Master The Universal Skills To Become Awesome At Any Job And Succeed At Your Work with Pete Mockaitis

In this episode we discuss how to master the universal skills required to succeed at work, the counter-intuitive truth of taking more responsibility for your own mistakes, flaws, and screw-ups can help you succeed more quickly, we look at how to cultivate and create accountability in your life, challenge yourself to rise to a higher level, and become more vulnerable, we talk about the Benjamin Franklin effect, and much more with Pete Mockaitis.
Pete Mockaitis is an award-winning trainer focusing primarily on helping professionals perform optimally at work. He’s delivered 1-on-1 coaching to over 700 clients across 50 countries, and every Ivy League school. He currently hosts the How to be Awesome at your Job podcast which has listeners in over 150 countries and has been ranked as a top 5 career podcast on iTunes.
We discuss:
The importance of reading to improving your knowledge
The book that has had the biggest impact on Pete’s life
How you can transform yourself into “peak state” so that you don’t feel scared or unmotivated
How to master the universal skills required to succeed at work
Grit - what it is, why its so important, and how you can cultivate
The concept that had the biggest impact on Pete’s life
Why its so important to take a hard look at yourself and your own shortcomings
What to do when your paralyzed by fear in your job
Why Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear
How to be a more effective communicator
“Answer first communication” and how it can transform how you speak and present
How “hypothesis driven testing” can make you a much better communicator
Why you should ask: “What things need to be true for this to be a good idea”
Numbers galvanize attention and focus for people listening to you
If you’re stressed out in your current role, you’re not ready to make the next move up
“The time to meet your neighbors is not when your house is on fire”
How to cultivate and develop better relationships
The power of making the ask and "ask not, have not”
The Benjamin Franklin Effect and how it can help you build a powerful network of mentors
You can achieve whatever you want in life, if you help enough other people achieve what they want in life
How to be courageous
How to ask for good feedback and how to give feedback
Ask for role models and ideal next steps when asking for feedback
Why you should never be afraid to ask for feedback and counterintuitively how demonstrating your weakensses can help you advance in your career
The counter intuitive truth of taking MORE responsibility for your own mistakes, flaws, and screw-ups can help you succeed more quickly
How to cultivate and create accountability in your life, challenge yourself to rise to a higher level, and become more vulnerable
What you should do when your unsatisfied with your career
Thank you so much for listening!
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SHOW NOTES, LINKS, & RESEARCH

[Audiobook] Goals by Zig Ziglar
[Book] Unlimited Power : The New Science Of Personal Achievement by Anthony Robbins
[Podcast] How to be Awesome at Your Job
[Website] How to be Awesome at Your Job
[Book] Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
[Book] How to Work a Room, 25th Anniversary Edition by Susan RoAne
[Audiobook] The Mastermind by Napoleon Hill
Episode Transcript

 
 [00:00:06.4] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Science of Success with your host, Matt Bodnar.
 
[0:00:12.6] MB: Welcome to The Science of Success. I’m your host, Matt Bodnar. I’m an entrepreneur and investor in Nashville, Tennessee and I’m obsessed with the mindset of success and the psychology of performance. I’ve read hundreds of books, conducted countless hours of research and study and I am going to take you on a journey into the human mind and what makes peak performers tick with the focus on always having our discussion rooted in psychological research and scientific fact, not opinion.
 
In this episode, we discuss how to master the universal skills required to succeed at work. The counterintuitive truth of taking more responsibility for your own mistakes, flaws, and screw-ups and how that can help you succeed more quickly. We look at how to cultivate and create accountability in your life. Challenge yourself to rise to a higher level and become more vulnerable. We talk about the Benjamin Franklin effect, and much more, with our guest; Pete Mockaitis.
 
The Science of Success continues to grow with more than 800,000 downloads, listeners in over 100 countries, hitting number one in New and Noteworthy, and more. Do want to stay up-to-date with the latest of The Science of Success? Find out what we've been reading in the quick tips you need to achieve your goals? Be sure to sign up for email list to get our exclusive Mindset Monday email where we share with our listeners quick summaries of a few of the latest research bits, strategies, and more that have us fired up and can help you achieve your goals. All you have to do the sign up is to visit our website; successpodcast.com and join our email list or text the word “smarter” to the number 44222. 
 
