Deep Discussion With Creative Professionals

Key Takeaways

I think we're live this is after hours and I'm joined by some incredible human beings and in case you're wondering what happens to everybody like how did we get so big and diverse well this is a very unique group of human beings we call them the pro members and they're all here we we just got back from Adobe MAX and we're just continuing the content love and the live stream and we just been producing so many things I'm not going to introduce everybody there's so many of you guys and it's so great to see you my only regret is that people who were who were here yesterday no longer here I mean they're still alive but there's just no they survived this is after hours with the pro members and the pro members are basically people that are part part of our exclusive coaching community there's 280 of us and we run from all different sizes shapes want solopreneur freelancer student to people who have really multi-million dollar agencies who are part of it and it's just this community that makes what I think what we have so unique and precious so there's no agenda we're just gonna have a conversation we're gonna go there was like a robot boys thing that's going okay so I I think we're just kind of at the end of one conversation so this will be the beginning of the next conversation so what's hot what's on your mind let's get let's get real and let's have a conversation who wants to start you can't do that mo you have the mic you you were in that position for a reason why don't you start you mean have to start with the question you could just talk whatever you want man I'll be monitoring comments and you too can monitor comments on YouTube yeah I feel like there's been a lot of discussion people that are already in a really good place with their business but they can't see that they're in a good place and they're concerned about what's the next thing that I have to do to make my business better versus just doing what's necessary to get more clients and I think I'd like for us to talk about that because this past week I've been learning so much from other people mm-hmm and seeing other people's work but hearing them say that I need to do this before I can get clients I need to do this before I can get clients and it's like do you not see how amazing what you're doing is already like you're like you're in a perfect position to already get clients and maybe that's because I'm not inside the bottle as they say and I'm able to see their work for how great it is so can we talk about that we can before we talk about that I'm gonna give a quick shout out to the 66 people we're tuning in live we already have other Pro members Dave Co is online in sick Drigo MO my boy yo like what up I guess have been told that this is happening did you guys tweet this out or how did they even know oh do you watch everybody let's create some massive FOMO for other Pro members who aren't here I know I'm cruel and just it's unusual like that but let's go for it Lee's let them know let's create massive FOMO fear of missing out text them all it's a like wish you were here super sincere though right you guys would keep it live okay Scotty Valentine why aren't you in the program Scotty after hours come on man pulse design Julien Dickie I just got the you know YouTube notification Riley Morgan what's up Cole Buchanan if you're watching if you're new if you have some questions both Ricky and Jonah are monitoring some comments there they are he's waving but you can't really see him we ran out a budget for a third camera so Canon Sony watching watching let us know about that mark to stuff okay let's get into it okay there's this phenomenon that happens and on our walk back for him tacos porfavor yesterday Ashley just turned to me it's like how do you how do you do that so fast like how do you take me from here and bring me down here and she asked me this question and I had to think of my feet cuz you know it's a short walk I was thinking because I think most of us look at problems with a magnifying glass we're up so close to it we're studying every single detail we're studying everything that we can't do all the things that make us annoyed things that make us scared and I said all we have to do is to gain some perspective you've heard that expression before and I mean literally I gained some perspective by stepping 6 8 10 12 100 feet back and looking at the problem from afar and I think that gives us context an example I gave to her was if you're sitting there and you're waiting for our parking spot and you've been patiently waiting and somebody pulls out of that parking spot and you're about to go in and some a-hole some d-bag scoots in that gets it you've got steam coming out of ears you're fighting you lowlife ki the car all these dark thoughts are going through your mind like why why are humans like that why can't we treat each other with kindness and be generous why can't we do that some courtesy goes a long way but that's you looking through the world through your eyes through that magnifying glass but if you were just to pop back a little bit maybe even just into the backseat and look at yourself looking at the situation and observe be the witness to it you might say okay here's a woman waiting for a parking spot and somebody else may or may not have seen that she was waiting and took an opportunity who knows but this woman has her health has a wonderful family is in a car that she owns that's insured really what is the big deal there's another spot a few miles away and if we can get that kind of perspective that distance I think it changes how we look at things so mo you looking at anybody else here can see their problems so clearly you're good enough or tweak this line or talk about a user benefit instead of talking about yourself it's so clear and they can just as easily turn around say mo is your problem here's your challenge and you need to overcome it how do we do this for ourselves how do we get this kind of clarity now ah she's ready and she's primed go ahead a little bit closer Mike yeah I like that metaphor I see now very clearly I used to have that in my family values like you see very positivity in every aspect