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From Linkedin News, I'm Jessi Hempel, host of the Hello Monday podcast. Start your week with the Hello Monday podcast. We'll navigate career pivots, we'll learn where happiness fits in.
Listen to Hello Monday with me, Jessi Hempel, on the LinkedIn podcast network, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello, my friends, and welcome to our live stream.
This is our first live stream on YouTube.
And we've done many live streams on LinkedIn, so welcome back to the LinkedIn friends, and hello to our friends on YouTube.
So why are we going live right now?
You might have recognize that there's something big happening in the news.
There's a big public feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
And I want to break this down.
And I want to make it very, very clear.
As I break this down, I'm not breaking this down from a political partisan perspective.
I'm not analyzing the politics at all.
So if that's what you came here for, this is not for you.
I'm going to analyze this from the perspective of what this means for you and your relationships.
So what can we take from this as we navigate our business lives, our personal lives, and what can we do to avoid situations like this?
Essentially, could we have seen this coming, and then if they ...
For either of those people, but more specifically for you, what could they have done to have avoided this situation?
So we're going to analyze this and make three quick points, and then we will be out.
But But if you happen to catch this live, leave your comments.
If I can catch what you're saying and you have questions for me, I'll take those live.
I think that'll be fun.
Again, the American Negotiation Institute is a nonpolitical, nonpartisan and not government affiliated organization.
We want to keep it nonpartisan as we go through this.
Again, the goal is to offer value to all of you so you can learn how to have better conversations positions and have better relationships and make better strategic decisions as well.
So really, could we have seen this coming?
Let's start off with that one.
I want to start off with this quote, the best predictor of future performance is previous performance.
The best predictor of future performance is previous performance.
So if you want to understand what is going to come down the pike as it comes to predicting the behaviors of other people, we have to look at their track record. What is it that they've done in the past?
When you think about Elon Musk and you think about Donald Trump, again, this is nonpartisan, we can see that there have been significant changes in their loyalties.
I'm going to check garage.
Oh, you know, that's what happens when you go live.
My alarm is telling me to lock the door and check the garage, so we are secure.
I will make sure to do that after the stream.
So, when you look at their track records, there are swinging loyalties.
So, with Donald Trump, if he can work with somebody effectively and work with them to advance his position, he will certainly do that, but the moment that the person loses utility, he'll let them go, and sometimes viciously.
And then, well, you think about Michael Cohen.
Obviously, they had a falling out.
I mean, And it's difficult to quantify all of the people that Trump has had a falling out with very publicly over the course of his career.
And then when you think about Elon Musk, it's the same way.
But most recently we can think about the fact that he was very, very liberal.
He used to be very far to the left. And who knows what his personal leanings are, but I think also business -wise, he recognized that a lot of his business came from folks on the left as well.
but he was very much in the liberal camp for a very long time, and then when it no longer served him, he ferociously switched to another side.
When you look at both of those track records, you can see that there is a history of changing sides in a way that could be detrimental to the people who they were partnered with in the past. That's not to say that that is their MO in every single relationship, but it's to say that, hey, if things go sideways, they will change, right?
So I want you to keep that in mind for your own personal relationships as well.
When you're thinking about who you're going to connect with and how deep you're going to make that connection, you have to understand what they have done in the past. One of the things that I like to do when I am meeting people for the first time and getting to know them, is I want to see how willing they are to share information about other people.
Not because I want that information, but because I want to see how easy it is for them to give up that information on other people, because that will determine how much I'm willing to share with them.
If they are just freely giving information about others that is sensitive in nature, then that means they are most likely going to do the same thing when it comes to you.
Don't expect that they're going to change who they are for you.
They might for a little bit, but it's not going to last very long.
So you want to keep that in mind.
I think this also calls into question vulnerability and trust just holistically.
And I know there's been a big movement as it relates to vulnerability and building trust. Be more vulnerable has been the mantra of late.
But when it comes to the business world, a lot of times, if we are overly vulnerable and trust the wrong people, a lot of times, we are just simply giving the keys to our own destruction to, in the hands, putting it in the hands of people that are willing to hurt us.
And I'm not going to go into the details of what has been said and shared.
You Googled that yourself, that might be why you're here.
But the accusations have been mind boggling, mind boggling.
And it's the type of stuff that you say, and you cannot pull back.
This isn't one of those things where it's like a little spat.
There's no coming back from this.
There's no recovery from this.
Even if they wanted to, they, they We have egos that are so big that they couldn't change course on this without looking silly to somebody.
And I don't think they can pull this back.
So when you're thinking about creating relationships with people and you're thinking about who you can trust and what you can trust them with, you have to consider what their track record was in the past. I've been developing this concept called optimal relationship distance.
I haven't talked about it publicly, but I think this is a good first time to do it.
different. With the concept of optimal relationship distance, it's the belief that every single relationship that you have has an optimal distance from each other, a certain amount of closeness that is appropriate and good for this particular relationship.
If you have a significant other, you can spend a lot of time with them.
You can spend all day with them and it is okay.
Let's say you're married.
You can spend all day with that person, well, maybe during the infatuation stage, but in an extended period of time.
You might not be able to do that same thing with your in -laws.
You might not have that same relationship.
You might not be able to spend literally all day with your colleague from work.
In fact, if you do that, it might be very detrimental, from 8 a .m. to 8 p .m. if you do that consistently over the course of the week, that the relationship isn't meant to be that close.
Sometimes it is the closeness of the relationship that actually leads to the destruction of the relationship.
Some relationships fail because they're too far away.
Imagine, again, with a significant other, if the significant other moves across the country and that distance lasts for a long period of time, the optimal relationship distance is far too wide.
