How to Communicate Effectively To Get What You Want

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Welcome to Relentless Conversations. This is sponsored by Move your Biz Virtual staffing. Manage, Outsource Virtual employee. A company that you need, if you're a business owner or an entrepreneur that you need to take your business to the next level and your life to the next level. I'm Scott Abraham. I'm going to be your host today. And we are with a true game changer, somebody who epitomizes the relentless spirit. Anthony Jasi. Anthony JI esquire is an EO member and an expert communicator if there ever was one. He was named super lawyer, Rising stars in the legal field. Anthony is the managing shareholder of derasi llc, where he is in charge of firm strategy and development of DRAs team and culture. And over the past two years, his focus has shifted from practicing law to growing the firm as a whole. And he's now spearheading problems and working with department heads to run other teams as well as other businesses, including Move your Biz, of which he is the founder. Anthony is a friend, a mentor, and somebody I look to as somebody that is just an inspiration of an epitome of relentless, as I said. So I'm super excited to be chatting with you today.

No, thanks for having me, Scott. I'm excited to be here, bud.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So today's conversation is about communication.

It's.

It's about how to master communication and get what you want. So let me start with just a really fundamental question. Why is communication so difficult and what prevents good communication to start with?

Yeah, communication is really difficult if you think about it. And if you go all the way back to where communication really takes place, it's me and you, you know, in our caveman outfits or whatever you want to imagine. Off to go hunt mammoth. Right. And how do we, since it's bigger than us, how do we coordinate that hunt to bring food home to. To. To our families? And so try to coordinate that. And really, all communication, as I said, if I break it down to its base level, is I have an idea in my head and I'm trying to convey that to you. We don't have telepathy, so I've got to use what we do with my body language and my words to convey the idea in my head so that you understand exactly what my idea is.

And, and what are the things that prevent that? What are the things that sort of get in the way of that? Clear commun.

Oh, gosh. I mean, on the mammoth hunt. Yeah, on the mammoth hunt, there are a lot of way things that get involved in our communication. And the number one thing that gets in the way is us, our mindset. Whether are we, are we, do we come from abundance or scarcity, Our thought process. Well, I don't like Scott. You know, I'm very suspicious. I think he's gonna let the mammoth kill me. So I don't know if I'm gonna go all the way in and get killed by that mammoth. Maybe I'll let Scott go first and Scott gets killed by the mammoth, you know, and then how we view the world, you know, what do we look at? You know, what are experiences that we've had? Oh, mammoths are easy to kill. You know, if I kill it, if I hit it right in the heart or maybe I've never seen a mammoth before and I just stay there and stare at it. You know, these are all kinds of things that go into the entire you, if you will, and through that, how your ideas are conveyed, how you see the world is how communication happens or usually does not happen.

And so if there's. So I like the metaphor of a mammoth. We're going to go out in this mammothon and every person that's a business owner probably envisions that future as we want to get that mammoth, we want to get that, we want to coordinate people. I have a quick question. Let's go back to younger Anthony. Where did you first start to get in interested in communication? What motivated you to really understand communication and make it work for you and your multiple businesses?

Yeah, the origin of my communication journey. And I want to emphasize I still consider myself very much a student, not a master. Always learning comes early on. And it's a transition from, I will say doer to leader and doer. Look, I can do it myself. Scott has no idea how to kill the mammoth. Scott, just go sit down. I'll go kill the mammoth for you. We'll go eat and you take some of the meat home. But if we had a pack of mammoths, right? It's way too big for myself. How do I communicate? And I'm sure this will be a great surprise to people. I found very early on as a very poor communicator, I know this has shocked everybody, but no, it's funny because it comes back down to the same thing. How I can communicate an idea that I have in my brain so that you understand exactly what that idea is. And 99 times out of 100, no one understood what I was thinking because I failed to communicate that vision, that idea to. To employees. And so as I transitioned more from Doer to leader. I realized because the only value I had at this point was not my doing. I'm no longer doing anything. I'm leading. I'm asking people to take this vision and build it. And the lack of communicating that vision equals really bad results. It's like building a foundation really poorly.

So let's squeeze some juice out of this mammoth, this mammoth analogy. We're, we're casting vision. Every, all of all the. The tribe is gathered around and you're talking to everybody about the vision of going after these mammoths. What tools or strategies do you use to onboard people with the vision? And then we're going to go deeper and talk about the misalignment and the people who are dragging their feet. But let's start at the very beginning. You've got everybody together and you're talking. It's mammoth hunting season. What tools or strategies to use to get everybody on the same page.

