Episode 152

Persuading others when facts don't seem to matter, with Lee Carter

Do you really know what people think about you or your professional brand?

Are the words you use to speak about yourself or your products and services creating the right connections in the minds of your prospective customers?

Is there a better way to communicate with people who have vastly different opinions and beliefs than just expressing your own beliefs more loudly or disparaging theirs because you know they are not right?

My guest on this episode is Lee Carter and Lee has written an amazing book called Persuasion: Convincing others when facts don't seem to matter. You'll likely hear me say several times in this episode that most of the recent books I've read on Influence and persuasion have been rehashes of Cialdini or Greene, unless they've actually been by those guys. There are some exceptions but it is quite rare to encounter knowledge in this field that is original and valuable and Lee has, in my opinion, managed that successfully.

In this episode, we'll discuss the rationality of people in general, language landmines, communicating with people who hold polar opposite beliefs and the role of active empathy in persuasion. We also got onto discussing how Lee was able to see that Donald Trump was going to win in 2016 when everyone else was saying he couldn't. I even managed to get Lee to share some of her top media tips from her many appearances on national media in the US.

Lee's book Persuasion: Convincing Others In A World Where Facts Don't Seem To Matter is available to buy in paperback, kindle format and on Audible. This is one I recommend getting on multiple formats because you're gonna want to refer to it time and time again.

(I've been waiting to bring this episode to you for so long and am super happy to finally release it. It's not been without problems. Despite the whole summer hiatus thing with my new job, and then getting covid, I also had to deal with technology issues on the platform I recorded the episode with. No one said podcasting would be easy... lol. That service actually offered to sponsor my episodes but I declined it as I can not in good conscience recommend a service I've had so many issues with. Just know that getting this episode to you has been a labour of love and it really is one of my personal favourite episodes of Podfluence. Let me know if it is yours too.)

Next time, It's just me and I'm going to be talking about the 7 deadly sins of podcasting. I hope you will join me for that.

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Come and join other professionals who are building their authority through podcasting in the Podfluencers Facebook Group https://bit.ly/3aesFPJ and get your free download of How to build authority with podcasts

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Transcript
John Ball:

Welcome to Podfluence.

John Ball:

Today we are covering a topic that is really at the heart of everything

John Ball:

I created this show to be about, and that is the art of persuasion.

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it is very hard to come across guests who are real experts in the world

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of persuasion, and yet my guest today is truly that, and that makes

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me very lucky as a persuasion and influence based podcast to be able

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to introduce my guest to you today.

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For anyone who's ever had challenges communicating with their family.

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Persuasion skills can be really important, not just for you, but for

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everyone in the family that if you can all find better ways to communicate

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with each other, you're gonna have better, healthier family relationships.

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And my guest and I talk about that somewhat here as well.

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Other topics that are gonna come up in this episode are things like language

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landmines, those triggering words that can sometimes mean different things to

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different people, how to communicate with people who have polar opposite opinions.

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Shouldn't we be able to have conversations with people who disagree with us,

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maybe quite vehemently disagree with us without it resorting into

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a shouting match or personal abuse.

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Having active empathy, which is something we talked about during the

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show and transcending the divisions that we have in society and often in

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our closer relationships with people.

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Even things like dealing with gossip in professional situations, like if

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there's rumors flying around about you that are not particularly favorable,

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something that my guest herself had to deal with in her job, you'll see

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here how she dealt with that and how you might want to as well, if that is a

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situation you've ever found yourself in.

John Ball:

My guest is called Lee Carter.

Her book is called Persuasion:

Convincing Others When Facts Don't Seem To Matter.

Her book is called Persuasion:

Available both on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible, and I can highly recommend it

Her book is called Persuasion:

It's my hope that you'll enjoy listening to this conversation

Her book is called Persuasion:

as much as I enjoyed having it,

Her book is called Persuasion:

So all that remains for me to say is enjoy the show.

Her book is called Persuasion:

Welcome to the show.

Her book is called Persuasion:

I am a very lucky podcaster today because I'm getting to speak to, an author of

Her book is called Persuasion:

a book that I have absolutely loved reading, and I read a lot of books

Her book is called Persuasion:

about influence and persuasion, and I often find that the new ones that come

Her book is called Persuasion:

out, are usually just regurgitations of things that have happened before.

Her book is called Persuasion:

This one is not.

Her book is called Persuasion:

This one has some new content in there.

Her book is called Persuasion:

Some stuff that I really wanted to get there is really helpful to anyone who

Her book is called Persuasion:

has a business, anyone who has a brand, and to anyone who has customers who they

Her book is called Persuasion:

want to have a better relationship with.

Her book is called Persuasion:

Let me properly welcome to the show, first of all though, Lee Carter,

Her book is called Persuasion:

it is great to have you with me.

Lee Carter:

Thanks so much.

Lee Carter:

so much.

Lee Carter:

I'm really excited to be.

John Ball:

I've been very much looking forward to speaking with you the

John Ball:

reasons that I just laid out there and more besides the book is fascinating

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and I definitely want to get into some of the stuff that you talk about

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in there because, you dunno what to expect when you start reading a book

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about persuasion and it's so many of them have been just the same old

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things repeated over and over again.

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Or maybe just put it in different ways, but you are writing from professional

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experience and from clients who you've worked with to help them grow their

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influence and be more persuasive.

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And I think people are really gonna look forward to hearing about that and

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definitely gonna want to hear about the importance of empathy and persuasion.

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And we're gonna get to all of that as we go along.

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But I want to start off by asking you, who is somebody for you, who

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you look up to, who you respect and of admire for their influence and

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persuasion and how they have gone about?

Lee Carter:

There's a few people in my life who have really, I think,

Lee Carter:

shaped my view of persuasion.

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One is my aunt she was my grandmother's sister, and I always found it

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amazing that she could change the way that she was talking about what

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she wanted based on the audience.

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So she and her husband were very, very different.

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I always saw the way she was able to navigate getting.

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To buy into a change in decorating that she wanted to

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do, that he might not wanna do.

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And then I've noticed in my family, there's a lot of those kinds of dynamics.

Lee Carter:

A lot of people with strong opinions, different opinions.

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And the way to get your way or to change people's mind is generally

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by speaking softly in a language of the other person, not loudly.

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in your own language to try and change somebody's mind.

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Yet it almost never works when you're trying to push really hard

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to get your point of view across.

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So that was something that, that always shaped me early on.

Lee Carter:

And the other is about.

Lee Carter:

Oh gosh, it was about 17 years ago, I heard Frank Luntz, who was one of

Lee Carter:

the founders of my firm, speaking at a conference about the impact of language

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on the 2004 election in the United States.

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And I thought it was just so fascinating to think.

Lee Carter:

It's not just your policies or your positions, it's how you express them and

Lee Carter:

articulate them can really galvanize your base, change the way people view you.

Lee Carter:

And it was something I'd always believed in, but to see it in practice and

Lee Carter:

laid out that way was just something fascinating and it felt like I, it's

Lee Carter:

something I always wanted to do.

John Ball:

So you lay out some of this in your book because you talk about how

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you were able to predict just by how persuasive particular candidates were the

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result of the election of Donald Trump.

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And you, you ha said, regardless of your political opinions, like you had

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that like no, he's got the persuasions thing down, and you were able to see

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those sorts of things and I know.

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A subtitle of your book is Persuading When Facts Don't Matter.

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And I think anyone who's gotten into influence and persuasion

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knows how important the emotional side of things are.

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The connection side of things really are, and I think a lot of people forget that.

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They think the facts should be enough.

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The data, the information should be enough.

John Ball:

And this is something that, that you talk about a lot.

