The High Value Effect | Toolbox

0:28You know why you're tired all the time? talking or even using my camera. Stuff is built to intake information quickly in whatever form you think in and turn it into actionable tasks right away. Lists and stuff are built like completable projects. So that book you want to write, that business you want to start, or that trip you want to plan starts to take form inside stuff, step by step. The magic is it gets exponentially more powerful the more you feed into it. Download stuff today. Start brain dumping and organizing your tasks and feel the freedom of an uncluttered brain. Download stuff for free today by going to trystuff.app.

1:04That's T-R-Y-S-T-U-F-F dot A-P-P. Or simply by searching stuff, S-T-U-F-F in the app store and to enjoy everything stuff has to offer. You can get 50 % off your first year of extra stuff by using code charm at checkout. Get stuff done and start closing your open loops. Download stuff from the app store today. High value people go out of their way to look for opportunities to take on responsibility because high value people want control of a situation because if it's not to their liking, they're able to change it. Or low value people will go out of their way to give up responsibility so that when things go wrong, they can point the finger.

1:54So there are your options. Do you want control and power? Or do you want to just leave it up to hope as a strategy? 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. We distill thousands of hours of research into the most effective tools and the latest science so you can start winning today.

2:30Let'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. You shouldn't have to settle for anything less than extraordinary.

3:04Welcome back to the Art of Charm podcast. Let's kick off today's show. Last week, we discussed low-value behaviors and how to identify them. This week, Johnny and I are going to discuss how to become high-value. And here's what we can do to make that happen. Even the highest value people have bad days where they exhibit low value behaviors. How do you know when this is an exception and not the rule? We also discuss how we can use the 80-20 principle to make sure we're not judging ourselves or others too harshly. Why honesty makes a great gauge for sorting out high value from low value people. How we can become high value people in our lives once we freed up our social circle from its low value dead weight.

3:42And what we can do in the workplace to lead with value no matter what our role happens to be. This idea of being cooperative, I think for a lot of us, it is worrisome because we feel that other people can take advantage of our kindness and generosity and then it can actually set us up to fail. And again, Adam Grant discussed this in detail in his book, Give and Take, one of our favorite books and one of our favorite guests on the podcast. And his research really backed up a lot of what we've been preaching over the last 10 years, which is being cooperative, yes, is being vulnerable. It sets you in a position where people can take advantage of you, but the return on that investment of cooperativity far outweighs any disadvantages you would find from people taking advantage of you being generous.

4:31I think what also adds to the troublesome idea is that you usually find cooperative behavior after being taken advantage of, right? So like you try things one way, it doesn't work. You swing the other way, it doesn't work. And so you're like, where's the middle ground? Or what is my true worth? Like where, how do I act in this world? What is the best way for me to go about it that causes paths of least resistance? It allows me to be happy and it doesn't set up roadblocks in front of me. You know, I, for myself, I had to go try many different things before I had gotten here. You realize that being nice to everybody gets you taken advantage of.

5:15You realize that being combative puts roadblocks and makes everything difficult for you. So it's stumbling around to what's the best way to go about this. And as we discussed, cooperative is not really the middle road of those. It's a totally different thing. And let's be honest, a lot of those low value behaviors actually make you feel bad. They make you feel bad internally. They make you do things that allows other people to think poorly of you. So those low value behaviors, the reason we highlight them first is because when we are being cooperative, we are going to attract both low value and high value people.

5:54It's your job to facilitate and formulate, okay, what are the low value behaviors that people are exhibiting? And is this a pattern to all of their behavior? Maybe I should not be cooperative with them if they are simply a taker. But at the same time, the flip side of that is you cannot attract high quality, high value individuals without being a person who is cooperative, who looks to help other people first. It doesn't happen that way. If you only interact with people in these low value ways of begging, taking, one upping the other person, over time, high value people run away from you, it repels them.

6:35So if you want to build quality relationships, you have to understand that investing in other people, putting other people ahead of yourself is the only way to truly facilitate and get those dividends out of those relationships. So let's talk about what we mean by being cooperative. Because again, it starts with a mindset and we're going to run down some behaviors that you're going to see in people who are high value so that you have a better understanding of what we truly mean by being cooperative. Yes. And as I was mentioning earlier, it's a different road, not a road in the middle, but a completely different one.

7:10So where a supplicative is about begging for attention, approval, acceptance, being combative is about taking value by putting others down and being in their face about it. Competitive competes for attention, approval, acceptance. We're now going to give it. We're now looking for opportunities to give attention, approval, and acceptance to allow those around us to feel really good about ourselves. And we have to think about ourselves at the center of our network. And so how we behave starts to build paths in which way we can move. If I'm the center of my network and I'm using combative behavior and I'm moving in a certain direction.

