I gave myself a new mission a few days ago. Official missions from Sebastian are still coming down, and I’ll talk about some of those next post, but I’m self-assigning one as well. From now on, my default opener, the only one I’m allowed to use unless something else springs immediately to mind, is “Hey, how’s it going?” That’s it. Every single approach I make, I’m kicking off with a big smile and a cheerful “Hey, how’s it going?”

I’m doing this for a few reasons. One is that I haven’t fully internalized the fact that you can open with anything. I understand it intellectually, I’ve even confirmed it through personal experience, but I don’t fully accept it down in my gut. The belief that I need to spit some clever, magical opener is still skulking around in my subconscious, and every now and then it pops up to screw up my approaches. My solution: kick that belief in the head over and over until it stops getting back up. Bam! So I’m opening with “Hey, how’s it going?” – the king of boring openers – until my beliefs face the facts and straighten out. It’s already started to happen.

Another reason: it forces me to really step correct with my body language, vocal tonality, and energy. With “Hey, how’s it going?” I can’t lean on the interesting content of the opener – there isn’t any. This’ll be good for me.

Another reason: I sometimes have a problem of worrying about what I’m going to say as my opener, and this will eliminate that. Over-thinking about my opener is totally pointless and self-defeating; it just gets me stuck in my own head. You can’t really think your way to something witty or force cleverness out of yourself; you can only relax and let it flow from your natural, intuitive creativity. When I’m in state, this isn’t an issue. There’s no concern whatsoever about what to say. Everything is ridiculously easy, and I simply can do no wrong – it feels like I’ve smoked an eight-ball of Felix Felicis. I know that as soon as I roll up, I’ll just open my mouth and pure gold will pour out. But when I’m out of state, my problem of over-thinking what I’m going to say can actually keep me from getting in state. So from now on, if something doesn’t spring immediately to mind, I won’t spend an extra second worrying about what to say. I’ll just use “Hey, how’s it going?” Since I’ve started doing this, I’ve found that something usually does spring immediately to mind. Once I stopped worrying about what to say and trying to force creativity with my conscious mind, it just started to flow on its own.

See you soon,
Clark