Rene Rodriguez On Body Language, Multitasking & Public Speaking | Digital Social Hour #145

Group of people.

I said, How many people are a little bit frustrated with some of the generations?

They go, hands up.

I said, Yeah, no, me too.

I go, but who raised them?

I raised my hand.

I got him.

And I raised my hand too.

And they're like, but they're like, oh, shoot.

How many of you grew up with a really hard childhood?

Hands go up.

I said, how many of you said, I'm going to work so hard that I'll never put my kids to death?

And they go, yeah.

I go, that's where we messed up.

So what else have you noticed?

Because you're around a lot of successful people.

What other commonalities have you seen of them?

There's a lot, actually.

One, they manage who they spend their time with, they're very, very picky about who and how they spend their time.

It's not that they're above anybody else, they just know that there's limited time.

And so, we all have the same amount of time in the day, they just spend it real differently.

Welcome back to the show, guys.

Digital Social Hour.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

Got a great guest for you guys today, Renee Rodriguez.

How's it going?

I'm super excited to be here, my friend.

Yeah, I can't wait to dive into your story.

Could you explain your story, actually, for people that don't know who you are?

So, my name is Renee Rodriguez, and my background is in behavioral neuroscience.

And I've spent probably the last 30 years asking the question of,

cool, so what does that mean?

Right.

And so, what does it mean to how I sell?

What does it mean to how I resolve conflict?

How How I communicate?

How do I have a better family?

How do I persuade?

How do I influence?

And I've landed on what I think to be the central theme of what's most important to almost everybody, which is influence.

So behavioral neuroscience.

So you majored

in college, psychology and neuroscience?

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of people think it's, I mean, it's all brain research.

It's all looking at that, but it's actually mostly even statistics, which is...

what people don't realize.

When you say statistics, what do you mean by that?

Looking at how to read statistics and experimental design and looking at the, like, you're really the psychology and statistics is a search for truth.

And so there's a lot of things that tell you one thing, but when you look at the actual data and if you listen to somebody say, well, what does the literature say?

What they're looking at is what does the data say?

They try one thing one way, one thing another, and it teaches you to be less emotional about something and actually a lot more objective about something.

So you take a scientific approach to...

to your life, basically.

Yeah, and try to make it a way that actually is fun and also something that is more more human, but it's more over, I want the clearest path from point A to point B versus an emotional one, which might take me to what I feel might be the best way to do it.

But actually, this

seems to be the best way based on the data.

Right.

And I'd say a large percentage of people react emotionally rather than objectively, right?

We're designed to.

I mean,

it's what gives life its beauty.

It's also what gives us.

Some of the most trouble, right?

Yeah.

So

it's got its good and it's bad.

So how did you fight that off?

Like, it's hard, right?

Like did it take time to?

Well, I think, you know,

I'm an emotional person, right?

And I think that's okay.

I want to be.

I want to feel deep love.

I want to feel extreme joy, but I also want to feel some of the pain and the loss.

I think that's what gives life its beauty is having the contrast of both.

But it's when it comes in making decisions where we have to really manage.

Are we making an emotional one?

Because I think that's where we're really in trouble.

Men who become overly emotional become kind of dangerous.

Right.

And, you know, relationships that become overly emotional, just like anything, can become volatile.

And so we have to have that balance somewhere in there.

Yeah.

It seems like certain people can't control their emotions.

And I don't know if it's ego or they just can't handle it.

Well, there's a lot of things to it.

I mean, that's where in 1995, the Time magazine came out with What's Your EQ?

Daniel Goldman wrote his book, Emotional Intelligence.

And it was since then people were saying, well, there's more to life than just intellectual quotient, your IQ, that there's this ability to regulate my own emotion, the ability to empathize with how somebody else is feeling, and then develop skill sets to be able to meet you.

Here's how I'm feeling, here's how you're feeling.

Maybe I should back off a little bit.

Or here's how you're feeling, here's how I'm feeling.

You know what?

Maybe this is the time to push.

That emotional intelligence to navigate that is

probably the most important, important skill set, I'd say.

Wow.

And you mentioned you spoke at 237 conferences in the past year.

