 Welcome back to the art of charm podcast. Today is a special toolbox episode around building high value relationships. So in last month's episode, we talked about high value behaviors and how to become someone who's high value to attract the right people into your life. And maybe after listening to last month's toolbox, you started to realize that, well, you might need to form some new relationships to find those high value people in your life. So today we're going to talk about why this is so important, building great relationships and give you some simple strategies to be more effective in your relationship building. Now the key to building relationships is really vulnerability. And we know that that is a misnomer that a lot of people don't understand how to get vulnerable, what exactly to talk about. So by the end of today's episode, you're going to know exactly how to get vulnerable to lead that conversation towards a great connection with someone. And that's just it, AJ. There are steps in order to build rapport and we're going to go through those today. And as you mentioned, if you have listened to the toolbox episode last month, there have been things that are probably going to be apparent to you. And I went through this as well. Once I understood what being a high value person was and how to become a high value person, I put in that effort in myself. And then it became apparent as I'm looking around that the other people around me weren't striving to this degree or there were people who acted in a high value manner. The question is, what do I do with the people around me that aren't? Where do I find more high value people? And how do I continue to strengthen that so that I can build these relationships with the right people? And we're going to cover all of that today and we're going to give you guys a step by step process in rapport building. It's one of my favorite topics because all of our relationships are determined by the connection that we have with them. Now, many of our X Factor Accelerator members join the program specifically to grow their personal and professional network to build new relationships. And unfortunately, this is just not a skill that we're taught in school. So if you're introverted, you may be struggling a bit with this. Or let's be honest, making friends as an adult is hard. It's hard to meet new people. It's even harder to make new friends and build relationships. And a little bit of science to kick us off. It actually backs us up. A recent study found that most American adults haven't made a new friend in over five years. So if you're feeling like you're stuck in relationships and you're struggling to meet and connect with new people, you're not alone. Another study showed that nearly half of US adults reported feeling lonely and left out. And they say it's reached epidemic levels. Now, we're feeling more disconnected from friends and family than ever before. And that's why today we want to help you change that. So even if your current friends are not supporting you, you can always meet new people like we discussed in the last Toolbox episode with our social sales funnel strategy directly from our X Factor Accelerator. So if you haven't heard that episode, it's linked up in the show notes. You're going to want to check it out. It's a simple way to put yourself in a position to be making these conversations that lead to connection. A very common problem that I'm hearing from people who write in who I'm on the phone with that feel that over the last two years, culturally, things have shifted so much that people are feeling alienated. They've been locked down for a few years. Over the years, politically, things have shifted. People are now finding themselves disconnected from people they were connected with in the past. So this only exacerbates the problem. Finding like-minded people that share our values is incredibly important. And when things get shaken up as they did in the last two years, people, they return the form. They go to the things that mean the most to them. And this is where that disconnect happens. And so people that you may have been friends with before the pandemic, maybe they're operating at a different level now. Also, due to technology, everybody is living in their own bubble, which also makes us feel a bit more disconnected. So these skills and these processes that we're going to outline today are not only going to help you connect the people faster, easier, more effortlessly, but also connect to the right people. And when it comes to vulnerability and building connections, there is going to be some people that just aren't a great fit. You are going to have to put yourself out there a little bit. So maybe you're listening to this feeling a little jaded and let down by your friends through the pandemic. You're feeling a little bit lonely because you've recognized that the people you've invested in in your life haven't really reinvested in that relationship to the level that you're at or you want to get to. And why we love this topic and just focusing on building new relationships, building connections is because even acquaintances and weak ties, as they're called scientifically, can be massive to your career success opportunities to the potential to find a dating partner in your life and to finding new friends to connect with. And there's a sociologist, Mark Granaveter, who coined this term in a 1973 paper, The Strength of Weak Ties. Now, according to Granaveter, people were nearly three times as likely to have found their job through a personal contact than through an advertisement headhunter