Each one time I came up with this: the four ifs that make life worthwhile. I think I got this when I was in the Carmel Library, Carmel, California, one of my favorite places to study and do a bit of research. I remember that day when I put this together: the four ifs that make life worthwhile.
Speaking of preparation, here's what I said. The four ifs are: Number one: If you learn, that makes life worthwhile. You've got to learn.
You've got to learn what it's all about. You've got to learn what's going on. You learn by trying.
You learn by error. You learn by doing it right. You learn by doing it wrong.
You learn from other people's experiences. There are all kinds of ways to learn. Never cease your quest for learning; never stop learning.
It makes life worthwhile. If you learn. Then I said the second if that makes life worthwhile is if you try.
You've got to do something with what you've learned. See if you can raise a garden. See if you can start a business.
See how quickly you can get promoted. See if you can move up in the next income bracket. See how much you can give away and still have plenty left.
See how much you can do. Try it! Just try!
We're always telling the kids, right? Try it! Try it!
When a kid says, "Well, I'm not sure," we say, "Well, how are we going to know? You've got to try! " If I put these two poles up, put a bar across here two feet high, and say to the kids, "Who can jump two feet?
" someone says, "I don't know. " I say, "Well, how are we going to know? " You just got to back up and take a run at it.
Now, what if you knock the bar down? Does that mean you can't jump two feet? No!
So then what do we say? Try it again! That's what CH said to me: "Keep trying.
" He said, "There's more than one way up the mountain; sneak up the back if you have to. " Keep trying, keep trying. So that's the second if that makes life worthwhile: if you try, try it over, try it again, try it another way, but keep trying.
The third if that makes life worthwhile is if you stay—developing staying power. That's one of the big challenges of life. People plant in the spring and leave in the summer.
They don't stay. Or the guy builds a foundation, right? He’s got a nice foundation, then he goes off and builds another foundation, and then he leaves that one.
He goes off, builds another foundation; he's got these foundations scattered all across the country. I've done my share of that—not staying to finish it and put it together, and put the roof on, put the last brick in place, light the fireplace, have a party, celebrate finishing something. Stay!
You've got to stay! We asked one of my good friends, Jim Cardwell, in Phoenix one time, "I said, Jim, what are you good at? " He said, "Starting over.
That's one of my better things—starting over. " He's a character! I asked him if he was good at any particular sport, and he said, "Yes, skating on thin ice.
" (Laughter) Okay, the third if that makes life worthwhile is if you stay. Here's the fourth one. The fourth if that makes life worthwhile is if you care—the incredible capacity for humans to care.
But if you care, if you care at all, you'll get some results. If you care enough, you'll get incredible results. Now, that wasn't too complicated a speech, right?
Just four simple ifs that make life worthwhile. But it does take some time, some research. Consciously get your notepad out, get your journal, read the books.
But now then, even though you don't have a speech to give, just get ready for tomorrow's conversations today. Get ready for next month, this month. Get ready for next year, this year.
Always be a day ahead, a step ahead, and a year ahead in your research and your development—in researching your own feelings and life and what's going on—so that no matter what conversation comes up, what chance to communicate comes up, whether it's a business communication or a personal communication, whether it's social, whatever it is, you'll be more ready for it a few months from now than perhaps you are now, just because you're doing it deliberately and consciously! So that's number one: have something good to say. The first step to good communication.
Here's the second step: say it well. Part of communication is saying it well, and there are some key points on saying it well—having a good conversation that gets your point across but also gets the job done. Saying it well is a matter of repetition—conscious repetition.
Some people say it over and over and over, but they don't get any better at it. But conscious participation and repetition will help you to say it better. See, my first seminars?
They were not that good, I'll admit that. But guess what? I did it again with the thought in mind of getting better.
I did it again with the thought in mind of getting better. Okay? I practiced it some more.
I did it some more. I went over it again. I went over it again, and sure enough, if you do it over and over and over and over—consciously, with the thought of getting better—guess what?
Anybody can get better. People often wonder why I can do the evening seminar 3 and a half hours. Most of you have been there, and I don't use any notes.
