All The Hacks: Better Conversations

00:00:00.000 | What I'm getting at is, I think if anyone out there

00:00:03.120 | is in a very know-it-all place where they can't stop

00:00:06.040 | but give people answers and solve their problems

00:00:10.440 | instead of listening to their problems,

00:00:12.040 | get out of your own comfort zone.

00:00:14.420 | Get into a place where you don't know

00:00:15.960 | what you're talking about because there,

00:00:19.240 | you're just going to shut up more

00:00:21.320 | and give direction and advice less

00:00:23.800 | and it'll build a better habit for you.

00:00:26.280 | And I think that if you do that,

00:00:28.600 | you're going to be much more open to listening to people

00:00:31.560 | and less to giving them advice.

00:00:32.880 | You're going to be much more open

00:00:34.200 | to not knowing and looking for understanding.

00:00:39.200 | And I think that I was blessed with Mixergy,

00:00:42.640 | my podcast of 15 years,

00:00:44.400 | in that I really started it after I failed.

00:00:48.480 | The thing that made it into a podcast

00:00:50.400 | was this video that I posted where I said,

00:00:52.240 | "I was starting a software company and I failed.

00:00:54.680 | "I'm going to do interviews with people

00:00:56.320 | "to learn how to not fail this way again."

00:00:59.760 | And if I've admitted to myself in the world that I failed,

00:01:02.440 | that I don't know how to do entrepreneurship

00:01:05.320 | the way that I wanted to, the way that I thought I could,

00:01:09.180 | now when someone came to me, I couldn't give them advice.

00:01:13.560 | I just admitted I don't know everything.

00:01:15.680 | I had to ask questions and learn.

00:01:17.840 | I had to say, "I don't know enough

00:01:19.280 | "and that's why I'm interviewing these people.

00:01:20.660 | "Let me ask them."

00:01:22.000 | - Hello and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks,

00:01:25.120 | a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel.

00:01:27.760 | If you're new here, I'm your host, Chris Hutchins,

00:01:29.680 | and I'm a diehard optimizer who loves doing all the research

00:01:32.920 | to get you the best experience in life

00:01:35.440 | without an expensive price tag.

00:01:37.120 | To make that happen,

00:01:37.960 | I'm sitting down with the world's best experts every week

00:01:41.080 | to learn the strategies, tactics, and frameworks

00:01:43.240 | that shape their success.

00:01:44.680 | Today, I'm talking with Andrew Warner,

00:01:46.600 | a serial entrepreneur who in his 20s

00:01:48.680 | started a successful internet business

00:01:50.520 | doing 30 million in sales.

00:01:52.480 | Later, he started Mixergy,

00:01:54.060 | a platform that offers interviews, courses, and mentorship

00:01:56.760 | to help founders learn to grow their businesses.

00:01:59.360 | And since 2008, he's hosted Startup Stories,

00:02:02.600 | a podcast where he's interviewed over 2,000 entrepreneurs

00:02:05.800 | from Ryan Holiday to Robert Greene.

00:02:07.920 | I've listened to many episodes in my days

00:02:10.160 | and it's a fantastic show.

00:02:12.240 | But today, we're actually gonna talk about his book,

00:02:14.880 | "Stop Asking Questions, How to Lead High-Impact Interviews

00:02:18.320 | "and Learn Anything from Anyone."

00:02:20.640 | But don't think that because you're not a podcast host

00:02:22.980 | or a professional interviewer that this isn't for you.

00:02:25.680 | We're gonna learn how you can be a better,

00:02:27.360 | more interesting conversationalist in all kinds of settings,

00:02:30.800 | from networking, to job interviews,

00:02:32.560 | to talking with friends and family.

00:02:34.800 | We're gonna talk about why this is a skill

00:02:36.040 | everyone should master and learn,

00:02:37.840 | what most people get wrong about how they ask questions,

00:02:40.660 | how to improve the kinds of questions you ask

00:02:43.000 | and why that's important,

00:02:44.440 | how to build rapport with people you've just met

00:02:46.480 | or don't even know anything about, and a lot more.

00:02:49.040 | (upbeat music)

00:02:51.620 | Andrew, thanks for being here.

00:02:55.640 | Welcome to the show.

00:02:56.980 | - Thanks for having me on, Chris.

00:02:58.420 | - So I'm just gonna jump in.

00:02:59.620 | You named the book, "Stop Asking Questions,"

00:03:01.680 | but it's really about asking better questions.

00:03:04.540 | Can you talk about that?

00:03:05.380 | How did you pick that name?

00:03:06.900 | - I think that we think as interviewers

00:03:09.260 | and conversationalists that we need to ask questions.

00:03:12.300 | And what I've discovered is that asking too many questions

00:03:16.380 | makes you seem needy and makes you feel

00:03:19.120 | like you're not really part of the conversation.

00:03:21.900 | We should not be having question after question

00:03:26.560 | after question be our style.

00:03:28.320 | Our style should be a conversation

00:03:29.760 | that brings out what we're trying to learn,

00:03:31.280 | brings out what our audience needs to learn.

00:03:33.240 | And I find that questions often counteracts that.

00:03:36.680 | - We talk about this in a professional setting.

00:03:38.160 | You and I both record a lot of podcasts,

00:03:39.800 | you a lot more than me,

00:03:41.200 | but this is a skill regular people can use also, right?

00:03:45.160 | How many times do parents try to get their kids

00:03:47.220 | to just tell them about their day, talk about a problem,

00:03:50.700 | and then they pelt them with questions

00:03:52.540 | that are really challenging for kids to answer.

00:03:55.820 | Frankly, sometimes even just saying,

00:03:57.180 | "What'd you do today?" is challenging.

00:03:59.180 | But if they say, "I don't wanna go to school tomorrow,"

00:04:01.880 | and you say, "Because?"

00:04:03.820 | That one word will often get them to open up.

00:04:07.660 | It's like these magical phrases

00:04:09.420 | that will work in any part of life.

00:04:11.300 | And if you see my interviews, you see,

00:04:13.020 | I will just throw in the word because,

00:04:15.240 | interrupt someone sometimes, and because I've done that,

00:04:18.280 | they will go into the depth and the reasons

00:04:20.340 | of what they did and why they did it.

00:04:23.920 | And so that's what it's about.

00:04:25.100 | Sometimes it's about asking a question, sure,

00:04:27.380 | but often it's not asking a question.

00:04:29.740 | It's just a one word like transition

00:04:32.400 | that I've handed to them

00:04:33.580 | and they can't help but use to explain why.

00:04:36.280 | "Why don't you wanna go to school tomorrow?"

00:04:38.100 | Is kind of challenging.

00:04:39.220 | Now they're put on the spot.

00:04:40.900 | They've said something and I say, "Because?"

00:04:42.860 | Now there's an expectation that they're, of course,

00:04:44.460 | gonna finish the sentence,

00:04:46.080 | "Because my friend doesn't like me,

00:04:47.820 | "because my friend has moved on to first grade

00:04:49.940 | "and I'm still in kindergarten."

00:04:51.180 | Whatever it is, it comes out naturally.

00:04:53.220 | Now, the reason that I wrote this book

00:04:54.780 | is because I found that a lot of people

00:04:57.420 | were doing interviews the way they were supposed to,

00:04:59.820 | which is I'm gonna ask the best question.

00:05:02.300 | Some people would even write the questions ahead of time

00:05:04.900 | instead of being more present in the conversation

00:05:07.660 | and instead of saying,

00:05:09.060 | "What's the best way to get the most knowledge

00:05:11.880 | "out of this person who I'm talking with

00:05:13.820 | "and the best bonding?"

00:05:15.420 | And when you start with that,

00:05:16.580 | instead of how do I write the best questions,

00:05:18.720 | you end up with a deeper conversation

00:05:21.540 | that often involves you sharing and not asking a question,

00:05:25.660 | you making a statement, you directing the person even.

00:05:29.900 | - My first use case I thought about this,

00:05:32.260 | that an average person might be preparing for an interview

00:05:34.860 | is in a job setting, right?

00:05:36.420 | I'm looking for a job, I'm going in.

00:05:38.160 | I know at some point someone's gonna say,

00:05:39.500 | "All right, what questions do you have for me?"

00:05:41.700 | You know, my initial advice after reading your book was,

00:05:43.980 | well, you should try to get to that point at the end

00:05:46.160 | with never having, you know,

00:05:47.000 | have such a good conversation

00:05:48.140 | that you don't even leave time for the questions.

00:05:50.660 | How would you advise someone thinking about

00:05:52.900 | that kind of professional setting

00:05:54.180 | where they have time to prepare?

00:05:55.780 | - Okay, let me give you one.

00:05:58.100 | What questions do you have for me?

00:06:00.520 | The natural next step might be to say,

00:06:03.500 | how many hours do we work here, right?

00:06:05.860 | Now you're coming across as a needy person

00:06:07.940 | trying to understand, it makes you,

00:06:10.820 | it's hard for me to say this,

00:06:11.740 | but if you keep asking questions,

00:06:13.340 | you come across as an inferior.

00:06:15.220 | Versus saying, now tell me about the hours at work here.

00:06:18.860 | Talk a little bit about what's expected from us

00:06:21.300 | in our off hours.

00:06:22.700 | Talk a little bit about how we connect to each other

00:06:25.780 | in the company instead of, so how do we connect each other?

00:06:28.420 | So what you're doing, and this is one example,

00:06:31.000 | is directing the person.

00:06:33.540 | Directing gives them the confidence that you can lead them,

00:06:38.200 | that you could lead them through the conversation

00:06:40.220 | and also that you can lead at the job.

00:06:42.460 | And so that's a good example of me saying,

00:06:44.300 | shouldn't be a question.

00:06:45.280 | Sometimes you just need to make a statement, take control.

00:06:48.580 | In my book, "Stop Asking Questions,"

00:06:50.340 | I gave the example of how Olivia and my wife and my family

00:06:53.860 | went on these tours of national parks.

00:06:56.140 | And if we would ever have a tour guide

00:06:57.460 | who would walk around and go,

00:06:58.620 | do you wanna turn right or left?

00:07:00.100 | What do you like to see?

00:07:00.980 | Do you like to see this track or that?

00:07:02.700 | It's too much.

