Episode 060: The one where Joe Polish interviews Dave Logan “Thought leader, author, consultant”

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and.

This is the I love marketing podcast. Hello, this is Joe Polish and I've got my good friend Dave Logan here. Thanks for coming down.

Thank you. Good to be here. Yeah.

We're doing this on video, which is cool because I've interviewed Dave before on audio on his book Tribal Leadership, which is awesome. And he also has another book called the Three Laws of Performance. And we're going to talk about not only these books, a little bit about what he knows, his knowledge, but also something that you're working on, a project kind of about the dark side of success. So who is Dave? You know, I could read your really long bio that I have.

Would you do it like in a monotone voice?

Yes. How about this? Dave Logan is co founder of cultureseek, a management consulting firm specializing.

That was.

No, I started going. Did you see how I was going to get enthusiastic? Well, who are you? I mean seriously, like if you didn't have. I could. You've been. Let's see. Let me point some things out, but I want to hear from you how you would actually describe yourself because I don't know how big your ego is. I don't think it's that big. I think it's kind of a healthy dose of knowledge and ego. But nonetheless, you're a best selling author. You've written or co authored dozens of articles, training programs, four books including Reinventing youg Career in 1996, the Coaching Revolution in 2000, Tribal Leadership and the Three Laws of Performance. Your work has appeared in many academic and professional journals including the 2006 Agenda in Sloan Management Review. You've been interviewed on CNN, Fox, National Public Radio and most major networks. And you have a PhD in organizational communication from the Annenberg School at USC. And you're also a cool dude. You're a funny guy. I actually met you through our good friend Evan Pagan.

Yep.

Would you consider yourself smarter than Evan?

Way smarter than Evan. Yeah, I would too. We should call him right now and just tell him that.

We could, but it would interrupt our interview. But we'll set it. We'll send him this.

Well, I think we'd pity him, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, a little bit.

A little bit.

But yes, I met. I met you through. I've seen you speak.

You're amazing.

You are endorsed by some very, very smart people. And you really, you know your stuff. So who is, who is Dave Logan?

I'm a guy that gets bored easily. That's the best way to say it. I mean, I Did the academic thing and just got bored by it.

You're not bored with this interview, I hope, yet?

I got bored like two minutes ago. But I'm in this cool chair.

This is our hot seat, man. This is awesome.

So if you're listening to this on audio and you're missing the video, I am in probably like the sickest chair ever created.

It is cool. It is made out of motorcycle parts, believe it or not. And we've actually had all kinds of, you know, people from David Bach to Daniel Amen, from Paula Abdul to some of the top business people and marketers on the planet have sat on this chair.

So my butt is where Paula Abdul's butt once was many times.

Yeah, she's actually. She spent many hours in that chair because we actually did in this room. We did a couple a day event and she was. Yeah, so.

So can I just ask you like a random question? If I got one of those CSI black lights and I put it on this chair, what would I see?

This chair would be totally safe. I think this chair is fine. But you know, this is some trivia here, which is this is funny where this interview is going to go, but I remember watching some TV show about hotel rooms and getting the black light the most disgusting things you can imagine.

Yeah, thanks. Because I'm staying in a hotel room tonight.

Well, this is what you're saying. Where do you think the most germ ridden, laden sort of item is in a hotel room? What would you guess that would be?

I would guess the bed, but you're probably going to say something.

No, it's the remote control. Oh, yeah. So wear rubber gloves when you hold those things.

Do you have any I can take to my hotel?

We can find some. We can find some. Okay, so before I totally went on an add tangent around there.

Yeah, I was going to say. Would you like some riddle one?

Yeah. No.

Okay. I wasn't offering. I was just.

No, no, I just don't want any. I don't want any. Okay. So, Dave Logan. Who are you? What do you do?

I get bored easily. So I spent a bunch of years in kind of doing the academic stuff and I just sort of got bored by it and then spent a bunch of years doing consulting and made a lot of money and got bored by it and spent a lot of time writing books and I still do that and I get bored by it. So I kind of get a certain distance down the road and I get bored by it. And I'm also chronic insomniac. So actually when I was named associate dean@usc. I think it was before I was 30. The guy who gave me the job asked. This was kind of after it was done. He said, how old are you? And I said, I'm 29. And he started laughing. He said, I assumed you were 42. Which I of course, took as an insult because, like, do I look that old? You know, at that age now, I actually am that old. And he said, no, I just kind of like took everything you did and just assumed that it was a linear path. But so I'm doing kind of four things at once, and they're usually completely different.

I mean, so most of your clients, most of your work is to what sort of world?

The entrepreneurial world, the corporate world?

I mean, how would you describe most of your writings, your work, your efforts that you. Because a lot of people read your stuff. You've done consulting with a lot of big companies, that sort of thing?

Yeah, I mean, the typical profile people. Well, I'll tell you, I actually have kind of somebody in mind when I'm writing, and it's somebody who is really smart, very successful at whatever they do. It could be anything. But they're on vacation. Like, I picture Maui, and they read all the Tom Clancy novels that they're going to read, and they're just kind of bored, and they're a little drunk because they've been doing the pina coladas. And they reach a point where they want to read something that's going to sort of stimulate their brain that will have something to do with their work, but not something that's going to have, like, footnotes in it. And I write to that person, which is actually the person that I am when I go on vacation after about three days. So I write to me in a weird sort of way. So it needs to be interesting kind of big ideas. It has to be actionable. You have to be able to do something immediately because of what you read, but it can't be kind of, like, patronizing. So go do these three things. They have to be kind of hidden in there. It takes a little bit of effort to pull them out, but it's like, fun effort.

Well, you know, what have you learned or what do you know that most people don't? I mean, I've got a whole list of kind of prepared questions for you that are jumping off points that I could go into. But I'm really curious as to, like, in terms of unique knowledge or insights or perspectives on things you've figured out, because you go down some pretty random Paths to discover stuff. I mean, what do you know that most people don't?

That's an interesting question. I'm not sure I know a lot that other people don't. In fact, I probably don't. It's that I can kind of organize it. I'm a synthesizer. But also what I often find. Do you know the term explanatory principle? I will make this really quick, because now people are, like, reaching for their button to turn it off. So according to this guy who's a bunch of things, among other things, biologist Gregory Bateson, if you ask why most people give you an answer that just stops your brain and you don't go any further. So you ask, like, why does that person not do better in life? And the answer is, oh, he's not very smart. And you say, oh, okay. And then you're done, Right? There's nothing else to say. So I try to get beyond explanatory principles. So why are some people successful but not an explanatory principle wrote, but one that will let you say, wow. And I could do that, too. So it's coming up with something usually that people don't even see about themselves. I'll give you an example. If I go to study leaders and I ask them, what do you do that makes you a good leader? They are almost always incapable of coming up with an answer. Good point. Or when they do, it's like bad graduation advice. They have nine points, and one of them is, love what you do. And another one is really respect the people you work with. And because I get bored easily, I fall asleep before the third point. And what they say has absolutely nothing to do with why they're successful. They're actually successful because they do this one random thing that they don't even think about that nobody else does. And if you point that out to them, they say, you're right. I've always done that, and nobody ever taught me how to do that. And this explains why I can never teach people to do what I do. So my books and other stuff is kind of a collection of those, like, little odd bits of actionable knowledge. If you actually did this, you'd be like this person. So I think I'm good at reverse engineering what makes people in groups successful. And most people don't do that.

Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. So this episode is going to go on geniusnetwork.com we're also going to put it as a bonus on I love marketing, just because I think tons of people that listen to I Love marketing would find what you have to say pretty useful. And I like to ask you about the term genius, because what is a genius? How many geniuses do you see floating around this planet?

Well, I use the term in a very specific way, and it's going to disagree a little bit from how you say it. The word genius literally means attendant spirit, if you look up the etymology. So to me, a genius is something that almost. And I mean this metaphorically. So, like, don't call 911 here. So it's almost like a spirit that comes out of the wall and kind of tries to possess you. So, like, I'll get specific. So when I roll out of bed in the morning, I usually have some thought, and it's not a thought that I particularly like. I just can't get it out of my system. So I have to sit down in front of my computer and, like, wrestle with this thought. And it feels very like a fight. You know, it's a struggle. I'm trying to tell the thought what it means, and the thought is kind of arguing back. And finally, this could be many hours later by the time I've kind of wrestled it down, I figured something out. So to me, whatever that thought is, that's a genius. So actually don't think of you as a genius. I think that you have a genius. And of course that's a metaphor because the thought is part of you, so the genius is part of you. But everyone I've met that I would consider a genius has that sense of adversarial relationship. So to me, a genius is not kind of finding your inner self and becoming that. It's more find your attendant spirit who probably want to. Wants to kick your butt about something. It thinks you're wrong, you're on the wrong path about something. And when you kind of wrestle that down, you get major insights. So a lot of what I do then is trying to help people map their genius, because every genius has its own kind of character. So mine wants to play in the morning, and around noon it's done. It leaves. And if I want to keep that thought going, it's gone, and it's not going to come back until the next day. So it's kind of mapping when it comes out what it wants to do. Some geniuses are really creative. Like Picasso had one of those geniuses uniquely creative. Others are destructive. Picasso actually was destructive also. Mine is very. It wants to sort of weave things together in a way that allows you to see something that nobody else can see. So this is literally How I spend my mornings and it's not particularly fun. You know, I get up and I'm wrestling with something and then I just, I can't make sense of it. Then I'll hit the gym and I'll come back and then it makes sense. And finally when I have enough of those episodes, you know, one of these books come out.

Gotcha. Okay. Well, you know, that makes everyone has their process. Do you know Steven Pressfield? You know, he wrote the book the Legend of Bag of Vance and he wrote a book called the War of Art. And I've interviewed him before in the War of Art and he has this interesting line. In the beginning of the War of Art he kind of wrote that book for creative people that are fighting against resistance. And this is what he calls it, resistance with a capital R. And his whole thing is, you know, the difficult thing for the writer is not the writing, it's the sitting down to write. And you basically what I heard you say is you get up and you wrestle with this every day. But in the process of that wrestling that adversarial relationship, some great wisdom comes out of it, some great plans and path and you actually figure it out. I don't think a lot of people actually are willing to take on a lot of those challenges with their own mind, with things that are going on and they look for the path of least resistance. My friend Dave Kakachu has been paralyzed from the chest down for over 30 years. He has a saying where life's easy if you live it the hard way and hard if you live it the easy way. And I think in the process of looking at accomplished people, I think people that really make, build great businesses, have breakthroughs in the world are willing to live life the hard way. And in the long term, I think it allows them things that most people don't have advantages of, be it money, be it relationships, be it access. And so what is your take on people that would be watching this or listening to this are bigger future minded individuals? Most of them are entrepreneurs. They want to make more money, they want to get ahead, they want to have greater relationships, they want to have more time in their life. And there's complexity. They're mired in all kinds of different complexity. And you've written Tribal Leadership and the three Laws of Performance which you're going to be doing a keynote on to a Vistage group tomorrow. Let's start with the three Laws of Performance and kind of break that down. Let's kind of go through that. And I will say that there's so much depth to what Dave has that I would encourage you, if anything that he says resonates with you, pick up a copy of both these books and read them.

Thank you.

And we'll go from there. So three laws of performance. What are they? Let's start with the first law that says how people perform correlates to how situations occur to them. And I'd like you to explain what.

The law means and what you mean.

By the word occur, because that sounds interesting to me.

Well, my co author in this book, Steve Zafron, would have a different perspective. I'm actually surprised the book did as well as it did. And it did very, very well. Continues to do very well. We weren't writing it to people necessarily that wanted to implement it. In fact, I get calls, you know, will you come and implement the three laws? In my company, it's like saying, come in and implement E equals MC squared or implement gravity. I mean, laws just are. They describe a relationship that just exists. So to kind of get into the first law, I mean, what it means is. So like if you're watching this video or you're listening to the audio, there's some way that this occurs to you. It could occur to you as boring. It could occur to you as pointless. It could occur to you as self indulgent. And your behavior is always going to go hand in hand with how it occurs to you, always. So if it occurs to you as interesting, you're going to be listening. You might be taking notes. If it occurs to you as boring and your email goes off. If you're watching this on a computer, you're going to minimize the box, maybe keep it playing in the hope that it's going to change. So how you behave and how things occur. Are married always. And the reason that's so useful is because it says if you can change how something occurs, your actions will automatically follow. You don't need to be reminded to do it. You don't need to put rubber bands on your wrists and slap them. You don't need to have someone call you once a day. You don't need motivational slogans. You will simply find yourself behaving differently. So to Steve and myself, that's what the word transformation means, where something shifts in how it occurs, and as a result, you find yourself behaving in a completely new way without needing to be reminded. So that's the first one.

Okay, well, how does that relate to leadership, to running a company?

Well, the most important thing is how you occur to yourself. You know how Joe occurs to Joe or if you're a leader, how you occur to me. So if you occur to me and you're a leader, are you trying to be a leader as kind of like a self obsessed guy is only, only out for himself? Then my behavior is that I will shine you on, I will not follow you. I might tell you whatever I think you need to hear because I don't want to get fired if I'm working for you, but I'm really not going to follow you. So you're not really a leader. And so the first thing that you need to look at for leadership is how do you occur to people? How do you occur to the people that you're leading?

Gotcha.

And there are certain ways that leaders occur to people that are different than how most of us occur. That's one thing. Probably like the most important insight is how you occur to yourself drives everything you do.

Is it like self esteem or what do you mean?

No, it's much deeper than self esteem. I mean, if self esteem is sort of an onion, imagine getting deeper, deeper, deeper. It involves things like your image of yourself, your perception of yourself. When you're sitting here in a chair, who is it that's sitting here? That all comes out of that question, how do you occur to yourself? Most people never ask that. They never ask, how do I occur to myself? But if you did, you'd realize like I did early, early in my career. I kind of occur to myself as sort of like an academic egghead. And I don't really like that.

That's sort of how you're occurring to me right now.

Well, so I tried to change it. One of the things that comes out of Three Laws of Performance is if there's something that you resist, you want to embrace it. Don't fight it, just embrace it. So I realized it kind of occurred to myself like an egghead. So I wasn't doing things that I was doing things that eggheads would do and I wasn't doing things that eggheads wouldn't do. But I realized that that's part of who I am. I'm just like, I'm an intellectually curious person. I've had a university affiliation for many years, so that's part of who I am. So instead of pushing against it, which is often what people do, you want to embrace it and then see what other opportunities open up when you do. So in my case, the reason that I go around and keynote is and do things like that. Very few college professors do that. It's because I do occur to myself the same way. But I've expanded how I occur to myself so I'm able to do things that most people can't do.