Interesting! Once in a while, someone asks me, "How can you do three and a half hours and you don't use any notes? " And it's very simple: anybody could do it!
Guess why I'm able to do it? I've done it a few thousand times. See, if you do something a few thousand times consciously, sure enough, you will get better and better and better.
So whatever you're doing now in the way of communication, the question to ask is: how long do you want it to take to get good at it? You say, "Well, I want to get good right away. " Then you’ve got to do it over and over and over and over.
Repetition helps you to get better. So the second step to good communication is saying it well. Now, there are some other points on saying it well.
Here they are: 1. Say it with sincerity. I don’t know of any substitute for sincerity.
Almost everybody wants the feeling from someone else that you are being sincere, that you're not playing games with them, that you're really disclosing to them your true feelings, your true awareness, what's going on in your life, and your heart and your soul and your mind. Sincerity—there's no substitute for that. Once in a while, someone asks me when the seminar is finished, they say, "Look, Mr R, everybody's gone now.
Just tell me the truth. Now, that story you tell about meeting Mr Scha when you were 25 years old and he hired you, you went to work for him, spent five years with him, and he taught you the principles how to turn your life around—now that's just a story, right? That didn't really happen.
Isn't that just a story to make all this sound good? " Isn't it interesting that somebody would ask me if that was just a story or not, or if it really happened? To be sincere, it's got to be true.
You just can't come up with sincerity telling an erroneous story. Now, you might make it sound sincere, but sure enough, someday it'll come back to haunt you. Saying it well is saying it sincerely.
Saying it well is saying it accurately. You don't want lack of credibility to creep into your communication, so you've just got to be sincere. Tell the truth.
The truth is so powerful; you don't need to dress it up with fiction. Another part of saying it well is saying it with brevity. Don't linger too long on any one point, because I've got a good disclosure for you: the human attention span is short.
You can't linger too long on any one thing; you've got to move along. So, brevity. I used to tell long, long, long, long stories, and I stretched them out so long that people forgot the beginning by the time I got to the end.
And now the end doesn’t make much sense, right? Right, because you can’t hook them both up. I just dragged them out too long.
People get weary; you’ve just got to practice being brief. The best practice on this is to practice with kids, because their attention span is really short, right? And they don’t mind telling you.
Right, you start talking to the kids, and kids say, “How long is this going to take? ” I mean, right away, they get the feeling you’re going to take 30 seconds, and you should only take 10, right? I mean, they get bored right away, so short, short—make your story short.
Be brief in your illustrations. If you're going to say, "Let me tell you something that happened to me one time," don’t give people the feeling now that you're about to launch into a 20-minute story. Just make sure you get the feeling across that you're going to be brief.
It isn’t going to take long; you’re going to get the story across. And I guess part of that is our high-powered, speeded-up way of living, especially in this country. But it is true: if you want to be effective in communication, you've got to be brief on any one point.
You can't linger long, and I think I've lingered long enough on that point. Next, saying it well is saying it with style. Now, part of style is your personal style, and this involves a whole lot of things.
It can involve gestures; it can involve facial expressions. You talk with your eyes; you know, you speak with your facial expressions as well as with your words. Some people talk more with their hands—that's part of your style.
Gestures—all of that. Now, here's the key: develop your own style. However, be a student of style first.
Have something good to say. Second, say it well. Consciously say it well—practice saying it well.
Get to where the words come more clearly, more freely. Things you used to stumble over when you talked a year ago, you just correct that. You just correct it and correct it so that now it flows better.
Shorten the stories; they used to be long; now they're shorter. You just do all that consciously, so you get better and better at it: saying it well. Okay, here's the third step to good communication, and this is so important: read the effect you're having when you communicate.
See, that's just a major study—study your audience. Whoever your audience may be, if it's one of your children, you just study what's happening to them while you're talking. Right?
Look in their eyes, look at their faces, analyze what's going on between you and whoever you're talking to. Another person, whether it's a business conversation or a social conversation—you've got to be keenly aware of what's happening to whoever you're communicating with. Now, our real challenge is communicating with an audience.
