Influence Over Authority (Part 1)

The strongest leaders don’t lead through authority—they lead through influence. But influence doesn’t begin with others. It begins with you.

In Part 1 of this three-part series, we break down why self-mastery is the foundation of effective leadership. From managing ego and emotions to developing a genuine care for the people you lead, the ability to lead yourself determines your ability to lead others.

We also discuss how great leaders create a mission and vision that inspires more than performance—it inspires belief. When people understand the purpose behind the work and feel connected to it, influence naturally grows.

If you want to lead people who are committed, engaged, and willing to go the extra mile, it starts with becoming the kind of leader worth following.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Welcome back to the Second Mile Leadership Podcast. We are your hosts, Jason and Isaiah. And today we are going to discuss a topic that, quite frankly, I don't know how many episodes we're in now, 12, 13, 14, whatever it is, that we haven't touched on yet. It's that big of a topic and that importance of a topic in the world of leadership. And it's one that that I think, you know, it's such a big deal. And I talked about before we even hit record. We're going to make this a three-part series. Not a two-part, but a three-part series, because it it really is the essence of leadership. And if you can't master this one thing, you can never be a great leader. And well, I'll I'll you know kill the suspense here, but the the thing we're talking about is influence. And when I coach leadership, it is the first lesson I coach to anybody who's new to the world of leadership. And even people that have been around it for a long time is something that I will dig heavy into because at the end of the day, influence and your ability to build influence will make or break your ability to lead. So when we talk about influence, influence is leadership. They are synonyms. So when I when I coach this, we talk about managing versus leading first, right? Managing is we manage a task, a process, a system, but you can't manage people. And always say, you know, imagine if I just said to you, hey, I'm gonna manage you today. It just feels weird, right? We don't, we don't wanna be managed, but we do want to be led. So what we do lead is people. And okay, well then if we're gonna lead people, what is leadership? And leadership is influence. All right, great. Now what is influence? And influence is my ability to have the people around me follow what I need them to follow, or the have the people around me voluntarily, because they want to be moving in the same direction as I'm moving, or or have the people around me be as fired up and energetic and and bought in, whatever adjectives you want to use, because they want to, not because they have to, not because they are being forced to, not because I'm their boss. And this is the difference between authority and influence, right? Authority is, hey, I need you to do this because I said so. And you go do it because your boss told you to. That is not leadership, that is not influence, that is authority and control. But influence is, hey, man, I need you to go do this. And if you say, absolutely, I'm gonna go do that because I want to do it for you, and because I believe that what I'm about to do is important and the mission that we're on is important to me, that's influence. And that's something that absolutely can be built and cultivated in almost any organization. So that is what we're gonna talk about today. And then lastly, before I turn it over to Isaiah for his initial thoughts, I want to frame it out this way: why is it so important to build influence? Because if you look at any organization, any great organization does have a mission. There is something that that organization is trying to accomplish. They're trying to do great things. I've never seen somebody start a business or an organization to be average, right? We always think we're gonna go build greatness. Well, to do that, it requires high-level execution. And for more on that, go to our previous episode on execution. But we need everyone around us executing at the highest level possible. And my question for you would be: is it possible to get people to execute at the highest level so that we can accomplish this great mission by authority alone, by control alone? And I don't believe that you can. I believe you hear me say it a lot on this podcast, that'll give you the minimum effective dose. That'll give you just enough effort from your people to allow them to keep their jobs and potentially keep you off their backs. But if you want them to be great and you want them to perform at a high level, and you want them to bring their heart, their effort, their mind, their body, their soul to work every day, dang it, you gotta have influence. And then that influence drives their high-level execution, and that high-level execution drives the results that you want for the business. So if you're gonna be a great leader, you better be great at building influence. So with all that being said, Isaiah, uh, what are your initial thoughts about this topic? As we both have agreed, this is what we could talk about for a very long time.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yeah. Good intro there, brother. Um I my mind first goes to I think authority does it it can produce results in the short term. Um, I think people that have led with authority for a period of time have seen success. And then sometimes they get attached to that success, and then it's like, okay, so you know, we're we're hitting our numbers, we're hitting our goals, all the things, and then um a year or two later I'm starting to lose people. Well, you're starting to lose those people because we didn't have the influence. Um, influence is a long-term strategy. Um, and I I would argue, and I think Jason would agree with this, that honestly short term, it may actually be a hindrance and it may be something that's difficult for the business to adhere to um because the organization is just not used to it. Um so for the people out there that are, I would say, fearful of that transition, um, I I I hear you and I understand you. Um absolutely been there before, but long-term influence is the only way to build the best culture, to maintain your team, um, and to get the long-lasting results that you want. I mean, if you look at any single business that's ever been formed, um, there really is none that are still here like from, you know, the 17, 1800s. They're they're businesses fail all the time, and Jason could could spew some statistics on that. Um But the if you want your organization to last longer, I would offer you the idea of influence.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

So when you say that you relate to people who might be fearful, are you speaking to the the people in positions of authority that are fearful of maybe giving up the the the or or who are asking to stop leaning on that authority and start leaning on influence and building influence? Are you talking about the people who are maybe the the lower level people in the organization and are they are they fearful of an organization that transforms or or or moves towards an influence-based way of leading?

