Speaker 1: Oh, get your bloody champions. Craig, Anthony Harper, Tiffany and
Speaker 1: Cook and Blake. I'm not sure what's your middle name? Blake,
Speaker 1: Christian Blake, Blake, Christian Eastman, Christian.
Speaker 2: What a good name.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the girl in the top left corner
Speaker 1: on mice Green, Tiffany and Cook, the pugilistic thug, the
Speaker 1: one that gets angry.
Speaker 2: How are you? I'm not hungry, I've eaten well. But
Speaker 2: do you want to tell everyone how you gave me
Speaker 2: a stern talking to to behave myself this morning? What
Speaker 2: was it about my morning energy that provoked that?
Speaker 1: What did I say? I can't remember what I said?
Speaker 2: What do I say? You behave yourself this morning? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well, because you're a lot, you're a handful, and we've
Speaker 1: got an we've got a guest, we've got.
Speaker 2: Someone from os and you know how excited you get.
Speaker 1: You know when we get smart, clever, handsome, dynamic people,
Speaker 1: and you get a little bit out of control. So
Speaker 1: I need to It's like working with tiff Blake is
Speaker 1: like hurting trying to herd cats. It's just an exercise
Speaker 1: in frustration. But how are you? How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm great? Good day, beautiful day out. Just did a
Speaker 2: did a long run this morning and a workout and
Speaker 2: just feel good. Perfect.
Speaker 1: How far do you run? How often do you run?
Speaker 1: And how far do you run?
Speaker 2: I used to train for like ultra events, so I
Speaker 2: would run like sixty miles a week, but I stopped
Speaker 2: that for like the last year, and this is the
Speaker 2: first time I'm starting to pick up running again. So
Speaker 2: I like to optimize around five k times. Yep, so
Speaker 2: just trying to run a solid five k I don't
Speaker 2: I don't really love the long term or the sort
Speaker 2: of dedication and time requirements are running like yeah all
Speaker 2: the time, you know, so I prefer the shorter, harder,
Speaker 2: quicker runs. Hey, I'm speaking of that.
Speaker 1: This has got nothing to do with our interview, but
Speaker 1: you might both find this interesting because one of you
Speaker 1: is a runner and one of you is a trina.
Speaker 1: So I didn't know this. This happened a year ago,
Speaker 1: but listen to this. So there's a guy called alexandor Soriken.
Speaker 1: This is almost impossible, but he ran one hundred kilometers right,
Speaker 1: so sixty two miles or something blake in six hours
Speaker 1: and five minutes. So he ran a hundred k's in
Speaker 1: six hours and five minutes. His average mile time Blake
Speaker 1: was five point fifty three average, right, So Tiff, that
Speaker 1: means he was running two hour thirty three marathons back
Speaker 1: to back.
Speaker 2: Plus Wow, how the fuck does a human being do that? Now,
Speaker 2: there's just some There's just some people. Like when I
Speaker 2: would do some of these events, I'd be like running
Speaker 2: alongside the pros and they'd be like they'd look at
Speaker 2: me and they'd be like, you're looking great, Like what
Speaker 2: lap is this for you? And I'm like, lap number three?
Speaker 2: What about you? And they're like, oh, I'm my number nine,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to be I'm like, what the hell,
Speaker 2: It's just a completely different dynamics. Some people are just
Speaker 2: built for certain things and then they train and get
Speaker 2: more precise and hold their craft. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I always say, hang out with people
Speaker 1: who drag you up, so it's good for you to
Speaker 1: train with. My training partner for the last twenty years
Speaker 1: has been a guy that's a former pro bodybuilder, one
Speaker 1: of the strongest, best physiques in Australia, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: And he's better than me. He's always been better than me.
Speaker 1: He'll always be better than me. But I like it
Speaker 1: because when I train with him, I kind of get
Speaker 1: carried along in the momentum.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not the worst thing. It's not the
Speaker 2: worst thing. It's so true. It's like one of my
Speaker 2: favorite things to do is like run or box or
Speaker 2: whatever with people so much better than you and just
Speaker 2: tell them that, like I'm going to try to and
Speaker 2: I might be like a mile behind them, but it's
Speaker 2: still something to chase, which is so much easier than
Speaker 2: just running on your own.
Speaker 1: What's that saying. If you're the smartest person in the room,
Speaker 1: go to another room.
Speaker 2: The same thing with everything, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So tell us about you. Give us
Speaker 1: a snapshot rather than me read out some bio, tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about your background, who you are,
Speaker 1: what you do, and then then we'll do a deep
Speaker 1: dive into some of your research and some of your works.
Speaker 1: I find it really fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so names Blake Eastman. I run a behavioral research
Speaker 2: company called the Non Verbal Group. I was my background's
Speaker 2: in forensic psychology. I was an adjunct professor for six years,
Speaker 2: and I have done a bunch of different projects related
Speaker 2: to sort of more deeply understanding human So one was
Speaker 2: the largest behavioral study ever conducted on poker players, which
Speaker 2: is I work with some of the best poker players
Speaker 2: in the world on teaching them how to read their opponents.
Speaker 2: And then my company, the Non Verbal Group recently has
Speaker 2: another like incubated startup out of it called Behavioral Robotics,
Speaker 2: and we're using a lot of computer vision and machine
Speaker 2: learning to sort of break down human communication or human
Speaker 2: movement and behavior into very specific movements. And I my
Speaker 2: business is a lot of things. I work with a
Speaker 2: lot of high level companies and organizations, coach teams and executives,
Speaker 2: and our main mechanism for helping people is video. So
Speaker 2: we do a lot of video analysis and tend to
Speaker 2: just show people the same way a coach, which you know,
Speaker 2: when you're punching saying like your shoulders are too high
Speaker 2: or whatever like they we use video as a mechanism
Speaker 2: for that. And I'm very uh, I guess I'm like
Speaker 2: the most anti body language advice person. So there's just
Speaker 2: a lot of bullshit out there that I try to
Speaker 2: explain the nuance you'll appreciate this. There's like you know,
Speaker 2: there's there's like academia on one side, and then there's
Speaker 2: like the thought leader coaching public facing thing on the
Speaker 2: other side, and it's like the middle is like a
Speaker 2: complete mess because people take academic research and like spin
Speaker 2: it to their own narrative and they're not really understanding it.
Speaker 2: And then some of the academics I study this stuff
Speaker 2: for a living, couldn't have an actual conversation with me
Speaker 2: or you and not be awkward, like it's just fascinating,
Speaker 2: like the whole back in front of dynamics. So just
Speaker 2: try to really help people can act with each other. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of space between the actual research
Speaker 1: and then what gets spoken about, and you know, what
Speaker 1: gets wheeled out as research or science is often pretty
Speaker 1: far from that. I guess you're I think I saw
Speaker 1: you talk about the it was it Paul Eckman that
Speaker 1: did that research? And how many times you've been asked
Speaker 1: about the lie to me stuff. You must get sick
Speaker 1: of talking about that. So are you telling me that
Speaker 1: all that stuff about micro expressions and body language and
Speaker 1: the science around that is kind of rubbish.
