Latest / The You Project / #1641 Your Thinking Is Not My Thinking - Blake Eastman

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#1641 Your Thinking Is Not My Thinking - Blake Eastman · The You Project

0:01
Speaker 1: Oh, get your bloody champions. Craig, Anthony Harper, Tiffany and
0:04
Speaker 1: Cook and Blake. I'm not sure what's your middle name? Blake,
0:07
Speaker 1: Christian Blake, Blake, Christian Eastman, Christian.
0:12
Speaker 2: What a good name.
0:14
Speaker 1: Let's start with the girl in the top left corner
0:16
Speaker 1: on mice Green, Tiffany and Cook, the pugilistic thug, the
0:21
Speaker 1: one that gets angry.
0:22
Speaker 2: How are you? I'm not hungry, I've eaten well.
0:25
Speaker 1: But do you want to tell everyone how you gave
0:27
Speaker 1: me a stern talking to to behave myself this morning?
0:29
Speaker 2: What was it about my morning energy that provoked that?
0:33
Speaker 1: What did I say? I can't remember what I said?
0:35
Speaker 2: What do I say? You behave yourself this morning? Yeah?
0:40
Speaker 1: Well, because you're a lot, you're a handful, and we've
0:42
Speaker 1: got an we've got a guest, we've got someone from
0:44
Speaker 1: os and you know how.
0:46
Speaker 2: Excited you get.
0:48
Speaker 1: You know when we get smart, clever, handsome, dynamic people,
0:52
Speaker 1: and you get a little bit out of control. So
0:54
Speaker 1: I need to It's like working with tiff Blake is
0:58
Speaker 1: like hurting trying to herd cats. It's just an exercise
1:02
Speaker 1: in frustration. But how are you? How are you?
1:07
Speaker 2: I'm great? Good day, beautiful day out. Just did a
1:13
Speaker 2: did a long run this morning and a workout and
1:16
Speaker 2: just feel good. Perfect.
1:18
Speaker 1: How far do you run? How often do you run?
1:20
Speaker 1: And how far do you run?
1:22
Speaker 2: I used to train for like ultra events, so I
1:24
Speaker 2: would run like sixty miles a week, but I stopped
1:27
Speaker 2: that for like the last year, and this is the
1:31
Speaker 2: first time I'm starting to pick up running again. So
1:33
Speaker 2: I like to optimize around five k times. Yep, so
1:36
Speaker 2: just trying to run a solid five k I don't
1:39
Speaker 2: I don't really love the long term or the sort
1:42
Speaker 2: of dedication and time requirements are running like yeah all
1:46
Speaker 2: the time, you know, so I prefer the shorter, harder,
1:48
Speaker 2: quicker runs. Hey, I'm speaking of that.
1:51
Speaker 1: This has got nothing to do with our interview, but
1:54
Speaker 1: you might both find this interesting because one of you
1:57
Speaker 1: is a runner and one of you is a trina.
2:00
Speaker 1: So I didn't know this. This happened a year ago,
2:02
Speaker 1: but listen to this. So there's a guy called alexandor Soriken.
2:08
Speaker 1: This is almost impossible, but he ran one hundred kilometers right,
2:14
Speaker 1: so sixty two miles or something blake in six hours
2:20
Speaker 1: and five minutes. So he ran a hundred k's in
2:27
Speaker 1: six hours and five minutes. His average mile time Blake
2:31
Speaker 1: was five point fifty three average, right, So Tiff, that
2:35
Speaker 1: means he was running two hour thirty three marathons back
2:39
Speaker 1: to back.
2:40
Speaker 2: Plus Wow, how the fuck does a human being do that? Now,
2:45
Speaker 2: there's just some There's just some people. Like when I
2:47
Speaker 2: would do some of these events, I'd be like running
2:49
Speaker 2: alongside the pros and they'd be like they'd look at
2:52
Speaker 2: me and they'd be like, you're looking great, Like what
2:54
Speaker 2: lap is this for you? And I'm like, lap number three?
2:57
Speaker 2: What about you? And they're like, oh, I'm my number nine,
2:59
Speaker 2: but I'm going to be I'm like, what the hell,
3:02
Speaker 2: It's just a completely different dynamics. Some people are just
3:04
Speaker 2: built for certain things and then they train and get
3:07
Speaker 2: more precise and hold their craft. Yeah.
3:10
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I always say, hang out with people
3:13
Speaker 1: who drag you up, so it's good for you to
3:15
Speaker 1: train with. My training partner for the last twenty years
3:18
Speaker 1: has been a guy that's a former pro bodybuilder, one
3:22
Speaker 1: of the strongest, best physiques in Australia, blah blah blah.
3:25
Speaker 1: And he's better than me. He's always been better than me.
3:28
Speaker 1: He'll always be better than me. But I like it
3:30
Speaker 1: because when I train with him, I kind of get
3:34
Speaker 1: carried along in the momentum.
3:35
Speaker 2: You know, it's not the worst thing. It's not the
3:38
Speaker 2: worst thing. It's so true. It's like one of my
3:41
Speaker 2: favorite things to do is like run or box or
3:44
Speaker 2: whatever with people so much better than you and just
3:47
Speaker 2: tell them that, like I'm going to try to and
3:49
Speaker 2: I might be like a mile behind them, but it's
3:51
Speaker 2: still something to chase, which is so much easier than
3:54
Speaker 2: just running on your own.
3:56
Speaker 1: What's that saying. If you're the smartest person in the room,
3:58
Speaker 1: go to another room.
4:00
Speaker 2: The same thing with everything, right.
4:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So tell us about you. Give us
4:05
Speaker 1: a snapshot rather than me read out some bio, tell
4:08
Speaker 1: us a little bit about your background, who you are,
4:10
Speaker 1: what you do, and then then we'll do a deep
4:13
Speaker 1: dive into some of your research and some of your works.
4:17
Speaker 2: I find it really fascinating. Yeah, so names Blake Eastman.
4:21
Speaker 2: I run a behavioral research company called the Non Verbal Group.
4:24
Speaker 2: I was my background's in forensic psychology. I was an
4:27
Speaker 2: adjunct professor for six years, and I have done a
4:31
Speaker 2: bunch of different projects related to sort of more deeply
4:34
Speaker 2: understanding human So one was the largest behavioral study ever
4:37
Speaker 2: conducted on poker players, which is I work with some
4:40
Speaker 2: of the best poker players in the world on teaching
4:42
Speaker 2: them how to read their opponents. And then my company,
4:45
Speaker 2: the Non Verbal Group recently has another like incubated startup
4:48
Speaker 2: out of it called Behavioral Robotics, and we're using a
4:51
Speaker 2: lot of computer vision and machine learning to sort of
4:53
Speaker 2: break down human communication or human movement and behavior into
4:57
Speaker 2: very specific movements. And I my business is a lot
5:01
Speaker 2: of things. I work with a lot of high level
5:03
Speaker 2: companies and organizations, coach teams and executives, and our main
5:06
Speaker 2: mechanism for helping people is video. So we do a
5:10
Speaker 2: lot of video analysis and tend to just show people
5:12
Speaker 2: the same way a coach, which you know, when you're
5:13
Speaker 2: punching saying like your shoulders are too high or whatever
5:16
Speaker 2: like they we use video as a mechanism for that.
5:18
Speaker 2: And I'm very uh, I guess I'm like the most
5:21
Speaker 2: anti body language advice person. So there's just a lot
5:24
Speaker 2: of bullshit out there that I try to explain the
5:29
Speaker 2: nuance you'll appreciate this. There's like you know, there's there's
5:32
Speaker 2: like academia on one side, and then there's like the
5:35
Speaker 2: thought leader coaching public facing thing on the other side,
5:40
Speaker 2: and it's like the middle is like a complete mess
5:43
Speaker 2: because people take academic research and like spin it to
5:46
Speaker 2: their own narrative and they're not really understanding it. And
5:48
Speaker 2: then some of the academics I study this stuff for
5:51
Speaker 2: a living, couldn't have an actual conversation with me or
5:53
Speaker 2: you and not be awkward, like it's just fascinating, like
5:55
Speaker 2: the whole back in front of dynamics. So just try
5:58
Speaker 2: to really help people can act with each other. Yeah.
6:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of space between the actual research
6:05
Speaker 1: and then what gets spoken about, and you know, what
6:08
Speaker 1: gets wheeled out as research or science is often pretty
6:13
Speaker 1: far from that. I guess you're I think I saw
6:19
Speaker 1: you talk about the it was it Paul Eckman that
6:22
Speaker 1: did that research? And how many times you've been asked
6:25
Speaker 1: about the lie to me stuff. You must get sick
6:28
Speaker 1: of talking about that. So are you telling me that
6:30
Speaker 1: all that stuff about micro expressions and body language and
6:34
Speaker 1: the science around that is kind of rubbish.
6:37
Speaker 2: It's it's not that it's rubbed well, there's so many
6:40
Speaker 2: layers to this. So first of all, a lot of
6:42
Speaker 2: that if you describe the more classical discoveries or insights
6:48
Speaker 2: into human emotion. A lot of contemporary research in neuroscience
6:54
Speaker 2: is sort of contradictory to those claims. So it's like
6:58
Speaker 2: maker expressions definitely exist. It's not that they don't exist,
7:02
Speaker 2: it's just the meaning that their user what we're deriving
7:05
Speaker 2: from them is heavily up for debate. And I have
7:08
Speaker 2: like my own opinions about all of this stuff, but
7:11
Speaker 2: there is, like it is a pretty heated debate in
7:13
Speaker 2: academia because people have dedicated their entire lives towards sort
7:16
Speaker 2: of mapping facial expressions and understanding the universality of emotions,
7:20
Speaker 2: and then newer people are like, eh, that's all wrong.
7:23
Speaker 2: Not like you're kind of right. It's like your thesis
7:27
Speaker 2: is completely wrong, the methodology you use, the way that
7:30
Speaker 2: you look at emotions is completely wrong. And I tend
7:33
Speaker 2: to be somewhere not in the middle. I would say
7:36
Speaker 2: somewhere like seventy percent on the side of that more
7:39
Speaker 2: contemporary theory, but I still think that the other side
7:42
Speaker 2: has usefulness. But yeah, it's it's a it is a
7:47
Speaker 2: rabbit hole. So like you did metaicog, you said you're
7:51
Speaker 2: you're doing a PID.
7:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I met exceptions, so I'm trying to understand
7:55
Speaker 1: that you experience. So the core question at the Cinemon
7:58
Speaker 1: research Blanke is essentially, what's it like being around me
8:02
Speaker 1: for others? So, what's the Craig experience like for Blake?
8:06
Speaker 1: What's the Craig experience like for my listeners? How well
8:09
Speaker 1: do I understand me for them? Essentially?
8:13
Speaker 2: I love it. I mean, it's kind of a lot
8:14
Speaker 2: of the workout I do. I mean it boils back
8:16
Speaker 2: to this. I think one of the more interesting theories
8:19
Speaker 2: right now is predictive processing or active inference BASY and brain.
8:24
Speaker 2: Basically the fact that we're seeing, we're creating our reality
8:27
Speaker 2: through all of our past models for the world. And
8:30
Speaker 2: that's why I could take one hundred people that you've
8:34
Speaker 2: never met before, put you in a room with them,
8:36
Speaker 2: and then ninety are like, fucking guys, amazing, I have
8:40
Speaker 2: such a good time, and ten are like I hate
8:42
Speaker 2: that guy right, Like yeah, oh why? Like you know,
8:46
Speaker 2: So that's what my companys are really about. It's not
8:50
Speaker 2: about meaning. It's about mapping the perceptual distributions or bell curves.
8:55
Speaker 2: So it's like, oh, in Northeastern America, if you're in
8:59
Speaker 2: New York City, Why do these certain sets of behaviors
9:02
Speaker 2: in these contexts lead someone to be arrogant, where in
9:06
Speaker 2: another culture it's respect. Like there's just so much nuance
9:10
Speaker 2: in this But even the way that people see the
9:13
Speaker 2: world so differently, there are definitely themes. So like I
9:16
Speaker 2: can predict who's not liked on a team with a
9:19
Speaker 2: high accuracy just based on facial movement, because there's themes
9:22
Speaker 2: of like social coordination and all these things that people
9:25
Speaker 2: do to let them know that they're listening and all
9:26
Speaker 2: this other stuff.
9:28
Speaker 1: And there's also the space between what's going on around us,
9:33
Speaker 1: you know, the event, the objective data, the situation, the circumstance,
9:37
Speaker 1: the other person, and our story or our subjective interpretation
9:41
Speaker 1: or perspective. But so that's going on, there's the thing
9:44
Speaker 1: that's happening, and then there's my version of it. But
9:48
Speaker 1: quite often I don't realize it's my version. I think
9:51
Speaker 1: it's the thing. So when we don't realize that what's
9:56
Speaker 1: going on for me is just a subjective experience of
9:59
Speaker 1: an object the event, then we mistake our personal reality
10:04
Speaker 1: for the global.
10:05
Speaker 2: Reality, right exactly, And like we've built models to identify
10:10
Speaker 2: when people are like. So, for example, one of our models,
10:13
Speaker 2: I've forgot all the keywords, but one of the big
10:15
Speaker 2: ones is the words should. So like when analyzing interactions
10:19
Speaker 2: is like, well, Craig should have done this, Craig should
10:22
Speaker 2: which is basically someone like forcing their perception or perspective
10:25
Speaker 2: on how you should act and it's nice. So there's
10:28
Speaker 2: like little cues and clues in people's language to sort
10:31
Speaker 2: of suggest how how they process their world around them.
10:36
Speaker 2: I put up a thing on.
10:39
Speaker 1: Instagram yesterday other day before, I have this propensity right
10:42
Speaker 1: on whiteboard's blake, and then I photograph what I have
10:45
Speaker 1: written and then I put it up right. So and
10:47
Speaker 1: that's kind of become a thing that people like. But anyway,
10:50
Speaker 1: I put up a thing on my whiteboard and it said,
10:54
Speaker 1: assuming that people think a certain way because you think
10:58
Speaker 1: a certain way is like assuming someone has a soil
11:01
Speaker 1: back because you have a soul back, right, yep. So
11:04
Speaker 1: there's this kind of phenomena that or phenomenon that you know,
11:09
Speaker 1: what's called a false consensus effect, where people just think
11:13
Speaker 1: that other people think like them, right, And that's problematic.
11:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's at the core of It's like one
11:21
Speaker 2: of the things I'm constantly hammering into people's sort of
11:27
Speaker 2: approach to other people is it's just this concept of perspective.
11:30
Speaker 2: So like I really there really is no right or wrong.
11:33
Speaker 2: It's just all a perspective. It's like depending on where
11:36
Speaker 2: you're standing from, and sometimes in order to connect to
11:39
Speaker 2: someone and really understand how they're processing information, you need
11:41
Speaker 2: to understand their perspective without making them wrong, without calling
11:44
Speaker 2: them an idiot, without saying your perspective is right. And
11:47
Speaker 2: it just takes a little bit more if they reduced
11:49
Speaker 2: your sort of traditional approaches to interactions in order to
11:55
Speaker 2: actually do that. And it's a skill set. It's a
11:56
Speaker 2: skill set that a lot of you know, good leaders
11:58
Speaker 2: and people that have like networks and are well connected
12:01
Speaker 2: and living Greek lives have, and some people that just don't.
12:04
Speaker 2: And the world doesn't function the way that you want
12:07
Speaker 2: it to. It's just not what reality actually is.
12:10
Speaker 1: Do you think that sometimes I love that? Do you
12:13
Speaker 1: think that sometimes people feel you know that one of
12:17
Speaker 1: my favorite sayings is, which has been wheeled out a
12:19
Speaker 1: million times in a weillion different, million different kind of formats,
12:23
Speaker 1: But seek first to understand and then to be understood,
12:26
Speaker 1: you know, like like the whole kind of theory of
12:29
Speaker 1: mind thing of just trying to understand how other people think.
12:32
Speaker 1: And when I suggest that to people, they're like na.
12:36
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're like, well, fuck them. I don't want to,
12:38
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm like, I'm not saying I want
12:41
Speaker 1: you to agree with them or join their team. I'm
12:44
Speaker 1: just saying, you can't overcome what you don't understand, or
12:48
Speaker 1: you can't navigate what you don't understand.
12:51
Speaker 2: So let's just start.
12:52
Speaker 1: Let's open the understanding and the awareness bigger than you
12:56
Speaker 1: door so that you can, you know, you can go
13:00
Speaker 1: shite and navigate and interact with other people that I'm
13:04
Speaker 1: not like you and don't.
