Confidence

Pete Mockaitis
Soulaima, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at your Job podcast.

Soulaima Gourani
What an honor. I’m really, really thankful.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. I’m thankful too. Well, I wanted to start by hearing something interesting about yourself. Now, I understand that you don’t ever drive cars and only use your bike even if you’re going to a very formal place, is all dressed up. What’s the story here?

Soulaima Gourani
I got my driver’s license of course when I was 18. That’s usually the age of driver license in Scandinavia, where I am from. I believe my first trip in my new car was not so successful, sorry. I destroyed the car completely.

Pete Mockaitis
First trip. Wow.

Soulaima Gourani
Then a few months later I drove a car again and I had another accident. I’ve had a few accidents, three or four accidents in my life; I kind of just decided maybe this driving is just not a thing.

You know what I did? I simply hired a driver. My first paycheck when I became independent in 2007, the first thing I did was I actually did hire a driver, a personal driver. In my country, it’s the Prime Minister and the Queen, they have drivers. Normal people don’t. But that was one of my first hiring, that was a driver, so I could make more money and I was more efficient and I didn’t have to think about accidents and stuff.

When I had to pick my next country to live in, I actually looked where I could be sure that there would be Uber drivers, so I picked Austin, Texas, but very shortly after I moved there, they forbid Uber.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh wow.

Soulaima Gourani
I was really devastated because I need my ride, right? So I moved to California. I can get an Uber within a few minutes.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh wow. I thought you were going to hire a driver in Austin as well.

Soulaima Gourani
No, I did not. I ended up not doing that, but I moved to California, Palo Alto in Silicon Valley earlier this year. I can get a ride within a few minutes. I kid you not; it’s on my top three reasons to pick a city. Well, good weather and international environment, so the three things that I look for.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig that. I can relate in terms of the connectedness of a city to certain resources really matters. We’ve gotten rather accustomed to having our groceries delivered with Instacart.

Soulaima Gourani
Oh yeah, yeah. I use Instacart as well. I’m on Amazon every day. Everything are being delivered to my home. I don’t go shopping anymore. I get everything delivered. I have to say, I’m so much more productive. I tip really well, so I believe I’m supporting the gig economy in a positive way for people who need the job more than I do, so I think it’s a win-win.

Remember, I am from a country, where we don’t have Amazon, we don’t have Instacart, we don’t have all those things, so for me living here is – it is really like paradise because I can spend time on the things I really care about, doing my sport, work, and be with my kids. I don’t waste my time on doing shopping or grocery shopping. I’d rather sit in a library reading and studying for my next book than going shopping.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so I want to hear about the fruits of this tremendous productivity. You’ve won numerous awards for being inspirational and a great thinker and sort of just being a great force for good in the world. I’d like to hear a little bit about how do you keep motivated and inspired, such that you just continue to do these things?

Soulaima Gourani
First of all, you become the average of the people you spend time with. I grew up as a very lonely child. I was the only immigrant. I was the only brown child. Everyone was white. I grew up surrounded by middle class families and we were very – we were broke most of my life. My parents were simply broke. We grew up kind of poor, brown, so I felt very lonely.

I remember for the first 10 – 15 years of my life, the only thing I wanted was to be with exciting people, be inspired. All my life, I’ve been looking for my tribe, people who are upstanders, change-makers, inspirational people who – activists, people who do stuff. I’m not so inspired by people that live comfortable lives. I need people who put themselves on the edge.

Most of my life I’ve spent most of my money travelling. I’ve worked and been and lived in 35 countries now. What keeps me motivated is to see and to understand what is going on in the world. For instance, if I want to understand the conflict in Israel, I go to Israel. If I want to understand what’s going on in Saudi Arabia, I go to Saudi Arabia. If I want to understand the pollution situation, I will go to Mongolia. Or if I want to understand the political situation in Russia, I go to Russia.

I wouldn’t use the term lucky, but instead of buying expensive furniture or even an expensive bag, I’ve spent all my money on traveling. The more I travel, funny enough, the more money I make because the more knowledge and inspiration I bring back to my home country, wherever that might be, or the more authentic stories I can put into my books or in my talks. Kind of, when I do what I love, I’m more successful.

I’ve never been drawn to stability. I’ve never found it very fancy to have a life based on routines. I don’t need much. I need a bed. I need my toothbrush. I need my husband that I’ve been together with for, oh gosh, 25 years, and my kids. Everything else doesn’t matter. I can live in a one-bedroom apartment even now. I don’t need much. I just need to travel and write about I see.

That keeps me motivated by traveling the world and seeing what is going on. I’m a tremendous advocate for doing things, so I cannot just sit and see the news; I need to go out there. In a way I’m documenting what is happening in the world. I look at the world as a mom, as a young solopreneur, entrepreneur, investor and as a speaker. I think that’s my life. I don’t have a job. My life is my job. It’s kind of weird.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s really interesting. Even just preparing for this interview, it’s like, well, I know you’ve got some real useful things to say about being awesome at your job, even though your sort of life is your job and your instance, so I was like, but where shall I focus and prioritize. We’ll see what we get into.

One thing I was intrigued with is you’ve got a real message associated with all people having dignity and realizing that dignity and that value. Can you unpack some of those ideas for us?

Soulaima Gourani
Yeah. I’m sorry to say, but there has been done a lot of research showing that most people grow up, live their lives without living accordingly to their core values, meaning they get lost, they find it difficult to focus, they don’t know what is a good chance and what is a right chance, they might spend their money wrongly, their time, their energies wrong.

They might feel kind of lost in life. They end up having a job they don’t like. They might even end up working for a manager they don’t trust or don’t like. That’s not a life worth living.

I’ve spent more than half of my life trying to find out how to connect people with their core values. One of the values that I think is the number one, you can call – you might call it the mother of all values. It’s dignity. Dignity is everything. You cannot give your dignity away. I mean no one can take it from you, but you can give it away.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time of my life traveling the world, building and supporting the message of dignity. I’m on the global board of an organization called Global Dignity, of course. We educate kids in – not elementary, but college and universities and graduates in how to live a more dignified life. I believe by sending them out in life with a great amount of understanding what it means to live a dignified life and how to treat other people with dignity, will in the end create world peace.

I take it one-by-one. I kind of transform young people’s life by having that conversation, what does it mean to live a dignified life. Because if you have that strong feeling of dignity, you don’t get into these maybe troubles, partnerships, relationships. You might not stay in a job where you’re not appreciated. There’s a lot of things you don’t do if you a strong feeling and appreciation of your own dignity.

That drives everything I do I have to say. I’m super passionate about it. Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s intriguing there in terms of you’re right. The first thing that comes to mind when you talk about being in relationships that you shouldn’t is this comedian Dane Cook. This joke is years old now.

They were talking about someone in a bad relationship. It’s like “You should just get out of there, just get out of that relationship.” It’s like, “Well, it’s not that simple, Karen. My CDs are in his truck.” It just still tickles me to this day is that we all have all sorts of reasons that your CDs being in someone’s truck, if you still have CDs, is not a very good one.

Let’s hear it then, could you define for us what do you mean by dignity and acting in a dignified manner and how do we kind of build that up if you’re lacking in that right now.

Soulaima Gourani
First of all, dignity is a universal feeling. Dignity is the same in Sri Lanka as it is in Palo Alto. It’s the same. It’s the way you treat yourself, the way you think about yourself and the way you behave towards other people.

Dignity is a very strong, deep, and profound feeling. For instance, if someone – if you’re in the schoolyard and some kids undress you and run away with your clothing and you’re standing naked in the schoolyard. That’s a very undignified situation. Or if someone spits you in the face or hit you or steal something from you or say something to you, that’s a lot of – every day actions.

You may not hold a door for an older woman that is coming just after you or you might not help someone crossing the street even though you can see he or she needs the help. There’s a lot of activities throughout the day where you can easily improve your own feeling of living a more dignified life, but also improving others.

I’m enforcing to think dignity in everything, how you communicate, written, verbally, actions, education, school, work, everywhere. It’s about really treating others as we should. Bring more love, hope, light, the more positive feelings, understanding, sympathy.

