The Power of Influence | Shawn King | TEDxDalhousieU
Summary
TLDRThe speaker reflects on the power of influence, starting from childhood memories of parental advice that unexpectedly shaped his life. As an adult, he recognizes the impact of his behavior in both personal and professional settings, sharing anecdotes that highlight how attitudes and actions can significantly affect outcomes. He emphasizes the potential for positive influence, urging the audience to harness this power for good.
Takeaways
- đ The speaker fondly recalls childhood memories of clichĂ© phrases parents used, reflecting on their lasting impact.
- đ° The importance of punctuality and following through on commitments were key life lessons the speaker's parents instilled in him.
- đ€ He emphasizes the power of being easy and pleasant to work with, which contributed to his successful career in an agency.
- đĄ The speaker discovered the significant influence one can have on others, especially in a leadership position.
- đ§ïž A bad mood can negatively affect team morale and work dynamics, as experienced by the speaker during a leadership role.
- đ€ The concept of considering multiple perspectives in a situation can lead to better outcomes and understanding.
- đ The speaker highlights the need for self-awareness in recognizing one's role in group dynamics and how it can change interactions.
- đ Listening and responding empathetically to a client's concerns can transform a negative situation into a positive one.
- đšâđŠ The speaker's advice to a young man had a profound impact, showing the long-term influence one can have on others.
- đ¶ââïž The power of influence can be both positive and negative, as demonstrated by the speaker's personal experiences.
- đ The speaker's participation in 'The Amazing Race' and the subsequent events taught him about the impact of others on his own emotions and outlook on life.
Q & A
What was the speaker's age when he was standing in line at the grocery store with friends?
-The speaker was probably about 15 years old at that time.
Why were the speaker and his friends laughing at the grocery store?
-They were laughing at the cliché things their parents used to say to them as they were growing up.
What was one of the cliché phrases the speaker's parents used to say?
-One of the cliché phrases was 'Do as I say, not as I do.'
What is the speaker's profession now?
-The speaker is now the owner of an agency.
What was the speaker's first job at the agency?
-The speaker's first job at the agency was as a production artist.
How did the speaker decide to differentiate himself from the other production artists?
-The speaker decided to be fast and pleasant to work with, aiming to make people enjoy the process of working with him.
What was the impact of the speaker's approach to work on his career?
-His approach led to him becoming the owner of the agency 25 years later.
What was the speaker's realization about his influence on others?
-The speaker realized that his mood and behavior could significantly impact others, either positively or negatively.
What is the 'three perspectives' theory mentioned by the speaker?
-The 'three perspectives' theory refers to the idea that in any dynamic, there are typically three perspectives involved: your own, the other person's, and the outside perspective.
How did the speaker's interaction with a client's son influence the young man's life?
-The speaker's advice during a meeting had a significant impact on the young man, as evidenced by a card and gift he sent the speaker years later.
What was the speaker's experience on 'The Amazing Race'?
-The speaker dislocated his shoulder during a challenge, which led to his elimination from the race. However, his participation had a positive impact on some viewers.
What advice does the speaker have for parents regarding the influence they have on their children?
-The speaker advises parents to keep expressing their beliefs and values, as something will eventually stick with their children, even if they don't seem to be listening.
Outlines
đ Reflecting on Parental Wisdom and Influence
The speaker recalls being around 15 years old, discussing cliché parental phrases with friends in a grocery store line. They laugh about the phrases like 'Do as I say, not as I do,' but also ponder on the serious advice that has stuck with them, such as being on time and following through on commitments. The speaker is now a father of an 18-year-old and contemplates the impact of their words and actions on their son. They share their experience of being a production artist, aiming to be easy to work with, which eventually led to owning an agency. The narrative highlights the power of influence in personal and professional life.
đ€ The Power of Perspective and Influence in Dynamics
The speaker delves into the concept of perspectives, emphasizing that every interaction has three viewpoints: one's own, the other person's, and the outside perspective. They argue that the outside perspective can offer clarity in situations due to its emotional detachment. The speaker recounts a story from their agency where a disgruntled employee's viewpoint shifted after realizing their role in the team dynamic, leading to improved interactions. They also share an experience with a difficult client, illustrating how changing one's approach can transform a negative situation into a positive one.
đ The Impact of Influence Beyond Personal Control
The speaker discusses the realization that one's influence can extend beyond their awareness. They recount a story of being on 'The Amazing Race' and the subsequent disappointment of dislocating their shoulder early in the competition. Despite their initial concern about the public's reaction, they find solace in a supportive tweet from an old friend and the warm reception they receive at a charity event. These experiences underscore the unpredictable nature of influence and its potential to uplift or disappoint.
