How to Master Any Conversation, Communicate With Confidence, and Deal With Difficult People

19:05So if I am, I want to make it count because it might be a handshake. It might be five seconds, 10 seconds, two minutes, who knows, but I've got to make it count. So what can I do in that moment? Everyone is going to walk up to him with one version of, it's an honor to meet you, president. Here's a story I have about you. Here's something that you won't remember, but I will. I realized - I'm sorry to laugh, but we've all done it too.

19:28Mel Robbins:We see somebody that we admire, we're like, oh my God, I was an idiot. There's nothing wrong with that though, but that's what 99 % of people do. I want you to be the 1 % who doesn't. Okay. Who breaks the mold. What do I do? Here's what I did. I thought about this line for months. So at the moment where there was a meet and greet, it was impromptu. The president was talking to different people. I wish I was taller. I'm five, seven and three quarters. I need that three quarters, Mel, but all the taller guys are getting looked at all of the women. Finally, he turns to me right when we shake hands, I lock eyes with the president and I say, thank you so much for the gift, sir.

20:03right away. I see in his eyes, I see in his eyes, you don't have to be a mentalist confusion, which is what I wanted to elicit. And in that moment, he said the same thing that I believe 99 out of a hundred people would say if a stranger walked up to you and said, thank you so much for the gift. What gift? He goes, what gift, which set me up perfectly for me to say, I'm going to be performing in 15 minutes, which means that technically I'm going on after you. So I forever forget to tell people that president Barack Obama opened for me.

20:33Mel Robbins:Oh my God. That's brilliant. So he laughs. And now I'm playing chess, not checkers where I want him to say, what are you performing? It goes exponentially better, Mel, because he goes, Oh, and he looks at me and he goes, I know you. Oh my God. The thing you did with Aaron Rogers was incredible. I'm looking at my wife who's at the show being like, he knows who I am right now. He knows who I am. So right at that moment, he's, he's still locked in. And I knew that my moment was fleeting. And I said, are you ready for the most amazing thing you've seen? Not today, not this week, but this month, do you have 30 seconds, sir?

21:06So right away, notice that I've, I've set up a lottery system of who's going to say no to this. Not, can I show you a trick? That's not, I'm not showing you a trick. Can I show you the most amazing thing you've seen? I've set up a tone of how good it's going to be. Do you have 30 seconds, 30 seconds for most people. The minute he said back to me, 30 seconds, I've got him. So it doesn't matter what he said. He either says no or 30 seconds. Once he said 30 seconds, I'm already 10 seconds in and we're going to go much longer than 30 seconds. I handed him a business card in his hand. I said, think of anyone you're going to talk to in the next week.

21:39And he goes, I got someone to go change your mind right now. So when you tell this story later, you will always say, how could he have known? I changed my mind in the middle. How could he have known. And then he said, I got it. And I say, turn it over. And when he turned it over, it says, say hello to Marty for me. And he just flipped out. There's a, you can see the clip. It's a, so that was my moment with him. And that was something that I would say years, I'd been thinking, what's my elevator pitch. If I had this moment with the president,

22:05Mel Robbins:think about who you, who you're going to meet. Think about the situation. Think about what you would do with that 30 seconds. If you have the chance, which is not guaranteed at all to actually meet this person. And so I take it you had prepared. You knew exactly what you were going to do. And you weren't waiting for the gatekeeper. No, you just did it. There's no agent. There's no manager. There's nobody in life that will ever be as vested in your success as yourself. So you don't wait for people to say and invite you. Here's how you're going to be a star or here's how you're going to be the number one salesperson organization.

22:37Here's how you're gonna be the best mom or the best dad. Sorry, that doesn't exist. Everybody's trying to figure out this game of life at the same time. I've met people that are literally one or two of the three wealthiest people in the world. I've met presidents, I've met royalty, and I came to the conclusion at a certain point, I had this pedestal, everyone's figuring it out just like I am. And so I'm trying to say to myself, when the moment happens, and if you can create that moment, because so much of what people will say is lucky, is putting yourself in a situation where luck can happen, which is years and years of moving towards that moment for me to have gotten to that.

23:12I could tell you five steps that even got me into the room with the president that all of which occurred, not because somebody opened the door for me, but that I kept putting a toe in and then another toe and then another toe and squeezing it and then opening it up and finding an opportunity. And when that opportunity came, exceeding the expectations of the person I was with and having a give and take relationship where I keep giving, giving, giving, giving so that at the moment when I want to take, It's not even a take they want to give back to me. And I think that's so important is that you're constantly doing that with the people around you.

23:45Mel Robbins:I love that you're saying this because I always talk about these like at-bat moments. There are these moments in life that really matter. And there's a lot of people, and you may be one of them as you're listening and watching, that are sitting around hoping to be found. Sitting around hoping your boss notices you. sitting around or you're working hard with your head down, hoping somebody finds you or quote discovers you. And in today's world, that does not work. You have to do what you're talking about, which is to understand that the things that you want are your responsibility. And you got to learn how to ask for what you want.

24:22Mel Robbins:You got to be willing to be seen. And a lot of this comes down to what you're talking about, about seeing the opportunity that you have more ability if you prepare if you know what you want. So if it's around understanding, first of all, that there are no gatekeepers except for the way we gatekeep ourselves, and you got to prepare, and the secret that you keep saying is not doing the same old, same old, so that you put the spotlight on someone else, what's the next step? I implore you to find a way where if you're at the start of your career, or if you're the start, even if you want help in anything, look to see that person who would be a mentor or help and guide you and see what do they need instead of you leading with what can I take from you?

