Speaker 1: Today. It's great to chat with John Levy on the podcast.
Speaker 1: John is a behavioral scientist best known for his work
Speaker 1: on influence, human connection, and decision making. John specializes in
Speaker 1: applying the latest research to transform the way his companies
Speaker 1: approach marketing, sales, consumer engagement, and culture. His clients range
Speaker 1: from Fortune five hundred brands like Microsoft, Google, ab and
Speaker 1: BEV and Samsung to startups. His latest book is called
Speaker 1: You're Invited, The Art and Science of Cultivating Influence. John.
Speaker 1: So great to chat with you today, Scott. This is
Speaker 1: such a treat. This has been like a year in
Speaker 1: the making. I'm so excited to be here and we're
Speaker 1: gonna have a ton of fun. So where should we
Speaker 1: start today? Oh boy, it's a good question. How about
Speaker 1: we start with a little bit about you, you know,
Speaker 1: curious in your own sort of journey here, because you know,
Speaker 1: how does one get in such interest in this topic influence.
Speaker 1: I believe around age twenty eight is kind of a
Speaker 1: point in where you were starting to get super super
Speaker 1: interested in this topic and the research around it. Right,
Speaker 1: So I was I think I was the stereotype for
Speaker 1: not living up to their potential. It was so ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I was insanely in debt from college. I was overweight,
Speaker 1: I wasn't dating very much. I felt like I was
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, not having the life I wanted.
Speaker 1: I felt like I had a lot of potential, but
Speaker 1: none of it was being realized. And I came across
Speaker 1: a study by these two guys, Christacus and Fowler. They
Speaker 1: were curious about the obesity epidemic. They were curious, does
Speaker 1: obesity spread from person to person like a cold or
Speaker 1: is it a percentage of the population like Alzheimer's And
Speaker 1: what they found was absolutely startling. It turns out that
Speaker 1: if I have a friend who's obese, my chances increase
Speaker 1: by forty five percent. My friends who don't know them
Speaker 1: have a twenty percent increased chance of obesity, and their
Speaker 1: friends have a five percent increased chance. So we have
Speaker 1: an effect three degrees out or anything from happiness, marriage
Speaker 1: and divorce, rates, smoking habits, voting habits. Literally, our life
Speaker 1: is heavily influenced several degrees out by people we don't
Speaker 1: even know exist because of the decisions that they make.
Speaker 1: And so I wanted to figure out, Okay, if that's
Speaker 1: the case, how do I surround myself with the people
Speaker 1: or the best at what they do, the ones that
Speaker 1: can have the biggest impact on the things I care about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was really ie opening reading your book and learning
Speaker 1: about just how much the people around us really can
Speaker 1: help us influence our own goals, but how much networks
Speaker 1: can help to make the world a better place. So
Speaker 1: I really was quite eye opening about that. So you're
Speaker 1: around twenty eight twenty nine and you decide to start
Speaker 1: this thing that you called the Influencers Dinner, right, but
Speaker 1: it it's an interesting twist. Can you kind of tell
Speaker 1: our listeners all about the rules of this dinner. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a little bit different. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: figure out how to connect with these highly influential people,
Speaker 1: and I realized I needed to do something completely out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary or they would never notice me. So
Speaker 1: I invite twelve people at a time, but they're not
Speaker 1: allowed to talk about what they do or even give
Speaker 1: their last name. They cook dinner together, and then when
Speaker 1: we sit down to eat, we play a ridiculous game.
Speaker 1: We try to guess what people do professionally, and then
Speaker 1: we find out we're sitting with bell laureates, olympians, editors
Speaker 1: in chiefs, celebrities, Grammy Award winning musicians. I've hosted over
Speaker 1: two thousand people, ranging from like the world's foremost expert
Speaker 1: on infectious diseases, to members of royalty and even the
Speaker 1: voice of the dog from Who Let the Dogs Out?
Speaker 1: Who want to Grammy for the song? Like just ridiculous people, right,
Speaker 1: And it's grown into by the largest community of its
Speaker 1: type in the world, over two thousand members, two hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty seven dinners, ten cities in three countries. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of silly. Sounds pretty awesome. Not silly, it
Speaker 1: sounds awesome. And you know this idea, you know what
Speaker 1: it's turned into. It seems like it's a little bit
Speaker 1: different than what it arisally started to. Your original goal
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily to like change the world. It was to
Speaker 1: bring together awesome people, is what you say in your book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I figured that. You know, I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be a networker. When you look at the research on networking,
Speaker 1: people absolutely hate it. I mean, it's just miserable. It
Speaker 1: makes us feel dirty. But I realized doesn't make us
Speaker 1: feel dirty is making friends and being a part of
Speaker 1: a community. So I figured if I could get these
Speaker 1: people not just to connect with me, but with each other.
Speaker 1: Their lives would improve and so would mine in the process.
