Life-Changing Books Podcast Episode 88. Lou Diamond: Author of Speak Easy

Well, Lou, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you doing today, man?

Nicholas, totally excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me. And this is a home at home. This is a returning favor because I had you on my program very recently. So, very cool.

It is a super cool conversation. You are an excellent podcast host. So, let's see if I can live up to the hype. Now, for those that are not familiar with you or your upcoming book or your podcast, I'd love to have you introduce yourself to the Book Thinkers family and tell us all a little bit about yourself.

Sure. My name is Lou Diamond and I am a sales and marketing consultant, and I speak and I write about connecting. I love telling people, Nick, that I was put on this planet to work with the most amazing businesses, leaders, and brands and help them thrive through the power of connecting. And I've learned that a lot of the work that I do, whether it's to speak on a podcast or speak on a stage or work with some really clients and help them grow their business so they can thrive is that I'm helping them have better conversations. The, at the epicenter of every single connection is a great conversation between 2 people. And I realized if we can do that job better, man, a lot of things get done faster, quicker, and enable us to connect in ways that we never thought. So that's where I focus and that's the space I play in.

Now tell us a little bit about your podcast. You just mentioned that I was on it recently. So tell us, how many episodes have you had? How many interviews Have you conducted?

It keeps going. The Thrive Loud with Lou Diamond podcast is about those that are thriving in their lives, their businesses, and their passions. Today, I think I recorded the 799th episode or 800th episode. I'm not actually sure. We do about 3— we have 3 episodes every week, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and you can find it wherever your podcasts are shown. It has been It's almost like an animal that I just can't control. I thought I had it in a cage, but it's now grown to like the size of the house and it just keeps taking everything over. Because I've done podcasts at speaking events that I deal with. Many of the clients that I have have come through the podcast. It's been a business generator. It's been an incredible platform to connect with great people and the conversations that I've been able to have, like even the one that I have with you, Nicholas, which was To learn about such incredible people that are thriving in so many different ways has, like, just as books have helped make your world and your life so much better, listening to these incredible people and connecting with them on the podcast has done the same for me.

I like that you said the podcast has enabled you to create real business relationships. And I think it's done the same thing for me because you hear that saying, you don't marry somebody on the first date. You want to go on a couple dates with them, get to know them before you do business with them. Or marry them. And I think the podcast is a great way to form a relationship with somebody. And I think you've done that now 800 times. That's amazing. And so I look forward to—

It's even more than that. Can I give you a little behind the scenes? You see, Thrive Loud is just one podcast that I have, but because of its success and some of those business opportunities that I've had, I've actually created other programs that no one really gets to hear because they're inside the walls of really large companies. Some of 3 or 4 of the top 500 companies in the Fortune 500. There are podcast programs that I've either produced or hosted inside the walls of big companies that came from the Thrive Loud podcast initially. So it's probably closer to like 1,500 episodes or something like that, which is berserk, but it's, it's crazy and it's become an integral part of, uh, and obviously a revenue source for my business. So yeah, there's been a lot.

You are a master at connection and communication and conversation, which rolls right into this book that's coming out September 27th. Is that correct?

That is the launch date.

Okay, so Speakeasy. Tell us all about the book. When did you come up with the idea for writing it? Why did you write it? Who's the target reader? Let's go into all of it at once.