Tolerance is a very difficult word because I don’t want people to tolerate each other. Tolerance is not a strong word. It’s not a good word. If I tolerate you means I don’t like you, but I need to have you in the room with me. That’s not a good feeling, but I want people to start understanding that we are different. Every single time you meet a person in school, in church, at work, wherever you are, that person has been through a lot of things that makes it and turns that person into being that person that he or she is.

We should show each other some more patience because it’s a tough life for many people. When we lose it, when you lose it sometimes, we should try to meet other people with a great amount of understanding that this has been a tough day or it’s a tough life or – so I want to improve the understanding, not the tolerance, but the deep, deep understanding that we are different and everyone deserves a really good life.

Just a small thing, when I walk down the street, I smile at people. If I’m in Asia, they think I’m super weird.

Why is she smiling? That doesn’t work everywhere, but mostly in US it’s a good strategy just to smile at people in streets. The feeling I’m left behind with is extreme happiness and I can see that the people I’m smiling at – it’s just a small smile – people get so happy. I know that’s a small action of dignity, but I try to implement it in everything I do. Helping, helping, helping if I can help.

It does spread. The good thing is my actions in the morning will impact the people I smiled or helped in the morning, their actions later on in the day. I’m spreading good karma.

Pete Mockaitis
This is intriguing. I’m thinking back to a previous episode we had with Kimberly White, who talked about just the power of seeing people as people. This is kind of resonating with some of those messages and the difference it makes. When you say dignity, you mentioned that is a strong, deep, profound feeling. If I had to put you on the spot and ask for your one to two sentence dictionary style definition, it’s like “dignity is…this.”

Soulaima Gourani
Self-acceptance and love if you ask me.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Got you. Self-acceptance and love, then when you don’t have dignity you either don’t think you’re worth much or deserve to be treated well in your job, you mentioned a romantic relationship or in other contexts. One of your theses sounds like is that if you treat other people with respect, acceptance, and love, you sort of bolster within yourself your own strength to expect, demand, or not tolerate not being treated in that sort of a way. Is that fair?

Soulaima Gourani
Yeah, it’s 100% fair. It’s easy to sit and talk about on this podcast, but the true challenge is really to live out your own values because it can be difficult to find your values.

One of them being dignity, of course, but to live out your values because you know when you have to sit down with your mom, your sister, maybe a colleague, maybe even your manager, and tell that person, “I need to tell you, how I want to be treated. Let me tell you how I’m motivated, how I can be a compassioned sister or brother,” or “Let me explain how I function. This is the way I want you to treat me.”

Then you will explain why fairness or freedom or whatever, there’s a million different words to describe the values that you might represent, but maybe you pick out four.

To explain – one thing is to find them yourself. Secondly is to understand them. Thirdly, start communicating them to others. Four, to implement them and kind of make people understand that these are my values and if you don’t live up to those values, and if you don’t treat me this way, we will have to talk about leaving each other or stopping.

It’s very difficult for people because I think most people want to pleasure others. It’s troubling because we end up in jobs and relationships and all those things where we feel that is not based on what is truly good for me, but good for someone else. It should be good for someone else, but we’re losing our self and when we’re losing our self, we get depression, suicidal, we need to drug and drink and overdo things and we have a big issue.

People have never been more depressed, never been more medicated, never more lonely, never more self-hate. I live in Silicon Valley, where our young people are killing themselves. We don’t get it. They have money, future. They have most things that we desire in life and yet they kill themselves. It’s really a problem that is universal.

We cannot create the growth, the prosperity, the happiness, if we don’t fix this first. It’s very hard to think about environmental issues or refugee crises or whatever if you can’t even get up in the mornings and go to job and function.

We need to fix the problems first. It’s very basic, but if you can give that compass to people, deep understanding of what it means to live a dignified life, if you can give that, educate people on just that one value, I promise you, a lot of things will be easier in the future.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so then when it comes to the education and the development of leading a dignified life, we talked about treating others with dignity is sort of one key way that that happens. What are some others?

Soulaima Gourani
First of all, finding your true talent is not that easy either. We still have a very fixed mindset in the education system. I’m not blaming the educators because honestly speaking, I’m married to a teacher myself. It’s not an easy job. But finding out what is my true talent is really difficult because the traditional system, education system has a certain way of looking and describing what is a talent.

It can be intelligence, what is the right intelligence, what is a good job, what is the right job. As we speak, I’m writing on my next book that is kind of, I hope, mapping what the future is going to look like until 2040. I’m looking into what kind of jobs that will disappear and which jobs that will come or be created.

We need more people to understand to find their talents and be more creative about how can their talent – everyone has a talent. Everyone has a talent, but not a lot of people think that their talent can be transformed into a real job where they can make a real living. We’d rather stay in jobs we don’t like, that we’re not good at than actually exploring what could be our best future.

The second thing after dignity, that should be finding your talent. I think it’s a human right that someone teaches you how to find your talent. It might be a very small talent. It might be almost invisible, super small talent, but even the smallest talent can be a job or a way of living.

Pete Mockaitis
When you talk about the finding of the talent and how they can be super small, invisible, can you give us some examples of what you would call a talent that has been found, like what’s yours, and others and then the process by which that is discovered?

Soulaima Gourani
First of all, I was never told I had a talent. I’m not that good in school. I was kicked out of school in seventh grade. I ran away from my parents when I was 13. I lived in the streets. I was in foster care, children’s home, institutions. I had a very troubled upbringing. None of my teachers ever, ever told me I had a talent. Actually, they did the opposite.

I still remember when I was in fourth grade, my math teacher, he said, “Soulaima, you’re so ambitious, but honestly speaking, let me tell you something. You will never be successful in your life. Let me explain why.” No, he said that, honestly.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow.

Soulaima Gourani
I still know that teacher’s son. I still know him, so it’s a very well-known story in my home country, Denmark, because it’s ridiculous. But everyday teachers are without even knowing, they’re killing people’s dreams. It happens every day.

But this teacher told me that I will not reach very far in my life because I was a woman, I’m brown, and my name was Soulaima. He said, “It’s never going to be a success.” I left, I left the class. I left my math teacher and I never returned to math, so I had to learn math again much later in life when I took my MBA. I could take an MBA because I could pay myself. But I was kicked out of school.

I was never told that I had a talent, so of course, this is a very important matter for me because no one saw mine and I was told I did not have any. That’s not okay. It’s really a principle for me. It’s something that I fight for a lot. I’ve spent thousands of hours teaching teachers how to look for talents they have never seen before because honestly speaking, how can you recognize a talent you have never seen before?

Pete Mockaitis
Mm-hm.

Soulaima Gourani
No, but really.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Soulaima Gourani
In the future, we don’t know what talents we need. I’m a mom. I have a nine-year-old and I have an eleven-year-old son, a nine-year-old daughter and an eleven-year-old son, how can I ever be a good mentor for them in the future because I have no clue about what future they are going to be growing up in and all the things I’ve learned, I learned them in a different time.

We need to give people that framework and understanding that by knowing their talents and by working on mental health, health as such, love for learning, they will always be okay. They will always be okay. There’s no such thing as a stable, secure future for none of us actually.

Talents are really difficult to see, especially if you’ve never seen them before. My talent, really, I was told by a teacher when I was 16 that he could see I had a talent. He said, “Your emotional intelligence is very, very strong.” This is way before I even knew there was anything called emotional intelligence. I didn’t know.

He didn’t say anything about my IQ. He just said “Your emotional intelligence is very strong. I can totally see you become a leader in the future.” I looked at him and I said, “Honestly?” I dedicated my TEDEX talk to him afterwards, many, many years after because it was really a crucial moment for me that someone said I had a talent. I was never told such.

He said that “I can totally see that you will be a leader in the future. You alone will change the way we look at leaders.” I couldn’t believe it. I was 16. I had never seen a woman in a management position at that point. It didn’t exist in my town. It didn’t exist really not in my country. We only had a very few women in politics and CEOs didn’t exist as women. Denmark was at that point in time very traditional, still is. I wasn’t inspired. But he said you will be that.