of your life like specially teaching my kids or just we are alive today that's the best blessings yes and that's what you should see like when you get up in the morning you have me thankful like you are alive today and you can get to do so many things but I was not implementing the same thing in my business so today in session mean I was looking at a bigger problem and I want to reach it was like hundred doors away from me yes for that I was not taking I was not there at for the tenth door or not able to see that I'm talented I have worked ready and canvas is ready to paint I just need to take a brush in hand and start painting it so I see that metaphor now from my personal life to how to implement in my business and it and hence when you told me that car parking exams yeah yeah so thank you you have incredible clarity when it comes to your children and you can see them and you know that if they just changed a little bit they will have more happiness than success and everything will work out but right when it comes back to us it's like wait a minute different rules apply right and now hopefully if nothing else try to just insert a little pause between catalyst and reaction like something makes you react just stop a minute and kind of observe what's happening in your mind and then you can choose how you want to react yes pretty much sorry I just wanted something real quick I was talking to all Alec earlier and he was talking about everything that he failed on and he was saying that he's like man I was following Chris and I'm following him oh and this is and that referring to you and he's like and they're killing it on Instagram and they're doing all these things and I'm sitting and I'm struggling and I'm just falling behind and he got super caught up in his failures and for a second he paused and he was like but then I thought about he was like I'm doing so much other good stuff in other areas and I've been so hard on myself when it comes to this one specific thing and that's what a lot of us I feel feel like do we get caught up in the bad because the good is so abundant because the good is the norm like we're you succeeding and we're used to kind of having good days or at least average days but the bad sticks out so much because it's so rare that we don't really know how to cope with it and we give it a lot more attention than it should have hmm and that's that was what he was saying to me earlier and he was like I just took a step back and changed my perspective on it it was like I may have not one in this one area that Lisa gives me a chance to go back and succeed again and that's how kind of I've been framing the things that we've been doing here even though we haven't done the best before it still gives us the chance to reframe and you know try again I have a different take on that I think that was excellent Chris well done if you sit there and you replay the memories in your childhood and we did a lot of this yesterday and we created two columns we're gonna do the two column conversation again creating two columns and we asked ourselves how many times you remember the people who you love the most your parents who took care of you how many times did they praise you for doing something right I make a list just just follow through the thought experiment and then put that list away for a second and then the second list as yourself how many times did they tell you you did something wrong and I'm pretty sure that list isn't multitude longer than the other list so we've had a lot of training finding the things that are wrong we've had not a lot of training in pointing out that things that are right in fact when you think that you've done something right what is the response that you get don't let that get to your head getting too big for your britches stay humble be humble so even if you are able to acknowledge that you've done something right for yourself you go right back to the know the default voice is do not take credit for the things that work out so no wonder alec is sitting there thinking why can't I kill on an Instagram what am I not doing right versus what am i doing right in taking credit for it acknowledging it and being grateful for that I think that's probably why it's so easy for us to point out what's wrong instantly so sometimes if we really just want to connect another person just sit there and look at them listen to them make them feel like every word that they say is important and then try to find something right and they you will shock them it's a shock to the system and I was having dinner with some of the directors from a very prominent type foundry and we were just chatting and they asked me this question he says Chris what's the best reaction you've gotten from an audience because we're talking about a global audience of these different things and I decided to take the conversation in a slightly different place than I normally do I said the best reaction ever got actually came from of all places Dublin Ireland he's like what do you mean I said well I'm doing this workshop it's an all-day workshop and these are not young people they're professional people and we got to the mindset part of the day it's towards the end of the day and we're gonna we're doing some deep minds at work and I asked the group to think about this and I looked at a couple of people and he said I think in your childhood if somebody had just told you what I'm about to tell you it might have changed the course of your life and how you feel about yourself I said something to the effect of your work is good it's better than most and your work is valuable to many people who can see the gift that you have to offer and you're worthy you're worthy of being loved and grown men with tattoos beards and piercings started to weep and when I told him it wasn't like one of those like I've got an eyelash in my eye or you get the glassy I look like they wept like hands over eyes kind of shaking and I'm trying to be a professional here even though I'm a robot I still get emotional if other people get emotional and I can't be in front of everybody because see they're having a distinct advantage all of them could see me and I can see all of them but they can't see