Heroic Interview: The Art of Connection with Michael Gelb

You're listening to the Art of Connection, an optimal living interview with Michael Gelb and Brian Johnson. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimize podcast. Today I'm thrilled to be chatting with my dear friend and one of my favorite writers and teachers and mentors, Michael Gelb. Michael, as many of you know, wrote how to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, which is one of my all time favorite books. I vividly remember reading it in June of 2001. As I've said many times, literally changed my life. And since then, Michael and I have gotten to know one another and he's written a number of other books we've featured and talked about on this podcast, Brain Power and Creativity on Demand, both of which are great books as well. And today I'm excited to chat about Michael's newest book, which, which is called the Art of Connection. Seven Relationship Building Skills Every Leader Needs now, which I very much enjoyed. And I'm excited to share the philosopher's note on and just talk about some of my favorite big ideas. Now, Michael, appreciate you and appreciate you taking the time.

My pleasure. Thank you.

Well, I always like to start at the top. The Art of Connection. Why do we name the book the Art of Connection?

Oh, I'm so glad you asked. Well, I'll tell you the original title of the book. It was called the Innovative Communicator. And the original subtitle was Creative Ways to Build Relationships, Resolve Conflict and Sell Ideas. So the Innovative Communicator, really simple. I work with people, as, you know, being more creative, developing innovative cultures in their businesses. One thing I learned pretty early on is teaching people how to think creatively was the easy part. With the help of Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, other great geniuses from history, we can get you thinking creatively, generating ideas, understanding the nature of the creative process. But how do you actually get creative ideas to happen? How do you really make an innovative culture? Well, that's all about relationships. So I thought, okay, the Innovative Communicator. How to Communicate to Facilitate Innovation. But somehow that title didn't seem just perfect because I was saying, well, what's the essence? What's the essence of being an innovative communicator? So I'll tell you what's really fun about getting a chance to share. My answer to this wonderful question is I decided I had to apply everything I teach about creativity to come up with a better title. So I was in Malibu teaching on an Alexander Technique seminar. Then I had to drive up from Malibu to Esalen, where I was going to teach her how to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci seminar. So it's about a six hour drive along Highway 1. And I thought, okay, this is great. I'm going to do the generation phase of the brainstorming process as I teach in all my other books. So I just think of as many ideas as I can. Crazy ideas, no wrong answers. And I came up with all sorts of wacky words for the possible title. And then I thought, okay, forget about it, let it all go. Don't even think about it. Just enjoy the beautiful drive. That's the incubation phase. And sometimes you have to go back and forth in the innovation process between generation and incubation. I was just about arriving at Esalen. I turned this corner. There's the beautiful Pacific Ocean with the sun glistening off the ocean and. And there it was, the Art of Connection. Just, oh, that's the title. Because connecting is the core, connecting with yourself, connecting with others, of being an innovative communicator. And I realized that there was more than just building an innovative culture. It's about fulfillment in your life. And that is this core, this essence of how do you connect with yourself, how do you connect with others? So I contacted my editor at New World Library and he loved the title. So I started writing it, but with the same subtitle. So I wrote 45,000 words on creative ways to build relationships before I even got to resolve conflict and sell ideas. And I knew that I was limited to 60,000 words. So I realized, oh, I have at least three books here because a lifetime of studying how do you build the relationships? How do you resolve the conflict? How do you get your ideas across? How do you sell ideas? So then I thought, okay, let's just. The first part of the subtitle with some of the second part of the subtitle is the Art of Connection. So that's when the subtitle the seven relationship building Skills Every Leader Needs now emerge. So that's a little bit of the creative process of how we came up.

With this generation incubation. And bam, here we go. Well, I love it. So Art of Connection. Seven Relationship Building skills Every Leader Needs. Now it's a lot about leadership as well. Just as on a high level, right, that Art of Connection for leaders. Obviously we're all leaders, but out of the seven, I've got some questions I want to ask about some of my favorite ideas. But what's your favorite kind of concept from the book?