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah. That's a that's a good clarifying question. Um speaking to two different groups of people, I I'm I'm really speaking to both that you just talked about. So the higher level, the owner, um, whoever it is, the the the big boss, they are and they've operated in the authority realm for a while and they've seen results. I think I believe that they are fearful that the results won't be there if they start leaning towards influence rather than authority. And then I would speak to the to the lower level leaders um that they could also be fearful. Um they will upset the big boss, that they will um say something wrong, that they will go against the culture that's there. Um, but I was listening to a podcast this morning. Uh I was talking about this like seventh-grade teacher. And like, I mean, teachers are in in school systems is such a weird dichotomy. But um, the teacher was like like basically having to hold the line with authority every single time. Um, he changed his approach, um, started leading with influence, be like went from a seventh grade teacher to now being a principal to now like becoming a superintendent. Um so really, really cool story, but influence is the way.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Gotcha. Um so the uh the stat you were talking about, you said uh accue stats, and is, and I want to make sure I got the number right so I verified it. Of the Fortune 500 companies that are around today, only 49 of them were Fortune 500 companies 50 years ago. So that means 451 of the Fortune 500 companies from 50 years ago are either uh no longer in existence, no longer on the Fortune 500 list, or are are much smaller companies today. Um, that's crazy. And looking at the stat here, 440 of the original 500 have either gone bankrupt, been acquired or absorbed, or disappeared entirely. So that goes to show just how hard it is to make it in business. So, and if you look at the research that's been done on what makes companies thrive, and you read books like Good to Great and these ones that have have used research-based techniques to figure that out, it is the ability to have high-level leadership in the way that we are describing it, combined with great culture. You know, culture is a funny thing, and we'll do episodes on that in the future as well. There is a subset of people, and and it is, it is the authoritarian people, and to Isaiah's point, the ones that are probably scared of doing it any other way, who see culture as a soft thing. Like it's a it's either a bonus or it's unnecessary or it's weak or whatever. And the reality is the research does not support that mentality. The research says that culture is essential for long-term success. And I would venture to say, give me one corporation that has made it, or or even small business that has made it for a long period of time with really crappy culture. I just don't think, you know, other than one-off exceptions here and there, I just don't think it's a very um possible or common thing to do. So this is something I hope everyone takes seriously. I hope that that the people listening understand how important building true influence is. And we will spend this episode and the next couple breaking down how to do that so we don't leave you hanging. But at first, we got to sell you on the idea, right? You have to understand and buy into the idea that influence is a lot more powerful than authority. It just is. Oh, and I think you see that in in your own personal life. I mean, would you rather be around people who are telling you what to do? Or would you rather be around people who you buy into and believe in their vision and believe in their mission and want to show up every day and help them execute it? Would you rather be around people who are bought into you, who believe in you, who are trying to grow and develop you, who who care about your goals, who care about your life? I mean, which one would you rather be around? Which one would you rather work for? And I think that's a pretty easy answer. So, you know, uh, if we're gonna be great leaders, we have to be and become somebody worthy of following. And being worthy of following rises and falls on your ability to build influence.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yep. And uh some of the listeners may have um read Good to Great before, but fantastic book um about organizational leadership. And I'm gonna pull uh just a few stats, but it talks about Kroger, one of their first chapters. I can't remember exactly which chapter, um, but it it talks about how they performed. Um, and essentially all that Kroger did was get the right people on the bus. They had the um, they got the wrong people off the bus, they got the right people on the bus, and then rearranged them in the correct seats. Um, and then when you have the right people that lead with influence, then we get the results long term. So just to back that up a little bit, um, Kroger beat the stock market by about 4.16 um over 15 years. Over so from 1973 to 1998, Kroger outperformed the market by about 10x. Um, and then this is pre-my time. I don't even know what this grocery store is. Um, so that shows my um lack of maturity. But compared with their competitor A and P, um, Kroger's returns were about 80 times higher um over that same ish period. Um and I mean essentially you're you're looking at the the the raw data here that shows having the right people that that lead with influence long term makes amazing, amazing returns for for your business. Um it is it is when I read that and then it has a little bar graph on that page too, which is cool. Um like it it's just incomparable. Um and then you look at it from like today's lens. So so take it outside