Speaker 1: So that always was my focus. It's not just about
Speaker 1: knowing somebody, but for them to know people that I know,
Speaker 1: and as many of them as possible, so that everybody's
Speaker 1: better off. Yeah, so they were. This is very interesting
Speaker 1: because the word influence cannotes something different to me than
Speaker 1: the word connection. Yet your book really is about meaningful connections,
Speaker 1: and so it's kind of you're kind of reframing the
Speaker 1: whole idea of influence, because I have to be honest,
Speaker 1: the word influence itself makes me cringe. Before I met you,
Speaker 1: it made me cringe, and you've kind of changed what
Speaker 1: it means, what it could mean. But usually you know,
Speaker 1: before I met John Wedde, the idea of influence to
Speaker 1: me is is not something that really stood with my
Speaker 1: own values in the sense it felt like a manipulation
Speaker 1: in some sense. It felt like a sort of tied
Speaker 1: more or the need for power and control than the
Speaker 1: need and than the need for meaningful, authentic connection. Can
Speaker 1: you tell me how you're seeing the relationship between influence
Speaker 1: and meaningful connection be really quite intimate with each other.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting. I when I first started looking at
Speaker 1: this stuff, there was no use of the word of
Speaker 1: influence in our culture. And Robert Sheldein, he had written
Speaker 1: a great book about it, but nobody discussed it back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. It wasn't until Instagram became
Speaker 1: popular that we started using this term influencer. And it's
Speaker 1: rather unfortunate because influence is the ability to have an
Speaker 1: impact or effect on a person or an outcome. Now
Speaker 1: that's really different from power. Power is using force, it's cajoling, manipulation, threats. Right,
Speaker 1: the type of stuff that was very accurate to human
Speaker 1: history less important. Now when there's open communication, influence is
Speaker 1: something we opt in for. It's because I'm your friend
Speaker 1: and enjoy spending time with you. I'll have an open
Speaker 1: conversation with you, and in that conversation you'll put out
Speaker 1: ideas or suggestions and that will influence me, that will
Speaker 1: potentially guide my thinking. It doesn't guarantee anything because you're
Speaker 1: not using force. So my general premise is that our influence,
Speaker 1: our ability to create an impact, to affect the things
Speaker 1: we care about, is a byproduct of who we're connected to.
Speaker 1: Because it's near impossible to impact people we don't know
Speaker 1: how much they trust us, because the reason that you
Speaker 1: have influence on me is because I trust you. If
Speaker 1: I didn't trust you, that I wouldn't listen to a
Speaker 1: thing you said. And then if we're both part of
Speaker 1: the same community, if we experienced a sense of belonging,
Speaker 1: that influence is expanded dramatically. And the reason for that
Speaker 1: is that if we're part of the same community and
Speaker 1: you have an idea, then that will not only reach me,
Speaker 1: but it will reach your friends, and if we share
Speaker 1: the same friends, it'll reach me again. So it begins
Speaker 1: to reach these critical masses. So by being part of
Speaker 1: a community or having a sense of belonging, our influence
Speaker 1: is expanded. Right, there's more reach and sustainability to these ideas.
Speaker 1: So I'll be honest, I probably should have used a
Speaker 1: different subtitle for my book, but yeah, but the point
Speaker 1: still remains that we all really care about influence. I
Speaker 1: would say for the most part in this stage in
Speaker 1: our culture, we avoid trying to use manipulation or power
Speaker 1: or force. And unfortunately the word influence has gotten a
Speaker 1: negative connotation in certain circles. Yeah, I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: good thing to have positive influence on the world people.
Speaker 1: I mean, people really want to make an impact as
Speaker 1: much as they want to have connections with others. If
Speaker 1: you can have both needs satisfied in a synergenistic way,
Speaker 1: then all the better. All the better for humanity and
Speaker 1: for yourself, you know, right. I think one of the
Speaker 1: big things right now is that people's ability to influence
Speaker 1: their own lives has probably reduced a lot, in the
Speaker 1: sense that you know, in nineteen eighty five, the average
Speaker 1: American had three friends besides family. By two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: just nineteen years later, the average American had just about
Speaker 1: two friends. Now, that's pretty crazy, losing fifty percent of
Speaker 1: your close social times as a country. Yeah, And what
Speaker 1: really worries me about this is that we like to
Speaker 1: blame social media, but I think the culprit is people
Speaker 1: moving for work and after school, because when you relocate,
Speaker 1: you reset your social ties. If you've ever have you
Speaker 1: ever moved? Yes, this where I am right now was
Speaker 1: an unexpected move. All right? So where are you, California?
Speaker 1: I moved from New York and so my hunches. I mean,
Speaker 1: you may have already had a bunch of friends in
Speaker 1: California ahead of time, and that's why you move there,
Speaker 1: but for the most part, you probably have a lot
Speaker 1: of social ties in New York and then when you
Speaker 1: reset your location, you're kind of beginning from scratch level.
Speaker 1: It felt only for sure. And so if that's the
Speaker 1: kind of experience that you you have, and people are
Speaker 1: staying less and less time at companies and moving more
Speaker 1: and more often, then it suggests that we're going to
Speaker 1: end up lonelier and more isolated. Now, my concern with
Speaker 1: that is that if you look at the research on
Speaker 1: human longevity, it's not like eating lots of kale and
Speaker 1: doing yoga that will predict your life expectancy after your genetics.