I meditated on that for many, many years after. As you say, I’ve been nominated and received so many awards now as the leader of the future, but I didn’t know how to get there. I just thought about it. That’s what I want to be. I just didn’t know how to get there. But today I am. They say I am the leader, not only of the future, but a leader to be looked up to. I’m a woman and I’m brown and my name is still Soulaima. I think that’s really the good thing about the story.

I’ve seen other people’s talents, like I have a friend who really wasn’t good at much. He was only good at gaming in front of his computer. He was quite old at this time like in his late 30s. His wife was very unhappy with him. He said, “I have to find out how to make gaming into my living because that’s the only thing I love.” He started thinking about developing games and now he’s one of the most successful gamers in the world. He lives in France. He’s a millionaire.

I have another friend who said, “There’s nothing I’m really good at. The only thing I really enjoy is tasting chocolate. Chocolate is the only thing I know of. It’s my pleasure.” He developed one of the biggest chocolate companies in Europe later on. Even the smallest talent that might be – gaming and chocolate, I think most people can relate to those things. They built themselves careers in that.

Pete Mockaitis
So what is sort of the process or key questions you ask or the means by which you explore and zero in on, “ah-ha, this is the thing?”

Soulaima Gourani
First of all, you have to be honest with yourself. Is this my talent? Is this really what I’m good at? Then sometimes you’re really disappointed because you might say to yourself, “Is this it? Is this the only thing I’m good at?”

Then what’s really important is you don’t get depressed. If you realize the only thing you like is chocolate, some people will say that’s really – honestly, that can never be a job or how can that be your skill, then you have to be honest with yourself and really believe that this can be a job.

If you enjoy chocolate, you should then start understanding more about chocolate and become an expert in that field and think how that can be a job, either you create a job or you get a job, where you work with that talent that you have found.

First thing is to find it. Second is to accept it. Thirdly, is to be creative and find out how you can build either a job or a portfolio or whatever around that talent.

It might be a very small talent and that’s where people usually get disappointed with themselves because still a lot of people think that they should be good at something like numbers, coding, leadership, something big, but our talents might be very, very small and we might not even know it’s a talent. It’s not always easy to find your talent because if you ask people what is my talent, they might not see it either because how will they know it’s a talent.

I was told – later on in my life I was told that – I was laid off from my job in 2007. I was pregnant and I couldn’t get a job because no one employs pregnant women, not even in Scandinavia. I had no choice but to create my own business. I decided to become a consultant because I knew I was good in selling. I knew I had some core skills in education, to educate sales people in selling and basic skills from my old job.

Then some of my clients hired me and my old employer hired me back. I was laid off, right? When I asked my employer, “Hey, you laid me off, but you hired me back as a consultant. It does not make sense.” My HR manager said, “You know, Soulaima? We like you and we think you’re so great. We’d really love to have you as a consultant and we pay you a lot of money as a consultant, but we also pay you a lot of money to make sure that you walk out of the door again.”

I never understood what she meant, but she meant that I’m super – I’m brilliant. I’m good at what I’m doing, but I cannot stay too long because I’m also very irritating. Being irritating is really a great skill as a consultant because you’re being paid for being annoying. That’s why ….

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right. This thing you keep ignoring, stop ignoring it. It’s very, very important. It’s like, “Stop talking about this. It’s not fun for us to deal with this.”

Soulaima Gourani
As an employer, it doesn’t really work because if you were employed, people don’t like it. If you’re a consultant, you can ask them to pay ten times as much per hour and you do the exact same thing as you did when you were employed, but then at that time they didn’t like it.

I found out that I’m irritating and I totally build my brand about being controversial, irritating, straight to the point, a cutthroat way of delivering messages. I created a great brand as a consultant because I was just me. I was just me …. So I didn’t have to change anything. I just had to change position from being at one side of the table just by going to the other side of the table, yeah, I became, yeah, this recognized leader.

It was only half a meter that I had to change my position, but how would I know? Being laid off was really my blessing. I didn’t think it was my blessing. I was very, very sad and almost depressed about being laid off, being pregnant. That was really a low point in my life. But it was really not a low point. It was my starting point, but I didn’t know that at that time.

Pete Mockaitis
You talk about the finding of your talent process. You zeroed in on the examples of the chocolate and the gaming and those are things that they really like to do. I’m curious, is there a distinction between something that you just enjoy doing versus something that you’re actually good at and how do you think about those waters?

Soulaima Gourani
Oh yeah. Let me give you an example. A few years ago I met a musician. She’s a very famous violinist, artist. I was sitting next to her and I asked her, so oh my goodness, it must be amazing to live from what you do – art must be a blessing. I can only imagine being – make a living out of your art must be the best thing in the world I thought. She looked at me and said, “No, I absolutely hate playing my violin, but that’s the only thing I’m good at.” But she’s famous and she’s extremely talented.
You can be very good at something, very good at something and not enjoying it, while you can be enjoying doing something really, really a lot, but not being good at it. Those things are not related at all.

I mean, it’s a miracle when you’re good at what you’re doing and you enjoy doing what you’re doing. That’s a miracle. Most people never find that. That’s okay. That’s okay. But your talent can be something you don’t enjoy doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay, so you’re looking for both of those things to line up and then to build the job, the career, the money maker, whatever format it takes around it.

Soulaima Gourani
Yeah, I mean I’m not a fan of thinking as a job as something that is kind of something you go to and you leave in the night. I’m more into a lifestyle. I’m more into a portfolio of things that you’re doing.

For instance, I’m an author two days a week. I’m always working on a book. I try to publish books every year. I’m an author two times a week. I’m a speaker two times a week somewhere in the world. Then I have one day at home with my kids or I’m having board meetings. Then during the weekend I might do interviews or something else.

The thing is I have a portfolio of things I do. I’m not only a writer or a speaker or an investor or a board member. I’m all of those things. Saying you can be good at a lot of things and you can enjoy doing a lot of things and the thing is really to combine those things and design your own life. Designing your life as it should be where you spend time – then it’s okay to do something you’re not really enjoying doing two times a week because that’s okay. If you can spend three or four days doing something you like for the rest of the time, it’s perfect.

I’m more thinking of life design, how do you want your life to look like. I don’t mind that people have a job they don’t like three times a week if that means that they have three or four days during the week they can do something else.

For instance, if you like – let me give you an example. One of my daughter’s teachers – she’s an amazing teacher, elementary teacher – she works two days a week, maybe three days a week, and she’s having two days off per week. She lives near the ocean. I’m in California, right? She’s a semi-professional surfer. Her tradeoff is, I’m an elementary school teacher three days a week and then the two other days of the week I do my surfing. That’s a brilliant, brilliant example of a great life design.

I think it’s about finding what makes sense for you and you only have one life I believe, so to say that’s the only thing I can prove at least. It’s about getting the most out of it. I don’t mind working hard and sometimes you also have to do things you don’t like because it’s a way of gaining skills, it’s a way of making a living, making money, save, invest.

I don’t believe in throwing what you have in your hands and jump into a new career because it’s more shiny or more interesting. You should be careful because you will be jeopardizing your money and your investments and your time and maybe even your family. Make smart decisions. I like life design because it’s a more responsible way of designing your life.

Most of us can tolerate a lot of pain, even a job we don’t like, if we know we’re doing it because we want to build, gain knowledge, money, whatever to really do what we like doing in our life later. I don’t judge people if they do something they don’t like. I just want them to realize they don’t like it and they must have a reason why they’re staying there.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Thank you. Well, tell me, Soulaima, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Soulaima Gourani
Yeah, I want to say lots of people come to me and say, “Hey, Soulaima, I always wanted to be this or that, but now I’m too old,” or “Hey, I’m too young.” I will just say age is really not an excuse. Unless you come and you’re 45 and you say to me, “I want to be a professional ballet dancer,” or something, something that is maybe you should have started doing when you were younger, then there’s nothing you cannot do just because you’re 45 or 66 or – age is just really a number.