the book. Um like there are so many grocery stores that have gone out of business. You talk about Wendixie, um and again, I'm gonna show my age. Um I never even stepped inside of a Wendixie. Um, but when when you look at like a Win Dixie, they didn't evolve and grow. Um and I think true evolution and growth comes when you pee comes when you have people um that are the right people and in the right seat that lead with influence. Um I think what Kroger has done an excellent job with is that they have evolved to this huge grocery chain that does things very, very well. So a thing that's super popular now is to actually not go shop inside the store to just kind of do that curbside pickup. They had to evolve to do that. Um, they had to evolve to do Kroger delivery. If you had told them 10 years ago that they would be doing that, they probably would have laughed in your face. But companies have to continually evolve, and that's why Kroger is still performing extremely well. Um, and I I fully believe it's because they lead with influence.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Yeah, Zay and I, and somebody else we work with were talking just this morning about the importance of being a transformative leader and and what our job is as leaders. When you reach a certain level in an organization, your job is no longer to do or make the widgets, if you will, right? Your job is no longer to do the technical side of the job. Your job is to build and develop a team of people who can do that at a high level. And that's the only way you can scale and grow. Because, you know, if you're just a one one-man show, then how do you scale and grow that, right? The the the more your business depends on you, the less it can scale. And oh, by the way, the more your business depends on you, the less it is. Really hard to sell a business that relies just on you. And I've sold three businesses and and I had to develop those businesses into businesses that did not need me. And all those businesses are still open today because they didn't need me, because we built them into businesses that that were more self-sufficient, more systemized. We developed people. Um one of my businesses is is owned today by somebody that worked for me. And and it's just, you know, it it that's that's the only way to scale and do the things you want to do in business, unless you just want to stay a local mom and pop and make the donuts yourself. That's totally fine. No judgment on that. But it you won't be able to scale that or grow that. So you're if you want something that's that's that's scalable, you need to develop a team of people who can grow and and and execute at a high level. Well, that requires influence. So as we as we were talking about this episode, you know, what we came into our discussion, Isaiah and I, really not even thinking about this being a three-part episode. Once we started talking about every layer and element that we can discuss when it comes to fluence, it became very clear that this is gonna have to be a multi-episode thing. And it probably could be more than three. We're just gonna try to keep it two, three. But I started thinking about this the other day. And and this is what one of the things that is gonna make it a little bit of a longer series is you know, what makes a great leader? And there's been a few things that have happened to me the last couple weeks that have led me to this. I don't know if it's a revelation because it's always kind of been in my mind, but maybe a revelation as to just how important it is. But uh I went and gave a leadership talk to, we did a I led a roundtable discussion on leadership with a local uh uh, it's a very large but local police department. And when I'm listening to them talk about leadership, they're talking about all the problems they're having, they're talking about the things that aren't going well. And then when I'm asking them their their philosophies on leadership, they're saying all the right things. Everything that they're checking all the boxes. I'm listening to them talk, like, good lord, you guys know what you're talking about with leadership. They've been to leadership training seminars, they've been assigned books to read, and these are higher-level leaders in the department. And I was really impressed. I really was. They they knew a lot of really good stuff. Say, pause that story for a second. And then my wife and I this past weekend went to a marriage retreat, and we do this twice a year, something that we love to do. And in that marriage retreat, we had a a wife and a husband and wife team giving a talk on marriage and and how to have a strong marriage. And the first night they were talking about communication and how important communication is, talking about, hey, you know what, if you're uh an avoider and you like to run away or you're an escalator, you like to keep lobbing bombs over at your significant other, if you're um somebody who likes to invalidate and make people feel or your spouse feel like their their feelings aren't valid, and they just went through these things that that make you a poor communicator. And it hit me that these are great tactics, they are. But strategically, how do you execute those things in the heat of the moment? Some of the things that we're saying sound great from the stage. They sound brilliant from the stage, but the next time you're pissed off and you got to implement those things, it's a whole nother ball game. So there's another layer of skills that have to be taught in order to execute these tactics they were talking about. And then you go back to the police department, and it's not just them. I I've heard this a lot in my career. Then it's like, well, how come they know so much, but they're having all these problems? Because it at its essence, if someone were to say, what is the first thing you have to do to be a great leader? And then by default, what is the first thing you have to do to build influence? I really believe, Isaiah, it starts with being able to transform yourself. You've got to become a different person to be a great leader. Now, there might be people who are already born to be great leaders. I don't think that's very common at all. But let's leave room for for the exceptions. Yeah, you were not one of them. I was not one of them. You're right, you're right. Uh and I'm still not. Yeah. You should probably get another co-host.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah. We're yeah, where are we?

