The Art of Connection & Consistency

Speaker 1 Hello everyone, welcome to the Peoplescape podcast. I am super excited today to have John Kim as our guest. John is the Co founder and chairman of Lila Sciences and as I told him before we started recording this, he's also the author of a best selling book called the Dow Fundraising, which I think is the best business book written for this decade. So John, welcome. So excited for you to be on the podcast and thank you for taking the time today. Speaker 2 Well, Gordon, thank you very much for inviting me on your podcast and thank you very much for those kind words about my book. You know, the I don't know if I should be flattered. I should probably suggest that you read more books. Speaker 1 I know. Speaker 2 I know you are. I know you are. I know you are. You're bad of great curiosity. Speaker 1 But well, you know, John, you've had an amazing career, Brown University graduate, you know, obviously a career in finance before that, then most then before you with you were with Lila, with General Catalyst, where I think a lot of that fundraising took it to the next level. But tell us about how you got started in the industry and a little bit about your background and maybe something unique that you'd like to share that you think helped shaped shape, you know, how you got into these roles. Speaker 2 Oh, the unique part, the, the more standard part is that I grew up in a career sales. And I think maybe the unique part of growing up in a career sales is that I grew up as a Korean American in Minnesota. And you know, they, there aren't a tremendous amount of, you know, Asia Pacific Americans who actually go into a sales profession, particularly with the, the more traditional academic background that I had. So that, that's probably the unique part of of my story. But my story otherwise, Trace is a fairly common arc, which was after business, after college, I had the opportunity to work at IBM and, and learned the ability to sell there or got trained there. And unfortunately, I did well enough to make it to Business School. And then after Business School, I went into sales and trading on Wall Street. And then in the late 90s, sort of serendipitously, a friend of mine was working in a placement agency where they were starting to raise money for, at the time, it was all called venture capital. That's private equity, venture capital, credit infrastructure. And I thought it was really interesting because in the end, what I loved about it was that in all alternatives, for anybody listening to this podcast, you know, an alternatives manager raises money in a fund structure traditionally. And a fund structure is where you call down capital for future investments based on some sort of track record and differentiation you have in the market. But if you think about what it is, it's a blind pool and you can't take your money out. So you go in, you're locked up. Of course you can sell in the secondary market, but particularly the late 90s, early 2000's, the secondary market was, was very nascent. And what it really did for me, what I loved about it was that the competitive advantage of fundraising even back then, I understood was trust. Because ultimately there are the, a fundraise is really predicated on trust. And I used to always say that there are only three people who actually sell trust. There are priests, politicians and fundraisers. When a priest does it, it's a crusade. When a politician does it, it's an election. And when a fundraiser does, it's a fundraise. And so, and I really love that. I love the idea that that you actually could differentiate yourself as a salesperson if you actually had some way to get them to authentically trust you or your franchise or candidate more than just being able to talk about the intellectual pieces of what makes a successful investment or successful investor. And that was fun that that part was fun. It's still to this day is, is really fun. So then finish up my career art. You know, I, I spent 20 years working with some venerable leveraged buyout organizations as their head of IR. And then in 2019, I was lucky enough to, to join General Catalyst, where we took them from like $6 billion to like a $35 billion platform in, in 5-6 years. And, and then after that I had, I had an opportunity to join Lila Sciences, which is a company that I helped start with the back of General Catalyst and flagship pioneering. And it also similarly caught lightning in a bottle. And I wanted to, to try to take my, you know, what I learned both in persuasion and, and how I ended up taking persuasion and, and turning it into and applying it to culture building leadership, just decision making. And and it's been a gasp ever since. Speaker 1 That's great. That's great. Well, I'd love to dig more into Lila, but you know, maybe we can talk about some of the principles that I thought we're so interesting in the book and so important for people to understand. And, and one of those you talk about Copernicus and basically, you know, the, the concept of, of everything basically rotating around the person that you're trying to pitch. And you know, you had, you have some great sort of wisdom about how to center yourself. So you're not the center of attention, but send it to get ready to make sure that person and and that their needs and wants and desires are the center of your focus and love for you to share a little about that. Speaker 2 Well, I appreciate that, you know, so the Copernican rule of selling is that that the person in the room is the center of of everybody's attention. Everything should have revolved around the person in the room. And there are so many misconceptions about persuading somebody that actually come into the ego. You know, 1 is obviously scarcity, you know, and that's that's scarcity is a very powerful persuasion tool. And so people will, you know, will have a little bit standoffish and sort of say, look, I don't really need you, but I'm here to talk to you and I'm happy to invite you in. And that sales pitch is really hard to pull off right? And it's very and generally insulting to the person who's sitting in the room saying, well, wait a minute, if I can't get in, why are you even talking to me? Well, and now you want me to kiss, kiss your ass, so to speak. Sorry to, to, to and and and because that and that's very egoically satisfying when you're pitching and. Speaker 1 Then, and just to dig into that a little bit, there's also literature that kind of endorses that. I mean, like the worst example would be a Wolf of Wall Street stuff. The the better example, which I think there's probably some credence to, is like the challenger sale where people, a buyer expects to be challenged. That's the most successful approach. But I think that extremes on this is a problem. Like they can be a problem, right? You can't be. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. So I, I think professional buyers expect to be challenged, but I even that even that is not, I find that to be dangerous advice. I mean, it can work and there is a reason why that can work is because it's the nature of persona and audition. So I'll come back to the Copernican rule in a second, but let me just answer that specific observation, which is when somebody is a decision maker and somebody is actually looking for something that is actually that is intuitive or that is emotional in addition to being logical. What's happening is they have in their mind something that they're looking for that they believe is actually the kind of candidate or kind of person that is going to present the idea and then follow through with the kind of of of skills that they want. They have in their mind what it is. In other words, when you show up, if you realize that that person has an image in their mind of what the person is that is going to be successful, then you want to try to become that person. And it's not an interview and it's not a sales pitch. It's really an audition. And an audition source says, OK, yes, I actually you are what I'm looking for. And that's really powerful. Now, some people, some people absolutely say what I'm looking for is to be challenged. Like I want you to come in and just say I'm looking for someone who's just got No Fear, who's going