We had 1,200 people the other night in Orange County, right? And I've got to make sure that everybody from down here to down in front, all the way in the back— To gather up a thousand people's attention right for the three-and-a-half hour period, now that's a real challenge. I didn't used to be that good at it.
In fact, when I first started lecturing, I was hardly aware of my audience. I was so absorbed in my notes and my material. I guess they could have all gotten up and left, and I would have never known it.
I wouldn't have missed them; I'd have just kept right on talking, right? Because I was so absorbed in the material. I was so absorbed in trying to say it right and do it right that I was not aware of what was going on with my audience.
But you've got to read the effect you're having for really effective communication. Now, if it's just an informal communication situation, you can just ask the question: "Do you read me? Right?
Does it make sense? Did I say it well? " And you get this feedback, right?
So you can actually start checking how you're doing with somebody. If it's informal, you can just ask. Okay?
Now, what you've also got to learn to do is read some of the subtle things that are going on with whoever you're talking to. Especially humans—or especially adults—you know, when we get a little older, we have these tricky ways of looking like we're interested when we're really not. If you want to be a good communicator, you just got to pick up some of those signals.
Now, part of it you can pick up by what we call body language. Some people just sort of quickly disclose their feelings about whether or not you're effective or if it's coming across, and they just sort of relay to you by their what we call body language. It's kind of a new study; I haven't studied that much about it, but there is a book called *How to Read a Person Like a Book* by Nurg.
You just might make a little study on that. Now, don't get too involved in it because sometimes you can still watch somebody in the way they blink their eyes, and you know, you're looking at their ears and looking at their hair, and you just get too carried away trying to figure out all about them. But you can get some indication.
But here's what'll play you good no matter what—it's called just pure common sense. You just look at somebody; you can kind of tell if somebody just folds their arms and tucks their head down like this. Sure enough, you've probably got some more selling to do.
I mean, you got to pour it on, or maybe you should change the subject, or maybe you should quit, right? You just kind of analyze what's going on here, right? Some things are just fairly obvious.
You know, if a guy's leaning toward the door like this, it's probably a sign. I mean, you say, "Oh, I got it! " Right?
Clear? I've got a good word for the common sense approach, and it goes like this: let the obvious be your best teacher. Whatever you do, don't ignore the obvious.
You know, sometimes we say, "Oh, it couldn't be. " Yes, it probably is. But adults, especially, sometimes this is a bit tricky: people smile, nod their head like this, and they've got you shut off, and you just don't know, okay?
Because in good communication, you cannot mistake courtesy for interest. Sometimes people are courteous, but that doesn't mean they're interested. Now, if you mistake their courtesy for their interest, now see, you've lost the hold on good communication.
Also, you can develop a sense of picking up signals. I think the women probably have it over the men when it comes to this sort of sixth sense of being able to tell, no matter what the situation looks like. Women have this uncanny gift.
I guess men can develop it, but women already have it. You know, the antenna is out; I mean, they pick up signals nobody else can pick up. I mean, the men don't have a chance.
I think part of it is because until the industrialized society came, women were primarily the protectors. The man was the provider, right? He was gone; he was out there getting the game or whatever, and the woman was the protector.
So, I think the woman has developed these incredible sensitivities to danger and what's going on—what's happening. They're uncanny! Even the Bible says there are sheep, and there's the shepherd, and then there's the wolves.
That's what it says. Life is kind of like that: shepherds and sheep and wolves. It also says some wolves are so clever they've learned to dress up like sheep and talk like sheep.
I guess that's what it says: some are wolves in sheep's clothing. Now, see, you've got to be clever. Huh?
The man says, "Well, looks like a sheep, talks like a sheep. " The woman says, "Ain't no sheep! I mean, take my word for it!
" But that's that long-developed instinct, I guess. Right in the middle of the night, she says, "Wake up! Wake up!
Something isn't right out there! " He says, "Uh, right! " I mean, he's gone.
