32 Influence, Improv and the X Files with Joel Silverstone

This episode of the If You Ask Betty podcast is brought to you by Alternative Media. Are you working on a massive project and need some help? A&M offers a wide range of professional services from e-learning and training development, comics, graphic novels, 3D model creation, and virtual reality experiences. Follow Alternative Media on Twitter @ANM_Tweets to stay updated, or visit Visit alter-native-media.com today to set up a free consultation. Welcome to the If You Ask Betty podcast. This podcast is designed to discuss all kinds of development topics for all kinds of learning professionals. I'm your host, Betty Danowicz, and today we're talking with Joel Silverstone about influence. Hi, Joel.

Hi, Betty.

Thanks for being on the podcast today.

Thank you.

So, could you help our listeners get to know you a little bit better? Can you give us a quick intro about you and maybe even how we met?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know what? I'll start with how we met. It was Betty Danowitz. And I go, oh, this person must be a cop. She must have played a cop in a detective show. No, we actually, we met on Twitter. We met through social media. Someone reposted something that you, that you had posted. And I was like, oh, I like this person. She's really genuine. I like the way that she's communicating. And I followed you and then you followed me. And then, that's how we met through the Twitter universe.

Through the Twitter.

Yeah. And then, the Joel Silverstone story, I'll start with the end, which is here I am, 20 years of doing communication skills for— I speak about it and I present and I coach. And I use influencing skills. Communication techniques, specifically using acting techniques and emotional intelligence strategies. And I help people really uncover those turning points in conversations to really get past that and get them to action. And then, I'll start with the beginning, which is that in my former life, I was a professional actor with a background in improvisation. But probably my claim to fame in 1996 was my 6 and a half minutes on The X-Files.

So, tell us a little bit about that. Tell us about that.

Well, you know, it was 1996. And, you know, Betty, you and I shared that we were never a big fan of those types of shows. We both come from that. We like a good sitcom. We like to laugh. So I'm with you. Yeah, I didn't watch The X-Files. And then I got cast in it. And I was like, uh-oh. There was no VCR to— there was no tapes to watch it. There was no internet. So I had to go on set without really knowing too much about it except for what people have said. And, but it was, you know, it was a good experience. I might have been rude to some of the, some of the cast because I didn't know they were the stars and I might have been rude to them. And it's like, excuse me, I'm here for my 6 and a half minutes.

You're like, you're like Skelly. I don't know that. I don't know who that is.

Yeah, actually, I did know who— I didn't know the 2 main ones. I didn't know the other ones, but—

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

She was actually great because I was actually on set for like a week. It takes a week to do six minutes. She, I was in lots of prosthetics, and she actually cut my lunch for me. Wow!

Yeah, yeah. Oh, now that's your claim to fame right there. That's true. Not your six minutes.

Forget it. Yeah, forget it. I had lunch with Sully.

Yeah, that's right. That's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing. Well, and I'll tell you, when you said emotional intelligence, it lit up my board because anybody who knows me knows it's. probably my most favorite thing in the whole wide world to talk about. So maybe, who knows, that might show up a little bit in the rest of what we have to talk about today.

Mm-hmm.

But so today we're chatting about influence. And I am excited to be talking about this because I do think that this is a topic that's misunderstood and definitely devalued, because I think a lot of times that people confuse influence with manipulation.

Yeah. Okay.

I'm glad that you agreed with me on that. Let's just start with the why. Why do you think this happens? Why do people assign a negative connotation to the idea of influence?

Because number one, we hear the word influence and we think in this day and age of social media, we think of an influencer, somebody who is coercive and manipulative with what they post, what they say, how often they do it, that there's a strategy in place. So we think influencer, which is not what influencing is about. The second one is we'll think of persuasion, which they sometimes call influencing. And there are some parts of persuasion that fall into influence. But the parts that don't necessarily fall into what I'm speaking about influence, which is to pull people in first before you push. And I'll unpack that a little bit later. But the pulling them in is basically that we want to connect with someone, that we want to— And I like today that you recently posted on Twitter about The 7 Habits. Habits of Effective People because one of those habits is, yes, think that win-win. And that's what influencing without manipulation is. Is how can the two of us come out of this mutually respecting each other and finding support for each other that neither of us feel that we have been manipulated? We both got something out of this.