13:05
Speaker 2: Think like you. Yeah, I mean, the theory of the
13:09
Speaker 2: theory of mind thing is just it's so interesting in
13:12
Speaker 2: the sense that I feel like some people like there's
13:17
Speaker 2: this whole concept around like developmental psychology, where you know,
13:20
Speaker 2: the age where you develop theory of mind, right, like
13:22
Speaker 2: the kid that sits in front of the table and
13:24
Speaker 2: you're like move, sits in front of the TV and
13:26
Speaker 2: you're like, move, what are you doing? You're blocking everybody
13:29
Speaker 2: and they just don't have the conceptual understanding that they're
13:33
Speaker 2: blocking their world. And I think it's probably a way
13:36
Speaker 2: more nuanced thing in the sense that some people in
13:38
Speaker 2: certain contexts just they don't develop theory of mind like
13:42
Speaker 2: I And we have some assessments and some tests we
13:45
Speaker 2: put people through, and like I'll show there's just one
13:47
Speaker 2: video of this, uh, this man and woman talking and
13:51
Speaker 2: the guy is just, for a better lack of words,
13:53
Speaker 2: just really being a dick, like you know, the nonverbal tone,
13:57
Speaker 2: the assert like he's just being rude, he's being a
14:00
Speaker 2: he said, he's being all these things. And you know,
14:01
Speaker 2: show that to most people and you say, what's going
14:03
Speaker 2: on in this? They'll be like, oh, you know his
14:04
Speaker 2: tone this You show them to certain people and they're like,
14:08
Speaker 2: what's wrong with what he said? He's just being honest,
14:11
Speaker 2: he's being straight. And they don't even see the themes
14:13
Speaker 2: that they're interacting on. And some of those people have
14:16
Speaker 2: various on various spectrums or don't have the capacity, and
14:19
Speaker 2: they really struggle in life because they don't know how
14:21
Speaker 2: to calibrate for social dynamics. Yes, one hundred percent. I
14:26
Speaker 2: did a.
14:28
Speaker 1: Mentor and group that I just started last night, a
14:30
Speaker 1: ten week mentorship and it's it's like a private group.
14:33
Speaker 2: It's just fifteen people, and we're talking about this a
14:36
Speaker 2: little bit.
14:38
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, so think about talking about that,
14:42
Speaker 1: trying to understand how we are for others. And I said, so,
14:46
Speaker 1: here's my situation right now. There's fifteen of you, and
14:49
Speaker 1: everyone just met last night, so no one knows everybody.
14:52
Speaker 1: So there's fifteen strangers from different We've got people in
14:55
Speaker 1: all over Australia, people in America, people in New Zealand
14:58
Speaker 1: on the call. So we've got different backgrounds obviously, fifteen
15:02
Speaker 1: different personalities, fifteen different expectations and reasons for being there.
15:07
Speaker 1: And I said, and in the middle of all this,
15:09
Speaker 1: I've got to try to resonate optimally with fifteen different people,
15:14
Speaker 1: you know, So that whole interpersonal process of having an
15:19
Speaker 1: awareness of how do I need to be for this
15:23
Speaker 1: person or these people, Not so that I'm compromising me,
15:28
Speaker 1: but just so that I have an awareness like that
15:31
Speaker 1: group awareness and interpersonal awareness of how to build connection,
15:35
Speaker 1: how to you know, you and I could go down
15:38
Speaker 1: a psychological rabbit hole of academic jargon and bullshit and
15:42
Speaker 1: everyone's going to turn off, right, you know, because probably
15:46
Speaker 1: ten percent of my listeners are academics and the rest
15:49
Speaker 1: are not. And that's not good or bad. That's just
15:51
Speaker 1: the group. But it's trying to have these conversations which
15:55
Speaker 1: you must be thinking about, especially when you're working with
15:57
Speaker 1: corporates and teams. How do I how do I share
16:01
Speaker 1: my knowledge in a way that resonatees with them?
16:04
Speaker 2: Rot. Yeah, I mean that's the whole skill set, is
16:06
Speaker 2: being able to communicate. Like effective communication is relaying what
16:11
Speaker 2: you want to relay, but making sure it's in a
16:13
Speaker 2: way where the person hears you. So if I wire
16:17
Speaker 2: working too, Like I'll tell you back in the day
16:20
Speaker 2: when I first started my career, I was much younger.
16:22
Speaker 2: I was like twenty five, and I was working in
16:24
Speaker 2: finance in New York and like working with these big
16:27
Speaker 2: financial companies, and I would walk in the room and
16:30
Speaker 2: these people would be like, how old are you? Like
16:33
Speaker 2: they would challenge me immediately, and what they respected is
16:37
Speaker 2: me like being able to hold my own So me
16:41
Speaker 2: saying what kind of fucking question is that, like, like
16:44
Speaker 2: old enough to run this thing? Like they would be like,
16:47
Speaker 2: h I respect this guy, like I can listen to him.
16:50
Speaker 2: Now we're in other contexts, it's completely different. So like,
16:55
Speaker 2: there's just certain dynamics that require a more warm, more
16:58
Speaker 2: controlled sort of approach, and that's what it is really
17:00
Speaker 2: to be a dynamic communicator, to sort of put yourself
17:03
Speaker 2: aside and adjust for what you need to have in
17:06
Speaker 2: that group. And it's like kind of really interesting, right Like,
17:09
Speaker 2: even in that coaching program, I've done a lot of
17:11
Speaker 2: ease in my life, and it's like you get fifteen
17:12
Speaker 2: people on a call, and then you get that one
17:14
Speaker 2: person that just hey, Greg, so I have a question
17:17
Speaker 2: and we'll talk for like six or something, not realize
17:20
Speaker 2: they're monopolizing the other fifteen people's time, right like, And
17:25
Speaker 2: it's just such an interesting dynamic. But you could just
17:28
Speaker 2: be more effective with the more context and more information
17:31
Speaker 2: you have. And I don't think people spend the time
17:33
Speaker 2: or effort to get that context in information, which is
17:35
Speaker 2: why they can sometimes struggle.
17:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was writing about you, and I was reading
17:40
Speaker 1: that you're an adjunct professor of psych at City University
17:44
Speaker 1: in New York, of New York.
17:46
Speaker 2: I was looking at even now, I'm how old is
17:50
Speaker 2: this fuck out? He looks twelve. I'm almost forty.
17:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, that is you got some good genetics broad
17:57
Speaker 1: because you look twenty five right.
17:59
Speaker 2: Now, enjoy that that was the issue. So I started,
18:03
Speaker 2: you know, I was teaching at like twenty two and
18:07
Speaker 2: I literally walk into the room and people would laugh
18:11
Speaker 2: and think that I'm just messing around, like I can't
18:13
Speaker 2: possibly be the student. And I had to. Like people
18:16
Speaker 2: would ask me, like how old are you, and I'd
18:18
Speaker 2: be like old enough to fail you like, sit down
18:19
Speaker 2: and shut up, like it's time to learn, right like,
18:22
Speaker 2: And my way of being assertive allowed me to counterbalance this.
18:25
Speaker 2: And now this is also a lot of context coming
18:27
Speaker 2: from I grew up in one of the assertive, straightforward
18:30
Speaker 2: places in the world. New York City is where I
18:31
Speaker 2: was born and raised, so I was trained like that's
18:34
Speaker 2: how you handle yourself. I have like clients in China
18:37
Speaker 2: that if I approached it in that way, it'd be
18:40
Speaker 2: they'd ask me to leave, like please leave, you know.
18:43
Speaker 2: So there's a way of metering. And that's why I
18:45
Speaker 2: think like the best communicators and the best social interactors
18:49
Speaker 2: they have range, right, they have like a range that
18:52
Speaker 2: they can play for whatever the dynamic and whatever the
18:54
Speaker 2: group is, and show up how they need to show up.
18:58
Speaker 1: I know, there's no simple to this but I'd just
19:01
Speaker 1: like to open the door on the conversation.
19:03
Speaker 2: So my question to.
19:04
Speaker 1: You is, so people that are listening to this and
19:08
Speaker 1: want to know how they can kind of understand themselves
19:11
Speaker 1: more like, is there a process? Is there is the
19:16
Speaker 1: other questions that we can ask about, how do I
19:18
Speaker 1: understand me for me for my own benefit, but also
19:22
Speaker 1: how do I understand me for others?
