Amplifying Influence: Rene Rodriguez on Authentic Leadership, Branding, and Communication

Charles: This week on Cleared for takeoff. I am so excited. I can’t tell you guys what a treat this episode’s going be. I have someone who is a number one bestselling author, a coach of leaders around the world, someone who teaches influence in how you can be influential, not only in your daily life, but also in your career and in your family.

He teaches you how to have more meaning when you talk to people. Renee Rodriguez is a lightning rod and a deep ocean of knowledge that will blow you away. So buckle your seatbelt. This is going be a big one.

Renee Rodriguez, welcome. What’s up man? So good to have you. 

Rene: Good to be here.

[00:01:10] What Is Influence? (And Why Influencers Got It Wrong)

Charles: What is influence? 

Rene: Probably, that question is asked all the time. And I think there’s a lot of good definitions out there. I think the word, when they added the ER to the end, I think it ruined the whole idea. And I personally think the world of the influencer is dying, if not dead.

So to me, influence is the ability to get somebody to capture someone’s attention and then more importantly, get them to act on what you say. And from a speaking perspective, ’cause we used to think about it as public speaking, but it’s really what are people going do? What behavior they going engage in that in the absence of your words, they would’ve never done.

Another way of saying that is leadership. 

So when you think of influencers and how they’ve. Ruined influence. What do you mean by that? 

Well, I think they, it’s, it’s not even that they ruined it. I think it’s that, yeah, maybe they did ruin it. Let’s just say that. I think that they have abused in a lot of senses, the psychology of persuasion and influence the perception of something that isn’t there.

The facade. And you know that because when you get an influencer that has to do a live presentation, they can’t edit it. It’s a very different person. If they can’t control the angles, control the lighting, can you just show up and talk? And is there value there? Now are there some influencers that are really valuable?

Of course, of course. But the goal, to be an influencer, I think you need to have a goal of achieving something, doing something, creating an impact that just then creates the influence you’ve been trying to do. ’cause now you are, it’s not, you’re not an empty suit. Right. 

There’s substance inside of that suit that you’re wearing.

I can’t tell you how many podcasts I’ve listened to with people who are maybe Instagram famous. But you get ’em talking long form and it’s like, there’s nothing there. 

Yeah. I think the most influential people in my life don’t even have Instagram accounts. Really? Yeah. these are people that have done big things.

They don’t have time. Now, they might have, with people documenting what they do is one thing, but they don’t even know how to use it. No, I’m not saying I, I haven’t, I, I’ve had to do it. I think it’s important, but I don’t want to people to lose sight that it goes far beyond just that. That is one form.

Social media is one form of many.

[00:03:24] How to Be More Influential: Practical Tips That Work

Charles: So when I think about working in the workplace, and I want to be more influential with the people that surround me, right? Even with customers on pitches, what are two or three things that I can do today? To get better at doing that. 

Rene: That’s almost like saying what’s the best golf club to use? Right. Saying that people say, well, the driver, okay, well what if you’re on the putting green wrong club? And so influence, leader. 

Charles: So it was leadership. A stupid question. 

Rene: No, I think it’s, it’s now. Yeah. I think it’s, it’s what people want to know, but I think the, the, the cool answer is that there’s multiple uses and, and body language is a piece of it.

Your tone, your sequence, how you dress matters. And I’m not saying that, but if people say you have to wear a suit, no, not always. I was always a suit guy until just a few years ago. And, but sometimes a suit is the right thing to do if you’re going to a funeral might be the right thing to do. 

Right. If you’re going to a big staged event, depending on who you are, it might be the right thing to do. mark Zuckerberg does this he’s a billionaire. But he started that way, he held that tight. Not all of us can pull that off, but some of us can. Right. It all depends, right?

And so there’s so many different things that come with that. But I think that to me, true influence begins on the inside. who are you? What’s your story? What do you believe? What are the values that you engage in? Do you have the ability to articulate an idea? And so there’s a skillset to that. But then I think there’s also a journey into that.

this podcast, I tell people the best thing about a podcast is that it allows me to regurgitate things that I’ve been thinking and ruminating in my head. 

And so they’re like, you said this a while. I go, I’ve said it a few thousand times in here by myself and through boring conversations.

And so there’s a time where I can say, this is what I’ve been thinking. And if you don’t self-reflect what else you have. And so might be the answer might be self-reflection. Contemplation, running ideas through your head, testing them out, what I call open mic nights, like a comedian before they come out on their main show, they’re going do open mic nights, they’re going test jokes, they’re going bomb a certain percentage.

They’re going to see which ones crush the audience, which ones are good. you remember when Dave Chappelle left and he disappeared? he came back for a year, almost a year and a half. It might have been two without telling anybody. And he would show up here in Minneapolis. And I had friends that oh my God.

Dave Chappelle showed up at the bar and then he came up to my room and we smoked weed that night. I don’t smoke, but these guys did. And I’m like, Dave Chappelle was in Africa or something like that. And he goes, yeah, he was there and he was getting a feel for the audience. He was getting a feel.

What worked, what was the, what was the zeitgeist? How had the era changed? And he only knew how to do that by just getting in the mix and didn’t tell anybody. And then all of a sudden he comes out two years later with these shit like. Game changing, specials. I think that’s what people need to do, is understand themselves first and then understand their audiences and what’s working, what’s not, and then what problem are they trying to solve and address that.

[00:06:24] Self-Reflection: The Secret Weapon of Great Leaders

Charles: So that brings me to an interesting topic that keeps arising at this table, which is intuition, right? The ability to read a room. And do you believe that that is something that can be learned? 

Or is it something that you’re kind of born with? 

Rene: I thank God that influences of science and can be learned because if it was something that I was born with, I wouldn’t be here.

You go back to my old videos and I’ll show them to you, or, it just probably be a good clip to put my, video from 2003 up there, 2002. Oh my God, what was I wearing? And it was a commitment to saying, okay, someone’s figured this out. Why can’t I, there’s a way, there’s a sequence, there’s a timing to it, and then the willingness to practice over and over and over and over again and fail over and over and over and over again.

And then you start having an intuition. People are like, well, you’re born with it. I said, no. It’s just, it’s like telling a virtuo so that they’re, they’re lucky. 

Rene: No, they just, they do this all the time. Hmm. And there’s hours and hours and hours. Now some people might be born with a predisposition, maybe a little more serotonin, maybe a little bit more testosterone.

But then there’s an environmental factor. Who was around, what’s going on? Like what were their parents like and did they have coaches? Did they have early successes? Did they have early failures? Did they, you know, what was the, what was the narrative around failure? What was the narrative around food and money and all that stuff?

All that stuff becomes part of the algorithm. 

Charles: Okay. So it sounds like something you really believe heavily in, it sounds like you do a lot of is self-reflection. So if I wanted to get better at self-reflection so that I can improve, my ability to influence. How do you, how do you set up doing quality self-reflection 

Rene: First, keep it easy. What worked, what didn’t? And be honest. So you mean like sit in a quiet room and Yeah. You’re driving home. Like, so I learned that, doing after call reviews. After action reviews, right? We call ’em postmortem. Sometimes you go on a sales call, well, this worked out, worked out, worked. I sucked this, this bombed, why did I forget this?

Rene: And you just do that. Sometimes you write ’em down. My manager would say, just write enough three things at work, three things you need to on. And it was, I was like 18. So I was like, okay, I’ll do those three things. But then it becomes a habit. Mm. Then it becomes an obsession. And then you start realizing that, you know, Zig Ziglar said, if you haven’t recorded yourself, you’re not in sales yet.

Rene: So you have to record yourself audio back then. So you have to buy those recorders. But now we have ’em on our phones. But then, okay, well how do I know body language? Well, I have to video every single thing. I’ll be watching this. Was this right? Did I have, you know, did, was there dust over here?

Like, I’m going watch all that stuff 

Charles: Now you got me thinking about the dandruff on my shoulder. 

Rene: Yeah. Well, and some people make mistake that for vanity, I mistake. I, I say no, it’s just distraction. And so there are facets to say, is there a self-awareness of how I’m showing up? Is there, something that might distract?

I did this great video and I had one of my pockets, the jacket pockets up, and then one corner looped in. So it was just this really, it just bothered me. Like on purpose. It was totally accidental. No, it was totally accidental. So you go back and watch it and you’re like, I was like, and I couldn’t get past it.

