Big Ideas
Be interested instead of interesting
- Focus on truly listening
- Genuinely care
- Don’t wait for you chance to talk
- This is the easiest technique in the whole book
- Use: “Tell me more about that”
- You will get more people to be friends if you are interested than you will be in 2 months of being “interesting”
Mirroring
- I hear you are saying: and repeating what they said
- Mirroring back what they said
- Mirror back feelings rather than thoughts
- Mirroring back what they said
Validate, Validate, Validate
- Validate their feelings
- Put yourself in their shoes … and interpret their emotions.
- You must feel
Paradox of persuasion: Shut Up
- Listening allows you to understand the person you want to influence so you can tap into their unique goals, dreams etc
- It gives the other person the opportunity to feel heard. Which leads them to feeling
- Appreciated
- liked
- loved
- And its much easier to influence someone when they are feeling this way
- Listening gives us an opportunity to think – we can listen 3x faster than we can talk
- It increases the chance that they will talk about their pain/problem/frustration
Mani: [1:30]
Dave, that’s quieter as you may. I’m really excited to have you on the show, welcome!
Dave: [1:35]
Thanks so much for having me.
Mani: [1:36]
Thank you, let’s start off. I want our listeners to get to know you, your business story that led you to writing this book.
Dave: [1:43]
Sure! So this is the third book I’ve done, and you know, my 1st 2 companies are called ‘Likeable Media’ and ‘Likeable Local’ and both companies help brands and businesses manage social media. And so the 1st book I wrote was ‘Likeable Social Media’ and it was an attempt to kind of scale what we were doing and help more people manage their social media presence. And that book was done really, really well, fortunately for me, I realized when I was talking about that book that the principles of likeable social media, things like listening, transparency, authenticity, gratitude, responsiveness, these principles don’t just apply to managing social media but they applied to business as well and so the 2nd book was called ‘Likeable Business’ and took those principles and applied them to business. Well, once again as I was speaking around the world about the topic of likeable business, I realized that the principles don’t just apply to social media, they don’t just apply to business, they apply to everything in life, because really, ultimately if you wanna get whatever you wanna get out of life it’s about people, and influencing people and getting people to help you succeed. So that’s really what the artist people’s all about, and it’s been a great run both in businesses and with our books.
Mani: [3:08]
Absolutely, and I couldn’t agree with you more on the fact that, no matter what you wanna get in life work for people and figure out a way to work the best we can with the people who mattered the most. And let’s start off by diving into, I think one of the core concepts in the book which is the fact that we need to understand ourselves before we actually go out to try to deal with people and get ourselves to be liked by other people.
Dave: [3:42]
Right, so a lot of people kind of just jump into trying to influence people without really understanding themselves and how they tick. And so, I dedicated the first section of the book to the importance of exploring a better understanding yourself and there’s a lot of different tools to do that. The tool that I like the most is a personality assessment called the ‘Enneagram’ which have been around for centuries and is actually more reliable than Myers-Briggs and Disc and some of the most famous personality assessments. And there’s a copy of Enneagram assessment in the book as well so that you can understand yourself from that perspective and understand what’s your biggest strengths and weaknesses are in communication start from that perspective.
Mani: [4:31]
Right, and I took the Enneagram test after I read the book or after I listened to the book. And the key for me was ‘Achiever’ and I think you’re an Achiever too.
Dave: [4:40]
Yes, a fellow 3 very exciting. Well it’s always nice to talk to a fellow 3 and actually 3 is a little bit more likely to be podcasters, so I’m not shocked, you know we like being the center of attention so it doesn’t surprise me that you host your own show.
Mani: [4:57]
So, what is the key, like as a 3, as an achiever, what is your biggest takeaway in terms of the art of people, per se.
