RHS 009 - How to Change What People See with Tamsen Webster

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Speaker 8 Today's guest is Tamson Webster.

Speaker 8 Tamson's a keynote speaker, a message strategist, but more importantly, she fans the flames of big ideas and helps people and organizations get those ideas out into the world in a way that creates change, or as she would put it, creates the conditions for change.

Speaker 8 I love the way that Tamson-Webster attacks a problem, the way that she tells a story, and the way that she helps people bring their ideas into the world.

Speaker 8 And it is just my great pleasure to share Tamson and her work with you today.

Speaker 5 Let's get to it.

Speaker 10 You know, you say

Speaker 10 right on your homepage, right there. I changed the way people see.
Like, what does that, what does that mean? Because that to me, I could take two or three different things from that.

Speaker 10 So maybe just let's start there.

Speaker 11 The simplest way to think about it is I think if I, if I have figured anything out in this world, is that I found a more reliable, though not 100% way to help someone shift their perspective on something.

Speaker 11 And so, what I mean by I change how people see is that I

Speaker 11 figured out ways to help us figure out how to change how someone sees the world.

Speaker 11 And that comes from a deep-seated belief of mine that if we can change how someone sees, then we can change what they do. Because

Speaker 11 what someone does is absolutely driven by how they see the world. So, if we can change how they see the world, then we can change what they do.

Speaker 10 I, you know, that I was actually just having a conversation the other day and someone was asking me about tactics, like just in general about whatever the topic was.

Speaker 9 I can't really remember.

Speaker 10 And I kind of,

Speaker 10 in a non-rude way, hopefully, I said, I really don't want to talk about tactics. And not that I don't like that and it's fun,

Speaker 10 but I really would rather not like dive into the nitty-gritty of some tactical thing. And I really, let's take a step back and really think about the why.

Speaker 10 That's kind kind of how I phrased it in that time. Although every time I say that, I feel like I'm plagiarizing Simon Sinning for some reason.

Speaker 10 But what I just heard you say is, you know, if you can, changing the way someone sees the world is really changing what that thing inside them is that's viewing them. Is that right?

Speaker 11 Yeah, I mean, how we see the world is, so I think a lot of times we try to simplify this a lot. And I get that.
I mean, we all want to make things simpler.

Speaker 11 And Simon's work is incredibly powerful with, you know, find your why.

Speaker 11 And what I find is that that's actually hard to find if you don't know why your why is what it is.

Speaker 11 And so, kind of what I, how I describe what I do to people who are familiar with Simon's work is that I help people figure out the why behind their why. Like, why is that your why?

Speaker 11 And so, the way I look at how people see the world, kind of their point of view, their mindset, really has three primary components.

Speaker 11 I'm sure other folks could put it different ways, but I look at it this way: that how you see the world is a combination of what you want, what are the things that you're pursuing um what kind of problems do you do you solve what kind of things are you drawn to um second your beliefs what what guides how you do that what are the thoughts and the things that you have in play that really control and guide and are your kind of north star when you decide how are you going to pursue what you want.

Speaker 11 And then the third piece is the perspective that we take. Like just what are you focusing on as you're trying to pursue those things based on what you believe?

Speaker 11 Where does your focus tend to go?

Speaker 11 So for instance,

Speaker 11 I know that I have,

Speaker 11 like a moth to the flame. I'm drawn to gaps, right? I'm drawn to particularly, particularly kind of gap between

Speaker 11 potential and reality. But I know that if I'm looking at any particular situation, I'm always, that's what I'm always looking for.
The perspective I'm looking for is what aren't we seeing?

Speaker 11 Where's the gap between where we are and where we want to be? And I think everybody has that.

Speaker 11 And And so when we talk about how people see and what creates your why, my experience has been that it really is this fairly unique conversation,

Speaker 11 a combination of

Speaker 11 what people want, what they believe, and the perspectives that they're taking on both.

Speaker 10 Why do you think

Speaker 10 in many instances when

Speaker 10 that gap, it feels like that gap is created because I have a want. or that may be over here, but my perspective doesn't align with what I think that I want.
And

Speaker 10 how much of that is a change in perspective? And how much of it is a change in maybe what you actually think you want?

Speaker 10 Like sometimes I think I want things and then maybe I get them and I'm like, that's not what I

Speaker 11 wasn't what I actually wanted. I don't know.

Speaker 11 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 10 Like, how do you kind of balance that between maybe a changing perspective versus changing maybe what your actual goal is when you're when you're thinking about the gap in between them?

Speaker 11 That's why I find that it's the, you know, the

Speaker 11 kind of this want, this belief, and this,

Speaker 11 which I often refer to as the truth in the context of the red thread, and the perspective.

Speaker 11 That's why that three is so powerful, that combination of three. Because what will happen is

Speaker 11 of those three, here's the important thing to know, that the wants and the beliefs are the hardest to change. Like those are the ones that are really kind of the lodestones of who we are.

Speaker 11 What we want, what we believe.

Speaker 11 It's not that those things don't change over time, but they're typically much, much slower to change over time perspectives for whatever reason we don't tie those as deeply to our identity and so those are a lot easier to change now to your question about

Speaker 11 well what happens when you know maybe it isn't how do I know whether it's just the perspective or the want

Speaker 11 that's really where the belief comes in because

Speaker 11 The real test is if you can put your want and your belief up against each other and they're still saying go forward

Speaker 11 Then what that usually does is is force a change in how you're looking at something.