It'll sound, you know, Simon Sinek wrote the book. But start with why. Why are we killing the mammoth in the first place? Do we all want to kill the mammoth? Maybe we don't. Right? And so making sure we understand why, why, at least for mammoth, should be fairly basic. Hey, if we kill this mammoth, we have clothing, right? For, for our backs, we have food for our belly and our family lives. So at its baselate level, right, Ma's hierarchy needs, we're fulfilling this right now and killing, killing this mammoth. So probably a lot of people get behind that. But starting with why? Because if you start with how, you don't know whether people are bought in. Maybe I don't want to kill the mammoth. Maybe I want to sit down and why can't we just eat plants and vegetables? Right? So, so that's, that's the question, you know, why? Getting everybody bought into the why of why we're doing things. And then focus on the how. How are we going to kill it?

Got it? All right, so I love it.

So you.

We've got everybody, starting with the why. Great tool. I remember the. Simon Sinek, I think it was why. What were the three consensus circles?

Do you remember? I know.

Why was the first one. And then it was what? And then how.

Or what? How.

And then what? It was, yeah. Why, What? How. So. So we've got the why. Everybody's on board. You've described the what, what we're going to do. And then you've described the how. Is everybody on board? And how do you deal with the people that are. Say they're on board but but really aren't or just outwardly not on board. Two very different types of people that we all find in our organizations.

Yeah, I think it comes down to belief systems. And my belief system is no one shows up to work saying, you know, how do I suck today? I really feel like sucking and I'm gonna suck really good today. I, I don't, I don't honestly believe that because funny enough, if you had those people and you can spot those people, those are pretty easy people to spot and you could fire them immediately or, or they leave on their own. So we usually don't have those types of people in our organizations. What we usually have is, I don't know if Scott's my leader. I very doubt his vision. I'm not trying to suck here, but I don't think he knows what we're doing. I know what the vision is and he sucks at it. Right. So non belief in the vision or how you're articulating it or, you know, I'm just. Sometimes they're dealing with their own worldview, their own problems, something at home, for instance, and brought to work or something like that. So really try to find out. And talking with your people, connecting with your people in particular, what is you care about, why are you here? And it's funny. Yes, we're all here generally for some pay. We don't do this for free, but I think that's the base reason. I think people are at jobs for very different reasons. The same reason people take a paycheck, pay cut, you know, they pay is important. It helps us live. But it's not the end all, be all. It's not the only reason we do things.

So I like that idea of the belief and sort of the assumption that there's positive intent on behalf of the other person. Nobody shows up intentionally wanting to do lousy at their job. I love that. So the second part of it is, how do you approach difficult conversations? You've cast vision, we're going to go hunt mammoth. You've created the plan and you start out, but you see somebody is struggling, they're falling behind and they're putting the rest of the tribe at risk. How do you approach difficult conversations? Do you have strategies? Do you have tools on how you approach those conversations?

Yeah, and funny enough, I, I think they're based in psychology in the sense of, you know, stop talking and listen. Right. And ask a lot of questions. So here's, here's. And I think it's humanity at its basic. We, we put people and things in boxes, right? Is that. It comes back to that fight versus flight instinct. We need a box because that way we understand it, right? Dinosaur bad, you know, mammoth bad. But we need food, so good to hunt it type of thing, right? There's these base boxes that we have, everything. And funny enough, we do this with our employees and our people too. Oh, they're not, they're not getting the job done. They're bad. Instead of understanding, well, what's the motive behind it and what's really going on in their life. So approaching difficult conversations to me would be, say, Scott, you were my employee. And it's like, scott, look, I need to understand a few things if you have some time. I needed this project done by May 1, and today is May 15, and the project is still not done. Why is that? So I stopped with any assumptions, right? I don't want to assume things are bad because once we get there, we can get to that bad conclusion very easily. But there may be reasons why things haven't happened and, and, and, and of course, you know, it'll be up to you as the boss, you know, is this a valid reason or not? You know, you know, why didn't that project get done, Scott? I didn't feel like getting it done. Well, that's very easy. Well, you're not going to be here much longer without those type of feelings or. Well, Scott, don't you remember? You asked me not to do it on May 1st. You had me do this other project, and I told you, if you want this done, I can't do it to May 15th. Oh, I totally forgot about that. Right. So as leaders, you know, we don't have perfect memory. We're humans too. And there could be some other reasons. So I always walk into difficult conversations with curiosity. I want to know why things are the way they are. Because again, if it comes down to the end conclusion of I don't want to be here and this job sucks, that's easy to me. That's a, hey, let me fire you. Not in a negative spirit, but let me fire you because you're not happy here and I'm not happy with you. Let me let you go free to go find a job that you'll be happy with.

Okay, I, I like it. So let's keep going with the, the mammoth, the mammoth. I, I love this metaphor. So we've gathered our tribe together. Well, because it's, it's kind of this sort of, it's this wonderful sort of metaphor. But everybody sort of feels like if you're A business. In business you're out conquering, you know, killing mammoth, getting new business and building the business. So you started with why you've got everybody enrolled with why you're doing this mammoth feed, help support the community. You talk about what, what, what strategies for the second one. And I'm going back a little bit, but what strategies do you have to get the what is clear and specific as possible. So everybody knows and is on the same page. It's not one mammoth we're looking for, but we're actually looking for like five mammoth.

