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A Simple Technique That Will Make You More Persuasive and Inspiring with Joe Navarro

Lace Gilger
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In this episode we bring back legendary FBI expert Joe Navarro to distill a lifetime of spy-hunting experience into the five principles that exceptional and outstanding individuals live by

Before he became internationally recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on body language, Joe Navarro was an eight-year-old refugee fleeing communist controlled Cuba. In America as a non-English speaker, he survived by observing others, eventually going on to lead a career as an FBI Special Agent studying and applying the science of nonverbal communication. Navarro eventually went on to spend a quarter century with the FBI, pursuing spies and other dangerous criminals across the globe. In his line of work, successful leadership was quite literally a matter of life or death. Now he’s collected his hard-earned lessons in BE EXCEPTIONAL, distilling a lifetime of spy-catching experience into five principles that outstanding individuals live by.

  • All we are is the sum total of our influence on others. - Carl Sagan

  • What sets extraordinary people apart across every field or endeavor? What are the commonalities of success?

  • What makes someone exceptional?

  • Ask yourself: DO YOU WANT TO BE AVERAGE?

  • Working harder doesn't cut it. Buying more stuff doesn't cut it.

  • How to have a Profound Positive Impact on Other People

  • You have to PAY A PRICE to be acceptable.

  • You need to become an apprentice in your own life. Become your own apprentice.

  • What does Joseph Campbell's "Follow Your Bliss" advice really mean?

  • Lessons from Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Jane Goodall, The Wright Brothers, and many more.

  • Making sacrifices is a core component of self mastery, and of being exceptional.

  • You cannot have influence over others if you don't have mastery over yourself.

  • Mileanating, building the mental framework within your brain.

  • The highly underrated power of observation.

  • What's the difference between observing and looking?

  • How do you decode the world around you?

  • What is psychological comfort and why is it so important to being successful?

  • Action is what differentiates heroes from everyday people.

  • Homework: Have a conversation with yourself about what your weaknesses are and where you can improve. Begin each day with a small improvement.

  • "The limits of my language are the limits of my world."

Thank you so much for listening!

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:04] 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 Fable.

[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 a 100 countries.

In this episode, we bring back the legendary FBI expert, Joe Navarro, to distill a lifetime of spy hunting experience into the five principles that exceptional and outstanding individuals live by.

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 e-mail 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, that’s S-M-A-R-T-E-R to the number 44-222.

In our previous episode, we shared the lessons from astronaut Scott Kelly's amazing career, what it took to become an astronaut, surviving NASA's grueling training and the powerful experience of being in outer space.

Now, for our interview with Joe.

[00:01:39] MB: Before he became internationally recognized as one of the world's foremost experts on body language, Joe Navarro was an eight-year-old refugee fleeing communist controlled Cuba. In America as a non-English speaker. He survived by observing others, eventually going on to lead a career as an FBI special agent, studying and applying the science of non-verbal communication.

Navarro eventually went on to spend a quarter century with the FBI, pursuing spies and other dangerous criminals across the globe. In his line of work, successful leadership was quite literally a matter of life and death. Now, he's collected his hard-earned lessons and be exceptional, distilling a lifetime of spy-catching experience into five principles that outstanding individuals live by.

Joe, welcome back to the Science of Success.

[00:02:27] JN: Matt, it's great to be back here with you. Thank you for inviting me.

[00:02:31] MB: Well, I really enjoyed our first conversation, and I'm super excited to dig into some of the themes and ideas from Be Exceptional, your latest work. One of the things that really resonated with me from that is this broader theme, which in many ways, is one of the fundamental questions that we ask on the Science of Success, and that's guided much of my own self-directed learning over the last decade or more, is this idea of how do we truly set ourselves apart? How do we truly become somebody, who can be influential, can be exceptional, can create something meaningful in the world? To me, you take a hard look at that question in the book. I'd be curious, what are your thoughts about that?

[00:03:15] JN: I mean, as always, Matt, you ask very profound questions. That is, what is it that really matters? We can look at Carl Sagan and his great statement, which I'm going to summarize here. Carl Sagan, the great cosmologists said, “Who are we? What are we? We're not who we think we are.” In the end, he said, “All we are is the sum total of our influence on others.”

It goes directly to your question. The people that listen to your program, listen to your program, because they know that there's always something to work on. There's something always that they can be doing better, that somehow, there are important things that need to be done, and how do we achieve them. That's the essence of what I was looking at when I began to research for this book, Be Exceptional.

