Transcript
This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show. Today on The James Altucher Show. Such a pleasure to talk to Jason Harris, who wrote the book The Soulful Art of Persuasion. He has a completely different approach to it than all these so called experts on persuasion. I learned a lot. These techniques work. I really related to a lot of the techniques, and I know for a fact they work. Listen to this podcast closely. Jason Harris, the author of The Soulful Art of Persuasion, The 11 Habits That Will Make Anyone a Master Influencer. Let's talk about the soulful art of persuasion by Jason Harris. This is a great book because, normally, you see books about persuasion where it's like, oh, if you cross your legs and then everybody else crosses their legs and they start obeying your every command. And I just think that academic research is just bulls**t. And the stuff you say here really resonates with me, in particular, the relationship between storytelling and persuasion. And no one's pointed this out except you among other things in the book, but persuasion and skill development, which I thought was very interesting, and that's really true. But maybe we could start with oh, I'm looking at Ryan Holiday on the back, Lewis Howes. Like, you think you had me on the back. Well, I I always wanted to meet you, and now I'm meeting you. Nah. Next book. You'll get me on the Next book. Next book. By the way, speaking of next book, before we talk about this book, I had 2 book ideas for my next book floating around. One of them, I can't do anymore because I got your email yesterday, life advice from people over a 100. Okay. I wanted to write a whole book about people on their way out and what advice they had for people on how to live. Cool, though. I love that idea. You hear about someone who's over a 100, like, what advice do they have? It's like people who are married over 30 years and people who are over a 100, 2 categories of probably the most miserable people on the planet, and yet we're always asking them for a lot of advice. So I'm in advertising. You were in the space. The way I build a successful company that's independent, no investors. You know, we're 50,000,000 a year in revenue. That's great. Totally bootstrapped. You know, it took a long time, obviously. But I remember reading a Gallup poll that said, you know, what are the most dishonest professions in America? And number 1 was politicians, which you would expect. Right? Yeah. Number 2 was car salesman, and then number 3 was advertising practitioners. And I thought, well, that's pretty s**tty that people think our our business is so dishonest. And so I sort of thought, well, I build a successful advertising business by persuading people to hire us and then persuading consumers to react to the ads that we put out there to move units. And I've done that through what what I think is a more soulful, networking, relationship building way that isn't shady or predicated on fooling people or persuasion that's about mirror and matching and like you were saying. You know, it's not about, like, well, if this guy likes golf, then I'll play golf. Or if she loves chess, then I'll learn chess and become a good chess player. So I felt like I had something to offer in a way that I built my business, which I think was more authentic and true. And it seemed like the right time for this book to come out because we're living in such a bifurcated culture, and I felt like this is a more true way to be an entrepreneur. And and I wanna add that this book also is not just for persuading as an organization or how to get your company to persuade more customers. I really resonate with this on an individual level. Like, persuasion has, like, a bad rap to it. Like, you have to be inauthentic to persuade someone or something, which I think is a real scarcity way of thinking. Why can't you be who you are and then people like you enough to be persuaded by what you say? And you and you address this. It's the second to last chapter or third to last chapter. You referenced Tim Ferris learning a new skill every year. But if you if you begin the process of mastering a skill, it adds a new competence to your demeanor. People could see the competence, and I think people do listen to people who know what it is to work hard and improve at something and learn something difficult. And it's the package that makes you that's persuasive, not some techniques or tricks. Yeah. It's it's also being an original, being yourself, totally being yourself. Everyone else has already taken the Oscar Wilde quote, famous Oscar Wilde quote. That your uniqueness and your idiosyncrasies, that's what makes other people gravitate towards you. Or hating in my case. Well well no. I mean, you've you build a successful career by being yourself. You know? No. That's true. Not trying to be anyone else. That's why you have a persona, and you've been you wrote a lot of books, and you've got a podcast and invested in in a lot of different things because people understand who you are. You have an identity, and you're always you're always who you are. But sometimes when you say particularly when you say, hey. If you wanna be more persuasive, you gotta be who you are. There's a fine line there. Like, I could almost figure people taking notes. Okay. Right. Yeah. Be who I am. So it's almost like then they're not gonna be who they are because they're thinking they're thinking that's something another task they have to perform. Okay. B. I gotta put this in the be who I am, category. Yeah. It is a task, actually. Like, learning who you are is a task, and there's and and there's ways to do that. You know? Right? Writing down your value system, the things you care about, the things that that interest you, your passions, and going to explore those passions. It is a task, and it's probably the most important task. Figuring out who your role models are, who you who you wanna emulate, and studying them, it does take work to be who you are actually. That technique, it's mentioned also in, Todd Herman's book, the alter ego effect. The idea of finding the people you really look up to emulate almost like virtual mentors, this is a real worthwhile technique for finding out who you are because who excites you, the people who inspire you, they're triggering something that that's real inside of you. Not like, oh, I need to be like John d Rockefeller in order to be rich, but more like, oh, I need to be like this person because I really admire what they've done in life. And, like, who who inspires you? Who do you study? Who virtually taught you, some of the things about yourself? I mean, my biggest, inspiration is David Bowie. Oh, yeah. You mentioned that. Yeah. I I talk about him all the time because Yeah. I would like, you know, study his interviews. I would look at, you know, how he constructs his music. And the fact that he was unabashedly who he was, and he was always reinventing himself with new ideas and new characters, which seems counterintuitive because if you're who you are, why do you have to add other layers? But it was he was always on a journey of self discovery. And he you know, I