Here’s How to Get 10 Billion Second Chances

This guest article first appeared HERE

You better get cracking, especially if you think about workspan instead of lifespan. How many of those years do you have left?

In the introduction to my book, "The Anxious Salesman," I present some reassuring math about how many chances we each get to get things right in the battle to transform our inner critic into a championship coach.

It’s a big number, but it is finite. 10 billion to be precise. No lie.

That’s how many chances we have to wrest control from our inner critic who rationalizes, justifies or blames, and handover the reins to our inner coach who tells you what….

If you want the complete Field Guide as I call it, you can download a substantial portion of my book for free here. But for now, here is the reassuring math.

Professor Andrew Olendzki, the Director of Mindfulness Studies at Lesley University, writes that we have six moments of cognition per second.

• That’s 360 per minute which equals 21,600 per hour.

• Assuming 7.5 hours of sleep per day we can have 356,400 mind-moments per waking day.

• Over a 77-year-lifespan we may have 10 billion discrete episodes of experience.

Think of that as 10 billion do-overs.

But you better get cracking, especially if you think about workspan instead of lifespan. How many of those years do you have left?

Actually, forget about years of work. That’s like thinking about an annual revenue goal; it’s big, daunting and abstract. Let’s talk hours.

My inner coach tells me to plan the next 24. My inner critic tells me not to bother; I mean, I know what I need to do, stuff outside of my control always pops up, I don’t need to be that regimented, I always manage fine without a plan?

To which my inner coach counters, “Yeah, all true. How about you plan the next 24 minutes and see what happens? Then try it again tomorrow.”

Go ahead, grab a big chunk of the book for free here. You can also register for a free training to help your inner coach be heard more often.

To the championship coach inside all of us!

Sheldon