I had spent about eight years doing research for another book, which had to deal with really, the people that were very problematic, the book Dangerous Personalities. In doing research for that book, and at the end of about a 10-year span, I had done hundreds of interviews, there was a theme that kept popping up that set extraordinary people apart, that really, you could say, and it didn't matter if they were a farmer, a laborer, a mother at home, or a father at home, or a business person. That made them exceptional. They were exceptional, because of the profound and positive influence that they had on others.

As I looked at that, and I said, this is the quintessence of what really matters, is what is our net effect on others? Those that are exceptional had such a positive effect on others, whether it would be somebody in a village, or in a town, or just in a small working group. I said, I want to encapsulate that. I want to be able to articulate, for those who are interested, what does it really take to be exceptional? That's what the book is about. It's a labor of love. I mean, I've spent, I guess, now going on 12 years working on it. I'm glad I get to share that with you today, Matt.

[00:05:57] MB: Well, it's funny. Carl Sagan is one of my all-time favorite thinkers and writers. I love that definition of who we are. I also really like that definition of success, being exceptional, as you put it, is having a profound positive impact on others. It's so simple, and yet, it's really powerful.

[00:06:17] JN: Well, think about it. You ask most people. I give seminars all over the world, and even this year. I mean, we were doing it online, but often, a question that I ask, and it's a rhetorical question. I say, who wants to be average? I'm looking around, does anybody raise their hand? I've yet to, maybe every once in a while, somebody will raise it, just because they want to say, “I've got enough stress in my life. I don't need to do anything more.”

When you ask people, who wants to be just be average? I think most people don't. We love excellence in athletes. We love excellence in artists. We love excellence in those that care for our children, and teach our children and so forth. Then when I say okay, so nobody here wants to be average. Who wants to be exceptional? Everybody raises their hand. Now comes the big question. How do you do that? How do you become exceptional?

Because if you tell me, you're going to work hard, or harder, that doesn't cut it. If you tell me you're going to buy more property, or another vehicle, that's not being exceptional. Being exceptional is truly having the ability to positively influence others, and they feel better for having known you, associating with you, and just being in your presence. As you look around and ask yourself, “Wow, how many people fulfill that?” You realize, “Oh, boy. That's a tough question. That is a really tough question.” Yet, we know that we're capable of doing that, and not just for others, but for ourselves.

[00:08:07] MB: I really like every piece of that statement. It's a great filter for thinking about not only your current activities, but also your goals and aspirations. Do they check the box? Or where do they land on the spectrum of profundity? Are they having a positive, or negative impact? How much influence are you exerting? Even I mean, going all the way back to books like Man's Search for Meaning, the idea of self-transcendence of focusing on others, all of those things together are such a great recipe for being exceptional. As you said, in any field, any endeavor, it doesn't matter what it is.

[00:08:45] JN: Well stated, Matt. Even at a personal level, one has to ask, is this it? Is this as good as I can be? Or is there more? One of the things that I found that it didn't matter where you came from, it didn't matter, what you had suffered in life, or any number of things, that we are always capable of doing just a little bit more, or even a lot more. I think of that personal quest that you were talking about, and I think of the work of Joseph Campbell. He came under some criticism years later, because he said, “Follow your bliss.” People misunderstood that.

Joseph Campbell didn't say, “Oh, you just wake up one morning, have a cup of coffee and follow your bliss.” That's not what he was talking about. Joseph Campbell was talking about and what this book is about, this mastery of self that you can create an apprenticeship program for yourself, so that you can achieve your goals and your objective, so you can have that bliss. It's not going to be handed to you. You can go and through mentorships, you can – looking online on YouTube, talking to people, studying, you can fulfill those things that you seek for yourself, but you have to pay a price.

That price is that apprenticeship, that Benjamin Franklin paid, that Thomas Edison paid, that any number, the Wright brothers paid. We owe aviation to two guys that owned a bicycle shop. Think about that. They created an apprenticeship program where they studied aeronautics on their own. They created a wind tunnel on their own, so they could test things. They created the scaffolding, that then became the airline industry. They had a dream. They had a passion. They had that bliss. They mastered themselves. In mastering themselves, then they could master something else, which was power directed flight.