John Ball:

And I think even in, in the examples you've given there, it's like you're

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suggesting that the emotional side of that is, Particularly important,

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but I wonder if you can te tell us a little bit more about where you first

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started to recognize that emotional side of persuasion and what drew you

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into wanting to work in that area.

Lee Carter:

Yeah, I think I've always been fascinated why the

Lee Carter:

language that you choose and you.

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Changes the way you view something entirely.

Lee Carter:

When I was growing up and I was in high school at my family's dinner, we

Lee Carter:

always used to have these different kinds of conversations and we'd

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have to come prepared with a topic.

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And so I would come to the table and say, what's the difference between a nerd, a

Lee Carter:

geek, a dork, and a dweeb and a loser?

Lee Carter:

If you looked in the dictionary, they all sound exactly the same, but each one of

Lee Carter:

them makes you think slightly different.

Lee Carter:

It's each one of them has a picture that's just a little bit different,

Lee Carter:

and then we would discuss the nuance.

Lee Carter:

And so we often think when you go out there that you're just, if you say

Lee Carter:

this, you get your point across by communicating the words you choose

Lee Carter:

have a huge, huge impact, right?

Lee Carter:

It makes all the difference.

Lee Carter:

So I've always been fascinated with that.

Lee Carter:

And then our firm at Ms.

Lee Carter:

Lansing Partners is the firm in politics that started a lot of shifts

Lee Carter:

in perception based on language.

Lee Carter:

So it used to be called global warming.

Lee Carter:

Now it's called climate.

Lee Carter:

People used to debate whether or not the weather was getting warmer,

Lee Carter:

whether it was, what it was, once you talked about chi climate change, it

Lee Carter:

changed the conversation entirely.

Lee Carter:

Now we're looking again, that climate change has been completely

Lee Carter:

politicized and so it's almost time again for a refresh in that language.

Lee Carter:

And so we're seeing people now start talking about more extreme weather and

Lee Carter:

what we need to do to try and hold that back, and it becomes less political.

Lee Carter:

also know the difference between things like the estate tax and the death tax

Lee Carter:

and estate tax seems something like, oh, who cares as poor, wealthy people

Lee Carter:

on the hill, they can afford extra tax.

Lee Carter:

A death tax seems something that we're all gonna have to face.

Lee Carter:

And it seems very unfair.

Lee Carter:

A tax just for dying.

Lee Carter:

You can change the way people view things by the way that you talk about

Lee Carter:

them or the way that you frame them.

Lee Carter:

about the difference between used cars and pre-owned vehicles.

Lee Carter:

Same thing, very different outcome in how you perceive them.

Lee Carter:

When I started to learn that this was a discipline, I thought, oh my

Lee Carter:

gosh, how amazing that you could spend your career helping people

Lee Carter:

communicate more effectively.

Lee Carter:

And our whole philosophy, it's not what you say that

Lee Carter:

matters, it's what people hear.

Lee Carter:

And our job each and every day is try to find, there's many ways

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you can talk about an issue, your company, your product, your self.

Lee Carter:

There's only one that's really gonna have the impact and drive

Lee Carter:

the results you're looking to find.

Lee Carter:

And our job is to find it.

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And so in some.

Lee Carter:

you almost have to suspend your own beliefs and get in the i, into the mindset

Lee Carter:

of your target audience in order to really persuade them, because it's never

Lee Carter:

gonna start with what you wanna say.

John Ball:

Yeah, there's there's an thing that people always teach in public

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speaking skills or certainly the good public speaking trainers teach it.

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That the most important conversation in public speaking and presentations is

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the conversation that's going on inside the head of the audience, not the one

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that you are necessarily having them.

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And I think this is sort of along those kinds of lines, right?

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It's about how you are being perceived and the thoughts that you are eliciting

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with people rather than what you actually perhaps want to be putting across.

John Ball:

Like the meaning of the information is what's being understood

John Ball:

rather than what's being.

Lee Carter:

That's absolutely right.

Lee Carter:

When you think about so many of the conversations I have with clients or

Lee Carter:

people who are trying to understand how to persuade, start with, well, if people

Lee Carter:

only knew X, Y, Z, then they would know.

Lee Carter:

We are a good company, a good product, but people are, aren't rational beings

Lee Carter:

who occasionally behave Emotional.

Lee Carter:

People are emotional beings who.

Lee Carter:

Occasionally behave rationally.

Lee Carter:

So we really have to understand what it is that they're feeling in

Lee Carter:

order to try and engage with them.

Lee Carter:

It's a very different position to come from because a lot of people

Lee Carter:

say, okay, if I wanna persuade someone, they need to behave more

Lee Carter:

responsibly towards the climate.

Lee Carter:

They need to understand by 2030 x, y, Z is gonna happen.

Lee Carter:

I'm gonna go through a laundry list of facts, but that's not how we process.

Lee Carter:

, I facts aren't going to change my heart, my mind, because you have your facts.

Lee Carter:

And I'll Google and I'll find my own facts that are gonna contradict yours.

Lee Carter:

So you said by 2030, I found one that said by 2040.

Lee Carter:

So who cares?

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And it's just not gonna work that way.

Lee Carter:

But if in instead you say, do you love camping?

Lee Carter:

Do you love sitting outside by the fire and looking up at the stars?

Lee Carter:

Or you try to find a place where you can connect with someone

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about the wonder of the planet.

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And most often you'll be able to find.

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and you can say, do you wanna be able to do that with your

Lee Carter:

children and grandchildren?

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I think let's make sure that we start working to ensure

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that those areas are protected.

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Do you wanna go fishing with your kids or whatever it is?

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Find most people, even those who deny climate change will say, you know what?

Lee Carter:

I don't do it.

Lee Carter:

I don't do it for the Al Gores.

Lee Carter:

I do it for the outdoors because I do love the.

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and I wanna protect that and make sure that generations to come have

Lee Carter:

access to all of these things.

Lee Carter:

And you can start changing the conversation, but it's not gonna

Lee Carter:

be by saying, do you know if you keep going the way you're going by

Lee Carter:

2030, we're gonna be underwater.

Lee Carter:

That just overwhelms people, scares people, put them in anxiety and isn't

Lee Carter:

it might even make them fight back and that's just not the way to engage.

Lee Carter:

It's really by trying to go into their emotion and find that

Lee Carter:

connection point where we can both.

John Ball:

I think that's one of the things I did particularly enjoy in your

John Ball:

book is that you really do talk about how you can, how we can start to communicate

John Ball:

across what seemed like great divides of very polarized opinions these days,

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and that we have to essentially use our skills and our understanding to

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try and get into someone else's model of the world and their language and

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what they're understanding by things.

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Because it's very I think we've seen this many times, and I've seen this

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in certainly in personal development events, that we often will hear

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the same words, but have completely different meanings attached to them.

John Ball:

And again, I know this is something that you talk about in the book,

John Ball:

but can you just tell us a little bit more about like the different

John Ball:

understandings of essentially the same thing that seem to separate.

Lee Carter:

Oh, absolutely.

Lee Carter:

There are words that you can find.

Lee Carter:

I almost call, we call them language land.

Lee Carter:

Sometimes people call them trigger words, but there are words that can

Lee Carter:

be heard entirely differently based on what you believe to begin with.

Lee Carter:

So for example, we're just talking about climate change.

Lee Carter:

Climate change to somebody who is on board.

Lee Carter:

It is obvious it is truth.

Lee Carter:

It is a hundred percent happening and we need to do everything we can to stop it.

Lee Carter:

So they hear climate change, they don't get triggered.

Lee Carter:

When you talk to people who haven't necessarily gotten on that sort

Lee Carter:

of environmental engagement curve, and they're sort of somewhere.

