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Welcome to this masterclass edition of Negotiate Anything.
With over 1700 episodes featuring some of the world's brightest minds, we've carefully curated a couple of 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'll see exactly why.
Let's dive in.
What if every promotion you've ever been passed over for went to someone who was simply better at building allies?
You've been there.
The meeting where your brilliant idea gets ignored.
The promotion went to someone less qualified but more connected.
Watching colleagues with half your experience become the go-to leaders, while you stay heads down and invisible.
Meet Ronen Olshansky, one of the world's leading experts in relational intelligence and CEO of Connected Success.
After early success on Wall Street and scaling his company cross campus into L.A.'
's premier co-working network, with seven locations and over 3000 members.
Ronen discovered the secret that separates good performers from great leaders.
In this episode, you'll discover how to build strategic relationships without feeling fake.
The specific language that transforms networking from transactional to transformational, and why soft skills are now the ultimate competitive advantage in an AI driven world.
Plus, we're tackling a real listener challenge.
How do you become a connector when you've always been the efficient heads down operator who thought your work should speak for itself?
Whether you're leading hybrid teams building influence without authority, or tired of watching less competent but more connected people get ahead.
This conversation gives you the tools to turn relationship building into career rocket fuel.
Are you ready to make your relationships your competitive advantage?
Let's dive in.
I'm pumped for this because.
We have had a lot of folks on the podcast talking about communication.
Persuasion and networking has been something that came on before.
But your approach is very nuanced and unique and I think optimized for the modern times.
But before we get into what it is that we're trying to accomplish with this episode, I want you to paint a picture for the person who's listening and answer this question.
So, if they're able to take what it is that we learned today and put it into action, what in their life changes?
Wow.
I mean, the power of the relationships, right?
I mean, without sounding too cliche, right?
We've all heard these things.
We are the people that we surround ourselves with.
No one ever gets there alone.
You know, your network is your net worth.
You know the people around you really define not just your business success, but even you know the research shows satisfaction in life right.
It's not just about the journey, but having people go along that journey with you makes it that much sweeter.
So I would argue that with relationships, I mean, everything can change.
Yes, I agree 100%.
And it seems like it's gotten harder for people to create relationships and maintain those relationships.
And I know a lot of people they feel it, but it's tough to put your finger on what it is that's causing that.
In your opinion, based on all the work that you've done, what do you think are the biggest barriers that are new in the last few years that are making it harder for people to connect and build relationships?
Yeah.
So it's interesting.
It's ironic.
It's gotten harder, but it's also the best time in the world for being excellent at relationship building.
So what holds us back?
One is something called filter failure.
We know thousands of people.
Where do I start is a common thing that the people that I coach ask.
I'm overwhelmed.
That's one.
The other one is we are still kind of coming out of the pandemic where everyone sort of leaned a little bit more introvert.
And I think we're all a little bit rusty now.
We're starting to go to conferences again.
Some of us are starting to go back to the office again.
Guess what?
The awkward water cooler conversation.
That's the thing again.
You know what I mean?
So those are things that I think make it a little bit more challenging today.
But you know, on the other side of that Kwame you can press a button, get on a Zoom and meet anyone on the planet.
I mean, think about that for the prior generation of folks in the working world.
That is insane.
That's a huge opportunity.
Yeah, you're right.
And it's something that we really take for granted.
I remember watching the Jetsons with my family and just teaching Kai the classics.
And it was so funny to look back on it and seeing somebody pop up on a screen and they talk to each other and they're like this is what the future is going to be like.
Right.
And that's where we are right now.
And it's become so normal that we just we just really take it for granted.
Yeah.
So it's incumbent on us now to maximize that opportunity to do as much with it as possible.
And that's everything from like making sure your Zoom game is up to par to you know, making sure you understand the dynamics of conversation.
Right.
Something that I'm sure you cover.
You know a lot in your program the psychology of how people connect and build rapport.
You've got to be great at all those things.
Sort of this well-rounded game.
Yes, I agree.
And before we get too much into the nitty gritty, I want to get into your history too, because for you you have a background not just in relationship building but actually community building.
And I'm wondering for you, the work that you do now, not even compared to connected to the work that you did before what would you say is the nexus between community building and individual relationship building?
Wow, it's a great question.
I mean, you know there's that whole steve jobs connecting the dots forward in your career.
When i was in my 20s, i left new york, i moved to brazil and opened a bar on an island in brazil.
No joke, one of the best years of my life.
But already i was passionate about creating shared experiences, bringing people together.
Um, Fast forward a decade, 2012.
I started a business in Los Angeles called Cross Campus.
And we grew that to be the biggest community-based workspace in LA.
We competed head-to-head with WeWork.
We had 5,000 members at the peak.
I raised tens of millions of dollars to grow that business.
But again it was bringing people together, creating shared experiences and creating community in the workplace together.
Now I'm training people in these cohorts from all over the world.
So again, you see that community and experience come in.
My business partner, Keith Ferrazzi, who you had on the program, I think, a little while back.
He's got this great way of thinking about networking.
And the challenge is to go beyond thinking about your network and to think about creating communities, putting yourself at the middle of a community, figuring out who you want to serve, what they care about, how you can serve them.
That's the next level in quote unquote networking, I think.
That's powerful.
Okay.
I don't want to just kind of do that as a drive by here, because that's really great, because that really that takes it to truly a new level.
Because now you're going to be connecting with a greater level of intentionality.
And for me, when I think about a community, I think about serving a community and not even in like a charitable community service type of way.
But if I'm part of a community, everybody has a responsibility to be in service of one another.
And so then it's really optimizing those relationships.
Because when I'm in a community, I don't think about extraction of value from somebody else.
But I think a lot of times when we consider the idea of networking sometimes inappropriately, people just think about it selfishly as extraction of value.
But if we think of ourselves at the center of a hub, it really changes our mindset.
Using this community-focused lens,
Yeah.
Yeah.
Think about it this way.
The community is not about you.
You're not the brand, right?
You are just the facilitator of the community.
So let's take a real world example.
You're a software, say enterprise software sales rep, right?
Yeah.
You want to sell, you know, let's say HR software to the community.
But if you bring people together and say I'm hosting a dinner and we're going to talk about how this software can help your business that serves you,
That doesn't work.
Now instead, if you said hey, we're going to bring together a bunch of leaders people strategists, and we're going to talk about why resilience is at an all-time low and why people are struggling to find meaning at work,
And I've got some great folks.
I'd like you to join that discussion.
Now you're creating a community that's brand adjacent to you.
But look, let's be honest, right?
Kwame, it could still serve your interest at the end of the day, but it doesn't directly serve your interest.
That's the nuance here.
Yes.
And people can feel that difference too.
And I think that's one of the things that holds people back from networking effectively, because it's almost like a dirty word.
There's a lot of negative stigma around it.
And I think maybe I'm wrong on this.
