#339: Learn The UNDENIABLE Laws Of Communication with John Maxwell Legendary Bestselling Author, Coach & Speaker

If you're going to be a great communicator, the first thing you do is you think about the people that are about to walk in this room. Who are they? What are their needs? What is it that I can say? What is it that I can do that will connect with them until they say, oh, my gosh, he's here to help me? People can tell almost immediately whether you care about them or whether you care about yourself. I walk out on stage, I sit on a bar stool, and I say, my name is John. I'm your friend. I'm on the count of three, give me your name. One, two, three. Hello. Good to meet you. Now, now what am I doing? I'm making sure that they understand that it's all about them.

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Fasten your seat. I'm ready for my close up.

Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet our guest this week, John Maxwell, number one New York Times bestselling author, speaker, coach, and leader who has sold more than 34 million books. He's the founder of Maxwell Leadership, a leadership development organization that has trained tens of millions of leaders in every nation. Having been recognized as the number one leader in business and as the world's most influential leadership expert, Maxwell continues to influence individuals and organizations worldwide, from Fortune 500 CEOs and national leaders to entrepreneurs and the leaders of tomorrow. John, thank you so much for being here with us today.

It's great to be with you. You've done a lot of good for a lot of people, and so thanks for letting me join you. I always love coming alongside people that are always doing well and just hopefully adding a little bit of value to them. And, of course, obviously, to the people that follow you on your podcast. So thanks for having me today.

Oh, my gosh. Well, I got to get to Straight Talk because my people know I like to call out the real story. So for everyone listening, I had the opportunity a couple of months ago to meet John in person in Orlando at one of his incredible Maxwell leadership events. And, John, I don't even know if you know this. It was one of the most transformational events for me, particularly because it was the first time for me from a business perspective. I was with a group of people, primarily men, who were bringing faith into a conversation around business, and it was such a moving experience for me, I have to tell you, it's just it was really life changing for me. And I'm just, I'm so grateful for the events that you put together, the books that you write and the work that you do. You made quite an impact on my life.

Well, thank you and I would say the same to you. And it was so great to have you there. And what we're really looking forward to to is in our organizations is doing more work with you because you help so many people. And somebody told me the other day, they said, john, I figured out why you're very successful. I said, well, good, help me out. How did I get very successful? And then they said, well, you're very successful because you help people become very successful. And soon as they said that, I thought, yeah, I think that's what I do. And so when I can come and be with you and add value to you and you have so many people that receive so much from you, then it's a real plus. I love to work with leaders because if I add value to leaders, I multiply value to others. And that's what we're doing today. So thanks for giving me the opportunity.

Well, today we get the opportunity to talk about John's newest book, the 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication, which John, I am constantly asked about how to be a better speaker, how do I speak up in meetings, how do I own my voice? It's probably the most most common questions and topics I'm asked about. And having read your book and done some research on this topic, it was so mind blowing to me. Harvard Business Review says the most important skill for advancement in business is effective communication. This book should be critical reading for everybody.

I agree. In fact, of course I'm in the studio today, but this is the book. And you know Heather, Warren Buffett, of course, he's known for finances. I mean, he's, you know, a multi, multi billionaire. And people go to him. He's the sage of how to make money. And what's interesting is he said the most important life skill a person can develop is their communication. Because he said, if you can communicate well, whatever business you're in, what are we doing? We're always, we're talking about our vision, we're talking about the direction we're having. We're trying to sit and have a dinner with somebody that we're trying to influence, the ability to connect with people, communicate, articulate the vision, the dream, the heart. It's just essential to success. So I loved writing the book. I've been communicating for over 50 years. I've spoken 13,000 times. Okay, so I love your expression, Heather, but of course, you're young. I mean, you can't imagine. I've written 88 books, I've spoken 13,000 times. And I tell people it's no big deal at all. You just have to be old. If you're not old, you can't do that. So I fell out the old category. So that's what I do. But I've communicated for over 50 years, and I just love teaching it because I watch people, when they learn to connect with others through communication, they just become more successful. And every person that's on this podcast today can think of somebody they really need to connect well with a great idea they need to present or a value they need to share. And it's all through the ability learn how to communicate in such a way that you draw people into you, you influence them because you connect well with them. And so, anyway, I loved writing the book, and it's done extremely well. And I've written four books on the laws, the laws of leadership, 21 laws of leadership, 17 laws of teamwork, 15 laws of personal growth, and the 16 laws of communication. And I've loved doing the laws. They just work. And when people pick them up, they can apply them immediately and off they go. So, anyway, I've had a lot of fun writing the book and talking about it.