Now I’ll probably take heat for that, but it just, it was that was fixable. So then I just tuck ’em in. Yeah, I always just tuck ’em in. So that’s just not an issue. So I’m eliminating all of these potential distractions. But the end goal, honestly, is what, there’s two words. Organized quality. There’s an organized quality to this person that is a subconscious message.

Now, for me, I had to look at that stuff. I didn’t have the charisma, I didn’t have the language, I didn’t have any of that stuff. I had to utilize what I could control. Hmm. And if people don’t believe that. Play that old clip. Let’s look at those old photos. Like that guy that was trying to, that’s the guy that had to try to figure out how to penetrate an idea with a person, get somebody to trust them.

And I had none of it going for me, zero. 

Charles: So how do I figure out if I, how do I figure out if I’m putting off the wrong vibe or I make people feel awkward, but I don’t know that I’m doing it. How do I record it, watch it, but what if I can’t even read my own? Have people 

Rene: around you that you trust. I also, I think haters provide some value sometimes.

’cause sometimes a hater will tell you the things that nobody will tell you. Like they’ll, they’ll say, I’m like, Hmm, what if there’s something to that? 

Charles: What? What kind of things have you been told? Oh, I get a lot. 

Rene: You give it to me. Oh, I look like a thumb. That’s one of them. This guy looks like a thumb.

A thumb. Yeah. Those, there’s, there’s, I think it’s 200 accounts right now over one video that I did that make fun of that. I asked people what their favorite color is, and it’s just your daily, what’s your favorite color? Because I, the way I answered it, I was illustrating the power of sequence and how people take a stupid question and it can make value out of it.

So they say, what’s your favorite color? People say, green, blue, everything. I said, ask me. Mine one. My favorite color says, well, I was born in Miami, Florida, and I went down to create the frame first. And I was doing it with a stupid question from a training perspective. But of course in the internet, and their infinite wisdom doesn’t look at the context.

They look at one piece, they’re like, just answer the effing question. And there’s. Thousands and thousands of comments of people just hating it. And I was just laughing about it. And then this guy made an account recently that he’s going take that clip just like five second clip and post it every single day of you saying, of me saying that.

And then just the hate that just comes and just anger that it incite. 

Charles: He’s just promoting you. 

Rene: Well, I sent him a message. I go, I, I comment. I said, this is actually pretty funny, right? And, and he com he sends me a message back, or I think I sent him a message and he’s like, oh my God, I can’t believe you responded.

He goes, it’s just, I’m 14 years old, it’s my generation’s form of humor. And I said, that’s great, and I go have at it, but I do watch some of, at least he 

Charles: wasn’t 37 living in his mom’s basement. Yeah, 

Rene: that would’ve said something. But I think that the point is, I think you can learn from anything.

Now do I take it personally? I try not to. some of it is, I think in the beginning. You watched it. ’cause I have other videos that people just get upset about. Some people, videos that people love. But, you realize that the more profound the, the, the, the, the lesson taken outta context, the more it might incite people.

And it also shows me the lack of awareness. Like people that make fun of those kinds of things, I already know they’ve never faced a game and winning shot. They’ve never faced 3000 eyeballs expecting value to be delivered immediately. They’ve never had to do a TED Talk where you’re going go on a 40 million person subscriber list and you have 13 minutes to be relevant immediately.

That’s a lot of pressure. And then you realize at that game, it’s biology that plays, is my brain going function under this level of pressure? Am I going to remember what I need to say? Can I jump to the point immediately? And then, but then watching that, I’m like, I could probably communicate that a little bit better instead of, ’cause I come from a background of being able to have people for a day or two days.

Social media, you get a three second audition for attention. And if you’re not hitting those three seconds, you’re going trigger something right away. And so I go, huh, what could I do in those three seconds a little bit better? Instead of saying, well, they, they, I’m going be depressed. No, I don’t do that.

I’m like, all right, that’s interesting. How could I solve that? And that’s, I think, where innovation sort of begins.

[00:13:36] Fake Dopamine: Why Easy Rewards Are Killing Your Growth

Charles: So when you think about attention, especially in our, in our world of. Some people say we all have short attention spans and maybe in certain formats we do. Long form does very well on YouTube now.

But when you think about attention in that three second audition, what are things I can do when I’m posting something That I can, I can grab attention immediately. 

Rene: So the word is hook, which is another one that’s overused and very misunderstood. A great book called Hook Point, I think is Brendan Kane wrote that book.

He, he nails it. And, but then the even hooks from since then have changed. But the idea is, and let’s, let’s back up. Why is it this three seconds And do the people have short attention spans? I don’t know. Why do we watch full length movies with our family? Why do we sit and binge watch TV shows? It’s not, I know 

Charles: I’m stuck rewatching breaking Bad right now and I’m like, I’ve seen it and it’s still good.

And it’s, it’s still good. 

Rene: Yeah. 

Charles: Yeah. Some, some of it I’m like. I don’t think I caught that the first 

Rene: time. No, it’s, there’s so many levels to it, but it’s like we, we have attention spans. The way we capture it is different now. And so there’s an audition and the reason it’s an audition is ’cause I have a thumb that could just get the next thing.

what’s the, what’s the psychology in the neuroscience behind the thumb? It’s the anticipation of something better and very low effort, which means dopamine with no effort. ’cause dopamine is secreted in the anticipation of reward, not in the reward itself. And so if I go, this sucks and I just, I have this thumb, I could just move it this way and I might get something better, just like a slot machine.

I pull it, I might get it to anticipation of reward. That’s why it’s so addicting. In psychology, they’ll call it variable ratio reinforcement. There’s four types of reinforcement, variable ratio, a fixed ratio variable interval. Fixed interval. So intervals are on time, ratios are on amounts, right?

If it’s fixed, it’s every fifth time you get a reward. If it’s variable ratio every fifth, first, second, third, you don’t know. It’s unpredictable. That’s the highest amount of dopamine. It becomes the most addicting. 

Rene: And so that’s where even abusive relationships become addicting. You don’t know when that next good compliment’s going come, but you just wait for it and you get it and it’s like, ah.

And it hits, knowing that next swipe is going lead to a better video or a better piece of information. And so when you have options available and then you have easy access to the next one, it just becomes this endless cycle.

Charles: So when I can use my thumb to keep getting dopamine for free, basically.

Does that mean that there is some, some relevance to the fact that if you withdraw from social media, you can get depressed? 

Rene: A hundred percent. It’s addicting. And so I have this sign about my computer says, no fake dopamine. That means it’s, and I, and I, it stops me from so many things. Hmm. Whether it’s, taking a little bit of Adderall or doing an energy shot or doom scrolling, whatever it is, or a project that is easy to do, but not important.

Right. And so if fake dopamine is, any dopamine that’s created with no effort becomes something that will slowly kill you, slowly deteriorate your life. And we are in a world full of fake dopamine. And, I am, I am not immune to it. Yeah. It’s, it’s just, it’s there 

Charles: and available. What other things do we do that give us fake dopamine other than scrolling, 

Rene: Scrolling, pornography, clicking on something to, a phone call, posting something on social media for validation, procrastination…you name it. There’s so many easy things. An energy drink. Just any sort of external pill or drink, feel free, you know, all of that stuff is all that stuff.

[00:17:23] Framing: How to Control the Meaning of Your Message

Charles: So, back to something you mentioned about you used the term frame. Mm-hmm. And this is something that I’ve always been fascinated with, especially with the way you teach it.

Help me understand what, what is, what is a frame? 

Rene: A frame is the window in which we view the world. So we understand life through context and through frames of reference. That’s why Uber made no sense to us. At first, there was no frame of reference. Netflix made no sense to us. I go to go to Blockbuster, I can choose what I want to watch, when I want to watch, but I thought TV Guide told me when I wanted to watch something they took, now I get to choose.

There’s no frame of reference to that. And so, that like Xerox, when it first came out, that’s what it held. The name I Xerox something. No, that’s a brand name. No, I photocopied it. And so these things that have no frame of re. Hard for us to understand and usually become disruptive. And so for you to understand something, if I want to control the meaning of something, it’s about the frame that’s around it.

