#59: Steve Herz, President Of IF Management: How Your Soft Skills Are Your Biggest Accelerator

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I'm ready for my post.

Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited that you're back here with me again today. Thank you. I appreciate you being here so much. It has been a crazy, crazy week in my business, I have to tell you. It's just. It's been overwhelming and I want to break down what is going on so that you can hopefully gain some insight from it.

So.

So I launched my first ever mentoring program May 1, as you know, which has been amazing. And I've been improving it. I've been trying to automate it and try to make it a little bit easier on me because I took on a lot when I launched it and didn't realize that shocker. But the testimonials have been great and more than half of my program resigned for the next month and new people came in the next month. So it changed the dynamic. And it's been so interesting learning about new people and different challenges and opportunities and watching people grow. So that part has been fun. So fantastic. However, I'll tell you, it's hard. You know, it's different when you are talking to people on Zoom all the time. I do find it that you have to really get your energy up to be able to connect through the computer. So at the end of the day, I'm. I'm more tired now, which is so bizarre sitting inside my house, you know, trying to stay home as much as I can, even though I. I'm in Miami and things are really lifting now. We're. I don't. Who knows what phase we're in now, but we're in a multi phase and people are out and about again. But you know, I try to stay home and I'm really tired at the end of the day and it's definitely not because I'm working out more or taking more steps. No, it's because I'm on so many Zoom calls. So it's just been something that I've been noticing. It's just a strange thing to feel more drained and more exhausted when you never leave your house. Little bizarre. Welcome to 2020. Okay, so that's been going great. It's interesting this cycle now that I'm seeing as I enter this new business and new world that I know nothing about, but I'm learning so much in by just jumping in. And I will always go back to this done is better than perfect. I wrote and self published my first book having no idea what I was doing. And there's mistakes in it. And you know what? I'm proud of them. I rock them. Like, let's do this. I'm glad I have mistakes in there because I had the courage and the confidence to do it. And I'm so proud of that because I was so scared. You same thing with launching my podcast, which was less scary because it's digital and every week you get another opportunity to show up and do better and improve. But it still was nerve wracking, right? My TEDx talk was petrifying. I freaked out. I nearly choked, I swear to you. And I remember I just removed the pressure and said, if you don't walk out there, you will never forgive yourself. If you walk out there and blow it, I'm going to be so proud of you.

Go.