Dave: [5:07]
Well for me, you know, it’s about understanding what’s my biggest potential challenges are and pitfalls are, so I don’t know about you but for me as a 3 I really suffer greatly from the ‘Just-Say-Yes Syndrome’, the ‘All-Do-It Syndrome’ so people are asking me for stuff, and I’m always saying ‘Yes’ because I want to achieve in everything and not let anyone down. And I have to learn that the best thing to do is to actually say ‘No’ to a lot more things so that I can be better to the things that I do say ‘Yes’ to. And that’s been a great way of rewriting my own narrative and I think that, you know whatever your personality type is, you’re not gonna be able to change yourself but you can better understand yourself, you can rewrite your story, you can rewrite your narrative to better meet your needs.
Mani: [6:03]
That’s lovely, that self-awareness is so important, I mean we can try, you know, it’s almost like a fish trying to climb a tree, it doesn’t really work, it’s much better a fish being a fish.
Dave: [6:13]
Exactly, very well said.
Mani: [6:16]
I think, as I step back from the book, as I studied the book, I think one of the key takeaways for me was, just the fact, just the art of listening and in some ways it manifest itself in so many ideas that you have in the book, but let’s start there, let’s start with the basic, I think it’s the most fundamental skill we can do and it’s one of the hardest for a reason that I don’t understand yet.
Dave: [6:42]
Yeah, you know, I told a story in the book about a friend of mine who got off an airplane and said, you know, he just met the most interesting person, and I said, “Oh, well what did he do for a living?” and he said, “Actually, I’m not sure.” and I said, “Well, where is he from?” and he said, “ Oh, actually I’m not sure about that.” and I said, “Well, what can you tell me about this really awesome person that you’re talking about?” and he said, “You know, actually I guess was doing most of the talking.” and you know, I realized that my friend had come to adore this person and he didn’t know anything about him but all he know, all that really had happened was that he was a really, really good listener. And so, I think he hit the nail on the head, as important as listening is, we all think that we’re better listeners than we really are and we all could use a lot more help becoming better listeners. And because of that, most people go through life, really, and often feeling on listen to (???) and unheard and not understood and even a little lonely at sometimes. So when you can be the person that actually listens, a person that actually cares, a person that actually ask questions really sincerely wanting to know what the other person is saying, you’re gonna stand out from the most of the rest of the world that isn’t really a very, very good listener.
Mani: [08:04]
Yeah, it’s almost like, it’s a paradox. It is a paradox to me because, you know, in order to be interesting, we need to be interested, in order to influence, we need to be influenced, or, I think, you know, it’s so difficult to wrap our heads around the idea that what we want the most is actually what we need to give the most.
Dave: [08:27]
Exactly, I totally agree with you. It is a little bit of a Catch-22, and you know, so many people think that the way to persuade people is to ‘talk more’, but in reality it’s to ‘talk less’ and to listen more and be more attentive, and be more caring, and so much of the book as you said, take this core concept and explores it in different ways.
Mani: [8:51]
Yeah, and I think that you’ve laid out quite a few reasons that I wanna explore here for why actually listening is a way better tool of persuasion than any other tool could ever be and *inaudible name?* says it allows you to understand the person you want to influence, because that’s when you can actually tap into their goals, their ambitions, their desires, their dreams and everything else.
Dave: [9:14]
Exactly, the better you understand people the better you will be able to build a relationship with them and eventually as I said, you kinda get what you want out of that relationship.
Mani: [9:27]
Yeah, and the other thing you said listening gives us an opportunity to think, and that we can listen 3x faster than we can talk, and that’s actually true because I listen to all my audiobooks at 3x of speed. So, that makes sense.
Dave: [9:41]
You know, it’s funny I keep hearing this come up now as audiobooks grow in popularity and I heard you mentioned you listened to my book, and I actually have not listened to an audio book at an increased speed but I’m gonna give it a shot soon, because it’s all the rage, people keep telling me their listening at 2x, at 3x, at 1 and a half x, so yeah, so something’s going on there.