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Okay. All right. So I might not be here for the next two episodes on influence, but we'll try to get through this one.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Yeah. Fair.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Yeah, we will.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Fair. Um but but but you need to transform who you are. Right. The reason people have a heart that the reason people know some of the tactics of leadership and understand the principles, but cannot execute them is because they have done no work on themselves. So when they get into the heat of the moment, they can't manage their emotions well. Right. So with when it comes to taking care of the people around you, and all these things matter when it comes to influence, you're unable to do that because you don't truly care about the people around you. Right? You haven't evolved from the immature, selfish desires that you have. Um, you know, you see your the people that work for you as bodies. I remember when I first started with with Chick-fil-A, I would sit down with leaders and start their uh leadership coaching and development, and they would just be talking casual conversation. Yeah, the so-and-so. Now he's he's a body, he's a body. They were referring to people as bodies. And I remember thinking, how can we look at the people we care about and refer to them as bodies? I don't call my kids bodies. I don't call them, yeah, there's a body in the kitchen making some dinner, you know, talking about my wife or whatever. So why would I say that about my coworkers? It's because we have detached emotion from that body and they are just a warm body to fill a role. We don't really care about them. Well, when that's how you feel, really hard to build influence, right? When you can't manage your emotions, really hard to build influence. Right. So, so what let's go to another one. Ego, the one you hear us talk about a lot. If you can't manage your ego, impossible to build influence. So if you want to be a person of influence, it's got to start with you. It's got to start with A, having the requisite self-awareness to know that these suffer or these are blind spots for you, which is why having people around you to tell you those things is important. But what are you doing to work on your ego? What are you doing to build your humility? What are you doing to develop your heart into somebody that loves and cares for other people and can look at the people that are busting their ass for you with gratitude and thankfulness that they're doing that? And then think to yourself, what can I do for them? Beyond a paycheck, brother, beyond a paycheck. That ain't good enough anymore. But what can I do for them? And then lastly, is can I regulate my emotions well enough that when I enter into conversations, when I enter into feedback, or when I'm frustrated and mad, I don't blow up the entire relationship because I can't manage my emotions. Because every time I do that, I damage my influence. So I think if we're talking about influence, it's got to start with an evolution of yourself. And you have to understand where you need to evolve and then go to work evolving those areas.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Totally agree. I think something that we suck at modern day-wise is looking in the mirror. Yeah. Um, and I still have a ton of ton of work to do in that realm. Um, but being able to look in the mirror and then have humility on that. Like, hey, I really want my spouse, or I really want my my peer, um, or I really want this employee to do this thing, and then you're not doing it yourself, is the craziest thing ever. Like you want someone to have emotional intelligence during a difficult conversation, and then you suck at it. How do how in the how does that make sense? Um, you want someone to be there on time and you're not there on time? How the hell does that make sense? Yeah. Um, and you lose influence every single time that you do something like that. Um we talked about trust is a a big part of influence. Um, and how do you build trust? It's uh a large part is by building a track record. Um so you you have to be a person of your word. Um, and then like whatever standard standard that you believe in, you have to like live that every single freaking day. Um if you don't, if you show one chink in the armor, then that grants the opportunity for them to poke holes in you, and you can't let that happen as a leader. Um, so I I think influence sometimes can sound like a very, very true fru kind of style of leadership to some of the more old school guys. And I and and and I hear that you saw some success from authority. I'm just telling you, it does not work with this younger generation. Like it just it it does not it doesn't work with anyone, but Especially not this younger generation, you will get your butt kicked every single freaking time with them. Because they don't respond to that. That's not how they were raised. Um, they were raised off of frankly participation awards and um everyone doing a great job even when you didn't do a great job. Um, so you come in and you just hammer people, it's not gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Well, in this generation, and you know, every every previous generation bangs on the new generation, right? That's that's an age-old thing. And and there's some things that Gen Z and and and what's the one after that's it, Alpha? Okay. There's things that they're going to do that are silly and goofy that we're not gonna fully understand. I'm not gonna fully understand because I am older than Isaiah. I have been inside an AMP, a Wendixie and a Piggly Wiggly. So that kind of gives you my my age.