In this interview, Michael Bernoff shares a concise, high‑impact system for maximizing the first three minutes of any meeting. He begins by urging listeners to quickly assess both their own emotional state and that of the person they are meeting, noting that mismatched states can derail interaction. He then stresses the importance of clarifying one’s own outcome and inferring the counterpart’s desired outcome, framing communication as a response‑driven exchange rather than a message‑driven one. Bernoff describes how he mentally sorts contacts into "boxes" (client, referral partner, friend, etc.) to align tactics with the intended relationship. He explains his strategy for standing out: creating a new neural pathway in the other person’s mind by deviating from predictable small‑talk scripts, using memorable gestures (e.g., offering a custom coffee) and direct, intense dialogue. While acknowledging that his intensity can intimidate, he adopts a paradoxical mindset of "caring so much that I don’t care," allowing him to stay detached from outcomes and avoid being controlled by the need to be liked. Throughout, he provides concrete anecdotes from networking events, buffet lunches, and coaching sessions that illustrate how rapid‑change techniques, intentional focus, and value‑offering actions can quickly establish rapport, capture attention, and set the stage for deeper engagement.
Chapters
What do you want to accomplish in the first three minutes of meeting somebody?
The biggest thing. It's not that I even want to accomplish thing. I want to know my outcome. So I've got a very, very simple system that I use, and it sounds as simple as this. I want to make certain to show up as valuable as possible for myself and other people. So I've got a very simple system. Number one is I ask myself, what state am I in? Meaning very quickly, like, what state am I in? Am I frustrated? Am I annoyed? Am I bothered? Am I pissed off? Am I happy? Am I overzealous? Like, I've been in events before where I needed to do a presentation to people, and they just came out of a meditation, Jeff. And. And I'm all fired up. Like, I'm on. I don't even drink Red Bull, but I'm like, I'm a 90 Red Bulls high. Okay, Acting. And they just came out of meditation. I didn't check my state, and I really didn't do too good. That was about 15 years ago. Number one is, what state am I in? Number two is, what state are they in? Like, where are they really at? So if I'm meeting with someone and let's just say you want to market something to somebody, you're a mortgage guy. What state am I in? I'm excited, I'm happy. I want to help this person. What state are they in? Pissed off, bothered, and confused. They have to be here. Most people don't ever recognize that. Second thing, what is my outcome? Well, a lot of us have an outcome like, I want to sell this thing to somebody, or I want them to date me, or I want to be rich or whatever it is, I got to also know your outcome. So what I do, Jeff, I've trained my mind, and I'm going to throw a very simple phrase at you is I don't train people to think different thoughts. I train people to think differently. And what I mean by that is the way we need to think about communication is it's not what you say, it's the response that you get. So, again, I'll repeat that again. It's not what I say, it's the response that I get. So if I'm meeting you, I'm like, I got to quickly check, what state am I in? What state is Jeff in? What is my outcome? What is their outcome? And with that said, if you want to call it manipulating the relationship, I'll call it this. How do I make it as great for Jeff as possible? Meaning how do I be the best me that he needs me to be right now? And I would tell you, nine out of 10 people would never even have had that thought.
I just said when we first met, I was taken aback a little bit about how intensely focused you were on our conversation. And maybe that was trying to figure out maybe you have a half a dozen boxes that you want to put people in in terms of outcomes. Right. So it's like, okay, is this a potential client, it's a potential friend. Is this a potential referral partner? Is this just a good networking person that I can get to? What. You have these different. What are some of the outcomes that you have on a Cones, I walked up to you and I thanked you for helping my son through a very difficult time in his life and also giving him some tools to get a. To. To be successful in a job fair going for some very important job interviews that he was going to. I asked him this morning. He did give us permission to talk about this. So if we, if we ever get around to it. Of course, I don't want to, you know, call him out too much. He says, I'm sure he's. Michael's got other things to. Oh, Michael does have other things, but.
