Elite Communication Tips To Take Your Influence From Ordinary to Extraordinary

24:45There are so many things that questions do. And as I studied them more and more, I become really fascinated in the work that they do and how they help us. I think many of us think about questions as a way to collect information. If I want to know something, a question is a good way to collect that information. And questions certainly do collect information. They do a good job of collecting information, but they also do a lot of other things. They shape how we're perceived as individuals, whether people like us, whether they think we're smart or not. They shape how conversations evolve. Questions do a great job of directing attention towards certain things rather than other things.

25:22And they shape interactions and how close we get to other people. And as you guys nicely said, sort of how we reveal things about ourselves and show our vulnerability. So I'll start with just one example. There's a whole chapter about questions. Let's take asking for advice. So we often think, hey, I could use some advice. I want someone's opinion. I want their perspective. I want their knowledge. I want their information. But man, I don't know if I should ask, right? We're worried that one, asking will bother someone or they won't know what we're interested in. Or even worse, somehow they'll think less of us, right?

25:57They'll think we're not knowledgeable or incompetent, and so we don't ask for advice. Turns out that's a big mistake. Some researchers from both Harvard and Wharton did some really nice experiments where they had people have interactions. In some cases, people asked for advice. In other cases, they didn't. They found that asking for advice doesn't lead us to be perceived as incompetent. It doesn't make us seem worse. In fact, it doesn't have no effect. It actually makes us seem better. People that ask for advice were seen as more competent and more knowledgeable, and you might say, well, why? Doesn't asking for advice show we don't know what we're interested in?

26:31But what's interesting about asking for advice is it's less about us and more about the people whose advice we're asking because everyone loves to feel like they have great advice. All of us are egocentric. We think our advice is fantastic. And so when someone comes along and they ask us for advice, we go, wow, that person's really smart. Out of all the people they could ask, they asked me for advice. And so they must be pretty sharp. And so asking for advice not only allows us to collect information, but it actually makes us be perceived better by the people we ask as well. And asking that question, you're showing somebody that you understand that they have a unique view, a unique perspective to them and their experiences and that you want to know what that is.

27:16For a lot of people, they're going to feel like, well, I'm just asking this question that it's pretty general. But really, it isn't. And that's why people who are going to be in that conversation with you are going to feel their ego being stroked because they get to share that unique experience. Yeah. And building on what you just said, there's another type of question people call follow-up questions. And what does that mean? When someone says, hey, I really enjoyed that meeting, not just saying, oh, I did as well, but what did you like about it? Or, yeah, I thought that movie was really, really interesting.

27:50Oh, what did you like? Why did you find it interesting? Research finds whether looking at dating situations, getting to know you conversations, a variety of different situations. Questions lead people to like us more. But follow-up questions in particular are impactful. Because what questions and follow-up questions do in particular when we ask them, as you nicely said, the right way, is they show we care. Right? When someone cares enough about what we're saying, not just to sort of take the conversation in a completely different direction, but pick up on what we said, show they heard it, show they want to build on it and learn by asking more, well, it suggests they care about us.

28:25They're responsive and they're interested in learning more about us. And as a result, we like them more. In this next clip, Jonah discusses his own ineffectual patterns. He's proof you can't identify the patterns yourself. If you want to leak communication, you must break these patterns. and having a trained year that can spot them instantly takes months or even years off of your development. Yeah. So this is some, some recent research, actually, I don't even know if it's out yet, but it's, it's almost out, um, that, uh, a colleague and friend Grant Packard and I, uh, did. And, and the key intuition here is, as you said, is, is we often talk about things in certain ways.

29:00Uh, we could say, I liked this restaurant or I like this restaurant. Um, the food is good or the food was good. That job candidate seemed interesting or they seem interesting. In all of those cases, we have an opportunity to use the past tense. The food was good. You liked the restaurant. The candidate seemed good or present tense. They seem good. The food is good. You like the restaurant. And it's a subtle shift, but what talking about the present does rather than the past is it makes it seem more general, right? If I liked the food, it suggests, okay, hey, the time that I went to that particular place, the experience I had, the food was good in the past.