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Um Yeah, they do they do understand like growing hair on top of their head. That's a pretty cool, pretty cool key.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

I lost the mastery of that long ago. Um but but uh you know that this generation, one I think the one thing they're doing right, or there's a lot of things they're probably doing right, but one thing one of the things we can highlight that they're doing right is they need more than a paycheck. And and and spoiler alert, we always have. But sometimes when there's a desperation in life and we need money, because we talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? We need water, food, shelter. Well, if you need for food and shelter, we need money. So if our money needs are high enough, that's all we're gonna care about is are you paying me? But we live in a society today where success is almost ubiquitous, right? It's it's the social media A's, the, the, the iPhone A's, and and the and the the ability to make money has never been easier. Uh, the the job options have never been more plentiful, right? The days of command and control are gone. They're just gone. And one of the qualities that a great leader needs to have is some level of openness. So when you look at, you know, some of the leadership traits that have been studied, the big five, which is introvert versus extrovert, openness, consciousness, things like that. Um there openness is a very important leadership skill and conscientiousness is what I meant to say. And and openness, it's you gotta be conscious. Uh uh you uh but openness is an important skill. And openness can mean a lot of things, but one of the things it can mean in leadership is are you open to to doing things a different way? And the old codgers of the world who, dang, and I want to do it my way, great, the world's gonna pass you by, and it likely already has, and you're likely out of business already or tr you know in the process of shutting things down. But we have to understand this generation won't respond to that. Um, so we just had a small technical error, so I'm gonna we had to reboot a little bit, so I'm gonna pick up where I left off. Uh, but I think where we left off, Isaiah, is we were talking about trust. And you had brought up the word trust and just how important that is to building influence. And and what I think I want to use the rest of this episode on because we don't have that much time left, is maybe touching on a couple things. The first is all right, we want to build influence. Well, we have transformed ourselves, and I think this is where I was before we had the technical error. We we try we are transforming ourselves into becoming that person. But then if we lead an organization, that organization has to be driving towards something or stand for something that matters to the people. So this is why we've either got to come up with a universal mission for our business or hire people who are uniquely motivated and have a desire to reach the same goals that we're shooting for as an organization. So if you look at maybe the first two steps of building influence, it is who do I have to become as a person? And the secondly is okay, now that maybe I represent that and to your point, and then I can model the things that need to be modeled, now does my organization represent something worthy of influence and worthy of following? And that comes down to your mission and your vision that that you know we you hear talked about a lot in the world of business. So I think that if if we can check those two boxes, then we move into maybe the more individualistic stuff like trust and all that. So before we move on, what are your thoughts on that? So you we got to transform ourselves, but then from there, build a mission and a vision organizationally. And look, this could be for your family as well. It doesn't have to just be for an organization, but if we're gonna talk about business, build a mission and create a vision that your people can truly in their hearts and souls buy into.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Yeah. I think uh I go back to to Chick-fil-A first, and I'm like, no one that we that we work with or that that work for us um is passionate about selling chicken. I've never I've never met a person in my life that's like, let's go sell some freaking chicken today. Um there may be that person out there. If you are, my bad.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Well, well, hey, before you but real quick, just and and for anyone listening, even Truvic Cathy, who started Chick-fil-A, like his old adage was, I want to sell more chicken so I can do more good. It was never about the chicken for him. It was it was the vehicle that chicken provided so he could do more good in the world.