Communication Archives - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Pete Mockaitis
Elisia, welcome!

Elisia Keown
Pete, thank you. I’m so excited to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk executive presence, and I think your own clients have teed this up perfectly when they’ve actually said to you, “I’m told I should have more executive presence, but WTF does that even mean?”

Elisia Keown
Exactly. Maybe they leave out the WTF part, but they’re definitely thinking it. No, you’re totally right. Like, my audience is like that C-suite, VP-leader level, and that is one of the most common things I hear. And you and I were talking about it a few weeks ago that this theme of executive presence is so common, and it’s this blanket, I call it the atomic bomb of feedback of, like, we’re going to drop this big atomic bomb of, like, “You need to have better, stronger executive presence.”

And the atomic bomb part of it is it gets dropped and there’s no further explanation. It’s super vague. The executive kind of walks away from the conversation feeling super confused, like, “What does that mean?” And it’s one of the most vague pieces of feedback in corporate America, I’d venture to say.

And so I have made it a mission. How do we demystify it? How do we help define it? Because once you have that clarity, then you can actually work on developing that skill because it is an absolute skill, you can develop it. I do not believe you’re born with it. And then that changes everything in that leader’s trajectory.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that sounds excellent, and that really does ring true in terms of vagueness. And we could talk all day about vague words, like, “Have more executive presence,” or, “Be more strategic,” or, “Be more proactive,” I mean, that could encompass dozens, hundreds of potential behaviors.

Can you tell us how have you grappled with attempting a definition or a decomposition or segmentation of this fuzzy term?

Elisia Keown
Yeah, totally, you’re right. It gets handed down like zero instruction, and people can feel that absence.

And when even pressed, leaders try to articulate it. I find they struggle with it, too. So I don’t think it’s the leader’s intention to be vague. I truly don’t think they go out there trying to confuse the human. But without direction, it’s useless, right? It’s incomplete.

So what I try to do is break it into concrete components. And I usually work with the executive. If they’re unclear and they don’t have the direction, we’ll try to get clues and get little breadcrumbs based on the feedback and what they’re hearing and seeing so that they can have some of those moments of clarity.

And so what I found, it usually falls into these four kind of main buckets that I’ve seen. So the first one is thinking about emotional regulation. Emotional regulation under these high pressure, high stakes environments. We all know it. The big important meeting, speaking in front of the board, having to make a big decision.

So how do you show up and how do you have executive presence when things go sideways or there’s a lot of stakes in the meeting or risk involved? How do you show up and have that emotional regulation within yourself? So that’s a big one.

The ability to be decisive and making decisions quickly even when you have very limited amount of information, that’s very common as an executive, and remaining humble at the same time. So you can make a clear decision, you can still listen to the team, your colleagues, your drug reports, your boss, you can listen to everybody, but you can have that confidence to make a decision without arrogance. Very tricky.

The third, and this is the one I think that gets kind of lumped into executive presence, but how to have intentional communication. How do you speak with clarity, not with that emotional impulse? How do you know, just as important when to speak, but when not to speak, and when to stay silent and listen? And that’s tricky, and I think that’s a lot of the times we do lump it just into blanket communication as executive presence, but I think it’s intentional, clear communication.

And then the last is just being consistent with all of this. So executive presence isn’t always just about what you do in the big meeting. It’s more about what you do every day, how you show up every day, how you lead in the moments where people observing you and when they’re not observing you.

So I think, in summary, it’s not about being the loudest, biggest personality in the room, the smartest person in the room. It’s about being, like, the most grounded in your own leadership, in yourself, and having that self-confidence and helping people understand which of those levers they need to pull.

And because, again, sometimes it isn’t all four of these things that people need to work on. It might be one more than the other but it’s believing in yourself and then moving forward.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, that does paint a picture. Thank you. And, I guess, I’m also thinking about what’s not in there in terms of it’s not, you know, dressed like an executive with a cool suit or an expensive haircut. So I guess looking the part matters somewhat, but perhaps folks would probably just be able to say and articulate that more directly instead of executive presence, like, “Clean up. Get a suit that fits you right.”

Elisia Keown
And you’re right. I think there’s a lot of factors and a lot of things that people say will encompass executive presence. And just like you mentioned, it doesn’t mean those things aren’t important. It doesn’t mean, yes, if you work in an environment where a suit and a clean haircut and being well-groomed is important, and you don’t show up that way, of course it’s important. It’s just not everything.

And I think that’s the hard part because people think if I just solve this one piece that it’s going to encompass everything, and that’s not everything. I think it really, truly, when we say it, we typically mean one of those other four levers to pull. It’s typically not just what you’re wearing. You’re right.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, we can dig into each of these, but, I guess, maybe I’d love to get your take on. So this is a set of skills, and we talk about all kinds of skills here on How to be Awesome at Your Job. How important, in the relative pecking order of career skills development to propel you forward and advance and progress in your career, would you rank these sets of skills? Like, what’s the difference between being amazing at these things versus, “Okay, good enough, but you also have really sharp strategic thinking and prioritization skills going on”?

Elisia Keown
I think executive presence is probably one of, at least, top three because of this reason.

Executive presence, it’s not just this, again, visual effect of how you show up or a lot of people say charisma. It’s not just the personality. It really is, if you go deeper, like into it, it’s not just these behaviors or physical traits. It’s an identity shift.

And I think that’s one of the biggest things when you think about moving and shifting, you know, especially when you come out of some of those individual contributor roles or manager roles where you’re just managing a smaller team. Nothing wrong with that.

But when you leap into the executive level and you start managing leaders of leaders, it requires this identity shift from the leader.

And a lot of high performers, they’ve outgrown this version of themselves that got them to where they are. They’ve been very successful moving up through the organization. And now what’s required to go to that next level is, like, it’s almost like a death of their previous self. And you’re building that back up.

The hard part about that identity shift, though, is all of those behaviors have made you successful to this point. So because of that ego, it’s very hard to say, “I’ve got to let all that go and build upon what I have, and break into a new identity and see myself in a completely different way to level up into that executive presence.”

And so I really think it’s definitely top three when you say that. I don’t know if I can give it an exact number, but you can’t perform your way to executive presence. And I think that’s so often, as an individual contributor, you’re used to putting your head down, executing very tactical skills, all very important. By no means, definitely not disparaging that work, right?

So when I say the death or you’ve got to let go of it, it’s what got you there. But then you have to become this entire new type of leader, and the skills that are put before you, you’ve got to believe in yourself and you’ve got to have a mindset shift and look at yourself in a different way before you talk about those things you talked about like the strategic vision and the planning and the prioritization.

I think that all comes with it. But if you don’t believe that you are operating and believe in the level that you need to perform at, none of that other tactical stuff is really going to matter. So it’s this bridge into that leadership level.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I love what you said there, it’s like, you cannot execute your way into executive presence. It’s sort of a fundamentally different thing. And the picture that’s coming to mind for me is just, in TV, when we have the dork with the lab or the computers helping the crime fighters or the Jack Bauer catch the terrorists, they’ll say, “Well, I ran an analysis using matrix multiplication and we deduced that…”

They’re like, “In English!” you know, like, they get impatient, and it paints a picture like, “Oh, that person is clearly executing amazingly. Like, they know their stuff inside and out.” And yet the leaders are annoyed and frustrated. They don’t imagine that guy or gal has high potential executive future in store for them.

Because of their vibe of the ‘executive presence is lacking.’” So those are TV examples. But, Elisia, give us a real example, a story, a tale of a client who maybe got this fuzzy feedback and then did something about it and saw some results.

Elisia Keown
Yeah, you’re dead on. I love that analogy. It’s so funny, right? Because I think that’s what happens, is a lot of times clients come in thinking they need like a few tips, and what we really discover so much deeper, and it’s not just about what they’re doing, right?

So I had this client VP level, high performer. And, again, I always say this, I work with people that are already high performing. There’s nothing going wrong with their leadership, right? And some people think that it’s a remedy for something going wrong when, really, this is an accelerator.

So this person was already getting good results, already performing, but she’d get passed over for that next level, for that C-suite, the higher-level role. And what was happening was, when we started digging in and peeling back the layers, she was an over-explainer.

So the person that’s saying too many words, right, just like you said, or overly complex words, over-explaining every decision. She had a lot of hedging, and hedging is you’re saying things like, “I mean,” “I feel like,” or very passive kind of language rather than very decisive language.

And so it wasn’t about the skills problem. She had a lot of skills that have gotten her to this VP level. It was more being deferential when she was leading rather than being decisive and forward-thinking. And so a lot of what was happening though, again, as we peeled it back, it wasn’t about saying different words. It was showing up differently in terms of her identity.

She had a deep executive presence problem that was rooted in how she saw herself. And so she was still seeing herself as needing to prove herself. And we were way past that. So we really worked through thought process and identity.

And once we worked in that, within months, she was showing up completely differently in the room and then being groomed for that next level. Like, actually having conversations versus it not being on the table for her at all to move to that next level.

Pete Mockaitis
So when you say thought process and identity, what might that look like in terms of, if I’m saying, “I’m going to go work on my thought process and identity”? What does that consist of? What am I doing there?

Elisia Keown
Well, in the simplest terms, it’s the sum of the sentences that are running through your head and how you’re thinking about yourself. And so a really easy way to do this would be to, when you think about the situation, again, she was in a lot of board meetings, she was in a lot of meetings with her C-suite level leaders.

It was, “What was she thinking and how was she thinking when she was in the room, hedging, explaining herself, like, what was her thought process?” And trying to narrow it down to some of those sentences that kind of run through your brain like a stock ticker, right, and again, part of it could be as simple as, “I need to prove myself,” or, “I still need to level up, and I’m not at the level of an C-suite executive.”

So whatever that kind of sentence is that’s holding them back, that’s really what you’re trying to investigate. And if you’re doing this for yourself, it would be when you’re in some of those critical moments where, if you can identify when you’ve been told you need stronger executive presence, so if there was a specific meeting, what was some of those sentences that are running through your brain as you were getting told some of that feedback?

And, again, that’s a little bit harder to back into to undo, but I’d say the easiest way would be thinking of the specific example where you need to hold executive presence. And maybe if you were told you had weak executive presence, what was the sentence? What was the thing you were telling yourself in that moment? Because, truly, philosophically, it’s just how you’re thinking is really how you’re going to show up.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, Elisia, it’s so fun that we’re talking because you have unique vantage points into many people’s intimate thoughts, which most of us never get to hear. So lay it on us, what are some of the recurring thoughts people have that undermine their executive presence? And how do we deal with them?

Elisia Keown
I think the big one that I hear a lot of, and it’s the exact opposite of executive presence, it’s like saying that they have impostor syndrome.

And so some of the thoughts that sound like, some people will just straight up be like, “I feel like an impostor,” as simple as that. But some people will have the sentence of, “What am I doing here? How did I get here?” I’ve heard that one.

So looking around the room, seeing executives that are highly accomplished, highly tenured, multiple degrees from Ivy League universities, etc., and just saying to themselves, “How did I get into this room? I don’t belong here.” Essentially, the underlying thought could just be like, “I’m not good enough to be here.”

And so it will sound like that, it’ll sound subtle. And those thoughts could be very innocent-sounding, right, like, “Hey, let’s make sure we can perform up to the level of this room, right?” But in the essence, if we’re thinking we’re not good enough to be in that room, that can show up and start to show up in our actions.

So if we’re thinking, “I’m not good enough to show up,” or, “How did I get here?” and your feeling would, potentially, be like insecurity, lack of confidence, then you’re going to show the actions that you’ll take will be from that defensive position.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And so what’s interesting, though, is that thought in the moment is you say thoughts and identity, that thought is naturally bubbling up from a belief. So I want to hear how you go after that.

