Mastering the Power of Persuasion and Personal Growth with Mark Bowden

0:00Welcome to the Big Success Podcast. Cutting-edge conversations on business and personal success, as well as how to level up. Here's your host, number one business coach in the world, Brad Shoghers. You know, I've never heard anyone refer to success the way Mark Bowden does it. And I think it's going to, his perspective on it really has got me a lot to think about. And I think it'll change the way you think too. Now, he's a communication body language, nonverbal communication expert. but like he's worked with the army, with actually the presidents, the G7, Amex, NATO. So the people he teaches are at a phenomenal level.

0:42So that gives you an idea of the caliber of the lessons you're about to get. My big thing is really how he teaches you and I to control our communication, how we can be better communicators, how you can draw more success to you by being a better communicators. I love the lessons. Mark's been a phenomenal presenter for us at my BizX programs, but I think today he came out with his best stuff. Enjoy the podcast. Here's Mark. All right, Mark. First question. What is your definition of success? Yeah, I would say it's simply helping people. You know, all I'm ever trying to do is help people with whatever they need help with.

1:23Now, look, I've got this expertise specialization in nonverbal communication, communication in general, behavioral analysis, behavior. So it tends to focus around there, but I'm only trying to help people. So if at the end of the day, I feel like or people feel like I've helped, that's success for me, Brad. But was that always your definition of success or did that evolve over time? I think it evolved over time because as I got more successful I started to think well how is that happening because you know I'd sought to be successful because why why wouldn't you because you you're trying to survive you're trying to get on you're trying to get praise from people you you're trying to get some kind of ranking in in some kind of social organization and so you know part of your mind is going well I better be successful I better be successful and as that happens, then I kind of went, well, how is it happening?

2:18Why am I being successful? And what it came down to, I thought was, I'm helping people. And so look, if it wins you a trophy, or you're getting some financial gain around it, I was still going, yeah, but those are just representations of the success. Like, what am I actually doing? And I thought it was helping people. Now, you said something interesting there in that you're always just chasing success or you always want success. I guess the people on the podcast definitely are that way. But where did you think in your life you chose success? Was it as a kid, a young man? Where did you choose that I'm going to be successful?

3:03I'm going to go after success. success? Interesting. So I mean, this, this leads towards, I think, one of your other questions, which is, I'm not sure whether I chose success. I think I was avoiding failure. Okay. So, so, and failure for me was, was pretty bad. I mean, pretty, pretty bad failure. And so I didn't want that to happen anymore. So I think I started to look at and plan and think about how could I be successful because I don't want the failure anymore. And then I hit upon, I think, being actually very successful in stuff and then working out, well, how am I managing that? Again, I think it's a general movement away from failure than towards success.

3:58And I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's the way I see it. Every one of us makes our choice in a different way. And whether the choice is to move away from or towards, I think away from is it's motivating for a period that at some point you must have flipped that switch and said, yes, success is my choice. Did you have a few runs on the board and then you went, yes, I like this, I'm going to continue with this? What happened? Well, I think you're absolutely right, is that there comes a certain point where the abject failure that I'd been moving away from, I'd managed to get my strategies, my tools, my techniques to a certain level that I was able to go, well, you know what, it's never going to be that bad.

4:48Okay, I'm never going to go back there anymore. And so then I think you're absolutely right, you can go, okay, so what would be really useful about being more consistently really successful? Would that be, you know, would that me? Will I feel better? Will I will I have a better life? Will other people feel better around me? You know, is there a case for putting in, from my point of view, the massive effort that it takes in order to be consistently successful? So let's look at that then. You've mentioned part of your formula for success is helping people. What else is in that formula for success in your mind?

5:31What's the methodology? Consistency. So there's helping people and then there's consistently doing it. It's no good to do it on Monday. And then the rest of the days, it's like, well, you know, I managed it on Monday. So, you know, the rest of the week, forget it, you know, it's got to be like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, you know, and at a consistent level. And so you've got to have the tools and the techniques. So you've got to have technique, You've got to have tools. You've got to have strategy. You've got to have a plan in order to do that. You've got to be able to execute the plan on that.