00:07:03.960 | You're the expert.

00:07:05.100 | Say, and now we're gonna turn left

00:07:06.480 | because when we turn left,

00:07:07.540 | you're gonna see what the bears have done here.

00:07:09.580 | And if we turn right after that,

00:07:11.500 | you're gonna see what's happened

00:07:12.660 | because we haven't had enough water here in California.

00:07:14.700 | Boom, now you got somebody who knows you,

00:07:16.540 | who you feel confident that they could lead you.

00:07:18.420 | That's the way you need to be as an interviewer,

00:07:20.180 | as a conversationalist.

00:07:21.500 | And yes, like you said, somebody is about to get a job

00:07:23.820 | and they're being asked, do you have any questions for me?

00:07:26.600 | You don't have to specifically give a question.

00:07:28.840 | Start directing them.

00:07:30.300 | - So if you're not asking as many questions,

00:07:32.380 | talk about how someone should prepare

00:07:34.580 | for kind of conversations when they have advanced notice

00:07:37.240 | of who they're talking about and the topic.

00:07:39.400 | The best thing is to go deep.

00:07:41.860 | This is gonna be a little bit woo.

00:07:43.340 | Go deep in your heart and say,

00:07:44.420 | what the hell do I need to get out of this person?

00:07:46.340 | What do I need to get out of this conversation?

00:07:48.140 | Not, what does some imaginary audience member need to know

00:07:51.380 | and I need to get?

00:07:52.720 | We don't need that imaginary audience member anymore.

00:07:54.980 | It's, I have a problem.

00:07:57.160 | What do I want to understand from this person

00:08:00.220 | that I can't get from anywhere else?

00:08:02.500 | Go deep and say, ah, that's the thing that I need.

00:08:05.580 | That's the thing that I need.

00:08:07.460 | And if it's for your audience,

00:08:09.860 | the only way I think to get to your audience

00:08:11.700 | is to have a drink with your audience members

00:08:14.140 | or a meal or dinner with a few of them.

00:08:17.860 | One at a time, ideally, in small groups,

00:08:19.940 | if you can do one at a time and as often as you can,

00:08:23.020 | and then have them tell you their problems.

00:08:24.920 | Let them find ways to get it out.

00:08:27.020 | Have them tell you their problems

00:08:29.400 | and specifically the ones you can't answer.

00:08:31.860 | Feel that pain of having somebody come to you

00:08:34.440 | as the expert interviewer, as the expert business person,

00:08:37.660 | as the expert whatever.

00:08:39.220 | And they're asking you a question,

00:08:40.420 | you don't have the answer.

00:08:41.260 | And then you say, be humble, I don't know.

00:08:45.140 | I'm gonna do interviews and now I'm gonna find out.

00:08:46.900 | And now when you ask that question of somebody else,

00:08:50.060 | you're gonna have a deep need to get the answer

00:08:53.520 | because you couldn't answer it.

00:08:54.500 | Because somebody you cared about who you had a meal with

00:08:56.460 | or a drink with asked you a question that you can't answer.

00:08:59.920 | That's where it comes from.

00:09:01.320 | And so the first thing to do is not to do research

00:09:03.920 | and I believe in doing research, and I know you do too.

00:09:06.020 | The first thing to do is not to write out a list

00:09:07.980 | of questions and a lot of interviewers do that.

00:09:09.840 | We don't wanna do that.

00:09:11.020 | The first thing is to say, what do I need?

00:09:14.540 | - I just thought of an idea of what you just said,

00:09:17.660 | which is, let's say I'm using this job interview example,

00:09:20.620 | but start asking, talking to your friend,

00:09:23.340 | talking to your spouse, talking to your family members

00:09:25.560 | about this job you're getting and see which questions

00:09:28.100 | that they have for you about the company

00:09:30.140 | that you can't answer and you wish you knew

00:09:31.900 | as a way to kind of--

00:09:32.740 | - That's a great one. - Generate ideas

00:09:35.380 | of what could be interesting.

00:09:37.140 | - Right. - What about

00:09:37.980 | when you don't know someone?

00:09:39.520 | You know, there's practicing for a conversation

00:09:43.040 | you know you're gonna have.

00:09:43.940 | And then there's, I'm going to a cocktail party,

00:09:45.700 | I'm going to a conference, I don't know who I'm gonna meet

00:09:47.520 | or who they're gonna be.

00:09:49.220 | Is there a way to just build repetition

00:09:51.260 | or get your reps in for practicing conversational skills

00:09:55.820 | without any person that you know you're talking to?

00:09:59.020 | That make sense?

00:10:00.100 | - I absolutely do practice my question techniques in private

00:10:03.860 | when there's somebody that I meet

00:10:05.260 | and I don't think I'm ever gonna meet them again,

00:10:07.700 | I just throw out a question approach

00:10:09.300 | to see how will they respond?

00:10:10.720 | I try to direct them.

00:10:12.120 | Tell me what you were doing this weekend

00:10:13.260 | instead of, so what were you doing this weekend?

00:10:15.300 | I try it and see what happens.

00:10:16.480 | If I try it on someone in person and it doesn't feel awkward

00:10:19.220 | and I don't see a distance in the conversation,

00:10:21.260 | I think it's a good technique.

00:10:23.700 | Keep it in my Google Doc full of techniques

00:10:26.080 | for having better conversations.

00:10:28.540 | - Tell me what else is in the Google Doc, right?

00:10:30.380 | You've got starting with tell me,

00:10:32.060 | you used pausing and interrupting people saying because,

00:10:34.900 | let them continue.

00:10:36.600 | What other tactics work really well

00:10:38.700 | in this conversational flow?

00:10:40.900 | - The one that started the whole thing for me

00:10:43.500 | was I, for years, felt really bad

00:10:46.880 | because I asked Jason Freed, the founder of Basecamp,

00:10:51.260 | how he failed, when he failed,

00:10:55.700 | and he just kind of looked away.

00:10:57.820 | I still see him right now as we're talking in my head,

00:11:00.020 | looking away and going,

00:11:01.180 | well, sometimes we just don't have any setbacks.

00:11:03.660 | Some things just don't have that.

00:11:05.600 | And the more I push, the more he just acted,

00:11:09.380 | or I felt that he acted like I was an idiot

00:11:12.800 | who always failed and couldn't understand

00:11:15.500 | that sometimes people don't just fall on their face

00:11:19.420 | when they're just trying to walk

00:11:20.380 | to the other end of the room.

00:11:21.700 | Anyway, that ate away at me,

00:11:23.400 | that I asked him about his setback

00:11:25.020 | and he didn't give me an example,

00:11:26.780 | and I kept pushing, and the more I pushed,

00:11:29.260 | the more he resisted.

00:11:30.620 | So I hired an interview coach

00:11:33.060 | and I gave him that specific example.

00:11:34.900 | I said, look, Jeremy, before we talk about anything else,

00:11:38.260 | I have to tell you about this one problem.

00:11:39.740 | And I told him, and he goes,

00:11:41.420 | oh, my therapist had a situation like that.

00:11:45.620 | Go tell him, he goes,

00:11:46.620 | my therapist had a technique called join the resistance.

00:11:50.100 | Says my therapist would have these men

00:11:51.640 | who would come into her office and she would say,

00:11:53.900 | okay, tell me about the problem

00:11:55.460 | you and your wife are facing.

00:11:56.660 | And the husband would go, I don't have any problems.

00:11:59.580 | Say, but you're clearly in here because you have a problem.

00:12:02.500 | There's an issue in the relationship.

00:12:04.580 | It's not me, it's her.

00:12:06.220 | I don't have any problem.

00:12:07.140 | He goes, then what are we doing here?

00:12:09.300 | I don't know, she made me come.

00:12:11.300 | And the more the therapist pushed,

00:12:12.780 | the more the person put up a resistance

00:12:14.980 | and then like sidestepped the whole problem.

00:12:18.380 | So Jeremy's therapist said she decided

00:12:23.540 | to join the resistance.

00:12:24.500 | If she said, tell me about the problem

00:12:25.860 | you and your wife are having.

00:12:26.780 | And the person said, I'm not having any problem.

00:12:29.860 | You would say, oh, must be good.

00:12:32.940 | You know what?

00:12:33.780 | All I hear that people have problems.

00:12:35.260 | It must be good for you to just have an easygoing life

00:12:37.880 | without any problems.

00:12:39.620 | Congratulations.

00:12:40.780 | And then the person would go, easy.

00:12:42.660 | All she does is she keeps complaining to me.

00:12:44.460 | And I don't know when we could spend time together

00:12:46.420 | because my work is now taking up a whole lot of time.

00:12:48.620 | And I've never had to work this many hours,

00:12:50.700 | let alone this late in my career.

00:12:52.060 | Now they were off on a conversation that mattered.

00:12:55.780 | And so Jeremy, my interview coach,

00:12:59.780 | said join the resistance.

00:13:02.240 | Whenever you ask a guest a question and they resist,

00:13:06.460 | stop fighting with them.

00:13:08.260 | Join the resistance.

00:13:09.300 | Say something like, well, it must be great

00:13:12.080 | to have an easy business.

00:13:14.480 | Everyone else is struggling.

00:13:15.540 | It must be great to have an easy time building your company

00:13:18.540 | when the rest of us are working really hard.

00:13:20.860 | When I say that, the person will immediately lash out at me

00:13:23.540 | and go, hard?

00:13:24.640 | I mean, you think this is easy?

00:13:25.540 | You don't know.

00:13:26.380 | Last night we were up because the servers were down.

00:13:27.660 | And then somebody a week ago was complaining to me

00:13:30.340 | about the way that we are interacting at work.

00:13:32.860 | And I'm trying to get work done,

00:13:34.820 | not talk about what their interpersonal issues are.

00:13:38.300 | Now we've got a real problem we can talk about.

00:13:40.100 | So anyway, because the coach said join the resistance

00:13:43.580 | and he gave me that phrase,

00:13:44.740 | I wrote it down in a Google Doc with that phrase.

00:13:48.700 | And I said, oh, I'm gonna remember this

00:13:50.660 | because it has a name.

00:13:51.900 | And so I started to, whenever I would have a new technique,

00:13:54.460 | I would give it a name

00:13:55.300 | and I'd add that technique to a Google Doc.