And I just closed my eyes and went. And I'm so grateful I did. So I've had all these crazy experiences the past couple years since I got fired. Stepping into fear and really putting it to work. For me, seeing fear as a green light, that means go. And I believe we were taught wrong as kids. Fear does not mean stop and go home and cry. Fear means step into it so that you can see what's on the other side. So this is how I've been living my life, as you know, because you're here with me each week. So all of this has been happening during this time. I'm learning that the cycle is I need to start promoting my next month to sell my next month membership while I'm still, you know, in the first to second week of the prior month because you need to give people a couple weeks notice about what's coming up. You also want to create a sense of urgency, right, that seats could be sold out so you get people to convert. I've been learning about drip campaigns, email campaigns, which I previously knew, again, nothing about. And I found a great copywriter on Fiverr. Actually, that's happening helped me to construct some really interesting emails and we'll continue to evolve them and see what's working and see what's not along the way. As you know, I had Dean Graziosis on as a guest a couple weeks ago and he gifted me his course which is all about how to create, launch and market masterminds online. And I'm just blown away. So I basically have been stepping into learning this course and this course is massive and overwhelming, frankly. There's so much information and I want to Digest it all and retain it and apply it to my business. So I'm really immersing myself. Anytime I have a free 30 to 40 minutes, I sit down and do a session, and it's so good, I have to tell you, it's so, so flipping good. So it's teaching me a lot about this mastermind business. I've never done a mastermind, but I can tell you this. I will be launching one, because that goal right in the. In. The whole reason behind it is how can we create revenue when we're sleeping, when we're. Or how can we create revenue that isn't high touch? And the one thing I learned is me doing the mentoring program. It is high touch. What I didn't know is I could have launched a mastermind program that is not high touch and delivered more revenue, but I'm learning that through this course and, you know, through things I wasn't aware of. So I just always go back to. It's shocking how much as business people, we don't know. And I'm 45 years old, and I'm still. Still shocked every flipping week at what I learn. So it's great because that means I'm growing and I'm stepping into unknowns. I just got off a call with one of my mentees, and he's been struggling with his confidence over the past couple years. And just through the last week of us working together and being a part of this amazing team that we have and sharing our experiences, our challenges and. And our wins. He got the opportunity to speak at two different conferences, which he's been turning down because he just felt, well, maybe I'm not prepared enough, maybe I'm not qu. Qualified enough. Maybe, maybe, maybe. And instead he decided to say, you know what? I'm going to say yes, and I'm going to figure it out on the way. And that is so the flipping answer. Yes is the answer. Showing up is the answer. That's what will build and create confidence within you. That's what will lead you to the next opportunity, to the next meeting where you show up and Dean Graziosi is there and he hands you this amazing. Basically, this whole kit created for me to help me with my business right now. But I would never have found that if I didn't launch the podcast, if I didn't reach out to people for guests. It takes taking the steps, moving into the fear, knowing you could be told no, but showing up anyways. So all this has been happening. It's been great, but really overwhelming, too, at the same time go back a little over a year and a half ago, professor from Harvard had reached out to me and wanted me to teach his sales and marketing class. I was scared to death, filled with self doubt. Why would anyone at Harvard want to learn from me? Come to find out, these kids are incredibly intelligent. However, they don't have street smarts, they don't have real life experience. I was able to teach so much and add so much value that they brought me back again. A couple months ago, after this last class that I taught via Zoom, we jumped on a call and he shared with me that he would love to partner with me to bring one of the Harvard seminars to general market, which he's never done before. He's only held his seminars in Harvard. And I of course was elated, but that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been posting like a crazy person on social media on LinkedIn. And he reached out to me and I accepted the opportunity even though I was scared. Right? So again, stepping into fear, creating content, reaching out to people, accepting requests and showing up has been the momentum that I've needed to launch new business models. So now we are launching in two weeks our first online Harvard seminar, Harvard Workshop on Selling and sales strategies specific to COVID 19 and the challenges and fears salespeople are having around how to address clients because it's a real issue. So again, this is research and a seminar that's only gone on in Harvard. He's taught it and now he and I are teaching it together to anyone that wants to sign up. Again, limited seats are available, but I'll be posting about that on LinkedIn. I'm super excited that's happening the last week of June. And it was funny today he and I were on a call and he said, what do you think? Should we bump this thing to July because of, you know, there's so much going on in the world right now. And I said, you know what? My gut instinct is to say no, because people need this. These are tools people need. And he said, you know what, you're right, selling is helping. And when we can add value to people and teach them a new skill, that is really going to change their business. Now in this defense, difficult time, we're not serving the public if we don't do it. So he and I both talked ourselves into doing it, even though I'm sure people will question, you know, is this the right time to be pushing sales? But I do believe when, when you're helping people, when you're sharing information that's going to add value and revenue to their business. It's a crime not to do it. So that's how I choose to see it. We're moving forward yet again with a new business, a new business model, and we'll see where this takes me. But I'm giving it a shot. And I would have never even known to create this opportunity had I not launched the mentorship opportunity. So each thing seems to build off the other before it or leads the way, right? So I learned about Shopify and how to launch a Shopify store, which allows for conversions and insights and data and analytics so I can see what's working and what's not working. I can evolve and change. And during this Dean Graziosi course, I was hit over the head by the marketing module he has, which is fantastic, but which is all about the most important thing being the hook. And I created, gosh only knows how many thousands of posts and campaigns to promote my book, my podcast, my speaking engagements, whatever. But I look back now and Dean really simplified it to the hook, the story and the close. And when it's that simple, I realize, I reflect, I did not always lead with the hook. I can tell you I'm making that change. I encourage you to make that change. Identify a hook, something that will start, stop people in their tracks and make that the first line of your post, your ad, whatever. People are so busy and bombarded with content, we've got to grab their attention and that first line is everything. So check out my LinkedIn post this week because I'm sure I'm going to have a lot of strong first lines. Haven't come up with them yet, but I'll be working on them today and tomorrow because I'm going to be launching this online tomorrow. Again, never done this business with partnering with this Harvard professor. No idea what's going to happen. I know I'll deliver the goods as we always do, but I'm sure there's going to be mistakes made along the way and some good things will happen along the way. So I'm really excited to launch that and let you know how that goes. Hopefully things go fantastic and this turns into a whole new business model that we evolve and continue to create. More automation, adding more value, but less high touch. And this one, actually this is not that high touch. It's a two hour seminar versus my coaching program is, you know, a four week program for the month where it's very high touch. So this is an interesting model. It's a nice compliment to what I'm doing. And again, I can do it from home, but I would have never known that I could have done this had I not launched the mentorship program. So that taking that risk and that step into the unknown and building something, refining it, allowed to open a door for me to say, wow, there's a whole, a whole heck of a lot more I can do here. Not only just myself, but via collaborations with others, but then as well, you know, by myself and moving forward with this course that I now have, I'm going to be launching in the future. I just don't have the time. This month, hopefully July, I will have the time to do my first Mastermind event, which is much less high touch than, than what I'm currently doing. So I love evolving this business. I love everything that I'm learning and I'm actually having so much fun with the mentoring program because the people are just so high caliber and, and watching their growth and their success and them networking with one another has just been, I had no idea the value that I would get from doing this. So I'm super, super grateful for everything I'm learning and this crazy experience. Although I will say it's a lot. Let's just put it that way. It's a lot of work. Okay, so today, enough about me. Today, I'm excited for you to meet Steve Herz. He's the president and founding partner of IF Management. He believes that anything is possible. And I love Steve's story because it's so much about the pivot and reinvention and not knowing what's going to happen, but going anyways. So Steve's the president of the Montage Group, a sports and entertainment talent and marketing consultancy. He's also a career advisor to CEOs, lawyers, entrepreneurs and young professionals. Prior to joining TMG, Steve was the president and founding partner of IF Management, an industry leader whose broadcasting division became one of the largest in the Space. Representing over 200 television and radio personalities, the agency represents some of the biggest names in sports and news, including NBC Sports, Mike Tirico. I don't even know who that is. I'm sure it's someone big, but I have no idea. ESPN's Scott Van Pelt and Dan Shulman and CNN Chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward. That's impressive. So Steve's got this massive background in talent, talent agency, management, broadcasting, and to hear how he has pivoted. First to hear how he pivoted getting into it and then how he pivoted out of it just reminds me we all need to be constantly reinventing ourselves, staying in one spot and doing one thing is death by a thousand cuts. So get moving, get pivoting, get growing and stepping into fear. And I can't wait to hear what you think of Steve and what he has to say. Hang tight.

Hi, and welcome back. And I'm so excited to be here today with Steve Herz. Steve, thank you for being with me.

Thanks, Heather. Happy to be here.

So, Steve, as you know, my people are always interested in the struggle. And while many people may look at you and see the massive success that you've built across your career, I really like starting and hearing about some of the challenges that you had early on and. And one of your challenges or pivotal moments or opportunities, however you choose to see it, reminds me of the day I got fired. And the reason why is I've heard you on other shows and you describe it as a punch in the gut. And I was hoping you could share that story with us when you got punched in the gut while you were still in law school.

