Is the Drunk Monkey Costing You Business?!
There is a voice in your head.
You know the one. It shows up at the worst possible moments. Right before you pick up the phone to make a prospecting call. Right before you knock on the door. Right before you ask for the business or raise your hand or do the thing you know you should do.
And it does not scream at you. It does not have to. It just quietly says things like:
“This is probably not a good time to call.”
“They are likely already working with someone.”
“I do not want to come across as pushy.”
“I will do it later when I am more prepared.”
And just like that, you put the phone down. You drive past the door. You wait for a better moment that somehow never arrives. And the voice moves on to the next thing, perfectly satisfied with itself.
That voice has a name. And I want you to remember it because once you name it, it loses a lot of its power.
It is called the Drunk Monkey.
The drunk monkey is the untrained mind doing what untrained minds do. Chattering. Second guessing. Overthinking. Catastrophizing. It is erratic, loud, and completely unreliable as a guide for anything important. And yet most agents hand it the keys to their business every single day without even realizing it.
I know because I have done it myself.
Early in my career I remember sitting in my car outside a neighbourhood I had planned to farm. I had my notes. I had my script. I had everything I needed. And I sat there for almost twenty minutes while the drunk monkey ran through every possible reason why this was a bad idea. Nobody wants to be bothered. I do not know these people. What if someone is rude? What if I freeze up?
Twenty minutes. Sitting in my car. Going nowhere.
I finally got out. Knocked on the first door. The person who answered had been thinking about selling for months and had no agent in mind. That conversation turned into a listing.
The drunk monkey almost cost me that listing before I ever got out of the car.
Here is what I want you to understand. You are never going to silence that voice completely. It is always going to be there. The goal is not to get rid of it. The goal is to recognize it, call it what it is, and choose not to let it make your decisions.
Because the drunk monkey is not your intuition. It is not wisdom or good judgment or a reasonable assessment of the situation. It is fear dressed up in logical clothing. And it is incredibly convincing if you do not know what you are dealing with.
Every time you avoid the call, skip the follow up, talk yourself out of the door knock, or decide today is not the right day to prospect, ask yourself one honest question.
Is that me talking or is that the drunk monkey?
Most of the time you will already know the answer.
Your action items this week:
- For the next five days, every time you feel resistance before a business activity, pause and ask yourself out loud: is this a legitimate reason or is this the drunk monkey talking? Write down what comes up. You will start to see the patterns clearly.
- Pick the one activity you have been avoiding the most, the call you keep putting off, the door you keep driving past, the follow up you keep meaning to do, and do it first thing tomorrow morning before the drunk monkey has time to talk you out of it.
- Share this concept with one person on your team or in your office this week. Name it together. When you can call it out by name in the moment it becomes a lot harder to take seriously.
The drunk monkey has been running the show long enough.
Time to take the keys back.
Talk soon.