We had Dr. Valerie Young, who may have coined the phrase impostor syndrome, on the podcast. And she had some cool perspectives along the lines of, like, “Well, so is everybody just an idiot if they made the decision to hire you and promote you?”

And so just to kind of, like, reminded me of some cognitive behavioral therapy-type stuff in terms of , “Let’s evaluate the evidence. Let’s really take a look at this belief. And is it kind of bogus or so?” So that was kind of some helpful practical stuff. But I’d love to hear you in the trenches, when you’re working with folks on these thoughts and identities, how do you attack them?

Elisia Keown
What a great conversation. I’m jealous you got to have that conversation with her, but I think that’s a great tip, and I think it’s the same thought process of looking at that thought. And, again, we get real granular, right?

We get in the moment, in the room, in the thought process, and really start to question it. Basically, you look at it and you say, “Is this true? Do you belong here? Do you not belong here, right?” And, generally, where we go with it is, “Why are we telling ourselves this thought?” and understanding that as well. Like, “Why would that be coming up for us?”

And, again, it can be so different for every individual, but, typically, what happens is, when we get in some of these tough situations, leading is difficult. Speaking in front of a group is difficult. It can be challenging.

Again, you can get better at it, it can feel easier at times, but it always, there’s that challenge of that fear of rejection. Leadership, a lot of times, is we’re separating ourselves from the group, from the pack, from the herd, right? And we’re standing out and we’re separating ourselves from the group. So in its very primal essence, it can feel like survival, it can feel life or death.

And so what happens is we go through some of that fight or flight, and the brain is telling you, like, “Hey, it’s scary, Pete. It’s scary to speak out in front of thousands of people or tens of thousands of people on a podcast.” And your brain is like, “Stay safe.”

And so some of the stay-safe thoughts can be like, “Hey, we might not be good enough to do this. What are we doing here? Let’s go stay back into the cave and stay safe and get quiet and really, like, pull ourselves back from this. Let’s go cuddle on the couch with a blanket and some snacks and watch Netflix. It sounds like a much better idea, right?”

And so it’s the brain’s protective mechanism to give you some of these sometimes snarky, sometimes nice-sounding thoughts. They sound really helpful, like, “Let’s stay comfortable,” because it’s just based on survival.

And so, sometimes when you know that, when you’re like, “Oh, this is just my sweet brain trying to protect me. Is it really true that I don’t belong here?” No. You can just say, “Thanks. Thanks for that thought. We’re going to go ahead and proceed with doing this podcast, speaking up in this boardroom, doing the thing anyway, even if we feel a little bit nervous about it.”

We can carry the nervousness, knowing that it’s normal and natural, and it doesn’t mean stop. I think a lot of people think that that feeling means stop, turn around, don’t take action. When really we can just carry it with us.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s super helpful in terms of just understanding, reframing, “What is this thought, this feeling, this vibe? And what does it mean?” So that’s super handy. I’m curious about maybe some of the deeper work with regard to, it was like, “No, I really do think that I kind of got lucky to be in this role, and I don’t think that I belong and I really do think I’m faking it.” If we’re there, what do we do with that?

Elisia Keown
Yeah, totally. Well, and I think there’s two separate approaches. You know, I think if you’re thinking we really go down the path of someone has deep beliefs that they cannot overcome and they can’t see any other upside. I think, sometimes that’s where the difference between therapy and coaching comes in.

Like, if there’s some sort of hurdle that’s coming from their past or their internal beliefs from trauma or some other thing, that’s where a coach is not a therapist. That’s where, I think, sometimes you separate the application of support there.

On the flip side, another way to look at it, if we’re just thinking that’s not the situation and we’re thinking more forward thinking, it’s to say like, “Okay, where do we have evidence that that’s not true?” And I worked with a leader to say, “How do we look at the entirety in your body of work?” to say, “Okay, where can we show that that is not the case?”

And having the human come up with those things to say, “Okay, let’s start to look at our internal beliefs and be, like, really challenge them, right?” Because I think digging deeper, like you said, I think taking that, “Is this true?” a couple clicks further to be, like, “Okay, give me all the evidence that you really don’t belong here then.”

It’s funny, when they ask me that, like, “Tell me all the reasons why you don’t belong,” they’re usually like, “Well, actually, no, I’ve done this and this…” and they actually start to answer or asking questions of why they do.

And so I found that to be effective, like, “Tell me all the reasons. No, let’s stick on it.” And sometimes they really can’t. They can’t find beyond that just, like, triggering thought, like, why that’s actually true. So that can be really helpful kind of that path.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I really liked that notion of collecting the evidence, thinking about your experience. And just recently, I guess I coached myself in terms of, I was having some stuff going on. I was just like, “Oh, I kind of feel like a loser, you know?”

And so I was like, “Well, what’s the evidence?” I was like, “Well, you know, it seems like someone was upset about this, and I disappointed someone there, and I didn’t kind of get the things I wanted done on these days.”

And then I said, “Okay, so we’ve got that.” And then I was like, “Well, then what’s the evidence on the other side?” And just for funsies, I did all this research, and I was like, “Well, I mean, hey, I did that. And that was kind of cool. And really how many people really have done that?” And so I went ahead and assembled the spreadsheet.

And so what’s kind of fun, and this is true for every human. This is my latest kind of revelation I’ve been having fun with is that, if we take a look at the things that you have done, have accomplished, are good at, and how kind of rare that is, and then string together maybe 10 of those.

It’s fair to say for just about everybody that, by some measures that you’ve selected, you are the winningest human being who has ever lived, more than all 120 billion humans who have ever walked this earth. On those dimensions, collectively, if it were like a decathlon, you are the winningest person ever.

And so what was fun for that exercise with me, it’s like, I just sort of move on, it’s like, “Okay, the word loser is just like a nonsensical term that is ill-defined and not helpful. And if a loser is defined as one who never disappoints anybody and never fails, well, then there’s no such…everybody’s a loser.

Elisia Keown
Then I will own it. Yeah, right. Then just, “Okay, I’m fine, right? I’ll own that, Yeah, totally. What a great exercise. You did, you coached yourself. Good job, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. So I was collecting evidence via spreadsheets, I guess it’s a language that speaks to me. But I’d love to hear your prompts or your approach by which you facilitate this evidence collection.

Elisia Keown
Yeah, totally. Well, first off, you get a gold star. Great job. Great way to do it. And that’s exactly it. Exactly it, Pete. And I think, too, like, you said something that’s really interesting, too.

And so I want to really emphasize it, in the sense that looking back at what you accomplished and only what you could have done, if somebody else followed the playbook, they probably wouldn’t have the same results as you did, and just because all those things are making up uniquely you.

Can somebody do some of those things? Of course, they can, but they won’t be in the same magic and the way that you did it. And another way to look at this, too, is, if you’re not having failure, if you’re not feeling a little bit of the discomfort, if you’re not feeling a little bit queasy about some of things, your goals probably aren’t stretching you.

They’re probably not big in the sense of big in your own world. That can mean something different for everyone. So I’m not being presumptuous, and you have to do this, but a lot of times, as high-performing leaders or people that are entrepreneurial or accomplishing big things and setting big goals, you’re setting bigger goals for yourself and going after them.

So to expect that everything would go according to plan, that you would never feel insecure about them, or you would never fail at them, or you wouldn’t feel good enough for them, or you would feel like, “I don’t know how to do what I’m doing,” that is actually a false expectation, that we somehow believe that it’s like we do believe that everything is going to go according to plan.

We’re very optimistic, typically, as humans, a lot of those things. And when things don’t go, when we think that there’s something terribly wrong. But in your example, it’s like, “Well, yeah, I have a big fat goal and I might stumble but I’m going to still going to get it, right? I’m still going to go after it.”

“And if I’m not setting big-enough goals, like if it’s really easy, I’m probably not stretching and growing in the same way.” So a lot of it, like the coaching, I will do is to say, “Hey, some of this discomfort, some of this brain, we’re not going to solve the brain telling us that like, ‘Hey, in some instances, we don’t feel good enough.’” It’s a normal human condition. It’s part of the human condition, knowing that we can go after these big things and move through that discomfort.

That’s more what we’re trying to work towards is recognizing that in the moment. So it’s not trying to eliminate, it’s more so saying, “Oh, I see it. I can know what’s happening here. And now I know how to handle it, right?”

“Maybe I go back to my spreadsheet, or maybe I have my own method, I have my own things that I can do to work through it, knowing this is actually part of my currency. This is my currency towards success, and this is part of the game that I’ve decided to play.”

And it’s optional, right? In leadership or entrepreneurial ventures, it’s optional. So, “Do I want to put my chips in knowing this is the table stakes that I need to play or not?” Most people say, “Yeah.” They’re aspirational, they’re driven, they want to go after these things. So lot of times they say, “Yes, I’m willing to feel all of this and move through it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s cool. Well, Elisia, this has been fun. I’ve been sort of just deep-diving into anything I found intriguing. But I want you to take the floor and tell us, what have you found to be beyond what we’ve already discussed, really just the most game-changing, powerful interventions, or exercises that upgrade executive presence in a hurry?

Elisia Keown
Yeah, totally. I’ll give you some practical tips. You know, I think the first one, definitely what we talked about, we’ll call it just like a download of your thoughts, right, a blank piece of paper, kind of like just dumping out your brain, looking at it.

So we can get it out of this, sometimes our internal spin, like just writing out what you’re thinking before you go into some high-stakes meetings or high-stakes environments to kind of look at the thoughts so you can decide, “Do I like this? Do I believe this? Do I want to keep thinking this?” And knowing that’s all optional, great exercise.

But beyond that, some takeaways that I can give the audience, just to really use in a really simplistic way without having over complex environments needed, is just going into a meeting and doing a pre-meeting reset of your brain.

So just a few minutes before the meeting, before any high-stakes situation, just getting quiet and clear on what your intention is. So thinking, “How do I want to show up in this meeting? What do I need to contribute? Who do I want to be in this room and any outcomes that I want to try to influence?”

And just being super clear, because that, again, that gets your brain focused on a problem to solve, “How do I want to show up? What do want to say? How do I want to influence? What do want to do?”

And having that for yourself, so that some of those other thoughts, again, that we’ve maybe dumped out, but they’re not going to sneak in, we have a focus, we’re clear, we can focus on how we want others to experience and receive us, rather than getting in our head about not being good enough. So, pre-meeting reset, quick, clean exercise just to go in with great intentions.

The second tip I would say, in looking at emotional responsiveness, how do you respond under pressure? So if you think about some of the highest-stakes environments you may be in, maybe it’s a really difficult conversation, like I said, a big presentation or a meeting, sometimes those moments reveal what your executive presence gaps are.

So you’re just doing your own reflection after some of those moments. Did you get reactive? Did you react in a way that you felt good about? What was your thoughts on the conversation? What went well? What didn’t? What would you do differently next time? Nothing more complex than that, but auditing yourself and your emotional regulation and executive presence.

And then the third is just watching your own language and how you’re coming across in meetings. So are you hedging? Are you over-explaining? Are you qualifying everything through the conversation, or are you being really, really clear? So how are you signaling your executive presence? And how can you practice being clear, saying less, but with more conviction in those meetings?