to bite the ass off the market, who's just going to tell me they're the smartest person in the world. And those people exist. So. And the challenger sale is a very good way to actually capture that. But the vast majority of people do not have that energy of I want you to come in and challenge me. And so that's a very dangerous, dangerous place. So you want to make sure that you're actually trying to audition for and we can come back to that in a second. So the Copernican rule is what is going on with this person across the table from me or these people across the table from me, you know, and that's really important. First, I'll talk about the micro. Of course I want to say, Hey, what, what are your desires and what are your fears? And if I can actually understand what your desires and fears are, then I can articulate how my offering actually will improve your desires or fulfill your desires. And I can limit your fears. And most people, by the way, completely ignore the fear part of the equation. They just focus on the desire part of the equation. And that's actually unto itself a, a, a challenge. But the second part is most people when they go in, they talk about what they want to talk about because it's what makes them look smart. It's gives them the control, it allows them to feel special. And so it's a fascinating, it's by the way, it also can be people who will say things that people will be very approving of say, oh, you know, it's important to save the environment, It's important to actually save lives. What we're doing here is in good is good for society, income inequality, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And people will approve of that, right? But that doesn't mean that you're actually moving them to actually invest with you. They just approve of what you're saying. And there are a lot of people whose egoic center says, look, I just want approval. That's a fascinating thing. So, so one of the, the, the, the challenges is when you're actually talking to somebody and you want to get them to actually to, to, to change their mind or to get them to take a risk on you. You really have to get inside their head, their their being and appreciate that it's their day and their experience that actually is going to dictate the the the conversation. Speaker 1 Is there an element of discovery there? You know, I, I know you, you said you started your career at IBM. That was, I know, you know, complex sales, that's such a huge part of of any complex sales curriculum. Do you feel like at what point? And I always think that this is interesting, especially in maybe more so in the modern era where people do a lot of research, maybe before they're talking to you or, you know, the people can get tired of too much discovery if it feels in in interrogatory. Speaker 2 No, I completely agree that that's exactly right. That's it's it's Hey, so let me just keep asking a question. I have a question. I have a question. You're like, OK, why am I here? You know, and and so, yeah. So Gordon, there's a, there's a general cadence to a conversation that will say that I am actually trying to establish rapport with you first. I'm not, they don't have to come into this order, by the way, but you generally want to establish rapport or say, hey, I like you, I am like you. There's something in common. And part of that is just to say, hey, before you were talking to me, unless I'm really famous, right? Unless I'm really famous, basically before you were saying, talking to me, you were doing something else. And I, I'm thinking about your world and that's something else, maybe very stressful, or it may have been very satisfying. Either way, it has emotional content. Yeah. And intellectual content. And I'm interrupting that content. Very few people, and I mean very few people, are sitting there just waiting for you to show up. Speaker 1 That's right, that's right. In fact, they're probably thinking about what they left undone to sit through the. Speaker 2 Exactly. So they're distracted. And so you want to be able to gain their attention. All entertainers do this, right? They gain your attention. They do it through the cadence of their voice. They do it by the way they look, sometimes the way they smell. If you're if you're live and with the person by gesticulation, by turns of phrases, by something. So, yeah. So you want to be able to gain their attention. You want. So that's one, gain their attention and then establish rapport. You know, those two things happen. Then at some point you want to generate interest and establish credibility. So if you're just being interrogatory, you're not generating an interest. So you need to be able to say something interesting or do something interesting to keep them in the conversation. And then you have to establish credibility and say, OK, what allows me to say what I just said? And now sometimes credibility is already established. If you everybody knows you're a PhD from MIT and then you know, they say, OK, I got it. So sometimes you just just establish that. But sometimes you have to re establish that in a conversation. Often you do and so when you talk about the, the OK, the method of actually talking to somebody, the four things that I just mentioned gain their attention, establish rapport, establish credibility and and generate interest. Those things not necessarily that order must happen before you actually say OK, hey, what is it you need? Because now you're in the now you're in the conversation. And then once you hear what they need, now that literally of the six stages of a conversation, five of them are about them, right? The last one that is OK, now that I've got your attention, now that you like me and trust me, hopefully a little bit, now that you've, I've established credibility and I'm and I've established that what I am saying is interesting and I've listened to what you actually need or what you're looking for. Now, let me tell you how I fit all of that. And that is a very mechanical way of actually going about conversation. But you'll find that the very best sales people, whether they've been trained or not trained, are will do this 100% of the time. You'll also find that people who are just being social. If you go to a cocktail party and you meet somebody new for the first time or you meet a friend that you've known for a long time, you'll actually see yourself go through these processes of gaining some attention, establishing rapport, generating some interest, maybe establishing some credibility. You know, people who actually will smile with you, they'll flirt with you, they'll say something that's really quite flattering that they got the attention. You'll, you know, they'll say something and they'll start name dropping. Hopefully they do a good job of it because now they're trying to establish credibility and hopefully you find some connection. Happens all the time. Naturally if, but you appreciate it's actually mechanical. Yeah. So you can learn it and actually practice it. And that's part of the the Copernican rule of OK, you know, when you're in the in the room, remember they have an existence that is not yours. So get inside their existence. Speaker 1 Makes that makes a makes a ton of sense. Let me ask you, you know, I'm sure that the types of prospects that you fundraise with were, you know, quite different for domestic, international, maybe a representative of a pension fund or maybe a high net worth. It'll be a very large family office. You know, it's sort of a, I'm sure it's a mix. When is there is there a difference in your mind when you're talking to perhaps the principal where it's their money versus the the pension fund where someone manages it? Speaker 2 It's radically different. Speaker 1 Right. Speaker 2 Yeah, it is. You know, alignment of interest is or, or incentives are everything. And, and sometimes you, you, you people fail to see that, that at least in the alternative space, this isn't true for everything. But but you know, there isn't the same alignment of interest as they have if you're a family office or an individual. So, and the fear is different. It's different if you're a sovereign, it's different if you. And what does that mean is that means that you know how many people will walk in to an employee and an