Lee Carter:

They're, they hear climate change is political, and it's not

Lee Carter:

that they don't believe that we need to do right by the planet.

Lee Carter:

It's what they think is climate change means to them, things

Lee Carter:

are gonna get more expensive.

Lee Carter:

There's a sense of unfairness because we can do everything right in our country.

Lee Carter:

But then if you look over at what's happening in China, it's unfair.

Lee Carter:

They're already struggling to pay for their bills.

John Ball:

Yeah.

Lee Carter:

you're gonna tell them they're gonna have to change everything.

Lee Carter:

Things are gonna get more.

Lee Carter:

They also hear people who believe in climate change hate people like me.

Lee Carter:

So that's a movement for somebody else.

Lee Carter:

Once you understand how they view that, then you can start

Lee Carter:

communicating with them.

Lee Carter:

And it's almost like breathing.

Lee Carter:

We say it's like in with a good air out, with a bad.

Lee Carter:

It's like in with a good language, out with a bad.

Lee Carter:

How do you exclude from your conversation?

Lee Carter:

Any language it's gonna be triggering or.

Lee Carter:

almost any debate you can find this, you can also find the same

Lee Carter:

thing in corporate messaging.

Lee Carter:

There's certain narratives that exist out there that, that get triggered.

Lee Carter:

So one of the narratives that a lot that's out there is that

Lee Carter:

companies put profits before people.

Lee Carter:

And so when you start talking about raising fees or doing something like

Lee Carter:

that, or corporate executive convers, if you're not careful, you can end

Lee Carter:

yourself square in the middle of it.

Lee Carter:

A huge problem because everything that you say is gonna be held underneath

Lee Carter:

the scrutiny of those narratives.

Lee Carter:

So it's really important when you're communicating to an audience with

Lee Carter:

somebody who has a different opinion and then you, you understand what baggage

Lee Carter:

exists that they believe about you.

Lee Carter:

Is it that you put profits before people?

Lee Carter:

Is it that you judge people like them?

Lee Carter:

Is it that you know?

Lee Carter:

Things are unfair, is it?

Lee Carter:

Whatever that is, you need to understand what that is really deeply

Lee Carter:

so that you can avoid any language that's gonna be that kind of language

Lee Carter:

that creates, a social media land fire of that you see all the time.

John Ball:

Yeah.

John Ball:

And is this generally something that people don't really get unless they've

John Ball:

done some work with some, with an agency like yours or with somebody who's been

John Ball:

able to come in and highlight these particular things into a, to a company?

Lee Carter:

Yeah.

Lee Carter:

One of the things that I've found over time, and a lot of people now

Lee Carter:

talk about the importance of empathy, which most people think about.

Lee Carter:

It's just putting yourself in the shoes of your audience.

Lee Carter:

I teach it as something that I call active empathy because we all

Lee Carter:

have the ability to have empathy.

Lee Carter:

I mean, 99% of us have the ability to have empathy.

Lee Carter:

Unless you know you've got narcissistic disorder or some

Lee Carter:

other kinds of things like that.

Lee Carter:

Most of us can have empathy, but we have natural empathy for people who are just

Lee Carter:

like us, not for people who are different.

Lee Carter:

And so if we are trying to communicate with people who are different with than

Lee Carter:

us, which by the way is most of the time, we have to suspend our own beliefs and

Lee Carter:

put ourselves in the shoes of the other, not just in why they're doing what they're

Lee Carter:

doing, but in three different categories.

Lee Carter:

So to me, active empathy is made up of three different places.

Lee Carter:

The first is emotional empathy, which is why do people feel the way they feel?

Lee Carter:

There are certain feelings that we have that are really good feelings,

Lee Carter:

whether you believe in God or not.

Lee Carter:

Some would say they're God-given emotions.

Lee Carter:

Others would say they're biological emotions, but they all serve a purpose

Lee Carter:

For us, that's really, really important.

Lee Carter:

Even things like fear.

Lee Carter:

Fear indicates it's like you gotta get outta dodge.

Lee Carter:

Anger indicates there's a problem that needs to be solved.

Lee Carter:

Joy indicates it's something that you should continue to be doing.

Lee Carter:

When somebody feels any of these emotions, it's really important

Lee Carter:

that you understand them.

Lee Carter:

And when you're communicating, you need to know what you're tapping.

Lee Carter:

any of those biologically good feelings and even the ones that we might say

Lee Carter:

are bad feelings are okay, but if you stop into what is called inhibitory

Lee Carter:

emotions, and this is all based on something called the change triangle.

Lee Carter:

Inhibitory emotions are shame, anxiety, and guilt.

Lee Carter:

If you make anybody feel shame, anxiety or guilt by trying to

Lee Carter:

persuade them, you're never gonna win.

Lee Carter:

They're gonna either bury their head in the sand or they're gonna fight.

Lee Carter:

and most persuasion strategies when you're talking about important things

Lee Carter:

whether it's politicized or whatever else, you try to persuade somebody by

Lee Carter:

saying, you've gotta know this, or if you don't act now, it's gonna be too late.

Lee Carter:

Those feelings, shame, anxiety, and guilt is exactly what you're putting in

Lee Carter:

them too, and it's going to backfire.

Lee Carter:

So you've gotta make sure that you understand how they feel currently.

Lee Carter:

And when you're communicating to me what emotions are you

Lee Carter:

making your target audience feel?

John Ball:

Yeah.

John Ball:

Sorry I said that I just wanted to say I, I can think of a very specific example of

John Ball:

that in my own life where I was asked some people were talking about astrology at a

John Ball:

lunch, and I don't really believe in it.

John Ball:

And I was like, I like, how can you believe in this?

John Ball:

It's crazy.

John Ball:

It doesn't even make sense.

John Ball:

And they just got very defensive about it.

John Ball:

Whereas I know now if I just asked some questions and been a bit less accusatory

John Ball:

or or like shaming or good this is stupid.

John Ball:

How do you believe in this stupid stuff?

John Ball:

We would've been able to have a useful conversation about it instead.

John Ball:

So, sorry to have interrupted there.

John Ball:

Really looking forward to hearing the second part.

Lee Carter:

yeah, no there's no doubt about it.

Lee Carter:

And you can do it without even meaning to do it.

Lee Carter:

It's when you believe something so strongly, you can say something that makes

Lee Carter:

people feel so bad about themselves that there's no way you're gonna persuade them.

Lee Carter:

And you see it in politics all the time, and it often happens when you're

Lee Carter:

preaching to the choir and you think that's just gonna change people's mind.

Lee Carter:

It doesn't.

Lee Carter:

It can just really alienate them and it goes beyond just you know, how you feel.

Lee Carter:

It also can go into some other categories of things.

Lee Carter:

The second categor.

Lee Carter:

It's to me really about why do people believe what they believe?

Lee Carter:

And Jonathan Height has this great thing called the Moral Foundations theory.

Lee Carter:

In it, he says, everything that we believe is based on certain moral foundations.

Lee Carter:

And so there's these things that are just core and essential to why

Lee Carter:

we feel the way we do about issues.

Lee Carter:

So the United States, when he talks about Republicans and Democrats,

Lee Carter:

he says, Republicans primary value is often liberty versus oppress.

Lee Carter:

So what that means is you'll often hear a language of freedom we have

Lee Carter:

right to and they're nothing to them scares them more than the government

Lee Carter:

taking away those rights and freedoms.

Lee Carter:

Democrats primary value is harm versus care.

Lee Carter:

We have to take care of everybody else, and we put ourselves second.

Lee Carter:

Care comes before everybody else.

Lee Carter:

So in really, really tragic circumstances, like what we're doing, what we're

Lee Carter:

looking at in the states with school shootings, your Republicans saying,

Lee Carter:

Don't take away the guns, right?