I like that. I think that you're right. I think connecting it to that idea of being an influencer. And also, like when we grew up, You know, oh, you should— we heard from our parents, oh, don't hang out with them. They're a bad influence.

Oh, yes. That's a good one. Yeah.

So, you know, and like, because everybody on the podcast just said it out loud, right? Because everybody has heard that and it's messaging that we got. And because the messaging that we got had the word bad in front of the word influence, that's what we sort of associate with it. Now, some people said, I think she's a really good influence on you.

Hmm.

That's always been sort of like the exception, right? More often than not, we're talking about who's a bad influence. And I'm guilty of that as well as a parent, as a friend to a friend. Sometimes I'm like, this is a bad influence on you, that type of thing. So I think we kind of associate those as well. But so let's do this. Let's set this— let's set the record straight right now. So Joel, clarify for us, what is influence versus what is manipulation?

Yeah, manipulation is when you are actually telling someone or you have figured out a way to tap into them. You've tapped into a fear. So maybe you might say, for example, there's scarcity. We've only got 5 left. You bet you call now, right? So that's manipulation. There's a fear of time.

I hate that. I hate that when they do that.

Anyway, go ahead. And we get it all the time, right? Where people reach out to us through whatever medium and they'll say, I help thousands of people, coaches be successful. Why don't you be one of them? And so, they're kind of shaming us. That's another way of manipulating us.

Hmm.

Oh my goodness! I feel I'm so behind. And so, from the persuasion side, it's also when people keep pushing logic. So, that's also another form of manipulation. Now, logic comes into the play. We need logic to be able to shift someone's ideas. But when people start with logic, it's they're pushing their own agenda. And so, it becomes an influence pusher, if you want to call it. Influencing without authority, which means that now my main goal is actually an intention. And my intention here is to listen, to connect, to maybe have a vision. And again, I'll borrow from the 7 Habits, which is have an end in mind. And the end in mind is actually that I see us being cooperating versus I got you in the short term. to agree to an idea. And that's what the bad influence is. When we say bad influence is because they got you to do something that really kind of went against your values, went against your instinct. And we want to influence to connect is we are actually speaking to the person's emotions. We're speaking first to that part and connecting with them by listening, by seeking trust, by using empathy, which is probably one of the most overused words and underused skills.

I appreciate that differentiation between influence and manipulation. And I liked how you said that manipulation manipulation is typically people who are pushing their own agenda. Whereas influence, sometimes there is an agenda, but it's not necessarily, not necessarily theirs. Sometimes influencing is pushing an agenda of, you know, just doing the right thing or showing up and being ready or, you know, some sort of concept that you could say is an agenda, but not necessarily pointed and directly. you know, benefiting one individual or another. So I appreciate that clarification. Yeah. And I think that, you know, we have people who influence us and we have people that we influence. And so the question that I have is, is there a method to influence? Is there some steps or some kind of process that we can follow in order to be an influence? And for my mom's sake, I'll say a good influence.

Right. There we go. Yeah. This is for you, Mom. Yes, it's actually 2 words. And I used them a little bit already. And the words are pull and push. What we want to start with, and you nailed it, which is we do have an end in sight. But influencing at the beginning is to start with the pulling idea. And then later on, when it feels right, then I will start to push. And I'll explain that a little bit more. But the pulling, the techniques that we need to do the pulling is A, every conversation that we have with that person is a brand new conversation. So, that's number one, that you're not coming in with any past assumptions or past judgments. So, that's where manipulation might come in, where you've got a plan on how you're going to attack. The second part of that is as uncomfortable as it is to pull because it's going to be lengthier, right? When you want to pull someone in, it means you need to be patient. So, it means you're going to have to listen a lot more. You're going to have to acknowledge what is going to be said. You might even have to add some meaning to what is being said.

