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How to Speak So People Really Listen: Advanced Communication Tactics for Success
Chris Do reveals the advanced communication tactics that separate amateurs from professionals in both life and business.
Chris Do
Founder, The Futur™ · May 7, 2024
The Selfishness of Being Present
We believe missing someone is a noble emotion. A pang of longing for a person, a place, or a past moment feels like a testament to its value. But what if this feeling is a self-inflicted wound? What if “missing” is a form of emotional anti-gravity, pulling you out of the only moment you actually control: the present?
For a long time, Chris Do felt a sense of duty to check in with his family while traveling. It seemed like the right thing to do. The problem was, these calls were not for them. They were for him. Wrapped in the guise of responsibility was a need to soothe his own discomfort of being away.
His wife, a pragmatist, saw right through it. “What do you want, babe?” she would ask. “You’re doing your thing, I’m dealing with all the mess you left behind.”
The calls were an interruption. Do had not only left her to manage the household alone, but he was now disrupting her flow to make himself feel connected. It was a selfish act posing as a loving one. This realization sparked a fundamental shift in how he approaches communication and presence.
He stopped calling. Instead, he adopted asynchronous communication: texts, photos, and direct messages sent without the expectation of an immediate reply. This respects the other person’s time and energy, allowing them to engage when they are free, not when you are. “It allows the other person to interact when they feel like it’s appropriate,” Do explains.
This discipline goes beyond family. When he’s at a conference, he’s at the conference. He is not FaceTiming his partner or checking in with his pets. He’s with the people in the room. This intentional focus is alien in a world of hyper-connectivity, where our attention is constantly fractured, our presence diluted. We are everywhere and nowhere at once.
The core issue, Do argues, is a misunderstanding of what it means to be alive. “All we have is this moment right now,” he states. The past is a memory, and the future is an expectation. Both are illusions. Obsessing over either one robs the present of its power and its joy.
He illustrates this with a simple metaphor: the perfect pizza. You have an incredible slice of pizza, a euphoric, almost orgasmic experience. But now you are away from that pizzeria. Every meal you eat is compared to that memory. The salad is bland. The steak is disappointing. You are not tasting what is on your plate. You are tasting the ghost of a pizza that no longer exists.
Worse, memory romanticizes. “We romanticize ideas and we catastrophize negative things,” Do notes. That perfect pizza was likely not as perfect as you remember. When you finally return, filled with anticipation, the experience rarely lives up to the myth you built in your mind. The result is a deep trough of disappointment between two fleeting emotional peaks.
The antidote is to be radically present. “When I’m here, I want to be here,” Do says. “If I’m watching a movie with you, I’m not thinking about my work. And when I’m at work, I’m not thinking about binging on the Netflix series.” This singular focus is a superpower. It allows him to achieve more because, in any given moment, he is doing only one thing.
The Anatomy of a Doomed Favor
The line between our personal and professional lives is imaginary. The communication failures that create friction with a spouse are the same ones that destroy a client engagement. The root of it all is a simple, catastrophic error: acting on incomplete information.
Do learned this lesson the hard way. Early in his marriage, he decided to do something he believed was helpful. He organized his wife’s computer desktop. To him, her system of a thousand loose files was chaos. He spent hours meticulously creating folders, labeling files with a clear naming protocol, and imposing his own sense of order. When she saw it, she flipped.
“You messed up my system,” she told him. “I have a system. You might not like it, but I like it.”
Do was offended. “I spent all this time organizing your files, fixing your computer, you ungrateful girl you,” he thought. But his therapist helped him see the truth. The act was not for her. It was an attempt to impose his system onto hers. He was being “helpful” in a way that was perceived as anything but.
This is a classic dynamic. We perform acts of service based on our own definition of what is needed, blind to the recipient's actual wants. The problem wasn't the action of cleaning the desktop. It was acting without alignment. It was a prescription without a diagnosis.
This pattern repeats endlessly in personal and professional relationships, creating a cycle of misunderstanding and resentment.
- A partner goes out of their way to buy a gift, only for it to be the wrong one.
- An employee spends a weekend on a project, only for the boss to say it's not what they asked for.
- A designer pours their soul into a logo, only for the client to hate it.
In each case, the person doing the work feels unappreciated, indignant. “I did all these things, why aren’t you happy?” they wonder. They see themselves as the victim of ingratitude. But the fault lies with them. They voluntarily committed to an outcome with a high probability of failure because they were unwilling to face a moment of friction upfront.
We are so afraid of asking for clarification that we roll the dice on wasting hours, days, or weeks of our lives. As Do puts it, a willingness to repeat this cycle is a voluntary agreement to have negative emotions and miscommunication. It is a bet you are destined to lose. The skills required to navigate these situations are central to building better relationships, a lesson he explores in The Art of Listening & Communication.
A Simple, Uncomfortable Script
The solution to this cycle of miscommunication came from Do’s therapist. It was a simple script, a set of words so precise that he initially felt like a “monkey robot” repeating them. But they worked.
The framework is designed to be used whenever someone asks you to do something where the details are not 100% clear. Instead of saying “yes” and hoping for the best, you pause and deploy this sequence.
First, state your intention and acknowledge the potential for misunderstanding. “Honey, I want to help, but I want to make sure that what I’m doing is perceived as helpful.”
This opening line does several critical things. It affirms your willingness to help while simultaneously framing the conversation around their perception of what “helpful” means. It shifts the focus from your frame of reference to theirs. You are signaling that you need to see the world through their eyes to succeed.
Next, you state the gap in your knowledge. “I don’t have enough information.” Or, “I’m afraid what I’m going to do is going to be perceived as unhelpful.”
This is an act of intellectual humility. You are admitting you cannot read their mind. You are forcing the unspoken assumptions into the open.
Finally, you create space for clarification, respecting their time. “If you’re busy, why don’t we talk about it when you have more time? Or if you have time now, let’s talk about it now.”
This de-escalates any potential frustration. People are often in a rush, making vague requests without thinking through the details. This gives them an out. As Do discovered, more often than not, the request wasn't that important, and circling back was never necessary. He saved himself from doing the wrong thing by simply asking for the information needed to do the right thing.
If his wife asks him to get her jacket, he doesn’t just go. He asks, “What jacket do you want me to get?” He stays in the pocket of that conversation until she describes it clearly. A moment of friction now prevents a larger argument later. If he brings back the wrong jacket, the narrative becomes, “You never pay attention to my needs.” If he takes the time to ask, the narrative becomes, “That’s my man. He listens.”
Small risk, massive reward.
Prescription Without Diagnosis is Malpractice
This same principle is the key to transforming your client relationships. When a potential client comes to you and says, “I need a new logo,” the amateur says, “Great, let’s get started.” The professional says, “Tell me more.”
Chris Do operates from a foundational belief: there are no right answers to wrong questions. A client’s request for a logo is not gospel. It is a self-diagnosis. And as they say in the medical field, prescription without diagnosis is malpractice.
“I don’t want to work with a client who comes in self-diagnosed, self-prescribed,” Do says. The first job of a true creative partner is to determine if the request is legitimate. Is a logo really what they need? Or is it a symptom of a deeper problem?
He begins by challenging the premise. “I’d love to help you with making a new logo, but before we do this I have to ask: what is the thing that’s motivating this idea that you need a new logo?”
The client may say their old one doesn’t “pop” or isn’t “sexy.” Do continues to probe, looking for the business case. He pushes them to consider other possibilities.
“The last thing I would want to do is to charge you good money to deliver you a logo and later on you find out, ‘Oh my God, we have a marcom problem,’ or ‘our website sucks,’ or ‘our company culture is rotten to the core.’”
