Ninety Seconds

Fear in the body has a timetable. When something triggers it, a wave of chemistry rises, peaks and clears, and the whole cycle takes about ninety seconds. That is how long the physical part lasts. Everything after ninety seconds is the mind replaying the story, deciding it is still dangerous, and ordering a fresh batch. An owner who says she has been anxious about a price rise for three weeks has not been anxious for three weeks. She has been anxious for ninety seconds, several hundred times, each time she retold herself the story.

This matters for the floor because the moments that decide a business are short. The price is said in a second. The email asking for the work is sent or not sent in a second. The hire is agreed or postponed in a meeting that lasts a few minutes. Fear does not need to run the whole year to run the business. It needs to be present for the ninety seconds in which the decision is made, and it nearly always is, because the decision is precisely the kind of thing that triggers it.

Most owners deal with this by avoiding the moment. The price is not said, so the fear is not felt. The email is not sent. The hire is not discussed. The business stays on last year's number and the owner stays comfortable, and the floor she has carefully built gets no weight put on it. The alternative is not to feel no fear, which is not available to anyone I have met. The alternative is to know what to do in the ninety seconds, so the decision gets made while the fear is still passing through rather than after it has been avoided.

I learnt this late and in the wrong place, in a hospital bed on my fortieth birthday, where I finally had to pay attention to a body I had ignored for years. The lesson was not that fear and stress are bad. It was that they have a shape, and a thing with a shape can be handled.

The response is four steps, and they take less time than the fear does.

First, name it. Not "I feel uneasy" but "that is fear of being judged" or "that is fear that they will not pay." A named fear shrinks to its actual size, because naming it separates the feeling from the story and the story is where the size comes from. There are nine of them, and most people are carrying two or three. I will go through all nine tonight, and the ones to look for are not the ones that sound familiar. They are the ones that sting.

Second, let it run. Count to ninety. Do not argue with it, explain it, or try to solve anything in that time. The chemistry is going to peak and clear whether or not you reason with it, and reasoning with it is what restarts the cycle.

Third, move. Stand up. Breathe in for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Cold water on the wrists if there is a tap nearby. Feet flat on the floor, and notice them there. The body started this and the body is the fastest way to finish it.

Fourth, once it has cleared, ask two questions. Is this real, or is this old? Most business fear is old; it is a pattern from somewhere else wearing today's situation as a costume. And what is the worst that can actually happen? Said out loud, the worst is usually a no, and a no to the price is a no to the price. It is not a no to you.

Then make the decision. Say the number. Send the email. Book the conversation about the hire. The floor is there to hold the weight, and the ninety seconds are how you get onto it.

Tonight at five UK time I am running the session on this. It is free and about an hour, and the recording goes to everyone who registers, so register even if you cannot be there live. The link is below.

Continue reading: Will People Actually Pay Me? →

The session: The Nine Fears, and the floor underneath your business. Wednesday 2 December, 5pm UK, free →

Or start the diagnosis: Take the free 10-minute Entrepreneur Gap scan →

The book: The Science of Getting Rich and How to Apply It →