ATHLLC4785932922

00:00:00.000 | A quick word from our sponsor today.

00:00:01.680 | I love helping you answer all the toughest questions about life, money, and so much

00:00:08.040 | more, but sometimes it's helpful to talk to other people in your situation, which

00:00:12.860 | actually gets harder as you build your wealth.

00:00:14.920 | So I want to introduce you to today's sponsor, Longangle.

00:00:18.200 | Longangle is a community of high net worth individuals with backgrounds in

00:00:22.220 | everything from technology, finance, medicine, to real estate, law,

00:00:26.040 | manufacturing, and more.

00:00:27.600 | I'm a member of Longangle.

00:00:29.480 | I've loved being a part of the community, and I've even had one of the founders,

00:00:33.040 | Tad Fallows, join me on All The Hacks in episode 87 to talk about alternative

00:00:37.200 | investments.

00:00:37.920 | Now, the majority of Longangle members are first generation wealth, young, highly

00:00:42.660 | successful individuals who join the community to share knowledge and learn

00:00:46.400 | from each other in a confidential, unbiased setting.

00:00:49.600 | On top of that, members also get access to some unique private market investment

00:00:54.400 | opportunities.

00:00:55.200 | Like I said, I'm a member and I've gotten so much value from the community

00:00:59.120 | because you're getting advice and feedback from people in a similar

00:01:02.320 | situation to you on everything from your investment portfolio, to your

00:01:06.280 | children's education, to finding a concierge doctor.

00:01:09.240 | So many of these conversations aren't happening anywhere else online.

00:01:13.160 | So if you have more than 2.2 million in investable assets, which is their

00:01:17.440 | minimum for membership, I encourage you to check out Longangle and it's totally

00:01:22.000 | free to join.

00:01:22.760 | Just go to longangle.com to learn more.

00:01:26.400 | And if you choose to apply, be sure to let them know you heard about it here.

00:01:29.960 | Again, that's longangle.com.

00:01:34.640 | Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading

00:01:41.160 | your life, money, and travel.

00:01:42.840 | I'm Chris Hutchins, and I want to tell a little bit of a story before I get into

00:01:46.520 | today's conversation.

00:01:47.560 | In the 1960s, six boys from Tonga were shipwrecked on a remote Pacific

00:01:52.600 | island for 15 months.

00:01:54.840 | And you might be thinking it turned into something like Lord of the Flies, a

00:01:57.880 | descent into violence, but that is not what happened.

00:02:00.360 | In fact, it was the polar opposite of that novel, which most of us had to read

00:02:04.480 | in school.

00:02:05.160 | And while in the fictitional book, boys descended into anarchy, murder, mayhem,

00:02:09.800 | in the real world, they actually got along well, they developed structure,

00:02:13.360 | they took care of those who were injured.

00:02:15.080 | And when they were found after 15 months, they were doing great.

00:02:20.640 | They were fit, they were healthy.

00:02:22.200 | So why is this book Lord of the Flies so much bleaker than reality?

00:02:26.440 | Why did kindness end up actually ruling in real life?

00:02:29.320 | Well, author Rucker Berman introduced this story and others in a recent book

00:02:34.600 | called Humankind, A Hopeful History.

00:02:36.560 | And he makes the case pretty convincingly that humans are basically kind, and they

00:02:40.640 | do better and thrive when they are kind.

00:02:42.840 | And that kindness is more human of a trait than cruelty.

00:02:46.720 | So if we can do better when we're kind, how do you hone and improve that ability?

00:02:51.120 | Well, that thought had me so intrigued by the title of Adrian Bankert's book,

00:02:55.000 | Your Hidden Superpower, the kindness that makes you unbeatable at work and

00:02:58.760 | connects you with anyone.

00:02:59.920 | And I'm so excited to be talking about it today.

00:03:02.400 | Adrian's an Emmy Award winning journalist who's reported on stories from all over

00:03:06.680 | the world, interviewed hundreds of people and celebrities.

00:03:09.560 | She was a correspondent and weekend anchor on ABC's Good Morning America.

00:03:13.440 | And she's the first woman of color to solo host a morning show as host of

00:03:17.880 | Morning in America.

00:03:19.360 | But her hallmark is kindness, and it's been a huge factor in her success and

00:03:23.840 | ultimately led her to write her book.

00:03:25.520 | Adrian, welcome to the show and thank you so much for being here.

00:03:29.880 | Thank you, Chris.

00:03:31.280 | Great story.

00:03:32.400 | It's funny because it's not always true.

00:03:35.160 | I recently interviewed a guy named Brandon Presser, who's a travel journalist, and

00:03:39.200 | he wrote about the Pitcairn Islands, which is quite more of the Lord of the Rings

00:03:43.760 | truth, but also was much older people escaping tyranny and a little bit

00:03:49.760 | crazier. So I just want to start and read part of the first chapter of your book,

00:03:53.480 | because I think it sets the stone for a conversation, which is there is an

00:03:57.160 | unbeatable superpower inside every one of us that is far greater than talent or

00:04:01.080 | tenacity. It supersedes strength and intelligence.

00:04:03.840 | It crushes selfishness, negativity and doubt.

00:04:07.320 | That's kindness you're speaking of.

00:04:09.560 | And that superpower is something I really want to understand.

00:04:12.880 | Could you just jump in and explain how it's a superpower that could do all of

00:04:16.000 | those things?

00:04:17.000 | Well, I gave a keynote speech just recently here, and my title of the speech

00:04:22.800 | was "The Purpose of Your Power."

00:04:24.960 | I think that people forget that kindness isn't just a pleasant thing to do.

00:04:30.240 | It's not just good etiquette.

00:04:32.320 | It's not just the way we should behave as if we're completely oblivious to the

00:04:37.600 | world going sideways around us.

00:04:39.320 | But it's a choice.

00:04:40.960 | It's a very intentional choice.

00:04:42.840 | And the purpose behind it is to provide stability to other people.

00:04:46.560 | Right now, we're in the midst of a very uncertain time in multiple areas.

00:04:51.320 | Just turn on the news.

00:04:52.520 | And a lot of people are going through personal battles that we don't even know

00:04:56.640 | about. And inside of them, they're just hoping that somebody will be kind to

00:05:01.800 | them, that somebody will remember them, that somebody will call them and tell

00:05:05.040 | them it's OK. And I think that a lot of times with kindness, we think, oh, I've

00:05:09.200 | got to try really hard to be a good person or, oh, you know, I've got to give

00:05:13.120 | these people a break and be nice to them.

00:05:15.400 | And it's funny because now that I've worked on kindness for a while, I don't

00:05:20.320 | know that I would say it's inherently who we want to be as people.

00:05:24.800 | I think that a lot of times we want to just get the quick fix or we can be

00:05:28.760 | selfish. But I think it's the thing that we all crave to receive from other

00:05:33.520 | people. And so when we give people the one thing that we universally want,

00:05:39.120 | somebody to be kind to us, somebody to treat us in a humane fashion, someone to

00:05:43.320 | think of us, to remember us, to be friendly to us, then the power behind

00:05:49.760 | that is that not only does that person get helped, but we become inspired, we

00:05:54.520 | become encouraged, we become more the person that we really do desire to be,

00:05:59.280 | but don't always act in alignment with.

00:06:02.080 | And so I think there's something very powerful about giving someone the

00:06:05.680 | consideration that has a mutual reciprocity, that has that power to put

00:06:10.680 | us in a better mood and them in a better mood. And do more than that, really

00:06:14.040 | give oxygen to our lungs and keep us going and not quitting.

00:06:17.560 | And is it somewhat self-fulfilling? If it feels hard to start practicing this

00:06:22.720 | more and more regularly, is it something that as you do it, and you see the

00:06:25.520 | reaction becomes easier?

00:06:26.880 | I don't think it's hard. That's the thing. It's really not hard. List the

00:06:31.400 | 15 times in the recent history that you were in a environment with somebody,

00:06:35.720 | maybe you were interviewing them on your podcast, and they said something in

00:06:39.920 | error. And you could have corrected them, whether it's their grammar or fact,

00:06:45.960 | you know, they were just factually in error because they were talking very

00:06:49.800 | fast. And instead of correcting them, you just let them talk. And eventually

00:06:54.480 | over the process of listening, they actually were able to spit out the

00:06:58.080 | sentence in a way that you could edit around it without having to super

00:07:01.760 | critique them in that moment. That's an act of kindness. I don't think it's

00:07:05.560 | hard. I just think it's a choice. I work in a live studio environment. And so

00:07:10.080 | there are times when you want it to be a little quieter on the set. But as the

00:07:14.320 | host of the show, that's not my job to make it quieter on the set. It's the

00:07:17.680 | stage director's job to make it quieter on the set. So my kindness is keeping

00:07:21.600 | myself in my lane, and trusting that other person to do their job instead of

00:07:26.400 | thinking cut, I wish somebody would do their job. That's a kindness, deciding

00:07:30.960 | to trust somebody. So I think it's really more of you know what, I'm going

00:07:34.880 | to stay calm in this moment. And right now, that's at a premium. There are a

00:07:39.400 | lot of people who blow up there are a lot of people, I just looked up the

00:07:42.720 | word stability. One of my favorite definitions from Merriam Webster's

00:07:46.800 | dictionary is not radioactive, not spontaneously radioactive, like, a lot

00:07:52.600 | of people can blow up easily, whether it's rush hour traffic, or it's at

00:07:56.640 | their kids or their spouse or partner. And it's like, everybody's kind of

00:08:00.960 | asking for a chill pill right now, like, can you please just keep it chill. And

00:08:06.240 | we want that for ourselves. So if we can put ourselves in somebody else's

00:08:10.480 | shoes and use that empathy that we use that word so often now, but it really is

00:08:14.240 | about putting ourselves in the position of somebody else, we can think, you

00:08:17.000 | know what, I can keep my mouth shut for five minutes, I can wait until this

00:08:20.200 | next commercial break to express myself. And then just in terms of everyday

00:08:23.520 | life, going to the grocery store, going to pick up your kids from school, like,

00:08:26.800 | there's always going to be some interruption. Can you just hold on for

00:08:32.160 | five minutes? Can you just hold on for one hour? Can you just hold on until you

00:08:36.480 | get off at 5pm? Yes, most of us can. And that's the kindness, it's the choice to

00:08:42.920 | hold on. Just take it day by day, take it hour by hour, take it every 15 minutes,

00:08:47.920 | if you have to. That choice is something once we put it in bite sized pieces

00:08:51.600 | becomes very easy.

