307: The Change Triangle (A Guide to Working with Emotions) -with Jeremy Todd

Have you checked out the new Brian Nichols Show collection over at proud libertarian head The Brian Nichols show.com forward slash shop and you can grab some amazing Liberty swag that will definitely help pique some interest from our good ideas don't require forced snapbacks Alexa overthrow the government t shirts question everything mugs and of course our ever popular don't hurt people don't take people's stuff bumper sticker The Brian Nichols Show shop over at proud libertarian has all the Liberty swag you need And hey, if you're looking for more awesome Liberty apparel, check out the rest of the amazing proud libertarian store while you're over there and be sure to use code TBS at checkout to get 10% off your entire order. That's right 10% off your entire order from proud libertarian including everything over at The Brian Nichols Show shop and all you have to use his code tbms check out one more time head to Brian Nichols show.com forward slash shop and check out the brand new Brian Nichols Show store over at proud libertarian and use code TS at checkout for 10% off your entire order we can become great at doing the the things that we do well the things that we focus on like I'm I think our audience is great at selling Liberty I think we have been amazing at doing that. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show Your source for common sense politics on the we are libertarians network as a sales and marketing executive in the greater telecommunications cybersecurity industry. Brian works with C level executives to help them future proof their company's infrastructure for an uncertain future. And in each episode, Brian takes that experience and applies in the Liberty movement, you start to ask questions that pique his interest and get him to feel like okay, this guy's actually got something that maybe can help me out. And then you're asking him questions and trying to uncover the real problems build that natural trust, annoy a weapon a monologue there, man. Instead of focusing on simply winning arguments or being right, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and their application in the world of politics, showing you how to ask better questions, tell better stories and ultimately change people's minds. And now your host, Brian Nichols. Oh, right. Yeah, that's right with that onto the show. Hey there, folks, Brian Nichols here on The Brian Nichols Show. Happy Monday. Yes, we are joined by our fearless friend and I dare say sales guru. Is that fair to call you Jeremy Jeremy Todd, welcome back to the brand

new What's up everybody? I've always loved the term guru. So I will happily take it

It's better than expert or consultant I think how we can just go to guru go straight to that. Just like Michael Myers. And by the way, nice, nice new digs. You have there, by the way. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

In the the Hilton. Because in Arizona, if you don't have air conditioning, even for an hour, you are like, Nope, I'm out. So yeah, up to today.

Isn't that fun? Always a blast. Well, hey, man, Well, how about this, we'll, we'll keep the the time relatively short. I know you have your entire family there in a hotel room. So we'll make sure we're respecting your time. But also viewers, we're going to make sure we're affecting your time because we want you to we're giving you not just a lot of information, but stuff that's useful, easy to take away and stuff you can use every single day. Now also, when is my one of my phone installations fall. Also, that being said, we are gonna be doing some new stuff here in the show, and Jeremy's gonna be a part of that we're going to be doing, believe it or not a daily show. I know strap in, it's nothing really crazy. It's gonna be short, concise episodes on the three off days, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday that we currently do not have shows. And really, it's gonna be kind of what we do at the morning sales huddle in an email perspective, but bringing this to you guys in terms of just a different medium, and really giving people like Jeremy like Chris Goyzueta, and some guests, guests that we haven't had here on the show, or maybe some reoccurring guests that you've had here in the past, coming up and doing some some special episodes as well. So Jeremy, yes, I'm excited to have that. But with that being said, Today, we're talking about the change triangle. And this is part of our series on empathy. We're I think on is this part 344 I'm flying man. So let's dig into this. What is this change triangle. And as you're doing that, I'll bring it up here for our YouTube viewers to see the the graphic,