Well, 237 days I was speaking.

Sometimes those are virtual events.

There are two and three, sometimes five a day.

Jeez.

What makes you feel so strongly about giving that many talks?

You know, it's

what's interesting, if I'm going to be really honest, the goal that I thought was speak as often as you can, which is, I believe in doing that.

I believe in putting reps in in life.

And the more you do something, I mean, look at you and what you've done.

How many episodes in seven months?

300.

300.

People are like, wow, you're so lucky.

Well, okay, hold on a second.

That's 300 episodes in seven months.

And most people, I thought I was doing one a day or one a week was good.

Yeah.

No, that's 300.

And so that's getting reps.

And I'm assuming.

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You're better now than you were in the first time.

Oh, for sure.

I was terrible at first.

And so that's how I look at speaking and that's how I look at communicating a message.

And one-on-one is great.

Most of our influence is one-on-one.

But then you go, okay, well, what is one-on-two?

Well, what about one on 10?

Well, what about one on 100?

One on 1,000?

One on 3,000?

And so all of a sudden, there's a different sort of amplified view or magnitude that you're able to impact.

And so to to me, it was, how do I maximize impact?

So you've been able to develop exceptional communication skills.

So that was through repetition, but also just one-on-one with people.

You're very good.

So where did that come from?

Practice, man.

Like I'm naturally probably have a high social anxiety.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah.

Like I'm an introvert big time.

Oh, I didn't get that vibe from you.

I hide it well.

But I think, too, it's interesting.

I grew up probably being more extroverted.

And the more you do this, the more you're around people non-stop.

I mean, I spoke three times yesterday at a big conference here in Vegas, and then you do the speaking, and then you got to do the book signing, and then not say, let me rephrase that.

I don't got to do it.

I actually get to.

That's actually a really good thing.

I love doing the book signing.

But then there's these expectations that follow, and then you got to do the askerene, and then there's these things, and it becomes a big pull.

And for me, my energy is lower at the end of it.

And that's really what determines an introvert and an extrovert is do you do you replenish your energy with people or do you replenish with a small group?

So like this one-on-one, this is great.

Yeah.

Right.

A happy hour, maybe one, three, two to three people is great.

Intimate friends is great.

I go to a happy hour, a social happy hour,

and I'm usually quiet.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've been introverted my whole life.

People will think the opposite, but I kind of hide it too a little bit, I think.

You know, and I think that probably serves you well because you probably observe what's going on.

Yeah, I try to listen more than I speak.

Which makes you a great podcaster.

I think it does, yeah.

Because some podcasters talk way too much, in my opinion.

I've been on those.

I'm like, thanks for having me on.

Like, when the host is talking more than the guests, what's the point at that point?

You know, it's, it's, uh,

I'm just going to leave it at that.

You're absolutely right.

Yep.

I've seen your, you had an interesting take on multitasking.

You're not a fan of it.

Why do you feel that way?

It's just because we don't do it.

It's, it's, I wish I could.

One, I am, I literally am just not real smart when I multitask.

My wife knows

if I'm on the phone and I'm doing something, she's like, can you put your phone down, please?

Because I'll be like, yeah.

And she knows I'm doing something else, yeah.

But the best way to determine if you're those people, if you're listening to this, if you think you're a multitasker, try this.

I want you to go, okay, go count to one to ten, and you can try this too, like one to ten as fast as you can.

Okay, right now, yeah, try it one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

All right, so now go A through J as fast as you can.

AB C D E F G H I J.

Okay, so those would be single task environments, right?

And so now try to go

one letter, one number.

So A1, B2, B3.

A1, B2, C3, D4, E5, F6,

G7,

H8,

I9,

J10.

Dude, that's actually, I've never seen anybody get all the way through.

You know, you were probably 300% slower, but you got through it.

I'm actually kind of blown away.

So you'll go A1, B2, B3, C3, D4, E5.

I don't even remember what's next.

Yeah, the endo is tough.

And I've done this, and I don't even know which one's next.

So what happens is we don't actually multitask.

We do what's called called rapidly refocusing.

