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Confidence Archives - Page 4 of 7 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Mar 15
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413: How to Exude Credibility with Rob Jolles

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Rob Jolles says: "The best way to make an audience uncomfortable is for you to be uncomfortable."

Rob Jolles provides practical wisdom on how to come across as more believable.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The number one reason why people don’t believe you
  2. How method acting can lead you into peak presenting performance
  3. Why you should embrace your own dysfunctions

About Rob

Rob Jolles is a sought-after speaker who teaches, entertains, and inspires audiences worldwide. His live programs around the world have enabled him to amass a client list of Fortune 500 companies including Toyota, Disney, GE, a dozen universities, and over 50 financial institutions. He is the best-selling author of six books, including his latest release, Why People Don’t Believe You…Building Credibility from the Inside Out.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Rob Jolles Lederman Interview Transcript

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

Rob Jolles
Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m excited to dig in. I think you’ve got so much good stuff to share. Maybe you’ll be able to share it, if necessary, in a rapid format because you are a licensed auctioneer! How does one get licensed to be an auctioneer and tell us a tale or two of your auctioneering adventures?

Rob Jolles
Okay. Well, when you have a big mouth and you run it around for 30 years giving seminars, everybody assumes, “Hey, this guy can do anything on a stage.” But I want to tell you, in the State of Virginia, where I initially got licensed, it’s harder than it looks. It was 80 hours of certified instruction.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh wow.

Rob Jolles
To be allowed to take the three-and-a-half-hour exam. I had to study cattle and cars and horses and antiques. But really all I wanted, unfortunately there isn’t a license like this, all I wanted to do was be able to work charities. I felt like it was a good way of giving back, maybe using my skills for something really valuable.

That’s about nine and a half years ago. I took my courses. I got certified. I’ve been probably averaging an auction a month, maybe an auction every other month, but 95% for charities.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s awesome. Then I guess if you’re doing it for charities, then you’re doing it for free. I’m wondering with all that education, what would an auctioneer be paid if he or she were doing a gig for a bankruptcy? Hey, we’ve got an auction. I’m the auctioneer. I’m well-trained and licensed and educated. What would that return in a gig?

Rob Jolles
Actually, it’s usually a percentage of profit there. For charity auctioneers, we’re not quite as fortunate. It’s a fraction of what I normally get paid. Actually, what I typically do with a charity is, I sort of get paid a little and then I never walk out the door with it. I just simply hand it back so that I can deduct from my taxes.
I want to stay true to the intent, which is there are certain things that we do in life that really have to pay the bills and keep the electric running and there are other times in life where we do things that are really just to help others.

When I speak at universities and things like that and they have a little honorarium, what’s the sense of me really taking that? I’m going to do something nice, let’s go all the way. That’s for charity. Now sometimes I’ll do a shopping center or I’ve done some universities. I’ll take a little something, but it’s a fraction of what I normally get.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Have you ever auctioned off anything crazy or strange or just noteworthy?

Rob Jolles
Yeah, I’ll tell you the best thing I ever auctioned off. Believe it or not – and this is for anybody that’s ever thinking of putting an auction together, this is what you’re looking for. It’s not a yard sale.

When Letterman was still doing his show, we got two tickets to Letterman. Well, they’re free, but we got backstage passes and you can’t always do that. Then Marriot threw in a couple nights and we got two train tickets. When we packaged that altogether and particularly with that unique ability to get back stage, something you can’t really get on your own, sort of like Saturday Night Live tickets, that item went for a little over 30,000 dollars. It was fairly simple.

That and we also got one time I auctioned off tickets to the Academy Awards. Again, something you can’t normally get on your own. You’re not going to find it on Craigslist. Other than the limo, I think that was in the 30 – 35,000 dollar range. Those are the kind of things that really actually will excite an audience.

Pete Mockaitis
That is very clever. If there are any fundraisers in the house, there’s the trick. You get something you can’t get under normal circumstances. Then you package it together into a cool experience and there it is, the secret to a successful fundraising auction. Didn’t even know we were going to learn that today. Thank you.

But what I was planning on learning a bit about was some of the wisdom in your book, Why People Don’t Believe You. Great title. Tell us, what’s the big idea? Why don’t people believe you?

Rob Jolles
When you say big idea and I’m ready for you now because I actually thought, “What is the big idea? I better know that. It is my book.” I think the big idea is, there’s two of them. First of all, I’m pleased you like the title. It wasn’t my title, but most of us who write books, we’ll get everything but our title in there. The publisher typically knows more about titles than we do.

But the big idea in my original title was it’s not the words; it’s the tune. A lot of times, and I’m guilty of this spending 30 years of my career, of my life, running around the country teaching people what to say, what to say, what to say. We don’t really stop and say wait a minute. Let’s forget the words. How are we saying it? I’d say in a sense that’s part of the bigger picture of the book.
But to really drill down on your question, I think the biggest reason why people don’t believe us, as strange as this may sound, is we don’t believe us. Things in the book, I know they sound simple, but so are asking questions and listening, but who does that? It’s such a fundamental communication piece. The easiest way to be believed is to actually tell the truth.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Rob Jolles
When you stop and think about that, do you have the best podcast out there? Well, from what I hear, it sure is, but you have to believe that. If it isn’t, you have to do everything you can to make it a great podcast, to put your heart and soul into it. If you go to bed at night and you truly believe that, you don’t have to worry about sounding authentic. Now you believe it and the tune will follow.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot. Now, you’re getting me thinking here because we were talking just beforehand when I was stalking you and deciding whether or not to invite you. You passed. Nice job. You made reference to the greatest life insurance salesperson ever; Ben Feldman is his name, if anybody wants to take a look. I’m always intrigued by the greatest in the world.

I sort of listened to an interview with Ben Feldman. He doesn’t sound super engaging in the interview, but boy, does he believe in life insurance being just a powerful force for goodness for humanity. It’s clear that he believes that with a deep abiding passion, which is striking because I hadn’t thought of life insurance in that way before, but there you have that. The best in the world had that at a really high level.

Rob Jolles
Let’s put a cherry on that sundae because yup, he completely dominated the insurance industry for decades and I mean dominated from the sprawling metropolis of East Liverpool, Ohio. But how about this that we add to that story, the fact is he was the greatest that ever lived by the numbers. He spoke with a lisp. He was actually a fairly quiet guy.

He didn’t have any of the attributes that we naturally associate with the greatest salesperson, that Glengarry Glen Ross kind of Alex Baldwin character. He was the complete opposite. I guess when you hear that, whoever’s listening just remember that he was true to his own unique style. You can’t imitate this guy. The best imitation you do is of yourself. Not only did he believe in his product, he was true to his style. He didn’t emulate anyone but himself. That’s what made him really successful.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, you’re telling the truth, you’re believing it deep down. If you’re not yet believing it, you’re doing all you can to get there with believing it in terms of improving the actual kind of facts of the situation. Then when it comes to the tune, how do we sing a tune that’s more appealing?

Rob Jolles
That’s interesting you say sing because as I was working through the manuscript I was actually at one point trying to create a musical score in a sense of the tune, but my musical score had places where we would pause, had places where we would change our pitch, had places where we would change our pace. Actually all found in music if you think about it.

Unfortunately, although I’ll work on pitch and pace and pause with people, the problem is every question you just asked me right now, I can’t go, “Okay, hang on one second. Let me figure out where my pitch goes up and let me figure out where I’m going to slow this down and where I’m going to speed it up.”

We do focus on pitch, pace, and pause, which to me are critical pieces. But the key is to get that authentic voice to do it without having to sort of stop and micromanage where those pieces are. I don’t know if when you’re talking to me, for instance, you’re gesturing with your hands, but imagine if we stopped and I said, “Point here. Put your hand up over there.” We want that to kind of become as natural as we can.

I think one of the secret sauces, if you will, of the book is actually thinking more like a method actor. What if we took ourselves and actually placed ourselves in the moment. I don’t mean just in the moment. I mean even the point we were just talking about, truly believing.

Well, maybe we’re getting beat up a little bit out there right now. Maybe our product is – it’s just been tough for us but weren’t there times in our life where everything we touched sort of worked out well, where we knew the next time we picked up the phone or knocked on a door, it was going to go well. The other six did.

Why can’t we as a method actor take ourselves to that moment? Are you telling me that when we knock on the door this time, we’re going to be less effective with that in our mind? That’s where that pitch, pace, and pause sometimes can come more naturally.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, got you. You’re saying let’s not put our focus on “Okay, at this point in my second sentence, I’m going to drop my pitch low,” and sort of plan that out in great detail, but rather to get in the zone associated with when you were rocking, rolling, and believing and nailing it and high performing, so just sort of method acting into that spot and these things will sort of naturally follow well.

Could you maybe bring this all together in an example or a case study of someone whose credibility wasn’t so hot and then they did some things and they saw it really get hot again?

Rob Jolles
Sure. Actually, this whole book really began with me in a bad mood in a bad evening being asked to speak to a group called the Career Network Ministry, a group that just helps people in career transition. I don’t necessarily like to speak free a whole lot, but I bumbled my way in and figured I’ll talk to a dozen people and get this over with. There 250 to 300 people in the room. I’ve been volunteering for six years ever since. It was such a moving experience.

But one of the things I noticed in that room – and that was my petri dish, that’s where this started – was I noticed words. We were working on resumes – words. We were working on elevator pitches – words. We were working on LinkedIn sites – words. We were working on the words and nobody was focusing on the tune.

To answer your question, I actually stated about five and a half years ago I put together my first group of a dozen people. To get in this program, two days, you had to be unemployed a minimum of two years. Half my room was unemployed for over five years. That’s chronic unemployment.

We put on a two-day program. I bumbled and fumbled my way through it, but we were hitting on something because 10 of the 12 people were hired within three months. That’s when I realized, okay, we’ve got something.

But I’m telling you, going back on some of the questions you asked, I wasn’t working on the words in there. I took that elevator pitch – there’s some value in those – but I put it in the corner and we worked on their character. We worked on who they were, what they were, taking them through those moments of success and man, the hands and the words, and the pitch, and the pace, it followed.

But there’s an answer to your question. It was 10 for 12 coming out of the gate. That’s when I knew, I think we maybe even have a book here, but I’ve got to keep digging into this.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s fascinating. Do tell, what are some of the most impactful transformational exercises or practices that make that come alive?

Rob Jolles
Wow, that’s a good question. One of them we were talking about is whenever I ask them anything, I really try and trim people down to what I call a communication shot clock. Look, there’s a shot clock in basketball. It keeps the game moving. There’s a shot clock in football, actually. It keeps the game moving. There may very well be a shot clock in baseball, they’re going to try it in preseason, to keep the game moving.

We are in a society now where books are getting smaller and people just don’t have that bandwidth to stay with us. Even our videos are four to six minutes in length. One of the things as an example was, stop talking to them, getting them up to speak, getting them into character, and working on their shot clock, meaning, trimming those questions down and saying, “Rather than giving me your three best points. Give me your best point. If I want more, I’ll ask for it.”

It was an example of really trying to get them a little bit quicker, a little bit lighter on their feet. As an example, that was one technique that we used.

Pete Mockaitis
Then you said with the shot clock, is there an optimal do you recommend time that you would put on the shot clock in terms of number of seconds that you would speak before being quiet?

Rob Jolles
Yeah, I actually have a number and I’m going to give it to you, but please understand I’m answering your question, so it’s sort of like when I teach people to sell and I’m saying you’ve got to ask second and third level questions. The hand will go up and say, “Exactly how many?” It’s like, “Well, that’s going to really depend on the personality of the client, etcetera.”

But I really actually like 45 seconds. I think it’s a great number. If I go a minute and ten, that’s okay. If we go shorter, that’s okay too. A lot of the times if I’m dealing with a more social environment, more social client, I’ve kind of got the green light to go a little bit longer. If I’m dealing with a more dominant client, I’m probably going to trim back. There’s other variables.

But I love the conversation we’re having because I get frustrated when people are bobbing and weaving, saying, “But …” I think 45 seconds is a good target, but read your audience.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly, yes. That is a helpful benchmark because I think it’s possible that you can under speak as well. I’m just thinking about this. I said, “Hey, tell us about you becoming a licensed auctioneer.” It’s like, “I had 80 hours of instruction and then passed a three-hour exam.” It’s like, “Okay, well, Rob, this is really interesting.”

Rob Jolles
… on the show. You’re really talented.

Pete Mockaitis
I think that makes good sense in terms of it’s a very rough ballpark zone, but if you’re five seconds, it’s like, “Okay, do you hate me? What’s going on here?” It’s hard to form a connection. If you’re too long, it’s like, “Okay, I already sort of got the message I was after way earlier and ready to move on to something else.” I appreciate that. That’s one principle is the communication shot clock. What are some of the other practices or exercises that are really transformational here?

Rob Jolles
Well, I’m going to give you a couple more, but I want to give you a big picture here because if you study my career, I’m actually going at a different angle right now. I got my hardcore training with Xerox. You didn’t tie your shoe without a process of some sort at Xerox. But when you have a process, you have a way of measuring what you’re doing. When you can measure it, you can fix it. Boy, am I a repeatable, predictable process person.

Yet, the topic that we’re in, I’ve sort of had to look at the mirror and go it’s not all process-oriented. I sort of reframed it in my mind and I said it’s more about percentages, meaning. It’s sort of like when we eat, okay? “I’m a healthy person.” “Good. Well, what do you do?” “Well, I no longer put sugar in my coffee, just Stevia.” “That’s it?” “Yeah, that’s it.”

Well, okay. If you really do that all the time and you’re a big coffee drinker, I guess that’s about a one percent – two percent play. I don’t know if you’re healthier yet, but I guess it beats the alternative. But you look at healthy people’s example and they’re doing 15 – 20 things, exercise, this, that. Together, they create a formidable percentage.

