Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®

I became aware of Jonah Berger after reading his books Invisible Influence and Contagious (and later, The Catalyst). Somewhat ironically, he was and is a distinguished professor at the Wharton School where my very first book in 1988, The Innovation Formula, was on the curriculum. (He may not have been born then!)

His current book, Magic Words: what to say to get your way, is fascinating.

Jonah spoke at one of my events and mesmerized the group with his expertise on persuasion and influence. He’s studied how very slight word changes can make a profound difference in results. For example, by using a justification—e.g., “because”—people are far more likely to grant you a favor or permission, even when the justification is weak. For example, “May I stop you from making copies and make some for myself because I need these copies,” actually was effective in controlled experiments.

He identifies six basic areas for language improvement, from easiest to most difficult. An example of an easy one is saying:

I’m a writer instead of I write.

He’s a runner instead of he runs.

She’s a singer instead of she sings.

And the opposite can also be created:

They are losers instead of they lost.

You can see the subtle but very meaningful distinctions in these minor language adjustments. And he also talks about confidence, and telling stories, and the willingness to ask for help as a strength.

Jonah is one of the most dynamic and effective intellects I’ve come across. He doesn’t teach. He’s a teacher.

And his example at our conclusion of someone who represents excellence in using Magic Words may just stun you.

You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped.

That includes those who just want to be validated without making changes.

That includes those who say, “Here’s how to coach me.”

Coaching is for short-term improvement in skills, behaviors, and mental set (emotions) that are manifest and repeatable.

Longer-term help is advising (sounding board) and reactive rather than proactive.

Codependency is excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner, in either direction.

Therapist: I won’t become part of your marriage.

Me coaching: I won’t do your job for you or become part of your operation.

Coachable people never say, “I tried that and it doesn’t work.” (Well, maybe you didn’t do it well enough.)

Coachable people complete assignments, meet deadlines, don’t argue with metrics previously agreed upon.

Coachable people see legitimate, authentic, long-lived benefits in positive change.

They don’t allow their egos to block change or to be used as an excuse.

They don’t try to become their coach, they try to adopt the behaviors recommended for them.

They don’t listen to multiple coaches, “shopping” for advice which pleases them.

What about you? Can you accept coaching that you request without conditions or pushback?

Can you change behavior without experiencing a threat to your ego or status?

Are you engaged in life-long learning or daily defending of your position, entrenched on a hill?

Lou has been speaking professionally for over 40 years, during which he also logged time as a newscaster and talk show host. He and I met in the late 80s, and he was instrumental in helping my career, as well as many others.

He’s known as one of the very funniest people in the profession, and we speak herein about the changing times, changing audiences, differing expectations of buyers, and adjustments that make sense. We also talk candidly about some of the more ridiculous norms foisted on us by contemporary society, and how we have to adjust to ensure that we don’t inadvertently offend someone who is very easily offended!

Our conversation includes the fallacy of the 40-hour, productive week and the need to rapidly generate attention and interest. We cover the importance of self-effacing humor but also the belief that those who can’t laugh at themselves usually have much deeper issues affecting them in terms of low self-esteem.

We’re both story tellers so we compare techniques and delivery methods and also the vital importance of even informal stories, told over and over again, to build family and strengthen memories. And, of course, we deal with social media, their strengths and considerable weaknesses, and the momentum they provide for confrontational and rude interactions which would never occur in person.

We try to refrain talking about the “good old days” except in those instances where they really were better than what we have to deal with now.

We often think of sustainability as having to do with the environment: food, clean air, power generation, and so forth. But a different kind of sustainability is, perhaps, even more important: human respect and ethical treatment.

The restaurant NOMA has announced a closing in 2024. It has been rated the “best in the world” (if there is such a thing) and is ineligible for further nominations. But the major issue of its closing is that the grueling schedule and labor for the production of such dishes as “grilled reindeer heart on spruce twigs” or “beetles formed from plant leather” is that the labor is excruciatingly repetitive and specific.

Heretofore, in restaurants like this (and Blue Hill Farm in Tarrytown, NY, and once in 11 Madison in Manhattan, all “best” award winners) scores of interns working for free toiled in 16-hour days in order to produce the meals and gain their credentials for having worked under world-class chefs.

