The Secret to Being Memorable and Finding Your Passion | Toolbox

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4:18Level up with us each week by listening to interviews with the best in business, psychology, and relationships. We distill thousands of hours of research in 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.

4:52We 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. All right, let's kick off today's show. On today's Toolbox, we're sharing how you can become memorable and stand out for the right reasons. Whether you're networking, pitching your business, or simply growing your social capital, the key to a lasting impression is showcasing your passion. And we work with our clients to communicate their X factor with everyone they meet to create opportunities in their lives.

5:25Johnny and Michael are joining me today to discuss the importance of exploring and sharing your passions, as well as the science behind grit to make an impact. We discuss how to overcome the opposite Dunning-Kruger effect, the secret to using passion to find success in life and forging high value relationships, how connections are solidified through engaging with your passions, and why we might not know our passions and the simple way to create community around what you love. Now, Johnny, we have to kick off today by first defining what we mean by passion. Yeah, you know what? I think so many people use this word in so many different ways, But for our purposes, it's very distinct.

6:04It's very defined. So for us, it's going to be an extreme interest in or wish for doing something such as a hobby or an activity, right? So an extreme interest, something that moves us emotionally and grabs our attention and drives us towards it, right? The other thing that I wanted to mention, AJ, in putting together some talking points for this episode, I couldn't wrap my head around how many mainstream articles that I had seen that talk about why following your passions is bad advice. And so I wanted to talk about that first, because what I've noticed in those articles was they, first of all, it was clickbait, right?

6:51It's contrarian. What? I've never heard that. So here's to read the article. And basically the articles were all about why following your passions is a good thing. However, they explained some pitfalls such as anything that you fall into wholeheartedly and give up all the rest of your responsibilities in pursuit, right? So they talk about in following your passions, that your passions might not be able to pay your rent and bills and things like that, which means that you're giving up your responsibilities to follow that passion. Now, I'll tell you what, my passion for psychology and human behavior superseded all of that in which I just, I had to dive in more.

7:40But yes, of course, you should make sure that you wall off your responsibilities so you can take care of business so that you can pursue your passions. But what those articles failed to mention is the importance of our passions in connection and that that make us unique special and most importantly what we're going to be discussing today memorable well these passions they they build a character around us and they even become part of our identity these are the things that people remember. So I just want to say to anyone who is going to listen to this and go, I thought that following your passions was bad.

8:28Let's just throw that in the trash. And of course, we're very lucky that our passions do overlap with our work. We're passionate about training the military. We're passionate about working with our private coaching clients. We're passionate about our X Factor Accelerator members growing and succeeding in life. But we also have passions outside of our work, whether it be golf, whether it be music, whether it be cooking, whether it be travel. These are all passions that we've explored in our own lives. And much of that advice that you're talking about, Johnny, well, it centers around trying to monetize your passion and trying to make your work your passion.

9:07And let's be honest, many of us don't have a lot of passion in our work. Our work puts a roof over our head. It's a great job. It's a great salary. Maybe it's gained you some status. Maybe you've been able to build a business network around it. But if you're not passionate about your work, well, you can't then become one-dimensional and just be passionate about your family, be passionate about your spouse, be passionate about your best friend and your relationships. It is important for you to stand out, to engage with your passions or to find those passions if for whatever reason you've let some of those hobbies and interests wane over the years.

9:46And let's be honest, the science shows that engaging in your passions is a step towards finding your purpose, right, Michael? So on this, there are actually two really interesting articles in psychology today. One is by Jennifer Hamady, and she writes that in her article, she explains that we shouldn't see passion as just a noun, but that rather we should look at it as a muscle and that we have to use our passion muscle in order to strengthen it. And she writes, and I quote, only when you choose to engage in life with passion, regardless of your circumstances, will you begin to see life, people, and opportunities emerge for you in new exciting ways, end quote.

