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Monastery & Cat Stories 4
Igor: Meow.
Robin: Meow. I think I need to warn you, the story doesn’t end well, for those of you who have a sensitive nature. I’m getting myself in a little bit of a state now because on the one hand I really like this cat, my daughter likes this cat and it keeps coming in the house and I keep putting it out again. This big motorcycle guy who keeps coming round to me and being angry at me, accusing me of somehow trying to steal his cat or kill it by feeding it or whatever.
He won’t believe me. I told him, I fed your cat once and he keeps going on, you’ve been feeding my cat. I’m like no I haven’t and now he’s found me, found the cat in my house when I said it wasn’t there, so he thinks I’m trying to keep it a secret that I have the cat in here. I just don’t understand because I keep putting the cat out and it’s not learning.
I noticed a funny thing which is that the cat keeps coming to the same place in the house. It keeps walking, walks around, says hellos and then it goes and sits under this one particular chair. I thought that’s a bit weird because there are plenty of places for it to sit why does it sit under that chair?
Anyway, by now I’m like I’m afraid to open my back door. It’s summer and I have a lovely back garden. I need to water my tomatoes, I mean after all I left them to go to the Bahamas and they didn’t like that. Since then I’ve been a bit more attentive to them. So, I’m afraid to go into my, now cat litter tray, of a back garden. I’m nervous about cooking in case it will attract the cat.
It’s hot, I want to leave my windows and doors open and I should be able to do that, right? I have a right to live in my house the way I want, to use my garden the way I want. I shouldn’t feel terrorized by a cat stalking me, bringing its evil aggressive accusatory owner with it, projecting all his problems and anxiety. It’s because he’s not looking after the cat properly that’s why it’s coming to see me. It prefers me, basically.
That night sitting in the living room, it’s a warm balmy evening so I had the windows open at the front of the house. I’m sitting doing some work and I hear this noise. The cat is scratching the hell out of my backdoor. It’s just sitting in the back scratching, won’t stop and give in. It’s freaky. I don’t know what to do. I walked to the backdoor to look at it. It’s just sitting there, meow. Meow.
I opened the door a little bit and tried shooing it away. Go back to your owner. Your owner loves you, go back to him. I’m sorry I can’t, I just can’t, it’s not fair. It’s like I’m having an affair with the cat. Shoo, go. I slammed the door and go back to the living and bloody hell, the cat is coming in through the front window.
I throw it out quickly and close the door. How did it get round the front? Wait, there’s traffic around the front. Oh no, now wait a minute I’m supposed to be friendly with its owner and now I’ve thrown it out in the front. How it got round to the front in the first place I don’t know. I’m sure it’s not supposed to be round the front because it might get run over, but do I ring up the guy now and tell him that I just saw the cat at the front or do I pretend that I don’t know? Maybe he’s going to come round now. I hear from the outside, rumble- rumble where are you? I thought oh my God he’s looking for his cat. He’s perched outside my front living room window looking in. I swear I actually went into my bedroom and closed the door and the curtains and hid. I’m a grown man this is ridiculous.
It’s funny how we can get ourselves worked up into a state about things. I’m being stalked by a cat and its owner, feeling anxious in my own home. Now I have this text exchange going back and forth with the owner, where he’s accusing me of this and I’m going no, I’m trying to help I’ve given you my phone number so you can call me whenever. He’s like yeah but you shouldn’t be feeding him. I’m not feeding him your bloody cat.
I explain to him the details. I’m like okay, you found the cat round my house the other day I admit it its true, but I’ve been doing what you said and threw the cat out like 15 times in one day and it’s still coming back in. I was in the shower. I cannot remove the cat straightaway all the time. What if I’m taking a shit? What if I’m busy with a client or looking after my daughter? I was getting a bit too stressed.
I remembered something about cats and what they do and why they start to go and hide places. If anyone’s had cats you know what they do don’t you? When they’re ready to die they go find somewhere to hide and curl up. The cat has been coming to my house and sitting under the same chair. I start feeling a bit different towards the cat.
