Give to Grow (Invest In Relationships) | Mo Bunnell

19 Aug 2024 · 1 h 4 min

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In short

Podcast Notes: The Art of Charm - Give to Grow (Invest In Relationships) | Mo Bunnell

Summary In this episode of *The Art of Charm*, hosts Johnny and AJ engage with Mo Bunnell, a business growth expert and author of *Give to Grow*. The discussion centers around shifting the mindset from simply doing work to winning work through the development of meaningful relationships and strategic giving.

Key Concepts and Discussions

Introduction

  • Guest Introduction: Mo Bunnell, founder of Bunnell Idea Group, shares insights from his extensive experience in business growth and relationship development.
  • Book Overview: Discussion on Bunnell's new book *Give to Grow*, which emphasizes the importance of generosity in building professional relationships.

The Mindset Shift

Doing the Work vs. Winning the Work

  • Defining the Shift:
  • Doing the work focuses on delivery and project completion.
  • Winning the work involves proactive relationship-building and finding new opportunities.
  • Key Differences:
  • Response patterns differ: Clients readily respond during project delivery, but less so when building relationships.
  • Communication style changes: Effective communication for winning work should be concise and engaging.

Overcoming Internal Lies

  • Common Lies: Bunnell outlines five internal lies that hinder relationship-building:
  • "I can't do that." - Often tied to self-perception (e.g., introversion).
  • "I don't know what to do." - Leads to inaction.
  • "I might do it wrong." - Associated with perfectionism.
  • "I'm too busy." - Mismanagement of priorities.
  • "I'm going to look bad." - Fear of rejection.
  • Addressing Lies: Recognizing these lies and taking action despite discomfort is essential for success.

Integrating Relationship Development with Daily Work

  • Practical Strategies:
  • Seamlessly incorporate relationship-building into daily tasks.
  • Use face-to-face interactions to increase success rates in networking.
  • Small, consistent actions can lead to significant growth.

The Power of Giving to Grow

  • Concept of "Give to Grow":
  • Providing value to others is crucial for relationship-building.
  • Four types of gifts to offer:
  • Expertise
  • Time and attention
  • Connections and introductions
  • Emotional support
  • Being a Strategic Giver: Establish boundaries to prevent burnout. Tailor the scale of giving to fit the expected payoff.

Building Habits for Long-Term Success

  • Creating Routines:
  • Maintain lists of opportunities and key relationships.
  • Schedule weekly check-ins (15 minutes) to assess and act on opportunities and relationships.
  • Focus on three most important tasks (MITs) each week to sustain momentum.

Key Takeaways

  • A shift in mindset from doing to winning work can significantly enhance career success.
  • Overcoming self-limiting beliefs is crucial to building effective professional relationships.
  • Strategic and thoughtful giving fosters deeper connections and creates reciprocal relationships.
  • Establishing consistent habits and routines around relationship-building leads to exponential growth over time.

Conclusion This episode provides actionable insights into how professionals can foster their careers by shifting their focus from merely completing tasks to actively engaging in meaningful relationship-building. Mo Bunnell's strategies, grounded in the principles of generosity and consistent action, offer a roadmap for sustainable professional success.

Additional Resources

  • Mo Bunnell's website: [Bunnell Idea Group](https://www.bunnellideagroup.com)
  • Book Reference: *Give to Grow: Invest in Relationships to Build Your Business and Your Career* available at major bookstores.
  • Free Course: givetogrow.info - Includes resources and materials related to the book, free of charge.

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These notes encapsulate the key points discussed in the podcast episode, providing an organized overview and actionable insights for listeners looking to enhance their relationship-building skills and professional success.

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Transcript

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1:53Visit bjs.com slash Thanksgiving and get the same great savings online as in Club. We massively avoid pain even more than we seek pleasure. So like we're worried all the time about these kind of things. Bad is strong, the good. So the solution to that one is elevating yourself. And we have a little mantra here. Think 10x, not 1x. Welcome to the Art of Charm podcast, where we break down the science of powerful communication and winning mindsets. So you have the cheat code to succeed with people. Every episode is jam-packed with actionable steps to unlock the hidden superpowers inside of you. Level up with us each week by listening to interviews with the best in business, psychology, and relationships.

2:33We distill thousands of hours of research into the most effective tools and the latest science so you can start winning today. Let's face it. In order to be seen and heard, your communication needs to cut through the noise. And we're going to show you how. I'm AJ, successfully recovered introvert, entrepreneur, and self-development junkie. And I'm Johnny Zubak, former touring musician, promoter, rock and roller, and co-founder here at The Art of Charm. And for the last 15 years, we've trained thousands of top performers and teams from every background. We have dedicated our lives to teaching men and women all they need to know about communication, networking, and relationships.

3:09You shouldn't have to settle for anything less than extraordinary. Today, we're joined by Mo Bunnell. Mo is the founder of Bunnell Idea Group, where he helps organizations grow. He's the author of The Snowball System, How to Win More Business and Turn Clients into Raving Fans. And he's the host of Real Relationships, Real Revenue podcast. His new book, Give to Grow, Invest in Relationships to Build Your Business and Your Career, comes out at the end of August. Today, he shares the crucial mindset shift from doing the work to winning the work in your career. Learn how to overcome the internal lies that hold you back from relationship-building success.

3:44We break down the four gifts that you can give to build solid relationships at work. simple habits that boost your career without burning you out, and how to leverage the power of small, consistent actions to grow your network exponentially. Welcome to the show, Mo. Great to have you. Hey, Jay, man. Thanks. I've been looking forward to this. And I just love how our content aligns with all that you teach around Art of the Charm and all the other programs. And then, of course, our new book, Give to Grow, is all about generosity, developing relationships. So we got a lot to talk about. I'm fired up.

4:14Yeah, and I know a lot of our audience members are right at that point in their career where they need to make the mindset shift between doing the work to winning the work. So I'd love to hear what you mean by that and how you actually made that shift in your own career to start. One of the things we realized in training 50 ,000 experts all over the world that have one foot in some deep technical expertise and one foot in retention and growing. So the difference between doing the work delivery and winning the work, finding the next piece of work, a lawyer, consultant, account executive at a large service-based company, things like that.

4:48One of the things we learn is that the moves that it takes to do the work aren't just different than what it takes to winning the work. They're complete opposites. And I'll give you a couple of simple examples. There's even a facing page chart in the book that I've had countless people take a photo of and show me when I run into them like, hey, I took a photo of this. I need to remember it all the time. So there's a doing the work column and a winning the work column. And there are things like when you're doing the work, clients respond every time. They need to give you the answers you need to actually get the contract done or the project or whatever.

5:24When you're winning the work, inviting somebody to a webinar, saying, let's go to lunch when I'm in your town, they rarely respond. Other things are like emails that when you're doing the work need to be long. They need to have everything in one place. But when you're winning the work, they need to be short. Our rule of thumb is 50 words or less because that's one Outlook screen on an iPhone. That's what's going to get a quick response. So I won't go through every part of that table, but I think the big part of the shift is realizing that the classic line of what got you here won't get you there.

