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Again, that's longangle.com. Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel. I'm Chris Hutchins, and I want to tell a little bit of a story before I get into today's conversation. In the 1960s, six boys from Tonga were shipwrecked on a remote Pacific island for 15 months.

And you might be thinking it turned into something like Lord of the Flies, a descent into violence, but that is not what happened. In fact, it was the polar opposite of that novel, which most of us had to read in school. And while in the fictitional book, boys descended into anarchy, murder, mayhem, in the real world, they actually got along well, they developed structure, they took care of those who were injured.

And when they were found after 15 months, they were doing great. They were fit, they were healthy. So why is this book Lord of the Flies so much bleaker than reality? Why did kindness end up actually ruling in real life? Well, author Rucker Berman introduced this story and others in a recent book called Humankind, A Hopeful History.

And he makes the case pretty convincingly that humans are basically kind, and they do better and thrive when they are kind. And that kindness is more human of a trait than cruelty. So if we can do better when we're kind, how do you hone and improve that ability? Well, that thought had me so intrigued by the title of Adrian Bankert's book, Your Hidden Superpower, the kindness that makes you unbeatable at work and connects you with anyone.

And I'm so excited to be talking about it today. Adrian's an Emmy Award winning journalist who's reported on stories from all over the world, interviewed hundreds of people and celebrities. She was a correspondent and weekend anchor on ABC's Good Morning America. And she's the first woman of color to solo host a morning show as host of Morning in America.

But her hallmark is kindness, and it's been a huge factor in her success and ultimately led her to write her book. Adrian, welcome to the show and thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Chris. Great story. It's funny because it's not always true. I recently interviewed a guy named Brandon Presser, who's a travel journalist, and he wrote about the Pitcairn Islands, which is quite more of the Lord of the Rings truth, but also was much older people escaping tyranny and a little bit crazier.

So I just want to start and read part of the first chapter of your book, because I think it sets the stone for a conversation, which is there is an unbeatable superpower inside every one of us that is far greater than talent or tenacity. It supersedes strength and intelligence.

It crushes selfishness, negativity and doubt. That's kindness you're speaking of. And that superpower is something I really want to understand. Could you just jump in and explain how it's a superpower that could do all of those things? Well, I gave a keynote speech just recently here, and my title of the speech was "The Purpose of Your Power." I think that people forget that kindness isn't just a pleasant thing to do.

It's not just good etiquette. It's not just the way we should behave as if we're completely oblivious to the world going sideways around us. But it's a choice. It's a very intentional choice. And the purpose behind it is to provide stability to other people. Right now, we're in the midst of a very uncertain time in multiple areas.

Just turn on the news. And a lot of people are going through personal battles that we don't even know about. And inside of them, they're just hoping that somebody will be kind to them, that somebody will remember them, that somebody will call them and tell them it's OK. And I think that a lot of times with kindness, we think, oh, I've got to try really hard to be a good person or, oh, you know, I've got to give these people a break and be nice to them.

And it's funny because now that I've worked on kindness for a while, I don't know that I would say it's inherently who we want to be as people. I think that a lot of times we want to just get the quick fix or we can be selfish. But I think it's the thing that we all crave to receive from other people.

And so when we give people the one thing that we universally want, somebody to be kind to us, somebody to treat us in a humane fashion, someone to think of us, to remember us, to be friendly to us, then the power behind that is that not only does that person get helped, but we become inspired, we become encouraged, we become more the person that we really do desire to be, but don't always act in alignment with.

And so I think there's something very powerful about giving someone the consideration that has a mutual reciprocity, that has that power to put us in a better mood and them in a better mood. And do more than that, really give oxygen to our lungs and keep us going and not quitting.

And is it somewhat self-fulfilling? If it feels hard to start practicing this more and more regularly, is it something that as you do it, and you see the reaction becomes easier? I don't think it's hard. That's the thing. It's really not hard. List the 15 times in the recent history that you were in a environment with somebody, maybe you were interviewing them on your podcast, and they said something in error.

And you could have corrected them, whether it's their grammar or fact, you know, they were just factually in error because they were talking very fast. And instead of correcting them, you just let them talk. And eventually over the process of listening, they actually were able to spit out the sentence in a way that you could edit around it without having to super critique them in that moment.

That's an act of kindness. I don't think it's hard. I just think it's a choice. I work in a live studio environment. And so there are times when you want it to be a little quieter on the set. But as the host of the show, that's not my job to make it quieter on the set.

It's the stage director's job to make it quieter on the set. So my kindness is keeping myself in my lane, and trusting that other person to do their job instead of thinking cut, I wish somebody would do their job. That's a kindness, deciding to trust somebody. So I think it's really more of you know what, I'm going to stay calm in this moment.

And right now, that's at a premium. There are a lot of people who blow up there are a lot of people, I just looked up the word stability. One of my favorite definitions from Merriam Webster's dictionary is not radioactive, not spontaneously radioactive, like, a lot of people can blow up easily, whether it's rush hour traffic, or it's at their kids or their spouse or partner.

And it's like, everybody's kind of asking for a chill pill right now, like, can you please just keep it chill. And we want that for ourselves. So if we can put ourselves in somebody else's shoes and use that empathy that we use that word so often now, but it really is about putting ourselves in the position of somebody else, we can think, you know what, I can keep my mouth shut for five minutes, I can wait until this next commercial break to express myself.

And then just in terms of everyday life, going to the grocery store, going to pick up your kids from school, like, there's always going to be some interruption. Can you just hold on for five minutes? Can you just hold on for one hour? Can you just hold on until you get off at 5pm?

Yes, most of us can. And that's the kindness, it's the choice to hold on. Just take it day by day, take it hour by hour, take it every 15 minutes, if you have to. That choice is something once we put it in bite sized pieces becomes very easy. I think we all want to do this.

I have a few times in my history where I'm sure I've been on the giving side of an annoying kind of blow up in an argument. And after the fact, I'm like, gosh, I wish I just paused and took a break. But in the moment, it's much harder. Is there a practice or something to think about that makes it top of mind for you?

I don't have my other cell phone near me. But it says hot mic on it. And this is my easy way to do this. Imagine that the person or persons next to you all have their cell phone out and they're going to roll on you in the next few minutes.

And so your reaction is potentially going to go viral. Now, I'm not trying to use a scare tactic, but it's that thought of, there's going to be video proof of how I behave. Now, I have to live with that reality every single day. But if we all acted like we were on national television, that to me is just enough of a trigger for me to think, wait, just wait a second.

Would I want this on video? And would I want this on TikTok all around the world? No, not so much. So let me just chill. That helps me. I hope that helps somebody else out there. No, I think the kind of subtle reminders, whether they're post-its you put on your computer screen, or whether they're changing your background on your phone, those little tricks, I think sometimes help people.

