From time to time, I’ll explain Influence Ecology and our approach by telling a story about the ABC television series American Idol. The award-winning series involves discovering recording stars from unsigned singing talents. The winner receives a record deal with a major label.

In one audition listed in the category of “worst of the worst” from Season 4, Mary Roach, sings “I Feel the Earth Move” by Carole King. When finished, a gobsmacked Simon Cowell asks, “what made you audition for this competition!?” Mary replies, “all my friends told me I was an awesome singer.” Simon responds, “Mary, not only can you not sing, you have one of the weirdest voices I’ve ever heard in my entire life.” Mary responds, “many people around me have told me I have an amazing voice…random people I don’t know have agreed.” With great care, Paul Abdul says, “Mary, they lied to you…”

…and we all know why – we live amongst people who don’t want to kill our dreams. They want to give us hope. They want to stroke our confidence and make us feel good about ourselves. Sometimes we even surround ourselves with people too much like ourselves and we can fall prey to a group bias for thinking we’re winning when we’re not…or making the right choices when we’re not.

In Mary’s case, her friends and family could have told her she was a mediocre singer. They could have saved her wasted time, an emotional toll, and international humiliation. They could have said to her that if she aspired to sing, that through practice, she might sing one day and if good enough, possibly consider American Idol.

So, how do we find our ignorance, challenge our hubris, and confront our naivete? Where can we find a means to see a correct reflection of our selves as others see us? Who gives us an accurate read of ourselves and our aims – before we spend time, energy, and money – before we make poor choices?

In today’s episode, we’ll hear how Influence Ecology has helped Paul Adams see an accurate reflection for himself – and how he helps his customers do the same. Paul shares how he’s growing his company with a team that genuinely supports his aims – and where their freedom to check his “inventor” hubris is cherished.

Paul Adams and Sound Financial Group help those making annual incomes of $300K to $2M secure their financial independence. Like Influence Ecology, Paul and his team are hired to help people confront their naivete so they live satisfying lives.

Here’s the interview.

Below you’ll find a transcript of this podcast episode that has been edited for your reading pleasure. You’ll also see links at the bottom of this post where you can find more information on the people and ideas mentioned in the episode.

by John Patterson
Produced by: John Patterson & Tyson Crandall

“You could tie that to anything else, your health, your marriage, to parenting. And all of the options get a lot easier if we’re measuring them against a future state that we’re solving for.“

Highlights from the original interview with Paul Adams

“I can think of so many things where I thought of something one way, and now I think of differently and I can articulate it. Like how somebody thinks about a particular money issue, they can articulate, ” thought this way before, now I think way differently.” And it’s very difficult to do when it’s something is all encompassing is what you teach in Influence Ecology. I’m different with my spouse, my wife now, I’m actually different in the ways I’m helping my church be able to be effective in certain areas, different with my business, different with my children.”

“What I think of when you mention the thinking, doing cycle. And the idea that we have to do both is, I think about it as, how I look at whether or not somebody knows something. And so often people will say things like, “Well yeah I mean I know how to do that.” How often they’ll say, “Well I know what it takes to get to $300, 000 of income, all I’ve got to do is go do it.” Hmm. And how upsetting it is to them to just say, “Uh, You don’t, know how, because if you knew, you would have had it, by now.” And if you just pause longer and say, “I think I know how,” and then go try to do what you think is going to work, and then adjust.”

Here’s the latest interview

John Patterson: Here we are with Paul Adams. Paul if you could take a moment and introduce yourself.

Paul Adams: My name is Paul Adams, I’m the founder and CEO of Sound Financial Group… Live in the Seattle, Washington area with my family. I’m married, with my wife Kristen for a little more than 10 years. And three kids, who by the end of this year will be, seven, eight and nine years old. So it’s a busy life out here with us. And we spend a lot of time traveling in our RV. I think we’re racking up about 80 nights a year, staying in our RV.

John Patterson: That’s fantastic. And you designed your whole life to do that, so you could kind of have it all, right?-

Paul Adams: Yeah definitely. We love the outdoors, spending time with friends and family, and one of the thing I really enjoy is the level of autonomy that comes with having constructed an enterprise in a way, that it would care for my aims, instead of the other way around, where most people are, really sacrificing their own personal aims, to feed their career or feed their business. And over the last, about three, four years, who’ve really constructed the business, to make its primary purpose, caring for building the life that we want.

