The Art of Charm Best Of 2024

26:04Apologize at least a few times a week. Oh, sorry. I didn't see this earlier. Yeah. So people are like, yeah, you know, okay, I don't always hear right back. So maybe when the next small thing comes up, you're not going to send the cow. I'm going to send it over to someone else. Yeah. Having some, demonstrating that you're not a great Swiss Army knife is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you can then back it up with a really good carving knife. From there, we turn to Charles Duhigg, who mastered the art of habits and communication. communication. Here's Charles on how communication ties into building better habits.

26:43About a decade ago, I wrote this book, The Power of Habit, right? And it's about how we build habits in our lives and how we can improve our habits. And I started hearing from readers who were saying, I, you know, I, I used what you, you, what you wrote about and it's sort of, it's been revolutionary, but a lot of my life and a lot of my success is dependent on working with other people. And so my question is, how do I change their habits? Like how do I make them be better, which of course is not really a question anyone can answer. And then I actually had this thing happen in my own life, which is I fell into this pattern with my wife where I'd come home from work and it would be like a long day and I'd be complaining about my boss.

27:19And she very reasonably would offer some advice. She'd say like, why don't you take them out to lunch and you can get to know each other better. And instead of being able to hear what she was saying, I would get even more upset. And I'd be like, what, you're supposed to have my back and you're supposed to be outraged on my behalf, and then she would get upset that I was upset. And so I wanted to figure out what's going on here. If other people are so important to us and to our success and to our happiness, what is it about communication that sometimes gets in the way of really connecting with other folks?

27:47So this brings up a great point before we dive into the meat of the book, but I am curious. of you've wrote these great books on all these topics that we benefit greatly of having a better understanding. So with each book, how has your habits or your daily routines changed with the research that you do for these books? Oh, pretty significantly. Like I actually, I mean, honestly, the reason I write the books is because I basically want an excuse to call experts and ask them for advice. And so every single time I write a book, it's because I can't figure out something for myself and I really want to get better at it.

28:32And luckily, there's people who are studying it, right? And if I just called and said, hey, will you be my personal therapist? They would say no. But if I say I'm writing a book, then they say, okay, now I'll talk to you. And it has been revolutionary. I mean, honestly, since writing Super Communicators, the way that I communicate has completely changed for the better. It's really gotten a lot easier to connect with people now. What's fascinating is when we talk about preparation, we're talking about seven to ten seconds of work. So there was this experiment that was done at this investment bank where this was a place where people screamed at each other all day long.

29:03There were fights constantly. And these researchers came in and they said, okay, look, for the next week what we want you to do is before every single meeting, everyone needs to write down just one sentence on an index card. Write down what you hope to accomplish in this meeting and what mood you hope to establish. And so people would take this, and it literally took seven seconds. People would just scribble something down, they'd shove it in their pocket, then they'd go into the meeting. Nobody ever told anyone else what they had written. Nobody ever said, well, I want us all to be happy. But the incidence of conflict went down by 80 % that week in those meetings.

29:38And it's because people knew for themselves what they wanted to get across and what their aspiration was for how this meeting's going to go. think about how often we walk into a meeting and we haven't spent that seven seconds writing a sentence we walk into a meeting and we're like I'm not sure what I want out of this I'm going to let other people set the tone if we just take a second and we're like look here's the thing I'd like to come out of this with I want to know what the questions are we need to address and I know that this is a tense time but I want everyone to remember that we're on the same team if you just take four to seven seconds and tell yourself that that meeting is going to go better but it's a habit we have to get into Now let's talk about leadership.

30:19Mo Banel joined us to discuss how to shift from doing the work to winning the work, a mindset every leader needs to master. 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. One 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.

30:56They'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. When 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.

31:31Other 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. The things that made you successful to be an expert are not necessarily are the things that'll make you successful in developing relationships.

