Bookworm Transcripts

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So I have a question.

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All right.

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It's a good question, I think, because we haven't talked about this.

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So you have to tell me, what do you use for a bookmark?

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For a bookmark?

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A bookmark in my physical books.

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Yes.

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We've never talked about this.

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We've talked about how we read a book, but we've never talked about what we

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used to actually remember where we are in that book.

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I think that's because my method is pretty lame.

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I use a business card.

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Is it your business card?

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It is.

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So it's kind of weird.

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Like I take it out and sometimes I flip it over so people can't see my name on it.

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When I'm reading the actual book.

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But I guess in my mind, if I was to do that, I would probably want two of them

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there that way I could give it to somebody for some reason.

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But I usually have other business cards on me.

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Yeah, that's the thing.

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Like I typically don't even have business cards on me, even when I should.

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But I always have one in my book, which is never when I'm looking to give them away.

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So because if you give it away, then you lose your spot in your book.

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Yeah, but I do like the size of the business card.

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I don't like having something really big and a business card will fit whatever

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size book I happen to be reading.

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So whether it's something really short height wise, like I read not too long ago,

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the Derek Sivers book, anything you want, the Craven book, make your bed is kind

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of the same similar size.

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Like if I got a bigger bookmark that would go top to bottom, like you would

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typically see a bookmark for some of these bigger books.

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Like that would stick out the top of the bottom and it would just drive me crazy.

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So the business card basically does not add anything to the book and it's still

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easy to throw in my bag and it's not going to get ruined.

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Interesting.

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I was not expecting that.

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This is literally the first time I've thought through this whole process.

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So it probably sounds pretty stupid.

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So that means it was a perfect question.

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I like that.

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I want me to curveball right off the bat.

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I know.

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I know.

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I use a, of course, this is, yeah.

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The Goulay Pen Company.

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So Goulaypins.com, G-O-U-L-E-T-P-E-N-S.com.

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It's where I buy my fountain pens, of course.

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And when you purchase a pen from them, they send you a bookmark as part of the

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little package that they send you.

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And that is what I use is that particular bookmark.

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What is it?

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It's probably, it's a little over an inch wide, maybe an inch and a quarter.

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I would say it's maybe six inches long.

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Has the Goulay Pen Company on one side.

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And then it has a quote by Henry Miller on the other side.

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It says, "Writing is its own reward."

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Definitely looks like it's been written with a fountain pen.

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Nice.

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We should make bookworm bookmarks.

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Ooh, there's an idea.

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Now we're coming up on episode 50.

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We're going to have to do something special.

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So it's true.

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It's sneaking up on us.

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I'll do some research.

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Okay, good.

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That way it's on your camp and not mine.

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I like that.

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All right, follow up.

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I really don't want to go first.

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You have to because you have overdue follow up.

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You have a red mark in your bookworm omni focus.

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I don't use omni focus.

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Well, if you did, it would be screaming at you right now because you're so

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overdue on your five brand words.

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See, here's the benefit of paper.

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It doesn't scream at you ever.

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But I will.

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I didn't do my brand words thing.

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Come on, Joe, I know.

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I'll be honest with you.

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I kind of forgot about it.

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OK, I have it in my list.

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I saw it, but the last week has been crazy enough that I haven't

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really been running off of my lists.

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That's, you know, productivity fail right there.

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But I wasn't running off of my list for the last week or so because

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things have been kind of hectic on my end and it completely fell off my radar

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completely.

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And when I was putting together some of my stuff for today, I was pulling in

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the follow up for this episode and realized, oh, shoot, I messed this one up.

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So I am going to continue it onto the next round.

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Yeah, audience is going to have to tune in next time to find out your five

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brand words, maybe I did not intend this to be a cliffhanger, but here we are.

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All right.

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Next to our mom, you want me to go next?

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Sure.

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OK, so the two that I had from the last book that we read, which was the three

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big questions for a frantic family by Patrick Lencioni, who, by the way,

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I am going to see as we record this in a couple of days at Entre Lee.

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Nice.

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Super exciting.

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Nice.

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But the two follow up items I had were number one, identify our family

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rally and cry and then number two, create a scoreboard for our family plan.

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So I listened to that episode after it was published and I was a little bit

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concerned before it went live that I was pretty harsh on the scoring system.

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Turns out I was right.

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I am pretty harsh on the scoring system.

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OK, but I did create.

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And actually, I shouldn't say I did this because my wife, we were talking about

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this stuff and she got excited about it and she implemented it for me.

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So I definitely had help for this round of bookworm follow up cheater.

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But we have a whiteboard in our main hallway.

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So it's right by our kitchen and the theme for us, I'm trying to pull up the

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picture I had to get it exactly right.

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But basically it's an orderly home.

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And so what does that look like?

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There's certain habits that we want to implement.

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And what we did is we created three, again, we, my wife created three

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pie graphs and broke them into seven pieces.

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So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

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Labeled them as such.

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And then for each of those pies, we had the habit that we wanted to establish

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with our kids specifically.

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So our kids are great.

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They do a great job with most of the stuff they're supposed to do most of the time.

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But there's little things that we recognized.

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And again, my wife recognized that would make a lot of the stuff that we do a lot

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more streamlined.

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It would be a lot simpler if like we could just get right, get this down.

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You know, so one of the things in the pies is making beds every day.

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So we fill in the piece of the pie.

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If everybody makes their bed in the morning without being compelled to do so.

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Okay.

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And then the second one is toys are cleaned up.

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So in the afternoon, everything gets put away.

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There is nothing left out.

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And then the third one, we've labeled mealtime manners.

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So we've got a couple of picky eaters sometimes.

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And so we're trying to do a couple of things.

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Number one, get through dinner in less than an hour.

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And also get people to clean up their plates when they're done.

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So if they do that, you know, they just shade the pie and then the reward for

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completing the pies is that all the kids get an hour, like we ration their, their

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video game time.

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So this is a bonus on top of their normal video game time.

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So they normally get like 30 minutes a day or something like that.

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Right.

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But the bonus was an hour of Rocket League, because they like pulling that all

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together on the switch.

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Nice.

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On Saturday afternoons.

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OK, so they have to get all the pies filled and we adjusted some of them.

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So like initially, mealtime manners was just cleaning up your plates at the end.

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But we recognized after a week of doing that and hitting the goal that really

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the next level pain point there is that someone in particular tends to not pay

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attention and not eat until like everybody else is done.

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And a lot of times it's just like intentional to where it's like he's not

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paying attention at the beginning.

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And then you tell them to, it's almost like the fact that you told them to eat

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like he resents that now he's actively rebelling against what you want him to do.

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Right.

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So that's not a good situation.

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So we're trying to try to change that behavior.

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And that's not going to be a win every time.

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There have been meals where it's like, oh, sorry, buddy, like this is not mealtime

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manners.

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Like we can't fill out the pie for this.

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So we've given them basically three strikes here out so you can miss two of them

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and then you'd still get the reward and we're going to keep upping the stuff in the

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pie basically so that there is a little bit of grace if they they mess up and they

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they don't complete all the time, you know, they mess up on Monday afternoon.

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We don't want all the incentive to follow through the rest of the week to be gone.

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But also we want to create these habits, which if we're able to establish these,

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who knows how long this will actually take, but if we were to be able to get these

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things nailed down, like it just makes everything else so much easier.

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So that's that's the goal and that's how we've implemented it.

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Yeah, that's really interesting.

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I think, you know, kids are very visual because, you know, with stuff that we do,

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it's easy to write down goals and then you can kind of visualize those goals to

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some extent or another, but kids don't really do that.

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I mean, they can, but it's way easier for them to have something to look at.

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So I think it's really cool that you've got a system in place that like they can

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always at any time go see where they're at in the process.

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And when they accomplish something, there's something physical for them to do or see

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to see how things are going.

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So I think that's really cool.

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Yeah.

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And it's way simpler than the Patrick Lenzioni version.

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So I was thinking about that.

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Like, right, how far have we digressed from what he laid out in that book?

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Was it really that different?

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And I went back and I looked at it and like, no, it really was that different.

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Right.

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So he's got the rallying cry, like we've got the rallying cry.

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We call it something a little bit, a little bit different.

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It's basically just a word on the top of the board.

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From there, he's got his standard indexes, I think, where the first level

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and those he mentions, you should use a color dot to indicate how well you're

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doing in those particular areas.

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In order to do that, you've got to have a definition of done, yada, yada, yada.

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And then from there, you've got defining objectives underneath that.

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So we've completely eliminated the defining objectives.

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We've reduced the number of the standard objectives and we've made the scoring super,

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super simple.

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Did we do this or did we not?

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There's no on a daily basis trying to figure out, is this dark green?

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Is it yellow?

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Is it orange?

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Is it red?

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Yeah, it is what it is.

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Either it happened or it didn't.

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And I think that that's really the important detail, which is helping this stick.

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That's cool.

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Well done.

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I'm impressed.

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I can't say that that was what I was expecting out of you, but I'm not really

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sure what I was expecting.

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Again, full credit to Mrs. Rachel Schmitz for this.

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If I had come up with this, it would probably be different, but she showed it to me.

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And I'm like, yeah, actually, that makes a lot of sense.

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Let's do that.

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And so, yeah, it's working.

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She even took some pictures when she implemented it.

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So we homeschool our kids.

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Yeah.

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She lined them all up in the hallway, had them all look at the board, explained it,

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like, teach your friend in the class sort of a thing.

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Yeah.

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Like, this is what this means.

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Do you guys all get it?

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And they're all sitting in the hallway, not in their heads.

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It's pretty, pretty funny.

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But yeah, I mean, that's honestly the reason that it's sticking is that I'm not

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the one responsible for following through with this every single day, which again,

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like this comes back to the whole idea behind that book is you have to find

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something that is going to work, like not to rehash the whole last episode.

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But the lady in that story, she went and told all her friends and they're like,

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yeah, it's not going to work.

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And so Patrick Loneseone tries to simplify it.

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We simplified it a lot further, but really, like, I think that principle can be applied

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to anything that we talk about here in bookworm, any productivity principle that you

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hear about, it's not just a formula for you to follow.

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Like you got to figure out how to custom fit it for you.

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And in this particular case, you know, my wife did a great job of that.

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And this is really what works for our family.

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I still think that's really cool.

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So good job, Rachel.

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Mike gets to take all the credit here, but well done.

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Yeah, we we did a little bit of work on the whole scoreboard side of this for

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ours as well.

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Now I took our family rallying cry, which is, you know, it's it's kind of a it's own thing.

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You know, we went through this again, I'm not going to belabor that, but the whole

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white space and outdoors thing from that one of the aspects of that is getting outside

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every week.

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And what we did to help with that process is I just put a checkbox for each week of

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the summer.

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And if we get the family outdoors to explore the woods or something throughout that week,

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we get to check that box off.

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That is the sum total of our scoreboard right there.

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It's not anything beyond that because, you know, the whole weekly thing from a meeting

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standpoint doesn't really make a whole lot of sense for us, but that the girls can get behind

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and they have a thing like we haven't been able to check that off yet this week, you know, as

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we're recording this and I think I get asked about it quite a bit every day.

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It's like, Dad, are we going to be able to check this one off?

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Are we going to be able to?

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Can I put the X in the box?

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Like, well, no, we haven't we haven't taken the family out yet, but they are all over

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that they are itching to just to be able to put the check mark in the box.

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Nice.

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Kids, they make it fun and challenging.

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It's true, which I suppose brings us to today's book, Mike.

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Yes.

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Fun and challenging.

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Yes.

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So today's book is one that I picked and I picked it just because I wanted to dig into it.

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Very polarizing opinions on this one based on what I've heard from people around me.

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And that is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

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So this book first published in 1937.

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So this is definitely an older book, but I actually kind of like that because the stuff

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that he talks about in here, it's not technology based.

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It's for lack of a better term evergreen.

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Like a lot of these are principles that are totally relevant today, even though

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the time that he wrote it was completely different, if that makes sense.

