Investing in Your Relationship Bank: Deposits, Decisions & The Art of Saying No with Corey Poirier
Are you struggling to set boundaries and prioritize your time effectively?
In this eye-opening episode, I sit down with Corey Poirier, a multiple-time TEDx speaker, bestselling author, and host of the popular podcast “Let’s Do Influencing.”
Corey shares his invaluable insights on mastering the art of saying no and building meaningful relationships in both personal and professional spheres.
We explore Corey’s fascinating journey from a people-pleasing “yes man” to becoming a respected thought leader who understands the power of strategic refusal. Corey reveals how his grandfather’s well-intentioned advice to “say yes to everything” shaped his early approach to life and business, and how he eventually learned to reframe this mindset for greater success and fulfillment.
Key Takeaways:
- The importance of developing a “no muscle” to protect your time and energy
- How to say no gracefully without burning bridges or damaging relationships
- The concept of the “relationship bank” and why it’s crucial for long-term success
- Strategies for building genuine connections with influencers and thought leaders
Mastering the Art of No
Discover Corey’s practical approach to saying no:
- Creating a personal mission statement to guide your decisions
- Using the “five-point test” to evaluate opportunities quickly
- Implementing Chalene Johnson’s brilliant technique for declining requests politely
Building Your Relationship Bank
Learn how to cultivate meaningful connections by:
- Adopting the “jab, jab, jab, right hook” strategy for relationship building
- Making consistent deposits in your “relationship bank” before making withdrawals
- Leveraging your unique skills and platforms to add value to others
This conversation is packed with actionable advice for anyone looking to take control of their time, energy, and relationships.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a creative professional, or simply someone striving for a more balanced life, you’ll find valuable wisdom in Corey’s experiences and insights.
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from one of the most well-connected thought leaders in the industry. Tune in now and start giving a heck about setting boundaries, nurturing relationships, and living with intention!
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Website: http://www.coreypoiriermedia.com
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/speakercoreypoirier/
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Chapter Summaries(Full Unedited Transcript follow):
00:00:02
Introduction to Corey Poirier: Influential Speaker and Podcaster
Dwight Heck introduces Corey Poirier, a multiple TEDx speaker, podcast host, and bestselling author. Corey has interviewed over 6,500 top influencers and leaders, gaining insights on success and leadership. The episode promises to unpack powerful lessons from Corey’s journey and experiences.
00:01:35
Embracing Your Origin Story: Corey’s Childhood Experience
Corey shares a pivotal moment from his childhood – his parents’ divorce when he was nine. He discusses how this experience taught him resilience and the importance of laughter as medicine. This early life event shaped his perspective and ability to overcome challenges.
00:08:56
The Power of Saying No: Balancing Opportunities and Priorities
Corey explains the importance of saying “no” in professional and personal life. He contrasts his grandfather’s advice to “say yes to everything” with the practices of successful influencers who prioritize their time. Corey emphasizes the need to develop a “no” muscle early in one’s career.
00:21:22
Developing a Strategy for Saying No Politely
Corey shares strategies for saying no without burning bridges. He discusses using a mission statement to guide decision-making and offers a technique from Chalene Johnson for declining requests gracefully. The conversation emphasizes the importance of maintaining relationships while setting boundaries.
00:33:54
The Concept of the Relationship Bank
Corey introduces the “relationship bank” concept, emphasizing the importance of making deposits (giving value) before making withdrawals (asking for favors). He illustrates this with examples from his interactions with influencers like Mark Victor Hansen, highlighting the long-term benefits of nurturing relationships.
00:44:21
Advice for Overcoming Challenges and Living Purposefully
Corey offers advice for those feeling stuck or uncertain. He recommends breaking big goals into smaller, manageable steps and rewarding progress. Corey emphasizes the importance of pursuing passions, which can lead to discovering one’s purpose. He stresses that living purposefully is a common trait among successful individuals.
Full Unedited Podcast Transcript:
[00:00:02 – 00:01:22]
Welcome back to Give a Hack. I’m your host Dwight Heck and today I’m excited to welcome a true giant in the world of influence, leadership and intentional living. Corey Poirier is a multiple time TEDx MO Mondays and PMx speaker. He’s also the host of a top rated radio show and podcast, let’s Do Influencing, where he dives deep into what sets world class leaders apart. Corey is the founder of the speaking program and Blue Talks and a best selling author across Barnes Noble, Amazon, Apple Books and Kobo. He’s been featured on major networks like cbs, ctb, NBC and abc. Is a columnist for Entrepreneur and Forbes and has even spoken on site at Harvard. He’s a Forbes counselor, coaches council member and one of the rare few to be featured twice on the hit show Entrepreneur on Fire. Oh, and did I mention he interviewed over 6,500 of the world’s top influencers, leaders and change makers. Today we’re unpacking some of the most powerful insights from that journey. From the power of know, knowing your 1% to relationship capital and timeless success secrets that never go out of style. Let’s get into it. I’d like to welcome you to the show, Corey. How’s life, brother?
[00:01:23 – 00:01:27]
Living the dream, as they say, but doing fantastic, Dwight.
[00:01:27 – 00:01:33]
Awesome. Oh, if I was any better, it’d be a twin brother, right? Get more done.
[00:01:33 – 00:01:34]
Yeah.
[00:01:35 – 00:01:57]
Anyway, Corey, something I like to talk about on my show and it’s very important to me is somebody’s embracing their origin story. People don’t give it credit enough. So I believe our early experiences, good or bad, lay the groundwork for the impact that we’re going to make in the future. So do me a favor and share your earliest recollections that you’re willing to share to where you are today.