Okay, well, you know, what is a leader? How would you define a leader or leadership? I mean, how does someone know if they're a leader?

I'll cite my long term collaborator, John King. He and I wrote Tribal Leadership together. Haley, our other co author, came along later. If you sort of look over your shoulder and there are people following you, you're a leader. It's not any more complicated than that. So then if you want something that kind of gets a little more to the heart of the matter. Leadership's about two things. It's about making something happen that wasn't going to happen anyway and it's about creating other leaders, making something happen that wasn't going to happen and creating other people who can do the same.

Gotcha.

That's what leadership is to me.

That's good. That makes me feel happy because I tend to do those things.

Good.

Yes.

This is all about making you feel better.

This is total self validation. So I can occur to myself because.

I'm worried about your self esteem.

Well, let me ask you about that. I mean in terms of people having quote unquote success or impact in the world, I know a lot of people that make a lot of money have had tremendous impact, but they that don't have that have very poor self image in themselves. Very destructive. You know, I mean I've personally in my own life.

I'm going to jump around during this.

Interview too because I know one of the books and one of the subjects you're really immersed in right now is the Dark side of Success. And that always fascinates me how people that are really successful. There's a fine line between genius and insanity in terms of stuff like that. So how important is it for someone to have occur to themselves in a positive way versus a negative way?

It's important, but it's not critical is really the truth. And a lot of people that are geniuses go on to invent great things, make great fortunes, often do it out of a constant desire to make up for something that they think they're lacking. So a psychologist would say that that's a problem. I mean if we're the recipient of it. Bill Gates has written that throughout a lot of his life he was a deeply insecure person. He went on to do some good things and the world is probably a better place because he was insecure. So since I'm not a psychologist and I'm not. Well being is not my, that's not my issue. I mean, other people have that as an issue. I look at some of the most successful executives and entrepreneurs are some of the most deeply disturbed people I've ever met. And I think, in fact, I could even cite some alone here, where they got better, became more. Well, and much less effective at the same time.

They lost their magic. Sort of like certain musicians that wrote their best music when they were just heroin addicts or something. Yeah, and I'm not saying that jokingly. I mean, it's quite fascinating to see how art and performance expresses itself and what the hell is going on in the human mind.

Mind.

And I, I've had the, you know, I'm not in Hollywood by any means, but I've, you know, met quite a few people that are in the quote, unquote, entertainment, business, athletes, politicians. And it's fascinating how much is driven from fight or flight, narcissism, dark side, negative things. I mean, depression, addiction. It's, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy. And yeah, you know, I'm glad that you're. We're going to get into that some. So I'll come back to that. Okay, so what are some steps, some action steps entrepreneurs, business people can do to apply the first law? I mean, what are some takeaways?

Very simple. Start with yourself. How do you occur to yourself and then how do you need to occur to yourself so that you can do what's important to you? That's the only way that this becomes a limitation. So, you know, you were talking about Hollywood. I love these kind of remake shows like American Idol or X Factor because if you look at it from the perspective of the three laws, you know, here's what you see. Somebody comes out on stage and they're talented, but it's clear how they occur to themselves is as kind of a loser. And then they fight it. You can see the war going on. So they're a loser, desperately trying to convince everyone that they're not a loser. If you actually shifted how they occurred to themselves, everything would change. Everything. So for you as a leader, as an entrepreneur, ask yourself the question, how do I occur to myself? How do I need to occur to myself so that I can do what I need to do? And if there's a gap between those, then address it. And that's not, it's not an easy undertaking.

When you say addressing, are you talking about doing therapy? Are you talking about what does that look like.

Well, it takes. I've studied all of that. I did a deep dive in grad school in Jungian. Sorry, not Jungian, a Freudian psychoanalysis. So that is one road to kind of redoing the script of how you occur to yourself. But there are a lot of other ways, and I don't think it needs to take very long. You know, the whole point of the transformational leadership movement is there are some people that you are different if you're around them. So Warren Bennis, that edited one book and wrote the preface on another, is one of those people. If. No matter who you are in life, if you ever have the opportunity to sit down with Warren Bennis, who you are will change. When you're in his presence, you are smarter, you are more gentle, you're more giving, you're more intellectual, you're more curious, you're more able when you're around him. Desmond Tutu is one of the same people. If you're in his presence, you become a different person. So getting to what leadership is, the ultimate expression is to become someone like that, where other people occur to themselves differently when they're around you, and then they in turn create that difference for other people, and it starts cascading down.

Wow. I wonder how useful that is for me, because most people, when they're in my presence, become more sarcastic and they start busting on each other. Perhaps a dirty joke here and there.

I'm shocked. It's very weird. I've never heard you say a dirty joke ever in my life.

Exactly.

Certainly not like 30 seconds before we started taping. Exactly. Yeah.

I'm a very proper person. So Tony Hsieh, one of my friends. One of your friends, you know, they actually give out, you know, your books at Zappos, when people go there and he, you know, I've had him speak at one of my events, and he talked about tribal leadership, and he, you know his book Delivering Happiness. What does happiness have to do with all this stuff? Because I'm torn on my take on what creates happiness. There's a lot of recent books, and it's a big subject right now. In terms of leadership, in terms of success. What's your take on happiness?

Well, happiness is a big subject, and it's not my field, but I've tried to read into it. It seems like you get there indirectly. If you seek happiness, you don't get it, but in pursuit of some other goal, you become happy. And then the moment you say, wow, I'm happy, and then start going down that road, you instantly become unhappy. So it's weird. It's very much like a cat. It doesn't come on command, and if you chase it, it just hides. But if you just kind of sit down and do something else, it'll come and sit in your lap and then the minute you hug it, it's going to run away. That's happiness to me. So the point is, you want to be engaged in something that is in line with your values and is in line with what you're uniquely good at doing. And this is like a terrible metaphor. And then the cavalcade on your lap. I'm sorry.

No, no, I think it's actually a great metaphor and it is about being engaged. My friend Tim Ferriss, in the original Four Hour Workweek, he talked about the thing to pursue is not happiness, but excitement. What is it that you get excited about? And it's sort of interesting, but. No, I love that analogy, actually. That really resonates with me. No one else watching this will understand what the hell you just said. As long as this worked for me.

Are we recording this? I thought this was just you and me.

Yeah, this video is just for my own personal use. Later. You're just propped up here to think other people are going to actually watch it.

That's funny. Well, that's good, because I noticed the person behind the camera is actually a cardboard cutout, which I thought was a little weird, but now it makes sense.

That is hysterical. All right, I'm going to, like, attempt to be serious because there's so many. There's so many things that I would like to ask you about that. But in order to cover it all in less than 14 hours, the second law of performance says how a situation occurs, arises in language. So how do you define language? And also you talk about the power of the unsaid. What is the power of the unsaid? So there's two questions there. So actually maybe there's four in that whole thing. But let's talk about the second law first. And then we'll go into.

