Motivation to Change with guest Clint Clarkson

You're listening to TFR, This Feels Right. And welcome to TFR. It's great to have you here. We've got with us Clint Clarkson. So before we jump into today's show, let's check in with Clint and see how he's feeling today. Clint, how are you feeling today?

I'm doing pretty well, Joel. Thanks so much for having me on today. It is— we're experiencing a Chinook in Calgary right now, and I grew up on the West Coast, so the significant weather changes and pressure changes— I got a headache.

Ooh.

But I'm still full of energy. I'm still here. I'm still ready to go. It's a light, sort of dull headache at the moment. Hopefully it doesn't get worse than that, but the last couple of weeks have been a little bit crazy that way.

Yeah, that weather barometer— the barometric pressure, is that what you call it? Humidity and all that?

Barometric pressure, something like that, yeah.

I'm just learning the language now. All right, thank you. Well, it's great to have you here and thank you for jumping in. We've got some fun things to talk about with Clint. We're gonna talk about motivation to change and it's something called motivational interviewing. We're gonna really unpack that. And what's really interesting about Clint is also his comic book series. So we're gonna talk about that as well. Clint Clarkson is the founder Founder of eLearning, and I want to get this right, Alchemy?

Alchemy.

Alchemy. Founder of eLearning of Alchemy. He's also a podcast host of the eLearning Alchemist podcast. He's also a very popular speaker, so you may have seen him live, or you can also find him on YouTube doing a lot of his popular talks. What's interesting about Clint is his sense of humor, and as his bio says, he's not just another victim. He's just another victim. who has accidentally stumbled down the rabbit hole of corporate learning and development. 20 years later, with a background in banking and transportation, he's now quite fond of the oddities and challenges that L&D has to offer. And as we said, his passion project is the L&D Scenes comic series, and we're going to unpack that a little bit later. Is this correct? Do I have that right so far?

Just about perfect. Thank you.

Okay, great. Well, welcome to the show. And again, TFR is about the ability to influence others without manipulation. And so what that means is, listeners, you're able to connect to the logic and most importantly be able to speak to the emotions of the other person so they say, yeah, this feels right. So listeners, if you want to learn more about how to be able to shift people's ideas, behaviors, and actions without using authority or being manipulative, then you're in the right place to learn from the leaders and speakers and experts who will be sharing their experience with that. And we got today Clint Clarkson. So let's jump in, Clint. We're going to talk about motivation to change with motivational interviewing. I'm excited to talk about this because I know very little about this, so I'm looking forward to learning more. And then we're going to talk about comics. So let's start with comics. Now, were you interested in comics as a kid? Is this what propelled you?

Not really. I did have a brief spell where I was fascinated with the original Spider-Man versus Carnage series. I don't remember the official name of the comics, but I had that series, was one of the big things that I was interested in as a kid. But really my interest in comics comes more from an interest in art and an interest in storytelling. So I really enjoyed drawing growing up as a kid. Even now, super realistic graphite portraits is sort of where my creative outlet or my artistic outlet. And and then the storytelling piece and trying to bring those 2 things together in a comic, even though comics are really a simplified form of those 2 things, they're actually a more complex form because you have to do them more concisely and you have to marry the art with the words. And there's actually a fantastic book on comic design that's called Drawing Words and Writing Pictures because you're trying to get both of those elements working really closely together. And so that's really what drives my fascination With, with comics.

Yeah, I, I'm, I'm so envious of that. I grew up with comics, but I'm so envious of someone who has this gift to really be able to think in, in so many words and put images together. Uh, it's, it's quite a use of the different parts of the brain to be able to do that. So we'll unpack that a little bit later. Um, but let's jump into this motivational interviewing because, well, right now we're dealing with so much that is going on in our lives as far as changes and a new normal. And I think this is timely to talk about this motivation to change. So what is the spirit of motivational interviewing then?

Well, the spirit— I think we should start, Joel, by emphasizing that motivational interviewing is— they call it interviewing because you're interviewing a person, you're asking a lot of questions, but it's not interviewing like interviewing for a job. Motivational interviewing is a psychologist tool that is used to help people get through change when change is really difficult. So it's Its roots are actually in addiction counseling. And that's, that's where it was originally developed. And it's since moved to a lot of different places, particularly in healthcare, and then into safety types of roles as well. The spirit of MI is really, what's the mentality or what's the mindset that I need to go into conversations with someone who's struggling with change, or that I may need to change if I'm a leader inside an organization. And that really starts where this really comes together is this idea of collaboration. And probably everyone's heard of servant leadership and the idea that we're trying to help people succeed. That's, that's where the starting point for this comes from. There's a really important aspect in the spirit of MI that's about evoking. We're trying to draw ideas out of and draw feelings out of the other individual. We're not trying to educate them and tell them how they should be feeling or what they should be doing, which leads into the next component, which is autonomy. We want to give people the opportunity to make their own choices. When people are struggling with change, They need to have the autonomy and know that they're the ones making the change. Otherwise, it's never going to happen. And then the last piece is compassion. You know, when, when somebody's struggling with a change, that can be a really difficult experience, whether that is trying to get away from an addiction or trying to deal with an eating disorder. Any of those types of things are really emotional, really deep inside a person. And compassion is just so important if we're going to help somebody through that type of change. And so that really sums up what the spirit of MI is.