Mani: [10:04]
It works, I mean you said it, it allows us, you know, we do listen way faster than we talk, so anyone who’s recording the audio, they’re talking into the audio, we can process that information way faster, 3 times faster so it allows, you know, it actually, we might be going away from this important conversation but this is an important one too. It focuses your mind into that, when it’s slow, it’s kind of a defocused.
Dave: [10:35]
Yeah, it’s almost easy to be, more easy to be distracted, and one of the key elements of listening is focus and I make the analogy in the book, listening the way your children watch T.V., you know, when somebody’s watching T.V., especially kids, you know, they’re like zoned completely out from everything else and zoned in on the T.V. screen , and if you can listen like that, if you can pay attention to another human being like that, then it’s going to really work well for you.
Mani: [11:05]
Yeah, I think there’s another, or there’s a sister concepts to this concept of listening that I wanna dive in deeper with you, so maybe tell us some stories or explain to us in details the idea of narrowing and validation, how they’re different? And how do we really use them?
Dave: [11:23]
Yeah, so these are basic principles of psychology that a lot of people do, and I learned it from entrepreneurs’ organization which is, terrific global network CEO founders that have achieved these certain milestones, and in terms of revenues in their companies, I highly recommend that to the entrepreneurs out there that once they’ve achieve a little success. And it’s very, very simple, Mirroring is repeating back what you hear, with special focus on the feelings that you hear somebody repeating back to you. And it seems a little odd, a little forced sometimes at first but it works really, really well. And so for instance, you know, if you and I were friends, we’re colleagues and, you know, you came in to work one day, and you said, “I just got a parking ticket, I’m so upset.” you might say, “Ugh, I just got a parking ticket! Ugh! So upset!” that would be mirroring, and it’s really powerful to hear somebody mirror you. Now, validation is like ‘Mirroring 201”, it’s a more advanced version, and in validation you are actually taking what you’re hearing, and then you’re experiencing it to the extent possible, you’re actually putting on the shoes of the other person, and you are actually experiencing it validating how they must feel. So, you know, that same example, you come in to work, you’re upset, you say, you know, “I just got a parking ticket, I’m so upset.” I might say, “Ugh! I hate that! I know, when that happens to me, I just can’t stand it!” you must be just furious and it’s really powerful because you have this person, this other human being that’s not only listening to you but is really demonstrating that they understand what’s you’re going through, and it’s almost magical how powerful it is and yet, some of us don’t do it because we seem, you know, it may feel like when the mirroring is obvious but having practiced this for several years now with entrepreneur’s organization I can tell you firsthand that it really, really works.
Mani: [14:01]
Yeah, there is a trepidation there you feel like the other person is gonna call you out and you both shouldn’t say, “You’re telling me the same thing I just told you but it seemed like that’s not what happened because we just all hurting to be heard.
Dave: [14:15]
Exactly, and you know, give it a try and the one thing I will say is you have to have some sincerity with everything in this book and certainly with this, you have to be sincere, you can’t just kinda go through the motions because then it will be just like that you’re repeating back, but if you can actually, sincerely mirror and validate and meet the person where they are and understand where they are absolutely that will work, and if it doesn’t work, I will give you a money back guarantee on this book, I will gladly write you a cheque, in fact, if you buy the book and anyone doesn’t like the book, I offer money back guarantee, simply tweet me or email me and I will be thrilled to send you a cheque, you don’t even need to send me the book back.
Mani: [14:59]
Nice, that is great. I’m sure that nobody wants to return the book because we have to highlight it and all that fun stuff, so it’s not gonna happen Dave.
Dave: [15:09]
Well, so far so good but I like to put it out there because I’m confident and I wanna get the book out there to many people as possible and maybe help people out. You know, I’ve done 3 books now and I will tell you there’s no rocket-science in there, I am not a rocket scientist, but I share my experiences and I think that a lot of things that we take for granted like listening, we can get much better at, I really do.