each other so as they're having their own moments I have to look away because if I sit there and swim in out emotion I'm gonna lose it and I don't know how long it's gonna take me to recover and then they I turn around and look at them and their eyes are glassy hearing the story we all could just use a little love some positive affirmation I don't mean to blow smoke up people's butt or anything like that but just to point out in a very genuine honest earnest way this is what I like about you and every time to the T if I say this in a quiet room to a hard person the minute what shape or size that come in most of them break because we're not used to hearing that so here's what we can do we can't control what other people say to us right we can't but we can control how we react and what we can say to other people so if not now at some point before the weekend is over find somebody tell them what they mean to you tell them what they're good at just say one thing you don't have to go crazy and say it with feeling and if you don't have anybody that's close to you tell it to a stranger with no other mom accept it to appreciate them well you're trying to read the audio podcast of this I'm sorry my yeah a little bit you didn't cope choke one time you didn't off one time and here you are coughing away alright I do have something to add though because you asked us a really good question I used to be great into the mic oh right into the mic am I good okay you asked us how do we have perspective for ourselves and there was a p.m. call during the program in the program to the program that you said we have to be able sorry you said that we're good at answering other people's questions like you said earlier today so how do we do it for ourselves and you said to create a prompt write it down and try to answer that question for yourself can you talk a little bit more about that and why it's so powerful for us to do that for ourselves whether it be a business problem whether it be a perspective problem gratitude all these different things because we can't wait for other people to just tell us good things either that is true there's a couple things first thing is when you write down what you're thinking you were translating a very complex thought process baked with emotions and feelings and jellow and then you make them concrete the act of writing gets you clarity on what it is you're thinking and sometimes we just need to fool ourselves because inside our mind everything makes sense the echo-chamber things bounce around and you have one feeling by the time it hits your mouth it becomes a different word and that's why people say to each other like you don't understand what I'm saying even though literally I understand the words but it's because you don't understand the emotion that I can't communicate to you right now Daniel's having a flashback right now he's like yes please I just had that relationship issue right you you guys here you know what I'm talking about hi Monica so there's there's a feeling and it gets the words and it comes out wrong so we just need to make the practice of translating those feelings into words and look look back at those words and like did that capture what I was thinking and the beauty of the English language is this very complex language there's so many words my wife's like why are there so many words to say the same darn thing each one means something slightly different different context different power different intensity and so we need to be much more mindful in the words that we choose to express our feelings into code emotions and experiences so when you write it down I think that's just a trick to make it concrete to make a concrete and then you step back and this is the part it's distance it's always distance you know how when something bad has happened to you with time time heals all wounds with distance you can see it with greater perspective the distance is what allows you to do that so when somebody insults you somebody offends you does a wrong to you the distance like you know maybe it wasn't that big of a deal and well you know they were having a bad day and now I understand the three things that I did that contributed to that moment and that's the distance so if you record yourself and you watch yourself later that's a great way to get distance and writing is the easiest most convenient way of recording so go ahead and write something down like what am i grateful for that's a prompt and then you can start to answer that you can also do what Daniel is doing which is the switch hands that's a trick too so if your dominant right use your left and see what happens some crazy stuff comes out it may shock you so I really like the part of what you said that when you write down you get more clarity and so I went to a recent conference Antonio of it and in meditation also we learned that when you write you invite you when you write you invite ya right you invite so here whatever the things we want to happen in our life we just want to visualize that and write down so you're inviting that energy and you're making it happen visually like in your head already so it's going to happens if you want to see yourself in five years and that goal you are wearing this you are in this house with this furniture you have complete imagination about it and when you write down you are inviting that thoughts towards in your life you are opening the door so that's completely I agree you right you invite I mean I think that's like a big part of affirmation there's something that I see a lot more people practicing nowadays and they're just becoming more self aware of the things that you actually want in your life and career monitor universe makes such a big impact and I think what's something great about this group is the kind of a motivational team around you of people they're just supporting you to try new things and I think that's something that a lot of us were taken away from this weekend is the group of people around us that were like you can do this like here's your permission try it if you feel I tried 99 more times but along that way we're gonna help you together mmm I just want to point out that post design paid $2 to have no stop