Now I’ve explained that the cats actually managed to break into my house through the cat flap that it’s been sitting there scratching away, the owner has calmed down a bit and I think he realizes the cat needs something he’s not getting right now and he’s coming looking. What we did, and this was just the week before coming out here, we made sure that cat had a really nice last week.
Igor: So there’s this man walking out of the abbot office and it’s getting nighttime so he knows he has to go back to his quarters, but all he can hear is this voice ringing in his head sorry son I can’t tell you you’re not a monk. I can’t tell you you’re not a monk. It was ringing from ear to ear.
The guy goes to bed and tries to sleep, but that voice, I can’t tell you you’re not a monk. He wakes up of course at one minute past midnight as he’s done for the entire stay so far. All the sadness of the world, the grief, terror and pain, he’s terrified and burning with curiosity and in the back of his mind is always the sound of that voice, sorry I can’t tell you you’re not a monk.
So he devises a plan. In the morning he doesn’t fall asleep, the first thing he does is he gets up at the crack of dawn with all the other monks who somehow manage to sleep through the crazy nights. He looks up at the Father Abbot and lays out his plan to him. He says look, I’ve been here for two weeks now and I’ve worked in your gardens and kitchen. I’ve prayed with the monks in the abbey and studied and I’ve had a great time.
I think I might enjoy this lifestyle. I think I might like to enjoy becoming a monk. Of course the abbot knows the game and he looks at him with sadness in his eyes and says son, are you sure? With a burning fever he says yes I’m sure. He says, you know, becoming a monk isn’t easy it takes time and dedication and practice. The man says I have all that. He sells his car, his apartment and his possessions. He tells his boss he’s not coming back and of course the boss thinks he’s nuts.
He gives it all to charity and spends 1-2 years living with the monks and each night whenever he feels like this is it I’ve had too much and don’t want this lifestyle anymore, that night he gets a reminder and that burning curiosity comes back and those words echo in his head, I’m sorry I can’t tell you you’re not a monk.
Eventually enough time has passed and the Father Abbot grabs him from the refectory one day and says you’ve been with us some years now and have shown your dedication, showed your spirit, you’ve prayed with us, you’ve meditated and your mind is strong now, I think you’re ready to become one of us. The man is excited, terrified, elated and petrified.
There’s a ceremony where he gets divested of his normal clothes and gets a lovely brown robe like all the other monks. His hair is shaved. He’s anointed and that night when all the other monks go to sleep he has to stand vigil in the abbey. At 10:00 o’clock, 11:00 o’clock… round about 11:30, 11:45 the abbot turns up with the old gatekeeper only the gatekeeper is no longer wearing his brown robes; he’s garbed in what can only be described as full plate mail armor.
There’s a plate on his chest. He has chain mail coming down one side and has a long sword in one hand and a big evil looking dagger on the other. He has a round thing that looks like a shield with a big spike thing in the middle, a big cross on his chest and he looks like a man ready for death. He looks grim and resolved.
Of course the man is now really worried and elated, excited and doesn’t know what to do with himself. The Father Abbot turns to him and says are you sure you want to know the secret of the monastery, of this abbey? He goes yes I’m ready to be one of you. Father Abbot looks at him with the saddest eyes and says follow me. They open the doors to the crypt and they descend the Father Abbot, the man and the keeper of the gates.
They walk through this maze underground where hundreds of monks have been buried in the past. It’s dark and frightening but the anticipation is building. He can almost feel it and it’s getting closer now to midnight. Just before midnight strikes they reach a small wooden door and it’s been reinforced with steel bolts that have been thrown in. In front of the wooden door is a portcullis, which is one of these iron gates like you’d find in castles.
It’s only a small door. It’s very strange but his heart starts thumping. Midnight passes, not yet one minute past, then the keeper of the gate comes forward and with surprising strength for such an old man he pulls the chain and the portcullis lifts. With a trembling hand he pulls out a set of keys that fits in the lock. Just as the minute ticks past midnight he opens the door. Do you know what he saw? I’m afraid I can’t tell you you’re not a monk.