25:08It might be information or time. What is it that they want back? And I'm going to give you just a great example is where I've mentored a lot of other people that perform and do what I do. And many of them will lead with how did you do this trick? And I'm not going to answer that because it just doesn't show that you put in the work. But I had one young guy who came to me and looked at my website, studied it and said, I just wanted to let you know that you had typos on this page, this page, and this page that your press, this link was broken. This link was broken and that your Wikipedia had a bunch of errors.

25:36If you'd like, I'm happy to compile all this, fix your Wikipedia for you and send an email with every page and where it is to your web designer to help you out. He didn't ask a single thing. I go, wow, thank you so much. Yeah, that'd be great. And then after that found another thing you could do and another thing. And so what happened after about three iterations of this. I said, what can I do to help you? Right? I wanted to help that person the same way that sending somebody a thank you card or a gift will almost always elicit at the very least a thank you back. And maybe that's not the door opening, but it's a toe in the door.

26:11Mel Robbins:I love that. I also loved what you said. Don't wait for a gatekeeper. Can you unpack that more for the person listening or watching? So I think a lot of us have this dream and I did because I I didn't grow up thinking I'd be in showbiz. I am first-generation immigrant. What did you think you would do? So I was on the path of, again, I don't call it first-generation immigrant. My parents said, you go to school, you get a degree, you get good grades, and then you get a job, and then you work for someone else. That was the way I was conditioned and brought up. That was what I was defined as success.

26:41I started doing magic when I was 13 years old. I won't give you the whole life story. When I was 14, my folks had gotten divorced. We didn't really have a lot of money. It was very messy. And I wanted to keep performing and getting new magic tricks. And they're very expensive. And so for me to do that, I had to start working. My mom's like, I can't, you gotta go work. So I walked over to a restaurant, you know, half a mile from my house. I somehow sweet talked myself into getting a job, being a closeup strolling magician, printed my own business cards, hand cut them and started getting gigs doing children's birthday parties in corporate events.

27:11And so when you ask me, what did I view? I never viewed it as I could do this full time professionally. I did this in order to get my degree to go work in a corporate job. And I worked on Wall Street for a few years. And at a certain moment, there were all these light bulb moments, as you call them, of, wow, could I actually do this for my living? Could I do this? Make it from like something that's a dream into a reality. I think so many of us have that of, is this what I'm currently doing, what I was born to do? Is this what my calling is? And at a certain point, I couldn't keep going for it if I was always on the wall.

27:44I had to jump in the pool. I couldn't just dip my toes in the water. So in 2005, I quit my job. I went for it full time. and it was not something everyone around me thought was a smart fiscal decision. It seemed pretty crazy to go from working on Wall Street with a very well-paying job to you are suddenly a magician slash mentalist. And day one of me doing that, I realized no one is gonna call me in like in the 1920s vaudeville and say, I'm gonna make you a star, kid. That's not gonna happen. I had that moment sitting on the couch watching daytime TV and saying, I don't have to do anything right now, Mel.

28:17I could just eat cereal and sit in my boxers watching TV. And I thought for about five minutes, this is the most glorious morning of my life. And then this feeling settled in and I go, Oh my God, I don't have a boss. I could just keep doing this, but no one is going to make this happen if I don't. And I turned off the TV and I said, I got to start making moves. And there is no playbook for being a movie star or a mentalist or a rock star or so many of these careers. So I think you've got to start defining your goals and what success is in taking small, incremental, quantifiable steps towards achieving it.

28:53Mel Robbins:Oz, let's just take a quick break so that we can hear a word from our sponsors. And don't go anywhere because there is so much more Oz has to teach you, including an incredible trick for remembering people's names. We're just getting started, so stay with me.

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32:27Mel Robbins:Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. Today, you and I are learning how to read people, talk to anyone, and communicate with confidence with the world's top mentalist, Ose Perlman. For somebody who is listening or watching, because I have a feeling it's going to be one of those episodes that a lot of people send to their adult kids, or maybe they send to their spouse, or they send to somebody who is really resistant to putting themselves out there. What would you say to somebody who is uncomfortable with even just putting that little toe in the water, who sits back and watches everybody else do it, but could do it?

33:08Mel Robbins:What do you want to say to that person? Whenever people see you at a certain level, they don't see all the years that came to being here. So they don't see me at 14 years old walking up to a table being rejected because they didn't want some 14-year-old shrimp coming over while they had a babysitter. And who are you? and you start doing cartridges, get out of here, kid. And then you don't care about my feelings. I'm not their kid. And that hurt. I can't lie to you and say that being rejected in that way doesn't hurt. And if it happens at one table and then another table and then another table, it crushes you.

33:39And so what I learned at that age, and I think that it's helped me throughout my whole life, it's a form of resilience, is I learned how to overcome not just rejection, the pain of rejection, but what happens over time is you have a fear of rejection. I would argue that most of those people that you're mentioning aren't even feeling rejection. They fear the rejection so much that it stops them dead in their tracks before trying. And so here's the cheat code. I want to give you how to fast forward and cheat so you don't have that fear of rejection because this is what I knew when I was 14 years old.

