Influence: Your Greatest Super Power w/ Zoe Chance

I am a BIG BELIEVER in SUPERPOWERS. INFLUENCE is at the top of my list Superpowers are your small set of unique SKILLS, TALENTS, AND ABILITIES that give you a natural advantage you can tap into to lead your best life. WHAT WOULD IT TAKE to get you to LISTEN to somebody who could introduce you to another superpower that would make your life even better? What would it take for you to LEARN a superpower that could be a VALUABLE ADDITION to your life you could use several times every day? Would you be interested? Of course, you would! So, as you can imagine, when I heard about ZOE CHANCE, and that she had written a book called “INFLUENCE IS YOUR SUPERPOWER: THE SCIENCE OF WINNING HEARTS, SPARKING CHANGE, AND MAKING GOOD THINGS HAPPEN” I was excited to invite her on as this week’s guest. Zoe is a writer, teacher, researcher, climate philanthropist, and obsessed with the topic of INTERPERSONAL INFLUENCE. She earned her doctorate from HARVARD and now as a behavioral scientist, she teaches “Mastering Influence and Persuasion,” the most popular course at YALE School of Management. Her framework for behavior change is the foundation for GOOGLE’S global food policy that helps 70,000 people make healthier choices every day. And, before focusing on academic pursuits, she also managed a $200 million segment of the Barbie brand for Mattel Toys. Here’s why what she has to say should matter to you… Zoe teaches smart, kind people to use what they learn to RAISE MONEY for charity, GET ELECTED to political office, FUND startups, START movements, SAVE LIVES, FIND LOVE, and NEGOTIATE great deals and job offers. In other words, she teaches people to use the SUPERPOWER OF INFLUENCE as a POSITIVE FORCE for good in the world. We cover a lot of ground in this week’s podcast, digging into topics such as… How to CHANGE BEHAVIORS, not minds. What being CHARISMATIC really means. MISCONCEPTIONS about being influential. What is BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS. How Zoe’s time at Mattel Toys impacted her work. How the left and right spheres of our BRAINS react to influence. Dealing with “No!” and why rejection is important to your growth. And last but not least, the MAGIC QUESTION to ask if you want to be more influential. Influence can be a mighty superpower when you learn to use it the right way. And Zoe Chance is the person you need to listen to if you’re ready to continue that journey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 P.M. And my third day, 6:00 P.M. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time, too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  Over 20 years in business, over $12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to cardiff.co/ed. That's cardiff.co/ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff. Borrow better.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company, for me, of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  This is the Ed Mileage Show.

• 1:39Ed Mylett?

  All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So, are you like me? Did you ever want to go to Yale? Did you ever want to go to an Ivy League school and wonder what it was like? You know, for me, there was a few obstacles. One was IQ. Two was grades. Three was college scores. And money. So it kind of eliminated me.

• 1:57Zoe Chance?

  So you were almost there.

• 1:58Ed Mylett?

  I was almost there. I was this close. But today, I'm going to bring you into what I think is, you know, one of the most popular courses at Yale School of Management. And the lady who teaches that class, we're going to go in there together today. So if you're interested in that, listen. And if that never interested you, would you like to be more influential? Which I think is the most important skill set a human being can possess, is to be able to influence themselves and other human beings. And I have the best person on the planet, I think, to talk about it today. So Zoe Chance, welcome to the show.

• 2:27Zoe Chance?

  Ed, thank you so much. It's an honor to be here and I'm so happy to meet you.

• 2:31Ed Mylett?

  I'm so happy to meet you. By the way, new book out, Influences Your Superpower. I like the tagline though, "The Science of Winning Hearts: Sparking Change and Making Good Things Happen." And it's available, by the time you're listening to this, guys, it's February 1st. You can go get it, preorder it, do whatever you want, but it is outstanding stuff. And we've got a full hour to cover today on this topic. So, you ready to roll?

• 2:51Zoe Chance?

  Let's roll.

• 2:52Ed Mylett?

  Okay. Interesting first thing for me is that you say something about, you may not be able to change people's minds, but you can change people the way that they sort of behave. And so, I've always looked at influence like I'm going to change their mind. Then I'm starting to read your work. I'm like, no, I was wrong about that. So start out there about changing behavior and not minds.

• 3:11Zoe Chance?

  Right. This is a distinction that most of us don't make. We think that if we want to change somebody, we need to change their mind, but so little of our thinking and our behavior is actually happening consciously or intentionally, that often, it's not just that it's so, so hard to change people's minds, including yours, of course, as you know, but it is very unlikely that if you do change their minds, their behavior will just naturally follow. And a simple example of conversation somebody was having with me this morning is about his kid not rinsing out the bathroom sink after brushing his teeth. And he's like, how do I, how do I get him to care?

• 3:57Zoe Chance?

  How do I get him to remember? And he thinks he needs to change his son's mind, but he's just forgetting. It's not that his son needs to be motivated to rinse out the sink, right? Motivation, even though this is such a big part of what we talk about in our pursuit of success, motivation is a smaller part of the question than just making it easy. So I was talking to him about what would make it easier for your son to remember to do the thing. And so he's going to ask his son. What would it take for you to remember to do the thing? And they'll decide, and you know, is it going to be a Hot Wheels car sitting next to the sink in the bathroom? And then he knows that's what it means. I don't know.

• 4:37Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. So this is, this is where we're going to go. So I love this. By the way, one of the benchmarks of my work is that I don't think the most motivated people win in life. I think it's their habits and rituals and their routines on the days they don't feel inspired. And the reason after reading your work that this is true, by the way, guys, you already can tell. If you're listening to this on the treadmill or driving in the car, you're going to do it. And then you're going to actually want to go write a bunch of notes down because you're going to be in class today on influence. But one of the things you point out in the book is that what you just said, but I want you to elaborate on this point, which is one of the ways to influence people is they're typically always going to take the path of least resistance. And just the understanding and awareness that that's what a human being is likely to do. I think is one of the first pathways to being more influential. So elaborate, if I'm wrong, correct me. And if I'm right, elaborate on that a little bit.

• 5:22Zoe Chance?

  Yeah, thank you. It's not that we're lazy in terms of not being willing to do a lot of hard work. It's that we are on autopilot maybe 95% of the time. And so if you think of another person as being always already occupied consciously with something else, then whatever it is that you want them to do, you can start to see how difficult it is to break through that mental clutter. A very simple example in business, but a broader scale example than the toothbrush thing is Domino's Pizza, who figured out the secret to success in business is making it as easy as possible for people to buy things from you.

• 6:07Zoe Chance?

  So Domino's Pizza says, we're going to have a Domino's anywhere campaign where we know what your favorite pizza is, and we know where you live. And we know that by habit, most people ordering pizza order the same pizza to the same address. So they said, listen, what if you just text us or tweet us an emoticon of a pizza? And then poof, like magic, pizza shows up at your house. In that year, They earned 12% higher sales in the United States. Number one pizza company Pizza Hut declined by 2%. So you can imagine what's happening here is not just that it's easier to buy pizza from Domino's than Pizza Hut, but they're actually expanding the market for pizza in a place where it's so saturated because it's easier to eat pizza than some other kind of food.

• 6:52Zoe Chance?

  And then by three years after that, they've overtaken Pizza Hut as the number one pizza company in the entire world.

• 6:59Ed Mylett?