[Applause]
You are fortunate that I haven’t spent a month telling you that story, and really this takes us into what we want to cover now, which is that we’ve scaled the stories down but how do we scale them up? In particular I would like to introduce you to a vehicle that makes the practice of scaling your stories very easy because there’s no risk involved. You’ve already heard mine.
Robin’s version is actually a more elegant version, because it’s a true story and it has a point, it has poignancy to it. Mine is just a bad joke, although as a storyteller it’s very amusing. If you can duck. Now you understand that one right.
Robin: Shaggy cat story.
Igor: The kind of story I told is a shaggy dog story, which is a very long story that really has no point. A shaggy dog story is a long, a legend as to how it got its name which probably isn’t a shaggy dog story come to think of it now. We don’t have enough time for that one. You’ll have to come to the next seminar to hear that one.
There’s another kind of story which relates to this and is actually a little of what Robin and I have been doing. It’s called the picaresque adventure. Does anyone know that term? It’s an old style of story that was very popular in the medieval times. Essentially it’s a simple story A to B. I have to go on a pilgrimage for example and the story isn’t about going from A to B it’s about everything that happens on the way from A to B, it’s lots of little adventures.
If you remember those old black and white serials like Zorro or whatever where every week something happened and it’s a little mini adventure. That’s sort of a picaresque adventure. It’s a tremendous way for you to build your storytelling skills.
I could have told my story very simply. Man gets kicked out of his office, finds a monastery, hears a crazy noise, asks what it is, won’t find out. He gets so frustrated that he becomes a monk, goes to the place where the noise is, can’t tell you you’re not a monk. That’s the short version of the story. Not quite as amusing I admit, but that’s the essence of the story. Everything else in between is just pure storytelling and did you notice something happening whilst you were listening to the story?
Did anyone here feel a little curious?
Did anyone here feel a little nervous?
Did anyone here feel like their fantasy was running round inside the mind,
what is it?
Is it a beast or a ghost, a devil, what is it?
The story that Robin told could also be told in a two minute version. How would you put that one?
Robin: I fed the neighbors cat. It started stalking me. It died.
Igor: Here’s why this is interesting. Apart from that you’ve now gone back to where we started the day, which is a very basic structure for a story. You’ve been thinking about a lot of stories that you’ve told but weren’t really stories to know how to shape them. Aren’t they like that? Yeah, went to the shops, a gunman shot someone, went home, it was really terrible.
It’s just a sequence of events that have nothing connecting it. What makes a story is the picaresque adventure that comes with it. It’s the emotional rollercoaster that comes with it.
Robin: Has anyone heard of the Epic of Gilgamesh? One of the oldest stories. There is a narrative that constitutes the main thrust of the story that you could summarize very quickly and then there’s a whole load of things on the way.
Adisis, The Odyssey.
Igor: The Iliad, which is Cesar of Troy.
Robin: Chaucer, he’s a bit clever because he puts a load of people together who are going on a journey and then each of them tells a story about something else.
Igor: You mean like a nested loop?
Robin: A little bit. A succession of them.
Igor: It’s a well known literary device.
Robin: The Adventures of Tom Jones, one of the earliest English novels.
How To Scale Your Stories
Igor: We’d like for you to use this vehicle to explore the craft part of storytelling, the artistic omen, the bit that draws people in. You’ve seen two versions of pretty much the same thing, a real story with a point and a fake story with none.
I’d like you to start with that fake story with no point, the shaggy dog story and you can happily use mine. A man finds a monastery, mystery noise, can’t find out what it is because he’s not a monk. He becomes a monk, find out what it is but you don’t. That’s the short version. So, we’d like you to spend a minute telling that shaggy dog story or any story you think doesn’t really have a point, it could be a personal story without a point, to someone in literally just one minute or less and then give them a chance to do the same.