Speaker 11 So if you say, well, I still really want this and I actually believe this to be true, then the only thing left for you to figure out a solution is changing the way that you're looking at it.

Speaker 11 Sometimes you say, well,

Speaker 11 I really want this,

Speaker 11 I believe this to be true.

Speaker 11 And then when you kind of really dive into that belief a little bit more, then you're like, actually, no,

Speaker 11 that's actually not what I want to do as much. So I know this is all super conceptual, so it's probably helpful if we think through an example, but you know,

Speaker 11 that's the kind of conceptual answer to what you're asking.

Speaker 10 So

Speaker 10 one of the questions that I wrote down when I was preparing to talk to you today was around the idea of kind of big ideas. And one of the things that

Speaker 10 if I were doing

Speaker 10 kind of an introspective analysis of myself is I feel like, you know, maybe I've never had a a big idea or I had plenty of ideas I have goals I guess for my life really I just like working hard and helping people I don't know that like someday I want to be on the TED main stage like that sounds cool but I wouldn't say that that's like a goal that I have written down even though I'm a speaker so and and I've also never felt like I've had an idea that was big enough for that platform if I'm just using this as an example yeah so what how do you how do you walk someone through a process where they better understand what their ideas are and maybe which ideas

Speaker 10 are actually valuable or which ideas have the merit that's worth diving deeper into and kind of building up?

Speaker 11 I love how you're asking that.

Speaker 11 It really comes to, so value in my

Speaker 11 view is contextual. And so when I'm working with clients on this, and this, I mean, I describe the people that I'm for as people who are driven by an idea that's bigger than themselves.

Speaker 11 So it doesn't have to be like one that's going to be changing the world. But, you know, I don't work with people who are just in it to

Speaker 11 win it, you know, or just to like, you know, grind and hustle and like make all the money. And that's fine.
Like, if it totally is fine. That's just not my people.

Speaker 11 I'd love for that stuff to be a side effect of like they actually want to do something else. You know, there's something, some other idea that they're trying to get out there and pursue.

Speaker 11 So when it comes to like how big is the big idea big enough, one of the things I've been talking about lately is just

Speaker 11 you know we want to make sure that your idea is strong enough to build on but the first question I'm often always asking folks is what is it that you're trying to build on it

Speaker 11 because if you're not asking for the TED main stage then the idea doesn't have to be that big like the standards are for it are different if you're just trying to figure out what will you know help

Speaker 11 one of your clients get through their work a little bit easier that's totally fine. Again, that's an idea that's bigger than you.
And so that's fine.

Speaker 11 So if it's, I'm trying to, we're trying to open up a new market or we're trying to get the attention of investors or we're trying to make sure that we're building this business for the long term,

Speaker 11 that's actually where we have to start because, you know, the

Speaker 11 you don't need to, the idea doesn't have to be any bigger than what you want to build on it.

Speaker 11 you know that's it it that's what you're trying so i always start with what's the outcome that you're looking for for you um personally or as a business. What are you trying to do?

Speaker 11 What are you trying to sell? What are you trying to gain? Who's going to pay you? Where's that money coming from? And then secondarily, because this is important to who I'm working with,

Speaker 11 what do you want that idea to do for other people? And so we always start there.

Speaker 10 Do you need to have the big idea before you start? Like at what point?

Speaker 10 So

Speaker 10 if I'm sitting here and I'm going,

Speaker 10 I love helping people. I love,

Speaker 10 I was a paid on the road speaker for 10 years, even though that's technically on pause right now.

Speaker 10 And I miss it every day, even though I love what I also do, just in case anyone who pays me today is listening.

Speaker 10 But,

Speaker 10 you know,

Speaker 10 I guess my idea is, or my question to you is, like, when

Speaker 10 What is the minimum viable bigness of the idea that I can, it's with, that I can move it up to the next level?

Speaker 11 Does that question make sense? Yeah, absolutely. 100%.

Speaker 11 I totally get it. Like I said, you know your idea is big enough when it can fit what I consider to be the minimum viable case for it, which is what I call the red thread.

Speaker 11 You know, a lot of people, so it frustrates me to know, and I still don't know the contrast here.

Speaker 11 So when I have a good friend of mine that I often collaborate with when I'm working with professional speakers, because he does the kind of speech writing and performance side of it, wonderful man named Nick Morgan.

Speaker 11 And he says, you know, Samson, you think about ideas structurally. And I'm like, okay, yeah, but what's the other alternative? And he's like, I don't know.

Speaker 11 But he's like, but nobody else looks at ideas the way that you do.

Speaker 11 And so, and I do. I mean, I really kind of, that's how I look at it: is like, what's the structure of the ideas? Ideas have a structure.

Speaker 11 That structure is reliably the same because it's the structure of how we as humans make sense of the world.

Speaker 11 And so, you know, the minimum viable bigness of an idea is whether or not

Speaker 11 you can fulfill the structure of it

Speaker 11 for the outcome that you're looking for with the audience that you want to serve.

Speaker 11 I mean, that really, you know, it's as simple as that, though, as probably any number of my clients will tell you, that is not easy work because we don't think of our ideas structurally.

Speaker 11 We just kind of, we kind of think of them in kind of loose conceptual terms of what we want them to do for us or kind of what their topic is.