Well, I'm a big fan of never take direction from someone who hasn't been where you're going. You have been where all of us want to go. And this is the man to take the direction from. John, you break down in, I believe it was the law of connection, which I think you said was the most powerful and important law within the book and the major key for everyone. What I like, and it was an epiphany moment for me, is you paint the picture and describe that while we all want to be authorities or we want to be perceived, that we have credibility and that we're adding value. Sometimes we're distancing ourselves from other people when we're trying to allow others to perceive us in this regard. And that idea around connection is really about getting stripping back all of these titles and awards instead coming together as we're all just human. How are you able to do that so powerfully?

Heather, you're just on the bullseye here. I mean, if somebody would sit and say, john, what's the one thing. Forget 16 laws. What's the one thing that I need to do to really be able to communicate in such a way that I Connect with people. I would just simply say, you have to get over yourself. I have to get over me before I can ever connect with you. You see, if I'm trying to connect with you, Heather, but I'm thinking about, well, I hope my presentation's good, and I hope she likes me while I' this. And, man, I hope that I'm saying things that really see, it's all about me and what I learned. I cannot dwell on me and connect with you. So I have to look at me, at ease with me, and say to myself, this is Heather's moment, not John's moment. So I'm not looking for, at the end of my communication for you to say, john, you're amazing. I'm looking for you at the end of our conversation to look at yourself and say, I'm amazing. You can't have both worlds, so only one can be amazing, either the audience or the speaker. And if you are not over yourself, then you have to, you know, what am I looking for? Applause, people. Oh, my gosh, that was the most. I've never heard anything like this. The moment that I put all that behind me and I focus on you, you see, what we focus on expands. So if I focus on my audience, they expand. But if I focus on me, then I expand, and I've put me behind me because what you don't see shrinks, and what you do see expands. I put me behind me and say, okay, John, it's not about you. It's about Heather. It's about her team. And now I'm just focused completely on you. And that's critical. And for many years, by the way, it was on me. So I didn't start off getting over myself. I think all of us start and we're scared stiff because, you know, people are already scared of speaking. And so, you know, oh, I hope I do this right, and I hope they like it. One of the things I tell people to help them get over themselves is, you're never good the first time, so relax. You know, people say, well, I've never done this before, so I really want to do it good. I say, oh, relax, you're not going to be that good. And you're not good the second time either, and you're not really hot the third or fourth time. But once I understand, it's not about me. What's the difference between maturity and immaturity? An immature person, they see everything from their personal perspective. A mature person has the ability to see things from the perspective of others and how we view Things is how we do things. And so the moment that I understand as a communicator, that I'm supposed to put my attention on you now, I'm going to be able to really add value to you while I speak. We did a video when this book was launched, and it's kind of evergreen, so it shows up every once in a while. But I told the producers I didn't want to start on stage. I wanted to start in the audience. And so the cameras are on me, and I'm in a room where the people are going to sit. Nobody's even in the room yet. And I say, now, if you're gonna be a great communicator, the first thing you do is you think about the people that are about to walk in this room. Who are they? What are their needs? What is it that I can say? What is it that I can do that'll connect with them until they say, oh, my gosh, he's here to help me? And it starts there. So when I focus on others and value them, then what happens is, is people can tell almost immediately whether you care about them or whether you care about yourself. They can just tell almost immediately. What do I do? I walk out on stage, I sit on a bar stool, and I say, my name is John. I'm your friend. On the count of three, give me your name. One, two, three. Hello. Good to meet you. Now what am I doing? I'm making sure that they understand that it's all about them. In fact, in the book, one of my statements is, your first impression should be the true expression of who you really are. And when you become successful, success separates you from people. And it's kind of sad, really. It makes me sad. Cause I didn't ever want it to be that way. But I can remember when I started out and, you know, during a break, I would. If the people that were attending, I'd just go down front and talk to them and, you know, just get to know who they were. In fact, I loved the breaks. And then I'd get up and speak. And then I remember one time I went down to say hi to everybody, and a couple people had a couple of my books and said, would you sign them? Well, sure, I'll be glad to sign them. And in the next few months, instead of me taking breaks where I could go down and just hang with the people, now there's a line and I'm signing books, and I'm saying, okay, we're starting to get separated here. And then they wanted pictures we're getting separated more. And I think you have to ask yourself, do I want fans or do I want friends? If I want fans, I'll keep that separation because that's how you build. Fans come and hear you sing. Or they just say, oh my gosh, they're amazing. Nobody could ever do what they do. So if you want to be a star, you create gaps between yourself and everyone else. But if you wanna be a friend, you close that gap. And the way to close the gap is it's not about me, it's totally about you. So the success of my communication is when I'm done, the people say, wow, I can do this. They walk out empowered. They walk out thinking better of themselves than they walked in. Now I know I've done well because I've added value to that person who came to hear me.