definitely. So last week, we talked a little bit about empathy and understanding people's values. This week, we want to talk about the emotions that are involved in empathy. And so again, empathy is about curiosity and trying to understand the perspective that the other person has, because the better you can understand their perspective, the more effective you can be at persuasion in general. So the change triangle and emotional empathy is about understanding not only the emotions that the other person is experiencing on the topic, but also why they have those emotions in regards to the topic. So we're gonna talk about a little bit of triggering and things like that. Today and then a great illustration of this that you can keep in mind is that change triangle. So it's essentially, to paint a picture for everybody out there. Imagine a triangle on at one corner at your top left corner as you're looking at it, our defense mechanisms. So these are the things that we do to avoid engaging in tough conversations. Things like joking around sarcasm, criticism, procrastination, zoning out, even even into some negative stuff like addiction and dealing with our own issues, that this is what we do to avoid having any conversation at all. The next corner, are our inhibitory emotions, these are the things that really prevent us from being able to move into productive emotional places. These are things like anxiety, shame, and guilt, these keep us from being productive. And the last one, at the bottom of the triangle are your core emotions, fear, anger, grief, joy, excitement, disgust, and sexual assignment arousal. These are emotions, that if you can tap into with yourself or with other people, they become productive emotions, they lead to action. And then once you are in a core productive state, and you are mission oriented, you actually can move into the place of yourself, which are all the C's, calm, curious, connected, compassionate, confident, courageous, clear, all of those C's are where you want to be, in order to effectively persuade somebody. So if you're feeling shame, or guilt, or your audience feel shame or guilt, you're not going to be able to effectively persuade them. You want to be in there calm, curious, confident, stay, and have an help work your way around the change triangle until they reach their core emotions of fear, anger, grief, joy, because then you can spark within them. Action.

Action, that's when we talk to our friend Chris Goyzueta. In the marketing world, sometimes the part that we forget, that's who we're looking to speak to, it's not just the person who is in our, our particular vertical or the particular buyer persona, but it's also the person who we're meeting at that right moment, where they are at a point where they are ready to make that decision when they are in that action mentality. So it is important to make sure that we are going backwards, almost and making sure that we're reverse engineering, not just who we're speaking to, but making sure that we're taking care of ourselves. Jeremy, I think that might be sometimes the thing that we don't really focus on, we're so focused on trying to take care of everybody else and trying to bring up the ideas of liberty, because let's be real, these ideas that we talked about, they're intoxicating, and we love to talk about them with everybody else, because we know that at the end of the day, they're going to make people's lives better. But if we are not entering into that empathetic mindset of knowing who the person is we're speaking to and what are they experiencing, it's holding them back. And if it is something with regards to, as we're looking at here, this change triangle, then we're just gonna be spinning our wheels. And then the same thing is true for ourselves if we aren't, and this actually goes back to a good friend, Gary Collins, here, he has his three legged stool analogy where you're talking about your physical, your financial health, and then your physical health, your financial health, and then your sense of purpose in any of those are out of balance, then you as a person are out of balance. So if you are out of balance, how do you think that you're going to be able to present a solution to help move somebody from a state of problem and chaos to a state? It's a better future state, when you yourself aren't in that better future state? You're not presenting yourself as an authentic salesperson because you're showing that you will, you're not showing that's a problem. You're you're having the problems, but you're not acknowledging you're not dealing with them first. And it will lead to an inherent distrust.

Yeah, clean your damn car, is the advice from an old pastor of mine, he didn't say Damn, I added that part. But clean your car, your

blessing car.

Yeah, you have to be someone that they see something in that they want. But you also have to reach people when they're in certain emotional states where you can affect change. And if they're not in productive emotional states, you have to help work to get them there. You can only do that, as you're saying, when you have found yourself grounded, calm, cool, collected, not triggered by whatever, how stupid whatever ridiculousness they're spouting. It's only when you are in those C's places, calm, curious, confident, compassionate, can you effectively then lead the conversation? So I'll give you a great example of how this works. So we take it we let's Say, six months ago, we wanted to talk about ending the war in Afghanistan. Um, one of my best friends was like, people don't care. Like, it's just not an issue that matters to folks. And it is. Right. And he wasn't wrong. Um, people were in the defense portion, where they just wanted to avoid this really uncomfortable conversation, wasn't it front of mine, it didn't trigger anything. We had become very numb. To the crisis in Afghanistan. Well, all of a sudden, we start seeing some, some people fall out of airplanes, a kerfuffle in a withdraw, we and then we lose 13 servicemembers and close to 100. Afghanistan, citizens in a terror attack. Now, people are feeling the core emotions, fear, anger, grief disgust. Now those people are in a productive state where you can persuade. And if you haven't been paying attention, all of the every every one of my Neo con friends over the last week or so, has been posting about like, how can Joe Biden do this to our soldiers? Right, the traditional sort of neocon approach, and all I have to do is I know they are in a moment of disgust, fear, anger, and I can slip in and go, Hey, you know, honestly, they never should have been there to begin with. How do you keep How do you keep weapons out of the Taliban's hands, will never send those weapons over there to begin with, right. So now, because they are in these positions of disgust, fear, anger and grief, as opposed to be numb to it, it can be productive. Now, the other friends on the left, imagine if you'd came to them this week after what happened and said, it's your vote, is the reason these service members died, and you made them feel shame and guilt? Are they gonna? Are you putting yourself in a predicament to have a productive conversation with them? Absolutely not. So you've got to move on beyond that into finding that spot of where they feel fear, anger, grief disgust, as opposed to things like shame and guilt, because those will block you from being able to effectively start to make your case on solution. And Jeremy, we