could never do it the the same way he could, but he never cared what anyone thought. And when he started in the music business, you know, quick story, his first, album, he was he was Dave David Joe Dave Jones at that point. They wanted him to do folk music like Bob Dylan because Bob Dylan was really popular. And he did a whole album of folk music that sold, like, 10 copies. And he went away and studied in a Buddhist monastery, did experimental arts. He became a mime. He did all this weird s**t that David Bowie would do. Then he came back and started writing music for himself, and that's the David Bowie that we know now. And that to me is, like, proof point of don't do what other people are telling you to do, and they want you to be in this nice box that can sell. But if you're true to who you are and go find yourself, you're gonna become one of the best recording artists of all time possibly. And and that to me, I always stay true to that because in in business, in life, you you people wanna put you in the box that's comfortable for them, and you're never gonna succeed that way. I mean, you talk about that in your work all the time. Yeah. No. And I I I appreciate you saying that. And, what's a time when you felt like you were persuading where you weren't yourself? Like, what's it what what set you on the trajectory of, you know what? I gotta I gotta do this right. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do this the BS way. I'm gonna do this right. Were you always this way, or, like, was there a moment where not necessarily a moment, but did you ever was there a bad persuasion that that kind of woke you up a little bit? There was, you know, there's there's probably been, like, different different times in my life. But I was, you know, in business early on in the company, I was I was persuaded to, start remember when Vine was popular? Yeah. Yeah. Right? I was persuaded You talk about Vine. Yeah. I talk about that in there. But but that, to me, was like a business case where I was like, alright. I'm not gonna try to go for a a get rich quick scheme or do something that in my gut, I don't I don't believe in or I don't I don't value. And, you know, we created this, like, search engine for Vine. We spent a ton of company resources. Other people had persuaded me and convinced me that it was we were gonna flip it and sell it to Twitter for a ton of money. Because if you remember Vine, you can never really search for videos very well. And then they we launched the product, and then, a week later, they killed Vine. And I was like, I just spent all this f**king money. And this product, I knew I don't even I didn't even like Vine to begin with. It wasn't something that was true to me. And I realized you should never spend money or invest in things that you don't really believe in. That that isn't they're not true to who you are or your what you believe or that you think will be successful. And that was a really hard lesson, and I never did that again. Well and there's so many reasons behind that as well because, a, whenever you start any business, you have to be able to validate the idea. And who better to validate the idea than if you're building the business that you would use? If you wouldn't use it, you need other resource you need to spend energy now validating the idea. But if you are obsessed with buying and you totally would use this and this is what buying users have been waiting for and you know that deep down, you don't need to validate the idea. You just validated it. Because then it would be true to who I was. But I I did something that I didn't care for. It didn't and so there's a couple, instances where where that have I got talked into something that I that I really didn't believe in. Or, you know, maybe sold, an ad or advertising product or an idea to a client that I didn't really believe in in my gut that, you know, didn't didn't move the needle. It didn't work. So I I really quickly, in my career, stopped stopped doing that. If I don't believe in it, I can't sell it, and I'm not gonna back it. Yeah. Like, I remember one time, I was pre your agency, but I had a small agency. I was selling Philip Morris, the cigarette comp Philip Morris owned Kraft, and they were also the cig the Kraft Cheese Company and the Philip Morris Cigarette Company. And so I remember I go to the meeting, and it's in a conference room right on, like, 41st and 40 or 42nd and and Park maybe. And, everybody's around the conference room smoking around the table smoking, and there's a plates of cheese cubes in the middle. And I hate cheese with a passion, and I don't smoke. Oh my god. And here I am, and I don't believe people should smoke. And I I personally don't would never recommend cheese to anybody. And here I am selling my hardest to get this client, and it just maybe that's why I really hated that business because I don't think I was ever myself when I was doing that business. Did you sell, did you sell what you were selling? Did did they buy it? Yes. They bought it. Oh, wow. That's see, that's unusual because, usually, people have really good bulls**t detectors, and they could tell you well, I don't know. You you somehow, you you fool them. No. But you know what it was is that I believed in the Internet. This was in the mid nineties when not everyone did believe in that, and not everyone had a website. And so I was able to passionately talk about that. And most of my other, clients actually were music labels and movie studios, and I did believe in in that and the Internet. So that that was much better for me. That made sense. Yeah. But the but the companies like Philip Morris or American Express, I didn't care about those companies at all, but they were big clients. So I did whatever it took to get them, but I felt really, really bad about myself. I mean, I had to see a therapist because I felt like I didn't it's like that classic Charlie Sheen cliche line from Wall Street. Like, I don't know who I am anymore. I was really felt really bad. But one one technique, which I know you would resonate with this, is that when I was pitching a client, I could often think of better agencies they should use. And I was always free about saying what other agencies they should use. What were the good qualities of other agencies that were competitors of mine? And I said, I'm still running in the running for the business because I love your business, but if you need this, this, and this, these other agencies are better than me. And that turned out to be inadvertently a good persuasion technique. If he's willing to recommend his competitors, he's a guy kinda guy I wanna deal with. It's true. Well, people hate hate the word no. You know? The word no is, like, the sexiest word in the English language. So if you're if you're like, no. Don't hire me. All of a sudden, they wanna hire they wanna know why. They wanna hire you. You know? Why does every ad why does an ad every ad start with don't buy us. We don't like them. Yeah. That's that's true. That's true. You know, I noticed with stand up comedy, actually, a lot of, like, great comedians, the first thing they do is insult the audience. And the comedians who are more amateurish or beginning, and I I, you know, I see all types because I own a club. The the more amateurish ones pander to the audience and get them but the the ones who just s**t all over the audience, they're instantly far more likable than the ones who pander. They they like that comic better. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. And then, you know, another another thing that I firmly believe in is that I think is a learned skill is storytelling. Right? And storytelling to me is a very useful persuasion technique, but it also relates to you getting to know who you are. You know, that's a technique, whether it's, movies you love and why or books that you've read and why you like that story. I think having stories at hand, to tell is is a real strength in influencing other people. And when you think of, like, I don't know, storytelling through the ages, the the most, you know, noted, people in our culture were always great storytellers. They always they didn't use facts and data. They used story to get their message across. And so storytelling, I think, is another it can be another learned skill. And and I also believe in this very strongly. Like, any concept I think this is why academic papers are so dry and why many scientists hate people who write popular science books. Like, the the scientists who are able to write popular science books because they those ones are able to tell stories, and that makes them a lot more money. But what what's an example where you view storytelling in persuasion? So, you know you know, the psychologist, Jonathan Haidt? Yeah. He always said that the mind is a story processor, not a logic processor, which I always, like, think about that. And I think about that all the time. But, I mean, I use stories to get people at my company to believe in collaboration, and I'll use stories from the business world or experiences that I've had. So I talk about it in the book. One time when we pitched Walt Disney, we lost that pitch. And I use that as a metaphor for preparing when you're meeting with clients or pitching a deal. And the story was, it was it was me and my my other, partner that we started the business together, Tommy Means. We, went to Disney. We had a huge pitch. We were pitching the head of parks and resorts, and we created these characters. Because, you know, the Disney Imagineers, not a lot of people know who they are. They create all the all the parks, themes and the you know the Imagineers? You're familiar with that? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Of course, you are. And so, we created a way to unlock kids' imagination by creating, bringing the Imagineers to life. And we had we had rock and block that would build the park, and we had spark that would come up with the ideas and fable that would write it. I could tell I could tell you instantly they're not gonna accept this idea. Okay. Well, because it's not true to who Disney is. Well, they're they they actually love the idea. Really? Alright. I rock. And we had a partnership with Scholastics, and we were getting we were trying to make the Imagineers well known with kids so that they could dream of jobs maybe one day that they would have. And it was obviously a revenue maker for Disney because there'd be all kinds of merchandise. And so we we went to China and created these characters based on the characters that I just told you. And we met with the head of parks and resorts, and we presented our whole thing. And he said you know, first thing he said was, I love this idea. And just so you know, because you presented it to us, we own it. And, the old there's you know, we wanna work with you on it, but there's only one thing we wanna tweak. I don't like the characters you developed. My partner, who's on the other side of the table, in my mind, I'm like, no problem. We'll just tell him, like, who are we to tell Disney that they can't develop characters and we're better we're an advertising agency. We're better at developing characters than Disney. No. But my foot couldn't reach under the table to kick him. And before I could get his attention, he said, well, these are the characters. You know, take it or leave it. And May I ask you a question? Why would he say that? Because my the reason I had that gut instinct that I had was Disney spends 1,000,000,000 of dollars creating characters. Like, they'll spend $6,000,000,000 for Pixar's characters. They're only buying the characters. They're not I mean, yeah, they're buying buying a a a a backlog, but they're really thinking about the future. Buying the buying the yeah. Right. Yeah. But we have we have the concept of how to get it in schools and create a a it's you know, we we did have a lot to offer. But as soon as he said that, you know, the guy got up and left, and his whole, like, minion of notetakers left with him in a cloud of like, a cartoon cloud of dust, and that was it. And while we we ended up getting drunk at the Burbank bar, and we you know, I use that as story for the agency to say you have to prepare before you you you have a pitch of what questions will be asked. You have to collaborate with your partner to make sure you're on the same page with what you're gonna say yes to and what you're gonna say no to. And we just rushed in with all this stuff without preparation and without collaborating. And we, you know, we we had a a deal that at the time for our agency would have been huge, 1,000,000 of dollars, and we lost it. And and so I you know, that's a storytelling technique to to say, you know, prepare and collaborate, and I use that all the time when I'm when I'm talking to to employees here. So that's an example of a story. Storytelling. I think this is an important insight that people need to listen to because I love Robert Cialdini. I love his book influence. I think he presents some really great overriding concepts and also his book persuasion, some overriding concepts, and a lot of great research about persuasion. But at its heart, I'm not gonna persuade you of anything if you hate me, or it's gonna be much more difficult. And so storytelling is like this bridge that we're able to our personality rides over it to the other person. That's how we get you know, that's the only way to get to know each other. If you all you know is, like, I'm 5 foot 9, and I went to this school, and this is my IQ or where. You don't know anything about me. It's only through stories. Only through stories. Totally. And and storytelling is how you and it could be stories from your life. It could be stories of, you know, impactful events that have happened that that mean something to you. But having a collection of these stories express who you are, that's a way of connecting with other people. And so, you know, story and but it can be a learned skill. You can learn how to tell stories and what you know, role models also help. You know, why do I like David Bowie? I can tell you that story, and you can learn a little bit about me from that. So, it's part of being original in who you are. Storytelling's a a critical critical key. And if you're doing, you know, any type of data or or presenting