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Interview Sarah Blakely and Jesse Itzler live on stage at a sales conference. And at the end it went really well. We got a standing ovation. Sarah and I jumped up, ran off the stage. We were high fiving and back celebrating how great we were. Her husband, Jesse Itzler. I said, where's Jesse? She said, oh, he always goes and handshakes. Every single person in the audience go out. He was doing just what you're saying. And for me, that moment, I'll never forget that. I said to myself, I'm never gonna be great at this if I don't go make it about these people. And it was just such a great, like it just gave me that visual when you were talking. It's exactly what you're saying. That's a game changer.

Yeah. In fact, I've seen Jesse do that in my conferences before. And you're exactly right because it's all, it's all about the people. But let me tell you something, it can't all be all about the people if it has to be all about me. And so I wrote up this is fun. Heather. I don't know if you know this, but there's a major guy in Nashville that has a large writing company there, songwriting. And he got ahold of me and he said, john, your books helped me build this business. But he said, you ought to do songs about your books. And of course, I never thought about doing songs about my. I mean, that's not my world. And I thought, how fun would this be? And he said, I'll give you the best writers in Nashville. You come in the studio and we'll write. You can write songs. And so I said, well, I'll do it. Well, I don't know if you ever heard me teach. I have a teaching that says if you're the head of the class, you're in the wrong class, so get out of it. Because if you're ahead of the class, you're telling everybody else what to do, but you're not learning, you're not growing. So well, when I go up to Nashville, and these are major songwriters, I mean, they have number one hits. I'm not at the head of. I'm at the very bottom of the class. And it was so fun, and they were so kind to me, and I learned how they did it. And I'm throwing stuff out and they're throwing stuff out, and we're creating these songs, and in fact, we've released two of them now, and they're doing both of them doing very well. But one of the songs is entitled Get Over Myself, and it's from this book, from the sixteen Laws of Communication book, and the chorus. It's a lot of fun, in fact, for your people, wherever you get music. Spotify, Amazon, I don't know where you get your music. Just Get Over Myself is one. And the other one is Day by Day, which is from my book, Today Matters. But on Get Over Myself, the course, I just love it. It says, I've got to find myself to know myself. I've got to know myself to be myself. I've got to be myself to improve myself. I got to improve myself so I can get over myself, so I can give myself to you. And it's just the way it is. That's the way life is. It's not only true for book writing, and it's not only true for speaking. It's true for relationships in life. It's true for everything in life. The day that I understand, it's not about me, it's all about them. It's the day that I began to make huge, what I call connection, progress. But you never connect as Long as you're too concerned about. If I'm too concerned about me, I'll never connect with you and I'll never connect with the audience. And that's what I try to help communicators do. Just focus on the people.

One of the things that people listening, I guarantee, are thinking right now. That's easy for you to say because you have achieved so much success. You're very confident when you take a stage. What about for the people listening and getting your book that are not confident, that struggle with self doubt? What are some of the things that you recommend them to do?