đšâđ©âđŠ The Enduring Influence of Parents and the Choice to Use Influence for Good
In the final paragraph, the speaker reflects on the enduring impact of parental influence, drawing a parallel to the broader concept of influence in all relationships. They mention a book about raising teenagers, which advises parents to continue expressing their beliefs even if they feel unheard. The speaker extends this advice to all interactions, emphasizing the 'Superhuman power' of shaping lives through words, actions, and choices. They conclude with a hopeful message to use this power for good.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄInfluence
đĄParental Advice
đĄPunctuality
đĄReliability
đĄLeadership
đĄPerspective
đĄControl
đĄEmpathy
đĄClimbing the Corporate Ladder
đĄCuriosity
đĄResilience
Highlights
The speaker recalls childhood memories of cliché phrases parents used, reflecting on their lasting impact.
The importance of being punctual and respecting time as a valuable lesson from the speaker's parents.
The speaker's realization that actions speak louder than words, as seen through his parents' influence.
The speaker's transition from being a production artist to an agency owner, attributing success to being easy to work with.
A leadership experience that taught the speaker about the unintended negative impact of a bad mood on team morale.
The introduction of the 'three perspectives' theory for understanding dynamics within groups or between individuals.
A story about a disgruntled employee whose perspective shifted after realizing their role in team dynamics.
The power of influence in both positive and negative ways, illustrated through client interactions.
A client's complaint of 17 issues with the agency, highlighting the importance of understanding the root cause.
The transformative effect of a simple question on a client's perspective, shifting from problem to solution.
The speaker's experience on 'The Amazing Race' and the influence of external support on personal resilience.
The impact of strangers' positive feedback on the speaker's perception of a disappointing event.
The lasting influence of parents on their children, as the speaker reflects on his own parenting experiences.
A book's insight on the importance of persistence in communication with teens, applicable to all relationships.
The universal 'Superhuman power' of influence that everyone possesses and the responsibility to use it for good.
Transcripts
so if my memory serves me correctly and
I'll be the first to admit that it often
doesn't I was probably about 15 or so
years old and I was standing in line at
a grocery store with some friends and we
were having uh some fun at uh the
expense of my parents and we were
reviewing all of the the cliche things
or at least they were then I don't know
if they are anymore the cliche things
that parents would say to all of us uh
as we were growing up you know um I'm
not worried about everyone else's kids
I'm worried about you um do as I say not
as I do was another one that I really
loved and my favorite was because I said
so so we were all laughing about those
things and and and and then I started
thinking about other things that they
said to me that really weren't funny
they were things that that I I continue
to think about today um and I have no
idea if if they even know that those
things stuck with me and these things
were don't be late you know like respect
your time enough and other people's time
enough to be on
time um oh there's no notes on the
screen that's
awesome what was the other one do what
you said you were going to do if you're
talking to people and you say you're
going to do something for them you do it
so these things stuck with me my whole
life I still I'm standing here now
talking about them but I have no idea
why they stuck I don't remember any real
concerted effort from my mother and my
father to sort of you know pinpoint that
all the time they just stuck and now I'm
the father of an 18-year-old son who's
here you're
welcome for for that
sorry and and I I think about it myself
I think you know what could I be saying
to him that might stick and the problem
is I think I I think I think about it
too much like I I'm trying to be
conscious of it what could I be saying
that he'll talk about maybe someday at a
TED talk or is it better to not know is
it better to just kind of go through it
and and think what you say and believe
what you think and all of that and hope
hope that uh something sticks I don't
know if that's true or not but what I do
know is that when it comes to an adult
life and and being in business I think
it does help to know and be aware of the
influence that you can have and
particularly because that influence and
the way that you choose to control
Dynamics can actually affect the outcome
of any scenario that you might be in so
the first time that I noticed this I was
very young I I I think it was 18 or 19 I
was working my first job at an agency
and I was a production artist so a
production artist is basically the it's
the bottom of the totem pole from a
creative perspective uh in in an agency
job and there were three of us working
there at the time and one of those
production artists was the go-to uh
person the one that everybody wanted to
work with well I wanted that to me to be
me I wanted everybody to want to work
with me the problem was I hadn't had
enough experience or skills to sort of
uh be that person yet so I decided to
try something different and that was I
happen to notice that everybody that was
working with that person seemed to hate
it it was uh filled with um tension and
and people were just angry all the time
and I thought well hey that's not fun
and maybe I could try something
different so I just decided to be fast
and pleasant to work with and and um
make people enjoy the process of working
with me and it worked um without getting
into all the details I mean 21 22 how
many years 25 years later I'm the owner
of an agency and I believe that that
happened because I sort of made a
decision to to be easy to work with but
I wasn't as conscious of the impact I
was having having I didn't know that I
was actually influencing what was
happening I just knew that I wanted to