like, you talked about scientists. If you're presenting results from any of your work and you bypass the story and you just go into data and numbers without a story, no one's gonna remember it. It's it's not sticky. Stories are sticky, and numbers aren't. Yeah. Like like, you look at, like, Einstein, he essentially persuaded the world of the general theory of relativity. Right? Because it was a theory for a reason. He couldn't prove it. I mean, it wasn't there wasn't data, for decades on anything related to what he was talking about, but he presents it with a story. What if you're on the ground and another person's in a spaceship going at the speed of light? What do you guys see of each other? And then he's able to use that to kind of describe the theory. I still don't understand what the theory of relativity is, but I understand that story. Yeah. But you remember Einstein. Yeah. Einstein. Because he and not only that, his his his whole look was a story. And it wasn't a calculated look. It was just, that's he looked like a a the cliche of a genius, or that became a cliche of genius after him. I don't know. Right. But I I like these these rules that you have, and I'll read them. Never sell anything you wanna buy yourself, and we've discussed that a little bit, but it's really but there's a and there's a lot of reasons for that. It's not only that it's inauthentic to sell something you wanna buy yourself. It's that you can understand it better if you love a product enough to buy it yourself. Don't be afraid to say no. We discussed that a little bit. I think a lot of people are I'm afraid to say no often, which is why I even wrote a book about it. Never let relationships drop to 0. What do you mean by that? So that is, that's sort of always been my approach in in building a business, and I don't know if you approach relationships the same. But if you're pitching someone and you're investing time and this is this is personal and business. If you're investing time to get to know someone and they turn you down and you don't get get that business, you still created a connection. And that connection can wither away, and you can never talk to that person again, or that connection can live on. And so if you're building that connection, you should always stay in touch with people. And you can stay in touch with people by sending them a text, sending them an article about something. If I know that you love NFTs and we connect, maybe I'll send you something about, an NFT in 3 months to stay on your radar and not let our relationship drop to 0. And that's that's a simple but practical use of doing that. Yeah. I was talking to I was talking to Jeff Immelt the other day who was the former CEO of GE for 16 years, and he's he put it said a similar thing, which is that we'll always spend time each day contacting people you don't need. People wanna know you're not just calling them when you need something. And for him, that was a very authentic way to to operate, and and it were it served him well. That's a very powerful technique. Yeah. So, it's easy in business and in life to just march forward. And this idea it's the same thing as you know, I talk about never be closing and letting go of transactional thinking and thinking about your network and meaningful relationships as an approach, not as a zero sum game of winning and losing and winning and losing and winning and losing, but connecting a network of people and building on those relationships. And that way, you're never closing. You're just ever expanding. And I think that's really, you know, as an entrepreneur, how I see the world. Related to this is this fact I heard about LinkedIn, which is that most people get job offers not from their LinkedIn connections, but the connections of connections. So it's like but what what you're saying is basically keep in touch with the connections, you know, and and and keep, working on like, never be closing. Always working on those relationships. They might not have a job for you. But if you're the one who's keeping in touch with them and now you need a job, you're using the whole brainpower of your network, and that's why the the friends of your friends are the ones that end up giving you the jobs. Yeah. They'll maybe hear about a job, and you'll be on the radar. Yeah. They'll reach they'll reach out to you. There's a technique that I use in my calendar where I mark out 20 minutes every day, and I plan it out on Sunday. 20 minutes of every day to reach out and connect to 3 people in my network. That's important to schedule it. I I should do that. I'm bad at keeping in touch with people, and and that's a good idea. But if you don't do it, then you'll be like, oh, I'll reach out to them at some point. But you you never do. But if you make it sort of muscle memory, and you only do it 5 days a week, 20 minutes, it's nothing. And you just think of something, some interest that they have, and you reach out to them and say, hey. I'm thinking about you, and you send them you know, I know you're into Peloton. I saw this article. Boom. You know? I know you're you're a big Ben and Jerry's fan. They come now with a new flavor. Boom. And it just reminds them that that you're thinking about them, and it it seems sort of forced to schedule it. But like anything in our lives, if you don't set aside the time, you'll never get to it. You know, the the 4th item you mentioned here is make sure you have some skin in the game, and this, is a little bit of a reference to the Nassim Taleb's book called skin in the game, which is the idea that you make better decisions if you have something on the line. You're you're more aware of the risks if you have skin in the game, if you have, like, a money invested in something or time or emotion or whatever. You know, describe how you how you mean it. So, really, from a business standpoint, if I'm making a a partnership with a with a brand and I wanna I wanna have skin in the game. So I might say, you know, our fee is x, but I'll take I'll take this much off our fee and this much off our profit. And then in success, if we're successful together, I'll make that up on on the other side. That makes me work twice as hard for that client because I have upside. I'm not just getting paid for my hours and time, but I have upside on the back end. And I feel like that goes hand in hand with anything in your life that's worthy of of pursuing. Let's say you're an employee and you go into your boss's office. I think this is the classic persuasion case. You wanna convince your boss to give you a raise. How would you demonstrate skin in the game? That's a great question. So, you know, I think I deserve to be promoted and at the next level and get this kind of bump. And your boss isn't quite sure or doesn't see it. You could say, alright. How about I take on this one detail or one function of what that new role would be, and I'll do it for 3 months? And you can tell me if you think I did it successfully or not. And then you do that. That's skin of the game. It's extra work for you. You're not getting paid for that extra work, but you're going in and doing it. 3 months later, you come