organization that may be a government organization. And that government organization has a very difficult time paying bonuses for performance, very hard. And it's hard to pay bonuses for performance for private equity and venture capital and alternatives anyway because it's all mark to market. That's 4567 years until distribution start coming out. And you know, the turnover of these Staffs tend to be pretty large, or at least if there is turnover, somebody selected a fund 10 years ago and now today that fund is, is the fund that invested in, in SpaceX. That's great. Well, who gets the credit for that? If and, and a lot of times the person who actually got into SpaceX early, started taking off, gets recruited away to do that same thing for, for the next SpaceX. So they invested Tropic or open AI. And so it's really hard to, to align interests versus a stock portfolio. It goes up during the year. You measure the performance to take your carried interest and move on. And so if you know that that that they aren't going to necessarily make a lot of money if you make a lot of money, why do you spend so much time emphasizing how much money you're going to make? It's a fascinating thing. That's the first. The second is, is that when you're in other words, there's some other motivation that that that exists for these people to actually and just assume that the people in that position that don't have a financial upside of that, that the ones who are mentally and emotionally healthy and like the jobs. And there are a lot of them, right? That they there is a reason they stay in those jobs. And so there's something there that's going on. So you got to find out what is it that you are trying to select that allows you to enjoy your job? Is it the fact you just love to say you made a lot of money for people? That may be it, in which case then you got lucky. Selling your returns are a great way to actually get them excited. Is there something else that they're looking for? Yeah, and there are lots of different things we can talk about. But that's the the sort of a non traditional selling approach that actually helps you make a much, much more progress with somebody who doesn't have the same alignment of interest as you have or doesn't have the same alignment of interest of somebody who's actually a fiduciary investor for their own pocketbook. In other words, alignment of interest. But the second, the second is, is that people, you know, if I people say, well, what's the best advice you can give somebody for fundraising? I say make sure that you have that phrase that people can repeat that explains why you made the decision you did so very famously in the history of of of law, the most famous phrase that exists like that is, is if the glove does not fit, you must acquit. Speaker 1 Right, right. Speaker 2 You know, there's a situation where where, where a group of jurors had seen evidence and, and, and Johnny Cochran knew like, hey, he's in trouble. However, he was able to say, by the way, your job is actually to judge whether or not the prosecution was able to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's the job not to find out if the person guilty or not. And he and, and Johnny Cochran knew he won that one or he thought he won that one. He gets Judge Ito to actually confirm that. Now he says, OK, put the glove on. It doesn't fit. Say, ladies and gentlemen, they have not proven this beyond a reasonable doubt. And so you must tell your friends that the reason why you let my, my client go is because if the glove did not fit, you had to acquit, right? And that allowed you to say, I've got to shift my framing into what I'm supposed to do. So back to the the state pension plan or institutional. It's called institutional. That's the state pension plan. Most institutions have a committee. You have to go to investment committee. People hear this all the time. Most investment committees, sure they're influential people and non influential people on the committee. But the it's a vote. If it's committees a vote. Most committees are majority if not unanimous. But let's say majority. If people make a majority decision, then by definition, the vast majorities of decisions that are getting made are consensus decisions by definition. And so if you are a brand new idea, you're a brand new fund, a brand new group, by definition, you're a contrarian idea because you are new. No one's done this before and I have to be an innovator or early adopter. And by definition, then a committee will probabilistically say no because you are something they've never seen before, they don't have any trust with or they have no experience with. And is the consensus that actually is what they want to want to invest in. That's why the big get bigger, because once they become a consensus brand, then people will actually invest in it. And that, to some degree, is really the notion of trust. Speaker 1 People. Speaker 2 Trust Brands. Speaker 1 Exactly, I think this is also why it's hard for a founder to raise money from AVC. You're going in as a especially as your revenue or you know, precede you're already contrarian idea in in what is most certainly going to be a you probably majority. I see, depending on the bit how big the firm would. Speaker 2 Have to be a contrarian idea, you know, you know, you imagine the hey, you know, I'm thinking of creating an the next best Instagram, right? There's nothing contrarian about that, you know, but but when Uber came along say, hey, I want to take on the taxicab industry, that's a great idea. That's pretty contrarian. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why can't they just do it themselves? It's really kind of what everybody said, well, why can't the car services just do it themselves? And and of course, that turned out not it turned out it was very hard to do. And so but it's still kind of contrarian to invest. It's very contrarian to invest in SpaceX at the top, right. And like you imagine somebody saying, you know, what I'm going to do is I'm going to build rockets and I'm going to build rockets. I'm going to send satellites into space. Like what oh, and the bears entry and you talk about the bears entry, like and the cap X requirements and like you've got to be kidding. That's a contrarian bet. That's a contrarian bet now turns out to be one of the I mean, obviously it quickly became a consensus bet, but but at at at the beginning and it was and then very famously, if you look at the story today that that the people who backed Elon Musk early in that almost went out of business a couple times and you know, like good for them that that that that he was able to create a really a generational franchise well. Speaker 1 We wouldn't have a space program without it. I mean, had a story. So like it's, you know, just whatever, whatever your opinions of of him personally, what he's built is unbelievable. Correct. That's, you know, one of the things, John, that I think was really fascinating too is, you know, I love that you're, you know, such a student of psychology. You talk about this Kartman drama triangle and how we all fall into this. We'd love to, you know, for you to elaborate a little if you don't mind and and share why that's an important way. I think it's a very important way to view things and why you need you can't fall it. Falling into that trap can be detrimental. Speaker 2 Well, yeah, I appreciate that it is. So there's a there's a psychologist and that actually created the Karpman drama Triangle Karpman and the Karpman Dr. Triangle says that when one falls into a drama state or they're adrenalized or they're reactive and effectively what that means is that the world is happening to them. That's something by the way, this happens all the time. And when the world happens to them, psychologists will say that you've lost agency. And so and that's drama, like, oh, my God, life is happening to me. And this could be everything. Anybody listening to this podcast will know, hey, that's anything from I can't believe there's construction on the road and I'm going to miss my airplane, you know, or I can't believe this person judged me for doing this when I was actually trying to help them. And or I can't. And everybody in this on this on this podcast, and even you, as