29:39If I say the food is good or I like that restaurant, it says not only was it good for me in the past, but I'm making a suggestion that it will be good forevermore for anyone else who goes, right? When I'm saying the food is good, I'm making an assertion. It's just the truth. The food is good. And by speaking in the present tense in those cases, it increases persuasion in part because it makes us seem more certain and confident. If someone's willing to not just say they liked the food or that the food was good, but that the food is good and they like it, it suggests something is generally true.

30:14And if it's generally true, they must be confident enough to make that assertion. And so we're more likely to listen to them. Now, the flip side is we may find ourselves hedging and that hedging can actually make us appear less confident. And it's something that Johnny and I catch in our clients all the time. and it's a speech pattern that if you've ever recorded yourself or edited a podcast or listened to, you'll catch yourself doing and you can quickly correct. But hedging is often a part of language because, well, we don't want to come across too certain of things. We want to leave ourselves a wiggle room, but it actually makes us appear less confident.

30:50Yeah. I find hedges to be quite interesting and I hedge all the time, right? I'm the worst at this. I say, you know, this might be true, or this will probably work, or I think this is a good course of action. And in some sense, we hedge almost non-consciously, right? It's like a linguistic crutch, like ums and uhs that we might throw in along the way when we're trying to figure out what to say. But these crutches that we use often undermine our air impact. We did some research looking at tens of thousands of online reviews, as well as conversations and other situations. And we found that the more people hedge, the less likely others are to listen to what they have to say.

31:27The less likely people are to be persuaded and the less likely they listen to that person in the future. Because if someone's not even sure themselves whether something will work or whether themselves whether something is a good idea, why would I go ahead and do it? On the other side, if someone seems really confident of what they're saying, they seem really certain, it's hard to believe that what they're saying couldn't be true because they seem so confident about it. And so I'm not saying never hedge. There are certainly situations where hedging is a good idea, but let's not just hedge because it's convenient.

32:00Let's make sure we're using hedges on purpose. And second, maybe sometimes we do have uncertainty. We're not sure a strategy will work because to work, a few things have to happen. Well, then call out that uncertainty, right? Own that uncertainty. Rather than saying, you know, I don't know if this will work. Instead, we can say, I think this is a great strategy. But for it to work, these things need to happen. And so we're being very clear where the uncertainty is and telling everybody, hey, I'm not uncertain that this is a good idea. I do think it's a good idea, but these things have to happen for the magic to work.

32:35Using slightly different words like was good or is good. Here's another tiny spin on how we use words, this time addressing the other person's identity. We'll start simple and maybe get a little bit more complex, but often we're trying to get other people to do something. We may be asking them for help. We may be, if we work for a nonprofit, asking them to vote or engage in a number of different actions that we'd like them to engage in. And often when we ask people, we do exactly that. We ask them for help, for example. But a few years ago, a study looked at whether there might be a better way to ask for assistance.

33:10And so they went to a local elementary school and they asked four and five-year-olds to help clean up a classroom. Books were everywhere, toys on the floor, crayons, and so on. And for many of the students, they said, hey, can you please help clean up? But for a second group of students, they added just a couple letters at the end of that word. Rather than asking people to help or for help, they asked them to be a helper. Now, the difference between the word help and the word helper is quite small. You can probably tell they're two letters different, so they're quite, quite small. Yet that small difference had a big impact.

33:44People were about 30 % more likely to end up helping if they were asked to be a helper rather than just help. And it's not just kids in classrooms. There was another study on voting that happened more recently where they asked some people to please go vote and other people, they asked them to be a voter. Now, again, the difference between voting or going to vote and being a voter is quite, quite small, yet it led to about a 15 % increase in people's likelihood of turning out. And so you could say, well, hold on, vote, voter, help, helper, what's the difference? And the difference is that asking people to be a voter or be a helper turns an action into an identity.

