What do I do with the voices in my head?
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Brooke Greening: āJust because a thought comes into your head doesn't mean you have to agree with it. Just because it landed there doesn't mean it needs to live there and doesn't mean you have to agree with it, and there's a lot of freedom in that.
We can teach ourselves and wire our brains to create different scenarios that are not actually. True. And so you have to challenge it just because, like I said, it comes into our head.
Doesn't mean that it's true. Doesn't mean that it's right, doesn't mean that it's a fact.
Scott Greening: Let's focus on what's really true, what's really good, what's really lovely in this circumstance. And then it allows you the freedom to move forward.
Brooke Greening: And the other thing is like fear is very good at being loud.
Get it out of your head, meaning with people that you trust, whether it's with a coach, whatever it is, but share those thoughts, share those fears, because once you actually voice it and you get it out there, then it starts to lose its power.
Scott Greening: Hello Momentum Builders. Welcome back to another episode of Sip and Matcha and helping you make more sales. Wanna invite you into the conversation by either submitting your question at building momentum info slash matcha, or you can join the conversation by leaving us a review or commenting on this video or podcast wherever you find it out.
We'd appreciate hearing from you. And helping us get the word out. Let's bring Brooke into the conversation today. Hello Brooke. We have matcha for you. Mm-hmm. We've acquired some more, so the crisis is stopping a little bit. Let's jump into today's conversation and that, here's the question. What do I do with the voices in my head?
So like, get your husband more coffee,
Brooke Greening: or, I need a matcha, matcha matcha. No, no, no. I this, what do I do with the voices in my head? This can be a vulnerable question but I really appreciate it. And so, as people know, I have had a master's in counseling.
And so just so we're clear, when we talk about the voices in our head, we're not talking like medical concerns like schizophrenia and things like that. We're talking about like when there's the anxiety, when there are voices going on of like your failure, this isn't going to work.
And we start to spiral out that's what we're talking about today in regards to what do we do when those things happened and that happened to us, to me specifically. About three or four years ago now, Scott, is that right?
Scott Greening: Yeah, it was probably about four or three, three and a half years ago.
Our daughter started into ninth grade, so it was at the end of her fifth grade year. And that. Mm-hmm. And I know this was a time for you, and you'll tell us more about it. I know like in sales for me too it, it may happen more often to me, like when I get into a conversation of, oh no, like this is gonna go bad, this is disaster.
We're not just talking. Some of the principles may apply, but we're not talking about, other areas we will, we'll look at the sales conversations and sometimes we get sort of psyching ourselves out. Mm-hmm. Would be a way that I might put it.
Brooke Greening: A hundred percent. And it's not necessarily that it's the sales activities that are causing us to do that sometimes there are other things going on in life that mess with our heads in regards to when it comes to doing sales.
And so that happened when our daughter got sick. So for me, I had just left my corporate. We had signed a massive contract. Everything was looking incredible in regards to starting our business. And then our daughter, Torah got sick and she got pretty sick in regards to ambulance rides and emergency surgeries.
And going back and forth and staying in the hospitals all the way to the point of having to have a PICC line for six weeks. It just, we went from a healthy child. To one where we just had no idea what was going on. And even though we were in one of the best hospitals in the world, children's Hospital of Philadelphia, they're a fantastic hospital.
They just kept telling us, we have no idea. We don't know what's going on. We don't know why this is happening. We don't know what to do. And so it was just bad news after bad news, after bad news, after bad news. And all the while we're trying to start our business. So I'm trying to do sales calls in the er, all of this stuff, and it got to a point where it continued to spiral.
One in regards to like what's gonna happen with Torah and all of the scary things like that. And then two, how that was affecting. The business of like, how can I be talking about these things? Do I really know what I'm saying? Like just all of this self-doubt and just spiraling and I needed to get help.
So that's what we did.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And you're gonna be sharing kind of some of the principles that, that have come from both your training and from our own personal experience with this. But you are, right? Like we are whole people, and so, mm-hmm. It's.
Brooke Greening: Virtually a holistic problem.
Scott Greening: That's right. It's not even vir like, it's just impossible to think, oh, I can separate out mm-hmm. The sales portion of my job or the work part of my job and not have other things impact that. And so sometimes we do have false beliefs about our own abilities with regards to sales and that, and sometimes it's.
There's other stuff going on that are impacting the way that we view our work and interact with it. Yeah. So a wise one, what are, what are some of the principles, what are some of the things that you've found helpful in being able to focus on what's important at that moment?
Brooke Greening: Yes. So the first thing is we talked about how what can happen in sales are things in from a holistic standpoint. Things can be going kind of rough in the family or with kids or just different responsibilities. Also, things that can get into our head is when, if we're spending so much time looking at competitors, comparing ourself to others, those are the things that can quote unquote trigger those different insecurities.
