You're Not Underpaid, You're Afraid w/ Nidhi Tewari | Ep 456

0:00Chris Do: Why do so many talented creatives, they struggle to close deals or to charge what they're worth, and even though they believe that their work is genuinely good or even great, they wouldn't say that, but it's genuinely good. What's the big challenge here? I'm Nidhi Tewari, LCSW, and you're listening to The Future. The biggest challenge is our limiting beliefs and our past experiences because those form the lenses through which we navigate the world today. So I find a lot of creatives heard messaging earlier in their lives of like, you're never going to make money doing this. Are you sure that this is the right pathway for you to take?

0:41Only the top 1 % of creatives can make it. And that same messaging then follows you into your negotiations, into your client relationships, into how you sell yourself. I also find that a lot of creatives are very afraid of rejection. And perhaps that's even beyond creatives. I think that's a human experience where we don't put ourselves out there and we don't necessarily push for the highest rate because we have been rejected in the past and it is a painful experience. Okay.

1:12Chris Do: So we have a live audience here in studio with us. And can we hear from you? What is your name again? Reina. Reina. There's this concept that belief systems, something you inherited from someone who meant something to you said, what you're going to do is not going to work out. And you said, yeah, that resonates with me. First, where and when and how did you hear this? I think this is speaking as a woman in the context where I was raised. I think that there were a lot of social things around me when I was like probably around 11 is the earliest memory where the indications were what you want to do may not be totally what you can do.

1:51And there was a lot of emphasis on, quite frankly, having a family. So this idea of something that would even be a part of my career wasn't really on my radar because of the social environment I was in as a girl growing up.

2:03Chris Do: in that environment is it like something you can pinpoint as to a person or i'd say school school i didn't see a lot of people like me who are interested in design who are interested in the kind of career i was interested in and so it was sort of like well do you just want to be a teacher or do you want to do something that were like other women had careers so it felt like it was school and other adults okay that were women not at 11 in school you already kind of knew that you wanted to have a career. At 11, I knew I was ambitious. Like I was really interested in doing things where I would work with other people, where I could create something that would inspire them.

2:39I didn't know what, but I always felt a little like, oh, maybe that's not possible for you.

2:44Chris Do: So here's what I'm hearing from you. The environment that you're in, mostly around school at around 11 years old, there weren't clear models, role models or people who were as ambitious as you saw for yourself. So that wasn't clear whether they explicitly told you know or yes, the message was received. And you're saying this may impact more women than men, perhaps. OK, so I'm going to throw it back to the doctor and doctor. Yeah, we are socialized. I think this is an experience that a lot of women go through is we're socialized to believe that we only have certain career paths that are appropriate.

3:18So I can share in my family growing up, the only three career paths that were acceptable were doctor, lawyer or engineer, which is very typical of the immigrant experience. And so when I decided to go and become a therapist, my parents were baffled. They were like completely befuddled by this decision because they were like, wait a minute, people that go to therapy are crazy. Why would you want to work with crazy people? Which is not the appropriate thing to think or say, but that's I'm just sharing what their mentality is. And that is that going to be a money making career? Like, why would you switch off from pre-med, which I did do for many years.

3:56And so when I made that decision, I had to really prove myself. And I felt like it was proving doubly to myself that I was capable because that old messaging replayed frequently and also then proving to my parents that, hey, I can be successful in this and I will show you. And I did. My sister is a psychiatrist and she got flack too. So she is a medical doctor. She's a psychiatrist, but because it's mental health, it got labeled as, is that really a doctor? And once again, same question, why would you want to work with crazy people? So even in her situation, she followed the correct path, her outline by my parents, but still got a lot of pushback from them.

4:39Chris Do: Okay. So that's number one, this belief system. Yeah. Maybe we'll park on this and move to the second reason, the fear of rejection, which is, I think, universal. What is it about someone saying no to you that hurts so much that you avoid hearing no? There's a couple of pieces here. I think one of them is that the gap between expectations and reality is disappointment. So when we go into, for example, a client meeting and we expect to close the deal and we don't win the deal, there's disappointment. And that feels like a rejection because it is a rejection. It hits on one of our primal fears of belonging and feeling like we matter.