Thank you for asking. Yes, my favorite concept from the whole book is the Latin phrase in the beginning of the book Conjungere. I have to work on my Latin pronunciation Conjunctere. I have a Latin scholar who is my Latin advisor. And actually I need to call him up because I want to get in Latin. The phrase phrases sound better in Latin.

So I'm going to interrupt you before you do this. I'm going to interrupt you, and Michael and I are on Skype video right now. You're listening to this via audio. But look what my number two thing is there.

Aha. You got it, man.

So I was actually. There were two ways I could go to ask this question. I was going to ask you, tell us what it means, and I was going to read the Latin and the translation of it. So I have goosebumps right now. That that would be where you go for that. But we'll go from there. But I just wanted to share that. Fun.

But it figures Roy's on the same wave. So conjugere ad solvendem. And it means connect before solving. Connect before solving. So one of the great things that I've learned, I also share in the chapter on overcoming and dealing creatively with conflict, is the first rule of conflict management is don't make it worse. Don't make it worse. So if you're not going to make it worse so you can make it better, you have to connect. In other words, this is classic wisdom from getting to, yes, separate the people from the problem. But how do you do that? You actually have to connect with the people first, the relationship, the empathy transforms everything. And it's especially important in the face of conflict. But you'll never be able to do it in the face of conflict if you don't practice it before there's a conflict. So if you just want to come up with solutions, if you want to be more creative, connect first with yourself and then with the people you're interacting with. And this applies just as much with your children, with your life partner, with your friends, and certainly in the workplace. This is better understood in some other cultures where people take much more time to make sure that they have a human connection. But in the US we tend to be driving towards the objective. Closing the sale, making it happen, getting it done. And that's all great. I'm like that too, which is why I really trained myself to be focused on the people first. And in learning styles. One of the styles, communication styles, there's whole chapters. You know about this, too. There's a style I love called amiability. Amiable types really are put people first naturally. So amiable Types will naturally do some of the things that I emphasize are important in the book. They need to learn the opposite. They have to be more assertive and more focused on closing the sale. But as a general principle across the culture of the US learning to focus on the connection, first on the rapport, first to be simpatico, first to connect. You don't have to be touchy feely to do this, but just to be aligned with the soul of whoever you're dealing with. And here's the real beauty of that. When you tune into the soul of whatever stakeholders you're interacting with, guess what happens to your own soul? It comes to life. So you make this a practice in your your work every day. And your work becomes soul enriching instead of soul draining. So that is my favorite concept in the book. It's the basis of the whole book, that there's a magic that happens, that problems solve themselves when you create that rapport, that simpatico, that conizione with the other people that you're dealing with. So connect first.