Sure. So when I was in my second year in law school at Vanderbilt in 1990, I worked for a law firm called Curtis Millay Prevost Park Avenue law firm in New York. And the way the law works is that you get to find out if you get a job coming back at the end of law school after your second summer. And so it's a big deal. Most of the good jobs are taken in that wave of job offers. And at the very end of the summer at Curtis Millay Prevost, there were, I think there were 29 or 30 summer associates. And I was the last one to be called into the managing partner of the program's office. His name was Turner Smith, and all of the 29 previous kids that had gone in before me were all given offers. And it was, you know, kind of a very euphoric feeling in the office in that, like, the last weekend of the week of the program, that August of 1990, and I walked in and he looked at me and he said, you know, we take it very seriously. When we don't give someone an offer, we really know that it's putting kind of a black mark on your record. It's going to make it very hard for. For you to get a job in law. And in your case, we didn't really stress about it. We're not giving you an offer, and we don't think you should practice law. And he said, I don't even think you should. Maybe you shouldn't even consider finishing law School. And I think you would be much better suited coming back here as a client, as a business owner or a businessman rather than continuing the law. And so that was the pun, that was the gut punch. And I kind of reeled out of his office with a whole new focus of what the rest of my life would look like. Because up until then, those first 25 years were directed in that one singular manner of I'm gonna become a lawyer.

So you were really clear on what.

You were going to do. It felt like there was never any.

Plan B that you were getting ready for, right?

No, no plan B. I. As I said, you know, I mentioned this in the book. My dad is now retired, but he was a successful attorney. I have two older brothers that were and are successful lawyers. Cousins, aunts, uncles. I mean, it's just like it's the family business, basically. And, you know, I grew up our family, you know, kind of pastime is arguing and debating. So this was it. This was my whole life. And then it was gone in an instant, in a sense.

So where do you go from there? I know for me, when I was fired, it took me. First of all, I cried for days. I felt completely lost. And it took me a good month before I truly got back on my feet again and tried to start even figuring out where to go. What did that time look like for you?

It's interesting. I mean, we're going back 30 years now, so I'm committing this to memory that I think I was just lost for a while. Look, the good news is that I agreed with Turner Smith. I think the worst part about getting fired from a job, I would think this luckily has never happened to me, is that you get fired from a job and they tell you you're no good at the entire field, and you actually don't believe them. You do believe you're good at it. I knew I wasn't cut out for it. So that was kind of a. In a weird way, it was comforting and discomforting at the same time. It was kind of a double whammy in the sense that I now had to go figure out what else could I do with my life after not having thought about it. So I was kind of lost for a while. I had this last year of law school to finish, and it didn't make sense not to finish. And also, you know, take the bar. Just so my dad and mom were like, hey, just take the bar. If you don't want to go practice law, at least you'll say you could have done it. So that was. I knew there was another year of all that, and I did all that, luckily, pass the bar, etc. But I just didn't really know what I wanted to do. And nothing really came to me. And I did end up practicing law briefly from my dad's law firm on Long Island. And that's when I kind of just had this weird thing happen. I was reading the newspaper one day, the New York Times sports section, and there was an article about this goalie from the New York Rangers named John Van Biesbrook. And it was a story about how he was going to be traded, likely to be traded. And there was a quote in the article from his agent, Lloyd Friedland of Garden City, Long island, where I was working at the time. And I couldn't believe it. Somebody was working in a field that I was interested in in the same little place I was. And I went into the law firm, little law firm library, and took out the white pages and looked up the name Lloyd Friedland. Found his law firm and business, and cold called him. And he picked up the phone. Who the hell are you? I tell him, I'm this guy who went to University of Michigan, worked in the athletic department, knows a lot about sports, and I'm giving this entire crazy sales pitch not knowing that everything I was saying was really irrelevant to his business. And I didn't have what I thought I had, but I was too ignorant to know that I didn't have anything to offer this guy. And he was luckily either not smart enough about the business or just didn't care. And like what he was hearing, and he said, I all right, let's have lunch. And so we had lunch the next week and he hired me. He decided he wanted to start a small sports agency, and he was going to try to grow this practice beyond this one or two clients he had. And it was Valentine's Day of 1992, and that was when, I guess, kind of my life changed. I was in the field that I thought I might be good at.

What's interesting to me is that you said you were lost for a little while, which I totally identify with. When you have been so clear on a goal or where you're going or where you think you're going, and. And suddenly you find out that's not the option any longer. It's fine to be lost and normal to be lost. However, you still keep taking steps forward, which I think is a critical piece there. When. When you saw this person's name and you say, oh, this is interesting. There's someone here. You picked up the phone and cold called. You went to the lunch. And I think that's where a lot of people get stuck. So I love hearing that because I went to so many lunches and I picked up and cold called so many people during that time because I didn't know where I was going to go, just like you didn't. So where did that job and position take you?

Well, that job wasn't what I hoped it would turn out to be, but it led me to something, I guess, the right place. You know, Lloyd was a very good guy and he had all the right intentions, but he was primarily and is primarily still to this day, a successful matrimonial lawyer. And he was trying to build off these few clients. He didn't really have the time or the energy or frankly the industry context to build out a business like this. And I certainly didn't know anything. And it was kind of the blind leading the blind in a way. And after about six months, I think he realized he was throwing money down a rat hole with me. I was completely useless to him, at least in this incarnation of his business at that point. And I realized I wasn't going to help build a business for him. And around the same time, this girl I had dated in law school who lived in New York, it was a long distance thing, she had a friend, we've broken up at this point, but she had a friend who worked for this agency called Athletes and Artists. And I stayed in touch with this woman and she called me one day and said, hey, you know, our company needs a director of marketing. This guy Maury Gossfran is leaving and he's going to law school at the University of Miami and we need to replace him. And I said I would love that. And she said, why don't you come meet the owner of my company, Art Kaminsky. And I met him, and this woman's name is Jackie Harris, still friends with her. And she got me in and they hired me. And that was in July of 92. And so that was great because now I was actually working for an established agency and I had a job. I was in New York City. It felt like I made it. You know, I was, I, by the way, this job paid at Athletes and Artists. The base salary was, I think, $35,000, which even in 1992 was not a heck of a lot of money considering my law school classmates starting were making 80,000. But I was thrilled I had a job. And for the first month or so I lived on my friend's couch and I was happy as could be because.