Speaker 11 But a lot of times we actually haven't really fully understood what I see people is just not really looking at how their brains came to to that conclusion in the first place. And

Speaker 11 what I know to be true is that in order for you to act on my idea, your brain has to go through the same steps.

Speaker 11 So if I don't know what the steps are for my idea, I can't expect you to go through those steps with it either.

Speaker 10 You know, for me in the maturation of my own speaking career, and then when I came up against your red thread idea and I started diving into that a little bit, one of the things that I found very interesting, just just comparing the early part of my career, when it was like, someone will pay me to talk about marketing.

Speaker 10 Okay, I will, I will go, you know, and it was just, it basically was just, here's how I did it, you know, barf, here's what I did. Hopefully someone takes a note that helps them.
And,

Speaker 10 you know, I tried to be. self-deprecatingly funny enough that they would pay me again someday.
So that was really my whole, that was the whole structure of how I did it. And then

Speaker 10 from being part of the Speaking Spill group, which we're obviously both part of, which has been a gift,

Speaker 10 from getting to know Marcus Sharon a little better and other kind of mutual friends that we have and watching them and learning from them

Speaker 10 and this idea of structure, I kind of started to do it, not

Speaker 10 in the, I'll say formulaic in a very positive way that you outline

Speaker 10 in the red thread, but like

Speaker 10 in a way that allowed you to say, okay, this isn't just like a barf of what I did.

Speaker 10 Here's actually how you can take this idea and use it for yourself because i guess uh early on there was an ego in if you do it the same way i did it you will have success and what i had to learn the hard way was that my idea to you is ultimately going to be passed through your own personal filters even if it's perfect in the way that it works for me and um that's a very hard

Speaker 10 i feel like that it's not intuitive for many people that thought. Like I had to have people come up to me and go, I hear you.

Speaker 10 I get that it worked for you, but I'm not really sure how to make it work for me. And it was that hearing that enough times that I was able to kind of start to morph it.

Speaker 11 And that is the golden, that is the golden insight there, because what I see over and over again, it is very much what I talk about now when I'm giving keynotes, is that

Speaker 11 a lot of times when we want people to act on something, and again, whether it's just we're marketers and we're trying to get them like take the next step down the funnel or we're speakers and we've got this big idea or authors and we've got a book or whatever it might be,

Speaker 11 We want to drive action from that. Like that's why we're doing it.

Speaker 11 I often say that ideas are built on hope. Like we don't have them unless we have a hope for them that they're going to do something else.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 11 as we land on this idea, this is kind of this invisible process that our brain goes through, you know, we've built this case for it.

Speaker 11 Like you, as when you got to your success, you said, this is awesome. This works.
And so I know because it works and I got all these benefits from it,

Speaker 11 that's why you should do it too. Well, that's your case.

Speaker 11 But what I have found really, really powerful about the way to go from not just getting someone to act on an idea, but to adopt it as their own is that what you actually have to do is the hard work of building their case for your idea.

Speaker 11 You have to build a story that they will tell themselves about the idea, which is all the things that yes, that it's possible, that's great. That's what your story is.
But

Speaker 11 they have to come to terms with whether or not they believe it's possible for them

Speaker 11 and critically whether or not that's not it's worth it and whether or not it's worth it meaning you know not only just kind of classic roi

Speaker 11 but sometimes the way we present information means that we're asking someone to change one of those deep-seated wants and beliefs and nine times out of ten if we're trying to move one of those people will not consider it worth it because it's just that's just it is too emotionally and psychologically difficult for them um to say well of course like how could i have missed this obvious solution the whole time because that would make them somehow question some deep-seated identity of themselves as a smart capable good person you know so it's so funny because we we want this change we believe in these change we believe in these ideas we just want to give them to people um but we can't just give them to people in essence what we have to do is give them the pieces of the idea and let them come to that conclusion themselves if if anyone's listening um at home and i i shouldn't say if the people that are listening at home that's a fairly minimizing comment i just made about my own show um

Speaker 10 rewind that last part if if i can say anything that i learned and to a much smaller extent than than tamson for sure but like that idea trying to sell digital marketing to and you want to get bludgeoned in the face sell digital marketing to insurance agents for 10 years like that concept that you just described which i could not have described with the uh conciseness but yet power that you did um

Speaker 10 i that was like that was for the first five years it was i was out there going hey guy making four hundred thousand dollars a year you need to completely change the way you're doing your insurance agency work because this 27 year old knows better than you about facebook like it you know having that was a hard lesson like just getting punched in the face face with that lesson over and over and over again.

Speaker 10 And then finally, I turned it. And again, like you said, so I can say from first, at least somehow experience, I've learned that lesson.

Speaker 10 And that is really powerful. It's like they're not doing anything wrong because they're sitting in the audience.

Speaker 10 And that, that was, I think that's our first instinct is you're here because you're doing something wrong and I'm going to fix you.

Speaker 11 And that's.

Speaker 10 That's just the absolute dangerous. Yeah.

Speaker 11 I mean, it does work sometimes. I mean, that's the thing.
It does work sometimes.

