The Secret To Creating Influence In Any Situation with Phil M Jones
Phil Jones is an international business speaker and bestselling author. Phil has made it his life’s work to completely demystify the sales process. He has gone on to deliver over 2,500 presentations in 57 countries across five continents, training more than two million people (both sales and non-sales professionals, leaders, and experts) to learn how to have more influence, confidence, and control when steering their conversations.
The author of multiple best-selling books, and the youngest ever winner of the coveted “British Excellence in Sales and Marketing Award”, Phil is currently one of the most in-demand assets to companies worldwide.
The work before the work is one of the most important things to do be a successful influencer
What do you know about the person?
How much prep work have you done?
What happens before a conversation is CRITICAL to influencing
Think about influencing people like a job interview - you have to prep and do work in advance.
The difference between influence and manipulation is integrity
It’s everything you do BEFORE game-day that matters.
What is integrity in communication?
Be what you said you were going to be.
Be a person of your word.
Price yourself around 1/10th the difference you’re going to make.
Influence is a game of growing the pie and creating win-win outcomes. Influence is a non-zero-sum game. It’s not about getting one over on people, it’s about creating positive outcomes for everyone.
There are two types of influence;
Look at me
Come with me
People are always looking for short cuts. The one thing never exists, and yet it’s what people always want. The truth about success is that most of what it takes is hard work and repeated execution and mastery of the basics.
A crucial question you must ask yourself: How much is enough?
You cannot have confidence without experience. Confidence without experience is arrogance.
The biggest source of confidence is “the work before the work”
Roleplay the moment
Think about what-ifs
Make bold choices before the moment
Do your homework
When you do the prep work you can focus on serving the moment more effectively
Another major factor that influences confidence is the inability to enjoy messing stuff up. Messing stuff up in the past adds to your confidence.
“If you’re not convinced, you cannot convince.” You can’t sell something you don’t believe.
We live in a world where people want to believe that things are right and wrong, but the world is full of shades of grey.
You can play lots of games in your mind.
“I want to get to a million in sales”
My goal is 6 high-value conversations per day at a minimum, but my real target is 12
This allows you to stay fluid and flexible
Instead of “what did I do right” and “what did I do wrong?"
Use: “Like Best” - all the things I liked best about that experience
Once you finish your “like bests"
NT: “Next Times” Given the opportunity do to this over again, what would I do next time?
These allow you to get out of your head and improve
“The difference between ice and water"
“I gave it my best effort” is a lie we tell ourselves. Shift your focus from best towards better.
Control your controllables. Don’t focus on outcomes that are outside your control.
Very few people know what they’re doing.
Bust arguments: don’t show up with your argument. Show up with curiosity.
The person who is asking questions is in control of the conversation
The only tool you have for defusing an argument is curiosity. Curiosity opens possibilities.
Empathy is one of the most important tools for influencing others.
Empathy: care about the people you care about. Prove to people that you can see the world through their eyes.
“Show me that you know me."
To change your vantage point, you have to convince them that you see the world from their lens.
Content without context is noise. Before you get to insert any content in an argument, you have to get the context - and you get that through curiosity.
3 Step Formula
Curiosity
Empathy
Courage
Courage: One of the biggest reasons that people fail to get success in life is that they just aren’t asking for it.
Ask one more question
Ask for the sale
Ask for a promotion
Ask someone out on a date
Ask your vendor for a discount.
The courage to ask. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Inability to ask is often linked to fear of rejection.
What’s stopping you?
What would have happened if you were brave enough to ask the next question?
What COULD have happened if you were brave enough to ask one more question?
Consider the possibility that you might be wrong, even if you’re 95% confident. Don’t hold on to things so much. Have the courage to speak up when things don’t feel right.
Show up with curiosity, not “I’m right, you’re wrong.” Have a willingness to learn and be taught.
“Help me understand…” is an extremely powerful phrase that can transform your interactions with people.
Homework: Always do more than what’s being asked of you.
Homework: The worst time to think about the thing you’re going to say is in the moment that you’re saying it. Prepare the questions you’re going to ask ahead of it. Do prep work for the critical conversations ahead of you for the next week.
Homework: Write a list of LBs and NT’s for something important you’ve done in the last week or two.
Thank you so much for listening!
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Want To Dig In More?! - Here’s The Show Notes, Links, & Research
General
Phil’s Website
Words With Friends podcast
Media
YourStory - “Lend your ears to lessons on the art of leadership” By Apoorva Puranik
Inman - “Ever wonder exactly what to say? Here’s the scoop” by Bernice Ross
HobokenGirl - “10-Year-Old Hoboken Resident Creates Logo Project to Support Local Businesses + Homeless Shelter” by Morgan Gertler
PR Newswire - “LifeWave Presents the Ultimate Virtual Experience to Affiliates Worldwide in Response to COVID-19”
[Book Summary] Rui Zhi Dong - “EXACTLY WHAT TO SAY SUMMARY BY PHIL M. JONES” By Rui Zhi
Forbes - “Exactly What To Say - An Interview With Phil M. Jones” by Omaid Homayun
Forbes - “How To Know Exactly What To Say” by William Arruda
[Podcast] Sales Paradise - Phil M Jones, Exactly What To Say – Episode 002
[Podcast] Conversations with Phil Gerbyshak - Exactly How to Sell - for People who don't like to sell with Phil M. Jones
[Podcast] 10x Content - Exactly What to Say with Phil M Jones
[Podcast] Sell or Die Podcast - The Science Of Sales with Phil M. Jones
Videos
Productivity Game - EXACTLY WHAT TO SAY by Phil Jones | Core Message
Trend Hunter - Exactly What to Say - Interview with Phil M Jones, Bestselling Author & Sales Keynote Speaker
Phil’s YouTube Channel
Artillery - "Exactly What to Say" by Phil M. Jones
Books
Phil’s Amazon Author Page
Exactly How to Sell: The Sales Guide for Non-Sales Professionals by Phil M. Jones
Exactly Where to Start: The Practical Guide to Turn Your BIG Idea into Reality by Phil M. Jones
Exactly What to Say: The Magic Words for Influence and Impact by Phil M Jones
Exactly What to Say: For Real Estate Agents by Phil M Jones, Chris Smith, and Jimmy Mackin
Philosophies by Phil M Jones
Toolbox - Essential selling skills to win more business by Phil M Jones
Straight Forward - To more Appointments by Phil M Jones
Episode Transcript
[00:00:04.4] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Science of Success, the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the internet, bringing the world's top experts right to you. Introducing your hosts, Matt Bodnar and Austin Fabel.
