The School of Greatness - 848 The Soulful Art of Persuasion with Jason Harris

Episode Date: September 11, 2019

NEVER BE CLOSING. A lot of books about selling encourage you to act like someone you’re not. They tell you to say the other person’s name. Copy their body language. Become a salesman. But what if the key to selling is accepting who you are? What if everything weird about you is what will make you successful? Stop thinking of business as transactional. Instead, be generous. Play the long game. And be kind. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk about the soulful art of persuasion with an expert in marketing: Jason Harris. Jason Harris is the CEO of the award-winning creative agency Mekanism and the co-founder of the Creative Alliance. Harris works closely with brands through a blend of soul and science to create provocative campaigns that engage audiences. Iconic brands include Peloton, Ben & Jerry’s, MillerCoors, HBO, and the United Nations. Under his leadership, Mekanism was named to Ad Age’s Agency A-list, twice to their Best Places to Work, and to the Creativity 50. Harris has been named in the Top 10 Most Influential Social Impact Leaders, as well as the 4A’s list of “100 People Who Make Advertising Great.” His methods are studied in cases at Harvard Business School. Jason has put together four principles of persuasion that can help transform you into a master influencer. The bullet points are easy to understand and might even surprise you. So get ready to learn the soulful art of persuasion on Episode 848. Some Questions I Ask: What’s the most fun you’ve had working on a brand? (10:00) How can you be empathetic when people are attacking you? (31:00) What’s something people can do today to make them more influential (43:00) What are you three truths? (46:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: About Jason’s company Mekanism (5:00) Why you should never be closing (12:30) How vulnerability is key to power (16:00) The Four Core Principles of persuasion (19:00) Why it’s important to master different skills (38:00) If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/848 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes

This is episode number 848 with Jason Harris. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a 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. Roosevelt once said, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

This episode is all about the soulful art of persuasion and how to persuade people to buy into you, to buy into your beliefs, your vision, your skillset, anything you want to do to persuade people. There are certain ways to do it that comes across authentically and in a way that makes people know how much you care about them. Not tricks, not some type of strategy that's trying to fool people over to persuade them, but really how to show people how much you care in order to move forward in the life of your dreams. And Jason Harris is the CEO of the award-winning creative agency Mechanism and the co-founder of the Creative Alliance. and the co-founder of the Creative Alliance. He works closely with brands through a blend of soul and science to create provocative campaigns that engage audiences. Iconic brands like Peloton, Ben & Jerry's,

Miller Coors, HBO, and the United Nations. He's been named in the top 10 most influential social impact leaders as well as the 4 A's list of 100 people who make advertising great. His methods are studied in cases at Harvard Business School and his new book, The Soulful Art of Persuasion, The 11 Habits That Will Make Anyone a Master Influencer is out right now. And in this episode, we talk about why playing the long game is more important than trying to close the deal right now. And he's got a simple philosophy on how to close deals, the value of leaning into your quirks and your imperfections and why your imperfections will

help you stand out from the rest, the power of storytelling and how the mind processes stories versus facts, why you should always choose collaboration over competition and how empathy is a key component of persuasion and so many other keys to persuading people into anything. Super excited about this one. Make sure to share it with your friends, lewishouse.com slash 848. And without further ado,

let's dive into this episode all about the powerful, soulful art of persuasion with Jason Harris. So this book, all about soulful art of persuasion. I'm excited about this. It's like, it's sort of like, did you ever read it? Yeah, How to Win Friends. Yeah, it's great. This is an updated version.

It's an updated version that's for the modern age. I love it. Because I went back and read all those books. And you were like, what's missing? Well, they're like, it's almost like act a certain way. Like, don't be yourself. It's like fake. It's like fake.

And it's like, get them talking. Be interested in the things the other person's interested in. Yes. Versus leaning into who you are and your quirks. It's like a shtick. It's a shtick. It's like this is the way you're successful is parroting other people. And this is obviously opposite that, which is you got to know who you are,

lean into your true self, and that's how you're successful. It's your character and who you are. I love it, man. Yeah. So it's that. And then the soulful part, which I i'll talk about which you'll relate to i was re-watching your like big idea intro video about what's your big idea and it is about the soulful piece that pillar is all about what are your skills like everyone has two or three skills that they're really good at

and then what are the things that you care about? Your purpose. And you try to line those two things up. And that's what being soulful is all about. It's like if you can line those two things up, basically you take a sheet of paper, you write down your three skills and three things that you care about, like your purpose, and you figure out how to put those together,

and that's how you can give back into the world. that's like what i did with uh it's on us campaign you know for going to the white house i know how to advertise there's a cause there it's like pencils of promise it's you bring in your summit back to where you were from you know it's it's putting those skills to what you care about yeah so a lot of the books about that. Them being a generous person, being an empathetic person, like understanding other people. I love it, man. Yeah, it's cool. I love it.

And so these are all the habits, and I get into like how to develop those habits. I love it. Yeah, it's cool. We've got Jason Harris in the house. Welcome to School of Greatness, man. Thank you. Pumped that you're here.

Thanks for having me. You just gave a brief overview, which we'll just leave that in. Oh, okay. Sunny LA. We met back in 2010, 11, 12. Where was the first meeting? Was it through Brandon or was it through...

