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"Self Effacing Language" or “Humility at Work: Lessons from Buffett and Hollywood” · How To Talk To Humans

• 0:00
  Larry Wilson: Hi, this is Larry Wilson, and this is How to Talk to Humans.
• 0:05
  Larry Wilson: This is the podcast that shows you how to improve your communication skills.
• 0:10
  Larry Wilson: Are you looking to get a better job?
• 0:12
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• 0:15
  Larry Wilson: Are you trying to do things in your life that have frustrated you and eluded you so far?
• 0:21
  Larry Wilson: I can show you so easily how to change that.
• 0:25
  Larry Wilson: Now, I can only do it with humans.
• 0:28
  Larry Wilson: If you're looking to deal with vampires or zombies and exponentials, this is not the show for you.
• 0:33
  Larry Wilson: But if you're really looking to improve your communication skills, I can show you what I've learned for 40 years in the show business working with the biggest celebrities and superstars in the world.
• 0:47
  Larry Wilson: And their secrets are unbelievable.
• 0:51
  Larry Wilson: What I'm going to be teaching you during the course of this podcast every week are tools that you can use to communicate toward success.
• 1:04
  Larry Wilson: Hi, thanks for joining me again for another episode of this podcast.
• 1:10
  Larry Wilson: I wanted to talk today about self-effacing behavior.
• 1:17
  Larry Wilson: And we've talked about it here before, but as always, I'm responding sometimes when those of you who listen to this have written to me, emailed to me, and asked for clarification on certain points.
• 1:32
  Larry Wilson: I'm always happy to oblige.
• 1:34
  Larry Wilson: And I can understand that specifically with uh self-effacement, it's a little slippery, it's a little tricky to pin this one down because it's kind of subtle.
• 1:51
  Larry Wilson: I can tell you what it doesn't mean.
• 1:54
  Larry Wilson: It is not self-abasement.
• 1:57
  Larry Wilson: It is not meant to put yourself down.
• 2:01
  Larry Wilson: It is not meant to criticize yourself or embarrass yourself or humiliate yourself.
• 2:08
  Larry Wilson: To be self-effacing simply means to be candid about the things that are not your strongest suit.
• 2:20
  Larry Wilson: And sometimes it's very simple, some of it's something very simple.
• 2:24
  Larry Wilson: You know, I can personally think of so many different examples with myself, but I'll I'll give you a simple one immediately here.
• 2:34
  Larry Wilson: I can't sing.
• 2:37
  Larry Wilson: I have a terrible ear.
• 2:41
  Larry Wilson: I wish I could, but I can't.
• 2:46
  Larry Wilson: I don't make a big deal about it.
• 2:49
  Larry Wilson: But if someone wanted me to go to karaoke with them or something, I might still go.
• 2:55
  Larry Wilson: I just probably wouldn't get up and try to sing.
• 2:59
  Larry Wilson: And if someone asked me, I'd tell them very candidly, I'd say, oh, you haven't heard something like that since the orphanage burnt down.
• 3:07
  Larry Wilson: You know, you don't want to hear that sound, that horrible sound I would make trying to sing.
• 3:12
  Larry Wilson: But I'll give you perhaps more concrete examples of very famous, successful, well-to-do people who can be very self-effacing.
• 3:27
  Larry Wilson: And the reason I think it's a critical skill to have is because it has a powerful effect on people when you're speaking or writing to them.
• 3:40
  Larry Wilson: It's particularly powerful when you're speaking in real time to people because they realize this is genuine.
• 3:52
  Larry Wilson: This is not some sort of artificially created gimmick or something like that.
• 3:59
  Larry Wilson: Even though, for example, I'll tell you, uh I'm going to share a story with you that uh Warren Buffett told at one of his yearly investor meetings.
• 4:09
  Larry Wilson: Now, I've never met Buffett.
• 4:11
  Larry Wilson: I wish I had.
• 4:13
  Larry Wilson: I'm a big fan of his.
• 4:15
  Larry Wilson: I'm a big fan of him, really, because his communication skills are so spot on.
• 4:23
  Larry Wilson: He's he's really something.
• 4:27
  Larry Wilson: And uh one of the markers of that is that if you ever listen to him speak, he can explain almost anything, even very complicated ideas about investing and finance so that anyone can understand them.
• 4:46
  Larry Wilson: That's not by accident, that's not luck, that's clearly skill that he's developed using very similar techniques to what I'm teaching in Wilson Method.
• 5:00
  Larry Wilson: A really great example of this is his self-effacing behavior describing his flagship company, the first company he bought, Berkshire Halfway.
