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Mindset Matters: Larry Wilson on Talent vs Technique (The Wilson Method) · How To Talk To Humans

• 0:00
  Larry Wilson: Hi, this is Larry Wilson, and this is How to Talk to Humans.
• 0:04
  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
  Larry Wilson: Are you looking to find a relationship?
• 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.
• 0:27
  Larry Wilson: If you're looking to deal with vampires or zombies extraterrestrial, 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, 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.
• 1:07
  Larry Wilson: Thanks again for joining me for another episode of How to Talk to Humans.
• 1:13
  Larry Wilson: I have a very interesting uh topic today because I did a presentation of Wilson Method to a group yesterday, live and in person, a group of uh retired people in uh Sacramento, an organization that's been around, I guess, for almost a hundred years, and is a big Northern California thing.
• 1:39
  Larry Wilson: And it was very, very well received.
• 1:42
  Larry Wilson: And uh some people came up to me afterwards.
• 1:45
  Larry Wilson: They're very enthusiastic.
• 1:46
  Larry Wilson: They wanted more information and they wanted to find out stuff.
• 1:49
  Larry Wilson: But one question that was asked by more than one person, they were asking about uh the difference, I explain, about technique versus talent.
• 2:00
  Larry Wilson: Now, I may be as guilty as anyone of something I caution you against using Wilson method.
• 2:11
  Larry Wilson: I want you to be aware there's a trap we all fall into.
• 2:16
  Larry Wilson: When we are covering material that we know so well, perhaps we've talked about it many times or uh all our lives.
• 2:28
  Larry Wilson: Sometimes we forget that people who don't know what our topic is or don't know what we're talking about, they may need a little bit more explanation of things than you're prepared to give because you're so familiar with it that you simply gloss over it.
• 2:52
  Larry Wilson: This, of course, is a disaster in communication because it may be the most important thing you have to discuss.
• 3:00
  Larry Wilson: So, mea culpa, since I always want to throw some Latin into this podcast.
• 3:08
  Larry Wilson: I am guilty uh of this, and I realized I thought it was very clear, saying what's great about Wilson Method is that it is all technique based.
• 3:21
  Larry Wilson: It is not based on talent.
• 3:24
  Larry Wilson: But then apparently that was confusing to a number of people.
• 3:28
  Larry Wilson: And I thought it was very interesting because I'm gonna try and explain it better today.
• 3:35
  Larry Wilson: My son turned me on to a book called Mindset, the New Psychology of Success.
• 3:49
  Larry Wilson: I think the author is Carol Dweck.
• 3:54
  Larry Wilson: God, I hope I'm getting this right.
• 3:57
  Larry Wilson: Uh D W E C K.
• 3:59
  Larry Wilson: And it's a fascinating book, a really fascinating book, and I recommend it highly.
• 4:06
  Larry Wilson: But I realized that it may be that this author was talking about the exact same things I talk about in Wilson Method, but using different language.
• 4:20
  Larry Wilson: And so I'm going to share that here because I suspect it may be clear, maybe it clears up some things.
• 4:28
  Larry Wilson: And in this book, one of the things they talked about was the difference between a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset.
• 4:40
  Larry Wilson: And I think this may be the same idea that I'm presenting as talent versus technique, uh, although I should have said that differently, because uh this author equates a growth mindset as um dynamic, that all kinds of things can be happening.
• 5:08
  Larry Wilson: That a person who has the mindset that's a growth mindset believes that skills and abilities can be learned and constantly improved on.
• 5:24
  Larry Wilson: That's what I'm always saying about technique.
• 5:30
  Larry Wilson: It's the same idea in different words, that a growth mindset sees an organic ongoing process versus the fixed mindset that I think is equivalent to talent, that the fixed mindset identifies uh skills or abilities as a person's identity, and it's fixed, it doesn't change.
• 6:13
  Larry Wilson: Let me see if I can clarify it even further.
• 6:17
  Larry Wilson: In a fixed mindset, they for example, someone may feel like I'm smart, that's just the way it is.
• 6:29
  Larry Wilson: There's no growth, there's no advancement, it's just I'm smart, and so I can do whatever I need to do that requires being smart, versus a growth mindset who may think I worked really hard, and so I came up with a smart solution to a problem.
• 7:01
  Larry Wilson: Does that seem clear to you?
• 7:08
  Larry Wilson: Seems to me, although I'm so used to thinking them of them as technique versus talent, I'm not sure.
• 7:17
  Larry Wilson: I'd love to hear what your reaction to this is.
• 7:21
  Larry Wilson: But I'm hoping that makes it clear that the fixed mindset feels like things are static.
• 7:32
  Larry Wilson: And the author of this book does not address the question of uh talent, but I think that's what we're referring to here.
• 7:45
  Larry Wilson: Although talent is even more ephemeral, talent is even more hard to corral if we need it.
• 7:55
  Larry Wilson: That's what I think is one of the things that makes most people fear public speaking, fear any kind of human interaction, is that they don't know what I am gonna do if I'm called upon to answer a question or or speak in front of the crowd or uh write a proposal, any of these things.
• 8:25
  Larry Wilson: Whereas if you have technique, which is what I'm teaching in Wilson Method, then you always know you have these tools.
• 8:34
  Larry Wilson: And these tools are not magical, they're not uh mystical, they're not confusing, they're very simple.
• 8:43
  Larry Wilson: And you can apply them in any situation to acquire your desired outcome.
