Dr. Zoe Chance on How You Apply the Science of Winning Hearts | EP 523
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That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms apply. Learn more at americanexpress.com slash with Amex. Card member entrance access not limited to Amex Platinum Card. Coming up next on Passion Struck. When you can reach somebody who wants to do a DIY home improvement project and you make it easy, you give them the information that they need, the tools, maybe you get them discounts. It's the opposite of annoying. It's a blessing and they appreciate it.

So just the simple ability to figure out when is the right time to reach out to someone that I'm trying to influence is pure gold. Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for

for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now,

Let's go out there and become passion struck. Hey, passion struck fam. I am thrilled to welcome you back to episode 523 of the passion struck podcast. First off a huge shout out to each and every one of you who tunes in every week, eager to grow, learn, and transform. You're the heartbeat of this community and your energy keeps us going strong. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome to the passion struck movement. You've just joined a community that's all about

Igniting purpose, living boldly, and making intentional choices in life. Now, before we dive into today's episode, let me take a moment to recap some powerful conversations from last week. I had an incredible conversation with Terri Cole, where we explored her new book, Too Much, and discussed how to break free from high-functioning codependency. Then, I

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Art Markman, one of the world's foremost cognitive scientists, where we discussed how to align our habits with our goals and make smarter decisions. And in my solo episode, I shared the remarkable story of Jamie Siminoff and how he built Ring, offering six key lessons for startup success. If you missed any of those episodes, I highly encourage you to check them all out.

For those of you who want to dive even deeper into these insights, don't forget to sign up for my Live Intentionally newsletter. Every week, I send out exclusive content, practical exercises, challenges, and tools to help you apply the lessons from the podcast directly to your life. Head over to passionstruck.com slash newsletter to get started. And if you're wondering where to begin with the podcast, we've made it super easy with our episode starter packs. With over 500 episodes, it can be overwhelming. So we've curated playlists based on themes like leadership, mental health, and personal growth.

check them out on Spotify or visit passionstruck.com/starterpacks to dive in. Now let's get into today's episode because we have a truly exciting guest who is here to unlock the secrets of one of the most crucial yet misunderstood skills we all possess, interpersonal influence. Our guest,

is Dr. Zoe Chance, a dynamic writer, researcher, and educator whose work has transformed the way we think about influence and behavior. Dr. Chance earned her doctorate from Harvard and now teaches the most popular course at Yale School of Management, which inspired her international bestseller, "Influence is Your Superpower." Her innovative framework

her behavior change has even shaped Google's global food policy. Before her academic career, she managed a 200 million segment of the Barbies brand at Mattel, proving her expertise spans both the boardroom and beyond. In today's episode, Dr. Chance will guide us through the nuances of interpersonal influence, revealing how you can use the superpower ethically and ethically.

Whether you're looking to raise money for charity, negotiate a great deal, or simply get along better with your loved ones, Dr. Chance will share insights on how to harness your influence for good. We'll dive into why many common strategies for influence might be backfiring and explore how to cultivate charisma, negotiate with ease, and spot manipulators.

Along the way, we'll encounter memorable stories and surprising examples from skydivers to mind readers and discover how influence can truly shape your life, your organization, and perhaps even history. So get ready to rediscover your superpower and learn how to make a positive impact with your influence. Let's welcome Dr. Zoe Chance to PassionStruck. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin.

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Here's a special holiday deal for our listeners. Right now, get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription, but only for Passion Struck with John R. Miles listeners at babbel.com slash passion. Get up to 60% off at babbel.com slash passion, spelled B-A-B-B-E-L.com slash passion. Rules and restrictions may apply. I am absolutely thrilled today to have Dr. Zoe Chance on Passion Struck. Welcome, Zoe.

Thank you so much, John. Great to meet you. Zoe, when we first connected, you mentioned to me the Onigadori chicken, renowned for having the longest tail in the world. How does this remarkable bird symbolize your work and what you strive to achieve in your field? Well, I'll tell you the genesis of how you and I connected was through Team Onigadori.

which is a small semi-secret cultish book of book authors who are writing on behavioral science. Most of us are behavioral scientists.

some science journalists. And we're people who are experts in our field, but we're not celebrities whose book launches and is an instant New York Times bestseller. So these are long-tailed books that have to be very carefully, gently, and with a great amount of labor and love brought into the world and nurtured while they're there. It's like these chickens.

called the onigodori chicken, which are famous in Japan. And they are so revered that these are given sometimes as gifts to heads of state. And they're so delicate that when one of these chickens is given as a gift, it's also given with a caretaker to lovingly make sure that this chicken will survive and thrive. Their tails can be four meters long.

These chickens have the craziest tails. And this is how it feels for me to be an author of a book that's out in the world. My book has been out for a couple of years now and still nurturing it. And I appreciate your help in that. And John, do you relate at all to that feeling of the nurturing that goes on from an author toward his book? Well, I absolutely do. I didn't go into this

hoping it was going to be a bestseller. I mean, if that was a result, that was great. But for me, the bigger thing I was looking for was lasting impact. And I wanted people to read this because I didn't create it for it to be a book that just sat on your bookshelf. I wanted it to be something that someone would take out and use in their life to make it better. It's such a challenge for those of us who are writing in self-help or self-help adjacent categories to not be writing a shelf help book.

book, right? Like you said, it sits on the shelf and looks pretty.

