Social Gravity | Social Intelligence Briefing

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1:15Johnny:You're the best engineer on your team. Everybody knows it. Your work is precise. Your solutions are solid. and you just watch somebody less capable than you walk into the promotion that should have been yours.

1:34AJ, I'm really excited about this episode. There's a lot that goes on with this and you guys at home have probably already recognized this situation. And if you have, listen up closely because there's a couple mindset hurdles that I'm going to help you get over in the setup of this so that you can understand what's happening in this episode so you can take on these skills and get the promotion. All right, so let's just go ahead and get started with that. Everybody's been in this situation. You've seen people around you and people that you probably don't even like or know that they're not as talented or as skilled as you get your promotion.

2:26And the first part of that, that stings is your internal self. It's an emotional sting. And your first thought, if you're a highly aware and you're analytical, your first thought is, am I being jealous? We've all had that. And if you're thinking that, am I being jealous? That's good. That's your highly self-aware. You're checking yourself before anything else. But then you start to think about it. And you're like, well, no. I mean, I see the mistakes being made. I've watched this person make mistake after mistake after mistake. And I've seen those mistakes well before anybody else has seen it.

3:11It's almost like I know it's coming. And the more this happens, the angrier you get because you know it's not about your skill, which you have prided yourself on to be good at what you do. So we're going to get you past that. All right. So now we see somebody getting our promotion. We know they're not the best in the room. We know we're not angry because we're jealous. We're angry because we know that was ours. We earned it. Our results are on the table. And that's why it burns different because it's not about work. It's about being seen.

3:55Johnny:And here's probably what you told yourself to survive it. Those people who got ahead, the ones who talk more, network more, seem to know everybody. That's all just performance. That's not real. That's just people being fake to get ahead. Okay, so here's the other mindset hurdle that we're going to get you over. AJ and I have been doing this for a very long time. About 20 years of experience now. And there's one thing that analytical people hate more than anything, and it's performance. Because they're built for skill. they're built on the work that they do it's not about performance it's about substance and that performing is almost the antithesis of everything that you have worked on and prided yourself on that's the antithesis of analytical thinking so it immediately creates an aversion If I'm going to be seen, if I'm going to get this promotion, then I need to perform.

5:04And that's why this tug of war gets started. So I'm going to help you guys get over that. This is where you have decided that you're not going to do that. You're not going to perform. That you are going to stay authentic. You are going to stay yourself.

5:23Johnny:And that felt like integrity until you actually realized that might be what's exactly holding you back. And that's what happened to an engineer that we worked with. And his mentor told him one thing that changed his entire game. So let's call him Mike. He was great at his job. Other people still got ahead because they were playing politics. And he wasn't going to play that game. He was just going to stay real and authentic. So he sat in meetings, quiet, prepared, and watched everyone else work the room and getting angry, watching all of this go down. He's thinking, well, these people are all performing.

6:05And here's the thing. When you're analytical, you have great pattern recognition. So you're watching these meetings. You're watching this go down every week. And you start to recognize the patterns. They all go the same. And AJ, you and I have been in a lot of meetings where we started calling this the same thing out as well. We know who's going to say what, where's the fight going to be. We're going to watch it go round and round. So this is the analytical person in the room catching the pattern recognition versus all of the performers running around in this emotional environment, getting sucked in.

6:44And the voyeurs, the other people who were just watching this are getting sucked in to the push pull of it.

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8:11Things we were not experts at, taken off our blade by people who are.

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9:06Johnny:And Mike's read was, they're fake. They're being someone like that just to get ahead. Right. Which meant, in his mind, he wanted to stay himself. I want to stay authentic. I can't do that. So he didn't. And this is the exact reframe that AJ and I have heard for 20 years now. Everyone who comes in, who wants this transformation, who wants these skills, are adamant about their authenticity. I hear it on every Zoom meeting. It's about integrity, their authenticity. And AJ, it was just a couple weeks ago that we talked on this podcast about how this idea of authenticity is great. We want you to be real.

9:55But what we don't want is this idea of authenticity keeping you from a new skill set.

10:02Johnny:Exactly. And Mike stayed authentic. He also stayed invisible. And then when the promotion came, the decision maker didn't think of him and his authenticity. And it wasn't because Mike wasn't capable of performing the new role. It's because nobody knew Mike even had an opinion because he tried not to perform in the room or play politics. That's right. The most prepared person in the room had become the most overlooked person in the room. So Mike got a mentor. He'd been in the industry longer, also super analytical, and also built his career on solid work like Mike. And Mike says to him one day, basically, how do I get ahead without becoming one of those people?

10:46That's right. And the mentor says something very simple. He said, being seen isn't about being this social butterfly. It's about being at the right places at the right times. And AJ, we call this strategic visibility.