Mm. If I were to say used car salesman, what’s the first word that comes to mind? Cheap and sleazy. Right. So you, to understand used car salesman, you had to go back into your past experience, pull your frame of reference and the experiences that come with it to pull those to the present, to surround that title, to understand it.

Rene: Now, if somebody had used car salespeople, like for example, if I were to say my grandfather, was in Cuba right before the Cuban Revolution, and he knew that this revolution was good for his family. So he had this bright idea to write a letter to the president of the United States at the time, saying, if you get me and my family outta this country, I’ll come and fight for yours.

So they pulled him out. They somehow got to the right person. My grandmother, my aunt, my mother, and he served in the American Armed Forces for eight years. No kidding. All in social, his American dream. After eight years. He finally made his American dream. He landed in Homestead, Florida. Now in Homestead.

At the time, there was nothing there except for Patrick Air Force Base, so his income was limited to a far he could walk. But there was somebody who believed in my grandfather, saw what he needed for this country, and got him into this older vehicle. That older vehicle led him to extend his reach by 25, 50, even a hundred miles, finding better income, changing the trajectory of his life, my mother’s life, and ultimately my life.

And that person who believed in my grandfather was a used car salesman. So now did you have any negative thoughts about him? 

Charles: No, it made, it made me glad that this person helped your grandpa. 

Rene: Right. because I claimed the frame. First, I owned it through story, which is the most powerful form of influence there is because stories are constructs of reality.

If I own the frame, I own the narrative. If I own the narrative, I own how you explain life. If I own how you explain life, I own your perception of reality.

Charles: So this is why the media is so powerful. 

Rene: Yes. Because they control the story. They control the story, and we use story and narrative as a construct of reality.

[00:20:07] Storytelling That Delivers Value (Not Just Stories)

Charles: So how do you know, we’ve all met those people. When they start telling you a story, you’re like, oh, here we go again. Another story from so-and-so. How do you know if your story is too long-winded and you embellish too much and you lose people? Versus getting the necessary amount of framing in the story to get the point across.

Rene: So we all know people who are good storytellers. We also know people who just love to tell stories. And there’s one difference we story. So a person who is a really good storyteller uses the story as a means by which to deliver value. It’s a means by which the person who loves to tell stories doesn’t use the story.

They use our time just to tell us a story. And at the end, we’ve waited for this and there’s no payoff. So we’re like, and there was nothing back. It wasn’t, and so it wasn’t for me, the story, it was for themselves. They just wanted to tell a story. Maybe it’s the name Drop Talk about themselves. ’cause they like doing it.

Whatever it is, there’s no payoff at the end. And so the way to overcome that is to have what’s called a tie down. Tie down answers the question at the end of that story. So the reason I share that story with you is this. And there’s a payoff, there’s a message, there’s a moral, there’s a lesson. That’s what movies provide.

And so we, we will watch the story to get to that, that end. I’ll listen to your story to get to the end. Now the golf club analogy works here too. Story doesn’t always, isn’t always the right place to start. Story isn’t always the right club. If I’m at, a budget meeting. So let’s say you’re in a budget meeting and you ask Renee, are we on track or off track?

And I say, well, Charles, I remember when I was a kid, you’d be like, Renee, I need to know, are we on track or off track? He would drive you bananas. The wrong club, the wrong tool to use in that, in that moment. And so Shark Tank, they don’t start with story. What’s the first thing outta their mouth?

I say, hi, we’re seeking $500,000 in exchange for 10% of our company. 

Rene: And they go, okay, there’s the frame, there’s the playground. Now we want to know the story. 

So in those environments, it’s numbers first to story second, sales environments in money raising it’s numbers first to story second. But now in life in general, in a persuasive environment where I have a captive audience, and this is a, this is a big piece of, I have a captive audience, meaning it can’t be swiped, it’s a story first.

Charles: So like if you’re doing a keynote or even a presentation, people are in a room, 

Rene: if I’m captive. Yes. Now social media, is that captive or non cap? 

Charles: Oh, it’s non captive. Non captive. Because they can swipe. 

Rene: So the biggest challenge that I made, the biggest mistake I made was I took, ’cause my courses were about having captive audiences, keynotes, presentations, meetings.

I took that same methodology to social and I failed for 12 years. Nobody would watch. And I was so angry. And then I got a chip on my shoulder. What kind of world did we live in? Like this fast-paced, simple, simple sugar environment where nobody sits and watches anything. And then somebody says, hold on a second, they have options, Renee.

[00:23:03] The Hook-Problem-Solution Framework for Winning Pitches

Rene: I’m like, what happened to maturity? I was like, no. I was just like, self-righteous, high horse. No, you have three seconds to audition. So what can I do in those three seconds? And that’s where this journey over the last five years to understand how to write the first three seconds. 

Charles: So how do I write the first three seconds?

Charles: Depends on the topic. Okay, so let’s say I, let’s say I’m in business. Let’s just use the events industry. Sure. Right. And I want to create a, a, a real That makes people interested in what we do. Okay. Now, I historically have been terrible at this. You’ve told me. How do I, oh, how do I create that first three?

Second. So, who’s the audience? 

Rene: That’s the first question I was ask. Let’s just 

Charles: say it’s, people in the events industry who hire production. 

Rene: So people that are the hiring people. Yeah. What’s one of their biggest pain points 

Charles: that they have that production can be if it fails, it’s catastrophic for the event.

Rene: And what, gimme an example of a specific common failure. 

Charles: Oh, a microphone Cutting out while a CEO’s talking. 

Rene: Okay. And so then, what’s the solution for it? 

Charles: Hiring a company that doesn’t use junk equipment and has highly skilled technical people. Okay. What is the problem that you have to define here? The event planner doesn’t sleep at night because they’re up all night going, did I hire the right people?

This is our first time working with them. I don’t know if they’re competent. Who knows? If my CEO’s mic cuts out, I could get fired. 

Rene: Okay. There you go. Okay. So what, what hidden objection do people typically have or say, we’ll, make sure your mic doesn’t cut out. 

Charles: What objection do they have? If you say it’s a hidden objection, well that you’re too expensive.

Rene: okay, perfect. So I might say, here’s the number one reason your mic cuts out in the middle of your event. And, and no, it’s not about the price of the person that you’re using. So I just did two things right there, or say let’s even, let’s even rewrite that. So it’s about, it’s about, is it about the quality of the mic?

Okay. Go. Oh, for sure. Well, I think it’s, you know, and the team. Okay. See, I think I wanted, anybody can buy quality and not everybody can have a team. So we’re going, I’d probably write it this way. Here’s the number one reason that Mike cuts out in the middle of your client’s presentation. And no, it isn’t about the quality of the mic.

Everybody has quality mics. And so now the person’s going, okay, well, what the hell is it? 

Charles: What if that’s not true though? 

Rene: ‘cause

Charles: well, certain, certain microphones that are, 

Rene: we can still come back to, to that way better 

Charles: than others. We can still, I mean still, let’s be honest. Okay. 

Rene: I I I’m with you. But, but I look at you, you what you are is like me, you’re a purist.

There is, you’re going get into the technical side, but do people buy based on technicality? No. No. We 

Charles: want to buy trust. 

Rene: Yes. And so we have to remember that we’re going be able to come back and say, now there are differences in Mikes, but you can still have a good place with the right person behind it to make it work.

And it’s about the team. ’cause I think that’s your message. Yeah. The team is 

Charles: everything. The team is everything. Because the team 

Rene: will actually choose the right mikes. Yeah. That’s situation. So now we’ve done two things. I’ve hooked you and I’ve covered your objection. Now the third part, hold on. Do you need a bandaid?

Charles: Do I need a bandaid? 

Rene: Yeah, am I cut? Did that question feel weird? 

Charles: Yeah. Yes, am I bleeding? 

Rene: Yeah. So if I were to say this, Hey dude, you’re bleeding. Do you want a band aid? Then I would be like, oh yes, please. So there’s two ways to get at the bandaid. Question. One felt awkward and intrusive. The other one felt welcomed and valuable.

What’s the difference? 

Charles: You gave me a reason to need a band aid to find a problem and then you offered a solution. 

Rene: Find solutions offered without problem defined are awkward, intrusive, and weird, which is 99% of social media. Hey, it’s motivation Monday. What I want you to do today. I’m like, dude, I’m fine. I’m motivated, I’m fine.