34:25And what do I mean by that? Well, there are many actions that we could take. We can go for a run. We can help somebody. We can vote. We can do a variety of different things. We're often busy. We don't have time to do all these actions, but we want to hold desirable identities. I want to see myself as a runner maybe. I want to see myself as a helper. I want to see myself as a voter. I want to see myself as smart and competent and all these things. And so when the actions become opportunities to claim or sort of hold desired identities, we're more likely to do them, right? Voting, sure, yeah, I know I should vote.

34:56I don't have the time. But if voting is an opportunity to be a voter, well, now I'm more likely to do it. Similarly, if running is not just a thing I do, but it's an opportunity to show myself and others that I am a runner, I'm more likely to do it. And so by turning actions into identities, we can make ourselves more likely to take those desired actions. One misconception that we often see in the new participants in our programs is the idea of the awkward pause. The truth is a pause need not be awkward at all. And in fact, it could be a very powerful tool in your influence tool set. We had a discussion with Jonah Berger as well as Zoe Chance about the power of the pause.

35:31This is also true for professional speaking, where when you're building up energy or you're getting going on your big idea, the way to get everyone's attention attuned keenly to you in that moment is to pause. Right? Yeah. And I've never thought of this because I'm not a musician and I haven't thought of it from that same perspective, but just the incredible connection of the intimacy that comes from the quietness or the quiet song after the Big Loud experience. We film our clients and one of my biggest frustrations is they label that silence as awkward. Awkward. And just that labeling of awkward diminishes the power in silence, in the pause, changing your cadence and just allowing them to slow down.

36:24Because many of us, when we're feeling that attention on us, we tend to speed up. And that internal gauge then forces us to speak faster. We muffle our words. We don't get the point across. but the best orators are those who slow their cadence, pause, let the audience catch up to what they just shared. That actually soaks in their attention and it's not awkward. So we use the power of video to play it back for our clients and then they realized that wasn't awkward at all. I was feeling it because I labeled it as an awkward silence and that awkward silence term is just so pervasive and I hate it because I love the pause.

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40:35Go to mintmobile.com slash charm. That's mintmobile.com slash charm. Limited time offer, upfront payment of$45 for three months, $90 for six months or$180 for 12 months required. That's$15 a month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes when the network is busy. Capable device required. Availability speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Yeah, we should absolutely drop that frame of awkward pause because it prevents us from pausing. But I never thought about that until you shared this in that moment. And I guess we can also just acknowledge where the awkwardness comes from is that pauses are vulnerable.

41:15And it is because the attention zings right toward us. And we do feel very vulnerable, but that's actually what we wanted. If we call it the awkward pause, then we're not allowing ourselves to get that thing that we were aiming for. Let's face it. No matter how well we put all these amazing tools into practice, there's always the fear that we will still get rejected. This is probably the number one reason that people aren't even trying, that nagging thought of. What if the other person still says no? We've discussed the idea of rejection with Zoe, Jonah, and Vanessa. This fear of no is huge, right?

41:50This fear of rejection. And it's evolutionary, right? If we're social creatures, a no is like being distanced or cast out of the group, right? Being rejected socially. So it's not surprising that it would be so painful. We also tend to attribute that no to things like ourselves, like, oh, they said no because it's something about me or the relationship. They said no because we're not really as close as I thought we were or the thing we're asking, right? They said no because I shouldn't be asking for this thing. And in fact, most no's are circumstantial. Most no's are I can't do this right now because I don't have time or, you know, I'm not an expert in this or I just don't have the money for this right now or whatever it might be.

42:31And the interesting thing, as you said, we're so focused on the rejection, that fear of rejection, that we forget that it's actually really hard to be the one doing the rejecting. Right. And it involves all the same things. So when you reject someone, you're pushing them away. Right. You want you don't want to damage a social connection, just like you don't want to be rejected and think a social connection is damaged. You don't want to be the one damaging a social connection, insinuating something negative about the other person. It's super awkward and uncomfortable to say no. And so as you kind of said, like people are less likely to say no, even to these crazy requests.

