THE ED MYLETT SHOW - How to Master the Art of Persuasion & Scale Your Vision | Ed Mylett

Episode Date: September 19, 2026

If I could only keep one skill out of everything I've built, this is the one. I get asked all the time what skill matters most for an entrepreneur, and my answer never changes: the ability to persuade. Without it, most of what I have doesn't exist. And here's the hard truth I open this episode with. Most people are nowhere near as persuasive as they believe they are, and that belief is the very thing keeping them stuck. So I brought together three of the most influential people I've ever sat across from. John Maxwell has trained leaders in every country on earth and sold more than 30 million books. Zoe Chance teaches one of the most popular courses at the Yale School of Management. Mauricio Umansky built The Agency into one of the biggest real estate brands on the planet, starting at the worst possible moment to start anything.I push each of them on the things most people never talk about. I get honest with John about a part of leadership where I've always felt limited. I admit to Zoe the surprisingly small thing I'm still afraid to ask for. And I press Mo on what really happened before The Agency existed, a story I was surprised he was willing to tell. I also lay out my own playbook: why energy moves people more than words, why you have to sell a dream big enough for everyone around you to fit inside, and a lesson my dad taught me as a kid that every closer needs to hear. Here's what you'll gain from this episode: The Question That Changes Everything: The one question Zoe teaches that opens doors you didn't know existed, and what happened when I asked it of myself. Your Sweet Spot: How John realized he was in the wrong role for years, and how to find where you win. The Emotional Moment: How Mo reads a room before a deal, and the one mistake that destroys the connection. Rejection as Training: Why you should be hearing no a lot more often, and how to make it hurt less. Scaling Your Influence: How to transfer the skill of persuasion to your team so it grows beyond you. Everything you want is on the other side of someone saying yes: your business, your family, your team, even the person in the mirror. Stop checking the box like you've already mastered this and go get better at it. 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈⁠ → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ➡️ ⁠INSTAGRAM⁠ ➡️ ⁠FACEBOOK ⁠➡️ ⁠LINKEDIN⁠ ➡️ ⁠X⁠ ➡️ ⁠WEBSITE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey everyone, welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. One of the questions I get asked the most often is about what skill do I think is the most important as an entrepreneur? That's a really difficult question.

But if I could go back and you could only give me one skill to begin with and I had to build from all of it, I can tell you for sure what it would be for me. And that would be the ability to influence. So it's the ability to persuade people. Without that skill set, the vast majority of my wealth does not exist. If you can't persuade people, if you can't influence people to make decisions that are in their own best interests but that also grow your business, your brand, your company, your net worth, you can't ever become successful.

One thing that everybody I know that's a leader and everything they do can do is persuade people. Now I watch people do that in all different types of ways. Some do it through intimidation, some do it through force, some do it through humor, do it through persuasive strategies, transfer of energy, you name it, but all leaders can persuade, all successful people can get people to make decisions in their own best interests that also get them to participate with their company. It's the number one skill that I see most people not spending the most time on is their ability

to communicate, their ability to persuade people, and because they're constantly trying to go to a different course, or they think that somehow if their product is good enough, or they get the right sales pitch that somehow they're going to win. But the fact of the matter is you've got to become a better persuader. I'm constantly personally working on that skill and refining it, my ability to persuade from the stage through the camera here to make you to make the decisions that are in your own best interest, to persuade you that I can help you, to persuade my children. When I'm negotiating on buying a company or buying a car or buying a jet, it's my ability

to persuade people to make the decision that's in their own best interest to participate with me. And so if I was a quarterback in football, it's my ability to persuade the team to work the hardest to run the best routes, to get open, to give it all they've got, head coaches and football, school teachers, their ability to persuade and influence, pastors, you name it, personal trainer,

they've gotta persuade people to do the exercise, that they're the expert. So it's our ability constantly to influence and persuade people that I think is the number one skill in life. And so if that's the case, what are some of the keys in doing that? So the number one thing as a business leader that you should be evaluating is,

are you constantly refining, constantly getting, better constantly making alterations constantly being aware of how you can improve in all of these areas the thing that happens when I say that to most people that are average let me tell you what their response is I already have that I already got that down I'm already persuasive I already can do that and even as I say that to people I hear people all the time say oh I'm already good at that let me very very clear with you as a friend if you were really good at that you'd be more

wealthy you'd be happier you'd have a bigger business you'd have a better family life than you have. So it's your vast overestimation of your ability about that one skill set that is probably going to hold you back more than anything. As a friend, let me tell you, you're nowhere near as good as you think you are at that skill. And the fact that you think you're great at it may be your greatest detriment to moving forward in your life because you don't think there's this gap between where you should be and where you are that'll cause you to do the work to get there. And so I never overestimate my ability to persuade. I always think I can get better I always think I can grow and I know there are multiple areas

and sectors in which we persuade people so I might be really good speaking from the stage but the question is how am I in front of 30,000 people or 100 people how about one-on-one how about in my family how about to a group of three what about in a board room what about the white-collar people what about the blue-collar people what about in my personal life right what about getting people just to make their best effort what about in putting money somewhere And so there are thousands of areas of which we persuade people. Persuade people to like you,

persuade people to laugh at your joke, right? So constantly, when you buy something, persuade them, when you sell something, persuade them. Persuade your children. So it's your, it's your overestimation and thinking you're great at that that constantly holds you back. You're nowhere near as good at that

as you think you are, and the fact that you think it is already an indication you're not very good at it. So you might be great in one area, but not great in the others. And so please don't check the box and think you're outstanding at that. Because if someone who's spoken in front of millions of people

on stages from 60,000 people to six people, who's made millions and hundreds of millions of dollars in business, traveled the world in multiple different businesses in athletics, I've coached athletes, entertainers, politicians, business people one-on-one, and I coach in large groups. If I know I need to get better in those areas, I would submit to you that you probably do as well,

because I'm not as good as I could be or as good as I should be in almost every area persuasion. Having said that, let's take the business context for a second. One thing I want to challenge you to be as a leader of your business, whether it's just you're a leader of one, which is you as a salesperson, or a leader of 10 as a team or a company of 25,000 employees, is you must become evangelical about your cause and your mission. The greatest business people have an evangelical property about them. They're evangelizing all the time. They're propagating the strengths, the benefits of their business, of their mission, of their cause. One of the great

evangelists of all time is Steve Jobs. There's a great book written by a guy named Guy Kawasaki many years ago called Selling the Dream. And in that book, he talks about the way that Steve Jobs sold the dream of Apple, and he literally called him an evangelist for the cause. There's a great story in that book about Steve Jobs when he was recruiting. He knew he needed to have a CEO of his company, and he wanted to have the best. And at that time, there was a man named Scully, who was the head of Pepsi. And Jobs was this young kid in his 20s trying to recruit this executive, who'd made millions of dollars and he couldn't get him and he couldn't get him and he couldn't get him and finally he gets the voicemail back in those days the answering machine actually of Scully and he says listen

listen man when you're tired of selling sugar water to kids over there at Pepsi and you want to come change the world freaking call me back and we'll do it together boom and he hangs up right he was evangelical at cause sugar water and Pepsi changed the world at Apple right and Scully who's making millions of dollars he's CEO of one of the most powerful companies in the world looks to his wife and she He says, I think he's right. We aren't changing the world. And it was that one cause-oriented evangelical phone call from Steve Jobs, and it exuded out of his pores.

Every stage speech he gave, every one-on-one, every board meeting. When he'd meet with their software engineers, when he'd meet with the programmers, he was always evangelical, internally and externally, and built a culture of one of the greatest movements of all time in the history of business. There's great lessons there about being evangelical, the greatest presidential or political leaders have an evangelical property about them the greatest sales people do the greatest dads the greatest pastors they're evangelical aren't they so you've got to become more of an evangelist for your cause and your mission number one number

two you have to sell a big enough dream to your team to your company to your clients to the people around you that the dreams of everybody associated with you can fit inside the one you're selling it's got to be big it's got to be bold it's got to be expanding number three it's got to be repetitious You can't get tired of saying the same things over and over and over again. One of the deficiencies of leaders that are weak is they constantly think they have to say new things to old people. Creating new things to old people. The best leaders say old things to new people.

They say the same things over and over again to more and more new people, new teammates, new employees, new recruits, new clients, new speeches, new groups, right? They say old things to new people. They're repeating over and over the vision and the cause of their business, of their movement. These are great communicators. The next thing, all great communicators understand whether it's words, physiology, the look you give somebody, or writing. Influence is energy. It's the transfer of energy. It's getting you to feel about my company, feel about my mission, feel about my product, feel about my cause, what I feel.

They're conscious of transferring energy to people because that's what moves people. That's what gets them to act. It's not just the words. It's not just your face. It's not just how you're dressed. It's an energy transfer. There's a hook, by the way. You can't transfer to me that which you're not experiencing yourself.