I don’t, I didn’t even know there’s a problem. Swipe right. Hey, it’s tax Tuesday and today we’re, I’m like, I don’t need tax. Like it’s just this unask for advice. 

Charles: That’s why it feels weird. 

Rene: Yeah, exactly. It’s just, and I tell people the way you write a hook and you read your, your solution is walk up to somebody to offer ’em that solution in the middle of, of lunch with their daughter.

They’re going be like, man, get out of here. Hey everybody, it’s taxed. Get out of here. Hey, I just want to jump on motivation Monday. Walk up to them lunch and say that to them. And if they tell you to get out, it’s not a good hook. 

Right. But if I walk up to you and say, here’s how the rich avoid paying taxes, you’d be like, and don’t worry, what I’m about to share with you is perfectly legal.

Well, okay, hold on. What, what? Talking about this. Now all of a sudden I’ve created intrigue. I’m doing that. Now I, I can go say what most people do when they sell their home, they take all that gain, they put it in the bank, and the IRS loves that. ’cause that’s a taxable event. Don’t do that. Define the problem.

What you need to learn solution is what a 10 31 exchange is. And so I can define that, but that was hook. Objection, problem, solution. Follow the sequence. So now we’re at this place, we’re saying, okay, so here’s the number one reason that mic is cutting out in the middle of your client’s presentation. And no, it isn’t just about the quality of the mic.

Here’s what most people do, is they cut corners, they try to save costs. They look at budgets in the middle of their whole, proposal process for getting that time of performance when they know that they need the equipment to work, right? Or maybe they cut back and say, well, this team, you know, they’re new, but they’re going give us a deal.

Here’s the problem with that. That’s in that moment is where that decision comes out to play. So here’s what you need to think about according to the solution.

[00:28:27] Why Renee Never Sends Proposals (And What Works Instead)

Charles: I feel like I just learned a lot right there. It’s a lot to unpack. I’m going go back and watch that a bunch. so, so you’re saying, and, and I would imagine that’s not just social media, that’s, that’s sales in general.

You have, you can’t just come out with what you think is the problem. 

Rene: Yes. There’s, there’s so many lessons in that in terms from a sales perspective, your solution without a problem to defined is like, what’s your, what’s your price? Like that? Why start there? What problem are we solving? 

Rene: You know, I tell people, I say, what’s the cost?

Cost to bring me in or not bring me in? And they’re like, I’m like, no, I’m serious. I go, ’cause it costs you more to bring me in. You’re not going bring me in. You’re smart. Why would you spend more money to solve a problem that isn’t valuable? I said, but if there’s a problem that I solve, which I think is why you’re talking to me, that the value of that solution far exceeds any cost of bringing me in.

I think you would probably think that there’s a cost in not solving it. Do we agree on that? They go, yes. I said, why don’t we figure out what problem we’re trying to solve, what value we’re trying to create? Then we figure out the solution together. And I promise you my cost will be a lot less than the value I bring.

And if I don’t do that, just don’t pay me. 

Rene: What do you think the close ratio is on that? 

Charles: Like a hundred percent. 

Rene: And by the way, and sometimes it’s, I, I’ve done this where I’m going, I go, my, it doesn’t make sense to use me. I think there’s a book that you can use. In fact, why don’t you watch this podcast episode?

It’s right here. I’m going send you something for free. Go do that. I said, no. I said, no, you’ll remember me next time. We have a, a highly valuable problem. I hope you remember me. 

Charles: Geez. So if I’m in a high pressure selling situation I got to go in with my team and we’ve got a monster deal.

We’re trying to pitch and stand out from everybody else. What are things that we can prepare and practice to make sure that, that, that is truly. A winning pitch 

Rene: for me. And I think you do this already, so correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t do proposals. They’ll tell me, can you put a proposal? I said, no.

And I go, and the reason why it’s going take me two two, two weeks to write it based on what I think I can do for you. I mean, you’re talking about 30 years of applied neuroscience in 400 different industries. I don’t think I can do that. I go, but how about I give you two, three hours of my time?

We’ll do either a webinar, I’ll come into your office and I’ll give you a taste of what it is. But all I require is you put the people, the decision makers in the room so we can deal with it. I can do it in an hour if you want. I’d much rather spend that time, but then your people can touch, taste, feel what’s going on, and then I’ll put a one pager together afterwards to describe what we’re doing.

And so I think, but what do you think your whole studio is? You create the virtual reality thing. I mean, you’re already doing things saying, you know, proposal. Why don’t you just come in and we’ll, we’ll give you an experience. 

Charles: So what do you do when you have, this is a like a real life issue that we deal with and I’m sure a lot of people deal with is when an RFP comes out and we are included as a someone to propose and we put this beautiful thing together after understanding their needs.

Yep. And they say, just send it to us. We’re not having calls or meetings and no pitches right now at this stage. Just send it over and we’ll let you know if we’re moving you into the pitch round. 

Rene: Wonderful. Happy to do that. I do have a couple questions. ’cause I’m assuming your needs are a little bit different than others.

Is that correct? Yep. Wonderful. I just want to make sure that I’m addressing those exact needs. Can I get 10 minutes? Yep. 

Charles: But, but not to pitch. You’re can have 10 minutes right now to understand the problem. 

Rene: That’s what I would want. Okay. And then can you pitch an understanding at the same time? Are you pitching a sense of trust?

Are you pitching This group is more professional? The others are asking better questions than the other people. The the based on the value and the, the wisdom behind their questions. This isn’t their first rodeo.

[00:32:12] Building Your Brand Ecosystem: Beyond Social Media

Rene: That’s a pitch. Without it being a pitch. 

Rene: And so then I would get access. ’cause then now you, you’re not just a piece of paper. You’re that voice that asks these questions that’s associated to that paper. 

Rene: I’m already slightly different now at that point. Do we say, okay, so there’s one advantage that’s up there. I think in today’s world, you’re pitching your brand shows up before you do it stays after you leave.

What do people do the moment they say, what about this company? Where do they go? They Google, Instagram, Google, Facebook, anything. Right. And so I think your Instagram should be the experience. Why is mine full of me speaking? That’s all. It’s because I used to have to have these speaker reels. I don’t think anybody watches them.

They don’t watch mine anymore. They go to my Instagram. I saw this thing. You did. 

I was in Saudi Arabia ’cause of a TikTok video that the son of the CEO sent to the ceo. so all of these things are, there’s, you should try to really recreate that experience through social media because it’s going show up before you do.

And then after they leave, who’s that guy? Oh, show up. Send ’em that. That thing now your social media presence and your brand becomes part of the pitch when you’re not in 

Charles: the room. There’s a common theme I’m hearing here that I’ve been hearing from a number of our other guests talking about how it’s not just the one pronged approach.

When we were talking to Chris Lindahl, he, he was like, yeah, me as a billboard guy, but nobody ever asked me about this SEO or our hiring or all that. Yeah. So what you’re saying is. Basically in a similar manner. It’s about the entire ecosystem you put together with your brand that is preceding Yep.

A conversation and then is with them after you send them a pitch. 

Rene: So think about it, social media is one, podcast is another. I wrote a book. I do webinars, live presentations, referrals, articles. Think about just that, just as a starting place. And so there’s a seven. Now, if we were to take those and your brand is in the middle and all of these prongs, and if you were to point the messages to the middle.

If the goal is to have them say the same thing, if they all say the same thing, you’ve retrieve what I call the holy grail, which is convergent validity. All the ideas converge to validate the simple message of the brand. But so often one thing says another thing, another thing says another, another thing.

So that they converge to create confusion. But if all of those you manage the brand brand is not just the color, it’s not that this isn’t, this isn’t the brand, this is the color scheme of the brand identity. But this stuff represents an emotion and a promise that I’d come has made. And what is that promise Well’s going be The best event experience you’ve ever seen.

Every detail, because I already know your events. I go, I do my 200 plus events. I show up and I’m like. oh dude, is this your event? You’re like, yeah. I said, because there’s a yellow brick road they’re going follow. I just got to stay on that. And there’s somebody that’s meet me here, they meet me there.

All that stuff. Everything is flawless. The audio is circulated throughout all of the different pieces. Everything is, it’s flawless. 

Charles: Yeah. 

