Transcription
I'm gonna give you four tactics to help you take a minute, buy some time, simmer down, and get a grip. Okay?
So, number one, this flashcard and tactic goes like this: for you to take a moment. No matter what happens, we all need a moment. You can be the most skilled communicator of them all, but there will be times where, for whatever reason, you're not ready to respond at that moment. But we want to be seen as these unstoppable communicators. You know, if I'm a powerful communicator, that must also equate to, I'm an unstoppable communicator. I can respond to anything, anyone, at any time, anywhere. And that can be true, but sometimes the response that you need to give is, "I need a minute."
Okay, I'm not ready to respond yet. The way we can say that in a savvy way is like this: "Let me take a moment to process this and decide how I feel about it before I respond." All right? And then take as much time as you need. Or, "I'm going to need a few minutes to process this and really decide what I think about it before I respond." Okay? So, depending on whether you're more of a feeler or a thinker, maybe both, when you need a few minutes, when you need some time, tell people that. And if they challenge you, use the broken record. That's the end of the story.
If you forget who you are, if you feel emotions running high, and you can hear that voice saying, "Don't do it, don't say it, Dan, you promised me that you would take a moment in time before you speak, before you respond." You know, there is a moment between event and response. During that moment is when your destiny is created. That's when your turning points occur. In retrospect, we realize that was a turning point for me, and that's really how our life is. The success or failures of our life are determined, you know, the trajectory of our life tends to be determined in those slivers of time between event and response where we don't even recognize them. But it's the person that we show up as that's going to determine how we decide in that moment. And it's the choices that we make, our ability to choose correctly, especially under pressure, that really determine the trajectory of our life. Wouldn't you agree with that?
Therefore, when I recognize if something whispers to me, "Wait a minute," I'm going to wait a minute because we have to learn to listen to that voice. It's always right. So if you have the presence of mind to recognize, "I need a minute before I respond to you," this is a delicate situation. Tell people, "I'm going to need a few minutes to process this before I decide how I feel about it." Or, "I'm going to need a few minutes or some time to process this before I decide what I really think of it and how to respond." And if somebody says, "Ah, come on, what do you think? You know, how, tell me what you think. Come on, come on," they egg you on. Broken record again: "I'm going to need a few minutes to process this before I decide how I feel about it. I'm going to need a few minutes to process this information before I decide what I think of it or before I respond to it." However is natural to you. Tell people, "I'm going to need a few minutes. I'm going to need some time to process this information before I respond to it, before I decide what I think of it, before I decide how I feel about this." Remember to say that. That is your right as a savvy communicator to say, "I'm pulling the time card. I'm pulling that whenever I need to. I'm pulling it out and saying, 'Time out. I'm putting this on pause because I need some time to process this.'" Maybe you process things in a different time frame. That wouldn't be better or worse. Everyone has his or her own time frame that we need or we want to process things. Never apologize or feel bad or get embarrassed about telling people that you might have a different time frame from theirs.
It's like, I'm a child of the 80s. In the 80s, that's when answering machines came about. And I remember, I hated it, but it was way better than cell phones. People would leave us messages, and what did every answering machine say? We would say, "Hey, leave a message at the tone, and I'll get back to you when I can, as soon as I can." That did not mean the moment I get home. Now, communication has evolved to somebody sends us a text message or a WhatsApp or, you know, something, and they expect a response like that, or they get upset about it. Well, I'm letting you know, this is not on your time frame. I'm a child of the 80s. Doesn't matter what decade you're from, you have the right to communicate on your terms, in your time. So tell people that. If you need some time, "I need time." If they challenge it, again, "I need some time." They challenge it again, again, "I'm going to need some time to decide how I feel about this, to process this information before I respond." Period. That's the end of the story. So remember that one.
