 I feel like everyone wants to be this likable leader where everyone just is so happy to be following along and that's not how leadership works. Leadership works through managing the tension of when there is dissension, when people aren't necessarily agreeing with what has to be done. It's managing the conflict and it's growing your influence and your persuasion to get the goal achieved. Welcome back to the Art of Charm podcast. I'm AJ. And I'm Johnny. And it's a new month. It's a new theme. I can't believe it's December Johnny. How many of you out there are excited for a new theme? I know we get a lot of letters and emails about this exact thing. How do we build our leadership skills? Yeah and everybody at some point in their life is going to be in those positions if they're if they're working hard on themselves and their career. I mean there's going to be times whether it's in a family environment, whether it's in your social circle, whether it's going to be at work in a professional environment where you're going to be asked to lead. And one of the things that we do at the Art of Charm is we try to give our clients opportunities to lead through the AOC network so that they can work on these things. Because it's not, you don't just get the job and then turn on the switch. And as we were talking, we were laughing about this. Leaders aren't born. There's, you know, leaders are made and they're made through experience. And leadership skills, right, it's a range of things that we're going to be talking about this month. We're going to be talking about persuasion, we're going to be talking about confidence, we're going to be talking about building plans and pitching and selling your ideas and raising your influence. Now this is a podcast where we share over 13 years of our own experience training advanced social skills with our clients here in sunny Hollywood. We bring you actionable tips and strategies and how to better connect socially, boost your emotional intelligence and navigate social behavior to crush it in business love and life. Now imagine having a mix of experienced mentors teaching you their expertise, packing decades of research and testing and tough lessons into a concise curriculum each and every week here on the art of charm podcast. Now we have been doing this podcast with great tips and scientifically proven social strategies and amazing guests. We've also been delivering live and online advanced emotional intelligence training programs for over a decade. If what you've learned on the show has helped you in your life, imagine what one of our tailored programs can do for you. To learn more about these advanced social skills programs and immersions, go to the art of charm dot com slash boot camp for more details and to sign up for our newsletter. Also we are now doing corporate training. So if you are interested in our team including AJ and myself coming to your office to work on team building, sales, persuasion, conflict resolution and networking, send us an email at AJ at the art of charm dot com. And remember a happy office is a productive office. That's right. Take your life and career to the next level now with the help of the art of charm. Now just before we start the show, Johnny and I would love to take this opportunity to reach out to our audience members who worked in the psychology fields either as a psychologist or a therapist. We have some really interesting projects that we're working on and we'd love your input. You can go ahead and drop us a line at partner at the art of charm dot com. Thanks for joining us. Let's kick off this show. Now we are starting a new month, which means a new theme here at the art of charm. And as we wrap up 2019, we're going to talk about leadership skills. How do we develop those in ourselves? What do they entail? And I know it's a question that we get in our mail bag. It's a question that we get from our program participants. They now are moving into places and points in their career where they have to lead. Yep. And for some of us, if we haven't had that experience leading, it could certainly feel overwhelming and daunting. So today we're going to discuss some of the theory behind effective leadership, why a strong frame is necessary for this and building up our personal confidence level, as well as the traits you need to bring to the table as a leader. Now if you're not in a leadership position and you don't aspire to be in one either, don't hit the skip button just yet. The framework that Johnny and I discussed today is going to be applicable in most, if not all, group settings. So even if it's not in your professional life, in your social life, being a leader can help you. So if you're someone who struggles with being engaging in group conversation, which I know some of our listeners struggle with, I did, certainly back in my closeted introverted days. Or if you feel that you'd like to step up in your life, well, you're going to find some tools and techniques in here that you can start using right away. Absolutely. And the other thing about this is, let's just be honest. If you're going to lead anybody, you're going to first need to be able to lead yourself. So that's what we're going to be breaking down. Yeah, and understanding that when we start to lead ourselves, when we start to develop out our frame and build our confidence, people naturally start to follow. So we have to build these traits in ourselves first, before we even step into that leadership role. And this is a concept that's one of the foundations of our residential boot camp here in Los Angeles. And it's the idea that the stronger frame dissolves the weaker one. And can you break down what we mean by that, Johnny? Well, when we discuss frame, we're talking about the totality of that. We are speaking about the totality that make up who you are. So it's not only your physical presence. It's also your mindsets, how you view the world and how it works around you. It also entails your experiences and what you've learned through those experiences and how those experiences help you exhibit certain traits in body language and behaviors that others are going to see. Because we always have to go back to the science of this, where we are primates. We're an advanced primate. And because of that, we have to look at how primates work together. And they work together in small bands. And there is