The Art of Manliness - #294： Learning the Art of Charm

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:18.060 While men sometimes see developing their social skills as something superficial or unimportant,

00:00:22.540 these skills are essential for success in business and life. Knowing how to interact

00:00:26.460 and get along with others is how we can make friends, find love, and advance our career.

00:00:30.260 My guest today on the podcast has spent the past 10 years helping men become more socially

00:00:34.240 dynamic through his in-person coaching services and his podcast, The Art of Charm. His name is

00:00:38.400 Jordan Harbinger. And today on the show, Jordan and I discuss why improving your social skills is

00:00:42.320 so important and why many men often give it the short shrift. We then dig into the concept of

00:00:47.200 social capital and why it might be even more vital to develop than financial capital. And we end our

00:00:51.580 conversation getting into brass tacks advice on how to become a social dynamo without having to be

00:00:55.940 extroverted, life of the party, cheese ball. This podcast is filled with tons of actionable steps.

00:01:00.880 So after the show, check out the show notes at aom.is slash art of charm.

00:01:16.780 Jordan Harbinger, welcome to the show.

00:01:19.300 Thanks for having me, man. I've been a fan for a long time, so this is an exciting opportunity.

00:01:22.940 So you're the host of a podcast called The Art of Charm, and a lot of our listeners listen to your

00:01:28.060 podcast, a lot of crossover. I'd like to kind of, for those who aren't familiar with you,

00:01:32.160 give an introduction to what you do and what your goal is with The Art of Charm and how you go about

00:01:37.080 helping men improve their lives in your sort of garden and the internet, and then maybe get some

00:01:42.780 actionable advice here. So let's start off. What's your background and what's the background of

00:01:47.800 The Art of Charm? Why did you feel like there was a need to help men become more charming?

00:01:51.980 Sure. So it's one of those things where I kind of wish I could change the name in some ways. I don't

00:01:55.780 know how you feel about The Art of Manliness, but I'm sure there's plenty of people who are like,

00:01:59.220 you know, manliness is this thing, and it's not that. And you're like, well, that's your definition.

00:02:03.780 So it's like tainted by your emotional stuff. Or you get people emailing and they're angry because

00:02:08.520 they don't identify with that. And they say, your stuff is good for people in this other position.

00:02:12.320 So that's kind of what we're at with The Art of Charm. I mean, what we do is we study the thoughts,

00:02:16.240 actions, and habits of what I think are brilliant people, yourself included, and ask them interesting

00:02:21.980 questions so that the audience can apply that same wisdom for themselves. And that's what The

00:02:25.600 Art of Charm podcast is about. What the school is about, our live programs in LA, what we work on

00:02:31.300 are verbal and nonverbal communication, rapport, persuasion, influence, but not necessarily in

00:02:37.320 the way that a lot of people associate this stuff with, this sort of negative connotation where

00:02:42.020 it's like, oh, the dark art of getting people to do what you want. This is more like the not so dark

00:02:46.820 art of improving yourself so that you deserve what you want. Does that make sense?

00:02:51.240 Right. So this is like social dynamics is what you guys call it, right?

00:02:54.080 Yeah, social dynamics is sort of an all encompassing term. So to give you an example of what we are

00:03:01.000 dealing with when we look at our boot camps, we'll have a bunch of younger guys, of course,

00:03:04.900 who are maybe starting their first job. They're looking for a way to stand out. There'll also be

00:03:09.520 a bunch of people who are maybe going through a divorce. And they're like, look, I'm sort of

00:03:13.960 reentering the dating pool. And I've got to be a parent. And I've got to be this professional at

00:03:18.560 work. And they're reinventing themselves. So they'll be here. And then this sort of third tier or other

00:03:24.740 path that clients come to us with, we get a lot of military and a lot of intelligence guys,

00:03:30.100 especially the special forces. So we actually have contracts with military units, government type of

00:03:36.000 outfits that will have a bunch of green berets. We've had SEAL Team 6 come through before the

00:03:41.140 Bin Laden mission. We've had a lot of foreign intelligence services come through. And they're

00:03:46.080 learning an entirely different set of application for the same set of skills. So verbal and nonverbal

00:03:52.640 communication, persuasion and influence. So really, these skills are applicable everywhere. And we also

00:03:58.580 focus a lot on things like networking and relationship development. So it's not just a vague sort of

00:04:04.220 general, be a better, be a better man, be a better person. We really focus on soft skills

00:04:09.340 that are applicable and practical. So one thing you've talked about on your podcast and on your

00:04:14.180 site and the blog, this idea of social capital. What is social capital? And why is it just as important

00:04:20.980 as a money capital, capital capital? Sure. So social capital is another encompassing term for what we'd

00:04:27.440 like to call, well, what we don't like to call, I should say, networking, because networking now is kind of a

00:04:32.320 dirty word. And rightfully so. When I think of networking, when a lot of people think of networking,

00:04:37.740 I think they're thinking of going to some really lame event where people come up and they're like,

00:04:41.800 hi, my name is Michael. Hey, when you need a financial planner and they shove a business card

00:04:45.920 into your hand and you just go, how soon can I get the hell out of here? Social capital for us is

00:04:51.580 essentially a mix of skills which involve giving generously, not keeping score, creating beneficial

00:04:58.520 relationships that are scalable on all sides. So it's not just help other people get what they want

00:05:03.700 and you'll get what you want. Of course, that is an integral element of this, but it's also about

00:05:08.040 making sure that you are giving generously to your network, introducing people to each other inside

00:05:14.100 your network so that they can help one another. And this is actually more powerful than plain old

00:05:19.800 capital because anybody who's running a successful business and anybody who's running a successful

00:05:24.280 company or even just a successful person socially is generally applying a lot of these concepts.

00:05:30.740 It becomes one of the most scalable things that we can do to build up our personal life,

00:05:34.940 our professional life, in that we never really make it to the top by ourselves. In fact, I think

00:05:40.300 the closer we get to what we consider the top of any given field, we see that these concepts become

00:05:46.080 even more important. I'll give you a little example, if that works for you, a little story about how I

00:05:50.920 started to find out that these were important in the first place. Yeah, go ahead. Let's hear that.

00:05:54.800 So I used to be a Wall Street attorney and that's real estate finance, kind of like the exact same

00:05:59.940 part of the problem, basically, 2008 crash. But I was young and I didn't know any better.

00:06:05.300 At least that's my excuse there, I suppose. And when I was in law school, going through elementary

00:06:10.580 school, middle school, high school, you can kind of, and I'm sure you have a similar experience,

00:06:15.120 you can kind of coast or get by it if you're just a smart kid. You're just, yeah, I can do the work.

00:06:19.740 Like I'm towards the top of the class. I don't have to try that hard. And then you get into

00:06:23.680 college and at least for me, everybody else was equally smart. So it was no longer coast

00:06:29.380 and get by on that. This was like, all right, everybody is really smart here. I've got to

00:06:34.980 start outworking these people. And that was my competitive advantage. So my competitive

00:06:39.300 advantage shifted from being somebody who is simply a little bit more talented or a little

00:06:44.340 bit smarter in the areas of being able to study well and ACE tests or hack tests. And then it

00:06:50.860 moved to, all right, everybody else is drinking now. Everybody else is partying now because it's

00:06:54.780 their first time away from home, college and law school that I can outwork these same people.

00:06:59.900 But by the time I got into Wall Street and out of law school, the competitive advantages were no

00:07:04.700 longer. I essentially found myself in a room or a building with a bunch of really smart people who

00:07:09.840 were willing to outwork everybody else. And so knowing this, this contributed a lot to my imposter

00:07:15.660 syndrome where I started to think it's only a matter of time until people find out that I don't

00:07:21.340 belong here. I'm going to get fired. I'm the employee who slipped through the cracks. And that was

00:07:26.400 terrifying. And I think a lot of people, a lot of men and women for that matter, find themselves

00:07:31.240 with that kind of negative thought loop about their career or even in relationships that they're in.

