Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
A podcast companion for Josh Baron's book, The Lunch Manifesto.
Mark Butler: Welcome back
to the Lunch Manifesto.
I am Mark Butler.
I'm here with Josh Baron.
The soon to be author
of the Lunch Manifesto.
We're gonna talk about one of the Lunch
Manifesto, articles of Faith today.
Do you think it's the most important one?
I think maybe it is.
I think that's why it's number one.
The article of Faith is I value
relationships more than transactions.
What's your premise here?
Josh Baron: yeah, so I think that's
something that a lot of us say.
And, that feels intuitively true, but
if we looked at our calendars or if we
looked at, the money that goes out of
our bank accounts, it would probably
say that it's not true for a lot of us.
a lot of us spend a lot of time and money
generating transactions and not that much
more time investing in relationships.
and I've been as guilty of this as anyone.
I thought I was a relationships
guy, but I was spending $30,000 a
month on Google ads and I was, going
to, two or three lunches a month.
and enjoying them, but also feeling
like they were an obstacle to my
business, like they were a time waste
instead of a productive use of my time.
I was like, rationing how
many lunches I would go to.
it's not that I came to that
sort of article of faith and
then it changed everything else.
It was more, I started just noticing
over time, like the more lunches
I go to, the better my business
does in all these other ways.
And so then that led me to say, oh,
like maybe my values are a little
bit different than I realized.
And what would it look like
to really value relationships
more than transactions?
what would it look like to.
Really take all that ad budget and
spend it on relationships or that time
budget and spend it on relationships.
It's been very fulfilling to me.
So it's, it's one that's self-reinforcing.
It's not one I have to push uphill.
Mark Butler: I think about the
first half of the statement.
I value relationships more than
transactions, and if I even just take the
first half of that, I value relationships.
It's definitely one
that I say all the time.
I facilitate a little community of
coaches, different flavors of coach and
in that community I am constantly beating
the drum of value in relationships.
However, if you look at how I spend
even my time, not necessarily my
money, I don't think you would
watch the silent movie of my week.
Come to your own conclusion that
this guy really values relationships.
Josh Baron: I think that's interesting.
What would it look like to value
relationships and what does it look like
in our experiences when it, when we're not
value relationships as much as we should?
what would it look like, for somebody
to really like, for that to be
something they believe, and then
what would their calendar look like?
Mark Butler: it's interesting to say
calendar, that framing catches me because
I might have to get there in a roundabout
way, but for me, if I were looking at
a person's activities, I would see.
Effort purely in service of relationship.
And not necessarily a
high volume of effort.
But I would see that person investing
time and energy into relationship.
For example, I don't remember
if it was in a lunch manifesto
recording or just one of our regular
conversations when you said you.
Have a goal to have 10 lunches per month.
You also said that lunches
with me don't count anymore.
I know that, which I thought
was funny and appropriate, but
too easy because it's too easy.
And I've thought about that since then.
And I thought, yeah, 10 lunches per month.
And at first I thought that's,
gosh, that's not even a lot.
But then as I sat with the number.
I quickly got to that is so many lunches.
It's a lunch every other workday.
Josh Baron: Yeah.
Mark Butler: Yeah.
And I'm not saying that a
person has to do 10 lunches.
I'm saying if a person made the
claim, I value relationships.
And then if I saw them investing
in relationship supporting lunches.
Or something like that where
they actually pushed themselves.
For me to go from the number of
lunches I do, which is zero to
10, would represent a significant
investment of energy on a weekly basis.
Josh Baron: Yeah.
Mark Butler: Some
outreach, some follow up.
Josh Baron: That's the hard part.
To me, the hard part is scheduling it.
It's I should figure out
Calendly, for some reason I'm
not smart enough for Calendly.
You keep offering to
teach me how to use it.
I think I've offered to do it for you.
I'm like, we had our leadership meeting
yesterday and I think we're gonna hire
a VA in January and the VA's job is
gonna be to schedule for me so that
I can say, do you wanna go to lunch?
Yes.
And then I just say.