34:12And I did it as a way, and it was selfish because I couldn't fail. I couldn't leave that restaurant and just be like, I'm not doing this because I want to keep getting magic tricks. I'm like, I got to buy more tricks now. So I can't let these other people be in charge of my future because they're hurting my feelings. So I can't explain to you how I fell upon this, but I realized that I need to separate myself, this part of your psyche that takes the hurt and feels it and separate it from this other person. I had this paradigm shift where I go, they don't know me. That person does not know me. I'm O's Perlman.

34:47They don't know me. They know the guy who just came up to them and did tricks. and I called him O's the magician in my mind. I created this split personality where all of the anger, chaos, frustration, hurt got put on this other person where I could deflect that responsibility and go, they don't know me. I'm not hurt when I leave that table. I said, thank you very much, guys. I'll see if I can come back later. Appreciate you. And I had none of that pain because I separated myself. And it's almost like having an agent where your agent gets to have the calls, where they go, I don't want to do this negotiation.

35:17I don't want to talk to that person about this thing. you have an agent that handles it. I became my own agent. And somehow I created a set in my mind where I said, I no longer feel the pain of you rejecting me because you're not rejecting me. You're rejecting this part of me and you don't know the real me. I realized that if I give away 60 business cards in a night, in the next year, I quantified it. One or two of those people will call me for their kid's birthday party or for some other party. One or two of them will call me. So rather than focus on 58 no's, every no gets me closer to a yes.

35:51So I want you to start seeing it that way in your mind. Right now, you're so scared to do it. You're so scared to do something. You're dreading it. Five second rule. I remember where I got that one, right? I get out of bed. I want to go for a run at 5.30 a.m. I'm so groggy. I go, Houston, we have liftoff. Five, four, three, two, and I get up. So that works for me, but I'm going to give you a tag to your five second rule. What's my language of dread? confrontation. I hate confrontation. If I have to talk to the guy who did our landscaping and argue about the fact that the trees weren't pruned and I got to argue about money, I hate that.

36:25I will defer it and move it to my calendar for three days. If I have an argument with my sister, I don't want to talk. I don't want to. So how do I deal with this? Here's what we do. Are you ready? Yes. You've got a phone. I've got a phone. Right before you do it, we're about to employ the five second rule. In my mind, I ask myself, how much am I dreading this on a scale of one to 10? It's a nine. I don't want to do this at all. I put an alarm for 24 hours from today, and I write, dread talking to landscaper as my thing. Took me three seconds to do that. Right then, five second rule, I make the call.

36:58I rip the bandit, I do it no matter what. I rip the bandit, I do it, I get it over with. Force yourself to do it. Here's what's going to happen. The next day, the alarm's going to go off. If you even remember what this was a day later, Ask yourself at that moment, what do I register the dread that it was talking to the landscaper? It's a two. It's a one, if I even remember it. What happened? Learn from my job. My job is to deceive you in order to entertain you. I have studied the way people think for upwards of 29 years. The human mind is wired, where right now, all you did, nothing happened. You feel better.

37:37Why? Time elapsed. Nothing else. Time went by. What if you could fast forward those 24 hours and feel the one or two now. I call it fast forward your feelings. I literally, I say to myself, I wanna feel the way I do now 24 hours ago before I do it. And if you do this two or three times, you will realize all it is is perception. All that happened is perception. You are in charge of your mind. So right before I make that call, I go, I'm gonna feel a two now because in a day, I'm not even gonna remember this. So you know what? Before I count five, four, three, I'm gonna feel the same way I do in 24 hours now because I so know that that's how it's gonna be.

38:11I feel better now. let's make this call and get it over with. I've just tricked my mind and traveled into the future knowing this is how I will feel.

38:19Mel Robbins:I love this. And I want to make sure that as you're listening or watching, you actually got the step-by-step process. Cause I do think it's genius. You have a phone call to make, you've paid somebody to do something. They didn't do the job right. Or a family conversation. Or a family, but even just like the neutral one that you gave of, oh my God, I paid and it didn't get done right. Now I got to call the person and they're going to be a this and a that. And so we've all felt that. And what you're saying is you set an alarm in your phone that says - 24 hours from now. 24 hours from this moment, dread calling the landscaper.

38:54Mel Robbins:Exactly. And then 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you call the landscaper. Must. You rip the band-aid. You do it now. You must do it now. You get it over with. It goes however it goes. 24 hours later, or you've even forgotten about the call and the alarm goes off. And now the fact that you are being reminded that you dreaded this so much and it's already in the past, you're now training yourself in that moment to reflect on the fact that it wasn't that bad. Right. Which your mind is programmed to do. Here's what I think is genius about this. And I'm going to try this. And the reason why I think this is genius is because for the last 16 years, I have been counting 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 to get out of bed.

39:35Mel Robbins:I still hate getting out of bed, but I think if I were to set the alarm, which I'm going to do tomorrow morning, and I then reflect the next morning on the fact that it wasn't so bad, I might actually train myself not to feel the dread in the morning versus just having to constantly push myself through it. This is fascinating. Dread is associated with starting that the first step is far harder than the 10th. And so you just set things aside. Who's guilty of this? I move it to my calendar tomorrow. I move it to my calendar the next day. Let's just move it to next week. Let's keep moving things that have no end timelines, right?