This conversation can make a client uncomfortable. It challenges their certainty. They came for a simple transaction, and you are forcing them to think. But this discomfort is precisely what separates you from the competition. As Do notes, “I simultaneously perceive you as a professional. You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” That perceived expertise is invaluable and a core component of how to close more deals in your sales calls.
Amateurs and low-tier designers avoid this friction. They take the order and try to impress the client with volume. They present dozens of half-baked options, hoping the client will see something they like. They think their job is to overwhelm with variety. This is the path to endless revisions and frustrated clients.
The professional uses the diagnostic phase to narrow the target. Instead of a wide bullseye, they define a target the size of a thimble. They do the thinking upfront, collaboratively, to eliminate all the wrong options before any design work begins. This allows them to present just one, fully-realized concept.
This approach is deeply influenced by authorities like Blair Enns, author of The Win Without Pitching Manifesto, who argues against the “big reveal” where creatives gamble on their intuition. As Do notes, creatives become addicted to the high of nailing it without guidance, but they are willing to risk an 80% failure rate for a 20% shot at that glory. Referencing Enns's philosophy, Do makes it clear that a more predictable, professional process exists for those willing to adopt it, a topic he covers frequently in discussions on pricing and client management, such as in this breakdown on pricing strategy.
The professional shows not just a logo, but a system. They demonstrate how it works in multiple applications, on a bus, in an ad campaign, as a textile. They have done the hard work of thinking it through, justifying every decision. The client isn’t just buying a mark; they are buying clarity, confidence, and a strategic solution to a well-defined problem.
Why We Choose to Fail
If the path to better outcomes is so clear, why do so many people refuse to take it? Why do we voluntarily agree to repeat the same mistakes, knowing they lead to frustration and failure? According to Do, the reasons are psychological and deeply ingrained.
It comes down to fear and a lack of training. Specifically, people are afraid of the following:
- Fear of Seeming Unprofessional. Many creatives mistakenly believe that asking questions makes them look ignorant. They think a “professional” should just “get it” through intuition. The opposite is true. Probing questions are the hallmark of a seasoned expert.
- Fear of Being Annoying. We worry that by asking for details, we are “grilling” the client or partner, putting them on the “hot seat.” We want to be liked and agreeable, so we avoid the friction necessary for clarity.
- Fear of Language. Most creatives are visual thinkers and are not comfortable with their linguistic skills. They lack the confidence to challenge a client constructively, so they retreat to the safety of executing an order.
This mindset is often learned in academic settings that paint an idealistic but false picture of the professional world. “I went to one of the best design schools in the country,” Do recalls. “No one there taught me this.” In art school, the game is simple: the best work wins. In the real world, the best communicators win.
This dynamic is perfectly described in the book The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson. Their research found that the most successful salespeople are not relationship builders who cater to every client whim. They are Challengers, who use their deep understanding of a client's business to push back, challenge assumptions, and teach them something new. This is precisely the role Do advocates for in a client engagement.
By asking uncomfortable questions, you elevate yourself from a vendor to a trusted advisor. You move the conversation from execution to strategy. Even if you don’t have a portfolio, you can win the work because the client feels seen, heard, and understood on a level your competitors are unable to reach.
Overcoming the fear to have these conversations is not about tactics. It is a mindset shift. It requires moving past the imposter syndrome that whispers you are not qualified to ask these questions. It's a journey from insecurity to professional confidence, a common struggle for many creatives which can be better understood through frameworks for overcoming imposter syndrome.
It Is Not the Action. It Is the Thinking.
So how does one make this shift? It begins with accepting a radical level of personal accountability. The reason you are stuck in a bad relationship, a dead-end job, or a cycle of failed projects is not because of external forces. It is because of your choices.
Do is a proponent of a strong bias towards action. However, he clarifies a crucial point. When your actions are not producing the desired results, the problem is not the action itself. The problem is the flawed process you used to choose that action.
“It’s not in the action that the problem is,” he explains. “It’s your process of choosing which action to take.”
If you take an online course and get no results, the issue isn't that courses don't work. The issue is why you chose *that* specific course. Were you seduced by a promise of easy, instant results? Did you fall for a slick marketing campaign that tapped into your desire for a miracle pill instead of a painful workout?
“I sell people difficult solutions that are hard to do because I know in my life nothing worth having is easy,” Do says. The person who chooses the difficult path is operating from a different thought process than the person who chooses the easy one. This principle is key to understanding why some freelancers can dramatically increase their rates, a concept explored in detail in how to price the client, not the job.
Too many people refuse to take responsibility for their choices. They adopt a victim mindset where things happen *to* them. They feel powerless, out of control, and without agency. If you believe you are powerless to change your circumstances, you are correct. You have chosen to be stuck.
To break this loop, you must first confront the consequences of staying on your current path. Do recommends a stark visualization exercise. Imagine your life ten or twenty years from now if you change nothing. Project the current trend line to its logical conclusion.
Will you be happy? Will you be fulfilled? Or will you be living hand to mouth, filled with regret, unable to support your family in a crisis, your work having devolved from mediocre to desperate?
Go to the darkest version of that future. Feel it.
Your Life is a Declining Stock
This unflinching look at your future trajectory is necessary to break the cognitive bias that keeps you stuck. Many people treat their lives like a declining stock they refuse to sell. They are experiencing what behavioral economists call a loss aversion bias. They know the stock is losing value, but selling it would mean realizing the loss. So, they hold on, irrationally believing that by not selling, they are not losing money.
“Your life is that stock,” Do warns.
Your refusal to have a difficult conversation, to leave a bad client, or to demand clarity is you holding onto a stock that is tanking. Every day you avoid the necessary friction, you are locking in further losses of time, energy, and opportunity.
The solution is to change your thinking. You must stop prioritizing short-term comfort over long-term success. You must accept that the small, upfront friction of asking questions is infinitely preferable to the massive, downstream explosion of a failed project or a broken relationship.
This is not a journey. It is a decision. It is the choice to stop being a passive order-taker and to start being an active, strategic partner in your own life and business.
Stop being afraid of looking stupid. Be afraid of wasting your life doing the wrong thing.