Lisa schedule this and I don't
have to think about it anymore.
And she knows the rules.
And that's how lazy I am about learning.
Calendly is I'm gonna hire someone in
Columbia to deal with my lunch scheduling
so I don't have to learn Calendly.
but can it please me,
Mark Butler: my
Josh Baron: job to write
the job description and be
part of the hiring process?
Sure.
We'd love you to be.
but but I worry though that's like too
one dimensional Obviously this, we're
here to talk about lunches, and lunches
are one obvious way to do it, but what
if we looked at your calendar and said
so lunches aren't your most natural
way to do it, but what are some other
examples of time that you're spending.
That could be more transactional.
And you're choosing to make
it more relational, like I'm
assuming that's like a spectrum
from transactional to relational.
You're saying that I'm already engaged in?
Yeah.
so let's take this, so like you have
coaching appointments still, right?
And.
The most transactional version
of it would be like pressuring
everybody and upselling everybody.
and so like the way that you
show up in those calls, you can
choose to be more transactional
or more relational on a spectrum.
and my guess is that you have clients
that you've had for a long time because
you haven't compromised the relationship
for an individual transaction.
And it still led to transactions.
sometimes people have said,
Hey, I really need you for this.
and you didn't have to
compromise the relationship to
get to that transaction point.
And if somebody said, why are you doing
this relational thing, you would say, I
don't know, but I know it'll work out.
I have faith that it'll work out.
Mark Butler: honestly,
that's great insight.
I had not connected those dots, but Not
only do I agree with what you're saying
in principle, I actually do live it and
I promote it to any fellow coach, I will
tell them, bring relational energy to the
coaching that you deliver to your clients.
Don't bring transactional energy to it.
Josh Baron: Yeah.
Mark Butler: And if you'll bring
relational energy to the actual
delivery of the thing you've sold.
That will give you more transactions?
yes.
In the long term, that
brings you more transactions.
More easily.
Josh Baron: So in the very, very short
term, it may not, like if you're a
door-to-door salesman and you will not
have a relationship with this person,
like you have to push the transaction.
But if you're in almost any other domain,
I think that bringing relational energy
to the things that you're already doing.
You can do lunches in a
super transactional way.
So it's not that lunches are magic about
avoiding transactions, they're just.
A way there, that's one way to do it.
so the activities you do could be more
transactional or more relational, but also
the way you do all the activities you do.
I don't have coaching, clients, but I have
my clients and, so one example is that
I get a few calls a month about traffic
cases and and I have a couple of options
about how I could deal with these calls.
Like they're never gonna hire me.
Unless they're like a commercial
driver and like they have so much
at stake, it's just never worth
it to hire me for a traffic case.
So I could just not take the calls.
I could take the calls and try to
convince them to hire me, but what
I've been doing is I take the call, I
make sure it's not gonna go super long.
I probably spend 20 minutes on the call.
I actively encourage them not to hire
me, and I tell them exactly how to avoid
having their insurance costs go up.
And like probably five in the last
couple of months have written me like
amazing Google reviews after those calls.
So it hasn't led to direct revenue, but
I, yeah, again, like it's a call that
I probably had to do anyway, it, it is,
it's hard to just totally avoid the call.
I think generosity is maybe a
synonym for relationship like.
Mark Butler: Yeah.
Josh Baron: so if you can be more generous
in the way you talk to your existing
clients, more generous in the interactions
you just naturally have with people.
Like something that you do it seems
is sometimes you'll go to events that
other people are hosting, and if you
went to that event and you were like
handing out flyers for your business.
Obviously you wouldn't get
invited to those anymore.
And people would be like, that's weird.
And you're violating the kind of
social agreement of being here.
But you show up and you just show up as a,
as who you are and generous and relational
and clients come from it, it seems to me.
and so I think that's a lot of times
we don't have to add activities.
We could just, the activities
we're already doing show up in
a generous and relational way.
Mark Butler: What you just
said probably describes my.
Primary marketing strategy
for maybe my first five years.