43:09And we've shown this as well in our studies, right? Then we tend to think when they do, it's a lot harder than we tend to realize. We think that people just find it pretty easy to say no. So we have studies where we ask people who have been rejected romantically, how easy was it for that person to reject you? They think it was pretty easy. But then we ask the other person, they're like, that was really hard to say no. You know, it's it actually took a lot and I sort of had to cope with everything afterwards. Right. It's easy to go either to appeasement or to argument. Right. So someone's resisting us and we capitulate or we fight back.

43:42But this ties back to what you were saying about not making excuses or explanations when we say no, because master influencers will key into those concerns or objections. And that's exactly what can get them what they want. And so in the Aikido school of handling resistance, the idea is that you welcome their resistance rather than pushing back against it. So you're meeting force with a welcome party. And you do this, first of all, just by listening. And second of all, by asking questions to try to understand what is it behind their concern or what are the deeper values underlying this disagreement.

44:28And then handling resistance when you want to shift to asking them something. A super simple Aikido move is just asking them permission to ask them. so in a conversation like even just like can I ask you a question right but if it's say you want to have a big conversation where you're maybe you're gonna ask for say a raise or promotion at work giving somebody a heads up before you ask them helps diffuse their resistance because they didn't get caught off guard and then also they're going to be prepared and a third thing that you can do to help diffuse resistance. This one is so weird, but it's just reminding them in whatever way makes sense for the situation that you're not the boss of them, even if you are the boss of them.

45:20And what you're doing is you're appeasing their inner two-year-old who wants to say to any influence attempt, you're not the boss of me. And you're just saying before they say that, like, listen, I know I'm not the boss of you. So if you were talking to someone in a higher status role, let's say that it's at work, you might be saying, listen, I have this idea to propose and I know you're super busy or I know you have a lot of priorities, but if you have a few minutes, I'd love to share this with you. So it's just acknowledging you don't take their time and attention for granted. Maybe you're talking to a lower status person on the hierarchy at work and you're not going to say, listen, I know you must be busy.

46:02You have a lot of other priorities, but you might say something like, listen, it's not up to me, but, or you might say, the choice is yours and here's the situation. You can always tell people what your preference is. So it's not that you just give them the information. You're like, oh, whatever you want. You can say, you know, I think the best course of action is this one and here's why, but you might disagree. You can also be, this is maybe even beyond Aikido, it's being a ninja, where you are yourself critiquing your own argument before they're critiquing your argument. And that way, you've diffused their reactants and you have addressed these objections in a way that says they're not critical, they're not giant, maybe they're important, but they're completely and totally handleable.

46:55We like to feel like we're in charge. We're in control of our own actions, our behavior, and our decisions. But if someone else tries to influence us, suddenly it's not clear whether we're driving our behavior or they're driving our behavior. And so what we often do is we push back. We have essentially an anti-persuasion radar, like a missile defense system, or a spidey sense that goes off when we sense someone's trying to persuade us. If a telemarketer calls us on the phone or an ad comes on the television, or our spouse even tries to get us to do something, we go, oh, wait, they're trying to persuade us.

47:25Hold on. Let me deploy these countermeasures to avoid being persuaded. I'll avoid the persuasion attempt. I'll ignore it. Or even worse, I'll counter-argue. Yeah, I'm sitting there listening to everything that person is saying, but rather than just listening, I'm thinking about all the reasons wrong with what they're suggesting, why it won't work, why it's too expensive, why it's too difficult. And so really to change minds, we have to figure out how to reduce that reactance. Part of what the strategies that I talk about to reduce reactants are about is really figuring out, well, how do we not try to persuade people, but allow them to persuade themselves?

47:57How rather than kind of selling, can we get people to buy in and make them feel like participants in that change process? And when it comes to reactants, what strategies can we employ to get people to buy in instead of sell and push? One I would start with is this idea of providing a menu. And this came from talking to a lot of great salespeople and great consultants. And what they said very simply is, you know, you're in a pitch meeting. And a little bit like I talked about already, you know, you're making your pitch. You've got your fancy slides and your PowerPoint deck or you're on the phone, whatever it is.