• 5:16
  Larry Wilson: And I never know if these stories, when you hear them, are true.
• 5:26
  Larry Wilson: I only know what people have shared with me and what Buffett has said publicly.
• 5:32
  Larry Wilson: I'm assuming it must be true.
• 5:34
  Larry Wilson: I don't know how many years ago it is, I would guess 60 or 70 years ago, Buffett was just starting to get involved in uh investing, and uh for some reason or other he had gotten in very heavily invested in this company, Berkshire Hathaway.
• 5:55
  Larry Wilson: It was a mill, it produced uh clothing and I guess and cotton and things like that.
• 6:06
  Larry Wilson: And through uh investment strategies that are too complicated for me to be able to follow, because he was a large shareholder, at some point he uh he thought, well, he could really turn this company around.
• 6:24
  Larry Wilson: It wasn't doing well, it was floundering.
• 6:27
  Larry Wilson: But he had some idea, and this is, I guess, why he he bought so many shares of the company.
• 6:33
  Larry Wilson: So many shares that at some point the owner, I guess, wanted to buy back the outstanding shares.
• 6:42
  Larry Wilson: It was something, a very uh complex stock exchange arrangement that he had in mind.
• 6:50
  Larry Wilson: But he went to the largest shareholder who was Warren Buffett and said, I just want to find out if I offer you a buyout for eleven dollars and uh eleven and three eighths a share, would you accept that?
• 7:14
  Larry Wilson: And Buffett said, Yeah, if you do that, like right now, very shortly right now, yes, I would do that.
• 7:25
  Larry Wilson: I would accept 11 and 38s.
• 7:27
  Larry Wilson: Oh, sorry, sorry, I've I've already bungled the story.
• 7:32
  Larry Wilson: He said, the guy said, would you accept a if I gave you eleven and a half, would you accept that?
• 7:42
  Larry Wilson: And Buffett says, yes, I would.
• 7:44
  Larry Wilson: If you did it in a timely manner right now, I would accept eleven and a half.
• 7:49
  Larry Wilson: And the guy says, okay.
• 7:50
  Larry Wilson: And so he goes back and puts together this whole offer, and he Buffett receives a thing in the mail that says the tender offer he's received is for 11 and 3 eighths.
• 8:04
  Larry Wilson: So he describes, Warren Buffett describes being incensed by this, saying, all I could think is this guy's trying to cheat me out of one-eighth.
• 8:19
  Larry Wilson: And oh, he was just incensed.
• 8:25
  Larry Wilson: And so he writes the guy back and says, No, I will not accept this offer.
• 8:31
  Larry Wilson: This is not what we agreed on.
• 8:33
  Larry Wilson: No deal.
• 8:35
  Larry Wilson: And he's so enraged that he winds up mounting a whole hostile takeover and buys the whole company away from this guy.
• 8:48
  Larry Wilson: So he takes control of Berkshire Hathaway.
• 8:52
  Larry Wilson: Now, this sounds pretty heroic at this part.
• 8:55
  Larry Wilson: Little guy won't let himself be pushed around.
• 8:59
  Larry Wilson: But as Buffett is telling the story, what becomes clear is he says, this is like the dumbest decision I ever made.
• 9:07
  Larry Wilson: He said, I bought this company, it was a bad company.
• 9:11
  Larry Wilson: It was losing money.
• 9:13
  Larry Wilson: I thought I could turn it around.
• 9:15
  Larry Wilson: But everything I did wasn't working, wasn't turning around.
• 9:19
  Larry Wilson: This guy offered to buy me out, and because he tried to take advantage of me, I said, no way, no deal.
• 9:28
  Larry Wilson: He said, so I wound up buying him out.
• 9:30
  Larry Wilson: So now I own this terrible company.
• 9:33
  Larry Wilson: And he said, his good friend, who was with him for many years until his recent death, Charlie Munger, counseled him and said, Yeah, you should unload this.
• 9:43
  Larry Wilson: We should get rid of this.
• 9:45
  Larry Wilson: It's just bleeding money.
• 9:47
  Larry Wilson: But Buffett said he was determined.
• 9:52
  Larry Wilson: You know this feeling.
• 9:54
  Larry Wilson: We've all had this feeling at some time or another.
• 9:57
  Larry Wilson: I'm not going to let them outwit me.
• 9:59
  Larry Wilson: I'm not going to be snookered on this.
• 10:03
  Larry Wilson: And so he said for the next however many years, they tried every conceivable strategy to turn this company around.
• 10:14
  Larry Wilson: And we're not able to continue to lose money.
