Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Robin Dreeke: FBI Hacks for Building Rapport | E137

Episode Date: October 18, 2021

Ever wondered how to hack your way to more meaningful relationships? In this episode, we are talking with Robin Dreeke, best-selling author, professional speaker, former Head of the FBI and master spy recruiter. Robin’s life mission has been breaking down the art of leadership, communication, and relationships, and building them into 5 steps to trust and 6 steps of who you can trust. Robin is also the founder and president of People Formula LLC, an organization that offers Advanced Rapport Building Training and Consultation. Having made his way through the ranks of the US Marines, Robin quickly realized his path to leadership was going to be a non-linear one. He learned the defining lesson that leadership is more than telling people what to do, but rather using interpersonal skills to inspire action. With this knowledge, he was recruited into the FBI where he became a counterintelligence specialist and recruited Russian spies. His fascination with human behavior eventually led him to run the FBI’s elite Behavioral Analysis Program. He quickly became a Behavioral Analysis Expert, and has written 3 best-selling books and uses his expertise to train others through his online training academy. In today’s episode, we discuss Robin’s journey to the military and eventually the FBI, how humans are hard-wired socially, and the difference between likability and trust. We’ll also talk about Robin’s 6 signs of predicting human behavior and leadership mantras, how to keep our egos in check, and some of the biggest mistakes we make when trying to build new relationships. If you’re looking for a deep understanding of human behavior and how to hack your way to better relationships, you do not want to miss this episode! Sponsored by -  Gusto. Get three months free when you run your first payroll at gusto.com/YAP Social Media:  Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Follow Hala on Clubhouse: @halataha Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com Timestamps: 01:05- Robin’s Career Journey and Path to the FBI 5:28- Defining Stempathy and How it Leads to Understanding Behavior 7:27- How Humans are Hard-Wired 8:18- The Difference Between Likability and Trust 10:48- How Predictability and Trust are Related 11:39- Robin’s 6 Signs of Predicting Behavior 12:58- How to Make a Connection with Anyone Through Language 14:08- Being Vulnerable and Having Genuine Conversations 16:06- How to Tell if Someone is Bored or Uncomfortable in Conversation 17:36- Showing Non-Verbal Congruence with Body Language 21:29- Building Rapport with New People 25:46- The Importance of Giving People Choice in Conversations 31:09- Ways to Keep Our Ego in Check 34:02- The Biggest Mistakes People Make When Building Relationships 35:48- How Robin Recruited Spies for the FBI 40:50- Robin’s Leadership Mantras 44:35- Robin’s Book The Code of Trust and His 3 Pillars of Trust 46:52- The Best Books Robin has Read Recently 49:24- Robin’s Secret to Profiting in Life Mentioned In The Episode: Robin’s Website: peopleformula.com Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/rdreeke    Books Robin Recommended: -Ryan Holiday’s works, Ego is Enemy, Stillness is Key, The Obstacle is the Way -Steven Pressfield, The Virtues of War, Gates of Fire -Tasha Eurich, Insight -Jay Shetty, Think Like a Monk -Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership, The Dichotomy of Leadership -Jack Schafer, The Truth Detector -Joe Navarro, Be Exceptional -Christopher J. Hadnagy and Seth Schulam, Human Hacking Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of YAP is sponsored in part by Shopify. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com-profiting. Join Uba One and Save. Zero Dollar Delivery and Percentage Off Discount Subjects to Old Minimums and Participating Source. Taxes and other fee still apply. You're listening to YAP, Young and Profiting Podcast. A place where you can listen, learn, and profit.

Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Halla Taha, and on Young and Profiting Podcast, we investigate a new topic each week and interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life, no matter your age, profession or industry. There's no fluff on this podcast, and that's on purpose. I'm here to uncover value from my guests by doing the proper research and asking the right questions.

If you're new to the show, we've chatted with the likes of XFBI agents, real estate moguls, self-made billionaires, CEOs, and bestselling authors. Our subject matter ranges from enhancing productivity, had to gain influence, the art of entrepreneurship, and more. If you're smart and like to continually

improve yourself, hit the subscribe button, because you'll love it here at Young & Profiting Podcast. This week on YAP, we're chatting with Robin Drake, best-selling author, professional speaker, former head of the FBI and master spy recruiter. Robin's life mission has been breaking down the art of leadership, communication, and relationships, and then building those lessons into five tangible steps to trust. Robyn is also the founder and president of the People Formula LLC, an organization that offers advanced rapport building, training, and consultation. Having made his way through the ranks of the US Marines, Robyn quickly realized his path to leadership was going to

be a non-linear one. He learned the defining lesson that leadership is more than just telling people what to do, but rather using interpersonal skills to inspire action. With his knowledge, he was recruited into the FBI, where he became a counterintelligence specialist and recruited Russian spies. His fascination with human behavior eventually led him to run the FBI's elite behavioral analysis program. He soon became a behavioral analysis expert and has written three best-selling books and uses his expertise to train others through his online training academy.

In today's episode, we discussed Robbins' journey to the military and eventually the FBI, how humans are hardwired socially, and the difference between likability and trust. We'll also talk about Robin's six signs of predicting human behavior, his leadership mantras, how to keep our egos in check, and some of the biggest mistakes we make when trying to build new relationships. If you're looking for a deep understanding of human behavior and how to hack your way into better relationships, Keep on listening.

Hey, Robin. Welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. Hey, thanks for having me. Excited to be here with you all and sharing with everyone. Me too. This is my favorite topic. Human behavior is my all time favorite topic. I've had some of the best on my show.

I've had Robert Green on my show Chase Hughes, Mark Bowden. So I've interviewed a lot of experts and just super excited to have you, Robb, and because you are one of those types of people, you are an expert in this field. Wow, I actually know a lot of those guys you just mentioned. Yeah, Chase Hughes, we're still trying to figure out what exactly his job was.

He still hasn't shared that completely. He's amazing. He's been on my show maybe like three times already. I've got to get you guys on some sort of a panel on clubhouse or something because it would be so awesome. I love talking about this topic, I guess, that. But before we get into how to build rapport, how to gain trust, all these really interesting things that we need in our daily lives and in business, I'd love to understand how you became somebody who works in the FBI. So first, start off and tell us what was your career journey like? Like, what are some of the things that you did as an adult in your career?

And then walk us through how you actually created that path academically and experience wise. And I'm laughing because I had it take a deep rest. So that's called a pacifying behavior, because it's stressful. My path was not an easy path. It was a path full of lots of failure. So I ended up in my career before I retired as the head of the behavioral analysis program

for counterintelligence in the FBI. And so that's the common question to get. So how did you get to do that? And so when I was young, I went to high school, you actually even before high school, I wanted to go to the United States Naval Academy. We had a friend of the family that was a pilot for United Airlines when I was growing up and he had been a Navy pilot during Vietnam and his I love me room looked really cool. And those were the years when we had just started the space shuttle program. So I wanted to be a Naval Academy grad. I wanted a major in aerospace

engineering. I wanted to become a Navy pilot. Then I wanted to become maybe even a blue angel in the flight demonstration team. Then a test pilot and ultimately an astronaut and this amazing great leader. Well, I failed out of aerospace engineering because no one told me the guy that could barely pass the SATs and barely get in the Naval Academy. Should not be majoring in aerospace engineering. My eyes went from 2020 to 2030 while I was there and back then you cannot correct your vision.

So aviation was out. They put me on a boat one summer and I didn't like that. So the Marine Corps called my name. I went to Marine Corps instead. And then I learned that I'm actually, and we'll talk about this later, I learned that I was actually misdefining leadership as power and popularity. And it's anything but that. And leadership is about others, not about self, and that's all where the human behavior comes in. And so I was exercising my popular outgoing personality and failing as a leader.