7:53All the people in that direction start to then become stiffened on their positions or how to deal with me. And I'm putting up hurdles in this path. So now if I'm going to give value and attention, approval and acceptance, I'm allowing those people to feel really good about themselves. They're opening doors for me. And now I can move in that direction without hurdles, without walls. And the amazing thing about opening those doors, a lot of these doors are invisible to us. They're not clearly articulated opportunities that we're aiming for. These are doors that you don't even realize because kindness develops trust, influence, and ultimately builds rapport.

8:34Being generous with your time, with your thoughts, with your skill set, helping other people actually fosters that trust and builds the influence that you're looking for. And the crazy part about that is when you've built that trust, these doors that were hidden are now open. And these people who maybe you didn't even originally realize that they had that role in life or that they had these opportunities for them, they're going to open them for you because you've built trust through kindness. And when we talk about being cooperative, it starts with that mindset of thinking of the other people in your life as awesome.

9:11Stop being so judgmental and so negative of people. Understanding that if you celebrate other people, you're going to get that celebration back. The reciprocity that you're going to feel from allowing other people around you to feel good, well, that's an amazing feeling. And understanding that if we start by focusing on people's positives and we look for opportunities to help people instead of immediately building up these walls and looking for ways to cut them down, we've now opened these doors to new paths that allow us to get what we're looking for much faster. Once you start putting this out there, you'll be able to see your world change rather fast if you give it a real college effort.

9:53In program, I always talk about this challenge of 30 days of going out of your way to give value indiscriminately, just machine gun it out to everyone you come in contact with without thinking, and we'll get into this a little bit later, about what they can do for you. We're just going to give value out. And you will be surprised that if you do this for 30 days, just how different your world becomes. We talk about the easiest form of value to give someone. Even if you don't have a skill set, an expertise, a network that can help them, the easiest thing you can give someone else when it comes to value is simply your attention.

10:31And in today's day and world, everyone is on their phone when everyone is addicted to social media and they are less engaged than ever, if you can be that engaged listener who just sits there and doesn't even offer advice, doesn't try to fire back with, you should do this or you should do that, but just listens to people, giving them your full attention, that is the easiest way to become a high value person and to showcase to other people that they matter to you. And that's a huge win, absolutely. So I know a lot of times when we discuss this in class and when we've talked about this online and some of our articles, you know, people fire back, hey, AJ, I don't have this great network.

11:10I don't have all these experts that I can just give out to friends and share my connections or, you know, I'm not experienced. So how can I really offer anyone some advice? And it's taking a step back and going, well, why do you have to go that far? It can be simply giving someone attention. How easy is this when, as you mentioned, everyone's looking to what can I do? And the easiest thing, you're just giving them that attention. and it takes all the pressure on saying the right thing that so many people get bogged down with. Yeah, everyone can get in their head wondering, well, what's the best response to this?

11:46And a lot of times it's not about the response at all. It's just about being present and being a good listener that offers that value. And again, allows people to feel good. Think about that for a second. In those moments where you're out with your friends at dinner and your friend is just incessantly checking his phone and you're telling a story, how does that make you feel? It makes you feel terrible. It makes you feel like you don't matter. It makes you feel like your friend doesn't care. Even though your friends do care about you, that feeling sits with you. And over time in relationships, whether it's with a spouse, significant other, or through friendship, we can build resentment of the other person if we feel that they're not responding, they're not engaged, they don't seem to care about what's going on in our lives.

12:31The other part about this, again, going for these easy wins to give someone else value is acknowledgement and some genuine compliments. Think about all the effort that you put into your appearance, that you put into your hobbies, that you put into your job, right? And when you go to social media and you post, hey, I just got this promotion or hey, I just booked this trip. You're something you're so excited about. What is the best feeling in the world? Well, when someone acknowledges you, when someone appreciates you and says, oh, great work. That's incredible. We're so proud of you. You've done a great job in your career.

13:05Those little moments, right? Again, this is not a significant amount of investment of time and energy here. It's so small, but it's something that you have to do. It's not going to happen on its own. So you have to make a conscious decision to do that. And we're talking about genuine compliments here. We're not talking about surface level. Oh, your hair looks great or, hey, you look good today. Those are throwaway compliments that don't have an impact. The compliments we're talking about are the compliments where you know that the other person put a lot of effort and energy specifically into some result, and you're celebrating that result.

13:38You're celebrating that personality trait about them. You're celebrating that high value behavior about them. That's what we're looking for when we talk about genuine compliments. And we do an exercise in bootcamp to help elucidate. The easiest way to form genuine compliments is to form the compliments around stuff you already value. Understanding what you value about yourself, whether it's loyalty, honesty, integrity, being tenacious in business, whatever the case may be, when you identify your own values and then you celebrate other people for having those values, those are really impactful compliments.