[00:01:59 – 00:04:31]
Wow. I mean it’s one of those things, I know it’s a cliche, but there’s so many in the sense that like I can look back, Steve Jobs had this great talk about joining up your dots where he talked about like you can see the moments that were kind of responsible for or the pivotal for who you became later. And I have literally I can visualize which ones they were. And so I think probably the biggest one that kind of impacted me the most and was probably the first. This is a moment, you know, like in my life. I didn’t know it at the time but and I probably, I. And some unconscious level, I probably even knew it at the time because of how I felt. But it was nine ish. Like I was Nine, going on ten. Ish. But my father, mother got divorced, and that was a game changer for me for many reasons. But, like, at that point in my life, my father, I saw him as, like, the hero. He was the, you know, the Hercules or whatever. He was that person that I put on a pedestal and you. And I mean, at the time, like, I didn’t know any better, but he was the one that let me do everything. Like, if I stayed home from sick, from school, my mother said, well, you can’t go out this evening. And my father come home, say, what are you talking about? Go on and play. And so I saw him as, like, the guy that was just like, don’t worry about it. And, you know, I remember one day I was home sick, and I was supposed to be able to go out, and he came home with a motor go kart that he got from a place where he worked. And I think they gave him that instead of payment. Anyway, he’s like, here you go, Motor go kart. And I was like, eight. You know what I mean? You could become instantly the coolest guy in the neighborhood. But my point is that. So I saw him as that guy, just like the carefree, give you what you want, whatever. I didn’t realize at the same time, and I have no ill will towards him. I still see him around town. I still see him as, you know, without him, I wouldn’t be me. But I didn’t realize at the time that he was drinking as much as he was, that he was cheating on my mom. Like, I didn’t. Of course I was, you know, eight, nine. I didn’t know that. So I didn’t know what led up to the divorce. All I knew is, in my mind, my mother was at fault for separating our family. And so that was a pivotal point in my life, I think, because it was the first kind of. I don’t know the best way to say this, but as a kid, you know, your life is, like, idealist. Some kids, I mean, obviously some kids have terrible childhoods, but mine was kind of idyllic. You know, like the father, mother, family unit, everything going great. And then all of a sudden, it’s like somebody just threw a brick through our window and told us we’re never allowed to repair it. And so that was. I think that was the first moment that I would say that was a.
[00:04:31 – 00:04:45]
Dot or that was a moment that would be, do. Do the things that you learn through that process or think about in that process still consciously drive your mission today.
[00:04:47 – 00:05:06]
I think so I, I, you know, I mean, I guess maybe, I don’t know if it was a learned thing, but I got to experience resilience. Like I got to experience, you know, we shall survive, or we hear the phrase often, but I guess it’s appropriate. Is this too shall pass.
[00:05:06 – 00:05:06]
Yes.
[00:05:06 – 00:07:11]
What I was feeling at the time, thinking, okay, this is the end of life type thing. Maybe it’s not, you know, maybe it’s not the end of the world, maybe it’s not the end of life. But I mean, when I said I probably realized it was a pivotal moment at the time, I mean, I was distraught, you know, crying, like mad at my mother. Like, I felt all the feelings. And so that’s why I think I say that it was like a resilience thing is because once I get through all that, it’s a matter of now, what do we do? And they say kids are very resilient, but I think it was like that was that first moment. Like, we got to figure this out. Like we got to figure out. And I don’t mean like me and my mom, I just mean like internally, like, how do we deal with this? Because we can’t just be broken forever now because of this. And so, yeah, I think I learned the lesson of resilience. I mean, I don’t know at that age if I learned any specific lessons, you know, like, I, maybe I think I learned, like, shortly after that I moved over close to where my cousins were and I started hanging around with my two cousins. That one was older, one was younger, and, you know, we would watch music videos together. Again, it was 9, 10, whatever. Watch like Prince music videos. I remember at his house, like Prince and then Brian Adams coming on. I, like, I remember us vividly watching that. Or we’d watch stand up comedy, or we’d, which we didn’t really get most of the jokes, but we’d watch it. I was a big wrestling fan back when I was not. I mean, I started watching when I was 8, so I was like into it and we would watch that. And so I think, you know, the other side was the lessons of kind of laughing through the pain in the sense that even though I was younger and I didn’t understand the pain by moving and then at least having some sort of base there where I could go and hang out with my cousin and we could, you know, like I say, watch videos and just kind of chill. I think it did teach me that, you know, as they say, laughter, whatever way you want to put that, entertainment, laughter, social. That’s the best medicine connection. And so I think, I don’t know if it was again, I don’t know if it was like a lesson learned and I definitely at the time wouldn’t have understood that the lesson. But I think looking back now, that’s what happened.
[00:07:11 – 00:08:54]
Wow. Yeah. And to be able to look back and think about those experiences with, you know, your cousins or even just what you’re talking about with your mom and dad and your, your lack of, of awareness of your parents situation. But all of it though, like keying on the fact of you saying that kids are resilient. We say that about people, but do we see it in ourselves? Do we realize that resilience is something that you need to take into your adulthood? So congratulations to you for realizing that and bringing it forward. Because most people, their enthusiasm, their excitement, their resilience as a kid, whatever, they get into the real world of adulting and socialized pressures and social media and what they get inundated with from their families and as you mentioned, the learned behaviors we have, we end up being people that just jump on that hamster with a life. We lose our purpose, we lose our intent. Full living, we just, we’re just going to work, go home, get paid. We’re just walking, really walking our grave, digging it as you know, we get to a point where we’re just not climbing anymore. And I really like that story that you have that awareness. A lot of people don’t. You’re the first person that’s ever brought up that up. Just, you know, in 240some episodes, you the first person that’s ever brought up the fact that resilience is something great to bring forward from childhood. So thank you for sharing that. That’s fantastic. Yeah, that’s. Oh, you’re welcome. So let’s talk about something that many people struggle with and this comes back to their childhood too. The power of no right. And you know, you teach us as a foundational principle, what does it really mean to you?