And you touched on. One of my other ideas I was looking at was you suggested, and I'm all about seizing the micro opportunities, right? For everything, for presence, for love, et cetera. And you said the easiest way to get going on this practice is to, quote, find opportunities to perform acts of intentional deliberate connection and kindness in daily life. And you shared some examples of being at the grocery store, opening the door for somebody. These little tiny. Barbara Fredrickson, who I love, who wrote Love 2.0, would call them micro moments of positivity, resonance. And you referenced Barbara in different contexts in the book. But finding those. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Sure. It is exactly correct, this principle that if you can practice this in the little things, then it's much easier to bring these principles to bear when you really need them, when there's a crisis in your relationship, when there's a challenge, or with a co worker. So not to mention, as Barbara Fredrickson writes, and Jane Dutton, Monica Warlein, some of the other researchers here, Christine Porath, these small acts of conscious kindness not only enrich the lives of the people that you interact with, but they're giving a boost to your own immune system. Moment to moment. They're enriching the quality of your life, building this sense of rapport that then first of all prevents problems, whether they're at the grocery store. I mean, I just did this. I just did this yesterday. Was it yesterday, day before. I was at my car dealer, my Car dealer. Not my car dealer. My car mechanic. My car mechanic. And he's this huge guy and every other word out of his mouth is a profanity and he seems really scary and he's yelling a tirade of F words at all people who work for him while I'm just standing there. And this guy is huge. And I guess, you know, because maybe it's because I'm a martial artist or just because I've been around people like this, I'm not only not intimidated, I think it's kind of funny. And I just, I teased him in a kind of loving way. Oh, I know what he said. You effing F. What the F are you effing with the F? So I said to him, you don't mean that in a bad way, do you? And he softened up and laughed like you can't believe. And then he told me, he said, well, actually this is a Porsche dealership. And he's telling me what his passion is. He says, people think only rich people have Porsches, but it's not true. Look at all these old, old cars. These are people who love their cars. If they were rich, they'd have a brand new turbo. He said, but I've got 12, 14 year old Porsches and I'm trying to save people money so they can continue to own their Porsches without being super rich. Then he said this great line. He said, the Bernie Sanders of Porsche mechanics. Oh, God. So in other words, you just. Love being in these various situations where I just ask myself the question, how do I connect in this situation and I connect with the Bernie Sanders of Porsche mechanics.

Oh, it's so good. And I share a lot in my notes on Love 2.0 and kind of my reflections in different contexts that Barbara challenges us like you do, to make it a game to go out and find those opportunities, those micro moments of positivity, resonance, or just those moments of joy and connection. And then I love the way that you. So I've made that a game and it's fundamentally changed my life. And I love the emphasis you make on if you want to be ready at prime time. And when it's really challenging, you need to have practiced in those moments where it wasn't a big deal and those moments where you might have found yourself a little flustered or annoyed, but you cut it short and you stepped in and you found connection in the midst of the challenge, not making it worse, et cetera. I want to go, actually, let's take it one step further. And then I'M actually going to go back to where I thought we would start, but we'll kind of circle back to it. So let's go through this into conflict. And I think this is the last of the seven skills is turning. I think you called it friction into momentum.

Turning friction into momentum.

Yes. And the example I would love to hear you describe is you shared. Is it. How do you pronounce it? Is it Morhei Usheba? Okay, so, O Sensei, great master and founder of aikido, of which you are a master teacher. Master practitioner and teacher. I love that story you shared about his students saying, master, you're never off center. And he says, no, no, no. I'm actually. I'm off center quite often, but I know how to recover so fast that you never see it. I just thought that was the coolest thing. Reminded me of Marcus Aurelius Equanimity Game, which I share a lot. You're going to lose your center, but can you get back to balance? Can you talk to us about that and why that's important and how we can cultivate it?

Yes. Well, it's important because it makes all these wonderful books and ideas, big, big, big ideas about how we live a more beautiful, fulfilling, harmonious, creative life. If you don't have the core skill of refining your nervous system, if you don't have a practice for doing that, all of this is utterly theoretical, academic, in a bad way, and useless. Just because you're not going to be conscious, you're not going to apply it, you're not going to remember it. And if you remember it, you're not going to be in the psychophysiological state where you have any access to any of this. And when it comes to this, because there are more stimulus coming at us from more and more directions to throw us off center, we all need all the help we can get, all the methodologies, all the mnemonics to train the psychophysical system to come back to center more quickly. So that's one of the things that's woven throughout the book, are different methodologies for doing that. And aikido is such a fabulous metaphor because it's one thing to deal with the tirade of F words from a gigantic mechanic, even though they weren't directed at me. It's another thing if somebody actually punches you in the face. What's so brilliant about Aikido is learning to respond to that in a centered and harmonious way. Now, if somebody really just. It's one thing in aikido class when that happens, it's another thing if somebody really does threaten you, but if you can't do it in the class, you'll never do it when somebody's really threatening you. And for actually, for a lot of people, it's even more difficult to find their center or recover their center when somebody insults them or takes credit for an idea that they thought they should be credited for. So I love the story of O Sensei being asked, you're so perfect, you never make mistakes? And he says, no, I make them all the time. I recover so quickly that you can't see it. And one of the myths about being a master of any discipline, meditation, martial arts, is the notion that these people are never disturbed, that they never lose their center, that they're always in a perfect state. That's just not the way it is. It is more like what O Sensei said. I lose it all the time, but I just recovered so quickly. So how do you. Obviously, the breath. One's poised, one's upright quality, feeling your feet on the ground. When I say the breath. Breathing all the way into your lower belly, into your lower back, into your lower ribs, softening your eyes. So we basically practice these things that are the opposite of the amygdala hijack. They're the opposite of the fight flight response. They are the relaxation response or the centering response, however one wants to phrase it. So, yes, I aim to give my readers lots of different options and metaphors and practices and ways to remember how to do that.