10:33And she continues explaining that if we don't bring our passion into our lives every day, then there's basically just one reason for that. And that is that we are afraid to put ourselves out there. No one enjoys risking failure. And if we go after our passions, there is a likelihood of us failing here and there. And at the same time, if you don't bring your passions into the world, what you lose is that sense of purpose in your life. And the other on, but this is a little bit more scientific. This is Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, who's also known as SBK in psychology today. And he looks at something that Angela Duckworth of the GRIT fame has done research on.

11:25So he writes, and I quote, research does in fact show that both passion and interest predict later success, independent of ability. Angela Duckworth and her colleagues have shown that grit, so that's passion and perseverance for long-term goals, predicts outcomes such as educational attainment, GPA, class retention, and ranking in a national spelling bee, all and above and beyond IQ, end quote. Now, I want to point something out here that in this article, he was quoting Angela Duckworth writing about GPA, class retention, spelling bees. Those are not things that are inherently fun topics for most people.

12:09Now imagine what that passion and interest can do for your later success if they're actually inherently fun and you choose something that you enjoy doing every day. Now, of course, many of our clients struggle with imposter syndrome or the reverse Dunning-Kruger, meaning the more you start to learn about something, the more you realize you're not that good at it. Oftentimes, we think of the Dunning-Kruger effect, we think of below average people will assume that they're better than they are. Now, the reverse is also true. Extraordinarily successful people will often view themselves in a negative light and think they're not as good at something as they actually are.

12:53And this imposter syndrome does rear its ugly head in our passions. You might be feeling that, well, I'm not that great at guitar. I'm not a great cook. I'm passionate about watching cooking videos and learning, but I would never want to showcase those skills in front of friends. I wouldn't want to go tell a bunch of strangers that I'm some highly successful chef when I'm just trying to learn this one technique like sous vide. So it's important to realize that your imposter syndrome might actually be getting in the way of you showcasing those passions around people. I love that. And everyone's heard of the Dunning Kruger effect, but I'm much like myself.

13:32I think there's a lot of people out there that don't realize it works in Refortos too. And I have an interesting anecdote to this. There is so much creativity and work that we enjoy from people who bypassed that reversed Dunning-Kruger effect. It didn't phase them of where they were in their passion and following it and their level of expertise in it. And I want to give this one example. So, yes, I'm a musician. I've been playing for a very long time. and for a lot of things I do, I carry a punk rock ethos. And what I mean by that is that there's a lot of great punk rock bands and I'm going to use the Ramones as an example because that's probably the one that everyone recognizes, specifically their shirts, right?

14:23They're everywhere even to this day. They're probably more popular today than they had ever been. But when the Ramones got started, it was their passion for wanting to play music professionally and to create with that medium, so much so that they started playing shows without really knowing how to play. What's great about this is that there is even videos of them playing at the legendary CBGBs in the mid-70s, and they're arguing, they're fighting on stage, walking off, but their passion for wanting to play and communicate and showcase their work came through in those live performances that what they were doing resonated with all of the other young kids who were looking to find themselves and create.

15:18And they were heralded as the new beginning of a new rock and roll phase, which came to be punk rock. And without that arrogance and ignorance about their musicianship, they wouldn't have made the mark in history and changed its course as they did. So for me, I mean, that punk rock ethos goes into a lot of things that I do. If I have to learn a new skill, I get frustrated just like anybody else. But as AJ's not over the last couple of decades here, I will throw myself into it, make a giant mess, but figure it out. But the most important thing, and we're going to discuss this later in some of our showcases of some of the work that our clients have done, that by you showcasing your inability or your learning process, it resonates with other people who are interested, who want to see other people struggling because it gives them permission to struggle through it as well, to find those strengths and to actualize and get enhanced life through those passions.

16:30And it's totally normal to be passionate about something, but not be the greatest at it, not be a professional at it just yet. But that shouldn't keep you from sharing it with people you're meeting. That shouldn't keep you from sharing it with your friends just because you're not quite as good as you would like to be. And I know a number of our listeners are perfectionists. So you put that added pressure on yourself because, well, I can't just be passionate. I have to be the best. Now, another thing that we hear from clients is, yeah, but no one shares this passion. AJ. No one is in to what I'm into.

