I’m sorry but what did you say?
Have you ever sit in an meeting and suddenly thinking about your dinner or staring at the window and the fluffy cloud? Or have you ever go on a trip with your friends and suddenly got distracted by the text messages on your phone?
If the answer is yes, congratulation, you are not the only one.
The Problem: Too Much Information, Too Little Time
In the advancing and developing world nowadays, human often faces with a big problem: Too much information, too little time. During our leisure time, not counting work, each of us processes 34 gigabytes, or 100,000 words, every day. The total data that we take in today could be as much as 74 GB in information a day (equivalent to watching 16 movies) through all kind of technological gadgets, while 500 years ago, that amount of information would be what a “highly educated person consumed in a lifetime, through books and stories.”
With a huge amount of information being processed in a human’s mind every day, it’s hard for us to focus into one thing, especially with many distractions around. Human’s attention span is short and we easily got distracted. This is not only a big challenge for many marketers and brands, but also challenge for us and the people around us, to fully captive the listeners’ attention and communicate our message.
“It’s doesn’t matter how incredible your ideas are, if nobody knows” — Sally Hogshead
There is nothing can be done with the nature of the human, so, the question is:
How to make yourself, your brand become more fascinating and increase that engagement, attention from people?
The Question: Am I Interesting Enough?
“Why do we find someone or something fascinating? Why are we attracted to some products and brands and not to others? Why do some messages captivate us while others barely register? “
It’s all because they are pulling the right trigger to fascinate us.
Have you ever wonder why some of your friends got distracted from your story? Have you ever feel that your message did not come across your audience and did not attract them?
For me, there is this one instant where I was telling my friends a story about my athletic build and how I suffer so much going to the gym, just to inspire my listeners and encourage them going to the gym with me. Regard an interesting and inspiring story, they completely distracted, missed the point, and thought it’s supposed to be a funny story. Then they laughed, leaving me questioning myself “Am I interesting enough?”
Guess what? I might have pull the wrong trigger to fascinate my listener.
Sally Hogshead, New York Times bestselling author and Hall of Fame Speaker, has introduced a very interesting concept of 7 triggers, or behavioral motivators that every single one of us all use:
- Power: Taking command of your space. (Google, TSA, etc.)
- Passion: Attracting with emotion. (iPad, etc.)
- Mystique: Arousing curiosity (“Lost” show, etc.)
- Prestige: Inspiring respect. (Tiffany blue box, etc.)
- Alarm: Creating urgency. (FedEx, IRS, etc.).
- Vice/Innovation: Changing the game, and triggering creativity. (Groupon, etc.)
- Trust: Building loyalty through consistency and reliability. (Brooks Brothers, Johnson & Johnson, etc.)
Although we are using all these triggers every day, there are 2 triggers that we implicitly use more and make you most fascinating when communicate our messages, that is your “Primary Advantage” and “Secondary Advantage,” which also are the most and second-most effective mode of communication. Knowing both of your “Advantages” and apply it accordingly, our message will be received as confident and authentic, making your story fascinating and influential.
The Test: Let’s Discover your Hidden Advantages on Fascinating People!
As a speaker with Passion and Innovation advantages, Sally sure does know how to leverage them. I was fascinated with Sally’s idea and curious enough to take her How to Fascinate test to explore myself, to discover my advantages and specialty to fascinate people. The test was designed with 28 scale questions, on a 4 points scale, asking questions related to our characteristics to draw a conclusion on what Personality Archetype are we.
My Archetype is “The Archer” with Mystique and Alert as my advantages. Mystique Advantage is known for its Independent, Logical, and Observant, while Alert is known for its Proactive, Organized, and Detailed. Together, these two advantages combine and adding value to me, making me become fascinating to the people around me.
I was a little surprise with the result at first; as I do see myself represent those values, but did not think it would come out as my 2 most fascinating values. With my curiosity, I went to talked with a few of my friends and asked them what is it in me that’s the most attractive to them. For J, it’s all about my calmness and patient when I was able to provide solution and resources to help him immediately when he was freaked out about his Amazon membership problem. For L, she is fascinated with the way I always work hard with purpose; I know exactly what I want to achieve and smaller steps/goals to get there (She also thinks I’m weird when not watching TV nor Netflix as I think they are distracted, but she love me for that as well!). For D, he thinks I’m sharp and logical when asking critical questions regarding an oversee shipment for his dad and suggest a more efficient way to secure the shipment and reduce liability.
All of the characteristics that they mentioned, strange but not so strange, fit perfectly under “The Archer” characteristics. After talking to people around me, it all feels real to me now. This makes me realize two things:
1. We have always been using our fascination trigger in our daily life without knowing it, and it could be showed from the smallest thing we have done
2. And sometimes, we might surpass all the little details that define our values and we might not know ourselves well enough.
It’s always a good idea to talk to the people around us, people who we cherish and value for their opinion, because we might discover something new about ourselves that we never know before (just like me!).
Knowing our strength, weakness, and our values in others’ eyes will help us better communicate my ideas, foster a better relationship, and become more valuable for the team, and the people around us. All the knowledge we learned about ourselves will be the foundation to embrace my value and develop myself, to create a unique flavor to the team. After all, we are all different and special.
“To become more successful, you don’t have to CHANGE who you are… you have to become MORE of who you are.” — Sally Hogshead
Is it Your Turn to Embrace Your Value?
Who are you in this crowded, bustling world?
Are you the person who is outgoing and always striking up conversations in a party? Or are you a steady, reliable person who always get things done? Are you an experimenter who always seeks new adventure? How about a person who is full of confident and inspire others through big goals?
No matter how you identify yourself, regardless of how the world see you, you have your own charm, your own natural talents, and you should be proud about that.
So, what make you most fascinating?