When I was in the process of working on this book, it was really lonely. And a lot of authors are lonely. And I knew from experience and from research and behavioral science that social support is such a big help and motivation. So I started this author group before my book came out, just recruiting some of my friends who are also lonely, writing books so that we could help each other, advise each other, cry on each other's shoulders, cheer each other on and pick us up when we fell down.

I love the group. I am not going to give out the names, but I will say that I've had a large number of them on this podcast because what I'm trying to do here is

I think there are a lot of podcasts and books out there that try to do self-help and they sugarcoat it. And to me, what I'm really trying to do is give episodes that showcase someone who's applying these things in their life, but I'm also trying to give listeners the actual science so they know how to apply it in their life. And I was talking to David Yadin. I'm not sure if you know who David is, but he's a Wharton doctor graduate, but in

in neuroscience and he's now studying really awe and our subconscious at Johns Hopkins. But we were exploring this and I was doing a lot of research on neuroscience and he said, John, neuroscience is great, but it doesn't get you very quick results. If you want someone to change their life, behavior science is a much better lens

to go really deep on because it can have lasting change and do it in a much quicker manner. So I love that you all are putting so many incredible

books that give that guidance to listeners of this podcast and readers worldwide. So thank you for doing that. And Don, thank you for being our partner and helping so many of us share our work with the world. We're all on the same page along with you in having the purpose of our book be about the impact that we hope that it can have. So thank you. Zoe, switching gears, you teach a course that is one of the most popular and it's

I know for me that there have been teachers in my life that have changed my life for the better. Some have challenged me to think about how I could become a better version of myself. Some have challenged me to dig deeper in myself, to overcome challenges I was when I was taking math or engineering courses. Some have disappointed me. Is there a teacher who changed your life for the better or even for the worse?

Thank you. I've been really lucky to have a lot of them. And the first teacher of actually, no, my third grade teacher was amazing, too. But one of my first teachers who made a huge impact on my life was my Taekwondo teacher during high school. And his name is Jeff Arch.

He was my mentor and he taught me resilience. He taught me humility. He taught me to do things that are hard and keep doing them because they're hard and come back. And he also was there for me in so many ways, like a dad. He was like my Mr. Miyagi. And if you've seen the movie Karate Kid, you know who that is. So Jeff,

was outside of his Taekwondo teaching. He was a writer and he was writing a screenplay. And I remember when he went to a workshop with Tony Robbins, this was at Tony Robbins' house, and he was in this workshop of 12 people and he comes back to us and he's written this screenplay so fast

He has it printed out and he throws it down on the table and he puts his fist down and he says, this is a million dollar screenplay right there. And I was like, oh gosh, that who are you, Jeff? Like you're a Taekwondo teacher. You're not some Hollywood screenwriter. And how could you even be dreaming that big? And I'm ashamed that I saw him as too small to have this dream of making it as a Hollywood screenwriter.

The screenplay was Sleepless in Seattle, and he was nominated for an Oscar for it. Oh, my gosh. He was right. And after seeing how he had dreams that were bigger than in some ways he deserved to have, I really have wanted to be someone who doesn't sell myself or anyone else short in what I believe can be accomplished.

I love that answer. Thank you so much for that perspective. And speaking of selling yourself short. John, can I just ask you about a teacher? You said you've had teachers with good impact. Maybe not so much. I just wanted to hear one. The good or the bad? Either way, whatever.

whatever. I'll tell you one that was bad. I had in high school, this English teacher who was beloved by all my classmates. And she had one of everyone's most favorite classes. She made English fun. And I remember I was preparing to get out all my applications to go to college and everything else. And I was trying to decide where I wanted to take my life. I met with her to do a mentoring

conversation and it went in a completely different way than I had ever imagined. She basically told me that my life would never amount to anything, that I am good at faking my life, but I would not be able to build my life on the basis of what she saw in me. And it actually

really caused me not to take the traditional path that I probably would have gone down to go University of Michigan, Duke or Brown. But instead, I accepted an appointment to the Naval Academy. And I think it was one of the driving forces because

I wanted to challenge myself more and step out of comfort into putting myself into the perils of having to be uncomfortable to reach what I wanted in life. So that was an interesting counter intuitive advice I got, but I think it ended up being pretty profound because I guess it sparked in me a desire to make her wrong. It's incredible how you managed to

spin a silver lining out of that. As a teacher, I'm appalled that she would give you that feedback, no matter who you were as a kid. And also, you got into the freaking Naval Academy. You were clearly doing really well. It's not like you were some slacker who hadn't figured out your life at all yet. So good job. And I want to smack her.

Getting back to what you were just saying, one of the things that I love about behavior scientists is when I find one who had a career before they actually got into it. And another person comes to mind is Angela Duckworth, who for a period of time was doing consulting. She was a teacher, et cetera. Another one is Annie Duke, professional poker player. And what I like about it is that

practical real life experience, I think is so vital because it's been vital in how I interpret behavior science. You spent a portion of your career managing a $200 million segment of the Barbie brand. How did that, I guess, aspect of your career spark your initial interest in the science of influence, which is what you're known for? And how did that journey begin for you? Well, John, I got interested in influence,

the study of it during that period of my life where somebody gave me Bob Cialdini's book, "Influence," and I was getting curious about doing this kind of work at the same time that I was realizing how much I sucked at actual influence.

