Never Eat Alone - Book Of The Day with Keith Ferrazzi

Hey Tai here, Here's a quote almost everyone knows... "It's not what you know, it's who you know." Or at least that's how the cliché goes. Well I had a special guest here the other day, Keith Ferrazzi, a lot of you already know him. He's the author of two badass books, "Never Eat Alone" and a new one, "Who's Got Your Back". So let's talk about relationships. We recorded the video interview and you can watch the [full thing here](. Or you can read the rest of the transcript from my interview with Keith: Tai Do you believe in that old cliché that human relationships trump almost everything else you can be doing? Keith Ferrazzi: No, it doesn't trump being an idiot, right? I mean, at the end of the day, you've gotta have a basic competency in whatever you do. But, unfortunately, today, basic competency aint gonna get you there. Two arms, two legs and even a Harvard MBA isn't gonna get you there? The criticality is how are you differentiating yourself in this world? And there's no way that somebody else can surpass the differentiation that you have in a deep relationship, a trusting, loyal, connected relationship where somebody believes and knows in the heart and soul that you give a damn, that you have their back. Does that make sense? Tai: For sure. These two books kind of blend together. One of the most popular books I've ever talked about is how to win friends and influence people, that old classic. How do these two books tie together? You know, this one, a lot of people know as like a premier book on how to learn how to network and expand your social- Keith Ferrazzi: This book actually is considered this generation's. How to win friends and influence people. And we recently updated it, interestingly enough, because when it was originally written about 10 years, Facebook didn't exist. You know, it started out with me in my Palm Pilot. So the technology, we just realized that it had significantly advanced. At the time, my friend Reid Hoffman was just starting LinkedIn and today, it's absolutely ... I kind of wish we'd spend a little bit of time talking about that, it's absolutely clear that technology's a great enabler for your relationship strategy. Tai: Mark Zuckerberg's dream of connecting the world is somewhat working. Keith Ferrazzi: Well, it's actually happening. Now, there is a distinction between connecting and relating. You obviously have to connect before you can relate but connection isn't relation. And that's where I think a lot of people go awry and that is that they don't take it sufficiently far enough and they think that a connection is a relationship. The original stuff in the book is all still applied. So what's interesting is, as you may know from many other people who have come through here, that somebody says, "How long did it take you to write your first book?" Somebody asked me that today. And I said, "Well, 40 years." Because this is the culmination of a life set of wisdom. And then they try to expect you to write your second book in a year because the first one was so successful. And it actually took me a few years after the first book because I don't like to put out books just because. A lot of my friends have a business where they got this cadence. And what was [interesting 00:02:45] was this, book number one basically said, and it broke a lot of old beliefs about networking, relationships are key. Your network isn't key. In other words, you can have all the names you want in a database but that's not particularly valuable. Whether or not you can pick up a phone and those individuals will smile and be responsive to you. Now, what do you have to do in advance to have that occur? Two real things. Number one is generosity. This book is all about generosity. It's about leading in your life by being of service to other people. If you meet somebody the first thing you should be thinking of is, "How do I help? How do I help?" Tai: And that's not the way most people do it. Most people go, "Let me go to this mixer and hand out my cards and see what I-" Keith Ferrazzi: What can I get out of you, is what most people think of and that's the worst. Or at best they might be thinking, "I need to connect." No. You need to serve. The second thing you need to do is while you serve, you need to be authentic. You know, in this day and age, people don't have time to build a relationship with you. People don't think they want to build a relationship with you. Everybody else is just to damn busy. So how are you gonna arrest their attention and give yourself the moment to really build a relationship? It's gotta be through service. How do I help you? How do I help? And the more research I've done in advance of the meeting, I say, you gotta show up to every meeting with five packets of generosity. Five things you think you're gonna be able to do for this person before you even show up. That, through the conversation process I might find out that half of them are wrong. I've shown up to people