Networking Archives - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Pete Mockaitis
Stu, welcome back!

Stu Heinecke
I am so glad to be back. I don’t know where I was, but I’m glad to be back.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, we’re going to find out, you know, what both of us have been up to in six years.

Stu Heinecke
We will.

Pete Mockaitis
I had so much fun chatting with you last time about “How to Get a Meeting with Anyone,” and you’ve got an updated edition coming out here. And so, I think it’s worth talking about this at least every six years, so let’s do it.

Stu Heinecke
It’s actually more like nine years.

Pete Mockaitis
Was it, really?

Stu Heinecke
Since it came out, that’s why there’s an Updated Edition.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, six years since we talked, nine years since the update.

Stu Heinecke
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Okay. Well, so for those of us who weren’t with us in our last conversation, can you refresh us to your origin story and how you became a guru of getting meetings with anyone?

Stu Heinecke
Well, early in my career, I wanted to create direct mail for magazine publishers, and I ended up producing this little campaign to reach out to the VPs of circulation and consumer marketing at the publishers like Time Inc. and Conde Nast, and so forth. And I wanted to break through to that industry. And what it meant was I just needed to reach about two dozen people. That’s all it was. And that covered the entire publishing industry.

And so, I put together a campaign. It referenced a couple of test campaigns that I’d just done, just completed for Rolling Stone and Bon Appétit. And both of those beat their controls, meaning both of those set new records for response, like all-time records. And so, okay, well, that was my entree to put this campaign out.

Pete Mockaitis
And if I may, with beating the controls, just so we can visualize, when you say campaign, what are we talking about here?

Stu Heinecke
We’re talking about a direct mail campaign to send through the mail, to ask people to subscribe to the magazines. But the kicker was I was using cartoons with personalization, and no one was doing that, so I knew that that was a winning combination because I knew that readership surveys were showing that cartoons were almost always the best read and remembered parts of magazines or newspapers. They were going to show up and people were going to pay attention to them. And they did.

Pete Mockaitis
So, it was like, “Hey, Pete, I’m in a cartoon.” It’s like, “Whoa, I’m in cartoon.”

Stu Heinecke
Yeah, kind of. Yeah, it’s just they’re talking. One of the characters is talking about you or mentioning you.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I like it.

Stu Heinecke
And you come out on top in the humor, generally, yeah. So, I created those two campaigns, and then I thought, “Okay, that’s my entree to reach out to the rest of the publishing industry.” And as I mentioned, I put together a little campaign, called it a contact campaign.

And it consisted of a little 8×10 print of a cartoon, each one’s personalized to each recipient. And then a note saying, “This is the device I just used to beat the controls for Rolling Stone and Bon Appetit, and I think we should put these to the test for your titles.”

Pete Mockaitis
Bam!

Stu Heinecke
Now, I don’t know if you remember the story, because I guess I might quiz you there. What do you think I got for a response rate to that?

Pete Mockaitis
If we’re thinking about the same story, I deliberately didn’t read the whole transcript to keep it a little fresh.

Stu Heinecke
Good. Good.

Pete Mockaitis
I believe you told me your response rate was over 100%. I said, “Stu, how is that even possible?” And you said, “Some of them referred me extra work on top of it.”

Stu Heinecke
Okay. Well, it was 100% but we’re mixing other campaigns that have done that. But it was 100%. All of them, first of all, just responded. All of them then agreed to meet, so 100% meeting rate. And then all of them became clients, 100% conversion rate. And what it did was it took me from being an unknown. I was just 24, I think, 23 or 24. It took me from being an unknown to suddenly being one of the top creatives in that market almost overnight from a campaign that went to 24 people and cost me about a hundred bucks. So, that was my first time using contact marketing. Yeah, and what an eye-opener that was.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s so beautiful and it’s winning on so many levels. And I guess you’ve had some time to think about how and why did this work. But it seems of, well, one, that your actual offer at root is awesome in terms of, “Hey, I can make you more money for your business. And, oh, by the way, you know, some of your peers that you really respect and value in the industry, they have seen it happen.” So, it’s like that core offer and message, in and of itself, is phenomenal.

If we’re offering them a home warranty renewal, you know, we wouldn’t see that no matter how amazing your cartoon was. And then next up, you straight up got their attention with a novel, physical medium packaging, right? Like, “Huh, what’s this?”

Stu Heinecke
Yeah. And I thought, “Well, gee, aren’t I cool? I can use cartoons and I can reach almost anyone.” I’m like, “Who could I reach?” And I thought, “You know, I’ve got to try this. How far can I go with this?” I’m kind of a mischievous person. So, I started reaching out to presidents and prime ministers and celebrities and lots of C-level executives and top decision-makers, and I was getting through.

I can’t say I got through to all of them, but I’ve gotten through to several presidents, a prime minister, or a number of celebrities. You know, it’s really interesting because I’ve been thinking all along, “Wow, I’m able to put myself in contact with people I should never be able to reach.”

And then I thought, “Why should you never be able to reach them? Why should anybody not be able to reach whoever it is that they want to reach?” I mean, that’s kind of the whole premise behind the book.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so I think that this is a big idea and it’s exciting. Can you give us some more stories of this in action so we can marinate on it a little bit, and say, “Hmm, how might I apply this in my world and my meeting that I want to get?”

Stu Heinecke
Here’s one really interesting. I can’t say the name of the company, but there was this sales rep who was calling. If you’ve seen the movie “Forrest Gump,” then you’ll understand my reference to a certain fruit company. Otherwise, you won’t.

But he was calling on the fruit company’s engineering department, and they loved his software solution, they said, “But we don’t control budget, so you’re going to have to talk to purchasing.” So, he thought, “Oh, man, great. This is great. I’ve got a sale.” But purchasing wouldn’t talk to him. And so, he thought, “Oh, what am I going to do? Well, I know, I’ll go around him. I’ll go around them to the CEO of this fruit company,” who happened to be at the time the most famous CEO in the world.

He was not going to be easy to reach. And the sales rep discovered that because he was sending faxes and letters and leaving messages and doing anything he could think of and nothing was happening. So, one day, this plywood box shows up at the front counter with air holes drilled into it and a handwritten note. And the note was addressed to the CEO.

And the rep said, “I’ve been calling on your engineering department. They love my solution. They told me to talk to purchasing. They won’t talk to me. I’ve been trying everything I can think of, otherwise than to reach you and nothing has worked. So, this is my final attempt. So, if you would, open the box carefully. And inside the box is a pigeon. And on the pigeon’s leg is a little capsule with a slip of paper inside.”

“So, if you’ll take that slip of paper out, write the name of your favorite restaurant, a date and a time, put it back in the capsule and release the pigeon, I’ll meet you there. And I wouldn’t be telling the story if the pigeon didn’t come back, right?” So, the pigeon came back. There was a name of a restaurant, a date, the time, and they got together. They met and he walked out of that with a $250,000 deal.

Pete Mockaitis
I love that so much because, okay, it’s clever, it’s fun, it’s novel, and I’m learning something that the pigeon stuff still works today, huh, in terms of, like, pigeons are capable of returning to their original destination. Because I imagine that if I were the CEO, pardon me, I’ll give him respect, some props, like, “Okay, that’s very cool. That’s very clever. That’s interesting. You’re committed. You’re creative. All right, cool, cool.” But, I’m also curious, like, “Hmm, does this pigeon thing even work? Let’s take a crack at it.”

Stu Heinecke
Yeah, you got to try it.

Pete Mockaitis
So, I’m motivated there, too.

Stu Heinecke
A lot of these stories, they really contain a huge measure of audacity. So, I mean, really taking a risk, it’s just way out of left field. It’s just crazy. So, I think one of the things that people are responding to is, if you do something that gives them a story to tell, then they love it. Of course, they get engaged with it, but they love it because they want to tell a story. And there are lots of these where there’s a story and you’re just, “Oh, my God, that’s just astonishing.”

Pete Mockaitis
I think that’s a great takeaway in terms of it gives them a story to share, it’s valuable in and of its own right, and it just takes so much effort, you can’t help but respect it in terms of, because it takes zero effort to have a cold email, automated cold email. Some can be very thoughtful and well researched, but you can’t mass blast pigeons.

Stu Heinecke
No. And, you know, when you’re on LinkedIn and you get a message, a request for a connection, and it says, “Hey…” because the pitches, they’re always generic. So, it’s just, “Hey, I read your profile, and I know a lot of people just like you.” I’m thinking you’ve missed the mark. Don’t say that to someone because you don’t know anything about me.

Pete Mockaitis
“I’m a unique person.”

Stu Heinecke
I wouldn’t be able to look at my profile and know much about me. So, how are you? Obviously, you’re spraying this out to, who knows, hundreds, thousands of people. I’m not going to waste my time. So, yeah, the pigeon, but audacity, I don’t think you can do that at a great quantity level.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

Stu Heinecke
I mean, you just got to be one-on-one. And, really, ultimately, the goal we’re seeking is we want people to receive this, Dale Dupree calls it an experience. I think that’s a good way of describing it, but receive this thing that you’ve sent or done and just say, “Wow, who is this?” Like, going from, “Who is this?” to, “My God, who is this? I got to meet this person. This is hilarious.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes.

Stu Heinecke
So, if you do that, then if you’ve opened the conversation together, or really the relationship together in that way, then you’ve given them a story.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig it. I dig it. Let’s hear more stories.