TRANSCRIPT
welcome to this episode of Diary of a CEO I'm Steven Bartlett and my guest today's MO is I'm just kidding clearly I'm not Steven Bartlett you can tell the melanin is a little bit different but this is Diary of a CDO that's me Chris Doo my friend Mo's in town we're having deep
conversations by the pool and the restaurant and we thought we're being a little selfish if we don't share this with the world we're going to talk about lots of things that might hit you personally emotionally and Trigger some people but also take it back to the professional world you're going to see that
these two worlds that we live in they're actually the same world and once we figure that out it's a very powerful idea and you're going to unlock something new in your mind today so I consider you to be somebody who's for lack of a better term you probably wouldn't say this about yourself
but like a modern day philosopher okay I really appreciate how you think I appreciate how you look at the world and I appreciate the way in which you break down certain observations I know that you travel a lot I know that you're father and me and you have discussed this concept of being
present whether you're at work or you're at home I want to hear your perspective on when you're traveling and you're away from your family one how are you feeling and then talk to me a little bit about this notion of like missing your family or not missing your family sure is that something
you can speak to yeah absolutely I think my position on this has evolved over the years I was a person who's pretty late to travel so first when you get on the plane and you're away from home all the Creature Comforts you start to feel homesick The Familiar rhythms the sound even missing
my bed let just talk about that I'm a very light sleeper so the Sounds in the hotel the trays that go by the loud people come back at 2: in the morning they would wake me up and I would just feeling very uncomfortable and I also felt a Duty or an obligation or
responsibility to call and check in with my family and here's the weird thing my wife's a very pragmatic person so when I would call she said what do you want babe we just calling to see if everything's okay she's like like no you're doing your thing I'm dealing with all the mess you
left behind so I'm like okay what does that mean well I'm taking care of the kids the Plumbing's broken and there's contractors coming by and I'm juggling lots of things so I think for her not only have I done one wrong thing I've done two wrong things the first thing is to leave
and then so she's carrying the way to the household by herself as the chief home officer number two is now I'm interrupting whatever she was doing so that I can feel like I'm connected so this wasn't about her it was about me and I soon started to realize that so my wife is
not one much let's do the the little goooo Gaga talk and let's tell each other how much we miss each other and we can't wait to see each other so if something interesting exciting relevant is happening then we'll have a conversation otherwise I've learned over the years now I don't call her I
don't call her not because I don't miss her I think about her it's because it's actually not helpful for her because she might have been doing yoga she might have been cooking she could have been doing lots of different things and I'm just interrupting when I'm free not when she's free and so
now when I travel I I don't really call her I'll I'll take pictures I'll DM I'll text and I'll just leave it like that because I think that's that form of asynchronous communication allows the other person to interact it when they feel like it's appropriate and if she says hey babe I miss
you that's my cue to give her a call and check in and and it's a a moment for us to kind of share what's going on but I'm having a conversation with my friend cuz usually when I'm traveling especially on a long stint I go pretty radio silent on social media so I'm
not really calling and checking with people not answering messages because I'm busy I'm tired and I'm usually preparing for the next thing the next Workshop the next talk and so I get back after a couple of weeks of travel radio silence and everybody's like is he dead is and people are just clamoring
my DM send us photos what are you eating where are you we just we need to be updated and it's kind of a strange new arc in my life but then I said you know this person said to me hey I I really missed talking to you and I was really looking forward
to having this conversation and that was just a buzz in my brain and I said why do you miss people I've kind of developed this natural reaction to whenever anybody says anything I start to examine it myself like is this true do I miss things do you miss things why do people people
miss people is this an important thing for us to go through and then she's like what what do you mean I said well I don't really miss you and I don't really miss my kids and I don't really miss my wife it's not that I don't think about them it's not that I
don't care but what is this idea of missing and then I said to my friend this idea I said so you remember something that's happened and you're holding on to that memory so when you're here now away from that that moment you don't desire to be here it's a long your heart aches
for that and then let's say you had a really great meal at is really nice restaurant and you're looking forward to it so now you're missing that as well so the meal that you're eating right now doesn't taste so good and the environment doesn't everything's being compared to something else except for right
now so I started really thinking that I know there's a future that has yet to happen and there's a past that is now in the rearview mirror but all we have is this moment right now the present you and I being here grounded connected in this moment in space sharing the same air
feeling each other's energies the the way you look the way you smell the frequency the vibrations all those kinds of things I feel I keep thinking about that so what happens is let me illustrate it this way if you let's say you love pizza you probably don't but let's just say you do
and there's this great pizza place and you eat us eat this pizza and it was just some kind of it's like euphoric almost orgasmic experience for you you're like this is so freaking good and now you're away from that place that makes that pizza so you're longing and reconnecting to that memory and
you're always comparing well this pizza is not as good this salad doesn't compare the steak is not as good that piece of fish and so you're constantly battling that memory and memory is a funny thing and this is a strange concept I still have yet to wrap my head around which is by
recalling the memory you change the memory this is what happens cuz we wrote romanticize ideas and we catastrophize negative things things are much worse when we remember them when they were bad to begin with and things are much better that's why we always Pine for the good old days things are never the
way they were and we're constantly comparing because things weren't that good when they were happening it's just your memory of it makes it even better so now you're in in this pocket where you're like you know what I got a trip coming up I'm going to go to New York I'm going to
be there in July and I'm going to have that pizza again so you're building up expectations again and this is a funny thing about expectations when you get there maybe it's not exactly the way you recall like oh the standards is not as anymore so true but let's look at the the Peaks
and The Valleys of your emotional well-being here so there's that emotional high of the pizza you had and let's just say this one lives up to it rarely does it ever live up to it then you just have this trough in between of like nothing is as good nothing is good so instead
of being grateful to being present to where you're at in the moment with the people that you're sharing space with or the food that you're eating or even the room that you're in whether it's your bedroom or a hotel room or motel room on the couch of a friend's place you're not really
really present because we keep thinking about either the past or the future neither which we can have we just have the moment so I start to discipline myself when I'm here I want to be here and I notice something when I travel and everybody's traveled to something like especially a conference multi-day conference
a festival everybody's calling their their their wives their husbands their Partners they want to talk to their cat and I'm like what about us in this room right now we're sitting here we're waiting for you to rejoin the conversation and it's actually a modern phenomenon because everybody's so easily connected or distracted I
I think it's reverse connection we're not connecting to the people that are in in front of us and we're constantly thinking about things our phones are buzzing we're checking messages we're reporting to the team so are you really here so in the past couple of years it's a really relatively new phenomenon for
me I'm just trying to be 100% here all the time so if I'm watching a movie with you I'm not thinking about my work and I'm at work I'm not thinking about binging on the Netflix series I'm not thinking about anything else except for thing that I do we have finite amount of
time we have 24 hours if we are good to ourselves we're about 16 hours of productive work and focus productive work is even shorter and so I can get more stuff done than most people because in that moment that's all I'm doing I've optimized my mind my work environment my tools the pallets
in my software tools tool set to be optimized for the singular purpose of doing this thing yesterday you were talking to me and I went silent you're like bro you going to give me the answer I said I'm thinking but usually if you don't get an answer for somebody it's because they're so
focused on something else that we just need to know that we we need not to interrupt that so um an agreement that I have with my wife and we see each other all the time is when the other person's deep in thought don't interrupt them it doesn't look like much but they're walking
in you can tell because my eyes are moving in a different place I'm not really looking at the environment it's off usually into the Horizon into the future because I'm I'm processing idea and oftentimes it's because I'm out of the shower and some brilliant thing has comeing to me and I think I
need to keep replaying this in my mind until I can transcribe it onto a piece of paper and she sees that she's like honey what do you want to and it's usually something trivial like what do you want to eat for dinner later tonight I'm like it doesn't matter you pick actually I
need to figure something out I'm working on a problem right now and she goes oh I know we have that shortcut that short hand with each other that we know and same thing with her if she's sitting there meditating kid kids no don't talk to Mom right now she's finding that moment where