John Patterson: And that kind of leads me to the last time we were together, and why I wanted to talk to you today. This is a… an episode in the series that we’re calling where are they now? We interviewed you some time in the past. Do you know how many years ago that was?

Paul Adams: No, but I remember where I was. I was in Vancouver, Canada, for the interview. So that had to be like three and a half years ago is what it seems like.

John Patterson: Yeah, something like that. So it’s been a little while. And it’s worth just noting what’s happened since. The last time we were together, we talked a lot about accurate thinking, we talked a little about what happened out of your participation in our programs, and the life that you designed. So first of all, I’ve told your story, a few different times because, I love… I was just on the phone today, by the way, with Trisha Tyler, know you have a close relationship with Trisha Tyler. And Trisha is one of those people that just has… designed a life of surplus and being able to enjoy a great life, and you know, she’s getting her pilot’s license. She and Jeff are about to take off on an amazing adventure for 19 days, and all that. But you really have designed a life… that many people would admire, in a variety of ways. You’re known in all kinds of ways, now even more known. Say a little bit today about your recent podcast. You have designed a life, you can travel and play as you want. You’ve designed a life where you don’t have to look back, you know at the end of some career and say, “Gosh I wish I could have spent more time with my family and with my kids or things that matter to me with my church, or my community. And everything else.” So you’ve done a really amazing job about that, and we… again we talked about that last time. I want to just take a moment, anything you want to say about all that.

Paul Adams: I would say that, you know, you mentioned a little bit about, one of the things we’ve got coming up now that’s much closer than it was prior, is we will leave on our one year, RV trip, June 1 of 2020. And it’s taken a lot of… I don’t want to say… work. But it’s taken a lot of thinking, and a lot of subtracting things out of our lives to make that a reality. To now it’s like, pretty much all the pieces are in place.

We just need to finish actually planning where we’re going to be and when. My business partner Cory Sheppard has bought in that we’ll be down to a three day work week. That I’ll be doing things down to a three day work week before the trip begins. So that it makes it seamless for the team. We’ve made the company entirely location independent, so we still have a mailing address and office location, but none of us need to be anywhere, in particular, to be able to do what we do. So if, one of our staff said, “I want to go live in Japan for a month.” They could do that. And that was something that wasn’t real last time we spoke. But most importantly is that idea of every time a business option comes up, some of which were huge opportunities that I’ve actually declined. And the whole reason to decline them was, they were going to require that I travel the country and speak at a lot of conferences instead of a few conferences I most want to speak at. That that would clog up my capacity and prevent me from being able to do this trip. Or that being more involved in some local associations. Those would not allow for… I was able to serve on my church board for a while, like about five years, and then said, “Okay, now that needs to come to an end because we’re getting ready to go on this trip.”

All of those things are only possible because we set that aim, that flag in the future and then every time an option came up, we always filtered the opportunity through “Will that get us closer to or further away from these major life objectives?” You could tie that to anything else, your health, your marriage, to parenting. And all of the options get a lot easier if we’re measuring them against a future state that we’re solving for.

John Patterson: I could just stop right now because…Well you probably know when you interview someone, you have to pull out examples, and you have to pull out things that illustrate a thing you just said. And you just did that beautifully-

Paul Adams: Oh thank you-

John Patterson: By the way. And I think it’s a testament to your own work with clients, to help them think accurately. And I’ll just congratulate you. It sounds like you’re thriving. If we can though, let’s just take a second and think about if… Let’s imagine we have a new listener here with us today. Somebody who’s never heard an Influence Ecology podcast. They don’t know anything about what we’re talking about. You’ve been on a journey that started many years ago, here with Influence Ecology — I know that you and Kirkland known each other for a little bit longer before-

That. But in terms of what you might say to a listener, a new listener, about your own journey. We’ll get to what’s happening now, because we’re here to talk about where are they now. So we’re going to leave the where are they now, for just a minute, but if you think about just talking to a brand new listener, who wants to sort of take the first couple of steps, towards the journey you have. What would you recommend at them?