5:57The things that made you successful to be an expert are not necessarily the things that will make you successful in developing relationships. And you need to be able to toggle between the right mindset and moves. And what I love about that framework is winning the work is not just external. It's internal, too. As you become a leader and now you're in charge of direct reports, you have to champion them. You have to incentivize them. You have to motivate them. And you have to recognize that it's a totally different style of communication. it's a totally different mental framework that you need to work from to get everyone on board.

6:31And I think a lot of our clients definitely and our listeners are at that phase in their career where they're not finding how to make this shift internally. So the company trainings and maybe the mentors or peers that they have access to haven't been able to give them those insights. And they're looking online. They're trying to find how do I actually make this shift? And that's oftentimes how they find us here at the show. The little secret to your point is that anybody who's in a leader is in a position of proactively, positively changing the world, and they need to get other people to say yes to do that.

7:04So every one of the science and steps in Give to Grow doesn't just work for our core audience. It works if somebody is a CIO, an SVP in HR, a line of business leader, a development officer at a university. Those are all those roles. If somebody wants to make a big change in the world and have a positive impact, they have to be in the business of not just delivering on what's said yes to. They need to be able to proactively get the yes and shape the agenda of those around them. I mean, what do you think? I mean, you see this stuff all the time, too. Yeah, you know, I think it's funny when we talk about sales strategies and mindsets on the show.

7:41Some people try to tune out or they go, I'm not in sales. And sometimes sales even has a negative connotation, especially with younger generations. they don't realize that every single day we are selling ourselves. We're selling our ideas. We're selling our business. We're selling ourselves to our dinner choices with our partner. So sales is running in the background across all of these relationships and conversations. And yes, people don't love to be sold to, but people love to buy. We love to feel like we're in control and making the decision. So a lot of what we do with our work at The Art of Charm is we dispel that negative notion around sales and recognize that all it is is relationship building.

8:18If you treat it like sales, like I'm just gonna win the contract or I'm just gonna get your money, well, long-term, you're actually not gonna be very effective at your job and you're probably gonna burn out of sales completely with that mindset. But when you recognize that even if I couldn't close the deal, did I help that person on the other end? Did I guide them towards finding their solution ultimately? I'm going to be top of mind next time they have a problem, next time they're looking for their next solution. For myself, when I'm on sales calls, I always think it's a great call if I feel like I made a friend at the end of that call, which is great because we're going to be working together, right?

8:54They're going to be in the X factor. And because AJ and I are so ingrained in our clients' lives, I mean, we're involved in every aspect of what goes on here. So we're working with everybody. And first of all, they're amazed that I'm the one that's calling them. They're like, holy cow, I'm talking to Johnny. And then it's, we're going to be working together. I'm going to be building your plan together. So that call is incredibly important. So if I feel like a salesman on that call, then I'm doing something wrong because I'm not building the relationship and building the rapport that I need for us to have a great time for our clients to get those results that we're going to promise them.

9:38Literally the first page of the book, I wake up every morning. You turn the page. Looking to help my friends succeed. And you turn the page. And some just happen to be clients. And Johnny, that's exactly sort of what you just said. And one of the lines that people have repeated back to me a lot, I'd love to get your take on it, is it's always your move and it's always a chance to be helpful. And what that does is if we can remember that, it's always our move. It's always a chance to be helpful. then we don't blow in the winds of, do we think the call is going well or not? Then we don't blow in the winds of, did they accept my invite to talk or not?

10:19You just said, no, it's my move. I'm gonna invite them to the webinar, even though they didn't reply back to my last three emails. No, it doesn't look like they're gonna buy X Factor, but I'm gonna find somebody else that can help them that's a little better fit because of whatever they said. So I just think you two believe in that ideal. It's always your move and it's always a chance to be helpful. What's your take? Absolutely. And it's the difference between I'm going to give versus I need. So, hey, I need a response. Hey, just check it in to see where you're at with this. I really need to hear from you.

10:49I really need to close this deal to get my commission. I really need to make my quarter versus, hey, let me give you this piece of advice or this insight I just heard or this great article I read or this podcast I listened to that I think would be super helpful for you, regardless of whether or not we work together. It has nothing to do where the contract sits. I just want you to know that I was thinking of you and I think I have something that could help you. And when we give in that manner, and of course, I think we're aligned. We're huge fans of Adam Grant. We recognize that actually it comes back to us long term over our life without having to worry about the immediate impact.

11:25It's not giving simply because I need that contract in return. It's giving, recognizing that over the long haul, if I'm a strategic giver, I'm going to skyrocket my career. and everyone around me is going to enjoy being part of my life. There's an insight in the book that I think is really important for our audience to hear. And that's really this belief that relationship success is not random. And I get so frustrated when I hear from others, especially listeners, that, oh, that person has charisma. They were born with it. They're a top performer. It just comes naturally to them. When in actuality, there's a lot going on behind the scenes with those top performers as we've coached them and you worked with them, that leads to their success and it is not random.

12:07So what do you feel on that idea and belief that you put in the book? And why do you feel relationship success is not random? Yeah, it's reliable. There's no doubt in my mind. So one neat thing about what we've been able to, a gift that I get all the time, I wouldn't have predicted, but when we started Bunnel Idea Group 20 years ago, just in my closet, you know how we've trained 50 ,000 people. What happens is when you go to elite organizations and you go to them and the organization buys a first cohort class, say there's 20 people in one of our transformative classes around teaching growth skills.

12:42What I would have thought in the beginning is that the people that are having trouble would be the ones to sign up. They are not the first people to sign up. You probably see the people who sign up first are the people already the best and they're clamoring to get like one-tenth of 1 % better. So I get this like amazing opportunity every time we do large transformative projects or one-time classes or whatever. Generally speaking, I get to see the best of the best. And one of the things that came out of writing Give to Grow, what we realized through some research is that high performers are 10 times typically, they produce and originate more work than the average.

13:23So let's say that again, top performers are 10 times, bring in 10 times more business than the average. Now that's not connected to the lowest performers. That's connected top performers to average. That's a massive multiple. So if we combine these two thoughts, A, I get to see and meet these people and go to dinner with them and they're in our classes and learn what they do. And B, secondly, they produce massive amounts more than the average. Then we get to what do they do differently? And the key thing I see is they simply make more offers of helpfulness. To get to your point, AJ, of it's not random, it's the top performer that says, I'm not worried that Janine didn't respond to my last three emails.

14:04I'm still going to ask her to dinner because I'm going to New York City and I'd like to meet her. I win when I make the offer, not when she responds. Let's say a top performer loses something. They really wanted some business. It was competitive. They were a finalist. There were two left, and they get the email. You're really great. Everybody loved you. You can hear the butt coming, but we went in a different direction. Well, if your mantra is it's always your move, and it's always your chance to be helpful, then you ask for a debrief call. You tell them you want to learn. You get on that call, and you say, hey, I realize we didn't win this one, but I want to learn your priorities and figure out how I can be helpful.