11:06Johnny:That's it. Not being fake, more outgoing, more charismatic, not becoming everyone else. Just being where the actual decisions are being made is the key. And because Mike never heard this before, his first movie was like, oh, that's really nice and all, but I got real work to do. He just shrugged it off because to him, it couldn't be that simple. Yeah, Mike's like, that sounds great, but that's not how the world works. You got to perform. You got to be this over top charismatic person. So he nods to his mentor and says thanks and then just goes back to his work. That's right. Dismissed. Move on.

11:43Johnny:Now, two weeks go by. Nothing changes for Mike. Then another meeting happens. Another decision gets made in a room without his participation. Now he's sitting at his desk afterward and he remembers what his mentor said. Not as advice this time, but this time it's he's asking himself the question. What if my mentor is right? So Mike actually pays attention in the next meeting. Not to participate just yet, but just to watch a bit more closely. When is the real decision happening? Where is the room's attention actually going? And the fun part is Mike has already seen these patterns in these meetings a hundred times.

12:22That's why he's upset. That's why he's getting mad. So he sees it and then recognizes there is this moment where the meetings, they always start circling. This is the drama and the push-pull that everybody gets sucked into. And nobody knows what they're actually deciding. It's just going around and around and around.

12:45Johnny:Then Mike does something different. So instead of sitting there quietly, he actually doesn't wait. He just opens his mouth and he says, OK, so I'm hearing three different things here. Let me make sure I've got this right. And then he named the three things that were actually on the table in the meeting. That's right. This is the first step. He organized the room and he did it out loud. Then he said, what we're really deciding here is between speed or cost. And unfortunately, we can't get both. So what is actually sitting in front of us? And there you go. Now he said the quiet part out loud. And then finally, he made his recommendation in one sentence.

13:22Johnny:Given the timeline, I'd go with speed. That's it. Three steps. Name what's on the table. So organizing the room. Say what's actually being decided, the quiet part out loud, and then make your proposed path. And notice what happened next. They didn't argue with him. Everyone in the room actually agreed and the decision finally got made. So instead of sitting there while these things are going round and round and everyone else gets to puff their chest out and put in their two cents, he organized the room in a way that the decision finally had traction. Because Mike did the one thing that nobody else in the room did, he made the fog clear.

14:05Johnny:And here's the best part. He didn't perform. He didn't become someone else. He just understood the one thing that his mentor was actually trying to tell him. Right. Being seen isn't being louder or more outgoing. It's about understanding where the attention naturally flows, where the real work is happening and then placing himself there. We call that social gravity. It's not a force that you create by performing or faking or pretending. It's a force that you understand is happening and then you position yourself in it. Yeah, the room's attention was already moving. Mike just positioned himself where it was going to go.

14:52That's it.

14:53Johnny:He didn't fake it. He didn't perform. He just understood the physics of the actual room and then put himself in the middle of it. And the room responded, not because he was fake, but because he was real and strategic at the same time. So what does he do next? Well, he actually now starts looking for that exact moment in every meeting. Where is the fog? Where are we circling? Where are we going back and forth? Where is the attention actually going? And then how can I just make it crystal clear? Right. And then something shifts. He's not in more meetings. He's still the same engineer, but now the room knows he's thinking strategically.

15:36Now people know that he will have a position. Now he's not just executing, he's directing.

15:43Johnny:And that's where the real change actually happens, because strategic people get asked into decisions early. Executors get asked after the decisions already been made. Mike went from watching the room to framing the room without becoming somebody else. Now, framing decisions is one skill. It's one piece of something bigger that we call strategic visibility. It's got a few layers underneath it that most people just don't understand. That's right. How you build that reputation across rooms you're not even in. And how you hold it when somebody's actually trying to take your seat. and how you do it all without ever becoming somebody you're not.

16:25Johnny:Now, that's more than a 15-minute podcast. That's the system that we put together, and we built this to teach it to you. It's called Theos. But here's your homework. One meeting this week, somewhere in the middle of it, that circling we just talked about when things are a bit spiraling, do what Mike did. That's right. Name what's on the table. Name what's actually being decided and then propose one path. Don't do it at the beginning. Wait for the actual fog. Then be the one who cuts through it and clears it. And after the meeting, notice who the room looks at the next time a decision needs to happen.

17:05That's the social gravity working in your favor.

17:09Johnny:This is exactly why we built DIOS, the elite operator system. The same training we've been giving elite military and special operators for 12 years. We just launched it for you, our listeners. That's right. Eight weeks, 18 meta skills, framing decisions is one small piece of all of them. Theus teaches you this whole system, how to understand where attention flows, how to position yourself there and how to do it without ever having to become somebody else. So you can read the room, you can understand the physics and you can position yourself strategically like Mike. And then the world starts treating you like someone who actually belongs in the decision making.

17:46That's right. first cohort is 15 people, just 15 application-based, which means we pick them. So if you watch someone else less capable, get that promotion that you earned, well, that's the sign we're looking for.

17:59Johnny:Apply. The link is in the show notes. Stop watching the room, actually start framing it. And we'll teach you the rest.