Right. So the second law, it sounds maybe dry, but it says what occurring is composed of. Right. So how I occur to myself comes up in words. Not necessarily the words that I use, not necessarily the words that come out of my mouth. But that's the composition of occurring. And the reason that that's important is you can change your words. I mean, it's not as simple as change your words, change your life. That's far too simple. And for anybody that's ever gone down the motivational road, you know, that, you know, I'm a better person. No, you're actually not. You're kind of a. Kind of a loser person, right? I mean, you hear people say aphorisms to themselves that they're trying to convince themselves that they're something other than what they really are. But if you know what occurring is based on it gives you some ability to change it, which is really the key. And then in terms of the onset, most of us have had this experience. Like you go into a restaurant and you see people sitting. Imagine that there were a table and there were people sitting, sitting there. Maybe it's a family and they're talking and you just notice their body language. And you could just freeze time if you could. And you almost know. I would go so far as to say, you do know what is going through their heads, right? I mean, the kids are saying, wow, my parents are really idiots. And the wife is saying, you know, I'm so in love with my husband. And the husband is thinking, I can't believe I'm here with these squirrely kids, kids. And then he's checking out the waitress, and the waitress is looking at them saying, wow, I wish they'd leave because they're loud. You can just pick up on these things, right? Because how things occur happens in language. We give off these cues all the time that we don't know we're giving off. So this circles back to why it's important to know how you occur to yourself. Even if you think no one else can tell, they can. There's a way you occur to yourself, it's obvious from how you're sitting here. And if you don't know what that is, then you have a major disadvantage. So, and then that gets into the third law, which is ultimately, how do we change this stuff? And so essentially what the third law says is that if that certain type of language, it's called future based language, transforms how situations occur. So really simple and profound example actually is apparently the word American was coined by Benjamin Franklin. That's what I've heard in terms of the word. Well, just think about it. So you're living in the colonies, one of the colonies, maybe living in Virginia, and you think of yourself as a Virginian, and you think of yourself as a British subject. You think of yourself as a loyal subject, maybe a pissed off subject, but still loyal, under the British crown. And suddenly this word American comes along and you say, yeah, I'm an American. Which means that person living in that other colony that's an American too. That actually changed everything. It changed how people occur to themselves. It changed how the crown appeared to them. It changed their sense of their own power. And then if you go forward in time, people said, we need a statement of that, a declaration, which is future based language. So people got together and they wrote the Declaration of Independence. They signed it. Life did not go well for a bunch of people that signed it. But by declaring that they were independent, if you were a dog and you didn't speak words, nothing had changed. These people got together, they sat in a room and then they did something on a piece of paper and now they're acting like something's different, but nothing in the world has actually changed. But in our world of language, everything changed, right? We are now independent. Now we've got a war to fight. Now we have to go convince people that we are independent. All of these things shifted. And so Here we are 200 plus years after the fact and we kind of lose the magic, the alchemy that happened in that moment where people said, damn it, we are independent. We're not going to accept things as they are, which is what leadership is, making something happen that wasn't going to happen anyway. So leadership starts by getting into that occurring and being able to wrestle with it and accept what you need to accept, not try to scratch it out and write over it, because that's not how it works. But you've got something to say about it. And if you can master that, you can really master leadership.

When you said that, I thought about even the term the American dream and how all of the context of everything is layered on that paradigm. That's fascinating. Very cool. Okay, so let me speak to that particular issue. So the third law of performance states future based language, how situations occur to people. And you make a distinction between descriptive language and future based language. What's the difference between the two as it relates to the third law? Now you kind of went through that, you know, because you talked about declaration, but go a little deeper on that.

Yeah, well, most of us just know how to use one kind of language, which is descriptive, you know, so we're here, here in Phoenix and I think the sun is out and it's whatever temperature it is. And I'm sitting in this kind of weird looking chair and we've got these mugs of water between us and they.

Say, I love marketing.com on that.

Did you know it's actually vodka? But we're pretending there's water in it because it looks the same on camera. Right Right.

And there's no odor.

And there's no odor. Yeah, you have an odor, but that's a different issue. So that's the world that we live in. And so the problem is when people approach leadership, they have a really real problem, because descriptive language doesn't change things, it doesn't change how situations occur. Right. So I do a lot of work with scientists, some very good ones that are battling cancer. And when you ask them where you see this field going, all they can do is describe. And it's as inspirational as looking at a rock. Well, maybe in five years, if this happens and that happens, given this predictive study over here and this other predictive study over there, then maybe we'll be able to put, put these together and make some progress, maybe in the 5 percentile range. And you're already asleep. I mean, this might be a life or death issue for you, and you're asleep just in hearing the answer. That's descriptive language. So future based language is language that does something in the moment of speaking. So like, if you were my bookie and I went up to you and said, I'm going to place a bet with you, I am placing a bet with you, and then I lose and you come back and you want to collect, and I say, well, but Joe, I wasn't making a bet. We were just talking. You're going to say, no, you made a bet and now you have to pay up. Right. So that's future based language. It's something that shifts a future relationship by how I say it right now. So simple example is I promise, or in a wedding ceremony, people say, I do. Well, what's changed? From the dog's perspective, two people wore funny clothes and they walked up and there was all this talking and then they walked and they kissed and then they walked back and everybody applauded. And what changed? Nothing changed. But in terms of language, everything changed. How they occur to themselves changed, how they occur to the world changed right in the moment of speaking. So when the minister, justice of the peace or rabbi, whatever, says, I declare you husband and wife, that's future based language. So the point is, we have this power with words. That is, and I don't want to get too weird here, but it really is a godlike potential, right? I mean, pretty much every religion, and I'm not religious, I just take this as a metaphor, but I think a really important one. In virtually every world religion, there's a sense that we are godlike. Well, how? I mean, I can't make that clock Float up with my mind. Supposedly God could, but I can't. So how am I godlike?

You want to see that clock levitate right now? I mean, we won't have it on.

Camera, but it's very easy. What you would do is point to somebody in the room and say, hey, could you do me a favor and lift that? Which is using language, which is how we're godlike. Right. Because we can make anything in the world happen using language. We can say, there will be a building there. And if you can raise the money and hire the architects and get the permits, which is all done through language, that building will appear. Which, if you kind of look at it, is just as godlike as saying, let there be a building and the building appears. It might take longer, but that's how we're godlike.

That's the mech. Well, which totally goes back to marketing and everything, because how much you can influence and shift just simply with words.

Yeah. I mean, one of the best examples ever was the advertising agency that was hired by Alka Seltzer. And so they were talking about the problem product, and they said, well, you kind of drop it in and it fizzes and. Well, no, actually, you know, you shouldn't drop in too. Like, drop, drop, fizz, fizz. I just doubled your revenue. Because now you've got to put in two. Right. Plop, plop, plop, or plop, plop. Yeah. So the words thank you. So, I mean, do you see?

I said that all seriously, as if I was like, I scolded you for, say, drop, drop.

I did. But you had a smirk on your face.

Yes.

So then if you were listening on, it would occur differently, right?

Well, totally. If people are watching this video versus listening to the audio, it'd almost be like the Nixon debates back in the day where if you watch it on.

Video versus you heard it. I'm not that old, so I don't really get the reference. Was Nixon like, one of the popes or something?

That's funny. Yeah, he was, actually.

Okay, good.

Okay, so, well, this is fascinating then. So let's sound like a weird question, but I'll say it anyway. Someone watching this, they feel their life sucks, their business sucks, it's not working. They want it to change. Prior to this interview, we're kind of talking about how most people don't really change. I mean, some do, but for the most part, people kind of who they are stays very similar to who they are, where they grew up, that sort of stuff. If someone really wants to make a Big shift. How do they take, you know, obviously read your book, get some real deep understanding and context about what you're saying here. But how does someone, I mean, how do you really make a positive, beneficial shift in your life? What needs to happen in terms of how you occur? The language, everything.

