Rabbi Chananya Rosenblum: Building Success in Life, Business and Kiruv - Project Inspire Convention

okay good morning everyone welcome to the 7eventh annual project Inspire conference my name is Kanani Rosenblum have we started the tape yet yes uh oh now I really can't say stuff that I wanted to say all right so today's talk is we're going to touch on the tools of influence uh this is based primarily on the work of a professor and his name is Robert chelini he wrote a now famous book called influence and there are a lot of things a lot of takeaways from this book about life about business about kiru and so forth what modern psychology has come to understand marketing psychology is that influencing other people or how we come to make decisions isn't lock and it isn't Magic it's actually science okay I'm an attorney by profession I also have a degree in Psychology the irony of my life even though I decided to become an attorney but I use the principles of Market psychology every single day in my business and to some degree in Jewish Outreach over the past 15 years I've started several Jewish Outreach programs I'll talk a little bit about that towards the end and these are principles that are common and they're universal meaning that it's not that we're going to find that one person is going to be influenced and the other person isn't these are Universal principles and they go as follows the first principle is that of reciprocation ation reciprocation is the principle that if I do something for you then by Nature it's innate you feel indebted to me there was an experiment that social scientists did and what they did was they studied what happens we may have experienced we may have gone to a restaurant and when the waiter waitress comes to bring you the check what do they put on the tray something a a fortune cookie right so you might think well this is just maybe this is just something nice that they're doing for me but research shows that when they put one mint on the tray when they bring you the check tips increase by 3% okay what would you say if they decided to put two mints on the tray how much you would you think that tips would increase another 30% 14% increase for putting two minutes on the train instead of one same people same scenario same scenario they this is a study they did this across multiple people okay in different different locations and what would you think would happen if a waitress put one mint on the tray when she brought the check and then she started walking away but then before she continued she turned and she says you know for you nice people another mint what do you think think that that would make a difference 23% increase okay so what social scientists learned from this is that if something is reciprocal but it's also something that's unexpected and it's sincere then that's something that has an influence and we don't need to go beyond our own experience to understand that this is reality freebies we get them all the time right if a letter you know sometimes you get a solicitation letter and it comes with those address labels in it free address labels you think they're just being generous no the idea is that if you feel that you received something you want to give something back in return principle number two social proof this used to be a little more difficult to demonstrate but today it's easy how many people here have ever bought a product on Amazon 100% great how many people here before you purchase the product went to look the user reviews once 100% at least once 100% right there is a website called CNET they actually have two categories of reviews they review Electronics they review they have expert reviews and they have user reviews what's the idea you might ask yourself the question if you have an expert that test the product why do I need to listen to yenim who has maybe the this is the first time he ever bought a camcorder right but the idea is social proof this professor chelini conducted an experiment and the experiment was you may have been in a hotel one time and seen some type of car that was in the room and it was trying to encourage you to reuse your towels have you ever seen this one yeah and maybe they cited something about the environment right oh this for environmental sake please you know leave your towels on the floor that means to wash them otherwise we're not going to wash them so when they did that there was a 31% increase in people who decided that they weren't going to be having their towels rewashed but when they put on the card instead of the environmental reason 75% of our guests did not want their towels to be reused I wanted their towels to be reused what happened no everybody the numbers went up by 26% above that 31% just because the card said that other people 75% of our guests right reuse their towels now what if they were to write on the card not just about what other people in the hotel did but 75% of guests who stayed in this room reuse their towels at least once what would you think well you might think I better I wish they I hope they better washed it in between the last guy and me right but what but what would you think it went up even more 33% okay social proof when you put on the card this is what other people do this is like the Sheep principle we're like sheep we do what other people do and we're interested we like what other people like principle number three commitment and consistency evidently the project inspired people may may have heard the talk or may have read the book last night do you remember how they asked people how many people here are going to make a commitment to do something Outreach after the conference right have you ever received a call from a solicitor and instead of saying here's what I have to sell you they start off by asking you a question okay as the principle of Law Firm I get solicitation calls all the time maybe once