00:07:35.920 And I had this quote unquote mentor. And I put that in air quotes because I thought it was going to be

00:07:40.940 like Wolf of Wall Street. This guy's my mentor is going to show me the ropes, but you know,

00:07:45.480 we're going to do oyster shooters on the roof with Matthew McConaughey type of thing, like Wolf of

00:07:49.060 Wall Street. And essentially this guy was just never around. HR actually made him take me out for coffee

00:07:54.600 because everybody else was going out with their mentors to like blue man group and seeing all these

00:07:59.680 cool shows and going out to eat all the time. And I really had nobody like that. And it wasn't just that

00:08:05.580 he was disinterested in me or mentorship in the first place. It's that this guy was never in the

00:08:10.240 office. His name was Dave and everybody was jealous the first couple of weeks that he was supposed to

00:08:14.940 be my mentor and then quickly realized he's just never around. And so when HR made him take me out

00:08:20.040 for coffee, he's banging away on his BlackBerry and he goes, all right, ask me anything you want.

00:08:24.260 Cause he kind of had to tick the box that said, I mentored someone this summer. And I said, all right,

00:08:29.740 well, how come you're never in the office? You know, we bill six minute increments of time. Do you

00:08:35.700 just work from home? I mean, what's the story here? And bear in mind, Dave was a guy from Brooklyn

00:08:39.860 with a tan. So he obviously knew something that I didn't know. And everybody thought like, this guy's

00:08:45.320 such a young partner. He's a young hustler. What does he got? What does he know? And he puts his BlackBerry

00:08:50.080 down and basically slowly explains to me something I've never heard before, which is that it doesn't matter

00:08:56.160 how many hours you bill. If you're able to bring in all of the legal work and the deals. So he was

00:09:01.160 in charge of deal flow, essentially almost like a salesman for the firm. It's not that he couldn't

00:09:05.800 do the legal work. It's that even if he was billing out at about a thousand dollars an hour

00:09:10.000 for his legal work, maybe slightly less on wall street, even at that time, he was worth far more

00:09:15.040 outside the office, bringing in million dollar deals from investment banks in terms of legal fees.

00:09:20.720 And so I thought, wait a second, not only are you able to work outside the office and not

00:09:26.140 just filing briefs and stuff. You're just generating rapport and relationships with people,

00:09:30.360 but you're actually making more money doing this. And in addition, I would come into the law firm,

00:09:36.780 let's say on a weekend to either show off the office to a friend of mine or possibly to work on

00:09:42.060 something. And the other partners were always there. And I mean, I was, I was in this office at

00:09:46.840 like three o'clock in the morning, once on a Sunday to finish something up that was due Monday

00:09:50.760 that I'd been screwing around all weekend. And these partners were still there. And Dave, meanwhile,

00:09:56.140 isn't in the office, even at 2 PM on a Tuesday. And I thought this is the so-called secret third

00:10:01.140 path for me to get to the top of the law game. It's not just about working hard. I can do that,

00:10:06.140 but I can't really outwork people that are willing to outwork everyone else. And it's not about being

00:10:10.120 smarter or trying to get smarter somehow. When I was already far behind a lot of these other very,

00:10:14.980 very sharp minds at this law firm, this was a way that nobody was really thinking about

00:10:20.540 in terms of getting to the top. And additionally, an area where a lot of these really analytical

00:10:25.400 minds and folks that I was working with at the law firm were really shying away from. They were

00:10:30.000 thinking, oh, I don't really want to go out and do that. I just want to focus, keep my head down at

00:10:34.320 work. And so my idea was, if I focus on these network and relationship development skills that

00:10:40.280 Dave seems to have mastered naturally, by the time five years in, six years in, and we're all mid-level

00:10:47.020 senior associates, the other folks that I'm working with probably aren't even going to look

00:10:50.900 at this as a necessity for their career or their skill path at any time before then. So I will have

00:10:56.740 a massive time advantage and I will be able to figure out how to cement myself as the next guy

00:11:02.300 in Dave's shoes versus the next guy in one of these other partner's shoes, Pete, for example,

00:11:07.620 who's in the office at 3 a.m. on a Saturday. And that really appealed to me, not because I didn't

00:11:12.040 want to work hard and not because I couldn't do the work, but because I thought, wow, this really

00:11:16.580 appeals to my potential strengths. I have an advantage of time. It's a learnable, teachable

00:11:21.140 skill, or so I hope. And it seems like it's right more in my wheelhouse than just trying to focus on

00:11:27.460 all this legal stuff, which I was just barely holding it together. And you as an ex-lawyer,

00:11:31.540 I'm sure you kind of remember some of that stuff and you're just looking at it and going,

00:11:34.740 how does anyone understand any of this? And that's kind of where I was my entire first year as an

00:11:39.360 associate. So the idea that there were other skills that I could learn and master that would

00:11:43.020 actually take me further that nobody else was running on. I was running a totally different race

00:11:47.440 that greatly appealed to me. That's awesome. So social skills, your social capital, it's a

00:11:53.960 competitive advantage that no one's really tapping into. It's that whole blue ocean things. No one's

00:11:58.380 thinking about it. So that's a place where you can really gain an advantage. So how did you figure

00:12:02.140 out? So you thought, okay, this stuff is hopefully learnable. How did you go about figuring out

00:12:08.520 what were the skills, what were the mindsets you needed to do to build these relationships,

00:12:14.060 be able to network without making it feel like you're networking?

00:12:17.100 Sure. So the first thing that I really had to focus on was the fact that all of these skills

00:12:22.120 were learnable, teachable skills. Because a lot of folks, when I started asking about how they got

00:12:27.800 good at this, of course, the first person I asked was Dave. And I said, okay, so where do you even start?

00:12:33.480 And he goes, you know, I just go to the racquet club and I do jujitsu and I play golf and you run

00:12:38.460 into people there. And I was like, well, how did you know where to do jujitsu and where to go play

00:12:42.580 golf? And he's like, I just go to the same place as everybody else goes. Well, okay, how do you know

00:12:46.300 where those places are? And it quickly dawned on me that Dave had no idea how he had found himself

00:12:53.740 in the position that he was in. He was probably an outgoing guy from the age of eight years old.

00:12:58.740 And he just rode that train all the way to the top of this law firm. And that worked really well

00:13:04.120 for a guy who grew up in New York and had roots all over town and other people, other successful

00:13:08.120 friends and went to law school there and all that stuff. That totally made sense. But for me,

00:13:12.500 I had to learn this. And of course, what I'm hearing from all of my friends and teachers even

00:13:17.180 are, oh, you know, some people are just born with the gift of gab. And by the way, that's complete BS.

00:13:23.540 There are people that learn these skills earlier because of the environment they're in.

00:13:27.960 There might even be people who have a certain level of natural predisposition or talent when

00:13:32.240 it comes to this. But everybody I know that's really effective in relationship building has

00:13:37.760 learned this manually. They either remember how they did it. And most people, of course,

00:13:42.580 do not remember how they did it, in part because maybe they started in high school or middle school

00:13:46.880 or even earlier because they had a certain set of circumstances that was really conducive to that.

00:13:52.440 And so I had to convince myself that this is a learnable, teachable skill. And the way that I did

00:13:57.680 that was by going out and sort of brute forcing the beginnings of this. I would go to mixers and

00:14:04.940 events and I would try to talk to people. And I realized, oh, crap, I'm kind of shy and I'm kind

00:14:09.500 of quiet. I don't necessarily know how to start conversations. I don't necessarily know how to

00:14:14.220 keep relationships going and things like that. And so I found myself hiding. And I used my own

00:14:19.300 psychology against me, me and my business partner who still works with me here at The Art of Charm.

00:14:23.360 I used my own psychology against me to figure out how this would work. So if we found ourselves going

00:14:28.200 to mixers in the evening to try to get out of our shell and meet new people, and we found ourselves

00:14:34.520 hiding, which is what I quickly found myself doing, kind of retreating to the corner to Wallflower.