19:24
Speaker 2: Any thoughts on that. Yeah, it's such a good question,
19:27
Speaker 2: a lot of things. So first, video is probably one
19:31
Speaker 2: of the most impactful coaching slash self development tools possible
19:36
Speaker 2: because in a world of so many altering perceptions, videos
19:39
Speaker 2: just reality. It's just bits that are recorded and it's
19:43
Speaker 2: what you look like in a given time. So like
19:45
Speaker 2: if you're a manager or you're a leader, you're a parent,
19:47
Speaker 2: like you know, people think that they're may be like, oh,
19:50
Speaker 2: I'm an exceptional parent. Well let's put you on video.
19:52
Speaker 2: Let's see what the average interaction looks like with your kids,
19:55
Speaker 2: like are you really present? Like are you supporting them?
19:58
Speaker 2: Are you short? Are you? And video does not lie.
20:01
Speaker 2: So it's extremely confronting, but it's it's just so so
20:04
Speaker 2: so powerful. And then the other really good way is
20:08
Speaker 2: we do these like three sixty assessments, and there's two
20:11
Speaker 2: questions in my three sixty that is my favorite, which
20:14
Speaker 2: is you send this like inventory out to like, you know,
20:17
Speaker 2: twenty people that know you and or ten or whatever
20:21
Speaker 2: it is in your personal life and your professional life,
20:23
Speaker 2: and it's what are three words to describe this person
20:26
Speaker 2: at their best? And what are three words to describe
20:28
Speaker 2: this person at their worst? Wow? And what's so sort
20:31
Speaker 2: of fascinating is how much for most people it's consistent.
20:36
Speaker 2: So like I looked at one this morning and it
20:39
Speaker 2: was like, out of twenty four people, out of twenty
20:44
Speaker 2: four people, the first word they used was impatient. So
20:48
Speaker 2: this person was just like everybody was like at their worst,
20:51
Speaker 2: you are just so impatient. And then you can take
20:53
Speaker 2: a deeper discourse to being like, all right, is this
20:56
Speaker 2: some sort of behavior that you're doing or are you
20:58
Speaker 2: just looking inpatient? Were like, what are the things in
21:01
Speaker 2: your life that lead to being impatient? Right? So it's
21:06
Speaker 2: that kind of thing where you can hedge a lot
21:09
Speaker 2: of these things. And then it's also really interesting when
21:12
Speaker 2: like somebody gets twenty assessments and eighteen are just pretty
21:18
Speaker 2: loving and great, and then two are like I can't
21:21
Speaker 2: stand like they can't stand you, And I'm like, all right,
21:24
Speaker 2: what happened there? Like what happened between you and Tom
21:26
Speaker 2: and you and Jessica? And they're like, oh, they used
21:28
Speaker 2: to work for me ten years ago when I was
21:30
Speaker 2: a different person and blah blah blah blah blah. So
21:33
Speaker 2: I think video and asking others and asking others for
21:37
Speaker 2: their perception, not for their feedback. So when it comes
21:40
Speaker 2: to like social skills and interactions, people are horrible at
21:44
Speaker 2: asking for and giving feedback because what feedback is to
21:48
Speaker 2: say they tell you how you should be, well, I
21:51
Speaker 2: think you should be a little bit more this or that.
21:54
Speaker 2: It's like you're not looking for feedback, you're just looking
21:56
Speaker 2: for like listen when I'm around you, like what kind
21:59
Speaker 2: of emotion? What kind of thoughts leave in our interactions?
22:02
Speaker 2: Like the more you can get to see just what
22:04
Speaker 2: their worldview is and where there's similarities, the more then
22:07
Speaker 2: you can start to go back and start looking for
22:09
Speaker 2: how to change them.
22:10
Speaker 1: That's such such good advice, and it's so it is
22:15
Speaker 1: it's like people want people want feedback connival. You know,
22:23
Speaker 1: until you give them fa until you give them feedback,
22:25
Speaker 1: that lot on one faith. So what they actually want
22:28
Speaker 1: is fucking acolytes and price and endorse.
22:32
Speaker 2: You know, no, it's I really do think like I
22:35
Speaker 2: have I mean I analyze teams and corporations. I have
22:38
Speaker 2: all their zoom meetings and I'll watch I have like
22:41
Speaker 2: one company that I think I analyze like four hundred
22:44
Speaker 2: and eighty one to one interaction, so like one to
22:46
Speaker 2: one manager and the person that reports to them fifteen
22:50
Speaker 2: minute like here's what you're doing, here's what you're not doing.
22:53
Speaker 2: Sessions and a lot of insights came from this for
22:55
Speaker 2: this specific company. But like the biggest thing was feedback.
22:59
Speaker 2: Is deliver feedback so that the person can hear you
23:02
Speaker 2: and internalize the feedback. Is one of the most subtle
23:05
Speaker 2: and dynamic skill sets in human behavior that can't be
23:10
Speaker 2: like acknowledge them, do this, do that, and they'll like
23:13
Speaker 2: it because like sometimes just timing, Like there have been
23:16
Speaker 2: moments where like my wife says something to me and
23:18
Speaker 2: it's just like the wrong time to say that, right,
23:21
Speaker 2: and then she says it two days later. I'm like, oh, yeah,
23:23
Speaker 2: totally right. Like it's just such this fickle, constantly moving thing,
23:27
Speaker 2: and I think it's it's a really high level skill
23:30
Speaker 2: set that's made to be like something basic like some
23:34
Speaker 2: people don't like to be ripped apart or I'll tell
23:36
Speaker 2: you this like in kind of like certain tech cultures,
23:39
Speaker 2: there's just so there's such an inauthentic or not aligned
23:44
Speaker 2: way that they get feedback. So they'll say things like
23:46
Speaker 2: they'll be like, uh, they start off nice, and they'll
23:49
Speaker 2: just say like really quickly, like Craig, so how are
23:51
Speaker 2: you out by the way, I love your shirt, I
23:53
Speaker 2: love the I love the background. So anyways, I want
23:55
Speaker 2: to talk about your quarter and one performance one year,
23:57
Speaker 2: and then they just go like right into here's everything
24:00
Speaker 2: wrong with you, and the person just like what do
24:03
Speaker 2: I do with this? Right? Yes, And it's such a
24:07
Speaker 2: special skill set to be able to give someone feedback.
24:10
Speaker 2: They truly hear you, they feel heard, they feel like
24:13
Speaker 2: you care, and then they're actually motivated to want to
24:15
Speaker 2: change right and want to do something different. And I
24:19
Speaker 2: don't think there's enough of that out in our society,
24:21
Speaker 2: which is why feedback is one of the most like
24:24
Speaker 2: messed up corporate processes that you can possibly look at.
24:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so fucking clever, But also I think too,
24:33
Speaker 1: like even if you had ten people Blake, and you
24:35
Speaker 1: needed to give them essentially very similar feedback. You might
24:40
Speaker 1: need to do that ten different ways because you've got
24:42
Speaker 1: ten different personalities and expectations. And you know, it's like,
24:47
Speaker 1: I could say something to Tiff, so Tiff works with
24:50
Speaker 1: me and Melissa works with me. Very different people, not
24:53
Speaker 1: better or worse, just really different. The thing that I
24:56
Speaker 1: could say to Tiff that might work really well might
24:59
Speaker 1: not work with Melissa, right, And so it's thinking, how
25:02
Speaker 1: do I share this identical or pretty identical message with
25:06
Speaker 1: these two very different people.
25:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the challenge of it is it's so
25:10
Speaker 2: hard to do at scale. So when you're a manager
25:13
Speaker 2: and you're managing a team of fifteen people and you
25:15
Speaker 2: got all this own shit going on for you, and
25:17
Speaker 2: you're like, ah, so most of it's designing for like what,
25:21
Speaker 2: how do we design a system that's going to work
25:24
Speaker 2: for eighty percent of people even though the twenty percent
25:27
Speaker 2: are going to be problematic even for the people that
25:29
Speaker 2: don't have those skill sets are adaptive and some people
25:31
Speaker 2: who have these skill sets and are better able to
25:34
Speaker 2: do this, It just it comes across natural. They don't
25:37
Speaker 2: even they don't even know what they're doing, Like if
25:39
Speaker 2: you ask them like like, hey, so, can you break
25:42
Speaker 2: down a series of steps or process on how you
25:44
Speaker 2: get it, They're like, I don't know. They're just like
25:47
Speaker 2: one of those people that like they can't even articulate it,
25:50
Speaker 2: but they're just processing so much information at such a
25:53
Speaker 2: rapid rate, which makes them so unique and so special
25:55
Speaker 2: in the same way, in the same way, like when
25:57
Speaker 2: you're learning using boxing as analogy, right, like you're learning
26:01
Speaker 2: to box and at first, like you're just trying to
26:03
Speaker 2: throw a punch. Like my thing was always like tension
26:06
Speaker 2: in my shoulders. So like every coach I've had in
26:08
Speaker 2: boxing is always like hitting my shoulders because I keep
26:11
Speaker 2: my shoulders tentch when I move right. And it took
26:14
Speaker 2: no matter how many times I put that through my head,
26:17
Speaker 2: like relax my shoulder, it takes a long time to
26:19
Speaker 2: actually get your shoulders relaxed and be able to connect
26:22
Speaker 2: and be able to move. It's just it's a it's
26:24
Speaker 2: a process. And yeah, it's that's what I'm just so
26:29
Speaker 2: fascinated by and loved teaching because once people see that
26:31
Speaker 2: it's like that, it opens their eyes to people. Do
26:34
Speaker 2: you think that.