00:13:58.320 | - I saw the list in the book where there's like a,

00:14:01.380 | flow chart's the wrong word.

00:14:02.300 | It's like a directory of tactics.

00:14:04.460 | So there are plenty more for anyone listening

00:14:07.540 | who wants more than we'll get to today.

00:14:09.580 | But how do you think those techniques work when you're,

00:14:13.760 | you know, you talk about building yourself up,

00:14:15.940 | not making yourself seem needy and asking questions

00:14:18.340 | when you're interviewing for a job,

00:14:19.660 | or maybe you're doing references

00:14:21.180 | with someone's previous manager.

00:14:22.920 | Can you still use those techniques to get people

00:14:25.580 | who are kind of more guarded with information to share?

00:14:28.620 | - I use it with people all the time.

00:14:30.380 | I think sometimes people are guarded because they're modest,

00:14:33.700 | because they're not jerks.

00:14:35.260 | So one technique that I had, I shared this when I had,

00:14:38.980 | I used to in San Francisco have entrepreneurs come over

00:14:41.480 | for scotch at my office.

00:14:43.220 | And they would just ask me all these questions

00:14:44.860 | and someone would say,

00:14:45.680 | how do you get people to give you their numbers?

00:14:47.720 | And I said, well, what I do is I give them

00:14:49.100 | a dramatic low ball.

00:14:49.980 | I said, what do you mean dramatic low ball?

00:14:51.580 | I said, I had this woman on,

00:14:53.420 | she wouldn't give me her revenue number.

00:14:56.060 | So I said to her, and I knew that it was in,

00:14:59.700 | it was at least 10 million.

00:15:01.780 | I said to her, do you think you'll hit a million soon?

00:15:06.220 | She goes a million, we're doing at least 10, 20 times that.

00:15:08.940 | We're not trying to reach a million.

00:15:10.940 | Anyway, I said that at scotch night and the guy goes,

00:15:13.500 | oh, that's such a good technique.

00:15:15.300 | If you go dramatic low ball, people feel insulted enough

00:15:17.700 | that they have to come back at you.

00:15:19.780 | Anyway, we started talking about other things

00:15:21.380 | and when we're at scotch night at my office,

00:15:23.140 | we're tasting different scotches,

00:15:24.460 | talking about what we're into.

00:15:26.540 | And at one point we got into running and the guy said,

00:15:30.160 | so how much do you run?

00:15:31.060 | I said, yeah, I run as much as I can here and there.

00:15:33.920 | And the guy goes, Andrew, do you think you'll get

00:15:37.460 | to run a marathon sometime maybe?

00:15:39.680 | And I go, a marathon sometime?

00:15:41.400 | I've run more marathons than I can count, literally.

00:15:43.500 | There was one time in Washington DC,

00:15:45.340 | my wife left me at the top of Rock Creek Park

00:15:47.220 | and I just ran all the way down.

00:15:48.580 | That was over 30 miles and there was no other way

00:15:50.900 | for me to get home except to run back to the house.

00:15:53.260 | So a marathon is nothing for me.

00:15:56.140 | And then he was smiling and others

00:15:58.820 | around the scotch table were smiling too.

00:16:01.620 | And I couldn't understand why they were laughing at me.

00:16:03.660 | At first I thought maybe they were laughing at me

00:16:05.380 | because that's not that much to run.

00:16:07.840 | And then I realized he used dramatic low ball on me.

00:16:11.620 | And so this works everywhere.

00:16:13.900 | Yes, it works in interviews.

00:16:15.140 | Yes, it works in private conversations.

00:16:17.300 | It absolutely does.

00:16:19.080 | - Are there some examples of people you've talked to

00:16:21.360 | outside of the professional interviewing setting

00:16:23.680 | that after adopting these techniques have seen

00:16:28.580 | kind of real tangible outcomes or improvements

00:16:31.480 | in their career or their life or their relationships?

00:16:34.860 | - Yes, I was invited in when I first wrote the book

00:16:37.540 | to talk at a company.

00:16:39.900 | What was it called?

00:16:40.740 | It was called people.ai.

00:16:42.800 | They said, oh, we're salespeople.

00:16:44.460 | We need these techniques too because salespeople,

00:16:47.700 | if they do it well, what they do is they ask questions.

00:16:50.740 | And so they bought a copy of my book

00:16:54.000 | for each one of their salespeople.

00:16:55.340 | And then they invited me in to speak.

00:16:56.860 | And then afterwards I got messages from people

00:16:59.060 | about how they use these techniques.

00:17:00.920 | There's one salesperson who said,

00:17:03.200 | Andrew, you want to know numbers

00:17:04.360 | because you're trying to create a podcast

00:17:06.260 | where you're revealing to your audience

00:17:08.040 | the revenue that your guest has.

00:17:10.300 | Because I need numbers because I want to know

00:17:11.760 | the extent of a problem.

00:17:13.460 | I want to know how much of an issue this is

00:17:16.140 | to figure out whether we can solve it or not.

00:17:18.540 | Because what I do is I come in with a dramatic low ball.

00:17:21.860 | I will use something like, well,

00:17:23.620 | it seems like you're maybe losing only $1,000 a month

00:17:26.800 | with this problem that you've told me about.

00:17:28.580 | And the person will come in,

00:17:29.420 | no, it's more than $1,000.

00:17:30.260 | And then they'll start to fight back

00:17:31.620 | and explain how this is really costing the business

00:17:33.780 | half a million a year.

00:17:34.740 | And now that the salesman knows the measurable pain

00:17:40.140 | of not solving it,

00:17:41.700 | he can address how just spending a little bit of money

00:17:44.340 | on their software can help him alleviate that pain.

00:17:47.420 | And so, yeah, salespeople for sure use this.

00:17:50.500 | - What about at home?

00:17:51.900 | Do you use any of these tactics with family and friends

00:17:55.860 | when it's not really, there's no business use case.

00:17:58.320 | It's just trying to build deeper relationships

00:18:00.140 | with people you already know a bit about.

00:18:02.260 | - I do.

00:18:03.100 | I think the biggest one that I use is the word because.

00:18:06.140 | So if the thing that happens in conversations

00:18:10.700 | is we say what happened.

00:18:12.040 | What happened is just what, it's factual, it's interesting,

00:18:16.900 | but it doesn't tell me why you're doing something,

00:18:19.300 | why it matters.

00:18:21.260 | The problem is if I say, well,

00:18:23.780 | tell me why you feel that way,

00:18:25.020 | or tell me why you did that.

00:18:26.620 | I'm putting you in this self-evaluation mode

00:18:29.700 | that you can't really tap into in a conversation.

00:18:34.660 | Even with a therapist, you have a hard time doing it.

00:18:36.900 | But if you're telling me that you did this

00:18:40.420 | and you did that, and I say because,

00:18:42.260 | now I'm just handing you the next word

00:18:45.740 | for you to have to respond to.

00:18:47.720 | The next, I'm almost insisting that you tell me.

00:18:51.000 | I'm creating a gap that you feel you have to fill in.

00:18:54.460 | If I say because, you feel like you have to pick that up

00:18:56.540 | and say, well, because I wasn't feeling very good,

00:18:59.460 | because I'm feeling this way, that.

00:19:01.060 | Now you understand why.

00:19:02.100 | So because is an easy one to use with people.

00:19:05.900 | - You say in the book,

00:19:07.700 | people prefer to be heard more than to be helped.

00:19:09.900 | I know my wife would agree sometimes.

00:19:12.260 | In our conversations,

00:19:14.060 | for people who have a natural tendency

00:19:16.700 | to jump in and help,

00:19:17.740 | to try to solve a problem or interject,

00:19:20.460 | are there any ways that you found helpful

00:19:24.620 | to bite your tongue effectively?

00:19:26.660 | Maybe that's literally the answer

00:19:29.340 | for people that that's not natural for?

00:19:32.500 | - I have found that I don't take advice very well

00:19:36.380 | when it comes to problems that I don't recognize

00:19:40.540 | in an environment that I feel comfortable with.

00:19:43.220 | So if you were to give me advice on how I could,

00:19:44.900 | I don't know, use my Mac better,

00:19:49.420 | maybe even about my business,

00:19:50.460 | I feel like, all right, I've heard it from so many people,

00:19:52.180 | I don't need it.

00:19:53.460 | But we just moved to Five Acres in Austin.

00:19:56.060 | I decided that I would get a circular saw

00:20:00.480 | so that I can cut wood and make it into a compost box.

00:20:04.620 | I don't freaking know how to even turn on a circular saw.

00:20:06.860 | I literally didn't know how to put the blade in.

00:20:09.140 | I don't know how to connect two pieces of wood together.

00:20:12.860 | It turns out you have to drill a hole first

00:20:14.540 | and then put a screw into it.

00:20:15.740 | And the videos I saw on YouTube,

00:20:17.180 | they were just putting a screw in,

00:20:18.900 | but I didn't realize there was a hole there before.

00:20:21.140 | Anyway, I don't know any of it.

00:20:22.860 | And so I'm ready to take advice better.

00:20:26.100 | I'm ready to be more of a learner and less of a know-it-all

00:20:29.060 | who's gonna stop and interrupt you.

00:20:31.720 | So what I'm getting at is,

00:20:33.820 | I think if anyone out there is in a very know-it-all place

00:20:37.140 | where they can't stop but give people answers

00:20:41.260 | and solve their problems

00:20:42.700 | instead of listening to their problems,

00:20:44.320 | get out of your own comfort zone,

00:20:46.700 | get into a place where you don't know

00:20:48.240 | what you're talking about,

00:20:49.500 | because there, you're just going to shut up more

00:20:53.620 | and give direction and advice less,

00:20:56.060 | and it'll build a better habit for you.

00:20:58.580 | And I think that if you do that,

00:21:00.860 | you're gonna be much more open to listening to people

00:21:03.820 | and less to giving them advice.

00:21:05.160 | You're gonna be much more open to

00:21:06.980 | not knowing and looking for understanding.

00:21:12.920 | And I think that I was blessed with Mixergy,

00:21:14.900 | my podcast of 15 years,

00:21:16.660 | in that I really started it after I failed.

