How Five Simple Words Can Get You What You Want | Janine Driver | TEDxHardingU

[Music] want to see something cool yeah in my right hand I am holding a tiny little paper ketchup cup this tiny little paper ketchup top cup what most people don't know is that less than 1% of these ketchup cups ever reach their full potential and that is a made-up statistic to get your attention in all seriousness these little tiny paper ketchup cups when you go to get them how many do you have to fill up with ketchup so like one or two I'm adding this is a participation part of the program 3/5 a trayful what

most people don't know is that there's little folds in this patriot paper ketchup cup that if you pop it open can turn to three times its size we're in your life do you have untapped potential that's hiding in plain sight maybe it's not hiding at all maybe you you know your own potential it's just you didn't do anything about it because you don't want to challenge the status quo or maybe because you just want to you know be like everybody else or because you you know you thought you were doing the right thing at that

time and you didn't speak up and now your car payment is more expected expensive than you thought it was gonna be because you didn't try to pull it the folds that are right in front of you or maybe because you just didn't know what to say you ever have one of those moments where you're like I feel like I could have gotten what I wanted it if I just knew what to say you ever had those moments we're gonna flip that script today there are three words to getting what you want I teach these words

to people around the world and I'm going to share them with you today so you can start getting what you want those three words are decided those ly words you know the ly words typically usually normally ordinarily so the ly words and the last one is the most powerful ly persuasive word which is the word because and we're to explore these three words and help us remember them I've created a little cheeky expression for us it's decidedly because changes what was decided ly because changes what was these three words decided the ly words and because

can change everything for us if we know when to listen for them and what to do once we hear them now I'm going to share with you a couple stories and we're going to have an interactive exercises we're gonna do our own little studies here we're gonna see how do these words show up in our lives and how come we're missing them these paper folded cups in our lives and we're not hearing them what's happening to us and what do we do in those moments I'm the oldest of three children I have two younger sisters

my husband is the oldest of three children he has a younger brother and a younger sister when my husband and I got married we all thought both of us and our families that we would end up with three kids that was our dream right out of the gate right so we come from family of three we're gonna have three after we gave birth to Angus we realized how wrong our dream was it wasn't going to happen we struggled with infertility for seven years and I'm not alone statistics show according to CDC it's about eight million

women are struggling with fertility and carrying the baby for me I had three miscarriages one of the miscarriages happened in a room similar to this on a stage speaking in front of 1482 people well on the stage and I remember where I guess we're not going to give birth to more kids so I remember thinking that dream is is over and then I discovered something called an egg donor I never have heard of such a thing and what it is is it's an anonymous egg donor a woman who donates her eggs and we can get

them and match them up with my husband's DNA and then I carry the babies could this be could this work for us is this is this the path that we're going to take we weren't sure so we we're all excited we got the money together it's pretty expensive you know we had to borrow some money from my parents and and we go into the nurse and we see the fertility nurse and we say okay here's our plan and had you been with us she would have heard her say the doctor decided based on us using

an egg donor this would be the protocol and she showed up with this macdaddy giant needle like this looks like something you'd use in the Olympics like to do a pole vault or something it was like this and I mean literally I had already done in vitro with little teeny like diabetic size needles but this monster are you gonna be kidding me and I saw it yeah have you ever had an experience where you did one of these facial expressions you went like this yeah you just hold your breath and your cheeks puff out that's

what happened here and I looked at her and had you been with me you would have heard me say I what's up with that what's up with that needle right there she's oh you're gonna need to take this twice a day for the month before getting pregnant and every day during your first trimester I burst out crying I knew immediately our dream once again was squished we will not be carrying more kids and the reason I knew that had nothing to do with the needle or the fact that I needed to take two of them

at a hundred and sixty days of my life but I had to take them at exact times during the day now let me back up I'm retired from federal law enforcement I worked for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms for 17 years my dad said I turn my hobbies into a career drinking smoking and shooting I don't do any of those things anymore and I worked for ATF for 17 years I wrote my specialty was firearms trafficking analytic interviewing and I later did created courses on leadership and I wrote a couple books they did