Yeah, through Brandon. Was it trying to do something? I can't remember. I don't even remember. Maybe it was like getting you to market something for us or something like that. You're always asking people

to do stuff for you. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. You know. I can't remember. Maybe I met Brandon somewhere through Tim Ferriss or one of Yeah, yeah. You know. I can't remember. Maybe I met Brandon somewhere. Yeah. Through Tim Ferriss or one of his events or something like that.

I can't remember. The Komodo event? Maybe. Yeah, yeah. Was he there? Yeah, he was there. Were you there? No, he went instead of me.

He went. That's where I met him. Yeah. And we got connected. And I learned about your guys' company, Mechanism. And you guys do. Tell us what you do specifically at Mechanism. So we're a creative ad agency. And so we work with brands to figure out what they're going

to stand for in the world and then create the marketing materials and messaging ads, social media, do media planning, buying, basically put their message, develop and put their message out into the world. So you'll find the directors, you'll script the commercials or the video assets, whatever it may be, and do everything from a concept to idea to launching it to promotion, marketing, everything. Yeah, it's like an assembly line. It starts with a strategy.

What is the brand going to stand for? How does a brand like Peloton fit into the fitness world? How are they different to the creative of what's the concept? What's the ad going to look like? Then to making it, like you said, and then pushing it out into the fitness world? How are they different to the creative of what's the concept? What's the ad going to look like? Then to making it, like you said, and then pushing out. And then marketing it. And marketing it, and then tracking it, and then repeating it. Is that a five-step process?

What is that? Yeah, five or six. I don't know. I kind of trailed off at the end. I forgot. So a brand like Peloton, is it public, their numbers of what they're looking to? Probably not public. But the multi-billion dollar company, right?

Yeah, their multi-billion dollar valuation. Yeah, definitely. And where would they be without an agency like you guys helping them with all that marketing, the launch of their messaging, the commercials that I see on TV, all that stuff? their messaging, the commercials that I see on TV, all that stuff. Well, I think we were certainly part of helping them craft the brand, making the brand feel sophisticated, making the brand consistent over time. But really, they just had an incredible product. And the thing that is great about Peloton is they can come out with a bike or a treadmill or a digital app.

It's all based around the community. And the community is leaderboards. The community through social is super supportive. And so focusing on that community, they can just come out with multiple, multiple products. So that's really what they focused on. The community. The community. And what we do is make the brand.

We up the brand through production value, storytelling. And so we just sort of complement what they what they built but i mean they just cracked cracked the coast it's about community and it's about working out from your home it's amazing it's on-demand workouts i mean they just killed it it's amazing yeah what's been the biggest challenge uh from a marketer advertiser standpoint since you started the, what's the brand that you had the hardest time working with, coming up with this process for? The hardest brand to do that for? I'm trying to think of a brand that I worked with in the past because I can't name any of my current clients. Gotcha.

That's not cool. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. In the past. In the past. Maybe one that was challenging, but then you figured out, oh, this was the hook, and it ended up working cool. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. In the past. In the past. Maybe one that was challenging, but then you figured out, like, oh, this was the hook, and it ended up working out. Yeah.

Maybe it's a current brand, too, though. It's like, man, this is really challenging to figure out how we're going to launch this message in the world. Yeah. But then it was, like, a big success when you did. Well, I would say we work with Charles Schwab. So we do Charles Schwab ads, which is broker firms. It's hard to do.

And you're trying to switch. It's all about switching from competitors. Find the best firm and who has the lowest fees and the best quality. Yeah. And so the team, and we've been working with them for a while, but what really sort of catapulted a lot of their success is the team cracked the idea of coming up with, instead of talking about what Schwab is, talk about the other guy. And so they

came up with this character, Carl, who is like sort of a lot of the opposite values of this book. He's like not trustworthy. He's just trying to close a deal. He's not in it for the long term. He's overcharging. And this guy, Carl, was the character and it was the push off of the opposite of charles schwab and so that sort of unlock which is a unique idea because you usually think about putting the brand first and this was not talking about the other brands not talking about the other brands but this was personifying sort of like what apple apple mac did you know those at the apple pcs at&t can you hear me now yeah yeah the other guys can't hear. Yeah, exactly. State Farm is actually doing that right now,

kind of where it's like the State Farm agent is there, and then it's like, or you've got your grandmother, who's like the insurance agent that you're trying to get a hold of, and it's like, hey, Billy. Yeah, that can be effective. So it worked really well for them. That's cool. Man, what's been the most fun you've had working on a brand?

Obviously, they're all fun because you... We just did the launch of MedMen, a cannabis company. And I think just being able to be part of that story and tell that story of how cannabis used to be... George Washington grew it on his farm. And then... President. Yeah, the president grew it on his farm. And president. Yeah, the president grew it on his farm. And then we went through this period that we're coming out of now where it wasn't accepted.

