Master THIS Skill And You Will Transform Your Life

what skill do I think is the most important as an entrepreneur that's a really difficult question but if I could go back and you could only give me one skill to begin with and I had to build from all of it I can tell you for sure what it would be for me and that would be the ability to influence so it's the ability to persuade people without that skill set the vast majority of my wealth does not exist if you can't persuade people if you can't influence people to make decisions that are in their own best interest but that also grow your business your brand your company your net worth you can't ever become successful ful one thing that everybody I know that's a leader in everything they do can do is persuade people now I watch people do that in all different types of ways some do it through intimidation some do it through Force some do it through humor some do it through persuasive strategies transfer of energy you name it but all leaders can persuade all successful people can get people to make decisions in their own best interest that also get them to participate with their company it's the number one skill that I see most people not spending the most time on is is their ability to communicate their ability to persuade people and because they're constantly trying to go to a different course or they think that somehow if their product is good enough or they get the right sales pitch that somehow they're going to win but the fact of the matter is you've got to become a better Persuader I'm constantly personally working on that skill and refining it my ability to persuade from the stage through the camera here to make to get you to make the decisions that are in your own best interest to persuade you that I can help you um to persuade my children uh when I'm negotiating on buying a company or buying a car or buying a Jet it's my ability to persuade people to make the decision that's in their own best interest to participate with me and so if I was a quarterback in football it's my ability to persuade the team to work the hardest to run the best routes to get open to give it all they've got head coaches in football school teachers their ability to persuade and influence pastors you name it personal trainer they've got to persuade people to do the exercise or that they're the expert so it's our ability constantly to influence and persuade people that I think is the number one skill in life and so if that's the case what are some of the keys in doing that so number one thing as a business leader that you should be evaluating is are you constantly refining constantly getting better constantly making alterations constantly being aware of how you can improve in all of these areas the thing that happens when I say that to most people that are average let me tell you what their response is I already have that I already got that down I'm already persuasive I already can do that and even as I say that to people I hear people all the time say oh I'm already good at that let me be very clear with you as a friend if you were really good at that you'd be more wealthy you'd be happier you'd have a bigger business you'd have a better family life than you have so it's your vast overestimation of your ability about that one skill set that is probably going to hold you back more than anything as a friend let me tell you you're nowhere near as good as you think you are at that skill and the fact that you think you're great at it may be your greatest detriment to moving forward in your life because you don't think there's this gap between where you should be and where you are that'll cause you to do the work to get there and so I never overestimate my ability to persuade I always think I can get better I always think I can grow and I know there are multiple areas and sectors in which we persuade people so I might be really good speaking from the stage but the question is how am I in front of 30,000 people or 100 people how about oneon-one how about in my family how about to a group of three what about in a boardroom what about the white people what about the blue collar people what about my personal life right what about getting people just to make their best effort what about putting money somewhere and so there are thousands of areas of which we persuade people persuade people to like you persuade people to laugh at your joke right so constantly when you buy something persuade them when you sell something persuade them persuade your children so it's your it's your overestimation and thinking you're great at that that constantly holds you back you're nowhere near as good at that as you think you are and the fact that you think it is already an indication you're not very good at it so you might be great in one area but not great in the others and so please don't check the box and think you're outstanding at that because if someone who's spoken in front of millions of people on stages from 60,000 people to six people who's made millions and hundreds of millions of dollars in business traveled the world in multiple different businesses in athletics I've coached athletes entertainers politicians business people one-on-one and I coach in large groups if I know I need to get better in those areas I would submit to you that you probably do as well because I'm not as good as I could be or as good as I should be in almost every area of persuasion having said that let's take the business context for a second one thing I want to challenge you to be as a leader of your business whether it's just you're a leader of one which is you as a salesperson or a leader of 10 as a team or a company of 255,000 employees is you must become Evangelical about your cause in your mission the greatest business people have an Evangelical property about them they're evangelizing all the time they're propagating the the strengths the benefits of their business of their mission of their cause one of the great evangelists of all time is Steve Jobs there's a great book written by a guy named guy Kawasaki many years ago called selling the dream and in that book he talks about the way that Steve Jobs sold the dream of apple and he literally called him an evangelist for the cause there's a great story in that book about Steve Jobs when he was recruiting he knew he needed to have a CEO of his company and he wanted to have the best and at that time there was a man named Scully who was the head of Pepsi and jobs was this young kid in his 20s trying to recruit this executive who had made millions of dollars and he couldn't get them and he couldn't get him and he couldn't get him and finally he he gets the voicemail back in those days the answering machine actually of Scully and he says listen listen man when you're tired of selling sugar water to kids over there at Pepsi and you want to come change the world freaking call me back and we'll do it together boom and he hangs up right he was Evangelical the cause sugar water and Pepsi changed the world at Apple right and Scully who's making millions of dollars he's CEO of one of the most powerful companies in the world looks to his wife and she says I think he's right we aren't Chang in the world and it was that one cause-oriented Evangelical phone call from Steve Jobs and it exuded out of his pores every stage speech he gave every one-on-one every board meeting when he'd meet with their software Engineers when he'd meet with the programmers he was always Evangelical internally and externally and built a culture of one of the greatest movements of all time in the history of business there's great lessons there about being Evangelical the greatest presidential or political leaders have an Evangelical property about them the greatest sales people do the greatest dads the greatest pastors they're Evangelical aren't they so you've got to become more of an evangelist for your cause and your mission number one number two you have to sell a big enough dream to your team to your company to your clients to the people around you that the dreams of everybody associated with you can fit inside the one you're selling it's got to be big it's got to be bold it's got to be expanding number three it's got to be repetitious you can't get tired of saying the same things over and over and over again one of the deficiencies of leaders that are weak is they constantly think they have to say new things to old people creating new things to say to old people the best leaders say old things to new people they say the same things over and over again to more and more new people new teammates new employees new recruits new clients new speeches new groups right they say old things to new people they're repeating over and over the vision and the cause of their business of their movement these are great communicators the next thing all great communicators understand whether it's words physiology the look you give somebody or writing influence is energy it's the transfer of energy it's getting you to feel about my company feel about my mission feel about my product feel about my cause what I feel they're conscious of trans transferring energy to people because that's what moves people that's what gets them to act it's not just the words it's not just your face it's not just how you're dressed it's an energy transfer there's a hook by the way you can't transfer to me that which you're not experiencing yourself you have to physically be experiencing it in the moment it can't just be the words you're reading from a sheet you have to really believe it one of the reasons a lot of salespeople struggle or recruiter struggle is they just don't believe enough they don't spend enough time making the like a lawyer litigating to themselves about how powerful what they do is and the more and more you really believe you're a True Believer you can evangelize your product you can evangelize your message so invest more time in your own belief in your research in your knowledge finding third-party articles magazines blogs things that reinforce whatever it is you're doing that feeds your own belief that way you can give it to me you can't give it to me if you don't have it and so they don't spend enough time spend more more time feeding your own belief and be conscious of the transfer of energy to another person there's a great study out right now that I was just reading about bees and them deciding which flour to pollinate is based on the energy the flour puts off they sense the energy from the flower and they move towards that one deciding to pollinate that one well if you want more people to pollinate your business pollinate your life if you want to track the right relationship the right amount of money the right clients the right employees the right recruits the right vendors the right support you got to be putting off that energy cuz people are going to pollinate it somewhere you want to pollinating with you right and that's an energy feeling they get from people the bottom line is people got to be when they get around you they got to feel something special about you special about where you're going special about your cause special about your mission that something special is happening something historic something big a big old dream in fact one big enough that my dream can fit inside the one these people are selling me right and so this is the key of moving people the number one skill go all the way back to the beginning my number one skill that if I could keep only one would be this right here the ability to persuade people in multiple areas of my life how do I get better at it transfer energy number one feed your belief number two number three make sure that it's repetitious over and over again say old things to new people right and you got to be Evangelical and sell a big old dream the bottom line is is that this is a process that never ends of growing us of growing our ability to persuade people one of the things about communicating as well is doing it with a lot of specificity great communicators great influencers great persuaders are very specific and very clear about what their message is and so even communicating to yourself and leading yourself I grew up walking this beach right here this exact Beach and I didn't live like this but I told my family someday told myself someday I'm going to live on this beach I didn't know who these people were that owned all these beach houses I didn't know exactly how you got one but I began to repetitiously transfer that energy to myself about my dream over and over again literally thousands if not millions of times and now someday it happened now that day is here and I live on this beach as one of four homes that I own and so that's how you communicate with yourself and others that transfer of energy I can tell you that in my own situation I'm always trying to how do I evolve it how do I modify how do I feed my own belief more how do I sell it bigger how do I back it up with more facts the best leaders sell a big old Vision they tell a great story the best people I know are great storytellers remember this facts tell stories sell most people make decisions emotionally from the story they rationalize it logically with the facts so make sure you're selling a big dream a big story and then you give people the facts this is the way we begin to move people in our lives this is the skill of entrepreneurs this is the skill of building something big and building something small and building something permanent too is your ability to persuade focus on your energy focus on your belief level and focus on refining your message the last thing is this say it faster and say it quicker less is more you don't have to tell them everything you know leave a little bit to the imagination one thing that happens the longer and longer we're in business the longer and longer we're around the more and more we learn we feel compelled to tell someone everything we know about our product everything we know about the business and that's not how you energize people you give them just enough and then shut up my dad used to tell me when I was a kid when I'd be asking for money to take my girlfriend to the movies he'd say hey don't sell past the clothes right he had already agreed and I'd keep selling them I'd keep selling them and sometimes I'd lose them with this extra BS I'd be giving them so I want to challenge you don't sell past the clothes so of all things in business right right time management goal setting Vision identity all those things we're going to talk about in on this channel are very important but if you can't communicate if you can't persuade you are toast the last thing I would say to you how do I get better there's lots of books lots of tapes but it's really for me it's modeling I learn to model certain people initially and then modify model and modify so I would model people not copy them but I would model certain people's Styles one or two different people and then I'd modify it to fit my own personality model and modify right don't try to create everything on your own and don't try to copy somebody else that's different than you you got to be you so model and modify the last thing I would tell you is to the extent that you can transfer this skill to other people will be to the extent that you can scale your business so it's one thing to be able to persuade yourself and transfer energy it's an entirely other thing to equip other people around you to do likewise the best leaders are not just Evangelical about their cause can't just transfer energy they have the ability to transfer that skill of transferring energy to other people and then you begin to build your movement whether that's one or two or 10 or 25,000 or millions and millions of people sometimes your clients can be your top evangelizers for you when they use your product so it's your ability to transfer that skill and you have to do that through repetition the way to transfer the skill of trans of energy to people is through repetition and roleplay repetition and role playay far too many people just talk and teach their teams how to do things they talk at them rather than work with them the way you get me to do it is there's no substitute for experience 100 hours in the classroom is worth one hour in the field 100 hours of teaching is worth one hour of roleplay where we do it together getting them on the stage getting them when I started speaking one of the great speakers that he was an older guy so this is going to date him but when I first started speaking I got on the stage and I would open up for this one speaker and when I'd come off stage he he was really older guy but he'd say what was it like to play on stage with Elvis mean and he was the Elvis right but I got to know what it was like to be on the same stage with the Elvis of speaking at that time and in business too often we just talk at people and don't let them get on stage with you Elvis there's not enough role play there's not enough engagement and so it's repetition over and over repetition is the mother of learning repetition is the mother of skill it's the mother of owning it over and over and over and over again until it becomes reflexive because when the the words and the message and the energy becomes reflexive then when you're under pressure when you're stressed when you're down when the client's objecting you reflexively respond with your habit but if you don't have that habit that reflex uh uh uh you begin to respond and lose energy and so the reason repetition matters is it allows your responses to be reflexive under pressure and then the second thing is role play there's no substitute for that experience of being on stage with elas I say it you say it I say it you say it and it's not just the words it's the feeling it's the transfer of energy the number one skill of entrepreneurs and leaders of entrepreneurs is the ability to persuade and hope these were some of the tips that you should be conscious of of becoming world class at it knowing you'll never be world class at it knowing we can always get better we can always stretch we can always grow and improve our skills in multiple areas hope this helps you hey it's Ed my lad I just wanted to thank you for being here and I would ask you to please subscribe to the show if you just click the Subscribe button here I would really appreciate it it helps the show grow so we can get even more successful guests on the program to help you at the same time if you're subscribed you're going to get access to the programs before anybody else in the world gets access to them so if you would click subscribe right here thanks so much and one of the things we've not covered that is such a critical part