Gumption Trap

When I get into to the office today (13^th of December), Miles privately takes me into his office.  “Alright Mate I want you to show me how you’re selling the tour.  Ready? GO!”  I decided to do my usual pitch that I feel since this pitch that I gave to the Dutch fellow last July, which resulted in me breaking the CSS Toronto record.  This has become very tedious, and I basically explain the tour the same way to every customer in way that covers every possible aspect of the service.

When I am finished Miles looks at blankly and expresses, “Right…you’re doing it exactly the way I don’t want you to do it.  You have to customise the tour for each passenger.  This is their tour, not our tour, not my tour or and certainly not your tour.  Personalise it: Tell the prospect that they can visit the attractions that they want to see.  It is also important to get commitment from them and they will happily wait for the bus and be excited when it arrives.  Try this proven strategy and you will notice that your sales will double.  Patricia did $1560 one day last week and there is no reason why you can’t do the same.”

On the bus on my way to work I am in a shitty mood and Vicky can tell.  She asks me what Miles said I explain to her that Miles told me to work on my technique.  She empathetically listens to me for a few minutes and tells me that Patricia got lucky.  Soon she puts on her headphones.

Such bullshit: I AM THE BEST!!!  MY PITCH IS PERFECT!!!  I AM ONE OF THE BEST SALES PEOPLE IN TORONTO, IF NOT THE WORLD!!!  I'M A WORLD RECORD HOLDER!!!  HOW DARE HE TRY TO GIVE ME ADVICE!!!  I DON'T NEED HELP!!!

Of course, as though a self-fulfilled prophecy, I have my worst day yet and only sell $295.

While reading the last few chapters of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a term called a “Gumption Trap” is presented:

“A gumption trap is an event or mindset that can cause a person to lose enthusiasm and discourage them from starting or continuing a project.”

Gumption is a fancy word for enthusiasm, which comes from an ancient Greek word “enthousiasmos”, which means inspired by or possessed by god.  Furthermore, Pirsig breaks these traps down into two categories called “setbacks” and “hang-ups”.

Setbacks: thrown off the quality track by conditions that arise from external circumstances.  E.g., when the cable on my bike snapped, I thought only the cable had to be replaced.  But upon closer examination, I noticed that the threads on the bolt that keeps the cable in place were stripped must also be substituted for a new bolt.

Just before I left Toronto in November, my buddy 3-D was upgrading all of his old TV equipment to HD.  3-D patiently waited for all the items to go on sale and even bargained in a few instances to get the lowest price conceivable.  It began with the Sony Blu-Ray DVD player.  Next, he upgraded his DVR to an HD-DVR.  Then came the Sony Dolby 5.1 Digital HD Surround Sound speakers.  He even got some Blu-Ray DVD’s like the Die Hard Quadrilogy and Spider-man Trilogy, even though he didn’t have an HD TV yet.  3-D is the most knowledgeable person I have ever met when it comes to film and television in every aspect humanly imaginable.  When it came time to buy the piece de resistance, a Sony 40” LCD Bravia HDTV, he invited me to Best Buy to get it with him and to help him set it up.  Once we arrived to his apartment with the TV, he was the most zealous I have ever seen him in the 9+ years we have been friends.  In his eyes I could see the gumption he had to set up the TV and all off the equipment. 

 Dread arrived while we were unboxing the screen and setting it up.  Finally it was all it place and it looked fucking SICK.  Everything was even the same shade of dark black.  3-D unwraps the remote, hits the power button to turn on the screen and for a brief second the Sony logo flashes across the screen…then the TV turns off.  Now he just sits there hitting the on and off button hoping the TV will stay on, but it doesn’t.  The brand new HDTV he has bought is defective.  Now the TV must be disassembled, re-boxed, taken back to Best Buy, and replaced for another TV, which must be assembled.  Due to this setback, all the gumption 3-D had is gone. 

Hang-ups: thrown off the quality track by conditions that are primarily within yourself.  Pirsig breaks hang-ups down into three categories:

Truth traps - block cognitive understanding

Muscle traps - block psychomotor behaviour

Value traps - block affective understanding

The main truth trap is yes-no logic: yes and no…this or that…one and zero.  We don’t see that there is a third possibility and that to give a yes-no answer is an error in itself and should be unasked.

“When the Zen Monk Joshu was asked whether a dog has a Buddha nature he said ‘Mu,’ meaning that if he answered the question either way he was answering incorrectly.  The Buddha nature cannot be answered by yes-or-no questions.”

Mu is a Japanese word that means no thing.  No class; not one, not zero, not yes, not no.

Muscle traps are fairly rudimentary and include faulty tools, inadequate surroundings, physical discomfort and muscular insensitivity.  In laymen’s terms: use good equipment, have good lighting, don’t over contort your body and develop “mechanics feel”.  The latter concept comes with time and is very difficult to describe if you don’t know what it is and comes from a deep inner kinesthetic feeling for the malleability of materials.

Value traps are: value rigidity, anxiety, boredom, impatience and ego. 

Value rigidity is the inability to revalue what one sees because of commitment to previous values.

Anxiety is when you are so sure that you will do everything wrong, you are afraid to do anything at all.

Boredom means your gumption supply is low and must be replenished before anything else is done.

Impatience is caused by an underestimation of the amount of time a specific task will take.

Ego is if you have a high evaluation of yourself then your ability to recognize new facts is weakened.

The final value trap is my weakness: EGO.