• 10:19
  Larry Wilson: And hearing Buffett tell this story, it's pretty funny because he's so candid and open about a bad decision he made that just kept getting worse.
• 10:34
  Larry Wilson: And at some point in there, whether it was Buffett by himself or with Charlie Mook, at some point in there he realized: oh, there's no point in trying to fix this bad company.
• 10:48
  Larry Wilson: I should focus on good companies.
• 10:51
  Larry Wilson: And so because they had the name and because it was under the rubric of Berkshire Hathaway, it remained Berkshire Hathaway.
• 11:00
  Larry Wilson: But Berkshire Hathaway was not where all his success came from.
• 11:04
  Larry Wilson: That he then slowly started to accumulate companies that he felt were fundamentally good companies.
• 11:13
  Larry Wilson: And it when you hear him talk about it, being so open and candid, you know how a lot of people only paint themselves as the hero in their stories?
• 11:24
  Larry Wilson: Every decision they make is brilliant, or at least if it doesn't seem brilliant at first, it's revealed to secretly be brilliant.
• 11:32
  Larry Wilson: It might be kind of interesting, but it's not nearly as compelling as when someone shares their foibles, as when someone shares the mistakes they've made and foolish decisions they made, and emotional choices they made that anyone could see were not good choices.
• 11:57
  Larry Wilson: So, as Buffett describes this, it really makes you like him.
• 12:04
  Larry Wilson: It really makes you trust him.
• 12:08
  Larry Wilson: Because you think this guy has nothing to hide.
• 12:13
  Larry Wilson: He doesn't have anything to prove to anyone.
• 12:25
  Larry Wilson: So there's something almost charming about when he comes out and just says, yeah, that was a terrible decision.
• 12:34
  Larry Wilson: And for years was costing us money.
• 12:37
  Larry Wilson: Just terrible, awful decision.
• 12:40
  Larry Wilson: And he still, there is, you know, it's still a great story because there is a moral to be learned from the story.
• 12:48
  Larry Wilson: And he says, What we learn from this is don't ever try to buy a bad company and fix it.
• 12:58
  Larry Wilson: He said, from that point on, we made a conscious decision.
• 13:04
  Larry Wilson: We're only going to buy good companies and hold on to them.
• 13:11
  Larry Wilson: And that's what he did, and that's why he's the most successful investor in history.
• 13:16
  Larry Wilson: I also think of the screenwriter William Goldman.
• 13:23
  Larry Wilson: He not only wrote, I think he received an Academy Award for All the President's Men, and he wrote, of course, The Princess Bride, Butchcasting and Sundance Kid, Marathon Man.
• 13:37
  Larry Wilson: It goes on and on.
• 13:38
  Larry Wilson: I mean, written huge, huge successful films, but also he was also secretly behind the scenes.
• 13:44
  Larry Wilson: Goldman was a famous script doctor uh in Hollywood, where people had problems with films, and Goldman would be brought in and paid handsomely, but anonymously, to fix problems with scripts or improve them or rewrite them and stuff.
• 14:01
  Larry Wilson: He's funny.
• 14:03
  Larry Wilson: He's a very funny guy.
• 14:05
  Larry Wilson: And he was hired by Rob Reiner to write the screenplay for Stephen King's book, Misery.
• 14:14
  Larry Wilson: And I don't know if you've seen the film.
• 14:18
  Larry Wilson: I don't know if you're, I don't want to give too much away in case you haven't seen it.
• 14:21
  Larry Wilson: It's an interesting film.
• 14:23
  Larry Wilson: It's not perfect.
• 14:25
  Larry Wilson: A lot of King's stuff is so much better as a book because he's painting images with words.
• 14:35
  Larry Wilson: And what that forces us to do is be a co-creator.
• 14:40
  Larry Wilson: It means in your mind, you're picturing these things, and no writer, no filmmaker, no painter, no photographer, no one can match the power of your imagination.
• 14:54
  Larry Wilson: This is why we always want to engage the people we're communicating with.
• 15:00
  Larry Wilson: Because if you say, imagine this, or picture this, or what if, if you get them to actually think about it, what they're thinking in their mind is better than anything you could describe.
• 15:16
  Larry Wilson: But anyway, William Goldman is hired, and I'm trying to tell the story without giving too much away in the story.
• 15:24
  Larry Wilson: There's a horrible event in what would be the third act of this film, and it's uh terrifying and horrible.
• 15:35
  Larry Wilson: It involves one of the characters getting their foot chopped off with an ax.
• 15:42
  Larry Wilson: Goldman writing this is based on Stephen King's book.
