Transcription
Now, how many of you in this room are salespeople? Let me see your hands. If you're an owner of a business, you better be raising your hand. If you are a parent, you better be raising your hand. Because, by the way, our kids are great salespeople, yes or no? I mean, they don't—you don't have to teach them how to deal with rejection. They just let it pass on by and keep coming, right? You can't have an ice cream cone, 10 minutes later they're licking on one with a smile on their face, right? No one taught them any scripts. No one taught them anything.
What I want you to get is that the single most important skill in life. We hate the word "selling," so I'll give you a word that it really is that doesn't have the negative connotation. It's the word that all leaders have. What would that word be? Influence.
What changes companies is leaders. The only way to change a company is leadership. If I want to change a company that I own and I want to make a shift in that company, the number one thing I'm going to do is shift leadership. That might be taking leaders to a different level. That might be bringing new leaders in. That might be new leaders with new voices, with new perspectives, with new skill sets, new directions. But we need to take things to another level.
Leaders solve problems and leaders maximize resources. If you're going to solve problems, you can't do it yourself, or we'd already been solved. You have to get others to help you to do it. That requires influence. True. If you're going to get people to maximize resources, that requires influence. If you're going to get people to partner with you, provide you resources, capital, suppliers, anything, that requires influence. If you're going to have an impact on your kids, or your community, or the world, that requires influence.
There is no more important skill of leadership than influence. And yet, most of us think of it like selling. And as a result, we don't master influence. So I'm not here today to try and get you to become a master of influence in 45 minutes or so. Am I? Chatting with you here because we have so many other speakers. This is the area of life I am most focused on, 'cause I know that if you can't influence, you can't lead. But if you can influence powerfully, intelligently, with integrity, there's no limit to whatever you can envision and what you can make real.
And if your influence becomes not just you as the influence, but you're able to influence systems, people, company culture, if you can turn other people into influencers, now whatever you vision about can be made into a reality. And so, as a skill of influence, we got to ask ourselves, how many agree leaders are what change companies? Raise your hand if you agree with that. Say "I." And leaders' number one skill is influence. If you agree, say "I."
And then the question becomes, how do you influence? How do you influence consistently with integrity? You can influence many ways. You can do it without integrity. But the good news is, we live in a world today where whatever you do, it's transparent to the world, because there are no secrets anymore, are there? I don't try to have a secret today. Bless you. You can forget the secret. With the internet, with the culture we have, the way the world is today, there are no secrets. And whatever you think is still possible to keep secret, give it three or four more years, and it'll be impossible.
Every phone call you make is recorded. There's no single phone call that goes internet out in North America that they don't have a recording of. And they can search by word, by tone, by tempo. They can even recognize voices now. There is no thinking of such thing as privacy. Everything you've ever put on the internet is there forever, and people know it and can search it. The way you write is searchable now. You can not sign your email. You can put on somebody else's email, and the structure of your language and the way you influence things can be studied at this level.
So the good news about that is manipulation as an ongoing tool for success is over. But adding value will never go out of style. Truth will never go out of style. So influencing with integrity is the secret. But what really influences people? Do facts and figures? We give you enough facts and figures, out of a core story, is that going to influence people? No. It's the weaving of that story together in a way that produces what? Shifts people. And that's human emotion. Ultimately, the big game here is emotion. You have to influence emotion. You have to influence the emotion of your people if you're going to maximize resources.
And if we all agree, as we talked about the other day, it's not a lack of resources, it's a lack of what? Resourcefulness. If you're creative enough, if you're playful enough, if you're determined enough, if you're focused enough, you can find a way. If you're giving enough, if you're generous enough, if you're honest enough, if you're courageous enough, you will get people to help you. You will find the way. You will make that thing happen. You'll access the resource. You get someone to coach you, teach you, loan it to you, let you try it, drive it, experience it.
So it's the ability to influence emotion, because that's what affects our intellect. That's the bottom line. A core story is only there to give you a set of facts to educate someone that will make them emotional, have to make a decision. And what they do is they go through a series of things that you have emotions about. They may say them in a non-emotional way, but the only reason they work is 'cause you know they're going to open the person's emotion. How many agree with me on this? Say "I."