48:27And you think that person's listening, right? You think that client or that boss or whoever it is you're trying to pitch is listening to your pitch. What they're really doing is they're poking holes in everything that you're saying. Sure, you say your product is better, but how do I know it's going to cost less? And is it actually going to pan out? And is the service going to work? And how is this going to integrate with what we're already doing? Almost like a high school debate team kind of poking and prodding and figuring out all the problems with your message. And so essentially, you need to give them a better job, a different job.

48:53If you give them one option, their job is poking holes in that option. And so what great salespeople, what great consultants often do is they give people multiple options. They give them a menu, at least a couple of different choices. because what it does is it shifts the role of the listener. Now, rather than sitting there going, oh, what don't I like about this? They're sitting there going, oh, which of these do I like better? And because they're sitting there thinking about which of them they like better, they're much more likely to choose one at the end of that interaction, right? Because they made the choice.

49:23And I call it providing a menu because you're not giving them ultimate, you know, unlimited choice. You're not saying you can do whatever you want. You're choosing the choice set, but you're letting them choose within that choice set. And that feeling of participation, that feeling that they had a role to play makes them much more likely to go along with what they end up doing at the end. It's kind of counterintuitive. You would think, wait, if I'm giving them choices, what if they choose the thing that I don't want them to choose? Yeah. But in actuality, there's always that struggle. When we're only given one choice, immediately we start looking, well, what are my other options here?

49:53I can't really have one option. Yeah. And notice, by the way, that you're choosing the choice set. So I agree that someone could say, well, maybe they'll choose the option I don't want. But if you're smart about it, you give them a set of options that you're happy, whichever of those options they choose. Parents often talk about doing this with their kids. So rather than saying, hey, you say, eat your vegetables. I don't want to. Eat your chicken. I don't want to. So you say, okay, which one do you want to eat first, your chicken or your vegetables? Which do you want to put on first? These pants or your shirt?

50:22And by giving them a choice, you're giving them options. You're equally happy that they choose between, but because you're choosing the choice set, they're much more likely to go along. Let's turn this around and assume that we need to be the one that has to do the rejecting, especially for the people pleases among us or those without strong boundaries. We struggle with rejecting someone, whether that's a colleague infringing on our boundaries or a friend who always needs to borrow money. Vanessa has a great tip. And so the research does show, as we sort of noted before, that face-to-face on the spot is the hardest time to say no, right?

50:59In the moment, it's really hard to come up with the words. We don't want to hurt someone's feelings. We don't want to make the relationship uncomfortable or damage the relationship in any way. And so we want to come up with sort of a nice way to say it, but we might not be able to in the moment. And so often we'll default to just agreeing, right? Because that's the easier path. It's actually easier. And the research shows that if you're kind of just reacting mindlessly, like if someone asked to cut in line and you're not really paying attention, we're just like, sure, yeah, you know, because no is actually the harder thing to do.

51:31And so one big suggestion is to get through that in-person immediate moment, get through it without saying yes or no, right? So you don't actually have to say no and get someone to follow up over email where you can think about what you want to say. You're not put on the spot. You don't have to say no to someone's face. So that can be a really helpful thing. And then my colleagues and I have been playing around with this idea of no and so you know how improv has yes and yes and we love this idea of instead of you know people think of like no but but that's like doesn't have sort of the same ring no and like no I can't do this and I'm still going to solve your problem in some way especially with a boss this can be helpful right and maybe I'll even create value for someone else so you want me to do this thing I really don't have you know I have too much on my plate.

52:20I can't do it right now. But I do know this junior person who might jump at this idea. And so I'm going to solve your problem. I'm going to give this to somebody else. And I'm not going to feel bad about it because I'm doing a no and, right? I'm creating value for people over there. As we start wrapping this episode, there are a few more important misconceptions on influence that Zoe and Vanessa explain in the following clips. Paradox of charisma, first of all, is that by trying to be charismatic, you short circuit at yourself because you're trying to be the center of attention. And we all know that is super, super annoying.