Okay, that's great. Thanks for explaining that. You know, and I don't even think that there's a sort of a temperature change. I think even just small changes for some people are just really, really difficult.

Absolutely.

And what I'm understanding is that motivational interviewing, which is really about kind of having a coach or a therapist, so to speak, sort of guide you through that, the key here is, is The other person, the person who's trying to make the change, is the one who has to take ownership on that.

Yeah, absolutely. And we do, we do this in leadership roles all the time. I've certainly done it. I'm sure you've done it at some point, whether you are a parent or whether you're a leader inside an organization. We have these experiences where we really need someone to change. And in a lot of cases, it is really in their best interest to change. They may lose their job if they don't change. They may not get into a college if they don't change. And our immediate reaction to that, because we feel the stress of that, is often to put pressure on that other individual. And that's not coming from a place of compassion. We're really projecting our own emotions onto somebody else versus giving them the autonomy and giving them the compassion that they need to make that change themselves.

This so ties into the show, which, right, yeah, this has to feel right.

Absolutely.

Yeah, exactly. Um, because, um, yeah, you can't, you can give someone all the logic. Look, you got it, you got to lose the weight or you're gonna, you're gonna have a heart attack. You got to de-stress or you're going to, you know, again, you're gonna, uh, you're not gonna be able to sleep. Or, you know, all these things that one has to make changes in. That's the logic. But unless they can, they can summon the emotion, they can summon the reason, what's in it for them to make that change?

Yeah, absolutely. Can I flip, can I flip this on you for just one second? I'll ask you a question. Yeah. What is the reason that people struggle to make a change when they know it's the right thing for them to do?

Yeah, that's, that is a great question because I see that all the time. And They haven't really asked themselves the right questions as to what— why they want to make the change. They know, they know what it is they need to change. They see the result, but they're missing that, that why. What they can't quite see— they see A and they see Z, but they don't see the B, C, D, E, F, G. They don't see all the letters in between.

Can I throw something that would layer onto that?

Yeah.

Are you familiar with the concept of ambivalence?

Not really.

Okay, so ambivalence is a really core concept to motivational interviewing because it informs us as far as how we want to have a conversation with the person and what information we need to get from them. And ambivalence is essentially feeling 2 different ways about the same thing at the same time. So when we use the example such as wanting to lose weight, there are pros and cons to losing weight. We know what the basics of it is. Go to the gym, eat better, although eat better is really the linchpin there. But we don't necessarily want to change because it actually may change our lifestyle. Maybe food is a part of the way that we connect with family regularly. Maybe bringing in cookies into the office is part of what our role is in our workplace and part of our social role. And maybe we just like ice cream. I love ice cream.

Yeah.

And when I try to lose weight, ice cream is my killer. If it's in the house, it's getting eaten. So I have to give up all of those things, or a person has to give up all of those things to make that change. And so this role that ambivalence plays is there's pros and there's cons to that change. And we'll oscillate back and forth and back and forth between those things unless we really identify what those things are and then work through each of them. We can't get to change until we get through ambivalence.

Yeah, this is, this is a big, this is a big matzo ball, the mission. Yeah, it really, it really is a lot. My ice cream— sorry, my weakness is ice cream too, and butter.

Oh yeah, I can have butter in the house on everything.

I put butter on the ice cream, we're all set. So okay, let's, let's walk through some of the steps because we're, we're kind of jumping into, you know, how to get there, right? The ambivalence, which I love. Thank you for sharing that. So, but there is a process in a sense of this, and it's not maybe linear, but it's, it's, there's a process. Is that correct?

Yeah, absolutely. So the starting point is this idea known as the confidence ruler. And the confidence ruler has 2 different categories on it. One is motivation and one is commitment. And we often think when people don't make a change either that they're not motivated to do it or they're not committed to do it. Sorry, confidence, not commitment. It's motivation and confidence. So we, we often assume that people don't have the motivation to make a change, but it may actually be that they don't have the confidence. So we like to ask people on a scale of 0 to 10, how motivated are you to make this change? And a lot of times people will say it's a 10. I know I need to make this change. It's important to me. But then when you ask them, how confident are you that you can make this change? That number is a lot lower. And it certainly can be inverse. Like they're very confident they can make it, they can make the change, but they're not very motivated to. But that confidence piece is really important. And I like to lean on this example because so many people understand it is when we talk about losing weight, a lot of times people are very motivated. They really want to make that change, but they've tried things in the past.

Yeah.

They failed either the mechanism they were using, or they just didn't commit to it and weren't able to succeed with it. And when you've done that 5, 10, 25, 50 times, your confidence goes way down, which then also starts to drag down your motivation. And sticking with the status quo just becomes so much easier. So that's the first piece of—

And I'll just pause there because I love this, which is, you know, the key question is here, you know, what's your motivation? I'm a 10. I'm losing the weight. How confident are you? Whoops. Oh, I'm a 3.

Yeah, right.

I love that. Great. Okay, let's go to the next one.