she can get clarity in her mind it's important we don't interrupt people so sometimes I'll walk into the bedroom I see her in the Lotus position it's very dark in the room I just gently close the door moon walk my way out of there cuz unless I have to use something in that
room I don't want to go there so this is what I mean like we need to be grounded and present in the moment and people don't fully understand that they think that by having all their notifications turned on that calling people FaceTiming them while they're somewhere else it's like you know what here's
the here's the weird thing it's the worst compromise and I think there was a a quote up on the Vesta board that it said something like a good compromise is when neither party's happy and that was like from a comedian a good compromise is when neither part is happy so it's just constantly
not being where we are thinking about the past or the future and I know it's ironic because the company's called the future but I'm trying to be very much in the present so you covered a lot yeah doing my diligence to take as many notes as possible but the last thing that we
talked about is something I want to kind of touch on and then go back to something earlier in the conversation what you just described is actually what happened between me and you today we were talking upstairs on the patio across from your pool and my wife called me and I know that given
the time difference it was appropriate to answer just then and you were very gracious when I said hey my wife just called me I'm going to go ahead and take this for a few minutes and then we can reconvene hearing you now it's a disservice to our moment and it could have potentially
I don't know interrupted her moment um created the sense of fomo uh but her and I have an agreement of checking in once a day in the morning once a day in the evening because we have children together so what do you prescribe as a better way to have handled that situation now
that I'm hearing that an like that is diminishing the moment me and you were having this is a little bit different because you have a pre-agreement like a pre- range agreement where we're going to check in with each other once in the morning once at night so everybody feels connected no matter where
you are in the world and I think that works really well for you you have small children I don't my children are adults at this point and if my children don't desire that then it's not something I want to do correct I'm very mindful of like doing something that the other person would
be perceived as helpful and as an act of love not because you think it is and I've I've lived a lot of my life where people give me things do things for me where I think I think that's what you want to get but it's not what I want to get so I
try to be gracious about receiving gifts even though I'm like that's not what I want and are you paying attention to what I want and this is really important this I learned in therapy many many years ago where I got into a fight with my wife because I did something that I thought
was helpful but she didn't perceive as helpful it's a classic example of what a lot of men do and screw up all the time which is I cleaned up her d top not her workspace but her desktop on her computer and then when she came home she flipped her lid it's like you
messed up my system I have a system you might not like it but I like it and her system is a thousand files on the folder on the desktop on the desktop you know as many creatives are and mine is like there's a folder I got to organize I got to label it
I use correct naming convention and protocol because unlike her who can work at leisure and find things when she finds them I have to find things within seconds usually it's because I'm in a tired state of mind I can't exert more mental processing power to find a file so it's very frustrating for
me so I'll spend hours Tiding up my files in waves where it's like okay now it's where it's supposed to be in the moment it's a little sloppy but I go back and clean things up so that was for her why are you trying to exert your system on my system and she
didn't like that and I was really offended because I'm like I spent all this time organizing your files fixing your computer you ungrateful girl you and then I realized I was at fault because I was trying to be helpful but what I was doing is not being perceived as helpful and this may
be be the Pinn for another conversation where you and I have about nonviolent thinking nonviolent communication and how we move throughout the world I want you to go real meta here on this one CU I consider that many people whether it's communication relationships in business whatever the context is they have a really
hard time detaching from what they think other people need versus what other people actually need so how did were you able to come to this place where you don't feel a sense of well I just did this amazing thing for you right but becoming more in tune with what does this other person
need and how can I meet that need well what I learned from my my therapist is she said why do you want to do any of this it's because I love my wife I want to take care of her maybe I'm oldfashioned I'm looking out for her I don't know she goes okay
well it's important then that your wife feels loved by you I said yes why don't you ask her so here's what she told me to do and this is like free therapy for all of you guys it really is when I say free therapy I mean I don't I'm not trying to be
your therapist but I'm sharing something I learned I paid money for that you can then take if you wish okay here's what she said before you do something ask often times we're given requests by people strangers friends co-workers boss employees whatever and we don't have enough information and we start to act because
we think it's like obvious right but it's not so obvious apparently so she told me to say this very specific thing when your wife asks you to do something say honey I want to help but I want to make sure that what I'm doing is perceived as helpful I don't have enough information
if you're busy why don't we talk about it when you have more time or if you have time now let's talk about it now and often times when I do that well the first couple of times I did that she gave me a funny look and she's like you've been seen Joan again
happen I can tell those are not the words that come out of your mouth I said babe I made those sounds and she goes but you're like a monkey robot I said sure cuz I'm a good student I'm not trying to improvise this this is what I was told to do is what
I'm doing and then she would say you know I don't have time for that right now I say okay cool we'll we'll Circle back when you're ready and free again you know more often than not she not that free it's not that important so I saved myself from doing something that would most
likely be perceived as being wrong and my wife is like from W she's pretty black and white when you do something it needs to be right or don't do it cuz it's more annoying that you did it and you did it wrong so she says go get my jacket I don't go get
the jacket I said what what jacket do you want me to get and she'll she has to describe it pretty clearly before I leave CU if I go get that jacket and come back it's the wrong jacket she's like oh you never pay attention to my needs you're always doing the wrong thing
I'm like what I could have sat here and refused to get your jacket and this is I think the root of a lot of miscommunication and friction that is unnecessary between relationships of any type we do things where we have incomplete information where when it's done the other person doesn't feel like you're
paying attention it's a critical skill let's take this out of the personal realm and move it into the professional space when your clients come to you and ask you for logo or website we don't have clearly defined expectations of outcomes we don't know what the next steps are we don't communicate any of
that mostly is because we're afraid of the friction we're afraid of asking for more information or going through enough details so the other person feels reassured that we heard them and that they understand what the next steps are so our avoidance of the friction in the moment creates a lot more friction in
the future and this is one of the most powerful lessons I learned from my business coach the thing that allowed me to double my revenue from $2.2 million to 3.9 which is say what it is you think ask more questions ask clarifying questions and that gives the other person a sense of you
see me you hear me you understand me and that's how we won business for things we had no right to win how we were able to jump categories from doing motion design to Brand Identity Design to doing ex exibition design and designing virtual reality experiences things I have no right to claim that
I can do but when a client feels you're in Rapport and you understand them they give you a lot a lot more latitude to do things with the full expectation this is not your expertise I'm asking if you can help me so it's a request from them no more pitching no more selling
no more presenting honey I want to help but I want to make sure that what I do is perceived as helpful if you're busy right now when you're free can we discuss what exactly would be helpful to you yeah that's the break I don't have enough information I don't have enough I'm afraid
what I'm going to do is going to be perceived as unhelpful I don't have enough info break that down for me what are you like I understand the question many people might take it and blanket statement right and become robots and we've seen this happen in role plays right that's great cuz you
got a copy to learn but I want you to you always teach me in the beginning stages yes Co if you're trying to become an artist like this particular artist copy the art copy the art copy the art and then modify but break down the thinking for me so let's just I I
segmented honey I want to help but I want to make sure that what I do is perceived as helpful what are you doing just in that beginning statement right there you're setting the frame to say like I have my frame of what I think is helpful but it's more important that I understand
your frame and so I need to see the world through your eyes so that's the seeing part yeah the I'm hearing and seeing I'm I need to hear more words MH and please describe it to me so that eventually the words allow me to see what you see and then I I'm going
to play back what I saw and then you're going to tell me it's right or wrong you're going to make some adjustments now that if you're busy part that's more contextual maybe your wife was busy at the time or is that for everything tell it's almost appropriate for I'll tell you why people
aren't as clear in their thinking as we'd like them to be myself included and then we use shorthand words that we assume everyone knows and we're always in a rush no matter what we're doing we're always in a rush so I say hey Mo can you work on a new video for me