You have to physically be experiencing it in the moment. It can't just be the words you're reading from a sheet. You have to really believe it. One of the reasons a lot of salespeople struggle or recruiters struggle is they just don't believe enough. They don't spend enough time making the case like a lawyer litigating to themselves about how powerful what they do is and the more and more you really believe if you're a true believer You can evangelize your product you can evangelize your message so invest more time in your own belief in your research in your knowledge Finding third party articles magazines blogs things that reinforce whatever it is you're doing that feeds your own belief that way you can give it to me you can't give it to me if you don't have have it and so they don't spend enough time spend more time feeding your own belief

and be conscious of the transfer of energy to another person there's a great study out right now that I was just reading about bees and then deciding which flower to pollinate is based on the energy the flower puts off they sense the energy from the flower and they move towards that one deciding to pollinate that one well if you want more people to pollinate your business pollinate your life if you want to track the right relationship the right amount of money the right clients the right employees the right recruits the right vendors the right support you got to be putting off that energy because people are

going to pollinate it somewhere you want them pollinating with you right and that's an energy feeling they get from people the bottom line is people got to be when they get around you they got to feel something special about you special about where you're going special about your cause special about your mission that something special's happening something historic something big a big old dream in fact one big enough that my dream can fit inside the one these people are selling me right and so this is the key of moving people the number one skill go all the way back to the beginning my number one skill that if I could keep only one would

be this right here the ability to persuade people in multiple areas of my life how do I get better at it transfer energy number one feed your belief number two number three make sure that it's repetitious over and over again say things to new people, right? And you've got to be evangelical and sell a big old dream. The bottom line is that this is a process that never ends of growing us, of growing our ability to persuade people. One of the things about communicating as well is doing it with a lot of specificity. Great communicators, great influencers, great persuaders are very specific and very clear about what their message is. And so even communicating yourself and leading yourself, I grew up

walking this beach right here, this exact beach. And I didn't live like this, but I told my family someday, told myself, someday, I'm going to live on this beach. I didn't know who these people were that owned all these beach houses. I didn't know exactly how you got one, but I began to repetitiously transfer that energy to myself about my dream over and over again, literally thousands, if not millions of times. And now someday it happened. Now that day is here, and I live on this beach as one of four homes that I own. And so that's how you communicate with yourself and others that transfer of energy I can tell you that in my own situation I'm always trying to how do I evolve it how do I modify it how do I feed my own

belief more how do I sell it bigger how do I back it up with more facts the best leaders sell a big old vision they tell a great story the best people I know are great storytellers remember this facts tell stories sell most people make decisions emotionally from the story they rationalize it logically with the So make sure you're selling a big dream a big story and then you give people the facts This is the way we begin to move people in our lives. This is the skill of entrepreneurs This is the skill of building something big and building something small and building something permanent too is your ability to persuade Focus on your energy focus on your belief level and focus on refining your message the last thing is this say it faster and say it quicker

Less is more you don't have to tell them everything you know leave a little bit bit to the imagination. One thing that happens the longer and longer we're in business, the longer and we're around, the more and more we learn, we feel compelled to tell someone everything we know about our product, everything we know about the business, and that's not how you energize people. You give them just enough and then shut up. My dad used to tell me when I was a kid, when I'd be asking for money to take my girlfriend to the movies, he'd say, hey, don't sell past the clothes, right? He had already agreed and I'd keep selling them. I'd keep selling them, and sometimes I'd lose with this extra BS I'd be given them so I want to challenge you don't sell past the

clothes so of all things in business right time management goal setting vision identity all those things we're going to talk about in on this channel are very important but if you can't communicate if you can't persuade you are toast the last thing I would say to you how do I get better there's lots of books lots of tapes but it's really for me it's modeling I learned to model certain people initially and then modify model and modify model and modify So I would model people, not copy them, but I would model certain people's styles, one or two different people, and then I'd modify it to fit my own personality. Model and modify, right?

Don't try to create everything on your own and don't try to copy somebody else that's different than you. You've got to be you. So model and modify. The last thing I would tell you is to the extent that you can transfer this skill to other people will be to the extent that you can scale your business. So it's one thing to be able to persuade yourself and transfer. transfer energy it's an entirely other thing to equip other people around you to do likewise the best leaders are not just evangelical about their cause can't just transfer energy they have the ability to transfer that skill of transferring

energy to other people and then you begin to build your movement whether that's one or two or ten or twenty five thousand or millions and millions of people sometimes your clients can be your top evangelizers for you when they use your product so it's your ability to transfer that skill And you have to do that through repetition. The way to transfer the skill of energy to people is through repetition and role play. Repetition and role play. Far too many people just talk and teach their teams how to do things.

They talk at them rather than work with them. The way you get me to do it is there's no substitute for experience. A hundred hours in the classroom is worth one hour in the field. A hundred hours of teaching is worth one hour of role play where we do it together. Getting them on the stage, getting them. I started speaking, one of the great speakers that he was an older guy, so this is going to date him. But when I first started speaking, I got on the stage and I would open up for this one speaker. And when I'd come off stage, he was really older guy, but he'd say, what was it like to play

on stage with Elvis? Meaning he was the Elvis, right? But I got to know what it was like to be on the same stage with the Elvis of speaking at that time. And in business, too often we just talk at people and don't let them get on stage with you, Elvis. There's not enough role play. not enough engagement and so it's repetition over and over repetition is the mother of learning repetition is the mother of skill it's the mother of owning it

over and over and over and over again until it becomes reflexive because when the words and the message and the energy becomes reflexive then when you're under pressure when you're stressed when you're down when the client's objecting you reflexively respond with your habit but if you don't have that habit that reflex you begin to respond and lose energy and so the reason repetition matters is it allows your responses to be reflexive under pressure. And then the second thing is role play. There's no substitute for that experience of being on stage with Elvis.

I say it, you say it. I say it, you say it. And it's not just the words, it's the feeling, it's the transfer of energy. The number one skill of entrepreneurs and leaders of entrepreneurs is the ability to persuade and hope these were some of the tips that you should be conscious of becoming world-class out of, knowing you'll never be world-class at it, knowing we can always get better, we We can always stretch, we can always grow and improve our skills in multiple areas. Hope this helps you.

Max out. Before we start the interview with my next guest, just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. Welcome back to Max Out, everybody. Today is a real honor for me.

I have a friend, but one of my true heroes in my life sitting to my side here. It's a real honor for me, Ed. Thanks for letting me be a part of this. Thank you, John, so much. This is one of the few interviews I've even been a little bit nervous for. Oh, hey, listen, you're just dealing with an old man. An old man. We're just going to talk about life and enjoy ourselves.

This old man has sold 30 million books in his life, plus he's... Well, because I'm old. You can't sell 30 million if a young man. You understand? You've got to be old to do those things. You also can't sell 30 million books unless they're great. And so he sold 30 million books, everybody. This is somebody who's trained leaders on...

Is every country? Every country. Every country in the world. He's won numerous awards. He is known as the expert on leadership in the business world. There's multiple publications that have named him as such. And he's got a new book coming out called Leadership that we're going to talk about today as well. But I just cannot tell you what a thrill it is for me to have you here today, John.

So thank you. Thank you. And it's my honor. Thank you. So I think the first, the beginning place is I think most people don't see themselves as a leader. just that in and of itself, I think most people don't see themselves that way, that it's some mystical role in life. What would you say to somebody who says,

I just don't know that I am a leader or could be a leader? Well, everybody's a leader, because leadership is influence. That's what it is. And that has been, that definition of leadership has served me so well for so many years. It's, in fact, in my book, the Taiwan Air Refutable Laws of Leadership, there's the Law. Great book. You know, leadership is influenced, nothing more, nothing less.

somebody says they're not a leader I said well let me ask you question do you influence anybody sure and almost always almost I've had a couple maybe I'm not sure but almost always I'll say well yeah I mean you have children okay okay you got your family yet you know so yes now it may be a little influence it may be eight ten people may not be but I look at them and say okay if you influence eight or ten people you are a leader see what people think is they've got to have some kind of a title or position to be a leader and so they said well I you know I don't have a leadership position so I'm not a leader well you

I both know the position doesn't make your leader anyway. It gives you a chance to practice leadership, but it doesn't make your leader. So what I tell people is this. Leadership is influence. So how do I increase my influence? Because if I influence 10 and next month I influence 20, wow, I've doubled my leadership influence. So how do I do that?

And it's a very simple answer. To increase your influence, you have to intentionally add value to people. This is where it all begins. So, Ed, let's say that I want to have increased influence with you. Well, my first question isn't, boy, I hope that Ed will follow me. The first question I is is, how can I serve you? So I'm going to ask you, you know, how can I serve you, what can I do to help you? In fact, what's interesting before we had this interview?

I mean, it was cracking me up, we're kind of trying to out-serve each other. It's true, right? What can I do for you? It was a beautiful thing because all we were really doing is I'm trying to help you. And here's what I know. If I sincerely add value to you, my influence will increase with you. That's a fact. So we don't need to make leadership complicated. Just go out and intentionally add value to people and your influence pool begins to expand. And after a while, I'm becoming quite a leader.

So leadership is in title position. It's all about adding value and serving and making the difference in other people's lives. In order to do that, a lot of people are going to build an organization, build a team, they'll be in some sort of an environment like that. Nobody wins alone, it seems like in life. That's a fact. I was listening to the story you were telling, and I'd like you to share it about, you know, there's the analogy of getting people in the right seats on the bus. But you have this wonderful story about when you played basketball,

about at the end of practice, your coach would do something very... Scrimmage. This is absolutely illustrates this point so beautiful. You don't mind saying that. No, it's a beautiful point. he would have the first team, the better players, five players, play the second team. And the only thing that he would do is he would put we who were on the first team out of position. And he always stuck me, I was a number two guard, but he always stuck me under the basket

guarding a guy named Doug Roth that was six foot eight, okay? And he'd put maybe our center out there with the point guard. Well, he's put us out position and they say, now stay in your position and play to 20. Well, what would happen is the first team would always lose. And he'd sit us back down and say, now, did you lose because of talent? No, did you lose? No, no.

You lost for one reason. You were out of position. And remember this, whenever you're out of position, you're going to lose. Well, what they did is, I mean, I'm guarding a six-foot-eight guy. They just throw a high pass to him. He's just dropping that belt over me the whole time. And so it was a great teaching for you. for me that no matter how gifted you are, no matter how committed you are, if you're out

a position, you're not going to be successful. That's why everybody needs to find their sweet spot. You know, what do I really do well? And on that, there's a point that I really want to make, and that is, I tell people if you want to be highly successful, you've got to get into what I call the top 5%. So you've got 100 people, you've got 100 people here in whatever chosen profession you've got, you've got to be the top five. Yes. You've got to get there. And you can only get to the top five if you're in your sweet spot.