Amazing. What's your favorite?

My favorite, if I would say one thing that people can learn to do because it's a lot to actually be able to come to upright. Takes a lot of practice to remember to breathe. Takes a lot of practice and it's easier. I'll give you a hint. It's exhale.

I was just going to say the thing because I'm always. We were talking about it before we got into it and sorry to interrupt you, but I want to share this because I got out of that. We talk a lot about breathing in our stuff with Optimize as well, and I loved your emphasis on the feeling. Fastest way to get out of the fight or flight into the relaxation responses via your breath. But the fastest way to slow down and control your breath is the exhale. So that was one of the things I underlined. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that reminder of get there. So tell us more about that.

Yeah, well, if you inhale, you're actually going to get more stress because people go, that's probably not the reaction that you want, but the exhale. Having said that, smile is probably the simplest, quickest thing you can do to remember all this other stuff. Because the way smiling works, even if you fake it, by the way, it changes your physiology instantly. And here's a wonderful thing about it. Mirror neurons create a smile effect in other people. Plus, people don't want to mess with you if you're smiling because they think you know something. It's the Mona Lisa smile. You give a big goofy smile, but just a little smile is the quickest thing you can do. And then you'll smile and exhale a line around your vertical axis, soften your eyes, and then you have hope.

That's great. And then practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. This is again, the key theme here is that make incremental optimizations. You aggregate and compound those over an extended period of time. And then when you really need it, you've got the mojo or you don't. And then you recover as quickly as you can, but you've built the aptitude to do so.

It's the story in the book about when I was at the checkout counter in the supermarket.

Our family loves those, by the way. Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about. Those are epic bars.

You eat those. Oh, no, I laughed out loud.

Michael. Let me give the context real quick. So Michael's. Michael's in the checkout and there's a guy that's clearly not having a great day, doesn't even make eye contact. And, you know, he's trying to think of a way to break the ice and have one of those micro moments of positive resonance. And he looks in the, you know, impulse bisection. And there's what I am almost certain were epic bars, which have bacon and bison and strawberries. And Michael's thinking, that's the grossest thing in the world. Who would ever like those? And makes a joke to the checkout agent. And I'm reading it thinking, the Johnson family we've been known to have, Emerson actually loves them. He was right that the texture is a little unusual, though the flavor is actually surprisingly good.