Rene: There’s the promise of that. Now, how do you take that promise and scale that, how do you create that promise in a short video in 60 seconds, and then with every one of those promises made, this color somehow is always present.

That logo just seems to just be always there. It’s like the, so you talk about creating the brand, the brand. People start with logos. stop, stop. That is down the down the list. The brand is around its ethos, the essence, the character, the brand promise, the story, the emotion.

That all makes a promise to you. And so then when you have that, for example, first date with your wife knew this would grow your dreams, you want to see her? She’s like, she plays it cool. Jessica’s like, Charles, I’m not sure yet. She turns around and you’re like, and then she comes back and she looks at you and she says, but if I were to see you again, Charles, it has to be under one condition, and she looks you up and down.

She says, you have to promise me not to wear that jacket because that jacket, that’s an unfair advantage. She winks at you and she walks away. How are you feeling every time you wear that jacket? 

Charles: I’m walking on a cloud, 

Rene: a million bucks, Is it because of the quality of the jacket? No. No.

Is the color of the cut, the manufacturer. none of the value propositions mattered in brand. What mattered were two things. One, an emotion of confidence, but confidence in what? Into a promise that it made. If I wear this jacket, I can have the girl of my dreams. That’s brand. And so then this is emotion.

imagine a color associated to that. Imagine a message associated to that over and over and over again. Then remove the promise, see the color, feel the emotion, and the promise is there and it’s unconscious. I’ll give you an example. You know Jordan’s brand promise, but I bet you won’t say it. What’s Jordan’s brand promise?

Charles: Michael Jordan. 

Rene: his Jordan brand. 

Charles: I don’t know. 

Rene: You do know. Watch. Just do it. If you wear these shoes, you can be like, 

Charles: be like me. Be like Mike. Be like Mike, Goes to show how much I know about sports around here, guys. Okay. 

I grew up playing chess. Renee. 

Rene: It’s be like Mike, the halls just be like, Mike, be like Mike. So they didn’t, they didn’t talk about the quality of the shoe, the structure of the color, none of it. They just watch ’em flying through the air dunking, graceful, and if I wear these, I can run faster, jump higher, and be like that guy.

Yeah. So then you wear it. Not a thing. None of it had anything to do with the quality. It was a $7 shoe to make. They said, yeah, probably. That’s what they said. It was seven bucks. And so there’s all of these brand promises, and so then now we go, okay, how do I keep that clear brand promise through every rendition of who I am?

Right? Because we said we’re doing this. This is about leadership. Okay. Does this podcast contribute to the i’d come promise? right? I think it does. Because you’re help. Who’s making the decision to do this? Leaders? we’re going spend millions of dollars to put a bunch of people, stakeholders, and I’m going give a couple people the attention.

Meaning, that’s what I tell people is, you’re going gimme the attention of your entire company for an hour. We should probably talk about your business. Right? Yeah. You’d think I want to be an extension of that. Yeah. And that’s, that’s one of the things that makes me different as a speaker, is that I will take the time to understand that, and then I’m on stage and all the leaders are like, I need him in front of my room more because he’s driving our business forward.

But you’re saying you’re pulling all these people together and one mishap could create the emotional disaster that people remember. 

Rene: And go, this sucked, or we could have that right? And they go, wow, I’m working for the right place. What’s the value of retention? I’m not in events, I’m in retention and acquisition.

[00:38:56] Personal Branding: Understanding Your Leadership Identity

 

Charles: Yeah. Yeah. I, I always think every single show we do is a shuttle launch. It has to go right. you think about billion dollar brands putting their leaders and keynotes and celebrities on stage. You can’t have that go wrong. No, that has to go right. Okay. So I want to ask you, on the branding vein, because we live in a world where it’s you should be a brand.

Everyone’s a brand. You’re a brand. I’m a brand. We are a brand. How does, how do you even begin? What is a, what is a personal brand? 

Rene: The recognition first that everything you do is contributing to the expectation that people have of you. It’s always there. So when we talk about leadership, branding, it’s about what kind of leadership is expected of you before you walk into a room.

So think about it. How many leaders have you worked with that they’re in the meeting? You better have your numbers clean and your pencil sharp. Yes. ’cause they’ll ask, and when I know those people are there and they say a number, I’m like, is that roughly? And they go. Exactly. And I’m like, I’m just kidding.

Ask your c tell your CPA your, your CFO roughly. And they’re like, no. Exactly. Pre Precisely. Precisely. And so that’s part of their leadership brand. There’s some people that have their DEI, you better be clear on your language ’cause they’re going call you out and there’s some people that, they’re going make promises 

Charles: that they won’t deliver.

Rene: That’s a brand 

Charles: or like that person, is always going be late. 

Rene: Yes. We all have those friends. I just expect it. 

Charles: Yeah. 

Rene: And so there’s the person, the, the, so the brand is that promise. It’s not always positive. So one, the, the realization that I have one question is, is what do I want it to be?

What do I want it to be? And that becomes interesting ’cause some people start creating a brand that they want to be, that they really, they aren’t they, so 

Charles: they’re like, I want to be this thing, but that’s not in my DNA, it’s 

Rene: not my DNA, so I’m going stand in front of an expensive car. There’s branding.

That’s not your car. I was coming, literally, I was coming out of a luxury real estate event in Miami a few months ago, and they go, we want to do some, interview with you. I said, great. I said, we’re going stand next to Ferrari. I said, no, we won’t. You said that. I said, I’m not standing in front of that thing.

I don’t own it. Did they own it? I don’t think so. So it’s like, no, it was, it was the camera crew, It was the camera crew. They were good guys. Really, really good guys. And but that was what they assumed 

Charles: would be profit. Oh yeah. ‘

Rene: cause it’s luxury real estate. And I said, I’m not standing. I don’t own that thing.

Rene: I go, one, I don’t fit in it. It’s a Ferrari. I don’t fit in a Ferrari. I love it. But I’m just like this, I, I, I don’t fit in 

Charles: that. I always wanted to have a Lamborghini and then I saw one in person for the first time. I was like, I would barely fit laying across the top of it, let alone inside of it.

Rene: I made a mistake of renting one. I’m like, I’m going rent one for today. And it got there. I had to, I have a video of me getting in. I had to go headfirst, put both hands on the opposite seat, turn a hip, get one knee in. You had to like crawl in like knee, had module knee, sit, knee. Then pull my knee up to my thing, set it in so that both my knees right here, which my hips are not that flexible and I’m going, and I had to go like this.

’cause the, it was right here and I’m like, this is the stupidest thing ever. I go open the top. I was like, okay, so now the tops here, but the thing is right here, so I can’t see. 

Charles: You’re getting, I’m hitting in the forehead. 

Rene: I’m literally doing this to try to see what’s going on. And I’m like, this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

Now I’m not knocking it, but it’s just not me. 

Charles: Yeah, 

Rene: right. 

Charles: It’s not your brand. 

Rene: So now what I did tell him, I said, you want to use a Ferrari start filming? I’m going be looking at it, admiring it. nice car. It’s not mine. I said, but it’s interesting the whole idea of luxury and what people will spend for, so I used it as a prop.

I wanted to be clear that it wasn’t 

And so that felt in alignment. Yeah. With my ethos. Yeah. It felt in alignment with how Yeah. With who I am. ’cause I just don’t have one. And so the point being is where do we begin? You don’t begin with the fake jets. You don’t begin with all of that stuff.

I was just going say, I’ve gotten requests from people many times that they want to shoot in my plane For their influencer stuff. And I’m like, that doesn’t make any sense. Unless it’s for like a movie or a TV show. It’s, you’re not using it for influence. Well that’s, but that’s, that’s where I think where he went awry that people abused of this.

I’m going to pretend that I have all of these things and then you’ll want to buy from me in some way or follow me. And then, but then the question is, is once I get to the, to the, to gain time to have the experience. And that’s where a lot of people crumble. It’s like, one of my, one of my good friends, 1998, I’ll never forget this.

He said, Renee, let people test you for depth. 

I’m like, what do you mean? He goes, well, you’re just, you’re showing everything you know about the brain. And he goes, just show enough. And then when they ask, go a little bit deeper, and they ask more, go a little bit deeper. Now they’re in the deep end. You’re up to your ankles, they’re up to their neck.

And they’re looking at you going, okay, this is the guy. And I was like, I love that idea. 