00:14:38.940 And I'm not recommending other people do this, by the way. But one of the things that I did was

00:14:43.340 make it impossible for me to hide. So I am not even kidding here. I kind of wish I were.

00:14:47.840 I wore a kangaroo suit that didn't have a face mask or head for about a month going to different

00:14:55.740 events. And what happens when you wear a ridiculous kangaroo suit to bars and other places and other

00:15:02.600 mixer events like that? Well, one, you meet the manager and the staff really quickly because they

00:15:06.820 wonder if you're insane and they should have you removed. But also people remember seeing you and

00:15:12.040 everyone is coming up and talking to you. So I got used to being treated in a very different way.

00:15:17.180 And of course, I got used to not being able to hide because even if you're in the corner in the

00:15:21.880 dark with your drink in your hand clutched in front of your chest for dear life, you're still

00:15:25.940 wearing a freaking kangaroo suit. And so that got me out of my shell really, really quickly because

00:15:31.420 I realized I can't not only can I not hide, but everybody's interested in me because I look so

00:15:36.780 different. And again, I'm not recommending that everybody go out and do this. You can if you want to.

00:15:40.920 But what it showed me was that not only is it not scary to maintain a conversation, but it's also

00:15:47.400 not scary to be the center of attention. It's a little nerve wracking at first, but you quickly

00:15:51.740 become accustomed to it. And then you quickly become accustomed to holding conversations with

00:15:55.600 people who start them with you. And then from there, it's an easy transition to, well, it's easy

00:16:00.080 for me to start conversations with other people. And so we sort of break this down into tinier chunks

00:16:05.660 at AOC now, but that was me throwing myself in the deep end. And I think that was really important.

00:16:11.120 I want people to not focus as much on the gimmick of the kangaroo suit and more on the mindset of

00:16:16.020 figuring out how to be the center of attention or be somebody who has attention focused on them,

00:16:21.800 which for me, and I think a lot of people listening is really, really uncomfortable.

00:16:26.320 We're not comfortable with that. It's not very natural. And so when we start to build these

00:16:31.020 skill sets outside of ourselves, we start to build a lot of self-confidence and a lot of self-trust

00:16:35.860 knowing, okay, I just handled this thing that I, a couple of weeks ago, thought was terrifying.

00:16:41.980 So now I know I can do other things that I feel the same way about, public speaking,

00:16:46.940 leadership, and things like that. And that was a huge breakthrough for me. So that essentially was

00:16:51.200 step one, figuring out that this is learnable and that other people can teach it to me and then I

00:16:55.900 can teach it to myself. Because before that, you're just fighting this whole preconceived notion that

00:17:01.000 well, some people got it and some people don't. And if you think you don't, then you've got some

00:17:05.200 sort of medical excuse for not being social. And we hear this a lot as well. Oh, you know,

00:17:09.840 I'm an introvert. I can't really do this. That's not what introvert means. And the new science shows

00:17:14.840 perfectly well that introverts can be great or even better than extroverts at building and maintaining

00:17:20.580 relationships. And we just like to use that as a, like I said, a medical excuse about why we can't be

00:17:26.100 social or can't be outgoing or can't generate connections with other people.

00:17:29.720 Well, let's talk about that introversion thing. Because yeah, you hear that a lot. I'm an

00:17:33.000 introvert. It means I don't like to be outgoing. But yeah, you're right. The research doesn't say

00:17:37.520 that introverts are necessarily shy. They just have a preference to, you know, be by themselves or,

00:17:43.400 you know, have more intimate things. But they're able to, if they want, to turn on the extroversion if

00:17:49.380 they need to, right? Exactly. Yes. Not only that, but the science also shows that what introvert

00:17:54.740 essentially means is extroverts recharge by going out and being social and talking with friends and

00:18:00.220 family and creating relationships and going to parties. Introverts recharge by spending time with

00:18:05.940 themselves. That's fine. But neither of those things has any actual indication of your social prowess or

00:18:12.200 your ability to create and maintain relationships. It's only about what recharges you, what calms you

00:18:18.700 down, what makes you feel at home and at ease. And so the reason that we see a lot of people going,

00:18:23.880 but I'm an introvert and my extroverted friends are so much better at being social. It's not because

00:18:28.560 of the introversion or the extroversion per se. It's because extroverts realized on a subconscious

00:18:34.160 level that they were extroverts probably in middle school or high school, and then went about being

00:18:38.600 social as often as possible because they enjoyed it. Whereas introverts maybe shied away from some of

00:18:43.780 that. And so they have a decade less experience going out at every opportunity and making new

00:18:49.340 connections. Unlike extroverts, it has nothing to do with your potential and it has nothing to do with

00:18:54.760 your actual ability to create skills in this area. It only has to do with the possibly the level of

00:19:00.620 enjoyment that you get from the process. So that distinction is very key because that means that

00:19:06.500 if we're introverts, we can still build really great people skills. We can still build really great

00:19:11.720 relationship skills. It just means that we might not be exercising them as often because we need

00:19:16.660 more me time. And that's very important to realize because if you classify yourself as an introvert

00:19:21.540 and you go, yeah, it's just kind of holding me back. You have to realize that it actually should not

00:19:26.640 be holding you back. If it is, you're letting it do that. You have no medical reason that you can't

00:19:32.320 develop these skills. It just might be more uncomfortable for you at first because you're not

00:19:36.900 used to doing it. And that's okay. You're no more expected to be able to create and maintain

00:19:42.120 relationships than you are to be able to snowboard, for example. You have to work on this. It is a

00:19:47.640 learnable skill as per my first point. And that I think is extremely crucial to realize. So not only

00:19:53.260 is it learnable, but no matter what your personality archetype might be, self-diagnosed or not, it doesn't

00:19:59.000 prohibit you or inhibit you from learning these same skills. I think a common myth that a lot of people

00:20:03.940 have about, you know, being social is that they need to be like the life of the party guy, like the

00:20:09.040 Vince Vaughn character in Swingers, right? That's just super animated. It's just constantly, you know,

00:20:15.860 witty banner going back and forth, laughing. In order to be successful at building a relationship,

00:20:21.340 being social, do you have to be like that or can you do it in a different way and still have success?

00:20:25.820 Actually, that's a great question and a great example of the Vince Vaughn Swingers example. I might

00:20:30.160 have to steal that as well. Because Vince Vaughn, yeah, he walks in someplace and he's like,

00:20:34.120 oh, hey, there he is. Oh, what's going on? Like, he's just really, the camera's focused on him.

00:20:38.320 Money, baby.

00:20:38.940 And everyone around him. Yeah, you're so money, you don't even know it, right? He's super outgoing,

00:20:42.340 super confident. And that's cool. It's really attractive. We see that in the movie. He's the

00:20:46.700 center of the circle. Totally makes sense. However, when it comes to relationship development,

00:20:51.520 not only do you not have to be like that, but often we find that people who really are that

00:20:56.060 outgoing and that social find themselves in different kinds of predicaments. Because we

00:21:00.560 get those same guys here at Art of Charm as well, where they say things like, I feel like I have a

00:21:04.860 lot of people in my life. I just don't know them that well. Or I've got a lot of relationships and

00:21:08.880 a lot of friends, but none of them are really that deep relationship wise, or we're not really that

00:21:13.420 tight. And that's a very important distinction as well. Because what we found also from the science

00:21:18.780 of introversion and social skills is that a lot of introverts are quiet people. For example,

00:21:24.600 they're very, very good at creating deep relationships one-on-one. And what we know

00:21:30.820 from relationship development is actually depth is more powerful than breadth. So it's much better

00:21:36.280 to know a couple of dozen people really, really well who would just go to bat for you no matter

00:21:41.700 what, who will come to your wedding, come to your funeral more importantly. These are the people

00:21:45.660 that will really be there for you when the chips are down. It's better to know a few dozen people like

00:21:49.980 that than it is to know hundreds of people that you could call and maybe they'll return your phone

00:21:54.300 call or they recognize you at some level as an authority or as a cool guy or a great person,

00:22:00.460 but they're not really going to help you necessarily with anything unless it works for them.