So I had humbling moments in the Marine Corps, but I started learning better. My final job in the Marine Corps was at Parasyle and South Carolina, training recruits down there, and implementing a thing called a crucible. And then they had a recruiter for the FBI come down. As I was considering getting out of the Marine Corps as a captain, I'd done five years. And this Marine, I mean, FBI recruiter said he thought Marine Corps officers made great

FBI agents. And I had two questions. I said, does all my military time count towards my retirement? And I didn't know what the FBI really did. So I said, I figured let's talk job satisfaction. I said, how many people make it to retirement? And he said about 95 to 98% of the agents that come on board go to retirement. I said, oh, they must like the job. Sign me up. I get assigned to, after

new agent training, I get assigned to New York field office. I worked in Manhattan from 1997 until around 2006. Was there during 9-11 or our office at 26th Federal Plaza about five blocks away. I was there. I saw, I was watched everything. So the second plane hit the fireball come through as I watched about eight people jump from the North Tower. So it's intimately involved in that. And I got assigned to work counterintelligence when I got assigned to work in New York.

And working counterintelligence for me meant my job was recruiting spies. I work, I, my job was recruit Russian spies. And during that time period, I got on our behavioral analysis program, which is kind of like, layman's terms, it's profiling for the counterintelligence side, but it's really strategizing on dialogues

and recruitment ops and double agent ops and all that fun stuff. And I got a transfer out of New York to I went to FBI headquarters ran a Russian program there. Then they asked me go down I went to Norfolk on did the same thing down there. I got the Quantico. I taught a Quantico at the CI counterintelligence advanced training courses. And I got to take over our behavioral team for a number of years as well. And the entire time all I did was realize that you you know, it's not all about me. You have to put that focus on others.

And so yes, that is a typical type A hard charging resume, but if you're going to work in the world of recruiting spies or sales or anything where you require a relationship, you will fail majestically if you're focusing on what you want rather than what others want. I love that a lot of these people that I interview who are in the FBI or maybe they were police trainers, once they get out, they just want to teach regular people how you can do this stuff because it's relatable no matter what your profession is. Like you said, for sales especially and we'll get into that in a bit. So before we get into all your different strategies, I do wanna give my listeners some context.

So I think a great way to start this off is by defining a word that you coined called Stempathy, which is a combination of stoicism and empathy. So explain what that is and why that has to do with understanding how people interact with each other and understanding human behavior. Absolutely, it's my favorite combination of everything in the world. So the part of the stempathy, as you said, the stoicism part, is

stoic philosophies, which is problem-solving. It's human problem-solving. It has nothing to do with pessimism. It has to do with understanding the human condition and being extremely thoughtful about understanding the cause and effect. Do you have another, it's through human behavior? Ryan Holiday is a great author who I absolutely love all his writings, Ego's the enemies, obstacles the way and stillness is key or three of my favorite books, which talks about how to mentally put these things

in place for self-regulation and thoughtful and contemplative ways to engage human beings. So that's the sympathy part. But if you just use that, you might miss the important thing that you need when you're engaging human beings is understand what they see through their optic and their lens without judging it, which is empathy. And so my code of trust is really a code of empathy,

which is understanding other people from their point of view without judging it. So now when you combine the thoughtful way to engage human beings with cause and effect of human behavior, because you understand what motivates human beings, and you put it together with your desire to understand what they see from their personal optic through empathy, you really have a magical combination of engaging human beings very productively. Is there anything else we need to know in terms of how humans are hardwired or hard-coded before we get into strategies for likeability and building trust?

Sure. There's one simple core understanding that everything will spring from no matter what you're doing. And if you remember this, it'll always be a great guide for you. And that is, all of us are genetically and biologically coded to act in our own best interests according to what we as individuals think that are in terms of our safety, security, and prosperity for ourselves and those we care about in our lives. So as long as you take the time to figure out what someone else thinks is in their best interest,

you can now understand what they're gonna do. And when you understand what they're gonna do, and now you offer yourself as a resource for those things, you can predict what's going to happen. You're going to have a relationship. So that's pretty much it. Yeah, I think that's key for my listeners to understand. So the other thing I want to understand is the difference between likability and trust because it's not the same thing, right?

Can you break that down for us? Yeah, sure. So trust, the first thing I do when I wrote the last book is kind of redefine trust, because trust, a lot of people think it's a carte blanche, big swath of a paintbrush saying, I either trust you or I don't trust you. And they misinterpret trust as likeability a lot of times.

And likeability just means that you have overlapping interests, commonalities, priorities, demographics, well, whatever it is, that's a likeability thing, which can be very emotional and it's very good. It's very nice to be liked. But that doesn't necessarily mean you can trust someone because trust is about predicting behavior, predicting what someone's going to do in a given situation.

And so again, when it comes to trust, I don't do a paintbrush like I don't trust your distrust you because there's lots of areas I could trust someone in, but a lot of areas I might not. And my example I love to use is flying. I fly a plane, you know, a small plane. So I rent small planes and I used to do angel flights and things like that. I have a lot of training to fly a plane. I can fly a plane very safely. I have a lot of people in my life that are very close friends.

I'm, in fact, I still go out to lunch with one of my FBI friends weekly. And but he is not a pilot. I trust him with a lot of things in my life, but I'm not going to throw him the keys to the plane and trust him not to get us killed, you know, because he doesn't have a skill set in that lane. So trust, first of all, it's, I go by lanes, you know, what can I reasonably predict you're going to do in each one of these lanes. And then trust is about understanding and predicting that behavior, not about, you know, the emotional ties to liking because I can like you, I mean, I like a lot of family members, but I might not trust family members. I might trust family members, but actually not like them.

You know, so they can overlap. It's great when they do overlap, but don't mistake one for the other because you could get yourself jammed up. And actually what happens is when you misidentified trust because you like someone and they fall short of what your expectations are, that's when negative emotions like frustration

and anger starts seeping in and that starts rooting relationships because the whole purpose of understanding people at a deep level like this is you can maintain great healthy, strong relationship because that is the bedrock to everything you want to achieve in life is good healthy relationships. I totally agree. So I do want to get into how to build rapport and then into trust, but you did mention that you believe that trust is predicting human behavior, predicting what you think that person is going to do. To me, that's kind of a hard concept to grasp. So can you dig into that a bit and really explain what predictability has to do with trust? Sure. So predicting behavior,

again, if we just go to the core again of knowing that people will act in their own best interests, if you understand what they think is in their best interests, you can now predict what they're going to do. They're going to act in their best interests. So that's the first predictor. Now, the challenge here is to let go of you and yourself let go of that and be really practice ego suspension and really holy focus on that other human being watch observe You know, so I have this my six signs of predicting behavior which I can kind of take a look at and I listen to your words

Deeds and I watch your actions to kind of see what I can observe and the first one is simple. It's investing You know, this is person's words action and deeds demonstrated that they see our successes tied together Because now if they see our successes tied together. Because now if they see our successes tied together, I know I can trust they're going to take actions that are good for me as well as themselves. Long Jevides is another one. Do they see the relationship together as transactional and short term or do they see it more long term? Because again, if I just, here's the other thing, there's no right or wrong or good or bad

or any of these things, just are their milestones and signs. You know, then you have reliability, which is about confidence and diligence combined together. You have actions. And actions to me is the greatest predictor because people a lot of times will hope that someone will do something different at different time. No, I mean, if, think about this, you know, if I watch you do something the same way three or four times, the likelihood of you doing it the same way five and six times is pretty stinkin high.

