Sense of Soul - The Soulful Art of Persuasion

Episode Date: December 31, 2021

Today on Sense of Soul Podcast Shanna and Mande had a fun with Jason Harris the Co-Founder & CEO of Mekanism, an award-winning creative advertising agency and author of a Wall Street Journal, Los Angels Times and Publishers Weekly bestselling book, The Soulful Art of Persuasion, a revolutionary guide to becoming a master influencer in the age of distrust, through the cultivation of character-building habits that are essential to personal growth and sustained business success. Harris has been named in the Top 10 Most Influential Social Impact Leaders, as well as the 4A's list of "100 People Who Make Advertising Great." His methods are studied in cases at Harvard Business School. Agent for whose clients include Ben & Jerry’s, Peloton, Molson Coors and Alaska Airlines to name a few. Persuasion is often viewed as a “dirty word” and Jason is here to tell you why it’s not and breaks down the 4 things you need to be a master influencer (not THAT kind of influencer), especially amid all the changes that 2020 brought.  Check out and grab your copy of this book here. www.thesoulfulart.com Want more of Jason, follow  his journey on IG here FB: https://www.facebook.com/josh harriswinter  Don’t forget to rate, follow and leave us a comment! Please go check out our Sense of Soul’s merch and workshops including Shanna’s CLEAR ancestry workshop and learn more about us @ www.mysenseofsoul.com! Exclusively NOW on Sense of Soul Patreon you can also listen to Shanna’s mini-series about her ancestral journey, “Untangled Roots” and Mande’s mini series about her two NDE’s and much more! www.patreon.com/senseofsoul

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today, our guest is Jason Harris. He is the co-founder and CEO of Mechanism. Mechanism, aka Mech, is a creative advertising agency that mixes soul with science. He is also an author. His newest book is The Soulful Art of Persuasion. Today, we're going to talk with him about his accomplishments, his purpose, and hopefully he can also persuade Shanna and I and our listeners to understand how persuasion is not only impactful and helpful, but also extremely positive. Jason, between your job,

your adorable puppy, Bruce, reading books, traveling with your gorgeous significant other, working out and helping others. I can tell that you are a super busy man. So thank you for taking time to come on to the Sense of Soul podcast. Welcome. What's up Sense of Soul. Thanks for having me. And I really appreciate your investigative detective work. Really know a little bit about me. I'm very impressed. Well, I have to also tell you that that puppy, I want it. It is so cute. You know, it's like a lot of things on social media. looks amazing until you're cleaning up you know like he's still a puppy i forgot that like first six month part oh yeah and it is just like you know biting poop

everywhere up in the middle of the night trying to keep them alive from not eating anything someone has to be at home at all times really yeah kind of disaster living in a new york apartment without a yard yeah you gotta be on it when i had my first dog it was in california just opened the door easy yeah where are you guys based colorado both of you yeah both of us both live probably five miles from each other. That is very cute. Yes, it is cute. We've been friends since we were like 15 years old.

No way. I should know all this, but I watched football last night instead of prepping. You watched our Broncos get killed? I mean, I'm a Jets fan, so I can't say anything. Okay. I named one of my kids Jet. That's how much I'm a Jets fan, so I can't say anything. Okay. I named one of my kids Jet. That's how much I like the Jets. Are you serious?

Yeah. And he's like, I don't like the Jets. That's hilarious. I wonder if my son, my son is such a Saints fan. Maybe he'll name his son St. Michael or something. Exactly. St. Michael. That's good.

Yeah. My son's middle name almost was Elway. It was a bet. I was in labor when John Elway was deciding if he was going to retire or not. And I lost, but he didn't end up putting it on the birth certificate. That's such a good bet. I went to the Spain Manning Broncos, Pan Panthers I think it was Super Bowl it was awesome that is fun yeah you know Peyton Manning and I were born in the same hospital in the same year oh really in New Orleans that's amazing oh it's funny Shanna I didn't even know he was from in New Orleans until the other night I was watching him and his brother they do like this commentating

that's real funny right now. They're so hilarious together. And he kept saying mama and papa. And I was like, wait, that's what Shanna calls her grandparents. How do you not know? Mama, papa. I love that. Yeah. So I got one for you.

Are you ready? I want to test you. Okay, great. Okay. So obviously we're in the same generation. And actually, if my mom hears this, she'll probably come up and start singing. Can you hear? Yeah, Major Tom.

That's sort of my favorite. Yeah, I love that. Oh my God. That's going to be fun. I still listen to it. Oh, that's awesome. Me too. Right? Oh my God. That's gonna be fun. I still listen to it all the time. That's awesome. Me too.

Right? But my mom, that's like her favorite, is David Bowie. Oh my God. But, so here you go. Yeah, I really like your mama. Are you ready? Remind me of the Babe. Do you know that song?