Stu Heinecke
All right. There’s one that involves two singers. So, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, I’m talking to you from Hendersonville, Tennessee, so Johnny Cash is…

Stu Heinecke
Oh, my God, then you know all about him. Well, so Kris, much younger man than Johnny, Johnny was one of his heroes, Kris was in the army stationed in Germany, flying helicopters, and he was trying to figure out what is the next steps were in his life. And he thought, “Well, I know, I want to become a singer-songwriter. I want to move to Nashville. And you know what? I want to meet Johnny Cash and I want to collaborate with him. I want to be his best friend.” Those were his goals.

So, he finished his tour of duty in Germany and moved to Nashville. And one of his friends knew that he wanted to meet Johnny Cash. So, he had a backstage pass. Got him in. There was Johnny. He was just about to go on. And he said, “Hey, Johnny, I just wanted to introduce a friend of mine. This is Kris.”

And Johnny turns and looks and he goes, “Hey, how you doing?” And then turns away because he’s going on stage. That was it. There was no impression whatsoever. Well, then Kris thought, “Okay, then I’ll get a job at the studio where Johnny records,” Columbia Studio in Nashville, I believe.

So, the only job they had was a janitor. And Kris was a Rhodes scholar. This was a real sacrifice to do this. But, anyway, he took the job as a janitor. They were all told, by the way, if you slip a demo tape to Johnny, you’re fired. So, he slipped them to June instead, his wife. It still didn’t work. So, one day, he thought, “God, I’ve got to do something. I got to make something happen here.”

So, one day, he was still flying helicopters as well. So, he was out on a flight, I don’t know what he was doing, going to an oil rig or something, but finishing up, and he thought, “I know what I’m going to. I have my demo tape. I’m going to stop by.” And he said that’s what he did. He flew over, and he landed on Johnny’s front lawn.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, nice.

Stu Heinecke
And handed off a demo tape that way. Now, Johnny and Kris remember the story differently, because Johnny said, “Yeah, so then here’s Kris. I’ve known him for a couple of years from the studio. But here he was, he comes over, lands a helicopter, steps out from the helicopter with a beer in one hand and a demo tape in the other.” And Kris was always saying, “I can’t fly a helicopter. I need both hands. There’s no way I was flying with a beer.”

But what was happening was Johnny was already full force. He was just into that story. I mean, I think we know him. They became, from that point on, they became collaborators. Kris wrote a lot of songs, and Johnny recorded a lot of those, introduced to him to a lot, his career just exploded from that one helicopter flight, but he landed a helicopter on his front lawn to get his attention.

And until he did that, until he showed, I don’t know, kind of the audacity, till he showed the audacity to do that, I don’t think you would even get on Johnny’s radar. He wasn’t.

Pete Mockaitis
So, Stu, I’m thinking, “Can I even legally charter a helicopter flight to land in someone’s yard? Was there like a flight plans or FAA things that are going to stop me?”

Stu Heinecke
I don’t know. You know, I’m amazed he wasn’t arrested for it. I don’t know. I never heard anything about that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you said they’re taking a risk. I was like, “Oh, you know, you’re risking time and money and embarrassment, but you might also be risking law enforcement action in some contexts.”

Stu Heinecke
You might go to jail. You might lose your license. All kinds of stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so I like this. I want more reps of the stories because I think it starts to spark other ideas. Let’s hear the sword story.

Stu Heinecke
Oh, yeah. Well, that is, so Dan Waldschmidt is the man behind that story. And Dan, he’s a blogger, he’s one of the top sales bloggers, and an author. And his branding is around, well, it is edgy conversation, so sort of knife’s edge, ultra competitiveness. Dan runs, he trains a lot, and he runs 100-mile races and he wins these things. He’s in great shape. He’s an amazing competitor.

And so, he brings all of that to bear in his sort of, let’s say, personal branding. But what he really is, he’s a turnaround specialist. And so, he shared with me his process for reaching the CEOs of companies that are in trouble. And what he does is he scans the business news every day for stories of missed earnings estimates. And when he finds one, he has a sword made by the prop maker who made the sword for the movie “Gladiator.”

But they’re great swords. They’re not sharpened. Thankfully, that’s a great feature if you’re going to send someone something like that. The blade has an inscription, “If you’re not all in, you’re not in at all,” and then it has the CEO’s name engraved on it as well. And it comes in a beautiful wooden box, felt line, with a handwritten note. And handwritten notes tend to show up a lot in these. And I think one of the reasons that that’s also relevant now is that that’s not something AI does.

So, the note says something to the effect that “A business is war. I noticed you lost a battle recently. I just wanted to let you know, if you ever need a few extra hands in battle, we’ve got your back.” And what he’s saying is, “We’ll stand side by side with you and go to battle with you, for you, to win this battle.”

And so, he is getting 100% response rate to that so far. I want to say it costs him about $1,000 every time he puts one of those out. And by 100% response rate, I mean that all of those CEOs will take his call. All of them will talk to him. Not all of them do business with him, but that’s the next step. When he does business with them, and when he has an assignment, a turnaround assignment, it’s worth, generally, a million dollars and up. So, if you spend $1,000 on the sword, it’s worth it.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. That’s cool. Well, so let’s say we’ve got a job seeker who’s thinking, “Boy, you know what, my dream would just be to work for…” fill in the blank, “Oh, it’d be the coolest thing ever if I could work for Netflix…” or, “…for Pete Mockaitis…” or, “…the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.”

Stu Heinecke
Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
I’ll just put it on the same level, if I may, yeah. And so, if someone has that idea, but was like, “But I can’t get their attention, there are these AI resume screeners. I apply and it goes nowhere. Stu, how do I use this?”

And so, it seems like a sword or a carrier pigeon or a helicopter, it’s interesting because there are economic considerations in terms of, if we don’t have a million-dollar size of prize, but rather we might see like a $20,000 raise, is the size of the prize, you know, who knows what percent of success we’re going to get.

So, I’d say, let’s just say, I’ll challenge you a little bit, under 200 bucks total cash budget per contact. I’m trying to get my dream job at Netflix, or with Pete Mockaitis, how might I play this game?

Stu Heinecke
One of the techniques that I think is really interesting is, I call it deep personalization in “Get the Meetings,” the later book after “How to Get a Meeting with Anyone.”

But it’s doing a profile scrape. And now with AI, my God, we can get some really crazy-level profile scrapes because you can find out a lot about who they are, what they like to do, what they’re talking about. AI will just go scrape it for you, and it’s amazing, really amazing.

So, when you find out something about someone, that they love maybe Korean War fighters, and they love flying in jets. Well, actually, you said under 200. You could show them the jet. I don’t think you could get them a ride for two. I don’t know if you can get it for a 200.

But certainly, you can come up with a gift that reflects that, and it doesn’t have to be an expensive gift. I guess it just depends. And it probably shouldn’t be because gifting is often restricted by companies. They can’t accept a gift over $20.

So, I don’t know, it might be, let’s say, a rare book or an old book about MiGs or something like that. Go to eBay and search around and find something on that subject and send it to them. And it comes across as a very thoughtful gift. Just tell them, “I was doing research.” This is actually the basis of something called a wow mailer.

But just say in the note that, “I was doing research because I wanted to meet you. And I discovered that you were really, really interested in MiGs, MiG fighters,” let’s stick with that theme here. “And I thought you’d enjoy this book that I found on MiGs. And I hope it will actually, perhaps it will earn me the opportunity to speak with you.” So, that’s a nice way to do it.

Well, you know I’m a cartoonist as well. I’m one of the Wall Street Journal cartoonists. And so, I would probably send them a card or maybe a larger piece, but a cartoon about themselves. Oh, especially if it also then backed into the research, the scrapes. So, suddenly I know that they’re interested in MiGs, then I’ll work that into the cartoon. So, that might be a way.

But I really think just doing something with a profile scrape and discovering something about them that they really, really treasure in life, and then fashion a gift around it. It’d be a great way to do it. But here’s another one. A lot of people have sent their resumes, or dropped their resumes off, taped to a donut box, or a box full of donuts. I mean, that’s kind of like a Trojan horse, I think.

And then my friend, Dale Dupree, also does something interesting. He has empty donut boxes delivered. I mean, you can see sort of the detritus from the donuts that were in there, but there’s a note inside saying, in his case, he was saying, “I was waiting to meet you, or to do our deal, but it took so long. I ended up eating all the donuts,” and then there’s a donut card inside and it’s something like that. Just something that gives someone, as I’ve said, an experience or a story to tell.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I remember, I shared the story with you last time we spoke. There was a coaching client I had, he wanted to work at McKinsey and Company, you know, get in a competitive consulting organization. He was in a Target recruiting school. On his own birthday, he sent birthday cake to the office, and said, “All I want for my birthday is an interview with McKinsey.”

Stu Heinecke
Oh, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
And it worked out. It worked out.

Stu Heinecke
Look at that.

Pete Mockaitis
So, yeah, so sweet treats, combined with resumes and/or a request.

So, AI is really cool for scraping and getting the details on what they might be into. I’m curious, fundamental question, how do I just get the mailing address?

Stu Heinecke
Well, yeah, so a little bit. So, you don’t have to send something physical. That also should be said. But you have to be careful about sending things to their home address. And I know people are working from home, so that’s their address.