Again, simple audit, but why that’s important is, if you do those reflections, it will also reveal your thinking. So it’ll ladder back to, “What was I thinking when I was going into those meetings? And how was I showing up?” So simple exercises that anybody can do.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, and, Elisia, you got me thinking here. Nowadays, since the AI meeting assistants are ubiquitous, Fathom and a dozen others up in there, so you’ve got the recording and the transcript, and then you could even review it yourself or you could ask AI to zero in on some things like, “Hey, I’m working on executive presence such as A, B, C, and D. Could you highlight some things in this meeting in which I said that could use some improvement?”

And, again, my take with AI is, I never trust anything it says, but it can bring something to the surface for me to reflect upon, and that is useful in and of itself.

Elisia Keown
I love that idea. And I will say, the best feedback that you can ever get is, if you’re in an environment where you can have a recorded meeting and watch it back, it’s one of the most painful pieces of feedback, but it’s the best feedback that you can ever get, is just watching yourself speak. You’ll see it right away.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. I remember, I’ve had times where I was videotaping a buddy who was doing a speech and he asked me for feedback. I said, “Well, you do this thing where you kind of kept caressing your tie and it was a little distracting.”

He was like, “What? What are you talking about? No, I wasn’t.” I was like, “Well, I mean, I saw it like 10 times. You can look at the video.” And he said, “Oh, my gosh, Pete. I had no idea.” And so, yes, it really can be quite eyeopening and surprising.

Elisia Keown
Absolutely. You uncover the habits. I hope it was a nice tie. I bet it was worth it, right?

Pete Mockaitis
It was a great-looking tie, but no matter the tie, we don’t want to see you caressing it. It’s like, “What are you doing, dude? What is going on?”

Elisia Keown
Showing that tie off. It’s so funny. Subconsciously, you don’t even notice those things, right? Yeah, it’s such a great piece of feedback. I love that.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Well, Elisia, tell me, anything else you really want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Elisia Keown
You know, I think that the number one mistake that leaders try… when they try to develop executive presence, they try to outperform it. They try to get more tactical. They work on the tactics versus the mindset.

And so, again, I know we said at the top, but I say, trying to do it through actions versus thoughts first, wrong way to go about it. And, especially, if you’re trying to copy somebody else’s style. A lot of times people will be like, “Well, speak like so-and-so,” or, “Model after so-and-so.”

Nothing wrong with taking elements of people that we see speaking and emulating that. But if you’re trying to duplicate it rather than do the work from within, I would say that would be my number one tip to walk away with.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Elisia Keown
Yes. Right now, I’ve been loving just choose your hard. I think it might be Codie Sanchez, it’s one of hers.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And could you share with us a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Elisia Keown
I have been digging into recently a lot of work on the ROI of coaching. So PWC and ICF did a study that talks a lot about the ROI of coaching to include that coaching has a five-to-seven X average ROI on executive coaching for leaders.

Eighty-six percent of companies, they report that they’ve recouped the coaching investment when they invest in those type of leaders, and they see 70% of improvement in work performance, which is wild.

Pete Mockaitis
Seventy percent, okay.

Elisia Keown
And then 70%, that’s a lot. And then a 50% reduction in leadership-related turnover, meaning, “I left because I was not loving who I was working with or for.” And we all know that boss is such a difference maker in how you experience work. And so people leaving, cutting 50% of that turnover, that’s incredible.

Pete Mockaitis
So it’s the coachee that did not turn over or the leader whose underlings did not turn over.

Elisia Keown
The leader whose underlings did not turn over because of their improved leadership capabilities. So that’s huge. That’s huge. And so, to me, I’m like thinking, like, that’s real even impact. So if you think about executive presence, it’s not a soft skill. It’s absolutely, it’s a lever to pull, and there’s a direct correlation to that financial impact.

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. And a favorite book?

Elisia Keown
I just read and finished Start With Yourself by Emma Grede. She is a British entrepreneur. And so she has this chapter in the book on money. I’ve read it a few times now and I’ve been talking about it with other executives, and it’s powerful. So if you haven’t read it, it’s a good one.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool?

Elisia Keown
I’m a big fan of the thought framework of The Model by Brooke Castillo. So we kind of talked about it, right? Her belief is you have thoughts that create your feelings. Your feelings will create those actions. Your actions create results. It’s a simple model, but it’s basically what we were talking about. It all starts with your thoughts. And if you can change your thought process, you can impact your results.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Elisia Keown
So I’m a big fan of time blocking, planning, time boxing. And I don’t do it in the way of you just go through a to-do list and even time blocking on your calendar. I’ll take time blocking and I say, “This is the time that I have allocated to this, and there’s going to be an outcome.” So it’s not just like, “Just research the thing,” or, “Time to brainstorm.” It’s like, “This is the output and the deliverable that will be done at the end of this timeframe.”

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I like that a lot. I probably have ADHD, but I can relate to that notion, when you have a specific outcome, it makes it kind of exciting. It’s more like a game with risk and stakes and uncertainty. It’s like, “Am I going to be able to finish it? Well, I hope so, but in order to do so, I’m really going to have to stay on point.” And it just infuses a little more zip and interest into the thing.

Elisia Keown
Absolutely. I never thought about that way, zip. A little zip and interest.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Elisia Keown
Yeah, easy. ElisiaKeownCoaching.com. So it’s a tricky, tricky the way it sounds versus it’s spelled. So it’s E-L-I-S-I-A-K-E-O-W-N Coaching.com. And I love all the socials. I’m on LinkedIn. I have a podcast on all the major platforms, and to include YouTube. It’s the Executive Coaching Podcast. And we talk a lot about tips like this on there. So happy to give you some free support.

Pete Mockaitis
Alrighty. And do you have a final challenge and call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Elisia Keown
If you want to be a leader and you want to set these big goals for yourself, you want to move forward, get comfortable with the discomfort of leading. It’s not easy. If everybody was able to do it, they would, right?

And so growing, leading, it’s challenging. And so when that discomfort bubbles up, remember, it doesn’t mean stop. It doesn’t mean we’re doing something wrong, we need to turn around.

It is a signal worth listening to, but I would say, getting comfortable with the discomfort and keep going. You’re not alone out there feeling that way. And the world needs great courageous leaders that can move through that discomfort and go after the big goal, anyway.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Elisia, thank you.

Elisia Keown
Thanks, Pete. I love talking to you as always.

Pete Mockaitis
Attia, welcome!

Attia Qureshi
Thanks so much for having me. I’m delighted to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m glad to never settle, so I think we’ll get a lot of valuable insights here. Could you maybe kick us off? You’ve had some fun projects working with the FBI and the US Department of State. Could you perhaps no pressure, open us up with a thrilling high-stakes tale of persuasion, negotiation in action?

Attia Qureshi
So I’ll tell you about when I was in Colombia. The State Department had sent me to Colombia to get farmers to move away from growing cocaine to growing other crops like oranges. And this is a really hard sell because the cartel will come pick up the cocaine, hand you money, you can grow it on a small plot of land, and the cycle continues. They get money really easily, they don’t have to work with anyone else, and the cartel just comes and hands them cash.

But the problem is that, every decade or so, the cartel would come in and gun down the entire village. And so, while it was easy money and easy growing, the threat of violence was real. So they had an incentive to transition away. And I was at my eighth cooperative, it was 110 degrees, we were outside in a pavilion, and I have 40 middle-aged Colombian men looking at me completely unimpressed.

And they’re like, “Who is this young minority American woman who has helicoptered in to help us?” And so I start talking and, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, as soon as I’m getting started, there’s this guy in the back, and he opens up a case and out flies a drone. And it’s buzzing and the propellers are completely covering up the sound of me speaking. And I’m like, “What the heck is going on?”

So I paused for a second, and I had a translator and kind of an in-country handler with me. And I pull her aside, and I’m like, “What is happening here, Gabby?” And she was like, “Oh, well, he’s actually the co-op, he runs the cooperative, and he is also a mid-level cartel boss.”

And so what he does is at every cooperative meeting, he brings this drone, starts flying it around, telling the cooperative they’re going to get rich, from the drone, never explaining how, and distracts them so they keep growing the coca, which is benefiting him and the cartel, and never transitioning to another crop.

And so I have to do a little bit of self-work in that moment because I freeze for a second. I am a little bit scared, maybe a little bit more than scared. And I don’t know how to progress forward.

But then I take a deep breath, and that’s what I try to do every time I feel myself freeze in these types of situations, and I breathe out slowly because it reminds my parasympathetic nervous system, “I’m not under attack.” We have that fight and flight response.

So I take a deep breath. And then I have to rethink about, “Why am I here? I am here to help these farmers. I can help these farmers.” And, to be honest, someone has to stand up to this guy because these farmers don’t have the capacity, the security, any of it to do it.

So I look him straight in the eye as he starts his drone up again, and I say, “No.” And everybody freezes and everybody looks at me. Their mouths are open and they’re waiting to see what happens. And he tries to argue with me, and I’m like, “No, we have set ground rules. We have set norms for how we are going to have this conversation. If you want to participate in that way, you’re welcome to, otherwise I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

And he leaves. And there’s this palpable sigh of relief in that moment. And, all of a sudden, everyone opens up, and they start engaging with the process and talking to me about how they might possibly transition to oranges, and what a business model looks like, and how they can get it to market, and who’s going to be responsible.

And so what we do is create a business plan for them and a process for how they’re going to operate over the next year. And they all sign it and the cooperative is still functioning and actually growing oranges and using that today.

But in that moment, there was a lot of pieces that I had to pull in for my own training. And, luckily, I have the muscle memory from building those skills where I was able to conquer that fear and work through that process.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Wow! So, takeaways, if there’s a cartel operator with a drone, you tell him no, and that works. I mean, what’s spooky is if you think of it in TV world, he leaves and comes back with a scary crew.

Attia Qureshi
Yeah, and weapons.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And so I don’t know if you and the others were in fear of that very outcome in the moment.

Attia Qureshi
I will have to tell you that, so I was there with a cooperative for a couple of hours. In the moment, I wasn’t worried about him coming back with weapons, but to be honest, I was very worried for the next couple of days that he would find me in the town that I was staying in because it was very close by, and then just be like, you know, “I’m going to take care of her.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Okay. Well, yes. So, indeed, it does take something strong, trained, powerful within to go there. How do we pull that off?

Attia Qureshi
So everyone thinks that negotiation and confidence, not everyone, but a lot of people think negotiation and confidence is innate, that we’re born with it. And that is absolutely not true. It’s a skill that we have to develop over time and build, just like athletes and musicians build and become great at their vocation. The same thing with negotiation.

So I have built that skill and I’ve had time over the last decade to do it, but we have to treat it as a performance skill. We have to break it down into the smallest pieces and practice exercises in our daily life, in low-stakes environments, to get to that point where the muscle memory kicks in.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, what are the key skills that build up to become negotiation persuasion?

Attia Qureshi
Okay, great question because I want to talk about a few of those. The first one I’d say is the internal negotiation, the one you have with yourself, which a lot of us are failing at, and it’s what makes us quit before we even get started. And then we have understanding their perspective, data, and the ability to say no.

So I’d love to start with the internal negotiation because I think that is one of the most important ones because unless we are grounded and secure and firm in making an ask, and feeling comfortable going in and making that ask, and having a framework for how we want to do that, a lot of us feel like we’re going to fail before we even start.

We see it as something to avoid or something that we have to conquer because in movies, everyone is sitting across the table from each other, banging on the table, trying to hash it out, and it’s, you know, eat or be eaten type of situation, but that’s not how it has to be.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, to become comfortable at making the ask, is that really possible? I imagine that it would be uncomfortable, but you could do it anyway? But tell us, paint a picture there.