[00:00:19] MB: Welcome to the Science of Success, the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the Internet with more than 5 million downloads and listeners in over 100 countries. In this episode, we talk about the secrets to creating influence, how to be more confident, and the truth about the shortcuts that you can take to be successful with our guest, Phil M. Jones.
Are you a fan of the show and have you been enjoying the content that we put together for you? If you have, I would love it if you signed up for our email list. We have some amazing content on there along with a really great free course that we put a ton of time into called How to Create Time For What Matters Most in Your Life. If that sounds exciting and interesting and you want a bunch of other free goodies and giveaways along with that, just go to successpodcast.com, you can sign up right on the homepage. That’s successpodcast.com. Or if you’re on your phone right now, all you have to do is text the word SMARTER to the number 44222.
In our previous episode, we discussed the surprising future of work, the truth about robots, automation and jobs, and how you can best position yourself for a successful career within the future of work with our previous guest, Jeff Wald.
Now, for an interview with Phil. Phil M. Jones is an international business speaker and best-selling author. Bill has delivered over 2,500 presentations in 57 countries across five continents, training more than 2 million people to learn how to have more influence, competence and control when steering their conversations. He's the author of multiple best-selling books, and the youngest ever winner of the coveted British Excellence in Sales and Marketing Award.
[00:02:03] MB: Phil, welcome to the Science of Success.
[00:02:06] PJ: Matt, thank you so much for having me here. It's my pleasure.
[00:02:09] MB: Well, we're super excited to have you on the show today. The topics that you write about and speak about are things that I think are so vitally important. And to me, really one of the most essential skills to be a successful human in today's world is how do you influence other people, and how do you maintain confidence and control when you're in all kinds of different situations of influence. And so, to see somebody like you, who's put so much work into the science and the art of influence, it's great to have you on the show.
[00:02:39] PJ: It's so good to be here. And thank you for noticing how much of an important part of life it really can be.
[00:02:43] MB: Absolutely, yeah. And I'd love to start out with just some high-level perspective, from your point of view, how do you really approach because we can get really tactical and I think we will in this conversation, but how do you approach from a high level, the framework of influencing other humans? Because it's such a simple idea, I want someone to do what I want them to do, how do you do it, that's when the rabbit hole starts to get really deep? So, how do you think about that from a high level and a strategic perspective?
[00:03:12] PJ: From a high level, probably the missing point, which is where the bulk of the thinking actually goes in for any moment of influence is the point that very few people give any focus to, and it's the work before the work. It’s everything you can do prior to the moment, the stacks, the chips in your favor, that means that you've got more chance of this landing your side of the fence.
So, that could be anything down to the prep of what do you know about the other person that you're looking to influence, right down to, well, what are the evidential pieces of information that they've had, cast themselves over their eyeballs prior to the point of communication. And then having to show up to the moment in its entirety to communicate in a way that is advantageous towards the outcome you're looking for.
So, I think that's where a giant chunk of science comes in, that very rarely gets talked about is what happens prior. And I think it's that stuff that is done prior that actually increases your level of confidence in showing up to a moment, it gives you an unfair advantage, because of the fact that you've had a chance to look through a handful of different lenses prior or you've moved the finish line a little degree in your favor prior to getting even into a conversation.
[00:04:24] MB: That's such a great insight. And it gets so easily missed a lot of time, when we're looking for the turn of phrase that we think can sway somebody, there's really a lot of things you can do before that conversation ever even happens.
[00:04:36] PJ: The analogy I often jump towards when working with live audiences or trying to coach somebody around this is to think about a job interview. In a job interview, everybody knows that the 30-minute, 60-minute, 90-minute interview or whatever they have is so critically important that the work they do before the work is really quite profound. Research behind the company start thinking about questions that might be asked of them considering of case studies that they can share when the questions are going to be asked to be able to make the moment really count. Understanding about strengths and being able to work around weaknesses. If there is something that could hurt you, then you start to think about how you tell the story around that you bring that to the conversation ahead of time.
All too often, people don't bring that same level of tenacity of work before the work, to their real-life scenarios. And they think that influence is about having some secret superpower, or it's about just pushing somebody into a situation or just mastering a new closing skill. And there's so much more that is to it than that. And I think particularly if you are professional, you're looking to influence somebody, the missing ingredient that many fail to give attention to is that of integrity. I think the difference between influence and manipulation is merely integrity. And if you want to be able to say, Yes, I've got a predetermined outcome that I'm looking to be able to achieve, and I want to be able to do it with integrity, then it's everything I do before game day that matters. And every athlete knows that, right? You want to win a gold medal, it doesn't matter that you've got the right tenacity and mindset on the day if you didn't do the training beforehand.
[00:06:06] MB: I love that distinction between manipulation and influence, because that's something that, as someone who's spent a lot of time thinking about studying and really trying to master the art of influence, when do you cross over that line? How do you think about what integrity is and how we can keep it in our interactions with others?
[00:06:27] PJ: Sure, I think integrity is a lot of things, and it often depends about the circumstances that you're looking at it. But as a minimum, it is be what you said you were going to be. That is important. I think integrity also means that you wake up in days to come still feeling okay about what it was that you tried to do, is it that you can still let your head hit the pillow and feel okay about things. I think integrity is acting with the intentions of the other person ahead of those of yourself. And a simple viewpoint I have when people often come to me for advice about pricing, like how much should I charge for something. And when we get down to brass tacks, my response typically gets to after the end of a lot of consultation and math grinding, is well, you should price somewhere like a 10th of the difference that you're going to make.