6:09And you've got to have the resilience to keep going with the plan. Now, again, to one of the other questions you have, I'm not a fan of failure by any stretch. So you've got to have a plan, I think, to keep away from failure and into success on a consistent basis and the resilience to keep going with it so you don't fall back into failure at any point. what what's your methodology for resilience like how do you stay in that mode how do you personally do that uh it's just a phrase in my head keep going keep going keep going what's that uh kids movie dory you know just keep swimming just keep swimming keep swimming and and you know i've had that advice from a bunch of people along the way you know and it seems consistent help and advice.

7:13Now, look, maybe it's in my own head. And I just whenever I hear it from somebody along with all the other stuff, I go, look, there it is. There's that thing of keep going. So I'm under no illusions that it might be my own advice to me. And actually, you know, other people are giving me lots more and even better advice. But ultimately, that's the, you know that's the thing that I pick up on the most and seems to be the most helpful it's simple it's easy what an easy strategy keep going yeah I don't need complexity I just need one thing keep right going totally look I mean you know I don't need I don't need a complicated or even a complex plan I need a really simple one because I have to execute it every day so yeah you know I'm not a fan of the complex or the complicated plan by any stretch of the imagination I'm a very simple six things on my list to do each day if it's more than six it's not getting done less than six I'm not doing enough I just go for six things I get I love that you and I are both in the forget the complexity stuff just go for simple yeah really But that doesn't mean it's easy to, I guess, chunk up or chunk down what is, you know, it's a complex world out there.

8:33There's no doubt about it. You know, especially when you're working with people, it's super complex. So to create a simple plan, like keep going, that's actually quite hard work, I would say. So you've touched on it a bunch, but I want to dive into it a little bit more. how does failure fit in with success? Like what's the relationship in your mind between failure and success? Look, I know there's a lot of people out there and look, to an extent, you might be one of them, Brad. So correct me. You know, I'm open to correction on this, but there's a bunch of people out there that say you learn from your failures.

9:09That's not me. Okay. That I'm not one of those people. I think failure hurts so much that I think actually failure causes most people to give up. You know, I really think it does. And it's got me there, close to there on a number of occasions. I want to help people avoid those failures so they don't give up and they don't get hurt. I mean, there's pain from failure that hurts so much that it can cause you to absolutely give up. And look, and there are people out there who go, well, you know, no, you know, you'll learn from it and don't give up. It's like, well, you haven't been hurt enough. You don't know what it feels like.

9:55You don't know. Like you haven't failed big. So, you know, so. I had a good conversation the other day that like someone was saying to me, you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It's like, dude, I'm strong enough. I don't need any more kill things. Right. Right. Right. How close do you want to get to death to really like how, what pain are you looking for to see whether that you would learn from that? The only thing I've ever learned is don't do, don't ever go there again. Now, did it, did it cause me to learn something that could push me forward? No, it just caused me to go, don't get into that.

10:37And I don't know whether that's a good lesson. I could be wrong about this. I'm open to correction about these things. One of the great things about doing this podcast is I get to ask successful people these questions and everyone has a slightly different tangent on it. And I think that's what's helping me and all the podcast subscribers just gain more insight into success and insight into how to do it. So tell me your definitional difference between a mistake and failure. How do you define the difference between the two? I think a mistake is recoverable. But you could apologize. Brad, if I make a mistake with you, I can say, hey, Brad, look, you know, sorry about that, mate.

11:22um you know let me let's move forward yeah failure like it's a dark pit and i don't know and i think it's hard to to have the will to climb out of it sometimes i feel like tonight i'm gonna have to read uh oh the places you go to my kids like let's get out dr seuss we're in the waiting place we're in the dark area right right right and look you know my my idea of failure comes from from from having dyslexia and just the failure at school and and and just feeling so awful at everything and and know and being ranked like you know when you are ranked the lowest it's clear you're not getting one of these bright shiny prizes you are sitting in a certain position in the class that everybody can see just what a failure you are and you're being told it day after day after day and there is and as hard as you try Brad as hard as you learn like you can learn from that failure go okay I got zero in that spelling test and then the words are so simple You know, it's so simple and I got zero.