Well, first of all, that's where I was. See the problem, Heather? The problems today? People see me today and they see me on the back end of years of compounding success. If I had one wish, I mean, if a Jeannie could pop out of the bottle for us today and she would say, John, what's your one wish? My one wish would be this. I wish people could have seen me when I began. If they could have seen me when I really began, they would be greatly encouraged because I wasn't any good and I wasn't self confident and I didn't do right and everything was focused on me. I mean, when I got up to speak, it wasn't like I could have spoken without a crowd. I'm just trying to do it right and get it right and did they like me and am I coming out? So what I want everybody to know is honestly, we all begin with fear. We all begin with questions, we all begin with doubt. But how do we overcome it? We overcome it by practice. Now this is the big miss. If I try to wait before I do something to get the answer, I never accomplish much in life. The answer is in the action. It always has been, it always will be. In fact, I have a whole teaching called Action Attraction. And the whole thesis about the teaching is when I know who I am and when I know what I want and I take action, all of a sudden my eyes will see things I've never seen before. My ears will hear things I've never heard before. My heart will feel things I've never felt before. It's in the action, Heather, that makes us grow and learn. So how do I become a great leader? Practice is a bad leader. And there's a day when I'm not that bad. I'm not really great yet, but I'm average. And the issue is this. In the beginning, we don't see much progress because all of our work gets stored up before it shows Up. And so the myth is, when it's being stored up, we see no progress at all. But it's growing, it's getting there. It hasn't gotten there yet, but it's getting there. And there's one day that it fills up and it starts to spill over, and we say, oh, my gosh, look what I just did. But there was a large storing up before there was a little showing up. That's why consistency compounds, and you gotta stay with it. So when I started speaking, I was an average speaker. Somebody says, well, how did you get so good? Well, do it 13,000 times to audiences of all kinds, sizes, and shapes around the world. Hey, let's put it this way. If I'm not really great at it now, I chose the wrong profession. You with me? Hey, now I'm in real deep weeds. So when people start off, they always start off in a deficit. We always start behind the eight ball. We gotta go up and get in the batter's box. We don't get to go to third base. We, you know, we strike out a lot. We do all kind of things. And that does. See, but that's a sign also, Heather, that you're getting over yourself when you can. When those disappointments and those losses and those misses and those failures come your way, if you don't get over yourself, you take them personal and you just basically let them paralyze you, and you sit on the shelf of life and you wish. But if you don't take yourself personal, you just say, well, that's what happens when you grow. You lose a lot and you miss a lot, and you don't do it right. And it's okay. What did I learn from that now? What can I do to change it, to make it better? So it's a long process, and I just wish everybody could again. If all of the people that watch or listen to your podcast, Heather, if they could have seen me in the beginning, they'd all be so greatly encouraged. They just say, oh, my gosh. The problem is they see me on the end. And the people look at you and see you where you are, already confident, already a successful speaker, writer, they see that. But it's our job to help them know how bad we were in the beginning. It really is our job because we don't help people by impressing them. We help people by talking about what we didn't do well and how we learned to do it better. That's how we, you know, if you want to impress people, talk about your success. Do you want to impact people. Talk about your failure. And I much rather talk about what I didn't do right and what I learned from not doing it right because that's what helped me to get it right. And I think that's the big miss sometimes. And so for everybody watching or listening to this podcast, just get started and it's okay. And you won't be that good. So don't get overly excited. Just understand you got to do it the first time so you can do it the second time, so you can do it the third time, so you can do it the fourth time, so you can do it the fifth time, so you can do it enough times till all of a sudden you improve. Does that make sense?

Oh my gosh, it's so true. And data doesn't lie. So I like to look at posts that perform the best for me on social. And I will tell you, John, to your point, one of the best performing videos I've ever posted is a video clip of me short clip from 15 years ago when I was speaking at the national association of Broadcasters. Thousands of people there. One of my first times ever in front of a large audience. I read from a teleprompter the whole time. It's so painful to watch, it's embarrassing. And then I do a cut to my TEDx talk where I'd been speaking for 15 plus years after. And I show those two side by side to show what's possible for anyone if you're willing to put the work in, you know, prep practice and keep showing up. And people love that just because it's owning that we all start off as a beginner at some point. So I couldn't agree with you more.

And your best help to them is the before they need to see Heather in the beginning, so then they really value what Heather's done as far. It's hard work. It's hard work. You didn't get there by accident. You had to be highly intentional and completely consistent in that process. And that's why I tell people all the time, I say everything worthwhile is uphill. It's all uphill.

