The School of Greatness - 179 Leverage Your Strengths to Fascinate Your Audience with Sally Hogshead

Episode Date: May 20, 2015

"Different is better than better." - Sally Hogshead If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at lewishowes.com/179.

This is episode number 179 with New York Times bestselling author, Sally Hogshead. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome everyone to today's podcast.

Thank you so much for joining me today. We've got a big guest on today and a good friend of mine. Today's guest is none other than Sally Hogshead, who is a wonderful woman and an incredible human being. Every time I get to connect with her or hear her speak, I always feel smarter from what I learned from her, but I also always feel just a deeper connection with humanity because of the way she shows up and her energy and her positivity. It's amazing how she does it all with the family, with the kids, with the business. She's literally living superwoman. So for those that don't know who Sally is, she has worked in advertising for over 20 years and won hundreds of awards

for creativity, copywriting, and branding. Her internationally acclaimed book, Fascinate, Your Seven Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation, has been translated in over 12 languages. Her newest book, How the World Sees You, is already a New York Times bestseller. She's spoken at TED. She's a regular on the Today Show and works with dozens of Fortune 500 companies. And in this episode, we're talking all about how entrepreneurs can use their personality strengths to their advantage. And once you learn about what your personality strengths are, then you can really maximize them and leverage it in every situation by using your strengths. So without further ado, let's go ahead and dive into this episode with the one, the only, Sally Hogshead.

Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. Very excited about today's guest. Her name is Sally Hogshead. Sally, how's it going? Hey, I'm so happy to be here with you, Lewis. I'm very excited. And we met, I think we met like three or four years ago. Originally, I don't know if you remember this, through Jeffrey Gittimer's, one of his events. Do you remember that? Do I remember it? I remember it so vividly.

And I remember what a powerful speaker you were at that time. And you had something called products, which I had no idea what that was. You've been such a role model for me. And I love meeting you there at that Jeffrey Gittimer event. I've loved being able that was. You've been such a role model for me. And I love meeting you there at that Jeffrey Gettemar event. I've loved being able to watch what you've done since then. So I'm thrilled to be able to be talking with you again today. Yeah, I'm very excited. And it's been amazing to watch. I didn't know about you until I met you that day.

And then I was kind of like still new in the space, I guess, in the industry. And then it's been amazing to see how far you've come. I mean, you were already at a huge level then, but you've taken it to a whole nother level today. So it's been a lot of fun. And we got a lot more to talk about, specifically with your book and with your movement. But your book is called How the World Sees You. And it's all about discovering your highest value through the science of fascination. And I'm excited to talk about this topic. But before we go into it, I've got some fun facts that I was researching about you. I want to get and make sure these

are true facts before we go. So I'm going to ask you the questions. You just let me know if they're true or false. Okay. You were 27 when you opened your first ad agency. True. Okay. That's true. You're in the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame. That was in 2012, right? Yes. True. Okay.

You have eight children. Yes. True. Wow. That is fascinating. That's for sure. And you want to hear it? I'll take it even one level more right now.

Ian, you want to hear it? I'll take it even one level more right now. Azalea, Quinton, Isabel, Carly, Lura, Gunnar, Max, and Ian. And they range from 11 to 25, and we have five in college this year. What? Five kids in college, yes. Hopefully they're all in state schools and not private schools. They're all over the place, and they're're amazing and they're such an incredible inspiration. Wow.

Eight children. That is insane. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Okay. You also have a sister who is an Olympic gold medal winner. Yep. Nancy Hoggs had three gold medals in swimming.

That's crazy. Is she older or younger? She's seven years older. And when I was seven years old, she had two world records. So that was my first taste of knowing what it's like to be an underdog in a competitive marketplace, as many entrepreneurs know. Yes. Yeah. I mean, what was it like growing up with trying to get the attention in your family when your older sister had all the

attention from the world? I learned at an early age that it's important to understand what makes you different. So I very consciously did not go into swimming in the same way that if you're a business owner and there's a market leader who's out there who already has a huge advertising budget or who already has an enormous client base, don't copy them. You want to be different. Different is better than better. And so when I was growing up, my sister was this amazing world-class champion swimmer and my brother graduated from Harvard. So I remember at an early age having this little conversation with myself and my little seven-year-old brain thinking, okay, well, I can't do academics and I can't do athletics. So what should I do?

So I did what you do and you're not good at athletics or academics and I went into marketing. And that's how I learned how to help people become different no matter how competitive the marketplace is. no matter how competitive the marketplace is. Is that what you think what made you inspired to create this fascination movement? Is it because you were so obsessed with learning about it at an early age? Or why did you decide to do this book and this movement? I saw it at a really early age that when you can identify who you are at your best, you can do more of it.

In other words, you don't have to change who you are. You have to become more of who you are. And when you become more of who you are, it becomes really easy for you to feel confident and empowered and inspired and to grow yourself personally and also to grow your business and your career. I saw that if I could find the perfect words to describe a brand, that the brand would become more powerful, more valuable, more loved. It would attract advocates and it could grow really quickly. So I became fascinated by what are those perfect words that you can use to describe a company or a person. And I found that if the brand has those perfect words, it can build all of its marketing and all of its positioning around just a few simple words like a roadmap. And about five years ago, I began researching that I could do the same with individuals. That if you give somebody the words to use as a building block for their positioning, for their marketing, for understanding what they're naturally great at, then it becomes really easy for them to grow on that. Almost like imagine if I handed you words to use in your LinkedIn profile or your bio

or your introduction at a major pitch meeting. It becomes so easy for you to customize that. So now we've had 600,000 people use our communication assessment to understand what their perfect words are. And it's just, it gives me so much joy to just identify, help people understand what they're already doing right. That's powerful because there's so many entrepreneurs that are listening or individuals changing careers or just trying to do something on the side that don't know how to position themselves, don't know what their own unique personal branding

will look like online, or they try something but it's just not really connecting with their audience or an audience. And I feel like once they really tap into these powerful words, what fascinates people about them, things like that, the things that you talk about in the book, they're actually able to get clear on their own message and their vision in the world. And we actually have a code we're going to give you guys here at the end about how you can get access to this. We'll talk about that a little later, how you can learn what your own – how the world sees you. But I'm curious, before we go into anything else, how does the world see you personally? How the world sees me is that I use passion and innovation. That means that I like

