbledon match Agassi walked out onto the court full of confidence, took off his cap briefly and patted the back of his neck a couple of times (this seems to be his signature), and stared hard at his oponent before serving the first ball.

When he compared that to the game during Agassi’s losing streak he found a big difference.  In the second video Agassi walked lethargically onto the court, shoulders slumped, head bowed.  He just proceeded to play the game but definitely missing the fire in the first video.

What we can learn here is it doesn’t really matter how good we are in what we do, our body language when we are doing it also plays a part in affecting the outcome.

To prove this he made us talk to each other first as if we didn’t believe in what we were talking about, then as if it’s a matter of life or death.  Our partners will observe our facial expressions and body language as we talk.  True enough, in the second scenario a lot of us were very convincing even though we don’t know what the heck we were talking about in the first place.  Heck, points of argument were just coming to me out of nowhere.

I had the chance to use this during a recent seminar held by my boss where I was required to talk to people and sell my boss’ workshop.  Although I didn’t manage to get anyone to sign up, but by being aware of my body language, facial expression and tone of voice, I felt more confident to approach these people and carry out a conversation with them.

And what about the brick wall?  Well, Anthony Robbins wanted to learn to race cars so he approached a friend of his who took him to a track.  Took him round the track once to show him the way.  On this race track is a brick wall which you have to drive around at high speed.

What his friend did not tell him is somewhere under the passenger seat is a button.  When Anthony Robbins is driving the car, when he least expects it, his friend will press that button and it will cause the car to spin out of control.  Talk about adrenalin junkie!

Now, what the driver has to do is to gain control of the car or else it will most certainly hit the brick wall.  The way to do this, according to his friend, is to not focus on the brick wall but to focus away from it.  This is based on the theory that most drivers usually unconsciously drive towards something they are focused on.

So off they go, and when the button was pushed, Anthony Robbins found that in the heat of the moment, all he could do was look at the brick wall coming right at them.  His friend kept pushing his face to look away.  Somehow, they managed to avoid the wall and drove the car to safety.

Anthony Robbins thinks this is a great metaphor for life itself.  In our lives there will always be times when we are in a car spinning out of control about to hit a brick wall.  If we continue to focus on the brick wall, then 100% we will smash into it.  But if we focus else where, there is a chance that we will miss it altogether.  Of course, there will be times when hitting that wall is unavoidable, after all, that is life.

So the next time you find yourself in a similar situation, don’t look at the brick wall, look elsewhere and try to drive towards that path.  Just don’t end up missing a brick wall only to hit a tree!