Maybe this is just me, but I feel like it's because we all have been networked at some time.
They throw their business cards like ninja stars and you're just like, oh, please.
You're talking to someone at a conference and they're looking over your shoulder at the next person.
You're like, come on.
Right.
I mean, it's the hunter hunted mentality that gives the word a bad rap.
Sometimes, to be honest with you, I prefer using the term relationship development.
Let's focus on developing your relationships and not take.
This word network and turn it into a verb, basically.
I agree, because that was going to be my next question, because I was, because I know for us, with negotiation we're, we're in this.
I don't I don't want to call it an identity crisis.
It's an identity opportunity.
Right.
Right.
We because I'm recognizing that people are afraid of the word negotiation.
But then, when they hear us talk about it, they don't feel as though we're talking about negotiation, even though we are.
So we're thinking about how do we rebrand in a way that is still true to what it is that we want to accomplish, without like running face first into predictable biases.
So I'm thinking for you all.
In the future, how do you see the word networking as being part of your strategy going forward?
Yeah, it's so funny because sometimes in our program I'll ask people, I'll do a poll and I'll say okay, you know, raise your hand if you like the word, if you, if you don't mind the word networking, or if you don't, some people just don't give a shit.
Sorry to, Yeah.
I mean, some people don't give a damn and other people are like well, it's a little bit of a slimy word, but let's get beyond the word.
The reality is this, human beings, for the most part, let's put aside sociopaths for a second.
The vast majority of us do not like feeling transactional.
It's why, for example, when you fall out of touch with someone, one of the things that that I coach all the time is like, instead of seeking newness, instead of going out and thinking about who can I meet that, that search for novelty.
You've got a bunch of gold you can mine in your existing network.
Think about if you go back in your calendar a year, and this is something that I urge people to do every week.
Go back like scroll back a year.
You will find someone you're like.
Oh man, I met with that person.
I had a great conversation.
We connected, we said we'd follow up.
I did.
And then it fizzled out.
Like, Look there, right?
And part of the reason why we don't want to reach back out is because we're afraid that the person's going to think well, what does he want from me?
We don't want to seem transactional.
And so what we teach is a mindset shift from transactional to relational.
And once you make that mindset shift and you build your networking system around that A, it ends up feeling better to you.
B, it ends up being more effective, more authentic.
It just works better.
So that's an important mindset shift for sure.
100%.
And I feel as though, and you're the expert in this, tell me what you think.
I feel like if you don't have that mindset shift, no matter what comes next, the approaches that you use, there's going to be something that's a little bit off.
Exactly.
And it's funny, the first two weeks of the eight-week program is all about shifting from myths to mindset shifts and getting past limiting beliefs.
What holds us back to mindset shifts?
It's so critical in anything you do.
And it's funny because when we look at the stats on people who went through this program, they often come in saying things like I need a system.
I'm overwhelmed, I need to know what to do, when to do it.
So I want the practices and the system.
And when we ask them at the end of it, what was the most transformational, they're like, 100% the mindset shifts.
Like it changed the way I view relationships as a whole, not just how I meet people and get them to like me, for example.
So yeah, mindset's critical in anything you do.
You've got to set up for success.
I agree.
And let's talk about the transformations that you've seen um, and i know you've you've coached hundreds of people and seen some epic transformations, but i want to see if there is anybody who has really stood out with uh, the difference between where they were when they started versus where they were at the end.
Yeah, i mean it's pretty um, it's pretty mind-blowing.
It's actually quite humbling and inspiring.
We've got people coming from all over the world.
So let's start there.
Like when keith and i first launched this thing, i was a bit worried, right.
Like Can we teach people a common system and language and framework, whether they come from Poland, Singapore or Texas?
And what we found is that we can.
There are certainly some people that come into it with a little bit more of a cultural or a family background.
That holds them back.
Things like don't let them see you.
You know, don't show weakness.
Don't help people too much.
They'll take advantage of you.
My family, for example, is from a Soviet background.
I mean, if you look at the Soviet Union and the people that came out of that, that environment, they've got that programmed into their DNA that it's like never.
You know, if you expose yourself to someone, you might end up in a gulag.
You know, three months later,
So so I guess, you know, coming back to your to your point.
There are people who come into this and they take out much more than just networking systems and tools and practices.
It fundamentally changes how they view relationships, how they view vulnerability, how easy it is for them to open up.
By the way, how easy it is for them to ask for help.
That's the other ironic thing is that it's really hard for us as humans to ask for help a lot of the time.
So we see all of those transformations and people are like man.
I went into this thing looking for X and Y, but man, I got Z out of it and it's great.
Incredible.
And I think this is a great opportunity to dig down into the psyche of humanity, because I hear that all the time.
Either whether it's from a negotiation perspective.
A lot of times, people don't get what they want simply because they are afraid to ask.
And then just in relationships, it's hard to ask.
I find myself of not, I was going to say afraid.
I'm not afraid.
I think it's a bit of ego, not asking my wife for help on the dumbest thing.
I would be wandering around the house aimlessly for about 17 minutes.
And Whitney's like, what are you looking for?
I'm like, I can find it myself.
Clearly you can't, Kwame.
What is it that holds us back?
Yeah, this is a fabulous one.
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By the way, have you heard of the Benjamin Franklin effect?
Yes.
Okay, so you know about that.
There's all these funny psychological nuances in our brain.
Yeah, I mean…
We can go we can go deep into the psychology of this.
I'm not a psychologist.
You're not a psychologist.
I don't believe.
I mean, so we'll leave it to the professionals.
But I think, on a practical, day to day level, what we arm people with, in addition to the sort of the mindset and understanding what, what holds them back, is OK.
Now you're asking for help.
How do you set set it up so that it's successful?
How do you make the ask?
Do you jump right into it?
How do you build towards it?
How many times do you ask?
But from a mindset standpoint, a psyche standpoint Kwame, I think the biggest thing that I coach people on is this idea of the zone of indifference, which essentially is you can control what you do and what you ask for.
You can't really control how someone responds, whether they say no to you, whether they ignore it.
So the best thing you can do is just put yourself into a zone of indifference and just don't even think about that.
Like.
You owe it to yourself, your family, the people that depend on you, to leverage your network in the right way, and just do it.
You know, that's kind of the best thing I can say in terms of asking for help.
I love that concept of the zone of indifference because, for me, I think about it through the fear of rejection.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the fear of rejection, because it's like, all right, I am afraid of the rejection.
That's something that's hardwired into us.
And then what I've trained myself to become more afraid of the the regret of not asking.
Because I can see, oh, like, wait, if I ask, potentially I could have this potential great outcome.
And if I don't ask, I guarantee failure.
Nothing, right?
I get nothing.
But if I ask and they say no, then I get nothing.
But I also get stronger because I realize I still survived after a rejection.
So why wouldn't I ask the regret minimization framework as a decision-making framework is so powerful?
I know, you know that, right?