  That is such a great example. And it's just one of these things, I'm always going to reinforce points when they're being made. But this is something I think about when I'm trying to get my kids to do things, or even I'm in a sailing situation, or even with myself, to get myself to make changes, to take the easiest first steps, the path of least resistance. And the way you said it in the book, I'm like, my goodness, this is so true. Now, one of the things you say in the book, there's so much, and by the way, the reason I'm only going to cover some of this, guys, is I want you to get the book, right? But things like behavioral economics is discussed in the book. You know, the neuroscience of creating change. So it's not just like poofy stuff. It's, it's poofy stuff and tangible stuff backed up by the scientific evidence of it, which is why the class, I'm sure, is like just so, so important.

• 7:44Ed Mylett?

  But to use concepts that people can remember too. What's this alligator and judge analogy that you use? Because this is like, people won't forget it, right? I want to start out, we'll go to some complex stuff, but alligator, judge, even a guy like Ed Mylett can remember. So give us that.

• 7:58Zoe Chance?

  Yeah, it helps to give people visual, concrete analogies, right? So that the gator represents our unconscious, intuitive, habitual, emotional system that, like I was saying earlier, drives 95% of our decisions and our behavior. And the judge represents the conscious, slow, rational, deliberate, effortful system that we think is in charge because it's conscious. And by definition, we just can't perceive the unconscious part.

• 8:29Zoe Chance?

  One of the tricky things about the relationship between these two systems, the judge and the gator, is that influence goes one direction almost exclusively from the gator to the judge. So when we, we have strong preferences, opinions and feelings about other people, right, or things we do or don't want to do. And then we easily rationalize those preferences. But we can't talk ourselves into say, like, what's a, do you have any kind of food that you hate?

• 9:03Ed Mylett?

  Ed? Yes. I cannot, I cannot eat any type of broccoli whatsoever, which is terrible because it's good for you. But I don't like broccoli.

• 9:10Zoe Chance?

  Okay, so you hate broccoli. Is there any kind of rational argument that could influence you to love broccoli?

• 9:18Ed Mylett?

  No chance.

• 9:19Zoe Chance?

  No chance, right? It's possible you could be influenced in some way to eat broccoli through a rational argument, but you're never going to influence the way you feel through reason.

• 9:31Ed Mylett?

  Yes. Okay, here's how brilliant that is. I actually eat broccoli. And we're going to talk about this later in the show. But frankly, it's because of the way it was framed to me, which is something we're going to talk about a little bit later. I've been talking about framing for years and then you took it to a whole new level. So the way it was framed to me has compelled me to be willing to take that action. And by the way, I do it in the path of least resistance, even though it's something that I would never tell you that I love doing because it's been framed to benefit me, which we'll talk about a little bit later as we go. So this is why our work is so awesome.

• 10:01Zoe Chance?

  I'm so curious to hear about how that happens. So, okay, we'll bookmark it.

• 10:05Ed Mylett?

  We will, we're going to go there. So let's go through some misconceptions about being a person of influence, because this is covered really in the very beginning of the book. And I want to go through a few of them because they were striking to me. Here's a big one. I think salespeople in general believe this and they say, if they understand the facts, they'll make the right decision. I hear, I even hear good salespeople. And I think these people that say, well, I just present the facts and then make a decision. I think they are good at other things unconsciously. They're unaware they're good at, that still makes them influential, because it is not that they understand the facts, they're going to make a change. So that is a misperception about influence. True?

• 10:44Zoe Chance?

  Yeah. And Ed, I so agree with you that the talented, successful salespeople who say that. Are doing something very different, but I but how I interpret their statement is that the other person feels that all they have done is state the facts and let them make their own rational decision. We like to feel that that's how people are influencing us, even though that's not how we're actually influenced.

• 11:10Ed Mylett?

  Now, is there any technique to that? That's an interesting point. Is there a technique to that to where if you are communicating with somebody that they feel they have to have the need to understand the facts so that you're providing that like in a fax sandwich, so to speak, or it's not another thing I had written down here to ask you, but I'm curious if there's a technique involved with that.

• 11:27Zoe Chance?

  The the most important thing when we're distinguishing emotional kinds of responses, gut checks, things like that, from information processing of facts, is that the facts happen second.

• 11:41Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 11:42Zoe Chance?

  The emotional stuff happens first. We actually have to like each other. By like, I if you want to persuade me of something, I have to like you before I'm even going to pay attention to your rational argument.

• 11:52Ed Mylett?

  Hmm.

• 11:53Zoe Chance?

  And if you're going to try to persuade me to say, get a product or a service, you have to appeal to my visceral emotional preferences to be curious to hear why I might want to buy this product or service. And then when you're giving me the facts, it's a completely different experience because I'm listening to those facts to try to support my hypothesis that this is a thing I should get.

• 12:20Ed Mylett?

  So they're making the decision emotionally and rationalizing it logically with facts.

• 12:25Zoe Chance?

  Yes.

• 12:25Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 12:25Zoe Chance?

  Emotionally first, rationally second.

• 12:28Ed Mylett?

  And then so if they have to like us, that's kind of called building rapport, so to speak. And you cover a topic in the book on and it's a word I use all the time that I've not tangibly been able to describe, but I use often with people as I'll say, no, she's charismatic. She's got charisma. Now, I guess when I say that, it must mean to some extent that like, I like her or I like him. But you talk about charisma in the book, and I've always thought, maybe this can't be taught. You know, maybe this is just one of these inherited, and I know better than that. But when I, you see a really charismatic, I've been fortunate enough doing the show and, you know, in my life, and now that's a charismatic person and they haven't.

• 13:09Zoe Chance?

  And you have that too, Ed. Don't be shy.

• 13:11Ed Mylett?

  Well, thank you. I appreciate that. But there's this, there's almost a correlation between one's charismatic abilities and their influential abilities a lot of the times. So how, teach us about charisma. Let's do that.

• 13:25Zoe Chance?

  Yeah. Yeah. When I just ask people, what is the number one influence skill you would like to master? And I don't even give them options. The most common answer is charisma. So people really badly want to be more charismatic. But then when I say, okay, what is that?

• 13:41Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Zoe Chance?

  Like, well, it's, you know, people pay attention to you. Okay, but why? You can't be somebody like running through the office in your underwear. That's not charismatic, even though people pay attention to you.

• 13:53Ed Mylett?

  Good point.

• 13:54Zoe Chance?

  But so what I do, academic research, I'm putting it to the side because the leading model is a seven factor model that you, it's not something you can take action on, right? You can do seven things at once. What I do is organically figure out with groups of people, what is it that makes individuals charismatic? So I'll ask someone, and you've read this chapter, Ed, so it'll, it's, it's not a new thought or experience, but I am curious, who in your life, out of all these charismatic people, just pops into your head as someone who represents a charismatic individual?

• 14:35Ed Mylett?

  Barack Obama, in person, President Obama. By the way, two or three of the presidents that I've met, now maybe their stature predisposed me to think that about them, their position, but I did sense a certain energy connection with them that the first person that came to mind.

• 14:54Zoe Chance?

  Yeah. And, and power can influence this also. And so when you meet Barack Obama, what, how would you describe, say, three traits, if you can, or three behaviors that he does that has you feel that he's charismatic?

• 15:10Ed Mylett?