Attia Qureshi
So I’ll give you a little bit of a backstory for me. I grew up as a child of immigrants, and my parents were really great at being liked and building relationships, which we talk about as something fundamental to negotiation success, but they were terrible at making an ask. And my dad’s whole mantra growing up as a kid was, “Don’t rock the boat.” So I was initially very passive, but then I was bullied really severely in fifth grade.

There was a girl, Bethany. And Bethany had decided that I shouldn’t have any friends. So I sat in the lunchroom alone and I escaped to the classroom because it was so cavernous and lonely. And she had convinced my teacher I did that because I was shy. And so it was a heartbreaking year, but a really important lesson for me and the power of influence.

So I had the opportunity for a fresh start. We moved after fifth grade, and I decided not this time. I developed a really hard shell, an exoskeleton around myself where I was great at kind of faking it till I made it. I would assert a position, refuse to budge an inch and threaten to walk away, which is very positional negotiation. It’s the idea of that table and hammering it out and, you know, “Either I win or you win.”

And that had some success in the moment, but it had really terrible long-term consequences of having any relationships that lasted or wanted repeat interactions. So I went from the one side of avoiding completely to the other side of seeing it as something I had to conquer and dominate.

And then I was sitting in my co-author’s Power and Negotiation class at MIT a decade ago, and he said something that changed my world. He said I could get more out of a negotiation if I shared my interests, but also cared about their interests and built a strong relational foundation in which to work together.

And I was amazed because I realized I didn’t have to be that scared little girl inside. There was this middle ground that I call relational negotiation, or others called principled negotiation, where I could build a relationship, and we could have repeat interactions, and I could create more value, tangible value for both of us through this process.

And so to your question, “Can we change?” Yes. And I think this relational negotiation path is a way that makes a lot of us feel better about how we might enter into the negotiation because it doesn’t have to be the avoidant or the conquering.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that sounds super. Can you share with us some best practices for doing that?

Attia Qureshi
So the first thing I would say is on the relationship side. People can always help you, it just depends on if they want to or not. So it’s a great practice to make sure that, around you, for the people that you interact with regularly, at work, at home, in your life, do you have a good foundational relationship with them?

And if there are areas where you can improve it, I like the idea of the technique reciprocity. Take them something small. Take them their favorite coffee. Take them a sweet treat. Take them, you know, tickets that you’re not going to use to some event. Anything small, it doesn’t have to cost you much, but it’s thoughtful for something they would like.

And the idea of reciprocity studies, I’ve found, is that it’s hardwired in us that we want to return a gift or a favor. So, at some point, they will want to return that to you. So what you’re doing is creating a virtuous cycle of improving the relationship so that, if down the road, you have an ask, they’re going to be much more likely to respond to it than they would if you have a negative or even neutral relationship.

But there are two caveats, because some people ask, “Well, what’s the difference between manipulation and influence?” And influences, in my perspective, it’s anytime you are trying to improve the situation for both parties, and if they found out what you were doing, they wouldn’t really care.

So improving the relationship without an expectation of anything in return is pretty great for both parties. But if you’re doing something that is trying to take something from the other party or is going to impact them in any negative way, that is what I would classify as manipulation.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So when you give something, it can be a manipulation if you’re trying to take something?

Attia Qureshi
Yeah, I mean, think about the idea of quid pro quo. Let’s say I buy you lunch and then I immediately ask you for something, that feels yuck. Like, “Come on, I know exactly what you’re doing here.” If I buy you lunch and I just want to do it because I want to improve our relationship, great. Then that’s just in itself, the whole goal is to improve the relationship. Maybe I might have an ask in a month or six months or a year, but that’s not my goal.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I hear you. Like, if you’re scheming, it does have a different feel. And, especially, if it’s very clear that you’re scheming. Understood. And we had Bob Cialdini on the show, who was fantastic. I see he endorsed your book. Perfect Choice.

Attia Qureshi
So good. Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
And we talked about reciprocity. And I remember it’s in the book he had, Influence: Science and Practice, maybe it was a previous version. He mentioned the phrase, “I know you’d do the same for me.” Like, don’t say, “It was nothing.” He was like, “I know you’d do the same for me.” And it’s funny. It’s, like, do you have any alternatives to that phrase you like?

Attia Qureshi
I really like to say, “Oh, it’s really my pleasure,” because I think that I don’t necessarily have to point out that they would do the same for me because, from what I’ve read, which Cialdini has done an amazing job on the research of this, it is hardwired.

So I think that they automatically have that feeling, and I want them to feel that I’m trying to do it graciously and I want to do it for them. And I think that makes people even more interested in reciprocating and responding.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I like that a lot because it’s true, because it really is a pleasure to give someone something that they appreciate. It just feels good. People helping people and it’s gracious. It’s win, win, win. Okay.

Attia Qureshi
Yes, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you’ve got a number of favorite negotiation exercises. I suppose, in your language, the small acts of kindness triggering reciprocity is what you might call a lemonade technique. But tell us about some of the others, like the best, fine, worst outcome exercise.

Attia Qureshi
So this goes back to the internal negotiation. And there are two things I want to talk about when it comes to exercises there. The first, we can talk about the best, fine, and worst negotiation outcomes.

So a lot of us have some sort of fear when it comes to entering into a negotiation. That’s what often stops us before we even get started or makes us freeze in the moment. And what you can do is, actually, in your head, close your eyes and think of, “What is the worst-case scenario here? Truly, like, what is actually the worst case scenario?” Then, “What is the moderate fine outcome? And what is the best case scenario?”

Because what you’re doing when you think through those, especially the worst-case scenario, is you’re inoculating yourself as you mentally think about that scenario to the fear around it and the worry of the feelings that come up with it.

And then I ask myself, when I look at those scenarios, “What is actually likely?  What is true here?” Because, then, we can start actually assessing, “What is our fear mentality that’s driving us?” versus, logically, rationally, once we diminish some of that fear and anxiety, “What do we actually think is going to happen? Likely, it’s going to be either the fine outcome or the best outcome.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I found that super handy. And I’m thinking about one negotiation I had, it was high stakes, and I was practicing with another negotiation guru, Kwame Christian, he’s been on the show a couple of times.

And it was fun on a couple of dimensions with this approach because, one, he had us do a role play. But I was role-playing my counterpart, and he was saying, I guess, what I was going to say. And it was a cool change of perspective because it’s, like, “Hey, you know what? What you’re saying is actually pretty reasonable.”

Whereas, I thought, “Oh, he’s never going to go for this. I don’t know. Oh, maybe I feel like I’m pushing too hard.” And it was like, “Oh, no, what you’re saying makes sense. And I kind of like the offer that you’re putting out there,” just as I am playing that role there. So that helped me get recalibrated to what is likely. And, indeed, that is roughly where we landed at the end of the day. So that was really cool. An eye-opener.

As well as the worst outcome. I’m thinking often I’m a bit of a people-pleaser, and we always talk about, you know, these sorts of things. Well, there’s the outcome, the money on the table, or whatever. And then there’s the relationship. And I can often be too interested in the relationship, just out of people-pleasing tendencies.

And then I really thought to myself, “You know what? If I got a great…” in this particular instance, “If I got a great outcome, but the absolute worst-case scenario is every time that person heard my name in any context ever, for the rest of his life, he screamed, ‘I hate that guy, Pete Mockaitis,’” which is totally unrealistic. I’ve never encountered any human in any context who’s done that.

But it’s like, “Even if that were the relationship damage, I’d be okay with it in this specific instance,” usually I’m not at all. And that really was handy. I wasn’t using your language, but that is a nice systematic way to cover those bases, “Well, how can I get a sense of what’s likely?” “Well, what really is the worst outcome?” “Oh, that’s actually not so bad after all.”

Attia Qureshi
Yeah, I love that. And I love practicing it with someone else and doing the live role play. That’s leveling up the skill because now you’re actually saying the words out loud and working through. And that’s even more powerful when you say it out loud, which, actually, I want to touch upon the next skill that I was thinking of, because it goes to that idea of people-pleasing, which is using an emotion label.

So we have a lot of these feelings. A lot of people feel like they are people-pleasers, that they have a hard time on the relational side. A lot of people are avoiders. They don’t want to interact with that at all because they don’t know how to respond. They feel like they’re going to freeze.

Some people are worried that it’s going to turn into a high-conflict situation and they don’t like that high-conflict stress. So what we’ve developed is an emotion wheel. And what you can do is start looking at the wheel, because sometimes we don’t know what the feelings are, not in detail.

So we start with six really simple emotions in the center, and we get more detailed as we go out. And the power in this is looking at the emotion wheel, thinking through, “What am I feeling?” Look at the whole thing and identify as many feelings as possible. And you want to write them down.

And then you want to say them out loud. And what I do, if I can, is I say them over and over again, because studies have shown, like MRI, brain studies have shown that when we do that, and we say them out loud, the feeling diminishes, and our rational brain gets re-triggered.

So our parasympathetic nervous system and our prefrontal cortex, all of a sudden, get re-triggered and we become more rational when we do that. So if I’m worried, you know, I had a big client conversation, a negotiation I had to have with a longstanding client. I’ve been working with them for five or six years now.

And I hate having the contract conversation. I absolutely hate it because I love the relationship so much and we’ve been working together for so long. And I recognized that I had avoided it for a day. I had avoided it for a week. And, finally, I was looking at my to-do list, and I was like, “Okay, I am afraid of damaging the relationship. I am afraid. I am afraid. I am afraid. I am afraid.”

And that helped me lessen that fear in my body, re-trigger my prefrontal cortex, and take the step to email them, saying, “Hey, can we chat about this?”

Pete Mockaitis
And what happened?

Attia Qureshi
Well, if we think about the best, worst, and neutral-case scenario, it went exactly as I expected. I made an ask, they countered, and we agreed upon something totally reasonable.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. I’m reminded, we had on the show, Dr. Steven Hayes, who is famous for creating acceptance and commitment therapy. And I think he calls this notion defusion, is that if you say the word again and again, and it could be an internal dialogue, you made a mistake, you feel like an idiot, you think, “Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot,” or, “Afraid. Afraid. Afraid.”

It just kind of loses its oomph, its emotional charge and power. And then “Afraid,” or, “Idiot” just becomes…it’s just a word, it’s like, “All right. So, yeah, afraid. That’s a thing. That’s a word. It’s there.” But it’s not in charge, pulling the strings, calling the shots.

Attia Qureshi
I love that. I might start using that terminology because I really like it.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. Well, he’s great, check him out, Dr. Stephen Hayes. Okay. Well, let’s hear also about the say their name technique.

Attia Qureshi
So this goes back to relationship-building, and sometimes people say, “Well, there are people that I interact with one time, right? Like, that’s just a one time interaction.” And, for me, let’s think about the airline agent because it’s a perfect example of when we feel high stress, flights are canceled, flights are delayed, we’re stuck somewhere, we’ve got to get to work, we have kids at home, whatever it is.

And we have been standing in line for 20 minutes, which is already making us really frustrated. We get to the front of the line, and this is happening, obviously, to a lot of other people. We can either vent our frustration or we can take a moment, and this is, I’ll get to say their name, but this is another skill of having a little bit of empathy toward what they’re facing.

Like, if we can pause and take that breath, and we know our interests, but can we understand what theirs are? Which, in that moment, they’ve probably been yelled at for the last hour. They probably want to just have a breather. They want to be treated like a human being, and they want someone to just talk to them calmly and see if they can figure out, because they’re fundamentally there to help them.

So understanding those interests, taking a breath. And then what I like to do is I look at their name tag, and I had this happen to me when I was going to Charleston for work, and I said, “Hey, Regina, it seems like this is a really bad travel day.”