You remind me of Babe. What Babe? Babe is power. What power? Power of doo-doo. Boo-doo. Boo-doo. Why? Why? Why that song? I saw my baby. I saw my baby. Now I have to figure out what that song is. It's in Labyrinth.

I don't know that song that well. Yeah, so that's the one where he throws the baby up in the air. I'm like, one of my favorite movies ever, ever of all time. Oh, Power of the Babe. Yes. Power of the Babe. Okay, I haven't seen that either. That's funny. How did you be my best friend?

Wasn't that Jim Henson? Didn't he do the puppets for the labyrinth? Yeah. It was. It was. And my kids all grew up on it. So every once in a while, we'll just kind of look at each other and I'll be like, you remind me of the babe.

And they'll be like, what babe? And we just do it. It's just like. I'm going to watch this power of the babe video after this podcast. You have to. That's so funny. I love it. Oh my gosh. Well, we're super excited to have you on. I'm going to hit you with my first hard question. Are you ready? I'm looking forward to this. So we know about your success and we know a tad bit about who you are is a human meat suit,

but let's talk about Jason Harris's soul. Jason, let's talk about jason harris's soul jason let's talk about who your soul is what do you love if you could describe your soul how would you describe it jesus what you mean that's like your segue yep you got it from dog poop to like my my meat trapping and what's inside? Like a gut punch right into the soul. I know. The first word that pops in my mind, wow, I got two. I don't know if this like describes my soul, but I feel like I'm curious soul. Like I'm always trying to look and figure out how things work and function. And especially in business, I'd like to see like how businesses work, which kind of led me into my career of advertising, because there's so much variety. Every hour, you're kind of working on a different brand and trying to dissect how

it might work and how it can be successful and talk to consumers and what are the insights. So I'm a curious soul. I think, you know, I mean, I can certainly be an asshole, but the word that pops into my mind is kind because I always try to treat every single person exactly the same way. Like I just approach everyone in the same way. And I have grown to have like an empathetic, kind nature, but I don't think I was necessarily born that way. That was like a trained thing,

but I think I'm a kind soul. My modern, the way I present myself and the way I feel inside is a lot of kindness and gratitude, which had to be learned. You know, there's like sort of parts of your soul that are endemic and you're born with, and then there's parts that you want to become. And so you have to like habitually practice that. And then that kind of becomes your soul, but you don't come out of the womb exactly the way you want to maybe present yourself to the world i see it as remembering you know it's like our souls are like that and then we go through life maybe we're not guided to those parts of our souls and so it's just like awakening to remember our souls

you know that because i'm going to tell you jason i'm going to tell you you persuaded me to really like you through your book i really got to know you, Jason, I'm going to tell you, you persuaded me to really like you through your book. I really got to know you. And so everything you just said, I learned that about you and your book. All right. Yeah. You really put that out there. Well, did you feel like you had to read the book because it had the word soul in it? No. And I read the book because I was hoping that you would persuade me. I was thinking at first, you know, just looking at everything. I was thinking very ego.

I was not thinking so. And I was like, how's he going to put this in here? Because we've had people on before where, you know, they're very successful and then they bring in this soul part and yet they didn't get what you got. And I was so glad you brought me to this place. You persuaded me, but that was because there was integrity and there was true authenticity with what you were talking about. And you hit the point that a lot of people don't. And it actually, I think you

named a chapter. It's not me, it's us. And that's where a lot of people who are in your industry, even though they want to pull in that with maybe spiritual part of them, it's still about them. Yeah, of course. I mean, it's very ego driven industry. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's very ego driven industry. And you also have to do a lot of personal branding. You know, if you're running a company or you're promoting your podcast or whatever it might be you need to do a lot of personal branding which is talking about yourself uh in order to like attract clients and to network and so there is like a an ego part of it you can't remove entirely. And even when you're promoting a book and you're writing like what goes on the Amazon statement, you sort of have to peacock a little to build credibility so that people, you know, understand, all right, this, you know, this person's a business person and has credentials. So I might buy their book. And that always feels weird to me,

the personal branding and the sort of braggadocious nature of promoting things. I haven't really found a way around that. So all you can do is really when people peel back the next layer, then you get to see that real part of your soul, what you care about and what you think about and how you go through life. So yeah, I've worked hard on that, but it's a real dichotomy when you're promoting things like a book and you want to write, like the back page has to be like, oh, holy shit, you know, look at this person.

Maybe I can learn something. It's interesting. So I'm sure that's why you got that impression. It was, you said you're uncomfortable, you know, like presenting yourself like that. And I am too too and so when i when and i'm also very uncomfortable with you know manipulation and and actually you know persuasion and i'll tell you one of the reasons might be because my dad was one of the best

salesmen i ever knew and all my life i thought that man knew everything. I thought he knew freaking everything. But you know what? He was just a really good bullshitter. What did he sell? Everything. Anything. Like what? Vacuums?