Um, the, the classic example is, uh, Jeff Bezos.
Do you know this one leaving, uh, Yeah.
So Jeff Bezos leaving, I think it was Solomon Smith Barney.
He had a half a million dollar a year paying Wall Street job and he saw the internet rising and he's like I want to sell books on the web.
And he asked, it's the rocking chair test.
He's like when I'm sitting on the rocking chair.
Am I going to regret not having worked on Wall Street, or am I going to regret not having taken a swing at this massive paradigm shift in society?
So absolutely.
I mean, You know, regret minimization, mentally ask yourself, project like hey, if I don't ask this person who might unlock something extraordinary for me for help, imagine how much I'd regret if they're actually able to come through, support me as someone who cares about me and actually make a difference in my life.
So that's a great motivator for just just do it.
Absolutely.
And let's go back to the Benjamin Franklin effect too, because I think that's powerful, because it's so funny, because I love psychology not a psychologist, but I did study it in undergrad.
And I remember thinking about it because there was a situation, Benjamin Franklin, there was a guy who was talking to or was associated with in some way, but he always thought that the guy didn't like it.
Yeah, it was a political rival.
Oh, it was a rival.
That's even better.
That's even better for the story.
Because then what was it?
Benjamin Franklin asked for the favor.
He asked for the book.
Yeah.
And then the relationship got so much better.
And the idea is that a lot of times action comes before understanding.
And after we take an action, then we have to justify why we took that action.
If you help somebody, then the reason why you help them in most cases is because you like them in some kind of capacity.
And what I realized is that, especially if you're talking to somebody whose love language, the way that they like to show love is through acts of service, by not asking.
I'm actually taking away an opportunity for them to show how much they love me in this scenario.
And so I'm like, what am I doing?
Everybody's losing because I'm afraid.
Right.
Yeah.
Isn't that amazing?
Asking for help is an act of generosity.
Unbelievable.
Oh my goodness.
It allows someone to feel purposeful, fulfilled.
It allows someone to express their own generosity, which we know feels great.
So yeah, why don't we ask for help more?
Fear of rejection.
But also, you mentioned something really important, liking, likability.
There's something called the likability gap.
And You know, if you're a psychology wonk like you and I are, you might have you run into some of these studies.
But I love these studies.
You know strangers on a train.
They ask someone on a morning commute to speak to a stranger and they ask him beforehand how much do you think you're going to like it and how much are they going to appreciate speaking to you?
I'm not going to like it at all.
They're not going to talk to me.
And then afterwards there's this massive asymmetry where we underestimate how much people like us, how much they want to talk to us, how much they want to help us.
Insane.
That's wild.
And I love these types of conversations because it shows how much of our psychology is completely illogical and not based in reality.
It's so funny because we have to remember that our psychology is optimized for survival and avoidance of discomfort, not optimized for optimization of relationships and life and those type of things.
And when we remember that, we can start to become a little bit more intentionally skeptical of some of the things that we feel, because we're saying okay, do I feel this, as in this is the right thing to do.
Or does it just feel right because I'm a human and sometimes my psychology leads me astray?
Yeah.
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, we are pro social creatures.
And that's where our brains, I think, got confused to your point, like in our, in our evolutionary history.
We were self interested for millions of years, like I got, to protect myself.
And all of a sudden, we learned to communicate, and we become pro social.
And now we got to balance like my interest with our interest.
And it all gets, it all gets mixed up, mixed up.
So very often my coaching to people when, when I'm pushing them Hey, reach out to go back and look in your client list and see who you did business with where they were super happy, and like, go and like, reach back out to that person who you haven't spoken to in two years.
And they feel, you know, resistant.
I'm like, Just remember the research on the likability gap.
They're going to appreciate the reach out much more than you imagine they will.
And even just reminding yourself that helps kind of push people forward.
Yes.
I got a funny story about this running because I, when I was in law school, I worked at this law firm a great law firm during the summer.
And I had a great summer, made some great relationships.
I didn't get an offer to come back the next year.
And then the now fast forward to today, one of the lawyers reached out and sent the message.
And she said hey, I saw you were on the Mel Robbins podcast and it's been a while and I've been meaning to reach out to you, for you, for years.
But I was thinking maybe Kwame wouldn't be that interested.
Maybe he didn't have a good experience and things like that.
And what was funny is I for me?
When I was thinking about the lawyers of that law firm, I'm like maybe they don't like me.
Maybe they wouldn't want to connect.
And both of us were so excited to reconnect.
And we had the same insecurity that was holding us back from doing it.
It's incredible.
I was in London just now hosting a dinner for our community and someone used this term head garbage.
I love that term.
It's just head garbage.
It really is.
It really is.
And I think this gives us a good opportunity to talk about your concept of co-elevation.
Can you go deeper into that and help us to understand what that is?
Yeah, I mean, look, co-elevation, really, I can't take credit for it.
My friend mentor, business partner, my co-founder in this business Connected Success, Keith Ferrazzi, who's probably studied relationships and networks more than any other human on the planet.
That is a concept that he has developed over the last couple of decades and researched.
And the idea is we just, we elevate one another, right?
We go higher together.
And you can apply that in the working world in the context of your team at work, but you can also apply it in the context of your network.
If you think about the network as this group of people around you, let's say your sphere, let's say it's 30 40, 50 people.
We can get into the exact numbers.
That's its own interesting discussion.
If you think about them as just people, who you're trying to go from a low level of intimacy to a higher level of intimacy, ultimately to what Keith will actually call an RQ5, a relationship quality score five, which is there's so much history between you, so much shared history.
You've been generous.
They've been generous back to you.
You are now ambassadors for one another.
You are co-elevating with one another.
If you're systematic about developing those relationships with the right people again, it doesn't have to be a huge number.
Call it 30 people.
And you have 30 people who are ambassadors for you walking around this globe.
That is a powerful network.
So that's the sort of strategy is how do I co-elevate?
How do I get to the point where I have that co-elevation type relationship with the people I choose to invest my energy into?
And this gives us an opportunity to go back to the concept that you learned in England of head garbage too.
Because in my mind, I said, that sounds magical.
And it also sounds like it's a lot of work.
And the people that you work with.
They're high achievers, high performers and very successful in their career, but they still find ways to invest in these relationships.
So for the person who was listening, I know I heard that voice in their heads.
I heard it when they said, I don't have time for this.
What do you say to that?
The two biggest things we hear, I don't have time and I don't know enough people.
Look Kwame we, you know, in this discussion we got to stay at a high level, right?
The system that we designed.
We literally launched it to solve that exact problem right, which is, you know, when we say lead with generosity in any new relationship, spend the first six to nine months, don't even think about what you can get, just Think about what makes this person tick.
What are their struggles?
What are their dreams?
What are their goals?
And lead with generosity.
People go, okay, yeah, great.
That sounds wonderful, right?
All the research shows, Adam Grant, give and take.
All the research shows that that's a winning strategy.