You're not close enough for the relationship to be healthy.
So you always have to be trying to, you always have to try to measure the right amount of closeness and distance that is acceptable within a relationship.
The reason I bring this up is because Trump and Elon got really, really close.
Really, really close.
I think my hypothesis is that their relationship would be in, I won't say fine, but would be in a much better place if they weren't as close.
If Elon was simply just saying, all right, I'm going to make some donations, I'm not going to donate as much as I did.
Maybe I donate a few million or yeah, a few million is a substantial amount.
I offer my support, I give a public endorsement and I say rah -rah from the sidelines and then that's it.
me, but it was far more than that.
He gave significantly more revenue, like more than anybody in the history of the United States, I believe.
Not only that, but he also now was in the administration in a very meaningful way.
He was standing literally beside Trump every step of the way during major significant decisions.
And so when that happens, there's a level of closeness that in this case was too close to handle for the relationship, and it made it more likely for things to fall apart, and so I think because they were so close, it was almost like a ticking time bomb.
Things were almost bound to fall apart.
When you have people who have that big of personalities, that big of egos coming together and being that close, it's a matter of time before things fall apart, which leads us to the next point.
If I care about one thing, and you care about one thing, and then those things match, then And it's kind of easy for us to collaborate.
If I care about three things and you care about three things and those things match, then it's easy for us to just keep on going.
But if I care really, really deeply about 50 things and you care really deeply about 50 things, then it makes it much more likely that at some point there's going to be a conflict at some point with one of our competing interests.
And when you think about the complexity of Elon's business empire, and Trump's business empire, and the political decisions that he has to make as president domestically and abroad, at some point, there's going to be a clash.
It's bound to happen.
And they care very, very strongly about the things that they care about.
And so when you have them that close together, and then you also have them caring about so many competing interests, it was truly a matter of time before there was a clash.
The last point that I want to make is talking about the psychology of personality and people that are motivated by power.
When people are motivated by power, it is very, very difficult for people who are highly driven by power to collaborate for extended period of time unless somebody accepts a subordinate position.
So when you think about the people who are in Trump's cabinet and on his team and the people that he supported, in their own little verticals and silos, they had a lot of power and they were driven by power.
But the only way they could coexist with Trump is if they subordinated themselves to him and stayed under him and never really tried to threaten them.
So I mean, think about even Marco Rubio, Marco Rubio, remember back in the day when they were running in 2016, like in the election for 2015 and up to the 2016 election.
I mean, And they went at it.
They weren't friends.
They were not friends.
They had some very nasty back and forth.
But now what is he?
Secretary of State.
He has accepted his subordinate position in Trump's cabinet, and he's not trying to fight the boss.
It's kind of like in the 48 laws of power when Robert Greene said, never outshine the master.
And if you try to, then it's going to be a problem.
He's going to have to put you down.
And so what was interesting is that even though Elon had power in terms of the donations he was making during the campaign.
He accepted a subordinate position as the cheerleader on the sideline.
He's like, hey, this is my guy.
This is who I want to win.
This is who should run the world.
I'm on his team. That was his position.
And he could accept that subordinate position for an extended period of time.
Now Trump's been elected, and now we're actually in governance mode.
Elon's like, hey, I mean, this wasn't charity.
This wasn't charity.
I'm not one of these other little lackeys.
I put you here." That's one of the things that he was even saying very explicitly in this public spat that they're having right now.
You can tell that this was brooding for a long time.
You have two alphas maintaining a small circle.
They're both motivated by power, and they are too close because the optimal relationship distance, the proximity is far too close.
And then also we have the competing interests.
All of these things coming together, it was just a tinderbox ready for explosion.
And so neither of those two alphas were willing to subordinate themselves.
Neither were willing to submit.
And because of that, now here we are with this very, very public breakup.
And if I'm offering a prediction, like I said, I don't think it's going to get better between them.
But the reason I'm saying all of these things is that I want you to be able to not just focus on this particular situation, but focus on what it could potentially mean to you.
What could it potentially mean for you and what it is that you're trying to accomplish in your business life, in your personal life, right?
If you can start to pay attention to some of these dynamics, now you can start to say, all right, you know what?
This person, I recognize that we're not communicating very well, not because we're too close, but because we're not close enough.
I need to find more ways to get in closer contact with this person.
Or, Hey, listen, actually, you can't have too much of a good thing.
And me and this person are far too close.
We need to create a little bit more distance between each other in order for us to make this work.
So I might be in a professional space.
I might need to create some professional distance, right?
Whatever it happens to be.
All of these things are things to pay attention to.
If you recognize that you have a big ego, I think it's important to recognize that.
And somebody else has a big ego.
Those two egos often can't coexist very closely together.
So you have to figure out who's gonna be number one and who's gonna be number two or whether or not you should even try to make this work.
So those are the things that I wanted to pay attention to as we analyze this situation.
And again, don't just look at these situations that happen very publicly as something to sit down, get your popcorn, and enjoy yourself and entertain yourself.
Don't just think about it in terms of the doom and gloom of what this means for society or whatever that happens to be.
I also want you to think about what does this mean for me?
What can I learn from this?
How can I put this into perspective and actually put it into action into my life to make my life better, my business life better, my career better and my relationships better?" That's what I wanted to do with this breakdown.
Let me know what you think.
Let me know what you saw.
I wanted to hop on really quickly and make this happen.
All feedback is welcome, but this was something that was too big to just sit down and ignore.
I hope you found this helpful.
and if you're listening on YouTube, make sure to like and subscribe.
And if you are on LinkedIn, make sure to follow for more.
I appreciate all of you.
You have a good one.
I'll catch you later.
