Navigating a Whackadoodle World: Episode 62, The Power of Strategy, or What to do when what you've been doing isn't working as you'd hoped

A Whackadoodle lesson in which my student takes on my mopey-mopey mood and admonishes me for forgetting my own advice regarding strategy, along with a few reminders regarding persuasion.

Photo by Rosie Kerr on Unsplash

“I think that I might have finally chosen my major,” she informed me in an off handed manner. She wasn’t looking at me, being too busy unloading her books onto my dinning table. She’d arrived early for her tutoring session, and I was still working on brewing my morning coffee. I have a special recipe that I derived from International Coffee. They make a lovely product, but it’s expensive and contains enough caffeine to guarantee a caffeine headache later in the day, so I created a recipe that nearly replicates it.

One part (cup) instant decaf coffee, one part (cup) powdered milk, one part (cup) sugar, one teaspoon baking soda (to keep mixture from clumping), and one or more teaspoons cinnamon to taste (I usually go for two tablespoons full). Mix well and store in an air tight container. Dump a few teaspoons into a mug of hot water each morning, and yum.

I was staring at the my water kettle when she informed me from her chair, “You know that a watched pot never boils, don’t you?”

“I’m about to disprove that idiom,” I replied, my eyes still locked on the kettle.

She snicker appreciatively before adding, “So?” A short pause followed by, “Aren’t you gonna ask?”

“Ask what?”

“About my major! You’re one of the reasons that I finally decided,” she added attempting to gain my interest.

“Oh yeah?”

“It was that Ikigai exercise you showed me a few weeks ago. The one where we were supposed to answer all those questions that were designed to answer what we’re good at, what we love doing, what we can get paid for, and…,” She cocked her head to one side. “What was the fourth one again?”

“What the world needs,” I mumbled just loud enough for her to hear. The water was beginning to rumble nicely in the kettle, and I reached for my favorite mug—the one with two ferrets peaking out from their basket.

“Right! What the world needs. That’s the one that always stumps me. Anyway, I finally finished it. The answer surprised my father, but I think he was pleased as well. He was like, ‘Well at least I’m not sending you through college in order for you to get some namby-pamby Liberal Arts degree. With Psychology, at least you can have a good paying profession.’”

“Psychology?” This time I was surprised. “What made you choose that?”

“I already told you. It was that Ikigai thing you had me do. Psychology fits all four criteria. I mean, I really like trying to help people. I like figuring out what makes them tick. I like solving problems. Plus, it’s a subject that interests me. I like learning about it. I even think that with practice and training, I could be pretty good at it. Of course, there were a lot of subjects that fit both those criteria, but when it came to what the world needs and what might pay well,” she shrugged. “That’s when I started really considering psychology as a career. Therapists can make good money, and lord knows that with the world being so crazy, I’d never be short of potential clients.”

“Sound logical,” I conceded. I wasn’t really listening, being too busy pouring hot water into my waiting mug. A few stirs later, I went to join her at the table.

As I sat down, she sent me a strange look, “Anyway, my Dad was sure happy when I told him what I was thinking.”

“Glad to hear it,” I muttered through a sip of warm brew.

Her strange look turned accusing, “I thought that you’d be excited for me.”

“I am excited for you. This is me excited for you.”

“No it’s not. This is you bothered by something. You’ve hardly said a word since I got here. You haven’t asked about my lessons. You haven’t told me any bad jokes. And it’s not just that you haven’t had your coffee, so don’t go making excuses about that. Your mind is on something, and it sure isn’t me.”

“It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter. How were your lessons?”

“No you don’t. You can’t get away with pretending to be interested. I want to know what’s bothering you.”

“Right now, it’s a certain student whose bothering me.”

“Saying mean things won’t work either,” she warned.

“It’s nothing. It’s stupid. Let’s just see what you’re working on this week.”

“No,” she slammed her hands down on her books, as if to hold them shut by force. “Do really you think I want a tutor whose all glum and boring and not even here? What has got you distracted?”

I knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t let up, so I answered, “It’s just something somebody wrote. I’m trying to figure out what to do about it.”

“Somebody? Something?” she mimicked sardonically. “A few details might be nice.”

“It’s just something a subscriber wrote in an email.”

“Somebody’s trolling you? Just kick them off your subscribers list.”

“No, nothing like that. Her comments were actually quite flattering.”

“So what’s the problem?”

I sighed thinking back, “I agreed to have a private chat with her, and as soon as the chat began, it became obvious that she was misinterpreting a lot of what I write.”

“How so?”

“That’s what I’m trying to put my finger on,” I sighed again. “She was all excited about the guideposts that reinforced her beliefs, but practically ignoring all the stuff that challenges them. She’s been skipping entire guideposts as if they don’t matter. She’s been totally focused on Causation and Strategy, but they aren’t much without the other twelve.”

“And you’re trying to figure out how to get her more aware of the other guideposts?” she offered carefully.

“Something like that.” I heard myself adding, “I just wish people wouldn’t put words into my mouth.”

“Huh?”

“A lot of what she thinks I mean, I don’t mean,” I found myself laughing softly, and I almost added, ‘Do you know what I mean?’ Instead, I finally admitted to myself what was really bothering me. “She’s in sales, and during the chat she started to pitch her product to me.”

“Ooh,” my student smiled knowingly. “You don’t think she was being honest about why she wanted to chat,” she concluded for me. “You’re worried that she was just sucking up in order to get a sale.”