I think that allows you to show with integrity on both sides, like people believe they're worth a certain sum of money, but you're only worth that sort of money towards somebody whose unique set of circumstances. You might believe that you're worth it. I did a lot of work in the world of professional soccer and people would say to me, “He's not worth that money.” And I'd look at a balance sheet, I'd be like, “Heck, yeah! He is. He might not have played well on Sunday but he's definitely worth the money.” And I think this is where we have to have integrity with ourselves and with our actions. Yes, we've got to be people of our words. Yes, we've got to wake up in the future feeling okay about what it is that we've done. But we also need to have the integrity in ourselves, to not tell ourselves a pack of lies towards who we are or what we're worth, or where we might be going with the direction of our own ventures.
[00:08:00] MB: Yeah, that's a great insight and in some senses, it's almost this notion that these are very powerful tools and they can be used for good or they can be used for evil.
[00:08:09] PJ: Yeah, it’s a pita pocket, my win, right?
[00:08:11] MB: Exactly.
[00:08:11] PJ: With great power comes great responsibility.
[00:08:13] MB: Exactly. And it reminds me of something else that I know you’ve written about, which is this notion of framing things and thinking about how really effective communication is more about creating win-win outcomes or expanding the pie nonzero sum thinking, as opposed to trying to get one over on somebody.
[00:08:34] PJ: Yeah, so much so, and I get frustrated and the bulk of my work is looking to better help people achieve better sales outcomes. Yet the perception for almost everybody in the world of sales is that salespeople are crooks, salespeople are dishonest, salespeople are self-centered and that isn't always true. What it is, is bad salespeople or those things, is some of the best of the best of the best, they’re actually some of the most helpful, most generous people on the planet. And what we are dealing with is, is almost the romanticizing of that less than integrity-based approach of success.
So, we see it with movies like Wolf of Wall Street or Glengarry Glen Ross, or you know, see it across the majority of so-called influencer’s Instagram feeds where it's showboating influence in a way that says, “I have more than you do. I have done better than you are. I'm looking down on you. I won, you lost.” And I think there are two types of influence. There is influence that says, “Look at me”, and there's influence that says, “Come with me”. And they're two very different things. Anybody I've ever met that can go the distance, i.e. can surpass decades and still perform a top of their game understands that the purest form of influences come with me influence, not look at me influence. And the difference between those two things sounds so slightly is like a word difference, but the outcome is really quite profound.
[00:10:02] MB: Yeah, that's a great perspective. And I definitely feel the same way about a lot of the “influencers” out there. To me, it's sad, and you obviously talk a lot about the importance of words, which I want to get into more, but to me the science, the art of influence, creating outcomes with people, and win-win beneficial outcomes with people, versus an influencer on social media, that though it's the same word, I view those as almost totally different spheres, because they're just so separate from each other.
[00:10:33] PJ: And the miss that many people have, and to quote some of Simon’s cynics work is people forget that they're in an infinite game. There might be a ramping up of the influence you have from telling the story that people want to hear, in order to be able to achieve attention in the moment, but where does this go long term? What do some of these people that share story, upon story, upon story that attracts people for short term gain? How do they show up 15 years on from now and how do you get off that train? If that's the set of tracks, you start running now. I think the idea of learning to influence with integrity, with sustainability in mind is something that hasn't lived that truth for a generation. Yet, it's something that people 30, 40, 50 years on from now will probably be thinking, “I wish I took more of a long play.”
[00:11:27] MB: I'm curious what your perspective on this is, because it's something that I think about it in many ways, this podcast is a counterbalance to this in some senses. But I feel like content as a whole has really gotten to a place where it's now it's so focused on short, bite-sized, news bits, five-second talking pieces, and the depth, and really, exploration of these ideas has been washed away, almost completely in most cases of kind of the mainstream media. The reality is, too, that there's some psychology research that, for better or worse, and I would argue for worse, that our brains get hijacked by these little bites and bits of information and talking points and that kind of thing. How do we shift back more towards that more integrity driven, deeper, more thoughtful modality?
[00:12:14] PJ: There's a maturity that exists in a different area that leaves us a lot of clues. And we're talking about success and the big thing I've learned about success is success always leaves clues, is we've seen this giant movement of people wanting to get healthier, to lose weight, to be fitter, to go about the way they live their life in more of a healthy way for the last 30, 40, 50 years. And what we've now agreed upon is the finest way to be able to impact that is to eat less and exercise more and eat more of the right kind of things. That is the consensus of opinion here.
Yet, there are still people looking to do quick short-term supplements. There are still no fancy fads to be able to try and achieve that kind of outcome that people are looking for. The same is true with every version of success as people are always looking for the shortcuts. I've done hundreds and hundreds of interviews through my professional career and a question that almost everybody asked is like, “Yeah, but what's the one thing?” And the one thing never exists, yet it's the thing that people always want, is what's the hack? What's the silver bullet? What's the thing that's going to get me over the line? And unfortunately, the truth in success is that most of what it takes to get there is hard work, it sucks. And most people aren't prepared to do it. That stands in the way of the majority of people being able to get there.
So, when we think about what it takes to be able to go the distance, is I don't know how a group of people are going to start to wrap their head around going the long way is worth it, more people spend time answering is a really crucial question. And I speak this right now because it’s a question that I've been pondering a lot myself this year, is how much is enough? And it's a big question, right? Because we're always, always pushed to say more, more, more is better, more of anything is better. Yet, if you can deeply dig in and say how much is enough, then what can happen is you can start to think about the journey differently. And stop thinking that there is a destination or like when I get there, or when I achieve this, or once I become influential, or once I have confidence. I find confidence is a crazy thing. People say they need more confidence, but they haven't created “a how much is enough” confidence. People say I need more money, but they haven't said how much is enough money. I need more time but how much is enough time? And you see how much of a complex conversation that can start to open up with yourself. When you start asking the question, how much is enough? And then the things you're looking to influence start to change.