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That cannot always be said with some of the books that we read.

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So like one that I'm thinking of in particular is the innovators dilemma where he's

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talking about a lot of these technology based companies and things.

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And there were some parallels there, but for the most part of my recollection of that

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book, when I was going through it, was like, yeah, that's not really the way things

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are anymore.

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Yeah.

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You know, you definitely don't get that sense reading this book.

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There's a lot of great stuff in here.

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It's broken down into four different sections and then an introduction.

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So that's kind of when I took a stab at creating the outline, that's kind of how

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I broke this down.

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But I don't want to be the one who's dictating the whole format for this.

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So I guess, you know, wherever you want to go from here, we can.

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There's too much in this book to go through everything, even just to break down the

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individual principles.

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I mean, the four parts, the first part, there's only a couple chapters, the second part,

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there's six, the third part, there's 12.

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And then the fourth part, there's nine.

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So we're not going to go through like all of the different principles that are in here.

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I thought maybe we could just take some of the ones that kind of stood out to us.

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Yeah, I think that's, I think that's a good approach.

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I know with this book as a whole one, it's nice to know that it's written in 1936.

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Collected in my notes file for this one, all of the principles across the whole thing.

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That way I can look at all of them.

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And there's not a single one of them here that's into like, it requires a time period.

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Like none of them require that, which is kind of impressive for a book of any genre.

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Like it just, that doesn't seem to happen a whole lot anymore.

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And I think that's really cool to see this.

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I will say that this one, it kind of struck home for me in, in a lot of ways.

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There's a number of these principles that this is something I've done for a very long

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time and people always leave that scenario with a smile on their face.

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And I always thought that was really cool, but I never really understood why.

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And this actually explains some of that.

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So I thought that was really interesting.

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But again, to your point, there's a lot here.

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This is a lot to go through.

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So I agree.

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We, we, we're not going to go over every principle here.

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I think there's a handful of them that we're going to cover in that you've got in this

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outline.

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I kind of left it open because you, you went through this mic and put a bunch of stuff

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in here, which is really cool.

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But I felt like if I put any more, like we were going to be here for three hours, so.

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I kind of just left it and, you know, I've got some points on some of these that I'll,

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I'll bring up as well.

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Cause I did really enjoy this, you know, just as a precursor to the whole conversation.

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But one thing that I found myself continually trying to do with this was think

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through ways that it applies to my kids and in trying to compare the principles

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that are mentioned here with how I currently interact with my children.

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And my girls, I know it, the whole scenario, like me as a parent, like sometimes I

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get upset with the things that they're doing and he talks a lot about your

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reaction to someone else when they are doing something that is either incorrect

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or is somewhat offensive to you.

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And there are a lot of ways to settle yourself down and interact with that

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person to help guide them.

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And I couldn't help applying that to disciplinary action with my children in some

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way.

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So I don't know.

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Maybe we'll get into some of that, but I did think it was kind of interesting that

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if you try to apply it even outside of, say, business scenarios, which is, I think

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where a lot of people tend to assume this book is, is applied, but it doesn't have

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to be.

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I guess that's what I'm getting at is it's kind of interesting to consider this

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even outside of that realm.

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Yeah.

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I mean, everything in this book can be applied in a lot of different situations.

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And he tells a ton of different stories to try to illustrate that point.

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He'll talk about people using it with their kids.

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He'll talk about people using it in a business arena.

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He'll talk about people using it in a political arena.

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And every time he switches the context of the story, he kind of like abrasively is

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like, oh, so you don't think this is going to work in this scenario.

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Eh?

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And then he just shows you how like, oh, I know somebody who did do this.

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And this is their experience.

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So there's tons of stories in here.

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I did find it interesting.

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I had no idea that this was basically 19 1930s version of a lead magnet.

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Because at the end, he talks about his school for public speaking.

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And the version I have anyway is there's a section at the very end, which is called

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a shortcut to distinction, which is written by somebody else.

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Right.

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And it tells a little bit of Dale Carnegie's story.

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And they mentioned some stuff in there about how he used to just start taking out

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these newspaper ads, he'd show up at these hotels and he'd teach people how to do

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this and he'd get a bunch of people to sign up for his course.

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And over the course of his career, he criticized something personally, like a

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150,000 speeches, which is crazy.

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Like he was personally involved in a lot of these people's success, which I think is

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really cool.

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But it kind of changes a little bit how you view this book when you think that like,

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okay, this is something to get you to do something else.

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And maybe it's just the space that I work in where like typically a lead magnet,

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you think of something like, oh, you want to tease what you're going to give,

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but you don't want to give it all away because you want really then to take this

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particular action, whether that's download your ebook or

00:19:02

give you their email or whatever.

00:19:04

Like that's exactly what he's doing here, but it doesn't feel sleazy.

00:19:08

It doesn't feel scammy.

00:19:10

There's a lot of great information in this book, but all of these different

00:19:14

chapters that he breaks down, I did definitely feel like you could write an

00:19:18

entire book on a lot of these different principles.

00:19:21

And so this is very, I don't want to say surface level, but it's introductory

00:19:26

in a lot of ways to a lot of these concepts.

00:19:29

There's the possibility that this is a lead magnet 1930 style.

00:19:32

I kind of got the impression that this was more of a way to capture his thinking

00:19:39

and his, the teaching that he does not to try to get you to sign up for one of

00:19:45

those, but so that he could reach even more people.

00:19:47

Like that was the perception I got from it.

00:19:49

Maybe it was to sell stuff.

00:19:51

I just didn't get that impression.

00:19:53

Maybe that's just because people are a little more upfront about how they do

00:19:57

that in today's world and they were more subtle in the olden days.

00:20:01

That's even some of his stuff is be subtle.

00:20:04

So maybe I don't know.

00:20:06

It'd be hard to know.

00:20:07

Yeah.

00:20:07

I, I definitely, I think that it's not necessarily more explicit or straightforward

00:20:15

nowadays.

00:20:16

Like, I think there's a lot of people who don't understand what's going to happen

00:20:20

when they give an email to download an ebook.

00:20:22

Right.

00:20:23

It's not very clear what the intentions are of the person on the other end,

00:20:27

but I also don't think that you have to be naturally skeptical either,

00:20:32

which is really the thing that stood out to me is he wrote this in 1937.

00:20:38

And I'm approaching it in 2018.

00:20:42

And my first response is this is a lead magnet.

00:20:45

How does that make me feel?

00:20:46

Does it make me feel like he's really trying to help me or does it feel like he's

00:20:50

just trying to sell me and we're going to get to that specific point.

00:20:53

In a little bit, I did not feel like it was him trying to, to sell me.

00:20:57

And I think that also, if you are clear about your intentions about helping people

00:21:03

and you're authentic, which is really the key, that there's nothing to be ashamed

00:21:07

of in the fact that you're trying to sell something on the back end anyways.

00:21:12

So, but it isn't something that I expected in a 1937 book.

00:21:17

True.

00:21:18

But that kind of leads into this whole idea of the selfish tone, which is really

00:21:21

one of the reasons that I picked this is that there's people who say this book is

00:21:25

amazing.

00:21:25

There are other people who say this book is garbage.

00:21:28

And I think that really what it hinges on is this improper view of what this book

00:21:35

is trying to do.

00:21:35

And the title doesn't help it out, at least in today's society, you know, like

00:21:39

wind friends and influence people makes it sound like a game and you're not

00:21:43

concerned about the other person.

00:21:45

And I think based on the content of this book that honestly, nothing could be

00:21:48

further from the truth.

00:21:50

And he talks about, I think it's page 45.

00:21:53

He talks about people who are in sales, who succeed versus those who don't.

00:22:00

And it's based on the principles that he's outlining in this book.

00:22:03

He says on page 45, thousands of sales, people are pounding the pavement today,

00:22:06

tired, discouraged and underpaid.

00:22:07

Why?

00:22:08

Because they're always thinking only of what they want.

00:22:11

They don't realize that neither you nor I want to buy anything.

00:22:14

If we did, we would go out and buy it.

00:22:16

But both of us are eternally interested in solving our problems.

00:22:19

And if salespeople can show us how their services or merchandise will help us

00:22:22

solve our problems, they won't need to sell us, we'll buy.

00:22:25

And customers like to feel that they are buying not being sold.

00:22:28

I think that's a really important distinction.

00:22:30

And I think that that is definitely accurate regarding this book.

00:22:35

At least that was my impression.

00:22:36

Do you agree?

00:22:37

Disagree?

00:22:38

I think this comes from, if you read the title, given today's culture and today's

00:22:43

everything, it comes across as like a manipulation handbook of sorts.

00:22:49

Like that's, it's kind of how you could view it.

00:22:52

Yeah.

00:22:52

These are a list of things you can do to get people to think the way you want them to

00:22:56

think.

00:22:57

And that's very manipulative.

00:22:59

But I think that Dale Carnegie comes at this book with the assumption that your

00:23:05

desires for other people are genuine and that you have solid and quality products

00:23:14

and motives behind what it is that you're you're trying to get across.

00:23:20

So he comes at it with the assumption that you are not trying to put one over

00:23:26

on someone, but that you are being a, a, an authentic help to that person.

00:23:32

I think if you come at it from the viewpoint that you have to have a positive

00:23:36

motive behind the actions that you're taking and you are real in those, this is

00:23:42

gold.

00:23:43

But if you're coming at this from the viewpoint that this is how I can get people

00:23:48

to buy my product, that I think is where, you know, it comes across as your bit of

00:23:53

a snake to the whole, the whole book.

00:23:56

And that's not the way I would take it.

00:24:00

I found this extremely helpful.

00:24:01

I think that's because I try to, you know, a prime example, you know, take the

00:24:07

buying versus being sold bit with what I'm doing as a web developer.

00:24:12

I try to convey to people, this is how I can help you.

00:24:17

But a lot of times it would be very easy for me to sell, say a retainer or a

00:24:21

consulting services in a scenario that it's not needed.

00:24:24

And I could sell that that would actually be very easy to sell in a lot of cases,

00:24:30

but that person doesn't need it.

00:24:32

And honestly, this is one of the reasons that I've been trying to build up my web

00:24:36

development business is because there's a lot of, you know, bad developers out

00:24:40

there that are selling a lot of stuff and let instead of letting the customers and

00:24:46

the clients, you know, convey their idea and you genuinely helping them through

00:24:50

that without ripping them off.

00:24:52

Like that's part of why I'm wanting to build that business just because it

00:24:55

doesn't, I have a hard time finding that.

00:24:58

So I'm trying to build that for my viewpoint.

00:25:00

My motives are genuine.

00:25:01

Like that's, you know, it's hard to get my own head out of that to some extent.

00:25:05

He even goes into that.

00:25:06

But to me that knowing that this is extremely helpful.

00:25:10

So I try to help people buy what they need as opposed to selling them things

00:25:15

they don't need.

00:25:16

So I'm with you on that.

00:25:17

Yeah.

00:25:17

Here's the thing that I want to call out though is like no one is going to say,

00:25:22

don't give me money.

00:25:24

You know, if there, if there really isn't a match there to be made between your

00:25:28

abilities and what the customer wants, like we need to get over the fact that

00:25:32

we are selfish a lot of the time.

00:25:36

And even says on page 34, every act you have ever performed since the day you

00:25:40

were born was performed because you wanted something.

00:25:43

If we're honest with ourselves, that is completely true and that is completely

00:25:47

okay.

00:25:48

Like it's okay to want something.

00:25:51

It's not okay to put other people down in order to get it.

00:25:55

But I think like this whole idea of being sold versus buying and the whole

00:26:01

picture of a salesperson really just conjures up like the, the used car

00:26:06

salesman who's trying to sell you a lemon and that's not fair.

00:26:10

That's not fair to really anybody who is in sales.

00:26:13

And honestly, I would say that every single person is in sales in some way, shape

00:26:17

or form.

00:26:17

I really believe that if you want to be a leader, you have to be a salesperson.

00:26:21

And if you are married, you've sold yourself at least once.