00:22:05.220 So introverts tend to actually be better at observing group dynamics, observing and adhering to sort of

00:22:12.240 nonverbal communication and finding out who's who in a group when these skills are studied because

00:22:16.800 they're more introspective and they look at how their own feelings work. So in many ways,

00:22:21.580 the whole, I'm an introvert, I can't do it thing is not only wrong on its face, but actually works

00:22:27.520 better the other way around. You're an introvert. So you should be able to develop deeper relationships,

00:22:33.380 possibly even more easily than a Vince Vaughn type. So for me, when I go and meet a group of people,

00:22:39.060 I may sort of turn on a little bit of that sort of Vince Vaughn type of stuff. And of course,

00:22:43.460 not equally ridiculous and nightlifey, but at the end of the day, I'm not going to these different

00:22:48.960 events to go, I want to meet a hundred people. I want everybody at this conference to know who I

00:22:52.740 am. I'm going in and I'm going, I would love to make one or two connections here that turn into

00:22:58.120 real friendships that last for the next 10 or 20 years. That is much more powerful. So if you're

00:23:03.820 not that super extroverted, outgoing person, it doesn't matter. Your goal should be to make one

00:23:09.340 connection at each of these types of events and try to turn it into a friendship, not to get the phone

00:23:14.480 number and business card of 700 people in some auditorium in Las Vegas. So let's get into

00:23:19.320 specifics here. Let's talk about small talk. A lot of guys, I've heard this before. We've written

00:23:22.660 about small talk before and a lot of the comments are like, well, small talk is stupid. It's

00:23:26.940 superficial. I'm a waste of time. Just get to the deep stuff. Let's talk about, let's talk about deep

00:23:32.160 philosophical thoughts right from the get go. I'm curious, do you think small talk is a necessary

00:23:36.720 part of building a relationship? And if so, what can guys do to get better at it?

00:23:41.120 I think it is necessary. And I'll tell you why. I totally understand where those people are coming

00:23:45.480 from that say like, let's skip the surface level stuff. Let's get into the deep stuff.

00:23:49.300 A couple of ideas and quips with that. One, when we do small talk, when we exercise small talk,

00:23:56.700 when we engage in small talk, we're doing a lot more than I think a lot of folks think.

00:24:01.440 We are not just going, man, it's cold out here. What do you think? Oh yeah, last week. Oh,

00:24:06.020 it was flooding. It was raining. I'm glad for the cold, but I'll take the sun. Chuckle,

00:24:09.760 chuckle, chuckle. Oh, what brings you in? That kind of small talk. That's great. It warms people

00:24:14.580 up and regardless of what you think of it, but here's the truth. What we're really doing there

00:24:19.500 in evolutionary psychology shows us to be quite true, no matter what the subject, small as it

00:24:24.180 might be, our brains are looking for things like nonverbal communication, subconscious communication

00:24:29.060 of friendliness. We're gauging each other's social status. And I don't care what the social status is.

00:24:34.420 I'm a grumpy old guy. It doesn't matter. Our brains are doing that because that's our model

00:24:39.540 of the world. Who's in charge? Who's stronger? Who's more interesting? Who knows more people?

00:24:44.020 Who's more connected? Who's more outgoing? There's a million little different calculations

00:24:48.940 going on here. A lot of it happens nonverbally, but a lot of it happens verbally in the beginning.

00:24:54.760 And for a lot of folks that say, well, small talk is useless. It's a waste of time.

00:24:58.500 And that's very common among engineers and people like that because they tend to think

00:25:03.780 linearly and analytically about problems, which is a super, super useful set of skills. Very,

00:25:10.120 very important. However, when it comes to nuanced social interaction, sometimes it's easy to misplace

00:25:15.640 the value and go, I don't care about talking about the weather. Let's get into the subject

00:25:19.240 at hand. But really, you're not talking only about the weather. You're having a nonverbal and

00:25:23.980 verbal exchange that's very important to your subconscious brain. It has nothing to do with

00:25:28.440 the task at hand. And if you don't believe me, then if you're one of those people who says

00:25:32.460 small talk's a waste of time, please, please do tell us the last time that you went, all

00:25:37.520 right, I'm just going to skip small talk. And you went up and you talked to some people

00:25:40.500 and you just said, ah, you know, I'm not sure I'm happy with my life. You know, should I

00:25:44.760 divorce my wife? I mean, tell me the last time you did that with no intro and it worked

00:25:49.540 out for you because chances are there's no example of that working. You kind of wish that

00:25:54.380 you could do it that way, but it's not because small talk's a waste of time. It's

00:25:57.960 because you really don't know how to navigate those initial first few minutes. Therefore,

00:26:02.460 it makes you feel uncomfortable, which was what's making you want to avoid it. It's not

00:26:06.280 because you actually think it's a waste of time. And if you do think it's a waste of time,

00:26:11.000 try interactions without it and see what happens. It's kind of maybe one of those things we wish

00:26:15.960 didn't exist, like our commute to work. But that is a sad fact of reality. And I think of

00:26:22.320 it as an opportunity because what it does is it gives you a chance to feel out a lot of different

00:26:26.000 opportunities without any kind of actual commitment in the very beginning. And it does set the table

00:26:31.600 for everybody to be comfortable in that interaction. It shows you the speed at which you can move

00:26:36.160 forward and rapport. It shows you the type of person that you're dealing with. Are they interested in

00:26:40.660 something deeper? All that stuff is happening at a conscious or subconscious usually level.

00:26:45.000 And so you can't really skip it. Does that make sense?

00:26:48.700 Yeah, it makes perfect sense. It's a social lubricant.

00:26:50.600 Yeah, it's not like alcohol, like a social, but like it gets things going.

00:26:53.420 It gets things going and it shows your brain. All right, Brett's cool. He's not really in the mood to,

00:26:59.100 you know, be best friends at this networking event that we're at because he's got other stuff on his

00:27:03.680 mind. I'm going to not push this super far or I'm going to take it a little bit slower with this

00:27:09.260 person. Oh, this person's super friendly. I'm going to double down on my interaction with this

00:27:13.800 person. Oh, this person's a little bit standoffish. Let's give them a little bit of space.

00:27:18.260 These processes are happening subconsciously. This stuff is happening in the back of your mind.

00:27:24.380 It's very, very hard for you to dig that up and think about it at a conscious level.

00:27:28.500 But that's why humans have evolved to start with small talk. It's not the type of thing

00:27:32.780 that most of us had to do very often when we're at work in an office with folks or when we see the

00:27:38.440 same people every day in a tribe or family. But now that we meet new people every day,

00:27:42.220 we do it a lot more often. And yeah, a lot of us want to avoid it because it can be awkward.

00:27:46.720 How do you start small talk? I feel like a lot of guys, what do I say? Do I talk about the weather?

00:27:50.960 So any insights there on how to get it going? Like instead of waiting for the other person to

00:27:55.180 make the first move, what can guys do to make the first move that's not awkward?

00:27:59.800 Sure. So I'm going to skip over just like, oh, I ran into my neighbor at the grocery store type of

00:28:04.780 small talk because I think that's less useful than, oh, okay, I got to go to this conference

00:28:10.060 in Las Vegas for my industry, going to World of Concrete or something, right? And I've got to

00:28:15.440 meet all these new people. What I would do is figure out a specific list of people that you

00:28:20.000 want to meet. And there's a lot of variations of this, but I'll go over this. First of all,

00:28:23.900 you have a list of people that you want to meet. You realize that everybody at a given event or place

00:28:28.840 is there for a specific reason. Many of them are there to network and connect with other folks in the

00:28:33.960 first place. So you've got that going for you. They're willing to be open whether or not they

00:28:38.520 figure out how to do this on their own is another thing. For me, when I go to conferences, I usually

00:28:43.780 look at all the speakers. I look at the type of attendees that will be there and I create little

00:28:48.140 dossiers on the speakers. So I might look at their LinkedIn, their Facebook profile and sort of go,

00:28:53.000 oh, okay, this person is also a recovering lawyer. Good to know. Oh, this person went to law school,

00:28:57.460 but they're not a lawyer now. Huh? Let's talk about that. Oh, this person grew up in Michigan. Same with me.