12:41So I will learn from that and I'll do better. No, you don't do any better. It just gets worse. So, you know, it's a bit of a dark place that I would never want anybody else to have to experience. Why should anybody have to experience that? It's horrible. It's terrible. You know? You're on the Big Success Podcast today known as the Not Failure Podcast. We'll be back in just a moment with Mark Bowden, and we're going to take a look at a whole bunch of things around what made him massively successful. Without the proper methodologies and strategies, building a wealthy life can be difficult. If you're struggling with building wealth yourself, this is the time to join Brad Sugar's 30X Wealth Program.

13:24The 30 videos in this program will help you learn how to make your money work for you, rather than you working for it. Create the life of your dreams. And way back, big success. Yes. Mark, one of the things I love about you is that TED Talk, inauthentic. I got to be inauthentic. Explain that to everyone because I love the way you explained it. Well, look, there's an element of that which is just kind of clickbait marketing, Brad, which is to basically say the opposite of what everybody else was saying at the time. OK, so I totally admit that everybody was talking about being authentic. And so I went, OK, let's just go for the opposite because it'll get some attention.

14:04But within that, Brad, is something that I believe to be absolutely true. I felt at that time when I produced that and wrote that TED Talk that there was something that I called authenticity shaming going on, which was, you know, basically, Brad, if I didn't kind of like what you were saying, if I wasn't getting on with you in some way or you were rubbing me up the wrong way, I could go to you or I could go to somebody who knew you and I could go, you know what, I don't think Brad's being very authentic. Or I could go, Brad, but look, you're really being authentic with me right now. And look, you might go, hey, Mark, you know, I'm being totally authentic with you right now.

14:49But what I could do is go, well, you know, I just don't think you are. And so how would I know? How would I know whether you're the only you know that? And how do you even know? Like, what do you what do we what do we know about our own personalities also in different situations that we absolutely know how our core will perform in any and every situation? And even if that's true, do we want to be that forever? I mean, if I've got my core set, my core, you know, authenticity set, like, is that good enough? Is that successful enough? You know, can I see more success if I held some other values, some better values?

15:41Maybe I'm not happy with my authentic self. But there was this idea of, like, Mark, you should be happy with your authentic self. It's no, my authentic self in some situations is not pleasant to be around. You don't want to be, but there's a slightly inauthentic me, one that can go, you know what? My core is this, but I'm going to try my best. I'm going to perform in a way that will make me better to get on with and more helpful to people. And it's going to be hard work. It won't be easy. It won't be comfortable for me. It won't be that comfortable authenticity. It'll be uncomfortable for me, but it'll be better for me and better for other people so Brad I hope that it explains that it does buddy look I I think that you know being your authentic self is different to being your best self I think that was one big thing I took out of your talk is that sometimes you need to be a better version of you not just the current authentic version of you but I I have to debate you on one thing you just said there.

16:46You said no one knows if you're being authentic. If there's one guy on the planet that knows if you're being authentic or not, it's you. You would be the one guy that could read if I'm authentic. So let's do the whole body language thing. Lovely. Rather than starting with reading others, let's start with ourselves and our own body language. How do we become a master of that, you know, well, coming across as trustworthy, coming across as believable type thing? Well, the first thing you're going to do is know that you can. Know that you can control your body. Know that you are in charge of your behaviors.

17:26Now, knowing that, you've got to then go, well, when am I less in charge of them? When do I get triggered into, you know, authentic behaviors, i.e. instinctual behaviors that maybe don't get me the results that I want and I need? Look, there's no bad body language. There's no bad behavior, just results that you wanted or didn't want. And in some situations, I can get triggered into behaviors that don't help me and they don't help you and they don't help us. So can I know the situations that trigger those behaviors? before I go into those situations, can I start choosing different behaviors that are more likely to get me those results?

18:07Well, I think you can. I know you can. And I know we all can. So then we have to go, what's the potential vocabulary? Can I learn more behaviors to do on purpose that will more likely get me the results that I want and I need? So look, if it's, for example, the behaviors of trust, because in some situations I might be triggered into behaviors that would mean you don't trust me. Let's just suggest, Brad, that there's open body language and closed body language. And it's very easy for us both to imagine what that would look like, but we can just basically go, if you come in from a cold day and you stand in front of a warm fire, what's the kind of behavior that you end up doing with your body?