He'S an important part of our conversation. It's how we met and he's. He's your child.
Yeah. So that was it. But what are, what are some of the outcomes when you meet a peer or a business person at an event like that? How would you. What boxes would you put them into?
Good question. So let me ask. Let me re. Ask you a simple question, because I don't believe I've had ever anybody be direct and say that to me. You said, how do most people communicate? If you said it stood out what I was doing? What, what does the average person do? Just so I know what I'm dealing with or what I'm doing, I'll then answer your question in a second. I just wanted to understand because I remember where we met. And then you said, I was intently listening. What was that experience you had? And then I'll give you my answer.
It's a mixed bag, I think, which is probably the reason your business is so good. That communication is unintentional and unmanaged. So most people are. Most people are going to have a go to. And this is how the. Oh, how are you? And, you know, they're. They're gonna. You're gonna make an inference about them on their tonality. Are they warm? First of all, what's yeah. What's the. What's their tonality and what's their warmth? Right. Are they. Are they coming off as, like, kind and generous and just kind of in the moment there? Are they patient, hurried? Are they dismissive of you? Some people are going to come off like that. And.
And how did I come off? You.
You came off as intensely focused on what we were talking about. And. And also you're tall, by the way, which, you know, it's. It's. I'm six two, and I was looking up at you, which is not that common for me.
Doesn't. It doesn't hurt to have that advantage?
Yeah.
I mean that.
Yeah, yeah. And I think you can use that in a couple of different ways if you want. You can be. You can either be arming or disarming with it. But, yeah, you know, you came off as very intentional. You were engaged in the conversation. You were businesslike, but also like, well, why don't we grab something to eat? Which that's. That's another thing, too. For some reason, you know, you.
You're.
You're at the buffet, right? And you. You have a choice. The person. Is the person that I'm talking to in line going to be someone that I go eat with? Are they going to be somebody that I say, I'll talk to you later, and you go eat with somebody else? Right. So you. You said, hey, why don't we. Let's eat together? So I'm like, oh, that was great. And that made me feel good that, you know, you wanted to meet. And then we sat down and we had a nice conversation over lunch, and you had a business thing to go to, and I said, I'm going to get a coffee. Can I get you one? The other thing you did is you accepted. You accepted the coffee. So I'm a giver, and you made me feel good by giving you a coffee. I got my special order that I get, and when I gave it to you, like, that's really good. What is that? Yeah, Quad espresso, iced venti cup, splash of coconut milk, powdered cinnamon, $4.17. But it's a Starbucks hack. But it's a great drink, so. And the whole experience with you was above average.
Thank you. So this is. It's been a long time since I put the. I would say the program in place. And what I mean by the program in place is one of my desires is really to accept the fact that most people have neural pathway inside of their brain where everything looks about the same. They get up they do the same thing every day. So how do I create an experience that is slightly different than what they expect? How do I make it memorable? And it's not like I'm sitting here analyzing this. This is decades ago that I developed this, this in my mind. And then I've just continued to perpetuate with evidence that it works. Is my desire when I meet people is to really just decipher very quickly, where do I want this conversation to go? I'm very not interested in small talk. I'm not one of those guys that wants to talk about your golf game the entire lunch. It doesn't interest me. I'm not a guy that likes going to weddings and sitting next to your brother's best friend's cousin's uncle at some table. I'd rather just be with my family during those times. I'm not a small talk guy. So when I meet people, the number one thing is, how can I stand out in this person's mind and start creating what's called a new neural pathway? Because it's no different than when somebody meets somebody in business. Like, what are the traditional things people say? Like, if you knock on someone's door, you talk to them, hey, how are you? How are you doing today? I was just in the neighborhood. If you sound anything, like anything they heard before, you wind up in that box. You wind up in the box as their ex husband, their ex wife, and you shouldn't be in that box. Right? So my job is, how do I stand out, be relatively different without being extremely. A carnival show. And that's one of my first things that I do. Like, how can I create a unique situation where someone goes, this is interesting because at the end of the day, sales or business or relationships is you got to get people's attention. You got to make them aware that you might know something they don't know. I want to offer value to somebody, and then I want to create interest and really have a desire to continue a relationship. That's where most relationships fail too, is you got to get someone's attention. You got to make them aware that I might have something of value to you. And then I want to make you interested in what I'm talking about. If you can't get those three things down straight back from Glengarry Glen Ross. I don't even want to teach you the next part. Right. But that is what. Where I would say my mind is, I want to say something and see how receptive you are to who I actually am and not put on A show for you. So I'm going to say some crazy shit, and I'm going to say it sometimes. And there are certain people that are not interested and. Or certain people that go for the close right away, like, hey, Jeff, you seem like a great guy. Let's do business. Well, now you're annoying. So I don't know if that answers your question, but that is how my mind is working. I bet we go deeper. I can get even more.