So we had the number one girls brand in the world. It still is. And for anyone who's curious, when I saw the Barbie movie, it was basically traumatizing. I was having PTSD because Mattel was not unlike Mattel is represented in the movie back then. But I hear from students who've been there recently that it's a much better, more fun, engaging and a good place to work now. But what was going on was we've,

were selling to people without fully understanding their behavior and how they made the decisions that they did. And then also I was trying to influence senior managers and failing at persuading the senior vice president in our group or the president of the company, CEO. And both of these failures turned out to later, I learned, be explained by some basic principles of behavioral economics.

But when I was there at Mattel, we would ask girls, say in our core target market, ages three to five, we would say, who's Barbie and what does she do? And they would say, she's a bride and she gets married. Okay, great. And we would put together bridal play sets and have you take groom.

flower girls, presents, dress, everything you need for a Barbie wedding. And then we would send our insights team spies to observe these little girls in their houses. How do they really play with Barbie? And these little girls were having Barbie weddings, but it would be like a mermaid Barbie and the dog. And they just didn't need all of the stuff we were trying to sell them.

Or when girls are getting a little bit older, we would ask them at ages seven to nine as they're in air quotes aging out of Barbie, who's Barbie and what does she do? And girls by that point have become self-conscious and aware of what they look like and how they're perceived and mature.

The positive part of that is that they get excited about fashion. So they would say, "Barbie's a fashion model and she wears cool clothes." So we'd hire fashion designers, design a whole bunch of cool clothes, and they would sell okay, but

The bridal playset's not as spectacularly well as we thought. We would send our insights team into those girls' houses, and what we would find is that this was, if you've seen the Barbie movie, weird Barbie stage, where Barbie not only is not wearing any clothes at all, but she's lucky if she has hair or even a head.

They were torturing her and girls weren't playing with Barbie the way that they said that they wanted to play with Barbie. And that's just an example of my curiosity, wanting to understand how is it that we can understand, predict and influence people's decisions and behavior ultimately to try to be helpful. I also just learned about myself that I just don't care about selling things. And I used to be a teacher and I came back to teaching after that.

Well, I think you and I would agree that I think one thing that everyone should have to try to do is be in a sales role for at least a portion of your life because it is so much harder if it's not a natural thing for you to do to try to learn how to do. It's such a good way to build resilience and face rejection and get through it. What have you sold, Jen?

Oh my gosh, I've sold everything from software to consulting services to personal transformations. Is there any part of the sales process that still makes you uncomfortable or have you embraced it all by now?

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When I had first gotten out of the military, I had been in consulting for, I think, three, four years, and I had transitioned to Anderson Business Consulting. People would recognize it as Accenture today. And I remember I was doing these pitches to clients, and admittedly, I was putting them to sleep because I was doing these long PowerPoint presentations. And I happened to

stumble upon a methodology that PricewaterhouseCoopers had that they called the placemat exercise, meaning they would take this thing that looked like a placemat that you would put in front of you at dinner and on it, whatever they were selling, they would articulate it in that one placemat. And what it taught me was

that we need to be crystal clear on what we're selling and we need to simplify it in a way that the person who's buying it completely understands it. And if you can't do that through a placemat and have a 45 minute to an hour long conversation about it, then you're not tight enough on your messages. And that really taught me a critical skill about selling. And that is

When I was sitting there delivering all that information, I wasn't looking and experiencing the emotional state of the person who was buying from me because I was so much concentrating on delivering content that I wasn't really

watching their body language, their receptivity, and taking those cues to alter the conversation. And I think that is one of the most important things when it comes to selling or influencing anyone is that whole technique of you've got to listen, put yourself in the other person's shoes and adapt the message that you're giving to them.

It's so important and helpful and great skill to build. I just happened to be yesterday at a research seminar at Yale where one of my colleagues was presenting his research on using AI to evaluate people who were interviewing for sales positions and who evaluate who's going to be successful on the dimensions that

humans were also judging them as successful. And one of the biggest mistakes that candidates would make that would hurt their evaluations was spending too much time talking about the features of the product instead of talking about the needs of why this would be helpful. Absolutely. And I think the other thing

someone in sales really needs to do is you can't go into something cold. I got really good at doing tons of research. So I understood what the company was going for. I'd look at their board documents, I'd look at their investor pitches, and I'd try to understand what their market struggles were so that I could relate to the person on the other side. And you do a lot of that still on this podcast, which I've heard in your different interviews.