Lee Carter:

We have to put more safety in schools because we have a right

Lee Carter:

to bear arms, and nothing scares me more than taking that away.

Lee Carter:

Whereas you'll hear Democrats say, we can't afford to let this

Lee Carter:

happen to our children anymore.

Lee Carter:

You must not care about kids.

Lee Carter:

You put yourself before people.

Lee Carter:

What's gonna happen there is they're never going to agree because they're

Lee Carter:

going at it from a different perspective and talking about different, if

Lee Carter:

you wanna change somebody's mind.

Lee Carter:

And what's gonna have to happen in this country if we want real change,

Lee Carter:

is people are gonna have to change their minds one way or the other.

Lee Carter:

And that means we're gonna have to understand the value that you're

Lee Carter:

trying to talk to and the other person to get them to change their mind.

Lee Carter:

Otherwise, you're just gonna go head to head with them constantly

John Ball:

And do you see any pa, do you see any path to being able to

John Ball:

bridge that kind of gap between the polarization other than on a sort

John Ball:

of case by case individual level?

John Ball:

It does sort of seem like that polarization is very strong in the media,

John Ball:

which I think maybe goes on to reinforce a lot of the division between people.

Lee Carter:

There's no doubt about it.

Lee Carter:

The environment that we're living in with both social media being

Lee Carter:

driven by what we like, what we engage, , the stuff that engages us

Lee Carter:

is the stuff that makes us angry.

Lee Carter:

The stuff that gets ratings on the news is the stuff that gets your

Lee Carter:

heart rate beating so quickly.

Lee Carter:

It's why sometimes it's like, I just need a break from the news for a week.

Lee Carter:

I'd rather bury my head in the sand cuz we're constantly just getting agitated.

Lee Carter:

We do see occasionally there are people who rise above it all who

Lee Carter:

just transcend and give us hope.

Lee Carter:

Now you think about the way Obama in the United States in two.

Lee Carter:

eight, when he ran, he ran in hope and change.

Lee Carter:

He transcended and made us all believe in something greater.

Lee Carter:

Those kinds of leaders and those kinds of, I would call them persuaders, are

Lee Carter:

able to make real lasting change because they rise above it so that it's not

Lee Carter:

just about it being black and white.

Lee Carter:

You're right, you're wrong, but it takes some discipline and it

Lee Carter:

takes a certain kind of communic.

Lee Carter:

The other thing is it takes fortitude because when you're somebody who's willing

Lee Carter:

to compromise, right now you're seen in some ways as weak people say, how dare

Lee Carter:

you compromise with those evil people.

Lee Carter:

On the other side of the argument, compromise is what's the key to forward?

Lee Carter:

Because we've never seen any huge sweeping change happen all at once.

Lee Carter:

When you look at the civil rights movement, if you look at gay marriage,

Lee Carter:

if you look at anything that required real change in how people viewed

Lee Carter:

the world, it happened incre.

Lee Carter:

So we've gotta find a way to get excited about small victories

Lee Carter:

and take credit for that.

Lee Carter:

And I think people are hungry for it.

Lee Carter:

I've tested so many different messages with different audiences to try and

Lee Carter:

understand what's it gonna take.

Lee Carter:

People are tired of it.

Lee Carter:

There's gotta be a better way than the way we're doing it right now.

Lee Carter:

But it's gonna take somebody who's got, a lot of fortitude because again

Lee Carter:

those ratings and the social media clicks and everything is driven by

Lee Carter:

emotions that aren't necessarily.

John Ball:

I can absolutely see that and I probably agree that it

John Ball:

is really gonna take some powerful leadership to make massive change.

John Ball:

Whilst I do think there are things being perhaps do in a, on

John Ball:

a small, in our own small ways.

John Ball:

to help improve those conversations and to be less polarized in

John Ball:

life and to bridge the gap.

John Ball:

I speak to people all the time from all sorts of different political persuasions

John Ball:

because I'm very aware that it's very easy to stay in your own bubble.

John Ball:

And people have their beliefs very often because of the environments they've grown

John Ball:

up in and the traditions and the things they've been brought up to believe in.

John Ball:

Not because they've made a decision in their adult life necessarily.

John Ball:

It's usually follows on from that what you've essentially been, I guess,

John Ball:

programmed with from a very young age.

John Ball:

The, or the decisions or the voices you hear or the stuff that's makes us who we

John Ball:

are and our background is our identity.

John Ball:

And it can be very hard to step.

John Ball:

From that and I guess people do feel threatened, if anything is sort

John Ball:

of treading on what they identify as being part of who they are.

Lee Carter:

and it happens even within families, right?

Lee Carter:

It used to be that most families were the same politically and religiously, and

Lee Carter:

now we're seeing as the world's changed.

Lee Carter:

That's not always the case.

Lee Carter:

But what sadly happens with a lot of families is instead of trying to

Lee Carter:

understand each other, they'll just say, we'll suffer through Christmas and we

Lee Carter:

won't talk about anything that's divisive.

Lee Carter:

But then there's families where you'll be you'll make incremental change.

Lee Carter:

Now, I come from a family that's mixed of evangelical Christians and hardcore

Lee Carter:

democrats and people who are atheist.

Lee Carter:

I'm married to a Jewish man.

Lee Carter:

My, my stepsister was married to a Muslim.

Lee Carter:

It's all, we've got everything going on, but everybody

Lee Carter:

keeps showing up as who they.

Lee Carter:

and what's happened over time is that the conversations that

Lee Carter:

we've had have all shaped us to be more open and more accepting.

Lee Carter:

But not every family does that.

Lee Carter:

Not every family is willing to say, a lot of people try to change who they are to

Lee Carter:

show up at the table to avoid conflict.

Lee Carter:

Sometimes you have to have the conflict make change happen,

Lee Carter:

and you can't be afraid of it.

Lee Carter:

But you have to step into a place of understanding and say, I'm gonna

Lee Carter:

give you the benefit of the doubt.

Lee Carter:

I believe you're a good person.

Lee Carter:

I know you're a good.

Lee Carter:

And if you start with that as the baseline, you're gonna be much

Lee Carter:

more successful in conversation.

John Ball:

Yeah, , looking more for what we have in common

John Ball:

than for our differences.

John Ball:

And I can see that in my own family dynamics, like my family

John Ball:

are quite religious, what my parents are, but I'm not.

John Ball:

And and so I think initially when we started to talk about some

John Ball:

of that stuff, it got a little.

John Ball:

There was a bit of friction and sometimes some challenges, but now

John Ball:

we've learned how to be each other.

John Ball:

So I think it is important to understand sometimes this stuff

John Ball:

just takes a bit of time, but you do have to have the conversation.

John Ball:

And I could have just pretended that I was like, oh, I'm just gonna keep

John Ball:

my mouth shut and not say anything and just go along with whatever.

John Ball:

But I couldn't really do that and be my authentic self.

John Ball:

So, you know, I can see such of this and I'm sure, I'm sure I.

John Ball:

to the show as well can recognize parts of their own life where they

John Ball:

maybe see that and that authenticity.

John Ball:

, I do want to get into talking with you about how very often it is that the

John Ball:

perceptions that people want to have are not always the best ones to have.

John Ball:

And then you do talk about this in your book, and I thought it was

John Ball:

very interesting that, sometimes the bank wants to say that says

John Ball:

they want to be more like Apple.

John Ball:

And you're like, no, no, no.

John Ball:

That's not what you should be.

John Ball:

I'll let you tell us a bit more about that.

Lee Carter:

about that.

Lee Carter:

Yeah.