Question is, generosity has to be a two-way street at some point.
We're not martyrs.
We only have a certain amount of time.
We can't be going around doing good things for people.
So how do we make it work, right?
That's the essence of the question, right?
And the answer is, I mean, I'll try to distill a bunch of stuff down.
But first of all, you have to have a system.
You have to be intentional.
That's the first thing.
You can't just go, oh, I'm going to invite this person to an event when I feel like it.
Or, oh, that might help that person.
If you try to do these things in the gaps in your schedule, they just won't happen.
So putting an hour, two hours into your calendar every week and knowing how to structure that time, being intentional about it.
That's one.
Two is think about the people who we're talking about.
Think about someone who you want to get deeper with and you want to be a line in their perception, not a dot.
You don't want to come in strong, hot and heavy and then fizzle.
You want to be touching them.
You want to be in their brain every two to four weeks.
More frequently if it's a new relationship.
Once you get to know each other, you can let a month, two months pass.
But if two months, too much time passes, you have this thing called relationship decay.
You're just not top of mind anymore.
So you need to build a system where you just peppering these people with small, what we call packets of generosity every so often.
That could be asking for help or advice as we determined earlier.
That could be just sending him a note saying hey, I was just thinking about you, like your former colleague at the law firm did.
That could be saying, hey, Kwame, you mentioned that you're into psychology.
I saw this thing.
I thought it might interest you, right?
It's the regularity that's important so that you're an upward sloping line in their perception.
Now, the final thing I'll say to this is Well, there's a good question.
Your listeners are probably asking themselves, which is well, how many people can I do this with?
And the answer is less than you think.
So focus is important.
It's not a numbers game.
Go deep with the right 20 to 30 people.
Don't try to spread yourself too thin with hundreds of people.
There's a lot here to unpack.
It was a lot.
But in unpacking it, I felt so much better because I'm following my amygdala here.
Because once you said, hey, this is how you have to do it, there was that spike.
Because in emotionality, I'm like, oh, this feels stressful.
I felt it.
And then when you broke it down it became, I noticed that, that stress kind of dissipate, as you kept talking every single point.
And it makes sense because maybe back when we were at an early stage in our lives where we maybe didn't have familial responsibilities, leadership responsibilities, community responsibilities, if we wanted to do something, we were just like great.
I'm going to start doing this thing now, whenever I have free time.
And now you are so right.
And it's one of those things.
Where it's like the sign of a brilliant insight is that it seems obvious in hindsight.
Because once you said you need to have a system and you need to be intentional, I was like duh.
Why didn't that hit me?
Because there's no other way for something to actually fit into my schedule unless there's a strategic plan and systematic approach to doing it.
And then also, it was very encouraging to know that we're not, and you're not, expecting us to do this with hundreds of people.
No.
Because I was thinking this is about to be a new job.
But no, we just go deep with the relationships.
We're going to be much better.
Yeah.
And, you know, there are people who always try to push that number on me.
They go, you know, 30 is not enough.
I want to go with more.
Look, if you're in a season in your life where you're investing more time into network development and relationships, fine.
Right.
I like to think that for most people, 5% of your week.
Carve out two to three hours.
I'll tell you how to use it.
But let's say you're raising money for a startup, or let's say you want to transition careers.
You might say you know what, over the next six months I'm going to allocate 20 of my work week to networking.
Okay, so you can push that number higher.
Or maybe you have a really awesome, what's known as relational memory.
That's a thing, right?
That's a type of memory where some people like Keith, for example, is a freaking machine at this.
It's keeping track of who you know, how you know them, who they know.
Like you know, if you can keep a lot of that in your head with a great relational memory, you can expand that sphere.
If you have an assistant that helps you execute stuff, By all means, you can expand it.
But for most of us mortal humans, 20 to 30 keep them on a dashboard occasionally prune that dashboard.
Make sure that they should still be on there.
And just focus on those 20, 30 people.
And I promise you six months a year out.
You're starting to get a pretty powerful tribe around you.
Amazing.
I am taking so many notes for myself, selfishly.
This has become a coaching session for me.
So thank you, Ronan.
This is great.
And now to be more generous.
As we spoke about, this is a good opportunity to bring in our listener question.
Sure.
Hi, Ronan.
I'm a mid-level leader in a tech company and I've always been told I'm efficient, dependable and great at getting things done.
But recently during my review, my manager said I'm not really seen as a connector.
That surprised me.
I thought my work spoke for itself, but I'm realizing that I haven't invested much in cross-functional relationships or even in bonding with my own team beyond the day-to-day
I want to change that, but I'm worried it'll feel fake or forced.
I don't want to start networking just because it's a leadership checkbox.
How can I build authentic relationships at work without coming off as performative or like I suddenly read a leadership book and I'm trying too hard?
Thanks, Morgan.
Oh, you're killing me with this question.
This is one of those things where there's so much that I there's so many different paths I can take it.
I don't, I don't even know where to start.
It's a great question.
Um, First of all, I mean, we haven't even talked about introverts versus extroverts.
That's the other thing, right?
So maybe this person is introverted.
They like to go inward.
They do great work, but they don't lean on people, right?
Introverts, it's even less natural for them to ask for help and to lean on a network.
But let's really unpack this, okay?
So, first of all, when you think about networking, 25 of your time should be focused within your organization, especially if you work for a large company.
Not out in the market like we all think.
It's not just about doing good work.
In the corporate environment, it's not about who you know.
It's about who knows you and what they think of you, what your brand is to those people.
And so what you're trying to do really is to build that brand of someone who leads with generosity, someone who's there to help, someone who will go out of their way.
And you can do that in small ways, right?
Your listener, the person who asked this wonderful question.
It's even little things, like celebrating people in Slack channels or showing up to someone's presentation because you want to be there to support them.
We talk a lot on this show about the importance of learning and staying sharp.
But let's be honest between work and life.
Who actually has time to read every single book that can help you to get ahead?
And that is exactly why I use Blinkist.
It's an app that takes the world's best nonfiction books and breaks them down into 15-minute summaries that you can read or listen to.
They have over 9000 titles, so whether you're into leadership, psychology or negotiation, they've got you covered.
Personally, I love to learn about a wide variety of topics, not just negotiation, but psychology, history and communication.
All of that knowledge works together to help me to be the negotiator that I am today.
This is the tool for you.
Go to Blinkist.com slash Kwame to start your free trial.
That's Blinkist.com slash Kwame.
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The important thing is focus less on the relationships within your functional area.
We all know that those need to be solid, because those are the people that you're working with day to day.
Where we miss out on is thinking about the organization in terms of broader networks, what Keith calls teaming out.
Look at the people who could help you, or you could help them, in terms of adjacent parts of the business.
Think about who could be a great mentor.
Think about who can be a great sponsor.
That's identifying the people.
But the question then goes further and says okay well, How do I do it without feeling weird or feeling transactional right?