of communication and maybe more important than even what you say is your ability to listen to people it's a huge part of communication you know I've taught you before that people people don't respond to what they hear or see they respond to how they feel when they interact with you and one of the best ways to make somebody feel good is that they feel listened to and that they feel heard and it's one of the skills that I struggle with the most which is why I'm so excited to cover this with you today because quite frankly it's something that I've struggled with myself is my ability to just be present and to listen to people and so like many of the shows I'm excited to teach these things to you for your own benefit but it also helps me in owning this material and frankly anything you teach to people you end up own more yourself and so very very excited to cover this with you here today and like I said it's not something I've been very good at my entire life as being a great listener so I want to get right into it and what caused me to do the show today is really two things I had someone join me on uh my jet a few weeks ago on a pretty long flight and there was a group of people but one particular guy who's an entrepreneur and I won't say who he is but he spent a three-hour flight with me on my jet so he spent about 3 hours with me about a foot and a half from me and for three straight hours he did not ask asked me one question about myself he did not listen to one thing I had to say didn't ask me for any advice and he talked about himself for 3 hours this is somebody prior to that flight that I really liked um I was struck and so were other people on the fight then when they landed and I don't mean that I'm a big deal or anything like that but they were shocked why a rising entrepreneur wouldn't take advantage of the time of being with me to ask me questions I think most of you if we spent three hours together you'd probably want to ask me a question or two and he did not ask me one single question and he talked about himself and his life and his background and what he had achieved and what he was going to achieve and what he was good at and all those things and it was probably true but I found myself when the flight was over quite honestly not liking him quite as much as I did before the flight because people don't like to hear about you all the time people want to feel heard they want to feel listened to and he didn't do any of that the entire flight plus the fact he didn't learn anything that flight so remember this I know there's an old adage that you have two eyes and two ears and one mouth for a reason and you ought to use them in that ratio but really you should even use the you should use your mouth even less and so the two things happened on that flight one he didn't get anything out of it he didn't learn anything and two it made the people around him quite frankly not care for him to the extent they could have because he's a really good guy but he just talked the entire time and I don't think he did it out of ego I think he did it because he was nervous and so that's one thing I want you to check in the very beginning when you get nervous I do when you get nervous do you begin to talk more one of the great things about my show is that I've had to learn to listen more and people say all my time one of the reasons they like my shows I seem so excited and so interested in what people are saying because I sincerely am I've learned that being a great listener is easier than being a great talker because being a great listener the pressure is off you to come up with a perfect thing to say right the perfect response the perfect phrase that sounds smarter or better than somebody you don't have to do that when you're a great listener and people's favorite topic number one remember this people's favorite topic is themselves they love to talk about themselves one of the things I found over and over in my life and my friends get a kick out of this but when I play golf you know you'll spend four or five hours with somebody when you're on a golf course and often times my friends will tell me man Dave really liked you Ed like he really enjoyed the time with you Eddie so much um but he doesn't know anything about you and one of the reasons they like me so much is I don't talk about myself I love to talk about them I love to ask questions about them and so it's interesting when we're done they really really like me and they know nothing about me and they wonder why they like me but the reason they like me is I allowed them to talk about themselves plus the fact the way I look at life I already know about me I'm not going to learn anything else by talking about myself I'm going to learn by asking them questions about them and so I think being a great listener has lots of benefits one people will like you more two you're going to learn more three it takes the pressure off you and so listening skills are so critical and even as we cover this you may say I'm a great listener well let's go through some things and see how good we all are because even on my show I'll be honest with you I watch replays back of my show and I interrupt too much much I jump in too much I finish people's sentences for them too often and that's an ego thing almost like I think I can say it better than them in fact I'm so bad at it I'll be honest with you before every show I tell them hey this isn't like any other interview you've been on before I'm going to interrupt you you can interrupt me we'll make it like a real conversation and all of my guests always politely say wonderful that's great I want you to cut me off and but the truth is that's not how a great conversation goes it's not two people interrupting each other all the time it's one person talking another person listening until they finished speaking and then responding so this is something I'm not very good at and so I teach this to you today not being critical of you but knowing that it's something I'm going to have to get better at myself so here we go let's talk about some critical steps of being a great listener you know there's this thing that's out there too that says hey when you're speaking to a woman she doesn't want you to solve her problem she just wants you to listen to her you've all heard this before right men that's different let me tell you none of this stuff is gender specific it's not true at all nobody wants you to solve their problem necessarily not right away everybody every body wants to be heard everybody wants to be listened to everybody likes to talk about themselves and so just please remember that this is not gender specific men and women aren't different on this men like to be heard as well men like to be important men like to be funny men like to be interesting men want to share their ideas and thoughts and worries and fears with other people just like women do so remember this you don't always want to just go solve their problem right away next thing is this always be asking people for understanding so that when they say something when when they're finished speaking ask them so what I think you're saying is or what I'm hearing is or clarify this for me because this shows How Deeply you were listening when you ask for clarification and what I'm hearing is by the way when you say the sentence to somebody so what I'm hearing is that lets them know you were hearing them that you were listening to them so as I was listening to you this is what I understood help me understand clarify for me because this gives a deeper sense you were listening to somebody the next thing is what I'm doing right now with you make eye contact look right at them when you're talking to them don't be distracted don't look around don't look at your phone the way you tell me I'm important is by looking at me I have a significant person in my life and one of the things that drives me crazy is I'm always saying are you listening to me and she's always like yes of course I'm listening to you and I'm like well could you look at me and let me know you're listening to me I'm not going to say who that is either but we all have that person in our life who they're listening but they don't know to let us know they're listening one of the best ways you can do that is by just looking right at somebody nodding with them when they say something you agree with right smiling when it's funny like giving a normal response you'd say well this is basic stuff You' be surprised how often you look away how often you're not focused the next thing is check your body language are you leaning in are you welcoming are you warm or are your arms crossed when you're talking to somebody see I have this tendency when I'm really listening I get really drawn in one of the things I do is I get very serious and I almost begin to Grimace and make a face cuz I'm so interested I'm in deep thought but what happens is my visual on my face doesn't indicate to them that I'm enjoying what they're saying or that I'm listening very deeply so make sure that your facial expression this may seem basic but your facial expression matches the moment matches the emotion some other people do something different they're always smiling when something very serious is being said that's not an appropriate facial expression and it looks like you're not listening or it disconnect the connection if you will no pun intended between you and that person so check your facial expressions make sure you're looking at them check your physiology and your body language the next thing is that when someone's talking the highest form of listening is to let them finish their sentence do not interrupt them do not interrupt them I do this all the time when I get excited oh really almost like I want to jump in and get my point in before they're finished or I want to sound smarter or if I don't say it now I'm going to forget to say it probably the number number one weakness in my ability in listening to people is my desire and tendency to jump in before they finish their thought and what that says is my thoughts more important than yours my needs are more important than you I'm done listening to what you're saying be careful to say things like this when they're talking uh-huh right got it yeah wow because what that does is it it's called a nudge you're nudging them along verbally to finish it's like hurry up I got something to say uh-huh right and that nudges them verbally I used to think that those were things I was saying that confirmed what they were saying but it was really what was really happening is I would nudged better is that when they're done you say wow or that's interesting or you at least respond when they're finished all responses are wonderful once they're finished speaking but don't do the verbal nudges that get them to speed up and finish don't finish sentences for people next it's another thing I do they'll be saying something and they'll be struggling for a word and I give them the word let them find the word it's their word not yours and you're stealing control of the conversation from them and making them feel like you're not listening to them don't finish their sentences don't give them better words don't talk over them don't interrupt them these are all things that we all kind of do from time to time when we get excited I'm not suggesting if someone do make an incredible point that you don't begin to laugh or jump in when it's your pattern with somebody you're not being a good listener also use acknowledgement statements when they're done I agree that's wonderful that's amazing congratulations like do things like that that acknowledge what they said because when you acknowledge what they've said they feel open that's an invitation to say more but when you don't acknowledge what they've said you don't give a statement to it when they're done then they don't feel comfortable continuing to speak and so ask probative questions so when you ask somebody for example oh if they're new to you do you have kids they say yes I do a follow-up question is what are their names what are their ages begin to learn the volley of follow-up questions the more specific questions you ask the more what I call follow-up questions the more and more interested you appear to somebody let me give you one more huge thing in being a great listener we appropriate you touch somebody so when they're talking if they're leaning in it's an emotional and you you grab their hand or you touch their knee or when they're finish speaking you shake their hand or hug them or Pat them on the shoulder and by the way this has to be appropriate right especially when you're talking about different genders be very careful of this but one of the ways you anchor in I'm listening to you is with a touch it anchors in the emotion and so I'll often be careful when I shake their hand of touching them or touching their shoulder or hugging them when we're done or patting them on the shoulder or knee or something like that that just acknowledges I'm hearing you if it's a guy maybe it's a fist pump or a high five right but it acknowledges the listening and it encourages them to continue so that is a little bit gender specific but I just want to reinforce to you that that just shows you're listening then there's a series of questions I think you should ask yourself just sort of a checklist of whether or not you're a great listener so ask yourself this in conversations you have do you intend tend to do more or less talking than the other person this is a huge one for me especially in business or even in Social as well do I talk more than them in the conversation if I've come out of a good conversation I've talked less than the other person has talked man is this a difficult one for me particularly when you're in a position of authority with somebody when they're asking you a lot of questions and you're just answering make sure you're feeding questions back to them a great conversation is at least a 50/50 split but I think the best of them they've talked more than me that way I think I've given them more of my emotion and caring and concern than they've given to me so ask yourself what are your ratios in your average conversations this is true by the way in everything in your business meetings in your sales meetings with your children with your spouse with your friends with someone you're comfortable with for 30 years and someone you've met for 30 seconds who talks more in your exchanges number two when you don't understand what they're saying do you ask them questions this is such a huge form of connection with people often times if we don't understand something somebody said we don't ask them a question about it because it may make us look not so smart or not very prepared but the way that you really indicate I'm listening to you is hey can you help me understand this and you ask for understanding I didn't understand what that word meant or I'm not sure who bill is that you're referring to Bill who right when you begin to ask questions of understanding the connection deepens with that person another question ask yourself is when you're in a conversation with somebody do you often try to figure out what they're going to say before they finish saying it this is an indication that you're not present with them when you're listening and you're trying to get them to finish speaking so that you can jump in and say you're very important thing so don't be trying to project forward what they're about to say because that means you're not listening in the present and there's a disconnect when you do that so ask yourself this do I often or ever try to project forward what they're going to say before they've said it next do you find yourself just not paying attention when somebody's speaking to you I mean maybe you are looking around or do you find yourself just thinking about other things when people speak to you this is a value issue it really means that these other things are more important to you than what this person is saying and when you begin to build a habit and a pattern of truly not paying attention one of the reasons I enjoy my interview so much and quite frankly my connection with my guests are so long lasting after the program is because I am so interested in what they're saying and I'm interested in what all people are saying if you were my Uber driver I think my Uber drivers would tell you man this guy is overly interested in what I'm saying and my cameraman Mike is nodding right now cuz he's been in enough Ubers with me to know I talk to everybody I think people are gifts and I believe the way you open them up is by asking them questions and so I don't care if you're a server in a restaurant my Uber driver a guest on my show who's worth a billion dollars or the top athletes in the world my pattern of conversations with people is very similar I'm interested in what they're saying sincerely and I think you should just begin to ask yourself that question are you sincerely interested in what they're saying cuz they can feel this intuitively another thing to ask yourself is in a conversation can you intuitively sort of tell the difference between what somebody is saying and what they really feel why is this so important because often times people wear social masks with us don't they and they'll tell us things frankly that just aren't true or don't completely confirm the way they're feeling about something and so a deeper deep level of listening is you can almost feel what they really sense about something or what they're really feeling not just listening to the words this is a way of connecting with someone they don't even know you're connecting with them but their words don't match their feelings and when you can connect with their real feeling man have you not only got influence over them but most importantly you've got a connection with them next one in conversations with people do you find yourself finishing their sentences or supplying them with better words don't do that I have this mistake sometimes where I finish their sentence for them right and I think oh we're connecting I'm with you that's not what it does it disconnects you from somebody when you use a better word or a different they say you know what I really was just um just really s oh you were just really bummed out then huh you've rephrased something for them another way of listening the wrong way I think is do you sometimes only hear the facts and details they're given and not listening for the emotion behind it just listening for the emotion from somebody gives you a much deeper level of connection with them than just listening to the facts and figures this is important especially in sales when someone's giving you facts