Then we’ll come back and reset it and see if we can get some mileage out of the story that really isn’t one and then we’ll move on to actually making it real. Do you understand the idea? Find a partner, spend one minute, feel free to repeat my story in that one minute or come up with another pointless story that has no real meaning and then we’ll come back and see if we can build that into something useful.
[Exercise starts – one minute apiece, two minutes total, off you go]
We had someone come up and say he knows what was in the monastery on the other side of the door. It was his cat.
You told a relatively pointless story in about a minute or so and you got quite animated about that. What I want you to do now is to tell the same point of
story in five minutes, but see how much you can fit in on those five minutes in terms of the little side adventures, other things that are happening, like the man is driving, then there’s the monastery, then there’s a noise and then there’s a reaction to the noise and he’s trying to get to the faster stuff. See how much you can fill into that in five minutes, to build curiosity, engagement, and any other emotion you may want, something may be charming or funny. Something may be bizarre. It doesn’t matter too much what it is, just try to build in two or three of these moments around that story and really go to town on it, because you know the story is absolutely pointless, you’re free to not try and make sense or come to some dramatic conclusion and that freedom then allows you to invest all your energies into the storytelling elements on the journey to the pointless end.
Does that make sense? This is just the vehicle for you to practice it. It’s also a very nice practical joke for all your friends and enemies. For enemies I recommend the one-two-three month version. For friends stick to about an hour. I find that after that you create frenemies. So you get the idea of the exercise? Same story again, five minutes and really, you’re putting attention on the development of the story elements rather than on the end which is what most people think about.
Robin: How I met your mother, the TV series.
Igor: — Yes, that’s another picaresque adventure. [Exercise starts]
It appears that you all are becoming such charismatic storytellers that you are missing all the social cues. Stop talking now. It’s very dangerous for us at this point isn’t it?
Robin: Yes, it’s almost like they don’t need us anymore.
Igor: Oh no, go home.
Robin: You probably realize that this kind of story press is great training wheels for developing your ideas and pushing with them. If you’re interested in storytelling out of performance that’s the most obvious situation in which you can go on and on with a story and create a big arc, journey for your hero and then segue off into little incidents along the way.
Having said that, I’ve used this technique in a similar way that we’ve used it today, across an extended period of time teaching. Giving people a little story at the beginning and end of a teaching seminar over the course of six months.
That’s something I did when I taught those personal development courses on the MBA program. It’s just fun and people know what you’re doing by the time you get there. Its just with learning, people have something that locks them in and if you think this through a little more and you have a lot of content, facts and things like that that you need to teach to people, than you might consider how the method of locai, which Igor showed you yesterday, where you place objects and symbols in different locations and how you might be able to use that in a similar way.
I had a guy from India actually call me up about this very issue because he was teaching people the bones of the body, so we worked together on what’s the story you can tell that places all those bones from the cranium to the toe bones.
Student: Metatarsal.
Robin: Nice one.
Igor: Will you tell us the story now?
Robin: Well done. No. I gave him a starting point and told him some ideas and then he went off and to be honest I was going yeah great, because he’d run with it and made it his own and he knew he didn’t need me anymore. What we’d like you to do with this next one is to take one of your stories and add in two elements.
How can you take those stories off on a tangent?
Igor: Those picaresque adventures we talked about. How can you add sidelines into your story that were very interesting but really just amp up the ultimate end of the story?
Robin: So, I’m out in the garden with my neighbor from upstairs. She’s stroking the cat and she says it’s really skinny. Oh, there’s something really funny about my neighbor upstairs, because she was in a film a few months back and what happened was… suddenly segued into a whole new area now and you can fill in the details about her story.
There’s a second element to introduce and when you look into the oral traditions of storytelling you’ll notice that there are two elements they interplay with each other. There’s the element of consistency.
Igor: It is so.
Robin: There’s the element of improvisation or spontaneity.
Igor: It is so.
Robin: So, some parts of the story remain fixed.
Igor: It is so.
Robin: Some phrases or images
Igor: It is so.