really well translate into different languages and I'm telling you this because this means as a consultant today I go out and consult with companies on how to find the untapped potential hidden in the folds of their employees how can you find that untapped potential that's right there in front of us I fly over a hundred trips a year that's over 250 flights all I could imagine is this like macdaddy needle like I'm in line in England going through security and I'm like oh it's two three five let me pull my pants down and put a

giant needle in my butt or in my thigh I was devastated until I took a second and I rewound what she said to me what she said to me was the doctor decided decided does not mean executed on decided means there's another way decided is our first of our three words decidedly because changes what was decided is our first word decided ly because changes what was she said we decided she just gave me a little paper ketchup cup that's to an experiment we're all going grocery shopping together and we get twelve items at the grocery

store and we put them on the conveyor belt but I decide to put one thing back they're very expensive facial lotion it's just ridiculously overpriced so we have twelve things I decide to put one back how many do we buy many of you will think in your heads eleven and I hear some people shouting out eleven right you're like well Janine you said there were twelve you put one back so 12 minus one is 11 I didn't say I put one back though I said I decided to put one back when someone says the word

decided it does not mean it's executed on I could say I decided to put it back and then change my mind and decided to buy it again last minute now maybe you're like my husband and you're like all right this is ridiculous you're like playing with semantics here in the words if you decide to do something Jeannine it means you do it if you decided not to buy it then you wouldn't buy it so let's do another experiment here we go how many of you I want you to raise your hands how many of you

have ever made a new year's resolution to do anything like you made a new the earth resolution you decided to quit smoking you decided to lose weight you decided to become a vegan you decided to ask this was the year you're asking for a raise you decided to have more kids you decided to get married you decided to come out of whatever it is how many of you have ever made a New Year's resolution ever in your life raise your hand keep your hands up now I want you to put your hand down if you

did not execute on that decision in the time you expect it to execute on it what happened I thought you decided on doing it life happened that's what happened right you decided to do it it sounded good in the moment everyone else was deciding stuff and then life happened decided does not mean we've executed on it there there was a study done at Scranton University and what they discovered is that anyone who decides to do something on as a New Year's resolution only 8% of us actually meet that that decision that we made only 8%

of us let's go back to the grocery store where does this word decided live what I found out is working with corporations across the globe is they would always ask me way beyond how do I find and untap in to this hidden potential they would ask me about motivations they would say things like well how is my client or my patients or my my employees you know how are they motivated to spend their time and energy with decision making and decision making kept being brought up a lot and motivation so I did what anyone would

do in this situation I googled to see if I could find out the answer and I found a program at Columbia College in Chicago and it was a decision-making program that linked body movement to how we make decisions and I took this year-long certification program and now I'm what's called the decision profiler and when I learned is while we drastically make decisions differently what we all have in common is we all go through the same three stages of decision-making so let's go back to the grocery store I'm gonna show you these three stages of decision-making

all of us go through this so the first stage is research this is when you're in the grocery store you're looking around and you're trying to just get the lay of the land so you're either investigating you're looking at the labels or you're exploring and you're seeing what's down here versus what's down here this stage of decision-making is called research that yellow box in the orange box this is where we do reasoning this is I'm gonna take the wheat bread now I'm going to take the I'm going to get the Italian bread No let's get

the organic milk well let's not get milk let's let's get um almond milk instead this is where you reason this is where we stand our ground this is where determining lives and evaluating lives here what's important to me what am I willing to take a stand for what are my priorities the Y lives in this orange box of reasoning the last step is the result the the blue box this is where you buy the groceries and you literally are walking out of the grocery store it is the result the decision has been made well the

yellow box and the blue box are interesting what we're going to be talking about today is that orange box reasoning all three of our words live in reasoning they're roommates with one another decidedly because changes what was I decided that I would never use drugs if you're an HR person or or if you're a recruiter and you asked a potential employee have you ever done drugs and they say I decided in high school I'd never do drugs please don't write down state it they never did drugs just because someone decided to do it doesn't mean

he wasn't snorting cocaine in the car to get a little boost of energy for the for the big interview what about if you ask your boss for a raise and your boss says hey listen after we looked at our budget you know we decided we're just not gonna be able to give you a raise this year you know what that is that's a paper ketchup cup right there your boss just told you if you fight for it you can get it and the last thing you want to do is find out that everybody else that

