VOICE 2
Loud
voices.
DR. JOHN
Loud
voices.
VOICE 3
Blue
pants with red shoes.
DR. JOHN
Blue
pants with red shoes.
VOICE 4
Baked
ziti.
DR. JOHN
Baked
ziti. See, no matter how ridiculous the
answer you repeat it and ask for more ridiculous answers. And when you’ve gotten all the responses you
can take you sum it all up with “good point.”
(PROJECTION: “You Know Everything”)
As either a trainer or a motivational speaker you are
able to position yourself as a person with Solomon-like wisdom. You don’t ever have to say, “I know
everything,” because your audience is convinced of it the minute you start
bull-throwing. But you have to play the
role, you know? You have to show them
that you know everything while secretly knowing that you know nothing,
particularly about the topic you’re speaking about. First, you set yourself at the entrance to
the training room well before anyone shows up and you greet the participants as
they file in. Big smile! You’re everybody’s pal! “Good morning!” “How’re ya doin’?” Try to sound folksy. “I’m delighted to meet you.” You say these pleasantries, but what you’re
thinking is, “I’m better than you because I’ve got some knowledge that you
don’t and I’m going to share it with you even if neither you nor I understand
it.” The participants on the other hand,
once they realize that someone finally paid attention to them, will assume you
know it all. Just watch their faces and
reactions when you make your fulsome points.
They nod their heads up and down whenever you make such deeply-thought
and patently false assertions such as, “You can be anything you set your mind
to” and “Success comes from within.” You
can almost hear the “Amens” about to escape their lips. It’s a pity, too, because they’re only
reinforcing a lifetime of failure, convinced that now–now–because of you–they
can find the truth path to happiness.
It’d be rotten of you if you were to expose yourself as the fraud you
know you are. But you stand there,
furrowing your brow to show deep thought, attempting to sound delighted by
their nonsensical questions and comments and smug about the fact that you get
to be onstage and spew gobbledygook while they think “this is what I’ve been
missing. Amen, brother, amen!”
One of the best ways to prove you know everything is
to dress it. With rare exception, most
people come to training dressed like Mr. Green Jeans. This demonstrates that training really
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