TES 056 - Do You React or Respond?

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there. I'm Mel Abraham, the author of the number one best selling book the Entrepreneur's Solution and the founder of Thoughtpreneur Academy, where we had a chance to teach you how to capture what you know, package it and monetize it so you have more impact, more time and more income. And welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur Solution show. In this episode we're going to touch on something that I see happening out there a lot. Hits a question. Do you react or do you respond to the people out there, to your employees, to your team, to your customers, to the circumstances that surround you, to the environment, to some interaction? Because there's a huge difference between reaction and responding. And so I want to kind of drill down on that because when we become aware of it, we can find ourselves more effectively communicating and resolving situations that maybe come up that don't need to become problematic, if you will. And so we're going to talk about what I call the reaction response paradigm. And if you want to get the downloadable action guide for this, just go to melabraham.com session056 and I'll send you the download link. And if you happen to be away from your computer or running or working out or driving, I want you to be safe. Go ahead and just safely text one word mylegacy with no spaces to 38470. I'll make sure that we get you the download link right away. So let's just get into it. Let's start to understand the dynamics of what happens when you are in reaction mode or respond mode. And some of this really kind of comes full circle from my martial arts background. As many of you know that I've been in the martial arts for, well, well over almost four decades now. And I've had the opportunity to train with some of the best martial artists in the world. I lived in Japan and trained, but also working with protective details, people that are in the Secret service and SWAT and teaching them unarmed combat. I mean hand to hand combat and defensive tactics. And one of the things that we need to understand when it comes to self defense.

And in the martial arts is how we train ourselves to respond rather than react. And I think that that bridges over to our life, it bridges over to our business, it bridges over to our relationships. When we are in reaction mode, the question is really how are we interacting, reacting, responding or.

Answering back, if you will, under intense scrutiny or intensity at a high level. Here's the challeng see with this is that if we get this wrong, if we don't understand that maybe we're in reactive mode versus respond mode, what's going to happen is that we're going to be in a volatile state. We become really volatile with the kinds of things that we do with the responses we have. We become short in our response. And I'm going to say that I'm guilty of it too. I find myself reacting at times and I need to be aware of it and when I'm aware of it I start to switch off and understand that. But it's through the years of training and trying to be self aware, if you will, of how you can do that to realize I'm about to react and see that trigger and stop the trigger and move down a different path. Because living in a volatile state is challenging now. It's challenging for you, but it's even more challenging for those around you that you're in a constant volatile, volatile kind of state. The other thing that happens is that you become a slave to others. You become a slave to their responses, you become a slave to what they think, what they say. And what you're doing is you're waiting for them to give you the catalyst to give you the trigger for you to decide how you're going to be rather than taking control of your life, coming into it from a place of calmness and deciding how you're going to respond in a situation. Now, like I said, this is in all kinds of relationships or even in negotiations, business relationships where we find that some people might say something, something might happen. In fact, I just literally just now got off the phone with a situation where I asked them to.

Do something and they didn't do it right. You know, I asked them, actually asked them to send something out for Saturday delivery and they didn't do that. Now it's too late to fix it. And I found myself in that moment getting ready to react, but I had to pull back and say, you know, what's it going to do? It's going to destroy a relationship. Let's figure out how we learn from it and move on and figure out how we can navigate around that. And so there's plenty of places in our lives that I think that a trigger gets hit and we start to become enslaved or slave to what someone else has done to us in order to define how we're going to show up. And I think that that's a mistake and we all make it. Like I said, even myself.

I do that from time to time myself. And, you know, the cool thing is I got a beautiful bride, wonderful lady, and she is really good at pointing out when all of a sudden that trigger has been hit to slow things down. The other thing is this, that in the process of reaction, you escalate the problem. And if what we're trying to do is come to a solution, a resolution or some navigation or mediation of what it is that we're dealing with in that moment, be it a personal relationship, a business relationship, an interaction, a sales relationship, well, the last thing we want to do is escalate the problem, escalate the emotions, escalate the things in the negative vein in a direction that doesn't serve us, that doesn't serve the outcomes that we're looking for. So here's the challenges, but here's what happens when we start to manage that, when we realize that we can respond versus react. And when you respond versus react, the first thing that happens is that you find yourself living in a much calmer state. You're moving from a place of.