40:12Creativity requires a deadline. Certain things that are open-ended never end because I never want to do them. How many of us have those things that we'll do one day, right? When's that day going to come? And so for me, with a lot of these things, unless they're forced upon me, which could be that I disappoint others eventually and they get mad at me and say, when are you going to do that thing? The time is now. I will keep pushing the end line and when it takes place. And so I had to do this as a survival mechanism because that dread feels worse than doing the thing.

40:43Mel Robbins:Oz, I want to take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors. And I can tell since you're a mentalist, you knew that was coming before I even said it. Don't go anywhere. We have so much more to dig into when we return. So stay with me.

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43:52Mel Robbins:Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins, and today you and I get to learn from one of the top mentalists in the world, Oz Perlman. Okay, so Oz, I want to go deeper because one of the other the things that you say is that the first 10 seconds that you spend with someone are critical. What is happening in those first 10 seconds and what should you be taking note of? Can I throw it back to the restaurant days? Because that changed my life. Truly, when you look at me now, when I approached a table, I started noticing patterns. And that's what we do throughout life. We notice patterns when we behave with other people.

44:26How do we interact? And what do those patterns yield? Right? This does well. Let's do it again. Yeah. I noticed that if I approached people right away, right when people see you within the first second, there's so many judgments that occur. Now, in the situation I had specifically of walking up to you at a table, right away, they asked themselves all of these questions. Who is this guy? What's he doing here? Does he work here? What's he? Oh my God. He's got a deck card. Is he a magician? Is he any good? Is he going to leave? Is he going to embarrass me? Is he going to embarrass me? Does he need money?

44:55Oh my God, do I have money? All of those questions occurred in a split second. My job wasn't just to entertain you. My job was to diffuse tension and to answer every one of those questions, put a checkmark next to them as quickly as possible in as few words and actions as possible, and then flip the power dynamic. You now want me to not leave. Now I'm in charge of your attention. I'm holding it in the palm of my hand. How did you do that? So right away, I noticed a few patterns. When you approach somebody head on, this is so silly and you want to know about body language reading, try this today, five minutes after this.

45:33If you approach someone head on, we are hardwired to feel danger when someone comes directly at you. I would approach tables at an angle. So when I walk up to you, notice I walk up and approach at an angle with one eye showing, not two. It feels from a, like just from a Pavlovian response of fight or flight, what is, you feel less danger. I immediately put a time constraint in place because the lingering person who walks up to you, you don't know when they're going to go. They're close talking. Oh my God, how long is this conversation going to be? If I walk up to you and say, I only have 30 seconds right away, I've taken away so many of the parts of tension that you had.

46:11Who is this? Are they going to stay? What are they doing? Is this going to be long? And then right away, I know that you don't know if I work there. You don't know who I am. Am I asking you for money. Right away, I knew that money and getting a tip makes you awkward. I see people searching, honey, do you have money? Do you have that? So I would say to you, have you heard what's going on tonight? This is your lucky night. So right away, I've asked a question that has no yes or no, because no one says no, I don't like lucky nights. I go, the owner has me here as a special treat for all of you. And I'm going to show you the most amazing thing you've seen this week.

46:44So I haven't ever given you a question you can say no to because when I used to walk up to the deck cars, who wants to see a trick? No, thanks kid. I've allowed you to stop me. So I kept cutting down the amount of words, same way a great comedian makes a premise short and the punchline fast to check every box so that by the time I walked up to you, you're intrigued. You're interested. You know, I work there. You know, the owner social currency has blessed you with being here. I'm here as a treat from the owner. I'm not asking you for money. I don't want money. And so now you're loose, you're relaxed.

47:16And now keep in mind, I've opened the door, but you better deliver. So what I've done is I've taken away all the tension, but I better have a great trick as an opener. All I've done is just started. I'm not giving you the secret to how you're going to be a success at what you do. That's on you. But I've given you the way to open the door so that the person is now interested and they've bought in and now you get your shot at bat. How do we apply all the knowledge that you have

47:42Mel Robbins:to those 10 seconds of first interacting with somebody? So this is going to be situation specific, right? In your personal life, let's say you're meeting somebody that you're interested in. That's going to differ very greatly than if you are a pharmaceutical rep and you're meeting a new doctor or a new, you know, administrative assistant who's going to open the door to that doctor. every one of these situations is different, but in every situation, the common denominator is you need to start thinking like the person in front of you. Because most of us, when we walk up are thinking about ourselves and what are we going to say about us and what's going to matter about me.

48:16And I want you to take and stop that. That's where I said, make them, make them care about you, make them talk about you, make them remember you. And you do that by making it about them. Make it about them. When you walk up to that person, try to be aware of what makes them tick. When you are at, like, I had a Delta flight recently cancel. Shout out. I love Delta. I fly them all the time, but I had another one and then another one and I'm stuck at the airport and I'm walking up to the airport attendant and everyone else is being rude to this person. Yeah. And that agent, do you think that's going to help when you are the 10th person to come up and be rude and flex your status and all that?

48:50Mel Robbins:And by the way, do they have any control over the weather or the equipment or the timing out? Did they cancel it on purpose to screw you? No. But you're mad. And I think that if you walk up to that person and you just say, what a rough day, huh? All these people coming up to you. I know this isn't your fault. I know you wish things were going smooth. If you could help me out, is there any chance that there's another flight you could get me on before this? Right? Just right there, the way you've empathized, lead with empathy. So if you want to walk up to somebody right away, leading with empathy and having an awareness of who they are, what makes them tick and putting in one statement where you, you're not a mentalist, but use my playbook, get inside their head.