No, no, no. Actually, he became a buyer to begin with at a college on a riverboat, which is how I met my mom in New Orleans. And then from there, he was offered a job distributing for grocery stores and then wholesale grocery stores. And he actually was part of creating most of the major warehouse grocery stores like Buyer's Club, Pace. He started both of those. i'm groundbreaking everything for those and so now that sam's and uh what's the other one costco but yeah and then from there my brother became a baseball player my dad loved sports and so he hung it all up and quit and he opened up his own sports equipment store and did wholesale sports equipment until he died. Wow. But we got to back up. We got to give your dad some props,

Shanna. He was, he was an authentic bullshitter. I don't know, but that's what I was getting when I was reading your book. I was like, this is why he was successful because he had generosity. Like you wouldn't believe, which I never put together with being successful. He had empathy. He really did. And he was, he was the kind of person that would sell to you, whether you had a million dollars or if you had $5, he would make it work. He didn't, he just was, I love that. Yeah. That's, I think, why he was known for what he did. Yeah. So, Jason, that was one of my questions. Like, what's the difference between a slimy, sleazy salesman and a person who is using persuasion?

Yeah. Good question. So persuasion, I think, is like thought of as almost like a dirty word. Yeah. Because when you hear persuasion, you assume someone's convincing you of something or talking you into something that you don't want to do. But really persuasion, that's really not what it represents. Persuasion is about getting someone sort of in a place where they do something that's positive for them. And so it's always about the other person. It's not about you. And when you're trying to just sell,

that's just very transactional. It's about, I make the sale, it's binary. I make the seller, I don't. I move on. I make the sale or I don't, I move on. And persuasion, it's much more about creating connections and networking and relationships and building your network. And so it's my take on it is different. And the soulful part, soulful persuasion to me is really about being your original self, building those connections, building those relationships, and bringing people along with you and not looking at things as binary.

You know, this thing happened or didn't, but you're saying, all right, I invested time in this relationship. I'm going to keep that relationship going, whether it turns into a business proposition or not. It's sort of all about those relationships. And when you do that, and when you're generous and you think about other people, really positive things happen in your life and in business. And so this is something that I, you know, this is my second business that I started. I didn't always have this framework and I didn't always have sort of the four pillars that I talk about in my book. hoarding my contacts, you know, not being generous with my connections, not being generous with advice, not helping mentor people. It was more about, you know, I'm in a turf war and it's a knife fight and I got to keep my clients close and my connections close and elbow everyone else

out of the way. I realized that wasn't getting me anywhere. And it was a little inauthentic to who I was on the inside. I really sort of had a much different approach to business. And that's where that sort of soulful persuasion came about. And then I wrote down like, which I think everyone should do. I wrote down four core principles that to me, I was always going to live both my professional and personal life by, you know, and those are defined in the book and their original generous, empathetic. And then this idea of soulful or giving back is another way to say the last one and created symbols for them each, which are in the book. I got tattoos of them on my arm to

remind me, but it's just a way that I always approach life. Like if I'm not always being myself, that's an indicator something's wrong. If I'm not generous of spirit, then I'm doing something for short-term transactional gain and that's wrong. If I'm not empathetic or able to see the other person's point of view, both personally and professionally, that's a red flag. And then if I'm not doing something beyond my own, for my own pleasure or personal gain or professional gain, then I got a course correct. So it's really for me, and people might have different core principles, but and some of these they might use, who knows. But for me, it's really important to take the time to write down those belief systems and that principle that you, you

know, talk about your soul, that you want to be true to yourself. And it's part of your soul and then live your life that way accordingly. And you always have to remind yourself because we'll always get pulled back. Yeah. Maybe old ways of thinking or the way other someone else does it. And you have to always go back to your core beliefs. I think. I love that integrity. Yeah.

It's habits that you practice over time versus you write them down and you're just going to live that way. You know, you have to be really present. Hey, I love that. Yes, because Shannon and I talk about that all the time. You have to be present in the moment. As you said, you can write down a million different things, but until you actually implement it, knowledge is just knowledge. It doesn't become wisdom until you put it into practice and into action. Right. I love that. You had mentioned something. I'm going to read it. Actually. It said, people don't want to be forced into a decision. They want to make up their minds for themselves on their own terms for their own reasons and in their own time. And I was thinking about that. And it was so funny. I thought of you as like, you're like a marketing and advertising therapist. Oh man, I never heard that before. I like it though.