00:08:52.600 | I think we all want to do this. I have a few times in my history where I'm sure

00:08:57.440 | I've been on the giving side of an annoying kind of blow up in an argument.

00:09:01.480 | And after the fact, I'm like, gosh, I wish I just paused and took a break. But

00:09:05.480 | in the moment, it's much harder. Is there a practice or something to think about

00:09:09.560 | that makes it top of mind for you?

00:09:11.200 | I don't have my other cell phone near me. But it says hot mic on it. And this is

00:09:15.520 | my easy way to do this. Imagine that the person or persons next to you all have

00:09:20.800 | their cell phone out and they're going to roll on you in the next few minutes.

00:09:25.360 | And so your reaction is potentially going to go viral. Now, I'm not trying to

00:09:30.120 | use a scare tactic, but it's that thought of, there's going to be video

00:09:34.360 | proof of how I behave. Now, I have to live with that reality every single day.

00:09:40.400 | But if we all acted like we were on national television, that to me is just

00:09:45.000 | enough of a trigger for me to think, wait, just wait a second. Would I want

00:09:49.760 | this on video? And would I want this on TikTok all around the world? No, not so

00:09:54.280 | much. So let me just chill. That helps me. I hope that helps somebody else out

00:09:59.120 | there.

00:09:59.520 | No, I think the kind of subtle reminders, whether they're post-its you put on

00:10:03.840 | your computer screen, or whether they're changing your background on your phone,

00:10:07.280 | those little tricks, I think sometimes help people. And what I meant earlier

00:10:11.560 | was once you start doing it more regularly, maybe it actually becomes

00:10:15.000 | easier. I think Nir Eyal, who wrote a book called Indistractable, says, "Hey,

00:10:19.840 | whenever you're feeling that urge to go pick up your phone and check Instagram

00:10:24.680 | or Twitter or TikTok, pause for a second and just feel what it feels like to want

00:10:28.880 | to go do that. And maybe at the beginning, you just still go do it. But

00:10:32.440 | the more you understand, "Oh, that's the internal feeling of I'm having this

00:10:37.240 | desire to do something that I know is bad for me, that I know I don't want to

00:10:40.840 | do." Step one is feel what it feels like so you can work on recognizing it.

00:10:45.040 | Yeah, I think we do need to get more in touch with the feeling, whether it's

00:10:48.680 | positive or negative. It's just like, "Okay, what am I processing right now?

00:10:52.160 | What's going on in my head that's making me want to either blow up or run away?"

00:10:56.720 | Because a lot of us have a fight or flight tendency in our DNA. And it's

00:11:00.400 | like, rather than have conflict, even if we don't mind a conflict, we would

00:11:04.840 | rather just walk out. And we can't always do that. So having a word that

00:11:09.360 | calms you down, having a song that you sing. And I think if you can come up

00:11:13.680 | with some little mini mantras, so that when things do get tense, innocuous

00:11:18.480 | mantras. There was a gentleman that I worked with, and I got a little bit

00:11:21.760 | heated with at one point. And I said, "Listen," I said, "I apologize, because

00:11:25.080 | I could have come off a lot kinder there." I said, "If you ever notice me

00:11:28.720 | getting that way, and maybe you think I haven't noticed, I want you to signal

00:11:34.240 | me. And this is how you're going to signal me. I want you to say

00:11:37.960 | jalapeno." And I said, "Jalapeno is the code word between you and me that

00:11:43.160 | things are getting a little too hot in here, and we need to turn it down a

00:11:46.040 | notch." And he laughed out loud. I mean, it was just like a fun, innocuous way

00:11:50.360 | to remind ourselves not to get too irritated, or not to get too spicy with

00:11:55.720 | one another. So it worked.

00:11:57.240 | I just did a run, Robin Arzon from Peloton, and they have these outdoor

00:12:01.880 | runs. And she has a similar thing where she's like, "Pick a word when you're

00:12:05.360 | running, and anytime it's hard, just repeat the word." And for her, it was

00:12:09.040 | "Outlast." I'm not training for a marathon or anything, but I am trying

00:12:12.760 | to beat records every time I run. And that idea of having a word, whether you

00:12:16.440 | repeat it to someone or to yourself, I found personally to be really helpful. I

00:12:20.400 | probably stole her word. I probably should come up with my own. But "Outlast"

00:12:23.160 | seemed like a good word to remind yourself when trying to complete a

00:12:26.080 | physical challenge.

00:12:27.400 | Yeah, well, and really, like deciding to be kind in a world that can be very

00:12:31.400 | unkind is as physical as it gets. You will have a visceral response sometimes

00:12:36.400 | to pressure and stress. And being kind is the last thing you want to do. You

00:12:40.440 | either want to tell somebody what you really think, or you want to get the

00:12:43.840 | heck out. I didn't write the book to have some utopian idea of, "Oh, let's

00:12:50.040 | just all just be really sweet to each other." I wrote it because I wanted

00:12:53.480 | people to start seeing themselves as kind as an identity, not as an act.

00:13:00.160 | Because whatever you believe you are is what you'll attract. But also,

00:13:04.600 | whatever you believe you are, you will stay true to. Even if you mess up, even

00:13:08.040 | if you stumble, you're going to return back to that baseline of who you see

00:13:12.800 | yourself as. So if you see yourself as kind, not just somebody who can be kind,

00:13:17.600 | but your full identity as a person is kind, then you can come back to

00:13:23.520 | center. That will be your North Star. If you think, "I'm kind when I'm in a

00:13:27.760 | good mood," or "I'm kind after I have coffee," then you are limiting

00:13:31.960 | yourself and stressful situations may put you over the edge and you may not

00:13:37.000 | even realize how little control you have over your emotions in those times.

00:13:40.280 | Sometimes the things that you might say don't necessarily come off as kind. And

00:13:45.520 | I'll give a fun example, which was I interviewed a guy named Mike Hayes, who

00:13:50.000 | was a former Navy SEAL commander. And he was giving a lecture and a student

00:13:54.960 | asked a question that was one of those questions that was kind of annoying.

00:13:57.960 | Trying to tell the whole room how great they are before they asked the

00:14:01.200 | question. And his response was, "Hey, I'm going to pause you and tell you

00:14:04.640 | you're a bad question asker. And in the moment, you're probably feeling really

00:14:08.120 | small. But otherwise, I'm going to let you go on through life asking

00:14:12.400 | questions terribly and have all these people..." So he meant it in the nicest

00:14:15.480 | way. But it certainly is sometimes hard for those things to come across kind.

00:14:20.000 | How do you balance that?

00:14:21.480 | I think that a lot of times kindness does get this wrap of, "Oh, it has to be

00:14:26.960 | said in the most sugary, sweet way. Otherwise, it's not kind." When the

00:14:32.000 | truth of the matter is, sometimes tough love really is truly love. Sometimes

00:14:36.520 | being kind looks like criticism, but it's the best thing you could do. It

00:14:40.800 | will save your life, your career over the course of your relationships.

00:14:44.800 | Because that'll be the reality check. I can't tell you how many times when

00:14:47.760 | somebody gets got, not got in my face, like in a confrontational way, because

00:14:51.960 | there's a difference between confronting and offering constructive feedback, but

00:14:56.240 | just told me like, "Listen, A, I got to tell you the truth because I don't know

00:15:00.760 | that anybody else will." And it was just a lifesaver of information. But there

00:15:06.160 | aren't a lot of people who are that honest. And if they don't love you or

00:15:10.880 | care about you, if they don't have that desire to make you better, then

00:15:16.240 | they'll just let you keep doing what you're doing. But if they are kind

00:15:19.680 | enough to be super upfront with you and to tell you something that will

00:15:22.840 | actually help you be better and be who you really want to be, then that's

00:15:26.480 | absolutely kind, even if the delivery stings a little bit.

00:15:29.120 | There's a book that I read when I was running a company called Radical

00:15:32.640 | Candor. And it highlights that if you don't build the relationship for

00:15:36.800 | someone to know that that feedback comes from a good place, then even if

00:15:41.960 | your intentions are good, it's probably not going to land on the delivery. So

00:15:46.320 | you have to spend time cultivating the relationship for someone to say, "Oh,

00:15:50.240 | they're probably trying to help me improve when they tell me that the work

00:15:54.200 | I just delivered was terrible."

00:15:55.560 | And I think that too, there's two kinds of people in this world. For the

00:15:59.560 | majority of people that you are going to have to nurture that relationship

00:16:02.880 | before you can be that honest with them. But there is a small, I would say a

00:16:07.120 | radically small group of people who can handle that kind of honesty and

00:16:12.520 | frankness, like you're talking about, no matter how it's delivered, because

00:16:16.200 | they're so hungry. Like the hungriest hunters, the people who are so

00:16:20.600 | teachable, the ones who are willing to pay the highest price, and there's more

00:16:24.080 | than one person on the planet who thinks like that, they will take it

00:16:27.160 | however they can get it because their ultimate goals are higher than their

00:16:30.960 | feelings. And they're not going to let sensitivity stop them from growing.

00:16:35.240 | Does it sometimes hurt still? Absolutely. But the top 1% of people had

00:16:40.240 | to put their feelings aside, in order to grow through those painful

00:16:44.200 | experiences that looked like an insult, but really was the billion dollar idea

00:16:49.360 | to their success.

00:16:50.280 | I don't know if I'm necessarily want to put myself into that when you called it

00:16:54.000 | the top percent. But I do love feedback. And I find that people in general don't

00:16:59.320 | like giving it because they are kind and they want people to feel good. But

00:17:03.280 | for me, it most comes around when I'm cooking, and I'll make something for

00:17:06.880 | dinner, and I serve it to everyone. They're like, "This was so good." I'm

00:17:09.520 | like, "Great, thank you. I appreciate that you enjoy it. But what could I do

00:17:13.520 | so that when I make this dish next time, it's even better?" And I find it so

00:17:17.960 | difficult to pull out the criticism from people. So if we reverse this, any

00:17:23.720 | tips for someone trying to seek criticism in a world where sometimes

00:17:27.400 | people don't like giving it?

