How Likable Are You? 5 Important Things Will Make You More Likable

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and before we talk about today's really likable guests, I do want to plug away. So if you've not gone to thelandgeek.com and downloaded for free the passive income blueprint, please do so. Right. And before I even plug some more about loanegeek IO, let's meet our co host, Scott Todd Six Sigma. Scott Todd from Scott todd.netlandmodo.com and if you are not automating your Craigslist postings, posting domination.com TheLandgeek Scott Todd. How are you, Mark?

I'm great. How are you?

I think I'm likable, but I'm gonna find out in the next few minutes.

I think you're likable, but today's guest is really gonna show us how to be more likable. Right.

And look, there's three things that we need in life, right? If we're going to be in business, we need to be number one, liked. Right? No, wait. Know, like and trust. That's right. So knowing and trusting. I mean, I don't know. Is that you think that's tough, but not maybe as tough as some people to be liked?

Yeah, I think if we can get the, the like part then people will know you will get to want to get to know you and then they'll, they'll want to trust you.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right.

It should be like, it shouldn't say like no like and trust. It might need, we might need to reword it on this podcast. Like know and trust.

Like no and trust. All right, I just want to say that today's podcast is sponsored by lonegeek IO if you're not automating getting paid set it and forget it system with fun emails to reduce the sting of your customers getting those receipts. Hey, we just took your your monthly out. Then check out lonegeek IO it is by far Scott Todd the best solution on the market. Not even close. It's world domination mode.

That's the best mode to be in.

It really is. All right, let's talk About Arel Moody artsoflikability.com Orell has started and run multiple companies including Impact, a million dollar event production and education company. I'm excited to hear about that. An off campus housing service. And he's so cool. He can do his own apparel line. That's really cool. Inc magazine called a REL High Energy Motivator named him to their 30 under 30 list. Essence magazine said Earel should be the poster boy for rags to riches stories. And he is America's top young speaker. Arel has been quoted in the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Yahoo Finance, and USA Today. He is finally on a prestigious media platform. Congratulations, Arel.

Listen, I feel like I finally can write home to my mom and tell her I made it. So thank you guys for allowing this dream to come true.

You're welcome. You're welcome. I mean, you know, did you ever think as a young kid, you'd ever be on the Art of Passive Income podcast with Mark Podolski and Scott Todd?

You know, it's funny how our dreams can come true. So thank you guys for making this happen, but I'm excited about this is gonna be awesome today. I love what you guys are doing, and I think when we can add some human elements into what we're doing on a business level, it just puts a moat around what we do that our competitors just can't touch.

Yeah, absolutely. So let's. Let's rewind. And before you became like this superstar in the business world and the speaking world, like, tell us your sort of this rags to riches story.

Yeah. So I grew up in the projects on welfare in Brooklyn, New York, and I spent the first 18 years of my life growing up in the inner city of Brooklyn dealing with all of the things that unfortunately come with the inner city. You know, seeing friends go to jail, seeing friends get killed, me being robbed at knifepoint and beaten up gangs. And it was just a lot of complexity. It was a lot of tough. You know, I had some things going for me that definitely saved my life, literally and figuratively. I had a great family who cared for me and wanted to see me succeed. And I just knew that under no circumstances, that this is where I started, this is where I'm going to end. And for me, kind of college became my way out. Like, the quickest way for me to get out of that neighborhood was to go away to college. And when I was there, that's kind of when my life really kind of took off. I got to, you know, kind of drop a lot of the trimmings of got to be a thug or I got to act a certain way, and I never really fit into that model. And I met really amazing mentors, really amazing young entrepreneurs, and I got introduced to entrepreneurship. And it's kind of, you know, once you get into what you love to do, there's a feeling that you get. It's like, if I could just do this for the rest of my life. Like I'll never want to retire. And I was lucky enough to discover that when I was 19 in college, because I was actively involved and started my first business when I was in college and made tons of mistakes, but haven't stopped. And it's been an amazing journey. Amazing.

Wow. So you've got a speaking company.

Yep.

You've got an apparel line.

Yep.

And you're an off campus housing service. So, yeah, three companies, is that correct?

Yeah. So some of those companies have been acquired, some of them been sold. So they're not all companies that I'm currently involved in. The Off Campus Housing Service was the very, very first company that we started. Ran that for five years before I exited out of it. Impact, which was we had the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour. We basically were really excited about young entrepreneurs, but it wasn't being talked about when we started. Young entrepreneurs are very hot now and it's like our dream had come true. At the time when we were doing it, nobody was talking about young entrepreneurs, so we wanted to bring that to college campuses. So now primarily I have three businesses that I'm running. One is called the College Success Program. What we do with that is help young people, especially low income first generation students, kind of like where I came from, get into college, persist, have the right mindset to succeed there. Then there's the art of likeability, which is more the business side of things, Teaching business owners how to best build relationships. And the most recent thing that I started is because I've been Speaking for over 10 years, I constantly get people saying, well, I want to be a professional speaker. How do I get into speaking? And I used to just say, I don't have time to teach people. And now we just launched something called the True Speaking Success System, which is teaching people professional speaking from the business side and the art of speaking.

Scott Todoro's a big deal.