Robin: Or gestures
Igor: It is so.
Robin: Remain fixed and are returned to repeatedly over the course of the story, while other bits are extemporized and are made up on the spot. And you might have noticed in my story, meow…
Igor: It is so.
Robin: It was repeatedly returned to and it anchors a laugh. It anchored a laugh for you early on and then every time I brought it in and when you started responding to it… In Igor’s story he repeated the phrase…
Igor: I’m sorry I can’t tell you because you’re not a monk.
Robin: And he actually repeated that a number of different times, so it became…
Igor: It became a curiosity thing where every time you hear it you’d wonder what it was. Consider if I told you the same story over the same length of time or even longer, but the only time I ever mentioned that phrase, I’m sorry I can’t tell you you’re not a monk was right at the start of the story. It wouldn’t have had nearly the same impact at the end. That’s if you really don’t like someone, you can leave it totally flat and disinteresting. At that point there’s no continuity in the story. The fact that I kept repeating it at the peak of emotion that you applauded rather than punching me, because I’ve had both versions.
Robin: If you return to certain particular things like the Iliad, which are a written record of an oral story, there are phrases in there, like the wine dark see, the incomparable Achilles, which he repeats.
Igor: I just want to say they do that to identify certain characters, because people can’t necessarily remember all the names and which person is which. But, by creating a strong vivid image, like Achilles with his tree-like spear, that’s an image that’s strong in someone’s mind and every time they come back to the same image they know who the players are, how they relate to each other and it sets a strong connection inside the mind.
Robin: For those of you who are familiar with NLP and the term anchoring, you’ll also recognize that there’s an equivalence here between those consistent and repeated elements and anchors. If you can setup strong anchors in terms of your location…
Igor: That’s where Robin takes a shower over there. Isn’t that where he’s naked, washing off soil.
Robin: There’s my door.
Igor: You missed a bit.
Robin: In terms of your gestures and locations can be just like here by the way. I once had a guy give me a… no, I won’t go there.
Student: Tell me.
Robin: No. You can setup locations just in front of you, like this. Certain gestures, certain phrases and certain sounds, tones or qualities serve as anchors for specific things, so how can you be specific? Think about setting up. When you first introduce an element in your story, what are you doing when you say it, because quite often naturally you’ll be going…? So, he’s traveling across the whole world, and you’ll find yourself doing something naturally often. Repeat it.
So he’s traveling through the world, whatever it is repeat the gesture, repeat the same phrases. You’ll do that in the context of telling one of your stories to another person. Get up and move around. I suggest for this exercise that you do it standing up, because then you’ll have a better range of space and gesture that you can use.
I want to add one little element which you won’t get to practice here, but I think what happens or what would happen if you used the same anchor in different stories and why you might do that. [Take it away. How long are we giving them?]
Igor: Let’s give them five minutes apiece. For those who need to simplify, just do the same as you did a moment ago which is to embellish your stories. Whenever you have a peak of emotion, that’s when you repeat your key phrase or gesture. As Robin was saying, let your key gesture be something that emerges spontaneously that’s the best one, otherwise choose something.
Stick to one for now just because it makes life easier. In time you can get more complex.
Robin: I reckon these guys are advanced by now. It’s easy.
Igor: Either one of us will be right. You get to choose.
Robin: Listen to him or me, either.
Igor: Either way is better right?
Robin: Or both will do.
Igor: Find a partner, five minutes apiece, tell your story. Off you go. Wait one second we have a question.
Student: Can you use time for this to amplify something, for example, referring to do the same sort of thing like refer to the past, the future and then something about the present.
Robin: Absolutely.
Student: To amplify a particular…
Igor: Yeah, so there I was and I was thinking about…
Robin: Tomorrow… we’ve very much been talking about creating stuff personally and tomorrow we’ll be looking much more of reading other people and helping them to pull their stories out and in those situations it behooves you to notice how they arrange their internal space around you.
Igor: More on that tomorrow.