There's something called the tall poppy syndrome.
Have you ever heard of the tall poppy effect?
You know about this, the tallest poppy gets cut down.
So you lift your head up, you're taking a risk.
I'll say a few things about this.
One, keep communications really efficient and not overly embellished, right?
Hey, Kwame, I'm super inspired by what you've done within the company.
I've seen your path.
I'd love to excel.
I love the company.
I wondered if you just sit down, have a coffee and share some insight with me.
Keep it really simple.
I admire what you've done.
I'd love to see how you've done it.
And if there's any way I can help you, I'd love to.
So keep communications simple.
And again, lead with generosity.
Find those people and just invest your energy into them, because it's critical.
You could do great work, but if you're not viewed as a connector or someone who helps or a quote unquote team player what sometimes you hear called a glue player your upside might be limited.
Yes.
And now I want to talk about the timing of this too, because the sequencing of this, I think, is important.
And you tell me if I'm off on this, because what you said just now was lead with generosity.
And what we talked about before was don't be afraid to ask.
And It sounds like what we need to do is when we are initially making the relationship and building the relationship we're leading with generosity, showing how we can help them and pour into the relationship.
Not overdoing it, but demonstrating that we are here to collaborate and I'm here to help you.
And then once you have established a relationship, then you can make that ask.
But at the beginning you make it really easy by keeping the conversation simple, starting the relationship and then making it clear that your goal is to help them as much as possible.
Yeah, 100 percent.
I mean, asking for advice is always an easy place to start now.
What's our goal, right?
Your, your viewers.
I know you think and talk a lot about, like the.
You know how do you elicit information, how do you know what's important to the other party, how do you know what drives them?
Your goal is to figure all that stuff out, but you need game time to do that.
You need to be with them at the off site.
You need to have the coffee with them.
You need to hear them articulating what it is that they're working on.
As you do that, you gain information to then help you lead with generosity.
But at first you don't have much to work on.
So a very good place to start is just a really earnest, very authentic Hey.
I'd love some advice if you're open to providing it.
And then have a great conversation.
Ask great questions.
Be focused.
Close the loop.
That's the thing a lot of people don't do.
Close the loop.
You know what?
If your goal is to be aligned in their perception and you need to ping them with something two weeks later.
The perfect thing is hey Kwame, that advice you gave me, I got to tell you.
Here's what I did with it.
I read that book.
It led to this and this, and it totally unlocked some cool things for me.
Hey, thank you for that.
That's it.
That's that entire transaction is just thank you for that.
Nobody does that.
Nobody does that.
It's a huge missed opportunity.
Yes, because I think about times mentoring something that's important to me.
And I think about times where I've mentored somebody and then they're just off in the ether and I never hear from them again.
Did it work?
I mean, what happened?
That's so that's so powerful.
You know what else?
It doesn't even have to work out well, right?
You know the power of reciprocity.
Let's say, someone made the intro to their buddy the CEO at the startup that you want to work at and the CEO ghosted you.
They never responded back to you.
Hey Kwame, just wanted to let you know I never heard back from that CEO, but I'm so grateful for the effort you made.
That was awesome.
If there's anything I could do for you, let me know.
It's like, you still feel great about that, closing the loop.
Now there's a tiny little bit of reciprocity as well.
Well, I couldn't help you.
Maybe there's another way I can help you.
That's brilliant.
That's brilliant.
You know the thing is Ronan, when people listen to this episode, they are going to hate the fact that they are fresh out of excuses.
Now, you've made it so easy for them.
I appreciate the simplicity and thoughtfulness that you brought to this.
And before you go, I want to again give you an opportunity to let folks know about your company, your coaching and how they can get in touch.
Yeah, that's awesome.
I appreciate that.
So we have now run this program.
It's called Beyond Connections for a year.
It's based on a lot of the principles in Keith Spell's selling book, Never Eat Alone.
But I also drew other things from his other books, as well as broader research in the market.
And the idea is, as we've talked about, networking can be very simple.
It can be habitual.
It can be something that feels good and you enjoy.
And when you have that type of system, all of a sudden it goes from being this thing that's always bugging you like oh man, I got to do this.
Why don't I want to do it?
To I got this locked down, right?
And the only way you can do that, look, books are great.
Let's say we could read a lot.
We could learn a lot.
But the big aha moment that Keith and I had was for people to really shift the way they connect with people and build out their network.
It's an action sport.
They've got to practice that in a community.
So we designed this eight week experience for That's all about content big workshops, small masterminds, one on one coaching dinners hosted around the world where, after eight weeks, you've built a pretty high level of intimacy with this cohort you're with.
And it's pretty awesome to see people coming out of that with like three or four like game changing relationships.
I went and traveled the Camino Real trail in Europe with these two women I met.
In the program for two weeks, like we've had people start businesses together.
And then the coolest part is after the whole experience is over, we invite everyone to celebrate in person in Los Angeles.
And boy, when we first did this a year ago, I'll never forget.
There were 65 people in the first cohort.
And like any founder, you try stuff out.
You, you know, you test things out.
It's like, you know what?
What if we bring people together in person?
And I saw people from all over the world participate.
I said, you know what?
I bet 15 out of 65 would show up because who's going to fly from Singapore to LA?
45 people flew in for the weekend and it was pure magic.
Amazing.
So that's a testament to the how solid that program is, because that is an incredible level of commitment.
So kudos to you, my friend.
Thank you.
Yeah, it's it's an it's a program.
But then there's the ongoing community that's very, very special.
And I got to tell you.
I mean, I look at some of the people I consider closest to me today and I've met them through Beyond Connections and I feel very blessed for that.
I feel blessed for the kind of work that we're doing.
And I would encourage any of your viewers and listeners to who want to take the next level and be absolutely excellent at relationship development, who want to be focused and systematic about their network, to think about this program.
Go to the website, apply and just book a call with one of our enrollment folks who are great, by the way.
And they'll just have a conversation with you, figure out what you're struggling with, what you're trying to accomplish, and see if it's the right fit for you.
Amazing.
Ronan, thank you so much for joining us today.
Really appreciate it.
Yeah, I enjoyed the conversation as well.
I feel like we can go on for hours about this stuff.
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.
Mark, thanks for joining us today.
Oh, it's my pleasure.
Thanks for the opportunity.
Yeah, absolutely, my friend.
So how would you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Well, I spent about 100 years selling chicken.
I used to work for Chick-fil-A Incorporated.
I started as an hourly team member.
I was awful.
We won't get into that.
I made my way to the corporate headquarters.
And I became the 16th corporate employee for Chick-fil-A.
Started working in their warehouse and their mailroom.
And that was about 45 years ago.
Had trouble holding down a job all those years within the business.
I worked all over the business.
I got to start some things, not because I was talented.
I don't think it was like, let the kid do it, let the kid do it.
And so I started our corporate communications group, and I started our quality and customer satisfaction group, so forth and so on.