Mm-hmm.

And then, here's the part that's always tricky is you might have to empathize. And you might not even be agreeing with what they're saying. But that's what empathy is, is acknowledging that that's how the people feel. And I have an anecdote to sort of bring this to life. But I'll just say, the acting techniques that we use in influencing to pull is 2 from the world of improvisation. One is yes, and. And Betty, I think maybe you and I will do that in a bit. We'll try that out.

Ooh, okay.

And then, the other one is the other rule of improvisation is always make the other person look good. If they feel good about themselves, if you make them feel bigger, not smaller, they're going to be more open now to when it's time to push. They're going to be more open to hearing what you have to say.

Wait, hold on. Say that again. If you make them feel—

Yeah, if you make them feel bigger, not smaller, they're going to be more open to hearing what you have to say.

I like that a lot.

And so when we're pushing, it's— we're just pushing. And then what happens is when you push, as you know, What happens? The other person pushes back. And so, you have 2 people pushing. But if you're pulling, then it means the other person's sort of pushing. You're pulling it in. You're pulling them in. And then, it becomes that seesaw. After a while, they go, okay, I trust this person. There's collaboration. And that's where we'll do the yes, and in a bit. And now, we can go with that. We can have that dance where I'll push a little bit and they'll start pulling. They'll start listening to me.

So, talk about that improvisation again.

Yeah. Are you ready? You want to try it out?

Yeah, let's do it.

Okay. So, it's called yes, and. And it's one of the core principles of improv. So, what we'll do is we'll debrief it. But let's do it first and then we'll debrief it so you can experience it.

Okay.

Betty, we're going to come up with a situation where we're both working for the same company. Let's just say we are planning that July 4th, we are all allowed to go back to work. And so, we're actually going to plan a social distancing party. We're all back at work. All right.

Sounds like a heck of a bash.

Yeah. Social distancing. So you and I are on the planning committee for it. But you are going to come up with the ideas to brainstorm with me. And just so you know, at the beginning, I'm only going to answer with yes, but as we go through it. And then we'll pause.

Okay.

All right. So you come up with some ideas like, oh, we should have fireworks. And I'll answer with You know, a yes, but type of answer.

And just keep going until you tell me to stop?

That's right.

Okay.

Here we go.

So we should have a contest to see who can have the most innovative wave.

Yes, but that's putting like performance pressure on people right off the bat. People are not going to go for that.

Okay. So we should have really long, like 3-foot straws so that people can, you know, play games with their— where they're trying to drink their drink from like 3 feet away.

Yes, but Not everybody's gonna find that funny. Some people just might bring back bad memories.

Okay, we should have karaoke.

Yeah, but I think you know, I think we need to sort of talk about the emotions first before we start getting into you know having a good time like that.

I think we need another planning committee because you know to everything.

All right, perfect. All right, good, good. I'm not going to debrief it. We're going to go back in time. Do do do do do do do back and dive, and then Betty, same thing. Don't change anything. And now I'm always going to answer with yes and.

Okay.

Here we go.

I think we should have a contest to see who can do the most innovative wave, like from across the room.

Yes. And isn't that imaginative of you, Betty? That's brilliant. That is so much fun.

Oh, thanks. I think we should— oh gosh, what was it?

Straws, maybe?

Okay, it was a straw. I think we should have 3-foot straws so people can have fun trying to drink their drink from 3 feet away.

Yes, that is hilarious. Oh, that goes in. Like, already we're setting such a jovial atmosphere. Betty, you know what? You're on fire with these ideas. That's fantastic. And we'll pause right there.

Oh, I wanted to do the karaoke one really bad.

All right, go for it. Go for it. Go for it.

I think we should have karaoke. Yes.

And everybody loves to sing. And you know, and when everyone is singing, it'll just bring us much closer together and we won't feel the physical distance.

See, I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah. You can stay on the— you can stay on the party planning committee now.