17:05I'm not into sports. I'm not into normal mainstream, quote unquote, activities. So because of that, I got to hide this part of my personality. I got to withhold this passion and conversation because no one else is going to share this passion. And that's a mistake because it's not about finding someone who shares the same passion as you. It's about showing emotion in your conversation, making that impression through the expression of your passions. That matters far more than overlap in actual interest in that passion. So don't hold back if your passion isn't mainstream. I know that I'm not a rock and roller, but my passions still resonate with Johnny's rock and roll friends and vice versa.

17:52So bringing that passion into your communication, bringing that passion into the conversation, even if there is an overlap is impactful. There is a lot of curiosities and interests that we all have. And when we see other people emote and share that passion, it ignites that curiosity and us go, oh, you know what? I've, I've always wanted to check that out. What's that like? So you may not think that there are other people who can relate to that, but by you sharing them, you would be surprised. You could end up lighting that fire in somebody else. So sharing that passion brings emotion to the conversation.

18:31Emotion is that first step to making you memorable. And here's the best part. They're going to leave that conversation. They're going to leave that interaction thinking about your passion. And maybe they know someone in their network who could help you with that passion, who also enjoys that passion. And all of a sudden that being memorable rapidly grows your network beyond just that conversation that you are having. And it's important to recognize that we don't want to lack emotion in sharing our passions. I know you might think your passions are boring to people who aren't as passionate about it as you, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

19:07If you lack emotion in sharing your passion with others, then they're not going to get excited about what you just shared. And it's certainly not going to make you memorable. So the solution of this is to recognize that your passions are memorable and that sharing them allows you to be memorable. It sticks in people's minds. Those emotions that you share through those passions are going to stick. So this reminds me of one of our clients. Her name is Susan. And we mentioned her last week in the shout out of last week's episode. And I wanted to bring it up here again because it's been stuck in my mind.

19:43And I know for a lot of people, they might feel the same way that they're too busy to engage in those passions. So for Susan, she was a mom and a caretaker and a business owner. And those were the most important things in her life. You can imagine, of course, yes, if you have a family, those you're going to be making sure that you raising them and taking care of them to the best of your ability. And then, of course, making a business work. And in Susan's case, this business had been in the family for quite some time. And there was an obligation to continue that. So she put her efforts there. Now, recently, her son is now off to college.

20:26And the other one is basically has raised himself and is a teenager. And she found herself now with a lot of extra time on her hands. and that was driving her a bit batty like and realized you know perhaps it's time for her to focus on herself now that she has done her duty as a mom and a business owner and now found and had to get permission from herself to then get involved in some new opportunities that she's always been wanting to. And she's now going to be dedicating a lot of her new time to traveling. It was something she's always wanted to do and never had the opportunity to take long extended trips and really explore some places.

21:15So I was Susan Luck in her long-awaited European vacation that's about to come up. I love that. And one of the frustrations that we hear from our X-Factor Accelerator members, and we were just having a conversation about this last week in our implementation session, that when you have a passion, it often starts with you doing a deep dive online. You get into these rabbit holes and all of a sudden you're watching YouTube instructional videos on a jump shot and then you're watching the NBA more closely. But inevitably when you take all of that information and then you go to put it into practice in your real life and implement it, it can be very difficult and it can actually be unrewarding in your pursuit of that passion.

22:00You can feel worse than you thought you would be and oftentimes that leads you to quit too soon. Now, when it comes to your passion, just because you are going through a phase of being really excited about reading about something online and then trying it, don't give up before you've had a chance to really explore and pass through what we call the dip. Now, anytime you're trying to master a skillset, you're actually gonna get worse at that skill before you get better. Whether it's learning guitar, whether it's working on that jump shot, maybe it's on the golf course, or maybe it's even cooking.

22:35Once you recognize that there is a skill that you want to unlock, that you are passionate about bringing into your repertoire, oftentimes you're gonna take all this great information online, they're gonna make it look easy and effortless, and you're gonna go and apply it, and you're gonna have some difficulty. You're going to run into some frustration because it's harder than you thought it would be. But we have to think of passion as a muscle. Right, Michael? So when it comes to passions, it's important to note that these are often divided into harmonious or adaptive passions and a harmful form called obsessive passion or maladaptive passion.