I wanted to know where my people
were gonna be, and then I would
just go there and be there.
you meet a person, there's a rapport.
They introduce you to another person.
You see each other at the same thing six
months later or a year later, and it just.
It just worked.
It just worked out.
But I never pitched, I never had to pitch.
And in fact, speaking of, I value
relationships more than transactions.
In the first year of my business,
I did two paid sponsorships of
large events where I knew my
prospective clients would be.
It's not that it didn't work, but
in both cases, oh, it's funny to
remember this, okay, so in one case,
I paid a bunch of money, thousands
of dollars to sponsor an event.
I did the whole booth thing.
That paid zero dividends.
But, the dividend that it paid was I had
an opportunity to strike up a relationship
with one of the other event sponsors.
We started to chat and then she
said, you're here all by yourself.
Come to lunch with me and a
bunch of my friends who hang
out in the same community.
I go to lunch with them, hang out,
and then if there's a lunch table in
my memory, there's a lunch table with
maybe seven or eight people at it.
I think six of those people hired me.
But the only thing that spending the
money on the sponsorship did was.
Get me into connection with
that one other sponsor, and then
she gets all the credit for the
connections to all the other people.
Josh Baron: It wasn't your logo,
I think so many of us are like, oh
man, but if I just had the right logo
and it was on the flyers, here's why
Mark Butler: I'm laughing about that.
I had a golf shirt made with a logo on it.
It was the Dorkiest, other sponsor
person who ended up becoming a
good sort of colleague and friend.
We, for years after, would
laugh about how dorky I looked.
Standing at my little table with my
little golf shirt, with my logo on it,
Josh Baron: holding a clipboard,
Mark Butler: begging people to gimme
their email addresses or something.
Yeah, when all that I really needed to
do, I just didn't know it at the time.
All I needed to do was seek
rapport with her and with the
other people in attendance.
Josh Baron: myself.
And I like again, I don't think
that it was a waste of money
to spend money on the event.
but I think that sometimes we
think if I've spent money on
the event, the work is over.
No, that just got you to the event.
Now you have to show up in a
generous and relational way.
it was probably like, in terms
of ROI, that's probably like
a huge ROI event that you did.
It was, and the downstream ROI
over the years to come was massive.
But I think sometimes we think,
I'm gonna pay for the event.
I'm gonna get this really professional
logo designed by this great logo person.
And then like people will just come to me.
False.
It will not happen.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't get a
logo, and it doesn't mean you shouldn't
spend money on the event, but all of that
is just table stakes to get into the room.
And then the question is how
you act once you're in the room.
Mark Butler: It's total table
stakes and, excessive energy
spent on the transactional
pieces will mostly be wasted.
Yeah.
For example, I did another
similar sponsorship.
It was more expensive.
And yeah, I got to put a flyer in the
event materials and so I hemmed and hawed
and worked on the wording of the flyer.
And the flyer didn't matter.
Josh Baron: Yeah.
Mark Butler: And in
Josh Baron: fact, that
event didn't really pay off.
So that's interesting.
and so my question is, do you think it
was because it it wasn't your people.
It was not my people.
So in the first event you talked
about, it was your people.
And so it was natural and easy
and generous and everybody.
And then in the other one it was like.
You didn't know those people as well.
It wasn't the exact
right tone that you are.
And so it didn't match.
And so you could have spent 10 times
as much on that event and it would've
still not really yielded anything.
'cause like we can tell
when we found our people.
Yeah.
So again, lunch isn't magic in the sense
of if you get lunch with the CEO of some
huge company, it's gonna change your life.
If it's your people, it'll be great.
And if it's not your
people, it doesn't matter.
it's not that I value all relationships
more than all transactions, but
the right relationships are worth
many transactions and the wrong
relationships we probably need to
move on from as quickly as possible.
Whether they're paid or whether they're,
sincere and normal and, so there's
people that I've gone to lunch with and
I was just like, this isn't my person.
And I, hopefully I'm, I'm very judgmental
in my private mind, but I'm also noticing
that I'm being really judgmental and
I like, it doesn't mean they're a bad
person, they're just not for me and I'm
not gonna go to lunch with them anymore.