coughing literally said poses as ammo stop coughing who said that pulse design pulse design are you gonna pay me no you take me oh they paid you just either get rid of you to stop coughing okay fernfield's gave us a couple of bucks a couple bucks for my tears [Laughter] okay just let you know you know what's happening on the internet right now I see you posted 171 people now tuning into this conversation in case you just joined us I'm talking to this wonderful community - called the pro community and they're part of my extended family there's 280 of us unfortunately all 280 people could fit in the building or the plane but there's about ten or so of us here there's you need the mic yeah yeah we're doing after-hours we're gonna get deep on a few few topics go ahead I think I have a good question you do I'll be the judge of that good so one of my problems is sometimes I feel I'm not precise with my words yeah so how can I get more precise with them how can I build that expertise or that skill I hear that right in this one yeah so you're like me in a way we're both ESL English as a second language for the four people don't know you're urgently from Venezuela right yes and you're like living up north but it's tough for us like there's a language and way of thinking and speaking and there's some studies that have been done too about how language can influence the way we think about the present in the future what does it call sphere of Worth theory and ads about language beautiful beautiful Ricky what a contribution awesome this fear of worth it's like a tongue twister kibrit I say it myself and I think it's just like everything that you do in life it's deliberate practice and intention so a while back I remember studying for the SATs and trying to memorize vocabulary words and thinking like why do I need to learn these words I couldn't see the benefit so I didn't make a great effort to do that but then I realized even in not trying I still remember some of those words and can use them and it's it's pretty powerful to be able to find the exact right word to describe what you're thinking there's a couple of things I would encourage you to watch really well-written dramas like movies with subtitles on for me hearing it in seeing it in use with visual reinforcement of subtitles helps out a lot there's a beautiful dark movie called angel of angels and insects and just the way it's written it's just amazing it's a dark movie I'm just letting you guys know those of you have seen it it's dark okay of angels and insects so that's one way I think being around people who speak the way that you'd like to speak more alike is a great way you know send the MFA program everybody starts using juxtaposition duality and just Academy it's just all those high-powered words through the six dollar words or whatever it's called they start using that word and then you start to learn how you use it and it's an interesting thing there's a bias conscious and unconscious bias that when we hear people use the same words that we use we feel connected to them that we have similar value systems and beliefs and this instant connection that's why when you get dropped into certain cultures like in the south or in hip-hop communities or in in Silicon Valley they all speak a certain way it's like you are one of us you know that you live there so those are things I would do there are other things that you can do I forget who told me this but somebody was afraid of talking so decided to start a podcast yeah yeah so write speak hang around with people watch consume and eventually your language will change and if you have a friend a partner a lover a husband or wife whatever it is give them permission especially if they're native English speakers to correct you every time you screw up something some people are annoyed by that and some people are very conscious not to correct other people because it's rude so you have to invite them to correct you because you don't want to make the same mistake okay there was a bit on one of these late-night comedy shows where our president Donald Trump some Trump he makes up words all the time and they're like nobody has the cojones to tell him not a single person like you just made up a word so he keeps repeating it over and again yeah so nobody's doing it many favors that says a lot about the people he has working for him his circle and the energy he puts out there perhaps he's the kind of person perhaps I'm only speculating or do not know the kind of person where if you correct him that's the end of you so that's a person surrounding themselves saying you can never correct me because that would be horrible look if each one of you guys heard me make up a word please just correct me now correct me later but correct me because I don't want to keep using the wrong word okay yes sir thinking I have nothing but admiration for anybody that's learning a second language because I barely can speak English myself right to learn two languages and one of the most beautiful things is if you speak with an accent do not try to get rid of rid of your accent while you're still learning because speaking with an accent is a signal to other people yo I speak your language better than you speak my language okay so when you suppress that accent they're like what is wrong with you why can't you conjugate that verb are using the wrong tenses and in Asian people Chinese people in particular screw this up all the time because there's no female male so they always grew up they'll say the father she said this like mmmmmm knows he and so it scrambled in the brain it's so it's funny until you learned that in Mandarin third there is no female male whereas in the French everything's female male it's like it's super complicated remember that bicycle is this the car is that okay what else we got going on I think anyone speak no no but anybody that that is not even near a mic in street go ahead you have to speak right into the mic I did do this a lot because I studied it at the language and it is very hard to remember certain words when you are reading books or something it's not recorded quickly in your brain so I'm a slow reader so how do you suggest on that like what do you suggest