Speaker 1: Number two is strong social ties, right, the thing that
Speaker 1: we just saw has reduced dramatically for Americans. And number
Speaker 1: one is social integration, this idea of being part of
Speaker 1: a community or having a sense of belonging. And so
Speaker 1: what really worries me is that loneliness is on par
Speaker 1: with smoking a packa day of cigarettes in terms of
Speaker 1: its health impact. We are lonelier than ever, especially due
Speaker 1: to this pandemic. We're more isolated. And when we talk
Speaker 1: about influencing our life, whether that's having healthy habits, exercising,
Speaker 1: pushing our career in the direction that we want whatever
Speaker 1: it is. That means that we are having less and
Speaker 1: less influence over the things that we care about. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And I really like this connection you make between influence
Speaker 1: and building trust quickly, Now, I assume you mean building
Speaker 1: trust in not manufacturing trust, but building authentic trust, giving
Speaker 1: a person a real reason to trust, not not like
Speaker 1: sales shark salesman kind of trust. So I'd argue that
Speaker 1: the way that we relate to like used car salesmen, right,
Speaker 1: which are like every so often people do studies to
Speaker 1: rank what's most and least trusted. H And I would agree.
Speaker 1: I think it's like car salesmen are near the bottom
Speaker 1: of the list. Yeah, And so I think the question
Speaker 1: is why. And when you look at research on trust,
Speaker 1: there's this kind of funny thing that happens. So if
Speaker 1: I ask you, okay, that's the most important aspect of
Speaker 1: a relationship, always that everybody says trust. And then you
Speaker 1: ask a person great, what is trust and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: it's I don't know that you'll risk something, and like
Speaker 1: eventually they get to this idea that you're willing to
Speaker 1: be vulnerable, right. Vulnerability means that you're at risk of something.
Speaker 1: I say, great, Then what is trust made out of?
Speaker 1: And no one can ever tell me, but researchers have
Speaker 1: been able to tease out that it's mostly gree It's
Speaker 1: made out of three things. The first is competence, your
Speaker 1: ability to do something. The second is honesty or integrity,
Speaker 1: you're truthful, and then the third is benevolence. You have
Speaker 1: my best interests at heart. Now, what's really weird is that, yes,
Speaker 1: those are three critical pillars, but they're not all equally valued.
Speaker 1: So if I hear that you had an interview and
Speaker 1: the interview just bombed, do I go, oh, Scott's like,
Speaker 1: I can't trust him, he's incompetent. No, I say, like,
Speaker 1: he probably got his second COVID shot and was tired,
Speaker 1: and you know, we all have an off day and
Speaker 1: the next interview is going to be great. So a
Speaker 1: slip up in competence not such a big deal. But
Speaker 1: here's a question for you. If you find out that
Speaker 1: somebody lied to you, would you say, oh, that was
Speaker 1: a one off or would you begin to doubt everything
Speaker 1: that they have said or things that they say moving forward? Yeah? Right,
Speaker 1: I mean that would that starts to cast a bit
Speaker 1: of a shadow. Right. Yeah, so like a breach in
Speaker 1: honesty is a big deal, much bigger than a breach
Speaker 1: and competence. But here's a really weird loophole. So the
Speaker 1: two of us are hanging out. We're apparently in California
Speaker 1: now where you're living, and we're walking down the street
Speaker 1: and I say, hey, do you mind if we stop
Speaker 1: my friend's house. I want to pick something up real quick.
Speaker 1: You go, yeah, yeah, sure, no problem. So we we
Speaker 1: walk to my friend's house. We walk in, and forty
Speaker 1: of your closest friends jump out in scream surprise, and
Speaker 1: we celebrate your birthday. It would be very, very strange
Speaker 1: if you've turned to me and said, John, you just
Speaker 1: lied to me. We can't friends anymore. Yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a really good point. There's a sort of well intention
Speaker 1: certainly matters, And so that's because we value benevolence. I
Speaker 1: misled you for your best interests at heart, right, I
Speaker 1: value that above honesty and honesty above competence. So this
Speaker 1: kind of now points to the car salesman problems. Right,
Speaker 1: Because I trust a nurse because I believe she's benevolent.
Speaker 1: She didn't go into the practice of medicine to make
Speaker 1: a payday. Right, you don't deal with people who are
Speaker 1: that grumpy, upset and ill hopefully unless you care about them. Right,
Speaker 1: your benevolent You believe that the nurse is honest. There's
Speaker 1: also a whole lot of checks and balances in there
Speaker 1: to make sure that they remain truthful. Right, and then
Speaker 1: as far as competence, there's minimum requirements and all that,
Speaker 1: and so we feel that they fulfill all three characteristics.
Speaker 1: Whereas the salesman, you do not walk in there and
Speaker 1: think a used car salesman is benevolent. You do not think, oh,
Speaker 1: that person has my best interest in that part, and
Speaker 1: they'll give me the exactly the car I need. So
Speaker 1: this is all to say that what's interesting about people
Speaker 1: is that we lead with the competence most of the time, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can do this job, I'll be great at it,
Speaker 1: rather than leading with benevolence, which is what we really
Speaker 1: care about. Maybe instead to be leading with it seems
Speaker 1: that you really care about the outcome of this project.