But people keep hoping it'll be different. That's silly. Unless there's a different stimulus that comes in, a different priority that enters that person's life. They're going to keep doing things the same way because they think that actions in their best interest, which makes it very predictable. And the most important one, well, I have to, the last one is emotional stability because we don't want to deal with crazy people. But the one I really love the most,

which is a great fast read on everyone is language. So if you want to make a connection with any human being, you want to demonstrate that you value them and you want to affiliate with them. And the easiest way to do that is through these four things. One, seek their thoughts and opinions rather than sharing your own. Two, talk in terms of their priorities instead of yours. Three, validate them non-judgmentally. Have that great non-judgmental curiosity about them and who they are. And finally, you empower them with choices. When you use one of those four things, the entire conversation shifts from you to them and

their brain is rewarding them with dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin and endorphins, the short term and the long term, all the brain is fire and sin. This person is good for me. So what I'm doing is when I'm assessing others, are they using that language with me as well? And so that's a very, very quick read. And you can make that combined with nonverbal congruence. And although it has good happy, comfortable, nonverbal displays, and you

have a really, really good sign of, this is someone I can trust. So, let me kind of pry into that bit because I've heard this from a lot of the experts. I had Dr. Jack Sheifer on the show. He always talks about how, you know, when you're having a conversation with someone, you've, when you're having a conversation with someone, you've got to make it about the other person. It's not about yourself. You just said the same thing. But I have trouble thinking about how can I have a genuine conversation if I'm not actually sharing my own experiences, if I'm not sharing my own stories and perspectives because that actually turns the other person off because you're not talking about them,

you're only talking about yourself. But if you never share anything about yourself or talk about yourself, how does the person actually get to know you? I guess that's where I get stuck when people say, you know, make it about the other person at all times. Well, here's how you make it about

the other person at all times and you maintain that balance. If you always have to talk in terms of the priorities of the other person, if one of the priorities of the other person is they wanna get to know you better at a deeper level, well, then you give them that information and knowledge. So it's actually reading and understanding the priorities.

I had some people say, oh, Robin, I'm just introverted, I don't wanna talk to them, and I wanna sit around and talk to anyone at work. I said, great, and that's a priority of yours. I'm gonna give you your space. And so it's really understanding what individuals priorities are. So watching and reading the non-verbals,

and if someone asks you a question, you know, you can share as much as you think they want, not what you want. And so you're going to start watching those non-verbal behaviors, you see, are they giving you minimal encourages, you know, non-verbalies, to continue with the story, as your dopamine means, starts flowing because here's the challenge. Your brain is now starting to say, this is good for me because you're sharing and you're

being accepted non-judgmentally for the things you're sharing. So your brain is saying, keep going, keep going, keep going. You have to keep watching the other person for any sign of boredom or discomfort by what you're sharing. Then you know, it's time to shut it off and bounce back. But no, you share when they want you to share. Don't share when you wanna share, it's the best way to put it.

And how can you tell if somebody is bored or having discomfort? I know Chase, he's taught me if somebody's blinking really fast, that means that they're kind of bored and to change the topic. Is there any other signs that we can look for? So I'm gonna be a lot more generic on this, because it's a lot easier.

So when you first interact with any human being, you've automatically established a baseline of what their normal behavior is. And so what you want to watch for is a deviation from what normal is. So when they're sharing about themselves and they're giving your thoughts and opinions and talking about their challenges that they have, you know, you're going to see a normal baseline of what their normal looks like in comfort. And now when you start sharing your anecdotes and stories, if it's been requested, you know, you're going to see a normal baseline of what their normal looks like in comfort. And now when you start sharing your anecdotes and stories, if it's been requested, you're going to be observing,

again, I just look at a face area, you know, is everything maintained in the same baseline of what it normally looks like or is there a deviation? And if there's a deviation, that's your sign to either apologize or something, you might have said inappropriately, or you just bounce back, say, you know, enough of me, I really apologize.

I'm curious, what do you think about what I just said? And say, you know, enough of me. I really apologize. I'm curious. What do you think about what I just said? And again, you can still then talk about what it is. You just said, but you now asked their thoughts and opinions about it. So that's an easy way to keep a conversation going and demonstrate that value by seeking that thought and opinion. So I want to keep going in terms of building rapport and building these relationships, because when it comes to business, it's all about networking,

it's all about relationships. Having a good relationship could mean, getting your next promotion or getting your next job opportunity. It's super important no matter what point you are in life. So we've just touched upon body language. Maybe we can stick on that. I know that you say that one of the main things when it comes to building rapport is to be and sink with your body language. What do that you say that one of the main things when it comes to building rapport

is to be in sync with your body language. What do you mean by that? So I call it congruence. So we have all these great behaviors we can do where we're seeking the thoughts and opinions of others, talking in terms of priorities, validating, giving them choices, and making it all about them. But the most important thing that then also do is show nonverbal congruence. And this is where the difference between, you know, a really bad, sleazy salesman, and, you know, which again, they're using great scripts, they're using great lines, they're using great language, but somehow they just make you feel creepy. And what's happening is you are non-verbaly picking up on

incongruence between their words and their actions. And one of the easiest things to pick up on is a lack of synchronous with tempo. If people are really focusing on you and being accommodating to you, they will naturally start syncing their tempo with yours. In other words, you know, with these bad car salesmen that are trying to get you to get to yes, and get you to buy something and purchase something because they're on a tight timeline. They're going to push your tempo fast

and you're willing to go. They're going to run back to their manager and ask for a better deal. They're going to come out and they're going to try to put pressure on. Again, it might not be your tempo. And that's where things, they're saying the right things, but their actions are way out of sync with your tempo. And so that's the easiest thing in the world is look for comfort displays, which is

smiling, eyebrow elevation, palms up, all these ventral displays for high comfort, and you want tempo sync. And the thing to really watch me careful of, I've had many people say, well, shouldn't you just mirror someone's nonverbal behavior? I don't like consciously doing that only because if you're discovered mirroring someone's nonverbal behavior. I don't like consciously doing that, only because if you're discovered mirroring someone's behavior, it looks like you might be mocking them and it looks like you might be trying to manipulate. And if that's even suspected,

trust is blown and good luck ever getting it back. So I know that in past episodes, we've covered the eyebrow flash, like you just said, the smile, the head tilt, that's Jack's three magic things, right? Head tilt, I've rough-lashed in a smile. You just said palms up, I've never heard about that.

What is palms, like, what are we looking for when people's palms are up? I've never really see somebody naturally having their palms up. So when people are, let's turn back, no, actually push this back up. For anybody on video, he's gonna show, and if you guys are listening, he'll describe it. Right.

So, you know, when people are chatting, we have a natural way in which we engage people. I naturally use palms up like this, ventral space, because when your palms are facing upward, this is inviting. It's saying, I want to hear what you have to say. Tell me your thoughts and opinions. Even if someone's being directorial in their words

and say, this is what we're gonna do. Look how different this looks. When I'm using words, this is what we're gonna do. I'm using eyebrow flash. I'm using a smile, a little head tilt, palms up as opposed to this. This is what we're gonna do. The eyebrow compression palms down.

It's very direct. It's this, when my palms are down, it's saying, I'm not listening to what you have to say, this is what we're going to do. This is saying, this is what we're going to do. And because remember, people are looking to be understood and heard. They don't necessarily need to be agreed with,

but we want to be understood and heard. And when you use those comedy nonverbals and eventual displays and palms up, you're saying, I'm hearing what you're saying. That's awesome. So just to describe to everybody what he was doing, he was using hand gestures. So basically when you're using your hands as you're talking, if your palms are up, it means you're being friendly, open, all that kind of stuff. When it's down, it's kind of condescending and seems a little scary or what's the word aggressive or something along those lines.