Thank you. How did you feel when you were being yes-buttered?

I didn't like it at all. I felt I was like kind of frowning and I was like, oh.

Yeah, fair enough. How did you feel when you were being yes-anded?

I couldn't stop smiling.

So, there you go. That's the mindset. Obviously, you're not going to be saying yes, and. But that is the mindset when you go into wanting to influence someone, which is you don't have an agenda. Maybe it's not going where you want it to go. But by saying yes, and, you're helping make the ideas bigger. And then, we can start making the ideas smaller. When you start saying yes, but you're already making the ideas smaller. And I'm making— I made you feel smaller.

Yeah, I didn't like it.

Yeah. And you— and I'm making you resistant. And we're going towards— we're leading now, leading towards a challenging conversation.

Yeah, for sure. I love that. I love that. Yes, but yes, and mostly the yes, and part. I like—

sure.

Now I want to go sing karaoke, which I can't. So there's that. I guess I'll do it in my living room. That's awesome. So the yes, and, and then the other one that you told us about was you make people feel bigger.

That's right. Always make the person look good.

That's the second rule of improv. Always make them look good. That's it right there.

Okay, good. Yeah. And the third rule of improv is first thought, best thought.

First thought, best thought.

Yeah.

I don't know if my first thought is always my best thought, Joel.

Fair enough. Why do you think that? Why do you say that?

Well, usually my first thought I have to censor because it's either not appropriate or completely, like, just totally out of this world, not even close.

And that is so interesting that you say that, because in meeting you through the world of Twitter and meeting you in, you know, in our conversations, Betty, I mean, I would say it's like, it seems like you totally trust your instincts. You totally trust your first thoughts because you come across as genuine and not manipulative, not where you say what you think people want to hear.

Well, I'm not saying what I think people want to hear, but I think what you're witnessing is my self-management that I've worked on over the years because Because sometimes I'll say exactly what I'm thinking, but I find a way to say it without it being incredibly abrasive. Whereas, you know, 10 years ago, it just comes out exactly as it is in my head.

Right.

And so I've worked a little bit on that self-management. But so I'll take that as a compliment because I appreciate that.

Well, you're finessed. You're finessing that first thought, but you're— but you're not— you're not.

That's true. That's very true. You're right.

And that's good because that's another part of influencing is, you know, when you think of people When we think of a good influence is that we are attracted to people that are being themselves on purpose. So, I think that's what you're saying is that you are trusting your first thought. You're finessing it. So, you're being yourself on purpose. So, we think of, let's say, an Oprah, Tina Fey. Now, I'm going to really date myself. Alan Alda.

Well, that's a good call for all of those. So once we learn this art of influence, how can we be sure that we use our powers for good? So there's that good word again, good influence versus other types.

If you're not using it for good, you probably have gone to the other parts of what I call persuasion, which is where you start getting into you're the authority, scarcity, maybe even social evidence. Everybody's liking it. Why aren't you liking it? Or getting into reason, rational logic. You've gone that way. So, I guess it also gets down to the authenticity. If you don't believe what you're doing, then there's no point in doing that. It's not who you are.

Mm-hmm.

Then you are faking it. And we've seen that, especially in the world of training. We've seen someone come in with that bad smile. And it's what I call the unconscious intention, which is they don't want to be there. They are feeling that this is— they don't believe the material that they're delivering, that they're training the people on, or they don't necessarily like someone in the group. And they put on that sort of that fake smile and they pretend to be listening and they pretend to be empathetic. But we're not good actors. So, it gives us away. And people can tell when you're not being authentic.

That's for sure.