Paul Adams: I would say, first, if you’ve not done it, find out with you and if you’re married, with your spouse or partner, what is it you actually want from your future. And you know when we meet with our clients, one of the things we often ask is, if we were to meet three years from today, looking back to this conversation to today, what is it you’d most want to have accomplished personally, professionally, financially, to be really happy with your progress over those three years? And even though, almost all of our clients have household incomes between $300 thousand and $2 million a year. So these are people who… like they’re smart and they have done things-

John Patterson: Not sitting around slacking-

Paul Adams: No. And yet that is not an easy question for most of them to answer. Because most of them have spent their personal lives, reacting and responding to the needs of their business or career. So I would say the first thing to get settled in, if you’re going to lets say have a conversation with Influence Ecology or you’re just hearing this podcast, randomly somebody sent it to you, maybe you saw it on somebody’s LinkedIn, that you’re now reflecting like, wait, pause, long enough. You and your spouse, maybe it’s a long dinner together and a piece of paper to just write out, what would we actually want our life to look like three years, five years, ten years from now?

Generally speaking you could just use those three domains of personal, professional, financial. Make it super easy to just, here is where I want to go. And then look at the other people doing what you’re currently doing, the way everybody is doing it is we would talk about it being in the current. And like —  Is anybody having the life, if they’re five years further down their career that you’re in, do they have a life that you want? And actually a good friend of mine that I introduced to Influence Ecology some years ago, he realized in our planning sessions, I said so, “What’s the next stage of your development?” He says, “Oh, it’d be this role.” And I said, “How much they travel?” Because travel was something he didn’t want to do as much of. And you could see he just went, like his face sunk in the moment, because he… it had never occurred to him to look at it that way. It was always the next customer, if you’re a business owner, that next client, that employee growth, the additional office location. Or in a career that next promotion, that next big move, the next bump in pay, are all what people center on and not for a moment do they pause and say, “Wait, is that what I actually want in all the other areas of my life that actually matter?”

And if you think about it, people can ignore a lot of concerns in their life, outside of their career until they’re about 40. I think. People can hard charge, go at it, ignore their health, ignore their family, get a lot of forgiveness, because they’re getting a lot of success. And then they look up at 40, the problem is, all the habits and practices that they developed for the first 20 years, now have to be somehow unwound. It’s not like you can get to 40… Like a diabetic can’t suddenly get diagnosed with diabetes and give up ice cream. It doesn’t work that way. Neither can that person in their 40s now, realizing maybe they want to be home with their kids, now that their kids are, you know, almost, you know, double digits. They can’t just say this is where I’m going to stay home now. Because they’ve got a career that has a momentum and trajectory that they now can’t control.

And to first pause and reflect if, well what I’m doing now actually put me in the… all of these areas, personal, professional, financial, in a way that I would even be remotely satisfied with. And I think a lot of people in their dark quiet moments, maybe by themselves, or maybe with a spouse, they find out, it’s not really going to take me where I want to go. And that’s probably a really good starting point.

John Patterson: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Sorry to interrupt, that’s so heavy — It’s really good because I’m wondering, I know that people are listening, that are both, customers of ours and customers of yours, or possible future customers of yours. Many people at Influence Ecology, user services, wisely I might add.

Paul Adams: Thank you.

John Patterson: And… You’re welcome. Well thank you back. In your work with people, when you have them consider that future, that three year, five year, ten year future. What do you find most people have to confront, I know you said a few things here, but, in general what are some of things you find most people have to begin to confront?

Paul Adams: So one that I don’t think is the way, it’s not the way that they digest it, so I’m going to say it this way, just for the sake of the audience, to get the concept but-

John Patterson: Yep.

Paul Adams: The first thing people have to do is locate themselves inside their ignorance. If you’re going to start excelling in some new area of performance, better marriage, better physical health, better athletic performance, better professional performance, better performance with your money. You kind of need to like… If you were learning chess, first find out what are the bad moves that you’re making, stop those. So locating yourself in what’s not working as a primary tool. And I think that a lot of that can come from being a part of an ecology, of people, where somebody else says, “You guys talk without being able to hold up the mirror.” Because we operate in our everyday life and we don’t hear about these things.

In fact, Cory and I don’t tell everybody the things that… Because people can’t take it all at once anyways. It has to be dripped in overtime, so they can take the little pieces. So I would say one of the first things people have to confront, especially when looking at their long term planning, is understanding that they don’t know simple financial mechanics. Like most people probably listing right now, do not know that if they want $200 thousand of income every year, all throughout their old age, how much money actually has to be in capital at work outside of home equity, to be able to do that. They just… No one has ever taught them because, inside their current, everyone has just taught them the things they need to know to buy the next financial product, but not to hold an entire financial strategy.

John Patterson: Now everybody wants to know that number now that you just said that.