32:04And you need to be able to toggle between the right mindset and moves. And no leadership discussion is complete without diving into high performance. Eric Potter and Alan Eagle share their principles of mental discipline inspired by Navy SEALs. Eric came and gave a talk at Google in May of, I believe it was 2021, three years ago. And I was working at Google at the time. We were home due to COVID. And I wasn't sure if I was going to go to this talk, but my wife said, yeah, that sounds pretty interesting. You should go. And I was just fascinated by how he talked about performance principles, but it was all based on his hands-on experience of working with a wide variety of people.

32:50And I just thought it was really interesting. And I had written a couple previous books, How Google Works and Trillion Dollar Coach. So we're sort of itching for a third project anyway, and here we are. Yeah, I think Alan mailed me a copy of The Trillion Dollar Coach, and I consumed it in one evening and really liked the writing style. I've been entertaining for years in my mind about maybe doing a book. So then we met, and we just kind of seemed to hit it off on the personality side. And I knew it was a matter of time. I just wasn't sure when it was, But I wanted to kind of get a message out about, you know, a 30-year career working with about 25 ,000 of the world's best performers and learned principles and working with these men and women that I thought could be very actionable and applicable to, you know, the population as a whole.

33:36And what drew you to performance psychology, Eric? So, you know, I got an undergrad degree in psychology and biology from UC Davis, took time off and kind of backpacked through Europe and then got into a PhD program. and I was kind of the standard clinical psychologist. You know, I wasn't focusing on performance as much then. My job was then to make people who didn't feel well feel better, as it were. And then I took an internship with the U.S. Navy, and that's when life changed for me. My intent was just to kind of do the residency, if you will, or the internship and then the obligated three-year payback.

34:13And the opportunities that presented themselves were literally mind-blowing. You know, we'd lived in Spain for a while and I got to work, unpacking the book a little bit, the NASA program. And then the world changed, right? 9-11 occurred. And because of my interest areas, my research background, I really shifted from more of a clinician to more performance-based and went to SEER school, worked there in survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. And then what really kind of drew most of my interest was working for my last 10 years in the Navy as the head clinical and performance psychologist for the Navy SEALs.

34:50So that's when I was kind of sharpening that skill set, as it were. And that's what I knew performance psychology was much more interesting to me. No disrespect to the clinical side. Been there, done that. But I was much more interested in taking incredible men and women and making them even better and doing it empirically. As the weather finally cools down, I'm swapping in the pieces that actually get the job done. Warm, durable, and built to last. And Quince delivers every time. Quince has all the fall staples you actually want to wear on repeat, like 100 % Mongolian cashmere sweater starting at just$60, classic fit denim, and real leather and wool outerwear that looks sharp and holds up.

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38:04You wanna get it done today. You wanna do it all. So, wanna drive? CarMax. Pickup not available everywhere. Restrictions and fee may apply. Now, when it comes to overcoming challenges, Ross White delivered incredible insights about psychological flexibility. Here's what he had to say. I trained to be a clinical psychologist at the University of Glasgow back in the early noughties, showing my age here. But yeah, it was very much focused on cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, which is, of course, a highly evidence-based approach and the one that is very much endorsed by organizations like the British Psychological Society that influence the practice of professional clinical psychologists in the UK.

38:52But as I drew to the end of my training, I got interested in what are called third wave psychological interventions, which build on the cognitive behavioral traditions, but those include mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, compassion-focused therapy. And it was really through learning more about mindfulness and training actually to be a mindfulness teacher that I started to learn about acceptance and commitment therapy. I just loved the focus on the values. And at that stage, I was working in an early intervention service for young people with psychosis, so quite pronounced mental health difficulties.

39:34And it was such a lovely conversation to have with young people about what matters to you. How do you want to be in the world, which was a real shift away from the more problem focused questions that a lot of interaction with mental health professionals tended to focus on. So I saw the value in the work and I also saw the relevance of it in my own life, right? You know, getting in touch with my own sense of purpose and my personal values and seeing difficult thoughts and difficult feelings as almost like the price of admission for trying to be true to those things that matter to me in life. So yeah, I just loved it from the outset.