Do you ever get a reaction where people just are not into the intensity or the forward nature of your conversation? Of course. And they just. What is their reaction? They just go away.
I mean, I get people. I intimidate people. I intimidate a lot of people. Intimidate's the right word, but I'm not. My wife had explained that to me. Number one is I'm larger than some. I'm very nice person. I'm very kind, but I'm larger than a lot of people. I also know that there's that and then there's their own insecurities that come out. So if someone's not interested. I look at life as timing. It's just not the right time. Maybe I said something that didn't work, but I don't really care because I learned a long time ago. And it's interesting, my friend Chase Hughes has been covering this a lot recently, but I learned a lot about one of the ways we're controlled as people is our need to be liked and our need to feel connected to somebody. And that is a good thing, but it's also a way that we're controlled. So if I'm too connected with the outcome, then I'm going to position myself in a very weak way with you. So I've learned to care so much that I don't care at all. And it's meaning, like, I care so much about relationships and people that I can't care. If now's the timing, it's just not. So that. That's one of my frames that I take on is I care so much that I don't care at all.
I've seen you engage, gauge an audience and work cold with some people, I guess crowd work, for lack of a better term, and you knock people right off their pins away. Is that for the purpose of other people observing it, or is that just core to you getting to the bottom of driving change really quick?
Well, I guess I'm impatient. I become more impatient over the years. I don't want to put on a show. I want to get There quickly. Change happens faster than slower. When a person physically gets over traumas or challenges that I help people get through when they finally do it, it's instant. So one of the reasons I go very quick at people is I want to check the leverage point. Now, you'll also watch me back out if I. I'm going to go real quick to see how fast we can go. And then if for some reason they put up all the resistance, I may push one more time and then I'll back out. But I also know that people want to move quickly, and sometimes they need their pattern broken. So I'll just walk in and I'll come at people quickly. It depends what's going on. Somebody says to me, hey, Michael, will you show me this? I said, do you really want to know where? You're just asking. Because I want to know if you're someone that's going to get this quickly or I'm going to be talking to you for an hour. You pick. They've never heard that their entire life. And remember this, when somebody. I do a lot of hypnotic work, and I don't mean like dance like a chicken. I mean reframing of people's psychological positions for fighters and working with people in the movie business. People to do speeches, people that have had horrible things happen, and now they got to get on stage and talk. And one of the things that I. That I've recognized with people is that if something is new, like, oh, my God, I've never experienced this before, what's happening? It's shocking. They say, this is new. What should I do? And they actually. All the resistance goes down and they're like, all right, well, I'll give this guy a try, even if they don't mean to. So part of it is coming in fast and hard, which most people are not willing to do. Not always. In all situations, you gotta know what you're doing with. If you're doing this, you're playing with. Communication and bomb detection are two things you can't take back. You can't make it back a spoken word. If you cut the wrong wire, everybody blows up. So communication does not have a second chance to re. Say that thing again. You can say something else, but we got to get good at this, which means you got to learn you're going to screw up, you're going to blow a few things up.