a week so very often they'll start off by trying to say oh I'm not sketchy by explaining let me tell you about the work we do with other lawyers or whatever try to get their foot in the door so most of the time I'll say I'm sorry but I'm not interested and then they'll follow it up with a question and the question is oh but don't you want more business right because they feel how is anybody going to say no to that question how would anybody say no to that don't you want to make more money right so much their sh I usually say no silence oh no I don't want any I don't want to make any more money sh they don't know what to say they're like ah okay have a nice day right um but there was a study that in 2005 there's a researcher named Stephanie Brown and she didn't did a study called evidence of positive relationship between age and preference for consistency and that confirmed that older people become more set in their ways and more likely to be in line with their behavior that they had Eng in previously and so the catch to this principle is that even though generally once we commit to something we want to be consistent with what we've already committed to that sometimes on a younger person it doesn't work as well which actually explains why very often we're doing with college Outreach right even if they've been very interested in doing whatever it is they were doing sometimes their behaviors aren't inconsistent we call them back would you like to come to shabbaton or Tri no I'm not I'm not so interested but there are many studies that back this principle up that we always act consistent always we we we have a psychological mechanism that says that we're going to act consistent with our behaviors or with our commitments in the past aren't seniors much more apt to be the scams and stuff like that that's that's B business yes yes yeah well that's vulnerable yeah so there's a vulnerability Factor as well but now we're an election here I'll tell you about a study that was performed and it backs up this principle 86.7% who were asked whether or not they would vote actually went to the polls as compared to only 61% who went to the polls and they weren't asked so in other words if I were to ask you in advance are you going to vote on Election Day chances are if you say that you will vot that yes I'm going to go that you're going to go at a much higher percentage than people that are s and they say no or I'm not sure so maybe they'll go maybe they won't go another example sometimes you'll go to a doctor and they'll give you a medical appointment card okay so research found that those patients that actually filled out the appointment card themselves as opposed to being candidate by the nurse were 18% more likely to keep their appointments than people who didn't so again we're programmed that once we make a commitment to something it's harder for us psychologically to back out of it principle number four is the principle of liking generally we prefer to do things for people who we like or keep the company of people that we like this seems like it's very simple very straightforward but there are so many people who don't realize that their actions may be inconsistent with that have you ever met a salesperson and you're like ah that guy really didn't rub me the right way maybe he was a little arrogant maybe he wasn't kind right but if you're in that type of position where you want to make a sale you want people to like you there was actually a an car dealer in Albany which is where I'm originally from and their slogan was everybody likes Jack burn that's what it was so okay I thought it was cute or whatever and one day a colleague of mine came into the office and we were joking about it cuz he had a little jingle jingle about it and uh and he says you know it's really true he said I went to the dealership one day and this guy was like people were coming in off the street hey Jack good morning how are you what's going on Hey Joe how how's how how are the wife and kids it was really true here's a fellow who built a successful car dealership on this phrase everybody likes Jack burn but he was likeable he was likable and that was a big secret to success they did a study of negotiation at various Business Schools one group in the experiment was told quote time is money get down to business the ones that were told that before they engage a negotiation in that group 55% reached an agreement the second group was told before you begin just exchange some pleasantry some personal information try to connect to the other person who you're going to be negotiating with before you enter the negotiation in that group 90 % reached an agreement so what happened to me I translate this as Rapport they establish a rapport they establish a connection and they that caused them to like each other to whatever degree and that help facilitate the negotiation principle number five is Authority we all know this it's the reason why when a Speaker gets up to speak usually what happens they'll have somebody come and introduce them and talk about all their credentials this person is this or this person is that okay maybe covet has something to do with it forah I didn't have anybody to introduce me today right but what's the idea behind that the idea behind that is that we are more likely to be influenced by people who we see is as an authority right which is why in the old days very often in commercials they had an actor put on a white coat who was playing a doctor and he would say you know nine out of 10 doctors uh you know recommend this or that right now over time people started complaining that this is a little unethical so now they'll have things like they'll say paid spokesman and I think actually it may be unethical for somebody to even you know play a doctor on TV in a commercial right if they're not if they don't actually have a medical degree but what is the