Speaker 11 And I think that's where the sexiness of it and the thing is it does it does reliably work in the short term i mean you know that is why you know that's why you know fomo works and it's why you know raising the stakes works and it's why making the pain of the status quo exceeding the pain of chain works

Speaker 11 but from what i've seen it does not work long term yeah and so if you need backfill right you need backfill you need backfill i mean the thing is like someone is going to sit there with this choice and maybe you push them into it because essentially that's what happened and then they're going to sit there and then they're and and then they're going to have to decide for themselves well were they wrong all along and our brains are just most of the time not wired to let us say yes to that question like we just don't know like and so what happens then is they start to question the decision you know that's where buyer's remorse comes in that happens more than 40 of the time in b2b decision making 80 or 90 of the time depending on what sets you look at for b2c it happens all the time and so they'll either question the decision which gets in the way of loyalty and what gets in the way of retention from a customer standpoint, which we all know is kind of missed opportunity as far as retaining profit.

Speaker 11 But it also means that the person they're most likely to blame in this equation is you. Like whoever sold it to them in the first place.
And so

Speaker 11 this is why over time, sometimes companies see this kind of reduced stability, not just like they start to see churn, but they start to see a degradation in the market of how people look at them.

Speaker 11 Well, that's why, because all of a sudden they're like,

Speaker 11 where's a strong foundation that I as a buyer can can stand on and feel good about myself about this decision long term? And I think we've just, you know, maybe it's, I don't think it's Pollyanna.

Speaker 11 I'm sure some people will listen to it and say that it is, but I think we've just got to be more focused on how do we

Speaker 11 How do we sell for the long term? How do we make sure that people feel confident in their decisions long term?

Speaker 11 How do they make sure that they feel good about us and what we're telling them and themselves long term? Because that's the only way that they can sustain a long-term change.

Speaker 10 I could not agree with you more. I don't think there's anything, Pollyanna, about that whatsoever.
And I think there's more people

Speaker 10 like yourself

Speaker 10 who need to be talking about this idea of thinking long-term. It's something that

Speaker 10 I think it's the only way to win. And I also think that there's a pendulum swing back to this mentality because

Speaker 10 when digital, and I think I don't want to blame social media, but just the idea of the internet and the fastness, the immediacy of

Speaker 10 digital in general, I think got people thinking about every aspect of their business as now, now, now, now, now. I can track now, I can see results now.
And it almost created like a...

Speaker 10 like an anxiety to every single day, every single decision, because everything felt so epic in in that moment. And

Speaker 11 I've, I mean,

Speaker 11 if there, if, if,

Speaker 10 I know that I have had to work out of that. At different times, I've just felt like, oh my God, I wrote this blog post or I made this decision or I sold this product.

Speaker 10 And it wasn't this immediate change. And

Speaker 10 it doesn't allow you to open your mind up to these larger conversations, these larger conversations.

Speaker 10 And when you see someone who does, you ask yourself, like, man how are they able to think through this problem it's like because they literally took a step back and said I can let go of today and think about tomorrow in a week and a month from now and even though maybe I you know the the the immediacy of every moment isn't happening that activity what I actually produce on the long term is more valuable and it's just funny you are literally the fourth person that I've interviewed in the last three weeks who's made it a point to bring up this idea of long term.

Speaker 10 And I think one, I like to believe it's the quality of the guests that I bring on the show.

Speaker 11 The other side of it is

Speaker 10 I think it's just the this, I think people who are really thinking deeply about business today are thinking like you are. And that,

Speaker 10 I feel like it's very meaningful. I think we need to shout it from the rooftops as much as we possibly can.

Speaker 11 I mean, very, very often efficiency in the long, in the short term leads to inefficiency in the long term, right so if you're optimizing optimizing optimizing optimizing right now right it's like you are you are actually missing out in a lot of ways on potential opportunities in the long term because long term is by definition inefficient right like it is by definition inefficient and yet the things that you typically businesses care about long term retention profit margin sustained revenue Those are things that are reliant on a long-term focus with an excellent short-term short-term execution.

Speaker 11 And that's what we're getting wrong: is that if your focus and your execution are both on short-term, then you can never execute on the long-term.

Speaker 11 And so, so we kind of have to keep the focus on the long-term, execute for the long-term in the short term, and then you're going to generally be a lot more effective in that.

Speaker 11 I mean, it's the same kind of thing. Like, I mean, if, you know,

Speaker 11 whether you have kids or if you can remember when your kid, like, you know, it seemed like time went so slow, right?

Speaker 11 Like, I have two little kids and they're nine and 11 and they'll remember like these little teeny tiny details a day because they've only got like nine and 11 years of memories to compare with.

Speaker 11 And then they're like, well, don't you remember this little tiny teeny thing that happened? I'm like,

Speaker 11 nope.

Speaker 11 But it's funny to see them now start to get to a point where they're now not starting to remember everything. They're like, really? We did that when I was three.
I'm like, yeah.

Speaker 11 And so it's the same kind of thing.

Speaker 11 Like, you know, when you get older, it's like the time starts to feel like it goes much faster because you have that many more inputs in order to start to go, ah, okay. So, you know,

Speaker 11 either like, you know, with, you know, the day-to-day trauma of an 11-year-old of like, oh my gosh, my friend didn't talk to me today. You know, for them, it feels like life and death.

Speaker 11 And for us, we're like, that's probably just a little faith. Right.
And I think that's.

Speaker 10 We've got to be thinking about how to do that in kind of in business as well and in this kind of whole concept of action change and personal life yeah there's two quotes that come to mind about this particular topic one is from uh james clear are you familiar with him you wrote tomorrow cabots uh he he said um and i i literally i have this like written in my

Speaker 10 i guess my note diary thing of quotes that i like adaptation over optimization like at all costs like it's it is much better to to to to learn how to adapt and adjust and course correct versus optimize every aspect of your of your life because you're going to miss the bigger picture was the context around that particular question.

