Authenticity Builds Real Influence (Not Performance) | Negotiate Anything

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Welcome to this negotiation masterclass edition of negotiate anything, with over 1600 episodes featuring some of the world's brightest minds.

We've carefully curated three powerful conversations for you.

What makes this so special is that you'll hear how different experts from different industries approach the same challenge in their own unique ways.

Our goal is to give you multiple perspectives so you can build your own unique style.

Success doesn't look the same for everyone and in this masterclass you will see exactly why.

Let's dive in.

So Luke has a really cool story because he came into law school with a lot of business experience with his own business and then was able to parlay that into a really great position coming straight out in a law firm.

And now he's working with Scott's as an in-house counsel.

So he has a great professional journey.

So just going to give the floor to him and you can just tell us more about it in more detail.

Sure, sure.

Yeah, it's definitely been a journey.

Sometimes I feel so I feel so young.

And then I look back at my bio and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm not that young anymore.

But I saw I I was I went to undergrad at Wake Forest.

And when I was there, I knew I wanted to just be done with school for a while.

And so I accepted a position at an investment firm publicly traded investment firm outside of Philadelphia.

With the whole thought of doing that for a year or two and then going into law school, and in doing that I just really enjoyed kind of digging deep into the business side.

And I got into finance and business and everything in law school kind of just took a backseat to that.

And after kind of spending about five and a half or so years doing that, I had the opportunity to partner with with a good friend of mine and launch a sports management firm down in Miami Florida, working with professional athletes.

And so obviously you know, as we talk about negotiations and kind of keys to negotiating, you know working with professional athletes is it's always a negotiation, with everything you're trying to do.

So we can we can get into that a little bit.

I did that for.

About three and a half years and ended up leaving there due to kind of some random, random situation where I was also in the Army National Guard and was called into active duty for a year.

And so after that, I feel, felt like that was the best time to just if I was ever going to go to law school, like that was the time to just uh, to do it, because I'd already broken away from the sports management firm.

And so um, I went to law school uh, which is where I met this lawyer, extraordinary climbing and, um and uh was able to, you know, just enjoy the time of being back in academia, but knowing that um, I still miss, you know, the corporate side of things.

I missed the, the, um, you know, being able to advise athletes in, in a, in a different way.

And so um, When I left Ohio State Law School, I ended up working at a firm in Columbus and was able to, very early on, become their head of their sports and entertainment group and build out a practice area there which, when you talk about negotiations the internal negotiations of a fresh out of law school, a student deciding to a new associate, trying to build a practice area with attorneys that have been practicing for decades

That was a lot of negotiation.

And then ultimately, that position.

I spent my time doing sports entertainment as well as mergers and acquisitions work, and then was fortunate to have an opportunity to go in-house at Scott's Miracle-Gro Company.

Um, so i do yes, have a very green lawn right now, and uh um, And there I, all I do is negotiate.

So we do.

Transactions around the world acquisitions divestitures, strategic partnerships, joint ventures all around the world.

And so I get to get the joy really of negotiating with with people here in the States as well as in other countries, which obviously adds a different perspective on negotiation tactics and strategy.

So uh pretty, pretty in-depth background um, but definitely uh, it's been a lot of fun over the years.

That's, that is great.

And and your story is really exciting.

Really exciting because, Like you said, starting in Miami working with professional athletes, then to the big firm, then to the big company.

I mean, you're professionally like living the dream of a lot of people.

So that's really cool.

You mentioned when you were talking to when you're dealing with athletes, you're always negotiating.

So what kind of negotiations does that involve with your clients?

Yeah.

You're absolutely right.

I mean, I think, anytime you're in a in a professional services industry, you're always negotiating with your client because you're there to provide them a service.

But oftentimes they want to do X and your professional background might say they really should do Y, And so, whether you're a financial advisor, like I was, or you're an attorney, or you're an accountant or you're some other type of advisor, you have the professional perspective that they should make a certain decision.

But now you have to convince your client to make that decision.

And that decision might not be something comfortable.

So let's make it real, right?

So working with athletes, especially as a financial advisor.

Clearly, the biggest thing that I focused on was savings right.

How do you save and invest as opposed to spend and fall into the statistics of so many professional athletes who go broke?

And so that negotiation of What should you know the client, you know deciding what they should do with a signing bonus check.

You know wanting to go out and spend and buy the latest car or boat, or you know upgrade their house or do all these things where they're spending versus actually saving and putting that away.

It's hard.

And the reason that that, in particular, was hard, as it relates to negotiation, is that a lot of times there's an education piece to it.

And when you're I think the key to negotiating with clients. with your own client is educating them.

And if you can educate them as to the decisions that they should make, it makes it a little bit easier.

And that's a hard thing to do.

So what I had to do is educate these players on the impact of spending a certain amount of money now versus saving that money now, and what that long-term effect is.

So, as one of the things that I found very helpful in working with these guys was that The easiest way to educate them because I'm not going to come out and start trying to give them definitions of what a correlation coefficient is or sharp ratio of a portfolio and all that kind of stuff, because they'll just tune me out

But what I could say is, listen, last month you spent X number of dollars and cents, like down to the penny.

If you spend on average that much money every single month and you don't get another contract, you're going to go broke on X date.

So let's look at this signing bonus or this check or this upcoming season of your pay.

Figure out okay, if we, if we, can put more of it away, this is how long it extends it.

So instead of you going, you know potentially going broken again.

This is assuming no other, no additional job right away when you're done playing, which a lot of, a lot of players face, then that means, instead of you know potentially, you know running out of money four years from now, you might run out of money 15 20, 30 years from now.

So so it's all about how do I take this client through an educational process, one that they can understand and and two that is compelling enough to cause them to want to act and make a decision, preferably a decision that's in line with what my professional expertise would kind of direct.

Now, on the flip side of that is they don't always listen, right?

And so now the negotiation is just like in any kind of corporate negotiation.

You're saying okay, if I can't get my ideal deal terms, if I can't get the best situation that I want, How can I at least mitigate the downside as best as possible?

And so if I were to say, you know, out of this 5 million signing bonus we should put away after taxes, we should put away, you know, 2 million and you can spend this 500000.

If they say nope, I'm going to spend 15 million and only want to put away 1 million.

Okay well, now what impact does that have in putting together a plan for them for the future?

So how can I mitigate the risk of running out of money at a certain point?

What impact does that have?

And again, it's still educating that client through the process.

This is a very long winded answer to your to your question, but I think, negotiating with your clients, it all comes down to how do you educate them.

And in educating them and have, if you've built the trust and you've built that relationship, if you educate them accordingly and appropriately, ultimately you know the belief and hope is that they'll they'll make a decision that follows kind of your guidance.

That makes sense.

So how do you build that trust?

Because of course, when you're, when you're a big time athlete making millions of dollars, everybody wants a piece of you and it's, it's, really it's logical for them to have a certain amount of distrust of everybody.

Absolutely.

Because everybody wants a piece.

So how do you build that trust with them?

Yeah.

So the the, the trust factors, is critical in any relationship, especially in any relationship where you're negotiating and working towards some type of a desired outcome.

Um, specific to athletes, you know, and I guess maybe it's not that specific to athletes

I think it's across the board.

Uh, but one of the things that I did with athletes was I was always honest.

Um And with athletes in particular, I didn't really have a desire to be their groupie, to be their fan, to be kind of part of their entourage.

My goal was very professional and it was to provide them service and to give them honest advice and to tell them when they're wrong.

And so many times—

You have people that surround these athletes that are yes people.

And it's the same thing with key executives, with business owners, et cetera, right?

There's so many people around them who don't want to risk rocking the boat, who don't want to risk their job, their role, their position and the benefits that have come from their position.

They don't stand up for what they truly believe in.

And I think that athletes in particular respect that, because it's so rare in their life for them to hear no and for them to hear someone who will be very direct with what it is that they do.

I remember the first meeting I had.

So I worked with a lot of NFL players, but I remember the first meeting that I ever had with an NBA player when I was a financial advisor.

And it was with the player, one of my partners, and then also –

One of his advisors and we gave this whole presentation and I was very bold and direct in the decisions that he had to make and that they're not easy decisions and that they're not always going to be comfortable.

They're not going to allow you to live, you know, any type of lifestyle that you want to live.

But here's what you need to do if you want to find success when you're done playing.

And when I left after we left I ended up getting the feedback where the player basically said that guy has swag.

I trust what he's saying.

And that's in one meeting.

When you think about that, if you had, you know, no other contact and it's your first meeting and it's a pitch and you're just really trying to like

Help sell yourself and sell your services and then ultimately help build trust that you can have a longstanding relationship with that client.

That's what you want, right?

You want them to know from day one that you're different, that you're there to achieve a purpose and to provide them particular advice in a particular area, and not to back down to what it is that you believe in is in their best interest.

Wow.

There's a lot of good stuff.

And one of the things that I found most interesting there is the similarities between high ranking people in a business, in the business world, and the professional athletes, because it's so easy to look at those athletes and say oh, look at their entourage, just saying yes to whatever it is they say.

But yeah, and I think that's a problem, that corporations have a lot because people just go with the flow.

That's right.

Nobody wants to rock the boat because it's a risk.

It puts yourself at risk.

So if you're a service provider trying to get a client, you feel like you're going to be put at risk by challenging that client or challenging the norm or status quo that they're used to.

If you're working in a company and you're, you know, to challenge the, the CEO or the president of the head of that company or that, that business division you know, oftentimes you feel like um, you know, am I going to, am I going to get fired for saying, you know, for speaking out or disagreeing?

Am I going to, how am I going to be challenged?

And the same thing with it's honestly, it's the same thing when you're negotiating.

So, um, in, in some type of transaction.

So again, I do MNA where mergers and acquisitions were buying and selling companies, et cetera.

And um, Sometimes you feel like you don't want to lose the deal because there's external pressures on getting a deal done.

The CEO, the head of a particular business unit or a particular brand wants to get a deal done.

And you still have to hold true to what are the core values of the company and yourself.

And so when you're negotiating, you want to make sure that you're still staying true to that and not just giving in on points just to try to get the deal done.

And if you reach impasse, you reach impasse, but you have to be able to be confident that you've done everything, kind of in a way that's true to who you are and the values of the company.

Right.

And so when you see that coming beforehand, how do you get that confidence?

Where does that come from?

Because a lot of times people have that fear, like you said, of losing the deal or getting fired.

But you have to balance that risk or perceived risk with doing the right thing.

So for you, how were you able to get that confidence to speak the truth?

So it's a couple of things.

One, I think part of it is that's just who I am.

And that's the worst answer you can get, right when you ask that question, because well, how do I develop that?

But I think part of it is is you have to be able to understand who you are and understand you know your own values and what it is that you're looking to achieve out of either your career, out of the relationships you have with your clients, or relationships you have with your coworkers and your kind of leadership staff above you.

But the other thing too though, is to me, it's all about completely understanding, whatever the task is at hand.

Confidence comes when you know all aspects of whatever transaction, whatever deal, whatever advice to a client that you're meeting with, when you have, when you have a full understanding of what that client is trying to achieve and you know kind of the steps, or you know whatever the answer or solution is, or you have a number of solutions to offer.