or other formal means. Now, acquaintances are more likely to know something that you don't. So even the exercise of getting more vulnerable to build relationships, starting with acquaintances and working towards deepening those relationships has a huge impact on your life. And studies show that it takes a little while to go from acquaintance to real deep personal relationship. So don't get impatient in the process. Just understand that the key to all of this is vulnerability and we'll be breaking that down for you. So it's a simple, easy to follow method to ensure that you're having great conversations with people that you meet. If you're listening to this podcast, you're getting the inside track to the science of how all of this works. That means that you are looking to get better in these areas. But because you are going through the painstaking efforts to learn this, to understand this, that doesn't mean that other people are. And that's where a lot of this disconnect happens as well. So what we want to do is to meet people where they are and then take them with us and take them into that connection. So where can we meet people where they are? Now, this is one of my favorite strategies. So as you're sitting here, you're going, OK, I definitely understand. I want to make new friends. I want to meet new people and grow my social circle. And the next question is, where do I start? And the simplest way is to combine your passions with socialization, with opportunities to meet and connect with people who share your passion. And this is something that we've taught inside of the X Factor Accelerator. And it's one of those key unlocks for a lot of our members who are in that exact place of maybe moving to a new town, recognizing after coming out of a breakup that their social circle isn't what they had hoped or maybe their ex partner was the one who was contributing to most of their social circle. So using meetup.com events, going to classes, taking lessons, group exercise, fitness, MMA, or even team sports like kickball, beach volleyball and at Facebook communities. You can find communities for just about anything on Facebook or meetup.com and they do have in-person events. So having that shared passion is a simple way to combine socialization with opportunities to meet and find these high value people in your life. Now, one of our members in X Factor Accelerator, John, he moved to San Diego, was starting fresh with the social circle. And he realized that, well, it's pretty intimidating just go to a bar and just randomly try to meet strangers or just go out to the park, the dog park and just randomly walk up and talk to people. That was a little bit of a struggle for him to get started. So we met up in Vegas at our mastermind and we were talking through some simple strategies that both Johnny and I have used over the years like that social sales funnel strategy to really grow and deepen and enrich our networks. And we both shared that finding something that we were passionate about. So for me, it was Barry's boot camp classes and it was committing to just going consistently, letting propinquity, letting familiarity with me, being that smiling, high value, high energy participant in the course and meeting a trainer through there, meeting his clients, people he trained with. I was able to strike up a social circle through exercise, something that I'm really passionate about. And what you said there about being the guy who's smiling was showing up with energy. These are high value traits that draw people in. There's always a critique to this idea of becoming high value or looking for high value people. And that critique is this seems a bit forced or not everybody is going to have great posture and have these attitudes and have these mindsets. Absolutely. That's why it's important to meet people where they are. But if you are going to make things easy for yourself, becoming that high value person walking into the room allows people to start with curiosity and interest about who you are, what your deal is. We were looking to bring people in and not push them away. If you go, A.J., if you are going into Barry's, looking beat up every day, forced to go in, upset that you're here, you are going to your workout, that's going to repel people. No one is going to take interest. You show up with energy, you're smiling, it's consistent. People are going to take notice. This gives you a great window of opportunity to allow connection to happen. And as we've talked about on this show, a bad first impression. Sure, you can work your way out of it. Science has shown it takes five to ten additional interactions to work your way out of that. Why put yourself in the hole when you can start at the top? And this reminds me of growing up. My uncle had a lake house up in El Pina, up north in Michigan. And when I was younger, we'd go there every summer. And I was mesmerized by when it would get dusk, when it would get late at night and you would leave a light on, whether it was a light on the side of the cottage or a light down by the boathouse. All of a sudden you would see all of these bugs just drawn, moths and lightning bugs and flies and mosquitoes just drawn to that light, buzzing around that light. That's exactly what we're doing with these high value traits. By showcasing that smile, making a full face smile with great eye contact, having open body language, recognizing and acknowledging people around us, we're turning on that light to attract people into our lives. Great analogy. If you're struggling to go to events because you don't know anyone, you might feel