So my first book I wrote a little over 6 and a half, 7 years ago was called Master the Art of Connecting, and it, it kind of danced at the top of what Speakeasy actually dove into, and that was that I knew that I was a very good connector and I knew how to connect with other individuals, and I saw a way for people to think differently on how they can connect. It wasn't just about making a sale or being a great marketer with a good message, or even being a leader and connecting with your people in a certain way to lead. It kind of tapped into what I called the connecting core muscles. These are the muscles inside of us that we all have, which I call the SAFE. I could break them down, but that's what I did in Master of the Art of Connecting. Each letter had a specific muscle on how we can work on being a better connector. I made 2 promises after that first book, which you'll laugh about, Nicholas. One, that if I— I was never going to write another book unless I had something really important to say. And the second part was that I would partner with a publishing company that was really professional and was very focused on the— knew exactly how I can connect to my audience. And that was an important marriage that I wanted to make if I ever got to that point. But the truth was, for 5+ years, I didn't have anything to write about. And something kind of started, the bug started getting inside of me right around, I want to say it was around the beginning of the pandemic, But it was probably a little before it. And I had this idea, some, it was actually a guest on the podcast show who made a comment to me that my ability to listen and spin what I hear and use it in a way to connect with another person was something unique and it was a skill. And I had actually originally thought I was going to write about listening. I did research on this, Nicholas. I went down the whole avenue about listening. I even went to a firm in northern, in the northwest part of the United States that specializes in auditory hearing aids to understand what they're trying to tap in with listening. And I really wanted to understand really the nuts and bolts of listening. And there were some lessons that I learned from it. And a couple of them were that one, I wasn't the right person to communicate this message. There was somebody else that probably was a little bit more studied and really had the expertise in that. And 2, listening was only half of what I did well. I understood that when you think about a conversation, which is what I do really well, it's about asking great questions and then listening to those responses and then coming back with a response that connects that message that you heard. That's what happens in a conversation, and you keep building on it like a layer of a house. And I realized in the art of a conversation, it was, it like dawned on me that someone who's been focusing on connecting, and I really had been working with my clients to help them have better conversations, even in the sales communication that they send out, their presentations, the way they message themselves, the way their marketing should think. And even more importantly, the leaders I work with, what they should be saying and communicating to their people in their organization. And this is what I've been doing. What I didn't realize was that I was getting really, really good at it from being on this side of the microphone. And I started picking up other things that I realized that I was starting to take from being behind the microphone and deploying into the way I prepared for a speech when I would give it, the way I would work with my clients, the way I'd help leaders become better leaders. I'd be making them have better conversations. And it came to me one day from a friend who gave me a very helpful title that one of the other things I love to do is to go out and I love to mix a couple of drinks here or there. And I say, wouldn't it be great if I mixed all of these things together and kind of made that the theme for how we can have better conversations? I just didn't have a name. I'm gonna give my shout out to bestselling author and amazing, very good friend, Billie Howard, who runs a company called Brand Throw. And she is a genius when it comes to coming up with names. And literally in the middle of the night sent me a message. I go, Got it. Check your email. And there it was. Speakeasy: Connect with Every Conversation. And that was it. So actually, in a weird way, the title came before the book, which is so crazy. And everything then just came pouring out— the book, the title, all the content. It was like, literally, if we went into the bar and we just took all the drinks and started pouring them into one big concoction, and it came out with a real simple flow. For how you can have better conversations.

Well, as we talked about pre-roll, I really enjoyed it. And as somebody who hosts a lot of conversations and is always networking and meeting new people, and I'm somebody who's just infinitely curious, so I love the different forms of conversation, which we'll talk about in a minute. I found a lot of value in the book. Now let's go back and do a little bit of history though, because my primary audience is 18 to maybe early 30s. might not understand the whole Prohibition speakeasy metaphor. So could you describe that to everybody?

Yeah. So if you didn't know this, speakeasies, which you might know if you're a young listener as a place that you can go in and hear some good jazz music or bars, and a lot of them are in cities, in a city near you. But back in the Prohibition era, you were not allowed to have these types of places that probably served bathtub gins and other types of concoctions and did some probably late-night activities that were probably not very legal at that time. So the name speakeasy actually came because everybody and the bartenders encouraged people in these venues to speakeasy and be quiet because you didn't want to let the cops know where you were. These were usually hidden places. There were secret knocks on the door. Sometimes they were back doors to regular retail establishments like bakeries or clothing stores or whatever. And behind them were these cool nightclubs that everybody kind of had a lot of fun with. And for the record, I'm pretty sure the cops knew about it. It was just a matter of, you know, Making sure you were quiet and not upsetting the neighbors. So speakeasy became the term as it related to what I wanted to do. It actually was also really relevant to myself because, as you've learned, and maybe your listeners can hear right now, first of all, I have an easy-sounding voice and everyone— I have an easy personality as well. It's something that has always been a very likable trait of mine. And I'm not— I could get really loud and be really quiet, but it's this easy, comfortable feeling that when I have a conversation with someone, My voice is actually trying to connect with them, which is kind of a play we'll talk about, I'm sure, in this, on this podcast. And so Speakeasy was perfect, but it also was really important because it brought together something that I've learned and that it— this is something that is easy to do and it is coachable. So the lessons that this book provides is a very helpful way to connect your conversations and to make more of the conversations you have connect so you can have more of them. And grow the connections in your life?

I don't think we talked about it much on our episode for your show, Thrive Loud, but when I was younger, not only was I not a reader, but I also had very poor communication skills. I mean, I had diagnosed anxiety. I could, I would leave the classroom if I had to read a paragraph in front of everybody. I would stay home sick from school and present to the teacher after school. I mean, I had a lot of social anxiety. And so books like this can really help somebody understand there is an art to conversation. It's not just this gray area. Some people are good, some people are bad, some people are born salespeople, some people aren't. That's not true. It's something that you can learn. It's something that there are strategies for which we could talk about in a couple of minutes. And so I'm really happy that you wrote the book. I mean, I really could have used it a few years ago.