If you can be, if you can be Confident in knowing what that is, then you can be confident with that client.

You can be confident in telling them You know, know to what it is that they want to do.

So if it's, if it's working with with a client, back when I was a financial advisor and I would always have the solutions out.

I have various options.

And so that when we would talk, the confidence came in, knowing that I know that client situation better than anybody else.

Yes, they may have other advisors, but I'm going to.

I know that full picture, that full scope of what it is that they're trying to achieve.

And I understand their kind of idiosyncrasies.

I know that they're a spender versus a saver.

I know that they have a real desire to provide for their family.

Let's say so.

They're going to want to buy houses for their siblings.

You have to fully understand the situation.

Same thing in the M&A deals that I work on and others.

I have to fully understand both our company corporate objectives as well as what are those interests like we always talk about.

What are those interests of the seller that we're trying to acquire?

Because if I can find that bridge between the two, then I can be absolutely confident in what it is that we're coming with.

And if If there's no bridge to be made, there's no bridge.

But at the same time, you have to fully educate yourself on the situation.

And in doing that, you'll have confidence whether there's going to be an outcome or not.

Right.

It's a great point.

And kind of going back to when you were talking about educating the clients.

And I think this is a point that people who are listening can take from any walk of life, if they're in service industry or they're selling products, or even if they're not entrepreneurs themselves, but within the corporation, you still kind of have a client to a certain extent.

And that educational aspect is huge.

And so when you're negotiating with somebody or trying to persuade somebody, you have the ethos part, the logic, the logos, which is logic, and then ethos ethics, and then pathos, which is the heart, the emotions.

So how did you balance all three of those when dealing with the clients?

Because you talked about how you were able to build out the numbers for them.

How were you able to kind of speak to their heart and address that?

That's a great question.

And I think part of it is when you think about the heart.

It's not just about what you can do for yourself.

When you're in the service industry, or even if you're selling products, et cetera, you have an understanding of what it is that you're trying to achieve.

So typically you want to either sell more widgets, or you want to bring on more clients, or you want to grow your business.

You want to excel in your career, whatever.

You have those internal desires.

But what helps, and what I think has helped me be successful in life, is that I really try to tap into that client's heart right.

And so if you're selling widgets and you're trying to tap into the consumer's heart and desires and what they're trying to achieve, but particularly in the service industry, really what motivates my client?

What keeps them up at night?

What is it that challenges them?

What is it that would make their lives better?

What is going to help them from going broke at a certain point.

And, and this, you know, working with athletes to me was, it really has been a passion.

And I I still kind of scratch that itch um in in other ways of of giving back and trying to educate players.

But I really took it personally.

Um, if clients made poor decisions, I really want to see them succeed.

And and my desire to help Came through to them, so they can see that your client knows if you care about them or you don't care about them.

And so I think a lot of times, when you balance, it's your heart, it's your logic, it's your mind, it's bringing all this together, but it's about being authentic.

If I'm authentic and they see that I care about them, they're more apt to listen.

Regardless of what the plan is.

At the end of the day, if I can tap into their lives and what's important to them, they're much more open to understanding what it is that I'm trying to have them do.

Somebody.

When I was in sales at the investment firm early on in my career I had a good mentor and friend who told me people don't, People don't buy products.

In the service industry, they don't buy solutions or products.

They buy the people.

If you're a financial advisor, if you're an accountant or an attorney or along those lines, and you're trying to get new clients.

It's not about I'm the best attorney in this particular area or I've got the best solution for investing, et cetera.

It's about Does the client trust you?

Does the client feel like you care about them and that you're going to put their interests above your own?

Everybody, you know, used car salesman, right?

Quote unquote, the proverbial used car salesman.

A lot of times people, people refer to that and kind of everybody has this image in their mind because

That connotates this image of someone who's really just trying to get a sale.

They don't care about who the consumer is.

They just want to sell this car.

People can see that a mile away.

And so, when you're honest, when you're authentic, when you really show a desire to help that matters to people,

And because what happens then is when you go at it from a mindset of allow my – I have this background and this set of institutional knowledge academically, experiential knowledge.

That's great.

But I need to be able to take that and partner it, marry it with my heart, my desire to make an impact in the lives of the people I'm working with.

And if I can do that, they'll see that it's more than just whatever the XYZ solution is.

So ultimately again, another very long-winded answer to your question, but I think it's finding a way to balance those that's honest and true to who you are and then delivering that to your client.

And when you're honest and authentic with yourself and what you're trying to achieve, clients see that and I think they buy into it.

That's powerful.

And that's actionable for everybody.

Yeah, that's right.

That's great.

And actionable from the perspective that think about what matters to you.

And it's not to say that everybody's working and they're passionate, that they're passionate about the area or industry that they're in.

But I think it's I think it's partially about even if you're not passionate, like, let's be honest.

Right.

I am not passionate about lawn and garden services.

Right.

That does like, you know, whether this is the first year my grass has really been green.

Right.

So, but I'm a.

I'm a Scots Miracle Grow, which is the global leader in providing consumer based lawn and garden services.

Right.

But I don't have the passion of making sure that the right amount of nitrogen is in my grass to make the green really pop.

I've learned that.

I'm not passionate about that.

But what I am passionate about is learning, educating, and helping to see deals get done.

I love the anatomy of a transaction.

I love being able to take the experiences that I've had both in an outside counsel and a law firm perspective, as well as having my own business working at an investment firm, taking all those experiences and then meeting with someone, oftentimes who is selling their business for the first time.

They don't deal with these types of transactions.

Typically a family business that we're buying, for the most part.

Yeah.

Being able to not just be this corporate lawyer that's coming in and trying to railroad them and get our deal done.

No, it's about how can I tap into what's – why are you selling your business?

What is it that you're looking – you want freedom?

You want this?

Because all those things play into not just getting the deal done for us, but also what is it going to look like post – close, where we have this integration period.

And now we're trying to take this business that we just bought and actually merge it into our company and integrate it into the culture, the process of our company.

So I can't just go in and railroad somebody and not get all the information I possibly can out of the situation, because that just hurts us in the long run.

So, talking about being actionable for people, it's about thinking about what is it?

What aspect of what it is that you're doing do you really care most about?

How can you take and be authentic to that part of whatever it is that you do and somehow relay that to the clients that you're working with or the people that you're working, possibly in opposition to, and try to get whatever that deal done?

Whatever that deal is, try to get it done.

Wow.

It's funny you say that.

I never thought of what you do from that perspective.

Because I never thought of it that way.

That's a brilliant point.

There was a study actually by Deloitte that just came out earlier this week.

And I was just kind of reading through it.

It's on mergers and acquisitions globally.

And it looked at something like 2,500 companies.

And not globally, excuse me, just in the US.

So like 2,500 different companies.

And it looked at what are the keys to success in any type of transaction.

And it talked about economic indicators was like the first point.

But then strategy and planning, due diligence, integration.

And those are things, when you think about it, like the due diligence, the strategy and planning, the integration.

Those are all things that you can control.

And they're so critical here.

For you to think about what it is that you're trying to achieve out of a transaction.

So when I, when I and I've talked before about integration, it's critical to our business because we're we're looking for a return on investment.

Anytime we're buying a company, we're looking for some type of ROI.

And that ROI is critical, absolutely impacted by how well we can integrate and optimize that business when we bring it into our in-house, into our brands.

Valuation, that was the fifth thing.

So it's economic indicators, valuation, strategy and planning, due diligence, and integration.

And all of those things you can impact.

Valuation is another critical one, right?

So, if you're thinking about buying a business or something along those lines, where and again, we're getting into sometimes some more complex types of transactions, but valuation is critical, because Why is the person trying to sell their business?

If they're trying to sell their business because they're trying to absolutely maximize the dollar that they get.

Well, that's one good piece of information to know.

If they're trying to sell their business because they have kids and they're getting older and they realize that their kids don't want the business and they have to figure out, how do I do this for estate planning purposes, for my legacy?

Well, that's a completely different proposition.

Potentially might go to a completely different strategy in terms of the structure of the deal.

So all of these pieces of what makes some type of negotiation or some type of transaction successful, so many of it are things that you can control.

And so by understanding what it is that you're looking to get out of a situation, and being able to empathize and put yourself in the shoes of who it is that's on the other side and what it is they're trying to achieve, that's going to make you that much more successful.

It's powerful.

It's powerful to be able to speak to someone across the table from you in language that's meaningful to them.

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So very, very interesting.

I get pumped about this stuff, man.

Let's go.

This is awesome.

It's cool to nerd out.

Nerds are cool, man.

Nerds rule the world.

Right.

Yes.

Man, okay.

So how were you able to take these same principles and apply it when you were trying to, as an associate, Start this new practice area?

Yeah, that must have been tough.

Yeah, it was tough.

So I had to think about what were the things that meant the most to the partners that I needed to sign off on it.

Right.

And so obviously in a law firm, you know, kind of the number one thing is a business.

Right.

So the number one thing is, can I show an economic impact of.

Bringing in a new business area at minimal cost to the firm.

And so what I was able to do there was I had to do a lot of research and understanding of what was it going to cost for us to launch a new area.

So marketing expense, human capital expense, you know kind of the ramp up time, how long would it take?

But then what could I what could I return to the business, to the firm in exchange for those costs?

And so number of clients, how many clients can I legitimately bring in?

And so being able to set forth a business plan that that spoke the language that they needed to speak, and then do it in a way that caught their attention.

So what were some ways, what are some ways that catch their attention?

It's being able to, in certain instances, highlight the relationships that I have in professional sports.

Everybody loves to see pictures of different, um, athletes.

And so um, You know, being able to intersperse that through a business plan and through a strategy doc to say listen, these are relationships that I already have.

I know I can bring these types of relationships in as clients.

This is what the impact that would have.

This is the cost that we'll have.

And so therefore ultimately, I think we can be in the black and be profitable at this period, at this point, in this point in time.

And so for me, it was, you know one understanding what it is that they were looking for.

Obviously economics, to being able to kind of intrigue them by the allure of professional sports and working with professional athletes as clients.

Three, being able to. educate them on their perceived risks.

And so their risks around?

Do we want to be?

One of the big risks that they saw was I don't know if we want to be representing individual athletes and you know, if they get into trouble then and we're the firm you know defending them that could be a bad situation.

And I said You know, I was able to come combat that by focusing on the fact that we're not being agents.

And so typically, whenever there's a big issue, it's usually the agent that's the person they're speaking with.

The client talked about how we can put together crisis management teams in certain instances that could insulate us from exposure in that way.

And then two, just being very mindful of the clients that we take on and what it is that we would be willing to do for them.

And so the firm that I was at did some criminal work, but wasn't a very big criminal firm.

So that I'm not out there trying to get clients, they're going to have criminal issues.

And we may have a client that we're doing some real estate work for or some other work for.

But if a criminal issue were to arise, then we can always farm that out to another firm.

And so I show them the potential, I show them some things that get their attention, and then you know kind of, take away the risk factors, mitigate the risk factors.

And that went a long way.

And then finally, it's the human interaction piece, right?