49:30Think what's it like for them. If you're that pharmaceutical rep and you go in there, you said, I bet you've had so many people pitch you today, all different products. I want this to be the best one you've had all day. Do you have even 30 seconds? I've got to tell you something exciting, right? Something where you just, just allude to what their day is and what they're going through and what's happening with them. I think that goes such a long way. If you're meeting somebody and you like flirting, I'm not telling you what your pickup line is, but I can tell you that right away, leading with either a compliment, a smile, a time constraint, or just saying something very friendly that you see through their eyes, the world, is going to make such a bigger impact than immediately saying something about you.

50:12Mel Robbins:I love that. And it immediately gave me an example in a work setting because I think a lot of time, it's easy to be tentative about approaching somebody. When's a good time? When's this? When's that? And months can go by before you get time on someone's calendar. And if you take what you're teaching us, which is stop thinking about yourself, I need time with this person. Why is this person? I'm not getting the time. I need blah, blah, blah, blah. And you think about the person you're trying to reach. Jeez, they have a lot going on. Holy cow, there's a lot coming at them. Boy, this is a really busy person.

50:42Mel Robbins:So if I step in their shoes and I see them going down a hallway, you don't walk up and say, hey, I need time with you. You start walking with them. you say, Hey, I know you're really busy. Right. Can I, I'm going to walk with you for the next 30 seconds. Cause there's something really important that I need to share with you. I want to make sure it's on your radar. Yep. Boom. Now, all of a sudden you've got my interest and you're walking with me and I'm going to give you more than 30 seconds. Absolutely. And if you can, if you can put any type of benefits oriented language where it's not even, I have something important to share with you.

51:11It's, I want to make your life easier and I have an excellent way so that you're making more money, having more time yourself. Again, invert the value proposition so that when you're approaching somebody, you're always saying the thing that you're doing to make their life better, easier, anything.

51:26Mel Robbins:You could literally say, I want to save you a gigantic headache because I see an issue brewing and I want to bring it to your attention. Now I'm stopped. Boom. Now I'm not even walking. And I think a lot of people make the mistake of thinking you got to have a 30 minute zoom call scheduled at some point to be able to lay out what this is. And there's a way to use these strategies. Think about the other person, flip it so it's not about you, frame it in a way that it would be interesting to them, diffuse any of the objections, and now you're in, and it takes just a few seconds. Right. It's changing your mindset in a way.

51:58Mel Robbins:You know, one of the things, Oz, that you're exceptional at is remembering people's names. And I would love to have you speak a little bit about why is this an important skill to develop in yourself? And what happens in the other person's brain when they hear their name? So our name from the time we're young is something special to us, right? And if somebody forgets your name, make no mistake about it, it hurts a little bit. There's a sting to the fact that you weren't as important. Now, maybe your memory was faulty, maybe it was all, but if you forget someone's name, no matter what you think, it's not a good thing.

52:34And we've all felt it. We've all done it. We've been on the receiving side and the giving side. so most of us make a huge mistake in thinking, they'll say to me, I'm so bad at remembering names. Oh, how can you show me you're so good at it? I'm going to tell you that the main culprit in forgetting people's names has nothing to do with your memory. It's that you never even knew the name to begin with. So most people, when they think they've forgotten a name, they never imprinted it on their mind. And the reason is when the person told you their name, you didn't listen. That's literally, it's the simplest step.

53:07It's so silly. You're not going to believe me. I have a set of three directions that I have stolen from shampoo bottles, but I call it the lather, rinse, repeat of shampoo bottles, which what do you do with shampoo? Everybody knows. Put it in, lather, smells good. Rinse, clean hair, repeat. We got to sell more product. I repurposed it. I call it listen, repeat, reply. Okay. Please say it again. Listen, repeat, reply. Listen, repeat, reply. I want this to be something that 10 minutes after this episode, you will start using and 10 years from now, you will still be doing on a daily basis. Listen, repeat, reply.

53:41You will not forget a name again if you follow these directions. I don't care what your memory is like. The listen is the simplest by far, but for a lot of us, it's the hardest. When you meet someone, listen to their name. I know it sounds so simple, but what does that mean? It means quiet your mind because at that moment, most of us are thinking a bunch of things. The big ones are, do I know this person already. What am I going to say next? Oh my God. Did I feed my dog this morning? Did I X, Y, Z a million thoughts are going through your head and our brains are not good at reading and writing at the same time.

54:15They do one of them really well at best. So right when I meet someone, I clear my mind and I say, what's your name? Tracy. And I immediately repeat, listen, repeat. I'm going to repeat their name a minimum of twice immediately after hearing it. Like I met the person doing sound downstairs. There was no name tag. I go, Caroline. And I go, is that, did I say it right? Is it Caroline? So right away, I'm going to repeat the name twice. You right then have about a 90 % less chance of forgetting that name in the next 15 seconds. We're going to go beyond the 15, but in those 15 seconds, it will not go away.