I talked about it, you can feel like, oh, yeah, I know exactly what that feels like. When that happens. When that happens, you one takes a victim consciousness, we take it to the position of victim and it's a triangle. So it has two other points. Well, one of the other points is, well, there's a villain in this story that there's somebody to blame and now I'm looking for a hero. How do I get out of this? And by the way, sometimes the heroes myself like, OK, and a lot of people say self help, that's why it's called self help is self heroing, right? The, the 2 words in the self help category, self help and mindfulness. Those are literally the two disciplines. The vast majority of books sold in the history of America are about saying you are your own hero, pull yourself out, change this. Recently there has been a real explosion of mindfulness saying OK, disconnect from the construct of what that is. And that is the in my book. That's why I say, hey, you're better off disconnecting from that construct and saying, OK, the, the villain victim hero dynamic exists. If I stay in that dynamic, I will take a victim consciousness and, and I will constantly be looking for reasons why it's not my fault. And, and then if it's not your fault, then what are you doing to actually change it? And what you're trying to do is, is, is solve it by being the hero. And usually it's a race to the bottom. OK Yeah. By the way, psychologists will use this. I mean, if I want, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's appreciate. That's also where manipulation comes from. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 2 And it's in that and that's, and that's the dangerous Part 1 of the things that I, I also write about my book, which is OK. The lesson is, is to look and say, OK, anybody I'm talking to at any moment in time can fall into that drama triangle. And you can see it. It's called being triggered. And you stand there. And by the way, that's why you want to establish rapport coming into a conversation because because a lot of times they are coming in with the victim consciousness, like, oh, I can't believe this happened. I can't believe. And by the way, God forbid you're interrupting them now. You're the villain. Yeah. And so so you try to disconnect from and go, I see that there's a chance of the the drama triangles here. So let me pull ourselves out of this and see if I can't Co create with you. Let's see if I can't be a a a, you know, maybe a challenger, but maybe a coach, maybe somebody who's who's open to new opportunities or new things that and and can actually see what's going on and help not let you stay in that. And you know, and a lot of this is taught to me by this gentleman named Jim Detmer, who's created the conscious leadership group, which is, and he's taking a lot of these concepts. So if anybody's listening to this podcast, I bet a lot of people actually know who who he is. When I've talked about he wrote something called the 15 rules of Conscious leadership. And so he's really big into actually talking about how that actually effects people's psych psychology. So that that's the Carpenter drama triangle. But the manipulation piece of it is very straightforward. If I actually just wanted to take a very crass way of actually saying, OK, I want to sell something and I want to establish rapport. I want to become your friend. What I want to do is actually bond to you through drama and become your hero. It's very easy to do actually. And so I don't want to teach it on the on the podcast. I'll just sort of say it's obvious that when somebody's feeling like a victim, you can find a common villain to actually complain about and say how you can be their hero and how by investing with you, by partnering with you or part with me, partnering with me. The the by by working with me, you will be able to actually do something to extinguish the threat and the pain of that villainy, which will bring you out of victimness. That I am your answer of your, your, your, your, your drama. And many sales books, by the way, actually talk about selling specifically with that energy in mind, and it's very effective. Speaker 1 What do you think? It's long term destructive? It doesn't. Speaker 2 It is long term destructive because you are just bonding towards that which is is drama, that which is not in your control and and versus bonding over something that you can say, hey, you know what? And this is what compromise is, or this is what, what, what and, and so much of, of what I think good selling is, is being able to align somebody's hopes and desires and align your fears and then align your ambitions. And if you can do that, the fear piece is a component of the hey, I see your fear. Yeah. And I also experience it. And I here's how I'm going to address that fear. I also believe I want to you to come with me on this journey of this desire and hope. And by the way, do we share the ambition that that which we're trying to achieve is important enough to get over the hump of this fear? Speaker 1 Well, this construct is the best are the best political speeches ever written too, right? Yeah, JFK, you can name them, right. The ones that the test of time. It's it's dialing into that in a really powerful way. Speaker 2 100 percent, 100%. And in fact, Martin Luther King, John F Kennedy. Frankly, Obama could do it. Clinton could do it. Between you and me, the current president can do it. Yeah, it does very, very well. He and and many people can do it. It's incredible. And so I'm not judgmental about what it is. It is the human condition. And if I taught a class on this, which I do not, I would take a right here, right now. We could take any Democratic or National Convention speech like a good one and say, OK, let's see the fear. Let's let's see the let's, let's see the fear that's actually being cultivated here. OK, great. Who's the victim? The people who are voting? Who's the villain? The opposing party. Speaker 1 Yeah, right, right. Speaker 2 Who is the hero, the candidate that we are going to elect for President United States and it literally is is is the way political place. By the way, with all due respect, it's also how many sermons? Well, actually. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's a rhetorical concept that's been tried and true. So it's not like I don't think we're we're not, we're not casting stones on it. We're just saying it's just, it's just, it's just a it's an effective way to communicate it for on that on those stages. Exactly right. Yeah. But I think using it, I think you have a great point. And I think the other thing too, I, when I read this in your book, I thought about this too internally in our companies, in our families, it happens a lot. So and I think that that mindfulness is important to step away. Hey, someone, it doesn't mean if someone did something that wasn't quite right, it doesn't mean they're the villain, right? It just means that there's, there's someone made a mistake. And to God, it also doesn't mean the CEO that I need to be the hero. Speaker 2 Right. Speaker 1 Oh my God. Speaker 2 That's yeah, right, Gordon. I'm so glad you said that. I'm so glad I cannot tell you how. And I forget who said this phrase. I cannot tell you how often in a day I will tell people I work with that someone else they'll complain about something victim and they'll say we need to do this. I can't believe that person. This person is not that person is not this is. And I smile and I say I'm not bothered by it because I didn't wake up this morning fantasizing about flawless people and perfect solutions. And I, and I wish I remember who said that. But I do say that every single day out loud to somebody, I smile and say, yeah, yeah, that's not perfect. But I didn't wake up today assuming that I'm going to have perfect, perfect solutions. And I certainly didn't wake up today thinking that I'm going to run into flawless people, nor did I wake up today thinking I was going to be going to be without flaw. And and that, for lack of a term, mindfulness, if I can practice that, that allows me as a leader to be able to do the thing that AI cannot do, which is inspire people, right, right. We think about, you know, people often ask me and maybe we're going to get to this one where