I'll tell you why. Because therapists- I should definitely charge more then. Therapists don't give you the answers. They just give you guidance and prompt you with questions and then help you come up with it yourself. So I, it sounds like that's what you're, you do. I loved it. I was like, you're a, you're a marketing advertising therapist. So there you go. There's your new business card. You know, I love that. And you know,

our job in marketing and advertising, the answer is always there. It's about editing everything else away and simplifying it and uncovering it for the client or the brand. But there's always like an origin story. There's always a purpose behind the brand. It gets lost over decades and decades and years and years and different personalities touching the brand and overseeing the brand but there's always the sort of insight and truth there it's just covered up with a lot of things and our jobs as a marketing therapist is really to uncover that by talking to the audience and the client and looking back at the history of the of the brand to get back to that originality and what it stands for and then

bring it to the world and you know new and modern ways and it it it's kind of always there you're not really inventing anything because then you're creating an inauthentic brand but there's always a story but it just gets covered up and so you have our job is to go find that story and make sure there's ways for it to connect with the audience that you're trying to talk to another thing I mean you're a lot like my dad Jason oh really yeah because yeah yeah his gift was storytelling I mean he could tell a story oh my god I could tell you about he's just a man of stories that's amazing yeah it was it's so funny like even when he died I had people from just strangers off the street telling me stories of his stories. He's always telling stories. And Mandy loves stories. I, and you even mentioned in your book

about how like the joke, right? Like when you're telling it, I'm the worst at telling jokes. So I wouldn't have to really work on that. Wait, did your dad live in Colorado or in Louisiana? So he's originally from St. Louis, Missouri. And then so and then he went on the riverboat met my mom in Louisiana. We lived there a while and then we moved to Colorado. Oh, I gotcha. All right. So let me ask you guys. I know. I know you're you're interviewing me, so to speak. But I want to know the origin story of Sense of Soul and what makes it like what what makes your approach sort of different and unique like what's your point of difference and how did you guys come up with this I know you've been friends for a long time but I love to hear that story. Yeah. Yeah, he's a good storyteller. Oh, gosh.

Okay. So, Shanna and I used to be really good detectives back when we were, like, 15 and 16 years old. We could find any man, no matter where he was, and figure out what he was doing, if he was cheating, if he was lying, if he was... No way. Okay. Was this for you guys or for other people? Us. Name it for us. Okay.

We've been in bushes. Okay. We're good. Oh, damn. All right. We were young. You're like Nancy Drew. All right.

We were going to come up... Or Grace. We joked around how we were going to come up with a business called For Shannon, Mandy, S&M. That's amazing. We were going to bust boyfriends. So as we got older and wiser and became mothers, we both went through some very hard times. I had two near-death experiences, one that landed me in a coma for nine days.

I came out of that experience feeling different. I had a different vibration in my body. My senses were heightened. My thinking was different. And I started to unlearn the conditions that had been put on me by the world. And Shanna had started kind of going through this same thing with just unlearning, also being present, awareness, self-love. And we were lucky enough to be going through this journey at the same time. And we were like, how sad would it be if we were going through this by ourselves? And we were constantly on the phone talking, sharing what we were learning. We went into curiosity mode like you.

We were learning. We went into curiosity mode like you. We were researching. We read more books than you can ever imagine from religion to Bible to aliens. Aliens. Yeah. To the vagus nerve, to meditation, divinity, to angels, you name it. We just went down rabbit hole after rabbit hole. And we both realized we were self medicated, that the doctor's solutions were great, but they weren't for us at the time that it was just numbing stuff. And we decided to share the story of turning our pain into purpose. And to be honest with you, we are taught to find happiness from outside of us and not to get to know our souls. So we put out on our podcast

to take time to get to know themselves because happiness comes from within and teaching. Yeah. Shanna, do you want to add to that? You know, when we first originally put this out, it was like, we've really felt, and I still do. I'm like, people need to know this shit. Okay. I grew up as a Catholic, you know, in a little box. And actually someone asked me this question and it fucked me over forever. It was like, how much of what you believe in, have you been told to believe? And of that, how much have you actually experienced? That's really brilliant. Actually, that insight. I went on this journey really to live by my own experiences so that I can actually speak on them rather than just tell you know this is what I was told I believe that's amazing yeah I love that

paid into purpose is like yeah when I always think about marketing or branding or editing I always think about like the cliff notes like if you're driving by an outdoor board, like what's the five second thing. And I think that is really unique. I think it's wild that you guys, there's like a synchronicity in the fact that you guys had obviously very different experiences, but you had like, you're kind of reawakening at the same time period. I know. I don't know what that is there's something

souls our soul you know i believe in the soul family and i did see your tattoo do you have the tattoo of the ones yeah i do right i just got it okay awesome yeah so i see two like all day all day and so and i've been always fascinated by that. Does my brain filter this out? So I read, you know, book on synchronicity by Carl Young. Love him. Oh my God. Yeah. And it just became like this trust that I had into the universe and into, you know, something bigger.

And there wasn't a man on a throne with a white beard. It was something I could experience. I think our gut instincts are super strong. And I think there's also signs that we see, but it kind of ignore a lot of the time. And it's easier as you get older, like all the stuff we're talking about, whether it's persuasion or being more soulful or having your own belief system.

As you get older, it's easier. You get more sort of confidence and it's easier to do that. There's like a big volume knob on life with all these other noises and all these other voices and all these other opinions and approaches. And it's our job to like, turn our gut volume up much higher and the outside volume down really much lower. But it takes a lot of mental capacity and focus in order to do that. But you always have like, whether it's your soul or your gut, whatever you want to, you always have this like answer and you know what the truth is.