And feeling okay, I'm like, who am I? How is this actually gonna to come into play? So the very first thing is. Just because a thought comes into your head doesn't mean you have to agree with it. Just because it landed there doesn't mean it needs to live there and doesn't mean you have to agree with it, and there's a lot of freedom in that.
So. If we're on a call and we get off the call and it's like, oh, that one awful. We don't have to keep entertaining that. If we're getting ready to do a follow up and we're like, okay, this is, they're probably gonna get annoyed 'cause what am I doing? We don't have to agree with that. Now, in regards to our service framework, I teach you different things in regards to how we don't want our follow up to be annoying, and we do wanna be intentional in our sales conversations, but.
Beyond that. Even when that thought comes into our head, it doesn't have to stay there. We can get rid of it.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And most of the time, unless you're just completely oblivious, like if, what if somebody answers your call? If somebody takes your call, like they're okay talking with you, like it's not annoying.
Mm-hmm. It's not true. And it's not accurate. And so. Like when we start to think, oh man, I'm really kind of annoying them today. Well, if you're really annoying them, they probably wouldn't pick up the phone. Um, and they probably wouldn't be talking to you.
Brooke Greening: Yeah, and I would say along with that, so if you have those thoughts, just ask yourself just one question you need to ask yourself, is this true?
Do I have proof that this is true? Have they told me this point blank, or am I making assumptions? Because it's not that it's true, it's just, it sounds so familiar. We can teach ourselves and wire our brains to create different scenarios that are not actually. True. And so you have to challenge it just because, like I said, it comes into our head.
Doesn't mean that it's true. Doesn't mean that it's right, doesn't mean that it's a fact. And so we have to challenge that and say, okay, is this actually true? Did they actually tell me this? Or am I making an assumption? And I just think this is happening? 'cause this is just a familiar thought that I have.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And I know one. One way that we talk about this and obviously our faith is important to us. And there's a verse in the Bible that talks about mm-hmm whatever's true, whatever's honorable, whatever's just whatever's pure, whatever's lovely, whatever's commendable. And it goes on and it.
But then it's a, about these things. Think about these things about things. Yeah. So that's, it's a good principle, not just for faith mm-hmm but, but for life. Let's focus on what's really true, what's really good, what's really lovely in this circumstance. And then it allows you the freedom to move forward.
Brooke Greening: Yes. Because if we live with the thoughts. That this is annoying. They are not gonna buy from me anyways. Why am I even doing this? Whatever, or look at them, they're so much further ahead of than I am. Why would I even try? If we live with those, if we allow them to continue to keep staying in our head, it turns almost into this self-fulfilled prophecy because now we feel that way, we start acting that way.
And if we're acting that way, then it's then those things are going to happen. We don't want that. And so that's the very first piece. Like it doesn't have to stay there. You need to challenge it and then get rid of it.
Scott Greening: Yeah. But then that sometimes
Brooke Greening: doesn't work.
Scott Greening: Well, before we, we jump onto the next thing I know that you end up coaching and talking to lots of clients, and obviously we're not sharing names or that but what are some of the untrue things that you've heard that people often think about?
Sales when they're on those calls or they're even before the call, like they, they're not even picking up the phone yet. Like what are some of the untrue things? I know you touched on 'em in passing, but to circle back and go back into that a little bit more.
Brooke Greening: A hundred percent.
So the, one of the biggest ones is I don't wanna be pushy. I don't wanna, I don't wanna be that sales person, and so they swing all the way to the other side. Trying to avoid that. Sometimes when we're talking about, Hey, we're trying to understand where the customer's problems are and being able to ask intentional follow-up questions, they're like, no, no, no, I don't wanna, I don't wanna get invasive.
I don't wanna get into their business. That's not what I wanna do. Because they feel like that's intrusive. They feel like that is like crossing a line. Whether someone did that to them and that's why they feel that way, or they just think that there's no way to be able to actually do that in a way that serves someone instead of it being like that manipulative way of where you, you turn it around.
And so a lot of times it's, if they're not picking up the phone, I don't wanna annoy them. And if they are not necessarily doing the intentional follow up again they would've called me if they wanted to work with me. Those are the types of things we start telling ourselves. Instead of the actual truth of what's going on.
So we just make all of these assumptions about ourselves and about the people we're trying to serve.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And I was just thinking about like that statistic and we probably need to get the updated statistic 'cause I think it's even more contact now. Worse. It's even worse. But like the reality is most people minimally speaking, probably aren't going to respond until the eighth call or something like that.
