[00:00:07.370] - Chris
Welcome back to the Head, Heart, and Boots podcast. I'm Chris.
[00:00:10.830] - Brandon
And I'm Brandon. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead.
[00:00:17.850] - Chris
I don't know what you think.
[00:00:19.220] - Brandon
It was kind of serious.
[00:00:21.150] - Chris
Should we laugh?
[00:00:25.870] - Brandon
All right, Amigo, I've got an interesting topic for us. I'm going to download a couple of points on you and see what it triggers. So I was listening to an episode of The Ed milet Show. Interesting guys. All his guests are super high level stuff. He's a huge influencer. Anyways, he had a writer on she's actually a scientist. I would say almost falls into a similar line of thought, almost as like a Brene Brown where they're a researcher, but they've got a real business acumen. They're not test tube people.
[00:00:56.720] - Chris
They know how to teach.
[00:00:57.620] - Brandon
Yeah, they know how to teach. In fact, she teaches at Harvard. Zoe Chance is her name. And I just want to review some of the things that she discussed in the show, and then maybe at some point we'll reach out and see if we can get a guess. But she wrote a newer book, and it's called basically Influence Your Superpower, and it's a focus on how we influence people in such a way that we actually get movement, we get behavioral change, we get influence. We create things that have a long lasting impact in our sphere. And she kind of wrote this book based on this principle of what she calls behavioral economics. And so it's understanding that psychology so that behavioral side tends to be really honed in on the mental processes that create certain behaviors. But what they care about is those processes that are happening inside the mind where economics tends to be behavioral. It's social science almost. It's what are the kinds of things that make us make decisions or make choices or negotiate or whatever the case may be. And so it's this idea of when we merge those two, we have this space almost.
[00:02:01.120] - Brandon
And I'm paraphrasing here. And this may not be exactly what she means, but when these two places meet, we start to hang out in this place that we can engage people the right way because we're getting a better understanding of the mental processes that are happening, whether they want it to or not. And then what can we do to create some behavioral change or impact that behavior? And a couple of the areas that she kind of just triggered on. And I'm just going to plant these seeds, and I think we'll just kind of tackle one or two at a time. First off, she's a major part of influence. Right. For a lot of people is they do it through their charisma, as we would identify, kind of like their ability to just be relatable and attract people to them, whatever the case may be. And so she wanted to give that some definition in terms of what actually creates that. And one of the things that Ed mentioned is that he actually called out an experience that he had with Obama and another one that he had with George W. Bush. Okay. And with Obama, he said that he was a deep listener, meaning that so both people made Ed in the moment feel like there was nothing else more important.
[00:03:03.630] - Brandon
Okay. That's really the key piece. But in it, Obama tended to be more of a deep listener, meaning he wasn't visually presenting a lot of feedback, but he was rich eye contact, very focused, very in the moment he was locked in. And what he said about Bush was that he was an engaged listener. So it was almost like a kind listener. So he was more smiley. He was more reactive visually to Ed as they were having more interactive.
[00:03:32.180] - Chris
Asking more follow up questions.
[00:03:33.330] - Brandon
Exactly. So both just different versions of good listening and both of those then created an environment where Ed in the moment felt like he was very important. Right. And he is really gifted at that. It's one of the things that he's developed in his company and his businesses is that engagement level. And as I was hearing this, two places came to mind, and I was like, this would be a fun show. So first place came to mind was employee engagement. The other one was sales. Okay. So anyways, another area that she talks about as part of this influence piece was something else that happens. And I know these feel a little all over, but they're just things that stuck out to me was when we minimize ourselves at the beginning of a phrase or sentence or a dialogue. Right. So an example would be, and I do this all the time. You may not agree with me, but I'm sure you do this all the time where we take these steps to minimize ourselves before we present our thoughts, our concept or idea. And what's interesting about it is instead of us coming across as humble, actually what it does is immediately plant this seed for the lizard brain of.