You can't get to the top five working on weaknesses. You can't get to the top five if I'm not in the area of my giftedness. So you've got to find out what you're good at because that'll give you, then if you're committed and if you've got a good strategy and all those other, you've got a good team around you, then that'll allow you to get in that top five. And once you're in that top 5%, you're in good shape. You're going to do very well. And I tell you, that doesn't matter what your profession is.

you've got to get in the top 5% and you can only get in the top 5% if you're in your position, if you're in your sweet spot, if you're in your gift. Is there any technique, strategy, thought you have in order to identify what those sweet spots are for you?

Oh yeah, I'll try it in there. I mean, you know, when I started, okay, let's go to my, I started off as a pastor. And so I had a counseling degree. So now I'm counseling people. Well, it takes me about six months to realize I'm not any good at that. I'm not.

I'm not. It's not my gift. I mean, they're coming in, and I'm listening to them. And then I say, well, okay, it's obvious, here's your issue. Here's three things. I write on a piece of paper and, you know, hand to them and say, now, go be healed. Do you know what I mean? Go be in?

And the next month they'd come back in. I'd say, no, okay, what are we in here for? Well, I've got this problem. Well, it's the problem I've heard last month. You know what I'm saying? Well, did you do the three things? No, I didn't do the three things. Oh, you'll go back.

Well, it wore me out. I wore them out. I wasn't any good. But that's what I was trained in. but it wasn't giving me the results. And one day, I mean, it took me, really, it really took me three years. One day I realized that when you counsel people, you work on their weaknesses. And when you equip people, you work on their strengths.

And the moment I went from working on weaknesses to working on strengths, I became, I was a rock star with strengths. Because you show me your strength and I'm going to give you a game plan and let's get going. Because I'm a natural equiper, not a natural counselor. Nothing wrong with counseling. It's just not my gift. You with me? And what did they teach me in college? They taught me how to administrate. So I'm in my, you know, I've got my little country church. I'm doing an administration. Well, there's no return there. I mean, my gosh. And one day I'm waking up and I'm saying, wait a minute, this isn't working. I've got to go get me some volunteers to do this administration so I can get back. And so it's trial and error. And sometimes I think we go to people like, I mean, Ed, if I'm trying to find out my strengths and you and you and I know each other really well, I may come to you and say, okay, talk to me. What do I do well? Yes.

You know, sometimes we don't understand our own strengths, and it takes somebody that really is a good friend, that knows as well, that can say, well, I think you're really good in this area. But you've got to find them. And the good news is everybody has gifts. That's right. Everybody. So there's not such things as a person, well, you know, I just have no gifts. And so I'm left out.

Everybody has them. You just got to go find them. But once you find him, that's where, and by the way, that's where you put all of your time in personal growth and development. Because the goal is just to learn a lot of things. I know a whole bunch of people, they're very knowledgeable, but they're not very successful. That's right. So what you got to do is you got to say,

I'm going to stay in the area of my strengths. Yes. And so when I, at 27, when I decided I was going to speak and maybe write some books, I asked myself a very simple question, what are the areas that people need to excel in to be successful? successful and I came up with four areas. Relationships, I mean if you can't get along with people, hello. Equipping, if you can't develop a team, you may have personal success, but you're

not going to have multiple, you're not going to compound success because you don't have people helping you. An attitude of overcoming adversity and difficulty in getting back up, not quitting that whole process, and leadership, the ability to influence people. And at 27, I said, those are the four things I will spend my life. And if you'll look at my books, almost All of them are in relationships, equipping, attitude, leadership. It's true. And I found what I call, I found the sweet spot for people to success. Man.

And so I wrote all my books in those areas. I've read, I'm going to tell you something. I've read of the majority of your books. And there was a window of time where I read every single one as they were coming out. And now I'm back in that cycle again with you. And for me, the last couple minutes were really valuable because I'm always, I'm obviously acknowledged like you are as a good leader. Sure.

But in my own mind, I've wondered whether I am sometimes, because I'm not a great counselor either. And I mean that. When people are looking for counsel for me, but what I am, I do feel like I'm really good at identifying giftedness in people. I see giftedness. I think I'm good at equipping people. And so leaders come in different, shape, sizes, and forms.

That was just really a good validation just for me, and I think it would be for certain people listening to this because I think also sometimes people that are really good at executing themselves, potentially maybe struggle with counseling people on the new things but they're great and equip they could be great in equipping oh absolutely absolutely and what i found is successful people are really good at finding their gifts getting in their gift zone and then just really staying there and becoming successful i think they're happier too oh yes but successful leaders there's the difference successful leaders are had the ability of what you just described in of finding the strength sweet spot

for other people and getting them in that sweet spot yeah and that's where the return is that's right i spent my After I discovered what my strengths were, now I'm just helping other people find their strengths because there's nothing more empowering to a person and to find out that they are good at something and then being equipped and taught how to do it well. Honestly, what you just described is what I enjoyed doing most of my life. That's why you're a leader. Well, I hope I've worked on it. Thank you.

I just want to know something like the whole interview, everything we're doing today, that was valuable for me because I've struggled even myself. Like why am I, that's an element of my ability with people that's just a way, limited. I'm not great at counseling people, but I am good at equipping them. So it's just a distinction that I really appreciate. One of the things about teens, and then I want to talk about the new book. But one thing I want to talk about on building teams and having teams is I have probably talked about the law of the catalyst in my life in business that you've talked about in various different books. Both identifying them in an organization so that they can grow

and also wanting to be identified as one as someone coming through an organization. Could you just talk about most people listening to this are familiar with your work, but obviously there are people that aren't as well. So what is the law of the, what is a catalyst in an organization? Why is it important? Why do you want to be one? Well, Ed, that's out of my book, The 17 Laws of Teamwork. And basically, that chapter is about the fact that good leaders have the ability to make things happen. And so when people look at me and they say, okay, John, I'm looking for maybe a potential leader.

What's the first thing I look for? The first thing I say for them to look for is look for somebody that makes somebody that makes me. things happen. Yes. Because you know, but there's a whole bunch of people, they're wondering what to happen. And they're not the one you want to recruit. So I say, go find, go for, because here's what I discovered. If you can make things happen for yourself, you now have the credibility to make things happen for other people. If I'm not successful, there is no appeal for you to follow me. I tell people all the time. Success is the credibility of a leader to lead. Because you think about it, no one ever got, you know, nobody ever said, oh my gosh, you know, okay, I got it. I'm financially in deep weeds.

Oh my gosh. I'm going to, I think I'm going to go, my buddy Joe, he's been bankrupt three times. Right, right, right, Joe. You don't follow Joe. Joe's been bankrupt three times. You got to go find somebody that's successful with money. You don't get to, oh my gosh, my gosh, my, well, I'm going to call Jack. He's been divorced four times. Jack, help me with my marriage. You see, people, when they need help, the first thing they think about is who is better than me that I can follow. And so the credibility of a leader as far as to lead is that they're successful. I mean, if I'm successful, I say, hey, I'd want to join my team. Well, of course. I mean, if LeBron James was in the room right now, LeBron says, we're going to play a little basketball. And LeBron says, you know, I'll pick and then John will pick. Well, when LeBron's there, you're got your hand and say, LeBron, pick me, because you're going to win if you get LeBron. And every time I'm getting right pick, you're diving behind the chair. It's a fact. You don't want to be on my team.

You're going to lose on my team. So what I tell people all the time is that the first thing you've got to do is you've got to be, you've got to get good yourself. Why would I ever think that I should lead somebody if I'm not any good at it? That's true. Okay. But once I'm good and I found my success, now I begin to say, okay, how do I compound this? Well, I compound this by looking at Ed and saying, okay, Ed, let me help you find your sweet spot.

And let's get you on this same road because now all of a sudden this is how I this is how I really build a team And so the law of the catalyst is all about making things happen and and that's what I look for I mean Jack Welch his phrase was that you know who's going to get out of the pile You know he'd say in when he's a general electric you know there's a big pile of people in this company Well who's going to get out the pile well well somebody's going to climb out Mark Cole is the CEO, I have six companies, and Mark Cole's the CEO of him. And the reason that he is, is because he got out of the pile. He got out of the pile.

He started in the stock room. Yes. Did he really? Mark did? Yeah, absolutely. And I just took him out last week. That's awesome. Mark's here, by the way.

He's cracking up over this. But he got out of the pile. In other words, everywhere he was, he succeeded. Yes. And everywhere he went, he won. And after a while, you just sit there and say, okay, okay, I think I'll let him run this thing because he knows how to do it. And so for all of us, I say before you go lead somebody else, just kind of get good yourself. So right. You're a mutual hero of mine, friend of yours that we were talking about off camera, Art Williams. Oh, my.

How important is leadership, right? And Art would use to say, and still probably does, say, you want to show me any church, Boy Scout troop, football team company. I'm going to show you something being run by a leader. And in every great company, the leaders are great at identifying catalysts. I mean, when you find them, pay them well, keep them because they're priceless when you have them. I'm sure Mark's over there nodding his head that you should even better. But I wanted to say something to you about your books that I think are just, they're so, everybody, they're such great reads.

They're easy to read. They're memorable. He makes points and then backs them up with incredible stories and anecdotes and quotes and quotes. And so it's the other thing about your books. They're incredibly, I would say, the information is profound, unique, and deep, yet very easy to, it's, you equip people so well with the way you write it, that it's transferable. That's right. The information is so transferable.