He is a big deal. But I have a question. Is that too much, like, as an entrepreneur, is that too much, you know, like too many balls in the air, or should it better just to be like laser focused on one thing and like dominate that space?

The best advice I've ever been given about businesses or entrepreneurship or anything at all is that you don't do ten things at once. If I said I started out with these 10 things, I. I'd be lying to you. Right. You do one thing and you do it really, really, really well. You build the teams, you build the systems around it, and then things kind of naturally will become part of what you do. So, for example, you guys do a podcast, right? But because you're doing a podcast, because you have such great listenership, you now have sponsors who say, we want to get involved in this. So it's not like you went out with podcast sponsorship products. You probably didn't do that all at the same time. You did one, built it up really well, then you added onto it. So I would never encourage anyone to start out with more than one thing. But whatever is your one thing, build your systems, build your team, build your automation so you can free your time to work on other projects.

I love it. I love it. I was told by my mentor, kill ants. Did I tell you this story, Scott?

No.

So when you're a kid, how do you kill an ant?

Right?

You take one of those little magnifying glasses, right? And when it's a sunny day, it'll. It generates tons of heat and you can kill an ant with it. Right. But what happens if you move that magnifying glass all around? You're generating a lot of heat, Right. But you're not killing any ants. Yeah. You stay focused enough for long enough, you can kill an ant.

Right?

So he's like, mark, kill ants, focus. So. So it's just like a rel said, but if you're moving around too much. Yeah, you generate a lot of heat. You do a lot of things. You're not killing any ants.

And that's the hardest thing to do. Because when you first start, if you're entrepreneurial or business inclined in any way, you're never someone who's running out of. You're not at a lack of ideas, you're not a lack of. What could I be doing right now? So the hardest thing is actually having a to do list, but then having a to don't list, like this is what I'm not going to do. And what kind of becomes the carrot for me is once I kind of complete this, I get to work on this thing that I may be really passionate about, but isn't what my attention should be right now. So I love the idea. I've never thought of massacring another species as such a great business adage. So thank you for adding that to the toolkit.

My pleasure. Look, it wasn't me.

That was my mentor. Mentors are where it's at.

Yeah, yeah. So, Scott, do you consider yourself likable?

Yeah, I think I'm likable. I think I'm a likable person. Could I be more likable? Maybe? You know, like you know, I.

Think.

What happens with people, though is, you know, there's a, like a balance between how likable do you want to be, right? Like you. You want to be likable. You want people to like you. I mean, that's just human nature that people. You want people to like you. And then I think that what happens is your inter. What's the word I'm looking for? Like your inner, you know, maybe introverted piece comes in and, you know, it becomes draining to where it's like, I don't care if anybody likes me right now or not. I'm just tired. I want to go back into my shell, which a lot of people don't really understand because, you know, like, Mark, I know, like you say like, you're an introvert. You know, like, for me, I have no problems getting up and talking in front of large people, large groups of people. That doesn't mean that I'm not an introvert, but I truly enjoy, like downtime and pieces of quiet time and not always on too.

And you're hitting on something that is a huge misconception about what an introvert and extrovert is. A lot of times when we think of extrovert, we think, oh, that's the ultimate goal. Like, you're outgoing, you're gregarious, and an introvert is like. And it's not about being shy or anything. The only main difference between an introvert and an extrovert is an extrovert gets their energy by being around people and an introvert recharges their battery. They get their energy by being alone. So I'm sure you could go on stage and kill it and like network and everyone loves you and then you just need like the evening to yourself where an extrovert, like, they're, they're actually feeding off of other people's energy. So one is not. A lot of people say, oh, I'm an introvert, I can't be successful. I'm an introvert, I can't talk to people. That's not true. It's just you have to manage your energy. There's something called activation energy. Activation energy is how much energy does it take you to get started to do something. So it takes almost zero activation energy to check social media. I can pick up my phone and spend 20 minutes on it, but the activation energy to start working out, like for 20 minutes. So I spend 20 minutes on social media, but 20 minutes working out feels completely different. The key about introvert and extrovert is to understand where you Are so you can manage your activation energy. So if you need to recharge your battery, spend some time with yourself, zone up, be because you know you have a big speech versus an extrovert who can go out earlier and be around people and soak it up and then give the speech, one's not better, it's just different.

Yeah, I've actually read about that and I find it endlessly interesting to try to peg myself and others about how they get their energy. And I honestly, I think I'm pretty self aware of all Scott. But I, you know, I go back and forth. If I'm an introvert and extrovert, I think I'm right in the middle there.

Yeah, ambivert, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because I'm exhausted, like after boot camp. I'm loving it in the moment. Right. But I can still go to dinner with my group and still so engage. I'm just tired, but I'm not like, I can't talk anymore. So it's really weird. But I actually bought that book that another podcast listener told me about the art of speed reading people, and I think I pegged myself as an extrovert in that. But anyways, we can go on and on about introvert, extrovert. What I want to know, arel, is do you find people consider themselves likable in the same way people consider them good drivers? Like, if you ask somebody, are you a good driver? I 100% of people say yes. Right? Yes. Somebody, are they likable? I almost, in the sense, like, most people think they're likable. Right? So from a business model standpoint, I think it'd be kind of challenging for you. But what do you, I mean, am I, am I off?

