B (8:02)

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A (9:03)

so how do you practice this without feeling fake or being fake? Well, my first piece of advice is don't try all five at once. Okay? Pick one technique each time you have a meeting or a conversation or an interaction, observe what changes after the conversation. This isn't about becoming someone else. It's about becoming somebody who's removing friction from the interaction. You want people to feel like, hey, this person always has a smooth conversation with me. I don't feel awkward. Things kind of just flow. And these five techniques allow you to do that. And then when they leave you, they feel like this person was valuable. And that's really what you want to do. You want to be a person of value. I want to give you a challenge, some homework, if you will. I want you to organize a dinner with three or more people. They could be colleagues, they could be fellow entrepreneurs, they could be friends. I'm serious. Not yeah, that sounds nice. Maybe one day. I mean, actually do it. Create that WhatsApp group and start inviting people today. Lock in the date. Book a restaurant and choose a quiet restaurant, by the way, not some loud pub where everyone's yelling over each other and you really can't have a good conversation. This is intentional. We're not hanging out. We're practicing a skill. I want you to choose one of the five techniques I shared with you today, and I want you to genuinely give it a go. Give it a shot. Now, you don't have to do all five. Just choose one. Here are the techniques again, Technique number one, appearances matter. Number two, slow down. Number three, ask interesting questions. Number four, match energy. And number five, leave them feeling better than before. Pick one and commit to it for the entire dinner. And here's the important part. You're not trying to be smooth here. You're not trying to impress anyone. You are running an internal experiment with yourself. Let me make this as practical as possible. If you choose, for example, to slow down, that means you pause before answering. You don't rush and fill the silence. You let people finish their thoughts fully before you jump in. These are the things you're going to actively do during the dinner. If you decide to choose the Ask Interesting Questions technique, that means you're not going to ask questions like, so what did you do this week? Right? You're going to ask something like, what's something you've been working on right now that you can't stop thinking about? Or what's been unexpectedly challenging about this past year or month, or even what's a win you haven't celebrated yet? If you're going to choose match energy, that means during the dinner, you're not going to overpower quiet people. You're not going to pull down excited people. You're going to meet people where they are instead of pulling them where you want them to be. If you choose leaving them feeling better than before, that means you're listening for moments where someone doubts themselves. You reflect back their strengths. You remind them that, hey, you're awesome. And you remind them of the things that they have already overcome. Or maybe you choose the first one. I went out of order on purpose here. Okay, the first one was appearances matter. That doesn't mean you have to wear a Rolex or pretend you're something you're not. It means you can show up as you are, but you're going to show up with a little bit more intention, with a little bit more care. Maybe you're going to show up a little bit fancier than you normally show up. You want to look like you really respect yourself because people subconsciously take cues from that. You're going to make eye contact, you're going to smile, you're going to put your phone away. And I decided to save this one as the last example because a lot of people will find this one the most challenging. To make a little bit of an effort externally, but also the way they show up at the actual gathering at the dinner to give people their undivided attention and really just be present. After the dinner, do something most people never do okay? Ask for feedback. Go into that WhatsApp group and say something like, hey, I had a great time tonight. Quick question. Did you guys enjoy the dinner? And what stood out for you? You don't need essays and you don't need validations. Not why you're doing this. You're really just collecting data now? Yes, these are your friends, and yes, these are people you already know. And that's the point. This is practice. So when you meet someone important for the first time, a potential business partner, a client, an investor, a future hire, you're not experimenting on them for the first time, right? You already rehearsed this. People massively underestimate the power of rehearsal. We rehearse for presentations, we rehearse for interviews, we rehearse for pitches. But when it comes to human connection, people just wing it and hope for the best. Stop winging it in life. Just stop it. Because it's not serving you. Allow yourself to get used to doing something new in a safe space with people that you trust, and you'll nail it when it really matters. Anybody that's great at anything has practiced that thing way more than you can imagine. Charisma looks natural. Leadership looks effortless. You know, confidence looks like talent. But behind all that is a lot of repetition. Before I wrap up this episode, I want to share with you a personal and very embarrassing story. When I was 25 years old, I got promoted to be the head of department of grade 10 