Paul Adams: You’re probably thinking right now, “I wonder what the number is?” And-

John Patterson: What is that number-

Paul Adams: It’s just a four percent distribution rule. So, for every $40 thousand of annual dependable income you want to have, what all the scholarship says, it doesn’t not matter if you invest it in single family homes, or commercial real estate, or you have a diversified basket of stocks and bonds in a diversified portfolio. You can still only take out four percent because those assets, even if they over time do seven or eight, they trend up and down. And as they trend up and down, and you take distributions, your distributions in down years accelerates the erosion of your capital and puts you in a position, where… I’m a little country so it’s like, you’re just eating your seed corn. You got to plant the field again next year.

So we got to make sure people are at least aware, that for every $40 thousand of income that you want to have control over, you got to have a million dollars set aside. So $200 thousand of income, is $5 million capital at work. Or said differently, if you’re making $400 thousand a year a people say, “How do you feel today?” And you say, “I feel like a million bucks.” You should say, “I feel like ten million dollars.” Because that’s what it would take, to throw off $400 thousand a year. You are a really, really valuable asset to your family. And many people don’t think of what’s the capital at work equivalent needed to produce for my family every year, what I do naturally by transacting the market place.

John Patterson: Great. So let’s go back to the beginning of your journey with Influence Ecology. And I’m trying to remember your word, we would say, we point out where people are naïve you’d said, what was your word for it?-

Paul Adams: Oh, locate themselves in their ignorance.

John Patterson: God I can imagine saying that to some people, and they’d be so offended. In any case, so if you locate yourself in your ignorance, in your early days of FOT, simply said, what was it?

Paul Adams: I would say something I went my entire career doing, is I thought what mattered was facts, and not feelings. And facts don’t care about your feelings. That’s what I would literally… like that’s how I oriented to the entire world. And, that worked pretty well because I was such a high performer and I could bring in a value.

But what I realized was, this entire time, every time somebody gave me some new profile to take, or something else, I would use it to learn about myself around personality, but I ignored communicated with other people based upon their personality. Now I did it for a very different reason. The financial services industry, the reason I built out my own business so quickly is, I didn’t like the sales culture of most financial firms. So I tried to distance myself  — As quickly as possible and so much of that sales training had to do with, for this type of personality do this, for… So I just wanted to be as far away as that sales stuff as I could. But I necessarily left behind everything around personalities. And what I learned in Influence Ecology, that I did not know prior, was that knowing something about personalities actually gave me a better capacity to teach people, to help them feel understood, and to give them the ability, for their sake, not mine. But to be able to understand concepts more quickly and transact easier, to become a client of ours, so that it didn’t take so much time. Because otherwise I would just work with the people who’s… their personalities would tolerate mine. Or ones who are simpatico with mine. And I had no idea this entire time, that I had been creating that. And now just understanding those personalities, and the same thing inside my own enterprise.

And now it’s like constant sort of inside jokes about the type of personality I am, between me and Jeff, or me and Miranda, or me and Cory. And how we navigate that and how we keep me focused on the areas I’m most apt to excel at because of my transactional personality type.

John Patterson: That’s good. That’s really great. Well said. Alright so, here you are. You’ve been how many years in this study now.

Paul Adams: I think it’s been almost… I think it’s almost four years… so wait a second, I think I could tell you. Two thousand, so it just have been just three years ago, that I was on the podcast, or 2 and a half, because I started, I think in March 2016… is my guess.

John Patterson: Yeah. So you’ve had the journey up until the time that we spoke before. Where are they now, where are you now? What’s been going on since we’ve last talked. And I know you’ve addressed a few things here, but what’s your journey been about, the last couple of years here at Influence Ecology? You’re still studying with us. You’re still a part of this you know… where I’m going to see you in a few days. So you’re still here. How come? What’s happening now?

Paul Adams: Well I’ll tell you. One of the things, John, that has been the most valuable for me being in Influence Ecology is how, I mean this in a really good way, but I’ve gotten, you know we say inside Influence Ecology like I’m hard to threaten now, both not just because of income, and net worth, who are also helpful. But also, we go out of our way to control our expenses. So it makes it very difficult for one client to say, “Well I might leave” and I say, “Well I can still tell you the truth about your money, because I don’t have to have you as a client.”