and I've had this great idea, I saw that they're on the board of directors of something and I said, "Oh, I really wanna introduce you to so and so because I saw you had a shared interest in bla bla bla." And they're like, "Oh, no, I just am forced to do that because my company tells me to." All right, check, not a good packet of generosity but you go to the next one. And then through curiosity, you figure out what you can actually do for somebody. But the second thing is while you're there, you be yourself. I spend a lot of my time and a lot of the book talking about how I've spent a lot of my life not being myself. A lot of my life, running away from fear and insecurity of being a poor kid in Pittsburgh, going to a rich school, feeling like I don't belong in the room. And being bigger than myself, bragging, all the kind of crap that, even though I was highly charismatic and I was a smart kid et cetera, I was able to build connections, but I wasn't able to build the kind of intimacy that- Tai: So do you think the authenticity takes it from just a fairly deep relationship to that level of intimacy where like I like that what you said. Where people smile when you text or call? 'Cause there's a lot of people that call me or text, I might have to answer, there's very few people that you actually smile, you're like- Keith Ferrazzi: You look forward to that, that's great, that's awesome. There's an emotional resonance and there's two things. And by the way, some of the generosity happens because you're just the kind of person that people like hanging out with, right? That's that authenticity piece. Then there's another level of generosity, it's professional. You know, when you and I met, we were thinking about ways, and you're the same way, you do this naturally, you're thinking about ways you can be of service, you invited me in here. I'm being of service to you but you're definitely being of service to me, that's a professional level of generosity. But at the pinnacle, it's that personal level of generosity which is that I really understand what you need and what you're about. What's really motiv ... it's about your kids, it's about your aspiration for health and fitness. And whatever it is, whatever really ticks you. You know, it's interesting, though, is most people, you don't know that about them. So there's most salesmen will have clients that they've known for years that they don't know enough about that person- Tai: To be able to crosstalk Keith Ferrazzi: To even be able to serve. Why? 'Cause they haven't served sufficiently and they haven't been authentic enough. That's almost like a DNA strand. You lead with service and someone's like, "Oh, well, I spend a second with this person." And then, while you're spending that second with me, I need to be vulnerable enough, I need to be authentic enough that you're willing to start sharing real shit about yourself. Once you share real stuff about me- Tai: So it's sort of give or take, if you're not willing to open up, then they're not gonna open up. Keith Ferrazzi: But as soon as you give me something about who are or what you need, I serve you again. I find other ways to be of service or to your kids or to your significant other or whatever, to your charity. And then you're like, "Wow, shit, I'll spend more time with that person." And then when you do, you go even deeper and then at the end of the day, you're having a long slow dinner over a great bottle of red wine and you're real friends and you pick up the phone and smile. Tai: There's a good story. I remember when I was in sales, there was a guy, a salesman who kept reaching out. Keith Ferrazzi: We're always in sales, aren't we? Tai: Always. Keith Ferrazzi: You said we were in sales. Tai: This guy was in. I think it was pharmaceutical sales or something and he kept reaching out to the CEO, he figured he was the best contact he can make, that would never answer the phone for years and he read in an article in the news that that guy's son had been hit by a car. So, he did a little research like you said, found out that that son loved hockey. The salesman happened to know Wayne Gretzky, got Wayne Gretzky to sign a hockey stick, he delivered it to the son's hospital room and the kid was there recovering. And sure enough, a week or two later, that CEO said, "Did you send that hockey stick to my son?" Let me take you out to dinner and he ended up doing the deal. So it's like you said, it's that knowing about the ... now, one of the questions that I get a lot because I talk a lot about mentors and forming these relationships, I did this Ted x talk on the law of 33% finding people above you. One of the most common questions is, "How do you find those people and once you find them, how do you kind of pierce the veil?" I've got my own theories but I'd love to hear what you found works. Keith Ferrazzi: Well, finding them is easier than ever. You're younger than I am but I remember growing up, we had card catalogs, how are you gonna find these people? Tai: