Be Bulletproof

by James Brooke

  37. Practise switching on emotions

  Switching on positive emotions, especially after a knock-back, is not always easy but you can learn to get better and better at it with practice

  Using certain thoughts as levers will improve your feelings of optimism and positivity

  In your mind do an audit of everything you can be grateful for right now. Include the big stuff and the tiny stuff

  On your list of gratitude choose an item on which to dwell

  Become aware of your mood changing as you do so

  38. Do a stock-take of your strengths …

  Bulletproof people regularly de-catastrophise by doing a stocktake of their successes

  No success is too small to add to the stock-take

  Alternatively, list every success, no matter how small, that you have had on the left-hand side of a piece of paper; on the right-hand side, list the personal strength or attribute that each success evidences

  39. Use the advocate-for-your-success exercise

  Imagine that you have hired a lawyer to work for you

  The job of this lawyer is to seek out and present every possible shred of evidence as to why you should succeed

  Make a list

  Read through it

  Become aware of your mood and energy as you read through it

  40. Keep separating the facts from the story

  It’s natural to look for interpretation and meaning – but it isn’t always helpful

  The facts are what happened, but the story is what we make them mean

  Bulletproof people are clear not to confuse fiction with fact

  41. Don’t make ‘no’ mean more than it does

  We tend to apply our own logic to happenings that are, in reality, pretty random

  Tenacity in the face of rejection is a major predictor of success

  Bulletproof people don’t make a rejection mean more than it does – they maintain their objectivity

  42. Apply the specific-or-universal test

  Optimists tend to be more successful than pessimists, and your inner cave dweller is a natural pessimist

  Remember to check your underlying assumptions

  We often universalise: ‘everyone’, ‘no one’, ‘always’ or ‘never’. Is this actually true?

  Remind yourself that a failure, rejection or setback is likely to be specific to that situation

  43. Apply the ‘down-to-me’ versus ‘not-down-to-me’ test …

  Bulletproof people ask the ‘down-to-me?’ versus ‘not-down-to-me?’ questions when they experience a setback to understand what has really happened

  If something was unsuccessful, was it really down to you? Is it really something about you that cannot be changed?

  Remind yourself that the answer to at least one – and probably both – of the questions above is likely to be ‘no’

  44. Apply the temporary-versus-permanent test

  When you are going through a tough time, it probably feels as though things will always be this way

  Remind yourself that the tough time that you are going through is almost certainly temporary

  Things will change

  45. Want it – don’t need it

  When we need something, our mind tends to focus on the cost of failure

  The emotional impact of losing something is twice as great as that of gaining it

  You can want something very much – that’s a healthy form of motivation – but let go of needing it. Whatever the outcome you want, you don’t need it. You can still be a healthy, happy individual, even if it does not happen

  Focus on ‘learning’ or ‘process’ goals rather than the outcome. What are the things that will contribute to achieving your goal that are entirely within your influence? Focus on perfecting these one step at a time

  46. Imagine starting again from ‘rock bottom’

  Think like someone who is starting from zero – everything to gain, nothing to lose

  If you were starting from zero, what personal attributes or strengths can you point to that indicate you should succeed?

  Bulletproof people are able to generate a sense of renewal and can therefore tap into its source of optimistic energy

  47. Use visualisations

  Visualise your success as waiting for you on the landing of a staircase, with your rejections being the steps between each landing

  Use visualisations to refocus your attention away from unhelpful thoughts towards more supportive ones

  On a journey where you need extra resilience to deal with rejection, visualise a worthwhile prize at the end

  48. What’s your story? Write it down – put it into words

  The power of story helps bulletproof people get through tough periods

  Stories capture our imagination, providing coherence and sense-making

  Bulletproof people are able to write down a credibly optimistic outcome for their personal story, and clarity increases the likelihood of success

  Those who open up and put their traumas into sense-making words recover better than those who don’t

  Use the power of words to think things through

  49. It’s okay to be in the cave

  Remember, like the protagonist of any great story, it is likely that you will spend some time in ‘the cave’

  The cave represents the lowest, darkest point in your journey

  Remind yourself that like others you’ll come through it, more bulletproof than ever

  50. Stand in the future to see things clearly

  Our minds are better at thinking imaginatively if we’re in the future looking back as opposed to standing in the present and trying to imagine a way forward

  Bulletproof people are able to tell a great story of their journey by imagining themselves in the future when things have worked out successfully

  51. Decontaminate criticism by evaluating it objectively

  Feedback: some is useful, some is harmless and some is downright toxic

  You can’t control the feedback you get, but can control what you categorise as ‘helpful’ and ‘unhelpful’

  Bulletproof people put themselves in charge of what they keep and what they discard

  You do not have control over the feedback you receive, but remember you do have control over how you evaluate its usefulness, i.e. what to learn from and what to discard

  52. View the situation from a different perspective

  We never know another person’s intentions in a situation

  You can take a view on what a person’s motivations might have been, but always acknowledge the large scope for error

  Remember, other people are fallible under pressure – just like us

  53. Learn to re-focus your mind

  When we get a knock-back, the feeling in our stomach is created by an important neural function – ‘Something is amiss. Better watch out!’