40:16And I think then when I'm practicing it with clients, it comes through with so much more authenticity because I understand the application of it in my own life. Absolutely. And I think for many in our audience, they view themselves as high performers, maybe not a traditional patient of yours, but understanding the impact that we're seeing on social media and online, the rise of this thought around grit and resilience and tough it out and mental toughness. And we've had a number of guests on the show talk about the importance of those exact things can actually be detrimental to performance. And I'd love for you to unpack that for our audience, because I think many of us have fallen into that trap of viewing ourselves critically when we don't have the grit or resilience or the mental toughness to push through.

41:02Right. And that's a big motivation for me in writing the book, The Tree That Bends. It came out a couple of months ago. And yeah, I'm a frustrated sportsman. And I think I look back at my involvement in sport when I was growing up, particularly, and see that my psychology was a bit of a barrier. I'll own that, right? My mindset maybe wasn't where it needed to be. And it's interesting to think, well, what draws you to your professional life? so maybe I train to be a clinical psychologist to help understand my own psychology and then benefit others as well but that's a real passion of mine working with high performance individuals whether that be business executives or elite level athletes and yeah I'm very much interested in this no limits and be relentless do more to be more suck it up kind of mentality and how problematic that potentially is.

41:59And I'm particularly interested in this concept of thriving, which is a word we use, right, in everyday language. But in sports psychology and performance psychology, it's really come to the fore in recent years. And it is defined as the ability to both perform well and feel well. Okay. So it's that idea of excel, but feel well. It's about breaking through without breaking you. And that really motivated me to write the book because I believe that idea of no limits needs to give way to know your limits, right? Because we all have limits, whether it's time, whether it's resource, whether it's mental fortitude, whether it's attention, there are limits and we have to work flexibly within those and concepts like grit and to an extent mental toughness have really increased in popularity over the last couple of decades and grit certainly has its place but I think one of the things that grit does is that it prioritizes persistence above adaptability so I could persistently bang my head up against the brick wall.

43:17And it's not going to do my head much good. And it's probably not going to do the wall that much good either. And the fact of the matter is there may well be a door in the wall that I could walk through. There could be the end of the wall that I could walk around. So I need to have the flexibility and adaptability to change up if the strategies I'm using aren't actually delivering if they're not effective, if they're not functional in that way. So yeah, I'm quite intrigued about the role that psychological flexibility can play in this space. And James Doty shared his personal journey through imposter syndrome and how self-awareness can help us face our inner challenges.

44:05A lot of people don't realize is that they give their agency away. And what happens is so many people are looking for some sort of outside intervention that's going to make everything better or in some ways be magical and everything changes in their life. And in fact, as you know from the first line of the book, the universe doesn't give a fuck about you. And because there are no fucks to give. And so part of the book is, one, so many people, especially young people, don't know the difference between what they think they want and what they need. And the other was what I was just mentioning is that so many people are waiting for something in the universe to either guide them or give them what they think they want or need.

45:02And so both of those things actually disempower you. So one aspect of this is to make you learn the difference. And, you know, in Western capitalist society, the narrative is that if you make money, have power, position, that suddenly you're going to be happy. And, of course, that's a false narrative. And as a result, people get those things and they're miserable. And I can tell you from my own experience, having, you know, gone to medical school, become a neurosurgeon, become a successful entrepreneur, you know, I would climb each of these mountains, if you will. And then I would get at the top and I would wait for magic to happen.

45:52And I'm now whole. I don't have any shame. I'm not insecure. I'm not an imposter. And in fact, nothing changed. and I still had that sense of emptiness. And so the question is, how do you fill that emptiness? And this has sort of been my own personal journey. As you may know from my first book, I talk about my own personal background. And all of us who we are today is a manifestation to some extent of our past. And as a result, a lot of people don't appreciate actually the baggage that they carry, which impacts relationships, decisions they make, how they interact with others. And as a result, that creates unhappiness because they don't understand that baggage is influencing every action they take.