a hierarchical order to those bands. And that hierarchical order in the animal world, it plays out as well in the human world. We just have so much other things going around us that we don't normally, well, it just doesn't appear the way it does with a chicken's pecking order, right? However, it's still present. And it's still going on. It's just much more complex. And but it still needs to be appreciated. And understanding that this is a basic framework that allows us to step into that leadership role, to be someone who inspires, who motivates, who influences, who persuades. Well, we need to start working on our frame internally first, right? And Johnny, what was the first leadership position you ever took on? Oh my, you know, I guess I automatically started thinking about jobs and things like that. But I guess for me, it was starting a band in junior high in high school. It's leading our fearless band into battle on the stage. And let's break down what that took, right? It took, one, the confidence to say, hey, I'm good enough. Let's start a band. Oh yeah. And I would imagine when it comes to building a band, well, there's going to be some conflict. I know I've witnessed a few of those conflicts in your band days. You know, it's funny. It's like, why do I still do it? Because it's worth it. I love creating, and I love performing. And it's a lot of fun. It certainly allows me to be able to break from the art of charm and do something else that gives me joy. You know, that's certainly the hobby that I have chosen and that I've had for years. But the thing about it is when I first got started, I grew up in a musical household. So there was always instruments. So I was, at least where I was, I had started earlier than all the other kids. And I had to wait for the other kids to catch up. To catch up. And finally, I remember my dad saying, well, you know, wait till those guys go to high school. Because in high school is where things get a little funny, right, because hormones have now taken over. And the guys who are not getting any attention from the girls, because they're not on the sports teams, right, it's the guys who are able to develop physically first are going to get that attention. And then you're left with the other guys like, I'm not going to be left out in the lurch here. So I need to find another creative, I need to get creative in finding a way to get that attention for myself. So I had been playing guitar and drums for since eight, nine, 10 years old. I, those instruments were in my house. So you can imagine, I was waiting for those kids for high school to hit where they would start getting instruments for Christmas. And then I had to wait for them to learn how to play those instruments. And I know that I had been dragging kids, kicking and screaming into rehearsals and playing on stage and everything that comes with that, including the promotion and the publicity. And there was also needing to go out and find places where a bunch of teenagers could play a show. And what we had done was I had seen some other kids who were a little bit older who went and talked to the local clubs in town and asked them if they were able to put together a under 21 night. And so we had managed to convince some of the clubs to allow us to do that on a Sunday afternoon. And you can only imagine with these kids going to their parents to let them know they're playing at this bar on Sunday as they're gonna have an under 21 night. I mean, it was brutal. And I wanted to play so bad. And I'd been waiting for these kids to get to a point where they would be able to play that I was just pushing them constantly, pushing them to get better, pushing them to play a show, pushing them to help promote. And so it was such a wanted thing with me that I was willing to go through whatever painstaking mistakes and efforts that was going to take in order to make that happen. And that's the thing about it is you have to be able to find some sort of motivation anywhere that you can to get to put yourself through looking foolish, to put yourself through everything that it's going to take in order for you to get good. So there was a quote that I really enjoyed from Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters, Nirvana. And it was taken from a keynote speech that he had prepared and did at South by Southwest a few years ago. And basically, you're gonna go out there and you're going to suck. And you're going to need to go out there and do that in order to be able to find your voice. And for myself, music was such a love that I was willing to make those mistakes. And it's difficult, but anything that you're going to do, you're gonna need to be able to find the motivation to go through that learning process. And it's not, it can be fun, but it's not always fun. So understanding that failure is going to happen. Yes. A leadership understands that the first few times you set out to do something, there's gonna be failure involved. And it's not being afraid of said failure. This is what we're talking about strengthening your frame. So when we think about building out our leadership skillset, the foundation is really around our own confidence level. And for you, your dad instilled music in you so you had a level of confidence. Now, in order to start building the band to go into that leadership role wasn't just your confidence, you had to actually start persuading people. Convincing people to join your band. Oh yeah. And that we should be rehearsing and that we should now take this to a club and perform it live. And then what happens? You get the band together and, oh, there's some conflict. There's some things not going right. You gotta manage the conflict to keep the band together, right? That's another sign of a leader. And then lastly, you can be able to pitch your band to get on stage, to get events. These are all skills that fall under the umbrella of leadership that we're talking about this month. And when we dial into this building a stronger frame, it starts first with building out your sense of confidence. And we have a simple acronym that we use here at the Art of Charm for confidence. We go into it on Tuesday in the boot camps and it's our cake equation. So C is confidence. And really, confidence is made up of three factors. It's an attitude. You have to start believing that you will succeed in order to have confidence. You can't