[00:04:42.920] - Brandon
Yeah, you're probably right. I probably don't need to pay attention to this. And so it's like this thing that we've probably adapted to or thought is a great way to create humility is actually one of the first things that we can do to turn our listener off from even paying attention to what it is that we're about to say. Is that weird? And I did not see that. That truly kind of stuck out to me.
[00:05:04.510] - Brandon
Okay.
[00:05:04.960] - Brandon
Bigger principles. So behavioral economics, remember that I want to hang there. And then the other thing that she talks about is the difference between a Gator brain and the judge.
[00:05:13.970] - Brandon
Okay.
[00:05:14.220] - Brandon
And here's what she means. Gator brain is that part of our mental processes that control the stuff. Think of it as flash memory. It's that knee jerk reaction to stuff pulling away from pain. I'm hungry. So I go to the cupboard. All that subconscious activity. And then the judge is that I'm actually analyzing a business contract where I'm really thinking about an outline and producing content, whatever. And we talk about this a lot. But I don't know that we remember to keep it front of mind when we're engaging employees in our sales prospects. As an example is that that lizard brain is always functioning and leading and influencing, even if our judge portion of our brain is engaged. So if I'm in the middle of deep thought and I'm working through something, I still am being pushed and triggered by the Gator brain. Like it doesn't turn off. And in fact, she said it's somewhere between 90 and 96% of our function is being dictated by Gator brain versus the judge or that intentional, thoughtful process.
[00:06:13.520] - Chris
Wow.
[00:06:14.190] - Brandon
Right. And we talk a lot about that with awareness and things. Okay, one last thing, dude. And then I want to get into this. She said, that the magic question. And this is really interesting to me. And I can see how it kind of is wrapping up some of these random core thoughts is what would it take? So think about this. And this is what it reminded me of, the humility and curiosity piece that you like to teach in terms of sales. And I'm thinking about this with employee engagement because all of our clients are in the middle of trying to create behavioral changes within their companies. Right. And so this idea is changing the way that we're engaging our employees or sales prospects with this question of what would it take? And here's maybe the follow up to that might be what would it take for you to make this change? What would it take for us to create a different outcome from our delivery service or service delivery? What would it take to overcome this particular problem? And she said there's a couple of things that happen when we do that. First off, it encourages engagement, like that person is playing an active role in this instead of me conveying or persuading you.
[00:07:21.310] - Brandon
She talks about that it creates commitment from the individual that's engaged in this process. So as they come up with ideas, they're subconsciously committing to those ideas because they're theirs encourages long term mental processing of overcoming obstacles. So it's like once you plant that seed, Ed notes that two, three weeks later, I might still be coming up with answers in the shower because my mind is committed. What would it take? Listen to this example that she gave. She tells a story about a tribe in Africa, a group, a village in Africa, and three young women had been caught up in sex trafficking that given year that she was in or around this particular village. And her gut instinct was to provide. And I don't think this was her. I don't think this was Zoe. This was a story that she was telling about another individual, and this person who was at this village that was doing this research, connecting with these folks had a rich background, deep understanding in sex, traffic trades and what they need to be done to prevent it, to make change and create healthy outcomes. Her gut instinct would be to tell these folks what they need to do and what she didn't.
[00:08:30.460] - Brandon
And she actually just said the question, what would it take to ensure this never happens to this village again? And the response that she got was so wild, man. She said the first person spoke up and said electrical fences. And she wasn't 100% like, what are you? Electrical fences? Why? That's not going to keep a person out, right? She said it keeps the elephants out. What happens is the elephants come in and they trample our corn and eat all our corn. In our village, our girls have no way to produce an income and take care of themselves. So the answer is electric fences to keep elephants off the crop so that they can have things that they need to provide for themselves so they're not put in that compromise state again. Right.
[00:09:17.810] - Brandon
So, like, I just was listening to this this morning and just going, dude, this is so relevant to the way that we're trying to talk about how we sell, how we negotiate, how we establish relationship, how we listen to our employees and encourage them to engage in helping us create something. Like, one of the things that we hear over and over and over again is how tired business owners are because they feel like they're doing all the lifting on their own.