All right. So that takes us into this idea of change talk and status quo. And I'll be really quick about this. But when we say things about something we want to change, there tends to be— it tends to lean one way or the other. It doesn't tend to be neutral. We might say something like, my life would be so much better, or I would sleep better, I'd be happier. If I lost weight. Conversely, somebody might say, I really enjoy the time with my families. I really enjoy us getting together and sharing a big meal together. Now, those— neither one of those sounds negative or positive, but one of them is eliciting the change. It's, I want to make this change. And one is, I like the way that things are. And in motivational interviewing, there's a set of tools, which is the steps or processes that you're referring to, that we'll cover next. In motivational interviewing, when we have a person going towards change talk, we want to keep them going that way. When we have somebody going towards the status quo, we want to ask questions to move them away from it. And so that's— it's with that mindset that we move into these other 4 techniques. And the 4 techniques are known as OARS because it's a great acronym. It's easy to remember. O-A-R-S.

Okay.

So the O, open-ended questions. When we're trying to help somebody and we're being compassionate, we want to understand them. We have to ask open-ended questions, the type of questions that give them the opportunity to explain and thus give us the opportunity to listen. The next are affirmations. A lot of times with things that people have struggled with, they put just so much pressure on themselves. We all do this. We beat ourselves up inside. We call ourselves jerks. We call ourselves idiots. We tell ourselves we're not good enough. We do so much of this. When somebody is trying to help us, we don't need more of that from them. We want affirmations about the things that we're doing well, even if that's simply working through our ambivalence and admitting the challenges that we have. Just getting those affirmations is so important.

Okay, good. I'll just pause you right here because this is really good. So the always asking those open-ended questions to— because it's coming from a place of curiosity, right? So we're not assuming anything.

Absolutely.

And then the affirmations. I love this because our self-talk is already at a 10 of, you know, I'm stupid, I'm not smart enough, etc., etc. That we don't need any more of that. And that is so true. People don't realize that. We don't need to be told, you know, that this is where we're at. We need positive affirmations. Is that correct?

That's correct. Absolutely.

Okay, great. Let's keep going.

Yeah. And then the third one is reflections. I think we're going to spend a bit more time talking about this. And reflections, also known as paraphrasing when we talk about active listening, is such a powerful tool. And it has 4 different levels or 4 different types of reflections that you can use. There's simple and complex versions of them. And then the, the final item in the ORS list— why am I drawing a blank all of a sudden? Only because we're live on camera.

Yeah, for sure.

Summarizing. Sorry, why? It's at the end. Yes, summarizing.

Summarize. Yeah.

Yeah. And summarizing with people, it's really important when you're having a conversation throughout it to make sure that people believe that you're listening to and understanding them. But we often make the assumption that people know that we understand them. Because we're making the assumption that we understand them, and summarizing is really about taking a large chunk of time, whether that's the entire interview or part of it, and summarizing. This is what we've covered so far. This is where I think we've gone from and to. Does that feel right to you? Is that accurate to you? Does this feel good to you? And doing that check-in.

Yeah.

So summarizing is really about bringing it all together with that individual and making sure that they feel confident with the way that the conversation has gone. And that we understand it the same way that they understand it.

You know, it's, it's what I love about this. It's, it's easy to understand. It's, you know, it's those open-ended questions, those positive affirmations, reflecting back, and it's layered. It's not just, it's not just saying one thing. It's sort of taking a deeper dive into how you reflect back. There's, I said there's 4 ways, and we're going to unpack that a little bit more. And then that summary, which is, you know, is, is this, is it, are we on the right path? Is this, is this correct? Before you jump in with your assumptions. Because sometimes, yeah, it's so much of maybe what the coach or that therapist or that leader will put their own personality or their own beliefs onto that other person when they're not. That's why the summary is so important. So I love this.

Yeah, you bet.

Now obviously this is much more complex. We're doing this in like 10 minutes. This is the 10-minute hour. It's the sprint hour. But let's unpack one of these a little bit more. Let's look at the reflections. one because I'm a big fan of listening, obviously. And, you know, when you told me that there's actually 4 different ways we can use reflection, I'm like, okay, I'm intrigued. So maybe just tell us that and then we'll put it into practice. What are these?

Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, we want to think of reflections on 2 different levels. We have simple reflections and we have complex reflections, and there are 2 in each of those. So your most simple type of reflection and This, this is the knock on paraphrasing and why people are concerned about paraphrasing is this number one level, which is tell the person what they just told you. And sometimes that's enough to let a person know that you've been listening to them, especially if it's a bit of an adversarial relationship, just to stop and say, okay, so you just said this, did I get that right? And just telling them exactly what they just said in their own words. Then the other type of simplified reflection is telling them what they just told you, but changing the words a little bit to make them your own. And even in that, that subtle little shift, we're signaling to the individual, I've been listening to you and I've been listening to you enough that I can tell you what you're saying and use different words. And it's a little bit more comfortable than just telling somebody over and over again, back and forth, at them what they just said. That gets annoying.

Yeah.