Speaker 1: If I did my job exactly the way that you
Speaker 1: were hoping it would go, what would you what would
Speaker 1: your experience of it be? Now, I've very clearly put
Speaker 1: myself into the other person to choose and express that
Speaker 1: I'm concerned with what matters to them most. No, I
Speaker 1: really really like that. It's something that an idea occurred
Speaker 1: to me. I wanted to talk with you. So it
Speaker 1: seems like a big part of having influence is being
Speaker 1: able to be in a position to help others have influence. So,
Speaker 1: you know, so not just bringing together people who already
Speaker 1: have influence, but giving the voiceless more of a voice.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, what ways are you helping to give people
Speaker 1: who don't have influence already but that you see potential
Speaker 1: in them? Because I know, John, you're such a caring
Speaker 1: person and you have such a desire to help the
Speaker 1: world to be a better place. In what ways do
Speaker 1: you help the voiceless kind of have more influence? So
Speaker 1: I think that that's first of all, a really complex
Speaker 1: problem that you can attack from many angles. You know,
Speaker 1: there's this funny thing called the Dunning Kruger effect, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've come across a lot of times. In general,
Speaker 1: the less you know about something, the more confident you
Speaker 1: are about it, and the more you know, the more
Speaker 1: you realize the complexities of these things, and so you know,
Speaker 1: in my case, there's two ways or three ways that
Speaker 1: I really support those who are under voiced, let's say undervoiced. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the first is that if you believe this idea
Speaker 1: that who are connected to how much they trust us
Speaker 1: and the sense of belonging the experience can define your influence.
Speaker 1: The first thing I do is kind of vet a
Speaker 1: few people or causes, and then I connect them with others. Right,
Speaker 1: so I say, okay, you really care about adoption, let
Speaker 1: me introduce you to a bunch of celebrities who adopted
Speaker 1: their kids, and let's see if they can amplify your message. Right,
Speaker 1: And introductions don't cost me anything. They cost me time,
Speaker 1: which is obviously a commodity that we all have limited
Speaker 1: supply of, but still five minute email world of difference
Speaker 1: for people. The second is that I've made it my
Speaker 1: life's work to bring people together, and so as I
Speaker 1: bring people together, I provide a platform during those events
Speaker 1: or experiences for people to share their messages and ideas.
Speaker 1: And so every other week now it used to be
Speaker 1: every week, I host about one hundred and fifty to
Speaker 1: two hundred people at a digital salon. I used to
Speaker 1: do them in person when but I didn't want anybody
Speaker 1: to dive COVID. We went online and at these we
Speaker 1: have several speakers, usually pretty high profile people, but we
Speaker 1: always leave a spot open and one of the three
Speaker 1: speaking slots at minimum for social cause, and this could
Speaker 1: be anything. Most recently it was this we explore the
Speaker 1: topic of stop Asian hate, and at other times it
Speaker 1: was about the Black Lives Matter movement, and yet at
Speaker 1: other times it was about literacy. And what we do
Speaker 1: is try to curate the people in the room so
Speaker 1: that the right people are hearing this message, the ones
Speaker 1: that can be the biggest support. So listen, I'm clearly
Speaker 1: not the wealthiest person in that room every time. I'm
Speaker 1: clearly not the smartest, especially when there's like two or
Speaker 1: three Nobel laureates, right, But what I am is probably
Speaker 1: the best at connecting people. And so that's how I
Speaker 1: use my superpower, because I can allow people to connect
Speaker 1: and can put them in a situation where they can
Speaker 1: build trust quickly. And there's a bunch of little hacks
Speaker 1: to building trust. If you want, I'm happy to discuss those.
Speaker 1: You're very good at building trust. You're a mega connector
Speaker 1: for sure, and and something else that strikes me is
Speaker 1: that the people that you've introduced me to, or just
Speaker 1: people that I've talked to, who it turns out we
Speaker 1: both find out that we know you, that we know
Speaker 1: we both know you, people have nothing but good things
Speaker 1: to say about you. So it just makes me, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you should know that. But so it makes me think
Speaker 1: about the important importance of reputation in this whole equation
Speaker 1: as well, Like it really peas to not be an
Speaker 1: asshole in this world as much as assholes don't. They
Speaker 1: don't realize it, like assholes don't tend to realize that,
Speaker 1: But it is important to not be an asshole, right,
Speaker 1: It's I think the way I describe it is that,
Speaker 1: And I kind of joke around with my best friend
Speaker 1: about this. My best friends is Guiding and Alexander, and
Speaker 1: we joke about how I'm always after the long like
Speaker 1: I'm going to become best friends with him, spend the
Speaker 1: next ten years supporting any project he does, so that
Speaker 1: the moment he's not looking, I will take three dollars
Speaker 1: from his wallet and I could finally have those three dollars.