have a mutual friend whose name we all remain anonymous for just the sake of the story. But this friend is is unfortunately, well known in greater Liberty circles, because they go around and they're constantly trying to, you know, basically do that there is, you know, no real libertarian except me. And, and we see too often not the things that they're too focused on are the things that really don't matter. And it speaks to this inherent Well, there's something going on with them, too, that they're feeling in that they maybe need to deal with, as well. And this is something that we need to is across the board, as a movement kind of move past, right. And this is the letting the identity of who you are as a libertarian, be who you are as a person. And if you kind of are not able to separate the two things, you're gonna have a very, very sad time because in sales, Jeremy, do we hear the word? No. At all? We're in charge. Are you shocked me? Oh, you never hear that word, though. Right, man?

The the the old adage that I heard and I'm curious just what your number is. But it was five nose equals a yes. On average.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. On your way to a yes. got at least five to seven nose. And I usually see that in touches, too, you know, if you go out, just even to have a conversation.

Yeah, even prospecting, marketing, all of that. It's multiple touches.

And if you were to get offended, right, if you were to consistently tie yourself to the No, the emotional self to the No, you're going to be defeated, you're going to constantly feel like you have to lick your wounds, you're going to be just, it's, it's, it's not mentally healthy for you, to not be able to separate who you are as a person, and who you are in the political world. Because if you if you're only your political self, then you become that you become the winds and you become the losses. Whereas if you can go home at the end of the day, and focus on the things that you can control, the things that you not only you can control, but the things you excel at, right, then you can start to get better at those and then starting to use those as a solution to offer to people to solve the problems that are out there, right. But make sure we have the right solution to a problem that actually exists. That's also an imperative point.

Right. And and where people's heads are at on problems oftentimes depends on where they are emotionally, or what's happening in the world, the moment that triggers those, those emotions. So you have to be willing, especially if it, if your focus is to be persuasive, you don't get to pick and choose issues that matter to you. And say, I'm going to make the matter to everybody else. That is, you can do it. But man, you better be ready to spend some one on one time with people because you have to walk them around this change triangle. People who don't care about the issue, that seems to be number one most important to you are bigots, they are wrong about it. They're just in a defense, emotional state about it. Because they just they're they may be trying to avoid it. And it may be something they don't know a lot about, and maybe something they're not super educated on are confident on don't know how they feel. So they get themselves in a defense position, you are not going to make them very effective. By getting them to feel anxiety, shame and guilt. Those are you've got to get them past that if you want them to care. And listen, that takes a lot of time, patience, and all those C's down there a place of calm, curious, connected, compassionate, confident, courageous and clear. You cannot be emotional, in trying to move people through this triangle. What is much easier to do is take the things that they already have emotional connections to based on the moment or what matters to them, and then persuade from the emotions that they're feeling about those. Yeah, well, no ours already, would it. No, that's a much just a far easier way to do it, in my opinion.