Yep. this like answer and you know what the truth is yep you have to put all the other cacophonous like outside noise to really hear it though and i think whether you know synchronicity signs whatever that's all part of it too and yeah the universe is telling you what you're thinking is right well and how persuasive are they you You know, you talked a lot about in the chapter about storytelling, about how you love the band Kiss. I think a lot about the whole Travis Scott concert. You even talk about, you know, the science behind some of that, you know, symbolism and persuasion that they're doing like subliminally, you know, telling a story, it's a whole theme and it brings people in, you know, telling a story, it's a whole theme. And it brings people in, you know,

and so obviously, darkness and light are inevitable. But can you talk about that? Yeah, sure. You know, I was growing up in the suburbs of Virginia, I didn't really necessarily have a strong, you know, tribe or connection. As a younger kid. When I got into KISS they had like the KISS army which you could join and they would send you stuff and I'd go to like the KISS concerts and I felt like I was kind of like this member of something really like analog influencer programs where they get like you know people involved and I felt like I was part of something which kind of got me into marketing and advertising because I was being persuaded but I didn't really realize it but I was I felt like a sense of community and belonging and they created stories through mythology with their

characters with like the demon and the cat and the space alien. And I was just riveted by like the storytelling. They always stayed in character. And then I was part of this membership community. And to me, it's almost like a really good brand with a really good story and then a membership or community focused networks. And that was me really getting into this idea of like branding and building an audience for brands and creating stories and understand the importance of storytelling. And that's really why Kiss is so important to me. It's not that their music is like David Bowie's music. It's more of like they created a brand from storytelling and marketing. And that sort of got me into my path really in a, in a weird way.

Yeah. Did you see the similarities when you were looking at like what was going on with that whole Travis Scott Astro world? Did you see that, you know, there was a story that they were creating, you know, a vibe that people were following and really being influenced by? Oh, no, I don't know that much about the story, except I know eight people died or something. Yeah. Yeah. But it's much like that. I mean, like, what were they trying to do? They were trying to create like a rebellious environment.

It's all about his brand. I mean, people were lining up for hours and hours and hours, you know, just to get his merchandise. He's got like this theme of rage and and definitely there's like this portal kind of like mystic i didn't know that demonic yeah it's really deep actually but you know if you like you walk through his mouth there's a lot of stuff you know it just kind of projects like this story of like maybe astro travel and like you know just is that why they call it astro world the event possibly but you know he wears a shirt that has like blue people going into like a portal there's this whole theme and kind of like cult like i mean if you i mean there's a lot of things that could be cult like shit the catholic church could be considered cult like i gotta i know well that's for sure i gotta check this out though i didn't yeah i haven't uh delved too much into it but you know you talked about the science of like why that was why that

happens like scientists have even really looked at how you can become involved in these stories because is it because that you feel like there's that inclusion or you're a part of it? Yeah, you want to, you want to be part of a tribe. I mean, it's how, you know, it's how cults get started, right? You want to be part of this, like, something that's different, there's something bigger. It's this membership in this tribe. I mean, I don't, you know, Kiss was just stupid rock and roll music. So I don't think it was like that deep. But I think that is the sort of negative part of persuasion. There's like positive persuasion is really binary. There's positive way to approach it. And there's a negative way to approach it. weaknesses, or you can draw on things that they might be curious about, or they might become or hopeful or big visions. And then there's a negative way to do it, which is just as powerful, you know, it is a dark and light. It's the rebel alliance and the empire, you know, there is

that sort of dichotomy in it. And, you know i always obviously uh tout positive persuasion because that's the only thing i believe in but negative persuasion is just as effective and you know we see it in politics all the time and star wars and star wars for sure and star wars absolutely yeah i always believe that um positive persuasion is the only the the only way to add some value to the world and not take away from it. That was actually one of my questions. Like what happens if someone comes to you and asks you to help them brand their, their, their company, but it doesn't align with you. It doesn't maybe, you know, you don't have that connection. Or do you think that's something you can always somewhat find?

Or what do you do? Well, there's a couple ways to look at that. That's such a good question. I don't think I've ever been asked that before. There's brands that we have turned down that wanted to give us work like really famous brands. And the culture here, the staff here was like, wouldn't go for it. They would like, no, no, we're not going to do that. And, you know, I'm very empathetic leader and would listen to the staff and I'd say, all right, we won't we won't take it on and we'll turn it down. If there is a brand that doesn't align with our values, we will absolutely turn it down. However, if you look

at any Fortune 500 company and you go back into their history, you're going to find something that isn't going to stand up, you always find something wrong in every brand. The way they present themselves today, that's what matters to me and where they want to go. So a brand, if the brand's trying to change or they're trying to become better or more diverse or more equitable or have a purpose, help us find our purpose, that's good. We will try to take on that challenge. But if it's a brand that just only cares about purely profit, doesn't care about people, there's no give back to the brand, there's no purpose, it's all profit, that's something we won't take on. So it does have to align our values to a certain extent,

but it's still business at the end of the day. So we're, we're not going to turn down any brand that has any possible issue ever. Cause that wouldn't be reasonable. Good for you. Good for you. You know, it makes me think of a long time ago. My, it was when my son was in high school. He was in therapy and his therapist actually ended up being my therapist, which was interesting, but I remember. Probably wouldn't recommend that.

