TJ Walker explains why people decide whether to trust you in seconds, based on how you make them feel, not what you say. Emotions come first, logic second. Wealth managers who ask clients about their family legacy, or executives who move past small talk to real questions, build the connection that makes influence possible.
Chapters
I can't guarantee you that you'll be a guest on, but I would love to have a chat with you and see if, you know, if we can have a great conversation about influencing skills, which ties in also to this feels right and why I came up with the name for this company. What I've noticed is that in conversations, and especially because my clients have always been in that more sort of technical world or analytical world, banking and IT consulting and logic is a big push in that. But what was missing is that people react first emotionally. So if we want to be able to influence someone, we often miss the moment because we go right in with the logic. And then we're wondering why, why isn't this conversation moving forward? Why isn't that connection happening? Why isn't trust forming? And because the first thing that happens is with that other person is they react emotionally. And this has been proven by science that our first reaction is always going to be emotional. We. And the first thing we ask ourselves is within the first couple seconds, does this feel right? In other words, does. Does it feel right? Does, do I like this person? Do I respect this person? Does this person seem to respect me? Is this person listening to me? Is this person making eye contact with me? Is this person matching their voice and tone with me? Does it feel right? And then the second part of influencing is when we start to introduce the data or the logic, but logic and data that supports the emotions of what was happening. So then the person, the other person will go, yeah, I think this is right. And so then when emotions and logic come together, then they go, I know this is right. So that's why I wanted to, that's why this feels right is so important. And working with, you know, like recently I was working with, you know, wealth advisors at a bank. And, you know, their challenge was they had a preconceived notion of their clients. They know them well and, and, you know, and as bankers, they want to go right for the numbers. But with wealth or possible wealth or gaining wealth, there's all kinds of stories. There's family, there's legacy, there's concerns, there's worries. And, and if you don't speak to those emotions first, whether when you're presenting your ideas, when you're listening, if you just keep going to logic, they're wondering why are their clients not more engaged? So it's really important about, really, this feels right is about how do I connect quickly with someone, create a deep connection and a deep relationship? And it's focusing on those listening skills. On those empathy skills. Great questions to ask, you know, a reason. I was working also with, you know, a high executive, and they had a disagreement with another high executive. And so they. They've kind of let a lot of time go by and they realized I need to apologize, and they were reaching out to me and go, you know, how. How do I do this? And so we worked on the letter, which is, you know, taking away those minimizing words, like, maybe I got a little disrespectful or maybe I got a little upset. It's like, no, I came across as disrespectful, and that wasn't my intention because I do respect you. So little. Little tweaks in the language like that. But the main point of my story is, what do you do after that letter has been sent? And I asked the executive the question, so what are you going to do now that that letter has been sent? And the executive said, well, I'm probably going to just continue to make small talk. How was your weekend? And that kind of stuff. So here's where this feels right comes in, because it's not about making small talk now. You. You. You put the matzo ball out there. You put. You said, I respect you and I want to create a relationship. So now it's going from small talk. And I ask, how can you make that more of a deeper moment? And I was like, oh, okay. Well, we just went on this big sort of trip all together, all the executives, and we did something, you know, relatively large in another city. And I could talk about the experience of that and maybe what their thoughts were. And also this other person is working on presentation skills. And I could say, how do you, you know, how do you feel about presenting What. What's your secret potion to that? What's your secret magic? And so it. That's exactly what this feels right is about, is about going from making small talk into deeper talk and miss and picking up on those key moments to create engagement quickly on the emotional side. Fantastic job, Joel.
