Last show, we told you the story on storytelling. In fact, we even told you a story to illustrate our point.
Today, we'll discuss how role playing can help you professionally, and personally. First, let's define what we mean by role play...(hear the show and read the summary here)
Welcome to our seventh big success show today. We'll talk about the role of role playing the big success show with George and Mary Lynn Last show we told you the story on storytelling And we told a pretty darn good story too if you missed it There's a link to it on our blog today at big success.com and in the show today We want to discuss how to use role playing professionally and personally So what do you mean when you say role playing? Well our definition of role playing and by the way, this this is an exhaustive subject We're not trying to be the have all and be all but we're gonna give you one specific thing you can do that really will make a difference in your life Role playing is practicing human interaction Before you experience it. Okay, so you're gonna ask the boss for a raise you're gonna practice beforehand That makes sense. Are we talking about practicing in front of a mirror? Well practicing in front of a mirror is certainly better than not practicing at all, right? Right, but what we're specifically talking about is trying to create a richer environment than that And what I mean by that is actually getting a friend a mentor a peer who can help you so that you actually Experience in the kind of a controlled situation what you will experience in the real world. This is interesting Now, why is it important to do this? Well practice makes perfect, right? Mm-hmm, and I guess I'd say imagine a ballplayer imagine a team that never practiced. They wouldn't be very good Imagine an actor who never rehearsed probably not gonna win any Oscars or Emmys, right? Why do they practice? Why do they rehearse? Well a so they can be the best at what they do. Absolutely So they have more confidence. Yep, so there's less stress Absolutely, right and so we want to talk about how you go about doing that because Practicing it beforehand is going to make the unfamiliar familiar So how do we go about doing that? Well what you want to do is you want to try to simulate that environment as Much as you possibly can in other words You want to try to create the exact same environment to the best extent you can that you will actually experience in the real world All right, so let's go through some potential situations. All right, let's say you're gonna sit down for your annual review with your boss And you're gonna ask for a raise. So what would be some things you would do? Well, you you kind of alluded to the first one you need to think about what's the environment gonna be like? Am I gonna be sitting in which case I want to sit is my boss gonna be sitting in which case I want the person? I'm role-playing with to sit. Are we gonna be at a desk if in which case boy say in which case a lot, don't I? I want to figure out is there gonna be a desk there if there's gonna be a desk there Then I want to try to set up something that appears to be a desk I want to try to create the exact environment that I'm going to experience to the best extent I can so basically calling your friend isn't good enough if you can make it to be where your friend is actually Sitting in the spot where your boss would be sitting then that's the way to do it That's right now once again Just like the mirror if all you can do is a phone call that's probably better than nothing Right, but actually doing it in the way that you will do it in the real world is much better So for example if you're in sales and marketing and you're gonna go meet a prospect for the first time You're gonna want to make sure that you're standing that you do that initial handshake Those types of things right absolutely, and let's get even more specific you want to try to do that handshake Exactly how you want to do it in the real world. So for instance handshakes great thing to role play right because It's like Goldilocks sometimes too soft sometimes it's too hard. You want a handshake. That's just right Sometimes there's different handshakes if you're shaking hands with a male versus a female There's differences if you're male or if you're female all those kinds of things you want to think about and role play another scenario Let's say you're in the service industry and you have to visit a homeowner You would actually want to rehearse knocking on the door and where you would stand Absolutely, and are you knocking on the door you're ringing the doorbell what if the doorbell doesn't work? Where do you stand when they open the door because if you stand too close? It's gonna invade their personal space when they open the door right if you're standing too far away It looks like you're not that interested in them So you want to simulate the environment do exactly what you'll do when that homeowner answers the door All right now those have all been professional situations when it comes to personal situations Maybe you need to sit down and have a talk with the kids So you could rehearse this with your spouse where would the kids be sitting? Would you be standing would you be sitting would you be at the table? Would you be in the living room and have the kids on the couch that kind of thing right absolutely right? Okay, and one of you probably needs to have spiked here Or something like that my jeans got to be down by my way, you know what well you have to pull the iPod earbuds out of the kids ears All right, so whether you're dealing with the kids whether you've got a situation where you need to communicate with your spouse or a friend These are all situations where you could do the role play exercise. It works both professionally and personally practice it before you experience it That seems to make sense. All right, so let's review what we talked about today Today we discussed the role of role playing. It's a preparation method that lets you practice it before you experience it with a human being Absolutely with a human being and you can find a written summary of today's discussion on our blog at big success Dot-com and before we go we've got to give you our big quote for the day Well since we talked about athletes earlier, Maryland We thought we'd conclude with a quote by one of the great tennis players of all-time Arthur Ashe his quote is this One important key to success is self-confidence and important key to self-confidence is preparation being willing to prepare Helps you succeed. So role play your way to a great day and on our next show. We're going to start thinking about taters Taters haters. Yes. Well, thanksgiving, you know here in the United States So we thought we should ask you the question. What kind of tater are you? Mmm? Hopefully I'm one that slathered in butter That's a different kind of role playing Maryland until next time. Here's to your big success the big success show at GG success.com you you [BLANK_AUDIO]