Speaker 2: It's it's not that it's rubbed well, there's so many
Speaker 2: layers to this. So first of all, a lot of
Speaker 2: that if you describe the more classical discoveries or insights
Speaker 2: into human emotion. A lot of contemporary research in neuroscience
Speaker 2: is sort of contradictory to those claims. So it's like
Speaker 2: maker expressions definitely exist. It's not that they don't exist,
Speaker 2: it's just the meaning that their user what we're deriving
Speaker 2: from them is heavily up for debate. And I have
Speaker 2: like my own opinions about all of this stuff, but
Speaker 2: there is, like it is a pretty heated debate in
Speaker 2: academia because people have dedicated their entire lives towards sort
Speaker 2: of mapping facial expressions and understanding the universality of emotions,
Speaker 2: and then newer people are like, eh, that's all wrong.
Speaker 2: Not like you're kind of right. It's like your thesis
Speaker 2: is completely wrong, the methodology you use, the way that
Speaker 2: you look at emotions is completely wrong. And I tend
Speaker 2: to be somewhere not in the middle. I would say
Speaker 2: somewhere like seventy percent on the side of that more
Speaker 2: contemporary theory, but I still think that the other side
Speaker 2: has usefulness. But yeah, it's it's a it is a
Speaker 2: rabbit hole. So like you did metaicog, you said you're
Speaker 2: you're doing a PID.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I met obceptions, so I'm trying to understand
Speaker 1: that you experience. So the core question at the Cinemon
Speaker 1: research Blanke is essentially, what's it like being around me
Speaker 1: for others? So, what's the Craig experience like for Blake?
Speaker 1: What's the Craig experience like for my listeners? How well
Speaker 1: do I understand me for them? Essentially?
Speaker 2: I love it. I mean, it's kind of a lot
Speaker 2: of the workout I do. I mean it boils back
Speaker 2: to this. I think one of the more interesting theories
Speaker 2: right now is predictive processing or active inference BASY and brain.
Speaker 2: Basically the fact that we're seeing, we're creating our reality
Speaker 2: through all of our past models for the world. And
Speaker 2: that's why I could take one hundred people that you've
Speaker 2: never met before, put you in a room with them,
Speaker 2: and then ninety are like, fucking guys, amazing, I have
Speaker 2: such a good time, and ten are like I hate
Speaker 2: that guy right, Like yeah, oh why? Like you know,
Speaker 2: So that's what my companys are really about. It's not
Speaker 2: about meaning. It's about mapping the perceptual distributions or bell curves.
Speaker 2: So it's like, oh, in Northeastern America, if you're in
Speaker 2: New York City, Why do these certain sets of behaviors
Speaker 2: in these contexts lead someone to be arrogant, where in
Speaker 2: another culture it's respect. Like there's just so much nuance
Speaker 2: in this But even the way that people see the
Speaker 2: world so differently, there are definitely themes. So like I
Speaker 2: can predict who's not liked on a team with a
Speaker 2: high accuracy just based on facial movement, because there's themes
Speaker 2: of like social coordination and all these things that people
Speaker 2: do to let them know that they're listening and all
Speaker 2: this other stuff.
Speaker 1: And there's also the space between what's going on around us,
Speaker 1: you know, the event, the objective data, the situation, the circumstance,
Speaker 1: the other person, and our story or our subjective interpretation
Speaker 1: or perspective. But so that's going on, there's the thing
Speaker 1: that's happening, and then there's my version of it. But
Speaker 1: quite often I don't realize it's my version. I think
Speaker 1: it's the thing. So when we don't realize that what's
Speaker 1: going on for me is just a subjective experience of
Speaker 1: an object the event, then we mistake our personal reality
Speaker 1: for the global.
Speaker 2: Reality, right exactly, And like we've built models to identify
Speaker 2: when people are like. So, for example, one of our models,
Speaker 2: I've forgot all the keywords, but one of the big
Speaker 2: ones is the words should. So like when analyzing interactions
Speaker 2: is like, well, Craig should have done this, Craig should
Speaker 2: which is basically someone like forcing their perception or perspective
Speaker 2: on how you should act and it's nice. So there's
Speaker 2: like little cues and clues in people's language to sort
Speaker 2: of suggest how how they process their world around them.
Speaker 2: I put up a thing on.
Speaker 1: Instagram yesterday other day before, I have this propensity right
Speaker 1: on whiteboard's blake, and then I photograph what I have
Speaker 1: written and then I put it up right. So and
Speaker 1: that's kind of become a thing that people like. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I put up a thing on my whiteboard and it said,
Speaker 1: assuming that people think a certain way because you think
Speaker 1: a certain way is like assuming someone has a soil
Speaker 1: back because you have a soul back, right, yep. So
Speaker 1: there's this kind of phenomena that or phenomenon that you know,
Speaker 1: what's called a false consensus effect, where people just think
Speaker 1: that other people think like them, right, And that's problematic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's at the core of It's like one
Speaker 2: of the things I'm constantly hammering into people's sort of
Speaker 2: approach to other people is it's just this concept of perspective.
Speaker 2: So like I really there really is no right or wrong.
Speaker 2: It's just all a perspective. It's like depending on where
Speaker 2: you're standing from, and sometimes in order to connect to
Speaker 2: someone and really understand how they're processing information, you need
Speaker 2: to understand their perspective without making them wrong, without calling
Speaker 2: them an idiot, without saying your perspective is right. And
Speaker 2: it just takes a little bit more if the reduced
Speaker 2: your sort of traditional approaches to interactions in order to
Speaker 2: actually do that. And it's a skill set. It's a
Speaker 2: skill set that a lot of you know, good leaders
Speaker 2: and people that have like networks and are well connected
Speaker 2: and living Greek lives have, and some people that just don't.
Speaker 2: And the world doesn't function the way that you want
Speaker 2: it to. It's just not what reality actually is.
Speaker 1: Do you think that sometimes I love that? Do you
Speaker 1: think that sometimes people feel you know that one of
Speaker 1: my favorite sayings is, which has been wheeled out a
Speaker 1: million times in a weillion different, million different kind of formats,
Speaker 1: But seek first to understand and then to be understood,
Speaker 1: you know, like the whole kind of theory of mind
Speaker 1: thing of just trying to understand how other people think.
Speaker 1: And when I suggest that to people, they're like na.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're like, well, fuck them. I don't want to,
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm like, I'm not saying I want
Speaker 1: you to agree with them or join their team. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, you can't overcome what you don't understand, or
Speaker 1: you can't navigate what you don't understand.
Speaker 2: So let's just start.
Speaker 1: Let's open the understanding and the awareness bigger than you
Speaker 1: door so that you can you know, you can go
Speaker 1: shite and navigate and interact with other people that I'm
Speaker 1: not like you and don't.