and figures back if you can connect with the emotion of it big big difference lastly do you struggle was seeing things from that person's perspective like really connecting with them really empathizing with them really believing in them this is so important when you're listening to somebody is to really try to connect with their point of view because the way you help influence me is if I can meet you where you are I can take you where we need to go but if I can't meet you where you are by letting you use your words your emotions listening for the emotion behind it really listening for your point of view maybe you sell cars for example this person's had a really traumatic time buying cars in the past fast they're very skeptical about it you've got to be able to see it from their point of view this is true with getting your children to behave differently or interacting with your spouse it's critical that you meet with them where they are and take them where you're going so why are all these skills so important especially from a business perspective because this has been very detailed very granular the reason it's so important is because to really influence somebody they have to trust you and the way you do that is by building rapport with them so one of the things I used to do incorrectly is I brought all this massive energy you ever heard people say you got to bring the most energy the highest energy person does win but the way that you really influence somebody is by connecting with them and listening and then matching them physically and their tonality as well so when I talk back with somebody I listen for their tonality I listen to the volume of their voice the pace of their voice how they speak I begin to try to match by listening to them the words they use the tonality they use and the volume they use if they use a certain set of words from time to time if you were listening closely if you then use some of those same words back to them you connect so this is a form of influence if this person sort of repeatedly use the words literally literally literally you've heard that word three or four times when I'm then going to be saying my stuff back then to influence them I'm going to use the word literally this is a connection word it's part of the words they love when I use words they love I can influence them this is a huge thing in influence and closing and moving people to make decisions that are best for themselves if they talk at a pace like this just like I'm talking at this pace right now and I'm talking like this very fast I break connection and we can't have Rapport so I want to listen for the pace that they speak at the Cadence also the tonality you know they talk kind of hunched over and quiet I want to talk like that and a little bit better if they talk at a certain volume if they talk like this I don't want to talk like this the same time if they talk like this I don't want to talk like this I wasn't listening for their volume level we want to match their volume level and so when you begin to match and mirror like this use the words they use just a few of them don't overcook it but when they've got three or four words they use and use one or two of those words I can promise you you connect when you speak at a similar Pace to them in tonality you connect when you speak at a similar volume to them you connect if there are hand gestures as I'm listening and observing them they use if they're constantly folding their hands like this if you're on audio I'm folding my hands right now they pray or they have their hands down or they do some sort of a gesture with their hands or shoulders I will often times I'm watching this isn't manipulation this is connecting with people I'm listening so closely I can see their physical moves as well if there's emotions I hear them go too often which is Regret or sadness let's just say they keep telling me stories about things they regret or they're sad of I will share with them one of the things I regret and bring them with me if they talk about you know past achievements or they talk about you know material things then I'll talk about some material things or past past achievements I'm listening for them to give me the language the words the tonality that I can move them with and this is also true in every area but particularly an influence when we're trying to persuade people so the reason this is so important is people have go-to words and so if you're really listening closely not only you connecting better with me but they will tell you the three or four words they use a lot every human being does this by the way you do it too you have a few words you use more than most and if someone's really listening closely they can hear what those words are and if I use one or two of those words back with you I've connected with you on a deeper level the next thing that's huge by the way in listening is to repeat back to them what you believe they've just said repeat back to them what you've heard this is what I've heard this is what I'm hearing this is what I'm listening to this is true when I'm interacting with my children before I just tell them I want to do something I listen to them and I say here's what Daddy's hearing is this true that's really bothering you regularly is this something so what I'm listening to them they know I'm listening use acknowledgement statements it's not done enough people love to be complimented I love to be complimented you do so after I've listened to you after you've told me what you need to tell me I want you to learn this sentence everybody right now I just want to acknowledge you I think you're amazing I think you're incredible thank you for sharing this with me that's awesome and it might be with guys you don't say hey bro that was cool thanks man man I always love connecting with you brother you're my brother right always do a connection statement always do an acknow that's why I love you man whatever it is you know people talk differently depending on who they're around someone even known 30 years different than someone even known 30 minutes but the fact of the matter is I always do connection me I love you brother thank you so much that's why we're so close man that's why I love being around you whatever it is you begin to say acknowledgement statements to somebody because it it connects the conversation it's what I call a post frame after someone said something the last thing I want you to focus on children spouse business brand new person in a social environment or someone you known 30 years acknowledge them thank you that was awesome great meeting you if they're new right I get out of a new I go man I enjoyed our time so much thank you that's post framing what we just talked about if it's someone I've been with a long time hey brother man that's why I love you bro that's why I love you and then other people it's like that's you always inspire me you fire me up thank you I love how vulnerable you are whatever it is I just want to acknowledge you I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you I just want to thank you I just want to tell you you're awesome I just want to tell you I believe in you do an acknowledgement statement that post frames what you've covered and I promise you you've now put a bow around one of being one of the great listeners that anyone will ever be around it's going to make you one of the most well-liked and most influenc people that you know and by the way isn't that we're after in life being well-liked and being influential and that usually comes down not to being an incredible orator but being an incredible listener and these are the skills and these skills matter in every area in building a church and building a Boy Scout tro and building a softball team in building a business and building any family anything in life is that we want to be able to be liked and have influence and that always comes down to what we make people feel and more than anything people feel great when they they've been able to talk about themselves but most importantly they feel listened to connected with and acknowledged listened to connected with and acknowledged this is how we have influence over people this is also how we make a difference in people's lives the final piece of the puzzle is this is that because of social media we have such an advantage and I just want to tell you something that doesn't happen enough but when it has happened for you man does it feel like like the connection's even deeper it doesn't matter what it is is that when your separation from that person takes place and they leave you especially if they don't live with you whether that be a client a best friend a new friend or someone you just met following up a little while later with a text that just says I enjoyed our time so much I enjoyed listening to you thanks for sharing this with me and maybe repeating back to them what you heard a little bit of and when you do that it's cement to them not only did he listen to me or she listened to me in my presence but they continue to listen to me after I was gone they continued to connect with me and this extends the connection and deep deepens the connection when after you physically separated and even by the way if this communication happened by phone and you weren't physically with them for you to follow up after a phone call with a text a few hours later that just says man I enjoyed the talk so much thanks for sharing that with me always love when we connect or you always make me laugh or I'm so glad we're new friends now I feel like I've made a new friend whatever it is you strengthen and deepen the connection with people by letting them know later hey I heard you hey I listened to you so not only doing great in their presence but later confirming for them I was with you I heard you I enjoyed it I want to acknowledge you man of you deepen the fact that you've listened to him so today was about tactical stuff I know it wasn't the most motivational thing in the world but I feel like this is another thing in your toolbag that'll help you live blissfully to achieve your dreams to be more fulfilled and it's something that we overestimate when we think we're good at it when you hear it sort of laid out like this you think man I could be a better listener there are tactical things I could do better hope today helped you out so um I think the first the beginning place is I think most people don't see themselves as a leader just that in and of itself I think most people don't see themselves that way that it's some mystical role in life what would you say to somebody who says I just don't know that I am a leader or could be a leader well I everybody's a leader because leadership is influence that's what it is and that has been that has that definition of leadership has served me so well for so many years it's it's in fact in my book theum IR refutable laws of leadership there's the law you know leadership is influence nothing more nothing less so when somebody says they're not a leader I said well let me ask you a question do you influence anybody sure sure and almost always almost I've had a couple maybe I'm not sure but almost always say well yeah I mean you have children okay okay you got your family you know so yes now it may be a little influence it may be 8 10 people it may not be but I look at them and say okay if you influence 8 or 10 people you are a leader see what people think is they've got to have some kind of a title or position to be a leader and so they said well I you know I don't have a leadership position so I'm not a leader well you and I both know the position doesn't make you a leader anyway it gives you a chance to practice leadership it doesn't make you a leader so what I tell people is this leadership is influence so how do I increase my influence because that's because if I if I influence 10 and and next month I influence 20 while I've doubled my leadership influence so how how do I do that and and and it's very simp Le answer to increase your influence you have to intentionally add value to people this is where it all begins so at let's say that I want to have increased influence with you well my first question isn't boy I hope that that'll follow me the first question I is is how can I serve you perfect what what can I do to add value to you so I'm going to ask you you know how can I serve you what can I do to help you in fact what's interesting before we we had this interview I mean we're I it was cracking me up we're kind of trying to outserve each other true what what can I do for you and it was it was a beautiful thing because all we were really doing is I'm trying to help you and here's what I know if I sincerely add value to you my influence will increase with you that's a fact so we don't need to make leadership complicated just go out and intentionally add value to people and your influence pool begins to expand and and after a while I I'm becoming quite a leader so leadership isn't title position it's it it's all about adding value and and and and serving to making a difference in other people's lives in order to do that a lot of people are going to build an organization build a team they'll be in some sort of an environment like that nobody wins alone seems like in life that's a fact you tell I was listening to the story you were telling and I'd like you to share it about you know there's the analogy of getting people on the right seats on the bus but you have this wonderful story about when you played basketball yeah about at the end of practice your coach would do something very is Absolut Ely illustrates this point so beautiful you don't mind saying that no it's a beautiful point he he would he would have the first team the better players five players play the second team and the only thing that he would do is he would put we who were on the first team out of position yeah and he always stuck me I was I was a number two guard but he always stuck me under the basket guarding a guy named Doug Roth that was 6'8 okay and and he you know and he'd put maybe our Center out there with the point guard well he's put his out position and then he said now stay in your position and play play to 20 M well what would happen is the first team would always lose and he sit us back down and say now did you lose because of talent no did you lose no no you lost for one reason you were out of position and remember this whenever you're out of position you're going to lose well what they did is I mean I'm I'm guarding a 6'8 guy they just throw a high pass to him he just dropping that Bel over me the whole time well you can't and so it was a great teaching for me that no matter how gifted you are no matter how committed you are if you're out of position you're not going to be successful that's why everybody needs to find their sweet spot yeah you know what what do I really do well yes and and on that there's a point that I really want to make and that is I tell people if you want to be high highly successful you've got to get into what I call the top 5% okay so you got a 100 people you got 100 people to he in your in whatever chosen profession You' got you got to be in the top five yes you got to get there and you can only get to the top five if you're in your sweet spot you you can't get to the top five working on weaknesses you can't get to the top five if I'm not in the area of my giftedness so you got to find out what you're good at because that'll give you if then if you're committed and if you got good strategy and and all this other you got a good team around you then that'll allow you to get in that top five and once you're in that top five% you're in good shape you're you're going to do very well and I tell that doesn't matter what your profession is you got to get in the top five% and you can only get in the top 5% if you're in your position if you're in your sweet spot if you're in your GI is there any technique strategy thought you have in order to identify what those those sweet spots are for you oh yeah I'll tral in there I mean I you know when I started okay let's go to my I started off as a pastor yeah and and so I and I had a counseling degree so now I'm counseling people well it takes me about six months to realize I'm not any good at that I you know you know I'm not it's not my gift I mean they're coming in and I'm listening to and then i' say okay there it's obvious here's your issue here are three things I write on a piece of paper and you know hand it to him and say now go be healed you know what I mean go and the next month they'd come back in I'd say now okay what are we in here for well we well I've got this problem what the problem I heard the last month you know what I'm saying well did you do the three thing no I didn't do the three things or you go back well it wore me out I wore them out I wasn't any good but but but that's what I was trained in but but it wasn't giving me the results and and one day I mean it took me really really took me and had 3 years one day I realized that when you counsel people you work on their weaknesses and when you equip people you work on their strengths good and the moment I went from working on weaknesses to working on strengths I became I I was I was a rock star with with strengths because you show me your strength and I'm going to give you a game plan let's get going because I'm a natural equipper not a natural counselor nothing wrong with counseling it's just not my gift you with me and and and and what did they teach me in college taught me how to admin rate yeah so I'm in my you know I've got my little country church and I'm doing Administration well there's no return there I mean my gosh and and one day I'm waking up and I'm saying wait a minute this isn't working I got to go get me some volunteers to do this Administration so I can get back and so it's trial and error and and sometimes I think we go to people like I mean Ed if I'm trying to find out my strengths and you and I know each other really well I may come to you and say okay talk to me you know what do I do well yes you know sometimes we don't understand our own strengths and it takes somebody that really is a good friend that knows us well that can say well I think you're really good in this area but you got to find them and and and the good news is everybody has gifts that's right everybody so there's not such thing as say well you know I just have no gifts and so I'm left out everybody has them you just got to go find them but once you find them that's where and by the way that's where you put all of your time in personal growth and development because the the goal isn't just to learn a lot of things I know a whole bunch of people they they're