26:37
Speaker 1: Generally that people think much about how they think like that,
26:42
Speaker 1: why do I think the way that I think? And
26:45
Speaker 1: essentially does it work? Like is this optimal suboptimal? You know,
26:50
Speaker 1: because I feel like people don't really lean into that much.
26:54
Speaker 2: I think what starts? So for me, it's it's like
26:59
Speaker 2: a by a sample because most of the people that
27:02
Speaker 2: come my direction have this like growth personal development, probably
27:06
Speaker 2: most people in this podcast, right, So like if we
27:08
Speaker 2: were to like pull everybody in this podcast, I would
27:10
Speaker 2: make an assumption that most of them are like thinking
27:14
Speaker 2: about their approach that life and all that stuff. But
27:17
Speaker 2: the average if we looked at the average, yeah, I
27:19
Speaker 2: don't think I don't think so. And that's what it
27:23
Speaker 2: is to live an empowering, exceptional life. It's like working
27:26
Speaker 2: on yourself and doing the work and confronting what you
27:29
Speaker 2: don't want to confront and having coaches and everybody in
27:32
Speaker 2: your life to keep you more aligned.
27:34
Speaker 1: And I think, like one of my favorite things to
27:36
Speaker 1: think about is, you know, like that, where is my
27:40
Speaker 1: programming and my conditioning finish and where.
27:43
Speaker 2: Do I start?
27:44
Speaker 1: Like if I if I hadn't been programmed the way
27:48
Speaker 1: that I have with my school and my parents and
27:50
Speaker 1: my culture and my environment living in this city, and
27:53
Speaker 1: blah blah blah and da da da and da da.
27:56
Speaker 1: Here I am and now I look through the Kraig
27:59
Speaker 1: window at the wiled You know, imagine if I'd grown up
28:03
Speaker 1: looking through a different window, or with different faith or
28:06
Speaker 1: beliefs or culture or you know, like identity or experiences.
28:10
Speaker 1: That that just that fascination between figuring out who I
28:15
Speaker 1: could be or might be beyond what I've been taught
28:19
Speaker 1: and told and trained to be.
28:22
Speaker 2: Oh, it's it's one of my if I could have
28:26
Speaker 2: a machine that can go back and like switch moment,
28:29
Speaker 2: Like how cool it would it be if like we
28:31
Speaker 2: go right, Craig twelve years old, let's modify this this
28:36
Speaker 2: this enter, and like let's see how that compounds. Because
28:39
Speaker 2: all these perspectives they do compound over time, right, and
28:42
Speaker 2: and they start to sort of change how you view
28:45
Speaker 2: the world and see the world. Yeah, no, it's and
28:49
Speaker 2: it's quite fascinating, that's what you know. The interesting thing
28:53
Speaker 2: is I like to read the reviews on the things
28:58
Speaker 2: that I love, the hated reviews on the things that
29:00
Speaker 2: I love. Right, So, like you know, like I love
29:03
Speaker 2: The Dark Knight Rises this movie, right, it's like quote
29:06
Speaker 2: it more than anything else and I'll go and look
29:07
Speaker 2: at the one and two star reviews and I'm just like,
29:10
Speaker 2: how the hell could this person have that opinion about this? Right, Like,
29:16
Speaker 2: and it's just everybody sees the world differently, and you
29:19
Speaker 2: have to really. I think it's one of those things
29:21
Speaker 2: that's said so often that people conceptually understand that, but
29:25
Speaker 2: they don't get it at their core. They don't really
29:28
Speaker 2: like get it and integrate it into like how they
29:31
Speaker 2: talk to people and how they interact with people. There's oh, yeah, sure,
29:34
Speaker 2: everybody has their own perspective. Yeah, that's nice, But it's like, no, no, no, no,
29:37
Speaker 2: no no. This is at the bedrock of all human
29:39
Speaker 2: perception and in order to really interact with people, navigate, manipulate,
29:43
Speaker 2: whatever word you have to, just you have to you
29:45
Speaker 2: have to really get that in your bones. Yeah.
29:48
Speaker 1: So we're looking at the same thing, but we're not
29:50
Speaker 1: saying the same thing.
29:52
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean even at the like where it gets
29:55
Speaker 2: even creepier is like we can think about social interactions,
29:59
Speaker 2: but we can drapulate. So I'll give you an example. So, like,
30:02
Speaker 2: I'm closely related to design. I have a lot of
30:05
Speaker 2: design input in everything in my company, and I was
30:08
Speaker 2: getting into a little bit of a heated dispute with
30:11
Speaker 2: one of my designers about the weight of a font.
30:13
Speaker 2: It was like the Rogan we use this font called Rogan.
30:17
Speaker 2: He was putting in at bold four hundred. I thought
30:19
Speaker 2: it should be bold. I thought it should have been
30:21
Speaker 2: a two hundred weight, and he's like, it looks to it.
30:23
Speaker 2: What are you talking about. I was like, it looks great.
30:26
Speaker 2: Long story short, I find out that I have a
30:28
Speaker 2: stigmatism in my right eye which skews the things. So
30:32
Speaker 2: I finally get glasses for the first time in my life.
30:34
Speaker 2: I put these glasses on, and I'm like, I am
30:37
Speaker 2: so sorry. The stigmatism was making the text not as
30:41
Speaker 2: bold as so you were one hundred percent right this
30:43
Speaker 2: whole time. I totally get while you think I was crazy.
30:46
Speaker 2: So this happens at the level of vision, at the
30:48
Speaker 2: level of color, like with people with certain cognitive processing disorders,
30:54
Speaker 2: with people with you know, on certain spectrums of overthinking
30:57
Speaker 2: or underthinking. Like, it's not just social interactions at like
31:00
Speaker 2: every aspect. I mean, people have junior mutations that change
31:04
Speaker 2: the amount of blues and greens in their visual spectrum
31:07
Speaker 2: to the point of when they were looking at your
31:08
Speaker 2: room right now, they'd be like, why is your room
31:11
Speaker 2: like a light brown? They can't see blue right like
31:15
Speaker 2: it's happening everywhere.
31:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so interesting. Hey, yeah, we don't see things
31:22
Speaker 1: as they are. We see things as we are, that
31:26
Speaker 1: old chestnut. I'm fascinated. I just want to jump back
31:29
Speaker 1: a little bit. So you said that you looked at
31:32
Speaker 1: hundreds of one on one interviews that went for like
31:35
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes or something. Do obviously the people that you're
31:41
Speaker 1: that are in the one on one getting their review
31:45
Speaker 1: or their feedback or whatever, they know they're being filmed, obviously, yes, Yeah, okay, okay.
31:52
Speaker 2: So wow, So the companies everything's recorded. It's like a
31:57
Speaker 2: byproduct of some of these companies. Protocols are processes. Not
32:02
Speaker 2: all of them know that they're looking like, yeah, I'm
32:06
Speaker 2: looking at this through a lens of like development and
32:08
Speaker 2: helping them. So even though they know, they totally forget
32:13
Speaker 2: because some of them they're they're not on these zoom meetings.
