029 If You Want To Be Engaging... Bounce

This is Dr. Torrey. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show, where we make every day better and we influence for good. Engaging people bounce. This is true in their conversations and it's true when they're speaking on stage. If they're engaging, they tend to bounce. Let me explain. A few weeks ago, I was speaking at the Lesher center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, just outside of San Francisco, and I was speaking at a conference that was designed specifically for people who were public speakers. So the only people in the room were public speakers. As I was doing my presentation on Influence afterwards, it came time for question and answer and potentially some feedback and things like that. Someone in the crowd said, you know what? I really appreciated the way you varied your pace. Like, it was so engaging. I felt like time flew. And he went on to say, like you, in one part of your talk, you're speaking in a very solemn kind of storytelling, pulling us in kind of way. Then you did something with like closing your eyes kind of exercise, and then you did these like rapid fire slightly slide after slide after slide. And then you brought us back to some high energy story. Because I really liked the way you varied the pace. Was that intentional? I was like, absolutely, it was intentional. And you know why? It comes from a principle that exists in every influence domain that I've studied from over the past 23 plus years. Every single one has this principle in it, but they all call it something different. And I happen to think the name from the world of seduction and pickup artists don't judge me, but from that world, they use a word that I think describes it best, and that is bouncing. Bouncing. So in other words, I don't mean physically bouncing in space. What I mean is taking people from one place to another to another to another. A different emotional space, a different physical space, a different pace, a different energy, a different experience. If you can give somebody multiple different experiences in a short period of time, especially if they are like highly emotional experiences and varied, then you will be engaging and it will feel like time flu. One of the most common comments that I get after my talks is like, oh my God, I can listen to you forever. Because it just like, I can't believe that was an hour. Like, it just flew by. Well, the reason it flew by is because I varied things. And so here's what I recommend. If you want to be engaging, you need to vary a bunch of different things. And so let me explain. Your brain essentially is bored when things are predictable. If it knows the story, if it knows where it's going if it knows the cadence or the pace or the. If it already knows where it's going, it's. Our attention is going to shift. They're going to wonder about their phone buzzed. They're going to wonder about something they have to do. Essentially, their attention is going to shift. This is especially true if you're on a virtual presentation because it's so access to just. They're already on a computer, they can easily shift away. So the moment you become predictable is a moment of potential loss of engagement. So how are we predictable in ways that we don't even realize it? Well, one of them is our tone of speech, our pace of speech, essentially our speech generally. See, some people think, oh, I have to be high energy if I'm on stage. No, not necessarily. What you should do is be high energy a portion of the time and not other portions of the time. Vary your energy. You see, if we all know the boring teacher, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Bueller. Bueller. Anyone? Anyone? That monotone talking where. If there's quintessential boring professor that. By the way, I hope I'm not considered among them. I don't think I am. But that quintessential boring professor that just speaks in monotone and says, this is very exciting. We're all learning about how to be better public speakers. And you will find immense value in this talk. You know what? That is boring. Why? Not just because it's monotone, but also because it's monopace. Also because the brain knows. I know where this is going. 3 minutes from now, 2 minutes from now, 10 minutes from now, this is going to be the same. And so if you're not varying that, then you are at risk for losing the audience. Now what if somebody's high energy all the time? They're like, oh, my God, I saw this movie. I went to this movie and I saw this movie Jaws, and it's about this shark and it's coming up and is attacking the guy. And sometimes he's just like chilling on his boat, but he's. While he's chilling, he's like reading a newspaper or whatever. And then bam, the shark comes up. Like, if you're high energy the whole time, it's. It works well early, but then eventually it's predictable. Like you're high energy the whole time. You're going to be high energy later. And you know what? I need a break if I'm in your audience. I need a break if I'm the other person on the side of this conversation. Essentially, this Vary their experiences by varying your pace. So sometimes pause for effect, other times speak really fast. Like, this will help you at home, this will help you at work. This will help you in school. This will help you in the community. When you're listing a bunch of things and you're building excitement, you might increase the pace at which you speak. And then other times you get a little more solemn or calm or pause for effect or intense in that moment as it pertains to whatever you're speaking about. So vary your speech. Another thing to vary are your stories, the stories you tell, and then even within stories to vary the emotions that people experience within a story. So if any of you have ever seen me tell. So sometimes I present on storytelling, and one of the stories I tell is about a time when I thought my son was dying. And so if you haven't seen that presentation, you can see it sometimes in my core talks and things like that, but also in some of the courses that I offer. For example, I think in the one I recently released on Capstone projects and how to optimize them. If you go to drtori.com capstone you should be able to see it. But anyway, in there, I tell the story, and I tell the story in such a way that is fully engaging. And then afterwards, I show them how that story would be in the professional setting and why it's such a shock that, like, why on earth are we presenting that way even in a professional setting? It becomes like the lights go on the moment people hear this sort of thing. So vary your stories and vary the emotions that people experience. People remember how it began, how it ended, and then the peaks and valleys along the way. Now, cinematographers, those who make movies, those who make Netflix series and Amazon series and all these things, they fully understand this and they employ it all the time. And so they. They vary the. The emotions that you experience. They leave you on cliffhangers, different podcast episode, on the Zigarnic effect. But nonetheless, they vary how it stops, how it ends, what kind of things you're before the next episode or the next season. They vary the scenes. They're not staying on one character the entire time. They vary the scenes. They go to another part, another part, another part. And we experience that like, oh, this is happening simultaneously. But in reality, what they're doing is they are constantly varying the scene so that we remain engaged. And that's why, don't tell me you can't watch a video, a video that's 10 minutes or a video that's 20 minutes. Is too long. No, that's not true. That is true for those who are scrolling. And the other things that are coming along, that are varied by the way, that are coming along, are keeping their attention or they don't know what's next. That's true there. But you can watch a movie for two hours. You can watch a football game or a soccer match for a couple hours. You can sit there and engage with a conversation with your friend for hours. This is not an issue of us not having attention. It's us choosing to put our attention where it is more engaging, where things are varied, where things are not as predictable. So vary your stories, vary the emotions that people experience in those stories, and vary your energy and your speech. I'll tell you, if you do those things, every presentation you do will be more engaging. If you do those things, every conversation you engage in will be more engaging. Essentially, be deliberate, create patterns and then break them. Time will fly for people if you do this. Generally, in most influence domains, they believe that cause is effect and effect is cause. So in other words, if you smile, you feel happier. If you are happy, you smile. One is cause and effect, right? So the same thing goes with the phrase time flies when you're having fun. Time flies when you're having fun. So in other words, when you're having fun, you experience it like time flew. So the job here is to create that environment by making it feel like time flew, even though it didn't. The only reason it feels like time flew is because you were varied in how you presented. You were varied in your speech, in your stories, in your emotions, in your energy. You were varied in your body language and your expression. All of that makes it so that time will fly. And people think they have fun when they experience time flying. So if I can serve you in any way, go ahead and reach out to me. Either DM me on any of my social channels or reach out to me through ask Dr.tory.com. i'll see you in the next episode. This is only the end of today's show if you let it be. Who needs to hear what you just heard? Go ahead and share it with them right now. The Influence Every Day podcast is free. We don't sell advertising space, so telling others is the best way to pay us back. But more importantly, it's the best way to pay it forward. If you enjoyed today's podcast, take a moment to rate and review the show. Then check out the additional links and materials that go along with it. They offer more ways to take your influence your impact and your relationships to a whole new level. Now go forth and influence for good every day.