very knowledgeable but they're not very successful that's right so so what you got to do is you got to say I'm going to stay in in the area of my strengths yes and and and and so when I at 27 when I decided I was going to speak and and and maybe write some books I asked myself a very simple question what are the areas that that people need to excel in to be successful and I came up with four areas okay relationships I mean if you can't get along with people hello right equipping if you if you can't develop a team you you may have personal success but you're not going to have multip you're not going to compound success because you don't have people helping you you an attitude of overcoming adversity and difficulty the getting back up not quitting that whole process and Leadership the ability to influence people and and and at 27 I said those are the four things I'm going to spend my life and and if you look at my books almost all of them are in relationships equipping attitude leadership it's true and and I F I I found what I call I found the sweet spot for people to success man and I and so I wrote all my books in in in those areas I've read I'm going to tell you something I've read uh of the majority of your books um and there was a window of time where I read every single one as they were coming out and now I'm back in that cycle again with you and for me the last couple minutes were really valuable because I've I'm always I'm obviously acknowledged like you are as a good leader and sure and uh but in my own mind I've wondered whether I am sometimes cuz I'm not a great counselor either and and and I mean that like when people are looking for counsel for me and but what I am I I do feel like I'm really good at identifying giftedness in people I see giftedness I think I'm good at equipping people and so leaders come in different shapes sizes and forms that was just really a good validation just for me and I think it would be for certain people listening to this because I think also sometimes people that are really good at executing themselves potentially maybe struggle with counseling people on to do things but they're great at they could be great at equipping oh absolutely absolutely and and what I found is successful people are really good at finding their gifts getting in their gift Zone and then just really staying there and becoming successful I think they're happier too oh yes but successful leaders there's the difference successful leaders are had the ability of what you just described Ed of finding the Str sweet spot for other people and getting them in that sweet spot and that's where the return is I spent my life after I discovered what my strengths were now I'm just helping other people find their strengths because there's nothing more empowering to a person than to find out that they are good at something and then being equipped and taught how to how to do it well that's what it's honestly what you just described is what I enjoy doing most in my life why you're a leader well I hope working on it thank you I I'd like I just want you to know something like the whole interview everything we're doing today that was valuable for me because I've struggled even myself like why am I that's an element of my ability with people that's just limited I'm not great at counseling people and but I am good at equipping them so it's just a distinction that I really appreciate one other thing about teams and then I don't want to talk about the new book but one thing I want to talk about on on building teams and having teams is I probably talked about the law of the Catalyst oh yeah in in my life in business that you've talked about in various different books yes um both both identifying them in organization so that they can grow and also wanting to be identified as one as someone coming through an organization could you just talk about most people listening to this are familiar with your work but obviously there are people that aren't as well so what's the what is that law of the what is a catalyst in an organization why is it important why do you want to be one well and that's out of my book the 17 laws of teamwork work and basically the that chapter is about the fact that good leaders have the ability to make things happen and so when people look at me and they say okay John I'm looking for maybe a potential leader what's the first thing I look for the first thing I say for them to look for is look for somebody that makes things happen yes because you but there's a whole bunch of people they're wondering what happen you what I'm saying and they're not the one you want to recruit so I say go find go f because here's what I discovered if you can make things happen for yourself M you now have the credibility to make things happen for other people if if if I'm not successful there is no appeal for you to follow me I I tell people all the time success is The credibility of a leader to lead because you think about it no one ever got you know nobody ever said oh my gosh you know okay I got to I'm I'm financially in deep weeds oh my gosh I'm going to I think I'm go call my buddy Joe he's been bankrupt three times you Hey Joe how no no you don't follow Joe Joe's been bankrupt three times you got to go find somebody that's successful with money you going to get a div oh my gosh my I'm going to call Jack he's been divorced four times you know Jack help me with my marriage you see people when they need help the first thing they think about is who is better than me that I can follow and so the credibility of a leader as far as to lead is that they're successful I mean if I'm successful I say hey I'd want to join my team well of course I mean if LeBron James was in the room right now LeBron says we're going to play a little basketball and and and LeBron says you know I'll pick and then John will pick well when LeBron's there you're you got your hand saying LeBron pick me cuz you're going to win if you get LeBron and every time I'm getting right pick you're diving Behind the Chair you don't want to be on my team you're going to lose on my team and so what I tell people all the time is that first thing you've got to do is you got to be you got to get good yourself if you're why would I ever think that I should lead somebody if I'm not any good at it so true okay but once I I'm good and I found my success now I began to say okay how do I compound this well I compound this by looking at Ed and saying okay Ed let me help you find your sweet spot and let's get you on this same road because now all of a sudden this is how I this is how I really build a a team and so the the law of the catalyst is all about making things happen and and that's what I look for I mean Jack Welch his phrase was that you know who's going to get out of the pile yeah you know say in when he General Electric there's a big pile of people in this company well who's going to get out of the pile well well somebody's going to climb out uh Mark Cole is my the CEO I have six companies and Mark Cole's the CEO of them and and the reason he is is because he got out of the pile he got out of the power he started he started in the stock room yes and he did he really Mark did yeah absolutely and I just took him out last week awesome Mark's here by the way CRA but but but he got out of the pile yes in other words he everywhere he was he he he succeeded and everywhere he went he won yes and after a while you just sit there and say okay okay I think I'll let him run this thing because he he he knows how to do it and so uh for all of us be I I say before you go lead somebody else just kind of get good yourself so right you're a mutual hero of mine friend of yours that we were talking about off camera Art Williams how important is leadership right and artwood used to say and still probably does say you want to show me any church Boy Scout Troop football team company I'm going to show you something being run by a leader that's right and and in every great company the leaders the leaders are great at identifying catalysts I mean and when you find them pay them well keep them because they're Priceless when you have them somebody I'm sure Mark's over there nodding his head that you should even pay them even better so so but I I wanted I wanted to say something to you about your books that I think are just they're so everybody they're such great reads they're easy to read They're memorable he he makes points and then backs them up with Incredible stories and anecdotes and quotes and so it's the other thing about your books they're they're incredibly um I would say the information is profound unique and deep yet very easy to it's you equip people so well with the way you write it that it's transferable that's right the information is so transferable you do that better than anybody of anybody's work that I read I enjoy reading every single book the problem with your books often times is when you highlight them you would almost be better off in John books highlighting the parts that you don't want to go back and remember because he's literally just covered in highlighter when you highlight his books I'm serious thank you bud it's it's an absolute fact it's I always get tired of highlighting it's like every single part of every single page it would seem to be well I'm a communicator so let's start here you know an educator takes something simple and makes it complicated I mean think of all you know think of all my college all the stuff I mean in in an educational world if you're not confused they're not happy so true I mean they their par hey their sentences are paragraph long I mean by the time I get down the paragraph I I forgot what the first part of the sentence I got to go back and read the instead of short sentences you know I'm dealing with the paragraph so so but a communicator is exactly opposite they take something complicated and make it simple wow and so here's when I write a book or when I speak doesn't matter my my first objective is to keep it so simple that when I say it it immediately resonates with people in fact anytime you have to explain what you said you didn't say it right the first time so I I my my joke is I put the cookies on the lower shelf so everybody can have some and so simple as far as understanding but deep because there's a difference sure it but deep when it comes to profound results that it will make in your life it's an absolute fact so I mean one of the principles I teach is very simple I just hold my arm up in the A and I say everything worth while is uphill everything everything's worth there's there's nothing there's nothing in your life worthwhile that's not uphill it's it's all uphill well everybody gets it I mean it's all uphill so good you know and here's the problem we got uphill H hopes but we have downhill habits okay we're in trouble you you know got a downhill habit you're not going uphill got to change that habit so everything that I teach I teach with a with a with a real passion to keep it simple but keep it very practical and and and make sure that the principle is life changing yes if you could do those three things then then you you really got to go and when I wrote the book leaders shifts I've been sitting on that book probably for a good 12 years have you really in fact um uh a lady in our on our team named Aaron who does a lot of content for me yes she shared with me she said John um you really need to get that book out and and I I kind of put it on the shelf and really wasn't too excited about getting out because I thought I I don't know this may be a little too simple but when I started writing I thought this is going to be lifechanging and and now that I'm looking at the book coming out I'm so excited because because here's what happens we start leading in a way that gives us some success and immediately we get in in in into this pattern and what we don't understand is that leadership if if leadership is about anything it's about adjusting and being flexible and if you want to be a manager then nail it get it straight do it the same way every time that that's that's that's management but when it comes to leadership uh in fact if you go back into the 1980s there were no leadership books in in bookstores they were all management books right because you were trying to manage your company your business and then things began to change so fast people were saying this management stuff doesn't work because this baby isn't staying the same I I turned around and it moved on me and so I've got to get in front of it and and so leadership is all about being in front well if you're in front one of the first things you know is if if you're in front you don't know everything yes so so the issue is not knowing everything the issue is when you know something adjusting as quickly as you possibly can because because if we don't adjust quickly we miss it yes because it's a timing thing especially today oh well I I was getting ready to speak for a company recently and their theme was fast forward and we were doing a preall and they asked me they said what's fast forward mean to you I said well fast means faster is you look in the future if anybody thinks that the future is going to be a little bit slower or I love the people say well I'm just honest to God I'm just waiting for things to slow down you know what I I was just dying that's what I you know that's probably about the only way it's going to slow down for you so fast is faster but let me tell you something forward is shorter when I started off as a leader we had 10year long range plans and fiveyear was a mid-range a short range plan when I started off of I'm talking about in the Dark Ages now was a 2-year plan yeah well a 2-year plan now that's a ridiculous long r i mean that's that's a that kind of makes you suck air you say I think that's a little bit long so so what I know is fastest faster and forward shorter very good so let me tell you something the only people they're going to win are people that can make leader shifts and adjust quickly and so I wrote the book I I talk about 11 leaderships yes that I've made in my lifetime and people ask me all the time they'll say John how have you stayed I'm 71 how have you stayed on top of your game and I say it's very simple it's not the same game go yeah okay baseball is called baseball but it's not the same game so true I me you don't go to the baseball game the second day and say oh my gosh now wait a minute that leadoff hitter got a single yesterday oh he struck out oh my Lord you see it maybe had the same title yeah but it isn't the same game yes and and and and and you don't lead today's game on yesterday's results B Bru said one he said yesterday's home run won't win today's game and I'll tell you what yesterday's thinking won't win today's game either so I talked about leaderships that you need to make in your life to keep you on the edge and to keep you uh uh adjustable and flexible so that you can really so that you can really lead your people well because here's what I know here's what I know people don't like change you're right so when the leader Is Res consistent to change he's going to get into this leadership gravity pool or she is that's going to go down every time because can tell you you're not going to have the people behind you saying come on let's make some more changes let's let's let's make some more adjustments no no they're remember they're W to hold on to what they have and your job as a leader is to say there's something better if you'll just if you'll just let this go there's something better for you here tomorrow and that's you know and that's what the good the good leaders do so let's go through some misconceptions about being a person of influence because this is covered really in the very beginning of the book and I want to go through a few of them because they were striking to me here's a big one I think salespeople in general believe this and they say if they understand the facts they'll make the right decision I hear say I even hear good salespeople and I think these people that say well I just represent the facts and let make a decision I think they are good at other things unconsciously they're unaware they're good at that still makes them influential because it is not that they understand the facts they're going to make a change so that is a misperception about influence true yeah and Ed I so agree with you that The Talented successful salespeople who say that are doing something very different but I but how I interpret their statement is that the other person feels that all they have done is State the facts and let them make their own rational decision we like to feel that that's how people are influencing us even though that's not how we're actually influenced now is there any technique to that that's an interesting point is there a technique to that to where if you are communicating with somebody that they feel they have to have the need to understand the facts so that you're providing that like in a fact sandwich so to speak or it's not nothing thing I had written down here to ask you but I'm curious if there's a technique involved with that the the most important thing when we're distinguishing um emotional kinds of responses gut checks things like that from information processing of facts is that the facts happens second okay the emotional stuff happens first we actually have to like each other by like I If you want to persuade me of something I have to like you before I'm even going to pay attention to your rational argument and if you're going to try to persuade me to say um get a product or a service you have to appeal to my visceral emotional preferences to be curious to hear why I might want to buy this product or service and then when you're giving me the facts it's a completely different experience because I'm listening to those facts to try to support my hypothesis that this is a thing I should get so they're making the decision emotionally and rationalizing it logically with facts yes yeah emotionally first rationally second and then so if they have to like us that's kind of called building Rapport so to speak and you cover a topic in the book on and it's a word I use all the time that I've not tangibly been able to describe but I use often with people as I'll say know she's charismatic she's got Charisma now I guess when I say that it must mean to some extent that like I like her or I like him but you talk about Charisma in the book and I've always thought maybe this can't be taught you know maybe this is just one of these inherited and I know better than that but when I you see a really charismatic I've been fortunate enough doing the show and you know in my life and