enjoy the experience more the first time
I realized the impact that you could
have on people I was in a leadership
position at an agency and I was having a
particularly bad day the kind of day
where you get up and you just like want
to fight somebody it's not just me
right bad day got up was driving into
work and uh wasn't feeling it you know
and I had meetings that morning with
people who were presenting work and they
had to show me what they were doing and
I don't remember the first meeting but
apparently it went bad because the team
stood outside my office door probably
closer than they remembered being and I
heard somebody say do not go in there if
you want him to approve your work and I
I swear to you I I never considered
first of all I didn't think anybody
noticed I didn't think anybody knew that
I was in a crap mood that day and I
certainly hadn't considered the impact
it would have on the way they felt about
what to do next I mean to hear something
somebody say don't go in his office he's
pissed
surprising so there's a this is when I
first began to notice it and understand
that you could actually use that impact
either for good or for bad there's a
theory that we use at the agency and
it's this notion of perspectives and
this three sides to every story I guess
is the whole the whole thing around it
and if you think about any Dynamic that
you might be in with a group of people
or another person there's typically
three perspectives there's yours which
I'm sure you feel strongly about there's
somebody else's the other person that
you're um engaged with and then there is
the outside perspective and the funny
thing about the outside perspective is
that often it's the easiest perspective
to know what needs to happen in a
situation because you're not emotionally
attached to any of the other two
perspectives and so what we often will
ask people to do in a situation is to
think about the other perspective it's
pretty simple you know yours try to
imagine what the perspective is on the
other side of that triangle and maybe
you can use that to to help the
outcome quick story I I I um we had a
person at the
agency um a couple years ago who seemed
to have trouble working with just about
everybody else and um I'm sure this
isn't new in in our business but uh it's
the same for every
business that person eventually had to
get engaged to find out what was going
on and and um of course I sat and
listened and and that person said to me
that you know they're not they're not
getting it nobody else is getting it and
the funny thing about that I don't know
if you've ever noticed this but have you
noticed that we we often are sort of
like our first default position is to
try to control what everyone else is
doing we want to control what they think
and what they do without really thinking
about our in our influence on that you
know you have a dynamic and everybody
plays a role in that Dynamic so that was
the conversation we had and this person
was quite surprised to think that they
had never actually considered their role
in that
Dynamic and once they did they started
to to change the way they acted within
that group it worked for a while some
people are just unhappy they have to
go another story um again I you talk
about making a choice you have to you
make a positive influence or you make a
negative influence quick story about a I
had a client who was particularly upset
with the agency was calling me all the
time I was getting one two calls a day
about things that were wrong and I
couldn't I couldn't get my head wrapped
around it because it just seems
so unlikely that this much stuff was
wrong with the thing that we do every
day so I finally got called to a meeting
and I was handed a sheet of paper and
the sheet of paper had
17 not even joking I actually counted
them 17 things that were wrong with what
we were doing now try to imagine you
know this is my agency I've got somebody
telling me that there are 17 things
wrong with the way we work and I know
it's not true so I boiled instantly I'm
not even joking like it was Charlie
Brown's teacher talking to me I I didn't
hear the rest of it CU all I kept
thinking was what do I need to do here
to diffuse the situation I hated it it
was very uncomfortable and I really
didn't know how I was going to address
17 issues even if that weren't actually
the case so I asked a simple
question I just said how are you doing
how are you
doing changed
everything the issue left the issues
that the agency was gone it became about
oh I'm stressed my team is is spread too
thin it's too busy we don't it's too
competitive in the marketplace we don't
know what's happen happening and to
which I said well how can we help and
all of a sudden the issue wasn't about
17 things it was about two or three that
were probably impacting what was going
on I've talked a little bit about those
are sort of negative situations that you
can impact uh uh you can choose your
impact to make him
positive I had a great experience a few
years ago um a client of mine asked if
her son could come in and talked to me
at the office and uh he was between high
school and college and he he came into
the meeting
I said sure I'll sit with him for an
hour we'll have a
chat I don't remember exactly what I
said to him but likely there's a few
things I typically tell students don't
don't be in too much of a rush to climb
the corporate ladder it's very dangerous
and be careful what you wish for uh stay
curious a lot of people nowadays you
know there's a sense of empowerment
don't have that it doesn't help anybody
and it's not what you learn it's what
you do with what you learned that
actually dictates what happens next so I
had this meeting he left I never really
thought much it after and a few years
later I got a card in the mail attached
with the card was attached to a basket
of beer which is
awesome the card is from 2008 and I
still have it in my office and I won't
read the whole thing to you but I will
read the last line of that card that
says more importantly I want you to know
that you influen the life of a wonderful
young man it's pretty heavy like I was
like I don't even remember what I said
to that guy