idea that you see the guy with the white coat and the stethoscope right and all of a sudden he's oh this is a doctor I'm going to listen to him the most famous experiment hands down on the concept of authority was one that was conducted in 1974 by a Jewish Professor named Stanley mgrm I'm not going to could talk for hours about that experiment but just to summarize he was trying to answer the question as to how it was possible that regular everyday people during the Holocaust could have been swept up in in an environment where they killed Jews just because they were being told to kill Jews other words he assumed that not everybody who killed Jews during the Holocaust was like a rabid anti-semite but there were people that were just regular people that were recruited and they were told by a superior right and in fact what was the average defense at the nberg trials I was just even Yak sh right he got up and they put what was his main defense I was just following orders right just following orders so Stanley mg wanted to to understand this principle is there anything to this principle of I was just following orders so what he did was he had a teacher and a and a learner what the teacher was the person who was supposed to be teaching various word patterns to the learner who was sitting in other room and the learner was actually Confederate somebody who we had set up in order to conduct this experiment and what happened was that the teacher was supposed to teach word patterns to the learner and he taught over these word patterns they had a microphone and again they couldn't see each other and and if the learner got the words incorrect he was supposed to turn a dial and administer a light electric shock over time what ended up happening was they said that every time somebody gets something wrong you have to increase the amount of vs and what ended up happening was that almost across the board not withstanding the fact that they were told at the beginning that the learner has a heart condition and not withstanding the fact that the person would make sounds noises ow ow you're hurting me almost every participant in this study administered what they believed was a fatal voltage of electric shock to the Confederate who actually wasn't getting shocked at all it was just a setup why because there was somebody who was standing with a clipboard and every time that the person got something wrong he would say you must continue the experiment administer 50 volts and then you could sometimes the people were get they were started sweating and getting all uncomfortable but they persisted and I don't know I don't know if I want to go on with this you must continue the experiment and so on and so forth another experiment that was done in this regard is that people were more likely to give spare change to a random stranger who approached them if they were wearing a uniform what's the idea that if somebody presents as an authority figure we are more more likely to be influenced by them and finally principle number six is scarcity this is something that we find in modern marketing all the time limited time offer okay this offer is only available for the first 10 callers the idea is that we are much more likely to want something if it is scarce okay all of us here remember the sound breaking Jet right the uh what was it called con the Concord and it was very expensive the tickets were so expensive eventually I got to the points where it didn't make sense I guess with the fuel cost and everything to top rate the flights when they announced that the Concord was ending its run all of a sudden ticket sales went through the roof why it wasn't any different conord on Tuesday than it was on Monday but the idea was and the prices presumably weren't any less but the idea was that people it became scarce they realized that this thing was ending its run don't miss the chance here's what you're going to miss out on if you don't take advantage of this special offer so the bottom line is that in marketing psychology they've discovered that there are these six common principles of influence that operate almost consistently across the board and we find them in everyday life okay what I find interesting is thatal were aware of these principles way before just like with many other things many other things that we find that we have to back this up what is it say right acquire for yourself a friend what is that reciprocity if I give something to somebody else right say become my friends right reciprocity the idea of social proof K we're sensitive to the fact that we are very influenced by the people that are around us and if we have people that are around us that are good they're going to influence us to do good and if we have people that are around us that are bad we are influenced to do bad the gar has a principle of stolen waters are sweeter gar and sa what's the idea that if I know something is wrong it's going to taste better it's more scarce it's something that I'm not going to get so easily if I get it easily then it's not as delicious as something that I'm not going to be able to get so easily of right we know Lo that establishes the authority ofal that's the Gateway for all of the MIT right Authority it had to be established that if we're going to listen toal and take that as our M so the Torah itself no less then in the Torah itself it has to say Lo that we're not permitted to deviate from the authority of the otherwise who are these guys uh not to be uh not to be disrespectful who are these rabbis right Authority we have to establish somebody's Authority before we can understand that this is something that we must do the officer of n says Called himos It also says that that right that if you smile at someone you're giving them more than a cup of milk it's even more what's the idea that we have this principle that if we want to have a positive influence