[00:08:56 – 00:14:41]
So I mean, and further to your point, like really further to your point about the childhood part, it goes back to my childhood in the biggest of ways because of how I learned it years later, I guess you could say, really highlighted how I learned it earlier. And so what I mean by that is, whenever I was younger, my grandfather always said, say yes to everything. Say yes to everything. Figure out how to do it later. Now he didn’t use the words figured how to do it later, but he just said say yes to everything and opportunities will come your way. And, you know, my grandfather was really like, what I thought my father was. That’s who my grandfather became. Like, he was my rock, he was my father figure, that type of thing. And again, his whole philosophy was just say yes. You know, just like if you say yes to everybody, everybody, you know, not love you, but, like, you’ll be welcome everywhere you go, that type of thing. And so I was just, I kind of thought, okay, you’re just supposed to say yes. Like, that was what can end up being conditioned into me. And so here’s what’s interesting. As a child, I mean, I still think I had maybe a little more. I mean, I wasn’t working for anybody where he was running a company. So I still think I had like the rebellious. I’m still going to say no to things, but it stuck with me. Like, once I get older, I’ll have to start saying yes all the time. And not a people pleaser way. Like he wasn’t a people pleaser, but he just was accommodating. And so I’ll explain what I mean in a sec. But what happened was when I started doing all these interviews, I noticed a weird anomaly. And that was that all these thought leaders, and I say all, I’m generalizing, most of these thought leaders were saying no over and over again. They weren’t saying yes ever. And I’m like, well, how could my grandfather be wrong? He was my mentor. And then I heard a quote by Richard Branson, and the quote was say yes to everything and figured how to do it later. So it was the exact quote of what I said. Reference, kind of paraphrase my grandfather saying. And then I thought, well, Frigg Stephen or Richard Branson, he’s no, he. I mean, he’s running 200 some businesses. He knows what he’s talking about. And so this was before I really dialed into the fact that most influencers were saying no. And then something happened is as I noticed how many people were saying no. It was like 95%. And I’ll explain what I mean by that as well too. But influencers were saying no like 95% of the time. And I, you know, I often say they said no, like at least 20 times more than the average person. And so that countered what I learned from my grandfather and also Richard Branson’s quote until I saw Richard Branson’s actual quote. So just like today, every quote is like paraphrased. Well, Richard’s quote was say yes to everything you love doing and figured how to do it later. That Distinction was massive because everything you love doing might be only three things, but everything is everything, right? So I was like, how can Richard Branson run 200 some companies and say yes to everything? And he couldn’t. So he was saying yes to just the things he wanted to do. So then all of a sudden, I had to look at the fact that, okay, now almost every influencers I’m interviewing, it’s not just that they’re telling me they say no. It’s I’m seeing it like, even to get an interview as, you know, like when you’re trying to get an interview with a big name influencer, you might get 40 no’s and it might take you two years. And so I noticed that they had people set up to say no in their company. Like, you can’t pick up the phone and call Tony Robbins, say, hey, Tony, how’s it going? Unless you know him, you can’t. And so he has a system built up to say no. So I’m like, this is all about no. Say no to everything. So you can say yes to the few things you want to do. And. But yeah, it went against my grandfather. So here’s what I finally figured out. Dwight is my grandfather was a carpenter and he ran a mini construction company, like a carpentry company really. But they would go out and build houses and work on jobs, and they would have one job that could last three months. And so what he was doing was if let’s say you were the homeowner and you said, eddie, I want you to add on a garage, that’s what he meant, he would say, yes, of course I can do that. But in his case, it served him well because he had one job. And that person would then go, oh, you got to hire Eddie. He’s so easy to work with, et cetera, et cetera. So in the what type of work, he was doing one job at a time, one client at a time, maybe only two or three clients a year. It made absolute sense to say yes to everything because he became the easy to work with guy versus the person that’s working on your house. And then they’re doing a horrible job. And then, you know, you ask them do something like, I’m not doing that. That’s not part of my job, or whatever. He wasn’t that guy. So then I finally clued in, I took this was like 10 year or more process, finally clued in that my grandfather was right in the, in this respect. He was in meaning, like in the world where he’s working One client at a time. But in the influencer world, the thought leadership world, there’s never enough time in the day to say yes to everything. And I say that, I mean once you get busier when you first start. Here’s the irony. When you first start, you can and will usually say yes to everything because it’s another opportunity. What I would argue is even if you’re saying yes to almost everything, you need to start flexing that no muscle early on because it’s easier to do it when it’s not big. But once you get super busy, if you’re caring, it’s hard then to start weaning things off. So we can dive in in a second of what I mean by saying no. But I first I wanted to explain that it did relate to my childhood because I thought yes was the answer until I realized no was the answer. And I jokingly now say, these days I make, I’m making no the new yes because it really is. This is a hard lesson, but it’s, it’s true. It goes either way. Everything you say yes to is a no to something else. And everything you say no to is a yes to something. Like if you, if, if, if you say no to somebody, then you can’t, you have to turn down another yes, if that makes sense. So like whenever I say, if I say no to something, then I can say yes to something else. But if I say yes to everything, then I’m saying no to everything else. If that makes sense.
[00:14:41 – 00:15:00]
Oh, of course it does. Our expectations are huge of what we expect from ourselves. And if you say yes too much, you get caught into that people pleasing mode and you burn out. And you really aren’t 100% for anything. You’re split, diverse mentally and physically. It’s just, it’s tiring.