You actually liked the work you were.

Doing or you were taking a chance.

On yourself and just going all in on something new.

I think I didn't even know what the work I was doing at the time. When I got into it, it was more the idea that I had this goal of getting a job at an agency, and I think it was just doing something new. I mean, I knew nothing about first I knew nothing about what I was doing for Lloyd Friedland, and then I knew nothing about being a director of marketing for a sports TV management company, which was to get these guys voiceovers and commercials and speaking engagements and all kinds of ancillary income. And I knew literally nothing about it, had no relationships in it. But I figured, what the hell, I'll learn. I didn't care. I was too ignorant to know any better.

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Ignorance can be bliss in certain situations. So it sounds like in this one it actually was. So you just really applied yourself and fumbled and made mistakes and worked hard and started moving your way up.

Exactly. I just felt like maybe it was something that was forensic in me. This is my first real job in the world. I just realized that if you built relationships with people and you cultivated them that somehow good things would happen. I think one of the hardest things I ever did in my career there was I went to the front desk of this office. Athletes notice and I Went to the receptionist. Her name was Gail Lockhart. And I said, gail, do me a favor. If anybody calls the office and you don't know who give. You do not know who to give the phone call to. Just give it to me. I will deal with it for you. And I don't care how bad it is. I don't care if it's like the electrician calling or the tax collector. And the owner, Art Kaminsky, he had some very strange hours, so he wasn't there all that much. But I would take all these calls, and early on, I got a phone call that no one else wanted from this guy named Bob Rice. And he was a lawyer for a big law firm downtown, one of the big, big law firms. And he said that he was trying to produce the world's first chess championship, speed chess championship. And was I interested in helping him produce it. And I knew nothing about any of this either, but I said, sure, I'd love to, and we'll get you the talent. We'll figure it out. And then I went back and told the people in the agency, and we ended up getting a client who, believe it or not, is still a client of our agency, Bruce Beck, who is the major local sportscaster in New York, wnbc, and he became the host of the show called the American Chess Challenge. And then through that, I met and represented Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, all because I told Gail Lockhart, I'll take any phone call. And that was very, very beginning of my career.

That's so interesting. And that's advice I actually just gave to a friend of mine who is a doctor who works with a number of different doctors in one entity and operation. And I said, listen, get to the woman who's answering the phones and have her direct the best opportunities to you. It's such an interesting that gatekeeper position holds tremendous power, and if you can align yourself, support yourself and help them, which is essentially what you were offering to do. I'll take the calls. You don't know what to do. I'll save you time. You've offered a solution, and then you found opportunity.

I don't think at that point, Heather, I thought about it in any kind of way that you're describing. You're describing it so smartly. I just said, gail, I'll take the calls. And I just figured nothing bad could come of it and I would build some relationships.

Yeah. One of the things that I like.

That you're explaining is that you didn't know what you were going to do. But you still want to put yourself out there and get in the mix. And so often people are afraid to interject themselves to ask for those calls because I don't know what I'm doing. And it's great to see that you took that chance on you. That's how you actually figured it out.

Right. And now it's easy to figure a lot of things out that weren't as easy to figure out back then because of the Internet.

The Internet does help quite a bit these days. Thank goodness for the Internet most days. That is so. Okay. So now you make it to the top of the agency, you're working with hundreds of different high profile clients, then you get involved in coaching and starting to coach CEOs.

Yeah, that was kind of a fluke too, I guess my whole life is one good fluke after another. What happened was, is I'll be 54 on July 7th of this year, but four years ago, when I was about to turn 50 in January of 2016, my wife was going to throw a party for me. And it was just kind of a time of reflection at that point. Wow, I'm turning 50. I can't believe it. And what am I going to do with the second half of my life? How is that going to be different? And I thought, I feel like professionally I'd done not everything, but I'd done a lot of what I wanted to accomplish as an agent. And what else could I do? What other skills did I have? What other things could I do to offer the world? And I thought that the coaching that I had done for on air broadcasters and helping them get those jobs at the ESPN's and the CBSs and some of the interview coaching I had done for them, I thought that was transferable. That kind of advice could be applicable to a CEO, but also a dentist or a doctor or a lawyer or whoever. And I came up with this idea that a lot of people were talking about public speaking and media training, but that wasn't really where the important communication is happening in the world or in your career. And where it's really important is what I call private speaking. You know, we're doing right now having a dialogue as opposed to what public speaking is, which is a monologue. And so I thought, I really want to teach this. This is what I want to do, I want to teach it. And I ended up writing, I had all these notes obviously from my career and all the things I had done. And I thought, all right, I'm going to transfer this to this other medium and I wrote this presentation out, and my daughter at the time was in the school choir, and I went to hear a performance. And while there, I ran into a mom from our school. And I just said to her, I really have this idea. I think it's great. What do you think of it? Her name is Tali Potter. This woman, she's the general counsel of Bank Liheumi. And she's like, I love this idea. I think it's a great idea. I think you should come to our bank and work with us. And I want to introduce you to the HR director of our bank. And I said, well, I don't really have a business yet. I don't know what to charge. Don't worry, it's fine. So she had this woman, Kate Edinger, came to my office four years ago, and Kate said, I love it. It's a great idea. Why don't you come work with us at the bank? I have a perfect guy for you, very, very senior executive that you could coach. What do you charge? And I said, kate, I don't know what I charge because I don't have any clients, which is probably not the thing you want to say to somebody. But I just said I was honest with her, and I told her a price, and she said, that seems fair. And I got hired. And it really kind of morphed into a nice little business where I was working for that bank, and then I got hired by a pretty big law firm, and then I got hired by a medical company. And then one day, about a year later, this woman got up at an event I had been doing for Bank Leomi and said, I love your ideas. I really Want to buy 2 copies of your book for my children. They should read it. They're 18 and 20. Where can I buy those copies? I said, you can't. And I think she thought I was joking, because I guess anybody who speaks now pretty much has a book. And I said, I don't have a book. And she said, well, that's really too bad, because you should write a book. And that night, it was March 8, 2017, I went home, told my wife, and she said, well, go write a book. And that's how it all happened. It's kind of crazy.