I love the what as well because it, you know, here's what I learned and I had a blind spot. So, you know, I'm going to tell a story within the story, but I promise I'll get back to it. So I had a business coach and you know, I remember sharing I have this frustration with my assistant. It's like she does not get everything I want done. I don't understand why she doesn't get it done. And so he asked, okay, well, tell me what's going on. Well, I need this report. I need this and I need this. And she frustrates me. She doesn't get it done. Well, have you ever asked her to do it? What do you mean? Have you actually specifically said I need this report by 9:00am on Monday every single week? Well, no, she should just know it. I was like, is she a mind reader? No, but. So within that story is answer your question, which how do you get people on the same page with what as much as you can. And it is human frailty. Never assume. So I'm not going to assume. You go back to the mana story. I'm not going to assume. You know how to use your spear. Right. I want to say, hey, we all have spears. I want to make sure you guys understand when we stab this mammoth, there's only two fragile spots, the heart and I don't know what else. I know the man that's not happening at me that well. Right? But when we go up there, I want you to run and I want you to stab upward into the heart. If you stab the leg, it's not going to be any good. You stab a tail, not going to be any good. We have to get the mammoth spark to bring the mammoth down so that we can all feed our families eat. So never assume. That's the biggest part. And that was the biggest lesson for me out of a lot of things in my life. So then that brings back to any business, do you, hey, I need this project done. What are the steps necessary? And I'll ask my people, what are the steps you think are necessary to get that report done by May 15?

And they go through and they back through. Sort of start with a goal and then give you the steps that it's going to take to get it done.

Right. Because we start with the goal. Right? Our goal, our why we're gonna go kill the mammoth. We have to kill the mammoth. Why? Because we need to eat, we need clothing, what have you. So that's the what, we're killing the mammoth. Well, are you sure we don't want to name the mammoth? No, no, we need to kill the mammoth to get the food and everything like that. Right. Okay. So we're committed to killing. That's the goal. Now how will we kill that mammoth? Yeah.

What are some of the best books? And I also want to ask you about some different business management systems because I know you've been exposed as a member of entrepreneur now organization for 10 years.

10 years? Yeah.

10 years you've been exposed to literally hundreds, if not thousands of different books. I know you're a voracious reader, so I want to ask you some questions about book recommends. You're an author as well, and I, and I know you're. You're well versed in the different b. Business management systems. Give a plug, don't give a plug for a business management system. But are they important for managing communications? To what degree do they play as a business owner in onboarding one of these business management systems? Whether it's map, eos or somebody else, they're absolutely important.

I mean, think about it this way. How do you get on the same page, right? That communication of an idea. The why, why, why are we killing the mammoth? Why are we in business? To make money, of course. Right? We're all gonna. The. But the money, as we both know, Scott, is a byproduct of getting that communication right, Getting the goals right and getting the, the, the. The intangibles, if you will. Correct. You get all that right? Money shows up, you don't get that right. Money does not show up. And you wonder, well, shoot, where's the money? So, yeah, it's called entrepreneurial system is so huge and I have a lot of endorsements. But I want to be very clear, I've learned something from all of them, right? There's not, there's not one style that is the end all be all. In my personal opinion, you can learn something from all of them. Matt, you know, funny enough, I just had lunch with Michael Cato yesterday and he's such a great, giving guy. He's the CEO of Matt for those who don't know him and just, just an amazing entrepreneur in his own right. And they're working on some amazing things with not only teaching your managers stuff, but as well as some of the books that they're working on writing. So that's going to be exciting. And I believe Matt's biggest book that Michael told me was this Discipline leader. It's about 52 chapters if I recall. There's a lot of nuggets in that book. So I do love that book. From a system. I love Scaling up, but I love mixing that with four disciplines of execution. So 40x, if you've read those two. So scaling up gives you a nice system overall, But I think 40x gives you the vision. Right? So there's this part in 4dx which I love, which explains the whirlwind and it makes so much sense. You wonder why you don't get enough done during the day. Well, what happens between nine to five? You're in meetings, you're in phone calls. We're doing this right. All the goals that you have to do not get done in the whirlwind do not get done 9 to 5. When did they get done? Between 4am and 9am if you're an early person, or 6pm and 10pm if you're. You're a late person or you need to carve time during that whirlwind where no one can touch you to get your goals done. But I think the fallacy is we assume that goals get done during the workday. They don't get done during the workday at all. Implementation of other goals get done, but not working on them and making things happen. So I love that part. The other part of 40x is scorecard. So that's a great book as a Scaling up is wonderful. Eos, again, different take on Scaling up, but they all have very similar pieces. And whatever you use, I'm not here to, you know, to tell people you must use one or the other, but you must have a system. That one is not negotiable. You must have daily check ins, weekly check ins, monthly check ins, whatever that cadence is, depending on where you're at as a company, you must be on the same page. You must communicate that vision. Remember, we're talking about communicating that vision to kill the mammoth. Well, if you are a leader, not a doer anymore, you're not killing the mammoth. You're teaching people how to kill that mammoth, or you're making sure we're all killing the mammoth together. And I don't think that's very, very well. You can do it, but it's not going to be as efficient and definitely not as timely as if you had a system. Here's the how to kill a mammoth book, if you will, or a system that checks in. Well, did we make those spears? Do we have 20 spears? What do the spears break? Right. All those things that go into making sure we have the equipment and the tools necessary to kill that mammoth would be part of that system.

