Episode 58 | Emotionally-credible Selling with James I. Bond

James Bond  00:00

The secret to emotional selling, or one of the secrets when I felt the passion box on my bed. I discovered the metaphors is one of 14 brain triggers that triggers the emotion centers of the brain where decision making happens.

Voiceover  00:15

Welcome to the “Lead at the Top of Your Game” podcast, where we equip you to more effectively lead your seat at any employer, business, or industry in which you choose to play. Each week, we help you sharpen your leadership acumen by cracking open the playbooks of dynamic leaders who are doing big things in their professional endeavors. And now, your host, leadership tactics, and organizational development expert, Karan Ferrell-Rhodes.

Karan Rhodes  00:50

Hey there superstars. This is Karan and welcome to another episode designed to help you better lead at the top of your game. You know, persuasion is a powerful tool for any leader to possess. And did you know that there are 14 brain triggers that not only activate the emotion centers of the brain, but are also key to persuading others to follow your lead. If you master these triggers, you’ll find it a ton easier to capture the attention of others and become unforgettable. On today’s show, I’m pleased to have as our guests a fellow who is not only an expert on these brain triggers, but who also has one of the coolest names ever. His name is James Bond. But his middle initial is ice and James I. Bond. James is a former advertising exec for enterprise level corporations who evolved his career to become one of the leading behavioral management specialists across the country. He’s also the author of the award winning book, Brain Glue: How Selling Becomes Much Easier by Making Your Ideas Sticky. One of the things that I loved about my conversation with James is his numerous examples of standout individuals such as yourself and companies who have used these triggers to gain a permanent emplacement and all of our minds. This episode will give you insights on how you too can use these triggers to persuade others when needed in your daily professional life. And remember to just stay tuned for two minutes after the episode to listen to my closing segment called Karan’s take, where I share tips on how to use insights from today’s episode to further sharpen your leadership acumen. And now enjoy the show. Hey there superstars Welcome to another episode of the Lead at the Top of Your Game Podcast. Boy, do we have a fantastic guest for you today and one that has one of the coolest names you’ll ever hear. Um, if I must say so myself. We’re so pleased to have on today’s show, James Bond, which is middle mission is I’m James I bond, who is one of America’s leading behavioral management specialists and the author of the award winning book brain glue, how selling becomes much easier by making your ideas sticky. So welcome to the podcast. James.

James Bond  03:17

Oh, thank you for having me, Karan. Nice to be here.

Karan Rhodes  03:24

Thank you. Well, we are so pleased to have you and I had mentioned that one of the reasons that I sought out you being a guest is because of some of the lessons you have in your book around selling and persuasion and influence. And these are skills that you know, any leader who’s trying to lead at the top of their game or are needing to have, but before we delve into that we’d love to learn just a sneak peek about you on a personal level. So just as much as you feel comfortable. Would you mind sharing a little bit about you know, your background and personal background like where you you grew up a little bit of about your professional history, and maybe any hobbies that you’d love to share that you have?

James Bond  04:06

Sure. Well, I’m originally from Montreal, Canada, and I’ve lived in Southern California for 34 years. And the reason I know that is because we have a son and three daughters and our middle daughter. We gave her the initials la Lauren Asia, AJA. So we’d remember that every time people asked like, how long have you been in California, we go like, Oh, it’s Lauren again. So that really works. So my daughter’s an awesome daughter. Well, all our kids are awesome. Let me start there.

Karan Rhodes  04:30

Yea! Let’s go back and say that all your kids are awesome.