Aggressive, direct. Yeah. So let's move into aggressive or something along those lines. Aggressive direct. Yeah. So let's move into meeting somebody for the first time. So let's say we're at a party. You're meeting a stranger for the first time. You want to build good rapport. You've never talked to this person before. They might not have a lot of time.

They might be very busy. They might be somebody who is somebody above your level. Let's say you're at a networking party. You want to talk to somebody who you want to be your mentor or a future client or somebody who you feel like is above your level. What do you do to have a conversation with them to help them feel like they're not trapped

in a conversation with you and to help build rapport? Like what are your tips there? Well, you hit a lot of possibilities when it comes to the individual. So if you're at a function and you see someone that you'd love to be a mentor or someone that you feel, I don't think anyone's above anyone's level. I think all humans beings are pretty equal.

But if you have a title and position as someone that is aloof or that you'd love to be able to grab a meeting with later in the week or later that day, yeah, I always start out with a time constraint, which I think you're alluding to there. And I'll give an example of how I'd probably do an opening. I'd use a time constraint, I seek a thought and opinion, I'd validate them, and I have used an assistance theme.

Because those are probably a pretty good combination because you're going, you want someone to feel really, really good about engaging with you and you want their ego involved and hit their vanity as well. At the same time, you know, using an assistance theme, which is one of the techniques to quick report, we are genetically coded in hardwired to render assistance, you know, when people ask it. Now granted, a lot of people these days at the higher executive levels do have a big bucket of no. They've learned how to say no to things. But if you use a time constraint, this might work. So I do something

like, hey, I'm so sorry to bother you. You know, it's a busy party and I know you've got a lot of people to chat with. So I was just curious. I've read your LinkedIn background. I read your bio on your website, I would love to be able to pick your brain maybe for like five minutes, maybe sometime this week if you had a second to really map out a chart for me and what I could do to be more like you. What kind of advice would you have for someone like me that's trying to set a career path for five years from now? If that's something that you're comfortable with, if not, I'd love anyone that you'd refer me to,

that might be able to do similar things that you've mentored in the past. So I love that. I just want to highlight that tip because I've never heard of it before and I think it's so brilliant, the time constraint thing. So you basically walk up to someone and you're like, oh, I got to run in 10 minutes,

but I'd love to chat with you about X, Y and Z. Then they know it's going to be 10 minutes max, and their anxiety is reduced because all of us have been in a situation where we don't want to be caught up with a stranger for too long. It makes us uncomfortable. Right. And also you're monopolizing their time and you're not important to them whatsoever. And you're demonstrating, you know, so Robert Chaldeini and his book influence, you know, says, you know, human beings on first contact have to answer priorities of the other of the human beings and that is who you are,

what you want and how long is this going to take? And when you answer, how long is this going to take? You're basically empowering them again, one of the four pillars I have is empower people with choice. You're empowering them with a choice of knowing the end is coming soon. And I always love throwing in there. If that's something you're comfortable with, because that is also, it's very soft, it's great language, and it's empowering them

with choice. And then even at the end, I gave them a choice. If you're not comfortable having a chat with me, who else would you recommend that I could equally do that? Because they're going to recommend then someone in their circle. Because again, when you're, when you are using one of those four statements and great report in every single statement you're making, their brain is completely rewarding them for engaging with you. And when you make it about an assistance team, and you're looking for advice and guidance on how to be just like them or path they'd recommend, and it can either be them or someone else, even if it's someone else.

You're going to be in that close tight circle of that person. It's going to be one degree of separation. So if someone else, you're going to be in that close tight circle of that person. It's going to be one degree of separation. So if not today, you'll be able to maybe make a connection later as well. And what you're doing by doing all these things is you're greatly improving your personal brand about how you're interacting with human beings. So I'd love to further understand the importance of giving people choices in a conversation. Like why is giving choices so important and what does that do?

Human behavior wise. Human beings want to feel empowered and given people a choice, give them power that they want. And so it's very, very simple. And people, especially in the sales world and marketing world, are so terrified of letting someone off a hook and not giving them a choice to walk away. You know, I had a philosophy I held with me throughout my career and I hold it today

and that is I'd rather work with seven people, give me 120% of their effort than 100 people give me 5% reluctantly. Because it's just such laborious work and if you're trying to convince someone to have a conversation dialogue with you, it's just such laborious work. And if you're trying to convince someone to have a conversation dialogue with you, it's really about you. It's not about them. And that's the kind of relationship

if you're not giving people a choice that the cringe when they see your cell phone number pop up. They don't even open the email when it comes. You know, it's all those kind of communication things because you're not making it about them. I'd rather have people excited to see me and inspired to want to have a dialogue and cooperation with me. And if you're doing all these things before you give the choice, the likelihood of them

saying, go away is so low. I have not had anyone say, Robin, I just don't want to talk to you ever. Now they've, they've placed conditions on it sometimes. They've said, Robin, I'm willing to have a dialogue and be a resource for you, but just not necessary. Maybe over here, you know, so they might have shifted things. They put conditions on it a few times. What I haven't had anyone say, go away. So basically you're saying when you give people a choice, they're less likely to feel pressured that they have to say yes. And because they feel less pressure, they're less likely to feel pressured that they have to say yes. And because they feel less pressure, they're more likely to say yes. Yes. And also because their brain is saying this

person is safe because remember, safety, security and prosperity, if someone's given me a choice, they're not, I know they're a lot safer than someone who's not giving me a choice. That's making them skeptical. Again, it keeps going down to those four things. Seeking thoughts and opinions, talking in terms of priorities, validation and power with choices, because our going down to those four things. Seeking thoughts and opinions, talking in terms of priorities, validation, and power with choices, because our brains want to have that kind of power and control because it makes us feel safe. Young and profitors, do you have a brilliant business idea, but you don't know how to move forward with it?

Going into debt for a four-year degree isn't the only path to success. Instead, learn everything you need to know about running a business for free by listening to the Millionaire University podcast. The Millionaire University podcast is a show that's changing the game for aspiring entrepreneurs. Hosted by Justin and Tara Williams, it's the ultimate resource for those who want to run a successful business and graduate rich, not broke. Justin and Tara started from Square One, just like you and me. They faced blows and dug themselves out of huge debt. Now they're financially free and they're sharing their hard earned lessons with all of us. That's right, millionaire university will teach you everything you need to know about starting and growing a successful business. No degrees

required. In each episode you'll gain invaluable insights from seasoned entrepreneurs and mentors who truly understand what it takes to succeed. From topics like how to start a software business without creating your own software, to more broad discussions such as eight businesses you can start tomorrow to make 10K plus a month, this podcast has it all. So don't wait, now is the time to turn your business idea into a reality by listening to the Millionaire University podcast. New episodes drop Mondays and Thursdays. Find the Millionaire University podcast on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Your dog is an important part of your family. Don't settle when it comes to their health. Make the switch to fresh food made with real ingredients that are backed by science with nom nom nom delivers fresh dog food that is personalized to your dog's individual needs. Each portion is tailored to ensure your dog gets the nutrition they need so you can watch them thrive. Nom-nom's ingredients are cooked individually and then mixed together, because science tells us that every protein, carb, and veggie has different cooking times and methods. This packs in all the vitamins and minerals your dog needs, so they truly get the most

out of every single bite. And NOM-NOM is completely free of additives, fillers, and mystery ingredients that contribute to bloating and low energy. Your dog deserves only the best, and NOM-NOM delivers just that. Their nutrient-packed recipes are crafted by bored, certified veterinary nutritionists, made fresh and shipped to your door. Absolutely free. Nom-nom meals started just $2.40,

and every meal is cooked in company-owned kitchens right here in the US, and they've already delivered over 40 million meals, inspiring clean bowls and wagging tails everywhere. Ever since I started feeding my dog Nom-nom, he's been so much more energetic, and he's getting older, he's a senior dog, but now we've been going on more energetic, and he's getting older, he's a senior dog, but now we've been going on longer walks, and he's much more playful. He used to be pretty

sluggish and sleeping all the time, but I've definitely noticed a major improvement since I started feeding him Nom Nom. And the best part, they offer a money back guarantee. If your dog's tail isn't wagging within 30 days, they'll refund your first order. No fillers, no nonsense, just nom nom. Go right now for 50% off your no risk 2 week trial at trinom.com-shap. That's trinom.nom.com-shap for 50% off trinom.com-shap. Okay, it's sponsor time, and instead of reading a script about Gusto's payroll and benefits, we wanted to tell you what small business owners say. The people who use Gusto themselves every single day.