In our previous episode, we asked can and should we set aside our emotions to make decisions in huge high-stakes environments. We looked at how to channel and listen to our emotions to make even better decisions. We talked about learning from negative emotions, how historical echoes in her life can create repeated behavior patterns and much more with our guest; Denise Shull. If you want to be able to make the right decision in high-pressure situations, listen to that episode. 
 
Lastly, if you wanted all the incredible information, links, transcripts, everything we’re going to talk about in this show and from our previous shows, be sure to check out our show notes. Just go to successpodcast.com. That's right, we have a new website; successpodcast.com, and hit the show notes button at the top. 
 
[0:02:43.6] MB: Today, we have another great guest on the show; Pete Mockaitis. Pete is an award-winning trainer focused primarily on helping professionals perform optimally at work. He’s delivered one-on-one coaching to over 700 clients across 50 different countries and every Ivy League school. He currently hosts the How To Be Awesome At Your Job Podcast, which has listeners in over 150 countries and has been ranked as a top-five career podcast on iTunes. 
 
Pete, welcome to The Science of Success. 
 
[0:03:13.5] PM: Thanks, Matt. I’m thrilled to be here. 
 
[0:03:16.3] MB: We’re very excited to have you on here today. For listeners who might not be familiar with you and your podcast, tells about your story. 
 
[0:03:26.2] PM: Oh, my story. Yes. It begins as a youngster in the Danville Public Library in Illinois where I grew up, and my dad would always take me there when I knew I wanted to sort of escape the home, getting a little bit of cabin fever. What parent can resist a child saying, “I want to go to the library, daddy.” And so we went. 
 
I got into a little bit of a groove where I would take an interest in a topic, maybe it's photography, maybe it's chess. I would read numerous books on that topic and suddenly I discovered, “Hey, I’m taking better photos.” “Hey, I am suddenly beating my dad at chess.” That kind of cemented this notion early on about books, that knowledge, make you better at stuff and then I discovered this realm of books associated with success and positive psychology stuff. I'm so digging your show and delighted to be on here. I thought, “Whoa! These are books that just make you better at living life.” 
 
That interest sort of stuck forever, and I went on to college and then strategy consulting at Bain and then I left Bain thinking, “You know? What I really want to do is the people development things.” I've been doing training and coaching, and then over the last year, getting going with the How To Be Awesome At Your Job podcast. 
 
[0:04:46.0] MB: When you were a kid or you’ve been maybe a little bit older than that, what was the book that you stumbled upon or read that kind of set you off on this course and really opened your eyes? 
 
[0:04:58.9] PM: It’s funny, I don’t think I can give credit to just one, but I also remember a lot of it was audio. It was in their audiocassette tapes at the time. You could get the CD or the cassette which libraries are often a little behind with some of the latest stuff. I would have a little boombox cassette tape player strapped into the passenger seat of my Chevrolet Celebrity vehicle that I was driving at the time. I think I remember one about goals from Zig Ziglar and he had that southern accent. He’d talked about goals and I was into it. It’s like, “Yeah, that make a lot of sense. I should write them down. I should focus on some things.” Then we get the Stephen Covey and Tony Robbins and it just kept going. 
 
[0:05:45.9] MB: The old Zig Ziglar stuff, and you can actually still find a bunch of it on Audible. It’s just amazing. You can read his books, but it's so much better. He’s such a fascinating speaker and a really interesting guy. I feel like you really get a lot more out of it. Actually, kind of hearing him speak and tell the stories. 
 
[0:06:04.6] PM: Yes, and his voices is just so musical and fun to listen to. It's like, “What else do you got Zig? Let’s keep it going.”
 
[0:06:13.2] MB: You kind of got in to some of these books and they really opened your eyes. What were some of those initial lessons that you said kind of, “Wow! This is really something that has some meat to it.” 
 
[0:06:26.2] PM: I think one of my favorite lessons came from Tony Robbins in his book Unlimited Power. He talked about your emotions are not so much something that just happened, that you're just a victim of your emotions that you can actually exert a degree of control over how you feel in a given moment by holding your body differently, taking up more space and being confident and shoulders back, straight up instead of compressed, by what you're thinking about or visualizing in terms of if you're think about success or terrible memories of failure, and how you're talking to yourself from, “Let's do this. Bring it on. Oh, yeah!” Tony would smack his chest and all the antiques there, or like, “Oh, this is going to be so lame.” 
 