James Bond  04:35

But I ran an advertising agency in Montreal and I worked my way up and eventually won some of the world’s biggest clients Kraft Foods, Timex watches, Avon cosmetics, Abbott Laboratories, Seagrams, or world headquarters is in Montreal. But then I had an opportunity to win the anti drug campaign in America with powerful logical reasons why you should not do drugs and then I saw the campaign that won and it terrified me. And it was this is your brain guy holding an egg cracking the shell dropping the egg into a sizzling frying pan. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions? and it terrified me. And the reason it terrified me was I’m an expert. I’m considered an advertising whiz kid, I’m just worked with so many of the world’s top companies. And yet this was emotional selling, not logical. And I’m a logical person. And so I was just, you know, I just freaked out. I, like had sleepless nights, until the scientist in me came out and started thinking, Wait a second, could emotional selling, be something I learned? And so I had a three by five card where I wrote the words your brain on drugs, I remember that ad because it was terrifying and fascinating me at the same time. And then I got this idea What if I create a passion box where every time I see an ad, or here’s something that’s emotionally incredible, not logical, emotionally incredible and persuasive, that I drop it in the box in the hopes that eventually all these examples will help me understand how to create emotional selling for myself. And for my students. I do love to work with us, Small Business Administration, etc. And after 10 years of putting these incredible ads and quotes, because quotes also are powerful in the box, something struck me like a bolt of lightning, I met John Gray at this convention. And he’s telling me how his book which is one of the best relationship books ever written, it was called, “Men, Women, and Relationships” sold only a few 1000 copies and he was frustrated. And he got this crazy idea What if I changed the title to Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus and tweak the content a little bit so it’s consistent with the title cast? What happened? From No, you won’t believe how many he sold almost overnight, half a million then a million to 2,005,000,000. You know how many books he sold 50 million copies of his book 50 million. My book, I describe it I say 10 million, and his people to help them on on marketing said Nah, no, you’re way off. It’s 50 million, we just passed 50 million books sold. So we went from a few 1000 to 50 million, just because he changed the title. And I was like, I thought I was gonna you know, throw up. It’s like, wow, what happened? So I took my passion box, I dumped it on my bed. You know, I discovered first my wrote, men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, I realized that he used the metaphor mean men aren’t really from a different planet. I don’t think we are all you ladies out there. You might think a different planet. And there’s plenty of reasons why you think that but I realized that is metaphors. The secret to emotional selling are one of the secrets when I dumped the passionate box on my bed, I discovered the metaphors is one of 14 brain triggers that makes it you know, that triggers the emotion centers of the brain where decision making happens. And it makes it much easier to get people to, you know, for your what you’re saying and what you’re selling to resonate with people. And I talk about a lot of selling like how products and all that stuff. I ran in Southern California, one of America’s leading behavioral management firms, and we work with leaders, senior execs, the major companies we work with, Warren Buffett brought me in his team brought me in, he started buying companies. So he would personally owned them because he wanted to explode the revenues and growth. And he wants to build the leadership. I work with senior companies, major companies like Amgen, the world’s largest biotech company Canet media, just tons of companies and, and senior management and you had most of them. And I recognized that persuasion, you know, we’re all selling you and I were talking about it just before this, but everything is selling, you know, if you want to get your kids to bed, you got to sell them unless you better go to bed, you know, I mean, it’s just a selling. But persuasion is really powerful. It helps us get better jobs, it helps us get jobs. You know, persuasion helps us get coworkers and bosses to buy into our ideas, you might have a fantastic idea. But if you’re not good at explaining it, that people say no, no, we’re not interested when you’re saying but it’ll change the company, you know, the people at Xerox PARC, you know, that invented all the computer stuff that Steve Jobs stole, okay. And he used any somebody built a launch the computer industry, you know, they worked for Xerox PARC and they were trying to you know, somebody must have been really terrible at persuading bosses, because they had a breakthrough instead, Xerox, you know, kind of disappeared out of the industry. I mean, I guess they still exist, because people at Xerox machines, but they could have dominated the computer industry, which has taken over and exploded over the world. So persuasion is so powerful. And I started to realize that, you know, like, this is your brain on drugs, any question is a metaphor, you know, metaphors is one of, you know, these 14 power tools that help you to get stuff done. I was thinking this, this is we got on, like metaphors or things like we often say, you know, use tools like the Achilles heel is your Achilles heel, you know, or the Trojan horse

Karan Rhodes  09:43

It resonates and people understand what you’re talking about when you use those

James Bond  09:46

Exactly. Exactly. So I have a friend and he’s struggling about how miserable his life is and everything else. And I said, Because I stole this metaphor and said, You can’t live your life looking in the rearview mirror. You will never get to where you want to go. You need to you know you need Look forward, where do you want to go? And interestingly, as I said that to him, he goes, I don’t really know. I said, Well, come on. Well, you’ve been so busy focusing on the rearview mirror, you know, you have no clue where you want to go, let’s figure out your let’s get you to start looking through the front windshield instead of the rearview mirror. Where do you want to go in life? And it just opened up a whole, you know, discussion about stuff that was profound for him. And yet he never thought about it. In fact, I saw this guy who had a t shirt that said, Life sucks, and then you die. And I’m going like, no, no, this is life right now. It’s like, we have an opportunity to have fun to enjoy life to be fascinated by it. And it not that that that although I do know a few people who can use that T shirt, by the way, life sucks, and then you die. But it’s so much fun. That’s when I got into brain glue. I loved it because I got to experiment on clients, which is always fun when you’re a consultant, you know, 80% of what we do is stuff we know works and 20% We’re experimenting, it kind of is a good idea. Let’s see how it works. Now I have sales exploding, which is fun.