on that how did you get better in your second language one of the cool things about growing up with my particular parents was that they wanted us to learn English and to assimilate into American culture as quickly as possible whereas some of their siblings wanted them to retain the culture of the old ways so it's quite interesting and I find this it should be a strange phenomenon that we are many many years removed from the fall of Saigon fall Saigon was in 1975 April 30th right I think and who's that that's you boo okay and that there are people living in America that our first or second generation Vietnamese American that still speak with an accent that still hold on to this culture and I think it's wonderful to preserve culture but another thing not to adapt to your new homeland and it's a strange thing so my parents encouraged us to try to learn English and unfortunately the cost of that is I know speak Vietnamese very well that's the price I pay I'm not as connected to my birth culture then I am to my American culture I forget the rest of your question but I'm just thinking wait like I'm just thinking about the words you said you use the word wisely how you relate to the person so how do we delay to our clients what language they are speaking mm-hm and to speak in their words okay do you hear me yes you can pick it up you can pick it up really quickly like they are talking in certain kind of word languages a style yes so just to make them familiar and a part of it so we get connected very fast yes how do you use that the first thing I would do is to be super transparent but what is your trying to do it's like when you hear word you don't understand you're like wait what does that mean just ask him straight up okay and they'll tell you and they'll try to be more inclusive hopefully if they don't you'd probably don't want to be around them too much I remember working with some tech clients and they were using acronyms up and down all dropping them left and right and I just like excuse me I'm sorry I'm lady in the room I have no idea what you're talking about I'm trying to keep up but as you speak like this there's only one problem I don't understand and I'm the guy who's writing your messaging and if I don't understand I can't translate this and have a suspicion my suspicion is if you talk like this on your website to your prospective clients they too don't understand so it's okay for you to talk down to me and so what happens is in these kind of cultures they use shorthand because we all know and say the same thing and sometimes it's actually designed to keep people out of our culture but in this case they needed more clients and customers to understand what they did so was unintentional so when they say to me it's BYOD world Kris I'm like what a BYOD world you know what that means no bring your own device see there's a tech guy right there boom he's just out of himself oh really oh yes that's right okay good job somebody's done their homework and remembers okay how about somebody on this side any of anybody getting there's a cuter than nothing right now okay that's cool I'm ready just to respond when ready cool cool I like that respond Zach so since we're talking language barriers how do as a designer or as a creative agency how I feel like there's oftentimes barriers between us in the clients because we get caught up in as you said our terminology or only way we in the way we talk but we also want to be perceived as educated and you know we understand our craft but sometimes the client just doesn't comprehend that so how do you approach that we've we've made one cardinal sin already we expect the mountain to come to Moses and Moses needs to definitely come to the mountain the whole point of communication is to share what it is you're thinking to use very specific language that is going to intimidate the client to make them feel less than he's really creating a relationship that you don't want to create okay does that make sense yeah so we say you know what Pantone color do you wanna do you want to process or spot color and with our hit of varnishing that what did I say to you yes I don't know so there's only a couple things that can happen when you do that one for fear of sounding stupid that they don't know what they're talking about they're gonna give you the answer that don't really mean that's bad information too they feel like you're you're trying to flex on them like why would you communicate like this like I don't bring all my business terminology in here why would you so what we need to do is to have that shared thing this is what it means to build rapport so we mirror each other we have to find common ground and you guys have heard me say this I'm gonna keep saying this it's like whenever a problem happens you're at least 50% of the problem but you're most definitely 100% of the solution so whose responsibility is it to communicate to the client and we make a mistake and I know this too and you guys know this you ever notice how a poser speaks versus an expert a poser flexes puffs up uses certain terminology speaks really fast try to impress you with what they don't know that's usually what posers do and you notice like really wise people who are knowledgeable experts they don't speak like that at all they remember that you may not know any of these things and they speak to you in a way that you can understand not to speak down to you but speak to you at a level you understand and that's really really important so you may say to your clients do we want to do a three camera setup with shooting at 4k 24p and they're gonna turn to you like what why would you speak in that language versus like what objective are we trying to do what's important to you to communicate and then I will use my knowledge and experience to sort the rest out they don't know they don't care they just want it to be good they want to have success and so speech that I'm like real humans and you'll be okay hmm all right yeah yeah it's more powerful than you think just add to that really quick hopefully you're creating a situation with your clients when you're learning from each other where they're learning from you and most importantly you're learning from