00:17:28.760 | Well, I think number one is I would use a more real life situation than your

00:17:32.160 | cooking. Because I think cooking, as much as you probably love the idea of

00:17:36.400 | just cooking, I want to ask you, have you ever been in a situation where you

00:17:41.160 | knew that this person was wiser than you, more experienced than you, wealthier

00:17:46.000 | than you, and you knew that you could learn and glean from them, but you

00:17:49.760 | didn't know what to ask to get them to be really upfront? Have you ever been in

00:17:53.720 | that situation?

00:17:55.280 | I'm sure I have. An example doesn't come to mind. But sometimes I've

00:17:59.240 | interviewed people who have their own successful podcasts or TV shows with the

00:18:05.160 | goal at the end. And I was... I planned to do this with you. But we're a little

00:18:08.920 | bit of the ways in. And ask for feedback on my ability to interview, on my

00:18:13.680 | running an interview. I haven't gotten a lot of feedback. People are kind of

00:18:17.520 | like, "Oh, you did a great job. Good job." And I'm like, "No, thank you. But I

00:18:21.680 | know that you've done this more than me. I know there's something I can learn

00:18:24.840 | from you." And I find it difficult to pull that out sometimes.

00:18:28.040 | I think that number one thing I would do is I'd take myself out of it. And I'd

00:18:32.200 | say, "What would you tell..." And then I would give a category. Young

00:18:36.160 | entrepreneurs, or whatever definition of the category of people that you place

00:18:41.280 | yourself in. And say, "What would you tell your 20-something or 30-something

00:18:46.040 | self?" Start there. And then the next question is, "I'm giving you permission

00:18:54.080 | to be really direct with me. What would you say that I should take away from

00:18:59.000 | this conversation?" And see what they say. Now, again, a lot of the smartest

00:19:04.200 | people in the room can be very blunt, but they might want to know that they

00:19:08.840 | nurtured a relationship. They don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. They've

00:19:11.680 | learned, like you said, a long time ago, that it doesn't pay to make somebody

00:19:16.680 | feel lousy right after they just met you. First impression, right? But when

00:19:22.240 | they are able to make a broader stroke, and it's not so personal, like, "What

00:19:26.120 | can you do?" Then it actually lands better because you can apply it not

00:19:31.840 | only for your life, but you can talk to anybody in your peer group and give

00:19:34.920 | them the same piece of wisdom. I just learned that a lot of people don't

00:19:39.040 | really want the truth. You can't handle the truth. And I want to be kind to

00:19:44.680 | you. I want to help you. But it requires that you almost kind of have it coming

00:19:49.600 | out of your eyeballs and your pores, that I am so hungry to learn and be a

00:19:54.760 | student of this moment and be a student of life and be a student of those who

00:19:58.280 | are more advanced than me, that I can hear anything. And you can say that to

00:20:02.520 | your blue in the face, but unless you're really admitting it, unless you're

00:20:05.080 | really like sending it out into the universe, they can smell that. It's like

00:20:09.280 | they can smell fear.

00:20:10.440 | Well, I can promise you that I am in that camp. So before we wrap this

00:20:15.200 | conversation, be thinking about anything I could be doing because you

00:20:19.040 | have 10 times the experience or maybe 100 than I do. But before I ask you

00:20:25.040 | that, I want to know, can people ever be too kind? Can there be a

00:20:28.720 | circumstance where there's just too much kindness in a room in a

00:20:32.000 | conversation?

00:20:32.840 | No, because kindness and niceness are different. I think you can be too nice.

00:20:37.440 | I think you can be again, afraid to hurt somebody's feelings, afraid to

00:20:40.920 | make a bad impression. Fearful of anything will cause you to compromise

00:20:45.240 | your standards and compromise who you really are. But I think that being

00:20:48.800 | kind means kind of being self aware. And at the same time being very, very

00:20:52.720 | aware of other people and knowing what maybe they could handle what the room

00:20:56.240 | could bear. Again, reading the room is so key. In speaking to a group

00:21:00.560 | recently, there were two big meetings. And I could have given the same

00:21:03.840 | speech twice, nobody would have complained. The first speech was great.

00:21:07.680 | I could have just hit replay on my memory and busted out this

00:21:10.800 | extemporaneous speech, and probably had a better delivery because I've

00:21:14.280 | already done it once before in front of a live audience, right. But there

00:21:17.520 | was the gentleman who was kind of escorting me through my different

00:21:20.000 | stuff. And he said, Wow, he was like, you didn't give a cookie cutter

00:21:22.640 | message. I said, different room, different need. I was like, you have

00:21:25.880 | to know what the room will bear. There's one way to read the room by

00:21:29.760 | actually going around and kind of surveying people like before the event

00:21:34.480 | starts and shaking hands and kind of networking and breezing through and

00:21:38.520 | kind of getting a little focus group going of the experiences of the

00:21:42.280 | different people that you've met, you can make a judgment based on the age

00:21:45.920 | of the average attendee. But eventually you get practiced in

00:21:50.720 | discerning what it is that a room actually is looking for. Why am I

00:21:56.600 | really there? Some of that is research and development. But

00:22:00.320 | otherwise, that's actually time and experience and tenure of going and

00:22:04.760 | speaking to crowds and learning about people and human engagement, and

00:22:09.000 | just being fully present. And that comes through kindness, because when

00:22:12.360 | I'm kind, I'm so aware of the other people around me, that I almost have

00:22:17.440 | what I call in the book, a sixth sense, an intuition that helps me to

00:22:22.200 | understand people better.

00:22:23.840 | Is there an example of a time where you read the room and it altered what

00:22:28.760 | you were going to say or how you're going to say it that you could share?

00:22:31.080 | Yeah, I gave a speech and I thought I was going to talk about just kindness

00:22:35.280 | as your superpower, you know, let me just give the delivery of my book,

00:22:39.600 | and I'll give a couple examples, and I'll have fun. But I just got really

00:22:44.640 | quiet. And when you're quiet to me, and you hear this from all the top

00:22:49.160 | minds and thought leaders in the world is that that quiet time can be so

00:22:53.320 | creative and able to tap you in to the space that you need to be in. But I

00:22:57.960 | ended up getting a word, just one single word of what this group needed.

00:23:02.800 | And I went into the room, and I'm listening to the beginning parts of the

00:23:08.360 | awards program. And at one point, they're honoring somebody who died.

00:23:14.720 | And at one point, they're honoring somebody who was in the ICU. And

00:23:19.440 | there's tears and they're crying on the stage right before I'm about to

00:23:23.200 | give my big speech. And I was like, I'm so glad I got quiet. Because the

00:23:29.920 | word that I gotten and the situation that I was in, caused me to connect

00:23:33.920 | the dots in a different way when I delivered that speech, because you can

00:23:38.200 | go into a room and you can be really fun and engaging and exciting. But

00:23:43.080 | they were all very emotional, and a bit raw. And so they needed

00:23:47.960 | encouragement, but they didn't need it in a rah rah sis boom bah kind of

00:23:51.720 | way. And so reading the room for me meant being quiet enough to kind of

00:23:55.920 | tap in where I was paying attention. But because I was calm and myself,

00:24:00.200 | again, everybody's asking us to just take a big chill pill. But if I'm

00:24:04.840 | super high on like my wavelength of I got to deliver a really good speech,

00:24:10.000 | I'm not going to be cool and chill and calm enough in myself to be actually

00:24:14.400 | paying attention to the room when they're crying on stage. I'm going to

00:24:17.320 | go practice my speech, go over my notes, order another drink, if I do

00:24:21.880 | that before I speak, just being present enough to listen to the program

00:24:27.240 | versus thinking, I'm too busy to listen to the program. I'm good. I

00:24:30.560 | know how to jump on a stage and give a talk. That would have been a big

00:24:34.360 | mistake on my part. But because I listened to them, because I've been

00:24:38.080 | quiet in my own private time, I could now tailor my delivery in a way that

00:24:43.480 | landed and people came up to me afterwards thanking me for what I

00:24:47.120 | shared, because it hit home for them. But I was in tune with the room and I

00:24:51.360 | was listening to the room.

00:24:52.280 | Obviously, reading the room is the the big hack in that conversation. But two

00:24:56.120 | other things I took away, which I'm curious to hear your reaction. So one,

00:24:59.640 | be prepared. So I want to talk in a second about the kinds of preparation

00:25:03.760 | you do before delivering a keynote presentation. But for many people, it

00:25:06.880 | might just be a presentation at work or an important conversation with

00:25:09.640 | friends or family. And the other, which I'm interpreting as a hack might be,

00:25:14.920 | if you're giving a presentation in a work meeting, volunteer to not go

00:25:18.840 | first, so that you have a chance to read the room, how they might react to

00:25:22.880 | another presentation, so you can kind of tailor that delivery.

00:25:25.760 | Well, I mean, I was the only speaker, I was the keynote. So it was me.

00:25:29.520 | You didn't have a choice.

00:25:30.840 | I didn't have a choice. And when I spoke, but I think that one key would

00:25:34.440 | be when I arrive at a destination, one way to prepare is to go early. And

00:25:40.600 | reading the room can be reading the tense moments that happen while

00:25:44.560 | they're putting the dishes on the table or while they're setting up the

00:25:47.600 | PowerPoint slide. You can capture a little bit of reading the room by

00:25:52.680 | seeing how stressed out or calm or fun the staff is prior to the audience

00:25:58.880 | even arriving. Because I think all of that plays into it. One of my

00:26:03.160 | favorite interviews of all time was Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott. Why can't I

00:26:08.600 | think of the name other names? The Star is Born cast, Anthony...

00:26:12.640 | Bradley Cooper.

00:26:13.400 | Bradley Cooper. I was like, of course, Bradley Cooper. How do I forget

00:26:16.760 | Bradley Cooper? But I was setting up for that Star is Born interview.