There have been abuses in professions where people want desperately to work with the best and, unfortunately, have to experience improper behavior. That includes nurses, teachers, reporters, first responders, and so forth. Because they have a “calling” they are willing to endure worse environments than others, even to the point of abuse. It was considered the cost of being with a “master” but more recently has been seen for what it is, simply abuse or poor treatment and poor pay.

Differing talents and experiences and training deserve differing remuneration. The rarer the skill, the more valuable it is. But ALL workers deserve safe and decent work environments and a living wage and benefits.

“Sustainability” should first be applied to our colleagues and fellow humans. Otherwise, there is no sustained environment that means anything.

Gene and I lived in adjoining towns in New Jersey but met here in Rhode Island decades ago. (He calls our origins “the old country.”)

He’s won a ton of awards for local and national reporting, including being one of the first reporters inside the perimeter after 9/11 and covering Papal visits, presidential elections, and moderating election debates at state level.

We talk here about the future of AM radio, where Gene has the most popular talk and news show in the surrounding part of the country every year. Some electric car makers claim the AM interference may preclude inclusion in their cars. Gene’s response to that might stun you.

We chat candidly about the bias in the media and the need to ameliorate it, if that’s even possible. Gene discusses his interviewing style which often results in startling revelations from guests (including conservative decisions from liberal progressives, for example), and how and why he is so totally convincing in his advertising duties. (His entire ad space is totally sold out during his show, always.)

Gene feels that we’re not about to emerge from the fact/opinion confusion, and that perhaps the icons like Walter Cronkite weren’t so objective and unbiased as we tend to remember.

The onsite satellite truck with three crew members has given way to a lone reporter with a remote camera and mike reporting alone in the night, and the next step may well be no reporters at all but instead drones and AI. Gene controls his audio, video, and related weaponry from his home studio with his iPhone.

When will he “bring down the curtain”?

“Oh, in this business they let you know!” he says.

What Herb Kelleher had brilliantly created has come apart at the seams. The aerodynamics of the company don’t work anymore. But, what do you expect from a CEO who’s making a paltry $3 million?

Would you believe that Southwest crew members have to get their scheduling assignments over an antiquated phone system that has an eight-hour wait? I am not making that up unless the Wall Street Journal is lying. While planes sat idle for lack of a crew, crews sat idle for lack of modern computer links.

Southwest uses a routing system not unlike a Greyhound bus— from point to point to point, eschewing the more contemporary hub-and-spoke method. If the bus is late after one stop, it will be late for all stops because it can’t (legally) make up the lost time. Nor can the plane, for aeronautical reasons. A 737 is not supersonic.

An airline that once had no frills now has no friends. The carefree attitude of maneuvering to avoid a middle seat is now a frenzy to avoid middle earth. At one point Southwest was responsible for 50% of all cancelled flights on a given day, globally.

The airline industry as a whole—as I’ve lamented before on audio, video, and in text—isn’t exactly led by Peter Drucker and Jack Welch. Airports are built for planes, not for people. (Think about how people board trains, which makes a hell of a lot more sense than one employee checking 300 people at one door.)

This will happen again. No one deserves the tortures of lost luggage, long delays, missed family reunions, and hours of useless waiting on phones, on computers, or on their feet. Southwest ought to change its name, repaint the planes, and reappear as an entirely different airline.

Maybe: Kelleher Happy Transit.

I met Willie Jolly about 30 years ago at a meeting of the National Speakers Association. We were both new to the organization and he was a great “force” with a gorgeous singing voice, as well.

We kept in touch over the years and he and Dee and Maria and I became good friends. What impressed me most about Willie was, and is, his insatiable positive attitude, and his commitment to helping youth.

We talk here about the challenges to the human spirit brought about by Covid, feelings of powerlessness, distrust in traditional institutions, and the onslaught of internet misinformation and conspiracy thinking. We chat about thinking beyond current family to generations of family.

It’s not always easy to arise in the morning and be motivated. Billy Joel sang about always having to “get up with ourselves.” And we look at the origins, future, and composition of wealth. Our discussion embraces Willie’s findings of five “levels” of wealth and non/wealth and what they mean. We include the value of time.

Both Willie and I have both been fired (he being replaced by a karaoke machine). Yet it improved both of us enormously. Willie admonishes not to forget people who have hurt us. He’s not talking about revenge but about incentive for wanting to be better and better to prove them wrong.

We had this discussion just before Christmas, 2022, and we reflected on the spirit of the times and the spirit of the land. I think you’ll find this a wonderful experience with someone who truly believes in traditional values and isn’t afraid to exemplify them daily.