believe and doubt yourself and be confident. You need to have some knowledge to back up that allows you to feel confident. And that knowledge typically can be gained in your career, could be gained in school, could be gained learning music. Whatever the case may be, we need that knowledge factor working to our advantage to build confidence. And the last piece of all of this is experience. And for many of us, that's the piece that's typically lacking the most. But if we wanna become a leader, we have to push through that failure to build that experience. And now, that creates a solid foundation of confidence. And when we're thinking about building out leadership skills, again, a lot of us think professionally, but you can start building out your leadership skills by gaining new skills, by challenging yourself, by learning new things, building out that knowledge, building out that experience. And that's how we're gonna start to build out an attitude and a belief in ourselves. Well, and this is going to at least open you up then in order to gain all these skills. So AJ, you asked me about my first time and the role of leading. How about for you, do you remember yours? Yeah, I had a junior high project. It was a science project. It was a group. I was assigned as the group lead because I love science growing up. So I was always talking in science class, peppering the instructor with questions. So we got assigned in a little group and my group said AJ's leader. And it was the first time that I was ever in a leadership role. And I felt pretty good about it because I love science. I thought, oh, everyone's gonna buy in. We're gonna do this project. And what ended up happening was I ended up doing the whole project myself. Now, you could argue that was because of the lack of leadership skills, right? Without getting buy in, without being persuasive, without influencing the team to participate in this, the deadline loomed, I couldn't get anyone on board. So I just had to push through and finish it myself. Well, I gotta say, at least you took it upon yourself to shoulder the burden and carry it across the finish line because that's mighty big of you. Well, it made me very, very shy around future group projects. Sure. I wasn't excited about sticking my neck out because I knew that that was gonna be an awful lot of work on my shoulders because I wasn't persuasive, because I lacked confidence in myself to stand up and be like, guys, you gotta help me here. You gotta participate in this. Now, do you remember certain instances where obviously you've could've done it better of your persuasion and getting the other kids to rally around you and do you remember where you came up short? Yeah, so it really was a combination of a lack of confidence in myself and a lack of patience. Yeah. So I wasn't confident enough to really get the group to participate and they just all kind of looked at me and I certainly wasn't willing to fail in this project. So I was just like, oh, I guess I'll just do all the work. Right? So I didn't stand up for myself and I couldn't persuade them to participate. They were just happy to know that AJ, the science all-star, was gonna take over this project and get us an A. Oh my. And it was a sinking feeling. You know, it was like, man, this is supposed to be a group project and I can't get people to follow along. And why are we covering this? Why are we talking about these stories? For a lot of us, our first experience leading has been negative. We didn't have this skill set. We struggled. We were frustrated and then we sort of doubt ourselves. Can I be a leader? And of course over the last 13 years building out this company, leading the team, I've learned that it's a variety of skills that you need to have at your disposal to be an effective leader. Yes. So how do we start building that stronger frame? We have to have some confidence in ourselves. We have now a framework to build out our confidence. We have to start gaining some new experience, gaining knowledge, and that's gonna start to build that attitude and belief that we can do things. But when we talk about stronger frame versus weaker frame, I know a lot of people still might be a little fuzzy. Yeah. So let's go back to the idea of herd mentality because this is where it all comes from. So this is why we have to respect the science that comes with this. So we go back to being a primate, which is a herd animal. They work in groups. There is a hierarchical structure that goes to those groups. And you wanna be able to fit in within that structure so that you are in the group. In the group means you're safe. That's first and foremost. And so when we talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that is number uno, safety. You can't do anything else unless you have made yourself safe. Allowing yourself to be safe and having the resources that you need allow you then to start thinking about abstract concepts. But if you are not taking care of the safety and resources, you will be preoccupied with those thoughts first. Now, when in fitting in to fit in to be safe, there is going to be social norms that you're gonna have to register. So you walk in, you start to look around to see how you behave. For humans, not only is there gonna be social norms, there's going to be mind stats that are adopted to the group. It's called hive mind. And so now we have to look at that. We wanna make sure that our actions are syncing up with the other animals, but the other people, we wanna make sure that our ideas and mental frameworks fit in. And this is what's difficult. So, cause now you're gonna be looking around to the others to gauge where you are. However, that is you syncing up to be somewhere in the middle so that you can be safe. If you get too far behind, if you're lagging, you're going to get taken out. Right. The other thing is, if you move to the front, you're going to be having people gunning for you. So it's safest to be somewhat in the middle. However, if you're going to lead the team, if you know where you want to go, you have to move to the front of the line. You have to, you can't be in the middle. You cannot be in the middle. And what's interesting here, if you're trying to lead from the middle, that can get you into a lot of trouble cause it could look like you were trying to undermine the hierarchical structure that is there. Now, if you're