And I know when you're in sales you're like, so like it just. If I keep, and most salespeople give up after what, like,
Brooke Greening: so the statistic used to be people wouldn't necessarily respond until eight calls and everyone pretty much gives up on call four.
Scott Greening: Right. So you were always like, let's keep going.
And just by. That, but the reality is like often we start freaking out about, for me, call two. Um, no but for, let's be
Brooke Greening: honest, call one. Well,
Scott Greening: okay, thanks. Whatever's true. No, I mean, it's whatever's lovely.
Brooke Greening: I mean, sometimes if we're talking about cold calling, people get terrified even on call one. Sure.
Scott Greening: Yeah.
Brooke Greening: But go ahead.
Scott Greening: But the reality is like. It is not even worth consider like that there's a problem until once you're past call eight because it's, it's just the way that it works. You just gotta, you gotta keep calling people.
Brooke Greening: Yes. And I do wanna encourage, 'cause I don't want people to just get off of the podcast at this moment. Be like, forget it. All she does is just like pound the phones. The reality is. It just takes so if you're doing a networking thing or you're trying to set up a schedule or someone even reaches out to you and they say, Hey, I wanna learn about this, I wanna learn about what you're doing.
It is true, like after one, maybe two, they give up. We have had so much business come after six, seven months of nurturing and reaching out and not one of them has ever said, that's really annoying. It is annoying if you do eight calls in two days. I'm not saying that I am saying, but. Realize what it, how it can be used.
Scott Greening: Yeah. Alright, so let's the tendency for all of these is that this turns into a therapy session for me and we get bogged down on one one point. Let's move on to the next one. So the first one was like, yes, let's think about what's actually true. And just because it's a familiar thought does not mean that it's actually a true thought.
So what's the second? No, the second idea.
Brooke Greening: And the other thing is like fear is very good at being loud.
Scott Greening: Yeah.
Brooke Greening: It's so loud. And so if we listen to our fears and we're just listening in regards to which one's more intense and we give that the validity. Then it's usually always going to be fear. Okay.
So the second piece is sometimes that doesn't work. I am not naive to be like, well, all I have to do is say, let's pause a moment and think if this is true, and then it just magically gets better because it doesn't, sometimes it's, it ingrained in us and it is, it's pretty intense at some points. So the next piece is talk to someone.
Get it out of your head, meaning with people that you trust, whether it's with a coach, whatever it is, but share those thoughts, share those fears, because once you actually voice it and you get it out there, then it starts to lose its power. And so it's not just mindset, this is what I'm gonna do, it's also involving others to be able to give you support.
And it takes time to be able to find those people, but they're gems. Scott is one of those for me.
Scott Greening: Yes. Sometimes they do a good job sometimes. She needs to talk to somebody else. So,
Brooke Greening: sometimes we hire a professional.
Scott Greening: That's right. That's right. No, but that's one of the advantages of having a coach, someone like you for sales is I'm in a bad spot.
Like I keep playing this soundtrack in my mind. Like I, I keep freaking out over sales calls or they all keep going the same way, like. Help me think through this, help me work through this. And you can step in and pro provide some outside perspective. You can, you can look at it.
Yeah. You can address it and you can say, oh, hey, like actually you're doing really good, or You're on the right track. Make this little tweak and it might go a little better. Or, all of those types of things. Mm-hmm. And it's rarely like. Oh no you're all we gotta start from square one. No.
Like that. Hardly it's ever happens. I don't, yeah. Yeah.
Brooke Greening: I, I don't even remember when it actually ever has. It's just. It helps because we sometimes don't even see our false beliefs that we have about ourselves, about others. And so it, when you have someone else that's coming in and they're hearing what you're saying, they're able to say, Hey, actually that sounds like da da da, da.
Or is this really true? There's that gracious challenging in it to encourage them to be able to see it from the light of truth instead of fear and anxiety.
Scott Greening: Great. Alright, so talk to somebody else. And then the first one was, let's think about the true things and fear is often louder and and familiar is not always accurate.
I think you've got one more idea for us. What is it?
Brooke Greening: Do the next thing. Just do the next thing. When we get in our head and we start to spiral specifically in sales, and we're like, okay, I don't know if they're actually gonna buy, I don't know if there's any point in doing this outreach. I don't know if I should be following up with them Again.
We will pull back and then we're not actually doing any of those generating activities, and you don't wanna be in that spot, and so you need to ask yourself, what is the very next thing that I need to do? What can I do now in the next five minutes to start moving in the right direction?
Whether that's picking up the phone, whether that's sending out an email, whether that's doing your pre-call plan for the call that you're getting ready to do, make sure you do the next thing. If we don't, then we're just stuck. So we just, we've gotta, we gotta move. It's important to be able to do that.