With. With all that you've read on communication or having difficult conversations, is there one or two books that stick out that somebody should go pick up if they want to master communication or having difficult conversations or they're facing a difficult conversation?

Yeah. Funny enough, that is a title, how to have difficult conversations. That is a great book. And just walking through, how is it that we can approach one another? And the basic tenets of that book is try to understand when the other person is coming from. And that is very, very difficult because we only know how, where we come from. Right. But I almost take that mindset we were talking about earlier, which is, no one wants to suck at work. Well, hopefully, if they're a friend of yours, they're not saying, you know, I really want to. How do I make Scott's life really painful today? Let me think. Right. And again, if that's their goal, it's really easy. Hey, you're no longer a friend. Right. But there's probably some miscommunication. And, you know, it's funny how difficult conversations usually arise out of miscommunication. You know, there's a great quote by George Bernard Shaw. The greatest illusion that has ever taken place is communication. You know, we think communication has happened, but how often have we had miscommunication? And as a result of that miscommunication, usually friction happens, right? You've got friction for a fire, and that's where, you know, this bridge or gap, if you will, between people to have those difficult conversations come back and really, you know, unite again? I'm.

I'm curious, and this is a random thought. This wasn't one of the list of questions I had for you. Is there anything that you wouldn't communicate? Like you're talking about killing the mammoth, you're talking about. You're talking about the. The why and the what and the how. Is there anything you avoid communicating or entrepreneurs or business people should avoid communicating to keep everybody's eye on the ball, is there a risk of over communicating?

Absolutely. Right. There's. There's also a risk of over sharing. Right. You can overshare your personal life, for instance, especially in the workforce, or over communicating and confusing what that ball is. Right. If you, if you have three balls and Mark Kohler with lead, with purpose. I was just at his workshop and he had a great example. What he does. He puts all these things on a screen and you have a minute to count how many yellow and red things were on there. You don't see it, but I said, let me clear all these things away that aren't a yellow or red. He puts it on there. They're still cluttered. Okay, that's weird. Once you organize and distill it, then you can easily count how quickly that is. And same thing for a leader. You know, I think the worst thing we could do is show up and throw up type of thing. Right. We give you all the communication, but, but, but a highly filtered communication. Not from a risk standpoint, but just let me organize where we're going, why we're going and how we're going to do it is a lot more impactful and d de risks the communication not being communicated, if that makes sense. Your idea. You want those, you want Everybody to see six yellow squares and 10 red stars. Don't throw them moons and, and dots and everything. Just give them the stars and the squares.

Right. What if, you know, you. I know that you've got experience in coaching other attorneys and other lawyers and, and, and this is a question for the attorneys and the lawyers you've coached as well as just other business people that you've coached. Is there. I got a question from you. I'll drop that question in there. It's going to be. Take me a second. When you coach people, are there any misconceptions that you see coming up about communication and maybe you've already alluded to this, like the illusion that it's already taken place. Are there any other mistakes that we make that fundamentally or CEOs or leaders make with communication on a consistent basis? They, gosh, have they cleared that one thing up? It would be so much better.

Yeah, but it's hard, hard to see it at the time. Right. You know, you're talking about this. You know, I need to correct Scott. You know, I need to talk to him. And then, but, you know, I'm outside looking in and I say, well, is that really your number one focus? You need to go correct Scott right now, or do you need to go get money. Cause you're five days out of business. Right? Reorienting the focus. And I think, you know, I can speak for myself, but this has been my experience with, I will say other CEOs that attorneys who run their own practice are based with the same thing is shiny object syndrome. Sos, Right. I'm onto the new shiny, new fuzzy. And I forgot what my priority is. And funny enough, just reorienting that priority is like, you may have forgotten. This is like, you are five days out of money. Did you forget that? And you want to go talk to Scott about something that he's doing on a project. And it's more of a question. It's like, where should your number one focus be right now? Correcting Scott's language in a project or five days out of money. Right? Just reorienting the focus. Because sometimes that gets lost, man.