00:21:20.740 | The thing that made it into a podcast

00:21:22.660 | was this video that I posted where I said,

00:21:24.500 | "I was starting a software company and I failed.

00:21:26.960 | "I'm going to do interviews with people

00:21:28.600 | "to learn how to not fail this way again."

00:21:32.020 | And if I've admitted to myself and the world that I failed,

00:21:34.700 | that I don't know how to do entrepreneurship

00:21:37.580 | the way that I wanted to, the way that I thought I could,

00:21:41.460 | now, when someone came to me, I couldn't give them advice.

00:21:45.820 | I just admitted I don't know everything.

00:21:47.940 | I had to ask questions and learn.

00:21:50.060 | I had to say, "I don't know enough,

00:21:51.520 | "and that's why I'm interviewing these people.

00:21:52.900 | "Let me ask them."

00:21:54.260 | And so what I would suggest is if you're talking too much,

00:21:57.860 | you need to get into an environment

00:21:59.220 | where you don't know enough.

00:22:00.140 | And if it's in a relationship,

00:22:02.140 | and the person you're with is a better runner,

00:22:04.160 | go run with them.

00:22:05.000 | If they're a better swimmer,

00:22:06.020 | go sign up for a swim with them.

00:22:08.020 | If they're better at anything,

00:22:09.780 | if they're better at knitting,

00:22:10.700 | go sign up for a knitting class with them

00:22:12.260 | so that you are not the expert,

00:22:14.320 | and you have to be the, "I don't know what I'm doing here.

00:22:16.220 | "This seems so foreign to me."

00:22:18.220 | And you'll learn to listen,

00:22:19.420 | and you'll learn to want other people to talk.

00:22:22.420 | - So back to your example of paddleboarding,

00:22:23.900 | if you're having that conversation with someone,

00:22:25.740 | and you hear something come up

00:22:27.980 | about a topic you don't know,

00:22:30.100 | and you want to try to build a more engaging conversation,

00:22:33.180 | just let them run.

00:22:34.100 | It might help you shut up,

00:22:35.680 | which I know is something that has been effective for me

00:22:38.920 | in my career is just learning when to stop talking,

00:22:41.820 | which goes back to the title.

00:22:42.920 | But let's go back to that example of productivity.

00:22:45.740 | So you mentioned if I was gonna,

00:22:47.020 | if you were gonna have a conversation for an hour with me,

00:22:49.860 | or anyone, and we were just gonna talk about

00:22:51.420 | how to optimize using your Mac,

00:22:53.220 | and moving Windows around,

00:22:55.020 | which we actually just did in a episode a couple weeks ago,

00:22:58.020 | you might be like, "I just don't want to be here."

00:23:01.360 | But there are a lot of conversations that people get into

00:23:04.220 | where leaving is not the option.

00:23:06.900 | So what do you do in those circumstances?

00:23:08.900 | - I just shift it to what I really care about.

00:23:10.540 | There's so many times

00:23:11.380 | when you have to really go into a conversation with people,

00:23:14.020 | and you don't care.

00:23:15.140 | I think it's okay to shift the conversation

00:23:16.900 | to what you genuinely do care about.

00:23:19.460 | - What if it's clear that that's what they want to talk?

00:23:23.060 | Do you give it to them?

00:23:23.900 | Do you just kind of feign and nod your head?

00:23:26.660 | Or have you found some kind of way to harness interest

00:23:29.540 | in things people are talking about

00:23:31.460 | that at first glance are just not interesting?

00:23:35.320 | - I was never able to have conversations with people.

00:23:39.740 | I just didn't know the mechanics of conversations.

00:23:42.160 | Then I read a book called

00:23:43.100 | "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie.

00:23:45.700 | And the big message of it is,

00:23:47.460 | take an interest in other people

00:23:49.160 | if you want them to like you.

00:23:50.640 | So if they are interested in a thing,

00:23:52.900 | you talk to them about the thing.

00:23:54.180 | And I was so moved by the book that I went

00:23:56.000 | and I knocked on Dale Carnegie and Associates office door.

00:23:59.140 | And I said, "I want to volunteer to work for you for free

00:24:01.140 | just to see how you live these principles."

00:24:03.780 | And I learned it and I got good at it.

00:24:06.040 | And then one day in college,

00:24:07.480 | I was going home with my friend, Michael,

00:24:09.220 | on the, I think it was the F train in New York.

00:24:12.840 | And he started going off on these comic books

00:24:15.620 | that he was into.

00:24:16.900 | What superhero he liked,

00:24:18.700 | how many of these comic books he had,

00:24:20.940 | and all of that stuff that I couldn't care less about.

00:24:25.060 | I was so bored.

00:24:26.760 | He loved that I was taking an interest in him.

00:24:28.740 | And I would ask him questions like,

00:24:29.820 | "Well, why did you buy that one?

00:24:31.240 | And how valuable do you think it is?"

00:24:32.940 | And he loved it and I hated it.

00:24:34.540 | And what I realized was,

00:24:35.740 | if this is the epitome of success

00:24:38.060 | in the Dale Carnegie world, I don't want it.

00:24:40.500 | I don't want a life where I'm sucked into conversations

00:24:42.740 | that don't mean anything to me,

00:24:43.940 | and I'm pained by just so that other people like me.

00:24:47.020 | There has to be a better way.

00:24:48.380 | And what I've learned is I can shift the conversation

00:24:50.800 | to what I want it to be.

00:24:52.180 | Somewhere in the Venn diagram

00:24:53.740 | between what this person loves talking about

00:24:55.820 | and what I'm really eager to hear about is an overlap.

00:24:58.880 | And that's where I go.

00:24:59.940 | And so today I would have asked,

00:25:01.940 | "Does your Russian father have a problem

00:25:04.340 | with you reading these comic books?"

00:25:07.100 | Because he's so serious.

00:25:08.860 | And there's a whole Russian culture of literature

00:25:11.820 | that matters more than this.

00:25:12.860 | And I would have gotten into his Russian experience.

00:25:16.720 | I would have today asked him if he was worried

00:25:19.220 | that girls weren't into him

00:25:20.280 | because his head was in these stupid comic books

00:25:22.100 | all the time, because I was wondering about that.

00:25:24.540 | I would have asked a conversation

00:25:25.940 | that related to the comic books,

00:25:27.160 | but also to the thing that I cared about.

00:25:29.140 | And that I think is the answer.

00:25:31.500 | - I know you've read a lot of your transcripts

00:25:34.420 | to build a muscle of, "Okay, how am I doing this?

00:25:37.280 | What am I doing right?"

00:25:38.120 | You've even probably hired people to review them.

00:25:40.660 | Is there a version of that conversational review

00:25:44.420 | for people not in a professional setting?

00:25:46.260 | Is it recording business meetings,

00:25:48.900 | maybe with or without consent, and listening to them?

00:25:53.200 | - No, always do it with consent.

00:25:55.240 | There's no reason for us to do it without consent,

00:25:58.840 | but I will tell you how you get consent

00:26:01.060 | and then what to do with it.

00:26:02.340 | The way you get consent is to recognize

00:26:04.540 | that the other person doesn't care

00:26:05.820 | that you wanna study the way that you sell

00:26:07.380 | so you can sell to more people,

00:26:08.540 | or study the way that you talk

00:26:09.540 | so you can talk to more people.

00:26:11.340 | The other person wants to have notes on what they're doing.

00:26:15.860 | So if you're doing a coaching call,

00:26:17.460 | can I record this coaching call

00:26:18.540 | so I know what it is that I said to you that's helpful?

00:26:20.900 | (groans)

00:26:21.740 | But I've coached people on interviews and other things.

00:26:24.440 | I will say, "Do you mind if I record this?

00:26:27.180 | Because I found that in the past,

00:26:29.220 | people want to see what I've said

00:26:31.260 | and they don't wanna waste time writing it down."

00:26:33.940 | Ah, this is helpful.

00:26:35.740 | That is 100% useful to do.

00:26:38.620 | So yes, you can absolutely record

00:26:41.260 | with the other person's consent,

00:26:42.700 | but give them the reason, the incentive,

00:26:45.220 | to have that call recorded.

00:26:46.920 | Salespeople do this all the time.

00:26:50.660 | There is this software that's used.

00:26:52.380 | I'm actually gonna interview the founder of it.

00:26:53.960 | What is it called?

00:26:54.800 | - Is it otter.ai?

00:26:56.960 | - No, otter.ai works for anyone.

00:26:58.920 | If you need your audio something transcribed,

00:27:01.980 | they will do it.

00:27:02.980 | But there is something called,

00:27:05.620 | I'll have to get it for you afterwards,

00:27:07.040 | you can put in the show notes,

00:27:08.380 | where what they do is they record salespeople's conversations

00:27:13.260 | so that the salesperson can have an understanding

00:27:16.000 | of what she said that helped close the sale.

00:27:18.580 | And then AI will go through and analyze.

00:27:21.840 | The thing is that outside of sales and interviewing,

00:27:24.740 | there just aren't enough people

00:27:26.260 | who care about conversations to do anything with it.

00:27:29.240 | Too many people think conversations

00:27:31.740 | are just a thing you do

00:27:34.840 | instead of a thing you study to do well.

00:27:37.500 | You would never find people who are serious swimmers

00:27:41.220 | just hoping to go in the pool

00:27:42.900 | and figure out the way that they're supposed to swim.

00:27:45.420 | You would never find serious chess players

00:27:47.360 | saying I'm just gonna wing playing chess.

00:27:49.300 | They study it, they learn it.

00:27:51.020 | And I think a lot of us go into conversations saying,

00:27:54.100 | I'll just work on it and be better at it

00:27:55.820 | instead of studying the way they played before

00:27:57.620 | and then seeing what they could do better.

00:28:00.180 | By the way, that software is called Wingman by Clary now.

00:28:03.740 | So if you go to trywingman.com,

00:28:05.380 | or salespeople know about this, I don't need to tell them,

00:28:07.520 | it will record their calls

00:28:08.940 | and then give them feedback on it.

00:28:10.920 | - Do you think someone could benefit in a situation

00:28:13.180 | where they don't feel comfortable asking

00:28:14.820 | or can't get permission?

00:28:16.580 | Is it debriefing in some particular way right after

00:28:20.020 | and taking notes or collecting feedback

00:28:22.300 | from the people you're speaking with?