I I feel like I should have right I
should have remembered but whatever I
said worked that's kind of scary right
if you can be conscious of it if you can
be aware of I'm having I want to have
this impact I want to have that impact
it can be a great thing it works the
other way too when you choose to be
angry it works my son and I uh he's
going to love this one we're driving
downtown the other day and and uh I
guess it was a couple weeks ago I don't
know there was snow CU there's lots of
it and we watched somebody walking down
the street and like a very serious
Walker and uh there was somebody at an
intersection uh waiting to pull out and
of course you can't see anything so they
were kind of out in the road and
blocking the sidewalk and the very
serious walker uh gave the guy the
finger as she was walking he was in the
way and the guy in the car sort of
laughed waved as if to say like you know
what am I supposed to do and we had a
little debate in the
car I'm sorry man he said to me oh man I
would have lost it yeah he probably
would have what would that have done now
there'd be a road rage scene I'd be
getting my phone out we'd be posting it
on YouTube it'd be
awesome but the guy just waved he's like
what am I supposed to do I'm not that
angry I'm going to get on with my day
completely diffused that situation you
can use it for good or you can use it
for bad
my wife and I had the opportunity last
year to go on The Amazing Race it was a
pretty uh intense thing to do as you
might imagine incredible stressful fun
exciting pretty insane um that that
experience was reduced to a couple of
episodes unfortunately because I
dislocated my shoulder on a surfing
challenge in
teino um I carried that injury with me
the bag AG of that injury with me for
quite a while um you know it was
fascinating to be on there and it was
fascinating to have done the challenges
and to even to be kicked off was
fascinating but as the days passed I I I
carried that with me for a while I I
remember I felt really disappointed in
myself to have gotten all the way there
and then to have that happen um I was
disappointed that my wife would be upset
with me in fact I think at one point arm
still dislocated I actually told her to
keep going you can go find a
partner that's what she
did and then I thought you know we were
so excited when we first got announced
as a team on the race because we were
the only team that was from Atlantic
Canada and that was so exciting oh my
God everyone's going to be rooting for
us it's going to be great and then I
dislocated my arm and got out and I
thought oh my God we're the only team in
Atlantic Canada everyone's going to be
so
disappointed well the truth is nobody
cared as much about this as we did they
design it that way I think um but then
two things
happened uh and this isn't about our
influence on these people this is about
their influence on us the first was
every week that the race was somebody
was eliminated they were they were
giving gifts to people who had tweeted
about it and in this case I can't even
see it here but somebody had tweeted
about the
influence uh that we had on them and
referred to us as a bit of a class act
it turns out that this person was
actually a friend of my wives who we
hadn't seen in years who now lived in
Alberta about West which was crazy but
we saw that tweet and the first thing I
thought
was wow here I was worried about people
being upset and thinking what they were
going to think and this tweet actually
started to make me feel better I started
to think less about who to a disappoint
I wish we could have gone further all
that stuff and thought wow like that
actually impacted me it's the first time
I started to feel better then we got
asked to um we got asked to take part in
this Parkinson superwalk just to help
bring some attention to it and to to see
if we could um help them so we went down
to do that walk and I remember feeling
quite awkward when we got there because
again who nobody knows us we're going to
do this thing it's not stuff that we
typically do but we'll go do it and we
went and we we were starting the walk we
were walking around the block and a
pretty neat thing started to happen all
these people all ages uh kept coming up
to us and saying oh it was so great to
see you guys on the race and how's your
shoulder and all of a sudden again it it
was starting to lift and feel much
better and just the seconds you know
that people took to say amazing job and
it was so great you know it was just
seconds we finished that we went we did
a speech at the end and there were a few
people who came up to take pictures with
us and there was a I think a a little
girl um who came up and she just seemed
really really excited to to be taking a
picture with us and again this wasn't
about our impact on her this was about
she she has no idea what that did for me
to know that she was that excited to see
us and here I was sulking about the
whole thing it changed the way I felt
about that
experience I talked earlier about you
know my our parents and the influence
that they have I don't think you can
have a talk about the power of influence
and not talk about your parents that's
where it all
begins again I don't know if they know
what they said to me the impact that
they had but they will
now my wife and I were were were looking
around or talking to someone I can't
remember what it was it might have been
in a book but we were reading about the
frustrations of raising a
teen and uh I remember again one thing
that stuck out in that book and it was
this this thought that no matter what
you think no matter what how much you
think they're not listening no matter
how much you think they don't care keep
saying what you think keep believing in
what you say and and something will
stick something will
stick I actually don't think this
applies just to kids I actually think it
applies to all of
us that's the Superhuman power that we
all have we have the ability to
influence and shape the lives of people
with the things we say how we Act and
the choices we make with it so you have
it I hope you find it most importantly I
hope you use it for good
thank
[Applause]
you
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