I'm not gonna waste that energy
or that money or that time.
but, the right relationships are worth.
So many transactions and they're
unforeseeable transactions.
They're just like these, they
feel like happy accidents.
and you can't engineer them too.
carefully.
You told me about a book that I
haven't read, but I liked the title.
I was gonna bring obliquity up.
I haven't read it either,
Mark Butler: but I do own it.
go ahead.
Josh Baron: but the thesis statement
seems to be that there are some goals
that you cannot pursue directly.
so I think the
Mark Butler: I think the thesis
statement is even stronger than that.
I think that book's thesis
statement is that all goals are
best achieved obliquely all goals.
Interesting.
I think that's, the thesis
statement or that the best
results usually come through.
An oblique pursuit, we should say.
Josh Baron: we should read the book.
Well I'm never gonna read the book,
but we should say what another,
we should read the, AI summary
Mark Butler: We should, yes.
Josh Baron: pursuit?
An oblique strategy?
The way I understand it is,
maybe some examples are helpful.
So there's a politician who is,
campaigning for the Nobel Prize pretty.
openly and aggressively right now.
That strikes me as very counterproductive
You can only win the Nobel Prize if
you're not trying to win the Nobel Prize.
Not trying to win the Nobel Prize
doesn't guarantee that you'll
win a Nobel Prize, obviously.
But you can't be trying
to win the Nobel Prize.
You have to be trying to
do really good things.
And then those really good
things lead to a Nobel Prize.
what we're talking about here is
you can't pursue the transaction.
You can't.
Pitch people on buying your
product in a lot of situations.
Instead, you just have to build the
relationship and let those people
self-identify as Hey, I really
want this thing that you have.
So if you pursue the transaction
directly, you don't get it.
If you pursue it indirectly by
pursuing the relationship, that
will lead to some transactions.
what it makes me think of, and
this is very religious, but I think
it's present in a lot of religious
traditions, is like the paradox.
So Jesus talks about you can't, if
you try to seek your life, you'll
lose it, but if you lose your life
and my service, you'll gain it.
or like the yin yang idea of, if
you want order, you a lot of times
have to pass through disorder first.
you have to dig up the lot before you
build a building, and it's gonna look
more chaotic and more disordered before
we get to the beautiful building.
So you have to pursue order through a
path that leads you actually, through some
disorder and some chaos in the meantime.
this is a long time to talk about
a book we haven't read, but I think
that this is an example where, oh.
The opposite example is
everybody loves the movie.
I don't, I've never met anyone who doesn't
love the movie Groundhog Day, right?
I love Groundhog Day.
I'm always in the mood
to watch Groundhog Day.
It doesn't have to be February.
I love Groundhog Day, and maybe my
favorite character is Ned Ryerson.
The.
Insurance salesman and Bill Murray's
character runs into Ned Ryerson every
morning, and Ned Ryerson is trying
to sell him life insurance every
morning and he's just obnoxious and
he doesn't care about the relationship
and he's over the top and I think that
there should be a Ned Ryerson test.
Is what I'm doing, something that
Ned Ryerson would consider doing it.
The answer is yes.
I probably shouldn't do it.
he's too transactional.
but again, I like, sometimes you
can't plot how focusing on this
relationship is gonna lead to
this great financial transaction.
We have a family story about this.
so my dad's dad is.
An absolute amazing natural
relationship builder, networker guy.
And he lives in southern California
in the Santa Monica area, and he
walks by the beach every morning.
he's 94, He probably
still walks most mornings.
And, he would tell me, oh,
I have a walking group.
And for years I thought, oh, that's crazy.
I've never even seen a walking group.
Like, how did you happen
to find a walking group?
What I realized like very recently is.
Wherever he goes, he
creates a walking group.
if he sees somebody twice on the same
path as him, he like strikes up a
conversation with them and now they're
now a two person walking group and
it grows to 15 people and he's just
down like he doesn't think it's weird.
So anyway, he's walking
in this walking group.