You got thrown in jail for carrying a little bit of it. Meanwhile, you can get prescription drugs, go nuts with those, drink alcohol, all these other things when cannabis is proven to be a lot less of an issue in society. And now we told that whole story and talked about it being the new normal, where now it's becoming legalized in every state slowly over time. But cannabis is here to stay, and there's a lot of health and wellness benefits. I think just being able to tell that story in a really interesting way with that diorama look, I think that's been, we're really proud of that. That's cool, man. This new book that you have is called The Soulful

Art of Persuasion, The 11 Habits That Will Make Anyone a Master Influencer. And we were talking a little bit before about how you were talking about the other traditional books on influence and persuasion, like How to Win Friends and Influence People. But you were talking about the other traditional books on influence and persuasion, like how to win friends and influence people. But you said those are the books that would teach these kind of tactics. Yeah. What was wrong with those types of strategies or tactics versus kind of these 11 habits that you have here? So books like How to Sell, all the old Dale Carnegie stuff from the 1929, 1930s, which are still perennial sellers.

That was created in an age of selling and pitching that was much different than the age we live in now. We really live in an age of distrust where you don't know if it's – there's fake news, there's phishing scams. It's hard to trust Google and Facebook anymore. Sure. You never know who's taking news there's phishing scams it's hard to trust google and facebook anymore you know sure so you never know who's taking your privacy or whatever yeah who's taking your privacy um and so we live in a different time and back then it was much more those lessons are much more about how to friend people by letting them talk act like you're interested in the things they're

interested in getting to keep nodding at them. Keep nodding. Say their name 12 times. Everyone loves their name. Say their name 12 times. Give them a gift. Get them, yeah. Yeah, get them to, yeah, exactly. Yeah. The law of reciprocity. Exactly. Get them to a yes really quickly. And then I talk a lot about in this book that, you know, I have a chapter called Never Be Closing. And those- Not ABC? That's right. So it's the opposite of ABC.

NBC. Yeah. Oh, yeah. NBC, ding. That's good. So it's the Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross idea of get them. It's all transactional. Just get the sale, get the sale, get the sale.

And Never Be Closing philosophy is about playing the long game, building relationships over time, understanding that that's what creates value that's where you're successful that's where you win you don't win by checking off deal deal deal it's about long-term relationships and yeah playing the long game is is how everyone should be thinking you should be thinking never be closing it's never not about the close true yeah it's about the long long-term value of a relationship i feel like that's all i've done because at the beginning of my kind of journey which 10, 11 years ago, I didn't have anything to offer.

I was broke. I had nothing to offer. And I remember being like, I could really get something from everyone right now. But why would they give me something when I have no value to give them? So I started saying, OK, how can I be the champion of everyone's network and just match them with someone that could really be beneficial to them? If someone needed to hire a sales rep or a marketing person or whatever it was, I was just trying to find people for other people's needs. And I just continued to add that value. And that became the value that I could add to people. And over time, they were like,

how can I help you back? This has been amazing for me. You introduced me to this person. You helped me here. And I was just like, I don't need anything right now. And I would always just kind of delay the ask until I had a book or something really meaningful that I wanted to, I guess, close on. But the more that I think we do what you say, which is just like delay the ask and don't try to close all the time and just how can you give and give and give, I that's you guys do a good job with that too yeah yeah so what you hit on is that idea of generosity which is sort of another idea there being generous and one of the habits is like habitually giving something away at every every interactions whether it's a piece of advice it's a connection you know don't hold those connections like give them away freely. It could be when you have something simple like a book or a story that you read that you like,

send it to someone. You don't just post it for everyone to read. You send it to someone on a one-on-one basis. And just building, think about just habitually giving things away. It pays off with compound interest. You don't know how, and you're not doing it so that one day you're going to sell a grip load of books. You're doing it because it becomes a habit and it becomes part of your character. And then you don't know how, but you know that that's going to turn into business success, personal growth. And so that's another one of the sort of principles in the book. There's 11 habits to becoming a master influencer, right?

Yeah, yeah. And persuading people. Is that what it is? It's all about persuasion. To buy into your vision, your dream, your products, your company, anything, right? That's right. Into you. Into you.

And the idea is that we're all – persuasion is sort of a loaded word, you know? But we're all persuading all day long. I mean you're persuading. I call it enrollment. Enrollment. We're either enrolling people into our vision or into our requests or they're enrolling us out of it. That's right. Yeah.

And it's simple things like you're convincing your girlfriend where to go on vacation. Exactly. Or where we're going to go for dinner. Where are you going to go for dinner? So all day long, you're persuading your boss to give you a raise or a company to hire you or someone to publish your book. All day long, there's micro instances of persuasion. And this is really just about building a personal character

and habits to allow enrollment to be more natural and freer. And it's also about being yourself and finding a purpose because that's what gravitates people towards you is really knowing yourself, leaning into your quirks, being able to be vulnerable. I remember when we did the, we had you at the white house for the it's on us campaign. It was crazy. I stood up in front of everyone.

You stood up and told a story. Crazy, man. And the whole place was just in awe that a macho dude could be that vulnerable to that audience. And it opens everyone else up. And unless you were really comfortable, knew yourself, knew where you were coming from, you wouldn't have the power to do that, which you you were able to do which yeah for for context people listening i was wasn't joe biden was there or something or what's this like yeah we did a we did a campaign with uh joe biden called it's on us which was to end sexual assault on college campuses and we brought

you and a bunch of influencers yeah it's probably a couple hundred people in the room a couple hundred people to me at At the White House. Yeah. Joe Biden's talking. Yeah. And someone said, hey, we're going to ask you guys to make a request on how you're going to support this campaign. Yeah.