Almost Zen, and I hate to use that because it can be cliche, but almost a Zen like calmness that just kind of rolls off of you. And it doesn't mean that it doesn't affect you. It doesn't mean that it doesn't upset you. It doesn't mean that maybe you're angry inside. But what it does mean is that you're not allowing it to drive your decisions, your choices, your interaction from that point forward. At the same time, at the same time, it doesn't mean that you suppress it, you communicate it in a productive way to resolve, to navigate, to negotiate, to mediate, to solve.

What you have coming down the pipe at that point. The other thing that happens when you do it right is that you've created methodical solutions. You're going to see that. I'm going to tell you that one of the principles is to make sure that we think about the things that could happen and come up with solutions in advance. So when you reduce the emotional reaction that comes into play. You allow yourself to come from a place of methodical solutions, logical thought process that's based in knowledge, that's based in knowing, that's based in experience to come to a conclusion. So say, all right, this happened, what do we do next? How do we fix it? How do we adjust it? And let's move on, let's learn, let's make sure we don't duplicate it. But rather than reacting in an emotional way that isn't going to create a solution, let's bring methodical solutions to bear. And the other thing that happens is that we end up with better outcomes. We truly do in the process. If all we do is attack and say, I want to beat someone down because they made a mistake or I want to win this and in order to win it, you need to lose. And I don't buy into this zero sum game of in order for a business to succeed, another business needs to fail. I actually think that there's this cooperative competition where businesses make each other better in the process. Through the process of competition. I don't need to destroy my competition. In the process of my own success. I actually going to lift my competition up to show up differently, to show up better, to show up bigger in a way so we all grow in the process. Many of you have heard me say that I think Apple is a better company because of Microsoft and vice versa. Microsoft's a better company because of Apple. Now they both have their issues, they both have their problems. But I think that if they had been left to their own devices without the competition, they wouldn't be at the level that they're at and they would have had even more problems and challenges and things going on in their business. And I think that's the same in our personal relationships and our business relationships. Think about it.

Like I said, I mentioned my wife earlier. Beautiful bride, extremely intelligent, an executive that runs teams, that builds teams. She's phenomenal at leadership and leading teams. And she challenges me to continue to grow and I challenge her to continue to grow. And we're constantly in communication and discussion and reflection, reflection and what do you think? And having a dialogue. And that process is. It's like two people sharpening their swords and sharpening their knowledge, their experience. By virtue of holding us to a standard and raising the standard, holding us to a standard and raising the standards, we end up with better outcomes in that process. So when we respond versus react, when we allow ourselves to bring methodical solutions to bear, we find that we end up with better outcomes in the process. So in order to do that, what are the things you need to. Need to understand? Well, let me just give you, there's a couple of principles. There's more than this, but I want to give you what I think are the key, the key principles for you to take away. And when you embrace these, when you integrate these, when you understand these, and you move these forward into your life, into your personal relationships, your business relations, your interactions, your sales relationships, you're going to see things differently because you're going to come at them with a greater sense of appreciation, empathy, understanding and knowledge and options to try and solve whatever issues that might come about from. So the first one is what I call stress inoculation. Now stress inoculation is a term that's used in military and police and self defense in some martial arts. What happens is that the body, the body has a visceral and physiological response, if you will, or reaction to a stressor, an outside stressor. Many times, many people don't even realize how their body is going to respond until we put them into that situation. And not just intellectually, but emotionally, spiritually, physically, physically into a situation to see how their physiological response is going to be and what we do. When we're training police and when I'm training law enforcement and police and secret service and those folks, we put them through what's called stress inoculation training. In other words, we wanted to put them under the same kind of environmental, environmental stimuluses that could happen out in the street. So one, we could see what would happen to them physiologically. Two, they had a chance to process it and understand it. And through that process we inoculate them, we in a sense inform them so they can now manage the process. And I'll give you a for instance. So I, like I said, I teach defensive tactics. I have one organization that I've taught defensive tactics for their whole protective detail group and they do protection for a lot of politicians and stars and.