You do that better than anybody, of anybody's work that I read. I enjoy reading every single book. The problem with your books oftentimes is when you highlight them, you would almost be better off in John's books, highlighting the parts that you don't want to go back and remember, because it's literally just covered in highlighter when you highlight his book. I'm serious. Thank you, but it's an absolute fact. I just get tired of highlighting it's like every single part of every single page it would seem

to be. Well, I'm a communicator. So let's start here. You know, an educator takes something simple and makes it complicated. I mean, think of all, you know, I think of all my college, all this stuff. I mean, in an educational world, if you're not confused, they're not happy. So true. I mean, they're, hey, their sentences are a paragraph long.

I mean, by the time I get down the paragraph, I forgot what the first part of the sentence was. I got to go back and read the paragraph. Instead of short sentences, you know, I'm dealing with a paragraph. So, but a communicator is exactly opposite. They take something complicated and make it simple. And so here's, when I write a book or when I speak, it doesn't matter. My first objective is to keep it so simple that when I say it, it immediately resonates with people. In fact, any time you have to explain what you said, you didn't say it right the first time.

So, my joke is I put the cookies on the lower shelf so everybody can have some. And so, simple as far as understanding, but deep, because there's a difference. Sure. But deep when it comes to profound results that it will make in your life. It's an absolute factually. So, I mean, one of the principles I teach, it's very simple. I just hold my arm up in the air and I say everything worthwhile is uphill. Everything.

Everything is worth. There's nothing in your life worthwhile. It's not uphill. It's all uphill. Well, everybody gets it. I mean, it's all uphill. You know, and here's the problem. We get uphill hopes, but we have downhill habits.

Okay, we're in trouble. You know, you got a downhill habit. You're not going uphill. Got to change that habit. So everything that I teach, I teach with a real passion to keep it simple, but keep it very practical and make sure that the principle, is life-changing. If you could do those three things, then you really got it going. And when I wrote the book Leaderships, I've been sitting on that book probably for a good 12 years. Have you really?

In fact, a lady on our team named Aaron, who does a lot of content for me, she shared with me. She said, John, you really need to get that book out. And I kind of put it on the shelf and really wasn't too excited about getting out because I thought, I don't know, this may be a little too simple but when I started writing I thought this is going to be life-changing and and now that I'm looking at the book coming out I'm so excited because because here's what happens we start leading in a way that gives us some success and immediately we get into this pattern and what we don't understand is that leadership if leadership is about anything it's about adjusting and being

flexible and if you want to be a manager then nail it get it straight do it same way every time that that's what that's that's management but when it comes to leadership in fact if you go back in the 1980s there were no leadership books in in bookstores they were all management books right because you're trying to manage your company your business and then things begin to change so fast people are saying this management stuff doesn't work because this baby isn't staying the same I turned around and it moved on me and so I've got to get in front of it and so leadership is all about being in front well if

you're in front one of the first things you know is if you're in front, you don't know everything. Yes. So the issue is not knowing everything. The issue is when you know something, adjusting as quickly as you possibly can. Because if we don't adjust quickly, we miss it. Yes. Because it's a timing thing.

Especially today. Oh, well, I was getting ready to speak for a company recently, and their theme was fast forward, and we were doing a pre-call, and they asked me, they said, what's fast forward mean to you? I said, well, fast means faster. As you look in the future, if anybody thinks that the future is going to be a little bit slower, or I love these people say, well, I'm just, honestly God, I'm just waiting for things to slow down. You know what?

I would suggest dying. That's what I, you know, that's probably about the only way it's going to slow down for you. It's so fast is faster, but let me tell you something, forward is shorter. When I started off as a leader, we had 10-year long-range plans, and five-year was a mid-range. A short-range plan when I started off, now I'm talking about in the dark ages now, was a two-year plan. Yeah. Well, a two-year plan now, that's a ridiculous long run. I mean, that's, that kind of makes you suck air.

You say, I think that's a little bit long. Yes. So what I know is fastest, faster, and forward shorter. Very good. So let me tell you something. The only people they're going to win are people that can make leaderships. And adjust quickly. And so I wrote the book.

I talk about 11 leaderships. that I've made in my lifetime. And people ask me all the time, they'll say, John, how have you stayed? I'm 71. How have you stayed on top of your game? And I say, it's very simple. It's not the same game.

Gorgeous. Okay, baseball is called baseball. But it's not the same game. So true. I mean, you don't go to the baseball game the second day and say, oh my gosh. Now, wait a minute. That lead off hitter got a single yesterday.

Oh, he struck out. Oh, my Lord. See, it may be had the same title. Yeah. But it isn't the same game. Yes. And you don't. lead today's game on yesterday's results.

Babe Ruth said one day he said, yesterday's home run won't win today's game. And I'll tell you what, yesterday's thinking won't win today's game either. So I talked about leaderships that you need to make in your life to keep you on the edge and to keep you adjustable and flexible so that you can really, so that you can really lead your people well. Because here's what I know, here's what I know. People don't like change. You're right.

So when the leader is resistant to change, he's going to get into this leadership gravity pool, or she is that's going to go down every time. Because you're not going to have the people behind you saying, come on, let's make some more changes. Let's make some more adjustments. No, no. Remember, they're wanting to hold on to what they have. And your job as a leader is to say there's something better if you'll just, if you'll just let this go, there's something better for you here tomorrow.

And that's what the good leaders do. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So, are you like me? Did you ever want to go to Yale? Do you want to go to an Ivy League school and wonder what it was like? You know, for me, there was a few obstacles. One was IQ. Two was grades. Three was college scores and money. So it kind of eliminated me. So you were almost there. I was almost there. I was this close. But today I'm going to bring you into what I think is, you know, one of the most popular courses at Yale School of Management and the lady who teaches that class. We're going to go in there together today. So if you're interested in that, listen, and if that never interested you, would you like to be more influential, which I think is the most important skill set a human being can

possess is to be able to influence themselves and other human beings? And I have the best person on the planet, and I think to talk about it today. So Zoe Chance, welcome to the show. Ed, thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. and I'm so happy to meet you. I want to ask you a basic, really flat-out question. I am going to go get your book,

but I have a contract with you before I get it. I want you to give me on this show, I already have your book, but I'm talking about as a listener. I want you to give me one or two practical things I could do right now to be a more influential person. You give me those. I'm going to go get your book.

A fair request. And what I will also say is the flavor, a variety, philosophy of influence I'm espousing, is not transactional. And so you don't have to promise me that you'll go and get your book. So good. It's so true in the book, too. But I'm happy to give you my favorite concrete takeaway right now that you can put into action. And this is a tool called the magic question. Yes. The magic question is simply, what would it take? And if it's okay, I'll share a story to help this sink in. I love this part. It's my favorite part of the book.

Oh, awesome. So this story really struck me when Gloria Steinem told it when she was visiting my hometown of New Haven a little while ago. And this is when she was focusing on the topic of sex trafficking. She'd been to a conference. She was an expert. She knew as much about sex trafficking as anybody. And then she goes to this village in a rural part of Zambia near a game preserve. And three young women in that village had been lost to sex traffickers and never heard from again the previous year. So she sits down on a tarp in the middle of a field, circle of women, and instead of telling them what they should do or giving them her expert advice, she asks the magic question. She said, what would it take to make sure that that never happens again that no women from this village will be sex trafficked? And they told her an electric fence. An electric fence? They said, when the corn reaches a certain height, the elephants come and eat it and they trample it. And we have nothing to eat. We have nothing to sell at the market.

We have no money to send our kids to school. And these young women and their families were starving. So Gloria Steinem goes back home. She raises a few thousand dollars, sends it to the people of the village. And the way that she tells it, she comes back a few years later, there's a bumper crop of corn. And since they built the family. no one from that village has been sex trafficked. So magic question.

It's powerful for me. So one of the first things that comes up when you hear that story is when you ask, what would it take? You so often get an answer that you wouldn't have expected. So often it's so much less than you might have been willing to do, so much simpler. So true. So the electric fence, none of us are going to think of that. because we wouldn't have known that it's not just a sex trafficking problem and not even just a poverty problem, but it's a human wildlife conflict problem. Also, the magic question is respectful.

So it feels good on the other side, and people aren't going to have this innate immediate resistance that can happen to you trying to persuade them to do something. And because it's respectful, you can use this again and again all the time. like you're talking about your children and we struggle a lot of us to influence our children. This is something we can teach them and help them succeed in the world. They're going to use it on us like my daughter does. And we can use it on that and we just laugh. Oh, the magic question again. Anytime you have rapport, you can use the magic question.

And then when, this is the most subtle part of how the magic question works. But when they give you a roadmap, they are implicitly. committing to helping you with that outcome if you follow the roadmap. So in this particular situation, when they said what it will take is an electric fence, my interpretation isn't that the electric fence was the answer and then sex trafficking is done. It's that the women who said what it will take as an electric fence are going to make sure that their friends, their neighbors and each other's children are not going to be sex traffic no matter what. So magic question question, what would it take? Go put it into action. The reason that I said is my favorite part of the book,

and I'm not going to get emotional on a show because I want to keep going, but I think there's even power. I think sometimes when you're doing something in your genius, which is what you're doing, writing this book and this content, because you've been doing this work for a while, but sometimes it's even more powerful than even you know, and the ripples are even bigger. Because I've sort of been in the influence space most of my life, at least I think we all are. I've just been aware of it more than most people, right? And so this, What would it take question does a lot of things. I just want to elaborate on my perspective for you.