But what was interesting is that. Well, I wouldn't, when he, before he was 18, they were able to talk to me a little bit about it and he gave permission but it was he they had told me and it was kind of scary they were like remember that movie with uh leonardo dicaprio and i was like you know it's like catch me if you can or something and i was like yeah i think so they're like um yeah your son can pretty much talk anybody into anything. No way. Yeah. Now, like he's growing into this empathetic person, but before, and I think that part

of it, I felt guilty because I had to look at my play in it. I remember he'd come home and say, oh, shoot, I have an F in this. And I'd be like, why? I guess I didn't go to that class for like 100 days or something. I have an F. And I'm like, oh, well, you need to go and do whatever you can to get that up. And he'd come back the next day with an A. And I'd be like, Oh, what did you do? You know, sell your frickin No way. No, hold on, Jason. She is not exaggerating this kid when he was young. My husband used to say he's either going to be one of the most famous salesmen in the world or a really good drug dealer.

We're not sure which one. His weakness is that he's so kind. And but you know what? Here's the thing. So I would love for him to actually read your book to find that balance because he learned it from my dad. He worked for my dad since he was like five years old. He would literally give his friends coupons in like kindergarten to go at our store.

Oh my God. You know what, but he, what the therapist had told me was that, cause I was very much like this too. When I really looked at myself, I realized that I was much like a chameleon right. Which many impacts are where they can, I can change my energy from you, Jason, and have somebody else come over with completely different personality and me change to their vibe very quickly. And Mandy can too. And I think this is one of the reasons why Mandy and I are so good with our guests and why we end up friends with our guests for forever and why we're booked out until may. And you know, why we do this three times a week because we make everyone feel special. And I really do feel like they're special because I can actually get onto your

vibe and find your special, your light inside. I love that. That's awesome. But Drew and I would dance. This is something that can be used in persuasion. And I know I am so very glad that I read your book because now I know that more of what I was doing was persuasion and not in manipulation, which was what I used to call it. Yeah. It's not manipulation unless manipulation. If you're trying to get the only the thing that's only good for you and you're trying to you're trying yeah well yes exactly you're trying to do only something that's positive for you but if you're trying to uh help people and be kind and energetic and help people

find their path or their soul in whatever way works, that is, you know, you're persuading them for something that's good for themselves, not just to benefit you. And that's where it really makes a difference. And manipulation is about benefiting only yourself. And that's really what manipulation is all about. And, and, you know, manipulation is pretty easy to detect actually. Like you can kind of tell when someone's saying the right things but not feeling it.

You know, you can tell. Like, we have really good bullshit detectors as people. We've really honed it over time. The one thing I did want to talk about a little bit with you guys is this, you know, we talked a little bit about being yourself, about being generous. Empathy has sort of been the theme that we've talked about. But the last principle is about really trying to be inspirational to other people. And by doing something to give back, and I, you know, I preach this with the brands that we work on and with people's personal brands or just, you know, everyone trying to do something that's

beyond yourself, because we all have a set of skills that we've developed. And whether it's, we put in our 10,000 hours at our job, whether it's a hobby or an interest that you have, or just something that you were born gifted with. We all have a set of skills that we can do and we can find our skill and something in the world that we care about to give back to try to make our community or the world at large a better place. And I think that's a really important component of persuasion, because when you are inspiring and you're doing something outside of yourself, people are going to find that you have more character. You know, you're doing something beyond just for your own self-interest.

That allows you to be more persuasive because you're actually doing something beyond yourself and your words are going to carry more weight. And so I'm not saying to do these acts of good so that you can persuade people easier. I'm saying to do it for them and yourself and the world at large, and it's going to make you a more fulfilled person. It's going to feed your soul. And it's very easy to do. It just takes one step of doing something. That's something that I really have fundamentally believed in. And it's what I talk to people about all the time is trying to practice that idea of doing something beyond yourself just to do it. And that to me is part of being soulful. Yeah, that's what I think our soul's purpose is, right?

I mean, otherwise, what would be the purpose? Just come here and make money and die? I think that's how a lot of people do view it. We all have the ability to do something. and it doesn't have to be some grand gesture. It can be really whatever your skill is. It could be donating that time. Well, and you know what? And I think that people are evolving to that, right?