What we’re talking about right now is really percentage plays. A communication shot clock gives us a couple of percentage plays. Truly believing in yourselves gives us percentage points. Taking ourselves mentally to a place where we’re successful gives up percentage points. I’m going to give you percentage points as opposed to process. Like I said, I’m almost arguing with me right now because I’m so bred into process, but we’re into a topic that is more percentage than process.

Pete Mockaitis
When you say percentage, you’re sort of using this as a label of a different means of thinking about approaches such that a process seems to apply if you do A, B, C, D, E, F, you’ll arrive at this end result, whereas percentage says, “Of the result you’re after, one thing can account for 5% of getting to the result and another thing can account for 10% of the thing.” Thusly, you’re kind of suggesting that an A, B, C, D, E process ain’t going to get you 100% of the way to where you want to be.

Rob Jolles
Exactly. Let me give you a percentage move as an example. Thank you because that’s exactly what I’m saying, by the way.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh cool.

Rob Jolles
A percentage move for me, a lot of people, for instance, when they’re struggling to be believed and they’re, “Okay, I’m going to believe in myself, this and that, but this company, they’re looking at four other people. One of them, I don’t know, they may have a better relationship.” Well, they might. They might not.

I love really actually focusing the brain on playing the course and not the opponent. I’m going to get percentage pieces out of this because by that I mean if you watch actually a good golfer it’s shocking. They never look at the scoreboard. For three days, they don’t look at the scoreboard. They don’t care.

They’ll look in the final two holes, three holes because they may have to change their strategy, but how in the world do you play a competitive event without looking around at your opponent? The answer is well, what value does looking at the opponent really have? If you sink a 40-foot putt, good for you. Me focusing on that not only doesn’t change a thing, it removes the focus from my putt. It removes the focus from what I’m doing.

I think, as an example, we spend too much time worrying about things we can’t control. Honestly, if I thought worrying about it would move the dial one percentage point, I would be the most competitive worrier you ever met, but it actually takes away. It doesn’t add. Things like playing, the course, not the opponent, things like accepting your limp.

You started the conversation about Ben Feldman. Again, look him up folks. Like I said, appearance-wise, he wasn’t necessarily that natural salesperson look or sound, but in a sense he had his own limp. We all walk with a limp. Do you know how many people are held back from their own ability to convince others because of their limp?

I lost my hair, I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I had to accept it. It’s one of my limps. But what I found is, the moment it stopped being important to me, it was never really important to anybody else. It was me that was focused and obsessed. If we take that example and look at people that just have certain issues, maybe they don’t have that natural punch in their voice, it’s okay. Don’t be somebody you’re not. Just move it from a two to a four, that’s all I’m asking.

But if we accept our limp, if we play that course.
We don’t have to misuse our imagination. That lovely quote I actually have by my coffee bar, “Worry is the misuse of your imagination.” It’s a wonderful quote. If we start removing those pieces, each thing I’m talking about is getting us a percent here and three percent here and two percent there. I can give you five more, but I think you’re getting the drift of it.

Pete Mockaitis
I am, I think, getting the drift of it. I imagine you’ve given me the biggest percentages already upfront. Is that fair to say?

Rob Jolles
It depends on the mood that I’m in. It actually depends on the person because when you’re communicating, for instance, if you just pay attention to your transitions – so many people will micromanage the body of whatever they’re communicating about, particularly presenters. If they actually micromanage the transitions and stuck their landing in the end and spent 90% of their time on the opening, they would increase their credibility.

Again, because it’s percentage plays, each percentage move will fit a different customer a different way, but yeah, I’m not wasting your time. I’m giving you ones that I think really resonate and I see get a big bang for the buck for most of the people that I’m working with.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh great. Now, I just want to make sure I got the transitions point clear. You’re just saying if you’re doing a presentation or a speech, you want to give some extra attention to how you’re transitioning from one section to another instead of fumbling or being awkward during those moments?

Rob Jolles
Yeah, I did chuck that one in from left field, didn’t I? Absolutely. I train a lot of speakers. The irony is usually that the core of most presentations have oftentimes, particularly for corporate America, but oftentimes they’ve gone through a legal read. We can’t really change them all that much.

What makes a great communicator and an average communicator? It’s not the body of the message. It’s them coming out of the gate with an interesting story and idea, really addressing what’s in it for the client. Thinking out the beginning.

But to get right at what you just asked, the transitions, yeah, we probably have three or four major points. If I really think those out – I’m not a guy who believes in scripts – but if I actually write them out, maybe back them down to a Word outline, if I spend my time working on how I’m going from Point A to Point B and sewing that body together, as I said, coming out of the gate strong and sticking my landing, closing strongly, yeah, I’ll probably give one of the best presentations I’ve ever given. But it has very little to do with memorizing the body. That’s not where success lies.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s interesting because the big chunks one, they may be unmovable because of legal review, two, you probably remember them just because one thing leads to another. “This is the story about how I formed an accountability group in college.” Hey, that’s one chunk and I know it. We’ll go and make it happen. But what I don’t know so much is how I’m going to move from maybe that piece to how friendship is important.

Rob Jolles
By the way, that’s the way most people do it. They’ll go … “Friendship is important,” but when they transition with, “We all have these different pieces I just mentioned, but there’s one piece that we don’t pay attention to and that’s friendship. You see, friendship is important,” something along that line so that it’s effortless. When people walk away they go, “Boy, that was really good.”

Now look, we could spend our time talking about presentations. I’m going to involve that audience. The more they talk, the more they typically like and trust that presenter. I’m going to do other things, but it’s the transitions even when we communicate and are not giving presentations.

What if we’re just in front of somebody giving a proposal, what if we’re having a conversation and we want to get the three major points, it’s that smooth transition as opposed to that bumpity, bump, bump, bump. It sounds like Pete wanted to talk about this one. That’s the one I want to avoid. That doesn’t sound authentic. We circle back to our topic, which is why people don’t believe you because it’s not sounding authentic.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh certainly. I get a real kick out of when the transition is too, “So, can I have your money?” and it’s done poorly. It’s like, “Oh, you poor guy. Well, I’m already on board with your vision, so it’s fine, but-“ Okay, awesome. Let’s dig into a little bit of this now. Believing in yourself, that sounds classic and helpful and essential, but in practice, if your belief in self is moderate, like “Yeah, I can do a decent job most of the time I guess,” how does one elevate that?

Rob Jolles
Yeah. Did you ever see there was a commercial done years ago by FedEx? It’s actually on YouTube. You can find it online. It was called The Stolen Idea.

It deals with a boss who’s asking for ideas. One guys says, “Well, we could probably save money by putting all our shipping in one area and using FedEx.” You could hear a pin drop. Five seconds later the boss says, “I’ve got it. We can put everything in one area. We can use FedEx to do it all. That’ll save us on shipping.” Everybody goes, “That’s brilliant.”

The guy says, “You just said the same thing I said only you did this,” and he’s moving his hands horizontally. The boss says, “Nope, I did this,” and he moves his hand vertically because that was his gesture. I actually look at that commercial and I think that’s our jumping off point. Yes, I know what FedEx was after and shame on that boss for stealing that idea. But we need to teach people how to do this. This matters. That moving of the hands, that really matters.

To me, it’s a matter of kind of oftentimes finding your real voice. Not finding some voice you saw on television or who you heard on a podcast, but finding your real voice.

I don’t know last time you’ve been on a plane, but when you’re on a plane and the flight attendant starts speaking, you think “It’s funny, he or she was just here. We had a nice conversation. But now I’m hearing this really weird singsong ….” That’s not a real voice.

Why is it that a lot of times when we’re presenting or when we’re under pressure, we start going after this I guess the voice we thought we were supposed to have? Nobody wants that. People just want to believe. They want that to be authentic.

I always look at people and I think, if we were two people having a beer or having a cup of coffee, would you still talk and walk and behave this way or would you just drop all that and have a conversation? It’s really about finding that real voice. Honestly, you don’t have to look that far.

I’ll whisper this to presenters right before they go on stage when they’re a little bit tight. The last words I’ll typically tell somebody is, “If you were walking into your living room, what would you feel and how would you take that stage? That’s your living room. Now go enjoy yourself.” Forget all that other nonsense. In the living room, it’s pretty easy. Well, that’s all the audience wants. Whether it’s 50 people, 500 people or 1 person, they’re in your living room. Go have a conversation. We don’t need anything but authenticity.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s funny when you say the living room, my first thought is, “Well, I’m taking off these dress shoes and putting on my slippers.”

Rob Jolles
Well, I knew a presenter who was actually very successful. Now this was in the ‘90s. But he was a finance person and a finance specialist, which already you think, “Well, okay. Here’s comes that big old suit.” But he would take his shoes off when he went on that stage.

It was kind of his shtick. It was like George Burns smoking a cigar or something. This was his shtick. He was the guy who would take his shoes off. But it worked for him. It wasn’t shtick. I got a chance to speak to him a couple times and he just wanted to get to a place where he was as comfortable as he could be because then he could take that communication and make them as comfortable as they can be.

Last thing about that, but it’s really important to understand that an audience really they want to enjoy themselves. They want you to be successful. The best way to make an audience uncomfortable is for you to be uncomfortable.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s very true.

Rob Jolles
Then they feel badly for you and then they have a problem. Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Right, yeah. It hurts to watch somebody who’s bombing. They know they’re bombing. They’re nervous about bombing. It’s like, “Oh man.” It’s just fun to watch someone having fun. It’s like, “I’m not super into the content of what you’re saying, but it’s kind of enjoyable to watch you be into it. Yeah, take it away.”

Rob Jolles
Yeah, that’s the funny thing. If you think about some of the great – Johnny Carson or Jay Leno or Jimmy Fallon, what are some of the most enjoyable parts of the monologue or the conversation? When something bombs. They don’t put their head in their hand and they go, “Oh no. What happened here?” What they do is they just work with it.

The audience loves it because you didn’t make the audience feel sorry for you. You said to them in a sense, “I’m glad this happened. Let’s just work with it.” When you can take that with you and realize that what’s the worst happen, really just making them feel badly, so don’t. Away we go. It’s a lot easier up there than you think.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s true. I think I made some references to maybe college audiences and they’re just like, “We have no idea what this.” I was like, “Oh, I guess I’m getting old.” They all just sort of – you can just sort of laugh about that. It’s like, “Yup, okay.” Then away we go. As opposed to “Oh, that’s so stupid. I shouldn’t have made that allusion. Look up the dates next time, Pete. Oh! Bad, bad, bad.”

Rob Jolles
You know something, Pete? You hit on something else that I think is actually really important.  When we’re not in front of people, and remember we’re talking about building credibility, believing in yourself, and then taking that to others.

Do you know – and my wife helped me with this one – do you know how innocently that inner voice starts chirping at you of “If you had half a brain, you would have remembered to bring this with you on the road.” “Hey stupid, don’t forget that.” Do you know that that’s a lot more dangerous than we give it credit? It doesn’t have to be in front of anyone. It can just be with ourselves. But you keep beating yourself up like that, you’re going to start believing it.

I really some years ago decided it’s not okay to make fun of me and to start moaning and whining and complaining about certain things. People forget things. I’m two and a half million miles in the air, believe me I’ve forgot things in my bag. But I’ve decided – and it really works and I think it works for others – to be a lot kinder yourself.

Stop chirping and beating yourself up about things. Just like we would talk about in front of an audience, be nice to yourself when there isn’t an audience in front of you too.

Pete Mockaitis
I’d love to hit that point real quick. If you are in that mental habit, how does one kick it?

Rob Jolles
Yeah. Well, the first thing we have to do is we have to go from unconsciously incompetent, which is “Hey, that’s okay,” or “I don’t even notice it,” to really starting to become aware of it. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the four levels of conscious behavior, but we start with unconscious incompetency, which is sometimes we don’t know that we don’t know. That’s a dangerous place to be.

Well, that’s why you and I are having this conversation because now maybe we’ll be on the lookout for it. As a matter of fact, just talking about it, I can assure you, there are many people who are listening right now will go, “I do that, but I don’t mean anything by it.” I’m telling you it’s a cancer. It grows. You don’t realize it. Let’s move you to conscious incompetency, which means I want you to be aware when you do it.

Then let’s move to conscious competency. I want you to be a little robotic and every time it accidently happens, I want you to stop and correct it. I know that’s a little bit stiff and weird. Until we become unconsciously competent, when we do it and we don’t have to think about it anymore. But it’s natural to be on that scale. The first thing is we have to remind ourselves it’s not okay. It is not okay.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. All right. Well, so now-

Rob Jolles
I said it’s not okay. Sorry.

Pete Mockaitis
That is not okay. I am now acknowledging what you said and moving to something new.

Rob Jolles
Okay. I’ve got to climb in through the window there. I was out there yelling at people. Okay, I’m back in. Let’s keep going.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s talk about that process by which you take yourself back to a place in which you were successful and thusly you method act your way into having a high performance moment. In practice, what are the steps to make that happen?

Rob Jolles
Well, the first thing – I’m going to leave the corporation out. There’s a Fortune 500 company I’ve been working with on this. One of the things we did was, again, think method acting. What we did was we began to on a piece of paper create a character.

One of my favorite actors is Daniel Day-Lewis. I’m not sure he’s ever going to be in another movie again, but when he was – I don’t know if you saw Lincoln, but if you did, it was probably a little slower than you imagined. I knew it was going to be slow because I actually read a bunch of books on Lincoln and Lincoln wasn’t the most exciting person in the world. But on set, you had to call Daniel Day-Lewis either Mr. President or Mr. Lincoln. He doesn’t mess around.

When we’re talking, to answer your question, we’re talking about getting into character, sometimes we have to sit and actually think about that character. I did some acting earlier in my life. I remember the first play I was in I was Bennie Van Buren in Damn Yankees. I was supposed to play a 70-year-old. But I had a great director, who, by the way, I spoke to when I wrote this book and we talked about this.

I remember him saying, “What kind of car does Bennie drive? What kind of cereal does he eat? Tell me about his house. What’s his office look like?” What he was doing – at first I thought he was a lunatic. I don’t know. It’s just a character I’m playing. But he didn’t want me to learn the script. At some point I knew that character so well, I walked around, I was 70 years old in my mind.

