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Motivational Triggers

Lesson 9 from: Build Your Influence, Build Your Business

Shari Alexander

Motivational Triggers

Lesson 9 from: Build Your Influence, Build Your Business

Shari Alexander

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Lesson Info

9. Motivational Triggers

Lesson Info

Motivational Triggers

I have a visual that I hope kind of helps with this vibes thing. So we start off with our values. These are the concepts that in which we judge what is good, what is bad in the world. This is formed by our culture, our upbringing, our societal roles, and gender and all of that. So as a human being, as we walk through life, we take in data, and then we attach meaning to that data. So, based off of our values. So, if somebody, we'll use me as an example, if somebody doesn't communicate with me, then they do not care. So, the data is they just stop communicating. My meaning attached to it, subconsciously, is that they do not care, based off of my values. Right? Okay. So then that forms the beliefs. The beliefs around my situation with that person, the dynamic, the "if this, then that" part, like if they respond in a day, then they care. If they respond in a week, then they don't care. Whatever it is that my subconscious mind is going to create. Then, that comes into the story of my own, l...

ike, I might view this one business relationship as a microcosm example of all of my business relationships, like, so, if they stop communicating, well then, I may not be doing well in my work, and, uh, so I better not do that ever again, because then that's what's going to happen every single time. This is the subconscious story that can be created. What happens, is once we have this whole thing, then it leads into our perception. So, this is the filter through which we view the world. So, if somebody does this, then they're likely going to do that, so I'm going to avoid that situation, 'cause I don't want to have to deal with that again. When the only thing we have is the data. Somebody approached you at the bar. And so, you have some sort of story of, oh, that means that he just wants to take me to bed; he's not really a good guy, 'cause it's a bar, and who approaches people at a bar. And so, he's probably not somebody that I want to go home with. Why does this happen to me every single time? Maybe it's what I'm wearing. What should I do differently? And that colors the perception of the data. He just approached you. How about just be in the moment and observe the new data without that judgment. This is, again, this is all subconscious. Very, very few people have gone through the exercises to analyze this; I highly recommend that you do, 'cause it's always fascinating. But this is subconsciously how we, as human beings, work. And then from all of this system, we package it very nicely into what we call reality: that people are out to get me, communication equals caring, you can only meet the right guy in the right situations. This is what we call reality. So if multiple people have all of these different situations, then guess what folks: we have multiple realities. This is where you have your Keanu Reeves moment and go, "Whoa." (laughing) So as an influencer, you have to be able to metaphysically kind of be able to tell yourself, I'm working within their reality. This is their reality. So if you try to take a steel box, and put it on top of their reality box, you have conflict, you have issues, you have frustration, and that is where most communication conflict comes from. It's 'cause someone is trying to take their reality box and smash somebody else's. Versus an influencer is able to put their reality box aside, it's not that they get rid of it, right? I still have all my beliefs and values and everything. It's just gonna rest there nice and pretty. And then I am going to open up their reality and go, what do you got for me? Show me what you got. And let's play. Let's figure it out. Now the interesting thing is, is that, once we have our reality formed, this is where confirmation bias comes in. We will actively seek more data to back up our reality. Look at politics. Right wing, left wing, you can find data to support both points of view. But people will actively go to the websites, actively go to the news sources that reinforce their created reality. Question. [Female Audience Member] Does most of this process tend to stem from fear? Um, it stems from two places: that we move towards pleasure and we move away from pain. You could argue that the basis is fear because all of this is subconscious, and so our subconscious mind is basically focused on what can help me survive, what will keep me safe, what will keep me away from harm. So, it's what has created pleasure for me in the past, and what has created pain for me in the past. And then once we have enough of a pattern set up, then we will typically follow the same behaviors over and over again because that's what we are used to, and that reinforces the reality. So, we create kind of these neural highways for certain situations, because I'm used to this, I've experienced this, and this is the conclusion I'm drawing, which works great for certain tasks, these neural highways, like sending out your newsletter. Okay, well I know I have to do this, and then I gotta change that font, and then I, and it's very quick, because that pattern has been created over and over. It's not as effective in conversations, and so that's where, now, the beautiful thing is that even if you've built up, if you've laid those tracks for that neural highway, it's okay, you still can change it. It's just a conscious process that you have to develop a new pattern, so this neuron that hasn't been speaking to this neuron for 20 years, now needs to start communicating to build this new type of system. This system absolutely can be broken down and rebuilt into something completely different. It takes a process. It takes time. It takes conscious awareness, and I mean, who knows, like, a yogi out of India, I don't know, it takes a lot. But it can be done. I mean, that's what therapists are for, and, um, a whole host of other types of coaches and things like that. But the coaches always begin, and, just so you know, neural linguistic programming is based off of the interviews that Richard Bandler and John Grinder, uh, uh, uh, did with really well-known therapists, so Milton Erickson and, the woman, oh, my gosh, I can't remember her name, but there's like three to five big, amazing, um, people who are getting results with their clients in therapy, and so these two guys were like, "All you're doing is talking to them, I mean, you're not giving them prescriptions or, you know, what is it that you're doing?" And that's how they built up this model of neural linguistic programming, which I talked about