a raise in three months is like talking to the wrong decision maker on a sales call. You’re trying to appeal to a force that has intelligence but no power. The Wise One wants the raise but Thor wants to go home now – and Thor is the one with the decision-making muscle. To create compel- ling reasons that will spur you to action, Greider advises considering less logical (but more powerful) motivators. “The idea here is that there’s a big difference between


the right reasons for doing something and the truly compelling reasons,” he says. “Compelling reasons are immediate, certain, and personal, whereas the right rea- sons tend to be logical and long-term but have very little immediate impact.” Greider illustrates his point with the story of a sales- person who called him after hearing Greider speak. For years, the salesperson had failed to follow through on his resolution to get up at 5:15 in the morning to study techni- cal material. The salesperson, who had two very young children, had great logical reasons for getting up to study, but he failed until he created a truly compelling reason for himself. He decided to set one alarm clock in his bedroom for 5:12 and another one in the kids’ room for 5:15. When the alarm went off in his room, he would have a compel- ling reason to get up immediately: to go to his children’s room and turn off the second alarm clock before it went off at 5:15 and woke them up. “Once he set up a compelling reason that made him feel like doing the right thing, he didn’t have to rely on willpower anymore,” Greider says. Greider recommends creating your own compelling rea- sons by reviewing “when you’ve been highly motivated in the past. Write down times in your life when you’ve been really into following through. Next to those instances, write down what was motivating you at the time. It will often be something kind of silly, but that’ll give you some clues.” In other words, if last quarter you were really motivated to put in extra hours so you could outsell another salesper- son on your team, you can use that knowledge to create a compelling reason to follow through now. While creating compelling reasons helps you use the


wrong reasons to do the right thing, “leading the horse to water” lowers your resistance to following through by re- ducing the amount of effort involved. To lead the horse to water, simply tell yourself that you don’t have to complete the task; you have only to get started on it.


EASY DOES IT “The idea with this one is that every intention has an easy


part and a hard part,” Greider says. “Normally we think of the hard part. Leading the horse to water says that all you have to do is the easy part; then you can stop. This gets Thor out of the way, and, in fact, doing the easy part often helps you build up enough momentum to do the hard part, as well. You can use this for cleaning up your office,


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Why wisdom is weak and stupidity is strong and what you can do about it.


for example. Tell yourself, ‘I have to spend five minutes cleaning up my office, and, if I want to stop then, I can.’ Thor won’t object to a five-minute job, because that’s easy, but very often, that five minutes will turn into 20 or 30 and, by the time you really want to stop, you’ve made a big dent in the job or finished it completely.” Greider’s third strategy gets you “to strike while the iron is


hot” so you can take full advantage of the fleeting moments when you feel inspired to move mountains. An uplifting speech or an inspiring passage from a book can put you in a motivated mood, but Greider points out that moods inevitably swing, and you have to take action when you do feel like it to help you follow through when you don’t. “When you’re inspired to set something in place, take


action immediately so that, when the inspiration fades, you still follow through. Strike while the iron is hot instead of think that your super-motivated mood will last – because it won’t. Thor is a three-year-old, and three-year-olds are jumping from one thing to another all day long.” When the spirit is willing but the two-part mind rebels,


alternatives to willpower can overcome even the most stubborn inner child. Since sales success depends on consistent follow-through, taming Thor and getting him to work with (instead of against) The Wise One can put any salesperson in top scoring position. 


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