I would suggest something different, though. You could find their address, their home address, and I think if you sent them something, and they don’t know you and they haven’t given permission, or just said, “Yeah, please send it. That sounds interesting,” you’re going to come off like a stalker. So,

Call ahead and find out, “I’m sending something to you,” or, “I’m sending something to your boss,” if they have assistants, “And I just want to know, if I send it to the office, is that the best place to send it?” And then they’ll say, “Yes, it’ll get to them,” or, “No, why don’t you send it to their home address?” and then they’ll give the address.

I think you want to have some kind of clearance from it, so that if you send something to someone at their home, and they’re saying, “How did you get my address?” “Well, I got it from your assistant. And they said, send it to you there.” “Oh, okay.” It’s diffused. But I do think if you’re sending it to someone’s home address, it can get creepy really quickly. So, you’ve got to be careful.

But AI is giving us all kinds of options, not only for finding addresses, but also, of course, picking up on buyer intent signals and trigger events.

So, if you know your ideal customer profile, you can find people who are not only fitting that profile, but also fitting in terms of timing based on trigger events and interest, expressed interest because that’s based on their search patterns. So, if they’re suddenly searching for what you sell, man, that’s a good time to be talking to them.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, is this just like standard Google Ads, or is there some software magic you like under the hood?

Stu Heinecke
Well, there are several platforms. You know, Seamless and Zoominfo and Apollo.io and so on. They are all doing that. They all have, now, buyer intent signals built into it. I think the first platform that did it was 6sense. One thing I don’t like from some of the platforms after that is, then, they’re set up to send email sequences.

And I think email sequences are, I guess, I hesitate to call them dead, but we see them, we know what they look like. And if you’re getting email after email, and each email is a page-long copy, it has page-long copy, you’re not going to read that.

And, also, that it has the slogan at the bottom, “This was sent to you by such-and-such. If you want to opt out…” or rather unsubscribe, do this with all those links at the bottom of those broadcast emails. All of that is just a cue to the person on the other end, “This is not personal.” They’ve just put you into a mill and they’re taking up your time with automation.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s funny how I’ve had a number of businesses, maybe this is even your experience appearing on podcasts. It’s, like, some of the emails are from the podcaster, and those are real, and you may wish to reply to them. And others are automations from the calendar software. And I would hope that you would go ahead and read the guest prep materials, but you know that those are not real.

So, in a world where we have too many emails, and unless you’re just absolutely desperately in need of the thing that is being mentioned, yeah, that’s one of our top filters, I think. It’s like, “Not a real person. Not actually for me personally.”

Stu Heinecke
If it comes across that way, you just dump it. And so, that’s what I was saying at the outset. Our mission is to create human-to-human connections. AI is magical, I think. It’s miraculous. But when we’re talking about, then, getting meetings with people and making connections with people, well, that’s what we’re doing, human-to-human connections. It’s not machine-to-human connections.

And as soon as the human gets any sort of inkling that that’s what’s happening, then you are persona non grata. You’re not going to get through. You will never get through. You’ll be blocked.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, speaking of not getting through and getting blocked, I guess, what’s so exciting about your book and your concept, “How to Get a Meeting with Anyone,” and then just like the zone of creativity is like, “Oh, if I discover a really cool personalized thing, then that’ll do the trick.” But I think what’s hard here is, “I need to have the permission for the home address.” So, it feels like you can get blocked there pretty easily.

Stu Heinecke
Yeah, I always advocate calling the assistant. If you’re going to someone at the level that has an assistant, but calling ahead and just saying, “Hi, my name is such and such. I’m calling because I’m sending a print of a cartoon by one of the New Yorker or Wall Street Journal cartoonists, and it’s about your boss.” Well, I call that a VIP statement in the book. That is a statement that causes the person on the other end of the line to say, “Oh, whoa, okay. Well, cool. Oh, I got to listen to this.”

So, then there’s a script that goes with it, “So, yeah, it is about your boss. I’d love to send you an email just so I can confirm the details, and I’ll give you my contact information. And then as soon as I have the FedEx tracking number, I will send that to you as well.” So, it’s actually still in production when you do that, or it could be pre-production. So, if they say no, then you don’t send them one. But I think it makes a lot of sense to call ahead and to start.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I certainly do. I guess, if you’re addressing what I was worried about, it’s like, “Well, they might just shut you down now.” It’s like, “We don’t know you. We don’t want your stuff.”

Stu Heinecke
Maybe. But I think that the line, that VIP statement helps a lot. You know, I’m in the middle of writing a new book, and I wanted to reach Bjorn Ulvaeus from ABBA. Well, ABBA is still one of the biggest bands in the world, and it’s not going to be easy to reach him. And so, I used one of my new devices. It’s a FedEx piece, a really cool piece. And I have to reach his publicist, and I wasn’t even sure I was going to reach her, but I did reach her just yesterday.

So, there’s the rest of the context and the whole gag. You can reach out to just about anybody. And when you do, magic can happen. And it’s pretty amazing. So, certainly, magic can happen in your job search as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Stu, tell me, if someone’s listening and they think, “I could use AI to make a cartoon,” what do you say to them?

Stu Heinecke
I just put the finger across the throat. Here’s the thing. Here’s the deal. And, actually, it’s a really interesting question because, as things become more automated and artificial through AI, I think that people are going to clamor for things that are uniquely human, things that only humans can do. And I would say cartoons are one of those.

So, I’ve watched it very carefully. I’m on a few of the text-to-image platforms, and I’ve prompted, every once in a while, to come up with just a…it’s a really tough thing to do to come up with a funny, something that’s funny. And AI is getting better at that. But then also the cartoon drawings so far, they’re really, I mean, they don’t look like…there’s this rawness to a Roz Chast cartoon, or I don’t know, Peter Steiner, any of them. There’s a rawness to it that is utterly human.

And when you ask an AI to produce a cartoon, well, first of all, it’s generally, it’s just a drawing. Yeah, it’s just a drawing or whatever it is. It’s just an image. And it’s more like a Saturday…how do I put it? Almost like a Saturday morning, 3D Saturday morning kiddies cartoon kind of thing. It’s not sophisticated. It’s not something you’d look at and go, “Oh, gosh, what is this? This looks hilarious.” It just looks like characters on a TV show, 3D animation TV show.

So, there’s still, so far, it’s not something that AI can do. It should be good enough that the person on the other end says, “Wow, you actually sat down and wrote this to me. Who is this?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. All right. Well, Stu, tell me, anything else you want to mention before we hear about your favorite things?

Stu Heinecke
Well, I guess I should hold up the book because I just got a copy of it. There it is, “How to Get a Meeting with Anyone,” the new edition. It’s purple, this time. But it has new chapters dealing with those things that we’ve just talked about, AI, and how AI, work from home, and just the dearth of digital spam everywhere, every channel is changing the way we get meetings.

But still, it’s not changing them because, on the other hand, we’re still using things that are audacious and clever, and they open a conversation with someone in a pretty magical way. And it only happens when it’s human to human.

So, I would advise you, if I was in the middle of a job search, I would be using this stuff for sure because I wouldn’t want to rely on the AI algorithms to pick my resume out of all, I don’t know, the thousands. I wouldn’t want to even rest my fate in the hands of HR. I wouldn’t. I would feel like they don’t even understand what I’m talking about.

And so, I would be reaching out to the CEO, and letting them know that I’m interested in working with them. I mean, not even apply. Maybe just reach out to CEOs anyway. I think CEOs, you know, if you impress them, then their job is to build a team. And so, if you impress them enough, I think you end up in a situation where they’re saying, “God, we need someone like this on our team.” And that will happen.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Well, now can you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Stu Heinecke
What comes to mind is I did another book, I wrote another book called “How to Grow Your Business Like a Weed” that came after, and I got some great, great quotes from all sorts of sources. But my favorite quote out of there is, “Give a weed an inch and it’ll take a yard.” So, I love that one. And I guess maybe Winston Churchill’s, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Stu Heinecke
I like some of the sales books by Jeb Blount and Mark Hunter. You’ve probably had them on.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, could make the scheduling work. I’d love to get Jeb on.

Stu Heinecke
Oh, yeah, he’s great. He’s great. He writes a lot of great, great books. He’s prolific. And he and Anthony Iannarino teamed up to write a book about AI and sales. I think that’s really interesting. So, anything by Jeb Blount, anything by Mark Hunter, anything by Victor Antonio, anything by Anthony Iannarino, lots of great, great stuff coming out.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Stu Heinecke
I’m working out like a fiend. The real habit, though, is going in four or five times a week and working out an hour and half to two hours, and it does pay dividends. It’s amazing.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to resonate with folks, you hear them quoting it back you often?

Stu Heinecke
“If you can’t get meetings, you can’t sell.”

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

Stu Heinecke
You can mention that you saw or heard me on your podcast. Let’s just go to LinkedIn and connect with me there. Or you can go to StuHeinecke.com, my name is S-T-U H-E-I-N-E-C-K-E.com, and that’s my author site. And you’ll find offers and all sorts of interesting things there.

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

Stu Heinecke
If you’re looking for a job, man, if you’re going through the usual channels, the channels that everyone else is going, if you’re using best practices, the things that everyone else is doing, keep in mind you’re not standing out. That’s not the way you stand out. You heard stories about Kris Kristofferson landing a helicopter on Johnny Cash’s front lawn, you’ve heard stories of dropping pigeons off, and so on. That’s how you stand out. You got to take risks.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Stu, thank you.

Stu Heinecke
You’re very welcome. Thank you for having me on.

Pete Mockaitis
Matthew, welcome.

Matthew Pollard
Mate, I’m ecstatic to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. I want to know, you’re the rapid growth guy, so why are we writing a book called The Introvert’s Edge to Networking?