And that's one of the things, and I just had this conversation at lunch with some people today.

It really does come down to the people and the relationships that you can build.

And so I was fortunate enough that I'd built some relationships.

I didn't come in.

It wasn't like day one.

I had been a summer associate and spent two summers at this firm and I worked there during the school year and I was able to they were able to trust me in terms of my judgment, my work product.

And so, as I slowly unveiled a plan to them first by literally bringing a client in that we ended up doing work for before there was an area it showed them instantly that this was something that could be viable.

And then ultimately, proof is in the pudding.

At the end of the first year, we were profitable in a brand new practice area.

So that doesn't really happen too often.

And that helps sell you for the future for what it is you want to do.

That's incredibly impressive.

And incredibly stressful.

Absolutely.

I would imagine.

And so, for those of you who aren't in the legal profession, it's tough to start something new in a big law firm that's already well established as an associate.

It's hard to start something in a big law firm that's established as a partner.

Absolutely.

So that's impressive.

And one thing I want to key in on here is your ability to engender trust in other people, because it's that same, it's a similar skill, but with but a different market, a different target, you know.

So what would you say the differences were between your ability to get trust with your clients in the sports world and your ability to get trust for the older partners in the.

Yeah, for the older partners it's um, I think there's two big things.

One, and probably first and foremost, it's work product.

Work product and work ethic.

I think if you show that you're willing to work hard, you're willing to put in the hours, you're going to do what it takes to get whatever job done, I think that goes a long way.

Because let's think of who these older partners are.

These older partners, when you think about just the impact of generational differences.

Again, and this goes no matter what type of negotiation, what type of strategic discussions you're having, that's a big factor when you think about how do I – get through to this person and help them see my perspective.

Sometimes it's being able to talk in their language and being able to highlight things that are important to them.

And when you look at these older partners that you're trying to engender trust with, they came from a generation where you may go and work at one place for the rest of your career.

You're going to work hard.

A lot of them came from law firm scenarios where they were It was mandatory working on Saturdays.

They're wearing a suit on Saturdays there.

You know all these things where?

OK, I know, if that's, if that's who I'm dealing with and that's who I need to have sign off, then they need to know that I'm here to work.

They need to understand that I'm going to do what it takes to put in the time, et cetera.

So there were times where you know they.

I would make a point to make sure that they got whatever it is work product they were looking for ahead of time, ahead of deadline, whatever thorough reviewed, et cetera.

So the big piece, I think, is work product and work ethic.

The second one, I think too, is being being approachable and being comfortable in uncomfortable situations.

And I say that if those listening could actually see my face, it's like it's really scrunched up as I try to articulate this, because it's not that easy because, you know, my initial thought was to say just be normal, but what is normal?

So I want to try to be more specific in terms of getting you actual skills or little nuggets that you could take away.

What I mean by this is I have found myself being able to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations.

A lot of times you may end up having to build trust with someone you have nothing in common with.

And it's easy to want to avoid those opportunities.

It's easy to say, I don't want to deal with it.

Somebody is having, let's say, a golf outing and I don't golf.

I don't really like it.

It's easy to be like, I'm going to pass.

Or if there's some type of you know event with some fundraiser where you're asked to come and fill a seat and you're like I really don't want to go out to a stuffy dinner on a Thursday night, or what have you.

It's easy to pass on those opportunities, but I find that when you kind of take a hold of the notion of being in an uncomfortable situation Um, you can start to build relationships with people outside of just the pure work.

Um, and that goes a long way, right?

So.

So at the end of the day, I'm I'm not just you know, I was never the the the type that would say Hey, I just want to go hang out with some old partners on the weekend.

Right.

That's just not, it's not me.

Didn't see him.

Wouldn't, wouldn't cross their paths, but when they would say, Hey, we need somebody to fill a seat at this fundraiser, you know, that the firm has bought a table for, or, um, Hey, you know, we've got this extra project.

Does anybody have time to help or whatever that might be of going the extra mile?

And I say that you know I think it's applicable to when you're thinking about you know your external clients, because your external clients want to know that you're going to work your butt off for them.

Right.

They want to know that you're going to put in the work, you're going to put in the time and you're going to do what it takes to really put yourself in their shoes in a way that you can understand what it is they're trying to achieve.

And when you do that, the trust is just – it's built.

So I think it's kind of universal internally and external clients.

I like that.

Sometimes with a little different spin.

Right.

OK, now let's say, throughout all of these professional experiences that you've had, even even to law school, you know, because that was, that was tough.

That was not.

Yeah, it was not.

Yeah.

But so throughout all your professional life, what would you say is your negotiation philosophy?

Like, how would you describe it?

I think I think my negotiation philosophy really is to just be authentic.

I think to be authentic and to be honest with who you are, people buy into that.

That's not to say you're going to win every negotiation and get everything that you're always looking for.

But it makes it a lot easier.

And when you're honest – because it's so easy – and you saw this Kwame when we were in law school and different competitions and stuff.

You're given a fake problem, and so sometimes you're just posturing and you're getting angry when you're really not angry, or whatnot.

And I think that any time when you're really not true to who you are –

That's just tough.

That's tough to win at what it is you're trying to achieve.

So when I do – okay, so let's take a step back.

So when I talk about being authentic, Kwame knows me.

I'm high energy.

I'm a really kind of positive and happy person.

I love to smile.

Sometimes I'll just randomly break out in song and dance just because that's who I am.

And I'm authentic and honest with who I am.

So, you know, whether I'm at work or at home with my kids, I'm me.

I'm running around jumping on furniture, you know, appropriately, not in the office too crazy.

If I'm jumping on furniture, it's my furniture.

But I say that because I am who I am.

And So what that means then is if I'm in a negotiation and I get upset over something, it's honest.

I really would be upset over that thing.

And so when you've built that authenticity with the client or with the target on the other side, the person that you're negotiating against, That's valuable.

That means more.

They understand that more.

And maybe that gets you points.

Or maybe it doesn't, but at least the person on the other side gets it and they understand.

And so at the end of the day, what I want.

Is that I want, no matter what relationship we've we've just negotiated, whether it's an acquisition, whether it's some type of partnership or strategic relationship for the future, or whether it's back when I work with my clients.

I always wanted the person on the other side to know that I cared about them as a human being and that I always want to be able to shake hands and and and have a positive relationship going forward.

Does it mean we're going to be best friends?

No.

I mean, you know, there's the whole mantra out there that if both sides feel like they lost, then that means it was a good deal right.

I mean, you know, at the end of the day I don't know if I prescribe to that necessarily, but I do know that I want to be able to sleep at night knowing that I didn't take advantage of somebody and I was honest to who I am.

So I think my philosophy in a nutshell is just authenticity, kind of humanity and honesty.

Right.

And for the listeners out there, I hope you're not saying, oh, this is just too simple.

It can't be that easy.

But really, it is.

It is.

It is because that goes back to what the philosophy is.

And everybody has different philosophies, right?

So you have a philosophy which, in my eyes, is a much bigger, deeper kind of thing of who you are as a negotiator.

But then you have strategy and tactics based on whatever the actual situation is.

So let's not get it twisted here.

If I've got a deal that I need to go in and I need to be hard about and I need to be forceful, and that we need to get certain things done and we're not going to accept anything less, I will absolutely do that.

But I'm also not doing it in a way that's degrading to the people I'm negotiating against.

Right.

I'm not the type that just starts cursing and slamming doors and walking out on negotiations.

If there's something that's going the wrong way or a way that I don't feel comfortable with, I will let the people on the other side know and know that there's something that either I can't budge on or we're not going to move on it.

But again –

The philosophy is who are you as a negotiator?

Are you someone that's honest or are you someone that's kind of playing a role?

And that's good to know about yourself.

I'm not saying that there's one right way or one wrong way.

I'm just talking about how I do it.

But I do think that if you're the type that says I want to come up with a way to I don't know, try to make sure that, no matter what, I'm going to be a hard negotiator, because maybe as a person, you're more of a shy and timid person.

So you want to build this persona as a negotiator of just really trying to be tough.

And that helps you to get through what would otherwise be a challenging kind of environment for you.

That's fine.

Just be honest with who you are.

Right.

What I guess what I'm saying is.

Be honest.

If you're a person that isn't like a super chippy, super happy type of person, then don't try to fake it, because people see that.

They can see right through it.

Just be you, but understand who you are and understand the challenges that might come with that.

So I'm very aware of the fact that.

Not everybody is a morning person like I am.

I'm very aware of the fact that I have a lot more energy a lot of times, or express more energy than a lot of people do.

And I'm also aware that if I'm meeting somebody for the first time, that they may view that as not authentic because they don't know me.

And so I have to know that about myself, so that when I'm meeting someone for the first time, it's not like I'm running into Kwame on the street where I'm all excited and jumping around.

It's much more of a still positive, still smiling and everything like I am, but it's also reserved enough to know that I don't want to overwhelm them and cause them to think about something beyond what it is we're here to do.

Right.

And that is a a high level point that you just made, because what you're saying is that you're not changing who you are.

That's right, you're.

Occasionally you might temper it, but you're not changing it.

That's right.

And um, i tell people, when i, when i do these trainings, i was like you know, my favorite actors male actors are denzel washington and leonardo dicaprio.

Yeah, i was like man, if i could be like them, that'd be so cool.

But i'm not, that's right.

Cool like that.

You're pretty cool.

Come on, not me, not like that.

Okay, i'll give you that.

So if i try to channel denzel, an american gangster, people are going to do this is not.

You know what's wrong with you.

You know right right, i need to realize that i need to be me.

That's right for me is in that situation yeah and, and for me, i know, sometimes my thing is i'm a really friendly person and so sometimes i lean, i lean towards uh, being too cooperative And so to the detriment of myself, you know, and I realize I need to bring that back sometimes.

But still, I'm going to be myself.

I'm going to be friendly.

But you can still protect your interests by being yourself.

That's exactly right yeah, and i mean that's that's so important for me too like, and i hope that that the point is getting across.

Like you, if you know who you are and you know your own tendencies, you can be that much more effective of a negotiator, that much more effective of a business owner, etc.

Because now you, you know when you need to either dial it up or dial it back, whatever that it is right.

That's, that's great.

Okay, 40 minutes, we gotta go to something.

So um, what would you say is one thing that somebody can do today to become a better negotiator?

Or maybe even like an action item that they can do today to try and improve?

Yeah.

Okay.

So here's the action item, I would say.

One, to get to understand yourself better.

Because I think the theme that we've talked about, at least for the past few minutes, has been around being authentic and being kind of who you are.

What I would do as an action item is take out a piece of paper and just draw a line down the middle.

And on one side of it.

Just think about five to 10 words, one single words that you would use to describe yourself.

Whatever those words might be energetic strategic, stressful or stressed out or carefree.

Whatever those words are that you think describe you.

And then go talk to some people who are really close to you and ask them what are the words that they would use to describe you, write them on the other side of the paper and see what matches right.

See, because one of the things i think is challenging when you think about this um authenticity piece and applying that to negotiation tactics, is that you may see yourself one way, but people may just naturally see you another way.

Um, and and that's that's incredibly important to understand here's a case in point um and this blew my mind when i learned it about myself.