on somebody we have to put them in a position where they feel comfortable and they're going to like us this is the principle of liking in kazal and finally we find by the steps of Chua that one of the essential steps of chuva is it's not just enough that a person has to leave the sin but the idea is that they have to make a commitment not to do it in the future I it's not enough just to stop doing it no you need to make a commitment not to do it again right so again understood human psychology that when a person makes a commitment he is more likely to keep to that commitment than somebody who just St stops doing the now anybody here who's been involved in kiru knows that very often time these types of principles can be applied as well right we invite people for chabas like the famous thing what are the three most powerful Tools in uh kir right chent and schach songs right but but that's right so we do we open our homes we open our hearts hopefully they're going to like us they're going to see us as an authority you know for a lot of people they see somebody that's observant as like oh Rabbi you know they feel that there's a certain Authority that we have and we do have a certain Authority and it creates a certain Aras actually but it's more than a certain AAS it's an ability to have a positive influence not just by what we say but even by things that we don't say right when we come to the shabas table dressed up in our chabas finery it's it's kimil like the doctor wearing the white coat and the stethoscope they look at us as somebody who's a role model look at this fine person look at the way that they dress look at the way that I that they that that they talk right when I was was in law school it was like people would look at me they say oh he never curses he never like these things like okay lawyers curse like Sailors like a known thing right but I had to be so careful because I every word that comes out of my mouth is going to be measured and that's something that we an influence a positive influence that we can have without even saying something actually it's by virtue of not saying something a colleague actually once commended me he says I know he has a sha background but he's not he's not religious that he says I notice you don't you don't use Niel he said to me and that's very admirable he complimented me on that for us it's not a big deal but in the velt it's a big deal but here's the kicker one of the takeaways that I see in these principles of influence is that what this really shows us is how pervasive the influence of society is on us that we don't even realize it ourself that when we reach out to other people one of the things that often times makes the rubber hit the road and they start to make changes is when they realize that our lifestyle is different that we have Torah and Torah teaches us things that may be contrary to what Society is teaching but the more we realize how influenced we are by these forces that are constantly a play right everybody talks about the internet right and all of these things but how many people are talking about this the fact that from the minute that we become old enough to realize what's going on whether we're riding the subware listening to the radio or getting uh telemarketing phone calls we are constantly being subject to the messages of society and if we don't hold on to the Torah values then they're subject to the whims of whatever Society deems to be appropriate at that point in time I gave a class to college students last week and I was trying to illustrate the principle that if there's no absolute truth then how do we know that anything is true that anything that we have come to know as true is really true maybe it's just something that was taught to me by Society I'm going to give you a whole list of examples you turn back the clock of your 50 years and the these are things that Society had a completely different view than the society has today intermarriage the basic fundamental back in the day a Jew doesn't marry a non-jew today it's public it's Hollywood it's Clinton right Clint Clinton's daughter marrying a Jew so proud unto Theo wonderful recreational marijuana usage okay maybe there was a period during the' 60s a little different but in general drug use was considered very dead very dangerous marijuana is the gateway drug okay ask any kid on a college campus today and actually most adults if they really believe that if they think that recreational marijuana usage is a Bad Thing most of them will say no which is why in Most states it's decriminalized at this point or it's such a small crime that it's not worth the police even getting involved physician assisted suicide remember Jack korkian yeah he went to jail or he was arrested right today in many states it's legal 100% legal women's role in the workplace homosexuality what's considered moral what's considered immoral pornography cohabitation without marriage having children out of wedlock tolerance for racism the other way anti Israel sentiment is it just anti-israel or is this really anti-Semitism and whatever the statistics are for the new liberalism in the world the statistics for the average college students are way off the charts why is that so why is it so that young people are subject to these influences of liberal America at an even greater rate number one it's the influence of their professors that's always has been the case a lot of liberalism there number two there's a general attitude on the college campus that all is good now is the time to have fun go sew your Wild Oats right this is the time for you to experiment and whatever next influence of social media again we talked about social proof right and the impact of social proof sometimes what people get on a social media share they consider even more Authority than something that they got from their parents or from some other source that