What I do sometimes is actually get people on a piece of paper to begin to actually write out their character a little bit, not necessarily what kind of cereal do they eat, but tell me about your character. Perform some tasks in front of me like your character. Forget everything else. We clear the mind. We work on establishing a character.

Actually, for some people it will be three characters. It’s a more dominant character, it’s a more social character, and it’s a more analytical character. If you’re wondering why in the world I do that, it’s because I work with a lot of salespeople. We have to kind of mirror the character we see in front of us.

Maybe I’m very social, what if I’m talking to somebody who’s really dominant? Well, I’ll just play the role of a dominant person. Not so fast. You better understand – before you put that white glove on, you better understand that character, so we actually write it out and think about it. I actually give them simple questions, like a questionnaire. They begin to role play and really get in touch with that character. Then they can tap into it when they need it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, interesting. You’re mapping out upfront. You’re doing some role play there. We also had Todd Herman talk about his book, The Alter-Ego Effect. He recommended sometime putting on a blazer or glasses or something that sort of en-clothed cognition, sort of stepping into that all the more. That’s handy.

Then I’m also wondering is there some visualization or some key memories that you’re bringing up and how do you go about doing that part?

Rob Jolles
Yeah, that’s where we go into that piece about, for me at least, and remember, I frequently work with people who are selling. Look, what I’m trying to have them visualize are moments of dominance, moments of success.

It’s weird. I’m 26 years in business as a professional speaker and yet, just like everyone else, sometimes you’re as good as your last presentation, you’re as good as your last quarter and all of the sudden a speaker’s bureau threw three clients at me. I spoke to them on the phone. None of them wanted to hire me. What do you think I sound like on the fourth call?

What I’m trying to do is get to moments where when we do get three in a row, when we do knock it out of the park and somebody says, “Okay, now I have another client I want you to talk to.” That’s what I mean in terms of that visualization of “Okay, maybe I’m not there right now, but I can think back on when I was. What was I feeling like?” I sort of take myself to that moment.

Pete, it kind of comes back to that percentage play. I’m not guaranteeing you that we’re going to be successful right now, but I guarantee you this, having that mindset and being able to pull that memory down is going to pick up some percentage plays and that’s what I’m looking for. Again, it’s mental, but it’s there.

No one’s had a life of complete loss. It’s everybody. We win some; we lose some. We win some; we lose some. It’s when we lose some, a bunch in a row that all of the sudden the shoulders start to droop and we kind of start picking up the phone going in my mind, “I know this guy isn’t going to buy from me, but here we go.” That’s not going to work for anybody.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s great. Thinking right back to the hot streak, the winning moments. That’s good. That’s good.

Rob Jolles
Well, it’s the winning moments. I keep pushing everything into sales, but in presentations a lot of times, particularly when somebody is new or somebody – I’ll also whisper in their ear, track record because maybe people who are listening right now have got 10 or 20 years under their belt, but maybe this quarter hasn’t been so good. Or maybe they haven’t given a presentation in a while or they’re being put in an awkward position.

What’s your track record like? Most people go, “Usually I’m pretty good at that.” Okay, again I’m looking for a couple percentage moves. To get the experience, how about we focus on what usually happens. Pete, when you have a podcast, what usually happens? When I’m a guest on a podcast, it usually goes real well. Not all the time, but usually goes real well.

I’m better off kind of focusing on my track record. That’s to me another kind of really great visualization. It’s simple and it’s easy.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Thank you. Well, tell me, is there anything that you recommend that we really don’t do? We’ve talked about the negative self-talk, not doing that. We talked about not stepping into who you think that you are supposed to be, but rather just using your own natural authentic voice. Any other top don’ts you want to make sure we highlight?

Rob Jolles
That’s a great question. I’m actually thinking of how I would address that. Yeah, I would say that I think we should stop being so fearful of dysfunction. We brought it up a little bit when maybe things don’t go well in front of an audience, but I think, again, whether it’s while we’re alone or whether we’re in groups, I like to tell people that I’m coaching or working with, let’s embrace that dysfunction a little bit.

Kind of going back to that limp a little bit, let’s remember that there’s only two types of people that don’t walk with a limp, that don’t have some level of dysfunction. They’re either not telling you the truth or they would have no ability to have compassion for another individual. Most of them really aren’t necessarily people I’d want to have as a client. I can tell you that much.

It’s funny, I wrote a piece one time where I said “knowledge is overrated.” Believe me, all the analytical practically followed me to the parking lot going, “Now what did you mean by that?” They were not happy.

I didn’t say it’s not important. I just said it’s overrated meaning as simple as it sounds, but I’m a guy that takes and has people record themselves, if we just work harder at asking questions and listening, if we just go a little easier on ourselves, if we embrace that dysfunction rather than run from it and understand, “That’s okay. That’s my limp. I’m not going to have trouble with it.” All those little pieces get us plays.

Just last real quick point, but I’m in a neighborhood where we’ve got a lot of dog walkers, including our Lilly, who we take for a walk. There’s not one but two dogs that are missing legs, a leg each. I got to tell you, it touches my heart because I look at them and I think I wish we were more like that because I promise, Pete, that dog doesn’t give a hootenanny that he’s missing a leg.

And neither does any other dog that’s walking by it. They’re sniffing. They’re curious where they might have been on that tree over there, but they don’t care. It’s not an issue. I wish we could learn lessons like that and remember that whatever it is and everybody’s got one, if it’s not a worry for you, it’s not a worry for the other dogs in the park. I promise you.

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

Rob Jolles
Yeah, I would say as strange as this conversation may have sound because we’re talking about some kind of wacky – once I said role and character, what is all that. I want to remind people they probably do this more often than they think.

An example I’ll give you is if you have children that you parent, don’t tell me that you don’t actually drop into role, meaning particularly for the younger ones, when they brought back a homework assignment that wasn’t quite right or something, we kind of look at our spouse and go, “Okay, I’ll go in there.” We play the role of disappointed. I’m actually not as disappointed. I love you so much. But for tonight Rob Jolles will be playing the role of disappointed.

I think we do that more naturally than we think. Where we explore this finding a character and getting into role, please remember there are times where we all play roles; you’re just not thinking about it as much. I want you to think about it. Then I want you to stop thinking about it again. But that would be the last thought I give you on that one.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Rob Jolles
I gave you one, which is “Worry is the misuse of your imagination.” Okay, now I’ll give you another one “We weren’t put on this earth to make a living. We were put on this earth to make a difference.”

It’s always meant something to me, particularly for a guy who – when I tell you I’ve got two and a half million miles in the air, Pete, part of you should smile and part of you should look concerned, meaning “Well, does this guy have a family? Does this guy have children? Does he get to a birthday party?”

I’m really blessed. I have a wonderful wife, Ronnie, who helped me realize that I was a little out of balance earlier in my career, and I’d never heard of that quote, nor did I take it to heart. But I really believe in balance. I’m no longer a 1K and that’s just fine by me. I think that we focus on that, things will go a lot better for us.

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

Rob Jolles
I’ll tell you a bit or research or a study. It kind of falls into an author I happen to like. He’s with my publisher, Berrett-Koehler. Name is Noah Blumenthal. But he studied – he wrote a book called Be the Hero, but he studied how easy it is for us to have negative opinions of others, particularly of others that have done us wrong, maybe a previous boss or a neighbor or somebody just that – the person at CVS, I don’t know, where it really rubbed us the wrong way.

He really got me thinking, and it’s really helped, that we really don’t know many of the people that we form opinions about. We really don’t know them that well. We create a scenario that’s usually very negative. Now that scenario might be right, but we actually don’t know whether it’s right or not.

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

Rob Jolles
I keep a journal. I’ve kept it for 22 years.
But what I found was by methodically being observant, which is a journal will do, because I will only write twice in my journal, on the way out and on the way back of a trip. I am almost OCDish. When we get to 10,000 feet, I’m putting a date and a location on that journal entry.

But it’s a tool that actually, particularly for the way back, that allows me to kind of figure out to stop, pause and in process say, “Okay, what do you think was working there and what do you think wasn’t working there?”

Like I said, I’ve been doing this 31 years, putting a mic around my neck and talking to audiences and yet, I want you to know Pete that I still want to get better and that means I still want to figure out “Okay, what did we do well? What can we improve?”

Very importantly, I always balance that feedback because I’ve said it too many times already, but this isn’t a beat-up session. A lot of times we undervalue taking time to figure out what we’re doing well, so we don’t do it by accident. But that’s been a tool. I probably have well over 3,000 pages of journal entries.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Thank you. Is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks and they quote it back to you at times?

Rob Jolles
If you want to get at the most fundamental way to communicate, we have to ask questions and listen. That doesn’t just mean what you and I are doing right now or if we’re going one-on-one with a client or a prospect, even in front of an audience.

If you want to know what the amateurs and even the pros do wrong, if I put down the 20 biggest mistakes they make, 19 of them don’t equal number one, which is too much information and that means constricting the ability for that audience to communicate with you, even if it’s rhetorical questions.

But those little touches, those little “Turn to your left, look at that partner, and say three things here. Try two things there,” that ability to build a conversation as opposed to a lecture are very valuable. I would like to think that I’ve said it enough, that who knows, maybe people would associate that with me. I’d be proud if they did.

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

Rob Jolles
That’s an easy one. I would just take them to J-O-L-L-E-S.com that’s where you’ll find – I write something called a BLArticle. I am in my tenth year of BLArticles. That’s a blog-article. I just try – and by legal definition it’s 500 to 700 words. I just try and practice what we’re preaching, you and I, which is let’s not over communicate, but let’s provide value and drip out information. But anyway that’s where all sorts of information on me is.

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

Rob Jolles
Okay. Pete, you’re really coming at me. I like this. My final challenge would be I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what you think is out there holding you back; get out of your own way. Pete, you and I have hit it over and over and over again. Just be kinder to yourself, accept whatever limp you have, and I can assure you, you’ve got one. That’s okay. Don’t let it be a big issue. It won’t be with anybody else.

Go in there, again, the easiest way to find that authentic you is just get up there, wherever it is, tell the truth. If the truth is a struggle right now, double back and figure out – I’ve got to rebrand, I’ve got to do something, but I’ve got to find a way of telling the truth. If you solve that, then you’ve got it made. The rest is easy.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Rob, this has been a blast. Thanks so much for bringing it. I wish you lots of luck with your speaking and all you’re up to.

Rob Jolles
Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation.

Mar 13
0

412: Access Superpowers by Embracing Alter Egos with Todd Herman

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Todd Herman says: "We're tapping into really the great superpower that human beings have... our creative imagination."

Todd Herman shares how the concept of alter egos helps you become ideal you that a given situation calls for.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Why you should revisit your childhood superheroes and alter egos
  2. Enclothed cognition and Halloween lessons for being awesome at our jobs
  3. How to improve your visualization through all your senses

About Todd

Todd Herman is an award-winning author, performance advisor to athletes, leaders and public figures, and is a recipient of the Inc. 500 fastest growing company award. He’s been featured on the Today Show, Sky Business News, Inc Magazine and CBC National News. And lives in New York City with his young family.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Todd Herman Lederman Interview Transcript

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

Todd Herman
Pistol Pete, it’s a pleasure.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m already getting an alter ego.

Todd Herman
Well, Pete, I’m a farm kid, who has a family that nobody ever calls each other by their first name. Everyone has a nickname. So why not kick it off that way?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m enjoying it. I’m enjoying it. I want to hear a little bit more about some of your youth, in particular you won the world’s largest Twister competition at age 16. Tell us all about this.

Todd Herman
Well, I think that’s the thing that should highlight everyone’s resume, right? That’s the one you want at the very top.

Yeah, when I was in high school I played high school football, captain of the team. Then I was on student council as well. I grew up in a family that was involved in politics, so we hosted – my small city in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, we hosted this big student counsel conference for North America, in fact. Well, western United States and Canada.

During one of the events – Medicine Hat, one of its claim to fames is we have the world’s largest teepee. We are rich in Native American history there. They decided that they would host a huge Twister competition during this student counsel thing. I just showed up to this. I didn’t what it was really all about. In the end I won it all in process of elimination.

They had, I don’t know, 1,800 mats or no. It wasn’t even that many. It was maybe 1,500 mats. Then it all whittled down until we finally had a champion and I was it.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, 1,500 mats. Is that four people or how many to a mat?

Todd Herman
There were six.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s pretty full.

Todd Herman
Yes. Yeah, six or seven people to a mat, something like that. Anyways, then they were like “The Guinness Book of World Records is here and you’ve now just broke the record.” I’m like “Fantastic. This is great.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, cool. You’re a Twister champion. We need to know what did you do differently. What was the secret to your victory in terms of how did you pull this off where others fell short?

Todd Herman
I’m a highly competitive individual. Actually, when I think back to that, probably not knowing that it was some big competition, I thought we were just out there playing, so I was just engaged in the process. If I had thought that this was going to be like rounds of elimination, I probably would have maybe got a little bit too caught up in winning, but it was definitely focusing on the process.

I was already athletic. I was flexible so that helped. I think strategic thinking. You’ve got to be able to think ahead a few spots. You can’t put your hand on one area that’s going to cause you to have to twist in some sort of odd way to get your other hand in a circle that’s way off on the other side. Yeah, probably a combination of a bunch of those things.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. So you were just engaged in the moment instead of fixated on the winning and that served you better?

Todd Herman
Yeah, yeah. 100%.

Pete Mockaitis
There’s a lesson right there.

Todd Herman
Yeah, and it served me well for 22 years now working with different pro-Olympic athletes, entrepreneurs, achievers, professionals on helping them to perform at their peak because as soon as you become outcome oriented, you’ve now pulled yourself out of the moment and the chances of you making mistakes go way up.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. Yeah. I also was curious about you’ve won the Global Leadership and Skill Development of the Year award twice. First of all, who issues that?