5:20And so when we face rejection in that way, it then primes us to not be bold and take other opportunities that may present themselves. We tend to play it small to keep ourselves safe.

5:32Chris Do: So disappointment lives between expectation and reality. Yes. That is also Robert McKee's definition of what makes a good story, a subjective expectation versus objective reality. But that's what we try to create in stories. So if it's good for creating stories, how come it's so bad for us as a self story? Because in a story, we have some distance, right? So you think about like, there's no story, no conflict, right? That's, I forgot who said that. No conflict, no story. No conflict, no story. Yes, yes, exactly. No conflict, no story. It makes for a great story after the fact, but when you're going through it, it is like the dark night of the soul.

6:10It's painful to feel rejected, especially when you face rejection repeatedly. We'll get inevitably rejected the more you put yourself out there for bigger and better opportunities. The more you stretch yourself out of your comfort zone, the more opportunity there is to be rejected because you are entering the arena where other people choose not to go. But in those initial times where I experienced rejection, it was gut-wrenchingly painful. And I would be lying if I said that it doesn't hurt still when you don't get something that you desire to get. Where is the earliest memory of rejection that hurt the most for you?

6:47For me, the past-present connection for rejection was actually, you know, I love my parents. We have a very different relationship now, but I felt rejected by my parents a lot. I was the black sheep of my family. I was, even from a young age, before career, before any of that, I was the one who always pushed boundaries. I was the one that wanted to have a boyfriend. I wanted to be able to have a social life. My parents both are very traditional Indian, and they did not appreciate that. So my earliest rejections come from feeling like I don't belong even within my own family. For example, I remember coming home and wanting to be able to go out with friends.

7:25And I remember my dad so vividly saying to me, this was going to be like an evening outing. So We were going to be out to like nine or 10. How old are you? This is maybe like 15. So little teenage years. And I came home and I was like, dad, I really want to go out for this party. We're going to the movies. Core group of friends. They know them all. And he said, no, a girl with shame would never go out past 8 p.m. Basically saying you should be ashamed of yourself for wanting to be out with boys past 8 p.m. And he made it seem as though my morality was even questioned, whether I was even a good person for asking for that.

8:04And that's just one of many, many examples that I can think of where it was like, ooh, like that's a very shame ridden experience.

8:12Chris Do: That sounds more like asking for permission and being rejected for not getting permission to do something, but not rejection of you as a person. I think it's different when somebody says to you, no, you can't do this thing versus no. And if you do this thing, you are a bad person. OK, that's what he essentially was saying to me, that you are a shameful person for even asking this question, for even thinking about going out with these. So you turn a permission thing to a attack on care. Correct. Shame cuts really deeply. And I think rejection and shame are close cousins because when you feel rejected by somebody, the interpretation, the belief that develops as a result of that is that I don't matter or I'm not important or I'm not good enough.

9:01Those are the kinds of beliefs that come as a result of that type of rejection. And then those beliefs then create the experience, the emotional experience of shame. And then we know shame is like from Brene Brown's work is like a powerful driver. It like shuts us down. It puts us into like more of a freeze shutdown state than anything.

9:22Chris Do: OK, so this brings me to something I heard Pastor Erwin McManus say. He was telling this really impassionate story about Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson and then losing the championship. He said that some of us are wired with an operating system designed for failure. some of us are wired with an operating system designed for success and every time i hear something where someone experiences something i've experienced before but their interpretation is a story about devaluing them lowering their confidence self-worth feeling guilt and shame falling into the victim trap i just say to them now i believe you have an operating system designed for for failure and they usually just accept it and i'm like i would have accepted that if i said that to me?