Lee Carter:

I mean, oftentimes we do start the conversation with our own aspiration

Lee Carter:

when we're trying to persuade about a product or a brand or who we are.

Lee Carter:

And there was this period of time where every one of my clients would come to

Lee Carter:

me and say, okay, we need to be more innovative, and I wanna be like Apple.

Lee Carter:

And you're thinking, okay, you're a.

Lee Carter:

. The last thing I want from my bank is to be innovative.

Lee Carter:

I don't want an innovation when it comes to my money.

Lee Carter:

I want security and stability when it comes to my money.

Lee Carter:

If you're gonna innovate on ways to make things better, it's not about talking

Lee Carter:

about innovation because I hear innovation and money and I'm not that excited.

Lee Carter:

Similarly, I have a lot of pharmaceutical clients who are like introducing

Lee Carter:

something to the market, a brand new heart valve, a different way of treating

Lee Carter:

cancer, and they wanna say it's the most innovative treatment that's ever

Lee Carter:

come down the pipe and people are going.

Lee Carter:

Do I wanna be a Guinea pig?

Lee Carter:

Do I wanna be, have the most innovative heart valve ever put in my body?

Lee Carter:

That's a scary proposition.

Lee Carter:

What I want is a safe heart valve.

Lee Carter:

And I found in one project that I did, I thought this was fascinating, is that in

Lee Carter:

healthcare you can talk about something being breakthrough a lot more than you

Lee Carter:

can talk about it being innovative.

Lee Carter:

Cuz if you talk about something being break.

Lee Carter:

it can be safe.

Lee Carter:

So people will still say, penicillin was a breakthrough medicine and it's

Lee Carter:

a breakthrough medicine today, even though it was built in the forties.

Lee Carter:

So breakthrough can be safe.

Lee Carter:

It's something that it's game changing.

Lee Carter:

Innovation can also be risky when it comes to talking about healthcare.

Lee Carter:

So you've gotta understand how do you articulate what it is that you wanna be.

Lee Carter:

We also worked one time with a technology company who very famously had a lot of

Lee Carter:

problems with a software release that.

Lee Carter:

that they put out in the market.

Lee Carter:

And so they spent years innovating to try and fix it.

Lee Carter:

So when they went to go launch their next product, they wanna talk about how

Lee Carter:

innovative it was and how amazing it was, and all the bells and whistles.

Lee Carter:

And all anybody heard was, you're the company made that thing that didn't work.

Lee Carter:

I want nothing to do with your innovation.

Lee Carter:

So what they had to do was say, wait, you want us to have a campaign about this?

Lee Carter:

Is we've built this technology that just works.

Lee Carter:

That's not at all.

Lee Carter:

But that's what people needed to hear in order to wanna do it.

Lee Carter:

Because what they didn't like is a technology that just didn't make sense.

Lee Carter:

A thing that they couldn't find, a thing that didn't work properly.

Lee Carter:

They wanted something that was intuitive, that was gonna work seamlessly with

Lee Carter:

their workday, not create more work.

Lee Carter:

And it's so interesting.

Lee Carter:

Yes.

Lee Carter:

It took them years of innovation to get to that place.

Lee Carter:

So that's what they were so excited about.

Lee Carter:

. Totally.

Lee Carter:

It, that would've been the wrong way to talk about it.

Lee Carter:

And I always go back when I think about this to Steve Jobs's most real

Lee Carter:

famous announcement about the iPhone.

Lee Carter:

When he talked about the iPhone, he could have talked about the years of innovation

Lee Carter:

that went into it, the number of megabytes of storage he could have talked about

Lee Carter:

all the technology, all of the engineers, all of the ingenuity that happened to it.

Lee Carter:

But he didn't do any of those things.

Lee Carter:

What he did is said, you're gonna get three things in one and get the.

Lee Carter:

The phone in an iPod in one, and it's gonna fit in your pocket.

Lee Carter:

simple messaging.

Lee Carter:

He didn't go out and talk about innovation.

Lee Carter:

He talked about something that cuz was really transformative in the most

Lee Carter:

simple way that we could all understand and be like, well, I want that.

Lee Carter:

And sometimes that's what you have to do.

Lee Carter:

Instead of trying to talk about how crazy it was to get there.

Lee Carter:

You've just gotta speak in the language.

Lee Carter:

It says, get somebody to say, oh, I.

John Ball:

Yeah I think I, I can see this for myself, like when I first

John Ball:

started podcasts I think it was about, probably about two and a half years ago

John Ball:

when I first started my show and I was trying to be so clever about things and

John Ball:

I wasn't even really thinking about.

John Ball:

Making things connect with an audience or actually giving them what they want.

John Ball:

I was just kind of like, I'm just gonna do a show about what I want to do and

John Ball:

how I want to talk about it and be clever with my show titles and stuff like that.

John Ball:

And, Knowing, knowing what I know now, I know that that was horrific for things

John Ball:

like search engine optimization and or even just any, even just anybody having

John Ball:

a clue what the show was about, which is why I ended up changing the name of the

John Ball:

show just to make it that much clearer.

John Ball:

All right.

John Ball:

And it's gone from speaking influence and at the time people are listening

John Ball:

to this, it's now called Pod Fluence.

John Ball:

It just gives a bit of a clearer picture as to, alright.

John Ball:

I have a sense already about what that show's gonna be talking about.

John Ball:

So I already know whether I would be interested or not.

John Ball:

And these are just things that I never even took into account, but that empathy

John Ball:

thing you talk about of actually just thinking about who is the end user

John Ball:

here and what are they looking for, what are they gonna connect with?

John Ball:

Not what you want them to connect with, but what are they actually

John Ball:

gonna, what do they need to be able to trust you or to want your product

John Ball:

that the thing that they need to hear.

John Ball:

And if you can get that, that's.

Lee Carter:

Total magic.

Lee Carter:

You know, we just went through an exercise in marketing in our own firm and we

Lee Carter:

were listing out things that you could do with what we call language strategy.

Lee Carter:

So it's like language strategy to position a product, language strategy to

Lee Carter:

rebuild reputation, language strategy to.

Lee Carter:

and then we were having this conversation about it all and we're like, no one's

Lee Carter:

looking for a language strategy.

Lee Carter:

They're looking for how to position your product in a crowded marketplace,

Lee Carter:

how to break through when people don't know who you are, how to

Lee Carter:

turn people's opinions around.

Lee Carter:

We've gotta reframe things in the language of the other person.

Lee Carter:

It's not about what we are, it's about what they're looking for.

Lee Carter:

We're meeting a need, and yes, we have a point of view.

Lee Carter:

but we're secondary to everything.

Lee Carter:

And so what you're talking about is exactly right.

Lee Carter:

I think you can write your list of what it is that you wanna say, but it's

Lee Carter:

really important to go through a framing exercise in often what we do and when we

Lee Carter:

start talking about what we wanna say.

Lee Carter:

If you're thinking about, and you're a podcaster and you're listing

Lee Carter:

out your episodes, you're gonna start with a list of what it is.

Lee Carter:

But what you should do is take that list and say, okay, what

Lee Carter:

does that mean to my target?

Lee Carter:

and how do I translate that into a benefit for them?

Lee Carter:

What are they gonna get out of listening to the show for 30 minutes to an hour?

Lee Carter:

What is the benefit to them?

Lee Carter:

What are they gonna take away?

Lee Carter:

And you're gonna find that you'll totally change how you describe things.

John Ball:

Yeah, I mean, I just re recently went through a whole

John Ball:

exercise of retitling episodes to do this kind of thing and to make

John Ball:

it very clear what people were going to be taking away from the episode.

John Ball:

And whilst it was a bit of a long and arduous task, it was

John Ball:

absolutely worthwhile and totally necessary to be able to have that.