No, not at all. The thing about likability is I always kind of get two kinds of people whenever I talk about likability. The first kind, they immediately get it. They go, likability is a precursor to all relationships. If I listen to a podcast, the first five minutes I'm going, do I like the people? Do I like what I'm hearing? And if I don't, I'm out. It could be the greatest content or someone could be the greatest person. But we're constantly making these decisions on, do I like this person? Do I vibe with them or do I don't or do I not? And there's the other group that goes, I don't care about being liked. I just want to be me. I don't care about if people like me. I care about being effective. And the reason why most people fall into that category is because they think likability is about this high school popularity contest. And it's not like that may have been the rules when you were a teenager, but that's not the rules when you're an adult. So when you talk to most people, they go either a, oh, I'm totally likable, or they go, I don't care about being likable. And in both of those situations, they're wrong. In every situation, we can always get better. If you're an entrepreneur, if you're someone who's about growth. And I think no one be listening to this podcast unless they are about getting. You never say, I'm good at this. There's nothing else I need to learn. So as long as we have the mindset of, you know, and this is my premise about life, everything in life, everything comes down to the quality of the relationships. We have everything. We can have all the money that we want, but if no one likes us and we don't have people who love us, we're unhappy. You know, it's always the greatest example is, would you rather go to the best movie you've ever seen by yourself? Would you rather go to your favorite concert by yourself? Would you rather go to your very favorite sporting event by yourself or go to a kind of lame one with your best friend? And I think most people, nine out of 10, would choose to be with someone. So it's not about the experience, it's about the relationship. And likability is what starts and maintains all relationships.

Okay, how do we become more likable? I'm sold.

Yeah, so, you know, we kind of have like a 5S system, right, where there's these five things that if you kind of almost checklist this in every interaction and what you do with your brand with your messaging, you'll be good. We probably don't have time to go into all five, but I'll give you the ones I think are most important. The number one idea is most people are what we call eye centered. They're consistently thinking, how do I get something out of this? How do I grow my business from this person? How do I get money from this person? And one of the things I encourage most people is shift to being what's called service centered and service oriented. And the easiest way to do that is imagine that every single human you meet has a big neon sign that's around their neck like a big old Flavor Flav clock. And what it's constantly reading is make me Feel special. Make me feel. It's blinking. Every, every human you meet, regardless of what they say or do, they're wearing that sign. So when you interact with people, I encourage you to constantly think, what can I do in this interaction? What can I do in my branding or my messaging to make this person feel special? And if you think of any brand that you're like, loyal to, almost cult following, they've done something to make you as the individual, feel extremely special within that brand.

Okay, so let's talk about Apple. Because I'm a big Apple fanboy, I make fun of like Android users annoyed by me, but I take a stand. What is Apple doing in my head that makes me like, oh, I'm identified somehow with this billion dollar company where, you know, intellectually I'm like, I'm just another consumer. And you're an Apple fanboy too?

Yeah, I like Apple.

Okay, so I'll ask you a simple question. All right, Scott, I want you or, you know, whoever is listening, if you're a big Apple fan, I want you to say, okay, you're done with Apple. You're done with it. You must get Android. Starting today, emotionally, where do you go first? Like, if I say to you, scott, you're done, I've cut you off. You're never gonna use another iPhone again. You must use Android. What's the first feeling of loss that you feel? Or what's the first resistance that naturally rises up in you about that brand?

If I'm forced to use Android, I'm hating it because I'm forced to do something I don't necessarily love.

Well, what is it? What's the law? So when I say I'm taking you away from Apple, what's move away from the. I'm forcing, which I totally get and understand and move towards. Well, what is it that I feel I'm losing by going to.

I feel like, I feel like, I feel like Android is not as user friendly as Apple is.

And then what would you lose if you didn't have that user friendliness?

Because I think, I think I would lose some of the features that I like on the phone. Right. But in all honesty and transparency, they're probably already there. I just don't know it.

Right.

My perception is that they're not.

So what you have got this sense is whatever Apple is doing, they're allowing you to be in on what's the best. And that's what they've done since the beginning. Right. When they had the. I remember when they're doing like the Mac versus PC commercials, if you remember those from back in the day, it was like the old rundown dude was the PC and the cool, hip guy was the Mac. What Apple has consistently done is basically said, we're cutting edge. We're doing everything. If you pull out a phone and you have the Apple logo on the back, you're someone who's part of cutting edge technology. You're part of what's the best. That's why all these phone cases, they build their cases so that you can still see the Apple on the back of the phone, right? Because they said, I want you to feel that when I'm holding the phone, when I'm using it, I'm part of something that's best. I'm part of something that's great. So what they've done to make you feel special is by saying, by participating in what we're doing, you're part of the best. And if inside of you, there's a natural inclination to want to be the best, to want to do the best. If you can afford. And it's not a Ford thing, right? It's not like the difference between a Rolls Royce and a Toyota Camry. Like, you can say, well, Rolls Royce is the best, but I can't afford it. You're running neck and neck on price when it comes to a Samsung versus a Apple. Assuming your Samsung is not gonna blow up, of course, right? So you get to show that you are part of the best. And what they've done is consistently kind of get into your head. And I mean, Steve Jobs was masterful at this. Like, you're an idiot if you want anything else. You're using a stylist. You're an idiot if you're using a stylist. I got five stylists right here. And then you go, yeah, he's right. So if I'm pulling out a stylist, I'm an idiot. So what's happening is he's connecting to this part of you that likes that idea of being the best and growing. And what I notice Apple does from just a brand, they're hitting so many of these, like, human needs, like, significance, connection, love. They've gone down human need psychology almost like to a T. And they're doing marketing to hit that where other people are just throwing spaghetti on the wall.