briefly in the VAK. There's much more to NLP, but that's kind of one little insight into it. Yes. [Female Audience Member] Um... (clears throat) Let me know if this connection is not valid. Something that just sort of popped into my head was some of these realities could maybe, if someone's kinesthetic, and so they're really sort of feeling, is it true that they would maybe feel those realities more than other people? Um, I don't know if I would go towards the VAK on how to perceive that. I think the more helpful question is how consciously aware are people of these, and some are, and they can give words to their reality. This is perhaps a judgment on my part, I would say the vast majority of the general public are not. And so you, as an influencer, need to be able to elicit this information from them, see them, and actions that they take in order to figure out the territory that they have created. And so you're not really giving them, you're not really explicitly giving them awareness to their story. No. You're just, you're like you're saying, you elicited that story and then you're just using that story. Correct. Okay. Correct. So what influencers do is, um, they do not call out the reality; they work within it. And so, and that's where a lot of the mirroring comes from, is I will use the words that you use. I will use the terms that you use. So that way you are more connected to my message. 'Cause if I use my words, and if I use my terms, it's, it's not going to resonate, because I'm not operating within your reality. So one great example comes from Canada, and there is a, um, Detective Smith, I can't think of his first name at the moment, but there's a well-known detective out of Canada who is, um, one of the best interrogators in the world, just top notch. And, there was a colonel in the Canadian Air Force, who was the highest, one of the highest ranks that you can have, Air Force or Army, and, um, and he was so high up that he flew the plane that Queen Elizabeth was on, like he transported her on the plane, so this is a well-regarded, uh, well-known guy, and he also headed up a base out of Canada, and we're talking like four star general kind of a thing in American culture. And, turns out, this man, uh, raped and murdered multiple women, and it was in a very small town in Canada, and it just sent ripples throughout this entire community. 'Cause we're talking like if one of our main leaders did that, then it's like, are you kidding me? So when they got enough evidence to be able to arrest him, they brought him into the interrogation room, and this Canadian law is a little different than American law, so you can actually watch the entire interrogation, which I have. And it's long. You can see certain highlights and everything. But, they bring him into the interrogation room, they didn't quite have enough to definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, prosecute, and that's why they bring him into the interrogation room, to see if they can get a confession. So, first thing that Detective Smith does is he is pleasant, he is, uh, he doesn't treat the colonel like a criminal, he refers to him, I mean he just has a nice chat with him. The one brilliant thing that he did though, not that I recommend this for every situation, but, he did not refer to him by his designation, and he did not call him Mister and his surname; he called him by his first name. And that was just a subtle way of putting them on the same playing field, 'cause this is a man who is obviously just highly regarded and people constantly show him respect. So it was just a subtle way to kind of get them on the same playing field. And, as most interrogators do, really good interrogators who use the Reed method, Reed method is slightly controversial, but for our purposes, not, in that you create rapport with the person, and he said to the suspect, he was just like, "You know, I understand how you're feeling, you know, there's a lot going on here," and, and, uh, as the interrogation went on, he went on to kind of sympathize with him, of, I mean, I can understand how in a certain situation, things get a little scary, and all of a sudden something goes wrong, and of course, you're probably going to want to hide it because you're so widely regarded, and if I were in your situation, I mean, who knows, I might have done the same thing. Like, these are the skills that skilled interrogators use, rather than what you might see on TV, which is, "Tell me where the body is!" and all that craziness. Real, solid interrogators just have amazing, low-key conversations, and that's what this was: it was a low-key conversation. So, he sympathized with the suspect, for interrogation purposes, and then, after a period of time, uh, Detective Smith picked up on the fact that image was a value to the suspect. That his image out in the public eye was key. So rather than having the knee-jerk reaction that someone else might have, like, really, you're concerned about how this looks, and there's these, you know, lives that you have destroyed, which is what, you know, a normal human being might react with, instead, being the skilled interrogator, he goes, okay, image is important. Let me work with that. And so throughout the interrogation, he said, "You know, we can control, if you tell me what happens right now, we can control what gets out to the public and when, and we can control how it's viewed by people. We can even maybe get some sympathy behind it. But I can only do that if you tell me what happened and where the bodies are." And through that, through that, by him leveraging this value in a compassionate way, full confession signed, and, written and signed. It was a landmark case study. And Detective Smith has done this multiple times over the years, but that was obviously the most well-known public one, and that's what I found so interesting about people who do interrogations, using a particular type of style, method, rather than what we might see on television, is that they create the rapport and sympathize with the person, and suspend their own judgments about a horrific, terrible thing that has happened, so that they can reach the end goal of getting a confession and bringing justice. So that is why I felt so privileged to interview the people that I have, because when I say life and death, we are talking about life and death based off of what somebody says to another person. So when we try to, when we bring it down to our own level to sales, negotiations, copywriting, it seems so small, and because we build it so big in our heads when we're in front of the computer and thinking about, "I have to be brilliant right now." But when we think about the scale of which, and the power with which we can use our words, we're playing tee-ball, folks. And that's okay. I'm cool with tee-ball. I don't want to have to deal with