POSITIVITY
  • Workshops
    • Calendar
  • Resources
    • Shop
    • Blog
    • Books
    • Podcast >
      • Hashtag Positivity Podcast
      • On A Positive Note Podcast
      • It's the Climb Podcast
    • Quotes
    • Free Minicourses >
      • Magic Words
    • Grow with the Flow
    • Principles of Happiness
  • Connect
Magic Words

ENGAGE

2/25/2019

0 Comments

 
"It takes a little bit of mindfulness and a little bit of attention to others to be a good listener, which helps cultivate emotional nurturing and engagement." — Deepak Chopra
​Positive people are resilient people, and the most resilient people are those who develop high value relationships. If you or someone you know needs more positivity then take action today by starting a conversation with me.
Take Action
In 2010 I presented my first personal and professional development workshop with a course entitled Journey of Discovery: Awaken Your Inner Power. It was a special moment because I was eager to share the principles and practices that had been of tremendous value to my own life, but it was also a special moment because up until then I wasn’t known as a speaker, coach, or facilitator. Up until then everyone simply knew me as a comedy magician. Sure, in the years leading up to that moment I had already begun to incorporate inspiring stories, and motivational lessons into the magic act, but that wasn’t the main focus, and meeting and event professionals weren’t booking me to teach them anything—they just wanted something light and entertaining!
 
Booking a magic act is far different than booking a speaker or facilitator. With one you expect your attendees to be entertained and perhaps even distracted for a time as a way to relax and let the rest of the day sink in. By contrast, with a speaker you expect your attendees to be changed by gaining knowledge, developing a new mindset, or learning a special practice or strategy. There can be good reasons to call for one service over another—and there are certainly times for both—but during that particular season of my life I was ready to transition from the entertainment business to the transformation business.
 
There was just one problem: hardly anyone showed up to participate in my four-day workshop! Sure, the few people who did attend gained high personal value from the material, but there was a disconnect—they just didn’t seem to have the same passion for the material and they didn’t openly contribute to the class as much as I had envisioned. Not only had I failed to inspire people to care enough to show up, but those who were in attendance acted more as a polite movie theatre audience, sitting quietly as they absorbed the material. There had to be another way, but what was I doing wrong?
 
Over the course of the next year I revamped the approach. I kept all of the same material but added a different kind of facilitation technique to the lesson plans for each day, and then overhauled the course description to reflect that change. The following year when I premiered this new version of the workshop we had standing room only! There were literally too many people that we couldn’t all fit in one room so we had to take the class outside! It was an incredible turnaround!
 
What was this magic something that turned everything around? What did I not do the first year that when implemented the following year produced increased influence and extraordinary results?
                                          
Don’t Make This Mistake
My mistake was simple: I wanted to provide encouragement to the attendees. Now, don’t get me wrong, encouragement is great—in fact it’s one of my favorite things to do—but the problem is that something has to come before encouragement and I had failed to recognize this despite my years of experience as an entertainer.
 
We can’t simply say to people “You can do it!” and expect others to follow. As one of my mentors points out, we can’t ask someone for a hand until we ask for the heart. After all, no one really cares what we know or what we have to say until they know that we care.
 
In a previous article I discussed the three questions everyone wants to know:
  1. Do you care about me?
  2. Can you help me?
  3. Can I trust you?
 
The first step to communication and influence is not to jump right in trying to get people to accept our message, but rather simply to demonstrate care, understanding, and acceptance. In other words, to encourage others we must first engage them.
 
The Engagement Gap 
Engagement is the process of meeting others where they are—it’s about connecting with them on common ground and demonstrating relatability and care, and caring calls for a shift of focus: a shift from inward focus to outward focus. In other words, instead of focusing on where we are and what we want, we must instead place our focus on where others are and on what they want, and then adjust our plans to meet them there. This shift in focus is a game changer that can bridge the gap between expectation and outcome.
 

General George S. Patton once suggested that “successful generals make plans to fit circumstances, but do not try to create circumstances to fit plans.” This suggestion speaks to the heart of engagement, because trying to influence others without first getting to know them is like a general going into battle with no understanding of the battlefield. No matter how well thought out a plan may be, if it ignores the reality of the circumstances it will fail every time. This truth struck a chord when I failed to match my lesson plans to the reality of the students I was working with in my first workshop, a lesson that I would never forget.
 
Bridging The Gap: The Key to Engagement
Being a source of encouraging influence requires engagement, and engagement requires a bridge from expectation to outcome, and this bridge is created by meeting with those we hope to influence where they are. Consider that when helping to lift someone you can’t do it by standing high above them; rather, you must bend down to meet them where they are. The same is needed when influencing others to follow your lead. You don’t simply tell them what to do (because maybe they can’t do it or just don’t want to do it) and you don’t demand that others act in a certain way (because maybe they don’t yet trust that we have their best interests in mind). To overcome these obstacles there’s a valuable key to engagement that can unlock your influence. This Key To Engagement is Rapport.
 
Building Rapport
People like to work with those who they like, who are like them, or who at least understands and accepts them. In other words, before asking for a hand, ask for the heart. Rapport can get you there.
 