Right. Keith Ferrazzi: You know, back in the day. But today, you know, finding them is not difficult. Everybody you wanna get to know, somebody has already curated a list online. Or if you just do a little bit more of research, it's quite easy. So I don't think finding's as difficult. Tai: Okay. Keith Ferrazzi: Although I have to say that once you're in the universe or sphere, I mean, let's go real for a second. Give me a space where you might wanna aspire to spend more time. Tai: Well, one of the most common questions I get for entrepreneurs watching, investors. They wanna meet a VC, they wanna meet a tech investor. Keith Ferrazzi: Great. So one thing I can tell you is that you ratchet yourself up. I remember, when I was a kid, getting to know a lawyer was a big deal because my dad was a steelworker and we didn't know anybody who was in blue collar and some day, I wanted to go to college and getting to know a lawyer was a big deal. Now, I don't wanna know lawyers, but anyway, that's a whole different issue. Tai: Now, you don't wanna ever hear of a lawyer. Keith Ferrazzi: Exactly. But the idea of starting low, start with a local Angel investor. Who's a rich person that some friend of yours knows? That you can spend some time in. I guarantee you, that person knows other senior angels and that person probably knows the VCs. Once you get to know that individual, then, and we call this in the book warming the cold call. You begin where you can approach and you don't start going for John Doerr, you start with the appropriate people in your sphere of influence where a referral get actually get you in. You develop and you serve until that individual feels comfortable enough to be able to give you another referral and you'll be able to ratchet your way around. That's probably one of the shortest, the most safe path. Maybe not the shortest path. Once again, it's about research. You know, you can always catapult to the top if you can find the most salient thing that somebody else cares about at that point in time. Now, what gets you there? A lot of people don't realize that gatekeepers are very powerful. Most people think of gatekeepers, secretaries et cetera as the individual that's stopping me from getting to the person I wanna talk to. Well, in actuality, if you get to the quote gatekeeper, that person gives a damn about their boss. Their job is to make their boss successful. Treat that person like an influencer. Treat that person like- Tai: So don't treat them just like a means to an end. Keith Ferrazzi: Means to an end. That is your end. You want to get to know this individual, find ways to serve that individual so that that individual will give you permission to hear how you can be of service to their boss. I had an administrative assistant that one day forced me to meet somebody, despite me canceling the appointment three times. But they forced me to meet that person 'cause that person had taken them to lunch and given them flowers and candy, taken them to lunch, but more importantly, at that lunch, laid out exactly what he was going to do to make me more successful and she was absolutely right. I'm so happy I took that appointment because she had already been clear in her head what that appointment was gonna be about. Does that make sense to you? Tai: Yeah, yeah, that's great. That's somewhat similar, you know, I always say, you know Charlie Munger, the great billionaire says, "Step by step you get ahead but not necessarily in fast spurts." And so people think, "Okay, I'm broke or I'm starting, I'm starting my search for investors, and I'm gonna go from zero to hero a hundred." But you know, it's better to just ... And even the human brain is built that way. They call that the contrast bias. We're happiest when we're creating momentum and our brain can differentiate between this much momentum or this much. So if every week you're making a new contact who's a potential investor, you'll feel good, you'll feel like ... even if you're not immediately reaching Peter Thiel or something. Keith Ferrazzi: And what you're trying to do is you're trying to move from individuals who are contacts to evangelists for you. The more you invest and the more they care, it really boils down pretty simply to simple words. Find a way to help, find a way to care. And if you ... my dad used to have a great saying, it was talked about it in here. And that is that the way to get somebody to like you is to make sure they know you care about them. Tai: yeah. Keith Ferrazzi: And I used to do it the opposite way around. I used to try get people to like me by trying to be liked. Like me. Like me. You know, just like look at me, like me. Tai: But that ... it repels. Keith Ferrazzi: It repels. I mean, the energy associated with it is a significantly antagonistic energy. And from the other hand, the energy is all tell me about you. And even people who are jackasses, if you find a way, and I was coaching an executive the other day who's also just a friend, and he was explaining