to connect with people emotionally. I like to be able to build relationships. I like to be energetic. I like to be able to think out of the box. And when I can do that, when I can show up that way, in other words, when I can create opportunities for me to communicate in a way that is out of the box, social and energizing, it's very easy for me to be at my best. And I feel confident and in the flow and focused. I don't feel insecure and I'm not second guessing myself. In our research, we found that when people feel confident, their voice literally sounds different. Here's an interesting fact. When you feel confident, your voice literally sounds different. Here's an interesting fact. When you

feel confident, your mouth produces more saliva and your listener unconsciously hears this as they have more confidence in you because you're putting them at ease. And so when you're communicating vocally, visually, the words you choose, when you're in the flow, your listener gets in the flow and they become fascinated. They're focused on you. They're not thinking about their next meeting, the messages buzzing in on their iPhone. They're focused just on you and there develops this rapid rapport. When you know how the world sees you at your best, it's very easy for you to deliver that over and over again so that you can find those opportunities that are going to allow you to show up in the best possible way and fascinate your listener or your client or your customer or your audience.

Now, I'm curious. Is how the world sees you always different than the way we see ourselves? That's an interesting question. The traditional personality assessment like Myers-Briggs or StrengthsFinder or DISC, all these assessments are based on psychology and how you see the world. In other words, they're measuring how you see the world through your eyes looking out at other people. But because my background was in marketing, I found a way that I could create a self-assessment that measures how other people see you and what adjectives they would use to describe you when you're communicating at your best. A lot of times, the way we see ourselves is very similar to how other people see us. It's not a surprise for me to hear that I'm energetic and

excited and highly engaged. But what I didn't realize was that when I was trying to force fit myself into a different communication style by being, for example, let's use adjectives like highly detailed or meticulous or structured, decisive or organized, I could do that, but it was exhausting for me. And there was a huge cost to my company because I was attracting clients that simply were not the right fit for what our company does and the business that I want to grow. So when you understand how people see you at your best, you don't have to try to be all things to all people. Instead, you can focus on those, on those areas that are going to be rich and ripe with growth opportunity for you and for your business. Yeah. So, so what does it mean to fascinate in your mind?

Fascination is an intense focus. It's a psychological state that people get in when they are completely absorbed in a person or a message or a concept that, you know, this feeling Lewis, this is like, you know, when you're. Do you have a favorite TV show? I don't really watch too much TV. I like sports. I only think of show. I like Glee was one of my favorite shows, actually. Believe it or not, I love Glee. I love that you just admitted that. The professional football player, almost Olympian-turned-Glee lover. They're almost Olympian turned glee lover. I'll tell you what.

If I – I guess it's not a secret anymore. But I would love to be a musician because I grew up in a family of musicians and singers. And I'm basically the only one who can't play an instrument at a world-class level. So for me, it's always like a dream to be able to be on stage and sing. Yeah, you can watch glee like nobody's listening. I I watch all of them, all at once. It's amazing. When you're watching sports or you're watching Glee, you know that feeling of complete absorption that your full intellectual and emotional focus is on the show. You lose track of time. You're not thinking about what's going on in your inbox. You're not thinking about what you're going to do next. It's almost like you're in a state of

meditation. And when you look at the brain, when it's in this state of fascination, in an MRI, what I learned through my research with neurologists and radiologists, the brain opens up and it becomes in a full state of acceptance. It's almost like falling in love. You know that feeling when you're infatuated, when you're completely consumed by a person or maybe even a song or a food or an experience, and you're not saying no, you're saying to yourself, yes, how do I get more of this? That's what fascination feels like. So as leaders, if we can create ways to fascinate our employees, they become far more engaged,

they're more productive, they're more loyal, they're more motivated and excited and happy to come into work. And if we can fascinate our clients, my research has found that those clients or customers will pay up to four times more for the same product or service. So if you're selling something that could be confused with your competitor, maybe you're a financial advisor or you're a solopreneur selling a product, and you're not sure how to stand out in a competitive marketplace. The number one way for you to outdo your competition without outspending them is to find ways to fascinate your customer or client base, your audience, so that they're emotionally engaged with you in the same way that you feel when you're watching Glee. Nice. watching Glee. Nice. So going along with this, you know, there are a lot of people on here who are launching products or courses or physical goods, online goods, they've got services, and they want to name these things and package them in a certain way. So going along with what

you're talking about, what should they be thinking about when coming up with the packaging, the naming of their product or service? Is there kind of like a guideline from your background of how to fascinate where you're not being too fancy and tricky with your ideas, but also getting your message across where it's landing with the most amount of people in a unique way? What a great question. I learned from my decade as a copywriter working with brands like Nike and Target and Mini Cooper, I learned that a brand has a choice. Any brand, whether you're an individual, you're launching a product or you have a hundred million dollar annual advertising budget, you have a choice.

You can either have the biggest budget or you can be the most fascinating. So if you have a bigger budget than your competitors, which let's be honest, most of us don't, if you have a bigger budget than your competitors, which let's be honest, most of us don't, if you have a bigger budget, then you don't have to be fascinating. You don't have to instantly engage with an emotional response because you can afford to simply put out advertising messages that bam, bam, bam, pound the message in. And this is what a lot of big corporations do. But if you don't have that huge advertising budget, then you need to be the most fascinating. When I was really digging into my speaking career and trying to figure out a way to position myself so I could have ultra premium

fees, I was only able to charge about $3,000 per keynote. And so I took a step back and I did, I looked at myself almost like I was one of those brands that I used to do the copywriting for. And I realized that there were four different types of speakers who were my biggest competition. And then if I could out position them, that I could be more successful. And those four types of speakers were this. Number one, they were more famous. Number two, they were more specialized. In other words, they had some kind of very, very specific research that would speak to a very, very specific type of audience. Number three, the speaker that was cheaper than me. And number four, the speaker who was kind of the pet, like the meeting planner's friend.