  We can’t easily choose what not to think about, but we can choose where to focus our attention

  Focus on positive life incidents – even very small ones. This gives you inner strength in tough times

  Re-run positive memories in your mind like a movie

  Practise turning up the contrast, volume, colour or brightness

  54. Identify the benefits of a situation

  ‘Benefit finding’ is the bulletproof person’s silver lining, which brings insight, new opportunities, etc., following a non-physical assault

  If it helps, imagine yourself in the future; challenge yourself to think of every possible benefit that may have arisen out of the tough time that you are going through

  55. Decontaminate your mistakes

  Reframe and describe the incident, taking the toxic, negative emotions out of it

  Note your emotions alongside the facts

  Be honest and don’t try to exculpate yourself or shirk your responsibility; describe what happened and how you feel as a result of it

  56. De-catastrophise

  Catastrophising is a common t
hinking trap that makes incidents hurt us more than they should

  Bulletproof people step back from catastrophising, objectively weigh their scenarios and identify what is a credibly optimistic outcome from a situation (one that is both positive and believable)

  57. Switch from ‘all-or-nothing’ to ‘both-and’ thinking

  Bulletproof people know when they are applying ‘all-or-nothing’ thinking, and change their approach

  Don’t extrapolate rules from one incident to cover all situations

  Remind yourself that if you have made a mistake it does not mean you have blown everything

  Ask ‘Can both this and that be true at the same time?’

  You can both slip up and succeed in your goals

  58. Describe in factual and neutral terms

  Learn to imagine the objective ‘wiser-you’ alongside yourself giving a calm, dispassionate assessment of the situation

  Work with the ‘wiser-you’ to remove the heat and toxicity from difficult situations

  Describe what happened in purely factual and neutral terms

  59. Name the emotion

  Bulletproof people know how to train their inner cave dweller by putting their emotions into words

  Name the emotion. Try this format: This is what happened (describing in factual and neutral terms); this is how I feel (describing the emotions)

  Then add the three vital modifying phrases: ‘About this’ (because it’s specific); ‘right now’ (because it’s temporary); ‘but I’m basically okay’ (because you are)

  Re-read the sentence and become aware of how you feel as you do so

  60. Focus on what you can change

  Set aside the emotional story that seems to want to accompany any failure or setback

  View bouncing back as a project; simply identify the things that you can improve upon – things that are directly within your control

  Differentiate realistically between what you can affect and what you can’t when it comes to achieving success

  Set yourself process goals, that is, goals related to the effort and input that you can control, not outcome goals (in other words, results which you can’t control)

  Praise yourself for achieving these goals, and give yourself plenty of small rewards along the way

  61. Achieve something small in order to achieve something big

  The best way to achieve a big success is to get in the ‘success habit’ by achieving some smaller successes first

  First set yourself some more modest and readily achievable goals

  Dwell in the feeling and enjoy the success, then set yourself some relatively more stretching goals.

  62. Be okay with politics – recognise it for what it is

  Politics is mostly defensive. It is about people protecting their own interests

  We only see a situation as politics when we’re caught on the wrong side of it; otherwise we say, ‘It’s just the way we are’

  Nobody is plotting your downfall – you don’t figure large enough on their radar

  Beware of judging too fast, over-emphasising threats or too readily polarising situations as friend or foe. Stand back from the situation, and avoid seeing everything as black and white or good and bad

  63. Learn to cut through bullshit

  Like office politics, bullshit arises when people create a pretence that we don’t have individual needs

  Bulletproof people use straight-talking conversations wisely to cut through bullshit

  Pick straight-talking conversations wisely

  Use ‘I-speak’, not ‘you-speak’, in your straight-talking conversations

  Use ‘interest-driven’, not ‘position-driven’, language

  Be honest about your interest but focus on addressing the other person’s interest

  64. Reject the martyr syndrome

  Corporations might be run by adults, but they aren’t always fair

  Bulletproof people avoid being a victim or a martyr to politics

  Define success as achieving your higher goals rather than winning at the politics