Speaker 2: Think like you. Yeah, I mean, the theory of the
Speaker 2: theory of mind thing is just it's so interesting in
Speaker 2: the sense that I feel like some people like there's
Speaker 2: this whole concept around like developmental psychology where you know,
Speaker 2: the age where you develop theory of mind, right, like
Speaker 2: the kid that sits in front of the table and
Speaker 2: you're like move, sits in front of the TV and
Speaker 2: you're like, move, what are you doing? You're blocking everybody
Speaker 2: and they just don't have the conceptual understanding that they're
Speaker 2: blocking their world. And I think it's probably a way
Speaker 2: more nuanced thing in the sense that some people in
Speaker 2: certain contexts just they don't develop theory of mind like I.
Speaker 2: And we have some assessments and some tests we put
Speaker 2: people through, and like I'll show there's just one video
Speaker 2: of this, uh, this man and woman talking and the
Speaker 2: guy is just for a better lack of words, just
Speaker 2: really being a dick, like you know, the nonverbal tone,
Speaker 2: the assert like he's just being rude, he's being a
Speaker 2: he said, he's being all these things. And you know,
Speaker 2: show that to most people and you say, what's going
Speaker 2: on in this? They'll be like, oh, you know his
Speaker 2: tone this You show them to certain people and they're like,
Speaker 2: what's wrong with what he said? He's just being honest,
Speaker 2: he's being straight, And they don't even see the themes
Speaker 2: that they're interacting on. And some of those people have
Speaker 2: various on various spectrums or don't have the capacity, and
Speaker 2: they really struggle in life because they don't know how
Speaker 2: to calibrate for social dynamics. Yes, one hundred percent. I
Speaker 2: did a.
Speaker 1: Mentor and group that I just started last night, a
Speaker 1: ten week mentorship and it's it's like a private group.
Speaker 2: It's just fifteen people and we're talking about this a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, so think about talking about that,
Speaker 1: trying to understand how we are for others. And I said, so,
Speaker 1: here's my situation right now. There's fifteen of you, and
Speaker 1: everyone just met last night, so no one knows everybody.
Speaker 1: So there's fifteen strangers from different We've got people in
Speaker 1: all over Australia, people in America, people in New Zealand
Speaker 1: on the call. So we've got different backgrounds obviously, fifteen
Speaker 1: different personalities, fifteen different expectations and reasons for being there.
Speaker 1: And I said, and in the middle of all this,
Speaker 1: I've got to try to resonate optimally with fifteen different people,
Speaker 1: you know, So that whole interpersonal process of having an
Speaker 1: awareness of how do I need to be for this
Speaker 1: person or these people, Not so that I'm compromising me,
Speaker 1: but just so that I have an awareness like that
Speaker 1: group awareness and interpersonal awareness of how to build connection,
Speaker 1: how to you know you and I could go down
Speaker 1: a psychological rabbit hole of academic jargon and bullshit and
Speaker 1: everyone's going to turn off, right, you know, because probably
Speaker 1: ten percent of my listeners are academics and the rest
Speaker 1: are not. And that's not good or bad. That's just
Speaker 1: the group. But it's trying to have these conversations which
Speaker 1: you must be thinking about, especially when you're working with
Speaker 1: corporates and teams. How do I how do I share
Speaker 1: my knowledge in a way that resonatees with them?
Speaker 2: Rot. Yeah, I mean that's the whole skill set is
Speaker 2: being able to communicate. Effective communication is relaying what you
Speaker 2: want to relay, but making sure it's in a way
Speaker 2: where the person hears you. So if I wire working too,
Speaker 2: Like I'll tell you back in the day when I
Speaker 2: first started my career, I was much younger. I was
Speaker 2: like twenty five, and I was working in finance in
Speaker 2: New York and like working with these big financial companies,
Speaker 2: and I would walk in the room and these people
Speaker 2: would be like, how old are you? Like they would
Speaker 2: challenge me immediately, and what they respected is me like
Speaker 2: being able to hold my own So me saying, what
Speaker 2: kind of fucking question is that, like, like old enough
Speaker 2: to run this thing? Like they would be like, h
Speaker 2: I respect this guy, like I can listen to him.
Speaker 2: Now we're in other contexts, it's completely different. So like
Speaker 2: there's just certain dynamics that require a more warm, more
Speaker 2: controlled sort of approach, and that's what it is really
Speaker 2: to be a dynamic communicator, to sort of put yourself
Speaker 2: aside and adjust for what you need to have in
Speaker 2: that group. And it's like kind of really interesting, right Like,
Speaker 2: even in that coaching program. I've done a lot of
Speaker 2: ease in my life, and it's like you get fifteen
Speaker 2: people on a call, and then you get that one
Speaker 2: person that just hey, Greg, so I have a question
Speaker 2: and we'll talk for like six or something, not realize
Speaker 2: they're monopolizing the other fifteen people's time, right like, And
Speaker 2: it's just such an interesting dynamic. But you could just
Speaker 2: be more effective with the more context and more information
Speaker 2: you have. And I don't think people spend the time
Speaker 2: or effort to get that context in information, which is
Speaker 2: why they can sometimes struggle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was writing about you, and I was reading
Speaker 1: that you're an adjunct professor of psych at City University
Speaker 1: in New York, of New York.
Speaker 2: I was looking at even now, I'm how old is
Speaker 2: this fuck out? He looks twelve. I'm almost forty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, that is you got some good genetics, broad
Speaker 1: because you look twenty five right.
Speaker 2: Now, enjoy that that was the issue. So I started,
Speaker 2: you know, I was teaching at like twenty two and
Speaker 2: I literally walk into the room and people would laugh
Speaker 2: and think that I'm just messing around, like I can't
Speaker 2: possibly be the student. And I had to Like people
Speaker 2: would ask me, like how old are you, and I'd
Speaker 2: be like old enough to fail you like, sit down
Speaker 2: and shut up, like it's time to learn, right like.
Speaker 2: And my way of being assertive allowed me to counterbalance this.
Speaker 2: And now this is also a lot of context coming
Speaker 2: from I grew up in one of the assertive, straightforward
Speaker 2: places in the world. New York City is where I
Speaker 2: was born and raised, so I was trained like that's
Speaker 2: how you handle yourself. I have like clients in China
Speaker 2: that if I approached it in that way, it'd be
Speaker 2: they'd ask me to leave, like please leave, you know.
Speaker 2: So there's a way of metering. And that's why I
Speaker 2: think like the best communicators and the best social interactors
Speaker 2: they have range r They have like a range that
Speaker 2: they can play for whatever the dynamic and whatever the
Speaker 2: group is, and show up how they need to show up.
Speaker 1: I know there's no simple to this, but I'd just
Speaker 1: like to open the door on the conversation.
Speaker 2: So my question to.
Speaker 1: You is, so people that are listening to this and
Speaker 1: want to know how they can kind of understand themselves
Speaker 1: more like, is there a process? Is there is the
Speaker 1: other questions that we can ask about, how do I
Speaker 1: understand me for me for my own benefit, but also
Speaker 1: how do I understand me for others?