It is crazy.

And one of the things that you.

Said that I really liked is that you looked at yourself, you looked at your career and said, what do I have here from a skill set and talent standpoint that's transferable to another arena or new opportunity? And I love that you did that. I was Forced into doing that when I got fired. And it was scary because it was under pressure, but I think it's really self aware that you did that. What additional value can I bring? And I hope that everyone listening thinks about what skills and talents they have and how it can be transferred outside of their current industry, outside the small bubble that they're living in and applied in so many different ways, because everybody has that opportunity. And I just love hearing how you've.

Been able to do that, not only.

From pivoting from the talent business to the coaching business, but now to becoming an author and speaking business. You know, you continue to transfer your talents to different arenas and areas.

I think the best skill that I have is I do think I'm a pretty good communicator and I'm able to connect with people. And so that gives me a lot of opportunity to speak to people and influence them and maybe they feel like one thing. I have also noticed now that I've been in this kind of having almost dual things I've been doing for the past few years is this. I think there's never going to be a shortage for companies to improve their culture. And ultimately one of the hopeful side products of my book and my message will be to improve culture in organizations. And so that's a real desire here. And I think it's a need. Ultimately, like you said earlier, skills and abilities are great, but what need are you filling in another company or another person's life? And if you're not fulfilling a need, then there's no value to it.

Absolutely.

And that business you just described around culture and companies is evergreen. There will constantly be new adversities and challenges businesses are going to be confronted with. And no business will ever reach their potential without great culture. And if you're working for a company right now with bad culture, get out. I have tried. Unless you're at the highest level of a company, it is impossible to completely change and eradicate toxic culture. So get out of negative situations. Unless you're in a situation like you're describing, Steve, where they are working on changing and evaluating that culture. All right, let's get to the book. Don't take yes for an answer. And I'm really interested to hear the takeaways and that framework around the three pillars that you discuss in the book to help set people up for better communication and success.

Sure. The book is basically two broad thoughts in the book. First is kind of what I call the foundation for change. Right. And the foundation for change is this idea of don't take yes for an answer. And my thesis is that there's been, I would say, a pretty significant change in American society in the past 30 years. And I don't say this politically at all. I don't intended that. And I don't think it's a millennial thing. I think it's just what's happened. Some of it is just people meant well, whatever. But there's always another unintended consequence of things. So those three things are, one, you've had great inflation. Two, you've had this, what I would call participation trophy culture morphing into MVP culture. And then the third is HR departments in many, if not most American companies, really acting as a adjunct to the legal department and not wanting to get sued and not in talent development, as it might be thought of. And so they don't fire people. They don't really want to tell you what you're doing wrong. They just want to get you out and go quietly. And so what I say in the book in terms of setting up the foundation is that if you get the artificial A, that should be a B, that was 30 years ago, you get the participation trophy culture. And you seem like you think you're an MVP and you've had the job, and you never. You never even got fired. You were lucky you got fired because now you would have gotten downsized or reorged, and they would have told you, it's not you, it's me. You know, you were great, blah, blah, blah. So what ends up happening is that you, the individual, was on the wrong end of this equation, and you mean well, you work hard, but no one's ever told you what you could do better. You get caught up in the vortex of mediocrity. And how do you get out of that? You can't get out of it if you're not reading the signals of somebody saying to you, heather, you can do better. Heather, you're fired. Heather, do something else. Or Steve, get out of the law. You stink in it. Okay, fine, you can do something with that. It's actionable. But that doesn't exist for a lot of people anymore. So there's not a mindset to think about change. So assuming you can get past the first third of the book that sets up the idea, then you'll be able to understand what the signals are that you need to read for change and not get caught up in this echo chamber of yes, and then the vortex of mediocrity. And this isn't just for people on the lower end. Of the scale in terms of their career. It can be someone on the higher end who could be a superstar and is only a star because they're being told how great they are all the time. So I think it applies to everybody. So that's the first part and then the second half of the book, which I think is probably the more important actionable message for the audience here, is that it's really fascinating research shows that there's a very unexpectedly small correlation and causal relationship between how good you are at your job, the technical parts of it, and your success. And that there's only a 15% contributing factor, what we would call the hard skills, the technical skills, and there's 85% of what we would call the non technical skills. I'll just call them the soft skills for the purposes of this conversation. And my thought here is that we get drilled our entire lives, from first grade on to graduate school and continuing ed, whatever, on the technical skills. How to become a better lawyer, better doctor, better surgeon, better technical, better writer, et cetera, et cetera. But no resources are dedicated towards these quote, unquote, soft skills. And yet so many people that we end up competing with in our lives, including us. A lot of the times we get good enough at the technical skills. We're all kind of commoditized, so to speak, in the technical parts of the job because we're all good enough at it. But that's not the defining factor and the distinguishing factor from those who just get a seat at the table and end up ascending to the place where they do have the influence and have the authority and have the leadership role and all the clients and customers. And that comes from this 85%. The important thing about the 85% is what do you do with it? What can you do? If I told you, Heather, you know what? You've got a weakness in your soft skill. What the hell does that mean? There's nothing you can do with it unless I tell you something actionable. So this is what I try to do, is make it actionable. So let's just take that 85% and create an acronym around it that we can work on. It will have a report card and metrics. So that's called AWE A W e. And the subtitle of my book is called Using Authority, Warmth and Energy Awe to Get Exceptional Results. So I think that if you look at the people in your life that you believe first of all, have those precursor technical skills and are thriving, most of them fit into this category of being able to communicate stylistically and have a sense of authority about themselves. We perceive them as very confident. We perceive them as trustworthy because they have the warmth and connectability. We want to go along with their ideas because. Because there's a certain energetic quality to them that energizes us. And those are the only things that really matter in our communication. And if we can do that, if we can make people understand that we're good at what we do, you can trust me. I'm going to get the job done for you and I make you feel good around me. You're going to have all the influence in the world you need. That's it.