Todd Herman
There’s an awards company called the Stevie’s. They’re the biggest awards company in the business space. They give out tons of awards in a lot of different categories.

I’ve had my performance system put together in its current form for about 15 years. Then the last few years we’ve won the Global Leadership award twice. Then we won for the Global Leadership Training Team of the Year as well with it. Yeah, the Stevie’s is a great place to find really, really amazing people and companies and stuff doing good things.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s cool. Well, I’d love to hear what are some of the keys to your victory there. I have a feeling one of them might be related to your book, but we want to hear the others too.

Todd Herman
Sure. Keys to victory, I don’t know because they have a judging panel that doesn’t really let you know that much. But we are pretty good at giving our case studies of our clients, highlighting them and then we do a discipline job of putting our stuff through a lot of rigor. We have third-party testing companies that come in and validate the result that we get with people.

There’s a company called the ROI Institute and they come in to companies all the time, typically large companies. We’re probably one of the smaller businesses that they’d be working with, but because a lot of my history is in corporate leadership development, I just took a look at the space that I was operating in, I’m like, well, this is an open hole where a lot of these kind of people that are making promises don’t actually have much validation, so let’s bring this in as a point of differentiation.

Yeah, so things like that. Judges, they like to see things like that.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely.

You have my respect because I’m of like mind. if you don’t have an ROI, it’s hard to justify spending real time and money on the program even if it is a good time.

Todd Herman
Well, part of our mission for our company as well is to elevate the critical thinking skills of humanity. That doesn’t sound super sexy to people, elevate the critical thinking skills, but when you think of the problems and most of the issues that people find themselves caught up in, it’s because they’re typically operating and responding to circumstances or issues emotionally.

You take a look at the current state of the world. Maybe some of the leaders that are out there that are leading it, they are not great purveyors of the idea of critical thinking. I want to model that in the way that we do our business.

I think that just even for the listeners, I think that we’re in a day and age now where there should be a lot more being demanded of the people who are there to help you get from Point A to Point B. This idea of anecdotal, “Hey, I did it and you can too,” is, in my opinion, of a bygone era because there is no systemization in that.

That’s one of my biggest issues with the personal development, self-help and leadership world is that there’s just a lot of false prophets standing on top of great marketing that if I can be a part of a movement that takes a big swinging chisel and axe to that, then I’m happy to knock that down because I don’t like to put myself out there as a personal brand or as someone who stands on top of – no, I’ve got a very specific skillset.

I’m very, very good at what it is that I do, but I stay in my lane, whereas a lot of people like to over promise that they can solve all of your issues. I can’t do that. I think it hurts more people and it leads them down and wastes time on a path that is truly not going to get them to where they need to go or want to go.

Pete Mockaitis
Todd, we are kindred spirits. I am inspired by your vision. Keep doing what you’re doing and maybe we should cofound a company together. Loving it.

Todd Herman
In the future. In the future.

Pete Mockaitis
Loving it. All right, well, let’s talk about your book here, The Alter Ego Effect. I got such a kick out of checking this one out because I resonate on so many levels, but I’m going to give you the floor here. What’s the big idea behind The Alter Ego Effect?

Todd Herman
Well, the big idea is that we all have used alter egos and we stepped into them when we were kids when we would play with superheroes or be our favorite hockey player or basketball player when we were kids or when we were pretending to be firemen or cowboys or astronauts. We played with this idea. We actually played with the idea of alter egos as children.

What we’re doing when we’re doing that is we’re tapping into really the great superpower that human beings have, which is our creative imagination. We’re the only ones on the planet that can create heavens from hell, hells from heaven, that we create narrative and amazing story in our minds.

Sometimes that narrative and story hurts more than it helps for many reasons. Trauma is one thing. Imposter syndrome is an insidious little force that the enemy likes to use to pull us into the, what I call in the book, the trapped self.

Really, the big idea for people is that this is actually something that allows you to pull the most really authentic version of who you are and what you can do out onto whatever chosen field of play you’re using it to activate on. It’s not strange. It’s not weird. It’s not being fake. It’s not inauthentic. In fact, phenomenal leaders both in sport, business, public figures have used it to accomplish amazing things and get out of their own way.

When you think about some of the biggest challenges, complaints that people have when they say, “Why aren’t you able to do the things that you want to do or you’re not getting the results that you want to get,” a large chunk of them are mental. It’s mental blocks. It’s resistance.

Alter ego, it’s what I’m known for within pro sports, Olympic sport is building alter egos for athletes. Then that expanded out into working with a lot more entrepreneurs and executives and people in professional environments to do the same thing to help them navigate that kind of internal resistance and move away from it. It’s an extremely elegant, graceful and perseverant way of battling what can be resistance that stops many people.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really fun. I totally jive with what you’re saying with regard to as a kid I totally pretended to be a superhero. I still have a Superman costume made to my measurements. Fun fact.

Todd Herman
That’s amazing.

Pete Mockaitis
I wear it on Halloween. I wish I had more opportunities to wear it in normal times, but they just don’t appear. There aren’t superhero themed parties, at least in my world. Maybe I should get some more Comic-Con type friends.

Todd Herman
Pete, you need to dial that. That’s the one great benefit of living in New York City, every type of party is at our fingertips here.

You just brought up something really interesting. I think it’s important for the listeners too to talk about this concept is you brought up Halloween. When you think about Halloween, Halloween is my favorite night of the year.

I don’t know where people believe on the whole Myers Brigg thing. I think it’s a good sentiment. It’s not something that’s going to solve all your problems, but when I took the Myers Briggs, when the person came back in from doing the analysis, she’s like, “Well, I think we might need to revisit this test because you just broke the extroversion side of things. You’re about as far to that scale as you could possibly get.”

For me, Halloween was always like everyone else is finally invited to my party that I live every single day of the year. I’ve got zero qualms about approaching people and talking to people. My mind frame around that is I just fundamentally feel that everyone likes to have a new good friend. No one is out there saying, “I don’t need any good friends.”

That’s why I have zero resistance to talking to anybody. I don’t put anyone up on pedestals. I don’t look down on anybody. I think everyone has a fascinating story to tell. All of those mindsets allow me to just operate in relationships very easily.

Then what happens on Halloween, people put on costumes and the moment that they do, they start stepping outside of their quote/unquote normal personality and they start to don the maybe behavior of whoever it is that they are wearing.

Now, this is an important part because this is actually something I talk about in the book. Halloween is a good example of a psychological phenomenon called enclothed cognition, which we were going to talk about at some point in time during our interview, but this is just kind of a good segue into it.

Enclothed cognition is this phenomenon that happens when human beings, we add meaning and story to the things that we wear and others wear. When we see someone with a police uniform on, we start to automatically assume some things about that person. Depending on whatever your personal experience is of that uniform. Some people it could be very negative. Sometimes it just adds an overall, overarching idea. Policemen, okay, it’s they’re disciplined or they’re stern or whatever it might be. We do that.

However, what I like to do is because I’m someone who is – one of my issues, again, with that self-help personal development stuff is that people put out a lot of ideas that sound like they’re going to work. They sound nice as well. They’re very palatable. It’s almost like I look at a lot of books that are out there and I’m like, it’s cotton candy, it’s popsicles, it’s rainbows. It looks nice, but it ain’t satisfying. It doesn’t do the job.

I’m a practitioner. I work with people one-on-one and have for over 20 years, over 16,000 hours now. When you’re working with someone one-on-one, Pete, and I give you a strategy to go and implement, what happens? You come right back around next week and you tell me what? Todd, that didn’t work.

How I know the people that have got the chops and don’t have the chops, if you have never worked with people one-on-one on this, you don’t have the chops. You don’t have the chops because you have not been put under the white hot light of performance. You haven’t been put under the white hot light of getting people results.

I am working with existing phenomena that naturally occur inside the brain. This is just one of them. I just want to find a way to leverage it. Alter ego helps to leverage this idea of enclothed cognition because what we do then – a study was done at the Kellogg School of Management. What they did was they brought a bunch of students into a room. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those word puzzles where you’ve got the word of a color, but then it’s colored differently than the word.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh right.

Todd Herman
Right, so it says green, but it’s yellow. Then it’s the word red, but it’s done in orange. What you need to do is actually say the word, which is quite difficult because the brain processes color faster than it does the word. They time you to see how quickly you can go through this grid of different words. They bring in these students and they get them to do it. They’re testing their attention, their accuracy, their detail and how quickly they can get it done and the mistakes that they make.

Then those students finish and they move them out of the room and they bring in a new group of students. This time they hand them a white coat to put on. They tell them it’s a painter’s coat. They put on the painters coat and they do the exact same test. They leave and then they bring in another group of people. They hand them the exact same white coat, except this time they tell them that it’s a lab coat or a doctor’s coat. Then they do the test.

Well, the difference in results between the painter’s coat people and the people who were just in their plain clothes was nothing. But the difference between the people who had the lab coat and the doctor’s coat and everyone else was they did it in less than half the time, they showed higher degrees of focus and concentration and they made less than half the mistakes.

Well, why is it? Because when they put on the white lab coat or doctor’s coat, they enclothed themselves in the cognitive skill set of someone that is careful, methodical, detailed because that’s what we ascribe to those types of people.

Why didn’t it work for the people that had the painter’s coat on? Because when you put on a painter’s coat, you’re enclothing yourself in the meaning, the cognitive meaning, of someone who’s creative, who might be more expressive. That doesn’t help you with that specific task.

Then they flip the task and this time they give everybody a task of a creative task, a painting actually. Now the people with the lab coat/doctor’s coat did the exact same as the plainclothes people, but the people with the painter’s coat on, they’re more expressive. They finish the project and get higher marks than the other people.

This is a naturally occurring phenomenon. When I’m trying to help people make change happen, the silliest to do is to do what has been bandied about in the self-help personal world for the longest time as the number one way that we should defeat resistance and win, which is just do it. Willpower. Willpower they think is just this massively powerful force that human beings can use to win at life.

Here’s what I can tell you. On the field of play, of performance, willpower is like a mouse staring down at a herd of rumbling elephants coming towards it. It’s the conscious versus the unconscious. The conscious is that rumbling herd of elephants and that conscious thinking of willpower and toughing it out. All that is so much smaller in comparison.

But what is our superpower that we have to defeat resistance that’s bigger than that other force of rumbling elephants? Well, it’s our creative imagination. That’s what’s there. That psychological phenomenon of enclothed cognition is about tapping into that a little bit by using an alter ego.

It’s like the backdoor to performance we can actually gracefully move around that rumbling herd, let it go do its thing. We’re going to suspend our disbelief about what we think we can and cannot do for the moment and we are going to step in and use the power of someone or something else to actually activate the qualities that we want to go show up on that field for us.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s so fascinating and so many things to chase after. I’m resonating from my own experience in terms of boy just pick the task. There’s sort of an outfit that goes with it and I’m raring to go, whether that’s “Hey, we’re going to go for a long run.”

I guess I’m thinking about doing jobs around the house with tools. It’s like I want to put on my John Deere hat and some dirty jeans and play some country music while I’m at. It’s like I’m a central Illinois, Midwestern boy who’s not afraid of some hard work and that’s just what’s going to happen here. Maybe buy a Ford truck while I’m at it. That kind of picture is what I adopt. I think it helps. It at least makes it more fun.

Todd Herman
At the end of the day, Pete, if it did nothing else but make it more fun, then who cares, right? When we think about life and if the listener is being really honest about what life is like for the most part – there’s a lot of mundane stuff that we all have to do. Then there’s a lot of challenging things that when you’re an ambitious person or you’re striving or you’re trying to achieve things, there’s just natural obstacles that you come up against.

If there’s nothing else that people took away from this idea, which is, by the way, 100% proven out. Every single human being that is listening to this has 100% used this. Why? Because it’s a naturally occurring part of the human psyche. You just can’t escape it. We all have played with ideas in our head.

That wasn’t you being weird, strange, multiple personality disorder. Nothing. That’s literally built into our way to navigate the challenging parts of your life with more grace. But if you did nothing else and all of the sudden life was a little bit more playful, what a huge win. What a huge win that would give someone to be that way.

Whatever, if all the sudden you became Farmer Pete for that 90 minutes that you’re outside cutting the grass and you’ve got the straw in your mouth and you’ve got the John Deere hat on, by the way, that’s not a stereotype, looking down at people because, at the end of the day, I am a huge farm and ranch kid. I grew up on a 10,000 plus acre farm and ranch. I’ve got more affinity towards that world than I do of any other world.

But who cares if you go and you play that character. You’re not being weird and you’re not being un-Pete-like. You’re being the most Pete-like person you can be in that moment.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly, yeah. Yeah. In Danville, Illinois there’s plenty of that. We’ve got some hard data from that Kellogg study. We’ve got some notions that it’s sort of intrinsic to the human psychological experience.

Could you maybe orient us to a pretty cool case study or transformation that illustrates this in practice, like we’ve got someone who’s performing not as well as they want to, they adopted an alter ego in this sort of a way and this sort of an alter ego, and then they kind of lived it out and experienced an enhanced result?

Todd Herman
Yeah. I’ll go to probably the most fascinating one as an example of one that always catches people off guard. It leads off the book actually.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh Bo Jackson.

Todd Herman
It’s with Bo Jackson. Bo Jackson for people who don’t know is one of the greatest athletes to ever walk the planet. He’s the only athlete in the history of major sports to be an All Star in two of them the same year. That’s Major League Baseball and the National Football League.

I was down in Georgia doing a talk. I was waiting in the green room ready to go out and into the green room walks Bo Jackson, this phenomenal physical specimen. In my head I’m like, “Oh my God, that’s the guy that I played on Nintendo when I was a kid.” He walked over to me right away. He said, “Hi, I’m Bo Jackson.” I said, “Yeah, I know who you are. You won me a lot of games on Tecmo Bowl when I was a kid.” He laughed.

He said, “You’re not the first one to say that. Are you speaking today?” I said, “Yeah, I’m going on stage next.” He said, “Oh, what are you going to be talking about?”