Here's what one business owner says. With Gusto, I think of payroll as a 30-second job. Their website is so friendly and a joy to use. Friendly payroll? That's super quick. You don't hear that every day. Amy from Utah says, I love gusto so much! They do our medical dental vision and life insurance. It's so painless. It's like going to the spa, and we have great options and rates even though we're

a super small team. Health insurance? Like going to the spa? Just wow. And here's what Amit says about gusto support team. Whenever something comes up, I reach out and literally 24 hours later they tell us what to do, or assure us that they've already handled it for us. Smart technology and friendly humans? Now that's way cool. Honestly, the list goes on and on. Gusto does way more than just payroll. They help with time tracking, health insurance, 401Ks, onboarding, commuter benefits, offer letters, access to HR experts. You get the idea.

It's super easy to set up and get started, and if you're moving from another provider, they can even transfer all your data for you. And right now, our listeners get three months free when they go to gusto.com slash yeah. Yep, that's three months of payroll benefits admin and so much more, totally for free. Again, that's gusto.com slash yeah for three months of payroll for free. That's gusto.com slash yeah.

So let's get a real example. Let's say it's like somebody's asking a girl out on a date. How can we give them choice? Like, have a conversation where we give the girl choices so that she's more likely to say yes. Like what's an example of that? Boy, I haven't asked anyone on a date in about 28 years. I'm, it would definitely be along the lines,

although my son, my son who's a 21 said, you actually stalk everyone on social media now and ask them out via social media. I'm like, what, I never heard of that. But anyway, so I would, I would again, at 21 said, you actually stalk everyone on social media now and ask them out via social medium. Like what? I never heard of that. But anyway. So I would, again, I seek their thoughts and opinions and say, hey, you know, I met you

at last night at this, at the function we were at, you know, we're at this beautiful function where I talked to the CEO and he said, you give me a meeting. I'm curious, you know, I said, I'd love to take you out for a cup of coffee because, you know, it looks like we might have some overlapping interests. And if that sounds like it's a good idea to you, great. We can meet at either Starbucks or we can go to the place down a street here. Or if you prefer lunch, we can do that. You just let me know what you're comfortable with. And let me know what time might be best for you, because I'm available either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.

And I'm usually good on, you know, between noon or, you know, one. So just lots of varying choices to make them feel like they're empowered to make their own decision. Yeah, and it's not high pressure. You know, you're demonstrating a lack of intensity. Nothing sets people off, especially on first contact. And believe me, my background, it screams high intensity type, hey, I know how off putting that is, you know, so as I got more comfortable

with making it about other people and empowering people with choices in my career and I was like, all right, you either want to get together, you don't, I'm fine either way. Then when you're relaxed, everyone around you becomes relaxed. And so part that is giving people a choice of, hey, if you want to see me great, if not I completely understand, you know, I'll move along. That totally makes sense. And I think it's natural, but when you think about it, you're more proactive to actually make sure that you do that in your interaction.

So I love that you talked about that. And it's challenging too, especially if there's someone we want to meet, whether it's personal, professional, we are desperate, we want this to work. And when we want things to work, what happens? We get tense, we get intense. And the focus is what I'm looking for. I'm trying to think in turn, my brain automatically thinks in terms of how can I convince this person I wanna see me?

But remember, convincing is about you. You want to inspire that person I want to see you. And inspiration has to come from within them. So if you're going to want to have this person inspired to see you, you have to give them a reason why they'd want to see you. From their point of view, from their priorities. And one of the ways you do that is by overlapping priorities

and you empower them with choice about whether they want to or not. I think this is so, so interesting. So as you're having this conversation, I think a theme that's popping in my head is that you've got to stroke people's egos. And then in your own words, you say you have to suspend your own ego. So talk to us about how we can suspend our own egos, especially if we are the extroverted type that love to talk about ourselves, that love to put ourselves first. What are some ways that we can kind of keep our ego in check and know that we have a problem

and how can we sort of start to suspend our ego so we focus on the other person? Yeah, so it's very, very difficult to suspend your ego, Marfa. I'm not of the school where you can stop doing a behavior. The best thing you can do is use good emotional intelligence, which comes into play here, which is says, what can I add to my behaviors? Because when you add a new behavior, it'll mitigate a negative behavior. Me being an extrovert from the Northeast, as we've told before, and I am from New York, I'm an extrovert, I'm extremely opinionated, I'm extremely vocal,

I think out loud, and it's just, it's been in my way most of my life, it's why my books are my manuals on how not to be the self-centered moron I was born to be. And so the behavior you add is curiosity. The best way to get over your ego is to be more curious about other people and their thoughts and opinions rather than sharing yours. Because once you realize people really don't care about your thoughts and

opinions, you'll let go of it. Because what happens is when we're trying to make this human connection, it's typical where we share anecdotes and stories with each other. Our thoughts and opinions and things are going our lives because typically what happens is say you share and we did it before and you said you're from Jersey and I'm listening to stories of Jersey and what today merely do. Well, I'm from New York. Let me tell you about New York. You know, so our brain automatically says, oh, I got an anecdote story to make a connection because that's what we are human beings want is connection and value. Ego suspension is the active act of saying, all right, here's how I want to say, but now I'm going to completely dump it not even shut up and be quiet because now you're

still thinking about that thing you want to say, no, you got to completely dump it from your head. The first time you do it's going to feel very, very weird to literally say, I'm going to get rid of this anecdote and story. I'm going to share. I'm going to refocus on this other person and explore everything she's sharing with me because if it's coming out of your mouth, it's a priority of yours. And now I can explore that. Like how did you decide to do this? When did you decide to do that?

What kind of challenges did you have along the way of doing that? You mentioned Jordan Harmanger being a great guy. Yeah, I love Jordan. Jordan was at our first class years and years ago that we put together. Again, the inclination there is to share my anecdote story about Jordan rather than say, how did you mean Jordan? You know, so that's the difference.

Ego suspension is letting go of my need to share my anecdote about Jordan and hear what yours is instead. I love that. So before we move on to other topics, I want to get into some sales techniques and things like that. Before we do that, what are some last things that we should look out for when it comes to relationship building? Like the biggest mistakes that people make

when they try to build their relationships? Dr. Justin Tristan Dr. Justin Tristan Forcing your agenda on others, I think that's a really simple one. You know, that you, if you relationships are about beautiful balance of understanding each other's priorities and being a resource for each other non-judgmentally and not keeping a score card on it either.

