Think As Inc

THE POWER OF SUBSTITUTION/ LOVING THOSE LAXATIVES

August 28, 2009 on 2:07 am | In life coaching | No Comments

During the acting period of my career, I had met with a top commercial casting director.  For the audition, he assigned me a script for a laxatives commercial.  Thankfully, I’ve never had to use laxatives, but then I had no inspiration.  I needed to convey that these laxatives were the greatest thing since sliced bread, though the thought of them, well, was just not as great as sliced bread. 

How did I get through it?  Whenever the copy called for me to say the product name, I substituted my daughter’s name in my mind.  So whenever the script called for laxatives, I cracked a smile, my body relaxed, and I got a twinkle in my eye at just the right moment.  Behold the power of substitution. 

Substitution is a technique I encourage my clients to use when going into a situation that might make them freeze and not do their best.  The idea is to substitute something that gives you the desired effect for the actual thing that makes you freeze.  A business application of this would be at an interview.  One client was interviewing at a top consulting firm.  She was prepared but would completely fall apart at the start of the case interview.  (Consulting firms give interviews called “cases” which are business problems the interviewee needs to solve.)  These cases are similar to research projects, which this client was comfortable with after two years of graduate school.  Therefore, I coached her to substitute a professor for the interviewer and a proposed research topic for the case question.  She still needs to know how to do cases, but the substitution gets her relaxed enough so that the preparation she has done has a chance to show.

If you are in an audition, interview, business meeting, sales call, etc. for which you are prepared but during which you might get rattled, use substitution.  You will not forget where you actually are.  You will still be able to harness the adrenaline and the energy of the moment.  You will also still need to prepare.  However, you will have a powerful technique to keep you grounded if you feel the need.  At the very least, you now know how to sell those laxatives.