14:44Maybe there's something we can do in the future. So top performers, just no matter what happens, positive news or negative news, they absorb it, they feel it. And in milliseconds, they get back up and they offer more help. And I think just the idea that they do that, they probably do it 10 times more and it results in 10 times more revenue over time. Like it's not, I see a smile and like comment on that. Like I know it seems like it's so easy, but it's not because we blow in the winds of what happens And no, we got to get back out there and offer helpfulness faster and more often. Well, the second section of the book really outlines how we are our own worst enemy and the lies that we tell ourselves that keep us from taking all those attempts that top performers don't listen to.

15:28It's not to say that top performers aren't hearing those same internal lies and not feeling the same way, but they act through that discomfort and keep at it. And that's what really separates them. So let's unpack some of these lies that we tell ourselves that hold ourselves back from being those top performers. So tons of proprietary research. I'd never seen this before. So we had to like literally go out and do the research ourselves. And what we found was we didn't know if there's going to be three things that get in people's way. 21. What it turns out, there's five lies that we tell in our heads.

16:01Everybody hears these from time to time. And we have to know what these are and the solution for each one to get back up and ask offer helpfulness again and again. So why don't I go through the five pretty quickly? And then I think you know your audience so well, you'll be able to go, oh yeah, can you go in deeper than number four or three? Okay. So first lie, I can't do that. This hits people really big in the beginning of their relationship development career and that they could say, I'm an introvert. I can't do it at all. It can hit you like a freight train. But what we find is even very seasoned professionals that are quite good at this stuff can still fall into the lie of I can't do that for narrow things later in their career.

16:40Like I can't talk about the new offering we just launched because I don't know enough about it. Or I can't sell the big deals like Jane does or things like that. That's the first lie. So it can hit people at different levels. Lie number two, I don't know what to do. This is where people stall because they're like, gosh, I emailed three times. I didn't hear anything back. I don't know what to do. I don't know what they need. There's a solution for that. Lie number three. Now this gets into perfectionism. I might do it wrong. Here we know the move to make, but we're like sweating every day. It's like, did I word it right?

17:15I'm sure they're busy. Is this going to land right? Should I call? You can just, that one's tough because it causes you to delay. And delay is the death of momentum. The fourth lie, this hits so many people. I'm too busy. The burden of being great at bringing in business is you have more business to deliver on. So you can fall into a trap. So there's a solution to that one. And then the fifth one, I'm going to look bad. The root, that's what's on the surface. I might look bad. What's underneath it is the fear of rejection. And that's where people just don't act. They're afraid of what might happen.

17:53They might look bad. So let me kick back to both of you. We could go into one of those, more of those, whatever you think is the best for your audience. Well, I know to start, fear of rejection comes up again and again. And, you know, we started the show 17 plus years ago focused on rejection and dating and romantic relationships and how that held you back from actually trying to find the right person for you and settling and all the impacts that that has on your health and your wealth and your mental health. But I think even in our career, a lot of times we will have that that moment where we don't want to get rejected by asking one more time.

18:30We don't want to put ourselves out there potentially that someone else hears that rejection. It gets back to our boss. We get reviewed negatively around it. And that rejection piece is that enemy. It's that lie that's going internally saying, I can't do that. I shouldn't do that. Let me just table it. Let me procrastinate on it. Let me do some other pseudo busy work that I can be tracked on that I'll feel good in the moment where I'm avoiding that rejection. Yep. You nailed it. And Roy, I know you all love science. Roy Baumaster's work where he named a meta study looked at like a hundred other studies that were the best of the best.

19:03He titled it, and I love this because it's so simple, bad is stronger than good. So we massively avoid pain even more than we seek pleasure. So like we're worried all the time about these kind of things. Bad is strong, the good. So the solution to that one is elevating yourself. And we have a little mantra here, think 10x, not 1x. So whenever we feel the pressure like this has to go well, or I'm worried about rejection, or I need this one, like AJ, I love how you talked about that. If we think 10x, not 1x, we think, hey, Jane might not respond to this offer to go to dinner. But you know what? I'm going to offer Jane value 10 times over the next year.

19:44something's going to resonate. Now I'm talking in the business context, not the dating context. I don't know how to date anymore. It's been 30. I've been married 32 years. So you'll have to comment on that stuff. I don't think I'm no expert there. I know it worked in 1991. I'm ready for that, but not now. But anyway, think 10X, not 1X is all about, man, I do not need this exact yes. I'm going to keep adding value 10 times. I'm going to lower the bar of perfection. I'm just going to make the offer and I'm going to do it over and over again. And top performers just do that. They just offer value more often.

20:18Yeah. And if you think about it, if you simmer the stakes down to one try or one opportunity, then that miss, that failure is huge. But if you say, hey, I'm going to do this 10 times, then a few misses, a few rejections aren't going to be nearly as catastrophic mentally for you. Exactly. And I think mentally, what's interesting is like, we're our human minds are so good at going to the worst case scenario. Oh my gosh, Jane hasn't answered my last three emails. I don't even know if she remembers. I don't even know if she likes me. Like we go to the worst case. Jane's just probably really busy. It's not, she probably feels a little guilty.

20:53She hasn't replied to the last, like it's just that they're a little busy. They have 112 emails unanswered in their inbox and they're trying to take their kid to the soccer game. Like it's just busy. And, but our brains will take it all the way to this crazy thing. So that's think 10x, not 1x really helps get out of that trap of the fear of rejection, or I might look bad, because it just says, hey, any one thing doesn't matter. I'm just going to keep being persistent. I'm going to keep being helpful. That authenticity is going to show through. And over time, I'm going to do great. Well, let's talk about busy because that one, we had Cal Newport on recently, it was a very popular episode of ours talking about pseudo productivity.

21:32And we all feel that we're busy. And of course, that becomes a very easy excuse when you feel inundated with all the tasks, notifications, and pseudo productivity work coming your way. So how do we combat that lie that I'm too busy? Specifically in our context, we're developing relationships or business. So the thing that will get people in a trap is if they feel like doing work or winning work is like a scale. Like if I'm doing one, I can't be doing the other. It's either one or the other, like a teeter-totter. And as soon as somebody adopts that mindset, and by the way, most people start there before our workshops, you're sunk.

22:08Because now you're like, oh my gosh, I won a bunch of work. I'm super slammed. I can't keep up. I'll do it next month. And all of a sudden, a year goes by and your pipeline's dwindled to nothing. So what the top performers do is they say, no, it's not either or. I'm going to integrate the doing of the work with the winning of the work. Like here's a simple example. Some super cool research out of Cornell found that a face-to-face ask is 34 times more likely to get a yes than an email ask. It's hard to get your mind around 34 times. In their study, it was the difference between a two out of 100 chance of a yes on email, same request, 68 out of 100 chance of a yes face-to-face.