Ended up doing a stint leading in field operations, led our training group, started our leadership development group, so forth and so on.
Took an early retirement almost a year ago after 44 and a half years.
I asked him, how long do you have to stay to get a full retirement?
But that's another story for another day.
So I took my early retirement and I have co-founded an organization called Lead Every Day.
And basically, I'm doing the same work I've been doing at Chick-fil-A.
We're just trying to help leaders grow their capacity and change their world.
And I tell folks all the time you can retire from a job, but I don't think you can retire from a calling.
And my calling is to serve leaders.
And so I just get to find new ways, different ways, new formats, new avenues to do that.
And so that's the journey I'm on.
Incredible.
So listeners, next time you go to Chick-fil-A, I want you to think about Mark Miller and say thank you in your head.
This is incredible.
I appreciate you being here today, my friend.
And today I'd like to just talk about some of the tough conversations that leaders have to have um, and i think we could take some insights too, from your new book.
So let's start off by talking a little bit about your new book in general and then let's shift to the conversations that leaders have to have and then some tips that they can keep in mind to make those conversations a bit easier.
Great uh, the new book is called uncommon greatness and the the core premise is i think at some level, everyone really wants to be great and i actually believe everyone and be great.
Now, there's some work to be done along the way.
And we decided to write this book for leaders, because I've spent my lifetime around leaders who are pursuing greatness, chasing greatness.
Again, nothing fundamentally wrong with that.
But most all of them ultimately find, assuming they achieve some level of greatness, that it's not fulfilling.
It's not life giving.
It's not soul enriching.
It doesn't last.
And many of them regret what they paid to end up where they are.
And so we have been encouraging leaders for decades to pursue uncommon greatness.
It's a greatness that actually focuses on eliciting greatness from others.
It's the leaders heart is to serve.
And yes, you need to pursue personal excellence to give you the moral authority to encourage and challenge and equip others.
But don't settle for common greatness.
And so if you buy that premise or not, even for those that may be saying, I'm not sure about that.
Some are going to say yeah, but how do you shift?
How do you How do you change the ladder?
It's leaning on one wall and you need it to lean on another wall, right?
How do you make that transition?
How do you make that shift?
And we would argue that it's about uncommon leadership.
Uncommon leadership leads to uncommon greatness.
And so I don't know how much of the book you want to get into, but we outlined five fundamentals.
I'll give you a quick backstory.
Some might find this interesting.
We started this work over 25 years ago at Chick-fil-A.
And this is not studying Chick-fil-A.
This is studying leadership.
All the books we've done, we've now done 12 over the last 25 years.
And we always begin with the question, what is universally true about a particular topic?
The books were never about Chick-fil-A, because Chick-fil-A commissioned these, so we could get better.
So we don't want to look in the mirror to try to get better.
We want to go out and study the very best in the world.
And so, 25 years ago, we assembled a team who began to ask how do you accelerate leadership development and, along the way, create what we might at the time have called extraordinary leaders?
Today, we call them uncommon leaders.
And again I'll spare you the details, but we worked a couple of years and we didn't know any better, because we're in the chicken business.
We had no concept here.
This was the first time we'd ever really tried to strategically and purposefully focus on leadership development.
Because what we found is that we didn't have a leadership bench that we needed.
And I don't believe you can outgrow your leadership.
And so our senior leaders actually asked me to figure this out.
How do we accelerate leadership development?
So we began this project and we spent a couple of years doing what today I would call qualitative research.
Now, there was a lot of desk research, but we interviewed a lot of people.
We did a lot of desk research, read a couple hundred books on leadership, studied global best practices and we began to form a point of view.
Well, here we are 25 years later, and we decided that we needed to update that work.
That very first work, I had the privilege of co-authoring that first book with Ken Blanchard.
Some of your audience knows that name.
His most famous work is The One Minute Manager.
But at the time he had three books on the bestseller list at one time and I'm still not sure anybody else has ever done that.
And so I had the honor of partnering with him to do that very first book.
And for those not familiar with Ken, he really popularized the fable, the parable.
And so we did that first book a long time ago as a business fable.
And so when we decided to refresh this work, we said OK, let's do a traditional book, like somebody called it, an adult book, like a real book.
By the way, I've written nine parables, so I'm a big fan of parables.
But I was challenged.
Let's give case studies and let's give data and let's give facts and let's make it for those folks that won't read a parable.
And so we went out and conducted global research, which we've done for several of our projects.
On this one, we ended up interviewing or surveying over 4,000 leaders in six countries.
And we were attempting to, A, we hoped that we would validate what we had discovered 25 years ago.
But if not, we wanted to know that.
And at the same time we hope that we would find new insights and new perspective that would help us kind of modernize the work we did 25 years ago.
And so this book is a fresh take at some timeless truth that we began writing about, thinking about and talking about 25 years ago.
Wow.
A lot of work went into this.
And again, to be able to synthesize that into the like key takeaways is powerful.
And while we're on the topic, let's talk about those five key takeaways and then we'll transition.
I'll give them to you really quick.
I'll give them to you really quick.
There are five fundamentals.
The first is to see the future.
Leadership always begins with a picture of the future.
What are you trying to accomplish?
What are you trying to become?
What are you trying to achieve?
If you're not actually trying to move people and organizations to a preferred future, I think, by definition, you're not leading.
I mean, we can debate what you're doing.
You might be managing, but I'm not sure you're doing anything that's adding real value, right?
Leaders are supposed to pursue a preferred future, and you've got to articulate that.
And hopefully it's bigger than something you can do by yourself, because I would argue, if you can do it by yourself, it's not that much.
Well, let's assume you can't do it by yourself.
That's when the second fundamental comes into play, and that's when you engage and develop others.
This is when you begin to rally people to help you make that preferred future a reality.
And we've tried, we try to simplify everything.
Like I said, we're in the chicken business or I was in the chicken business for all these years.
And so there's a lot out there on engagement.
And some of my friends have written that stuff and I want to honor all of that.
But we wanted to simplify it.
And we said we think engagement is really about how much someone cares, how much they care about their work, how much they care about their coworkers, how much they care about the customers and how much they care about the organization.
And leaders determine how much people care.
So we wrote about what do leaders do to help people care more?
So see the future, engage and develop others.
The third fundamental is to reinvent continuously.
And obviously it's a big idea, but it was central and core 25 years ago.
I think it's even more relevant today.
I meet far too many leaders that think change is a burden, or change is a nuisance, or change is an inconvenience.
I'm going, they don't understand leadership.
Our fundamental role is to create and sustain positive change in pursuit of the vision.
Like if you're not changing, you're not gaining ground.
Your current systems processes, habits and beliefs are perfectly aligned for the outcomes you're now achieving.
So if you want different outcomes, you got to change something.
And leaders understand that.
Progress is always preceded by change.
And so leaders get that.
It is core to what we have to learn to do and equip others to do in pursuit of that preferred future.