You know, because sometimes there's gonna be periods and people's lives where they're gonna need a little bit more and at other times they won't. You know, so it's about understanding the needs, wants and dreams of others, what you can do to make their lives easier, what you can do to make their jobs easier and don't keep a scorecard. The best thing I could tell my 20 year old self that I wish I knew back then was, instead of trying to make myself look good at work, I should have been trying to make everyone around me look good at work.

Because now you're the one that everyone wants, you're the one that people want to team with, you're the one that people want relationships with because when you're this high-achieving, self-reliant, self-actualized person, which is fantastic skill says it have, you think it's all about you. In other words, I can only rely on myself, but you cannot achieve anything in life without relationships. And if you just focus on building good, healthy relationships, which means that you're focusing understanding others and what their needs are and being a resource for them without expectation or reciprocity. So that's the thing that gets people's way is they think they just keep barreling ahead

with their own agendas irrespective of the impact they're having on others or the needs of others as well. Super, super interesting. So I want to talk about sales. It turns out when you're in the FBI, you actually had a sales element to your job. You had to recruit Russian spies and your product was American patriotism. So talk to us about that. Give us a real story about how you use some of these techniques

and how you use them to recruit spies and how that's related to sales and what people can learn. Yeah, so everything to life to me is exactly the same. I was engaging with human beings, whether you're recruiting spies or selling financial services, because recruiting spies is a service industry, because I'm selling a service of, you know, American nationalism, protect national security United States, that's the service, is protect national security.

And when I was in New York, I had a squad. We had a squad about 10 or 12 folks on my squad. And basically that's the sales team. And so yeah, about 10 or 12 sales folks, and our only client base was about 35 Russian military intelligence officers. So we only had a potential client of about 30, 35. So the first challenge there is that, you know, you have almost as many

salespeople as you do potential clients. And so everyone's struggling for to make the sale. So this other challenge is how many of these Russian nationals, which are diplomats at the United Nations, you know, under diplomatic cover, you know, spying for Russia, want to buy my service of American national patriotism, Probably pretty low to none. And so basically I'm offering a service that no one wants most of the time. And then the next thing is because of treaties and everything as an FBI agent,

it was actually illegal for me to initiate contact with the one he's individual. So it was illegal for me to make a cold call. So I don't even have the ability to initiate that contact, even try to use the techniques of rapport and trust. And so the only way you can do that is use trusted third party individuals that might make an trusted transfer of trust or have them come to you. Because if they initiate contact, that's actually completely fine.

But then how do they find you? That comes down to, again, that personal brand. And so that begs the question that everyone always has so how do you actually recruit a Russian spy? Just like anything in life. You don't do you actually sell a product or you build a relationship and does the product sell itself? You know all the job was was trying to identify the priorities of these intelligence officers and offer resources in terms of priorities that have been overlapped with my priorities. My priorities was protect national security United States and our NATO allies. In order to do that, I needed information of their methods and tactics and techniques that

they're doing and the information they're going for and the information they've gone there. In order to get that, well, I need to offer them resources in terms of their priorities. And if I could identify an intelligence officer whose priorities was that a dying wish of a mother or a grandfather or someone else was that their grandchildren or children wouldn't grow up under Putin's regime, well, that is actually a priority. I have resources I can help you with. So it really just came down to understanding the priorities of others and often resources and then doing the same thing. And so everything in life is exactly the same. When you're selling a product or service, you're identifying a priority of an individual and you're offering resources

in terms of that priority. So that's it. And how did you give them options in this case? Let's go back to the options. Well, you know, it's really funny because people always think well, you just offer money, offer them diamonds, offer them, you know, no, it's deeper than that because those things are a means to the ends. What are they trying to do that kind of money? And even when you're like, when you're selling a financial service, you know, people don't are not less looking for money, not looking for a product. They're looking to provide, as my friend, Joe Navarro says, and be exceptional, they're looking to provide, as my friend Joan of Varo says, and be exceptional, they're looking, everyone's looking for things that are going to provide psychological comfort according

to what they define psychological comfort as. And so, in the bigger cases that I worked, it was months and months before you actually talked about the type of remuneration they're looking for, you know, what they're looking for reciprocity. And then, I've never been in a case where anyone ever put a dollar number on what they're looking for. They're looking for things like I want guaranteed education at a top institution for my children. I want the top level medical care for my family. I want to live in a house in a comfortable area that has these amenities. Again, there was no dollar amount. They're looking for what? They're looking for

psychological comfort as they define it. So the job was to understand what psychological comfort is to them. And then I can check my research, see if I can provide that in exchange for things they're providing for really psychological comfort in the United States. Yeah, I mean, it must have been so awesome to have that job. And something else that you talk about a lot is leadership. And the fact that leadership is about inspiring and not convincing, can you talk to us more

about that? Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up too because it is, you must follow me on social media because it is, I'm literally on a tear with this. I've had so many good humbling moments in my life about what I am not good at. And when I was younger, you know, in high school, you know, I was one of those, as an expert, one of those semi-popular guys,

as a football player, very active with all the clubs. And what happens is, is those types of popular people, a lot of times, teachers and guides and mentors will place a label of leader on you. So you made the captain of the team or the president of the club or something like that. But popularity is nothing but power because popularity is about self. It's about look at me, look at me, look at me. Look at social media. Are you a me-former, looking me, looking me, or are you an informer where your resource for others? You know, I, one of the most profound books I read this past year

was, and it's right behind me, the 48 laws of power by Green. I had a, we had them on a show, episode 43 and 44. When you mentioned that name, I almost, I cringed. He is a great man and understand the human nature, but that book, I almost put it down five times because I did not understand power. So power and in the 48 laws of power, yeah, it's the human condition, all right.

The power is about self. It's about what I can do, about making myself look good. It's about control and leadership is the dichotomy, the opposite. You know, Jocco with Link talks about dichotomy of leadership. Well, a dichotomy that is not often talked about is the dichotomy between leadership, which is about a being of service to others and power, which is about self. And so in all dichoties, you can't be on one extreme or the other. You know, at first I was like, absolutely, you can't be on one extreme with the other. At first I was like, you can't do power

because it's horrible, it's corrupting. But understand, you need to exercise some laws of power in order to get an opportunity to exercise leadership. So it really comes down to being incredibly self-aware so that you can do what you need to do through popularity to gain the title and position you need, but you have to recognize once you have that position, you now have to shut it off and now we have to lead because lead is about being a service others, about accountability to

self. I mean, there's so many elements I've been speaking about this because leaders solve problems, leaders own the actions that happen and they just keep moving forward. And people that are exercising just power don't do that. So it's a good, it's a good awareness that I didn't have. I realized I was exercising popularity. And when I hit the Marine Corps and I thought it was a popular guy and I got ranked last out of every single second lieutenant at my first duty station, Cherry Point,

my went to my major and I said, run on a dude and wrong and he goes, well, that's easy. He just need to be a better leader. I said, all right, I thought I was, how do you do that? He goes, you just need to make it about everyone else, but yourself.

When you spend the lifetime of being validated for being popular, you have no idea what that means. So it really was laying down the gauntlet for me for the rest of my life to figure out how do you make it about others and not yourself. In other words, how do you let go of power and popularity and actually lead? You hear that sound, young and profitors?