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[00:16:29] MB: One of the most recurrent themes on the show is what you were just talking about a moment ago, this notion that there is no magic shortcut to success. It's really just about the repeated execution and mastery of the fundamentals.
[00:16:46] PJ: Yeah, the only other thing that you have is tools that can reduce friction and that's an efficiency play. And there are lots of things that you can use to increase efficiency with productivity and tools, and no online methodology or change of communication, style in order to be able to reach people quicker, et cetera. These are efficiency plays that play into your tactics that reduce friction, that allow your hard work to be able to run a little more effectively as it would work on through. And I think one of those is a giant piece of my work in this area of utilizing the right words at the right time to be able to reduce that friction.
[00:17:24] MB: You touched on health and fitness a minute ago. And for some reason, this brought together a really interesting image in my mind, which is a friend of mine many years ago created this thing called The Nutritional Pyramid or something like that. I don't remember everything on it, but it was basically like the bottom was diet and calories in and the next one was macro nutrients and then it got all the way up and supplements was at the very top of the pyramid. And his point was like, if you don't get the calories right, and you don't get your macros right, and all this other stuff, supplements make a little bit of a difference but they don't make that big of a difference.
[00:17:54] PJ: Only if in conjunction with each other.
[00:17:56] MB: Exactly. And it's almost like success is the exact same way, if you don't have the fundamentals, if you don't work hard, if you don't execute, you can have all of the productivity hacks in the world, and be the most efficient person imaginable. But you're still missing the meat of the equation.
[00:18:12] PJ: Correct. An experience is measured in the number of times that you've tried something. You cannot have confidence without experience, which I find fascinating that people think that they can have confidence without experience, and if you have confidence without experience that, my friends is arrogance, that's no confidence. Because confidence comes based on the fact you have a level of certainty how something might play out. And the only way you can have certainty is to how something might play out is if you've been in that scenario a number of times in the past.
[00:18:39] MB: So, tell me a little bit more about confidence, because you've touched on it a couple of times and that is a very recurrent theme when you look at wanting to build a skill of influence. How do you become more confident? How do you get more confident when you're influencing others? How do you think about confidence? And how much of it is enough? And how can we make ourselves more confident when we're influencing others?
[00:19:03] PJ: Okay, I'm just scribbling some thoughts down here at the same time, so I don't forget something. We're going to come back to something I said earlier on, is it's in the work that you do before the work. If you want to improve your confidence ahead of any given moment, the more that you can roleplay that moment ahead of time, the more that you can think about what ifs. The more that you can make bold choices prior to a moment so that when you're in those moments, you have fewer choices to be able to make the better.
So, let me give you a simple example is I'm a professional speaker, I have delivered more than 3,000 paid professional speeches, and the routine that I would still go through even if I was delivering a version of the same presentation time and time again, would still be, “Well, I'm going to walk through my speech in my head ahead of time and I'm going to map out on a blank page highlighting the core stories, the key points I'm going to make. I’m then going to take that speech, I'm going to overlay on the environment that I'm faced with whether that's an online environment or an in-person environment. I'm going to think about where do I enter the stage? How do I exit the stage? Am I shaking the person's hand and my high fiving? Are we fist bumping?” What is the anecdote that they might say about me so that I can be anecdotal in the other direction? I'm thinking about all the things that happen in my environment prior so I have conceptual scenarios to be able to speak back. And when I'm thinking about the speech itself, it's when might I leave the stage, when might I come back onto the stage, I'm coming back on them, am I walking on backwards? Am I taking the side stairs? If I'm entering the audience, how do I get back to stage, which Roma I go to you? You see what I'm saying here, is that what I'm doing is I'm working through a thousand micro decisions prior to the moment. So, when I'm in the moment, I can serve the moment better because I don't have to think about what I'm going to do.
[00:20:43] MB: That was awesome. I've given a lot of paid professional speeches in my life, not nearly as many as you but I think I just picked up about 10 new things that I need to incorporate into my – just such great examples. And I love getting into the specific context of something because then it shows you how you're really thinking through the process.
[00:21:01] PJ: What it allows you to do every single time though, is you can then serve the moment with more confidence. Why? Because you can be in the moment. See, the reason that people lack confidence is because they're not in the moment, because there's somewhere else. They’re thinking, shoulda, woulda, coulda, or what's happening next. Therefore, they're not in the beat of the music. You ever seen somebody tried to dance, not on the beat of the music? That's how a lot of people carry themselves through life, because they're not prepared to do the work before the work. So, that affects confidence hugely.
There's another big thing that impacts confidence and that's people's inability to enjoy messing stuff up, because it's that experience of having mess stuff up in the past that adds to your confidence. See, people look at me, and let's use the professional speaking environment again, and they'll say how comes you stay so cool, regardless of what goes wrong? The slide day goes out, no worries, still got it. The mic goes down. No worries, Phil's got it. The guy before you was heckled, said something obnoxious. Don't worry. Phil's got it. The guy before was just fired two thirds of the audience. Don't worry, Phil's got it. Like, why does this feel like I got this type of moment, because every moment that could possibly happen, has happened before.
What's interesting, though, is in the majority of those moments, they didn't happen in as high stake in environment, that I had the chance to be able to deal with a difficult situation in a lower stakes’ environment that means as the stakes get heightened, that experience then goes on to be able to serve you. Yet, what too many people try to do is they try to jump too many rungs of the ladder too quickly and they find themselves outperforming their experience. And that is where people get vulnerable.