That same thing has also branched over to make it that I don’t have to study as rigorously as I used to. And it’s super easy to sit back and yet every month there’s an assignment due. And I have gone through months where I’ve been, maybe conceivably, the worst student that completed an assignment that month. And yet, if it weren’t for that, and I don’t mean it like a pressure. But the cadence of another — every month. There’s another assignment due. Over and over and over again. And If I wasn’t in this study, even if I had all the same books on the shelf, I wouldn’t be able to be in a study of those books. I just would be glancing at them on my shelf, that I think is one of the biggest things that keeps me connected to the ecology. Because frankly, I’ll show up to this mid-year conference, and I will in some way be left in a… And I mean this in a good way, like if you’re a runner and somebody just goes flying past you. People that are still managing to hold all of the major concerns that they have, and get their studies done, and then there will be somebody that might see me and go, “Oh my gosh, like I’m taking too much time in my career. Maybe I need more time with my family.” And they’ll take that from me and we end up being like that old biblical phrase of ironing sharpening iron, in the room together, to be in the position where here we are, all learning from the same… We’re all drinking from the same well but applying it to our own lives, in a way that-

Actually makes it faster for all of us to learn because we see it applied in different environments over and over and over again.

John Patterson: Great. That’s really good. And since we were last together, there have been a few changes in your, staff — So you now… I’ve noticed Cory is part of many of your marketing endeavors — Jeff and say a little bit about what’s happened there and why?

Paul Adams: Yeah so Cory became a partner this last year, and in no small part, became a partner because of, not just the value he was able to bring prior, but going through the fundamentals of transaction program, made him… like the best way I can think of it, like made him the $6 million to me. Like, he now understood who… more about what it was like to deal with me and my personality, and where to get the most out of me, where the enterprise could get the most out of me. To point me like… I can be like a guided missile in a client meeting, as long as I have something that I’m focused on.

But outside of client meetings, I could be a guided missile that’s just come off the launch pad and gone in every direction like… Something launched out of North Korea that splashes down to the Japan sea accidentally. That’s the problem. But now he’s better able to listen to my concerns, execute on behalf of the enterprise, where now we’re basically down to, I have one direct report which is Cory, all the rest of the team reports to Cory, and it really makes it where… while I interact with everybody, there’s something in the enterprise that I don’t have to worry about. And Cory was able to understand how to really fill that role and bring that degree of value to me and to the enterprise. I think in part because of some of the things we both learned in FOT, that allows us to have a similar enough background, that we could execute that.

Now, Jeff coming in to the enterprise was… Oh yeah —

John Patterson: Hold on with Cory for just one second — For just like a… am I curious about the.. Now I’ve know you for a while, you’re a… you identify as an inventor personality as we teach it. And inventor personalities are often lone rangers and, independent, and, you know, my idea or the highway, and different things like that. Right? So, you and I haven’t talked about this, but I had wondered, as I watched Cory saddle up to the inventor. I had wondered about that for you and what you had gone through, what had transpired… for you, and starting to work with somebody like that. And yes I can see that he would, knowing what he’d learned in FTO, be kind of a natural, but what did you deal with?

Paul Adams: So, Cory worked with me prior to FOT for about four years. And, the way the relationship for the most part worked, I think prior to that, and I hope not speaking out of school, so nothing like John, having never talked about something with you before, and then we’ll just talk about it in front of the world here.

So I think, I think Cory, what he was able to do because of FOT is, in certain ways come along side me and in stead of just kind of navigating that inventor personality, is in certain ways, being able to stop me and say, “Paul, I think we need to pause here and do these three things next. Or we need to pause here, not push any further because we need to… there’s some relationship stuff we have to do here.”

Where I’m somebody who I think I can kind of swing judge side when I need to, swing performer side when I need to, I don’t do anything on the bottom side on the transaction cycle. I don’t even like fixing stuff at my own house in terms of actually work in action. I have two tools in my tool box, a cellphone and a check book. I don’t do stuff. I create stuff for other people to do John, is my primary thing.

John Patterson: I understand-

Paul Adams: So what he was able to do though, in learning from FOT was how to re-direct me, without betraying his core personality, not wanting conflict with me. And with that shared — Language set that we both agreed to and being able to say, “Hey Paul I think you’re doing that thing.” And I was able to do the same thing with him, with out that, little bit of an over archering, or overpowering personality type, that people are going to say yes to because he’s the boss. Or because he sounds — Like he’s got it all together and that could run us into problems in the future. So that is the big difference that I thinks come from Cory participating in FOT. And I cannot tell you enough how, what a key thing I think it is so many people become partners in an enterprise. And the only language they share, is the language of that enterprise. And to have those two people do the fundamentals of transaction program together, would be absolutely gold I think for most organizations with partners.