14:11I think also that we tend to neglect and not put much importance into the simple things and make everything so difficult. It's like what you're wearing and we can think, well, it's not a big deal it's just a shirt i bought it's just a jeans i bought you committed to purchasing them for a reason and you still own them for a reason and you're wearing them today for a reason i have tons of stuff that i don't wear that sits in my closet there's a reason that those don't get any attention and other clothes do and so so if i get the compliment of i dig your shoes it's just like oh well thank you very much there is something tied that's why i'm wearing them and you have awesome shoes, by the way, I'm not going to lie.

14:55Your boot wardrobe is on fleek. So what we're talking about here is giving the compliment to the effort and energy behind the action, the intention. It doesn't have to just be celebrating results. I think a lot of times when we think about compliments, we're like, oh, you know, this person's trying to lose weight, but they haven't really lost the weight. Or this person went for this position and they didn't get the position? How can I still celebrate them? Celebrate effort and energy. That is where the magic happens. If someone's putting time and energy behind the weight loss, someone's putting time and energy behind their wardrobe decisions, someone's putting time and energy behind the skill set being gained in their career, et cetera, celebrating that.

15:36And, you know, it's funny because we often ask this during boot camp, a show of hands, how many of your friends know you're here and know you're working on this. And everyone often looks around the room and tentatively is like, ah, you know, I didn't really talk about that. Because a lot of us don't have high value friends who are willing to celebrate our effort and energy. They're not willing to celebrate our growing. They're not willing to celebrate us working on ourselves. So unfortunately, because of that, we often don't reciprocate. We find that we're not getting celebration. So we're like, oh, well, why celebrate them?

16:07If you are the first person to act, if you are the first person to take that step forward and say, listen, I'm going to celebrate the effort and energy my friends are putting out into the world, you'd be amazed at how that can change the entire dynamic of your friendship. And that sort of encouragement is addictive. It can affect the whole thing to where all of a sudden you've, which we're going to be talking about a bit, how you've put together a social circle that thrives on support and encouragement. And when that happens, you will find yourself doing things easily that you've been afraid or maybe even felt impossible in the past.

16:45And you talk about magic. There's magic in that. Absolutely. When we're celebrating the people around us, empowering them to take more action, to lean in and feel good about themselves, the impact that we have on our circle is incredible. And then the reciprocity that comes from that being celebrated and being in a supportive social environment allows you to take on even bigger challenges and confront even bigger demons. And that's what we're talking about here. But of course, this starts with active listening. This starts with setting your phone down. This starts with not being so engaged with online and being more focused on in real life in person.

17:27And I know for me here in LA, I have some good relationships, but I also have a lot of friends back home in Michigan and in New York. And it can be difficult when your friends are thousands of miles away to stay invested in their lives and celebrate what's going on. But these are important investments. And just the simple act of picking up the phone and listening to what's going on in your friend's life, being engaged and caring about the other people in your life, even if you don't see them very often, is a way to continue to nurture that friendship through that cooperativity. I know in the past when my friends were having problems or issues.

18:05It's very easy when you're so focused on yourself to get cold about that and think, I can't deal with that right now. I need to be focusing on me. You're on your own. If we continue to do that in those moments that we're feeling those things ourselves, then we're going to find ourselves out in the cold. And the flip side of that is I know how difficult it can be when you're struggling with something, when life is handing you lemons and you're not happy to celebrate your friends who are getting the breaks, who are succeeding, who are getting their dreams fulfilled. It can be difficult when you feel like, oh, the weight of the world is against you.

18:40And right now you don't feel that you're appreciative of anything in your life. It can be difficult then for you to go out and appreciate other people's lives. But that's what we're talking about here. The more you can appreciate other people, the more you can be cooperative of their successes and what's going on in their life, the more that you're gonna get that back in those moments when you need it, Those moments where you could use an attaboy, you can use a pat on the back. That's the great part about social media. I know we've bashed on social media a lot, so we'll probably get some emails from Facebook and Twitter to cut it out.

19:09But the other amazing part about these social media sites is they're a great tool to allow you to follow your friends' lives and be more engaged, right? And what we're huge proponents of is celebrating those mile markers in your friends' lives. So when they post, hey, I got engaged. Hey, I proposed to my girlfriend. and hey, I just got this new job on Facebook. Hop on the phone, call them, schedule a time to celebrate them, go meet them in person. Use social media to allow you to see these other things and other people and then celebrate them offline. That's the positive, constructive way of using it.