00:26:19.680 | And I remember getting in the room very early. And the first person to

00:26:25.080 | enter the room and the second person and how they entered the room was

00:26:28.120 | very significant, because they didn't all come together. But just being

00:26:32.960 | present and knowing what my crew is going through and knowing what the

00:26:36.040 | publicity team was feeling like, because there was a little bit of

00:26:39.360 | tension, because it's always tense, because they're like dealing with

00:26:42.000 | these people who have to go through all these different interviews in

00:26:44.840 | succession. But I remember sitting in the room and thinking our chairs

00:26:48.920 | were too far apart. I asked the crew, I said, can you move the chairs a

00:26:53.000 | little closer? Well, we did. Then after the whole thing was done,

00:26:58.400 | everybody loved the interview, big success. One person who wasn't even on

00:27:03.400 | that team, contacted me and said, I want to give you some feedback. I

00:27:07.360 | think the chairs should have been closer. So I was reading the room

00:27:11.240 | correctly, in terms of preparing, that's something that anybody, whether

00:27:15.000 | you're giving a keynote, or you're doing something at work, you want to

00:27:17.760 | think about the furniture, you want to think about how close you're going to

00:27:20.760 | be to the table, if it's in a conference room area, are you going to

00:27:24.000 | move around the room? Are you gonna have somebody else operate your

00:27:27.520 | presentation in the clicker? Or are you going to do that yourself? All of

00:27:30.840 | those things lead to you feeling more prepared with the choreography of the

00:27:35.840 | conversation. And it takes a lot of stress off of you. It's not controlling

00:27:40.560 | the whole situation. You want to read the room, but you also want to have

00:27:44.360 | some sense of preparing it yourself and creating atmosphere in the room.

00:27:49.160 | Because that'll help you actually channel the right vibes when people do

00:27:53.480 | sit down to hear you speak.

00:27:54.920 | One counterintuitive thing that I've done is that I like to really prepare

00:27:59.840 | if I'm giving a talk, right? To the point that I know exactly what I want

00:28:03.680 | to say on every slide and all that. And some people say, "Well, but then

00:28:06.880 | isn't scripted?" And I say, "No." Actually, going through knowing exactly

00:28:10.840 | what I would say in a perfect scenario makes it really easy for me to diverge

00:28:15.320 | in the moment to do anything. So it's less memorizing a script and repeating

00:28:19.640 | the script as much as like memorizing every point I want to get across. So

00:28:23.520 | I'm free to move around. How do you think about preparing for a big

00:28:28.400 | meeting or a conversation or a talk for you?

00:28:31.480 | I really flow a lot. Think about it. I was in high school and I started doing

00:28:36.040 | speech contests. And my coach would literally untie my tennis shoes while I

00:28:40.600 | was talking, while he was timing me to be as close to 10 minutes as possible,

00:28:44.400 | throw toilet paper across, maybe even throw toilet paper rolls at me. It was

00:28:50.120 | all very gentle, nothing abusive, but it was all to distract me while I was

00:28:54.960 | giving this talk and sounding pitch perfect while getting as close to 10

00:28:58.680 | minutes as possible. So over the years, I've gone from memorizing my entire

00:29:04.120 | script verbatim, which I can still do to this day. I've done it with breaking

00:29:09.200 | news. When I worked for ABC, you know, somebody gives me a story and I have to

00:29:13.240 | go live in four minutes and I can literally memorize the entire 40 second

00:29:17.960 | script or minute 30 script that I'm going to do. But now extemporaneously, I

00:29:24.720 | can memorize if I type it out and literally write out the speech, I can

00:29:30.560 | pretty much gather in my head what the main points are. It won't come off

00:29:35.200 | exactly verbatim, but it's so close to what I put on paper. You have to know

00:29:41.840 | your strengths. Not everybody can memorize like that. Not everybody will

00:29:47.080 | work well if they're just flowing between bullet points written on cue

00:29:51.800 | cards. So if what you're doing works for you, keep doing it. But if you want to

00:29:56.520 | step it up to another level, maybe try a different delivery style, record

00:30:00.360 | yourself on video at home where you don't have to worry about the pressure

00:30:02.920 | of actually doing it in real life and see how it comes off. And then have a

00:30:06.480 | mentor or somebody who's a more experienced speaker than you take a look

00:30:10.040 | at it and say, Hey, I wanted you to give me your honest feedback about my

00:30:14.800 | delivery. I don't think there's a wrong or right way to do it. I just think that

00:30:18.400 | when you've been speaking for 20 years, you're going to come off differently

00:30:23.360 | than if you've been speaking for five, even if you're an excellent speaker. If

00:30:27.320 | you try a different method, the different methods actually will show you

00:30:31.520 | your strengths.

00:30:32.320 | That makes sense. What about you? I mean, you gave, Oh, I just kicked a trash

00:30:37.280 | can.

00:30:37.520 | Just trying to throw you off your game.

00:30:41.200 | I wish I could say that I'm eating a fully balanced diet every day. But the

00:30:46.920 | reality is that I am definitely not. So I love having an easy way to get my

00:30:51.560 | daily nutritional insurance, which is why I kickstart my day with athletic

00:30:55.680 | greens. And I am excited to be partnering with them for this episode.

00:30:58.960 | I started taking it because I wanted to see what all the hype was about. And

00:31:02.800 | I've kept it in my daily routine for months. Every morning, I mix it up with

00:31:07.280 | some cold water, add a few ice cubes, it tastes so good when it's cold. And I

00:31:11.680 | head to my office feeling focused and energized for the day, which is a

00:31:15.240 | feeling I absolutely love. I also love that it's made from 75 high quality

00:31:20.400 | vitamins, minerals and superfoods and contains less than one gram of sugar. It

00:31:25.440 | also has no GMOs, nasty chemicals or artificial anything to make giving it a

00:31:30.280 | try. Easy athletic greens is going to give you a free one year supply of

00:31:34.880 | immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first

00:31:39.040 | purchase. All you have to do is visit all the hacks.com/athletic greens.

00:31:45.000 | Again, that's all the hacks.com/athletic greens to take ownership over your

00:31:50.640 | health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Being a parent

00:31:55.920 | can be scary, whether it's watching your toddler jump on your new couch naked

00:32:00.120 | during potty training, or the indescribable pain of stepping on tiny

00:32:04.400 | plastic dinosaurs in your bare feet, both of which happened to me recently.

00:32:08.160 | Well, one thing that doesn't have to be scary is getting life insurance,

00:32:12.520 | especially when you do it with Fabric, who I'm excited to partner with for

00:32:16.200 | this episode. Fabric by Gerber Life was designed by parents for parents to help

00:32:21.880 | you get a high quality, surprisingly affordable term life insurance policy in

00:32:26.600 | less than 10 minutes. And when I say surprisingly affordable, I actually went

00:32:30.920 | online to compare prices and found Fabric to be highly competitive with

00:32:35.600 | great policies like a million dollars in coverage for less than $1 a day. It

00:32:40.400 | takes less than 10 minutes to apply and you could be offered coverage instantly

00:32:44.840 | with no health exam required. So protect your family today with Fabric by Gerber

00:32:50.560 | Life. Apply today in just 10 minutes at meetfabric.com/allthehacks. That's

00:32:57.720 | meetfabric.com/allthehacks, M-E-E-T, fabric.com/allthehacks. Policies issued

00:33:07.280 | by Western Southern Life Assurance Company, not available in certain

00:33:10.640 | states. Price is subject to underwriting and health questions.

00:33:14.360 | For the last few years, I know a lot of us have been working remotely. I know

00:33:18.200 | that's changing, but for some people, that's probably the new normal. And I'm

00:33:22.160 | curious what kinds of lessons you've either applied or people could take away

00:33:27.120 | for how to work on their delivery of important conversations, work on their

00:33:31.720 | interaction with teammates, colleagues, when they're looking at a computer

00:33:36.520 | screen and not able to walk around the room or maybe not read the room as

00:33:40.280 | easily as you would be able to in person.

00:33:42.960 | Treat your Zoom calls like FaceTime. You know, we have way more fun on

00:33:48.480 | Instagram Live and FaceTime sometimes. As soon as we get in Zoom mode or

00:33:52.200 | whatever platform your office uses, it's like, "Let me stay in this very

00:33:56.640 | tight little box and not move and have very little body language." And it's

00:34:00.600 | like, "No, lean into the screen. Get in there. Don't be afraid of you looking

00:34:06.400 | distorted or looking silly. Move your body around. Don't just be a head and

00:34:10.960 | shoulders." People don't even like seeing that on television anymore. They

00:34:15.360 | want to see you kind of jump it through the screen and just be personable. And

00:34:19.120 | like, selfie mode your Zoom meeting. Not the whole time, but like, use the

00:34:25.360 | different tools that we have at our disposal. If it's your laptop, be like,

00:34:29.360 | "Hey, guys, I'm just getting back to my desk." And you know, make it a funny

00:34:33.760 | moment. Like, loosen up. And I think that people will stay more engaged

00:34:39.040 | because I frankly think it gets really stale when we're all just looking like

00:34:42.800 | we're in our perfect little box. That's my first big tip and one that I hope

00:34:47.040 | lasts and sticks with you.

00:34:48.200 | I remember early in the pandemic, for no particular reason, I bought a bunch of

00:34:53.760 | like party glasses on Amazon, just so that whenever we started a meeting, it

00:34:58.560 | was like, "Could we break the ice in a different way?" And so that was one

00:35:02.640 | thing I tried to do. I bought like those mullet wigs at one point. I feel like

00:35:06.600 | some of that phased away and I'm like, "Maybe I need to go dust off that box in

00:35:10.280 | the storage room and bring it back out."

00:35:12.200 | The fact is, is that the digital world is not going away. Like the virtual

00:35:16.160 | meeting world is not going away. So how can we surprise people? Whether it's

00:35:21.240 | party glasses or you inbox the first five people to log on on time, because

00:35:27.000 | there's always inevitably the people who are late to these things and say, "Hey,

00:35:31.200 | guess what?" You know, and then five minutes in, "We just wanted to let you

00:35:33.920 | know the first five people who got here got Starbucks gift cards and everybody

00:35:38.760 | else, we hope you'll be on time next time." I mean, don't make them feel bad,

00:35:41.960 | but just like, guess what? There's a reward. Have themes. We just had the

00:35:46.360 | Kentucky Derby. Have a Derby hat Zoom call for your meeting. You don't have to

00:35:50.840 | keep the hat on the whole time. And then the fact is so many people stay on the

00:35:54.720 | photo, like they don't even go to the video anymore. I don't know if that's

00:35:58.280 | like a rule that you have to, but like we hide behind the photos a lot. And so

00:36:05.280 | it's like, how can I get people to not have the static image, but to actually

00:36:09.400 | let us into their home? If they're hiding behind the photo, chances are

00:36:12.880 | they're either really busy, their house is a mess, or they're stressed out and

00:36:17.480 | they just don't want to see anybody and they don't want anybody to see them. And

00:36:20.680 | so for me, it's like giving people fair warning, "Listen, no static images,

00:36:24.480 | we're going to do video. And we're going to give a reward to the person with the

00:36:29.280 | best background." And then they can do their virtual fake background thing so

00:36:34.160 | that they don't feel the pressure that they have to have the most perfect house

00:36:37.240 | behind them. Like, "Oh my God, this is a contest of who has the best living room."