back. It's gonna be hard for that boss to say, well, I don't think you're ready or you don't deserve it. You've already performed this function virtually for free for this for your boss, and then your boss can say, yeah. You're right. You're you're you're ready to move on to the next level. That's one example off the top of my head, but I think that's you putting skin in the game and and putting in extra hours to prove that you're worthy of that bump. I always admire people who are great at what they do because it's not easy to be great at something that's worth getting good at. It's in fact, it's extremely difficult. And someone who's done that shows me they have passion, shows me they know how to meta learn. They know how to learn how to learn. And and there's a kind of just this aura of competence about them that I always admire. And you talk about it in the book, but describe how that's related to persuasion. So, you know, I think there's 2 techniques in the soulful piece. So, you know, the book's broken into 4 basic principles. Original, being yourself. Generous, which is giving things away without expecting anything in return. Empathetic, which is the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes, and then soulful. And those are the four principles that I feel make up my version of persuasion or soulful persuasion. And the soulful part really has 2 elements. 1 is, skill hunting, which you pointed out, which is really hunting out new skills around your passion to always be developing a proficiency in something new. You might be great at investing. You might be great at writing books. You might be great at advertising. That's awesome. But you also can learn, I don't know, how to cook, how to garden, how to box, how to do karate, how to play ba*s. Every 2 or 3 years, you should be adding on to your proficiency and never letting that lapse. I think no matter how old you get, you should always go through remind yourself of that thing you always wanna do. I know you're you love chess. Right? You're a great chess player. I watch Queen's Gambit, like, the whole damn country. I started to learn how to play chess. That's, like, my new thing. And, man, it's very hard, by the way. I'll I'll I'll give you lessons. We'll get we'll get you Alright. That'd be awesome. I'm serious too. If you because I I I I believe that that just as Einstein said too is that, you can't understand anything unless you can explain it simply. It's well, no one's been able to explain it simply. But that'd be great. I'd take you up on that. So, you know, that's my current thing is I'm gonna spend, like, 2 or 3 years trying to get moderately capable at chess, and then I'll move on to something else, but I'll still play chess. I did that with, like, learning the bass, learning to cook, etcetera. And so I think every couple years, it's good practice to add new skills to your arsenal and to your tool belt, but you have to always like, right now, I'm in the suck part. Like, I don't get it. I'm trying to read about it. I'm trying to, calculate, you know, 3 moves ahead, and it's I'm in the part that sucks. Like, it's painful. You know, no one likes to be s**tty at something, but I'm going through that suck to get to the other side and to turn around and say, you know, hey. I was able to get okay at chess. But this is the great thing about learning almost anything is that and this is gonna sound counterintuitive, but they all suck, and they always suck. Chess never gets better. It always sucks. Some things get better, which is that you appreciate the nuances a lot more. It's one of those things the more you know, the more you realize you need to know, and the more you appreciate just like just like cooking, just like tennis, chess, math, whatever, business. But anything worth doing is gonna suck most of the time because as you move up, you're compete always competing against good competition. And as you get better, you're competing against better competition. And I just watched a video this morning of the and I only say this because this is true in every industry. I watched a video of the strongest player in Canada lose a game because he made a blunder like anyone else. And, he likes he, like, yelled a curse and threw a chair across the room. This is the guy who's the strongest player in Canada and has been a professional for 20 years. What did you enjoy playing it now, though, though, don't you? Oh, yeah. I love it. Yeah. But but I will but it sucks when you lose. And if you lose like, let's say you're winning a game the entire time, and then you just make a s**tty mistake at the end. That is just the worst feeling because when you when you're creating a masterpiece, this is and you're thinking about this is how I'm gonna explain it to people. Like, it's so great. It's like, there's gonna be books written about this game. And then you just, like, drop your queen for no reason, and you're just like, ugh. Oh, I didn't see that coming. Yeah. This this was the bible for me, and now it's, like, just a a bad pamphlet. Like, it's nothing. That's a bad pamphlet. But, yeah, I mean, I learned, I've been learning how to box for, like, 4 years. That was, like, a new skill for me. And I thought, you know, it's there's there's 6 punches. Like, how hard can it be to learn that skill? And you realize with anything, even something with 6 punches or chess with, like, infinite moves you can make, it's infinitely complicated. Like, you'll never it's very hard to master, those new skills. But the learning and the development and the the way it wires your brain, that's, like, incredibly useful. But it makes you more influential and more persuasive that every couple years, you dig into something new because very few people do that. So I think skill hunting is is an important thing for people to to get with. Explain why. Because it's not like you're trying to persuade people about boxing. What is it about the process of learning a new skill good enough to be, let's say, above average at it? What is it about that that makes someone more influential, more persuasive? You know, anytime you're learning a skill, it tweaks slightly how you see the world from the the thing that you're learning. And I think the fact that you're even doing it, I think, is inspirational to people that you're even trying to master something hard and new when most people wouldn't really try to learn a new skill. But I also think every skill that you develop, there's some new element of how you see the world or how you approach things. It also gives you confidence in yourself that you can go through the suck and get out the other side and repeat that. And I think that makes you you know, I I don't know, how to measure it or put it in a bottle. It's a vibe. It makes you more influential and more inspirational other people. I think, also, it makes you more confident. And Right. You know, you talk about positivity in the book too. To be great at something, you have to be positive through the suck. You have to be able to think, okay. I suck now, but I know if I apply these principles of learning and I put the time in, I'm going to be good at this. And that's