I think I just used that set of tactics probably hundreds of times in high school or college like, “Oh, I’m kind of tired. I'm kind of bored. This is going to be lame.” It’s like, “Well, I don't feel like feeling that way. It’d be more helpful to be pumped up about this, so I'm going to choose to feel pumped up about this.” I was able to kind of pour myself into a lot of stuff and get better results in those things. 
 
[0:07:37.8] MB: What are some of the — I've been to UPW, one of Tony’s events — 
 
[0:07:42.1] PM: Oh, yeah. The Fire Walker. 
 
[0:07:44.0] MB: Yeah, oh yeah. Exactly. What were some of those — For listeners who might not be familiar, what are some of those activities you can do to kind of shift yourself from a state of being disempowered or upset or unmotivated to sort of high-energy state. I forget the exact term that he uses for it. Pig steak. 
 
[0:08:04.7] PM: Yeah, pig steak. It’s funny. If you check out some of those videos from the events and unleash the power within. I mean, Tony got some notoriety from doing a fire walker like over hot coals. It's funny, when I did that, I remember it’s actually raining a lot, so my feet were chilly and I was like refreshing, like, “Oh, that’s nice. Can I just chill here for a second?” because my feet are freezing as opposed to some mighty mind over matter thing. 
 
His take would be to sort of be active and in motion, so maybe jumping up and down, may pounding your chest. He’s going to say things like, “Make your move,” like a power move and have air gushing past. 
 
If you stumble into a video of this, it looks a little bit nuts, like, “Whoa! What is going on here? Is this some sort of cult activity?” It's not. It's just sort of a series of professional personal development tricks to kind of snap your body into a peak state as he would call it. It doesn't have to be outrageous. It can happen a little bit subtly in terms of, “Oh, I’m slumping forward. I’m going to bring shoulders back and take a breath here. I’m going to stretch my neck out a little bit. I am focusing on what I'm afraid is going to happen from doing this thing. I’m going to shift my focus toward what I'd love to see happen with this thing.” Suddenly, you feel better. 
 
I don't know if this has happened you, Matt, but sometimes I just cannot imagine a conversation and how it might go awry with someone. Then I'm almost like having a debate or a fight in my mind with this imaginary conversation like, “If he says this, then I'm going to say that. But if he comes back at this, I’m like, “Oh, no!” I’m going to come back with that.” Suddenly I’m getting worked up. I’m getting anxious about a conversation that isn’t even real just because I am visualizing. You could just take a breath and say, “Timeout. Let's refocus here.” 
 
[0:10:00.2] MB: Let's dig into your podcast. What is the podcast about and what led you to create it? 
 
[0:10:07.7] PM: Oh, sure thing. The title is How To Be Awesome At Your Job. It’s funny, it started out as a little bit of a tagline talking to some branding design people and some prospective listeners such that it was sharpening the universal skills required to flourish at work. I thought, “That’s kind of catchy. That's what I'm up to. I want to produce a show that’ll be useful for anyone who's interested in flourishing in their career. whether they work in sales or accounting or marketing or finance, as supposed to being focused in on a narrow spot.” 
 
As I discovered, looking at the landscape of podcasts, a lot of the development type stuff — Matt, you probably saw the same thing as you’re lunching yours. Had a focus toward entrepreneurship, side hustle, sort of do your thing, live your dream, escape the cubicle world. I thought, “Well, I think a lot of people like their jobs and find meaning and rewards from it and would just like to do them better and to navigate their career well.” 
 
That actually turned out to be a key point of differentiation, and most of the pitches I reject tend to be like from an entrepreneurial story, like find out how so-and-so grew their business from 1 million to 8 million in just 18 months. It’s like, “That’s really cool, but unless we’re focused on some particular skills that apply to folks with “real or normal jobs”, then it's not quite fit.” 
 
I love to talk to people about things like grit, or purpose, or communication, or feedback, or having a good a presence, developing relationships that are mutually advantageous, and those sorts of things. Whether you're working in an high-tech or mining or in finance or marketing, you’re going to need to know that stuff to do well. 
 