John Ball:

Better communication with people.

John Ball:

I wonder, I mean, you are someone who does a lot of media appearances

John Ball:

and you are even a familiar face on some of the news networks.

John Ball:

So I wonder what sorts of things you hold in your own personal arsenal,

John Ball:

I would say, of tips and tricks that help to make you more influential and

John Ball:

persuasive in your own media appearance.

Lee Carter:

Hmm.

Lee Carter:

You know, I think when I first started doing media in

Lee Carter:

2015, I had to be so prepared.

Lee Carter:

And I always recommend being repaired.

Lee Carter:

It's not to say that, but I had notes that were pages long.

Lee Carter:

I had background documents and it was gonna be for a seven

Lee Carter:

minute hit on television.

Lee Carter:

But I went in with everything under the sun.

Lee Carter:

I had a laundry list of facts.

Lee Carter:

I was ready and it made me talk too much and have nothing memorable.

Lee Carter:

So what I tell people is, if you're going to go out there,

Lee Carter:

talk about less with more.

Lee Carter:

Make sure you know what points you wanna make.

Lee Carter:

Yes, do all of that research, but it's very much like that quote.

Lee Carter:

If I had more time, I'd write a shorter memo.

Lee Carter:

Make sure you distill it down so you know the three things that you want

Lee Carter:

people to leave with from that segment.

Lee Carter:

It makes all the difference in the world.

Lee Carter:

So I might have pages and pages of notes, but what I'm gonna have is one page that

Lee Carter:

I write in big letters with Sharpie pen.

Lee Carter:

These are the three things I wanna keep coming back to, and once I have my.

Lee Carter:

and you know that this is something that works.

Lee Carter:

Cuz if you think back and this doesn't just apply to media

Lee Carter:

hits, this isn't everything.

Lee Carter:

If you're going to give a big presentation, if you're going to

Lee Carter:

try to close a sale, same thing.

Lee Carter:

What are three things you want them to remember and know exactly what it

Lee Carter:

is so that you can close out with it.

Lee Carter:

And so I even find if you look back at political campaigns,

Lee Carter:

almost everyone, if you look back at the tagline and the signature

Lee Carter:

policies of what that politician.

Lee Carter:

The one that won had fewer than the one that lost.

Lee Carter:

It takes a lot more discipline to come up with fewer things, and so that

Lee Carter:

is, to me, one of the biggest changes that I've had to make over time.

John Ball:

Yeah, definitely.

John Ball:

I mean, as much as I think everyone is very aware, at least politically, of

John Ball:

all the three word slogans that you will often hear, especially, I'm more familiar

John Ball:

perhaps with UK politics, although we do see a lot of the US staff as well.

John Ball:

But three word slogans are incredibly common

John Ball:

So sometimes yeah, and but, but you know, the, the UK is a bit of I'm trying to

John Ball:

think of a nice way to say this, A bit of a mess at the moment politically as well.

John Ball:

There there's a lot going on there, but there are three words, slogan things.

John Ball:

We're all very familiar with them, but they're still very

John Ball:

powerful, even though we know

John Ball:

that's what's being done.

John Ball:

That power of three thing, that thing that just stays in your head.

John Ball:

Those things of having stuff that's actually quotable.

John Ball:

I think far too many people do a lot of media appearances and are not memorable,

John Ball:

or they'll say a lot, or they have this, I just wanna share all of my knowledge.

John Ball:

I'm just gonna do a huge knowledge dump here and take away whatever you pick out

John Ball:

of it, rather than just having, right.

John Ball:

Let's make sure you have these takeaways and that I make

John Ball:

it as memorable for you as.

Lee Carter:

and something else that I got really, really good advice from a

Lee Carter:

network executive early on in all of this.

Lee Carter:

And he said, you're gonna go on a lot of different shows and they're gonna tell you

Lee Carter:

in order to be successful, you need to go hard, right or hard left, or try to shock.

Lee Carter:

Let me tell you what you're good at.

Lee Carter:

You're good at helping people understand what they don't understand.

Lee Carter:

So every time you go on air, you show up helping somebody understand

Lee Carter:

what they don't already understand.

Lee Carter:

That is your mission every time that you show up.

Lee Carter:

And I think if you have that kind of a filter, what is your.

Lee Carter:

Everything else becomes so much easier.

Lee Carter:

What is your master narrative?

Lee Carter:

What do you wanna be known for?

Lee Carter:

It serves as a filter for how to narrow those things down and any,

Lee Carter:

anyone who is trying to become a thought leader or an expert, you

Lee Carter:

should be able to answer that question.

Lee Carter:

What is my thing?

John Ball:

I particularly like those come back to, but I particularly liked a lot

John Ball:

of the elements of us really helping us.

John Ball:

Understand how you can use persuasion skills in your own life and also where

John Ball:

we perhaps don't do such a great job of communicating, because you talk about

John Ball:

some particularly personal examples about how this affected you in your

John Ball:

own organization, where you were being misunderstood and misconstrued

John Ball:

and you recognized that you had to

John Ball:

set the record straight in a way that wasn't gonna be like super defensive,

John Ball:

but I was actually gonna be like, no, I'm just gonna have to be a bit more authentic

John Ball:

and vulnerable here with you all.

Lee Carter:

Yeah.

Lee Carter:

You know, when you're dealing with a misperception, and this happens all the

Lee Carter:

time, whether people think about you in the wrong ways, if you're a leader, that

Lee Carter:

people don't look at in the right way.

Lee Carter:

If you're a company who's being misperceived, if your product is

Lee Carter:

misunderstood, if you're trying to change the mind of 70, often the first step in

Lee Carter:

communicating about it is acknowledging the concern of the other person because

Lee Carter:

it gives them permission to listen to you.

Lee Carter:

So a number of years ago at my organization, we had our first 360 review.

Lee Carter:

And for those of you who've ever been through them, they're very, very painful.

Lee Carter:

They cause a lot of anxiety and oftentimes, Feedback that can be somewhat

Lee Carter:

surprising to you, especially if it's not something you do on the regular.

Lee Carter:

So the first time that we did it, I got feedback that was really, really tough.

Lee Carter:

I mean, heartbreakingly tough.

Lee Carter:

Some of it was kind of easy.

Lee Carter:

It was like, we want you to be more of a thought leader.

Lee Carter:

I can deal with that.

Lee Carter:

It was of one of those pivotal moments in my career where I was switching from being

Lee Carter:

a practitioner to a leader, and that's often a really tough time in your career.

Lee Carter:

you're going from being one of a team to trying a lead, and you haven't yet

Lee Carter:

yourself understood what that means, but your perceptions have been shifted.

Lee Carter:

So they wanted mean to be more of a thought leader.

Lee Carter:

They thought that I was really good at what we did, but they

Lee Carter:

didn't see me as a leader.

Lee Carter:

They saw me as more than more of a friend.

Lee Carter:

I was really good at bringing in new business to the firm, and many

Lee Carter:

people thought that I had used my looks and some other pretty terrible

Lee Carter:

things to bring business into the.

Lee Carter:

And there was just some really tough stuff in there and I remember,

Lee Carter:

taking and sitting with his feedback and it was devastating to me.

Lee Carter:

For anyone to think that I had, slept my way into to getting

Lee Carter:

business was just horrifying.

Lee Carter:

And I spent a couple days sitting with a feedback and I talked to

Lee Carter:

my husband about it and I was like, I have two choices here.

Lee Carter:

I can either quit my job because never wanna show up.

Lee Carter:

or I'm gonna have to really do something differently.

Lee Carter:

And my husband was like so angry.

Lee Carter:

He was like, you need to just leave.