So that brings up so many things. I think that's such a great, great piece of advice. Keeping your focus on the. On the main thing. Keep the main thing. The main thing, which is. Sounds so simple, but it's hard. What advice or suggestions do you have for people that are managing up, that are managing up. So not so much the CEO down or across, but managing up. How do you manage those communication? How do you tell your boss that they're screwing up? How do you tell the owner of the company that they. That you believe they're missing the target? How do you tell them bad news?

Hopefully, just like that, right? Hopefully your boss or your CEO or your company has created such an environment that you can have those kind of conversations. Obviously not all the time. Not every company has that honesty, if you will. In every company I run or own, I try to create that. That freedom. Right. You know, Anthony, you're. You're a fuck up. Is it? Yeah, could be. I get it some days, you know. Tell me why, though. Help me understand why you think we need to change direction or something like that. And I give room, you know, I do want to hear, I do care, I want to listen. So understanding that, right? What, Where. What company are you in? Hopefully you're happy in that company. If you're not happy in that company, that's a completely different conversation right now. It's time to. Is this something you want to coach? And it should be in an environment that accepts coaching. Because some leaders, as we know, just they will dictate from the hip. And it's like, this is my company, my leadership. You will understand, you will follow my direction. That's gonna be very difficult conversation For CEO to hear, not even to have. Right. You can have that conversation, but if they're not willing to listen, you're gonna fall on deaf ears. So the question, that question would be, are you even in the right company? So coming all the way back to that original thought is hopefully you have an environment where your boss is receptive to what you have to say. Because if they are, and they should be, then your ideas will be incorporated or at least at the minimum. I, I understand. You know, I thought about that too. And here's why we're going this direction. Here's why we're killing the mammoth. Going back all the way back to that example, we need food for our family. I understand that, you know, you don't think this may be right for a variety of ethical reasons or what have you, but we got to eat, and eat it takes precedence over that. That's why we're doing it. Or maybe they show you, you know, instead of that mammoth, you know, there's, there's two mammoths over here, more meat, bigger, and they're just laying there, easier kills. And so that may be something receptive. So CEOs should also recognize, hey, you don't have to have all the ideas. Not only that, hopefully you've hired some bright people not only just to do things, but to help you with ideas as well.

You know, there's, it reminds me of, as you said, that are there any frameworks to having difficult conversations that you suggest? Like one that I was taught years ago was feel, felt, found. You hear something, that somebody is struggling with something, and you really want to give them a piece of advice or maybe encourage them in a different direction or and say, I understand how you feel. I've felt the same way. And what I found is by doing X, I've gotten this result. Do you, do you like those frameworks? Do you suggest those frameworks? Do you avoid them? Or are there other frameworks that you have, do you think are really phenomenal to help manage that path and just make it a little bit easier for people to navigate conversations?

No, no, no. I, I love those frameworks that help navigate difficult conversations or say easier conversations, because I think what's natural. And we come back all the way back to humanity's basic flight, fight versus flight syndrome, which is, I feel attacked. And when I say, you know, Scott, you really screwed up, you automatically get on the defensive, right? You're already, now, okay, guard up. And this conversation is not going to go probably the way if someone wants to, and the other way Is like, you know, I, I feel hurt because of this action that you did, you know, so this is very much an experience share or, you know, owning. Owning my experience. In this case, it's like, here's how I took what you did, Scott. I felt. When you told me to go away, I felt rejected. I felt misunderstood. And as a result, I don't feel like I was heard right. So, so very much focusing on your own experience and sharing that experience with somebody instead of saying, Scott, you're not hearing me. You're an idiot. Versus I feel not heard because of your actions. You know, just taking that ownership of I versus you. It's funny how that conversation now has changed into something that someone is going to take. More receptive because my flight versus flight response is not triggered. I'm not trying to say, okay, am I killing someone or am I running? And my brain, you know, the animal instinct going on, I'm now more receptive to hearing it. When you tell me your experience and I can be like, oh, gosh, Scott, I didn't mean to do that. I'm sorry about that. That was, that's my fault. I really wanted to hear ideas. I, this is what I was trying to convey. Right. It always all comes back to miscommunication.

I love that. Well, so you got a, you got a wow moment from Kelly Auto Glass, who that connected with. And so many of the things I think that you say have connected with me over the years. I'm curious, to what extent has your law degree, your law background influence your communication? Or is it something you intentionally turn on or to turn off? Because litigating in your personal life may not be as powerful as litigating in your professional life.

Oh, absolutely. Because, you know, funny enough, law, right. We are taught to construct arguments and we. I've got very. I can give you five reasons, reasons why I'm right. Right? It doesn't matter. I'm right. That's the way I feel that I'm right. But does being right matter? And I tell you, the older I get, the more I figure out is what was once objective words are now subjective. Even something as, as subjective as good. Right? Or that's good. That's a subjective word, right? It. What's good to me may not be good for you and vice versa. Right? And so recognizing and empathizing, if you will, try to understand where somebody else is coming from has done really well for me, especially in my personal life versus my professional life. Because I may not be so worried about opposing counsels where they're coming from in my professional life, but in my personal life, yes, I'm absolutely wondering where my friends are coming from, because my goal isn't to alienate them or to be right. It is my goal, though, to be understood and be heard.

