So what is your ‘strategy’ at the moment of defeat? I’m interested to know, if you have ever really analysed what actually goes on, within your mind and your body, at that precise moment when it dawns on you that it’s all gone horribly wrong. What is it that you feel when the sky falls in, when all of your hopes and dreams come crashing down around you, and you realize that it was you who created this outcome, and that it was you that made it happen?

The lady on the stage said that there are two types of people in this world: those who are proactive, and those who are reactive. She said that that the fundamental difference between the two was in the way that they dealt with their fear. Proactive people are motivated by a ‘towards pleasure’ mindset. These people will consider the risk of failure of a particular course of action, weigh it up against the potential and imagined pleasure that success would bring them, and will then commit wholeheartedly to doing whatever it is that they need to do, to achieve their desired outcome.

Reactive people, by contrast, are motivated by an ‘away from pain’ mindset. Only when the level of discomfort within their existing situation becomes intolerable (and very often not until somebody else has made this decision for them), will reactive people be forced to take action. They will consider the risk of failure of a particular course of action, and then weigh it up against the additional and imagined pain that it would bring them if this new proposed action was to fail! It is not surprising then, that reactive people are far more likely to procrastinate and become stuck before reluctantly ‘proceeding with caution’ rather than ‘committing wholeheartedly’. It is also not surprising that, when it comes to doing whatever it is that needs to be done, we might be forgiven for thinking that ‘Reactive People’ have far lower levels of willpower than ‘Proactive People’ do.

Charismatic Leaders come into their own at those times when defeat is staring them down. When we think of the truly charismatic leaders throughout our history, it is often difficult to separate the leader from the cause. Martin Luther King would not have been anywhere near as compelling and inspiring if he didn’t ‘have a dream’ that he was brave enough -not just to share – but to demonstrate his unflinching commitment to. Charismatic Leaders draw upon a compelling vision deep inside, that inspires and refuels our imagined pleasure, and reminds us that we need to remain strong in our commitment to doing what needs to be done.

At times of real adversity truly charismatic leaders will demonstrate an extraordinary instinct to go even further, mirroring and reframing the ‘away from’ motivation and fear of their reactively motivated followers. Winston Churchill spoke eloquently about ‘how we shall fight on the beaches, and on the landing grounds, and on the fields and the streets, and in the hills, and we shall never surrender’. In so doing he quite brilliantly repositioned the point of defeat away from the first German’s landing on our beaches, not just to the point that German Troops would be marching down our High Streets, but beyond that, taking the fight into the fields and the hills.

In 1920 French psychologist Émile Coué published his book “Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion”. The book challenged the commonly held belief that our willpower, or our strong conscious will, constitutes the best and only path to success. Coué maintained that curing many of our troubles required a change in our unconscious thought, which can only be achieved by using our imagination. Coué noticed that in certain cases he could improve the efficacy of a given medicine by praising its effectiveness to the patient.

This began Coué’s exploration of the use of hypnosis, autosuggestion and the power of imagination. He discovered that by replacing ‘thoughts of illness’ with ‘thoughts of cure’ his patients could heal themselves far more effectively. He explained that by repeating words or images enough times we cause our subconscious to absorb them. He concluded that he could teach others to cure themselves by using imagination or “positive autosuggestion”, stating that any idea exclusively occupying the mind turns to reality. The application of Coué’s best known mantra -like conscious autosuggestion has been recorded in tests as achieving a success rate of around 93% – with the remaining 7% of people including those who were too skeptical of his approach to allow it to work.

Coué identified that a patient’s problems are likely to increase when their willpower and imagination are opposing each other, something he referred to as ‘self-conflict’. As the conflict intensifies, so does the problem – for example the more we try to sleep, the more we become awake.  The harder we try to remember a name, the more the answer becomes obscured.

At the moment we allow ourselves to feel defeated, no matter whether we are fundamentally a proactive, or a reactive person, our ability to imagine a positive outcome completely deserts us. Stress Hormones like cortisol and adrenaline flood our blood stream causing a Fight, Flight or Freeze response and this in turn creates powerful physical and physiological reactions within us. In that split second when we realize that things have not gone the way that we had hoped, and visualized and planned, fear takes over. And it’s not until the fear takes over that we realize that, on it’s own, all of the willpower in the world will not get us back up on our feet.

It is said that the foundation of all motivation is hope, and sooner or later, whether it be an hour, a day, a week or a year after we find ourselves totally defeated, through the wonder of the human spirit, hope will return. So if you happen to be one of the lucky ones who has not yet had cause or reason to discover your own personal strategy for dealing with defeat, you could do a lot worse than borrow some words from Émile Coué …… “every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better”.

“When the imagination and will power are in conflict, are antagonistic, it is always the imagination which wins, without any exception.”

Émile Coué