00:36:41.080 | No. Or the best kitchen. No. I think that there is a lot of social anxiety right

00:36:46.240 | now overlooking like everything's okay when it's not. And I think that if you're

00:36:50.240 | hiding, it's because you need somebody to call you and be kind to you and say,

00:36:55.680 | "Hey, how you doing? Are you okay?"

00:36:57.560 | Which probably isn't the best thing to do in a group setting. But if you notice

00:37:01.760 | someone's kind of stepping away, maybe there's a really good opportunity after

00:37:05.680 | the meeting to reach out to that person. "Hey, noticed your background was off.

00:37:09.800 | How are you doing? Is everything cool?" Those kind of subtle moments I found can

00:37:13.920 | add a lot of value in relationship building and in many other places.

00:37:18.200 | I think mental health should be in the spotlight all the time, especially after

00:37:21.680 | the past couple of years. You know, there's a lot of people who are doing

00:37:24.160 | great and their businesses are doing wonderful and there's so much

00:37:27.760 | opportunity. But I think there's a lot of people who have struggled with the past

00:37:32.280 | couple of years and so struggled to find connection in a tribe. I think people are

00:37:36.560 | just longing for interpersonal communication and in a way that's real

00:37:41.160 | and like meeting kind people. And it's like, how can we help them? Well, first

00:37:45.920 | of all, if you're at work and you notice somebody's never showing their video, to

00:37:49.720 | me, that's a big fat red flag that they might long for some connection that they

00:37:54.400 | just don't have. And they're isolating because they feel alone. And they've

00:37:58.120 | disconnected from their family over the time, maybe because somebody's in a health

00:38:01.760 | battle and they can't go visit them because they are high risk. It's like, we

00:38:05.880 | need to pay more attention. And there's ways to do that, of course, privately and

00:38:09.520 | then publicly just kind of encourage people to check in on each other. So just

00:38:13.080 | make those appeals.

00:38:14.040 | And if you're the manager, I would say, if you're finding it hard to make every

00:38:18.440 | meeting exciting on video, maybe decide if there's some meetings that don't need

00:38:22.240 | to be. I find that we've gone overboard. Like things that would have been phone

00:38:26.080 | calls three years ago are now all video meetings. I schedule some phone calls a

00:38:30.840 | lot and then save video for a time where the face to face is more important

00:38:34.760 | because I don't know about you, you're on camera all day. But sometimes I'm

00:38:37.880 | exhausted just looking at a screen for hours on end.

00:38:41.760 | Yes, I'm with you. I'm on video calls almost as long as I'm on TV every day.

00:38:48.360 | And you're just like, well, sometimes, frankly, I just want to wear this

00:38:52.760 | wrinkled t shirt and have my hair in a bun and not care. But it wouldn't be the

00:38:58.440 | most professional expression of my highest and best self. All the lines are

00:39:03.200 | so blurred. It's like, give each other a break. Just understand, like you said,

00:39:08.640 | not every call deserves a video conference. Yes.

00:39:11.560 | I do think face to face is really helpful in building deeper

00:39:15.240 | relationships, building trust. There was a whole chapter in the book about

00:39:19.400 | building trust in seconds, which it kind of reminded me of like the Dale

00:39:23.160 | Carnegie, how to win friends and influence people without the undertone

00:39:26.640 | of trying to influence other people to do something. But I'm curious how you

00:39:31.320 | would explain to someone hearing that and say, "Okay, wait, I can build trust.

00:39:34.360 | I can be kind. What's the trick? How do I start doing that?"

00:39:38.000 | The key is to become practiced, right? How often do you go out, whether it's

00:39:43.800 | Target, or the dry cleaner, or to pick up some food, and you don't speak to a

00:39:48.720 | single soul? It's foreign to me that people go out and they never

00:39:54.000 | acknowledge, smile, make eye contact, strike up conversation with anybody.

00:39:59.000 | They just walk, get their stuff, walk back. In a world where we're craving

00:40:03.040 | connection, we can be apprehensive about interpersonal communications with

00:40:07.240 | strangers, which is interesting. But that's how you meet new people. So the

00:40:12.760 | first thing is just start to become more open. Really easy example, I was at the

00:40:17.400 | airline lounge, or one of my recent trips, and this woman walks in and says,

00:40:22.720 | "I love your shoes. Those are so cute." And I said, "Oh, thank you so much." And

00:40:26.560 | I told her where I got them. I told her a little story about them. "Oh, what's

00:40:30.200 | your name? Where are you traveling to?" "Oh, I'm going to Florida." I mean, you

00:40:33.240 | get all this information. We didn't exchange business cards. But in that

00:40:37.720 | moment, she felt comfortable just having a conversation with me. Another

00:40:43.320 | situation I had, I was out at a restaurant, I happened to go by myself,

00:40:47.400 | I was getting some food, and the couple next to me strikes up a conversation.

00:40:51.960 | But I do that all over the place. So I'm not surprised when people want to

00:40:56.160 | strike up conversations with me out of nowhere, because I literally do it all

00:40:59.440 | the time. And so it's like, once you're practiced in doing that, then

00:41:03.560 | somebody is going to strike up a conversation with you where they're

00:41:06.480 | going to build more on what they're going through. Or they're going to ask

00:41:11.360 | you for something in their realm of business. And they're going to feel like

00:41:15.600 | they can trust you because you are actually showing genuine interest. The

00:41:20.720 | thing is, you do not have genuine interest when you're born. You have to

00:41:24.560 | actually experiment with genuine interest as you become a grown up and

00:41:29.160 | then as you are a grown up. And so as I'm curious about other people, I

00:41:33.800 | actually build trust with them. People can smell when you're not authentic.

00:41:38.040 | People can smell when you're just trying to network and get a business

00:41:40.520 | card. "Oh, do you have a card? Oh, yeah. Oh, you're in television. Oh,

00:41:44.920 | yeah. I know somebody you should interview." That's fine. But the fact

00:41:49.400 | of the matter is, is that when you actually show that you care about

00:41:52.200 | somebody, then they feel safer with you. "Thank you for that genuine concern

00:41:56.120 | that you have about my loved one." Because you end up talking about that

00:41:58.720 | kind of stuff on planes and in restaurants and in airline lounges with

00:42:03.640 | perfect strangers, because now you're practiced in showing that genuine

00:42:07.880 | interest with people.

00:42:09.000 | Now, I'm sure you've been in a situation where maybe you didn't have that

00:42:11.880 | genuine interest. So how does that play out? Because I've definitely been in

00:42:15.760 | conversations and sometimes I'm too blunt, which I think can maybe be off

00:42:20.040 | putting, but I'm like, "You know what, I feel like breaking off a

00:42:22.920 | conversation when there's no genuine interest to me is better than just

00:42:25.800 | sitting there and faking it." But neither path forward seems like it's

00:42:29.920 | the kindest path forward. So what do you do in that circumstance?

00:42:33.680 | A lot of my building trust with strangers happens on planes, or it can

00:42:39.280 | happen on social media. And there was 2 times on planes once years ago and

00:42:44.240 | once most recently that I was so exhausted. I had 2 hours of sleep where

00:42:48.640 | I was looking at getting 2 hours of sleep before I had to be at work the

00:42:52.400 | next morning. And in the first instance, I was exhausted. I did not want to be

00:42:57.680 | there. I had to put a blanket over my head and I wanted to just knock out and

00:43:03.400 | the person next to me had their food on the island in between the 2 of us and

00:43:09.280 | on the floor and was eating kind of loud. And I'm like, "No." And then I

00:43:16.200 | thought, "Gosh, I feel like I'm supposed to strike up a conversation with this

00:43:19.560 | person and I don't want to, I'm tired." And it ended up that I thought, "Well,

00:43:24.960 | why am I on this plane sitting next to this person? This is a captive audience

00:43:29.920 | for 45 minutes." You know, it's a short flight I was on. I can allow myself to

00:43:36.000 | give into my sleepiness, my fatigue, or I can be selfless in this moment and be

00:43:41.160 | kind and see if there's any reason why. There's a once in a lifetime

00:43:45.240 | opportunity for me to know this person. I can hang on for 45 minutes. I can stay

00:43:50.120 | awake for that long. Ended up exchanging phone numbers. They ended up helping me

00:43:54.600 | later on in life. It was just amazing. If I would have missed that opportunity, I

00:43:59.640 | never would know. And it kind of marked my life because it's those times when

00:44:05.040 | you want to quit. It's those times when you want to just, "Please, I don't want

00:44:08.760 | to hear anybody. I'm going to put my headphones on and I'm going to block out

00:44:11.520 | the world." That's the time when you want to pay more attention, take your

00:44:15.120 | headphones off. Because inevitably, practice kindness leads to more kindness

00:44:20.560 | and more open doors. Practice selfishness, practice blocking out the world, practice

00:44:25.960 | isolation. I know that doesn't sound like... It's like, "Give me a break,

00:44:29.880 | Adrienne. You're telling me you never..." Yes, I do. But I don't know what I missed

00:44:34.360 | out on in that selfish moment. I don't know what I missed out on when I said,

00:44:37.880 | "You know what? I don't care. It's just me and I'm going to go to sleep. Leave

00:44:41.560 | me alone." I've stopped saying the words, "Leave me alone," especially in light of

00:44:46.480 | the past couple of years. Because I think that there are a lot of people who wish

00:44:50.040 | that those words were never uttered out of their mouth. I never want to be alone

00:44:53.360 | again in terms of not being connected to other people. So yes, I think there's a

00:44:57.880 | fine line. Yes, I think that we all have our moments. But I really try to spur

00:45:03.160 | myself on just like somebody who's running in a race and they're tired and

00:45:06.960 | they don't want to finish that race. Every time I sit on that plane and I'm

00:45:10.960 | sleepy, I think, "No, force yourself. Think about 'Am I supposed to know this

00:45:15.880 | person?'" And if you have peace that says, "No, absolutely not." Like if your

00:45:19.920 | peace is like, "No, I'm good. Take a nap." Then take a nap by all means. But I

00:45:23.480 | really don't like to miss opportunities. And I just think you're there for a

00:45:28.400 | reason, for a person.