a little awkward, you're dusting some of the rust off from socializing and you just don't know what to say. We got you. Download our small talk cheat sheet to break through those awkward moments and build real rapport quickly to transition out of small talk. It's a free download. You can download it right to your phone and have it as that cheat sheet to review before you walk to the gym, before you go to that class, before you go to the event. You can find it at theartofcharm.com slash small-talk and we'll link it up in the show notes. It's a great cheat sheet, super simple way for you to break out of that small talk and not be someone who's turning down opportunities to meet and connect with new amazing people. It's nice to refresh that process and working through it for a few times. As you mentioned, you'll see it on your phone, you'll implement it, you'll get used to those tools. Eventually, you'll just start doing it and you won't need that cheat sheet, but it's certainly a good help and a good refresher just to get you in the state of things. What we're about to talk about with vulnerability. Again, I want to highlight that patience is a virtue. A recent study out of the University of Kansas found that it takes about 50 hours of socializing to go from an acquaintance to a casual friend and an additional 40 hours to become a real friend. So a total of 200 hours to become a close personal friend. We're not going to do it overnight. It's not going to be just a couple quick conversations and instantly you have that lifelong friend, but being patient and understanding the power of vulnerability, you can start to harness these great conversations to turn them into acquaintances to lead to those close friends that we all desire. Now, in 1997, a social psychologist, Arthur Aaron, and his team performed an incredible study. He and his research team paired students into duos and gave them a series of questions to ask each other within 45 minutes. Half of all the pairs were given questions that were just factual and shallow, like, what's your favorite holiday? What TV show do you like the most? The other half were given questions that started off factual but gradually became deeper, like, what's the role of love in your life? Or when's the last time you cried? At the end, the participants were asked to rate how close they felt to their partner. As it turns out, pairs from the second group with those factual to deeper questions formed much deeper bonds. Now, many of the participants from the second group started lasting friendships. And in a longer version of the study, two participants even got engaged a few months after. So what is this show? We're in control. The more comfortable you get with vulnerability, moving from small talk towards gradually getting deeper and deeper in your conversation, the more likely you are to be forming these great connections in your life. So you don't have to hope as a strategy, just try to throw yourself in the right position and think that magically relationships are going to start. We can actually control the process. And my favorite part about this is once you understand how vulnerability works and the rapport flow that we're about to walk through, you can start using it everywhere. I'm heading to the airport in a few hours and I love doing it with my Uber or Lyft driver. I love practicing these skills with the person sitting next to me on the plane. These are great opportunities for you to introduce vulnerability in every conversation that you have to sharpen the skill set. So when the opportunity strikes with a high value person, you're ready to build that acquaintance and friendship. So let's walk through vulnerability, Johnny. I want everyone to understand that the way you're going to look at this is a tour guide, a Sherpa, or the leader. You are going to meet people where they are and then you are going to lead them into levels of vulnerability. What's important here is that we understand what those levels are and then we will show you how to use them. So let's go over the three levels of vulnerability. This allows for rapport to happen. And in order for that to happen, we can't just jump into the deep end, into the heaviest part of vulnerability. This scares people. We're going to start, as I mentioned, where they are at light disclosure, light disclosure is lighthearted, fun, amusing anecdotes about yourself and the world around you. I always use this silly anecdote, which is a story of being in third, fourth grade, hanging out in the cafeteria with friends, laughing, carrying on, and I go to shake my chocolate milk. And in that moment, chocolate milk goes everywhere because as I begin shaking it, I realize I had already opened it a few minutes earlier and forgot. Now, this story has humor in it. There's embarrassment, but because it happened in the past, it has no ties to me now. There's no way for you to use any of that story to use it against me, to manipulate me. The only thing that you're able to do is to relate to that story. And this makes it a low risk, light disclosure story. So in telling you that story, I'm sure a lot of you started to think, oh, I had something like that happen to me, or that's nothing compared to what happened, the embarrassing moment that I had in fourth grade. But here we are. We've opened the doors. We've met people where they are at a comfortable level to be vulnerable, but low risk. So you may have thought in the past, hey, in order to create great connections, I need to just look for commonalities, common interests. And usually what happens is someone will say, oh, I