Group Rapport: Shovel It Up and Filter It Out
Kenrick Cleveland
When I was first starting out in the business of persuasion, I had some difficulty with anxiety surrounding live events and seminars. Prior to a seminar for about a week, I'd become unbearable to be around. The wife and kids avoided me, even the dog steered clear. I didn't like it, but thought it was just the cost of doing business. And as if that weren't bad enough, after the event, I'd have an equally difficult "crash" or let down, not because the event wasn't successful, but because a huge amount of energy was expended and released and left me feeling as if I needed some recovery time.
Slowly my comfort with public speaking increased and i became more confident of the effect I was having on students and clients. Along the way I picked up some techniques to create an even faster rapport and ease in the process which is responsible for lessening by far, the anxiety and quickening, by far, the connection and cohesion.
One that I use very regularly will help you form a group bond and a group rapport. I imagine a shovel, a big snow shovel, a great big wide thing, as wide as the audience, and it sits in the back of the room. The shovel starts just over the top of the heads of my audience and then it curves back around.
In my imaginings, I'm drawing energy through my feet and projecting it out through my eyes laying it gently over the top of the audience, like a blanket resting on their heads.
The snow shovel catches this blanket of energy, and whips it around and just as it is coming to my feet, it hits a box that is sitting right down in front of me. The box is a filter.
What I'm doing is bringing in everyone's energy and filtering out the negativity. I don't want any intentional or unintentional negative energy to come to me unfiltered. So I see the energy flow into the box and come out completely clear.
The clear energy comes right up through my feet and out my eyes to the back of the room and starts all over again.
This process starts slowly and builds up speed and intensity until I can simply step aside and watch it moving faster and faster.
The energy takes on a life of it's own and as I do these seminars, I let the process repeat run the entire time.
When I do trainings of 250, 300 people or more, it bonds the group like nothing I have ever seen.
Could this bonding have to do with what is coming out of my mouth? The word patterns? The language? The information? Yes. Of course. Could it be because we're all there for a common goal in our work together and in our shared experience of learning, curiosity and fun? Definitely. For me, as the speaker and teacher, this adds dramatically to what I do at the front of the room.
Consider this another frame or construct you can use when you work with big groups.
Kenrick Cleveland teaches strategies to earn the business of wealthy prospects using
http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in
http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion strategies. Don't reprint this exact article. Instead, reprint a free
http://www.uberarticles.com/?id=16626&b=79 unique content version of this same article.