  Deep listening, which you talk about in the book, unbelievable listening, almost makes you have the, I'd like to think that I work on this too, that they make you feel as if you're the only person that matters in that moment. And that you're valued and that you're important. I think that that's a part of it. And I think a tremendous air of certainty or presence, confidence about what it is they're communicating about. They truly believe. I often say sometimes that I think, I don't know that everybody always has to believe what you're saying, but they have to believe you believe what you're saying. Be influential. And I feel like those are two of the characteristics when I think of leaders that I've been around and he would be one of them.

• 15:50Zoe Chance?

  Yeah. So I feel like this is kind of cheating because we sort of teed up because you've read this chapter. But this is also, listeners will know, just very directly, probably true of someone like Obama. Having the ability to connect and display confidence are the two key factors for being a charismatic person. And we can do both of those by focusing our attention on the other person instead of on ourselves. And that gives them the feeling of being the only person in the room is that deep listening and connection.

• 16:30Zoe Chance?

  And this is the opposite of what a lot of people just initially think of charisma as being, because we think of people being charismatic when they're performing or when they're speaking. But it comes through in that connection when they're listening.

• 16:47Ed Mylett?

  So you're so right. And by the way, just so we're on balance, I can hear all the right wing people listening this rolling their eyes. And if I say this guy's name, the left will. But I would also say it in a completely different way. President George W. Bush was another person that came to my mind, who's obviously not in the same party as President Obama. But in a very different way, his way was more of a kind, smiling listening. There was an active listening. I think President Obama's listening is just a focus on you and there's eye contact level. President Bush did it differently, much more with like a physical touch, acknowledging what you've said and a kind of a smirk and a smile. Like he likes what I'm saying was being expressed on his face.

• 17:29Ed Mylett?

  And I think a confident person, I feel like one of the highest indicators of one's personal self-confidence is they're willing to listen intently, not thinking about my reply, not thinking about what I'm going to say. Yes, not think about what you think about me, but I'm just with you in this moment. And so. I want to ask you about kind of a little deeper dive on this because I think this is just

• 17:52Zoe Chance?

  Can I share one thing that's funny just while we're on presidents and yes, I agree with you about all of that.

• 17:59Zoe Chance?

  Leaders, especially what like you can't get to be the leader of the United States without being very charismatic. Right. And this even extends to Jimmy Carter, who might be labeled by some people as the least charismatic president ever. When I got to meet Jimmy Carter, we're getting a picture and he puts his arm around my waist and he says something kind. Literally my vision clouded over because I was so starstruck by the charisma of this man who was in his eighties. At this point in time, for all leaders, not just presidents. Being charismatic, being perceived as charismatic will help you be perceived as a better leader. Not just as a more charismatic person, but I find that really interesting.

• 18:43Ed Mylett?

  It's really true. And actually, it's about changing people's minds, too. I've not met President Trump. For example, we're going politics here. It's very weird, but just to give you an example, I've not met him. But I have spoken to him and I've had different people that really know him very well. And I had a lot of people of mine that are very left leaning, say, I met him and I don't like him at all. But man, did I like him when I met him because he had this charisma in person. And so there's a quality. And I think a lot of it is this confidence and this certainty. Do you agree that to some extent, once there's rapport? So which would you use the term earlier that someone needs to kind of like you, right? But once there's rapport, is there an element that the more certain person, if there is a connection emotionally,

• 19:24Ed Mylett?

  will influence the less certain person, simply because of the overwhelming belief they have and what it is they're communicating?

• 19:31Zoe Chance?

  That absolutely can happen. And you're reminding me of something that my coach used to do. So my coach, Mandy, used to be one of the top sales trainers for Tony Robbins, and that was how we connected. And Mandy, in her closing, Pitch used to say, I definitely, definitely, definitely know. And she would say it three times to close a deal. So if someone is open minded to considering your opinion, then absolutely your certainty can help you close the deal. If someone is not open minded to listening to you, and that's why you said, if you have rapport, right? But like right now, across the political divide that we have,

• 20:16Zoe Chance?

  it's a bigger chasm than ever. Being absolutely certain on one side and trying to persuade someone on the other side, your certainty is not helping you, it's harming you.

• 20:25Ed Mylett?

  And I think the reason that politics is so divisive now is to your point. And I didn't know we were going to go on this drill, but I think it's worth saying. When I brought up one president's name, that gave an emotional reaction to everybody. Then when I brought the other one, it gave one to everyone else. And the reason these political people are so smart is they know that if they can keep us from not liking each other, that we sort of will stay in our camps. And so it's really brilliant that to keep people not to be able to change behavior. Let's make us all not like each other because the fundamental principle of your work, which is so true, well, one of them is we have to like each other. We have to have an emotional connection in order to be open to these other techniques. So in politics, if you can just keep us all from not liking each other,

• 21:07Ed Mylett?

  then there's not an influence issue going to happen with you losing someone who's in your camp. Isn't that true?

• 21:12Zoe Chance?

  You just gave me shivers because I've never thought of this being a national or global campaign to keep us from liking each other. And I'm going to be thinking about that for the next month. Thank you. And something that you said about Trump really struck me, which is that people were surprised. And I've heard this said about George W. Bush as well. So, so I'm liberal, as are lots of people at Yell, right? And I've heard so many people say, George W. Bush went to Yell. So many people say, when I met him, I just couldn't help liking him. And, and listeners, I want you to actually not just hear that about these two presidents, but internalize that about yourself. This is a human phenomenon that we like each other more than we expect when we're interacting in person.

• 21:58Zoe Chance?

  When you are asking somebody for something, when you're asking somebody for help, making an in-person request, everybody on earth, on average, is two or three times more likely to say yes than you expect that they will be. And a big part of that is that you underestimate how much they like you.

• 22:17Ed Mylett?

  You're so on this. Like, I watch people all the time. By the way, I think influence, people ask me, what would you give your children? For me, the first thing is I want them to be moral and ethical and have our faith or their version of faith. I want them to have that. I then would want them to be somebody who can be influential. Because under-influential requires confidence, requires an ability to communicate. I think it's the most important skill that you can give somebody. To your point about, this is something everyone just slow down because you may think, well, okay, I get this. How often do you go in when you're trying to get your kids to do something? Or you're trying to get someone in business to do something, or even yourself? And not slow down first and make sure there's an emotional connection first where we're here. When I play golf, for example, Zoe, one of my favorite things that happens is I'll play golf with someone I've never met before.

• 23:02Ed Mylett?

  And then when we're done, the next day or two, they'll, they'll tell a mutual friend of ours, go, I really liked Ed so much, what a great guy, you know? And then they'll, this is really before my kind of public persona, but then they'd say, what does he do? Because we spent the whole four or five hours on the golf course talking about them. Because people like people who like them. And so I spend my time, I already know about me, I'm not even interested in me. I already know everything I know and think, so I'm so interested in what other people think. And the reason I make this point is, one of the other misconceptions you say, and I want everybody to get this, is, one major, it's number nine, actually, is you say, people, people misconceive, they say to themselves, people don't listen to people like you, like me. People won't listen to someone like me.

• 23:47Ed Mylett?

  And I want you to dispel that misconception for everyone. I think they think, if I had followers, or I had money, or I had success, or I had, I had something I'm lacking. Then they'd listen, but people like me, people don't listen to us. And you just spell that as a misconception.

• 24:02Zoe Chance?

  Yeah, this, this is such a deep thing for so many of us, based on these factors that you mentioned, based on our race, our income, our age, our education, what we look like, all of these things. And the truth is, first of all, people listen to us better when we listen to them better. And they listen to us more when we put our voice out there in a confident and connected way. What happens when we feel that we don't belong and people aren't going to listen to us, that's really insidious, is we can speak in a way that makes it hard to listen to. I write in the charisma chapter, actually, about diminishers.