the major leagues, and what they have to deal with. But we still can use the Major League techniques in a game of tee-ball. So with that, I'm curious to learn any other, when you think about your marks that we've talked about before, when we set your influential intentions, what have you been able to discern about your mark thus far, when you think about them: what values do they have, or what identifiers have they said, what, what comes to mind of how you might approach your mark. I mean, I'll help you on the approaching part, but what, what has come up? [Female Audience Member] It's really clear, just having gone through this process, that with having Julie in mind, and with having the goal of creating an heirloom piece for her, family is so important to her, and telling that family story, and being able to pass this down to the next generation, to the next generation, to the next generation. With each of those passings, having the ability to send it back to me, for me to personalize it for that next person, so that that piece that was her statement piece that she wore every day, then becomes not only valuable because of the family story, but it becomes a signature piece for that next generation. Yeah. So this just is huge. Yay, great, and I love how, because you see how this works and you're able to identify her values and all that, then you actually created a beautiful story behind what you're selling to her. Like, I mean, you just painted a beautiful story, and you said that you were a storyteller before, which is a great example of an identifier, how she, at the very beginning said, "I'm a good storyteller." So if I want to put her in a positive state, I'm gonna get her to tell me a story. Tell me about how, tell me about when. So, just wanted to, that, that little hit came up; I wanted to make sure I pointed that out. You are a great storyteller. And, so, I love that, um, even in the lesson that you learned, you're able to, to utilize it in your storytelling way; it's great, great job. What else has come up when you think about your marks? Yes? [ Female Audience Member] I think family is also, um, important to my mark. She has two little boys, and so, with my situation, it's really showing her, and I think maybe there's a story, too, that, sort of having this immune disease is sort of like, um, like a life sentence to these certain symptoms. And so showing her that it doesn't have to be a life sentence to those symptoms, and that helping alleviate those symptoms will help her be able to engage more with her kids, and continue that. Right, right. So my question is: does she currently see her symptoms as a block with her current engagement with her kids? Does she know, does she perceive that as a problem? Or, is that something that you're conjuring up? [Female Audience Member] That's something that I would need to, I would need to confirm. Perfect. Phenomenal response. (laughing) Because that exactly is what this process is about, and that's exactly what the field guide is for, is for you to understand, like, where are the gaps, and then looking for confirmation from that. So, I love that response. Great job. [Female Audience Member] And I also think that she could have a story that, um, that sort of, having this family and cooking for the family could be an obstacle to doing this process, but sort of flipping that, and that this is really one of the reasons why you're going through this process. Right. So, but I love that you know the potential objective of, if I have to do it this way, then it makes life kind of difficult for cooking with my family. So that's going to be a big component of your influential conversation, is to alleviate that objection. So that's great to know. Yeah. So, are we, I'm still not sure if family is the main hook. Well, yeah. I mean, I just, being kinesthetic, I'm not sure, that doesn't feel like that's the hit. 'Cause when you talk about it, you go from family and then go into these other things. And, and she may value family. And so this is a really important point: we have multiple values, so knowing those values and having them in your marks profile, in the profiler tool or in your field guide, keeping the list of that, and we'll talk about this later in the workshop, but keeping a list of these is important, because family may be a value for her, but it's not a strong hook for what you're trying to influence. Right. So then maybe independence is a hook for her, and then that you can, or is a value for her, and that is something that you can hook in. So, understanding their top five, top 10, or whatever it is, values and having a list in a place of some sort in your contact management system and wherever you want to keep it, is key, because you need to know, okay, this may work in this situation, going for the family values is effective for this, but it's ineffective for that. Yes, and I, this is exciting because I, she actually just texted me that she just was diagnosed with this, so I have not been able to have really curious conversations with her about this, so having all this top of mind when I go into that conversation will make it easier to figure those things out. Right, right. Which, I want to point out that this is what makes those curious conversations, I'm stealing that, um, those curious conversations easier, is because usually when people go in with the intent of selling or describing their services, then, first of all there's a lot more fear around that, because it's an if this, then that kind of situation, either you do it or you don't, versus when you go in with a curious conversation mindset, it takes the pressure off of you. You don't have to do anything except for learn. Just sit and learn about this person, and, and elicit these type of things. And then that helps build up your, uh, your influential conversation when you have it. So I find that knowing this, and knowing where the gaps are, I know how to guide the conversation, it takes the pressure off of me, and I feel more confident because the pressure is off. So I know confidence was something that we talked about earlier in the day, and so hopefully understanding that this is the path that you go down, and it's clear and it's laid out for you, so it, it instantly, you have more confidence rather than flying blind in a conversation of, well I know we're gonna sit down, and I know we're gonna order coffee, and then yada yada yada, I want her to write a check. (laughing) Like, there's a few things in the yadas that we can do. So, thank you for sharing those insights. Mmhmm, go ahead. Yeah, and I think, um, one of my values is authenticity, I didn't mention that earlier, um, and so sometimes there's, I get little pangs of, discomfort, uh, when it sort of comes to, so am I going to be my authentic self, but I think really framing it, and this is curiosity, and I'm really