[0:12:02.6] MB: It’s such a point, and I feel like both of our shows to some degree are kind of in a different camp. Some of the pitches we kind of turn away from as well are those same entrepreneurial stories. As an entrepreneur, I’m really interested in them. At the same time, I want to really focus on these deeper lessons and these kind of skills that transcend one particular activity and can really be life skills that can help you across the board live a healthier, happier, more successful life. 
 
[0:12:30.4] PM: I agree. I'm into those, and you did a heck of a job sharing those on my show, thanks again for that, when it comes to decision-making. That's something that everyone's got to do and it's very high leveraged as you’d say. 
 
[0:12:44.5] MB: It’s so important to be high leverage. I’d love to dig in to some of these universal skills. Tell me about the first one you mentioned; grit. I think that's something that's so important. 
 
[0:12:54.7] PM: Grit is just this notion that you're going to stick with something. Sort of maybe it's uncomfortable. Maybe it's unpleasant for a period of time. Grit is just the capacity to step up and endure and work through some of that. 
 
We had a guest; Linda Kaplan Taylor, who spoke about this, and Angela Duckworth is kind of the top thinker on the field right now with her TED talk and such. It’s just sort of an undervalued, sort of a capability when many folks would say, “Well, no. It's about your IQ,” or “It’s about your talent. That's what's going to take you far.” 
 
A lot of the studies suggest that it's the capability to pick yourself up one more time to persist, to learn from your mistakes and adjust. That's really going to get the job done more so than being an exceptionally brilliant, a coder or a salesperson. 
 
[0:13:49.7] MB: That’s something that I’ve fundamentally believe in. We’ve had Carol Dweck on the show in the past. She's one of the other kind of people that is not necessarily directly grit, but the lessons of mindset are so vital and so important to developing the ability to bounce back from failure and not let it define you and learn that it's an okay and necessary part of the journey towards whatever you want to achieve. 
 
[0:14:18.0] PM: It certainly. Another thing that I think is related to that is just the courage required to take a hard look at yourself, your skills, your strengths, your shortcomings and to ask for that feedback and to see what's going well, what’s going not so well, and how can you learn and grow and develop. 
 
One theme that’s really popped up across many guests is a lot of folks in their careers, they’re sort of paralyzed by fear. It's like the elephant is in the room and folks, they’re afraid to maybe challenge a manager or a leader if that idea doesn't quite sit right to them. They’re afraid to ask where they can improve or what it takes to win and grow and flourish within this career. They're afraid to step into some conflict with someone in terms of — They say, “Hey, did you do what you said you were going to do? What happened there?” and to go there. 
 
I think there's just massive value being destroyed because folks there — Their natural kind of lizard brain limbic system survival mechanisms are running the show when, ideally, we would take a breath and go to some places conversationally that may require a bit extra dose of courage but can just unlock tremendous opportunity. 
 
[0:15:39.4] MB: There's a quote, this is one of my favorite quotes, and it’s “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” 
 
[0:15:44.9] PM: Oh, yes. Well said. 
 
[0:15:47.2] MB: I don't. I don’t remember who that quote is from, but that one was always to me just been so powerful. 
 
[0:15:53.3] PM: I buy it. What’s was fascinating is that this fear is not just for folks maybe at the individual contributor level, but also managers and some upper leaders. There is often fear associated with telling an employee a direct report what kinds of behavior needs to change, and so folks just live with having the same your mistakes crop up over and over again and then kind of fixing or redoing work that are direct report has to offer. Instead of just being able to head on, say, “Hey, I want to have a chat about some things that I’ve been noticing and their impact on us and our team,” and just be able to go there. It’s like, “When you do this, these are the implications of that, and are you up for changing that?” 
 
It could be like a two-minute conversation that just illuminates folks like, “Oh, wow! I had no idea,” or “You’re right. I’m sorry. That’s something that's always been a weakness of mine.” Now you're in an empowered place to go to work and see what you can do to develop, and it's a much more positive fun work experience for everybody. 
 
[0:17:02.1] MB: That example really highlights one of the other themes that talked about, which is communication. It’s so important, and I feel like many people sort of take it for granted or don't even really think about it or think that they’re communicating effectively when they’re really really struggling to communicate. What have you see in terms of some the lessons you've drawn about how to be a more effective communicator? 
 