So those are the 2 simple types. Then we switch into the complex type of reflections. And these are the 2 where you can actually start really drawing out more information and empathizing more deeply with an individual. The third type, so the first type of complex is to paraphrase what they've just said and then add meaning to it. So trying to, based on everything else you know about them and based on your own experience, they've said that something is particularly uncomfortable or that something makes them really angry and you're going to take that and you're going to tell them why you think they said that.

Uh huh.

And we're going to do an example. So I'm not going to go dive too deeply into that because we'll be able to pull a little bit more about why that is so effective.

Okay.

And then the last type is the amplified reflection. This is the, this is the big kahuna, the big gun that doesn't get used as often, but can be incredibly, incredibly powerful. Sometimes when people say things, they need to hear them for themselves to understand how ridiculous they sound. And the amplified reflection is a way to do that. So we could— it's really about when a person says something, something extreme or makes a really powerful statement, They're standing at the edge. They're saying, this, this is where, this is where I'm making my stand. And you're going to challenge them to jump.

Right.

And so obviously that needs to be done with a certain amount of care. And you certainly don't want to do that in life, life-threatening types of situations. There is a reason that this is a psychological technique and to recognize when psychologists are needed. But often when we're dealing with leadership issues in business, we don't need to do that. And so it really is that if somebody has said something to us and then we're going to come back and challenge them. So what you're saying is, and you give them the really extreme. Basically what you just said is you're going to jump, right? You're, you're going to quit if we don't make this change for you. Is that correct?

Right.

And in that moment, that person has to make a decision. Do I really mean this or am I going to back off now? And either one of those is an okay response. If somebody says, if you don't make this change, I'm going to quit your employment, well then, you know, and then you have to make a decision. Do I want to make this person happy or would it be better if they quit? Or they're going to back off and go, well, that's not what I'm saying. It's just— and then they'll elaborate more and you get to understand more deeply. And so that amplified reflection, the most dangerous one to work with, no question, as a leader, it can go sideways. And this is where that spirit of MI is so important because you need a landing pad. You need something to go back to, to say, you know what, I apologize. I didn't mean to be offensive. I didn't mean to push too hard on you.

Right.

For me, it's really important that we find a solution that is that works for you because this is about you. And so if you've got that spirit, you can back off from any of these. You've got a nice soft cushion to go back to, apologize, and go back to that place of compassion and win that person over again. But those can be— but the reflections can be an incredibly powerful tool to move that conversation forward.

Yeah. And, and, you know, and we'll sort of stress that this has only happened because there's been mutual respect that was set up at the beginning because there was some There were some questions I was asking. There was some engagement. There was those positive affirmations like, I'm on your side.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm with you on this. I'm with you on this journey, or whatever it is. Whether, you know, whether you need to make changes at work, you need to make changes in your life. And whether, yeah, whether you're a leader or a psychotherapist or just a partner to someone, this is, these are some great tools. So let's, let's jump into the reflection. Then we'll do our improv, improve your communication style. And then we'll, we'll talk about comics. How's that?

Absolutely.

Okay, great. So I'll give you a statement, put you on the spot a little bit here, Clint, if you're okay with that. I'll give you a statement, you know, that I'm really dealing with personally, and give you a chance just to practice this reflection, and for me to actually feel it too, to experience what it feels like on the other end to receive it.

Okay.

All right, great. Here's the statement, and this is real. Both my kids play like a high level of baseball, high level of hockey, and obviously we're on a break right now with everything that's going on. But as we go into the baseball season, I'm already dreading those weekend tournaments. For me, that's my living nightmare, to be going to the— these hotels in these small towns on the weekends with the teenagers running around the hallways and parents drinking in the hallways. That is not how I want to spend my weekend.

So there we go. Yeah. So we'll start with, with the, the first type, the really simple type, which is essentially telling you what you just told me. So what I'm hearing you say, Joel, is that you don't enjoy going to the weekend tournaments where parents are drinking in the hallways, where there's all kinds of noise and the time that that takes out of your life. Is that correct?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's right.

Okay. So that's your simple reflection and that just tells you I'm listening. The next type of reflection is simple and I use some of my own words to actually tell this story. So I'll start again.

Okay.

So, okay, Joel, if I'm understanding you correctly, what you're saying is that you don't really want to have to go to these weekend tournaments where there's a lot of disruption, there's a lot of things happening that affect your sleep, affect your rest, and, and just take a lot of time and mental energy out of your life. Is that right?

Swish. All right.

So the advantage of that type of reflection or that type of paraphrasing is I have to listen more deeply and then sort of apply my own words. I have to put myself in that situation and then ask, How would I now describe it? And if I've put myself in the right situation, which is the one that you're experiencing, I should be giving you something realistic back and it should make sense.

And Clint, I'll just say, you know, the first one it was like, okay, I felt heard. And now the second one I'm feeling like, okay, Clint understands me.

Right, exactly. And there's, there's a difference between that, isn't there? From an empathy perspective, there's a big difference from just being heard. Yes, this person is listening and this person understands me.

Yeah.

All right. So let's move on to the 3rd type of reflection. And this is where I add some of my own meaning. And we'll see what happens here and how, and how this plays out. So it's very similar to number 2, but then I add on some additional pieces. So we'll start again.

Okay.