So, tell us about an opportunity that you've had to positively influence Personally, if I'm connecting with someone and they get their share to express their feelings, to express their thoughts, and we have a conversation. I don't want it to be all one-sided because that's my pet peeve when someone is doing all the talking. In training world, as someone coming in and doing workshops, I said I was going to share a story with you earlier. And I'll share with you this is that recently, I had a contract and it was a good contract. The challenge though was it was a very difficult crowd in the sense that I was coming in from the outside to deliver a course on customer service. Oh, you poor thing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, as you can imagine, everyone's eyes roll when they hear customer service. Exactly. And these people were experienced. They were also in a very hostile environment where they often face a lot of verbal abuse, occasionally physically threatened. They're a unionized environment. There was about 50 people in the group and me. And the training started at master shift. So, it started at 7 in the morning. And it starts with one of their leaders walking in and basically doing everything that's opposite, which is absolutely pushing. You will do this. You will listen to what Joel says. And I'm going to come in at the end of the day and I want to see results. So, it's an uphill battle. Oh my God!

Yeah.

Here's where influencing comes in. Most trainers would walk in and I've been guilty of it too, where you panic and all of a sudden, you go, okay, we don't have a lot of time. We got a lot to cover. Here's the new model. Open your books. Here's my 100 slides. Let's go, let's go.

That's true down to the voice crack that you had for sure.

That's right. The influencing now is where you go, okay, the easy thing here is to just push and get through the day. But at the end, nobody's going to feel good about this. The harder decision here, and it might take a little bit longer, is that I'm going to be patient. And the first hour, because this would be Groundhog Day, I would sort of have to go in another day and new 50 people. There was a lot of people. Go in every time without any assumptions. So, hope for the best that maybe today will be different. But learn. Learn from what I obviously from the past. But don't come in and already be defensive. 2, I know this is going to take time. So, I'm going to really— I'm going to have to listen. I'm going to have to listen to what people say, not judge them, be careful of unconscious intentions. Sometimes, you want to say something sarcastic. My values maybe don't line up with their values. So, be really conscious of that. These people are sharing how they feel and what they think. So, acknowledge that even though people are being hostile to me and pointing the finger at me and saying, what do I know? Have I ever done this, etc., etc., etc.? And to simply acknowledge that this is what it is. And so, it's about lowering the temperature at the beginning.

That's the goal.

And then, by the afternoon, we've got people volunteering to come up and do improvisation scenes.

Yeah.

Something you wouldn't think would happen. And when you think about beginning with an end in mind, the end in mind is sure, the goal, the objective is get them to use this new model for customer service. That's an objective. But we're not going to get there unless we focus on the intentions. And the intention here is build trust, build collaboration, be curious.

That's cool. That's an awesome story. And anybody who has a positive outcome story about customer service Training is somebody to pay attention to and follow. That's for sure. But yeah, that's that's an awesome opportunity. I have one that I want to share with you. Yeah. Okay. So one and a half. So one is if you ask Betty is all about positively influencing others to think differently and help them become better humans. So that right there, that's what I do with if you ask Betty. But before if you ask Betty, I had an opportunity to positively influence others because I was sort of a charter member of. back when Facebook groups were just getting started, of a Facebook group called Downriver Moms Run This Town. And it was a running group. And I was— a friend of mine that I had went to high school with started this group. And she asked me if I would join the group and just sort of, you know, help get it started. I said, sure, but I'm not going to run.

Uh-huh.

And she's like, that's fine. So, so I joined and I participated in conversation and, and then I would post my walks and then I would ask questions about these people that were like running on purpose. And what I found was that as I posted what I completed, not only did I get lots, you know, likes and comments and blah, blah, blah, but then some of those people who hadn't been posting would start to post. And I could see the influence, the positive influence, just to get them moving. And, and so I saw women that hadn't gotten up and, you know, walked around the block in 2 years start to do that because they were encouraged by somebody who was like them doing sort of the same thing. And so, you know, I was able to be a part of that for a couple of years. I actually did eventually start running and then I ran a marathon and then I retired. I don't recommend running a marathon to anybody. I've said that before, hands down, don't do it. I mean, but if you're gonna do it, do it at Disney World, 'cause that's what I did. 'Cause if you're, if you're gonna do something crazy, you should do it at Disney.

Oh.