I have a friend, she always wanted to be a model, but she was not tall enough. She’s pretty, beautiful, but she’s not tall enough, but she really wanted to be in the fashion world, so she just started being a designer. She has her own fashion brand. She was recognized as the best designer in Europe not too long ago. She’s 49, 52, something. She’s mature. She just wanted to be a model, but it was too late and she didn’t have the whatever skills you have to need to be a model, so she just found a way for her to be in the fashion world.

I’m saying nothing is too late. You can be a late bloomer and that’s okay, too.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool, thank you. Now can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Soulaima Gourani
“We’re stronger together.” I believe that everything can be done in the world if you have access to smart people who are different than yourself because very often we say, “Oh, I cannot do that because I don’t have the skills,” but it’s really not about you; it’s about the ones you know.

If you have a really good network that you’ve mapped, that you have nurtured, that you know really well, that is more diverse than you, who have competence you don’t have yourself, then you have access to the skills you don’t know how to do, meaning you can do anything in the world. I believe we are stronger together.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Soulaima Gourani
My favorite experiment is how to stay focused. I think nowadays you’re being tempted so much by social media, things you could do, things you’re invited to, and things – staying focused and get things done is really something I’m very a fan of. I can see people don’t get things done. They talk about it, but they don’t get it done.

I’m very motivated and highly interested in understanding how people get things done and stick to things even when it doesn’t look promising or when it’s hard, they still keep doing it and focus and get it done. I like that. That’s a nice skill.

Pete Mockaitis
You said there’s research there about how it’s done that you found compelling and what is it?

Soulaima Gourani
Yeah, I think Greg, you had him on your show.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, right.

Soulaima Gourani
His book is very-

Pete Mockaitis
Essentialism, Greg McKeown.

Soulaima Gourani
Yeah, yeah, exactly. He’s a good friend of mine. He keeps inspiring to this very day on how to – because I live a life at least where I get invited and attended to travel, go somewhere all the time or jump on this or be part of this or invest in this.

I met him the first time I believe in China six years ago. He’s been a friend ever since. He inspired me because he is, as some of your listeners might know if they heard the podcast, he’s on it, man. He gets things done. He don’t jeopardize his time or his focus. I’m super inspired by Greg.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite book?

Soulaima Gourani
Oh man, that’s a tough one because there’s so many friends that I have that have written amazing books. New Power by Jeremy Heimans is a very good book.

I think Giving Work by Leila Janah is how we improve people’s life through the gig economy. She’s the owner of Samasource and she wrote an amazing book called Giving Work. Instead of giving aid and money to people, just give them a job. How about that? Let’s teach them how to make a living. Those two books I think is – New Power and Giving Work I think that’s my two favorite books.

Pete Mockaitis
Is there a favorite tool you use that helps you be awesome at your job?

Soulaima Gourani
Yeah, I saw your question and I’ve been thinking ever since because what is my most important tool. I know this might be cheesy, but I will say it anyhow, walking. I walk for one hour every day in the nature. That gives me the power and the mental focus that I need to be good at my job. I know it’s weird. I hope – I wanted to tell you it was an app or something more sexy, but it’s really one hour of hiking in the mountains just near my home every day that gives me the true power of being good at my job.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Tell me, is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect, resonate, and gets quoted back to you?

Soulaima Gourani
Yeah, what should it be? Can you give me an example of what’s some – I don’t know.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, like with Greg McKeown, we talked about with essentialism, might mention the closet analogy and say, “Hey, it’s not just a matter of might I ever wear this some time. It’s a matter of saying does this garment spark joy.” That resonated for me. I was like “Wow, yeah, that’s really good, higher standard. Does it spark joy? No, no, no.” I’m able to kind of really quickly clean through my closet with that higher standard.

Soulaima Gourani
Yeah, I have actually. Everything I do, everything I do in my life, I measure it out of, “does it make me happy, does it make me more relaxed, does it improve my economic status, do I make money out of it, and fourth, do I improve my skills?”

Not every decision fulfills those four things, but it makes it clear for me that I can make a decision. Okay, I say yes to this, it’s funny, but it’s not going to give me any money. I’m not going to learn anything from it. Then I can make quick, good decisions on behalf of if it doesn’t make me relaxed, not happy, if it doesn’t improve my financial situation, and if I don’t learn anything from it, if none of those four things are being met, kind of, then I shouldn’t do it.

Pete Mockaitis
Got you. If folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them to?

Soulaima Gourani
Go to hopefully to my homepage and sign up for my newsletters, Souliama.com. I have had a newspaper for ten years called Straight Talk. I put myself in those newsletters. I love them. I put a lot of energy into it, so if people want to know what I’m doing and if they’re inspired, sign up for my newsletter.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue to folks seeing to be awesome at their jobs?

Soulaima Gourani
Yes, first of all, really understand the value of your work. If you understand the value of the work you do, then you will like your job more no matter what job it is. If you understand the meaning and what it is doing to others, then you will appreciate your job more and by appreciation, you’re going to be more happy. If you’re more happy, you’re more creative. If you’re more creative, you’ll be more successful.

It’s actually about taking away your stand and start appreciating, I know it’s a tough one this one, but start appreciating where you actually are in life even if you feel you’re at the wrong place, by starting to appreciate, you will do your brain a big favor that will help you get out of your situation if you know what I mean.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Soulaima, thanks so much for sharing your time and wisdom here. This has been a lot of fun. I wish you lots of luck in all of your next adventures.

Soulaima Gourani
Oh, thank you so much for having me on your show. I’m really honored. Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
Jack, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Jack Nasher
Thank you. Thank you for your interest.

Pete Mockaitis
I think we’re going to have so much good stuff to discuss. But I think we should start with your work as a mentalist at the Magic Castle and elsewhere. What’s the story here?

Jack Nasher
Yeah, it’s funny you started with it. Nobody starts with that. You’re the first one who starts with it. Usually it’s like a footnote at the end.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh really?

Jack Nasher
Yeah. It’s quite unusual. But yeah, my performances at the Magic Castle are basically the other side of psychology. Somebody said it’s like using your five known senses to create the illusion of a sixth sense. It’s using psychological tools to create the illusion of mind reading to create the illusion of mind control and all these things. Well, sometimes actually it is mind control.

I do it for fun sometimes. I perform about 20 shows a year at the Magic Castle and other venues. It’s basically psychology, but for entertainment purposes.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s intriguing. Is there any chance it’s possible to do a demonstration via audio only right now?

Jack Nasher
I wish I could, but no.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I had to ask.

Jack Nasher
You have to look into my piercing blue eyes.

Pete Mockaitis
I will turn on the video.

Jack Nasher
That’s the … basically. That’s all there is to it. But it doesn’t work without looking into the piercing blue eyes.

Pete Mockaitis
Is there a particular – I don’t want to call it a trick or an illusion or a piece or a – what’s the word we use for a unit of performance in a mentalist show? What would I call that?

Jack Nasher
They call it an experiment. That’s the technical term.

Pete Mockaitis
Experiment. Okay, there we go.

Jack Nasher
you know why? Because sometimes it doesn’t work. That’s why.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, could you-

Jack Nasher
We call it an experiment, nobody … the way you say it’s an experiment. Experiments work or they don’t work.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, could you paint a picture for us in terms of which experiment is most mind-blowing crowd-pleasing favorite?

Jack Nasher
Yeah, actually good example. I just came back from a cruise. I performed experiment and I blew it. It just didn’t work. I have to be honest with you. Because I tried to hypnotize the whole audience and the spectator on stage and it just didn’t work. That’s the problem. Sometimes really this stuff doesn’t work because it’s real. It’s just not a trick. That’s what makes it really difficult.

Every time I perform a mentalist show, I’m really nervous. I’m in Oxford right now because I’m teaching here. I’m thinking about going to open mic nights in London tomorrow, just to some pubs where everyone is drunk, and they just abuse you, and they insult you, and they throw stuff at you. It’s crazy.

Pete Mockaitis
Sounds fun.

