Selling in a Crisis

45Be Bigger on the Inside Than You Are on the Outside

Working with horses is my true passion and has been since I was a kid. I've spent thousands of hours grooming, training, riding, and observing horses. Over the years I've found that horses offer wonderful analogies for interacting with people. Horses are emotional, willful, playful, intelligent beings, each with its own unique personality.

They have an innate ability to pick up on human emotions and respond in kind. They sense both confidence and insecurity. When you are interacting with a horse for the first time, it will test you. If it senses that you are fearful, the horse will exploit it. It will behave in a way that elevates your fear until it can convince you to give up and go away.

Human insecurity does not mix well with horses. If horses don't believe you're in charge, they'll take charge. And since horses are much bigger, things usually don't go well once they do. This is why, when working with horses, you have to be bigger on the inside than you are on the outside.

No matter how nervous you feel, no matter how fearful, you must project confidence. Once you do, though, the horse will almost always respond in kind, accept you as the boss, and follow your lead.

Stakeholders are no different. Your emotions influence their emotions and they will respond in kind. In other words, emotions are contagious. Emotional contagion is a subconscious response that causes humans to mirror or mimic the behaviors and emotions of ...