Robin: I’ll answer your question tomorrow.
Igor: Right now we’ll go to the exercise to reset it so people don’t get confused. Tell one of your own personal stories which you collected yesterday. Spend five minutes telling that story, in the style you told the last one with the picaresque adventures, embellishments, sense of adventure in the middle and whenever you get to a peak of emotion you’ll use your key phrase or key gesture and repeat that as often as possible throughout the story when it hits highlights, so you can pick some emotional or symbolic momentum.
Student: Are we driving to the same conclusion that the whole story is going to have?
Igor: For the moment I don’t care it doesn’t matter so much right now. We’ll talk about functionality afterwards. Five minutes apiece. Off you go. [Exercise starts] —
How did you enjoy those stories everyone? Who is starting to feel that they’re really getting to be a storyteller and are really owning these stories? [Applause]
Robin: The rest of you what have you been doing for the last few days?
Igor: Listening.
The Influence Formula
Igor: We’ve spent all this time building up your storytelling skills in order to be able to do something with it. You have one little model already and that’s loops with a transformational story in the middle that’s a nice model for stories that influence. I’d like to give you another one that’s a little more linear but actually fits a lot of natural conversations more fully.
This is called the influence formula and it’s very straightforward and includes the stories you’ve already been telling. What I’d like to do is to build this up with you bit by bit so you focus on each stage at a time and then let the natural conversation evolve. So, for this I think the easiest thing to do is start by finding a new partner, someone you haven’t worked with today, that might make it most interesting. All you need to do is spending a minute or so socially chit-chatting about anything.
The course, wine, cars, weather, whatever, just socializing where they say something you say something. If in that time you can introduce a little story, like your who am I story or your value story so much the better. In fact, why don’t I give you two minutes each and at the 2 minute mark you move from chit-chat into story.
It’s very simple, because every chit-chat will end up having people ask you a question or you make a comment like, oh I had something like that happen and off you go into your little who am I story. Does that make sense? So, two minutes apiece, find a new partner and stay with them because then we’ll add some layers on top of that as you go along. Off you go. [Exercise starts]
Now first question, do you notice how it’s relatively simple to transition from socially vibing type stuff into a, who I am type story, which is a very acceptable social thing to do. You probably also noticed that what happens is a trade-off where you tell one of yours and they tell one of theirs, is that fair to say? It’s a very natural transition.
We’ll take that transition and imagine that you were in the same point when we broke off, and pick up the theme again back to the little social chit-chat and then tell your second story, which is your value story or why am I here story, either is fine.
So you’ve basically told two personal stories to get a sense of who you are. So far it’s easy right. We’re really in the same category, where you’re talking about personal stories that introduce yourself to someone else and they fit the social context. What we want to do at that point is to transition from personal stories that are about understanding who you are, being able to predict you and so on, into stories that will allow you to start influencing others.
It will be stories about them in some way or other, and we have two vehicles you can play with for this. The first is the story we talked about yesterday the mind reading. Do you recall? I know you’re experiencing this or that and I have a story about that sort of thing. The other is a much simpler version which is essentially, you just preframe it. Tell your value story or they tell theirs and then you might say something along the lines of it’s interesting you should say that.
Let’s put it into context because that’s always more useful. Let’s say you’re at a teachers conference and you want to influence on the teacher to change teaching styles and they talked about their values and some kids they helped out in some desperate situation. It’s interesting you should say that because there are so many different ways I’ve found you can reach kids. Some of them work okay and some work really well.
For example… and now you’ve opened the door to allow your influence stories to step in. Make sense? It’s a very simple preframe preamble or, you can go for the whole mind read, like you’re probably feeling this, this and this. I was as frustrated when I experienced these things with my students. That opens the door wide for an open loop for the next story to occur and we’ll talk about that afterwards.
Make sense? Do you all understand the exercise? Go back to the same partner, pick the conversation up where you left off so you both introduce each other with stories, so now you’re going to vibe a little more and then go straight into your value story or your why am I here story. They’ll do a similar
thing about giving a sense of your motivation and sense of where your boundaries lie, and segue from that story into a preframe and then pause it there or your mind reading story which again leaves an open loop to do something else.