• 24:47Zoe Chance?

  Women in particular do this a lot, but it, it's a matter of feeling like you're less powerful or lower status. So it happens in all, all kinds of other situations that men do it. We'll say, I, I think, I was just wondering, um, so I could be wrong, but, and as soon as you start your communication that way, it's easy for the other person to tune out. And then you feel like no one listens to you.

• 25:11Ed Mylett?

  I also think you're right here. I think the mind of the listener goes, yeah, you could be wrong. Those, those are actually real words to somebody, you know, and it's, it's a terrible premise to begin a sentence with, or to begin an entire persuasive message, where it's like, could be wrong, or I don't mean to bother you, or these other things that you say to minimize yourself.

• 25:29Zoe Chance?

  Right. Cause then what they hear is like, oh yeah, you actually are bothering me.

• 25:33Ed Mylett?

  Correct. Yeah.

• 25:34Zoe Chance?

  And, and you're taking more time than if you just said the thing that you don't want to bother me about.

• 25:39Ed Mylett?

  It's interesting you say that because one of the other things I really believe about people who can influence is they learn to say things in more concise ways with fewer words. Typically, when you're lacking confidence in your belief system, you feel like you need to say more to persuade. Actually, liars do this too. Liars will say more and more, don't they? They say more and more because they know what they're saying isn't true. So they add more and more and more to it. And so one display of confidence is just fewer words. With more certainty. So now we're getting a little technical. By the way, can you see why I love this lady's work? Why I love her work? Why I want to? I told her before we started, I said, I want to do some stuff with you that we're going to go help the world with even when this is over because I, this is a topic so important and almost never discussed. And I don't know if

• 26:24Ed Mylett?

  you could pick up a book up that's more, could make a bigger difference in your life, or even like my, my kids will listen to this show. Believe it or people ask me to my kids, listen to every one of my shows. They listen to most of my shows, right? But this one, I already told them, I'm recording this today. I want you guys to listen to it even before it comes out because I just feel like it's such a life skill.

• 26:42Zoe Chance?

  Thank you. And, and Ed, don't, can I just ask you, do people ask you, and obviously we're like minded. So of course we should collaborate because we are on the same mission. Do people ask you or tell you they wish that they had learned these skills in high school?

• 26:55Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 26:55Zoe Chance?

  That's the kind of stuff you and I teach.

• 26:57Ed Mylett?

  Yes. Well, you do. It's funny, guys, one thing that you said, we might as well go there next. So that was fascinating. Here you are teaching at Yale, and I heard you say, if you want to be an entrepreneur, maybe you don't really need to go to college, or you don't need to go to Yale. I thought what a, what an interesting thing for someone teaching at Yale to be willing to say, but you actually said that, true.

• 27:16Zoe Chance?

  Yeah, I think if you're sure you want to be an entrepreneur, business school is probably a terrible idea. I'll just put it out there. Yep. Sorry, Yale. I've just lost a whole bunch of applicants.

• 27:26Ed Mylett?

  I think you're doing so well, and they're doing so well, you're not going to be.

• 27:32Ed Mylett?

  But, but I just, because you know, Zoe's background, guys, we're probably have time to get into it, but she was working on this. Well, let's do that right now, just for a second, because I think you made a shift. And I think some people listening to this are afraid to make that leap. You talk about that, too. But you're working for Mattel on the Barbie account, right? And it's a pretty big job that you had. And to walk them through that, because you go from that to now you're doing this, that's not, you know, it's, it's not a logical leap for most people.

• 27:59Zoe Chance?

  Sure. Well, it started with me making the wrong decision, trying to be an entrepreneur and going to business school. So I tell you from experience, that's not a good idea. So I went to USC, it had the number one entrepreneurship program, and I just realized I was definitely not cut out to be an entrepreneur. So I ended up working on, like you said, big segment of the Barbie business. I'm managing a $200 million business. It's fun. It's exciting. It's a gas. I'm learning a lot. But honestly, what wasn't there for me was the soul and the meaning. And we were selling two Barbie dolls a second. And I was asking myself, what would success look like in my role? Am I selling three Barbie dolls a second?

• 28:43Zoe Chance?

  And how do I feel about that as my contribution to the world? I didn't care about selling Barbie dolls and there was nothing that could have made me care about selling Barbie dolls. But what I really care about is helping other people. I had been a teacher. I love teaching and I'm a nerd. I'm intellectually curious and I was failing to persuade senior management so many, so much of the time that my ideas were great because I was leading with the facts. I would say, here's my analysis. This is what we should do for our new toy line. And it might be the president like, hmm, yeah, no, uh, it's, this is just not going to fly. Why don't you pivot to, and then, you know, here's a new idea that we're going to have

• 29:26Zoe Chance?

  yellow horses and flat fluffy butterflies or something, just gut check.

• 29:32Zoe Chance?

  Gut check decisions being made all the time in senior management in corporate America, just like everywhere else.

• 29:38Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 29:38Zoe Chance?

  In politics, personal lives. This is how so many decisions are made. And at first I thought I could help people make decisions differently. And so I went to MIT and then Harvard to figure out the science of how does it happen so that at least I can help people influence behavior?

• 30:01Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, those places weren't interested in me. I'm just thinking about how, how, you know, actually amazing the journey has been for you that you've landed where you land and, and then now this, which is another layer of it. Now it's going to get exposure far beyond where you were. There's a lot of people that are listening to the show though, that they aren't doing something they're passionate about. And by the way, I don't think vocation has to be your passion, but I do think you have to be doing something in your life that feeds your soul, that makes you feel at home, that, that tells you this is where I belong. You know, this is a calling of mine. It's taking advantage of some natural desire or even maybe talent or gift that's buried inside of me. What would you say to people listening to this who have not had the ability to influence

• 30:46Ed Mylett?

  themselves to be able to step out with some courage and chase something?

• 30:52Zoe Chance?

  So first of all, I don't want to take for granted that you can just leave your job and follow your dream and you know, say you're a single mom trying to feed your kids like my mom was when I was growing up. She couldn't just quit her job and be an artist, which is what she would have wanted to do. But what you can do is you can look at your job and say, where do I find the most fulfillment? And for a lot of people who've been working long enough to to lead teams of people, you might be selling bleach and maybe you don't care about bleach at all, but maybe you feel great about developing leaders and maybe you feel great about mentorship. And maybe

• 31:35Zoe Chance?

  you're working in a company that's really difficult right now. People are struggling. And what you can do that's meaningful is you can protect your team from the forces above that are coming down and threatening their well being.

• 31:50Ed Mylett?

  What is behavioral economics? What does that mean?

• 31:53Zoe Chance?

  Behavioral economics is the love child of psychology and economics. So economics is the study of social behaviors, like buying and selling things, but also marriage, violence, things like this. And psychology is interested in mental processes, but usually doesn't care about behaviors. So behavioral economics is interested in what are the mental processes that will result in changes in behavior?

• 32:22Ed Mylett?

  Okay, so let's talk about that. Left and right hemispheres of the brain, which you talk about in the book, you went right where I wanted you to go. How does that react to influence differently? And why is it important to know that?

• 32:33Zoe Chance?