Okay. All right, Joel, that, that makes a lot of sense to me. So if I'm understanding you correctly, what you're telling me is, is there a lot of frustration in your life to have to go to these tournaments on the weekends? There's a lot of disruption. There's People who maybe behave differently than you normally would and where you would get excitement out of it. And really, the weekends are about your rest and your relaxation and getting time for yourself. And then you're forced out of that and having to go to these hotels and, and, and just disrupting your whole life in order to take part in these tournaments. Is that right?

Yeah, it's close.

Okay, tell me more.

Yeah, okay, great. So yeah, the disruption is You're right. It's not so much about my rest, but the disruption is I can't relate to any of these people. I don't drink. So this is not my— this for me, this is not a vacation or an activity to be drinking. That's like against sort of my values, I guess. That would not be my ideal.

Okay. This is perfect because what I just said to you, I projected on you what my experience might have been. And then added some information and you immediately corrected me. And people are often concerned of, well, if I guess, if I infer what this person is feeling, I'll get it wrong and they'll be mad at me or they won't believe I'm listening. And it's the exact opposite of that. It's not that, it's they will correct you if you're wrong.

Yeah.

When you paraphrase and you sound like you're listening and you're telling them about their life, people love to listen to about themselves.

Yeah.

When you do that, people will absolutely correct you. And at this point, if we were actually having this conversation, Joel, just as friends, What you just told me became a really important piece of information. I played darts at a really high level for a number of years. I played nationally, I played internationally, I played in the World Cup and the World Masters. I love darts.

Yeah.

And so when I go to a dart tournament, there's usually by the end of the day a room full of drunk people. And it's— it was actually part of the thing that caused me to stop playing was I can't enjoy that environment enough because I'm there to be serious, I'm there to compete. And a lot of people are there to drink and party, and that's not my jam. So that right now, we now have a connection point on this. I totally get that experience now, but I don't get that unless I make that inference first, because now you've been able to come back and emphasize just one little piece that you added in your initial statement. I thought I understood it. I didn't. There's a really important piece there that would make all the difference in our conversation.

Yeah, this is, this is great. Like, you didn't get the bullseye, but you're, but you're on the board.

But we got, we got to the bullseye though.

Yeah, yeah, we did.

That's right. Because it was, it was all about you, me listening to what you were saying, and then trying to understand deeply by adding some more information and letting you either confirm or correct it.

And I can say from the receiving point, you know, if you say people might be nervous to try this, is I appreciate the effort of you really, you know, being focused on me and trying to figure this out. So I felt safe enough to say no. But, you know, if you just take a If you hadn't been the trust, then I would have just let it go. But the fact that there was trust in how you were approaching this, like you really wanted to understand, and I appreciate that effort, that I'm willing to have a discussion with you, have a conversation with you about it.

Yeah, absolutely. And just for my own sanity, I'd like to say, maybe on both our behalves, I'm not judging anyone at a dart tournament that wants to drink and party and have a good time. They're away from their kids, they're away from their jobs. That's totally fine. It's just not what I do. And so that environment, I don't enjoy it in the same way that other people enjoy it. But the way that they enjoy it is totally fine. There's nothing wrong with that. All right. That brings us to the amplified reflection.

Okay.

So in this situation, I might say something like, so Joel, what you're telling me is that not being around people who make you a little uncomfortable because you don't like them is more important than the relationship and bonding that you build with your sons when you're at their tournaments.

Yeah, absolutely. You nailed it. It affects my ability to be, to be with my kids because they don't even really want to be with me anyways. They want to be with their friends. So there isn't much bonding that's going on. There's a little bit of bonding. But yes, that becomes the main thing is I become focused on and anxious about the social activities outside of the game.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, and obviously we have a limited timeframe here, so we can't dive too deep. We can't do a full motivational interviewing session here. But even the way that you just replied to that offered some insight and information, particularly about your ambivalence.

Yeah.

You're saying, you know, I don't really get to spend a lot of time with my sons. More, I'm challenged by this social aspect that comes into it. So you've just indicated the status quo, which is the unhappiness with going to these tournaments, is more powerful for you right now than the change, which would be finding a way to go to those tournaments and be happy being there. That ambivalence is really important, but you're also talking about the status quo. And so my goal as a motivational interviewer— interviewing helper in this type of situation would be to try and get you to talk more about yourself. Okay, so I might right now ask you to tell me more about what the interaction with your sons is like.

Yeah.

And then I may ask you, how do your sons feel about it? How do your sons feel about it if you're not there?

Right.

And I don't know, I assume you know the answer to that question. Maybe you don't. But that it starts to lead you down the path of, okay, why is this valuable to me? Why is this important to me? Why is it important to my sons and to my family? And when you're going down that path, you start to land on realizations and information and build up that side, that, that pro side of why being at those tournaments might be really important to you.

Clint, I'm, I'm, I love this because this is really about how to influence others without being manipulative, which is To be present, to have trust with the other person, there's mutual respect, and to really be genuinely curious about the person that we're going on a much deeper level. You know, I'm more willing to change because I feel that you are really working with me on this. And by me saying these things a lot and you reflecting it back, I'm hearing things that maybe I hadn't really— that were in my head, but I hadn't really articulated.

I had— we're just on the— we're just on this podcast. Right?