And so if it's a single task, I go down to numbers.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, letters one, two, or ABCD, EFG, HIJ.

But then if I go one, stop that task, pick up a new task, A, or A, one.

Okay, stop the one.

Where was it?

Where did I leave off?

B.

Okay, stop that task.

Where did I leave on the

two?

And then you're starting to stopping tasks.

And it's the akin is basically how we run a lot of our day.

We start something, somebody interrupts, or we're doing something great, we pick up our phone, and we're constantly being interrupted, and we very rarely get into the flow.

But if you look at the high-performing people, people that are making millions, people that are making massive impact, it's not just money, people that are leading massive organizations, they practice single-task time.

They're very focused on what they're doing.

Right.

And they manage interruptions.

Research says that if you're in a flow state, that your interruption, if you're interrupted out of that, it takes on average 19 minutes to get back.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

19 minutes.

I was thinking how many times I'm interrupted.

That's something I need to work on because I have my phone with me when I work sometimes and it's just so distracting.

And me that knows this, I'm still addicted to looking at it.

Like, I mean, if it's nearby me and I hear that buzz and I'm like, I want that, that dopamine.

And that's what it is.

It's literally, it's dopamine.

And dopamine is that anticipation of reward.

Right.

And so I go, I hear the buzz.

Who might that be?

Well, let me go check.

Dopamine's like, who might that be?

And then you go get that and you get it.

And all of a sudden, no, dopamine goes away.

Man.

That's crazy.

So what else have you noticed?

Because you're around a lot of successful people.

What other commonalities have you seen in them?

There's a lot, actually.

One, they manage who they spend their time with.

They're very, very picky about who and how they spend their time.

It's not that they're above anybody else.

They just know that there's limited time.

And so we all have the same amount of time in the day.

They just spend it real differently.

And so they manage who they're around and they also plan their time.

You know, you know, know, somebody that the ultra rich will be planned two and three years out.

And they know in two years they're going to be on this vacation.

They're going to be on this boat.

They're going to be at this continent.

Two years?

Oh, yeah.

If not three.

Wow.

I thought one year was excessive, but two and threes.

I'm talking about the uber successful.

It's way, way out there.

Wow.

They planned three years out.

That's crazy.

But do you like living a structured life like that where everything's kind of planned?

So that was what, that's why I fought it, because I thought that meant overstructure.

Right.

And my mentor that taught me that, you know, I said, I go, man, I go, because I couldn't even plan a month, two months out.

And he's like, Renee, he goes, I go, what if I plan this out a year out and it changes?

And his answer, I'll never forget, he just looks at me and he goes, that's why you do it in pencil.

And I was like, old school.

I'm like, okay, all right, that makes sense.

Yeah.

You can change it.

You know what I mean?

I was like that too, where I didn't want to schedule anything.

But now I've kind of found a balance.

Well, look at you have to.

Yeah.

You know, and one thing I noticed about you, I think I was very impressed.

Like you and I, we had like a scheduling conflict and

here I was like all the days run together.

I'm running, running, running.

And you responded, he goes, hey, I typically don't work on Sundays.

Can we talk about this tomorrow?

And I was like, I'm like, this cat gets it.

Protected his time, right?

Whatever it's family or whatever, that personal time on Sunday, because if you're starting to grow, you start to protect your time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the fact that you said, hey, and it wasn't disrespectful.

And it was to me Donovan.

I'm like, oh, shit.

It's Sunday.

I'm like, and I actually felt bad.

I'm like, but I also respected that.

I was like, no problem.

And you got back to me right there on Monday.

And, but it's, it's that piece.

It wasn't structured.

It was full.

It was, it had boundaries.

Yeah, that's something I'm pretty firm with because my first, I'd say, four years of business, I worked seven days a week, 15 to 18 hours a day.

And my girlfriend had to deal with that.

So now I'm like at the point where I made some money.

Let me give her some weekends.

Let me give her some afternoons on the weekdays.

And that's smart.

I mean, you're also replenishing yourself.

You're replenishing your thinking.

You're giving yourself time to wind down.

And you got to have time to process what happened and to re-cook up new ideas.