Well, so it's funny, Nicholas, because I give a speech. I speak to college students twice a year up at a university in New York, and I actually do a lecture for different classes. And these are communication classes, and a lot of it is how you need to be within the workplace, and a lot of the ways in how you could work on communicating. So there are actual things that were written in Speakeasy that came from a bunch of those lectures in helping students know how they can have better conversations with their bosses or address certain uncomfortable situations. And what I wanted to make it about was there— look, you cannot map out the perfect conversation. You can't plan it and, you know, get from the beginning A to Z and on a straight line. There's so many different ways that every conversation can go. But what you can control is how you need to be going into it. Maybe a little bit of preparedness stuff about yourself or certain things you can practice. And through more conversations, you could become adept at it. So the book is a guidebook. It is. It's a toolbook that you can go back to for over and over again, even though it does read like a book. And there are lessons and stories in a lot of the examples. While each chapter concludes with ways that relate to business students and for your personal life, or, you know, whether for your friends or your intimate lovers or whatnot, that you can use a lot of the tools from Speakeasy for all of your conversations to gain a lot of the confidence that you said you were lacking when you were younger, that maybe people are a little hesitant on, on how you could think about what that conversation is about. It's a new sense of appreciation of it that will change you from being nervous about having one to being excited about having more of them.

Absolutely. No, I mean, that's the energy that I felt when I was reading the book. And you made an interesting point in the intro, so we'll kind of jump into some of the content from the book that Most meaningful relationships that you have, you, me, and every listener today, right now, they started with a conversation. And so those connections, if you can apply what you learn from this book to improve the likelihood of success, you can have more meaningful relationships. You can do more business, you can have more fun, you can bring more exciting people into your life. Like whatever your goal is, it all starts with a conversation. And so when I was reading that in the book, I thought, I mean, geez, my now fiancée, that started as a conversation. Every single business venture that I've participated in, they started with conversations. You and me started as a conversation. So it's a really cool point that you make there.

And I think one of the overarching themes of the book, which has a lot to do with The Way You Need to Be, is that, look, we were disconnected during that whole window of time, this last 2 and a half years of COVID even though we were able to have conversations on the phone or via Zoom like you and I are doing right now. But we lost a lot of that in-person connection. And what we took for granted was the ability to just have a conversation with anyone. And that realization hit me that you have to treat the opportunity to speak to anyone, any individual. Heck, it could be the guy who's checking your bags out at the grocery store to a cab driver, to somebody that you just interact with, you know, in passing. You have to treat every conversation as a gift because it is. This is a very disconnected world. We're all really busy, and the opportunity to speak to another means something different than just talking to someone. What it actually means is that if you do a conversation right, you have a chance to bring your world into another person's world and another person's world into yours, which means that you're going to learn and grow from just one conversation. And that connection can begin a relationship. That will add to more conversations that will help grow into a really profitable business, profitable friendship, or valuable life. So, conversations are gifts and we don't want to let those gifts pass by. We love gifts. Let's take them in and have more of them if we can.

Yeah, we love gifts and we always want to be present with them. And I think every time I meet a new person, and not that I'm always looking to get something from the relationship in terms of a value exchange, but you are always 3 feet from gold, as they say. You never know. What somebody can do for you. And I, that, that just brings me back to a quick story I want to highlight real quick. When I was first starting Book Thinkers, and it was mainly just a social media community, sometimes that's tough when you're posting and you're not getting a lot of engagement and you never really know who's in your audience. But that point that every single connection, every like, every comment, it's a gift.

Yeah.

And you never know, you're always 3 feet from gold. Somebody might come out of the woodwork one day and change your entire life. So there are a lot of creators out there. Don't give up. Don't stop posting your podcasts. Don't stop posting on social media, you never know what's gonna happen.

So it's so true. And I have a special place in my heart for other podcasters. And I think you've probably connected on this conversation as well. You've been on other podcast shows, you've had other podcasters on your program. We're providing great content for the world to listen to. We're basically enabling conversations to be other people to tap in and listen to them just as your listeners are doing right now. That's a gift in itself because we learn from those other conversations and we've been doing it for years. I mentioned it a lot in the book with, you know, from Larry King to Oprah Winfrey to Howard Stern. These are people who have been providing incredible interviews and conversations that we love. And all every night before we go to sleep, late night TV, there is a conversation between 2 people that literally is the last thing we hear before we go to bed and we get excited about it. There is something engaging. It lifts us up. There is a connect— the connection itself that takes place during a conversation is energy that can literally lift up and not only change the people having the conversation, but those observing it as well. And that's important. That means we need more of them and it'll help bring us together that much faster and that much more often.

Well, you bring up another point that I wanted to talk about today, which is that in the book you highlight a 2010 survey that found that the average person participates in 25 conversations a day. And when I first read that, I thought to myself, well, I know a lot of people who Definitely don't have 25 in-person conversations a day, but you define conversation a little bit differently. You just highlighted a way that you can participate in a conversation, which is watching a late-night TV interview. So what are some of the other ways that people can communicate and participate in conversations?