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Yep. So the the thing that Jason and I used to get our people bought into our ideas um is we are in the business of transforming lives. And that means transforming the business. Like we want to do bigger, cooler things, we want to invest more in people. Okay, well, we have to change the business and we have to make the business profitable every single day, or else we're not granted the opportunity to do that. Um so when you when when we set the vision and like we fully believe in that, uh that's that's a big key. Um we can't just say that, hey, we're here to transform lives and then do absolutely nothing to actually do that. Um and then you get your team to buy into that, then there's a crap ton of influence that can that can happen from that standpoint. I'd point to the uh the the guy that owns a small landscaping business or yard work business, and um you're not you're not gonna get a bunch of people that are like, dude, I freaking love blowing off driveways. I freaking love planting flowers. Now there's the weird botanist out there. Um, thank you for what you do. Um, but like you get people believing into, hey, I want to change this city that I live in to make it more beautiful and to attract more people to live here. You get them bought into that vision, that changes everything. Um, so one, you have to fully believe in whatever vision that you're going for, whatever you want to achieve. Um, and then you have to get your team bought into that same exact thing. Um, because it it w whatever product your company is selling, oftentimes people are not very, very passionate about that. Um, but what they are passionate about is what they are passionate about. And we have to tap into that and then utilize that to get their best work.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Yeah, and one thing that almost everybody is passionate about also is themselves. So there has to be a what's in it for them part of the mission and vision as well. So we talk about the Chick-fil-A stuff, you know, and we talked about in in prior episodes that we are trying to get a third location, which is very rare in the world of Chick-fil-A. And, you know, so it becomes okay, well, why should the team member making 20 something an hour care about a third store? Or, you know, because they're not they may see a bump in pay. Great, that's a motivator for sure. That's an extrinsic motivator. Um, those are not as powerful as intrinsic motivators. So we have to now tap into intrinsic motivators. Well, one of the things that that we are telling these people, because it's unequivocally true, is what we have to do to get it third store, who we have to become as an organization, the the things that we need to up level, the the and the business lessons within all of that, whether it's up leveling the team, developing the team, building the systems, managing the finances of the business, having better marketing, you get to be a part of all that. So you get to see how it's done. So think of what that does for your growth and development. So not only do we have this mission that we want the third location, but what's in it for you is extrinsically more pay, more opportunity. Sure, that matters. But even more importantly, intrinsically, is what do you get to become in this process? You get to become some somebody more knowledgeable, somebody more informed, somebody with a higher level of skill. Those things then translate to higher confidence, and you can package all of that and go do great things in this world with those skills and the and that confidence. So it's not just about the mission and the vision of the organization, it's about the mission and the vision of the individual and how those two missions and visions connect, and you've got to connect those dots for people. So now as we're starting to build this out, now you got okay, you, the leader, has transformed into somebody who loves and cares for your people, who manages their manages their emotions at a high level, right? You you have transformed yourself into somebody who wants to develop the people around you. It is not just self has selfish needs and desires. Now you've created a vision and a mission that people can buy into. And oh, by the way, you've also created a mission and vision that that matters to them the most and that and that grows them and leads them closer to their goals. So you can start to see the framework of real influence building here. And let's juxtapose that to authoritarian, just do it because I said so. Which one is gonna inspire your team more? Right. So those are the first two check boxes on building influence. Um, and and I'm torn here. We're we're we're coming towards the end of this episode. And Isaiah, you did touch on trust. And I have a, you know what, we'll probably wrap it here. Let's do a little teaser, okay? There's the four C's that I want to talk about next episode. And trust is heavily involved in the first, um, the first actually, you know, looking at them really involved in all four C's, but I want to tease the four C's because there are four things you can do once you've checked these first two boxes, to be clear, to really put your ability to build influence on steroids. And we'll save those four C's for the next episode. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 32:20

I think that's a great idea. Those will those will take a minute to work through.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Yep. Yep. So uh uh any closing thoughts on this? This is a good framework, a good foundation to building influence. And above all else, I hope everyone, at a minimum, is starting to open their mind to the notion that influence is what matters the most. And that way you can open your heart, your mind, your body, your soul to the lessons we're going to teach in the next few episodes on how to do that. But with all that being said, anything you can say to close us out?