00:29:02.460 I wonder where they grew up. Let's talk about that. You can make little notes about that in

00:29:06.080 the back of your mind. And those can be the ways that you start conversations like, hey, Brett,

00:29:10.420 we haven't met before, but I noticed when I was looking at the speaker roster that you grew up in

00:29:14.520 Michigan. Where at? I'm from Michigan too. That's a very easy conversational starter. And I know a lot

00:29:19.840 of people are rolling their eyes and going, ah, I can't believe I have to listen to a whole podcast on

00:29:23.420 this. The reason this is important is because look, if we're all complaining about how small talk is

00:29:28.380 hard or doesn't come naturally, other people are super stoked when you can take the lead on this

00:29:34.760 type of interaction. So all you need is one or two really simple things. And I get those from

00:29:39.940 LinkedIn profiles. I might say, Brett, you play squash still? I noticed on your LinkedIn profile,

00:29:44.560 you're into squash. Oh, well, I haven't played in a long time. Now this leads into where did you learn

00:29:49.040 how to play squash? Why haven't you played for a long time? There's a lot of really obvious and easy

00:29:53.140 follow-up questions. And you can transition away from these pretty quickly. The idea here is that

00:29:58.660 since we're all in the same place for the same purpose, namely networking and relationship

00:30:02.600 development, we can break the ice super easy using those very limited commonalities and transition

00:30:08.220 away from it. That said, I think a lot of folks are going, all right, what if I'm not at a networking

00:30:12.640 event? What if I'm just at the grocery store and I do run into my neighbor? You can easily come up

00:30:17.620 with very few things to say on that by doing the exact same thing. And I know that it sounds a

00:30:22.560 little creepy to come up with a dossier on somebody. It doesn't have to be that complete. But look,

00:30:27.560 it's less creepy than avoiding them altogether because you don't want to talk about the weather

00:30:32.080 or going to a conference and making zero connections because you were afraid to take this little

00:30:36.700 advantage. And I think people are quite flattered when you take the time to learn a little bit about

00:30:41.860 them, especially if you're at an event that's designed to be networking or relationship-based.

00:30:46.600 I think that that type of thing is extremely crucial. It tends to be a very easy step that most

00:30:51.960 people overlook. I do want to comment on possibly what might be the greater cause of a lot of folks

00:30:57.760 discomfort, which is that we're not necessarily comfortable walking around in those types of

00:31:02.760 environments and circulating around. And I don't just mean networking events or mixers or even the

00:31:07.600 grocery store for that matter. I mean the world at large. And I think a lot of people who run around

00:31:12.680 and try to do the networking thing or worry about that excessively are probably not the majority of

00:31:19.000 your listeners. I think most of your listeners are totally normal, well-adjusted folks that probably

00:31:23.380 need to do a little bit more relationship development, a little bit more networking for

00:31:27.540 the sake of their business, their family, or their job. Does that sound right?

00:31:31.400 Yeah, it sounds about right. You know, as you're saying that, I mean, one thing that's helped me,

00:31:35.280 like sort of the mindset that's helped me with small talk or just social interactions is

00:31:38.660 to think of myself as the host. Like I'm hosting them at my house. Like when you're a host,

00:31:43.460 it's really easy to think, I'm going to take care of this person. Let's talk, blah, blah, blah.

00:31:46.760 I've taken that mindset just to social interactions. It's just like, I'm going to be the host here.

00:31:51.600 I'm going to take care of this person. And for some reason, it just clicks for me. It just sets

00:31:55.920 me at ease, makes me feel comfortable, and things aren't awkward when I take that mindset.

00:32:00.580 It's a great mindset to have that you're the host. I know a lot of people are going,

00:32:03.580 but I'm not the host. I'm at this other event. It doesn't matter. If you act as if,

00:32:08.300 and you act as if you're at home and you're going to be the host of a party, well, think about this.

00:32:12.360 It's not just, okay, I'm the host. It's, all right, I'm the host. What do hosts do?

00:32:17.240 They introduce themselves to other people. And more importantly, they introduce people to each

00:32:22.200 other. And this is a very important point because this makes networking and relationship development

00:32:26.980 scalable at some level. So a lot of people are going, all right, my worst case scenario is I

00:32:32.700 actually get good at the things Jordan's talking about here. And then suddenly I'm stuck in a

00:32:37.600 conversation with somebody, or how do I transition, or how do I move from one person to another?

00:32:41.480 The best way that I've found to do this is by taking off on your hosting example is to go and

00:32:47.220 start conversations with folks and then begin to introduce them to each other. So if I'm sitting

00:32:51.600 there and I'm alone for a while and I decide to go up and talk to you and we start the small talk

00:32:55.320 thing, if we start to go, all right, conversations, losing a little momentum, you know, you're doing

00:33:00.200 that head bob, like, okay. So what I can do is the quote unquote host is say, Hey Brett,

00:33:06.480 why don't we go around and meet some other folks? Do you know anyone else here? And you might go,

00:33:09.540 yeah, I know Bob, he works with me. Let's go talk to him. I'll introduce you. You might say,

00:33:13.320 I don't know nobody right around here. I might say, all right, well, I've got a couple of friends

00:33:17.240 I want to introduce you to. Do you have a few minutes? And since you're there for the same

00:33:21.120 reason that I am, you might say, sure. And then we just walk around meeting either friends of mine

00:33:26.060 that I've already met or total strangers and then introducing ourselves. For some reason,

00:33:30.960 it's much easier for me to introduce myself and other people that I'm with at the same time,

00:33:35.840 because you have that sort of group strength, right? So if you and I walk up to a group of

00:33:39.920 people and introduce ourselves, there's a lot less pressure on me to do the intro and to carry

00:33:44.600 the whole interaction as there is if I'm walking up with a smaller group. And this is also less

00:33:49.200 threatening, especially at events where nobody knows each other. And so this becomes really,

00:33:54.580 really easy to apply because now I'm approaching with other people, introducing you to them and then

00:34:00.280 facilitating that quote unquote small talk. And then we later transition to rapport or deeper rapport,

00:34:05.340 I should say. And this is really, really great because what happens is we make this scalable

00:34:09.700 in terms of delivering value too. So one of the things that we teach at AOC, at the Art of Charming

00:34:14.880 on the podcast is always give generously. So you've seen that Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross movie, right? Where

00:34:19.340 it's like ABC, always be closing. You know that scene? Right. It's famous. It's famous. A lot of

00:34:23.940 people probably have not seen that and need to go ahead and YouTube it, but it's that always be

00:34:28.740 closing. And so at AOC, we're very fond of ABG, which is always be giving and always give generously.

00:34:34.460 And so what this actually means is instead of focusing on what you can get from other people

00:34:39.340 in interactions, simply be focusing on creating more interactions with more people and trying to

00:34:45.200 get them to deliver to one another. The reason this is important is because when we develop

00:34:49.420 relationships with people, a lot of times we're looking at what we can get from those people.

00:34:54.660 And so if I'm thinking, oh man, you know, I'm really focused on growing my business. So I'm only

00:35:00.820 going to talk to people who can grow my business. You start to get this really myopic viewpoint of

00:35:05.680 everyone that you interact with and it starts to become transactional. And that's very dangerous

00:35:09.800 because people can feel quid pro quo. They can feel when you're looking for a specific outcome.

00:35:15.960 And more importantly, most of the biggest opportunities for ourselves lie over the horizon

00:35:21.920 and we can't see them. An example of this in my own life, when I moved to LA, I had a toothache.

00:35:27.180 I don't know if you've ever had a toothache, but it's terrible. It's like the pain is so viscerally

00:35:31.020 inside your brain. It's like, it's touching your mind and you just can't do anything else.