00:45:29.640 | I'm with you on the not wanting to miss opportunities. But I'll push you on what

00:45:34.720 | happens if you've got this 45-minute flight, you're 5-10 minutes into this

00:45:39.040 | conversation, and you're like, "There's not an opportunity."

00:45:41.960 | I've done that. And here's what I'll say happens. I'll entertain the

00:45:45.880 | conversation, and kindly. And I'll show genuine interest. It's true. And then if

00:45:51.720 | I feel like this is not one of those opportunities, this is the time to just

00:45:54.400 | be friendly. I'll touch their arm gently to reassure them this is not

00:45:58.200 | personal. And I'll say, "You know what? I have not had any sleep." And I mean it

00:46:02.320 | because most times I haven't. I'll say, "I've got to take a little bit of a nap.

00:46:07.080 | I apologize." And if they want to share their information with me, that's

00:46:10.760 | totally fine. But I literally like sleep is such a premium, and conversation is

00:46:15.120 | such a premium. You don't have to feel bad. You can receive their information.

00:46:19.560 | Maybe you'll need it down the road. But it's okay to say, "Can I get your card?"

00:46:23.120 | And then say, "It was really nice to talk to you." I've had times when I wasn't

00:46:27.520 | sleepy, and I'm reading a book. And they want to have a long conversation while

00:46:32.000 | I'm sitting there reading my book. And I'll say, "You know what? It was really

00:46:35.040 | nice talking with you." It's more than small talk to me though. It's exploration.

00:46:38.600 | It's like, "Let me learn a little bit more about you." In my head, this isn't an

00:46:42.360 | opportunity that's gonna come to fruition in the way that I thought maybe

00:46:45.320 | it could. But I enjoy talking with you. I'm gonna finish reading my book now, but

00:46:48.920 | it was really nice talking to you. There's nothing wrong with that. Don't

00:46:51.240 | fake the funk. Not every single person that you sit next to is gonna be a gold

00:46:56.080 | mine. I'm sorry to keep probing, but this is like a place where I feel like

00:47:00.560 | kindness is either hard or in your mind, you don't love it, but you're able to do

00:47:07.200 | it. It's a room where there's maybe 50 people and you're at a conference. Maybe

00:47:10.800 | you're the one keynoting and you're stuck in a conversation. A lot of the

00:47:15.080 | typical excuses of "I need to go take a nap" or "I need to go eat" don't totally

00:47:19.120 | apply because the answer is really like, "We had a brief conversation and I want

00:47:23.280 | to go have a bunch of brief conversations." Oftentimes, I try to be

00:47:26.680 | honest and say, "Hey, I've really enjoyed talking to you. There's a lot of people

00:47:29.680 | here. I want to make sure I get a chance to meet them. I'm gonna go around."

00:47:32.760 | Sometimes I feel like people might take that as rude because we've only been

00:47:37.040 | talking five minutes and maybe they were still interested. Anything you would do

00:47:40.720 | in that circumstance differently?

00:47:41.920 | For me, it's funny. There's an art to living and there's an art to

00:47:46.800 | conversations that are brief like that at those events. Again, this is something

00:47:50.680 | where you have to practice. Practice makes perfect. I think that the biggest

00:47:53.920 | issue is that a lot of people in this generation are afraid to offend people.

00:47:58.120 | I think that that fear leads to us being more obliged to be what we think is

00:48:04.840 | nice, kind, respectful. It's too much fear. I think that getting rid of the fear is

00:48:11.640 | the key. It's not so much how do you do it, it's what do you eliminate in

00:48:16.480 | yourself so that you're more confident flowing from one conversation to the

00:48:20.080 | next. When you're with a group of your friends, don't you guys talk over

00:48:22.920 | each other all the time? Yes. Does anybody get offended? No. You step on each other

00:48:30.200 | all the time. You're like, "No, no, no. Let me tell you. Oh, but da, da, da, da, da," and then

00:48:33.240 | somebody else don't. But nobody's feelings are getting hurt because you feel safe in

00:48:36.960 | that environment that you cut each other off all the time, but nobody's thinking,

00:48:40.920 | "I can't believe I didn't finish my thought." Nobody's thinking that because

00:48:45.760 | that's a normal organic conversation. So when you go into an event, I would want

00:48:53.160 | anybody to walk in and say, almost give themselves a pep talk, "I'm going in to

00:48:58.320 | speak with this networking group or this gala or this cocktail, and I am among

00:49:03.480 | friends, and I'm gonna have fun with this one, and I'm gonna have fun with this one, and we're

00:49:08.240 | just gonna keep it moving." And it's like, "Oh, I'm gonna go get another drink," and "Oh,

00:49:12.480 | you know, I gotta go say hi to this person." Oh, and it's like that jumping

00:49:16.160 | when you're with your boys. It's like jumping, and then they might be in the

00:49:20.600 | middle, "Oh, you know what? Forgive me. I need to go see somebody over here. Oh, I

00:49:24.440 | think I recognize him. Oh, you know what? I just remembered." It's just like organic.

00:49:29.360 | But you have to get rid of the fear. And I think one thing I took away from this

00:49:33.440 | was if you're going in with the right intentions, and you're kind in the first

00:49:38.480 | half of the conversation, then the kind of breakup of the conversation is pretty

00:49:43.200 | hard. Sure, someone might take offense to it because they really wanted to be

00:49:47.080 | there for longer. But if you accept that you can't control other people's

00:49:53.360 | feelings, but you did it with the right approach and the right intent, and you

00:49:56.840 | came in with genuine curiosity, I feel like you can live with the fact that

00:50:00.680 | someone could be offended and kind of get over that fear.

00:50:03.760 | I really don't think anybody's thinking that hard. I think that they're doing the

00:50:07.000 | same thing you are. They're wanting to talk to enough people. I think if you

00:50:10.400 | think of yourself as having more in common than different with the people in

00:50:14.360 | the room, then it's a lot easier. Like everybody else is trying to talk to as

00:50:18.240 | many people too.

00:50:19.240 | Yep.

00:50:20.240 | They're not thinking about, "Oh my god, they broke up with me in that

00:50:23.800 | conversation." They're not. No. Be kind to yourself and realize they're not

00:50:29.480 | thinking about you all that much. They like you, but they're not going to trip.

00:50:34.320 | I can't remember who wrote this or said this recently, but people always assume

00:50:37.960 | that everyone's thinking about them. What they wore that day, how they misspoke.

00:50:42.140 | But the reality is that most people don't spend any of their time thinking

00:50:45.160 | about you or the other people. They're mostly thinking about themselves. And

00:50:49.080 | just coming to terms with that makes it easier in so many situations in life to

00:50:53.480 | say, "Maybe someone didn't even hear me," or "Think about it," or "It didn't

00:50:57.000 | even last for longer than a moment in their mind."

00:50:59.360 | We all have our own stuff that we're dealing with. We have to remember that as

00:51:03.160 | much as we think or maybe even agonize over the things that we have to do or the

00:51:07.400 | dreams that we have to achieve, other people are taking the same amount of

00:51:11.240 | time working on their own stuff. And even if they had a moment with you where

00:51:15.200 | it's like, "Oh, I thought that they were like this and they're like that," or

00:51:19.960 | "Oh, I thought I knew them," it's like they get over it with the next thing that

00:51:24.520 | comes along. So yeah, don't sweat it. Just have fun.

00:51:30.620 | Getting the crew together isn't as easy as it used to be. I get it. Life comes at

00:51:34.760 | you fast. But trust me, your friends are probably desperate for a good hang. So

00:51:39.880 | kick 2024 off right by finally hosting that event. Just make sure you do it the

00:51:45.000 | easy way and let our sponsor Drizzly, the go-to app for drink delivery, take care

00:51:50.040 | of the supplies. All you need to come up with is the excuse to get together. It

00:51:54.240 | doesn't even have to be a good one. It could be your dog's birthday, that the

00:51:57.720 | sun finally came out, or maybe you just want to celebrate that you got through

00:52:01.740 | another week. With Drizzly, you can make hosting easy by taking the drink run

00:52:06.240 | off your to-do list, which means you can entice your friends to leave their

00:52:09.920 | houses without ever leaving yours. And since I know you like a good deal,

00:52:13.960 | Drizzly compares prices on their massive selection of beer, wine, and spirits

00:52:17.960 | across multiple stores. So when I really wanted to make a few cocktails while we

00:52:21.960 | were hosting family last week, not only could I get an Italian Amaro delivered

00:52:26.040 | in less than an hour, but I found it for $15 less than my local liquor store. So

00:52:30.920 | whatever the occasion, download the Drizzly app or go to drizzly.com. That's

00:52:35.840 | D-R-I-Z-L-Y.com today. Must be 21 plus, not available in all locations. I just

00:52:45.120 | want to thank you quick for listening to and supporting the show. Your support is

00:52:49.240 | what keeps this show going. To get all of the URLs, codes, deals, and discounts from

00:52:54.800 | our partners, you can go to allthehacks.com/deals. So please consider

00:53:00.360 | supporting those who support us. I want to get to a few tactical things before

00:53:04.520 | we wrap. You had a bunch of ideas in the book about scheduling kindness

00:53:08.720 | into your day, building it into a habit. I'm curious if you just walk through a

00:53:12.560 | few examples of how people could practice this and just hone those skills

00:53:16.040 | today or tomorrow or over the next week. Yeah, well until kindness just as a

00:53:22.480 | muscle becomes developed where it's this natural organic process of always

00:53:27.160 | thinking about how can I express to other people that I'm with them, that I'm

00:53:31.600 | for them. Think about who you can call on a regular basis. My mentor, Bill Krauss, he

00:53:36.760 | would give his business advice to those who he coached like spend an hour on

00:53:41.840 | past, an hour on present, and an hour on future. So that means like call your past

00:53:47.080 | clients, check in on them every single day, even if you're in sales and you

00:53:50.200 | don't have any leads right now. You reaching out to people who are your past

00:53:53.880 | clients is going to reconnect you and for nothing else other than to just say

00:53:57.960 | hey thank you for your business in the past. Thank you for the relationship that

00:54:01.600 | we've been able to build over the years. Present would be those that you're

00:54:05.120 | working on currently and then future those who you're endeavoring to land.