I have always, always thought of myself as a shy person.

Right, exactly.

So Kwame's over here dying.

So while he's trying to catch his breath, I'll explain why.

Like I, ever since I was a kid, I've always been uncomfortable in situations where I'm really meeting new people.

But if you ask anybody who knows me, no one would say that.

No one would ever, and most people don't even believe it when I actually say it.

And part of it's because I've learned over the years – and when I say over the years, I mean like as early back as like kind of middle school, high school.

I started to realize –.

For me, sports was the equalizer.

Right.

So I could talk sports, play sports, do anything sports related.

And that, you know, that got me into a situation where I was comfortable with people.

Once I'm comfortable with somebody, once I meet them, I'm good.

No problem.

And so over the years, as I've gotten into professional settings, I've had to find those things that are comfortable spaces for me, whether that's being an excellent technical coach advisor, really knowing my area of expertise very well and finding confidence, because I know the issue better than anybody else.

Or whether it's going to a cocktail party and knowing that I love current events and politics and those things you aren't supposed to talk about, I guess.

But being comfortable in having something that's an icebreaker.

So to take a step back then, what we were talking about is, when you go through that list, you can start to identify the those things that use, how you see yourself, and then you can go ask other people and see how they, how they see you.

I did this thing and maybe this is a second piece of advice.

I read a book called strength finders and i took the assessment online and it's their strength finders has been done by the gallup organization, like gallup polling etc.

And they've been been doing this for years and years and years, and you take this online test and um, you go through it and and, and it tells you your strengths.

So it's this whole idea of discovering your strengths, And so when I went through it, it put out my top five strengths and it blew my mind because it was so dead on.

And if I can remember, I'm putting myself on the spot here.

Number one was positivity.

Two was competitive.

Three was strategic.

Four was relator and relatability.

And then five was –

I think something like futuristic.

Right.

And so so the positivity and competitiveness that helped me understand, like, I knew I was positive.

I never really thought of it as a strength per se.

But now I get it.

The people want to follow and leaders who are positive, you know, they draw more people to follow them.

If you will,

But then when you match positive with competitive, it's that you know.

I'm not trying to just step on people's necks.

I'm trying to figure out how can we together move the ball forward?

Yeah.

But what blew my mind was the relator, because this is the first time I was able to actually better articulate how I feel internally in new situations.

The relator is someone who values relationships.

Doesn't need a ton of relationships, but with the relationships that they have, they want them to be deep relationships, right?

And so typically I'm uncomfortable at first until I find something with somebody that I can go on a deeper level with.

And when I do that now, now it's great.

Now I really feel like we have a relationship.

And so sometimes that comes just based on time and repetition and seeing somebody and maybe it's a coworker or something like that that you see on a regular basis and you start to build that depth.

But when you're thinking about negotiating and you're working with somebody across the table or even

A new client, in my instance, I always want to build that relationship.

So if it's a new client I don't want to just come with.

Here's your investment proposal that we want to invest.

No, it's like, help me understand your family.

Help me understand where you came from.

What keeps you up at night?

What excites you?

What's your passion?

And now I start to get a deeper relationship.

So I say all that to just give an example as to why it's important to understand both how you view yourself, but then how others view you.

That was the first part of today's masterclass.

Up.

Next we'll hear from another expert with a different approach, giving you even more strategies to add to your toolkit.

Let's keep it rolling.

Matthew, thanks for joining us today.

Mate, I'm excited to be here.

Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, it's our pleasure.

So how about you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Yeah, sure.

Absolutely.

So, I mean, I'm known as the rapid growth guy.

I'm also the bestselling author of the Introverts Edge book series, which I think have sold about 75000 copies together and they're in about 16 languages.

But what really was my claim to fame is I built five multimillion dollar success stories from the ground up.

And really I had no right to do that, because I was an introvert that was really terrified of my own shadow.

And everyone knows you've got to be a successful salesperson.

You've got to be successful at networking.

You've got to be successful at so many things to be successful at business.

And yet I found my way to doing it.

And it was really completely accidental.

I mean, I had a reading speed of a sixth grader in late high school.

I was super introverted.

And if it wasn't for losing my job just before Christmas and the only job I could get, I being door-to-door sales and teaching myself how to sell watching YouTube videos, I really wouldn't be the person I am today, which is why I spend my life really educating introverts that they're not second-class citizens.

Their path to success is just different to that of an extrovert.

If they embrace that and embrace systems that allow them to leverage their natural strengths, They truly can have a rapid growth business that they love.

They can have an amazing career.

They can be an amazing public speaker.

They can do so many things that they just know that they can't do because they don't have that gift of gab.

Well, that's rubbish.

They absolutely can.

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This is great.

I'm so excited about this.

And Matthew, I think a good place for us to start is your unique definition of introversion.

So tell us about what it is and then also what a lot of the misconceptions are that end up confusing people.

Yeah absolutely, and i you know it's really interesting when you talk about introversion.

Firstly, a lot of people still don't know what introversion extroversion is, which is crazy because realistically, we need to understand ourselves as people.

If we don't understand ourselves as people, we don't know what skill sets uh, that we have.

Naturally we don't know what skills gaps we have, that we need to look for training and coaching to help get beyond.

For instance, some might say that extroverts aren't the best listeners in the world And introverts had that in spades.

Introverts, of course, had their own barriers.

And that's really the way I look at introversion and extroversion.

We all have our burdens to bear.

The truth is we just have skills gaps that we have to learn how to compensate for.

And actually some of those skills gaps give us amazing advantages with the extra skill sets that we have learned over a lifetime.

So when I look at introversion and extroversion, I think psychologists have they.

They've made a lot of money making it very confusing, so i i try to simplify it.

Uh, to something really, really easy for everybody to just go.

Oh, i'm introverted, i'm extroverted, which is where you draw your energy from.

For instance, i founded a festival in in austin texas.

It's grown to be the the number three conference in america for small business.

And you know i i remember when we did our first uh big, um big big conference and the last day one of the speakers was jim cathcart.

He's a great personal friend of mine, he's one of the most award-winning speakers in the world And he and I were both involved in the event the entire three-day period.

He had a wonderful time.

I had a wonderful time.

The difference was on day three.

He wanted to go down Rainy Street in Austin and experience the live music capital of the world, because he was jazzed.

He was buzzing.

He was so energized because he was around people.

I wanted to put on a hoodie, go home and watch Netflix.

I didn't want to have anything to do with hanging out with people at that point.

Now, I remember that he was my guest, so I had to take him out that night.

And I have never had to.

I mean, the guy's 70.

I've never had to ask a 70-year-old before in my life, can I please go home now?

I was exhausted.

So the difference is just this.

If you draw your energy from being around people, you're an extrovert.

If you draw your energy from being by yourself, you're an introvert.

Now that doesn't mean that because you're an introvert, you don't like people, you don't like networking, you don't like sales.

Now, I've had people that have said to me, Matt, I do not want to learn sales.

I want you to teach me the marketing stuff so I don't have to sell.

And then I've said, well, let's just do a little bit of sales.

Let me train you just so we can validate that the words that you're using work, so we can build it onto a website, so you never have to speak to someone again, and those people have grown to love sales and now they don't want to give it up.

So the key is that usually an introvert is terrible at a lot of these extroverted arenas, or so-called extroverted arenas, because we don't have a system and process to follow that in truth, once we have, allows us to leverage our natural skills to beat out the extroverts hands down.

Now that's not to say that the extroverts can't learn these skill sets and strategies.

But the truth is extroverts tend to like to wing things.

They have to take a big back step to then catapult forward and they're less likely to do it.

Where for introverts, we're kind of terrible at sales networking negotiation.

So without those strategies, we're not going to do well.

So of course, we're willing to do the legwork up front so that we can excel.

And you know I mean.

The system will always outperform a winged process every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Eventually,

And actually not.

It doesn't take that long.

Now, the misconceptions are pretty simple.

A lot of people say things like, oh, I used to be introverted, but don't worry, I'm extroverted now.

Like introversion is a bad thing.

It's not a curse.

It's an advantage in my world.

It gives you an edge because you're more prone to. to learning a system and you've got these amazing advantages of active listening and empathy that take time for extroverts to let to learn and actually require a lot of coaching to learn and do and achieve well now other people will say things like oh you know i used to be really extroverted but since covert i'm now more introverted no that's just a behavior or a habit that you used to have a habit of going out a lot now you like watching netflix But the truth is, if you go out and you're actually motivated and energized because you went out, you're an extrovert.

It doesn't change who you are just because you don't want to do it as often anymore.

You'll find if, as long as you're drawing your energy from being with people or drawing your energy from being by yourself, that's the simplest way to really decide who you are.

Oh, this is great.

This is really great.

And one of the things that I love about this is the fact that you're really introducing a paradigm shift where a lot of times, introverts have this bias against themselves, saying that oh, because of this tendency I have, because of this personality trait that I have, I cannot do X Y, Z.

But what you're saying is not only can you, but you're taking it to the next level and saying, not only can you, but you can do it at a higher level.

And I'll show you how.

And the thing that you keep on saying is systems and processes.

So tell us more about those.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that it's really interesting.

The topic of introversion and extroversion is relatively recent.

And there's been some pretty important battles to have fought before that.

You had the women's movement.

And before, it was like women couldn't be in the workforce.

And we've still got a long way to fight.

We've got race.

We've got religion.

We've got all these things that we're trying to work through in both small business, in corporates and, And you know, making people realize that everybody has advantages and disadvantages.

There's upbringing stories.

There's, you know, whether or not somebody wants.

You know, I mean people win the lottery because they have the natural gift of getting.

Maybe, maybe not.

People win the lottery because they grew up rich.

Maybe, maybe not.

Right.

I've seen a lot of people that grew up rich that have had horrible lives.

I've seen a lot of people that grew up poor, that made something of themselves that some rich kids would just dream of being.

The truth is introversion is exactly that.

If we create this story about why we can't succeed, then all of a sudden we're not pushing ourselves to succeed.

If we believe our own story, of course, we're not going to push ourselves through it.

We're not going to spend the time learning a system.

And look, this is probably the easiest way to explain it.

When I was in, as I said, in late high school, I had a reading speed of a sixth grader.

I was super introverted.

And I mean, I just had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.

And My family could see that if I went to college at that point, I was going to spin out.

I wouldn't have been able to succeed.

Now, I did, luckily enough, get diagnosed with this thing called Erlen syndrome.

Now for the video watchers at home.

It basically means I can put on this pair of funny colored lenses and miraculously, I can learn to read.

Now, I couldn't read like everyone else.

I could start the process of learning to read.

So you know I hustled for the last two years of high school to get to.

I actually got into the top 20 percent of my state.

But I mean, I was I always felt like the slow kid.

Now I'm the slow kid that had braces, had bad acne and funny colored lenses.

My confidence wasn't exactly at an all time high.

So I took a job at a real estate agency to have my year gap year.

I'm sure people that are listening have had kids that have had gap years.

And, you know, my gap year was really to find myself.

Now, I know what you're thinking.

Real estate, I was probably the guy outselling.

I wasn't.