the other to, you know, how's AI going to change persuasion? Speaker 1 And so we were definitely going to go there for sure. This is going to keep going. This is great. Speaker 2 And AI itself, you know, and I work in a scientific artificial intelligence company now. And so I'm obviously a big proponent of it. And if not pushing it deeper into society, you know, ultimately, whenever I hear somebody say something wise about why AI is not going to take over the world and look, there's a lots of things we have to pay attention to. I'm not saying that that we don't there's a lot of risks to any technology, right? The thing is about all technologies, it's a double edged sword. Every technology, you know, energy is, is a double edged sword. You know, frankly, explosives are a double edged sword. Medicines are a double edged sword. And and, you know, frankly, the Internet double edged sword and then social media double edged sword, but they're all technologies, right? And and, you know, it's the technology, if it actually has the ability to actually cut one way or the other, if it's a real like otherwise, it's really not technology. It's just it's just an idea. OK, So what I always when when I see somebody talk about the thing that gives me hope about the human condition is that there are three things that that AI really cannot ever replace in the human condition, which is trust, judgement and inspiration. And I don't mean that that that that the AI can't deliver information that you don't trust, of course. And I don't mean that AI can't actually parse through things that that actually and decide things that actually have a lot of value. And I also don't mean that you can't have AI say things that sound wise and are inspiring, that it can do all of those things. However, it unto itself does not create trust. We must trust it. It unto itself does not create judgment. We must actually believe in its judgment. And it by itself does not create inspiration. It, those words must touch us somehow, and we must allow ourselves to be inspired. And so humans, humans, when we're talking about how we want to lead, in many ways, in many ways it's the last sort of great bastion of what humans can need to do in business. Speaker 1 I just couldn't agree more 100%. And it's, and it's, I think it gets lost because, you know, frankly, a lot of the leaders that get profiled just talk about how it, it, it's, it's run, it's an agent competition. It's, it's, how do you take the human out of these? Whereas the human is probably more important in terms of the leadership element now more than ever. Speaker 2 More than ever. More than ever, I mean, Because if we know that the greatest technology is cut both ways, well, whatever is amazing that we're seeing through artificial intelligence, that we benefit from the same darkness exists. Whatever is amazing. And who doesn't? Who isn't guilty of doom scrolling on on on the Internet or Instagram? Who isn't guilty of being addicted to or addicted to needing connectivity through LinkedIn or through through emails or Slack or Signal or WhatsApp? We are all and then of course of the dating apps and we're all in shopping. Speaker 1 Oh yeah. Speaker 2 Yeah. Where would we be without Amazon? Where would we be? And OK, so all of it's great. And yet it is probably the thing that is destroying society. And I say that not, not with any sort of real cynicism, but it the when you think about the the difficulties that we're having in society that are actually becoming existential. So the, you know, the technology cuts both ways. Well, AI is the same thing. AI is going to create lots of disruption. And in that disruption, the classic Chinese phrase of now I'm being, you know, maybe even condescending about it. I don't mean to do that, which is, you know, when the winds, when the winds of change blows, some people build shelters, some people build windmills. And, and what the phrase was is that people go, oh, well, I want to build a windmill and take advantage of it. No, no, no, no. The phrase was build a shelter or build a windmill. Don't do nothing. Speaker 1 Right, right. Speaker 2 You know, it wasn't like, oh, oh, gosh, you know, you know, I built a shelter. Now that person survived. You know, that's OK. It's OK to shelter in place. It's OK to do that. Say, all right, you know, I may not grow, but I'm not going to get taken out because I see this is happening. In other words, if AI is about to come and, and, and disrupt your business, build shelter, build skills that actually say, OK, this is hard to replace. This is hard to replace. That doesn't mean that you're going to advance yourself, but make sure that you put yourself in a situation that's that, that is, that is a beneficiary of the tool rather than the victim of the tool. And then, and then there are people to a certain degree, it's a little bit of my journey and dream. I said, whoa, look at this winds of the winds of change. I've taken a 30 year career of fundraising and I did pretty well at it. I'm going to leave it and I'm going to build a windmill and I'm going to see if I can actually catch some of this wind in my windmill to power my life. And, and, and by the way, that's hard to do. You know, it's easier to build shelter than a windmill. It's just easier to shelter down. So I could have just stayed as a fundraiser and that and just sheltered in place. But what do you, whatever you do, do one of the two. Speaker 1 Right, right. No, no, that's great advice. Speaker 2 Don't do. Don't do neither. Speaker 1 Well, I, I think that there needs to be is a consciousness that's involved here. I mentioned the Hollywood producer that was, we just had on the podcast recently and Gary had I think 3, an acronym that he uses every day, which once again, something that AI can't do. I thought this was great. It's it's, it's HIM. Every day he tries to help someone. Every day he tries to introduce someone that they can be a creative to each other and and every day he tries to meet someone new that inspires him. Speaker 2 Wow. Speaker 1 I love that because I think if you're thinking like that, it's externally focused. It, you know, certainly technology can enable you to meet different people, but I would say and, and we all think about, oh, you know, of course it's an honor to meet you, John. That's I, I wish I could meet people like you every day. But you know what, meeting the Uber driver and having a conversation about with the Venezuelan immigrant that I met last Friday, whose family has been here for six years and his whole journey and what he's thought about recent events like that. All these things are so enriching and rewarding. And I think sometimes if we're on our phones, we're not having that. And that's when you just miss so much. Speaker 2 I love that. I love that I I, I particularly love it because by definition, this, this Gary, I didn't have a chance to listen to the podcast, but. If they're in Hollywood, that makes this person a Unicorn. If they actually want to help people, introduce people authentically and actually meet people authentically. Because if anybody spending any time in Hollywood, I don't think that that's actually the signature operating system of that culture. Speaker 1 Well, he did produce 2 the most successful movies the 90s and now he's in venture capital. So he does dabble a little bit, but I think he's he's doing some really exciting things there. So, but no, I love love your take on on technology, a couple other areas. And you know, obviously I want to be really appreciate you taking taking the time today. But we talked about you talked about in the book overcoming fear. You know, I've heard this all the time before I became CEO as sales leader. And you hear from people making phone calls, you hear people going out on meetings. There's a lot of anxiety involved. You know, when you're asking for a couple billion dollars or more, there's a lot of anxiety involved. What advice do you have for folks about any sort of fear they're facing in their professional journey? Speaker 2 Yeah, Yeah. So I appreciate you saying that because fear is, is the master emotion as it's been called. You know, it's the one, one of the emotions that actually has an organ that actually literally is, is attached to it. The