was more authoritative Rebellion from the values of your upbringing helps mold your individual identity right they're taught this is good Go cast aside what you've been taught for your whole life right now this can actually be helpful this could be hurtful right the hurtful is obvious because if they got good values right so now they're throwing them A Wayside but can also be helpful because if they encounter right somebody that's teaching them something good they start to question I said oh well you know maybe everything that I've been told up until now is baloney and now this is really there's something some truth to this but the bottom line is that we share toror values once we understand how in what Manner we're influenced by Society not just because we access the internet but because Society has come to Market Us in very creative ways we come to realize the value of having a consistent system that was passed on to us from generation to generation and once you peel back the layers of Str the materialism extreme liberalism the the number one goal of life for the average irreligious Jew which is to earn money and to obtain happiness which most of them don't know what that is or how to obtain it so they come to start really questioning what is my what are my core values and what are my core beliefs and I'm sorry to say but as I was listening to uh Rabbi mechanic the other night and he was talking about how we may be failing to teach over the Yodo hamuna to our children I thought to myself I really wonder how many people in the room are not just equi not just not equipped to be able to answer the questions because they didn't learn how to answer the question but because they don't even know how to answer the question themselves they haven't even worked it out themselves and this is something that that's lacking it's something that's lacking in other words if we want to be able to pass on the values whether it's to our children or whether it's an on from people we have to understand what those values are aunap is great but that's not all that there is to it if aunap was all there was to it then nobody would have ever written a safer right be talking it wouldn't exist the K wouldn't exist right so the idea is that H wanted us to be able to understand this stuff to understand the values understand the in ourselves and unfortunately there's not as not much influence in this regard inas I have to say but now that we're all adults we have the we have an opportunity we now have an opportunity to crack open the books and to study these things and even to make ausa maybe I want to end off by sharing with you some thoughts about the 15 years I've spent in the trenches of doing Jewish Outreach you know one of the hardest things and it's talked about every year is taking that first step taking that first step saying okay I know that what I have is good and beautiful and I'm I'm fully bought in I understand that this cure is an important thing and I understand that I can do a lot for somebody else but how do I take that very first step so I want to tell you the following I think a lot of people are a little bit fearful of rejection they feel like what's going to be if I invite this person for shabis and they're going to say no so I can tell you I'm here to testify today with Adis Nam that in 15 years of doing this I have never once been turned down in invitation for shabas never once doesn't mean that everybody who I ever asked came sometimes people make excus or whatever but it's never been a situation where somebody said I'm really not interested if you if you go to somebody with sincerity and you have a relationship with them or maybe even if you don't maybe you're just a random person who walks into Scher you see on the subway or whatever and you say would you like to experience Shabbat in my home hopefully they know what Shabbat is if they don't you tell them you won't be turned down that work for families as well as for singles 100% 100% we've had singles college students older people younger people yeah families absolutely unless you have like I say somebody who maybe is not so comfortable with the idea but it hasn't happened to me maybe it's happened to others but when you approach somebody with sincerity they feel it and for most people it's a matter also of a little bit of curiosity oh wow I've never you know as time goes on and there's more and more assimilation you find less and less people that have actually experienced genuine Jewish experiences like chabas okay I recently was maduan by a t of mine his wife listen to this went to the Mikvah she had never been into a show and she went to a Mikvah that was like her first Jewish experience before the wedding she had never stepped foot into a sh okay and this is becoming more common because the more assimilated American Jewelry becomes the less people are having Bar Mitzvah having Bas Mitzvah bris and things of that nature so for a lot of people it's a matter of satisfying their curiosity but more than that for the average person they they feel like this would be I'm a Jew and I want to tap to my Jewish Pride I want to tell you something else sometimes after you do this type of stuff for a number of years it's easy to become despondent and I had a conversation with my friend D rubinowitz about this very Point sometimes you come to ask yourself what am I really doing over here so I'm going to invite somebody for chabas maybe they'll walk maybe they'll drive after the meal they're going to maybe walk home maybe they're going to drive home I have a seven-year-old son AB he's so adorable and once at our shabas meal he asks Our Guest he says uh how are you getting home after the meal so I was like oh boy it's really uncomfortable so they laughed and you know smiled whatever it was I was a cute and uh I guess they didn't want to admit that they were going to be driving home so