In a slump?

A “slump” can be experienced by anyone.  That feeling of being consumed by quicksand and it often feels like there is no way out, but this feeling can be escaped by implementing principles.  Slumps begin in the mental and then they bleed into the physical.  The mind can become one’s worst enemy.  The mind can make you question yourself and only thinks about all the things that are going wrong, rather than the things that you are doing right.  This leads to paralysis by analysis, and you begin sinking deeper into the quicksand.  Here are a couple of ideas for you to get out of a slump:

#1- You need to be able to let go of the opinion your mind forms about a situation to take away the emotion attached to it.  Once you take away the emotion and opinion,

#2- Choose an empowering meaning.  Look at a situation for what it truly is without emotion.  This new perspective will allow you to look at a situation in a more positive light.  Before you know it, you will experience momentum, and then you need to

#3- Build off that powerful thing called momentum that will lead to endless possibilities.  Momentum leads to progress, and progress leads to happiness when it’s not viewed as a failure.  Little hinges swing big doors.

Are you in a slump?  I hope not.  Where the heck do those things come from?  Where the heck does that slump come from?  You can call it a funk, you can call it a rut, you can call it whatever you want, but slumps come out of nowhere.  It might be you’re a sales person and you’re trying to make sales and all of a sudden, the sales went away.  Where did they go?  They dried up.  You might be working out every day, you might be into fitness, and all of a sudden, it’s just tough to get at the gym.  You just can’t get there.  I don’t know where you are.  Maybe it’s your business.  Maybe your business isn’t rocking the way that it normally does.  What happens?  We’re in a groove, and then all of a sudden this “slump” comes out of nowhere.  I had this question at an event that I was doing.  I was on stage, and we were doing Q&A, and this lovely lady popped up and she said, “I have a question.  How do you get out of a slump?”  It was really interesting, and I sat there and I kind of grabbed my chin for a minute, and I just thought about where does that come from?  You know what I mean?  Where do slumps come from.  Now I don’t know about what your background is, but my background is in sports and then helping people build and run their businesses, and then also in the sales arena, and whenever I hear the word slump, I always think about sports.  I always think about the football team is in a slump.  The baseball player is in a slump.  That’s kind of how I relate to it is through baseball.  In baseball, something like if you’re going through this slump, I want to help you.  I want to give you some things that you can take on to get out of it.  My intention is, the stuff I’m going to be giving you right now, my hope is that by the time you turn off this video, you’re out of your slump.  I know that’s a tall order, but that’s my intention, okay?  So, whenever I think about, I think about baseball.  I think about being in a slump in baseball.  You know, the batter goes up to the plate, he can’t get any hits.  He’s in a slump.  So, what causes that?  I’ve been in a lot of slumps in baseball in my life.  I’ve been in a lot of slumps in sales.  I’ve been in a lot of slumps in my business, and I’ve gone through them.  It’s been said that success is just moving from breakdown to breakdown to breakdown without losing enthusiasm or moving from slump to slump to slump without losing enthusiasm.  What is so devastating about the slump?  I think it’s the fear that you might not get out of it.  Our mind plays tricks with us and all of a sudden, you think, oh my god, what if I don’t get out of this?  What if I’m in this slump forever?  That’s what -- it’s like quicksand.  A slump is kind of like quicksand.  The more you try and get out of the slump, the deeper you sink into it.  So, where does it come from?  Why does it start, and then how the heck do you get out of it?  