• 8:54
  Larry Wilson: None of it seems impossible, none of it seems mysterious, and it's I guess it's my it's my thesis here, that having a system of technique reduces your anxiety so much, it reduces the stress in your life so much because you aren't worried.
• 9:24
  Larry Wilson: You are I've told the story before, I won't belabor it here, about uh Peter O'Toole on the set of Lawrence of Arabia, where he was quite aware that sometimes the muse spoke to him and he was able to access this prodigious acting talent he had, but otherwise it wasn't.
• 9:47
  Larry Wilson: Sometimes just wasn't there.
• 9:50
  Larry Wilson: When it wasn't there, he didn't worry about it, he didn't try to force it, just wasn't there.
• 9:55
  Larry Wilson: But for most people, I think, if you're relying on that magical muse that we sometimes call talent to carry you through, oh my God, that's a that's a tremendous burden to be carrying.
• 10:13
  Larry Wilson: To not know whether you're going to be able to deliver the goods when you're called upon.
• 10:19
  Larry Wilson: That's I certainly couldn't live that way.
• 10:23
  Larry Wilson: I haven't lived that way.
• 10:25
  Larry Wilson: I I'm just I'm just trying to imagine what it would be like.
• 10:32
  Larry Wilson: I could see why people would feel like I would sooner die than get up and speak in front of a group of people at a meeting or a presentation or anything like this.
• 10:47
  Larry Wilson: You know, you've heard me speak on this podcast before about uh one of the tools of the Wilson method, which is employing empathy.
• 10:57
  Larry Wilson: Yesterday in this presentation, live presentation, I told them about that and told them about my experience uh learning that from Betty White.
• 11:07
  Larry Wilson: And I told them, I said, I utilized that specific strategy and tool before I came out on stage today to make this presentation speak to you.
• 11:22
  Larry Wilson: It makes you feel so much less stressed, so much less anxiety, suddenly it all becomes easy.
• 11:34
  Larry Wilson: So I'm hoping that this suggestion of this mindset may clarify the difference there.
• 11:45
  Larry Wilson: And if it doesn't, I hope you'll email me at Larry at WilsonMethod.com and tell me.
• 11:53
  Larry Wilson: Either say, oh yeah, that was really good, or no, it didn't help, it made it more confusing.
• 11:59
  Larry Wilson: I'm not sure what your experience was.
• 12:01
  Larry Wilson: But the idea, uh obviously, um the thesis in this book, uh, mindset, The New Psychology of Success, uh, I should also point out, I don't have any affiliate association with that author of that book.
• 12:20
  Larry Wilson: I don't, if you go out and buy that book, I don't receive anything.
• 12:23
  Larry Wilson: I'm just telling you, I'm sharing with you things that I found fascinating and really stimulating.
• 12:31
  Larry Wilson: So if you're serious about raising your communication game, I'm not the only source of information in the world.
• 12:42
  Larry Wilson: They're all around us.
• 12:44
  Larry Wilson: There's all kinds.
• 12:45
  Larry Wilson: And again, you know, I feel like sometimes people are afraid to take in useful tools or information if it's not one whole cohesive, unified field theory.
• 12:59
  Larry Wilson: You know, it doesn't have to be.
• 13:02
  Larry Wilson: If someone who you hate and you find obnoxious suggests one thing that's really useful that works for you, I'd use it.
• 13:12
  Larry Wilson: Forget all the stuff you hate about them, but use that one thing if there is such a thing.
• 13:18
  Larry Wilson: In this particular case, I loved everything about this book, but I thought it was a very interesting presentation.
• 13:25
  Larry Wilson: That clearly the thesis in the book is that the growth mindset is the wave of the future, that the fixed mindset is stagnant.
• 13:40
  Larry Wilson: I mean, it's that same idea of if you think, oh yeah, I have talent to do this thing, I can't control it, I can't I can't summon it when I want.
• 13:53
  Larry Wilson: It shows up when it wants, but when it does, it's really great.
• 13:57
  Larry Wilson: That's kind of like a fly trapped in amber.
• 14:02
  Larry Wilson: But the growth mindset believes that you are not the things that you do.
• 14:11
  Larry Wilson: You are an individual person.
• 14:14
  Larry Wilson: And skills and abilities can be learned all the time.
• 14:20
  Larry Wilson: It doesn't matter what age you are, it doesn't matter the basis of your education, the foundation of what you've learned before, none of that matters.
• 14:30
  Larry Wilson: The growth mindset believes that you can learn new skills and abilities and constantly be improving them, getting better and better at them.
• 14:43
  Larry Wilson: I hope that's what you're doing with the things I'm teaching here.
• 14:49
  Larry Wilson: Thanks again for joining me.
• 14:52
  Larry Wilson: I look forward to seeing you next week on how to talk to humans.
• 14:58
  Larry Wilson: This has been Larry Wilson.
• 15:00
  Larry Wilson: I want to thank you for spending this time with me, and I hope you found this information useful.
• 15:07
  Larry Wilson: If you're looking for more, you can find it at thewilsonmethod.com.
• 15:12
  Larry Wilson: There's a ton of stuff there.
• 15:14
  Larry Wilson: In fact, if you want, you can even speak to me because I'm human.
• 15:20
  Larry Wilson: Send me an email at info at WilsonMethod.com because I read every single one.
• 15:29
  Larry Wilson: I hope that you'll join us next week in this continuing journey.
• 15:35
  Larry Wilson: And you'll be with me for the next episode of How to Talk to You.