Do You Have a Brain for Sales ...and Success in Life? By John Chapin
Here are some facts about the human brain and human nature that may shed some light on some areas where you seem to be stuck. Because this is a relatively short article, I’m not going to go into all the psychology and background. • The brains primary focus is survival. Survival right now, not even one minute from now, survival in the present moment. • The brain constantly looks for negative things in the environment that threaten your survival. Because of this, the natural human tendency is to be negative and pessimistic. News agencies take advantage of this. • The brain also focuses on conserving energy. It does this by forming habits and, for the most part, avoiding physically or mentally difficult tasks, at least over the long-term. Once our brain has developed a habit, the brains default setting is to keep doing that habit, whether it’s good for you or not. • The brain is focused on pleasure, right now in the moment, and avoiding pain, right now in the moment. • Because of the above, the brain seeks comfort. It does not like any discomfort. 14
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• Because of both of the above, the brain searches for the path of least resistance. • The brain likes a predictable, controlled environment because it is the safest and gives us the best chance for survival. Because of the this, it’s human nature to dislike change or anything different, even when that change is positive. • By nature we are herd creatures, so we have an innate need to be accepted by others and included in the group. This one is where most of our ‘sales’ issues come into play. There are also some other brain settings that may have been conditioned in us over the years. One of these is related to food. The brains default setting for food is: if it’s in your environment, eat it. That’s because our brains have developed over millions of years, and for almost all of that time not only did you not know when you’d have access to food again, but, if you didn’t eat it, it usually spoiled within hours because there were no refrigerators or freezers. When you live in an affluent society, where food is constantly around and available, weight and obesity issues skyrocket, like they have in the U.S.
april 2021