32:17
Speaker 2: I'm like, you can't say that, like you get Nope,
32:20
Speaker 2: you can't say that they forget. And just we're in
32:22
Speaker 2: a zoom culture right now where everybody's on meetings being recorded,
32:26
Speaker 2: being interviewed, being all those types of things. So it's
32:29
Speaker 2: just it's one of those things that like I think
32:31
Speaker 2: people just forget how often they're actually recorded. Yeah, yeah,
32:35
Speaker 2: but there are times where people directly no, I will
32:37
Speaker 2: tell you one thing. So we've done a lot of
32:39
Speaker 2: video research and we found that for the most part,
32:42
Speaker 2: the number seems to be between like ten to fifteen minutes.
32:47
Speaker 2: I think it's more like eight to twelve, but let's
32:48
Speaker 2: just say ten to fifteen minutes. So if people know
32:50
Speaker 2: they're being recorded, like we did a dating study in
32:52
Speaker 2: New York City like fifteen years ago, or we put
32:54
Speaker 2: people in like blind dates and recorded them from multiple angles,
32:58
Speaker 2: people can be a little bit weird for the first
33:00
Speaker 2: like ten minutes, and then they just forget that they're
33:03
Speaker 2: being recorded, right, And we're really good at like camera
33:06
Speaker 2: policement and doing things so that you don't feel like
33:08
Speaker 2: it's invasive. But yeah, oh yeah, video is so heavy
33:11
Speaker 2: in our society now. It's just so easy to get
33:13
Speaker 2: footage on people.
33:16
Speaker 1: Tell me about the intersection of Like when I think
33:19
Speaker 1: about the people that you work with in corporate I
33:23
Speaker 1: do a lot of corporate speaking, and I'm always interested
33:27
Speaker 1: in the people you know, the bosses, the managers, the leaders,
33:30
Speaker 1: whoever they are, this kind of intersection of business skills
33:35
Speaker 1: and intellect, but also emotional and social intelligence, situational awareness,
33:42
Speaker 1: fucking empathy.
33:44
Speaker 2: You know.
33:44
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about is there is there
33:47
Speaker 1: a better recipe or formula, like what who makes the
33:53
Speaker 1: best leaders and communicators and connectors and problem solvers?
33:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, such a great question. So I think it boiled.
34:01
Speaker 2: So this is okay. Let me let me take a
34:04
Speaker 2: couple steps back. So when I start working with these
34:06
Speaker 2: large organizations, you know, years ago, and continue to work
34:09
Speaker 2: with them, there's there's all these things that start coming
34:12
Speaker 2: up that I don't understand. Right. So, for example, I'm
34:16
Speaker 2: working with a series of six teams, and I'm told
34:19
Speaker 2: that I need to go work with this specific team
34:21
Speaker 2: because the manager or the leader of that group is
34:24
Speaker 2: like toxic and too aggressive and all this stuff. Right,
34:27
Speaker 2: But then I look at all the actual data, and
34:29
Speaker 2: this person's outperforming everybody else. So their team is the
34:33
Speaker 2: most you know, high performing team. So I'm like, why
34:36
Speaker 2: am I working If the goal of the business is
34:39
Speaker 2: to make money and the goal of the businesses to grow,
34:41
Speaker 2: why are you sending me in to work with and
34:44
Speaker 2: like they're like, well, we just were worried about employee burnout.
34:47
Speaker 2: We're worried about all these other aspects. And what I
34:50
Speaker 2: started to find is that the best leaders, you know,
34:52
Speaker 2: there's all these freaking books, be this kind of leader
34:55
Speaker 2: that kind of leer like there's really just I don't
34:56
Speaker 2: believe there's such a thing. There are some you know, rules,
35:00
Speaker 2: but if the one thing that I could say is
35:02
Speaker 2: the most important that I've observed is alignment. So the
35:04
Speaker 2: best leaders are aligned. So even if a leader like
35:08
Speaker 2: I work with this guy that was just a piece
35:10
Speaker 2: of work, it was tough, is just like just the
35:14
Speaker 2: definition of tough. And I do this like leadership assessment
35:17
Speaker 2: thing where I'm like, you know, close your eyes, I
35:19
Speaker 2: matching your funeral. Everybody ever worked with is telling stories
35:22
Speaker 2: about you. What are they saying? And he and this
35:24
Speaker 2: guy usually people were like he was great. This guy
35:27
Speaker 2: was like I want them to say, like he was
35:29
Speaker 2: the toughest boss I ever worked with. But that guy
35:31
Speaker 2: changed my life. So he really did care about his people.
35:34
Speaker 2: But he thought that the way to grow people was
35:37
Speaker 2: to be like a drill sergeant, miserable kind of person.
35:40
Speaker 2: And he didn't want to change that. So what I
35:42
Speaker 2: did was I built like a workflow with him for
35:45
Speaker 2: when people started working with him. He would say, listen,
35:47
Speaker 2: here's the deal. I have been told by numerous people
35:50
Speaker 2: over the last ten years that I am the toughest
35:52
Speaker 2: person they've ever worked with, that I'm hard, that I'm demanding,
35:56
Speaker 2: that I accept excellence at every single level and a
35:59
Speaker 2: high level of integrity and all this stuff. You probably
36:02
Speaker 2: won't like me, but I promise you over the next
36:05
Speaker 2: if you work with me for two years, I'll fundamentally
36:07
Speaker 2: change the trajectory of your entire life and career. Are
36:11
Speaker 2: you in? And the people that would hesitate or whatever,
36:16
Speaker 2: and some people would just be like yes, and that
36:18
Speaker 2: changed everything because they saw his behavior as happening for them,
36:22
Speaker 2: not to them, which just really shifted the narrative. So
36:25
Speaker 2: I believe that any leader can be effective as long
36:29
Speaker 2: as you own the context and explain people what they're
36:31
Speaker 2: getting into. The bullshit comes from the leaders that try
36:35
Speaker 2: to act nice and try to act warm, and they're
36:39
Speaker 2: the exact opposite, like, oh, I want you to have
36:41
Speaker 2: life work balance and you should spend time with your family,
36:44
Speaker 2: and then they call you on a Saturday at eleven,
36:46
Speaker 2: and they're like, where is this? Like it's the inconsistency
36:50
Speaker 2: that creates the problem. But I had a conversation with
36:55
Speaker 2: someone that wants to do something for me. They want
36:57
Speaker 2: to lead some pretty big thing and they have three
37:00
Speaker 2: kids and they right now they're working with me in
37:03
Speaker 2: cushy capacity. And I said it, I said, listen, right now,
37:06
Speaker 2: you know you're working thirty hours a week on an
37:08
Speaker 2: hourly basis with me. You've got friendly, you've got easy blake,
37:11
Speaker 2: you got nothing like that. If you take on this
37:13
Speaker 2: role and something happens at Sunday at four o'clock in
37:16
Speaker 2: the morning, it's not me fixing it, it's you. And
37:18
Speaker 2: do you really want to do that right now with
37:20
Speaker 2: three kids in a family. And he was like, no,
37:22
Speaker 2: it's all right, great, this is the wrong role for
37:24
Speaker 2: you then, right, So it's just setting expectations. And also,
37:28
Speaker 2: like the truth is, there is some classic stuff too,
37:31
Speaker 2: like a lot of leaders is so interesting when like
37:34
Speaker 2: a leader will tell their team to do something that
37:37
Speaker 2: they won't like, that stuff just looks so bad, Like
37:40
Speaker 2: it's just so bad when they're just like, oh, you know,
37:44
Speaker 2: I expect everybody to be on time. But then they
37:46
Speaker 2: show up five minutes late for meetings, It's like why
37:48
Speaker 2: can you be late and everybody else can? So leading
37:50
Speaker 2: by example, So like alignment and leading by example, I
37:53
Speaker 2: think it cuts through more noise than any other type
37:56
Speaker 2: of thing. And then another point about your point about empathy,
37:59
Speaker 2: which is such a hot topic today and our environment.
38:02
Speaker 2: Everybody wants empathy, and the truth is people don't want empathy,
38:05
Speaker 2: they want perceived empathy. A big difference. So, like the
38:08
Speaker 2: perception of empathy is me going like, like what you
38:13
Speaker 2: just did, right? You were like hmmm, that allows me like, okay,
38:16
Speaker 2: that was interesting. You could have been like this guy's
38:19
Speaker 2: an idiot, Like that's what could have been going through
38:21
Speaker 2: your head. But the way people receive it is like, oh,
38:25
Speaker 2: he's really listening to me, right, And a lot there's
38:27
Speaker 2: a lot of leaders out there that are very empathetic.
38:30
Speaker 2: They just don't show it. So they care about their team,
38:33
Speaker 2: they just don't have facial configurations that align with it.
