Dr. Ed Torrey (Influence Every Day) describes how everyday environmental cues — both found (a store label on a GPS) and created (card decks, branded merch) — can nonconsciously trigger memories, prompt behavior, and reinforce learning. He shares anecdotes (a red-light memory sparked by a map label; an executive who pinned workshop cards to her corkboard) and ties the idea to his work (Hypnotic Gifts book, Influence Book Club, upcoming training for speakers/authors/coaches). The episode’s practical thesis: intentionally use or create everyday triggers (merch, card decks, desk/bedside placement) to make ideas "top of mind" and sustain skill change.
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This is Dr. Torrey. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show, where we make every day better and we influence for good. The other day I was at a red light with my kids. And while I was sitting there, I found myself all of a sudden struck with a profound memory that was really nostalgic for me. And so I brought it up to the kids. And it was about a time when we would go to this one store that sold stuff for like, construction type stuff, and they had these little kits where the kids could build something. Now while I was sitting there, so I told the kids this story, and one of them's like, well, that's kind of random. Where'd that come from? And I started thinking about, where did that come from? Why am I thinking about that now? We're not near the store. There's nothing like in my immediate environment. At least I don't think so. So I started looking around. I see. I got really curious. So while I'm sitting at the red light looking around, and I realized on the GPS I had the full map view. So in other words, like, you could see the entire journey. It wasn't like, what's the next turn? And so when I saw it there, I looked over and there was the store. It was labeled on the map. Now it was far away from me, but it was still on the map. And I'm wondering, is that what triggered the memory? It's about the time for kids to restart school and college and all that stuff. And so I'm sitting in the car with the kids having this nostalgic moment and realize it may be because non consciously I was triggered by something I saw in my environment, the name of the store. So the reason this is so front of mind for me is because I. I'm. I have that book, Hypnotic Gifts, how to Transform Someone's life in a Single Conversation. So there's a portion of that book that this is very relevant to. I also happen to run the book club that you may have heard me mention before. And in one of the books we talked about, top of mind equals tip of tongue. That comes from the book Contagious by Jonah Berger. Top of mind equals tip of tongue. So when something's top of mind, we're more likely to talk about it. It's on my mind. I'm using similar concepts in my own book, Hypnotic Gifts. Like when you want to change someone's life, you often attach it to something in their everyday life, something that they'll see again and again. So it reminds them of the lesson the Idea, the frame, whatever it is. And then, of course, the influence book club. Now, there's a third thing that's really makes it front and center for me. It's actually heavy on my shoulders right now, and that is that in a few weeks, I have to train a bunch of speakers and authors and coaches on how to do this very thing. I have lots of workshops where I use card decks. And so when I'm doing these workshops, people often come up to me afterwards and say, hey, can I have that card deck? Is it possible? Where can I get these? How can I use these in my organization? So it took a while for it to get through my thick skull, but eventually I started making those available. One of the things that's really good about card decks is rather than doing what I was suggesting in the other episodes, where you think about something that's in there every day, and then you tie your idea or your insight to it. Instead, this time you go the other way. You take the idea or the insight or the concept that you want to convey that you want to remind them of, that they want to learn. You take that and you package it in a way so that it becomes part of their everyday. In other words, when people take my card decks home, what do they do? They put them on their desk. They put them next to their bedside so they can review the concepts, they can review the skills. They might keep the difficult conversations training deck on their desk. And then before they go into that performance review or that whatever, they quickly review them. In fact, one time I actually had somebody I went to go do an influence consult for. She's an executive. And so she called me. She was having this big challenge with another executive, and I went to her office to talk to her about it. Now, while I was sitting in her office, I looked across the room to where she sits, like where her desk is. And I saw two of my cards from one of my workshops pinned to the little corkboard thing right next to her monitor. I looked at it, she looked at it, she looked at me, and her face turned bright red. And I was like, how did you get those? And she looked down at the ground, kind of embarrassed, face bright red. And I was like, I mean, it's fine that you have them. I'm just wondering, how did you get them? Because I didn't see you in any of my workshops recently. And she goes, oh, no, this is from several years ago. Years and years ago, before I rose to leadership. I was in one of your workshops. There were a lot of people in the room when you were doing it. So I saw you open up multiple card decks and I thought these two were particularly valuable. And so I pinned them up because I refer to them before every time I have a difficult conversation. In fact, honestly, I think they really helped me in my leadership. Wow. So she's embarrassed and I'm like, mind blown, right? Like, I didn't realize my cards were theft worthy. Right. But what did she do? She pinned it up. She put it right front and center so that she could be reminded of it because she knew she needed the reminder. What if you took your idea, your concepts, your frameworks, insights, and packaged them into things like card decks and then made them available, conduct workshops related to them and then make those cards available? That's precisely what I'm teaching speakers and authors and coaches how to do in in a few weeks, which is why it's front and center of top of mind for me, and which is why that moment at the red light seemed really powerful to me. So the point here is not the stuff I'm doing. It's not the Hypnotic Gifts book, it's not the Influence Book Club, and it's not the talk I'm doing in a few weeks. It's none of that. It's that there are multiple ways to have triggers in your everyday to remind you to do the good thing, to advance that skill you want to be more skilled in, to make that call, to say the awkward thing, to reach out to somebody, to do whatever. The thing is, you can use everyday triggers to do that. Now, some of them you can look for in your environment and say, hey, what can I use in my environment or in my everyday habits to tie something to. That's one way. The other way is to create something that's front and center, that reminds you that is a trigger every day in front of you. And so I happened to use that with card decks while I was learning hypnosis, hypnotherapy, and all the different various forms of it, NLP, etc. While I was learning those, oftentimes the creators of those courses had companion card decks. And so I stole the idea from them because it's so powerful. It helped me learn. And now I do that for others in workshops and talks. But the point here is, what can you do in your everyday, what already exists in your everyday that you can borrow and attach things to? What can you put in someone else's everyday? So that merch, those tchotchkes or whatever people call it the swag, when somebody has their brand on something. It's not just the fact that it's often a gift. Oh, they gave you a pen, they gave you a mug, they gave you a sweatshirt, whatever. It's not just that. It's also the fact that that it's a reminder. And it can be a non conscious reminder. Just like when I was at that red light. A non conscious reminder can still spawn a thought or spark an idea or trigger a memory. And so how can you get the ideas that you want to inculcate into your life front and center? What do you need as real world triggers? Get those things and put them front and center. Put them at your bedside, put them, put them on your desk, attach them next to your screen. You're already doing it, but can you be a little more systematic about it? I hope you found this helpful. 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. 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