Matthew Pollard
It’s funny. People would assume that rapid growth, sales success, networking success, is kind of an oxymoron with the concept of introversion. And while a lot of people think that, it’s totally not true. Let’s confront the stigma head on for a second. Most people think that introverts are terrible at small talk, yet David Letterman and Oprah Winfrey are introverts, so that makes no sense.

And then, “Oh, yeah, but we definitely can’t sell.” Well, Zig Ziglar, the most well-known sales trainer on the planet, who’s no longer with us, but him and his son, Tom Ziglar, are very introverted. And then you’ve got, “Oh, okay, if we can sell and we can do small talk, networking is the thing we definitely can’t do.” Well, that’s also not true. Ivan Misner, the founder of BNI, the world’s largest networking group, is an introvert as well.

So, really, I’m known as the rapid growth guy because I’ve been responsible for five multimillion-dollar success stories, and I help organizations, predominantly introverted small business-based, small business owners, obtain rapid growth in their business because I find them, they get stuck in this endless hamster wheel of struggling to find interested people, trying to set themselves apart, trying to make the sale, and always fighting on price, but also corporate executives. They have no idea how to sell their value.

And I find that the same methodology applies for people to create rapid growth in their careers as well. So, that’s how I’ve got the name but I spend my life trying to help introverts realize they’re not second-class citizens. Their path to success is just different to that of an extrovert.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. All right. Well, could you perhaps share a tale that lays it out in terms of what’s at stake for introverts, and whether they are networking well or not so well?

Matthew Pollard
Well, I think for a lot of people, there’s that old adage that, “If people don’t know your value, then it doesn’t matter how much you know. You’re never going to succeed in your career.” So, your network is directly related to your net worth. I think that’s changing a lot in the digital forum, but the truth is that I’m always pushing people to learn how to articulate their value in the networking room, whether they’re a career professional, whether they’re an executive, whether they’re just getting started in a career right through, and more especially for small business owners.

Because if you can’t articulate your value, and somebody’s politely listening to you in a room for two, two and a half minutes, you just got no chance online because people, then, give you fractions of a second. And I’ve seen people that we allow, or help get their messaging right in a networking room that have then gone on headhunted and get six figure increases in salary just because they’re getting their message correct. But without that in-the-room validation, it doesn’t work.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, let’s double click on that for a moment. Six figure increases in salary, that’s lovely. So, if someone’s going from 125,000 to 225,000, for example, near doubling, all based upon effectively having a good two-minute exchange with somebody?

Matthew Pollard
This ideology actually started in the small business space. And what was funny is I actually had a lady that read my book, she reached out to me, and she was a small business owner at the time, and she said she was trying to get a corporate job. And I actually responded with, “You know, that’s not what I do.”

And she got upset with me, and she literally said, “Look, I know your ideology will work for corporations, and because there aren’t many authors in the introverted space, I just believe that you can help me.” And she said, “Really, I’m just trying to get one customer, one corporation to hire me.” I mean, “That’s kind of true but I can’t give you my online program. We have to work one-on-one. I’m willing to give it a shot if you’re up for it.”

And what was really interesting is we applied the methodology. And what I always focus on is you need to know the niche that you’re going after. And so, for her, what we’ve helped her realize was her real love was education technology. So, we got her to focus on education technology, we created a message for her, and she actually got a job that paid 180,000.

But the one specifically I was talking about was another gentleman that we worked with around the same time, and he actually was going to start his own business, and then he actually got hit by hurricane Katrina out in Texas. And I was like, “Mate, you’ve got scarcity in your life and uncertainty everywhere. You shouldn’t be starting your own business now.” He said, “But I want to start my own business. I don’t want to work.”

He was working for a large bank, and he said, “I’m traveling 250 days a year, and, on top of that, I’ve got to deal with all the stuff back home, and I feel like I’m always dealing with the same problem over and over, and I want to deal with lots of different types of clients.” And I said, “I don’t think you want to go and start your own business. I think that what you really want to do is work with an organization that has lots of business units. Then you can have the safety and security of an employment job but you can still work in lots of different business units and apply your ideology. But let’s understand what your ideology is.”

And what we realized is what he loved to do was create customer-centric moments that created organizational growth, so create that special contact moment that allowed that person that had that special contact to, then, share the praise with other people that created referrals and become more stickier customer and buy more stuff. So, I said, “What I believe you specialize in is creating these customer-centric moments which, then, creates a growth velocity for the organization that you work with, but you don’t need to work in your own business to do that. You can do that in a corporation. What we need to do is call you something like,” and I came up with the term the velocity architect.

And I said, “Call yourself the velocity architect, don’t call yourself a marketer, because when you say you’re a marketer, they put you in a box with everybody else. And while that may be what you need to do to get your first job, the people that go from middle to top-level management, they need to separate themselves. They’ve got to have something unique.”

So, we called him the velocity architect. We created the three major problems that most organizations have where they struggle to create customer velocity because they don’t create these customer-centric moments. And following up, he went from an interview with an energy company that had multiple business units, and it was a six-figure job but it was low six figures. I think it was about a $150,000-$190,000 job. And when he went for the interview, he introduced himself as the velocity architect, he talked about these customer-centric engagements, and he learned how to tell stories.

Because a lot of people try to educate on their value, and stories work far better. But once he did that, the person that he was doing the interview with said, “Look, you’re overqualified for this job but my CEO needs to meet you.” And they actually created a job for him that actually paid. It was over 100,000, it was in the 200s, more than the job he was applying for.

Because what you’ve got to understand in today’s world, people are looking, and I’m not talking about low-level jobs. I’m talking about medium to high-level jobs. They are looking for people that have ideologies that give their organizations value, and they’ll create jobs for you. They’ll headhunt people that have unique points of view. And in today’s digital world, if you can learn how to articulate that clearly and concisely in a networking room, you can leverage that online, you’ll find yourself getting headhunted. You’ll be able to leverage that message online and have people all over the world trying to recruit you.

Pete Mockaitis
Matthew, this is an intriguing thesis. You’ve got some juicy case studies and examples. Do you have any other compelling evidence that suggests that, in fact, this unique point of view that you have about unique points of view is dead-on true?

Matthew Pollard
The truth is that when you’re looking to go to a networking room, and, if you’re a small business owner listening to this, you should never be going to a networking room to try and find clients. I know you think that that’s what you need but, for me, finding another client is the wrong direction to go.

My belief is that finding, what I would call, momentum partners and champion relationships are where the power is and for career people listening that have got jobs, this is just as powerful for you because if you go to a networking room, and you’re looking for that next person that’s going to hire you, well, if you’re not looking for a job right now, it’s going to convince you that don’t need to be networking.

But then, on top of that, the biggest relationships that I have found useful in everything that you do, firstly, momentum partners, people that believe in what you do, and are willing to talk to other people about it, and you believe in what they do. And because of that, this ideology works much more effectively because if I said, “Oh, you’re looking for a marketing person, or a senior marketing-level position, you need to talk to this person.” It’s like, “Oh, I’ve already got a few people. I’ll get them to submit their resume,” as opposed to, “Oh, my gosh, you need to speak to the velocity architect.”

All of a sudden, this person is different and unique. They stand out. You’re at least willing to entertain having a dialogue with them. And then the next thing is this concept that I came up with which was a champion relationship, which is somebody that is far more advanced than you, that’s willing to share your praises and willing to endorse your work and give it credibility. Because if you’re the velocity architect, and you’ve got other people talking about what you do and why it’s amazing that are highly credible, and you network to find those people, then those people will allow you to constantly land work and create greater and greater success.

But what I really want to do is take a step back for a second and imagine that I’m a brand-new person. I’ve never had a job before. And I’m moving into just a customer service role. I’m just looking for a customer service role. If I applied for every customer service role under the sun, then I’ve got to have the best resume, I’ve got to interview really well, I’ve got to cite all the right things. I’m relying on a lot of luck to get that job, and, especially if I’m introverted.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe that introverts actually make the best salespeople, the best networkers, the best public speakers, the best leaders, but if I didn’t believe that, and I didn’t plan and prepare, which introverts are great at, but most often they prepare and plan in the wrong way, I might go and bumble my way through that interview, and hope that they can see the real value in me to hire me.

But if I, instead, said, “You know what, what I’m going to do instead is I’m going to focus on my passion. Maybe I’m really passionate about manufacturing organizations, and changing customer service in a manufacturing business. Well, then maybe I’ll only go for manufacturing-based interviews. And because of that, I can talk about my passion for the manufacturing space. I can talk about the mission that I’m on to transform the space. I can do more research to understand it more, and it makes me more relevant and more employable to that organization.”

And that is why it allows you to create far more success. This isn’t new stuff. If you say, “I’m a person that’s trying to get a client, and I’m a small business owner.” Well, if you niche down, you’re, of course, going to be seen as far more likely the only logical choice. And if you’ve got a message that resonates to that marketplace, of course, they’re going to be willing to pay you as a premium. Well, why is that different for a corporate job?

It’s not different. The truth is if they’d never heard of you, then separating yourself from the pack is the only thing that’s going to make sure you’re in the top three candidates to get that second interview. And that is why I recommend that you do this because what you want to do is you want to shine on your differences, and you want to be able to talk about your unique passion, your unique mission.