I want to give this back as a gift to you and the audience. One, when you say to somebody, what would it take? It opens up the possibilities of multiple different yeses and different pathways instead of perhaps the narrow one you came predisposed with. The second thing it does is it almost makes you in the unconscious part of their mind, almost like a Santa Claus figure in the sense that you're in the gift giving business now. What would it take? I'm open to giving to you instead of taking from you. It changes the entire paradigm in somebody's mind when you say, what would it take?

Because now it's incumbent upon them to tell you and you're almost in the gift giving. It's almost like, what's your wish list? It changes the dynamic in someone's mind of the entire conversation, providing you have that emotional connection and rapport that Zoe has said. Now a personal anecdote. I read this and I want to influence myself this year. It sounds like very premeditated, but I want more peace this year. It's a big thing for me. People ask me, what could I get someone who's had everything?

I want more peace. I want what every human being truly wants. And so I've been writing these strategies down and I stopped and I used the magic question with myself, what would it take in order for me to feel more peace? A couple things happened. I just want to illustrate that you just said. One, it was much more simple than I thought it was. And two, it was so enjoyable to start to find out what it would take that I found myself six hours later, six days later, driving in the car. Another answer. Another thought.

my my spirit enjoyed this question rather than making demands all the time to influence myself or to influence other people. So the ripple effects of your work and just this one thing is so profound. If people just start asking themselves and other people, once you have rapport, what would it take? You'd be blown away. So I just want to show it with you. Thank you for that gift. And I'm inspired now to ask myself the same question as well. What would it take for me to feel more happiness. What would it take for me to start a business? What would it take for me? And you've just started, you've opened a space when you do this that didn't exist before you said it with you and other people. Maybe you're in the middle of this trying to get someone to do something thing you're doing,

which is not the way to influence as you read the book. But the minute you say, what would it take? You've opened a new space you can both go into now, or you on your own can go into, or you and your deity, you and your God can go into and start to fill that space up with the answers. And it seems simple, but it's huge for your company. What would it take to get to this next level? What would it take for us to serve more people? What would it take for us to cure this or that? It's a powerful question that should be utilized so much more in people's lives than it is.

But the quality of our life is the quality of the questions we ask ourselves and the quality of the questions we ask other people. And our emotions come from the questions we ask ourselves. We're constantly asking ourselves, what's wrong with this situation? We're going to get answers that feed us those emotions. What's right? what's beautiful? What am I grateful for? What are the solutions? So anyway, I'm going on, but I just think it's so powerful. There's another part of the book that's powerful. Again,

you guys are very passionate. I'm having Zoe on you guys because let's be honest, I have super famous people on all the time. And then you guys can tell. Then I have people on all the time who should be super famous because of the work they do that can change people's lives. Zoe is in the midst of becoming that. I can promise you. It's not the reason she's doing it. Okay, knows. I want to talk about knows. Yeah, wait, one second, Ed. Can I just draw attention to this key principle of influence that you just illustrated with the way that you describe the magic question, becoming more influential takes becoming

influenceable. And when you ask the magic question, it's not just that you're showing you're willing to do something in exchange, but you're showing that you're open to the other person's influence. All right, that's really important, by the way. Thank you for adding that. the thing you're going to have to deal with is no. And so my kids both, you know, my son's in college, my daughter will be there next year. And they're at that stage where they, what am I going to do? You know, what do I want to do? And one of them is, do I want to go into business? Do I want to do

this? And I've told both of them, I said, you know, one of my hesitations for you is I think that in culture now, the ability to deal with no is at an all-time low and how it makes people feel and how afraid of it they are and their avoidance of it or what it does to their identity, their confidence, their self-worth when they get one. And so then they do all of these things to insulate themselves from never getting them. And those very things they do to insulate themselves from not getting those is the very things they should be doing to get to the things they want to have and feel. And so in the book, you have the power of no and the no challenge issue in there.

Can you just talk about that a little bit? Yes. So of course we hate to be rejected. We hate to have people say no. And it may be that we feel it more now than ever, especially in this world where we've been suffering a lot for the past couple of years and just everything is more difficult. But even before that, what happens in our brain when we experience rejection is that our brain processes it just like physical pain. And the same regions of our brain that, hurt or get activated when somebody slaps us, get activated when they leave us out or they say no or they reject us. We can learn to handle physical pain through exercise, practice. When you work out on a regular basis, you're actually pushing yourself through some physical pain, right? And that's how you grow and that's how you get stronger. You don't try to push yourself to the point where you're suffering immeasurably, but you take repeated small amounts of physical pain to keep growing and build resilience. And this is what I advocate doing to get rejected repeatedly on small things so that you can

handle getting rejected on the big things. And if you are not getting rejected, you are absolutely playing small. There's no question. So you can also, by practicing getting rejected, train your brain to hear that and feel that as a success, even if it's still painful. Can you give me an example of that where you could get small nose before the big no? Can you just a practical? I'm trying to think of a visual example of what that might look like. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

So listeners who might want to put this into practice, I have a great source of inspiration for you, which is my friend Jajang, who has a video blog called 100 Days of Rejection. and a student was a big fan of his and put us in touch. Now we're buds and we do some rejection research. He has a hundred of these challenges. You can replicate any of them like my students do. And lots of them are funny things like, you know, you're at Starbucks and you're ordering a drink. And you just ask them, hey, can I make that drink for myself?

Right. And you do it in a charming and friendly way. Usually they say no. Sometimes they say yes. Jha went to a fire station. and asked if he could slide down the fire pole. And now I'm so sorry for the firefighters of New Haven and the local area because so many students have asked them,

can I go and slide down the fire pole? Just tiny things like this. Like, go ask your neighbor. Is it okay if I plan to plant in your front yard? Yes. There are all kinds of creative little things you could do. One of my favorite things a student did was his neighbor was seven years old and he had never met her or her family.

And she was having a birthday party. And they had a bouncy house in the back. And he's like, you know, I'm just going to go get rejected standing in line for the bouncy house. And this guy is big like you. Ed, he's an MMA fighter. And he, so it's like a grizzly bear walking over to stand in line behind the seven-year-old girls.

And the thing is, what surprises people so much, first of all, about the rejection challenge is that it's when you get rejected, it's not as bad as you think, usually. but you so rarely get rejected compared to how often you think that you will. So true. They did let him go in the bouncy house. It didn't break. But this family liked him so much because he put himself out there in his charming and funny way. And he's very charismatic that they invited Jason back to Sophie's birthday party the next year and the next year.

And he's coming back to New Haven even after he graduated to go to her eighth birthday party and her ninth birthday party. That is so awesome. And it's like, you guys, the way, you and I have a real flow because not only is the no challenge so profound, I just look back like, I'm, I read your work and I'm like, you know, I've been so fortunate in my life to have actually done some of these things without ever being directed to do them that you write about in the book. So I'm almost, I guess I'm saying I can validate with a lot of my own experience, your work. And this, I'm, I got a lot of nose. And I kind of got, this weird, addicted space where I almost got off the wrong word about like, yeah, I got another one. And it just started to hurt less and less. And it just in your overall life, if you're not getting rejected in small ways, man, these breakups, these sales you don't close, the business that fails that are massive to you because you haven't had any little ones to sort of just dull your senses to it a little bit. And the other thing that you go ahead. You still feel it. You still feel it. It just doesn't last as long. So it's not even that the magnitude of the pain gets that much less. It just

gets much, much faster. And because you've had practice, you know you can handle it and you can see your way to the other side. So with something like a breakup, this is especially important, right? Yeah. And I think what it changes is it still hurts, but what it means is slightly different. In other words, it's not the events of our lives that define us. It's the meaning we take from it. So there was a point in life where I would get a no, let's say in business, I go, I suck. I'm not called for this. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. This is God's way of telling me I shouldn't do this. That's what the no meant or people don't like me or it's because I'm, you know, whatever. I would touch these massive, unrealistic, silly, nonsensical meanings to events that were so rare. But the more familiar they become, you begin to change the meaning. It doesn't mean you go, this is great. I love, I've never believed we go. I love when I get a no, not all the time. But it means different things to me.

It could mean I'm growing. It could mean I'm closer to a yes. It could mean I'm getting tougher. So it changes the meaning. The other muscle, so to speak, that I kind of built, which I think after reading your work, maybe I've let atrophy a little bit as I've become maybe a little bit more well-known. I've been less willing to do. But I did a lot throughout my life.

As you say, just ask. You want to be a person of influence. Just ask. I cannot tell you, Zoe, how many people, you know, people are trying to get me to invest in their companies and pitch me. And some of the most successful people in the world, look at this whole presentation to me. And then never ask me to invest. They never ask me to do it.

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

Yeah, it's kind of embarrassing to be teaching a class at this Ivy League school where the biggest takeaway that people tell me afterward that they had, I'm getting emails from alums. And they're like, I just ask now in my life. I just ask, make you go. But they find love. They get companies funded. They change policies, change the course of history. Yes.

It's so, so simple. By the way, you mentioned that a lot of these things that you read felt, they resonated like things you're doing already. And I believe that a lot of already successful leaders will feel that same way about this book. And what I've tried to do in this book is make it simple enough that you can not just see yourself and that, but you can teach other people. And you can say to your people like, here's a half chapter.

Take this one. Like, oh, charisma, here go. But about just asking, scary for all of us, most of us have some domain. in which we're less comfortable than others. Like maybe you're killing it in business, but you're scared to ask for a date. Maybe you are comfortable asking people you know to do favors for you, but the idea of asking a stranger for money would be you would just rather die.

Love and money are the two biggest ones. I don't know if, can I just ask you because you said you haven't been doing much of it? like is there some area of your life, Ed, that's harder to ask than? I'm so glad you asked, because I was thinking about so glad you asked that, right? Yes, and it's not major things. It's minor things. I would blow you away with the things I'm afraid to ask. I'll tell you, this will shock you and probably most people.