Edison did the same thing. Benjamin Franklin did the same thing. Jane Goodall. She's a young woman, 22-years-old, goes out in the jungle. Doesn't know a thing about living and observing the wild and she becomes the greatest primatologist of her time. She did that through self-mastery, through creating this apprenticeship of self. When I study and I look at people around the world, and whether you are just taking care of a flock of sheep, or taking care of a school full of children, that person becomes exceptional when they go out of their way to create that program for themselves, so that they can be the best that they can be. Not the best that they've been told. Not the best that they think, but the best that they can be. That's what really sets the exceptional apart.

[00:12:36] MB: I find it so interesting that you open that with a quote from Joseph Campbell. I have his book, Power of Myth and Cosmos by Carl Sagan sitting right next to each other in one of my favorite nooks on my bookshelf. They're both two fantastic thinkers about the human experience broadly. Coming back to that specific lesson, this idea of pillar of self-mastery, tell me a little bit more about that being really one of the first steps towards living a more exceptional life.

[00:13:08] JN: Well, for me, it was one of these things where I, myself, found myself at a great disadvantage. I came to this country as a refugee. I didn't speak English. I went to a school where I think the smallest class had 54 students. There were things that were stacked against me. It wasn't the challenge that would aggravate me. It was the thing where I said to myself, okay, what did other people do?

When I looked at the life of Thomas Edison, as a child, I was fascinated. Here's a guy who learned to operate the telegraph at the age of 12. He left school, I think, in the sixth, or seventh grade. He he had 1,100 patents when he passed away. What I learned was, is you can do a lot on your own. For me, I began the study of body language and non-verbal communication, which is principally what I'm known for, at a very early age. I built on that. What schools did not teach me, I developed on my own.

There were no body language classes in 1971. I went out and read everything that I could, from anthropologists, from sociologists, from ethnographers, from historians. I used that to create this apprenticeship program for myself. I didn't care that there wasn't a college degree for this. This is what I wanted to study, and I did. That scaffolding, that scaffolding prepared me for a career in the FBI. It wasn't just that. Because part of the exceptional experience is that you have to have mastery over yourself.

That means you have to make sacrifices. When other people are out having a good time and drinking, you may have to do that extra work. There are things that you have to take control over. You cannot have influence over others, if you have no mastery over yourself. That doesn't mean you're perfect. None of these individuals that I've mentioned were perfect. Everyone has flaws. You have to have a certain amount of mastery over that, so that then, you can exert influence on others.

We gravitate. We gravitate towards people who have that mastery of self. We praise that person. Boy, they really got their act together. I'm looking at these Olympic athletes, Simone Biles. I'm thinking, I live in a lifetime where here is this little girl, and this little girl defies the laws of physics. I'm thinking, talk about achieving mastery over yourself. This isn't just about physicality. This is about being mentally prepared to go out there every day and do what you need to do to become the world's greatest gymnast.

I'm not going to be the world's greatest gymnast. I'm not going to be the world's greatest runner. Every one of us has a realm of things that we are able to have mastery over, however humble that is. If we don't have that mastery of self, we can never achieve that full potential. At the same time, we can never be influential if we don't have that mastery of self.

[00:17:12] MB: I really like this concept that you can't have influence over others, if you can't master yourself first.

[00:17:19] JN: You're exactly right. People in clubs, if you're an athlete, when you've got a coach, or you've got a captain in the military, or you've got a manager that has emotional issues, you lose respect. People don't respect you. People don't appreciate you. People sense that why am I beholden to you, if you don't have your act together? That happens every day, every day.

[00:17:54] MB: I'm curious, if we're bought in on the concept of self-mastery, how do you think about – it's almost to me, the same analogy of someone who knows that they should eat healthy, or knows that they should work out, you know that you should have self-mastery and yet, struggle with it for some reason? How do you think about really bringing that into your life and making it a principle that you live by?

[00:18:19] JN: Great question. That's the part of the equation that I wanted to explore is, what can we do? What can we do to create that self-mastery? As you go through the book, especially that first section on mastery, it's about the things that need to be addressed first, that self – having that conversation. Where am I? Where am I going? What are the habits that I need to change? What needs to be taken out of my life and what needs to be embraced?