Two more.
The fourth fundamental is to value results and relationships.
And I'm going to go out on a limb here and I don't know your listeners personally, but here's what I'm going to tell them.
This is probably the most challenging of the five fundamentals we're going to talk about.
You say, well, what would I base that on?
Well, I've been talking to leaders all over the world about this for 25 years.
In fact, that first book's in 25 languages.
I mean, we've been talking to leaders everywhere and leaders tell us this is hard.
Well, I won't make you try to guess why it's hard.
I'm going to tell you why it's hard.
Most leaders have a natural bias.
You're either more results oriented. or you're more relationship oriented.
Now, I would guess there's about 5% of leaders who have an equal measure of both.
And I always tell those leaders, I don't like them anyway, because leadership is easier for them.
For the rest of us it's hard because you show up.
Either I'm a relationship guy or I'm a results guy.
And what we've learned over time is the best leaders value both.
You may not change who you are, and I wouldn't even suggest that But you've got to learn to compensate so that you can actually value both.
Jim Collins talked about a concept, the genius of the and.
We think this is a perfect example of that.
If you want to maximize performance, you've got to value both.
And that's going to feel counterintuitive to these results.
Men and women who say, no, no, no, I'll just focus on results.
You will suboptimize results if you focus exclusively on results.
And oh, by the way, this could be obvious.
If you focus exclusively on relationships, you will suboptimize results.
If you want both, if you want performance, you need to focus on both.
And that's that fourth fundamental.
You ready for one more?
I'm ready.
The last one, embody a leader's heart.
Embody a leader's heart.
Here's the context for this.
We believe that leadership looks a lot like an iceberg.
10% above the waterline and 90% below.
Those first four fundamentals are above the waterline.
And the leader's heart is the 90% below.
If your heart is not right, nobody cares about your skills.
And I think I can prove this to your listeners.
Think about a leader you know who has the skills and you wouldn't choose to follow them.
Well, why wouldn't you follow them?
They got the skills.
Because you don't trust their heart.
Peter Drucker, the late management and leadership thinker.
Many of your audience probably know that name.
I think the best leadership thinker of the last 2000 years.
He said the quality of character doesn't make the leader, but the absence flaws the entire process.
Leadership is about skills and heart.
And you've got to work on both.
And so we've come up with some heart habits that we encourage leaders to focus on so that they can become that leader that people want to follow.
And so that's the fifth and final fundamental.
Well, Mark, selfishly here, I'm saying to myself, this is great.
I mean, as a leader, it's so easy to forget the fundamentals sometimes.
And it's great to revisit this.
And I'm sure you see it and a lot of listeners see it, too.
There are a lot of elements of negotiation, conflict resolution, influence and persuasion that go into what it takes to be a good leader.
And going straight to what you said about number five, we have the skills.
The conflict resolution communication, negotiation skills are going to be part of it.
But as a leader and also as a negotiator, you have to be able to have that heart.
You have to genuinely care.
And there are a lot of people who are very tactical thinkers, very strategic, and they might be very technical, but people can feel that you don't truly care about the other side.
And if you can't convey that you care, probably because you don't care.
It's going to be very, very challenging to be persuasive regardless of how tight your skills are.
Yeah, it's hard to care about people if you don't care.
Exactly, exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, let me say this real quickly.
I don't know if you want to chase this or not, but I mentioned that the fourth fundamental to value results and relationships might be the most challenging thing for many of the listeners.
There are people in the world who are more challenged by the leader's heart.
They just don't have, they are a self-serving as opposed to a serving leader.
And a self-serving leader does not have a leader's heart.
And so that is where I encourage particularly young leaders, particularly men and women who aspire for positions of leadership.
I say start with your heart.
And you're going to work on skills forever.
But if your heart's right, then the skills actually matter.
Here's another way to think about it.
The heart multiplies the skills.
There's no replacement for them.
You know the story of Secretariat, the great racehorse.
Many may know this story.
When the horse died, they did the autopsy, which was standard procedure when you've got a horse that's worth that kind of money.
To be sure there was no foul play.
And they discovered that Secretariat's heart was twice the size of all the other horses.
Now, if you'd put that big heart in a mule, it probably wouldn't have won the Kentucky Derby.
But because the horse had skills and then it was multiplied by that heart, it became the greatest horse.
I mean, its records still stand.
Their records still stand today.
What is 40, 50 years later?
Because the heart multiplied the skills.
And so, for some of your leaders, they need to start with the heart and they need to say hey, am I a leader people want to follow?
Do I hunger for wisdom?
Do I expect the best?
Do I accept responsibility?
Some of these heart habits that really can make all the difference in the world.
Mark.
I think this is a great place for us to start too, because there's the temptation to just jump straight to the skills.
What should I say in these conversations?
But what we're recognizing here is that if your heart is in the right place, it doesn't matter what you say or the skills, because they will not have the same efficacy, because people can sense that.
And when you think about negotiation, we can negotiate externally with other people, but we can also negotiate internally with ourselves.
And it sounds like, when it comes to exploring that concept of the leader's heart, we have to have a sit down conversations with ourselves to fully understand what it is that we're doing and why.
And so let's say there are some leaders out here who are listening to this and saying okay, I want to go through this introspective process.
I want to negotiate with myself.
Where would you suggest that they start?
All right well, let me give these to you real quick, and then you can stop me along the way or we can circle back.
We've identified five heart habits.
The first is hunger for wisdom.
We believe that's a heart issue because it represents humility.
It represents a vulnerability.
You know you don't know it all, and you said, I'm going to be a lifelong learner.
And it positions you to add more value to others.
The first heart habit is hunger for wisdom.
I would ask your listeners, have you committed to lifelong learning?
And then could I follow you around a day, all day, and know that?
Well, how would you know that?
Well, are you listening to podcasts?
Are you reading?
Are you asking questions in conversations?
Not when you're negotiating, just when you're going through life.
Are you a learner?
That says a lot about your heart.
It says a lot about your heart.
Second, do you expect the best?
Are you an optimistic person?
Now, there are people who have a natural bent toward pessimism.
I'd say a couple things.
One is you got to work on that or you don't need to lead anything, because leaders are, as Napoleon said, dealers in hope.
If you're a pessimist, how are you going to get anybody to follow you?
I mean, really follow you.
They might be on your payroll, but there's a difference between commitment and compliance.
And it's real hard for pessimistic leaders to get commitment.
It's hard for them to rally people to a preferred future.
So again, you can work on developing an optimistic spirit.
Not that you're not grounded in reality.
The best leaders always are, but they believe in their own agency and they believe in the agency of the people that they have around them to actually change the future.
That's why their optimism is so powerful because it's rooted in their beliefs.
It's rooted in their heart.
So hunger for wisdom, expect the best, accept responsibility.
The best leaders don't place blame.
Now, if something goes right, they're quick to give praise.
And you can see this.
It's so fun after an NFL football game.