I said, “Well, I’m going to talk to them about mental game, but specifically I’m going to talk to the coaches and the players about using alter egos to help really unlock their performance and show up on the field and actually find the zone and flow state with it because you’re now getting out of your own way and you’re activating this imagination, which helps you perform.”

He just looked at me and he kind of got this weird look on his face like someone had just solved a mystery of life to him. He cocked his head to the side and he was like, “Bo Jackson never played a down of football his entire life.” I was like, “Interesting. Tell me more.”

He was like, “Yeah, when I was a youngster – people who know my backstory, I was a really angry kid. I would get myself into a lot of trouble. While it sounds like being angry would help you on the football field to dominate people, it would actually get me into bad penalties. I was a little bit uncoachable.

One night I was watching a movie and I saw this character come on the screen who was cold, calculating, methodical, unemotional, all of the things that I kind of wanted to be when I was out there. I thought to myself, ‘Wait a second. Why don’t I go out as that person instead of me?’”

It was Jason from Friday the XIII. His alter ego was actually Jason, which sounds crazy to some people because why would you want to activate, if you’re already angry, someone who’s a serial killer, but this is the power of this stuff is that it’s what your great takeaway was based on what maybe your issue might be or what you’re looking for.

He was looking for being more unemotional, more calculating with himself when he was performing. That’s what he did. When he put on his football helmet when he walked out onto the field, when his foot hit that field, that’s where Jason lived and Jason would enter him.

He unconsciously did almost every single step of the process that I talk about in the book perfectly. He created a context because he wasn’t Jason off the field; he was Jason on the field. He took the qualities that he most wanted that were the reverse of his frustrations and that’s what he found in his inspiration, which was Jason.

He actually leveraged an existing story, which is when you were looking for maybe places of inspiration, it’s a lot easier to just use characters that have already been built, whether in movies or whether in comic books or whether in your favorite TV show or whether it’s your favorite fictional book or existing people from your own personal life.

If there is a quality of an alter ego that is most popular or a type, it’s actually grandmothers. Grandmothers for me is the most popular alter ego that people use for whatever reason. There’s just many grandmothers that are inspiring to many people that are out there. There are specific qualities about them that they’re trying to activate.

Pete Mockaitis
They’re own grandmother?

Todd Herman
Yeah, they’re own grandmother.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Todd Herman
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, 100%.

Pete Mockaitis
Not an archetype.

Todd Herman
I’ve got a wealth manager here in New York worth just more money than people would need definitely and that’s what his is. He’s a hard charging person and could naturally fall into a bullying type, but when he started growing his company to be a lot larger and really having to adopt way more of a leadership role as opposed to a trading role in his business, it was just grating on the business and he was just turning over staff way more. That costs your business a lot.

When I started working with him and we started talking about leadership qualities, who he’s seen them in the past, he started talking about his grandmother. He wasn’t talking about his grandmother right off the bat. I just asked him a question and he started talking about her. It wasn’t really in the context of being a phenomenal leader. Then he started saying other people in business that he was maybe inspired by.

I said to him, “I don’t think so. I think 100% the most important leader that’s been around you is your grandmother.” We just unpacked that more. When he’s going into have performance meetings or he needs to have leadership conversations or challenging conversations with people, that’s who he stepped into was more his grandmother. Now he doesn’t need to use that alter ego anymore because he actually became that person that he more wanted to be.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. That’s cool. Well, I’d love it if maybe we could take on an example. I imagine we’ll have to fast-track it because it probably takes a good while. That’s fine to push the fast forward button repeatedly.

Let’s say – this is semi-true for me right now – I find that I’m getting so many ideas, which is really fun and exciting and cool when I’m sitting down to work, that I’m digging it. I’m sort of chasing after them and exploring them. But then I look at what I had hoped to accomplish in a day and there’s quite a mismatch.

It’s like, oh, I chased a lot of cool, interesting ideas, which may very well have some huge potential, but now I’m in a little bit of an urgent hurry up mode because I didn’t do what actually needed to be done on that particular day. If I want to have more focused and – you said willpower’s tricky – but that notion of “Hey, here’s the list. I’m going to crank through it,” how can I use the alter ego effect to make that happen?

Todd Herman
Yeah. I am the poster child of that when I started out. Yeah, absolutely. When I was starting out getting to kind of one of my uses of the alter ego, I was 21. I looked like I was 12. I was terribly insecure about how young I looked, who’s going to believe me when I go up on stage to talk about these ideas. I don’t have 19 degrees. I’m not 40 years old yet.

I had all these ideas of the age you need to be before you’re taken seriously, how many different years of you’ve been using this or consulting on it or coaching on it before you’re taken seriously. It was just stopping me from getting out there.

The reality was I was very, very good at working with young athletes. That’s where I was starting. I wasn’t trying to go work with pro-athletes off the bat. I was working with 11-, 12-, 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds, 15-year-olds, on it. I now was really good. I was good at developing rapport quickly, developing trust, then sharing all of the strategies that I had done to help me get a college scholarship, be nationally ranked badminton player.

My real skillset was my mental game, but I was getting in my own way. I wasn’t taking the action I needed to take.

I would. I would drift all over the place in my day. I would fundamentally just avoid doing the things that were going to make me money, which is in business or in sales, that’s when the white, hot light of performance is on you because now you’re on the field and it’s easy for people to see based on the results that you did ten phone calls today, but nothing was brought in revenue wise or something.

It’s easy for your self-esteem or your sense of self of concept to be beaten up in those moments. I wasn’t taking any action.

I was like, wait a second. I used this when I played football and when I went on the football field. I would go out as this composite kind of alter ego of Geronimo, Walter Payton and Ronnie Lott. The name I used was Geronimo for it. I was like but Geronimo is a little bit too aggressive. It’s not going to help me in business. Then I thought but I really want to step into this Superman version of myself in business.

That’s when it clicked in my head. I’m like wait a second, Superman puts on glasses to become the mild-mannered version of himself in Clark Kent, but I want to put on glasses and I want to become the Superman version of myself. That’s what I did.

I went out and I went to Lens Crafters in West Edmonton mall, where I was living at the time, and I bought a pair of non-prescription glasses so that I could activate this self that would be decisive, that would be articulate, and that would be confident, all the three things that I felt like I was lacking at the time in the way that I was showing up.

That was back when wearing glasses wasn’t cool or fashionable by any stretch of the imagination. The optometrist was like, “You don’t need glasses. You have 20/15 vision.” I’m like, “Please, just give me the glasses.” I bought them. That’s what I did.

I would literally sit and I would practice putting those on. Just like when he would take off those glasses as Superman, all of the sudden just the chest puffs out and he transforms, I was transforming into that other self. When I was in that state, I was very deliberate and intentional about being very decisive, being very confident, being very articulate with the way that I was describing what I could do for people.

The moment that I would start to fall out of it and become that other insecure self, I would take off those glasses immediately because the moment that you’re in that kind of state of being your alter ego, you don’t want to dishonor that idea by allowing that kind of other – whether it’s a weak or a mild-mannered or whatever self or scared or insecure or resistant self to show up – I’d take them off because I wanted to honor that idea.

It’s a very powerful mindset to be in when you’re doing that. I talk about that with my athletes and just even people that are on here right now. It’s very powerful to step into that mode. We have these phenomenal capabilities in our mind to do that.

Going then back to you, it’s that – some of what you’re talking about too could be just that there is a creative self that’s inside of you that sometimes you’re just hunting through and finding ideas to be inspired by to create the training programs that you want or to write the things you want to write. You shouldn’t beat yourself up with those things, but on those days when you did have certain activities that you needed to take care of, those need to be siloed.

Then there needs to be the most heroic version that you could bring to that to bring the best that you’ve got available into that moment so you can smash it and get the best result. Whether you think that’s you right now or you don’t think it’s you, what I do know is, that you is inside of you because the imagination has that power. Let’s find a way of unlocking it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, that’s good.

Todd Herman
What I was doing with those glasses was I was accidently – because I didn’t know what enclothed cognition back then – but I was enclothing those glasses in the cognitive state of being smart, articulate and decisive. I was leveraging the power of another story of using Superman to help make that happen too.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s funny, as you kind of deconstructing that a little bit, it seems that we started with what was already meaningful to you with the Geronimo, Superman, etcetera, so what was already sort of striking a chord and being resonant in the ways that you wanted to be as opposed to saying, “Well, technically, this literary figure embodied these qualities perfectly.” It’s like, “Well, I’ve never read that book, so that’s not helping me out here.”

The first thing that comes to mind for me in terms of if we’re talking about no nonsense, taking care of business, the first thing I think of is the Shark Tank intro because I get such a kick out of how they all do the same pose, where they fold their arms over each other. It’s like that’s, I guess, the no nonsense entrepreneur pose. You find it The Prophet and other business shows. I think we’ve adopted that. That’s what comes to mind.

Todd Herman
But if that’s what resonates with you, then that should be your takeaway. Yet, I’ve seen other people who are not even close to being an arms-crossed-type individual that are very no nonsense here in New York City or even not just here, but that’s my context because I live here and I work with so many people that are here. But I know more people that are no nonsense and they sit back in a very relaxed look.

Actually even Mark Cuban, when you see him and his matters in …, he’s actually quite relaxed. He sits back and sort of – but then when he starts to get excited, he starts to lean forward, his eyebrows go up a lot. Just as a person who lives in the world of mental game stuff, I’m always looking at body language of people. But if that’s what it is for you, then hold onto that and that’s what you can step into.

Pete Mockaitis
When I go about doing this step into, what exactly am I doing? I’m going to cross my arms. I’m going to imagine being no nonsense. What are my steps?

Todd Herman
Well, it’s what are the – all the steps are – because we’ve kind of unpacked a bunch of them. First place we start is context. We’re doing it for a field of play. Again, we’ve been talking about business and stuff, but this is 100% useful as a parent.

Kids use it all the time anyway, but as a parent sometimes you’re working all day long. You’ve been operating as a certain self throughout the day, then you go home and it’s hard to switch that off. Using this stuff, it crates great context for you.

For me when I go home, I don’t know want to be that articulate, decisive and confident version of myself that challenges people all day long because that’s what I need to do. That’s not what my children want. They want fun, playful, get-on-the-floor-and-play-with-them dad that’s gentle with them. I can be tough as well, but that’s so natural for me, I don’t need to magnify that up. That’s going to come out anyway.

I caught myself with, especially my middle daughter, Sophie, where she’s got this great emotional bandwidth, where she has these fantastic highs. Then she’s got these tantrums that can just go on for a very long time. I was meeting that force of her tantrum with my force of parent dad telling her to stop and all that and getting nowhere. I caught myself and I went wait a second. This isn’t how you perform at a high level.

Immediately I went to who I would be to get the best out of myself as a parent. It took me about a split second to go Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers undeniably is a phenomenal human being around young children. That’s who I stepped into.

The very next time she had this huge tantrum, I got down on one knee, just like he would. I reached out. I grabbed her, brought her in for a hug, despite the fact that she didn’t want to be hugged. She melted in eight seconds. Melted. She was done. That’s all she wanted and needed and then she was off running around, doing her own thing.

Meanwhile, I was still on the inside angry, enraged because noise and that screaming just drives me into an emotional state, but in that moment though, I did act as my best self for her and the result transformed.

Going back to you. Context matters. Second thing in that story I unpacked my frustrations. What’s a way that you’re showing up on whatever field that you’ve just chosen that aren’t getting you the results you want or how are you not showing up or what are the things that you’re doing that is providing you this angst and this frustration.

Okay, then now that you’ve got that, now it’s easy to go to the third step, which is well, how do you … want to show up and/or who already shows up that way that you’re inspired by. It doesn’t have to be in your work. It could be someone completely outside of it that you look at it and you’re like, “Oh, I’d like to be more like that person. I want to show up more like Luke Skywalker,” or whoever it might be.

What is it about their qualities that you’re looking at that you like? Is it their demeanor? Is it how calm they are? Is it about how confident they are? Is it how charismatic that person is? Whatever it is.

Then it’s okay, now is there a totem, this fourth step is what’s this totem or artifact or talisman that you can use to help activate it so that we can leverage the power of enclothed cognition. Is it that you are going to put on some Superman socks or Wonder Woman bracelet?

That’s what one of my equestrian riders – she’s a world class dressage, which is to the layperson, it’s like horse dance, where they have to do very, very specific and calculating kind of moves in the arena. It’s very challenging.

She was someone who was kind of all over the place inside emotionally, which then gets reflected through a horse. You talk about a difficult sport from a mental game perspective. You’re sitting on top of an animal that can detect any sort of emotional ambiguity that you might have. That’s why horses are used in therapy because they just have this phenomenal emotional bandwidth to work with people.

When I asked her, “Well, who most resonates with you as to how you want to show up,” she didn’t hesitate for a second. It was Wonder Woman. Not the current version because this was actually years ago. It was the 1970s version of Wonder Woman. I encouraged her, “Okay, go out. Let’s get an artifact or a totem to use.” She went out and she actually made a custom bracelet. I told her, I said, “When you do, make sure that the clasp has a loud sound when you snap it shut.”

Pete Mockaitis
Nice.

Todd Herman
Because sound is a phenomenal trigger in the mind. When that snap happens, that’s when she clicks into her inner Wonder Woman to show up on that horse as her best self.

Pete Mockaitis
I like what you said about sound. That’s got me thinking about get all your senses involved. Maybe there’s a small. Maybe there’s a texture. Yeah.

Todd Herman
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I don’t know how many people that are listening or even yourself, Pete, people use the term visualization a lot. They say, “You’ve got to visualize your goals,” or “People with vision are the ones who win,” or all these different things. The reality is, as someone who’s been teaching visualization with people as a skill for a long time, it’s actually quite hard to do.

That’s why I get frustrated with the amateurs that are out there saying, “Well, you’ve just to visualize.” It’s like it’s not that easy. Just because we can do it and do do it every single day, doesn’t mean that we can deliberately create movies in our mind easily. It’s a learned skill.