You should know that sound by now, but in case you don't, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform that's revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you sell edgy t-shirts or offer an educational course like me, Shopify simplifies selling online and in person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Shopify is packed with industry leading tools that are ready to ignite your growth,

giving you complete control over your business and brand, without having to learn any new skills in design or code. And Shopify grows with you no matter how big your business gets. Thanks to an endless list of integrations and third party apps, anything you can think of from on-demand printing to accounting to chatbots, Shopify has everything you need to revolutionize your business. If you're a regular listener, you probably know that I use Shopify to sell my LinkedIn

secrets masterclass. Setting up my Shopify store just took me a few days. I didn't have to worry about my website and how I was going to collect payments and how I was going to trigger abandoned cart emails and all these things that Shopify does for me with just a click of a button, even setting up my chat bot was just a click of a button. It was so easy to do. Like I said, just took a couple of days. And so it just allowed me to focus on my actual product

and making sure my LinkedIn masterclass was the best it could be. And I was able to focus on my marketing. So Shopify really, really helped me make sure that my masterclass was going to be a success right off the bat. It enabled focus and focus is everything when it comes to entrepreneurship. With Shopify single dashboard, I can manage my orders and my payments from anywhere in the world.

And like I said, it's one of my favorite things to do every day is check my Shopify dashboard. It is a rush of dopamine to see all those blinking lights around the world showing me where everybody is logging on on the site. I love it. I highly recommend it. Shopify is a platform that I use every single day and it can take your business to the

next level. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com.sash. Profiting again, go to Shopify.com.sash. Profiting all lowercase to take your business to the next level today. Again, that Shopify.com Sush Profiting ShopFly.com Sush Profiting All Lower Case. This is possibility powered by Shopify. Yeah, bam. If you're ready to take your business to new heights, break through to the six or seven-figure mark or learn from the world's most successful people, look no further because

the Kelly Roach show has got you covered. Kelly Roach is a best-selling author, a top-ranked podcast host, and an extremely talented marketer. She's the owner of NotOne, but six thriving companies, and now she's ready to share her knowledge and experience with you on the Kelly Roach show. Kelly is an inspirational entrepreneur, and I highly respect her. She's been a guest on YAP. She was a former social client. She's a podcast client. And I remember when she came on Young and Profiting and she talked about her conviction marketing framework, it was like mind blowing to me. I remember immediately implementing what she taught me in the interview in my company and the marketing efforts that we were doing. And as a marketer, I really, really respect all Kelly has done, all Kelly has built.

In the corporate world, Kelly secured seven promotions in just eight years, but she didn't just stop there. She was working in I to five. And at the same time, she built her eight figure company as a side hustle and eventually took it and made her full time hustle. And her strategic business goals led her to win the prestigious Inc 500 award for the fastest growing business in the United States. She's built an empire, she's earned a life-changing wealth. And on top of all that, she maintains a happy marriage and a healthy home life.

On the Kelly Road Show, you'll learn that it's possible to have it all. Tune into the Kelly Road Show as she unveils her secrets for growing your business. It doesn't matter if you're just starting out in your career or if you're already a seasoned entrepreneur. In each episode, Kelly shares the truth about what it takes to create rapid, exponential growth. Unlock your potential, unleash your success, and start living your dream life today. Tune into the Kelly Road Show available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

So, so interesting. Oh my gosh, she just dropped so many gems. I would encourage everybody to go rewind that bit back. I wish I could rewind it back right now because it was so good. Thank you so much. So let's get into your new book, the code of trust. Give us a high level. What is this book about? I know we talked about predictability and trust a little a little earlier. Is there anything else that we need to know that we could apply in our daily lives that you think would benefit our listeners related to this? So, the code of trust is, I have these five steps of trust, and we've been through pretty much all of them throughout this, but the one I will really emphasize that we haven't really talked about, but we kinda did when talking about this topic of power and leadership, and that is be generous.

Leaders are generous with resources, they're generous with time. And the bedrock of it is without expectation reciprocity. This is really, really tough for people. And I know it's tough in the sales world. And that is you, a lot of times we want to do something for someone else because we want something to return. Leaders let go of that. You know, so I have my three pillars of leadership

are pretty simple. One, we accomplish goals, missions, objectives, and priorities because that's what keeps the world moving forward, organizations, and individuals. We have to know the path we're walking. Two, we create a safe environment, both physically, emotionally, and psychologically. We provide that psychological comfort for everyone around us, because only then can you have innovation.

Simon Sinek talks about how human beings we thrive in a state of deprivation a lot of times, but also thrive when we're feeling safe. And so, leaders create that safe environment so that people are free to innovate and keep moving forward. And finally, the third pillar is what we're talking about is that as leaders are resources for the success and prosperity of others without expectation reciprocity. Even if someone doesn't like you, they want to walk out the door. A great leader will help them go out, they'll help them get the next job, and they'll help them move on.

Because leadership is not about liking someone. Leadership is about being a resource for others. That's where the most selfless thing you can do. Ultimately, I've written a lot about this lately. Leaders are problem-saws. If you don't like problems, stay out of leadership. I love all of those. Those are some great principles.

I see my last couple of questions those. Those are some great principles. So I see my last couple of questions here. We are talking offline. You have maybe 40 books behind you. You told me these are all books that you've recently read. What's the best book that you've read recently? Oh boy, you have to hit a topic. There's not a book I don't like. I take notes and everything. I get a lot of, you know, my topics on my website, I categorize my books into self-awareness, context, and historical context, body language and leadership.

So those are kind of my topics. So, you know, I definitely love stoicism. I love Ryan Holiday's works on Ego's enemy, Stillness's Key, and the obstacle is the way. I love Stephen Presfields. One of my new favorite authors, he is a great historical writer. He wrote Virtues of War. He wrote Gates of Fire, which is the real story of the Battle of Thermopylae 300 that the

movie was made after. He is a great historical fiction writer. It gives amazing context and amazing leadership values that are ageless. So that's a great book. I think Tasha Eurick, she wrote a book that I read recently called Insight. It's about the science behind self awareness, which is fantastic. Also, Jay Shetty and I think like a monk, absolutely love that book. Jocke will link and layf babin. I love their, I didn't think I was gonna like this book's extreme ownership and dichotomy only because like, all right,

it's just another military guy like me, but no, his storytelling is phenomenal and his relatability of how he then applies it to business is stunning. So it's a great leadership principles in there as well, but anyway, I could keep going. But that's a great leadership principles in there as well. But anyway, I could keep going. But those, those are just some of my top ones. That's awesome. I mean, and you just gave me like ideas for like five different episodes.

So producers who are editing this interview, pay attention and please invite those folks. And you mentioned it too. And also I got to give credit to Jack Schaefer and Joe Navarro, two of my team members around my bap team.ap team. When we made Joe's recent book, Be Exceptional, Phenomenal book. He's got five rules to be an exceptional, that exceptional people do. And of course, Jack Shafer, my good buddy, the Truth Detector.

I loved because what a spin on a, a hunt, a listetation. Yeah, we had a whole episode about that Truth Detector and we did one on the like switch. So two great episodes you guys can go check out. So Rob in the last question I ask, oh my guess is what is your secret to profiting in life? I'll tell you something today that I probably would have said five years ago and that is I have discovered what a moron I've been because I didn't read. I also discovered I'm what's called a kinetic thinker and a kinetic learner. I have to move and so you know a

COVID has been a challenge, you know for everyone in the world, but I always look you know the obstacles the way you know the gift and the challenge and I started walking a lot, you know because you know Business was pretty low and so I discovered I got bored listening to music and so so I said, hey, let me try this audible thing. Let me try listening to a book because I could never do it before. It's like, I can't sit and listen to a book. But I discovered that when I walk and move, I remember everything. I take notes and I devour books. And I, that's my secret.