00:26:25

You know, you had to convince your significant other that you could, you could

00:26:29

make all their wildest dreams come true.

00:26:31

Whether you personally believe that or not, like you did sell that.

00:26:34

Is that a bad thing?

00:26:36

No, it's not a bad thing.

00:26:37

And so there's a hurdle to get over here, I think, for a lot of people who have

00:26:42

this view of like, well, I'm not going to project my values on other people.

00:26:47

Like, no, let's just call a spade a spade here and just admit that we're all

00:26:50

salespeople and we all have selfish desires that we're trying to fulfill.

00:26:53

And that doesn't make us bad people.

00:26:55

No, very fair point, fair point.

00:27:00

You've got one more here.

00:27:02

I suppose we didn't really say it, but we're talking through part one here, which

00:27:05

is fundamental techniques and handling people.

00:27:07

That's the section we're kind of working on here.

00:27:10

Yep.

00:27:10

But there's, there's one more point here and you have that as the difference

00:27:14

between flattery and appreciation.

00:27:16

Yeah, I probably should have put this at the end.

00:27:18

I put it first in the outline because that's where it was in terms of like

00:27:22

where it was in the book.

00:27:23

Right.

00:27:24

But I think having talked about the quote unquote selfish tone of the book,

00:27:28

the whole idea of buying versus being sold, that really sets the stage for this.

00:27:33

And this is the acid test for whether you are using this to manipulate people or

00:27:39

you are using this to create win-win situations and better your own situation

00:27:43

and everybody else around you.

00:27:45

And that is this difference that he calls out between flattery and appreciation.

00:27:49

So flattery is what you're going to use if you are manipulative and flattery.

00:27:54

He calls out in this first section is counterfeit.

00:27:56

So you can say, Oh, I really like this about you and you don't mean it at all.

00:28:00

Okay.

00:28:00

That's not authentic.

00:28:02

That's flattery.

00:28:03

That's counterfeit.

00:28:04

But the other side of that is appreciation, which is sincere.

00:28:07

And I think that until you start applying some of the stuff in this book, you may

00:28:12

approach this.

00:28:13

I know I did it first is like, well, what if I really don't like something about

00:28:17

somebody?

00:28:18

Do I am I going to have to lie in order to implement this stuff?

00:28:21

I mean, I can't criticize.

00:28:23

I can't do all these things.

00:28:24

Like am I just going to have to make up stuff that I like about this?

00:28:27

These other people.

00:28:28

But once you start implementing it, it's not that difficult, at least in my

00:28:32

experience to find something that you can appreciate.

00:28:35

And people can tell the difference between true appreciation, which is sincere and

00:28:39

flattery, which is counterfeit.

00:28:40

And it's just way too much effort, in my opinion, to try to be counterfeit and

00:28:45

keep track of what you told, which person just like, say what you mean, but focus

00:28:49

on the positive.

00:28:50

If I were to condense everything down in this book, that's what it would be.

00:28:52

That's probably a good summary of that whole thing is just, you know, be

00:28:57

genuine.

00:28:58

So I'm trying to make stuff up.

00:29:00

That's that's a kind of a recurring theme here is he says a lot of times.

00:29:07

Whenever, let me just grab an example here, because he's got a number of these

00:29:12

principles where he will say things like, be a good listener and encourage

00:29:16

others to talk about themselves.

00:29:18

But that's a good principle.

00:29:20

But that requires you to be real with it.

00:29:24

Like be an active listener in that and be a good listener.

00:29:28

But don't just ask questions randomly because you're just trying to keep them

00:29:32

talking.

00:29:33

Like that's not the reason, like show an interest.

00:29:36

Like that is like be genuinely interested in other people.

00:29:39

Like that's even another principle right there.

00:29:41

Like this is a thing that continues to recur throughout the book.

00:29:45

So I think maybe he's kind of short circuiting the opposition to this and

00:29:51

people jumping ahead of him and saying, okay, well, this is how I can get

00:29:54

people to do what I want.

00:29:55

Like even even in each principle, he talks about that.

00:29:58

Yeah.

00:29:59

And just using that one as an example, because I like that, you know, be

00:30:05

interested in the other person and what they have to say.

00:30:07

I mean, you can tell me personally anyways, like I know people who will

00:30:12

come up to me and be like, Hey, how's it going?

00:30:14

What are you working on?

00:30:14

Whatever.

00:30:15

And as soon as they ask the question, I like hesitate to answer because I

00:30:20

can just see the glazed over look in their eyes.

00:30:22

And I know they're not really paying attention.

00:30:25

Right.

00:30:25

You know, so you can apply that to any one of these principles.

00:30:29

And in that case, you know, it's flattery.

00:30:31

It's a counterfeit.

00:30:32

But when that person says that and we make a connection, I can tell that

00:30:36

they're really interested.

00:30:38

And then we have a great conversation and who knows where that leads.

00:30:41

Like that's sincere.

00:30:42

And I can't, I can't describe what that does in terms of building up goodwill.

00:30:48

Like if you go back to seven habits, how they affected people, I think

00:30:52

the, he used the, the term the emotional savings account.

00:30:55

So everything in this book, you can either be, you can either be sincere in it

00:31:00

and your, your building, your making deposits, or you can be counterfeit in

00:31:05

which case you're making withdrawals.

00:31:07

And very, very quickly, you're going to be emotionally bankrupt.

00:31:10

If you try to implement this stuff in a counterfeit way, people are

00:31:14

familiar with the concept of filler words.

00:31:16

I mean, and like, awesome.

00:31:18

You know, this, that's amazing.

00:31:19

And like they have these words that they used to just fill empty space.

00:31:23

Oh, I'm so busy.

00:31:24

Yeah.

00:31:25

Yeah.

00:31:25

Do you ever run across people that have filler questions where, you know,

00:31:29

it starts to get quiet and they want to spark a conversation.

00:31:32

So they'll like, you know, well, what are you doing this weekend?

00:31:35

Or what else is going on?

00:31:37

You know, they have these questions and they'll ask sometimes the same

00:31:40

question gets asked repeatedly throughout a similar, the same conversation.

00:31:44

But do you ever run across this?

00:31:46

I feel like I keep finding people who do this.

00:31:48

Dude, I live near Green Bay, Wisconsin.

00:31:50

The ultimate filler question is, Oh, did you see the game on Sunday?

00:31:53

I mean, 50% of our radio programming is determined by the success

00:32:03

of the, the National Football League team.

00:32:04

And in my opinion, that is, that is the ultimate filler because you may make a

00:32:11

surface level connection with people by talking about what happened in the game.

00:32:14

And I'm not saying that there's no good from that.

00:32:16

But every time I find myself in that situation, I'm like, Oh, okay,

00:32:20

we're going to do this dance now.

00:32:22

Like I was hoping this might be meaningful, but I guess not.

00:32:25

Right.

00:32:26

Yeah.

00:32:27

I feel like I keep running across these or maybe I'm just noticing them.

00:32:30

And I find it extremely frustrating because like, well, they're asking me a

00:32:35

question.

00:32:36

I have to respond, but I can tell they're checked out already and don't really

00:32:42

want to know the answer to this question.

00:32:45

So why am I answering it?

00:32:47

I even had one case where I just said, I don't think you really want to know the

00:32:50

answer to that.

00:32:51

And I just kind of moved on.

00:32:52

Like I was so frustrated by it.

00:32:54

Like, cause I had answered the same question three times.

00:32:57

Like seriously, let's, let's move on.

00:32:59

We need to get past this.

00:33:00

I don't think I've experienced that.

00:33:02

And let me clarify, I guess, with the, uh, the sports ball example, because I'm

00:33:05

actually a sports fan, but I guess the context that I see it is like, you're

00:33:09

standing in an elevator next to somebody and they're just trying to fill the

00:33:12

silence.

00:33:12

And so it's like, no, just be quiet.

00:33:14

Like we can ride in silence.

00:33:17

It's okay.

00:33:17

You're not going to remember any of this.

00:33:20

It's not going to make any difference.

00:33:21

Like who cares?

00:33:22

Let's just skip this.

00:33:24

Fair enough.

00:33:25

All right.

00:33:26

Part two, six ways to make people like you.

00:33:28

Again, these titles are not helping the fact that this is not a manipulation

00:33:33

handbook.

00:33:34

No, they're not.

00:33:35

Makes it worse.

00:33:36

I would say six ways to incentivize people to like you.

00:33:40

Maybe you can tell it was written in the thirties, right?

00:33:42

Yeah.

00:33:44

The first one I have here in quotes is from a story that he told about this

00:33:50

magician who would say before he would go out to perform, I love my audience.

00:33:56

And it's kind of the positive self talk sort of a thing, but in his example,

00:34:03

like this guy really lived it out.

00:34:05

And I thought this was really cool.

00:34:07

Uh, one of the quote unquote action items that I wrote down, not really action items.

00:34:11

So I have action items that I've listed here, but there's a lot of

00:34:14

stuff in this book that isn't really something that you're going to take action

00:34:18

on.

00:34:18

It's more something to put in your memory banks.

00:34:21

So the next time you're in this situation, you know how to handle it the right way.

00:34:24

And so this is one of the things that falls into that second category where it's

00:34:28

not like you're going to be able to hold me accountable to this, but it's

00:34:32

something that I want to apply to my mindset whenever I sit down to create

00:34:37

something like as we're recording this podcast episode, I want to give the audience

00:34:42

the best that I possibly can.

00:34:44

And again, you could say, well, you're just performing your fake, like not necessarily,

00:34:50

like there are going to be people who fall into that category where everything

00:34:53

that they're doing is a show.

00:34:54

But like I said, I personally think it's way too much work to try to maintain

00:34:59

that facade.

00:35:00

So I am who I am.

00:35:02

Uh, I try to stay true to that.

00:35:05

And for the most part, you know, based on the feedback that I've gotten from other

00:35:09

people, like that's one of the things that people appreciate about the stuff

00:35:13

that I do create is like you can see who I am and what I believe about things

00:35:18

through it.

00:35:18

I'm not going to tread the line and try to be quote unquote politically correct.

00:35:24

Like I've thought through my opinions on things and I'm willing to share them,

00:35:28

not in a derogatory means like this is the only way to do it.

00:35:32

But this is based off of my experience and that's something we'll get to a little

00:35:36

bit later.

00:35:36

That's addressed in this book too.

00:35:38

But I just think that there's really a lot of value here from loving your

00:35:43

audience and giving the very best that you have to them.

00:35:46

I think that that comes across and people can tell that and people can tell

00:35:50

likewise when you're not doing that.

00:35:52

Uh, and I just think that like a lot of the stuff that people want to do,

00:35:57

a lot of the things that maybe they're currently doing could be a lot more

00:36:01

successful if they would embrace this principle and just basically go all in

00:36:06

with it.

00:36:07

Don't hold anything back.

00:36:08

Don't try to hide anything, be transparent.

00:36:11

Like this is who I am.

00:36:12

These are my motives.

00:36:13

Like you don't have to guess.

00:36:15

That's one of my pet peeves, I guess is like people where you have to try to

00:36:18

tip toe around what they're saying and figure out what they're really trying to

00:36:22

get from you.

00:36:22

Like that just drives me nuts.

00:36:24

And so I don't want to be that way.

00:36:26

I want whoever listens to a podcast that I create, whoever reads an article that I

00:36:30

wrote, I want them to be able to see the real me in that.

00:36:34

And I want them to be like walking away from that with a positive impression.

00:36:39

Like that was really good.

00:36:40

You know, whether they completely agree with the message or not, I want them to at

00:36:45

least appreciate the effort and the excellence, hopefully that went into it.

00:36:49

Yeah.

00:36:50

I think this comes back to like the concept of saying, I love my audience

00:36:53

before going out on stage.

00:36:55

Uh, that also applies to one of the other principles in this part, which was

00:37:00

smile and I really resonated with this because I know like I do a lot of phone

00:37:05

calls, I do a lot of video calls and I, I'm always, you know, even with email from

00:37:12

time to time, I have found that, you know, if you smile before you engage, it completely

00:37:19

changes the way you come at it.