Well, that was the great thing is that's kind of what he said is what he actually said was, yeah, the flavor is pretty good. And he still looked really serious and kind of miserable. But then he said, but the texture is disgusting. And he started cracking up laughing. And it's always fascinating me how just that fraction of a second of genuine soul to soul eye contact. And when it's in these disarming and unexpected moments changes everything. I mean, it just changes everything. I've always loved, loved, loved that feeling. So I live in my classes when I make people laugh. I have these real tough cases. I'm doing a whole group of engineers or PhD biochemists, and they're really too busy to be there. And their boss sent them, and they're sitting there with their arms folded and. And I look at them and I make them laugh and they soften up and we connect. I mean, I live for those moments. It's part of why I love being a professional speaker, because I want to get a thousand people to do that. I know when I'm connected with. I have a rapport with a thousand people and we're all in the flow together and they're laughing at all the jokes. But then it's that same quality with the checkout person or the mechanic or even if there's a human at the toll booth, if there's a flight attendant who's too busy, if there's somebody on my flight and they're reaching for their bags and I can help them. I mean, it's just really fun to look around and think, how can I be of service? How can I help these people wherever I go in the simplest, easiest possible way? So I love Adam Grant's idea, which I put in the book of the five minute favorite. There's even the five second favor. It's just, how can I optimize the experience of everyone around me everywhere I go, all the time? Because it comes back. I mean, it's intrinsically valuable to do it, even if it didn't all come back to you immediately. With benefit on so many different levels.

Yeah. And this goes back to just the heart of connection. I mean, as humanity. There's this. We're so busy and I want to talk about next. One of the things that gets in the way, addiction to digital devices. And I realize we're talking about this a lot. For people listening, this is big. Like, just as a guy who's an introverted, borderline hermit, you know, who likes to be very focused and efficient in everything that I do, taking the time to just have those soulful. That soulful sounds like it's winds up being soulful, but just to actually be present to. To look at someone and to say hi for me as I'm passing them on the hike. Or if someone's. We live in a tourist town, so if someone's clearly visiting and I ask them, hey, do you know what hike you want to do? And we have 90 seconds of interaction, and it literally changes both of our days. And again, I get goosebumps as I say that. There's just these subtle moments of being human that just really allows us to feel those ripples of love really is the word for it. And connection that makes a bigger difference than we can realize. And I want to talk about one of the things that gets in the way, which was in the. I think it was actually in the prelude or the introduction, which I thought was. Was perhaps even the biggest skill of all, which is attention. And you talked about it as kind of the engine really, for the other seven skills. But I don't think I've seen it before. The two put together that our culture. And you mentioned Richard Davidson, the leading mindfulness expert, et cetera, but that we have an attention deficit disorder as a culture. And then you can add. And you connected that to another add, which is addiction to digital devices.

Yes.

Tell us about that.

Well, it really is an addiction. It's funny, you mentioned Richie Davison, who I interviewed for the book. I actually met him 40 years ago. I had just gotten back from a year of studying meditation with his master in England, and he was at Harvard, and he wanted to wire up my brain to see what it was like. So I met him many, many years ago. And I've quoted him in a number of different books because his research in this field is fabulous. But he's one of the people who tell you that this really is an addiction, that ADD is in the contemporary world, addiction to digital devices. That is what a huge pandemic of attention deficit disorder is, the addiction to digital devices. So that's why I created one of the other subtle uses of the word art in the art of connection is attention restoration therapy. Attention restoration therapy, which is needed now more than ever before because it is our new currency. And that's why, by the way, just coming back to what we're just discussing that people, by practicing these connections with people on the hike and saying hello and maybe stopping and sharing directions and being fully present, it's not weird, it's not touchy feely. We're not getting in the hot tub, although that's an option, especially when we're at Esalen, it's just being fully human. And I'm telling you, if you want to run a venture, an entrepreneurial venture, if you want to be successful in an organization, if you want to be good at sales of anything, if you want to lead people, if you want to be a wonderful parent or a great partner, this is the core life skill, face to face human connection. So you have to practice art attention restoration therapy. Because when you're on your device, whichever one it happens to be, and I love mine as much as anybody, I put in the book your specific practice that you implemented about a digital sabbath and a digital sunset. There's got to be a time where you put this away and it really, it is an addiction. So you might need an intervention to get help doing this. It has to be a disciplined practice because it co ops our brain mechanism. It's not just that we like it and it's good to do this. It is all designed. I mean, look, we all love Twitter is wonderful, but you know, why do you think when you click on your Twitter, why does that little tweety bird pause and then come out at you in that way? It's to entrain you into the Twitterverse so you're locked in. It's captured your attention with that image and that movement and that color so that you'll just be on there longer. And you know, it's a business, they want you to click on more of those promoted links that you're thinking, why are these things there? But you're already on and they wouldn't be there. People didn't actually buy them. So there's a lot of seduction in all of these modalities to keep you in their world and away from nature, away from looking at the real sky, the real earth, the real other humans. So it's the greatest, it's the coolest thing ever. I mean, connected to all human knowledge, global net, Tesla's vision, Leonardo thought of this. He thought this was going to happen. And it is an actual electronic manifestation of this ancient ideal of interconnectivity. I love being able to connect with anybody and find out anything anytime I want to. And those who can completely let it go, be fully present, connect directly face to face with other humans, are going to have a huge advantage. And that advantage is only going to get stronger as time goes by. It's part of why, as I was writing this, I was thinking, one of my oldest friends has a 22 year old son who is a super Internet whiz. He's built his first business already and sold it. He honed his craft. I think he became number three in the world in that game World of Warcraft. So I mean, if you're in the top 10 in the world, you're pretty slick in that world. And he's consulting on gamification and all this sort of stuff, but When I was writing the Art of Connection, I was thinking, what do I want this young man to know? What I wanted to know to serve him well for the rest of his life as all of this accelerates even more. Everything that's in the Art of Connection is what I want him to know. And that begins with have a digital sunset, a digital sabbath, consciously make appointments to go. Be in nature and be silent.