Yeah, yeah, on the tip of it. Yeah, yeah.

It really, it really shows how powerful these tools can be. The one thing I would stress though, because I know we're going to transition out of this topic, is don't just listen to this podcast and then go start using Amplified Reflection.

Right. Yeah, right.

Take some time with this technique to understand the spirit of it, to under— because there's also that buildup too, which we don't get to do in this podcast, where we work through the ambivalence to understand it. That would have helped me, you know, on that number 3 reflection where I'm adding my own meaning. I likely would have had more information from you before I actually made that and maybe would have gotten it right.

Right.

And that could help the conversation as well. Not that we have to get it right, but certainly having more information and building up to that helps. So there are great books if you Google or if you go onto Amazon or wherever, wherever you buy books from and look up motivational interviewing. There's a book called Motivational Interviewing that is absolutely fantastic. And there's another one called Finding Your Way to Change, which actually walks you through something you want to change in your own life. which is a great way to understand some of these techniques and understanding how they would affect you helps you empathize, empathize more deeply when you're wanting to use these techniques with someone else.

Yeah. And I think, you know, as we segue out of this, I think this is so timely because we don't know what the, what the near future holds for us. Even right now, a lot of people are just struggling with new routines and juggling a lot. So how to deal with change. This is really good to maybe, you know, take this book and have me, you know, You and your partner read this, or you and your colleagues, or you and your boss, or if you're the leader, you know, have everyone read this so that you can now help each other go through this and figure out the new normal to go through the changes.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, great. Well, that's our cue then to take a little what I like to call improv— improve your communication style. Are you ready, Clint?

Let's do it.

Okay, great. So, um, we're gonna do something called last letter, first letter. So we're gonna give a title to the story, and then I'm gonna say the first sentence. You have to listen to that sentence and listen for the last letter that I say. So let's say if I said Calgary, the last letter was Y. You would then have to start your next sentence with that letter. And then I'm listening for the last letter that you say, and I start with the first letter. That's my first letter. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. Let's do it.

All right, let's give it a try.

Like that celebrity game show.

Yeah, hang on, let me get the microphone. Yeah, here we go. Um, are you— um, let's give a title to the story. Uh, how about, since we're gonna go into comics, uh, and I know you weren't really much into it, but let's, let's We all know superheroes. Let's talk about who, who was, who was the best superhero. That's the title. Okay, who's the best superhero? All right, so I'll start it off. Are you ready?

Yes, sir.

Okay, Thor was the strongest.

Some people believe that Thor was the strongest, and that may be right.

Totally, I agree with you. But it sounds like you might have a different thought.

To be totally honest with you, Joel, when we talk about superheroes, it's difficult to classify one as being greater than all the others.

So true.

And scene! Great.

All right, how did you feel?

Felt good.

Yeah, really on, you know, on the spot listening, right? Stakes are high. Because, you know, listeners are listening to make sure that we got it right. And so you feel that pressure. And sometimes we don't always do that when we're listening. We don't always realize that the other person— the stakes are still high even if we're talking one-on-one. The other person wants to make sure that they have been listened to. So that was great. Thank you for jumping in to do that improv break. And speaking of superheroes, let's go into comics. Now, you've been doing the comics for how many years now?

Oh, I guess we're at about 2 and a half years.

Okay. You know what I love about this is, as far as I know, you're the only person in sort of this learning world that uses comics as a way to communicate messages where it's, it's, you know, I love what, you know, you got the CEO, the vice president of HR, you got all these characters, you know, it's workplace comics, but it's, you're saying what people are thinking. thinking, uh, but not necessarily saying. You're, you're kind of doing the scenes that are happening, those, those conversations in the hallway after those meetings, you're, you're putting into a comic and you're putting in like 4 or 6 frames, uh, and, and, and getting to that. So, uh, that's what I love. I'm, you know, I'm envious of anyone that could, you know, think like that. Um, so what was your thought in, in doing this and creating these comics?

Yeah, sure. So first, before I do that, Joel, I should say there are some others that have done comics related to learning and development. There's a couple out of Australia. Arun Pradhan, I don't know if I said his name right, apologies, Arun, if I haven't, but he has done some comics. I don't believe there's a consistent series though. And then of course there's some classic Dilbert and Far Side comics that relate to learning and development, but not consistently all the time learning and development. Yeah, sorry, and as soon as I said that, I've forgotten what the specific question was.

No, that's fine. And then, you know, there's also Doonesbury, I guess, too, which was kind of, you know, political satire. But no, the question was, you know, so what led you to— I mean, I know, you know, you're fascinated as a way to— as a way of communication. So what led you to do this? What led you to say, I'm gonna use this as a way to communicate with people?

So I wish there was a better answer to this, Joel. This was a social media project.

Okay.