Okay, number two. That's, that's how you take a moment. Number two, you may have the wherewithal, the presence of mind to know that you're in the state to respond to something that somebody says, but you might just need another moment to recall exactly what the words are. Use a stall tactic. You know, buy some time using something such as the "feel, felt, found." The "feel, felt, found" is a tactic that's a duct tape tactic, meaning you can use it in a variety of different circumstances. This duct tape tactic sounds like this: "Well, I can appreciate why you might feel that way. Some others have felt the same way in the past. Maybe I have felt that way. However, what I have found is..." When you say just the words, you know, "I can appreciate why you might feel that way, and maybe some others here have felt the same way in the past. However, what I have found is..." Or the "think, thought, believe": "I could understand why you might think that. Some others maybe have thought the same way in the past. However, I believe..." Or the, the "seesaw, seen": "I understand why you may see it that way. I'm sure some others here have seen it the same way in the past. However, I have not seen this work for me and do not think it will work for anyone here. Let me tell you why."
All I'm doing while I'm saying the whole is, I'm trying to recall what is a good response. What had I a response for this? What is it? But I've practiced saying that "feel, felt, found," "seesaw, scene," "think, not believe" so many times that it's like an ice skater, you know? They're thinking about that big triple axel that they're about to do while they're doing the easy moves, you know? They're going around, flipping, you know, their skate, and they're getting, they're getting their momentum going. When they're getting their momentum going, they're thinking about the big trick to come. That's what a stall tactic does. It helps us go, blah, blah, blah. And you'll see it in this upcoming political season that'll be on television where you'll hear the politicians, who are asked a question, they know they have a talking point that they're supposed to use, but they'll be asked a question about, you know, the economy. You know, "Do you think we should give everybody a minimum salary?" And they'll say things like, "Well, I know that my opponent thinks that that would be a good strategy for this country, and I'm sure many of the viewers who are watching this at home tonight might have thought that in the past as well. However, after I ran the numbers and did the research, I do not feel that that would be a good solution for our country, and let me tell you why." And the whole time, what they're doing is they're thinking, they're going through their notes, they're going, "What is it supposed to say?" Then they bought themselves enough time to remember. They say it. So remember the "feel, felt, found." It's a great stall tactic if you have overcome some challenges, you know, you're pretty confident, you just need a moment in time.
Okay, remember, by the way, if you start to get heated, you start to feel your face getting flushed, what, what is the most common thing that people say to themselves when they feel like they're going to cry but they want to keep emotions in check and not cry? What do they start to say to themselves? Yeah, the average person will say, "I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry." And then what happens? Yeah, they'll cry. That's because the more they research brains, and the more they develop computers, the more they realize, gosh, the two of them work in a very similar fashion. The brain and the computer work very much the same way. And if you know anything about computer programming, you know that there's a language to computer programming, and there's an expression, "Garbage in, garbage out." If you do not write the code in just the right way, just the right language, a computer processor does not know how to process it, and it spits it back out at you and says, "I don't know what you're trying to do with this, but here you go. Garbage out."
The same thing goes on in our brain, and they have found that there's this very specific syntax that we must use, you know, a specific word structure and order that we must use for our brain to be able to process information efficiently. So if we say to our brain, if we send our brain an instruction and don't use the right syntax, it's garbage in, and then we get garbage out. You know, like if we tell ourselves, "I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry." Our brain doesn't know what to do with that because a coping statement, a properly formed coping statement, has these two components: it is positively phrased, and in the present. Not positive in the sense of, oh, rainbows and butterflies, people like me. Positive in the sense of, this is what is, not what isn't. And in the present means right now, not in the future or in the past. Therefore, if I say to myself, "I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry," my brain is like, "I know what you're saying, Dan."