Wow, it's so interesting to hear that research that you cited that only, I believe you said 15% is the correlation between the skill set and technical abilities in a role. That is shocking to me, how low that impact is. I mean, it's really. And essentially what you're saying is it's really around this concept of communication and impact that you have on people, not on the technical parts of your job.

Well, you're correct. You're analysing it.

Right.

I just want to repeat that, though, for the audience and for you, that that is only because you are going to be competing and working alongside other people like yourself, that have mastered the technical part of it. I use this dental example. If you needed a filling tomorrow for a tooth, you had a cavity, you could call up 10 dentists, probably 100 dentists, and they all know how to do a filling, right? And that's not going to be the distinguishing factor of why you go to one dentist versus another. You probably wouldn't even know who's going to do a better filling anyway. And that's true of a lot of the services that we end up using in our lives. And so it's not that the technical part isn't important, it's just a necessary prerequisite to get you a seat at the table and I think, very little else.

So how can we cultivate more authority, warmth and energy in our communications?

Do you mind if I say this? Read the book. No, no, yeah. I mean, obviously, please read the book. But, you know, what we do talk about is, first of all, I think it's understanding what your strengths and weaknesses are, and when you. We have an opportunity. It's fascinating. In the last few months, one of the hopefully good byproducts of this pandemic has been this zoom culture where we get to record ourselves if we want to, and we can go back and listen and look at ourselves and take note of our communication. And I think most of us would find that we have these blind spots, these weaknesses, the way that we're communicating. And unless you're walking around with someone who's telling you 24 7, hey Steve, hey Heather, stop doing that, stop doing that and you find a way to actually change it, you're going to continue to embed those bad habits in your behavior. And we don't have people that tell us these things. That's why I say don't take yes for an answer. And so the immediate things, like kind of the low hanging fruit I would say of actionable things you could do to have more authority is stand up straight, sit up straight. Have some physicality to your body language. Finish your sentences, Heather. Finish your words. So many people just trail off at the end of their words or they have a sing song delivery or a high pitched voice that's artificially high. So go on the Internet and you can have many different free resources to figure out if you have a properly placed pitch with your voice enunciate and if you have a good voice, if you don't have a sing song delivery, if you finish your words then you will seem and you will be more authoritative. And another like really simple thing is do not use filler words. End them from your vocabulary ums you knows likes, they're easy to fix. I could teach it to you in probably an hour. And if you can get rid of just those filler words and use a pregnant pause and have more inflection in your voice because you're not using those filler words, man, you're going to be so much more captivating when you want more.

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First say authority, the things that come to my mind are resume and achievements and accomplishments and titles and not getting rid of filler words or how you're standing or how you're if you're enunciating or not, right?

Because this is a question of the substance versus the style. Substance is important. It gets you a seat at the table. If you don't study dentistry, you're not getting a dental job. If you don't study engineering, you're not getting an engineering job. But once you've done that and you have the resume look, you're getting the interview. Whatever job you're applying for. Who do you think is, who else is coming in for the interview? People with very similar resumes to you. So the substance is going to seem very similar almost, if not completely indistinguishable to the person reading them. Now, you've been on both sides of this equation. So have I. I mean, you tell me I can't read 10 resumes if I'm recruiting somebody and tell you the difference between those 10 resumes. And I've been doing this since I'm in this field for 30 years and I can't do it.

Well, tell me, how do you teach or develop warmth and energy? Because to me that sounds more like an intangible. That sounds really ambiguous to me.

It's a great question. And it's been, I would say the number one pushback I've gotten about this whole messaging in the book is, well, you can't teach warmth. Some people are warm, some people aren't. So I fight back by saying I'm not going to teach you or convince you you're going to be the warmest person in the room. But what I will teach you to do is to be a little bit better every day than you were the day before. And I'll also focus on these tiny little granular things you're doing, many of which you're just self sabotaging and that's going to hurt your warmth. So I'll give you an example I'll take pick myself here. When I started writing this book, I had two really bad communication habits that killed my warmth. And luckily I'm married to a woman who never gives me yes for an answer and I love her for that. And so she pointed out to me, hey, you know what, big shot, you're teaching communication. Do you know that when you go to cocktail parties and you're around people, you stand there with your arms folded often when you talk to people, what a terrible habit that is. And I said, wow, that's great advice. And then I just found that I was having a hard time changing it. So what I did is I started going to these cocktail parties and really paying very careful attention for who else was in the room and who was folding their arms and standing there like that with this off putting language once in a while is fine, but staying there for five minutes every single interaction. And once I started noticing that it would be a signal to me to stop doing it and I eventually cured myself of that and that just gave me a little bit more warmth in my personality and it Wasn't. I didn't change. I wasn't even aware I was doing it. And the other thing I do is part and parcel of that is when I talk to somebody, I position my hips directly parallel to theirs. If you're standing there like this, I don't turn away with my shoulders and hips. I try to focus in on you and with the feeling that, hey, you're important to me. You're the one I'm talking to right now. And it was just another just slightly bad habit I had and easy to fix. And then the last one I'll give you is I talk about dentistry a lot because I had my front teeth knocked out as a kid and then knocked out again. And I've had my front teeth are all caps and fakes and everything else. So since I was two growing up, I've always had a lot of sensitivity to my smile. I was never very proud of it or just sensitive to it. And, and only in the last, I would say, 10 years, when I finally found an amazing dentist who fixed my gums, have I been really much more confident about smiling. But I had 43 plus years of this bad habit of not smiling. And when I learned to smile more, I became warmer. And so these are the little tricks you can learn in this book to really change the way people perceive you in a very profound manner, I believe.