And so I made the decision, I want to say 5 years ago, to really dive in and really commit to building my social media network, learning from it, and doing better with it. And I decided at the point that I started the comics that I was going to spend 5 weeks doing one thing each day of the week to come up with something that was engaging and got people's attention. So I tried sketchnotes, I did blogs, I did— I think it was Friday Funnies or Silly Saturdays. I did jokes, just did something different each day of the week for 5 weeks. And the only thing that really got traction was the comics. And it didn't get that traction until the 5th week. And if it hadn't, I wouldn't have continued them. But the 5th comic was about instructional designers and how nobody understands what an instructional designer is. Conveniently, most of my LinkedIn network is instructional designers, or there's a lot of instructional designers in that network, and so it landed. And it was the first time that I got some real feedback on the comics from people that say, hey, I really like this, I've seen them all, they're great, or I experienced this myself, it's something we need to do better, and then it's a conversation started underneath it. And a few different people said, hey, can you keep doing these? I like these. And I received a couple of private messages to the same. And it wasn't much. I mean, it was 4 or 5 messages maybe totally total. And I said, okay, well, I'll do another 5 because people like this. And by the time I hit the 10th one, they had exploded where they were getting thousands of views, not tens of thousands, but thousands, you know, 3,000 to 5,000 views. And they were getting 20 comments or so. And in comparison to everything else I tried, it was the far and away winner. So I dropped everything else. And I just stuck with those comics and we've carried them on ever since.

Brilliant. Listen, you know, I still remember, you know, waiting for the Saturday newspaper just to get the little comic section in there. And there's still comics in the newspaper because basically it— and maybe you can walk me through this, you know, how do you manage to sort of take your ideas, put them in 4 to 6 frames and end with a punchline? Like, what's— is there a recipe for this?

There sort of is. They were more difficult to write in the beginning than they are now, and they were more difficult in the beginning because I was writing them very topically. So I would say, I'm gonna write a comic today about in-class training, and then I'm gonna write a comic today about gamification. And when you just start with a topic, it's pretty difficult to narrow it down to one little small piece of time or little snapshots in time and then hit them with a punchline. Now, I like to say that the development of them is much more scenario-based or punchline-based. So I'll have a punchline and—

Right.

In fact, I hadn't thought of this until I was at the Learning 2019 conference just this last October, when a storyteller who previously worked at Disney came to me and said, you know, the thing that I love about these and the way that I was taught to write a good story is if you want to get somebody and have them really enjoy it, you have to do something unexpected. And at the end of every single one of your comics, you do something unexpected.

Right.

To me, I was just thinking, that's the punchline.

Yeah.

And the unexpected thing most of the time is what a learning professional would like to say, but never does.

Right.

And so let's play out the scenario and call out the craziness of it, like being handed thousands of pages of documents from a subject matter expert. And that happens. That happens in real life. Document upon document upon PowerPoint upon video. And we just accept it and take it. Like, why do we do that? Why do we let people do that? Why do people think that that's a good way for— or a good starting place for us to build training from? And so that's actually how they start to come now, is either I have a punchline, something I've seen happen in real life or that I would have liked to see happen, or I have a situation like that's me piling on information. And then it becomes a matter of I just need to find the other piece. So if I have a punchline, it's what's the scenario that gets into this punchline? And if I have a scenario, it's what's the punchline to this scenario. It's not always easy though. I've probably got a couple of dozen of scenarios or punchlines. I'm like, this works, this can definitely work, but I just can't find the right finishing piece. And I certainly have writer's block like anyone else.

Yeah.

What I'm lucky with is we release them one per week and they're 50 words long. So I'll sit down for a day and write 5 comics and that keeps me done for 5 weeks. And sometimes it takes an entire day just to write 5 comics because getting the word count down, deciding what needs to be in versus what can be shown with visuals, getting the visuals to match what's happening with the language that's happening. It is, it's a really challenging process and it's not like I just sit down and go, comics.

No, of course not.

It takes quite a bit of time to make them work and then over time getting feedback from people, how they react to certain comics mostly, but also some people say, Don't do this. I didn't like this in this comic. And I wish I got more of that. I think people are worried about offending, but when I get that, then the comics sort of refine themselves and get better over time.

Yeah, you know, it really is— what I'm hearing is it's really a science on how the person is gonna feel, right? It's very scientific what you're doing with it, with the goal that someone should feel something when they see it.

Yeah, absolutely. And there's There's a scientific process almost that happens here, and it's the, the process of abstraction. So if this is something that I use when I run workshops on comics, I'll draw a circle on the board and ask people, what is that? And they'll say, well, it's a circle. Are you sure? Yes. Okay, and I'll put 2 dots.

Yeah.

And people either say, oh well, it's a button, or they'll jump in and say, well, it's the start of a face. Okay, are you sure? Yeah. And then I'll draw the happy face, and boom, it's a— oh, it's a happy face. So what does this signify? Well, it signifies happiness. And then I'll draw them all side by side. Well, here's a circle, dot, dot, line across the board. Does that signify happiness? No. Okay, why does it signify happiness when it's like this? And it signifies happiness because it's an abstraction of what we look like when we're happy. And that's sort of the power I think that the comics have and why they've carried on and become something than what I originally intended them to be, is that it takes— because it's not really us, it's not just me blasting at people in a blog about a particular topic or something like that.

Yes.

It's me adding a little bit of humor into a situation that in many cases is really quite frustrating because it's— but because it's not really happening to us and because that's humor there, we abstract from it. We understand it, we can empathize with it, we can feel it, but we're not upset by it or offended by it generally. Generally, there is one comic that really got people upset, but for the most part, that abstraction is really what brings people into the conversation, is the silliness is what opens up Yeah, it creates trust, right?