18:54Will you open up your hands, you open up your torso, you open up your arms, and you let that heat in, you know, and I say, look, that's open body language. What's the kind of behaviors that we do with our body on a cold day if we're outside? Well, we tuck in our elbows, we start hugging ourselves, we start getting our hands close to the places we're going to lose most heat, our neck, you know, our armpits, you know, our stomach area. Let's just suggest that's closed body language. Well, look, can I do those on purpose? Yeah, I can. I can. So maybe choose those behaviors more to be more trustworthy.

19:37What about persuasive? How does my body need to be so I'm more persuasive? Oh, I love this. I love this. So look, first of all, with the idea of persuasion, often we put in front of that, the idea of influence. So influence and persuasion. Influence is a great word. It's from medieval Latin. It means to be in flow, in the river with. So first of all, before I can be persuasive, I need to be influential. So to be persuasive, I first need to get in the river with you, which means I need to mirror some of your beneficial behaviors. I need to copy some of your behaviors, not the ones that are not beneficial.

20:19If you're being aggressive and arrogant and that's going to get neither of us anywhere, unless we want that kind of interaction. You know, and then and then I might go, OK, let's join in on this. What a great game. Let's let's let's do this. But look, if I want to persuade you in a certain direction, and persuasion, the kind of derivation of that is to move hard. If I want to move you hard in a certain direction, I first of all need to get with your current behaviors. So then I can move from your current behaviors to the ones that I'd like you to take. So I can start to transform where we both are to a new and better place for you.

21:09So I can start to convince you that this new route is easier, more successful for you. There's a good prize at the end of that. Now, I hope that that maybe sounds a little bit nebulous, Brad, but I hope it gives you the kind of theory and practice behind that. so is there and this is something i'm thinking every time because reading the book and going through things there was one part in there where i was thinking i wonder if this is different from a business situation to a private like friends or family situation i've never had anyone to ask that of so i'm asking you is there a big difference in that yeah lovely so so you know the kind of question there is, is corporate behavior different from family behavior?

21:56Yeah, like for a body language point of view. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, corporation means, you know, the combined body of everybody. And company comes from Latin, compagna, to eat bread together. So the idea of the company and the corporation is simply everybody sits around the table and shares bread, just like you do with your family. And you check out like, okay, can we trust each other here? Who seems to be getting the biggest share of the bread? What end of the table is the bread held? Who seems to have the salt and the pepper? You know, who's got the steel tools in order to cut this bread up?

22:38You know, ultimately, the same systems, the same principles under which we kind of judge each other within our family and friend communities are the same basic fundamental systems that we judge corporate and company behavior. So for me, so long as you understand the principles, you'll be able to extract from those principles behaviors that work best for you, both in family and with companies and corporations. So I hope that makes sense to you, Brad. Thank you. Yeah, I hope everyone else got value from that, but it was something I've been meaning to ask for a long time. So let's flip it over. Reading other people.

23:23Yeah. OK, because there's there's obviously I got to be controlling what I'm communicating, but I want to be able to understand what others are communicating. What are some of the keys to understanding others communication from their body? Yeah, so the main thing you've got to understand is one signal is not usually enough, never really usual enough for you to be able to make a very strong decision as to what somebody might be feeling and intending towards you or towards others. So you're looking for clusters of behavior. OK, and also because often you may not have enough clusters of behavior when insufficient data, we default to negatives.

24:08Our instinct defaults to negatives. So understand when I instinctually read your body language, unless I'm getting an overwhelm of positive indicators, I'm most likely to predict that you're negative towards me, my ideas, my friends, my family, just because it's better to be safe than sorry. If I'm not getting enough from you, then I'm going to bias towards the negative. So every time I get an instinctual prediction about you, if I'm smart at reading body language and the critical thinking around that, I'll always put the word maybe or perhaps behind any decision I seem to be instinctually making.