So I used her name and I also just picked up on what I noticed going on in the environment because she had had a huge line of people, and I’d been waiting for a while. And she took a deep breath and was like, “Ah, yes, it has been one of the worst travel days of the year.”

And what I did was, instead of her furiously typing and looking at the screen, she made eye contact with me and paused for a second, and we recognized each other as humans. And that small connection, when I then went on to explain my situation, made her feel just slightly more invested in helping me.

And she did figure out, rather than getting to Charleston at noon the next day on a Monday, and I would have missed the entire opening of a conference, she got me there by midnight. And she didn’t have to go out, like no one has to go out of their way to help you. They don’t. It’s kind of their choice on how much effort they’re willing to put in.

And so using someone’s name triggers something deep within them that makes you connect to them on a human level. And so it’s a way to get to the top of their attention list, make that connection, and then it really helps open up the way for your negotiation.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m intrigued, Attia, there’s often – we’re using names, right? You’re teaching me already.

Attia Qureshi
You’re doing great.

Pete Mockaitis
This notion that they can always help you, I think that’s generally true in terms of humans, professionals, friends, colleagues, acquaintances interacting, and living life. In a particular customer service scenario, I am wondering, though, is they’ll say, you know, “That’s the policy. This is all that we can do.”

And, well, now you got me wondering, it’s like, “Is it really the policy? Is that really all they can do? Or do they, in fact, have more capacity to help me?”

Attia Qureshi
I have almost always found, I can’t think back to a time where someone was incredibly rigid with me, that there’s somewhere else we can go with the conversation. Sometimes they are at their limit, but they can usually call someone who can expand the options.

So if they are being really firm about the policy, then I would say that was ineffective influence because they don’t want to help you anymore. But if they open up the options and say, “Hey, I can call my manager. Let me check on this piece of it,” which usually people can do, then there is a path forward.

Pete Mockaitis
Okey-dokey. Yes, that’s handy. And so, in addition to using their name, forming a connection, kindness, in these specific contexts, do you have any other pro tips? Like, folks, they’re working from a script, an operational flowchart playbook, as opposed to the wide world of creative win-win collaboration is in front of us.

Attia Qureshi
Yes, that goes back to what I mentioned about understanding their perspectives and having empathy for what their interests are. And that’s another really key negotiation skill, whether with these customer service agents or anybody, because we’re actually pretty good if we can take a step back from our own lives and situations and put ourselves in their shoes.

We’re pretty good at guessing most of their interests. We might not get it 100%, but we’ll probably get it somewhere between 75 and 90% correctly. And so when you do that, what you’re doing is you can have a conversation about that as well. You can say, “Man, you must be having a really long, hard day. It sounds like there are a lot of people who are facing cancellations, and I’m sure there are people who are angry.”

And what you’re doing is just guessing and empathizing with some of those interests or some of those things that they are facing, which, again, makes them a lot more sympathetic to you because you’re taking a moment to showcase that you can see what they’re going through.

And in other negotiations, let’s say it’s a salary negotiation or a promotion negotiation, it’s even more helpful because, if you can understand your boss’ perspective in that conversation, you develop more options or more pathways in the conversation to proceed, where they have budget limitations, I’m sure, right?

They have cycles in which they are allowed to work. They have pressures from their own superiors, etc. And when you start guessing at those interests, what you can do is broaden the way that you’re thinking about a negotiation by bringing in other opportunities for conversation.

Where, if it’s salary, and you still need some tangible value, but you know that there have been budget cuts, are there other ways to talk about value? Are there ways to talk about it with equity or bonuses or childcare subsidies or transportation cost coverage? And a lot of those items come from different budget buckets.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. And you also suggest that we do ourselves quite the favor by practicing negotiation in low-stake situations. Can you give us some examples of places where we might do just that?

Attia Qureshi
So let’s think about, you know, you have a friend or a partner or a spouse that you’re going to grab dinner with over the weekend. Super simple, low-stakes scenario. And what I want you to do is write down what you care about. What are your interests when it comes to an evening out with that person? And then guess what their interests might be.

And then show them your list, and see how accurate were you when it came to guessing their interests, right? Maybe you recognize that your friend is trying to be more healthy. Maybe you recognize that your partner really likes novelty and wants a new place to go.

So you can write down all of those interests and share it with them and see how close you’re getting. And it starts putting you in the mode and mentality of thinking about your own interests and guessing theirs and seeing how well you’re doing at that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s super. And any thoughts on rejection?

Attia Qureshi
Rejection is brutal. And I will say that it does get easier, but I don’t know if it gets less painful, if that makes sense. I can just put myself through rejection more frequently. And I think of negotiation is anytime you’re trying to influence the situation with another person.

So it’s happening dozens of times a day with your childcare, or with thinking about food, or thinking about your neighbor whose music is really loud, or at work on who’s going to get how much workload, etc.

So it’s happening all the time. And that means that there are many, many opportunities for rejection. That’s just how it works when you’re going into a situation and making an ask or trying to resolve something.

And I think that if we can practice seeking out rejection in little ways, we can inoculate ourselves to getting more comfortable at rejection. It might still hurt. I’m not saying it’s not going to hurt, but it’s easier for us to go and get rejected and get over that pain more quickly because we’re building up our immunity to rejection.

So, for example, you could go, and when you go out to dinner, you could ask for something off menu. You could go to a coffee shop and ask for a particular drink that isn’t necessarily available or in season. And what people will find is that it’s actually harder to get rejected than you expect. And when you do get rejected, yeah, it might suck for a second, but you get over it a lot faster than you think.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, that’s handy. I remember getting lots of rejection letters for a book proposal, and it was the best thing because, like, “Hey, you know what? This is not so brutal.” And it made being rejected, I’d say, forever, after that, not as terrible.

Attia Qureshi
Yeah, and I love hearing that because I think a lot of other people have a really high fear of rejection that goes back to our feelings around a rejection and kind of what we tell ourselves about that rejection. But if we can look at that narrative we are telling ourselves and ask, “Is this true? Is it really true that I am unworthy or I am not good enough? Or is that something I’m just telling myself?”

And you can keep moving forward and continuing with those rejections that changes the whole game, because then you can go out and make bigger asks and make more asks. And, ultimately, at the end of the day, I want everyone to have more, more time, more money, more energy, more resources.

And, yes, sometimes you’re going to get rejected, but the more you ask, the more you will get. There’s this fascinating study that talks about how somewhere around 65% of people never negotiate their first salary, which will cost us somewhere between one and one and a half million dollars over the course of our career.

But people who do negotiate, somewhere around 87 to 90% of the time will get something out of it. So we overestimate the amount of failure we’re going to receive, which is meaning that we are getting so much less than we deserve.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Wow, thank you. Those are big numbers. Well, before we hear about some of your favorite things, could you share, are there any other super techniques, tactics, tips that you want to make sure you put out there?

Attia Qureshi
Yes, two more. So one is objective criteria or external benchmarks. Data shows that we hate talking about money. We don’t like it. We don’t want to bring it up. And what’s even more interesting is that people also wish it weren’t so taboo.

So what you can do, if you’re struggling with that, is go do some research, use AI, use ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini, and type in there what the context is for your situation, and ask for a range of what makes sense for that number to be. And that makes it so it’s not you bringing a number. You’re bringing data that supports a number.

But what I also want to encourage people to do is put the number out there that is most favorable to you to start. And that’s what we call anchoring because, generally, we stay around the first number that’s put out there. So data is very helpful with that piece, and anchoring gives you lot of power at where the negotiation goes.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, just to be clear with the AI, I guess I’ve just been lied to so many times by these darn things. I presume you mean you’re using that as a research tool to land at a quality verified source for the number.

Attia Qureshi
Yes, good qualifications. Yes, it’s a good starting place. Ask it for the data and then go double-check on what it’s providing you and make sure it’s verified correct.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, certainly. And you had a second one.

Attia Qureshi
A second one is the ability to say no. A lot of us, especially people-pleasers or people who like to be agreeable, care about the relationships, have a very hard time saying no. Saying yes is costing you.

It’s going to cost you down the road because it ends up creating burnout. It makes you overworked, overtired, or the other person ends up unhappy because you were unable to fulfill what you committed to.

So the power of no is really important in our lives, but it’s also important in a negotiation because they can smell it on you if you have the confidence, in your body and in your tone that, “Hey, I am willing to walk away because no deal is better than a bad deal.” You can look for another deal tomorrow.

Most of us are in privileged situations where, yes, it might suck that we would have to go look for another deal, but we could. We can. And no deal is better than a bad deal because you’ve already got the momentum going to find a deal.

So having the ability and the confidence to be able to say a no in a negotiation, and there’s a way you can practice that the next time someone close to you with a relationship that can withstand some pressure asks you for something, just say a firm, flat no.

Kind of like I did with the Colombian guy. And, of course, later, you can go back and explain and share what you were doing, but it’s a firm, flat no. No equivocating, no explaining. Because once you are able to give that flat no, giving a kind, polite no becomes way easier.

Pete Mockaitis
And I love that notion about the context of your available alternatives. And I’ve had it happen at my own entrepreneurial life as well as others that I’ve talked to. It was like, “You know what? I’ve got a lot of stuff going on. Someone’s asking me for a project.”

It’s like, “You know what? Right now, if you want me to do this project, it’s going to cost you – bam! – big old number,” and that’s like real. It’s like, “For me to assume more stress and responsibility right now, this is what it’s going to take.” And sometimes they say yes on the other side, it’s like, “Oh, maybe I should always put out that number.”

Attia Qureshi
Yeah, it’s true. It is so powerful in, first, helping us figure out what the value truly is on our end, and making sure that we are putting our resources where they are most worthwhile, and not sacrificing on relationships or our own mental health and wellbeing because we say yes too often.

Pete Mockaitis
Well said. All right. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Attia Qureshi
I think it would be, and I’m not going to say it perfectly, “A small group of people can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

And when John and I started out, John said something to me about how he had studied under Fisher and Rye, and Fisher had been part of World War II, and had seen the destruction and calamity there and wanted there to be a better way for people to negotiate and interact with each other.

And this relational or principled methodology offers that because it’s about relationship-building and creating value for both parties. And if we could all make one move toward that, how much better is our world because we are working collaboratively to drive value for not just ourselves, but a collective.

And that is so meaningful to me and it’s why I teach in addition to consult, because if I can get my students to do that and the ripple effect of that continues on, it makes an impact.

Pete Mockaitis
And could you share a favorite study or experiment a bit of research?

Attia Qureshi
Frans de Waal started this study, and then Sarah Brosnan followed up on it, on how much we care about fairness. And Sarah did a study with capuchin monkeys on having them run a task and seeing what the results were, and getting different kinds of treats.

And what she found was that fairness is really deeply hardwired in us. We all want to be treated fairly, which goes down back to, like, do a relational negotiation, right? We all care about fairness and we’ll punish people if they are not treating us fairly. And it’s just such a great study. So I love that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Attia Qureshi
I really love, “The Alchemist.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool?

Attia Qureshi
I don’t know, is breathing allowed to be a tool?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, certainly, yes. What approach to breathing?

Attia Qureshi
My favorite approach is that you breathe in for three or four, hold it for three or four, and then breathe out really slowly for six or eight.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Attia Qureshi
A few minutes of meditation. Meditation has been one of the only things that has been proven to shorten the time that we stay in fight or flight.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate and folks quote back to you often?

Attia Qureshi
“Most people can help you, it just depends on if they want to or not.”