Well, it's a good question. And it's not for the faint of heart. Well, actually that's not true. It's not for the weak of mind. I mean, because it doesn't come down to three steps. Step one, I'm not being literal, but you read this in self help books and it just makes you want to scream. Step one, write down how you want to occur to other people. Step number two, find things that are consistent with that and put that all around your office and your house and get that kind of a car. And step three, write your obituary. Kind of looking back, you know what that accomplishes? You're now a struggling guy who, who now has weird furniture and has written some weird obituary. And absolutely nothing has changed except that now you're at war with how you occur, which means it's actually even more visible and more apparent than it ever was. And then it becomes more painful because it's more painful. So you see a lot of people failing in business, desperately trying to give off the image of success, right? And as you and I know, it comes across as really painful to see because it's obvious that there's failing, but that they're screaming that they want things to be different.

And that's frustrating as hell to see because these are not people that are lacking, putting some sort of effort and energy into trying to make things better. They're just not getting there.

Right? Yeah, that's true. So I mean, it starts with accepting things as they are. So put it all out there. How do you occur to yourself? How does your business occur to you? How does your business occur to other people? Remember that the first law of performance always holds. So if your business isn't developing a lot of customers, it's because it occurs as boring, unimportant, irrelevant, weird. Right? Something. If it didn't occur that way, then you wouldn't have a problem. So this happens a lot in academic circles, that you'll get a college or university and they'll say, this is the president. And they'll say, we have a problem because we've got a great story and nobody knows what it is. So we want you to tell the story. And my answer to that is no. If you had a great story, people would be telling It. And if it were really a great story, other people would be repeating it, and then you and I wouldn't be having this conversation. So the problem is you have a lousy story, right? So let's start with that. So now can we change the story and work our way up from there? So I realize if people are watching and listening to this, they're probably, like, waiting for the steps. I mean, number one, if you want to get specific, you can do things like a reputation audit, which is where you go up to people and say, joe, I'm just trying to get a sense of how I come across. It's one of those things that's in a blind spot for most people. So just tell me, what is my reputation and write it down. Go do that with 10 people. Don't correct them. Don't agree. Don't get a smile on your face. Just write it down. That's how you occur to people, assuming they're being honest. Do the same thing with your business. Do a reputation audit for your business. You really get a sense of how it occurs, and then the question is, what shifts would you like to make? How would you like your business to occur? How would you like yourself to occur as a leader or as something else? And then you can get into the specific tools that make it happen. Where I say it's not for the faint of mind is, you know, if this stuff were easy, everybody would be doing it. It's actually not easy, but it is possible. It is possible. Warren Bennis, my mentor, get on both books, has this great expression that some people are what he calls twice borners. About 5% of the population are twice Borners. Borners. And don't hear born again. It's not a religious thing. But they, for some reason came to the conclusion that who they were wasn't who they wanted to be, or maybe who they were in the world really wasn't who they really were, and they reinvented themselves. Warren is one of those people. I'm absolutely one of those people. So you can almost give birth to yourself. Again, don't get literal with that. But using the three laws of performance and using tribal leadership and other things, that process of reinvention is something that people do all the time. It's a way to do it. You just have to know whether you want to pay the price.

What is the price?

That for a time you won't know who you are and other people will try to put you back in the box that you used to be in.

Interesting. So I could see that being quite a struggle. And I would imagine through all the attempts of the self help and personal development and industry of which I have a love hate relationship because there's tremendously good valuable stuff and there's tremendous amounts of nonsense that it could be very disheartening when someone is very close to making that breakthrough, but they get pulled back or whatever. So to strengthen, if that's even the right term, when someone, you know, someone listening or watching, I mean my tendency of people that watch, listen to what it is that I produce or other people produce that's out there, it's because there's a result, there's a bigger future they have in mind and they're looking for direction, confidence and capabilities on how to get there.

And this is just one of the.

Things that they're doing to get perspective. And I really like leaving people with elegant ideas and solutions so that to the best of their abilities they can incorporate and get tremendous value out of this. So what are some things as it relates to. Because I'm going to switch gears here in a minute on the three laws of performance, aside from reading the book, I mean, I think that's the first step. Just read the book. What are things that would give someone the highest possibility of success to really having a breakthrough and maybe losing themselves and reinventing being, you know.

Yeah, well, so if we're going to shift into tool mode and I think it's really appropriate to do that, right, Unless this translates into actionable insights, then it's at best an interesting conversation that somebody watched. So one of the big things is that simply by asking the question of like doing a reputation on it, that actually begins to shift how you occur. So this happens to leaders all the time, that they're seen as being narcissistic, they're seen as being self obsessed. They copy other people's ideas. They're not really original, they're, they're kind of mean, they communicate that they're kind of upset, they come across as unhappy, they're just not really fun to be around. So I try, if I'm in that person's world, I do as little with them as I can get away with, right? So if that person came and sat down and said, dave, I'm doing something called a reputation audit, I might say, okay, it sounds a little weird, but whatever. And they say, look, I'm not asking what you think, I'm just asking what is my reputation? Because I'm sure you talk to other people, so what is my reputation? And I said, well, Joe, you're aloof, you're kind of a jerk, and you're really not fun to be with. You antagonize other people. You belittle other people. You're smart. You're frankly not as smart as you think you are. And that's clearly coming across.

And I. I like how you use my name. It makes me feel really.

Yeah, yeah. I'm here for you, Joe. Yeah. And if so, I mean, if we're having this conversation, but I mean, the roles are reverse. So I'm the one asking question, and you're delivering the honest news, and I'm hearing it, and I'm probably even writing it down. And at the end, I maybe look thoughtful because I'm genuinely thinking about it. And then I just say, you know, Joe, thank you. Let me ask you for a favor. I'm going to go ask other people this. Can I come back later and just continue this? And you'll probably say, yeah, and I'll say thank you. I might even, like, shake your hand and walk away. That will shift, begin to shift how I occur. So if you do that on a business level, ask your customers, how do we occur? I really wish AT and T would care enough to do that. They would get really bad stuff, and then they might actually change. AT&T is a great example. Their customer service is terrible. I think it's commonly known they have all kinds of problems. When they had a monopoly with the iPhone, and instead of actually engaging in that, they were putting up posters about how great they were. Exactly the wrong thing to do. So if I hate AT and T and I see a poster paid for by AT&T about how great they are, I now hate them more than I did before.

Right. Because now your perceptions are just total liars.

Well, either they don't know or they don't care. I'm not sure which is worse. And it's probably both. Right. So if a business did that, I mean, our business, which is Culture Senku Small Consumption Consulting firm. We do that on a pretty frequent basis. How do we. What is our reputation? How do we come across? Initially, we didn't really like what we heard. You know, like, you guys are kind of arrogant, which we thought was funny because we're. The whole message of tribal leadership is kind of get past arrogance. Right. And yet we were hearing you guys come across as arrogant. That gives you the ability to do something about it. So that's just one, you know, specific tool, but it's a very important one.

Yeah, no, it's huge.

It's huge.

I think if everyone actually did. I mean, I'm going to do that. I mean, I've learned a tremendous amount just sitting here, you know, hearing you explain that. I want to know what my reputation is for the 12 people that are behind the camera that actually know what I'm talking about here. Awesome.

Well, we've been talking. Do you want me to tell you? Okay, number one, you gotta shave. There's just no way. No, I'm just kidding.

Honestly, if you would like, you can. You can literally. What does your reputation mean?