and change the thumbnail you're like cool I got you but what did you get we haven't yet seen eye to eye on anything correct I I can already see the parallels in business around all of this a ton client calls you I need a new logo I hear you do great logos great
here's the invoice let's start based on what you don't even understand right so people and we've seen this in numerous role plays they ask two or three questions no followup questions and they're like okay let's get started I'm like why would I do that you don't even know what it is I want
Actually I don't even like you why would I why would you send me a proposal I don't even like you I mean because because do you understand me right well you need to feel understood in the moment in the creative space we have to get a lot of abstract things right for this
to work work so we need to know do are we inspired by the same things do you have the same aesthetic that I have can you elevate the crude unrefined generic abstract ways that I describe things into something much more precise that we both can nod our head and said exactly oh my
God you just took my thing you elevated it but most creatives don't have language skills don't have the clarity of thought themselves might be a little ADHD afraid of the friction so they can't stay in the pocket and have conversation with a person and this leads to a lot of misunderstanding and frustration
I've seen this this is not me speaking esoterically like I've read about in a book or I've watch in a movie once or twice I've worked with now hundreds of artists I'm on both sides as a buyer and a seller of creative Services I know how to buy it I know how to
sell it so when I see somebody missing the Gap I help them become more informed buyers or I help them become more informed sellers cuz I know what need to be done so I will do both roles for you because at the end of the day if I screw up as a service
provider or if I screw up as the buyer I've wasted time and money right sometimes it's my money sometimes it's their money and Goodwill and I don't want to do that mhm so the if you're busy right now when you're free we can discuss that would be helpful give me how that would
be said in different language maybe in a client situation let's keep it real simple let's say hey I see that you do great logos uh I'd love a logo for my business fantastic first now we're going to get super deep here one thing that I do and people are going to find this
a little bit strange is I don't believe anything you say I operate under the the idea that there are no right answers to wrong questions so when you say I need a new logo I don't take that as gospel so the first thing I'm going to do is and this is goes back
to therapy is the request legitimate if the request is illegitimate we have to find the right request and I don't want to work with a client who comes in self- diagnosed self-prescribed cribed I need a new logo that's simple geometric and has triangles in it that's super prescriptive well do you need a
logo let's talk about that so let's go back step out of the meta and say great fantastic I'd love to help you with making you a new logo but before we do this I have to ask what is the thing that's motivating this idea that you need a new logo tell me more
about that is it motivated by a business change marketing changed what is going on that that you've come to this conclusion that you need a new logo Chris we we just we really need a logo we're just going through an overhaul of some of the the things that represent our business and we
we've come to a decision that having a logo would be important for us so you have no logo currently no we have one but it was done on the Fly see you know it's not it's not sexy you know it's not it doesn't pop when I see it doesn't make me feel like
it actually represents our business okay so you're pretty convinced that a new logo is the thing that you need right now yeah because the last thing I would want to do is to charge you good money because you will pay me good money to do this MH to deliver you a logo and
later on you find out oh my God we have a marcom problem or our website sucks or our company culture is rotten to the core or just the our our branding is off so I want to say this if you force me to take your money I will take your money I will
do what you ask for and I think you'll be delighted with the results however I want to make sure it's alignment with a bigger goal there's this expression in the medical field um prescription without diagnosis is malpractice and we're in this prescription part right now M but you tell me how you want
to proceed I want to end the scene honestly end the scene go ahead what do you want to say then I want to say that I mean I've done this dance with you before so what I'm hearing is you're you're pushing me into uncomfortable thinking right but at the same time when I
feel that when I feel that as a client I'm like okay this guy's been around the block yes this guy is's a trustworthy person this guy is fair so I'm matching parallels to relationships that are not professional like we've we started with talking about wives I wonder if the client is going to
be like dude I just I just want a logo like what what are we doing here like I'm I'm asking you for a service can we do it I feel like there's clients like that and then I feel like there's other clients that would lean in right the reason why I ended the
scene is because I wanted to go ahead and lean in and me and you would have done the dance and you would have really extracted what it was and is it a marketing problem is it whatever problem and that's fine but I didn't want to detour us so the the objective for you
is in that moment getting them to really think getting them to know exactly what they want and pushing them to a no and I wonder are you not worried that they're going to get frustrated with you are you not worried that maybe you might lose the business are you not worried that in
a relationship setting for example I can see like let's say your wife's with your kids and I don't want to digress here but let's say your wife's with your kids and she's like Chris can you go grab me that jacket and you sit there and you're freaking grilling her with questions right and
you're like well what jacket babe what closet is it in it's like well I forget it Chris I could go get the jacket myself right and I feel like many people when they're in that pocket of having a dialogue with someone they're scared to take it all the way right because they don't
want to be perceived as annoying or they don't want to be perceived as like not an expert in what they do so walk me through the navigation that you're doing there I know you're very comfortable in pushing those questions but how to make sure that you get the intended result that is most
helpful for the other person we're going to have multiple timelines collapse on top of each other I'm going to weave this thing into beautiful tapestry for you MH when we know in our private lives when our partners ask for something and we are afraid of asking for more and we deliver the wrong
thing that that little bit of discomfort will lead to a giant argument because what will happen is this and and I know it doesn't take a giant imagination to to picture both moments happening you go and put in the energy and effort thinking you're doing a good deed an expression of love but
the person who receives this like you freaking jackass donkey you got me the wrong thing this is stupid now I got to go return it you go return it and you're sitting there muttering in your breath God dang it I had things to do but I went out of my way to do
this spending valuable time energy and resources to get you what you want and it's going to be a big old fight cuz you're feeling like righteously indignant and un unappreciated misunderstood and all the kind of bad negative I did all these things like why aren't you have been here before oh yeah yeah
so you know what that feels like but yet we voluntarily commit ourselves to repeating the exact same Crime Time and Time Again whose fault is that that's good if you know that the outcome is semi-predictable that there's a high probability that you're going to lead to a negative outcome Where You Walk Way
unhappy and your partner walks way unhappy and you continue to avoid that little moment of friction because you're afraid to have the conversation then you are voluntarily agreeing to have this miscommunication these negative emotions you're saying I'm going to roll the dice 50% of times I'm right 50% of times I'm wrong in
a personal relationship those are not good odds right it's like would you bet a million dollars on a quain TOS most people would say that's a bad odd I want at least 51% but what if it could be 7030 or 802 or 90 10 there's no guarantees in life but if you ask
and you're clear and you play back and then you go do that thing now in that moment she's like oh mo just do the thing already but then on that day of that event that you bring the right thing for her parents or for your kids and like that's my man that's my
man right there MH he listens and he gets me and he took the time to pay attention so he'll know what are the odds of you screwing it up then very low very low very low it won't be a guarantee cuz people do change their mind and they forget that they told you
to do that to which then you'll be right righteously indignant at the same time right and that's okay you'll swallow that because that doesn't matter because it's about the relationship anyways right let's move this into professional realm mhm most people can identify this whether you have a client or not you know personally
this has happened to you before no relation no relationship is perfect not with your parents not with your siblings and definitely not with your partner in life if we take it into the professional realm client says I need x y and Zed and you're like got it I'm going to go do it
because I'm afraid the perception of being annoying I'm asking too many questions like don't you just get it you're not a professional haven't you done this before yes okay yes and then you go do that thing and they're going to love it and Blair writes about this Blair ends writes about this and
we become addicted to the reveal that I'm going use my powers of intuition my artistic in Integrity or instincts or whatever and I'm just going to put it in front of you and you're going to hoist me up on your shoulder and it's such a high that you can get like you didn't
even tell me and I just figured it out aren't I amazing and we're willing to risk 80% of the times we're going to get it wrong and 20% of the times we'll get it right and then the client's like um what's this what is this and you're like what do you mean and
now what's happening is your Reptilian Brain is kicking in it's time to fight cuz you're not going to run and you're going to think I just gave you the most genius thing why can't why can't you see the greatness in which I've given you you only paid me for 30 hours worth of