Sure, if you jump into that circumstance, and you are lacking in confidence, you do enough work before the words, I mean, that you earn your stripes, and you're humble enough to go into that environment, knowing that you're out kicking the coverage, there's a good chance that you'll be able to deliver. And then when you've delivered that environment a number of times, then guess what, you've just created new normal for yourself and you did manage to successfully cue jump. But you have to do it, knowing your truth and I think this is where people lack confidence is because they are living a version of truth that they’ve oversold, and they don't believe it inside.
I mentioned earlier, I work with a huge number of sales professionals around the world and it's a simple thing that I say to them. If you're not convinced, you cannot convince. And what I mean by that is that you can't expect somebody to pay the sum of money for the product or service that you're offering to them if you don't believe it's worth it. Like if you don't believe it's worth it, don't expect anybody else to, but the same is true with your confidence. If you do not believe that you're worthy of being the right person in the right place at the right time to deliver that right moment, then don't expect whoever you're in front of to be able to believe it.
[00:23:48] MB: That's a great insight into building confidence and something that from a couple different angles I definitely have experienced and seen many times in my own life, even this notion that if you're okay with making mistakes and okay with things going wrong and okay with being flexible, and tolerating, when everything doesn't go perfectly, the only way to get there is to realize that you are going to mess up at some point, things are going to go wrong at some point.
[00:24:19] PJ: There are some games you can play with yourself on this and I hate to cut a crusher, I just want to –
[00:24:23] MB: No, no, no, that's perfect, jump it in.
[00:24:27] PJ: We live in this world where people want to believe something is right or wrong. And that is a limiting belief system and a limiting environment that stops the progress of so many brilliant people, because people live so much in fear of doing something wrong, they're not prepared to be able to try it if they don't have certainty that they can do it to somebody else's judgment of the version of right.
The alternative of this is to be able to play new games in your mind. The first of the games in your mind is firstly to move the finish line. So, what I mean by that is don't have a finish line for success at the level where everybody else is judging it, push it way past then. What I also then want you to have is to have shortened finish lines and this as well to create multiple finish lines or multiple levels of success in any activity that you're doing. Throw me, Matt, just a random scenario and I'll try and illustrate further what I mean that how you change the game by creating different levels of success by moving finish lines. Just give me a random scenario of anything, anybody might be entering into.
[00:25:31] MB: So, I want to do a billion dollars in sales from a salesperson.
[00:25:34] PJ: Okay, million dollars in sales, by when?
[00:25:38] MB: Let's say, six months.
[00:25:40] PJ: So, over a six-month period of time, I want to do a million dollars in sales. Well, what I would love to be able to do is firstly, I'd build a plan, is $10 million worth of revenue big. So, $10 million over a 12-month period of time is what I look to get a build as a giant monster. But then what I look I’m going to do is I've created minor milestones earlier on the way. So, I would say, “Well, what I can't do is I can't control today, the fact that I'm going to do a million dollars in six months, but I can control the amount of contact points that I make with people who fit my right kind of target market today. And I can judge myself by those standards. What I'm going to do, I'm going to create a minimum performance standard, I'm going to create a number I'm really shooting for and I'm going to create a utopian number that if I was to hit that, then today would be all of my birthdays. Minimum performance numbers, I'm going to deal with at least six quality conversations with people today that could lead me towards the kind of opportunities that would maximize that goal.” Number two, might be, “Well, while I'm looking at like 12, 12 is my real number, but 6 is my minimum performance standard.” Do you see how I've created that minimum performance standard? I've just moved to finish line.
It's not anything less than 12 sucks. It's if it's between 6 and 12 or at least I made my minimum. Now, the other numbers, people were saying, “Well, my goal was 12 this week, my goal was 12 this week.” If I put a stretch goal, now they're on top of this that was 25 big, now what I have is I have the ability to keep going on that shortened down version as well. But I'd be doing this minimum performance standard, what number am I really shooting for? Where's my stretch goal and dozens of little areas of life. And I'd be making a game of it in my own mind and I wouldn't be sharing this with anybody else and that allows me to stay fluid with my activity. Same would be true if it was a speech, what would the minimum performance standard be? Well, I show up on time, I deliver, and my client says, “Thank you.” That could be minimum performance then. Well, what are I really hoping to do? Well, I'm really looking to be able to make four bold choices for trying how to be able to do maybe some brave alterations about how I might deliver something. I'm looking to be able to try to make the same point in a different way to be more concise and be more illustrative of my points and what I do is I create maybe a laugh or reflex or reaction that I've never created before at that given moment in time.
So, I have myself these other new levels of success, what am I looking at to do? I'm looking to better say, “Can I generate like at least 150 new Instagram followers out of this talk, like today?” And I'm just going to add these other very purposeful levels of success in. Now, it doesn't become do I win or do I lose? It becomes how much do I win by? You see how that changes the game again. It's not did I win or didn't lose, it’s how much did I win by. Now, we keep going. What happens after the moment? People are often terrible about how they judge themselves after a moment. They become the worst critic of what did I do right, what did I do wrong. Let's frame the language differently again, instead of what did I do right, what did I do wrong. The first thing I'd always jumped to do is to write a list of what I call my LBs. What does LB stands for? LB stands for what did I like best. What did I like best about how that went? Write the list, write the list, write the list, all the things I like best. Well, I showed up on time. I was happy with the way that I got my information across. I've done my homework. I knew what was happening about blank. Keep going, layering on the like best.
Only once I finished my list of like bests, do I go to my list of entities NTs. NT stands for next time. Given the opportunity to do this thing over again, what would I do next time? And now I can write that list. But can you understand this game of moving finish line so I have multiple points of winning. Plus, approaching every moment with LBs and NTs, allows you to make a game of your own success story and allows you to be on this continued quest of self-improvement. As opposed to did I do right, did I do wrong.
[00:29:15] MB: Those two frames are such great ways of getting out of your way, getting out of your head, when you're trying to evaluate your performance because it's much easier to answer those questions than it is to answer. What did I do? Well, what did I do poorly? Instead, when you look at it, what do I want to do next time, it almost frees yourself in a non-critical way to say, “Well, here are the things I could have improved without actually saying that.”