And if you're never thinking and reflecting,

it can downward spiral.

And we're kind of in this hustle culture too, like, you know, non-stop work.

Yeah.

And

that's ego, man.

And as somebody who works nonstop,

it's not about telling everybody I work non-stop.

I'm passionate about what I'm doing, but I also will find my time.

If I'm tired,

I'm going to just sit there for an hour, sit there for two hours.

or if we go somewhere you know and we're on vacation which isn't often I'm just gonna stop yeah you know and what I've come to find out is the world doesn't fall apart in the day yeah and there's a certain point when you're working non-stop I noticed where it's actually hurting you yeah because like sometimes you need to get out of the house get some new perspectives go to a conference go to whatever and sometimes when you're just grinding all day it's not really beneficial

It's the law of diminishing return, right?

It's like that first jelly donut, it's good.

The second one's, it's okay.

That third, you're like, that fourth, you're like, I'm about to lose it all.

It's the same thing.

And working too hard, it's an extreme approach to anything can be, can be detrimental.

But here's the thing, that doesn't mean you can't go in sprints, right?

Because some people say that, you know,

well, you got to have a balanced life.

And I say, you know what?

Balance is BS.

And it's complete BS.

And they say, well, what do you mean?

I said, well, all right, think about this.

And if you're watching this, think of this for you too.

Think of anything big you've done in your life.

Did you do it balanced?

No.

No.

And that answer has never been yes.

I've had tens of thousands of people that question.

I go, how many people have done something big?

Hands go up.

I go, keep your hands up if you did it balanced.

And all the hands go down.

I'm like, I go, so if you want to do big things, it requires some time of unbalance.

But then what happens is you achieve it and then you reprioritize and you give.

But also balance assumes, I'm going to take away from one thing to do from the other.

There's two other words that I like a lot better.

And I've spent 30 years with this discussion, by the way.

I like the word integration, meaning, okay, like you watch some people that are like, they're always traveling, but why do they put it?

Why do they travel in a jet?

Well, their wife, their family, their kids can come and they homeschool.

So they're integrating that entire experience together.

Right.

Right.

And I look at that and say, that's a sort of a high-level integration.

Well, I got to work out.

Well, I'm going to say no to family time so I can work out.

Or you work out as a family.

Right.

It's like there's integrated there.

Yeah.

Me speaking 235 days.

Well, my wife is basically our CEO and she planned all of those days.

Wow.

Right.

So that to me isn't even integration.

It It is integration, but it's also harmony.

She plays this tune.

I play this tune.

As long as we agree on the tune, it makes a great song.

Right.

Right.

And then now we're going, okay, 235, a little bit too much.

The tune is out of sync.

All right.

So now we look at what do we do?

All right.

We move.

Let's look at maybe we move to Arizona, buy a house there.

Nobody wants to come to Minnesota.

Yeah.

Why'd you choose Minnesota, actually?

I didn't.

My mother did.

In fact, by the way, I lost my mother a year and a half ago.

Today's her birthday.

Well, today's her birthday, so it's actually kind of a special, special time.

But we move to Arizona.

We buy the house of our Our Dreams, a place that people want to come to.

It's the typical sort of, we can host our masterminds there.

We can host our high-level VIP events there.

We can host our Amplifies there.

And then I go home to my bed.

My kids are in the other room.

Even in my sessions, my kids get the chance to meet CEOs and meet athletes and meet celebrities and meet people like you.

And then they're like, hey, you know, they know their name and they golf and play.

Nice.

And they're just surrounded by that.

So there's an integration and a harmony that could be created that way.

Yeah.

I love that you're providing that outlook on your kids at such an early age.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which I think is part of the challenge too, right?

It's providing too much of that can hurt too.

Oh, you think so?

Well, so, you know, I know like right now there's a,

there's a,

a sentiment around some of the newer generations, around their work ethic.

You don't, you don't fit into that, but there's a lot of people that, you know, like, well, we got to be balanced.

We got to work.

We just sort of just, it's just not the same work ethic or even just not the same approach to.

uh trial and error i tried that a couple times it didn't work right and so i'd said that in front of a group of people I said, How many people are a little bit frustrated with some of the generations?