a a positive framework. It's a it's, you know, a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. That's right. And it also makes you stick with something. Right? It makes you not quit. It makes you comfortable with sucking or failing or losing, but then sticking it through to get to the other side. So I think those are other skills that it develops. And I think once you've got a successful career, once you maybe have some money or financial means and you're not going through the suck and you're not learning new skills, there you're you are in a fixed mindset. Right? You're like you're like, okay. I mastered this thing. I did really well at it. I was successful, and that's it. You know? And maybe you'll loosely try to consult or do other things on the side, but you're not really challenging yourself. You lost that grit somehow. You lost that grit. And skill hunting, I love that. I should have written down the book. But you lost that grit. Skill hunting brings back that grit. It brings you down a notch so that you can get better and and get better. And then the other part of there's skill hunting, and then there's this idea of of being inspiring or soulful and doing something for other people. So that's the other part to me of being soulful a soulful persuader is trying to give back to the world, your community, the culture in some way. Taking a skill that you have and giving back by doing something, beyond yourself, you know, doing something that you're doing not for money, not for monetary gain, not for fame, but purely because you wanna do it. It's it's pure philanthropy that doesn't involve donating money. It's it's your time, your energy to help other people. That, to me, makes you way more influential, way more persuasive, and more of an inspiration. I agree. But why is that? Like, what what's happening there? I, connect the dots a little bit. And and, also, I just wanna add, it seems like there's there's 2 types of giving. So there's the giving that's like, okay. Cleaning up the streets on the weekends. I'm doing this. I'm doing this. I'm doing I'm giving up my time. And then there's giving directly to the people in your circle or the people you're you're persuading. So I'm giving ideas for free or I'm giving an example of persuasion with the boss. You're giving you know, you'll you'll do more work for for free. Yeah. Yeah. That's not what I'm talking about. I mean, I do believe in from a business standpoint, like, when we started, I think, the 1st year, we did all of our work for free to build up case studies so that we had big brands like Microsoft and other brands associated with us so that we could go get paying brands. And that's one thing. But that's still building a business. There's nothing soulful about that. That's more strategic. Right? That's more like, okay. That's smart. Or the boss example is a strategic play. What I'm talking about is you would say that your soulful thing right now, I'm putting words in your mouth, is the choose yourself concept and getting people to change their lives. Right? Yeah. That that's the thing that that you're doing that is soulful, but it's also a business that you're making money off of it and you're selling books. And so that's, one benefit. Maybe you would take that idea or that concept or that skill you have and do workshops, and maybe you're doing this. I don't know. You're doing workshops or speaking engagements or 1 on 1 for, to people for free or Yeah. I'm doing I'm doing exactly that. Oh, you are. Okay. Well, I was a guess. But that is your you're more inspirational and influential because you're doing that for free to help other people without expecting any money, no monetary gain. You're not selling books. You're doing that because you're purely have an idea, and you want people to have the best life that they can. But how does like, since, in general, nobody knows what I do on the on that hand, that's that's part of giving, how does that translate into more persuasion ability? Well, it would translate if you let people know you were doing it. Yeah. So I don't but I don't let people know I'm doing it. So so I I like Why don't you want people to know? There's really not good ways to transmit what you do privately to help people. And not that I and I and I never seek those ways out because maybe there is no ways. I I don't know. Like like, on Kickstarter, right, or whatever, you could say, oh, or GoFundMe. I can say, oh, I donated to this, but or you could be anonymous. And, you know, I always think it's a back and forth. Sometimes if your friends are aware that you're giving to something, they're more likely to give. That's there's research on that. But other times, it seems like it's more of a in Judaism, you say, it's more of a mitzvah if you if you do it anonymous. Well, I I think you can broadcast that you're a mensch. You know? I that's my that's my philosophy is I agree. You should do that stuff, but you should talk about it. And you should talk about it not to because you want everyone patting yourself on the back. You talk about it because you wanna inspire other people to do the same thing. So if you're doing that, but no one knows about it, then are other authors that have a skill that they can give people to help turn their life around? Are they they'll be like, well, James doesn't do that. Why should I do that? But if you're doing it, maybe they'll it'll inspire other people to do it. So I think you should always talk about it. And brands, same way with brands like, you know, Warby Parker, they don't hide that they give away glasses to parts of the world where they can't afford glasses. They they use it as a, well, we get one, give one model. Or Patagonia that, you know, is is is fighting climate change, they don't hide that, tuck that away. They talk about it, and that becomes part of their brand. And Patagonia is a more influential brand because they talk about the money they give away and what they do and their causes. I think that's the same for people as a brand, and we should do that. And you'd be surprised at how many people don't do anything like that. You know? Yeah. No. You're you're right. I think everybody gets particularly, we live at a very fast fast age, and so people get so caught up in the hierarchy that they're in and their money situation and their responsibilities that they lose track of the fact that we live in this bigger world that you need to contribute to, I think. And, you know, I but, also, I think you I I don't know if I totally agree that strategic giving is different from giving because I run into a lot of people who say, oh, I'm not gonna give so and so my ideas. What if they steal them? I'm always in favor of give everyone all your ideas because then it it encourages in yourself a feeling of abundance. There's no one idea that's gonna make or break you. That if someone steals your idea, that's okay. It's validation, and you move on to your many other ideas. And I think that could make one more persuasive just knowing that you're the source of ideas. Yeah. That's true. That's a good that's a good thing if you're giving, but maybe that's your gift. Right? You