[00:29:37] PJ: And it's the difference between ice and water is what it is, right? Is what I mean by that is if we say, “What did I do right? What did I do wrong?” I've frozen that moment in time and now we're going to sit and look at it and critiquing. Okay, we can make a sculpture out of it. There's not much more. If I make it, “What did I like best and what would I do next time?” By alternative, what I have here is I have water that is fluid that is moving that can be taken towards the next thing that has the ability to be able to power me back up again, I can feel inspired.
[00:30:03] MB: Yeah, that's a great little turn of phrase as well, I haven't heard that before, but I like it. And this whole methodology that you talked about a minute ago, really reminds me of, or I've heard it described in other ways, is this notion of the difference between a process goal and an outcome goal, i.e., I'm going to have at least six sales conversations today, or every day for a week, or whatever that might be, versus I'm going to close $10,000 in sales. Those are very different and as long as you can control the process and hit your minimum performance metric, which is another tidbit that I really like and I think is a great way to conceptualize it, if you know that if you hit that many at the conversion rates, et cetera, that you operate at, you will eventually become successful or achieve your goal if you do your process goals every single day.
[00:30:51] PJ: Yeah, and you may or you may not, I think there's some miss in there as well, is if you just work your numbers, that you're going to get there eventually, yada yada yada. It isn't true. If you work your numbers, you'll find out where the issue is. And the issue may be like you. It may well be that actually you're in the wrong game. I could do my reps every day on a basketball court. I'm not playing NBA. It's not going to happen. I'm very, very aware that being five-foot nine British guy shooting hoops is not going to be my jam.
So, sometimes, yes, the reps will get you there. But what the reps will always allow you to do when you move numbers around is to gain you the experience to understand what do I need to work on? What requires my attention? Man, I'm going to put you on the spotlight right now. I'm going to ask you to pick a single word is if I asked a roomful of people whether they wanted to be good at something to do better at something or do their best at something, what do you think almost everybody in the room would pick?
[00:31:51] MB: Best?
[00:31:53] PJ: Yeah. Another crazy limiting belief, is like I tried my best, I'm doing my best et cetera, like this belief of, “I gave it my best effort” is actually a lie that almost every human being on the planet has told themselves or told someone else. Because we always had some level of more to give, some area of ourselves to access that we didn’t. The crazy irony is if you shift your focus from best towards better, then better beats best over time. And this is where more people that are looking to be more successful in every area of life should focus is to say, “What am I working on to get better at today?” And then if you study anybody that is achieved, like the optimum levels of success, and the greatest place to look for for this is some people who in the sporting arena, their entire dedication of work is focused on better, tiny micro improvements, and the echo that almost every one of them shares when you dig into their story is success leaves clues and one of those giants clues is to control your controllables. Yet, the majority of people want to focus on achieving an outcome that is entirely outside of their control.
So, the reps are within your control. You can control the number of attempts that you make. You can control what you learn from those attempts. You can control what you do differently as a result of those attempts. You can control who you learn from. You can control who you let speak into your mind. You can control what it is that you're going to choose to apply yourself on today. But it's your ability to control those controllables that allows you to be able to outperform your competition in the key moment.
[00:33:31] MB: Yeah, such a great insight and ties back into this same theme that we've been talking about. But this is such an important distinction, because it's so easy to get caught up in the big goal, the thing that's outside of your realm of influence, when really what you should focus on and this is we've touched on this in two or three different ways throughout this conversation is getting the reps in, doing the work, executing on the fundamentals, the basics, the things that are within your control that you can do day in and day out, and over time, that's how you improve, that's how you get better, that's how you learn, and that's how you grow.
[00:34:09] PJ: The focus is in turn, also, people want to be more successful and what I often hear when interviewing people who are looking for heightened levels of success, particularly in the corporate world is well what they need to do more of, or when this happens, then this will happen, right? They're all externally facing actions. They are requiring somebody else to make a change for the change they're looking for to become real, as opposed to looking for the change that can come from within.
[00:34:34] MB: Yeah, that realization was a hugely transformational thing for me to understand, was this idea of, instead of being a victim of circumstance, take as much responsibility as possible, even if it's not your responsibility or your fault, or whatever it might be, if you just take responsibility anyway and do what you can, a lot of times the outcome will be vastly different than if you just said, “Oh, it’s not my responsibility. I'm waiting on so and so to do it.” And it’s it's their job.
[00:35:04] PJ: Well, right is the second you own it, you get back in control. I have all the control, but more controlling you had without owning it. And the other liberating thing that that then creates is you soon after a period of time realize that very few people know what they're doing, which allows you to understand that almost everybody is doing the best they can to make it up, which, again, starts to empower the fact that we're all in a game, we're all in a dance together, we're all looking together to find a way of being able to enjoy our time on the dance floor. And that, again, moves us away from this idea of there is right and wrong, that there's just continuous movement over a period of time that we are looking to be able to find small avenues that we can create tiny victories with.
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[00:38:36] MB: I want to bring us back to some of the influence strategies because this has been a fantastic discussion of some of the pillars of success, but I want to tie this back into what I know you've done such a tremendous amount of work on and talk about some of the things that I know personally I deal with and many people deal with when they're trying to influence others. Tell me about if what are some of the strategies that you use to defuse arguments or kind of break through when people are being really stubborn or tough minded?
[00:39:08] PJ: Okay, I've trained more than two million business professionals around the world on the auto persuasion on looking at how they can maneuver a conversation with integrity. And the one thing that I bumped into more often than not, is that people are happy to enter into enter arguments. Now, these might not be full blown rounds like a crazy great big argument, but people are often looking together saying that my version of right is better than your version of right and they're happy to be able to have a conversation over what's right as opposed to achieving the right result.