Right? She says, "No, no, no! Something—something—not right!
" She just has this uncanny sense. So that's part of, you know, being able to read, is picking up. .
. Mr Scha, called it signals. He says we all throw off signals, vibrations, you know?
I don't understand all I know about that, but have you heard the expression "a dog can tell whether or not you're afraid of him? " Guess that's true. We throw off a certain kind of signal.
They’re just animals, right? They just pick it up. They pick it up; they know, and you can't fake them out, right?
You can say, "I'm not afraid of you, dog. " It says, "Who are you kidding? " Right?
Come on! Okay, being able to read—that's so important. Reading your audience: how you're doing, should you speed up, should you slow down, should you change the subject, should you be a little stronger?
Just be more aware of whoever you're talking to, right? Look a little more intently at somebody; try to pick up what's happening between you and the audience, or the person, or the child, or the business partner. You can't believe how it will affect your ability to communicate if you'll practice this part of picking up what's happening between you and someone else.
Now here's number four; now we're going to take our first break. The fourth step to good communication is intensity—strong feelings. Here's what changes the whole effectiveness of good communication: strong feelings in affecting other people with words.
Here's a key breakdown to keep in mind, and it goes like this: to affect other people with words, it's 20% what you know, and it's 80% how you feel. Feelings and emotions change the whole outcome of communication. Intensity!
Words loaded with emotion have the best effect. Words might be like a little straight pin, right? When a guy buys a shirt, right, it's got all these little pins in it—they're pinned all together.
So you start pulling all these straight pins. What if I took one of those straight pins and threw it at you? This little straight pin could reach you; it could hit you in the face or hit you in the arm or hand somewhere, right?
You’d feel it if I threw that little straight pin at you. What if I took that straight pin and wired it to the end of an iron bar about that long, right? And I let you have it with that?
See, I could drive that pin right through your heart right now. Now the pin is the words, and the iron bar is the emotions, the feelings, the awareness, the uniqueness of all of that mysterious stuff that humans are made of. If you will learn to put more of you into what you say—put more feelings, more awareness, more uniqueness, strength of character, conviction, strong feelings—whatever that is, just be more aware of putting more of you into whatever you say.
That's that iron bar that drives what you say to the heart, to the mind, and gets the job done. Words loaded with emotion! Now, you must also learn to measure your emotions, okay?
You don't want a major outburst for a minor point. Learn to measure it, okay? Some conversations or some points may need just a mild blend of emotional feelings, and then another point may need a strong one.
But you've got to learn to measure that, okay? Not too much for something minor. You don't want to shoot a cannon at a rabbit, right?
It's effective, but you've got no more rabbit. So learn to measure your emotions. Now here's something important: where does emotion come from?
Where do our feelings come from? Here's where they come from—the emotions that can really help in all of your future conversations, communication. It's the blend of all of your experiences and how they have affected you.
The blend of all of your experiences and how they have affected you—that's what creates your emotional content. It creates your emotional vitality and worth. So that's part of the getting-ready experience on the emotional side.
Be aware of your feelings, be aware of your emotions, and as that experience grows, now, when you get ready to talk, you've got the blend of knowledge and the blend of feelings to put into your conversation, and that's what creates the power. Now I have one more point and then we'll take our break: don't forget to say it. Part of communication is simply being aware that more often than not, things need to be said.
It's pretty easy to take for granted, especially the people that are close around us, that they already know how we feel. But you've got to keep expressing how you feel. Here's a good phrase: actions are no substitute for words.
Now, we’ve used the other phrase, right? That words are no substitute for action, and that’s true—just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk and not act; see, that's not good. But here's what else is not good—all of the action and no talk.
Make sure that the words accompany the action. Don't fail to say it. Probably one of the greatest difficulties in married life is this breakdown in communication—not clearing the air often enough, not keeping this open dialogue going constantly.
One thing I found out: take nothing for granted. Say, "Well, surely they understand. " Well, just explain it one more time; just say it one more time.
Don't take a chance that whether they know it or not; bring up the subject again. Make sure it's clear. It's too easy to let it slide and not make it clear, especially with the people around you.