However, sound and we want to be using as much of the senses as possible. When I’m really teaching people about using imagery and visualization, it’s about engaging all of the senses because sometimes there’s a good portion of the population that are driven auditorily. I am. I am one of those people where I can build movies in my mind way easier when I start with sound then when I start with pictures. There’s other people who are engaged with smell of something or the touch of something.

That’s why this whole process of using a totem or an artifact is so powerful because just to your point, when you’re touching something, when you’re feeling something, when you’re putting something on, when you’ve got something in your pocket, whatever the case is, it’s there as a great environmental reminder of the intention of who it is that you’re’ showing up as.

That’s not being fake. That’s not about doing it to deceive other people because that’s being fake. If you’re doing something to deceive others or trick others, your intention is completely wrong. This is about tapping into the internal power of you saying, “I am being very intentional about who and what I’m showing up as so that I can get the best result from me or for others.”

Just like me. It’s not me being fake just because I’m stepping into and leveraging Mr. Rogers in that moment. That’s actually stepping into a very genuine part of me. Gentleness of course is a quality of mine somewhere because it’s not like I learned all of that challenging self or I was born that way. I learned some of that stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Todd, I love the Mr. Rogers in particular because it should have occurred to me when I was looking through your book, but then in the last couple months, I noticed that in marriage/family life I sort of brought more of my creative brainstorming problem solving-ness into conversations with my wife. She was less interested in that and wanted more kind of emotional stuff.

I just sort of forgot. It’s like, “Oh right, yeah, yeah.” It’s like, “I was just so interested in your problem and all of the potential options and solutions that I could offer.” I actually purchased a red zip-up Mr. Rogers sweater to wear as a reminder of – he’s got that song, It’s a Good Feeling, the feelings and to just slow down and listen and to talk about feelings. It’s like, “Well, how did you feel about that?” because that’s what she was wanting.

Todd Herman
Yeah. Well, if you’ve watched his documentary it’s fascinating because literally about a third of it is dedicated to them talking about his alter ego. His wife talks about Daniel Tiger. There’s this great sequence in the documentary when she says that Daniel was the more real version of Mr. Rogers because that’s who he really was.

When you think about Daniel Tiger, he’s this hand puppet that he used to talk about feelings and other things. During that sequence, Mr. Rogers, Fred, says – he’s holding up the hand puppet now near his head and he’s saying, “The distance between-“ which is his mouth to the hand puppet, he’s like, “This doesn’t look like it’s very far, but I can tell you it was very self-efficacious for me.”

It’s the same for me. The distance between the six inches in your ears and your mouth by what you want to say, but then you don’t say it. Nothing beats a person up more than when they get to the end of their day, their head’s on the pillow and they’re unpacking their day and they’re like, “Why didn’t I say that? Why didn’t I raise my hand? Why didn’t I speak up? Why didn’t I ask for the sale?” or the action, “Why didn’t I take that final shot at the end of the buzzer?”

That distance between the six inches in your ears and the action that you want, the difference between thought and action is very, very short inside of our selves, but it can be a huge leap for many people to make. Well, what’s the bridge that runs over that gap? It’s emotion, proven by science again.

When you sever the ties inside of a human’s brain from their rational thinking brain and the emotional brain, which is the decision side of the brain, decision doesn’t happen then. It’s been shown in Alzheimer’s patients, where they can think that they want to have a sandwich, but they actually can’t get up and take action on it because there is no emotional grease that helps them make that decision.

Well, that emotional factor that helps you go from where you are now to where you want to be is the creative imagination to go by it and move around resistance. An alter ego is just a great tool to help make that happen. I talk about it enough in the book, all the different science of how to do it, the other people that have used it to actually get themselves out onto different fields of the play and do amazing things. Like we kind of talked about earlier, it’s a wonderfully playful way to help navigate life as well.

Pete Mockaitis
That is so excellent.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. Well, Todd, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about a couple of your favorite things?

Todd Herman
We’ve just unpacked so much of it. I just strongly urge people to – I just know that a lot of people are just that mental part, that mindset side of things is the thing that can be a big challenge for them, whether it’s adopting new habits or changing behaviors. Stepping into and using these tools that they used, you’ve already used them in your past.

Pete, we had 19 publishers interested in my book, which if you know about publishing is an insane amount of publishers. Now, that’s not because of me actually. It’s not because I’m Michelle Obama or something like that. I don’t have a big platform like that. But it’s about the idea because people would walk into those meetings and they would say things like, “I feel like I’ve been doing this all my life.” I’m like, “I know you have because it’s a natural part of being a human being.”

There’s so many people who just saw so much relevance in the idea. I think that if people raced out and sunk their teeth into it, they would chew their way through the book very, very, very fast.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now could you share with us a favorite book?

Todd Herman
A favorite book of mine, I love From Darwin to Munger, which is all about mental models and how to think a lot more quickly without getting down into the weeds and details. They kind of unpack Charlie Munger and his brilliant thinking for the way that he has adopted different thinking models in the way that he navigates life. It’s an amazing book.

Pete Mockaitis
Is there a particular nugget that you share with your clients or audience listeners or readers that really seems to connect and resonate and gets them quoting it back to you?

Todd Herman
In that book, I don’t share a specific thing other than the ability to what’s called chunk up, which is the ability to kind of start to see things at 30,000 foot views so that you can think a lot more strategically and see what’s actually happening down on the field, not get tied up so much in the details of stuff. Probably chunking up is one of the big things that people take away from it.

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

Todd Herman
I’d point them to my home base on the interwebs would be ToddHerman.me. All of my kind of social profiles are out there. I’m active on pretty much most of them. Then for the book, they can also go to AlterEgoEffect.com to see some videos and click on any one of the links to find the book in airport book stores and book stores all over the place.

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

Todd Herman
Yeah. This is the easiest one. Don’t make the mistake I did early on. Don’t make the mistake of trying to do everything on your own. I wanted to be one of those people that climbed to the top of the mountain, planted the flag by myself and said, “I did it.” It’s slow and it’s stupid.

You are going to get a lot father in life by bringing around and getting around fantastic allies and being great supporters of other people. I truly do think that business and life moves at the speed of relationships. Always be finding great relationships and developing them.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. Todd, this has been a treat. Thanks so much and keep on doing the good stuff you’re doing.

Todd Herman
Thanks Pete. Appreciate you.

Dec 17
0

381: Building Your Career upon Dignity and Talent with Soulaima Gourani

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Soulaima Gourani says: "If you understand the value of the work you do, then you will like your job more."

Bestselling author and Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum Soulaima Gourani discusses the importance of knowing and owning your own dignity and making the most of what you’re good at.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The mother of all values
  2. Three steps for zeroing in on your true talent
  3. To clearly distinguish what you enjoy vs. what you’re good at

About Soulaima

Soulaima is a TED Talks Mentor and works with corporate clients and world leaders as a World Economic Forum expert in behavioral science and education. She is a two-time author and speaks on the topics of change management, career development, leadership, entrepreneurship, global trade, emotional intelligence and much more. Everything she does always serves a common purpose: to create more innovators, critical thinkers, and problem solvers–more peace in the world.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Soulaima Gourani Interview Transcript

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.

Nov 16
0

370: Increasing Your Perceived Competence with Jack Nasher

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Jack Nasher says: "People don't choose what they like best. People choose what they fear least."

Professor and mentalist Jack Nasher shares compelling research revealing how conveying additional confidence perceived competence.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The two things that enhance your perceived competence and how you can show them
  2. How to optimally manage expectations
  3. How likability and attractiveness play into perceived competence

About Jack

Jack Nasher is on the faculty of Stanford University and the widest read business psychologist in continental Europe. An Oxford graduate, he has worked with the UN, the European Court of Justices, and Skadden. He is the founder of the NASHER Negotiation Institute and is a leading expert on reading and influencing people. A member of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology and a principle practitioner with the Association of Business Psychologists, he has spoken at TEDx and he also performs as a mentalist at the world-renowned Magic Castle in Hollywood.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Jack Nasher Interview Transcript

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.

Sep 12
0

344: Confidence-Forming Habits with Jordan Harbinger

By | Podcasts | No Comments

 

Jordan Harbinger says: "People who ask for things... are the ones who get them."

Jordan Harbinger shares mindsets and practices to boost your confidence and your results with people.

 

You’ll Learn:

  1. The secret strengths of introverts
  2. Why to ask for what you don’t deserve
  3. How a post-it note can transform  your non-verbal communication skills

About Jordan

Jordan Harbinger has always had an affinity for Social Influence, Interpersonal Dynamics and Social Engineering, helping private companies test the security of their communications systems and working with law enforcement agencies before he was even old enough to drive.

Jordan has spent several years abroad in Europe and the developing world, including South America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and speaks several languages. He has also worked for various governments and NGOs overseas, traveled through war-zones and been kidnapped -twice. He’ll tell you; the only reason he’s still alive and kicking is because of his ability to talk his way into (and out of), just about any type of situation.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Jordan Harbinger Interview Transcript

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

Jordan Harbinger
Thanks for having me on, man. I appreciate the opportunity.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I am excited to chat because you’ve been an inspiration for me in podcasting. You kind of got me going on the three times a week as a matter of fact, so that – we have you to blame for that.

Jordan Harbinger
Right, so if you can’t keep up with this podcast, it’s largely my fault for also making it impossible to keep up with my podcast.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, one fun thing that I learned about you from your IMDB profile actually – someone’s a big deal – is that you were at one time an FBI informant. What’s the scoop here?

Jordan Harbinger
Yeah, when I was actually essentially a kid, when I was younger, I had figured out how to – do you remember green boxes on the side of the road that were like, “Hey, what’s that thing? I guess it’s a phone thing.” Do you remember those things?

Pete Mockaitis
Kind of, but what is it?

Jordan Harbinger
Kind of. Yeah. Not exactly a tourist attraction. I figured how to open those. When I opened them I saw all these screws in there with wired pairs. I went, “Oh, what are these?”

I remember stopping on my bike once when I saw one of the lineman – the telephone company guys, not the football guys – opening that thing up. I said, “What are these?” He goes, “Oh, every house in the neighborhood, all the phone wires, they run right into this box, so each of these pairs is someone’s phone.”

I said, “Oh, and that little orange handset you’re using you can listen to the call.” He goes, “Well, I don’t do that, but I can use it to test the line if someone’s on the line when I put it on there I get this little red light. I don’t hear anything.” I said, “Oh, okay.”

I decided that I was just going to get one of those and open that thing up with the – because you needed a special wrench, as if that’s hard to find. I would get that and open those up and I started listening to conversations and I started to get really interested in people and really interested in the phone system because I could learn more about people through the phone system.

I learned how to clone, which is sort of like hack in a general sense, I learned how to deal with that with cellphones, analog cell phones. That was obviously really quite interesting for me. I started to clone these cellphones. The FBI was like, “Hey, this is actually a crime. You should probably not do that.” But I started to tell them how certain technical things were done and they were interested in that.

Then one day, I worked for a security company and that security company was intern contracted by a really wealthy Detroit area billionaire. I went into work one day at the security company and I was like – we were talking about dating or something like that because my boss was like, “Hey, how are the ladies treating you?” That kind of thing. I was 16 years old.

I said, “Oh, I’m actually meeting women on the internet.” He’s like, “What?” because this is 1995 or 1996. It’s like what are you talking about. I would tell him how I would chat with essentially girls at that age on America Online. He’s like, “Oh, this is so fascinating.” He would ask me about it every time I’d go to work.

Eventually I started working with the – with him on talking with the FBI about the technology stuff, but then one time we started talking about the dating on America Online or the chatting on instant messenger, which we used at the time.

I started saying – it’s funny because I had this really sort of ambiguous unisex sounding username. Some people on there thought I was a guy and some people on there thought I was a girl. I always had to say like, “Oh yeah, I’m a 16-year-old guy live in Troy, Michigan,” whenever I was talking to people.

Pete Mockaitis
ASL.

Jordan Harbinger
ASL, right? Age, sex, location. I eventually started to see people hitting me up. I was like, “Oh hey, I’m a guy. You don’t want to be sending me a picture of a rose or something,” and they’re like, “Oh, okay, sorry.”

Then some people were really creepy about it. I was like, there’s all these guys on there that are like 40 that are totally okay with me being a 16-year-old boy. What a bunch of weirdos. I told my boss about this and he goes, “Yeah, that’s not okay, man. Those are sexual predators. We need to report these people to the police.” I said, “Well, all right.”

We called the police; they had no idea what to do with it. We contacted the FBI, who I had already sort of been talking about with the tech stuff and they were like, “Yeah, we don’t really how to handle this. We have a cybercrime division in Washington, D.C., but no individual office,” again, this is the ‘90s, “has anything to do with computer crime because it’s so advanced.”

Computer crime back then was bank wires probably and really advanced Matthew Broderick dialing into the Pentagon-type of crime, not somebody chatting on America Online. There was no crime to be had there. There was no financial transactions. PayPal didn’t exist. You couldn’t bank online, etcetera.

I started talking about this and they said, “Look, show me what you’re dealing with,” because they thought, “Oh yeah, some pervert’s trying to get you to send a picture with your shirt off or whatever. Who cares?” I sent them transcripts of these emails and other things in chat rooms, because remember back in the day you had whole rooms of people talking.

Some of it was just really, really, really not cool, like really gross and graphic. It’s like who are these people? This is a 14-year-old girl. Look here where she says to another user how old she is and where she lives. Then this is where this guy says he’s 45 and works at Radio Shack.

I started to send those things in by fax, of course, to the FBI and they went, “Oh, wait a minute. This is like really – there’s really – this is really bad.” Because there were guys saying like, “Yeah, I’ll come over to your parent’s house when they’re not there and take pictures of you. You’ll be a model,” like that kind of stuff.

They started saying, “Look, we can’t ask you to do anything, but the more of this we get, the better our case is going to be against some of these users when we go to a judge for a warrant and try to sort of look at this person’s email and all that stuff.”