00:28:24.060 | Let's take the job interview example.

00:28:26.460 | I imagine if you said, hey, could we interview my,

00:28:28.500 | or could I record my interview with you?

00:28:30.720 | I could imagine a lot of companies being like, no,

00:28:33.180 | we don't let people record our job interviews.

00:28:36.660 | But you wanna get, I mean, it's a skill

00:28:38.120 | that I think a lot of people looking for jobs right now

00:28:41.620 | wish that they could review and see how they did.

00:28:44.600 | Is it notes after, is it asking feedback?

00:28:47.060 | - I think that studying it afterwards is a problem.

00:28:51.840 | I mean, without a recording, and here's why.

00:28:54.040 | I had this one interview that I brought back to my coach

00:28:56.800 | and I said, look at this, I'm such a wuss in these calls.

00:29:01.480 | That's what he mean.

00:29:02.320 | I said, look, all the people that I admire,

00:29:04.540 | remember at the time I told him Ramit Sethi

00:29:06.120 | is a great blogger.

00:29:08.100 | He keeps talking about how great he is at saving money,

00:29:10.200 | how great he is at handling hot sauce in his mouth.

00:29:12.480 | Like he talks about how great he is.

00:29:14.400 | And that's what people want.

00:29:15.540 | When they're reading these posts,

00:29:16.860 | they wanna see someone who loves themselves enough

00:29:19.880 | to talk about how great they are

00:29:21.060 | so that as readers, as followers of this person,

00:29:24.840 | they could wanna be that great too

00:29:26.640 | and be that happy with themselves.

00:29:28.440 | And what do I do as an interviewer

00:29:30.080 | is I talk about the things that aren't working for me,

00:29:32.380 | how I don't understand how I can systemize my business,

00:29:34.860 | how I don't understand how I can hire better.

00:29:37.560 | I keep talking about my problems

00:29:38.800 | and then the guest talks about all their wins.

00:29:40.680 | And look at this, I said in the transcript.

00:29:42.440 | And my coach looked at the transcript

00:29:45.680 | and he just stopped talking to me.

00:29:47.440 | This guy thinks that this question is not serious enough

00:29:50.720 | to take a look at or to consider.

00:29:52.240 | He's just kind of off in his own world.

00:29:54.160 | I just sat there feeling more miserable.

00:29:58.160 | And then Jeremy says, "Andrew, I think he said something

00:30:01.440 | "like double click on my face, which in Google Docs

00:30:03.220 | "means you could scroll to where the person is."

00:30:05.280 | He goes, "Look, this is what you're talking about?"

00:30:06.400 | I go, "Yes, look at how I put myself down there

00:30:08.000 | "by saying what I don't know."

00:30:09.480 | He goes, "Now look at this, double click on my face again."

00:30:11.180 | I double click.

00:30:12.020 | He took me down further in the transcript and he said,

00:30:14.320 | "She now is being open about her problem with her mom

00:30:18.700 | "and how it led her to where she is

00:30:20.480 | "and to be the kind of person she is."

00:30:22.320 | He said, "You are thinking you're gonna get vulnerable

00:30:24.940 | "and the other person will immediately be vulnerable back.

00:30:27.400 | "And when they don't, you feel like you're alone

00:30:29.640 | "in your weakness and everybody else is a success.

00:30:32.320 | "What you don't realize is you start out

00:30:34.480 | "with this vulnerability, the person needs to process it.

00:30:38.000 | "And eventually they often feel comfortable sharing

00:30:41.040 | "and look at how it is in black and white."

00:30:43.160 | So when we're trying to find,

00:30:44.480 | the reason I'm saying this to you,

00:30:45.720 | when we're trying to find non-obvious wins

00:30:49.240 | and losses in our conversations,

00:30:50.920 | it's really hard for us to evaluate ourselves.

00:30:53.200 | We just can't do it.

00:30:54.520 | That's why when you see a standup comic perform,

00:30:57.680 | you'll often see that they're recording themselves

00:30:59.800 | because they might think that a joke bombed,

00:31:02.000 | but in reality, there was a hint of a laugh

00:31:03.880 | that they didn't realize

00:31:04.720 | because they were feeling vulnerable

00:31:06.040 | and insecure about that joke.

00:31:07.680 | They need to see it afterwards,

00:31:09.440 | not when they're in performance mode,

00:31:10.980 | but when they're in evaluation mode.

00:31:12.720 | In performance mode, you are much harder on yourself.

00:31:15.520 | In evaluation mode, you can go much more cerebral.

00:31:18.400 | So coming back to the job interview,

00:31:20.440 | I would suggest to you that there are a lot of people

00:31:22.280 | who could say, "I wanna record this conversation

00:31:25.320 | "so that I have notes for how to follow up on this.

00:31:27.160 | "What I've discovered is that you're gonna teach me a lot

00:31:29.020 | "about your company.

00:31:30.080 | "And if I start to write it down because I wanna learn it,

00:31:33.440 | "I'm not gonna have it afterwards.

00:31:34.960 | "But if I record it and I give both of us notes on it,

00:31:37.440 | "I'm gonna have something that I could follow up on."

00:31:40.720 | I would suggest to you that something like that

00:31:42.800 | is really helpful for people to say,

00:31:44.860 | "I'm gonna record what we're doing

00:31:46.520 | "because I've found that a lot of people,

00:31:48.960 | "when they do interviews with me,

00:31:50.200 | "aren't aware of," or whatever.

00:31:52.320 | Maybe sometimes, "I don't express everything right

00:31:54.220 | "and I wanna fact-check it for you.

00:31:55.700 | "So if I have a recording, I can go back

00:31:57.100 | "and I could look at it."

00:31:58.200 | Give them the wind, tell them why it's important,

00:32:00.420 | and people will be willing to do it.

00:32:02.200 | Now, if that's not an option,

00:32:04.140 | I should tell you that one thing that I've done

00:32:06.240 | is I will record my side of the conversation.

00:32:08.960 | I don't need the other person necessarily.

00:32:10.960 | I can just say, "I'm recording this

00:32:12.960 | "so that I have my own voice."

00:32:15.540 | And I think that helps.

00:32:16.800 | It's not ideal.

00:32:17.640 | I prefer to see both, but I think there's a way.

00:32:20.280 | - Two follow-ups was one, if you're doing that,

00:32:22.840 | also make it clear that you're not gonna be

00:32:25.200 | doing anything with the audio.

00:32:26.160 | You're not gonna be sharing the audio publicly.

00:32:28.400 | It might seem obvious, but I think that's something to add.

00:32:31.640 | And the other, I was thinking, "Gosh,

00:32:33.200 | "how would you just record one person?"

00:32:35.600 | Then I was just thinking right now,

00:32:36.620 | "Oh, I have headphones on.

00:32:37.760 | "If I had my iPhone right now recording this room."

00:32:40.720 | So if you're doing a Zoom call, throw some headphones on.

00:32:44.320 | If you're watching this on the YouTube channel,

00:32:46.500 | you can see that Andrew has headphones on

00:32:48.100 | and doesn't look like it.

00:32:49.420 | I have headphones on and look like it.

00:32:50.900 | So he's got the better headphone setup here

00:32:53.840 | from discreteness, but I think those are both great.

00:32:57.220 | - Chris, there's one other thing

00:32:58.260 | that I think is worth noticing.

00:32:59.620 | When I started Mixergy, I was in Southern California.

00:33:03.480 | Southern California, Santa Monica, even Santa Barbara,

00:33:08.660 | that little stretch has venture capitalists,

00:33:12.560 | but the elite venture capitalists

00:33:14.220 | were always in San Francisco,

00:33:15.820 | and it was just a short ride away,

00:33:16.940 | so many entrepreneurs go there.

00:33:18.900 | What I noticed having dinner with entrepreneurs

00:33:21.020 | is they would often go and have meetings

00:33:24.060 | with the local VCs, the locals who are newer,

00:33:27.220 | less likely to give them money,

00:33:28.980 | less likely to be the ones

00:33:30.500 | that they wanted to take money from.

00:33:32.380 | And around the table, when someone would say,

00:33:35.300 | "Why did you take a meeting with this person

00:33:38.320 | "instead of going up to San Francisco?"

00:33:40.260 | Sometimes the response would be, "I needed the practice.

00:33:43.340 | "I wanted somebody who was going to question me.

00:33:45.480 | "I wanted to get my story right,"

00:33:47.360 | and they would practice with them.

00:33:49.340 | And the reason I bring this up

00:33:50.340 | is because if you're trying to improve your conversations,

00:33:52.640 | if you're trying to improve the way you do job interviews,

00:33:55.020 | you can go out for practice

00:33:56.440 | with people who you're not as concerned about.

00:33:58.400 | Maybe there's a third-tier job that you are thinking about

00:34:01.800 | or you would never even consider.

00:34:03.120 | Go take the interview

00:34:04.040 | and then try some of the techniques that I'm suggesting.

00:34:07.160 | Try some of the conversation techniques.

00:34:09.400 | Try to ask them to record.

00:34:11.020 | Get comfortable with it.

00:34:12.260 | You're in some ways going to feel superior,

00:34:14.100 | and you'll say in yourself,

00:34:15.380 | "I deserve to be able to record this.

00:34:17.400 | "Of course, this makes sense.

00:34:18.380 | "I'm gonna record it so I can follow up with them."

00:34:20.180 | And then you'll feel better about it.

00:34:21.220 | Once you do it there,

00:34:22.060 | you're gonna feel better about doing it somewhere else.

00:34:24.200 | So I think that's a huge, huge win.

00:34:26.740 | - It kinda makes me wanna go to a networking event

00:34:28.480 | for something that I have no professional designations for.

00:34:31.620 | Like, let's go to the veterinary networking event

00:34:33.540 | in the Bay Area and just go talk to people

00:34:35.300 | in a totally different industry.

00:34:36.940 | Obviously, I won't be the expert.

00:34:39.560 | I gotta go find out where they are.

00:34:41.900 | If we rewind, you were talking about vulnerability,

00:34:44.160 | but I don't think you unlocked why it can be so valuable.