38:37
Speaker 2: Their words don't align with it. You know. It's that
38:39
Speaker 2: kind of dynamic.
38:42
Speaker 1: Oh that's such a good conversation. You know. Another thing
38:45
Speaker 1: I find really interesting is kind of the balance between
38:53
Speaker 1: like caring for people, understanding their feelings, and you know
38:57
Speaker 1: their drivers and where they're at. You know a lot
39:00
Speaker 1: of people, and even Tiff on the call with us.
39:03
Speaker 1: I coach Tiff in the gym, and I often coach
39:06
Speaker 1: her with someone else, and she'll attest to this, Like
39:09
Speaker 1: I've said to her lots of times, I'm not interested
39:11
Speaker 1: in making you feel good in the moment. I'm interested
39:14
Speaker 1: in helping you be fucking awesome over the long term.
39:18
Speaker 1: And it's not my job to stroke your ego make
39:21
Speaker 1: sure you feel okay. Like that's not my job. It
39:25
Speaker 1: doesn't mean I don't care. I actually really care, because
39:27
Speaker 1: I want you to be a fucking weapon, right. But
39:31
Speaker 1: there's that sometimes in the moment where people want their ego,
39:35
Speaker 1: not Tiff, but people want.
39:36
Speaker 2: Their ego fared or you know, like it's that real.
39:42
Speaker 1: I find that a challenge at times, that balance between
39:46
Speaker 1: you know, helping people feel okay in the moment, but also.
39:52
Speaker 2: You know, you know, you've been.
39:53
Speaker 1: Going around in circles with this for five fucking years,
39:56
Speaker 1: you're still not doing it. You're still you're not doing
39:58
Speaker 1: the things required to build resilient and to build capacity,
40:01
Speaker 1: and you're not doing the work, and you give up
40:03
Speaker 1: everything you know, like there's this there's this kind of
40:08
Speaker 1: you know, two dimensional challenge of how do I not
40:11
Speaker 1: scare the fuck out of them, which I can do
40:13
Speaker 1: with people, but also empower them to do their best.
40:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it's what it is to take
40:20
Speaker 2: a stand for someone and be able to say the
40:25
Speaker 2: things that other people are unwilling to say and using
40:29
Speaker 2: whatever motivational paradigms that are going to be required. Like
40:33
Speaker 2: there's like for me, like and but that where it
40:37
Speaker 2: gets so different is like the domain of sports is
40:40
Speaker 2: so unique, especially boxing, right, Like you know what you
40:45
Speaker 2: just said. But imagine like a corporate thing where you
40:49
Speaker 2: have to do the same thing and they're like, well,
40:50
Speaker 2: the company's culture is that we're more we care about
40:53
Speaker 2: our employees and we care like It's just so it's
40:56
Speaker 2: so different, which is why I I think that like
40:59
Speaker 2: sports is such a good analogy to performance in the
41:01
Speaker 2: sense that like some people are motivated by you know,
41:05
Speaker 2: dig deep and go harder, right, Like some people are
41:08
Speaker 2: like that's their true motivational power, nige. But if you
41:11
Speaker 2: I see too much, somebody can break, right. So it's
41:14
Speaker 2: just this I think the answer to it is awareness,
41:17
Speaker 2: Like the more aware you are of the other person,
41:20
Speaker 2: the more you're able to see how your words are landing,
41:22
Speaker 2: how your state, when you need to dial in more,
41:24
Speaker 2: when you need to back in a little bit more,
41:27
Speaker 2: and do all that I had. I had. I have
41:29
Speaker 2: this coach that would like, oh my god, I remember this,
41:32
Speaker 2: Like he would we would do to squats. He would
41:36
Speaker 2: do this thing where he'd go like, all, I'm gonna
41:38
Speaker 2: count you down, let's just finish at ten, and he'd
41:40
Speaker 2: go one, two, three, four, five, six, And then he
41:43
Speaker 2: would go he'd watch my movement and he'd go six six, six, six,
41:49
Speaker 2: And there'd be times where it was supposed to end
41:51
Speaker 2: in ten squats and I'm at like sixty six and
41:55
Speaker 2: he'd but he'd be watching me and he's like you
41:57
Speaker 2: got another, Like yeah, another, I'd just keep going six six,
42:00
Speaker 2: he goes seven, and he would. And what was so
42:02
Speaker 2: interesting is like he'd be able to take me to
42:04
Speaker 2: that like last two percent drop in me where I'm like,
42:07
Speaker 2: I don't think I could do two more squad and
42:09
Speaker 2: just push me to the push me to the thing.
42:11
Speaker 2: And then the next day he'd be able to ease
42:13
Speaker 2: off a little bit, like he was calibrating for me
42:15
Speaker 2: in a way that worked, and I think communication, leadership
42:19
Speaker 2: and stuff is very similar. Yeah, that's very valid. All right,
42:24
Speaker 2: I'm gonna we're on the home straight. I'm going to
42:27
Speaker 2: just throw a few.
42:31
Speaker 1: A few words that you maybe and rather than asking
42:33
Speaker 1: you a specific question about it, I want.
42:35
Speaker 2: You to riff if you would, for a minute.
42:38
Speaker 1: So my first word is on My first concept is lying.
42:43
Speaker 2: Lying. Talk to us about lying. So lying is probably
42:48
Speaker 2: if all the domains, if you look at all the
42:50
Speaker 2: domains of human behavior, lying is probably the most difficult
42:53
Speaker 2: to navigate, in my opinion. So a lot of the
42:55
Speaker 2: information and advice from lying often comes from people that
42:59
Speaker 2: have studied deception when they have ground truth. So when
43:03
Speaker 2: an interrogator interrogates somebody sitting there and they know that
43:07
Speaker 2: they weren't at this place at this hour, the truth
43:09
Speaker 2: is from like an adaptive approach. Having a lens where
43:14
Speaker 2: you going around the world looking to see if people
43:17
Speaker 2: are lying or not is probably not going to serve you.
43:20
Speaker 2: Like it's a very complicated skill set. Most of the
43:23
Speaker 2: stuff you hear about body language and lying is complete
43:27
Speaker 2: utter nonsense, like if someone scratches their nose or if
43:30
Speaker 2: they don't look at you or just silly shit and
43:33
Speaker 2: if you really want to get good at sort of deception,
43:37
Speaker 2: like it's a process of like interrogation and who wants
43:39
Speaker 2: to go through their social life like interrogating people and
43:41
Speaker 2: checking and like one of the easiest ways to see
43:43
Speaker 2: if someone's lying is just like this is where it gets nuanced. Right.
43:46
Speaker 2: You can just make something up. You could be like
43:48
Speaker 2: have you found have you found the Seymour and Undertow
43:52
Speaker 2: study twenty fifteen, And someone's like, oh, yeah, no, I
43:55
Speaker 2: read that and I just made that up based on
43:57
Speaker 2: the poster right there. Now, the question is why did
44:01
Speaker 2: they lie? Did they lie because they want to feel appreciated,
44:05
Speaker 2: they want to feel respected, do they have like most
44:07
Speaker 2: people just make shit up, not because they're being evil,
44:10
Speaker 2: but because it's just this sort of social adaptability. Yeah,
44:14
Speaker 2: I love it all right.
44:15
Speaker 1: Next one, identity.
44:18
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good one. I mean, I feel like
44:23
Speaker 2: that is probably the foundation of so many things when
44:27
Speaker 2: it comes to social interactions. You need to have a
44:29
Speaker 2: strong sense of identity and who you are before you
44:32
Speaker 2: ever enter into an intimate relationship. It's like old school
44:35
Speaker 2: Eric Ericksson's theories of development or Colborg after who did it.
44:40
Speaker 2: I think that most people are in this sort of
44:42
Speaker 2: stage of like identity, of confusion, of like just trying
44:46
Speaker 2: to figure out who they are and not really knowing
44:48
Speaker 2: who they are. And sometimes I think that's just like
44:50
Speaker 2: a lifelong journey. I think that identity is something that
44:53
Speaker 2: in a such a beautiful way evolves, and such a
44:56
Speaker 2: beautiful way, like your results and your actions are are
45:00
Speaker 2: what should form your identity, not the thoughts about yourself. Yes,
45:04
Speaker 2: so like you build your identity through reality, not through Oh,
45:08
Speaker 2: I think I would be. It's kind of like I
45:10
Speaker 2: always say this, like I I was with a friend
45:12
Speaker 2: at a Knicks game and he kept yelling at everybody
45:15
Speaker 2: at the court and it was just yelling, yelling, yelling.