So to review those again, the speaker who is more famous, more specialized, cheaper, or the pet, meaning they already had some kind of a personal in. And so I stopped. So how do you beat them out? Yeah. How do you beat them out? I mean, this is all of us need to be asking ourselves the same question. So I found that if I could fascinate my prospects, meaning the decision maker in those first nine seconds that I had a huge competitive advantage. The average attention span today is only about nine seconds, which means if you can fascinate your prospect in those first nine seconds, you have a tremendous competitive advantage because they're going to focus on you. They're going to give you the gift of their full attention span for nine seconds, and then they're

going to go on to the next thing. So if you can find a way to launch a product in a way that stands out in such a captivating way that doesn't try to outdo your competition at what your competition is already doing well, and instead positions you as being completely unique in a crowded marketplace, then you have a far greater chance of being able to charge a premium price. And so within two years, my speaking fee went from $3,000 per keynote to $35,000 a keynote. I didn't really change the content and I wasn't, it wasn't like I had a makeover. I was, I, it was still me and I was still speaking on the same topic, but because I was able to harness those first nine seconds, I created an instant emotional connection that allowed me to then fill up my speaking calendar in about two weeks. Amazing. Now, in these first nine seconds you're

talking about, is this repackaging and branding yourself in a unique way online through your website, through your speakers reel? What were these nine seconds coming from? In the first nine seconds, your listener is going to pick up on certain cues and signals that you're consciously or unconsciously sending to them. And if you can be very clear and strategic in how other people perceive you, and if you can have a clear-cut specialty for your personality, then people see the way in which you're extraordinary, and it's much easier for you to stand out and charge up to four times more. And I'll give you an example. When I developed the fascination advantage personality assessment, I found that if you can describe yourself in three words, then the right kind of client is

going to be instantly attracted to those qualities that you're providing. So I stopped trying to be the speaker who was the most detailed or the most precise or the most skillful. And instead, I honed in on the three words that describe me and my personality. My three words are out of the the box social and energizing, then I'm already 90% of the way there. I should not try to go on stage and be the one who's the most strategic or judicious or organized or practical. Now, other speakers should position themselves that way. And it's the exact same way when we're positioning a product or a brand or we're making a new business meeting introduction. And this is fascinating, no pun intended.

I want to ask a couple of things that came up for me there. First off, I want to go over my, what do I call it? You're a maestro. It's your, what is your advantage? In other words, yeah, what is, when you go into a meeting or you're doing a podcast or you're writing a book,

what is your competitive advantage? That if the only thing that you deliver is this advantage, then you're going to be confident and in the flow. Your audience is going to get into a state of fascination and you're going to attract

exactly the right client and customer to become an advocate for you. And when you did the assessment, when you did the fascination advantage assessment, we learned that your number one advantage is power. That you lead with command and you speak the language of confidence. That when people perceive you at your best, they're seeing you as a leader who has opinions and makes decisions. Your secondary advantage, in other words, the second mode of communication

that's gonna be most effective for you is prestige. You speak the language of excellence. You earn respect with higher standards. And when you combine the language of confidence with the language of excellence, we get your archetype. Your archetype, your particular archetype is the maestro. A maestro has three adjectives that describe you, ambitious, focused, and confident.

So when you took the fascination advantage assessment, you learned that the world sees you at your best. In other words, the way that you can position yourself in the most authentic and effective way, is that you are ambitious, focused, and confident. So these three words, ambitious, focused, and confident, is what I should be portraying in the first nine seconds of anything I do, whether it be a speech or my online brand or my products and services, correct? Yes. And you're already doing that. Remember, the goal isn't to change who you are. It's to become more of who you are at your best. Be more ambitious. Here's an example of how you might use these three adjectives that you got in your report. You might say, if you're like me, you're ambitious, focused, and confident. So I'm going to

serve you the products that you need to become even more ambitious so that you can get the results that you want, you can feel focused, and that you can be perceived as at your most confident. Wow. Okay. So when I'm positioning my messaging, I'm really wanting to attract people into who I am in my messaging. So is it attracting people who are the same way or attracting people to become more of the maestro themselves? There are some people who are going to be your ideal customer that are not necessarily confident or ambitious or focused, but they know that they need that in order to solve their problems. Here's the deal. The number one thing you need to do in your marketing is to figure out the answer to this question.

How are you the perfect solution to your prospect's problem? How are you the perfect solution to your prospect's problem? Once you figure out the problem that somebody faces and you see how your solution perfectly matches them overcoming some kind of a pain point or obstacle, then it's super easy for you to focus on what the message should be. So my background, because it was marketing when I created this assessment, I didn't build it on personality. Remember, it's not about how you see the world. It's marketing. So it's how the world sees you. You can think of me almost like I'm your copywriter helping you describe who you are and how you solve people's problems. I love that. Yeah. And the test only takes like five or 10 minutes to go through. It's pretty quick.

So again, we'll give you guys the information on how to get that here in a little bit. But how many different categories are there? Archetypes. Archetypes. That's what you call it. Yeah. There are 42 different archetypes. And let me describe what this means.

When I went inside companies and I studied the high performers inside of companies like AT&T, GE, Cisco, and entrepreneurial organizations like EO, YPO, et cetera, I looked at what the high performers were doing differently. My team and I analyzed their communication patterns. And we found that high performers do one thing very differently than average performers. And that is that they have a specialty. They're not trying to be all things to all people. Instead, they're honing in and doubling down on something that they do naturally, exceptionally well.

So that might be motivating the team or providing precise details or having ultra-regulated follow-through or coming up with big ideas on the spot in brainstorming sessions. Whatever it is their specialty was, it made them more valuable. It made them irreplaceable within their team and their company and to their customers. And we found that these people had substantially higher incomes when they had a specialty because they weren't trying to please everybody. They were over-delivering in a particular area. Now, I remember when I first looked at the graph that you have with all the different archetypes, and I was looking at them and I was reading through some of them, I thought to myself, I could be a few of these different things. I thought maybe I could be the ringleader, the talent, the people's champion, or the maestro. And I remember when I asked you, you were like, no, you're the maestro, like 10 years ago.