at the school I was working for. If you don't know, I was a teacher for a very long time before I was an entrepreneur. I was now leading and managing 32 teachers. Many of them were twice my age. I got promoted on a Thursday, and on Friday, I had to run a full staff meeting with all 32 teachers and introduce myself and tell them, hey, I'm your new manager. Less than 24 hours earlier, I was just another teacher sitting beside them in those meetings, right? I was beyond nervous for this meeting that I had to chair and run and introduce myself. My knees were literally knocking minutes before I had to walk into that meeting room. My mouth was dry, my brain was really racing, and all I knew was that this was really a critical moment. My first impression in front of my team. And first impressions last, especially when the power dynamics change, right? I wanted to show them that even though I was young and even though I was new at this job, I should be taken seriously. But here was the problem. I could barely make eye contact with anybody. I was so nervous. My instincts was to overcompensate to come in strong, to act tough, to sound like the boss. Right? My original plan was to introduce myself and explain how I like to run things and tell them, this is how it's going to be from now on. Next week, going to stay late and grade papers. And that's the job. Deal with it. Very authoritarian. I thought that's how I would get respect. Right? It was also very fake and very not me. Moments before the meeting, I was rehearsing that speech out loud in my office. And halfway through, I just stopped. And I literally said to myself, I can't do this. I can't be that guy. That's not me. So I decided to do the opposite. I walked into that meeting room, all 32 teachers were looking at me. I took a deep breath, and I said this. Hey, team. As you know, I'm the new grade 10 head of department. And honestly, I'm very nervous because I really want to do a great job. And I want you all to see that I'm doing a great job. But I can't do this alone. We can only succeed as a team if we all do our best, if we all do it together. So I need you to tell me what you need so you can do your best. I'll do everything I can to make that happen with management. All of a sudden, it felt like the room changed. Everything just felt different. So I continued. I said, you're all talented teachers. I know that because I've worked beside you for years. But our job also require us to do extra things students never really see, like grading papers. Next week we have exams, and those papers, they're not going to grade themselves, right. They're not going to correct themselves. So we're going to work on them together as a team for an extra two hours next Thursday, I'll be here with you. All hands on deck. And then I finished with this. I was planning to tell you today what kind of leader I'm going to be, but I'll just let you see for yourself. That was it. And it just came natural to me because it was honest. No power playing, no pretending, no putting up any armor, just honesty, you know, I delivered those words slowly and sincerely. And I made a very different impression that day. Not a loud one, not a dominant one, just an honest one. And the results speak for themselves. The team produced the best results a school ever has seen that year. Multiple teachers later told me something that stuck with me forever. They said that was the first time we felt seen and appreciated by leadership. That moment taught me Something I'll never forget. And that was, you don't need to be something you're not, okay? You just need to be a better version of who you already are. These techniques work not because they're clever, not because they're tricks, but because people remember how you made them feel. So go book that dinner. This homework I'm giving you, pick one technique and practice it deliberately. And stop leaving something this important to chance. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Everything I shared with you can be done effortlessly. All five techniques show that you've putting some effort and some thought into how you interact with others. By just doing that, by making an effort, you become exceptional. Because 99% of people in the world, they just wing it. They don't really have a plan when they actually interact with people. The Italians have a great saying and it goes like this. When you go out to see the world, the world sees you make the right impression when you leave your home and interact with the world. If this episode resonated with you and you feel like this podcast is really helping you up your game, then I recommend you listen to this episode next. It's an episode that I published that is a must read episode where I talk about a book that really has influenced me in a big way. And that book is Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield. It's about crossing that line from dabbling to showing up like a professional. And it pairs perfectly with everything we talked about today. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast, hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts, by hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically. And it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.

C (19:46)

You've made it on time for the McDonald's breakfast menu. You think to yourself, finally, I could start my day with my perfect breakfast. But what if breakfast could be even more perfect with the hot honey sausage egg biscuit? It finally is. This won't last forever, so go to McDonald's and get it while you can.