At that point you’ll back track to social vibing and they’ll do the same thing for their own. It’s a little bit of an odd situation after that point because the other person has to have a go to, but hopefully you’ll see pretty much the same patterning run. Do you understand? Easy. Take three minutes apiece to do that. [Exercise starts] Off you go.
How did that go, interesting? Who found it relatively natural to vibe a bit, tell their personal story, vibe a bit and tell a more personal story in terms of your values and so on, vibe a bit more and tell a transitional story like a mind reading thing or just set a simple preframe that would lead into you being able to tell another story? Relatively easy.
Of course you realize you can do any of these things here with open or closed loops. The more you open the loops the more curiosity you build. If you create more certainty you’ll close those loops, it just depends on how the conversation goes. Sometimes people force an open loop by presenting their story before you’re done.
My rule of thumb is if I’m interrupted I tend not to go back to the story unless I really need to, unless they ask for it. For example, when telling something like the shaggy dog story I introduced you to, I will happily be interrupted. You go on a shopping trip and do this or whatever, you get interrupted and I’m actually just waiting for the person to go no, tell me more. What happens in the story? Tell more.
That’s how I know I have a nice intensity in terms of the permission from my audience to actually carry on telling the story. So far so easy. So we set the context that will allow us to tell our main stories for influence. These ones build relationship and open the door. Now it’s time to actually do some influencing. That is hidden, somehow.
So really, once you’ve open the preframe or mind reading than you can tell your teaching tale or your transformational story. Of course you realize we’ve given one example of this in a longer conversation, you might go through loops where you tell a couple transformational ones and go back to social vibing and back to some personal stories, back to social vibing, back to some transformational stories and so on. This is a linear thing for a more non-linear conversation. The important point is that at some point when you finish your teaching tale or transformational story or emotional state stories, you want to distract them away. The simplest thing is to go back to social vibing, get them to tell a story. Be curious about their stories. Tomorrow we’ll bring in tools to let them evolve their own stories so they can feel like they’re contributing and it gives you more fuel for further influence as well.
Sometimes, not always, but sometimes it’s useful once you’ve told the story is to summarize the point that you’re trying to make for them. So often if someone finds something perplexing I’ll illustrate with a story and then rather than saying just do this and this, I’ll tell a story to illustrate the principle and then I’ll say so, really you want to try these things, do you get what I mean? They’ll go oh yeah and then we’ll move on.
A story has already told them what they need to know and I just pulled out the essence of that story in a point, if it’s relevant for that situation. Sometimes you’ll do it sometimes you won’t, it depends on how much conscious attention you want to have on the information you presented to them.
Do you understand the seven steps of the influence formula? It’s a simple process and very easy. You have the tools for it already it’s just a question of putting them all together in a simple structure. So now take another three minutes apiece, same partner, pick up where you left off, you just opened that preframe up, tell your teaching tale or transformational story and at the end you may or may not want to pull it together into a simple point. If you do make it and then just vibe again. If you don’t than just start vibing.
As soon as you go back to normal social conversation chit-chat type of stuff that means it’s the other person’s go now to reintroduce their preframe or mind read and tell their transformational tale. That shows you how a balanced conversation goes anyways. Do you all understand the exercise? Go back to your partner, three minutes apiece and finish up your persuasion formula. Off you go.
Robin: Just out of interest, is there anyone here who didn’t think they were creative on Sunday who would now put their hands up and say I feel like I’m creative now?
Igor: Puts your hands up. Very nice.
Robin: Anyone who didn’t think they could tell stories and now you can?
Igor: Now they can.
Group Double Induction
Robin: Anyone really tired? Yes. So, you’ve been on a long journey.
Igor: A long journey.
Robin: Sometimes on that journey it’s time to rest. That’s right.
Igor: And there are many ways to do that.