[0:17:25.3] PM: There are many, and I teach a good number of them in my training programs. I'm going to start with some strategy consulting tools, if I may. One piece of that I’m thinking is just about answer first to communication. The difference is whereas most of us tend to communicate in sort of a chronological fashion. Let's just say that I was doing some customer research and exploring some market stuff, and that's part of my job. I might convey what happened from that research by saying, “You know what? I opened up our customer relationship management database and I ran some filters associated with over the last couple of years where most of our sales have been coming from as supposed to where our marketing spend has been flowing. What was kind of Interesting is the ratios are really all over the place in terms of marketing spend, about revenue retrieved. Ultimately, it seems like it's the mom segment that seems to overwhelmingly give us the biggest return on our marketing dollar investment.” 
 
I’ve told a chronological story of what I did, which is natural, because we’re humans and we like to function with stories. The first part of that, you and listeners might have said, “Okay, where are we going with this? Wait, do I care? What’s the story?” As supposed to if it were answer first you would say,” “Overwhelmingly, our marketing spend toward mothers is the most efficient. I say so for three key reasons. First;” and then you sort of lay it out. That just has an effect to just sort of galvanize folk’s attention and they’re kind of locked in. 
 
If you happen to have a super compelling, engaging, intriguing story with a twist or something, that could be kind of fun to build tension in kind of like a cinematic way. Most the time, when you’re just sort of conveying day-in, day-out business insights, that’s a better way to go. Same thing with your — If you got some PowerPoint in the mix, having compelling slide headlines that just say what's the point as supposed to just labeling the data that are there such as overview of marketing spend and consumer reaction. A better headline would read; mothers are the most efficient segment we should market to, and then they go, “Oh! Interesting. Now I am oriented to what I should be looking at,” and then you sort of cut through a lot of the ambiguity of, “Wait, what am I looking for? What's the take away here?” You get right to the heart of matter in a hurry. 
 
[0:19:58.3] MB: It's a focus on kind of getting to the point much more quickly instead of wasting a lot of time and energy with fluff, essentially. 
 
[0:20:07.6] PM: Certainly. Often, if it's if it's vague, what your point is in a set of data, everyone could just sort of look at it and talk around it. Maybe that's interesting if you’re kind of exploring new ways and new directions and trying to spark a kind of intriguing innovation, but if you're just trying to get the sense for, “Hey, how did our call centers perform last month?” Just go ahead and say it, strong and proud and clear, “Our handle time exceeded all expectations over the last month.” “Okay, got it,” and so we can move on from that slide as supposed to everyone leaning in and squinting for a little bit to see, “What are we trying to say here?” 
 
[0:20:50.1] MB: What are some of the other communication strategies that you've seen or havehave kind of uncovered that have been really effective? 
 
[0:20:57.3] PM: Oh, sure thing. I think part of it kind of flows from what I would call sort of hypothesis-driven thinking within your communication so that rather than just sort of taking a look around and seeing what you see, you sort of convey right up front, “If I want to take an action,” so let's say acquire a company or something. You have in a big strategic meeting about that sort of thing. Well than, it’s often more efficient means of communicating if you just sort of layout right up front, “Okay, well, what things need to be true for this to be a good idea?” Then we get really focused on those things. 
 
Thing one is that the target we’re looking at, it's healthy in terms of profit sales, a growth market position. Thing two is that we can get a reasonable price in terms of the acquisition of it. Think three is that it’ll fit nice complementarily with the other things that we’re doing in this business. By doing that right up front, one; you’d use numbers, which tend to galvanize attention. It's wild if say, “There are three key things to discuss.” Pens click and people write, “Oh, okay. 1, 2, 3.” I’m implicating employees to hear what that is, and that you’ve identified that these are like the key drivers upon which this will hinge, like yes, no, good, or bad news on these will determine if it's a go or no go, then you’ve done a great job of more efficiently communicating as well as more efficiently planning how you’re going to go about thinking and researching this move. 
 
[0:22:33.0] MB: I think that's a great point, and I love the question; what things need to be true for this to be a good idea. I've never heard that before, and it’s definitely something I’m going to implement in my own thought process to sort of clarify what we should be focusing on. 
 