somebody who is just a real pain in the ass that the had to go build a relationship with. And I said, "You've already screwed yourself. You've already screwed yourself." And he says, "Yeah, but this guy, he's got such a reputation and he's been rude to me." And I said, "You already screwed yourself. If you're walking in there, braced for this guy to be a jackass, that's what's gonna happen." I said, I asked him, I said, "Have you ever met somebody who was a jackass who's now a friend of yours?" He goes, "Yeah," I say, "What's the person's name?" "Mike." "Great, it's Mike. I want you to walk in that room and I want you to psych yourself right now into seeing Mike sitting in that chair." And all of a sudden, he got it. He was like, "Oh shit, yeah, that's not Larry, the jackass, that's Mike the future friend. 'Cause I know I can get by this. I know I can do this. And this is gonna be great." And the energy. And even if the guy continues to be a jackass, then I fall back on instead of antagonism embraced for him being a jackass, this is gonna sound maybe bad but at least feel sorry for the dick. At least, you're like aw. What's it like to be a jackass like that? You don't say that aloud, by the way. But you sit there- Tai: But reframe that in your brain. Keith Ferrazzi: And reframe it in your brain as saying, "Oh, I really feel bad that that's the way this guy is. Empathetic is a big critical element of building that relationship is through empathy. Leaders don't understand that. So these concepts of relationships by the way, they aren't just for sales or investment. That was the switch from this book to this book. To realize that we've got to treat everybody around us with the same kind of purposeful, authentic and generous strategy for relationships. Even if, and particularly if we're a boss. What most people don't understand who a boss is, they think that they have because of authority that they have the assumptive relationship. They have assumptive permission to influence. The assumptive permission- Tai: It's a little bit like Michael Scott on The Office. Keith Ferrazzi: Yes, exactly. Tai: Because he was the manager that people liked him but it didn't work that way. Keith Ferrazzi: People liked him and they listened to him. The answer is, every single day, you've got a sales call to make on your people and that sales call means you gotta show up with five packets of generosity and you've gotta show up with authenticity and empathy and you've gotta build every relationship. Tai: Do you see it like that proverbial bank, you're building up each of these deposit kind of- Keith Ferrazzi: The answer is yes, however, what I really worry about is when people start thinking of a balance sheet per person. Then they start thinking of it as a transaction. I've deposited five coins, I'm expecting to see a return. And that's a bad idea. You really have to think of your life in this strategy in philosophy, you've gotta walk around the world being of service period. Right? And if somebody isn't of service back, at some point, it's fine to walk away and to realize that this isn't a good place to prioritize your investment. That's fine. But don't ever do it begrudgingly, don't ever do it resentfully. And don't ever expect. Don't ever expect. I mean I know, it's a different shift. It's a very ... it's actually a spiritual shift. It's a spiritual shift to show up and to be of service. It's a spiritual shift to show up and be vulnerable, empathetic and authentic and the good news is, it's just one of these wonderful truisms that if you do this, you will be successful and you will be happier. There are very few entrepreneurs that are really happy out there. Most of us and I count myself among entrepreneurs have chosen the different path because ... for lots of reasons. And you probably have more experience on understanding the entrepreneur mind than I do, it's not my ... I work in the fortune 500 predominantly. But what I can say is that most people that I know who have chosen the entrepreneurial path had some degree of scarcity, some degree of some chip on your shoulder, something that has driven them to go in that direction. And they're all a little bit touched like myself. Right? And they're not that happy a lot. And the great- Tai: Happiness is elusive, it's an elusive cat. That's what I say. You try to pet it, and it runs away. Keith Ferrazzi: Yeah, but what I can tell you is that if you're ... and a lot of that reason is because the entrepreneur's energy is a little skitsy and it scares the cat. But if you have a different energy, if you have a generous energy, if you have an authentic energy, you attract people. Tai: Better people. Keith Ferrazzi: It is amazing. It's only been in my 40s, to be honest with you, that I've started to live, and I see my buddy's book, Peter Diamandis there, I see Bold Abundance. I started to live my life assuming abundance. And if you live your life with the assumption of abundance and that then allows you to lead with generosity