And what I meant earlier was once you start doing it more regularly, maybe it actually becomes easier. I think Nir Eyal, who wrote a book called Indistractable, says, "Hey, whenever you're feeling that urge to go pick up your phone and check Instagram or Twitter or TikTok, pause for a second and just feel what it feels like to want to go do that.

And maybe at the beginning, you just still go do it. But the more you understand, "Oh, that's the internal feeling of I'm having this desire to do something that I know is bad for me, that I know I don't want to do." Step one is feel what it feels like so you can work on recognizing it.

Yeah, I think we do need to get more in touch with the feeling, whether it's positive or negative. It's just like, "Okay, what am I processing right now? What's going on in my head that's making me want to either blow up or run away?" Because a lot of us have a fight or flight tendency in our DNA.

And it's like, rather than have conflict, even if we don't mind a conflict, we would rather just walk out. And we can't always do that. So having a word that calms you down, having a song that you sing. And I think if you can come up with some little mini mantras, so that when things do get tense, innocuous mantras.

There was a gentleman that I worked with, and I got a little bit heated with at one point. And I said, "Listen," I said, "I apologize, because I could have come off a lot kinder there." I said, "If you ever notice me getting that way, and maybe you think I haven't noticed, I want you to signal me.

And this is how you're going to signal me. I want you to say jalapeno." And I said, "Jalapeno is the code word between you and me that things are getting a little too hot in here, and we need to turn it down a notch." And he laughed out loud.

I mean, it was just like a fun, innocuous way to remind ourselves not to get too irritated, or not to get too spicy with one another. So it worked. I just did a run, Robin Arzon from Peloton, and they have these outdoor runs. And she has a similar thing where she's like, "Pick a word when you're running, and anytime it's hard, just repeat the word." And for her, it was "Outlast." I'm not training for a marathon or anything, but I am trying to beat records every time I run.

And that idea of having a word, whether you repeat it to someone or to yourself, I found personally to be really helpful. I probably stole her word. I probably should come up with my own. But "Outlast" seemed like a good word to remind yourself when trying to complete a physical challenge.

Yeah, well, and really, like deciding to be kind in a world that can be very unkind is as physical as it gets. You will have a visceral response sometimes to pressure and stress. And being kind is the last thing you want to do. You either want to tell somebody what you really think, or you want to get the heck out.

I didn't write the book to have some utopian idea of, "Oh, let's just all just be really sweet to each other." I wrote it because I wanted people to start seeing themselves as kind as an identity, not as an act. Because whatever you believe you are is what you'll attract.

But also, whatever you believe you are, you will stay true to. Even if you mess up, even if you stumble, you're going to return back to that baseline of who you see yourself as. So if you see yourself as kind, not just somebody who can be kind, but your full identity as a person is kind, then you can come back to center.

That will be your North Star. If you think, "I'm kind when I'm in a good mood," or "I'm kind after I have coffee," then you are limiting yourself and stressful situations may put you over the edge and you may not even realize how little control you have over your emotions in those times.

Sometimes the things that you might say don't necessarily come off as kind. And I'll give a fun example, which was I interviewed a guy named Mike Hayes, who was a former Navy SEAL commander. And he was giving a lecture and a student asked a question that was one of those questions that was kind of annoying.

Trying to tell the whole room how great they are before they asked the question. And his response was, "Hey, I'm going to pause you and tell you you're a bad question asker. And in the moment, you're probably feeling really small. But otherwise, I'm going to let you go on through life asking questions terribly and have all these people..." So he meant it in the nicest way.

But it certainly is sometimes hard for those things to come across kind. How do you balance that? I think that a lot of times kindness does get this wrap of, "Oh, it has to be said in the most sugary, sweet way. Otherwise, it's not kind." When the truth of the matter is, sometimes tough love really is truly love.

Sometimes being kind looks like criticism, but it's the best thing you could do. It will save your life, your career over the course of your relationships. Because that'll be the reality check. I can't tell you how many times when somebody gets got, not got in my face, like in a confrontational way, because there's a difference between confronting and offering constructive feedback, but just told me like, "Listen, A, I got to tell you the truth because I don't know that anybody else will." And it was just a lifesaver of information.

But there aren't a lot of people who are that honest. And if they don't love you or care about you, if they don't have that desire to make you better, then they'll just let you keep doing what you're doing. But if they are kind enough to be super upfront with you and to tell you something that will actually help you be better and be who you really want to be, then that's absolutely kind, even if the delivery stings a little bit.

There's a book that I read when I was running a company called Radical Candor. And it highlights that if you don't build the relationship for someone to know that that feedback comes from a good place, then even if your intentions are good, it's probably not going to land on the delivery.

So you have to spend time cultivating the relationship for someone to say, "Oh, they're probably trying to help me improve when they tell me that the work I just delivered was terrible." And I think that too, there's two kinds of people in this world. For the majority of people that you are going to have to nurture that relationship before you can be that honest with them.

But there is a small, I would say a radically small group of people who can handle that kind of honesty and frankness, like you're talking about, no matter how it's delivered, because they're so hungry. Like the hungriest hunters, the people who are so teachable, the ones who are willing to pay the highest price, and there's more than one person on the planet who thinks like that, they will take it however they can get it because their ultimate goals are higher than their feelings.

And they're not going to let sensitivity stop them from growing. Does it sometimes hurt still? Absolutely. But the top 1% of people had to put their feelings aside, in order to grow through those painful experiences that looked like an insult, but really was the billion dollar idea to their success.

I don't know if I'm necessarily want to put myself into that when you called it the top percent. But I do love feedback. And I find that people in general don't like giving it because they are kind and they want people to feel good. But for me, it most comes around when I'm cooking, and I'll make something for dinner, and I serve it to everyone.

They're like, "This was so good." I'm like, "Great, thank you. I appreciate that you enjoy it. But what could I do so that when I make this dish next time, it's even better?" And I find it so difficult to pull out the criticism from people. So if we reverse this, any tips for someone trying to seek criticism in a world where sometimes people don't like giving it?

Well, I think number one is I would use a more real life situation than your cooking. Because I think cooking, as much as you probably love the idea of just cooking, I want to ask you, have you ever been in a situation where you knew that this person was wiser than you, more experienced than you, wealthier than you, and you knew that you could learn and glean from them, but you didn't know what to ask to get them to be really upfront?

Have you ever been in that situation? I'm sure I have. An example doesn't come to mind. But sometimes I've interviewed people who have their own successful podcasts or TV shows with the goal at the end. And I was... I planned to do this with you. But we're a little bit of the ways in.