within a company, that could be seen as poisoning the well. Right. And that's not going to help your case. No, we don't wanna do that. And no one here wants to be poisoning the well, certainly in their role at work. I think for a lot of us, frame is something that we are not even realizing is happening. And when we bring this up in bootcamp, a lot of our guys are like, wow, okay, this is like brand new to me. So let's talk about this. Your frame is the reference in which you interpret the world. Yes. So for example, and this is a great example that you give in class. If someone smiles at you while you're walking down the street, you could interpret that as they're friendly or hey, they really like me. That's one version of events. Or you could think there's something funny about you. There's something stuck in your teeth. Maybe you're wearing a silly shirt. It's the exact same event, but these are different frames. One frame is a strong frame that people like me. People view me in a positive manner. The other is a weak frame that there must be something wrong with me. That's why they're laughing at me. And let's think about this. What would make, what would strengthen your frame in this case? So if you knew that in that morning, when you got dressed and you got put together and you were feeling great, when you walked down the street and there was that smile, you're like, man, people are checking me out. However, if you haven't done much work on yourself and you put through on together what you gotta throw on and left the house and didn't really put much effort into it, now you're walking down that smile or giggle or that look is now you asking what is wrong? Why did they look at me? Is there something wrong with my shirt? Is my hair sticking up? Like it could be whatever you need it to be. However, you're now being shaken up because of this other person. This person has control over how you feel. Therefore, when you're looking to other people to dictate how you should feel and how you should think and how you should be, well then you have a weak frame. You're looking to others to allow you to feel good within the herd. And here's the thing, because the frame informs how you see the world, it'll also influence how others see you. So imagine, we take that the next logical step. You sit down to lunch with your buddy and you're like, oh man, I was walking down the street and this person was just laughing at me, right? Well, your buddy is now gonna see your weak frame and be like, oh, that's a little interesting. Why would they be laughing at you? Or you sit down to lunch and you say, oh man, my shirt is fitting well. People are really enjoying me. I got a big smile on the way over here. So your frame influences your thoughts, feelings and behaviors, but it also impacts those that you interact with. Here's another one. This is one that we have been having some fun with which is called the cascading effect. If you don't think, you're looking to others to see the way they're voting or thinking or feeling in order to have an idea where you are, your greatly misled and whatever gave you the idea that you're not. Even something as simple as the cascading effect where you start to see several people perform. Say that's the right frame. That's the right frame. And the more people who do that, the stronger that frame becomes because the more support that frame has. And so now if you are going to decide against that frame or have another idea that's contradictory to what that says, you're gonna have that much more opposition. Think about, here's another one. Think about all the moral panics that in history has taught us. The one that comes to mind is the Salem witch trials or any time that the black plague has come and what had caused that. You had a collective and everyone had to agree on why this thing is happening. Why are these people sick? Why did the crop harvest go to shit this? We need an explanation, we need a story. So people start putting this together. Now, let's just say that if we have a room of some people and there is going to be a frame battle of what is the cause. Well, right, and we look back at history and we laugh for like the Salem witch trials. What a joke, like who would believe in witches, right? And we look back at these historical frames from a vantage point of not actually being in the room and not experiencing the cascade effect ourselves. But let's take a simpler one. There's a 10 year challenge going on on Facebook. Look at the clothes everyone's wearing. That was in style 10 years ago. You thought that was the coolest, flyest thing ever. Now you wouldn't be caught dead in it. These frames are happening all around us. We're being influenced by frames in marketing. We're being influenced by frames in sales. We're being influenced by frames in our friends. And here's just to go along with this, just to add. You mentioned that we look at some of these historical events that had these moral panics that where people had got so caught up in these ideas and how did so many people die for such a silly thing? We were always wondering this. It still happens to this day. It's happening right now. And in fact, it's because of social media, it's happening more so than ever. Yeah, then we even realize. That we even realize. There was, just to give you a, I don't want to get into the politics of what's going on now. It's too sticky, but I'll give you one. Yeah, there are better podcasts on politics than there is. But I'll give you one from the 90s. In the 90s, there was a thing called the Satanic Panic. Now, wasn't it the 80s? It was late 80s, early 90s. It had a nice stretch. Yeah. All right, and so, and I bring this up because this greatly affected my life. Now, the Satanic Panic was this moral panic that young kids who were listening to punk rock music and heavy metal were worshiping the devil. And there was Satanic underground rituals being had all over the United States. This is the witch trials, right? And you're listening to this. You're like, no, look it up. And I'm going to point to you some sources that will show you just how ridiculous this got. So while this was going on, we have to take the sensationalist media that was going on at the time. So you had all these talk shows. Donahue, Sally Jessie, Rafael, Herodo. Oprah, all of them, they were all huge. They were all huge and they all had mass