work but I gave you 75 of My Blood Sweat and Tears you ingrate you neander tal you don't appreciate our dud you and you're getting the way of my art you may not say any of those words but that's what you feel in your heart and they can sense that too cuz you
know what creatives aren't that good at masking their emotions they're like oh okay you know what they're thinking I need to go back and read the contract why are they thinking that because I'm going to fire your ass I'm going to want my money back and I will tell every person that thinks
about working with you not to work with you so worth the risk I don't think so but you said something else and I wrote it down you said you asking these kinds of questions immediately made me feel uncomfortable I want to unpack that for a little bit but then you said because you
asked those questions I simultaneously perceive you as a professional you've done this before haven't youh so Our intention is to be perceived as professional but what we're doing is the opposite of creating the air professionalism so true your level of uncom discomfort let me ask and I have a theory I I kind
of already know the answer but why are you uncomfortable why was I uncomfortable as a client yeah because you're putting me on the spot to identify things I don't know and I might have been a client that had a meeting with my team and we sat down and we're like yeah we need
this this is what we want and then you come in and you ask me these questions and now I have to like this is going to be a lot more work what if he's right what and I'm uncomfortable again cuz like I might I not not I might I feel as if I
was so certain certain walking into this meeting and now just by these few questions I'm a little uncertain I don't know anymore if this is what I want I don't know if I'm capable of doing the things that we might unpack here I don't know if I'm ready to get into all of
this right now I also don't know if I want to deal with all these question so the uncomfort is really it's you're challenging my thinking and that's that that feeling that I'm having in the moment with you perfect that's exactly what's happening you see what's happening here the parallels between work and life
they're all they're the% 100% that person's in a rush yep they've already made the decision when we don't know what those decisions are we're just catching them in this moment and they're like I don't have a lot of time just do this thing see you later by and then we say okay what
are we going to do with that and most likely we're going to go back to our studio if they were to give us a job stress out of our mind say I don't know what they want so true so instead of doing one version we do 55 versions it's all guess and I
used to do this I'm speaking from experience here we used to think the way we win work is we overwhelm the client with amazing variety of options and you know there's the Paradox of choice the more options you show them the harder it is for them to make a decision so I I
didn't show them like two or three Logo options I showed them 18 and the the natural question is where do we go from here I don't know how to pick and I used to think did my job they know how to pick so then I get to guide them through the process of
picking as I've evolved as a creative person as a business person I now present One logo I've already done all the thinking we've done it together actually we know all these other options are not going to be right for you therefore the bullseye instead of being this big it's like that big it's
the size of a thimble and that means we get to use our experience and energy and just create the world's best Dart and we can hit it and we hit it so hard we don't just show you surface level things we show you what the logo looks like in a multitude of applications
how it might look as a textile on a on a bus as an ad campaign we write the copy for the ad campaign to show you so while I would say average designers are going into that room showing them 35 different logo options that are half baked half thought out haven't been researched
haven't been checked against competitors they haven't thought about the system we've taken it all the way to the end so now all the client has to do is like is that what we talked about and the answer almost always yes it is so you never have to then deal with um I think
you just picked a tie face right or that doesn't feel big enough so here's the thing what Young designers inexperienced designers and I would consider like that lower tier of like fiver or upw work 99 designs level designer those young designers what they do is they think the more intricate and illustrative the
logo is the better it is so they think a pizza parlor let's get a pizza guy spinning you throwing pizzas in there and and a guy named Mario or Luigi or somebody as an icon or a mascot and they they invent stuff because they think I can't just types set this in otica
it's not going to work or I can't use one of these other typ faces that feels right so what happens is they make overly ornate logos because they think like the clients think so if I design a logo that's beautiful that's Timeless like say the Exon logo beautiful logo they don't need to
change that logo ever okay it's basically helvetica with overlapping x's and that logo is worth $100,000 and all the designers drive by they look at this these young inexperienced designers like that was so easy it was just htic with one flourish what they don't understand is when you designed systems and you showed
the client it's not just a type base it's all the thinking that happens behind it right how it's going to appear as a a bunch of different law ups and how it's going to be used over time they Now understand what many sophisticated buers of design understand our job is not to make
it complicated our job is to make it simple memorable iconic and understandable and it's not supposed to illustrate what we do it's supposed to capture a feeling an idea that's the difference so when you just present a type face just a type phased and you don't explain anything you don't show the system
they're going to say um yeah my kid brother can type that in a computer why am I paying you to do this you're inviting that reaction so you compensate instead of doing the system and the system thinking you compensate by over complicating the logo and showing 35 more options so you justify your
keep not a way to work so here's how I'm understanding this and I want you to break me down or my thinking down if I missed any gaps here the punchline that I'm understanding is slow down to speed up what you are doing is in the beginning before whether it's in a personal
relationship or a professional relationship you are doing your due diligence to really understand what it is that they need or what it is they think they need and any gaps in their thinking and their judgment setting expectations clearly so you can fall back on those expectations in case conversations happen when the result
is given not is that is that fair to is that fair to describe okay but we know many people people don't do this you've said that multiple times throughout this conversation Y what is happening in the moment that is preventing them from stopping this voluntary agreement to the negative outcome over and over
and over again is it psyche is it emotional what is it what do you think it is what is your prescription it is everything that You' said already you've already articulated and I wrote those words down number one we have a fear of being perceived as not professional we're afraid that by asking
questions we'll will appear as annoying we're we're not comfortable with our language skills and being able to challenge the clients in ways that are constructive there's a whole book it's on the Shelf it's called The Challenger sale that the point is not to get the sale but to ask questions to make the
person think because then you Rise Above the Rest imagine you and I are in a pitch meeting and there's like 20 other competitors yeah we don't even know what we're doing what do you think our odds are of getting the client to trust us to believe in us to to see their Vision
much much higher than those other kids I promise you and we don't even have a portfolio we can go in there we can win it without a portfolio so it's this discomfort and you use very specific words like we're grilling the client we're putting them in the hot seat mhm we're challenging them
we're moving them for from a certain to an uncertain State on purpose M we're not going to be perceived as professional but the problem is no one taught you how to be a professional with a client you made I would argue no one taught you how to be a professional in your relationships
either when it comes to this kind of communication to be honest or to be an ideal partner we to be an IDE part professional but that's a different kind of relationship there so in a business context how' you learn these rules probably from other artists who didn't Succeed in Business themselves imagining how
it's supposed to work with the safety and content of Academia so they paint a very idealistic picture of how it's supposed to work without any real understanding of really how it works I went to one of the best design schools in the country no one there taught me this so I was freshly
graduated into the world not knowing how you play the game and the game that's played in art school is whoever does the best work wins naturally that seems about right it's also why sometimes the highest performing athletes are total deags in real life they learned how to play one kind of game really
well but they didn't learn how to be freaking human that's good and why is it so unusual that there are athletes who are actually good people and we write about them we cherish them and the rest of them are deags so you know how to excel at making something doesn't make you a
good person it doesn't make you a good communicator it doesn't make you a good partner it definitely doesn't make you a good client m or a buyer or a seller so a person who's hearing this and their level of awareness has now elevated right let's assume let's assume we'll make that we'll make
that very broad stroke assumption and they're sitting there and they may not have good internal dialogue so they may be in a state of like damn I handled that last sale I should have know what Chris is saying man I in my relationship I I I I was trying to be a good
a good good partner but I was actually forcing my own selfish desires of like being good or doing the right thing and it's like that was more about me what is something that they need to make peace with to not feel frantic in these situations to not make these same mistakes again I
don't want you to give me tactics I just like I think this is more of a mindset psychological thing what would you recommend they do to begin exiting this Loop that they've been playing the part that always confuses me about people and how they work and why I'm a horrible teacher because when