Mani: [15:38]
That’s great. And I wanna dive into that whole validation topic and I think there’s a story in the book about customer service representative and I’m not sure if you can jog your memory and tell the story but it’s a great one because it really puts things into light.
Dave:[15:52]
Sure, yeah, obviously we all had issues with various companies and things that go wrong and we call customer service and many of us had very difficult experiences when we call customer service, but you know, the experience that I wrote about in the book was a little different and essentially, I called up and I was really angry at the cable T.V company, and when I reached the customer service rep., you know, I complained and I said, ‘I need help’ I was trying to stay calm but I was really angry and the person just did an amazing job of validating, she said something to me like, “Well I hear you saying you’ve been waiting an hour to talk with us and the bill is more than $250 more than it should be, you must be angry and frustrated?” and I was like, “Yeah, yeah I’m angry and frustrated. And she said, “Man, I would be so angry if that happened to me, I tell you what, let me get all your information and see if we can get it sorted out, and if you get disconnected for any reason, I’ll call you right back, but I hate it when these problems happen to me, and you know, I’m a customer too.” And it was amazing because, it just, it disarmed me, I couldn’t be angry anymore, when this person had done such a phenomenal job of validating me and demonstrating that she understood exactly what I felt. I mean I could almost feel her own anger and frustration at the same company that I was angry at over the phone and that for me is the perfect example of the power of validation.
Mani: [17:38]
That’s so true, that’s so true because, in those moments, I mean when we try to resist, when we try to resist whether from outside or within inside, when we try to resist our emotions or feelings or any of those, it’s like a block, those feelings stay stocked, those emotions stay stocked, but when we let them go, when we experience them fully, then we allow them to be, we stop fighting them and then they go away.
Dave: [18:03]
Exactly, I mean, you said it very well. So many of us, you know, when there’s conflict we get defensive, we feel like we’re being attacked, we attack back and we don’t just do the very important basics of validating. And when we can do that, it goes really, really well. I talked a lot about the power of vulnerability in the book and you know, when you can be your authentic vulnerable self, how powerful it is, it’s like people don’t wanna deal with feelings, right? I mean, when your kid’s crying, every adult goes up to the kids and says, “Don’t cry”, why not? Cry! It’s okay to cry. Cry and then get your feelings out and then move on, you know. Same thing by the way when people tell me, when I say I’m afraid of something people would say, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared.” Well, that’s silly! Be scared, life is scary, entrepreneurship is scary, but you know, courage is being scared and then still acting in the face of that fear, it’s totally okay to be scared, and to be sad, and to feel this negative feeling, so what’s not okay is to not deal with it. So, I totally, totally agree with you.
Mani: [19:24]
Yeah, what you said, that was beautiful, the fact that a lot of times we think that we need to be fearless, but it’s not, you know, the difference between people who do things and people who don’t, is not necessarily the fact that they are fearless, it’s just the fact that they are taking action in the face of fear. They’re doing courage, courage is an action, not necessarily just the way of thinking.
Dave: [19:48]
Totally, courage is action in the face of fear. And you know, I don’t even like the word fearless, it’s silly to me. Well no one’s fearless, everyone has fear, it’s silly, everyone has fear. So to say that anyone is fearless is just it’s ridiculous, it’s basically trying to block out that fear as you mentioned earlier, block out those feelings. But it’s okay to be fearful, it’s not okay to let your fear get in the way, and by the way, this is outside of the scope of the Art of People, but because, you know, there’s a lot of entrepreneurs listening, the number one thing that hold entrepreneur’s back is fear, fear of failure, fear of success, fear in general, and one of my biggest regrets is just not starting earlier, it’s being afraid, I was afraid earlier and I let that fear get the better of me. So to anyone that’s listening that has fear, it’s okay, feel the fear and do it anyway, that what this is all about.
Mani: [20:49]
That’s the book, that’s the name of the book by Susan Jeffers, I’m not sure if come across it.