22:47So let's say we're a consultant, we're at the client site, We're getting ready for some big senior leadership team meeting next Thursday. We're working with this person who could be a great client of ours. We're doing this one thing. It's the first thing we've ever done. Well, if we think I'm doing work now so I cannot develop the relationship, we're not going to ask them to go to dinner until two months from now. And now we're doing it on email and it's low chance of success. And then it's four months after that when you're in town the next time. All of a sudden, you got a small chance of success next year sometime.

23:18time. But if we can just take 30 seconds and integrate relationship development with delivery and say, hey, Suzanne, I really love working with you on this project. I know we're slammed getting ready for the SLT readout Thursday. Could we just take a moment and pick a time to have lunch or dinner maybe in a month or something? I'd love to come back, learn more about your career, find some ways that can be helpful, and just elevate our relationship beyond just doing a great job on this project for the CEO. Well, A, they're going to say yes, because you're face-to-face, you got that superpower, you plug it into your phone right there, you're locked in for a month from now.

23:56And compare that, near 100 % certainty, and it's going to happen right away. Compare that to if you ask two months later, and you maybe, maybe have the lunch six months after that. It's this integration, these little 30-second asks that we can integrate business development with delivery, that's where the gold is. And what I find, and we work through this with our executive clients all the time, is that when you find yourself on the other end of that too busy to win the work and you lose track and you don't follow up and you don't keep maintaining and building the relationship, deepening the relationship, it can become daunting to then reach out after all of that time has passed.

24:37And then it's like, but what do I say if I haven't talk to them in 90 days or it's been six months and I knew I should have done that, but I was so busy. And now we create this roadblock to even reaching back out because we feel like, oh, we're going to be asking something. We're going to be rejected again. We're going to be putting on them. When in actuality, top performers, they weave those small patterns and habits and rituals into their daily tasks. So it's not this daunting thing. And six months never go by between that connection. AJ, you nailed it. And to put it in the framework of the lies, if you're really busy and you're right there and you could ask right now, the only lie you got to topple is I'm too busy.

Read the full transcript

25:14Make the 30 second ask. If you wait three months, you're probably going to hear all five lies at once, you know, because, well, I don't know what they want. I'm too busy. I'm working on this other thing. I'm not sure I can do this. What should I say? I fear I'm going to look bad. I shouldn't. I meant to do this last week. But so like the longer you wait, the more lies you hear. So momentum is our friend. We want to keep this going. Did you just bring up a good point? I mean, certainly for our listeners of the show and we see it in our clients, they're highly analytical. So they can create this elaborate excuse web so they don't have to face the thing that they're scared of.

25:55And this elaborate excuse web, usually they stick it on everything that they don't like. And because it is so comfortable and familiar to them, they're not going to poke at it. So it is our job then to start asking questions about the excuse. And not directing that it's an excuse, but just asking questions about it until the whole thing just completely falls apart. And then they're just sitting there looking at me like, oh, I guess that was all in my head, wasn't it? I'm like, well, I guess so, huh? right but we're but we're able to see those blind spots and point them out and nudge them in the right direction when that's the value of having an external coach like the two of you i i can remember talking with a friend one time and he you know it was a really close friend so he could really slap me in the face with something but i was saying why i couldn't do one thing or another i don't even remember what it was i just remember his line he's like that's quite a story you're telling yourself, isn't it?

26:54I just started laughing. He really lathered it on thick when he said it. And we just both started laughing. And I just, it all, to your point, the web of lies, Johnny, it just all crumbled away and I just moved to action. Yeah. And the funny thing is, Johnny and I do that for each other, recognizing that you need that person in your life to call you out. Maybe you're fortunate to have a friend who can do that. Maybe you need to get a coach that can do that. But it's so important to break through because, again, as I said earlier, all top performers face these same lies. These are universal. So they don't have some superhuman power that they don't have to deal with these at all.

27:31They recognize that they're going to face them. They have strategies to overcome them. And if they've recognized a pattern that this one lie or two lies really holds them back, then they get a coach to guide them through that lie, to make sure that that lie isn't keeping them from the 10 ,000 plus attempts they need to be making to be in that top 0.1%. And part of our curriculum, there is a critical problem solving part to that so that our mind doesn't run away with our lives and we're controlling our mind. And through that, you learn the right questions to ask yourself. And for a lot of people, for myself, I know what I need to do when I'm stuck and I start going through all of those questions.

28:11And if I get to the bottom of it and I still haven't answered it correctly or I've found the clasp that is holding the problem thought together, then I'll ask AJ, am I seeing this correctly? This is what I have, which is great because it says, hey, I've done this work. I went through these questions. I've looked at this every direction and I've gotten to a point where I'm completely stuck and I went through everything. So I can feel good knowing if AJ spots this, it's a blind spot that I'm just not being able to pick up. And the other great thing is if he does see it and I don't, that's the first place I'm going next time.

28:54First, because once we recognize where these flawed thought patterns happen, we begin to see that we use them everywhere. They become the one that suits us the best because analytical people will continually craft the excuse until it works. And this is why they need to coach because this is where the blind spots happen. And once you begin to recognize how your brain works, the excuses it has, the cognitive distortions that it favors, then you will be able to see them everywhere. And once you see them everywhere, once you recognize that's the one I use, that's the first place you go and it usually will knock it right out.

29:41What's up analytical thinker? Ready to dial up your charm and master persuasion? Then listen up. Welcome to the Art of Charms X Factor Accelerator. We've been at it for 17 years, helping over 10 ,000 listeners just like you grow their social capital and improve their dating life. Whether you prefer learning at your own pace or thrive in group coaching settings, we've got your back. Our comprehensive program packed with secrets on swaying others, nailing chats, the secrets of influence, and the nuances of effective communication and rapid rapport building. Picture this, reading rooms like a pro, nailing every social situation, and a network that flings doors wide open.

30:22That could be you with our X-Factor Accelerator. Live implementation sessions, daily accountability, and weekly missions and exercises to hone in to your new skills. Don't just take our word for it, ask the execs, engineers, and military badasses who've stepped up their game with us. Head over to unlockyourxfactor.com to jump in. Your mastery of influence starts now. Let's unlock your limitless potential at unlockyourxfactor.com. One of the things, AJ, I realized as you were talking, and then it ties to what Johnny just said, that I'd never thought of before, but this is the value of having a great interviewer, is when we were figuring out what these lies were, how we did it was we went into hundreds, I guess, of workshops.

31:10We've got a team of 20 facilitators. So they're all doing workshops all the time. And for months, what we did is just, we said at the beginning of each workshop, hey, we're conducting a little research here. Bear with me, this is going to be valuable. But so we bolted it onto what we already done. And we would just simply tell people, hey, think of a time when you meant to reach out to somebody in a deep inner relationship in one way or another, but you hesitated. Okay, everybody's got it. And then we just said, tell me exactly what you were thinking in your head. And if it was on Zoom call, we collected them in chat.