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Attia Qureshi
AttiaQureshi.com. And I actually do have a static emotion wheel and then an interactive emotion wheel on my website under AttiaQureshi.com/emotions, if people are interested in having access to a tool like that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Attia Qureshi
Negotiation starts small. We don’t just become great negotiators. So just pick one exercise that you heard today and try it and see what happens. And you can go from there, but just start small. Start with one small thing today and see what happens.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Attia, thank you.

Attia Qureshi
Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

Pete Mockaitis
Josh, welcome!

Josh Bandoch
Pete, it is a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. I’m excited to talk persuasion. And can you tell us what’s perhaps the most surprising and fascinating thing you’ve discovered about persuasion from all your years of studying it?

Josh Bandoch
Maybe we’ll start with this one, which is that persuasion, people think persuasion is about getting somebody to do something. And it’s actually much more about removing barriers to doing things.

And if you don’t understand what’s stopping somebody, they’re never going to actually do what you want them to do. So unless you remove those barriers, you’re not going to persuade anybody to anything, because there’s always that thing somewhere stopping them.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s about removing barriers instead of, I guess, incepting them, like, “That’s never occurred to me before. How wonderful. I’d love to do that.” It’s less of that and more of, “Oh, you got to hangup over here. Well, let’s address that.”

Josh Bandoch
Well, so it could be, and sometimes, “That’s an amazing idea,” and still, they’re not going to do it unless you remove a barrier. It’s something that we don’t think about. So we can talk a lot today about things you can say and do to increase the chances of getting people to do what you want.

My book is called How to Get What You Want, and there’s a lot that goes into that. And one thing that we don’t think about is, no matter how brilliant we are, and how tight our reasoning is, and how high our emotional intelligence is, how great all the other tools and strategies that we can talk about today, if we don’t remove that barrier, someone is going to stay stuck and they won’t do what you want them to do.

So you have to look for those barriers and we can talk about how you can do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, yeah, I do want to get into that. And maybe to zoom out a little bit, what would you say is sort of the big idea or core thesis of your book, How to Get What You Want?

Josh Bandoch
So maybe let’s start by thinking about what persuasion isn’t and what it is. So I think another thing that’s kind of related to this is that people tend to misunderstand persuasion.

There are three really common misconceptions that I encounter whenever I talk about this – workshops, lectures, whatever. The first is that people think that persuasion is about winning. And, Pete, if I win against you, what does that make you?

Pete Mockaitis
I’m a loser.

Josh Bandoch
“Loser!” And do you want to work with somebody who makes you feel like a loser?

Pete Mockaitis
No.

Josh Bandoch
No, not at all. And then people think it’s about convincing somebody to think just like them. And the trouble with that is that the Latin root of the word convince actually means to vanquish or to conquer. And conquest is barbaric, it’s not persuasive.

And then people think that persuasion is all about just making the right arguments. Well, I got into this, but the reality of how this thing, the human brain works, is that we feel first then reason. And so when you just start by launching your logic at people, you’re missing the entire boat.

So kind of big picture, staying zoomed out for a minute, I think persuasion has three parts or three steps. Step one is to adopt what I call the persuader’s mindset. And this is a little bit counterintuitive because it’s not how we’re wired. And we’re wired to think about ourselves, and you need to put them first because you’re trying to persuade someone else to do something. You’ve already persuaded yourself that you’re right.

Step two is to use knowledge of how the human brain works to your advantage. So what I dive into in part two of the book is all the ways that we’re wired, and just accepting those cognitive realities, challenging some of them more like, I hate some of the things that are there. I absolutely hate it.

And yet, that’s just how all 8 billion of us are wired. And so my recommendation is navigate those cognitive realities instead of fighting them. And then the third part goes into it’s a little more tactical, some techniques you can use to further enhance your chances of getting what you want. That’s the super zoom out version of it all.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, super. Well, that all sounds really fun. I’d love to dig into some of those, you know, tactical tidbits. But can you tell us, really, what’s at stake in terms of if we’ve mastered this well, that’s your subtitle, “Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion,” what do we stand to gain or lose if we master this art and science versus if we kind of continue chugging along, you know, as mediocrely persuasive in our professional lives?

Josh Bandoch
Yeah, the difference between having a great idea and having someone else embrace that idea is persuasion. You might go to your boss and say, “Boss, I have a great idea.” It might truly be a great idea. And if you don’t present that idea persuasively, then it’s not going to land the way you want it to.

And then, I mean, sometimes we think we’re being persuasive and it’s actually the exact opposite – we’re being aversive. And one of the big motivations of writing this book is that I’ve just encountered so many brilliant people, whether it’s in academia or in sales or fundraising or whatever, that are super smart and it’s not what they’re saying. It’s how they say it.

And because they don’t deliver their information, their ideas, persuasively, they either don’t get anywhere or they don’t get nearly as far as they could. So that’s the difference. Do you want people to embrace your good ideas?

Pete Mockaitis
Could you tell us a story of someone who upgraded their persuasion art and science skills and saw cool things come from it?

Josh Bandoch
I’ve coached people close to me on getting raises and getting promotions. And these are people who are terrified to advocate for themselves, even though they were doing great work.

Consistently got great reviews and paltry raises. Especially when the opportunity presented themselves, when they were asked to take on more responsibility, I coached them to advocate for themselves persuasively, to really understand what their organization needed.

And then to show how they could just over-deliver on those needs, especially if they were being asked to adopt more responsibility, and then say, “By the way, since I’m adopting more responsibility, and I’ve been over-delivering, like, maybe now is the time for a salary increase or a promotion or both.”

Pete Mockaitis
Very cool. Well, can you tell us like what kinds of promotions we’re talking, or what kinds of money dollar increases we’re talking?

Josh Bandoch
In one case, it was just basically, “Hi, we need you to take on this new role. It’s going be a lot more responsibility, and we’re going to give you a title that, at best, would seem like it’s a lateral move” to getting a title that was two levels up.

And instead of getting no pay increase, I think it ended up being about an $8,000-pay increase plus like a $5,000 bonus. That’s not bad when none of that was on the table. All those gains compound over time.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And it’s so funny, I think I’ve been learning recently, with regard to titles, like, I used to not care. I was like, “Oh, who cares? It’s just a title, whatever.” I’m coming to learn, you know, who cares is the next person hiring you. That’s who cares. And then the money dollars attached to those roles. So that’s who cares.

Josh Bandoch
A hundred percent. And it doesn’t cost your current employer anything to give you a better title right now. And then two things happen, when you apply for that next job, then you have that better title and they don’t know that you’re underpaid.

So, also, once you are in a higher title, even if you tell your employer, “Look, just give me a better title,” six months down the road when you’re over-delivering, then you say, “Look, this is the pay range for this title, and I’m below or at the very bottom of this pay range, and I’ve been over-delivering,” and now they see you in that role and they can pay you in that role.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very good. Well, let’s walk us through these three components then. So, the persuader’s mindset.

Josh Bandoch
We are wired to think about ourselves, which makes sense. It’s a survival mechanism.  If we didn’t think about ourselves, who would? So when our ancestors, many moons ago, they were wired to be sensitive to threats and take care of themselves, and that’s why we’re here today.

And actually, we love talking about ourselves, too. People talk about themselves 60% of the time, and on social media that raises to 80% of the time. Talking about ourselves generates the same sensations in our brain as sex and money. So it feels great.

So we adopt what I call a me-first mindset. The trouble with that is that, Pete, if I’m bringing my me-first mindset to our conversation, what does that mean for you?

Pete Mockaitis
Then I’m second.

Josh Bandoch
At best, right? At worst, it’s going to be extremely annoying, or you’re going to feel like neglected, disrespected, whatever, because you’re trying to share some of your feelings and thoughts with me, your perspective, and I’m just, “Nope, it’s all about me, it’s all about me, it’s all about me.”

And so my recommendation is that we flip this, we adopt a them-first approach, that we put them first, because the goal is to persuade somebody else to do something that you want them to do.

So how do you do this? Well, by putting them first, you’re really understanding them. So that starts with listening. And what you’re looking for when you listen is opportunities to share action, because that’s what persuasion is. And there’s always going to be overlap. And if you listen hard long enough, there’s going to be way more overlap than you expect.

And, ideally what you’re listening for is for your counterpart to recommend what you want to do. So instead of going to meet with your boss, and saying, “I think we should do X, Y, and Z,” or, “I want X, and Z,” you could just ask them, “How do you think we should proceed?” and then let them talk.

And then they’re going to probably identify a couple ways to proceed that are exactly what you wanted or even better than you wanted, and then you just do those things, and then maybe you can add a little bit on top of that.

But by listening and identifying areas for overlap, that’s the best way to share access with somebody because that’s what they want and overlaps with what you want.

Pete Mockaitis
Could you give us an example story of this in process?

Josh Bandoch
Yeah, so I used to work in fundraising, just sales for a nonprofit. And most fundraisers approach, and just most salesmen approach sales this way. They say, “Hey, I have this great product, and this is why you should want this product. This is why you should move over to our product, or whatever, buy from me.”

And the trouble with that is that, in fundraising, a lot of people kind of get it backwards. I think that fundraising is 99% about the investor, the potential donor, 1% about the organization, and 0% about the fundraiser.

But a lot of people make it way too much about the fundraiser, or the salesman way too much about the organization. And these donors, they see the organization as a vehicle to realizing their vision for a better, whatever it is, education, healthcare, whatever, pick your favorite nonprofit space.

So when you bring your why to them, that may not be their why. So what I always did is I just listened, listened, listened. And I actually thought that I failed once, and then I’ll give you a success story, but I went up to a guy in Wisconsin. He had given us money off of a letter.

People give money off of direct mail, which is wild, just, “Here, here’s money. I got a letter from you. Amazing. Cool.” So I drive up there, and I sit in this guy’s office, in his house, about an hour and a half, and he talked 85-90% of the time.

And I was new and I thought my job, selling my nonprofit, was to tell him all the amazing things that we were doing. And I’m like looking for ways to interject, and this guy just wouldn’t stop talking. I was like, “Oh, my God.”

So the meeting was pretty much over, and I’m like, “I am such a failure.” I went to my boss and she’s going to be like, “Dude, man, you messed up.” And then he said to me, he said, “I have such a better idea of what you all do now.” And I thought, “No, you don’t. How could you possibly?”

And then I realized I was dead wrong, and he was completely right, because he felt like he was connected to me and my organization. I had said just enough to help him understand, “Yeah, yeah, like, we’re on the same page,” and that was all he needed.

Pete Mockaitis
So in practice, when we’re making it all about them, what are the things we should do and not do in those conversations?

Josh Bandoch
Start by listening. And there are three ways to listen. You can listen passively, just, essentially, close the front door and open your ears, right? We have one mouth and two ears for a reason. So use the ears way more than the mouth.

And even in simply listening, you form that connection, and people love to be listened to and feel heard. So listen passively first, practice that, which is really hard for a lot of people.

The second step would be to actively listen. Ask them questions that really just open up information, say, like, how or what questions that can’t be answered yes or no, and just let them talk. But you’re gathering information about important topics.

Like,“What are your priorities in your philanthropy?” “What are your priorities with our team?” whatever it is, right? Eventually, you’re going to move to what I call proactive listening, which is moving the conversation in a way that is going to align with your needs but also really meets your needs.

So then you’re asking questions like, “How do you want to proceed?” And then they’re going to tell you, and at least part of how they would proceed is going to probably work for you really well.

And if they lay out something that is a complete disaster, then you say, “Nah, that doesn’t work for me.” And if you can do all these things, you become what I call the ultimate listener, and you’re a phenomenal listener who knows how to listen to get what you want.