Dave: [20:54]
Oh, I didn’t know that. That’s fantastic.
Mani: [20:56]
Yup, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyways – Susan Jeffers, it’s a great one. Now, I wanna move to some of the more actionable, hands-on kind of stuff as well, and one of those ideas that you have in the book is ‘Creating your own advisory board’ Tell us about it, how do we go about doing that?
Dave: [21:15]
Yeah, so I think, you know, it’s funny I think, I’m glad you said that because I’ve got a lot of really great feedbacks, so that’s one of the most actionable items in the book. The book is all about action items we were both joking before the call, 53 of them in the book and yeah, sometimes people think that advisory boards are for big companies, but really you can have advisory board even if you’re a company of 1, but if you’re not a company yet, and just have an idea, and it’s really just about tapping into people in your life that could mentor you or maybe have mentored you and getting them together and you know, kind of making it a formal thing, maybe you get them together 4 times a year or once a month, maybe you get them together for breakfast, maybe it’s for dinner, maybe it’s for lunch, it’s definitely good to get people together on a meal time, you may pay them cash, you may pay them equity, you might just buy them lunch. And address issues and challenges that you’re facing each time and of course get your issues to your advisors ahead of time and give them sometime to think and reflect and ask good questions on these issues, and then, what’s the amazing thing to me about it, now I’ve had 2 advisory boards for 2 companies dating back maybe 6 years, so I probably had, let’s see 6, times 4, times 2, almost 50 advisory board meetings by now. And the thing that’s amazing to me is that people just wanna help, there are a lot of people out there that wanna help, and so yeah, it’s great to pay them but you know, it’s amazing that they wanna help. And by the way, when they’re together, there’s an amazing multiplicity effect in play where, people will think of 1 idea and that will spur somebody else in the room and think of another idea, and so, you have these, you know, you get together with some smart people and suddenly 1 plus 1 is 3, and then you just get lots of really valuable feedback.
Mani: [23:21]
So, I wanna think from my listeners’ perspective here, from my audience perspective here, and I think one of the trepidations probably there going through right now is, “Well, I am not big enough, my business isn’t big enough. What if people say ‘No’? What if people turn me down, what if you know, people will make fun of the idea or something like that?” There’s this fear that something may not workout as simply as it was laid it out.
Dave: [23:46]
Yeah, well I mean, there’s fear in everything, but of course you don’t know until you try. I mean the big thing on the size is, look, if you don’t have a company yet and you’re just getting started you probably can’t call Richard Branson and ask him to be your advisory board, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t reach out to a friend that has successfully started a business, and say, “Look, this is what I’m interested in doing, I would love your feedback. And the way that I’m doing it is actually getting a few people together, and if you’re interested I’d love for you to come to our session and I’d lay out what I’d like to do with this group of people, and you know I can’t guarantee that it’ll work, but I can just tell you that, you know, I asked 11 people to be on my advisory board thinking that you know, I wanted to have 5 people, so if I asked 11 I would get 5, at least 5, and I went 11 for 11 so I ended up with a large advisory board at first. And you know, I certainly had conversations for several months with folks that I have started to implement this. And seeing that, you’re not gonna get everyone always, but you’re definitely gonna get some people, especially with people that you’ve built a special relationship with overtime, that you’ve helped, that you have been there for and those are definitely the people that will say ‘Yes’ to you and something like this.
Mani: [25:09]
So, a board of adviser and advisory board are way different, the board of advisers is a formal thing but an advisory board is just an informal gathering for your business’s sake. Now, you said you have 11 people when you started off. What was your relationship with them? Were they usually friends? Or partners? Or investors? Or all of the above?