They go, hands up.

I said, yeah, I know, me too.

I go, but who raised them?

I raised my hand.

I got him.

And I raised my hand too.

And they're like, they're like, oh, shoot.

And I go, I go, get it.

So we're frustrated, but we also raised them.

I go, but let me ask this question.

How many of you grew up with a really hard childhood?

Hands go up.

I said, how many of you said, I'm going to work so hard that I'll never put my kids through that?

And they go, yeah.

I go, and that's where we messed up.

Because if the formula was for our work ethic and our grit and our ability to persist was because we had it hard and we had to learn to overcome that, and now we're sheltering and taking those moments away from them.

Yeah.

Oh, we're ruining it.

And so it's like, okay.

So I came up with this like probably about 15 years ago,

that's about 10 years ago, where I go, okay, with my kids, I have to manufacture struggle for them.

Meaning that if the struggle is the biggest lesson, I got to manufacture.

I told my son, I said, you know what, I could write a check and solve this problem you're dealing with right now, but you'll hate me because you'll feel like you're under me.

You'll know that I solved it and you didn't.

I go, but let me tell you,

just push through this, figure this out.

I'll be next to you.

A phone call away.

We'll talk about it.

You can cry with me.

We'll do this together.

I go, but I need you to.

He goes, no, dad, I don't want you to do this.

Let me figure this out.

I was like, my man.

Nice.

I love that.

And I agree with that so much because I grew up in a pretty wealthy neighborhood, but my mom.

never gave me handouts.

Love it.

But I saw it all around me.

Like everyone got a car in high school.

Their parents paid for it.

Everyone got the iPhone as soon as it came out.

But she definitely taught me some work ethic and discipline.

So I love that.

Good for her, man.

Yeah, she saved me, man, because I could have ended up spoiled.

She wasn't like a multi-millionaire, but she worked her ass off.

Well, she taught you that work ethic.

Yeah, that Asian work ethic, man.

That's some of the best.

Yeah.

One of the things I like about you is you're really good at reading body language.

What can you tell about a person from reading their body language?

So that's a scary question.

Here's why.

So if you want to learn to read someone's mind, you read someone's body.

But now,

body language is a scary place because you can know a little bit enough to be dangerous.

And if body language reading becomes too

cocky with it, it turns you into a jerk.

So I tell people, I said, body language should never lead to conclusion.

It should lead to curiosity.

Right?

So somebody's sitting like this.

They're like their arms crossed.

So there's one what we call cue.

Here's a cue.

My arms are crossed.

But body language comes in clusters of cues and also context matters.

Where am I at?

And how many cues am I getting?

Most people say that, well, I saw half an episode of Lie to Me, so I know you're defensive, right?

And so here's one cue.

But the context might be it's cold in here, right?

But there's another cue that I'm leaning forward and I'm smiling, right?

So this might mean other things.

It could mean that I'm scared.

I want to hide my belly.

It could mean that I'm just insecure.

It could just mean that I'm just, my shoulders hurt.

I'm comfortable.

But if I'm like this,

you know, there's other cues that are happening.

My voice changes.

And I'm like, uh-huh.

I give short answers, right?

So there's all this, these cues.

So you start reading the clusters, but if you let curiosity guide you, you'll ask questions.

I say, hey, how you feeling?

And they go, oh, it's just cold in here.

You know, they smile at you and you go, okay, so you gathered more information.

Right.

But if they go, fine, why?

Okay, there's another, there's a little more, some more cues telling us, okay, something's there.

But then in that place,

that person that goes, oh, you're defensive.

If you jump to that, it kind of makes you a jerk.

But if you use it as curiosity, you'll learn to say, well, how can I make them feel more comfortable in that moment?

And then if my goal is to influence them, to sell them, or to persuade them, or to connect, then with their not comfortable, there's no connection, period.

Interesting.

Yeah, I love that.

Because I see myself with my arms crossed sometimes, and I've heard that that means you're kind of closed off.

It depends, right?

It's one cue of many that usually have to come together.

Yeah, I don't even notice when I do it, but usually it's just a comfort thing, I feel like.