00:34:48.600 | So I'm gonna give you a little bit of your,

00:34:50.560 | vulnerability can be an awesome skill in conversations

00:34:53.920 | because, and I'll let you finish that.

00:34:56.800 | - First of all, I think we get a benefit

00:34:58.880 | in talking about it to see that it's okay to say

00:35:02.080 | that my family had some mental health issues

00:35:06.160 | or someone in our family did

00:35:07.280 | and how it just really wrecked the family

00:35:09.340 | to know that somebody's going through that.

00:35:11.600 | That's a share that, you can see my voice is still not,

00:35:16.240 | you can still hear my voice,

00:35:18.440 | how I'm not really comfortable talking about it.

00:35:21.160 | But by sharing it, by talking about it,

00:35:24.120 | I release some of the pain that I have around it.

00:35:26.280 | I also connect with other people who are having it.

00:35:29.160 | And then it gives the other person an opportunity to say,

00:35:31.480 | oh, it's safe to say this,

00:35:32.920 | to talk about their suicide attempt in their family,

00:35:37.920 | their mental health issues.

00:35:40.760 | So I think if we really wanna get to know the other person,

00:35:43.480 | we have to show them some of ours.

00:35:44.800 | Otherwise people won't do it.

00:35:47.080 | They'll feel like you're taking advantage of them.

00:35:49.200 | - I talk a lot about money on the show

00:35:50.880 | and I find that money is one of those places

00:35:52.960 | where people are very guarded.

00:35:54.440 | People don't talk about it.

00:35:55.400 | So I often just open up and just say,

00:35:57.880 | oh, here's how much we spent on this thing

00:35:59.640 | or here's this situation.

00:36:02.320 | And that helps.

00:36:03.680 | Another tactic that I picked up from you

00:36:06.400 | was asking them permission

00:36:08.800 | to ask them the uncomfortable question.

00:36:11.400 | - Yeah.

00:36:12.240 | - I think the way you frame it in the book,

00:36:14.560 | and tell me if I'm correct,

00:36:15.440 | is it okay if I ask you, which is two questions in one.

00:36:18.920 | - Right.

00:36:19.920 | And people will answer the easiest of the two questions.

00:36:24.400 | Whenever there are two questions,

00:36:25.720 | they will immediately go and take the easy answer.

00:36:28.200 | So is it okay if I ask you

00:36:30.240 | if you and your wife are still married?

00:36:32.600 | If they don't feel comfortable saying

00:36:34.440 | that they're not married,

00:36:35.960 | they will say yes.

00:36:37.440 | They'll say, no, it's not okay.

00:36:38.520 | Or no, I don't feel comfortable talking about it.

00:36:40.160 | You just ask them that question.

00:36:41.320 | Is it okay if I ask you?

00:36:43.000 | Is it okay if I ask you what your revenue is?

00:36:45.760 | Do you feel comfortable revealing your revenue?

00:36:47.440 | Those types of things are giving the other person

00:36:49.760 | an opportunity to take a graceful exit.

00:36:52.840 | And I've seen this used by other interviewers

00:36:56.040 | and I have transcripts of myself using it.

00:36:58.240 | And you will see that people will reveal things

00:37:02.080 | that you didn't expect

00:37:03.320 | because you've created that environment

00:37:04.920 | where they get to choose whether they answer or not.

00:37:07.360 | And you'll also, if you see my transcripts,

00:37:08.800 | see that some people will say,

00:37:10.840 | no, I don't feel comfortable answering that.

00:37:12.840 | You've asked me, I'll ask,

00:37:14.680 | do you feel comfortable talking about your revenue?

00:37:16.800 | And they'll say, no,

00:37:17.640 | I don't feel comfortable talking about that.

00:37:19.040 | And we can move on.

00:37:19.880 | And there isn't that awkwardness in the middle.

00:37:22.080 | - So I did this mistakenly on an episode

00:37:25.000 | that will have by the time this airs,

00:37:26.640 | already come out where I was asking Adam Levin,

00:37:29.960 | who runs a podcast called What The Hack.

00:37:32.360 | And it's all about cybersecurity

00:37:34.000 | and fraud and identity theft.

00:37:36.360 | And I wanted specific recommendations

00:37:38.760 | for places to go to monitor your identity and credit

00:37:42.080 | because there's just so many sites I didn't trust him.

00:37:44.040 | And at first answer, I asked him and he said,

00:37:46.640 | I don't like to give recommendations.

00:37:48.120 | And then later in the conversation,

00:37:50.000 | I said something like, okay, well then who should we avoid?

00:37:54.760 | Like, if you don't wanna tell me who to pick,

00:37:56.440 | who should we avoid?

00:37:58.160 | And that broke him down.

00:37:59.440 | And he said, you know what?

00:38:00.880 | I said, I don't like to do this,

00:38:02.040 | but these three guys are really good.

00:38:04.800 | You should check these out.

00:38:06.200 | And so I'm curious if I had said,

00:38:08.480 | is it okay if I ask you to recommend a few companies

00:38:11.640 | that you think are really good?

00:38:12.640 | His answer would have been no.

00:38:14.360 | Eventually I found out that he was willing to share more.

00:38:17.760 | Are there any ways to get a sense of

00:38:20.160 | whether you've gotten someone to open up

00:38:21.560 | and revisit something that you thought

00:38:23.160 | might've been off topic or not off topic,

00:38:26.880 | but you thought might've been,

00:38:28.440 | you know, they weren't willing to share, but might be now?

00:38:31.640 | - The thing that I think about when you say that is

00:38:34.440 | I would write that down.

00:38:35.920 | I would analyze why that question worked,

00:38:37.920 | write it down and then try it again.

00:38:39.400 | And then if it works, add it to the repertoire.

00:38:42.760 | I think that's an interesting approach.

00:38:44.840 | You've asked him a tough question, he didn't answer it.

00:38:47.480 | And then you ask him an even tougher question

00:38:49.720 | and suddenly the first one seems easy.

00:38:51.960 | And so he might come in, that might be why it works.

00:38:54.720 | So I would try it in conversations in private

00:38:58.200 | to see if that worked.

00:38:59.560 | And if it didn't, then I discarded.

00:39:01.720 | If it does, it goes on to a Google talk for me

00:39:04.440 | and that's what I use.

00:39:05.920 | I think that that's important to analyze.

00:39:08.000 | You're asking me if there are other ways to get at it.

00:39:10.040 | I think that one way to get at it is to say,

00:39:13.400 | I don't need the exact, I need a ballpark.

00:39:16.000 | So if I try to ask someone what their revenue is

00:39:18.000 | and they don't feel comfortable, I'll say,

00:39:19.600 | you feel comfortable giving me a ballpark?

00:39:21.140 | Like, is it millions?

00:39:22.040 | Is it tens of millions?

00:39:22.880 | Is it thousands?

00:39:23.800 | Okay, sometimes people will say,

00:39:24.960 | okay, I feel comfortable with the ballpark,

00:39:26.280 | I just don't want you to get the exact number.

00:39:27.960 | Right, sometimes I hit them with the dramatic low ball.

00:39:31.680 | Sometimes, so might, if in your situation,

00:39:33.880 | my approach might've been to say,

00:39:35.540 | if I asked him which three companies I should work with

00:39:39.360 | and he didn't give me the answer,

00:39:40.360 | my way would have been to suggest a really bad one.

00:39:44.480 | Oh, you wanna get, and then I give him

00:39:46.440 | some clearly bad example and have him go,

00:39:49.280 | no, are you kidding me?

00:39:50.120 | That's absolutely the worst company.

00:39:51.380 | If you want someone, just go at least use this other company

00:39:54.340 | and then that approach would work.

00:39:56.220 | So there are a few different ways,

00:39:57.740 | but I think the bigger point here

00:39:59.020 | is you've just discovered a new approach to asking question

00:40:03.340 | and I would keep an eye on that

00:40:04.860 | and see if you can use it multiple times.

00:40:08.140 | And that's the way that I added to my repertoire.

00:40:09.980 | This whole book was written on me discovering

00:40:11.900 | these ways of asking questions that worked

00:40:16.180 | and then writing them down.

00:40:17.300 | I would always give them a name,

00:40:18.300 | I would write them down,

00:40:19.140 | and then I would copy out of the transcript why they worked.

00:40:21.820 | - I have another one I'll add to my repertoire,

00:40:23.740 | but I don't, I'm not gonna share it now.

00:40:25.420 | I gotta go test it first.

00:40:26.700 | And then, so if you're listening,

00:40:28.180 | maybe you'll hear me bring it up some more.

00:40:30.820 | What about, we talked a lot about the questions you ask,

00:40:32.820 | the questions you don't ask, the ways you interrupt.

00:40:35.600 | What about at the end?

00:40:36.540 | Is there anything about how you build a relationship

00:40:39.100 | and then follow up on that relationship,

00:40:40.940 | whether it's wrapping up the conversation

00:40:43.860 | or following up after that you think has helped?

00:40:45.660 | - Oh, Chris, I've been so bad at that.

00:40:48.400 | Like, I will meet these amazing people,

00:40:50.380 | we'll have phenomenal conversations,

00:40:51.980 | and then I won't do anything about it.

00:40:53.820 | And then we're gone from each other's lives

00:40:55.460 | after the person loves me.

00:40:57.460 | Or at least we connected.

00:40:59.540 | I love chess.com, I am on it all the time,

00:41:01.700 | I keep analyzing my chess game.

00:41:02.920 | I interviewed the founder of chess.com,

00:41:04.420 | we hit it off, he was texting me questions like,

00:41:06.820 | "Can we buy an ad on your podcast?"

00:41:08.380 | I said, "I'm sorry, I've run out of space."

00:41:10.120 | Anyway, when we were into that kind of a thing,

00:41:13.500 | we chatted and then the whole thing disappeared.

00:41:16.420 | I happened to be in therapy recently.

00:41:18.720 | And one of the things that I uncovered was

00:41:22.680 | that I am not a great stay-in-touch-with-someone person.

00:41:27.680 | Like, even the people that I work with,

00:41:29.600 | with my producer, Ari DiCermo,

00:41:31.880 | we've worked together for a decade,

00:41:33.960 | I think, somewhere around there.

00:41:35.080 | And I won't just say, "Here's what I'm up to,"

00:41:38.200 | or check in and see how's it going with the kids,

00:41:40.960 | or anything like that.