I hear a good idea I just apply right but clearly that's not how most people work it only took one time for my therapist to tell me say this to your wife I never had to bring that same issue to her ever again nor anything that remotely sounded like that cuz I'm an
intelligent creative person I can I can apply this broadly to lots of things you wi are different bro you're for me to help that person who's watching this video and thinking gosh how do I do this how do I have to change my mind well first you have to just be willing to
accept that maybe there's a better way I did a webinar recently and the webinar was about having a strong bias towards action I said from my perspective the biggest predictor of future success is a person who has a strong bias towards action and a person from my community former member of my community
said Chris I disagree with that oh sometimes the best thing is to do nothing to sit to be still to be quiet and to to meditate tape what are your thoughts on that I said hey if doing nothing works do nothing do more of nothing I don't know how doing nothing changes anything
doing nothing changes nothing no I understand if you're busy running around trying lots of things and nothing seems to work that you need to take a moment to reflect but I think it's not in the action that the problem it's your process of choosing which action to take was the problem okay wait
wait wait wait wait unpack that for me my brain my couldn't even understand that last statement one more time so when when there's an input and an output there's a u what is it a cause and effect mhm so when the effect isn't what we want we blame the cause like if I'm
not successful I'm not happy if I'm not feeling like I'm living my best life then I say well taking action is the thing that led to that I said no it's not you just took the wrong action oh got it thinking the decision like why you chose that action for example I took
an online course didn't and get the results well let's unpack why you picked that online course to take let's talk about the commitments that you made and so there were 300 options that you picked why'd you pick this one cuz they're the loudest they pressured me into doing it and they said all
the things I wanted to hear I'm like well what is that easy no work instant results and so they understand how to sell to you they they hooked into your base emotions and your desires to be understood to have instant results I sell people difficult solutions that are hard to do CU I
know in my life nothing worth having is easy and so they're like whoa there are two people who offer two different paths forward one who's like it's going to suck you're going to question yourself but I promise you it'll get better at some point the other person's like it's going to be easy
I guarantee you the result you're going to love everything it's a miracle pill versus the not Miracle workout that's in that's pain it's slow but it's real and it's lasting this is quick potentially but you're going to be on that pill for a long time and the and the truth is it was
a sugar pill and you bought it so you're like well courses don't work coaches don't work all these scammer gurus out there why'd you pick that one so people don't want to take responsibility for what it is that they're doing that's the theme I'm hearing right there's there's no accountability I believe in
radical accountability you are where you are outside of like you 1 through 18 which you don't have a lot of control over MH but now if you're in your adulthood you live where you live because you choose to live there or you choose not to live somewhere else you work with a horrible
boss because you're too scared to go find another job you're stuck in a relationship because you're scared you think this is the best you're ever going to get so the narrative that you're perpetuating constantly is from a place of lack from a place of inability from a place of lack of accountability well
it's very much victim mindset all these things happen to me not for me not I'm not in control I'm out of control I'm not in control I have no agency I have no autonomy I'm not self-directed I have no free will unfortunately I know a lot of people like this Chris why does
this keep happening to me oh I'm powerless to change this I say I guess you are I cannot argue that you choose to be you will be stuck we're talking about a lot and as you do you got me thinking but I want to stay in this particular pocket around it's not necessarily
what you did but it was the thinking that led you to doing the thing that you did that's flawed yeah I would love to understand because if someone's watching and they're in this Perpetual Loop of taking action on things that are not serving them then we need to change the thinking correct yes
how would you go about help helping someone change their thinking or what would you recommend to someone to rewire that thinking so they can take better action okay the first thing is and this is going to be a painful thing for them to do is to imagine their lives on this course that
they're on right now okay and say well 10 years later is this going to get any better if I continue on this path 20 years later by the time you're ready to die in your deathbed and you look back and you're in hospice and you look back on all the decisions and you
hadn't changed anything are you happy with the decisions you've made to stay in this state physically stay in the state you live in or stay in this mental state and if the answer is no I want you to go to the darkest way that that's going to turn out well I'm going to
live an unfulfilled life I'll be living hand to mouth I wasn't able to take care of my parents and I watch them suffer my family my parents my wife my partner had some emergency and I didn't have the finances to support them the work never got better natur the workout worse over time
instead of going from 30 bucks an hour to 20 bucks an hour to like I'll just take anything I'll do this for a sandwich so you're saying go to the extrem take it to the extreme negative if you continue down this path what would it lead to right when I say the extreme
negative I don't mean to be a doomsday or catastrophizing it what I'm saying is look at the trend lines okay and then take the trend line all the way to the end okay so we know this there's a something called the sunk loss policy a loss aversion bias is like we have a
stock it's going down and we're losing money but we won't sell the stock why because if we sell it we'll lose money right so we think if we don't sell it we won't lose money that's the thinking so your life is that stock things are going down your relationship is not as strong
you're not as intimate you're not as connect connected you don't have as much joy your your account is going from 100,000 to 880,000 to 60,000 and you think oh it'll be okay it's magical thinking so I I take my moments when I don't like something I take it to that moment instantly and
it forces me to make a decision do I want to be there CU I can see the trend lines and conversely if your trend lines moving up and you're getting more opportunities and you're you're being appreciated for all that you do that more opportunities keep opening up and you're worth more every single
time you open your mouth this is where you want to be you're doing the best work of your life you're in the best shape of your life life you're the clearest you've ever been well stop doing that that would make no sense whatsoever that makes a lot of sense so when things are
working really well why would you stop something going just stop and people do this all the time that's very true oh Chris uh I ran um a Google ad campaign three years ago I had so much clients and now I don't have any clients what' you do I stopped running ads Chris I
was working with a coach I made so much progress in my life and then I stopped working with a coach in my life it's gone downhill I don't know why people do this all the time because people have an inflated sense of knowledge and wisdom and experience they do something right once and
they start lecturing and telling people like what to do what did you say the other day you were like success has many fathers failures has only one mother I feel like that's in alignment here when a lot of success is happening it's like oh yeah we're doing great this is and that I'm
I'm so I'm on that trajectory it's like all right we can keep it up that inflated sense and then it's like no wonder why the results haven't kept coming because you didn't humble yourself and just stay in that pocket of what works whether it's coaching whether it's Google ads and then with failure
which is the negative side you you almost like want to retreat you don't even want to look into it before I ask the question that I have do you have more thoughts about this because you said the first thing someone needs to do is identify the trend lines and take it to its
extreme negative yes I have more steps go ahead when you see where it's going you don't like where it's going make a new decision my thing is people are always looking for perfect and it's um it's a Pursuit that fools go on it's the pursuit of fools find somebody that you resonate with
that has done what it is that you want to do that's been there before doesn't have to be the perfect person in fact often times it's never the perfect person and do what they tell you to do and do it religiously don't try to alter it create people have this problem like oh
here's how you make a pie well I want to switch out ingredients like you haven't even made one good pie in your life what why are people why are we not people why are we like this like every time I talk with you I feel like you're wired different wired for wealth but
that it's it's almost like self-sabotage it's like you hire a personal trainer the personal trainer you know discovers puts you on a regimen and then when you're in the middle of the workout it's like well this is something that I I don't want to do I don't want to do it like this
it's like you don't know how to do it like the personal trainer who's gotten the success why are you trying to reformat the way in which it's done that will lead you to success and I've had my resistance with you over my Years everybody does and in my reflection I'm like dude you
could have saved yourselves a few months by just Blind Faith doing this so that would be a detour of like what is causing us to stay and I know it's probably fear and the discomfort of change and all these things and trying to stay comfortable and the ego but there's a lot of
disservice that you're doing to yourself your life and your loved ones by staying in that Loop let me tell you what it is I said it before and I think there will be a better expression when I hear it I'll use that new expression instead we have an overinflated sense of self like
