The Voice That’s Working Against You

Welcome back to the 57th issue of Disrupting Conversations!

Have you ever been in a meeting and known that there was something you needed to say, but didn’t say it? Maybe it was an uncomfortable question or a piece of information nobody else in the room was willing to call out. Whatever it was, something stopped you… and the moment passed.

That something has a name: doubt. 

And it didn't come from dishonesty or a lack of professionalism. It came from your own brain’s hardwired impulse to protect you from perceived danger — and in a high-stakes moment, our brains are very, very good at that. 

The problem is, your brain doesn’t know the difference between physical danger and a simple conversation. It responds to both situations the same way: by creating hesitation and convincing you to pull back to safety, to save the risky questions for another time.

Every time you listen to that voice, your prospect loses access to exactly what they need from you the most: objective listening and quality questions that spark their critical thinking. 

Let’s talk about what happens when you learn to recognize that voice for what it is — and what becomes possible in your conversations when you finally stop letting it make your decisions for you.

– Dan

Breaking Sales is my podcast to connect with those who are ready to break free from the chains of old sales methodologies that don’t work.

Title of Episode: The Questions Your Prospects Can't Ask Themselves

🎙️ What stops you from asking the question that could genuinely help a prospect think differently? In this recent episode, Pam and I explore a reframe that changes how you approach the moments when you know something needs to be addressed but find yourself holding back. We break down what it really looks like to play the role of the objective, neutral advisor, and why asking hard questions from a place of genuine service produces a fundamentally different conversation than asking them from a place of self-interest.

A client of mine was recently preparing for a high-stakes meeting with a CFO. During his prep work, he discovered something significant: the two outside consultants advising the CFO (who would also be present for the meeting) worked for a company owned by the same incumbent my client was competing against. He didn’t know if the CFO was aware of the connection. 

We talked through how to handle it: how to raise the issue with empathy and frame it in a way that was clearly in the CFO’s interest, and what to do if the room got uncomfortable. Then the moment arrived, and the voice kicked in: What if you make the CFO mad? What if he already knows and you just made it weird? What if this blows the whole thing up?

That little voice was his brain doing exactly what brains do in high-pressure moments: manufacturing doubt when they sense danger.

The thing about that voice is, it’s not telling you the truth. It’s telling you a story, one that’s built entirely around the narrative of keeping you comfortable and protected. And it’s relentless. It will spin out every worst-case scenario it can invent in the seconds before you’re about to take a risk. It will make those worst-case scenarios feel inevitable. And if you let it, it will talk you right out of the action, question, or comment that is most needed at that time. You go from creating a result to accepting one.

If you stop to think about it, when you pull back in those moments, you’re protecting yourself at the expense of your prospect, client, co-worker, child, or friend. 

But my client had prepared for this situation. He reminded himself of a different set of questions: What if the CFO doesn’t know? What if he believes this process is completely objective when it isn’t? Don’t I owe him that conversation? 

He raised the subject kindly and clearly. He made it clear that it was coming from a genuine place of trying to help.

As it turned out, the CFO hadn’t known about the consultants’ relationship to the incumbent. He turned to them and asked them why they hadn’t disclosed their connection. And the room did get uncomfortable. But it wasn’t because my client had done something wrong. It was because he had helped the truth come out. 

Doubt had been telling him that bringing up the relationship was a risk, when the real risk was staying silent. 

Our brains battle with doubts seven days a week. They tell us stories designed to keep us safe, not to help us serve our prospects and clients. 

So what do you do with that? 

You train yourself to reframe the question, just like my client did. You stop asking, “What if this goes wrong?” and start asking, “What does my prospect lose if I stay silent?” 

That’s where the real work begins… because odds are, a successful conversation is waiting on the other side of what your brain is telling you to avoid

QUOTE

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”

― Attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute. The man who does not ask is a fool for life.”

— Attributed to Confucius

Thanks for reading!

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