Executives. And I teach them that. I've taught them the hand to hand. Well, they go through some other types of training themselves, threat assessment training and all of those types of things. And they said, well, since you're training us, how would you come through our training? And the interesting thing is that, so I went through their part of the training which included things like tear gas in the eyes, which is a wonderful experience that I hope none of you ever experience, and something called simunition training. So interestingly enough, simunition training is under live gunfire, but the gun.

The shells that are Being shot at you are not bullet rounds, but they're a round that, when it hits you, leaves a mark, can leave a welt, hurts like heck, but it typically won't kill you unless it hits you in a vulnerable spot. And we wear some protective gear. So what they did with me is they. They took me to a building and I was supposed to go into this building, find the person that I'm supposed to save and get them out of the building. And at some point I'm gonna get attacked by gunfire. And for the, for the fun of it, I think they thought it would be cool to just see what would happen. They put a heart monitor on me to see what would happen physiologically, my response to that process. And so before I went into the building, I was dressed, I had a helmet on to protect my head. Before I went into the building, my heart rate was about 60 beats a minute. And as I went in, the heart rate was increasing 80, 90 beats a minute. They tracked it. But when the gunfire hit.

And I started to get hit with gunfire, my heart rate jacked up in an instant. In an instant to 160 beats a minute. Now, what happens with the body, if you understand it, is that there's a pattern set of catastrophic effects physiologically on the body as your heart rate starts to rise above 175 and 180 and things start to shut down and in protective mode. And so what happened to me is that it hit about 160, 165. I never passed that threshold, but it's good to know and to understand what the impacts are. Now, I'm not saying you go in and go get shot at. What I am saying is this, is that if you're going to have a discussion, if you're going to have a conversation, if you're going to have a sales interaction. My wife does this with her sales team all the time. Do the role playing. Go through the process, put yourself in the zone so you understand the physiological feelings that are going to go through you during that moment that potentially can go through you during that moment if you're going out. In fact, I was just. One of my people that I mentor just posted something about his fear of trying to get out there and speak, but he really, really, really wants it. And the reality is that the only way we're going to surpass it is go through this stress inoculation process by putting yourself into the process. And so I told them to schedule a speaking engagement. Let's schedule, let's get you out There, let's move through the process and then let's evaluate, let's debrief it, and let's learn from what your responses are to do that. And, you know, something like speaking is stressful for a lot of people, and they say.

It'S the biggest fear even before dying. And I told them, I said, every time I go out to speak, it's stressful. It's.

I'm nervous, I've got some anxiety, but it's coming from a place of service I want to serve. Every time I'm ready to turn the camera on, I have to think about it because I want to come from a place of service and I want to make it valuable for you and for my listeners and for my audience in the community that has been so gracious to me over the years. And so what I think we need to do in this process is put ourselves in those moments that we might find ourselves in, whether it's a sales meeting or sales discussion, whether it's a mediation, whether it's a negotiation, whether it's in an interaction from a relationship standpoint. So we start to understand what our mental and physiological responses will be so we can manage them better because we're better informed. The second principle then is the power of anticipation.

I have a good friend of mine, Steve Linder, he says that.

You want to look for people that anticipate problems and solve them before they become real. And I think that this is truly an important aspect, especially for entrepreneurs. But it's an interesting thing how I saw this develop in me. The power of anticipation developed in me through the martial arts again, because I had to look for areas that I thought were unsafe and anticipate what would happen, what could happen, what were the possibilities, get the solutions in place before it ever happened. Think about it. If you anticipate the potential problems, the pitfalls and the challenges that might come about in your business or in a trip, in an interaction, and you figure out other ways, okay, to navigate through those, you're better prepared. You've got more tools in your tool belt to work through that. So anticipate what possibly could happen. Don't fluff it away, don't sit back. Fluff it away, don't sit back and push it aside. Say, ah, it'll never happen. If it is a possibility, then it could possibly happen. Think about it and say, how would I respond? Not how I would react, how would I respond? And then the third principle I'd love for you to start to implement and integrate into you is establish Your options earlier.