Speaker 2: Any thoughts on that. Yeah, it's such a good question,
Speaker 2: a lot of things. So first, video is probably one
Speaker 2: of the most impactful coaching slash self development tools possible
Speaker 2: because in a world of so many altering perceptions, videos
Speaker 2: just reality. It's just bits that are recorded and it's
Speaker 2: what you look like in a given time. So like
Speaker 2: if you're a manager, or you're a leader, you're a parent,
Speaker 2: like you know, people think that they're may be like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm an exceptional parent. Well let's put you on video.
Speaker 2: Let's see what the average interaction looks like with your kids,
Speaker 2: like are you really present? Like are you supporting them?
Speaker 2: Are you short? Are you? And video does not lie.
Speaker 2: So it's extremely confronting, but it's it's just so so
Speaker 2: so powerful. And then the other really good way is
Speaker 2: we do these like three sixty assessments. And there's two
Speaker 2: questions in my three sixty that is my favorite, which
Speaker 2: is you send this like inventory out to like, you know,
Speaker 2: twenty people that know you and or ten or whatever
Speaker 2: it is in your personal life and your professional life,
Speaker 2: and it's what are three words to describe this person
Speaker 2: at their best? And what are three words to describe
Speaker 2: this person at their worst? Wow? And what's so sort
Speaker 2: of fascinating is how much for most people it's consistent.
Speaker 2: So like I looked at one this morning and it
Speaker 2: was like, out of twenty four people, out of twenty
Speaker 2: four people, the first word they used was impatient. So
Speaker 2: this person was just like everybody was like at their worst,
Speaker 2: you are just so impatient. And then you can take
Speaker 2: a deeper discourse to being like, all right, is this
Speaker 2: some sort of behavior that you're doing or are you
Speaker 2: just looking inpatient? Were like, what are the things in
Speaker 2: your life that lead to being impatient? Right? So it's
Speaker 2: that kind of thing where you can hedge a lot
Speaker 2: of these things. And then it's also really interesting when
Speaker 2: like somebody gets twenty assessments and eighteen are just pretty
Speaker 2: loving and great, and then two are like I can't
Speaker 2: stand like they can't stand you, And I'm like, all right,
Speaker 2: what happened there? Like what happened between you and Tom
Speaker 2: and you and Jessica? And they're like, oh, they used
Speaker 2: to work for me ten years ago when I was
Speaker 2: a different person, and blah blah blah blah blah. So
Speaker 2: I think video and asking others and asking others for
Speaker 2: their perception, not for their feedback. So when it comes
Speaker 2: to like social skills and interactions, people are horrible at
Speaker 2: asking for and giving feedback because what feedback is to say,
Speaker 2: they tell you how you should be, well, I think
Speaker 2: you should be a little bit more this or that.
Speaker 2: It's like you're not looking for feedback, you're just looking
Speaker 2: for like listen when I'm around you, Like what kind
Speaker 2: of emotion? What kind of thoughts leave in our interactions?
Speaker 2: Like the more you can get to see just what
Speaker 2: their worldview is and where there's similarities, the more then
Speaker 2: you can start to go back and start looking for
Speaker 2: how to change them.
Speaker 1: That's such such good advice, and it's so it is
Speaker 1: it's like people want people want feedback connival. You know,
Speaker 1: until you give them FAA, until you give them feedback,
Speaker 1: that lot on one faith. So what they actually want
Speaker 1: is fucking acolytes and price and endorse.
Speaker 2: You know, No, it's I really do think like I
Speaker 2: have I mean I analyze teams and corporations. I have
Speaker 2: all their zoom meetings and I'll watch I have like
Speaker 2: one company that I think I analyze like four hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty one to one interaction, so like one to
Speaker 2: one manager and the person that reports to them fifteen
Speaker 2: minute like here's what you're doing, here's what you're not doing.
Speaker 2: Sessions and a lot of insights came from this for
Speaker 2: this specific company. But like the biggest thing was feedback.
Speaker 2: Is deliver feedback so that the person can hear you
Speaker 2: and internalize the feedback. Is one of the most subtle
Speaker 2: and dynamic skill sets in human behavior that can't be
Speaker 2: like acknowledge them, do this, do that, and they'll like
Speaker 2: it because like sometimes just timing, Like there have been
Speaker 2: moments where like my wife says something to me and
Speaker 2: it's just like the wrong time to say that, right,
Speaker 2: and then she says it two days later. I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: totally right. Like it's just such this fickle, constantly moving thing,
Speaker 2: and I think it's it's a really high level skill
Speaker 2: set that's made to be like something basic like some
Speaker 2: people don't like to be ripped apart or I'll tell
Speaker 2: you this, like in kind of like certain tech cultures,
Speaker 2: there's just so there's such an inauthentic or not aligned
Speaker 2: way that they get feedback. So they'll say things like
Speaker 2: they'll be like, uh, they start off nice, and they'll
Speaker 2: just say like really quickly, like Craig, so how are
Speaker 2: you out by the way, I love your shirt, I
Speaker 2: love the I love the background. So anyways, I want
Speaker 2: to talk about your quarter and one performance one year,
Speaker 2: and then they just go like right into here's everything
Speaker 2: wrong with you, and the person just like what do
Speaker 2: I do with this? Right? Yes, And it's such a
Speaker 2: special skill set to be able to give someone feedback.
Speaker 2: They truly hear you, they feel heard, they feel like
Speaker 2: you care, and then they're actually motivated to want to
Speaker 2: change right and want to do something different. And I
Speaker 2: don't think there's enough of that out in our society,
Speaker 2: which is why feedback is one of the most like
Speaker 2: messed up corporate processes that you can possibly look at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so fucking clever, But also I think too,
Speaker 1: like even if you had ten people blake and you
Speaker 1: needed to give them essentially very similar feedback. You might
Speaker 1: need to do that ten different ways because you've got
Speaker 1: ten different personalities and expectations. And you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: I could say something to Tiff, so Tiff works with
Speaker 1: me and Melissa works with me. Very different people, not
Speaker 1: better or worse, just really different. The thing that I
Speaker 1: could say to Tiff that might work really well might
Speaker 1: not work with Melissa, right, And so it's thinking, how
Speaker 1: do I share this identical or pretty identical message with
Speaker 1: these two very different people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the challenge of it is it's so
Speaker 2: hard to do at scale. So when you're a manager
Speaker 2: and you're managing a team of fifteen people and you
Speaker 2: got all this own shit going on for you, and
Speaker 2: you're like, ah, so most of it's designing for like what,
Speaker 2: how do we design a system that's going to work
Speaker 2: for eighty percent of people even though the twenty percent
Speaker 2: are going to be problematic even for the people that
Speaker 2: don't have those skill sets are adaptive, and some people
Speaker 2: who have these skill sets and are better able to
Speaker 2: do this, it just it comes across natural. They don't
Speaker 2: even they don't even know what they're doing. Like if
Speaker 2: you ask them like, like, hey, so, can you break
Speaker 2: down a series of steps or process on how you
Speaker 2: get it? They're like, I don't know. They're just like
Speaker 2: one of those people that like they can't even articulate it,
Speaker 2: but they're just processing so much information at such a
Speaker 2: rapid rate, which makes them so unique and so special
Speaker 2: in the same way. In the same way, like when
Speaker 2: you're learning using boxing as analogy, right, like you're learning
Speaker 2: to box and at first, like you're just trying to
Speaker 2: throw a punch. Like my thing was always like tension
Speaker 2: in my shoulders. So like every coach I've had in
Speaker 2: boxing is always like hitting my shoulders because I keep
Speaker 2: my shoulders tentch when I move right. And it took
Speaker 2: no matter how many times I put that through my head,
Speaker 2: like relax my shoulder, it takes a long time to
Speaker 2: actually get your shoulders relaxed and be able to connect
Speaker 2: and be able to move. It's just it's a it's
Speaker 2: a process. And yeah, it's that's what I'm just so
Speaker 2: fascinated by and loved teaching because once people see that
Speaker 2: it's like that, it opens their eyes to people. Do
Speaker 2: you think that.