And you got to do a lot of research because I don't want my interview to be the same one that Lewis Howes or Jay Shetty or Ed Milad or Mel Robbins does with the same person. I want it to be different and I want it to be impactful. And most importantly, I want it to be something that impacts my audience and make them better. Something I did want to pick up on about your time at Mattel is when I was at Lowe's, it was really the first time I ever experienced behavior science. And

When people think of a retailer like Lowe's, they probably don't realize how sophisticated behind the scenes they were on using analytics. When I was there, the company and what really differentiated it at that point from Home Depot is we absolutely ran the whole business and competed based on analytics. And one of the most sophisticated areas of

where I would say we were probably one of the top 20 companies in the entire world was customer experience. And it was the first time I interacted with behavior scientists because we had hired not a lot of them, but there were like two or three in this group. And I helped them build this capability that we called single view of the customer and through behavior science and

some underlying data sources that we were able to tap into, we had a 92% accuracy rate of understanding our customer. And because they had that, they knew if the customer was living in their primary location, a secondary home, if they were on vacation. But more importantly, by observing their behavior, we could determine

When a person was going to start a home improvement project, which was the Holy Grail, and then the behavior science experts were then able to target them with messages and workflows that would get them into the process and to stay loyal to Lowe's. And it was one of the most impressive things I had ever experienced up to that point in my career.

It's really amazing and to me a little bit scary sometimes how much organizations can learn about us through connecting different unrelatedly, seemingly unrelated pieces of data. When you say a 92% rate of understanding the customer, do you mean recognizing them or predicting what they will do?

Well, the first step was to even recognize them, was to match so that we knew exactly who they were, what their address was, what store they shopped at, their living patterns, their credit cards that were tied to them, all of that.

And then based on that, you could then follow them. So we used, I mean, it must be even so much more sophisticated now with AI, but we would follow our customers to learn for queues of what would amount to a larger share of their wallet. And when we would get those queues, the team would get alerted and then we would use that to then drive at this point, instead of

Collecting information, we would then insert information to them, whether that was a mailer, an email, a store associate. We were getting so good that when they would walk into the store, if they were what we would consider a premier customer, we could even trigger someone in the store to go approach them.

to recognize them and thank them for shopping or something else just to make what we were trying to do, we called was a total closed loop experience. So regardless, if you were shopping in the store, calling the call center, work, working through the web, however, you were interfacing us, that we knew who you were, and you felt like it was customized to you. That's which is, yeah, it's really the holy grail of retail.

And John, this brings up one of the topics that I was teaching in my Yale class this week, actually, which is the principle of moments of truth and how if you reach someone at the right time, this is the secret to not being annoying. So if you're trying to influence someone to buy something,

things for a DIY home improvement project when they're on vacation or they just don't have any interest or funds to do that. It's annoying. But when you can reach somebody who wants to do a DIY home improvement project and you make it easy, you give them the information that they need, the tools, maybe you give them discounts. It's the opposite of annoying. It's a blessing and they appreciate it. So just the simple, um,

ability to figure out when is the right time to reach out to someone that I'm trying to influence is pure gold. It absolutely is. It was one of the most important things we were working on. And I think it's one of the most important things any company can work on because if you don't understand your customers, you're never going to be as successful as you could be.

And with moments of truth, it's helpful to think of the whole context. So the time and also the place and the ideal moment of truth is when you can solve a problem that they have right now. And at the very least is reach out to somebody when they have the bandwidth to pay attention so that you're not trying to interrupt all the other things they're doing. Absolutely. Well, Zoe, I'm going to double down on this Lowe's topic because I

When I was there, we brought in a third party who had psychologist organization or cultural psychologist who were evaluating senior executives who

had the potential that they could be sea levels or even the CEO of Lowe's. And I was fortunate to get tapped as one of those. And we went through this long exercise and I wound up in the top right-hand quadrant, right where you'd want to be. And I was so thrilled. And I went and talked to this psychologist who was the head leading it for a debrief. And she says to me, John, you've had this phenomenal career up until this point. You're

the youngest vice president at Lowe's, your career skyrocketed, you've done all these things. And then she said the Marshall Goldsmith line, but what got you here won't get you to where you want to be. And she didn't really give me the answer. And it left me, I have to tell you, coming out of that conversation, being so frustrated because I didn't know what I was lacking or what she meant. At that point, I felt like I was Superman.

And as time passed, I realized that where I was weak is that I had gotten that success because of my intellect, because of my hard work, because of my ability to outthink other people. But as I was getting more senior, emotional intelligence and influence become paramount, especially as you go up into the C-suite.

And I think as a CEO, which I've done, probably 90% of my job is was influence. I'm influencing customers to buy the product. I'm influencing the board. I'm influencing the company to do what we need to do to hit our KPIs and core strategy. It's all about influence. And when I think about this.

I think a lot of people think that influence is just something we have, something we're born with. And to me, it's like courage. You can develop courage even if it's not an inherent trait for you. What experiences for you led you to believe that influence could be taught? We're, I believe, influencing each other all the time.

And I think part of what you're talking about is influencing people in the direction that we're trying or hoping to influence them. And I have been blessed to be teaching this course that I teach at Yale. It's called Mastering Influence and Persuasion for, I think it might be now in its 12th year. It's so much fun. I got to invent it. This is what I believe I was born to do. And yeah,

I get to watch over the course of this is a half semester course. So I have 150 students right now are with me in seven weeks and to see the transformations from the beginning to the end of what happens when we have this personal transformation that has us showing up differently in the world and then

changes how the world reacts to us. The exercise, just as an example that students did this week, it's real world challenges for every single class.

The one for yesterday was a game called Bigger and Better. And you start with a paperclip and then you and a partner trade up as many times as you want for a week with anyone who's willing to trade with you for something bigger and better and bigger and better. The craziest, biggest, best thing has ended up being a Volkswagen Jetta that students got over a week and they gave it away to a refugee family and it was beautiful.