00:41:42.520 | And he said, "Andrew, people wanna hear from you."

00:41:44.920 | I go, "Ah, they don't."

00:41:46.660 | I said, "All right, I'm gonna try it."

00:41:47.580 | He goes, "I wanna hear from you."

00:41:48.500 | I go, "Okay, I'm gonna try it.

00:41:49.340 | "You're my therapist.

00:41:50.160 | "You're saying I should hear from you.

00:41:51.000 | "I have your number because we do this on FaceTime."

00:41:54.140 | And when I discovered something

00:41:55.540 | like how to drive a lawnmower here in Austin,

00:41:57.300 | I've never mowed a lawn before I moved to Austin,

00:41:59.380 | I've always been a city person.

00:42:00.540 | So I discovered how to drive a driving lawnmower

00:42:02.980 | and how to change a blade.

00:42:03.820 | I sent him a picture.

00:42:04.820 | I saw that he got excited about it

00:42:05.660 | and I kinda like that touch point.

00:42:07.820 | So then I started doing that with other people.

00:42:09.580 | I would just send them a picture

00:42:10.700 | of the thing that I've learned to do.

00:42:12.300 | And it might be some random thing like,

00:42:14.000 | "Hey, I just got this guitar

00:42:15.040 | "that I've been traveling to Europe with.

00:42:16.580 | "It's kinda fun.

00:42:17.420 | "What are you up to, by the way?"

00:42:18.840 | And these little experiences

00:42:20.200 | that I'm sending in just a picture, nothing more,

00:42:22.720 | they're super personal and they're an easy way to connect.

00:42:26.500 | And I wish I'd done it more.

00:42:28.360 | And so if I were to answer your question,

00:42:30.720 | honestly, it would be I sucked at it for years.

00:42:33.520 | I'm getting better at it.

00:42:34.800 | And my solution is to not try to find

00:42:36.720 | more work-related things to say to someone,

00:42:39.200 | but to instead just find a few personal things

00:42:43.460 | and share it with them.

00:42:44.540 | And one of the producers at Mixergy that I've had,

00:42:47.940 | like the first one, Jeremy Weiss, is amazing with it.

00:42:51.280 | He will send me holiday text messages.

00:42:54.140 | He'll send me random text messages

00:42:56.040 | about the date night he had with his wife.

00:42:58.600 | And at times it feels like,

00:42:59.440 | "Oh, I don't care about where you and your wife went."

00:43:03.060 | But I never am bothered by it

00:43:05.060 | because we're kinda staying in each other's lives

00:43:07.220 | and it's incredibly, incredibly effective.

00:43:09.600 | So that's the one thing that I've learned to do.

00:43:14.100 | And if I were to just add one other thing

00:43:17.300 | that's a little less harsh on myself,

00:43:19.700 | but recognizing one thing that I randomly have done

00:43:22.840 | that works is I still have the same email inbox from forever.

00:43:27.780 | And if I've ever interviewed somebody,

00:43:29.660 | our initial conversation is in that inbox.

00:43:32.420 | So the founder of Dropbox, I have the first message

00:43:35.460 | where he said, "Yeah, I'll do the interview with you."

00:43:37.500 | Airbnb, and then other people who you may not know,

00:43:39.860 | but who matter to me.

00:43:41.460 | If I need to reach out to them,

00:43:42.940 | I hit reply on that old message.

00:43:44.500 | It gives them a sense of who we are

00:43:46.060 | and then it's easier to reconnect.

00:43:48.900 | I'm not just somebody who needs something from you now.

00:43:51.180 | I've connected with you.

00:43:52.060 | I've helped you before through this podcast.

00:43:54.040 | Now I'm checking in or asking for something.

00:43:56.460 | - I don't know if you know Nick Gray,

00:43:57.740 | who's a fellow Austin local,

00:43:59.660 | but he creates a friends newsletter,

00:44:01.980 | which I've done in the past,

00:44:03.000 | which is like a scalable version of your lawnmower example,

00:44:06.120 | which is, you know, he sends an email out.

00:44:08.040 | I think now it's weekly, but you could do it once a month.

00:44:10.180 | It's just kind of like, "Hey, here's what's up in my life."

00:44:12.620 | And I've actually noticed that all the hacks newsletter

00:44:15.920 | that I ship out every month, just last week,

00:44:18.800 | someone who I went to college with

00:44:20.100 | and haven't talked to in forever,

00:44:22.020 | but because I merged it from an email list I had before,

00:44:26.560 | wrote back and said, "Oh my gosh,

00:44:27.720 | I've been staying in touch with you for all this long.

00:44:29.540 | This is what I'm up to."

00:44:30.380 | And it kind of brought us back together.

00:44:31.900 | So, you know, I would have never thought

00:44:33.680 | to text that person a picture of something,

00:44:35.980 | but to put them on an email that I send to everyone,

00:44:39.240 | I did do, and it worked.

00:44:40.880 | So I said at the beginning,

00:44:43.380 | I wasn't gonna spend too much time

00:44:44.540 | focused on just professional interviewing and all that,

00:44:47.060 | because most people listening,

00:44:48.800 | this is not a podcast for podcasters,

00:44:51.520 | but I know the listeners of this show

00:44:53.800 | have a pretty vested interest

00:44:55.020 | in the continuing evolution of this show.

00:44:57.420 | So I am curious to get your take on a few things.

00:44:59.800 | You've done over 2,000 episodes

00:45:01.900 | and built a pretty big community around it.

00:45:04.060 | How do you engage your listeners,

00:45:08.020 | or advice for me to engage people listening today

00:45:10.940 | in the process of finding, recruiting,

00:45:13.220 | and kind of preparing for guests,

00:45:15.240 | and kind of make it something

00:45:16.540 | that more people are involved in

00:45:17.940 | than just me and then publishing?

00:45:19.600 | I think podcasting's such a one-way experience in many ways.

00:45:23.080 | It's like, maybe you can email or review,

00:45:25.100 | but I feel like there's more opportunity there.

00:45:28.260 | - I was just at a conference that Nathan Lotka put on.

00:45:32.420 | He asked me to go and introduce the speaker,

00:45:34.320 | and then he introduced me before I introduced the speaker,

00:45:37.320 | and he said, "Andrew once gave his cell phone number

00:45:40.580 | "out on his podcast."

00:45:42.360 | I said, "There's no way that's really Andrew's number."

00:45:44.540 | So I called it.

00:45:46.080 | He goes, "I called it, and it was Andrew,

00:45:47.700 | "and he picked up, and I was in college,

00:45:49.160 | "and we talked, and I said,

00:45:50.940 | "that is an amazing thing that he would actually do it."

00:45:54.700 | And he said, "We've stayed in touch since then,

00:45:57.540 | "and it's been about 10 years now."

00:45:59.580 | And the reason that I say that is,

00:46:03.640 | I think we think a lot about how do we talk

00:46:06.100 | and engage our whole audience en masse.

00:46:09.460 | And what I've discovered is that

00:46:11.040 | if we can just talk to them one-on-one,

00:46:14.340 | that's where the real value is.

00:46:16.100 | The big thing I wouldn't get rid of,

00:46:18.100 | I absolutely need the broad reach,

00:46:22.780 | but the more one-on-one that I could do,

00:46:25.820 | the better, without killing myself.

00:46:27.940 | The more in-person that I can do,

00:46:29.660 | or I spend time with you in the same room,

00:46:32.060 | and we have a personal conversation, the better.

00:46:34.660 | So Scotchnight was a good way.

00:46:36.400 | To make my cell phone available was a good way.

00:46:41.460 | To say, "Here's my email address,

00:46:43.140 | "and anyone can reach out to me,"

00:46:44.820 | and then respond to people is a good way

00:46:47.420 | of reaching out to them.

00:46:48.660 | The problem people come up with is,

00:46:49.980 | "What if too many people reach out to me?"

00:46:51.560 | And that's a definite problem,

00:46:52.800 | and I've run into that over the years.

00:46:55.620 | But if you care about the people you're reaching,

00:46:59.820 | it's worth it, and if you don't,

00:47:01.500 | then you have a real problem.

00:47:02.700 | I could never be some of these YouTube stars

00:47:05.700 | who are writing about how to use, I don't know,

00:47:09.440 | just any random thing.

00:47:11.940 | I need to care about the people who are out there

00:47:14.980 | enough that I would wanna spend time with them,

00:47:17.020 | not enough to just make a profit off of them.

00:47:19.180 | And once I do that, then I want them to reach out to me.

00:47:21.940 | I may not give my cell phone out anymore,

00:47:24.980 | but I'll get my email address out and respond,

00:47:26.820 | and if I see someone on the street,

00:47:28.200 | I'll stop and we'll say hi,

00:47:30.140 | and I think that's the best answer,

00:47:32.860 | to reach an audience you genuinely care about,

00:47:35.420 | and not just one that you need more of,

00:47:38.260 | and be as open to personal one-on-one conversations

00:47:42.100 | and in-person meetings as you possibly can.

00:47:44.820 | - Yeah, I think anyone listening who's emailed me

00:47:46.620 | knows that I would like to assume

00:47:49.780 | that all of them have gotten a reply,

00:47:51.920 | and as the show grows, maybe that reply is taken longer,

00:47:55.660 | but often it starts with a question,

00:47:57.540 | and then sometimes I follow up with a conversation,

00:48:00.300 | trying to understand what do you think of the show,

00:48:02.100 | what direction would you wanna take it?

00:48:04.700 | So keep those emails coming,

00:48:06.220 | even if you don't have a question,

00:48:07.860 | feel free, even if you don't have a question,

00:48:09.780 | feel free to reach out and let me know what you think

00:48:13.000 | about the show, where it should go, other things like that.

00:48:16.360 | I'm always looking to improve and adapt.

00:48:19.240 | - You know what, can I add to that and say,

00:48:22.500 | I think it's important that people also take that part of it

00:48:25.820 | that we keep talking about how we,

00:48:27.260 | if we get inbound respond,

00:48:28.540 | we should be responding to as many people as possible.

00:48:30.700 | I think people should also send out

00:48:32.700 | as many messages as possible.

00:48:35.220 | There's this entrepreneur who I've invested in, Matt.