The alternative is to approach every conversation where your initial point of view is always laced in curiosity. Let me make that even more tactical is to understand that is the person who's asking the questions that's in control of the conversation. So, if you're looking to better defuse the situation at any given point in time, the only tool that you have for defusing an argument is curiosity, because curiosity creates context and clarity. And if you're asking questions, you cannot make mistakes. All you can do is color in the dotted line that you've already decided is a certain way and maybe realize quite often that sometimes you have the lines in the wrong places.
So, if you want tactics, first, you start with curiosity. Behind curiosity, the next ingredient you need to insert to any complex conversation is one of empathy. Empathy is talked about a law, particularly today's modern ages, we just need to have more empathy, yet very few people understand what the word really means, best definition of the word comes from a speaker friend of mine called Jon Acuff. And Jon describes empathy is to care about what the people you care about care about. If you're looking to be able to defuse any difficult scenario, sell something to somebody, win a group of people over to your way of thinking, then you have to prove to them that you can see the world through their eyes, period. Because if you can't see the world through their eyes, or they don't believe that you can see the world through their eyes, they'll continue to reinforce a belief that you're just not getting it, you can't see it. You can't see what they're saying.
So, what I mean by empathy is can you hit their “show me that you know me” button in the way you're communicating. If you don't trigger the “show me that you know me button”, then what you're doing is creating unnecessary friction, and you're doubling down on the negative outcome that you're trying to avoid. So, curiosity gets you to a position of being able to have empathy.
Instead, in an argumentative environment, people often show up with their argument. And when they're showing up with their argument, all we're doing is we're creating an increased position of “I'm right”, which means the other person feels more right and being able to do so, which means that we create a complete standstill in our ability to be able to change somebody's point of view. Because to change somebody's point of view, you have to change their vantage point. To change their vantage point, you have to prove to them that you're either looking at the world through the same lens, or you're prepared to move to their side of where they're looking at the world from, so that you could see the world from their lens. Curiosity gets you there, because a simple thing to remember is that your content, without context is merely noise.
So, what you have to do before you get to insert any content you have on an argument, you have to earn the context. You do that through showing up curious. Then you demonstrate empathy by being able to see the world through their eyes, and then you're courageous enough to be able to ask. That is the three-step formula to be able to get into any complex scenario, curiosity, empathy, courage, curiosity, empathy, courage, curiosity, empathy, courage, in that order, always, and never, ever, ever, without going in that precise three step approach, because otherwise, that's where salespeople get it wrong, right? They show up with the courage to be able to ask for the business, but they didn't have the curiosity or the empathy first, therefore, they were pushy.
So, tactically, I'd look at it from that point of view. And then ask yourself, “How do you do a better job of making yourself more curious?” And often the tool for that is to teach yourself a series of practices that allows you to ask questions and conversations more freely as opposed to give points of view. Make sense?
[00:43:24] MB: Absolutely. And I love that line you said a minute ago that the person who's asking the questions is the one who's in control the conversation, such a good insight. Tell me more about, I think, I have a pretty good grasp on the idea of curiosity, empathy, we've talked about that at length on the show in the past. Tell me more about the courage piece of the puzzle.
[00:43:48] PJ: Well, firstly, finish this sentence for me. If you do not ask?
[00:43:51] MB: You don't get.
[00:43:53] PJ: Right. See, we know that to be true. Yeah, the biggest reason that the majority of people are failing to get the success that they're looking for in life is because they're just not asking for it. So, when I talk about courage, more often than not, I’m talking about the courage to ask one more question. The courage to be able to ask for the opportunity you're looking for. The courage to be able to ask for the sale, the courage to be able to ask around in a day, the courage to be able to ask for your future father-in-law's permission to give her hand in marriage, the courage to be able to ask your vendor for a discount, the courage to ask your bank for more time to repay a loan. I don't care what it is. But the courage to ask is often what standing in our way of being able to get there.
People's inability to ask is linked to fear, often fear of rejection, and people are so fearful or being rejected, that they don't choose to play and that's what I mean by courage. I mean, the ability to be able to show up and ask, and sure I gave some examples a second ago there that are really high level. Yet, in every area of life, if everybody listening right now just went back over a 24-hour period, I'm guessing they could count a dozen times that they should have asked one more question. And the question I'll ask if you're listening in right now is what is stopping you? The question I'll ask after that is, what would have happened if you were brave enough to ask that question?
So, the answer to that question is you do not know. So, the question I'll get you to explore next is what could have happened if you were brave enough to ask one more question? And the could, versus would, is the play space that I'm asking you to get brave enough to be able to get uncomfortable with it. Because it is this hypothetical area, that what we can do is explore the opportunities of what could really exist in life if we get away from black and white and we enjoy the fact that we can communicate in the great that allow us to change the minds of others, create opportunities for ourselves and others that wouldn't have existed and write our new normal that we're all pretty darn happy to live in.
[00:45:57] MB: Such a great insight and one of my all-time favorite strategies, or even just things to do is rejection therapy, or the idea of just even in those day to day, simple moments of like going to a coffee shop and asking for a free cup of coffee, or whatever it might be, it's amazing how much you can really build that tolerance of discomfort, and that muscle of asking uncomfortable questions in the day to day moments of your life and it really carries through into all kinds of interactions.
[00:46:27] PJ: And the tool that can give you confidence in these environments, is to fuel yourself with the belief that you might not be right. And what I mean by that is, if you want to have these uncomfortable conversations sometimes, going into them with the belief that you might not be right, allows you the freedom for somebody else to potentially change your mind. It allows you to be curious. Yes, you need the courage to be vulnerable, but by showing up with a belief that I think things should be a certain way, but I'm not so sure is that 95% level of certainty, but remaining 5%, that you might be wrong, that allow some really complex conversations to shape on out and for you to have have movement on words from that. And I think everybody listening in right now and, Matt, agree with me if you think so too, is more often than not, when you've entered into a complex conversation that you've been putting off for some time that you've got into the mess of it all, 99 times out of 100, you feel better after the fact. It creates some form of clarity afterwards, even if you didn't get the outcome that you were looking for, but you learned some more in terms of the data, you feel better at the end of the conversation.