  So what I was taught when I was in school is that your left hemisphere is the rational hemisphere and your right hemisphere is the creative hemisphere. And just so readers, I mean, with listeners, I've been writing this book so long, listeners are clear. That's only a little bit true because our whole brain is working all the time. It's not completely off, though, and most of our language processing is happening on the left side of our brain and most of our visual processing is happening on our right side of our brain. And so in the book, I share some interesting experiments with split-brain

• 33:12Zoe Chance?

  patients where they've been having such severe epilepsy that a surgeon has severed their corpus callosum and divided the two sections of their brain. And what these studies have shown is the process that I mentioned earlier, that the unconscious parts of our brain influence the conscious parts of our brain. Like if you flash a message to the visual processing center of the brain that says, um,

• 33:44Zoe Chance?

  "Leave the room and go to your car," then the, this person stands up, ready to leave the room, but then you ask, language processing, "Why did you stand up to leave the room?" And they say, "I'm gonna go get a glass of water." Because the unconscious is influencing the conscious and our conscious mind is trying to make sense of this automatic behavior that we do. So that's an example of the rationalizing, a really nerdy one.

• 34:07Ed Mylett?

  No, I love the really nerdy. And then like I, what I try to do is I try to go kind of concept when I'm talking these things. Everyone's like, so my nerdy group's like, yes. And then when I just start to lose my non-nerdy group, we come back to where we're gonna go right now, which is, I want to ask you a basic, really flat-out question. I am gonna go get your book, but I have a contract with you before I get it. I want you to give me on this show, I already have your book, but I'm talking about as a listener, I want you to give me one or two practical things I could do right now to be a more influential person. You give me those, I'm gonna go get your book.

• 34:39Zoe Chance?

  A fair request, and...

• 34:42Zoe Chance?

  What I will also say is the flavor, variety, philosophy of influence I'm espousing is not transactional. And so you don't have to promise me that you'll go and get your book.

• 34:53Ed Mylett?

  So good. It's so true in the book, too.

• 34:56Zoe Chance?

  But I'm, I'm happy to give you my favorite concrete takeaway right now that you can put into action. And this is a tool called the magic question.

• 35:04Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 35:05Zoe Chance?

  The magic question is simply, what would it take? And if it's okay, I'd I'll share a story to help this sink in.

• 35:13Ed Mylett?

  I love this part. It's my part, my favorite part of the book.

• 35:15Zoe Chance?

  Oh, awesome. So, so this story really struck me when Gloria Steinem told it when she was visiting my hometown of New Haven a little while ago. And this is when she was focusing on the topic of sex trafficking. She'd been to a conference. She was an expert. She knew as much about sex trafficking as anybody. And then she goes to this village in a rural part of Zambia near a game preserve. And three young women in that village had been lost to sex traffickers and never heard from again the previous year. So she sits down on a tarp in the middle of a field, circle of women, and instead of telling them what they should do, or giving them her expert advice, she asks the magic question. She said, what would it take

• 36:00Zoe Chance?

  to make sure that that never happens again, that no women from this village will be sex trafficked? And they told her an electric fence.

• 36:09Zoe Chance?

  An electric fence? They said, when a, when the corn reaches a certain height, the elephants come and eat it and they trample it. And we have nothing to eat. We have nothing to sell at the market. We have no money to send our kids to school. And these young women and their families were starving. So Gloria Steinem goes back home. She raises a few thousand dollars, sends it to the people of the village. And the way that she tells it, she comes back a few years later, there's a bumper crop of corn at, and since they built the fence, no one from that village has been sex trafficked. So, magic question. It's, it's powerful for me.

• 36:50Zoe Chance?

  So, one of the first things that comes up when you hear that story is when you ask, what would it take? You so often get an answer that you wouldn't have expected. So often, it's so much less than you might have been willing to do, so much simpler.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  So true.

• 37:07Zoe Chance?

  So the electric fence, none of us are going to think of that. Because we wouldn't have known that it's not just a sex trafficking problem. And not even just a poverty problem, but it's a human wildlife conflict problem. Also, the magic question is respectful. So it feels good on the other side. And people aren't going to have this immediate resistance that can happen to you trying to persuade them to do something. And because it's respectful, you can use this again and again all the time. Like, you're talking about your children and we struggle, a lot of us, to influence our children. This is something we can teach them and help them succeed in the world. They're gonna use, use it on us, like my daughter does. We can use it on them and we just laugh, right?

• 37:52Zoe Chance?

  Oh, the magic question again. Anytime you have rapport, you can use the magic question. And then when, this is the most subtle part of how the magic question works. But when they give you a roadmap, they are implicitly committing to helping you with that outcome if you follow the roadmap. So, in this particular situation, when they said what it will take is an electric fence, my interpretation isn't that the electric fence was the answer and then sex trafficking is done. It's that the women who said what it will take is an electric fence are going to make sure that their friends, their neighbors, and each other's children are not going to be sex trafficked, no matter what.

• 38:36Zoe Chance?

  So, magic question, what would it take? Go put it into action.

• 38:41Ed Mylett?

  The reason that I said is my favorite part of the book, and I'm not going to get emotional and shook. So I want to keep going, but I think there's even power. I think sometimes when you're doing something in your genius, which is what you're doing, writing this book and this content. Cause you've been doing this work for a while, but sometimes it's even more powerful than even you know. And the ripples are even bigger because I've sort of been in the influence space most of my life. At least I think we all are, I've just been aware of it more than most people. Right. And so this, what would it take question does a lot of things. I just want to elaborate on my perspective for you. I want to give this back as a gift to you and the audience. One, when you say to somebody, what would it take? It opens up the possibilities of multiple different yeses and different pathways. Instead of perhaps the narrow one you came predisposed with.

• 39:24Ed Mylett?

  The second thing it does is it almost makes you in the unconscious part of their mind, almost like a Santa Claus figure in the sense that you're in the gift giving business now. What would it take? I'm open to giving to you instead of taking from you. It changes the entire paradigm in somebody's mind. When you say, what would it take? Because now it's incumbent upon them to tell you, and you're almost in the gift giving. It's almost like, what's your wish list? It changes the dynamic in someone's mind of the entire conversation, providing you have that emotional connection and rapport that Zoe has said. Now a personal anecdote, I read this and I had a, I want to influence myself this year. It sounds like very premeditated, but I want more peace this year. It's a big thing for me. People's asking me, what could I get someone who's had everything? I want more peace.

• 40:09Ed Mylett?

  I want what every human being truly wants. And so I've been writing these strategies down and I stopped and I used the magic question with myself. What would it take in order for me to feel more peace? Couple of things happened. I just want to illustrate that, that you just said, one, it was much more simple than I thought it was. And two, it was so enjoyable to start to find out what it would take, that I found myself six hours later, six days later, driving in the car, another answer, another thought, my, my spirit enjoyed this question. Rather than making demands all the time to influence myself or to influence other people. So the ripple effects of your work and just this one thing is so profound.

• 40:50Ed Mylett?

  If people just start asking themselves and other people, once you have rapport, what would it take? You'd be blown away. So I just wanted to show

• 40:57Zoe Chance?

  It's so beautiful. Thank you for that gift. And I'm inspired now to ask myself the same question.

• 41:02Ed Mylett?