Yesterday, the biggest best thing, or one of them, was a pizza party for the entire class and a python in a jar in some kind of liquid. And somehow this happened from a combination effort of a pizza place and a tattoo parlor.

But overall, what happened for these 150 students out in the world was that they were going out and they were sharing, here's a crazy idea. Would you like to play this game with us? And asking for something more than they can pay back in return. And then seeing how the world welcomed them and how so many people are open to being part of something that sounds cool and participating in a generous way.

Then fast forwarding to students who have finished the class and gone out into the world and use these techniques. I hear back from former students all the time, like one of them is the domestic, has been the domestic climate chief of staff and now she's Biden's special advisor on climate.

running the White House climate team and saying this is exactly how things are done in the White House. Another former student ended up changing the course of history in Tunisia where he works and influencing the democratic process there through all of these skills that he learned in the class. There are so many students who launch startups, nonprofits, and have better relationships that they tell me about.

This is, I guess that wasn't how did I figure out that this could be taught? That was probably my own personal experience that I wanted to share and teach to other people. So I get it reinforced through this class every year. Well, those were some great examples of how important it is. And

Just for anyone who's listening, the red paperclip story is something that I covered on this podcast not too long ago, episode 471, Kyle McDonald story. And I did it on four ways to master creative thinking. But if you really think about it, what Kyle did is a masterclass in influence. It's so fun. I share the pictures and that story with my class. And then did you share on the podcast that when he gets the house,

Well, whatever. Spoiler. When he gets the house that the town of Kipling in Saskatchewan also makes him honorary mater for a day. And they are a Guinness Book of World Records holding giant red paperclip statue that's still there, apparently, for anyone who wants to take a road trip. It's a masterclass on influence for sure.

Well, absolutely. It is such a fun story and unbelievable story. Your book is really a masterpiece at understanding our inherent superpowers. In fact, the book is Influence is Your Superpower. And when I think about this as a superpower, I think there's a common misconception that people have about influence being an individual effort.

How can we start shifting that mindset so that we realize it's really in our interconnectedness that our influence can change? If you're a nice person who doesn't think it would be good to study and practice the dark arts of interpersonal influence,

I totally understand and I don't blame you. And it's an indicator that unconsciously you're playing small. And in order to do anything more than you can easily through your individual effort accomplish

we're going to have to influence other people and if you want to have more influence than you can as one human being it's definitely going to be by empowering other people maybe even by teaching other people some of the dark arts of influence which might not be so dark so

If we're not trying to influence each other and if we're not trying to study it and practice it, what happens because influence is power is that we're just leaving the world in the hands of the power hungry people who have no reluctance to study and practice the arts of influence. So I think absolutely everyone who has a good heart needs to study this science.

As I was studying for this and I was listening to some of the other podcasts you've been on, one of the things that you said during one of them really stood out to me. And I remember myself being in so many meetings throughout my career where as I look back now, oftentimes if I didn't think that I was an expert in the area or that it was my area that I was trying to influence,

I would sit back and let the discussion play out. And what I noticed was that those who spoke up earliest in the discussion, whether their opinion was right or wrong, significantly influenced the direction that the rest of the meeting ended up going in.

And it's something that you brought up that it's so vital to understand that if you want to influence something at work or could be even in a meeting, I don't want to say meeting. It could be you're just out with your friends and the topic comes up. Jumping in early and expressing your idea early is vital. Can you just explore that a little bit more? It's similar to the psychological principle of the anchoring effect that some people interested in behavioral science have studied where, say, in a negotiation, they're

whoever introduces a number first it has a bit of a gravitational pull on the discussion of the range of what might be possible and similarly whoever joins or starts a conversation on the early side about an idea has this gravitational effect on where the conversation goes what the direction is and what might be possible or what might seem reasonable

Even deeper than this, another reason to speak up orally as a practice in a conversation is so that you and other people register your own presence in this group.

And you know how in group dynamics just is such that when we're talking to a group of people, we're not making eye contact with everyone. As the speaker, you rarely notice that. But as a listener, you definitely notice it if you're one of the people who is not getting eye contacted by the speakers. If that's been going on for a while, then it's harder for you to speak up. And then if you do speak up, people are like, oh, well, that person is here. Hey, Zoe.

If you speak up earlier, people are looking at you when they're speaking. They're including you in the conversation and it's easier for you to speak up later. So I would say if you have something to contribute to a conversation toward the beginning, absolutely do it. But also get in the practice of just speaking up early, even if you don't have that great thing to say, like asking a question or agreeing or disagreeing with something.

reacting to what somebody else says or being part of the chit chat before the meeting. This is especially for introverts, especially for people in junior roles or people who just don't feel as comfortable. And behavioral introverts are people who think before they speak. And that includes introverts.

anyone who's not super comfortable or anyone who is speaking a language that they're not completely, totally fluent in. So thank you for bringing up the timing again, John, and absolutely agree with you about speaking up early.

Zoe, one of the things you asked me to do to make this a win for you was to bring up some practical examples for the audience to absorb so that they could picture themselves in these scenarios. The way I'm going to do this is I'm going to go through some of the core concepts of your book that I found, and I'm going to ask you about that core concept, let you explain it, and then I'm going to provide a scenario that we can discuss.