Speaker 10 I love that. And the other one is slightly more cliched,

Speaker 10 but I also think has tremendous value.

Speaker 10 And it's from Gary Vee, do things that don't scale. Seth Godin also said it too.
But like, you know, that, that, I hold those two concepts in my mind.

Speaker 10 Like, think about the things that don't scale on a day-to-day basis, which is like picking up the phone and texting a business partner or a former client or your mother and just being like, you know what I mean?

Speaker 10 mean like these things over time these little touches which in the moment is picking up my cell phone and sending a text message when i shouldn't be writing a business email is that optimized absolutely not that's not optimized but if all of a sudden someone who who i enjoy in business or in life or is just a someone who adds value to my life that i want to share that with just hitting them with a quick note it's not optimized in any regard but it absolutely positively helps you be a happier more abundant person in your long-term life and we're just like the the it just this this kind of stuff from a leadership perspective too like drives me nuts i hate over optimizing my employees days i just hate it well that's i

Speaker 11 yes uh absolutely preaching you're the converted i mean i you know the whole you know my whole approach basically says that we have to sit and understand from your audience your customers your prospective clients perspective why what they're doing right now already makes sense to them because they would not continue to do it if it did not make sense to them at some level.

Speaker 11 They wouldn't. And you know, I said something in my newsletter last week where I said there's, there's no such thing as doing nothing.

Speaker 11 There really isn't because nothing, quote unquote, is simply doing what you've already been doing. And so that's the thing.
People don't just stop doing something. Like nature abhors a vacuum.

Speaker 11 So, and which I think is why, you know, 21% of the time, I think is Miller Hyman's research that says that 21% of the time, in B2B decisions at least, that people go with the status quo rather than anything else.

Speaker 11 So, you know,

Speaker 11 they don't go with your competitor. They do nothing, like nothing.

Speaker 11 And so that's,

Speaker 11 we have to sit there and go, why would they already be doing what they're doing? And that is a very inefficient process.

Speaker 11 And yet, once you unlock why it is that your clients and customers believe that they're current, that the status quo is the best way to solve a problem or achieve a goal.

Speaker 11 Only then can you understand the path to

Speaker 11 shifting the perspective that will lead them to do something different. Because

Speaker 11 you can't change the way someone sees if you don't fully understand how they're looking at the world right now. You won't.
You can't. You can't.

Speaker 11 And by the way, they're not going to listen to you until they understand that you understand their perspective 100% and respect it. That's super key.

Speaker 11 And that's what I don't see enough of in marketing and sales messaging in particular is respecting someone's current view.

Speaker 11 You don't have to agree with it, but you do have to understand that the vast majority of people out there are smart, capable, and good. They are.

Speaker 11 And even if you don't believe they are, they believe they are. And even if you don't think that they believe they do, they want to be seen as that.

Speaker 11 And so no matter what, you can use that as a just a guiding star to just say, okay, let's start from the assumption that people are already smart capable and good why are they doing what they're doing right now and given how they look at the world why would they convince themselves that this other thing that i'm suggesting to them would make even more sense than the thing that they're doing right now

Speaker 11 telling someone they're stupid doesn't get them to buy twice oh my god no twice exactly once maybe twice

Speaker 10 but after when you tell them they're stupid again they just chose you they're not going to buy you again like that's just you know that's always well whatever i i i again now you're pretty, I'm the converted on that message.

Speaker 10 I go on the message. But it's interesting to me.

Speaker 11 Yeah. I mean, it's just interesting to me because now we're starting to see the research coming out about the challenger sales methodology, for instance.

Speaker 11 It's starting to say, well, actually, it doesn't work all the time. Well, no

Speaker 11 kidding, true luck.

Speaker 11 Because actually what they're finding, the research is showing that it's good. It's good for unseating an incumbent.
But once you're there.

Speaker 11 You have to change your approach entirely.

Speaker 11 You're not challenging them anymore. Because as you just said, like you continue to challenge them.

Speaker 11 it's like at what point are they going to feel like they made the right decision like at some point you have to go okay you're with us now let's now make sense of this situation gartner just put some really great research about this um how can how can i help you feel confident about this decision not confident in me the person who's telling you confident in you that you made the right decision and that you're capable of carrying it out like that's what our goal should be there's one piece of of um what you had said that i would just like you to dive into a little more just from whatever thoughts you have on it.

Speaker 10 You said

Speaker 10 you have to put yourself in the mindset to respect and understand their current state. I feel like that is an incredibly difficult thing for many people to do.

Speaker 10 And maybe something that doesn't even come intuitive.

Speaker 10 Like you may say, okay, I understand that you are in this current state, but having respect for the fact that they made a decision to put themselves in that state, even if you don't believe it's where they should be.

Speaker 10 Like, can you just talk a little bit more about that? I think that is so incredibly, I think it's a nuance to what, to this process that is crucial that some people might just skip over.

Speaker 10 And if you could just talk a little bit more about that.

Speaker 11 Sure. I, and there's all sorts of different ways.
I'm trying to figure out where my brain is like, dude, which way to like grab onto it.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I mean, I think that

Speaker 11 There, you know, there's an official name for it. It's called radical empathy, which I think would scare a lot of business people off.
So I don't often like call it that.