00:37:21

It doesn't have to necessarily be an in person meeting where smiling is helpful.

00:37:25

I can get my intent across over a phone call a lot easier if I take 10 seconds

00:37:31

and smile before I hit the green button like that.

00:37:34

That, that seems to help significantly.

00:37:37

It just kind of changes your mindset.

00:37:38

It's kind of odd how that simple act can make such a big difference.

00:37:42

And I think this magician figured some of that out as well, because, I mean, try it.

00:37:47

Can you say, I love my audience with a frown on your face?

00:37:49

Like you're just not going to pull that off.

00:37:52

So he's, and I guess this goes into your second point here.

00:37:55

Mike is happiness is a choice.

00:37:56

That's essentially what you're doing is you're choosing before you engage that

00:38:03

you're going to be happy about that situation and it can lead to better

00:38:07

scenarios in the midst of that situation.

00:38:10

If you do that.

00:38:11

Yeah.

00:38:11

On page 74, he says happiness doesn't depend on outward conditions.

00:38:14

It depends on inner conditions.

00:38:16

So when you think about that, it's really freeing, but it also comes back to the whole

00:38:20

concept of like personal responsibility or self-determination.

00:38:23

You can let outside circumstances determine how you feel about things.

00:38:27

But if you do that, you will have a miserable existence.

00:38:30

It's much better to set your own course from the inside out and say, this is where

00:38:36

I'm going and this is what I'm going to feel about this.

00:38:38

And that maybe sounds ridiculous if you'd never done that before, but it really does

00:38:42

work.

00:38:42

He says, it isn't what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing

00:38:46

that makes you happy or unhappy.

00:38:48

It is what you think about it.

00:38:49

And Abraham Lincoln says, most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds

00:38:52

to be.

00:38:53

And so I think that totally applies to the, you know, you're talking about the

00:38:58

conversations you have with potential clients.

00:39:01

Like you may have had something happen right before you got on that call that

00:39:05

just was really heavy and it's major depressed and it's not great news, but that's

00:39:10

not going to help the call.

00:39:12

Like that's not going to fix anything.

00:39:14

You can be worried about that thing.

00:39:16

You can be upset about that thing.

00:39:18

What's the best thing that can happen from that?

00:39:20

And what's the worst thing that can happen from it?

00:39:21

The worst thing that can happen from it is that you get on the call with your

00:39:25

potential client and they're just like, man, this guy, like he's a wet rag.

00:39:29

Like I don't want to be around him.

00:39:30

Why do we want to give him our business?

00:39:32

You know, so potentially you've got a lot to lose.

00:39:35

But if you were to quote unquote, fake it till you make it.

00:39:39

If you decide that you are going to be happy and you're going to be positive and

00:39:43

you're going to smile for 10 seconds before you get on camera, what that's going

00:39:47

to allow you to do is master your emotions.

00:39:50

So you're not going to have to be led by every single thing that happens to you.

00:39:52

You maybe are going to get that client, get that person as a client.

00:39:57

And then when you're done, you can go back to worrying about that thing that you

00:39:59

have no control over any ways.

00:40:01

Like it really doesn't do any benefit.

00:40:04

It doesn't add anything to you to worry about that.

00:40:07

But there's a whole lot of good things that can happen from taking control of

00:40:11

the situation and charting your own course.

00:40:14

Yeah, I'm going to go on to your last point in this part, which you have the

00:40:19

quote, to be interesting, be interested.

00:40:21

And this is a this.

00:40:24

Yeah, I like this.

00:40:26

I really want to apply this more.

00:40:29

But the concept is that if I if I want people to see me as an interesting person

00:40:34

and I would challenge the idea that there's someone out there who doesn't want to be

00:40:40

interesting, I would imagine we all do to some extent.

00:40:43

And in order to be interesting, you have to show an interest in other people

00:40:49

through asking questions about the things that they do, understanding the things

00:40:53

or trying to understand the things that they are the most passionate about.

00:40:57

And a prime example of this, and this goes back to my corporate days as part of

00:41:04

one of my tasks working corporate, I had the great honor of flying from place

00:41:09

to place throughout the United States to train farmers on a specific set of

00:41:13

software. And this in one particular scenario, there was a grower that we were

00:41:19

having a conversation with who really was given us a hard time about the

00:41:25

specific software when we were struggling to break through with him.

00:41:28

And my supervisor at the time, or I guess he wasn't my supervisor, but he was a

00:41:33

co-worker, he he started asking questions about the military in some form.

00:41:39

Because this guy had emblems from a handful of the US military branches on

00:41:45

his truck and turned out his daughter was serving in the military and we were

00:41:51

able to strike up a conversation about that.

00:41:53

And he went on for a very long time talking about that.

00:41:56

And when it was all said and done, he ended up being one of the best

00:42:00

proponents of the software we were working on.

00:42:02

And it was purely because we were able to get past the technicals of what was

00:42:09

going on and show an interest in his, uh, his life, his personal life.

00:42:15

And it was kind of difficult to get him to stop talking about it because we had to

00:42:19

go, but, you know, that was, that was a different problem.

00:42:22

But it was very fascinating to me that he became very interested in what we were

00:42:27

doing when we showed an interest in what he was most passionate about.

00:42:31

So I think that's something that I want to, to be intentional about just because

00:42:36

it leads to better conversations and it leads to, I think better relationships overall.

00:42:41

Yeah, there's a couple different principles that you touched on in that, uh,

00:42:45

that phrases now, um, that story that you just told, but the beginning of it,

00:42:49

like you said, is being interested in what the other person is interested in.

00:42:53

And before I read this book, started getting this, uh, this revelation.

00:42:59

And what I've noticed from it is that there's a lot of really interesting

00:43:04

people around you that they have a lot of really cool stories and a lot of

00:43:09

really cool experiences that you won't ever know until you ask the person about.

00:43:16

Like people want to talk about this stuff, but it's just so ingrained that no one asks.

00:43:22

So they just assume that like nobody really cares.

00:43:25

And I just think that this is a really cool synopsis.

00:43:29

This one, this one phrase to be interesting, be interested.

00:43:32

That kind of encapsulates this whole section, the story that you shared, like

00:43:36

I've got multiple stories like that that I could share it to where it's just like

00:43:40

you, you notice one little thing, you know, and really it's just paying attention

00:43:45

to those details, not being wrapped up in your own little world, asking somebody

00:43:49

about it.

00:43:49

And then all of a sudden you're talking to them about this thing for the next

00:43:52

couple of hours.

00:43:53

Like, man, there's, there's so much experience and wisdom in the people around

00:44:00

us that is just like right there and they're willing to share it.

00:44:05

They're willing to talk about it, but we don't ask.

00:44:08

Just specifically going back to one of my gap books as an example, the 30 lessons

00:44:13

for living where the guy went into the nursing homes and asked the people who

00:44:18

were really positive in those nursing homes who had lived a long life and you

00:44:21

could tell that like they were happy with how they had lived.

00:44:23

Like what was the secret to your success?

00:44:25

Just using those older people who specifically for that book, it was the

00:44:29

golden generation, the people who had lived through World War I, World War II,

00:44:33

like the last time that at least in America, like we really had to go through

00:44:38

some stuff, you know, and learning from their experience and how willing they

00:44:42

were to share that and how sad it is that like no one ever goes and asks.

00:44:47

That's the thing that I really realized from, from this and from reading this

00:44:53

book in particular, it was like a great reminder of that like don't take that

00:44:57

stuff for granted. I mean, there's a lot of people who saw a lot of things that

00:45:01

can really benefit us if we really try to understand it.

00:45:03

They're not always going to be there.

00:45:05

Those stories, you know, we're not always going to have firsthand access to those.

00:45:11

And so I want to be more intentional about drawing that stuff out of people

00:45:17

because they're willing to talk about it, but they generally aren't willing to

00:45:20

break through the noise, you know, they're not going to wave the flag and jump up and

00:45:24

down and scream to get your attention. Like they're going to wait until somebody is

00:45:28

actually interested because they don't they don't have time to waste.

00:45:31

So I don't know what the right term would be.

00:45:33

I guess the biblical term would be like cast your pearls before swine.

00:45:36

Like you want to make sure that if you're going to spill your guts and about

00:45:40

whatever it is that that you're really emotional about like you want to make sure

00:45:44

that the person that you're doing that to is going to receive it well.

00:45:48

You want to know that they care.

00:45:49

And so that's something that I want to do is just put other people put other people

00:45:54

first and let them talk. And it's honestly a lot of fun.

00:45:58

You hear a lot of cool stories learn a lot of cool stuff that way.

00:46:02

Yeah, just to clarify, I think the phrase that you're after is don't cast your pearls before swine.

00:46:08

Yep. Yeah.

00:46:09

Exactly.

00:46:09

So don't do that. It's not a positive thing.

00:46:12

Basically just don't waste your time.

00:46:14

Right. Right. And that's you know that that particular phrase and the only reason I call that

00:46:18

out is because that is one of my wife's favorite phrases from the bible is you know don't put your

00:46:24

best in front of people who really don't give a rip. That's the thing we talk about quite a bit.

00:46:30

Which actually is a good reminder to me that you know one of the things that I really took from

00:46:35

especially in this section of six ways to make people like you.

00:46:39

Oddly enough, I kind of applied this to my wife which I suppose at some point this is kind of a

00:46:45

natural conversation with this book is you know applying it to your spouse.

00:46:49

You know it's easily the most intimate relationship you're going to have.

00:46:52

And I think it's it's definitely a plus in your relationship to be interested in the things

00:46:58

that your spouse is interested in. And I kind of started applying this one a little bit more.

00:47:03

I haven't been real great about that particular part but my wife is very interested in you know

00:47:09

like French cooking of sorts but also in gardening. And I haven't been real good about listening to

00:47:14

her whenever she is excited about something that she's learned. Some new things she's learned how

00:47:19

to cook or she cooked something super complicated. And I haven't always been the greatest at that.

00:47:24

We eat pretty well around my house and it's all to my wife's credit there. But I'm trying to be

00:47:31

someone who is able to listen to her on a more detailed level and become more interested in the

00:47:38

things that she's very passionate about. Just because I haven't been super interested in it.

00:47:43

It's not to say that we don't have good conversations or anything. It just means that we end up talking

00:47:47

about other things other than the things she's the most passionate about. So I'm trying to make a

00:47:51

little bit of that shift. But I do think it's natural that whenever you go through this book

00:47:55

there are going to be a lot of areas that you can see that's applying to especially a marriage.

00:48:00

And I don't know did you really think about that Mike? Is this an area that you felt like you could

00:48:04

apply some of this stuff? Or am I just the only one here? No I I did. I agree that the family and

00:48:10

marriage context at least for me is the easy place to apply this stuff. This one in particular

00:48:17

the to be interesting be interested. This one I want to apply this on a much broader scale because

00:48:23

I feel like for a long time I have discounted a lot of the wisdom and the lessons that I could

00:48:30

have been learning from the people around me just because my situation is quote unquote different.