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Yeah, I want to give just one real quick practical step. Um, because I want to I I I always kind of want to structure this like, hey, we give the good deep philosophical talk. Um, we walk them through the ideas, we get them bought into it, but then I also want to walk through any practical thing that we can give them. Um one thing that I use often is I will ask for people's opinions. Um, and genuinely, like I want to hear what they have to say, but the other side of ask for of asking for someone's opinion is it kind of inherently builds um a little bit of trust and then inherently like kind of shows that I value their opinion on something, thus building influence. Um, so even if it's the the silliest thing, you will always hear me asking questions because I I want to hear your thoughts and opinions. It lets me know more about that person. And then it also builds a little bit of influence with them because it's saying, hey, I actually care about your opinion and what you have to say on this, on this subject. Um so that could be something as small as um uh uh asking a question about how they think a system is performing, um, to how a team member employee is for performing, um, to super like like broad questions. Um, but I use it all the time, works incredibly, incredibly well.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Yeah, and you're tapping into one thing will really hit heavy in one of the next two episodes, and that is the law of reciprocity. And this is a law that humans all, other than psychopaths and sociopaths, if you will, uh fall into. We it's a law. Um, and that is that we want to reciprocate things that are done to us and for us. So when somebody brings you a gift, there's a need to reciprocate on some level. And sometimes it's to get them a gift, sometimes it's just to say thank you. But imagine if I said, hey, somebody's gonna bring you a gift tomorrow and you can't say thank you or even even acknowledge it. I mean, that's painful. That'd be you'd have a really hard time doing that. Why? Have you ever thought about why? Like, why do we feel the need to reciprocate? That's just who we are as humans. And and again, we'll touch on that more later. But what Isaiah's talking about there is if the number one way to build trust or to get trusted or to be trusted is to extend trust. Like because when he's asking those questions and saying those things, he's extending trust. And guess what? The number one way to begin building influence with one particular individual at a time is to allow them to influence you, right? So when I'm a dictator, that doesn't build a whole lot of trust. When I'm a dictator, that doesn't build a whole lot of influence. But when I come to you and say, look, I'm trusting you, what do you think? Or I'm trusting you, what is your opinion? What is your idea? What is your plan? Let's use yours. There is a reciprocation that that occurs, and especially if I do it consistently, where the person wants to extend those things back to me. And they are now more open to letting me influence them. They are now more open to trusting me. So we will pull on that thread a little bit uh stronger in the in coming episodes. But but those are great practical uh pieces of advice, I say. I appreciate it. Appreciate you, brother, as always. Yeah, man. And thank you guys for listening again to Mac and for part two of this, and then eventually part three. Um, and and we will continue to build out what it takes to have the influence needed to be not just a great leader, but more importantly, an effective leader. And with that, we will close it out. As always, if if you like what we're we're doing on this podcast and and you believe in what uh the mission that we're on, and you want to leave us a review or a star rating, that would be amazing. If you believe we deserve a five star rating, that would be incredible. If not, I would ask you to leave the star rating that you think we deserve. But then if you could just reach out and let us know what you think we could do better, that would be amazing as well. So, with that being said, we'll wrap it up and we'll see you guys next week.