Jack Nasher
It sounds very fun, but that’s where you learn to get your act together. I’m thinking about trying to hypnotize the worst drunkards. And I think if I can do it there, I can do it anywhere, on a cruise, in the Magic Castle.

But this stuff is tough because really I’m trying to influence people. I’m trying to hypnotize a lot of people at the same time. boy, I just need a lot of practice for that. I’m thinking about doing that tomorrow. If you’re in London anytime, you’re going to see me in some pub. The more drunk people there are, the higher the chances that I’m going to be there.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, thank you. Well, be on the lookout for our London listeners there.

Jack Nasher
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Your day job is a professor for leadership and organizational behavior.

Jack Nasher
Yeah, it’s a bit different than that.

Pete Mockaitis
I love that combo. You had Bob Cialdini endorse your book and it kind of reminded me of that. It’s like okay, a research professor who’s also watching stuff unfold in the real world and immersing yourself in crazy situations. What’s your main area of focus research study as a professor?

Jack Nasher
Yeah, it’s funny you mentioned Cialdini. I’m a great fan of his work. Influence, one of the best books I read. He wrote a great blurb for my book. He actually said, “We need this book,” I was very proud of that.

Obviously applying psychological techniques and applying –that’s my main expertise. I’m looking at techniques from science and I apply them to the real world. I’m interested in theory but also in the application.

I think that combination is very rare because you have scientists who are, very much into their science and answering very small, small questions and then doing research and so on. Then you have salespeople or negotiators who don’t care about science because they say, “Ah, it’s all theory, academics. It’s crap. I’m not interested in that.”

You have very few who actually take the knowledge from academia, from thousands of studies, research and so on and apply it to the real world. That’s what Cialdini did and he’s a great idol of mine, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m looking at science and applying it to practice.

That is my day job and it’s, of course, very different from the Magic Castle and performing hypnotism and all that. But in essence, it’s the same. It’s about how to influence and read people, so it really goes hand in hand.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. Now you’ve packaged some of this wisdom in your book, Convinced. What would you say is sort of the main thesis or idea within it?

Jack Nasher
Everything starts with the idea that actual and perceived competence almost have nothing to do with each other.

Pete Mockaitis
… cases.

Jack Nasher
Yeah. You know lots of politicians or people say – Jimmy Carter, US president, some people like him; some say he didn’t do anything. But, as a matter of fact, do you really know what he did? Do you really know the decisions he made? Probably not. Yet, you have a perception of his competence, of his expertise, of how he was as a president.

The same is true with ever profession, whether you’re a lawyer or whether you’re in real estate, it doesn’t matter, whether you sell insurance. People say “Wow, he’s great,” “She’s fantastic. She’s the best I ever worked with,” or “She’s terrible.”

The question is if people don’t know anything about your expertise, how can they judge it? Well, the truth of the matter is they can’t. And yet, they do. What I try to answer is what do they base their judgments on. That’s actually what I wrote my master thesis at Oxford on many years ago, looking at the things people look at when they judge other peopleI found some intriguing, really intriguing points.

It’s unbelievable what these judgments are based on. This of course leads to the fact that you can influence the perception of yourself. You can look like the greatest, the best, the most fantastic expert in whatever field you want to excel in or you want to look like you excel in without actually being an expert. That’s quite amazing. Probably kind of sad to some people, but that’s just the way it is. actual and perceived competence almost – there’s no relation.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s wild in terms of no relation in terms of you looked at data points across the board and you just didn’t find anything of a worthwhile correlation there, huh?

Jack Nasher
Almost none. It’s very different points than actual competence that matter. One of the – I’m sure – that would be the question you’d probably ask, well, what is one of the points. That’s the obvious question. And one of the main points is confidence.

Pete Mockaitis
Just like you saying it like you know it and you – what you’re talking about and you’re certain of it.

Jack Nasher
Exactly. The point is this. I assume that in your job you are pretty confident about certain things and yet probably you’ve heard, “Oh, under promise it, over deliver it. That makes a good impression.” Or probably you’ve heard, “Well, let’s not raise expectations. Let’s be modest about it, humble about it.”

Truth of the matter is, it’s very bad for your perceived competence because people trust people who display competence through confidence, who display high levels of confidence.

Let me just give you an example. If you see two people arguing about who won the 400 meter hurdle world championship in 1954. You have no idea. I have no idea. Let’s say one of them put out a hundred dollar bill and bets on one of the candidates. Who would you trust? One who’s so certain, because certainty really, confidence.

I heard this sentence once “Showing certainty in the midst of uncertainty, that is one of the key tasks of a leader.” ‘The absorption of uncertainty’ somebody called it, ‘absorption of uncertainty,’ because especially when we trust in the competence of somebody, of an expert, we need somebody to take us by the hand and say “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it,” because that person then is – if you do that, you’re a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s intriguing and appealing, but I guess it’s worth digging into a little bit. Is that ethical? Is that a form of dishonesty or deception or lying for you to project confidence when you are actually pretty unsure if this thing is going to work out?

Jack Nasher
First of all I’m not telling you you should do that when you have no idea about what you’re doing. But then you probably should change your job. If you really don’t know anything about the work you’re doing, probably you should just work in a different field.

I’m talking about the everyday situations where people come to you with a task and, usually somehow you’ll take care of it, probably a little better, probably a little worse, but you can manage. Right? That’s the everyday situation.

Now, is it ethical to be optimistic about it? Well, let me ask you this. Is it ethical that people who are much worse than you, that they get all the credit? Is it people that – who are much worse than you, and who just show confidence, who can’t do anything that they get the promotions, that they get the clients? I doubt it.

So basically, I’m giving you the tools to PR on your behalf. So instead of having other people take all the credit, why not use the methods yourself? But basically even in my book, I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just showing you what’s possible and how the human brain works. It’s up to you to make the decision. I’m not telling anyone what to do. I would never to do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. I guess I’m thinking for those who want to be awesome at their job and to pick up, more opportunities and promotion and whatnot, this is something that’s appealing certainly to be perceived as competent. That’s great.

Jack Nasher
Let me ask you Pete. Look, makeup, what’s makeup all about? Well, you paint your face. Well, you don’t look like that, but you still paint it. What about lipstick? Well, you paint your lips – well, you don’t, but a lot of people paint their lips. And why? So they look greater than they actually are. They wear high heel. Well, why? To look different and taller than they actually are.

Guys – Pete, you probably comb your hair. Why? It doesn’t actually look like that. You kind of fake a hairstyle you don’t actually have. You shave. Why? Why do you remove your facial hair? It’s all fake because actually you do have facial hair. So that’s what we do all the time because we only have one life and we want to live the optimal life. What’s wrong with that? There’s nothing wrong.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you there. Yeah, so it’s sort of like in the realm that you painted out there, it’s kind of like okay, someone requested that you do something and you are generally capable of pulling that off, but instead of saying something like, “Oh yeah, I should be able to handle this,” you’d say something like, “You’ve got it Jack. Consider it done, Jack.”

Jack Nasher
Pretty much. Pretty much. You can even point out the difficulties. You can say, “Wow, this is difficulty one. This is difficulty two. But you came to the right guy because I’m the one who takes care of it.”

Interestingly, Donald Trump is a good example. If you like him or not, I don’t even want to bash him or praise him whatever. I’m sick of this. But one of the-

Pete Mockaitis
You’re not even in the US.

Jack Nasher
Yeah. Even in Germany, it’s unbelievable. The exposure … is incredible. But anyway, what’s really interesting is when I saw his campaign I thought wow, he really used this technique. All he does basically is saying, “I’ll take care of it. I’m the best. I’m the greatest.” No track record. No examples. Nothing. I thought, okay, probably he’s – this is just too much. It’s not going to work.

I was amazed to see well, I was wrong. It did work without anything. That was really the epitome of this technique, just giving people confidence without anything, without any track record, nothing. I thought that was really fascinating how far you can actually take this.