now that's a charismatic person and they haven't you have that too Ed don't be shy well thank you I appreciate that but there's this there's almost a correlation between one's carismatic abilities and their influential abilities a lot of the times so how teach us about Charisma let's do that yeah yeah when I just ask people what is the number one influence skill you would like to master and I don't even give them options the most common answer is charisma so people really badly want to be more charismatic but then when I say okay what is that yeah like well it's you know people pay attention to you okay but why you can't be somebody like running through the office and your underwear that's not charismatic even though people pay attention to you but so what I do academic research I'm putting it to the side because the leading model is a seven Factor model that you you it's not something you can take action on right you can't do seven things at once what I do is organically figure out with groups of people what is it that makes individuals charismatic so I'll ask someone and you've read this chapter Ed so it'll um it's it's not a new thought or experience but I am curious who in your life out of all these charismatic people just pops into your head as someone who represents a charismatic individual uh Barack Obama okay in in person President Obama uh by the way two or three of the presidents that I've met now maybe their stature predisposed me to think that about them their position but I did sense a certain energy connection uh with them uh that the first person that came to mind yeah and and power can influence this also and so when you meet Barack Obama what how would you describe say three traits if you can or three behaviors that he does that has you feel that he's charismatic deep listening which you talk about in the book unbelievable listening almost makes you have the I'd like to think that I work on this too that they make you feel as if you're the only person that matters in that moment and that that that you're valued and that you're important I think that that's a part of it and I think a tremendous um air of certainty or presence confidence about what it is they're communicating about they truly believe I often say sometimes that I think I don't know that everybody always has to believe what you're saying but they have to believe you believe what you're saying be influential and I feel like those are two of the characteristics when I think of leaders that I've been around and he would be one of them yeah so I feel like this is kind of cheating because we sort of teed up because you've read this chapter but this is also listeners will know just very directly probably true of someone like Obama having the ability to connect and display confidence are the two key factors for being a charismatic person and we can do both of those by focusing our attention on the other person instead of on ourselves and that gives them the feeling of being the only person in the room is that deep listening and connection and this is the opposite of what a lot of people just initially think of Charisma as being because we think of people being charismatic when they're performing or when they're speaking but it comes through in that connection when they're listening so you're so right I um and by the way just so we're on balance I can hear all the right-wing people listening this rolling their eyes and if I say this guy's name the left will but I would also say it in a completely different way President George W Bush was another person that came to my mind who's obviously not in the same party as President Obama but in a very different way his way was more of a a kind smiling listening there was an act listening I think President Obama's listening is just a focus on you and this eye contact level President Bush did it differently much more with like a physical touch acknowledging what you've said and a kind of a smirk and a smile like he likes what I'm saying was being expressed on his face and I think a confident person I feel like one of the highest um indicators of one's personal self-confidence is they're willing to listen intently not thinking about my reply not thinking about what I'm going to say yes not think about what you think about me but I'm just with you in this moment and so I want to ask you about kind of a little deeper dive on this because I think this is just can I share one thing Ed that's funny just while while we're on presidents and yes I agree with you about all of that um leaders especially with like you can't get to be the leader of the United States without being very charismatic right and this even extends to Jimmy Carter who might be labeled by some people as the least charismatic presid when I got to meet Jimmy Carter we're getting a picture and he puts his arm around my waist and he says something kind literally my vision clouded over because I was so Star Struck by the Charisma of this man who was in his 80s at this point in time y for all leaders not just Presidents being charismatic being perceived as charismatic will help you be perceived as a better leader not just as a more charismatic person but I find that really interesting it's really true and actually it's about changing people's minds too i' I've uh not met president Trump for example we're going politics here it's very weird but just to give you an example I've not met him um but I have spoken to him and I've had different people that really know him very well and I had a lot of people in mine that are very left leaning say I met him and I don't like him at all but man did I like him when I met him because he had this Charisma in person and so there's a quality and I think a lot of it is this confidence and this certainty do you agree that to some extent once there's report so which what you use the term earlier that someone needs to kind of like you right but once there's Rapport is there an element that the more certain person if there is a connection emotionally will influence the less certain person simply because of the overwhelming belief they have and what it is they're communicating that absolutely can happen and you're reminding me of something that my coach used to do so my coach Mandy used to be one of the top sales Trainers for Tony Robbins and that was how we connected MH and Mandy in her closing pitch used to say I definitely definitely definitely no and she would say it three times to close a deal so if someone is openminded to considering your opinion then absolutely your certainty can help you close the deal if someone is not open-minded to listening to you and that's why you said if you have a po yeah right but like right now across the political divide that we have that's a bigger CM than ever being absolutely certain on one side and trying to persuade someone on the other side your certainty is not helping you it's harming you and I think the reason that politics is so divisive now is to your point and I didn't know we're going to go on this drill but I think it's worth saying when I brought up one president's name that gave an emotional reaction to everybody here then when I brought up the other one it gave one to everyone else and the reason these political people are so smart is they know that if they can keep us from not liking each other that we sort of will stay in our camps and so it's really brilliant that to keep people not to be able to change behavior let's make us all not like each other because the fundamental principle of your work which is so true well one of them is we have to like each other we have to have an emotional connection in order to be open to these other techniques so in politics if you can just keep us all from not liking each other then there's not an influence issue going to happen with you losing someone who's in your Camp isn't that true you just gave me shivers because I've never thought of this being a national or Global campaign to keep us from liking each other and I'm gonna be thinking about that for the next month thank you and something that you said about Trump really struck me which is that people were surprised and I've heard this said about George W bush as well so so I'm liberal as are lots of people at Yale right and I've heard so many people say George W bush went to yell so many people say when I met him I just couldn't liking him and and listeners I want you to actually not just hear that about these two presidents but internalize that about yourself this is a human phenomenon that we like each other more than we expect when we're interacting in person when you are asking somebody for something when you're asking somebody for help making an in-person request everybody on Earth on average is two or three times more likely to say yes than you expect that they will be and a big part of that is that you underestimate how much they like you you're so on this like I watch people all the time I and by the way I think influence people ask me what would you give your children for me the first thing is I want them to be moral and ethical and have our faith or their version of faith I want them to have that I then would want them to be somebody who can be influential because under influential requires confidence requires an ability to communicate I think it's the most important skill that you can give somebody and do your point about this is everyone just slow down because you may think well okay I get this how often do you go in when you're trying to get your kids to do something or you're trying to get someone in business to do something or even yourself and not slow down first and make sure there's an emotional connection first where we're here when I play golf for example Zoe one of my favorite things that happens is I'll play golf with someone I've never met before and then when we're done the next day or two they'll they'll uh tell a mutual friend of ours go I really like Ed so much what a great guy you know and then they'll this is really before my kind of public persona but then they'd say what does he do because we spent the whole four or five hours on the golf course talking about them because people like people who like them yeah and so I spend my time I already know about me I'm not even interested in me I already know everything I know and think so I'm so interested in what other people think and the reason I make this point is one of the other misconceptions you say and I want everybody to get this is one major it's number nine actually is you say people people misconceive they say to elv people don't listen to people like you like me people won't listen to someone like me and I want you to dispel that misconception for everyone I think they think if I had followers or I had money or I had success or I had I had something I'm lacking then they'd listen but people like me people don't listen to us and you dispel that as a misconception yeah this this is such a deep thing for so many of us based on these factors that you mentioned based on our race our income our age our education and what we look like all of these things and the truth is first of all people listen to us better when we listen to them better and they listen to us more when we put our voice out there in a confident and connected way what happens when we feel that we don't belong and people aren't going to listen to us that's really Insidious is we can speak in a way that makes it hard to listen to I write in the Charisma chapter actually about diminishers women in particular do this a lot but it it's a matter of feeling like you're less powerful or lower status so it happens in all all kinds of other situations that men do it we say I I think I was just wondering um so I could be wrong but and as soon as you start your communication that way it's easy for the other person to tune out and then you feel like no one listens to you I also think your mind here I think the mind of The Listener goes yeah you could be wrong those those are actually real words to somebody you know and it's it's a terrible premise to begin a sentence with or to begin an entire persuasive message with like could be wrong or I don't mean to bother you or these other things that you say to minimize yourself right because then what they hear is like oh yeah you actually are bothering me correct yeah and and you're taking more time than if you just said the thing that you don't want to bother me about it's interesting you say that because one of the other things I really believe about people who can influence is they learn to say things in more concise ways with fewer words um typically when you're lacking confidence in your belief system you feel like you need to say more to persuade actually Liars do this too Liars will say more and more don't they they say more and more because they know what they're saying isn't true so they add more and more and more to it and so one display of confidence is just fewer words with more certainty I want you to give me on this show I already have your book but I'm talking about as a listener I want you to give me one or two practical things I could do right now to be a more per influential person you give me those I'm going to go get your book a fair request and what I will also say is the flavor variety philosophy of influence I'm espousing is not transactional and so you don't have to promise me that you'll go and get your book so good it's so true in the book too y but I'm I'm happy to give you my favorite concrete takeaway right now you can put into action and this is a tool called the magic question yes the magic question is simply what would it take and if it's okay I'll share a story to help this sink in I love this part it's my probably my favorite part of the book yeah oh awesome so so this story really struck me when Gloria steum told it when she was visiting my hometown of New Haven a little while ago and this is when she was focusing on the topic of sex trafficking she'd been to a conference she was an expert she knew as much about sex trafficking as anybody and then she goes to this Village in a rural part of Zambia near a Game Preserve and three young women in that Village had been lost to sex traffickers and never heard from again the previous year so she sits down on a tarp in the middle of a field circle of women and instead of telling them what they should do or giving them her expert advice she asked the magic question she said what would it take to make sure that never happens again that no women from this Village will be sex trafficked and they told her an electric fence an electric fence they said when a when the corn reaches a certain height the elephants come and eat it and they trample it and we have nothing to eat we have nothing to sell at the market we have no money to send our kids to school and these young women in their families were starving so Gloria Stam goes back home she raises a few thousand sends it to the people of the village and the way that she tells it she comes back a few years later there's a bumper crop of corn at and since they built the fence no one from that Village has been sex trafficked so magic question yeah it's it's powerful for me um so one of the first things that comes up when you hear that story is when you ask what would it take y you so often get an answer that you wouldn't have expected M so often it's so much less than you might have been willing to do so much simpler so true so the electric fence none of us are going to think of that because we wouldn't have known that it's not just a sex trafficking problem and not even just a poverty problem but it's a human Wildlife conflict problem also the magic question is respectful so it feels good on the other side and people aren't going to have this innate immediate resistance that can happen to you trying to to persuade them to do something and because it's respectful you can use this again and again all the time like you're talking about your children and we struggle a lot of us to influence our children this is something we can teach them and help them succeed in the world they're going to use use it on us like my daughter does and we can use it on them and we just laugh right like oh the magic question again anytime you have Rapport you can use the magic question and then when this is the most subtle part of how the magic question works but when they give you a road map they are implicitly committing to helping you with that outcome if you follow the road map so in this particular situation when they said what it will take is an electric fence my interpretation isn't that the electric fence was the answer and then sex trafficking is done it's that the women who said what it will take is an electric fence are going to make sure that their friends their neighbors and each other's children are not going to be sex traffic no matter what so magic question what would it take go put it into action the reason that I said this is my favorite part of the book and I'm not going to get emotional show because I want to keep going but I think there's even power I think sometimes when you're doing something in your Genius which is what you're doing writing this book and this content because you've been doing this work for a while that sometimes it's even more powerful than even you know and the ripples are even bigger because I've sort of been in the influence space most of my life at least I think we all are I've just been aware of it more than most people right and so this what would it take question does a lot of things I just want to elaborate on my perspective for you I want to give this back as a gift to you and the audience one when you say to somebody what would it take it opens up the possibilities of multiple different yeses in different Pathways instead of perhaps the narrow one you came predisposed with the second thing it does is it almost makes you um in the unconscious part of their mind almost like a Santa Claus figure in the sense that you're in the gift giving business now what would it take I'm open to giving to you instead of taking from you it changes the entire Paradigm in somebody's mind when you say what would it take because now it's incumbent upon them to tell you and you're almost in the gift giving it's almost like what's your wish list it changes the dynamic in someone's mind of the entire conversation providing you have that emotional connection and Rapport that Zoe has said now a personal anecdote I read this and I had a I want to influence myself this year it sounds like very premeditated but I want more peace this year it's a big thing for me people ask me what could I get someone who's had everything I want more peace I want what every human