Oh, by the way, if you are going for an interview, the other thing you really want to understand is that in an interview, you think it’s all about you. It’s not. The biggest mistake you can do when you go into an interview is make it all about you. And, by the way, introverts hate talking about themselves, which is why interviews goes so poorly because they go into an interview and they think they’ve got to brag on themselves and talk about their credibility, yet, the truth is, the best way to be successful in a networking room, and in an interview, is to understand the organization that you’re working for and the objectives that they have, and then make your experience relevant to them, and talk about your care for helping organizations like them.

And, again, to do that, you have to think about your differences, your unique value, the specific marketplace that you love helping, like manufacturing, or the specific outcome that you love helping people get, like customer-centric velocity, and then make that relevant to the organizations you’re going for interviews with. But truthfully, it doesn’t just work for going for interviews. Getting promotions within current organizations has also worked tremendously well for us as well because you can share your difference and get stakeholder support within the organization for new initiatives or to create jobs within an organization you already work with. And we’ve seen that happen time and time again.

Pete Mockaitis
Matthew, that’s beautiful. There’s a whole lot here. Boy, let’s chat about coming up with your unique point of view. And you said one way is that you kind of find the intersection. We’ve got an issue that you’re into, and an industry that you’re serving. So, not just customer service for anybody but customer service for manufacturing companies or whomever.

So, can you give us some examples of additional articulations of unique point of view? So, we got the velocity architect as one example. And how we come to land upon what that articulation is.

Matthew Pollard
Absolutely. So, I would say that you need to focus on what you’re absolutely passionate about. And there’s a quote by Jim Carrey that I think is great for those people that are worried that it’s not going to work. And he said, “I learned a great deal from my father but nothing more valuable than you can fail at what you don’t want, so why not take a chance at what you love?”

And so, I’m going to suggest to everybody when they’re looking at this articulation, to really think about what they’re passionate about, what they really care about. So, for somebody that really cares about manufacturing, go into the manufacturing space and build your messaging around that. If you’re really passionate about technology then build it around something specific that you do in the technology space. I’ll give you an example on that.

So, let’s imagine you’re a managed service provider, you work in an organization that you just love technology and you help people fix all their computers and systems, and you’re looking for a high-level CFO job, sorry, a CTO job. Well, maybe that what you really are passionate about doing is helping those companies obtain hyper growth. So, maybe you want to go and get a job at like an accounting organization that has a growth-through-acquisition mindset, or a lot of accounting firms grow by buying other accounting firms and taking on their books of business, or a manufacturing business will say, “Okay, we’ve got all these products. Let’s go and buy other manufacturing firms so that we can take on all their products but also cross-sell all the products that we have.”

So, growth through acquisition is really, really prevalent in those industries. So, if I was a CFO, and I was looking at those kinds of industries, and I love working with hyper growth companies, what I would say is the biggest problem that they have, though, and this happens a lot with organizations like that, is they buy a book of business, but then they’ve got to mix the technology. And what you’ll find is there’s licensing issues. The organization is building this fortress to make sure no one can hack in. And now they’ve got to build this hyper freeway to have all the data transferring between all these different offices, and it creates all these issues and conflicts.

Well, if I was going to sell to myself as an employee, I might position myself as the acquisition lifeguard because I know they want to grow through acquisition, and I know the technology is one of the biggest hassles that causes the organizations to almost drown in the minutiae of doing this that causes CEOs to lose their support. So, I might call myself the acquisition lifeguard in order to do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. So, you’ve got that clarity such that you become the only logical choice for a select few. And then it’s sort of like you have a moniker or a role or a title that goes there. Any tips on fine tuning that articulation? I think it’s so funny, I remember one time I was talking to someone, and he tried this. He said, “You know what, we’re a financial quarterback. You come to us and we’re going to find the best fixed income guy, the best stock picker, the best whatever.”

And it was so funny because I watch so little sports, I didn’t even understand the metaphor until much later, it’s like, “Oh, as a quarterback, your role is to throw the football or to pass a portion of my portfolio onto a specialist in different respects, much like a quarterback might throw to different players on the field.” I felt kind of like an idiot.

So, I guess, in a way, there’s a risk there that if you use a word that your target audience doesn’t have as much familiarity with, watch out for that. Any other pro tips on refining your moniker?

Matthew Pollard
So, there’s a couple of answers to that. So, firstly, you’re talking to an Australian with NFL terms so I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, there you go. Yeah.

Matthew Pollard
I’ve lived in the United States for 10 years but I will tell you, I’m still getting my head around the NFL. But, yeah, I’m careful with the word quarterback. Also, I’ve worked with people in Germany, that you have to be careful about the word capitalist because it used to be a socialist society. You’ve really got to think things through.

But the thing that I would say is that if you use your functional skill in the unified message, then it’s not a unified message.

So, if you are in data analytics, and you call yourself the data wizard or the data guru, that’s not going to work for you and here’s the science behind it. People’s brains are focused on putting you into a box to disqualify you or to say, “I need that.” I’ll give you an example. If I go into a networking room, and I say I’m a sales trainer, people will look at me like I’m one step above a scam artist.

And if you’re my ideal avatar, you’re going to say, “Oh, I’m an introvert. I am never going to learn how to sell.” And then I’ve got to dance around that topic and explain how I’ve got a book that sold 100,000 copies helping introverts succeed at sales, and I’ve got to convince you. I’m already starting from behind. That doesn’t work.

And here’s the real key. The goal of the unified message is to do only this, “Hi, my name is Matthew, and I’m the rapid growth guy.” And I say it just like I said I’m an accountant or an attorney. The goal is for you to say it in a way that it feels like it really encapsulates the value of what you do. It feels more authentic. Like, for me, if I say I’m a sales trainer, it doesn’t incorporate the value of what I provide really at all. It’s just a functional skill. It’s like me reading a book, like Emeth, and saying, “Oh, I’m an Emeth person.” It doesn’t define you.

Everyone has got unique talents, unique skills, unique past backgrounds that perfectly qualify them to provide a certain value, and, more specifically, provide even more value to a specific demographic that they’re passionate about. And because of that, what you want to do, and the only thing that you want to focus on, is making sure that your unified message does one of two things. Either get them to say, “How do you do that?” or, “What exactly is that?” It’s to make it vague enough but also to provide interest.

Now, if you’re in a networking room and you’ve read my book, then you know to be interested before being interesting. So, if you’ve been talking to them for 20 minutes, and they say, “Oh, my gosh, Matthew, I’ve been talking to you for the last 20 minutes. I haven’t even asked you what it is that you do.” And you say, “Oh, thanks for asking. I’m the rapid growth guy.” Well, of course, they’re going to want to ask what that is for two reasons.

You’re a puzzle they need to solve, and, secondly, you gave them so much value by being interested in them, they want to give you value back by listening to you. So, that when people then respond with, “What exactly is that?” I can then say, “Well, one of the things that I love to see more than anything in the world and go into my passion mission statement.” Now, notice, I didn’t say, “Well, I do this and I do this, or I have this skill set,” because, again, networking isn’t about talking about you. It’s about expressing your passion and your mission for transforming the world in some way, shape, or form, which is intoxicating for people.

So, let’s look at what a good unified message looks like. A good unified message has a word, and I’m always cognizant of using things like point guard or you said quarterback because those are country-specific, and also sometimes gender-specific, and also whether they’re interested in the sports. It’s complicated. Maven, architect, catalyst, all these kinds of words are, again, above an eighth-grade reading level but, truthfully, a lot of people that are trying to get high-level jobs, most of the people that you’re talking to will understand what they are, but also expresses the value of what you provide in some way, shape, or form.

And, look, you don’t need to hire me to do this. If you’re a small business trying to come up with your version of the rapid growth guy or a career executive, there is a template that I share at MatthewPollard.com/growth, and that will give you a five-step process which will help you, firstly, determine the niche.

And, by the way, if you’re a career professional and you think that you don’t need to niche, you are 100% wrong. If you specialize in an industry, especially when you’re first starting, you’re always going to get paid a higher premium, you’re always going to be able to get headhunted more effectively, and then, over time, you can broaden that niche but this will show you how to niche down as a career professional or as a small business owner, and discover your niche of willing to buy clients or willing to buy employers. And then it will show you how to create your unified message that will excite and inspire people to want to know more.

And it really is about leaning in to your unique passions, your unique skillset, your unique past customers or past employers, and saying, “What was I really good at? What unique situations caused my employers or my past customers to sing my praises, to talk about me in a really positive way?” and really looking at how to then articulate it.

Now, once you’ve got that, you then need to know how to articulate your passion and mission in a way that gets people to be even more interested, and then you need to explain your value for the first time, the jargon of what you do in a story. And if you can do all of that in an interview, in a networking event, or a podcast interview like this, then people will chase you from all over the world to hire you or to get you to be their consultant or their small business guru.

You pick your profession because people these days are actively looking for a message that they identify with. And for that, they’ll pay a premium. The problem is that in today’s overly cluttered world, most people still only push vanilla content, like they come at high skill, or, “We know insurance,” or, “I’m a marketing person, and I’ve got 20 years of experience,” and the truth is, if you can’t be the clearest, you have to be the loudest.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And you mentioned building relationships with momentum partners and champion relationships. Any pro tips on identifying these people and making the approach?

Matthew Pollard
Absolutely. And, by the way, introverts listening to this, you should love the idea of this because it means you’re going to networking events and not looking to be transactional. What I find is a lot of extroverts do this, which is they’ll go into a networking room, and they’re like, “Do you want to buy from me? What about you? What about you? Or, are you looking for somebody to hire? What about you? What about you?”