[00:47:38] MB: I think that's generally right.
[00:47:41] PJ: So, what we're looking at is to say, don't hold on to things so much. Have the courage to be able to speak up when something doesn't feel right. Have the courage to be able to enter into conversations with your employer, with your spouse, with your parents, with your communities with friends. You're not seeing things a certain way, but show up into those conversations not with “I'm right and you're wrong”, during the conversation, with “I might not be right about this, help me understand it from your point of view”. And as the author of the book Exactly What to Say, there is a sequence of words that I really should have included in the book that I didn't, which is that preface of the words helped me understand. Because you see, how much power is attached to that preface to a question, because help me understand is telling the other person you don't get this. Help me understand why you chose to vote a certain way. Help me understand why you gave that person the promotion and not me. Help me understand why I keep getting overlooked for these kinds of things. Help me understand what your goal is and vision for the future. Help me understand how – well, well the options are endless, Matt, right? In terms of where we go, but you see how that preface can just get you into some conversations that show I'm willing to be taught something, I'm willing to understand this data here that I don't currently have. And I'm looking for that data to help me judge what I think of these circumstances differently.
[00:49:13] MB: I couldn't agree more and the combination, these are two very interrelated ideas, but the notion of that helped me understand plus the humility, and the willingness to be persuadable to change your mind, and to not be locked in on your beliefs. Those two things together, if everyone in our society just had those two frameworks for interacting, I think the world would be a much better place.
[00:49:40] PJ: And it creates a safe space to have those conversations, certainly a safer space, providing the you're happy to be here, the state in “I might not know”, and even if you come away from that conversation, thinking that you still know what you thought you knew, give yourself a few days to be certain of that. I was not in the presence of the other person.
[00:49:59] MB: Such a great insight. It reminds me, I forget the exact quote, but I think there's a quote from Bertrand Russell that talks about that, that idea that the fools and fanatics are always certain and the whys are always uncertain. That's a terrible paraphrase of the quote, but the idea is the same, which is that if you really want to truly be wise, you need to be willing to know that you may not know the answer, and you need to ask other people and you need to learn, you need to be open minded.
[00:50:28] PJ: Can you see how that affects confidence, too?
[00:50:31] MB: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:50:33] PJ: Is actually being comfortably uncertain about the majority, is what allows you to bring confidence to key moments, because you're okay, wherever it goes, doesn't have to go a certain way.
[00:50:44] MB: To me, one of the single biggest things that I see listeners of the Science of Success struggle with is that they – and I see it manifest in 100 different things, but it's almost always the same fundamental struggle, which is an uncomfortableness with uncertainty. And if you can just get comfortable with uncertainty and realize that the world itself is inherently uncertain, that will help you leaps and bounds in being more confident making better decisions, navigating the world, which is a very complex, uncertain, confusing place, being at peace with that fact, can transform the way that you live and exist in the world.
[00:51:24] PJ: You bet. I wholeheartedly agree with that.
[00:51:28] MB: So, Phil, we've shared a lot of strategies, ideas, themes, et cetera, what would be one action item or piece of homework that you would give the listeners to concretely take action to begin to put in practice, something that we've talked about today, it can be about influence, can be about success, can be about mastering fundamentals, really anything? What would one action step be that you would give the listeners to begin to take action today?
[00:51:53] PJ: Okay. First thing I'll give you is always do more than what's being asked of you. So, I'm probably going to give you more than one action step. And first thing is to remember that the worst time to think about the thing you're going to say is in the moment when you're saying it. So, consider this next week's number of known high stakes, critical, complex conversations that you're stepping into, and prepare, not what you're going to say. But to think about what the questions are that you're going to ask ahead of time. Because you know, as well as I do, that is the person who's asking the questions that's in control of the conversations.
So, there's task one, think about critical conversations that are showing up in your next seven days, and see if you can get ready, ready, ready for them. Do a touch of the work before the work and think about what are the questions that you're going to ask in those moments or might you have the ability to be able to ask in those moments, that means that when you're in that moment, you're showing up with increased confidence because you've done more prep work.
There’s thing number one. What would I say to be able to do as thing number two being is that I want you to do more than what was ever asked of you, if you're going to become more certain on anything is write a list of LBs and NTs towards something that you do in the next seven days. Be brave enough, have the courage to take something you do that is important, and having done it, go through that self-critique of what did I like best about it. Don't move off your like best until you finish the list and that's hard, and then write your list of NTs. What would I do differently next time? And see how that micro feedback loop can empower you to grow yourself performance towards the next things that you'd like to get to do and you want one more piece of homework, you want to get more playful with how you can be more influential in the moments where it matters, you want to understand more about prefaces to questions and key ways of asking questions. Grab yourself a copy of exactly what to say and see if you can learn more about what's the talk to the subconscious brain.
[00:53:48] MB: And Phil, where can listeners find exactly what to say, you, and your work online?
[00:53:54] PJ: philmjones.com is a great place to be able to almost use it as a lobby to decide where you want to go next from social platforms, find the books, et cetera. If you want to jump straight to the book, we're now in 29 different languages around the world. So, pretty much anywhere anybody sells books. So, if you search for my name, Phil M. Jones, good chance you'll find me wherever you are in the world listening in on this today.
[00:54:18] MB: Well, Phil, thank you so much for coming on the show, for sharing so much wisdom, practical strategies and some great insights into influence communication and ultimately success.
[00:54:30] PJ: Pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me on the show, Matt.
[00:54:34] MB: Thank you so much for listening to the Science of Success. We created this show to help you, our listeners, master evidence-based growth. I love hearing from listeners. If you want to reach out, share your story, or just say hi, shoot me an e-mail. My email is matt@successpodcast.com. That’s M-A-T-T@successpodcast.com. I’d love to hear from you and I read and respond to every single listener email.
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Thanks again, and we'll see you on the next episode of the Science of Success.