I love it. I love it. So, okay, so we got our first S, which is Make Me Feel Special. What's the second S?

Right. So the next one is very important. It's almost simple, but it's Almost insane. If we really think about how many interactions people don't do this, and it's deliver on your promise. The other S is satisfied. If you say you're going to do something, you have to build almost a legacy that you're someone who does what you say you're going to do. There's so many of us that we allow our words to not be as strong as they used to be. Kind of the idea, like back in the day, if I said, I'm going to do it, we didn't need a written contract, right? I'm going to do it. And I would encourage everyone to kind of operate from that place that every interaction that you do, you leave people 100% satisfied that you delivered on your promise. You'll see a lot of people who can. Like, for example, I'm gonna forget your name. I'm gonna go, oh, Mark, Mike. I'm not good with names. I'm sorry, I can't remember your. And I think that's okay. I think because I'm letting you know I'm not good with names. It's okay that I forgot your. It's not okay. If I meet you and you're someone that's important to me. I want to deliver my promise that you're important to me. And I do that in a very simply way by, for example, remembering your name and saying Mark instead of saying Mike. So it's really important that we deliver on our promise. And we have, like, what's called full integrity. There are certain people we meet. It's like, if you ever played baseball, there was, like, that kid on your team that if the ball was hit to him, it was a 50, 50, whether he would catch it. Like, he could drop it, he could catch. We have no idea. When you build a legacy of that's who you are as a person, you're not likable when you simply say, I'm going to do this. I will deliver on my promise. You know, if I say it, that's my word. It's incredible how that absolutely will transform your business relationships and your personal relationships.

Yeah. I mean, Scott, for practical example, I remember there's this marketer that came out with a software product. It looked amazing, Right. It was gonna solve all these problems. And the founder of it did not have that s. He had a reputation for starting these incredible projects and not following through. Right. And it turns out, like, the promise was so good. I still tried it. And of course he didn't follow through. And it was disappointed. I had to cancel It. So, yeah, it's so interesting how that can really, really hurt you in life.

And the hardest thing for us to do, really, is to tell someone. I can't. Right. Like, I really would love to, but right now, it's just not something that's possible. And there's a really good way to let people know you can't do something, and you just say, I'd love to, but right now it's not a good fit. And it's not saying, I don't like you as a person. It's not saying, I don't like your product. I'm just saying what you're working on, what I'm doing right now. It's just not a good fit. So it's a really great. It's a term that I actually encourage people to use almost verbatim when they're saying no to someone. Because if you're in the habit of saying yes all the time and then you don't deliver, you become the person that's like, I can't trust them. I don't like that. And you'll have people who love you as a human, but they don't like you as a person. Right. There's a. There's a distinction between that. So just saying, hey, I'd love to be a part of your committee, but right now, it's not really a good fit for my schedule. Can we revisit it in six months when things clear up? That's a lot better than saying, yes, I'm going to be a part of it. And then you don't show up to your meeting.

I love it. I love it. All right, we got special. We got satisfied. Then what do we got?

Right? So this is a huge one that's, like, so easy, which is just smile. And let me talk about smile from a different perspective. We all hear, you know, you should smile. But there's two things that I think people never assume with smiles. The first thing is you actually need to find out what is the best smile for your face. Right. We've almost never done this. We just think, well, a lot of people take pictures. And you'll hear a lot of people say, oh, I don't like taking pictures, or, I never like the way I look in my pictures. But what happens is, like, that's the way your face is all the time, right? Like, you think it's just in pictures. Like, this is your face. Because we haven't actually practiced what smile is best. You know, there's smiles with just your lips touching. There's smiles with just your top row of teeth. Two teeth. Yep, exactly. Split. Like, your jaw is dropped and you're, like, almost falling. Right? Like, there's multiple ways to smile. And what I really encourage people to do is actually go into your house, go into your bathroom, close the door, because people think you're crazy if they see you do this. And just try various different smiles. You know, parted lips, closed lips, all the way up with your eyes, without your eyes, you know, because, I mean, you should smile and crinkle your eyes. Like Richard Branson. Like, he has one of the best smiles because he has those crow's feet, which is awesome for smiling one, and get a sense of what's the best smile for you and then just practice it more. Practice giving that smile to people, because as soon as you see someone with, you know, rbf, you're just like, I don't want to mess with this person, but they have a smile. It's great. And the second part is every interaction, if you can get the other person you're interacting with to smile during your interaction, your likability goes through the roof. So it's not just me smiling, but actually making sure I'm either giving a genuine compliment or I'm saying something that may be humorous or something to get the other person to smile. Then they leave with a greater sense of connection to you because of that experience.