What do you think? Your reputation? Yeah.

How do you see me?

Other than a very handsome fellow, smart, funny. You like to be around interesting, engaging people. You like ideas that are a little wacky and kind of different, a little off the beaten path. You like coming across as edgy. You like being unpredictable. So you do things that are predictably unpredictable. You really like people. And I might be off on this, but I think you're a little hesitant about leading with how much you like people. So you come at it through humor and sarcasm, which is very endearing, but also will put some people off, which I think gets in your way. And so I think you probably chalk it up to. It's probably overall more beneficial than not. You collect people, ideas, concepts, theories, tools, approaches, stuff like books and artifacts and chairs that are different, that are unique. I think you're a collector of unique things and people.

That is damn good. Thank you very much.

Am I playing fortune teller now?

No, no. That's fantastic.

And in your future, stay away from anything that's red.

As you notice, there's not a lot.

Of red around here.

We do have a few accents of red, but, you know, we got this thing here. Now this definition of the genius network actually came from my good friend Dan Sullivan, who's one of my dear friends, founder of strategic coach, brilliant guy. And the way he defined a genius network, since it's behind your head here, I should probably say something about it. If anyone's read it. Genius network is an ever expanding system of increasing cooperation in and creativity among unique ability achievers. And so the way that I look at Genius Network, like genius network originally started as a marketing term. It's really, to me, it's like a wisdom network. Just people that have great insights, perspective, knowledge, wisdom, how to plans, path, methodologies, processes, whatever. And in order to have an ultimate genius network of smart people, you have to do genius networking and be a genius networker. And so part of, like when I do my genius network mastermind, which is my 25k group, my high level mastermind group, it's just taking people that have unique ability capabilities, putting them all together so that they can all cooperate and, you know, help each other. And so I'm always, you know, by interviewing you for Genius Network, it's taking some, someone that has tremendous amounts of skills and unique ability capabilities, synthesizing ideas, sharing them with people that are watching so that they can better cooperate not only with themselves but with the world and with the marketplace and things like that, which is predominantly my world is entrepreneurism and entrepreneurs. Cool. Well, that was awesome. Read the book Three Laws of Performance. How do you say Steve's last name?

Zafran Zephron.

Okay, so Dave Logan, Steve Zafron, what's your website? We're going to say this again, but just in case someone shuts this video off or turns this audio off right to this moment. What's your main website?

This super simple one is just Davelogan.com. okay.

That's simple enough. All right. I want to talk about, you know, let's touch on tribal leadership and then we're going to go on the topic of your new book.

Sure.

And whatever else that becomes maybe a membership club for the dark side of success. But I did an interview with you on tribal leadership for Genius Network and I'll figure out a way to, wherever they're watching this one, they can actually listen to that interview also. So we won't spend a lot of time on this, but it's leveraging natural groups to build a thriving organization. I mean there's Seth Godin wrote a book on tribes. There's been a lot of people that have written stuff and I think your in depth knowledge from my exposure, the deepest, greatest that I've seen. And so what is tribal leadership? What's that all about? Why did you write the book?

Well, it's the recognition that when you talk about genius, genius doesn't really happen in isolation, it happens in a group. And if you're talking about three laws of performance, there's how I occur, there's how you occur. There's some sort of irreducible element in all of that that holds things stable and that element to us as a tribe. So it's a group of between 20 and 100. So when you talk about entrepreneurship, I've taught this for a few years at SC and I'm not an entrepreneur professor, but we sort of teach alongside each other. And what happens is, I mean, invariably if I read a business plan and it's the story of One guy, I put it down because I know that business is going to fail. So every successful business that I've ever seen has a tribe attached to it. People say, well, but I'm doing it myself. Fine, but you've got one customer, hopefully more. You've got maybe an investor, right? You've got maybe somebody like me that's sitting on your advisory board or board of directors or whatever. You've probably got a spouse, you've probably got a supplier or two, you've probably got a few people that are you're going to hire if you take off. So they're kind of part of the tribe and if you start counting those people up, you realize you almost always have at least 20. And if they're all focused on the success, success of your business, then you got something really cool. So I'm not here to put in a plug for anybody. But one of the reasons that I appreciate Vistage as an organization is that's essentially a tribe. Tribe of CEOs or YPO does a lot of the same thing. So if you get those people and they're all focused on your success and you're focused on their success, so it's mutual. Now you can do anything because a great tribe could change the world. So I think of these two books as sort of counterparts. This one, Tribal Leadership, gives a lot of the step by step, do this, take this action. If you find yourself in this place, do this. What's often missing for people is it seems to work, but I don't understand why it works. So this book goes into the underlying mechanisms. So often when people start with one, they go to the other and the only kind of negative value. So Tribal Leadership is probably better reviewed than three laws of Performance. But when people read them together, they like them both even more, if that makes sense because they're very much to me, almost like one book that kind of got cut in half.

Gotcha. Cool. Well, you know what I'm even going to do? I'm going to have a little section set up on Genius Network because we'll probably end up having maybe family photos of you for years on end and we'll set up geniusnetwork.com davelogan oh, well, thank you.

Okay.

And then people can find the Tribal Leadership audio interview that I did with you along with the transcript. So awesome. Now, in terms of people, I have to ask you this before we go.

On to the next subject.

We live in a world where because of technology, as my friend, friend Ned Hallowell says, the ADD adhd psychiatrist. We're more connected than we've ever been before electronically, but more disconnected face to face personally than ever before in history in terms of loneliness and happiness and interaction and engagement. When you say there's a lot of Internet tribes, there's a lot of electronic connections that way. But in terms of going out and meeting people, what's your take on back in history when there were many hours that were spent socializing over campfires or whatever, what is your take on where society is going in terms of the ability to be in person groups and meetings and intimate connections, if you could even speak to that?

Well, I think we're at probably the most important historical moment ever where everything is about to change. And tip. When technology merges with biotech, which eventually will get. When Moore's Law really begins to pay off over probably the next 15 years, I think everything is going to change from where we are right now. Here's what we're seeing in the data. You're right, people are more connected. They have friends, right on Facebook or they have Twitter followers. But these are not really values based relationships. I'm not really known for who I am. One way to get a lot of Twitter followers is just to be really funny, say sarcastic stuff and people will kind of follow you, but then that's kind of not who you are. So what happens is the functioning of tribes happens exactly the way it always has. So if you look at an Internet tribe but they haven't met face to face, it's probably going to be more informational. This is what I'm doing. This is what I'm working on. Here's a problem that I'm having. So it's more information exchange, less like the Manhattan Project, which was a tribe that really did change the world. Some would argue for the better, some would argue for the worse. Right? But it changed things. So there will come a point where technology catches up and we're able to do that electronically. I don't think we're there yet. I also don't think we're that far away. But right now we're not there yet.

Gotcha.

Well.

And I recently became a platinum partner in Single Engine Singularity University that was founded by Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil. And Peter is going to be here actually this week that we're doing this interview. And the speed of where technology is going, it's mind boggling. And I'm just, more than anything, the reason I even got involved in Singularity is I'm just curious as to what the hell is going to happen? Because I think it's going to be a freak show in good ways and also complex ways.

So. Awesome.