influence. And you have to remember, there wasn't the choice in media that we have now. So everyone was watching these. So I can't remember which football game it might even have been the Super Bowl, but it was a big deal. Herodo Rivera, okay? Had a three hour primetime special on the Satanic Panic. Now, of course it wasn't called that, but it was the underground Satanic rituals that were going on in every- Major City killing people. They were snatching up children and killing them. Major City, two Poduk towns everywhere. And in fact, the more rural though, it was even the more of a panic because you had no one else to talk to about this. You're just out in the sticks. So- And this media narrative took off. It was everywhere. And every talk show did their episode on it. Now, you have to imagine, I'm growing up in a town of 13,000 people in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, while this happened. And I'm sitting there watching this and they have Ozzy Osbourne is one of the guests and he's like, what are you guys talking about? You guys are silly. But he's also playing it up a bit too because it only helps his career that he's like ringleader for this. There was the Judas Priest had gotten hauled into court because of subliminal backwards messaging that were in the records. That was the big thing too. All these kids who were listening to this music were- Johnny's favorite music. It's acceptable to subliminal backwards messaging about worshiping Satan and killing your parents and stuff. So I'm watching this thing because I want to see Ozzy Osbourne and they're showing and they're going, if your children are listening to these bands and I'm just checking them off one after another. And my dad looks at me and I'm like, I don't know what they're talking about. And I had a, you know, I was a pretty good kid and my dad was very involved in my life because I was skateboarding and playing music. Like he always knew where I was. And however, it did cause him to raise their eyeballs and when every network is doing their own special on this, it doesn't take very long to you start to think, should I be worried about this? Should I be? What is these kids doing? What is that kid up the street who listens to these bands? They see him with those T-shirts on. What is he up to, right? And so that night I realized that my next day at school was that I was public enemy number one. And so there was a group of us who now had to sit at a special table because we were the weirdos who were listening to all these bands who worship the devil. Now this was late, this was in the 80s and 90s. That's not too far ago and just to once again. And it was total hogwash. It was not only that, there were people who were brought in, who were arrested and put behind bars. And they confessed to things that didn't happen. They confessed. And there were witnesses who because of this frame, because of this strong frame built by the media were convinced that they experienced these things. They were at these satanic rituals. And they would describe them in vivid detail and none of this happened. There was one, I can't remember the name of it now, but there was one family who ran a daycare. And it was, they had all, they had went to jail because they were having underground tunnel in these tunnels under the daycare, these satanic rituals. And I don't even think the tunnels even existed. But because so many people said that it was happening and they're like, they started confessing to this stuff that they went away. And Gerardo Rivera in the 2000s had, he came out and apologized. He had no enough to it. Yeah. So this idea of frame is happening whether you like it or not. Whether you like it or not. And so you have, so you better understand it so that you can use it to your advantage and start strengthening your own frame. And this goes back to what's called framing theory. Yes. A concept developed by Irwin Goffman. And he made this famous through his publication, Frame Analysis, an essay on the organization of experience published in 1974. Now in short, he suggests that how an idea is presented to an audience has a strong influence on how people process that information. So of course, Gerardo Rivera coming on during the Super Bowl to tell families that this is happening. Well, that's a pretty strong frame that everyone's gonna start to fall in line with. For example, Johnny could tell me he just took Puppers for a walk. And if he does with a confident voice and an open body language, a big smile, well, I'm probably gonna believe him. I'm gonna believe that he took Puppers for a walk. But if he says the same thing, mumbling, looking down, not delivering it confidently. Well, I'm gonna be like, wait, what happened to Puppers? What'd you do? What's going on here? So we need, if we want to build our leadership skills, we need to look at our frame first. And a frame is built on confidence and a frame is built with you taking on new skills. As well as doing the work of understanding where you can be better. So understanding your weaknesses and strengths. Right. That's a very important point. And I just wanna say that this is why self-development is so important to being a great leader because you're going to first have to admit where you can be better so you can start doing the work in those areas. And when people see you working on those areas, they're more likely to follow. You wanna talk about increasing your influence, improving yourself is one of the best ways to do that. And a strong frame doesn't mean you're delusional and it doesn't mean you're manipulative. It means you have a strong sense of self. It's raising your self-awareness to your strengths and your weaknesses. I've been waiting for us to get here because I wanna talk about this. So you mentioned a strong frame doesn't mean you're delusional and it doesn't mean you're manipulative. It means that you have a strong sense of self. So what does that look like to some people? So let's just go back and do another little history lesson. Let's talk about some leaders that we all have heard about and are all revered. And when we think about our nation and other nations and the most difficult times, the people that they had leaned on, the hardest to get them through. For me, it's like you certainly think about Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur. I was just listening to