Speaker 1: Generally that people think much about how they think like that,
Speaker 1: why do I think the way that I think? And
Speaker 1: essentially does it work? Like is this optimal suboptimal? You know,
Speaker 1: because I feel like people don't really lean into that much.
Speaker 2: I think what starts? So for me, it's it's like
Speaker 2: a by a sample because most of the people that
Speaker 2: come my direction have this like growth personal development, probably
Speaker 2: most people in this podcast, right, So like if we
Speaker 2: were to like pull everybody in this podcast, I would
Speaker 2: make an assumption that most of them are like thinking
Speaker 2: about their approach that life and all that stuff. But
Speaker 2: the average if we looked at the average, yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't think I don't think so. And that's what it
Speaker 2: is to live an empowering, exceptional life. It's like working
Speaker 2: on yourself and doing the work and confronting what you
Speaker 2: don't want to confront and having coaches and everybody in
Speaker 2: your life to keep you more aligned.
Speaker 1: And I think, like one of my favorite things to
Speaker 1: think about is, you know, like that, where is my
Speaker 1: programming and my conditioning finish?
Speaker 2: And where do I start?
Speaker 1: Like if I if I hadn't been programmed the way
Speaker 1: that I have with my school and my parents and
Speaker 1: my culture and my environment living in this city and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah and da da da and da da.
Speaker 1: Here I am and now I look through the Kraig
Speaker 1: window at the wiled You know, imagine if I'd grown up
Speaker 1: looking through a different window, or with different faith or
Speaker 1: beliefs or culture or you know, like identity or experiences.
Speaker 1: That that just that fascination between figuring out who I
Speaker 1: could be or might be beyond what I've been taught
Speaker 1: and told and trained to be.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's it's one of my if I could have
Speaker 2: a machine that can go back and like switch moment,
Speaker 2: Like how cool it would it be if like we
Speaker 2: go right, Craig twelve years old, let's modify this this
Speaker 2: this enter and like let's see how that compounds. Because
Speaker 2: all these perspectives they do compound over time, right, and
Speaker 2: and they start to sort of change how you view
Speaker 2: the world and see the world. Yeah, no, it's and
Speaker 2: it's quite fascinating, that's what you know. The interesting thing
Speaker 2: is I like to read the reviews on the things
Speaker 2: that I love, the hated reviews on the things that
Speaker 2: I love. Right, So, like you know, like I love
Speaker 2: The Dark Knight Rises this movie, right, it's like quote
Speaker 2: it more than anything else and I'll go and look
Speaker 2: at the one and two star reviews and I'm just like,
Speaker 2: how the hell could this person have that opinion about this? Right, Like,
Speaker 2: and it's just everybody sees the world differently, and you
Speaker 2: have to really. I think it's one of those things
Speaker 2: that's said so often that people conceptually understand that, but
Speaker 2: they don't get it at their core. They don't really
Speaker 2: like get it and integrate it into like how they
Speaker 2: talk to people and how they interact with people. There's, oh, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: everybody has their own perspective. Yeah, that's nice, but it's like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: no no. This is at the bedrock of all human
Speaker 2: perception and in order to really interact with people, navigate, manipulate,
Speaker 2: whatever word you have to, just you have to you
Speaker 2: have to really get that in your bones. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we're looking at the same thing, but we're not
Speaker 1: saying the same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean even at the like where it gets
Speaker 2: even creepier is like we can think about social interactions,
Speaker 2: but we can drapulate. So I'll give you an example. So, like,
Speaker 2: I'm closely related to design. I have a lot of
Speaker 2: design input in everything in my company, and I was
Speaker 2: getting into a little bit of a heated dispute with
Speaker 2: one of my designers about the weight of a font.
Speaker 2: It was like the Rogan we use this font called Rogan.
Speaker 2: He was putting in at bold four hundred. I thought
Speaker 2: it should be bold. I thought it should have been
Speaker 2: a two hundred weight, and he's like, it looks to it.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about. I was like, it looks great.
Speaker 2: Long story short, I find out that I have a
Speaker 2: stigmatism in my right eye which skews the things. So
Speaker 2: I finally get glasses for the first time in my life.
Speaker 2: I put these glasses on, and I'm like, I am
Speaker 2: so sorry. The stigmatism was making the text not as
Speaker 2: bold as so you were one hundred percent right this
Speaker 2: whole time. I totally get while you think I was crazy.
Speaker 2: So this happens at the level of vision, at the
Speaker 2: level of color, like with people with certain cognitive processing disorders,
Speaker 2: with people with you know, on certain spectrums of overthinking
Speaker 2: or underthinking. Like, it's not just social interactions at like
Speaker 2: every aspect. I mean, people have junior mutations that change
Speaker 2: the amount of blues and greens in their visual spectrum
Speaker 2: to the point of when they were looking at your
Speaker 2: room right now. They'd be like, why is your room
Speaker 2: like a light brown? They can't see blue right, like
Speaker 2: it's happening everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so interesting. Hey, yeah, we don't see things
Speaker 1: as they are. We see things as we are, that
Speaker 1: old chestnut. I'm fascinated. I just want to jump back
Speaker 1: a little bit. So you said that you looked at
Speaker 1: hundreds of one on one interviews that went for like
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes or something. Do obviously the people that you're
Speaker 1: that are in the one on one getting their review
Speaker 1: or their feedback or whatever, they know they're being filmed, obviously, yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, okay, so wow, So the companies everything's recorded.
Speaker 2: It's like a byproduct of some of these companies. Protocols
Speaker 2: are processes. Not all of them know that they're looking like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm looking at this through a lens of like development
Speaker 2: and helping them. So even though they know, they totally
Speaker 2: forget because some of them they're they're not on these
Speaker 2: zoom meetings. I'm like, you can't say that, like you
Speaker 2: get Nope, you can't say that they forget. And just
Speaker 2: we're in a zoom culture right now where everybody's on
Speaker 2: meetings being recorded, being interviewed, being all those types of things.