So as leaders, we can never forget that humans are emotional creatures, including ourselves. And to influence other people, we have to know what already influences them. We can't ever forget what truly influences them. It's going to come down to our ability to connect with them at a deep emotional level, or get others to do the same. Here's how I'd say it in a really simple term: to influence someone, you have to already be influenced, right? To move somebody, you better be moved. To touch somebody, you can't touch somebody about your product or service or vision or idea or your company if you're not touched. To persuade others, you have to be persuaded. You can't give somebody else what you don't have.
Now, you may have it intellectually. And here's the challenge: when you first meet somebody in your relationship, and you're all excited, what's the level of energy like? Zero to ten. Make the sound of that energy. You meet somebody, you're totally excited by. Make the sound. Six months, six years, twenty years later. That's scary, isn't it? And it's not time, because there are people I've told, I've been with them, been together 65 years, and they're still out of their mind for each other. They make the same amount of noise you did in the beginning.
Here, what changes is very often when you're around something enough. I don't care what it is. There's a law called The Law of Familiarity. The Law of Familiarity says this: if you're around something enough, you take it just a little bit for granted. And no matter what it is, it's not that you don't care, it's that you get used to it. It's that the variety of it is not quite as high. It's not so new. And with that, sometimes you give it less significance, even though in your heart you know it's significant. You don't keep the aliveness of it. It becomes something you intellectualize versus something you feel inside your body with a passion.
So there are people say, "But we love each other." Yeah, well, that's great. You hug each other every now and then. You say you love each—little kiss like that. Was that how it was in the beginning? No. It isn't time. It's that most people don't understand that this emotion, this intensity, this passion has to be constantly reinforced every single day. And like any muscle, if you don't use it, you—
So then you have the base understanding why you do what you do, but you've lost the energy that makes it alive. And so if you're going to be touching people, you got to be touched. So then the question is, how do we influence ourselves? How do we influence other people? We got to get them into their emotions. We got to get ourselves into the emotions that are going to move us to action. And we got to do that ongoing, because otherwise all the stuff you wrote down will die. It'll die in your book. It'll die in your head. There has to be a level of emotion, a level of hunger in you that makes you go follow through. There's got to be a level of energy in you that when you go share it with people, you're able to influence them to follow through. And when they don't do it enough, to get back in there with them again and get them to do it again. This is where the whole game gets won or lost. Do you agree or disagree with me on this?
So what we got to look at is, first of all, us. How many of you have days when you wake up and you feel like, "I don't want to talk to people today"? How many of you got days like this in your life? Say "I." But again, as I said the other day, if you're the leader, you don't have that choice. If you're the leader, you have to get in a good state. If you're the leader, you have to get yourself in that place.
And how many of you have had some gut checks? Let me see again, in the last six months, 12 months, in your business, with the economy changing like it has never changed before, how many of you had those gut checks? Say "I." So what do we do? We have to become masters of influence, which means we have to be able to master the state of our own organization. To master the state of our own organization, we got to know how to change that. How fast, my friends? How fast? And where does it have to start? Ourselves. Since we're the first constraint. And if we can do it with ourselves and influence, then we can teach everybody else to influence.
We've said business is innovation and marketing. You have to influence people to innovate, because they're not going to just do it because they're used to what works and it's easier and they know it. Innovation means massive what? Change. How many people go, "Give me more massive change in my life with all the other things I'm trying to hang on to"? They're not going to do that. You have to influence people to innovate. And marketing is influence. So what influences us is our states. How do we change our states? Let's start with you and I, and with anybody we're going to work with. You've worked with me before. You—the first answer, if you're going to change somebody's state, the fastest way to do it is physical. Trying to change somebody's mind is really hard. Change their body, their mind will go. If you doubt it, give somebody enough alcohol and just see how quickly you can change them. True. Give enough alcohol, I don't care who they are, they're going to change. What are you changing? Biochemistry, physiology, physical body. And the emotion, the mind will shift. It's why people take drugs. It's why people eat when they go eat. It's a biochemical change in their body.