31:41If it was in person, we'd flip chart it. And everybody started to see patterns. So even though we were like conducting research, there was value to it. So one of the things people have loved about Give to Grow is like what you saw, we put the exact verbatims in the book. So under the I'm going to look bad, the top exact verbatims, I think this is interesting that everybody said, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Here's the top 11 that we ever heard globally, regardless of whether somebody is just starting out or they're an elite top performer that's 10x everybody else. I don't want to be a pest. I don't want to come across as salesy.

32:17I can't ask my friends for business. I'm worried they might not even remember me. I'm not even sure they need me or us. I'm intimidated by them. What help would talking to me be? They already use somebody else. Someone there doesn't like me or us. The person recently canceled on me. They're already spending a lot with us. So it's in the exact verbatims, Johnny, to your point, that somebody will find the one that, like you said, works, which really doesn't work for them. And then they'll just use it over and over again. So I think it's super cool to have an external coach like y 'all or to know what these are to grab it from the book and go, use a little mark and go, yep, these three are the ones I need to be worried about.

32:57But then when you hear it, it's a little louder than normal and you can overcome it. Absolutely. And I think one of the key areas that I want to highlight and push you a bit on, because we hear this too from our clients who are early in their career, or maybe they're feeling a bit of imposter syndrome or a lack of confidence is AJ, Johnny, Mo, this is great. I totally understand the concept of give to grow. What the heck do I give? You guys have endless resources. You have a great podcast and network. all these top performers in your network that you've worked with and all these great companies and executives in front of you, Mo, what do I have to give?

33:32And how can I give to grow if I feel that I don't even have anything to give? One of the chapters in the book is called, and this is under a section that says the four gifts. It's gifts we can give people that deepen relationships and grow a book of business. One of those four is called, give them the experience of working with you? And I'll tell a story and then I'll answer the question directly. Right after Becky and I got married 30 some years ago, maybe it was like two years later, still had lots of college debt trying to, you know, money was tight. We went to a really nice restaurant to celebrate something with a friend.

34:08I can't remember like our anniversary or something. So another couple was there and we picked a restaurant that was like, we probably shouldn't have picked. Like we shouldn't have been there. Like we couldn't afford it. Well, sommelier comes up. I'm not even sure I knew what a sommelier was at the time, but they've got this big, beautiful bottle of wine and they're telling us all about it. And it came from this vineyard. It's this vintage and all this other stuff. And the sommelier leaves and we all look at each other like, there's no way we're buying that bottle of wine. Right. And we can't even afford the food.

34:38We're like trying to like, should we split salad? Like, how can we, how can we get out of here with the lowest amount of cost? Well, he comes back maybe five minutes later and he's got a taste of that bottle for each of us. Just a small little pour, just a taste. We all taste the glass of wine and we ordered the bottle. We even ordered a second bottle afterwards. It was so good. My point with that is it's totally different thinking about, hearing about how great somebody is and that you should hire them versus getting an experience of how great they are. So back to your question, AJ, like what should we give away?

35:17Everybody has something to give away. Younger people have the perspective of younger people that can share, here's what my friends are doing. Hey, here's what I know about social media. Here's what I know about TikTok. You know, whatever they know, there's something that older or more experienced or higher decision makers need. There's always something they need. So what we want to do is we want to pick something we know about that aligns with something that's important to them, roll up our sleeves, and just maybe something simple is, hey, would it be helpful if, that's a great way to offer one of these things, hey, would it be helpful if I just spent 30 minutes with you and shared with you what younger people are thinking about this?

35:57Or would it be helpful if I took 30 minutes for you and I did a mock-up of what the Tableau dashboard would look like if we could integrate those systems? I just got an analytics certification from Duke and I could just mock it up for you. How about that? It could show you how you could look at these two databases in one view instead of seven. So whatever the gift is, we want to A, give them the experience of working with us because it's more likely we're going to get hired or get the project or get the raise or the promotion or whatever we want. And B, they'll say yes to it more often because it just feels so great to be helped.

36:30Yeah. And I think for many of us, we overcomplicate the gifts because we look at the most successful people. We revere them. We put them on a pedestal and we think that they have vast amounts of resources and that's why they can give or they have vast amounts of experience and that's why you can give or their network or whatever the excuse may be. And that's why I love this section on gifts because it dovetails so nicely with what we define as social capital at the Art of Charm, which is your knowledge. So as you pointed out, maybe you're good at TikTok. Maybe you're incredible at setting up analytics dashboards.

37:00Maybe what your knowledge is is really an AI and you've been playing around with the latest language models and some of these executives haven't touched them because they've been so busy. The second one is the people. your relationships. Maybe you know someone who can do that. You know, maybe your friend builds great websites and making that introduction would be a give that you could make. And the third we all have is emotional support. And I know like Johnny and I are creators. We talked about this, putting this out into the world. There's nothing that feels better for us than to know that we had an impact, that someone listened to the podcast, put action behind it, and then it changed their life.

37:35It improved something. There's nothing more gratifying for us to hear that. Well, that's emotional support. You reaching out to Mo on LinkedIn and saying, hey, I got the book and actually this third section was so mind-blowing for me in my career. That's giving. That's giving emotional support to those of us who are creating and putting our work out there, hoping that it'll have an impact, looking to have an impact. And when you recognize that giving is not necessarily what you see others doing, but you get creative about it and you look for those ways that you can give and you 10X it, oh man, you're really cooking with gas.

38:09AJ mentioned how wonderful we feel when our work affects somebody's lives. It's the best for any content creator to know that whatever you made or book, it has inspired somebody, motivated somebody, gave them something to aspire to. All of those things are great. But what we don't get in this digital age is a direct link to that. Unless somebody goes out of their way to write us an email, to send us a message on Instagram, we don't hear about those things. One of the reasons that I love being on sales is I get to talk to people that listen to the show. Without hearing about that, all they are to me is download numbers.

38:57And that is no fun. Where is the human experience? But then they get on the phone and go, this episode did this for me. This episode did this for me. When you said that, this changed my life. And those are the moments that we do all this for. And so I just want to say to those who are looking for a way to give value, know that the smaller creators, their mailbox isn't full. They're not getting 50, 100 messages a day. They might get one. And if they do get one and it's from you, you've made their day. Cold mornings, holiday plans on the calendar. This is when I want my wardrobe to be simple. Stuff that looks sharp, feels good.

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42:16It was just the five of us. So this was all planned. What are you going to do? I will do whatever it takes to get my son back. I honestly didn't see this coming. These nice people killing each other. All Her Fault, a new series streaming now, only on Peacock. I love all the examples we came up with. If somebody still can't think of something, let's say that there's somebody two levels above them in another part of the organization that they would like them to be their mentor. Well, if they go ahead and said, will you be my mentor? Right away, the person's like, God, I would love to, but I'm super slammed, you know, it's not much time.