Speaker 1: But like in the sense that when it comes to
Speaker 1: human relationships, they are their own benefit, Meaning most of
Speaker 1: the people that I connect with have zero business case
Speaker 1: for my career, right Like I'm not going to work
Speaker 1: on a project with a Nobel laureate. I don't know
Speaker 1: enough about particle physics. You never know. I mean, like sure,
Speaker 1: you never know, but like realistically, you know, my business
Speaker 1: is on the marketing and sales and company culture side
Speaker 1: of SOUFF. It's in the human connection zone. And same
Speaker 1: thing with Olympians or even Grammy Award winners. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to suddenly go into the music industry at age
Speaker 1: forty and start dropping beats or something like that. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Relationships are their own award, not the contract
Speaker 1: I can hopefully get from any one particular person. And
Speaker 1: so I really look at our relationship as a long
Speaker 1: term investment into a great life that I don't know
Speaker 1: what the what the benefit of causing trouble or being
Speaker 1: dramatic like it. If I look at our friendship as
Speaker 1: something that's going to be seventy years long, then it
Speaker 1: changes the context versus if I'm just trying to get
Speaker 1: a transaction out of somebody, and then you behave completely
Speaker 1: different And I think that's kind of the context that
Speaker 1: I try to form my relationships from the other is
Speaker 1: that Adam granted this wonderful research project where he looked
Speaker 1: at In his book Give and Take, he talks about this,
Speaker 1: people who are givers, those are generous, people who are takers,
Speaker 1: those that are let's call them selfish, and people who
Speaker 1: are matchers, those that mimic other people's behavior. And he
Speaker 1: asked the question, who are the least and the most successful?
Speaker 1: And I believe he looked at like medical students and
Speaker 1: salesmen and a few other groups, and to everybody surprised,
Speaker 1: the least successful were the givers, those who are generous.
Speaker 1: And what was really strange was that the most successful
Speaker 1: were also the givers. And the difference was the givers
Speaker 1: that knew how to draw the line versus as it didn't.
Speaker 1: So if you give so much as a medical student
Speaker 1: that you're not spending any time studying the material you
Speaker 1: need to you just help everybody else, you're going to
Speaker 1: do terrible on your tests, so you'll be at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the class. But if you can be generous
Speaker 1: and support people, then the givers will also support you,
Speaker 1: and so will the matches that they make behavior. And
Speaker 1: then you can also still focus on the things that
Speaker 1: you need to freak south, and that puts you in
Speaker 1: the best situation. So it turns out that the best
Speaker 1: strategy in general is to actually be generous, and it
Speaker 1: gives you the best chances of success at anything you
Speaker 1: care about. So I think that that the upside of
Speaker 1: being generous is way more positive than the downside. Like, sure,
Speaker 1: occasionally people take advantage, but if you know where to
Speaker 1: draw the line, you can make sure you have healthy behaviors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and generosity doesn't always have to be a strategy. It
Speaker 1: can just intrinsically be enjoyable, just for nothing else other
Speaker 1: than the feeling to feel like you're a good person. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was recently in a clubhouse room and I have
Speaker 1: a pretty high speaking rate, but every so often I'll
Speaker 1: be asked to give a talk that I kind of
Speaker 1: want to, but the rate isn't huge and see, and
Speaker 1: so what I'll do is I'll tell the the organization listen,
Speaker 1: I'll consider doing this, but I want all of the
Speaker 1: money to go to charity. And those actually, those talks
Speaker 1: give me a huge amount of satisfaction because let's be honest,
Speaker 1: like when we earmark our own money, we would have
Speaker 1: never earmarked that for charity. But knowing that, okay, it's
Speaker 1: a win for the company and then it's a win
Speaker 1: for this charity that makes me incredibly happy. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Because it depends like how one defines success, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you define success as positively impacting the world and
Speaker 1: touching the lives of others, inspiring others, then there's the
Speaker 1: intrinsic reward is right there, you know. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: would love to give your listeners a fun little behavioral
Speaker 1: HACKBA to help them connect more deeply with people. If
Speaker 1: that's okay, Heck, yeah, of course, of course, So let's
Speaker 1: do this. Here's the funniest thing that I like. As
Speaker 1: I kept going through all the research and everything continuously,
Speaker 1: what drove me crazy was that every strategy mostly companies take,
Speaker 1: but also often just people in their social relationships take
Speaker 1: to build trust with people doesn't actually work. So two
Speaker 1: second version, if I give you a swag bag at
Speaker 1: a party, what do you do with the swag bag?
Speaker 1: I probably throw it away immediately, Yeah exactly. It's essentially saying, hey,
Speaker 1: could you throw this out for me? Now? They spent
Speaker 1: hours and tons of money to try to win you
Speaker 1: over to get you to like them more, or if
Speaker 1: you get taken to like some crazy business dinner right
Speaker 1: that's super expensive more often, and then not, you're going
Speaker 1: to be stuck talking to people you don't necessarily want
Speaker 1: to talk to, and so winning people over with gifts
Speaker 1: there is a scenario it could work, but it would
Speaker 1: be like if I know that you're a super fan
Speaker 1: of Harry Potter and I get you like a first
Speaker 1: edition signed right or something like that, because that's like
Speaker 1: a very intimate gift that's specific to you. But in general,
Speaker 1: what really works is the exact opposite of gift givings,
Speaker 1: and it's called the Ikea effect. So human beings disproportionately
Speaker 1: care about their Ikea furniture because they had to assemble it,
Speaker 1: Meaning anything we put effort into we care about disproportionately.