Yeah, that's awesome. And don't let the digital device get in between you and connecting with another human being, whether that's a colleague. And we know the iPhone effect. You know, my son, I haven't turned on my iPhone in a few days now. So I have fun playing at the edges of using technology. I run a Internet business, but how do I do so with as little technology as possible? And we made the, the, the explicit commitment, my wife Alexandra and I, as Emerson was born, that his attention would be one of the primary things that we help cultivate. So he, he's turning five later this month. He spent the longest he's ever spent in front of a screen is to watch a TED talk or a cooking show. He, you know, he thinks Frozen is the three minute segment on that one song. Right. And he loves interacting with people. He's. When people come over to do work on the house or whatever, he runs up and talks to him. He's not on playing some game. And that idea of really disciplining ourselves. And again, I say ourselves, it starts with me. And I literally told him, I am not. I don't have my phone when I'm around him. And I literally told him, why do you think that? He's like, well, you know. And I said, because you're more important than a phone to me, period. And I'm committed to that. And I want you to know that. And that's so wonderful, you know, and it's an addiction. So for me, I, you know, addiction runs in my family. My father's father struggled with alcohol. His father struggled with alcohol and killed himself. There's that. I have a loaded gun of addiction in many ways. I know you mentioned you're a wine connoisseur. You don't struggle with that, but that's just something I don't even go near, you know. But that the iPhone is challenging for you. It's absolutely challenging for me. And I think we all need to have the humility, which we won't have time to talk about today, but that's the first skill is humility. If you want to connect, you've got to have the humility to see where you're falling short and how you can learn and be curious. But I think all of us, I know all of us are addicted in different ways. And it's so powerful to have the humility to see that than to take the steps. One other thing before we, we move on to the next idea, I want to hear your wisdom on. If those of you listening haven't watched the 60 Minutes episode called Brain hacking, Google it and watch it brain hacking. Michael's point about Twitter, you know, there are literally, you know, thousands of people behind every screen that you ever consume. There are an enormous number of people who have figured out how to make you come back to that screen. And you just need to know that you know that implicitly, but you need to know it explicitly and then decide how much you want your attention hacked. And the way that Bill Mayer described that was the tobacco farmers just wanted your lungs. They call, I forget if it was 60 Minutes or Bill Mayer, who called the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs tobacco farmers in T shirts. And he says, they don't just want your lungs, they want your soul. And so again, technology, of course, is amazing, but we need to make sure we're making those conscious choices and then come back to connection and then come back to why. Well, because we have something that we're here to do on the planet. And what is that? And I want to use this as kind of our last idea of the Pygmalion effect. I really enjoyed the. I love the idea of it. I've never talked about it before in one of these talks, so I'd love to hear you describe for us the Pygmalion effect and then how it relates to relationships.