Well, now more than ever, given the pandemic and wearing facial masks and just the tension that we have in the world currently, it's more important than ever to put yourself in the best communication light that you can, to be warm and be considered warm and safe and honest and real. Right now I feel like that is incredibly powerful. I've actually recently seen some research on trends right now that safety and trust is more important than it ever has been in this country in any type of communication or exchange. So I think it's really important for people to be self aware and to want to look into how can we improve that. And you brought something up. You know, it's not always about something additive that you need to do into addition to what you're doing. Sometimes it's taking something, removing something like dropping the crossed arms, which is a simple thing to do if we're self aware about it.

I agree. I mean, look, I feel that why I think this message hopefully will get some traction in the marketplace is that it's really not that hard. It's not that hard to figure out five or six things that you're doing that you could change really easily. This is Kind of like what I would call a communication diet. Not a personality diet, just a communication diet. And I'm not asking you to never eat potato chips again. I'm asking you to not fold your arms in a cocktail party or to make eye contact when you're talking so you'll have more authority, or to smile a little bit more, or to face somebody when you're talking to them, or to work on your voice a little bit. This is not a very hard book to digest and to make some actionable change to. It's just things that I think people unfortunately ignore at their own peril.

You know, you haven't brought it up.

But one of the things that I had challenged myself to is going into networking events or cocktail parties or whatever they were. My tendency was to hold my phone out of my purse in my hand, and how much that took away from, you know, me glancing away from a conversation and looking at the phone. And I finally made the decision. I either leave it in the car or I put it inside of my purse, and I do not take it out while I am the event. And that's made a huge difference in allowing people to feel that I'm paying more attention to them.

Right, right. So you've increased your warmth because, you know, under my rubric of awe, that warmth leads to greater connectivity, greater trust, because, look, you put your finger on a really important thing in that when you talk about earlier, you know, in this post pandemic or current pandemic, how much trust is important to people. And I do believe that trust is the foundation of every relationship. Even your Uber driver, if you don't trust that person, that's the basis of all business. And once that trust is eroded, and look, not to get political, but I think we're seeing a lot of this anger and this tremendous groundswell that we've had around the death of George Floyd, because I think if we really. Besides the anger about the murder, it's just this idea that our trust has been eroded. This is, you know, not to impugn all police at all, but it seems like this one incident has really done a lot to affect people's trust, and that's a big thing.

Well, it's really smart right now to lead knowing that people want to feel safe. They want to trust you, and it's.

On each one of us.

And it's our responsibility to make sure that we behave and communicate in a way so that we can connect. So I want to share some good news. Steve, I heard that you got an interesting Phone call about the book and what is happening with it right now. Some recognition.

Yeah, thank you. I found out two days ago that I was nominated for the next Big Ideas Club, which is a. It's a group that is cultivated by Adam Grant, Susan Cain, Malcolm Gladwell and Daniel Pink. So to be in the nominees of that list, I think it was 15 books that were nominated in this summer. It's really quite humbling. You know, I really, I thought I had a good idea. Luckily HarperCollins agreed and they agreed to publish the book. And so it's really been humbling to think about some of the other people in that, in that list are really established authors and huge names in the world. And so the fact that my idea is resonating with people like Adam Grant, it means a lot to me.

That's so exciting. So where can everybody find. Don't take yes for an answer.

So you can find it any of your local bookstores and any Barnes and Noble, obviously you can buy it at Amazon or anywhere any book is really sold. And if you want information about the book, you can buy an audible copy or just go to my website, which is www.steven S T E V E N. And then you can follow me on all kinds of social media platforms. Follow the blog and there's a one click button to buy off there as well off any of these sites and.

We'Ll include the links in the show notes. Steve, thank you so much for being here and wishing you the best. Continued success with the book.

Thank you.

Heather, hang tight, we'll be right back.