them and what I try to do is I try to set up that relationship right at the beginning of the you know the project or engagement that's great what a beautiful way to look at it instead of trying to set the goal is to impress them just establish expertise just up the goal is it's an exchange of information that I want to learn from you well I I just come from the mindset that the client isn't the enemy you know they're really talented smart successful people and you know they have the money to hire you for a reason they've done something to get there right so I think if you just come in with that kind of respect and admiration you know for them then you know they're gonna you know hopefully reciprocate that with you and if not then maybe they're not a good fit but you know if you have that really if you build that relationship early on you gather you know both sides of the equation or party will get the results that they want yeah Mason Lawler's give me a shout-out to Stan Lee he said he met you in Berlin Stan Lee in the back okay okay you know what I was talking to somebody who has been running her own practice for eight years and she needed some help about understanding sales and how to onboard clients and the same thing that we go through all the time and she's not a pro member but she's kind of a respected person in the design community and I was thinking oh my gosh I guess there's a lot of people out there who don't actually know the structure in the nature of how to talk to a client especially a prospective new client so before I kind of get into that conversation from somebody who's a little bit newer to the group who or may not have it all figured it out figured out I'd love to have your take on what is the objective when a client reaches out when you're talking to him how is that supposed to go who's got the mic there you go you want to do it do it what's the objective in speaking to a new client yeah so ring-ring new client hello I saw your work what are you trying to do you want to honestly help okay you want to help yeah and I say honestly because it sounds like we've talked a lot about impostor syndrome and what posers do when they like you know that if somebody's using a bunch of filler words and puffing their chest out you get the thin they're dishonest like the people who are able to articulate what they do most effectively and how they can help are gonna say it so tactfully because it's effortless it's like watching a professional athlete do something they're so trained and well versed in the truth that they're speaking that it flows like like honey from the whip so you don't even have to you know that it's fully transparent and that it's good and there's nothing wrong with it so just honest deliberate communication and assessing can I help you or can I not and if I can't how can I put you in front of somebody that can't help you yeah that's good anybody else want to add to that before I jump in you know figure out what is the problem that you're trying to solve for them and what the goal at least that's why should I figure out what is what what problem are they trying to solve and what is gonna be the goal they were gonna try to reach with what I'm able to offer them mm-hmm and having that understanding police a lot of different conversations but you don't want to let them self diagnose what the problem might be I want to have that understanding to make sure that you know I want to create something that's gonna help them and that create something that they think they might want okay excellent okay yeah so as well we try to well weigh what has worked for me is try to build a relationship not just saying that I'm just here to help you solve your problems so we'll get to know the person who they are what are the goals who they want to become so you can connect more like just as a business level how do you build a relationship Daniel asking questions getting to know that each other when I work for me is like I get in touch with people that are like-minded and I started like just genuinely asking questions like hey how do you get there how you do this beat you be curious mmm okay great okay so let's let's add some layers to the conversation are we good students sorry to interrupt are we good students of yours or what what do you think about that for dramatic reasons you guys just relax and be okay you guys did great this is the wrong group to be asking or maybe this is the right group to be asking because you guys do know and so that's why I like when I snap back to reality and I talk to someone who's not been part of this universe of ours their answers are like crazy and I think don't wonder you don't have any clients so let's help the wider community understand this okay so I'm not gonna give you guys all the answer I just want to add a layer to it and we'll keep going until we get to the heart of it and feel like we've had a really meaty conversation and greater understanding about this what you need to understand that it's difficult to think everybody here gonna agree with that cuz all I have to use ask you like what's an important question to ask what you want to learn what your brains just melt right it's difficult to think and it's really difficult to make a decision just remember those two things it's difficult to think it's difficult to make a decision so when you talk to a client you're like so what's the problem it's like you're asking me to tell you like what I don't know if I knew I would have told you so we have to develop language and techniques to do that so we have to assist the client to think and then we have to remove the fear of making a decision and you know how difficult it is to make a decision I witnessed that many times in the last 48 hours we'd go out to eat together some of you some of you I'd bring you up and like this is how the menu works these are options consider this what's your preference and I said don't step into the line until you're ready to fire you know this got it though says yes I got it Moses I got it and he walks up and he starts asking more questions chilao asking and asking and I'm just sitting there rolling my eyes like Moe it's just one meal of mini meals that you're gonna have it's