being truly wants and so I've been writing these strategies down and I stopped and I used the magic question with myself what would it take in order for me to feel more peace couple things happened I just want to illustrate that that you just said one it was much more simple than I thought it was and two it was so enjoyable to start to find out what it would take that I found myself 6 hours later 6 days later driving in the car another answer another thought my my spirit enjoyed this question rather than making demands all the time to influence myself or to influence other people so the Ripple effects of your work and just this one thing is so profound if people just start asking themselves and other people once you have Rapport what would it take you be you'd be blown away so I just want to show so beautiful thank you for that gift and I'm ired now to ask myself the same question isn't it true what would it take for me to feel more happiness what would it take for me to start a business what would it take for me and you've just started you've opened a space when you do this that didn't exist before you said it with you and other people you've maybe you're in the middle of this trying to get someone to do something thing you're doing which is not the way to influence as you read the book but the minute you say what would it take you've opened a new space you can both go into now or you on your own can go into or you and your deity you and your God can go into and start to fill that space up with the answers and it seems simple but it's huge for your company what would it take to get to this next level what would it take for us to serve more people what would it take for us to cure this or that and it's a powerful question that should be utilized so much more in people's lives than it is but you the quality of our life is the quality of the questions we ask ourselves and the quality of the questions we ask other people and our emotions come from the questions we ask ourselves we're constantly asking ourselves what's wrong with this situation we're going to get answers that feed us those emotions what's right what's beautiful what am I grateful for what are the solutions so anyway I'm going on but I just think it's so powerful there's another part of the book that's powerful again you guys can tell I I'm very passionate I'm having Zoe on you guys because let's be honest I have super famous people on all the time and then you guys can tell then I have people on all the time who should be super famous because of the work they do that can change people's lives Zoe is in the midst of becoming that I can promise you it's not the reason she's doing it okay okay nose I talk about nose yeah can wait one sec Ed can I just can I just draw attention to this key principle of influence that you just Illustrated with the way that you describ the magic question becoming more influential takes becoming influenceable and when you ask the magic question it's not just that you're showing you're willing to do something in exchange but you're showing that you're open to the other person's influence all right that's really important by the way say thank you for adding that the other thing you're going to have to deal with is no and so my kids both you know my son's in college my daughter will be there next year and they're at that stage where what am I going to do you know what do I want to do and one of them is do I want to go in the business do I want to do this and I've told both of them I said you know one of my hesitations for you is I think that in culture now the ability to deal with no is at an all-time low and how it makes people feel and how afraid of it they are and um their avoidance of it or what it does to their identity their confidence their selfworth when they get one and so then they do all of these things to insulate themselves from never getting them and those very things they do to insulate themselves from not getting those is the very things they should be doing to get to the things they want to have and feel and so in the book you have the power of no and the no challenge issue there can you just talk about that a little bit yes so of course we hate to be rejected we hate to have people say no and it may be that we feel it more now than ever especially in this world where we've been suffering a lot for the past couple of years and just everything is more difficult but even before that what happens in our brain when we experience rejection is that our brain processes it just like physical pain and the same regions of our brain that hurt or get activated when somebody slaps us get activated when they leave us out or they say no or they reject us we can learn to handle physical pain through exercise practice when you work out on a regular basis you're actually pushing yourself through some physical pain right and that's how you grow and that's how you get stronger you don't try to push yourself to the point where you're suffering immeasurably but you take repeated small amounts of physical pain to keep growing and build resilience and this is what I advocate doing to get rejected repeatedly on small things so that you can handle getting rejected on the big things and if you are not getting rejected you are absolutely playing small there's no question so you can also by practicing getting rejected train your brain to hear that and feel that as a success even if it's still painful can you give me an example of that where you could get small NOS before the big no can you just a practical I'm trying to think of a visual example of what that might look like thank you yeah the so listeners who might want to put this into practice I have a great source of inspiration for you which is my friend ja Jang who has a video blog called a 100 days of rejection and um a student was a big fan of his and put us in touch now we're Buds and we do some rejection research he has a hundred of these challenges you can replicate any of them like my students do and lots of them are funny things like um you know you're at Starbucks and you're ordering a drink and you just ask them hey can I make that drink for myself right and you do it in a charming and friendly way usually they say no sometimes they say Yes um J went to a fire station and asked if you could slide down the fire fire pole and now I'm so sorry for the firefighters of New Haven and the local area because so many students have asked them can I go and slide down the fire just tiny things like this like go ask your neighbor is it okay if I plant a plant in your front yard like yes any there all kinds of creative little things you could do one of my favorites favorite things a student did was his neighbor was seven years old and he had never met her or her family and she was having a birthday party and they had a bouncy house in the backyard and he's like you know just going to go get rejected standing in line for the bouncy house and this guy is Big Like You Ed he's a MMA fighter and he so it's like a grizzly bear walking over to stand in line behind the seven-year-old girls and the thing is what surprises people so much first of all about the rejection challenge is that it's when you get rejected it's not as bad as you think usually but you so rarely get rejected to compared to how often you think that you will so true they did let him go in the bouncy house it didn't break but this family liked him so much by because he put himself out there in his charming and funny way and he's very charismatic that they invited Jason back to Sophie's birthday party the next year and the next year and he's coming back to New Haven even after he graduated to go to her eighth birthday party and her ninth birthday party that is so awesome and it it's like you guys the way you and I have a real flow because not only is the no challenge so profound I just look back like I'm I read your work and I'm like you know I've been so fortunate in my life to have actually done some of these things without ever being directed to do them that you write about in the book so I'm almost I guess I'm saying I can validate with a lot of my own experience your work and and this I'm I got a lot of Nos and I kind of got in this weird addicted space where I almost got off the wrong word I like yeah I got another one and it just started to hurt less and less and in just in your overall life if you're not getting rejected in small ways man these breakups these sales you don't close the business that fails that are massive to you because you haven't had any little ones to sort of just dull your senses to it a little bit and the other thing go ahead you still feel it you still feel it it just doesn't last as long so it's it's not even that um the magnitude of the pain gets that much less it just gets much much faster and because you've had practice you know you can handle it and you can see your way to the other side so with something like a breakup this is especially important right yeah and I think I think what H what changes is it still hurts but what it means is slightly different in other words it's not the events of Our Lives that Define us it's the meaning we take from it so there was a point in my life where I would get a no let's say in business I go I suck I'm not called for this uh this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing this is God's way of telling me I shouldn't do this that's what the no metant or people don't like me or it's because I'm you know whatever I I would catch these massive unrealistic silly nonsensical meanings to events that were so rare but the more familiar they become you begin to change the meaning it doesn't mean you go this is great I love I've never believed it go I love when I get a no nah not all the time but it means different things to me it could mean I'm growing it could mean I'm closer to a yes it could mean I'm getting tougher so it changes the meaning the other muscle so to speak that I kind of built which I think after reading your work maybe I've let atrophy a little bit as I've become maybe a little bit more wellknown I've been less willing to do but I did a lot throughout my life is you say just ask you want to be a person of influence just ask I cannot tell you Zoe how many people you know people always trying to get me to invest in their companies and Pitch me and some of the most successful people in the world look at this whole presentation of me and then never ask me to invest yes they never ask me to do it or they you know they they I can tell they need something they're a friend of mine and they never ask me what they need and so and this is most humans and the longer you go without asking people the the more difficult and Mountain this you think it is to do so so major part of the book is just ask so talk about that yeah yeah it's kind of embarrassing to be teaching a class at this Ivy League school where the biggest takeaway that people tell me afterward that they had I'm getting emails from the Lums and they're like I I just asked now in my life I just asked than you go but they they find love they get companies funded they change policies change the course of history yes and it's so so so simple by the way you mentioned that a lot of these things that you read felt um they resonated like things you're doing already and I believe that a lot of already successful leaders will feel that same way about this book and what I've tried to do in this book is make it simple enough that you can not just see yourself in that but you can teach other people and you can say to your people like here's a half chapter take this one like oh Charisma here go but about just asking scary for all of us most of us have some domain in which we're less comfortable than others like maybe you're killing it in business but you're scared to ask for a date Maybe you are comfortable asking people you know to do favors for you but the idea of asking a stranger for money would be you would just rather die love and money are the two biggest ones I don't know if can I just ask you because you said you haven't been doing much of it like is there some area of your life Ed that's harder to ask than I'm so glad you asked that cuz I was thinking about so glad you asked that right yes and it's not major things it's minor things I would blow you away with the things I'm afraid to ask I I'll tell you it this will shock you and probably most people I'll ask a favor of a friend on a big business deal or but if I'm in a restaurant and this is going to sound nuts but if I'm in a restaurant and uh my food is cooked incorrectly for me to ask the server to go take it back and do it I would never do that because I feel like I'm bothering them for me there's almost a reciprocity connection sometimes that I feel like needs to be there where I can help you back even when I if I've been waiting in a restaurant or my wife will tell you like walk into a restaurant she's the person who goes up and says hi we're the myets we're here for table I don't want to ask or bother them it seems so odd but one of the things you should guard against is I always think I should only ask somebody's a favor or something I need of them if I can pay them back and this is the more sort of maybe influential I've become the more it's reinforced that false belief so I'll ask people all the time that I've already helped or that I know I could help but if I don't think I can help you somehow I'm hesitant to ask and I my senses even as I say that out loud maybe that's true for a lot of people who who walk through their everyday life that way absolutely absolutely absolutely at least for a lot of nice people and um and it's funny like I'm surprised hearing you say this but then I'm also thinking like you know I they're are so many other people like you who are very successful and have these same hesitancies like Wall Street Banker who's telling me that he's uncomfortable trying to get a bartender's attention say because and it's this it is exactly that we're to people in the book I write about this challenge that we still whole class is based on challenges a challenge that's called the bigger and better game that's specifically to put you out of your comfort zone where you have to be asking for things that you can't reciprocate because you're going to trade somebody for something they have that's bigger and better than what you have and you start with a paperclip or something tiny like that and you trade up as many times as you want and you're anybody listening you know it's fun if you feel like it to do this with your team or your family in class we start with a paperclip and then everyone comes back one week later with the biggest best thing that they've gotten and in class it's a competition to see who can win and you get to have a free homework and dinner with Zoe great the craziest one is but the two students who traded up in 10 trades over four days from a paperclip to a Volkswagen Jetta come on from a car dealership in New Haven oh my God and they cre it up for a car that they didn't even need and they donated it to an Afghan Refugee family who had settled here and this is a perfect example of how people are so much more willing to help than we expect and when we can frame the situation in an appealing way and especially with a vision a Visionary outcome that's something bigger than ourselves and or just something fun they just went around saying hey we're playing this game game and it's totally crazy and we probably can't do it but we're going to try to trade up from a paperclip to a car this is our dream and we're gonna give it away do you want to be part of this game and play with us it's fun and also these guys it was happening over Halloween and so they're wearing fuzzy animal onesies and you know they look hilarious people are so much more open to our influence when we approach them in an openhearted and human kind of way than saying here's what I have for you what will you trade with me as a transaction what would be they like other teams of people will do transactional trades where they're trying to find people okay I have a paper clip who has paper that they need to clip okay you have paper I have a paper clip what will you trade with me okay you got a stamp I'll trade you for a marker and what happens to those people by the way is they end up with giant pieces of trash from somebody's basement and they'll get like a collection of ugly mugs or like a 14 foot ore from a rowo that got lost so I the my favorite part about what you do that's different than everyone else's way they teach influence is this right here which is that it's not transactional I think a lot of times you know I've had the blessing of some success as an entrepreneur and I think people think that that must means I was a very transactional person nothing could be further from the truth I just want to elaborate on what you like it's just so good to have someone finally saying the right stuff the true stuff and by the way I've learned a ton in this book I don't want to think oh it confirmed everything I do no I learned a ton in this book that I did not know there are some things in the book I went yep I've done that yes that's true but there's a bunch I learned but one of them is I'm not transactional when you approach somebody in a transactional basis here's what I've always felt like they immediately don't even see you as human they see you as almost an object because you've objectified them and now you be you've lost all of whatever that influence could have been because you're no longer a human being you're no longer vulnerable You're no longer somebody I want to help or root for and now they almost want to win they almost want to win it by rejecting You by getting by and giving you the or instead of the jeda right and so the most important thing I think you can be to be influential is to be vulnerable is to ask for help is to be yourself is to be human with people is to be as far away from transactional as that you possibly can get in order to be influential and almost all other influential courses are well if you could have a or b what would you have and it comes very transactional that has not worked for 30 years in life for business yet it's still taught all the time by people who I don't think are very influential that really make a very big difference so now having said that there are techniques and then went private let's talk about that minute I was interviewing bados kouan the other day and he was he's a he's a huge fan and friend of yours and I know the feelings are mutual between the two of you but he was telling me that when he was a trainer that was a really important time in his life because the type of people