The Ripple Effect
The Ripple Effect: Nicole Wells
I wanted share some thoughts from my reading on the “ripple effect”as it relates to public speaking and emotional contagion. Both of these ideas are sparked by the book: the Dragonfly Effect by Jennifer Aacker and Andy Smith, and are really one in the same.
“The ripple effect, in economics, shows how an individual’s increase in spending increases the incomes of others and their subsequent ability to spend. In sociology, it describes how social interactions can affect situations indirectly. Research shows that the ripple effects result from small actions that have a positive significant impact on others and over time. When the epicenter of the ripple effect is based on deep meaning, a multiplier effect can occur. In such conditions, others around you feel the emotion that you’re feeling and can therefore become more strongly mobilized. This phenomenon is called: emotional contagion.”
What this all means to me is that when you are viscerally connected to what you are saying (you care) it’s often the little things that you say that have big impact. It may not be the big overarching theme that you convey that hits people, but the simple anecdote or self-reflection that you share that makes what you say memorable and mobilizes your audience.
You may have no idea where and when what you are sharing will have impact – one person tells their colleague and that has impact on someone and else and so on…In today’s world of measuring and tracking social media engagement, after a presentation it can sometimes feel awkward and empty if there isn’t much feedback and no one presses “like.” You can get some applause, (maybe) a few glances, a smile or two, a couple people coming up to talk…but unless you close a deal you may never know the impact you have had on another person. Often someone that you never met.
In the last three weeks, the Dragonfly Effect was one of the five books I read. Reading so many at once made me feel like I’m turning in to my grandmother - pictured above with her two sisters. She was an avid reader, with a capital A.
When she outlived her sisters by a decade, even after suffering childhood polio, she always claimed it was due to her keeping her mind and body active. Polio paralyzed her left arm, yet Grandma Gladys would use a stationary bike and a trampoline daily in her home “gym” up until she was 88.
She was a woman ahead of her time. Grandma G was eating organic, taking herbal supplements, cutting sugar out of her diet to curb arthritis and belonged to a food co-op back in the 1950’s. She also had stacks and stacks of papers and books around her house ranging in size from 1 to 4 feet high which you had to navigate around.
People thought she hoarded paper due to her memories of the Great Depression: nope! It was because she planned to read everything in those stacks – that’s what she told me. Articles, journals, books, clippings, she saved all the tidbits she wanted to read and stayed up until at least 3 a.m. reading, absorbing knowledge until she passed away at 92…she would have absolutely loved the internet and electronic books. I only hope to be half the woman she was.