Say, how often do you have to tell the people that you love that you love them? How often? The answer is often—often!
We all need reassurance. We all need it to be clear and pointed so that we know there are some things you just don't let go, and there are some actions that will only say certain things—they won't say it all. You can give somebody flowers, but flowers won't do all the talking.
Flowers say you remembered; that's probably what flowers say. But flowers don't say, "You do incredible things to me. Nobody affects me like you do.
" Now see, flowers will. . .
"Talk, but they won't say that. That's the card you've got to put along with the flowers. Let the flowers say whatever they can say.
But then don't fail to put the other words with it, because the words are so important. Judy gave me this watch back when I had a birthday in 1972, I believe it was, and it was a neat watch. La cool treay!
If all goes wrong, I can catch the watch in and live for a while, right? I mean, Judy was always doing things like that—fabulous watch, neat, neat gift for my birthday. But see, better than the watch was what she wrote on the back.
I appreciated the watch, but the words were better than the watch. On the back, she had inscribed, 'My love for all time, your Judy, September 1972. ' See, the watch was neat, but the words—she could have put the words on a Mickey Mouse watch!
Pardon me, Walt, I didn't mean to downgrade your mouse. But see, the words were what was really important. So I'm saying let actions speak, but make sure the actions don't substitute for the words.
Make sure you say it, and if you'll make sure you'll say it, you'll get better at it. You'll get the practice; you'll learn to put more feelings in it; you'll learn to say it well, say it better. And this whole process of communication, for you, if you don't treat any of it casually, will start to grow, and you will be even startled in the next few weeks, the next few months, at what happens as a result of your future conversations, if you become more aware of these things that we have just talked about—sensitivity, fascination, interest, working knowledge, having something good to say, saying it well, reading the effects you’re having, and the intensity of strong feelings.
Okay, our next subject under communication is how to make a presentation. Whether it's a presentation to a child, a presentation to a business client, or a sales presentation, or whatever kind of presentation—we're all making presentations all day long, every day—business, social, personal, whatever. I have four parts to the presentation for you to consider.
Here's the first one: identification. One of the most important parts of the presentation process is identification. Identification is for a new person that you haven't met before.
It's getting acquainted; it's breaking the ice; it's building a bridge between you and someone else; establishing contact, getting somebody's attention. So it's a very important part of the presentation process. Sometimes those first few seconds, sometimes that first minute, is just so important to establishing rapport, establishing contact.
Somebody once said, 'You never have a second chance to make a first impression,' so sometimes how those opening seconds go is very important. But that's identification—getting acquainted. Some people find this easy; some people find it more difficult.
What we're doing is, you know, pointing it out so that you can start working on it deliberately instead of haphazardly or instead of just letting it go, wondering why things aren't going well. We just pick it as a part of the presentation so you can go to work on it. Identification—in identifying with someone, one of the best ways is to pick something you have in common to get the conversation started.
Somebody mentioned during the break that they attended this leadership seminar up at the ranch—what, you were up there three, four years ago? And everybody got acquainted up there real easy. The reason is because when you met somebody new, you would say, 'Hi, how are you?
Did you get as lost as I did trying to find this place? ' And just everybody says, 'Yeah, I got lost too,' and that immediately starts this, you know, little more friendly process of getting acquainted, simply because you had a recent experience that you could talk about. So identification is trying to find something you have in common with someone else.
You want something that makes you real, something that makes you a person that someone would desire to talk to. In the identification process, we use this little mental phrase: we want somebody to say, 'Me too. ' You say, 'Well, here's what happened to me,' and somebody says, 'Well, me too.
I got lost. ' They say, 'Well, me too. Here's how I felt.
' Someone says, 'I understand how that feels. ' 'Me too. ' Here's a reaction you don't want: the reaction called, 'So what?
' Now, usually one of the problems in people's trying to identify is they try to impress versus express. Mr Scha gave me a little counsel on this: don't try to impress, he said; rather learn to express. Expressing will get you more 'me toos'; impressing will get you more 'so whats.