42:50But if nothing else, the give you can give somebody else is to take something off their plate. So if that person approaches the more senior person, maybe it's they just got out of college, you're super junior and you're going to some 50-year-old you really look up to, you could go to them and say, would love to be your mentor. I'd like to take more things off your plate than the time it takes to mentor me. So if you could share some of your priorities and some of the things you're just not getting to, I can literally, nights and weekends work, I will sit with you. I will take things off your plate, follow-up items, project planning, whatever you want.

43:25I will do it. And you're going to be net ahead. And I'm just hoping we can strike up a relationship. So, I mean, if nothing else, you could go to somebody and say, what can I take off your plate? I'm going to do it and get A-plus grades and I'm going to free up time for you. You're building the relationship right there. I mean, everyone wants to be helpful. When we ask something as broad as, will you mentor me? it's very hard for me to quickly understand how much time commitment and how I can actually be helpful. But if you come with a very specific request and how you thought through it and what you've worked through and what you've tried and haven't tried and why you think I would be a helpful mentor for you I'm much more likely to say yes and be enthusiastic and excited to help you because I know that any effort that I put in will actually be helpful based on you doing the legwork and thinking through the problem.

44:17But I think a lot of people get excited about this idea of finding a mentor. And then when they say, can you mentor me? They get frustrated when they don't get the reaction of the response that they're looking for, which is yes. But when we ask those things that are so broad and you talk about this in the book, asking for help is actually a great way to give because people love to share advice and love to help you. You have to be specific. You have to show them that you've put in the thought and you know exactly what the problem is, or maybe you don't quite know, but here's all the ways you've tried to solve it yourself first.

44:49And they will be so enthusiastic to share their expertise, their experience, their knowledge on that exact problem. And I've helped our clients just rethink some of these asks when it's reaching out on LinkedIn or exactly as you said, going to that executive that you really would love to get more face time with to recognize that if we're specific and we're clear with what the ask is and how much effort it's going to take the other person to say yes or to help us, we're far more likely to get exactly what we're asking for. Think of the difference if somebody says, can you be my mentor versus the difference if they came up and said, hey, I've got a one page document that's mapped out the next 10 years of my career here.

45:29I love working with you in the organization. I really appreciate what you've done with your career. If I sent that over ahead of time, could I get 15 minutes with you for you to react and tweak it for me? Like that specificity would get a yes almost every time. Whereas will you be my mentor to your point is a bit, it's just too vague. It also shows you did your homework. So I've built out my next 10 years in this one page plan. That alone, the more senior person's like, whoa, I wish my whole division is doing that. Like already you've established credibility. Then you ask for, I already did the work.

46:03Can I get your feedback on it is our advice is a totally different thing. Okay, back to you. Well, that's exactly what I was going to share. You know, before we started the interview, we were asking you to help mentor us. And I was excited to show you the work that we've done first, not saying, hey, can you give us the playbook? And can you tell us exactly what we need to do with no context, no understanding of what we have done or haven't done or what the problems are. So when you recognize adding that context, asking for help actually is a way to give and can accelerate building these relationships with the people you revere, you look up to, and you would love to have them supporting you on your career.

46:40Yeah, you had mentioned the mutual love of Adam Grant before. Like his research is just the best. And in one of his studies, he found that mutually beneficial relationships were the strongest. So a lot of times people think I can only help, but we need to realize to your point that asking for help, a lighter version of that that's sometimes easier to do is ask for advice. So asking for help or asking for advice is sometimes the best opening move to deepen a relationship. When it comes to asking for something and that specificity is important, just think about just the word mentor, right? I bet each one of us, if somebody said to define mentor or what do you think of you being a mentor, what does that role look like?

47:25I'm sure we would all have different roles because we have, or definitions of it, because we've all thought about it in different ways and also have an experience with that in three different ways. When you say mentor, it sounds like a very heavy lift. It sounds like a commitment for both sides versus asking for advice and a bit of help, or can I get your perspective on this? I've already done some work. You know, that opens the door. It's not to say that they won't ultimately become your mentor, but that's the easier foot in the door ask in a lot of these situations. Yeah. So I want to ask you, because we get asked this all the time as fans of Adam Grant, how do you look at strategic giving and what are the boundaries that you've put in place to be on the end of the giving bell curve that is successful?

48:10Because we know from Adam Grant's research that givers end up super successful, but also taken advantage of. And for a lot of our clients and listeners, they've been in that latter category where they've given and felt taken advantage of their time, their gas, their moving couches, their making introductions to people, and that person gets their career uplifted and they feel like they're still struggling. So how do you view giving help strategically? And are there any boundaries that you personally use to make sure that you continue to give to grow? I think what we can do here is we can blend Grant's research with Cialdini's influence research, which a lot of people know about both.

48:49And just to put a bow on what you mentioned about Grant's research is when he found that givers were the most successful, the big chunk of them were, but they were also the least successful, which he implied. But I just want to make that really clear to the audience that they're sort of matchers and takers in the middle, but the givers were split. They were the only group that was split. They were by far the most successful across many domains and the least successful. So the difference is how they give. And if we blend now Cialdini's research with Grant's is we want to give away just enough to create momentum.

49:26So what Grant talked about is boxing in your give. So if your boss's boss asks for a little bit of help on something, well, you might want to scale that up to a 10-hour investment. If somebody cold emails from your university and says, gosh, I really love what you do career. Could I take you golfing? I'd love to hear more. Pick your brain kind of stuff. you're like, man, that's a five-hour commitment. I need to still help the person I want to, but I'm going to make that a 10-minute commitment. Hey, can we have a quick call on the phone and let's see where it goes. So the successful business or givers are people who are sizing the give to the expected payoff, 10 hours to my boss, 10 minutes to this random person from college.

50:07They're still going to try to give as much as possible, but they're not just going to accept the request that landed in their lap. They're going to filter that by the expected payoff. The last thing I'll say, and I think this is so darn important about grants research is givers, either camp you're in, whether you're successful, unsuccessful, your strategic, whatever, you're never expecting any direct thing in return. It is truly a gift. And I think we need to land that one really hard because the point of giving isn't tit for tat. It's not, I'll do this for you if you did that for me. There's really no strings attached.

50:40We're just going to size up the amount of the give compared to what we think the payoff might be. Yeah, it's beautifully said. And I think so many times we find ourselves on the short end of the stick when we haven't really contemplated that part. And we just give until we're burned out, our car's out of gas, our back is breaking from moving that couch up three floors. We've all been there in that moment and And holding that as a reason then to become a matcher or a taker puts you squarely in the middle of that bell curve. When I used to get that question, I used to view it in a much different way.

51:14But because we've gotten that question so much and now I'm getting an understanding of the person who asked that question, I don't say anything to that person. But what that question tells me is they're not ready. They're either not ready because a past experience or they're just not comfortable or have an understanding of why that idea is so powerful. So for me at that point is to begin to ask them questions to find out what that is. And hopefully that question will lead them to understanding that they have some probably relationship trauma that they need to fix in themselves or to get an understanding of just how powerful that concept is so they can commit to it.