So

and it could be.

Now, there's a couple things you have to take into consideration.

And I get clipped on stuff like this out of context because

one of our views went like 26 million views.

I was talking about where you place your hands.

And that's just one thing in many.

And you have to ask yourself, okay, should people read you and judge you based on your body language?

No, they shouldn't.

But do they?

Yes.

So we can't deal in the shoulds and shouldn't.

So, okay, if I know that I'm being judged, let's say I came on here and I'm like this the whole time.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, and I'm sitting like this and hunched over.

People might read into that.

So

I want to send a certain message to people that I'm an authority in what I'm talking about, that I'm comfortable in what's happening.

And so then I'm going to send that signal quietly with my body.

If you're given a toast, you toast with your body first.

You know, somebody says, give you a toast, you're like,

sure.

And all of a sudden you've told the whole audience, you've never done this before, you're brand new at this.

And if I'm in the room and I want to make a business decision with you, I might have just decided, I don't know if I can trust you.

And shoot, okay, that might, and then people are like, man, I can't never catch a break.

Yeah.

Well, let's get rid of that low-hanging fruit and let's just get you standing with the right posture.

And I always tell people, if you got kids, I go, how would you stand if your kids were in the room?

And you're like, okay, all of a sudden they stand up straight.

Why?

Because they want their kids to do that.

Right.

And you always get the person who says, well, it doesn't matter.

I'm like,

I hear you.

It shouldn't matter.

But it does if you want to progress.

If you're not interested in progressing, man, be comfortable.

It all depends on your goal.

Yeah.

So what's the proper body language when you're trying to show that you're confident other than the posture of standing straight?

You know, it's funny.

I bet you anybody listening to this could answer that.

I bet you you could answer.

Stand up straight.

That's it.

Right?

Chest out.

A little bit of a smile.

Okay.

Chin up.

And then what we call the curtains, our eyes, our eyebrows, right?

I'll close them.

Right?

You see my closed curtains right here.

Now I'll open them.

Hey, how you doing?

And close them.

Try to smile with closed curtains.

Hey, how you doing?

It's just weird.

I look at that.

Wait a minute, right?

But now it's like if I open them, hey, how you doing?

It's like there's an openness to that.

And so just think about opening yourself up, opening your hands, posture up.

You know, like, was it Brandon Marshall?

Who was in here earlier?

Like, athletes are so good at this because they got to stand with that posture.

Right.

One, they lift weights, so it pulls their back forward, and they got to show posture on that field.

So it's someone else is like coming at them.

They're going to show confidence.

And when an athlete transitions to sport or to business and they carry that, it's beautiful to watch.

You had an interesting take on your Instagram about CEOs.

You feel like they should be more open emotionally with their employees.

Well, so the

reality is around them open, it's for a purpose, right?

So I wrote an article for Chief Executive Magazine on what I think with the underlying cause for the great resignation, which is people that want to leave their jobs, 76% of people wanting to leave.

And I think that it was because the CEOs were not available and didn't lead.

It was poor leadership.

And what I mean by that is you had a value shift during the pandemic where people started value more

They started value more connection and meaning at work.

Okay, so if I value connection and I value meaning and then two things happen one is we got rid of connection everybody worked at home.

There's one and then CEOs worked from home and forgot to communicate and probably didn't know how to communicate.

So there was no communication of vision.

There was no connection.

There was no connection to the customer.

So why am I working?

There was no connection to the meaning.

Oh, I worked so I achieved this.

Oh, Oh, I see the meaning of this.

It's the outcome.

So, I took those two away, and a recruiter comes around and says, you know what?

Let me tell you about what we're doing.

And they fill in that gap for them.

That's what I call the narrative gap.

And all of a sudden, man, you know, I have no connection.

I don't even know my leaders.

Maybe this isn't the place for me.

And so it's, it's, but what happens is if a CEO shares their story, I'll give you an example, real simple.

Let's say we work for a company and a CEO doesn't show up.

One person says, okay, well,

Johnny didn't show up again.

He's out probably getting another yacht.

I don't know how many yachts he needs.