like this thing and you go, yeah, I like that too. That actually doesn't create the connection. The vulnerability between the commonality is what creates connection. So let me give you an example. I was invited to a dinner here in LA with a bunch of influencers, and I was seated across from a gentleman who's a chef. And he had just moved from Brooklyn to LA. Now, I had moved from New York to LA about 13 years ago. So when he said that he had moved from New York to LA, I was like, oh, we have that in common. Now, I could have just said, oh, that's cool, me too. And the conversation would have carried on, not really much vulnerability there, no real opportunity to connect. So what I told him instead is I was like, hey, it's so fascinating when I moved from New York to LA 13 years ago, I thought it was going to be a short move. So I decided that I wasn't going to buy a car. And I remember getting invited out with some friends in the neighborhood where I was living in Hollywood. And they said, hey, let's meet at this venue. We went to that bar together, and they were like, hey, let's go to this restaurant just down the street two blocks away. And I was like, OK, and I started to walk out the door and they said, hey, where are you going? Why aren't you getting your car? And I'm like, it's just two blocks. Why do I need my car? And I had to wait for my friends to get their car from Valet only to go down two blocks to the next spot and Valet again. And that experience was just so foreign to me coming from New York where you literally walk everywhere. And the last thing you want is a car. And immediately his eyes lit up and he was like, me too. I did not want to get a car, but I didn't realize how LA was so spread out and I would have to in order just to get around. Just that little bit of light vulnerability of me sharing an anecdote, moving, experiencing something similar. I put myself out there. Maybe he had a car. Maybe he hadn't experienced anything like that. But I added a little bit of vulnerability by sharing that story and it created the opportunity for emotional connection. So if right now you're feeling like, hey, a lot of my conversations, there are commonalities. There are common interests, but I'm still having surface level interactions. It's in large part because you're not adding story, color, and emotion to those commonalities and common interests. When you add stories and anecdotes with light vulnerability, you create more of an understanding between two people that really bonds you together. What's great about that is now that you have been a bit vulnerable about seeing that happen and feeling what that was like and him being able to connect on it and agree with that and then talk about how he had felt about it. You're now at an equal rapport level and you can do this a few other times and see if that rapport level is matched. And if it is, then you could start to think about moving into level two, which is medium disclosure. Medium disclosure is beliefs, opinions, feelings, and ideas about yourself and the world around you. I like to say that this is in the broadest of contexts the way you see the world. Your worldview, your philosophy, your politics, your religion. And when I say that in the broadest of takes, religion in the broadest of ideas is what you chase in life. We're living in a world where people chase likes and shares and fame and money, but if you understand that, then you have an idea of the things that they value. This is beliefs, opinions, feelings, and ideas. This is a deeper level of vulnerability because it's now exposing your worldview, how you see things working. If I was to disclose that, then that would be vulnerability that somebody else can use against me. They can certainly, if they know what I chase in life, they can use that information to manipulate me. They can also use that information to connect with me if they share that same worldview. But as you can see, medium disclosure carries with it more risk. And with that risk, you're probably not likely to get to medium vulnerability and disclosure in the first meeting with someone. You may not even get to it after a few hangouts. As we said, moving from acquaintance to friend, it does take some time. So what are some ways you can plant the seed? I know right now, and we've talked about this in past episodes, in particular with Todd Kashton, that the political climate right now leads to a lot of people not wanting to share their beliefs, not wanting to admit what side they're on and all of the tribalism that's going on in front of them because they fear, well, maybe this person is on the other side or I don't want an argument or I know that I shouldn't talk about these things. So what I like to do is I like to create some pretext and seed where they are to start to see, are we on the same page before I get to that medium level of disclosure? I might recommend a podcast for them to check out where there's a high level political discussion going on. I might send them a link to an article I read that I found really interesting. It doesn't showcase my political beliefs, but if they engage with it, if they tell me they enjoy that podcast, if they talk about the article that I shared with them, they comment back or I'm perusing their social media and I see they're engaging with similar content, then I can feel a little bit more comfortable putting myself out there with the medium risk disclosure like my political beliefs. Same thing with the religion and that's the power of social media. We have all of the world right now putting online what is most important to