Cause like, I think that when you look at like the baby boomers, they created like the structure of I'm going to work my ass off and mom, you stay in the house and raise the kids and you guys do this. And then like all of a sudden now we're seeing that, you know, there's a lot of mental illness. There's a lot of, you know, different things that are bringing us out of that box. One of my clients was telling me that he just started working for this new company and they went on a retreat as a company. And like, that is freaking amazing and beautiful. And you hear about like all of the self help available now, you know, in colleges, you know, just on the side, like if you're stressed, you know,

you can, you know, go get a coach. I mean, these things are in place because we've been trying so hard to fit in this box and it doesn't work and it's stressful. Yeah, absolutely. And I think part of your journey and finding the light to me, it's an exercise that you sort of take out a piece of paper and you write down, you know, three or four things you're skilled at on the left column and on the right column, you write down things you might care about, whether it's, you know,

homelessness, climate, feeding kids, whatever it might be, could be, you know, simple things like teaching people that can't go to college, a skill that you might have, whatever it might be. And then when you look at that list of the skills you have and things you care about, something will pop into your head of like, oh, I can do this one thing. And just doing that one thing is really, to me, part of that sense of soul and finding the light. And it will feed you. It doesn't necessarily have to be like quitting your job

or ending your career or finding some dramatic change. It can be simple changes like that, simple minor changes that will have a huge impact on your life. And I didn't really know that it happened to me because I was an advertising guy my whole life and I'm selling, you know, sneakers and deodorant and, you know, toilet paper or whatever. You probably worked with my dad. I probably did. So whatever it might be, that's what, you know, people would hire us and it was all for profit. And now we give, um, 10% of all of our, uh, resources to doing social good advertising work to help, you know, get people to vote or fight anti-racist sentiment or gender equality, whatever it might be. We create, you know, campaigns for free. And then I realized,

because I was getting burned out. I was like, okay, I guess that's it. I'm just an ad guy. And that's my career. I'm just going to work with brands and make money. But when I found this, oh, I have a skill and I've honed that skill and I can apply it to doing something good in the world, it made me love my job again and applying it for for-profit brands. But it also reinvigorated me to say, oh, I can use the same skills I used to develop brands to help, you know, change the world in small ways, sometimes big ways. But then it re-motivated me. And instead of pivoting into some whole different career, it allowed me to enjoy my career again. I was so full element to it.

It gave it like purpose. It gave it purpose. That's awesome. Good for you and anyone can find that really I think a great part of what you guys preach about well yeah for sure you know our skill what Shannon and I's skill was we loved researching people and we loved finding like things out about them so it was like we didn't have to let go of how much we liked that. But what we did was we shifted it into bringing positive into the world. And we used our detective skills instead of busting men into like researching people like you and finding out how amazing you are and that your dog's name is Bruce and that your significant other is super gorgeous. And so

it's interesting. We didn't have to get rid of that. We just honed into it and put it out into the world as a good thing. Yeah. So that's the skill you guys developed. And then you jujitsu it into a positive. Yeah. And that's like your, your give back is putting in the time and energy to find nuggets to help your audience. And that's kind of what you guys are doing for your soul. Right. And it feeds your soul and then you're helping feed other people's soul. It's really, it's really part of the journey, I think. And we're persuasive. Yeah, you are.

I used to feel so guilty. Mandy, we've had this conversation because we're so empathetic and so, you know, we can really connect to people's energies. This is part of our gift, but yet I used to think it was manipulative. And so really your book was a big thing for me because it takes away that aspect of myself that I saw as negative. So thank you so much, Jason. Of course. Yeah, no, that's That was huge. That's a big skill. It's a big skill to be empathetic and understand things from another person's perspective. It can get dangerous if you lose your originality in that and you lose yourself.

That's where it can like kind of cross over the line and not be balanced. Or if you're just agreeing with someone because you're trying to make that connection. But as long as you're being honest and understanding where they're coming from and pulling the best out of them, that's soulful persuasion, not manipulation at all. Well, Jason, you've had quite success. You know, sometimes when I saw that you did branding for Alaska Airlines and Peloton, I'm like, how do you take companies like that and add soul and science together? Because that's kind of the whole... That's what we stand for as a company. Yes. And I love that.

How do you make that work for these companies like Alaska Airlines? Can you give us an example of a company and their brand that you came up with to do that? Yeah, I mean, we use science, which is really data and insights from the audience they're trying to target to hone in on what is that insight, what is that learning, and then how do we create campaigns based on that insight or that learning. And then we have a performance group that like tracks how our work's performing. So it's really kind of the science part. And the soul part is really trying to inspire,

find out what's behind the brand and then unearth that and bring it to the audience. Cause there's like Alaska Airlines. I don't know if you guys are familiar with that brand, but they're a brand that actually for an airline brand, they care the most about their, you know, their flyers, like they actually care. And so we, you know, work to kind of create everything around that idea of care. And that's really what the brand is all about. And we did that by research and data and talking to employees and talking to people that are, you know, hardcore flyers and looking at the competition and the category and seeing

how they're different. And then saying, let's lean into that characteristic. Because if you lean into that, you're going to operate and act a different way than if you had a different attribute, like, I don't know, volume or speed or whatever it might be, that's your secret sauce. So everything needs to be built around that in the way you operate the company and the way you treat your employees and your passengers. So that's kind of an example of how we do that. I love that. I so just authentic, you know, being able to, you know, take the good aspect of who they are and just capitalize on that. You know, my dad, one thing, and I don't even have to tell anybody that knows my dad knows that he only liked to drink one thing.