00:48:37

But what I've come to realize is that the guy who's just making ends meet still has

00:48:44

stuff that I can I can learn from. You know maybe he and his family came over on the boat from Cuba

00:48:50

and they've had to really scrap and like they've really had to persevere through some things in

00:48:53

order to make this work. They've had to relocate move their entire family but they're still consistent

00:48:59

they're still steady they're still positive like the tendency would be to look at it from a

00:49:04

financial perspective like well I'm more successful than that person so what are they going to teach

00:49:10

me but really like everybody's got something that they can teach you if you pay attention to it and

00:49:14

if you get them talking about their story it's easy to tease that stuff out so that's that's how I

00:49:18

want to apply this is like every single person that I come in contact with every single person who

00:49:22

is willing to give me the time of day like I want to I want to be listening not just trying to

00:49:28

spew stuff all the time. So part three again a really good phrase that can be twisted how to

00:49:35

win people to your way of thinking yeah so explain that one Mike yeah this is the longest part of

00:49:44

the book I believe there's 12 chapters here this is starting to transition into the then part four

00:49:50

is like the leadership part but this is like the introductory section to that so this is kind of

00:49:56

like management 101 I guess that's kind of how I viewed this section and again like not just

00:50:03

managing people though that's the arena that this is going to to play out in the number one thing I

00:50:08

got out of this in the first chapter in here is that you can't win an argument so anytime you have

00:50:13

an argument with somebody voices get raised you're making your points vehemently and he says that

00:50:19

if you convince somebody against their will you haven't really changed their mind so I can think

00:50:26

of many instances where this is played out with that I've been involved in and also that I have

00:50:31

not been involved in where the loudest person quote unquote wins but nine times out of 10 what happens

00:50:38

is that he says each contestant is more firmly convinced than ever that they are absolutely right

00:50:44

so you may quote unquote lose the argument for the sake of an example let's say you and I are

00:50:49

having an argument okay and let's pretend Joe that you're louder than I am so you quote unquote

00:50:54

win okay nine times out of 10 my opinion isn't changed by the fact that you won but you maybe

00:51:00

think it is you think that oh I put Mike in his place he totally gets my perspective now no

00:51:05

and nine times out of 10 what happens is the other person just more firmly believes that they

00:51:10

were right they just got sick of arguing and decided to let it end yeah he uses a phrase I

00:51:14

really like the man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still so the only way to win

00:51:21

an argument is to completely avoid it I definitely want to embrace this this is one of my action items

00:51:27

I'm not an arguer not really but not in that way not like a get loud get proud sort of scenario

00:51:36

but where I want to apply this is you know with with my client calls and stuff it's not uncommon

00:51:43

for there to be multiple people on the other side and one of those is like the in-house IT expert

00:51:49

of sorts and they always have an opinion about how their website should be built from a technical

00:51:56

stance and I am the expert they brought in on that so it's very easy to start butting heads

00:52:04

with this person and it doesn't really work for me to convince everyone that they are wrong

00:52:11

in zero ways is that a good thing and it's also zero ways good if I end up being the loser of that

00:52:19

so I need to not do those scenarios just avoid those it's the world where I do business so I know

00:52:27

it very well as a result because I work in it all day long and I usually have an edge over them so

00:52:35

there's a lot of this book that I need to apply to that exact scenario but this is what I'm naming

00:52:41

as the crux of it is avoid arguments Joe just stop yeah and it doesn't have to be like a yelling

00:52:49

at each other sort of argument I recognize from reading this that I totally do this all the time

00:52:56

and I do it logically and rationally yeah I'll construct my arguments like a like a debate you

00:53:02

know and think that well logic is going to prevail here you know look at these are these are the

00:53:07

facts this is obviously what they're saying and it's not obviously what they're saying it's obvious

00:53:12

to me it's not obvious to the other person and I can construct this argument and think that all

00:53:18

the evidence is pointing to me but there's there's more than one side that every single one of these

00:53:24

stories you can make facts say whatever you want right honestly I think we talked about that in a

00:53:28

previous episode how you used to like pull data points and create these reports that basically

00:53:33

would say whatever you would want them to say right right right well I didn't do that but I

00:53:38

pulled the data that allowed people to do that right right yeah no I wasn't implying I guess that

00:53:43

you did it but oh I drove you had the you had the ability to do it because it's so easy to manipulate

00:53:49

right the facts you have to you know just facts don't equal truth I guess is is the the takeaway

00:53:54

there right but also the takeaway in terms of arguments or discussions whatever is that like

00:53:59

you can never think that you've rationally won and I guess reading this section you know this is

00:54:05

the first chapter in this section it's just like don't even go there and then the rest of the

00:54:10

chapters in this section the other 11 chapters outline a better way to get what you want than

00:54:16

trying to convince the other person that they're wrong and you're right yeah just a you know

00:54:20

there's a reason that I have the habit of sending PDFs when it's data it's harder for people to

00:54:26

edit what I send yeah that was beat into me in corporate so yeah they always got onto me

00:54:33

Joe I can't make edits to this well you're not supposed to be able to hit that anyway

00:54:41

appeal to nobler motives hit me on this quote so there's a ton in this this section and we're not

00:54:47

going to try and outline the whole way that you win people to your way of thinking but this is

00:54:52

one part of it that really jumped out to me and when he read this section he basically talked about

00:54:59

how if you project that this person is like a man or woman of their word if they're going to do

00:55:06

what they said they're going to do oftentimes they will live up to that and I again you can view that

00:55:13

in a manipulative sense is like well I'm going to use this to get what I want but I think that a

00:55:17

lot of times this can be used to create win-win situations and really what this is is thinking

00:55:22

the best of the other person so believing that they're not out to get you that they're not trying

00:55:28

to take advantage of you that they're not actively rebelling against what you want them to do if

00:55:32

you're a manager and they're an employee for example and he has some great stories in here

00:55:35

one that I really liked and it wasn't specifically for this point but there's so much that you can

00:55:40

learn from these stories there was one where I think it was a Charles Schwab example where he

00:55:45

was talking about the the guys that were smoking on their break right underneath the sign that says

00:55:51

no smoking and so to make the point he walks over gives each of them a cigar and then says something

00:55:58

like great job guys by the way I trust that you'll wait till you get outside in order to smoke this

00:56:05

you know and then they got the they got the point and they stopped what they were doing because it

00:56:08

was against company rules but a lot of those stories that just impressed me is like wow like

00:56:14

that's not necessarily manipulative it's much less manipulative honestly than how you would

00:56:20

typically see that scenario played out where the boss is going to come in and be like what's wrong

00:56:24

with you guys can't you can't you read you know like that's a lot more condescending than thinking

00:56:29

the best of the of the person and creating a place for them to save face and for this to be a win-win

00:56:35

like you get the activity that you want and you're not coming down on them disciplining them whatever

00:56:41

like there's no negative outcome to this situation like there's a lot of scenarios where that can

00:56:47

happen where there can be a win-win it doesn't have to be I have to win you have to lose in order for

00:56:53

me to get what I want that's really the thing that this book kind of challenged me to do there

00:56:57

was another story a fable actually which kind of illustrates this from this section about the the

00:57:03

sun and the wind do you remember this one yes I do remember this one it's a good one I like this

00:57:09

yeah and this is under chapter four in this section a drop of honey but again like it kind of

00:57:14

kind of all related the fable goes that the sun and the wind were arguing over who was stronger

00:57:19

the wind said he proved that he was stronger by blowing a man's coat off hard or he blew the

00:57:22

tighter the man clutched his coat when the wind gave up the sun came out smiled at the old man

00:57:26

wiped off his brow pulled off his coat and the the principle is gentleness and friendliness are

00:57:31

always stronger than fury and force if you appeal to noble motives I feel like the gentleness and

00:57:36

the friendliness are going to be natural byproducts of that that particular story is one that struck

00:57:42

me with my girls in the way that I tried to correct them because so many times like

00:57:50

multiple times even today I'll admit it where they are doing things they are they know they're

00:57:57

not supposed to do that and my instinct is to get upset you know make make myself look big be loud

00:58:06

like that's my tendency in that scenario that's not good for them I mean they have a hard time

00:58:11

responding to that in that case you know to follow the the fable like I'm being the wind in that

00:58:16

scenario and it makes it very difficult for them to to respond positively and they're also not

00:58:23

necessarily going to get the right motivator behind that as well so I didn't even know how to

00:58:28

put this as an action item other than just be aware of this because I don't really think it works to

00:58:34

say that change the way I handle this particular situation because it's not a specific situation

00:58:39

it's again a mindset but it's not even that it's the way that you respond so I didn't even know how

00:58:45

to write it down but something around that concept of instead of trying to you know force my children

00:58:53

to do things the correct way or you know guide them in that way through you know loud means as

00:59:00

opposed to that trying to get down on their level and and calmly work through it with them and

00:59:06

help them understand it so that they can make a better choice in the future that's not simple

00:59:11

to do with a three-year-old just gonna say that yeah but the kids example like that's the perfect

00:59:18

place to see this played out because this is chapter 10 and appeal everybody likes believe

00:59:22

the other person to be honest sincere truthful etc like if you want to incentivize your young

00:59:28

kids to model correct behavior then project that they are responsible enough or big enough quote

00:59:37

unquote to handle this thing you know if you frame it as like now this is for big kids so like you

00:59:45

have to act this way in order to do this thing like there's a privilege associated with it the

00:59:50

freedom that comes from that like that's a great way to see that played out but that can be applied

00:59:56

to anybody the playing field can be level in order for this to to happen still like you don't have

01:00:01

to have one person in a position of power and they're trying to coax you the person long like

01:00:05

come on come on although like with kids that's that's kind of how that would that would play out

01:00:10

but i just really like this whole idea of thinking the best about people and then just like confessing

01:00:17

it over them and then watching them act it out specifically in like a church context this is a

01:00:23

really powerful idea because like in my church anyways i'll just speak to my own my own example

01:00:31

i've got a group of guys that are in my discipleship group and i'm the quote unquote leader although

01:00:37

we're all on this journey together and we've been talking a lot about vision and purpose and

01:00:45

identifying like what is it that you're that you're supposed to do and it's cool to see like

01:00:53

the light bulb come on and the emotion that springs up behind people's eyes and like the when they

01:00:58

start to accept and believe that like yeah i can accomplish that dream or that vision that i have

01:01:04

and when you get a couple people around you who are like hey yeah man you can do that like i've seen

01:01:07

you do this and you're really good at this and i think you're really talented in this particular

01:01:12

area like you could use this in this particular way like you get a couple people around you who are

01:01:17

pointing out the your talents and your abilities instead of people who are constantly reminding you

01:01:23

of all the things you can't do and all the reasons why it's not going to work and then all of a

01:01:27

sudden like you get energized and you're like yeah let's do this and i think that's like a positive

01:01:32

application of this this principle and i think it's it's really really powerful i really want to

01:01:39

figure out how to apply this in my own life with every single person that i come in contact with

01:01:44

i mean we talked about on this podcast my life theme which is kind of a conglomeration of

01:01:50

of action items but i've got it written down right in front of me it helped people answer the

01:01:55

question why am i here by inspiring encouraging and teaching them how to discover their destiny

01:01:58

connected they're calling and live a life they're created for at some point in order to do that i

01:02:03

have to embrace this principle and i have to appeal to a nobler motive and believe that people do want

01:02:12

to improve their situation they do want to connect to the thing that is custom built for them you

01:02:18

know the why are they here and i have to then inspire them to do that if i can't appeal to the

01:02:25

nobler motives like that gets a lot harder yeah and i i think it's hard to in some scenarios i feel

01:02:33

like it's hard to figure out how to do that it's a scenario where you're trying to help someone

01:02:39

understand a better motive behind what they're doing but you're not really sure why they're

01:02:44

doing the thing to begin with so i i feel like it's sometimes hard to to help them step outside of

01:02:50

that i want to go on to the last part of this section because i know you've got it down here and

01:02:56

i thought it was kind of interesting as well in the last principle in this section of when people

01:03:01

to your way of thinking is throw down a challenge and i loved the story that he started this section

01:03:07

off with which was charles schwaub he had a mill manager and his teams you know he had an overnight

01:03:15

crew and a day crew and they just weren't hitting their quota of work and when charles schwaub figured

01:03:22

this out he went to the mill and he asked the team of workers you know how many heats did you

01:03:30

accomplish today i don't know what a heat is in this scenario i don't really know what that i was

01:03:35

i was a bit lost on that it's like how many heats did your shift make today and he said six so he

01:03:40

took some chalk and in a great big figure on the floor he wrote the number six well then when the

01:03:46

night shift came in they saw the big number six and we're trying to figure out what it was and the

01:03:51

the day workers told him well the big boss was here today and he asked us how many heats we made and