And I was like, really? I was like, how do you know that? And then when I took the test, it said I was the maestro. But why – can you be multiple things or is it more – you're really only one thing based on this test? Of course, you have different styles of communicating when you're in different situations. I communicate slightly differently with my kids than I do when I'm in a pitch. But there are certain guideposts inside of your personality that can help lead you to the optimal opportunities. For most entrepreneurs, the problem is not that we

don't have enough ideas. We need somebody to help guide us in honing in our communication. And that's what I've done with the assessment. It's not that you can't be other things. It's just what's going to be the area that if you were to more deeply invest and build your marketing and your communication around this one particular area, that you can be relieved of the insecurity of trying to figure it out as you go along. that you can be relieved of the insecurity of trying to figure it out as you go along. For you, Lewis, what's an example of a situation when you really want to play your A game and you know that you want to capture those first nine seconds so that you can have the best possible first impression? What would that be for you? First, it would be the podcast. It's something I do every week. And I know there's a big audience listening. So I definitely want to

connect with people there, speaking. And when I'm in sales meetings, on webinars, doing a pitch for a book that I'm selling or something like that. So any opportunity to sell myself that I want a result or an outcome from, that's probably where I want those type of opportunities. Those first impressions lead to the long-term relationship. So the key part of first impressions, it's not just about creating a false persona. It's about being so authentic and so compelling in that first impression that you can build the gateway to the rest of the relationship, right? Yes. So let's, let's say, imagine you're about to go into a meeting and, um, and you and I are standing outside of the meeting and we're about to go inside. Um, and, inside, but we're still outside

the doors. So the people in the meeting can't see us. Can you give me an example of who's sitting in the room at this meeting? Decision makers, CEOs of companies, marketing teams, things like that. So it could be that these are people who might potentially invest with you or they might partner with you or you might be a spokesperson for them. Absolutely. Are the stakes high at this meeting with the CEO decision makers inside? Very high. This is the first meeting.

So if you have a positive outcome, then really good things could happen as a ripple effect, yes? Exactly. Do you ever feel nervous or a little flustered or uncertain before you go into a meeting like this? Yeah, I feel a little flustered or uncertain before you go into a meeting like this? Yeah, I feel a little. I think as I've gotten older and had more experience, there's always another level of confidence that comes with it. But every time I go on stage, still today, there are always a little bit of nerves. That's natural.

It's kind of the adrenaline. It's the excitement. It's the anticipation. There's maybe a little bit of the thrill of the hunt and that's a good thing. But the problem is that when we feel that sense of heightened awareness, sometimes we can become fragmented and we start to doubt the meeting that we put together or we don't feel 100% able to communicate effortlessly when we walk through those doors. Have you ever felt what I'm talking about? Absolutely.

You kind of second guess like, wow, this seems so perfect last night. Now I'm really not sure if I put the right message together. And I forget my entire speech. Right, right. This happens to everybody. The number one way that you were going to be able to fascinate the people in that meeting and have them be completely focused on you and to be in this state of almost falling in love with the message that you're describing. The number one way that you could do that is by using these three adjectives, by being ambitious in the vision that you outline for them, being focused in the way that you communicate it and being confident in how you present it. That for you is going to give you the highest likelihood of getting them to yes. Would that give you more of a sense of security?

Absolutely. And I think it would give me a lot of relief not thinking I have to do everything or remember everything or be everything to everyone there. Instead, just focus on those three things and obviously come prepared and do the preparation work necessary, but lead with those three things and let the rest take care of itself. It helps you know if the only thing you do is that you communicate in a way that has your listener perceive you as being ambitious, focused, and confident, then you don't have to worry about the rest of it.

You don't have to be perceived as being strategic, fine-tuned, or judicious. You don't have to be constructive, organized, and practical like some of these other archetypes that there are. But not everybody's like you. There are some entrepreneurs, some leaders who would go into a meeting like this who have a very different personality style. Let's say, for example, somebody who is a detective. The detective is detail-oriented. They're accurate. They're clear-cut. They're meticulous. They would put the presentation together in a completely different way than you would. They would have a lot of slides, a lot of detail, background research, bullet points.

They don't need to be warm and fuzzy. They don't need to be perceived as being confident. They need to be perceived as being great at executing details. If you were in IT or you were selling a package that was all about execution and implementation, then your competitive advantage would be completely different than the one you and I talked about for you, Lewis. So people shouldn't try to copy you. They shouldn't try to out Lewis Lewis. Instead, somebody could compete against you by offering a different type of advantage. And this is what's so important for us to remember as entrepreneurs. You don't have to be better. You have to be different. Everybody tries to be better and outdo each other. But

better is incredibly expensive and exhausting. Different is better than better. I like that. And I'm curious. I was actually watching part of a movie the other night that was on Comedy Central called Tommy Boy. I don't know if you ever saw this movie. I've heard of it, but I'm not recalling it. Describe it for me. Oh, man. I'm forgetting his name. It's one of the famous comedians on Saturday Night Live who passed away a number of years ago.

But essentially, it's a dumb comedy, but it's really funny. And it's kind of like a cult classic. But there's a point where Tommy, the main character, and the thing is his name is Chris McFarlane. I think that's what his name is. Oh, right. Yes. He is – his father passes away. He's off into a sales mating to help save his father's company, which is like a car auto parts company.

to help save his father's company, which is like a car auto parts company. So he's off on the road to do these sales to help sell this new product they have for brake pads. And he goes in to the sales meeting with – he's an outgoing personality who took seven years to graduate from college, who is not about the numbers or the details or the facts, more outgoing. Then he has his partner there who is the nerdy accountant type who's in the room as well. Now, the guy says – the guy they're pitching this to of the car store or whatever they're pitching these products to is interested and he says, yeah, maybe I'll buy these. I'll buy these brake pads or whatever you're selling me. He says, yeah, maybe I'll buy these.

I'll buy these brake pads or whatever you're selling me. And so the nerdy guy, Tommy Boy's partner, the nerdy guy, his name is Richard in this movie. I can't believe I'm making this analogy. But the nerdy guy goes and says, well, he starts putting him like the documents in front of him. And he says, well, and he started speaking the facts and the data and like saying all these terms that the guy doesn't know what he's talking about. He goes, whoa there, little fella. You're not speaking my language. And then Tommy Boy goes in and starts speaking in a different style. Now, they end up not getting the deal because he puts the office on fire with what he does.