not the last meal for tacos and it'll be okay so you know how difficult it can be to make a decision yeah this simple act of ordering or where to eat can be enough to send something off the deep end now you're gonna ask your client to make a decision on where they're gonna spend a hundred thousand dollars and you want them to make the decision on the call they don't know you from Jack they're heard a few good things they saw a few things but we all know you can see things and you can hear things that don't work out because the world is full of people who are faking it how do they know where the genuine deal okay so just remember what are the two things that's difficult to do well don't look at your notes this is the client to think and reduce their fear of making a decision okay it's hard to think it's hard to make a decision so how do we help them to think we're going to ask them some questions and we have to ask them in a slightly leading way because it can't just be like what do you think of the world then you're gonna get all kinds of answers so we kind of have to point them in a direction based on some of our knowledge and experience and this is how we are going to express and communicate the other person we're not new to this industry so the quality of the question then determines the quality of the knowledge that you have when you come to a doctor within probably four question has already figured out what you have there's a good chance I already know what you have they're just going through this so that you feel better about it right because they know it's cold season or flu season and then you come in it's like I know it's the flu but I'm gonna ask you some questions right any genetic disposition what did you do recently is any broken you know they go through some things and you can tell because they ask very pointed questions and this is part of the Socratic process to ask short questions that are easy to answer that lead you to something you're making a big complex problem something smaller so it's easier to understand one part of it that makes sense right if you ask somebody tomorrow to draw a lifelike portrait of a human being that sounds like a very complicated thing to do unless you're a trained illustrator if you're not what do you do you say here's how who you hold the pencil then you know an old pencil draw a circle draw a square draw a triangle a tall cylinder and just keep drawing those until we understand then before you know it the instructor says you've now learned how to draw up the human head so you just break it down into small bite-sized pieces and that's kind of how you do it you're excavating the information from the person's brain you're listening and you're playing back well what you've heard and you're checking to see if it's leading in some kind of logical direction if somebody says to you I want this to be epic I wanted it to feel big like a blockbuster for summer and then in the second breath they say but I wanted to be really intimate when I connect to people on a one-to-one way those are two statements that don't necessarily belong together so this is where you having listened to this problem intently can say back to them I'm sorry I'm having a hard time reconciling these two things that you want I understand both epic and intimate I can't figure out these two things overlap can you and then we have a discussion about it and then we help them to think through the problem oh I see what you're saying I actually really wanted to be an intimate feeling it's how the production value of the epic I don't want to have a thousand people and lens flares and explosions I don't mean that kind of epic so they just didn't choose the right word see because it was difficult to think and they're also afraid of you my business coach Kerr McClaren told me this many years ago and I didn't understand it at the time they are more afraid of you than you are afraid of them so they fear sounding like an idiot because you already the expert they looked at your work prior to making a call so they are pretty reserved at giving you information for fear of sounding stupid so you have to create safe space for them for them to tell you what it is that they're thinking and to help them correct themselves if they're wrong it's not a battle trying to prove your might and your will and your knowledge over them that's actually the wrong thing to do but create safe space Alec I see you whispering that you want to talk you know we can hear you until you do that it was just a silly comment about how this is a high-definition version of the YouTube channel for us anyone's wondering if this is what it's like to be here like it really is exactly the same but just like Chris is pretty much the consistent Justin crispy 3d detail this will be VR in the future people will put on the head right sit with Chris we're working on that in our future nice yes two episodes from now right yes soon I have a follow-up okay thanks for that funny comment and observation can you see Alec in there mm-hmm okay good I just want to make sure that there was just here a random voice before the follow-up though the chats going crazy on these hats the u2 u2 got going on yeah can you maybe provide us some insight on what this hat is this is purely coincidental that Chris the - Chris's are sitting next to each other is the - Zach sat next to each other the world just explode did it almost happen God you just show the room out of the way he's like no can't happen doubling up on the Chris's so this is a hat it's an abstraction it's a graphic created about Rollo who's also a pro member and he's really just first of all the sweetest guy in an excellent designer - big fax right big fax like that that little fax and so we had communicated to the community that our mission is to educate a billion people to help them make money doing what they love without feeling gross about it so I started this hashtag one B minus 1 1 billion minus 1 meaning if our goal is to hit a billion can I count you as one and then people started using the hashtag and they now start saying - 1 - 1 so we're making an official thing so rules like hey I got an idea why don't my design this hat will sell the Hat