10:05Chris Do: I'm like, F you. Let me tell you what I'm made of. So I'm curious, based on your observations and research, help me understand this, because if you can crack this open, we've helped a lot of humans. Why do people do this? And why don't I think this way? Well, I mean, would you characterize yourself as somebody who is self-aware? Yes. Okay. Would you characterize yourself as somebody who's traumatized, like has gone through significant trauma in your past? Yes, but I'm not traumatized by it. But that is different than being traumatized and not necessarily having processed through in whatever form that takes the past trauma.

10:43Right.

10:45Chris Do: I would just like I think I've experienced what a person would call traumatic. But in process is trauma. And I'm OK with that. Yeah. So I don't live in that place. OK. There are some key differences, though. Right. The people that get stuck in it tend to be the avoidant ones. So they're not necessarily the most self-aware. They're the ones that tend to move away from discomfort. So the self-examination piece just isn't there. And in order to overcome something, do you not need to see it fully? Do you not need to understand it fully? A hundred percent. I'm in agreement. Yeah. So there is your key.

11:19That's the answer to your question. I love it. That's the key differentiator. I want people to be able to lean into the discomfort instead of leaning away. Because the more that you're able to approach the discomfort to move away from avoidance, The more fulfilled your life will be, the more in tune with yourself and others, the more you'll magnetize the things that you desire because you're not going to be living in a traumatized place any longer. Right. But it's when people avoid. It's when people tend to lean away instead of leaning in that those same cycles perpetuate. And that's where we see people get stuck and feel trapped.

11:56and that's not to say that they can't get there but they have to make a conscious choice to be like I'm not running away from the hard stuff and I'm going to lean into it

12:05Chris Do: and I'm going to face it. I think we're getting to some place here. Yeah. A if you're not self-aware you're stuck step one. Correct. Okay number two and it's connected to number three I believe is avoidant. So I feel uncomfortable discomfort therefore I'm just going to pretend like it didn't happen I don't want to look at it at all. So I think all three are really deeply connected to each other. It's like a chain reaction. I'm not used to feeling uncomfortable. It gives me the ick. Therefore, I'm not going to look into it. And I have friends that are watching probably right now. And I'm not talking about you.

12:39Chris Do: I'm just talking about people just like you. Is they want to gloss over anything that's horrible. Quite literally, there was a gentleman who used to work for me. And I asked him, what's your earliest memory? Thinking it's a pretty innocent question. he goes I don't remember anything before 14 I'm like oh my god oh my god are you serious dude I'm telling you right now I'm not playing a game with you I don't remember anything before 14 and I said did you have a very traumatic childhood he goes no I'm like I'm no therapist but I believe you have some things you want to talk to a therapist about he goes no there's nothing here Chris that sounds like avoidant and thankfully there's a happy ending to this story because a couple years later, after he stopped working for me, he went to see a therapist.

13:28Chris Do: And then he later told me it was the best thing he's ever done. And he seemed like a new person. He was doing all the things that we talked about that he wanted to do, but never did. And now he was doing them. And I'm just really happy for him. He seemed like a much happier person. And now he has memories. Even if you avoid the thing, it still lives in you. So like not only just up here, but in your body, it lives. And every time that a situation triggers you, that same physiological response will take hold and you will respond in a similar way or react in a similar way as you did subconsciously back then during that same situation.

14:07It's just the way that our memory networks connect to one another. And so, you know, those neurons, we can rewire them. That's the whole idea of neuroplasticity. But you cannot do that if you don't face the stuff head on. And your friend who had no memories for 14 years probably lived his life very dissociated, meaning very disconnected from his emotional experience. And a lot of people go through that. I see that all the time in the workplace, actually, too, where it's like people, you know, don't have any emotional memories. They can't connect emotionally to people because they never had that opportunity or they avoided the opportunity growing up or didn't have a nurturing upbringing.

14:45And it really gets in the way for them. Same thing with creatives. You have to connect to be able to sell.