54:51Listen, repeat. The last one really ensures that it is solidified in your mind. Reply. Say something back that hooks it in your memory. Here are the three that I like to use. First, a compliment. A compliment. Right away, I go, Mel, I love your glasses. Mel, where did you get those? So it does two things. One, people like to hear compliments. Two, it's a visual. So now you're Mel with the glasses in my mind, right? I've connected to something visual that I see. I've said your name more than once. Next one, how do you spell the name? Now, for a lot of names, you'd be shocked. If it's John, I go, are you John with an H or you're John with no H?

55:28And I go, John with the H. That's the right way to spell it. I've now said the name four times, right? You're going to remember John with the H. You can do that with Tracy. You can do that with Michelle, one L or two L's. I go, Michelle with two L's. I know so many of you, the Michelle with one L. You make a joke. You make something third, if you can connect it to somebody you already know. So if I meet somebody and the guy's name is Evan, I go, it's so funny. Evan, I go, we've got a great music teacher named Evan. He's a great guy. So anything you can do to connect it with an existing memory, now that's Evan and you see it next to this other person, Evan.

56:03This is not a memory palace. This is not a mnemonic. I'm not going to, I'm telling you 10 minutes from you hearing these words, try this, try it three times today, and you will be doing this for the rest of your life. Listen, repeat, reply. Why is it so important to develop this as a skill? I have noticed time and again that people who are genuine, people that are authentic, people that look you in the eyes, care about you in that moment, make you feel seen, heard, and understood, they are going to go so much further in life than everyone else that are going to say please, that are going to say thank you, that are going to do these things.

56:38I don't think the nice guy ends last. I think that those little wins accumulate over time. And you ask me, how did you achieve success? By doing these things day in, day out, small little bits, those people will become your champions. Those people who you thought nothing of and you knew their name and you took the time to write down notes afterwards about their children or what was important to them and you know that information a month or a year or a decade later, they remember you. They talk about you. Memorable moments. And they will champion you and elevate you in your happiness, in your success, in your life.

57:10Mel Robbins:You just mentioned taking notes. And you and I share something in common, which is this habit of keeping notes once you meet someone. So So share a little bit about this habit. So I find that taking notes, I did it as a matter of necessity because I have a lot of clients that book me for events and they'll book me again and again. And so what happens is it's very awkward for me because we have an asymmetrical interaction, which means that sometimes I do things that people will remember and talk about for the rest of their life. I'm not trying to brag, but that's my job. That's what I try to do, create those moments.

57:44And that for lack of a better term, I will have done that to several thousand other people in between the time we last met. So it's not that they don't mean a lot to me. It's that that will blend in with other ones because contrary to popular opinion, I am not a memory expert. I use my memory effectively in certain ways. And the beautiful part is I can cheat when it comes to my memory. I can write notes down. So what I realized is I didn't want to do a show again, see someone there and have forgotten this amazing experience I gave them. Yes. Because to them, I look in their eyes and I see that they're disappointed.

58:18And so I did this. It was born of necessity, started taking notes over a decade ago on what was happening. And then I took more notes and more notes. And I do this. It's a great way to train your memory because as soon as my show ends or as soon as a dinner party ends or as soon as anything, some people think, I don't know why that it's like a weird sociopathic tendency that you're cheating. I disagree vehemently. I think that you're being given information. Why would you let it flow through your fingers like sand? It becomes more valuable the longer you hold on to it. It shows that you care. It doesn't mean that you didn't remember.

58:50If I look at those notes before I go to a show, that shows I cared. And people will give me credit for knowing something or remembering something that I truly didn't remember, but I took the time to review it. So I tell you, find an easy way. Maybe it's notes. I will write notes down in my calendar and in an app after every event, after meeting people. And you don't even have to introduce it as a, for me, I'm not doing it as a trick. I'm not pretending I didn't know this information about you.

59:16Mel Robbins:I've shared this before on a podcast and also, you know, in speeches, but you can use this same strategy at your favorite restaurant. Yep. You can use it at your local coffee shop. And if you find you're the kind of person that goes in and you can't remember the barista's name or you can't remember, you know, the woman that is working on Tuesday nights at the restaurant, just make a contact file for the restaurant and in the notes app, just describe people and constantly be adding to it. Like, it's an incredible thing to do. Incredible. Incredible. Because when you call people by their name, particularly in these more casual relationships, people are floored.

59:57Mel Robbins:You also say that every one of us has a built-in BS detector. Yep. How can you use it to tell when somebody's lying to you? I have seen so many instances where my first instinct was correct. Now, not every time, but enough statistically that it's a statistical advantage. I would tell most people that if you can really be honest with yourself, with what you believed at the first moment, kids are lying to me right now. Well, maybe this, nope, I bet you they were lying. I bet you more often than not, they were. That person you went on a first date with, something doesn't feel right. It's probably not going to be right four or five or six dates from now.

1:00:34There's so much in your instincts that you will talk yourself out of. And I've learned to have that voice that says not to, I don't listen to it.

1:00:42Mel Robbins:Well, you know, it's interesting. I love this because I feel the same about myself that intuition, another way to think about it, is pattern recognition. That's all it is. It's iterating on pattern recognition. Yes. And if you have this intuition or this sixth sense, it means your mind, body, and spirit is recognizing a pattern. And to me, even if you catch it wrong and you make a decision and you realize the pattern recognition was wrong, making the decision and then gathering the data adjusts the patterns that you spot. Right. And so to me, there is no other way than to act on your intuition and the pattern recognition and the sixth sense that you have, because that's the only thing that hones it.