One of the fascinating ideas in the book is that by making it okay for someone to say no, they're more likely to want to say yes. Can you explain how removing the pressure from a request can actually increase the chances of a positive response?

Sure. And I'd like to start with a challenge for anyone who is joining us and listening to this conversation, which is the very first challenge that I offer students in my class. And I write about it in Influences Your Superpower. And this is 24 hours of no. And that's 24 hours of you saying no.

to other people's invitations or requests so that you get to experience how much of a people pleaser you probably are most of us are more of a people pleaser than we thought and also so that you can get some practice becoming more comfortable with saying no especially saying no to the request without necessarily saying no to the person or the relationship

When we get comfortable saying no, we get comfortable with other people saying no to us. And when we're comfortable with the idea of other people saying no to us, then when we're asking them something or for something or making an invitation, we don't have pressure embedded in that request. We don't have neediness in that edge to our voice, which is repulsive.

So pressure is repulsive because people don't want to be told what to do. They don't want their freedom to be restricted. And even if you're offering them something great, they want to say no or run away. Like in a study by one of my dissertation advisors, they literally had a table set up

In the street in Boston, the sign says "Free Money" and they're giving away $50 bills. And some people are taking them and a bunch of people are crossing the street when they see the table with the sign because they think they're going to be pressured to do something. Asking without pressure has people feel that they have some agency and autonomy and they're more willing to consider a request.

And asking without neediness has people feel that they can choose whether to say yes or no, and they're not going to feel guilty if they say no. So starting with you saying no, ending with other people saying yes to you in an indirect and magical way.

Okay, well, I love that explanation. Let's give a listener a scenario that they can put themselves in. And this is one I came up with because especially with the holiday season coming up, I think it's something that many people might face. So let's say a listener or a viewer is in a situation where they need to ask their manager for time off during a period of peak work and busyness. They know their boss might hesitate to approve it

but they really need that time off, how can they use this no pressure approach you talk about to make it easier for their boss to say yes? If you were coming to me and you wanted to ask your boss for time off during this peak period, I guess this is because you're asking your boss who definitely knows that they can say no and perhaps

should say no-ish to you. I don't know that I would focus on trying to make it feel comfortable for them saying no, because I don't know if that's going to make them more likely in this particular situation

to want to say yes, I would use a different approach here, if you don't mind. And I would ask my boss. So I would do the reinforcing their autonomy, acknowledging their freedom. So listen, I know there must be lots of other people asking for time off right now. And you probably have a lot of requests. I have this thing that's really important to me. And I'm just wondering, what would it take to make it possible for me to have time off?

at this point when other people wanted to. So in this case, I would probably suggest asking, how could this happen to enlist the boss in creative problem solving rather than something like totally understand if it can't work. I know lots of people are asking no pressure. I would ask, what would it take? What do you think? But maybe you have a better way of

making it feel comfortable to say no than I was thinking of? Because you're so experienced in these arts. What do you think, John? To me, I guess it comes down to if I'm the person who's receiving this, is this person who's asking for time off someone who asks for a lot of time off? And is this a recurring pattern? Or is this someone who's one of my star employees who never takes time off?

who all of a sudden needs it. And even though I need them during this busy time, it's probably better to reward them for it, to thank them for all the contributions that they've given, even if it's going to cost us some short-term headaches trying to figure out how to get through it. So I would, if they're that person, put themselves in the boss's shoes. But I would also say that the sooner you can get in for the request, the better, because

A lot of times it's FIFO, first in, first out, when it comes to these things. And if you're too late, you have lost the opportunity to even ask for it because there's not going to be a way for the boss to accommodate for you. Yeah, and it will count more and more the later you get what your reason is. And if you get to ask early, you don't need to have this most monumental reason behind it. Correct. So Zoe, in your book, you explain that

influence doesn't work the way that most of us think because we don't think the way we think. And you break down two different concepts. You have a system one way of thinking and a system two way of thinking. And I was hoping you could go into what these two different ways of thinking are and why understanding them is essential to becoming more influential. Sure. And it might help if I then

touch back on the mysteries at Mattel of why I was so uninfluential and people weren't doing what I thought they would do to make it concrete. These two systems, system one and system two, I use an analogy of a gator and a judge because it's just a little more concrete and memorable. System one and system two together are responsible for 100% of our decisions and behavior. And

The discipline of behavioral economics has discovered many ways in which thinking in terms of these two systems can predict anomalous behavior as well as normal behavior. System one is like an alligator. It is

this unconscious primal system that takes no effort at all. And these are our snap judgments, gut reactions, emotions are here. Anything that through practice becomes habitual, essentially effortless. And this is our dominant mode guiding our decisions and behavior. Because we're not conscious of it, we just don't notice that this is happening. But this system is relatively effortless.

The other system, too, is like a judge, where it's like a human judge carefully weighing evidence, pro and con, and second guessing the first response of the gator. However, this system takes a lot of mental bandwidth. It's our conscious attention. We can only focus on one case at a time.