And I guarantee you in heaven, he has an abundance of it. Was it Coors Banquet? Was it Coors Life? Only Banquet. Would not drink Coors Original. heaven he has an abundance of it was a course banquet was a course only banquet would not original yeah yeah i mean in fact when i closed his warehouse down i couldn't i had to leave his there because i just couldn't even get out of this bridge i left him his fear and how do you take something like that i I mean, there's good in behind everything, right? Is that what you do? Because that's what I do. I try to find the good in everything, right? Yeah, you try to find the good, you try to find what's original and unique. And you know, Coors is something that's like only it's brewed in one

place, Golden, Colorado. And there's a reason for that. And you would lean into that aspect of it and why there, what makes it unique? Why is it a special place? Why is it true to its roots? And that might be something you do there. And then there might be brands that are sort of dying and you have to rejuvenate them and come up with a new reason to apply that purpose to its future. And then you might not necessarily go to a older storyline. You might come up with a new story that exists, but still pulls from those roots and the reason why it existed, but then you might need to modernize it really depends on what life stage the brand's in. Yeah. Cause we have to evolve. And I think that's kind of like the problem sometimes with the world. It's like, keep your roots, but you have to evolve.

I'm like seeing all of these shifts that are being made big time in our society and in our business world and religion and in education. And I'm hoping that they all go into a positive direction, but they're evolving business. I mean, they're adding all of these beautiful things because they see that we need it because we need it. We were falling apart as human beings. Our earth is being destroyed. We have to change. I i mean change is inevitable and it has to happen absolutely the scariest thing i see coming is that the whole like metaverse and connect you know the this idea of not connecting in person with people like that is so freaking terrifying to me and i feel like the pandemic sped it all up because there's no, you know, I traveled a lot less now, which on one hand is good. But on the other hand, you're not connecting in person as much with people.

It's scary with the way you can just dive into alternate worlds. And that's where it's heading and not only that not only dive into alternate worlds but it's also affecting people's brains and the chemicals in their brains because if you don't get that connection your brain's not releasing the oxytocin and i mean it's so much deeper than just even you know that surface connection we're talking changing your your brain and your blood and i mean it's deep we got to get back and then you have to get that hit from something else right you got to get that exactly yeah yes i mean it's a beautiful thing you know that we can all communicate i mean you know there's positive

and negative everything it's awesome that we can you know have a conversation with you i never feel like i'm not with somebody you know yeah i think this is yeah I think this is different than say like yeah virtual people yeah virtual like we're connecting we're connecting in some other uh world or through a video game or through a console or uh yeah so I think this is this is different it's a real connection but that's still I'm i i fear like you know you're i know each of your younger uh you know kids are the amount of tablet yeah that just the amount of tablet time is scary you know scary yeah all right go ahead mandy i was just gonna say you're gonna put a bow on this sucker.

Let's put the bow. You're the bow. You're the golden nugget. You're the bow. I mean, this is a topic we've never talked about. And Shanna and I talk a lot about how words really define a lot in our past, in our history, in our books, and people get hung up on them. And so I absolutely love that you took a word that usually has like this negative meaning and twisted it for just Shanna and I, but our listeners hopefully too, because it really, it clicked with us and we love that you put it out there. So thank you so And now it's time for break that shit down. Oh, wow. Break that shit down. I like it. It's every individual's job to try to find out what they can do beyond themselves and to help others.

But at the same time, while they're helping themselves. And that to me is, I think what I got from you guys, the way you connect the conversation and just my personal belief that it's our, it's our duty to do that. And if you do that, you're going to be one step closer to the right path that you're supposed to be on. Thank you. I hope that you have, we have together all persuaded our listeners to check your book out. Can you tell everybody where they can get your book and where they can learn

more about you? Sure. Soulful art of persuasion is available on anywhere, but amazon.com and the soulful art.com is my website. And I'm on socials at Jason underscore Harris. And yeah, that's, that's all I got. Awesome. It was a pleasure to meet you, Jason. You're so fun. I love your energy. I loved your book. Thank you so much for letting me see myself in a different light, even with that persuasion thing. You persuaded me so much. Oh, good. You guys were awesome. It was just so much

fun. Thanks guys. Thank you so much oh good you guys were awesome it was just so much fun thanks guys thank you so much thanks for being with us today we hope you will come back next week if you like what you hear don't forget to rate like and subscribe thank you we rise to lift you up thanks for listening