14:52Chris Do: All right. Let's connect us to sales. How do we use this idea of attunement, understanding the energies and reading and relating, connecting and vibing with each other in a commerce transactional space? Because you're like, well, I would think naturally if we're out of alignment or attunement, the likelihood of a deal happening is going to get lowered. Yes. You're not listening to me. You don't understand me. We come from different cultures and belief systems. I'm not going to have a good time working with you. Correct. Versus the people who understand this are like, why do they get all the new business?

15:25Chris Do: Let's get into this. Yeah. I think that the people that end up being successful in business are the ones that view their clients in a relational manner. They don't view it as closing a deal. They don't view it as a transaction. They view it as a relationship, as a service to the other person to better them, their company, to give them something that will enhance their life, whether that's professionally or personally. And I think that when you can approach your sales conversations from a relational standpoint, it makes a huge, huge difference. Now, where I see connection gaps, so I talk about these connection gaps in my book.

16:06These are missed opportunities for building relationships with people. Moments where somebody asks you or shares something and you miss it. So, for example, a client may say, like they may hit you up and say, hey, I really need help with consulting because my staff is burnt out and I really want them to feel less burnt out. Great. Okay. So you come into the sales conversation with burnout in your mind, right? But then as you're talking with them, they start talking about how people don't feel safe sharing and how the workload is really high and all of these factors. And if you miss that, you will then treat the symptom of burnout with well-being workshops and all the stuff that's just putting a band-aid on it versus getting to the root causes, which is psychological safety, which is inadequate resources to get the job done.

16:55that is actually the real root problem. And that's where a connection gap can happen in a sales conversation. We come into it with one problem in mind, how we think we understand the problem. And when the client tells us something different, we don't pivot. We're not flexible enough to adapt and we miss that opportunity to meet their need. It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back. Adobe Max returns November 10th to 12th in Miami Beach and online, calling all designers designers, illustrators, photographers, content creators, video pros. Want to find fresh inspiration, connect with your creative community, and explore what's possible with the latest AI tools on your own terms?

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18:17And we're back. Welcome back to our conversation.

18:21Chris Do: Where do we drop the ball? We drop the ball by not listening and not asking good questions. And Chris, you know that we talk about this all the time. We have to ask good questions. So here's the three main traps that I find people fall into just in my years of doing this. People tend to be fixers, avoiders, or connectors. The fixers are the ones that think that they understand the problem at hand. And instead of listening and understanding and asking more questions, they jump in with solutions. And I have been guilty of this myself. I can fully acknowledge it. But we missed the mark because what the client is looking for is to get a sense that they can trust us to bring the right solution to the table to solve their problem.

19:04I saw you post something the other day where it was like people don't buy from the best person. They buy from the person that they trust the most. the person that they feel can get the job done with the least amount of friction. So the fixers create friction. The avoiders, these are the ones who bypass the emotions altogether. So the client is sharing pain points. There's no validation of the pain point. There's no expression of understanding. They just kind of skirt past and they're like, OK, well, here's what we're going to do. That also is a mess. And then the connectors are the ones where we try to relate back to our own experiences, which can land sometimes, where we share, oh yeah, I've worked with XYZ clients on this.

19:44But so what? The client that's sitting right there with you wants to feel like the most important person in the room. And if you're shifting the focus to here's what I know and here's what I've done, we're connecting our own experiences, yet we're missing the opportunity to actually forge a relationship with the client.

19:59Chris Do: You're saying that in sales, that we're making the mistake that we're treating as a transactional relationship versus a relational one. Isn't that the problem that they're thinking of it as relational. I think of so many people in the creative space when they work with a stranger like, well, they asked me for a lower price. I value the relationship. I will agree to do it less. And oh, I wouldn't charge my friends this. So I can't then therefore charge you. I thought that was the root of the problem. And you're saying, no, no, it's the exact opposite. Can you help explain that part, please? Yeah, I mean, I think you can have a relationship with somebody and still maintain your fee integrity and still maintain your boundaries.