My dad had just graduated from.
BYU with a degree in finance
and he was working as a real
estate broker guy in Texas.
He's walking with this guy and the
guy goes, ah, I bought this building,
this apartment building, but I
don't have anybody to management.
My management company's terrible.
So annoying.
And my grandfather says.
I have a management company.
Do you want me to take
a look at your property?
And he goes, yeah, he didn't
have a management company.
He just had a son who had just
had gotten a, he was a pharmacist
and his son had just gotten a good
degree in finance and whatsoever.
So they like created a company to
manage this apartment complex and
then managed a bunch of other, like
it created this whole business.
So it wasn't like he said.
I'm gonna go walking, and when I go
walking, I'm gonna look for people
who I think own apartment complexes
and I'm gonna pitch them on.
it was like he just
built the relationship.
Like I love walking with his, these people
listening carefully when they're talking
and trying to make their lives better.
And then one of 'em had a problem and
he was like, we can solve that for you.
And they were like delighted to let
him solve that problem for them.
So it led to many transactions.
But it wasn't pursued directly or, and it
wasn't like pre-planned and engineered.
Mark Butler: Fantastic story.
Josh Baron: that
Mark Butler: story.
Josh Baron: All that's a random one,
Mark Butler: earlier in the call, you
were talking about knowing who your
people are and when you realize you're
not with your people moving on from
those relationships, there's tension.
I think there's tension in this idea
between if I'm being told to just be very
open and just pursue all relationships
and be present and be invested.
and if I'm told to move on from
the relationships that aren't
the right relationships, how do I
reconcile those two ideas because
I think they can seem in conflict.
Josh Baron: Yeah, I like that.
so the second article of Faith
is I am generous with my tribe.
And, we were working on a version
of that for my law practice.
the question was, how are we gonna protect
ourselves from takers, from people who are
gonna take advantage of our generosity?
And so that got us towards this
idea of, I'm generous, but I'm
generous with my tribe and I
get to pick who is in my tribe.
People who are not generous,
they don't stay in the tribe.
Like they might get a trial version of
the tribe, but I'm not gonna keep them
long-term in the tribe if they're not
generous or if they're taking advantage
or if they're not reciprocal so I think
probably early on I was pretty like,
yeah, anybody's in the tribe, please.
everybody's in the tribe.
And then, as time passed and.
The tribe grew and I realized
my lunch calendar's pretty full.
And so now I have to pick, do
I wanna go to lunch with this
person this month, or that person?
I can't go to lunch with both.
Then I could use my, instincts and my
social skills and my filtering techniques
to go, I enjoy this person more.
This person has been more generous.
This person is more.
The kind of person that I wanna be.
so I don't think it means we need to
be unkind to people, but they don't
have to stay on the lunch list and
they don't have to stay on the gift
list and the Christmas card list.
you can keep them on and, if it's
bringing you joy to have them in, do
it like, but so something we talked
about in the last episode was that.
I like to be with people who I
see as being somewhat peers and
who they see as somewhat peers.
It doesn't mean we have to be at the
identical stage in our career, but if
somebody's way, way ahead of me, and
I feel like they can do a ton for me
and I can't do anything for them, I
just don't like how I am around them.
And if somebody is way behind me.
That's how they perceive it.
Sometimes I don't perceive
it that way, but they do.
And they're acting like
I'm like some sage.
And I'm like, if they call me
their mentor, I'm like, I'm out.
No thank you.
I don't want, I don't like it.
I like to be in relationships
that are reciprocal, but
somebody else might say, no.
I really like reaching out to people
that are way, way ahead of me.
and they make me a
better version of myself.
But for me, it's who am I the
best version of myself around?
So if I was friends with my senator,
I would think it was amazing and I
wouldn't be able to say no to it.
But I also know that I'd be a yes man
around that person and I'd be really,
excited to drop their name to other people
and that's just how I am and I know it.
And so I'm gonna mostly try to build
these kinds of relationships with
people that are in a place where I can
do for them and they can do for me.
and that, that's satisfying to
me that we can help each other.