freely give ideas to people without expecting anything. Yeah. Maybe that's your gift. The way I I toggle between the soulful idea and the skill hunting is skill hunting is really for your personal mindset, and soulfulness is really for the benefit of the world and for other people around you. And so that's the difference. And it's usually around you have to be giving away the soulful piece based on a skill you have. Like, I do a lot of pro bono. My skills advertising, so I give do a lot of pro bono advertising campaigns for, you know, Red Nose Day in the UN, and we'll give away our time and resources and energy. You know, we're working on a campaign a vaccine campaign now. So we'll give that stuff away in order to help a greater good or a greater cause, but that's the main skill that I have. You know, yours might be your you might have investing advice or or whatever or the the whole choose yourself trying to get people to live the best life they can. That part that you're giving away is the thing you're most skilled at. Oh, so I have a example of how this pays off and how this makes you an influential person. A friend of mine was a haircutter in London. His name's Josh Combs. And he was like you know? And this happened to me when I in advertising. I'm like, that's it. Like, I'm just gonna make ads. Like then I started doing my skill for good, and it reinvigorated me in my career. And he was the same way. He was cutting hair. He's like, I guess I'm I'm a hairdresser. I'm a barber. Then he started going on the streets of London and cutting homeless people's hair. And then that was at his lunch break. Then he did it every lunch break. Then he would take a day a week off and do it. Then he would take a week a month off to it. Then he would travel around the world and, you know, take pictures of before and after. He would talk to homeless people who he would make them feel dignity and feel different and, like, someone was there trying to help him help them book become a little bit better. And then he turned that into speaking about it and and and writing a book about it and turned it into a career. So he took a skill of cutting hair, turned it into being inspirational, and building a new platform for himself off of it. So, you know, if an ad man can do it and a barber can do it, anyone can do it. You know, that's how I look at it. That story is in your book, and it's a it's a it's a beautiful story. I think it's finding those it's almost like you have to find your niche in giving as well. Like, if you just donate to a charity and host a ball or whatever or a fundraiser, that's great, of course. But so and that's what feels like the average philanthropist or act of philanthropy is, but it's it's really not. Like, you kinda have to find your own unique voice even in giving. Yeah. That's right. And it's usually from some skill, that you have. Yeah. I mean, you could teach, you you could teach chess to, underprivileged kids. Yeah. I mean, the good thing is there are a lot of educational programs for underprivileged on chess for underprivileged kids because it's sort of documented that kids who study chess end up doing better in school and jobs later on in life. So, that's actually there's probably more underprivileged kids learning chess than privileged kids even though it's thought of as this sort of stodgy, privileged kind of game. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. You know, and all these techniques in your book, they're not techniques. This is sort of how one should live life, and then you create this aura of influence and persuasion around you, and that's what I think that's what makes a leader. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Because this really becomes for me, this becomes more a book about about leadership than, hey. I'm gonna convince you to hire me, or I'm gonna convince my boss for a raise. Although those things could happen as well. Lead leaders could lead from from behind, so you could start off in your career and still be a leader. Yeah. But I, yeah, I think there are techniques for a way to approach the world. I think it's personal and business, really. It kinda blends. But I think it does these are leadership qualities that will make you make you successful or help make you successful. But I didn't set out with a plan, like, okay. I'm gonna do these 4 things, and this this is my plan, and that's how I'm gonna be successful. It's it's how I ended up operating that I then categorized as these skills that, you know, hopefully, other people can learn from. How did how did you pitch this book? Like, how did you convince them to give you a book deal in the sense that like, let's say, I'm the agent or the publisher or whoever you were pitching. And I say, okay, Jason. You're you're, I've heard I looked you up. I heard of your agency. You do great stuff. Clearly, you know about persuasion because you've gotten a bunch of clients and everything. But I've I've already published, like, 10 books about persuasion in the past 2 years. I'm almost maybe you can write a book about that Disney story instead or something like that. Like, what what did you encounter when you were when you were pitching this book? Well, I I, you know, was published through Penguin Random House. I had a really great editor. I'd never written a book before, and I don't know if, this happened in your Harper, Collins deal. But my my book was more about entrepreneurship and how the things that I think make you a successful entrepreneur in starting a business. And what happens, it's very much like the entertainment business. You get an editor, and your editor says, well, that that book is, like has this narrow audience. You need to reach this many people to have a successful best selling book. So we have to open it up to be about business, you know, writ large and about being a better person, not just how do you skills you need for entrepreneur. And so that's how it developed. I took the same principles, but I I made it, I opened the aperture, to me about about any business and and persuasion in general. Not about persuasion in the entrepreneur sense, but the same four principles were there to start with. I don't know if you encountered that. They always try to make it broader and broader. Yeah. Sometime it's it's there's a balance because sometimes if you try to be everything to everybody end up being nothing to nobody or nothing to everybody rather. Yeah. You know? But the the title for my book, the and even choose yourself went through a couple of iterations before it. The title's hard because people say don't judge a book by its cover, but there's actually no other way to judge a book. So you only see its cover at first, and you only see the title, and then you have to decide your first decision, which is whether to pick it up or not. I think title is everything. Yeah. Title sometimes cover. If the cover is really good. Yeah. Yeah. Your cover's good. But the title's great. It's a great title. Oh, yeah. Thanks. Well, I don't think choose yourself could be any clearer. No. And I like choose yourself because it was a call to action, and people respond to that. And