1:01:30Mel Robbins:Because you need both the right calls and the wrong calls to adjust the settings to recognize the right patterns. Like, I totally agree with you. Some of the sixth sense is stuff that's subconscious that you don't realize. Yes. So I can give you great examples of BS detection with people you know, which is when they vary from their benchmarks. So again, this isn't a foolproof and it's not infallible. So I don't want to tell people something that you're going to then say, oh, it didn't work. But it works more often than it doesn't, which again is my barometer for success in many ways. I have no way to tell you 100%.

1:02:01Here's where someone's eyes look if they're lying. There's different things that vary how people behave. But here's the key. People will change the amount of details. the speed with which they speak, the cadence with which they speak when they lie. You can normally detect when people that you know are lying because they change from what they normally do. So let me explain to you. I can't tell you one or the other. Most of us will add unnecessary details when we lie. We'll add more details that we don't need to embellish. You know, the person who calls and goes, I got a fever of 104 and oh my God.

1:02:35And this, and you didn't need all that. If you were really sick, do you know what you would have said? You said, I'm really not feeling well. I can't make it today. All of the embellishment is almost always a lie unless you're a person who embellishes all the time. And now if you just say to me, I'm not feeling well, I know you're lying. So what I would describe is notice people's patterns when they tell the truth. If you know them well, you've literally taken in thousands and thousands of data points of them doing this. You just haven't consciously studied what they do. I do. And then see what it feels like when you're not sure if they're lying and you'll be able to tell almost always it's different.

1:03:12Mel Robbins:I would love to switch gears and talk about difficult people. So let's say that the person who is listening or watching right now is dealing with somebody who is really challenging, whether it's a difficult coworker or maybe it is a rude customer or somebody that is like defensive. Maybe it's even your partner. What do you do in those moments where things get tense or there's a lot of friction? What's the best way to handle these situations? So for me in my professional environment, hecklers are an issue, right? Somebody who wants to figure you out. And this can go down a few different paths or channels.

1:03:52One is analyzing what is at the core their motivation for doing this. So for a lot of people, the motivation is attention. They want attention. You have it. And there is an insecurity playing out where they feel lesser than. Also, I have a profession that relies on deception at its core. At the end of it, I don't tell you how I did it. So it can be presented as an intellectual challenge for some people where they say, you know something I don't, therefore I feel insecure. I feel threatened by you. So I want to figure out how you did it. So in that moment, if I know what they want is attention, I want to give them that attention.

1:04:29And if that means that I can give them a peek behind the curtain, for some people, they want to feel intelligent. They want to feel they've caught me. So what can I do? Why don't I let them feel like they caught me? But I'll let them feel like they caught me on something simple. I'll let them behind the curtain. I'll go, oh, you know how this works. Let me show you something. And I bring them in and I include them and they feel like, wow, I've now gotten what I wanted. That spotlight, that shine, he is noticing me. But now we've already built that rapport. So again, this is how I do it in my life.

1:04:57But who are the hecklers in your life? Who are the people that don't believe in you, that are talking down to you, that are telling you, hey, stay in your lane, you know, don't bite off more than you can chew. Certain people that are bringing you down with their energy, right?

1:05:13Mel Robbins:Yeah. I think that in many instances, you have to look at what's motivating them. And I think so much of the time, it's a mirror for their insecurities. It's the compare and despair mentality, which is what they're saying to you is what they actually feel about themselves. And so know that where they're coming from is from a position of they're insecure about that. Now, you're not going to change who people are. Let them, obviously. So if somebody is bringing you down, I think that me knowing where their motivation is coming from and knowing that they don't really want to bring me down, they feel down.

1:05:49That's where it's coming from. If I'm diffusing a heckler whose energy is going above mine, never try to overcome them. Anger is not going to best in that situation. You're in a fight with like a family member and you're getting elevated and you're about to say something you can't take back. Pause, breathe, write it in an email, draft it, and don't send it. Put an alarm for 48 hours. See if you still feel that strongly. And if you want to send it again, I've deleted pretty much every one of those emails I've ever drafted because some things you can't take back.

1:06:17Mel Robbins:I really loved what you said about how this kind of flipping it around to understand that somebody's not trying to bring you down. They feel down. And that they're projecting at you the things that they feel they're lacking in themselves. Almost always. Almost always. You know, how do you know when it's time to stop trying to win someone over and simply just walk away? I think that I get to pick my audience. That's a beautiful part about me. I get to pick the people in my show who I'm using. Mine is sometimes on TV. You have to decide what is right for you and decide if at the end of the day, is this person helping to uplift me or bring me down?

1:06:58And I think that's something you have to trust yourself on. And even if their example is one where it is frustrating or scorn or negativity, you can't control how they behave. All I can control is my reaction to that. And trying to understand and assess where are they really coming from and what's the root cause of it? Because in so many instances, the root cause is not actually that they want to bring you down or make you feel bad. It's that they feel bad inside and they don't know how to deal with that.

1:07:28Mel Robbins:Oh, as you talk about the power of leaving people wanting more, how can the person listening or watching use that right now in their everyday life, whether it's in a meeting or it's on a date or it is in even your friendships. That's the number one rule of showbiz is leave people wanting more. Is where is that curve where you get right to the top before it starts to go down? That's something you learn over time and that's built on confidence is leaving people wanting more. In a meeting, answer the questions and then move along. So many of us will keep talking when we've had our fill. We've said everything we wanted and then right then we know, I got to fill more dead space.