And you know who else believes this? And this is not a an opinion on vaccines or anything, but you know, who else thinks this right now is advertising agencies? I just read a fascinating article in of all places over on Twitter, I found it in a Twitter moments. And it was saying how there are advertising agencies who are trying to help with the vaccination efforts by saying, stop scolding people stop trying to give people money. Like you have to go the ad route, you have to go the sales route, the marketing route. And I you know, I did the sensible chuckled because I said, Yeah, no does this, this is something that it's, it just makes sense. When you start to see the connection, the sales, having the connection with success, not just in the private sector, but in the public sector, because we are offering solutions. And you see that when the monopoly of the solution is held from the government, there is no incentive to offer a better solution. So what do we have to do we have to be able to play the game. And to use sales to help change that solution. We can do it we and we are doing it. And that's the thing is we have to focus more on what works and what works is focusing on things like the change triangle. This is why empathy is so important. You know, you see, I think it was two or three days ago, Joe Biden does his speech about Afghanistan. And empathy is trending. And I know ben shapiro has tongue in cheek called him president empathy. You there is the idea though, empathy is important. Ben Shapiro kind of made his name with the facts, don't care about your feelings. And we've discussed this before, though, Jeremy. facts don't care about your feelings, but feelings sell. And we need to make sure that we're paying attention to that and not good idea in people to death, not just fact peopling the death, you have to make sure you're meeting people where they're at, on the issues they care about, and enter into that conversation that they're already having. And try to help be that problem solver. You can be that trusted advisor, by just being a friend build up that natural trust, don't feel you have to force the sale. And I think at the end of the day, a lot of our friends in the greater Liberty world, especially your more left libertarians or beltway libertarians, they're more focused on just obtaining political power, or just having the best ideas in the best arguments. Instead of trying to build that network and build up that base of trust. People are going to do more with you if they can actually look at you as someone that they would want to go out and have a conversation with outside the political arena. And we haven't done enough and I say that we as a greater Liberty movement. In the past 10 1520 years, we have not done that enough to actually have substantial growth and show people our ideas aren't just ideas that our ideas are real, substantive solutions to the problems they see in their, their their daily lives. It's like you're just over on on Brad Palumbo show. This is the very point that you've been raising, as you know, the VP candidate trying to go around and focus on a culture of winning not this mentality of Oh, you know, we authored again, you know, we got 1% of the vote. Again, So Jeremy, there is a mentality of we are starting to see, we need to take care of our own room, you know, clean up. Was it your own car first? Like that is Yeah, mentality coming into the movement? Yeah,

it's, um, I think I think you bring up a lot of really interesting things that are not necessarily tied to our topic today. But I'd love to discuss you're getting into some Carnegie stuff for me, which, which I absolutely love. So one of the one of the big keys, it's funny, because you and I had a discussion about another person in our movement this week, that we, we we have one of the greatest mistakes Liberty movement has made that's

like going through my head. I was like, What was it? Okay,

we've made it about us. And we only want to talk about what libertarianism is what it you know, let me explain let me teach libertarian isn't right. We've made it about us, when the reality is, is what do people want to talk about? Right? They want to talk about themselves. Yes. So if we want to be effective, especially in that's really what empathy does. A good tip, then is to pretend you're a reporter. And you're, when you're on a topic and you're talking to a friend, you want to show the way you show interest in them, is by asking them a lot of questions, we'll pretend you're a reporter, trying to get a story about how they came to feel the way that they do about this topic, there was a journey and experiences, something happened along the way. And in order to be interested, this one of my favorite quotes ever, in order to be interesting, you have to first be interested, people are interested in you if you are interested in them. So by taking that interest in other people, you become what you're talking about far more likeable. And then that's gonna afford you the opportunity because you've shown interest in them. They now have a psychological trigger that wants to reciprocate. And they do, what will they ask you? Well, how did you come to reach your position? Oh, so glad you asked. Right. And when you interact in that way, where you can put down these walls, put down these defenses, not make other people feel shame and guilt. And you can actually start to tie into sort of what core emotions made them believe what they believe. Now, I can approach it and say, you know, I, I feel the same emotions, but about this part of this issue as opposed to this part of this issue.

What did you drop it in some Robert Cialdini in there, I heard that you were sneaky sob dropping some reciprocity in there. But you're right. Rami, it's good stuff. But you're right, though. This is the stuff that you know, it is. It's not though. I go back to your you're talking about, you know, being curious about the individual. Right. It's, it's also not just a matter of it, making you more likeable. And here, and this is the best part. If you do it well. If you are, if you're asking right, the right questions, not just asking questions, asking the right questions, questions that show that you're genuinely curious about the other person, not only will it to your point make you more likeable, but it will help you do your job better. They will tell you, right, it makes your job easier, like literally they will tell you what to do. Yes. How perfect is that? So not only is it you, like helping them and helping I guess build up this. We sometimes overcomplicate things in sales, right? And if you listen to a lot of sales podcasts or read a lot of sales books, you'll see that you know, the different acronyms tossed out left and right. We overcomplicate things, right, we almost get in our own way. Sometimes, if you want to be likable, but you be likeable by showing genuine interest, you show genuine interest by being eternally curious. You be eternally curious by admitting I don't know everything. And you do that by having to have some some very deep one on one conversations with yourself. And that is sometimes the hardest part is having to say, there's a lot of stuff I know, there's a lot of stuff I'm good at. Plus I'm not good at though. And there's a lot of stuff, Jeremy, that I don't know. And if we expect other people to listen to us and hear things that they don't know, we have to show that there are things that we don't know, and show them that we're human. So I say all that my friend we are already I looked at the clock close to time. So let's do this. We want to make sure we're wrapping up the change triangle. A conversation today with a nice bow. So what do you want to make sure folks walk away from the conversation today with Jeremy?