I'll ask a favor of a friend on a big business deal or it, but if I'm in a restaurant, and this is going to sound nuts, but if I'm in a restaurant and my food is cooked incorrectly, for me to ask the server to go take it back and do it, I would never do that. because I feel like I'm bothering them. For me, there's almost a reciprocity connection sometimes that I feel like needs to be there where I can help you back. Even when I, if I've been waiting in a restaurant or my wife will tell you, like we walk into a restaurant, she's the person who goes up and says,

hi, we're the my lets, we're here for a table. I don't want to ask or bother them. It seems so odd. But one of the things you should guard against is I always think I should only ask somebody's a favor or something I needed them if I can pay them back. And the more sort of maybe influential I've become, the more it's reinforced that false belief. So I'll ask people all the time that I've already helped or that I know I could help.

But if I don't think I can help you, somehow I'm hesitant to ask. And my sense is even as I say that out loud, maybe that's true for a lot of people who walk through their everyday life that way. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, at least for a lot of nice people. And it's funny, like, I'm surprised hearing you say this. But then I'm also thinking, like, you know, there are so many other people like you who are. we're very successful and have these same hesitancies like Wall Street banker who's telling me that he's uncomfortable trying to get a bartender's attention. It is exactly that we're afraid to bother people.

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

to see who can win. And you get to have a free homework and dinner with Zoe. The greatest one is the two students who traded up in 10 trades over four days from a paperclip to a Volkswagen Jeddah. Come on. From a car dealership in New Haven. Oh, my God. And they traded up for a car that they didn't even need and they donated it to an Afghan refugee family who had settled here.

And this is a perfect example of how people are so much more willing to help than we expect. and when we can frame the situation in an appealing way, and especially with a vision, a visionary outcome that's something bigger than ourselves, and or just something fun. They just went around saying, hey, we're playing this game, and it's totally crazy.

We probably can't do it, but we're going to try to trade up from a paperclip to a cart. This is our dream, and we're going to give it away. Do you want to be part of this game and play with us? It's fun. And also these guys, it was happening over Halloween and so they're wearing fuzzy animal onesies and, you know, they look hilarious. People are so much more open to our influence when we approach them in an

open-hearted and human kind of way than saying, here's what I have for you. What will you trade with me as a transaction? What would be they, like other teams that people will do transactional trades where they're trying to find people. Okay, I have a paper clip who has paper that they need to clip. Okay, you have paper. I have a paper clip. What will you trade with me? Okay, you got a stamp. I'll trade you for a marker. And what happens to those people, by the way, is they end up with giant pieces of trash from somebody's basement. And they'll get like a collection of ugly mugs or like a 14-foot ore from a rowboat that got lost. So my favorite part about what you do that's different than everyone else's way they teach influence is this right here, which is that it's not transactional.

I think a lot of times, you know, I've had the blessing of some success as an entrepreneur, and I think people think that that must have means I was a very transactional person. Nothing could be further from the truth. I just want to elaborate on what you said. Like, it's just so good to have someone finally saying the right stuff, the true stuff. And by the way, I've learned a ton in this book. I don't ever want to think, oh, it confirmed everything I do. No, I learned a ton in this book that I did not know.

There are some things in the book. I went, yep, I've done that. Yes, that's true. But there's a bunch I learned. But one of them is I'm not transactional. when you approach somebody in a transactional basis, here's what I've always felt like. They immediately don't even see you as human.

You see you as almost an object because you've objectified them. And now you've lost all of whatever that influence could have been because you're no longer a human being. You're no longer vulnerable. You're no longer somebody I want to help or root for. And now they almost want to win. They almost want to win it by rejecting you, by getting by and giving you the ore instead of the Jetta.

Right. And so the most important thing I think you can be to be, be influential is to be vulnerable, is to ask for help, is to be yourself, is to be human with people, is to be as far away from transactional as that you possibly can get in order to be influential. And almost all other influential courses are, well, if you could have A or B, what would you have? And it becomes very transactional. That has not worked for 30 years in life or business, yet it's still taught all the time by people who I don't think are very influential. That really make a very big difference. So now having said that, there are techniques.

and one of them is the frame. And I promise this in the beginning, we don't have a ton of time that I want to ask you this and one more question. But talk a little about framing things for people because it's just you have to help someone who wants to help themselves or help you and the frame in which the lens,

whatever you want to call it matters. So let's talk about that. Yeah. A frame is the words that you use to influence someone's perspective, including your own. And a frame influences how somebody expects things to play out. It influences their experience and it influences their evaluation.

That's a lot of jargon. So here's a concrete example that this is a cool study by a neuroscientist who was looking at the framing effects of price on wine. And she says, okay, wine drinkers, come to my experiment. And this has to be the worst way to drink wine that anyone could imagine. You're in an fMRI machine with a tiny little tube going into your mouth and giving you little sips of wine. And before each sip of wine, the researchers tell you how much that bottle cost and either

it's cheaper, it's expensive, and then you sip it. So they're not asking you to evaluate it. They're scanning your brain. They're scanning the gustatory pleasure centers of your brain. And it's probably not surprising to wine drinkers that they found a lot more activation from the expensive wines than the cheap wines. However, it's a framing experiment. So all the wines were the same.

But the frame created the expectation that this is going to be a good wine. And then literally people were physiologically experiencing this differently, depending on that expectation. You can see powerful frames all over in the world. And you can think of a frame as a soundbite. But one example would be global warming versus climate change. change versus the climate crisis. These have very different impacts on what we think is happening, how true we think they are, and what we want to do about it or don't do about it.

I love this. I think most humans are predisposed to behave the way they think is appropriate. So if you're telling me something we're talking, you're going to love this. I'm more inclined to think I'm going to love this and then I'm going to like it. And so people do behave based on the frame they're in. You take the same human being everybody. And at six o'clock in the afternoon in the evening, they're at a funeral. And there's a certain context and frame to that environment of how you should or shouldn't behave emotionally. They leave there. And at 8.30, there with an NFL football game jumping up and down streaming. Same exact human being different frame because the environment is different.

And you create that frame with your words, with your lead in. It's a really important part of the book. Because you do have an obligation as somebody who wants to be influential to not be transactional, but to be vulnerable, transparent, and honest with people. But at the same time, be good at it. Same time, be good at it. That's the whole point is that you can't be a sloppy person. It's some of the skills that are requisite.

That's why certain parents are better at communicating with their children than other ones. There's a skill to it. There's a presence to it. And that's why you're going to want the book. That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Milet show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest.

All right. Back to the show, everybody. I'm excited because a really good friend of mine's here today. And he's the sexiest man in the world and the most charismatic man that I've ever met in my life. He's also, though, probably the number one real estate brand on the planet right now. And so you would probably know him from his company, The Agency. You may also know him from the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. He and his wife, Kyle Richards, are sort of the OGs of that show right now.

He's also got a new show out on Netflix right now. What's the name of that show? called Buying Beverly Hills. Buying Beverly Hills. And so if you have ever watched that show, you recognize that beautiful voice of my friend Mauricio Yamanski. Welcome, Mo. Ed, how are you?

It's so good to be here with you. We've been talking about this for a long, long time. I know. I think the timing's better now because the book's out, right? And that's sort of the intro. He has a new book out called The Deal Maker, How to Succeed in Business and Life through dedication, determination, and disruption. He's highly qualified to write this book.

So let's talk a little bit about all the stuff in the day. there okay because it's like very detailed book brother there's a lot of details there's a lot of stories you know one of the things i wanted to do is i wanted to kind of teach what i've learned but through storytelling right because i feel like a lot of the books that you read it's like it's very you know like do this do that like i didn't want to tell people what to do i wanted them to think about my stories what i did and then how does that relate to that person and then how can they learn right i mean i've learned so much from you ed that it's like you know well i've learned a lot from you too and one of the things here's why I like that you finally wrote a book because I've been

telling them to do this for a while it's like write the book man write the book it's because a lot of people that write books and I don't mean this disrespect to anybody they haven't actually done what they say they do in their books like you actually have produced evidence and success through the stuff that's actually in the book and some of it's like you're right there's all stories in it a couple I can't wait to talk about today but like there's even like some basic principles but like even for me I've read every dang book on personal development or business probably on the planet but like even in the very beginning of the book I think it's your good grandfather told you about like, it was your grandfather or your dad where you're like, hey, there's

eight, there's 24 hours in a day. Yeah. Yeah. There's like eight hours. I'll let you say it, but there's eight, eight, eight and eight. What are the eights? 24 hours in a day. Yeah.

Eight hours for work, eight hours for family, free time, whatever that means, and eight hours for sleeping. Yeah. But you do that really well. Well, and I've learned it young from my grandfather, right? It's all about balance, you know, and I said, I talk about it in my book, and one of the things that, you know, you take from one, you take from one, Like, you've got to sleep, right? Like the body just needs to sleep, right? Maybe it's seven or eight or nine or whatever,

but the body needs to sleep, right? You can't take that away from yourself in order to have sustainability, long life, longevity, and to be able to be, you know, on it, right? Right. But, and then you got to, you know, fortunately or unfortunately, for some of us, unfortunately, we have to work. Right. I mean, like, that's just part of our lives, right?

So then it's those eight hours of play that you got to figure out how to balance the most, right? And if you're borrowing from those hours to work, you know, then something's got to give in those eight hours for play, right? And then you've got to decide what's the most important thing for you, right? Is it your family? Is it playtime? Is it friends? Right? Because you can't do it all if those hours become shorter, right? And one of the things that I've talked to some of my best friends and one of the sacrifices I've had in my life, you know, and growing the business and having to work because I didn't have money, you know, any money at one point in my life was that I sacrificed friends, right?