[00:09:47.550] - Brandon
And what a lot of her research is saying is we're creating the environment that makes that the case. Okay. And you and I just chatted about this for a moment this morning was the people that were surrounded by now are beginning to be more native thinking, like their Gator brain. And I'm totally assuming now, I don't know if there's science that proves this. Their Gator brain is already telling them that they have a different expectation than a lot of us that are sitting in leadership seats right now, especially if you're older than 45, 50 years old. Okay. And so we've got this scenario where our people, their subconscious Gator brain is asking for more from us, which means they actually can handle it regardless of what our gut instinct says. We don't do it because we don't understand this idea of behavioral economics. And so therefore, we are creating the kinds of scenarios that make our businesses slow to grow, expand, lack engagement. It's tough to hire, it's tough to retain, and we are miserable. Right.
[00:10:58.580] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:10:59.340] - Brandon
Boom. That is what hammered on me this morning before I got here.
[00:11:06.570] - Chris
You know, there's so many different places that story takes my brain. I think the power of curiosity.
[00:11:14.020] - Brandon
Right, man? Yeah.
[00:11:15.800] - Chris
And I think it's our ego that gets man. Especially when you're in that owner seat. You're in that GM seat where you have the ability to affect change just by your role. You can say things and people will do things. It's so tempting to think we have come up with the right answer to where we aren't curious anymore.
[00:11:41.650] - Brandon
We don't really need you to help us solve it.
[00:11:43.940] - Chris
We just say that so that you'll be engaged or just for the mere fact that we want somebody else to do it. We don't want to have to do it ourselves. And so we send people on these missions that maybe weren't ever even the right mission. We thought it was the right mission, but we didn't bother to be curious about it.
[00:12:01.110] - Brandon
Right?
[00:12:01.710] - Chris
Elephants.
[00:12:02.610] - Brandon
Elephants.
[00:12:03.370] - Chris
I would not have seen that.
[00:12:05.420] - Brandon
Here's what's beautiful into that story. So armed with that information, what was once and again, please do not. If you're listening to this and you feel in any way that I am downplaying the impact of that concept, please do not make that mistake. But what was interesting about this particular scenario was she then went back, raised a few thousand dollars, came back, gave that resources to that village. They did install the electric fences. It did keep the elephants out. They had a bumper crop. And for the next three to four years, there was not a single case of that trafficking happening within their village.
[00:12:43.510] - Chris
Wow.
[00:12:44.190] - Brandon
So what was this unfathomable problem to solve? When we asked the right question and had the other people participate intentionally in the process, they were able to create an answer on a few thousand dollars. That worked. So it's like, what can we do? How do I as a leader, as a business owner, as a person selling and creating mutually beneficial relationships, how do I get better at understanding that question and changing the way that people engage in the process? With me. Right. Or with us, what would it take? Dot, dot, dot. Right. It just kind of freaked me out, to be honest. I know that sounds cheesy, but it's just like, duh.
[00:13:30.380] - Chris
Yeah. Why doesn't that happen more often? Well, I think it's our egos. It's our egos. We don't even realize it. How badly we want to give answers, how badly we want to be the source of our company's success. We identify with it. That's a really powerful drive. It is.
[00:13:49.060] - Brandon
And what's interesting about it for me is that the whole good listening thing is not new. Right. How many times have you met someone spur of the moment, and they just ask you a ton of questions and when you walk away, you go, oh, man, I like that guy. I like that person. They are great to hang out with and vice versa. Like, when we're conscious and we're aware and we just really engage someone and ask them a ton of questions, nine times out of ten, that person walks away and just goes, man, Chris is such a great guy, right? So we know we like it. We know it works, but we don't do it. It's like our value comes from what we say instead of what we ask, even though everything around us is showing us the other.