I was the guy in the back office with a look on my face saying, don't speak to me.

I'm just here to do data entry.

I'm here to find myself for the year.

Well, three weeks into that job, my boss pulls me aside and he's like man.

I'm so sorry to tell you this, but you know we've just discovered that they're shutting down.

The head office is shutting down this office.

You're out of a job.

I've been there three weeks.

Now in Australia.

I mean, we have summer break and Christmas break at the same time, and I lost my job just before Christmas.

And just before Christmas in Australia means everyone goes off on the 20th of December and they don't come back till the 15th to 20th of January.

So if you can imagine being a small business at that point put your hand up if you think you're going to be hiring.

You're not hiring anyone.

The only jobs in the paper are these things called commission-only sales roles.

So I applied for this job doing commission on the sales because the only thing that was more terrifying than going to apply for a door-to-door sales role was telling my father, who broke his back, 80 hours a week sorry, out of a job, going to sit on the couch and watch Oprah for the rest of the summer.

It just wasn't going to be okay in my family.

So there were three jobs I applied for all three.

I got three interviews.

Then I got all three jobs and I was like, maybe they see something in me that I don't see in myself.

Well, my training manager put that little chip on my shoulder to bed really, really quickly.

He said, Matt, we just hire everyone.

We've got this saying, we throw mud up against the wall and we see what sticks.

Fun saying until you realize you're the mud.

Well, so here I am.

After five days product training and not a single second of sales training, I get thrown on this road called Sydney Road in Melbourne, Australia.

This is like a thousand doors on each side, just little junk stores.

And I get told to go south.

Well, I didn't know what to say.

So I take this deep breath and I go to walk in.

And luckily, luckily enough, I was politely told to leave because the next door I was sworn at.

But my personal favorite was always getting told to go and get a real job.

This was the only job I could get.

Door after door, this kept happening.

I got sworn at, told to get a real job, politely told to leave to my 93rd door where I made my first sale.

And I remember I made about $70.

And I was ecstatic for about 45 seconds until I had my second realization for the day.

I got to do this again tomorrow and the next day and the next.

And this was not OK.

So I went, all right, so I can do what 18 of my training group of 20 did the following day.

I could have quit.

Or I could have decided to do what the other person that stayed decided to do.

I'm just going to grind it out.

I'll just hustle and maybe it'll work, which don't get me wrong.

There's a lot of business owners that are doing that.

And as opposed to giving up, you know, absolute tribute to them.

But the truth is that there's a third path that nobody ever thinks of, which is what if there was another solution to this problem?

And with gift of gab kind of ideology.

You know, when confronted with gift of gab, we believe it's either tough it out or quit.

That's it.

But the truth is I made the decision, There was another way.

And what I discovered was that sales was a system like anything else.

And that's what I had to really come to terms with.

I went, what if sales was a system?

Well, how would I learn that system?

And what I realized is, of course, there are all these books out about sales and sales systemization.

But the truth is, I had a reading speed of a sixth grader.

I couldn't exactly pick one up and read it.

It would have taken me a year to read it, let alone apply it.

This was before podcasts and all the online learning we have today.

But there was this cool tool called YouTube that had just been out for a couple of years at that point.

And so I took a punt.

I typed in sales system and all these videos came up.

And so every day, what I would do is I would focus on one step of the system and I'd go out and I'd apply what I learned the eight hours the night before, during the eight hours that I was out selling.

So every day was eight hours out selling, applying what I learned.

That night I'd go home and I'd spend eight hours learning the next thing or how to perfect the thing that I was working on.

Day after day, I did that.

Weekends, I'd spend 16 hours learning and practicing.

Now, I'm sure to everyone, this does not sound funny.

It was horrific.

I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

But six weeks in, and this is all, I mean, very quickly, you know, my sales improved.

I mean, I went from, you know, 93 doors to 78 to 46 to 21 to 18 to seven to three.

I got it down to closing a deal every third door I went to.

Now, six weeks in, my manager pulls me aside and he's like Well, I thought I was in trouble, by the way, because my manager pulled me aside and he had this puzzled look on his face.

And I was the quiet guy that handed my paperwork in downstairs and then would listen to all the boisterous reps upstairs talking about how they closed that deal or how the market's getting harder.

Well, he looked at me and he said Matt, we're kind of puzzled by this, but we just got the national sales figures.

And I mean, in truth, I didn't really even know who your name was up until today.

But it turns out you're the number one salesperson in the company.

Now, this was the largest sales and marketing company in the Southern Hemisphere.

So I'd gone from scared to sell to being the number one person that was currently working in a commission-only sales job for that organization.

So they went, oh, well, obviously, because you can sell, you could probably manage.

Well, I don't know why people think that.

Like, it just baffles me that people think that's the same skill, right?

So no, I got given my own 20 people.

And he said, don't worry.

It's just mud up against the wall.

See what sticks.

No one's stuck.

They all quit everyone within 48 hours.

Everybody was gone.

Well, i got, i went back to youtube, but i learned how to manage.

I actually got pretty good at it.

Well, you know, less than a year later, i promote.

I was promoted seven times and then, you know, fast forward, just shy of a decade i'd started my own business and i've been responsible for five multi-million dollar success stories.

So the thing that i want people to understand is yes, of course my, my six-week period was horrible.

Now i could have broken that six-week period over three months, six months And remember I went from the worst having no business being in sales to the best person in the largest sales and marketing company in the Southern Hemisphere.

Most of the business owners don't have to get that good.

So they don't even really need to work that hard.

What they've just got to realize is that sales is a methodical process, a step-by-step process that leads to a sale.

And if you pick the right process, you can get rid of all those bulldog hard closes, the things that we, just as introverts, find uncomfortable.

Now, when I came to the United States, I had to separate myself from an awkward network.

Well, let's just say a network that I'd awkwardly fostered over the last 10 years and completely start again.

And because of that I literally I went from knowing no one and really struggling to articulate the value I offered.

Because I decided to become a coach and consultant, to teach people how to do what I do.

I even spoke on the topic.

And it's funny when you say to somebody you're a sales trainer, they look at you like you're one step above a scam artist, right?

They're especially introverts.

They're like, oh, yeah, I can't sell.

I had somebody try once and it just didn't work, right?

You say you're a marketer.

They go, oh, that's interesting.

How much do you cost?

Now you're talking about price.

You just met them.

So I had to realize that there was another strategy that I needed to learn, which was how to network in a way that sidestepped the commodity bucket, that got me straight away talking about price or got them to disqualify me.

And what I realized is networking could have a similar methodical process that I put together by taking what other people did, looking at what worked for me and creating some unique theory of my own.

And then I started speaking from stage.

And now I'm one of the most award-winning speakers in the world of sales.

I've spoken on stages like Microsoft Inspire, for Intel, for Oracle.

I do all these presentations.

I'm one of the most requested speakers in the small business space.

And again, it's a similar methodical process.

You can apply this to negotiation.

You can apply it to parenting.

The truth is, there is not one behavior that you will not benefit from having a planning, a methodical process that you plan and prepare.

What you've got to realize is that introverts in a lot of ways have an advantage because they're willing to to take those steps to actually learn that methodical process.

You don't even need to learn it that well.

Truthfully, the process doesn't even need to be that good.

If you just pick a process and stick to it, forget about the bells and whistles, is what introverts do and anyone learning a process does wrong.

They read all the books and then they try to put it all together into a format that works best for them.

Doesn't matter what process you follow.

Follow somebody's methodical process without the bells and whistles till you get that right.

It will probably still outperform what you're currently doing.

Then add the bells and whistles on later.

By trying to add the bells and whistles on and over-educate ourselves.

What we're actually doing is over-complicating it.

We're doing what I call busy procrastination trying to do the things that feel comfortable while avoiding the thing that feels uncomfortable, whether it's because we're an introvert and we don't actually want to sell, we don't actually want to network, we don't want to negotiate.

Or it feels uncomfortable to try and piece together a process because it feels more comfortable even though it doesn't result in great results, and it doesn't feel comfortable to get rejected.

It feels more comfortable just to wing things, right?

So we avoid that.

So the only piece of advice that I will give you is that anyone that is an introvert, it's best to learn off an introvert, because The truth is that the hardest thing for an introvert to do is not learn a sales system, learn a networking process, a way of negotiation, but instead believe that they can.

So if you're getting trained by an extroverted coach or speaker or author that says it's easy, you just do this first thing that goes in your head.

Well, it's not easy for me.

My situation's different.

Same for an extrovert.

Of course, my processes and systems will work for you.

But you have a lot of advantages that I don't.

You don't have some skill sets that I have.

And because of that, it's best for you to learn off somebody that's extroverted, that maybe had to learn active listening and empathy or how to demonstrate that.

Things that I got naturally because I'm an introvert.

So it's always best to follow somebody that has a similar skill natural skill set.

And that's why I wrote the book The Introvert's Edge, which focuses on sales.

The Introvert's Edge to Networking, which focuses on networking.

But truthfully, just because I have the word introvert stent on the cover doesn't mean I'm the only person out there teaching this stuff.

If you think about sales Jeb Blunt, Mark Hunter, Lee Sells I mean goodness.

Zig Ziglar, the most well-known sales trainer and probably one of the most well-known speakers in the world, is introverted.

If you think about networking, Matt Alderton, the founder of BX Networking.

Ivan Meiser, the founder of BNI.

These people are, I mean, they're networking titans.

They're both introverted.

It doesn't really matter what skill set you can think of.

There's an introvert out there that has mastered it that's written a book on teaching it.

This is...

Incredible.

So quick, some quick notes.

First, Matthew, your storytelling is impeccable.

And I know that's one of the things that you speak on.

So I think next time you come on, you need to walk us through how you did what you just did, because that was really good.

I forgot.

I forgot I was hosting for a little bit.

I was like, man, this podcast is awesome.

So kudos on that.

And then I love the fact that you talk about the value of strategy, the value of a process.

There's one thing that all great strategists have in common, a strategy.

You know, like that's it.

And winging it isn't a strategy, right?

And I like the fact that you said a process or a strategy is better than nothing, because then it puts people in a position where they can replicate what it is that you did, because you learned, Then you immediately applied and then you started honing your skills.

OK, this works.

This doesn't work.

I'm going to do it incrementally better every single time.

So you're essentially running a lifelong experiment.

And that's really what life can and should be if we're willing to put our hypotheses into action.

And that's what a lot of people don't do, because really a lot of times procrastination is just an intellectualized form of fear.

It's we are afraid and then we just hold back.

But we convince ourselves, oh, you know, I'm just a thoughtful person.

I like to think things through.

And then we think ourselves out of doing what needs to be done.

So I love the fact that you're not only focused on learning, but also being experimental and taking action, because a lot of times, people don't take what they learn and put it into action.

So I think all of this is really great.

One thing I will say to that is that I just talked about sales networking.

You just talked about, you know, negotiation.

The truth is that if you say I'm going to learn all of those things, that's also busy procrastination, because then it will become overwhelming and you won't do any of them.

So pick one frontier.

Like there's one thing that I'm working on right now.