52:01Because if you're not going to commit to that, if you always have one foot in and one foot out with give to grow, it's not going to work. Because you're always sitting there weighing. You're always trying to guess the agenda of the other person. And if you're guessing the agenda of the other person, why are you working with them anyway? So that question to me opens up a larger can of worms that we have to get to the point of why you're asking that. So for the audience, like we talked about the Grant stuff, the pairing with the Cialdini stuff is that there's six major levers of influence. And giving first is the only thing I've ever seen that can hit all six.

52:44So one of them is reciprocity. We tend to want to repay those that give to us. So simply by giving first, we're going to get attention and build reciprocity. The second one of the six is likability. Well, through more interactions, we can find commonality. We can build a bond. We can find out what people's passions are. So we're going to get more time with them, which if we orchestrate well, we're going to become more likable to them. The third one is authority. by us mocking up the Tableau dashboard or helping them with the follow-up or showing them our career plan. We're building some authority that we've actually got some expert chops to share.

53:19The fourth one I think is really interesting is scarcity. People want more of what there is less of. So if there's a way to say, and we have to do it authentically, but if there was a way to say, I'm really busy, I'm really slammed in my job, and I still want to help you nights and weekends so that I can earn this right for me to learn from you. The scarcity of our time is important to emphasize if it's true. The last two I think are really important. The fifth element is social proof. People tend to feel comfortable doing what others do. So as we're giving to the person, external or internally, if we can mention that we do this kind of things with many people, it builds social proof.

54:04And then the last one, commitment. Johnny, this gets to your point. At the end of a gift, however we size it, it's really important to make a recommendation. What's the next step that's going to escalate both of our commitment? And to your point, Johnny, around we can't guess at what their agenda is, it's when we make a recommendation, if we can ask for a little escalating commitment on their side as we escalate our commitment, that's where we're really going to find if they want to keep going. That's when we're going to hear what their agenda is. We can give tons of examples of that. But I think what's really important is we don't want to get in the give-to-give loop where we're just giving more and all they have to do is show up and get stuff.

54:46We've got to ask them to do a little bit too. Yeah. So that's how we're going to suss out who's a taker and who's a giver. Yeah. We have to understand that our actions train people in how to interact with us. Everything, the way we talk, the way we behave, our body language. So all of those things take into account. And so if you're training somebody to show up and get a free education, free knowledge, free effort on your part, they're going to keep doing it. Exactly. And on the other side, if we can ask them to review something before we get there or to bring somebody else to the meeting, there's a million ways to ask for a little escalating commitment.

55:22But if they just have to do a little bit more, that's where we're going to find out if this is worth pursuing. Yeah. And I think that ask is a great way for you to start to recognize what's actually going on behind the scenes here and why is this person coming to ask this for me? Like, are they looking to match? Are they looking to take? Oh, OK, they're actually really committed to this. So it is a good use of my time versus our boss asking us to do that. Well, we know the repercussions of what goes on there. So asking for that extra commitment from our boss is not nearly as important. Yeah, exactly.

55:55Exactly. Yeah, this is everything we're talking about is creating demand for something that's not there, creating momentum for something where there's no momentum. That's when we would do all these moves. Now, as we wrap this up, I know that we're both fans of James Clear, Atomic Habits, and really recognizing that the way that we start to shift to do from doing the work to winning the work is to start creating rituals, habits and routines that make winning the work just happen naturally for us. Nothing that we have to think about that we have to take hours out of our busy day every single day to do.

56:29So what are some ways that our audience can start to move these things to routines and habits that will allow them over time to see that compounding interest, their social capital just keep growing. The whole last part of the book we titled, it's a section we titled The Impact. And the impact subdivided into how do you succeed in the moment? How do you succeed in the short term? And how do you succeed in the long term as you look at your career, your whole life, really? The succeed in the short term is what I dig into here. And so I'll give you the fast version of that whole chapter. Because we're talking about things that don't yet exist.

57:06We're talking about creating some type of proactive change that's positive for everybody in the future. We've got to have almost like project management around that. And the reason is it's so easy to just keep reacting to the email ding and the Slack channel question and all this stuff. You can spend your whole life being busy but not really making an impact. So what we want to do is three things. One, we want to make a list of our opportunities. We define opportunities as really broad. It's anything other human beings need to say yes to. It's the business you want to win at client XYZ. It's the promotion.

57:45It's the fact you want to do that next particular project so you can extend your career. Speak at a conference, whatever. It's just you want to keep a list of those because by definition, there are things that don't yet exist yet and you're trying to create them. So real simple, two columns. What are the opportunities? And this is really powerful. What's my next action I can control? So that's list one. List two, this is so interesting, and it helps literally tens of thousands of people that have gone through our workshops. Write down a list of your most important relationships. We call that a protomoy list.

58:21Protomoy is a Greek word. It means first among equals. All your relationships are important, but there's probably 10 or 15 that are really important. So you write those down. And then the second column, what's my next action to deepen that relationship and always be helpful to that person? That's our second thing. The third thing we advise, and this is where it really comes to life, is you pick one time a week, 15 minutes, same time every week. I'm a Friday at three o 'clock person. And all I'm going to do is take 15 minutes. I'm going to take a scan of my opportunities and my next actions, a scan of my relationships and my next actions.

58:57And I'm just going to pick three. What are the top three things I'm going to be on the hook for? I'm going to hold myself to account for next week to do that are either moving an opportunity or relationship forward. And we call those MITs or most important things. And man, if you're doing three things a week, it doesn't sound like much, but three things a week to proactively move an important opportunity for you forward or proactively move an important relationship forward, that's 150 a year, 1 ,500 over a decade. Like it just starts to create unstoppable momentum because you're grabbing control of your future.

59:33And it's reciprocal. So as you talked about earlier, by you taking those 150 actions a year, you're incentivizing your network to take actions back with you. And this is one of my favorite aspects of all of this. And we push all of our clients to just start inviting people more into their life. And the first reaction is, well, they're going to say no. They're busy. They're going to respond. OK, they're going to give me an excuse. Great. Do it 150 times over a year. And you're going to find out about two, three months into trying this that you have to start being the one to say no to things because you're getting invited to so many things.

1:00:09Because even when people don't take action on your most important thing in the moment, you just registered on their radar and they're going to connect and think of you when they have something else going on that would be important for you to join in on. So by doing these intentional 150 or so actions a year, it compounds. It's incentivizing your network and your relationships to bring opportunities to you, to bring invitations to you. And you're going to find that over the course of your career, everything gets a lot easier. AJ, did we secretly write this book together and I didn't notice it? Like, even when you're talking, it sounds like the words I use and we use in our workshops.

