Fear of Losing Money
As you learn to live a happier life one of the things that will change is the quality of communication. Probably one of the most fearfully corrupt areas of communication is sales and marketing. I know this because I used to work in sales. Once you learn to overcome this fear filled area of dealing with sales people you will be much wiser about making decisions with your money.
Sales and marketing typically uses fear and emotional abuse. Often it is so subtle we don’t notice the specifics of it. Because we are not aware of the specifics of it, we can be taken advantage of. We may not know the details of how we are being maneuvered, but we know we don’t like it when it is happening.
Marketers and sales people are not really motivated to change their end of the communication. The way they manipulate and maneuver people’s emotions puts food on their table. That means that changing the quality of communication is our responsibility. And this we can do by being aware of the subtle ways that sales people operate and how we react to them. As we become wise to their emotional hooks, dealing with sales people can be fun, and even entertaining. We’ll also have to let go of our judgments of what they are doing, but that just benefits us. But maybe what you will notice as the greatest practical importance is that you will be able to keep a lot more of your own money.
Fear of Losing Money
Spending money is a behavior, and most behaviors are emotionally driven. Then it comes as no surprise that sales people use emotions to get you to spend money. Specifically, they use your emotional reactions to sell you their products and services. If you become more aware of your emotions, and the beliefs that trigger your emotional reactions then you will make better decisions with your money.
There are two principle mechanisms that sales people use to transfer your money into their pocket. They are the emotions of fear and excitement or hope.
The most common hook used by sales people is fear. It’s most often used because it is most effective. An obvious example is for home alarm security systems with slogans, “Don’t let this happen to you.” Which,,, when you consider the question, causes your mind to imagine it happening to you and experience fear in the process. It’s then followed up by a mention of their product as a means of safety from the fear that they have just proposed to you.
The planting and activation of seeds of fear in your mind get much more subtle than that. Another common phrase,,, “Don’t miss out.” This of course plays on our fear of missing out, and at a more subtle level, the fear of being left out. In these scenarios it is our imagination doing the work by creating the scenario and having an emotional reaction to the scenario we imagine.
Our imagination can be an extraordinary amplifier. It takes only a few words of suggestion and our imagination can build a scenario that is a whole virtual reality of the experience. It comes complete with images of people, animated stories, dialog, back story, and within seconds can rapidly project months into the future. We then perceive the scenario our mind imagines and have an emotional reaction to the virtual reality that we just experienced. And all of this can happen with just a few words of suggestion as a trigger.
What is important to note is that sometimes those trigger words for that fear-based virtual reality scenario don’t come from anybody else. Sometimes those trigger words are from our own thoughts.
One of the words that I use to describe the scenario of our imagination is “dream.” I often use the word dream to describe what goes on in our imagination because it includes emotion as well as the other elements of audio, visual, and tactile experiences that our imagination can create.
Today’s Current Example: Being Sold On Health Care Fears
A current day practical example of a fearful sales pitch is going on in the health care debate. One phrase being used is “Don’t let government come between you and your doctor.” The implied message there is that change is bad. Also implied in the message is that government is bad and can’t be trusted. What it fails to mention is that a large profit driven corporation, (ie. an insurance company) is already in between you and your doctor. Personally I find it a conflict of my health interest when their profits increase as they restrict, or deny me health care. But I digress.
The point is that when we hear that phrase about “government coming between you and your doctor”, our mind is tempted to run with the scenario. However, the more awareness we have, the more scrutiny and skepticism we apply, and the more points of view we consider, the less likely we are to fall into that dream of fear.
Sales Pitch of Fear
We could cover all the hidden messages of fear for a while, but that would get boring. It’s more important for you to become aware of the way your mind generates scenarios and creates unpleasant emotions when trigger phrases are used. More importantly, what does your mind do once it starts to create fear?
Once you begin to generate unpleasant emotions, your mind then reacts a second time to try to make you feel better. This is a natural emotional and mental instinct to be happy, but the way we have been conditioned is to comfort our selves with a “feel better” behavior. When we were little the “better behavior” was usually being suggested by our parents. Later it was suggested by people pushing our buttons. People have an emotional reaction of anger to us, and then tell us what we should do so they can stop blaming us. As we became consumers it became a “feel better” product offered by marketers as a solution to the fearful seeds they planted.
In all these patterned behaviors we learn the habit of doing what other people want in order to make our selves feel better. After years of this, of looking for other people to tell us what we should do, we hardly ask the question anymore, “What do I want?”
The point is that these emotionally comforting behaviors and products that others suggest haven’t solved the problem of feeling uncomfortable. They’ve only shifted our attention briefly from the proposed fear we imagined. Our fears remain because the beliefs that created our fears go unaddressed. Our imagination still operates in essentially the same way of producing fearful dreams and scenarios that we believe. They get triggered again when we hear or think similar thoughts. This leads to more of the same emotions and behavior patterns in the future.
The problem isn’t just with what others say. That’s only half. The other half of the problem with fear is the way that our mind dreams. Changing the way other people communicate with you is not going to be very effective. You’ll have much better success making changes in your own mind than you will have in the behavior of other people.
Changing the Fearful Pattern of Being Sold
The important point is that you learn to be aware of the subtle changes in your emotions. With that awareness of your emotions you can begin to dismantle the beliefs that cause you to react. In this way you detach your self from the power sales people or others appear to have over you.
I say “appear” because the power of control is really yours. The real power is behind your own emotional beliefs. The trigger phrases of sales people and your own thoughts are just that, triggers. It’s only when we have these fear based beliefs that we have triggers available that others can push.
When you no longer respond in a fearful way to the seeds of marketers and sales people, then they will have to change the way they communicate with you.
If we change the way we listen and interpret, and therefore how we feel about what people say, then other people will change the way they communicate with us. Yes it’s kind of backwards, but the truth is like that sometimes.
There are practical exercises in for dismantling the fear based beliefs in your mind available in the Self Mastery Audio Program. The first few sessions are free.