01:03:57

he wrote it on the floor well the next morning of course charles schwaub walks in and on the floor

01:04:03

there wasn't a six there was a seven you can imagine how this turned out uh the day shift then

01:04:11

sees the number seven and thinks oh no we have a problem so they went together and they managed to

01:04:17

get a big ten written on the floor at the end of the day so charles schwaub just by writing a single

01:04:23

number on the floor managed to invoke a competition and a challenge in a team that was struggling to

01:04:28

meet their quota and basically two days and managed to get them to the point where they were able to

01:04:36

start succeeding i kind of love that story i really did i want to clarify one thing uh because the

01:04:43

i think that the day crew when they came back wasn't thinking oh no this isn't good but they

01:04:50

were incentivized to beat the night crew right like that's that's the principle here it's not

01:04:56

again a scarcity mindset where it's like well one of us is going to get axed so we got to make sure

01:05:01

it's not us it's a friendly competition in essence that it's like a competition to to see who can

01:05:09

do the best and uh i kind of view bookworm and this podcast like you could apply that personally

01:05:17

you could look at what i'm doing and what joe's doing and you could say well if those guys are

01:05:22

gonna do it then i i can do better than that like that's great go for that i'm not against that i

01:05:28

think that's a really powerful idea here and also the thing to call out here i think that the challenge

01:05:34

and the appealing to noblur motives as it pertains to you know going back to my my life theme not to

01:05:39

make this all about me but like i think that uh you can have that competition without having

01:05:45

another person even so i could challenge somebody potentially you know going back to the last principle

01:05:51

of appealing to noblur motives and embracing that in the form of a challenge i could create a picture

01:05:57

of the ideal and say how would your life be different if you were able to achieve this you know once

01:06:04

you've got that picture then it's like okay now go get that you know that's where the challenge

01:06:08

comes in is like if child's shop were to walk in and be like okay guys i want you to do 10 heats

01:06:13

you know everybody's gonna go 10 heats man that's that's not even possible it's almost twice as much

01:06:17

as we're doing right now it's not like they're in a bad situation but when pain is sufficient

01:06:24

change will come so maybe you are in a bad situation you just can't take things anymore and you want

01:06:28

to you want to change your future i think everybody's got that that point whether it's

01:06:33

induced by pain or just the idea of a better future that inspires the action but once you

01:06:40

once you create the action the challenge or the scoreboard or like the goal that's really the

01:06:48

principle here is if you have something that you are trying to achieve or trying to beat that can

01:06:56

take you a lot further than you you thought you could go i mean as we record this since the last

01:07:02

episode i ran my half marathon and about a week before i ran it i hurt my it band which is the

01:07:10

muscle that goes down the outside of your left leg when i was running i got to the top of the hill

01:07:17

about mile five it's a very hilly course i've never really ran hills before that where i am there

01:07:24

aren't many hills to run and uh my knee started to give out i didn't think i was going to be able to

01:07:29

to finish what got me through though was they have these pace teams and at the beginning i was running

01:07:36

with a pace team which my brother was actually a part of and i was doing fine but then we got to

01:07:40

the hill and my knee started acting up and i just couldn't keep up with that anymore so i was just

01:07:46

about ready to give up and then the next pace team because they they pace like every five minutes or

01:07:51

so runs by me and the guy on the pace team is wearing this bright blue shirt so you can see

01:07:56

and they've got the the stick with the the time on it so basically like if you want to finish the

01:08:00

half marathon in this time follow this pace team all right so the guy runs by he says something to me

01:08:07

encouraging he's like hey come on let's go you know and he doesn't know what's going on with me but

01:08:12

and i don't even remember exactly what he said but i do remember that like that was like flipping a

01:08:17

switch in me and all of a sudden i'm like yeah i got this and i just followed the pace team like

01:08:23

that was the challenge nice and he didn't phrase it that way like hey come on

01:08:27

suck it up let's go but that's the way i took it was this is the challenge now you know you're not

01:08:33

feeling great but can you push through this anyways and finish and i did i finished in 150-33

01:08:40

which is an eight minute 26 second pace which is still faster than my target time of 8.30

01:08:47

nice so even with everything you know that happened the challenge was thrown down and i could see like

01:08:53

i responded and it wasn't even consciously it's kind of like you're in the middle of this thing and

01:08:59

you don't even realize the power of somebody saying the right thing at the right time or just doing

01:09:06

something to inspire that that action you can get so focused on your your situation you can think

01:09:11

about like oh man this this really sucks but then when your focus gets changed even a little bit

01:09:17

onto the the challenge you're capable of some amazing stuff you really don't know what you're

01:09:21

you know in the case of a half marathon what your body is capable of until you until you really

01:09:25

push it and the way to push it is not to focus on like okay i got to do this thing even though my

01:09:31

knee hurts way to focus on is like well there's the there's the pace guy right in front of me like i

01:09:35

got to keep up with him this can go back to the book flow by our buddy mohaly because that was one

01:09:43

of the aspects that he he talked about quite a bit and there was having some form of a challenge

01:09:48

that you are focused on achieving so i think it's really cool that's a cool story mike well done

01:09:54

congratulations thank you thank you um yeah so i have a male who runs since then which is kind of

01:09:59

kind of sucks and to be to be fair to be expected i suppose to be fair i probably could but with an

01:10:05

it band basically short version the only thing that helps it is rest and if you don't rest it it

01:10:11

can become chronic i definitely don't want that to happen so i'm just trying to right try and take

01:10:14

it easy for a while it's not like i ran the half marathon and then this happened this happened

01:10:19

actually before the half marathon it made the half marathon really really hard yeah but the thing

01:10:24

that got me over was not thinking about oh i'm only a mile four and i got nine more to go the thing

01:10:30

that got me over was like that keep that guy right in front of you just follow that guy i don't even

01:10:35

know his name but follow that right hey dude i'm with you so there you go all right part four be a

01:10:42

leader again awesome subtitle here how to change people without giving a fence or a rousing resentment

01:10:49

so the only way that this gets interpreted negatively is if you have the view that people

01:10:57

shouldn't have to change personally i think that change is constant and that's a improper way to

01:11:05

look at the world so i guess tweet at me if you really really want to hate at me for that statement

01:11:11

but i really think that change isn't bad the people who listen to bookworm specifically probably

01:11:17

already have embraced that where i want to change and i want to be in direction of the change and

01:11:23

make sure that the change is positive and not negative so maybe that's not such a polarizing

01:11:29

statement but i think that this is a polarizing statement for a lot of people but again coming back

01:11:36

to sales and leadership like influence you're causing people to change be okay with that now

01:11:44

there's right and wrong ways to do that and actually looking at my notes now this is where that child

01:11:48

schwaab story comes in about the the no smoking sign but the way to to be a leader is not just to

01:11:56

bring the hammer down when people mess up in fact one of these sections i put as a quote-unquote

01:12:04

action item not really an action item but it was avoid the hammer in the dynamite yeah so jabdra one

01:12:11

is if you have to find fault this is the way to begin really just there's a correct way to criticize

01:12:17

people and it's never by making them feel like they really messed up this is something i think i've

01:12:24

told the story on this podcast before but one of the things that i learned from working with

01:12:29

asian efficiency i was working on the the publication of the the podcast episodes i was not the the

01:12:36

host when we launched but i was responsible for all editing and all of the publication and so all

01:12:41

all of a sudden one day an episode goes out before it's been finalized and it gets sent out to everybody's

01:12:48

pod catcher and uh it's basically like you can't unhit the the send button when you send an email

01:12:53

that's basically what happened with this podcast episode and i'm freaking out and i'm like well

01:12:57

who did who did this like in tans is basically doesn't matter who who cares who did it i'm like

01:13:03

i care i want to figure out what what happened he's like it doesn't matter it doesn't matter had a

01:13:07

big meeting with everybody in the companies like we're not talking about

01:13:10

we're not talking about what happened we're talking about how do we make sure this doesn't

01:13:14

happen again that's kind of how i feel like this uh this whole section on how to criticize

01:13:21

it's that approach so it's it's not going to shine the light on the thing that you did wrong

01:13:26

it's going to incentivize you to make the change so that that thing doesn't happen again and there's

01:13:32

right ways to do that i i really appreciated this section especially i mean it seems very

01:13:36

tactical and practical at the same time so i i think it's very interesting to see some of the

01:13:42

stories that he tells in this particular section and again we're not going to go through all of these

01:13:49

but i i think at this point it's pretty obvious that we were going to recommend that you read this

01:13:54

so in this particular case like yes there are ways to help to criticize people but he has a lot

01:14:00

of examples here on ways to do that that aren't they're not going to hurt someone in the process

01:14:05

i mean it might not be pleasant but it doesn't come across as a a break in the relationship and

01:14:11

that you know that's probably a good point to call out here is that a lot of this book can be seen as

01:14:16

ways to build relationships and not sever them when something negative happens yep and it really

01:14:25

does seem to be i kind of wish it was something more along the lines of how to build relationships

01:14:30

as opposed to how to win friends and influence people because it's kind of more about you know

01:14:35

saving those relationships and the interactions you have with people as opposed to doing things

01:14:40

harshly and as a kind of a run around crazy person so i i think this is a very good section

01:14:49

especially for folks who are in a position where they are leading one or more other people in some

01:14:56

way and if you're a parent you're a leader period like that is the way it goes you can't get around

01:15:02

that good luck so i i don't know the first point you've got here is how to criticize my there are a

01:15:07

lot of ways i think you could do that but yep the one that i always come back to with stuff like

01:15:12

that is the the power of a positive no where you have the yes no yes scenario and although he never

01:15:18

calls it that he does mention that process a handful of times of start with praise before you get to

01:15:25

the criticism to me that's very similar to that because he also says in a couple areas to just

01:15:30

end on something positive as well so i think he calls out that scenario without saying yes no yes

01:15:36

but that that was one of the the aspects that definitely resonated with me yeah the the entire

01:15:42

section really is step by step how to to do this but there's a couple things specifically when it

01:15:49

comes to criticizing that i want to tease out here so chapter two is titled how to criticize and not

01:15:58

be hated for it and this is where one of my action items comes from where you're changing the word

01:16:05

but to and so using it as an example i could say something like i really appreciate all the work

01:16:13

that you put into bookworm joe but i noticed that the last episode had this mistake like at that point

01:16:19

you're not feeling positive even though i started it on a positive and so the principle here is to

01:16:24

call attention to people's mistakes indirectly so what that looks like is i really appreciate all

01:16:29

the the work that you put into bookworm joe and if we did this we could make sure that something

01:16:36

like x doesn't happen again or it doesn't happen in the future that's a totally different feeling

01:16:42

from that conversation just hinging on that one word which is crazy to think about and then there's

01:16:47

other stuff here like talking about your own mistakes before you would criticize the other person

01:16:52

sometimes you do have to address something that somebody did wrong and so in that instance maybe

01:16:56

you want to talk about you know when i first started doing this i did this thing all the time

01:17:00

and i noticed that you did it too so no big deal let's just figure out that like next time you're

01:17:05

going to do this thing do it this way so much good stuff here and again this is not manipulative

01:17:10

because what it ties into is chapter six how to spur people on to success you're not spurring

01:17:17

people on to success just so that you increase the value of your company or you make more money

01:17:23

i mean i guess maybe you could do it that way but that's getting back to it we've very very

01:17:27

beginning of this this book we talked about the insincere flattery versus the sincere appreciation

01:17:33

i view this how to spur people on to success as i will feel fulfilled if you are able to achieve

01:17:40

success whether or not i get anything of monetary value from it and i think that that's this whole

01:17:46

section on on leadership like that's really where there's a lot of gold here there's a lot of nuggets

01:17:53

in this section about incentivizing people to to take us a certain action but ultimately when

01:18:01

it comes to leadership and getting people to quote unquote follow you uh my pastor always says like

01:18:07

if you're a leader and you turn around and no one's following you you're just out for a walk

01:18:13

so like people have to believe that you can get them where they want to go and again there's like