I asked you to try to find your passion. I hope you enjoyed meeting Steve as much as I did. And I have to tell you, hearing that he had, he came from a whole family of lawyers and that he wasn't able to pursue that path and get that prestigious position that he wanted, that's a big deal, guys. I've seen so many people follow what their parents want and that must have been a tough moment. I liken it to when, when I was fired. That's a, that's a game changing moment. And to pick yourself back up, that's the key. Not knowing, knowing where you're going, but just getting going is always the answer. Okay, so I want to answer some questions that I have received. I got a note, a DM on Twitter asking, heather, I want to tell my story and I want to do it on a TED Talk. How do I make that happen? Well, I actually know how to make that happen because I've done it, thank goodness. So here's what I would do. Number one, take out a Google alert on TEDx speakers. Want wanted right? Anytime I want to do something, I take out a Google Alert on it. Because I want to find information and opportunity and I'll be reminded every single day of any and every opportunity connected to it. I also do this with clients, businesses. I'm targeting anyone that I need to be in the know. I do it for my friends too, so I can support them when something great comes out about them. So Google Alerts are your friends. Start working them and check them daily. So once you have that, then you, you want to go to the TED site. There is an actual map on the TED site that you want to click on. It shows you all TEDx upcoming events. You can go by city, by state, by date, and see where the TEDx events are happening. You need to pitch yourself months in advance because you know, most of these people are, are secure on their lineup. You know, once it's a couple months out, they've already got their people. So you want to look ahead. I would look at least, you know, six months ahead. Identify what the theme of their event is. Think about how your talk could add value and tie into their theme, be relevant to their theme. Then you want to. While you're on the TED site, you can click on and find out who the person in charge of the event is. The the TEDx volunteer. It's important to know everyone there is volunteering. They are not getting paid. They do it because they're proud of the work they're doing. They do it because they love these talks and they love ideas worth sharing. You need to appeal to that, right? So you need to appeal to them. One of the things that I committed to was helping to support the event like crazy on social media. So you want to help them make the event a success, bring relevant and unique and different ideas and allow them to feel confident that you're going to work your tail off to do an amazing job and help and support and promote them and their event. So those are all different things. You want to appeal to them, you want to reach out to directly to that individual who's in charge because you want to thank them for hosting the events. You know, you want to research who were the speakers last year, how did the event go? And you want to share with them why it's meaningful and important to you and how grateful you are that they are there. You want to appeal to them and then you need to match your skills, your talk, your talents to their theme and Again, showcase how you will add value, how you will support the event, and why you will be be a much needed addition. Then there are. And it's a team of people that ultimately votes on who's going to come on. So if you can connect with additional people on the team, that would be an asset so that you can have a few different people basically as your mini champions inside working for you. And I'll tell you, I applied to. Oh my gosh, I don't even know how many, probably 50 or who knows, you know, I just. It was crazy how many I was applying to. And I kept getting no, I was just making it all about me. And I'm a great speaker. And here's a speaker reel and he, that's not it. We need to make it all about them. Sales 101. Heather. I've only been in sales my whole life. How did I forget that? But make it all about them and how grateful we are that they're giving this opportunity and how much you enjoyed their event last year and which speaker really stood out to you and how the theme that they chose this year means so much to you and how your idea works. Sharing is different. And how you're going to support the event. You get it. Okay, so that's the best way to land a TED Talk and just take action and get going on it right now. Then once you land it, writing, it's a whole different story. I'm preparing for it, but that's a conversation for a different day. Okay, so then I received on LinkedIn, I got a note from a woman, we're going to call her Chris, that has recently been let go. She's looking for new opportunities. She's looking to work with startups and organizations that have a need for strong operations director. And she goes through all the things that she's great at, how she's passionate, she's highly energetic, she's, you know, got all these great skills and assets. And then she basically says any guidance or direction you'd be willing to share would be appreciated. So here's the thing. If you're looking for a job right now, the number one thing you need to do is look at your LinkedIn profile, right? And that headline that you have is Prime Real Estate. So evaluate what words are there, because when people do a keyword search, you want that keyword to be in your headline. So for me, if someone's searching podcast, that's in my headline. If they're searching keynote speaker, that's in my headline. Whatever it is that you could be sought after for. You need to have that in in your headline. So reevaluate that prime real estate and make sure that you're appealing to the audience you want to be found by. Follow all of the hashtags that anybody in those industries would follow. Jump in on conversations and discussions on those kinds of posts. Identify a top 1020 list of companies you would love to work for and start investigating who are the leaders in those companies. Start sending them DMs and tell them what you love that they're doing and how you're impressed by A, B, C and D. And develop a conversation, right? Reach out to people that could actually benefit you. That might, maybe it wouldn't be them, that they might not have a need for you, but they heard of so and so that actually might create content online. That's been one of the biggest things that I've done to pull opportunity towards me. So there's two ways you can go about this. You can chase opportunity down or you can pull it towards you. Creating content is a great way. Or creating a live webinar or a seminar where you're sharing information and adding value. But the other way of course is to chase it down. Reach out and DM people create target lists of different companies you want to go after, industries you want to go after. And I even think let's think bigger, right? Let's think bigger. Not just, you know, when I got fired as CRO media, I look beyond media. I really didn't have a choice, you guys, because I had a 12 to 18 month non compete so I had to leave the industry anyways. But I looked beyond media and I decided to become an author and then a speaker and then a podcast host and then a TEDx speaker and now an online virtual teacher which I never even knew was a thing. Surprisingly, it's a multi billion dollar industry. So again, there's so much you don't know about what you have the potential to do. You need to start taking action and opening doors and having conversations to let those opportunities appear. Start thinking, what is it that people ask you for? And that thing they're always asking you for, is there a way to monetize that and let your network know I recently am fired or whatever you want to say. I said I was recently fired and I am looking for opportunity. Let your contacts and network know that you're looking, review your testimonials, post and share your reviews of your work so people know how freaking good you are.

Right?

So we want to pull that opportunity towards us. And the only way we can do that is showcasing our highlight reel, putting ourselves out there, creating content that connects with people. So two ways again, and I'd be doing both and I did both when I got fired. You want to chase down the opportunity and you want to put pull it towards you. And I'll tell you, I did the same thing when I launched my mentoring program. I posted all about the program, but I also started DMing people. And the way I did it was I launch a poll on my insta story and it would say, are you struggling with your confidence during the pandemic? And then I could see anyone that said yes and anyone that said yes to that, I would send them a private DM back. Hey, if you're struggling, listen, I could definitely help you. I've got this amazing mentoring program that I just launched. I think you'd be a great fit for it. If you want to check it out, here's the site. And I converted a number of people from doing that, right. So there's the push and pull in marketing and sales and you want to be doing both. Whether that it's that you're selling yourself or you're selling a product or a service, you know, think about it and approach it that way and continue to evolve it and evaluate what's working, you know, where you're time is best spent. Maybe some of that is. When I first got fired, I took a meeting with everybody and anybody I could think of that was local in Miami. If I hadn't seen them in a while, take them to lunch, whatever, just to share with them what was going on in my life, hear what opportunities they might know about. And taking those steps really allowed for so many connection points and opportunities to come into my life that wouldn't have happened otherwise. So it's on you to take the step, it's on you to create the content. It's on you to upd, update your resume, it's on you to update your LinkedIn. It's on you to showcase your testimonials and your highlight reel and start rocking them. Because now is the time. If three years ago was a better time, great. But today is the only time. So get going now. So I hope that you love this episode. I'm so grateful that you were here with me. If you could please leave a review and rating of this show. It helps so, so much. Make means the world to me. Until next week, keep creating confidence and I will see you then. 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.