52:55And I've heard you talk about it as a low value behavior. So trying to be the center of attention makes you anti-charismatic. Another paradox of charisma is that when you want to get attention, we can best do that by giving our own attention to other people. I think there's definitely this impression that influence is this very concerted effort to change someone's mind and that if you've had influence, you're going to see a shift right there in front of you. Someone's going to start changing their behavior immediately. Someone's going to tell you, oh, I concede that argument. Now I see things totally differently.

53:33And I do think that we have this idea in our heads that that is what influence looks like. And then we get frustrated if we do try to shift someone's behavior, if we do try to shift someone's attitude and we don't seem we don't get that sort of immediate gratification. But in fact, so much influence happens in this delayed, cumulative way, right? We're just one part of shifting someone's behavior, one part of changing their attitude. Sometimes people don't even want us to know that we've influenced them, right? Like kids and their parents. How many things do you like remember that your parents have said to you that you would never tell them are impacting you?

54:07And so I think that that is one reason we underestimate our influence, right? It's because we have this idea it's going to look a certain way, but in fact, influence is more subtle than that. And that doesn't mean we're not having a big impact and people aren't thinking about our words, you know, weeks and months and years later. In yourself, what I find that I think is really interesting as I coach people over time, and I'm curious if you find this too, is that because we haven't been trained in this stuff before, and we should have been trained since babyhood, right? But essentially we were trained to play small by our parents and our teachers, right?

54:44Because we haven't been trained in this stuff, it feels awkward and it's like learning a second language or a third language or whatever, where you have to be very conscious and think before you speak and you feel self-conscious, doesn't feel authentic. But then over time, as you practice, it's not just that these particular behaviors become more habitual and they feel more authentic, but that actually eventually you don't need to use too many tactics at all because you've become someone people want to say yes to and you open your mouth and you have a big smile and your eyes are sparkling and before you even say what your idea is the other person is ready to persuade themselves that they want to go along with this.

55:51AJ, we got a powerful message from a recent X Factor Accelerator graduate, Cliff.

56:24He writes, I really enjoyed and grew from your strategic networking strategies and high-value communication I practice inside the super helpful implementation sessions. I can honestly say that today my social life isn't just ordinary, it is extraordinary. I realize that influence in the workplace translates to charm and personal relationships. Looking forward to an upcoming camping trip with friends, it's clear to me that I'm not along for the ride anymore. I'm influencing my friends to enjoy their best lives too. Cliff, thanks for the message, man. That's amazing. Oh, I love it. And Cliff's just one of those guys who had all the parts for a Ferrari, but he put them in a Kia, right?

57:02And now he is the one driving to his destination. Feel like you're stuck in the ordinary, just coasting by with days blending into one another? Or maybe you're effective, you get the job done, but there's something missing. Perhaps you're looking for a nudge, a boost, or a chance to elevate from ordinary to extraordinary. In the ordinary lane, you're comfortable. You're catching up with friends over a game, dinner, or at the bar. Your social circle's good, but you recognize it's dwindling. And the daily grind is, well, just that, a grind. What if there's more out there for you? Imagine being fully engaged, purposeful in every action, surrounding yourself with high-value friends who are starting businesses or making a significant impact in their communities, where social events are not just an obligation, but an opportunity, a strategic playground where you're the catalyst, the focal point.

57:52Unlock your unique X Factor, where influence and charm meet to make you extraordinary. Join a tribe of like-minded, high-value individuals who have a thirst for more. More engagement, more intention, more satisfaction. Transform from merely being respected to truly admired. Enter social settings with confidence. Rapidly grow your social capital and build the network you deserve. It's time to redefine your trajectory. Apply now for the X Factor Accelerator at unlockyourxfactor.com. All right, before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery. I have a quick ask, Johnny.

58:27If you got value from this show or you've enjoyed listening to the podcast, could you do us a favor and write a review in your favorite podcast app? That would mean the world to us, and it helps great listeners like yourself find the show. Also, I started posting to LinkedIn, Johnny, and I'd love to connect with our show listeners. You can find me on LinkedIn, AJ Harbinger. I'm over there as well as Johnny Zubak. We hope you all have an epic week.

59:18Yeah, but I remember you Oh, yeah, I remember you It was a bad day But I found it a wrong way