Mark Butler: you just said something
that I think is really, I think I'll
be bringing it up in many lunches
of our lunches to come, but the way,
one of the best ways to determine
whether we're around the right people
is, do I like who I am around them?
It's not.
As much do I like who they are around me.
Of course that's gonna be a
factor, but it's a turning inward
and saying, am I at my best?
When I walk away from the interaction,
do I like who I was and how I was in that
interaction, that's probably a signal
that I was with the right kind of person,
and I should be pursuing more of that.
Josh Baron: There's this person who I
really love I think we've had some amazing
experiences together, but for whatever
reason, he's very negative around me
he knows that there's certain things
that I'm trying to be and trying to do,
and he can be very undermining of that.
it hasn't always been
that way, but it is now.
I've decided I'm just not gonna spend
as much time with them right now.
Maybe their attitude will change and I'll
spend more time with them in the future.
it's not that I dislike this
person, but it's harder for me
to be who I wanna be around them.
And that's just not great.
yeah, I like that.
I think that's the,
probably the best filter.
am I the best version of myself
around these people or a better
version of myself around these people?
Yeah, those should be our people and
hopefully they feel the same around us.
I think that our attitude should be not
like, what can this person do for me?
Transactional, creepy, weird.
It's How can I host this person?
I think cultivating the spirit of hosting.
My wife is an amazing hostess.
She loves planning parties,
inviting people to parties.
she thinks about what they're gonna do.
She probably over plans the event
with like too many activities.
she tries to like sense, is
it time for another activity?
Is it too much?
All those kinds of things.
and so I, she's probably not the best
hostess for everyone, but for a lot
of people, she's a great hostess and.
So if I go to lunch with somebody, I'm
not thinking again, like, how can I get
this person to send me more referrals?
I'm thinking, how can I host them?
How can I give them a great experience?
And of course, I'm gonna have
a good experience too, it's
not gonna be at my expense.
I think it would hurt their
experience if I was there miserable
and bored about what we're talking
about, but doing it for them.
But, just how can I host them?
And if I'm having that attitude
with my clients, with my employees,
with my family, with my neighbors.
With the people I walk with by
the beach, it's gonna lead to
transactions like unavoidably
Mark Butler: How can I host them?
Josh Baron: What makes a great host?
it's an exercise in empathy, right?
so sometimes I think like a challenge
I can have is sometimes I will not
trust, like the person I'll, I can
tell the person's having a good time.
they're happy, they're, and I'll be
like, but did they, am I bias you?
a lot of times, like your just
nervous system cannot help, but no.
Kinda what the other person's
experience is and so if it's
good, don't undermine it.
And if it's bad, try something else.
but yeah.
There's a good book on this called, I
think it's called The Art of Gathering.
I really enjoyed it and
sent a few copies around.
Honestly didn't implement as much
as I would've liked from that book.
That might be a reread.
but yeah, it was just saying our cultures
have lots of customs around hosting
and around guesting and how to be a
good guest and how to be a good host.
And a lot of those customs are
really useful and, there's a reason
that they've persisted for hundreds
or thousands or millions of years.
so yeah, I think being a good
host is what we aspire to.
Mark Butler: what do you think is
the short and long-term cost of
valuing transactions more than people
regulations, this article of faith?
Josh Baron: so there, my dad gave me
like, thought experiment about this,
which is imagine that, one couple
invites, another couple over to their
house and they have a great dinner and
it's just, they're sharing ideas and
stories and connecting and it's wonderful.
And they laugh and they cry and
it's this wonderful experience.
And then the invited guest, when
they're leaving hands, two $100 bills
to the host and says, this was great.
This was worth at least $200 to me.
I want you to have these 200.
It would transform this
beautiful, intimate.
Friendship, relationship,
experience into a transaction,
and transactions aren't bad.
They're just right for certain things.
Like I don't want my
restaurant to not charge me.
I want them to charge me because I
want them to stay out in business
I want, but I don't want to pay my
friends when they invite me over to
their house, and like a classical
economist would say no, but they're
$200 richer, so they're much happier.