And ask for feedback on my ability to interview, on my running an interview. I haven't gotten a lot of feedback. People are kind of like, "Oh, you did a great job. Good job." And I'm like, "No, thank you. But I know that you've done this more than me. I know there's something I can learn from you." And I find it difficult to pull that out sometimes.

I think that number one thing I would do is I'd take myself out of it. And I'd say, "What would you tell..." And then I would give a category. Young entrepreneurs, or whatever definition of the category of people that you place yourself in. And say, "What would you tell your 20-something or 30-something self?" Start there.

And then the next question is, "I'm giving you permission to be really direct with me. What would you say that I should take away from this conversation?" And see what they say. Now, again, a lot of the smartest people in the room can be very blunt, but they might want to know that they nurtured a relationship.

They don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. They've learned, like you said, a long time ago, that it doesn't pay to make somebody feel lousy right after they just met you. First impression, right? But when they are able to make a broader stroke, and it's not so personal, like, "What can you do?" Then it actually lands better because you can apply it not only for your life, but you can talk to anybody in your peer group and give them the same piece of wisdom.

I just learned that a lot of people don't really want the truth. You can't handle the truth. And I want to be kind to you. I want to help you. But it requires that you almost kind of have it coming out of your eyeballs and your pores, that I am so hungry to learn and be a student of this moment and be a student of life and be a student of those who are more advanced than me, that I can hear anything.

And you can say that to your blue in the face, but unless you're really admitting it, unless you're really like sending it out into the universe, they can smell that. It's like they can smell fear. Well, I can promise you that I am in that camp. So before we wrap this conversation, be thinking about anything I could be doing because you have 10 times the experience or maybe 100 than I do.

But before I ask you that, I want to know, can people ever be too kind? Can there be a circumstance where there's just too much kindness in a room in a conversation? No, because kindness and niceness are different. I think you can be too nice. I think you can be again, afraid to hurt somebody's feelings, afraid to make a bad impression.

Fearful of anything will cause you to compromise your standards and compromise who you really are. But I think that being kind means kind of being self aware. And at the same time being very, very aware of other people and knowing what maybe they could handle what the room could bear.

Again, reading the room is so key. In speaking to a group recently, there were two big meetings. And I could have given the same speech twice, nobody would have complained. The first speech was great. I could have just hit replay on my memory and busted out this extemporaneous speech, and probably had a better delivery because I've already done it once before in front of a live audience, right.

But there was the gentleman who was kind of escorting me through my different stuff. And he said, Wow, he was like, you didn't give a cookie cutter message. I said, different room, different need. I was like, you have to know what the room will bear. There's one way to read the room by actually going around and kind of surveying people like before the event starts and shaking hands and kind of networking and breezing through and kind of getting a little focus group going of the experiences of the different people that you've met, you can make a judgment based on the age of the average attendee.

But eventually you get practiced in discerning what it is that a room actually is looking for. Why am I really there? Some of that is research and development. But otherwise, that's actually time and experience and tenure of going and speaking to crowds and learning about people and human engagement, and just being fully present.

And that comes through kindness, because when I'm kind, I'm so aware of the other people around me, that I almost have what I call in the book, a sixth sense, an intuition that helps me to understand people better. Is there an example of a time where you read the room and it altered what you were going to say or how you're going to say it that you could share?

Yeah, I gave a speech and I thought I was going to talk about just kindness as your superpower, you know, let me just give the delivery of my book, and I'll give a couple examples, and I'll have fun. But I just got really quiet. And when you're quiet to me, and you hear this from all the top minds and thought leaders in the world is that that quiet time can be so creative and able to tap you in to the space that you need to be in.

But I ended up getting a word, just one single word of what this group needed. And I went into the room, and I'm listening to the beginning parts of the awards program. And at one point, they're honoring somebody who died. And at one point, they're honoring somebody who was in the ICU.

And there's tears and they're crying on the stage right before I'm about to give my big speech. And I was like, I'm so glad I got quiet. Because the word that I gotten and the situation that I was in, caused me to connect the dots in a different way when I delivered that speech, because you can go into a room and you can be really fun and engaging and exciting.

But they were all very emotional, and a bit raw. And so they needed encouragement, but they didn't need it in a rah rah sis boom bah kind of way. And so reading the room for me meant being quiet enough to kind of tap in where I was paying attention.

But because I was calm and myself, again, everybody's asking us to just take a big chill pill. But if I'm super high on like my wavelength of I got to deliver a really good speech, I'm not going to be cool and chill and calm enough in myself to be actually paying attention to the room when they're crying on stage.

I'm going to go practice my speech, go over my notes, order another drink, if I do that before I speak, just being present enough to listen to the program versus thinking, I'm too busy to listen to the program. I'm good. I know how to jump on a stage and give a talk.

That would have been a big mistake on my part. But because I listened to them, because I've been quiet in my own private time, I could now tailor my delivery in a way that landed and people came up to me afterwards thanking me for what I shared, because it hit home for them.

But I was in tune with the room and I was listening to the room. Obviously, reading the room is the the big hack in that conversation. But two other things I took away, which I'm curious to hear your reaction. So one, be prepared. So I want to talk in a second about the kinds of preparation you do before delivering a keynote presentation.

But for many people, it might just be a presentation at work or an important conversation with friends or family. And the other, which I'm interpreting as a hack might be, if you're giving a presentation in a work meeting, volunteer to not go first, so that you have a chance to read the room, how they might react to another presentation, so you can kind of tailor that delivery.

Well, I mean, I was the only speaker, I was the keynote. So it was me. You didn't have a choice. I didn't have a choice. And when I spoke, but I think that one key would be when I arrive at a destination, one way to prepare is to go early.

And reading the room can be reading the tense moments that happen while they're putting the dishes on the table or while they're setting up the PowerPoint slide. You can capture a little bit of reading the room by seeing how stressed out or calm or fun the staff is prior to the audience even arriving.

Because I think all of that plays into it. One of my favorite interviews of all time was Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott. Why can't I think of the name other names? The Star is Born cast, Anthony... Bradley Cooper. Bradley Cooper. I was like, of course, Bradley Cooper. How do I forget Bradley Cooper?

But I was setting up for that Star is Born interview. And I remember getting in the room very early. And the first person to enter the room and the second person and how they entered the room was very significant, because they didn't all come together. But just being present and knowing what my crew is going through and knowing what the publicity team was feeling like, because there was a little bit of tension, because it's always tense, because they're like dealing with these people who have to go through all these different interviews in succession.

But I remember sitting in the room and thinking our chairs were too far apart. I asked the crew, I said, can you move the chairs a little closer? Well, we did. Then after the whole thing was done, everybody loved the interview, big success. One person who wasn't even on that team, contacted me and said, I want to give you some feedback.