• 15:46
  Larry Wilson: Goldman writing the screenplay tells Rob Reiner, you know, you've got to keep this exactly as written, that this person's foot gets chopped off.
• 15:55
  Larry Wilson: And this starts a big argument where Reiner speaking with other people and executives says, I think in the book, I mean it's going to be horrible however you do it, but in the book, somehow it's not as horrible as if we see on screen someone's foot being chopped off.
• 16:16
  Larry Wilson: And they argue back and forth.
• 16:18
  Larry Wilson: And Goldman says, you know, I can see his point of view and I can understand, but I still, no, no, I insist.
• 16:24
  Larry Wilson: And Reiner then comes and tells him and says, I'm going to change it.
• 16:30
  Larry Wilson: I'm going to have the person's ankle crushed with a big sledgehammer, but not the foot cut off.
• 16:42
  Larry Wilson: And Goldman is incensed, just says, No, don't you understand?
• 16:48
  Larry Wilson: And he argues his point.
• 16:49
  Larry Wilson: This is so important to the blah, blah.
• 16:51
  Larry Wilson: And they go back and forth.
• 16:53
  Larry Wilson: And then Reiner says, Well, he'll reconsider.
• 16:56
  Larry Wilson: And Goldman is implacable.
• 16:59
  Larry Wilson: He cannot be moved off this position, saying, No, you've got to keep it exact.
• 17:04
  Larry Wilson: They've got to have it where the foot is cut off with an axe.
• 17:08
  Larry Wilson: And it goes back and forth.
• 17:09
  Larry Wilson: And finally, Reiner contrives to have William Goldman occupied with something that'll keep him away from the set the day they're shooting this.
• 17:21
  Larry Wilson: And they shoot it the way Reiner wants, not with the foot being chopped off, but with the ankle being smashed with a big sledgehammer.
• 17:30
  Larry Wilson: And when Goldman comes back, he's so angry about it.
• 17:35
  Larry Wilson: And then he sees the film.
• 17:37
  Larry Wilson: And seeing the film, he realizes that Reiner was right and he was wrong.
• 17:47
  Larry Wilson: And in his book, in Goldman's book Adventures in the Screen Trade, he talks about this and he says, and even seeing that I was wrong, if I was asked to make this decision again, knowing that I was wrong, I would still choose the wrong decision.
• 18:13
  Larry Wilson: Well, that's so wonderfully self-effacing.
• 18:21
  Larry Wilson: He's saying, I was wrong, I couldn't see it, and then evidence was presented that showed me and convinced me I was wrong.
• 18:30
  Larry Wilson: And if I was asked to make the decision, knowing what I know now, I'd still make the wrong decision.
• 18:36
  Larry Wilson: It's so wonderful because it shows him so human, it shows him the frailty of people's emotions and their human desire to want to be right and want to be the one in charge.
• 18:58
  Larry Wilson: And Goldman reveals this in such a candid, open way that again, just like the example I gave of Warren Buffett, it makes Goldman so winning.
• 19:14
  Larry Wilson: It makes him so likable, it makes us feel like I understand how you feel.
• 19:21
  Larry Wilson: I could feel just like that.
• 19:23
  Larry Wilson: That's just like me.
• 19:25
  Larry Wilson: I'd make that same kind of mistake.
• 19:27
  Larry Wilson: The fact that he doesn't try to gloss it over or repaper it as something more noble, that he just seems to acknowledge it as this is my failing, and I can't change it, I can't be different, and I know I'm completely wrong.
• 19:48
  Larry Wilson: Even though I know I'm wrong, still can't change it.
• 19:52
  Larry Wilson: That's a fantastic example of being self effacing.
• 19:59
  Larry Wilson: I have More to share with you.
• 20:01
  Larry Wilson: But not until next week.
• 20:04
  Larry Wilson: I hope to see you then on another episode of How to Talk to Humans.
• 20:10
  Larry Wilson: This has been Larry Wilson.
• 20:12
  Larry Wilson: I want to thank you for spending this time with me, and I hope you found this information useful.
• 20:19
  Larry Wilson: If you're looking for more, you can find it at thewilsonmethod.com.
• 20:24
  Larry Wilson: There's a ton of stuff there.
• 20:26
  Larry Wilson: In fact, if you want, you can even speak to me because I'm human.
• 20:32
  Larry Wilson: Send me an email at info at wilsonmethod.com because I read every single one.
• 20:41
  Larry Wilson: I hope that you'll join us next week in this continuing journey.
• 20:47
  Larry Wilson: And you'll be with me for the next episode of How to Talk to Humans.