Speaker 11 And I found out that that was the name for it after I had already been arguing for it. So it's like, I always love it when I find that there's an official name for something.

Speaker 11 I was just like, this seems like a good idea. And people are like, yes, actually, this works.

Speaker 11 And there was a lot of really interesting research studies that were done about how

Speaker 11 people become open to change. And they don't become open to change until they feel like their current view is not only understood, but also respected.
Like that's the thing. And so you're right.

Speaker 11 It's a very difficult thing for people to do, not because people are not you know empathic or empathetic to begin with i mean that's it i believe empathy is a skill like i believe anybody can can move the needle on that i you know i think that in a lot of ways the process that i work through with clients is a way to help them develop that skill um

Speaker 11 but the the the thing is that the

Speaker 11 we suffer from

Speaker 11 you know, all of us suffer from the curse of knowledge, right? Like

Speaker 11 once we have decided that an idea is a great idea, we forget that the fact that there was a time when we didn't think it was a great idea either.

Speaker 11 Like we didn't either know about it or we hadn't been convinced yet. And we just, that's just how our brains work.

Speaker 11 Like it's nobody's fault, but it's just like once you've once you've become an expert, once you've reached the decision about something, it's absolutely right to you.

Speaker 11 So here, you know, it's, you know, the way I often describe it is that, you know, we're not

Speaker 11 based on how our brains work and how we make decisions, we don't do what's, we don't do what's right, right? Even though that's what we believe we do. We believe that what we do is right.

Speaker 11 But

Speaker 11 we choose to do the right thing to do.

Speaker 11 But what actually is happening in our brain is that our brains are constantly telling us stories that makes it so that it decides that the things that we are doing are right by definition.

Speaker 11 because we are doing them. Like that's the story that our brain is telling us.
And so as you said, like people, people don't like to be, you know, people don't like to be wrong.

Speaker 11 They don't like to feel stupid. They really, really don't.
Like this is a deep, deep set human need. So if your goal truly is to

Speaker 11 create that long-term change, if you believe enough in your idea, this is, this is to me the test, is that you have to be willing to make

Speaker 11 some other case for it other than your own. You have to be willing to kind of lose the quote-unquote battle and win the war.

Speaker 11 You have to be willing to do the work of seeing your idea through the lens of someone who doesn't agree with it to start.

Speaker 11 And so, you know, it sounds like that could be difficult for some folks, but I mean, I really have found that

Speaker 11 there's a way that you can kind of slowly go through and ask, you know, a series of questions that just help people start to go, oh. Well, yeah, okay.
Like, I get why they would do that.

Speaker 11 You know, because it's, and it really comes down to perspective. What do these people want? Like, what do they, what do they say they want?

Speaker 11 Because you can't solve a problem, you can't probably solve the problem you know they have until you solve the problem they say they have. Like you have to start there.

Speaker 11 So what problem do they say they have? Now, you know that your thing is potentially an answer to that problem they say they have. So what are they doing now?

Speaker 11 And not just what are they doing now, but why are they doing that thing now? Like what perspective on are they taking? What are they focusing on?

Speaker 11 Why is it that in there as they, you know, when they go looking for that answer to that question, why is it that they're focusing on X rather than Y? Why are they doing that?

Speaker 11 And you have to take off the table the fact that they're stupid or ignorant or crazy. No,

Speaker 11 you have to do the work of assuming that there is a good, positive, intelligent, sane person behind that decision. Why would they do that? What are they looking at?

Speaker 11 Why do they believe that's the right decision? Because it's only then that you can find a perspective that is still consistent with how they're looking at the world, but opens up a new path, right?

Speaker 11 So you can say, I mean, even just something as simple as like, if you're trying to someone's like, you know, how can we get more productivity with our team?

Speaker 11 You can say, okay, well, to the point to the conversation Ryan, you and I have been having is a lot of times we focus on efficiency. You know, we want productivity, so we're going to focus efficiency.

Speaker 11 We like quicker, faster, better, whatever.

Speaker 11 And so if we can say, yep, all right, in pursuit of productivity, you're focusing efficiency, right? Yes. Okay.

Speaker 11 Well, there's also this other piece of efficiency, wouldn't you say which is effectiveness which is really also what we're trying to get with productivity right wouldn't you agree well yeah okay so we want to make sure we get a fit efficiency and effectiveness right

Speaker 11 so that now you see what we've just done is we've introduced we've we've named their we've named their problem we've we've accurately assessed what part of what they're looking at for it we've introduced something else that's consistent with what they're doing that actually is a way to get is part of what they're looking for originally and then you kind of seal the deal with something that they are already believe or likely to believe, which is, you know, for instance, most people would agree that haste makes waste.

Speaker 11 So, why isn't that also true with productivity if we're just focusing on efficiency? Right now, you wouldn't say that to them that way, but that's the way you get to it.

Speaker 11 You say, well, wouldn't it make sense if haste makes waste that we want to make sure that we are then planning effectiveness into our efficiency practice?

Speaker 11 We want to make sure that we don't lose that, right? Right, great. Well, let's talk about how you can do that.
And here's how we can help. You see how you've done that?

Speaker 11 You know, we've had that conversation now, where at no point did we make them wrong.

Speaker 11 You know, and to me, that's just deeply important. And

Speaker 11 it is, it is, it is possible to kind of just start to do that work. It's not always easy, particularly in the beginning.
It's really important sometimes to have outside views on that.