Speaker 1: That's why people care about their own kids, right like
Speaker 1: not other people's kids, or why adopted children are loved
Speaker 1: just as much as those who were born to the parents.
Speaker 1: It's because we care about what we invest effort into.
Speaker 1: Now here's what's absolutely insane. When people try to win
Speaker 1: others over, they try to buy them stuff or they
Speaker 1: won't accept favors, so they'll say, oh, I can help
Speaker 1: you with this, and they'll say, oh, I wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to bother you, or they'll do things like oh, I
Speaker 1: don't want to bother that person by asking their opinion
Speaker 1: or a favor. But it turns out that if we
Speaker 1: get people to invest effort into us, they'll care about
Speaker 1: us more. We're actually harming our relationships when we don't
Speaker 1: allow others to contribute. You are literally saying yeah, I
Speaker 1: care about you, but not enough for you to invest
Speaker 1: any effort. And that's really, quite literally the opposite of
Speaker 1: what we should be doing. And when I tried to
Speaker 1: figure out why this is the case, it turns out
Speaker 1: that the process by which human beings build to trust
Speaker 1: is actually traditionally seen as through microactions. So I ask
Speaker 1: you about how your parents are doing, or how you know,
Speaker 1: how's your dog or something like that, and when that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff happens, then it says, oh, John really cares.
Speaker 1: He's aware of my life. And that's because of something
Speaker 1: called a vulnerability loop. And it works like this. So
Speaker 1: let's say Scott, the two of us are walking down
Speaker 1: the street, right it's after your birthday party. You're surprised
Speaker 1: birthday and I say, oh my god, I'm so overwhelmed
Speaker 1: in that moment, I just put out a signal of vulnerability. Now,
Speaker 1: if you make fun of me or ignore it, trust
Speaker 1: will be reduced. But if you say, god, I've been
Speaker 1: so overwhelmed this week too, what's going on with you?
Speaker 1: You've just signaled vulnerability back at the same level. And
Speaker 1: now we've demonstrated that we can trust each other at
Speaker 1: this higher level of vulnerability. Yeah, And that's how trust
Speaker 1: is created. So this means two things. One is, when
Speaker 1: we apply the psike yeah fact at my dinners, we
Speaker 1: do it by getting people to cook together. Then it
Speaker 1: opens and closes a bunch of these vulnerability loops as
Speaker 1: I say, hey, can you pass me the you know,
Speaker 1: tomatoes or whatever it is, and when you do, it
Speaker 1: opens and closes a loop. But it also means that
Speaker 1: when we're interacting with people, we want to be on
Speaker 1: the lookout for when they put out a signal so
Speaker 1: that we can close it. It also means that sometimes
Speaker 1: we need to be the ones to start by putting
Speaker 1: out our own signals. That way, it gives people an
Speaker 1: opportunity to complete the loop and increase trust between the
Speaker 1: two of you. I love that. I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: on the spots, think really clever way to respond to you,
Speaker 1: to indicate that I am signaling trust. But nothing I
Speaker 1: mean immediately came to mind other than maybe just that
Speaker 1: joke itself increase trust. I'm being vulnerable. I'm being vulnerable
Speaker 1: at a meta level by saying that I couldn't come
Speaker 1: up with anything super clever right in that. Oh interesting, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's actually perfect. You know. It's what's interesting is
Speaker 1: that I think that a lot of people right now
Speaker 1: are a little concerned about social interaction because they feel
Speaker 1: like their muscles have atrophied. And yeah, and my recommendation
Speaker 1: has been okay, let's just lean into that. Let's tell
Speaker 1: people I have not been out of the house in
Speaker 1: a year. I have no idea how to have a
Speaker 1: conversation anymore. Is there anything you want to talk about?
Speaker 1: Because I literally don't have a clue. Yes, I read
Speaker 1: an article about that. I think it was yesterday as
Speaker 1: thing came out. But what if my personality has changed,
Speaker 1: you know, I know, what if I'm a neurotic introvert now,
Speaker 1: you know, And yeah, we all kind of feel like
Speaker 1: neurotic introverts during the pandemic. Let's all bond over that.
Speaker 1: Let's all bond over that. Yeah, I think that's all
Speaker 1: it takes. Right. One of my favorite historical moments from
Speaker 1: a community perspective was when in World War Two, when
Speaker 1: Germany started bombing cities in England. Then you know, the
Speaker 1: locals of London fled to the bomb shelters in the subways,
Speaker 1: and there was this fear that fighting would break out
Speaker 1: at the shelters. But what's pretty amazing is that when
Speaker 1: you put human beings under high levels of pressure in
Speaker 1: groups in general, we do really well. Like there was
Speaker 1: no major breakouts of craziness. People self organized and act
Speaker 1: with the group's best interest. When stress is really high,
Speaker 1: like there's very actual little like looting or things like
Speaker 1: that that end up happening. And when Katrina hit, it
Speaker 1: was mostly people supporting each other and saving each other's
Speaker 1: lives and putting themselves at personal great risk to help
Speaker 1: one another. And I think that that kind of demonstrates
Speaker 1: why our species has been able to survive, is that
Speaker 1: we are fundamentally driven by pro social behaviors. Especially when
Speaker 1: things go wrong, you've really you've kind of you've you've
Speaker 1: cracked this code in such a beautiful way, you know,
Speaker 1: and and just even your argument in your book that
Speaker 1: connection is not the same thing as networking. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's going to be a revolutionary idea to a
Speaker 1: lot of people in Silicon Valley, you know it kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, I think that's really interesting. It may
Speaker 1: depend on, uh, you know, how good they are picking
Speaker 1: up on social cues. That's true, so like, listen it.