00:35:35.860 And I went to a bunch of dentists and I called a bunch of people and they didn't accept my

00:35:40.220 insurance and they didn't have room. They weren't accepting new patients, whatever.

00:35:43.160 So in desperation, I posted on Facebook and I said, I've got a toothache. I really don't want to go to

00:35:48.240 the ER because I know it's going to be expensive and they're probably going to just tie a string to the

00:35:52.040 tooth and slam the door or whatever. I need to figure out how to handle this. And a total stranger

00:35:56.880 reached out and said, look, my aunt's a dentist in your area. Do you want me to call her? I said,

00:36:01.200 yes. Went in, got my tooth fixed. And I, of course, the first message to him was, thank you

00:36:06.260 so much. You're a lifesaver. He said, yeah, sure. No problem. We both go on with our lives.

00:36:10.680 A few days later, he sends me his portfolio and he goes, look, I'm just reaching out to everybody

00:36:15.120 that I know. I'm trying to do freelance graphic design full time. Please, if you have any need for

00:36:20.260 graphic design, let me know. Of course, I own one, but I just say, look, I don't need this right now,

00:36:24.420 but I'll keep my ear to the ground for you. A few days after that, or even a few weeks after that,

00:36:28.620 another entrepreneur reached out to me and asked who did my website because their designer cracked

00:36:33.080 out. Now we did all of our web in house at that time. We still do. And so what we decided on was

00:36:37.920 that I would, of course, just introduce him to a few vendors that I knew, none of which worked out.

00:36:42.000 And I also sent him the portfolio of this guy that had helped me find a dentist on Facebook. I said,

00:36:46.860 look, I've never worked with him, but here's his portfolio. If you'd like an intro,

00:36:49.500 she got that intro. I made that of course. And long story short, this guy ends up getting

00:36:54.860 a $40,000 per quarter, I believe, like freelance gig with him and his team to create graphics and

00:37:02.320 web design for this other entrepreneur. Now, the reason that this is important is not just because,

00:37:07.260 oh, I helped someone and they helped me. That's all fine and good in Pollyanna. But the reason that

00:37:12.040 this is important is because it illustrates the concept that had he been simply looking for a job,

00:37:17.920 I just want to get my graphic design stuff out there. We didn't know each other before that.

00:37:21.780 So he wouldn't have sent it to me, even though I'm the one that got him the job.

00:37:25.220 Had I been looking for a dentist and I'd somehow asked everyone that I know, which was my intention

00:37:29.280 on Facebook, I didn't know who he was. He was just a person who saw my public post because a mutual

00:37:34.040 friend of ours had commented on it. So that opportunity for him to get that job was over the

00:37:39.240 horizon. Neither he or myself saw this opportunity for him. It only happened because he was able to give

00:37:45.420 some value in the beginning without the expectation of anything in return. So if you give generously,

00:37:50.640 you end up finding that a lot of these different opportunities were previously invisible. And it

00:37:56.500 becomes very scalable to also make these opportunities. Because for me, if I'm looking

00:38:01.060 for graphic design work and he's looking to do graphic design as a job, I can maybe purchase those

00:38:06.840 services. Fine. But when I start thinking about how I can scale the networking, it doesn't work.

00:38:12.820 If I'm trying to be the one to help everybody in my own network, it doesn't work, right? If I'm a

00:38:18.060 graphic designer and I reach out to everyone in my network, I can only do business with the people

00:38:21.900 that need graphic design. But if I'm looking to make connections inside my network with one another,

00:38:27.720 I can plug anybody into anybody else who has a need. So you have to start looking at the people in

00:38:32.920 your network in a very different way. And so when you start to give generously and you start to look

00:38:37.600 at people in your network in a very different way, you can start to scale the amount of value that you

00:38:41.780 deliver around your various network points. In other words, you have to introduce people to each

00:38:46.520 other that can accomplish mutual value. But the only way to find those opportunities is usually to give

00:38:51.480 value to other people without expecting something in return. That's a common mistake that people make

00:38:56.640 because they're very myopically looking at this. What can I get out of it? Or what does this person

00:39:01.040 want from me? Does that all make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. It's the power of weak ties. I mean,

00:39:05.600 it's basically what this is. I mean, those are all weak ties. Like you didn't know that person,

00:39:08.760 it wasn't like a strong friendship. It was just sort of a tie. But the more weak ties you have,

00:39:14.220 the more you can spread your influence and the more leverage you can gain.

00:39:17.060 Exactly. And it's not just about spreading your own influence. It's about allowing other people to

00:39:21.720 spread that influence inside your network as well. So it becomes scalable. I can introduce 100,

00:39:27.500 150 people per week if all I have to do is email each of them to make that intro. But if I'm doing the

00:39:34.000 work for each person, if I'm doing the graphic design, say for those people, I can maybe take

00:39:39.100 on what one client every couple of weeks or something like that, depending on the magnitude

00:39:42.620 of the project, that's not very scalable. And it can get a little tricky because I think a lot of

00:39:48.080 people, they start to go, okay, I'm going to help as many people as I can. And you run into

00:39:53.580 a very insidious problem, which is keeping score. And what that means is, I might say, yeah,

00:40:00.620 I interviewed Brett and I introduced him to this graphic design person. And then I helped him find

00:40:05.440 a carpenter for his house. And then I introduced him to this awesome personal trainer. And then I

00:40:10.540 got him a new dog because he was looking to adopt a rescue. That guy owes me so much. But in truth,

00:40:16.700 that's a covert contract, right? Because it only exists in my own mind. You don't really owe me

00:40:21.820 anything. I'm supposedly giving freely to you. And yet in my head, I'm racking up this credit.

00:40:26.780 And so if you don't kind of respond in kind to that credit, to that covert contract and uphold

00:40:32.860 your end of the invisible bargain that you were unaware of, it starts to sour and poison the well

00:40:38.280 in these relationships. And so that is something I can never talk about enough when I'm talking about

00:40:43.760 the subject is warn people against the idea of covert contracts and keeping score because it sours

00:40:49.400 every relationship that you find. It turns every great connection and friendship into a quid pro quo

00:40:55.520 transactional relationship, which basically just rips the roots out from the ground.

00:41:00.740 And it's very, very toxic. So when you're helping people and you're giving generously,

00:41:04.320 you literally have to do that without expecting anything in return. In fact, if you help 100 people,

00:41:10.840 fully expect that 99 of them will never do anything for you. And now you're at about the right ratio

00:41:17.100 for realizing how this will work. Because it's never about, all right, well, I helped these 10 people

00:41:22.320 and I need things from these 10 people. It's about getting their reputation together and building

00:41:26.600 that social capital as a giver and not relying on other people to give back. Because if you do keep

00:41:33.080 score, you're going to find that those covert contracts are broken so often that you start to

00:41:38.720 get mad at literally everybody that you come into touch with. And that's obviously not a great way to

00:41:43.240 live because now it changes the way that you deal with those people and the way that those people

00:41:47.100 treat you. And it becomes transactional. I don't think anybody likes to deal with that. And I know

00:41:52.120 that you're in that same boat because now that your show and your blog are really big, you get

00:41:56.720 people reaching out all the time, probably many people that you knew for a long time. And now they're

00:42:01.840 like, hey, I've got a new book coming out. We got to hang out. And you're like, no, I know exactly

00:42:06.060 what you're going to do. We're going to go hang out. And you're going to sell me the idea that you need

00:42:09.940 to have a guest post and promote your blog and your book on my work. Even when you do that,

00:42:15.400 you don't hear from them again for five years until their next book comes out. Does this all

00:42:19.260 start to sound familiar to you? Oh, yeah. Very familiar. So if we start to give generously and we

00:42:24.680 don't keep score, we don't end up with covert contracts, which breed resentment. And since that

00:42:29.640 resentment isn't there, we can constantly be introducing people to each other and helping as