“No!” I could feel myself getting irritated again just thinking about it. “That’s not what bothers me. It’s that she completely ignored guidepost thirteen while giving her pitch. She’s in sales for God’s sake, and she hasn’t spent any time practicing the process behind communication, understanding, persuasion and influence. She didn’t even try to determine my needs before she started in on how great her product was and how helpful it has been to her. She just jumped straight to presentation, and she didn’t even do that according to the guidepost. Instead of using feature, benefit, reaction, she just started doing all the talking, and none of the listening. It was so depressing. She may claim to love my work, and talks about how much the guideposts have helped her, but she doesn’t bother to practice the one guidepost that might actually help her on a practical level.” I looked at my student, hoping that I could make her understand. “It sometimes feels like every week I post a warning sign telling people where the water is deep enough to swim, and where there might be rocks, but everyone keeps misreading my guidepost and keep swimming among the rocks.”

“Well, isn’t that sort of human nature?” she asked cautiously. “I mean just last week, we were talking about how people have biases that make it hard for them to accept information that challenges their beliefs. What was that one called again?”

“Confirmation bias,” I said absently.

“Right, confirmation bias,” she nodded. “So what did she say when you pointed out that she needed to take another look at guidepost thirteen?”

“Who said I pointed anything out?” I managed to ask between coffee sips.

“You mean you didn’t say anything?”

“Didn’t think it was my place.” Another sip.

“Well of course it’s your place. She’s the one who reached out to you. She’s the one who wanted the chat. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t value your advice.” She sat back, crossing her arms determinedly against her chest. “You should have pointed out that she might be more successful persuading people if she followed the process you lay out in guidepost thirteen. Heck, you could have offered to give her some private training to help her sell her stupid product.”

“It wasn’t a stupid product,” I corrected weakly. “It was just a bad presentation.”

“Even more reason to help her.”

I considered my student’s words. It was at least an action that I could take. Something better than moping about a problem that I couldn’t change.

“You would, of course, have to charge her for your time,” my student added smugly. “You really do need to stop just giving away your talents and experience.”

“I already have that sales training course on Udemy: The Power and Principles of Persuasion,” I reminded her. “I make some money off of that. It’s had over 6,000 students, and a rating of 4.5 stars.”

“I know,” she grinned slyly. “I’m one of the suckers who took it. I even gave it four stars.”

Her admission startled me. “I didn’t know you took it.”

“I didn’t feel the need to tell you,” she informed me, eyes twinkling.

I tried to stop myself, but eventually asked, “Just four stars?”

Her nose wrinkled as she replied, “Giving you five stars kind of felt like I might be playing favorites because I know you. Anyway, I did think it was a good course, considering what it is. But now that I think about it, it does sort of lack the same things your article writing has been missing.”

“And that is?”

“The interaction with the teacher. The one-on-one time with individual students. You know, so they can get practice and feed back. I mean, isn’t part of strategy learning to retrain your habits by actually physically practicing a new skill so your habits can take over?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“So you need to give your readers more of that kind of experience. Give them a chance to interact with you and get personal feedback and coaching like they might get in a real classroom.”

I tried to imagine how such a scenario might work. Weekly chat sessions on each of the guidepost so that people wouldn’t go skipping around? Using the chats to provide feedback and clarification for those working through the guideposts? Offering private facetime sessions for those wanting to practice of any of the new techniques or skills? I felt my depression begin to lift as I considered the various possibilities.

Her next words broke through my musing, “The least you could do is get back to your chat lady and reminder her of that post your wrote about not pissing off your prospects. That’s a real good one about the sales process, plus it’s kind of funny.”

“Hum,” I nodded, thoughtfully “I might just do that.”

“And while you’re doing that, you should also offer her private coaching,” she insisted. “Never hurts to ask.”

My eyes narrowed. “Are you tired of my tutoring and trying to make me change careers?”

“I am trying to make you follow you own darn guideposts,” she threw up her hands. “For example,” she began to mimic me as only she can. “If I understand Strategy correctly, you’re supposed to use your exploring creative brain to dream up a possible future, then you get your logical navigator brain to design MASTERed goals to get you to that future, then you retrain your habits to follow through on your strategy. But most importantly,” she leaned in with emphasis, “If the strategy you’ve designed isn’t working, you design a new strategy! But here you are, all mopey mopey, eating up my tutoring time, because your current strategy hasn’t given you the results you were after. So take your own advice and try adding something more to your service.”

“You’re right of course,” I grinned at last. “But might I also point out that you’re the one who insisted we eat up your tutoring time with my mopey mopey problem.”

“And aren’t you glad I did?” came her smug reply. She finally reached for her books and pull one open—but she didn’t let the subject completely drop because I heard her mutter as she searched for the right page, “I’m glad I was able to help. Just goes to show that I’m gonna make a great therapist.”

“Yes,” I thought to myself. “You are.”

She was about to show me the chapter that her class was learning when she added a warning, “You know, I’m gonna check up to make sure that you follow through. Next week, I’m gonna ask about what she said when you got back to her.”

“I’m sure you will,” I half laughed. “Now let’s stop wasting your hour. Show me what you’ve been working on.” It turned out to be the dread math. No wonder she hadn’t been over anxious to start our lesson.

For those of you interested, I thought that I would add a link to the article she mentioned: “How to Not Piss Off Your Prospects.” It’s technically a ‘sales process,’ but the process works well in any situation in which you are attempting to persuade.

Until next time, may your days be filled with possibilities, laughter, and joy.

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