Well, the first thing I want you to know is slumps, 100% of slumps start mental and then they bleed into the physical.  I’ll give you an example in baseball.  So, in baseball, I used to always notice that slumps would start mental.  I would start to analyze stuff.  Why did I get out?  Because in baseball, you can get out seven out of ten times, you’re in the hall of fame, so you’re used to getting out all the time.  You’d get out, and you’d get out and you’d go, it must be something I’m doing wrong.  You’re seeing these results, but you’re not getting the results that you want.  What am I doing wrong?  So, you start to analyze, and you start to pick apart and you start to do all this different kinds of stuff, and when you do that, then you start to get paralysis by analysis.  Then, you just start to sink deeper and deeper and deeper.  So, what I want you to get is this, what’s got you in a slump, or what gets people in a slump is acknowledging that you’re in a slump.  I know that sounds simple and I know that sounds basic.  Like, David, really?  Is that all you’ve got for this video?  That’s really the punchline of this video is once you acknowledge that you’re in a slump, it starts to bleed into the physical.  I’ll give you an example.  You may be in sales.  You might be doing amazing things on the phone.  You might be making all your calls.  You might be doing all your presentations and doing everything you think you need to do, but you don’t have the sales yet.  You ever seen a situation like that?  Someone who’s making all the calls, doing everything they think they need to do, they’re just not making the -- they’re not getting the results they want.  So, they start to ignore the things that are good.  I’m doing this really well, I’m doing that really well.  What can I leverage?  How can I move forward?  They don’t acknowledge that.  All of a sudden, they don’t get the result they want, and they’re like, eh, I don’t like that.  Then, they get a result that they don’t like again, and they’re like eh.  I don’t like that, but I think it was Napoleon Hill that said, within every obstacle, within every devastation is the seed of opportunity.  So, what I’ve noticed is things are happening that you’re doing well, but you don’t want to acknowledge them.  You just want to acknowledge that one result that is bugging the crap out of you.  So, you start to do that and you start to fixate on it, and then you start to analyze.  It must be me.  I need to change what I am doing, and you start to say stuff like, I’m not disciplined.  I’m not good enough.  I don’t have the skills yet.  It’s because I’m not there yet.  It’s because I’m not this yet.  What I want you to know is that might be garbage.  It might be true, but it might be garbage.  What I want you to know is that there’s this cycle that happens in slumps.  Here’s how it goes.  You’re taking the actions that you need to do.  You get the results.  You make the results wrong.  Once you do that, you start to analyze why they’re wrong.  Well, maybe it’s me, and it’s usually me, right?  It comes out in the form of, I’m not good enough.  I don’t have the skills.  Maybe I’m not closing hard enough.  Maybe I’m not prospecting.  Blah, blah, blah.  I’m being distracted.  All of these different things.  You start to notice all the things that are wrong with what you do.  Then, you know what happens?  You start to do that, and then you start to attach meaning to that.  You know what that means?  That means I’m not a good sales person.  Maybe I’m not cut out for this business.  Maybe I’m not cut out to be a parent.  Maybe I’m not cut out to be an athlete.  Whatever it might be.  You start to make things mean stuff that make you and put you in a prison of being a victim.  Then you know what happens?  You operate like a victim.  You operate like you’re helpless.  You operate like you’re not good enough.  You operate like you don’t have skills.  You know what that does?  It brings more results you don’t want, and the quicksand starts and down you go, down you go, down you go. 

