Julien Smith - The Flinch

INTRODUCTION

Theres this place near my housea boxing gym called Hard Knox. Any day you want, you can go there, sit down, and watch people fight.

The sign above the door says VIP ENTRANCE, because anyone who enters can be a champion. But to become one, you have to learn how to get hit.

In a fight, there is a fundamental difference between boxers and everyone else. The guys who have trained are different. If you hit them, they dont flinch. It takes practice to get there, but if you want to fight, you have no choice. Its the only way to win.

This is a book about being a champion, and what it takes to get there. Its about decisions, and how to know when youre making the right ones. Its also about you: the current, present you; the potential, future you; and the one, single difference between them.

Its about an instinctthe flinchand why mastering it is vital.

This book is about how to stop flinching. Its about facing pain.

flinch : /flinCH/ - verb (used without object)

1. to draw back or shrink, as from what is dangerous, difficult, or unpleasant.

2. to shrink under pain; wince.

THE OPPONENT

Quitting smoking. Losing weight. Starting a business. Getting a date.

For anything you want to do, finding out how is easy. Do the research and make it happenor so any book would have you believe. Yet every day, you smoke, gain weight, and stay at your old job. Every day, you do the exact opposite of what you plan to do. Why?

This is the Information Age. The steps to achieving any goal are easy to search for, come up with, write down on a napkin, and follow. But youre still not doing it. Part of the movie is missing. A page is toloc>rn out of the book. Theres a big X in the equation. Do you know what it is?

The X is the flinch.

The flinch is your real opponent, and information wont help you fight it. Its behind every unhappy marriage, every hidden vice, and every unfulfilled life. Behind the flinch is pain avoidance, and dealing with pain demands strength you may not think you have.

The flinch is why the lazy actor never gets discoveredbecause she never really sweats to make it happen. Its why the monolithic company gets wiped out by a lean startupbecause the big company culture avoids the hard questions. Its the reason you make the wrong decision, even though you may know what the right one is.

Behind every act youre unable to do, fear of the flinch is there, like a puppet master, steering you off course.

Facing the flinch is hard. It means seeing the lies you tell yourself, facing the fear behind them, and handling the pain that your journey demandsall without hesitation.

The flinch is the moment when every doubt youve ever had comes back and hits you, hard. Its when your whole body feels tense. Its an instinct that tells you to run. Its a moment of tension that happens in the body and the brain, and it stops everything cold.

When coming across something they know will make them flinch, most people have been trained to refuse the challenge and turn back. Its a reaction that brings up old memories and haunts you with them. It tightens your chest and makes you want to run. It does whatever it must do to prevent you from moving forward. If the flinch works, you cant do the work that matters because the fear it creates is too strong.

Individuals have flinches, but so do organizations and cultures. They can invoke a fear of a certain kind of person, a kind of racism or xenophobia, or a fear of new technology or outside influences.

Whatever form it takes, the flinch is there to support the status quo. It whispers in your ear so youll dismiss a good idea that requires a lot of change. It stops you from seeing an up-and-coming competitor as a threat. Its the reason most modern movies are remakes and most successful books are sequels. It hides under the guise of the hard-headed boss, the skeptical publisher, or the cautious friend.

But the problem with the flinch is that its based in a brain that wants to protect you. It sees shadows as threats and creates blind spots. Its endemic to cultures that embrace the old, even though the old might not work anymore. Both individuals and groups must develop systems to handle the flinch, or theyll always fall prey to outside forces.

Everywhere your flinch avoidance hides, you have to find it, and face it. You need to take back control and stop the flinch, like the boxer in the ring, because you have a job to doyou have a fight you need to win.

For most of your life or your businesss existence, the flinch has been there, guiding you. As you discovered your world and learned best practices from others, the flinch was learning too. It pushes you to judge some ideas as good and others as bad, guiding your behavior over time, until your decisions became streamlined.

Whatever you avoided, whatever you and authorities considered a threat, became a blind spotit became something that could mats hat couke you flinch.

The flinch has a complex history. It appears whether you want it to or not. Every day, you make decisions based on it. But you may not think much about it at all. But this is exactly what the flinch wants.

Facing the flinch is hard internal labor that comes with no up-front promise of reward. But one day, your world will change, maybe drastically, and it will do so without warning. On that day, you wont be preparedunless youve fought the flinch before.

Do this work now, and your future self will thank you.

Finding the flinch reveals a secret passage, hiding in plain sight. Its why some people know how to sell, and others cantbecause they see the flinch in others. Its why you cant quit your job or be the person you want to beyou cant see the flinch in yourself. The flinch is why you dont do the work that matters, and why you wont make the hard decisions. Its why your organization isnt competing. Its why you dont lead the life you want.

Take this time to learn about it. It wont take long. Once you see it, it will be visible to you forever.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND

Before the bicycle helmet, the seat belt, and the bulletproof vest, there was the flinch.

The flinch is like the Moro reflex, which protects infants from falling. Flinching guards you from the unexpected. It protects your eyes and neck. Its one of the few instincts youre born with, and keep, all your life.

In any accident, the most lacerated, damaged parts of a victims body are the hands. This is because the flinch is your personal goalie. It protects you from a bear, a bully, or a baseball. Anytime its needed, the flinch surfaces, using your hands to protect essential body parts from damage.