Arel I like you so damn much. I think.

It was perfect.

I think that when you smile, too, it's kind of like a pass in a way, you know, like, you can do something whether it's deliver hard news, obviously, not, like, bad news. You don't want to deliver bad news with a smile, but something that's hard for you to share with somebody. And, you know, you can smile. And what that does is it really does put the other person at ease. And I'm not talking about, like, you know, like, this hideous, hideous, like, evil smile. I'm just saying, like, even when you smile, even when you deliver, you know, challenging news for yourself to deliver, then it's hard for another person to lash out at you. And guess what? They can hear it over the phone, too. So, you know, like, if you're smiling, there's no way that you can smile and then be a jerk at the same time.

Right? And there's actually a lot of great research on how smiling just literally the lifting of the muscles in your face actually has a positive pull on your vocal cords that actually affects the timbre of your voice to the point that if you're speaking on the phone with someone who's actually learning how to speak while they're smiling, their voice has a more pleasant tone to our ear than if somebody is kind of monotone. So it actually has a lot of, kind of subsurface levels of interaction, of feelings, of positiveness. That is just incredible.

So let's play devil's advocate for a second. Okay? I can imagine an alpha male type this like, boy, these guys, woo, woo. I'm super successful and I come in and I don't smile. I'm all business all the time. Right. And I don't care about making you feel special. Right? That's weakness. You're not special. I'm special. Right? I'm not smiling. That's weakness. Now the second one. Obviously, they probably do satisfy, otherwise they wouldn't have that attitude. But does anyone ever kind of come back and be like, I feel weak being likable?

Absolutely. You know, and that always comes from someone thinking that this is the high school model of likability. Right. Because here's what I would encourage anyone to think about. Those people who are extremely effective and they're very like, I'm stern. As soon as someone can find a better fit, as soon as somebody could find a better opportunity, they're gone. So I don't. There's a big difference between effectiveness and relationship building, right? Like, people, and we love to idolize, like a Steve Jobs, which I love as an example, because people go, well, look at him. He was a complete jerk and he was amazing. There are always exceptions to the rules, right? Like, Steve Jobs also is Steve Jobs, right? He did Pixar, he did Apple. Like, unless you're creating at that level of amazingness, most people won't deal with your, you know, your bs. So when you look at relationships, a lot of people stay with you because of fear. A lot of people stay with you because of perceived opportunity. But as soon as that opportunity is gone, if they don't have a connection or relationship with you, they're gone.

Scott, who's your worst boss ever?

I can't name him.

What was he like, though? He.

I'd say my worst boss ever was a guy that was completely, like, unpredictable. You know, like, you would try. Like, I would try to. I would try to help him. I would try to, you know, point out things that maybe he's missing and he would tell you, thank you for that. But then at the same time, he would. He would, like, lash out at me on stuff that, like, you're not doing this or this is what I heard from other people. And I'm like, who did you hear that from? That's garbage. You know, like, that's lame stuff. And, you know, he would. He would, like, literally shout at me and lash out at me. I didn't feel like I liked him at all, and I didn't feel like he liked me at all either. And then shortly after I stopped working for him, he came to me and said, you know, I. I really do like you. And I'm like, you like me? I didn't know that. What do you mean you like me?

Think about the human element of it, right? That's the human part. Scott, if you could go back into your mindset of when you worked with that company, how much harder would you want to work to see him succeed? Right? Like, you have a job that you have to do, and, you know you've got to do your job well, but there's work that you're going to do that's going to make him shine, that's going to make him or her look great. And you really have to ask yourself, did I really give it my all? Was I that offensive lineman that was blocking to the death of my quarterback to protect them because I love them so much, or my. That lineman that's just blocking to do my job? You know, there's. There's a difference in the amount of give that we give to the leaders that make us truly feel like we have a connection.

That's right.

Yeah. I think. I think, you know, like, when you look at the people that you really work for, and I think it's the same way, you know, like, a lot of our team today is remote, but when you work for people that you feel like they would do anything for you or that they like you or that you're there to help them too, then it makes the work more enjoyable. And even when you're building, like, a VA team, it's the same thing. I mean, these are not just mystery people that magically get worked on the other side of the world. They're individuals that are living lives that, you know, they're working for a why. I mean, they're working to support their family. They're working to make their lives better, no matter where in this world they are. And the more that you can help understand their goals and what they're doing and why they're doing it and be their cheerleader, too, then you're going to get better work out of them, too.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. And just a quick tip about working with people overseas know their holidays, right? Put it on your calendar. And even, even just something as small and as thoughtful as that, knowing that, you know, hey, I know you're not gonna work today. Tomorrow's, you know, this holiday, they, you know, they're like, oh my gosh, like.

Yeah, I had a guy, Mark, I had a guy that, you know, like, I didn't really realize that he liked it, that like a Monday and Tuesday were a holiday. And then I found out, like, I scheduled a meeting for like a Monday. And then I found out over the weekend I read something like, it's a holiday. And I sent him an email saying, hey, is Monday Monday and Tuesday? Is that a holiday for you? And he's in your country? And he said, yes. And I said, I'm going to cancel the meeting. We'll meet on Wednesday, right? But he was going to show up because he wanted to deliver for me. But the fact that I recognized that, man, it's a holiday, when we got on the conference call on Wednesday, guess what? The guy was like, completely, like, blown away that I would stop doing what I was going to do so he could have a nice holiday with his family. Holiday I've never even heard of before.