[00:14:34.930] - Chris
Yeah, man. I mean, on the one hand, what you're saying is really, really inspiring. Like, deeply inspiring. Like, how do I incorporate this into my life now? Because it's so obvious that the more curious I am about other people and their situations, and the more I maintain that curiosity instead of going into advice mode, which is, like, for me, the way I'm wired, I love to talk. Right. That's a part of my identity. And so my tendency is curious, curious, curious. Okay, now I have something to say rather than what I think that story really teaches is to stay in that pocket of curiosity as long as possible. I was listening to it was either a podcast or a YouTube video of somebody the other day, and he said something to this effect. He said it was like some famous scientist or somebody. He said, I don't offer an opinion on something unless I'm confident that I have as much knowledge about the subject as the other person or more than the other person I'm about to share that opinion with. And so often we go around sharing things that we think we're knowledgeable in, but we've never really like we haven't put in the work.
[00:15:56.950] - Chris
And yet most of us go, and I do this. I still do this. Even as a consultant, sometimes my default behavior is to tell to say what I know, when the reality is when I'm present. And I'm aware of that and I'm more curious. The outcomes are always better.
[00:16:13.490]
Yeah.
[00:16:13.940] - Chris
Our clients feel more like it was their idea or they were collaborators in the solution rather than, oh, yeah, our consultant told us what to do. It's like that whole teaching. Amanda Fish. All right, let's take a minute to recognize and thank our Mint restaurantory sponsor, Accelerate restoration software. And I'm fully aware, by the way, that when I say those last two words, restoration software, that that instantly creates heartburn for some of you out there. Right. Because we probably all fall into one of two camps when it comes to software. We've either cobbled together kind of a version of free website tools and spreadsheets just to make our business work, or we're in the camp where we've adopted one of these existing restoration platforms, one that has all the bells and whistles and supposedly does it all. But we can't get our team to consistently adopt it and input information to it. Yeah.
[00:17:12.290] - Brandon
And that's really where Accelerate has honed their focus. They've created a system that's simple, right? It's intuitive and it focuses on the most mission critical information, I. E. Guys, your team will actually use it.
[00:17:26.940] - Chris
Let's talk about sales right? After years of leading sales and marketing teams, the biggest trick is getting them to consistently update notes about their interactions with referral, partners and clients. And the essential piece there is there's got to be a mobile app experience. And in our experience, the solutions that were previously out there were just too cumbersome and tricky to use.
[00:17:50.390] - Brandon
Yeah. Imagine, guys, how your business would change if your entire team was actually consistently using the system. Do yourself a favor, go check these guys out at Xcel restorationsoftwood. Comrm and check out the special offers they're providing to MRM. Listeners.
[00:18:10.210] - Chris
All right, let's talk about Actionable Insights owners GMs. You can't be your business expert on all things estimated. You might have been three years ago when you're writing sheets in the field, but the industry is always changing and so are the tools. If you're the smartest person in the room when it comes to exact Matterport, how does that scale you're the bottleneck? I know I'm preaching to the choir, but this is where actual Insights comes in. They're a technical partner that can equip your team with the latest bleeding edge information and best practices, and then update them with webinars and training resources when the game inevitably changes again. For this reason, we recommend actual Insights to all of our clients.
[00:18:50.440] - Brandon
Yeah, three of the kind of big things that stuck out to me when being introduced to AI and their team. First off, is this consistently updated training. I mean, at the end of the day, these guys are the experts. They're out front all the time. They're constantly learning new trade secrets and ensuring that your team's got access to those things. A 3700 plus page database of exact amount templates. I don't know what else to say here other than don't reinvent the wheel. It's already available. Download it, copy it, use it. Bam. Database of commonly missed items. I think this is huge. So many of us can change the numbers by just moving the needle a couple of points, and those commonly missed items can make all the difference in the world. So go check them out at Value gitinsights.org. Fcg.
[00:19:45.890] - Chris
Man, it's really that filter, that whole elephant story, man. It's like a filter. I'm thinking about all the different struggles and challenges our clients have right now, and I'm like, wow, okay, what questions? What questions can we ask to help?
[00:20:00.550] - Brandon
Well, and it's interesting, too, because in this case, this woman in this story has a rich background for all intensive purposes. The idea is she's studied it. She spent many years of her professional career focused on this objective and overcoming these problems, understanding the causes. Right. And so she if anyone. And then let's not ignore this factor. She's going to a third world country to ask people in a remote village how to solve a problem. And she's coming from her Western, affluent perspective on it. I mean, there's so many things that would essentially put her in a place of telling.