Okay, that's one way to fill that gap in the narrative.

Another person, same room, says, wait, hold on, Johnny didn't show up.

Let me call and see if he's okay.

Another way to fill the gap.

And so what's happening in this, the narrative is what we call a construct of reality.

And so we construct our understanding of reality through story, a beginning, a middle, and an end.

That's how we remember it.

That's how we remember things.

That's how it's categorized in our brain.

Yeah.

But it's also how we understand it.

And if there's a gap, like if I

were to just stop talking like that, right?

Did you feel a little cold?

Like, like, what did happen there?

Yeah, yeah.

And if you're listening, like, what happened?

That's a gap in the narrative.

And so your brain immediately starts to fill it, right?

Right.

And it starts to fill that gap right away.

And when it fills that gap, you got to ask yourself, what is it filling it with?

Right.

And if it's filling it with...

And it doesn't have anything to fill it with, it's going to make an assumption based on its past experience.

So somebody who says, okay, John didn't show up, narrative gap created.

Well, I don't know why he didn't show up.

So let me go to my past experience, which would be most leaders are greedy.

And so he must be greedy, getting another yacht.

Interesting.

And so then now the one over here that said, let me see if he's okay.

Yeah.

Is going to fill the gap.

But let's say that she knows his story.

Right.

And his daughter was sick, maybe fighting an illness, and he had to stay.

So instead of making an assumption from her past experience, she chooses from his story.

Wow.

Which is more true to go, hold on, daughter might be sick, fill in the gap with that assumption.

Yeah.

And so leaders that don't share their story, they give nobody anything to fill the gaps with.

And there are constant gaps happening.

And so it's not about we just need to be emotional for the sake of emotion.

We need to give people who we are.

So when there is no information, we at least get the benefit of the doubt.

So there's a lot more context.

Yeah, that's interesting.

It's all perspective at the end of the day.

Each person has their own experiences and they fill the gap.

And And what they forget is that we can guide perspective through our own story.

I can shift your perspective, which really means your perception, which really means your reality just by sharing my story.

Whoa, that's trippy.

So you can change someone's reality?

You can totally shift reality.

So think about it, right?

If I were to say, all right, so

what does your brain do when I say this?

The man's glasses.

Were filled with wine.

Glasses filled with wine.

It shows a bottle, a glass bottle bottle being poured with red wine.

But what did you think when I said the man's glasses?

What's the first thing you thought?

Man's glasses.

I thought of mine.

Yeah, you thought glasses on your face.

Yeah.

And then I said, filled with wine.

So all I said was man's glasses.

Your brain filled in all the rest.

And then I gave you the rest, and you go, wait a minute, rewind, recreate reality.

These were actually glasses that you fill wine with.

The man's glasses, the assumptions begin.

were filled with wine and all of a sudden reverse recreate that's true yeah i thought of my glasses first, and then as you kept going, I thought of a glass cup.

It happens split-second unconsciously.

And so, if I say, look, I'll give you another example: ask me to come to the party.

Do you want to come to the party?

No.

Why?

So, how do you feel when I just said no?

Kind of a jerk, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, I'll add a little bit of what we call a frame to add to the narrative.

Ask me to come to the party.

Do you want to come to the party?

Unfortunately, I can't.

A little different, right?

Unfortunately, I can't.

Right.

Right.

And so instead of just no, no, which creates no narrative, what we call no framing to it.

Right.

And so if I don't provide a frame to what I'm saying, your brain is going to create one because a frame and a narrative is how we construct the understanding and the meaning of what's going on.

And so if I just give you none, you're going to create your own.

Yeah.

And some people assume the worst, right?

Most people, well, they end up assuming the worst, but really what they're doing is they're assuming what best serves them to protect themselves.

Right.

Right.

And if they are insecure, they're going to go down more of a negative path.

But if you know my story, let's say I'm in the middle of something and let's say I'm on a book tour or that, you know, my family's sick.

And you say, do you want to come to the party?

I'm like, no.

And you go, man, I know he's not feeling good.

I know you're tired, bro.

Because you know the context.

Right.

But if I give you no context, you got to make it up.