The time to look for options is not when you're in the heat of battle. It's not when you're in the heat of the moment. When, when, when you look at something. When, when I'm looking at a business, when I'm looking at a business, I'm going to look at how do I create success in that business? Not just one way, but multiple ways. How do I find multiple avenues to get the outcome that we're looking for? So I have options early. You know, a lot of people have heard me say that I think your business model is more important than your business plan. And I truly believe that. But there is a business, there's a planning part to business. And when you are planning the business plan, and when I work with some of these, some of my clients, you know, we create a plan. And I said, that's great. So here's your plan, let's put it aside and now let's do another plan without using the previous plan. So let's come up with a whole nother way to be successful in the marketplace. Let's come up with alternatives early because think about what's going to happen. You know, as has been said, once a plan is in place, the one thing's for certain, it won't go as planned. And so if it's not going to go as planned, then let's have some options on the table. Before we start on the journey, let's figure out what other off ramps we have, what other detours we have, what other possibilities we have. So when we hit an obstacle, when we hit a challenge, we just go, huh, Already thought about it. Here's the option. Let's move forward. So those are the three principles that if you just capture those in your life, in your business, in your interactions, it'll serve you, serve you, serve you greatly. So stress inoculation, the power of anticipation. Establish your options early. So with that, let's just talk a little bit about what I call the reaction response paradigm. Understanding when you might be in reactive mode and when you might be in response mode. Being able to score yourself and understand what is a higher low in, in your life, in your business, in your relationships and in your interactions. So when we look at this.

When you see someone that is reacting, typically what they're doing is they're very short sighted, they're very much in the moment, emotionally entrenched in the outcome of that moment and they've lost sight of the vision, the goals and the bigger picture. If you're responding the Choices that you're making are coming from a place of the vision you have and the greater goals that are driving you in that process. One of the other things that I think indicates that someone is reacting and how this may serve you is it may identify that the person that you're interacting with is coming from a reactive place and not a responsive place. And in that situation, it's very difficult to, to get the outcome that you're looking for until you move them away from that reaction and move them to respond. And so you can then start with an understanding of it. You can then start to influence them and help them shift and allay those emotional aspects that can cause them to make choices that are less than productive. Let's just say, okay, so another thing that I think you'll see is you'll see passive aggressive behavior when you're in reactive mode versus behavior that is driven by values. Remember, I'd say one of the most important decision we can make as a person and as a business is what are we going to stand for? And every decision we make is built on that pillar of what are we going to stand for? Get that defined, get that ingrained, have that standard and know that. And when you talk to people around you and they say, hey, what does Mel stand for?

You should see a pattern of response that comes into play. Otherwise you're not living through those values. Values are so, so important. And so sometimes when people are reacting in reactive mode, they've left the values or they haven't even defined them. And many of you have been through my business Breakthrough Academy and we spent a lot of time definitely defining the identity of your business, the identity of who you are. Even in Thoughtpreneur Academy, we spend a lot of time around the you piece of it because that's what's driving the business. And we don't come at it with a passive aggressive nature or even an aggressive nature. We come at it from a values perspective and start to respond differently in the process. Another thing that I think you'll see is that they're very emotional. There's a when you're hot, when your emotions start to go up, your intellect starts to go down. So one of the things that we need to watch out for is that when they become highly emotional in their responses and you can see it in their face and you can see the redness and you can see the tightness and all that, and at times you just need to step away and say, listen, it doesn't need to be this emotional. Let's Figure this thing out, let's, let's bring it back down. And I'm not saying to discount their feelings at all, not in the least. I'm just saying let's use them in a productive way. And so when you're responding, you come from a place of knowledge, a place of understanding, a place of empathy where you're seeking to understand.