One of the things that you taught me or opened my eyes to that I wasn't previously aware of is I used to think for a quote unquote speaker. Again, everybody's a speaker because everyone's communicating, as you said, day in and day out, but as a quote unquote speaker, that you had to be the highest energy and work the whole stage. And then I got to see you speak. I had never seen this done before. Swear you sat on a stool and captivated an audience with thousands of people and never stood up. And it was mind blowing for me. What. What gave you that idea to come up with? I've never seen anyone do that successfully before.

Well, what gave me that idea is that I realized in my speaking I was overpowering people. I was very excited about what I was teaching and passionate about it, and I wanted everybody to get it quick. And so I was just going 90 miles an hour, and I'm just, you know, and I'm a little bit in their face. And, you know, and one day I began to realize I don't have conversation like that. And so I said, I think I need to go from being this passionate speaker to this thoughtful communicator. And how do I express thoughtfulness? Let's sit down. Let's just talk. And the moment I sat down, it just. It's kind of like, down, boy, down, boy. Relax. You know what I mean? Start now to enjoy the audience, have a conversation with the people. And the moment that I started having conversations with people instead of speaking to people, the moment I basically said, here, come and sit beside me. Let's just talk. It was drastic how quick the change was. I remember the time, Heather, I was walking around on stage just talking to people. And I sit a while, talk a while, you know, walk a while, move around. And I remember there was something I was just really wanting them to. I wanted them to really catch. And so there were some steps going down to the people. And so I started, went down about two steps, and I just sat there on the stage. I will never forget that audience. They just went. And all of a sudden I saw visually I had connected with them. And that's when I learned what I call and I talk about it in the book. The power of the pause, the ability and the willingness to be teaching and to say something that they really need to kind of think about for a moment. And I just stop. And maybe, I don't know, I just walk back to my bar stool and sit down for, you know, the pause is for three seconds, five, Just let them think. And the effect that it has on the audience, because what I've done is I said, I'm gonna trust you to now just think about what I said, and I'm not gonna interrupt you, and I'm not gonna rush you. And when I teach speaking and communication, I try to get them to pause. And I find it's the hardest thing for speakers to do. And yet it's powerful. It's effective. I mean, I've paused sometimes for 5, 6, 7 seconds, and the people are just. And then all of a sudden, it hit me. Heather, the reason that that speakers don't like to pause is that when you pause, you give up control. I watch speakers speak fast because they want to keep control. What they don't realize is they're losing the audience. The audience can't keep up with them mentally. And so. But when I pause, really, I'm giving you control now. I'm vulnerable to you. I'm basically saying the things I've been teaching you. Think about it for a moment. It's okay, I'll wait on you. And then what happens is, this is so huge. It's in the pause that the person gets the whisper. It's in the pause for all a moment. I've given them something to think about, and then I pause. That's when they all of a sudden have that feeling or that inclination or that idea, and I just allowed them to join me in the talk. And it's just absolutely the return of hesitation or moving around or, you know, varying your speech as far as tone and pace. Now all of a sudden, that's like a conversation. Now all of a sudden, I become a trusted friend of yours. I don't want to be an expert. I really want to be a friend that just has a lot of experience and wants to share my wisdom with you. That's kind of what I really want.

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Got into in the book that I really appreciate because number one I needed the power of the pause and I need to work on that and get better at that. So thank you for bringing that one up. But also you talk about visuals and imaging and I wanted to see if you could share a little bit around that I have been apprehensive to include. I can't stand when I see someone do tons of PowerPoint slides. So in my mind, I shut down at that idea. So I've never really leaned into it. But then in reading your book, there's some big value takeaways for using that. How do you know how to balance and when to use that?