And so I say the big risk to leaders, to anybody in relationships, is don't allow that context to be filled by someone else.

Communicate it, share it, share your story, give context, frame up the situation.

And so then people go, okay, I understand what's going on and what's happening.

I love that a lot.

And that's really not taught because most CEOs are taught to kind of be private with their personal affairs.

Totally.

And to be short and concise and to the point.

Yeah.

It just doesn't work.

So we need to shift the whole narrative almost.

We have to start, yeah, shift the narrative.

We have to start providing a narrative.

So think about media.

Media knows this science.

So they see a gap in the narrative and they're going to go, okay, fill that gap.

Because if we can be the one to fill the gap, we control the reality and we control the attention and then we can get ad spent.

So does politics.

And so there's a gap and then it's okay, who can provide the narrative is controlling the reality.

And so you see CNN and Fox, right, or whoever, and then you look at The Economist or you look at the BBC or you look at South American TV, they're all providing different narratives.

Right.

And they're trying to shift it towards if there's a political sway, they're going to shift the narrative to go in that direction, even with just a few words.

Wow.

It's crazy how they kind of control your mind almost.

100%.

But we do it too.

Like your girlfriend, you, I do it.

We do it not intentionally with malintent.

It's just how we communicate.

We're trying to constantly construct meaning to what we say, usually towards what we feel is right.

And so if you're a certain political belief, you probably think that's the right way to be.

And so you're doing what you think is best.

Yeah.

Right.

And the opposite is doing what they think is best.

Right.

And so then there's always the abuse of that, which is what we really got to be careful with.

And that's where the conversation matters.

That's where you have a massive, massive input in this influence on getting people to start thinking more than just being emotional.

We're back to being emotional, right?

Because if I can control a narrative to make you emotional, then I can make you irrational and I can make you make a rash decision and a quick one, right?

In a negotiation, the way to do that is to say, I need to know in the next two hours.

Stress goes up and I better do that.

If that's ever happening to you, that's just when you actually slow down.

And somebody did that with me once, and they tried to use that.

that and they said, I need to know in the next two hours.

I said, well, if you're asking me to make an irrational, quick decision, I think you wouldn't want me to make that if I worked for you.

You'd want me to be more thoughtful and more strategic in that.

And so I'm going to take the approach that you would want me to take if I worked for you.

I'm going to need a day.

And I love it.

They're like,

makes sense.

I love that.

And so now I control the narrative because I didn't allow the emotion to take over in that moment.

Man, that's powerful.

Yeah, because when they give you you those quick deadlines, you definitely feel kind of emotional and pressured by it.

Totally.

And it is a manipulation in that moment.

It's a good, some people say, well, no, that's just a good negotiation technique.

Yeah,

it might be.

Because let's say I'm dealing with somebody who is constantly wishy-washy.

In that sense, if I know that you're wishy-washy and I know that I've communicated the full story,

and then I know I need to move on, I'm saying, guys, I'm going to need to know in an hour because I'm going to move on.

And if that, that might be a real reason to use something like that.

Yeah.

But But it's, so it's not the use of something, it's the abuse of it that makes it hard.

And this guy by the name of T.S.

Elliott had a great quote.

He said, just because something's been abused does not neglect its use.

And so just because somebody abuses negotiation tactics doesn't mean you can't use them.

That's awesome.

Renee, I've learned so much, man.

Is there anything you want to close off with or promote?

Oh, man.

Well, first, brother, this is...

Fantastic.

I've enjoyed the conversation.

I forgot we were on a podcast.

This is great.

I mean, obviously, the book is something that's very, very important to us.

I think you can read it there.

Everything I talked about is in the book.

And we outlined it.

We used what I use in the book to write the book.

And so it becomes a real easy read.

There's an audible version of it, too.

We have a free masterclass that we do.

Obviously, follow me on our Instagram and TikTok.

It's LearnWithRene, L-E-A-R-N.

We do a free video a day.

It's no pitch, there's no nothing.

It's just educational stuff every single day.

Love it, man.

Thanks so much for coming on.

I appreciate it.

Thanks for watching, guys, and I'll see you next time.