01:18:18

this is a huge topic but leadership really is about serving the people that you're leading

01:18:24

it's not about manipulating them and trying to get the most from them people are going to see

01:18:28

through that real quick and you're not going to be a leader for very long if you take that

01:18:32

insincere approach yeah i think at the same time that you're not just trying to manipulate people

01:18:38

like i think if this is a business owner like i have some contractors that are doing some stuff

01:18:42

for me right now and it's it's obvious that i have goals and plans for the company that i want to

01:18:51

achieve and in order for me to achieve those i have to have those contractors working with me

01:18:57

to accomplish some of the goals that i have set for the company and in order for that to happen i

01:19:03

need to influence them to go about their work in a very specific way and that works but that's not

01:19:11

manipulation that's guiding them towards the goal or the task at hand and accomplishing the project

01:19:19

and i think it's a very delicate line to walk because i'm not trying to manipulate them into

01:19:25

bringing me more money like that that's not what i'm trying to do i'm simply trying to meet the goal

01:19:32

of the client and it's my job to take whatever the client has and help to accomplish that through

01:19:39

helping my contractors and influencing them in such a way to actually write the code or accomplish

01:19:45

the task that needs done so i i think there is a little bit of a balance that you have to to work

01:19:50

through on making sure you're not like your motives are correct and this maybe gets into your last

01:19:56

section or the last point you've got here if think win win like i'm trying to accomplish something

01:20:01

with the company and how do i help the people doing things for me like how do i help them win in the

01:20:08

process of helping me win you know like how do i help us both win in this scenario and that's not

01:20:14

always an easy answer it's not always a simple thing to accomplish but it's definitely the process

01:20:20

that i need to be working through and trying to think through it ultimately is going to come down

01:20:26

to painting a vision of a successful completion for this this project or journey whatever like you

01:20:35

want to cast a vision of where you're going and get other people to come along with you using your

01:20:41

project as an example i mean you're painting a picture of a win win situation where if we're able

01:20:47

to build this thing i can't do it on my own i need you guys to help me then if we're able to

01:20:52

accomplish this these things are going to happen and that's a good thing that's laying down the

01:20:58

challenge that's incentivizing people because they're going to get rewarded when they accomplish the

01:21:03

goal whatever that win win situation like that's really in my opinion the only way to make this work

01:21:09

you can manipulate people in the short term you can make them do stuff maybe that they don't want

01:21:14

to do but you're not going to have any sort of long-term success even if you're constantly filling in

01:21:20

with new people who know nothing about you i mean first of all your reputation is going to catch up

01:21:25

with you at some point but second of all like that's just way too much work i would much rather

01:21:31

find a team that i'm going to work with long-term and everybody's on board with this vision like

01:21:36

we're all going in the the same direction and then using these principles like i'm not manipulating

01:21:43

them to get what i want i'm trying to incentivize them and equip them in essence so that the team

01:21:50

can be successful and on page 249 he talks about how this is not a bag of tricks he even says quote

01:21:56

let me repeat the principles taught in this book will work only when they come from the heart i am

01:22:02

not advocating a bag of tricks i am talking about a new way of life i think that that win win mindset

01:22:09

for a lot of people that is a new way of life it's pretty radical to think about things in that way

01:22:13

there's not a finite number of successes available in the world where i have to

01:22:20

hoard them for myself and if you're successful that means there's that there's less for me i really

01:22:25

do believe that the abundance mindset is the key to making this stuff all work and that you should

01:22:30

be excited about the people that are working with you being successful because it's not taking away

01:22:35

from you and the fact that they're successful really that has no negative implications at all so maybe

01:22:42

like the people that you're working with joe they become successful they get a few jobs under

01:22:47

their belt at that point maybe you're a little bit worried because you're like well maybe this

01:22:51

guy who's doing really good or this this girl who's doing a really great job over here like maybe

01:22:56

they're gonna go out on their own if you really embrace a win-win mindset you're not even worried

01:23:00

about that because you know that like this system this process works and that should be my goal is

01:23:08

i should be developing people that i come in contact with to the point where it doesn't matter they

01:23:12

don't need me anymore like they're successful enough on their own that they could go and they

01:23:16

could make a career and they could achieve their their goals like that's i guess selfishly personally

01:23:23

that's the kind of impact that i want to have and so this is a challenge to me to constantly be

01:23:28

thinking that way constantly be thinking about how can i help other people succeed and then i kind

01:23:33

of believe that if you are focused on the other person and helping them succeed there's a residual

01:23:39

effect that's going to happen there where you're gonna you're gonna succeed just because you've

01:23:42

helped all these other people succeed like you don't even have to focus on your own success that's just

01:23:46

a natural byproduct like that that comes with the territory yeah i think it's interesting that you

01:23:51

bring up the whole scarcity mindset thing because like there are a couple guys doing some work for me

01:23:57

that i have encouraged and helped them with picking a business outside of doing work with me in the

01:24:05

same space so like okay here you go like if you want to go do this great go for it here's how you do

01:24:10

that and the the trick here is that i know that the the way that i go about doing things and what i

01:24:18

have to offer as a as a business those are different types of clients that need to work in different

01:24:25

scenarios like from a minute level uh or a very detailed level i know that and i think they know

01:24:31

that as well but they get to pick up a little experience and in some ways they understand what

01:24:36

it is that i do at a at a different level so i think it does work to to help them through that

01:24:42

process do you want to go over this last bit this kind of last piece on Dale Carnegie's life the

01:24:47

shortcut to distinction yeah did your version have this by the way it did okay i really enjoyed it too

01:24:52

so this is really the story of how this book came to be and how Dale Carnegie came to be

01:24:57

and the things that kind of jumped out to me from this section we mentioned the fact that he

01:25:01

criticized over 150 000 speeches already which is kind of crazy to think about um but a couple

01:25:08

other things that stood out here there was a study that was done to find out what people

01:25:13

wanted to study so a little bit meta there but they're trying to figure out what people wanted

01:25:18

to learn about and they found number one was health and number two was skill in relationships

01:25:23

now there was no curriculum for skill in relationships so Dale Carnegie built one it wasn't taught in

01:25:31

school and it's still not taught in school honestly the whole idea of soft skills like that's a big

01:25:37

topic uh it's something that i'm pretty passionate about and it really is frustrating to me that that's

01:25:43

and that's not taught and part of it is the system itself like i don't know you've got one teacher

01:25:49

30 kids you know we talked about that we don't need to belabor those points again right but one

01:25:55

of the reasons that we homeschool i'll just leave it at that the shortcut to distinction comes from

01:25:59

page 277 where he says the ability to speak is a shortcut to distinction it puts a person in the

01:26:04

limelight raises one head and shoulders above the crowd and the person who can speak acceptably

01:26:09

is usually given credit for an ability out of all proportion to what he or she really possesses

01:26:14

this is interesting to me because this is where you find out that he was doing these newspaper ads

01:26:18

and he was speaking at these hotels and the getting people to sign up for his program i kind of thought

01:26:24

and i don't don't know the history of all of this but i kind of thought of this is like the early

01:26:30

version of toastmasters so i am involved in toastmasters and there's really two tracks to toastmasters

01:26:37

which is focused on public speaking and leadership and i saw those themes throughout this book and i

01:26:45

think that uh this shortcut to distinction is interesting because public speaking is one of the

01:26:52

biggest fears that people have i mean there's a often quoted statistic that people are the number

01:26:57

one fear is speaking in public number two is death and i think that there's a lot of opportunities

01:27:05

you don't have to go join the dale carnegie school uh i really have learned a lot and grown a lot from

01:27:11

my experience with toastmasters and i think that it's interesting to see that even in 1937 you know

01:27:18

my my in sphere of influence or sphere of experience what i'm familiar with in the toastmasters realm

01:27:24

like i see a lot of the people that are involved there they tell the same story one of the things

01:27:28

that happens in toastmasters meeting is you all the guests explain like well why did you come to

01:27:32

the meeting what did you think of it there's a couple different responses number one is my

01:27:36

boss said it would be a good idea those people generally don't come back then there are the people

01:27:41

who are like yeah i'm looking to advance in my career and this is the natural next step you know

01:27:46

it's going to be a little bit different but that's basically what they're saying is like i need to

01:27:49

get better in front of people yeah i think that this is a tipping point for a lot of people it was

01:27:55

for me overcoming the fear of putting yourself out there the vehicle that you use to develop that

01:28:01

skill can be different you know i'll advocate for toastmasters because it's pretty inexpensive and

01:28:06

it's a pretty pretty great curriculum if you follow the the program no one's going to force you to do

01:28:10

it but if you were to follow through all of the stuff it's essentially like a master's in

01:28:15

communication for fifty bucks every six months at least that's what what mine is you know it's

01:28:20

it's really inexpensive for what you get but you got to apply yourself and again like that's the key

01:28:24

to this book is you have to apply this stuff he's he's even got a page i think in the end of the book

01:28:30

where you can write down the different wins that you've had so you you're chronicling the the

01:28:35

situations where you've applied this stuff and you've seen it work but i want to put the the plug out

01:28:40

there for anybody listening to this who thinks like well public speaking isn't for me or i don't

01:28:47

know what the next step is like that may be the next step for you and uh it's pretty evident from

01:28:52

reading this book like this is just more confirmation from my small perspective on this this topic

01:28:58

is like this is a force multiplier for influence and leadership and regardless of your job situation

01:29:06

you don't have to be an independent worker you don't have to be a knowledge worker you don't have

01:29:10

to be a podcaster if you were to develop these skills you will be successful in almost every area

01:29:17

of your life that's a pretty good summary of what a lot of this is that being said great for action

01:29:22

items let's do it you got three i do i mentioned the one uh using and instead of but there was another

01:29:29

one which was very similar and this i think i do a fairly decent job already but i like the way

01:29:35

that he put this and i want to make sure that i use this especially when criticizing because i

01:29:40

think that's the section that this came from is eliminate the fixed opinion words and use personal

01:29:46

words instead so the example he uses and this is the one place where i kind of felt like the words

01:29:52

that he used as examples really didn't fit today is vernacular right so he uses words like certainly

01:29:58

the point he was making was if you are talking with somebody and they say certainly you can see

01:30:02

how this you know leads to this you're projecting your opinion on these these facts in a way where

01:30:08

you're basically calling the other person stupid if they don't see it that way i don't want to do

01:30:12

that so i want to eliminate the fixed opinion words and use personal words like in my experience

01:30:18

i've seen this and i try to do that because i think that's the more authentic way to do it anyways

01:30:23

right people can argue with you when you say clearly this indicates this but people can't argue

01:30:31

with your own experience and uh i just think that like ultimately if we're if we're concerned

01:30:38

about learning from each other it doesn't matter if we have a hypothesis i'm like this is the way

01:30:43

that the world works you know what matters is that we're sharing our stories and we're evaluating

01:30:48

our experience versus the experience of others and we're trying to draw out the things that we can

01:30:53

apply the small incremental changes that are going to lead up to the the future that we want

01:30:58

yeah makes sense i want to go back to your first action item because you went over it pretty quick

01:31:02

but use and instead of but yep why um mentioned this earlier uh but the the word but when you are

01:31:12

criticizing somebody even if you start it positively instantly changes the tone of the conversation

01:31:18

so if i say you know you did a great job on this but like all of a sudden you've tuned out because

01:31:23

i'm criticizing you it's very clear that i am criticizing you because the word but infers criticism

01:31:29

but if i start with a compliment and then use the word and and then paint a picture of how we can do

01:31:34

this better next time i've allowed you to save face even though maybe you did make a mistake i

01:31:40

just think it's a lot better way to handle that that situation rather than just accusing somebody

01:31:45

yeah i think that makes a lot of sense all right so you got one more here yeah and this one i can

01:31:51

think of one specific scenario where i want to implement this so i mentioned i've got a discipleship

01:31:57

group of seven or eight guys at my church one of the things that we do is we talk about how do i put

01:32:04

this so that the action item is invite people to tell their wins but i've found that like in that