20:40Just because you have a bond with someone doesn't mean that your price goes down to accommodate them unless that is something that you have built in. Like if you've built into your model, I have I can take on five clients every year where I reduce my fee. Wonderful. Great. Fabulous. But if you're doing that with every single person because, oh, it was a referral or, oh, this person is a friend, you're not going to be in business very long. And in fact, I would say that your real friends are going to pay your fee because they value the work that you're doing. They see what you're doing brings meaning and is a service to others.

21:15And they don't want to shortchange you in that.

21:17Chris Do: I just am bothered by this concept that this relational thing, because my experience has been anything but the relational part is good. I want to treat it like business. The reward for us doing good business together is we can be friends, not the other way around. Are you saying then that you don't feel like you have a relationship with your clients? I do have a relationship. It's a professional relationship. Sometimes we become friends but I don't do it to try to get more friends which is the problem a lot of creative people like oh such a cool brand. They're going to like me. We can be friends.

21:50Chris Do: Let's play golf together. No, no, no, no. I'm not advocating for that. So let me be very clear. When I talk about relation like having a relational approach in business I'm talking about a professional relationship as in you give a crap about this client. You want to be able to make a positive impact. You want to be able to have a service that is going to transform in some way, shape or form. I'm not talking about being buddy, buddy with them. Like I would not call myself that's like friends with many of my clients, maybe a couple, but not really. What I'm advocating for is to approach your relationships with clients as just that as like I want to help this person.

22:26I want to get to know what their pain points are. I want to make sure that what I'm providing them actually meets their needs. That's the extent of it. I'm not talking about. Yeah, I just call that being professional. Well, but it is a relationship and not everybody approaches it from that standpoint. There are many creatives that enter a sales conversation with I have this product to sell. I am going to pitch it to you. You get to hear my pitch. Let me know if you want it. There's no questions. There's no discovery. There's no curiosity. There's no relationship building. There's nothing. It's just, here's what I want to give you.

22:59And then the other person is thrown off and they're like, I don't want to buy this. Like they're repelled by it because there's no relationship built. There's no trust. There's no, you know, yeah. Why would they go with you?

23:10Chris Do: Okay. It would take a very confident person to say that, to say it just the way you said it. Here's my product. Here's my service. These are the fees. This is the timetable. Buy it or don't. Dan Sullivan says, I'm going to ask you this one question. If you can't answer, I'm out. I give you no second chances. There's no redos. There's no undos. There's just one chance. I don't necessarily view that as transactional or relational. I just view it like I have a very strong gate or filter for who I'm going to allow to work with me. And these are the terms and conditions. And you'll know if you're right for me.

23:39Chris Do: And I'll also know if I'm right for you really fast. If you can just answer this one question. Would you agree, though, that the majority of your audience is not quite at that level? I would agree 99.999 % of them are not at that level. Correct. So what is the transactional version that our audience is doing that is not that version? Yeah. I mean, I think it's showing up, not really asking questions, assuming you understand what the problems are and then being like, here's what my project is. Right. I think it's a lack of confidence that actually drives that approach, because when you're confident, you can sit down and actually explore a little bit and be like, OK, so tell me a little bit more.

24:16You mentioned in your email exchange to me, this is what's going on. I'd love to hear a bit more. and you talk it through and then you're able to adapt and formulate your offering accordingly. That doesn't mean that you're customizing every single thing. You might, but that you have a good sense of actually identifying the problems versus the symptoms and then catering accordingly. I think that that is a relationally driven approach that is successful. At least it's been successful for me.

24:42Chris Do: So the other part that you said, which I am 100 percent on board with, is that we don't ask great questions and we're not really listening because we fall into one of three categories. You're the fixer. I think you think you have all the answers and your value to the world is like, I got it, I got it. And you're going to jump to conclusions and pre-diagnose and prescribe solutions before you even really understand the other person. We have a lot of those people because our society rewards people for having answers to the avoiders. The avoiders is like, I hear something and I'm going to just jump right over it.