46:53Finally, let's talk about living with purpose. Jodi Wellman encouraged us to confront our mortality to live a more meaningful life. I've been involved in, let's say, the traditional helping professions, like you guys. I was coaching for 10 years after leadership and working in development. About 198 years ago, I started my career as a personal trainer, but those days have long since passed, let me tell you. I'm always interested in how do we live life a little bit better? You know, how do we make the most of it? And so positive psychology was just a natural extension of that, right? It's like, well, how could I just, you know, learn more about the study of well-being and what makes us thrive?

47:36So that part wasn't obvious, but the little like the morbid twist, you know, this whole topic about mortality as a motivator, that was, that does not usually sit firmly in positive psychology, but I just couldn't deny it. That it was just a, it was a fascinating topic for me that I couldn't stop thinking about and then therefore needed to, you know, focus on for the rest of my life. I think most of us try to avoid thinking about death. Was there something in particular that led to that thought process for you? Yeah, well, first of all, yeah, you're totally not alone, right? Like, it's one of the biggest taboos that we just don't want to talk about.

48:12And I get it. Like, I respect that not everybody is as scintillated by the idea as I am. But I think, you know, I've always found it fascinating that we are working hard to enjoy life. And then all of a sudden, it's just going to mysteriously end. That always did intrigue me. And as, you know, I think, Michael, you know, my mom died early, like in her 50s, late 50s. And I became so exposed through that process of this concept of coulda, shoulda, what is. like this idea that we have ideas for ourselves, you know, businesses we might want to start or plans or dreams, things we want to do. And that, you know, we actually have to take action on them because you might die and when you might die early and then live a life that, you know, if you were going to give yourself marks at the end, not that I believe we do that when we die, but that, man, like, did I squander my time?

49:11So that, like, that literally shook me to the core because my mom did die with a bunch of those could have, should have, would have at least as, you know, I perceive and I know she admitted to it too as she got, you know, closer to the end. So yeah, I just want us to live squander-free lives. Yeah. And you address this dilemma early on in your book where we as humans, just generally, we, on one side, we take everything we have for granted forever. On the other side, we put things off because tomorrow is another day. And then lastly, we want to live life to the fullest. And those three things just, they don't fit into the same drawer.

49:48Like that there's, there's quite a dilemma there. There is. And I'm always fascinated by this notion that like, what was it, Nietzsche? Like man is the only animal that needs to be encouraged to live. So, and we're so complicated, right? Like on one hand, we're like, yeah, I've got a bucket list. And it's like, is it a bunch of bullshit though? Like, do we, are we really going to take action on it if what we're doing is just marking it down? And there's some research that I find fascinating that when we sometimes indulge for a quick second in a goal or a dream we have for ourselves, we get just satisfied enough to then do nothing about it.

50:20Like it feels like just enough of a feel good, you know, and then we're like, okay, yeah, yeah, I'm going to do that. And then you go and you like answer emails versus being like, no, but really, like if I knew my time was limited, oh, like it is, or if I really did the math, cause you guys know, I like to count how many Mondays we have left. Like, could that be the thing that actually makes me go, dude, like you're going to need to take this seriously because you might not even have that many Mondays if I'm just being like super morbid about it. I mean, obviously we might get more. I should be optimistic.

50:50And we close with Jeff Wetzler, who explained the power of asking better questions to deepen our relationships and find purpose. It starts with a problem that I think is very pervasive and also very painful, which is the fact that all of us are surrounded by people in our lives whether our coworkers, our investors, clients, customers, friends, who know things. They have ideas, experiences, feedback for us, stories that they could tell us that would be incredibly beneficial for us to hear. But so often, they don't actually tell us what they're really thinking and feeling. And that comes at a huge cost.