looking to that person, um, for them to, to help get the information so that I can, like, best help them, in a skillful way. And it sounds like, you can use this to sort of understand who your ideal customer is and who it isn't. Yes. And if you see red flags that there are certain values that they are visceral about, that are not on the line with you, then you just can't serve them, and you can sort of say, I can't serve you and be done with it and not have it lag on. Absolutely. So I love that you pointed that out, 'cause it was something that I almost brought up, and I'm happy that you highlighted it, is that, if your values, especially in the services industry where you're working one-on-one with somebody, if your values are at such conflict, then this is a fantastic filter system to set them on their way, and say "peace be to you, brother," "peace me to you, sister," but this ain't gonna work. And, you know, find your solution elsewhere. Like, for me I find the term, uh, I don't like the term success, but for lack of a better phrase right now, success is important, however, my true belief is success is important as long as you don't harm others. And so, there are those people that value success at all costs, and I can't work with those people. 'Cause everything that I do around communication is about connection and helping and growth and authenticity. And we'll talk about how to be an authentic chameleon, so we will touch on that for you. Um, but, it is a great way for you to discern, is this a good fit for me, or is it not. So, great point, and Chris, you had a thought to that? Well, I was gonna say, one of mine is integrity, same thing, so I came, and one of my notes I took down was slippery slope, right of, this is a slippery slope, because, if you put a belief on these tools, then they can be manipulative, right? But they're not; they're just tools. It depends on how you apply them and how you use them. Right. What do you use a hammer for? Well, kill people, hammers, nails, there's a lot of things you can use a hammer for. You can build a house. You can tear down a house. You can bash somebody's head in with it. You can- Sorry, there's a horror movie I saw where a hammer was used, so it- Yeah, sure, no, that's honestly, like this tool can be used in multiple ways. And the whole foundation of where my business, my brand, my message came from was I saw blatantly, what I felt like nobody else saw, is the wrong people have the right tools; the right people don't have any tools at all. That's wrong. And so that's when I wanted to create this movement of bringing the dark arts of influence into the light. I want you guys, I want you here in the studio, I want you here watching at home, to have these tools. Because there is no reason why people with malicious intent, who like a con artist, completely understand this reality and manipulates it, and then you're, all of a sudden, there's no cash in the bank, that's not right. But how about you use their same techniques of understanding their reality to build compassion, build connection, and pave a path so that you can work with them, give them what they really need, give them what they want. That, that's the entire foundation of all of this, is good people with the right tools doing awesome things in the world. What do we have going on in the chat rooms, Chris? Well, we have lots of people who are chiming in now. This question's come up a little bit. We were joking before about, you know, the people who are going out to dinner tonight and using these tactics, but we have a viewer who says, "Well, how do you practice responding to the cues that you pick up on?" Now people, as we're heading to the end of this, people are getting out of here, they want to go practice this right away tonight, what can people start doing? Right, so, the first thing is, so for tonight, as you get ready for the shindigs that you're gonna be part of, I would say, choose one of these to pay attention to. So, it's very difficult for you to bring up the antenna for all of these all at once, so choose, am I going to look for VAK, am I going to look for values and beliefs, am I going to hear the pings of identifiers, am I going to listen to their story and discern things from that. So choose one of those, and then go from there. The next step that I would say is, so, how do you react when you see these? You go, I got one! (laughing) No, just freak everybody out. Um, so that's sort of where the body language check-in happens, is, I hear them and I get the pings, but then I still try to maintain that blank slate, because I don't want to visually react to something, and then them pick up on that and not understand what's going on. I still do, don't get me wrong, like if I pick up something that I'm just like that, "That's golden," I do kind of get a little bit of a smile, but smiles are okay. Um, and then the next thing is, I will talk about this later on, but if you do pick up on these things, write them down. Take a note of some sort, not in the moment, I mean if it's a, if you can in the moment, if it's like a business meeting, people have their papers out and everything, go ahead and write it down there. But if it's at dinner, then, afterwards, you write it down when you get in the car. You put it in your phone, you send yourself an email or something along those lines. Um, and that also, these observational skill sets play into your skill of memory. So being able to recall all of these little pings is going to be another skill that you're building at the same time. What I have found though is if I'm writing it down directly after the conversation, it's very easy for me to remember all of those pings, because they happened just moments ago, and I recall like what happened when the appetizers came out and then the drinks and then the, like, it's easy 'cause it just, it's very, very fresh. So, write them down, and then put them in your profile, or put them in your field guide, and we'll talk about other ways to incorporate that into your system later on. So, the goal now is: consider your mark, and think about, just let it mull around and write out, like, okay, this is a strong value for them, this is an identifier that they've said about themselves, and start putting those things in your influential field guide and your profiler, um, because what is going to happen over the next few sessions is we are going to build out each of your customized influential field guides. You are going to have your map of how to influence this person. So these aren't just exercises for today. They are building into something substantial that you can, at the end of this course, take your field guide and go, okay, this is what I go do, and then you can go do it. That's the entire point of this workshop. And then you can replicate this process over and over and over again.