So with that in mind, let's say that you were in a situation where you feel the blood start to boil up, and you are getting angry. You don't want to get angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. And so you start to say to yourself something to keep emotions in check, quick. What would you say? Okay, now if you said something like, "Okay, I'm not going to get angry," you get the gong, unfortunately. Because remember, in the present, positive. Instead of, "I'm not going to get angry," or "I'm not going to explode," or "I'm not going to let them get to me," that's all in the future, and most of it's negative. Instead, "I am cool, calm, and collected. I am in control. I am calm. I am in charge of this relationship. I am whatever it is. I am at peace. I'm in control." And although you can't throw your emotions out the window, and I know that, remember that it's like the diseases that they're finding solutions for these days. They have maybe one little thing that has some effect, but they have found that when they combine different drugs, different solutions together, they have enormous effect when working together and can keep people alive and healthy when they would have perished 10, 15 years ago. Use things in combination, and little by little, by little, you add these tactics together, and you will be able to achieve your goal much more quickly and easily than you ever thought possible, especially when you use the tactic used by the Navy SEALs.
This one I love. I always thought that breathing exercises were for hippies, and I have no problem with hippies. Some of my brothers' best friends are hippies, but I always thought that things like breathing, hmm, I just, it was like, what? Until the Navy SEALs revealed that that's what they trained their soldiers to do in these stressful situations. I thought, okay, I'll take another look at that. Because they have these young soldiers, you know, men and women who are just babies, in the most stressful of all situations that you could possibly imagine in life, you know, life or death. They need to be able to think clearly under pressure. And what they found are all these scientific things. Maybe you know about this. I recently came into the know where when you breathe a certain way, it affects the alkaline, the pH in your body. It starts to release hormones that help you calm down. There are different parts of our lungs where when we breathe, for example, from the top part, that is our panic sensory area. And so when we are breathing at the top, our body starts to react as if we are panicking and wants to help us out of the situation. When we are breathing from the diaphragm, it starts to calm us because we have calming receptors there. Even just that one breath that I just took. See, I have to tell you, Trish, I'm really stressed about this video. I've done it 100 times. I want to get it done for everybody that needs it. When I breathe from my diaphragm, it helps me calm down.
I care. But to properly breathe in a stressful situation changes dramatically and quickly your body chemistry and the drugs that your brain is releasing to help you get through the situation. Box breathing is the one tactic that I have found to be the most effective of them all. It's effective, it's easy to remember, and it's a manly tactic. It goes like this: with your finger, if you drew a box, which I do when I do this exercise, I will draw a box on the desk, on the desk, or I will draw a box on the palm of my other hand. And with each line, it's either a breath or a pause to the count of four. So what you would do is, now this is if you have a moment, you know, to remove yourself from the situation. Because remember, motion affects emotion more than anything else. Motion and emotion are tied. So if I want to break a pattern of how I tend to react to people, what I tend to say, the quickest way to do it, all studies show, is if I can recognize that pattern showing itself, to step out of it, to literally physically change the way I'm moving at the moment, because that's going to help me break the pattern.
So if I've been able to do that and step away in this moment in time, practice box breathing. You breathe in for four. Do this with me now. Breathe in. As, by the way, chest up, put your chest up, chin up, and breathe from your stomach. Okay? Deep breathing to the count of four. Hold it for four. Exhale for four. Hold it for four. And now you're back at the beginning. So that's the box breathing. Breathe in for four, hold it for four, exhale for four, hold it for four. And if you do that sitting up, using your stomach to pull in the air and push out the air through your nose, if you can do that, all you need are maybe five of those. If you do 10, you will be, if it's your first time, be seated because you don't want to pass out. And you might, you will be in a totally different chemical state that will help you remember who you are, remember your words, remember your tactics, and choose differently because that is the challenge of life, to choose. And so often these days, we are so distracted by the challenges that we have, how could we possibly choose where we are going to go or what we're going to say when we don't even know who we are or why we're here or what we want to begin with?