' See, so 'Huts' puts up the barrier instead of building a bridge; it blocks this flow of communication. Usually when we introduce somebody, the introduction is usually full of 'so whats. ' One of the biggest challenges I have in doing seminars is to overcome my introduction.
Usually, an introduction, you know, you have to give your list of credits. But when somebody gets through with the 'he's president of this and vice president of this, and he's got several companies, corporations—does business around the world,' those are pretty well 'so what. ' And I guess we, you know, consider it sort of standard—the 'so what.
' So one of the first things I do when I come up on the platform—and you know I get the polite applause, and I understand it's polite applause, it's just part of the routine, right, that we go through. If you take that seriously, you're in trouble, right? But, you know, you get the polite applause.
So I walk up after all these credits, right, and I can tell the people are, you know. . .
" Saying, "You know, you know who this guy is, and is he really all he’s cracked up to be? " right? You can just feel all this going on in the audience, so I usually try to just, you know, break that down as quickly as I can by saying something like, “Uh, I appreciate the warm welcome.
Did you hear what the cow said to the farmer on a cold winter morning? ” right? “Thanks for the warm hand!
” right? And it goes over about like it did here, right? I mean, it just sort of, you know, hangs out there.
And that's to kind of let people know that, you know, we're not interested in the chairman title or the president's title. We're here to just, you know, talk person to person. Part of that is just an attempt to identify, to let everybody know you're not up there to talk down at them.
You're not there to try to impress them with your success or anything else. We're there to really share ideas, but that's always a challenge. Every person and every audience is a brand new challenge.
Every time you talk with somebody, it's a brand new challenge to identify. Now, here's what you must do with someone who you already know: re-identify. You don't get this identification process once when you get to know somebody, and then it’s forever over.
You must constantly re-identify. No matter how long you've known somebody, they still want to know how, what are you feeling, what's going on with you, and what are you thinking. Right?
Everybody wants to know that, even if we've been around somebody for a long time. When you meet somebody, that's why we use the expressions if we've known somebody for years. If we see them again, we say, “How are you?
” and “How are you doing? ” That's to get this thing going, this identification process going between us and someone else. Now, in the identification process, make sure if you tell little stories about yourself in identifying, make sure that they're accurate stories.
Part of my identification I sprinkle throughout the whole evening seminar is my little story about meeting the little Girl Scout selling me Girl Scout cookies, right? That's just a little story to try to keep identifying with my audience to keep them on my side, right? That’s an identification story, right?
She gives me this unique presentation, asks me if I want to buy, and I wanted to, but I didn’t have $2. Now, see, I can hear everybody out in the audience say, “I know what that's like! I've been caught without any money.
I know how embarrassing that is. ” See, that's an identification story. Somebody says, “I know how that feels,” and I say, “To this day, I can remember the pain.
” Somebody says, “I’ve had some of that pain too. I know what that's like. ” All of that is identification.
So you have to re-identify if you're talking with somebody over any length of time. You just re-identify, little stories, things that have happened to you. So, go back over your life and pick out the things that will identify with people.
Now you've got the challenge of also identifying with a variety of people from different backgrounds and different businesses than your own. And you just learn to do that with different age groups. Part of it is just being more aware of what's going on in the world so that you can just intelligently talk about some things with people from almost any walk of life.
Okay, Jesus, the master teacher, was probably one of the great identifiers of all time. He had this incredible knack of talking to somebody with language that they understood. One day he said to those around him, “Today I'm going to teach you how to fish.
” Guess who he was talking to? A bunch of fishermen. He said, “Gentlemen, today we're going to have some lessons on how to fish.
Only I don't want to teach you how to fish for fish, 'cause you already know how to do that. What I want to do is teach you how to fish for people. ” Now, see, he couldn't have chosen a better identification.
He didn't say, “I'm going to teach you how to recruit. ” I mean, what do they know from recruiting? No, no.
He said, “I'm going to teach you how to fish. ” Now when you're talking to fishermen, that's clever, right? You don't say “recruit” when you're talking to fishermen; you say “fish.