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Ratings and Reviews

Stephanie Platero
 

The course is really great! Shari does an excellent job expressing some of the complexities by providing examples. Super knowledgeable, articulate and her presentation is very interesting. If you are using the Creative live "live, on air" while watching this, the ads for creative live are really distracting. I used to watch a lot of the courses by RSVPing and investing my time to watch the presenters in its entirety (the benefit of RSVP'ing and being a user) but the ads have gotten worse and actually skip to various parts of the presentation and you lose out on some of the content. I assume this is to encourage buying the course but makes it so difficult to follow and be engaged.

a Creativelive Student
 

I was not prepared for all the wonderful information that was taught. It has helped me in business and then a surprise... helped me with family as well. Fantastic class. Love Shari! Roxanne

Mahna Mahna
 

Excellent excellent course. Highly recommend Shari and the content she presents. I’ve gone from influence Newbie to Ninja-ish. Lots of practical information that you can use in professional situations, personal situations, and everything in between. In the workplace - develop more effective relationships and influence people up & down the org chart. As a business owner – generate more revenue per sale and develop closer relationships with customers. On a personal level - iron out the bumps in the road (or the outright disasters) with your family and friends. Shari makes the topic of ‘Influence’ appealing, approachable, and easy to understand. And the workshopped ‘hands-on’ examples are PRICELESS – they go a long way towards getting you to implement these concepts for yourself. Spend the time and do the Influence Profile - you will see/feel/experience immediate results. And I do mean IMMEDIATE.

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