Hardcore History so I've been doing a Douglas MacArthur rabbit hole binge lately. And guys like Churchill West, Winston Churchill. Now, these are people who are not only, not only were they the people that we leaned on when the times were the toughest, they are also some of the most controversial people in our history books. Why? Because of the way they led, certainly rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. And I'm sorry, when you start making choices, when you start leading, not everybody is going to be a happy camper within that organization. That's normal. That is normal. We have to talk about that because I feel like everyone wants to be this likable leader where everyone is so happy to be following along and that's not how leadership works. Leadership works through managing the tension of when there is dissension, when people aren't necessarily agreeing with what has to be done. It's managing the conflict. And it's growing your influence and your persuasion to get the goal achieved. Well, one of the things that I enjoy when I'm looking up these characters is how many people didn't like them but respected them. And that's what a good leader does. Even if you feel that for whatever reason your chemistry does not get along with the guy who's running the ship, if you can have respect for the way he leads and his decision-making and his skills, well, now we're good. And this is very important. When it comes to MacArthur and some of these guys, there was one of the things that I hear people say a lot is that they seemed to be led divinely, right? To be divinely led. And you think about that. And what does that mean? It's as if there was another force that was... Guiding them. Guiding them. That allowed us to feel comfortable following them. Absolutely. And what does that look like? I mean, we live in a very secular world now. So for those who are divinely led and have that fantastic, that takes care of you. You have your marching orders, right? But for the secular folk who need a bit more of that, we have to break that down and look at what that means. So, I think Nietzsche put it together best in the spoke Zarathustra, where he is talking about the Ubermensch. Now, this is somebody who is the, I guess the quintessential perfect human being. Like in all religions had that character, right? There was a Christ-like character. And thus spoke Zarathustra. It is the common man at his best, which is the Ubermensch. But, and it's also unable to really be achieved. It is something that you strive for every day. So there you go, right? There is a Christ-like figure for you to be inspired by a model after and strive to be at your best. And now, how do you get there? What is it going to take then for you to now receive your marching orders from this character we've just put together? Well, you have to decide what that is. In our workshops, we put these things together and it takes, it's a process that takes days. And this is why our programs are so long. We're immersed in it. Exactly, and it comes from experience, right? This is why, and we're gonna talk to some amazing authors this month around leadership. And it's not just about reading the book. It's about actually experiencing to strengthen that frame to build out the leadership skills. And it's a skill set. It's not, oh, I just got to do this one thing and now I'm a leader. And I think in looking at obviously the historical figures, they are flawed. Oh my God, just think about guys like Winston Churchill or Douglas MacArthur. This is cracks me up. Do you think any of those people could be elected in today's, I mean, think about Theodore Roosevelt. These are guys who always seem to have a drink and a cigar in their mouth. Like that's not going to fly into today's world. Well, let's talk about that. Douglas MacArthur had that foot long cord cob pipe. And the thing about these guys is they rubbed so many people the wrong way. When I talk about, they seem to be divinely led, divinely inspired. What does that look like? Well, that means that they came off a bit arrogant. They came off with such extreme focus that there was other people who might have gotten in the way who got run over because they have laid out where they want to go and they are hell bent and getting as close to that as possible. It's almost as if they have seen what their destiny is and they're working to live into it, achieve it. And that frame sucks other people in. Yes, it does. Now, when we look at leadership styles, there are two sort of leadership styles, evolutionarily speaking, that are important. And going back to this whole social group idea in the animal kingdom and our survival is dependent on it, there's dominance and there's altruism. And if you're a fan of this show, if you've heard our other episodes, you know which camp we lie in. There's benefits to both. And some of these historical figures that we're talking about probably lean too heavily on the dominance side and not as heavily on the altruism side, but leadership through dominance or leadership through altruism. There are two paths that you can take. And of course, one of them, dominance is what we tend to think of when we think of leaders. Well, why not? That's what everyone around us, media-wise, is cramming down our throats. You think the guy who is altruistic is a good Hollywood story, but the mob boss is certainly a great Hollywood story and he rules through fear. And we need to realize that this is a spectrum. You don't need to be purely dominant. You don't need to be purely altruistic. Well, to go along with that, this is when we start talking about frame and we keep saying the stronger frame dissolves the weaker one, everyone immediately gets it in their mind that it must be their way or the highway at all times. Force it through, bash people down. And just force this frame on everyone wherever they go. And I can tell you, that gets hard to deal with. That makes you a difficult individual to have a conversation with. A mutual exchange has two people sharing in the frame, not you placing- Or seeing the frame on someone else. Because that's exhausting to anyone who's coming in contact with you. If I know that I'm going to a meeting and I have to go around and speak in a certain manner and deal with it through this one lens and frame, that's exhausting to me. Why? Because I have to be measured in everything