John Patterson: You may or may not know about the work were doing in enterprises. Do you know anything about that?

Paul Adams: Just a little bit. TCX I think-

John Patterson: TCX. Yeah. Transactional Competence across teams, generally speaking. And to their teams that work together. And what we found is that when people understand the transaction cycle as a fundamental framework, and personality again as a fundamental framework. Then it allows them to coordinate action in ways, share a common language, share a common tool, ask the question where are we in this transaction? What is next? Who’s the right role for this transaction? And so far it’s been fantastic. It’s been really great. So, you started to bring up Jeff? Anything else about your team?

Paul Adams: Well I will say one thing that I think could get lost, people may go listen to the other podcast, but I think if it weren’t for… We did a lot of online meetings prior to Influence Ecology. And it wasn’t until learning the transaction cycle, understanding all the key components, that I was able to revisit an entire business model, like in the financial services, financial advising, financial planning world. People are used to people being across the desk from each other, coming into that beautiful office and the trappings and all that. In fact I just spoke to a guy right before the podcast who managed to do a three year trip with his family, in a boat across the world, who owns a financial advising firm. He flew back every quarter for a week, to get all his client meetings done, in about a week and a half, and then fly back out. And to me I was thinking, “Oh my gosh, that seems so horrible.” He says it was bad, like it was… he was totally smoked after a week and a half back in his office, to then be able to fly back to his boat, to continue the three year trip. And we’ve now changed how we transact with people in a way that they actually feel better, because they can access us whenever they need to, wherever they are, it’s not just about wherever we are. And that wouldn’t have been possible if we didn’t have that transaction cycle, and I never could have translated it to my team, and my company, and my employees, without having the simple framework of the transaction cycle to do that. SO just that shared background, I can’t say enough about.

John Patterson: That’s really great. I think we can move on, but anything else you want to say about your team-

Paul Adams: No that’s great. The one fun one is with Jeff. You talk about accomplishments etcetera. Here’s a guy, we actually had him on the podcast, there’s… Our podcast, which is called your business, your wealth. You can find it or Instagram it @wealth podcast or you know, look on any of those socials for it. It just happens to be the one tag I remember.

But he joined us after becoming a client, after handling being the primary person, handling he and Trish’s finances together as a married couple. And not realizing that they had already crossed the finish line to financial independence. Like they had just kept accumulating capital and when he joined us and I said, “Well, you know, you’ve been looking, you’ve kind of open into a career, you don’t really have to work, but you want freedom. Why don’t you just teach people to do what you’ve already done successfully?” He’s like, “Well I don’t have 20 years in the industry, like you do” I said, “Yeah but you do have the accomplishment of already having your money handled. And that’s a pretty hard one for anybody to beat. So you’ve got more swagger than most advisors out there that have been doing it 20 years.” And he says, “Okay.”

And so that’s kind of what instigated him joining our firm a little over a year ago. And he does bring that level of confidence and clarity to people, and an inquiry into the future that they want. And he was pretty open about how his was mostly out of habits to save like crazy, not because he even knew how much was enough. He was even of the scarcey mindset that there would maybe never be enough, he had to keep saving. And even that has cleared up for him and he’s able to translate that to clients.

John Patterson: That’s great. That’s really great. I wanted to turn out attention to, why do you think so many people here at Influence Ecology come to you, and your team for help?

Paul Adams: That’s a good question. I think there’s a few reasons. One is, I think our relationships with everybody with whom we meet. Whether it’s somebody off the podcast, or where I’m a guest somewhere, speaking somewhere, is that we start every potential conversation with somebody, who’s a potential client. Every potential client relationship just starts with, lets have a meeting, via zoom, where we just share our philosophy. We’re not going to make you an offer, we’re not going to ask you to open your financial kimono. We are only going to share with you how we look at the world. Because inside most financial firms, they are slightly changing their narratives, their language or maybe even the perceived philosophy, based upon whatever is most important to the client.