25:18Chris Do: Now I would say like men probably fall into that category more than women because like, oh, sounds like a motion. I'm going to run away from this. Right. And I admit if I see another man tearing up, I'm going to look the other way because I'm like, I'm going to give you some space. Bruh, compose yourself and we'll get back to it. Because I feel the more I look at that person, the more guilt and possible shame they might feel in a moment. Number three is the connectors. I like the concept. I don't like the word, but I like the concept a lot. now we're taught that empathy is a really good thing to have and we think the demonstration of empathy is you're having a moment let me make it about me i'm gonna tell you about how i was abused and traumatized and then the other person like this ain't about you correct yeah i often recommend to people give them space follow up don't make it about you that is not empathy that's something else that's about self-centeredness and i think we've been programmed that if i just relate how I lost somebody or lost an animal, then I'm relating to you.

26:16Chris Do: Yeah. That's not what we do. No. What should we do instead of the connector part? Yeah. So what we want to aim for is to be an explorer. So the explorers are the ones that are really great at asking deeper questions. They don't take the face value response as it is. So they'll say things. Here's some like examples. Could you tell me more about help me to better understand? Could you share a little bit? Right. Like these are prompts to help the other person to dive a little bit deeper into their own emotional experience. And then for you to practice two key skills. One is normalization, meaning I help you to feel less alone and not like you're out of bounds for feeling upset or distressed by the situation that you're experiencing.

27:00and then validating, meaning that you say something along the lines of, I get it, that makes sense to me that you would feel embarrassed or you would feel frustrated or you would feel disappointed. Those are the really core elements of being a explorer. And those traits also will make you a successful salesperson.

27:19Chris Do: So I'm new to sales. How do I transition from a friendly state to a business state? Right. So the first step is you have to get past your discomfort of having a conversation about it because you're going to have to address it now. Right. And one of the things I recommend to like the leaders I work with when they have a friendly relationship, but now all of a sudden they're having to kind of put some expectations in place or have a difficult conversation is to make it lighthearted. It doesn't have to be so serious, but you could say something along the lines of, OK, I know that we're friendly, but I'm going to have to put my boss hat on now.

27:51would be doing you a disservice if I didn't give you this feedback. Here's where we can grow. Same type of thing can go with a client. It's like, okay, you know, I know that we're good friends, but you know, I got to put my business hat on here. Here's what my fee is. Here's what my expectations are. Does that work for you? We can stay friends regardless. Like it's not going to affect the relationship, but if it's not within your price point, if it's not something that you think you can move forward with, that's okay. Just let me know. But I think having that conversation is really important and people avoid it because it's uncomfortable, especially when the boundaries have already blurred.

28:26Sometimes I literally will like for my clients, for example, I'm thinking back to therapy clients who I am friendly, not friends with. I will let them know like, hey, I got to put my therapist hat on here. Right. I would not be a good therapist if I didn't gently nudge you about this thing.

28:43Chris Do: Time out. You just said it two different tones, by the way. When you put your therapist hat on, you sounded like a boss. When you said, oh, I got to put my business boss hat on, it sounded very soft to me. Well, you're leading with the friendship, right? You're acknowledging we have a different relationship. And I'm also signaling. So here's the attunement piece. I am also signaling so the other person can read my cue that, hey, this is a gear shift now. And they will pick up on that subconsciously and consciously. and subtle shifts like that is how we get others to attune to us and how we attune to others.

29:19Is this like pacing and leading? It can be. That's a part of it for sure. I mean, think body language, think tonality, think cadence, think physical posture, think proximity. All of these things play a role in whether people feel connected or disconnected from you. And you can have hard conversations while maintaining connection. That is the misconception people have.

29:43Chris Do: I used to have trouble walking with people. It's hella awkward. I'm just going to put it out there. Like, am I following you? Are you following me? Like, we're like crossing over each other. It's so weird. And I think that is the visual representation when we're out of attunement. Yes. These days, I don't have that much problem anymore. I don't know why, but I feel better about myself maybe. We walk and we talk. And then if I want to go across this way versus the path we're on, I would just pivot and turn and like, is it cool if we go this way? And then, yeah, let's go this way. Like, I think it's over here.