Well, first of all, I don't use PowerPoint at all. Well, when I said maybe one out of 100 speeches, I have a teaching called the five levels of leadership, where they need to visually see how to climb the levels that I do, but seldom do I use any kind of PowerPoint. The visualness I'm talking about is the expressions that I have as a communicator. And so one of the great things about today with technology is everybody sees you pretty close because of the screens and that technology, where at one time, if they were very far back, they lost that visually. So now I know everybody's watching pretty much. And so my ability to laugh at myself, people love. People love it. And I'll look at something and I'll say, oh my gosh, did I say that? Whenever I can give an expression that is a natural expression of a person that they would give if they weren't being watched. Now here's the key. See, the moment I think people are watching me, I get inhibited on visual expression. Oh my gosh. So I, instead of look at people as they're watching me, I'm just doing the visual expressions I would do if I was by myself or with you and I in a one on one conversation. And so it allows me to begin to express myself more. And so what I think is, I think I said a while. I need to walk a while, I need to turn around, I need to go over there and sit on the stage for a while. I ask questions, I want to ask questions. Especially for the international. I found the key. I speak a lot, internationally a lot. And I found, because there's so much barrier in international speaking and communication, and I could feel it because humor's not the same. They don't understand the. There's just a lot of misses, big misses. And one of the things I learned was when I travel internationally, first thing I do is I walk out, tell them how thrilled I am to be here and so nice. And then I say, you're gonna have to help me today as I talk, I gotta help John. And I'll say, I'm Gonna say things you probably are not gonna understand because of customs and culture. So whenever I get ready to tell a story, a lot of times I'll just ask you a question. Like, I have a story about my father who paid us as we grew up to read books, and so he gave us an allowance. Well, if I talk about an allowance in America, everybody knows that's what you give your kids. Take out the garbage or whatever. Okay? So when I go international, I'll say, I'd like to tell you a story, but I'm not sure it will connect here. So let me ask you a couple questions. Do you give your children allowance for doing chores? And sometimes I'll say, yes. Yeah, we do. Oh, okay, good. Okay, thank you. That helped me a lot. Okay. So if I talk about and see they're just giving me permission, they can hardly wait for me to tell the story. The only reason I'm telling the story is they said, yes, you can tell the story. Now they want to really hear the story, you see. What? Now, I could not do that. But the moment I do that, that endears me to the heart of the people. Because let me tell you something. Everybody in the audience needs to think that they know something that you don't know. So I stay with the expert stuff. Doesn't do much for me. The expert stuff says, I know more than you do. Sit down, take notes, shut up. And I don't want that. That's not what I want. I want to always. That's why, for example, when I hear a speaker ask a question that the audience can't answer, I want to raise my hand and say, oh, my gosh, I disqualify you. Get off the stage. You broke a huge rule. I've heard speakers go out and say, okay, how many miles is it to the moon? Well, I don't know. I see it every day, But I know it's a long way. Okay, but I don't know exactly how many miles. And so everybody's sitting there and they feel a little dumb because they don't know how many miles. And then the speaker says, well, they're 6,436,000,000. Da, da, da. And they give you a number. And I sit there and I say, the speaker only did that for their own benefit. The speaker's a smart ass. The speaker's trying to tell the audience that he or she knows something that they don't know that separates you from the people. There's no connection there. Gosh, you just kicked them out of the auditorium. They're out in the parking lot now because of that kind of thing. So I never ask questions that the audience doesn't already know. So when I ask the questions, they go, here. Yeah, we do, George. Well, now what happens is immediately they're helping me. They added value to me, and that's endearing. That's what brings connection. Does that make sense?

Yes, I love that. And actually, one of the questions in some of my talks that I ask is when I get nervous, my feet sweat. And I know people don't like talking about it, but I've had shoes come off when I'm walking out of my high heels on a stage. So I learned to just make a joke about it and people. And I'll be like, am I. Can I see your show? Does anyone else get sweaty feet? If this is real, people. People love that. Because of course, some people. I mean, not everybody, but some people have that. But, yeah, no, I'm with you. I don't want to further separate myself. I'm looking for ways for them to see that we are so similar and we're all struggling with these same things.

That's a perfect. That's a perfect example right there. The moment you tell them your feet sweat or you say, my gosh, I. I'm going to slip. I got to take my shoes off, if you don't mind. I'm going to slip out of my shoes. Have you ever see. They all say, oh, my gosh, she's just like us. The moment you're just like us. Now they are so receptive to what you have for them. It just works.

What about those people that. This is something that I hear a lot from people. They feel like, yeah, you've got a great story to tell because you did A, B, C or D. I don't have something to bring forward. I haven't done anything so special.