19:43Rather than looking at it and find out who you hate this week because of what they have going on in the last week. Oh, look at this guy. What a jerk. I can't believe that happened to him. Yeah, look at his highlight reel. I can't deal with this. We're all guilty of that as well. But so now we're moving into the idea of responsibility and you have a responsibility of what you're going to bring yourself to do in those moments. When you find yourself looking at social media to condemn people for having good things happening in your lives, you are responsible to realize that and stop that and go, okay, now I'm just being a jealous human and move on.

20:25And so let me set up responsibility for this as we move into it. High value people go out of their way to look for opportunities to take on responsibility because high value people want control of a situation because if it's not to their liking, they're able to change it. Where low value people will go out of their way to give up responsibility so that when things go wrong, they can point the finger. So there are your options. Do you want control and power? Or do you want to just leave it up to hope as a strategy? Ever feel like you're just one step behind? You're super skilled, yet something seems to always hold you back.

21:11It might just be your mastery of human dynamics. Truth is, we all hit walls, especially in crowded rooms where it feels like everyone knows each other or in high-stakes meetings where the air is thick with tension. That's where our executive coaching at Elite Human Dynamics steps in. Over the last seven years, I've been personally coaching executives from Fortune 100 companies and the U.S. military. If you're ready to take your career and relationship to the next level, join us in our Elite Human Dynamics executive coaching program. We're not just about networking. We're about transforming good leaders into great ones.

21:46Imagine resolving conflicts as smoothly as butter sliding off a hot knife or walking into a networking event like you own the room. That's the power we offer. With our tactical frameworks and personalized feedback, you won't just build connections. You'll forge alliances. At Elite Human Dynamics, top execs aren't just skilled at spreadsheets and strategies. They master the art of human dynamics, and now you can too. Now here's where it gets spicy. If your interest is piqued, why not change the game? Head over to theartofcharm.com slash elite to request your next level coaching session. Check out Elite Human Dynamics who take your first step towards legendary leadership.

22:25Visit theartofcharm.com slash elite to dive into our curriculum and make every opportunity count. Responsibility is ownership. It's understanding that, hey, you own your actions, you own the results of your actions, and you're going to identify that in yourself and take control of that. And a lot of times we want to give up responsibility because we don't want any of the negative impacts that come from our actions. We don't want to have to feel bad because we didn't succeed, because we screwed up, we made a mistake. So oftentimes what we do is we try to hide from those results and bury the responsibility or point the finger elsewhere.

23:10Oh, well, actually, it's because you didn't give me enough information. It's because Google Calendar was broken. blame it on everything under the sun, except for the fact, well, you didn't show up to the meeting. I want to set this up again as something that I set up in the previous podcast, which was we're flawed characters. You are going to look at Facebook and it sometimes get jealous and it sometimes get happy. So you are responsible for how you're going to use that tool and see that tool. And another thing that comes down with responsibility and bad habits is we are flawed because of evolution, responsible for all the good parts, responsible for all the bad parts, such as being judgmental, which goes along with being competitive and being combative.

23:54It is part of human nature to be judgmental. Why? Because for evolutionary purposes, that's allowed us to survive. That has allowed us to continue to evolve. So now if I walk into a social engagement and I'm feeling a bit uneasy and I have some anxiety, it's easy for me to get judgmental and write the place off. Wow, this place sucks. Look at all the pretentious people here. And now I don't have to deal with anybody, do I? However, if I'm going to be a high value person, I can know that I'm saying that about the situation that I know nothing about, making a judgment call, realize I'm being judgmental.

24:33That is on me. I'm going to stop that. I know nobody here. And I'm going to give this place and these people an opportunity to surprise me. And I can't tell you how many times I've felt that urge, been frustrated by it, hung in there a little bit longer, made an approach or two, and all of a sudden got to know someone on a deep level and go, whoa, I was completely off base. I was judging a book by its cover. Here I was thinking that either I'm more successful than these people or I have my life put together more, so I don't need to devote any time or attention or give anyone here any approval or acceptance.

25:09and all that happens is you're the one left out in the cold. You're the one left out in the dark. So what we're talking about here, going along with this responsibility, comes a level of honesty, being honest about yourself and being honest about your actions. I can't tell you how many times has someone who's trying to be high value, when you are lied to, when someone tries to manipulate you, gaslight you, change the truth on you, pretend that something else actually happened, how devastating that is to you and your ability to cope with that relationship. You start to wonder, well, wait a second here.

25:46I've been honest. I've been forthright. I've come to the table saying, I want to take responsibility and I want to work together on this. And you're being manipulated emotionally. You're being lied to. You're being told it's another thing. That is toxic to relationships. So relationships are built around trust. The easiest way to sabotage trust is to lie and manipulate. So what we're talking about here to be high value, it's being honest. It's owning it and not looking to lie and cheat your way out of responsibility, cheat your way out of the impact that your actions had on other people. And another piece, your honesty is helping those around you.