them. They are signaling like never before. Before social media, you had to look at someone and judge their tribe based on what they were wearing, which is why religious symbols were so popular, which is why brand names have used this to capitalize to create tribalism. But now through the power of social media, everyone is starting to disclose at the medium level what their beliefs are, what their political leanings are, what they're retweeting, what they're engaging with, what they're listening to, and you could just ask someone, hey, what are your favorite podcasts and get a sense for where people are on a spectrum and start to see, hey, is there an opportunity that there's some alignment here? Now, I know that if I'm asking someone what their favorite podcasts are and they tell me that, oh, I listened to a ton of political podcasts, well, I'm not really interested in politics, so I'm probably not going to get into a political discussion or share that vulnerability of my own political journey, or they might say, hey, I'm actually, I'm reading the right, I'm reading the left, I listen to this podcast that's right down the middle, I try to get everyone's side, the podcast like breaking points, and all of a sudden I go, oh, you know, maybe there is some overlap here, so I'll feel more comfortable with medium disclosure. So we're not saying run to medium disclosure in that first interaction, we're not saying you should be wearing all of these thoughts, beliefs, leanings on your sleeve, but as you start to go from light disclosure to see the signals and the response in other people, you can start to feel more comfortable getting that next level of vulnerability. And I want to point out here that people don't connect by being perfect. So we often try to present our best self in front of others. We often think, if I just show them how amazing I am, then other people are going to like me. And as you saw from Johnny's example, well, he sprayed chocolate milk all over himself. That's not perfection. I started walking out of the restaurant down the street and made a fool of myself in front of the LA locals who are absolutely aghast that I was walking in LA. So it's okay to show your imperfections too as we're getting vulnerable. It's okay to let your guard down and share some of the mistakes, lessons that you've learned along the way because that actually creates the opportunity for connection that we're looking for. Yes, that's the vulnerability that everyone is easily and able to connect to. I want to give you a visual to go along with this because this will help determine whether or not it is safe to move into medium disclosure. So Brené Brown talks about the vulnerability jelly bean jar. So if I'm speaking to AJ and I've never met him before I have to imagine that there is a jelly bean jar between AJ and myself. And if I ask AJ a question, hey, where'd you move from? Or what is it about this town that you enjoy so much? So AJ now has to answer that question, which means he has to throw a few jelly beans in that jar. If I ask that question again, AJ has to contribute a few more jelly beans to that jar. At this point, he's the one who's put all the jelly beans in the jar. He is now going to start to notice that he's doing all the work. And if I ask too many questions in a row, the pressure and tension of having to contribute and answer those questions continues to build. In interactions, you can only ask about three to four questions in a row before that interaction collapses on itself. Due to AJ being the one who's contributing, who's being the most vulnerable. So if AJ is going to answer that and he's going to discuss and talk about how when he moved to LA, he didn't realize that everyone drove everywhere and how vast it was. I need to make sure that I comment on that as well, that I'm going to contribute those jelly beans in that jar. Now we have this gauge of this jelly bean jar of vulnerability. If it's evenly matched, if we're both contributing, the more we both contribute, the more comfortable we are going to fill with each other, the more I feel that I can take another risk because he's been matching me on everything. So now I'm going to go into heavier disclosure. Now I'm going to go into medium. I'm going to ask what podcast he's listening to. This is why it's called The Art of Charm. The podcast you're listening to, you're listening to me that we started, the coaching that we do. And just yesterday I was on an X Factor Accelerator coaching call and one of our participants, Adam said, you know, the podcast, you guys talk about a lot of these strategies and give a lot of great information. But I found that at times it's really difficult in the moment to just put this stuff into action. And sometimes I want to get really vulnerable, but the other person doesn't really seem like they're ready to add that jelly bean. But I want this one thing to happen. I'm working on these skills. And I told them, and this is something that we all need to realize, that the art of it is being able to read other people's contributions to be able to see when they're adding jelly beans. It's not just about you pushing towards heavy disclosure. It's not just about you saying, I'm ready for medium disclosure. It's about listening and engaging to see is the other person adding jelly beans. And that can be hard in high-stakes situations like a first date or after a great social sales funnel event where you really want to turn this acquaintance into a friend or even on a job interview where you're under a lot of tension and pressure and stress. It can be hard to put