Well, what we, we've highlighted podcasts, which is probably the number one medium. And I think, I mean, the growth of podcasts alone is just scary. I, whatever it is, it now we're over 2.2 million podcasts programs out there with over 60 million episodes that are active, uh, which is crazy. That's, that's a lot of content, people. And just about every single one of those is a conversation. I know a lot of them are one person talking, but you could argue that person's talking to you and you're listening and learning from them. Um, going to hear speakers speak at events. Um, I'm a professional speaker. You go to a conference, say what you want, that might just be one person talking, but a lot of times the really good ones interact with the audience. But they're engaging in content that you could be utilizing as a conversation. The important thing to think about as it relates to conversations is they're everywhere and we have them at work multiple times a day. And I hate one particular form of conversation. Someone said I should write a second book on this, a third book, whatever. I'm staying away from that. But our email communication that we have, it is a conversation. It's just kind of one way at the time. But it's important that we recognize we use this constantly. We use texts constantly. These are conversations that we're having constantly, DMs throughout the day. My goodness, start adding it up. And by the way, it's way more today. It's way more than that 25. I think we're missing out. We're a little unequally balanced on having stuff that's electronic communications versus the stuff we're doing, which is live and voice to voice and in person, which I encourage most people when you have the opportunity, an important thing to do. To improve the connection or relationship, and this is a great work thing, don't go back and forth with emails and texts 600,000 times. Pick up the phone. Just have— believe it or not, I learned that there's a button on my iPhone. It's got a green background with a white thing on it, and if you press it, you could actually speak to another human being. Would you believe they've had this on here for that long? It enables you to have a conversation, which is important. Try to get to having more of those conversations. We recognize not everything needs to be voice to voice, face to face, but add them all up. These are where we're making our connections in our day.

I am with you. I second that point. I think it's very important to have face-to-face or voice-to-voice conversations. And one of the ways that I was able to develop my ability to communicate was by reading books, which I view as a form of communication. I always say, listen, it's tough to get Elon Musk to mentor you for $20, but if you go read his biography, written by Ashley Vance, you can be mentored in some way, shape, or form by Ashley and by Elon. And that's a really cool relationship. And I have hundreds of relationships with the people behind me, hundreds of them.

Steve Martin's first fiction book was made into a movie called Shopgirl, and a friend of mine recommended it to me. And it wasn't necessarily all the topics that I would be interested in, but I happen to love Steve Martin. And I read that book and I heard Steve Martin talking to me when I was reading it. And I remembered eventually I got the audiobook and it made it even better, which is a great way to think about it. This is a conversation that you can have. You are listening to a reader who is trying to communicate with you. There are sometimes you want to shout back at the book, but, you know, that might not necessarily create the true connection you want. But yes, you can connect through those books and have conversations that way too.

Yeah, you can. I love viewing these books, especially a book like yours, as a tool in a tool belt. I call it my book belt. So when I see a hammer or When I see a nail, I can pull out the hammer and I can use it. When I see an opportunity to improve my communication, I can go pull out Speakeasy and use it. So these books are tools, they're opportunities for conversation. Let's dive into some of the more applicable things. So at the end of every chapter, you have these Connect, Engage, and Win sections with action items. So why did you decide to do that?

So when I, as someone, as I mentioned, who is a sales and marketing consultant and professional, this is where I'm, that's the area that I've spent my my entire career in, in helping people do their— those jobs better. And a top sales performer, a really creative marketer, and mixing all that together to help people take advantage of that. I knew that the lessons that I had in Speakeasy could be applied on their own without a business setting, just as we were talking about in personal situations. However, I did not want to take away from one of the best advantages that conversations in business can have, and that is that you can win more sales, you can make your marketing message connect, and as a leader You can establish the connections you need with your company and the people that work with you if you take a lot of the lessons from Speakeasy and deploy them in your place of business. So I wanted to make sure that at every end of every chapter, there is a Connect, Engage, and Win section that is dedicated specifically to the tips on how to apply the lessons learned in that particular chapter of Speakeasy specifically so how you can Win the business, make the connections, and engage and continue the relationships that help to grow in your business sense. So it was intentional to isolate it in those Connect, Engage, and Win tips as a great way to put it into practice, the lessons learned from that chapter.

Sometimes I have authors ask me, hey, is there anything that you would recommend I include in my book when I write it, or my next book when I write it? Is there anything you wish I did differently? And the only feedback that I really ever have for people that's consistent is You need to make it more actionable. You need to, you need to make it easy for somebody to identify like you did. You isolated the action items. You need to make it easy for a reader to identify what can be easily implemented or not easily, but implemented so that they can create real behavior change. And not only does it improve their lives, but it, it sort of lengthens their relationship with your book and it increases the ability for them to tell other people about it because it creates real change.