hind brain creates the fear, the frontal lobe actually helps us rationalize stuff. And so again, and I'll come back to, and I, you know, to my friend Jim Detmer, who over at CLG or Conscious Leadership Group introduced this concept to me, which is the antidote to fear is not courage, it's acceptance. And that I really believe to be true. And so that that that that denial of the danger because it's like fear has value. It has value and and to deny it courage is to deny it. I can do this. Well, have you practiced? You know, do you do you have you have somebody who actually has done it before? You know, the worst thing somebody could say? Well, look, I've succeeded everything I've done. You know, I'm going to do this because it's basically the same thing Like, well, Michael Jordan couldn't succeed as a a baseball player. And he was the best, well, one of the best basketball players in the history of, you know, you pick, say, you know, highly trained military soldiers, Seals and Rangers don't necessarily become successful in business, right? Many of them do, but they don't. And so you look and go so, so, so, so the antidote is actually not courage, because courage actually is, just can be very much as a denial. It's, it's actually acceptance. And So what I'll, I'll drive at is there is, and I, I think it's called the Sedona method. But, but everybody has got an operating system that actually talks about their insecurities. And the way you deal with your insecurities is either you want to try to control the situation and you try to try literally diligence to find out everything there is. You hate uncertainty. So you try to find out and, and, and get clarity and, and get control. There are people with insecurities that say, you know what, I've got insecurities and I just want to get approval from people. And so if people are approving of me, even if I fail, at least I know that that my operating system is very set, my ego, basically it's very satisfied because the people approved me. And if I fail, I can say, well, look, and how many times this happened, right? I failed. Hey, hey, hey buddy, you know what, I'm just glad you tried. Well, thanks and thanks for and, and, and that allows you to go and take some risk because they look, you know, win, lose or draw. We gave it a try. That's approval, by the way. That is simply approval. Us, that's acceptance as well. But in this case, I'm looking for the approval. Specialness is, hey, you know what, no pain, no gain, dare to be great. You know, this is like, hey, you know, you know, you can win it. You know, gold medal, Olympic, yeah, that kind of stuff. There are lots of people say I want to be special and I am special. In order to be special, I have to take outside risk. Sometimes I also have control sitting on that as well. But you get a multiple things other insecurities saying say, hey, look, you know, I don't want to be ostracized. I just don't want to be left out. I want to be so I want oneness. So I'm going to do what I think the consensus wants to do, not for approval. Like I just want to make sure that all of us together, you see people say get really anxious and say, let's go out to a restaurant. Like, well, no, we all have to agree. We all have to be happy. We all have to and that and so because they don't want to be in a situation where they see the social systems. And by the way, that's a lot of wisdom to it too. When the social system is at unease or unstable, then bad things happen. And usually people who have, and this is my own, my own armchair BS. But you know, if you grow up in families that are very unstable and then at the times you're the, you were the most happy whenever it was really stable and you were the least happy when there was actually, there's a lot of discord, then you actually will try to get everybody to be stable. That's your, that's your. And then so that those are, those are sort of examples of, of, of, of like, hey, when people have got fear insecurities, people will actually show how they want to address it. And so if back to the Copernican rule, which we, we referred to from the very beginning of the call, the interview is that if you actually can see that the control is there. Now you don't say, I can see what he's going to be scared of. If you can see approvals there, like, ah, I can see what's going to happen. They and, and how I need to position myself to say this is going to actually improve your approval or it will get approved. If it's about oneness, they say, oh, there's a lot of consensus around what I've got going on. If it's about specialness, like, hey, this is really unique. You can be, you know, this is very, you know, no one's doing this. And then they can, the special guys are a little bit more contrarian. And so you can feel how, how. And then by the way, there are some who just want to be safe. Yeah, they just say, hey, look, just don't criticize me. Don't, don't don't cause any problems. I just, I just want to just do the easy thing. Well, then you need to make your thing that you're selling the easy thing. Speaker 1 Right. Speaker 2 Right, so, and, and that's back to fear. You know, if I the, the and people will, will actually show it in a room. Now there's actually a, and I won't go on too much about this. Most people when they talk about fear, they're actually talking about what is it they're scared of, of you and the situation. And everyone said, well, I appreciate it. They're doing something new. They're doing something and all that's true. All of that's true, But the reality is you, we as humans, for some reason, really understand that pretty well. Yeah, we understand like, OK, what's here. And that's why we call it rationalization. Like, I know that you've got something here that you need to actually rationalize. And so I'll rationalize it. And so people are really good at rationalizing, but the the the, the, the really owerful way to actually address fear is if you can actually see the individual and say, OK, I see how you are getting to a place where you can accet what is happening. And that is sort of goes a long way. Speaker 1 No, it's huge. Speaker 2 Topic. It's a huge topic and almost no one addresses it. When they're selling. It's unbelievable how few people actually say. You know what? The person actually may be scared. It's unbelievable. They say well no, I know what I have to say to actually make them really interested in my product and why my product is the best product and becomes righteous. Speaker 1 Well, I think, I mean, anyone making a $50,000 purchase, I don't care how big the company is, there's usually a, a factor of fear. You're making a, you know, $5 billion capital commitment or a 500 million or a $5,000,000 capital commitment. There's that, that, that fear just gets amplified. So I think whenever we're putting ourselves out there to hopefully make a good decision, it's just going to be on. And, and if interviewed also the person asking for that, it's going to yeah, it's, it's going to, it's going to be palpable on both sides. Yeah. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. And so here's a yeah, go ahead. Listen, here's just like a simple obvious trick, right? Like here's one example. So, you know, whenever you're raising money, there's always going to be somebody who's so small they don't move the needle. That's just the nature of it. So you're raising $2 billion, somebody putting 10 billion in, 10 million in, you know, it's really not going to move the needle. You're raising $1,000,000. Somebody puts $1000 in knocking with the needle, right? And and that's just true. That's just a true statement when somebody says, hey, hey, hey, I know I'm only $1000 in your $1,000,000 sack. But you know, I was kind of hoping. I was wondering if right there when they say that they are, there's a fear of them not being relevant. There's a fear of them being not special. There's a fear potentially of not having control. There's a fear of like, I know I'm not in control here. And so as soon as they say something like that, you're like, OK, fear just showed up. It just, it just showed up. I don't know what it is, but I have a guess by the way they said it. If they said it with a little bit of anger, they want control. If they say it with a little bit of humility, they actually want approval, right? And it's amazing how that happens. Speaker 1 I mean, and I think structurally, if you know, it just depends on the fund, the type of fundraise, but if you can give it to them. I, I, my experience has been yes, like, I love your advice on this. I know sometimes you probably had to say no because they weren't big enough, but if it's. Speaker 2 Possible. Speaker 1 If it's possible, you kind of want to do it right for someone who's coming at it from humility. Speaker 2 Gordon, thank you so much for opening that up. Because that is, and This is why it's called the Dow, right? Which is, hey, there is something here that is a negative energy and you can turn it into a very positive experience very quickly. That's what you just said is exactly right. If I can then say, and 100% of the time I will do this, I will always say, hey, I want to make sure you know that $1000 is a lot of money, right? Well, not to you, blah, blah, blah. And I won't even, I'll just keep going back and forth till they say, OK, like, no, no, it's a lot of money. I know it's a lot of money. I'm not so successful that that's not a lot of money. It's a lot of money. And they're like, ah, you reciprocated their respect. And what what's happening is they'll learn to trust you more. And The thing is, trust, I believe, is an energy that actually is perceived both globally and specifically. The more the universe has people that trust you, the more trustworthy you just generally are. Yeah, just find that to be true. The, the more untrustworthy you are, the more the more one will actually do the things that people do when they're not trustworthy because they they think they're getting away with it. And how. Yeah, that. Speaker 1 Makes sense. I was just going to ask, you know, we talked a lot about rapport. How important is the face to face? Did you ever not do meet meet these folks face to face in your career? Speaker 2 Sure. So, so in today's society, because of Zoom, because of of the way we communicate, you know, it's it's so it's super important. And at the same time you can get away without it, right. And So what is what is increasingly, in my opinion on Planet John, what has, what has replaced the personal connection, a personal connection still, because personal connection is about trust. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 2 Personal connection, like everything, by the way, we're you know, we're so like you and I are across the screen right now. But if we were together in the room, the way we dressed today, the way we are sitting, the way and, and you know, the way you sit on a zoom is not the way you sit when you're talking to somebody. And the body language and all the stuff that comes through all the years of experience will all show up. And our bodies are subconsciously reading this all the time. Speaker 1 By the way, I hope that's an invitation that we get to meet personally. Speaker 2 I would love to do that. You do that. I'd love to do that. Count on it, count on it. And the antidote to that though, is that that if you cannot, if you cannot be with the person and you cannot actually have the, the richness of data transfer that's happening with a personal connection, then you must substitute it with a concept of recency and frequency. And so you must be zooming or by the way, it can just be talking to somebody. You must be talking to them recently and frequently. So the really for those people, I don't write about this in the book, but. Speaker 1 So good there. That's so important. I mean that that that is sales one-on-one that because when that stops, your deal stops. Speaker 2 Correct. If there's a half life, right? And so I actually then argue, not argue that the Trinity of of of building the rapport trust is actually proximity, recency and frequency. And proximity is in person recency. Like I just was recently talking to you. So in other words, my half life, and I'm frequently talking to you and I'm building up the the the piece that I am actually in your life. And you'll find that when people you and I and everybody else who's listening to this podcast have dear friends that for zero reason are no longer in their lives. I mean, usually, but for zero reason is not because anything ever bad was said. And you miss them terribly. And in fact, you've been so apart from them for so long, you're embarrassed to reach out because you were once so close to them. We all have these people. We all have these people. And what happened to us is that you, we usually lost the proximity to them. That's usually what happened first. They moved away, we moved away, we moved floors in a building. We usually miss proximity. Or I had a kid, they didn't. So I'm just no longer going out with them anymore. So then there's the that's the frequency. I just don't frequently see them. And then if I don't recently see them, by the time it gets so far away, I'm actually embarrassed. And they are too. Yeah, actually admit that we weren't important enough to actually be one of the people who are close to us through proximity through. But and we are recently talking to them and we're frequently talking to them because it's not like in your life. You said I'm going, well, people do this, but I'm sure you did not. You didn't go into a cave and went, Oh, well, I went into a cave or, or you know, no, you didn't. You just substituted them for somebody else and they substituted you with somebody else. Relationships are simply that way. So when you say face to face, I think people people misunderstand the nature of relationships, that it's actually frequency is almost more important than proximity because, you know, yeah, think about, again, all the friends you have that you still stay in touch with, just like, just text them. And I bet family members, by the way, typically fall in this category. Speaker 1 Yeah, Yeah, yeah. No, I I'm thinking about the most successful kind of deals, opportunities that that I have going on right now in my life. And the frequency piece is 100% the common denominator about about this. And it's, yeah, that's just so well to say a. Speaker 2 100% so like for, for those folks out there who have kids and they're traveling all the time, you know, I wager if they've got a healthy relationship with their kids and, and, and let's assume that one does. I wager if you're traveling all the time, you're not there, your proximity is terrible. If you're traveling all the time, then the, the frequency, I'm sorry, the, the, the, the, the recency with which you've seen the person is not very good because you've, you're gone. I, I would bet that there's probably some pattern of staying in touch electronically. I bet that there is. And that's why it's, it's frequency that's the most important. Then it's, and then it's actually probably frankly, recency. And then it turns out the last is proximity. In other words, being persepers. That's why I think that that this whole return to work experience is it's obviously very positive. It can be very positive to create community, but only if people, and I'm talking about this because it's called Peoplescape AI. And I know that this is about, about the people and culture that to return to the office for the sake of return to the office is, is not the purpose, although it has, it will have a net benefit, but it'll also have net cost of, of bringing people off for the physical cost, the opportunity cost of bringing people in the, the, the translation cost. When the people come into the office and they're on Zooms all day and then they go home, it's sort of ridiculous. And when you say yourself, if the office was such an important place, then you don't need to have Wi-Fi, right? Because, because all you're doing is say, well, no, you get to the office. And this happens to be all the time. I go to the office, I sit down and I don't see anybody all day because I'm on Zooms and you're looking at what happened there. There's a random, of course, there's always random wonderfulnesses that happened at the at the water cooler and so forth. No, the people who actually go to the office and have an office, the leadership must have a commitment to actually creating community experience because community doesn't just get created by itself or it does get created by itself. But if you want to be a good leader, you must actually then inspire people to actually want to get together in person. And you want to actually make sure that you give them that that kind of environment or encourage that or do something with intentionality to actually make sure that they're connected with each other while they're, and make sure that when they're in the office, they know it's a gift. And not a lot of people do that. I don't think the investment banks do that at all. I think it's quite the opposite. I think they say, you know. Speaker 1 Well, you hear what, Ken? Do you hear what Ken Griffin said the other night that he was on? He was on a stage and they asked him about what the work life balance is. He's like, yeah, my folks know they have after 8:30 every night and the weekends for their own time. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. And he's probably one of the better lifestyle and that's that's not true for some of the other folks. And yeah. Speaker 1 That's great. Well, John, if you'll allow me, I'd love to read one of the last paragraphs, which I think from the book, which I think sums up so much what we were been talking about today. And then I'd love for you to tell folks, obviously, how to get the book. But let me just just read through this through the Dow, I came to realize the secret of fundraising is to reverse this wiring. All the tools and all the frameworks in this book grow out of one question. What is the other person saying that is right? How do they believe the world should work? What are the solutions they believe can fix it? What can I do to help them make the world reflect that perspective? And I just think that was so well said. I mean, there's so much about getting out of ourselves. This is not just a business principle clearly, but I think really having that empathy, and I think that empathy to me, I, I see your empathy and humility is clearly allowed in translating to your success. And it's just a, it's a, it's a really, it's a great message to share with the world, So I appreciate. Speaker 2 It I, I appreciate that. I appreciate that so much. And and if I actually can editorialize? Speaker 1 That last? Speaker 2 Paragraph, which is, and I appreciate the fact that that it resonated with you from an ethos standpoint, which is where, which is why I actually wrote it. So thank you. However, for those people who actually are listening to this podcast and say, you know what that is? That's a little hippy, drippy of of the hey, you know, you're trying to actually believe in the other person. I'm just here to raise money and I just want to, I want to know the lesson is still the same, which is summed up by, you know, people always say that you believe what you see. And so that's why you're always trying to prove things. You're trying to show people things and that that's true. But you'll see that paragraph use the word believe. What do they believe? What do they believe? And if I can tap into what people believe that I know what they will see because people actually both believe what they see, but they also mostly see what they believe. And when you can get into their belief system factor, do they believe in control or they believe in being special? Do they believe in, in being conservative or being liberal? You know, whatever it is, if you can get into what they believe, it's called cognitive bias. And you know, it's, it's the Pygmalion effect, right? We know that you take a random group of kids, randomly say you're the high performer, you're the low performer. We actually know through study that the random group of kids that actually labeled high performers will actually perform high, the low performers will actually perform low. We actually know that happens. We actually know this in laboratory rats that that recently a study said the the professors said, OK, these rats actually have been genetically selected for being overachieving rats. These mice are are are rats are are are under rats. Mice are are the underachieving ones that genetically. And sure enough, when they did the maze performing, they actually the the group that actually was just randomly labeled high performing did better. It's we really will it into existence. It's the most incredible. And so the whole idea that people actually see what they believe. You don't believe what you see, you see what you believe. And the Pygmalion effect is what that's called and, and, and, and, and so when you actually think about, you know, I love, I appreciate you read the paragraph because I really do mean that. Gosh, you know, a life well lived is a life lived in the service of others. And to be able to actually understand, to be in the service of others, you need to understand what, what motivates them. But if you're just trying to say, Hey, look, I want to, I want to actually go raise some money. I don't want this to be practical. It's the most practical lesson to say if you find out what they believe, then I'll tell you I know what they're going to see. Speaker 1 Right, right. No, it's, it's, it's so important. And you know, yeah, yeah, I mean, I'd love that you brought this back to the the practical application because it does, it works. It just it, it works. And when you're inauthentic about this stuff or you're not tuned into others, it's just it might work in the short term, but I think we've kind of addressed it doesn't, it's not sustainable. Speaker 2 Correct, correct it. It's not sustainable and it works. Again, there's there, there are plenty of books to talk about it, but it works because it needs to work. Otherwise society wouldn't work. It needs to work and you can go back through and this is A, and I don't want to actually get too deep into it, but there's a reason why propaganda works and there's a reason why the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook and the propaganda departments and now the news departments of, of organization propaganda works. And there's a reason why it does because people have, we are still these machines that actually need taking information and we have to start putting rules around stuff otherwise we just can't. And by the way, that's what AI is. It's actually the approximation of different weightings of rules and we put rules around things and we call that psychology and and it but it's important, otherwise we wouldn't be able to be create community. Speaker 1 Well, as Charlie Munger said, the most important skill set that an executive can have mastering psychology I. Speaker 2 Love that. I did not know you said that. Speaker 1 Isn't that cool? Yeah, he's like he's. Speaker 2 Like he said, something about don't interrupt compounding. Speaker 1 Yeah, I I love that quote. He's like, yeah, the other ones are important. Math, science all important, but psychology is the most important. Were mostly going to have so yeah. Speaker 2 He did pretty well. He did pretty well. So, so I've that's a, that's a, that's a wise lesson. Speaker 1 Well, John, thank you so much. Such a pleasure to have you on a great discussion. It's a. Speaker 2 Real honor. Thank you. Speaker 1 Yes Sir, the Dow fundraising available on all the usual sites. Is it? I know it's it's climbing. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. It's on Amazon. It's on Barnes and Noble. You can get it on Kindle. You can get it on Spotify, Audible, but if you get it, if you get the audio book, then you have to listen to me talk for six hours and that's, that may be too tough. Speaker 1 Well, I'm going to lock down that coffee on your busy schedule and get you to autograph a copy. That's my goal in the near future, so. Speaker 2 It would be absolutely my pleasure, Gordon, thanks a lot for all the stuff you do. The Peoplescape a is is such a neat, neat platform to talk about leadership and culture and things that actually is. They really are the last, last important domain of of the human experience in business for sure. Speaker 1 Oh, thank you so much. Now I appreciate that and really, really appreciate the great discussion today. Speaker 2 Well, thank you very much. I look forward to meeting you soon for that coffee. Speaker 1 All right. Have a great, great weekend. Thanks, John. Thanks. Speaker 2 You too, take your news.