037 A Pickup Artist, a Hypnotist, and a Social Psychologist Walk Into a Hospital
The Influence Every Day Show with Dr. Ed Tori
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This is Dr. Tori. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show where we make every day better and we influence for good.
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A pickup artist, a hypnotist, and a social psychologist walk into a hospital. Now, that sounds like the beginning of a pretty awful joke, but it's not. It's actually the beginning of a patient whisperer consult. I worked on a cardiac surgery unit for many years and I was once called for what they called a "patient whisperer consult."
They said, Hey, Dr. Tori, we have this challenge. This patient, he is not really partaking in all the things that he needs to do to get better after his cardiac surgery. So can you help us? I, we think he just needs a little bit of trust and establishing some rapport with him. So can you just come try to figure this out with us?
It would be really helpful. We're trying to basically just get him to walk more, to get him to, ask for pain medicines when he needs it, to get him to use his incentives spirometer, which is a little breathing dohickey to keep his lungs open. So they called and they asked for this patient whisper consult.
Well, it's really interesting is the solution came from borrowing from social psychology, conversational hypnotherapy. And pick up artists. Why? Because over the past 23 years, as I've been studying from all these different disciplines, there's something that's really fascinated me. It's that all of these domains, all of these realms of behavior change, those who understand it in their particular carved out niche, They all have very, very similar principles They just happen to call them by different names. But what's really intriguing is that they not only call them by different names, but they apply them differently. And if you just cross pollinate, take some of it from one domain and bring it to another, you can actually transform your communication.
My mission is to help anyone who's doing good in the world to get better at influence and rapport and engagement and behavior change so that they can influence the world for good. Well, In that vein, I basically tried to study from all of these different disciplines and bring it back to parenting, bring it back to healthcare, bring it back to leadership, bring it back to wherever people are doing good in charities and nonprofits and things like that.
So let's get back to this patient now in the domain of conversational hypnotherapists, they have a principle where, first of all, their model for looking at conversation is absolutely incredible. And I think it happens to be the highest yield domain of influence is conversational hypnotherapy,in this model of conversation.
They have a principle that is just like every other influence domain out there, which is "it starts before it begins", essentially like you think a conversation starts when the greeting happens or when you acknowledge each other or when someone approaches. But the conversation starts long before that if you're about to have a rollout or some sort of communication initiative, it starts long before that first email goes, it starts long before and so all influence domains know this and so they pay close attention to what happens before.
They're deliberate about what happens before. So in the domain of the conversational hypnotherapist, they say "nearby but not engaged," meaning there's somebody nearby, they're doing something, but they're not yet engaged in conversation. Their behavior, though, has an influence. Their behavior has an influence on the people that they're about to have a conversation with.
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So that space is very important. Now the pickup artist has a similar concept. In a period that they refer to as pre selection, meaning before they actually engage with the person they're trying to pick up, they call that time pre selection. During that time, they're trying to establish that they are worthy of attention, that they are worthy of high status.
And so the way they do it is they engage with someone else, they engage with another group. They show that they are the center of attention. They're establishing what Dr. Robert Cialdini refers to in his foundational book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. He refers to it as social proof.
In a time of uncertainty, we tend to do what the group does. In a time of uncertainty, we do what the group does. If we are uncertain about something, like in the case of this patient, can I trust the healthcare workers? Can I trust that this nurse has my best interest at heart? Can I trust that this exercise physiologist has my best interest at heart?
Can I trust these doctors or is it as they say on social media or whatever? that's his uncertainty. Can I trust them? in a time of uncertainty, we do what the group does. Well, who is his group? His group is people just like him, other patients. So if you can imagine, he's walking around with one of those like gray and blue, patient gowns that opens to the back, it's tied, and somebody's like walking him around, they have a strap around him just in case so he doesn't fall and they can support him, etc.
And somebody's walking alongside of him. Well, there's other patients doing the same thing. They're walking in the hallway with somebody walking next to them. Maybe they have a walker. Maybe they have a cane. And they're walking. And so they are people just like him. In a time of uncertainty, we do what the group does.
What I did was essentially instruct the nurse practitioners, the physician assistants, other physicians and nurses to interact with the other patients. Don't focus so much on that guy, on that particular patient, instead interact with his group.
Demonstrate social proof, that's the term that comes from, the pre selection domain, the pickup artists call it "demonstrating social proof." show that you're the life of the party. That's what they do. They're at another table. They're at another part of the, the facility or wherever they are, and they're demonstrating by making another group laugh or doing personality tests or telling engaging stories.
And all the while others who are witnessing that, who are not yet part of that group, their trust and the fact that they are desirable or have high status or are worthy of attention. is established by other people using this principle of social proof. And so That's essentially what we did with this patient.
We interacted with the other patients and showed that, we are authentic. We're interacting in a way that is caring. We're making them laugh. We're addressing their concerns. We're, securing the resources they need at home and conversing with the family so that things are, all the loose ends are tied up.
When they see that happening, Then the trust occurs, right? Then they say, Oh, well, people like me trust that person. So maybe I should start opening up a bit. And that's precisely what happened.
And so this is how you can borrow from other domains and apply them to your thing. I mean, think about it. If you're a parent. You know what it's like, let's say you see a kid who's afraid of a dog. What do people do? They start to engage with the dog so that the kid can see that other people are engaging with the dog perfectly alright.
Or they bring over another child and say, hey, oh look, Joey likes the dog, it's okay, Layla, you can play with the puppy too. they try to establish this social proof, we do this all the time. This is something that is normal. Trying to get your kids comfortable with someone's pet or someone else's toy or a ride at an amusement park, demonstrating that other people like them are doing the same thing to try to show that in a time of uncertainty.
Should I do this? Should I get on that ride? Is that dog safe? Is that person safe? In a time of uncertainty, I'll do what the group does. And the group of people like me are doing things like that. That's what I'll do. That is social proof. And that's how it gets implemented. So essentially, it's really important to realize that our influence occurs when we're nearby, even if we're not engaged. I've seen like mugs and shirts and things like that, where for parents, it says, your kids are watching. Your kids are watching. So are other people.If you do something that stands out, other people notice.
If you do something as small as hold a door for somebody, people that are a few paces behind, that aren't even near the door yet, they will tend to hold the door next for the people behind them. They were influenced, even though they weren't engaged. It's like that. How are you behaving when you're near other people?
How are you behaving when you think you're not seen? You are seen. you are noticed. So we can borrow from the domain of pickup artists and conversational hypnotherapists and social psychologists and sales advertising game design and human factors engineering, we can borrow from all of these domains.
And bring them to our own sticky problems, our own relationships, our own encounters with other people, our own communication and get better at it. So if you need help, if you have any sticky problem, go to InfluenceConsult. com. we can schedule a strategy call. I can go over whatever your sticky problem is.
Maybe we can come to a particular type of solution or some ideas of what you can do to solve it and see if there's a way we can work together. The point here is a pickup artist, a conversational hypnotherapist, and a social psychologist in a hospital can absolutely help you. social psychologist and a teacher and a salesman can absolutely help you raise your kid.
a game designer and a politician and a human factors engineer can help you set up your office space. They can help you make your culture better. All we have to do is pay attention, is to look at the principles they're using, look at the ways they use it, and see, does it apply here? Because it probably does.
I'll see you in the next episode.
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[ ***** Do you want Dr. Tori to help you with a sticky problem you've been trying to address? Or do you want coaching on being a more persuasive and impactful communicator? Schedule an influence strategy call: InfluenceConsult.com ***** ]