it's 35 bucks if you buy the Hat all the profits will go towards a scholarship fund to help people who are in need of the things that we do and I think that's a beautiful sentiment shout out to roll because he's amazing he is pretty amazing well I have the mic I didn't kind of a follow up question and it's just kind of come from sitting here watching you in person and it's like how are you this smooth like how do you develop this like this sort of rapport with a client right cuz like as if I'm a client and I'm sitting in a room with Chris and every time I say something he has like the perfect response it's like oh yeah that feels great but a lot of us aren't that smooth like a lot of us are like do you know then we're gonna try to come up with like a clever Chris thing and we're gonna be like you know just just fumble it completely so it's like how do you develop the ability to think so quickly or to not speak as quickly as a lot of us will want to to not look like a fool essentially that's an excellent question Alec let me try to see if I can do justice to the question most of the time when people are speaking I'm spending a lot of energy believe it or not listening and I've been lucky in this way and I think I now realize that this is an advantage that I have that some people do not I think a lot of people have competing voices in their head and they want to respond so badly because I think somewhere in life they were told if you respond you let the other person know that you know what they know it's a demonstration of we're on the same wavelength and same intelligence is happens all the time you ever try to complete somebody's sentences before and then when you do you feel like whew we're on the same wavelength right but that happens after you spent a lot of time with somebody like you grew up together and your best friends and this is an amazing thing and twins do this obviously but when we do this with strangers and clients chances have we choose the wrong word so the first rule is never try to complete the clients sentences he's pretty funny too the jokes are just as funny in real life okay so the other day that was a funny haha perfect timing I was trying to set it up so somebody could do it since he has the mic he did it excellent that was a great plug a loop finisher beautiful job the first rule is don't try to complete their sentence because what if you do complete their senses and naturally you get it right you don't know then if they're gonna tell you more good information why would you end that basically you're your game plan should be to gain the inside track when you're talking to a client you have to realize they're talking to at least two other people besides you at least bare minimum just the rule of three we need three people three comparisons three things to measure up so we've we know we like Alec or not if he's smart if he's charming and funny okay and the way that you gain the inside track is to let the client give you valuable information now there's information and there's valuable information there's a difference so by asking those calibrated questions by asking those calibrated questions you can get the valuable stuff out so first I pause I don't want to complete your sentences and I'm focused almost always on you and I find that if I do that as long as you are able to structure enough complete sentences that makes sense everything I need to know is already in the question that you've asked all the clues are there you just have to go in and you have to pick them up I also will give myself a lot of time in space to think it through before responding immediately most of us feel that we have to fill up all the dead space so we had this natural reflex to say um like you know the fillers we all do them I try not to be okay in the silence and the first thing that I did when you asked that question was I bought myself some time and what did I do you guys remember no I just got a really good question yes he was paying attention right I just say that was an excellent question and I want to be able to construct an answer worthy of the question that's like 30 seconds of me thinking right then and there but also lets you know acknowledge you I'm here and maybe the next things I say I'm conditioning you think that I've really considered it right I think also something I noticed when you said that that's why I remember it is it made me feel real good it was like oh I asked a good question yeah see that's how it works thank you thank you one thing has helped me is to also repeat and summarize when working with clients is kind of a different way of like helping me get time to speak like you're saying Chris but then also to your point to also meet you know affirm to the client that I was really listening to them and sometimes they do correct me and that's okay but they generally appreciate the effort that I put into listening to them and it does set me up to enter you know their concerns succinctly or maybe I you know ask some follow-up questions I I do the same thing a lot and I find that actually I found a lot of value when they correct me because it means I made a wrong assumption right and so I can if I finish their sentence maybe they wouldn't have corrected me in the same way when I'm saying what I'm hearing is you're saying this this and that the other thing I get a lot of times when I do that if I do it right not every time but if I'm on the top of my game and I'm channeling Christo oh I'll say it and they go like oh that was better than I could have said it and that's really weird to me because I'm like I'm just saying what you said but in the vocabulary that I have right which is usually more of an artistic vocabulary so I'll say so what you're saying is and like they'll say something like epic right and all-sec so you're saying is you want this to be something that inspires somebody to take action because of the you know whatever excites them to to further inquiry based on this and they're like yeah that's exactly that's way better than I said it and I'm like well it's just your words like I'm just preparing back to you what you said but just using a vocabulary I have as an artist versus or as a you know you know a vi