So if you need a visual reminder, not only do these flashcards work wonders, by the way, detail them with your own hand. Once you print them out, you'll see in my flashcards, I draw little things on them because from a distance, number one, putting pen to paper and drawing things on there is going to connect the logical side of my brain, the information on the page with the creative side of my brain. I'm drawing little pictures. Then I can see them from a distance and give myself cues throughout the day. I don't need to remember. I don't, excuse me, I don't need to read. This is the spotlight question that you use to respond to snipers. I drew a big gun on there and a spotlight. When I look at that, I'm constantly visually reminded from a distance, when I can't even read it because I can't see without my glasses, what that is. And if I need to then say, "What is that again?" and look at it more closely, I can do that. But visual cues are key. Visual cues are key. Visual cues are key.
Taking cues from all successful organizations around the world. Remember when there's a fire in a building and you go to use the elevator, which most of us do because we lose our minds? There's a sign there that says, "Hey, although you know this, I'm going to tell you again, you can't use the elevator in an emergency." And it will also tell us, "Use the stairs. They're right over there." When we get onto an airplane, they tell us, "Hey, heads up. First thing they tell us is, in case of an emergency, here's what you do." And if an emergency does occur, in the unlikely event of an emergency, don't worry, we know you're going to forget everything we just said. That's why we have equipped these planes with things that glow in the dark and light up and blink and say, "Hey, here's what you're supposed to be doing now that it's an emergency." Because visual cues are key. So we've got you covered. Yet most of us are not using visual cues in our life, you know, to help us remember these tools.
I'm going to give you visual tools today. My mother, if you haven't been with me before, you might not know, my mother used to be a nun. My dad used to be a Christian Brother, then they got together and had me and my brother 10 months apart. And my mother, I remember, she's my first master teacher. One of my identities is, I am Dan O'Connor, the original Energy Vampire Slayer. And my mother was my first Energy Vampire Slayer trainer. She used to drill things into me the way only a nun can. I mean, that's why I tell you that she's a nun, you have to get the visual. I remember when I was a kid, she used to come home, you know, after a long day at the convent, and she'd take off her shoes, take off her habit, and she would tell me stories about the, basically, the priests that she was following around because that's why she joined the convent to begin with. She was in love with priests. She thought they were smart. And then she would ask me about my day and the difficult people that I would deal with. I used to deal with a bully called Stuart Stockmo, and Stuart Stockmo, you would, would test me every day. He was my master teacher. And she, being the good nun she was, would drill things into my head. She would use flashcards and go over them over and over and over again and say, "All right, the next time he says this, you say that. What are you gonna say? Say it again. Say it again. Say it. Say it." And she would make me say these things. I did not know that it was part of my slayer training. Thank you, Mom. Rest in peace. Someday.
And what I'm doing in this lesson is, I'm sharing those same tools because now, you know, 10 years later, I'm still using the same tools. Here's, here's a set of some flashcards that I'm using. I still have visual cues around me on my desk. Here they are. I'm going to share with you those tools, and I'm going to also share with you a new tool that I've never revealed anyplace else for everybody to use. At the end of this lesson, I'm going to give you a link that you can use to download all these materials. It's a big file. It's including audios, videos, flashcards, templates, examples of all of these tools. But the grand, the grand poobah of these tools that has never premiered before is this tool that Trish is your Slayer ID. I'm giving you a link that you can click on so that you can download, or you can go to a template, and all you have to do is fill in a few different blanks, and you can get your own Slayer ID and reveal to the world your identity as an Energy Vampire Slayer. All you have to do is go to Canva, and I'll provide you the link with this. And on here, you will have, you know, your official name, and then your slayer name, the day you started slaying, and your superpower, which we'll get into in a moment. It's easy to find out, by the way, what your slayer name is. You just think to yourself, you have to, you have to be very clear right now, if you're dealing with a difficult situation or when you deal with difficult situations, what would you rather be doing? What is, what, what is one of your favorite pastimes? If you could do anything at this moment, what would it be? What would you do for the rest of your life if you could do just one thing? Remember that. And then what animal do you have a particular affinity for? If you had to come back, you know, reincarnate as an animal, what animal do you think you should be, or you might even be underneath your exterior, what animal is that? Okay, now put those two things together. My slayer name, for example, is "He Who Sleeps With Dogs." I guess that's what I'd rather be doing and who I'd be doing it with. My mother, for example, I think, I think hers would be "She Who Criticizes Kittens." I just think that would be it. I don't know. She hasn't taken it yet. So if she ever does, then I would know what her real slayer name is, but that's what I think it would be.