00:48:42.740 | Matt reached out to the real founder of Netflix,

00:48:49.020 | Mark Randolph, and he got a fricking response back.

00:48:52.840 | And then Mark Randolph became his advisor.

00:48:55.080 | And then in the book that talks about the story

00:48:57.160 | of how Netflix was really founded by Mark Randolph,

00:48:59.640 | there's a reference to Matt in the fricking book.

00:49:02.240 | And then I asked Matt, did you really like,

00:49:04.740 | is Matt, I mean, sorry, I asked Mark Randolph,

00:49:07.600 | the founder of Netflix, I said,

00:49:09.860 | is Matt Morales really like, how do you connect with him?

00:49:12.960 | Is he someone who you really are advising over the years?

00:49:15.520 | He said, yeah, he just reached out to me

00:49:16.840 | and I care about entrepreneurs.

00:49:18.000 | I responded back to him.

00:49:19.040 | And in fact, I invested in his latest business, Oasis,

00:49:21.440 | and he's a good person.

00:49:22.720 | I go, from one fricking email out of the blue.

00:49:25.520 | I think people are too intimidated to reach out

00:49:28.480 | and it's a problem.

00:49:30.360 | We should also be reaching out to strangers

00:49:32.880 | whose work we like on the internet

00:49:34.640 | and tell them why we like it,

00:49:35.760 | because they're trying to establish a relationship

00:49:40.760 | with their audience too and with people they care about.

00:49:44.000 | - I found that from the case of reaching out to people.

00:49:46.680 | I just sent you a DM and said, hey, like your work,

00:49:49.800 | can we have this conversation?

00:49:51.320 | I've sent those DMs to other people.

00:49:53.000 | Some of them say no, some of them say yes.

00:49:55.760 | I think I found recruiting people to come on the show,

00:49:59.080 | trying to get interesting people to talk to,

00:50:02.440 | half the time it's just about, it's a numbers game, right?

00:50:05.160 | You just have to send out enough messages

00:50:06.700 | that you can get someone on the time

00:50:08.880 | that they're looking at their email,

00:50:09.920 | on the week they're not too busy.

00:50:11.160 | And I think people should also be just trying more

00:50:13.680 | to get in front of people.

00:50:14.840 | Also, a no is good.

00:50:16.960 | A no is good, you've stayed in touch with them.

00:50:19.000 | I started Mixergy by organizing events.

00:50:21.700 | I would go and invite people to an event

00:50:23.640 | who wouldn't show up, but nobody said,

00:50:25.960 | that jerk Andrew invited me to an event.

00:50:28.360 | Instead they go, that's the guy who invited me to an event.

00:50:30.560 | I better stay nice with him

00:50:31.720 | because maybe the next time he invites me,

00:50:33.320 | it'll be to an event that I care about.

00:50:35.260 | If you invite someone to do an interview,

00:50:37.240 | there's nobody who goes, that jerk Chris

00:50:39.480 | invited me to do a podcast interview.

00:50:41.960 | Eh, he cares about me.

00:50:43.560 | No, just inviting people, even if they say no,

00:50:46.320 | it's a sincere way of saying, I care about you.

00:50:49.400 | I'm here reaching out to you

00:50:50.920 | before I really even need something.

00:50:53.600 | I'm inviting you to do this thing,

00:50:54.900 | to get exposure for your book in this case,

00:50:57.080 | to get exposure for your business

00:50:59.380 | in the case of me asking somebody

00:51:01.160 | to do an interview with me.

00:51:02.560 | It's never a loss to just invite somebody.

00:51:05.820 | And you talk about Nick Gray.

00:51:07.640 | He's organizing events all over Austin.

00:51:10.200 | He's constantly inviting people

00:51:11.760 | and people can't make it out,

00:51:13.040 | but he's got this reputation now

00:51:14.740 | for inviting people to events

00:51:16.080 | that creates a warm feeling.

00:51:17.520 | He and the fricking guy, I moved to Austin.

00:51:19.960 | He invites me to go paddle boarding.

00:51:21.640 | Now that I think about it,

00:51:22.480 | I must've done stand-up paddle boarding with him.

00:51:24.080 | That was my first time.

00:51:25.320 | He invites me out stand-up paddle boarding.

00:51:27.640 | While we're there, he goes, you know, Andrew,

00:51:29.440 | if you and your wife wanna just go and experience Austin,

00:51:32.320 | there's nothing like a paddle board together.

00:51:34.640 | Just come on over, borrow my stand-up paddle board

00:51:37.040 | and you and Olivia can go out, you'll love it.

00:51:39.180 | I've never taken him up on it

00:51:41.080 | because with paddle board rentals all over Austin,

00:51:43.460 | why do I need to go to his house and do it?

00:51:45.260 | With paddle boards costing, what, 250 bucks?

00:51:48.720 | I don't need to use his for free

00:51:50.340 | and then worry about damaging it.

00:51:52.480 | But dude, the fact that he invited me to use it

00:51:55.280 | make me feel that he is a caring person

00:51:58.320 | who is offering me something that's that personal.

00:52:03.320 | Never a bad idea to invite people.

00:52:05.880 | - I sent in the email before and I know we're at time,

00:52:08.120 | so I'm gonna try to wrap.

00:52:09.160 | If you had a chance to listen to any episodes

00:52:11.260 | to give feedback, I don't know if you did

00:52:12.760 | 'cause that was only a day or two ago,

00:52:14.160 | but if you did, I'm gonna ask you about it.

00:52:15.840 | - I'm gonna say that one thing that I wish I'd said

00:52:18.280 | in the beginning of this interview is let's restart.

00:52:21.440 | Let's restart the computer.

00:52:22.960 | We have frozen, I'll give you feedback on this one.

00:52:25.200 | I dig you so much.

00:52:26.720 | Our videos have frozen so much

00:52:28.560 | that I can't see the look in your face when I'm responding.

00:52:31.840 | Like right now it's completely frozen

00:52:33.720 | and I don't know whether we're on the right track or not.

00:52:36.520 | And so the feedback I would give is maybe to both of us

00:52:38.800 | that when the technology is not cooperating,

00:52:40.800 | to not say, ah, we've got a recording of it on Riverside,

00:52:43.120 | it's gonna record for both of us,

00:52:44.280 | but to say, let's take a moment.

00:52:46.640 | We're gonna restart it, it's gonna be valuable.

00:52:48.640 | And I'm gonna take that for myself.

00:52:49.760 | Sometimes as an interviewer, I think,

00:52:52.000 | all right, I don't wanna bother this person

00:52:53.400 | by saying let's both restart

00:52:54.800 | or let's figure out what's going on with this.

00:52:56.740 | Let's just go into the interview.

00:52:58.500 | It matters, we wanna be able to see each other, right?

00:53:00.920 | If you and I were talking to each other through glass

00:53:02.960 | for whatever freaking reason

00:53:04.080 | and there was all kinds of dirt on the glass,

00:53:06.160 | I'd wanna at least wipe it down so I could see your face.

00:53:08.560 | Your video, surprisingly, has been perfect the entire time.

00:53:12.320 | So I didn't know. - I'm good, okay.

00:53:14.640 | - Okay, this has been fantastic.

00:53:15.760 | I feel like I have a lot of homework

00:53:17.600 | so that the next time I'm interviewing someone,

00:53:20.180 | I'm doing a better job, I'm asking the right questions,

00:53:22.240 | I'm pausing, I'm interrupting and everything.

00:53:23.840 | So thank you.

00:53:24.680 | Hopefully everyone listening will thank you

00:53:27.420 | as the quality of the show goes up

00:53:29.240 | and the quality of my skills do.

00:53:31.160 | I'm excited to engage with the audience more.

00:53:32.960 | So if you're listening, reach out anytime.

00:53:35.920 | Andrew, where can people find out what you're up to

00:53:38.640 | and everything you're working on?

00:53:40.640 | - If you Google me, I'm totally Googleable.

00:53:42.480 | Sorry to every other Andrew Warner on the planet,

00:53:44.440 | but I got there first.

00:53:46.080 | Number two, the podcast,

00:53:48.280 | if they're curious about how I do my interviews,

00:53:50.440 | it's called "Mixergy and the Book."

00:53:52.320 | Stop asking questions.

00:53:53.480 | Available at libraries and bookstores.

00:53:55.640 | - Ooh, never heard the plug for libraries,

00:53:57.680 | though I appreciate that.

00:53:58.840 | Everyone that listening knows library extension

00:54:01.360 | to take advantage of their library as well.

00:54:04.360 | - Oh dude, Chris, Libby app is amazing for that.

00:54:07.520 | There's so many books that I would never think to buy,

00:54:10.040 | wouldn't even think to get the chapter to download.

00:54:13.120 | Then I use the Libby app

00:54:14.560 | and I get the book directly sent to my Kindle

00:54:17.040 | and then the audio book directly on my phone to listen to.

00:54:20.160 | And now, because it's just,

00:54:21.800 | you don't think about the price,

00:54:23.120 | you're just kind of experimenting,

00:54:25.080 | I might take a few and start reading books

00:54:27.680 | that I never would have before.

00:54:28.960 | - You know about library extension?

00:54:31.120 | - No, what's library extension?

00:54:31.960 | - So for everyone listening, library extension.

00:54:33.960 | So Libby is like 30% of library extension,

00:54:37.520 | but library extension is a Chrome extension

00:54:39.280 | that when you're on Amazon looking at a book,

00:54:41.880 | it just pops up and says,

00:54:42.840 | "Hey, you can get this at any of these local libraries."

00:54:45.360 | And if you live in a metro area,

00:54:47.480 | or, you know, I have my San Francisco library card

00:54:50.120 | and I've got my San Mateo, you know,

00:54:51.920 | Burlingame library card.

00:54:53.240 | And in order to join Stanford Federal Credit Union,

00:54:55.880 | I had to join the Friends of the Palo Alto library.

00:54:57.960 | So like, I have a couple of library memberships

00:54:59.640 | and it just searches all of them

00:55:01.240 | from any Amazon page for a book.

00:55:03.800 | So there's a little hack for everyone on the way out.

00:55:06.920 | Andrew, thank you so much for being here.

All The Hacks: Better Conversations

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