Karan Rhodes  10:59

But it sounds like it and you’ve had such great success with it. But let’s dig peel back the layers of the onion just a little bit. So what are some of the key success factors of persuasion? Because, you know, we have a lot of most of our audience are corporate leaders. They’re a few entrepreneur leaders, but corporate leaders and they’re trying to play out you know, the office politics and the red tape and all that kind of stuff. But what are the key success factors that helps individuals become better influencers?

James Bond  11:33

There’s a core tool called redintegration, not reintegration, but redintegration and redintegration.

Karan Rhodes  11:39

I have never heard of that before!

James Bond  11:40

Yeah, it’s I talked to a psychologist and they go we haven’t heard but I was teaching

Karan Rhodes  11:45

Did you set that up, James.

James Bond  11:46

Yeah, exactly. PhDs actually call them side these now in psychology. And I said, Read integration. I read the great and I’m one of them, pulls out her come to her phone and starts looking at up. Is this a real term? No, it’s just oh, look at that. It is a real term. Yes. Integration is the brains need for completion. It’s why we watch crappy movies and TV shows till the end. Okay. I go into the living room. My wife is watching a TV show and I said Is this any good so not stupid. I said, well, why are you watching it? So I want to see how it turns out. It’s okay. Got it. reintegration is why we like symmetry. Okay, it’s my drives my wife not she’s more aware of it than me. But some guy has a lazy eye or something. You cover half his face. He looks like one thing like one person you covered the other half. He looks like another person that drives her nuts. She says look at that guy’s face. It’s driving me nuts. And it’s because we like symmetry. Okay, in fact, I’ll give you a secret on this. So Marilyn Monroe used asymmetry Okay, which a lot of people don’t know is how she became super famous.