23:13And now one might be easy to jump to the conclusion that one has to do with isolation, social isolation, and the other has to do with community. Meaning if I am doing my passion all by myself in a dark room, then this is an obsessive maladaptive passion. And if I'm out all day playing with friends, this is a harmonious passion. And there's certainly a lot of overlap in that direction. There's just not a very clear causality. So this is where I wanted to bring in some basic principles of psychology around the function of a behavior. So think about a video game, not because I want to hate or praise video games, just because this is an easy example.

23:59Think about why you would be playing a video game. Is it because you want to enjoy the evening? Is it because you want to get good enough to compete with your buddies at an eSport event? or is it that you want to escape being lonely, that you want to escape whatever else is going on in your life and this gives you that escape? And so the function of the behavior for playing video games would be experiential avoidance. I just want to get out of here. I don't want to feel, I just want to numb out. On the other side, the other function is pro-social. It's pro-self-care. I want to take care of myself.

24:39I want to play with my friends. So I'm spending time with this video game. So this is actually the parameter that we're using to see whether a passion is harmonious or obsessive. And in that same regard, I would make that same point for passion within a community. And this is actually a question that I'd like to pose to you, AJ and Johnny, because my hunch is that starting a passion for the sole purpose of finding a community around it is going to be a maladaptive approach to it because it's going to be inauthentic. It's going to be fake. And I'm basically just trying to use that passion so that I get access to a lot of people.

25:24So if you're listening to this thinking, AJ, Johnny, Michael, I don't even know what my passions are. I've been so busy with work, family. I don't really feel that I have much passions outside of just coming home, passing out on the couch, watching Netflix. It's important that you recognize in order to become memorable, in order to build the great high value relationships that you're looking for, you need to be exploring what you could even be passionate about. You need to be on a journey to find your passions. Right, Johnny? Absolutely. You know, AJ, I had been lucky early in life because music was in my household.

26:02And so there was affinity for it. And I think my dad's band used to rehearse in the basement. And I think a lot of that, of the reverberation of the sound coming through the floorboards as a baby, pretty much infected me for life with the music bug. Now, out of the gate was following that pursuit as closely as I could. I was trying to put bands together in junior high and high school. I mean, I was solely folk. I had tunnel vision on that world because it affected me like nothing else. Now, as I was in my later 20s, where I started to explore some different passions and psychology and human behavior being one of those.

26:46And I loved what I was doing in music and I was having a blast. but I also recognized that on my downtime, I needed to find something else to explore, something to take my mind off of music because this is something we were talking about earlier. That was at a phase of my life where I was trying to make playing in bands music my career. And hey, I had some successes and some losses and it was difficult. And I think anyone out there in an artistic endeavor can relate to that. So I was looking for something else to take my mind off of that so that the gum band wouldn't get stretched so much that it would break.

27:25I needed to refresh myself. So for me, I was like, well, I'm interested in human behavior. Let me look into that. And I started going online and reading articles and grabbing books. And what made and turned that interest into a hobby and passion was I would take the little bits that I was learning and all these interesting psychological behavioral experiments and taking them to the bar where I worked at. And I've told this story before, but I would be, I'd have to bartend and I had a captured audience, right? I had so many people to talk to every night. So a lot of the concepts that we discuss on the show, I was experimenting them and using the bar that I worked at as my laboratory.

28:14and I would measure their effectiveness in my tips. So by taking from gathering knowledge and reading about these subjects, then implementing them into my life and seeing the results. And for me, that opened the doors to what can this turn into? What am I as a human being capable of by building and learning these skills? And a subject that we talked about a few weeks ago, a skill stacking where you take all these different skills and you put them together and you become, you start implementing them and they, they create this memorable, multiple dynamic person. And for myself, the human behavior aspect, I couldn't believe how different things were happening and how people viewed me and how I viewed the world by implementing all these concepts.