And so let's get to. That's perfect segue, really, in just, what, seven days, Seven or eight days, we're going to be in Palm Springs. In fact, I believe I have the link queued up. Let me paste it. Yep. I'm going to paste your information. Anthony Gerasi, a link to move your biz and a link to EO Relentless. 6, 7, 8, 9th. I am super pumped. You are going to be keynoting that. And one of the things that you're going to be talking about is how to communicate effectively to get what you want. Can you give us a summary, a digest of some of the key nuggets that people will learn and sort of experience when they're there in Palm Springs and what we can take away today?

Yeah, absolutely. So part of, you know, part of everything we talked about, some version of that is going to come out in my talk. But part of it also, it comes back down to I try to bridge the gap between humanity and what is now. So. So part of, you know, I would say our history and what I truly, truly believe is no one goes out in the world wanting to understand, right. I don't. I don't want to understand you, Scott. I don't want to understand the mammoth, if you will. I want to be understood. I want people to understand me. So, you know, it's that ego that ID that selfishness within that I want people to understand me. And that's such a need, I think, of most people is like. And understanding that, right? If we want to be understood and how do we get better at being understood, right? How do we communicate and convey ideas? And so we're going to go through a lot of that, you know, and if you will, some warning signs of result, you know, and this is no secret, this is part of it, which is Harvard study. They came out and they even say the percentages are not completely accurate to be relied upon. But it's kind of basic, is you've got 55% on body language, 38% verbal intonation, and only 7% for words. And what I'll say there is. It's funny. Have you ever gone to a foreign movie or watched a foreign movie and the only thing you read is subtitles? But even without subtitles, you can get the Gist of what's going on in the scene.

Yes.

And that's. That's the body language and verbal intonation. You know. You know when someone's angry, right? They looked angry, they're mad, they clinch fist, they do arms crossed. So. So body language and verbal intonation is so key to our communication with each other. And in my personal belief, this is why I love Zoom. Trust me, I love Zoom for maintaining relationships, but they will never replace relationships but by being physical. Because for whatever reason, we need to look someone in the eye and say, can I trust this person, or do I need to flee from this person?

Well, I'm looking forward to that. And I'm wondering if you can share maybe a difficult. A real story from your life, from your business, or where you had to have difficult conversation or a crucial conversation on really trying to inform. Communicate what you needed from someone or something. And can you tell us that story? How did it. What. You know, the first. First sort of idea that comes to your mind about a difficult conversation you had to have in your own life and your professional life and how that. How that got resolved.

Yeah, no, that's a great question there. I'm trying to think of one. There's been so many conversations at any given time, and I think what it comes down to is different places in my life. But I'll share with you the story that's immediately coming to impact right now. So I'm going to rewind the clock 14 years. And there was no secret I founded the firm in 2007 and then 2010. Between 2007, 2010, the mortgage crisis was happening. A lot of the clients that I service, which are mortgage lenders, were going out of business. And as a result, we were running a deficit in revenue servicing clients. But there's no way we would keep on going up. And so I called the team together and I said, hey, we've got to do a few things. We're either going to keep sticking this out, or we've got to make some changes. And part of the changes is we're moving office locations, we're bringing on a partner, and I need you guys to just believe in the vision and come with me. And, you know, it's funny, you know, there's still many attorneys that work at Drossi, for instance, that were part of that conversation, and they're still here, you know, five, 10 years later as a result. So how that difficult conversation was being brutally honest with people. Right. And that's telling people why coming all the way back to how we started this conversation, why are we doing this? Because if we don't do this, we will be out of business and bankruptcy. What are we doing? We're cutting down costs. We're relocating from, you know, this high rise office down to this four story office on Martin street in Irvine because we've got to reduce our office space 80% to, to make, make it in line with our current revenue. How are we going to do it? We're going to need everybody's help.

One of the things I think is extraordinary about you is, and you model this as an individual is, is creating an environment of open communication. Obviously I've had the privilege of being informed with you and never did in the six or seven years that we were together, five years, whatever it was, you had a culture about you of you could say anything to me. I got thick skin and, and, and therefore I should be able to say anything to you. And it was never coming across as judgmental or anything like that. It goes to the core of a question that, that a lot of people struggle with. How do you create a culture of open communication? There's plenty of examples of toxic communication. There's plenty of examples of people who are just shut down, unwilling to share with the other piece a person because they know the, the reaction or they believe they know the reaction of the other person. But how do you open that up? How do you create that open communication from the start?