Lee Carter:

Get out of there.

Lee Carter:

And I was like, but there is no other job like this.

Lee Carter:

I love my job, I love my company, I love my people.

Lee Carter:

And sometimes I say, if they can't hear you, it's not their fault.

Lee Carter:

You've done something wrong and how you're leading and how you're communicating.

Lee Carter:

So, we, what I did, I talked with our CEO about it and he

Lee Carter:

said, look, I've got your back.

Lee Carter:

I'll do whatever it takes to, I'll do whatever it takes

Lee Carter:

to support you through this.

Lee Carter:

And I said, okay.

Lee Carter:

And so on the staff meeting the Monday after I got this feedback, I

Lee Carter:

stood up in front of my organization and said, I got some really tough

Lee Carter:

feedback and it really broke my heart.

Lee Carter:

I heard that you want me to be more of a thought leader?

Lee Carter:

I heard.

Lee Carter:

, and I listed out some of the things and then I heard that you think that I'm

Lee Carter:

really good at bringing business in the door, but you don't know where it comes

Lee Carter:

from because people are filling in the blanks with, I'm using my looks, or I or

Lee Carter:

even worse, you think that I'm sleeping with clients in order to get the business.

Lee Carter:

And I had done some real thinking about why that was.

Lee Carter:

And I had a client who pretty in front of a lot of my team members one

Lee Carter:

night said we had last call at a bar.

Lee Carter:

after focus groups.

Lee Carter:

It was late at night as you often go out with clients and your team.

Lee Carter:

And he looks at me in front of my team and says, so Lee, do

Lee Carter:

you wanna have another drink?

Lee Carter:

I was like, what was the last call?

Lee Carter:

He's like, how about you come up to my mini bar?

Lee Carter:

And it became this joke at my company about Lee and the mini bar.

Lee Carter:

But I didn't know how to deal with it.

Lee Carter:

So I said, look, I know there's this ongoing joke about Lee in a mini bar.

Lee Carter:

I've laughed along with it, but I've gotta tell you, it was so hard

Lee Carter:

and heartbreaking and hard for me.

Lee Carter:

I didn't know how to make it anything but funny.

Lee Carter:

But it's not funny.

Lee Carter:

It's been hard.

Lee Carter:

I said, but I'm not gonna make those jokes anymore.

Lee Carter:

I'm gonna ask you not to either.

Lee Carter:

I said, but if you're curious about how I bring in new

Lee Carter:

clients, I'm happy to teach you.

Lee Carter:

I'm gonna roll out some training on some new.

Lee Carter:

everything changed from there.

Lee Carter:

There was like this softening because they saw the human side

Lee Carter:

and I was really emotional.

Lee Carter:

The way I'm talking about it now is not the way I was at that moment.

Lee Carter:

Cause it was, it really was hard.

Lee Carter:

But if I had never stood up in front of my team and said, I've heard you.

Lee Carter:

I hear your concerns.

Lee Carter:

This is what they were and I'm gonna move to change them.

Lee Carter:

It wouldn't have reset.

Lee Carter:

Cause I could have showed up and started doing things differently,

Lee Carter:

but people wouldn't notice.

Lee Carter:

It served as a reset moment and through my vulnerability.

Lee Carter:

, it gave permission for us to have a reset.

Lee Carter:

It gave permission for people to have conversations with me about things

Lee Carter:

that they never would've before.

Lee Carter:

Everybody understood what was happening and I think sometimes

Lee Carter:

it's hard when we have a reset.

Lee Carter:

People don't wanna acknowledge concerns.

Lee Carter:

They don't wanna apologize publicly cuz they're worried about it.

Lee Carter:

They don't wanna say be vulnerable, but that sometimes the only way to

Lee Carter:

reconnection is by gutting there and going to the place that's hardest.

John Ball:

Yeah.

John Ball:

I love the story and I really appreciate you sharing that as well on the show.

John Ball:

And I want to, I wanna ask you what was the, For you in writing

John Ball:

the book, why did you feel it was important to get this out there?

Lee Carter:

I've been doing what I do for a long time now, and

Lee Carter:

there's certain themes that I kept seeing over and over again.

Lee Carter:

Clients making the same mistake, leading with facts, speaking their own language.

Lee Carter:

not understanding what was happening.

Lee Carter:

Then in 2015 and 2016, as Donald Trump was going through the

Lee Carter:

primaries and he was going through the presidential election, to me it

Lee Carter:

was very clear why he was winning.

Lee Carter:

Most people are like, oh, he's, a lot of people are saying, there's

Lee Carter:

no way he's ever gonna win.

Lee Carter:

He's a baboon, he's a, this, he can't string two sentences together.

Lee Carter:

You know, that's never gonna happen.

Lee Carter:

Hillary Clinton is so established, she's, it's time for.

Lee Carter:

But as I was watching and testing with the audiences, I saw some

Lee Carter:

themes that were really clear.

Lee Carter:

So I started doing a presentation for my clients.

Lee Carter:

That was five lessons we can learn about communicating from Donald Trump.

Lee Carter:

Super provocative and intentionally so, but to help people

Lee Carter:

understand what's happening.

Lee Carter:

And then it was like, oh my gosh.

Lee Carter:

It changed people's view of what to do.

Lee Carter:

So for example, if you think about it today, what was Hillary

Lee Carter:

Clinton's campaign theme?

Lee Carter:

Most people don't.

Lee Carter:

Some people say, if you're in the States, they'll go I'm with her.

Lee Carter:

We're better together.

Lee Carter:

Her official campaigns slogan, if you look at the website, was Hillary for America.

Lee Carter:

People didn't know it.

Lee Carter:

Donald Trump make America great again.

Lee Carter:

Everybody knew it and he repeated it over and over again.

Lee Carter:

Hillary had 112 policies listed on her website and what she was gonna

Lee Carter:

do for America, which is amazing.

Lee Carter:

It started with a Alzheimer's and it scrolled on for five pages.

Lee Carter:

Every policy under the.

Lee Carter:

Donald Trump had five.

Lee Carter:

He was gonna build a wall.

Lee Carter:

He was getting tough on China.

Lee Carter:

He was gonna bring jobs back, and we still remember them today.

Lee Carter:

So I'm not trying to make a statement that Donald Trump is good and Hillary

Lee Carter:

is bad, but I'm really trying to say and point out the difference is Donald

Lee Carter:

Trump had met his audience where they.

Lee Carter:

. He gave them a message that gave them hope and he gave them something to

Lee Carter:

hang onto a few things that he was gonna do for the country that was

Lee Carter:

gonna make it better according to them.

Lee Carter:

And what that does is it gave them an ability to be ambassadors.

Lee Carter:

Why are you voting for a Trump?

Lee Carter:

He's gonna make America great.

Lee Carter:

He's gonna build a wall, he's gonna bring our jobs back.

Lee Carter:

He's gonna do this, and everybody could repeat it.

Lee Carter:

Why are you voting for Hillary?

Lee Carter:

Well, a lot of people say the first woman president, she's really qualified,

Lee Carter:

but you didn't get the halo of that.

Lee Carter:

So what I realized as I was explaining this to folks is that it really

Lee Carter:

helped them structure their messaging in a much more effective way.

Lee Carter:

And so this wasn't a book about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Lee Carter:

It was really a book about how do you persuade and reach your audience in a

Lee Carter:

way that's really meaningful when it's so hard today, because sometimes you just

Lee Carter:

don't understand how you're stepping.

Lee Carter:

It's people are getting more marketing messages than they've ever have.

Lee Carter:

Forget marketing messages.

Lee Carter:

We're getting text messages and WhatsApp messages and social media tweets and all.