this stuff into action, which is why each and every week inside of the X Factor Accelerator we're doing implementation sessions, practicing like a social skills dojo so that you not only get better yourself with disclosure, but you also get a lot better at listening and picking up the signals of disclosure in others. And the better you are at reading other people, the more effective all of these skills and all of these strategies that we're sharing with you on the podcast will be in your arsenal, in your toolkit for success. Now let's talk about this third level, Johnny. Yes, this third level, it's the third and final, and it carries the most risk because this is where you're going to be the most vulnerable. And it is your fears and insecurities about yourself and the world around you. As you know, if you knew what I fear in life, you can use that information to manipulate me. If you know what I'm insecure about, you can use that information against me. In fact, we have a whole field of people who look to understand people's insecurities so they can sell them products. It's called advertising, and that's what advertising is about, to exploit people's fears and insecurities and offer them solutions to those fears and insecurities. Because it carries the most risk, this is something that you want to save for people that you feel very good about, who has been matching you with light disclosure, who are now sharing your values and concerns and worldview. So now you can feel good that we can go to this next step. Your fears and insecurities should be shared with people who have earned it. If those people haven't earned it and you go directly to your fears and insecurities, it can be overwhelming for somebody to hear these things. And your fears and insecurities are not only verbalized through long periods of interacting with each other. You begin to see it in people's body language, the words that they use, how they describe their experiences. This is why throughout that process of getting to know somebody, we start to get an idea of what those things are. This also gives us some cues of whether or not we're willing or able to share these fears and insecurities. Now, a couple of things I want to point out. You might be sitting there thinking, oh, okay, so now I can only get vulnerable with people who share my beliefs or share my political views or have the same interests. Not at all. But if you're on another side of the political aisle, if you have completely different views or beliefs around the world and you share them in that medium disclosure, is that person using them against you? Is that person calling it out, making you feel bad for expressing it, making fun of poking or even being sarcastic? And I have to point this out. Growing up in the Midwest, I love sarcasm. I use sarcasm all the time to joke around to get people warmed up and feeling comfortable. But when we're talking about rapport, when we're talking about throwing jelly beans into that vulnerability jar, that is not a place for dark humor, sarcasm, cutting people down. So that's not to say that, hey, I don't have friends who are completely on the other side of the political spectrum or I don't have friends who have completely different beliefs about morality, religion, or anything else in the world or even different values. But if I'm going to express my values, I expect my friends to acknowledge, understand, and appreciate my values even if there's differences. Not use my values against me. And when someone does, I start to disconnect from them. So, for example, I quit drinking about nine months ago and I pay attention to how people react to that. Some people react just fine even though they love drinking, but some people will crack jokes at my expense. Oh, you must have been a heavy drinker. Oh, wow. I now recognize that I don't feel comfortable getting more vulnerable with that person. I don't feel comfortable getting to my fears and insecurities with that person. Why? They're using my medium disclosure against me. They're introducing me to people, oh, this is sober AJ. That's not someone I'm going to feel comfortable progressing with. In a relationship, they'll end up in the acquaintance or someone I see time to time. So part of reading this, part of understanding these levels of vulnerability is how are people reacting as you throw that jelly bean into the jar? Some people might react really supportively and acknowledge and affirm your beliefs and values even if they're vastly different than yours. Others might use them as a weapon, might call you out, throw you under the bus, poke fun at it, and I just take account of that and realize, well, we're not ready for that next level of vulnerability and maybe that other person's fears or insecurities are getting in the way. So that's how I'm calibrating in my conversation. And as we said, we're not just jumping into religion and politics on a first meeting, a first hangout, at our social sales event, or even third or fourth meeting. But as you start to warm up to people and you start to see the dimensions to their lives, you can start to feel a bit more comfortable adding some of those jelly beans into the vulnerability jar. AJ, for our visual learners, I want to give another visual for them to contend with and wrap their minds around. So this is an old metaphor that we used to use in our vulnerability classes, which is the cave analogy. And this cave analogy will allow you to understand why some people are hesitant to open up and while others are. So in meeting somebody for the first time, you're in light disclosure. And being able