[0:22:47.2] PM: It’s so funny, and now it's so baked into how I think and operate about everything. As we speak, I am standing at my sit to stand desk, and before I purchased it I thought, “Okay, geez. That sounds cool, but I don't want part with $600-ish just for a cool toy. I want this to work out.” There are sort of two key phases as like, “What needs to be true in order for this to be true,” and so I thought through it in and laid those things out like, “Well, one. I’d say the cost of this thing would need to be overshadowed by the benefits. That's got to be true. Two; my space has to be able to work for it, to fit it in just nice, just right and nicely. Three; buying this desk will need to be superior to my alternative options from stacking boxes on my existing desk or just remaining seated.” 
 
So that I say, “Okay, if I could prove those three things, that I’ll know that this is a sensible move, and then I think, “Well, how would I go about approving those?” “Well, for the space, just get a tape measure. For the benefits and costs —” You might dig this science of success, “I went deep in terms of looking at studies that showed worker performance with sit to stand desks and what that meant.” I saw some pretty cool things associated with less fatigue and better mood. I thought, “Shocks! That will just free me up to do a little bit more work which will create more than 600 bucks. That's a great benefit exceeded the cost.” 
 
Then just Googling around for other options. I could see how those stacked up and that this one indeed look like the best. I recommended with folks who are trying to develop some of these thought processes. I’d say anytime you're about to make a purchase, stop and go through those steps and say, “What needs to be true for this purchase to be great?” Then I like amazon.com a lot, and it's like my entire order history represents a series of hypothesis-driven thinking moves. It’s like, “Yes, I proved out the key things I needed, and so that's why I have this bamboo diffuser and limit essential oil, or whatever I’ve bought off Amazon. It really adds up. 
 
[0:25:04.4] MB: Yeah, I totally understand that and I’m on the same page. I feel like I have Amazon boxes arriving my house on almost daily basis. 
 
[0:25:13.0] PM: Totally. 
 
[0:25:15.5] MB: It’s just so much more convenient. Anyway, back on communication. One of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard about communication is really simple. Basically, there's three types of communication; no communication, miscommunication, and over-communication. Somebody once told me that piece of advice and it really stuck out to me and kind of helped me think about, “Okay, a lot of times when you think you've told someone something or you think that they know something. It doesn't hurt to kind of go back and tell them again or reach out and over-communicate, because a lot of times things you think you’ve done or think you’ve said, they didn't really hear what you were saying or they didn't quite get it or they missed it or whatever might be. 
 
[0:26:03.1] PM: Yes, that’s an interesting set up in terms of categories because I noticed none of them were a perfect communication. 
 
[0:26:12.4] MB: Yeah, exactly. You’re either on the spectrum of not communicating, miscommunicating, or you’re on the total other end, which is over-communicating. The reality is a lot of times when you — If you don't feel like you're over-communicating, you're probably not communicating enough, and there's probably wires getting crossed, there’s probably things getting missed. That something we really try to drive home on our teams is you have to constantly be over-communicating, sharing information, telling people what you're up to because it's really easy to kind of get lost in your own world and miss out on those key things you needed to find out or tell somebody about. 
 
[0:26:51.6] PM: Absolutely. I think this also comes back to the courage point in terms of the over-communicating in terms of just understanding what is on each person’s plate, and is it acceptable to say, “No,” or, “Well, in order to do that, I’m going to have to give up A, B, C or D. is that worthwhile, and because this is really the focus.” 
 
What often happens instead is that folks just say, “Yes to everything and then balls get dropped, promises become unkept and you’re kind of rolling the dice with, “Did the really important thing get done?” “We hope so.” Whereas if folks could courageously and openly communicate well in terms of, “These are the demands, and this is the capacity we have to meet those demands,” then you're hitting the right stuff. 
 
[0:27:40.6] MB: That's something that I'm absolutely ruthless about is trying to be as efficient as possible — Or sorry. Trying to be as effective as possible. Key distinction in the sort of the Tim Ferris or kind of essentialism way of thinking about it where it's all about, “How can I do the most important things? The most high leveraged things and kind of let go of all of the minutia that's distracting me?” 
 
[0:28:08.3] PM: Oh, absolutely. To the point, there's something that has really been sticking with me. It was a recent guest. It was my buddy Shannon Clark, and she has very quickly risen to be one of the world's foremost experts in sort of usability human factors design for medical devices before 30, which is cool. 
 