we are capable of more than we are that we think we're smarter and we're wiser than we are and this is what I know and and this will hurt some people I find that the most educated people have a similar idea the more I learn the more I learn I don't know yeah
and it's always ignorant people who think they have all the answers so if you come to that conclusion I know how to do this I don't need this I'm going to modify this workout I'm not going to eat that food you're being really ignorant that's why I say it's going to hurt some
people so you know why you say I'm wir Different cuz I'm smart enough to know I don't know anything and I hold this position of it's called the hold strong ideas weekly mhm I have an opinion it's a very strong opinion but as soon as a new one comes I let it go
and that's the problem people become so attached to these things things because it's scary to try a new thing out it is right it is and I've told you I hire coaches I go on programs I hear new ideas I hear criticism for people who are underqualified to even be in the room
with me but I'll listen to it I'll absorb it and I'll ask myself is this helpful to me well I don't care your qualifications I don't care what your CV looks like if it's a good idea I should take that idea and that's what it means to be a critical thinker it's not
to say I'm critical of your thoughts I'm critical of my thoughts you just happen to be in the room when I'm critiquing my own thoughts that's why I love having stimulating dialogue with people who understand bigger more Soulful deep ideas because then we can do that dance and that's why I enjoy our
conversation so much well thank you I enjoy our conversations too give me the next step then okay so you've identified you don't want you don't want to go where you're going right you're going to pick somebody that mostly gets what you want yes and you're going to the third step is then do
what they say very Faithfully very religiously and try to do without modification at some point you have grown and changed and you won't even recognize who you are and then you start to say what is my way of doing this we tend to skip that step okay so we don't learn it we
try to modify right away and then we just make a hot mess of everything so first learn it do it Faithfully like you could do it in your sleep you put in your hours of repetition and then you start to modify and say like what is my way of doing this how do
I make this different better or tailored for a different audience something how do I say this in my voice and that's when you start to experience a level of Discovery and invention and I think it's a beautiful place to be and if you just do that and repeat that over and over again
you're going to be exactly where you want to be in fact you'll be Beyond where you think you should be I am doing things experiencing things Mo that I could have never dreamt let me tell you you've been here a couple times mhm trial's been here and the thing that you say to
me usually both of you it's the same you're grinning ear to ear it's like I can get used to this yeah yeah yeah you can you could get used to living in Southern California one of the most expensive places to live in idealic weather living in a multi-million dollar home when there's like
beautiful designer furniture and Equipment hanging out with really good people eating really good food because that's the best of the best we get to experience that together and if you ask me when I was a 17-year-old kid Liv living in the valley in Silicon Valley like where were you going to be living
I'm like I don't know how much money would you make I hope 100 Grand someday what kind of car would you drive maybe a BMW 5 series someday that was it that was the limitation of my own thinking my own experiences but I'm telling you if you adopt this mindset and I'm not
saying this to to Pat myself on the back but people are fascinated by the way I look at the world yes well I'm here to be your teacher but people don't want to learn they hear it and they go on and do it exactly the way they've always been doing it I forget
who said this I'd love to cite the source but there's a line it's a woman if nothing changes nothing changes yes and if you keep doing what you're doing you're going to keep getting what you're getting so keep getting it that's why I said to this person if doing nothing is the way
you make progress continue to do nothing I say that in all seriousness and sometimes doing nothing is the right way but very rarely is it the right way I got to ask you this question that hit me while you were talking about the four steps of finding the trend finding the coach do
with faith everything they say and then iterating by discovering your own way are people that are suffering or experiencing these Loops of not getting to where they want to be not properly identifying the trends to then go down this path I suspect so but I suspect they've not even asked themselves to look
at the trends amazing amazing because the more me and you have these conversations every time there's a problem that we ever discuss outside of like the Tactical like here's the questions you want to say in a sales framework or here's the negotiation technique or here's how to use Photoshop it always comes back
to this this mindset thing of being in your own way in my own personal experience I don't believe that no one is going to do the work I I believe that they need some sort of event to happen for the work to be meaningful for them because there's a lot of and it's
funny when I went to Egypt for months and was away from the United States I realized that there wasn't this Perpetual like how to make your life better mindset and all these like there's I feel like on my Facebook feed and maybe that's what I want to see it's like improvement improvement improvement
it's like I didn't see much of that in Egypt so in the United States I believe that there's a lot of this perpetuation of things that you're supposed to be doing of things that you should be doing of and it makes people feel exhausted because like well I guess just existing is not
enough or just doing and I know as entrepreneurs we have this desire to constantly self-improve and grow but for those that are listening and that are hearing this and they're like I want to grow I want to do this you have to find a reason that makes it meaningful to you so you
can be consistent in its Pursuit do you have any thoughts against or for what I just said anything like that well I think your feed is reflection of your State of Mind people think the feed is this magical weird thing I mean I know that that you're being shoved things down your throat
the fact that you stop engaging with certain kinds of content or maybe you weren't see seeing it as much or wasn't in your feet because you're in a different country they don't Target you MH CU they think people maybe in Egypt don't have the kind of money to spend could be okay and
and so when you're back in the US the people you follow the people you interact with you You' mentioned many times I'm with a bunch of killers right now well what Killers want they need to kill then you want to be a killer yeah and that's how that works so it's kind of
um education by osmosis sure sure law of averages that's what's happening there sure and I think there's something that's really beautiful about the United States that doesn't exist in many countries this idea of exceptionalism that within each person The Humble person woman or man child can Rise Up from their humble beginnings and
then achieve anything and it's a very remarkable thing that is encouraged here sometimes it's called the evils of capitalism and this this ing the rat race and all kind of stuff but you know what where do you think most of the new ideas come from the brands that changed the world the ideas
that change the world it happens often times here here yeah and there are countries my wife's from Taiwan there's a very happy middle class there but they don't push to be more what you get from that is a lot of people at peace the shop owner who makes noodles and bakes bread they've
become like European almost instantly and it's okay to exist like that and it's fine but then I ask them people like how much money you make here and they tell me and it's atrociously low I'm like wow that's why you can't buy anything you don't have discretionary income and that's really tricky so
I don't I'm not all for like let's burn ourselves out and let's try to get more more more and the pursuit of pursuit I think there can be a balance and I hope that I'm living that balance where I get to spend a lot of free time talking to people like you being
able to go on trips with my family or for work or whatever and I choose everything I volunteer to create the webinars I volunteer to stay up to 2:00 or 3: in the morning and if I don't want to I just say cancel it and it's fine I love that I love the
the philosophy of I volunteer and I too now that I'm continuing to progress enjoy being able to have conversations like this and yes that was a segue to end this conversation because we're going to have more conversations like this on the channel I know that this started from a place of relational and
then we went into roleplay we went into uh health and wellness and well-being and becoming better for me what I learned from Chris one of the biggest themes that kind of overarches all of this is a level of presence in your life both personally and professionally to be able to observe these things
as they're happening then ask yourself questions as to how can I improve this so the situations that I do not like or the situations that don't benefit me can continue to progress and improve that is probably the biggest takeaway I get from you cuz I feel like when I'm in your presence I
even I even feel more present so I'm trying to find the theme the golden thread that brings us all together but please tell us in the comments before we wrap this video up what was your biggest takeaway and do your best to try to maybe make it into a nice oneliner and Zinger
and the one that gets the most likes from the rest of the community maybe we'll expand on in another video what are your thoughts that sounds pretty good all right if you get stuck on answering that question I'm going to reframe that question I think Mo did a great job of of setting
us up I'd like to ask you a slightly different question which what is the one thing that you heard today that you can apply the next 24 hours cuz you know my bias towards action so it's great that you're a great listener but it's better if you're a great doer and so I'm
I'm like less thinking more doing let's see where that leads us Mo doing you know what I'm saying you got to Moo that's what we're going to call the show Mo doing no all right thank you so much for tuning in to all the futurist we'll continue to see you in the future
Chris any final thoughts before we wrap that's it for me see you guys next time [Music]
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