As a speaker, and I host and conduct a lot of workshops in helping companies grow their business, it also is laid out every chapter in the way that I do that. There's a story in the beginning of every chapter that's either personal or something I've known about, and I place that story as the example to set the stage. I then dive into the meat and potatoes as to the problem that we're dealing with at that part of a conversation or the way you need to be in a conversation. And then The lessons that you could take at the end, the takeaways is the connect, engage, and win. And that was intentional from the very beginning. Weaving that all together was not easy, but that was the flow that I wanted the book to achieve.

And an example of this. So after chapter 1, you talked about how business meetings are normally like top-down. They're a presentation style. You just speak at a group of people the entire time. What you're recommending is that you need to make it more of a conversation. And so you give the reader some additional tips and tricks and stuff like that. But that's a good example.

Yeah, that's a fun one. I mean, and a lot of times people go into sales meetings specifically. I've seen this is the worst of sales when they go in and they're with a scripted response and they're only talking about themselves or they're only showing what I love to call the logo slide of death, which basically like has every single company you've ever worked with and says, here's all the great people that I've worked with. Well, If you're on the receiving end of this, you're basically saying there's everybody that isn't me.

Yes.

And you're setting the wrong tone when you're only talking about yourself versus a good conversationalist would ask questions and create an environment that feels like a conversation because you're already, you're focused on connecting versus focusing on telling and talking about how great your company is. So in those particular, in that particular instance, yeah, that's making sure let's get the business meeting into a conversation. And that's what we should be focusing on. A lot of the clients I work with, the sales teams with, the metric that we use is not presentations or pitches or meetings. I bucket it as it's conversations. How many? And by the way, that we know that it takes a certain number of conversations until you close a deal for certain clients. So having them understand that every one of those conversations is going to build and create the opportunity to do business, just as we talked about in the beginning. That's important. That's how I track things. So I want people focused on that versus presenting.

I love it. Little side note, one of the ways that I was able to improve my communication was door-to-door sales. And one of the best tips that I ever received about door-to-door sales was if it takes you, let's just say, 25 doors to get a yes, every single door that's a no is contributing towards that yes, right? You're not loss, loss, loss, loss, and eventually a win. You're Just mini wins the entire time. And so that's really cool that you're tracking conversations as a KPI instead of presentations or meetings or whatever.

Think of it— I used to think of it as you want to get to no faster so you can open the door that has the yes, but it took all those nos to get the yes you needed. I agree with you.

Yeah, I love it. So next we'll talk about what makes a conversation engaging. And in this part of the book, you have the 7 C's of engagement. So let's talk a little bit about a couple of them to give my audience a preview of what they can learn. A couple of the ones that— oh yeah, go ahead.

No, no, you go, you go.

I was just gonna go right from the top. So content is number one. I think that's probably the most important one. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that for a minute.

It seems so simple. And I, by the way, what was the joke that I wrote about? You know, there probably could have been like 6 or 8 C's, but we had to make it 7.

You had to make it 7.

So at least you'd remember it. Your people, why are you having the conversation in the first place? Is really at the meat of everything, right? What is the content that you're trying to cover? You're trying to introduce yourself, you're trying to introduce a new product, you're trying to solve a problem. At the meat of every single conversation is something you're talking about. What is the topic? And a lot of times, you know, we've had these situations, by the way, when we think we're having a conversation, but we're not because people are all over the map. They're, they're, how was your day? Oh, I have to do this. I have to do this task. I say, oh, can you do that? And like, it's a jumpy type of thing. Whereas if it was focused on one particular piece of content at one time, it would be simple. It would be in a real sense of content and concretely in that content, and we would know what we're talking about. So yeah, it is. It seems so simple, but a lot of times we can get lost in knowing that that content is something that you can connect with another individual is an important piece too. Like, so I'm sure you're gonna bleed into this, but a content is only really good As the context it's within, which is the second C. So you need to contextualize the content within it and make sure that you can relate to the person you're speaking with and trying to connect with, with that content. And I don't like to have people think too much about it. I want them to just make sure that, look, all you will not have all 7 Cs in every conversation you have, but you cert— there's certain ones that need to be there and should be a focus of how you should have your conversations.

Well, and what's useful for me as, as the way that I like to learn is I can look at these 7 C's and you're right, 6 C's is closer than 8 C's, but I think 7 was the right number. So you look at these 7 C's and you could say, where are my strong points? Where do I consistently show up and execute these C's in a decent way versus, oh wow, you know what? My cadence really does need a lot of work. I should pay attention to this. People oftentimes look at me like, Why are you sitting there not speaking? Or why are you speaking so fast? Or whatever the case is, or connection or whatever the, whatever the C is gonna be. And so you get to audit yourself and I think that's very useful as a reader to sort of grade yourself against the 7 Cs.