And so different people stood up and I felt called in the moment to stand up and share a story for a minute or two about being sexually abused myself and how I didn't think other people should suffer with this or go through this personally because of the trauma it creates and what I was going to stand up for. So, yeah, you've got to be really confident in yourself and know yourself like you said. And be able to be vulnerable.

Be able to be vulnerable. Be able to not be perfect. Like we all have flaws. We all have issues. We all have things we're trying to overcome and accomplish wherever we came from, whatever our background. Leading into those gives you power. have flaws we all have issues we all have things we're trying to overcome and accomplish whatever wherever we came from whatever our background leading into those gives you power you know not trying to push those down and suppress them leaning into being vulnerable and things that

you're going through being able to talk about it creates power and we were talking about stuff beforehand which we won't go into here because it's not public information but your ability to be vulnerable in the middle of things in your life right now is powerful and allows you to connect with me and Chase, who is just connecting with us as well. That's what it's about. Now you've got these 11 habits and there's kind of four core principles and then there's kind of sub-principles around that. Is that right? That's right. So the first one is original. What does that mean? To be original?

So that's really about, yeah, being an original. It's that Oscar Wilde quote, be yourself, everyone else is taken. And it's sort of a few habits around how to lean into your authentic self and find your truth. And one of them is the persuasive power of storytelling and really understanding what drives you, how to tell your story. And so there's sort of some workshops in here

about how to do that and how to pull out your story. How to tell better stories. How to tell better stories and really understanding what your story is and what you stand for. And that's the part about being original. That's interesting. It's an art to learn how to tell stories. It can be very challenging for people.

I find it very challenging for me telling stories. Well, it's kind of your job, isn't it? It is, but it's still challenging. That's what you do all day long. It's still challenging. For me, I'm good at telling other people's stories. But I'm not good at coming up with stories on my own. I'm good at telling their story.

Which I guess is still a story of stories. But someone told me one time, facts tell, stories sell. my own yeah i'm good at like telling their story right right which i guess is still stories but um someone told me one time you know facts tell stories sell and so if you're a guy or a girl or a person who's got a lot of facts when you're talking to someone it's not going to sell them or persuade them as much as if you tell a story that's right there's this i go into in the book but there's a psychologist jonathan height whot, who said, the mind is a story processor, not a logic processor. And it's really about that facts and arguments kind of go in one ear and out the other, like stats and numbers and data. It might be important, but stories really matter. When Martin Luther King is talking about, he has a dream that one day his four

children will be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. He's telling a story. He's telling a dream. He's not talking about socioeconomic numbers and what this population has that this population doesn't have or the unfair balance. He's making a really big proclamation and he's telling a story, a dream he had. And that's what we remember. That's the power of storytelling, to always think about it that way. Okay. You got the power of storytelling.

Power of storytelling. You said never be closing. That's part of being original. Because a lot of people are always selling something, right? They're trying to get the sale as opposed to giving and outing value constantly. It's just transaction. A lot of people. It's like check, check, check, check.

And when you're transaction-based, things come and go. And part of never be closing is also looking at when you, you know, philosophy of like when you hear no, it's just no for now. You know, it's not over. Like, I mean, even at work, we'll have clients. We won't win the pitch. You stay in that relationship. Yeah, maybe three, five years later, they come back around. Six months later, they come back around.

Six months. Yeah, oh, okay. They didn't have a good experience. Who knows? Five years. I mean, Brendan just won a piece of business that we had pitched. He won it yesterday that we pitched two years ago. Really?

So I stayed in touch with the client. All of a sudden, someone made a mistake, and he was right there. There you go. And picked it up. So that's part of that philosophy. It's switching your viewpoint. And you say another habit is to turn and face the strange.

What does that mean? So turn and face the strange is all about my idol, David Bowie. And so I learned about this concept of being original, really,, David Bowie. And so I learned about this concept of being original, really, from David Bowie. And David Bowie, obviously, he was a musician. And when he started, his label wanted him to do folk songs, like Bob Dylan. And he was David Robert Jones.

And those albums tanked. No one heard of him him music was like somebody else it wasn't him and so he quit left the label went to like a Buddhist monastery studied mime of all things you know strange dude he uh it started an experimental arts lab, came back, reincarnated as David Bowie, created these stories, Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, different albums, and leaned into his... He wasn't afraid to fly his freak flag. Was he man or woman? Was he homosexual, heterosexual?

You didn't really know. But that was him. That was him, was stirring things up and being himself and now he's you know he became one of the best-selling artists of all time well by leaning into authenticity and what he stood for and and so that's why being strange being strange whatever you turn your face is strange whatever your quirks are yeah lean into your quirks like don't try to be what someone else wants you to be don't do what the label asks. Do what's inside of you.

Well, the people that stand out and become more of who they are are the ones that benefit the most in the future. Yeah. If you're just trying to be like everyone else or just trying to fit in in a certain way, yeah, you're not really making a mark on the world. You're not making a big impact. It's the ones that are willing to be strange and accepted. That's the key. I love the show Glee for that reason. I don't know if you ever watched Glee. I watched Glee, yeah.