Speaker 11 But you can even do that with a new, somebody new on your team, right? It doesn't have to be an outside person, but it could be somebody who just hasn't fully

Speaker 11 succumbed to the curse of knowledge yet.

Speaker 10 Man, I'm glad you use your skills for good and not evil because I'm going to be buying either way.

Speaker 10 It's dangerous.

Speaker 10 All right. So

Speaker 10 I want to be respectful of your time, but there is one more topic that I want to dive into because

Speaker 10 anytime I have a speaker on the show, being that this is my favorite topic to talk about in business, I just want to talk a little bit about for anyone.

Speaker 10 You

Speaker 10 are a producer of TEDx.

Speaker 11 Which TEDx event do you so I have I have moved from being so I used to be the executive producer of TEDx Cambridge, which is actually the oldest

Speaker 11 oldest locally organized TED Talk event in the country.

Speaker 11 I am now the idea strategist. So I just I wanted to I wanted to focus my role on making sure the ideas were strong enough to build these talks on.
So that's what I do now. Awesome.

Speaker 10 And so talk to me a little bit about just, I think a lot of people see TEDx and or see TED in general, the style.

Speaker 10 We don't have to go just into TED, but but I guess what I'm super interested in, I have never done a TED talk

Speaker 10 or any, but I have done shorter talks, mostly because they push me off the stage or they're throwing things at me. So I'm just running.
That's how I, but, you know, the

Speaker 10 what I would be interested in, and just for the audience at home as a way to kind of wrap up our conversation, I'd be super interested in just talking a little bit about the dynamic between the traditional hour-long keynote where you go up and you do your thing.

Speaker 10 I think everyone's fairly familiar, versus taking maybe that same topic and how you would morph it, adjust it to be

Speaker 10 a 15, 18, 20 minute talk versus that hour long and just how you do it, what that means to you and that kind of thing.

Speaker 11 So

Speaker 11 the hardest thing to do, it's not impossible, but I highly recommend against it, is trying to cut down an existing keynote to fit in that amount of time. You just can't.
And

Speaker 11 really without deep emotional pain. So I always, I typically recommend what I call zero-based talk building, which is like build it back up from the ground.

Speaker 11 But here's why. I mean, because most of the time when people are trying to figure out, well, how do I, you know, what would my TEDx talk or my TED style talk be? They're really focused on the time

Speaker 11 rather than on the content that they could get and they could actually fit in that time.

Speaker 11 And I don't mean like, all right, they do the math of like 15 minutes equals I speak at 190 words a minute so I can like have a talk. No, no, no, no.
That's not what I mean.

Speaker 11 Because people can only move so far in the time that you have and what i mean by that is you can you can only move people mentally so far in the time that you have you know the more time that you have with someone the more that you you know the more distance they can mentally cover and i'm doing this in my mind because um my mental model for it is a is a is a baseball diamond so i want you know you and your listeners to think that home home plate right which is where you want people to go like that's where you score um that's the big change that you're asking for right that's the kind of big big change that you're asking for.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 11 I like to, it's a simplified way, but I want you to think of like that, you can kind of divide the audience around those bases. I'm going to try to do it so that you can look at it.

Speaker 11 Around those bases kind of in three clumps, right? So you've got a group of the audience that's sitting on first base, which is they are unaware of the real problem that's getting in their way.

Speaker 11 and they're unaware of the solution of the real solution that your change that your idea really represents right so that's group group one so let's say you know if i'm talking about my own stuff you know people are just asking questions like how do i build a good tedx talk unaware of the big problem unaware of the actual solution that kind of thing Now on second base are people who start to be aware of the kind of underlying problem, but they're still kind of unaware of the solution, which is, okay, I know that there's something that needs to be present about my idea, right?

Speaker 11 That

Speaker 11 there needs to be something fundamentally different about my idea, but

Speaker 11 I'm not really sure what the solution is yet.

Speaker 11 And then the third base folks

Speaker 11 are the folks that are both aware of the problem and aware of the solution. And they're basically just trying to say, bring me home.
I know that I need to figure out

Speaker 11 that I need to move my, you know, that like my idea needs to move people mentally a short distance. And I just want to know specifically how to do that.
What are the tactics I could put into play?

Speaker 11 And how do you do that? And so

Speaker 11 I set all that up because

Speaker 11 even in a keynote, it's unlikely to get someone from first all the way home. Very unlikely.

Speaker 11 Even in a keynote, because that means you have to introduce them to the real problem. You have to introduce them to the high-level solution.

Speaker 11 And you have to give them all the tactics so they walk out that door, actually able to do it. That's unlikely.

Speaker 11 It's much more likely from, let's say, a keynote workshop combination or a three-day program or something like that.

Speaker 10 So we're going to work quite a few times.

Speaker 11 Yeah. And even when I'm working with someone just on a keynote, I basically say, which base runner do you want to talk to and how far do you can we bring them home, right?

Speaker 11 Like, cause what's going to, what's what's it going to take to bring them home?

Speaker 11 So when it comes to a TED TEDx talk, basically the most you can hope for, most you can hope for is to move them one base. You can move them from, I'm talking to the people who already understand that

Speaker 11 we've got a problem in our in our our in our

Speaker 11 food supply and energy supply that isn't being met by

Speaker 11 traditional agriculture

Speaker 11 I see that there's some some solution potentially in marine farming but I don't know what they how do we do that like that's a second base question you can get them to third base by saying specifically this is how we're going to solve the problem of effective marine farming in order to solve this other problem

Speaker 11 does that help because it really is just move them this like one little piece. You can make them kind of move from unaware of both the problem and solution to being aware of the deeper problem.