And that’s the best way to put them first is to form those connections, demonstrate understanding, find all the ways you can work together. People think this is impossible, but, so, part of my work is in public policy.

And people who are on different sides of the aisle, some of the partisan warriors think, “I can never agree with that person.” And people who are on totally opposite sides of the aisle, I can look at many areas of overlap. I find it because I look for it.

And a lot of people just don’t want to look for it, but it’s always there, whether it’s on policy issues or sales or your boss or whatever. There’s always a ton of overlap there. So find that first.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot, and particularly that question, “How do you want to proceed?” Because I’m thinking about when I’ve been on the receiving end of sales pitches, a lot of the conversation is not how I want to proceed.

I’m hearing a lot about, “Okay, all your features, the demo of the software, the history of the founder and the story, yada, yada.” And so I guess what I really, really want to know most of all is bring me the juiciest evidence that you can, in fact, solve my problem, make my world better.

And so a lot of times if that’s like a marketing or operations kind of a thing, it’s like, “Show me some amazing case studies with really rich, lots of numbers, and folks very much like me who did a thing and saw the result. Like, yes, like that gets me excited.” As opposed to, “Okay, I guess that’s cool that you can do that, but what I really want to know is that this is for real.”

I’m thinking about like AI stuff, for example. I don’t know how many times I said, “Wow, that sounds like an amazing AI tool. Oh, except it won’t actually do what I want it to do. So I guess I have to move on to the next.”

Josh Bandoch
Because it doesn’t meet your need, right? So unless I know what your needs are and I can frame things in terms of your needs, we aren’t going to get anywhere or we’re not going to get nearly as far as we could.

If I understand, “Okay, so like, what do you need from your AI tool? Okay. Like there are these three things. Does my AI tool deliver that? Oh, yeah, it does. And it delivers all them. And on one of these, we are best in the business. So, Pete, you know, cut me if I’m wrong, please, these are your three priorities with what you need from AI. Yeah, okay, cool.”

“Here’s how we can meet those needs. I want you to know we are best in the business with this first one, and it’s super important. And here’s what distinguishes our product. We’re really good with these other things, too.”

If I, instead, go in there thinking that there are three totally different features that you should want, and you don’t want them, oh, it’s like, “You know what you need to eat for lunch? Pizza.” And you’re like, “I don’t want pizza.” “No, no, like, you need to eat pizza.” It’s like, “Well, actually, I wanted a salad.” “Hey, you know what you need? Pizza,” right? Like this isn’t going to get us very far.

But if I understand that you want a salad, like, “Ah, what do you want in your salad? Oh, yeah, I can provide that.” And a lot of people try to force feed people to see things the way that they see them. And there’s only one person who sees things the way that you do anyways. That’s you.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, well said. Okay. Well, now let’s talk a little bit about understanding how we’re wired and accepting these cognitive realities. Tell us, what are these troubling realities that we want to fight against and not accept?

Josh Bandoch
So there are four cognitive realities that I dive into in part four, and it all starts with this first one. And I hate it because I’m a former academic, and academics are taught, you know, tight reasoning, well-written sentences, blah blah blah, that stuff, peer review.

So academics think, “Launch your logic at people and, you know, like, the best logic and reasoning and data will, like, win the day.” And this is how our brains are wired. We feel first, then reason.

Sometimes it’s feel but reason, sometimes it’s feel than reason, sometimes it’s feel and we never get to reasoning. We’ve all been there. I have. So what does that mean? That means that persuasion starts with feelings. So we need to start with feelings.

So it turns out that people who, through brain damage, lose the ability to emote. Their reasoning is actually impaired. So emotions actually improve our reasoning.

So what this means, partially, is that the logic-first approach to persuasion that a lot of people adopt, it’s actually illogical because it’s not how our brains are wired. And I fought this for a long time, and I’ve just embraced it because our feelings, our emotions, our intuitions, they’re really powerful, they’re really quick, and they’re grounded in reasons.

When you something doesn’t feel right, when you reflect on it, there’s almost always a good reason for that. So, boom, I just want to trust my intuition.

So you have to think about how you want your audience to feel and how you’re going to generate those feelings, and also understanding how your audience is feeling because maybe now is not the right time to engage somebody, or you just need to get a pulse on them.

So here’s a really stealthy way that your listeners can figure out how somebody is feeling. Ask them. So instead of asking, “What do you think about this product?” “What do you think about giving me a promotion?” “What do you think about…?” whatever it is, fill in the blank?

Ask somebody how they feel about something. And this generates a radically different answer. Because when you say, “Think,” okay, you have to pause, “Brain do this thing.” Feeling, it just comes out.

So just test this a couple times. I encourage your listeners, just test it on like a friend or a spouse or partner, whoever, “How would you feel about X?” And you’re going to get such different answers, their unguarded answers, the mask drops, and people just tell you truthfully. So then you know how they feel about something.

“How would you feel about doing this thing?” They’ll tell you. So you have to start with feelings and just accept that that’s a cognitive reality. It begs the question, “What feelings are persuasive?” and I’ll get there, but I’ll pause just for a second.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I like that distinction a lot, asking, “What do you feel about this?” as opposed to, “What do you think about this?” Because I’m just thinking about any number of questions, like business-to-business enterprise, you know, big kinds of transactions in terms of like, “What do you feel about this?”

Like, “Well, I guess I’m kind of worried that you’re going to go out of business in three years, and we’re going to be kind of in a tight spot because we’re already, like, roped into your solution.”

It’s like, “Oh, okay, that’s much better than ‘What do you think?’” It’s like, “Oh, this appears to meet our future needs.” You get very different answers and they’re probably the ones that you want, just by asking, “What do you feel about this?”

Josh Bandoch
The thinking question gives you guarded answers, “Well, I don’t know. I have to think about it. Let me go back to my team,” whatever.

People don’t, whether it’s buying a house, buying a car, you know, or making a big multi-billion dollar deal, those things, ultimately, they all start with feelings. Even if you just feel like, you know, “Ah, you know, I don’t know if I can trust this person,” or, “I trust Pete, unquestionably. So if he tells me we’re good, I feel good about this.”

So if I say, “Pete, look, I mean, how do you feel about this?” You say, “Josh, I feel great. You know, I think this is a great idea.” And you’re like, “Man, you know, it’s like…” And I’m like, “Well, what makes you feel that way?” “Here, look, we’ve been working together for years. I totally trust you. Cool.” Right? Like, what more do you need to know?

Two questions, the feeling question and the follow-up feeling question, “What makes you feel that way?” Okay, boom, there you go. And these are quick, unguarded, intuitive reactions that are grounded in reason, but they just come out, boom, and they’re so powerful.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, what’s next?

Josh Bandoch
So then the question is, “Well, what kinds of feelings are persuasive?” And we live in an age of toxic polarization. When I was writing the introduction to chapter four, which is where this comes from, I looked at the homepages of Fox News and MSNBC, and I found, collectively, over probably about 200 articles. I found one positive article. One.

So the data would indicate that negative feelings are persuasive because they were all negative. And I would ask you, I’ll kick it over to you. If you think about some of the most persuasive Americans of the 20th century, you don’t have to be partisan about it, because people go like, like, “Yeah, they were really persuasive.” Who are some of the folks who come to mind?

Pete Mockaitis
I guess I’m just thinking about, we say famous in 20th century, I’m just thinking about famous speeches, you know, JFK, MLK, they all have initials, I guess, you know.

Josh Bandoch
Exactly, yeah. And then could I add, like, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama to that?

Pete Mockaitis
Sure.

Josh Bandoch
So JFK, he said, “Ask not.” Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I have a dream.” Ronald Reagan saw America as a shining city. And Barack Obama talked about hope and change. And I said, “Okay, those are all positive things.”

No one ever says, “No, not JFK. Walter Mondale.” No one says, “Oh, no, no, not Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcolm X.” No one says, “Not Ronald Reagan. Barry Goldwater,” right?

So we know, intuitively, really, we know what kinds of feelings are persuasive. Positive feelings. And the best leaders, the most persuasive people, they are for things. So how do you generate positive feelings? You be for something. You think about what you are for and you lead with that.

So if you are a leader of a company, like what are you for as a leader? What is your company for? How do you lean in with those things? In my policy space, I work at opportunity policy. So I’m for opportunity. I’m for independence. I’m for dignity through work. I’m for strong families, I’m for communities, all these things.

In my personal life, I’m for empowering people to unleash their potential. That’s what this book is about, because it’s going from great idea to presenting that great idea persuasively. Boom! Potential unleashed. So it’s, like, what are you for? How do you lead with those things? And how do you use that to generate persuasive feelings?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s interesting. In terms of being legendary, long lasting, the positive being for something resonates and inspires. And yet, in terms of grabbing our immediate clicks, it seems like the negative does better.

Like, I’m just imagining like, let’s say I’ve got a YouTube, a sea of YouTube thumbnails and titles, and yours talks about what you’re for, that might be a bit of a snooze in terms of,  “Oh, man, this one is terrifying. What’s that about?” Click. As opposed to, if I’m actually strapped in for the speech, yeah, the inspirational stuff will linger for the ages.

Josh Bandoch
And the deep-down wiring reason for that is that we are wired, going back to the wiring again, so we are wired with something called negativity bias. And this is a survival mechanism.

The problem is while it helps us survive, it impedes thriving. Like, do you really want to follow somebody who is just negative all the time, who’s just tearing things down, and who doesn’t know how to build things up? That’s not a recipe for long-term success, either in your personal life or in your professional life.

If you’re a manager who just goes down and says, “Well, this is all terrible.” Maybe, but, like, what are you, what is organization, what is your team for? Like, where are you going? And what are these things?” Because it’s those positive things that motivate people to do things repeatedly over a long period of time.

So it’s, essentially, fighting your wiring, but also trusting your intuitions because people give the same answers that you did, JFK, Martin Luther King Jr. People like that. Like, we know deep down. So it’s fighting part of our wiring, but also kind of trusting our intuitions a little bit.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so we feel first, then reason, what feelings are persuasive. What’s the next piece about feelings?

Josh Bandoch
Well, so then how do you generate feelings for something?

Josh Bandoch
And then what are the best mechanisms for that? Okay. So, two. The first is to appeal to your audience’s values, to their moral taste. On our actual physical tongue, we have five or six tastes wired into it: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami, maybe fat, oleogustus.

In the same way, hundreds of thousands of survey responses, research from moral psychologists that’s been, I think, widely validated, show that just like we have these physical taste receptors on our tongue, we have six, maybe seven moral taste receptors that are wired, and that’s important, into our hearts and minds.

They are care, essentially sensitivity for suffering; equity, a concern for equal outcomes, proportionality, which is about hard work and merit; authority, which is about hierarchies; loyalty, which is in-group, out-group; purity, which is like things that are sacred or things that are disgusting; and then liberty, essentially being free to live how you want.

So I say wiring because research shows that 30-60% of our values are wired into us. We know this through studies of twins. So, like, our values are at least 30% genetic, which means that rather than hating somebody because they have different values than you, you just accept that that’s largely wired into them.

So what you’re trying to do is understand the sorts of values that resonate with your audience, and then appeal to those tastes. This is important because would you serve a vegetarian veal? Would you force feed bacon to somebody who keeps kosher? I hope not.

So in the same way, you’re simply accepting your audience’s values and trying to frame things in their terms. And then what’s the absolute best way to do that? It’s to tell stories.