Lee Carter:

How do you break through in this morass of stuff?

Lee Carter:

And it's really simple.

Lee Carter:

It takes discipline, but not everybody understands it.

Lee Carter:

So that was what led to the book and I think it, it's really meant to be a

Lee Carter:

guidebook that anyone can go through.

Lee Carter:

There's nine steps laid out, and whether you're trying to persuade someone in your

Lee Carter:

family to change their mind on something, Gun control or abortion or religion.

Lee Carter:

You can use it for that.

Lee Carter:

You can use it if you're trying to start your own business.

Lee Carter:

How do you position yourself?

Lee Carter:

You can use it if you're trying to be a thought leadership.

Lee Carter:

How do you position yourself and what is your story?

Lee Carter:

And can use it if a company or a brand, it's really broad.

Lee Carter:

In the end there's a workbook with a nine steps you can walk through.

Lee Carter:

And so it was meant to be a tool that was really actionable for people to

Lee Carter:

be able to understand step by step.

Lee Carter:

How do you.

John Ball:

Yeah, that's great.

John Ball:

And it's certainly something that I will be referring to for my own

John Ball:

information on a regular basis.

John Ball:

Cause I love it when I get great information and as I said right the

John Ball:

start of the show, there, there are so few books that are original in talking

John Ball:

about influence and persuasion and yours is, and it's really valuable.

John Ball:

I wonder for you as we start to, to draw our conversation to a close,

John Ball:

unfortunately, as much as I, I would love to carry on talking to your day

John Ball:

I wonder what perhaps other books or resources you might direct other

John Ball:

people to that might be useful maybe in this area, but certainly in our

John Ball:

communication and our understanding.

Lee Carter:

Yeah I tell people a few books that I recommend people

Lee Carter:

dive into in order to understand more on how to understand others.

Lee Carter:

The first is Jonathan Height's book called The Righteous Mind.

Lee Carter:

He talks in it a lot about the moral foundation theory, which I talked

Lee Carter:

about earlier, which can really help you understand why people

Lee Carter:

believe what they believe, and it just is so illuminating to me.

Lee Carter:

Another.

Lee Carter:

Which isn't necessarily about persuasion, but it is about understanding emotion.

Lee Carter:

It's called, it's not always depression which is by Hillary Jacobs Hendel.

Lee Carter:

She's fantastic, but she's one that who really helped me understand that change

Lee Carter:

triangle of what are good emotions and what are inhibitory emotions.

Lee Carter:

And I spent a lot of time with her when I was writing my book and trying to underst.

Lee Carter:

How do you communicate through?

Lee Carter:

So she's a therapist, and so therapist has to almost navigate

Lee Carter:

some of these things too.

Lee Carter:

So it was really interesting to try and understand the emotions

Lee Carter:

that you're reaching to others and how do you understand them.

Lee Carter:

So I highly recommend that book as well.

Lee Carter:

And then I think one of my all time favorites too is

Lee Carter:

Kahneman's book, thinking Fast.

John Ball:

great thinking first.

John Ball:

I've definitely read the other two.

John Ball:

I've yet to, and they're gonna be added to my book list.

John Ball:

And I just want, for anyone who for those of you who are listening, I'm

John Ball:

thinking, I wanna know more about this.

John Ball:

And then you wanna know those book recommendations or links to Lee's book

John Ball:

or to find out more information, that's all gonna be in the show notes for you.

John Ball:

So go and check out the show notes.

John Ball:

You'll find all the links to everything we've talked about there.

John Ball:

One final question for you before we do finish up, Lee what is your superpower

John Ball:

when it comes to influence and persua?

Lee Carter:

I think my superpower started actually by a place of insecurity.

Lee Carter:

And so my superpower is really helping people understand what they don't

Lee Carter:

understand, as I talked about that a little bit earlier, but it's about

Lee Carter:

listening more than I talk because.

Lee Carter:

I was never the kind of person that was gonna come out forceful on opinions.

Lee Carter:

I always tried to listen to other people to try and understand what it was that

Lee Carter:

I should believe because I was, and it started out of a place of insecurity,

Lee Carter:

but now it's become my superpower because it helps me sit back, gauge what's going

Lee Carter:

on, and then figure out what's the right place to, to start the conversation.

Lee Carter:

So I think that it's a combination of making sense of what I'm hearing.

Lee Carter:

So I guess a superpower would be super.

John Ball:

I like that.

John Ball:

Yeah.

John Ball:

That's a great superpower to have and and when we should all

John Ball:

strive to be better at ourselves.

John Ball:

It has been an absolute pleasure talking to you today and I really

John Ball:

appreciate everything that you shared with us and highly recommend

John Ball:

everybody to go and check out your book because it's one of the most valuable

John Ball:

books on persuasion that I've read.

John Ball:

Certainly.

John Ball:

Several years and really is one that I, as I said, I will keep

John Ball:

going back to you again and again.

John Ball:

But I do want to say, just as we wrap things up, Lee, thank

John Ball:

you so much for coming and being my guest on the show today.

Lee Carter:

Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Carter:

It's been a great convers.

John Ball:

Thanks for tuning in.

John Ball:

I do hope you've enjoyed the show and certainly I enjoyed that

John Ball:

conversation with Lee Carter.

John Ball:

I hope you learned some valuable content there as well.

John Ball:

. If you did and you think others might find that valuable too, please do share the

John Ball:

show out with your friends and network.

John Ball:

It's really the only ask I have for you from the show.

John Ball:

And of course, go and check out Lee's book.

John Ball:

I honestly think it's an amazing read.

John Ball:

It is not that often that I will rant and rave about books being so good.

John Ball:

This book was really, really good and I think you'll get a lot from it.

John Ball:

If persuasion is a topic that is important for you,

John Ball:

if you're not already subscribed to the show, you might wanna make sure you are.

John Ball:

Next time.

John Ball:

I'm going to start discussing the seven deadly sins of podcasting,

John Ball:

something that I have been covering in some of my newsletter articles.

John Ball:

And if you're not subscribed to the newsletter, you'll find the link

John Ball:

to do that, or the links, I should say, to do that in the show notes

John Ball:

where you can either subscribe to us on LinkedIn or Medium or beehive,

John Ball:

or even through my own website.

John Ball:

I hope that you will check out the newsletter and maybe take a look

John Ball:

through some of the back issues and see if there are some article topics

John Ball:

that you might like to check out.

John Ball:

My next guest episode in a couple of weeks is Simon Lancaster.

John Ball:

If you haven't checked out Simon before, I know.

John Ball:

that you're gonna love his books.

John Ball:

This is where I first found him.

John Ball:

He has great books about speech writing, about metaphors, and his book

John Ball:

Connect is about being able to connect with anyone anytime, anywhere, and

John Ball:

a lot of great information in there.

John Ball:

Simon is an amazing guy, amazing speaker and speech writer, and

John Ball:

you are going to love that.

John Ball:

So if you haven't subscribed to the show, I don't want you to miss any of that.

John Ball:

So wherever you're going, whatever you're doing, have an amazing rest of your day.

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About the Podcast

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Podfluence
The podcast that helps business coaches build influence and income with podcasts

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About your host

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John Ball

From international flight attendant to international coach and trainer. Then on to podcaster and persuasion expert, it's been quite the journey for John. Now the author of the book Podfluence: how to build professional authority with podcasts, and host of the Podfluence podcast (formerly Speaking Influence) with over 150 episodes and over 10,000 downloads John is now focused on helping business coaches and speakers to build a following and grow your lead flow and charisma. You can now also listen to John on The Coaching Clinic podcast with his good friend and colleague Angie Besignano and the Try To Stand Up podcast where John is on a journey to become funnier on the stage and in his communication.