So, but we can do this through movement. We can do this through change. So if you want to be the leader, and you're going to be affected, first thing I'd say to all of you going home, so you don't feel overwhelmed, is you need to develop an ongoing discipline, because we are our rituals. And I mean a physical one. If you want to say, "Well, why is my life the way it is today?" Look at your rituals. Whether you call them rituals or not, you have them. Most of you get up, and you have a set of rituals. You go straight to email, or you go straight and work out, or you go have your breakfast, or you hit the snooze button at least three times. It's your ritual. Who knows what I'm talking about here? And if you want to know what somebody's like, you can see their rituals. You can look at anybody's body in this room. If you had them take their clothes off, and you know some of their rituals or lack thereof. Is it true?
If every day you get up and your ritual is you go to Starbucks and order a—whatever those things are that you have, right? And a big muffin, and whatever it is, right? And that's what you do every day. It's not hard to figure out which you're going to be like by 10:30 in the morning. You're going to be looking for your next coffee, your next whatever, 'cause you want to stimulate your adrenal glands like crazy, and they're going to drop predictably. And we know what your stress level is going to be like. We know when your energy is going to go and fade. It's predictable because of your rituals. If you eat a certain way, you can predict that person's going to be fat and tired. You eat a different way, you know. If a person eats and they exercise a certain way, you know what their body's going to be like.
Who here works out five days a week, never misses? It's just your life. Let me see your hands. Look at—look at the number of people here. That's fantastic. That's really—give everybody a hand. That's really fantastic. Boo. Here, honestly, never works out consistently, right? Don't clap. Now, here's what's interesting. I'm—I'm not saying one is right or one is wrong, but with those two different rituals, create a different body, yes or no? If we wanted to really make it clear, we'd say everybody works out five days a week, stand up. We could look at them. Sit down. Everybody doesn't work out, stand up. Look at them. It'll be pretty obvious. Now, some people's metabolism is different, they get by with different things, but you get the picture, don't you?
Your relationships today are the results of your rituals. If the first thing you do every day when you come home is "Hi, honey," and then you go and give a little peck on the cheek, and then you sit down and start typing your emails or you flip on the news, it's not hard to know what your relationship's going to be like. You guys might love each other, but it's going to be one boring, dead relationship. It's like having a brother-sister. But if your new ritual was, and you just—in the beginning, you made it a ritual, you just made for fun, you say, "Every day when I come home, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to yell my husband or wife's name." Or sometimes my wife's a little crazy, so I go, "Lucy, I'm home!" And then we both go running wherever she is in the house, wherever in the house, we go running full speed like lovers haven't seen each other in six months. We do it. Ask my assistant all the time. Now, not every day, but it's our ritual to this process, right? It's just a crazy thing. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate the hand. But that's not—I'm telling you to do this. I'm telling you this because I want you to create yours.
Because when you do that, and you're playful and crazy, and you do that on a regular basis, like you can't wait to see each other. And the biggest ritual that we have besides physical. And by the way, let me just say to you this: when you go home, if you want to transform your business, transform you by creating, first, if you don't already have one, a set of physical rituals that you're not going to miss. I don't care if it's three days a week, four days a week, something's going to make you physically strong. Because in a place where there's going to be a lot of fear, the way you deal with crisis is, number one thing you should do is feed your mind. And you're doing that. Get yourself new answers. Immerse yourself in new environments. Get new voices. Have new perspectives. Ask some new questions. Isn't that what we've been doing here, right? And we're doing it together. And bringing all these people together, I basically to create innovation in your life and marketing. I've assembled here 19 people. You assembled five days of your life. And we're just rocking day and night. It's the total immersion of what I taught you in innovation. It's really what it is.
But it's got to continue. For it to continue, though, we've also been managing your state to a great extent, right? Most of you don't go home in four or five days, start clapping like crazy and screaming and shaking. You don't do that yourself, right? And so some of you are going to go like, "Wow, it doesn't feel the same as at the seminar and stuff, you know? I'm back here by myself, and my people aren't doing this." But some of you will go home and initiate this. You're going to have your physiology five—your five minutes of physiology shift once an hour, once every nine minutes, or no more than once every two hours. You're going to start your morning with everybody. You're going to bring in and get some little audio clip of something from a movie or something that blasts across, you know, the room and have everybody stand at attention. You're going to do some crazy stuff. If you're smart, go over to Zappos and see what they do. They got the most crazy stuff going on there. All the stuff that I do in seminars, they do every day at their location with their people, and people can't wait to get to work. And in a certain state.