Incrementally, I talk about myelinating. Myelinating is literally – well, not literally. Figuratively, the super wrapping of those connections in the brain, so that we develop better practices. In developing better practices, they become faster and more sturdy, and they become robust. We can change. I talked about when I first entered the Bureau. The first question, firearms they said, “Okay, who here –” It was a small class, 21 of us and they said, “Who here has firearms training?” There was five of us that had been previously police officers, or in the military. They said, “Okay, you guys step over here.”

I thought, “Oh, great. We've got a jump on everybody else.” Then they took us aside and says, “Not so fast, gang. We're going to teach you how to do it right from the very beginning, because all of you have learned very bad habits.” Boy, did we ever. In fact, it was the people that had never been exposed to a weapon that actually learn to shoot best, because they were taught the best practices from the beginning, and they myelinated that. They strengthened those synaptic connections.

For us that had learned all sorts of junk, we had to get rid of that and learn how to shoot all over again. In the book, I talk about how we can take small incremental steps each day, to change our lives for the better, and to focus on those things that are important. It's not just theoretical. There's actually guidelines in the book to pursue, to help you to change, to be able to work on your own mind, to expand that mind, so that your mind is more plastic, both to experience and to novelty. Also, to be honest with yourself and be able to say, what's lacking and what needs to be addressed and how do we do that now.

[00:21:19] MB: The concept of myelination, I love bringing it to that and taking it all the way back to the neuroscience, and really, the fundamental brain structure of how habits are fundamentally formed. It's a great way to make the notion of self-mastery, and really all of these tools extremely practical.

[00:21:37] JN: Yeah. I think, it's efficacious to look at the underpinnings and say, I can go to the pool, and I can see children who pour their heart into swimming, but they're not swimming properly. They are hyper-rotating, or going down the lane. Their head comes too high out of the water. Their arms are just being thrown in front. You say, “Well, what if they had coaching?”

The coach came in and said, “Look, that stroke, you have to reach far in front of you,” and then begin to teach them properly. Sometimes we have a good coach. Sometimes we don't. If we have an honest conversation with ourselves and say, “What can I work on, and who can I go to?” It is so much easier nowadays to find someone to assist you, to mentor you. There's so many places that we can go to get information.

The ease of that, compared to what it was like at the turn of the last century, is significant. We have to realize that we can create bad habits, and we can actually reinforce those bad habits. Breaking them, we have to do that with effort and with dedication. Nothing is easy. Nothing is easy. You have to begin somewhere and you have to begin now. I always say, if changing completely is too difficult, then begin to change by degrees. I think, that's always useful. Because then, that prepares you for the next phase, which exceptional people share. That is the ability to observe the needs, wants, desires of others. More importantly, perhaps, is also to be able to assess what their fears and concerns are. That's what really sets exceptional people apart, that ability to empathize and to observe what is needed at that moment.

[00:23:57] MB: It's funny that you included observation as one of the major pillars of exceptional achievement. To me, it's such a vital skill, and yet, one that I feel is chronically underrated.

[00:24:10] JN: You said it beautifully, chronically underrated, chronically unappreciated, and yet, you cannot innovate if you can't observe. If you don't have the ability to dissect something and say, “Wow, something's missing here, or something is needed, or here's an opportunity,” you're going to be left behind. If you cannot read the team that you're working with, if you can't observe that someone is struggling, or that they in fact, may be too cautious, or fearful, or they have other interests, you're missing out on this information, which may be invaluable to communicate came with them, to empathize with them, to establish some relationship.

People talk all the time about establishing rapport. Establishing rapport is no mystery. Don't complicate it. It's just psychological comfort. How do you establish that if you can't read each other? We devote a lot of attention in the book to what is important? How do you read others? How do you expand that ability to observe fully from left to right, not just what's in front of you, to be able to assess? For instance, we run into each other. What is the perfect distance for me to stand in relation to you, Matt? Because you may feel comfortable with someone at four feet. Somebody else may prefer somebody, somewhat further apart. Someone may prefer closer. If we don't have the ability to observe that, what we're doing then is minimizing face time.

You can influence people if they’re psychological discomfort. If every time we meet, you feel uncomfortable, because boy, that Navarro, he stands too close to me. Tt's not going to work out. You're never going to have that positive influence. Even at this minute level of spatial distancing, what are my preferences for talking to you and communicating with you and engaging you, that's what sets exceptional people apart is that they have the ability to see their child and they sit down with a child, and they talk to them. The next minute, they stand up and they're talking to the CEO of a company, and they can go from one setting to the other, and they can assess and transform their communication to what is needed in the moment. That is the purview of the exceptional. The average cannot achieve that.