51:34Because without that information, we don't make decisions that are as good as they could be. We don't collaborate as well. We waste time. We don't innovate. We stay distanced in our relationships. And so the thing that motivated me to do this is that I've personally experienced this problem and I have seen this problem everywhere, literally with so many different people. But also I've been very fortunate in my life and my career to have had a chance to work alongside thought leaders and mentors who have offered a set of tools and ideas for what we can do about this problem. And over time, I've been able to both integrate them into my own work, but teach them to other people and just seeing how game-changing they can be.

52:14And I wanted to pay it forward. I love that. And a recent guest on our show, Nicholas Epley, talked about our inability to read people's minds as well as we think we can. So oftentimes we assume that we know what the unsaid is because we're basing it on our own experiences and our own perspective. But in actuality, that unsaid is a huge mystery to us that keeps us from the connection, the relationships that we'd love to develop. And what I love about the book is there's so many straightforward strategies, frameworks, and examples for us to utilize to start to unpack the unsaid. But I know for many in our audience, they want to know, why aren't people saying this?

52:53Why are we holding onto this information and withholding? Yes, and just to say, I love the work of Nick Epley. And what I was particularly intrigued by in his work is the fact that he discovered that some of the most common advice that we get on how to understand other people, things like try to read their body language or try to put yourself in their shoes, it just doesn't work. You're no better off than Chance if you do that. And there's literally only one thing that works that his research documents, which is to ask them. And so that, you know, we'll talk more about that. But to your question, why don't people tell us?

53:29I've been obsessed with this question. And in my research for the book, I've uncovered several big causes and factors. One of them, And I think the most significant one is that people are worried about the impact of saying what they have to say. They are worried that it could hurt us. It could burden us. It could offend us. It could expose them for what they don't know. It could put tension into our relationships. All of those are fears that they have about the impact of what they could have to say. That's one reason. A second reason is they literally don't know we care. They have no idea that we're actually interested and wanting to know what they have to say.

54:03And so they kind of assume that we don't. What a year it's been. We hope you enjoyed this journey through some of our favorite moments. Each guest brought unique wisdom that we're honored to share with you. And as we head into 2025, remember to stay curious, keep learning, and most importantly, take action on what you've learned. Make it a great year. Thank you for joining us at the Art of Charm. We'll see you in the new year.

54:36We hope you guys got a lot of value out of that episode as we did. And now comes the part of the show where we showcase one of our X Factor Accelerator members. Take it away, Tammy. Hey, everybody. This is Tammy. And as a retail business owner, the old saying, you know, it's lonely at the top. It's true. I joined X Factor because I wanted to be in a group of people who were kind of on the same level that I was, who were trying to live their best lives. and it has been an amazing community to be a part of. I am an X factor with people who are really trying to create their best future and their best lives.

55:13And I highly recommend the program to anybody who's thinking about it. I don't think that you'll ever regret it. To invest in yourself is the best investment you can make. Thank you, Tammy. It was a pleasure working with you too and good luck to all your future endeavors. If you've listened this far, you're probably somebody who understands the value building meaningful connections and expanding your network. Well, do we have something special for you today? Imagine a world-class networking program that helps you grow your social capital, not just through random handshakes and business cards, but through your general interests and core values.

55:46Introducing the social capital training, your gateway to mastering the art of authentic networking. Whether you're a professional looking to climb the career ladder, an entrepreneur seeking partnerships, or just somebody who wants to enhance their social skills, our free social capital training is designed for you. It's not about collecting contacts. It's about cultivating connections that matter. What makes our program stand out? We focus on leveraging your unique interests and values to create powerful, lasting relationships. Ready to take your networking game to the next level? Head on over to theartofcharm.com slash SC and watch your free social capital training today.

56:24Don't miss out on this opportunity to transform your social life. That's theartofcharm.com slash SC for your free social capital training. Elevate your network. Elevate your life with social capital. If you've gotten value out of this or any of our podcasts, 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. Before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery. Until next week, go out there and make it an epic one.

57:25Yeah, but I remember you Oh, yeah, I remember you It was a better, better, better Better, better, better