Source: Turtles All the Way Down — Grinder & DeLozier (1987). Applied to the 8 Steps of the Repeatable Sale.

Nobody taught you to set the state before the conversation. The assumption was always that you either had confidence or you didn't, and if you didn't, you compensated with more preparation, better slides, a longer proposal. None of that fixes the state problem.

The moment the door opens, the conversation has already begun.

Not the words. The state. Within the first 90 seconds, the buyer reads your body language, your energy, your pace. Before you have asked a single question, they have already formed a judgment about whether you are someone who needs this deal or someone who does not.

The question is: who sets your state before you enter the room?

If the answer is "the situation", the traffic on the way over, the pipeline review that morning, the deal that fell through yesterday, your performance is determined by circumstances you do not control.

There is a different approach. It was documented by John Grinder and Judith DeLozier in 1987 in a book called Turtles All the Way Down. It is called the Circle of Excellence, and it is the origin of everything we now call peak-state coaching.

The core insight: build the state first, then enter the situation. Never let the situation determine your state.

What the Circle of Excellence Actually Is

What Grinder and DeLozier documented is access psychology, a repeatable method for retrieving your best neurological state and anchoring it to a trigger you can fire on demand.

Sports psychology calls this a conditioned response. Behavioral science calls it anchoring. Link a specific physical gesture or word to a peak physiological state through repeated association, and the gesture becomes a reliable retrieval cue for that state.

The full procedure has eight steps:

1. Choose a specific resourceful state, a specific memory of a specific moment where you were at your best
2. Imagine a circle on the floor in front of you
3. Step into the circle and re-enter the memory with full sensory detail
4. Intensify the state, brighter images, sharper sounds, more vivid physical sensations
5. Anchor it at peak intensity, a touch to a specific point on your hand, a single word said quietly
6. Step out and break state completely
7. Test: step back into the circle and fire the anchor, the state should return within seconds
8. Future-pace: imagine your next high-stakes moment, then step in

Judith DeLozier's contribution, Somatic Syntax, adds a dimension most practitioners miss: the body is not just responding to state. The body is an access point to state. Your posture, your breathing pattern, your rate of movement are upstream controls, not downstream effects. Change the body and the state follows.

Where State Determines the Sale

Step 1 — Rapport and Trust. State requirement: calm, open, genuinely curious. State trap: arriving with your own agenda active. Fire the anchor before you open the door.

Step 2 — Frustration. State requirement: calm enough to hold space for the buyer's discomfort. State trap: the instinct to solve before they finish describing the problem.

Step 3 — Importance and Context. State requirement: the patience to let context unfold completely. The real motivation is often in the second or third sentence after the stated problem. State trap: processing at your speed, not theirs.

Step 4 — Cost of Inaction. State requirement: stillness after they answer. State trap: discomfort with silence. This is where Somatic Syntax is most visible. Your body tells the buyer whether the silence is safe or dangerous.

Step 5 — Deliverables. State requirement: precise listening. Their exact words are the deliverable and become the headline of the SOW.

Step 6 — Investment. State requirement: confidence in the sequence, time, people, money. State trap: jumping to price.

Step 7 — Starting Date. State requirement: the groundedness to ask for a specific commitment. State trap: softening it to "whenever works for you" because commitment-push feels like risk.

Step 8 — Statement of Work. State requirement: the steadiness to prepare it before the next meeting. State trap: delay, because finality feels like exposure.

Triple Description Before the Call

Grinder and DeLozier also documented Triple Description: seeing a situation from three distinct positions.

First position: your own perspective. What do you want, what are you feeling, what is your opening question.

Second position: the buyer's perspective. What is their week like right now. What would a good outcome mean to them.

Third position: the neutral observer. What would you want the person in your position to do differently.

Running this sequence before a call takes four minutes and produces something unavailable from any single perspective: you enter the room already carrying the buyer's frame alongside your own.

The Pre-Call Protocol

1. Triple Description (4 minutes). Sit as yourself, then move to a different spot and step into the buyer's perspective, then step back and observe both.

2. Fire the Circle of Excellence anchor (30 seconds). Touch the anchor point. Say the anchor word if you use one.

3. Somatic reset (2 minutes). Open posture. Slow breathing.

4. One question on paper. Write the question you cannot afford to forget under pressure. For most calls, Step 2: "What have you already tried?"

The Closing Thought

The situation does not have to set your state.

The state you bring into the room is not fixed by circumstance. You can build a reliable neurological trigger that retrieves your best state on demand.

The 8 Steps give you the map. The Circle of Excellence gives you the engine.

If you want to build the pre-call protocol into your Monday strategy sessions and practice it alongside the 8 Steps with a team of spotters, start your free 7-day trial: https://www.strategysprints.com

Happy hunting. Simon & The Sprinters 🐬⚡️🐆