01:32:09

scenario where we're meeting together weekly we're all invested in each other's success

01:32:14

it's exciting when you see the people around you being successful so that's one place where i could

01:32:22

be a little bit more intentional like every time we get together like what's working for you guys

01:32:27

what sort of win have you had in the last week but i also think that this is a much broader

01:32:31

application and it really comes down to if you want to be interesting be interested like invite

01:32:37

other people to tell you about their wins and their accomplishments don't always just be

01:32:44

telling people about what you've done be willing to listen to what other people have been able to

01:32:49

do and then be excited and help them celebrate i think that that's one of the things that a lot

01:32:53

of people miss is that celebrating their wins and so i want to help people do that because i think

01:33:00

that that's that's a really powerful concept i've seen people who like they succeed in something

01:33:05

and they don't have anybody around them who can celebrate with them and it's almost like

01:33:09

demoralizing it's like this is it what was the point of it and i think that's kind of sad so i want

01:33:16

to help people when they reach those milestones like i want to celebrate with them that's really

01:33:20

cool i think that's going to pay dividends for both you and them so that's a that's a cool action

01:33:25

item i've got a couple here one i've kind of mentioned already avoid arguments even when it's

01:33:31

kind of a subtle argument i don't just don't joke don't so that that is definitely one i need to

01:33:39

watch and do my best to avoid my second one here is it's quite more practical i want to put together

01:33:46

a checklist for pre-client calls especially on initial meet and greet type calls one of the

01:33:52

aspects that he he calls out it was to do your research ahead of time that way you can relate

01:33:59

to that person where they are and i i've never done this per se i haven't even done it since reading

01:34:05

that section mostly because i haven't had but i think one of those scenarios and didn't fully get

01:34:11

it done then so but what are the what are the things that i want to apply as part of this checklist

01:34:15

is doing some research on the company so that i know a little bit of history about the group that

01:34:20

i'm getting ready to have a conversation with and then doing a little bit of borderline stocking on

01:34:26

the specific person that i'm going to be having on that call just trying to find points that we can

01:34:31

relate on other than weather uh that you know outside of the the great equalizer there of weather

01:34:38

and so trying to figure out what are some aspects what are some of their interests that i can engage

01:34:43

them with so that we can get that that relationship started on a good foot i haven't always been the

01:34:49

best at that i'm usually pretty good about finding that relating points but it would take some of the

01:34:54

stress of my searching for that in the midst of the first minute and a half of a phone call to get

01:34:59

that some of that search done ahead of time and not with the person there so that's part of what

01:35:05

it is i want to do and it has a lot to do with just trying to start that relationship on a good foot

01:35:11

so those are my two i really like that one and that reminds me of a story that he told that really

01:35:19

stood out to me there was a guy who was trying to sell him homeowners insurance and he asked the

01:35:24

guy well do you know what material my house is made out of and that was going to determine the

01:35:31

type of insurance that he would need right and the salesman was like well no but if you call your

01:35:35

homeowners association you can find that out in about 30 seconds and then the guy followed up with

01:35:40

him the next day and asked him you know do you want to buy the insurance and he asked the salesman

01:35:47

again do you know what material it is and he hadn't called the homeowners association to find out

01:35:53

basically he would have bought the insurance if the person had done that that's 30 seconds worth of

01:35:59

of research and that i think just that example encapsulates that mindset for a lot of people

01:36:06

and i think that it's not going to take a lot to shift that literally like 30 seconds to make that

01:36:12

phone call and do the prep stuff like you're talking about what that shows to the other person is that

01:36:19

you care about them and what they've done and i think that's uh it's something that is really

01:36:25

powerful that doesn't take a lot of extra time or effort so i think that's that's really cool

01:36:30

that's the hope like i i have a genuine interest in you and your company that's what i'm trying to

01:36:36

show because especially in today's world of how i'm doing things like i'm trying to build long-term

01:36:42

ongoing relationships well if it's not worth me taking 15 minutes before we jump on the phone to

01:36:50

do a little bit of research well then why would they want to do a long-term engagement with me yep

01:36:56

okay surely i can at least put that much forward all right i'm gonna ask you to go first with the

01:37:02

reading and review this time if that's cool okay that's cool of me so uh with reading a dale karnigi

01:37:09

book i will say this was a very easy read he is awesome at spelling out story after story after

01:37:17

story that reinforces his point over and over again and he spreads those stories out across a lot

01:37:24

of arenas from dealing with infants to parents to business scenarios i mean he's all over the place

01:37:33

as far as the the specific type of stories that he tells to to get his points across i think this

01:37:40

is a book that i will recommend to a lot of people with the preface of don't take the title at face

01:37:45

value like it's not a manipulation handbook like that is not what he's doing here so i think if you

01:37:52

have good and good motives behind the things that you do this is an awesome book this is actually

01:37:58

one from a rating stance i'm going to put this at a five oh mic this is one that i really really

01:38:03

enjoyed and i wish i had read this a long time ago so thank you for for picking this one for bookworm

01:38:08

for sure i kind of thought maybe you were going to rate it a five yeah i think this one hits me at a

01:38:14

good time too because i'm stepping into the world of building you know client relationships uh at a

01:38:21

large scale of sorts i kind of transition into somewhat of a salesperson i don't know it just

01:38:27

seems to hit me at a really good time and the the words that he shares and the way that he shares

01:38:34

them really struck me so i really enjoyed this one awesome yeah i think honestly everybody who listens

01:38:42

to this podcast and everybody and like you could apply this to literally anybody is in the business

01:38:48

of building relationships and in that arena this book is going to be a great introduction to these

01:38:55

concepts i do think there's a lot more to this stuff and while the stories that he he tells are

01:39:01

awesome again my perspective is a little bit different because i've been involved with Toastmasters

01:39:06

for a couple years i've gotten my competent communicators so i've gone through like the first

01:39:10

ten projects in that in that curriculum and i do recognize that there's a lot more to this stuff

01:39:17

we started off by talking about how this is like a 1930s lead magnet that's why i say that because

01:39:23

i recognize that these principles are great but they're surface level and so this isn't going to be

01:39:30

like the be-all end-all for this and it wasn't intended to be so that's that's not fair to say

01:39:35

like well well it didn't go deep on this particular topic because it was never never meant to do that

01:39:41

there's so many chapters in this book and it's a great way to get rolling with uh with this stuff

01:39:46

and i will say that i do think that whether you were going to join the Dale Carnegie institution

01:39:53

if it's still around or something like Toastmasters if you really want to go to the next level with this

01:39:57

you're going to want to find a program like that that being said the stuff that's in here is

01:40:04

awesome he's a very good storyteller i did find some of the stories that he tells and some of the

01:40:10

language that he used even in 1937 seemed to be a little bit like even as i read it now seemed a

01:40:15

little bit sensational to me but for most people i think that this is an absolutely

01:40:20

awesome book i am going to rate it four five instead of uh instead of a straight five oh because

01:40:25

personally going through it there was a lot of stuff in here that i had heard before i do think

01:40:33

that if you if you read it at the right time it is absolutely a slam dunk 5.0 but for me where i was

01:40:39

like i found that uh a lot of this stuff was really interesting but i also found myself like

01:40:45

wanting to understand a lot more and i wish some of the stories were were longer he's kind of like

01:40:50

jumping all over the place and so just me being in my personal situation like i wish it was a

01:40:55

little bit different than it was but uh yeah it's it's a it's a great book i definitely would recommend

01:41:00

that everybody read this one so we got a 9.5 if you add them together whoo 9.5 it's pretty good

01:41:07

uh so upcoming books you know this one was Mike's Choice the one i've chosen for following this

01:41:12

is Peek by Anders Eriksen and the subtitle on this one is Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

01:41:19

and it's basically you know he Anders Eriksen he's studied a lot of experts in their field

01:41:29

and how they've gone about becoming that expert and this if i understand it correctly is kind of a

01:41:36

summary and culmination of all of that research that's the way i i've understood it so i have not

01:41:42

started it that will happen this evening and uh i'm looking forward to this one i think it'll be

01:41:47

interesting i do not have an upcoming book because two episodes from now which is when i would normally

01:41:55

pick a book is going to be episode 50 and i don't think we've completely nailed down what we want

01:42:00

to do for episode 50 but we do want to do something a little bit uh out of the ordinary so stay tuned

01:42:06

for that but there's definitely a lot of a lot of books on the list i was kind of concerned that

01:42:11

after a while we would maybe burn through the ones that we really wanted to cover that's definitely

01:42:16

not happening no my reading list is growing the more that we do bookworm it's true i have thoughts

01:42:22

on episode 50 that i think will be a lot of fun cool i do have a gap book though my gap book which

01:42:27

i'm i'm reading right now is a john Maxwell book which i heard about from Tim Francis okay he mentioned

01:42:35

this john Maxwell book called put your dream to the test and there's really 10 questions that you

01:42:40

apply to your dream to gauge how much you really believe it and it's uh it's interesting it's a

01:42:46

little bit older book but it's really good so far interesting yeah i don't have a gap book this time

01:42:51

that's partially because i was enjoying this dale carny gee book so much that i didn't want to

01:42:57

rush it and i'm going to jump right into peak right away without reading a gap book between those

01:43:04

partially because this is somewhat of a longer book i didn't say that earlier but peak is what is

01:43:08

it 260 pages or better it's a little bit longer not significantly but a little bit so i don't have

01:43:13

a gap book this time sad day that's all right this one was pretty long too with the last section it

01:43:20

was like 280 pages at least the version that i had right so and honestly you know peak is one of the

01:43:26

the listener recommendations that was given to us and i need to go through and pick some books for

01:43:32

like the next four or five of my choice i tend to do that in batches and peak is the last of the

01:43:36

ones i've chosen so i need to do another round so if you want your book on that list or a book that

01:43:43

you've read maybe that would be cool if the author recommended it but the way that we're taking

01:43:47

recommendations now has changed a little bit we've got the bookworm club so club.bookworm.fm you can

01:43:53

go there create a new topic in the recommendations category and that will show up on the list and

01:43:58

you can see all of the ones that have been recommended there and you know to kind of go along with that

01:44:03

if you find a book in that list of recommendations that you especially want us to cover hit the vote

01:44:09

button you can sign up and hit a vote button on those particular books and it shows your interest

01:44:16

in that particular book and the higher the votes the more likely it is that we'll choose it for the

01:44:20

show we still reserve the right to say no mike has assured me that he really wants the the right to

01:44:25

veto book so we're not just going to pick the one at the top of the list but it helps guide us towards

01:44:31

the ones that you're the most interested in yeah i'm a little bit nervous i know i know mike was very

01:44:36

particular about this when we were talking about it but there's also a list of all the books that we

01:44:42

have covered already which you can see just through the episode list on bookworm but if you want to

01:44:46

see a condensed version of that you can go to bookworm.fm/list and then you can see all of the books that we

01:44:53

have that we have covered so far nice so yeah that bookworm club that's club.bookworm.fm

01:44:59

that's where you can go to make recommendations you can also join the conversation there we've had

01:45:05

some pretty cool conversations about people who are reading along with us so if you're ready to join

01:45:11

the unverified internet's largest book club head over there join the club we'd also appreciate it

01:45:20

if you would head over to iTunes and leave us a review i looked at it today we're now third on the

01:45:25

search term which i don't understand the diet of bookworms is number two but they haven't published

01:45:29

in episodes since like 2012 so we really got it got to change that uh kcrw by the way has like

01:45:35

130 reviews and we've got like 24 i think so we're on our way we're on our way but if everybody

01:45:43

who listens to this takes five minutes and goes leave goes and leaves us a review then we would

01:45:49

definitely take down kcrw so help us people join the revolution the challenge has been laid down

01:45:55

this is win win all right well if you're reading along with us pick up peak by Anders Ericsson

01:46:03

and we'll go through that one next time and we'll start prepping for the elusive or mysterious the

01:46:10

illustrious illustrious episode 50 we got to work on the term