By really saying, “I’m the greatest, I’m the best. Don’t worry,” this actually works. Yet, I don’t suggest it. But what I’m suggesting is just changing your mindset and giving people a good feeling. Say, “You came to the right person. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”

It cannot be overestimated how important that is to your client, to your superior because everybody is scared. The moment they give you a task, they’re scared that they made a mistake. People remember. There was this famous quote, “People will forget what you said. They will forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel.” That’s right. That’s true.

Research suggests even if you fail, even if you fail and if you fail miserably, and if you arose high expectations at first, you will still be perceived as more competent than if you had predicted the terrible result accurately.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s intriguing. Can you highlight a particular experiment or bit of research that … out.

Jack Nasher
Yeah, experiment by Schlenker and Leary, two American psychologists who did that. You know when people said I’m going to perform fantastic at a certain task and they just performed miserably, yet they were perceived as being twice as competent as those who would have predicted the terrible result accurately.

Pete Mockaitis
So after the results came in, they saw what happened.

Jack Nasher
… the result. That’s one of the main experiments I describe in my book in the second chapter, it’s all about that experiment.

Pete Mockaitis
Well tell us – I’m curious, what was the promise and what was the result? That’s just so intriguing. How did the people justify … go for it?

Jack Nasher
They didn’t. it was really, really simple. there was one group, they had to perform a task. The other ones just had to judge their expertise in that task. They were random tasks they were allocated.

The one group predicted their outcome. Then they performed the task, so the result was apparent. You could see how they performed very clearly. Yet, it turned out that their prediction really influenced the assessment greatly of how competent they were perceived. That I thought was amazing because the result was there. Everybody saw the result.

It was very clear that if they said, I’m going to perform fantastic. Great. They were perceived as being much more competent than if they under promised and over delivered, much more competent. Even, that to me was the most interesting part, even if they failed, even if they totally failed – if they were optimistic, they were perceived as being much more competent.

And by the way, you are even perceived as being more likeable because people say, “Is that ethical to be so confident?” Well, let me ask you this. Is it ethical to be modest when you should be doing your job?

Let’s say you’re a surgeon. I broke my leg. You come to my bed and say, “You know what? I’m not a very good surgeon. I’m sorry. I went to university, but I wasn’t the best. I kind of had to do it. My parents wanted me to study medicine.” Do I think, “Wow, what a nice humble guy.” No, I get the hell out of there and I never come back. That’s not nice.

Why are people humble? Why are people modest? Because they fear that they’re going to fail. That’s just one way to say, “Well, I told you I couldn’t do it.” Is that good ethically? Is that good to be modest when it’s about a job you should be able to perform? I doubt it. I don’t think so.

Pete Mockaitis
You’re raising so many fascinating questions there. I guess in a way it’s also like if you kind of commit to a result that is kind of beyond you and a stretch of you, well, often you rise to the occasion anyway. So—

Jack Nasher
Yeah. …

Pete Mockaitis
Over the long term, you’re developing actual competence because you continue to put yourself into stretch positions that you had no choice but to deliver because you don’t want to look like a fool.

Jack Nasher
No, absolutely. That’s the Bannister Effect. Roger Bannister ran the one mile in under four minutes in 1954 here at Oxford. He was an Oxford student and then became an Oxford professor. Just passed away a few years ago.

Roger Bannister, what was interesting is he was the first human being in recorded history to run the mile in under one minute. People thought before they thought it’s impossible. It’s physically impossible. But what was really interesting was that a few weeks after he achieved that, somebody else ran the one mile in under four minutes as well. I think in Finland or somewhere. Then somebody did it in the UK a few weeks after that.

It’s known as the Bannister Effect now that if you raise expectations, you perform better. If you raise your goal, you will actually perform better. Once the goal was raised to below four minutes, people performed better.

That’s really interesting. It’s very interesting for negotiations, called anchoring effects and it’s very interesting for yourself. If you have very high goals, if you’re very confident, you will actually perform better. Also, known as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Pete Mockaitis
Back to that experiment. The assessors who saw the poor results from the confident people, I wonder kind of what rationalization is going on in their head in terms of, “You know what? He must have had an off day. She must have been tired or stressed,” or “This probably isn’t representative. Everyone gets unlucky sometimes.”

Jack Nasher
Yeah, no, it’s exactly right that people when they were very optimistic and failed, it was attributed to external factors and not to internal factors. Exactly what you said.

Pete Mockaitis
Boy, I’m going to be chewing on this for years to come I think. Thank you.

Jack Nasher
Yeah, I was thinking about this for years. I was depressed at first. I thought the world was so unfair. Everyone is stupid. I came along a quote from JFK, presumed he said, it’s not confirmed, but presumed he said, “The world is unfair, but not necessarily to your disadvantage.” That opened my eyes. I thought why do I always complain about the world being so unfair. Why don’t I just take advantage of it?

Pete Mockaitis
That is a good turn of a phrase. Cool. All right, let’s say-

Jack Nasher
It’s kind of evil, right?

Pete Mockaitis
What’s that?

Jack Nasher
It’s kind of evil I have to ….

Pete Mockaitis
Right, right.

Jack Nasher
A little bit evil.

Pete Mockaitis
But it’s true. It’s like I’ve had lucky breaks. I’ve had unlucky breaks.

Jack Nasher
Yeah, if you found ten bucks on the street, are you going to say, “Oh, the world is unfair?” No, you’re going to take it, you’re happy and you walk away, even though it is unfair. We tend to forget that sometimes we actually benefit from things being unfair.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, let’s talk about – let’s say, all right, so one thing is when you accept an assignment. You accept it with gusto, with confidence. You say “You’ve come to the right person. Bring it on. Consider it done. I got this. I’m going to crush it,” etcetera. What are some of the other practices associated with radiating competencies or competence? What are kind of some of the top do’s and don’ts when it comes to making that happen?

Jack Nasher
Well, I mean there’s so many points. I have eight keys in my book. Let me think which one should I give you that really – oh yeah, one is really interesting, the Doctor Fox experiment. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. I thought also it was an interesting experiment.

That the researchers took an actor and brought him to a convention, was like, I don’t know, about education, whatever. The actor gave a speech on a very specific topic. Now the speech was nonsense, total nonsense. It didn’t have any content really, but it sounded pretty good. Now you could think, wow, experts would find out because they’re experts.

Now, interestingly when the actor, who didn’t know anything about the topic, when he gave the speech and he did it in a very enthusiastic way, so he was pacing the floor and he seemed to really care about the subject, really love the subject. He got extremely high marks on his presentation.

I thought that was really interesting, especially compared to the control group, where the guy – the same actor gave the same presentation just to a different group, also of experts, but he barely moved. He was just standing there, still. Now, only this made all the difference.

If you talk about your topic in a very enthusiastic way and people will say, “Wow, he or she loves the topic,” you will be rated so much higher than if you just stand there and talk. Even if you say – I just came from an Oxford debate at the Oxford Union, the debating club here. The last speaker, nobody really knew what she was saying because she was saying it in such a boring way. She just read it out that you just couldn’t follow.

There was one Dutch guy who was just pacing the floor. Even though he was repeating his same point over and over, he kind of got us because I caught myself thinking, “Wow, this guy really cares about what he’s saying. This guy must really know what he’s talking about.”

It’s this enthusiasm. So, non-verbal communication, pacing the floor, looking people in the eye and being really, really eager about getting your point across, this makes such a difference. So again, just remember, confidence in whatever your task is and enthusiasm. If you show these two things, this is already a great, great way to show your competence.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s excellent. When it comes to enthusiasm, I have a picture of what that means in terms of your voice, it shows emotion on different things like, this is very sad, or very exciting or very enraging. You have some variety in the voice. I think that there’s some swiftness to the words, at times that you’re speaking a little bit faster because you’re into it. And so—

Jack Nasher
Faster also is very good, by the way. Speaking faster, you’re being perceived as being more intelligent. People who speak faster are being perceived as more intelligent because people think “Ah, if he speaks fast, he must think fast too.” Thinking fast, intelligence is linked to competence. Speaking fast is always a good idea.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, cool. Well are there any other kind of subcomponents or individual pieces that get picked up on when someone says, “Whoa, that guy’s into it.”