Shannon said that what she's been chewing on lately is this notion that if you are stressed out currently in your role or career, then you will not be able to make the next step up. I thought, “Whoa! That’s a strong statement.” The more I think about it, the more I think it is mostly true. It's like, if you're stressed, that suggests that maybe it's minutia or sort of the totality of demands upon your capacity, your time, energy, attention is such that you’re tapped out. You’re just meeting your demands or you're falling slightly behind on those demands, and that means you don't have the capacity to develop to jump to the next level whether that's building the key relationships, whether that's having the space to have a good fun innovative thoughts, whether that's being able to invest in your own learning growth developments which takes a toll in terms of changing and growing on yourself. If all of your time and energy is zapped just kind of meeting the demands of what's in front of you, in a day, well then you’re going to sort of stay there until you come up with a better way. 
 
[0:29:43.0] MB: That kind of makes me think about one of the other skill sets that you talked about was the ability to develop relationships. I think we both probably agree that that's one of the core components of being really successful, whether it’s in your career, whether you’re an entrepreneur, what it might be. That ability and skill set is so vital. 
 
What are some of the lessons that you’ve uncovered around that skill set? 
 
[0:30:11.1] PM: Sure thing. There’re numerous ones. I’d say the first thing is to start now. I had a guest; Michael Watkins, who had a great quip. I don’t know if he made it up, but he said; the time to meet your neighbors is not when your house is on fire. Well said and visceral. I think that's a common mistake is that sometimes we get caught up in doing stuff. You don't take the time to proactively develop those relationships that you’re going to need until it may be a little bit too late. Then it seems inauthentic. It's desperate. You can’s sort of give them maybe the time they need to help you out in a way that works for them and is fun and uplifting. That’d be the first one is to just start quickly. 
 
Another one is that people actually enjoy helping people, and I think sometimes folks think that networking might be a dirty word in the sense that, “Oh, what can I do for them? I don't want to sort of just take take take. I don’t want to be a bother or inconvenience them.” 
 
Often, if you have a specific targeted request, especially one that is easy to fulfill and can make a big impact, people generally love helping out with that. I love it. One time, I introduced two people. It took me three minutes. They’re good friends. They've done business deals together. They were at each other's weddings. It was like, “Cool. I got to make a difference with such a tiny bit of effort and it feels fantastic to do that.” People really do enjoy helping one another, and there's no shame in making that request. 
 
I had a fascinating observation just a couple of weeks ago, and I think it was — I don't know. Maybe I got to write a blog post about this. I had a friend who just posted on Facebook, “Hey, I'm checking out Facebook's algorithm. Can you tell me what time it is right now where you are.” 
 
Okay, that’s not a very interesting thing to put on Facebook; what time is it? Yet, this person received over 100 commented replies where each person sharing what time it was that I thought, “Oh, this is so brilliant, and it's because it's so easy to do to that. It’s like I could help someone out in less than three seconds by noting the time and typing it in here and pushing enter, I'm in. That’d be the other point, is people do — That they like to help, and it's good. 
 
One time, I had someone reach out to me for some advice about consulting. We chatted, and it was a good worthwhile chat, but I noticed he had an extensive notebook. It says with all the people that he reached out to to get advice about consulting careers. I said, “Whoa! Tell me, how many folks like me said sure?” He’s like, “Well, I could take a look for you.” I said, “Yes, please do.” He crunched the numbers he determined that 28% of folks he reached out to completely cold on LinkedIn were willing to say yes and have a short chat with him about what a career in management consulting could be like. 28% cold. Reach out to four people, odds are one of them will help you. That's awesome. 
 
[0:33:36.6] MB: Just shows you the power of being willing to ask and kind of putting yourself out there, making that ask. You missed 100% of the shots you don't take, and so there’s no downside to just saying reaching out to people whether they’re mentors or people you admire or whatever it is and just saying, “Hey, can I get some advice on this? 
 
[0:33:58.5] PM: Absolutely. What’s interesting, and I think they call it the Benjamin Franklin effect, is when you ask for advice and someone offers you advice, they actually tend to become more invested in you and your success. It's like they've got some skin in the game now and they want know how to go, “Is there anything else I could do to help?” 
 
It’s interesting, you’d think by doing a favor for someone, that would make them like you more. In fact, it goes the other way too. Asking for a favor from someone who then does it makes them like you more.
 
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