30:13Chris Do: So then we're in sync, in stop, in pace, in alignment. And then we just gently pivot and we redirect. Yes. That's the visual version. Pacing is going to be literally the pace of the conversation, right? So like, Chris, when you speed up, I speed up. When you slow down, I slow down. We're matching. We're matching. But let me caveat that with one situation, which is when people are in a stressed state, you do not want to match that tenor. So if a client is coming to you and they're like, oh, my God. like things are falling apart. You do not want to meet them at that same level of intensity. This is where co-regulation, which means that my nervous system is now going to bring down their nervous system.

30:52I'm in control now. They're out of control. I am now in control. That is leading, taking the reins of the conversation when needed.

31:00Chris Do: You talk about the four domains of attunement, which you are tipping at in the book, Working Well. What are they and how do we use them? You can remember the four domains with the acronym FRISC, FRSC, F is for flexibility, R is reading cues, S is self-regulation, C is collaboration. So flexibility, that means that you're agilely able to respond to people's needs. When they need to pivot, you pivot. When they need to stay on something, you stay on something. Doesn't mean you don't circle back to your agenda. It just means in that moment, that's not what's needed. R is reading cues. So this is where you notice the micro shifts that happen in people's demeanor.

31:41This can be a little tricky with neurodivergent people because eye contact might be a little bit different. So just know who you're speaking to. But generally, people will make eye contact with you. Their body language, when they're open to you, will be open. And if it's not, it means that they're inhibiting their emotional response to you, right? What's their tone of voice looking like? What is the cadence sounding like? All of those are going to be cues to be paying attention to. Then you have self-regulation. So this is your capacity to manage your own physiological and emotional response. So you're going to need to do four, seven, eight breathing when you start to notice that you feel overwhelmed.

32:17Breathe in through your nose for four seconds. Hold in the breath for seven. Exhale through your mouth for eight. Ground yourself. All of that is going to help to let your nervous system know, hey, I'm safe. And then the last one is collaboration. So this is just simply recognizing and communicating and creating a felt sense that we are an allied front. We're on the same team that we want the same mutually agreed upon outcomes. And I want to hear your feedback and you want to hear mine. It's as simple as that. Or really easy skills that have an outsized impact.

32:50Chris Do: Okay. Since we're talking about sales, you drop the price finally. Yeah. And you have a funny response to it versus an emphatic, joyful yes. And they're like all of a sudden Bambi on ice, what is the way that you can check in with them? What are phrases that you like to use? One that you taught me, Chris, all those years ago that has been served me very well is first I name it. Right. So here's like the acknowledgement. Hey, I just noticed that there might be something that is still feeling that you might be feeling unsure about. I'm just really curious to know what would make this a no brainer for you?

33:27Like what would allow you to go back and be like, hell yes. I want to book this person right now and pay her full fee. And that opens up a conversation. Sometimes people will be like, oh, nothing. Like, it's not a question of that, right? Other times I have heard from somebody or from clients like, yeah, well, I think if we added in X, Y, Z, it would just make it even better. And I'm like, let's talk about that then. So sometimes like even just simple questions like that can uncover the objection that was hidden previously.

33:56Chris Do: This conversation absolutely did not disappoint. you over delivered in value as many of our conversations have gone in the past. That's one of the reasons why you keep hearing collaborations between Nitty and myself. Super smart, experienced lady who's thought about these things in way deeper, more profound ways than I have. And I want to thank you for coming on the show. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. And I want to wish you the very best with your book. Let's help her to get this on some list, y 'all. Please. A bestseller list. That's what we want, right? We need to move some books here. So if you've enjoyed this and if you want to be a friend and not the rat bastard kind of friend, you pay full price.

34:32Chris Do: That's right.