[00:20:40.910] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:20:41.480] - Brandon
And she paused and started with what would it take? And I guarantee you that answer did not line up with the instinct or all the research or all the whatever. Yeah, right. Which is just really interesting. I'm thinking to myself, even with our own clients, just like this particular scenario where she's got experience and perspective and resources and tools, saying we have perspective, we have experience, we have resources and tools. But are there opportunities? If we just started so many times with that question of what would it take? And waited for this entrepreneur, this business owner, this key leader to provide some influencer, perspective on that a yeah. They may come up with the same answers that we have, but even better, they may come up with a fresh perspective, a fresh answer, and it may be amazing. Right. But we'll never know if we don't ask that. I just think about that with our employees, too. Like, how many times am I really asking someone, hey, what would it take for us to change this, to have a different outcome and let them participate in that process? We may be shocked, the kind of ideas that come out of our companies.
[00:21:53.960] - Chris
You know what this reminds me of? Because you mentioned just the correlation with sales and curiosity. Where some of that philosophy developed was this guy, Brian Burns. Brian Burns wrote The Maverick Selling Method, and he's got a pretty huge following on LinkedIn, I think it's called I forget the name of his group. But anyhow Brian Burns Maverick Selling Method, he talks a lot about this Curiosity piece, how curiosity really gives us the opportunity to authentically sell. And he talks about how most sales people take their customers through a process of presentation and education about their product or service and fail to identify whether the customer actually cares about the service or product that they're offering. And oftentimes we assume because of our own values around our product or service that whether it be we are better than the other company that's delivering this service or we have a different feature that this other company doesn't have. And we just arbitrarily say we're better without ever confirming with the customer. And the irony is sometimes that thing that we think is a feature the customer can actually see as a bug, I. E. Complexity. Right. So you could have a software that does more stuff, but the customer may look at that software and say, oh man, that seems complicated.
[00:23:20.030] - Brandon
It's overwhelming.
[00:23:21.140] - Chris
It's overwhelming. It does more than they need it to do. And we wonder why they're not excited and why the sales process is dragging on. Right. And Brian Burns, he just talks about this Curiosity piece is so essential because it is the only way to identify real pain is to be curious about their current experience, their past experience, to be curious about what they actually want what they're trying to do, etc. Because then it gives you the opportunity to sell specifically to those things, which is what's so powerful when you and I've seen that over and over again when we were running a restoration company, it's like we did a lot of things. We had all kinds of things we could help people with everything from odor remediation to carpet cleaning tile. We even offered hood cleaning at one point. Well, that's a story.
[00:24:04.840] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:24:07.410] - Chris
Pretty hilarious story. But a lot of our clients could give a rip about those individual things we did. And they had another thing that was a problem for them. And once we found out what that problem is, all of a sudden now we have a new friend, we have somebody to trust us.
[00:24:19.980] - Brandon
Right. And there's more solutions available to solve those problems. Right. When we don't come in with that fixed or transactional mindset. Another thing they mentioned, I think this is what you're talking about is when we start thinking about some of these ideas around behavioral economics and stuff, it can feel a little heady in woo woo and kind of as a way to land the ship a little bit or keep it concrete. They talked about it's really important or critical that we understand how we frame a conversation or an interaction. And I think this is what you're referring to is what is the stage, the tone that we're setting in the conversation that we're about to have. And we understand that things like environmental controls affect that. Like if you go to a conference, they're really intentional about the environment that they create. Right. All the different things impacted. And they noted this lab, this study that was done with wine, they grabbed these folks and they had them hooked up to an MRI or cat.
[00:25:15.420] - Chris
Like a brain scan, a brain scan.