Karan Rhodes  12:47

How

James Bond  12:48

Cindy Crawford became super famous Doing this also. Okay, so Marilyn Monroe. She was originally Norma Jean I forgot her last name was Norma Jean something okay. And her agent said you should actually change your name to Marilyn and hers. I think it’s her stepfather’s named Monroe so she had Marilyn Monroe, which is by the way it brings a tool out alliteration Mumma, Marilyn Monroe like Table Topics like, you know, Trick or treat, like Coca Cola. TikTok. Like is it a coincidence that they use alliteration to repetition so they know it sticks in the brain? So Marilyn Monroe worked and she loves Jean Harlow who back then in the early days of the film industry was a big star and Jean Harlow had platinum blonde hair so Marilyn actually got the same hairdresser that dyed Jean Harlow is here to dye her hair is exactly the same color but Marilyn had a beauty mark on her face and she’s covered up with makeup. But one day she’s looking at Jean Harlow photographs of Jean Harlow and she notices Jean Harlow has a beauty mark on her face on her cheek but sometimes it’s on her chin on her cheek and she goes Wait a second. I bet she doesn’t even have a beauty mark. I think she’s just darkening her putting a dot on her face to bring attention to herself. Marilyn started darkening instead of hiding the beauty mark on her face. And she believes that it helped her become super famous. She was famous when I helped her become super famous. Cindy Crawford the supermodel Cindy Crawford is the same. She had this she has a beauty mark above her lip on the left side. You’re nodding your head because you can show me where it is everybody knows. When she was a little kid, she begged her mom, Mommy, please can you get this removed? Take me to the doctor. And she says right now I am so glad my mom didn’t get it removed. I believe it had a huge part and my becoming a supermodel. What made me think of that was there was an early advertising was really famous and he did advertising for Hathaway shirts, which by the way Hathaway eventually got bought by Warren Buffett and that’s why it’s called Berkshire Hathaway okay because it has white shirts but so what he was doing advertising for Hathaway shirts. And so when you look at a shirt if you’re doing advertising for shirts like in a magazine, what would you do you have a good looking guy wearing the one of the shirts with a nice pair of pants maybe in a nice background. Okay, he did that but he realize that’s the same as David Ogilvy. So if you advertise his name is David Ogilvy is really famous. And he said, let me put an eyepatch on the guy. The guy’s not a pirate, but I’ll put an eyepatch on him. We’ll call him the man with the Hathaway shirt. Okay, and you’ll flip it to a magazine magazine, you go, Wow, a guy with an eye patch on, what’s that all about? And it just catches your attention. That differentiated him from others, right? And yeah, you can tell a house away shirt at a mile away, because it’s a guy with an eyepatch on it. But that made me start thinking, and that was a church one day and I saw this woman with a really huge beauty mark. And I said, well wonder beauty marks is like, using asymmetry, you know, the opposite of symmetry. And I started doing some research and I started realizing, wow, Marilyn Monroe and Cindy Crawford, they already know this, we’re dumb. We are clueless. You don’t know this, but they’re actually using a symmetry. There’s a joke that goes up. Asymmetry also works with humor. Comedians love it, they’ll tell you a line, but they’ll end up with something that surprises you, okay? Because we already know what to expect. And so Fool me once shame on you fool me twice, congratulations. I thought it was gonna be fool me twice, shame on me. And so like that little twist grabs attention enough to people that stands out. I mean, this is a world where we’re so come over communicated or bombarded. I heard one of your talks, or one of your interviews where you’re talking to a recruiter or how to how to get better jobs. And it’s like that, and advertising and getting a job, whatever else is you’re competing against all these gazillion other people, or kazillion other ideas are a kazillion other products. And so when you’re presenting something, you know, it, people are half asleep, that you don’t realize it but people are half asleep, you know, you’re talking to your boss, and you don’t realize he’s like dealing with the fact that maybe his wife is going to go through a divorce. Or maybe they just lost a big client. Maybe they want a big client. He’s not sure how they’re going to serve us. Uh, maybe, you know, maybe he’s got, you know, maybe he’s got pain. He’s got in his stomach, and he’s worried. And you’re talking to Hey, boss, I got this great idea. And he’s going, Okay, it looks like he’s listening. But he’s not listening. If you use a brain trigger, it works. In fact, you have use a brain trigger, and you’re brilliant thought it. It’s Shockingly Different Leadership. And your work because you’re waking up the brain. You’re waking up the brain…

Karan Rhodes  17:17

That’s exactly why we used it.

James Bond  17:20

You understand? You’re competing against all these people. And no matter how great your product is, it’s like men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Men, women and relationships is a fabulous book. But without a great title. Nobody’s going to read it with every

Karan Rhodes  17:35

100 individual use that the if I’m trying to present my presentation or idea to the C suite. How can an individual use either asymmetry or differentiation? How do you build that in? Is it something conscious that you build in to catch their attention upfront?

17:56

Yes, absolutely. Is that what you’re trying to do? It’s got examples. lots of examples than an exercise so you can actually apply it and people are, I had Jack Canfield. i Sorry, I forgot your name Jack. Chicken Soup for the Soul. And he saw a 500 million books. Can you imagine if I have a billion books, you know, 100 million Chicken Soup for the Soul. And 400 million of the other chickens Soups… chickens soup for a teenage soul, Chicken Soup for a cancer survivor soul, stuff like that. So he doesn’t need me telling him anything. But he was pissed at me. He said, I started reading your damn book. I couldn’t put it down. It was ridiculous. I got so many books to read. And I’m apologizing. I’m sorry, can I use that as a quote? And he says, yeah, and there’s a whole story behind that. I’ll tell you that in a second. But so when we’re presenting an idea, so you could use a metaphor analogy, I’ll use Warren Buffett, because so many people love Warren Buffett, certainly on media love Warren Buffett. And part of why they love him is because he loves analogies and metaphors. So here’s one of my favorite lines. Only when the tide goes out, do you discover who’s been swimming naked.