All right, so get a copy of this book, Tribal Leadership, too. Listen to my interview with that. And then. So let's talk about something that's, of course, totally fascinating to me. You've got, you know, I don't know if you're going to do it. I'm sure it'll be a book, of course, but this is something that I don't see. A lot of people write about in ways that really resonates with me. But I read an article about the dark side of leadership that you recently wrote, and. And I thought it was fascinating. So you mentioned three types of leaders. And so I'd like you to talk about who are the three types of leaders, and then I'll ask you some more questions. Sure.

Well.

Wait, let me back up. Explain the dark side success first, and then explain that would make more sense to people listening or watching.

Sure. Well, the three law. Sorry, not the three laws. Too many books whirling around here. The dark side of leadership. It gets into success, but it's really the dark side of leadership comes out of a very simple observation that has happened to me over and over and over, which is I'll give a speech, often to a big group of people numbering in the thousands, and there's this dweeby little guy, right, that comes up to me at the end, and he doesn't make eye contact. He's kind of dweeby. And he says, dave, now I really understand why nobody at work really understands me because I'm really a leader and they're really kind of in a my life sucks world. And, yeah, it's because I'm like, too far evolved, and my goal is just to get away from that person, right? But if I couldn't get away, here's what I would say. Number one, your dweeb. Okay? Just accept your dweebiness and then do something that makes you other than a dweeb. Find something and become the best in the world at that thing to the point that you could become an arrogant SOB and you would still get invited to parties, which you're not now because you're dweebe, because you're so much of a genius at that thing. Then we can talk about leadership, but not until then. So leadership cannot be built effectively on a platform of lameness.

Gotcha. That's great. What a statement. That should be a quote. Leadership cannot be built on a platform of lame. Yes.

And I say that like in the fiery chair.

Yes.

And so then the three types of.

Leaders, we got sound bites from this interview.

Well, so the first type of leader, I happen to have a lot of respect for Jimmy Carter after he was president, Right. When he was president, he was probably the most ineffective president that we've had in a really long time because he was just wimpy, right? So if he had a dark side, he couldn't find it. I mean, if you're being president, if you're getting sorry before the swearing in ceremony, you don't take your luggage out of your house, Right. I'm moving into the White House. You don't carry your own suitcases. You get people to do it. Right. But he did because he was such a nice guy. So he came across as wimpy, came across as lame and lame. And leadership don't connect. So the first type of leader is a really nice person. You'd love to live next door to them because they'd always mow their lawn and they would. Their trash would never smell and if the dog ever did number two on your lawn, they'd clean it up, right? They're really nice and they're completely ineffective. And the truth is they wouldn't live in your neighborhood because they're not going to make enough money because they're lame. Right? Then the second type of leader is one that has gone to the opposite extreme where they found their dark side and they kind of engaged it and they realized it's a source of tremendous power and it has taken them over, it has possessed them. I don't mean like the sense of demonic possession, but one thing about the dark side stuff is it carries with it a massive blind spot so other people will see that you're a jerk, to use a nice word, that you're right, not a nice person. You may not see it yourself, or maybe you don't care, but that's the person that ultimately self destructs. They're never called lame, Right. They're never called wimpy. They're called overly something. They're a jerk. They're dangerous, they're something. But you might want to work for them because they're going to do really important things, but you also know they're going to go down. And when they go down, it's going to be really bad. So a simple example is Bernie Madoff, although in some ways that was even too simple. It was more a lie that he couldn't get out of, which seems to be the Case. So the second type of leader is the opposite of the first, which is somebody that has found their dark side, realizes the source of tremendous power and has been taken over, has been possessed by it. They're really effective and ultimately the story ends badly.

Yeah. And you use the example of Elliot Stitzer.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Who I watched a documentary on him and I mean, yeah, talk about a powerful guy. But, you know, you also mentioned the article when they fall though their reputation, their.

It's kind of. It's cemented, it's over. And that's what the Greek tragedies are almost all about, was the person found their dark side, became a very powerful. Like Macbeth or Hamlet became a very powerful person. Actually, Hamlet wasn't that powerful. Actually, I take it back. Hamlet perfectly maps on it. He was the wimpy guy who found his dark side. But then it ended badly because in the end he got possessed by it. So then the third type of leader now we're talking about, probably only 2, 2 or 3% of leaders manage to get that balance right. And it's like dancing on the edge of a knife blade. So if you fall on either side, you die or you either tip into ineffectiveness or you tip into the kind of possession. But as long as you can stay right on the razor's edge, you're one of these people that can seemingly do magic. And that's going to be like black Steve Jobs. Most people would not describe him as not nice because he wasn't. There were points where he was possessed by his dark side and no one could be around him and he became really ineffective. That was the next phase. When he got kicked out of Apple, that was Steve Jobs getting possessed. There were points where he tilted too much on the whippy side, but through the last few years of his life, he seemed to get it right. A lot of people didn't like him, but everybody respected him. So that's being fed by the dark side, fueled by it, but not possessed by it. Yeah.

Interesting, interesting.

So.

You talk about noble cause leadership or higher aspiration leadership as being only part of the story of leadership.

Could you speak to what Steve? Well, and I'm partially to blame for this. So if you read especially tribal, and I was the lead writer on it, so I'll take the hit on not communicating this right. But the highest level of culture in tribes is what we call life is great. And so people imagine this kind of utopia where the bunnies and the wolves are holding hands and singing we are the world. And it's very like, you know, hippie, like, let's all go to a commune and grow out our hair and do drum circles.

Honest to God, I recently, the creator of We Are the World, we actually were up on stage with a bunch of people.

Did you?

Literally singing We Are the World, it was crazy.

Yeah. Were you high when you did it? No. No.

No.

Well, then it doesn't count.

I was kind of recruited into it because. Because I usually don't like public things like that. Just makes me feel very strange. I'm not like, mono or anything.

Well, I mean, you kind of see the point, right? That when you look at these genius cultures, the ones that really do change the world, we often have this perception that it's almost like some bad Disney movie, that it's overly slick, it's overly happy, it's overly good. Right? When actually at every stage, what made up the stage before it is never lost. It just kind of gets reconfigured. So in the evolution of a person, I'm only oversimplifying this by a little bit. You're kind of wimpy, and then you move into kind of narcissistic stage when you're really full of yourself. Maybe this is the teenage years, maybe late teenage years, and you realize you have a certain power over maybe the opposite sex or you're good at athletics or something. But you say, you know, I'm really effing good, right? And then if you're. Unless you kind of stay at the jerk level, it reaches a point where you see that that's not really working, so you kind of then flip to the third kind where you can still tap into that if you need to. But that's not your sense of yourself. That's not how you occur to yourself. Right. So that's really kind of where the whole thing ends up. Gotcha.

All right, cool. So how does politics affect performance and leadership?

Well, politics. It's a good question. It's a little bit of a complicated answer because it plays out differently at the different tribal stages. At stage five, which is the highest, or stage four, which is kind of the zone of optimal performance, politics is handled pretty routinely, right? So if I go up to you and say, say, you know, I heard something about that person over there, you're going to say, oh, yeah, whatever. Why don't you go talk to them about it? It's kind of not a big deal. At stage three, which really runs organizations. Oh, really? Tell me what you heard, because I heard something, too. If you tell me what you heard, I'll tell you what I heard, and I might even distort what I heard so that I'm essentially giving you crap. That way I'm getting your information, but no net loss to me. So then the person who knows the most ultimately wins. So stage three just runs on politics. So assuming some knowledge of the tribal stages, but in terms of the dark side, you may actually launch negative campaigns about yourself. I've seen people do that in the literature. Like, I need people to be talking about me. So if they're not saying bad stuff, then I need to be somebody who's saying bad stuff about that guy. They actually will create, like, counter movements to try to get the word out, which is very kind of dark sideish. Like, they'll say, joe's a fraud. I hate that guy. Joe. You know, I heard that Joe. When actually, the person that's typing that is you. Yeah, I think that's fun, huh?