  Isn't it true? What would it take for me to feel more happiness? What would it take for me to start a business? What would it take for me? And you've just started, you've opened a space when you do this that didn't exist before you said it. With you and other people, you've maybe you're in the middle of this, trying to get someone to do something thing you're doing, which is not the way to influence as you read the book. But the minute you say, what would it take? You've opened a new space you can both go into now, or you on your own can go into, or you and your deity, you and your God can go into and start to fill that space up with the answers. And it seems simple, but it's huge for your company. What would it take to get to this next level? What would it take for us to serve more people? What would it take for us to cure this or that? It's a powerful question that should be utilized so much more in people's lives than it is.

• 41:48Ed Mylett?

  But you, the quality of our life is the quality of the questions we ask ourselves and the quality of the questions we ask other people. And our emotions come from the questions we ask ourselves. We're constantly asking ourselves, what's wrong with this situation? We're going to get answers that feed us those emotions. What's right? What's beautiful? What am I grateful for? What are the solutions? So anyway, I'm going on, but I just think it's so powerful. There's another part of the book that's powerful. Again, you guys can tell I'm very passionate. I'm having Zoe on you guys because let's be honest, I have super famous people on all the time. And then you guys can tell, then I have people on all the time who should be super famous because of the work they do that can change people's lives. Zoe is in the midst of becoming that. I can promise you, and it's not the reason she's doing it. Okay, nose. I want to talk about nose.

• 42:32Zoe Chance?

  Yeah. Wait one sec, Ed.

• 42:34Ed Mylett?

  Go please.

• 42:35Zoe Chance?

  Can I just draw attention to this key principle of influence?

• 42:38Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 42:39Zoe Chance?

  That you just illustrated with the way that you described the magic question. Becoming more influential takes becoming influenceable. And when you ask the magic question, it's not just that you're showing you're willing to do something in exchange, but you're showing that you're open to the other person's influence.

• 42:59Ed Mylett?

  All right. That's brilliant. Important, by the way, saying, thank you for adding that. The other thing you're gonna have to deal with is no. And so my kids both, you know, my son's in college, my daughter will be there next year. And they're at that stage where they, what am I gonna do? You know, what do I want to do? And one of them is, do I want to go into business? Do I want to do this? And I've told both of them, I said, you know, one of my hesitations for you is, I think that in culture now, the ability to deal with no is at an all time low. And how it makes people feel and how afraid of it they are. And their avoidance of it, or what it does to their identity, their confidence, their self-worth when they get one.

• 43:42Ed Mylett?

  And so then they do all of these things to insulate themselves from never getting them. And those very things they do to insulate themselves from not getting those is the very things they should be doing to get to the things they want to have and feel. And so in the book, you have the power of no and the no challenge issue in there. Can you just talk about that a little bit?

• 44:02Zoe Chance?

  Yes. So of course, we hate to be rejected. We hate to have people say no. And it may be that we feel it more now than ever, especially in this world where we've been suffering a lot for the past couple of years. And just everything is more difficult. But even before that, what happens in our brain when we experience rejection is that our brain processes it just like physical pain. And the same regions of our brain that hurt or get activated when somebody slaps us, get activated when they leave us out, or they say no, or they reject us. We can learn to handle physical pain through exercise, practice.

• 44:47Zoe Chance?

  When you work out on a regular basis, you're actually pushing yourself through some physical pain, right? And that's how you grow and that's how you get stronger. You don't try to

• 44:59Zoe Chance?

  Push yourself to the point where you're suffering immeasurably, but you take repeated small amounts of physical pain to keep growing and build resilience. And this is what I advocate doing to get rejected repeatedly on small things, so that you can handle getting rejected on the big things. And if you are not getting rejected, you are absolutely playing small. There's no question. So you can also, by practicing getting rejected, train your brain to hear that and feel that as a success, even if it's still painful.

• 45:41Ed Mylett?

  Can you give me an example of that, where you could get small no's before the big no? Can you, just a practical, I'm trying to think of a visual example of what that might look like.

• 45:50Zoe Chance?

  Thank you. Yeah. The, so listeners who might want to put this into practice, I have a great source of inspiration for you, which is my friend Ja Zhang, who has a video blog called A Hundred Days of Rejection. And a student was a big fan of his and put us in touch. Now we're buds and we do some rejection research. He has a hundred of these challenges. You can replicate any of them like my students do. And lots of them are funny things, like, you know, you're at Starbucks and you're ordering a drink and you just ask them, hey, can I make that drink for myself, right? And you do it in a charming and friendly way. Usually they say no, sometimes they say yes. Ja went to a fire station and asked if he could slide down the fire pole.

• 46:33Zoe Chance?

  And now I'm so sorry for the firefighters of New Haven and the local area, because so many students have asked, can I go and slide down the fire pole? Just tiny things like this, like go ask your neighbor, is it okay if I plant a plant in your front yard?

• 46:47Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 46:48Zoe Chance?

  Any, there are all kinds of creative little things you could do. One of my favorites, favorite things a student did was his neighbor. Was seven years old and he had never met her or her family and she was having a birthday party and they had a bouncy house in the backyard and he's like, you know, I'm just gonna go get rejected, standing in line for the bouncy house. And this guy is big like you and he's an MMA fighter. And he, so it's like a grizzly bear walking over to stand in line behind the seven year old girls. And the thing is, what surprises people so much, first of all, about the rejection challenge is that it's, when you get rejected, it's not as bad as you think, usually. But you so rarely get rejected compared to how often you think that you will.

• 47:34Ed Mylett?

  So true.

• 47:34Zoe Chance?

  They did let him go in the bouncy house, it didn't break. But this family liked him so much, like, because he put himself out there.

• 47:42Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 47:42Zoe Chance?

  In this charming and funny way, and he's very charismatic, that they invited Jason back to Sophie's birthday party the next year and the next year. And he's coming back to New Haven, even after he graduated, to go to her eighth birthday party and her ninth birthday party.

• 47:57Ed Mylett?

  That is so awesome. And it's like, you guys, the way, you and I have a real flow, because not only is the no challenge so profound, I just look back, like, I read your work and I'm like, you know, I've been so fortunate in my life to have actually done some of these things without ever being directed to do them, that you write about in the book. So I'm almost, I guess I'm saying, I can validate with a lot of my own experience, your work. And, and this, I'm, I got a lot of no's. And I kind of got in this weird addicted space where I almost got off the wrong word, but like, yeah, I got another one. And it just started to hurt less and less. And in, it just in your overall life, if you're not getting rejected in small ways, man, these breakups, these sales you don't

• 48:42Ed Mylett?

  close, the business that fails, that are massive to you, because you haven't had any little ones to sort of just dull your senses to it, a little bit. And the other thing that you go ahead.

• 48:54Zoe Chance?

  And you still feel it. You still feel it. It just doesn't last as long. So it's it's not even that the magnitude of the pain gets that much less. It just gets much, much faster. And because you've had practice, you know, you can handle it and you can see your way to the other side. So with something like a breakup, this is especially important, right?