Karan Rhodes  19:01

Wow. Yeah,

James Bond  19:03

What’s he saying? He’s basically saying only when times get tough. Do you realize who’s really capable and who’s not capable? That’s right. But when you see it as a metaphor, oh, it’s it resonates? You know, it’s six in the brain. And it’s true, you know? Hey, look, that guy’s naked. You know? Yeah, it resonates. And it helps you understand, you know, how powerful it is, you know, things like I talked to you about this before, but Achilles heel, Trojan horse, you know, there are things that we say that when we explain something, so the movie Jaws was a blockbuster. And so when they tried to sell movie Alien, they said it’s just like Jaws, but in space, it’s jaws and think of us as jaws in space. And people went, Oh, okay. You know, of course, the investors well, we want to Jaws type movie if you’re gonna make that kind of money, and they invested in it. And so analogies of metaphor are one of many powerful tools. I’ll give you another tool, creating expectation. Okay, and so there are a lot of you know, Michael Jackson was the king of top drop. Muhammad Ali was the greatest I am the greatest Well, I am the greatest and it affected guess who had affected more than anybody else? Him. Yeah, he said, the public, I am the greatest, I suddenly raised the bar that I better raise up to the bar, otherwise they’re gonna start laughing. It forced me to be better than everybody else. And he is very, you know, you talk about being intellectual. He’s very, who’s very intellectual, he was probably the most intellectual fighter around. And so the things he would say, you know, just resonated so much. So the setting expectation. So if I said, Okay, I’m going to tell you something, you’re going to feel like you’ve heard it before, but just give me a chance. Because about 30 seconds into this thing, you’re going to start to go, Whoa, okay. And I start telling you something, I’m setting the expectation. So it’s easier for you to accept, I have this thing. I was in a networking group, high end networking group, and I wanted to connect with this guy who’s an investment banker, very high end investment banker work with someone to, you know, you just got a billion over a billion dollar fund and all that stuff. And in the company, in the networking group, we put our profiles, so I put my profile, and I was talking about like, brain glue, and I want to talk about how you do behavior change. And he said, Oh, yeah, I saw your you’re a consultant. I said, No, no, I’m not a consultant. I’ve got this. He’s like, don’t worry about it, your consultant anyway, what do you want to talk about? And I was like, no matter what I said, he couldn’t get past the fact that I’m not a consultant. I’m a behavioral management specialist. And I’ve got this thing, okay. And so I got mad, and I wrote it in capital letters. I am not a consultant, okay, in capital letters and brands. And then I put my left my bio there. And I remember I was sitting in a group and somebody said, So describe who you are. And somebody says he’s not a consultant so they must have read my bio. But it just it set the expectation. And when you set the expectation is so powerful, that you can use tools that you know, that suddenly explode, that make it easier for people to accept what you’re saying.

Karan Rhodes  22:06

Before you give that tool tool. There was one thing that you mentioned, I want to make sure we get to that. What are the trigger words that sabotage persuasion? Because I wanted people to know, what can sabotage your persuasion efforts as well.

James Bond  22:20

And that’s very important to know, I want to give a personal example first. Okay. All right. So I have a son of three daughters, and our oldest daughter has three kids, and they’re young. And the oldest is like five or six years old. And the middle daughter, they were at a park, and the oldest daughter, the Son and the daughter, our granddaughter hit something and fell unconscious.

Karan Rhodes  22:41

Oh, man,

James Bond  22:42

And they were freaked out. And her brother was freaked out, okay. And so they helped her and everything else ended, she came to. And then my daughter turned to Thatcher, our, our grandson, and said, Don’t worry, she wouldn’t have died. And then she realized, Oh, my God, and he was like, by using that word, he wouldn’t have died, she wouldn’t have died, it would have been it would have been okay. He wasn’t even thinking of that. And she planted the seed in his mind. And she said, I felt terrible, because he can’t take it back once you say it, you know. And so soon as, as soon as she said that, don’t worry, your sister wouldn’t have died. She planted the the idea in his mind that couldn’t be removed, that terrified him. So we have to remember that there are certain things we’re going to say that will have a profound impact. So let me give you a perfect example I did. Dale Carnegie and Toastmasters. I learned how to talk. In fact, my wife said they taught them how to talk. They just didn’t teach them how to shut up. Wives… So what can I say? Okay. That’s why I wrote the book, I get to talk, so…

Karan Rhodes  23:47

You could tell her that’s what attracted you to her. So she’s gotta love that.