Let me get right into the tools and tell you how to use them because the results that you will see are not going to be because of this lesson. The results that you are going to see are going to be because of the tools that you download and put into practice. So let's start off with your flashcards. Okay, the flashcards that I'm going to give you are going to be four things that can help you in that moment in time, Trish, and everybody, in that moment in time when you think, "Oh, I'm about to lose it. I'm about to forget my skills." If you have these flashcards around you, you should pick a flashcard and choose one a week that you think, "I'm going to master this one." Once I have it mastered and I can remember it automatically, like a soldier remembers how to put together his gun, take it apart, and put it back together, they practice that over and over again because when you need that skill, you can't stop and think about it. So they practice it. So you want to have this available in front of you as a visual cue. Remember, there's no way around this. Visual cues are key. That is how people do it. There's no other way. If you use them, you will not have this challenge anymore. If you don't use them, you will always have this challenge. So people, some people will think, "Well, I'll just have it in my mind, you know, my personal compass or whatever." I'll just think about it. There's a reason why they call spells, spells, instead of just wishes. You know, when somebody puts pen to paper and makes something physical, you can touch and feel it, and you wrote that with your hand, magical things start to happen. That's why they would call the things that basically were probably, if I had to think about it, goals that people were writing down, they called the people who wrote them down witches and wizards and burned them because they couldn't believe how quickly and easily the things that they were writing down came to pass. They must be spells, and they must be witches. Well, no, not all of them. Some of them are just writing things down because it comes to pass and solidifies things in a certain way. So do that. Okay, print these out, write things down. And I might want to keep my slayer card available as a visual cue to who I am.
At the bottom of my slayer card, at the bottom of my slayer identification, there's one thing that's huge, and it's my slayer superpower. My slayer superpower is I have the ability, the super ability, to say anything in a loving manner. I know I can do that. I don't always do it. You know, I miss the mark. You might only get the, you might have the opportunity to get it right, to reveal your greatness to the world, a hundred times a day. I might only get it right once, just once. But if I have visual cues around me to remind myself of who I am when life is trying to get me to forget, that's the lesson. I might remember one more time. That time might be when my mother calls. I mean, she went to the slayer school where she learned how to push my buttons. But have you ever seen the, you know, the training sessions for like, you know, ninjas or, uh, Wonder Woman? My mother, I think of as Wonder Woman, not me. But I frequently thought that she's like my trainer, you know, my ninja trainer, my Wonder Woman trainer, where she goes at me as hard as she can because that's love. That's what a loving person does when they want to prepare their children for difficult times to come so that she's not around, I'm prepared. So thank you, Princess Gina, "She Who Torments and Criticizes Kittens."
I have seen my mother and my father and many master teachers of mine deliver what would be seemingly the most horrid and destructive of messages in a loving way, and they taught me how to do that. I can deliver any message in a loving way. But my mother, being the master teacher she is, can get me to forget all of that with just one word. When she calls me up, and I all of a sudden start thinking crazy thoughts, if because I have these visual tools around, I choose kindness and patience and compassion with my mother. One time more tomorrow. You know, today I might have only chosen it once. Maybe I didn't choose it at all. I've missed every lesson. Well, I'll have the opportunity to repeat that lesson because that's how the universe is. So tomorrow, out of the hundred times that I have a chance to get it right, I might get it right twice. That might not seem like a big deal, but that second time, that was with my mother. Even one time, one more time that I can choose kindness and compassion and patience with my mother, or that you can choose it with your children, or your parents, or your husband, or your wife, it's worth it. Trust me when I tell you, it's worth it. All the time that you've spent watching this video, and I'm, I'm not finished. The more tools that I give you, it's worth it.