I think the chairs should have been closer. So I was reading the room correctly, in terms of preparing, that's something that anybody, whether you're giving a keynote, or you're doing something at work, you want to think about the furniture, you want to think about how close you're going to be to the table, if it's in a conference room area, are you going to move around the room?

Are you gonna have somebody else operate your presentation in the clicker? Or are you going to do that yourself? All of those things lead to you feeling more prepared with the choreography of the conversation. And it takes a lot of stress off of you. It's not controlling the whole situation.

You want to read the room, but you also want to have some sense of preparing it yourself and creating atmosphere in the room. Because that'll help you actually channel the right vibes when people do sit down to hear you speak. One counterintuitive thing that I've done is that I like to really prepare if I'm giving a talk, right?

To the point that I know exactly what I want to say on every slide and all that. And some people say, "Well, but then isn't scripted?" And I say, "No." Actually, going through knowing exactly what I would say in a perfect scenario makes it really easy for me to diverge in the moment to do anything.

So it's less memorizing a script and repeating the script as much as like memorizing every point I want to get across. So I'm free to move around. How do you think about preparing for a big meeting or a conversation or a talk for you? I really flow a lot.

Think about it. I was in high school and I started doing speech contests. And my coach would literally untie my tennis shoes while I was talking, while he was timing me to be as close to 10 minutes as possible, throw toilet paper across, maybe even throw toilet paper rolls at me.

It was all very gentle, nothing abusive, but it was all to distract me while I was giving this talk and sounding pitch perfect while getting as close to 10 minutes as possible. So over the years, I've gone from memorizing my entire script verbatim, which I can still do to this day.

I've done it with breaking news. When I worked for ABC, you know, somebody gives me a story and I have to go live in four minutes and I can literally memorize the entire 40 second script or minute 30 script that I'm going to do. But now extemporaneously, I can memorize if I type it out and literally write out the speech, I can pretty much gather in my head what the main points are.

It won't come off exactly verbatim, but it's so close to what I put on paper. You have to know your strengths. Not everybody can memorize like that. Not everybody will work well if they're just flowing between bullet points written on cue cards. So if what you're doing works for you, keep doing it.

But if you want to step it up to another level, maybe try a different delivery style, record yourself on video at home where you don't have to worry about the pressure of actually doing it in real life and see how it comes off. And then have a mentor or somebody who's a more experienced speaker than you take a look at it and say, Hey, I wanted you to give me your honest feedback about my delivery.

I don't think there's a wrong or right way to do it. I just think that when you've been speaking for 20 years, you're going to come off differently than if you've been speaking for five, even if you're an excellent speaker. If you try a different method, the different methods actually will show you your strengths.

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Price is subject to underwriting and health questions. For the last few years, I know a lot of us have been working remotely. I know that's changing, but for some people, that's probably the new normal. And I'm curious what kinds of lessons you've either applied or people could take away for how to work on their delivery of important conversations, work on their interaction with teammates, colleagues, when they're looking at a computer screen and not able to walk around the room or maybe not read the room as easily as you would be able to in person.

Treat your Zoom calls like FaceTime. You know, we have way more fun on Instagram Live and FaceTime sometimes. As soon as we get in Zoom mode or whatever platform your office uses, it's like, "Let me stay in this very tight little box and not move and have very little body language." And it's like, "No, lean into the screen.

Get in there. Don't be afraid of you looking distorted or looking silly. Move your body around. Don't just be a head and shoulders." People don't even like seeing that on television anymore. They want to see you kind of jump it through the screen and just be personable. And like, selfie mode your Zoom meeting.

Not the whole time, but like, use the different tools that we have at our disposal. If it's your laptop, be like, "Hey, guys, I'm just getting back to my desk." And you know, make it a funny moment. Like, loosen up. And I think that people will stay more engaged because I frankly think it gets really stale when we're all just looking like we're in our perfect little box.

That's my first big tip and one that I hope lasts and sticks with you. I remember early in the pandemic, for no particular reason, I bought a bunch of like party glasses on Amazon, just so that whenever we started a meeting, it was like, "Could we break the ice in a different way?" And so that was one thing I tried to do.

I bought like those mullet wigs at one point. I feel like some of that phased away and I'm like, "Maybe I need to go dust off that box in the storage room and bring it back out." The fact is, is that the digital world is not going away. Like the virtual meeting world is not going away.

So how can we surprise people? Whether it's party glasses or you inbox the first five people to log on on time, because there's always inevitably the people who are late to these things and say, "Hey, guess what?" You know, and then five minutes in, "We just wanted to let you know the first five people who got here got Starbucks gift cards and everybody else, we hope you'll be on time next time." I mean, don't make them feel bad, but just like, guess what?

There's a reward. Have themes. We just had the Kentucky Derby. Have a Derby hat Zoom call for your meeting. You don't have to keep the hat on the whole time. And then the fact is so many people stay on the photo, like they don't even go to the video anymore.

I don't know if that's like a rule that you have to, but like we hide behind the photos a lot. And so it's like, how can I get people to not have the static image, but to actually let us into their home? If they're hiding behind the photo, chances are they're either really busy, their house is a mess, or they're stressed out and they just don't want to see anybody and they don't want anybody to see them.

And so for me, it's like giving people fair warning, "Listen, no static images, we're going to do video. And we're going to give a reward to the person with the best background." And then they can do their virtual fake background thing so that they don't feel the pressure that they have to have the most perfect house behind them.

Like, "Oh my God, this is a contest of who has the best living room." No. Or the best kitchen. No. I think that there is a lot of social anxiety right now overlooking like everything's okay when it's not. And I think that if you're hiding, it's because you need somebody to call you and be kind to you and say, "Hey, how you doing?

Are you okay?" Which probably isn't the best thing to do in a group setting. But if you notice someone's kind of stepping away, maybe there's a really good opportunity after the meeting to reach out to that person. "Hey, noticed your background was off. How are you doing? Is everything cool?" Those kind of subtle moments I found can add a lot of value in relationship building and in many other places.

I think mental health should be in the spotlight all the time, especially after the past couple of years. You know, there's a lot of people who are doing great and their businesses are doing wonderful and there's so much opportunity. But I think there's a lot of people who have struggled with the past couple of years and so struggled to find connection in a tribe.

I think people are just longing for interpersonal communication and in a way that's real and like meeting kind people. And it's like, how can we help them? Well, first of all, if you're at work and you notice somebody's never showing their video, to me, that's a big fat red flag that they might long for some connection that they just don't have.

And they're isolating because they feel alone. And they've disconnected from their family over the time, maybe because somebody's in a health battle and they can't go visit them because they are high risk. It's like, we need to pay more attention. And there's ways to do that, of course, privately and then publicly just kind of encourage people to check in on each other.