James Bond  23:53

So I don’t think it’ll work better. But anyway, but it Toastmasters has a really profound tool that we all need to use, and it’s called a sandwich. And it works this way. If I want to criticize somebody, you always say something positive, then give your feedback and then give a positive. And so in Toastmasters, they would say something like, you know, you’re a fabulous speaker, we always have such interesting talks. But you were looking at the left side of the room and not the right side of the room. And it almost felt like you were talking to them and not to watch. But otherwise, I can’t wait to hear your next talk. I just find it so interesting. So what did I do I criticize you, but I’ve sandwiched it in such a way that, you know, I didn’t say you’re stupid. You know, you’re just a terrible talker. You just like you’re always looking at the left side of the room, or you’re looking at the rest of what about the rest of the people in this room, you know, by saying that it affects us differently. And so it’s important for us to understand that, you know, there’s a pattern to how we communicate. And when you become more effective in how you communicate, you know, it becomes easier to lead people it becomes easier to get people to buy your products and services, your ideas. You know, I mean, and I’ll give you so let me give you another tool have a brain glue that’s really powerful. And it’s, it’s humor, but it’s here’s how it works. Humor is very important. I’ve got two friends who are in the top 100 attorneys in the country, one of them is top 10. And both of them I was talking to him about this as I was going through brain glue, and they kind of went like, Okay, you’re figured us out, okay, they tell jokes, or get the, when you go into a trial, they would actually get the judge and the jury laughing at some of the things they say. And when you can get them laughing at some of the things you say they become much more responsive to what you’re saying, and you have a better chance of getting a not guilty or whatever you’re trying to process. And they said that it’s a secret that we use, but it’s a trend for tremendously powerful. And the reason is because there are two chemicals that go through our body that get triggered by our brain, there’s cortisol and oxytocin. And cortisol is the fight or flight drug basically. Okay? It’s like, if I piss you off, you’re gonna be mad, and it stays in the bloodstream for up to 36 hours. So if you know you’re talking to your boss, man, or a woman, let’s say a woman, and her husband did something that pissed her off, or he’s thinking of divorce for 36 hours, she may be totally unresisted or totally resistant to what you’re presenting, you know, say, hey, look, I got this great idea… I don’t want to hear about it. Like go away, you know, you may not be that way. But even suddenly, they’re acting that way. It’s like, okay, tell me what it is. No, we’re not interested, okay? And, but oxytocin gets triggered by two things, by jokes. And by something really, really fascinating as engaging, that’s a tough one. But jokes are easier, okay. It’s around about martial arts equipment company. And when you’re doing a turnaround, you know, people are afraid they’re gonna lose their job, the owner is afraid he’s gonna go bankrupt, he’s gonna have to, you know, everybody’s afraid. And so I started with this joke. And I said, I don’t know why I came up with this joke, but they tortured me with this joke, okay. Because I said, I worked with him for over a year. So I said, so the maintenance man is hiding in the maintenance closet. And whenever people would come close, he would open the door and screaming supplies, you know, not surprised supply

Karan Rhodes  27:08

Duh duh duh.

James Bond  27:09

Ah, that’s cute. No like that one! During the year that was working with them, I look inside somebody’s office, I’d see somebody with tremendous stress on their face, you know, I don’t know if we didn’t have enough product, or if they had an unhappy customer, or whatever it was, okay. didn’t have enough supplies, but I could see stress on their face. Maybe it was something personal. I looked through a window. So I opened the door and say, How’s it going? And almost every one of them would go supplies. And you’d see their body language change? You know, because part of what we’re doing a turnaround, we want people to be as creative as possible. Yeah. When you’re stressed, it turns off. You want to trigger oxytocin in the bloodstream. So and the way you do it is with a joke or whatever else. Okay, great joke. Sorry, you’re gonna run this one by you. I’m sort of religious person, okay. And so, Mommy is sitting there and a little girl comes up to us, comes up to her and says, Mommy, I don’t understand. You say we came from Adam and Eve. But Daddy says we came from apes. And she says Daddy’s talking about his family. I’m talking about my family. That was fun. And you said when you tell a joke, you know, I’m terrible at joke telling. I’ll do conferences. There’s US Small Business Administration, we’ll have like 300 or 500 people there. And I’ll tell them I’m you know, I’ll try and joke and I’ll be really bad. So they’ll come up to me sometimes, and they’ll give me a joke. Oh, at an intermission. You know, tell this joke. This will be easy. You won’t mess it up at all. And I still mess it up. So people laugh

Karan Rhodes  28:38

You know what I think about humor, though. I think that it just disarms individuals is a connection tool to others. It quickly gains opens the doors to relate. It’s authentic. And to your point, it de-stresses people in the moment.