” See, that's incredible. You just learn when you talk fisherman talk, little fish talk, right? If you talk to lawyers, just talk a little lawyer talk.
I mean, you just learn how. Right? Go sit in the courtroom and learn a little lawyer talk if you're going to talk to lawyers, or get in trouble and go to court, right?
And sit on the witness stand and whatever, just so that you can learn to identify. I've been through it, and I know it. Analyze who you're talking to and see if you can't pick out certain ways to identify.
Now, of course, there are some stories that are common to us all, and sometimes it doesn't take much of a story to identify. Here's a good one: how to identify with kids. Let me give you some keys.
First, read all their books. One of the best ways to identify with kids is to read all their books. If you've got a 12-year-old, just read all their books so that you know them forwards and backwards, so you can use those books as a means of identification in stories.
Say, “Remember that story when. . .
” When the kid says, “Did you read that book? ” I say, “I read them all. I know all those stories, and remember when.
. . ” You can use.
. . A thousand illustrations from those books that you've read to get a point across, to get something across.
It's a means of identification. Read their books, then when you get ready to talk, you've got something in common: they've read the book, you've read the book, and it's loaded probably with illustrations, points, ideas, and human life stories of disappointment, success, and failure. All of that, the way to identify is to find out what someone else is interested in.
Find out who they are, how old they are, what they do, what's going on, and see if in your reservoir of experience and awareness you can't find something that will identify and cause this person to say, "Me too! I understand that," and you've got them coming your way. Then also, a way to identify with kids is to remember when you were a kid.
See, I don't have any problem talking to 12-year-olds, 'cause I remember every day about being 12. I remember all those experiences in detail: the highs, the lows, the exciting times, the desperate times when I thought the world was coming to an end and when I was riding on top. I remember all those feelings at 12.
Did you ever get chosen last? Did that ever happen to you? They're choosing up sides, right?
"I'll take you, I'll take you, I'll take you, I'll take you," and you're sitting there like, [laughter]. See, all you’ve got to do is go back over, search around in your life. You can find a thousand ways to identify with all kinds of people from your own life experiences.
Okay? You don't have to go anywhere else except to your own life to come up with all kinds of ways to identify with anybody. But here's what you've got to do: you've got to do it consciously, consciously, deliberately.
What can I pick? What can I think of that will help this conversation, that will get my idea across? Who am I talking to?
Oh yes, here's what I'll use. Write in your mind just like a computer, and start picking up all these things. This is why it's so important to keep a journal.
When you think of a life experience and say, "Oh, I could use that life experience in a variety of ways," you put that life experience in your journal. You go over it, you think about it. Then, when you get ready to talk, it's instant recall.
You'll remember it, and you can't believe what you can do with people from all walks of life—business, social, personal. If you will learn the identification process, do it deliberately. Pick out things that you have in common, feelings you have in common with everybody.
Okay, identification—and then pick up stories from all kinds of life situations that are similar to yours. If somebody had a feeling of disappointment, you say, "I know what that's like," but I'm going to use that story to illustrate disappointment. Just be aware of the movies you attend, the books you read, and the stories you hear.
Be a gatherer of life's experiences so that you can use them all for points of reference and points of identification. When a teenager watches the movie Gone With the Wind, they see one kind of movie. When you're in your 20s and 30s and you see Gone With the Wind, you see a different kind of movie.
Right? When you get along into your 40s and 50s, sure enough, it's a different kind of movie, 'cause now you're reading between the lines. Now, you're sensing what the real tragedy was, what the complications of life were.
It’s altogether different at 40 than it is at 14. Same movie, only now you're seeing it, you're picking up all the different parts of the story and the feelings of the story. It's getting to you, but that's part of the identification process.
Just be more aware of what you see and what you read and what's happening to you so that you say, "Oh, there's something I could use! There's something I could use! I’ll use that the next time I talk to people like this.
I'll tell them this, I'll tell them this, I'll use this story. " That's part of the identification process: building this bridge.