to talk and share in light disclosure is a very easy thing, as I mentioned. There's no risk involved. So you can think of it as I met somebody and I'm walking them to a cave. In that cave is where medium disclosure is going to be. Farther back you go, it's where heavy disclosure is going to be. So if we've met and we've walked up to that cave with light disclosure, and now I'm asking you to step in to throw a jelly bean into that jar, which means, hey, you need to now go into that cave. You can understand why somebody isn't going to be a bit hesitant. They're like, well, I don't know you all that well. Who's to say what's in that cave? I don't know. If I walk into that cave, what is going to happen? So in leading with vulnerability, I need to show that nothing will happen to you in that cave. In fact, it is quite safe to walk into that cave. So I am going to go in first. I am going to drop some medium disclosure and see how you react to it. This is what AJ was discussing, talking about giving up, drinking. Watch how people react to him saying that. So as we walk into that cave, I'm going to go into medium disclosure. I might drop a few of those heavier jelly beans. And now I'm going to watch what happens. Is that person following me in? Or does that person still outside telling me, hey, I like what you're saying. Keep on going. Well, I'm going to get a little bit curious now to why isn't that person not following me in? So this is an opportunity for me now to understand that. And I can either continue that path or I can backtrack a little bit because that person isn't willing to walk into that cave yet. That's OK. Sometimes that just takes a little longer. That's also not assigned to give up. So we've heard from a few of our clients in X Factor Accelerator, like Adam, they're really excited to put this stuff into action and they want to speed up the process. Who wouldn't want more relationships, deeper connections? I get it. We all want it. But as we've talked through past trauma with some of our therapists who've been on here, like the holistic psychologist Nicola Perra, people's trauma, people's past will lead to discomfort in these situations and it may just take them a little longer to match you, to start adding those jelly beans. So vulnerability and building a connection is not an impatient game. It really requires you to listen, to calibrate and keep giving people opportunities. Where I pay closest attention is how are they utilizing the information that I'm giving them? If they're using it as a way to poke fun at me, demean me, belittle me and not share, then I have less patience for them. But if I open up, I throw a jelly bean in and they don't really know how to respond or react, then I'm just going to be more patient. So I'll give you another example. When the pandemic hit, as many of you who might have been listening to this show for years and years and years, you know that Johnny and I make our living coaching in person, running all these great programs throughout the last decade. And when obviously COVID hit, we couldn't run those live trainings and it was really frustrating for me and Johnny, something that we love or passionate about to have that completely shut down. And there was a lot of nervous, anxious energy. Are we going to survive? What's going to happen to the company? How are we going to make this work? And there were some acquaintances in my life that I shared that with. Now, up until this point, they had known me as happy, go lucky, positive AJ, the coach, the entrepreneur. And it seems like everything's going well for AJ. I wasn't at that medium disclosure level and I certainly wasn't at heavy. I thought I could rush the process. I thought with these acquaintances, I could just say, oh man, work is really stressing me out. I'm struggling. And one of them actually had a ton of success. So he was moving the opposite direction. His business was skyrocketing with COVID and mine was taking a fall in a tumble. And I shared, I saw his reaction. He didn't know how to handle it. He didn't really know how to respond. It was outside of what I'd normally shared. Now, he wasn't negative. He didn't make fun of me. He didn't poke anything at my vulnerability. But it took him a little while to warm up. We hung out again. Same thing. Things are going well in his business. Fast forward a year and a half. And he invites me out to sushi and we're sharing and things that are to charm have gotten back on track. I'm excited about some military work that we're doing and we have some corporate contracts. And we're now launching new programs that we're really excited about. So I'm back to being passionate, excited AJ. And he sits down. And after a few bites of sushi, he admits to me that he had a huge lawsuit in his business and he got really vulnerable. And at the end of that sushi dinner, he said, to be honest, I hadn't shared that with anyone. But I really appreciated you about a year and a half ago sharing with me the struggle that you were having in your business. And that let him get to a level of vulnerability and comfort with me to finally open up. So I point this out because I didn't write him off. I didn't say I could no longer be friends or acquaintances with you because you didn't respond with a jelly bean when I got vulnerable. And it took about a year and a half for him to feel comfortable getting that vulnerable with me. So it is totally normal for you to be putting in a lot of effort and energy, wanting to move things to the next level, wanting to deepen the relationship and the other person, not quite there yet. Not quite