I started just going into chat rooms and I even made different screen names and I would get into chats with these people and stuff like and I would fax all the transcripts to the FBI. We caught a bunch of pedophiles.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger
We caught a ton. Yeah, we caught a bunch. I was in Michigan, so what we would do – essentially the crime itself online was multi-state, which brought it to the FBI jurisdiction, but what we ended up doing was Toledo, Ohio was pretty close to the southern border of Michigan, so the ruse at that point was “Oh, I’m going on vacation with my family to Toledo. We’re going to be at the Holiday Inn and this place.”

Then the guy would drive from Michigan to Toledo and the FBI, the local PD would be there and they’d be like, “Well, you just traveled across state lines to engage in inappropriate conduct with the minor, so now you’re ours. You’re not Toledo PD. You’re not Detroit PD or whatever suburb PD. You’re FBI and we have all the chats.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger
It was just like boom.

Pete Mockaitis
And Chris Hanson says, “Why don’t you take a seat over there.”

Jordan Harbinger
Yeah, that’s exactly what it was. When I first saw that show, I went, “Oh yeah, they’ve been doing this for a long time.” This is not a new operation. In fact, as far as I know, we were one of the first people ever to do this because if I had to talk to Washington, D.C. FBI just to tell them how pedophiles run America Online in ’96, I don’t think there was a whole lot of activity in that area at that time.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, if you’re like the lead expert as a 16-year-old from Michigan.

Jordan Harbinger
Yeah, as a 16-year-old boy with a dial-up modem is the lead expert on AOL sex crimes I guess you would call it, then there’s not a whole lot of expertise in the area. Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Jordan, you are full of interesting stories. You share a number of them along with guests on The Jordan Harbinger Show. Tell me, what’s your show kind of fundamentally all about?

Jordan Harbinger
Yeah, what I do on The Jordan Harbinger Show, what we do as a team, is we interview amazing brilliant people, in my opinion, and we study their thoughts, their actions, their habits, and then we have them teach their ways to the audience.

For example, I had – I just earlier today interviewed the former head of the CIA and NSA, General Hayden. I said, “Look, how are you making these tough decisions? How are you balancing people’s freedom with the fact that you have to defend us against terrible people?” Or I’ll talk to Larry King and I’ll say “Tell us about conversational skills. You’ve had 60,000 interviews. You must have picked up a couple of tips along the way.”

I’ll have them teach those skills to the listening audience. Then every episode has worksheets. It’s really practical. It’s not just like, “Wow, gee, that was so inspiring. Thanks for coming on.” It’s like, “No, here’s five things you can now do to become better at conversations, networking, body language, persuasion, influence, etcetera.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s awesome. Clearly we have much synergy between our shows, so it’s so good to have you here. I’ve learned a lot from you, particularly in the realms of confidence, likeability, relationships, communications, like that universe.

Now you’re going to be, if you will, the Larry King is to interviewing and Jordan Harbinger is to likeability/confidence stuff. Let’s go there. What’s sort of your secret sauce or your flavor behind – it seems like, if I may, following you for a while, it’s like you’re kind of a dork. I say that in the nicest way.

Jordan Harbinger
Yeah. No, you don’t have to – not kind of. I mean it’s well established, my friend.

Pete Mockaitis
And yet you’re also super freaking cool at the same time. You’ve got a real good vibe going, which serves you well as an interviewer and broadcaster, but I’m sure many other circumstances. What’s going on in your head in terms of where your seeming abundance kind of confidence and self-assuredness is coming from?

Jordan Harbinger
Where does my confidence come from?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger
Well, yeah, it’s definitely not something that I just woke up one day and I was like I’m good at this. I certainly – it’s funny, people who’ve known me my whole life, they go, “It’s so funny that you ended up being a talk show host interviewer. It’s just comedy.”

Because when I was a kid I was an only child, so imagine I spent a lot of time watching TV sitcoms, first of all, which actually is where I learned a lot of my cheese ball sense of humor because people who know me for a long time will be like, “Oh yeah, I remember you watching The Fresh Prince for seven years straight and just talking and being funny in that way.” I sort of have a humor evolution from Perfect Strangers all the way on up to Seinfeld or Friends.

Pete Mockaitis
The highest echelon of evolution.

Jordan Harbinger
The highest echelon of culture, naturally. But the reason that happened was because I could either sit there and watch baseball with my dad, who like – he’s a smart guy, but he’s an engineer, so his communication is primarily grunting and then getting frustrated when you don’t understand exactly what he means. Then my mom, who loves reading. I’m an only child, so I’m just sitting there like, oh my gosh, I’ve got to – I’m not doing a whole lot of talking.

Then when I was in school, I just found that either things were so boring that I would get in trouble, and then I had like the typical middle school, I wouldn’t call it social anxiety any more than a normal kid has, but instead of me being – acting up and trying to be one of the in-crowd, I just kind of was like, I’m just not going to talk. If I’m invisible, then nobody will bother me. You know that kind of thing?

I did that for years. That persisted even through a little bit of high school. Then in college I studied really hard. I wasn’t concerned with partying and stuff because I thought you get one shot at this. Then I went to law school, not exactly known for its outgoing super social well-adjusted people, especially at that level where I was studying. Then I worked on Wall Street.

The fact that I was able to then leave that and develop a talk show host and interviewer skillset was really a large pivot. But it wasn’t as big of a jump as I think a lot of introverts think. Because when we’re introverted and as we know from new science now, things like Susan Cain and her book and her work, introverts are actually better at forming relationships and generally having conversations with people that are meaningful.

Because – I say we because technically I’m still an introvert. I don’t think that’s something you really shake. We think more about what we’re going to say before we say it. We think about other people’s feelings, what repercussions is this going to have, how’s it going to make the other person feel, how is this going – what conversation should this be like, whatever do I want to put into this conversation to make it worthwhile.

That’s the type of thing that introverts think of, which is why we seem quiet and reserved. We are indeed, but also we’re not just talking because well, if I talk a lot, people will think I’m cool. We don’t have that.

If we talk enough, we go “Oh, I just want to go home and not do anything,” whereas an extrovert says, “Oh, I’ve been working all day, I just want to go out and have drinks and chitchat.” It’s like we don’t rest that way, introverts.

The pivot seems strong, but really it’s just a use of a skillset that I had for a long time. I was always the guy that people would ask for advice. I was always the people – I was always the guy people would say, “I trust you to keep this secret for me. My parents are getting divorced.” I’m like, “We’re in third grade. Why are you telling me this?” That was kind of thing that I always had.

I think it was me putting people at ease because I wasn’t necessarily fronting all the time. I wasn’t trying to be cool. I was just me because I didn’t have the skills to be anybody else or even try to fake it. That I think is why I ended up in this particular niche doing this particular gig.

But I do think that all of us, especially if we think, “Oh, well I’m working at this company and I’m never going to be this outgoing or this person or this type of person that’s going to be a manager, an outgoing leader.” I think we should take a second look at that because a lot of times the things that we think about us are a disadvantage, are often symptoms of an advantage that we have that maybe we haven’t explored yet, similar to the introvert thing.

“Oh, I’m too quiet. I could never be a radio talk show host interviewer.” Well, that’s not really true. All of the characteristics that make you quiet, you think before you talk, that’s actually really beneficial to somebody who wants to have a meaningful conversation in any format, whether you’re a writer or you’re speaking on a microphone.

The shyness, yes, you’ll have to get over eventually. But shyness and being introspective and quiet are actually totally different things.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I love that good stuff there. I’m actually a certified Myers Briggs practitioner. I train people on this all the time.

There’s a lot of aha moments in terms of we sort of assume or project onto the other person, “Oh, if I’m extrovert and I’m quiet, it means I’m bored. I’m disengaged. I don’t care, whatever. Therefore, that person is thinking, feeling the same thing.” It’s like au contraire.

[15:00]

As you very nicely articulated, the introvert is kind of operating on all of these maybe deeper levels of consideration about what would be the implication if I say that and the repercussions to the other person, how are they thinking and feeling about that. That’s very well said.

I want to dig into a little bit of that repercussion piece when it comes to thinking about maybe if folks are overly cautious or worried about offending or being rejected or rubbing people the wrong way if they speak up about something, what’s your take on how to overcome those sorts of fears and anxieties?

Jordan Harbinger
Sure. I think for a lot of people this is a slow – I won’t say it never goes away. I will say that it’s slow to go away. It’s not like one day you’re working on this and you finally feel like “Ah, this is gone now.” It’s more like you stop noticing it, if that distinction makes sense.

The way that this works will be something like rejection therapy for example, where you go – some of the drills that I give clients from The Jordan Harbinger Show or for Advanced Human Dynamics, which is our training arm, are things like I’ll point them to the negotiation episodes that we did where most people are using that to get a raise in their salary or they’re using those types of skills to get something else for work or business.

But I’ll also say, “Look, the next time you go to Starbucks ask for a discount.” People will go, “Oh God, I can’t do that. It’s awkward. It’s weird.” So what though? You’re in an airport. You’re in an airport; you’re never going to see that barista again. It’s not the one that’s a block away that you go to every day, where you might actually face consequences. Ask for the discount and the worst they can say is no.

You have to work up courage, of course, to do this kind of thing, but as you do that and you experience positive results, which most people do –

You’d be surprised how many places, by the way, have some sort of discount button that automatically knocks 10% off the price because, “Oh, you’re in the office building above us. 10% off.” “Oh, the manager is standing next to me and that’s totally fine because she’s seen you before. 10% off.” That happens all the – “Oh, you brought your own cup. 10% off.” That kind of thing, always, cafes, restaurants, that happens all the time.

As we experience positive results, we start to say “Well, wait a minute, if I got that by asking, what else can I get by asking?” We used to have all of these different sorts of drills to lead up to that. I won’t spend too much time on that because I don’t want to take up the whole show with it, but a lot of what these do is they build small pieces of situational confidence that then lead to greater confidence in other areas.

If you are able to ask for what you want or a benefit when you actually don’t deserve one, like you do not deserve a discount on that coffee. You don’t.

Pete Mockaitis
But I’m so adorable, Jordan.

Jordan Harbinger
But I’m like, if you ask for that and you get it, then you start to think, “Well, wait a minute. There’s a whole world of possibility that doesn’t make me an entitled jerk for exploring.” Once you start to do that, then you can build on to bigger and bigger things.

When you frame things in the way of negotiation, like, most people do deserve to get paid more than they actually are. Or I should say they’re bringing more value than they’re actually paid. I think in many ways you get paid what you negotiate in certain corporate structures, not necessarily what your value is.

Once you start to realize that you think, “Well, wait a minute. There’s somebody else-“ because chances are, think about this right now. You’re working in a corporation if that’s what you’re doing. I know a lot of your audience is doing that. There’s probably somebody at your same level that’s making more than you and you have no idea.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right.

Jordan Harbinger
The reason you have no idea is because HR cut them a deal with they negotiated with that person and part of it was “I will not tell anyone else what I’m making.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right. And that is illegal in some countries. Fun fact.

Jordan Harbinger
I didn’t know that. Really?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it is. You cannot do that in certain countries for the very reason that it is a disservice to workers or employees or wage earners, but business owners and HR folks in the US will – it’s to their advantage. There’s an awesome Adam Ruins Everything, if you’ve ever seen that show,-

Jordan Harbinger
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
-episode about this. I was like, “Right on Adam. You preach it.” Yeah, it’s a little bit kind of taboo I guess in the US to discuss those things, but it’s generally to the employees benefit when they do. Yeah.

Jordan Harbinger
Interesting.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m vibing. I’m vibing with what you’re saying there. I’m also vibing with that statement there: ask for what you don’t deserve. I’m thinking I don’t do that very often.

Jordan Harbinger
No.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m wondering if it’s because my sense of justness or rightness or fairness or is being compromised. Set me straight, Jordan, why and how is it cool to ask for what you don’t deserve?

Jordan Harbinger
It’s social pressure, right? The reason we don’t do it. We have some unwritten rules that say look – I’m not saying walk into Wal-Mart and then walk out with a lawn chair and be like, “Can I have this for free?” They’re going to be like, “No,” and then you’re going to apply pressure and turn the screws.

We’re not doing this thing where we’re going to a local mom and pop restaurant, eating a full meal and saying, “I’m going to pay you half of what you asked for for this.” You’re just giving people grief at that point.

But when you’re talking about, “Hey, can I have a discount on this coffee?” Nobody sat down and went “Look, this is the morally acceptable price for us to charge for this cup of coffee.” They went, “People are willing to pay five dollars for this mochaccino. Charge these morons five dollars for that mochaccino,” if that’s a real thing.

If you ask for a discount, Starbucks is still profiting handsomely off of you. They want you to come back. They might do this all the time. There’s a reason they give away free stuff all the time. There’s a reason they have all these rewards programs. They incentivize that way. You’re not stealing from them by asking because you’re giving them a choice. They’re fully allowed to say no.

It’s not when they say no, you walk up to the shelf with all the ceramic mugs on it and knock it over. You’re not doing that. You’re just walking up to the counter and saying “Can I have a discount on that?” Sometimes they just go, “Sure.” Or you say, “Can I have a discount on that? I’ve had a really long day and I would love to just have one thing go right,” and they go, “Yeah, sure. My pleasure.”

Pete Mockaitis
It is their pleasure.

Jordan Harbinger
It is.

Pete Mockaitis
You’re giving them an opportunity to delight you and that’s worth something.

Jordan Harbinger
It is.

Pete Mockaitis
You’re doing them a favor by asking for that. That’s my reframe. I’m rolling with it.

Jordan Harbinger
And frankly it’s often worth about 15 cents, so it really doesn’t matter that much, but it’s nice to have anyway. The reason we ask for what we don’t necessarily deserve in those instances, not because, great, I’m saving a quarter on a cup of coffee. The reason we do that is because imagine how much easier it then becomes to ask for something that you do deserve.