Well, your likability just went off the charts, Scott.

Todd, it doesn't. And you want to build your organization, your business, whether it's VAs, whether it's employees, partners, you want to build it so that they would never, ever imagine wanting to work for someone else. Like, just a thought of, I could do different work, but no one's ever going to treat me the way Scott does. No one's ever going to treat me the way Mark does. And I mean, if we've ever lost a key employee, and I have, and then you got to retrain someone, it's like, oh my God, like, dealing with retraining someone is the worst. I'd rather build an environment where the people around me will break their back to get our united vision accomplished than to just deal with people who's going to be attracted to the best paycheck. Because we've all dealt with great team members and subpar team members. And when you get great people, when you get great clients, when you get great friends, you want to do everything to make sure that those maintain. Because then you're not rebuilding from the start. After a two year period, you can just build and build and build and grow. And that's what we all want in our lives.

I love it. All right, we've got three S's down What's the fourth S overall?

Right. So the next one is standards. And when we talk about standards, what's key is to not just, it's not just about setting high standards because I generally do believe people rise to the bar of the standards you said, but it's acknowledging the best in others as well as in yourself. Well, a lot of times what happens is when someone does something wrong, we're very quick and easy to let people know when they've done something wrong. It's very easy to, you know, if you have kids, for example, we like yell at them when they're doing something wrong, but when they're doing something right, we don't acknowledge that. Like if they're sharing their toys and playing, we're just like, yeah, that's what you're supposed to do. So there's no encouragement there. But if they then hit each other, you're like, hey, don't hit your brother. So that's where our attention goes. Our attentions. And for most people, if we just actually took a look at ourselves, we realized the way we treat our husbands, our wives, our friends, our employees, our attention typically goes to either these huge ginormous wins, like you've closed a million dollar contract, thank you. Or we're constantly saying, you did this wrong. This wasn't fast enough. There was a typo here. So we have standards that we want to acknowledge the best in others. So if someone says, I'm constantly letting people know I appreciate you, the fact that you did this is not going unnoticed. And I appreciate the fact that you came in on Sunday to get work done. Just by doing that and making sure your attention is put towards the best in others, what happens is we condition them. It's a very Pavlovian response. We want to get that conditioning. We want to have more of that happen as opposed to, you know, how many of us have ever worked with someone where you feel like or you've dated someone, I can never do anything right. I'm always doing something wrong. They're like a heat seeking missile for what I'm doing wrong and it's driving me nuts. And we don't realize, we know how much we hate it, but we don't actually realize how much we're giving that to people, People. So it's really important to. I go out of my way to find what someone did right so I can acknowledge it as much as I can. And it's not just you can't say good job. Good job has become an overused term that means Nothing. I say, hey, good job on that. It means nothing. I have to give specificity or use a different term. Like, you know, I really appreciated how you got that contract over so we could get over to the client as soon as possible. I can't tell you how much. When I'm on the road, you getting this paperwork done makes everything easier, and we can impact more people. Thank you. It's a lot different than good job.

Fantastic. Fantastic. All right, so we got special. We've got satisfy. We've got smile, Smile. We've got standards in our fifth S.

The fifth S is, I think if you don't have this, this is where you will not be likable and you'll fail. And it's sincerity that you have to find a way to be authentic and truly care. Because we know someone who goes, oh, great job. I'm so happy for you. Like, as soon as I. You know, there's a really great thing about how the brain works, right? So it's called. What a lot of actors do is they call method acting, right? So if I'm gonna be a Marine, I go live with Marines. I eat like a Marine. I go through boot camp. I do everything a Marine does. So when I act, I. I'm not acting like I'm a Marine. I actually am a Marine. Because if I'm an audience member watching a movie, and you're acting like a Marine, and I don't buy it. I don't believe you're actually a Marine. The whole plot is destroyed. The whole movie is destroyed. So what these characters do is they actually become the character, and it's actually so powerful that. What's the guy who played the Joker? Who?

Christian.

No, no, no, no. Not Christian Bale. He played Batman, the person who passed away. He also did Brokeback Mountain.

No, no, not Christian Bale. Heath Ledger.

Heath Ledger. Thank you. I forgot his name. He's a method actor, and he actually, like, locked himself in a hotel and, like, isolated himself and did drugs and kept a journal as if he was the Joker on set. He wouldn't break character. Like, when the director said cut, he was still the Joker. And if anyone knows about comic book folklore, the Joker is a cursed character. Everyone who plays it has issues. And he went so deep that he couldn't get out. And unfortunately, he went so deep, he died. Like, it's really that powerful. So he wanted you to believe his roles. And if you saw Brokeback Mountain and if you saw Batman, two completely different characters, but you totally believed him. So we think we can fake the funk. We think, oh, I can just tell people good stuff, but in my mind, I'm thinking differently. We all have intelligent minds that can pick up when people are BSing us. If I feel like you don't really care, if I feel like you're just saying it and you think you're such a great actor, like, you're not. None of you listening to this podcast are as great of an actor as you think you are that you can say good things to people but think something differently. And you think people won't pick up on the tonality change or facial changes, they will. And the more we are insincere and the more we are not being authentic in how we address people, the more we actually burn bridges. You can do everything I'm telling you to do to a T. And if you don't have this sincerity point, you're going to be called a BSer. You're going to be called someone who's your hot. You're full of hot air. So the key is to never lie. If you're going to compliment someone, make sure you mean it and make sure you truly care. Everything gets solved from there.