Yeah. And, and getting back to the original one of content, the word I like to use is it's familiar content. It is. And, and that's a key thing is what is somebody else familiar with? There's a difference when you present something new to somebody and then you end up kind of not necessarily having as much of a conversation because you're almost teaching someone with it. But if you both know what you're talking about, um, what, what do you think the weather is like? Or, um, what did you think of the presentation we just heard? Or what did you think of the book that you and I are having? The familiar content right now is Speakeasy. And to our listeners, their familiar content is your program. So they're familiar that you're bringing on great authors that are gonna talk about these books that they're gonna connect with. So to them, that's their familiarity with it, and that's why they can connect with our conversation.

Yeah, I love the familiar content piece. And I actually, I recently saw a social media post that said it's okay to repost your best performing content because people are familiar with it. They want more of the same. They don't always want new and different. And I thought about that a little bit. The example in the piece of content was if you go to a concert, let's just say it's somebody like Aerosmith, you don't want them to play all the new stuff that you haven't heard before. You want them to play their greatest hits because you're familiar with it.

Yeah.

And I think the same thing happens with creators like you and like me, we want to have conversations about familiar topics. You want the listener to be familiar with the style of show that you're going to have. And so you can't switch it up too much. It needs to be familiar.

And I'm sure even the flow of this, if you look at the entire, from intro to outro of your podcast, there are overlaps and things that we're all familiar with that we want to hear again, or there's a certain part of the show that you want to cover. That's a really, really important piece because that's what we connect with. It's why we watch certain shows over and over again. Why? While I'll tell you, I turn the news off once I get to the sports because I knew that's like, that's my bedtime at that point and it's going to come later in the news so they could throw all the other stuff at me. But that familiarity with it, we love to connect with it. It's like a warm blanket, something we're a little familiar with and we know we can adapt to.

Let's touch on one more before we, before we move on to practice and preparation. Let's talk a little bit about creativity. That's a subject that there aren't a lot of great books about creativity specifically. So sometimes I get questions about creativity. What do you do to encourage creativity? What do you do to become more creative? Because it is a learned skill. So how do we tap into it? How do we exercise it?

The simplest way to think about creativity, and let's get to the root of it, it's something that you created, right? It's something that came from you, like an idea, your authentic self, whatever it is. By the way, I am by no means artistic. My fine motor skills are terrible. But I will tell you, if I threw some paint up on a wall, it would certainly be creative. I don't know if it would be appreciated by anybody, but it would be something that came from me. I think that's at the epicenter of when it comes to creativity is that it doesn't need to be something completely new. It's just got to be something from you. And that's one of the key messages that I have. Just injecting that component of it could be creative. By the way, you could also inject a little of your own humor or your own personality into the mix. That's creative onto itself. It doesn't have to be a brand new idea every single time you have a conversation or, you know, an aha moment. It just has to be your moment. And that's an important part about conversations, that that's creative enough, is that you've come up with something that is from you. And we value that. And by the way, we do appreciate it because we like coming up with creative stuff too, and we learn something about the other individual. So yeah, creativity, a key C in the 7 Cs.

You know, an interesting reflection I just had very quickly was that I was sort of debating it for a second. The familiar content, does that contradict creativity? But it really doesn't because your creativity comes from your unique self, like you're saying, and that creates the familiarity over time with your audience. You are the differentiator. So I think that's really cool.

I would— I'll use some of my old friends, friends that I've had for a very long time, known for over 40-some-odd years. And we grew up together at certain stages of our lives. There's probably going to be a movie quote from like, you know, the '70s, '80s, or '90s, like thrown into the conversation just randomly, because that's what we used to do. And by the way, that might be pretty creative. But that's also Something that we know about and it's something that we certainly have done over and over again, no different than that post you talked about that was creative at that particular time. Just bringing that back up enables us to look at something that we can all connect with. It does.

Yeah. And you have a line in chapter 5, set the stage where you talk, well, actually it's the intro line, the Howard Stern line. It says, anything you find yourself holding back, it's probably what the audience most wants to hear. And sometimes for me, I think when I was first starting this journey, I was holding certain things back. And I think once I let myself bleed into the content a little bit more, then people could become more familiar with me because they understood me more. So when you're writing and you're speaking, do you ever just let things go? I mean, it sounds like you do. Yeah.