has your same position did fight for it and they got it and you didn't here's my rule of thumb before whether it's decided or whether it's these ly words we're gonna go into a second I say this I believe that God created Earth and how many days seven days right so God creates earth right and I think at the end of him creating earth he does one of these not bad not bad so for me what I say is at the end of seven days from me on that seventh day as it's ending I say

to myself am I gonna clap my hands and say not bad or am I gonna say I wish I had opened up that opportunity I wish I had pushed the boundaries just a little bit more just a little bit more decided ly because changes what was let's look at the ly words now let's look at the ly words back at the grocery store here we have two chunks of me picture a and picture B picture a says 100% natural grass fed and grass finished organic meat picture B says typically 100% natural grass fed and organic

meat which meat do you buy if you buy meat right how many people buy a let me see your hands honey people buy B B would be weird fry it would you see this in a store maybe you'll like my friend - Paul from Seattle who said dude you gotta give a different example you would never see typically organic meat on a label it's illegal you need a different example like a Paul that's my point buddy my point is if you saw this in a grocery store you would think this is ridiculous right give it

like what would is it's either organic or it's not but yet when we hear things like this how come we don't stop and say wait a minute that's ridiculous typically we don't hire people from the outside normally we don't ago she ate salary to that extent usually promotions don't happen until your 18th month into the role so we hear all these ly words we're like oh okay I can't apply for a promotion right now oh okay I can't ask for a raise or a parking spot if you see here these ly words that's a paper

cup all you need to do is pull at the boundaries a little bit to get what you want I want you to imagine the word decided in these ly words normally usually typically basically I want you to imagine them like this have you ever had a visitor unexpected coming to your house though they're fun right your how your living room is a disaster at your dorm room is a mess and you have a surprise visitor that just shows up and you take all the crap in your living room and you throw it in that closet

and your front-hall as fast as you possibly can and the door begins to open and you shut your closet door but it only 98% closes because there's a golf umbrella sticking out or a shirt or sneaker so it's 2% open right now in your dormitories or at your house you have a closet you're someone in your house that leaves it like this all the time it's 98 percent closed two percent open there's always something sticking out that's what these ly words and decided are they're just little teeny folds like in the paper ketchup cup here

it's not gonna be easy to open it up you have a 2% chance of opening it up but for me my rule is at the end of 7 days am I going to clap my hands and say I did a good job today my next question I asked myself before I push that closet door open is if I don't fight for what I want right now is this gonna affect someone else in my life so if I'm asking for a raises that could affects my husband if I'm asking for more money for my employees or

more benefits is that going to affect my team is that gonna affect a morale if it's gonna affect someone other than me then I'm more apt to try to pull at those boundaries and push that closet door open to get what I want this is a guy named Bradley brad owns a company in Las Vegas he does virtual training it's called Lightspeed he has a online video blog and I asked him can i play this clip from your blog to show the audience here at Harding Harding University and he said yes so I wanna thank

Brad for allowing me to play this this is a real-life negotiation this is legit guys so you're gonna see Brad who's the owner slash salesperson and you're gonna hear from a woman who's a potential client and customer of Brad's and she's gonna say hey how does this work do I have to buy the system and then you give me ideas or can you give me ideas and then I buy the system tell me what you hear so we'll we go over how we're gonna set this up before I sign or no you have to sign

first and then go over it to get a group of people in here to start work usually you have to sign it what did he say that's that paper cup I want you to imagine anytime you hear these ly words wait a minute that's weird I want you to look at the person right next to you or behind you and here's our experiment I want you to say how many kids you have if you don't have any kids I want you to say you don't have any kids but I want you to put an L