He lights something on fire to make a demonstration. But that's not the point. The point is what I'm getting at is that I'm curious because you say that you need to speak in the way that your archetype best suits you and you need to present in what your archetype best suits you. And I remember I was in a lot of these meetings about five months ago pitching my book proposal to a lot of these publishers, which I know you've done as well. And what I learned is that when I went in there and tried to be myself in some of these instances

where the publisher was more analytical or more detailed or facts-oriented or not as outrageous or ambitious or confident. Ambitious, focused, and confident. Yes. It wasn't kind of like using those adjectives, I'd say, and they were being more reserved. I realized that I wasn't connecting with them when I was being, quote-unquote, myself, the maestro. And when I shifted to connect with the way he was, his language, his body language, his conversational style, when I mirrored him and kind of connected with his language, then he started to be more of the maestro in a sense where he started to be more confident

and focused and ambitious and speak into my language. I don't know if I'm making sense here, what I'm trying to get a point, but I guess isn't there a time where you need to shift if what you're doing is not connecting with the potential person that you want to connect with to make a deal? Yeah, absolutely. You don't necessarily want to have people who mimic you or are replicas of you.

One of the biggest mistakes that we make as entrepreneurs, for example, when we're hiring, is we hire to replicate ourselves rather than optimize ourselves. When I hire, I don't necessarily want to work with other personalities that are as passionate as I am because then everybody focuses on, yeah, this is great. Good job. High five. But then stuff doesn't actually get done. You know, I need to hire people who are detail-oriented because I'm not. And I need to hire people who are consistent because I tend to be focused on getting really excited in the moment. So in the situation that you're describing, we've all had clients that we don't necessarily click with, but you're in a relationship, a client relationship or otherwise, that's based on you being an authentic, it's going to be exhausting and expensive for you and ultimately will not allow you to reach your ultimate potential. And it will require a disproportionate amount of your personal resources to keep that relationship going.

For example, I've had clients that they didn't really want me to deliver fascinating communication. They really wanted me to, to deliver a research report. They wanted to hand me a script or they wanted to give me a super tightly defined box that I needed to operate within. And I could do it if you hold a gun to my head. But the reality is it's not going to be fulfilling and it's not really going to allow me to provide value because it's just simply not allowing me to play to my advantages. So as a leader, you have a choice. If you're in a situation in which somebody wants you to deliver something that is not how you're naturally primed to add value, number one, you can outsource it. In other words, you might have somebody who's

your right-hand person or a business partner who does speak that language, the language of details or the language of consistency. Number two, you can shift what the other person thinks they need. In other words, if you're working with a client who thinks they need details, you might say details are important, but details are a dime a dozen. What you really need is somebody to be able to come in with ambitious goals, focused insight, and confident delivery. And so what you've done is you've taken something off the table and put something else on. And the third option is that you can inauthentically pretend that you're the person that they think they want, but you will ultimately not grow a business that you love and that's going to be profitable and scalable and replicable

if you're wearing a masquerade. Right. That makes sense. But there's so many people out there who feel like they're just boring or they're not unique or they don't fascinate because they're not sure what they're passionate about, things like that. So how do you teach someone to become unboring in a sense? Every single person has certain qualities that make them fascinating. Some of them are flashy, flamboyant. Some people, you know, the guy who's going to dance naked on the bar. But then other people have a much more analytical approach. And so the critical thing is to understand that there are certain key qualities that are built into your personality's DNA.

But sometimes people are quiet. And so it's important for you to be able to see what those qualities are within them. And it might be something like being quietly steadfast or structured in being able to pull less likely to speak and more likely to listen, these personalities don't like to jump into the spotlight and they get really self-conscious if attention is suddenly and unexpectedly focused on them. But these are the personalities that are most observant. They see everything that's happening around them and they're able to take a lot of data and to be able to create a fine-tuned answer or result. But they're going to do it differently than you and I might. Right, right. Now, you talk about in the book, if you're not adding value, you're taking up space. So how can you tell if you are actually adding value in a situation? Every time you communicate, you are either adding value or

taking up space. When you add value, people become so engaged with you that they're willing to pay more money for what you deliver. They're willing to go to greater efforts, greater lengths to work with you. They're loyal. They refer you. These are how we grow our businesses that we love. And so the way I'm most likely to add value is through passion, which is the language of relationship. The way you are most likely to add value, Lewis, is through power, which is a language of confidence. When we communicate in this way, we're going to be perceived at our most valuable. People are going to be most fascinated by us because we're going to be most worthy of attention. But if you're not adding value, then you're taking up space.

And when you're just taking up space, people start to shut you out. It's almost like, you know that feeling when you get a spam message in your inbox? You've just been in the middle of being in the flow with writing a new manuscript or developing a new product and a spam email comes in. How do you feel, Lewis, when this email comes in? They've you feel, Lewis, when this email comes in? Like they've added zero value and negative value. Negative value, right. So you feel frustrated, you feel annoyed. It's the same thing that happens in a high-level meeting when somebody keeps talking,

but they're not really saying anything. Or the salesperson who cold calls you, that person is not adding value. They're just taking up space. And so just like with spam, where we delete it, we have spam filters. We start to do the same thing to certain people. The key is for you to make sure that every time you're reaching out to your email list or making a phone call or starting a conference call or leading a meeting, that you build your whole presentation and communication around how you can add value to your listener so that you're not taking up space. And when you do that, people will come back to you over and over again because you've given them something they didn't have before they started. Sure. Yeah. And what are

some ways you think people can increase their value on a regular basis? What are some things they can do? Before you go into a presentation, stop and think to yourself, what is their problem stop and think to yourself, what is their problem for which I am the solution? If I remember earlier, we said the number one thing you need to do to grow your business is figure out how are you the perfect solution to your prospects problem. Before I go into any type of a meeting, I think what is the problem that's facing the people who are in this meeting right now? In other words, what's their pain point or challenge or obstacle? For example, if I was talking to a room full of high-end advisors or solopreneurs, they were having trouble getting new clients of their own. They were having trouble growing their businesses. The pain point that they're facing is that their revenue has plateaued or that they're working with people who aren't willing to go to the next level with them.

working with people who aren't willing to go to the next level with them. So the best solution that I can give them is to understand how can they position themselves to be more fascinating to these clients that they can attract and retain and convert the most valuable customers. In the same way, anytime you go into a meeting where you have to, say, have a difficult conversation with a friend, or you are having a dinner party where you're inviting a bunch of strangers to get to know each other, just think to yourself, what's their problem and how can I solve that problem in a way that's authentic and natural for me? I like that. Do you have any good exercises on building confidence on how people can build their own confidence?