So let people test you for depth. You may not see it right away, ’cause I’m, I’m a pretty easygoing guy. I, I try to be pretty joke joking. But with when the work comes, that’s when I don’t mess around anymore.

Only reason is ’cause I have opinions and I also care about the result, but I only do that in my lane. I don’t step outside of my lane. So this, the other piece too is from branding is what’s your lane? What is the ethos? That thing that you truly have credibility in. Now somebody might say, I’m 2023, whatever, I don’t have a lane yet.

I’m like, yeah, you do. You have 23 years of experience. And what, you’re an athlete. Okay, so you worked out, you played college ball. Not many people played college ball. What were the disciplines that got you there? What were the things that you did? What were the things you gave up? The sa, those are all things you have ethos in.

But don’t try to be an expert when you’re brand new. Okay. You’re in real estate. I don’t have any credibility. I said, yeah, you do. You’re young and you’re fresh and you hustle. I don’t know the answer. Yeah. I promise you I’ll get it faster than anybody else. And I have an amazing team behind me.

I’m here to work. I’m available 24. So you have time and you have energy. There’s your ethos in that sense. We all have it in some way, shape, or form. I’m a stay at home mom. What did, why did you have to nurture and run a business from home? Make sure everybody got fed on time. Timelines, details and tasks.

All of that stuff fits. I’m nurturing. I understand. I care. That’s 

Charles: awesome. So the awkwardness we see with people’s, brands maybe not feeling right, is that it’s what they’re trying to be is truly not who they are. And that’s where we are. Spidey senses tell us. Mm-hmm. 

Rene: And I don’t blame them by the way. I don’t blame them.

Yeah. And the reason I don’t blame them is ’cause we’re trying, we’re all trying to be better in some way. So we, we were always taught follow those who are successful, so we don’t want to do what they did, but they didn’t see what they did prior to that to get there. 

Rene: The unsexy work. good friend, flex Lewis.

Remember you, our friend Flex. Yeah. Flex is a great guy. He, he, he said. Put your, excuse me. Can we swear on this one? Yep. He goes, put your fucking phone down in the gym. And then I want to see how many reps you do. What happens when no one’s watching, when no one’s in the gym, and it’s just you. That’s when I’ll see who you really are.

And I was like, oh my God, that’s so good. Who am I when no one’s watching? How many reps will I really do? How many And reps, by the way, might be, practicing your speech. The reps might be, I always, I tell people, do you want to understand Charles? Have him give you a tour, and as he’s talking to you, he’s scanning every detail and he is laughing and he’s joking, he’s telling these stories.

But then there’s this other side of him that’s going, why is that wire not folded? Right? That wire’s twisted. Hey, will you grab that off the floor? I need this here. But yes, so one of the, we just love this building. Hey, can you make sure that that’s over here? Why is that box over here, guys? We need to get this thing done.

But so yeah, it was one of those things, it’s like just like there’s two sides to him, but there’s the obsessive side around creating the perfect experience. And then there’s this great, fun loving relationship building guy. That’s you. Hmm. Right. And you have both of those. But some people say, well, I’m just going be just like Charles.

They forget this psychotic side of the detail that he has on everything else that he’s looking at. I’m 

Charles: yelling about the plumbing of the women’s restroom during the podcast. 

Rene: Yes. And so those are the pieces that people don’t see. They don’t see, they say, want to get on stage? Renee, what’d you do get here?

I’m like, oh my God. Do you know how many empty rooms I had to sit in front of? How many times I heard somebody that I needed to be in front of was in a city? And I flew myself there, planted myself in the lobby just to sit when they walked by, they go, Hey, what are you doing here? I’m like, oh, I was in the neighborhood.

you know, I was actually, I was, I just had an event coming up, Hey, what’s you guys doing? And then every once in a while I get invited to the lunch you did that? I’m like, yes, all the time. And then a lot of times it didn’t work. It just didn’t work. But it was nobody sees 

Charles: that. I love that you brought that up because as you’re growing.

As a professional, no matter where you’re at, even if you’re the CEO of a big company, we all have those times where we, we experimented with things. That didn’t work. And I feel like I actually learned more when something went wrong Than when something went right. You know? 

Rene: It’s, you, you have to trial and error.

You have to try things. It’s, it’s part of the process and I think what they say awkwardness is a requirement for growth. Failure isn’t failure’s, price of entry. it’s, it’s, you have to be able to fail. And it sounds so damn cliche, but it just is. Like you have to be able to, to fail, you have to be able to try something.

that sucked. I tried this. No, that didn’t work. And so then you start manufacturing failure in early, I’m going set up places that I can go fail. That’s what open mic night is. Again, go fail there. Don’t fail at the, at the special on HBO. Fail and the 300 attempts prior to that so that you go, by the time you get to the special, you know this was going work.

You already know the reaction to the audience before they know the reaction to the audience. And so, you watch my talks, I said, you, you might hear some of the same things. ’cause I already know the reaction. I don’t have to worry about the reaction. I’ve done it a few thousand times and it’s just there.

I can change the tie down, the messaging at the end, but I know the pr, the setup is going be on point. 

Charles: So if I want to spend more deep time on myself, really figuring out who I am, who my brand is, how do I get better at communicating that, not being awkward about it. Is there some sort of structure or methodology to go about this, or is it just go sit in a quiet room every day?

No, there’s, 

Rene: there’s, so we spent years working with copywriters to really, perfect. The questions to extrapolate it. 

Charles: you sent me that ethos doc. Yeah. Did you do it yet? Yeah, I’m almost done with it. 

Rene: Okay. it’s, in 

Charles: fact, I think I am done with it. 

Rene: It’s intense, isn’t it? 

Charles: It’s really intense. I caught myself sitting there going, I don’t think I’ve ever had anybody ask me.

Yeah. What I thought about this as a child. Yeah. And is the thoughts I had as a child even, are those even valid? Mm-hmm. And I’m like writing this stuff down, using that tool. What is that tool? The one where you whisper 

Rene: flow. 

Charles: Whisper flow. 

Rene: Isn’t that the 

Charles: best you see? You hold, well, you can hit space bar and it’ll just stay open.

Yeah. But yeah. I love how it punctuates for me. Oh, it’s, 

Rene: it’s the hack of all hacks, I think. those questions, those 30 questions took me eight years to, 

Charles: to do they really? Oh yeah. 

Rene: And we just created a new one, which is What’s your money ethos? What’s your money story? Oh, so I’m working with Brett Tanner on this one and we were talking and I did his ethos and I’m like, hold on a second.

And I interviewed him ’cause this is a guy who’s figured out money and investments and Do you remember Brett, were you at the mastermind for that? Yeah, I think I met him. Yeah. And we created this, it was, I think it was 50 questions and I had him go through it first and he’s like, oh my God, this is it.

’cause we identified as a kid his first experiences with money. Hmm. And that he didn’t have money, but his parents were abundant in their thinking. And he looks at money not as wealth, but as freedom or money as a tool to deploy. And the wealth is freedom. It’s not things, you know, it’s like all these things that him, but then the childhood stories that supported it.

And then we can identify the things that could shift. So when it comes to personal branding, yes, I have a methodology for it. I would just, for somebody who doesn’t have the money to invest, I think we charge like 15 grand to go through that process is go to your favorite AI and say, help me understand me, interview me.

Rene: Just try that. 

Charles: So GPT Or Grock or any of those, you just call it whatever to interview you. 

Rene: Yep. Interview me. I want to understand my ethos, I want to understand this. And go through that process. And then once you feel like you’ve exhausted it, then say, put this into a document, into a narrative, and then watch what happens.

And you’ll be like, you’ll read it. You go, oh my God. It might not be the same exact questions, but it’s a great starting place. 

Charles: I just, I think about the questions you gave me in that document, and some of them really got me thinking about down to the core, what I believe on certain things. it was really eye-opening.

I can’t wait to see what you do with it. You were like, do this and then send it to me. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is going to be intense. 

Rene: It’s, it, it gets emotional sometimes because people see things that they have felt and try to articulate, articulated and captured. And it’s like, you understand yourself, you realize there’s a, there was a method to my madness.

There was an underlying process. I didn’t really realize it. And then going forward, what it allows you to do is be so much more intentional about how you do things. And then you can take that document and make it part of the product knowledge or the knowledge base of your Ai. And so then you’re speaking and writing from that same voice, that same content, that same idea.