A simple way to facilitate this is to ask exploratory questions and then genuinely listen to the answers. This does two things. First, you gain knowledge and understanding of the people you’re working with, and when you understand where they’re coming from you are better aligned to build a bridge from their motivations to the desired outcome. Second, by asking questions it communicates to the other person—whether consciously or subconsciously—that you care enough about them to be curious about who they are and where they’re coming from. Most everyone enjoys talking about themselves and you can build instant rapport with someone simply by asking a few exploratory.
 
Applied Engagement
When I shifted my focus from inward focus to outward focus I achieved extraordinary results with the people I aimed to influence in the Journey of Discovery: Awaken Your Inner Power workshop. Instead of diving right in with the message on day one, I first invited everyone to share why they were there and what they were hoping to get out of the class. With this knowledge only then was I able to build a reliable bridge that connected to their goals and then lead them safely across. In the process, listening echoing back their answers demonstrated genuine care for them, which further developed instant rapport.
 
But that’s not all I did. To get them into the room I used another sneaky trick of engagement: I got inside their heads to understand what could motivate them to come to my workshop over the other offerings. This course was aimed towards juniors in high school, between the ages of 16 and 17, and this course was in the middle of the day at an intensive leadership camp. Their days were filled with classes, assemblies, and other activities, and I knew that for many of them they would be tired and mentally burnt out every day by the time they got to that breakout session period. Touching on this pain point, in the workshop description I added one small sentence at the end that simply read: “There will be a magic show at the start of every class.” This engagement hack worked by addressing an immediate need of the people I was working with, motivating them to follow my lead.
 
Everything else about the course remained the same. It was the exact same content with all the same information, but with an altered description, a simple question on the first day, and a few minutes of magic at the start of each class. The magic got them in the room while also serving to illustrate the key takeaway points for each lesson, and it also woke everyone up, got them paying close attention, opening them to receive the message and share their own insights. These simple changes were quite simple and ordinary, but their results were extraordinary.
 
Reflection
  1. Have you ever tried to manufacture circumstances to fit your plans? How did it work out?
  2. What questions might you use with those in your sphere of influence to build a stronger rapport? 
  3. How can you build a better bridge from the expectations of those you serve to the outcomes that you desire?
  4. How can you use your answers to these questions to improve your engagement and influence with others?
 
Final Thoughts
If our goal is to influence others by inspiring them into motivated action, then it is our responsibility to build a bridge that connects where they are and lead them across to where we want to take them. This bridge is created by building and engaging rapport that demonstrates care, relatability, understanding, and acceptance.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    JONAS CAIN, M.Ed.

    Facilitator

    Jonas Cain, M.Ed. is a storyteller, magician, musician, and facilitator of fascination on a mission to help you experience abiding joy.
    ​
    ​
    Connect with Jonas today to discuss your challenges, goals, and obstacles.

    Picture

    Magic Words

    All
    Acceptance
    Action
    Adapt
    Adventure
    Affirmation
    Ally
    April Fools
    Atonement
    Attention
    Authenticity
    Balance
    Banner
    Beautiful
    Behavior
    Belief
    Birthday
    Boat
    Books
    Boundaries
    Breathe
    Care
    Celebration
    Challenge
    Change
    Character
    Cheese
    Choice
    Clarity
    Climb
    Commitment
    Communication
    Compassion
    Compliant
    Confidence
    Connection
    Courage
    Creativity
    Discernment
    Discovery
    Disruption
    Dominant
    Doubt
    Dream
    Education
    Empower
    Encourage
    Engage
    Enjoy
    Enjoyment
    Enthusiasm
    Excel
    Excellence
    Explore
    Facilitate
    Fascination
    Fear
    Focus
    Forgiveness
    Friendship
    Gap
    Generosity
    Gentle
    Grand
    Gratitude
    Growth
    Happiness
    Health
    Hermit
    Honor
    Hope
    Humility
    Humor
    Independence
    Influence
    Influencing
    Initiative
    Inspiration
    Integrity
    Interest
    Invention
    Invest
    Journey
    Joy
    Kindness
    Lane
    Laughter
    Leadership
    Legacy
    Listen
    Live
    Love
    Magic
    Mentor
    Mindfulness
    Mindset
    Momentum
    Motion
    Motivation
    Necessity
    Opportunity
    Passion
    Pathway
    Patience
    Perseverance
    Persistence
    Perspective
    Play
    Positivity
    Possibility
    Preparation
    Presence
    Prize
    Process
    Purpose
    Quantify
    Recognition
    Reflection
    Relationships
    Relax
    Remembrance
    Repentance
    Resilience
    Resolution
    Resources
    Respect
    Responsibility
    Reward
    Sacrifice
    Sail
    Smile
    Stasis
    Steady
    Storm
    Summit
    Support
    Surprise
    Talent
    Teamwork
    Thanksgiving
    Ticket
    Time
    Today
    Tools
    Transformation
    Trust
    Understand
    Value
    Vision
    Wind
    Wonder

    Picture

    Archives

    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017

Picture

JONAS CAIN
​Facilitator of Fascination
800-969-9778 | ​jonas@hashtagpositivity.com

#POSITIVITY

WORKSHOPS | RESOURCES | CONNECT

© 2023
  • Workshops
    • Calendar
  • Resources
    • Shop
    • Blog
    • Books
    • Podcast >
      • Hashtag Positivity Podcast
      • On A Positive Note Podcast
      • It's the Climb Podcast
    • Quotes
    • Free Minicourses >
      • Magic Words
    • Grow with the Flow
    • Principles of Happiness
  • Connect