Dave: [25:31]
I would actually say, I mean, I could certainly call them all fans, and a couple that have invested. But really much more so, I would call them mentors, people that have taught me one thing or another along the way, that I looked up to, and that wanted to help me. And these were people that I felt like I could call up anyway and ask a question and ask for advice. So all I was doing is say, “Hey, instead of me just asking you for advice randomly, can I get you together formally, once a quarter, to ask you for advice.” And I think that’s why it was successful. So you know, I think we all have people in our lives that you look up to and being considered mentors in one way or another and I think those really the best type of people for an advisory board. I will say there were a couple of people I didn’t know before they joined the advisory board, and the reason is, I wanted some lawyers and some finance people and I don’t have any mentors in those categories, and so, I ended up getting introductions through friends and mentors to the right people in those categories.
Mani: [26:44]
I’d love for you to maybe someday write a book or a big blog article as to exactly how it all works out and we’d all have a field day actually going into the details and actually figuring it out.
Dave: [26:55]
Well, challenge accepted. I will get working on it.
Mani: [26:59]
Thank you. Alright, another great thing that I learned from you book and this is something I also learned from Tim Sanders, is make an intro a day, so powerful and something, it’s hard to do on a daily basis, but I’ve seen the effects of it in a very simple basis, and I have made those introductions, so talk to us about it.
Dave: [27:19]
Yeah, I think introductions are just the greatest gift that you can give to people and it’s very, very powerful. I’ll tell you a funny story, for the first time ever that I’ve ever that I talked about this story. So, I’m working on a surprise from my wife, for her 40th birthday, I drived in the movie theater, and I went to the movie theater guy, and the guy running the movie theater, I wanted him to play this video that I’m making for my wife. And the first thing he said was, “That can’t happen.” and I said, well, I’m not a catch person, I said, “Surely, there is a way that that can happen, I mean, for instance if I offered you thousands of dollars, we can probably make it happen.Right?” and he said, “Alright, let’s talk.” So we started talking and by the end of the conversation, I said, “Look, if you want me to pay for this, I’d be happy too, but I just wonder whether I could be more helpful in another way. And of course I’ve got an email back, just half an hour later, saying you know, he really wants to get into a new field and he looked me up and then maybe there’s some people I could introduce him to, and of course I was thrilled and I’ve actually just made the first introduction today, I’ll have several introductions for him, and hope I could be helpful with those introductions, and you know, now he’s not charging me at all. So you know, even in this case this man found the thought of an introduction is much more valuable than cash. I just think, when you can put your people together, great things can happen and they’re both gonna remember you forever.
Mani: [29:11]
Yeah, and I think we’re running close to the end of time here. So I wanna close this interview, but before we do that Dave, I mean, we always say here at 2000 books, there’s no learning without action. So, if you’re gonna look back into the interview or at the book or experience with an entrepreneurs over the years, what are the 3 specific action items, or homework that you would give them in terms of the art of people?
Dave: [29:34]
Sure! So I mean, we talked about 2 of them and I’ll add a third. So you know, we talked about forming an advisory board, I think that’s a very, very powerful action step. We talked about making introductions, I think that’s a really powerful action step, and the last one I’ll share is that we didn’t talk a lot about gratitude. I’m a really, really big fan of gratitude, to change your mood, to change your mindset. And the easiest way to do that is to write handwritten thank you cards, it’s an extremely powerful practice. So those would be my 3 action items for folks.
Mani: [30:03]
Awesome. Well, thank you very much Dave, it’s been a lot of learning, and I know we’ve just scratched the surface of The Art of People. So tell our listeners how to get a hold of you, where to find the book and all the good stuff.
Dave: [30:15]
Sure, it’s available worldwide, on amazon and bookstores everywhere, Art of People: 11 simple people skills that will get you everything you want. And if anyone has questions, comments, anytime, I’ve got couple companies, they’re both named ‘Likeable’, Likeable Local and Likeable Media, and you can look me up by name on pretty much every social network and responsiveness is one of my core values, so if you have any questions at all, shoot me a question via social network, and I will be sure to get back to you.
Mani: [30:42]
Great, well thank you very much Dave.
Dave: [30:45]
Thanks so much for having me.