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How To Swing At More Pitches
High achievers sweat the details. As a result, their nervous systems are on high alert.
The human Survival System often sounds the alarm that disaster may occur.
It causes investment professionals to kill deals, and generally miss perfectly good at bats.
And then regret of killing a deal / missing the opportunity feels even worse.
So how do you swing at more pitches, without your nervous system hijacking you?
Anxiety is going to the future in your imagination,
Modeling a statistically improbable bad outcome,
And assigning a 99% likelihood to it.
#REF there's a bust in the math!
Rationally there's a low probability weighted chance of a bad outcome
If a bad outcome occurs, you aren't helpless - you're a grown adult with tons of experience, colleagues and resources to help you tackle whatever comes your way.
This is not fatal.
When you're feeling physically uneasy about a deal, or are experiencing a general sense of worry:
Scan your mind for messages of danger, and scan your body for feelings of uneasiness.
Listen for the bad scenario your nervous system is warning you about. Write this down.
If this scenario occurred, how would you deal with it? What actions would you take? Who would you enlist to help you?
While underlying anxiety often fuels ambition and great results,
it can also get in your way.
And while you can't "turn off" your nervous system (unless you happen to be a sociopath),
You can listen closely for moments where your alarm system sounds,
Identify that thought,
And see clearly, that you would survive, and be ok if it did occur. And then likely go back to thriving.
#privateequity #growthequity
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