ready to get that vulnerable. And as I said to start the show, it takes hours and hours of shared experiences and vulnerability before we can move from a acquaintance to a friend, let alone a close friend. Everybody is on different comfort levels with their communication and their vulnerability. This is why I discussed earlier about meeting people where they are and leading them this is the whole point of it. I always write articles every week that are in our Facebook group and we do live trainings there from the podcast. It's super fun. And if you guys haven't checked it out yet, I highly suggest you do. And because of that, I know that the more vulnerable I write the articles, the more people comment on them and engage with them. And I've had people when I discussed the articles, how they mentioned to me that they could never write something like that and just put it out there for people to see and critique and engage with and comment on. That was terrifying for them. And I will tell you, when all this technology first came out, I was weird about it as well. I didn't know what I was going to get back throwing this stuff out into the ethernet. But now I'm so comfortable. I mean, I do these live trainings and just ran into the camera and have fun and have a good laugh. And I know at this point that everyone is going to get something valuable from it. And so it only encourages me to do it more. But for so many other people, they don't engage with this technology as a contributor. They engage with this technology as a consumer. And that is a different, complete lens. And if they're experiencing it as a consumer, they're not spreading their wings and they're going to stay in their comfort zone by putting things out there, by creating content. By throwing it out there, you're moving into outside of your comfort zone and you're going to have to deal with the unknowns that are going to come with that. That's pretty scary for people. And that's dealing with the internet. But interpersonal relationships, it's the same way. Some people are more passive and their communication and how they go about navigating the world. Other people are very proactive. They go at it with strategies and plans in order to get them to where they need to go. And if you're listening to this podcast, I would guess that you are one of those people who are looking to get better in your communication so you can build the world that you want to live in. The way that we illustrate these levels of vulnerability is through story. So we're not telling you to run into conversation and say, hey, Johnny, my biggest fear is the art of charm failing. My biggest fear is a business I built for the last 10 years going completely under because of COVID. That's not how we illustrate these levels of vulnerability. We do it through story. We share experiences and through those experiences that we share, we start to share our beliefs, our values and our fears and insecurities. And you have to understand that your stories are not meant for everyone. Just as much as Johnny's getting vulnerable inside the Facebook group or on social media, there's a ton of people there who aren't going to resonate with it, who might leave a negative comment, who might say, screw you. I don't agree with that view. Might call them names. That's fine. They also showcase that they're not worth being an acquaintance. They're not worth you investing more jelly beans in that jar. They're not worth you putting in more time, effort and energy to spend together. Now, what I love about when you understand the power of vulnerability, you now have some freedom to behave in a manner that leads to more people connecting with you. So you're not just stuck focused on commonalities and, oh, Johnny loves the Steelers. I love the Lions. Oh, we can't be friends. But instead, you realize all of the secret sauce behind it so that you can cultivate through stories and how you share yourself with the world more opportunities to connect with high value people. And that's why we love the work that we do and inside the X Factor Accelerator seeing every single week new members put themselves out there in the new experiences, meeting new people, hosting social sales funnel events and realizing that the power of vulnerability, it's in their control. Through you controlling what you share, you have absolute freedom instead of hope as a strategy. So if you listen to this and you're feeling a little bit alone, you felt you haven't made too many friends in the past as an adult, or maybe these connection and vulnerability skills that we talked about, well, they just feel a little rusty because you've really only opened up to your spouse or a family member or a one or two friends that you have. You're not alone. We're here to support you. And through this podcast and the exercises we have inside of the X Factor Accelerator, you too can become more connectable and build quality relationships in your life at any age. And we have members inside of X Factor Accelerator who are in their 20s, fresh out of school, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we like to say, who are moving to new towns, graduating with degrees, excited to meet new people. And we have people in their 60s and even 70s who've had a lot of friends, lost some friends along the way, experienced some loss, a breakup, divorce and come out the other end realizing that they still want quality relationships in their life. So it's never too late to start getting vulnerable and now that you understand the science and the structure behind it, you can start connecting with more people.