• 49:14Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. And I think I think what it happened, what changes is it still hurts, but what it means is slightly different. In other words, it's not the events of our lives that define us. It's the meaning we take from it. So there was a point in my life where I would get a no. Let's say in business, I go, I suck. I'm not called for this. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. This is God's way of telling me I shouldn't do this. That's what the no meant. Or people don't like me, or it's because I'm, you know, whatever. I I would catch these massive, unrealistic, silly, nonsensical meanings to events that were so rare. But the more familiar they become, you begin to change the meaning. It doesn't mean you go, this is great. I love. I've never believed it would go, I love when I get a no. Nah, not all the time, but it means

• 49:57Ed Mylett?

  different things to me. It could mean I'm growing. It could mean I'm closer to a yes. It could mean I'm getting tougher. So it changes the meaning. The other muscle, so to speak, that I kind of built, which I think after reading your work, maybe I've let atrophy a little bit as I've become maybe a little bit more well known. I've been less willing to do, but I did a lot throughout my life. As you say, just ask. You want to be a person of influence, just ask. I cannot tell you Zoe, how many people, you know, people always trying to get me to invest in their companies and pitch me and some of the most successful people in the world, look at this whole presentation to me and then never ask me to invest. They never ask me to do it or they, you know, they, they, I can tell they need something. They're

• 50:38Ed Mylett?

  a friend of mine and they never ask me what they need. And so, and this is most humans. And the longer you go without asking people, the the more difficult and mountainous you think it is to do so. So major part of the book is just ask. So talk about that.

• 50:53Zoe Chance?

  Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of embarrassing to be teaching a class at this Ivy League school where the biggest takeaway that people tell me afterward that they had, I'm getting emails from alums and they're like, I, I just asked now in my life, I just asked. Thank you. Go. But they, they find love. They get companies funded. They change policies, change the course of history. It's so, so, so simple. By the way, you mentioned that a lot of these things that you read felt, um, they resonated like things you're doing already. And I believe that a lot of already successful leaders will feel that same way about this book.

• 51:31Zoe Chance?

  And what I've tried to do in this book is make it simple enough that you can not just see yourself in that, but you can teach other people. And you can say to your people, like, here's a half chapter. Take this one. Like, oh charisma, here go. But about just asking. Scary for all of us. Most of us have some domain in which we're less comfortable than others. Like, maybe you're killing it in business, but you're scared to ask for a date. Maybe you are comfortable asking people you know to do favors for you. But the idea of asking a stranger for money would be, you would just rather die. Love and money are the two biggest ones.

• 52:17Zoe Chance?

  I don't know if, can I just ask you, because you said you haven't been doing much of it? Like, is there some area of your life, Ed, that's harder to ask than?

• 52:25Ed Mylett?

  I'm so glad you asked that. So I was thinking about, so glad you asked that, right? Yes. And it's not major things. It's minor things. I would blow you away with the things I'm afraid to ask. I'll tell you. This will shock you and probably most people. I'll ask a favor of a friend on a big business deal or it. But if I'm in a restaurant, and this is going to sound nuts, but if I'm in a restaurant and my food is cooked incorrectly, for me to ask the server to go take it back and do it. I would never do that because I feel like I'm bothering them. For me, there's almost a reciprocity connection sometimes that I feel like needs to be there where I can help you back. Even when I, if I've been waiting in a restaurant or my wife will tell you, like, we walk into a restaurant, she's the person who goes up and says, hi, we're the Mylett, we're here for a table. I don't want to ask or bother them. It seems so odd.

• 53:09Ed Mylett?

  But one of the things you should guard against is I always think I should only ask somebody's a favor or something I needed them if I can pay them back. And this is the more sort of maybe influential I've become, the more it's reinforced that false belief. So I'll ask people all the time that I've already helped or that I know I could help. But if I don't think I can help you, somehow I'm hesitant to ask. And I my sense is even as I say that out loud, maybe that's true for a lot of people who who walk through their everyday life that way.

• 53:37Zoe Chance?

  Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. At least for a lot of nice people. And and it's funny, like, I'm surprised hearing you say this. But then I'm also thinking, like, you know, I there are so many other people like you who are very successful and have these same hesitancies, like Wall Street banker who's telling me that he's uncomfortable trying to get a bartender's attention.

• 53:59Ed Mylett?

  I'm saying.

• 53:59Zoe Chance?

  Because it is this, it is exactly that we're afraid to bother people. In the book, I write about this challenge that we Soho classes based on challenges, a challenge that's called the bigger and better game, that's specifically to put you out of your comfort zone, where you have to be asking for things that you can't reciprocate, because you're going to trade somebody for something they have that's bigger and better than what you have. And you start with a paperclip or something tiny like that. And you trade up as many times as you want. And you're anybody listening, you know, it's fun if you feel like it to do this with your team or your family. In class, we start with a paperclip, and then everyone comes back one week later with the biggest best thing that they've gotten. And in class, it's a competition to see who can win. And you

• 54:43Zoe Chance?

  get to have a free homework and dinner with Zoe.

• 54:46Ed Mylett?

  It's a great.

• 54:47Zoe Chance?

  The craziest one is the two students who traded up in 10 trades over four days from a paperclip to a Volkswagen Jetta.

• 54:57Ed Mylett?

  Come on.

• 54:58Zoe Chance?

  From a car dealership in New Haven.

• 55:00Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my God.

• 55:01Zoe Chance?

  And they traded up for a car that they didn't even need. And they donated it to an Afghan refugee family who had settled here. And this is a perfect example of how people are so much more willing to help than we expect. And when we can frame the situation in an appealing way, and especially with a vision, a visionary outcome that's something bigger than ourselves, and/or just something fun. They just went around saying, hey, we're playing this game, and it's totally crazy, and we probably can't do it, but we're gonna try to trade up from a paperclip to a car. This is our dream, and we're gonna give it away. Do you want to be part of this game and play with us?

• 55:44Zoe Chance?

  It's fun. And also, these guys, it was happening over Halloween, and so they're wearing fuzzy animal onesies, and you know, they look hilarious. People are so much more open to our influence when we approach them in an open-hearted and human kind of way than saying, here's what I have for you. What will you trade with me? As a transaction, what would be... They, like, other teams of people will do transactional trades where they're trying to find people. Okay, I have a paperclip. Who has paper that they need to clip? Okay, you have paper. I have a paperclip. What will you trade with me? Okay, you've got a stamp. I'll trade you for a marker. And what happens to those people, by the way, is they end up with giant pieces of trash from somebody's basement,

• 56:29Zoe Chance?

  and they'll get like, a collection of ugly mugs, or like, a fourteen-foot oar from a rowboat that got lost.

• 56:37Ed Mylett?

  So, I, my favorite part about what you do that's different than everyone else's way they teach influence is this right here, which is that it's not transactional. I think a lot of times, you know, I've had the blessing of some success as an entrepreneur, and I think people think that that must mean I was a very transactional person. Nothing could be further from the truth. I just want to elaborate on what you said. Like, it's just so good to have someone finally saying the right stuff, the true stuff. And by the way, I've learned a ton in this book. I don't ever want to think, oh, it confirmed everything I do. No, I learned a ton in this book that I did not know. There are some things in the book that went, yep, I've done that. Yes, that's true, but there's a bunch I learned. But one of them is, I'm not transactional. When you approach somebody in a transactional basis, here's what I've always felt like. They immediately don't even see you as human.

• 57:21Ed Mylett?

  That you see was almost an object because you've objectified them. And now you've you've lost all of whatever that influence could have been because you're no longer a human being, you're no longer vulnerable, you're no longer somebody I want to help or root for. And now they almost want to win. They almost want to win it by rejecting you, by getting by and giving you the or instead of the Jeddah, right? And so the most important thing I think you can be to be influential is to be vulnerable, is to ask for help, is to be yourself, is to be human with people, is to be as far away from transactional as that you possibly can get in order to be influential. And almost all other influential courses are, well, if you could have A or B, what would you have? And it becomes very transactional.

• 58:03Ed Mylett?