A lot of extroverts don’t like doing that either. They feel like it’s transactional but that then leads into what I call endless networking, which is where you don’t kind of downplay yourself. It’s, like, somebody asks you what you’re doing, you’re like, “Oh, my day job is this.” I mean, who wants to hire someone like that?

So, because of that, what I suggest is be more strategic about the networking events that you go to. So, firstly, a lot of people that go networking, they don’t do any research before they go, and that drives me crazy. It’s, like, if you’re going to go to a networking event, especially if you’re an introvert, which means it’s a little bit more uncomfortable, I want it to be more like a bunch of pre-planned meetings than anything else.

So, let’s talk about how that actually works. I spoke at Intel a few years ago, and I deliver this presentation about how storytelling could be used for marketing and from a sales perspective.

One of these executives came up to me afterwards, and he said, “Matt, look, I’ve really loved my conversation with you.” He said, “I can’t talk to anyone that’s here as easily because I don’t know anything about them. Like, after your presentation, I had lots of things to talk about. As an introvert, I had lots of questions I wanted to ask.”

And I said, “Well, I’m confused. Like, from what I know about Intel, you’re classified as a newbie if you’ve been there for less than 20 years.” I said, “You’re part of the top 100 senior leaders in sales and marketing. I would assume that you’ve done this before.” He’s like, “Oh, we do it every year, but every year I still awkwardly connect with people.” And I’m like, “Well, isn’t there like a guest list? Like, couldn’t you connect with them beforehand, find out strategically which people are a part of internal groups or associations that you might be interested in, and then research what books they’ve posted about, or what they’re posting on their LinkedIn profiles?”

So, if you’re an executive that’s listening to this, I don’t want you to think that internally this is impossible. You can, these days, search everything about a person. I remember I was trying to get sponsorship off Dell, and I found one of the senior leaders had an open Instagram profile, and all he did was publicly talk about how much he loved Peloton.

Well, I’m a runner, and it was wintertime in Texas. It’s freezing to run outside. So, we were in a conversation, and he said, “How are you?” I said, “Oh, I’m great. I wish I could go running. The weather is terrible.” And for the next 20 minutes, all he did was talk to me about Peloton and how amazing it was. He would’ve bought anything I said to him after that because I was so interested in what he was talking about.

So, the first thing is that all relationships come from pre-research so that you go into networking events with a little bit of due diligence. And if you go into an interview, by the way, if you know who’s interviewing you, you do some due diligence on the person, not just the company. But then when you go to a networking event, you’ve got to look that people really fit into three boxes, “Who could be a potential client or who could potentially employ me?” And that will get you a short-term win, if you’re a small business owner, of money coming in the door.

But momentum partners, they need to hear something different. They don’t want to hear about your functional skill. They want to understand the difference you want to make in the world in a way that they can articulate to other people. And then they want to understand a simple way of sharing that. Now, a momentum partner is, and these are informal relationships, it’s not a tit-for-that thing. But if I believe in what you do, I might start recommending you to other people that I know that you would get value from connecting with, and you would for me. These are people that are around the same credibility level as me or lower.

On the other hand, champion relationships are a kind of like the senior leaders. For me, Ivan Misner, the founder of BNI, is an amazing champion for me. He’s endorsed my books, he’s had me speak at his conference, he’s constantly talking about how great my work is, he’s had me on his podcast twice. He and I are great friends but, truthfully, if he called me tomorrow and said, “Fly to Texas. I need you to pick up my drycleaning,” I would do it. These are the relationships you want to foster.

So, what you need to understand about these relationships is they don’t want to know how much you know. They want to know how much you care. So, I’ll give you an example. If I’m in a networking event, and I introduce myself as the rapid growth guy, well, most people would say, “You know, I’m a marketer, and I specialize in customer-centric engagements for a large corporation,” or something horrible like that. It’s so, “I, I, I,” it’s so transactional.

Where what I will do is I’ll say, “I’m the rapid growth guy,” and when people ask me, “What exactly is that?” I will say, “Well, one of the things I love to see more than anything in the world is an amazing introverted service provider with enough talent, skill, and belief in themselves to start a business of their own. But what I find, more often than not, is they constantly get stuck in this endless hamster wheel of struggling to find interested people, trying to set themselves apart, trying to make the sale, feeling like people only care about one thing – price. Do you know anyone like that?”

Now, if I’ve done my research before, I’ve likely connected with these people in advance, there’s familiar faces in the room, I’ve walked up to them to talk to them. I know they’re like that. So, because of that, they’ll respond in the affirmative. And then when they say, “Well, yeah, absolutely. I’m like that,” and I’ll say, “Well, I’m on a mission to help introverts like yourself, realize you’re not a second-class citizen.”

“Your path to success is just different to that of an extrovert, and rapid growth really comes down to three steps outside the scope of your functional skill, which you’re usually amazing at. And if you just focus on these three steps, you really can build a rapid growth business that revolves around you, your family, and your life, not the other way around.” 

And because of that, momentum partners and champions will go, “Wow, I want to introduce you to so-and-so. Or, have you thought about joining this association or this support group or this initiative that we’re having? I want to have you as part of it.” Because people are so used to getting so bored with these mundane introductions of what you do.

And when they hear passion, “I love to see this, I hate to see this, and I’m on a mission to do this,” for the first time, it is intoxicating and they will open up their rolodex for you. And, depending on whether they’re a momentum partner, i.e., the same level or below as you, or a champion, a higher level, the doors that they will open will be compelling. And, especially, you’ve been interested before interesting, and offering people in your rolodex, offering to just give them value in any way, shape, or form that you can beforehand, you will find that all of the doors will open for you, and you’ll create relationships like you’ve never seen before.

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

Matthew Pollard
Firstly, there’s nothing wrong with being an introvert. But, secondly, it’s not something you can change. 

Introversion is just this – where you draw your energy from. That’s it. It doesn’t mean you can’t engage in small talk. It doesn’t mean the strategies of small talk are different. And if you try to copy extroverts, my gosh, it’s going to be a really uncomfortable inauthentic feeling that you’ll have afterwards, and that’s why a lot of us ruminate afterwards.

But what I want you to know if you’re an introvert is, firstly, you’re not a second-class citizen.

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

Matthew Pollard
My favorite quote, is that “We can change who we are at every moment.” We get a second chance every second.

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

Matthew Pollard
There’s a Stanford study that says when we tell a story, it activates the reticular activating system of the brain, which means that the brain, between the storyteller and the story receiver, actually synchronize. It creates artificial rapport which we introverts can create into deeper rapport.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Matthew Pollard
I really loved Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I felt like that was a really great book for all people, whether they’re entrepreneurs or career professionals. I feel like it’s a really great book for everybody.

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

Matthew Pollard
I actually love at the moment ChatGPT. It’s providing a ton of value for a lot of different things at the moment.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Matthew Pollard
So, for me, I think planning is my favorite habit. And I think for introverts, I think that planning is absolutely essential because, otherwise, you’ll go into a sale and you’re uncomfortable. For me, any day that I feel like I’ve got anxiety or stress, it means that I’m moving away from my goals. So, I will re-read over my goals.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they tweet it, they Kindle book highlight it, etc., the say, “Matthew, that was so brilliant and touching when you said this thing”?

Matthew Pollard
The words “Introverts are not second-class citizens. Our path to success is just different to that of an extrovert.” And then you say right after that, “And I am an introvert, I should know.” And then tell your personal story, and my bet is you will find out that many of your bosses are also introverted so it will help you move up the ladder but also will inspire so many people below you to believe they can.

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

Matthew Pollard
Go to MatthewPollard.com/growth, download that template, and create that unified message, and discover your niche of willing to buy clients, or discover your niche of employer, and create a unified message.

My books are a great resource. Just go to TheIntrovertsEdge.com, download the first chapter, and I literally help you believe that you can sell, and then give you the exact process.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you, Matthew. This has been a treat. I wish you much fun networking.

Matthew Pollard
It was my absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

Pete Mockaitis
Christine, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Christine Porath
Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited to dig into your wisdom and hear some juicy tidbits from your latest Mastering Community: The Surprising Ways Coming Together Moves Us from Surviving to Thriving. So, for starters, could you maybe share with us a really cool story that has some nifty surprises that illustrates what’s up with community, like what’s at stake and what’s possible and what’s the goodness that we might want to be able to tap into?

Christine Porath
Sure. So, it really was inspired by my brother and sister-in-law’s story. So, in 2008, my brother, Mike, and his wife, Sarah, had a truly terrible life changing day. In the morning, a doctor informed them that their unborn child was missing a kidney, and possibly other organs. And then in the afternoon, they returned home and there was even more devastating news. They had learned from their doctor that their two-year-old daughter, Annabelle, had a rare chromosome disorder, Dup15q, and her mind would probably not develop beyond that of a five-year-old.

And so, feeling lost and scared, my brother turned to Google to try to learn more about this diagnosis, and most of the guidance he found online wasn’t that helpful, but he clicked an old PDF file containing six stories from parents whose children experienced similar disabilities. And the stories contained joy and humor, and they offered reason for hope. And if these parents could cope with these disabilities and even find some joy in the process, maybe Mike and his wife figured they could, too.