James Bond  28:55

It makes them much more receptive too. I think it’s sad that people like Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, they don’t do colleges anymore because they’re afraid we’re gonna offend somebody, you know,

Karan Rhodes  29:06

I gotta go for it. You can’t

James Bond  29:08

Humor is the best medicine caught humor is the best method physically, physiologically, you live longer. I mean, he was telling you I saw a guy with a T shirt and said Life sucks and then you die. No, this is fun right now you got to have fun right now. I mean, I get bad things are gonna happen to I got okay. It happened to all of us. But you know, you have to recognize this is life this is this is not practice. It isn’t like we’re practicing for the next one. Although it might be you know, that’s after we die. But it just what you want to do is you know, enjoy life and share joy with other people. And when you when you do that, people love me being consultant for their company because I’m always telling jokes. I seem like, you know, I focus on quality of life for people.

Karan Rhodes  29:50

Yeah,

James Bond  29:51

Instead of letting you know, we have to they’re gonna lay off like about, you know, 100 people or something like that. I’m going like, let’s figure out how to solve this. So we refer lay anybody off?

Karan Rhodes  29:59

Yeah.

James Bond  29:59

You know. I mean, sometimes you have to, if it’s hard times or whatever else, but just people at least accept the fact that I love this, that Costco I work with Saul Price, who was the founder of Price Club that eventually merged with Costco and all that stuff. But then the guy who started Costco used to work for Saul price. And Costco is the highest paying retailer that’s out there. Okay, their the highest paying retirement and benefits and everything else people go, and yet it sells the cheapest products. How can that be? How can they pay people so much, and they sell cheap products? And it’s because he figured out the process and the process is, you want to have employees that love working there, that they feel like we’re all partners, we’re all in it together. And when you can do that, you know, few companies have one guy, I mean, even Steve Jobs, I always love saying this in big conferences, who wants to work for a jerk? Raise your hands come on, who wants to work for a jerk? Oh, come on…somebody who’s gonna steal your idea and pretend that it’s his? Oh, come on, raise your hands. Come on, who wants to work for, you know, someone who’s gonna humiliate you in front of co workers? Come on, raise your hand. And then I show a photograph of Steve Jobs. He did a lot of that. Okay. He did. He loved working for him because he was passionate, and he was changing the world and they’re changing the world.  Ya know? And so, that’s, you know, those things are really important. It’s like, when you get deeper into understanding like, the, what is, you know, profound. Okay. But and then that’s where brain glue comes in. How do you explain it in a way that people go like, wow, that’s it. Oh, I like that. And I’ll go back to the movie Alien, you know, you know, we’re gonna give you jaws in space. They went Johnson Space. Oh, that’s really cool. You know, then he goes to his wife, you know, the guy, if it’s a guy or a girl, you know? And they say, Hey, I’m investing in the movie. That’s Johnson Space Johnson Space. Oh, wow. That’s interesting. So it’s gonna be like, you’re gonna have sharks will not sharks are gonna bet. But it’s like, you know, it’s easier to explain. And that’s the best I have is. So I want to give you an example. Also something else, but it relates to this.

Karan Rhodes  31:09

Yea.  Okay. Well,  real quick, because we want to give you one more question before we wrap up. Okay.

James Bond  32:00

So we also want to understand perspective. That’s why Johnson Space is powerful. If you want to give people perspective. I love this line. So people say Americans discard 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour. Wow, that sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?

Karan Rhodes  32:15

It does every hour,

James Bond  32:16

2.5 million plastic balls every hour, that’s enough to reach the moon every three weeks. That’s, that’s, like terrifying to me. But I gave you a perspective, because when you throw a number of people, they go Oh, yeah, sounds like a lot, you know, like 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour. But how much is that? If I tell you it’s enough to reach the moon every three weeks? i Oh, wow. That is frightening. You know, but now you give them perspective. And a lot of times we’re going to say something with it. And people are gonna nod their heads. But we don’t realize that they don’t understand what we’re saying. And that’s why it’s important to focus on perspective. Because if you give them perspective, then you can even see it in their face. They go like, Oh, interesting.