First and move forward from there in that process. The other thing that I think you see is that when you are reactive and those emotions go up, there's no communication. It's very poor communication. It's defensive, it's heels dug in, it's blame, it's accusatory. And there's nothing good that's gonna come of that versus when you're responding. You've got connected communication. You're trying to see other perspectives, other sides. You're trying to understand, you're trying to use language that will start to dissipate the emotions and move you towards some sort of resolution and solution to whatever situation you're dealing with is then you have what I think what appears to an outsider is overreacting. Now I'm going to warn you, the last thing you want to do to try and deal with this is to say, you know, I think you're overreacting because they're just going to jack up even more. They're going to go crazy on you at that point in time. Just understand and take it in and then focus on the facts, focus on your responsibility, focus on how you can communicate differently, focus how you can connect with them, focus on the values and try to dissipate it. But saying, hey, I think you're overreacting certainly is gonna just pour gasoline on the fire in the process. And then I think that you'll see that they jump to conclusions. There's a lot of assumptions in there. And maybe what they did is that, that they've been thinking through the process and they skipped a few steps and they assumed something that really isn't true in the process. But if you respond, you've really pre thought it out. And this goes back to the power of anticipation. It goes back to having options up front that you've thought it out. So the response doesn't need to be created on the spot, you've already created it previously. And when you get these things right, like I said, when you get these things right, because if you don't get it right, you know, on the react side, you end up in a situation that leads to more issues and less solutions. But when we're focused on the response side, you're going to find yourself that leads to more solutions. So, you know, this whole, this whole episode kind of came about because of an interaction that I was watching amongst other people. And I said, God, they could have completely avoided it if they both came from a response standpoint and not a reactive standpoint, but because not only did one come up from a reactive standpoint, both came from a reactive standpoint. It was like two rams butting heads and they were never going to solve it. And, you know, the issue wasn't that big. And the issue grew to be huge in their minds, in their hearts, in their spirit, in their emotions. It did a lot of destructive work. And had they come at it with a bit of a response, it would have been different. So I hope that this serves you. I hope that you start to think about things and understand the triggers within you that might move you towards the react side and how you can pull yourself back towards the response side. It's going to serve you greatly as you move forward. It's going to serve you in your relationships, your personal relationships, your parenting relationships, your intimate relationships, your business relationships. It's going to serve you because let's face it, no matter whether you're in business or not in business, people are a way of life. People are in your life and we can't get around it. I guess we can go live on an island somewhere, but that certainly doesn't sound fun. So figure out how you can connect better, Figure out how you can serve better. Figure out how you can be more responsive than reactive in what you do. So I hope you found this of value to you and if you did, do me a favor, do me a favor. Share this with a friend. Everyone can use some additional tools, especially in these types of aspects of life and business and wealth. As Tony says, share this with a friend and make sure that you subscribe. Click the subscribe button and make sure that you're subscribed, that you stay with me because I've got a lot more of these types of episodes and tools and tactics and strategies. Strategies for you to serve you in your life and your business and building a life that you deserve. And if you want to get the reaction response paradigm, just go to melabraham.com session056 or text me. Text mylegacy one word, no spaces to 38470. Make sure that I send it your way. And if you have a question, if you have a question for me or a challenge that you're dealing with, something that you're unsure about whether it comes to business, success, wealth, or even something in life, just go to askmelnow.com leave me your question, leave me your comment. I want to hear from you. I want to serve you and support you as we go and we'll make sure that we get it on one of the upcoming episodes. And so again, thank you for taking the time, thank you for being here, and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Until then, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant. See you soon. Cheers. Bye.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure you subscribe so you get access to all of Mel's business and success tips. And if you like this episode, share it with a friend. If you have a specific business or success question, you can ask it at www.askmelnow.com. remember, it's all about being bold, dreaming big, and living life your way because the world needs you. Until the next episode, may your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant.

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