00:42:33.880 many people as possible. And then finally, when we do need something, we've built up so much capital,

00:42:38.900 so much social capital and reserve that those people that quote unquote owe us one will start to come

00:42:44.340 out through the woodwork in spades. And that's the way that you want to do it. It's not about

00:42:48.620 keeping score. It's not about transaction. It's about scalability and doing this in a way that

00:42:53.300 doesn't require a certain outcome on your part. And that actually leads into a very key concept as

00:42:59.920 well that I don't want to forget, which is you need to dig the well before you're thirsty. And I know

00:43:03.560 there's a book by that title, so I'm stealing that. But dig the well before you're thirsty is very

00:43:07.920 important because if we're only looking at the opportunities that we think can give us immediate

00:43:13.060 benefit, well, we're really, really limited. It goes back to seeing the opportunities over the

00:43:18.500 horizon. If you're not building relationships with people before you need that, it's not going to work

00:43:24.180 out so well for you when you finally do need something because it will inevitably become transactional

00:43:29.940 if you're only looking at the next immediate step. So giving generously without keeping score is a very

00:43:35.700 good way to dig that well before you're thirsty because you're simply digging and you're not

00:43:40.000 paying attention to how big the hole is, if that makes sense, and how much you're stacking up. And

00:43:45.080 that's very important. Otherwise, you're just going to get tired of creating relationships. You're going

00:43:49.380 to feel like you're getting the shaft. You're going to retreat into your shell and start to think bitter

00:43:53.360 thoughts about networking and relationship development in the first place. Well, you get your thought on

00:43:57.020 this. So I'm a big believer in giving generously. I'll tell you one thing that gives me pause. And I get

00:44:01.040 lots of requests all the time. And usually I say no. And it's not because I've got a score to

00:44:05.200 keep. What I've run into, maybe you've run into this as well, as I call it, if you give a mouse

00:44:09.380 a cookie syndrome, which is you do something for a guy, somebody, you help them out. And like,

00:44:14.640 it's great. Awesome. But then they keep coming back. It's like, it's that whole, if you give a

00:44:18.080 mouse a cookie, he's going to ask for a glass of milk. If you give him a glass of milk, he's going

00:44:21.940 to ask for a napkin. I typically say no oftentimes to helping really great things because my experience

00:44:28.260 has been, I'll help this person this one time, but they're going to keep coming back. And it's just,

00:44:32.140 it becomes a time suck. Like I just, I can't manage all of it because if I do it for everybody,

00:44:37.780 I got a whole bunch of mouses with cookies. They're going to be asking for napkins and milk

00:44:41.840 later on. So how do you manage that aspect of this giving, which I believe in wholeheartedly,

00:44:46.500 but how do you manage that?

00:44:48.320 So the way that I try to manage this, and I say try, because I think inevitably giving a

00:44:53.380 mouse a cookie is just something that is going to happen after a while. And it's about boundaries

00:44:58.260 and not about not helping people in the first place. So for example, recently a guy said,

00:45:03.800 Hey, I really love your work. I'd love to write a guest post. And usually I just outright say no,

00:45:09.100 but he had sent me something that he wrote. And I thought, Oh, this is decent. You know,

00:45:12.120 I like it. It jibes. So I said, sure, but no guarantees that we'll publish it. And he wrote a

00:45:17.040 post and it was all right. So we published it. And then he goes, I really want to get on show.

00:45:20.860 And I thought, Oh, okay. I think this was the angle the whole time, but it wasn't fully disclosed.

00:45:26.880 And I said, well, you know, I really did like your post, but we don't really cover this type

00:45:30.880 of thing on the show. Thanks anyway. And he said, all right, well, let me know if you change your

00:45:35.020 mind. He didn't get mad about it. No big deal. The boundary that I'd set there was something that

00:45:40.060 I think was fairly easy for me to do. It made me feel a little guilty at first, maybe a few years

00:45:45.380 ago when I started doing this, but now I'm very used to it because I also realize it's not just

00:45:50.300 about not giving that person what they want. It's not just about not giving that mouse a glass

00:45:55.360 of milk. It's that your milk is finite, Brett. So if you give a mouse a cookie, that's fine.

00:46:01.680 That cookie, you might have a million cookies back there somewhere in Oklahoma, but if you,

00:46:06.620 if you, you only have one jug of milk. So if another, if that same mouse says, look, I want a

00:46:11.200 glass of milk. You can just say, actually, I don't have time for that right now, or I can't scale that

00:46:14.880 right now, or I can't do that right now, but I have an introduction to somebody else who might be able to

00:46:18.500 help you with that. Something that is more scalable and you have to be able to set that boundary. And

00:46:23.400 I think the reason a lot of people are afraid to set boundaries is they're worried that that mouse

00:46:28.020 is going to have a temper tantrum when it doesn't get the milk or the napkin. And this is the key

00:46:32.900 of boundaries that I've been talking about for a long time. It took me years to realize in both

00:46:38.360 intimate relationships, friendships, and business relationships. The boundary is never the issue.

00:46:43.960 It's okay to set a boundary wherever you want. You can be a total weirdo about the boundaries that

00:46:48.740 you have. Like, uh, actually I never want to speak by phone. Okay. That's awkward. Or I don't answer

00:46:53.700 text messages. I only answer email through my assistant. All right. That's weird. But you know,

00:46:57.580 I accept that the way that we measure boundaries is not by whether or not you think they're

00:47:02.460 appropriate or whether or not they are on some objective level appropriate. It's about the other

00:47:07.120 person's emotional or not emotional response to that boundary. So for example, if you give a mouse a

00:47:13.340 cookie and they write a guest post on the art of charm blog, for example, and then they say,

00:47:18.000 I want to be on the show. And then I, you know, I say, well, I don't really think this is a good fit.

00:47:21.980 And they flip the hell out. That's on them. That's on them. And as long as I'm able to control my

00:47:28.360 reaction to that and not feel guilty about not giving people what they want, then we're in business

00:47:33.540 because they just kind of outed themselves, right? Oh, so they were keeping score and there was a

00:47:38.840 covert contract. I wrote this guest post for you and now I can't even come on the show.

00:47:42.220 You're such a time waster, Jordan. That's not about me. That's about them. It's about their

00:47:46.640 unreasonable response to my boundary. And the reason that they're having that is because they

00:47:51.880 set up a covert contract in their head that I, in their mind, am not honoring. And in doing this in

00:47:58.520 your business or in your personal life, you're going to encounter those people and it will be

00:48:02.440 uncomfortable, but it's much better to have somebody have a little bit of a temper tantrum than it is

00:48:08.000 to have, say, no boundaries. And then you run the risk of either never giving away cookies or hoarding

00:48:14.160 all of your cookies for yourself or running into some other issue where every time you do someone

00:48:18.240 a favor, you're afraid of the results. Does that make sense? Perfect. Yeah. I think that's applicable.

00:48:23.120 You see this a lot happen in like the workplace where you want to be the helpful person. You help

00:48:27.460 someone out, but then they just keep coming back to you like, oh, this guy, because they think in

00:48:30.860 their head, I can go to this guy. He said yes. And so they're primed to just keep going back to you.

00:48:34.640 So the key there is be helpful, but yeah, make sure you set boundaries along the way.

00:48:39.840 Yeah. And you don't even have to decide where to set that boundary initially. You don't have to say

00:48:43.140 something like, well, I'll post your guest post, but I'm never having you on the show. I mean, you

00:48:47.340 don't have to do that. You don't have to. And I want to highlight bold underline this. You don't have

00:48:53.460 to preemptively manage their emotional response to your boundary. It's kind of like saying, hey,

00:49:00.320 Jordan, do you want to go out? And I'm going, yeah, she's pretty cute. She asked me, I'll do it.

00:49:04.160 And then we go out and on the first date, she's like, hey, do you want to go out again next week?

00:49:07.540 And I'm like, yeah, okay, we can do that. And then on our second date, she's like, we should

00:49:10.940 get married and have babies. And I go, whoa, I don't think that's a good idea just yet.