[00:27:07] MB: It's such a fundamentally simple idea that if you can't observe and understand either a situation, or an individual, or a problem, then you can't formulate a real solution to it. Yet, the observation step frequently gets completely missed, or overlooked. I find it so fascinating that we look at endeavors, like the FBI is a perfect example, or the military, where you don't really have a margin for error, or room for failure. You see observation be really prioritized. Those crucibles are fascinating places to pull performance lessons from.

[00:27:48] JN: Yeah. I mean, think about it. What made Alexander the Great so fantastic was his ability to observe. What are the troops in front of me doing? Where are they moving? Where are their horses? Where are the chariots? The ability to observe. Think about something like the fellow, the Swiss gentleman that discovered Velcro. This stuff, 1941, the middle of a war, and this stuff is sticking to his socks, and he's looking at it under a microscope. He saying, these burs, they have this hooked thing about them, and they stick to everything.

Then he says, “Yeah, I can replicate this.” Takes him 10 years, but he in essence, replicated. Observation also incorporates curiosity. In the book, I talk about how this, the concept of benign curiosity can open up worlds to you. I've had people open up their houses, tell me things that I would have never known if I hadn't been observant, if I hadn't exercise the concept of benign curiosity, of exploring further, of trying to understand.

Here's the other thing, Matt. You can't be empathetic, if you're not observing. Observing isn't looking. Looking is what your mother and father taught you. Look left, look right before you cross the street. Observing is decoding everything that is in front of you that can be perceived. Schools do not teach you to observe, until you're in graduate school. Even then, it's only limited. That's a huge problem. As you said earlier, it is an undervalued skill. Yet, you cannot be exceptional, unless you are a terrific observer.

[00:29:52] MB: That distinction between looking and observing is really important and the word decode is a great way to really frame that in better context, so that you can understand. It's not just about seeing what's there, but really starting to truly formulate an understanding of what it is and why it's the case.

[00:30:09] JN: Well, think about how many business meetings we've been to, Matt. You walk into a room, there's 12 people gathered there. Somebody just jumped right into the meeting, without looking around and noticing that two people are over here whispering to each other. One is over there rubbing their forehead, concerned about something. Another one is texting, just burning the keys, as we say, communicating with someone. They don't realize that there are things going on that perhaps, need to be attended to first, before we jump into the meeting.

Then when the meeting is over, people come away, and they feel like, “Well, I wasn't listened to and so forth.” The number one complaint I hear, “I wasn't listened to.” It wasn't just that you weren't listened to, it was that somebody looked at you, but they didn't observe you. That is one of the biggest problems of business today. There's a cure for that. It takes a little bit of effort to develop that observational skill, not just being able to see what's in front of you.

[00:31:23] MB: I want to jump around a little bit, because one of the other pillars that you touched on earlier that I find to be really fascinating, is this notion of psychological comfort. I want to make sure we explore that a little bit. You touched on it earlier. Tell me what that is and why it's so critical to being exceptional?

[00:31:41] JN: It's absolutely critical and it's foundational. We humans thrive with psychological comfort. Whether we're being massaged, whether the baby is being touched, whether we hug, we humans don't seek perfection. We never have. What we do seek is psychological comfort. Whoever provides psychological comfort, again, is going to be the soonest winner. Because in the end, yes, I'd love for my mom to give me a hug. You know what? If she's not available, then maybe a teddy bear. Then the teddy bear is not available, then maybe a dirty blanket. In the end, what we seek is psychological comfort.

You see two gas stations, different corners. One is higher priced, but people still go to that one. They go there, even though it's higher price, because they have more lighting. People seek psychological comfort. Even though they're paying more money, they will go to the one that has more light, than the one that is maybe darker. If you understand that, if you understand that, it's down to things like, tone of voice, setting, that anything that contributes to psychological comfort, that spatial difference we talked about, that if I prefer coffee, please don't offer me tea. It's just not going to be the same thing.

That anytime we can meet, or exceed the expectations and provide that psychological comfort that we're going to win. I in the book, I talked about, we were at the Ritz Carlton in Sarasota. I was doing a little training there. I'm talking to the manager. He looks over my shoulder and he rushes towards the elevator. I'm going like, “Okay.” There's a couple standing there and they had just glanced about and he intercepted them and then silently, he walks him down the hall and walks him out towards the pool. I said, “What was that about?” He said this. Obviously, they're looking for how to get to the pool. If they have to go to the front desk to ask for help, then I have failed. We have failed.