I think it starts with you as the leader. Right? I think every company is a reflection of the leader, right or wrong. You know, you've seen these, you know, bad company, bad leader. Generally good company, good leader. That's not always the case, but, but usually it starts at the top as far as culture and how these are coming. So I was hugely inspired by Bob Parsons. I don't know if you know Bob Parsons from back in the GoDaddy days. He had these rules, 16 rules to live by. And I thought it was great. I used to have it totally when I found the firm, I had it on my desktop. You just keep it. And then I had a poster on my wall. But I've since gone through what my, my life is and I created my own rules. And one of the rules is don't believe your own bs, you know, and, and I think that's, that's key, you know, if you want to stay humble. And I do believe humbleness is not only a good thing, but a necessary thing. Because if you don't stay humble, if you don't stay hungry, then you're Going to miss some things. And, and that's going to, you know, cause you a lot of pain down the road. And so don't leave your own BS is understand some basic things. We are all human. We put our pants on the same way. You know, I still put on left leg, then right leg, I put on socks and I wear shoes. I drive a car, I drive to work and I work, right? It's funny. It's the basic stuff is we're all still human. And I don't care whether you have $1 in your pocket or $100 billion. No one puts on pants differently, right? So just, just keeping that, keeping that in mind is. Yeah, and some other things like we talked about is I don't believe anyone shows up to work saying, you know, I'm gonna suck today. How do I get the bare minimum done? I don't believe that. All I believe really is that, is that people are uninspired, right? They don't, they don't care about your why, you know, they don't care about the mammoth why and they're gone. And, and by the way, I think that's a good thing sometimes. Some people are, some people are not going to be bought into your mission. And that's okay because they're people too. They need to go find that mission, whatever that is for them. Maybe they want to be a gatherer, go get plants and they want to go find other people who want to get plants. There's nothing wrong with that. We're all people, we're all different people. And whatever that is for somebody, we all deserve happiness at the end of the day. And I truly believe that. So as a result, if you're bought into this mission, I want you with me, I want to go to war with you, go to battle, and we're going to conquer it together by means. I also, if you're not bought into this, I want you to go away. Not in a negative way, not in a mean spirited way, but because I do believe you, you deserve happiness. I want you to go away and go find that right? Don't, don't try to kill the mammoth. You're not bought into killing the mammoth. Go, go find something else that you're bought into and love and which, which.

Brings me to another question. It's, it's sort of an observation of what I've noticed about you over the years. You are one of the top. And I don't even know how to language this because this doesn't quite fit you, but you're one of the toughest business people I've met. In terms of shrewd, you have multiple businesses, you can make decisions so quickly. I mean, you are an entrepreneur's entrepreneur, and yet you have an extraordinary amount of empathy. Troy Hoffman and I talked about some of our experiences with you, you know, some of our experiences. What role does empathy play in communication?

I mean, empathy in communication is almost everything because empathy is the ability to step out of your own shoes and step into someone else's. Right. If you want to truly understand where people are coming from, I think you have to take that journey. And this is something that, you know, that we'll talk about in my talk. If you want to understand people, whose job is it to have that empathy? That's mine, right? That's yours. If you want to understand somebody, it's not theirs, it's. You have to have the empathy. And you know, we go on the victimization trail of, you know, that's not right there. That's the problem. None of that to me matters. What matters is I want to understand people, so I must have empathy. You know, I want to be on that journey with them because I do believe that stories make up who we are in our life. And I, I think you know this about me. Scott is. And I tell everybody this. I love stories. I love that because I think that's truly the fabric of humanity. All the stories, right? We've been telling stories for the dawn of time and as a result, we all have our own story. And I want to know everybody's story. I want to know where you come from, what that is, and if I understand where you come from, right? Come all the way back to the rose colored glasses we wear. If I understand where you come from, I can kind of understand why you see a situation the way you do. Not always because there's other factors, but I get a sense of, oh, I think Scott sees this because of X, whatever that is, and it's not a judgment, right? Be very clear. Like you were saying, we're not, I'm not judging when I, when I have empathy, I just want to understand so I know how to better communicate my idea and how to better explain where we're going as a result of understanding where you're coming from.

Fantastic. Couple, Couple final questions is now there might be some people that are watching this saying, hey, I'm interested in seeing Tim Grover. I'm interested in going to EO Relentless. I'm interested to learn more about entrepreneur, organization and what you've essentially created with this event. Through your work at Move your biz, through your work at DRASI llc, just all the stuff that you're doing, what can they find there? Why does somebody want to attend? If they're a business owner and they're looking to level up and they're looking to get to the next level, what is it they will find, discover, learn, and how will they grow any over Relentless?