There always is one thing I'm working on right now that I plan on going from conscious incompetence because I'm terrible at it and I know it And moving myself to conscious competence to, eventually it'll be unconscious competence.

I just know exactly how to do it.

And it's natural.

And then everyone will say, you're so lucky you just were born with that natural ability.

It's hard for that, right?

So the thing is that you need to be fixated on one thing.

And that could be just becoming a better parent, right?

Getting more involved in your child's social life or whatever it takes.

Pick one thing, read the books on it, read a book on it and focus on a system and process.

Listen to a bunch of podcast interviews, pick one authority on the topic and go.

I'm going to go deep into that person's book and learn their system before I get creative and piece anything else together.

Then turn it into a masterful level and you will succeed.

Now, the truth is that, I mean, this isn't new stuff.

Like Brian Tracy who is extroverted, by the way says the top 10 of all sales performers have a planned presentation.

Now, if you think about that, I mean the bottom 80 he says just says whatever comes out of their mouth, which of course extroverts are better at, and why the introverts are at the bottom.

But in the top 10.

Funnily enough, you know I spoke at the AAISP, which is the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals.

And if you think of all the big brand names that you can recognize.

The head of all their sales departments were at this corporate retreat and I did a survey beforehand.

Guess what?

More than 50% of the people in that room were introverted.

The best in the business are introverted.

You go to the top...

30 sales gurus list of which I'm on, by globalgurusorg.

You'll find that half of that list is more introverted than extroverted.

It's common knowledge to the people that know that introversion is an advantage.

The problem is the world knows that extroversion is an advantage and that's the problem.

If you think about the world of networking, you think about the skill sets that people don't like self-promotion, obscene confidence.

These are commonly seen as extroverted skill sets.

Now truthfully, there are skills that extroverts can learn to not come across that way, but it's not a natural thing for them.

On the other side, the things that people like in networking tend to be more commonly introverted strategies, but without a process to actually start a dialogue, you have a problem.

The same thing when you think about speakers.

If you ask me to go and deliver a topic, there's two things you're going to know.

One is it's going to be pretty close to exactly what you experienced last time.

So you knew it was good last time, you know it's going to be good this time.

And secondly, I'm going to research your organization to the hilt to make sure that the things that are different are uniquely customized to your organization, with a huge amount of knowledge behind it, because I have made sure that anything I say from stage I don't feel self-conscious about.

I don't feel like an imposter about.

I need to have done my homework.

A lot of times when you say to an extroverted speaker, hey, I love what you did there.

Can you go and deliver it for our other department?

They'll say, well, I don't even know what I said.

I might be able to stay slightly in the same framework as what I know, but maybe it's going to be probably 20, 30 different.

With me.

It's probably going to be 10 different, maybe five, but every part of that is going to be planned.

Now, if you think about that kind of framing and the advantage that gives you, it's huge.

Now going back to storytelling, because introverts, there's a huge power in storytelling.

For instance, that story of my personal life.

I've got a story of wendy that i tell i say, you know, on introvert, you i have a pla, a program called you know, you're one story away, and i talk about the fact that every business is one story away from you know, a you know rapid growth business that revolves around in their family, in their life.

Because i believe if you have one story and it's not your story, it's a story of a customer you worked with that had a problem, that you got to an amazing result.

If you can share that story in a way that you don't currently tell it, trust me, because everyone says these really boring business stories.

Customer wanted this, so we gave it to them.

There's no emotional roller coaster.

I'm talking more like the story of how you met your husband or wife, your life partner.

If you can tell a story that has that emotional fabric to it, there are some amazing things that happens.

It short-circuits the logical mind, which speaks directly to the emotional mind which, by the way, the logical part of the brain is going that'll work for me, that won't work for me.

I don't have time for this.

The emotional brain literally short-circuits that when it hears a story and goes story time and it just listens.

Now the power of that is even a host of a podcast might disengage and go wow, this is an engaging story and forget that they're a podcast host, right.

So stories are powerful for that.

People remember up to 22 times more information when embedded into a story.

And thirdly, this research out of Stanford that says that when I tell a story, what happens is it activates the reticular activating system of our brains, which causes our brains to synchronize.

It creates natural rapport that an introvert can then leverage into real rapport.

With those three things combined, think about the power it gives you on podcast interviews, speaking from stage, selling negotiation.

It's hugely powerful when you tell a story, because what happens is you get the.

Instead of telling somebody why they're wrong or why they should see it this way, you're actually getting them to live an experience, to see it from somebody else's point of view.

And as long as the moral of the story hits, that can be transformational for anyone who's that is listening.

So if you're an introvert especially, you can write these stories out, you can practice them, you can plan them, not in a scripted way that sounds robotic, like that telemarketer that calls you at eight o'clock at night that you don't want them calling you because you're trying to have a family dinner.

But, by the way, your favorite movies, like all of your favorite movies, they're reading from scripts too.

They didn't write it out, but they remembered it, they've embraced it.

I mean Leonardo DiCaprio.

In some of his parts I think he's fantastic another introvert, by the way, but he's read the script, he's embraced the character so that he can deliver it on camera.

Do you remember one story?

If you can deliver one story, maybe two, really well, that's all you need for your business.

But most introverts will just win it, just like the extroverts and, by the way, by the way, nobody should.

If you tell one story well, it should be the same story, the same way every time, and the only change is how you're applying it to the unique circumstance.

They highlighted when you were networking, just before they.

They spoke when they were, when you were negotiating.

You can do that.

You can be masterful at really a lot of these so-called extroverted arenas, because story over logic wins every time.

So leave your fire hose of jargon at home.

Tell a story instead.

This is great.

Matthew, before we go, because I know we're coming up on time here.

If you were to come up with one last parting word of wisdom that says that tells people like you know what.

I'm going to give Matthew a five-star review on this podcast.

What would be that one parting word of wisdom for the audience?

Absolutely.

So I think the piece of advice because we were just talking about stories is remember that stories short-circuit your logical mind and speak directly to your emotional mind.

So if you're telling yourself this entire story about why it's more difficult for you, because you're an introvert and because you don't find it as easy as everyone else, you're not naturally gregarious.

Well, that's short-circuiting your logical mind, which might be able to tell you it ain't true, because your emotional mind's hearing the moral of that story is don't try.

So I'm telling you to stop telling yourself these horrible stories.

One of the biggest hurdles that I find introverts have And don't get me wrong, everybody has this, but introverts have specific dialogues that they tell themselves connected with the fact that because they don't have gift of gab, because they're not naturally gregarious, they cannot succeed.

And it's stopping them from starting their own businesses.

It's stopping them from having the careers that they want.

It's allowing them to accept subpar performance in their careers, in their businesses, that they just wouldn't if they weren't telling themselves this monologue of we're just lucky to be where we are today because it's tougher for us.

And that's what's got to stop.

This is good.

I've taken so many notes here.

Matthew, you see this, this is.

This is great.

I, i love this.

So um, you know this will not be the last time you, you come on the show.

If i have it my way, i appreciate it.

But uh matthew, before you go, let the listeners know about you how they can get in touch with you and i know you don't, you.

You you told me not to push the products too much, but they're too good, my friend, so let them know how they can.

They can work with you too Absolutely, absolutely.

I appreciate you asking.

So obviously for those people listening, I mean, the easiest way to check me out is obviously type in Matthew Pollard online.

I mean, I'll take up the first 10 pages of Google.

But truthfully, I put out so much free content on YouTube LinkedIn, Instagram just because that's how I learned on YouTube, right?

So I try to give back in the place that I received amazing content.

But the other way that I would suggest and my publisher hates me when I say this, but you do not need to buy either of my books.

You can go to theintrovertsedgecom or theintrovertsedgecom forward slash networking.

There you'll be able to download the first chapter of both of my books.

But the reason I say that is that the biggest hurdle, as I said, is for introverts to believe that they can.

And in both of those books I'll help you overcome that belief, or that misbelief, that you can't sell or network as an introvert.

So I'll help you get over that.

And then I'll outline the exact step-by-step strategy for With the sales book as an example.

If you do nothing more than grab the seven-step process that I give you, look at the chapter headings that I give you for the exact process you should follow.

Look at what you currently say and fit it into that.

You'll quickly realize there's some things out of order.

There's some things that don't fit.

Like throw that out.

You shouldn't be saying that to customers.

Then you'll realize there's some gaping holes, like telling great stories, asking great questions.

If you do nothing more than do that, you'll double your sales easily in the next 60 days.

And then their networking book will help you do the exact same.

So those links are theintrovertsedge.com and theintrovertsedge.com forward slash networking.

And the other thing you're definitely welcome to try.

We just released a new platform called Introvert U and it is a learning hub specifically for introverts.

And the whole goal is that we're not teaching these mega trainings on that platform.

It's like a Netflix-style platform that focuses on introverts all over the world, because my brand's grown to a point that I'm trying to showcase other introverted experts, or what I call introverted titans, which are industry experts that just happen to be introverted.

And what we're getting them to do is create what I call a micro course, which is where you know, instead of teaching someone how to play the guitar for lack of a better example they're teaching somebody how to play one song with three chords.

A simple training that focuses on one tangible, you know, instantly applicable ideology that an introvert can learn and apply tomorrow to better their small businesses and better their lives.

So you definitely, you know, I'd love you to check out the introverts edge course as well.

As introvert you, we can see those micro trainings.

And that's also where the One Story Away training is hosted as well.

Oh, this is fantastic.

Matthew, thank you so much for joining us.

Really appreciate it.

It was my pleasure to be here, mate.

And thank you for having me and thank you for outing yourself as an introvert.

I really appreciate it.

My pleasure.

Thank you for the increased self-awareness.

You've just heard one powerful perspective and now we're moving on to the next, a fresh voice with a new angle on the same challenge, so you can keep expanding your skills.

Let's dive in.

Todd, welcome to the show, my friend.

It's so great to see you.

Thanks for having me, man.

Hey, man, it is my pleasure.

So how did you get started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Well, the short story is I'm probably the luckiest person you're going to talk to in a while.

I really feel that way.

I have a lot of gratitude for the career so far.

Had a few different careers.

Started with Anderson and Ernst & Young and figured out that business and relationships especially were fascinating but did not fit me as well as I kind of maybe thought they would.

But I wouldn't let go of those objects I wanted to study.

And I realized my inner dork really wanted to come out.

And so I said I'm gonna take a risk and get out of here and be a professional outsider in the business world.

And when I got a PhD and became a professor PhD at Texas AM in organizational behavior.

I was a professor for 10 years at a school in Ohio that I loved, a place called Wright State University, teaching mostly MBA students things about leadership.

And on the side, this is where the current career began to slowly bubble up.

As you know, Smart people like you can't even just do one career.

We just always have to be dabbling over here, side hustling over there.

And people started calling, hey, man, I was in your class.

We've got a meeting coming up.

Last year, this guy we had was boring.

Would you come out and tell some stories?

You were great in class.

That's how it started.

And I showed up for free for a year like people do.

And then they started offering to pay me.

And then it built into a career.

And about the time I was thinking true story.

I'm not sure if I have time to be a professor anymore because I'm running around trying to be this new speaker person, trying to figure out what it means to write a book.