And after conquering another parenting challenge with Annabelle, just a couple of months later, Mike realized that solutions could be simple because he had, again, posted online to try to get answers, and that’s where he found them. There was a woman who posted how to teach a child a pincer grasp, how to pick up food, which Annabelle was struggling with. And what Mike realized after trying what she suggested, which was cutting two holes, a sock for her forefinger, a sock for her thumb, and putting Annabelle’s favorite food in the tray, that it didn’t take very long, less than a month, for Annabelle to master that.

And so, through those instances, Mike realized that, oftentimes, lived experience rather than professional expertise can go a long way. And wasn’t it wonderful that communities, in this case of parents suffering with similar disabilities or diagnoses, were helping each other? And so, in 2014, Mike and Sarah bootstrapped a new venture called The Mighty, which is a digital media company connecting people facing disease, disabilities, disorders.

And since then, The Mighty has grown from just a tiny tribe of people to several million people that connect online to help each other, lift each other up. And one of the things that I learned from Mike was that, while groups under The Mighty work created to address specific needs, beyond that they were really solving for the problem of isolation and loneliness.

And I think too many people, I realized, even in the workplace, feel like Mike did, alone or disconnected and suffering, and it was just really inspiring to me to see how they were able to build community from the ground up, and how it’s helped so many people. And since I study stuff in the workplace and I got a frontline seat to see how that evolved, I just was seeing data saying too many people don’t feel any sense of community, about 65%, at work. And this was all pre-pandemic, of course.

And so, I just felt like we could and should do better. And what could we learn from The Mighty and other places like it?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so a couple quick clarifiers, 65% don’t feel any sense of community anywhere or at work?

Christine Porath
At work.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Got you. And this pincer grasp, not that it’s a parenting podcast but I got to know. So, I get a sock and I cut two holes in it, and then that’s the trick, it’s like we got two fingers to work with?

Christine Porath
That’s the trick. And you put a sock on the other hand so there’s no cheating involved, and then you have at it. You put favorite food in a tray and, apparently, that’s the way to get at this. So, it was pretty interesting given that so many physicians and experts and others were trying to help them and nothing was working. And so, it was one of those things where maybe some parents that were facing similar situations knew best.

Pete Mockaitis
I really like that a lot, and I guess I’m discovering that nowadays that when it comes to doing research, what turns up when you ask a friend versus Reddit, versus a Facebook group, versus Google, versus ChatGPT, are quite different. And sometimes with the search engines, I don’t know how to articulate it, but it seems like the top results are often the ones that have put a lot of effort into becoming the top results in terms of their budgets and their search engine optimizers and all that stuff. And the sock pincer insight is not all that monetizable, and so there’s a good chance it’ll not find its way onto the front page of search engine results.

Christine Porath
Yeah. And so, I think one of the things that they learned was just how helpful community can be around similar issues or struggles or that kind of thing. And so, I think we could learn the same from workplace situations as well. What if we had other people to lean on and glean information from who cared about us or cared about our situation?

Pete Mockaitis
And so then in workplaces, how does that often materialize? Is it within one workplace, like the employer, like Microsoft or Google? Or is it sort of a community, like an association across many employers? How do you see those things working?

Christine Porath
Well, I think it could be either but, really, I was looking to try within organizations, try to build communities. So, at a Microsoft, or at a Motley Fool, or at a small company that people might be able to really feel a sense of belonging and feel like they matter, that they cared, that others around them cared about them, and how that could make a real difference on things like engagement. So, there was incentives for leaders to pay attention to were they building communities where people feel connected also?

Pete Mockaitis
So, let’s talk about some of these metrics. Any particularly eye-popping statistics or findings from research? Like, what is the difference that having a great community versus not so much of a community really makes at work?

Christine Porath
Well, we found, when people feel connected with their colleagues, they’re 74% more engaged and 81% more likely to stay with the organization. They’re also far more likely to thrive at work, which we know is connected to performance and things like that. And this was data from over 20,000 people that Tony Schwartz and I collected. So, it ranged across different organizations, across different industries, it was global, so fairly generalizable.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, Tony Schwartz from The Power of Full Engagement?

Christine Porath
Yes, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful.

Christine Porath
Yeah, and The Energy Project where he founded that.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, we’ve had him on and he’s swell. Okay. So, then could you paint a picture for us, inside a work context, do we have a nice illustration of what a great community story looks, sounds, and feels like in practice?

Christine Porath
Well, I think one that is from a smaller organization that I’m pretty familiar with now is Motley Fool, and they’re a best place to work. And one of the things that they do, they have lots of fitness challenges, which are fun, and that kind of thing, but they organize a lot of events where they show up for each other. One of the things that they did, I know, through the pandemic was they realized that people liked to actually teach one another things that they care about, like hobbies.

And so, even on Zoom, they might sign up for something that they felt like they could teach people about. And it ranged anywhere from how to knit, to butchery-type stuff, to all different sorts of things. And what they found is that it really created a sense of community, both the person teaching as well as the person learning. And so, it was a way to increase engagement driven solely by people and what they wanted to connect with others about. So, I like that because it was, really, doesn’t require a lot of resources, and both the learner and teacher benefit. So, that was one that popped.

Pete Mockaitis
That is fun. Can you share another example?

Christine Porath
Sure. The book is full of examples. I think one that comes to mind is Marriott has a TakeCare program, and they’re global. After their merger, they have over 700,000 employees, and yet on the ground, locally, they have what are called TakeCare ambassadors. And those folks in a particular location, let’s say Thailand, on the beach there, they would organize activities that they felt like would contribute to the wellbeing of their employees but also the wellbeing of the community.

So, they might do something around protection of sea turtles, or cleaning up the beach, or painting schools that needed that kind of care. But the idea was that they were often doing something for the local community or that would benefit people. They would have painting bike helmets for kids, and so host these events for local citizens and things like that.

So, I think I’ve seen a lot of doing good for the outside community, which generates a sense of thriving and pride and feeling connected to their coworkers and their organization in a meaningful way.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, I’m curious, in practice, when leaders, either very senior or mid level in terms of managing a team, hear this stuff, and think, “Ooh, that’s cool. We should do that,” what are some of the key differentiators that make community-building efforts meaningful and enriching and impactful in the ways we’re going for versus some that kind of miss the mark or feel fake or off?

Christine Porath
Well, I think one that’s gone over well is at Traeger, eating together or cooking together, and they really looked to, with a new headquarters, they cook together six days a week. And I think it’s different from, necessarily, having food on site to try to keep people there for a lot of hours and things like that. But it’s, literally, they’ll make breakfast, I believe, it’s on Monday, and then lunches all the other days together.

And so, from all data and anecdotes shared, that’s a really nice value that they benefit from and enjoy each other’s company. And there’s research behind the fact that cooking together and eating together is a way to form collaboration, get to know each other better, and ends up helping things like performance and so forth. And some of that research was done with firefighters but I think I’ve really seen it take root in different organizations in meaningful ways.

One differentiator at Traeger might also be the fact that the leaders, including the CEO, Jeremy Andrus, participates and is involved in the Monday meetings that they have, which incorporate a lot of peer awards for living the values and things like that. So, I think that that can make a difference, like leaders not only encouraging certain aspects of, let’s say, sustainability or things like that, sustainable work practices, but role-model it as well.

And so, I think that with Tony Schwartz, that was another finding that we had among that large dataset was it’s really important when leaders not only encourage these practices but live them as well, setting the tone for it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then do you have some examples of attempts at community gone wrong where this wasn’t landing with folks, like, “Yeah, this is kind of lame, or awkward, or uncomfortable, or unnatural, and we don’t like this”?

Christine Porath
I think, generally speaking, it’s when they’re forced and mandatory.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, “We’re all having fun now.”

Christine Porath
Yeah, exactly. That you have to participate, that these are after-hour events that you feel like if you’re not there, it’s punishable kind of thing, but those are the ones that come to mind. It’s almost like the forced workplace, you have to do work from the office versus having some flexibility. So, similarly, I think around community events, like, ideally, people have some choice around them.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I remember one time at work, we went golfing, and so I made it very clear that I, straight up, don’t know how to play golf, and that when I’ve attempted, it went very poorly in terms of, like, divots everywhere, so, like, “Just so we’re clear.” And so then, they’re like, “Oh, you’ll be fine.” I was like, “Well, okay, if you say so. I’ve told you sort of what’s going to happen.”

And then I did it and then they were very frustrated with me, and then they’re like, “We’ve got to let them play through. You’re slowing us down.” I was like, “Well, I kind of told you that was how this was going to go.” And so, I found that very uncomfortable and unpleasant in terms of that experience, as opposed to, I don’t know, either choosing a different activity that everyone likes, or just say, “Okay. Well, hey, check this out. Well, you can hang out on the golf cart and goof around and have some drinks, I don’t know, whatever, and enjoy things that way even if the actual swinging of the club isn’t in the cards for the day.”

So, yeah, that’s a good point. So, there’s a choice, it’s not mandatory. And it seems like with the cooking example, and it’s come up before. It’s like folks are doing stuff collaboratively, and so I think there’s probably some magic there. I’m thinking now about Bob Cialdini and his stuff about singing and/or dancing in unison does cool stuff. That might be harder, I don’t know, depending on the vibe of your workplace. Folks might be really into that or not at all.

And so, I guess that’s maybe one of the themes, is that this will be very individualistic for individuals and teams based on what vibes for them.

Christine Porath
Yeah, I think I really like your example of having some choice around different activities, for example. I’ve seen that go over really well. Or, even if you plan an event, like I attended one at a major league baseball park that they rented out the area where you can eat together and so forth, then you could tour the field. This was an evening activity. The batting cages were open so it was really fun for those of us that wanted to take a crack at swinging against some pitchers, but you didn’t have to.