I love it. You know, a lot of that's in your heart. You know, you can't think it. Right, Right.

Absolutely.

So, Scott, Todd, this has been an amazing interview. I didn't think it would go this way, did you?

No. And. And when we start talking about 5s, I'm thinking like six sigma 5s.

But this 5s, it's not six sigma. No way.

Yeah. No, I mean, and it wasn't too woo woo. You know what I mean? So, Arel, I would put you on the spot.

Now do it.

And I'm going to ask you for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable where the art of passive income listeners can go right now, improve their businesses, improve their lives.

Yep. All right, I'm going to give you one of my super secret ninja strategies. Okay. This is a strategy that I coined. Phone book roulette.

Okay.

Here's how phone book roulette works. And I encourage everyone listening not to just say, oh, that's a cool idea. Like, I actually, you're probably listening to this on your phone. So you can do this right now, right? What you do is you open up your contact list in your phone and. And you literally just take your finger and swipe up, swipe down, swipe up, swipe, and just stop. Right? Whichever name you stop on, write that person a text message. Don't ask for anything and just say hi. Mark, you know, I was just thinking about you and I just wanted to say hi. And I want to let you know I really appreciate you. A lot of times we get so busy in life, we can't tell people how much they mean to us. But I want to tell you, you mean a lot to me. Sincerely or. Well, right. What I encourage people to do is to do phone book roulette, like every week. You know, I try to do it every day. I just have a reminder in my phone that says like phone book roulette and then I'll just do it. And what I encourage people to do is also be strategic about it. You know, I have a list of my clients and what I do is I'll just choose one of my clients randomly and I'll just send them a positive. There's no sales language, there's no business, there's no nothing. It's just, you know, I gotta be authentic and I gotta make sure it's real, you know, like if you get like, you know, Best Buy because you have Best Buy saved in your phone, don't text Best Buy, right? Like, use some common sense here. Like connect with people. But literally, it's called digging your well before you're thirsty. No one. When was the last time any of you, any of you listening received a message from someone who didn't need something from you. They just wanted to be of service just to say something nice to you. When was the last time you got like an authentic message from someone? We don't get that. So by you doing that, it makes you significantly different than almost 99% of everyone else because no one does these little things. So do some phone book roulette and you'll be amazed. You won't see it's not like a press the magic red button and then magic money comes out of it. It's a long term strategy, It's a marathon mindset strategy, but it's absolutely game changing.

I love it. I'm going to start doing it.

Do it. I encourage it.

Scott. Todd, your phone's gonna blow up right now. What's that?

Scott?

I said I just did it. My phone landed on you. So I don't know.

I was gonna get a text like every day from me, like, hey, you know, I hope so. This guy really took this podcast to heart.

And it doesn't have to be like, I'm just thinking like, you know, whether it's text or, you know, like email, just any way that you communicate with people it's the same. Who haven't I talked to in a while? You know, I kind of. Maybe I don't call it phone book roulette, but I kind of look at people that I haven't spoken to in a while and I'll just shoot them emails or something just to say, hey, how you doing? Just thinking about you. Or, you know, it's all good. Facebook messenger is another way of doing that. There's lots of ways that you can do it.

Absolutely. And the key here is to try to reach out to someone that you do not need anything from right now. Because if you do this and then five minutes later you ask for something, you destroy the whole purpose of this. The whole point is just to put positive good intentions into the world. And you'll be amazed at how you get these cosmic boomerangs hitting you from all different directions.

Yeah, I mean, a book that I love, it kind of talks a lot about. This is Give and Take by Adam Grant. I don't know if you've read that or el.

I haven't.

I mean, it's basically summing up the whole book.

Okay, sure.

But yeah, that's really what I mean. Like science and like 300 pages of it, talking all about that. Giving first, giving with, you know, giving fully and with generosity. Both limits. Right. You don't want to be a doormat.

Right.

But, you know, but when you do that, good things come your way. Todd, tip of the week.

All right, Mark, I am audiobooking this one. Audible. It's a book. And it is basically, it's a book. I mean, it's by an author that really transformed my 2016. He gave me a skill set that really helped to transform my year. This year. It's the author's Grant Cardone.

Right.

10X. But the book is his follow up to 10X, which is be Obsessed or Be Average. And this is really like 10x part two, I think. Really, really good book. If you read 10x and you liked it and loved it, then you need to get be obsessed or be average. But if you haven't done 10x, you want to go back and listen to that one first because this is part two to that. And it will jazz you up and help prepare you and propel you into 2017.

I'm getting it. I'm getting it. Ro, what do you think of Grant Cardone?