Then I got a call from a company you've heard of on LinkedIn or at the time they were lynda.com.

And they really wanted to start making some courses in my area.

And now I thought I think I finally have what it takes to feel okay after 10 years of walking away from being a professor.

And for the last decade I've been making courses, writing books and giving speeches like nobody's business.

I love it, man.

And listeners, so Todd and I, we met in Cali at the LinkedIn Learning Headquarters.

And first of all, LinkedIn is like the best company ever.

This is not just me saying this.

I don't know if you've experienced this too Todd, but essentially everybody I've worked with at LinkedIn has been just amazing, absurdly cool, like really cool to work with.

They are absurdly, wonderfully abnormal.

Exactly.

And I love that.

And so we hit it off there in Cali.

And I heard all of you to check out Todd's courses.

We want to link to the courses and the books and everything.

And yeah, I'm excited to just first of all vibe with you, because I loved our chats back in Cali, but also share our with the audience the insights that you've developed, because you have such a diverse background when it comes to your career and the way that you've grown and shared your content with the world.

So I just kind of want to sit back and maybe let's start off with the biggest learnings that you've gotten over the past few decades doing this, and then we can roll that into the newest book.

Well, honestly, there's so many wonderful ways to answer that question.

It's a great question.

I would say that when people finally started talking I think it was the 90s, I don't recall.

Maybe you can correct me about continuous learning, making that a thing that we're always going to do until the end, if we're smart.

I was so happy to see the rise of that because I'd already personally committed to it as I kept trying to do things because it's required for growth period.

And so I was fascinated to see phrase come around and people start to really embrace it.

And, of course, as you know, only in the last decade has tech really started to infuse that idea, including the platform that you and I are on.

And this is funny, true story.

A guy asked me once, I was still a professor at the time, maybe it was the last year or two there.

So you spent a lot of time in school.

You've done a lot of things, talked to a lot of people.

What did you learn?

If you've got 10 seconds to share with me something awesome about what have you learned that can help me?

It was almost that simple.

And I said, well, I learned how little I know so far.

And that is the truth.

And it's not a joke.

It's not a play.

It's just the truth.

And if you will think about that and realize that it's true for all of us in different ways, it is wonderfully humbling and then motivating to stay in the game, keep trying and keep growing.

Absolutely.

I'm with you.

It's like the more you know, the more you realize you don't know.

It's the inverse of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

When I find people that are supremely confident in a lot of things, it means one of two things.

Either they're really good or they really have no idea.

You know as well as i do that there's so many pros call themselves experts in different areas and we're related but different with our areas and they still do believe i think this died in the 80s and 90s, but there's still some folks doing it.

They cling to that overconfidence over polished.

I know it all.

Just ask me persona and i'm fascinated by that as a guy who loves to study and talk about authenticity, among other things.

I really am, because I think the more we make people relax by showing them that being human and imperfect is OK, the more the vibe in the room actually is conducive to everybody learning a little something.

Bingo.

Exactly.

And I think everybody is afraid or a lot of people are afraid of being themselves.

And just they struggle with the reality that part of being themselves includes warts and all the mistakes that we make.

We We don't know everything.

And there's a simple reason why we don't know everything is because it's literally impossible to know everything.

And there's nothing bad about admitting that.

Yeah.

And just being a human with another human.

Yeah.

So I used to hang out with a bunch of scientists and thankfully I'm recovering from that 15 years of life.

But they were mostly in agreement with us.

But once in a while, a good I'm making this number up a good 20 of them really were full of themselves enough with their publications and such that they kind of thought they knew, if not at all, certainly a lot more than most humans.

And I always felt bad for them because I figured that would overall, when the race was finally done, limit what they will have accomplished.

And what they will have realized.

And so I always took note of that.

Like, man, that's a way to waste some smarts right there, assuming that you know more than you know.

I've spent a career talking about my screw-ups and mistakes and setbacks which, in fact, is a lead in the book, because it was born from a mistake, sir.

Yes.

Let's talk about the book because it's fascinating for me, especially as an author.

The approach that you've taken with this most recent book is really, really cool.

So let's set the stage.

So tell the audience about the book.

The stage to set the stage.

I've got to do what I'm good at, make fun of myself.

So here we go.

I read a modest amount.

I like to read novels, popular novels mostly.

And I got this idea that gazillions of us have been inflicted with over the years that you know.

I think I could do that too.

I think that would be fun.

I'm going to try that.

And three times, so you got to throw three bricks at my head before I'll wake up soon.

I tried to do just that.

I finished three of them.

They were all three horrid.

Believe me, take my word for it, never to be published or seen again.

And I finally concluded about a year and a half ago on the third kind of side hustle fun activity attempt.

I said, I'm never doing that again.

I'm going to save the energy I have for things that might make sense.

But there was a kernel of an idea in the third one I didn't want to let go of.

It was about this misfit monster, a vampire, in an office setting and some of the things that challenges that he faced.

And I thought to myself wait a minute, there's a genre I've often thought was kind of interesting that I said a few times.

I should probably try that.

And I've never done it.

And that's the fable section of the business book world.

And so I sat down and said, well, if I was going to do that, what would I do?

And ideas just started blowing out of me.

True story.

Six, seven hours later, first draft was done.

And Oh, really?

People like to say you got to stay in your lane.

I like to say you have to go find your lane first.

That's amazing.

That is so interesting.

And I think that's just it's a sign you found it.

Right.

And you found that momentum.

This is really interesting.

So, OK, vampire in an office setting.

This is great.

And so for the listeners who are saying what in the world?

A vampire in an office setting?

What is this about?

Let's start with the beginning, the end in mind.

Let's begin with the end in mind.

We have a vampire named Joe Vampire and he's a little cocky and full of himself, but really isn't that great a performer anymore.

All monsters having, of course, an obvious goal to learn how to scare children.

And the powers that be in the world of monsters start to come and give him some difficult feedback.

Long story short.

They thought to save him, get him back on track and maybe help him realize his real potential.

They actually wanted to ask him to lead a group of other misfit monsters and together go try and take on a very difficult task.

Long story short.

So there's a ghost and a zombie and a werewolf and so on.

And they're all struggling with self-confidence, struggling with finding their better self.

And Joe first screws up with them, does the things you're not supposed to do as a leader and realizes he's not getting any productivity out of.

This team has a serious come to Jesus moment.

That was so fun to write about because it was actually reflective of an event in my life.

And then starts to think about a far more productive way to relate to this group of monsters.

And the result was spectacular.

They all figured out how to take a real step forward and become the monsters they always wanted to be.

And it's cute and fun and inspiring and maybe even educational, because after I finished the story, in the back end there's many pages of the discussion section where I lay out the very specifics about some of these basics that I want aspiring leaders and young leaders to really think about.

You know, for example, candor, not just kindness.

So we are lost.

You and I were talking about LinkedIn and LinkedIn's a good example of this.

And I just revere them, but I can also critique them just like we can critique anything.

They love positivity in all its forms and try to really resist a lot of negativity and anything that sounds difficult for someone to hear.

Now, there's a risk.

You've probably heard this term, oxic positivity.

It's a fairly new term.

The idea is simple.

Sometimes cultures really care so much about kindness congeniality positivity, all these related ideas, that we forget how to be difficult and critical in moments when we need to, because high performance requires candor, not just kindness.

That's the difficulty of feedback, the reality of feedback.

I think LinkedIn, actually, some of my friends there are so kind.

It warms my heart.

That's not a joke.

And also have to remember what candor is all about and the role that it plays in pushing us forward to the best of our abilities.

And so finding a vehicle with these goofy, strange monsters to try and talk about a few of these basics like candor, not just kindness, was a lot of fun.

I love this.

I am so interested to dig deeper into the candor versus kindness approach because this is a challenge for so many different organizations.

Because, you're right, a lot of times they focus on the feelings.

Okay, we want people to feel good.

How do we make people feel good?

By being nice.

So that means we can't say bad things.

Okay.

And now we're not having conversations.

Now we're not having tough conversations, right?

So let's dig a little bit deeper into what exactly makes this balance so difficult for leaders in the professional world.

Well, first of all, everyone who shows up to work every day acts, which is kind of funny.

Most of us were not trained to be actors, but we manage impressions, which is just a type of acting to meet the expectations of those around us, our supervisor, our peers, our customers and clients, et cetera.

And that is a sign of social intelligence.

But, as we all, I think know, when we think about it we overindulge in that reality to the point that we have very measured and sometimes distant, dare I say, plastic relationships transactions instead of relationships.

And that is a serious problem upside, if you want to frame it correctly.

As opposed to being a problem, it's a serious upside for the realization of, and better relationships.

So why do we have trouble with candor?

We want to be nice and not problematic.

Why is that the problem?

Because niceness alone only gets you so far.

Now let me be clear.

It is the expected necessary, wonderful foundation, for sure, And it has to be sincere.

If you have a lot of candor, not a ton of positivity, you're going to have people whose feathers are ruffled and conflict will be the thing of the day.

Man,

If you have tons and tons of positivity, not enough candor, you're going to have a whole lot of people feeling decent about going to work, who are not accomplishing amazing things.

If you have modest amounts of both, they'll shift over time as needed.

But basically good amounts of both.

That provides the context within which The potential feather ruffling thing that is candor becomes digestible useful, maybe even something I should care about and get excited about.

It's all about context.

That comes from the positivity.

Does that make sense?

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

So I mean more or less, we're trying to find that Goldilocks zone for each relationship and interaction.

I love the fact that you're not creating that false dichotomy, because a lot of people say listen, I'm just going to tell it what it is.

I'm not here to be nice.

I'm just here to, you know, hurt people's feelings, apparently.

Right.

You have to have a little bit of that relationship building aspect, that niceness, because it makes you more persuasive and effective.

But, like you said, if we tip too far into that niceness now, we're muddying the message because it's so clouded by the fluff that we can't even really understand what the message originally was supposed to be.

Go ahead.

Why do people do that?

I think it's because we lack empathy, and i'm so happy thanks to many, many voices, even much bigger than mine, in the last 10 years or so, have taken a few issues.

Empathy, vulnerability come to mind is important, and they're covered in the book, so to speak, and brought them to the forefront because it used to be.

Let's pick on the 1980s.

I'm a child of the 80s.

I think we peaked with greed is good in the 80s.

That was kind of the last era where it was unquestioned to say performance is what matters, Profits are what matters.

Getting it done, achieving goals, that's what matters.

That is true.

Those are useful.

Now we know that's incomplete.

It's a foundation.

It's a big, maybe the biggest part of it.

But if you're ever, ever going to achieve anything, you're going to do it through positive relationships.

That sounds so obvious to you and me, but it's not that many years old of an idea for it being as common as high performance is what matters.

It makes sense?

Absolutely.

And this brings up something that we were talking about before the podcast began is the reality that we're living in a time now, with this intergenerational workplace, where we have five generations in the office at the same time.

And so if you grew up at that time where greed is good, focus on profit and productivity and production exclusively.

Now you're going to be working next to somebody who grew up in the everybody's a winner type of era.

Can you tell us about some of those challenges that come about?

So there's huge challenges.