So I'm an extrovert by nature and I just had a conversation with a fellow extrovert. a great author who wrote the book Swagger, Leslie M. And Leslie talks about that she too, when she meets people and she has a con— like, she gets excited, she gets to talk about her swagger stuff, she's excited. When she goes out afterwards, she just wants to do more of it. That's exactly how I am. So, um, no, I don't hold anything back, and it probably is problematic at times. I'll just keep going with, with what I want to talk about or, or lift that energy up, and I will go there. I'll ask the, the tough question. I'll ask the uncomfortable question. And I'll usually do it early on, pointing out Howard in the book. Howard was instrumental in a lot of ways because whether or not you agreed with some of the stuff that he did, which was a little bit childish and fun, it was attention-getting in his earlier years. He's by far one of the best interviewers I've ever heard. And go listen to him today. He's way more mature than that in his now, you know, his 60s. He's incredible because he asks the questions that we're all thinking about. And he doesn't hold back, and he just lets it go. I think in the world we're in, we're a little bit worried about what to say today. We're a little afraid to say certain things because there is a sensitivity, political correctness, from all the issues— politics, race, gender equality, gender levels, things to say, even the right pronouns to use in the right sentences. There's a lot of changes going on, and what that's doing in many instances is it's limiting people from having that conversation. While it is challenging, and what it is doing is it's challenging us to have better conversations and more clear ones, it should not be limiting us from not having them at all. We should be going out there and having more conversations because that is where the connection is made. And in fact, we might learn something even better around each of those issues. One of the biggest challenges that, you know, the United States has had Is that there's been some advantage by only talking about one side or only talking about one direction, and it seems to have worked in a certain way. While it might be working for politicians or for getting elected or doing certain things, we're dividing our country. It's certainly not going to bring it together and recognize that those 2 sides need to start having conversation, as all sides do. And we all know that every conflict is resolved with a conversation because that's where the connection is made. So instead of only dealing with the familiar content, I'll say this, we should be open to having those other conversations and, you know, do the things. Don't be afraid to hold back and be able to be open in those instances. So don't hold back, let yourself out and express the things you're thinking about and learn from it too. And I think that's important if you ask it in a question way or if you start that conversation, Not with judgment or telling someone or putting a belief. Be open. And by doing that, you know, go, go listen how Howard asked questions on any of his interviews, whether the topic was appropriate or not. He asked it in an open way that made you think and really engage the person that was in there, that, that they opened up as well. And that's the important part. It isn't just one person who's letting go and opening up. It's enabling another to want to appreciate that moment in the conversation that they will too.

I love that point. We're going to definitely turn that into an Instagram reel or something like that because that's a home run point. I mean, something that I'm observing with you right now is that after 1,500 or 800 podcast interviews, you've consumed different perspectives, different political perspectives, different perspectives on social issues, different perspectives on business and communication or whatever the subject is. And I've done that over the last few years by reading hundreds of different perspectives on similar topics in books. And What that does is it does, it makes you more tolerant. It makes you less judgmental. It allows you to take in a piece of information without becoming emotionally reactive to it, and it gives you more time to process it and respect it. And I think that's really important. So you're highlighting something that I think somebody like a Joe Rogan is doing really well right now, which is sitting right in the middle and allowing people to say what they want to say.

Yeah.

Sometimes with his responses, he makes mistakes. He goes out there and he learns from them. And that's all you can do when you're having a conversation is you have to resolve it like you said, which is really cool.

There's only one way anything gets resolved in any of these matters of difficulty and sensitivity, and it's through these conversations. So it's a big factor in the way that we can be better communicators and connectors. And that's what I like people to think. And maybe more importantly, Using that sense of appreciation. Remember, appreciate that you are going to have that conversation, that it's a gift, that you're going to get that other perspective. And some of the perspectives, if you open yourself up to appreciate what someone else is going to say in a conversation, what you can learn, you're going to grow. You're going to grow and you're now going to have a more valued opinion. And you might actually be able, you know, I don't know if it might change your opinion. It might You know, you may never agree with another person. Make it clear, not every conversation is gonna be, oh, we all are happy and, and, and come together. Trust me, there, there's gonna be disagreements, but at least you'll get to respect one another's opinion and have that view that you agree to disagree. And you can know where people stand because that's some of the, the challenges that we have. And that will really help you make that connection with that person and know where the line can be drawn and where you can be brought together.

Yeah, 1,000%. Now, one of the things that I'm personally curious about is how do you stay so present during conversations? You mentioned earlier you developed this skill set of being able to listen. And I know when I was first starting the Book Thinkers Podcast that I had a very difficult time not looking at my questions and responding to the person who just said something really cool and asking a proper follow-up question. Like, it's tough to be present sometimes. You're always thinking about what you want to ask next.

But spectacular question, Nick, and I've tried to figure it out myself. So part of it is that I have a genuine appreciation. You heard me talk about in the book, I mentioned the Connect Your Voice, V-O-I-C-E. That is an exercise that I live and breathe by, and that's to visualize how the conversation will go, appreciate the opportunity, know the identity I need to be when I'm having the conversation. And the 2 parts which are going to get to your point here, add your charisma and energy into every single conversation. And that energy is required when I need to be a listener and when I need to be there, I have to have that energy there to stay focused. But I also know that there's an advantage. It's a real sense of appreciation. It's a real simple thing. If you were talking to someone else and They weren't paying attention to you, how would you feel? And that's all I need. All I need is the sense of, I want to be appreciated when I have something to say. So I'm going to listen and keep the focus and make— and by the way, they're a guest on my program. And that's the same way I am with a client in a business meeting and with a random stranger I'll talk with. If you sense that you're appreciative of having that conversation and go in with that attitude and now recognize, hey, that person's also going to appreciate me just by me being appreciative of them. That is true. And we need to do more of that in this world. And that's what I was hoping. If there's ever one lesson that I want people to do is appreciate how valuable conversations are. So that's my big part. So the energy is important. That will keep you focused with that sense of appreciation of what a gift it is in that moment in time.