[00:15:01 – 00:19:05]
Yeah, it totally is. And that’s, I mean, just to go to that idea of what I meant as far as, as, well, what a no is. This is, I mean, because I didn’t, I just said about, we talked about no, the word but not exactly what I mean. And so what I mean is, if somebody asks, a no would be. And I mean we, we all know what no is. But a no in this capacity would be, let’s say as a speaker, somebody says, will you come and speak at our event? You know, we want you to. And by the way, this is a whole other conversation, but what we call pay to play when you pay to speak on a stage. I’m not against that at all because I could get in front of the right audience and be able to make an offer. And it could be a great opportunity. But what I’m getting at is if it’s not a great opportunity and it doesn’t fit you, well, if somebody says, hey, we want to come on our stage and pay $5,000, well, that could be an easy no for me. Like, in other words, me to pay to be on their stage. Same thing with podcasts, right? Some podcasts charge, and that could be a yes for people that are new to podcasting or need those extra episodes. For me, it’s typically a hard no. It would have to be a very unique situation. But another no could be somebody could say, hey, can you do the forward for my book? And every now and then it could be a yes. And it’s going to be more likely a yes if they can help me a bit with it. Because doing a forward is a lot of work. But that’s more often going to be a no. An endorsement for the book. If I know the person well and I know the content of the book, that’s usually an easier yes. So what I’m getting at is that a no or yes usually is to, will you help me with this or can you take this on? And so for me, I’m very cautious these days on how many times I say yes because I have a limited capacity. And sometimes I’ll say yes too many times and then I’ll lose an amazing opportunity because now I have no more room for another yes. But ultimately, here’s what I do. So I think it’s important for us to figure out what a yes and a no is to us. So here’s how I did it. I actually created a mission statement. So my mission statement is to be the guy who motivates, donates, educates, entertains, and inspires. And that’s I call my five point test. So if you say, corey, will you help me with this or take this on? I can literally go and say, how many of those five is it? And if it’s zero, that’s probably going to be the easiest no of the week without regret. If it’s four of the five, it’s probably going to be an easy yes without regret in between, then I might think about it a little longer. But basically, that’s what I did. I created a mission statement. So the mission statement is just to figure out what am I in alignment with, what do I want to do, where am I headed, and is this thing going to take me further away from or bring me closer to where I want to be headed. And that’s how I decide what a yes and a no is for me. And then an extra little bonus is how do you say no without burning bridges? Well, I was interviewing Chalene Johnson one time, and Chalene is the creator of turbojam, which was a part of Beachbody. She also is an influencer on Instagram. And she was really busy with her turbojam. And she was saying a lot of the local trainers were asking her to fill in for her whenever they were busy, and she realized it was getting overwhelming. So what she did, which I think is brilliant, is she started saying no. But how she said no is she said, listen, you know, we’re a family run kind of organization. I need to talk to my husband, Brett, to make sure if I say yes, I’m not interfering with something he’s already booked for us. So can you give me two days to figure out if I can help you or not? And if I can’t help you, I’ll find somebody else who will? Would that be okay? And then what would happen, she said, is 99% of the time, by the time they get back, she got back and they’re like, oh, that’s already done. I figured that out. But what’s great about it, Dwight, is that how do you get mad at somebody for saying, I want to help? I’m trying to. Can you give me a day or two to let you know? It’s because I got to make sure I’m not, you know, overlapping with family time. And also, I’ll still help you even if I can’t help you directly. So I think it’s a great way to say no without burning a bridge. So to recap, basically, I believe it’s important to figure out what a no is to you whenever it comes to taking things on in your life. It’ll help your sanity as well. I believe if you have a basic mission statement, it’ll help you decide what a no one a yes is. And I think that approach that Chalene took, which I take often now, will help you say no without burning a bridge. So that’s kind of my thoughts around no.
[00:19:05 – 00:21:21]
That’s. That’s awesome. Because when I think about yes and no, and, you know, as a serial entrepreneur with businesses, I’ve had and taken on too much and burning myself out, I got to a point that when somebody would ask me to do something, I’d ask the question to their question. I got very good at it. I’m still very good at it. Similar to what you’re talking about. And I’d say to them, you know, that’s really intriguing. Right now, though, I have, I have to check. Right. I got to make sure that I don’t have anything overlapping because it would be unfair to me to commit to you and only give you 60% of me, 70% of me. Maybe I’m not giving you the effort. You look you’re looking for. And I. And I don’t want to. I don’t want to harm our relationship. I have said that before to people. So would you mind if I take a day or two? Sometimes it would, depending on what it is. I’d say, give me till this evening and I will reach out to you. And people listening, watching when you say something, your word is a bond. It’s a promise to not just that person, it’s a promise to you that your word means something. So if you say to something, you’re going to get back to them, get back to them, whatever the time frame is. So I really like your explanation, your story that is so powerful. But it’s something you develop and you learn stuff from so many different people as we’ve been talking. And, you know, Liz, learning how to say no and be polite about it. And I also like your five. You know, you say you go through these things, and if it’s up here four to five, that’s an easy yes, or this is a no, or this is in between. That’s critical thinking. I bet you you think about that on the fly. Maybe when you first started working on that, it was a little bit more difficult. How did you deal with it when you didn’t have that ability to just think on the fly? Like, yes, you can say, but did you ever. Did you have something that could calm your internal self? I’m not saying necessarily verbally, but you yourself, how did you center yourself if you felt the pressure of having to answer right away? Was there any times like that until you developed your. Your process of serenity and asking, you know, pardon me, not asking, but, you know, responding in a kind way so you don’t lose that friendship, like you said?
[00:21:22 – 00:22:32]
Yeah, I mean, it’s a great question. Excuse me. And I will say one of the things that helped me get through that. But then I’ll talk to what you just asked. But one of the things that helped me get through that is to start saying no before I needed to. Because once I recognized all these influencers saying no, I wasn’t necessarily so busy yet that I couldn’t say yes to everything. And so what I started doing is, and here’s how I did it, is I would get emails like we all do, and somebody that I don’t know. And by the way, anything I say, because sometimes I think, sometimes I’ll think, well, like, if I say somebody I don’t know pitches me, I’m in sales. I’ve been in sales my whole life and entrepreneurship. I don’t mind being pitched. I don’t mind. And I see the value of, let’s say, outreach, people doing outreach on, let’s say, LinkedIn and what have you. And I think it’s how you do it is the difference is difference maker. But the point is, I was getting pitched a lot, like we all do, and I was getting pitched on email by people I didn’t know who they were. And so it wasn’t even just that I didn’t like being pitched. It was more so that I didn’t know who the person was. So it felt weird. Like, the way the pitch was like, it’s just like, hey, we don’t know each other yet, but can I design your website? Say yes or no, you know, that type of thing.
[00:22:32 – 00:22:35]
Oh, I hate those. Sorry. I do. Yeah.