00:54:08.240 | Just reaching out and giving those friendly phone calls even if it's 5-10

00:54:12.000 | minutes. I recently went to an event and I met all these people and I gathered

00:54:16.080 | these business cards actually sitting right here to my right of me and I took

00:54:19.360 | some time a couple weeks ago and I just like reached out on text message to all

00:54:24.560 | those people and then this was the week that I was gonna reach out my phone to

00:54:27.960 | some of them. But it was just a matter of scheduling out time in my day and for

00:54:33.080 | nothing else other than to either check in, say hello, or ask for the answer to

00:54:38.640 | some questions for like 5-15 minutes for each person. I think that's a really good

00:54:43.720 | way to not forget the people who have been kind to you and believed in you and

00:54:48.960 | have supported you and invested. So that's a really easy way to do it and

00:54:52.800 | then with your friendships. Friendships are such a big part of our lives and a

00:54:58.600 | lot of times as we get busy or even those who get married and start having

00:55:02.760 | kids the friendships fade into the background but those are the kind of the

00:55:06.080 | spine of how you can stand steady in crazy times and in hard times. So

00:55:11.160 | checking in whether that's once a month or once a week and just saying hey I

00:55:15.440 | didn't need anything I'm just calling to say I appreciate you I'm looking forward

00:55:20.000 | to the next time we can hang out. These are like relational things but they're

00:55:24.560 | really kind acts that people get too busy for in the midst of hustling in the

00:55:29.720 | midst of trying to make it to the next step on the economic food chain. Once you

00:55:34.880 | do that I think it's sometimes easier to do kindness to strangers whether it's

00:55:39.840 | opening a door, paying for somebody's coffee or lunch in line ahead of you and

00:55:44.200 | just like scheduling once a month I'm gonna do a surprise kindness to a

00:55:47.600 | stranger. That makes you feel connected to the larger neighborhood or community

00:55:52.360 | that you're in and you actually feel like a world changer every single time

00:55:56.400 | rather than just somebody who's going through the motions not smiling and not

00:56:00.120 | speaking to anybody just going and getting your Uber Eats delivery

00:56:03.200 | downstairs or your Instacart order. Let's all remind each other that we are

00:56:07.480 | connected that we need each other. It's as simple as a phone call or a text or

00:56:10.760 | sending a video to somebody and saying hey I was thinking about you you're

00:56:13.520 | amazing you're a rock star. Talk to you soon you know. There was an app a long

00:56:17.600 | time ago that I wish still existed that would sync across all of your texts and

00:56:22.680 | your emails and be like hey here's a person you haven't reached out to in any

00:56:25.640 | year. So if anyone's listening and knows of something new that does that let me

00:56:29.960 | know it would be great. I don't want to know who I haven't emailed in six months

00:56:33.640 | because maybe I texted them maybe I called them maybe I saw them on my

00:56:36.600 | calendar but if you could somehow bring all that together it would be incredible.

00:56:40.640 | I assume there's a big privacy element there and hopefully it's a company that

00:56:44.800 | you could trust but one thing you said which was you have a mentor and you

00:56:51.200 | talk about mentors in the book being invaluable tour guides. How has that

00:56:55.000 | worked in your career and in your life and what advice would you give to

00:56:59.480 | someone who maybe doesn't have a mentor right now? I'd be really clear on what

00:57:03.440 | you expect out of a mentor relationship. I think that a lot of people think they

00:57:06.800 | know what mentoring is and it's like oh I want somebody that has my back. I want

00:57:10.280 | somebody who will check in on me. I want somebody who will give me advice but

00:57:13.760 | mentoring relationships are extremely intimate if you let them be and a mentor

00:57:18.920 | has a lot to give you but they also have a lot at stake. Their time could be

00:57:22.920 | better served by something that's not as emotionally invested as mentoring. They

00:57:27.280 | could be doing business deal and even if they're relational as people and they

00:57:31.640 | love quality time the fact is is that when you mentor somebody you're giving

00:57:35.960 | them some of that feedback or some of that constructive content that could be

00:57:40.400 | taken wrong and people's feelings get hurt in mentoring relationships and

00:57:44.920 | people feel betrayed or people feel like they don't get me when you're

00:57:49.560 | establishing a relationship with somebody who you almost are giving the

00:57:52.560 | power to say no. You're giving them the power to look into your life and be more

00:57:57.040 | vulnerable with them which can be very scary to some people and so I would just

00:58:01.560 | take stock of where you are in your life, how honest you want to live and how

00:58:06.240 | teachable you are right now. Are you willing to be told that what you're

00:58:10.100 | doing is absolutely wrong? Are you willing to be told that you need to make

00:58:13.840 | course corrections in order to become the person that you say you want to

00:58:16.640 | become? If you are really honest with yourself and you can see that you want

00:58:20.120 | that then you're eligible for a mentor and then in terms of like connecting

00:58:24.240 | with the right mentor it really is a matter of starting off almost like you

00:58:27.800 | would in a relationship obviously no romantic interest. You don't just jump

00:58:32.200 | to third base with somebody that you're interested in. You start off with maybe a

00:58:36.280 | DM or you ask them for their phone number at the grocery store or you ask

00:58:40.680 | them to coffee. Typically you don't just jump straight to dinner with people. I

00:58:44.680 | mean sometimes you do I guess but it's a nurturing process so rather than ask

00:58:49.360 | somebody will you mentor me I think the best thing to do is can I get 5 to 15

00:58:53.560 | minutes with you and once you give yourself and them that space to get to

00:58:58.320 | know you and you get to know them then check in again hey I'd love another 5

00:59:03.240 | 15 minute check-in like we haven't talked in four weeks like how are you

00:59:07.080 | and show genuine interest in that mentor. Don't just look for them to be genuinely

00:59:11.760 | interested in you and answer all your questions. How can you be interested in

00:59:16.520 | them and what they bring to the table? That word reciprocity always comes to my

00:59:20.560 | mind like how are you seeing their value while you're hoping that they see yours?

00:59:26.120 | Are you valuing their time? Are you valuing that experience that they bring

00:59:30.160 | to the table? Are you valuing the fact that they might be going through

00:59:32.920 | something in life and are you willing to check in with them and say not like how

00:59:36.200 | are you as if you're their counselor but hey is you know what I'm willing to do

00:59:40.800 | what I need to do to spend time with you and you notice them study them don't say

00:59:45.560 | is there anything I can do for you because they're gonna say no. Study them

00:59:49.880 | and find out. Notice if it's at the office that they don't have an

00:59:53.880 | assistant on Fridays. They only have an assistant four days a week. Hey I noticed

00:59:57.880 | that on Fridays your staff isn't filled up or don't even mention that just say

01:00:01.160 | I'd like to give you an hour of my time on Fridays is there anything I can do in

01:00:05.360 | regards to and then be super specific bookkeeping or can I help run get some

01:00:10.760 | coffee. You might be at a level of your experience that you would never be

01:00:14.200 | getting coffee like that's for an intern to do but I remember there was one

01:00:17.780 | executive at one of my previous jobs and I knew how she took her coffee and I

01:00:22.220 | would just show up and bring it to her. There was never an expectation and

01:00:25.920 | every time I did I got a thank-you email. It bonded us. It created a relationship

01:00:30.400 | with us where I could go in and speak to her pretty much anytime I wanted to but

01:00:35.200 | many people are looking at mentoring relationships and making demands of what

01:00:40.160 | they think a mentor should do for them. They're not knowingly doing this. It's

01:00:43.580 | not like people have come in there with an attitude or an air about them. It's

01:00:46.960 | just like you have to understand there's a service element to somebody mentoring

01:00:51.200 | you and volunteering that time and for you being a serving kind person back to

01:00:56.560 | them. So if you're willing to do anything I think you can have the right mentor

01:01:00.560 | and have a wonderful relationship. I think an important takeaway that I

01:01:03.520 | learned as an investor and as an entrepreneur with investors while your

01:01:07.480 | investors aren't necessarily mentors in some ways they are but a big thing is to

01:01:11.300 | not make your offer to help more work. So oftentimes people would say "Hey is there

01:01:16.480 | anybody you can introduce me to that would help?" and my answer would be like "I

01:01:20.040 | don't know" but some people I took this from them and then applied it myself

01:01:24.360 | would say "Hey I looked on your LinkedIn. You know these six people who I think

01:01:28.560 | could be valuable to what I'm doing. Would you be willing to make an

01:01:32.640 | introduction? Here is a copy and paste thing you could use if it's helpful." Like

01:01:37.160 | the more you can do the work to ask for help, the more people are willing to help

01:01:41.760 | and then what you said that I really liked which is a perfect segue to my

01:01:45.620 | next question is show that you're willing to take their advice. Because I

01:01:49.880 | think people get a lot of personal satisfaction knowing that their advice

01:01:53.440 | is actually being put to use versus knowing that it's just being heard and

01:01:57.680 | sitting there. So I said I'd come back to asking you with all of your experience

01:02:03.020 | interviewing. I know it'll benefit the show if I can improve my skills. I know

01:02:07.160 | it'll make me more fulfilled if I do better. You can choose to give advice to

01:02:11.120 | a podcaster who's one year into interviewing or you can go direct and

01:02:14.160 | give it straight to me. Whatever makes you more comfortable. I could take

01:02:17.400 | anything feedback wise. What do you have for me? Based on how you ask questions, I

01:02:23.400 | think you want to do such a good job. And when we're hungry to do a good job,

01:02:27.720 | sometimes we can not listen as attentively because we're so wanting to

01:02:34.000 | do the best. And I think if you like take the pressure off of yourself a little

01:02:38.280 | bit. I think you're humble but I think at the same time you're not comparing

01:02:42.320 | yourself in a competitive way. But you're saying well this person has done

01:02:45.720 | A, B and C and D and I've done this. And it's like but you have something else to

01:02:49.720 | bring to the table. When people are doing something new they try so hard to be so

01:02:54.040 | good that some of their sensory gifts whether it's listening or whether it's

01:03:00.120 | eye contact or whether it's just feeling can get tuned out. So just flow like a

01:03:07.160 | little bit more. This is not a critique. It's more just like taking you to the

01:03:10.680 | next level. Because you have a great voice and you do ask good questions like

01:03:15.360 | what you just gave. This is advice you got from investors. I love that. Like that

01:03:19.440 | made me want to ask you another question about what you've learned from

01:03:23.080 | investors. No matter what your experiences in podcasting. You've had

01:03:26.480 | amazing experiences in entrepreneurial or the business community. I might start

01:03:32.120 | with that at the top of your podcast rather than a story that the Lord of the

01:03:39.920 | Flies I think is what you referenced in the beginning. Not bad. What would you

01:03:43.600 | think is your expertise? Like what's your strength in terms of what you bring?