[00:25:17.130] - Brandon
And they literally have a tube in their mouth and they're sampling these different wines. And what happens was they framed the context for each grouping of wine. And so if it was a cheaper wine, they really framed the conversation around that. They set the stage. Like, here's these details. Right. That we would associate with a cheaper, class, less classy wine. And then, of course, you go up and they measured the brain and mental activity that was engaging throughout this testing and the imaging. And I don't understand what they're seeing, but the lights where the function in the different portions of the brain mimicked the stage they had set, even though all the wine was exactly the same. So literally, by framing the topic, they were able to trick the brain into following suit and totally buying into all the details that we would associate with this higher end wine. And it was all the same stuff.
[00:26:19.980] - Chris
What do you take from that?
[00:26:21.120] - Brandon
So I think for me, Besides, like, oh, my gosh.
[00:26:24.310] - Chris
Let'S learn this craft and take over the world.
[00:26:26.820] - Brandon
I think so much of me just doesn't realize the power of just what we do. I almost hate to use the word term influence because it feels a little manipulative, but I just think that we don't give enough credit to the rich science behind the way that our bodies and our minds work, and we just end up throwing ourselves against a wall, repeating misguided processes and hoping for a different outcome. And it's like, I hear stuff like this, and I go, okay, what is our next all company meeting look like? What is the framework that I'm setting up? And you and I were kind of blessed in some ways, that you and I kind of lean towards some of this anyways out of just curiosity and just it's fun for us, and so we connected with it. I think even in uneducated ways, for me, it doesn't seem so left field. But I think for some of our counterparts that are more utilitarian by nature, more black and white, they're more just like, what are the seven steps? I think this can be harder to understand or to buy into. But man, as leaders, what I think company culture, all these things.
[00:27:36.400] - Brandon
It's about the stage we're setting when we walk in to have one of these conversations. What's the framework? Yes.
[00:27:43.540] - Chris
The big question that comes to my mind is how often should we as leaders, to be asking our people for advice, input? I think of Jim deathmer. Right. He really just caught us. And this whole idea of a feedback rich environment, like, really landed with you and I, and I think unknowingly, subconsciously, we were compelled to kind of try to create that. We didn't necessarily have all the words for it or the behaviors for it back then. But I think we were always kind of moving towards that, trying to create that environment. But it's just when I think about this, what is an action item for any leaders listening to this? It's going into your next meeting and asking more than you tell, like really trying to tease out what your people's experiences. I've been working on an article, and I don't know where we're going to publish it or when, but I was working on an article about anger. This is something you and I've talked about because I think it has such a huge impact and effect on leaders is how they process their anger and deal with it. And one of the things that I noted about it, as I was just kind of pondering, was that I think oftentimes we can become really detached from what's really going on because our people don't feel safe to give us the whole story, because they don't know how we're going to react, etcetera.
[00:29:06.060] - Chris
So we're always, as leaders, kind of operating on imperfect information.
[00:29:09.760]
Yeah.
[00:29:10.890] - Chris
It's like either people are giving us false information because they're afraid to tell us the truth or they're holding back and they're not giving us the last 20%. And with this story about the elephant, I just think your typical person that goes out and visits that village in Africa that knows there's a human trafficking problem is just all gung Ho to solve the human trafficking problem. And what I just wrote here is the elephants were the pain.
[00:29:36.190]
Yeah.
[00:29:37.020] - Chris
Now, it's not to minimize at all the pain and suffering of human trafficking, but that villages, that was the presenting problem. That was a symptom of the elephants is what she found out. And it just makes me think, how much intelligence and wisdom do we miss out on as leaders? Because we've not created an environment where our people feel like they can give us the real answers.
[00:30:01.910]
Right.
[00:30:03.330] - Chris
Or that they may not even feel like we want them to give us the answers because we're always casting our vision. Hey, guys, here's what our focus is this week, okay? Here's how we're going to do this. And it's so driven by that charisma. And yet maybe it's not even called maybe we shouldn't even call that charisma because I like her definition. Right.
[00:30:25.260] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:30:25.560] - Chris
A charismatic person. Right. Is one that we experience as being tuned in, being curious, being engaged, focused. And yet we call those personalities that are always telling. We call that charismatic. But I like your definition better. I like hers better.
