How to Prepare for the 10-Day Communication Challenge
Hey there, Brave Adventurer!
Thank you SO much for coming on board! We’re thrilled you’ve decided to join us and we’re committed to doing everything we can to help you experience proof that you really are as alive as you are able to communicate! In just ten days we want you to notice ease and improvement in your confidence, health and relationships. All you have to do is make sure you’re signed up and that you follow along with the daily messages and complete the action steps as they are assigned.
You’ll notice that we sometimes refer to this 10-Day Communication Challenge as “The Enthusiasm Experiment” and this is because enthusiasm is to communication, what oxygen is to fire!! While there are many things to learn and understand about communication and the different situations of the people you’ll need to communicate with, enthusiasm is THE #1 tool that will let you handle ANYONE!
Unfortunately, these days when you look out at a world full of serious people, enthusiasm can seem pretty hard to find.
That’s why, to prepare you for your communication challenge ahead, we’ve put together some tools to help you recognize it, and recreate it yourself! By doing what it takes with us in the days to come to crank up and express your enthusiasm, you will literally become a head-turning beacon of good vibrations in the days to come:
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Difference Enthusiasm Makes
I want to share two examples of teaching; one that is really successful and uses tremendous amounts of enthusiasm, and another that, well, that definitely doesn’!
Check out this clip is from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: It reminds me of every tax office, medical receptionist, banking officer, employment centre and government services office I’ve ever visited! This is the kind of communication we’re here to vaporize:
Now check out this clip:
That was a clip from The Ron Clark Story. This was a made-for-TV movie about the true story of how Ron Clark changed the lives of his students in Inner Harlem, NY. The real life Ron Clark is such a frikken’ AWESOME human and an incredible model of enthusiasm that has changed and improved the lives of millions of people now. Buy his books. Watch the movie. Find his videos and interviews with Oprah. He ROCKS the enthusiasm cash bar and is truly one of all my all time heroes!!
While the two videos above are a fantastic comparative example of what enthusiasm can do, there’s more to know about what made Ron Clark successful at capturing his students attention the way he did.
How to Act Enthusiastic: A Video Tutorial
If you’re honestly committed to this adventure, then you’re going to need to give yourself a taste of what Ron has done. Just a little taste. Dale Carnegie said, “If you want to be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic.” It really is that simple, and this next section is designed to prove it!
We’re going to do our best to take all the seriousness out of this little experiment and show you EXACTLY what we think you need to do to be successful in communication and in life, and it has a lot to do with cranking up your enthusiasm factor! This little video explains everything. What’s helpful to know before watching is that emotions have degrees of “livingness” or energy in them (A lot like people, actually!).
We’re going to show you a little ladder of livingness that can be observed in emotions so you can feel and understand just what it takes to act enthusiastic! To help me record this video, I used one of my dear friends who is an actress and puppeteer, Caroline Bernier! She’s wild and crazy and brave and AMAZING!
Go ahead and watch this video, and you’ll see just how much it really takes to be enthusiastic:
(Psssst! Be sure to use the video and pause it after each emotion. Then repeat the level of emotion, energy, speed, movement, etc. that you observe Caro display in the video. If you do that, you will really start to recognize where some of the people in your life are really at emotionally and energetically. You’ll also start to realize how much life it really takes to experience and share enthusiasm!)
How Enthusiastic Are You? Test Your E-Factor!
Today’s assignment is to take the time to fill out a quick quiz to test your E-Factor! (If you have any trouble with the online version, or you would like to just measure it yourself, you can print off this version of the test and then redo it at the end of our 10-Day Communication Challenge to see your results! These questions are designed to help you get a sense of how “enthusiastic” and alive you feel and are right now, so we can compare with your results after the challenge.
By restoring a person’s ability to reach out and communicate with others, we will begin to reverse the effect of too much incoming communication and help restore her vibrant health, self-confidence and ability to improve her relationships with others.
The more you are able to take up space, reach out, communicate with others (even about simple things), the more present you will feel in your environment and the less your attention will be tied up in the past, or stuck in your head. Optimism and self-confidence will go up, solutions will be easier to find and life will start feeling and being a lot more fun!
We’re going to measure the success of this experiment by measuring your E-Factor before and after our challenge! This will measure your level of ability and willingness to engage with other people, overall confidence, attitude and outlook toward life!
A Special Gift to Help You Through It
In order to help you make the most of this little adventure, I’ve made a downloadable, printable journal you called, The Enthusiasm Escapades, for you to track your responses to the different activities as you go. An “escapade” is “an act or incident involving excitement, daring, or adventure!”
While it could sound a little boring to do something like a “communication” challenge, it wouldn’t be called a “challenge” if it wasn’t going to require a whole lot of grits and gutsy stuff from you to make it happen!
You can go ahead and download your free participation journal for the Communication Challenge here. You can use it to note down any of your reactions to the exercises, as well as your discoveries along the way!
What do YOU want to get out of this adventure? I’d love for you to share that with us below so I can be sure to adjust my messages and the experience to give you the best chance of making your goals happen in the next ten days!
Thank you so much for being here and for your courage to communicate. There are reasons we bite our tongues and don’t rock boats or ruffle feathers, but somewhere under all those layers of political correctness and socially acceptable you is a tiger ready to leap forth and take life on.
I’m honoured you’re decided to try out your roar here, with us, and hope this is everything you hoped for and more!
Love and tiger stripes,
Tera