you train typically have a couple Buck right and so these people sort of become kind of Quasi mentors so is that now cuz mentoring is also part of the recipe right so was that part of sort of the formula of creating you like you got the art background the band background you've done the T-shirt by the way when you're doing the T-shirt thing were you hustling like were you one of these guys I would see sometimes once while you're selling T-shirts out of the back of your rig or like or no I was never Force feeding it but whoever wanted to meet up I would go meet it but I was never like oh this is my clo no I never the p okay you weren't that you're not the pushy type that's good to know okay cuz I think a lot of guys think hey to get cuz I'm not either I come from a family like the culture in my family is like sales guys are almost like piranhas like you don't want to be pushy you don't ever want to make people uncomfortable I still feel that way so that's good for a lot of you to relate to that like neither one of us got pushy to push our success right we got pulley which meant what we had was so good people wanted it to come with us right that's ultimately you don't win by being pushy you win by being pulley it's a gravitational pull right so that's why you want so you're at Long Beach State I want to stay in here yeah you got this background now you're a trainer you're kind of getting some mentoring you're also probably making some money yeah right and so what what takes place from there so this is crazy like B Total Fitness actually taught me a lot because it's strictly corporate it's a machine too dude it taught me to be this the sales Savage dude I remember my director she laid out two pieces of paper she told me all right tell me why this one's better than this one I was like I blinked out for like a cool 30 seconds but then I gathered I was like you know what all right this paper is made up of this type of wood blah blah this you don't want this one you know I don't know what I pulled off but I pulled it off and sold her this this piece of paper and she's like all right cool now do that with the training business because you are your training is this value and you you know if you believe this otherwise then why are you even here wonderful okay I want to jump in on this too I want to stay with you on this cuz there's like I think the guys like you have so many skills that make them successful I want you to be aware of them another element and any business so this man's in the apparel business the Fitness business you have to be able to persuade people right like that's another layer that I didn't grow up with no one taught me how to communicate no one ever taught me how to persuade so there was a point in my career where I learned how to do those two papers so that's a Hu don't you think that's a Hu it helps you persuade employees to join you right Distributors like pricing everything persuasion is huge right so you learn that at B that's interesting you learn that at B dud was huge because at was Cut Throat once you're off your probation period if you don't make clients and you're out of here they they will you not only you're broke they'll get rid of you yeah they'll get rid of you you're done and I ended up making not even being a regular trainer I was one of the elite master trainers breaking almost like 10K a month Four B at the time Youngy as a young dude there's only like five of them at you keep any of the 10K yeah probably like I don't know small percentage of it yeah right not a whole lot goes back to right but you're paying your bills at least while you're in college doing that I was living you're living large probably compared to your buddies exactly yeah okay so you're there you're training you're obviously getting a lot of business experience communication experience because this is here's the thing everybody especially if you're young this is all part of the Journey of winning it's like he wasn't a millionaire when he was 20 at Long Beach State right but he was he was making deposits in himself right like you're all these Investments you were making in you through experience through the grind through just doing stuff like you probably when you were skating when you were playing in the band I doubt you thought I'm going to be a personal trainer at B right like right never right so it's crazy okay so you're there what what happens from there like where do we go so each so the clients that I met as I became more of like the master trainer what they called it I got I didn't have to go out and Prospect much so they they used to make me Prospect like go find your own clients they never gave it to you you had to go close the deal yourself walk up to strangers I did all that in the gym or out of the gym both both however you can get them in the office okay you know and sell them on it so I did so good at that I built such a a a a great clientele and now when the leads actually came in that weren't for me yes that were high-paying leads like these professionals that would come in that that need help I would get fed those leads and close them on the deal you know and in that process these professionals like me being a tattooed yeah you know minority type of person like okay how the do I speak to these guys without 45-year-old white male Banker guy doctor rightly cuz they come in and they have their offense up you know or the red you got to bring that down and be able to relate to to them and see what the problem is I'm everyone's relating to this right now right like how what would you do how would you do that was it asking them questions about them or how you ask questions and just keep kind of relating why they're here and how I can help them and that I'm not this this dude that's just you know here to sell you on like I can actually change your life yeah you know what I'm saying so once I learn that and I'm talking to this a a a surgeon to a lawyer to like a college student you know so I could was able to maneuver and communicate that's massive and bring down these these red wall barriers and connect with them on a personal level and it was basically how you could help them how you could connect with them ex see this is interesting I did all this reading about you this is the part of the story I didn't know and it helps me piece together your success cuz I've always felt like I don't care what the business is I don't care if you're in the software business you have to be able to persuade and communicate to people this is that's interesting it's hard because I've done a lot of interviews here and there but you know you live life there's 365 days in there's so that go even just like hours of the day that you can't even explain for a full 2our interview I'm really glad because it like it helps me piece together you because I just I have this overriding belief like you have to learn how to connect with people yeah and and I've met you and I think one thing I will just tell you that I I see about you too is like I think you have a genuiness about you like you're instantly likable man like you're super humble like you don't even know how successful you are and I love that about you bro like I just I hope I have that a little bit like I don't think you know how amazing what it is you've already accomplished cuz I think you're in the M I think in your mind you're like still in the beginning which is huge I think I'm still in the beginning too right like and I'm 17 years older than you I still I still think I'm in the beginning anyway so you're there you're training you've learned to communicate you've learned to close right now you got some mentors what we're getting close to live fit but we're not there yet right okay and also I assume you're probably still connected to the way you grew up a little bit too right so you got so you still got buddies ears getting in some trouble some are successful some are probably getting even locked up once in a while you probably even lose a friend here and there right that's killed right I mean you're in this environment that's most of us that didn't grow up in it but grew up close to it mhm you know I know it's almost like you almost lived in a minor minor War Zone A minor combat zone and you're still connected to that right at that time yeah yeah so did you were those associ like were you pulled back into that all the time or were these new associations kind of sculpting you and shaping you at the same time as you still had your kind of your your homies from from where you grew up at the same time at at the time like it there's that stereotype where like the gang activity is like heavy and they they'll put you in like no once you get to like a certain level yeah and the guys that are still doing it they respect you as like more of a friend like oh okay what's going on around let's catch up and then after that they're proud of you almost to some rightly and when you're done hanging out then they'll go back do their thing you do your thing you know it's kind of like we already lived our ways cuz when people do the dirt stuff that's when we're young young you know once you start making real money and making a living everyone respects one another you know my other friends who are athletes who come from those environments too tell me that there becomes a transition where they're like really rooting for you and proud of you that you come from where they come from there's some truth to that yeah no I you ask these guys I brought one of my my my friends as like one of the OG gang bangers head like shock hauler and he came down to the warehouse and he was so proud like you could he was genuinely proud cuz he has a family of his own he's like dude I'm you know I think a lot of the things too from these communities cuz I I think Long Beach is part of your story I think it's always going to be I think being Cambodian is part of your story but I don't come from that kind of a community but I have many friends who do especially the athlete guys especially by the way some of them from Long Beach Long Beach P's like one of the great football basketball schools in the in the country right and I think that sometimes a lot of the people that grow up in those communities at least my sense is their their actual family isn't intact all the time and so there's almost a family relation ship to the community like they're all roting for you I I I know exactly what you're talking about yeah no I I could relate for sure I think there's a lot of people out there that are just like literally proud and rooting for you all the time there's people you see every day that I used to skate with or just hang out with like on the streets like like they almost become family just because our actual family is working or doing something to put food on the table you know and I think that's part of the success of your brand I think that the great Brands now and we're going to get into that in a minute they're not just communities or cultures they're almost like a family of people that all sort of support the same culture the same way of thinking the same thought processes I think that's what you have brother 100% I do I think it's almost like a family I don't think it's a I think brand is like minimizes what it is like the people I know that wear your stuff like they're proud of it like a dude you grew up with like they're they it's not like hey I when I meet guys at the gym that wear your stuff they're aware they're wearing it like once while people walk up me like hey nice hat I'm wearing some Clover hat I'm like is that what I'm wearing you know it's nothing to me right but when guys wear your stuff I'm like hey I'm about to interview that dude they're like oh bro like they go right into it they know they're wearing it they're proud they're wearing it that's it's it's like a family brand it's like and by the way that's huge in business okay so let's get into it B you end up eventually how do you end up getting to where you have you like start a store or something don't you like yeah so okay um after B uh obviously I realized I was making good money but I'm like dude I can make a little bit more if I left and you know went into private trading that's private personal Trading private personal training yeah so running my own business training multiple clients at one time running boot camps Maxim maximizing my time and money you know so I learned that actually looking up uh bedro B the boot camp idea exactly his business model and all that stuff so this was before he even knew who the I was you know okay so I I I took that model and literally nailed it to the tea I was in college making way more money than uh anybody I knew around me and I was like what AM am I doing you know so I mean I just kind of was doing it for my parents at the time yep so I stay Stayed doing that and then this random opportunity came up with u my buddy Bruce sth he he owned this t-shirt store in in Long Beach off of Molino Anaheim called not not a good area by the way yeah not a it's up over there and it's still y um he still owns it it's pretty good y or he he does pretty well but it was like a shop that offered just like five5 or $10 like blank t-shirts or you'd make like custom oneoff shirts you know that people go and buy and to sell like Dickies yeah retail store um and at the time he gave me this offer to like buy into it I was like all right sure so you're entrepreneurial then okay so you buy into a t-shirt store in a pretty rough area where you grew up yeah cuz I've seen the but people would just see like that's rough area I seen the money because in over there in the hood what people do every morning this is a trip every morning uh they would go in our regular customers and buy a a brand new white T-shirt every morning they don't wash it so this is maybe something new you learn they don't watch their it's their Pro five t-shirts they'll just buy a new one every day every day and throw it out buy another one the next day so You' have like regular traffic like someone's going to a Starbucks to buy a cup of coffee they're buying a white t-shirt from you yep Fise you yeah it's crazy weird when I tell people I'm like yeah know that's why when you see like you know some some like gang mang dudes that wear a white T-shirt they'll still have the crease just from the the packet stupid like how this guy have such a beautiful shirt every freaking time so that's why it's a brand new shirt that's Shir exactly just open it yeah okay so that's why that location works that's why like it's actually a pretty damn good location I like and you knew that cuz you grew up in it yeah yeah all right okay I'm learning a lot here okay so then with that um I got obtained the the t-shirt store with my buddy Bruce and then I wanted to do this whole Long Beach brand as well in there I was like I think I can sell some cool Long Beach logo stuff cuz Long Beach has a lot of Pride people within the city like to rock yep you know Long Beach so I started making designs and created this um lb clothing brand and it took off in the store people would just come in inside the store inside the store yeah and I obviously started Market marketing it on like Facebook and and Myspace at the time there was no Instagram yet so there was you were already dabbling in the social media deal which is huge to your success now which we'll get to but okay so you're now you're were your training clients wearing this stuff or this was like a local brand thing uh into what stuff the so the the the in your store the shirt you were selling in your store that you created right was that was that something your the people you trained wore or like local dudes would local dudes yeah local M Beach dudes yeah yeah but then over time when I was running my private training business I had all this graphic design skills I had all these other like video editing skills photography skills I I had my trading business as well okay I was like okay I'm going to design some stuff for my clients H what can I what's a catchy slogan okay I like all right livefit you're kidding me yep so I are you serious fit started for the people you were training yep one my clients so I had RP uh RP Fitness and then my slogan was livefit so I just made this collection of like a t-shirt design then a black zip up hoodie that we still sell today okay that were the first um I guess line that was offered to my clients first so then they started wearing it and then I at the time there was only what uh Facebook yeah so I was like all right this is cool let me film this you know when we're doing like boot camps or group training because everyone's having fun and everyone's wearing the same shirts this and that and not only did I post it but because they were my clients that were part of the the community or my training business they wanted to post it too because they were wearing the shirts like they wanted to show off to their friends like look what I'm a part of so it just kind of went in viral in the local community and then it just snowballed from there cuz then people were like okay I'm not training with you but I want that shirt how do I get it you're kidding me yeah so then it kind of just when was this what year are you talking about probably like 2011 okay so you're like all this stuff we see today that everybody does is acceptable which just film their brand make it fun you did before most of everybody was doing it way back what made you think to how did you know to do that I don't know I just thought that was cool you thought it was cool you kid cool I was like hey man this shit's tight I want to let's film it you know you know that that's genius right like that's no no not I guess you I didn't know that yeah I was always like a marketing person everything everything if you wanted to look at my brand or whatever I'm about I wanted to make it look as cliche as it sound I wanted to make it look perfect or make it look cool you know so how do I do that I think I'm going to film this you know and show show what my show my friends what I'm doing you know that I'm you know and it went a little bit viral through their post and them wanting it then people who don't train with you want a little piece so you have that going on the sort of viral social media virtual world and you have this physical store that you're sell local stuff to as well right tell them the um tell them real quick like cuz I didn't know this and you would get business spikes at the store through tragedy almost oh like and I want people to understand this because there's there's this there's all these brands that are massive that are what I I don't know the right word for it but I'll just call it like Urban driven or city driven or culturally