That's such a great question. Here's what you're finding at EO Relentless and here's how you're going to grow. And it's based on my personal experience. So I've been an EO for 10 years and it's been my personal journey. And so I want to share that with you all through EO Relentless. Let me tell you what that means is I joined EO because I want to be a better business person. That's great. I think we all do. We want to be better business people in general. What I found though, in order to be a better business person, I need to be a better person first. I need to understand myself better, my team better empathy with people, become a better person so that I can become a better business person. And the converse isn't true. I don't become a better business person by, you know, and then become a better person. I become a better person to become a better business person. So how does all that work? E to me is a highly curated event. It's a two day event. We're going to focus on that personal growth, that personal journey on day one. On day two, the business journey, the business growth. And that was intentionally done because again, personal growth comes before business growth. So on day one, we've got an amazing set of speakers, Scott, yourself included. I can't wait to hear your talk. I know you've been working on it over the last few years too, but one of the highlights is a gentleman by the name of Jason Rosenthal, who is also an attorney. But his wife, Amy Rosenthal was dying of stage four cancer. And as a result of that, she knew time was ticking. She wrote an article to the New York Times. Not about herself, not about anything else, but this was titled why you should marry my husband. And that impacts me on several different levels. Talk about empathy, right? The amazingness of understanding your time is at an end and you want happiness for someone you love. And this is why you should marry my husband. And I, I, for one, I, I will be in the audience for sure because I want to, I want to go through that journey with him. Yeah, he's, he's lived it, how, how does one go there? What is the impact on you? Your wife, who's dying, wrote an article, why you should marry my husband. I, I, I can't even imagine the psychological impact from a loving standpoint. Right. Selfless love at its finest is right there. And then also the journey through grief and loss. And you know what, what is next for him? I, I, I have no words.

You can tell.

I was like, I don't know what that's going to look like. I just know it's so impactful to me. As far as what can I learn? I can tell you I'm going to be selfishly learning from that, too. What can I learn about myself from selfless love, from that kind of level of empathy and just pure love? And how do I take that to my business, to the people around me, to my friends? That's going to be amazing. And then of course, day two, we've got Tim Grover highlighting day two. And you know, he trained Michael Jordan, he trained Kobe Bryant, he trained the greats. And I don't think this is any different because, Scott, I know you and I very much follow Tim and other people like him, which is a lot of this is mindset. And it's funny. If you change your mind, you change your world. And if you can change your mind and you change your world, you change everything. You change other people's lives as a result. And I'm excited to learn from him. He came out with a new book, as, you know, Winning, and we're going to have autographed copies of that book. He's going to sign everything in that day and I'm excited not only to read it, but also get a copy of it and just meet him, someone who I look up to as well as a huge impact not just on, on sports. Right. Because I think it's more than that. Sports is what he does. His impact is much greater as far as the mindset necessary to win.

I love it. I am so pumped. I'm so excited to be there. And I feel honored and just beyond beyond happy and grateful that you asked me to be there. And I'm just beyond pumped. I'm reading Relent. I've reread Relentless. I reread Winning and bought another copy because I couldn't find my other copy of Winning. So I'm rereading it again.

We'll have another one for you now on Sunday. Awesome.

Awesome. I can't wait. I can't wait. In our final minute together, if you could go give this, I can't believe how fast the time flew. If you could give your younger self, go back to little Anthony, little Anthony, and give yourself one piece of advice. Based on the experiences and lessons you've learned throughout your career and your life, and you're talking to 10 year old Anthony. What advice would you give?

Jump faster. And what I mean by that is I, I've done really well, I think, in a lot of terms. But, you know, I, I wonder what I could have been, you know, if I did faster. You know, it's funny coming from a guy who dropped out of eighth grade, got my ged, got my education, got my law degree, all that fun stuff. I, um, I wonder what I could have done if I didn't go, you know, to get my history degree and my law degree. You know, that was seven years and I don't consider them wasted. Right. I love where I'm at. I mean, the second piece of advice would be, don't worry, it's all going to work out okay. And it has. But, but you asked the very first piece of advice I would give, which is jump faster. Which is have the confidence to know you're going to figure it out. And understand that the best time to fail is in your late teens and early twenties. Why? Because you have nothing to lose. You know, it's. Once we get saddled with kids, mortgage, responsibility, things become riskier and riskier. And that at least has inhibited me sometimes not to jump faster. But I can tell you the jumps have been worthwhile and the leaps have made everything better. And I just wish I understood that earlier.

I love that. I love that. And on that, we could also take a lesson from Tim Grover, who says, when you want to be relentless, when you want to win at the highest level, train hard. But once you're done training, remember, act, don't think, you know, take action. So if you're thinking about relentless, if you're thinking about you need a virtual employee for your business, jump. Don't think about it. Click on the link, remove your biz, click on the link for EO Relentless. Get started today. Anthony, I can't thank you enough for being on Relentless conversations. It's been a pleasure. The time flew. Thank you so much. And I look forward to seeing you in Palm Springs.

I'll see you next week, brother. Thanks for having me. This has been a lot of fun. Awesome, man. Good to see you.