Wanna stir me? Wanna stir your colleagues, your clients, your team? It’s the old logic-versus-emotion conversation.Logic is a powerful form of energy. Emotion is the deeper one.Here’s the little lie we tell ourselves. Logical folks like to be moved by logic. Emotional folks like to be moved by emotion. Don’t believe that any more. Madison Avenue doesn’t. Madison Avenue caters to longing and desire.They know what to stir. Desire is the spark that ignites your beliefs and fuels your actions, Tom Asacker writes in his stirring book “The Business of Belief.” Desire is what moves you from thinking to doing. I had the pleasure of attending TEDxKoenigsallee in Duesseldorf last Friday. First-ever TEDx event in that great city. Held at Nachtresidenz. Amazing venue, fired-up audience, 10 speakers. I had a terrific time. And yet – some of the talks stirred me, some didn’t.Logic will stir logic. I’m a brainy guy. But when your logic really TRULY stirs my logic, I get the goosebumps. I get that irresistible itch to begin, at once.It drops down.
Go ahead, stimulate my brain. But here’s how you get to the deep stir:
Speak Longing
What are your deepest aspirations for yourself? For me? Our project? The team? Translate metrics language into longing language. It’s the language of our innermost desires. When you go there, you give me permission to go there, as well. Stirred.
Speak Vision
Beyond hitting targets and surpassing production goals, how will our shared future be a better place?
Translate tactical performance language into the language of desire.My desire to belong. My desire to do good. My desire to help. My desire to create a better world. Take me there. That’s vision. Stirred.
Speak Emotion
When you speak about a project, speak with joy. With excitement. With anxiety. With exuberance. Speak the language of feeling. The sort of language that doesn’t show up in transactional emails anymore. Don’t fake this language. Don’t fake the feeling. Get the feeling first. Brim with it. Your language of feeling activates my desire to be moved. Stirred.Related:
The Incredible Benefits of CuriosityHere’s what you get when you stir me:My devotion. My fervent desire to work with you.We will start to soul-travel together.Yes, it will go that deep.The stir will show up in our Return-on-Investment. And we cannot think our way to it. The language of
aspiration and desirewill get us there.Stirred.