00:49:15.360 We should date for a little while longer. If she goes, okay, then you go, okay, good. I think

00:49:20.300 she's a reasonable person. However, if she goes, are you kidding me? I've already gone out on two dates

00:49:25.240 with you. And now you don't want to get married and started slashing your tires or getting all upset at

00:49:29.040 you. Even if she didn't slash your tires. And by the way, this goes for guys too, because we'd be crazy

00:49:33.740 emotional sometimes too. Don't, don't front. That would be completely unreasonable. And we

00:49:37.640 would run for the hills. And yet somehow in our personal lives and in our businesses, we often

00:49:43.620 end up going, well, this other person's crazy emotional response makes me want to help them

00:49:48.940 even more because I don't want to deal with the conflict. It makes no sense. We never put up with

00:49:53.780 this stuff in our personal lives and yet we'll put up with it in our business or we'll put up with it

00:49:57.580 in our non-intimate or non-dating lives or something like that, or vice versa. You see people who are

00:50:03.720 CEOs of companies and they're going through a divorce and they're dating again, and they're

00:50:07.320 putting up with ridiculous amounts of crap from people in their lives. And you're thinking if this

00:50:12.240 were happening in the boardroom, you would eat this person alive. And yet since it's happening in a

00:50:18.000 different sphere of your life, you're not applying any of the stuff that you've already know intuitively

00:50:22.980 or that you've already learned. Why is that the case? And the reason is because when we set

00:50:27.320 boundaries and when we do things like this, often we don't transfer them to other areas of our lives

00:50:32.020 for various reasons that probably aren't important here. So before I go, I know we're running short

00:50:36.300 on time. I want to grab a drill for everybody here because this is extremely important. It will

00:50:40.760 change the way that you deal with other people, the way that you meet people, create connections,

00:50:44.440 and more importantly, the way that they deal with you. So a lot of Art of Charm is dealing with

00:50:48.920 verbal and nonverbal communication. And the reason that this is so important is because

00:50:54.140 our first impressions are always, always, always based on our nonverbal communication.

00:51:00.340 And if you don't believe me, walk down the street and the next few people that you see,

00:51:05.060 you'll start making immediate subconscious judgments about those people. Are they a threat?

00:51:09.560 Do they look nice? Do I know them? Is it a man or a woman? What are they carrying? All of that

00:51:14.000 stuff happens at a very sort of low level kind of ground basis at all times. We're evolved that way.

00:51:20.640 We make judgments about people based on visuals all the time. And women are better at this than

00:51:25.860 men are because of a safety concern that's evolved over the last, you know, bajillion years here.

00:51:30.520 So what we know by extension of this is that our first impressions are made nonverbally because they

00:51:36.940 see us before they can hear us. And I think a lot of people, especially guys, for some reason here,

00:51:41.460 are almost obsessed with creating a great first impression based on some kind of icebreaker,

00:51:47.480 some kind of pickup line, some kind of thing that they use to start a conversation when none of

00:51:52.060 that matters because it's all about nonverbals. So in order to create a great nonverbal first

00:51:57.640 impression, we have to have great positive open body language that looks confident. And a lot of

00:52:02.620 people go, great. All right, I'm going to write that down. And then the next time they go to an event,

00:52:05.980 they're like, all right, I'm going to stand up straight. I'm a smile and have open positive body

00:52:09.700 language. And they get into a conversation and 20 seconds later, all their body language stuff is

00:52:14.060 out the window. And the reason is because in order to stay present, we can't really micromanage our

00:52:19.120 nonverbal communication. It's always a reflection of our internal state. And that's another conversation

00:52:23.360 for another time. It's a reflection of our internal state. And if we're nervous, we're going to have

00:52:27.100 problems. So what we need to do is create open, positive, confident body language as part of our

00:52:33.240 natural habit. Our default has to be that. And the way that we do that is by creating that habit.

00:52:38.320 And the way that we do this is with what we call the doorway drill. So unless you're driving right

00:52:42.620 now, do a little, little bit of standing up, shoulders back, chest up, chin up, smile on your

00:52:47.600 face. And you don't have to exaggerate it. You'll just look like kind of an idiot, a weirdo and have

00:52:51.360 that open, positive body language. Now, remember what this feels like and remember what this looks

00:52:55.100 like. Now, every time you walk through a doorway, even in your own house, straighten up, open,

00:53:00.540 positive body language. And so that chin up, chest out type of shoulders back, smile on your face type

00:53:05.080 of thing. I mean, even in your own house, going to the bathroom, going to your bedroom, walking in

00:53:08.780 your dining room, whatever you want to do. And of course, whenever you walk into and out of your

00:53:12.360 office, if you have trouble remembering to do this at each doorway, buy a little pad of those hot pink

00:53:17.720 or whatever green post-it notes and put them at eye level on the doorframe. And every time you walk

00:53:23.400 through, it'll break your pattern of autopilot. And you'll go, what's that pink? Oh yeah, yeah,

00:53:27.020 doorway drill. Oh yeah, doorway drill. And what this does is it creates the nonverbal habit in such a way

00:53:32.740 that when you do go to some Starbucks or world of concrete or whatever you end up being at,

00:53:37.500 you start to have this nonverbal communication as your defaults. And this is very important because

00:53:42.740 not only does the mind follow the body and the body follow the mind, and this isn't some woo woo

00:53:46.540 clever saying, it's there's science behind this. We know that people start to treat us differently

00:53:51.980 based on those first impressions. And again, if you don't believe me, look at the way that you treat

00:53:57.140 other people based on what you're judging about them. So if people are treating us open, positive,

00:54:01.780 confident, friendly, then we start to become open, positive, confident, friendly.

00:54:06.560 And when this happens over time, people start to treat us differently. It's changing our behavior

00:54:11.680 and we start to see a core identity level shift in the way that we see ourselves as well as the way

00:54:17.920 we see interactions with other people. And that's the kangaroo suit that I want people to wear when

00:54:24.080 they're going out, right? Don't buy the kangaroo suit. Just change your nonverbal first impression

00:54:28.460 and you will see that not only are you feeling differently in your interactions, but people

00:54:32.560 are treating you differently, which leads to positive reinforcement of the way that you're

00:54:37.000 viewed socially, the way that you view yourself socially, and the way that those interactions

00:54:40.900 are viewed as well. And that is a game changer for your entire life potentially, especially if

00:54:46.600 your personal life, your work life, your business depend on being able to build, create, and maintain

00:54:50.900 relationships. The doorway drill is a very small but very amazing start to shifting the way that you think

00:54:57.200 about these types of interactions. I love it. That's fantastic. So Jordan, where can people

00:55:01.480 learn more about the Art of Charm? Sure. So we're very practical, just like the doorway drill. And

00:55:06.300 we're at the Art of Charm podcast. You're already listening to a podcast. No need to go out and buy

00:55:10.540 or do anything. Just subscribe to the Art of Charm and check out some of the interviews, yours included.

00:55:15.280 Also at theartofcharm.com. And we do have a lot more doorway drill-ish type stuff on the Art of Charm

00:55:21.420 podcast and in our challenge, which I mentioned on the podcast as well. Jordan Harbinger,

00:55:25.800 thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

00:55:29.160 My guest today was Jordan Harbinger. He's the host of the Art of Charm podcast. You can find

00:55:33.320 that in iTunes, Stitcher, whatever you use to listen to your podcast. Just search for Art of Charm. You

00:55:37.660 can also find more information about their work at theartofcharm.com. Also check out our show notes

00:55:42.360 at aom.is slash art of charm, where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper into

00:55:46.760 this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips

00:55:58.000 and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. If

00:56:01.840 you enjoy this show and have gotten something out of it over the years, please give us a review on

00:56:05.320 iTunes or Stitcher. Helps us out a lot in getting the word out about the show. As always, thank you

00:56:09.360 for your continued support. And until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - April 11, 2017

#294： Learning the Art of Charm

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