Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: I loathe books that tell my all problems stem from one thing and that infinite happiness is but an attitude or soft-tissue adjustment away. I just can’t think I’ll be all that happy not being miserable. That’s why I was cringing when I ran out of things to read at the walk-in clinic and started working on Julien Smith’s latest, The Flinch.
His thesis is pretty simple and echoes Seth Godin’s goings-on around reptilian brains, Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go! *
and IBM’s old marketing saw about fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD). Basically, we’re hardwired to react, or flinch, when we have to do difficult things. As someone who once spent an entire afternoon trying to wade into a cold lake, I can relate. We flinch in the face of doubt, embarrassment, brutal honesty or change. It’s a protective thing that, like so many, has outlived its usefulness in the world of battery-powered candles.
And even where we need to keep a few flinches on simmer, lest we shove our hands into the shredder, most of us flinch so much and so often that we start flinching in the face of stuff that hasn’t and likely won’t occur.
“At the end of this path, you go on the defensive. You give up on hurdles.
Your world starts getting smaller, instead of bigger. You don’t adapt to
what comes at you. You stop following your curiosity and you start
being safe.”
In safety, and this is a wake-up call to those of you who keep your kids in a roll of bubblewrap, there is complacency. Complacency favours the status quo and leaves us profoundly unable to deal with change, which explains a lot about hot yoga and sticky rum drinks.
“You don’t need adrenaline to get through those things – you just need to do them. Crossing these obstacles will put the flinch in its place.”
That’s pretty much the book in a nutshell. Not so far off your mum telling you to just shove the damn turnip in your mouth and get on with it. The rest is a series of exercises and contemplations that help you do flinch-worthy things and learn that nothing bad happens.
My favourite exercise involves taking a mug you don’t like from the cupboard and smashing it on the floor. It’s quite liberating. In fact, it’s a bit hard to stop if you have more than one ugly mug (and who doesn’t). The good news is, when you’re done tidying up the mess, you can start breaking your co-workers’ ugly mugs. Now that’s the way to work through a few things.
Smith, who writes the wonderful In Over Your Head blog, says it’s this fear of the flinch that stops us from taking chances, breaking habits, parallel parking, and telling the nice lady in HR just what we think of her. In other words, all the reasons you probably went into marketing instead of, say, law or computers are pretty much pooched because you’re just as afraid as everyone else.
But guess what? We don’t get to be afraid in marketing. We’re supposed to be the ones who push envelopes, who apologize to legal every third day, who flirt with poor taste and worse judgement just for fun. But when was the last time you really did that?
Sure, you were totally bad ass in that employee forum and you sampled a beet at the salad bar in the cafeteria two weeks ago, but you probably haven’t taken a meaningful risk in years. And guess who you’re blaming? That’s right, you’re blaming the Hand-Wringers, the Professional Flinchers.
I hope Julien writes a sequel that explains how to get the people around us to Unflinch. I suspect it’s by unflinching ourselves and proving to the Hand-Wringers that jumping into a cold shower or talking to strangers (both of which are recommended exercises) don’t kill you; they just make you cold, wet and unpopular in walk-in clinics.
So I’m breaking my rule about self-help books and recommending you give this a try. It’s free and you can get through it in about the time it takes for the speculum to warm up.
*Affiliate link
Bizmarketer is Elizabeth Williams
Follow me on Twitter @bizmkter
or email escwilliams@gmail.com
AlwaysGrumpy says
Enquiring minds need to know: unflinch = unclench?
bizmarketer says
By which you mean, no doubt, teeth.