But yeah, so I've since retired from running. I'm still a part of that group, get a chance to sort of see it still continuing to evolve. But it was really fun to be part of positively influencing others. And it was, it became like the cyclical effect, right? Because I would influence them and this was a closed group. So this isn't like I'm just posting my workouts on my regular feed. These are very specific people. And so I would post it and then somebody else would do it and I'd be like, okay, great. And it wasn't a competition, it was an encouragement. And so it was, it was really good influence. That's one that I would add to the pile.

I like this word of encouragement because that is, that's a mindset to decide that I'm going to be an encourager versus I'm going to be The trainer or the fact that you didn't know really much about running and you could allow that fear to overtake you. And so, sometimes you might overcompensate by being bossy or pushy or come on. But you encourage them and you said you were like them. So, that idea of reciprocity also and feeling of community, which is sort of that deeper level of empathy that comes in. Yeah.

Yeah, it's funny because when I first started out, I was notorious for saying, if you see me running, you better start too, because something's chasing me. And, and then, you know, fast forward 2 years later and I, you know, ran 26.2. And again, don't do that. It's not— I don't recommend it. Okay, so let's flip that question. So tell us how you have been positively influenced.

You know, it's— I can't point my finger at like a particular moment, but what I can say is at the beginning I was subcontracted a lot. To other training companies. And so, I'd be watching the other facilitators delivering it, some of the material. And at the beginning, it was a lot of sales training. And I was watching them and I was going, hmm, this doesn't feel right. I could see they're giving them this sort of model and pushing it. And then, when I would come in and go, well, I can see what the gap is. The gap is they're not listening to the customer. They're not listening to each other. Or if they're coaching each other, they're just not listening. So, of course, there's just no emotional connection where the person might be sharing something like you were sharing your anecdote about running a marathon and you ran at Disney and that was impactful for you of the one place you're going to run it. Someone misses out on that clue and they just go, right, right, right. Okay, good. Anyways, moving along. Here's my product. Why aren't you buying it? Let me tell you the 10 reasons. So, it was actually the reverse. It wasn't that someone necessarily showed me the way. It was more Just noticing, you know, coming from the acting background, which acting is 2 people have to work together and collaborate, and they have to listen to the words, but they also have to listen to the feelings to be able to move that scene forward. And this was just not happening in the world of training when I was watching the trainers do it. And then, of course, they're now teaching these other people to do the exact same thing, which is just push, push, push, push.

Yeah, I got to tell you, my positively influenced story is not business-related. It's about coffee.

Okay.

So I grew up, my mom, my grandma, everybody drank coffee, right? And as a kid, you're like, oh, it's gross. That's disgusting. Most kids don't like it. So when I got married, my mother-in-law introduced me to Starbucks and they lived in California. And this was obviously before Starbucks had made its big, you know, eastern expansion. She took me to Starbucks and got me, I think it was something like a caramel macchiato. And I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna like this. I just like regular coffee.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I love Starbucks. I buy Starbucks for K-Cups. I, you know, she introduced me to actually liking hazelnut flavor as well, which before I thought it was awful. And then we went to visit her and the only thing she had in the house was hazelnut coffee and hazelnut cream. It was really a positive influence. I know that's a small thing, but she's influenced me in so many other ways. But that just seems to be the one that I think people can relate to is just the idea that sometimes we are influenced by people that we love and find things that we love, and that's positive.

You know what, Betty, that is such a good point because it wasn't so much, um, you know, let's say you didn't really like me that much and I said to you, hey Betty, let's go to Starbucks and, uh, I'll buy you a caramel macchiato. You're just not gonna trust me. You don't like me.

Yeah, true. I mean, it's true.

Uh, so the fact— I think what I'm hearing is that, you know, is I heard the word love, and so You really respected this person, your mother-in-law, and willing to take the leap into this world of oversugared coffees.

And it is good stuff. So we both have had opportunities to influence and we've both been influenced. I think those are— hopefully those are helpful stories to the listeners, draw a picture for them. So why would you say we should work hard to be that positive influence?