that I say and do in order for that conversation to move forward. And dominant leadership style simply doesn't work anymore. It may have worked hundreds of years ago when there was one option in town and everyone was trying to get on board, but now we live in a plethora of options and people are not going to feel comfortable if every single day they walk into a situation where that leader is forcing the frame on everyone else. Now, you can think historically speaking about tyranny and dictatorships and all of these things that obviously none of us here in the free world want to go back to. So we need to err on the side of altruism on the spectrum. There are moments to be dominant, but there are also a lot more moments where we recommend being altruistic. And what that means is this is what we should do because it's better for you and all of us. It's not my way or the highway. It's actually talking about one of the leadership skills that we're gonna drill deep into later this month. Persuasion, getting people on board and getting buy-in is important. Being able to pinch your ideas is important in terms of developing out your leadership skills. So when we talk about this, confidence only gets you so far. Confidence helps you start building a stronger frame. Frame is when you are understanding, raising your own self-awareness, understanding where you're strong, where you're weak. Going back to that original story when I was in a group setting and I was like, oh, now I'm the leader. I beat myself up over that. I felt pretty crappy about it. And then I actually, I got into college and in college I was a lot more interested in a bunch of different things, learning new skills, trying to learn how to build things and learn how to do things online and learn how to code. And what I found is the more skills I assemble and the more wins I got under my belt, the more confident I was then jumping into that leadership position. Because I had built up my frame personally. These are actual steps that we can take to start building up our frame outside of work. You can start gaining skills at a personal level that you now are gonna have that frame to bring to the work scenario to be a good leader. And why is all this important? What we wanna inspire. Yes. We wanna give direction, right? We need to be able to persuade. We also need to be able to hold people accountable. And if you have a weak frame, if your frame is not strong, you're not gonna be able to hold people accountable. No, no, and in fact, this is the issue you come under on that case. If your frame is weak and others feel that their frame is stronger or that they can manipulate or influence you as the leader they're going to do that. And if they feel that they're able to do that, this now starts to dictate the other behaviors in the group. This is why people, some people call it poisoning the well. Poisoning the well. So the leader needs to be strong, the frame needs to be set, frame needs to be strong and people need to be inspired and feel good about your leadership so that they don't start manipulating the others in the group or trying to out frame you. That's a fight that you shouldn't have to be dealing with if you're gonna lead your team the victory. That takes you off of your focus. This is why in the past, like people like MacArthur or Winston Churchill, why people felt that they had rubbed them the wrong way or that they sort of bowled over and seemed arrogant because of their focus on the task at hand was more important than getting off track. And when you're in the middle of the Second World War, every day is costing you lives. You don't have time to deal with everyone's egos. And that's why building a stronger frame is gonna help you dissolve those weaker ones so that you can move forward as a leader. And the last part about all of this is, so we have our persuasion skills. We need to be able to pitch new ideas and get buy-in on those, but we also need to be able to give feedback and that goes along with that managing conflict. Well, so as we dive through this month and build out our leadership skills, we're gonna be looking at those three areas, how to increase our influence and persuasion, to get buy-in, how to actually pitch new ideas, and then how to manage conflict. When you have those three skills with a strong frame, you are an effective leader. And it's understanding that there are moments where we have to be a little dominant, but also understanding that in today's day and age, we need to be altruistic, giving value, supporting, mentoring others is how we're gonna truly develop out our leadership skills. To give you all something to work on, we wanna give you a writing exercise that will begin the work, begin the beginnings of you being able to put together your frame so that you can begin strengthening it. Okay, and how do we do that, Johnny? That's this week's challenge. Well, there is a writing exercise that was put together by William James in the late 1870s. And this writing exercise has also been popularized by Jordan Peterson in his self-authorship program. And all you have to do is understand that there's three pieces that we need to lay out so that we can look at them and begin to do the work of strengthening. Number one, we have to understand where we have come from. And not only understanding where we have come from, but to be able to learn from our experiences. You can do that by journaling. That's very helpful by doing new things and asking yourself what went well, what didn't go well, what I can do better with, and then also patting myself on the back for the things that I did do well with and the lesson there moving forward. So if you're able to learn from the past, that starts things up. That's going to start strengthening that frame. Absolutely. By being able to use your past for knowledge. Number two is putting together the core values that you wanna exhibit, that you want to make up who you are and what's important to you. Those cannot be put together until you have what it is that you want to strive for. The future. What are you striving towards? What is your future? Because once you put the future together, you can then go back and look at the core values that would act as a compass to get to your future. And then the last thing that you can do with this is this is called mental contrasting. Where you now look at where you want