or or if you make up a word like Freakonomics or the 4 hour work week. Like, if you make up a concept that or, you know, that becomes yours, then then and choose yourself was a little bit like that as well. But I also, validated the idea in a sense by, I put up Facebook ads of several different book titles and saw which ones were getting the most clicks. Oh, that's really smart. You did some AB testing early on? Yeah. Yeah. I like that. So one one more question just in general about advertising. I see all these ads, and they're so boring. Like, I'll see I I won't name any specific company, but let's say I'll see a com a phone company advertising about 5 g. And everybody's standing in line, and the person with 1 g is not happy. The person with 5 g is very happy. This is so boring. Why don't they why doesn't someone, like, ever, you know, really step out of the box and do something that's really noticeable as opposed to an ad that you're just not gonna remember? No one's gonna remember this ad. The only reason I remember it was because I was astonished how boring it was. Well, I think, like all business, when you're when you're doing well and you're printing money, the, risk is too great to do something, you know, extraordinary. When you're a challenger brand, like, just starting, you have no choice. You know, you have to stand out. You have to say something. You have to you can't be wallpaper. And that's when the best advertising comes It's when you're back either you're you're in a massive decline and your business is, like, on the way out and you need a resurgence, or you're just starting out and you have to get famous fast. And though that's when the best advertising comes. A lot of those companies, they're doing fine. The ad's just like a little slice of memory. Like, hey. We're AT and T. We're Verizon. You know, we're still here. That's all it is. It's like, we're still here. And you don't have to you don't have to swing for the fences and, you know, strike out. You you just you're just here. It's just like constant layer, which I I agree. I hate that advertising, but that's, a lot of it's like that. And that's because those companies are printing money. I guess that's right. Like, the the we're still here concept versus the, versus I I I if I was making an ad, I would think, wouldn't you want your viewer it's a let's say it's a TV ad. What do you want your wouldn't you want your viewer to say, what what did I I can't believe they just did that. They they just did that? That's what I would think they were thinking, but I guess you're right that for them, it's important not to think that way. The the the we're still here is very important for them. Yeah. Like, we just did a an ad on the Golden Globes for a company called Freedom Mom, which is a a breastfeeding company for, new moms. And we showed the team that did it, which was all female team, absolutely crushed the concept and the ad. And it was actually showing the struggles and the hardships and what a pain it is, to learn how to breastfeed and that this company is here to help you. And we actually got NBC to show on the Golden Globes, you know, females breastfeeding, which was against their standards. But that's a way to take a a relatively unknown company and be noticed and get coverage and go for the go go go big. And so that's an example of of of how to do it. Well well, like like, obviously, one of the most famous commercials ever is the 1984 Apple commercial. It only aired once during the 1984 Olympics, and it doesn't even mention the word Apple in it. Yeah. And so that's an example of them trying to communicate who they authentically are. Like, they're the rebellious, young upstart against The George Orwellian Yeah. Future. Yeah. And and and it's also very giving in that they have so much confidence. I mean, giving in the strategic sense and that they appear to have so much confidence in themselves. They don't even need to say what their name is. I know. And that is that's when they had no choice. They had to be they had every they had to have everyone looking up Apple. Right? Like, that's why they did that ad, and it made a massive, massive impact. Has anyone done a a book of and this is just a side thing. Has anyone done a book of, like, the 100 greatest ad campaigns of all time and then analyzing and breaking them down? No. You should do that book. It's like it sounds like a fun book. It should be a fun book. Don't tell me it's too narrow. Yeah. But, you know, I it would go it would be a a textbook, though, too, so you would sell a lot just by virtue of that. That's a good I like I like the way you think. Yeah. There you go. No. Look. Jason Harris Well, you already stole you stole my next book idea, so maybe maybe you just gave me one too. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Have that one. I won't write it. Jason Harris, the soulful art of persuasion, the 11 habits that will make anyone a master influencer. It's really true. I've experienced these techniques myself, and it was so great to see you put names and and a a process and a system around them. And it's a great book about persuasion and is which is a a topic that I also love and read lots of books on, and I super enjoyed this one. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me on. I'm gonna take you up on that, chess lesson. Anytime. We'll schedule it, and, you know, it's it's it's, I I believe in this learning technique that was explained to me by Frank Shamrock, who was a a 10 year world mixed martial arts champion. He always had to learn new martial arts. So So he had a technique called plus minus equal. And you find a plus, which is someone to teach you, and it could be virtual or real. You find equals, people who are at your level, who are rising up and passionate, and you challenge each other. And you find a minus, which is a negative way to say it, but just it's you find people who you beat? Well, someone you could explain to. Yes. But, yeah, you should be able to beat them too. But someone you can explain concepts to. So and I find because I'm since the Queen's Gambit came out, I'm studying chess for the first time in 23 years. I've never I haven't improved I haven't taken a lesson in in 23 years, and your skills decrease very they atrophy the way muscles do. This is the my skills are 50% of what they were when I was at my peak in 1997. But I now am using all these techniques to get, almost as an experiment to see if if if the techniques I write about work, but I'm, getting better than I ever was at my goal is to get not only as good as I was at chess in 1997, but much, much better. Oh, okay. When I give lessons and I give I have a couple of people I give lessons to now, I see basic concepts in a completely different light than I ever have before, and then I noticed them come up in my games now because I gave them as a lesson. I sometimes learn more from the lessons I give than the lessons I take. Oh, that's awesome. Well, I'll be your minus. Excellent. Let let me know when, and we'll we'll schedule it. Alright. Thanks. Thanks, Jason. Yeah. Talk to you soon.
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