The fact that I observed what their needs are, that they're experiencing some psychological discomfort, and that by going to them directly, not wasting their time and providing that psychological comfort, what is that? The directions. They're going to come back. They're going to be appreciative. They're going to like this establishment.

That's the essence of it is that if we understand that humans work on this very simple concept, that we want psychological comfort, and it may be some simple as what preferences we have, that that's what can really set us apart. Achieving that is what I found that – I find so many people have difficulty with, because they think about protocol, or they think about established practices, or they think about the routine that maybe they're used to. They're not thinking about, what would provide psychological comfort to this person at this moment? If you use that as your guide, and obviously, there's a lot of examples, you're going to have people gravitate towards you, because you're providing that which very few people provide them.

[00:36:00] MB: The example of going to a more expensive gas station, just because it has better lighting, that's a really succinct way of encapsulating this concept. I can see it, even looking at my own behavior, where I will spend more money for something just because I know that I'm comfortable with that thing, even though I probably could get, or something just as good, or maybe even better, but I'm not comfortable with whatever that object is, or item, or service, or whatever. It's so interesting, a very simple way of thinking about what's a really powerful concept.

[00:36:32] JN: It's a powerful concept. There is a lot of simplicity to it. The execution of it is what I find is troubling for a lot of people, because they don't realize the importance of it. I think, going forward, as we look at well, what's the new standard into the future? What is the new standard? The new standard has changed. The new standard, it's about acting quickly, acting pro socially. Well, to do that, you've got to be able to observe. You've got to have people that have mastery over themselves. Then, they have to be able to communicate effectively. Also, they can provide that psychological comfort. That is the new standard. That's how you differentiate yourself in the 21st century, when everybody else has the same software. Everybody has Word and Excel and the same apps. How do you differentiate yourself? That is a personal thing. That is one that you have to tackle yourself. That's what really the book is about.

[00:37:46] MB: One thing I want to clarify and just make sure I understand better is the notion of psychological comfort is primarily around exceptional people are able to create that for others, not necessarily to create it for themselves. Or do I misunderstand that?

[00:38:04] JN: Well, I think the best way to look at psychological comfort is this. We all have personal preferences. I remember when at a very young age, I saw how my mother and grandmother and father would try to make other children comfortable, even though at times, they were poorer than I was, and then we were. The sole purpose of that was to make them feel comfortable into coming into our home, that anybody was welcome.

We could say, well, when we do good things for other people at a biological level, we know about oxytocin, we know about serotonin, we know about that feedback that we're going to feel good from doing that. We're also creating an environment that is welcoming, that is loving and so forth. My philosophy is, I use these powers of observation to see what is needed in the moment for others, principally, but also, what I may need. I mean, it's no different than saying, “You know what? I've been in the desert. I need water thirsty. I’m thirsty.” Yeah, you need that. That creates, in essence, psychological comfort, because your biology is now in a state of homeostasis.

We go beyond ourselves when we look for the interests of others. When we look at exceptional people, they really have that ability. Sometimes, it's just being courteous, and sometimes it's just being kind, or giving a word of encouragement when it's needed, or validating, validating what someone is going through. Maybe that's all that it takes. There's many examples of that. That's the magic of psychological comfort, is that it's just a little bit, but the return on investment is huge.

[00:40:13] MB: Another one of the core pillars that we haven't really touched on yet, but to me is so vitally important is action. It's simple, and yet, really one of the biggest differentiators between people who are exceptional and people who want to be exceptional. Tell me a little bit about how that ties everything together.

[00:40:32] JN: Yeah, exactly. The ability to act quickly, but act pro socially, is really key to creating psychological comfort, so that our actions are maybe they have to be measured. What do I do in this situation? What if confronted with this or with that? If we keep in mind that the faster that we show we care by our actions, that we show how much we care by how quickly we act, that we show how ethical we are by how pro social, how beneficial it is for others.

One of the things that I talk about is that when I looked at everybody that won a medal of honor, what they call a Congressional Medal of Honor, none of these people grew up to be a hero. They became heroes, because they cared. They became heroes, because they cared and took immediate action.