And so we're not using this taxing system if we don't need to. And this is where when we're trying to influence someone, timing matters a lot because their conscious mind is always already busy. The system also is influenced by the snap judgments and habits, biases of the gator part.

When I was at Mattel and I didn't understand about kids and the Barbie brand, I mentioned that the gator is lazy. And the gator part of us is most biased toward doing things that are easy. Anything that adds friction really reduces the likelihood that someone will take action. So these little girls, for example,

these girls who wanted to have Barbie weddings and they did have Barbie weddings, it was just much easier to have a mermaid and a dog than to use all of the play set stuff that we were selling them. And with the girls getting a little bit older who were playing with Barbie, like weird Barbie, they said that Barbie was a fashion model. But then the reason she wasn't wearing any clothes is that if you've ever played with Barbie, you just can't get her clothes back on after you get them off because she has these stiff arms and stiff legs and you

I just can't follow on. So there was really no mystery there. And then when I was failing to persuade senior leadership at Mattel about my great ideas and new product lines, it was that I was jumping to try to persuade the judge part with all of these facts and figures, careful analysis and evidence.

before going through the gatekeeper of the gator and having them be interested in my great idea in the first place. So people won't be persuaded by information very often at all, and they won't even pay attention to the information until they're already interested. And at that point, they have a hypothesis. So a lot of what I teach and write about is about influencing that gator unconscious piece of us.

Okay, so let's do a scenario around this. Let's say a listener is a salesperson, something we talked about before, and they're trying to pitch a new product to a potential client who seems really skeptical about it. Instead of relying solely on facts and data, how can they use what you just taught about system one thinking to appeal to the client's gut reactions and make their pitch more compelling? So in this particular case where you say that the client is skeptical,

When we have some disagreement or some resistance, this is usually the threat detection system of the gator part. And the threat detection system in all of us is overactive. This system is constantly scanning the environment for opportunities and threats like a gator lurking beneath the surface of the water. The threats are much more important.

than the opportunities. Because if you miss an opportunity, you might go hungry. If you miss a threat, you might die. When you're trying to influence someone, you're very likely a threat. Maybe it's a threat to their time or their attention, maybe some resources or social capital. But very often what people perceive is that you're a threat to their freedom.

So if somebody has resistance for whatever reason to whatever your great idea is, that person is going to need to feel heard before they're even able to listen. So in a one-on-one conversation, like a sales conversation, it can sound like witnessing and exploring their resistance. I've shared with you my great idea, John, and it might be that you're just like,

And I would say, you're looking a little skeptical and just leave it open for you to share this with me. So you're telling me something you don't like about my idea. And I say, really, really tell me more about that. I might say, wow, it sounds terrible. Is there anything else? Is there anything else that makes you want to think twice or 20 times about the idea of doing this together before we were to collaborate? So if I let you get out

all of the objections, concerns, resistance that you might have, at that point, when you know that I've heard you and I've understood and I really get you, and I'm not just blithely marching ahead telling you my product features, like I really get what you don't like or what your concerns are, then you will be able to listen if I say something like,

All of these concerns that you've just shared with me, I get it. They're totally valid. And I would feel certainly the same way that you do if I were in your situation. I believe, though, that there's something that I haven't shared with you yet that is going to make you excited about this possibility. It might still not be something that you're interested in, but would you like to hear this one piece that you don't know yet? Just as an example. So if I offer to share with you something that now that I know you,

I think that you might, in fact, with more information, feel differently. So witnessing resistance before pressing forward with trying to influence somebody is super important. And if they're not resistant, then it's probably the gator part is just a matter of building rapport.

right? We're getting to know each other a little bit, smiling, we find something in common. Then the gator part is saying, "Oh, I like John and I'm interested in something that John might have to say." Would you agree with that from your experience?

I guess I would. Again, it comes all the way back to my time when I was at Anderson and thinking about the buyer and being in their shoes because most of them, especially if they didn't know you, because where I was doing this was in Houston. What I found about Houston is they were great at giving you initial meetings, but they wouldn't buy from you unless they knew you. So they were inherently skeptical. So you had to break through that skepticism and earn their trust before they were going to do anything with you.

Absolutely. Would it be helpful if I shared a relevant strategy for influencing groups when you anticipate some resistance? I think that would be a great one. Can I give you a scenario? Oh, sure. Great. Let's say a listener is leading a team and they want to encourage their colleagues to adopt a new workflow or tool. However, they're encountering resistance because people feel overwhelmed by the learning curve. I think this is something a lot of people probably experience.

how would you advise that they get their colleagues on board? It's a miserable situation to be in. And I was recently coaching someone in a big tech company who was running a team that had this exact problem. When you have a group who needs to be brought on board with a great idea to even say, try this as a pilot,

I recommend a strategy based on the Japanese principle of Nemawashi, which is consensus building or cultivating the roots. And this is the...

really influential practice of having key pre-meetings before the meeting. And it's most important to be meeting with people who might have some resistance or that they have some resistance to this idea. So it could be people who don't like you or your team. It could be people who've already voiced some objections to this idea. And it also can always be people who would have to actually implement this idea.