And there are just very dedicated experts out there who study the generations and their differences and similarities.

And I don't consider myself one of them.

I'm more of a world-class leadership generalist.

Having said that, I'm fascinated by those generations.

Some of the differences are obvious.

And I wrote the book for the younger millennials and Zs that are starting to dominate even managerial roles at this point, because they do expect radically more than my dad's generation, for example.

And he was a boomer to have a voice.

That sounds like to me a concept I heard a little bit of in the front end of my career and a little more ever since.

And it's somewhat common now to think in terms of leadership is about dictating.

It's about collaborating.

It's not the rule in the book.

Yeah.

So people expect when they're in Gen Z and most of the millennials, they expect to have an input.

They do not like, let me put it to you this way.

No adult has ever gone to work and just loved being treated like a child.

That is to say, people just tell them what to do, give them dictates and don't engage them as a peer in dialogue about what maybe we should do at all.

I'm trying to draw... clear contrast here to make a point.

I know that every relationship is a mix of these things and that sometimes leaders do have to dictate.

There are circumstances that really justify that, with emergencies and deadlines and so on.

Generally speaking, those youngins want a voice.

You want to know why?

Because ultimately, compared to earlier generations, they want to feel a little more purpose and meaning in work which, to my dad's generation, was a Looney Tunes idea.

I'm here to fulfill this transaction, make a paycheck and put food on the table for my family, which is not an unreasonable thing to say, by the way.

But there is something even better you could say, which is that you know what.

We don't have to feel like we're wasting our time when we go to work.

We can feel purpose.

And I have actually great news as a recovering scholar to share with people about that topic.

You don't have to have your dream job like I do speaking and writing and pontificating for a living.

You don't have to have that quote unquote dream job to feel meaning and purpose at work, because The work itself is only one variable that impacts that experience.

The quality of relationships hugely impacts that feeling.

So you can be doing a job that you think is well good, not great, but be doing it with people you respect and often enjoy, and you will feel purpose.

That's amazing.

Absolutely.

And I love the fact that you brought together the value of purpose and meaning, but also recognizing that the relationships that you have at work are going to play a massive role in that in how good you feel at work and how connected and engaged you feel at work.

And again, it's going to be tough to feel that positivity from these relationships if we're not having these conversations, if we're not leaning in and having difficult conversations when appropriate.

And can you go a little bit deeper into when it comes to the relationships that we have at work?

Well, there's some basics for people to remember there for sure.

We spend more time at work than home.

I don't know what more brick to the head, hit you in the gut kind of shot you can take than that.

We spend more time with our Are folks at work?

And the question is, is it a positive or negative experience?

It's a weird time.

So, on the one hand, we're starting to recognize, through certain areas of org scholarship, lots of different types of medical and mental health professionals, now that work is killing people.

I like to say it bluntly because the US has been on again and off again.

The most productive, as by the formulas that they produce to see which employees are working the most hours and producing the most value for their organizations.

We've topped that list on many occasions over the last couple of decades.

On the one hand, that's really brilliant.

Look at us kicking it, you know, just really doing well.

On the other hand, there's a consequence to be seen for excessive dedication to clocking the hours and working for the man.

And those health statistics are now isling up.

The pandemic kind of accelerated some of them, but they were already a fascinating topic, growing topic of conversation before the pandemic.

The physical reality of a sedate life sitting in a chair is piling up and known, predictable things that are going to happen to the human body.

The mental health impact of goals and stress and excessive hours away from friends and family levels is producing predictable health challenges.

I'm not making anything up or saying anything controversial.

So, at the same time, all that is maybe coming to a head, We're seeing, over the last I don't know 10 years, a lot of new voices talking about what you and I are talking about today, which is humane productive healthy, maybe progressive ways to think about relationships, driving all that really matters at work.

Because the more we tend to that, the more we get one good answer to the health issues that have emerged and help people feel some of that purpose, like they're not wasting their time every day.

What more beautiful thing could you possibly say, right?

Absolutely.

And you're right.

It is connected.

And it's almost like sometimes the most obvious things are the hardest to see.

And it's fascinating to see how we still struggle with it, even though we recognize the truth right now.

Now, here's something that I've seen in some organizations.

You have some people who are working, working, working, working, working.

Like you said, I like the way that you described it.

Excessive dedication.

And now one of the things that I'm recognizing some leaders are struggling with is hey, I'm trying to pay attention to the mental health and happiness of my team.

And I'm recognizing that some people are working really, really hard to the point where it might be unhealthy.

How do I get somebody on my team to actually slow down, even though it seems antithetical to their position?

Yeah, it's a great question.

It's a very difficult one to answer for people that are practicing.

I got to tell you one of the worst things you can do as a leader or leadership team is to espouse certain values and then not appear to live up to them.

That's worse than never even saying that you do value the thing that you didn't really do.

And work-life balance, which kind of gets at what you're talking about, is one of those.

We value you and your family and all kinds of things.

And you shouldn't be working too late, Dosh Garnett.

And then, you know, the pressure down on the average team is that you better stay here.

You better be late with me.

We better get it done.

But there's a lot of pressure.

We don't want the boss and the clients to be upset, etc.

So I answer your question by saying leaders model the way.

If you're serious about that and you have to work hard to figure out how to be so excellent in your processes, your hiring, etc.

That you can get away with this.

But if you want to really lead the way, it doesn't start with saying these things are important to work-life balance, but by showing it.

It's when the CEO, whoever they might be, does come in late once in a while and explain it because he had a human thing he had to do and leave by five o'clock.

And then, while he's leaving, walk through and see a whole bunch of people to make sure they see him or her or whatever leaving.

So it's actually real.

Some companies, by the way, are very serious about it.

Maybe I admire their efforts, even if it's kind of weird what they're doing, but they'll try and see people who aren't living up to that work-life balance.

Work isn't everything mentality.

And if they catch them doing emails or using work phones after hours, they'll dock them.

Some way, by making fun of them at the office or by charging them a small nominal fee to make a point all kinds of weird, creative things are happening to make people behaviorally start to inch towards the ideal, instead of just espousing the ideal.

So there isn't a perfect answer to that question yet, but I can tell you the leaders who care about it for real are going to try to, first and foremost, embrace it themselves and show others that it's okay to feel the struggle and it's okay to try to take a step in the direction of sanity and health, not just clocking the hours.

Brilliant.

You're absolutely right.

And I think a lot of times, not just as leaders but just humans in general we forget the power of modeling the behavior we want to see.

We forget the power, the persuasive value of actually doing the things and showing people what it is that we want.

And so I'm really glad that you said that because, again, this is a negotiation podcast.

We like to focus on the words that we say.

We often overlook just our behaviors.

Those are really the most important things that we can do when it comes to being persuasive definitely an underrated topic as far as i'm concerned.

People learn vicariously just by watching others quite effortlessly, because they don't feel the risks involved in a direct interaction with the person.

It's kind of cool in the book i had the vampire, for example, one time after telling i'm not giving away too much here, but after telling his crew of misfit monsters to try and jump through something and go scare some kids, he actually realized how aggressive and maybe inappropriate he handled that situation.

And on round two, so to speak, he He realized he wanted to stand before them full of being vulnerable and showing the risks of potential failure and say I need to show you that I can do this before I can start telling you how you should be doing it.

And he modeled the way by demonstrating the behavior, not knowing if he's going to be successful, because he'd struggled too.

But in this case, he was successful.

And that's priceless.

Now it's not just a value espoused.

It's a behavior engaged.

I know some leaders are getting chills like, absolutely not, Todd.

I will never. put myself in that position.

But you're so right to see how powerful that is.

I think about it even in parenting too.

One of the most powerful things you can do for your kids is let them know that I'm not perfect.

And if you're a good parent, that's present a lot.

It's easy for your child when they're young to say oh, this is Superman, this is Superwoman.

They can do no wrong.

But I found a lot of value just being honest when I don't have it, when I make mistakes, and just owning up to it, because it makes it easier for the kids to do it too.

And I think just again, reinforcing the beauty of our own humanity is so encouraging and motivating.

It's essentially what we really crave in leaders.

But as leaders, sometimes we can forget that.

And it's very hard to be vulnerable in that way.

It is.

And I can tell your listeners it's a skill.

Over time you can learn meaning.

At least you can gain comfort with it.

I just applaud you saying you do that with your kids.

I know my boys are a little older than yours.

I got a sophomore in high school and a sophomore in college.

And we're basketball folks, players and fans throughout the years.

And we like to say I like to say to them, I've said it so many times, it's hilarious.

You got to shoot your shot.

I'm not going to all go in.

You got to shoot your shot.

You miss 100 percent.

So said Jordan and a million others of the shots you don't take.

And I really, really, really believe that.

So people know me for maybe two successes.

If I'm being honest, they don't know about the 15 that were ugly, crash and burn.

I've got plenty of them and they hurt for a period.

Then I learned, like you're supposed to, and tried to move forward in a more productive way, just like I did by switching formats in the book that I was sharing with you.

I just wanted to validate you and say, yeah, there's tons of parallels to parenting.

And I have definitely adopted the show them the imperfection part to my boys as well.

And I'd like to believe it's had a good effect.

Definitely.

No, this is great.

This is really great.

And I think this is a great way to wrap it up too, because it's an ode to continuous improvement.

Because you're not going to just listen to this podcast and be like, you know what, Todd's right.

I'm going to be uber vulnerable tomorrow.

It's just not how it works.

And I like thinking about it as a skill and just saying listen.

Every day, every week, every month, every year, I'm going to try to be a little bit more open, show a little bit more of myself and be that human leader that I want to be.

And I think that's incredibly powerful.

And I think it's just incredible and very impressive that you are able to show the value of human leadership through a vampire who's not a human.

Who knew?

I

Todd, man, I appreciate you.

Before you go, let the listeners know again about the new book and all of the LinkedIn courses and the best way to get in touch.

Well, I have two homes online.

Thanks for asking.

So there's drdewitt.com.

That's my personal site.

But where I spend a ton of time, of course, is LinkedIn.

If we're not connected, I'd love to say hi.

Please reach out on LinkedIn.

The book is Dancing with Monsters and it should be available anywhere on planet Earth.

You buy books.

Love it.

Todd, appreciate you, man.

Thanks for coming on the show.

My pleasure.

Take care, bud.

[Mastering Negotiation: Authenticity, Educational Processes, and the Power of Storytelling]-[Authenticity Builds Real Influence (Not Performance)]

📋 Summary

Negotiation Masterclass: Strategies for Influence and Leadership

The Professional Journey: Authenticity as a Negotiator

Negotiation as an Educational Process

Systems and Processes: The Introvert’s Edge

The Role of Candor and Vulnerability

Conclusion: Actionable Wisdom

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[Mastering Negotiation: Authenticity, Educational Processes, and the Power of Storytelling]-[Authenticity Builds Real Influence (Not Performance)]

📋 Summary

Negotiation Masterclass: Strategies for Influence and Leadership

The Professional Journey: Authenticity as a Negotiator

Negotiation as an Educational Process

Systems and Processes: The Introvert’s Edge

The Role of Candor and Vulnerability

Conclusion: Actionable Wisdom

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🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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