Speaker 2: So it's just it's one of those things that like
Speaker 2: I think people just forget how often they're actually recorded. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but there are times where people directly no, I will
Speaker 2: tell you one thing. So we've done a lot of
Speaker 2: video research and we found that for the most part,
Speaker 2: the number seems to be between like ten to fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: I think it's more like eight to twelve, but let's
Speaker 2: just say ten to fifteen minutes. So if people know
Speaker 2: they're being recorded, like we did a dating study in
Speaker 2: New York City like fifteen years ago, or we put
Speaker 2: people in like blind dates and recorded them from multiple angles,
Speaker 2: people can be a little bit weird for the first
Speaker 2: like ten minutes, and then they just forget that they're
Speaker 2: being recorded, right, And we're really good at like camera
Speaker 2: policement and doing things so that you don't feel like
Speaker 2: it's invasive. But yeah, oh yeah, video is so heavy
Speaker 2: in our society now. It's just so easy to get
Speaker 2: footage on people.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the intersection of Like when I think
Speaker 1: about the people that you work with in corporate I
Speaker 1: do a lot of corporate speaking, and I'm always interested
Speaker 1: in the people you know, the bosses, the managers, the leaders,
Speaker 1: whoever they are, this kind of intersection of business skills
Speaker 1: and intellect, but also emotional and social intelligence, situational awareness,
Speaker 1: fucking empathy.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about is there is there
Speaker 1: a better recipe or formula, like what who makes the
Speaker 1: best leaders and communicators and connectors and problem solvers?
Speaker 2: Yeah, such a great question. So I think it boiled.
Speaker 2: So this is okay. Let me let me take a
Speaker 2: couple steps back. So when I start working with these
Speaker 2: large organizations, you know, years ago, and continue to work
Speaker 2: with them, there's there's all these things that start coming
Speaker 2: up that I don't understand. Right. So, for example, I'm
Speaker 2: working with a series of six teams, and I'm told
Speaker 2: that I need to go work with this specific team
Speaker 2: because the manager or the leader of that group is
Speaker 2: like toxic and too aggressive and all this stuff. Right,
Speaker 2: But then I look at all the actual data, and
Speaker 2: this person's outperforming everybody else. So their team is the
Speaker 2: most you know, high performing team. So I'm like, why
Speaker 2: am I working If the goal of the business is
Speaker 2: to make money and the goal of the businesses to grow,
Speaker 2: why are you sending me in to work with and
Speaker 2: like they're like, well, we just were worried about employee burnout.
Speaker 2: We're worried about all these other aspects. And what I
Speaker 2: started to find is that the best leaders, you know,
Speaker 2: there's all these freaking books, be this kind of leader,
Speaker 2: that kind of leader. Like there's really just I don't
Speaker 2: believe there's such a thing. There are some you know, rules,
Speaker 2: but if the one thing that I could say is
Speaker 2: the most important that I've observed is alignment. So the
Speaker 2: best leaders are aligned. So even if a leader like
Speaker 2: I work with this guy that was just a piece
Speaker 2: of work, it was tough, is just like just the
Speaker 2: definition of tough. And I do this like leadership assessment
Speaker 2: thing where I'm like, you know, close your eyes, I
Speaker 2: matching your funeral. Everybody ever worked with is telling stories
Speaker 2: about you. What are they saying? And he and this
Speaker 2: guy usually people were like he was great. This guy
Speaker 2: was like I want them to say, like he was
Speaker 2: the toughest boss I ever worked with. But that guy
Speaker 2: changed my life. So he really did care about his people.
Speaker 2: But he thought that the way to grow people was
Speaker 2: to be like a drill sergeant, miserable kind of person.
Speaker 2: And he didn't want to change that. So what I
Speaker 2: did was I built like a workflow with him for
Speaker 2: when people started working with him. He would say, listen,
Speaker 2: here's the deal. I have been told by numerous people
Speaker 2: over the last ten years that I am the toughest
Speaker 2: person they've ever worked with, that I'm hard, that I'm demanding,
Speaker 2: that I accept excellence at every single level and a
Speaker 2: high level of integrity and all this stuff. You probably
Speaker 2: won't like me, but I promise you over the next
Speaker 2: if you work with me for two years, I'll fundamentally
Speaker 2: change the trajectory of your entire life and career. Are
Speaker 2: you in? And the people that would hesitate or whatever,
Speaker 2: and some people would just be like yes, and that
Speaker 2: changed everything because they saw his behavior as happening for them,
Speaker 2: not to them, which just really shifted the narrative. So
Speaker 2: I believe that any leader can be effective as long
Speaker 2: as you own the context and explain people what they're
Speaker 2: getting into. The bullshit comes from the leaders that try
Speaker 2: to act nice and try to act warm, and they're
Speaker 2: the exact opposite, like, oh, I want you to have
Speaker 2: life work balance and you should spend time with your family,
Speaker 2: and then they call you on a Saturday at eleven
Speaker 2: and they're like, where is this, Like it's the inconsistency
Speaker 2: that creates the problem. But I had a conversation with
Speaker 2: someone that wants to do something for me. They want
Speaker 2: to lead some pretty big thing and they have three
Speaker 2: kids and they right now they're working with me in
Speaker 2: cushy capacity. And I said it, I said, listen, right now,
Speaker 2: you know you're working thirty hours a week on an
Speaker 2: hourly basis with me. You've got friendly, you've got easy blake,
Speaker 2: you got nothing like that. If you take on this
Speaker 2: role and something happens at Sunday at four o'clock in
Speaker 2: the morning, it's not me fixing it, it's you. And
Speaker 2: do you really want to do that right now with
Speaker 2: three kids in a family. And he was like, no,
Speaker 2: it's all right, great, this is the wrong role for
Speaker 2: you then, right, So it's just setting expectations. And also,
Speaker 2: like the truth is, there is some classic stuff too,
Speaker 2: like a lot of leaders is so interesting when like
Speaker 2: a leader will tell their team to do something that
Speaker 2: they won't like, that stuff just looks so bad, Like
Speaker 2: it's just so bad when they're just like, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: I expect everybody to be on time, but then they
Speaker 2: show up five minutes late for meetings, It's like, why
Speaker 2: can you be late and everybody else can? So leading
Speaker 2: by example, So like alignment and leading by example, I
Speaker 2: think it cuts through more noise than any other type
Speaker 2: of thing. And then another point about your point about empathy,
Speaker 2: which is such a hot topic today and our environment.
Speaker 2: Everybody wants empathy, and the truth is people don't want empathy,
Speaker 2: they want perceived empathy. A big difference. So, like the
Speaker 2: perception of empathy is me going like, like what you
Speaker 2: just did, right, You were like hmmm, that allows me like, okay,
Speaker 2: that was interesting. You could have been like this guy's
Speaker 2: an idiot, Like that's what could have been going through
Speaker 2: your head. But the way people receive it is like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's really listening to me, right, And a lot there's
Speaker 2: a lot of leaders out there that are very empathetic.
Speaker 2: They just don't show it. So they care about their team,
Speaker 2: they just don't have facial configurations that align with it.