So just make those appeals. And if you're the manager, I would say, if you're finding it hard to make every meeting exciting on video, maybe decide if there's some meetings that don't need to be. I find that we've gone overboard. Like things that would have been phone calls three years ago are now all video meetings.

I schedule some phone calls a lot and then save video for a time where the face to face is more important because I don't know about you, you're on camera all day. But sometimes I'm exhausted just looking at a screen for hours on end. Yes, I'm with you. I'm on video calls almost as long as I'm on TV every day.

And you're just like, well, sometimes, frankly, I just want to wear this wrinkled t shirt and have my hair in a bun and not care. But it wouldn't be the most professional expression of my highest and best self. All the lines are so blurred. It's like, give each other a break.

Just understand, like you said, not every call deserves a video conference. Yes. I do think face to face is really helpful in building deeper relationships, building trust. There was a whole chapter in the book about building trust in seconds, which it kind of reminded me of like the Dale Carnegie, how to win friends and influence people without the undertone of trying to influence other people to do something.

But I'm curious how you would explain to someone hearing that and say, "Okay, wait, I can build trust. I can be kind. What's the trick? How do I start doing that?" The key is to become practiced, right? How often do you go out, whether it's Target, or the dry cleaner, or to pick up some food, and you don't speak to a single soul?

It's foreign to me that people go out and they never acknowledge, smile, make eye contact, strike up conversation with anybody. They just walk, get their stuff, walk back. In a world where we're craving connection, we can be apprehensive about interpersonal communications with strangers, which is interesting. But that's how you meet new people.

So the first thing is just start to become more open. Really easy example, I was at the airline lounge, or one of my recent trips, and this woman walks in and says, "I love your shoes. Those are so cute." And I said, "Oh, thank you so much." And I told her where I got them.

I told her a little story about them. "Oh, what's your name? Where are you traveling to?" "Oh, I'm going to Florida." I mean, you get all this information. We didn't exchange business cards. But in that moment, she felt comfortable just having a conversation with me. Another situation I had, I was out at a restaurant, I happened to go by myself, I was getting some food, and the couple next to me strikes up a conversation.

But I do that all over the place. So I'm not surprised when people want to strike up conversations with me out of nowhere, because I literally do it all the time. And so it's like, once you're practiced in doing that, then somebody is going to strike up a conversation with you where they're going to build more on what they're going through.

Or they're going to ask you for something in their realm of business. And they're going to feel like they can trust you because you are actually showing genuine interest. The thing is, you do not have genuine interest when you're born. You have to actually experiment with genuine interest as you become a grown up and then as you are a grown up.

And so as I'm curious about other people, I actually build trust with them. People can smell when you're not authentic. People can smell when you're just trying to network and get a business card. "Oh, do you have a card? Oh, yeah. Oh, you're in television. Oh, yeah. I know somebody you should interview." That's fine.

But the fact of the matter is, is that when you actually show that you care about somebody, then they feel safer with you. "Thank you for that genuine concern that you have about my loved one." Because you end up talking about that kind of stuff on planes and in restaurants and in airline lounges with perfect strangers, because now you're practiced in showing that genuine interest with people.

Now, I'm sure you've been in a situation where maybe you didn't have that genuine interest. So how does that play out? Because I've definitely been in conversations and sometimes I'm too blunt, which I think can maybe be off putting, but I'm like, "You know what, I feel like breaking off a conversation when there's no genuine interest to me is better than just sitting there and faking it." But neither path forward seems like it's the kindest path forward.

So what do you do in that circumstance? A lot of my building trust with strangers happens on planes, or it can happen on social media. And there was 2 times on planes once years ago and once most recently that I was so exhausted. I had 2 hours of sleep where I was looking at getting 2 hours of sleep before I had to be at work the next morning.

And in the first instance, I was exhausted. I did not want to be there. I had to put a blanket over my head and I wanted to just knock out and the person next to me had their food on the island in between the 2 of us and on the floor and was eating kind of loud.

And I'm like, "No." And then I thought, "Gosh, I feel like I'm supposed to strike up a conversation with this person and I don't want to, I'm tired." And it ended up that I thought, "Well, why am I on this plane sitting next to this person? This is a captive audience for 45 minutes." You know, it's a short flight I was on.

I can allow myself to give into my sleepiness, my fatigue, or I can be selfless in this moment and be kind and see if there's any reason why. There's a once in a lifetime opportunity for me to know this person. I can hang on for 45 minutes. I can stay awake for that long.

Ended up exchanging phone numbers. They ended up helping me later on in life. It was just amazing. If I would have missed that opportunity, I never would know. And it kind of marked my life because it's those times when you want to quit. It's those times when you want to just, "Please, I don't want to hear anybody.

I'm going to put my headphones on and I'm going to block out the world." That's the time when you want to pay more attention, take your headphones off. Because inevitably, practice kindness leads to more kindness and more open doors. Practice selfishness, practice blocking out the world, practice isolation. I know that doesn't sound like...

It's like, "Give me a break, Adrienne. You're telling me you never..." Yes, I do. But I don't know what I missed out on in that selfish moment. I don't know what I missed out on when I said, "You know what? I don't care. It's just me and I'm going to go to sleep.

Leave me alone." I've stopped saying the words, "Leave me alone," especially in light of the past couple of years. Because I think that there are a lot of people who wish that those words were never uttered out of their mouth. I never want to be alone again in terms of not being connected to other people.

So yes, I think there's a fine line. Yes, I think that we all have our moments. But I really try to spur myself on just like somebody who's running in a race and they're tired and they don't want to finish that race. Every time I sit on that plane and I'm sleepy, I think, "No, force yourself.

Think about 'Am I supposed to know this person?'" And if you have peace that says, "No, absolutely not." Like if your peace is like, "No, I'm good. Take a nap." Then take a nap by all means. But I really don't like to miss opportunities. And I just think you're there for a reason, for a person.

I'm with you on the not wanting to miss opportunities. But I'll push you on what happens if you've got this 45-minute flight, you're 5-10 minutes into this conversation, and you're like, "There's not an opportunity." I've done that. And here's what I'll say happens. I'll entertain the conversation, and kindly.

And I'll show genuine interest. It's true. And then if I feel like this is not one of those opportunities, this is the time to just be friendly. I'll touch their arm gently to reassure them this is not personal. And I'll say, "You know what? I have not had any sleep." And I mean it because most times I haven't.

I'll say, "I've got to take a little bit of a nap. I apologize." And if they want to share their information with me, that's totally fine. But I literally like sleep is such a premium, and conversation is such a premium. You don't have to feel bad. You can receive their information.