  65. Remember: you don’t need to be in with the in-crowd

  Organisations typically evolve into a small group of insiders and a larger group of outsiders

  Bulletproof people treat the core group just like a boss, i.e. simply as another customer

  You can be respected and valued by the core group without ever trying to enter it

  66. Ignore ignoring – and focus on a few good friends

  Be objective and remind yourself that it won’t last for ever

  Choose a few key relationships and go for quality rather than quantity

  Ignore the ignoring – act like the person you want to be treated as

  67. Have the confidence to be vulnerable

  Vulnerability is disarming – to express it requires strength and confidence

  Bulletproof people always remember to ask an adversary for help and advice

  68. Divide and influence – it’s better to focus on changing individuals rather than the whole group

  It’s far more effective to focus on individual group members for one-to-one conversations

  Trying to change team attitudes? Avoid getting the whole team together to do it – collectively, attitudes get amplified and become more entrenched

  Bulletproof people avoid reinforcing common group identity in adversarial situations

  69. Disarm others with ‘third-party’ compliments

  Pay compliments via a third party to win over your adversaries

  Make compliments specific and relevant to the individual

  Ask advice from your adversaries

  Reciprocity and compliments work

  70. Focus on what’s working … not on what’s bust

  Focus on the positives and not the negatives

  Think about what works and learn from it rather than what doesn’t work

  Use the why-not-a-zero question, instead of the why-not-a-ten question. Ask others to rate how good a situation is from zero to ten, and then enquire about all of the reasons why the rating was not a zero

  71. Borrow some perspective … and get elevated

  When we hear stories of people doing great, kind and morally courageous things, we feel better

  Bring these to mind when you want to be bulletproof and see how you can learn from them

  Who or what are you going to remind yourself of when you want to get a sense of proportion or do the right thing?

  72. Give yourself permission to be straight and direct

  We avoid honest-feedback conversations with others because we dislike being out of rapport and we are hard-wired to be liked

  Being flexible about our need to be liked and be in rapport makes us more effective

  Before a straight-talking conversation, remind yourself what you give yourself ‘permission to be’

  Remind yourself: I prefer to be liked, but I’m okay if sometimes I’m not liked for a bit

  73. Set the context clearly

  Start an honest-feedback conversation by setting out the context clearly

  Praise generously and authentically, but never as a Trojan horse for criticism

  74. Describe the gap

  When you give feedback, simply approach it as describing a gap

  Point out that the gap is the thing that the two of you will work together to close

  Ask a question to show that you are ready and willing to listen – keep it brief, broad and open

  75. Always preserve the other person’s self-esteem

  Do not criticise – or make assumptions about – the other person’s disposition or character

  Stick to talking about the behaviour as you see it

  Be prepared to assure the other person at any time that he or she is not under attack

  Remind the other person why it feels so important to you to have this conversation – the commitment to a common interest

  76. Be clear about what you are asking for


  If you have a clear picture in your head of what ‘good’ looks like, be prepared to describe it to the other person

  Think of it this way: if the two of you were looking at a screen into the future, what would you want to see actually happening on that screen?

  Focus on specific aspects of improvement that are within the other person’s sphere of control or influence

  77. Navigate the landmines and pitfalls when giving feedback

  Don’t get bogged down in the detail of a specific incident

  Refer to the incident and then swiftly move on to the fact that you see it as a pattern and that the pattern has an effect

  If you are stuck arguing over evidence, state subjectively how you feel

  Agree to listen to feedback in a separate conversation provided that you feel you have been heard and understood

  78. Bulletproof your mind through your body

  Be prepared for the physical strain that being under fire can have on your body

  Keep making healthy choices about diet, exercise and relaxation when under fire

  Take regular and frequent short breaks, ideally combined with some gentle physical activity

  79. Fake it until you make it

  Strike a high-power pose for a couple of seconds if you want to boost your feelings of competitiveness and confidence

  Become aware of your physical posture and the effects that it is likely to be having on your levels of testosterone or cortisol

  80. Distraction is preferable to rumination

  If you find that you’re endlessly turning a problem over in your mind that means you’re ruminating on it

  Actively distract yourself from this rumination

  Focus instead on practical solutions – and then make a conscious effort to implement them

  81. Become more mindful

  Meditation improves physical well-being by increasing blood flow and reducing blood pressure

  Practise being in the moment, focusing only on the sounds and sights around you

  Distraction is better that rumination: read a book, cook, go for a walk, go to the cinema or the theatre

  82. Use the power of social contact

  Social contact makes us stronger

  Consciously appreciate people close to you

  Maximise your social contact even when you are not initially in the mood – you will be surprised by the effect it can have

  EPILOGUE