1:00:48Like, it's so good. Yes, no ad. Like, stop. It's great. It was funny. My wife was watching me prep for this interview, and she was like, man, you're really enjoying this book. And Johnny and I always laugh because, you know, some of the books are a little tougher to get through, and we always try to glean the nuggets for our audience as much as possible. But this was one where I was nodding and smiling, and I was like, I can't wait to talk about this, and so jazzed up to have you on the show. So great to have you here. We love the book. Where can our audience find out more about all the great work you do?

1:01:17Well, thanks, AJ and Johnny. I've loved meeting you two. I think, well, two things. One is when you write a book called Give to Grow, you have to really lean into the giving. So we created this whole huge course with like 50 downloads, videos from me that I wrote. We probably put a hundred hours into this course and there's no charge for it. It's at givetogrow.info. So I-N-F-O on the end, givetogrow.info. And you don't even have to buy the book to get all the value out of it. So we designed it so that you could just do that. So if somebody is a poor college student, they don't have 20 bucks to buy the book Give to Grow, you can just go to givetogrow.info and get the whole course, all these downloads.

1:02:01Like it's more than I've ever seen a book giveaway. So that's at givetogrow.info. That's thing one. Thing two, go buy the book. So it's everywhere books are sold. It comes out August 27, 2024. So if this is after that, it's out. it somewhere. We just got, uh, AJ, this is cool. We just found out that we're in going to be an all four major airport bookstores. That's unheard of heavily promoted on the, you know, face out. Um, we're just getting tons of, uh, it's just the momentum is exceptional. So anywhere books are sold, sold, give to grow. People are going to love it. Well, Johnny and I have some cross country flights to get to, and I couldn't imagine how great it would be to sit with this book on a four or five hour flight, working through all of the sections in there and taking notes and dog-earing pages.

1:02:49So I encourage all of our audience to do that. Yes, they definitely should. It's a high recommend. Yeah. Didn't we say we should make a recommendation at the end of a give? So we'd be failing our audience if we didn't say buy the book, give to grow, emblaze it on your mind. Thank you, Mo. This is so much fun. Great having you. It was a blast. Thanks, guys. Johnny, AJ, I had high expectations. You exceeded them. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you.

1:03:24Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode as much as we have. And now comes a part of the show where we showcase one of our X Factor members. Take it away, Daniel. My name is Daniel and I'm a manufacturing engineer. My overall experience with the X Factor Accelerator program has been excellent due to effective teaching and a supportive community of like-minded individuals. Since joining, I've cultivated deeper connections with my friends, family, and colleagues by implementing the conversational techniques learned in the program. These deeper connections have made my life more fulfilling, both personally and professionally.

1:04:01I would recommend joining the X Factor Accelerator program because the excellent teaching and consistent accountability ensure you will grow into the person that you want to become. Daniel, it was a pleasure working with you too, and good luck with all your future pursuits. 95 % of your success or failure in life comes down to who you surround yourself with. David McClellan of Harvard did a 25-year study on the characteristics of highly motivated, successful people. The people you habitually associate yourself with determine the level of success you achieve. Who you let in your inner circle has a huge impact on your beliefs, your values, and your actions.

1:04:37Here's the kicker. We all have this reference group. Think of them as your personal board of directors. Surround yourself with winners and magic happens. Imagine transforming your everyday just by upgrading your tribe. We created a free mini course for Art of Charm listeners with our best networking strategies and mindsets. Social capital networking is not just another networking guide. It's your doorway to turning acquaintances into lasting connections. Real relationships that push you towards your goals, both personal and professional. Head over to theartofcharm.com slash SC to get your free mini course.

1:05:13If you've gotten value out of this or any of our podcasts, please head on over to your favorite podcast player and rate and review the show. It means the world to us and it helps others find the show. And before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery. Go out there and have an amazing, amazing week.

1:05:43You threw your love away Like it was just a toy And you sold the world You sold the world You sold the world You sold the world You sold the world You sold the world You sold the world You sold the world Cause you had your taste Of black on the yesterday Yeah, but I remember you Oh yeah, I remember you It was a bad day But I found it a wrong way

From the publisher

In today's episode, we explore the crucial mindset shift from doing the work to winning the work with Mo Bunnell, a renowned business growth expert and founder of the Bunnell Idea Group. With decades of experience helping organizations scale and thrive, Mo has dedicated his career to teaching professionals how to elevate their approach to relationship-building and business development. As the author of "The Snowball System: How to Win More Business and Turn Clients into Raving Fans" and host of the "Real Relationships, Real Revenue" podcast, Mo brings a wealth of knowledge on how small, consistent actions can lead to exponential growth in your career and business. 

Join us for an engaging conversation with Mo Bunnell, where he reveals the secrets to shifting from simply doing the work to winning the work in your career. How can you overcome the internal obstacles that hold you back from building meaningful relationships and growing your business? What are the small, consistent habits that can lead to exponential success over time? Mo shares his expert strategies on developing a winning mindset, the art of giving to grow, and the critical shifts in communication that can help you move from being a good performer to a top performer. Discover actionable insights to elevate your career, deepen your professional relationships, and unlock new opportunities in both your business and personal life.

What to Listen For
Introduction – 00:00:00

What inspired Mo Bunnell to focus on the mindset shift from doing the work to winning the work?

How has Mo’s extensive experience in business growth shaped his approach to relationship building and business development?

What key principles from "Give to Grow" can help you elevate your career and business relationships?

The Mindset Shift: Doing the Work vs. Winning the Work – 00:02:16

What is the crucial difference between doing the work and winning the work, and why is it essential for career growth?

How can you start thinking 10x, not 1x, to overcome internal fears and embrace opportunities?

What are the key habits that successful professionals use to transition from a delivery-focused mindset to a growth-oriented one?

Overcoming the Lies That Hold You Back – 00:13:47

What are the five common lies we tell ourselves that hinder our success in relationship building?

How can you identify and counteract these lies to maintain momentum in your career?

Why is it important to act through discomfort and rejection to achieve long-term success?

Integrating Relationship Development with Daily Work – 00:19:47

How can you seamlessly integrate relationship building into your daily tasks without feeling overwhelmed?

What are practical examples of small, consistent actions that can lead to significant career growth?

How can face-to-face interactions dramatically increase your chances of success in building relationships?

The Power of Giving to Grow – 00:31:39

What does it mean to “give to grow,” and how can this mindset transform your professional relationships?

How can you provide value even when you feel you have nothing to give?

What are the four types of gifts you can offer to deepen relationships and create opportunities?

Strategic Giving and Setting Boundaries – 00:43:38

How can you be a strategic giver without getting taken advantage of?

What are the boundaries you need to set to ensure that your giving leads to mutual growth?

How can asking for small commitments from others help you identify who’s worth investing in?

Building Habits for Long-Term Success – 00:51:47

How can you create routines and habits that naturally lead to winning the work?

What is the importance of maintaining a list of key opportunities and relationships, and how can this practice drive your success?

How can focusing on three most important things (MITs) each week create unstoppable momentum in your career?

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