24:56okay so you know just then you know you had your head tipped back and you nodded your head there and so okay there's a couple of clusters there that suggest to me okay uh brad is thinking about that and he i think he's made a positive decision around that and i think to myself maybe maybe and so what i did there was to repeat my assumption about you and pick up even more data non-verbally from you to go, is my prediction here accurate around this? And I got a whole bunch of more positive clusters to say, okay, I think I'm pretty accurate that Brad got that. He was in somewhat agreement with it.

25:40I could maybe move on to my next idea. But if I'd have got some indicators that suggested, oh, no, he's not getting that one at all, I might go, so, hey, Brad, what do you think of what I said there? Was that accurate? Was that not accurate? In order to get some verbal feedback from you as to what you're thinking and feeling. So look, when we read people's minds with nonverbal communication, we can't, basically. All we can do is get theories of mind that we then test out and try and get more data and especially more verbal data from people as to how accurate we might be. And so it's kind of disappointing, Brad, because we would love to read people like a book, but people are not as simple as a book.

26:29They're way more complex. They're way more complicated. Well, the book is simple. You're on the Big Success Podcast. Mark Bowden is going to talk to us about going from good, great to amazing when we come back from the break. Voted Global Guru's number one body language professional in the world. Best-selling author of winning body language, Mark Bowden is a world-renowned thought leader in body language and communication. To learn more about Mark Bowden, please visit truthplane.com. And we're back. Big success. Mark Bowden, how do you see it that some people set goals that are, you know, like normal, get by goals, and others set amazing goals?

27:09You've trained a lot of people, seen a lot of people do this. What's the difference in your mind between the two types? Yeah. Okay. So here's where I go with this. And let me take this from the point of view as somebody who is, let's just call me like a knowledge worker or a help worker. I try and help people by delivering knowledge to them that they're going to be able to use. So let me just think about people in my area of work and give you my criteria for people that I think are good and people who are great. And then extrapolate that to a more general idea about people in all kinds of areas of business.

27:48So the good people, I think, are able to read a lot of information, you know, take in a lot, read a lot of books, watch a lot of videos, talk to a lot of people, and take all of those people's ideas and implement those ideas, you know. And that's really good, because why not work off the success of other people and be really great at learning stuff? And you'll be really good if you do that. There's nothing wrong with being really good. You'll have a good life being really good, okay? Now, the great people, what they'll do is take all of that and they'll go, yeah, but maybe the universe works like this.

28:33They'll make a new model. they'll come up with a new idea that nobody else has come up with a new way of thinking about it they'll even go to the people that they've got their original ideas from and they'll go you know what you're wrong you're wrong about this this is not how it works it actually works like now they're not taking a stab at it they're not being they're not going listen I've read none of the books but you're wrong okay they're going I've done everything like I've followed you completely like, and you're wrong, because this is the way it works. And let me tell you my model for how it works.

29:09That for me is excellence and brilliance and success. But it costs. Because it means you will have to say to people, this is the way it works. And people will come back to you and they'll go, you're an idiot. And it doesn't work like that. And no, and the people who you respected most will go, well, Mark, I can't be friends with you if you're going to see it like that, because you're putting yourself up against everything that I think is true. And you're going, but I don't think it is true. I think this is how it works. So look, for me, it's defining a model, which is a plan of how things work, which is not accurate, but it's helpful.

29:57It's a way of seeing stuff that you believe is helpful. And if you created your own model, you think it's more helpful than some of the other models that you were using. OK, I think brilliant people do that. Now, you know, how do we extrapolate that into many, many businesses or success areas that you could be successful? Well, I just do the same and go go. The really successful people see things in a different way. And they are brave enough or they're stupid enough or aggressive enough or kind enough to tell other people about that. I've got one client, incredibly successful, incredibly successful.

30:45It's founded, I think it's certainly within the top five biggest companies in Canada, one of the biggest companies in the world. like when I hear him talk and the way he views the world, I'm just like, wow, why didn't I think of that? That is so simple. It's so brilliant. No wonder you're so successful because nobody's thought like that. I've never heard that before. And it's so clear that it's accurate. And here's how accurate it is. Look how successful you're being with this company based on that premise, which I could have never have come up with. And you're brave enough to walk on any stage and go, look, everybody, this is the way it works.