You know, I've not read his books yet, but I've heard nothing but great things. And I, you know, I love the very simple idea of, you know, what One decision can you make that would have a 10x effect on your business? Like, that simple question alone has totally transformed the way I think for sure. And you know, once I get through some of these books I'm reading now, I'd love to check it out. Stuff out.

Yeah, I actually think 10x is too low. I think you should do moonshot stuff. I'm not even joking. I think most people, you know, if you. They iterate at 10%, if I can make this 10% better, right? Or, you know, it's slightly better, but if you make something a hundred times better, just the thought process of that alone, like, you start thinking of crazy things. Like you just your mind forces you. Like, okay, like this is like how we get to the moon kind of stuff, right? Well, if you can't get to the moon, like, well, maybe you invent a jet pack, right? It's like safe and cool.

I don't know.

Like, you know, I don't know. I don't know anyone. I was going with that. But I like, I like, I like these, these, you know, like the way that Google thinks of these moonshot ideas, right? Or Amazon or.

Well, I mean, there is a thing, you know, like, if you think I forgot what book it was, it talked about the Bhag, the big hairy audacious goal, right? You know, if you think, if you just think so much bigger than what you even think is possible, then what that forces you to do is it forces you and the people around you to figure out, how do we make that happen? And in this book that addressed this, they talked about, you know, John F. Kennedy. He basically went out and said, you know, we're gonna put a man on the moon and return him back safely. Well, nobody knew how to figure that out. Nobody knew how to do that. It'd never been done. It's like, it's like sci fi stuff and. But because he had this big hairy, audacious goal, it forced people, it forced a country to figure out, well, how are we gonna do that? And here's the leader of this country saying, we are gonna do this. We don't know how, but we're gonna go do it. And then what did they do? They went out and they did it. They made it happen, right? Like, so they, they made it become a reality and it took the entire country. I mean, the Senate was behind it. You know, the entire country was behind it. And they obviously made it happen. And then I had to laugh because recently the US Congress basically said, hey, we're going to put a man on Mars. And it was barely in the news, like, okay, the US Is going to put a man on Mars. But had Obama or the president gone out and said, it's my vision that we're going to put a man on Mars and return him back safely, and I don't care what we have to do to make that happen. Well, then I think that it's a different perspective because the leader, the leader there is the one that's, that's kind of getting Everybody behind it. 400, 400 people in Congress or 500 people in Congress, can't Congress in the Senate. They can't magically get the country behind them. But you need that one person who believes and says, I can do that. And I think that that's where Grant Cardone excels too, is he talks about like the 10x rule, Mark, you know, like you, you know that a lot of people, they, they minimize the goals. They don't know what's possible. So they go, well, I would be happy with, you know, I would be happy doing 10 deals in a year. 10 deals in a year. How is it that other people have managed to do, you know, almost 200 in a year? The numbers are wrong. You know, like, it's small thinking. The small thinking results in small, small deal flow and small results, too.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I couldn't agree more. So, Arel, you want to know my tip of the week?

I would love to know your tip of the week, Mark.

It's to become more likable, like a rel Moody. Learn more about Arel. And I have a link to this. It's art of likeability.com and Arel's actually been into TED, so TEDx. That's really cool.

He's got a podcast every week too. We have really short episodes. I would encourage people to definitely check out our podcast as an accru section. Sometimes we do log interviews that are an hour, but most of our episodes are under 15 minutes. It gives you a very specific task you can do to increase your likability. And we've got, you know, over like a hundred something episodes, so it's tons of content for folks.

Yeah, yeah. Scott and I are going to get on Art of Likability podcast and talk about how to be likable in real estate. Like it? Yeah, exactly. All right. Artoflikability.com and definitely get be obsessed or be average and for sure play phone roulette and improve your relationships. Arel, are we good?

Absolutely.

All right. Well, I thought this was a great Podcast. I do just want to remind Everybody, go to thelandgeek.com and learn more for sure. And look, the only way we're going to get the quality of guests like an AREL Moody is if you subscribe, rate and review the podcast. It really helps. It takes 20 seconds. Please do so. And we even get to the passive income launch kit for free. If you do so, send us a screenshot $97 product. Scott, Todd, thanks so much. Automate your Craigslist postings. Postingdomination.com the Landgeek Are you ready to do this?

Ready. 1, 2, 3. Let freedom ring.

Every time we do it, it just feels more and more awkward. We got a relative smile. We got.

I like seeing the guests watch us do this because they're like, what's coming up now? What?

I like it. I like it. You know, I'll share one thing that I love to say on. On the end of all the podcasts that we do, that the information that we share with you with Scott and Mark today is going to do absolutely nothing to impact your life. The information means nothing. The implementation of the information means everything. So for everyone listening, don't listen. This podcast is going to change your life. It's going to show you how to make passive income in the right way. It's going to show you how to build skills. But don't listen to this for entertainment. That's not what this is about. Like, go watch Stranger Things if you want entertainment, implement this information. Choose one thing. And I promise you, if you do that, you're going to experience the 10x and the compound effect and all those great things that come with doing versus just passively consuming.

I love it. I love it. I'm motivated. I'm going to start listening to the podcast.

Terrell, Sounds like a plan.

I'm down. Okay, well, thanks, everybody. We'll see everyone next time.