Who would turn down $200?
Like of course it's better to have $200
than to not have $200, but we have social
skills and we know that's not true.
And one of the risks is to turn
friendships and relationships
and sincere recommendations into
transactions, advertisements.
Referral fees, things like that.
we need to use our social skills
to know is this a transaction
or is this a relationship?
And to honor the transactions
and to fulfill our obligations.
And I think it's important when you say
you're gonna pay somebody or do something
for somebody, that you fulfill your
obligation, early on when we were starting
to try to build referral relationships,
one of our clients sent us a really great
client, and I sent them a $200 Apple
gift card, and I thought, I'm so cool.
I'm so cool.
This is gonna be amazing.
Like, it's gonna spread like wildfire.
I've never spoken to him again since then.
I think he was like, what?
did you not understand what I just did?
no, I'm sure he cashed the $200
gift card, but I don't think
he ever sent me another case.
so I think that one of the dangers
is like to take these sincere human
connections and turn them into eBay,
and eBay's good for being eBay, but we
shouldn't turn our neighborhood into eBay.
so I think that's one of the risks.
Mark Butler: Yeah, I agree.
And I think in the short term,
I think it also feels bad.
Yeah.
You feel that when, from an anxious
or a grabby or a controlling
place, you try to take something
that is in its natural state, it's
relational, and then you try to.
Transform it into something transactional
because you think that's going to
soothe the anxiety you're feeling
about it or about yourself or about
whatever you just feel like, ugh.
Josh Baron: yeah.
this is skipping to the last chapter in
our table of contents, but, a very helpful
area of, social science research for me is
this idea of, self-determination theory.
And self-determination theory predicts
that the things that will make us
hate our job are not the same things
that will make us love our job.
So getting paid not enough is very
painful and you'll hate your job.
Getting paid 10 times more is nice.
It's a good thing, but it won't make you
love a job that you intrinsically hate.
the things that will make you love your
job, it's a shortlist, it's competence.
Autonomy and relatedness.
Competence is being good at what you do.
Autonomous is people trusting you enough
to let you make meaningful decisions.
relatedness you could say is
connection or, relationships.
Competence takes a long time to build.
It takes a lot of repetition and making
mistakes and getting better over time.
Autonomy, it takes a long time to build up
enough trust that your boss lets you like
run a big campaign or, your clients will
pay you to, solve really big problems.
Relatedness to me is the one of those
three that you can control the fastest
and the most, like you can just
choose to go to lunch with someone.
You can choose to write
them a thank you note.
You can choose to send
them a thoughtful gift.
And, If we turn our relationships into
a business, which is what Ned Ryerson
does, every relationship he has is an
opportunity to sell life insurance.
If we turn them into, transactions,
we've actually deprived ourselves
of the thing that was gonna bring
joy to our professional life.
So not only do we lose transactions,
but we lose the relatedness that
was gonna make us love our job.
And so I think that's the Moral or
longest possible timeline argument
for be cool and build relationships.
But then the question is, okay, I have
40 hours that I'm gonna work this week.
How many of those hours am
I gonna dedicate to that?
Or I have a one hour meeting
with my direct report.
Am I gonna do this in a transactional way
or am I gonna do it in a relational way?
And there are trade offs
there like sometimes.
Being relational is going to make you
slightly less efficient in the short
term, and we have to decide like, how
much are we willing to pay for that?
And when I notice that, I try almost
always to lean into the relational side
of things and it seems to have the other
outcomes as well in unpredictable ways.
Mark Butler: That's excellent.
I think that's it.
That's a good chapter.
valuing relationships over transactions.
It's one of those
counterintuitive secrets to
Josh Baron: success.
One thing about that,
it's, it's almost a truism.
Again, no one will disagree with it, but.
When we're planning our week,
a lot of times that's not,
that's what we planned last.
Mark Butler: Thanks Josh.
This is great stuff.
Thank you, mark.
We will talk to you when we record
another chapter of the Lunch Manifesto.
We'll see you.