Speaker 2: Their words don't align with it. You know. It's that
Speaker 2: kind of dynamic.
Speaker 1: Oh that's such a good conversation. You know. Another thing
Speaker 1: I find really interesting is kind of the balance between
Speaker 1: like caring for people, understanding their feelings, and you know
Speaker 1: their drivers and where they're at. You know a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and even Tiff on the call with us.
Speaker 1: I coach Tiff in the gym, and I often coach
Speaker 1: her with someone else, and she'll attest to this. Like
Speaker 1: I've said to her lots of times, I'm not interested
Speaker 1: in making you feel good in the moment. I'm interested
Speaker 1: in helping you be fucking awesome over the long term.
Speaker 1: And it's not my job to stroke your ego make
Speaker 1: sure you feel okay. Like that's not my job. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean I don't care. I actually really care, because
Speaker 1: I want you to be a fucking weapon, right. But
Speaker 1: there's that sometimes in the moment where people want their ego,
Speaker 1: not Tiff, but people want.
Speaker 2: Their ego fared or you know, like it's that real.
Speaker 1: I find that a challenge at times, that balance between
Speaker 1: you know, helping people feel okay in the moment, but also.
Speaker 2: You know, you know, you've been.
Speaker 1: Going around in circles with this for five fucking years.
Speaker 1: You're still not doing it. You're still you're not doing
Speaker 1: the things required to build resilient and to build capacity,
Speaker 1: and you're not doing the work, and you give up everything,
Speaker 1: you know, like there's this there's this kind of you know,
Speaker 1: two dimensional challenge of how do I not scare the
Speaker 1: fuck out of them, which I can do with people,
Speaker 1: but also empower them to do their best.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's it's what it is to take
Speaker 2: a stand for someone and be able to say the
Speaker 2: things that other people are unwilling to say and using
Speaker 2: whatever motivational paradigms that are going to be required, Like
Speaker 2: there's like for me, like and but that where it
Speaker 2: gets so different is like the domain of sports is
Speaker 2: so unique, especially boxing, right, Like you know what you
Speaker 2: just said. But imagine like a corporate thing where you
Speaker 2: have to do the same thing and they're like, well,
Speaker 2: the company's culture is that we're more we care about
Speaker 2: our employees and we care like It's just so it's
Speaker 2: so different, which is why I I think that like
Speaker 2: sports is such a good analogy to performance in the
Speaker 2: sense that like some people are motivated by you know,
Speaker 2: dig deep and go harder, right, Like some people are
Speaker 2: like that's their true motivational power, Nige. But if you
Speaker 2: I see too much, somebody can break, right. So it's
Speaker 2: just this I think the answer to it is awareness,
Speaker 2: Like the more aware you are of the other person,
Speaker 2: the more you're able to see how your words are landing,
Speaker 2: how your state, when you need to dial in more,
Speaker 2: when you need to back in a little bit more,
Speaker 2: and do all that I had I had. I have
Speaker 2: this coach that would like, oh my god, I remember this,
Speaker 2: Like he would we would do to squats. He would
Speaker 2: do this thing where he'd go like, all, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: count you down, let's just finish at ten, and he'd
Speaker 2: go one, two, three, four, five, six, And then he
Speaker 2: would go he'd watch my movement and he'd go six, six, six, six,
Speaker 2: And there'd be times where it was supposed to end
Speaker 2: in ten squats and I'm at like sixty six and
Speaker 2: he'd but he'd be watching me and he's like you
Speaker 2: got another, Like yeah, another, I'd just keep going six six,
Speaker 2: he goes seven, and he would And what was so
Speaker 2: interesting is like he'd be able to take me to
Speaker 2: that like last two percent drop in me where I'm like,
Speaker 2: I don't think I could do two more squad and
Speaker 2: just push me to the push me to the thing.
Speaker 2: And then the next day he'd be able to ease
Speaker 2: off a little bit, like he was calibrating for me
Speaker 2: in a way that worked, and I think communication, leadership
Speaker 2: and stuff is very similar. Yeah, that's very valid. All right,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna we're on the home straight. I'm going to
Speaker 2: just throw a few.
Speaker 1: A few words that you maybe and rather than asking
Speaker 1: you a specific question about it, I want.
Speaker 2: You to riff if you would, for a minute.
Speaker 1: So my first word is on My first concept is lying.
Speaker 2: Lying. Talk to us about lying. So lying is probably
Speaker 2: if all the domains, if you look at all the
Speaker 2: domains of human behavior, lying is probably the most difficult
Speaker 2: to navigate, in my opinion. So a lot of the
Speaker 2: information and advice from lying often comes from people that
Speaker 2: have studied deception when they have ground truth. So when
Speaker 2: an interrogator interrogates somebody sitting there and they know that
Speaker 2: they weren't at this place at this hour, the truth
Speaker 2: is from like an adaptive approach. Having a lens where
Speaker 2: you going around the world looking to see if people
Speaker 2: are lying or not is probably not going to serve you.
Speaker 2: Like it's a very complicated skill set. Most of the
Speaker 2: stuff you hear about body language and lying is complete
Speaker 2: utter nonsense, like if someone scratches their nose or if
Speaker 2: they don't look at you or just silly shit and
Speaker 2: if you really want to get good at sort of deception,
Speaker 2: like it's a process of like interrogation and who wants
Speaker 2: to go through their social life like interrogating people and
Speaker 2: checking and like one of the easiest ways to see
Speaker 2: if someone's lying is just like this is where it gets nuanced, right.
Speaker 2: You can just make something up. You could be like,
Speaker 2: have you found have you found the Seymour and Undertow
Speaker 2: study twenty fifteen, And someone's like, oh, yeah, no, I
Speaker 2: read that and I just made that up based on
Speaker 2: the poster right there. Now, the question is why did
Speaker 2: they lie? Did they lie because they want to feel appreciated,
Speaker 2: they want to feel respected? Do they have like most
Speaker 2: people just make shit up, not because they're being evil,
Speaker 2: but because it's just this sort of social adaptability. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I love it all right.
Speaker 1: Next one, identity.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good one. I mean, I feel like
Speaker 2: that is probably the foundation of so many things when
Speaker 2: it comes to social interactions. You need to have a
Speaker 2: strong sense of identity and who you are before you
Speaker 2: ever enter into an intimate relationship. It's like old school
Speaker 2: Eric Ericksson's theories of development or Colborg after who did it.
Speaker 2: I think that most people are in this sort of
Speaker 2: stage of like identity, of confusion, of like just trying
Speaker 2: to figure out who they are and not really knowing
Speaker 2: who they are. And sometimes I think that's just like
Speaker 2: a lifelong journey. I think that identity is something that
Speaker 2: in a such a beautiful way evolves, and such a
Speaker 2: beautiful way, like your results and your actions are are
Speaker 2: what should form your identity, not the thoughts about yourself. Yes,
Speaker 2: so like you build your identity through reality, not through
Speaker 2: Oh I think I would be. It's kind of like
Speaker 2: I always say this, like I I was with a
Speaker 2: friend at a Knicks game and he kept yelling at
Speaker 2: everybody at the court and it was just yelling, yelling, yelling.