01:03:48.320 | I've had the entrepreneur and the investor path and then I'm also this

01:03:52.040 | kind of crazy researcher where like when I want to learn about a thing. Whether

01:03:55.960 | it's a stroller that we're buying for a baby or a vacation. Like I will go so

01:04:01.400 | deep on the research to try to understand every nuance to it. I think

01:04:04.680 | those two elements of my life are like the optimizer and then the like

01:04:08.600 | entrepreneur investor. I think that you should start with those strengths that

01:04:13.360 | at the top of your interviews. I thought it was cool that you used a story to

01:04:17.560 | introduce me. I thought that was kind of neat. But just what you said at the very

01:04:21.160 | end piqued my interest. And I think piquing the interest of the interviewee

01:04:25.760 | makes for a more mutual conversation rather than you asking questions like

01:04:31.200 | they're the expert and I'm just here to ask them questions to get this great

01:04:35.680 | thing. It'll become much more of an interesting interview when you allow

01:04:39.220 | that part of you to shine more and not to minimize it. I would think most people

01:04:44.720 | when you ask them do you have any questions they usually don't right? No.

01:04:47.040 | They never have one. Yeah not really. Like where do I look? It's kind of like what

01:04:51.920 | you said. Don't make them helping you more work. And I was saying how don't ask

01:04:56.360 | them is there anything I can do for you. That question of do you have any

01:05:00.920 | questions is kind of like is there anything I can do for you. Because

01:05:03.840 | they're not thinking about any questions. They're like I'm sitting here you told

01:05:06.640 | me where to go. But I would say you have a lot more experience than I do in some

01:05:11.020 | areas of business. A lot more. And I could learn from you. And so rather than

01:05:16.280 | coming off like I'm such a great business mind I would want you to at

01:05:20.340 | least show up with enough of this is what I bring to the table but I know

01:05:24.560 | that I'm interviewing fill-in-the-blank because they bring something else to the

01:05:28.640 | table that I know you who are listening needs. Does that make sense? Yeah it

01:05:34.320 | totally does. And it's funny because I usually record the intros after and so

01:05:38.720 | as I was giving I was like yeah if this doesn't work I'll redo it. And so if I

01:05:41.920 | end up redoing that half of what you just said will be very confusing to

01:05:44.640 | people. But maybe I'll post the original intro somewhere else for anyone

01:05:50.040 | listening if I end up making that decision. So this has been really

01:05:54.240 | fantastic. I'm gonna take a lot of that to heart just to be clear. If you want to

01:05:58.040 | keep listening in the coming weeks hopefully you'll see better introductions

01:06:01.760 | and more infusion of things that I know to a conversation that can make it more

01:06:06.560 | reciprocal as you mentioned in the book. Yeah, you have a lot to offer. Thank you

01:06:11.920 | for giving feedback. I ask for it a lot. I don't always get it. So it's very

01:06:15.600 | welcomed. Yeah. One question I like to ask everyone at the end of every episode is

01:06:19.840 | for someone coming to a city you're familiar with. Could be where you live

01:06:23.400 | now, where you've lived in the past, place to have a meal with someone, place to

01:06:27.520 | grab a drink and something unusual, some kind of activity to do. Okay. So I live

01:06:32.600 | in Chicago now. And I absolutely fell in love with Chicago. I had no intention of

01:06:37.440 | living here. I always thought I would live on the coasts, LA or New York,

01:06:41.320 | especially in my business. And when this opportunity came about, I came here first

01:06:46.440 | as a visiting correspondent when I worked for my previous job. But I just

01:06:50.600 | noticed the architecture was so beautiful and the downtown area. I mean

01:06:53.920 | there's a beach with a magnificent skyline and a river all in the same area.

01:07:00.920 | Like you can do everything. So when it's sunny outside like it is now, like you'll

01:07:06.080 | see boats all in the river and on the lake and it's just gorgeous. The light

01:07:10.160 | hitting off all these buildings. So the one thing that I would say is if you

01:07:12.800 | come to Chicago, you have to do the Chicago architectural tour. The city is

01:07:17.680 | seen in a way unlike any other way you can actually witness it. They tell you

01:07:22.320 | about the history of the city of Chicago, who founded the city, why the buildings

01:07:27.120 | are built the way they are, who built them. Some of the most world-renowned

01:07:30.480 | architects have their work on display here in the city of Chicago. For dinner

01:07:35.560 | there's way too many options. I just had high tea at the Peninsula. So for anybody

01:07:40.240 | who loves that like London experience, it was phenomenal with a live string duet.

01:07:46.000 | I mean again like there's just a little something for everybody and you will get

01:07:51.400 | some of the best pizza in the world whether it's deep dish or it's thin

01:07:54.320 | crust. But just walking through the city and seeing all the different

01:07:58.280 | neighborhoods because every single neighborhood in Chicago has its own

01:08:00.640 | personality and you have it all within a few miles. I definitely appeal to people

01:08:06.160 | to come to Chicago if they've never been and check it out. It is one of the most

01:08:10.640 | magnificent cities I think not just in the US but in the world. I have been to

01:08:15.040 | Chicago a few times. I agree in the summer I didn't really realize there was

01:08:19.200 | a beach. So I would say if you're going to Chicago in the summer, prepare for a

01:08:22.680 | beach day. This is the kind of beach day I didn't expect where people are throwing

01:08:26.480 | frisbees, drinking beer, sitting on the sand. It kind of blew my mind because as

01:08:30.800 | a non-local it wasn't something I expected. But I have a question for you

01:08:34.680 | if you're done with my questions. Yeah. Tell me one other thing that you've

01:08:38.760 | learned from investors that you think every person should know that sometimes

01:08:44.720 | they overlook or they're really in too much of a rush to pay attention to. I

01:08:50.480 | think something that I learned as an investor and an entrepreneur at the same

01:08:56.160 | time was that as much as people schedule a lot of time to have a conversation,

01:09:01.600 | they're making a decision in the first moments that is often unchanged. So if

01:09:09.000 | you're trying to tell a story about your company, don't have the story come 10

01:09:14.240 | minutes in. It's like a rule of social media and videos on YouTube. It's like

01:09:17.600 | you got to captivate someone in the first 10 seconds. Well, when you're

01:09:20.200 | meeting an investor, when you're trying to explain your company, it's like the

01:09:23.560 | first minute or two that matters. So if you aren't good at doing that with

01:09:29.280 | writing, then I wouldn't try to send the description of your company with enough

01:09:34.440 | detail that someone could make that decision in an email. If you feel like

01:09:37.960 | whatever the medium that's best for you, if your data shows well, have that be the

01:09:41.800 | first few slides and email it. If it's the story about how connected you are to

01:09:46.560 | the mission of the company and the reason it was created, make sure that

01:09:49.640 | comes across first. And don't feel like you have to follow any guidelines around

01:09:54.680 | what the arc of an investor's conversation is. And this probably applies

01:09:58.400 | in many other sales tactics or professional environments. But so many

01:10:02.760 | times people said what they think you wanted to hear. By the end, I would often

01:10:07.760 | give feedback and say, "Hey, you should lead with this story." I would give it

01:10:11.840 | away. "We're not investing. I'm really sorry. This is not a good fit for us

01:10:14.640 | right now. But if you're giving this pitch again, this is the piece of the

01:10:18.960 | story that I would start with." And if anyone listening wants a little deeper

01:10:23.200 | dive, Sunil Gupta, who wrote a book called Backable, we had a conversation --I

01:10:28.560 | don't remember the episode number, but I'll link it in the show notes-- where he

01:10:31.800 | talked about how he completely changed the narrative of his stories as an

01:10:35.800 | entrepreneur, because the story of why he was there was actually the thing that

01:10:41.240 | got people excited. Even though he thought that company had good metrics or

01:10:45.000 | a good, well-designed product, that story turns out the most powerful thing. And he

01:10:49.000 | had to rechange everything to focus on it and focus on it really early.

01:10:53.440 | That's very good advice. And that's like the elevator close. But again, stories

01:10:57.720 | sell. And being able to tell that in the first 60 seconds, it's true. Because

01:11:02.280 | people are making an impression or they have an impression of you right

01:11:05.680 | away. And one of the gentlemen in my life who works with me says, "Adrienne, the

01:11:09.760 | first answer is always the right answer and everything else is BS."

01:11:12.400 | Thank you so much for being here. Where can people stay on top of everything

01:11:16.600 | you're working on? Well, you definitely can watch me. You can tune in every

01:11:20.640 | single Monday through Friday on NewsNation. Go to NewsNationNow.com.

01:11:24.080 | We're on cable, as well as YouTube TV and Hulu. But to find out more

01:11:27.520 | information about me personally or my book, you can go on AB on TV is my

01:11:31.880 | handle on Instagram. That's AB --my initials-- on TV. Very easy to find on

01:11:37.080 | Instagram. You can go to my website, AdrienneBanker.com. And my book is sold

01:11:40.880 | everywhere, whether you use Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Audible, there's an audio

01:11:45.080 | version of the book. Your Hidden Superpower. The kindness that makes you

01:11:48.720 | unbeatable at work and connects you with anyone. And that is available right now.

01:11:53.120 | So go get it. The book's fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing all that. I'll

01:11:57.920 | link all of it in the show notes. Thank you for being here. Thank you.

01:12:01.080 | I really hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening. If you

01:12:06.880 | haven't already left a rating and a review for the show in Apple Podcasts or

01:12:10.760 | Spotify, I would really appreciate it. And if you have any feedback on the show,

01:12:14.600 | questions for me, or just want to say hi, I'm Chris@allthehacks.com or @Hutchins

01:12:20.280 | on Twitter. That's it for this week. I'll see you next week.

01:12:25.200 | [Music]

01:12:31.200 | [Music]

01:12:33.260 | [BLANK_AUDIO]