Like I had the family, I did not sacrifice family, I did not sacrifice my wife, my kids, my girls. I did not sacrifice that. I sacrificed friends. And, you know, you look back in time and it's like, I feel bad about it. But, you know, I wouldn't change it. It was the right decision, even though I feel bad about it.

I don't think most people realize that probably something does give. By the way, same for me. The exact same thing. I just said this today to somebody earlier in the day. Like, that's probably the thing the last decade. I've maintained friendships, but they haven't gone as deep as they probably otherwise could have. I've actually, though, watched you in different seasons, too. Like, I feel like right now maybe you're on the work part a little heavier than even before when I knew you.

Is there some validity? You've got the two TV shows. You've got the book coming out. You've got your company's exploded the last decade. We've built this explosive brand and company. You're pretty heavy on the work part right now. I am very heavy on the work part right now. Why? Do you have to consciously choose that?

Or is it like the season of your life? Like, I'm going to get it when it's good because I'm at a certain age. It's the season of my life, right? Like the business right now is in that moment of explosion, right? And you've got to, I always say, you know, when it rains, catch as much water as you can because there's going to be a drought, right? And so right now that the business is just, it's an, it's an opportunity where there's an opportunity to explode. The brand recognition is, you know, crazy.

Kyle is doing a, you know, she's at her peak in her career. You know, so that's allowed us also to give, you know, the family more, right? Like, because of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and because of Alex Baskin and all of those people, like, we have a show, you know, called buying Beverly Hills, right? Like, if we didn't have the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, I mean, I probably wouldn't have buying Beverly Hills. You know, I don't know. Maybe yes, maybe not, right? But it's all of those things that lead to circumstance. And when that door opens, and you talk about this all the time, right?

Like, when that door opens, do you walk into that door and take advantage of that door? Or do you stay looking, you know, at the room and try to figure out, you know, if you should go walk in that room? I think a lot of people don't walk in the room because they think they have to know everything before they walk in there. Don't you? I think that's one of the biggest mistakes people make is that procrastination. What's inside that room? What does it look like? By the time you figure it out, it's closed.

Man, that's really true. The window or the door closes if you flinch, right? Like, you've got to be willing to step into the end. unknown a little bit. I said this about you when I introed you, I wasn't being funny. You are the most charismatic friend that I have and you and I have a lot of really well-known, very influential friends, famous friends, but

of all of them, if you said to the word to me charisma, persuasion, whatever that thing is, I'm serious, Mo, you are the most charismatic friend. We've both got a lot of them. I love you for that man. It's coming from you, that means the world, thank you. It's really true though. And I wonder, in the book, you actually, you don't use the word charisma,

but you kind of break it down by influence. I I think a lot of this you kind of have, right? You got, but you talk about in the book, you like, everyone's a VIP, right? Listen, there's these things that I don't care if we're to social function or we've been at a golf tournament together. We're down in Mexico together. We've been at a business meeting, one of your business events. You have this amazing ability.

I don't know if it's that the person in front of you is like the most important person in the world at that time, but what is this charisma thing you do so well? It's innate, you know, I think, and I think, you know, and I think, you know, and I talk about it in my book, I think that the fact that I was born with a terminal blood disease that I survived, the fact that I was the oldest, like the circumstances that make us as people, right? Like, you get things that, good and bad, right? And then we have the power of the mind to change that or to accept it and make ourselves better, right? But because I was born with all those things, and because I was the first child and the first grandchild, I had a lot

to love. And one of the things that my parents did really well is they gave, they made me feel so good and so confident and just about everything I did, um, that I was born with an innate confidence in myself. Interesting. And then it was taking that confidence and, you know, when you have confidence, you have charisma. I mean, not always. Yeah, but if you have confidence, you have charisma. Yeah. Right. Are you ever intimidated when you're in a room? I mean, just so you guys know, this guy sold the first 100 million dollar house ever, Michael Jackson's house, Michael Jordan's house. If you know somebody probably pretty famous, Moes probably had something to do with a real estate deal with the bruce.

Do you ever? Because I think a lot of people are like, I've got to walk into this board meeting. I'm intimidated. I've got a sales call with this client. I'm intimidated. Even your agents that work for you. I'm sure there's, have you ever had that? Or is it that confidence that, is it, I know who I am?

I'm loved. I believe in myself. No, it's, I'm definitely been intimidated and I've been intimidated walking into meetings. and I've had fear making a call when I have to deliver bad news and everything that everybody feels I've had and I, you know, I'm not resilient to that. There's no innateness in that.

But, you know, you've taught me and a lot about that and it's all about the power of the mind, right? You can change that, right? And so I can tell you that, you know, my morning routine, when I'm getting ready to do something, you know, whatever it is that I'm going to do, like today, I'm going to be on your show. Like that's such an exciting and amazing thing for me.

I could not be more excited. I woke up this morning. I had a lot to do this morning. I woke up a little extra this morning. I skipped my workout, and I did my meditation, right? Because I didn't have enough time, right? But I'm like, okay, what am I going to do? What am I going to accomplish today with you on the show, right?

And so you can work through your mind, right, to make sure that when you're in a situation, you deliver, right? And so, I mean, I had a story right time when I was showing a property of the mirror of Qatar, right? And the Amir of Qatar arrived, and I had no idea. I really didn't know who was arriving. I mean, I kind of knew it was a big deal, but Ed, eight police motorcycles, you know, six police cars, seven SOU black SUVs. Really? And boom, you know, like the Amir of Qataris, they're looking at the house, right?

And I was like, okay. And the security, the security service would not let me near him, right? And these guys were all, you know, six, six. Giants. Yeah. Like, I mean, there wasn't one small guy there, right? So I'm sitting there in the room and I'm, I'm trying to, you know, show the emir, you know, the house.

And, but the guys wouldn't like let me be, you know, near him. So I felt like I was talking through walls, right? Like, you know, jumping up and down, you know, trying to get, you know. It's hard to make a connection that way. To the connection, right? So finally, after like two rooms that I'm showing the house, I say to the emir, I go, sir, I go, you know, are you enjoying the house? Would you like me to show you the house?

I mean, you know, or, or not. He goes, yeah, so far I like it, you know, a lot. I go, okay, would you mind asking your secret service, you know, to give me some space so that I can actually, like, show you and sell you the house? And he loved that, right? He did. He did. And so it's that confidence that allows you to break that barrier.

Interesting. Right? Interesting. Do you, I am picturing you doing that. And like, just so you know, he's perfectly suited to do this, you guys, just absolutely perfectly suited. Is there a, I'm going to go with all kind of stuff in the book. There's this, because I want to talk about a couple of stories.

too, but is there something that you do better than anyone at terms of like that process of closing and persuading? When you're showing a home, for example, are you trying to project them, you say something in the book about creating an emotional moment.

This is like brilliant, brother away. Are you conscious of that? Like, is that? Because you put it in the book, right? Yeah. What do you mean when you say that? Yeah, I'm definitely conscious of that. And I think, you know, in terms of like, what do I do better than most? You know, I don't know if I do anything better than everyone. I think, I mean, like, you know, I think people are geniuses and there's amazing people that do extraordinary things.

But one of the things that I do best is what I call reading the room. You have it in the book, yeah. Explain that. And, you know, what that means is really just understanding your audience, right? And when you're understanding your audience and you can understand their emotions and you could look at them and you can actually read, you know, what's going through their brain, then that gives you the opportunity to create an emotional moment, right? And so when you create an emotional moment, that's what you're really.

And that's when you can make a sale, right? Like, that's when you can, you know, get somebody. But, again, that doesn't happen by accident. It has to happen by, you have to make it happen, right? So, you know, one of the things that I do before I show a property or I'm going to have a meeting is I go on somebody's LinkedIn. I go on their bio. I understand who are my audiences, right?

Are they philanthropists? Are they male chauvinist? I mean, like, what is this human being that's in front of me, right? Like, do they have kids? Do they have dogs? Do they have horses? Do they like golf? what's going on with these people before I have that meeting.

Now I've got background, right? Now I'm in the room. I am not automatically showing off that I have background on them. I'm not giving them the fact to them to know that I have background on them. I'm just, you know, now talking to you, right? I'm showing you the house. I'm talking to you. I'm getting to know you, right?

But the leading questions that I'm asking you are so prepared because I already know a little bit about you. Right. If I know you like horses, right? I'm not asking you, you know, if you like giraffe. My questions start becoming around equestrian to get you to open up about, you know, something you already know about them. Something I already know you love, right? Now I break the barrier, right? I start eventually breaking down that barrier and creating a moment between you and I, right?

And that's what I call those emotional moments. It can be physical, right, which is just setting up, you know, the senses, you know, the house, the smell, the beautiful flowers, you know, whatever the physical. is, you know, those senses, or it could be the emotional moment, right, and get to somebody, you know, in that way. And that's when it can become really powerful. Mo, that's so good. I'm sitting there thinking, man, that's really, really good in every single industry because we said about confidence earlier. Confidence comes from preparation. And so maybe if someone's listening to go, I don't have that natural confidence that I wasn't raised like Moe was raised. That preparation really can give you confidence for whatever the meeting is you're about

to go into. I want to unpack that. The other thing, too, is that, most people don't do the preparation so they don't have that. And then they reverse. I just thought about something because I've watched people do this, even that have sold me things. They've done the preparation, and then they feel this need to let me know they've done it, and then it loses the connection.

100%. I've done my background on you, sir, and I'm like, they think that impresses you, but then it robs us of the emotional moment because you can't ask these questions, because now I think you're kind of reading off cue cards almost. Really good. Yeah.