45:18
Speaker 2: I was like, dude, can you just shut the fuck?
45:19
Speaker 2: Can you stop talking right now? Like please? And he's
45:22
Speaker 2: like why. I was like, because you're not an NBA
45:23
Speaker 2: basketball player, like you if you're in if you were
45:27
Speaker 2: a former NBA about yell at these people. But so
45:29
Speaker 2: many people form their identity through their own thoughts and
45:32
Speaker 2: not through their actions. So don't trust your thoughts, trust
45:35
Speaker 2: your actions, all right. Trust Trust Trust is people always
45:42
Speaker 2: talk about like nonverbal things or body language things around trust.
45:45
Speaker 2: Trust is simply feedback loops. That's how they're created. You
45:49
Speaker 2: do something somebody, you do something you say you're gonna do,
45:53
Speaker 2: you do it. You get trust. And you can accelerate
45:56
Speaker 2: the trust dynamics and the feedback loops by showing up
46:00
Speaker 2: and being more consistent. So if you meet somebody at
46:02
Speaker 2: three pm, you get there at three pm. Yeah, you know,
46:05
Speaker 2: you say you're going to do something this week, You
46:07
Speaker 2: get it done this week. That's it. And I think
46:10
Speaker 2: that the whole notion of like certain people are trustworthy
46:13
Speaker 2: or not trustworthy based on physical behavior, it's a lot
46:16
Speaker 2: of it is very it's the perception of trust. The
46:19
Speaker 2: truth is you can only measure trust the results. It's
46:21
Speaker 2: like the only.
46:22
Speaker 1: Way great, all right, the idea of success versus the
46:27
Speaker 1: reality of success.
46:31
Speaker 2: So yeah, success, I think success. My definition success is
46:35
Speaker 2: like you write things down on a piece of paper
46:39
Speaker 2: what you want to accomplish, and you accomplish it and
46:42
Speaker 2: you're successful. And I think the biggest problem people make
46:45
Speaker 2: is they take these pervasive themes of society and they
46:49
Speaker 2: try to follow other people's definition of what success is
46:53
Speaker 2: and they play the wrong game. So I think success
46:56
Speaker 2: is just a game. And I think it. You know,
46:59
Speaker 2: you start off short, you start off small, you win
47:02
Speaker 2: the smaller games, you win the bigger games. And I
47:05
Speaker 2: think what most people do is yeah, I work with
47:09
Speaker 2: some people that are so hard on themselves that they've
47:11
Speaker 2: never even measured or come up with what success looks like.
47:16
Speaker 2: They don't even know they just pushed themselves so hard.
47:18
Speaker 2: Like what is successful? Is it winning? Is it making
47:20
Speaker 2: fifty million dollars? Is it finding the love of your life?
47:23
Speaker 1: Like?
47:23
Speaker 2: What is success? And most people, if you ask people
47:25
Speaker 2: that want to be successful, most people can't answer the
47:28
Speaker 2: question of what its success is. Yeah, that is true.
47:31
Speaker 2: I know I've done that many times.
47:33
Speaker 1: I go put up your end if you want to
47:35
Speaker 1: be successful. Every hand goes up, and then I go,
47:37
Speaker 1: all right, just write down what that means for you,
47:39
Speaker 1: and they just sit there looking.
47:41
Speaker 2: At idea like huh, yeah, that is changed. All right,
47:44
Speaker 2: We're nearly there. This is great. Thank you so much.
47:46
Speaker 1: All Right, my last single word that I'm going to
47:49
Speaker 1: chuck at you before you tell us a bit about
47:51
Speaker 1: your work and your business and how people can connect.
47:56
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry that this is cliche, but I just
47:58
Speaker 1: want to hear your thoughts on it.
48:00
Speaker 2: Happiness. So I think happiness is it's become such a
48:12
Speaker 2: thing in our society that we have to live a
48:16
Speaker 2: happy life quote unquote happy life. Yeah. I am not
48:20
Speaker 2: optimizing my life necessarily around happiness, like the sort of
48:26
Speaker 2: ups and downs and the things that I've gone through
48:29
Speaker 2: and all this stuff. And for me, happiness comes from
48:34
Speaker 2: when I push hard towards something and achieve it and
48:36
Speaker 2: it's like this fleeting moment where I'm like happy for
48:38
Speaker 2: like five or six seconds. So I'll tell you I'll
48:41
Speaker 2: end this on like a sad note. But my dad
48:44
Speaker 2: passed in November of ALS. So he had ALS for
48:47
Speaker 2: two years. Died a horrible disease that just you know,
48:50
Speaker 2: you can't move. And when he first got the diagnosis,
48:53
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, I was like talking to
48:56
Speaker 2: God or the simulation or whatever, and I was like, listen,
48:58
Speaker 2: I'm gonna work harder than I've ever worked in my
49:00
Speaker 2: entire life, Like I am going to grind and because
49:03
Speaker 2: that's all I knew, like I didn't know. And then
49:05
Speaker 2: two weeks later I was like, no, I'm just going
49:08
Speaker 2: to try to enjoy and be present in every moment
49:11
Speaker 2: and be grateful that I'm alive, and I'm going to
49:14
Speaker 2: do more than that than anything else. And that has
49:17
Speaker 2: been such a gift that my dad gave to me
49:19
Speaker 2: when he died, because it had me see how short
49:22
Speaker 2: life is. And that doesn't mean looking for happiness in
49:26
Speaker 2: anywhere everywhere. That sometimes just means experiencing the range of
49:31
Speaker 2: human emotions and the range of human experience, from fear
49:34
Speaker 2: to joy to anxiety, all these different things, but to
49:37
Speaker 2: be more present with it. So I don't I think
49:39
Speaker 2: if you try to optimize for just being universally happy
49:42
Speaker 2: and don't have a really good definition of what happiness
49:44
Speaker 2: is to you, you're going to fail. Like this is
49:47
Speaker 2: going to be very hard.
49:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Blake, I love chatting with you. You're super fascinating.
49:54
Speaker 1: I mean, thank you so much for doing this. So
49:56
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. How can people connect with you? You
50:01
Speaker 1: point them towards my audience to whatever you want to
50:05
Speaker 1: point them towards. Websites, social media, books, programs, whatever, whatever
50:09
Speaker 1: you want to steer people towards.
50:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the best way I send an email newsletter
50:14
Speaker 2: out every Monday for doing it for the last four years.
50:16
Speaker 2: So it's nonverbalgroup dot com slash newsletter, and we have
50:19
Speaker 2: a ton of programs. We've got a program called the
50:21
Speaker 2: Social Edge where we teach these skills and we analyze
50:23
Speaker 2: your behavior with a bunch of models. It's pretty wild.
50:26
Speaker 2: And I'm going to do start doing a lot more
50:28
Speaker 2: stuff on YouTube, So YouTube dot Com, slash Blake, Underscore
50:32
Speaker 2: Eastman and Instagram and all those various things. I got
50:35
Speaker 2: to start getting out there more book coming in a year,
50:39
Speaker 2: So still working on that one.
50:41
Speaker 1: Well, we will get you back before the book, and
50:44
Speaker 1: we will we will crank that book out for you.
50:47
Speaker 1: Well say goodbye off fair but Blake, thanks so much
50:49
Speaker 1: for coming on the Youth Project.
50:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I just want to say I've done like
50:54
Speaker 2: I've done, like twenty five podcast I think in the
50:56
Speaker 2: last like three months is definitely my top three. Like
51:01
Speaker 2: just your energy, your questions, your sort of informal like
51:07
Speaker 2: I just loved it. So you did an absolutely amazing
51:09
Speaker 2: job and it was so refreshing. I didn't know what
51:11
Speaker 2: to expect and I was like, oh, this guy's different,
51:13
Speaker 2: Like I like this already, and like because your energy change,
51:16
Speaker 2: it kind of impacted me. I was like, God, I
51:18
Speaker 2: could be more myself, I could be more conversational. It's
51:20
Speaker 2: not like, so Blake, what are the top three things?
51:22
Speaker 2: So you're doing great? I love it. This was amazing.
51:26
Speaker 1: Thank you, self esteem restored. Thank you therapy today. Fuck
51:30
Speaker 1: that well, say goodbye fair Blake, but thank you for
51:34
Speaker 1: being part of you project.
51:35
Speaker 2: We really appreciate you. Thank you.