You could hang out and eat or drink with others. You could walk around and tour the facilities. So, it could be a number of different things that you could do even though there was a large room together where people could hang out. So, it provided a little bit of choose your own path depending on your interests and your abilities and so forth that seem to go over really well as far as most people being happy with the choices and that kind of things.

So, I think that that choice element that you highlighted is really key, if possible. And I know for offsites, oftentimes what they’ll do is just people can choose out of three, four, five activities. And I think that’s a really nice way to promote inclusivity as well, the idea that, depending on your capabilities, cultural differences, interests, those kinds of things, you’re providing a number of different paths for people.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, beyond the activities or the outings, are there any other key ingredients in the mix for having great communities at work?

Christine Porath
I think anytime that you can promote healthier living and provide some sense of, whether it’s recovery or rejuvenation or things like that, those are wins as well. I think of Kelly McGonigal’s The Joy of Movement and the idea of that that’s a nice thing for people that are interested in that, but they’re amplifiers, like doing it together, doing it nature, doing it to music, things like that.

And so, one of the examples that I shared was a woman who actually started a program at Dell at the time around just because people were gaining a lot of weight, they weren’t feeling very good, she started covering them for working out an hour each day. And it ended up becoming, Thrive was the program, but people couldn’t wait to be a part of it.

And I think that part of it was it also broke down barriers, she said, of you might have a leader running next to someone that was in the call center, and it tended to break down silos in the organization, and build, cultivate relationships among people that might not have, otherwise, known each other or gotten to meet one another, and so that was a real positive as well as people became far healthier in terms of practices and things like that.

So, that was a nice example that I liked a lot. It doesn’t work for everyone but I think it, overall, had a lot of positive effects for various individuals, and team performance shot up and things like that. So, even though that they were working less or had the capability to work less, given time off to take a break, to work out, things like that, then, overall, it was a real win for the organization.

Pete Mockaitis
And you also mentioned radical candor. We had Kim Scott on the show, and she was swell. But what role does that play in building community? And could you give us some examples?

Christine Porath
Yeah, I love Kim Scott’s work on radical candor, and some of the examples that I share in the book actually tie to Kelly Leonard, who’s at Second City. And he and Kim partnered to teach people radical candor through improvisation and the idea that we’re all a work in progress. But I think radical candor, when people know that you care personally, there’s more liberty to challenge directly.

And I think that that’s a positive as far as we want people sharing feedback, we want people, basically, coaching each other up, like helping people improve. And a great way to do that is through radical candor, given how negative feedback is often awkward for a lot of us. And so, if you can develop a spirit of radical candor, it really helps quite a bit.

And one of the examples that I liked in the book came from Christa Quarles, who, at the time, was CEO of OpenTable. And one of the things that she shared was she learned she had to give it to get it. In other words, she had to be vulnerable and share when she has messed up or needed feedback, and that kind of broke down some of the barriers, such that people were able to see, “Okay, she can handle that kind of criticism or direct feedback. And what happens if we use it?”

But I think she also had to encourage it along the way, suggesting that, “Listen, failure is okay. Like, through failure, we will learn. So, some of that criticism is actually welcome because it’s going to get us to a better place more quickly.” And so, I thought she handled things really well. And if folks were not comfortable speaking up, one of the things that she did was pulled them aside.

Like, this very talented woman who just was reluctant to speak up in a group, and she coached her effectively, and she just let her know, “Listen, if I need to, I’ll tee you up for this, but we need you. We need your voice. We need you involved,” and it really went a long way to developing her but, more importantly at the time, also what the team and the organization needed.

And so, I thought it was an excellent example of leaders as a coach, and getting involved to kind of get the ball rolling for people to be radically candid in ways that maybe didn’t come naturally, but they needed to break out of what Christa Quarles called ruinous empathy, or this idea of not speaking up because you don’t want to hurt someone, which is the most common mistake. And I think Kim says that about 85% of the mistakes are in that arena.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And speaking of mistakes, we talked about not having the forced fun. Is there any other top do’s and don’ts you’d highlight if folks are thinking, “Yeah, I would like to kick up some community at work”? What do you recommend as being some of the very first things they do do and they don’t do?

Christine Porath
Well, I think the idea of uniting people and providing a safe space for people to communicate is huge, and leaders can set the tone for that by being vulnerable, admitting mistakes, admitting failures, things like that. But one of the examples that I used at the beginning of the book is just an example of Phil Jackson, who, you may know, coaching the Chicago Bulls for all those years and winning so many championships.

But Steve Kerr talked about one of the things that brought them to be such a tight knit team was the idea that every day they met in Phil’s kind of film room, so to speak, but they wouldn’t talk about basketball or the X’s and O’s. It was all about connecting. And so, I think that idea of, “Are you providing a safe space where people are communicating and getting to know each other in different ways?”

That could be around activities. It could be around cooking like we talked about. There are so many different ideas behind that, but I think bringing people together and trying to create a place where people can be vulnerable is really huge. So, I liked that example for the idea that just get people talking, sharing information, and that kind of thing.

Another example that I liked was Chuck Robbins at Cisco, and the idea of having a conscious culture. And one of the things that they did, again, well before the pandemic, was they had a program called Love and Load. And the idea was that people would be providing how they were doing, so just a quick full survey, and the leader would get that data and could really quickly address it.

So, if someone was kind of struggling or not having a good week, a leader could check in really quickly around that. And so, I think it’s helping to create touchpoints between leaders and their direct reports, or even peers for that matter, but the idea of being, I think, people need those kinds of little lifts. And so, the more that the leader can create these touchpoints through the day, which Doug Conant talks about quite a bit and has a book on touchpoints, and really turned an organization, Campbell Soup, around with touchpoints. That would be a really good mode to kind of jumpstart things.

It doesn’t take a lot of time. These were moments that Doug talked about in the hallways, in meetings, in the cafeteria, and it was all about connecting with people, and you listen attentively. He would often try to leverage his expertise and then close with, “How can I help?” And those kinds of moments really made a difference.

Another one that Doug talked about, which I love, was he ended up sending 30,000 thank you notes while CEO of Campbell’s. And I think that’s something that, especially nowadays where people may be feeling a little beat down, or a little negative, or just struggling coming off of the pandemic, well, even before that, this was important, but the point is that these thank you notes made a huge difference in making people feel valued.

And so, those small things can make a huge difference in employees’ lives, and get them engaged, get them, retain them in organizations. And it was kind of fun. I had a friend that a few months ago was traveling on a plane and sat behind a gentleman who was raving about where he worked, at Campbell’s, and the fact that 15 years ago, a CEO had written this lowly salesperson a thank you note.

And so, again, 15 years later, someone is still talking about this, still proud of the company, the connections, the sense of community that he felt because of this action. So, I think that small actions can make a huge difference, and you don’t have to be a leader for that to happen.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s beautiful. Well, Christine, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Christine Porath
I think the idea of ubuntu, and, “I am who I am because of who we all are.” I like that idea a lot. And as you may be able to tell, I like sports examples a lot. So, I shared an example of Doc Rivers turning around the Boston Celtics at the time with this rallying cry. But I also love the example, and it was actually the woman, Carla Peñarosa Blatt, who I shared the Dell story about, who found that by taking time out and traveling with her family, not wired into technology and things like that, she and her family really felt a much greater sense of connectedness.

And I think, for her, it was kind of putting away the technology even for short periods of time and really trying to connect with people. And, again, it could be short, over coffee, over a meal. It could be in the backyard, over campfire, what have you. But the point being that the importance of maybe disconnecting from all of our tasks, the technology, so that we can connect better and feel a sense of community.

So, again, I think that that’s something that doesn’t necessarily require huge resources but is an action that could make a big difference in our lives as far as the quality of connection and community that we feel.

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

Christine Porath
I have one quote at the beginning of the book that I like a lot that’s actually from Brene Brown, and it’s just the idea of unlocking our potential. So, I believe it is, “You can’t unlock potential if you cannot unlock people.” So, she’s written about this, which I love.

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

Christine Porath
I think you hit all on the radical candor part that I talk a lot about with respect to respect. The other bit is just how rudeness or incivility is contagious. And so, I often cite that but the good news is civility is contagious as well. And so, again, kind of pointing to small actions and how, for better or worse, they have a lot of different ripple effects and can change how our communities feel. So, I hope that’s empowering for people.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Christine Porath
Man’s Search for Meaning.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool?

Christine Porath
I like Tony Schwartz’s Energy Audit, or, more generally, just checking in to see how you feel throughout the day, and making adjustments accordingly.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Christine Porath
For me, it’s probably working out, ideally, in the morning to get a jumpstart and feeling good.

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

Christine Porath
I use an example of the 10-5 way which was if people were within 10 feet, they smiled and made eye contact. If they were within five feet, they said hello. And what OSHA healthcare system found is that people felt a stronger sense of civility but also patient satisfaction scores rose as did patient referrals. And so, I just like the idea that it kinda shows how contagion happens even outside of the organization in ways that really help people within and outside organizations to kind of lift them up.

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

Christine Porath
Probably LinkedIn, so just Christine Porath. And I’m on Twitter @PorathC.

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

Christine Porath
I think the idea of think about, “Who do you want to be in different moments?” and just what can we do to lift others up throughout our day.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Christine, this has been a treat. Thank you. I wish you much luck and good community.

Christine Porath
Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be on your show.