Speaker 2: I was like, dude, can you just shut the fuck?
Speaker 2: Can you stop talking right now? Like please? And he's
Speaker 2: like why. I was like, because you're not an NBA
Speaker 2: basketball player, like you if you're in if you were
Speaker 2: a former NBA about yell at these people. But so
Speaker 2: many people form their identity through their own thoughts and
Speaker 2: not through their actions. So don't trust your thoughts, trust
Speaker 2: your actions, all right. Trust Trust Trust is people always
Speaker 2: talk about like nonverbal things or body language things around trust.
Speaker 2: Trust is simply feedback loops. That's how they're created. You
Speaker 2: do something somebody, you do something you say you're gonna do,
Speaker 2: you do it. You get trust. And you can accelerate
Speaker 2: the trust dynamics and the feedback loops by showing up
Speaker 2: and being more consistent. So if you meet somebody at
Speaker 2: three pm, you get there at three pm. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: you say you're going to do something this week, You
Speaker 2: get it done this week. That's it. And I think
Speaker 2: that the whole notion of like certain people are trustworthy
Speaker 2: or not trustworthy based on physical behavior, it's a lot
Speaker 2: of it is very it's the perception of trust. The
Speaker 2: truth is you can only measure trust the results. It's
Speaker 2: like the only.
Speaker 1: Way great, all right, the idea of success versus the
Speaker 1: reality of success.
Speaker 2: So yeah, success, I think success. My definition success is
Speaker 2: like you write things down on a piece of paper
Speaker 2: what you want to accomplish, and you accomplish it and
Speaker 2: you're successful. And I think the biggest problem people make
Speaker 2: is they take these pervasive themes of society and they
Speaker 2: try to follow other people's definition of what success is
Speaker 2: and they play the wrong game. So I think success
Speaker 2: is just a game, and I think it. You know,
Speaker 2: you start off short, you start off small, you win
Speaker 2: the smaller games, you win the bigger games. And I
Speaker 2: think what most people do is yeah, I work with
Speaker 2: some people that are so hard on themselves that they've
Speaker 2: never even measured or come up with what success looks like.
Speaker 2: They don't even know they just pushed themselves so hard.
Speaker 2: Like what is successful? Is it winning? Is it making
Speaker 2: fifty million dollars? Is it finding the love of your life?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What is success? And most people, if you ask people
Speaker 2: that want to be successful, most people can't answer the
Speaker 2: question of what its success is. Yeah, that is true.
Speaker 2: I know I've done that many times.
Speaker 1: I go put up your end if you want to
Speaker 1: be successful. Every hand goes up, and then I go,
Speaker 1: all right, just write down what that means for you,
Speaker 1: and they just sit there looking.
Speaker 2: At idea like huh, yeah that is changed. All right,
Speaker 2: We're nearly there. This is great. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: All Right, my last single word that I'm going to
Speaker 1: chuck at you before you tell us a bit about
Speaker 1: your work and your business and how people can connect.
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry that this is cliche, but I just
Speaker 1: want to hear your thoughts on it.
Speaker 2: Happiness. So I think happiness is it's become such a
Speaker 2: thing in our society that we have to live a
Speaker 2: happy life quote unquote happy life. Yeah. I am not
Speaker 2: optimizing my life necessarily around happiness, like the sort of
Speaker 2: ups and downs and the things that I've gone through
Speaker 2: and all this stuff. And for me, happiness comes from
Speaker 2: when I push hard towards something and achieve it and
Speaker 2: it's like this fleeting moment where I'm like happy for
Speaker 2: like five or six seconds. So I'll tell you I'll
Speaker 2: end this on like a sad note. But my dad
Speaker 2: passed in November of ALS. So he had ALS for
Speaker 2: two years. Died a horrible disease that just you know,
Speaker 2: you can't move. And when he first got the diagnosis,
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, I was like talking to
Speaker 2: God or the simulation or whatever, and I was like, listen,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna work harder than I've ever worked in my
Speaker 2: entire life, Like I am going to grind and because
Speaker 2: that's all I knew, like I didn't know. And then
Speaker 2: two weeks later I was like, no, I'm just going
Speaker 2: to try to enjoy and be present in every moment
Speaker 2: and be grateful that I'm alive, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: do more than that than anything else. And that has
Speaker 2: been such a gift that my dad gave to me
Speaker 2: when he died, because it had me see how short
Speaker 2: life is. And that doesn't mean looking for happiness in
Speaker 2: anywhere everywhere. That sometimes just means experiencing the range of
Speaker 2: human emotions and the range of human experience, from fear
Speaker 2: to joy to anxiety, all these different things, but to
Speaker 2: be more present with it. So I don't I think
Speaker 2: if you try to optimize for just being universally happy
Speaker 2: and don't have a really good definition of what happiness
Speaker 2: is to you, you're going to fail. Like this is
Speaker 2: going to be very hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Blake, I love chatting with you. You're super fascinating.
Speaker 1: I mean, thank you so much for doing this. So
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. How can people connect with you? You
Speaker 1: point them towards my audience to whatever you want to
Speaker 1: point them towards. Websites, social media, books, programs, whatever, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to steer people towards.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the best way I send an email newsletter
Speaker 2: out every Monday for doing it for the last four years.
Speaker 2: So it's nonverbalgroup dot com slash newsletter, and we have
Speaker 2: a ton of programs. We've got a program called the
Speaker 2: Social Edge where we teach these skills and we analyze
Speaker 2: your behavior with a bunch of models. It's pretty wild.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to do start doing a lot more
Speaker 2: stuff on YouTube, So YouTube dot Com, slash Blake, Underscore
Speaker 2: Eastman and Instagram and all those various things. I got
Speaker 2: to start getting out there more book coming in a year,
Speaker 2: So still working on that one.
Speaker 1: Well, we will get you back before the book, and
Speaker 1: we will we will crank that book out for you.
Speaker 1: Well say goodbye off fair but Blake, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for coming on the Youth Project.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I just want to say I've done like
Speaker 2: I've done, like twenty five podcast I think in the
Speaker 2: last like three months is definitely leave my top three.
Speaker 2: Like just your energy, your questions, your sort of informal
Speaker 2: like I just loved it. So you did an absolutely
Speaker 2: amazing job and it was so refreshing. I didn't know
Speaker 2: what to expect and I was like, oh, this guy's different,
Speaker 2: Like I like this already, and like because your energy change,
Speaker 2: it kind of impacted me. I was like, God, I
Speaker 2: could be more myself, I could be more conversational. It's
Speaker 2: not like, so Blake, what are the top three things?
Speaker 2: So you're doing great? I love it. This was amazing.
Speaker 1: Thank you, self esteem restored. Thank you therapy today. Fuck
Speaker 1: that well, say goodbye fair Blake, but thank you for
Speaker 1: being part of you project.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate you. Thank you.