I can tell you who the successful quarterbacks are and who will be successful, because if, at the end of the game, they're talking about how well they played, or if they're blaming everybody else, that's all you need to know.
Right.
If their team won, the best ones are going to be talking about the linemen and the receivers and the coaching staff.
And if it didn't go well?
You look at some of these great quarterbacks who lose and they'll be in that press conference saying I've got to play better.
I've got to lead better.
The best leaders, they have this heart that enables them to accept responsibility.
Number four the best leaders.
The heart habit that they cultivate these uncommon leaders is to respond with courage.
People want to follow men and women who are courageous.
If you don't wanna have that hard conversation.
You think your team knows that you're not wanting to have that hard conversation.
And they're wondering, are you clueless?
Are you a coward?
Do you lack competence?
Are you engaged or disengaged?
And as leaders, when we don't have hard conversations, we are allowing our leadership to evaporate right before our eyes.
People want to follow courageous leaders.
And then the fifth and final heart habit I would offer, if you're only going to attack one of these first, like if you say okay, where would I start with the heart habits?
I would say it's with this one.
Think others first.
Now, that is not our natural instinct.
And I would guess in a negotiation, it's almost never our first instinct.
And I'm not judging how people negotiate, but I'm just telling you the best leaders think others first.
And what I mean by that is they're trying to add value to others.
They're trying to add value to others.
And I would encourage your listeners to try something.
Call it an experiment.
Take the next 24 hours.
I want you to see what would happen to your life and your leadership if you tried to add value to every person you encounter.
Now, there are people listening going, well, that's impossible.
Hold on, listen to what I said.
I said, try.
It's the trying that transforms you.
I mean, there's so many ways to add value to people.
You can encourage people.
You can challenge people.
You can resource people.
You can compliment people.
I mean, you make your own list.
There are probably infinite ways you could add value to another human being.
But here's the magic of it.
If I'm trying to add value to you, who am I thinking about?
I'm thinking about you.
Not me.
So I've shifted my focus.
So I'm wondering.
I don't profess to know anything about negotiating, particularly at a professional level.
But I wonder how that would change if you're thinking I'm trying to add value to this person in this process.
I wonder what that would look like.
I wonder how that would change things.
I know it'll change your life.
Here's my bet.
If you have listeners, it'll spend 24 hours trying to add value to everybody they meet.
And I'm talking about the person at the gas station.
I'm talking about everybody you meet for 24 hours.
How can I add value for this person or that person to this person?
I think they'll try it a second day.
And I think they'll try it a third day.
And I think it'll change their life.
Now, it's no substitute for these skills, but it'll start getting your heart right.
I had a coach one time tell me, he said, I don't know what to do with you.
I'm paraphrasing.
He said, when you walk in a room, you're not trying to take charge.
I said, well, you're right.
Thanks for noticing that.
He said, well, that's what leaders do.
I said, no, that might be what those chasing common greatness do.
I said, what I'm trying to do when I walk in a room is figure out how I can add the most value.
And maybe it's to take charge.
And maybe it's to take out the trash.
My wife will love this episode.
So you're going to go home and need to take out the trash, brother.
Take out the trash.
Oh, man.
Mark, what I love about this is that you can take these exact same principles and apply it directly to negotiation and difficult conversations for leaders and anybody who is out there having these tough conversations.
The hunger for wisdom.
Like I mentioned to you before, we have over 1000 episodes and I learn something new in every single episode, and I'm just excited to learn something new.
And when you surround yourself with information and knowledge and constantly feed yourself, your body and mind have no choice but to improve.
And so that's going to be a key to becoming a better conversationalist and negotiator too.
And if you're in a negotiation, again, I'm speculating, correct me here.
If I go into a negotiation, let's say you and I are negotiating which.
I would not want to negotiate with you, but let's pretend we were.
And I go in with a mindset I'm going to see what I can learn about you, about your perspective, about what a win looks like for you, about your history, about your bias, about your passions.
If I have wisdom, if I'm hungry for wisdom in this negotiation, I think that helps me negotiate better.
Absolutely.
Negotiation is an information game.
And I'm not gaining information if I'm just talking over people all the time.
It goes back to your example there too, taking control of the room.
I think it's a very old school and limited perspective there too.
Okay, if I'm negotiating with somebody or if I'm on somebody's team, do I want...
Do I want to negotiate or be led by somebody who takes control of me once I enter the room?
That's unpleasant.
Nobody wants that.
And so it really, again, these mindsets will change the way that you behave.
And then expecting the best.
If you go into these negotiations expecting that it's not going to work, then it's not going to work.
It's, what is it, Henry Ford, who said, whether you believe you can or you can't, you're right.
If you have that mindset, you're not going to be successful.
Accepting responsibility.
I have this concept called conversational leadership, where a lot of times I realize that other people blame the other side or the other person for the conversation going poorly.
But as negotiators and leaders, we have to take responsibility for the conversation going well.
If somebody's not performing well or they're being disrespectful or mean or rude, it's my responsibility to show them how to negotiate in the process of negotiation.
And then lastly, think about others first.
That goes straight to empathy.
I have to understand the other side.
I have to think about how I can help you find your victory.
I have to understand your victory and then try to help facilitate that victory.
And then I know that if I do a good job of doing that, you will be more willing to work with me as well.
So this tracks perfectly with negotiations.
There you go.
Well, good.
I was hoping we could add value today.
There we go.
I knew it.
I knew it.
Mark, this this has been an absolute masterclass, my friend.
And before you go I want to give you an opportunity again to let the listeners know about you, your work and the book again and how they can get in touch.
OK, thanks for that.
So my cell number is six, seven, eight, six, one, two, eight.
And I would encourage you, if you can, to put that in the show notes, because some people are driving 678-612-8441.
So I'd love to hear from you if you've got a question or if I can serve you.
My email is markatleadeveryday.com.
And the website is leadeveryday.com.
And the books are available.
All the books are available anywhere you buy books.
Oh, okay.
Yes, Mark, I will let you go.
But listeners, I hope you recognize what just happened.
That's never occurred on this show.
I thought you were joking.
You're not joking.
So going back to caring, listeners, when you care, you really care.
When you want to add value, you really add value.
And this is you showing it.
Mark, this...
This is exceptional.
Expect the text from me later today.
I look forward.
Let's stay in touch.
If I can serve you or anyone that's listening, let me know.
Appreciate you, brother.
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Thanks for the time.
That's the power of a masterclass.
One topic, multiple lenses, and real-world application.
Negotiation isn't theory.
It's practice.
It's self-awareness.
It's choosing courage over comfort.
So pick one insight today and apply it in your next conversation.
Because skill doesn't come from listening.
It comes from doing.
I'll catch you in the next one.
Hey, if you're still here, that means you really liked this episode.
So why don't you leave us a review?
Five stars, please.
That really means the world to us and it helps other people find the show.
And now, I will catch you later.