[00:22:35 – 00:25:24]
And I mean, I think most people do. And so point of that is, I would say when it came down to yes or no, what I started doing to work my no muscle is those are the ones I said no to. So before. And most people, I bet you do this, but before, what I would do is I would ignore them. I just like, I don’t know that person and just move on. But then I said, I need to work the no muscle. So I’m gonna say no to these people because I don’t know them. It’s not gonna be a hard no. But saying no is still like a trigger, right? It’s still hard to do. So I thought, what if I say no over and over again to the people that are pitching me that I don’t know? It’ll build up my muscle because now I’m getting more confident with saying no. So that’s one exercise I did because I think it’s easier to say no when it doesn’t matter versus like, saying no to your friend about moving their couch. And then the other side is, I still. There’s still. I had to. So first of all, it depends who the person is. There are people, and I know this sounds harsh because I don’t want it to come across the wrong way, but it could, is there are people that they’ll never get a no from me. Like, it just. Like, for example, it’s rare that I would say no to my wife, my kids. It depends on what they’re asking. Right. But what I mean is there’s. There’s a few people in my life that it’s always probably going to be a yes. And at the same time, they don’t ever ask. You know, so it’s like It’s a catch 22. Because if they only ask once in three years, well, then it would feel terrible to say no that one time they asked versus somebody that asks you every day. But going back to that point, when I first started, it was really hard to say no to people that I cared about, people I want to help, clients, people that are in my community. It was really hard. And so what did I feel, though, physically? And how did I deal with that? It was more just. The great part is when I started saying no, we were doing a lot more stuff online. So 50, 60, maybe 70% of the time, they’re not even seeing your face. So I might still feel that. Oh, but they’re not seeing me do that. So the bigger question, or the question really at heart is probably, is what happens when I’m in front of their face or I’m on a zoom or something and they could see my reaction? And so I would just try to remind myself I had already built up the muscle of saying no to those. The people that were pitching me. So I would just really say to that person. I would say, you know what? First of all, I’m so humbled that you asked me and, you know, honored in a lot of ways, because not, you know, not everybody would look to somebody unless they trust them to help them out with something. So here’s the situation. And then I would just kind of lay it out like we just said. Like, I would say, here’s the situation on the spot. I don’t even know if I could answer it, because I got to look at what I have coming up, and at the same time, I got to make sure. And again, now I’m married with two kids. You know, I got to make sure the family. My wife could have planned something without me knowing. Like, I got to make sure of those things. So I want to help you, if you can. Let me get back to you today, tomorrow. And I mean, I put a timeline on it, but I’m just saying today, tomorrow, I’ll double check with her.
[00:25:24 – 00:25:24]
And.
[00:25:24 – 00:28:43]
And so I’m really just reiterating what Chalene said, but that what I would do is I would just say, let me tell you, you know, let me explain the situation. And so I would kind of bring it into a conversation versus just no, I can’t do it. And so I don’t know that I ever. Because I’d already kind of learned this approach before I started practicing it. I don’t know that I ever just kind of went, nope. Like, to be honest, if it would come down to on the spot and somebody that I knew said, can you do this? If I was going to do a judge react, a jerk reaction, like that, it would be yes. That’s the problem. I don’t know that I could have just said, nope, I can’t help, sorry, find somebody else. I just, I don’t even know if that’s built into me. So that’s why I had to have more of an explanation of why I had to say no. But I could say yes like that, yes, no problem. You know, like, it’s weird how I could trigger to say yes instantly and not feel guilty that I’m maybe really abusing my own time and myself. But it’s a harder one to say no just like that. And what I will say is I really like to humanize it. So I would tell people like, dude, let me. And I would do this. And there might be some people that got bothered by it because it depends on their personality. But there were times I would say, look, I’m just going to tell you what my next four days looks like. And I would start going. They go, you know what, I don’t want to add more to your plate, but what I mean is I would literally humanize it. So humanizing would be, I got to make sure, as I said, the family doesn’t have something planned. Humanizing would be like if I showed you my calendar right now, I’m lucky I get a chance for a lunch break, you know, that type of thing. And so I would love to take this on. But to your point, this. And that’s another thing you can say, like you said, I don’t want to give 60%. The other thing is I’m a person that wants to keep my promises. So I don’t want to take this on and let you down and knock it down in time and have you having to chase me. And they can visualize that would suck to have to be chasing you after this. And so I really just tried to humanize it, but I don’t know that it very often felt that like in front of a person because I had been practicing it. Like I Say, for so long virtually that by the time I did it and started saying no more often, I think I was already more comfortable doing it. But again, I’m comfortable because I have a process for doing it. I wouldn’t be comfortable if it was just, sorry, that’s gonna be a hard no. Even people will ask me for phone numbers of influencers that I’ve scheduled calls with. We talked off air. But like Tommy Chong. Like, I’ve had people say, can you send me Tommy Chong’s number? That is a hard no. But I still have a hard time saying, that’s a hard no. Like, that should be easy to say that. But I’ll say, look, I mean, here’s the thing. I might get one ask from Tommy every two years. And I just feel like it would be wrong for me to ask so soon after I was already spent time with him. Could be as simple as that. I have Tommy’s number, and you know what, how many times I’ve called him, you know, so to me, it would be irresponsible for him to trust me with his number. And then I send it to Jim and Jim’s calling him. So what I’m saying is that’s going to be a no no matter what. But how I get to that no is still individualized. Like, I can’t just go, that’s a hard no. But I have a colleague, and I remember I asked him one time and he said, yeah, I can help you with that. And then I said, what about? And he said, that’s a hard no. And I’ll never forget that. Like, and I think the world of the guy didn’t hurt our relationship at all. But for some reason, I don’t have it in me to go, that’s a hard no. Do I? I have to figure out a way to walk around it a bit.
[00:28:44 – 00:30:08]
You know what? And there’s nothing wrong with that. We develop our muscle, our critical thinking and our response muscles based on time in the game and experiences with others. And there’s times we don’t need to get into it so we can go on to some other stuff. But at the end of the day, there’s times I guarantee that you had that gripping feeling like, you said, they didn’t know, but it still helped you get to the next point. So my point is we need to learn and continue to develop ourselves and acknowledge by looking at people, listening to their tonality, knowing what words to be a good wordsmith and what to say so that we don’t offend. We don’t hurt our network or. And we’ll know the people, we can say no. That’s a hard no. And they wouldn’t be offended. And other people, we got to be a little bit more like my dad would say, loosey goosey. You got to be a little bit more, you know, kids, gloves and you know what I mean? It’s just, it’s life. We keep on moving forward. Yes, no, whatever. At the end of the day, I always respect people that. My dad always said it never hurts to ask. The worst they can say is no. But it doesn’t mean you should ask stupid questions though, or for stupid response requests just for those listening. Right. It means ask something, ask something good. Right. If they say no, don’t take it personal. You know, you don’t get, you don’t get a home run if you don’t swing the bat. Right. So.