Sure. It's also known as the Rosenthal effect, named after the researcher who did amazing work to demonstrate this in different contexts. My favorite example of it is with army drill sergeants because they tend not to be thought of as particularly soft headed or wishy washy. And army drill sergeants were told that a group of recruits were below average. So sure enough, at the end of six weeks of basic training, this group of recruits performed 25% below average. Then the same drill sergeants were told that another group was a gifted group, that these were the best of the recruits. And at the end of six weeks, they performed 25% better than the average. Now, when they told the army drill sergeants that both groups were average and it was an experiment, they refused to believe it because the effect of their expectation was so great that it became a self Fulfilling prophecy. Now what this translates into is, in other words, the ones who were given the lower expectation, they could do 25% fewer push ups at the end of the time and the others could do 25% more push ups than the average. So this really translated into performance. And it's the same thing in school. If you tell teachers that these are gifted children and that their above average iq, their performance goes up dramatically. And the opposite is also true. Now where this gets really interesting is that this is not just some mystical magical like law of attraction, you know, plus or minus or law of detraction, cosmic energy thing. This is mediated by unconscious nonverbal cues. So in other words, if the drill sergeant or the teacher thinks the person is a lower performer, they're tending to make negative head movements. They're shaking their head no when they're asking the question and their body language says, I know you don't know, you're a loser, forget about it. If they think that the person is a high performer, they're giving positive head nods and much more encouragement and they're smiling and they change their demeanor. So it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy mediated by this unconscious non verbal interaction. So first, the huge application here, first of all is to your self expectation that you want to treat yourself like a gifted high performer. So literally the way you look in the mirror, so that you are, and I have some practical exercises in how to literally do this in the book, but you're looking for that deepest level of your own soul inspiration at the beginning of every day. Because to look for that in others, you have to find it in yourself. So as you cultivate that in yourself and you start to look for that in others, you start to look for the best in others, lo and behold, you start to bring that forth. That doesn't mean being wildly naive. It doesn't mean letting people take advantage of you. It just means you're going to get way better results with people if you look for the best in them. And this is especially if you're any kind of manager, if you're leading any kind of team of people. People aren't going to want to work for you if you're constantly looking for all their flaws and faults. If you're married, you better look for the best in your partner and emphasize that and make the best possible interpretation of whatever their foibles and challenges and seeming flaws might happen to be so that you can help guide them and lead them to manifest the best in themselves. And then when they do that for you, you're in heaven, when you're looking for the worst in each other, you're in hell. And that's every kind of relationship. And this is an art. And get. See, this is an art. That's why this book is called the Art of Connection.

Amen. And preach it so good. Anything we didn't, we obviously simultaneously, as always, talked about a fair amount and barely scratched the surface. But is there any, like, major thing that we didn't discuss that you'd like to make sure we hit on?