  That has not worked for 30 years in life or business, yet it's still taught all the time by people who I don't think are very influential that really make a very big difference. So now, having said that, there are techniques. And one of them is the frame. And I promised us in the beginning, we don't have a ton of time that I want to ask you this and one more question. But talk a little bit about framing things for people because it's just you you have to help someone who wants to help themselves or help you. And the frame in which the lens, whatever you want to call it, matters. So let's talk about that.

• 58:36Zoe Chance?

  Yeah, the a frame is the words that you use to influence someone's perspective, including your own. And a frame influences how somebody expects things to play out. It influences their experience and it influences their evaluation. That's a lot of jargon. So here's a concrete example. That this is a cool study in by a neuroscientist who was looking at the framing effects of price on wine. And she says, okay, wine drinkers, come to my experiment. And this has to be the worst way to drink wine that anyone could imagine. You're in an FMRI machine with a tiny little tube going into your mouth and giving you little sips of wine.

• 59:19Zoe Chance?

  And before each sip of wine, the researchers tell you how much that bottle costs. And either it's cheaper, it's expensive, and then you sip it. So they're not asking you to evaluate it. They're scanning your brain. They're scanning the gustatory pleasure centers of your brain. And it's probably not surprising to wine drinkers that they found a lot more activation from the expensive wines than the cheap ones. However, it's a framing experiment. So all the wines were the same. But the frame created the expectation that this is going to be a good wine. And then literally, people were physiologically experiencing this differently, depending on that expectation.

• 1:00:01Zoe Chance?

  You can see powerful frames all over in the world, and you can think of a frame as a soundbite. But one example would be global warming versus climate change versus the climate crisis. These have very different impacts on what we think is happening, how true we think they are, and what we want to do about it, or don't do about it.

• 1:00:24Ed Mylett?

  I love this. I think most humans are predisposed to behave the way they think is appropriate. So if you're telling me something, or you're gonna love this. I'm more inclined to think I'm going to love this, and then I'm gonna like it. And so people do behave based on the frame they're in. You take the same human being, everybody, and at six o'clock in the afternoon and in the evening, they're at a funeral. And there's a certain context and frame to that environment of how you should or shouldn't behave emotionally. They leave there, and at eight thirty, they're at an NFL football game, jumping up and down, screaming. Same exact human being, different frame, because the environment is different. And you create that frame with your words, with your lead in. It's a really important part of the book, because you do have an obligation as somebody who wants to be influential,

• 1:01:08Ed Mylett?

  to not be transactional, but to be vulnerable, transparent, and honest with people. But at the same time, be good at it. Same time, be good at it. That's the whole point, is that you can't be a sloppy person. It's some of the skills that are requisite. It's why certain parents are better at communicating with their children than other ones. There's a skill to it. There's a presence to it. And that's why you're gonna want the book. So thank you for today. First off, I want to thank you, but I got one more question for you. I think your work is wonderful. I think you're wonderful. I'm so glad that I did decide to do this today and that you decided to do it with us, because I just feel like this is one of these things where you're like, you know what? I want my son to hear this. I want my daughter to hear this. I want my mom to hear this. I want my dad to hear it. I want my team to hear it. In business and so, because there's so much to it. So, thank you Zoe, first of all,

• 1:01:53Ed Mylett?

  for being here. You're awesome. The last thing has nothing to do with really with influence, but it's who you are with a lot. And I'm just curious about it because a lot of them have begun to follow me. What I mean by that is this generation that's at this college age. I don't know what we're calling them all XYZ, whatever anymore. It doesn't matter. I actually don't even like all that. And I don't think all people are the same. But there's this notion out there right now. I want you to tell me something about young people that we don't know, that you're around all the time. Because I think you know, the perception lately has been that this generation is softer and they're, and you know, they've got to be in a safe space all the time and they don't want to work very hard and they're, and yet my experience

• 1:02:33Ed Mylett?

  has been that this is one of the more driven, focused, aware, cause oriented generations of all time. Young people that want to do good and make a difference, even more than they want to make money, they want to make a difference. All the surveys, all the studies say that. But you're with young people all the time. Tell me what they're like. I want people that are listening to my show to go, hey, this is something you didn't know and you ought to be, I'm hoping you're going to say a good thing, and that you should be optimistic about what the future holds.

• 1:03:03Zoe Chance?

  Sure. So, first of all, like any group of people, they don't want to be stereotyped, right? But now I'm going to go ahead and do it.

• 1:03:10Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, yeah. But they're not all the same. Like I said, they're not. But in by and large, there's a, there's a, there's some commonalities to most.

• 1:03:18Zoe Chance?

  There is a palpable shift that a lot of us are experiencing, which is definitely real, toward a higher standard of what people are expecting from work. And what people are expecting from work is far more than money. We used to, many of us, be satisfied with just the financial transaction.

• 1:03:39Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Zoe Chance?

  And increasingly,

• 1:03:42Zoe Chance?

  That's not enough. And actually, you couldn't even pay us enough to do some jobs that we hate. We care about a whole lot is growth and finding meaning in the things that we do. And in the relationship with our supervisor and feeling that we are appreciated. So these are the three big factors that are driving a lot of people right now to reconsider their work, particularly in the generation of people in their twenties and thirties, like we're talking about, like I teach. And to me, this is a wonderful thing because we all should be getting more from work than just a paycheck. And if you think of work-life balance, I hate this whole idea because then it's implying that for half of the time, you're not even alive.

• 1:04:25Ed Mylett?

  So true.

• 1:04:26Zoe Chance?

  Right?

• 1:04:26Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, you're so right. By the way, I listen to that with hope. It's also been my experience when I travel and speak to the different teams I speak to and whatnot. But I wanted my audience here and also want anybody who's in any sort of stewardship of young people, you're hearing what they want from you. You're gonna find the good ones to come work with you. If you're gonna move them, growth and contribution are dominant needs in our culture right now for all of us and to feel appreciated and that someone is grateful for your presence. And just be conscious of that as a leader. And I don't say that as a technique. I just want to tell you, I'm really grateful for you. I would love watching a human being do in this time what they're called to be doing. And it's apparent to me that for this time in your life,

• 1:05:11Ed Mylett?

  anyway, you're doing exactly on the earth what you were called to do and that you're great at. And I'm really grateful you're doing it. So thank you.

• 1:05:20Zoe Chance?

  Thank you so much, Ed. Can I recognize one specific thing about you? In addition to your amazing listening in this conversation, but something that we were talking about before the conversation. I encourage everyone to listen to your video, teaching people how to listen. Because it's not just the seven steps that are incredibly helpful. And one of them, which nobody else shares, which is the follow-up after the listening. But what you will hear as you're listening to this video is Ed Mylett has the magic of sounding like he's listening and actually listening while he's talking. So that's something that I aspire to. Next level. Thank you so much.

• 1:06:04Ed Mylett?

  Thank you so much. I enjoyed that. You guys can tell. We like each other and I love her work. And so go get influence is your superpower. That's the next step. And I'd stay in connection with her because I have a funny feeling that's not the end of this woman's work in this space. So Zoe Chance, thank you. You're amazing. And to everybody listening to this fastest growing show, we doubled the downloads of this huge show already in the last 90 days, which is already big. And that's because all of you are loving what we do here in different areas of your life. Every week we bring you someone who enriches, inspires, and teaches you to improve some area of your life. And Zoe hit a grand slam today. So Zoe, thank you. Share the show, everybody. God bless you all. Max out your life.