after the meal I said Aram uh I mean you know what they're going to do you've been here seen this before so why did you ask them say he says I wanted to see what they wanted we going to say seven-year-old kid anyways um but sometimes you reach a point where you ask yourself what is the value of just one chabas what's the value of just one encounter just one chabas meal so I want to tell you time is short but I want to tell you a beautiful story that I heard from a Shapiro and he said as follows there was a person who was working in kir isim and they had a young child who passed away and so people came of course to the Shiva and among those who came to the Shiva were eight Kon secular Israeli boys who came to the Shiva and they said Rabbi we feel so terrible about what happened we got together and we decided that we are going to keep this Shabbat in memory of your son beautiful F so after they laughed somebody was sitting there and you know people don't always say the most appropriate things at a Shiva house and they said Rabbi question for you okay it's nice it's a beautiful thing that they're doing but last shabus they were smoking and driving and all these things and the following shabas after this they're probably going to be doing the same things do you really think like what's what is the big deal so they're going to keep on shabus and act shabus they're going to go back to to whatever say he say I want to tell you something I want you to ask my wife what she would do what she would give to have our son back for one chabas that he should sit by the table and I should be able to give him a br and I should be able to sing zir with him what would we give to bring our son back for just one chabas he says can you imagine the that the has that his children are keeping just one chabas and after I heard that story that was it I realized and I could tell you stories about people who I encountered who we had for shabas or a one-off thing and five six seven eight years later I found out that they were making strides ended up in Yeshiva becoming sh shabas and so on and so forth but you don't have to go that far it's the idea that if we take that first step and we overcome our own insecurity and we reach out to that person chances are we won't be rejected and the impact and that that we can have on that n even if it is just for one chabas is something that's tremendous I'm going to end off by telling you a story about a colleague of mine an attorney who I had never met in person uh we had done some business transactionally phone and through email and he tells me he's Jewish I said great why don't you come to us for rashash Shana the high holidays Jewish New Year where you going to have a a meal fine so he says he says he'll come I was overjoyed how nice we're going to have somebody new at our Yan of table and not only that he said I'll even come to services very beautiful usually people they're happy to skip the service and come straight for the meal he says he's going to come for services also 5 minutes before Yanti I get a text message and he I said he says okay we're on the way and so I texted him back and said just in case you're running late come to my house instead of going to SCH case I didn't want him to be there and to miss us so he says don't worry we will be on time we will be on time I said what do you mean he says I'm bringing a friend I said oh that's nice you're friend okay so I walk into SCH you know with your you know hopefully a little bit of pad it's Rashana you know holy day of the year and somebody comes out of the shell and says to me it's going to be an interesting time tonight okay I walk into show and I see what appears to be a nice Jewish man in his 40s he was wearing a sweater some cotton pants whatever wasn't wearing a suit okay and in the back of his head was shaved the word Kai like his whole back of his head was shaved but that wasn't like the ultimate standing next to him was an African-American fellow wearing a doag you know those like the underwear on the head like the the black like that a T-shirt and jeans holding an art school Master upside down it's like okay interesting so we went through the doing and I uh introduced myself nice to meet you his name is Freddy he's a boxer had did they meet they met at a boxing gym and uh okay they're friends so he decided to bring his boxer friend Freddy to the yff meal so it went pretty routinely and you know he was very fascinated of they were both fascinated by this by this experience and as we went for a little walk after the meal so we started talking so this young African-American fellow turned to me he says you know you got a nice neighborhood here he say we couldn't walk like this in my neighborhood I said what do you mean so he says without a gun like whoa okay it's a little interesting culture over here and and then the the colleague of mine starts talking he turns to me he says what is heaven so I said yeah you know after after you pass away start he says no he says what you have here is heaven this is heaven this is beauty this is he was so taken by this experience right that to him this was Heaven on Earth and that was his reaction unfortunately he he passed away just this past year and I I get to think to myself right maybe this was the one experience of his life that he ever had in such a situation was by AR Yan table and that was the takeaway for him you saw how his friend reacted to the situation he had no right but his reaction situation was that we gave him a taste of heaven and he really felt it and so we have that ability to cast aside all the influences for whatever time that we can you know turn off the television turn off the phone come to us for an experience and you're not going to be influenced by all that stuff we're going to give you something genuine and through that vehicle will have an impact thank you for your attention