Embrace and Amplify

Dig in to get out

(Image via Rep. Dylan Fernandes; link to full article here)

Governor Ron DeSantis sent migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in the funniest political move of 2022.

Remember all the love, care, COMMUNITY shown to the migrants…before they were sent away via the military 24 hours later?

Governor DeSantis used the most effective way to remove obstacles:

Embrace and Amplify

Embrace and amplify takes a situation, says ok, then goes deeper and harder at the problem - the only way out is through, plus be annoying as heck while doing it.

Embrace - take the person or group and say ok, that’s what we will do.

Kong’s example: I moved to a different legal department at a former office. My new supervisor wanted to have WEEKLY meetings on upcoming cases - their posture (where they were in terms of headed to trial), the offers, other facts of the cases.

I HATED the idea. Micromanaging to a T. Our first meeting lasted close to two hours. Towards the end my boss stopped asking as many questions, checked his watch, occasionally looked at his computer. Bingo.

He didn’t want to be there either.

Amplify - make it painful and take the person far past what they want or wanted

For the next meeting, I went DEEP: more questions, more cases, EVERYTHING I could think to ask about a case. I’ll never forget his face when I brought in my rolling cart of files, left, then brought in another. The win was at hand.

I GRILLED HIM FOR HOURS on everything I could think of. Around the two hour mark, he got up and said, “You seem to have a good grasp on your cases, we’re good.”

I INSISTED on a few more questions. He said ok. Fifteen minutes later, he now “had to go”.

A few weeks later, I emailed him pre-meeting questions as well as to confirm our meeting time and location. His response:

“I can’t make this week’s meeting, let’s try again next month.”

We never had another meeting.

Embrace and amplify works because most people are checking boxes or thinking you are a pussy.

This strategy works when YOU are willing to put the time and effort in on the front end to eliminate the back end. You have to be willing to go through an uncomfortable period of hustling to know, in the end, you’ll get a reprieve.

Here are a few ways you can use embrace and amplify in your personal or professional life:

1. Your boss wants you to work the weekend. Perfect. Caveat: your boss has to not work that much on the weekend themselves. If they work seven days a week this is more tricky.

   1. EMBRACE: start sending them questions Friday at 5:01 PM. Text, call them. You are IN to make things fantastic, just need some facts. Start the harassment early on Saturday and Sundays too. You know they are busy, so you want to work early to free up their afternoons…

   2. AMPLIFY: this is the emails/texts/calls follow-up. “Did you see my email?” “I’m stuck here, do you have a minute?” “Can you look this over, I am close but having issues.” Bonus points for the AM work mentioned above. DRAG THEM THROUGH THE HELL THEY CREATED.

2. Your significant other wants you to attend something you do not want to go to. Key here is to remember this is not just their activity, but something they are interested in.

   1. EMBRACE: Research the thing. Send them youtube videos, memes, texts about the thing. You are EXCITED! If it is friend or family related, start liking photos, comment on everything.

   2. AMPLIFY: not only was that fun, you want to go AGAIN! Their friends are GREAT, let’s have them over NEXT WEEK! That craft fair was interesting, here are SEVENTEEN MORE IN THE AREA NEXT MONTH.

Embrace and Amplify works in magical ways.

Here are a couple woke situations and how I think you can use this to your advantage. Props to Scott Adams for tying the concept to both DeSantis and the woke stuff. I enjoy this podcast and listen frequently.

1. The Grammy’s - only ONE Trans winner?

   Why was the presenter of a ‘social change’ Grammy a straight white woman…or IS SHE?!?

2. African-American Studies class - I think Governor DeSantis could have fun here. Why ONLY an African-American studies class? What about Asian-American studies? Learning about internment camps is probably more important and interesting than afro queer studies.

   What about the Polish community? The Bosnian community?!? You have to be a BIGOT to ignore other nationalities.

   Thank you as always for reading! Have other fun situations where this can work or HAS worked? Leave in the comments below.

   Namaste,

   KONG