The story is special not because they've done anything special. The story is special because they're special. That's a big miss. Everybody has a story. Now, they may not have a rise to success story like you, Heather, but everybody has a story. And what I tell people all the time is just think back when something happened to you, something you did that just really taught you an important lesson. Tell me what that story is. And so I make them think and they'll say, well, I'm seven years old and here we. That's your story. You just need to tell your story. Guess what? When I was seven, I learned this, but I wouldn't have learned it if this Wouldn't have happened. Tell your story. And what happens is the story that is yours is more important than the story that is great about someone else. And this is a huge miss again, in communication. My story, even though it isn't near as big as Heather's story, my story is my story. And when I set the stage for, okay, you've heard bigger stories than what I'm gonna give, but the story I'm gonna give is the one that changed my life. They're there. Does that make sense?

Yes. That's so good. And that just helps so many people. And for everyone listening, you gotta watch some of this footage of John, how masterfully he conducts himself. Sitting down, speaking sitting down. It's all about this conversation and just pulling people in, just being yourself. It's so incredibly powerful. In the law of thermostat, I believe it was, you talk about the lighting and some of the different tactics that you can implement with the audience to have more impact. Can you share a little bit about that?

Yeah. Well, the law of thermostat is basically leaders read the temperature or read the room and turn up the temperature. And basically they respond in their communication based upon what's out there. And what you're referring to in the book is the fact that I literally. I literally go into the auditorium or the room where I'm going to speak before the people come. And I tell whoever the sound light people are, I said, show me how much light you have in this room. Because I know what they're gonna wanna do. They're gonna wanna turn the light down. If you were born to run a console, you wanna have darkness. And I don't want darkness. And the reason I don't wanna have darkness, Heather, is if I am putting on a show, if I'm performing, I want darkness. But if I'm communicating, I want light. Because in communicating, one of the great joys of communicating. For example, if I was a comedian, I'd want the lights way up. Because the more you see other people laugh, the more you laugh, the more you see the people respond. So I not only want the lights up so I can see the eyes. Cause I read off of what the people are, the visualness of them. I read off what I should do next with them. But I also wanted him to see. And when you see everybody else around and everybody else is taking notes, guess what? You'll start taking notes. So I want the lights up because I'm not a performer. If I'm a performer, turn the lights down. Because if you're a performer, it truly is all about me. But if I. It's all about, oh, my gosh, what a John, such an incredible actor. Oh, my. If I'm a performer, it's about me. If I'm a communicator, it's about you. If it's about you, lights have, like I tell people, if it's about you, the light should be up. Just like, if it's about me, the light should be up on me. So turn the lights up. And when you begin to do those kind of things, because when your lights go up, people have energy. When lights go down, they lose energy. And so, you know, it's just. And so. And I go to the board, I explained everything to the board guys, and they'll tell me about all the shows they've conducted and all the stars. I say, I know, but I'm not that good, so you're just going to have to help me and turn the lights up. You know what I'm saying? And away we go. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And it really, it does work. And to your point, and I know you talk about this in the book as well, is not only are you asking questions of yourself and forecasting the audience, but then when you're live, you're looking at their responses in real time. How does that dictate and drive you?

Totally. And I communicate based upon their response. They really, they're the conductor, I'm the orchestra. I watch them follow their cues and go right where they are. And when they're loving it, I just stay right there in that patch for a while. When they're not loving it, I get out of that patch as fast as I can and get somewhere where they're gonna like it.

John, this book, the 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication, is incredible and can help so many people and your team. Let me know that we have an exclusive offer for everybody listening to the show right now that you guys are getting a limited time discount on the book plus free shipping. Go to www.16lawsofcommunication.com and use promo code Heather at checkout. I can't thank you enough for your time here for creating this book, for sharing your wisdom. After all of the work that you have put in giving back to us, it means the world to me. Thank you.

Means the world to me that you had me. And thanks a lot for sharing me with your viewers. The people that follow you and listen to you, you're just growing really well. You're just developing and you're just getting better. Every day. And we're gonna get together again soon.

August 14th in Orlando. Guys, get a ticket for John's event in Orlando. It's incredible, and it does happen to be so. We are going to party in Orlando, and I can't wait for it.

Is that your birthday?

It is.

I'm glad you told me. Okay. We'll have something special for you when you come. Okay.

Well, I can't wait to see you, John. Thank you so much.

Good to see you. Have a great one.

All right, guys. Keep creating confidence. Stop and get the book. The 16 undeniable laws of Communication. We'll see you next week. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're gonna hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably, something will happen. No one succeeds alone.

You don't stop and look around once in a while.

You could miss it. Come on this journey with me.