[00:30:10 – 00:30:13]
My phrase, I always say is if you don’t ask, the answer is always no.
[00:30:13 – 00:30:14]
Oh, absolutely.
[00:30:15 – 00:32:08]
And to your point, like, when I look at the, the path I followed to get in front of some of the influencers that inspired me in my life, there were a lot of no’s on that path. Like a lot of no’s now. And here’s the thing, the muscle that I worked over time of, I’ll call this like the rejection muscle. Being able to deal with those no’s help me understand the importance of saying no. Because I respected them still when they said no to me. But I will say one of the things that a lot of the top influencers have at their disposal that not everybody does, is they’ll have team members that say no for them. I could tell you an influencer right now who I could probably get to, like, come for a drive with me to the beach, who normally wouldn’t do that because he can’t say no to a person’s face. But he’s got a whole infrastructure, a whole team that says, let me run that by him. And I don’t. Sometimes they probably don’t even run it by him. They just know this is a no. But what I’m getting at is that a lot of influencers, they have a whole team built to say no. So even if they’re not a no person, they have people that can take care of that. Like again, Tony Robbins, how many, I would love to know the number. How many things get in front of Tony versus how many requests are sent to him. So in other words, in a week, a thousand emails, everything combined must come in. Can Tony do this? Can you Endorse my book. Can you do. I wonder how many ever make it to Tony’s desk? Would it be. It wouldn’t be a hundred out of a thousand. It might be 10 if it’s even that high. Yeah. So you get my point, though. But he has a whole infrastructure that says no, so that there’s no, no, no, no, no. And even when you get past the first stage, there’s probably still two more levels for other people to evaluate. Is this a no? So there’s probably even like, a manager who says, no, we can’t bring that to Tony. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It has to be built like that, because how else could he ever manage? Like, you think about being a president or a prime minister. How could you ever deal with the amount of requests versus how much time you have if you took those requests?
[00:32:09 – 00:33:53]
Yeah, it’s. It’s. We could. We could discuss the last, like, 10 minutes here, just about this conversation. Everything I have down here that I’ve talked to you about that I wanted to discuss. Each one of these could be literally a podcast. It really could. I’m looking at it going, oh, my gosh, this guy’s amazing. We could have a podcast. Like, I’m looking at it here. We could have, like, seven podcasts right now. Like, I hope people listening and watching, you’re getting value from this. Like, literally, it is something that I find is. Is crippling to society, not understanding what to say, how to say it, to get the end result that both that person is looking for. And whether you say no or not and you’re looking for it is possible. Corey’s proven it. I do it all the time. Right. It’s just skin in the game time in the game. You can learn it to have a good mentor like Corey. Right. You’re stuck. Hey, Corey. I’m not sure this is what’s come up. And. And I’m kind of don’t know what to do. That’s how you can learn too. We can shorten the journey. It took us this long. We can shorten it for you because of our experiences by falling on our face and getting up and figuring it out. Right. So we’re gonna. We don’t have a lot of time. I’m just trying to look at what I want to go through next before we have to wrap up the show. I apologize to the listeners. I promise you I’m gonna twist Corey’s arm and get him on again because there’s too many things here that I just need to Discuss. But I’m gonna go into. I’m gonna skip a few and go into the relationship bank. To me, that is so important. Relationships, networking. You speak about the relationship bank, a concept I think more people need to understand. What does it mean to you? Relationship bank.
[00:33:54 – 00:38:32]
So, I mean, thank you. And what it means to me. And I kind of. So I struggled with this whenever I kind of came up with the concept of the bank part, because, you know, sometimes we think relationship is like a warm thing, a fuzzy thing, and banks, sometimes we think like corporate, whatever, coal, whatever. So I struggle with, like, there’s probably a better word. But the reason I stuck with bank is because I wanted people to have a visual metaphor for when you’re building a relationship. So it’s the same when you’re building a bank account, right? If you put 100 in, you can’t take 200 in if you’re starting at zero. And so what I try to impress upon people is if you want to build a relationship. Now, I spend a lot of times chasing influencers, trying to get some of their time, and it’s even probably more critical there. But Gary Vaynerchuk wrote this great book called jab, jab, jab, right hook. And the premise for the jab, jab, jab is give, give, give. And the right hook is ask. And so what he shared in social media that he built his enterprise doing is he would basically give three times before he asked once. Now, how does that work in the social media world? That could mean that he did three posts where he’s given value education. And then the fourth post, he’s like, oh, don’t forget to buy my book. So he’s like, giving three times before he asks once. But how I looked at that with relationships is I need to keep depositing in the relationship so that I have so much equity in the relationship bank that if I want to withdraw once, there’s still lots left. And so if again, I go one step deeper. Let’s say one example is Mark Victor Hansen, co creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul. So first time I interviewed Mark, interviewed him, promoted the heck out of it. Never asked for a thing. Comes back Covid time. Mark and Crystal, I don’t know if they reached out or if somebody reached out on their behalf, but either way, we booked them on the show, and I get them on the show, and they have a book called Ask at the time, ironically, but they had a book called Ask, and they were. It was Covid time. So they were doing as many podcasts as they could to get the message out because live book tours and stuff were happening. And so near the end of the show, Mark said, hey, and if you know of any other podcasts, Corey, that we should be on, we’d love any connections. And we didn’t really know each other that well. So the. The next day, because he was cc’d in on the original emails, I literally said, here’s a bunch of podcasts. Am I okay to make connections? And he said, sure. Anyway, from that time to about a week later, I connected him with 25 shows. Wow. Top 1% shows, some of them had one had 7 million listeners. And so. But I. And then he actually, at one point he replied and said, corey, we can’t take any more shows. But my point is, I did that and then I sent his book to somebody who opened up a good dialogue. Then I did an interview with him and a guy named Richard, Paul Evans, and Richard wrote a book called the Christmas Box. And the two of them had shared the bill early days, but hadn’t talked to each other since. So I got them on a call together. And so I did a bunch of things. And then I asked Mark if he would speak at an event we were doing at mit virtually. He couldn’t be there live. I knew that part. Make a long story short, at the time, it was shortly after Covid. He was normally charging for those things because you’re leveraging his name. He’s delivering value. It’s like a training online. Anyway, I had to fight him to get him to take any money. And then when my book came out, the newest book, the Enlightened Passenger, when I asked him about an endorsement, he said, what’s the. He got me to tell him fully the book, because it wasn’t even at a stage really probably where he could have fully read it yet. Anyway, he heard what it was about, I gave him the full story, and he goes, turn on your phone and record this. So I recorded it, and he gave me the test, the endorsement, and now it’s inside the book. My point of this is in the relationship, if you look at it, let’s say I gave Mark those 25 podcasts. I did all those things. I said, so maybe I deposited 20 times in our relationship bank. And then since then, I’ve asked twice. So that means I withdrew twice. So if you want to put physical dollars, let’s say it was $100 every time I deposited, that means I have. Let’s say if it was 20, I have $2,000 worth of equity in My relationship with Mark. And then when I asked about the MIT thing, I took 100. When I asked about the book endorsement, I took 100. I still have 1800. So. But now I want to. I want to like I might say physically I want to keep it up to 2000. So now I got to give a couple more times before I ask Mark for anything. And so to me, that’s relationship bank. And that I’m just using Mark as the example, but it’s anybody. So how can you give to that person more times than you ask for? And I think a good visual is to visualize that you’re making a deposit in the relationship every time into your relationship bank. And then when you withdraw, you’re withdrawing from the relationship. So you need to remember depending on go ask five times if you gave once. And the one thing about this, Dwight, a lot of people don’t like is it takes time. And my answer to that is, yes, it does. You’re correct.