What's, what's the value in I'll say the word positive influence is a bit tricky because it goes back to your definition of being bad influence or positive influence. I think the idea of influencing is not necessarily that it's going to be positive because influence is, especially in the world of training, we're asking people to shift their behaviors, shift ideas, and shift actions. I may not be a positive influence. I can maybe be a positive role model in how I'm doing it. But I may not be a positive influence. What I'm trying to do is the intention of being a good listener, being of a collaborative, a yes-and type of mindset, demonstrating empathy so that the other person, the person receiving it— and this is why it's so important— is that if we need another person to shift an idea, or to shift a behavior, to shift an action, in the short term, it's quicker if we push it. And just say, you need to do this. I'm the authority and you need to do this. Longer is to pull them in by connecting and listening and yes, and. But then, it makes it easier to now be able to push the idea, which is now you start to bring in the logic or the data. So for example, the customer service, do all the heavy lifting, which is that I'm going to be present. I'm going to listen, etc. And then, I can now say, okay, you want to be better at customer service because What's important to you is A, stop these bad reports in the media about your customer service. Change the stories. Lower the verbal abuse against you. Have more control in those types of conversations. And you will actually start to feel better, feel healthier. And then, the logic is maybe it affects your pay or affects your ability to be promoted. So, that's where the logic comes in. into play. But we can't get there unless we have done this influencing and shifted their behaviors, ideas, and actions first by, by being, uh, by pulling before we push. Does that make sense?

It does. I get it. The pulling and pushing is really helpful. How can we know if we have influenced others?

Betty, that's a great question because patience is, is probably one of the biggest, the biggest, the toughest things about influencing. We might not know And I'll use a personal one with this. Obviously, I try to use this with my kids. It's going to take a lot longer with the people that are closer to you to be able to influence them. So, patience is key because you might sort of hit the panic button. And then, you go, no, hang on because what was my intention? My intention was to make them feel safe, to build the trust, to get to collaboration. Okay, I see that they haven't changed yet. They haven't made that shift. So right now, there isn't that win-win. I'm not feeling really respected. They're not really feeling respected. But that patience and just hang on before I start pushing and say, you better do this now, it does pay off. So it's patience for a lot of times. And in the training world or the learning world, it is. It's going to be some patience. And when I talk to other facilitators about influencing, I'll show them the picture of these 4 people doing an improv scene and go, You have to have that vision in your mind that that's what you're going for, that people are smiling, that people are feeling more pleased. And if we think of, you know, we talked about emotional intelligence. And if we look at our emotions and when we're in those panic moments at the beginning when people are pointing fingers at you and getting really angry at you and going, okay, but I know I have to get them to buy in by the end of the day or else I'm out of work. Name the emotion first before the circumstance. So, okay, what am I feeling right now? You know, on a scale of 1 to 10, okay, I'm probably feeling a 6. I'm not at a 10. I'm not in a panic mode. I'm at a 6. I got to lower my own temperature, maybe get it down to a 3. And more importantly, I got to stop focusing on myself now and focus on the people in front of me. And how can I get them to lower their temperature? Because right now, I would say they're probably at an 8. And if I can get them down to maybe a 5 and then maybe a 3, and then maybe even start moving them over to more positive emotions where they actually start to feel pleased. Not excited, not elated, pleased. That's my only goal. Get them maybe to pleased.

And I think that it's important to remember that just because they don't change their behavior doesn't mean we haven't influenced them. A lot of times, we're looking for a very concrete indicator that what we did or said, or the time and energy that we've put in has caused changes in behavior. But a lot of times, it's a seed that we plant. And that influence will manifest itself years down the road or even just in the next big decision that they have to make. I think it's important to keep that in mind so that we don't feel like we are not doing what we need to influence them, even if you don't see immediate results.

For me, I'm a consultant. So, I'm going from one organization to another. But you have been there and you can sort of see the seed being planted, as you said. So, have you noticed that where you've you've influenced someone and maybe it's taken a few months for them to come around.