Jack Nasher
Yeah, also another interesting point is eye contact. We think eye contact is really important. Well, it is but not in the way you would think.

For instance, if you give a speech, if you give a presentation, if you’re in a meeting, it’s actually good when you talk, you should hold eye contact with the people you’re talking to. Very important. Don’t forget that. But, if people talk to you, you should not hold eye contact. It’s actually beneficial for you to look away. Now, you have to be careful not to be rude, of course, but it’s interesting.

You know why? It’s a question of status. Because who looks at who? Well, usually it’s the servant looking at the master, taking orders. By looking people in the eye when they’re talking to you, unconsciously you show them that you have low status and that’s bad for your perceived competence.

So if somebody is talking to you, look away. Again, you have to be very careful not to be rude because obviously that’s very negative. But there’s no problem in looking right and left, kind of pondering about what he or she is saying, but you do not have to hold eye contact.

It’s really interesting that for your perceived competence, it’s better to look away when they’re talking to you. Who would have thought, right? Because some things are common sense and others are just the opposite.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so let’s talk a little bit about managing expectations optimally. I think we talked about it’s best to commit and say yes with gusto. Do you have any other pro tips for how you do that …?

Jack Nasher
Yeah. By the way, the whole book is just filled with this stuff that I found. Sometimes I was really surprised. It’s like any kind of system. It’s eight chapters now. Some of the things are really surprising.

Now, about expectations, what’s also very important, when you raise expectations, when you show confidence, one thing you have to keep in mind, that’s whether you want to sell something, whether it’s yourself, your competence, your services or a product, it doesn’t matter, one thing you have to know is that people don’t choose what they like best. People choose what they fear least.

We have a loss aversion. It’s one of the main motivations of human behavior that we go away from risk, obviously. There are good reasons for that, you know?

You have to know every time you sit down with a client, you sit down with your employer, you sit down with your superior, with your colleague, you have to remember that the main thing is you have to take away their fear. Don’t try to be a good choice. Don’t try to be the best. Just think about everything that makes you a bad choice and eliminate that.

I’ll give you an example. When I applied here at Oxford as a student many years ago, I was a philosopher. I studied philosophy and psychology. I had nothing to do with business and yet I applied to the business school. I thought I don’t look like a business guy. What did I do? Well, I dressed up like a business guy. I bought some pinstriped pants. I went to the interview like that.

I remember my professor, first thing she said was “Wow, I thought there’s going to be some philosopher now, but I think you’d fit right in.” It’s as simple as that sometimes.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool.

Jack Nasher
It’s just you have to remember – just think about why – what could it be? Why would they say no to you? What speaks against you and that’s exactly what you face.

Pete Mockaitis
Could you give us some more examples of how you would take away fears? I guess I’m wondering about if I’m influencing someone to support my proposal or initiative or plan of action, what are some key ways I might take away their risk and fear.

Jack Nasher
Well the very first thing is that you find out what out their fear is. You basically ask them. If you think of most salespeople, most sales situations, people don’t ask you. They just talk. They just come with their pitch no matter what you say. Obviously, that’s one of the worst things that can happen, people just talking to you, blah, blah, blah, without you taking and telling them what you want.

The very first thing you have to do is you have to find out what their fear is. Once you know what their fear is, what they’re scared of, you can tackle it. Usually it’s quite easy.

For instance, I want a haircut. Because I travel a lot for my job, I give negotiation trainings here and there and sometimes I’m stuck in some rural area for a week and I need a haircut. I go to the hairdresser and I’m scared because I don’t know how he or she is. Of course, I can look on Google or how many stars, but they can be fake, they can be bought, whatever.

I’m longing to this day, I’m longing for a hairdresser who comes out of his store and says, “Don’t be afraid. Don’t worry about it. I know you’re scared. You’ve never been here. But sit down, relax, I’m really good at what I do.”

Now, this sounds very simple, but when has this ever happened to you, that somebody takes you by your hand and says, “Just don’t worry. I’m very, very good at what I do,” because we tend to believe what other people tell us. If somebody tells you, “You know what? I’m really good at what I do,” we tend to believe them.

Interestingly also we tend to confirm our beliefs. Everything he or she does afterwards, we see as a conformation of his or her quality.

Many years ago I bought shoes – British shoemaker. I asked him, “Well, why should I buy the shoes?” Customers ask stupid questions because they want you to take away their fear. The guy said, “Because they’re the best shoes in the world.” I laughed, I chuckled, and yet I bought them. Well, I was back a few weeks later because the heel fell off again … after six weeks. But I wasn’t upset. I felt bad that I ruined his masterpiece.

To this day, I still have these shoes. I’m sure they’re not the best shoes in the world and yet I cannot throw them away after 15 years because I still think, well, they must be very, very special. The guy, he did nothing but just say, “Don’t worry about it. These are the best in the world. If you buy them, they’re just the best.” ying, “Hey, don’t worry about it. Sit down. Have a tea. I’ll take care of it. It’s not an easy situation. It will take some time.” You have to say that because if you don’t say that, they’ll just give you more and more work. Say, “It’s difficult because of this, this, and this, but if anyone can do it, it’s me. You came to the right place. Sit down. Relax. Have a cookie. I’ll take care of it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, thank you. Now you also lay out a few particular approaches to elevate our status through praise and peacemaking. What’s the story behind these?

Jack Nasher
Status is one of the eight points. Interestingly that you raise your level of competence, your perceived competence by raising your level of status. If your status is perceived as higher – I mean, Give you a simple example.

If your family doctor talks about some political questions about Congress, chances are you will take him or her seriously. Why? He’s a doctor. He doesn’t know anything about politics, no more than me or you. But he’s a doctor. He has a high status. Because of this, you tend to put more weight in whatever he or she says. That is called status generalization. If somebody has a high or a low status, everything he or she does will be linked to this status.

There are ways to have higher status. It’s not just wearing a Rolex or wearing nice pants or all that. No. There’s some subtle ways to elevate your status. One is the one you just mentioned is by being a peacemaker.

It’s usually it’s a royal, regal task to get – at a meeting, people are fighting and you are the one who makes peace. At the office, you have two people quarreling for a while, well you should be the one who says, “Set up a date. Come on, let’s talk about it.” You will be remembered as the one who brought peace to it. That is a royal task, a royal thing to have done. This will elevate your status tremendously.

Pete Mockaitis
Interesting. Okay. You can make peace either by formally establishing, “Hey, let’s set a time,” or maybe you can even just sort of chime in and say, “Hey, let’s make sure that we’re respecting all view points,” or something along those lines. Okay, cool. What are some of the other approaches to elevating status?

Jack Nasher
Well, one of the other – very interesting because people came to me and said, “Well, what about Mark Zuckerberg or some people just wear sneakers and they come to all these great conventions?”

Pete Mockaitis
Steve Jobs.

Jack Nasher
Steve Jobs, yeah.  Anyway, so these two are very famous for taking the stage with a turtleneck, sneakers, a t-shirt, whatever, so how is that possible? Well, the answer – it’s very interesting that there’s something called non-conformity. If you do not conform – obviously, do not conform – everyone is wearing a tie, but you are wearing a t-shirt, so what the hell is going on here? Well, this can actually increase your status.

Even Hitler knew that, by the way, interestingly, because he always wore a very plain uniform of the lowest rank. He had other people surround him with the biggest uniform with thousands of medals, whatever, … with crazy medals. He wrote that in one of his texts. He said, “This makes me look like a saint because I’m the one on the stage and even though everybody presumably of a higher status, I must be almost holy to be on that stage.”

It’s an interesting thought. I’m not saying that Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs read Hitler to be like that, but basically it’s the same idea of non-conformity. It’s the idea that if you do not conform, you are actually – your status will increase, but this only works when you already have a pretty high position, when you already have – when you already are respected.

When you’re an intern and do that, it’s just ridiculous. They’ll just boot you out of the place. But if you’re the CEO of Apple and you do that, people will go, “Wow, amazing.” This non-conformity thing only works when you really have a certain status within your company, within your organization. Then this can really work wonders. But just remember, it only works when you have a real high status.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, now you’ve also got some perspective on how you can boost your overall likeability and attractiveness. How is that done?