Yes. When people do the assessment, our research shows that they're 34% more confident in about 10 minutes from the time they start the assessment to the time they finish. And we've measured this with groups inside Fortune 500 companies like Unilever and also with about 100,000 solopreneur entrepreneurs. the key. When you take the assessment, it's going to give you the three adjectives that you need to describe yourself. And when you understand how people see you at your best and you build your communication around that, you naturally feel more confident because you've been able to identify what is your specialty that allows you to over deliver. You don't have to try to be all things to all people. The reality is people don't hire you because you're balanced. They hire you because you're extraordinary in some specific way. That's – yeah. I think when we get clear on who we are and what we're up to and how we can best serve the world, then that increases confidence right there.

So I like that. Lewis, you and I were chatting before and I was describing to you how important this is to me personally. I am super committed to helping people discover what makes them naturally valuable because I think the problem is we try to fix ourselves. We try to force fit ourselves into one size fits all molds. And I find that people are so much more powerful and valuable and fulfilled when they know who they really are. And so I'd like to give an invitation that you and I were discussing that when people take the assessment, we don't normally do this, but we want to invite people to share this out and to help other people discover what makes them valuable. In other words, the greatest gift you can give somebody is to show them what makes them

valuable, even precious. So when people take the assessment, if they find that it's valuable for themselves, they can post it on Facebook. They can send it out on Twitter. They can post it on their blog so that they can start to build a community and a conversation in which everybody rises to their highest level. So how do they go and take the assessment? to their highest level. So how do they go and take the assessment? They take the assessment by going to howtofascinate.com slash U, Y-O-U, howtofascinate.com slash U. And their code, which is going to give them free access to the assessment, is schoolofgreatness,

all one word, schoolofgreatness. It's not case sensitive. And immediately, they'll get access to take the assessment. It's only 28 questions. It only takes about three minutes and they'll instantly get a report that describes the qualities, the adjectives that make them most valuable. And then if you take the assessment and it seems to you like this is something that allows you to be more confident and fulfilled in your own work, then I invite you to send it out to your network. Send it out to your email list and start a conversation about how different people contribute in different ways and that we don't all have to mimic each other. And instead, remember, different is better than better. Yeah.

to mimic each other and instead remember different is better than better. Yeah. And it's really cool because I've taken the assessment a couple of years ago, but then I just retook it yesterday to make sure that I'm still the maestro and I was. And it's cool that at the end, there's a little video from Sally that tells you all about who you actually are and what is fascinating about you and how the world sees you and things like that. And it confirmed, like when she was talking, I felt like she was talking to me. I was like, oh yeah, that's me, that's me, that's me. And, um, but she really gives you like insights and tools for how to, what's to do next, the next steps for you and how to leverage the most fascinating part about you.

So I highly recommend doing it. I, you know, I had my assistant do it and part of my team do it. So make sure you go to howtofascinate.com slash you and then School of Greatness is the code where you get it for free. And I believe it's originally, it's normally 37 bucks. Is that right to take the test? Right. Yeah, it's normally 37 bucks. So you get that for free, which is pretty cool. And I'll have that linked up here on the show notes as well where you guys can get that. So just click that link when you guys go there. A few more questions for you. What is the halo effect?

Have you ever met somebody and you intuitively pick up on certain aspects of their personality without even realizing it and it allows you to feel a sense of relationship with them? Let me give you an example. Steve Jobs was such a great example of using the halo effect that he gave us certain pieces of information and then we filled in the rest. The halo effect is a way that we create a picture or image about certain people or brands just based on two or three facts. Like, for example, if you meet somebody and you've, you eat a dessert that they create, you might think, wow, they're a great chef or they're culinary or they have great taste. You would start to draw larger conclusions based on just a few

pieces of information when in fact, maybe they just mastered that one dessert. The halo effect describes why people fall in love with you or want to be friends with you or those qualities in your first impression that are going to be most positive and put you in the best possible light that radiate from you almost like a halo. Those signals and cues that you naturally authentically give off that attract people to you to want to not only be in relationship with you but buy from you and advocate for you and be part of your world. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And you also say that there are three arch enemies to communicating effectively. Is that correct? There are. Every time we communicate, we face three threats. The first threat is distraction. You and I were talking before about how the average attention span used to be 20 minutes long. Today, the average attention span, like we said, is only nine seconds.

So if people are distracted, they're only giving you a fraction of their attention. They're not really present to what you're saying. Whether you're trying to sell something or build a relationship or even just pick up somebody in a bar, you don't want to just interest them. You want to fascinate them. So the first threat is distraction. The second threat is competition. Everyone's getting better. The world standards are rising. It used to be exceptional to have a 10-year car warranty. And today, most companies have a 10-year warranty on their cars. So it's not enough just to outdo your competition. You

have to demonstrate the way in which you're different. The third threat that we face is commoditization. Commoditization is when people don't understand why you're different than your competition. And so if your competitor charges less money than you do, then they're just going to go with your competitor because they don't see what value you're providing beyond that. But if you can immediately demonstrate what kind of value you're going to provide to your prospect, your customer, even your friends, then it's easy for them to see the way in which you have a unique positioning and you can charge more money.

That's good to know those things. Now, who is the most fascinating person you've ever met? My husband, hands down. My husband, Ed. That's why you married him. Yeah, really. He was a trial attorney for 23 years. A year ago, he left his law practice to come and join me as my partner and the president of the company. And for us, it's crucially important that we love what we do. But we have different personalities. His personality advantages are number one, innovation. Number two, power. His archetype is named the maverick leader.