[00:38:32 – 00:38:34]
Well, people want instant gratification.
[00:38:35 – 00:39:31]
Microwave world, right? Like we’re in a microwave society. Where can I just microwave that and get it done quick? Just like I said, somebody reaching out to me and saying, hey, can I get Lisa Nichols phone number? Like they just want. I want to just jump. But the problem with that is everybody’s going to lose out of that because Lisa’s going to be, why did you send my number to that person? It’s going to hurt me for a future. Reach out with Lisa or talk with Lisa. It’s going to hurt you because she’s, I mean, why would she feel, you know this Converse. Welcome to this conversation where you just said, hey, take her number and call her. Like, nobody wins. But the point still of that is I would be hurt my relationship with her. But also if you’re doing that, you’re literally starting the relationship saying, I want to take a withdrawal now. You’re literally, you’re overdrawn basically on the first time you meet the person. That’s not a good place to be. Just like, can you imagine going to your bank and say, I want to open a bank account and I’m going to be withdrawn from the first day. I want to take money out. I don’t have. Can you make that possible? Not many banks would. You wouldn’t start a good relationship that way. So why do you do that with people?
[00:39:31 – 00:41:14]
Oh, I, I agree and I smile about this because there were so many reasons why when I was reached out to the have you on my show, when I got that random email and I get 10, 12 a day, not including the three podcast services I’m on. I was attracted to yours because whoever wrote that email did a great job. It talked about relationship bank. It talked about. No, it talked about things that I communicate about. Relationship banking, though. I utilize that with my own children. They were growing up, they’re all adults now, but I knew that when there was sensitive situations, even relationships with friends, family, clients, all that relationship banking, those listening, I wish we could get into it more, we just don’t have the time. But relationship banking, I remember one time telling my kids, well, you’re getting this result when you ask, because what have you done for them? Have you complimented them? Have you, have you done anything that made them smile, made them, you know, talk to you later and you’re walking away and they want to see you again because you gave more than you asked for. You may have in your mindset. I want something from that person. But time in the game, you have to invest the time into building that relationship to withdraw, right? I’ve never made it specific though. Like, you know, I’m gonna take a hundred bucks out, right? I talk about giving value to them, making them feel good and be genuine always. I can’t stand phony people that want things from me and I can see right through them. I’ve been doing this way too long and that, that drives me crazy. There’s no genuine connection. But relationship banking at the level you’re talking about, for those listening, it does work on kids, it does work on spouses, it does work on even yourself, right?
[00:41:14 – 00:42:14]
Well, you know, it’s a very side notice thing, but people ask me often, like, well, how do I get on the radar of insert name here, right? Like, how do I get on their radar to even start giving? Because that is a valid question. And I’ll say again to your point about like, compliments, what have you. Why don’t you. So this is one example. Why don’t you. If it was Gary Vaynerchuk, take his book, highlight the things you love. Now it’s gotta be authentic, right? Like, you have to have read the book. You have to like Gary’s. If you’re reaching out, I’m hoping you’re authentically like his work. But either way, highlight the quotes and then screenshot them and do 10 of those. And then every day for the next 10 days, I want you to go to every platform Gary’s on and say, oh my God, I’m going to start this. Because I’ve gotten so much from Gary’s Book. Here’s day one. Here’s what I took from Gary and tag him in. And my guess is it won’t work with everybody. But my guess is for some of those influencers, by the time you’re near day 10, they’re going to be saying, oh, my God, I’m so humbled by this person sharing my stuff, or whatever, but they’re going to know your name. And you’ve already. Now put, by the way, you’ve also made 10 deposits. So you. You have to, you know, at least.
[00:42:14 – 00:42:16]
The right to me, that’s smart.
[00:42:16 – 00:43:27]
That’s smart. That’s the kind of thing I mean when I say depositing. And the other thing is you and I have something that if people want to get that, this is just more talking. If you want to reach influencers for whatever, it could be just for a book endorsement, but you need to have something to give for the reach out in the first place. And that’s one of the benefits of podcasting or having any kind of show is you have a reason to reach out, because, oh, I saw you have a new book out, Jack Canfield, can I promote that book? You know, I have a show with this many listeners or whatever way you do it, but you have a reason to reach out. And then, honestly, the great part is if you handle it properly, when you bring Jack on, you’re already making your first deposit because you’re promoting his book. Now, if you get on, and I know some hosts that I’m friends with, and I wish I could change them, but they get on the show, they bring on a big guest, and then they do all the talking, like they’re literally interrupting somebody who’s been doing this 20 years longer than them and has achieved it at the highest level. You have 45 minutes with somebody who normally you’d pay 50 grand to get a keynote out of, where you couldn’t even ask them one question, and you’re talking the whole time. And so what I’m getting at is that if you make it about them, if you truly make it, let’s get the word out about your work and all that stuff, you’re making a deposit. Like you’ve made a deposit in our bank today. That’s what I’m trying to say.