When we look at these individuals, and I say, “Well, they did heroic acts.” Well, let's dig deep. They did heroic acts, because they observed there was a need. They took immediate action that was pro social for the benefit of others. Every day, we have the opportunity to do things for others. It's how quickly we do it; how efficiently.

I'll give you an example for business. How many times have you gone to an important meeting, and everybody tells you how great you are, how much you're appreciated, but you got to go through security, then you got to go through receptionists, then you got to go through the assistant, and then they walk you down a hallway, and then you're finally in the front door.

Now just think about that for a minute. Versus somebody comes downstairs and meet you at curbside, and how you would feel walking away from that and going, “Wow. Wow, this is some organization. They're meeting me at curbside. That's how much they care.” The sentiments that you take away, the positivity, the psychological comfort of not having to go through security, receptionist, the first assistant, and then trying to find the hallway, it's just epic. Yet, people expect others to respond to average on a daily basis, and somehow, draw some other inference from that, when if they change their actions, going downstairs and meeting that person that you claim is so special, and meeting them at curbside. Now you're creating this wave of psychological comfort and caring and action, that is both observable and becomes part of what that person retains for the rest of their life, potentially. It's a big difference. It's a big difference. We explore in the book, how we decide how to take action, and when and where and what about ethical issues. I'm glad you asked that question.

[00:44:12] MB: That example of meeting somebody at the curb is such a simple little thing. Yet, all of those little actions are the exact kinds of things that add up to an exceptional life and exceptional achievement. I'm curious, for someone who's been listening to this conversation and wants to start to take action, to put some of these ideas into practice and wants to be exceptional, what would the first action step be that you would have them take?

[00:44:40] JN: Great question. I think, personally, I would have that conversation with myself and say, “Okay, Joe. What's lacking?” All right. Do I let pressures get to me? Do I let emails get to me? Do I let social media get to me? How I'm disciplined is my life. I had to, when I retired, I just wanted to maybe low for about a little bit, but something in me said, “No, you got books to write, buddy.” Writing, you're going to have to dedicate yourself to that.

I looked at what other writers said. They said, “Well, you need to devote three or four hours a day every day to writing.” Well, if that's what it takes to become a writer, then that's what I'm going to do. Now, 14 books later, I'm glad that I listened to that little voice. Are there models out there? Whose life do I want a model? There are plenty of examples, men and women who achieve extraordinary things. Then I say, if I could draw nearer to what half of what they are and what they do, there are models out there that we can do. Is there more that I can read? There's always more that we can read, but don't always read the same thing.

I talked to people that read all the time, in this genre, or that genre. This year, I'm reading about China and early explorers. Next year, I'm going to be reading about the Byzantine period. Last year, I was reading about animals and animal intelligence. Expand the areas of interests, because you never know how that will affect your ability to observe and to understand and empathize. Learn to communicate more effectively, both verbally and non-verbally.

Think for a minute, this is one of the big points in the book is how can we influence others non-verbally? Something so simple as when we point at an object, nobody likes to be pointed at. We don't even like it when we point at a chair. Yet, if we do it with an open palm, people are more receptive to that. Now, we haven't had enough time to talk about communication. How can I improve my communication? How can I improve?

Wittgenstein said, the limits of my language are the limits of my world. Think about that. What words don't I know, that could help me to understand the world around me? You expand your vocabulary, you expand your ability to observe. Are there ways to communicate with greater respect, with greater civility? All these things are things that we can work on.

It's not going to all happen in one day, but you begin each day with something. Gradually, that myelination process that we talked about begins to take hold. Now, nothing takes you away from that morning run. Nothing takes you away from sitting down with my journal and writing my thoughts, or my observations. In time, what we do each day does become who we are. We've got to start somewhere.

Hopefully, the book and the guidance in the book, which comes from real life, individuals, can help you to become a better version of yourself and have that influence that exceptional people do have.

[00:48:29] MB: Well, Joe. Thank you so much for coming on the show, for sharing all this wisdom. Once again, a fantastic conversation, touching on some of my favorite thinkers and ideas and really exploring some of the fundamental themes of what we can do to become exceptional.

[00:48:47] JN: Well, it's my pleasure, Matt. What you do for all of us, sharing knowledge is a real tribute to yourself. I thank you for this opportunity.

[00:48:55] 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 e-mail 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 e-mail.

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