For me, it was one of my favorite shows. It's all about the weirdos. I saw the Glee concert, dude. No way. I did. I saw the Glee concert. I'm jealous. Yeah, I saw the Glee concert.

I didn't even know there was a concert. It was amazing. All the cast was there? Yeah, the cast performed. Oh, my God. I'm so jealous. It was awesome. that's amazing but those were all like the kind of the weird outcasts i guess of the school but they're the ones that

like when they finally accepted who they were that's when they took a shine exactly so you've got to learn to accept who you are yeah even if it goes against everyone else it should go against everyone else that's right but that's when you're going to shine the most. Yeah, yeah. You talk about being generous. This is another key principle in persuasion. This is kind of like the old law of reciprocity, like when you give, people feel inclined to want to give back. Yeah. So why do you say give yourself away, the pull of positivity, and just a little respect?

the pull of positivity, and just a little respect. So, well, they all come from, they're all based on the same concept that you, so some of these habits you inherently have. You inherently had generosity as one of your habits. And so you were connecting people. When you didn't know where it would lead, that was just who you were.

Other people that don't have that, they can learn that skill. These are all skills that you can practice and learn. Like anything else, they're muscles that you got to work out. And for me, generous is all about not expecting anything in return and just giving away. Respect is another form of being generous. And I cover a study in the book that Harvard Business School, they interviewed 20,000 employees. And the number one thing that they said made for good leadership

was respect. It wasn't time off. It wasn't a raise or money or promotion, the number one driver was respect. And if you respect the people you interact with and work with, I mean, that's where the action is. You'll get more out of that group, that team. Yeah, if you respect them and see them as peers, that's what is going to level you up. Interesting.

Yeah, yeah. I heard these stories about how Steve Jobs was disrespectful to a lot of his product developers, that he'd throw the phone back in their face or whatever, talk bad about people. But maybe that's just one-off times. But maybe he also had a level of respect for them. Somehow, some other way? Yeah, some other way.

Or maybe he was that one in a million that was such a freaky genius. Or he had other habits that were checking. Yeah, you just followed him because you're like, I don't like this dude, but he's got – Yeah, but he's amazing. Yeah, he's amazing. He's amazing. He's got a vision and he's putting it out there. He's persuasive in other ways.

Yeah. He was an original though. He was an original. He was an original for sure. He was an original. Okay, so we got generous is one of the key habits. Give yourself away. The pull of positivity, what does that mean?

So the pull of positivity is just simply there so the pull of positivity is is just simply um there's a lot of different ways you can take persuasion and i cover that sort of covers there's negative parts of persuasion which are also really effective like fear-based persuasion fear-based persuasion it's like my old football coach in high school or something it was just like screamed at you if you drop the ball ball, you're like, ah. Was that effective? It was not effective for me. It wasn't effective.

I mean, in some ways, it made me work hard, but it made me constantly stressed. And I don't think you want that out of the people around you. You don't want them to be feeling fearful and stressed by your level of persuasion. Like, if you don't do this, then I'm going to scream at you more. Yeah, yeah. And so it just sort of studies like the impact of negative versus positive persuasion and how positive persuasion wins out in the long run. Negative persuasion can certainly have its benefits and be effective.

You see it in politics all the time. Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, that's all it is. Crazy. That's all it is. It's just like that. Fear-based time. Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, that's all it is. Crazy. That's all it is. It's just like that. Fear-based attacks. Yeah.

There was a 1964 Lyndon Johnson ad. It was sort of one of the first campaign ads like that that was called Daisy. And it shows a girl in a field picking daisies. Then a nuclear bomb goes off. And then the screen fades to black. And it's basically like... The world's ending.

If I don't vote for this dude... Oh my gosh. My family's going to blow up in a nuclear war. That's crazy. That's negative persuasion that was effective. It works. It works because that's fear-based. And this just argues that the opposite

is more productive for society. More sustainable, more healthy. Gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The politics, it seems like... It's gotten a lot worse, right? People win based on those fear-based tactics. They do, yeah.

But I feel like Obama won based on positivity. He did. And an image, an ideal of something greater. That is why he won. Right? Yeah. He broke through because he wasn't going to get down to that level. And I mean, look how from there to where we are.

It's crazy, right? The pendulum has swung like so far. Maybe it's always swinging. Now it's like bully name calling. It's crazy. Yeah. I know. It doesn't seem productive, but that's just me.

Yeah. So you got the be original. You got the generous, this giving mentality. When we give of our time, of our energy, of our listening, of our respect, it doesn't have to be constantly giving gifts. It can be just our connection. It can be generous with our listening. That's right.

Time, advice, connections, compliments that you think of but you don't say. You're always doing that. You're like, oh, I should – and then you don't. Give those messages out there. Give that positivity off. That will make you more persuasive. That will make you more persuasive. And then empathetic.

Why is empathetic such a key to persuasion and being influential? So really, the basis of that is about the idea that we are all connected and related. You know, human beings are. We're the universe's only storytellers. We all share 99.9% of the same DNA. But yet, that being said, the world is like, seems super fractured. And so that's really just trying to understand your audience. And there's sort of habits on how to do that. And my dad doesn't have the same beliefs.