[00:43:27 – 00:44:19]
Oh, I love it, man. You’re. Wow. And for people listening, watching a fellow Canadian, and I am just stoked right now, this new connection, the ability for me to deposit in Corey’s bank, to build this relationship continually, maybe doing joint stuff in the future, who knows? But why would I even say that to Corey right now? Because I want him to know that there’s a connection, there’s an interest in him and that I’m hopeful, right, that we can continue on in this path that we’ve started, especially when there’s so many great things I wanted to go over. But because I want to respect your time, I’m going to ask you one last closing question. Corey. If someone listening today is feeling unsure, stuck, or on the edge of something bigger, what’s one message you’d want to them to walk away with so they can give a heck about their own life and never give up?
[00:44:21 – 00:48:49]
Wow. And there’s again another one of those things where there’s so many things running through my head quickly on this because I’m sorry. No, it’s all good. But what I mean, I’d want to say a couple of things, like if you’re okay, I’ll say it this way. If you’re looking to tackle something major or whether it’s overcome or tackle something new, this is my opinion. There’s two sides. So one, you have to figure out how to get outside your comfort zone. And there’s lots of ways to do that. What I would say is chop it down into smaller steps. So in other words, I like to give visuals. I try to get a story or visual around it. So let’s say it’s stand up comedy. I did that for years and I don’t recommend the way I did it, which was to be tricked into performing. So what I would normally recommend is if you wanted to do stand up comedy for most people, and you first of all gotta figure out a way to get past that fear to get on stage. But let’s say you don’t have the fear. It’s just you don’t know how to do it. I would say break it down to baby steps because comedy’s not gonna be easy to step into. So go to the comedy club and invite a comic out for lunch the next day and pick their brain. Watch HBO and take notes of what you like about that comic. Also, another thing could be to read the Comedy Bible by Judy Carter, which is a great book on comedy. Go to a comedy clinic and learn from others. And so what I’m getting at is comedy is the thing you want to do. So you said, you know, make your life better, step inside. So comedy, let’s say, is the thing you want to do. And let’s say your comfort zone is really small and comedy’s outside over here. I think an easy way to do it is to break it down to things that are as terrifying. So, okay, you go, I’m going to read a book. Well, that’s probably not that terrifying. I’m going to go and invite a comic out for lunch. That might be terrifying at first. Pick the. Pick the opening comic. Then, you know, don’t pick the headliner if that’s going to make you fearful at first. Move your way up to the headliner. Sign up for the local, let’s say class or clinic or workshop. And even if you can only contribute a little bit, do what you can, and so on and so forth. But here’s the thing. Each time you do one of those things, then what I always say, give yourself a reward. So the reward for the first one could be, I get to eat an ice cream today, even though I’m not eating ice cream because I’m on a diet or whatever. But the point is, give yourself rewards for each one of them. And so let’s say you laid it out to five steps, five baby steps you’d have to take to eventually get on a stage. In my experience, by the time you get to the fifth step, it’s going to be a thousand times easier to step on that stage and make sure the biggest reward, obviously, is for stepping on the stage. But if you’re like, if we’re looking, like how you can actually have a process for getting outside your comfort zone, that’s what I recommend, is if it’s something that’s way outside your comfort zone, break it down into baby steps. Give yourself rewards for every little baby step you make and keep pushing forward. And by the time you get to the fourth or fifth step, you’re going to find it a lot easier to step on the stage. Because now you’ve hung out with comics, you’ve read the comedy Bible, so you know what? Comedy works. You’ve gone to a workshop and you watch HBO and said, this is why Kevin Hart’s funny, or whatever, you know, whatever that looks like, that’s what I’d recommend. And then this shorter second piece is, in my opinion, if you’re going to take big steps, take big steps on stuff that you’re passionate about. And if I summarized everything about giving a heck about your life, I would say, even though you don’t realize it yet, the ideal situation in your life is you found your passions, which lead you to the bigger thing. So the passion, I think, is what you do. So comedy, podcasting, whatever, that. That’s the what the career or whatever but the why you do it is the purpose. And so ultimately, I’d love to see everybody in the world find some passions, do them for a while, and eventually they’ll figure out why they’re actually doing it. And if you live on purpose, well, I’ll just say it this way. I’ve done interviews now, the numbers actually increase. So I’m at roughly 8,000 thought leaders. So I picked the brains of some of the world’s best, the top at their field, and the most common trait they all share is they live every day on purpose. So even though you might not have a passion now and you might think that’s not worth the effort, I promise you, and you can, you can try to prove me wrong. I promise you, if you find passions that you’re truly passionate about and it opens up the door to you finding out what you’re purposeful about, it will change everything for you. For the rest of your life, you’ll be happier, your people want to be around you more, you’ll have more success and so on. So I know that’s a long tangent, but when we talked about doing the big thing, hopefully I gave a strategy for getting outside your comfort zone to do the big thing. Hopefully the big thing is something you become passionate about. You do it for a while, eventually it tells you why you’re purposeful about it. And honestly, new life for you.
[00:48:50 – 00:49:05]
Wow, that’s pure gold, Corey. For those listening, make sure you follow Corey online. Explore the speaking program, Blues Talks and everything he’s building to elevate others. If today’s episode helped you see yourself more clearly, share it with a friend.
[00:49:05 – 00:49:05]
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[00:49:06 – 00:49:35]
Keep showing up for your life. You’re worth it. You’re worth giving a heck about. Because giving a heck means living, intentionally influencing, authentically being your genuine you. Until next time, keep growing. Keep giving a heck about your life. And remember, it’s never, ever too late to give a heck. I really appreciate you, Corey, being on. We will get you on again. Thanks so much for giving a heck about everybody in your life.