Speaker 1: But but regardless of anything, if we're really honest, what
Speaker 1: we connect over and I could be wrong about this, right,
Speaker 1: but if you really look, we connect over activities, interests,
Speaker 1: and culture. Right. So like in a culture could be
Speaker 1: U the high Jewish holidays, right, or her Chinese New
Speaker 1: Year or something like that. Right, So there's a culture
Speaker 1: that you're a part of that engages in certain activities
Speaker 1: and that's what has you connect. An interest would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I really, I'm really into martial arts. So I go
Speaker 1: to a martial arts school, I become friends with the
Speaker 1: people there, and an interest would be like sorry. An
Speaker 1: activity would be you know, I have a friend Daniel Laken,
Speaker 1: who runs something called Urban Surpass, which is a group
Speaker 1: of people who just walk and what like he'll just
Speaker 1: design a walk, like we're walking across three bridges today,
Speaker 1: and it's a group of people, and it's not like
Speaker 1: a hobby or anything. Walking isn't exactly a hobby, but
Speaker 1: it's an activity. He plans an activity, and people actually
Speaker 1: end up bonding and connecting over it. And that's because
Speaker 1: to human beings, putting us in front of each other
Speaker 1: for an interview is terrible. It's not natural for us species.
Speaker 1: We survived because we worked together. So give us something
Speaker 1: to do together and we'll like each other more. Let's
Speaker 1: go on a hike, let's go paint to painting or
Speaker 1: draw mural or something. But don't just sit me down
Speaker 1: in front of somebody with some alcohol. Like it's it's
Speaker 1: awkward for sure, but look, you probably weren't a lot
Speaker 1: through trial and error. I mean, can you tell me
Speaker 1: about some of the early days of these meetings. There
Speaker 1: must have been awkward moments, right, I mean, and you
Speaker 1: learned and grow. Yes. Oh wow, So in the early days,
Speaker 1: tell me some stories. Yeah. At the first dinner I hosted,
Speaker 1: it was probably like in summer and the air conditioner broke.
Speaker 1: So imagine you have twelve people in a confined space,
Speaker 1: no air conditioning and an oven on. Everybody was like
Speaker 1: sweating through their clothing. They were like, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to chop salad, but there was no physical space to
Speaker 1: move like. It was just a train wreck. And in retrospect,
Speaker 1: you know that this concept of type too fun, like
Speaker 1: things that are fun in retrospect, but not really at
Speaker 1: the moment. So the in retrospect, because it was such
Speaker 1: a train wreck, it was actually really great in the
Speaker 1: sense that I was very honest with people. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure this out and I want your help,
Speaker 1: And it created vulnerability loops and the types of people
Speaker 1: I invited. They weren't the impressive people I invite these days.
Speaker 1: They're wonderful, they're great friends, they're super interesting people. But
Speaker 1: I just, you know, I didn't grow up knowing fancy
Speaker 1: award winners. So but I think it allowed for the
Speaker 1: vulnerability loops to build it early, and for people to
Speaker 1: want to support more and then recommend their friends because
Speaker 1: once they went through such a crazy experience, they were
Speaker 1: more open to their friends having or they were interested
Speaker 1: in their friends sharing in the experience. That's kind of
Speaker 1: like the early days. I had no idea what I
Speaker 1: was doing. I wo'd walk up to complete strangers at
Speaker 1: parties that I heard were like successful, and I'd pitch
Speaker 1: them on it, and I'd get it wrong. The way
Speaker 1: that I pitched it was awkward, and they'd be like,
Speaker 1: what are you even talking about? And I'd try to
Speaker 1: I embarrass myself. I'd go home kicking myself, being like, oh,
Speaker 1: how could I mess that up so bad? To be honest,
Speaker 1: I don't remember who those people were anymore. I just
Speaker 1: remember the feeling of awkwardness, and I just kept trying
Speaker 1: different ways of explaining to it until it kind of
Speaker 1: fell on something really that worked. And then I did something.
Speaker 1: I kept redesigning parts of the dinner, so like by
Speaker 1: this third or fourth dinner, I'd lay out all the
Speaker 1: equipment that people needed so that they didn't have to
Speaker 1: search the kitchen for I gave stations, I assigned people
Speaker 1: to work together, and bit by bit it got, you know,
Speaker 1: really really like organized and functional. And there's something very
Speaker 1: fun about feeling the improvement from time to time. And
Speaker 1: then what ended up happening was the dinner started really succeeding.