Robin: That’s right.
Igor: Oh, the penny’s dropping.
Robin: It is. And how quickly it drops into a trance.
Igor: When those eyes close.
Robin: Will discover…
Igor: That going inside
Robin: Is a great way of…
Igor: Really recollecting all the experiences you’ve had.
Robin: Starting back at the beginning.
Igor: The very first set of exercises just warming up
Robin: On Sunday morning
Igor: All the crazy stuff you did to
Robin: As you pay attention
Igor: Develop your creativity
Robin: To your body
Igor: And evolve that into telling stories
Robin: And then just enjoy breathing
Igor: Just normal stories
Robin: You can connect more and more
Igor: That became very important stories
Robin: To those memories
Igor: And you developed a room
Robin: To those experiences
Igor: Inside your mind
Robin: You know you can remember
Igor: A simple tour of it
Robin: Can’t you?
Igor: Can remind you.
Robin: And the more you focus
Igor: Of all the stories you’ve collected
Robin: On those memories
Igor: Location one
Robin: And the last
Igor: Location two
Robin: Two days
Igor: Location three
Robin: Simply reviewing in your mind
Igor: Location four
Robin: And allowing yourself unconsciously
Igor: Location five
Robin: To begin to prepare
Igor: Location six
Robin: Because as you sleep and dream
Igor: Location seven
Robin: This evening
Igor: Location eight
Robin: And as you prepare
Igor: Location nine
Robin: Going around this evening
Igor: Location… all the way
Robin: You’ll notice
Igor: So many things
Robin: And
Igor: Have occurred inside
Robin: When you
Igor: And you can take those
Robin: Find yourself
Igor: Re-experience them
Robin: Behaving in a new way
Igor: Re-evaluate them
Robin: In conversations
Igor: Re-develop
Robin: And naturally
Igor: Your own
Robin: As you make
Igor: Conversational style
Robin: New acquaintances, and
Igor: Which will
Robin: Go out into the world
Igor: Allow you to
Robin: Spreading your message
Igor: Really make a difference
Robin: Making your ideas and passions
Igor: In the way that you influence others
Robin: Available to people through
Igor: So many things you’ve learned
Robin: The stories you communicate with
Igor: So many things you’ve discovered about yourself
Robin: And
Igor: You can use these skills
Robin: While you sleep and dream
Igor: To interact with others
Robin: To allow yourself the space
Igor: In a more rich and encouraging way
Robin: To really enjoy that fully now
Igor: Ahh, what a day
Robin: So that when you are ready to open eyes
Igor: To a wonderful set of experiences
Robin: You can do so, looking forward
Igor: All the way until
Robin: To how
Igor: You’re going to use these skills
Robin: Much more you’ll enjoy
Igor: When you get back
Robin: Learning
Igor: Into your normal environment
Robin: Tomorrow
Igor: Tomorrow of course is another day
Robin: And when we start the day tomorrow we’ll be looking at
Igor: Other stories
Robin: Yes, particularly considering how you can discover the stories that other people have and encourage them to tell them. And how you can look for those secret words, those little code words
Igor: Secret
Robin: That people give you… that’s right they’re secret
Igor: Secret
Robin: You’ll only find out what they are if you come tomorrow
Igor: Yes, if you’re late you might miss the secret
Robin: If you don’t come tomorrow you won’t find out
Igor: Maybe it was inside that door inside the monastery
Robin: Maybe be
Igor: The secret was
Robin: That allow you to unlock other people’s inner metaphors, the stories that they organize their life by. To understand their world view, so that rather than telling just your stories, your stories become your insight, your cue to the universal human experience that you adapt and share with people in a way that matches their world view.
Igor: Think of it this way. What if you could shape your stories so it seems like they happened inside their mind already?
Robin: It’s just a thought for you to dwell on tonight. And come back tomorrow
Igor: Tomorrow is breezy; because you don’t want to miss that do you now.
Robin: Awake, alive and ready to go.
Igor: Thank you very much.
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