Maybe you'll need it down the road. But it's okay to say, "Can I get your card?" And then say, "It was really nice to talk to you." I've had times when I wasn't sleepy, and I'm reading a book. And they want to have a long conversation while I'm sitting there reading my book.

And I'll say, "You know what? It was really nice talking with you." It's more than small talk to me though. It's exploration. It's like, "Let me learn a little bit more about you." In my head, this isn't an opportunity that's gonna come to fruition in the way that I thought maybe it could.

But I enjoy talking with you. I'm gonna finish reading my book now, but it was really nice talking to you. There's nothing wrong with that. Don't fake the funk. Not every single person that you sit next to is gonna be a gold mine. I'm sorry to keep probing, but this is like a place where I feel like kindness is either hard or in your mind, you don't love it, but you're able to do it.

It's a room where there's maybe 50 people and you're at a conference. Maybe you're the one keynoting and you're stuck in a conversation. A lot of the typical excuses of "I need to go take a nap" or "I need to go eat" don't totally apply because the answer is really like, "We had a brief conversation and I want to go have a bunch of brief conversations." Oftentimes, I try to be honest and say, "Hey, I've really enjoyed talking to you.

There's a lot of people here. I want to make sure I get a chance to meet them. I'm gonna go around." Sometimes I feel like people might take that as rude because we've only been talking five minutes and maybe they were still interested. Anything you would do in that circumstance differently?

For me, it's funny. There's an art to living and there's an art to conversations that are brief like that at those events. Again, this is something where you have to practice. Practice makes perfect. I think that the biggest issue is that a lot of people in this generation are afraid to offend people.

I think that that fear leads to us being more obliged to be what we think is nice, kind, respectful. It's too much fear. I think that getting rid of the fear is the key. It's not so much how do you do it, it's what do you eliminate in yourself so that you're more confident flowing from one conversation to the next.

When you're with a group of your friends, don't you guys talk over each other all the time? Yes. Does anybody get offended? No. You step on each other all the time. You're like, "No, no, no. Let me tell you. Oh, but da, da, da, da, da," and then somebody else don't.

But nobody's feelings are getting hurt because you feel safe in that environment that you cut each other off all the time, but nobody's thinking, "I can't believe I didn't finish my thought." Nobody's thinking that because that's a normal organic conversation. So when you go into an event, I would want anybody to walk in and say, almost give themselves a pep talk, "I'm going in to speak with this networking group or this gala or this cocktail, and I am among friends, and I'm gonna have fun with this one, and I'm gonna have fun with this one, and we're just gonna keep it moving." And it's like, "Oh, I'm gonna go get another drink," and "Oh, you know, I gotta go say hi to this person." Oh, and it's like that jumping when you're with your boys.

It's like jumping, and then they might be in the middle, "Oh, you know what? Forgive me. I need to go see somebody over here. Oh, I think I recognize him. Oh, you know what? I just remembered." It's just like organic. But you have to get rid of the fear.

And I think one thing I took away from this was if you're going in with the right intentions, and you're kind in the first half of the conversation, then the kind of breakup of the conversation is pretty hard. Sure, someone might take offense to it because they really wanted to be there for longer.

But if you accept that you can't control other people's feelings, but you did it with the right approach and the right intent, and you came in with genuine curiosity, I feel like you can live with the fact that someone could be offended and kind of get over that fear.

I really don't think anybody's thinking that hard. I think that they're doing the same thing you are. They're wanting to talk to enough people. I think if you think of yourself as having more in common than different with the people in the room, then it's a lot easier. Like everybody else is trying to talk to as many people too.

Yep. They're not thinking about, "Oh my god, they broke up with me in that conversation." They're not. No. Be kind to yourself and realize they're not thinking about you all that much. They like you, but they're not going to trip. I can't remember who wrote this or said this recently, but people always assume that everyone's thinking about them.

What they wore that day, how they misspoke. But the reality is that most people don't spend any of their time thinking about you or the other people. They're mostly thinking about themselves. And just coming to terms with that makes it easier in so many situations in life to say, "Maybe someone didn't even hear me," or "Think about it," or "It didn't even last for longer than a moment in their mind." We all have our own stuff that we're dealing with.

We have to remember that as much as we think or maybe even agonize over the things that we have to do or the dreams that we have to achieve, other people are taking the same amount of time working on their own stuff. And even if they had a moment with you where it's like, "Oh, I thought that they were like this and they're like that," or "Oh, I thought I knew them," it's like they get over it with the next thing that comes along.

So yeah, don't sweat it. Just have fun. Getting the crew together isn't as easy as it used to be. I get it. Life comes at you fast. But trust me, your friends are probably desperate for a good hang. So kick 2024 off right by finally hosting that event. Just make sure you do it the easy way and let our sponsor Drizzly, the go-to app for drink delivery, take care of the supplies.

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So please consider supporting those who support us. I want to get to a few tactical things before we wrap. You had a bunch of ideas in the book about scheduling kindness into your day, building it into a habit. I'm curious if you just walk through a few examples of how people could practice this and just hone those skills today or tomorrow or over the next week.

Yeah, well until kindness just as a muscle becomes developed where it's this natural organic process of always thinking about how can I express to other people that I'm with them, that I'm for them. Think about who you can call on a regular basis. My mentor, Bill Krauss, he would give his business advice to those who he coached like spend an hour on past, an hour on present, and an hour on future.

So that means like call your past clients, check in on them every single day, even if you're in sales and you don't have any leads right now. You reaching out to people who are your past clients is going to reconnect you and for nothing else other than to just say hey thank you for your business in the past.

Thank you for the relationship that we've been able to build over the years. Present would be those that you're working on currently and then future those who you're endeavoring to land. Just reaching out and giving those friendly phone calls even if it's 5-10 minutes. I recently went to an event and I met all these people and I gathered these business cards actually sitting right here to my right of me and I took some time a couple weeks ago and I just like reached out on text message to all those people and then this was the week that I was gonna reach out my phone to some of them.

But it was just a matter of scheduling out time in my day and for nothing else other than to either check in, say hello, or ask for the answer to some questions for like 5-15 minutes for each person. I think that's a really good way to not forget the people who have been kind to you and believed in you and have supported you and invested.

So that's a really easy way to do it and then with your friendships. Friendships are such a big part of our lives and a lot of times as we get busy or even those who get married and start having kids the friendships fade into the background but those are the kind of the spine of how you can stand steady in crazy times and in hard times.

So checking in whether that's once a month or once a week and just saying hey I didn't need anything I'm just calling to say I appreciate you I'm looking forward to the next time we can hang out. These are like relational things but they're really kind acts that people get too busy for in the midst of hustling in the midst of trying to make it to the next step on the economic food chain.