Maybe I should spend a lot of time doing that. Then they won't dig up all of the dark side things about my torn past. So how do people with large dark sides produce and change the world? I mean, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of good that has come out of demented individuals and a lot of destruction, too.

Yeah, I mean, it works both ways.

But, you know, harnessing this dark side is fascinating because I think this is one of those things that most people would not talk about, but when they hear a guy like you write about it talk about it, everyone can relate. That has half a brain. I mean, it's paying attention here. There's a lot of. Especially if you've hung around very successful people, you see it all the time.

Yeah, well, so if somebody has a big dark side, that's good. It's bad for other reasons. But as good as it gets is that you form. Partnership is too happy a word. You form a tension with the dark side. You never merge with it. You don't integrate it. You don't become one with it. You never, ever make it into a servant. It won't do that. It'll pretend to do that, and then it'll end up kind of casting its shadow over you and running your life in ways that you don't even understand until it's too late. So that doesn't happen. You make this tension with the dark side, and that's as good as it gets. It is, then an unresolved tension. But you got to think of the dark side as almost like a dark star. Right? I mean, it was a Star, it expanded out. There's all this matter. And now it became a black hole. Right. If you could tap the energy that's in a black hole, you could do anything you wanted. But its nature is to pull things within it. That's not to say it's evil. Black hole isn't evil. It's just a black hole. Right. So you've got one of those. I have one of those. And there are some people that are such a big black hole that we don't even like to be around them. Our skin kind of crawls. Now, this is where I'm not an expert, like, on social pathology, but I would not want to tell a serial killer. You just need to kind of make buddies with your dark side. There are people whose dark sides are so big as a. So uncontrollable. There are a number of analysts that I've talked to. I mean, like Freudian analysts or Jungian analysts would say actually they shouldn't look into their dark side. I don't know how to tell those people apart. I'm not an expert and probably will never be able to figure that out. But I would say probably, for anyone watching this, you're in that category of people that can look into your dark side, find an enormous source of power, form a relationship with it in a way that maybe you haven't thought about. In the process, become much more effective to the point that it's almost scary effective. But never buy your own PR about it. You will never become one with it. It will never be a happy integration. It's dark by its nature. It wants to cast you into a blind spot. It wants to own you. So you can either run from it, which means it's essentially running the show. You can merge with it, which means it's taken you over, or you can form one of those tensions with it.

Interesting.

I'm suggesting the latter. Yeah.

Okay. So the ultimate message of this book, this subject, is what. What do you hope leaders and readers to actually get from it? Why are you going down this path?

Well, I'll tell you, having talked to many leadership experts about it, I've heard almost the same thing from all of them, which is that book needs to be written. And I really hope nobody ever writes that book. It's kind of like that combination, which is. We all know that's true because we've all had that experience where the wimpy guy comes up and says, really understood, and you still want to smack him and say, look, here's the problem. You're just lame. I mean, stop being lame and then we can talk. We've all had that experience and we've had the experience of the person that's like super slick and the, they're really kind of buying their own PR and you don't even want to be with them because they just cast this dark self absorbed energy. It's not magnetic, it doesn't create great businesses, it doesn't, it creates great maybe self scripted PR stories, but it doesn't make a really good leader. So what I hope will come out of it is number one, people will recognize they have a dark side. For some people that's going to be a revelation. Number two, to map it, just like we were talking earlier, you got to map your genius. My genius behaves in certain ways. It comes out in the morning, it wants to fight with me about ideas and at noon it kind of disappears back into the wall and then I see it again until the next morning. You need to also map your dark side. It has a personality, it has a certain flavor and you need to figure out a way to have a relationship with it. You need to learn how to draw power from it without being possessed by it. And this is where I'm going to make a lot of people upset that the dark side is not prayed away, fasted away. It doesn't go away. If you become someone that gets away from all worldly possessions and unplugs your cable and rips up your carpet and eats bread and water, it doesn't go away. If you do any of those things, it doesn't go away. Most of what people try to do to make the dark side go away is an attempt to repress it. If anyone ever has really tried to repress your dark side, here's what happens. It gets stronger and it explodes in a way that everybody else can see and you can't. And that's the story of the person that is a God fearing person in theory and they go to their church and they're actually the, what is it called? BTK killer. That's what happens if you try to repress your dark side. It comes out in ways that are really, really scary and compartmentalized. But if you can kind of now he's probably one of those people we would advise don't look into your dark side and go immediately lock yourself away. But that's a small minority of people for most of us. If you find your dark side and learn to draw power from it without being possessed by it, not compartmentalize it, it'll make you Much more effective, much more powerful. Ironically happier because now you're not running from something something and just makes you more effective in life. So we think it's a win for everybody. Hopefully we don't create too many serial killers in the process.

Yes, I would hope not. The cool thing is most of your work is about leadership, about performance, about simply being a more effective human being and being more effective as you interact.

With yourself and with the world.

When do you anticipate this? Could be a year or something. And from the time we're doing this actual interview before this comes out. But I'd love to do another interview with you on that particular subject because I'm fascinated by it and certainly I think a lot of the world advances on the backs of its neurotics, is something that the late Gary Halbert used to say.

True.

Yeah, it is true. And I think it's always fascinating to, to take a look at that and see it in yourself because at the end of the day, anything that will give you some insight and give you some ability to be more effective is huge. So final words of wisdom, and then we're going to give out your website and everything and tell people where to get more, to perform better, to be a better leader. Anything else you can think of or recommend before we shut this bad boy off?

I'd go back to the thing you pulled out earlier as a sound bite. Leadership cannot be built on a platform of lameness. So that means find the part of you that's lame and just don't build your leadership platform on that. Just don't. And find your dark side. Your dark side is not lame. Right, but ultimately you want to find people that recognize you for who you really are. Through all the layers. They kind of see your core and they accept it and they like it and they appreciate it and you're more themselves. You are more yourself when you are with them and they are more themselves when they are with you. That's what we call a great tribe. A great tribe can change the world. In fact, they do so every day. Tribe is the most important social group that's ever been created. Problem in businesses is we don't look at tribes. We look at departments and business units and startup ventures and boards and directors, and those things are all important. But the tribe, the natural clusterings of people, those are the most powerful things. If you learn to assess them, make them better, make them stronger, make them bolder, then you've got something that can really change the world. Awesome.

Love it. Always valuable. Speaking with you okay, so get a copy of David's books, the Three Laws of Performance available anywhere books are sold online or offline if they sell books online anywhere in stores anymore. And Tribal Leadership and these are both fantastic books. His website is davelogan l o g a n dot com and you can check out geniusnetwork.com davelogan and you can find my interview with Dave on Tribal Leadership and yeah, awesome stuff. So thank you for giving of your time and your knowledge. I really appreciate it. Go buy his books right now and we will talk to you soon on next episodes of Genius Network. Or you can listen to all our marketing stuff at I love Marketing where I'm also going to put a copy of this. So share this also with your friends or family or any entrepreneur or leader you think would benefit from hearing it. And that's it. Thanks, Steve.

Joe, thank you. Appreciate it.