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot. If we had more time, we could talk about why everybody thinks they're better than average as a listener, but. Except for the people who know them. But the one critical point, I think we want to just make sure to emphasize it's one of the things that I think is distinctive about this book. And it is this paradox that is at the heart of the Art of Connection, and it is that everyone is unique. Everyone is different. There's an exercise in the book where I do this with classes all over the world. And we get them to do their associations on a common word, like art or run. And people have wildly different associations on the same word. When you get them comparing their associations, they're shocked to discover just how individual their thoughts are on any given word. Which means that misunderstanding is not surprising. It's actually the default setting in verbal communication. People are more likely to misunderstand you than to know what you're talking about. So that's how we lead to embrace humility. But if you delve deeper into that, if we look at your personality typology, if we look at what you are in Myers Briggs, what you are in the Enneagram, what you are, if we did your Hogan assessment, if we did your color profile, your Wilson learning profile, if we looked at your DNA, and we add all that up, unless you're an identical twin, there's nobody else like you in all of human history. Of the maybe 80, 90 billion that have ever existed, the 7 billion we have now, no one like you. Unbelievable. You're unique. A precious gem. Wow. And at the exact same time, you're just like everybody else. You're fundamentally all of us no different than anybody else. We have the same fundamental needs. We all need air. Everybody needs air. There's nobody who doesn't want air. Nobody doesn't want food. You might have different cuisines and different styles and different diets. We all need to eat. We all need sleep. We all want love. We all want to express ourselves. And we pretty much Experience all of this, the drive, the desire for all of this the same. Moreover, I go even further and say we ultimately may even share the same consciousness at the deepest level. So we're all one, we're all the same, and we're all entirely unique and different. Now, the absolute masters of the art of connection bring their understanding of that paradox into all their interactions. If you're going to lead a lot of people, you need to know what everybody needs, what everybody wants. There's no human being I've ever met who doesn't want respect. We have it all in common. And delightfully and paradoxically, what every single individual wants that's exactly the same is to be seen as an individual. So that's exactly the same in everybody. They all want to be seen for their uniqueness. So can you really bring. Can you remember what everybody has in common and then zero in and be 100% present with the unique one in all creation manifestation that you happen to be interacting with in a given moment? So that's the paradox that provides the real. If you get that, and I do a lot of exercises to guide people to figure out how to get that. If you get that, then all these seven practices or skills which they seem like, oh, yeah, of course. Be a better listener. Oh yeah, of course. Manage conflict. Oh yeah, of course. Understand there are different types of people. Embrace humility, embrace all this. What we're going for is the deep game behind all this. And not just superficial. You know, shake hands, look people in the eye, do networking, blah, blah, blah. There's a zillion other things about that. This is the deep core essence of the art of connection. That's what I'm aiming to get across.

I love it. I feel connected and I feel your energy at Lifeforce and your connection to something bigger than yourself and appreciate you and yeah, just excited to be able to share this today. So people can get the Art of Connection on Amazon. Other places they get books, et cetera. Best place to find you. Can you remind us?

Yes, it's michaelgelb.com G E L B michaelgelb.com and then get the book there too, and read all sorts of free articles and get video and we're putting up more and more stuff. I'm going to be putting out a lot more, writing all sorts of stuff because I also think this is super timely now is that there's been a proliferation of incivility in very high places in the culture recently. And this has a very damaging effect on people. It's a kind of climate change. That's not just the physical environment, it's emotional environment. So we have to care for the climate of our emotion and our spirit by how we connect with ourselves and others. So this is a timely message that I'm extra passionate about sharing.

Right on. I agree and I appreciate you doing all the work to stay connected and to keep us connected. So thank you. Isn't it a bit odd we went from math to science to history but somehow missed the class on how to live? For some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule. Of course it's too late to go back and change that and you're too busy to read full time to catch up yet. If you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life and actualizing your potential. So imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on optimal living and pulling out the big ideas that can truly change your life. You know those sections you asterisk and underline and mark all up. Then imagine that guy me connecting those ideas to other grade four and helping you apply them to your life today. Well, that's what I do as something we call Philosopher's Notes where I break down each great book into a simple 6 page PDF, 20 minute MP3 and 10 minute Philosopher's Notes TV episode. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in full. Fun, inspiring, super practical optimal living 101 classes on stuff like purpose 101, confidence 101, business 101, meditation 101, that sort of thing. You've got a personal trainer? I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient wisdom plus Modern science plus common sense plus virtue plus mastery plus fun. That's what our optimized membership program is all about. We'd love to have you join us. Check us out at BrianJohnson. Me join.