Yeah. When you engage in conversations with individuals who may feel differently than you or hold different positions, make sure you come from a place of calm confidence and And really ask questions to understand how their emotional perspective reached the point that they did. If they are defensive, if they're in a position where they're, you know, not wanting to engage, you're going to want to walk them through and ask questions to get to those core emotions because those core emotions are the ones that can trigger them to take action or change caught in it really have in that gets into the persuasion part, which is bringing up their cognitive dissonance on these issues. But you can only bring up that you can't bring up cognitive dissonance on defense, or inhibitory emotions. You can only bring up cognitive dissonance on their real core emotions. And so make sure but it most important, stay calm, stay curious, and ask how they reached that point.

Jeremy Todd, it's always a pleasure, my friend. Where can folks go ahead and follow you to continue the conversation?

Yeah. Jay Todd 601 on Twitter, J. Todd, for L NC calm is my website with a little bit of my platform for running for libertarian National Committee. And then my final plug because I don't believe I'll be back home before this go to in the dam wars.org. September the 11th across the country. We are holding some unified rallies I know here in Arizona. We are actually partnering with the Green Party should be fun to end the dam wars so we've got out of Afghanistan hopefully soon. Fingers crossed. We'll see through that one up um, but there are we are in Somalia in Yemen. We are we are in Libya in Syria, we this is this is to end them all and never go back. So in the dam wars.org

love it and thoughts and prayers to not only the those directly impacted that the you know, the loved ones, the the families of the 13 servicemembers killed overseas, but thoughts and prayers to the countless others who have been impacted over the past 20 years. Yes, it is time, Jeremy to end the wars. Also if folks are interested in in learning more about Jeremy and his campaign, click the artwork here in your podcast catcher. It'll bring you right to The Brian Nichols show.com go to the episodes page and click on Jeremy's link will bring you right to his profile can check out all his social media links his his platform there for LMC and more. If you want to follow me of course at vehicles Liberty make sure folks that you enjoy the episode, share the episode but with that being said, That's all we have for you today coming up here on Wednesday, which I can't believe we're already almost to the end of August. Where did it go? I have no idea. But we have an a guy who's all about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency Adam crigler is going to be joining the program. So make sure folks if you're interested in learning more about Bitcoin you're strapping in but with that being said, it's Brian Nichols signing off. You're on our sales conversation with Jeremy Todd, we'll see you Wednesday. Before we wrap up, I want to tell you about an amazing new podcast you longtime listeners, The Brian Nichols Show know him well. And that is one Brad Palumbo in his stellar new program at breaking boundaries. Join Brad as he interviews top writers, politicians and thinkers from all across the political spectrum to give you a new perspective, you won't find in the mainstream liberal media or right wing echo chambers from guests like Rand Paul to Glenn Greenwald, Brett is having conversations and focusing on issues that are driving America with the people who are in the driver's seat. So head over to your favorite podcast app hit subscribe strap in and be prepared for some wild food takes like Rand Paul and his grand Manet's conspiracy. Again, that's breaking boundaries with Brad Palumbo available in your favorite podcasting app today. Thanks for listening to The Brian Nichols Show. Find more episodes at The Brian Nichols show.com if you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe. Want to help us reach more people? Give the show a five star review and tell your friends to subscribe to find us at Brian Nichols show.com and download the show on Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow me on social media at V. Nichols liberty and consider donating to the show at Brian Nichols show.com forward slash support. The Brian Nichols Show is supported by viewers like you. Thank you to our patrons Darryl Smith, Maura Stanley, Michael Lima, Michel Mankiewicz, Cody John's, Craig Acosta and the we're libertarians network. audio production for The Brian Nichols Show is brought to you by DB podcast audio Learn more by emailing inquiries to Wm at dB pod audio.com

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