Maverick leaders are described as being pioneering, irreverent, and entrepreneurial. That means they like big picture ideas. He doesn't like linear, logical, structured formats. He loses his car keys. Maverick leaders are big, high-level entrepreneurs. I have a primary passion, so I communicate in a much more emotional, connective way. And when I understand the way in which he's different than me, it allows me to support him in using his unique advantages and not trying to expect that he's going to be different in

some way other than who he really is. And who would you say is the most fascinating person outside of your family that you've met? I just went to Joe Polish's Genius Network. Were you there last weekend? I was. Oh, yeah. I almost went there. The 25K group? Yeah, I almost went.

It was completely transformational for some certain issues that I was struggling with in my business about how do I get my business back on track with being something that I fall in love with and have an experience of joy and effortlessness every time I walk through the door. And it was amazing to watch not only the network that Joe has, but who he really is. I mean, he shows up every single time, every contact I've ever had with him. He's just so Joe Polishy. He's so who he is. His archetype is named the avant-garde. And interestingly, when we measured the members of the Genius Network who were there in attendance, about 35 people, the number one archetype in that group, 16% of them were also the avant-garde. The avant-garde is original, enterprising, and forward-thinking. So it was clear that Joe Polish is attracting the kind of people who want him to be the solution to their problem in a way that's very resonant with who

he authentically is. That's cool. And I got off track with that. Where was I going? I know. I know. I got us kind of excited on those examples. I mean, I get so excited about it that I start talking fast. And you can tell I'm using hand gestures while I'm talking. When I talk about what makes an individual or a group fascinating, it just totally turns me on. And I love it. Well, I was getting distracted because I was it. Well, I was like getting distracted because I was like, man, I wish I was in that room right now because I was going to go there last week actually, but I'm bummed I got to miss it. Well, then you and I should pick a time when we can do our mastermind together at the same time. Exactly. We'll do that. What is the number

one archetype out of the 600,000 people? 600,000 people have gone through this? 600,000. Yeah. And what's the number one? I guess the most famous one. There are many different ties for different archetypes. And one of the most amazing things is before I go in and work with a group or for our certified trainers go in with a team, we measure the audience. We create what's called a heat map, where it's almost like a visual fingerprint of all the different archetypes and what their highest proportions are. And what we found is

there's a major correlation between the type of organization or brand and the people that are inside that organization. For example, we had a client that was a Fortune 10 life insurance company and their number one, they had a lot of personalities that used trust with loyalty, consistency, reliability, like the gravitas, the diplomat, the anchor, the good citizen, very traditional personalities. Not surprisingly, they had great retention, but they weren't necessarily good at creating new ideas or building passionate relationships. On the other hand, startups tend to score really high on innovation, but they tend to not be good with follow through and details. So knowing the people that are around you allows you to see why are you failing in certain ways or struggling to grow. Could it be that you have holes in the advantages that you're using to drive your business forward? I guess it depends then on who you're talking to and which

companies, things like that. But based on the 600,000, is there a number one that's the most? There's a three-way tie. One of them is the catalyst, which is me because I naturally attract other catalysts who use passion and innovation out of the box social and energizing. We have – among corporate groups, we have a lot of the archetype known as the victor, which is prestige and power. And overall, we also have a lot of talents. The talent – Marie Forleo is a talent, expressive, stylish, emotionally intelligent. The key is to see what are the ways in which you are different than the people around you so that you can hone in on that. So it's not that one is better than another. For example, I really love working with people who are the mediator.

A mediator is very consistent. They, uh, they're, they're not reactive. They're really great at building a quiet, steady, even keeled team. And what's the least, I guess, the least common is named the evolutionary. The evolutionary is, um, is trust, which is about consistency with innovation, which is about consistency, with innovation, which is about change. It's really rare to meet somebody who's great at stability and doing the same thing over and over again in a scheduled, structured way, but is also good at coming up with creative ideas. But when you put those two together, it's almost like a combo platter personality. And so they tend to be really good at being creative but within the box. How many of those have you met personally?

It's only 0.4% of the population. Wow. And have you met any of them yourself? Oh, yeah. I would say with 0.4% of the population, I've probably met in person about 500. Wow. That's a lot. Yeah. Well, when I'm speaking to a group of six or 8,000 people, I get to meet a really wide focus group of the group. So when you think about your own community that you're surrounding yourself with, for example, in social media, like in LinkedIn, if you give your community the assessment, ask them to describe what are their advantages and what are the adjectives that they got to help position themselves. And it gives you a cool little piece of market research about how certain people are responding to your message and engaging with you and other people are very unlikely to engage with you. For example, in our own community,

In our own community, we find that the number one advantage that we attract is passion. The least likely to be part of our community is alert, which is the language of details. And yet mystique personalities are three times more likely to open our emails than an alert personality. Because mystique personalities love to be able to learn more about themselves because they tend to not be the um the the extroverts um when you know information like that it helps you target your message yeah that's great uh okay couple last couple questions to wrap things up uh i've been asking this question a lot in the last few interviews i've done and i'm always just curious to hear the response now. So it's the end of the day for you.

It's your last day on earth in however many years, 70 years from now, let's say. And all of your work has been deleted and removed. All of your books, your writings, there's nothing. Somehow it got crashed on the internet and it's all been removed. Every copy has been in the trash somehow or they got removed. And you have a piece of paper and a pen to write down the three truths, the three things that you know to be true about what you learned in life. What would those three truths be that you would share with the world?

The first thing is the greatest value that you can add to the world is to become more of yourself. The greatest value you can add is become more of yourself. When you identify that, you can be that, apply that, articulate that, leverage that throughout your whole life. Second thing is stop focusing on your strengths and highlight your differences. Different is better than better. And the last thing is something that I think about with my kids all the time, which is you don't learn how to be fascinating. You unlearn boring. When we, when you go back and you think about yourself over the course of your life when you look at who you were as a little kid there were certain qualities that were just already inside

of you that are you're born embedded with certain spectacular traits but over time we dull those edges and we start to become a me too personality and when we do, we kill off not only our greatest advantages, but the way in which we can light up the world. So my daughter, Azalea, is 11. She's our youngest. And I see this just starting to happen, that Azalea is just starting to become very conscious of the conversation going on around her. She's not smart enough or good enough or cool enough or this enough or that enough. And I watch her starting to head into that adolescent stage of questioning herself. And I feel like it's my job as a mom to help her not change who she is, but become more of who she is so that she doesn't unlearn boring. And for all of us in our careers and in our businesses, but more importantly

in our personal lives, if all you could do, if all you do is to help the people around you unlearn boring and to see who they are at their best, then you're done. You have, you've already accomplished everything you need to. And what's one habit that we can do each day to unlearn boring? And what's one habit that we can do each day to unlearn boring? Stop looking at what your competition is doing. Stop trying to outdo them and instead do more of who you are. Do what you are. I like that.