to go and you've laid out a path through your core values and how you're going to engage in them on a daily basis, that if you do get you closer and closer to your ultimate goal. The mental contrasting is what does your life look like if you allow the worst parts of yourself to win out, to get the better of you, where your frame is weak and you are now dictated and through evolution and to your surroundings of how you're going to behave and what your frame is going to be, your world view is going to be. That look should be enough to stir you up emotionally to want to take control and start driving towards the higher self. So journaling about our past, spending some time thinking about past experiences, writing them down, looking at our future, what our goals are, what we're striving towards to be a better version of ourselves. Yes, and you should, that future goal shouldn't be too far off. It should be, you should be able to reach out and grab it. So with people who do this exercise like to do is basically just think about five years down the road. What is the ultimate life worth fighting for look like five years down the road? And why do I say worth fighting for? Because you have to be willing to wake up every day and go to town on it and fight for it. That's why it is the ultimate life for you worth fighting for. It needs to inspire and fire you up and motivate you to work towards it. And then from that vision, you can distill your core values. Yes. And now we've filled in those three areas and we have our past, our future and our present, our core values as the compass. We've now worked to start strengthening our frame, strengthen our resolve to be a better leader, to be someone who knows who they want to become and they've put the time and effort into building out a pathway to get there. Now, just let's take a step back from that. Think about that frame as we set out today, right? Understanding yourself in those three areas versus where we started the show. Can you see how having those three things clearly written down in your head, a clear picture strengthens your frame so that when you go into those leadership roles, when you're put in that position, you're not shaken around, you're not swayed, you're clear on the mission and how to get there? I mean, here's the best part. This is now starts to dictate your decision making as if you are being divinely inspired because you are. And so now when you wake up, you know exactly what you are engaging in to get you closer to your future goal. You are now being led for the right reasons. For the right reasons. And this month, we're diving deeper into persuasion. Next week, we're actually bringing on one of our friends and experts in conflict resolution to dive deeper there to give us some tools to handle conflict, which all leaders deal with. We're gonna be talking to one of our mentors around persuasion and we're gonna ending the month with how to pitch yourself, how to pitch your ideas, how to create a compelling story to get people to buy in, to new ways of thinking, to new ideas so you can sell yourself. When you have a strong frame and those three skills, you are a strong leader. Let us know, we're always excited to hear from you on how that challenge goes, as well as feedback on the show. You can send your thoughts or questions to theartofcharm.com slash questions. You can also email us questions at theartofcharm.com or find us on social media at theartofcharm. This is a fun episode. I know this concept in bootcamp is something that's changed so many lives and we spend the entire week working on strengthening your frame here in LA so that when you do get home, it's not just the social skills, which is a great part of the bootcamp, but it's also having that confidence now to step in to better roles at work, to start leading from the seat you're in. This is one of my favorite lectures and this is some of my favorite work that we do. We're immersed in the whole time that you're here. And strengthening your frame, strengthening your worldview makes you a better leader. And what's great about this, this is why so many people when they leave, so many of their friends are like, you're different now. Of course you are. You are now being divinely led by yourself. Right, by your own core value. Yes! Right, and that's one of the main goals of the bootcamp. I know we talk a lot about advanced social skills and emotional intelligence, but it's boiling it down to figuring out who you are on a deep enough level, that you can communicate that to others, you can influence and persuade others, you can convince and lead others that your ideas are right and you're worth leading. Now if you're new to the show but wanna know more about what we teach here at The Art of Charm, listen to the Toolbox episodes at theartofcharm.com slash Toolbox. That's where you'll get the fundamentals of networking, persuasion, influence, such as body language, eye contact, vocal tonality, including some episodes on building and maintaining relationships. Now we've got bootcamps running every single month here in sunny California. Talk to one of our coaches and see if you qualify at theartofcharm.com. And don't forget about the Art of Charm challenge, just go to theartofcharm.com slash challenge. The challenge is about improving your networking and connection skills and inspiring those around you to develop a professional and personal relationship with you. It's free, it's unisex and it's a great way to get the ball rolling to get some forward momentum socially. And we're gonna send you our fundamentals toolbox that I mentioned earlier in the show which includes great practical stuff ready to apply right away. Everything from reading body language, reading other people, nonverbal communication and all of our persuasion tactics are found in our free 10-day challenge, theartofcharm.com slash challenge. This will make you a better connector, a better networker and a better thinker. Also, could you do us to the entire Art of Charm team a big favor? Could you go on over to iTunes and rate this podcast and give us a review? It would really mean the world to us. The Art of Charm podcast is produced by Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery and engineered by Sam Jay and Bradley Denham, the cast of media studios here in sunny downtown Hollywood. I'm AJ. And I'm Johnny. Have a great week.