driven Brands right that a lot of people don't understand whether that be even like music like Jay-Z or we were talking about Damon John earlier with FUBU like like or um uh what was Russell Simmons brand baby fat right or these other brands like so you would have a spike in business in your store and in your shirt when what type of stuff would take place when murders would happen when murders would happen it was just why like I said there's heavy gang activities so one of the things we did too were just oneoff custom shirts yeah and a lot of that was rest in peace or in loving memory of because in gang culture if someone dies what happens usually they retaliate or what not they retaliate but they also make some they make I didn't know this there's like rest in peace shirts yeah they'll make rest in peace shirts just for the The Lost Ones the loved ones you know so you would hear like there's noise like someone was killed there's going to be retaliation and you'd literally be thinking business is going to spike yeah me and me and my buddy Bruce were like dude we're going to be busy in the next couple days man because Banas this person got smoked they came in made a bunch of shirts but we know this other person has a green green light on them and we're like all right he's about to die and then sure enough it sucks but he he he dies like a week later and you it's just that you know that cycle of of BU dude that's amazing to me and so so you what an unreal Story by the way so I'm C I don't I don't know this like so you have this store you got your so it's interesting you got all these things going so you're training you got this culture going where now live fit starting you got the store guys are coming and buying their shirts every single day plus someone dies business spikes because you're making those shirts plus your normal brand that's local plus the other stuff you sell like you ever get I don't I always think about this I go into when I'm driving home from La back here right or when I was even a kid I'd go out and play baseball at long be or Long Beach State I go to a game there or I go to a or even Cal State LA you know you drive back from there you go get gas at a gas station you grow up in Diamond Bar where I go it's like hey man this is a rough gas station this a rough I'm more careful right like I go into where you grew up and did you ever get robbed uh yeah actually when I was they'll rob you they don't care what age you're at I was think 13 14 it was on 11th in Temple funny you ask me I was with probably 12 12 of my friends just hanging out um in front of my buddy's house these two Asian guys are Cambodian as well cuz there's there's there's two gangs in Long Beach that or two Cambodian gangs and they beef with each other too okay still to this day yeah still to this day um there was just these two gang members they walked by and they looked at me they're a little older and they like I was like I was kind of weird you know why the did it look and they walked to the end of the block and they decided to walk back I was wearing this gold Buddha necklace I didn't know at the time you know my mom gave it to me and then your mom gave it to you yeah and then these two guys came up and then one of them the second time they walked back he took a knife out put on my neck he snatched it and all my friends were were just like we kind of just knew we're like all right we do you know I even call my friend that was in in that gang too I was like hey man can you get my necklace back my mom's going to kill me you know she going to beat my ass cuz that's just what if you get jacked they're going to get mad at you yes but then they're like nah dude I can't if they're just doing that that's just part of the work I was like did you ever get it back no never then it was funny cuz when I went back home I guess I never said anything to my mom dude this is weird I never talk about this um she never asked where the necklace was and it was years later I was like hey Mom you remember what I thought she's like I knew you got robbed I was like are you serious yeah cuz she's I was like how you know she's like she just knew I guess I was too quiet or something you know but your your mom but we're going to get into live fit now but your mom's like a central piece of your life huh yeah know for sure you talk about your mom a lot why like what what why is that she was probably like the only person that now that I realized when I'm older she gave me everything I wanted even though we didn't have the funds for it or the means for it if I wanted new skate shoes she would buy it she' find a way when I was young I didn't know what the housing was I didn't know what section I didn't know what food stamps was I knew you buy this food and this green back you buy other that's what my mom said you know so but I didn't know I thought I was part of life right everybody had that you and then everything I wanted skate shoes uh Wheels whatever it was I was like Mom I'd have to have it I was that kid you I was like I have to have sh not not cool whatever you know so she' make it happen you know she found a way you know so now I realize I'm like dude if I would about to beat my ass if I was look you know what's amazing that y'all don't know is that now that live fits built one of the first things you do when you got money was you took care of your mom retired your mom retired my mom yeah now she doesn't have to work nothing yeah got in her spot she's chilling that makes me that's that's my favorite part of your whole all the wealth you're going to make man all the cars you already have you're going to sell live fit for hundred million someday or whatever you're going to do my favorite thing about it is that the first thing you did when you made some money is you took care of your mom like and that's everyone watching this like it's one of their dreams like wouldn't you love to take care of your mom all the stuff he went through being robbed as a kid I'm pretty sure your store probably I don't know do your store ever get robbed or almost robbed try to get robbed yeah man try to get robbed one time we talking about with uh with on Andy thing man what what happened there I don't know about that some guy tried to buy a t-shirt with a fake $5 bill this Mexican dude and he was just from a gang that just didn't like Asian people okay so I was like so he comes in your store with a fake $5 bill F five tries to buy it and I'm like dude I can't I can't sell you this he's like why cuz I'm a donkey I'm like no dude cuz this is a fake $5 bill he I think he was all drugged up he was like dude I'm going to come back and kill all you guys kill all the nips that's what they call us nips and then I was like I knew he was serious I'm like all right man this oh my gosh so then my buddy we had a shotgun um in the store in the store yeah he had a shotgun and a Glock but we had we loaded the shotgun cocked it back and just had the safety on that's how scary the was and my friend Bruce was like if this fool comes back just point that that way you don't have to aim just point and shoot it'll blow the whole whole window off I was like oh dud you scared I was scared as I was about to my pants but I was ready that's the thing I was ready dude I was like all right this come whole day every to walk through the door you L have a gun right next to you under the keyboard just like just get this everybody we we're going to segue now into where he is now but like just so you get this and I'm not exaggerating when I say this on some level I am and I'm not what's what's been what's happened now is the modernday Nike it's the modern day Nike came from this do you understand that like when you go Google him or you research him it's the modern day Nike it's like it's like you're and by the way I think you're more viral and Innovative and creative and have a more loyal following than them so you're talking about somebody who grew up in a band skating he dropped out of Long Beach State just so you know I mean like pretty close to graduating you probably could have graduated if you went like what six more months or something probably right he leaves Long Beach State he's in a store where he's getting robbed with fake $5 bills his business would spike initially when people were killed right and he ends up building this modern-day massive brand so just think about what you're capable of when this man's done this and there's this combination of unique things you've built you've got this artistic I think everyone who wins in business takes advantage of some birth blessing and then build skills after it so like for you my analysis is you were born with a birth blessing of artistry of creativity right like you skating is an art to me I skated too so skating is an art playing in a band is an art creating these designs you've created is an art I think at your heart you're an artist but that's not enough then you learned how to close then you got some mentoring then you learned to be an entrepreneur which you already had that kind of Desire cuz you come from nothing so you want to make money right like scarcity C I want more of this exactly world class mom who SWS belief into you and love all the time like just loving a child like you were loved by your mom gives you confidence like even as I say that just so you know badass tattoo guy your face just changed right when I talk about how much your mom loves you right like that's this when you the story of your life and you're you're engaged in this beautiful woman you're going to marry the central figure of your life till this moment is your mom MH she's the one if I turn the pages of the book of your life is your mom right and so I love that bro like and your mother went from like I've read about like like literally no food eating like anything she could find to e eat right like is that not true like your mother would like what would she do like to eat like Lally I remember the story CU I asked her I remember her her mom my grandma during when they were at the what do you call the labor camps yes cuz they only get fed one time or twice they would get they see a lizard she would snag it and like kill it and put it in her pocket and then later distribute it to the rest of the kids later just so they can eat I've I I heard that knowing though that if they did get caught execution right away but it's like eat or you know just survive every day isn't it amazing that your mother bro like no it's trippy dude and her son becomes this like I just like I I hope people listen to like if this this is possible what's possible for me or my children right like or my future like your past your your upbringing your the the the tragedies you going through they don't Define you like look what this man's become so we got to fast forward just because of time okay so you're in the shirt store I know eventually he buys you out because things are blowing up and now live fits taken off so now you're a businessman now and here's what happens once you're there just so you all know now you're riddled with like tons of false starts you thought you had a business then you didn't probably right you thought you had a business then you didn't so when do you like is there a point where like you hired your first employee for livefit like when was that I think from 2012 to 2013 that was when I sold the the t-shirt store full talkinging that long ago yeah liit so you're like 25ish somewhere around there yeah 25 was with the birth of my fir like when liit became an LLC and LIF apparel established in California crazy man crazy that was like about 6 years ago okay um I was operating out of a small ass like Warehouse probably 1,000 ft you know doing a lot of by myself and then having um just a help from a few friends and then officially hired on like we didn't even know what the role was you know just people to help do this and this and it just grew from there you know and I from that point from 2012 13 to now we had the most craziest Growing Pains you know we dealt with yeah other that I never thought like what just we just closed the report of the the the federal IRS and the California state tax audit we finished nothing so we're clear of that but that's a stresser yeah we've dealt with um uh Patent Trademark trolls and just dude a lot of legal that was just like man I can't believe this is even still legal you know learning that that route and then um dealing with uh ex employees and just people frustrated people haters frustrated people litigation prob you know I had a employee we we we terminated her because of disruptive behavior spreading rumors about another employee she turned around anded to claim that we we fired her because she was a lesbian what the and to fight a civil case in California is is pretty hard so we're like are you serious but luckily we had a lot of the backup and and and paperwork this to say no she's just lying you know and there's no way owning a t-shirt store prepares you for that right and this is what everyone this entrepreneurs listen to me okay this is what stops most people they hear these things they think well I don't know about how all that stuff works no one he does okay what happens is you just get into these situations and you navigate through them now because I'm a person of faith I actually think God just will prepare you once you're in it like you didn't know what the litigation you probably even have a lawyer back in the day right you started you have a lawyer like this is my lawyer so it's like you the way business works is you just keep stepping into Dark Places and eventually figure them out and then there's another light and another light and then there's a setback and then there's another light and it's your guts okay okay it's your courage it's your drive it's your dream it's your mission that takes you through these things you know nothing about I've had the same things it's like I know nothing about these things right so you create this thing let's talk a second about what's caused it to grow CU we know what some of the obstacles were there's and by the way the bigger you get the more obstacles so what do you have like 30 employees now roughly 30 employes okay 30 employees which is a big business how big's your facility now not 1,000 sare ft uh 32,000 ft 32,000 so in 5 years you 32 times the size of your business in s of just the square footage right right imagine this you guys think about this for a minute and it started in Facebook kind of that in realm and and let's talk about this for a few minutes okay what are some of the keys that's grown live fit what what what would you say the number one key was man there's so many factors but if I were to choose one yeah I'd just say the relatability of like the culture you know that that generation of of of people that are into fitness and into that but still like surfing like skating and are still into like that that subculture a little bit you know what I mean yes so it's like a safe haven for them to relate to because before we were even here there was no brand that was really offering that yeah Nike does skateboarding this and that but they don't they don't Target like that that that real a real experience you know correct so this is the lesson cuz I agree with you on livefit this is what I've started to find I found this in my own business too 10 15 20 years ago you could have a vanilla brand there was this kind of something and you had sponsors and I know you have sponsors too my bet is most of the business you generate is not from your sponsors from your athletes it's from you it's from the culture okay and so now this is great news for all of you little guys can win big time against big guys now because people don't just buy products they buy cultures they buy environment they buy Mission okay they big thing people buy is Mission what's this stand for what's this about what's this represent okay what's this because I see all kinds of guys that wear your brand that didn't grow up in Long Beach man okay but they love what it represents right and so you obviously have a lot to do with that for a second okay so just elaborate on that for a minute what is what do you think it represents and how important is it that you're constantly feeding that to people too are you conscious of feeding the what it represents the culture the mission of the company how do you how do you think about that often and how do you deliver it like what with me and like my team athletes we we're fairly you know I'd say on the younger side of of the realm and when we preach like the whole um fit lifestyle eating healthy living healthy we're not blacking out the the other dark side where we like to have fun we like to have a few drinks we like to do this and that I like to still go to hardcore shows and mosh on fools you know like fast cars have fast cars whatever like there's like this this this culture where no I can do all this and still live a healthy life you know so that's what we're we're we're pushing and yeah I am always aware of that so and you've done it through social media a lot too right so so here the first thing is this if you're going to grow your business you're going to grow your brand one of the core messages has to be this is what I want to get this is what I want to tell you that I noticed about you I'm going to give you something I've not heard someone else tell you okay I think that there's this culture there's this environment there's this Mission and then there's this like iconic figure who represents it which is you okay all of that's wonderful okay and I think it's a huge part of it but this is what I think all companies that have exploded whether it be Facebook or Twitter or Amazon or you or my buddy I'm wearing his shirt Andy forell at first form yeah yeah they have a guy that represents it let me tell you what they're great at you ready they're great at telling their story they're great at telling a story about what they represent so it's not just the representation it's telling the story so there's a story behind all of it you're an amazing Storyteller in addition to your art and I think the way you tell the story is essentially through social media to some extent right so we're going to talk about this if you have any business Financial I don't care if it's Tech whatever it is if you're going to grow it it needs to have a brand the good news is the brand can be the story you [Music] tell n

Channel: Ed Mylett

Views: 33,221

Keywords: ed mylett, mylett, influence, how to win friends and influence people, persuade, power of one more, maxout, success, mindset

Id: aWF3mN-P7mU

Length: 135min 22sec (8122 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 30 2023