Speaker 11 That's what I call a why-style talk.

Speaker 11 You can make them, if they're already aware of the deeper problem but unaware of the high-level solution, you can kind of move them that. That's what I call a what-now-style talk.

Speaker 11 And then, if they're aware of the problem, the kind of real problem and the real solution, as you're putting it,

Speaker 11 then to get them home, that's what I call a how-style talk. And

Speaker 11 you can do a 10-minute, 20-minute talk for any of those three. There's kind of great examples out there of each of those kinds of talks from a TED Talk standpoint.

Speaker 11 But that's the understanding is that you can only move them.

Speaker 11 You just can't move them more than one base. Like, so you have to choose which base that you're moving.

Speaker 11 Which is your favorite? What's my favorite?

Speaker 9 Oh, God.

Speaker 10 What's your favorite style? When you, if you, if someone said here, you get to choose one of those bases to move people from.

Speaker 11 where oh i'm i'm definitely a second base person i love the what now talks i love people who kind of already sense that there's you know what the nature of the problem is not not fully because that way i still get to introduce like a new frame on a problem that they have thought haven't thought about before and i like giving people kind of a high level direction of the kind of things they need to do differently um because i for me i find that there's that for the remember i'm always drawn on gaps to me that's the gap closing talk is is i can help answer somebody like a persistent question question that somebody has had.

Speaker 11 I can now give them a new answer to that. And I'm not just letting them go, oh, so that's the problem and go, well, great, but now what do I do about it?

Speaker 11 What now style talk in my mind usually gives people just starts to give them enough toe holds that they can start to figure it out on their own if they want.

Speaker 11 But if I'm working with a business or with a company or with an individual on like their whole speaking platform, I make sure that we actually have talks that cover all three.

Speaker 11 So that, you know, I have a talk that is that,

Speaker 11 you know, I have much of what we're talking about today is my why talk. It's the talk that I do.
It's called Getting the Green Light.

Speaker 11 It's like, why, what needs to happen in order for that long-term change to happen and what's getting in the way. And for me, that's pain.

Speaker 11 Like a big, big concept in that one is the pain is the enemy of long-term change. So we need to build their case.
That's a that's moving somebody from first base to second base.

Speaker 11 My find the red thread talk is, okay, we need to build their case.

Speaker 11 What's the best way to do that? Okay, the best way to do that is to is to match this kind of universal structure of ideas that gets them there. And then

Speaker 11 one-on-one work, consulting work, workshops and training is all, let's deep dive now.

Speaker 11 We'll start to actually, I'll work with you to actually teach you the steps of how to implement the red thread detailed, give you practice, all of that.

Speaker 11 So that's the kind of thing I, anytime I'm working with a speaker where they want to kind of build their whole business out, again, that's where the bit, you know, how big does the idea need to be?

Speaker 11 If you're trying to build your whole business, you need an idea that will support that whole that whole structure. Um, but that's that's you know, for you know, you asked me what my favorite talk was.

Speaker 11 My favorite talk style is what now talk, but my favorite, my favorite work to do is actually create that whole strig. That's, I love that, that's super fun.

Speaker 10 And it's obvious in the way that you talk about it how much you enjoy it. And I can tell anybody who's listening to this, if you enjoyed even a second of this, go subscribe to Tamson's newsletter.

Speaker 10 It's absolutely tremendous. I steal stuff from it all the time, just like you tell me to.
You have that whole swipe area, and always the

Speaker 10 context and the way you construct the arguments and the stories. It's really, really tremendous work.

Speaker 10 It is some of the highest value, you know, free in terms of other, I'm just putting your email in that I think you can get.

Speaker 10 Actually, your newsletter and Ann Hanley's newsletter to me are like recommended reading.

Speaker 11 Like you, oh, thank you. You shouldn't be in the

Speaker 10 two of them. So

Speaker 10 I appreciate your time so much.

Speaker 10 Please let anyone who's listening to this, obviously I'm going to do a whole intro for you and tell people where to go and have show notes and stuff, but just where's the best place someone can just learn a little bit more,

Speaker 10 you know, start to dive down the path of your work and what you do and what you've done.

Speaker 11 Yeah, newsletter is first and foremost. You can find that on, because that's, that's what's, you know, that's what's, that's my current thinking always, right?

Speaker 11 So I think anybody who's who's reading me can always, you know, if you've watched me for a while, you can actually see the arcs of certain ideas start to develop.

Speaker 11 And, you know, for anyone who's seen the talks that I've been doing right now, Getting the Green Light, they would recognize the anchoring story as something I wrote in the newsletter probably nine months ago.

Speaker 11 So you can watch those ideas kind of develop over time. The way to get there and the way you can kind of see everything that I do, the way that I work,

Speaker 11 a backfill of content, lots of videos. I did 100 episode video podcast a while back.
That's all at tams and webster.com and they can find it all there.

Speaker 10 Well, it has been a great pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for sharing so much.
It's been a lot of fun and

Speaker 10 this has just been great. I'm glad to finally connect, I guess, virtually in person.
Absolutely.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I like it. Face to face virtually, it works.

Speaker 10 Yes, tremendous. Thank you so much.

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