So we're like complete opposites. You still share so much in common. And it's understanding shared values. We all, at the end of the day want the same things and so safety love safety love connection connection human connection yeah that those are sort of the drivers and how do you understand how to look for those and don't shut people down try to be a little bit more open and be empathetic. How are you empathetic when someone is attacking you or making you wrong or screaming at you or just doesn't

want to bring the common ground energy and spirit? When it's just like, screw you, you're wrong, you messed this up, I hate you type of energy. I think it's your job and there's cases where you're just like i'd have had enough like that's not worth my energy but there's there's ways to unpack what's behind

that emotion and what's below it and why that person feels that way through empathy through empathy and trying to see things from their perspective why they feel that way and talk not talking to them the way like if they're talking to you, you talk to them back because that's counterproductive. If it's something in a business relationship or a family relationship, if it's a relationship you don't need, that's fine. You don't need that in your life. But if it's something that you need to work through,

it's how do you understand and ask them key questions to see things from their perspective yeah empathy empathy collaborative imperative yeah that's all about coming together and and working together i used to be i used to be so focused on competition my whole life yeah and it wasn't until a few years ago when i was like man it's really hard being competitive with everything and why don't i just start being more collaborative with everything? When do you think that like, flipped? I mean, it started to gradually change over the last six, seven years when I started to open up about sexual trauma and really kind of being vulnerable about the things I've been

through in my life, accepting myself for who I was as opposed to trying to put on these masks. So it really started to shift after that because I was like, man, I'm always trying to compete with everyone to prove my worth to people or to the world or whatever, to myself. And when I was like, well, I don't have to prove myself anymore

because now I accept myself so I can just collaborate more. And every year I get more and more of this collaborative spirit where I think my default is I want to destroy everyone. Like I want to crush everyone. That's like programmed into you. Right. It's like, I need to win. I want to crush, but then I'm like, okay, that doesn't support me. Yeah. And it doesn't support humanity having that mentality. So why

don't I always come from the place of how can I lift everyone else up and be generous to everyone else? And I'm going to be up there with them. Wasn't that why you're successful today? Yeah. Because of that mentality? Exactly. And that shift? Did that happen when you were working on your book? Yeah.

Did it happen before that? Did the book sort of pull that? It was about six years ago. Yeah. I wrote my first book. It started to happen right before that. Yeah. It started to happen maybe a year before that when things started to shift. And, um, it was more of like, I was just trying to do things to prove to everyone that I was

like good enough or something. That you were the man? Exactly. That was like the best. Right. That I was like the best. Right. And I was just like, what am I doing? Right. This doesn't support anything being like, I told you so.

Or like feeling like, ah, gotcha. Right. Even if it was internally. Yeah. I was like, okay, got what? You know what I mean? It's like, why don't we just all succeed? Yeah.

So I mean, my platform in the last six and a half years has been a platform of sharing other people's stories yeah and putting them in front of my audience yeah and I think that supports me

by putting the spotlight on someone else yeah it always shines and reflects back on you yeah that's true as opposed to saying hey everyone look at me

all the time it's not like look at this idea this person this experience right and then the reflection and when you think about competition

what are you trying to win anyway exactly you know i mean like what is what is winning to be like the number one person in the space or the most selling books or the biggest whatever i mean i always want to grow yeah and make a bigger impact but i've you think that came from sports absolutely that mindset came from being the youngest before okay and feeling like I was never seen and needing to catch up to my siblings. My siblings were always amazing. I was like, how do I beat them or catch up to them or whatever? Then sports. So I think it's hard to shift out of that mindset when that was my entire life was being number one and being the best.

like being number one and being the best. And then I eventually realized when my first business was building, it was kind of the engine that got me to where I was, to building like a multimillion-dollar business. But I remember just like lots of relationships were suffering because I was very combative. It was like my way or the highway. Yeah, yeah. I think that's like a young entrepreneurial mindset.

Trying to prove myself. Which is like I can can do this i can lead yeah but you can't do it without it's without the team that's it like you got to do it together collectively that's when i started now i started six years ago or six and a half years ago and a lot of things evolved and it not only evolved in the external world but my internal world evolved yeah and that was when i brought a lot of peace to my life i love that so i have a i have a story on empathy yeah that and understanding the other side that i just can't i can't believe this isn't a movie but i i ran across it as i was working on the book but in um in 1914 world war one there was it's called the Christmas Truce. Have you ever heard of it? Christmas Truths?

Truce. Truce. Yeah, T-R-U-C-E, Truce. And on Christmas Day, there was the Allied forces and the German forces. And on Christmas, one side started singing like carols. Shut up. And they all crawled out of their trenches and foxholes and they for the entire day they like swapped pictures of their family shut up yeah and they made a soccer ball

out of masking tape and they had like a soccer screen no way i swear to god then at the end of the you know that carried on into the evening the end of the day they went back into their foxholes and started killing each other again and it was war you know one of the bloodiest wars of all time that shows you like how similar people are at the sort of pinnacle of like i mean we're talking about war like i'm going to kill you wow and that they came that idea of coming together and no one shot anyone because it was christmas day they put down their weapons and then they back, and then they started killing each other. Oh, man, it's so sad. It's so beautiful and sad at the same time.