Y word in front of it so I want you to it's gonna sound like this I typically have three children I normally have no children so go ahead say to the person next to you with an L Y word does that not leave you confused hey normally I'm the mother of three what but you're your next thing is what to ask a question are you a blended family are you divorced did you lose a child are you thinking of adopting it creates that uncertainty when you hear ly or decided I want that alarm to go

off as if someone is saying normally I don't have children I want that alarm to go off to say there's more to the story here decidedly because changes what was let's get to because see these first two words decided in the ly words or what I call wiggle words they are the paper cup right here decided is the effort it takes to get the paper cup to open up soda sword because I mean not decided the word because is the the little tool that opens up the ketchup cup because because it's the most influential word

in the English language here's how it works when we use the word because it ends up in this stage of reasoning because is the roommate two decided in the ly words they're all best friends they're besties you have a because friend in your life how many of you have a friend or someone in your life that can get you to do something you don't want to do right you know who I'm talking about you have someone in your life they can get you to do something you don't wanna I see some of you pointing to

the person next to you three nights ago was my 30th highschool reunion and I know about this for six months the invitation was online my friend Carrie Chasen she's my becoz friend she's like due to you come into the high school reunion I'm like no no I'm not coming I didn't even like high school it's not happening so right she's relentless she sees that closet door 98% closed two percent open and she's constantly relentless she wants to open up that ketchup cup constantly so guess what email Facebook private message two weeks ago I get a

handwritten card I'm from Boston originally I live in the DC area now yeah I don't even know how she got my home address she sent me a handwritten card and it's like dear Janeane these are other things I admire at you a mire about you this is why I want you to come to the high school reunion because enlists a bunch of stuff she called me up did you get my card I'm like yeah she does your comment I go now still not coming guess what happened two days before the union it's lighting up my

phone like a Christmas tree right I'm getting text messages private messages on facebook non-stop from Carrie chasin chicas you know we only live once your mom died of breast cancer at 66 and you know this is our 30th you're not gonna be back until your till we're 40th next we only need you for you know just this one time it's 10 more years you know your mother loved party like she's like guilting me and you know what I did I bought a $600 ticket when I could have bought it six months earlier for 200 bucks

and I went to my high school reunion and I had a ball because Elda Carrie Chasen's in our life these are those people that pushed the door open they see that opportunity and they were lent less you have kids like this you have several kids you know the kid hey can we go get ice cream now it's freezing outside you don't need ice cream it's March it's ridiculous can we go get ice cream mom no it's absolutely insane it's ice cold outside snow in the ground then that one kid you know which one comes to

you can we go get ice cream you like fine let's go everybody thinks saw the other kids think that's the favorite that's not the favorite that's the irritating one that's the irritating one that's gonna ask non-stop until they get their way until they open up that ketchup cup right you know what I'm talking about that's the word decided that's the word decided decidedly because I'll end up in reasoning decidedly because changes what was I have what's called the becoz challenge I have my clients anytime you hear decided or the ly words to use it because

and I got an email from one of my clients that said Janine here's what happened they're an HR processing company and the client had to choose their health insurance plans so they called and said hey okay for your insurance plan what would you like and he said oh we decided we're gonna wait till next month to pick our plans she heard what decided and then he said because typically we don't even talk about it in house for another month anyway she heard what the ly word typically so guess what she did the because challenge she

said listen Mike because you had a fire this year and because this created uncertainty with your employees because you're in temporary office space don't you think it might be a good idea to consider picking your plans sooner than later because when you do it'll create certainty and your employees will know it's business as usual no Mike said what a great idea I didn't even think of that seven minute phone call seven minute phone call she used because to get what they want what she wanted I teach this to law enforcement to CIA operatives I teach

this across the globe if you use these words you can get what you want this is my favorite ketchup cup story allow me to introduce you to my three sons and my husband this is my husband Leif my oldest son Angus and our two little ones our baby's Charlie and Jack see when the nurse said decided the doctor decided I said to her well you know what because I travel on all these planes all the time this isn't an option for me is there another option she said yeah this hormone pills and I said well

how do they work and she's well typically you have to be 35 years or younger Janine to be able to take the pills and I said wouldn't you agree I'm not a typical patient she said yes and I go because I'm not a typical patient and because I travel so much and because I have the money right now to pay for this other way would you be willing to ask the doctor if he'd make an exception and she said I'll give it my best and she walked out and lo and behold I got to open

up my ketchup cup to three times the amount so I have three sons now my dream has come true so let me ask you this when we meet again and I hope that we do what will be your favorite ketchup Cup story my name is Janine thanks for playing with me thank you [Music]