The last two tools I'm going to give you because Trish, I told you I was going to load it on. I'm going to load it on. These two tools I have facing me all day long. This tool is my personal compass to serve as a personal, as excuse me, a constant visual reminder of who I am, why I'm here, and what I want. I've provided you with this as an example and a template that you can fill out for your own, along with videos and audios to help you construct one if you've never done it. You need to have one. You can immediately tell when somebody does have one. And I also have a personal reminder to myself that's sitting there all day long saying, "Hey, before you say anything, there comes a time where we want to tell our future selves, 'Hey, I know you're going to be drugged. I know you, I know that you're going to be out of your mind. I know you. Remember what I'm telling you. Wait a minute before you respond.'" That's what this is saying. I wrote and I said, "Hey Dan, hey Dan, you asked me to remind you when emotions run high to get up out of that seat and change your environment and go water your beautiful garden or play with your beautiful dogs for a couple of minutes. Change your physical environment. Remember who you are, while you're here, what you want."
Go through the disengaging process, which is a very specific scientific process. I'm going to recognize and acknowledge what my role is in what is going on here because if I do not recognize my role in creating the situation that has been presented to me, no matter how bizarre or far-fetched or seemingly detached it may be for me, if it's been presented to me and it's part of my experience, it's because I created it in a way. The more I can claim responsibility, the more I can claim power. If I can claim no responsibility for this, it's just you, it's just them, I'm a victim here, then what chance do I have of resolving the situation if I'm powerless in it? So I have to recognize that, and I have to recognize what your role is, and what my options are, and I have to remember any tools that can help me more effectively. If I believe this is three magic questions, this needs to be said. Does it? That I'm the one who needs to say it? Am I? And it needs to be said right now? Does it? If those three things equate to yes, I have to say this right now. If one of those is a no, I don't have to say this. This does not need to be said, or it doesn't need to be said right now. I'm going to wait. Those are three magic questions that can save you. I mean, if you only had these, you know, when we were young, we would have saved ourselves a lot of time. It's difficult to remember these. That's why you have them in visual cues in front of you.
And I have, "Remember your slayer power. Remember the tactics that have been created to help you say these things, not just off the top of your head." If something has been presented to you as a challenge, it's because you need to work through it, and you shouldn't wing it. These are not skills that you have been born with. They don't call them communication talents, they call them communication skills because we develop them. We don't just dream them up in the moment. Wing something else. Use your skills. Use your words. All of that is kind of summarized in here, and I will, this is also available in your download packet. With those two things in front of me, they remind me to use the tools that I have available. And when you use them, like we're talking about here, I know you have to go and use these. Stick with me till the end, and I'll give you the link so you can download all of them. It's magical when you use these and you choose differently from how you've chosen in the past. You will see miraculous things happen because that's what a miracle is. A miracle, I'm not a, I'm not a religious person. I don't have a religious affiliation. I don't go to church, unfortunately. But, uh, I know a miracle when I see it. A miracle is a change in perception. When you look at stories and miracles, it tends to be that the person performing the miracle will say to people, "Hey, I didn't do anything. That person could walk the whole time. That person was not dead to begin with." That's what they tend to say, these miracle workers. But they caused a change in perception. Didn't you see that they were alive the whole time?
You can create a miracle with communication because you will cause people to see things differently. You will be the first one, by the way, to see the miracle that you can create. You're an alchemist. You can take things that appear to be made of pure lovelessness and infuse them with love and transform people and relationships with your words. You can do that, and I can help. So download these materials, and other people will need this as well. Make sure to share this video on Twitter and Facebook and wherever else people may go for information like this. And remember, if you forget everything else from this, remember, whatever you have to say, say it in a loving way.