Once you do that I think it's sometimes easier to do kindness to strangers whether it's opening a door, paying for somebody's coffee or lunch in line ahead of you and just like scheduling once a month I'm gonna do a surprise kindness to a stranger. That makes you feel connected to the larger neighborhood or community that you're in and you actually feel like a world changer every single time rather than just somebody who's going through the motions not smiling and not speaking to anybody just going and getting your Uber Eats delivery downstairs or your Instacart order.

Let's all remind each other that we are connected that we need each other. It's as simple as a phone call or a text or sending a video to somebody and saying hey I was thinking about you you're amazing you're a rock star. Talk to you soon you know. There was an app a long time ago that I wish still existed that would sync across all of your texts and your emails and be like hey here's a person you haven't reached out to in any year.

So if anyone's listening and knows of something new that does that let me know it would be great. I don't want to know who I haven't emailed in six months because maybe I texted them maybe I called them maybe I saw them on my calendar but if you could somehow bring all that together it would be incredible.

I assume there's a big privacy element there and hopefully it's a company that you could trust but one thing you said which was you have a mentor and you talk about mentors in the book being invaluable tour guides. How has that worked in your career and in your life and what advice would you give to someone who maybe doesn't have a mentor right now?

I'd be really clear on what you expect out of a mentor relationship. I think that a lot of people think they know what mentoring is and it's like oh I want somebody that has my back. I want somebody who will check in on me. I want somebody who will give me advice but mentoring relationships are extremely intimate if you let them be and a mentor has a lot to give you but they also have a lot at stake.

Their time could be better served by something that's not as emotionally invested as mentoring. They could be doing business deal and even if they're relational as people and they love quality time the fact is is that when you mentor somebody you're giving them some of that feedback or some of that constructive content that could be taken wrong and people's feelings get hurt in mentoring relationships and people feel betrayed or people feel like they don't get me when you're establishing a relationship with somebody who you almost are giving the power to say no.

You're giving them the power to look into your life and be more vulnerable with them which can be very scary to some people and so I would just take stock of where you are in your life, how honest you want to live and how teachable you are right now.

Are you willing to be told that what you're doing is absolutely wrong? Are you willing to be told that you need to make course corrections in order to become the person that you say you want to become? If you are really honest with yourself and you can see that you want that then you're eligible for a mentor and then in terms of like connecting with the right mentor it really is a matter of starting off almost like you would in a relationship obviously no romantic interest.

You don't just jump to third base with somebody that you're interested in. You start off with maybe a DM or you ask them for their phone number at the grocery store or you ask them to coffee. Typically you don't just jump straight to dinner with people. I mean sometimes you do I guess but it's a nurturing process so rather than ask somebody will you mentor me I think the best thing to do is can I get 5 to 15 minutes with you and once you give yourself and them that space to get to know you and you get to know them then check in again hey I'd love another 5 15 minute check-in like we haven't talked in four weeks like how are you and show genuine interest in that mentor.

Don't just look for them to be genuinely interested in you and answer all your questions. How can you be interested in them and what they bring to the table? That word reciprocity always comes to my mind like how are you seeing their value while you're hoping that they see yours?

Are you valuing their time? Are you valuing that experience that they bring to the table? Are you valuing the fact that they might be going through something in life and are you willing to check in with them and say not like how are you as if you're their counselor but hey is you know what I'm willing to do what I need to do to spend time with you and you notice them study them don't say is there anything I can do for you because they're gonna say no.

Study them and find out. Notice if it's at the office that they don't have an assistant on Fridays. They only have an assistant four days a week. Hey I noticed that on Fridays your staff isn't filled up or don't even mention that just say I'd like to give you an hour of my time on Fridays is there anything I can do in regards to and then be super specific bookkeeping or can I help run get some coffee.

You might be at a level of your experience that you would never be getting coffee like that's for an intern to do but I remember there was one executive at one of my previous jobs and I knew how she took her coffee and I would just show up and bring it to her.

There was never an expectation and every time I did I got a thank-you email. It bonded us. It created a relationship with us where I could go in and speak to her pretty much anytime I wanted to but many people are looking at mentoring relationships and making demands of what they think a mentor should do for them.

They're not knowingly doing this. It's not like people have come in there with an attitude or an air about them. It's just like you have to understand there's a service element to somebody mentoring you and volunteering that time and for you being a serving kind person back to them.

So if you're willing to do anything I think you can have the right mentor and have a wonderful relationship. I think an important takeaway that I learned as an investor and as an entrepreneur with investors while your investors aren't necessarily mentors in some ways they are but a big thing is to not make your offer to help more work.

So oftentimes people would say "Hey is there anybody you can introduce me to that would help?" and my answer would be like "I don't know" but some people I took this from them and then applied it myself would say "Hey I looked on your LinkedIn. You know these six people who I think could be valuable to what I'm doing.

Would you be willing to make an introduction? Here is a copy and paste thing you could use if it's helpful." Like the more you can do the work to ask for help, the more people are willing to help and then what you said that I really liked which is a perfect segue to my next question is show that you're willing to take their advice.

Because I think people get a lot of personal satisfaction knowing that their advice is actually being put to use versus knowing that it's just being heard and sitting there. So I said I'd come back to asking you with all of your experience interviewing. I know it'll benefit the show if I can improve my skills.

I know it'll make me more fulfilled if I do better. You can choose to give advice to a podcaster who's one year into interviewing or you can go direct and give it straight to me. Whatever makes you more comfortable. I could take anything feedback wise. What do you have for me?

Based on how you ask questions, I think you want to do such a good job. And when we're hungry to do a good job, sometimes we can not listen as attentively because we're so wanting to do the best. And I think if you like take the pressure off of yourself a little bit.

I think you're humble but I think at the same time you're not comparing yourself in a competitive way. But you're saying well this person has done A, B and C and D and I've done this. And it's like but you have something else to bring to the table. When people are doing something new they try so hard to be so good that some of their sensory gifts whether it's listening or whether it's eye contact or whether it's just feeling can get tuned out.

So just flow like a little bit more. This is not a critique. It's more just like taking you to the next level. Because you have a great voice and you do ask good questions like what you just gave. This is advice you got from investors. I love that. Like that made me want to ask you another question about what you've learned from investors.

No matter what your experiences in podcasting. You've had amazing experiences in entrepreneurial or the business community. I might start with that at the top of your podcast rather than a story that the Lord of the Flies I think is what you referenced in the beginning. Not bad. What would you think is your expertise?

Like what's your strength in terms of what you bring? I've had the entrepreneur and the investor path and then I'm also this kind of crazy researcher where like when I want to learn about a thing. Whether it's a stroller that we're buying for a baby or a vacation. Like I will go so deep on the research to try to understand every nuance to it.