Karan Rhodes  32:56

Right. Well, my final question for you, James. So thank you so much for those great stories and examples, they are so clear for our listeners. But what we always like to do is hear from our guests on which of the execution tactics I read about in my book resonate with you. And you were so kind to share that you really love leading with intellectual horsepower. And for any new listeners, leading with intellectual horsepower, is all about using your areas of expertise to kind of peek around corners and to spot trends or opportunities that others miss. So I’m just curious for you, James, why does leading with intellectual horsepower resonate for you, because

James Bond  33:40

it’s not what people say, but what they mean, that’s important. And we have to understand intellectually, you know, we get the greatest ideas intellectually. But we also have to understand that how we understand it, and how they understand it, is often very different. And so that, to me, is at the intellectual level, that you’re going to get the best ideas, the best results, the best understanding of like, wow, look at what we can achieve. And but you also want to be able to communicate that. So yeah, to me, it’s a concept of intellectual horsepower, leading with intellectual horsepower. That’s what leadership is all about. You want people to follow you, you don’t want to be pulling people. You want to be like Steve Jobs. I mean, he was just, you know, people go like, Oh, that’s what we’re doing. We’re inventing. We’re changing the world. Yeah.

Karan Rhodes  34:25

And they did. And you had people that were fanatics, you know, around Steve. So, alright, well, we will have all the information about Brain Glue in the show notes, James, but really quickly, can you let people where they can find on what platforms they can find your book, Amazon, anything else?

James Bond  34:42

Yeah, Amazon is easiest place to find it. If you go to BrainGluebook.com it’ll take you right to the Amazon page. You don’t have to search around for it. And then you know, we’ve got an audio book too, so you can listen to samples. Amazon lets you listen to samples and look at parts of the book too. And so hopefully you buy it, but even if you don’t, you can look at it and it will give you all the different Brain Glue tools. And I think it resonates with lots of people, they recognize that this is powerful stuff. BrainGlue.com is an easy way to find it.

Karan Rhodes  35:10

Okay, well, we will definitely have all the information in the show notes, listeners go out and definitely get your copy of brain glue. You won’t be disappointed. James has a ton more examples in his book, just like he shared are here on the podcast. And thank you, James, for the gift of your time and insights today. We really appreciate you.

35:29

Oh, Karan, thank you so much. This is lots of fun.

Karan Rhodes  35:32

Oh, wonderful.. And thank you to listeners. And hopefully we’ll see you next week. Have a good one. Well, I hope you enjoyed our conversation today with James Bond, author of the book, Brain Glue. Links to his bio his entry into our leadership playbook. And additional resources can be found in the show notes on your favorite podcast platform of choice in on the web at leisure game podcast.com. And now for Karan’s take on today’s topic of persuasive emotions. Now, we all know that emotions are complex, right? But psychologists say that we only have six basic emotions, which are happiness, anger, sadness, fear, surprise, and disgust. And all of our other emotions that we have, are really built from these six basic emotions. For example, jealousy stems from a combined feeling of anger or sadness, while satisfaction is actually a type or a degree of happiness. Scientists have discovered that the thoughts that cause emotions usually answer questions like the following. One is what happened and expected two is what happened enjoyable. Three, is what happened going to make it easier or harder for me to get what I want for Can I take control of what happens next five, will I be able to cope? Six does what happened match with what I think is right or wrong. And seven is what happened, my fault or someone else’s. And so I encourage you to take the time to learn more about the role of emotions in decision making. Because this would definitely be time very well you’ve added to your task list. And I’ll also include a few resources in the show notes to get you started. But I hope today’s info helps jumpstart your thinking a bit. And if you’d like to learn more about developing leadership in action, we have more information on our programs on the web at developing your game.com Thanks again for joining this episode. Please remember to subscribe and share with the friends and continue to have a fantastic week and to lead at the top of your game. Thanks for listening and see you next week. And that’s our show for today. Thank you for listening to the lead at the top of your game podcast, where we help you lead your seat at any employer, business, or industry in which you choose to play. You can check out the show notes, additional episodes, and bonus resources, and also submit guest recommendations on our website at leadyourgamepodcast.com. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn by searching for the name Karan Rhodes with Karan being spelled K a r a n. And if you like the show, the greatest gift you can give would be to subscribe and leave a rating on your podcast platform of choice. This podcast has been a production of Shockingly Different Leadership, a global consultancy which helps organizations execute their people, talent development, and organizational effectiveness initiatives on an on-demand, project, or contract basis. Huge thanks to our production and editing team for a job well done. Goodbye for now.