Need to convince someone of something? Here’s how to READ THEIR MIND (by Chris from TellPeople)
Ever felt like you’re explaining something that – to you – seems so obvious, but the person you need to convince just isn’t getting it?
Recently, I was asked to run a workshop on buyer empathy (aka how to understand what your potential client wants), so I turned to get some help from my (very, very smart)(he’s been a lawyer representing Wall Street companies and indigenous rights) friend Chris from TellPeople.
Then, I asked him to share some of his smarts with you! Here’s what he has to say about how to READ MINDS (or at least, have a good guess at what’s inside them):
Make sense of your audience
When you’re trying to convince someone of something – whether it’s a potential client to hire you, or a family member to please stop doing that annoying thing they keep doing – do you ever wonder what’s going through their mind while they read your writing or listen to you talk?
What about when you’re talking to a group of people – how do you keep track of what all those people are thinking?
The truth is: you can’t know what anyone else is thinking about what you’re saying.
But – while you can’t read peoples’ minds, there is one thing you know for sure about every person you talk to. Actually, it’s the only thing you know for sure.
Can you guess?
Other…
One of the greatest moments of the last four years.
“I hear what you’re saying.”
He pressed his lips together, and squinted a little in suspicion. “But why? Isn’t that just Misery Porn?”
I was working with my friend Chris on a story he was going to tell at my live show. Chris (who I’ve written about before, here and here) is one of my favourite storytellers of all time, and I’d been excited to sit down with him.
The story is about him reading to his dying mother in hospital. He’d done a version of it at another storytelling show a few weeks before – and there, had played the whole thing for laughs.
As we sat down and talked through the story, I convinced him to pull in the sadness of the situation. To mire us in the grief that he felt, before the funny reveal comes.
Now, he was asking why.
One of the things…
Want a Shortcut to Being Charming? Here’s One.
I have to be honest with you about something:
I am inherently lazy. Nobody believes me, because I’ve always got a million things on the go. But whenever I get the chance to fast-track something, or cut a corner, I am IN. Sorry for tarring you with the same brush, but if you’re like me (and if you’re enjoying reading this blog, there’s a good chance you are like me), then I’m assuming that:
you are inherently lazy too. And if you are: good news.
There are some FANTASTIC ways to…