Ironically, in these very liberal times we’re experiencing the greatest restrictions on free speech I can remember: in the media, on social media, in schools, in workplaces. It’s like Animal Farm, you have to read what’s on the barn wall this morning and what’s been removed from it.

We distort meaning in order not to offend an issue that’s not really offensive. We talk of “micro-aggressions” which seem like excuses to brand someone a racist or worse. We seem to be on eggshells about racism but ignore the boulders of anti-Semitism descending all around us.

We’re expected to atone for the sins of our ancestors. We must distort language in order to avoid some inadvertent grievance about pronouns. And we’re expected to keep vaults of people’s names with their pronoun preferences as though these are the keys to survival. We no longer can tell if “they” is singular or plural, somewhat important one would think, if a friend or a mob were coming down the block.

Virtue signalling has become a profession, with people warning us at theatrical events, sports venues, and university proceedings that we had better adhere to the right social theology. As many people simply accept all this and go about their business of earning a living and supporting their families, the field is left to the zealots.

I don’t care if you wear a mask or not these days, because I’m vaccinated to the max and believe that a mask doesn’t make a difference for most of us (though if you don’t use one and you don’t believe in vaccination, you should care). But I do care if you think I’m guilty or privileged because I’ve worked hard and used my talents honestly and consistently. I don’t want to live in a “TSA World” where I’m guilty until I prove myself innocent.

To quote Billy Joel, “I am, an innocent man.” And unwoke.

I first “met” Noah a couple of years ago when he asked to interview me on one of his podcasts. I wasn’t familiar with him but he was very personable and I liked his interview style. The session went extremely well.

And the next day my numbers blew up on social media.

Turns out that Noah Kagan has a kijillion followers, some of whom are on other planets, that’s how extensive his “reach” is. He’s been at the startups of some of the most famous internet outfits, and been fired by most of them! He’s created eight-figure businesses and frankly admits, “I wanted to make money to prove I was successful.”

When I asked how he knew a woman he was dating wasn’t attracted to him merely because of his money he said, “I don’t really care, whatever!”

More recently he invited me to be on a wonderful series of videos he hosted on “retired millionaires in their 80s.” I only meet one of those three criteria, but there I was amidst inventors and astronauts, and to this day people write me telling me how much they enjoyed that show and my contributions.

Noah doesn’t use much of a biographical sketch (Noah Kagan was #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint and has since created four multi-million dollar businesses. He founded AppSumo.com—daily deals for entrepreneurs—and has a popular YouTube channel for startups, Noah Kagan Presents), which is appropriate for a brilliant guy working very much in the present (and future). He’s exciting, innovative, and quite frank.

Which leads me to comment that this discussion contains significant profanity. To edit it out would be to alter the nature of the discussion, and it’s a very honest discussion.

Here are my suggestions for fixing our public schools so that every student is respected, educated, and supported.

1. Stop electing amateurs to school boards who merely use it as a stepping stone. Appoint people using objective criteria to determine expertise.

2. Anyone with children in the private schools instead of public is ineligible.

3. Spread vouchers and increase charter schools.

4. End union control of policy. Pilots don’t set airline policy nor doctors hospital policy.

5. Enable a bonus structure for teacher excellence (the kids’ performance) and streamline the ability to fire. (New York’s “rubber room.”)

6. Reinstitute parent/teacher meetings, even if remote.

7. Stop lowering standards. Organic chemistry teacher fired for being too tough.

8. Ignore idiotic parent priorities: Allowing kids to play football with a “D” grade.

9. Stop “warehousing” kids based on age and instead use both academic and socialization progress.

10. Never provide for lower standards for anyone which just makes them inferior.

11. End accumulated sick days for teachers.

12. Insist on minimum grade point averages before hiring teachers (they are now the lowest of any profession).

13. Stop the practice of teachers applying for counseling and administrative jobs just to make more money.

14. Create truancy policies with teeth.

15. Create effective remote learning.

16. End the political and woke claptrap. The Chinese are teaching the STEM skills while we’re helping kids determine what their gender is and what pronouns they’re entitled to.

17. Stop demanding a school year of X days as if quantity is the equal of quality.

18. Assign and expect homework.

19. Use a different system to fund schools.

20. Remember that every poorly educated kid is likely to be a future social liability: crime, drugs, jails, addictions, homelessness, mental health problems, etc.