And then we have a couple of others after that, but specifically with sales, that's the next piece.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And I think the overwhelm makes it hard. To, it's the definition of overwhelm. It makes it hard to pick out that what's next, what's Im important now. And so mm-hmm. If you can, even if it's maybe not the best next thing, like just do something like, just break the mm-hmm.
The cycle. 'cause you can get in your head and keep thinking and it just usually. You don't get out of that real easily. So just doing something no will be that.
Brooke Greening: Yeah.
Scott Greening: Now
Brooke Greening: facing it.
Scott Greening: Yeah. So what are, maybe we're so overwhelmed, whether it's in sales, whether it's in life, what are, whether it's whatever.
Mm-hmm. And we just, we can't even do anything. What are some of the things that you've learned to say, oh, maybe I need to think about, like these types of things.
Brooke Greening: Yeah, so this is when it came into play with Torah and all of the things that were happening and when we got help and they started helping me to think through how to be able to process these things in regards to PTSD and all of that.
And some of them are very simple. They're not magic bullets, but they help quite a bit. And so one of the first things we're, they were always looking at was, what's going on in your sleep? 'cause if your sleep is completely messed up, then it completely messes up. Your day. If you're waking up so many times in the middle of the night or you can't get back to sleep afterwards, like that will affect a lot of things.
And when we actually have lack of sleep, that makes these problems look even harder. And so that was one of the things we started addressing immediately. Another one is just move. Get out of your house. And get outside and walk because it's just helping to. Not just live inside of your head. And so whether you wanna go outside and walk, whether you wanna go to the gym, whatever you wanna be able to do, but get out of your four walls and see and feel the air, the sun, all of that, and be able to have that.
And then the other thing is like making sure you're drinking water because you don't wanna be dehydrated and all of that. Now again, I say this because someone may have heard me say PTSD, and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not how you do that. I'm not. I am not counseling or coaching you how to be able to work through PTSD.
There's a lot more pieces to it, but those were some of the very first simple things that we had to start working on.
Scott Greening: Yes. Let's put in our official legal disclaimer. This is not official medical advice or anything. No. Anything like that. It is just like the principles that we've learned that, that have been healthy and helpful for you.
Mm-hmm. And that and and,
Brooke Greening: And the other. I'm sorry go ahead.
Scott Greening: Oh, I was just gonna say, I'm now, I'm like in my pastor mode or whatever I think it's, I think it's Martin Luther, we'll give him credit maybe. Maybe I'm just making it up. But he like the most holy thing that you can do is get, he's take a
Brooke Greening: nap,
Scott Greening: eight hours of sleep.
I mean, like that's, yes. Like sometimes we overthink things like, Hey,
Brooke Greening: how about go hundred percent,
Scott Greening: go get a nap.
Brooke Greening: And I think the other piece is just face your fear head on. If we just let it linger in our head, if we're just quiet about it, if we're trying to hide it from everybody, especially when we're small business owners, it's like a lot of comparison that can go on a lot of the time and.
I can't actually share what's going on. When we live like that and when we like harbor those things, it's not going to get better. It never magically disappears. And so you have to face that. You have to face the questions that are happening. You have to face the fear instead of trying to skirt around it or try to just downplay it and just tell yourself, Hey Brooke, it's not that bad.
Calm down. Hey Brooke, it's not that bad. Calm down. That doesn't work. You have to be able to face it. And there are different ways to be able to do that.
Scott Greening: Great. Well, this has been a little bit of a, of a heavier not heavier, but just it didn't and a difficult conversation. But I think naming the truth, naming the things that are silent is helpful and.
It does take thick skin. It does take emotional maturity. It does take some specific strategies to keep going in sales because like you get told no, like a hundred times a day and yeah, that, that can be a little challenging to work through and that, so I would just, a
Brooke Greening: hundred percent,
Scott Greening: I would just mention that.
Yeah, if you are, like, from a business standpoint and from a sales standpoint, you are saying, oh, like an outside voice would be great to have, reach out to Brooke. And she'd be happy to talk with you and help you. She's a sales coach and she does this all the time, and occasionally I hear it while I'm working on something else in the other part of the house.
If for some reason this has brought up all sorts of other issues and things in your life of counseling and that we happen to be involved in a project behind the scenes at this point, but something called the Life Center. And you can go there. We have a few counselors that are connected with that.
Are virtually nationwide, they do stuff remotely and that one of which Brooke has worked with. And that, and so you can go to the Life Center Info, life Center info. Yeah, that's right. And go to the counseling page and find some great resources there.
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm. A hundred percent.
Scott Greening: Thanks everybody.
Have a great day and we will see you next time. And I mean, I just of. It goes without saying though that the answer for everything is always a cup of matcha. So we'll see you
Brooke Greening: matcha and Jesus.