[00:30:43.930] - Brandon
Yeah. And it's interesting, too, because Ed, I mean, he speaks on stages for big money, big groups. He's a pro. And him, he referred to his experience with both those presidents and what that felt like as someone in his state. Dude, he's worth four or $500 million. Like, the guy is not small beans on any scale of measurement. And it was still vital for him to feel important. I don't know. It's huge. The other thing that kind of sticks out to me and what you're talking about, that story is even though this person had all the academia, had research and time in grade, she wasn't local. She wasn't the families, the men, the women moms that grew up intimately connected to that environment, understanding the way that all the different parts connect to each other. Right. The behaviors behind the elephants, what they do by nature and how it impacted them as humans. They had a rich understanding that brought valuable answers and insights. And I think that that is a risk that we have in our own companies. Like the whole thing. It's like when good people stop talking. Right. All that stuff is coming back to this idea of our people who are out in the field every day on the front lines, whether it's an HVAC company, a Mitigation company, construction company, doesn't matter.
[00:32:09.550] - Brandon
They are witnessing and seeing things, not always right or wrong, but they're just seeing and experiencing things about our business that we are not. And we are throwing away rich expertise because someone is young or they've just got here or they haven't been in this industry very long or whatever the things are that we tell ourselves that minimize the value of their mental processing and their problem solving. And it just makes me go, wow, what are the opportunity costs that I've experienced? I don't even know, because I all too often was talking at our team instead of listening for their expertise, because of their native relationship to that experience, that environment, that event, that thing. And it kind of scares me a little bit to think at the end of the day, it's all good. But this is powerful, man.
[00:33:01.760] - Chris
It's really powerful. So this reminds me of Deathmer. Okay? Someday I want to get that guy in the podcast. I inbox them. We'll see what happens here. Deathmer talks about this, and it's very fascinating. He talks about the filters that we, as leaders, put on feedback. This totally floored me when he first talked about this, and it's still convicting. He says, as leaders, we have all these filters we put on feedback. For example, when we get feedback from a frontline person, we're judging that feedback through the lens of an entry level paid person, makes less money than me, has maybe less College than me, does or doesn't have a family like mine. We tend to think in this hierarchy as leaders of where the feedback is coming from. If it's coming from lower in the hierarchy, if somebody's beneath me, I automatically invalidate or discount. They're not smart enough to give me the kind of feedback that would be valuable to me.
[00:34:00.200] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:34:00.970] - Chris
And he said, so consider your filters. Does somebody have to be more educated than me for their feedback to matter? Do they have to be in the company for a certain period of time for their feedback to count or be relevant? Do they need to be a man or a woman? God forbid somebody has that as a filter. Right?
[00:34:19.630] - Brandon
Right.
[00:34:20.610] - Chris
So we have all of these filters by which we decide if a person's feedback is good, valuable, relevant or important. And so it's another interesting angle on even when people do give us feedback, how are we accepting that feedback? Because that woman who is trying to help that village, she could have heard that response. And like, well, who are you elephants? Come on here. She's got a heart. Whoever this person was, presumably they have a degree and they have all this research and intellect and so forth. And I think as leaders, we do that all the time. Or somebody tells us about the elephant and we're like, come on, let's get back to solving the problem.
[00:35:01.880] - Brandon
Right?
[00:35:02.320] - Chris
Let's get serious, right?
[00:35:03.660] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:35:04.210] - Chris
And I think, sadly, I've had those filters with my employees where I don't really give it the critical consideration that I ought to. And you know what? I probably would have had some different made some different decisions over time.
[00:35:19.090] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:35:19.780] - Chris
Well, I know I would have humbling, man.
[00:35:22.250] - Brandon
I know. All right. So let's give the folks something. Let's land the ship. Something concrete.
[00:35:27.190] - Chris
Good job of this topic, man.