And if there were three books you could leave behind besides your own, your books are back now. If there are three, though, that you could leave behind that weren't your, your family and to the world, that would be your message as well. What would those three books be? Oh, I'm sitting here looking at my desk and it's surrounded by huge piles of books. I mean, books that I love. I'm a big fan of made to stick by Chip and Dan Heath. Um, I'm, I am, I'm, I'm like like sitting here so it's like it's like asking me to pick too many i know i know but if you had to leave three that would be you know that would serve the world the best what would they be i have been reading hold on a sec let me go over to my bag just so you know that i'm like i'm really i'm really in the i'm really in my office right now.

For my second book, the choice that I would make is a journal that you can constantly keep track of your own inspirations and thoughts because sometimes we become so busy that we'll have an epiphany and then we lose it. So my most precious book is a little journal that I carry around with me in my purse. And I find that I have the same thought, the same idea over and over again. So I can actually put them into action. And I'm going to, just for fun, I'm going to describe a book that's sitting here on my desk and it's called Creepiosity. And it's all about, it's a hilarious guide toentionally Creepy. And it's things like strippers with black and blue marks, people who drive really old cars, other people in the doctor's waiting room, squirrels that look at you too long, owning a whole bunch of cats, lifelike baby dolls, grown men in Boy Scouts uniforms, band-aids that were once affixed to somebody's body, but now aren't, old bars of soap. The thing that I love about it is that I have it sitting on my desk and whenever somebody walks into my office and they pick it up, because it's got this great creepy picture of a hairless cat on the cover,

all of a sudden we can start talking and laughing about something that we can agree with or disagree with, but we have an inspiration to the conversation that's not just about the weather or where are you from or those conversational paths that get you nowhere. And instead, we can kind of talk about something that's unexpected and surprising and build a relationship more quickly. I like that. Great three books. So good options. What are you most grateful for recently in your life, Sally? Lando. So it's about an hour and a half, two hour drive. And, um, and my brother is there, my sister's there, all the nieces and nephews, but my parents are there and my parents lived in the same house for 42 years. So when I go home, my prom dresses are still in the closet.

My literally like my, my little baby books are still on the same shelves that they were since I was 42 years old. And I got to be with my mom and my dad and it was so fulfilling and so joyful. And I came home with this, not just a sugar buzz from chocolate bunny ears, but this feeling of intense gratitude. And I called my mom today and I was, I just said, I, I am, I am so overwhelmed by how much I love coming home every single time I come home to be able to do an Easter egg hunt in the same backyard where I did an Easter egg hunt as a three-year-old. It's such a gift. That's really cool. I love that. Yeah, family is everything. I think in the older that I get, I left away when I was 13. I moved away to a private boarding school

about a seven-hour drive away from my family. And I've been pretty much on my own since I was 13. Obviously, back and forth with my family, but I've just been around the country and around the world, and I find myself falling in love with my family more and more the older I get. So it's a lot to be grateful for. Oh, I love hearing that. I didn't know that about you. Thank you for telling me that, and I completely agree with you because it can be very alienating. When you have a business that you love, sometimes it's important to recalibrate and put the whole thing in perspective. Exactly.

Being away from my family, I can get so focused on my vision and what I'm up to that I'm like, oh, it's been a couple weeks and I haven't talked to anyone. And I try to always remind myself to stay connected. So I'm glad that you're able to do that. And it's amazing that you have eight kids. I'm still blown away. But you should have a TV show just about how you do it all. I know. I agree.

Sometimes I feel the same way. It's like part sitcom, part drama. Not as good as Glee, of course. Exactly, yeah. I'd probably watch your show. Not as good as Glee, of course. Exactly, yeah. I'd probably watch your show. That would be fascinating. I don't know. I'd get this out there.

You don't have as much singing as I hear you like. Yes. Well, I want to ask you one more question before I do, Sally. I want to take a moment to acknowledge you because ever since the moment I met you, you had this halo effect for me. You had this energy, this aura. You had this clarity and vision. And it's so impressive for me to know that you're able to do it all and you make it look effortless. You have the passion and the commitment and the wisdom when you're presenting on stage and then you can go home and be with your family over

Easter. It's, for me, really inspiring as your leadership and the way you set the example for someone like myself who's not married and doesn't have kids to know that I can have a big vision in the world and have the family and the relationships and have it all. So I want to acknowledge you for being the example for all of us in what you do. And I appreciate it. What an amazing thing to say. Thank you. Thank you for showing up in the world the way you do.

It's incredible. And I just got a little emotional just thinking about it. So the final question, which I ask all my guests, is what's your definition of greatness? Having a career and a life that you love. That's it. Sally Hogshead, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Big thank you to Sally for coming on. If you guys enjoyed this episode, please go back to the show notes and check out all of the resources, the information, again, the test that you can take that we've got linked up on the show notes as well is over at lewishouse.com slash 179. Again, go back to lewishouse.com slash 179. Take the test for yourself to see what your personality is at, what your strengths are, and how to lead moving forward with your career, what your strengths are, and how to lead moving forward with your career, with your business, with your life, with your relationships. And I think you'll learn a lot about yourself. We had our entire team go through this actually recently.

And it was cool to see what all of their tests came out with. So very cool. I recommend doing it yourself, but also having people on your team go through it. So you know where their strengths lie. And again, you can see all the information at lewishouse.com slash 179. Please share that with your friends and let them take the test as well. Again, feel free to post it over on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn. And if you're listening to this anywhere and you use Instagram, then feel free to tag me on Instagram as well and let me know where you're listening to this specific episode from in the world. Again, thank you guys so much for coming on. Thank you to Sally.

Make sure to check out her book and all of her information. You guys are incredible. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.