Oh yeah, and definitely. And I think I always kind of smile and I'm like, that's me. And like I say it to myself, I'm not like, oh yeah, you owe me. Like, that's not what's happening. Especially like when you've influenced somebody and they now begin to talk like you, or they say a phrase that you know that you've said to them over and over again. And it's like, oh, so they were listening. Yeah. And they did eventually hear it. For example, I had somebody that I was sort of mentoring for a while, and I kept encouraging this person, you know, you really need to have a little bit, at least a little bit of a social media presence. And they were really just not interested at all, just not feeling it. And I get it. I mean, I get it. It's exhausting sometimes. All of a sudden, like 6 months after we'd had this conversation, I start to see sort of a regular rhythm. And it probably wasn't what I said that caused that action, but what I said and what the next person said and what the third person said. And by the fourth time they heard it, they actually heard it. And recognize that it's something that they needed to do. It's planting that seed. Influence often goes from you through another party, through another party, and finally hits that target.

That is really good because it's repetition, which also helps when the message is being repeated. And bonus if it's not just coming from you all the time.

Yeah.

Because then you're just pushing it. But then someone else says, oh, and this and this. And it's like, And they go, oh, you know, Betty said the same thing. Inspector Danowitz.

They might not even make that connection ever, that you were the first person or the third person to say that to them. It has sort of become an influence in their mind, you know, whether they can connect it back to you or not. Yeah.

And you're right. It's often— it is subconscious because that's why it doesn't feel like you've been manipulated. If you— so that's exactly it. It's like, oh, Betty, you know, Betty told me I better do this. So she's going to be disappointed if I don't. It's subconscious. It's like, oh yeah, they start to believe it themselves.

Yeah, exactly. So, what is your best resource for us to learn more about influence?

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is a great book.

I second that.

Because it really is going to be about your triggers, building your self-awareness for those moments of panic because that is the turning point of whether you are going to to be able to follow through on building credibility and trust and collaboration. Crucial Conversations is also really good because it talks about starting with heart.

Start with heart.

Yeah, and that's pretty much what you want to start with if you want to influence is you—

It's what do you really want?

That's right. That's right. What do you really want from this relationship?

Yep.

And you know what? And if you watch actors, On, you know, TV, film, theater, whatever. Bad acting is when you— is when a person is not fully immersed into the role. They're not really, really listening. And you could tell when someone's not really listening and they're just sort of jumping, jumping in and they're saying their lines with no, no feeling or emotion. It's because they were not affected by the other person.

Mm-hmm.

So, good acting is, is we believe it when we see 2 people really listening to each other And the silences are so important too. So watch that when you watch film and TV as well as the silences.

Very cool. Do you know I teach emotional intelligence and crucial conversations?

I did not know that.

Now you know why I knew exactly what you're talking about.

That's right. That's fantastic. That's great.

So as we are wrapping up, I want to ask you a couple of quick questions that I ask all my guests.

First one is, how do you align your passion It was, it started probably 20 years ago, which was I was an actor and teaching acting and then realized, oh, I'm probably better at coaching people than doing it. Like a lot of people in sports where they became better coaches than they were actually in playing the game. And so, that probably fell into my world. And that's where I realized it's, yeah, I enjoy watching that happen. And they said, planting the seed.

What is the message that you would want to get out to our listeners? What do you want them to remember? It can be topic-related or not.

I really want them to remember whether you're in a difficult conversation, you're coaching someone else, you're delivering a training, you're helping someone with a sales call, connect to the emotion first. That's how people react. People react emotionally first and then, Then, they're open to the logic. So, pull them in first before you push out that data.

They feel it first.

Yeah.

Excellent message. How can people connect with you if they want to after the show?

You know, if you're following Betty on Twitter, then come on over and follow me on Twitter too at @SilverstoneTalk, or connect with me on LinkedIn. Or one-stop shopping, come on over to joelsilverstone.com.

Well, thank you so much, Joel Silverstone, for sharing your thoughts today. And thank you so much, listeners. Watch for another episode of the If You Ask Betty podcast soon. Peace out.

Peace out.