Jack Nasher
Yeah, now, competence is a very particular trait. You don’t have to be likeable in order to be perceived as competent. Yet, being liked makes it easier because of a halo effect. If people like you, chances are you will be perceived as more competent.

Also if you’re more attractive, that to me, again, was shocking, how important attractiveness is in overall – in our day-to-day interactions. Incredibly attractive – incredibly important, really surprisingly important even in friendships of same sex, heterosexual friends. Children play more with other children who are attractive. Parents love their children more if they’re more attractive. Shocking result. Really, it was incredible.

The thing is that if you’re perceived as being more attractive, that you will be perceived as more competent. There are just some ways to look more attractive.

Pete Mockaitis
Do tell, do tell. Do I have to get plastic surgery, Jack, or what has to happen?

Jack Nasher
It’s interesting that even when I talk to cosmetic surgeons, they didn’t know about this research. Unbelievable.

Pete Mockaitis
This is a value proposition, guy.

Jack Nasher
I know, I know. Yeah, I wish I could tell you. It’s all in the book. I forgot. I’ll just tell you two things because some people say, “Well, I’m attractive, I’m not attractive, what can I change?” Well, funny thing is there are many things you can change quite easily. Also, there are many things you don’t have to change because they don’t matter. Like the nose has almost no significance for attractiveness.

Pete Mockaitis
No kidding.

Jack Nasher
Yeah, unless it’s like tremendously big or tremendously ugly or whatever. Tremendously beautiful doesn’t even help because it’s always more difficult – to stand out is as particularly beautiful is very difficult for a nose. To stand out as particularly ugly, much easier. It’s kind of unfair again, but that’s the way we perceive things. That’s how we act.

Interestingly, though a tan, for instance, is one of the most important factors, just a tan and pure clean skin. Probably not very easy, but I think it’s quite easy. You don’t need any surgery. You need nothing almost. Eyelashes, dark eyelashes, one of the things that makes such a tremendous difference.

Also, there are just some points that one researcher found. He looked at all the points that lead to attractiveness. This is unpublished research. It’s a researcher in Germany who spent years doing nothing but this and he never published it. I don’t know why. I talked to him. I said, “Come on, this is unbelievable. This is revolutionary.” He said, “Eh, I don’t know. I just like the research.”

Well, I give you all the points and what really makes people attractive because why? Because first of all I think it’s tremendously interesting. We spend billions every year to look more attractive and most of it is wasted on stuff that doesn’t really matter.

Pete Mockaitis
I think about the teeth. If they’re white and straight, it would be an asset rather.

Jack Nasher
Yeah, that’s also good example. If teeth are white, you won’t say, “Wow, his teeth are so white.” But if they’re yellow, you’ll say, “Ah, it’s disgusting.” It’s not very symmetrical. Bad things stand out in a much stronger way than good things.

Pete Mockaitis
How about clothing?

Jack Nasher
Clothing is all about status. Somebody said you shouldn’t dress for the job you have, you should dress for the job you want to have. But here again, you should keep in mind that a tie and a jacket isn’t always the right choice, if you work in a startup or something, but there are also status symbols. You just have to know what they are. They probably stand in line for some Nike sneakers for a day or something.

But anywhere you go there are status symbols, but they differ. They don’t have to be Ferragamo ties. They’re just sneakers or whatever. But that’s – if you ask me about clothing, that’s the most important thing about clothing.

Pete Mockaitis
Is that is it’s conveying a status to the appropriate audience?

Jack Nasher
Yup, that’s right. That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
I was thinking about the fit being pretty important in terms of you can have a t-shirt that is kind of sloppy and too big or too small or a t-shirt that’s just hugging you just right. It’s just like, “That’s an attractive person,” because maybe you can see my broad shoulders or whatever perfectly.

Jack Nasher
But that, again, would be part of status, that clothes are actually made to measure or bespoke or at least fit. If you see somebody with an XL t-shirt and he’s obviously thin, it just looks stupid.

But these are details I didn’t really go into. It’s more like all the research that tells you ah, okay, these are interesting points, non-conformity, okay. Smiling, for instance, how important is smile – the chapter about non-verbal communication. You find interesting things about smiling. Well, smiling isn’t always good. There are some times when you shouldn’t smile at all because smiling actually hurts your perceived competence. You look like a dork when you smile.

Pete Mockaitis
When should I not smile?

Jack Nasher
Well, you just shouldn’t smile when there’s no reason to smile. If you just smile all the time, you look stupid. People do that. They think it’s polite or nice or there’s so many quotes on mugs about smiling, but, well, for your perceived competence, they don’t necessarily help. If you go to a lawyer and it’s a serious subject because your child is in jail and he keeps smiling, and you think “What the hell? Why is he smiling all the time?”

There’s some misconceptions and you should just smile when something is funny or when say hi, but it actually can be bad for your perceived competence. Why? Because, again, your status will look low because who smiles all the time? Salesmen or somebody who wants something from you right? Low status.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good. I suppose you could smile when you’re greeting someone because that’s sort of normal. It’s like, “Oh hey, they’re kind of happy to see me.” But if you’re keeping the smiling going in the midst of a boring topic, it’s sort of like, “What is up with this person?”

Jack Nasher
Exactly. Also, even when you greet, it’s not necessary. When it’s about a real important topic and somebody greets you with a firm handshake without actually smiling, you think “Wow, okay, he or she is really into the topic now. Let’s cut to the chase.” Even then it could be beneficial not to smile. The smile fetish that’s just something you shouldn’t do.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, this has been so fascinating. Now, tell me Jack, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Jack Nasher
I already mentioned too much. You should buy the book.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, noted.

Jack Nasher
… give everything away. Come on. Don’t ask me any more questions because there’s nothing – well, there’s some stuff left. yeah, I gave away a lot. Damn.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool, yeah.

Jack Nasher
… Pete. How do you do that?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, shucks. Well, so this is not book specific, so maybe the pressure is off a little bit. Can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Jack Nasher
Oh you know, I read so much. It’s one of the things I do all the time. I just love reading. I love new input. I’m always fascinated by new ideas. I think just being open, having an open mind and always learning. I think that for me is the best. It’s not just one thing or one book because every week I’m reading a different book on a different topic.

Right now I’m reading the Bitter Angels of Our Nature about how the world evolved in a positive way. I think that’s really fascinating. It’s a great book. It’s very long, but it’s really fascinating.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite habit, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Jack Nasher
A favorite habit is I try to touch or look at things only once. That’s it. I just try to look at one thing once, decide, and just get rid of it. Look at an email once, not save it or something, just do it quickly because I just found that if I keep stuff on my desk, it just keeps piling up. But I just have to allocate certain time slots for things, but then I just look at it once and I just do it.

One of my favorite quotes “It’s better to do it well now than perfect tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or never.” That’s one of my favorite quotes. I don’t even know it’s a quote, but it’s an idea to rather get stuff done now than to do it better in a week or never.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, cool. If folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Jack Nasher
I’d point them to my website, JackNasher.com. It’s packed with great stuff, free stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Jack Nasher
No, I think, and that was one of the points of my book, is that you spend so much time being good at your job, you spend so much time going to college, executive education, reading books, but you don’t spend any time thinking about how you should sell your capabilities, how you should sell your competencies. And that’s what this is about, you know?

I’m not telling you to fake anything. I’m just showing you how to display whatever it is you know, whatever it is you can do and to really excel in your job by displaying whatever competence you have. I think you should take some time off and even if it’s only by reading one book and I’m not telling you which book, but I’m just suggesting one book, I think it’s well worth your time because it’s just not enough to be good. You have to show that you are.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. Well, Jack, this has been a real treat. Thanks so much for taking the time. I wish you tons of luck with your book, Convinced, and all your adventures.

Jack Nasher
Well, thank you very much for your interest in my book. Thanks a lot for these great questions. I enjoyed it very much.