1:08:13Silence is sometimes golden in negotiations and in life. Took me a decade to learn that when I'm done performing in effect and I do something amazing, I let them react. I used to try to fill the time, fill the space, start talking over people. And it's kind of like what a comedian calls stepping on laughs. If people are still laughing, don't start your next joke. Let all the laughs finish before you move on. Otherwise, you're eating your own dessert. When it comes to dating, I think be just out of grasp. Be just out of grasp. I'm not saying to play games, but you don't want to overshare. You don't want to give too much too early.

1:08:53So many people have that pattern. I think it's the same in business, is you overwhelm somebody earlier. Try to match someone's energy. When I would do job interviews, so many people would either go in too much or too little if you walk in and you're too down you're not remembered if you're too up oh take it easy buddy just a little too much how many coffees if you can match the level a snort laugh out of mel i nailed it i nailed this episode now

1:09:21Mel Robbins:it's time to leave us with now we're wanting more but if you can match the energy of the person across from you just try to calibrate where you're the same as them and every now and again you leave them wanting more. I had, this is a cheat sheet in life. On my resume, I had professional magician on my resume when I finished college and somebody saw that. Every single person, Mel, not one, you could put me in a lie detector test. At what point? Looked at my resume while interviewing me, went professional magician. Nobody looks at that and doesn't make a comment. It's impossible. And now how do you leave somebody wanting more?

1:09:53At that moment, I said, if we have time at the interview, maybe I'll show you one thing. Notice all of the words I used in there. Maybe at the end, I didn't let them say to me, do something now because now they're in charge. I also said, maybe at the end, if we have time, I've created that time constraint. I've created scarcity and demand by my words alone. So how do you leave people wanting more? Do that in your life. Don't overstay your welcome. When you finished speaking and you have everything, stop. That's the hardest thing for most of us to do. Stop. Just like a negotiation. Here's my offer.

1:10:31And then let them continue talking because most of the time, the person who speaks last in a negotiation loses.

1:10:40Mel Robbins:You've certainly left us wanting more. Thank you. And I also know you have a flight to catch. I have flight, but we have to do one last thing. Okay. Are you ready? I'd love to leave you on a moment that's memorable. You picked the word want. Yes, out of every page in your book. Yes. And you went through there and I said to pick a page with some sort of meaning to you, not random. Yes. Why would it have meaning? I think that page was connected to what's most important to you, the people that you care about, somebody in your life. And that page, whatever that page was, has something to do with another person.

1:11:12Is that right?

1:11:12Mel Robbins:Yes, correct. Think of any letter in their name. Okay. The page, imagine you flipping to it again and stopping and you stop. I think you stopped closer to the second half. The page has three digits, doesn't it? Yes. And I didn't think it was a lucky number. I thought it was a date. It's a date, isn't it? It is.

1:11:38January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December. But your book has only 300 pages. So you might've given this away in a way. it's february isn't it it is february makes it too think odd think even it's an odd page isn't it yep you're thinking of february 17th you went to page 217 and i want you to imagine that person walking through this door right now you look right at him or her him or her is it a female it's a female you look her in the eyes you say how have you been is she alive yes and you look her right in the eyes and you go how have you been and you click jody is it jody it is jody oh my god it's jody yeah it's jody

1:12:26Mel Robbins:that's incredible and her birthday is february 17th yeah it's jody give the people what they want. It all worked out. That's absolutely incredible. You just gave me a memorable experience. I will never forget. And I am sitting here spinning in my chair because I can't believe you just did that. And it's a sign to me that I need to go call my friend Jodi and check in because she has a lot going on right now in her life and I'm worried about her a lot. I so appreciate you taking the time to come here. And the way in which you explain all of this wisdom and insights and the tools, it's like magic.

1:13:12Mel Robbins:Thank you. So thank you for sharing your gift with us. Thank you so much. And I also want to thank you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to something that could truly change your life. And there is no doubt in my mind if you lean into this and you recognize that opportunities, the life you want to create, the things you want to experience, the connections that you want to make, they're all right there for you to create for yourself. And the tools that Oz Perlman gave you today are going to help you do that. And in case no one else tells you this today, as your friend, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you.

1:13:51Mel Robbins:And I believe in your ability to create a better life. And part of what makes your life better is taking responsibility for the things that you want, getting out of your own way and doing what you need to do to create it for yourself. And I am certain after what you listened to today that you have the tools to now go do that. So go do it. Alrighty, I'll see you in the very next episode. I'm gonna welcome you in the moment you hit play.

1:14:18you know one of the things that you are also oh hold on a second but taking the light that shines on you and reflecting it i'm gonna try this again is that all right yeah i got sidetracked

1:14:30Mel Robbins:yes i definitely need this because i'm a little dehydrated okay oh that tastes so effing good yeah i was literally i guess okay great i just realized am i too long in rambling i can't you're And the stories are great. The top mentalist in the world, Ose Perlman. Now he's, oh, I got, okay, let me do that line again. Ose, one of the reasons why, many reasons, I'll start again. And you're talking about sort of some of the things that your early career sitting in your boxer shorts and going, oh my God. People don't need that visual right now. Keep the shirt on, Mel. The world is my oyster, but I got to shuck it.

1:15:12Mel Robbins:Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist. And this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.

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