[00:52:30] What High Performers Know: Managing Biology Under Pressure

Charles: So when, when, when you think about, you’ve, you’ve watched high performers, you’ve coached some huge names, and when you watch the common threads that the people who perform under pressure consistently have what? What is it that they all have that’s different than everybody else trained in managing their biology?

Rene: 

So you go to, you talk to a Navy seal and the majority of my conversations with Navy Seals and, I’ve, I’ve met Marcus Latrell, a chance to spend three days with Chris Kyle before he was murdered. Rob O’Neill, who, is known for the one who shot Bin Laden, a bunch of other folks. And our conversations are always around, breathing and managing stress.

And so it’s in that moment breathing. Yeah, just managing stress. And so Rob, has a great story of, things that happened right prior to, let’s say, some sort of tactic breaching a door and how some of the newer guys would be let’s do this, let’s go. And, he has to remind them, they’ve got the push talks and I’m taking his story and he says it’s a, it’s a push, it’s a, it’s a think.

Then push, then talk. It’s not a push to think, because that goes to everybody, Hey, I’m going go do this, I’m going do this. And all of a sudden the chaos spreads wildfire. He goes, but so does calm. And he gets on there, he’s everybody stop and take a deep breath. This is a push to talk. And I push to think I you to think.

Then I want you to push and then I want you to talk. And then all of a sudden just gets right back down. That level of leadership. In that moment, it was about biology. A Navy seal, a professional athlete, an executive, a speaker at a certain level, they all have the same know-how, they have the same speed, but they have different biology that functions in that moment that is different.

And that to me is the highest level. LaShaun Merritt, four gold medals. I was talking to him yesterday and he trained for 15 years to run 40 seconds, 15 years for 40 seconds. And it’s do you want to know what it takes for that flex list? Seven consecutive Mr. Olympia. That means you’re nothing but net for seven years.

Physically, diet, everything, workouts. How, that’s a totally different mindset and something that most of us probably won’t understand, but it’s fascinating to talk about and then say, can I, can I take a fraction of that and implement to make my life better? Yes, a hundred percent. Do you need to be that?

’cause it, that level of, of, of performance, it’s not for all of us. Hmm. It isn’t, it’s, some of that stuff’s not for me either because it, because what comes with it, some people want a little bit more, I hate the word balanced. Or maybe a more dispersed and integrated life and maybe a more harmonious life.

’cause there’s a lot of disharmony sometimes that happens in that. And so they have to then go through a lot to unravel that level of focus too. To be able to reenter the, the, the, the civilian world, if you will. 

Charles: How do I control my biology better in high pressure situations, breathing. What do you mean?

Rene: So the controlling your biology really means it’s, it’s either the sympathetic nervous system or the parasympathetic nervous system.

What’s the difference? So we have two nervous systems that are antagonistic, meaning they cannot be on at the same time. It’s either one or the other. Sympathetic nervous system is the excitatory response, right? Parasympathetic is the relaxed response. You can’t have the lights on and off at the same time.

It’s either one or the other. So that’s why they’re antagonistic. And so when you are in a high pressure situation, a lot of times we forget to breathe. If you forget to breathe, you don’t get oxygen. If you don’t get oxygen, your brain thinks one thing, I’m going die no different than I were to choke you.

That’s why that’s scary. ’cause there’s no oxygen. If I could choke your arm, you’d be like. That’s not scary. Why all of a sudden around my neck it’s scary versus my arm because I can’t breathe. So it’s not about the choke, it’s about the lack of oxygen. So then I just take lack of oxygen and apply that. I just stopped BRE breathing.

All of a sudden I start to breathe. My brain gets the oxygen it needs sympathetic nervous system calms down. So now here’s the thing, the, you can’t say Shut off my, you can’t just go, oh, I’m going shut off my sympathetic. No, you have to do parasympathetic activities that you can control that have a secondary effect to engage it.

That’s why Navy Seals are made popular box breathing, four seconds in hold, four seconds, four seconds out, hold four seconds. That’s pretty hard to do, especially in the middle of battle. But they do that 

Charles: and that helps ’em control how, how worked up or calm 

Rene: they are. Well, it helps integrate, fully integrate their brain so they can, and the other way of thinking about it’s operating from system one, system two, system one is the fast thinking reactionary brain.

Which is what a lot of their enemies are in Navy Seal operates outta system two. Right? It’s much slower. Time slows down. That’s why. And Barry Sanders, they said that he just, he could just see things. 

Rene: And everyone was, I’m going kill you. And he was just moving through stop, start moving and just time slowed down.

His perception of time slowed down so he can maneuver. That’s biology. It’s not magic, it’s biology. And so his brain functions differently. Remember Spider-Man when he first got his skill and he was fighting whatever his name was, I forget the villain. And he throws a punch and he’s just like, he’s watching the punch and he just goes and he sees the fist away.

He goes, huh? And would go back. Now that was coming violently, but he was like, interesting. I mean, imagine if someone’s moving in slow motion, how you could fight ’em and you’re in fast. That’s what System two can do. But it’s also, the problem with system two is that it’s a slave to system one. So if system one is engaged, sympathetic.

System two goes away. So you have to learn how to create safety and calm for system one. So system two can arise.

[00:58:32] Training Under Stress: The Amplify Method for Peak Performance

Charles: So you’re consciously controlling how worked up or not, you get using breathing, you have to train yourself. Yeah. ’cause I was wondering, is there, is there ever a point where you, you’re subconscious learns this from consciously teaching it, where all of a sudden you’re in a situation but your subconscious slows you down 

Rene: In our courses, we will. So another way of triggering system one is put you in front of a room and you just, all of a sudden it’s just that stress level goes out. And so you have to, if you’re, if I’m training how to shoot a gun for war, I’m not going show, I’m not going train you in, in a room with air conditioning and Mozart and ear muffs.

I’m going put you, because then you’re learning under those conditions. But now it puts you in a system, one world where explosions and people are trying to kill you. You’re in a different biology. So what you learn in, in the the room, Mozart room, it doesn’t apply in war. So I have to train you in war-like conditions to get you ready for war.

And I have to train you in high stress environments to get you ready for a stage. I have to train you in high stress environments to get you ready in a self-promotional environment to do that. So when the stress goes high, your brain knows what to do. 

Charles: So how would you get me ready to go in front of a big stage?

Charles: I’m scared of crowds. I don’t know what to do. I have to do this presentation, train 

Rene: you in front of a crowd, start and stop you in, interrupt you. 

Charles: So that’s what amplify is. Yeah. 

Rene: And so I might, I’m like, you’re standing up, you’re hunching. Why is your arm that way? 

Charles: Okay. ’cause when I went through it and you kept cutting me off, it actually made it way worse.

Like, I was like, okay, I’m already nervous and here you are correcting me in front of all these people that I don’t know. 

But then by the end, I, it felt good. 

Rene: Yeah. The purpose was to, so, a good friend, Jonathan client, he had, he’s ridiculously talented and had this big event coming up.

He came to AmCon and our big event, and I always choose one person right after lunch that I tell people was a guest speaker. They don’t know who it is. It’s usually a client of mine. And he was struggled with anxiety and stress. He’s very talented. And so I said, our next speaker, make sure you come back after lunch.

I did this whole intro and our next speaker, his Jonathan had that. He’s like, 

Charles: oh, so he doesn’t always, he has no idea. 

Rene: And he gets up there and he, and I just said. Don’t f it up. 

Charles: So this is part of you coaching him? 

Rene: Yes. 

Charles: It’s like putting him in front of your audience, 

Rene: my audience. And so he gets up there and he’s like, okay, so, my name is Jonathan.

That, and I, and I just stopped in front of the room. I said, in front 

Charles: of everybody, 

Rene: everybody. And he’s like, okay, but he’s so coachable. This is what makes him so unique. And he is like, okay. Did him two, three times. And he got, then he goes, I go your story. He goes, oh. And he just starts in his story and crushes it.

He gets off stage, he looks at me and he goes, what were you doing? And I just stopped him. I go, it’ll never be that hard again, ever. 

Charles: Yeah. 

Rene: And he goes, I go, are you worried about your event? He goes, oh no. I go, ’cause it’s never going be like that. You’re just put in front of a thousand people with no prep, no nothing coached, stripped down and you still crushed it.