Speaker 1: So there were ridiculous moments. One of my favorite was
Speaker 1: this rather tall woman was making guacamole with a black
Speaker 1: gentleman about like six six 's one and they're talking
Speaker 1: about her Division three basketball career. And when they sat
Speaker 1: down to guests, everybody ended up finding out that she
Speaker 1: was a journalist, a reporter on a television I think
Speaker 1: I'm like MSNBC or something like that. And everybody was
Speaker 1: guessing what he did, and they thought was a businessman
Speaker 1: or a musician or something. And eventually he said, my
Speaker 1: name is Isaiah Thomas. I'm a twelve time NBA All Star.
Speaker 1: And then you talked about all the championship and all that,
Speaker 1: and and she literally took her napkin put it on
Speaker 1: her face and was like, Isaiah Thomas, I was bragging
Speaker 1: about my Division III basketball career to one of the
Speaker 1: greatest basketball players of all time. And like she sank
Speaker 1: in her chair, and I think she refused to talk
Speaker 1: the rest of the time. But like, those kind of
Speaker 1: moments are so absurd, Like you can't design that, you
Speaker 1: can't plan that. It's just kind of silly. And so
Speaker 1: we've had a few moments like that throughout the years.
Speaker 1: One was a guy turned to the person sitting next
Speaker 1: to him and said, after all the guessing and before
Speaker 1: he said who he was, the guy said, there's no
Speaker 1: way you'll remember this, but fifteen years ago I emailed
Speaker 1: you asking what I should do with my career, and
Speaker 1: you told me to go into research. And now I'm
Speaker 1: one of the top, you know, super respected neuroscientists. And
Speaker 1: you know, this guy's published in Nature. He's my my
Speaker 1: research partner. His name is Moron Surf. And the person
Speaker 1: he said it to was Nobel Laureate Dan Connoman. Oh.
Speaker 1: I love that it was just on his podcast. He
Speaker 1: was he was the prior guest on the pod. He
Speaker 1: was the prior guest on the podcast. Danny gun Man.
Speaker 1: That guy's the coach, the greatest of all time, hands down. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's the Well you're in good company, buddy,
Speaker 1: You're in good company. That guy's a legend. Well, John, look,
Speaker 1: you're you're awesome yourself. Now, at what point do you
Speaker 1: like do you do you feel like did you ever
Speaker 1: feel imposter syndrome, like like in the early days or something,
Speaker 1: Because I mean, you're you're awesome. You shouldn't have question,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure you're adorable. If you think, I still
Speaker 1: don't when there's literally like an Olympic gold medalist here
Speaker 1: left and a Nobel laureate. You're right, the only person
Speaker 1: that could make you feel important is your eighty year
Speaker 1: old Jewish mother. Like the here's the the issue that
Speaker 1: when you're really embedded in scientific knowledge and research, I
Speaker 1: think a bit of imposter syndrome is really healthy because
Speaker 1: our objective isn't to be right. Our objective is to
Speaker 1: find out how quickly we can that we're wrong, because
Speaker 1: that'll actually get us to where we need to be right.
Speaker 1: And if I'm not feeling a bit, I don't think
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome is the right word. But if I'm not
Speaker 1: doubting things at least on a somewhat consistent basis, I
Speaker 1: don't think I'm doing my job well. And so my
Speaker 1: objective isn't to be as impressive or as successful or
Speaker 1: as rich as the people who attend. My objective is
Speaker 1: how quickly can I bond them and how strongly can
Speaker 1: I build a community. And for that, imposter syndrome is
Speaker 1: unassociated because if there's anybody out there who's better than
Speaker 1: me at it, I just want to learn from them
Speaker 1: and happen suck of everyance of knowledge. Because the objective
Speaker 1: is independent of me. It's something probably most people never
Speaker 1: associate to me. It's how close you feel to the
Speaker 1: next person is my metric of success, and that will
Speaker 1: likely never be directly tied to me. That'll be tied
Speaker 1: to that person. Yeah, for sure. I mean I was
Speaker 1: going to respond to you if you ever feel imposter syndrome,
Speaker 1: I would say, I don't. I personally, my personal philosophy
Speaker 1: is I don't use the worth of a person the
Speaker 1: extent to which they've had public achievements. You know, I
Speaker 1: really do consider character and the ones being versus doing
Speaker 1: more important to me. I really appreciate your being, John,
Speaker 1: and I just want to leave today with this quote
Speaker 1: of yours. You say, the difference between us needing to
Speaker 1: pop Azanix, overeating or hiding our problems and us finding
Speaker 1: a solution is our relationships. Thanks for the great work
Speaker 1: you've done in this world to increase meaningful relationships and
Speaker 1: to create these networks that then have a life of
Speaker 1: their own and go out there and make the world
Speaker 1: a better place. So thanks so much for doing that
Speaker 1: and for being on the podcast today. This has been
Speaker 1: an absolute pleasure, and thanks for making this so fun
Speaker 1: my pleasure. Thanks for listening to this episode of The
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way
Speaker 1: to something you heard, I encourage you to join in
Speaker 1: the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's the
Speaker 1: Psychology podcast dot com. Thanks for being such a great
Speaker 1: supporter of the show, and tune in next time for
Speaker 1: more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.