I think those two elements of my life are like the optimizer and then the like entrepreneur investor. I think that you should start with those strengths that at the top of your interviews. I thought it was cool that you used a story to introduce me. I thought that was kind of neat.

But just what you said at the very end piqued my interest. And I think piquing the interest of the interviewee makes for a more mutual conversation rather than you asking questions like they're the expert and I'm just here to ask them questions to get this great thing. It'll become much more of an interesting interview when you allow that part of you to shine more and not to minimize it.

I would think most people when you ask them do you have any questions they usually don't right? No. They never have one. Yeah not really. Like where do I look? It's kind of like what you said. Don't make them helping you more work. And I was saying how don't ask them is there anything I can do for you.

That question of do you have any questions is kind of like is there anything I can do for you. Because they're not thinking about any questions. They're like I'm sitting here you told me where to go. But I would say you have a lot more experience than I do in some areas of business.

A lot more. And I could learn from you. And so rather than coming off like I'm such a great business mind I would want you to at least show up with enough of this is what I bring to the table but I know that I'm interviewing fill-in-the-blank because they bring something else to the table that I know you who are listening needs.

Does that make sense? Yeah it totally does. And it's funny because I usually record the intros after and so as I was giving I was like yeah if this doesn't work I'll redo it. And so if I end up redoing that half of what you just said will be very confusing to people.

But maybe I'll post the original intro somewhere else for anyone listening if I end up making that decision. So this has been really fantastic. I'm gonna take a lot of that to heart just to be clear. If you want to keep listening in the coming weeks hopefully you'll see better introductions and more infusion of things that I know to a conversation that can make it more reciprocal as you mentioned in the book.

Yeah, you have a lot to offer. Thank you for giving feedback. I ask for it a lot. I don't always get it. So it's very welcomed. Yeah. One question I like to ask everyone at the end of every episode is for someone coming to a city you're familiar with.

Could be where you live now, where you've lived in the past, place to have a meal with someone, place to grab a drink and something unusual, some kind of activity to do. Okay. So I live in Chicago now. And I absolutely fell in love with Chicago. I had no intention of living here.

I always thought I would live on the coasts, LA or New York, especially in my business. And when this opportunity came about, I came here first as a visiting correspondent when I worked for my previous job. But I just noticed the architecture was so beautiful and the downtown area.

I mean there's a beach with a magnificent skyline and a river all in the same area. Like you can do everything. So when it's sunny outside like it is now, like you'll see boats all in the river and on the lake and it's just gorgeous. The light hitting off all these buildings.

So the one thing that I would say is if you come to Chicago, you have to do the Chicago architectural tour. The city is seen in a way unlike any other way you can actually witness it. They tell you about the history of the city of Chicago, who founded the city, why the buildings are built the way they are, who built them.

Some of the most world-renowned architects have their work on display here in the city of Chicago. For dinner there's way too many options. I just had high tea at the Peninsula. So for anybody who loves that like London experience, it was phenomenal with a live string duet. I mean again like there's just a little something for everybody and you will get some of the best pizza in the world whether it's deep dish or it's thin crust.

But just walking through the city and seeing all the different neighborhoods because every single neighborhood in Chicago has its own personality and you have it all within a few miles. I definitely appeal to people to come to Chicago if they've never been and check it out. It is one of the most magnificent cities I think not just in the US but in the world.

I have been to Chicago a few times. I agree in the summer I didn't really realize there was a beach. So I would say if you're going to Chicago in the summer, prepare for a beach day. This is the kind of beach day I didn't expect where people are throwing frisbees, drinking beer, sitting on the sand.

It kind of blew my mind because as a non-local it wasn't something I expected. But I have a question for you if you're done with my questions. Yeah. Tell me one other thing that you've learned from investors that you think every person should know that sometimes they overlook or they're really in too much of a rush to pay attention to.

I think something that I learned as an investor and an entrepreneur at the same time was that as much as people schedule a lot of time to have a conversation, they're making a decision in the first moments that is often unchanged. So if you're trying to tell a story about your company, don't have the story come 10 minutes in.

It's like a rule of social media and videos on YouTube. It's like you got to captivate someone in the first 10 seconds. Well, when you're meeting an investor, when you're trying to explain your company, it's like the first minute or two that matters. So if you aren't good at doing that with writing, then I wouldn't try to send the description of your company with enough detail that someone could make that decision in an email.

If you feel like whatever the medium that's best for you, if your data shows well, have that be the first few slides and email it. If it's the story about how connected you are to the mission of the company and the reason it was created, make sure that comes across first.

And don't feel like you have to follow any guidelines around what the arc of an investor's conversation is. And this probably applies in many other sales tactics or professional environments. But so many times people said what they think you wanted to hear. By the end, I would often give feedback and say, "Hey, you should lead with this story." I would give it away.

"We're not investing. I'm really sorry. This is not a good fit for us right now. But if you're giving this pitch again, this is the piece of the story that I would start with." And if anyone listening wants a little deeper dive, Sunil Gupta, who wrote a book called Backable, we had a conversation --I don't remember the episode number, but I'll link it in the show notes-- where he talked about how he completely changed the narrative of his stories as an entrepreneur, because the story of why he was there was actually the thing that got people excited.

Even though he thought that company had good metrics or a good, well-designed product, that story turns out the most powerful thing. And he had to rechange everything to focus on it and focus on it really early. That's very good advice. And that's like the elevator close. But again, stories sell.

And being able to tell that in the first 60 seconds, it's true. Because people are making an impression or they have an impression of you right away. And one of the gentlemen in my life who works with me says, "Adrienne, the first answer is always the right answer and everything else is BS." Thank you so much for being here.

Where can people stay on top of everything you're working on? Well, you definitely can watch me. You can tune in every single Monday through Friday on NewsNation. Go to NewsNationNow.com. We're on cable, as well as YouTube TV and Hulu. But to find out more information about me personally or my book, you can go on AB on TV is my handle on Instagram.

That's AB --my initials-- on TV. Very easy to find on Instagram. You can go to my website, AdrienneBanker.com. And my book is sold everywhere, whether you use Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Audible, there's an audio version of the book. Your Hidden Superpower. The kindness that makes you unbeatable at work and connects you with anyone.

And that is available right now. So go get it. The book's fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing all that. I'll link all of it in the show notes. Thank you for being here. Thank you. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening. If you haven't already left a rating and a review for the show in Apple Podcasts or Spotify, I would really appreciate it.

And if you have any feedback on the show, questions for me, or just want to say hi, I'm Chris@allthehacks.com or @Hutchins on Twitter. That's it for this week. I'll see you next week.