Imagine if you get a little bit of practice. 

Charles: Yeah. 

Rene: And he is like, I get it. And so there’s ways you have to learn in those environments, and you have to survive through them and then get trained through 

Charles: it. So if I can’t get in front of a big crowd, right? I got something coming up and I, I need to speak in front of people, but I can’t practice in front of a crowd.

Should I find a crowd? 

Rene: Okay. I can’t just 

Charles: practice in a room with a phone, get your 

Rene: team who got one right near, put ’em in a room, go on social media and practice there. Yeah, go live. 

Charles: Oh, go live. Yeah, that’s a 

Rene: good idea. There’s always a crowd where there’s a will. There’s a way that, that sounds cliche, but find it.

Charles: Is there value in practicing alone and recording it and watching, or is it like, 

Rene: yeah, I mean, you get to wrote routine, but I, I can have you memorize something and then have you regurgitate it in front of me and then I put you under a little stress. You’ll forget about it. 

Because limbic system is where the gateway to long-term memory is.

And if you’re feel threatened, that reticular activating system literally shuts cortical axis off to that. 

Charles: He shuts what off? 

Rene: Cortical access. What’s that mean? So there’s no neurons that can pass. Oh. So it shuts it down, shuts it down completely. You’re literally, your, your brain stops the, the lights go off in that part of the brain because you don’t need memory.

You need fight or flight. See to the end of your fingertips. How am I going get outta here? So you 

Charles: can’t even regurgitate something because that part is closed off right now. Closed off. 

Rene: And so the way to do it, take a deep breath. So my favorite breathing is diaphragmatic breathing, right? Okay. So I take a deep breath in as deep as I can, and hold for two, three seconds.

Then I’m going exhale for six to eight seconds.

Charles: Why do you feel more calm 

Rene: Now you just keep doing that. Now you can do that. 

Charles: You ever get lightheaded in the middle of presentation

Rene:? Well, that means is you probably went too far. So you find your groove. If the exhale causes you stress, it’s too long. 

Rene: I push my lips, I make that noise from a feedback loop.

I don’t go. If I do that over and over, that’s the formula for hyperventilation. So your exhale has to be longer than the inhale. If it’s the exhale, if the, if the exhale is shorter than the inhale, that’s hyperventilation, right?

Charles: Then you can get dizzying pass out. this has been so good.

You got to tell me before we finish, you wrote a book, amplify Your Influence, transform How you Communicate and Lead…Amazon? 

Rene: What am I going learn in here that breaks down the entire science of everything we talked about in here, but it’s going walk you through the building of it. So, you actually, one of the OG books before it was bestselling.

That’s cool. Oh yeah. One of the originals. Well, yeah, 

Charles: I was one of the first people to buy it. 

Rene: were. I remember that. But it’s, it’s going walk through the science of it. It’s going walk you through the process. And so people that go through my course use it as a reference guide. probably the biggest compliment I get is people read it two and three times.

Charles: Really? 

Rene: Yeah. ’cause they just, they, they want to gather it and then they have, it’s before talk. They go back to the piece and they go back to all the questions. There’s a full index in there too. So it’s like a reverse Google search and say, what do you need? Go to the index and it’ll tell you what page it’s on.

[01:04:37] The LOVE Method: How to Connect Deeply With Anyone

Charles: So I mean, you’ve got things in here like the art and science, storytelling, body language and presence, interpersonal communication. You talk about love and other things. 

Rene: It’s an acronym. Listen, observe, validate, expand. Yeah, so love is the methodology for ’em. Listen, if I want to really connect with somebody, I ask you a question.

I’m going listen for something that I like. I’m going observe your body language on the, on the response that you give me. And if you’re kind of, yeah, that’s fine, that’s an important message, and I’m going validate that meaning wow, you all seem too excited about that. So 

Charles: you’re actually going be like, I’m noticing that you’re not interested.

Rene: it’s just a validation, right? Or they say something, oh, that’s really awesome. And then I’m going ask an expanding question on that. listen, observe, valid, expand, and I just spiral on that. And I just start digging a conversation that has depth. I’m not leading it by the way.

I’m creating a stage for the person. So I’m going listen to what’s going on. Hey, where are you from? Where are you from? 

Charles: I’m from Minnesota. what part? I grew up in Eden Prairie. Oh, 

Rene: no way. I didn’t realize it was Eden Prairie. Yeah. That’s where you live. Eden Prairie, did you go to high school there?

Charles: Yeah. 

Rene: Nice. What, what year, what, like, would you, do you still like Eden Prairie? Did you move away? 

Charles: No, I moved away when I got married, we moved to Maple Grove. Okay. Did you 

Rene: miss anything 

Charles: about Eden Prairie? I was a firefighter in Eden Prairie. Okay. For five years. So yeah, I missed parts of it. I missed riding around on fire engines.

That was cool. A 

Rene: firefighter. Why does that not surprise me? And so now what do you, what do you, what, what was it that got you to a firefighter? 

Charles: I was trying to put on a party at my dad’s airplane hangar at the time. And, I had to call the fire marshal to come over to make sure that I wasn’t going get shut down.

And he came out to the hangar. Which is not made for lots of people. And I was trying to distract him from his work by being like, oh, I’ve always thought about being a firefighter. And he was. And, and they get a recruiting bonus and he was like, really? And I totally took his attention away from the, from the checking out the place to, to recruiting me.

Yeah. And then I ended up going to recruitment. 

Rene: Did you miss 

Charles: anything about it? I miss the, I miss helping people. I really liked being there when people were having tough times. I think I learned a lot about how to be not freaked out. Yeah. And high strung in stressful situations. 

Rene: That’s really awesome.

Do you feel like that that set you up for how you lead today? 

Charles: for sure. In what way? Yeah. ’cause when, during COVID when we had, everything was burning, if you will. I stayed really calm and I found peace in being calm and then helping other people feel. Like, everything’s going be okay.

It just naturally came to me because I’ve been in so many, I’ve seen things that people shouldn’t see from being a firefighter and it, it taught me to, first of all, that nothing is really all that bad. 

Rene: Do you notice how this feels very real? This conversation? Yeah. ‘

Charles: cause I’m exciting memory. 

Rene: Listen, observe, validate, expand, and people feels robotic.

I said once you do it, it becomes the most natural conversation there is. And how much did I talk? Not much. Yeah. So good. 

Charles: Did you enjoy it? I was reminiscing. I was like, this is great. I’m, I’m talking about something I’ve been talked about in a 

Rene: while and what’s wild is from an influence perspective is Dr.

Robert Salini says that we like people who like us. It’s one of his laws. And so if I take a vested interest in you, instead of trying to get you to like me, I’m going take a vested in interest in trying to get to like you. Yeah. And that’s a way to really dig deep on somebody to really get to know them.

And the end result is you end up liking me too. 

Charles: Is that the same study they, they, they studied about the kids who were popular in school. You remember that one where they were like, they found across all of the kids that were the most popular across the country, across country, the one thing, and there was only one thing that they all had in common.

And that’s that that person who was the most popular liked everybody 

Rene: Probably. Yeah. it’s, it shows up over and over and over again. We, we like people who like us, so that’s the love method. 

Charles: Geez, that’s dude, that’s so good. 

Rene: It’s have fun. Right. 

Charles: I want to just ask you one last thing. When you think about after everything is finished, what do you want to be known for?

Rene: Hmm. I think that this is a deep one that you felt successful around me. I think that’s it. That you felt like you could do more than you realized that the life you wanted, and I’m not talking about fame or, or even money, I’m talking about the life you wanted that because you knew me, that felt more attainable.

Charles: I would probably say that. Well, you’re already doing that, man. Every time I hang out with you, I’m like, why don’t we hang out more? You make me feel so good. I’m good. It feels the same about you, 

Rene: brother. Like you’re, you, you, you make, I said everybody needs a Charles in their life. Like the, this, the, this hype man is genuine.

It truly cares. it’s a gift. So feelings mutual man. Thanks for coming on today. This was fun. This was fun. I forgot we were doing a podcast. Yeah. Do. 

Charles: Hey guys, Charles Eide here, and I just want to thank you for listening to Cleared for Takeoff. If you want to connect with us more, we’d love that on Instagram.

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