So when you're sharing your idea in a pre-meeting with people who are resistant, you're sharing the bare bones version and you're asking their advice about solving any concerns that they come up with. And you're just witnessing and exploring resistance like I talked about. In the pre-meetings, by the way, I also recommend that you, if you can, have a conversation with someone.

any of the most powerful decision makers or people who the group is going to look to for their thoughts, and also with people who are allies who could support you. When you talk to the people with political power and status, decision making, also ask their advice about the politics. When you talk to allies, also ask their advice, ask if they'll support you in the meeting. When you then share your idea in the meeting,

The people who had all of these concerns have already shared them with you. So they're not needing to be one of those first few people to speak in the meeting and get the concern out there because you get to be the person to share it. You get to frame it in a way that's helpful. For example, I'm going to share this.

new process, that we have a new tool, which I think is going to make a huge difference for us in terms of productivity. And when I was talking to John earlier, John had some concerns about the amount of effort, for example, that it's going to take and the amount of time that it will take some logistics, which are going to be really important.

for us to figure out. And I have some ideas about that. But, and when I'm sharing this and I'm voicing John's concern, then typically John in this meeting is nodding, which looks like agreement, which might be like, yes, I agree with how bad this idea is.

But I brought John on to be a collaborative member of the team. And also when you had pre-meetings with these people, you shared the bare bones idea to leave some low hanging fruit so that other people can be contributing their thoughts that you will take action on if they're helpful. So your whole idea is better. And then you now have this collaborative team.

where all of these people have contributed to it. So handling resistance in a group is pre-meeting with individuals and hearing the resistance so that it doesn't get aired so much in that big group.

And then quickly, Zoe, because I know we're running out of time, there's one last scenario I wanted to give you. One of my favorite takeaways from your work is that authentic, lasting influence is not something achieved by individuals alone, which is something we talked about earlier in the episode. It's a collective effort, a group project, as you put it.

So let's say a listener is trying to launch a community initiative to address something that we really need today, like environmental sustainability in their local area. They know they can't do it alone, but they're unsure how to get others involved. How can they use this concept of collective influence to bring together a group of people and build momentum around the cause?

Thank you for asking that. And it's one of the most challenging aspects of influence is trying to influence a group of people to change their behavior, especially when like in the climate or sustainability example.

We don't have short-term benefits to offer them. First of all, the broad perspective that influencing groups of people will always start with influencing individuals and a lot of individual personal contact. Interpersonal influence always takes a lot of work. And identifying people who already care about the topic.

And helping mobilize and motivate them to take action will always be easier and more effective than trying to influence people who don't care or people who disagree to change their mind and take action. So often behavior is easier to influence than minds or mental perspectives.

What I would suggest for a group of people trying to do something like help with sustainability is build momentum by focusing on one very specific high reward effort. A lot of times what that looks like is policy. So intervening to try to influence policy in your own organization or policy in your community or influencing policymakers. And that's something that we feel like it's not my job.

to make policy, but this is where all of us can have a bigger effect than most of the rest of our life. - Well, Zoe, it was such a enjoyable conversation today. Can you give the listeners a central place that they can go if they wanna learn more about your work and purchase your book?

Sure. My book is available in 28 languages and most places you can buy books. So I told you Gator is really lazy. The easiest thing that you can do is go to Amazon, find Influence as Your Superpower, and you can find me, connect with me, and more information at zoechance.com. Thank you so much for this conversation, John, and for the...

interesting topics that you brought. And I appreciate the work and the preparation that you had to do in order to bring these concrete examples and tie it to my work. And I'm just delighted and charmed to meet you. So thank you.

Thank you so much. It was my honor to have you on. Wow, what an incredible conversation that was with Dr. Zoe Chance. We uncovered the secrets of interpersonal influence. We learned how to harness the superpower and to make meaningful change in our lives and the world around us. From negotiating with confidence to spotting manipulators, Zoe has given us tools to change our approach to how we influence others. One key takeaway from today's episode is that influence

is not about manipulation or control. It's about genuine connection and aligning with others to create positive outcomes. The next time that you find yourself in a situation where you need to influence someone, think about how you can connect with them on a deeper level, whether it's raising funds for a cause, negotiating a deal, or simply communicating better with a loved one.

Use your influence as a force for good. As always, links to everything that we discussed here today, including Zoe's book, Influences Your Superpower, can be found in the show notes at passionstruck.com. If you're inspired to grab a copy of Zoe's book or that of other guests that we featured on the show, please do so by going to the links that we feature in the show notes or in my recommended book list. And if you want to watch today's episode, then you can go to YouTube and watch it on our two channels, our main channel, John R. Miles, and our Clips podcast,

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For those of you who are interested in having me speak at your company or event, whether it's a keynote, a workshop, or a panel discussion, I'd love to explore how we can work together. Head over to johnrmiles.com slash speaking for more interesting ideas on the topics I can cover and ways that we can inspire your organization. Before we wrap up, I am excited to share a sneak peek of our next episode. I'll be sitting down with Dr. Susan Grah, soul healer and intuitive medium who has experienced the afterlife firsthand

through near death experience. We'll explore her journey, spiritual guidance, and what the afterlife can teach us about healing and connection. You won't want to miss this powerful conversation. Our soul wants expansion. It craves it. But the most important expansion is love. Love is the hierarchy. Love takes us to source. The more we love, the higher we vibrate. And so our goal is to have self-love. Love of self is so important, love and knowledge.

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