“I know I’m underpaid by five grand a year. Oh, but I don’t want to make my manager’s manager angry. I know that times are tight right now.” No, this is a negotiation. You deserve more than what you’re getting. Other people at other offices are getting paid more for doing the same amount of work and they have better benefits. You should be leveraging that.

By asking for small little things, and again, coffee is not necessarily going to lead to a bigger raise for you, but it can over time compound and you will find not only are you enjoying some benefits of that, but you gain a sense of control over things, namely your environment, that you may not have otherwise had.

Then it starts to lead to the idea that, “Well, wait a minute. If I can negotiate a discount on the cup of coffee that I don’t deserve, then maybe I can negotiate the 5,000 dollar raise that would be a qualitative lifestyle difference for me that I actually do deserve that other people are getting that I’m not because I’m nice, too nice.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I’m digging it. I’m digging it. Time is already flying here. But Jordan I’ve got to get from you a couple, if I may, pro tips in terms of being likeable or charismatic or kind of winning people over-ness, if that’s a word. What are some of the top foundational principles or tips that you share in that realm?

Jordan Harbinger
Sure. I used to be one of those like, “Well, look people in the eye. Have a firm handshake and positive-“ and I still do the positive, upright, confident body language thing. In fact, I’ll give you guys a – why don’t I give you a body language drill. This is always a nice easy one that people can learn in an audio only format.

I would say some of the major benefits come from developing relationships and networks that really help other people because you can have the greatest nonverbal communication of anybody in the whole world, but if I’ve thrown you three – four show guests or I’ve introduced you to somebody who you ended up marrying or got you a job, you’re just going to like me a little bit more than the guy who has a firm handshake and good eye contract. At least, I hope so.

The body language and nonverbal stuff does have its place though. I think for a lot of folks, especially I used to think this way as well, we often think, “Huh, well my first impression happens when I open my mouth, so I’ve got to have cool, fun, entertaining things to say.” This really actually is not true.

We know that we form our first impressions nonverbally before the other person even has the opportunity to open their mouth.

If you don’t believe me, next time you go to the mall and you’re walking down the street, listen to the little voice in your head – not the one that says walk faster, it’s cold outside – but the one that says, “That person is small. That person is tall. Oh, that person is kind of scary. Should I cross the street? No, I’m just being weird. They’re fine. Oh wow, this person is attractive. I wonder-“

That voice, you’re making judgments about people constantly. We’re evolved to do that. It’s something that keeps us safe and has kept us safe for millennia. We do this. It’s not bad. It does not mean you’re a judgmental jerk. We do this.

Now what this means for us is that our first impression is already made well before someone walks up and says, “Hey, can I borrow a quarter for the payphone? I’ve got to catch the bus.” Whatever. That is not the first impression. That’s the second impression generally speaking.

This happens just as well in corporate environments, at a mixer or something like this. We generally form that first impression within milliseconds. As soon as someone becomes a blip on our radar, we form some judgments of them based on their nonverbal communication.

What we want to do is make sure that our first impression, nonverbal first impression, is upright, positive, confident, friendly, open, all these nice positive adjectives that we can throw out there.

The way that we do that is essentially, unless you’re driving right now, you can follow along with me, stand up straight, chin up, chest up, shoulders back. You don’t have to exaggerate this. This is not like superman pose or anything. It’s just sort of upright, positive, confident, friendly. Put a smile on your face.

We want to do this every time we walk through a doorway because that’s generally when people notice us is when we walk through a doorway. Of course, the problem with that is we walk through doorways all day, so you’re going to walk through a doorway five seconds from now, forget to do this and then everything goes to heck.

Grab a stack of Post-It notes, maybe those little ones that have absolutely no use other than what I’m about to tell you because they’re too small. If you don’t have those, go grab a pack of that from the office supply room or go to the drugstore and grab it. Stick them up at eye level on the doorway. You don’t even have to write anything on it.

What this is going to do is it’s called a pattern interrupt in psychology slash hypnosis speak. What that is is you look at your doorway, you don’t see anything because you walk through it all day. But you look at your doorway, you see a hot pink Post-It note at eye level on the doorframe and you go, “What is that? Oh right, the doorway drill that Jordan was talking about.”

You walk through that doorway and you straighten up. You reset your body to that open, upright, positive, confident body language. You do this in your own home. You do this in your office. You do this when you go out to the break room, the conference room. I don’t think anybody’s going to be too suspicious of a Post-It note on a doorframe in an office.

Pete Mockaitis
They’re not going to snag it away on you.

Jordan Harbinger
Yeah. If they do, you just replace it because they keep on refilling that office supply container, don’t they? Or you put a little note there and you write on it ‘Do not remove’ and it will be there for like five years and people will go, “What is that thing?”

Pete Mockaitis
What the heck is this thing?

Jordan Harbinger
I don’t know. Don’t touch it though. It says ‘Do not remove thanks, MGMT,’ so the management obviously put it up there.

When you do that you start to reset your nonverbals. What this does is it trains you to reset throughout the day that open, upright, positive, confident body language. Within three to six weeks, you’re not going to need the Post-Its anymore. You’re going to have that nonverbal communication going all the time.

What this does, this is great, because then the next time you go to a meeting, a mixer, a conference or Starbucks, whatever it is, you have your body language and nonverbal communication set the right way.

When people form those first impressions of you based on that nonverbal communication, they start to treat you differently. When people start to treat us differently, we actually start to behave differently and there’s a lot of science, which I probably don’t need to go into that proves this. I don’t think that anybody would even argue with that anyway.

When we start to be treated differently and we start to behave differently, then essentially the core of who we are begins to change for the better. We start to behave as if we are indeed entitled to smiles and that coffee discount and-

Pete Mockaitis
You’re worth smiles, Jordan.

Jordan Harbinger
You’re worth smiles. You’re worth smiles. You’re worth people turning around and looking at us and actually being pleasantly surprised that somebody friendly walked in. You’re worth it.

That trains us to behave differently, which is a higher level of social status than we’re typically accustomed to. That’s powerful. It’s kind of like getting taller.

If I can commission a study, I would want to compare the social status equated with being tall or wealthy with the social status equated with high-value charismatic social behavior because there is science to this effect, not using the doorway drill of course, that shows that people who are outgoing, friendly, positive and confident, do enjoy higher levels of income, larger networks, more career satisfaction.

The idea that you can get that from Post-It notes is pretty powerful.

Pete Mockaitis
I was just going to say and it all starts with a hot pink tiny Post-It note.

Jordan Harbinger
That’s right. That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good. I love it because we had BJ Fogg on the show talking about tiny habits and that’s a potent tiny habit.

Jordan Harbinger
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
It takes mere seconds to do. We have a clear trigger. It has highly leveraged results flowing on the back end. That is a slam dunk. Thank you.

Jordan Harbinger
You’re welcome.

Pete Mockaitis
Tell me Jordan, any really top things you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about a few of your favorite things?

Jordan Harbinger
I’ve actually – I love these little drills for networking and relationship development. I think relationships are the most important lever in business and me having had to restart my business in The Jordan Harbinger Show within the last six months, again, after doing my other show for 11 years and bringing this new show, The Jordan Harbinger Show, to 3.8 million downloads a month and already in the top 100, the relationships are what did it.

People go, “Well, you’re really good at what you do.” Thanks a lot, but really it’s the network. I want to just underline/highlight/emphasize the fact that relationship development is one of the most crucial skills that anyone can build. At the end of the show maybe we can plug some of the drills and exercises that I’ve developed similar to the doorway drill that will help with that and people can go and grab those.

But I want to highlight that because I think people put networking off until later. They’re like, “Oh well, I got a new boss right now and I’ve got to bust my tail for this. Then I’ll worry about networking,” or “I don’t need a new job right now. I’m really satisfied where I am, so I don’t really need to network inside my industry or outside it. I want to spend that time doing other things.”

I understand those arguments but they are erroneous because the problem is you cannot make up for lost time. When it comes to building relationships, you have to dig the well before you’re thirsty because at the time you eventually need that network, you are far too late. That’s a tough lesson to learn in real time.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Thank you. Now can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Jordan Harbinger
Oh sure. Something that I find inspiring. I use to really love “Fortune favors the bold.” It sounds great in Latin. But that sort of sounds a little bit bro these days, so I’m going to share that quote with the caveat that what that really means … our earlier conversation is that people who ask for things that they want or they think they deserve are the ones that get them.

Seldom do things sort of flutter down and land in our lap. That’s usually the right place, the right time, a whole lot of luck. I really do like the idea that fortune favors the bold.

I think that Abraham Lincoln even had something like – or this is one of those internet quotes, where it’s totally not Abraham Lincoln, but it’s credited as him slash Mark Twain. But I think he said something like, “Good things come to those who wait, but it’s only what’s left over by those who hustle.”

Pete Mockaitis
Got you.

Jordan Harbinger
I love that one as well. It’s very similar.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. How about a favorite book?

Jordan Harbinger
Favorite book. Gosh, I read so much. But I really love Extreme Ownership, which of course is written by Jocko Willink, who’s a Navy SEAL. It’s full of these kinds of cool battle stores from Ramadi and Iraq. But really what extreme ownership is about is figuring out what part you’ve played and pretty much any failure or any problem.

If your team fails and your boss totally misled everyone and half the team quit and it was just you and one other person and that person got the black plague and had to stay home for two months and you’re the one that did all the work, you still look at what part you played and what you could do differently later.

Because externalizing blame or faults or anything is always, even if it’s 100% valid, like, “Look, we failed because I had to do this alone with no help.” “Okay, that’s the main reason why you failed. The other reason is, well you decided that it was going to be impossible six months ago, so you kind of resigned yourself to failure.” “Well, yeah, but it was never going to work.” That doesn’t matter.

Extreme ownership means look all the way at every facet, all the way up and down the food chain and figure out what you could have done differently because if you don’t do that, then basically you didn’t learn anything other than woe is me.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. How about a favorite habit?

Jordan Harbinger
Favorite habit. Every day I wake up, and this is also in my networking drills that I’ll share later in the show, every day I wake up and I usually have an alarm for around 10 AM. I don’t wake up at 10 AM, FYI, I wake up around 5:30, but I have the alarm set for around 9 to 10 AM depending on what time zone I’m in.

I scroll all the way down to the bottom of my text messages and I text the five people – those are the texts where it’s like two years old, where it’s like, “Hey, where are we meeting for lunch?” and you’re at some conference in Washington, D.C. Those are people you haven’t spoken to since that lunch.

I’ll text them and I’ll say, “Hey, it’s been a long time. I hope this is still your number. This is Jordan Harbinger. I just wanted to check in. What are you working on lately? Where can I be of service? Would love to touch base with you,” something along those lines. You make sure you sign your name, so that you avoid new phone, who dis.

You also say no response necessary if you’re really busy. That actually increases your response rate by about 30% from about 40-something to 70-something. The reason is because then – when people build urgency because they’re trying to sell something it’s usually like, “Contact me right away,” so of course when you get a text like that you’re thinking, “Wait, I haven’t talked with Pete for like two years. Is it Herbalife or is it Scientology? What is this going to be?”

Pete Mockaitis
It’s ….

Jordan Harbinger
Yeah, right. But if someone says, “Hey, look, I know you might be really busy so no urgency. You don’t have to get back to me if you don’t have time.” People are like, oh well, clearly this isn’t somebody trying to be like “Once in a lifetime urgent opportunity.” It’s like, “Hey, look, get back to me if you want.” People usually go, “All right, this is a social thing,” so they’ll do it.

I do this pretty much every day. Some people don’t reply and other people do. You end up with the craziest opportunities. You’ll reengage a couple of people, nothing will happen.

But then once a week, twice a week someone will say, “Hey, Jordan, it’s funny you texted me because I’m about to walk into a meeting where we’re going to decide on our speakers for this year’s annual corporate retreat. Do you speak? Would you be down to do that? It’s in Hawaii. It’s not a bad deal. The fee is really low, but we’ll pay you to go out there.” You go, “Sure, yeah, I’d love to do that.”

Let me tell you, I’ve gotten some crazy opportunities as a result, including literally trips to Hawaii to go speak at corporate retreats because that person just happened to get that text the morning before the meeting. I guarantee you they were not thinking of me as a candidate for that before they walked in the door and before that text came in.

It’s a number’s game. It costs you nothing. Half the time you’re at an airport gate, at Starbucks, taking a break, lounging, waiting for your coffee machine to finish pouring something. We’re talking minutes per day.

Pete Mockaitis
I love that take, especially the non-urgent piece. It reminds me of the one time I sent a low importance email and I got a ton of replies. It’s like “What exactly is this low importance message? I’m very intrigued.”

Jordan Harbinger
That’s funny.

Pete Mockaitis
So good. Jordan, tell me do you have a final challenge or call to action or if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them to?

Jordan Harbinger
Yeah, a lot of the drills that I’m talking about, so the texting, reengagement stuff, the doorway drill that I mentioned, I’ve got dozens of these and I give them away for free at AdvancedHumanDynamics.com/LevelOne, AdvancedHumanDynamics.com/LevelOne or if you just go to The Jordan Harbinger Show on any podcast app, you can hear me talk with brilliant people.

But level one will teach you a lot of this amazing stuff. It will change your life. It’s all free, just to be super clear. It’s not something I’m selling.

These are the habits I wish I had like 15 years ago because I started doing them about 10 years ago and I just think the amount that I got, the benefit I got from doing this for so long has been so enormous that any day that I didn’t do this, it’s kind of like dang.

I highly encourage people to do this now because it doesn’t matter where you are in your career, whether you’re new or this is something you’ve been doing for a while. There’s a lot here. I teach the same stuff to military, intelligence agencies, corporations and I’m giving a lot of it away there at AdvancedHumanDynamics.com/LevelOne.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Jordan, thank you for that and taking the time. This has been a whole lot of fun. I wish you and The Jordan Harbinger Show all the luck in the world.

Jordan Harbinger
Thanks Pete, I appreciate it.