Tag: First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Heart and Soul

The intangible qualities. We can only recognize them when we see them.

How can we put a measure on that which makes us human i.e. mortal yet full of life versus a machine whose sole existence is to carry out instructions and perform repetitive tasks without getting bored (the sad thing is when the machine gets to do interesting things, while human boring things).

Fordism has spreaded from automobile assembly line to the entire manufacturing process as we see today (Foxconn and workers’ tension).

Heart and Soul , however, are a bit elusive:  Air on the G String, Nocturne; Shubert can move you, a movie clip can make you feel  joyous or sad, elated or evaporated (The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face).

B movies and production houses have succumbed to poor substitutes e.g. sound track and laugh track.

Anything with an audience e.g. a lesson plan, a presentation, all-hands meeting; requires heart-and-soul delivery . To be flawless, one needs to go through 3 stages of rehearsal (courtesy of recent LinkedIn article on presentation rehearsal: You Sucks stage, Robotic stage, and finally You Rocks!).

Aim for standing ovation. Paint a broad stroke of vision, the type of speech Jesse Jackson would give at convention.

Facts and feeling. Sweat and tears. Fire and brimstone.

Orators of the past were known to speak at tent meetings for hours on end, most notably John Wesley. Today we only have day-time television which caters to the lowest common denominators : “Jerry, Jerry” ( with bouncers on the set). Or Maury, Maury …also w/ bouncers.

Jean-Luc Godard said: “all we need for a movie is a gun and a girl”. Hence, it seems as though all content was just  to fill the programming gap, waiting  to sell soap, soup and cereal.

Via Twitter, we saw glimpses of greatness, but only in 140 characters.

To stir the heart and soul, we need some work-up time.

Warm them up then chill them out. Stirring and settling.

Then BAM!. Hit them at the gut level. A call to ACTION.

Truth  has its own ring and can stand on its own legs.

Don’t get in its way.

Fear not.

Ask not.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

He who is no fool to lose that which he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose.

I have a dream.

Man from Hope.

It took a village.

Great orators stirred us and their sound bites stayed with us.

We feel a lump in our throat. It resonates and reinvigorates us.

It stirs up our Heart and our Soul.

It passed muster.

Quality is what you recognize when you see it.

The rest, any machine can do, at the automobile or chocolate factory.

Le Temp Modern. I love Lucy. Foxconn Apple plants. From Detroit to Disneyland, at the turn of  the 20th century to present time, are we happier now? (studies show China experiencing similar dissonance i.e. wealthier, but not happier, due to eroded “iron rice bowl”). Or the gas line and hot-dog line (at Cosco) have weighed you down?

Wake up Hot-Dog Nation. We can do better. Think and Ask Not. Feel the pain. Use it. Start rising. And don’t stop there. Have a dream. A different dream (by definition dreams are supposed to be out of this world. What are you being afraid of: that it might come true?)  Seek First. That Thy will be done,….but first on Earth.

On being an influencer

Like it or not, we all are either on the receiving or giving end of Influence.

But few understand what constitute sphere of influence.

A study on the subject, by Cialdini , lists below elements:

– Like (ability). This is self-explanatory. When you like someone or are liked by someone, nothing can go wrong.

This explains the “a priori” principle: we read into a situation or person due to our early imprints (trust that face that resembles mother’s – Oil Olay commercial uses “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face ” to resonate and resurrect that trust). Charismatic personalities, cinematic and telegenic figures all got our vote of confidence (Kennedy-Reagan).

– Social proof. The majority get to decide and have the final say (free election, trial by jury). We took this at face value (in experiment, a decoy looked up to a highrise. After a while, a huge crowd gathered to look up to the sky as well.) Conformity principle is a sub-set of this: pagelink, youtube, McDonald (billions burgers served).

– Consistency. We need that congruence between past choices and new ones. That way, we can live with ourselves.

e.g. membership fees and bulk buying (Costco and other Reward cards). Ultimate antidote to “buyer’s  remorse” (Zappos free-shipping for returned merchandise – relies on people’s resigning to a faith accompli).

– Reciprocity.  “loss leaders“: they first scratched our backs, then, we scratch theirs. Customer life-time value is worth much more than an initial and temporal “loss”. This is where brand and habit buying takes over ( path of least resistance ). Casinos give out VIP free rooms and/or buffet.

– Scarcity. How many times have we seen an ad, then rushed to the store, just to find out the item was no longer available. Then, with a rain-check , we are more convinced (influenced) due to scarcity. Right now, investors are worried that I-phone 5 are in short supplies.

– Authority. The ultimate pair-association in advertising: Angelina Jolie , Sean Connery and the Gucci bags.

We want to identify with and project ourselves onto these icons. After all, 007 has ducked the bullets for 50 years.  What if we can be like them (immortal), in some ways? Well, they travel light and high on Gucci. That purse got cloud.

It got their endorsements. Their “Likes”. After all, 007 must know how to choose his “gadgets” .

Now you know. We influence and be influenced by others. A test: put your parents through this check list. See if each and every single item fits the bill. I bet you they did. Our parents: our ultimate influencers. They first gave us life (reciprocity), then they sustained us (sorry, I have to use the past tense in my case) – commitment and consistency, from cradle to the grave.

Then when they were gone, there are no replacement (scarcity). Of course, they were the authority (I still wanted to buy those sesame-seed cakes my Dad and I used to eat after our weekly noodle  breakfast or mom’s fermented rice for snacks).

And I like them. They liked me. Social proof: everyone likes and loves their parents. Period. Case closed.

Knowing these principles, you can improve your sphere of influence, or be innoculated against unsubstantiated claims of social proof, or build better resistance against those who initiated reciprocity cycle (Hari Khrishna free roses at the airport).

Be the best influencer you can be. It’s a world-wide web in need of good and selfless influencer like yourself. Keep feeding the network, pay forward. When good men just stood by and did nothing, we would end up with the wild wild web.