Again, it's that, it's that conversation that is happening in the hallway. People are talking about it. This is giving permission by you expressing it that instead of making it like a, you know, a 2-page blog, you put it in 6 frames and everyone goes, oh yeah, and they can relate. They go, oh yeah, been there, done that. Just like the one I just saw. I was just looking at them in roleplay, which I do a lot of, and, you know, Role Play Can Be Fun, which right off the bat, the title, you know, is ironic because nobody finds role-playing fun. And then you've got these different reactions where people all sense that they got tuberculosis, they're coughing, they're trying to find their way out. And then the last, the last punchline, someone says diarrhea.

Yeah. Well, and it's— I think it's great that you pick that particular comic because that one has 2 really important perspectives inside it. If you're a trainer and you look at that, Yeah. Generally what you're empathizing with or who you're empathizing with is the trainer. And how often when we go into courses, we know that to role-play, particularly with leadership type skills, to role-play is really, really crucial. That's how we get the practice. That's how we go through the quick thinking and apply the skills that we've just been taught.

Yeah.

But then our trainees never want to do it.

Right.

And it's sort of that struggle. And that's actually the conversation that started when I first posted that comic. But there's another side to this. If you're a trainee or you're an employee and you look at that comic, you go, that is so right. Role play is horrible.

Yeah.

It's so sucky. Why do we do that? Right. And so that person is taking a completely different story out of that. And sort of the joy that I found in these comics is often it starts talking about the L&D perspective, but because the L&D perspective dominates, somebody will always come in with the other perspective, whether it's the business or the learner or any other stakeholder that's in the story. And then there's a conversation that starts, okay, well, why does this suck for learners? Well, now we're empathizing with our learners, we're thinking more critically about them, we're trying to find ways to make their experience better. Boom, that's a great comment. I'm super happy when that conversation happens. You know, the comics that get the most views and get the most shares are usually the ones that are the funniest.

Yeah.

Oftentimes the ones that get fewer views and fewer comments on them are the ones that get the best comments and the best conversation. Because they are a more serious topic. So I gotta— I do try and keep a balance there of let's hit them with something funny and let's hit them with something serious.

Yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate that. That's good. Well, this has been awesome, Clint. You know, we talked about the motivation to change. We really took a deep dive into that listening. And so much of what happened in that reflections is really fell into the comics too. a lot of that, right, about listening to your audience and finding a way to communicate and say what people are thinking but not necessarily saying. So you're, in a sense, you're doing that third step, which is you're adding your meaning to it.

Absolutely. And it's the same reason that Dilbert works so well, works so well, is that Dilbert says to us, I understand you, I understand the world you live in and why it's challenging. And I like to think that that's what the L&D scenes are doing to some extent as well.

Absolutely. All right, so Clint, before we sign off, where can we find out more about the comics or what's coming up for you next? I believe there's a big— you're organizing a big learning conference. Maybe you want to share a little bit about that.

Yeah, absolutely. So we've decided to organize a conference to fill the COVID-19 conference void, right? All of our L&D conferences for the spring and summer have been canceled. So where do we go to connect and learn and continue? So we put together a conference. It's all online. You can find it at elearningalchemy.com/alchemylab. That's probably a really long title. If you find me on LinkedIn, Clint Clarkson on LinkedIn, you'll see links to it to be able to register and check out all of our presenters. We have some fantastic presenters, really top-notch L&D keynoters available for that. And it is free. It's completely free. We are accepting donations. We do want to try and cover the costs, and then any proceeds from the conference itself, we're going to donate to local food banks, because obviously that's a challenge in the world right now as well. So trying to help out our local community of L&D people, but also some broader communities as well by helping out with the food banks. And those 2 places, elearningalchemy.com and Clint Clarkson on LinkedIn, are the best 2 places to find me. All of the comics are in my LinkedIn articles. Once you're into one of them, you can skip back and forth in between.

Okay, great. That's— all right, terrific. That's a great place to find you. Well, Clint, thanks again for your time and riding the Chinook on this one and sharing with us that you are a world champion dart— darter? Is that what you would call it?

I can't claim world champion.

Well, close.

I do have a silver medal from the World Cup with the men's team for Team Canada. So that's sort of the biggest accomplishment. And I was number 1 ranked in Canada in 2009. Those are my darting claims to fame.

Darting.

That was in 2009, man. It was a long time ago now.

Well, very cool. So very interesting. Thank you so much. And again, you can learn more about Clint Clarkson on LinkedIn or at elearningalchemy.com. Is that correct?

Yes, sir.

All right. Thank you so much for joining us on This Feels Right. We will see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. And if this felt right and you would like to see this interview, Then come on over to our YouTube page at youtube.com/thisfeelsrightpodcast or join the conversation with our Facebook group at facebook.com/thisfeelsrightpodcast. Or if you just want more influencing tips and communication skills, then please connect with me on LinkedIn, Joel Silverstone, or come on over to Silverstone Communications at www.joelsilverstone.com. I look forward to connecting with you.