You can fool all the people some of the time,
and some of the people all the time,
but you can’t fool all the people all of the time.
Have you ever badly wanted someone to believe you, and act on what you say? Perhaps you were asking for a promotion or running for local office. Maybe you were asking a beautiful young lady to go out with you. The harder you tried, the less she accepted you.
You may have asked yourself in deep dismay, “How come no one believes a thing I say?”
What Is Congruence?
Tony Robbins introduced the term “congruence” into popular discourse to describe a tight match between what a person actually says and does. When you are congruent, what you think, say and do all match up. You are utterly convincing without even trying to be.
Another way of saying it is that nothing is incongruent; that is, nothing sticks out like a sore thumb. Your shoes and socks match. On close examination, people find no surprises in you.
You are seen to be authentic, utterly real. When people assess you, they feel that what they see is what they get, that you aren’t hiding anything from them.
A presentation that is congruent suggests a person of high integrity, all the pieces fit perfectly together. The tone of voice and the body language totally support the content. You spontaneously open up to the message, because it speaks to you on a much deeper level than usual.
Why Congruence Is So Important
Tony Robbins, himself, is a model of congruence. Whenever you see Tony, he is of a whole cloth with a commanding presence that permeates the room. I speak from actual experience watching him from close up. Tony is a loving lion about to spring on you to pull the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, out of you.
Tony has been fabulously successful in life. His net worth is the neighborhood of half-a-billion dollars. American Presidents and celebrities have called upon him in crisis, as did Bill Clinton about to be impeached by Congress on account of the Monica Lewinski Affair.
Tony counseled President Clinton minutes before the hearing and got him “in state” so that Clinton could be true to who he is in the face of ruthless cross-fire from disgruntled congress people.
As we all know, Clinton made it through the ordeal.
Bill Clinton’s wife, Hillary, was the second female Presidential candidate (the first woman who ran for President of the United States was Victoria Woodhull in 1872) and has come closer than anyone else to becoming the next American President while still failing.
Even though Hillary carried the popular vote, she failed to gain enough electoral votes in the conservative states to carry the election. Hillary had been extensively managed by political handlers and spinners, such that it was hard for her to talk straight, because she had been micromanaged to death on just what to say and what not to say to win over the reluctant voters.
When the public looked at Hillary Clinton in the debates and elsewhere, many people couldn’t get their arms around what they were actually getting should they cast their votes for her.
They didn’t have the feeling that they were seeing the real Hillary with a smile constantly plastered across her face.
Hillary’s defeat was costly to the tune of nearly one billion dollars spent upon her campaign.
Hillary Clinton was certainly most capable as a politician and may be an incredibly real person. The problem was that not enough people could see through to who she really is because of the simple issue of congruence.
Why People Have Such a Hard Time Becoming Congruent
Being congruent is very challenging in our highly networked global society with media and social media coming at us from every direction. We have some 60,000 thoughts every day.
We are constantly bombarded with hundreds and thousands of ads telling us what to think, say and do. How can we possibly know what we even think, let alone the leading of our heart?
Even more challenging, when we want to stand before people and deliver a message of great importance, whether as a politician, executive, preacher or sales person, people pay more attention to our body language and voice than they do the content of what we are saying.
Numerous studies have been conducted showing that body language takes at least 60% of people’s attention, while the tone of voice takes 25%, leaving only 15% or less for the content.
Naturally, we pay most of our attention on writing out, planning and practicing what we are going to say so that we can deliver the content smoothly, while mostly ignoring our body language and tone of voice.
Only if someone captures our practice session on video and plays it back several times do we have the opportunity to see how our body and voice are distracting the audience and contradicting our message. Only then do we have a chance to self-correct and become convincing.
Modeling Congruence: Coming at It from Without
Tony Robbins is a huge proponent of modeling success. If you want to learn how to do something, seek out masters of the subject at hand.
For example, if you want to become a professional actor, study under a truly great actor or actress, and closely watch what she does and doesn’t do, how she moves, her very way of being on stage or in front of the camera.
In the classical approach to acting, you imitate the masters of the craft, and if you are extremely fortunate, become an understudy and get direct coaching or feedback from them. You study their posture and movement (what is called the “business” on stage), as opposed to their dialogue.
From childhood on, we all learn through imitation.
Before public education, learning was largely based on apprenticeship, studying with the master craftsmen. You served them in any way you could, and supported their every effort so that you could watch them close at hand, and begin to soak in their trade secrets.
Method Acting: Achieving Congruence from Within
In recent years, The Method has become all the rage on both Broadway and Hollywood, closely practiced by a whole generation of distinguished actors and actresses. It takes a very different approach than classical modeling, or formalism.
Rather than imitating classic forms and postures on stage, it seeks to go within and get would-be players in touch with their actual feelings.
In method acting, you take a new role and identify situations where you would naturally feel certain emotions, such as being swept away with infatuation in Romeo and Juliet, or being crushed by remorse, believing that your lover has departed. Rather than go through a repertoire of appropriate movements and gestures and imitating previous actors doing the same part, you go within and put yourself in a similar situation to the character.
When did you first fall in love? What was it like? How did you actually feel telling a girl you loved her, or trying to make a pass? Feel it all now! Feel the awkwardness, the embarrassment, the supreme importance and total vulnerability.
Bring it out, and the transfer it to your character, whether you are playing Romeo or Juliet. (It is amusing to think that the Beatles got famous on a song about just holding hands!)
Acting has never been the same since Konstantin Stanislavski established the method. It is well that we consider the method for our own lives.
Get into what you think and feel. Your dreams, your convictions. What ultimately matters to you? Project that! When you connect with your heart and your gut, you will be on your way to congruence, to true empowerment. Become a conscious leader. You deserve no less!
Give us all a chance to truly buy your act. You will be so glad you did.
To thine own self be true,
and it must follow, as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man.
Congruence: Why People Don’t Buy Your Act appeared first on http://consciousowl.com.
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