[00:35:30.330] - Brandon
I'm eating her book up right now, dude. I'm not going to lie about it. And I plan to come back around on this because there's just so much work to be done with these thoughts and these ideas. So just remind everybody that, again, this understanding of behavioral economics and again, this is not mine, our stuff, this is being done by brilliant people. And it's that idea of merging these studies of mental processes with behaviors. Right. And so understanding that we really want to help people create behavioral change, not necessarily change their mind. And I'm just going to leave that alone and let people kind of sit in that. And I think and do some their own interpretation of what that could look like in their sphere of influence at home, kids, spouses, things work. But then it's this idea of this real concrete understanding of two things. One is what is influence? What are those things that we see that we notch up or connect to people that have influence, that can create change? Right. And it's this idea of charisma. And at the end of the day, what is charisma? It's not their ability to tell or even cast vision, although those things are vital.
[00:36:39.510] - Brandon
But it's rich, deep listeners. It's someone that can sit down with an employee, even if you only have three minutes that morning. And when you ask them a question, you look them in their eyes and you show them that you are actually caring and listening to what they have to say. That in itself may create more influence in your organization than you saying anything. And then the last piece is this power question, and that is what would it take? And we use some examples. Hey, individual on my team, partner, whatever. Hey, what would it take for us to not have that same kind of experience? Again, what would it take for us to change the way that we handle this problem or prevent that problem? Right. I mean, you can see how this really plays into lots of the different kinds of conversations we have as salespeople, as business leaders. So just that tool just stopping for a moment. And instead of providing answers, ask your team member, ask your spouse, your partner, whatever. Hey, what would it take? And wait and listen for their unique perspective and particularly may be very powerful answer to what it would actually take to fix the problem.
[00:37:54.010] - Chris
Can we take one more pass on that first item? Yeah, I'm forwarding your summary.
[00:37:58.720] - Brandon
No, it's not even a summary.
[00:38:00.460] - Chris
Well, that first part. I feel like we kind of minor down in the conversation, but we had a great conversation in the hallway as we were coming to the office this morning with the landlord, actually the owner of the building where you talked about that piece. And if I heard it right, she was talking about how we tend to promote a mindset or a way of thinking to try to get people to change the way they think about something and how instead, behavioral economics and psychology would instead teach us, show them a new behavior and get them behaving in this new manner and the mindset, the perspective will follow, which I've heard other people say in different forms, which is essentially belief follows action. Right. I think even atomic habits. James Clear, I think he talks about this. It's like we believe that what we do. So finding a new way to see yourself a different identity typically follows new behaviors and habits. Like we do a habit long enough, we realize, oh, wow. Turns out I'm a fitness person.
[00:39:01.100] - Brandon
Right.
[00:39:01.390] - Chris
Because I've been working out three times a week for the last three months. Well, I'm one of those people and it changes the way we see ourselves by doing this behavior over and over. And I thought that is interesting because that's actually the opposite. I think what my focus has been, let's just major on the why. Let's teach people the why, and let's inspire them and motivate them on the why and the philosophy when in reality creating kind of the guardrails for different behaviors maybe is the quicker path to people adopting the new mindset. Did I get that right?
[00:39:31.990] - Brandon
No, I think you're right on point. And I think the idea for so much of this stuff is there's no silver bullet. It's kind of like Jocko always talking about the dichotomy of leadership or the dichotomy of it's these Yin and Yang. Yes. And both that are required for us to win. And I think this is one of those where it's like there is no silver bullet. So sometimes the Y is enough to motivate and instigate change. And I think there's other times it's like it's the whole make it easier to do the right thing than the wrong thing. And the next thing you know, it that person. That's just what we do. That's how we do it. So I think it is a mixture. It's always going to be a mixture at the end of the day, man. What I just kind of keep hearing, though, is just treat people like people. Just treat them like people. And sometimes we're going to be let down just like we let down people. And a lot of the time we're going to experience really amazing things because we just honor people for being people.
[00:40:33.530] - Chris
Yeah. Okay.
[00:40:34.570] - Brandon
Let's hang up.
[00:40:36.330] - Chris
Sounds good.
[00:40:37.130] - Brandon
Pleasure, guys. All right, everybody, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart and Boot.
[00:40:45.010] - Chris
And if you're enjoying the show that you love this episode, please hit follow. Formerly known as subscribe write us a review or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.