without counting. Tai: Right, 'cause you're coming from a place where- Keith Ferrazzi: You're coming from a place where you realize- Tai: You got a rich bank account internally. Keith Ferrazzi: And all you're doing is being generous and it's a lovely thing to do. Right? And if you're gonna live that life, it's amazing that sooner or later your mind, your energy shifts. You know, it's like ... and then things start to attract you, people start to attract you, deals start to attract you. You know, I've never been so rich in deal flow than when I stopped being so scarcity oriented and trying to collect it. Does that make sense to you? Tai: For sure. You know, Doctor David Buss who is one of the preeminent evolutionary psychologists, he told me, he said, "Tai, the most cutting edge science that they've been researching is what's called WTRs, welfare-tradeoff ratios or reciprocal altruism" And so at some level, this is how the human brain, and from a scientific standpoint is built, we're looking ... welfare-tradeoff ratios, we're looking for people that care about us in a ratio that's healthy. And like you said- Keith Ferrazzi: Not stalker-like. Tai: Not stalker, exactly. Yeah, well, when you have a welfare-tradeoff ratio, when you're always chasing aka the stalker, that means they're not reciprocating back so you must pull away. And that ties into game theory, you know, Nash. There's a Nobel Prize winner that found ... it's called tit for tat. So tit for tat is reciprocation back. But what's interesting, which I think you would like, in the tit for tat where you basically do back, it's two computers dueling, they say you should start out nice and generous. This is the game that works the best. Keith Ferrazzi: You know, what this is actually doing, there's two things and I wanna talk a little about how you actually practice that. What the starting out nice does, it's anthropological, it quiets the reptilian brain. The reptilian brain is controlling you, as you will know, the fight flight mechanism. And if you enter a situation and you naturally these days tribally, a tribe of one. People are running around, they're behaving like a tribe of one. Anything else that's not me and us is them. So, the way you create us is that first ovation, that authentic, that empathy, that vulnerability, that letting your guard down, that being of service, it creates us. And once you're us, you have a lot of permission. People don't fight you when you're us. Tai: Yeah, they're an ally, you create allies. Keith Ferrazzi: The problem that we found is that 50% of Americans, 50% of Americans say that no one has their back. And when you look into that, you realize that to train the brain, you don't train it through knowledge, you train it through experience. If you don't have experience having a few people around you that have your back, who you can be vulnerable with, put your guard down with, who are generous to you, you're generous to them, you're truthful, you're candid, the real essence of core relationships, we call it intimacy, generosity, candor and accountability. Intimacy, generosity, candor and accountability. If you don't have a few people in your life that have your back, then it's very difficult to go out in the world, practicing accelerated intimacy, generosity, candor and accountability, you don't have the practice going deep. Tai: Yeah, I agree. Keith Ferrazzi: So this gives you the practice, and this allows you to manifest it at scale. And even though I wrote the book- Tai: So this is almost the internal and this is the multiplier. Keith Ferrazzi: Exactly. And you've gotta have this to do this well. Unless you happen to be one of these lucky sons of bitches who carries this with you naturally, there are very few people. Most of entrepreneurs are not that, right? They're not safe, comfortable- Tai: Steve Jobs definitely wasn't that. Keith Ferrazzi: He wasn't one of those guys. Tai: Anybody who gets fired from their own company, the Twitter guys are falling apart. Well this was awesome. Well, Keith, thank you for being here. Make sure you check out Never eat alone. This is on my recommended list. I need to ... I haven't read Who's got your back but I will, especially after this conversation. It was great. Check out the books, reach you, what's the best? Facebook, twitter? Keith Ferrazzi: Well, Facebook is easy. Twitter is great. But if you're interested in a dialogue- Tai: Yeah, for those of you who have- Keith Ferrazzi: Crosstalk and that kind of stuff. Just go on Keithferrazzi.com and you can just message us right there and somebody will get back to you. Tai: Awesome. Keith, thank you. Keith Ferrazzi: My pleasure. Tai: Thank you, this was great. Hope you found this helpful. Stay Strong, Tai [Manage Email Alerts]( | [Unsubscribe From All]( | [Unsubscribe From Tai's Emails Only]( You have received this email to {EMAIL} because you are a registered [Tailopez.com]( subscriber. 8581 Santa Monica Blvd. Suite #703 West Hollywood, CA USA Do you like this email ?