Don't Let Your Brain Make It Up

A few years ago, when my business wasn’t going well, I had a habit of not looking at my numbers.

I told myself I’d deal with it later. Really, I was scared of what they’d say.

Here’s what I didn’t understand back then.

There’s a study where researchers taught people to link abstract shapes to a thermometer reading - some shapes meant hot, some meant cold. Then they took the thermometer away, strapped a heat pad to people’s arms, and showed them just the shapes.

They kept the heat consistent, with the same conditions.

But the people who saw a ‘hot’ shape reported more pain. The study involved brain scans that showed their pain genuinely firing harder. The shape changed how much it actually hurt.

This was evidence that the nervous system wasn’t just reading the heat, but also the cue that it was given.

That’s exactly what happens to a coach who doesn’t know their numbers.

They have a client leave them, which lights up a shape that says ‘You’re failing’

This causes real panic, even though one client leaving has barely moved your actual position all that much.

The same happens in the opposite direction - a new enquiry comes in, the ‘you’re winning’ shape lights up - and makes us feel safe (even if other alarms are going off)

Without your numbers, you’re not feeling the temperature of your business.

You’re feeling the last thing that happened to you.

Two coaches can have identical finances.

One checks their numbers every week and sleeps fine.

The other avoids them and spirals every time an inbox goes quiet.

The same heat applied can lead to very different suffering

Knowing your numbers won’t make the hard months easier to read, but it can definitely stop your brain from making them up.