I know, the Christmas truce. Why don't you just create a peace from there? Yeah, I know. We're all trying to go back home. Yeah, let's just call it. Let's call it. You take your land, I'll take my land. Exactly.

Peace out. Wow. Yeah, so that shows just how that common ground that we can share, even in war. Yeah, it's shows just how that common ground that we can share, even in war. Yeah, it's all about collaboration. And then the fourth habit, main principle, is soulful. And the importance of skill hunting and personal Jesus. What does that mean?

Skill hunting, I think, is something I talk about as one of the greatest things I've ever done for myself, is mastering lots of different skills. So I have this tool belt with all these different skills that I can whip out. I can play guitar. I can salsa dance. I can build a business. I can speak on stage. All the things that I was afraid to do, I started writing lists when I was younger. And I said, OK, I need to no longer be afraid of this. I need to master this. And it to master this. They became skills, not fears. Is that kind of what skill hunting is? It's pretty much what it is.

I mean, I think you kind of embody this. You talk about how you were failing English, and then you ended up writing best-selling books. And just that that switch but the idea behind skill hunting is you know there's sort of like life hacking which is like shortcuts like the fastest way to productivity and then there's which is not really skill hunting it's not skill hunting it's like shortcuts right which is how do you hack it to kind of do it a little bit it's effective and then there's the idea of sort of more, more, more. Like, just work until you grind it out and you're successful,

which, like, I mean, if you don't have a good idea, more, more, more is going to not do anything for you. Yeah. And so the skill hunting sort of lies in the middle of those, which is you be really, really great at a few things, and then every couple years add, like, a new tool to the tool belt as you would describe it keep trying to look at skills and don't look at a little hobby is like not important look at it as like dive deep into it learn a passion like learn something really really

well and then that's a skill you've developed and then move on from there but don't try to do like 12 things at once you know one thing for like six months to a year yeah gather these skills and then over time what does skill mastering more skills do for your persuasive abilities well i think first of all you have to be really really good at like two to three like you have to master some skills then you can go find other skills but you have to really really really master some skills there's a study recently about the most trusted person in in america and it's tom hanks really and i mean he's an amazing guy who doesn't like that but who even knows what kind of guy he is but the reason but he seems to be very trusting well the the reason why is he's one of the best actors ever.

He's crafted his skill so that you trust him. It's why celebrity endorsements work. You know why you sell products with celebrities? Because they're so skilled that you're like, well, if they're hawking this product, I trust that they're trustworthy people because they've mastered the skill. And so mastering a skill, I think, is just really critical to success

and not trying to jump into a gazillion things, but really master two or three things and then add later on skills after that. Wow. Yeah. So, I mean, you did that with sports and that. That's cool. So skill hunting, mastering skills will make you more persuasive because people will trust based on your skills that you're more credible.

That you're more credible and trustworthy because – You're hardworking, that you're consistent, you're committed. You've been able to learn something and be excellent at it. And not just proficient, but excellent at it. And then the personal jesus part is then adding purpose what is your give back what are you doing in the world that's not just for profit or for ego there's a lot of ego yeah um out there and so what is the purpose piece and how do you look at your skills and match it up with giving back so for you you know

pencils of promise is something that you're you know really dedicated passionate about and so it's really lining you know there's an exercise in there of like whether there are two or three things you're really skilled at what are two or three things you care about in the world and if you stare at those two lists long enough you'll come up with an idea of how to combine those it's why you know from an advert an ad guy i'm a i'm a madman right like i understand advertising i'm super skilled at that it's why we took those skills to you know fight sexual assault and I created a group called the Creative Alliance. It's 90 companies that do social good pro bono work. Those are taking the skills of advertising.

You wouldn't think advertising where we're trying to sell products and services for profit could do good. But anyone can take whatever skills they have and figure out a way to apply them to make the world a better place. And that makes you a more persuasive person. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah. Wow, man. Yeah, yeah, cool. It's exciting.

The soulful art of persuasion, not just the art of persuasion, the soulful art, the 11 habits that will make anyone a master influencer. What's something people can do today that can make them more influential right after listening to this, whether they get your book and dive into all the exercises and everything or not what's something they can do right now to make them more influential like the number like the first easy thing easiest thing that's just like something they can do in the next hour um like when they meet the next person they talk to what's something they can do differently than they that't normally do? I think the idea of not looking, switching the mindset of transactional thinking is the number

one quickest way. And thinking about it as the long-term viewpoint, that's sort of the number one thing I would say you could do right away. And anyone can do that switch. That's a really easy thing to do. So NBC. Never be closing, babyc never be closing baby don't do it man yeah but eventually you gotta close yeah you'll close to run your business or to get the the partner you want you've got to ask for something right yeah of course you can ask right you can pull not push you know that's sort of the big difference yeah you can pull them towards you but not push i like this this, man. I like this.

So where can they get the book? Amazon, Barnes & Noble. Do you guys have a website for this? Or your personal website? The soulfulart.com. The soulfulart.com. Do you have a personal website, or is there more mechanism? It's just mechanism.com and soulfulart.com.

Mechanism.com is one word. It's pretty good. Mechanism.com. But it's with a K. That'scom is one word. It's pretty good. Mechanism.com. But it's with a K. That's right. Yeah, yeah. That's the difference. I like it.