So let me give you an example from the policy space to make this a little bit concrete. There are these things called occupational licenses. They are a government permission set to work in industry. So about one in four Americans need an occupational license to do a job.

Sometimes this makes sense. I don’t want my surgeon to not be licensed. Fine. In some cases, these burdens are either too big or even unnecessary altogether. So there are a lot of fields like in Illinois, it takes a year to go to cosmetology school to get a license to be a barber. And that’s just not necessary, I don’t think.

So when I present my recommendation, which is to reduce or eliminate these burdens, I have to still be really mindful of how I frame that. So if I’m talking to somebody who’s more progressive, then I’m going to talk about how the current laws are inequitable, right, the equity thing, and how they’re uncaring.

So here’s what I would say. And then I would ground this in data. Data is important, too, right? We feel first then reason, “So there’s data, I believe it’s from the Minneapolis Fed that shows that blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately hurt by, like, a really big gap by occupational licensing laws.” So it’s inequitable and it’s uncaring to these groups.

And these laws also hurt poor people more. This is all true grounded in a ton of data, and I’m framing it in their terms. If by contrast, I’m talking to a conservative or libertarian, I’m going to say that, “These laws are unfair because it impedes on somebody’s freedom to work in a space and hard work, proportionality, hard work should determine how successful you are.

I’m making the exact same recommendation, but if I go to the conservative, and I say, “This is inequitable,” they’re going to be like, “Ehh.” If I go to the progressive, and I say, “Freedom and hard work,” they’ll say, “Ehh, probably not,” right?

So if I understand their values, same recommendation, I’m authentic to myself, “I want to reduce these burdens,” and I frame that differently. I’m being really sensitive to my audience. And that’s, I think, a powerful way to connect.

So that’s a policy example of what that looks like. You can do that in your business space, your personal space, too, by understanding what some of these values are and appealing to them rather than beating them over the head and force feeding them with your values.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. I think these six are a phenomenal starting point and really good to stretch you, to flex you into different ways of speaking about the same suggestion for different audiences.

But then you might also have very specific things that totally vibe for someone, like someone super into safety, someone super into maximizing their wealth, someone super into having a really fun time. And so you could do the macro and the micro customization.

Josh Bandoch
Totally. That’s a total yes and, 100%. So these are kind of big picture things, just like in general things, people are sensitive to. And then, totally, like these things manifest themselves in people in different ways. Hard work and freedom might manifest themselves in some person, it’s like, “That feels a little greedy. Okay, fine.” Or like, “Super greedy.”

So they can manifest themselves in a different way, like care or loyalty isn’t only one thing. So you have to individualize it 100%. Because even if someone is like, you know, they’re sensitive to care, equity, like what exactly do they care about? What exactly sets them off? Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so tell us about telling great stories.

Josh Bandoch
So before we are logic processors, we are story processors. And stories are, by far, the most persuasive tool that exists. If you can give a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation chock full of data in seven point font, airtight logic and everything, or you can tell a 30-second story, you got to tell the story. You got to tell the story.

So, just an example again from my policy space. There was a report that came out about a year and a half ago from a Harvard professor. It talks about social mobility. And it says that the single biggest driver of whether somebody experiences social mobility in their life is whether they grew up in an environment, not a home, but in an environment where adults work.

I’ve tried for a year and a half to explain that report clearly. That’s the best I can do. Even that’s a little confusing for me. So, instead, I could do this. Just after that report came out, I was at a conference, talking to a colleague of mine, and she was just talking to a foster mom.

And that foster mom said that her foster kid came up to her and said, “Where do you go all day?” You know what the answer is? Work. And an adult going to work was a foreign concept for that kid. How can you possibly expect that kid to understand how important work is to your professional and personal success if he’s never seen an adult go to work?

That’s the story version of that. So you got to start with stories. And the question is, “Well, what kinds of stories?” Because we hear stories, fine, stories, stories. There are hundreds, thousands of great books, tell stories. And I think one of the unique things about my book, really, is what kinds of stories.

It’s morally motivating, emotionally intelligent stories. So people need to feel something. What are you trying to get them to feel? And especially making these moral appeals gets them to feel those things, so tying back to the couple of things we’ve just discussed.

Pete Mockaitis
So you mentioned that stories are more impactful and persuasive than logic. Can you expand on that?

Josh Bandoch
Absolutely. One of the hats I wear is I work in opportunity policy and I’m working to alleviate poverty. So I get up and talk to all kinds of groups of people.

And they have to know that I, sure, I get it, but also that I’m authentic and that I care about this. And when I’m up there talking about poverty in a suit, this is not a very impoverished look. So I have to disarm them right away.

The last thing I would ever want to do is go up there and say, “The Census Bureau shows that 12% of Americans live below the poverty line, which is X dollars,” right? And just go into these sorts of things. Terrible, boring snooze. And they have to know that I care about this stuff.

So I just reach for the most authentic personal story that I have, and that’s my family. I tell them, I say, “Look, you all are wondering why I care about poverty. I don’t look impoverished. I’m wearing a suit. I get it. So I care about poverty because it’s seared into my family history.”

“My mom grew up dirt poor. My grandmother had to raise five kids by herself. They were so poor that my grandmother had to count pennies.” See, sometimes I even get emotional doing this, which I am right now, so I’m sorry.

“And every year my mom wondered if there were going be presents around the Christmas tree because most years there weren’t. And that poverty scarred my mom and her siblings.”

“And I don’t want anybody to suffer through poverty the way that my mom and her siblings and my grandmother did. So that’s why I care about poverty, because it’s a terrible scourge and I want to do everything I can to reduce or eliminate it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, totally. And you could see, I mean, the story hits home and is memorable and touching and impactful. And the statistic is just like, “Okay, those are some numbers. It’d be nice if we had better numbers than that.” as opposed to something really heavy that sits with you with your story.

Josh Bandoch
And it’s so raw where I pause there. Sometimes I’ve just started crying because it’s authentic and it’s real and it’s emotional and I don’t do it on purpose. It’s kind of embarrassing.

And yet when it’s happened, people come to me afterwards and said, “Wow, man, like that was really powerful.” So they know, they feel so viscerally that, like, I am all in on this stuff. I am totally authentic.

They can trust me and they can work with me in a way that my presentation of the data, as exact and compelling as somebody might think it is, that will never come even close to what I can do with an emotionally intelligent, morally motivating story.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious, just like in ordinary business-y world, it’s like, “I’ve got a cool idea. I would like my boss to do it. I would like for him to feel excited about my idea and the possibilities for what could happen if we did it.” So what kind of stories do I create in that context?

Josh Bandoch
Part of it is trying to just grab real stories. So, like, if you’re presenting, say your manager, tell stories about the great things that everyone on the team did, “Bob did this. Susie did that. Maria did this. Andre did that.”

Tell stories about what they did because it makes it real. It celebrates your teammates. Those are tangible actions that they took. You’re also trying to craft meta stories for an organization. If you’re like a leader, CEO on the board, whatever, that’s like the vision there.

They’re really big picture things about what you’re doing and who you are and what they care about. So try to tell real stories. You don’t even have to make things up. I mean, sometimes you can. Hey, like imagine a situation, but first try to grab real stories that are authentic to you.

Maybe it’s something personal, good or bad that happened, and start with that. Because if you’re trying to solve a problem, maybe you need to start with a story that’s like, “You know, our customer, or I, or somebody, like we had this problem. And here’s a story about that.” And then there’s a story about how you can solve that problem or how that product has solved the problem.

So if you’re talking to a client and they’re like, “Well, why would I buy it from you?” And you’re like, “Well, you know, let me tell you a story about another one of our clients.” And you can tell them a story about how your product solved their problem, which incidentally is the same problem that this potential client is having.

So instead of saying, “Let me show you the data, right? Our product is 27% better than the nearest competitor. On this metric, we are 12% better. On this metric, we are 37% better. On this metric, we’re 19% better,” just tell them a story about how one of your customers, their performance, their profit, whatever, just skyrocketed because of your product. And that’s going to stick.

Instead of the data, tell them about like, company X, “Company X did this. They worked with us. It was great for them.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, tell us, any other top do’s and don’ts to put out there before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Josh Bandoch
Yeah, so chapter eight is called “Go Beyond Words.” And we think that persuasion is all about words. They’re super important and there’s so much more that goes in persuasion than words. So I’ll flag two things. Three, because we have control over them.

The first is to be likable. It doesn’t mean that people will like you, but be as likable as possible. And we tend to underestimate how important this is. And just think about a time when you liked what somebody was saying, and because you didn’t like that person, you’re like, “Nah, I’m not going to work with them. I’m not going to do this.” So be likable.

The second is to be curious. And that actually makes you more likable. And that goes back to the questions, right, taking interest in the other person. People love talking about themselves. So be curious about them and about what their priorities are.

And the last is to control your tone. Because if I say, “Pete, that’s a great idea!” You’re like, “Okay, he probably thinks it’s a great idea.” If I say “Pete, ahh, that was a great idea.”

They’re the exact same words, and you got to, especially when you’re not calm, maybe you’re nervous, you’re overwhelmed with negative emotions, you got to control your tone because we can intuitively pick up on that tone, and it’s like, “Hmm, what’s going on there?” which also means listen for tone in your counterpart.

While you try to remain super calm, because that’s the best tone, calm, if you notice that somebody is a little anxious, again, that’s especially where those feeling questions, “You know, well, how do you feel about this?” “Oh, I don’t know, man. Like, I’m not sure if this works for me because of X, Y, and Z.” So watch your tone and watch their tone, too.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Great. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Josh Bandoch
It comes from a poem from Samuel Beckett. The six lines are, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Josh Bandoch
The intuition stuff that we talked about a lot today. As reluctant as I was to accept it at first, A, it’s true, and, B, it’s really powerful. So I think our intuitions are just the coolest thing ever now, whereas, I used to think, “Ah, I don’t know about this stuff.” And there’s just an abundance of research that has showed that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Josh Bandoch
Danny Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Josh Bandoch
A notebook. I think in a digital age, we forget how powerful it is to pause, close a computer, get out your favorite pen – I’ve been using the same pens for 30 years – and just write your thoughts down and capture them. When you’re in a meeting, write things down in a notebook. It’s so powerful, and it’s a forgotten superpower to do that.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Josh Bandoch
My new favorite habit, I try to just add new habits in over time, is to meditate.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that folks really connect and resonate with, they quote back to you often?

Josh Bandoch
Yeah, this is maybe a good concluding point. I think that, every day, in our personal and professional lives, throughout every day, we are faced with a decision, “Do I want to be right or do I want to make a difference?” It’s really easy to be right.

You go on Twitter X, whatever, you blog post something, right, send that email that you wish you hadn’t sent. Being right is really easy and, oftentimes, it’s counterproductive. Making a difference, by contrast, that’s what persuasion is all about.

And that’s a much more satisfying and, upfront, a more time-intensive enterprise. And that’s how you succeed time after time after time again. That’s how you get what you want.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Josh Bandoch
JoshuaBandoch.com, connect with me on LinkedIn. Check out the book, just go to my website or just Google How to Get What You Want. My last name, Bandoch, B-A-N-D-O-C-H. It’ll come right up, and check out the book.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Josh Bandoch
I would say it’s returning to that in every interaction, “Do you want to be right or do you want to make a difference? And if you want to make a difference, what do you do?” You have to put them first, be extremely attentive to feelings, and bring a lot of attention to generating the right feelings.

And if you do that, you’re going to grease the wheels for shared action time after time after time after time. It’s magical once you get it going.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Josh, thank you.

Josh Bandoch
Pete, thank you so much.