You do not need to let your client or the person you're trying to. It is one of the beautiful things that I wrote, you know, I'm in real estate. Right. And so I talk about houses and real estate stories and residential and some of the most expensive real estate in the world, right? But that's given me the opportunity to meet some of the most influential people in the world. But it's not only about, it's not about real estate. It's about life. And it's about professions and it's about, and, you know, it doesn't matter of you in the service industry.

You know, I say that all the time. I mean, you know, for somebody like you and I, how easy would it be for a hotel? to just, you know, find out what your favorite tequila is, right? Or if you like tequila or if you like vodka, like that'd be pretty easy. It's not that hard to figure that out today, right? Even if they send a questionnaire, right? Even if they're not using extra stuff. But how much better would your experience be if you arrived at a hotel and they handed you

your favorite drink, right? They handed you, you know, they had the right smell, you know, whatever it is in your room that you were paying a fortune for it. that hotel or even, you know, not a fortune, you know, a moderate hotel. It's not that hard to give you a little bit of an extra experience, but nobody doesn't. It doesn't exist. And it really wouldn't be very difficult. See, now you're getting in the minds and the strategies of the elite of the elite at what they do,

because you're a billion percent right. You just made me flash to the three or four experiences recently I've had where they did do that. And it's, I'm going back there. I'm patronizing that business again. I'm going to be a repeat customer. And I've told people about it, so I've shared the business. I've done their marketing for them when you do these little things. This is the nuanced stuff.

The other thing, though, is you've got to have some guts. I knew this story about when you worked for the Hilton's, which is in Kyle's family and your family. But you tell this amazing story in the book. I think there's a lot of people sitting there right now, brother, that are like, I have this dream. I want to pursue it. But I'm afraid to leave where I am. There's a lot of risk. There's fear.

I also don't want to let down someone who's been pretty good to me or whatever. They have all these things they do. And so I knew the nature of your story of how the agency got started, but most people don't. And it really, it's a lesson on what to do and what not to do, a lesson to do on your side, and maybe when you're leading somebody, what not to do. And I've told you before we got asked, I'm kind of surprised you put this in the book Because it's a, this is a book of stuff. Man, this book is legit.

And so take them through your, we're going to start in real estate, even though there was business before this. Tell them who you worked for, why it matters who it was, and then what ended up happening that finally helped you give birth to this dream that now everybody knows you from. Yeah, well, you know, one of the important things that I always talk about and kind of where the original concept of my book comes from is that when doors close, you have the ability to create another open one, right? And so it's like, boom, something closes on you.

You know, I got fired from a job. Like, boom, I got into real estate, right? Like, instead of going and, you know, going into a hole and not coming out, it's like I use that getting fired from one industry, from the fashion and going into real estate. Right. So cut to, you know, I'm in real estate now. I got my real estate license. I'm working for, I get a job working for my brother-in-law for Rick Hilton at Hilton and Highland,

one of the best firms in the world. and I still think, you know, from a luxury perspective, it's, you know, it was one of the best firms in the world. It's broken up recently. And so, unfortunately, it's just not there. But I can tell you that during the history, hard to beat that. Okay. Okay. And, you know, they gave me an opportunity.

They opened a door. They gave me an opportunity to work. I nailed it. I kicked some ass. I, you know, ultimately became their number one salesperson. I ultimately became, I was responsible at one point for 20% of their business. They had 100 agents. They did a billion dollars that year and I, you know, personally did, you know,

$200 million, you know, 193 of it, right? Like 19.3% of their business. And I went to Rick, you're right? And who was my brother-in-law. And I basically, and, you know, again, I want to make sure that everybody's super clear. This is a story of just life. And it's not, I am not raggy on him. they gave me amazing opportunities and they gave me stuff to do.

It's just, and the reason I chose to tell the story is just because it's just real and it's true. And if it didn't happen like this, I just wouldn't have opened the agency. I wouldn't be where I am today. And in a way, I'm thankful it happened like this. So this is not a negative thing. I'm not dissing, okay? I want to be super clear.

Like, it's just the way life works that allows you to make certain decisions that I probably wouldn't have made had it not gone down this way, right? Right. So I'm 20% of their business and I say to Rick, I say, Rick, I really want to, I want to help you grow, right? And at that time, you know, Paris was the hottest star on the planet. Paris Hilton. Paris Hilton, right? Hottest star on the planet, right? Who's your niece? Who's my niece? And so I said to Rick, I said, Rick, you got to take advantage right now of your name. I go, let's dump the Highland name. Jeff Hyland will still be your partner. I'm not saying, don't dump Jeff. He's your partner. Like, dump the Highland name. Make it Hilton Real Estate. Let me help you grow it. And let's go franchise Hilton real estate all around the world. And let me help you grow up, which is in essence the playbook for the agency. I know.

Right? And I go, let's go do that. He goes, well, you know, I don't really want to do that. You know, we're a boutique firm. We're a luxury firm. I never want to be bigger than that. Which, by the way, kudos. Amazing for him.

Love that. And that's why I think it's one of the best, was one of the best brands because they stuck to who they were. Sure. Okay. So amazing brand. They stick to where they are. He go, I said, okay, I get that, but I really want to help you grow. And I want to, like, you know, like you're in New York. You're not working that hard. Like, let me be your partner, right? And let me be your boots on the ground. I'm 20% of your business. And so he said, yes, no problem. I'll let you do that. But I don't want you to get, you know, into our books. And I don't want you to like, you know, get into that whole world. So, you know, rather than making you an equity partner, I'm just going to give you

a percentage of gross sales. Yeah, gross. Right? And so he offers me a percentage of gross sales, and I accept, and probably less than I would have wanted to, but I accepted because I just wanted at that point the recognition, right? Like, it was more about, like, I'm busting my ass. I really just want the recognition.

I'm 20% of your company. You know, and you're not that present. Right. It's the reality, right? So he says fine. No problem. I say fine. No problem.

I accept the deal. Put a little term sheet together. We do a deal term sheet. We go forward, you know, families. We don't go into heavy, you know, legal, just a term sheet, right? Boom. We go forward. Well, the next year, you know, 18 months later, the next year, recession.

2008 crash, recession. In the meantime, I had the best year of my life. I kept growing because I took advantage of the recession and I took advantage of, you know, double downing. And, you know, being a contrarian, I kept growing. I had an extraordinary year. And I get a phone call from Rick, and he says, hey, you know, it's a recession. We're not making any money.

We actually lost money. It's really unfair if I'm paying you money. And, you know, and I'm not earning any money, right? And I's a great time for me. I said, you know, I said to him, well, Rick, you know, no problem. I totally get it. I go, take what you owe me and make me a partner in the ups and the downs. Give me an equity partner.

Give me the equity partner. I'm in. Like, when we lose, we lose together. When we win, we win together. Like, that's what I want. Right, right? And so the answer was no, right? And, you know, rather than fighting it and rather than going after, you know, him, you know, because the family is more important than business, okay? And my wife's family, her sister, her niece has mean everything to her.

And I did not want to get in the way of that. So I just let it be. I lost You know One of the lessons that we learned When we're really young in life Is that life's not always fair Right

You go into your parents You know you were right Your parents didn't see the whole thing And they just tell you dude You're in trouble Go to your f***um And you know what Life's not fair

Right You're in your room Right So you got sent to your room So I got sent to my room Life's not fair I accept it It's not fair

But I'm not gonna fight it I'm not gonna fight for fair I'm gonna just accept it Right But what did that do? is that got me thinking, right? And I was an entrepreneur, and I wanted to do my own thing,

and I wanted to put this business plan that I put in front of Rick, and I wanted to do it myself. And thus, you know, the beginning and the birth of the agency, right? And that's, in essence, what, you know, the agency is. You all hearing this? I want to keep going, but so a couple things.

One, he got sent to his room, and what he did is, he looked out the window and said, hey, maybe I could go build my own mansion, my own business. That's lesson number one. Lesson number two for me is you know, that when you do have a rainmaker in your organization, when you do have somebody really making it go for you, make sure you take care of them, even in the good and the bad times, because ultimately if you don't, they can leave you. The third thing that's most important for all of you is the agency, which is, to me, the biggest real estate brand on the planet right now, the fastest growing agency in the world, was born in a recession.

And so a lot of you that are out there going, this is the worst time to start a business or it's a difficult time. Everyone always says, well, so many great businesses were built during a recession. I'm sitting in front of a man who's built an iconic brand, hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of real estate sold, that started during a recession, correct? That is 100% correct. Yeah, that's pretty powerful. Anything on that you would add to the story or want to be full circle.

Yeah, no, I think you've nailed it. And, you know, again, the idea of building a business, and it's not only about building a business, it's about building yourself, right? So, for example, if you're in real estate and you're, a salesperson, you're running your own business. You don't need to own a brokerage firm to build and create your own amazing business, right? And, you know, there's an opportunity to go get more listings and an opportunity to go get all this. All of that can happen during a recession, right? Because people, when everything is amazing, people don't want to change. Everything's amazing.

When things are bad, you're open to change. You're right. Right? Why can't I sell this? Why can't I buy this? Why can't I, you know, I'm open to change. I'm willing to try new stuff. So, The time to build is actually, it's doing the, that's not necessarily the time you're going to make money. Right? You're not going to necessarily make money in the recession. You're going to build and gain market share in a recession. Wow. When you come out of the recession is when you're going to bring in all the money.

Wow. That's one of my favorite things ever said on the show right there. No one has ever said that to me before. And that's a billion trillion percent exactly what happens. You're gaining market share and then you collect the checks when the recession ends. Man, that's really good. You know.