It is incredibly important. I just finished a couple of months ago a book called Cues by Vanessa Van Edwards, and she talks about the art of charisma in that book. She, she says charisma is The balance between competence and warmth, and that it is reciprocal. When you give charisma, you will receive charisma. And I think that's cool that you just said for you, charisma really equals focus and attention. And so when you're charismatic, you're going to get charisma back, and that draws you back into the conversation, and it keeps you there, and it keeps the other person there. And I think that's really cool. It's a really cool way that you put that.

Cool. Yeah.

The VOICE acronym was something that I was going to talk a little bit about, so I'm happy that you touched base on that. We only have about 10 minutes left. So before we wrap up the show, I do have a pretty cool question here. We talked on your show about movies and you shared your favorite movie with me, and I'd love for you to share that with the Book Thinkers family because it was a really cool point that you were making.

So Nicholas is right. I ask just about every guest on the show what their favorite movie is, and my favorite movie is Rocky. And I could even encompass it as the entire series. I think Rocky Balboa is just Sylvester Stallone would probably agree, is the greatest fictional character ever created. And it has a lot to do with his spirit. And his spirit is actually one of the— the way I sign off every show is I go, keep moving onward and upward before I say be brief, be bright, be gone. But keep moving onward and upward. That is what Rocky is all about. He uses that line that says, you know, life is really hard. And it's not about how hard you get hit. It's getting hit and getting up and keep moving forward. That is life. That is what winning is about. And I look at when I say connect, engage, and win often in the book, win isn't just winning or closing the deal. Winning is what we're trying to achieve in life. Winning is a feeling that we have of appreciating our lives and appreciating every hard effort we have. And Rocky, I mean, my goodness, what, you know, from from rags to riches, but also just the effort. In the first movie, he doesn't win the fight. He just gets to the end. And it's the journey. And I think all of us really do appreciate what a hard-fought journey that life is. And I— it's, to me, it's the best. It's the most emblematic and representative movie I've ever seen. And it always inspires me. And the music's pretty damn good too.

The music is good too. It's a good workout music. So how many times do you think you've seen the first Rocky movie?

Oh, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be undercutting it and saying it's in, it's probably 40 to 50, maybe even more. Maybe I've been like, I'm a little older than you, Nicholas. So I've had, I've had, it's been around, you know, since I was 6 years old. So yeah, it's been, I've been watching a lot of times.

And have you been to Philly and climbed the steps and seen the statue?

More than once. Let's just say I don't think I got to do it with my kids. I know that because we never really went to Philly like together and did that trip, but I've done it several times.

Yeah. So it's pretty cool that the entire city's mascot is a fictional character.

It's, it's pretty awesome.

And that just shows how cool the movie is.

And the whole series is great for those who haven't, except for Rocky V, which didn't exist in my book. That was a terrible one, but that's not important right now.

No, I'm happy you brought it up. Did we cover everything? Is there anything else that you'd like to highlight for the Book Thinkers family about Speakeasy? Remember, it comes out on the 27th, so everybody needs to preorder it if they resonated with today's conversation. Is there anything that we didn't cover?

Look, we, we covered of it. I'll just go with the way I sign off every show and that'll help you with this show is to be brief, be bright, be gone. I call it B5G, which is how many Bs there are in that expression. When you think about your conversations, it's a good way to summarize it. Be brief and recognize that time is limited and appreciate everybody's time when you're in it. So make sure that what you're saying is bright. Try to lift up the conversations that you have and add an energy or a pulse to it. And some good ideas and good conversation talk. And be gone doesn't mean, you know, drop the mic and walk away. Be gone means move onward and upward, as we were just talking about with Rocky. That's what we want our conversations to do because our goal is to have more conversations. So I hope Speakeasy will enable you to do that. That's just the last tip I would get from one of the chapters in there.

I think that's a great way to sign off. Before we do, for those that want to learn a little bit more about you, your upcoming book release, your podcast, etc., where should they go? What should they do?

To grab yourself a copy of Speakeasy, go to speakeasybook.com and that will take you to thriveloud.com where the Speakeasy book is. And that's where you can preorder the book. You can hear all the podcasts. You can actually hear Nicholas's episode as well, which is on the program. And you could also learn about all the things I do in helping companies to connect, engage, and win in their business.

Lou, you are amazing at what you do. I'm happy you wrote this book. I think it's gonna help a lot of people. And thank you for coming on the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books podcast.

Dude, thank you so much for having me on and thank your whole community for checking this out.