So, how do you get out of that?  Well, the first thing you have to do is you have to acknowledge the things that are going good.  Let’s look around right now.  There’s good things happening.  You’re watching this video for goodness sakes.  People who are destitute and really have it rough aren’t watching this video right now.  They’re not thinking about how do I get better?  They’re thinking about how do I eat?  How do I stay alive?  So, you’ve got to think about it like that.  There’s a lot of things that are going on good in your life.  You just have to acknowledge them.  I’m not talking about gratitude.  Gratitude is very powerful in its own right, and I do it every day, my clients do it every day.  Gratitude is an amazing thing to do, but that’s not what I’m talking about.  What I’m talking about is you developing the skill of looking at the same situation, but seeing it a different way.  In a way that makes you feel good, in a way that creates possibility for you, in a way that makes you like, oh my gosh, I’m excited today.  I’m going to go take action.  This is going to be amazing.  That’s what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about those skills.  So, I want to give you three steps.  The first one is this.  The first one is when you analyze, let go of your opinion.  Let go of your opinion, because your mind will just mess with, that’s not good enough.  Let’s be honest, if you had friends in your life that talked to you the way that your mind does, they would not be friends for very long.  So, you want to start to ignore that thing, and just release and let go of opinion for a minute, and just analyze the situation as it is with no emotion.  Just hmm, what’s going on here?  What you’ll start to notice is, you start to see stuff without the emotion, and when you do that, all the options that need to be there are present, but when you get attached to emotion, you get blinders on.  You’re like ah, and you focus on just one thing, and you don’t want that thing to be there, but you’re focusing on it, and it expands.  I think you’ve heard about it.  What you resist persists.  That’s exactly true.  It’s like quicksand.  You keep focusing and struggling, you’re going to keep going down.  The second thing is, I want you to choose a more empowering meaning.  So first, you’re getting the results, analyze it without an opinion.  Analyze it as if you’re just a third party looking at it.  Take the emotion out of it.  The next one is you choose an empowering situation.  I’ll give you a great example of this.  I remember being, I was in PONY league or something, maybe even high school, I don’t know.  I was young, but I had a coach named Rick, Coach Rick.  He was Rick Sterling, I believe was his name.  Amazing, very very -- I would call him wise.  He’s just been around the block.  He was very experienced.  I came up to bat, and we’re in this game and I came up to bat at like the bottom of the ninth.  The bases loaded, and we’re down by two and there’s two outs and it’s all up to me.  If I’m out, we lose.  If I get a hit, we win.  I come up to bat and he goes, “David, come here.  Let me ask you something.  If you take the drama out of this situation, what is it?”  This is in the middle of the game, he asks me this.  I’m like, what?  He says, “If you take the drama out of the situation, what is it?”  I said, “It’s just another at bat.  It’s just another game.”  He goes, “Yeah.  It is, isn’t it?  Go ahead.  Get up there and get a hit.  Have some fun.”  I was like, that was a gamechanger for me, and Rick if you’re watching this, just so you know, that changed my life.  I ended up using that when I speak in from of 4,000 people and you should be nervous.  I don’t get nervous because you just take the emotion out of it.  You analyze it without your opinion, and you’ll see it in a completely more empowering way, which that’s what I want you to know.  I want you to choose a more empowering meaning, and then ultimately what I want you to do, is I want you to once you choose an empowering meaning, you start to notice all these good things, I want you to start to build off of momentum.  You only need one little thing.  You know what?  I called that person when I didn’t want to and I did it anyway.  Bam, I’m on my game.  Then, you build off of that.  You take momentum, and you let the power of momentum take over.  Momentum is an extremely powerful thing.  When you feel like you’re gaining momentum, when you feel like you’re gaining progress, that’s when you’re going to win.  There’s all these coaches out there, and thought leaders and gurus talking about how you get happy.  I’ll help you.  One way, progress.  When you feel like you’re making progress, you are happy.  You don’t need a lot of progress.  When you’re not making progress -- here’s what a lot of people do.  They make progress feel like failure.  That’s really, that could probably be the punchline for this entire video.  Stop making progress feel like failure.  Yes, you’re not getting the results that you want yet.  It doesn’t mean they’re not coming.  They may be coming, but you have to just back up for a second, look at it without emotion, and then start to choose a more empowering meaning, so that you can move forward and you’re going to win the game.  Then, you build off of momentum and you keep the snowball going.  That’s how you’re going to feel good: progress.  Make little progress feel like winning.  Little hinges swing big doors.  You don’t need this big monumental result to consider that progress.  I hope this video helps.  I hope this video -- if you’re in a slump right now, I hope you can watch this, and if I -- by the way, have you shifted your perspective yet?  Have you said, you know what?  I’m not in a slump.  I’m just going through a phase right now.  It’s not a big deal.  This is just a thing.  I’m actually this well, I’m actually doing that.  Let me ask you something.  What are you doing well right now?  What are you doing good?  You’re doing something good.  You’re watching this video, you’re trying to get better, and that’s good.  What else are you doing?  Look around you.  What else are you doing well that you can build off of and build momentum and you know what?  As soon as you acknowledge that, you’re on your way out of that slump.