I just try to keep learning and all these gaps that I have in my life. And it's been profound. It's the, you know, Jim Mattis, I just read Call Sign Chaos, you know, the former Secretary of Defense, another phenomenal book where he says, learning and reading is your shock absorber for life because all the answers you seek have been answered already. Your job is just to find them. So I have found it to be the most beneficial thing I've ever done. I love that. And I love the fact that you mentioned that you couldn't listen to books

sitting still, but once you started moving around, that works for you. I think a lot of people also listen to podcasts while they're moving around whether that's working out, walking around. It's a great way to listen. Well, actually, you know, it's funny you said that because that's exactly what started. So I started listening to podcasts more. I listened to Jordan's and I loved listening to podcasts that would recommend books. So Jordan had Jay Shedion. And I was like, wow, that sounds like a really cool book. And that's literally so that was the first book I read when I started discovering how I actually

learn. I mean, it took me into I'm almost 53 years old. It took me that long to figure out how I learn. I'm going to try that. I'm me that long to figure out how I learn. I'm going to try that. I'm going to try to see like because I study for other interviews, a lot of the times by listening to other interviews because I know that I learn better hearing things than I do reading them. I want to try walking around and saying if that even helps,

it's stick it further. And that's interesting. Yeah, it is truly amazing. I wish I knew this years. I'm trying to remember what book I read it said that it might have even been Call sign chaos. I think I think the journal said that Anyway, one of them Don't you wish that we could take all our meetings walking around and not a desk

I wonder how much more productive everybody would be too You know a good friend of mine Chris Hagnaggy He actually he might be another good one for it too. He wrote the book, Human Hacking, social engineer, Maffa Tees, the CEO of Innocent Lies Foundation, where I'm a board member. We uncover online predators, child predators, and hand it over law enforcement. And so he actually, he lost a lot of weight and started doing much better when he actually, his desk is his treadmill. Oh my gosh. And so he stands always doing podcasts and walks, you know, just nice easy stroll while he's doing podcasts, while he's working and he lost a lot of weight doing it, but it actually helps him think. Again, we're all just different learners. And so if you can

discover what your learning style is and it works for you, you know, find a way to do it. I did, only took my entire life. I'm definitely going to test that out. Well, it's better late than never, right? So where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do? Everything I do is all on peopleformula.com. All one word, peopleformula.com, whether it's my newsletter, sign up. I do a lot of writing. I do daily posts on all the things I'm writing. I do have a book club.

I have online training academy and I do coaching, I do speaking, you name it. And I have a YouTube channel for my own author podcast. I do. So if you want anything or reach out to me in any way, go there. It's easy to get hold of me. Well, I predict a future clubhouse event where I invite you, Chase, Dr. Jagshafer and the whole crew to talk about human behavior. I'm super excited about it. Thank you so much, Robin.

This was an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode. What an amazing conversation with Robin. He learned early on in his career that leadership isn't just about popularity or likeability, but it's about the ability to inspire those around you

into action. Leading effectively means pushing your ego aside, being non-judgmental, honoring reason, validating others, and being generous with your time and wisdom. I loved Robin's perspective on how to suspend our ego with curiosity. When I'm able to be more curious about the person in front of me and ask them more questions, it becomes way easier to push my own ego aside and be in the moment with whomever I'm with. Asking questions shows that you care and that you're listening and people will like you more when they feel that you truly care about their wants and needs.

In order to have a better understanding of what people want in conversations and relationships, remember that you need to shift the focus to them instead of you. Through open body language and active listening, we can form strong bonds with strangers from the very first interaction. I'm going to recap some of Robin's key methods for connecting with other people. The first one is to establish artificial time constraints. This is especially important if this is the first time you're talking to someone because nobody wants to feel trapped in an awkward conversation with a stranger. You could try something like, I'm on my way out,

but before I left, I wanted to ask you something. You could also avoid correcting people or anything that could be interpreted as one-upmanship. You never want to sound like you're trying to one-up someone so avoid correcting other people. You also want to make sure your words and body language are aligned and both non-threatening. Remember smile. Smiling is so powerful and so important and you also want to speak slowly. Talking fast signals nervousness while talking slow signals confidence. And lastly,

just listen. You don't need to tell your own story. Just encourage them to keep telling their own stories. Listening is the simplest validation that can be given to another individual. The difficulty most of us have is keeping from interjecting our own thoughts, our own ideas, our own stories during the conversation. True validation coupled with ego suspension means that you don't have to tell your own story. You're just simply there to hear their story. There was so many other awesome takeaways from this conversation with Robin. I would highly recommend that you go back and relisten to this episode because it was super valuable.

And I want to thank Robin for coming on the show and being such an amazing guest. If you want to learn more about sparking genuine conversations with strangers and raising your likability, go check out episode number 64, turn on the like switch with Dr. Jack Schafer, yet another former FBI agent and behavioral analysis who has been on the show. Here's a clip from that episode. Because we all think the world revolves around us

and everything has to be about us. So if we extend ourselves and make it about the other person, then that person says, wow, somebody paid attention to me. Somebody understands, somebody observes them, you bought me and made a comment. Therefore, I like that person because they're finally, somebody's paying attention to me and my world. So that's the thing is you're getting out of your world and you're projecting empathy into another person's world

which makes people feel good. And the more we're supposed to do in life is make people feel good about themselves. And I like to go through life. And every time I meet somebody, I like to make them think that was a person worth meeting because I just feel that much better for having met this person. And that's kind of my goal now.

Again, if you want to learn more about how to become a more likable person, go check out episode number 64, turn on the like switch with Dr. Jack Schaefer. Now, as always, I wanna end the episode by shouting out one of our recent Apple Podcast reviewers. Apple Podcast reviews are the number one way to thank me and everybody on the Yap team for all of our hard work. And this week's shoutout goes to Mary L. Olly in the Philippines. And she says, highly recommended.

At first, I was just looking for good podcasts to listen to and get guidance for side hustles, but they featured more and more topics on self-improvement and wellness, and I got absolutely hooked. I can honestly say that listening to YAP has helped me get through the pandemic. Oh, thank you so much, Maryl, and I'm so glad that younger profiting has been a source of inspiration during such a tough time. I've heard that a lot, and I'm really happy that people have connected with the podcast and have bettered their lives through the podcast. And if you're out there listening and you enjoy and find value from the show,

please take a few moments to drop us a five star review and maybe you'll get shouted out on the next week's podcast. Feel free to also share young and profiting podcasts on your social media. One of my favorite things to see is when you guys take a screenshot of your app, upload it to your Instagram story, tag me at YappwithHalla on Instagram, and then we can talk in the DMs. I love to hear your feedback. I love to read your reviews. You guys can also find me on LinkedIn. You can search for my name. It's Halataha. Big thanks to the amazing Yapp team as always. This is Halat, signing off. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project. And every week we share ideas and practical solutions on the Happier with Gretchen Rubin

podcast. My co-host and Happiness Guinea Pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore fresh insights from cutting-edge science, ancient wisdom, pop culture, and our own experiences about cultivating happiness and good habits. Every week we offer a try this at home tip you can use to boost your happiness

without spending a lot of time, energy, or money. Suggestions such as follow the one-minute rule. Choose a one-word theme for the year or design your summer. We also feature segments like know yourself better where we discuss questions like are you an over buyer or an under buyer? Morning person or night person, abundance lever or simplicity lever and every episode includes a happiness hack, a quick easy shortcut to more happy. Listen and follow the podcast happier with Gretchen Rubin. Hey folks, it's Michael Berry and the flooring in your home sets the tone for that room. Is it a formal room or an informal room?

Is it a daytime or an evening room? What's your budget? How much wear and tear is going to come through that room? What's the feel? What's the vibe? The good news is you don't have to know in advance Patrick Florida and his design team at their two design locations in Cyprus and the woodlands or your living room can help you make all those decisions and give you a lifetime warranty two eight one three seven oh eighty twenty two 8022.