035 Why Influence - Why Now

This is Dr. Torrey. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show, where we make every day better, and.

We influence for good. Why this? Why now? Now, in the last episode, we covered what happened on that fateful day in 1888 when Alfred Nobel opened up the newspaper and read his own obituary. On that day, his entire why pivoted. And so why do I work in influence and persuasion? Why do I view it like it's my mission to help those who are doing good in the world, like you, to help those who are doing good in the world to scare skill up at influence and rapport and relationships. My why starts in a story that you may have heard me tell before, but I'm telling it again, and I'll give you multiple reasons why influence is the thing you should learn. Now. There was a period of time where I used to run a cardiac surgery unit. For about nine years. I took care of people before and after heart surgery. So I would see them as they prepared for the surgery, and I would take care of them medically after the surgery was all done, while they were still in the hospital. Now, what's really interesting is because I got to see people before they had heart surgery. You can imagine they were coming to grips with the fact that this was a moment to reflect on life because they were potentially confronting their own mortality. Now, fortunately, most people did really well with it, but nonetheless, they still thought about the end of their own life. And so as they're preparing for their cardiac surgery, they're getting ready to go in, and they're alone at night in the hospital room, if they were admitted before, or alone with their own thoughts at home before the heart surgery and they were thinking about their own death, I got to hear what they cared about, what they worried about, what were their regrets, what kind of things did they think about? What occupied their mind and their heart and their gut, but before they went into cardiac surgery, and you know what? It was universal across the board. It didn't matter. Their age, gender, race, religion, socioeconomic status, education level, none of that mattered. They all thought about the same three things. It was consistent. They all thought about God, family, and how they treated other people. And what's remarkable about this is, leading up to this point, I had been studying, and really, I just kind of fell in love with the concept of influence and rapport, specifically the human. Human connection. And as I worked through the cardiac surgery unit those years on the cardiac surgery unit, I realized, like, this is exactly what people are thinking about when they think it's the end of their life. It's how they treated other people. It's how they got along with the people they cared about most. And it wasn't just their closest loved ones and friends and family. It was anybody they interacted with. I remember one person specifically. I mean, she really stands out in my mind. I was walking her out with the stretcher. Now someone else was pushing the stretcher. I was next to her on one side. Her son was on the other side. And I was in Baltimore, Maryland. And as she was going out through the door, her son said, hey, mom, don't worry. As soon as you get out, we're going to watch the Ravens crush the Steelers. And she looked at him, like, with a slight wince on her face. And then she turned back to me and she said, I don't know what the hell he's talking about. And I was like, oh. She said, yeah, about seven or eight years ago, I was returning something at Walmart, and the lady behind the customer service desk, I just really mistreated her. And right now I just wish I could say I was sorry now if that's what she's thinking about before she goes into cardiac surgery. When did we do stuff like that? When did we not optimize a relationship with somebody we cared about or somebody we interacted with? When did we either snap or ignore someone else? Like, these are the things we're going to reflect on that we're going to regret. And so let's get really good at them. That's a key reason for me establishing the influence every Day show. It's a key reason for me focusing on influence and rapport and engagement between people. But there's a couple other things. If you think about what's coming, what's happening, what's going on in the world, everything around us is changing and changing fast. Business models are changing. Care models are changing. Where care is delivered, who, where people live, finances, wars and the world stage and inflation and prices, all of these things are changing. The technology is changing. It's changing super fast. Like, it's difficult to catch up. Generations are being raised and they are not interacting with other generations of people. This is an amazing time in history. It's loaded with potential, but it's also loaded with danger. And in this moment, if you think about as things are changing and changing fast, and as we struggle to keep up with it, to keep up with your field, to keep up with what's going on in the world, as you struggle to keep up with it, keep in mind, there's one thing that doesn't change. That thing that doesn't change is how to move people. How to move people hasn't changed in thousands of years. So if how we treat other people is something we're going to reflect on at the end of our lives, and it hasn't changed in thousands of years on how to treat other people in a way that's moving, then let's get really good at it. Now add to this the fact that artificial intelligence, digital media, virtual meetings, virtual reality, all of these things are. These new technologies are digital, artificial, virtual. Like it feels almost distant. We're going to thirst, we're going to hunger. We're going to crave human, human interaction. We're going to crave that authentic, sincere connection. And so let's get really good at it. Let's get really good at it. I can help you get better at it. For the past 24 years, I have studied under multiple different domains that just focus on a different aspect of influence and rapport and engagement. I've studied from marketers, from neuro, linguistic programming, from hypnotists and hypnotherapists, from magicians when I wanted to understand attention, from caricature artists and facial profilers when I wanted to understand faces and body language, all these game designers and how they move people, marketers, advertisers, sales, if you think about it, all of these different domains, they touch the domain of influence in different ways, from different angles. And so what I've done is over the past 24 years, I've chosen a different discipline each year and gone to study. From one of their experts to, in a pseudo apprentice kind of way, I would just learn how they see the world and then study what they tell me to study. Sometimes I joined their Mastermind program, sometimes I bought their courses. Most of the time I would go and meet with them personally and see how they see the world. I get to ask probing questions. At first I was bringing it back to healthcare, but then I saw all of my relationships improving. And then I realized, you know what? I just want to help people who are doing good in the world. And so that's why this podcast exists. It's because in the end of our life, we're going to reflect on how we treated people. It's also because as the world is changing fast, one of the things that doesn't change is how to move people. And then it's also because as technology is advancing and advancing fast, I think we're going to reach a time very soon where we're deeply craving the Human, human connection. So let's get really good at it. I can help you. But here's the challenge. We typically are winging it. We're going in to conversations, we're going into meetings, we're logging into meetings or sometimes even just public speaking or conversations or time at friend's house or even just interacting generally with the community. And we're winging it. We're not deliberate, we're not necessarily structuring or planning or doing anything that we know from evidence that works. We're not as deliberate or intentional as we could be. Now we know if somebody we know or love or are close to and they had a breakup or they had a loss or they're grieving for some reason, we know that we're going over there to console them. But do we know how optimally to console them? Do we know how to move them to a better place? Do we know? And then if you think about it, if you're in a meeting, you know, how many mind numbing, time sucking, energy wasting meetings do you sit through? Is there a way to optimize it? Is there a way to make it better? Is there a way to make it more effective? Is there a way to remove it and do so elegantly? Well, yes, there is. But you won't do it if you're winging it. You won't do it if you're going through without being deliberate. So it's really important to, to skill up. It's really important to learn about influence, to learn about interpersonal relationships, interpersonal communication. And so that's what this podcast is all about. If this is all you do is listen to this and then it leads to other topics, other areas of interest, great. But all I'm asking is that you skill up in how to influence others for good. And by influence for good, I mean influence them for the sake of good and goodness, but also for good in the sense that it's lasting. And that's what the Influence everyday show is all about. That's what my coaching program is all about. That's what the Influence Book Club is all about. All the things that you ever hear me mention, whether I'm mentioning them as an aside or whatever, they're all designed so that you get better at that human, human interaction because it is vital. You'll think about it the end of your life. You'll think about it in the near future as we all crave these interactions. If I can help you or serve you in any way, reach out, I'll see you in the next episode.

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