So the book is at the soulfulart.com. Yeah. Do you have any bonuses or anything? Yeah, yeah. They can download the first chapter. Gotcha. Check it out. See if they like it.

I like it, man. Yeah, yeah. This has been years in the making for you. Three-year journey. Lots of research. Yeah, yeah. This has been years in the making for you. Three-year journey. Lots of research. Ton of research. Lots of exercises. Practical, powerful, inspiring, storytelling-based book.

Make sure you guys pick this up. I've got a couple questions for you left. This is called the three truths question. All right. So imagine it's your last day on Earth yeah 100 200 years from now right and you get to live as long as you want to oh that's dope you get to live as long as you want all right but eventually you got to call it quits right and the lights the lights shut off on on this experience for you and you go somewhere else and uh you've created everything you want to create in the world

you've achieved it all you've done anything you want to do you've done it but for whatever reason you've got to take all that work with you so no one has access to this book your advertising agency it's all not wiped off gone with you to another place but no one has access to it but you get to leave behind a piece of paper

that you get to write down three things you know to be true about every experience in your life that you would leave behind for the rest of us. Kind of like the three lessons that you'd want to leave behind. So three things you know to be true. This is all people would have to remember you by. Okay. What would you say are your three truths? So the three truths to pass on to someone? Yeah, the lessons to the world. Okay. Kind of like your commandments. My commandments.

Three of them. Okay. All right. Three of them. All right. Number one, be kind. Like that mental idea of viewing the world through that filter of kindness to other people is sort of foundational.

I think it's a foundational point of view. Second is be yourself. You got to, no one can understand you if you don't understand yourself. So you got to fully be yourself. What's number three? Be kind, be yourself, and don't live your life by what other people think. And so if you're making change, it should be change that you want to make,

not how it's going to impact or what people are going to say about your change. I think that's one of the biggest regrets of the dying. I think there's five top regrets, and it's like not living my life to please other people, but to do it for me. It's really hard to do. Really hard, especially when you have kids and you're married

and you've got business and you've got people that you need to. Yeah, every action impacts other people. Exactly. But you can be yourself and be kind, and then sometimes you have to, once you know yourself, you've got to do things for you. That's it. You've got to do things for you also.

That's it, man. That's it. The soulful art of persuasion. I want to acknowledge you for a minute, Jason, because you've always been kind and generous to me. As long as I've known you for at least seven, eight years. Yeah, yeah. You've never been closing.

You've always been giving. You've always been authentic. You're always offering. You just offer me like, hey, when you're in New York, come use the podcast when we have. You're never asking for stuff. And I really respect your creativity your ability to match those two things you talked about like your skill sets and really helping people get their message out to impact their world in a better way right whether it's peloton with their community or MedMen or whatever it may be, really sharing better stories.

I think storytelling is a lost art that you've mastered. So I respect your generosity, your kindness, and your realness. You are yourself at all times, at least around me. I love that, man. I love this about you. Final question, but make sure you guys get The Soulful Art of Persuasion, the 11 habits that will make anyone a master influencer. You can get it right now.

Make sure to check it out. Final question is, what's your definition of greatness? Wow. They say greatness is a process, right? So you're always trying to achieve that. But I think something that I've learned, which I know you've learned too, it's kind of that competitive thing where you're never happy. You're never happy.

You're always striving, striving, striving. And I think greatness to me is comfort in where you are at all times. That to me is the definition of greatness. Being wherever you are at any given time, making that the best thing it can be, and that's really hard to learn. Yeah, accepting where you're at right now. Accepting where you're at, to me, that's what great people do.

That's greatness. And it's really hard in this modern era to do that because it's all about climbing and striving and moving and more and more and more. But I think that to me is like being present and accepting where you are at all times is definition of greatness. My man, Jason Harris. Thanks, brother. Thanks, man.

Appreciate you, bro. Appreciate you. There you have it, my friend. Enjoyed this episode with my good friend, Jason Harris, and all the wisdom that he has brought together from his years of experience in the business about how to persuade people, how to persuade clients, how to persuade customers, how to persuade audiences. He's done it all and he's got a lot of wisdom to share. Make sure you check out his new book, Soulful Art of Persuasion, 11 Habits That Will Make Anyone a Master Influencer.

It's out right now. If you enjoyed this, share it with your friends, lewishouse.com slash 848. You can text one friend and say, hey, I think you might like this episode. Check it out. You can put it on a what's up group. You can share it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Let me know and tag me at lewishouse when you do on social media. And leave us a review. We're constantly creating great content and sharing it with you every single Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'd love to hear from you.

Leave a rating over on Apple Podcasts right now. Type in a comment of what you enjoyed about this as I'd love to hear from you. Life is about persuading people to get what you want, to get your message across, to create a vision for yourself that people buy into, to get hired for the dream job, to start a business and get funding. It's all about persuading people to get someone to marry you.

We're constantly persuading and there are strategies to do it in a weird negative way and there's other ways to do it that are more soulful like Jason has talked about. And the quote that I love the most from Roosevelt is, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And if you truly care about your ideas and you care about helping other people achieve their goals and their dreams, you will ultimately get everything you want in life when you care

deeply about other people. I hope you know that. I hope you know that I care and I appreciate you listening every single week. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Outro Music Bye.