So that first meeting, made probably many listeners have been in a first meeting with some financial person, where they’re asking some personal questions, etcetera. And they’re kind of figuring out what’s going to best take care of you, that might have you become a client. And we don’t… we can’t do that because we would now have like hundreds of hours of audio and video and print media out there about our philosophy as a firm. So I can’t change our philosophy for that person we’re meeting with. What I can do-

Is I can say, “this is how we look at the world, what we think is going on, why retirement doesn’t work for most people, especially not people at higher income ranges. Not in the way that society teaches us, because that’s spent, nothing bad about the 90%. But they’ve designed it for, most families making under $150 a year, which doesn’t work the same for families making over $300. And when we kind of open that up and really discuss the things that most people affiliate with financial institutions never talk about, it builds a fair amount of trust. And then when we finish, we let people know that, you can apply to become a client, or not. And if you don’t want to, that’s okay. But we’ll never call you or follow up with you again.

If you want to you can apply and then we’ll let you know, if we can make an offer, and we’ll only make you an offer if we think it’s ethical for us to do so. And I think that that simple orientation, and our ability to be location independent, makes it so easy for people to at least have an initial conversation with us. Which has lead to so many of the opportunities to work with Influence Ecology students. So I would say, that is why.

John Patterson: And how do you think our philosophies, influence enologies and yours, how do you think they align?

Paul Adams: Well, one to my experience, and I’ve been around a lot of different coaching organizations, all kind of aiming toward, work less, make more, or advance your career, build your business more, et cetera. And Influence Ecology is the only one I have ever been a part of. And I’m telling you, since I was 20, I’ve spent upwards of $40 thousand a year, some years, in educating myself. And this is the first time anybody’s actually, made as a part of one of the introductory assignments, and initial course work, you need to understand whether or not you’re thinking accurately or naively-

John Patterson: Accurately.

Paul Adams: With bunch of naivete. Are you ignorant or not basically? Do you have any idea how much money it’s going to take, and how good your doing toward that end, and I think it speaks to yours and Kirkland’s ethical commitment, to not just care that people make more money, but to care that people are setting themselves up for the future because, nobody I’ve ever been around does that. And I would challenge people like, have you ever been a part of a program that literally says like, “these are the numbers, these are the metrics, here’s a calculator. Can you actually do the math to even know where you’re at?” And too often people can’t. And it’s prob… I’m going to… I’ve never asked you about this but I imagine it’s the part of the assignments that get people most agitated… in their early course work.

John Patterson: Yeah, it is. It is absolutely. And I think it’s worth taking a second and saying something about it because, in the early days, or in the early studies of influence ecology, many people are confronting their naivete, or their… their ignorance. As you call it. And their confronting that naivete about a variety of things. And we do want to, as we say here at Influence Ecology, hold up the mirror, so that people have the opportunity to see, or observe something that they may never have. And too often we live in a world that will simply say, you know, “You go for it! Do it! That’s a great idea!”-

Paul Adams: It’ll all work out.

John Patterson: Yeah! It’s awesome! I want that too Fantastic idea! You know not too many people are going to say, “Dude that’s a mistake. That’s going to… Or hold on a second, what’s your aim here? I don’t understand why you’re doing that.”

It is unfortunate, but we don’t often live amongst a group of people that will mirror back to us, the kinds of behaviors, practices, ethics, activities, that actually work against us.

And so Influence Ecology has been designed to do that.

Paul Adams: Yes.

John Patterson: And so as you mentioned, even in a relationship, or in a many areas of life, what people do is they come here and they have aims, and many different conditions of life. And our job is to A, have them think accurately about most things. B, begin to look for the naïve. C, construct transactions to satisfy those things, in reality, not as a fantasy.

Paul Adams: Yes.

John Patterson: And when we do that, when we do that well, people, you know, can go spend a year in an RV and to have all their aims met. It’s fantastic.

Paul Adams: Yep. And it’s funny, when you talk about aims and, you know, I’m sure in other podcasts you’ve covered them more in detail. But being able to anticipate what they’re going to be and address them in advance, is now something that’s just… I don’t — I’m not saying that I do it right all the time. But one of the things I’ve had to do, is actually design a physical work out regiment, that will work. When I’m in an RV for a year because otherwise I’ll have a massive breakdown on my health and an inability to workout consistently if I do not have the structures, the things in reality needed in the RV to do it. And close enough by, and construct in a way that I will do them everyday. And that is like one thing that could ruin my life, and being on the road for a year, is if my health fell apart.

John Patterson: Yes. Alright well sir is there anything else you want to say to the public before we sign off?

Paul Adams: You know just for those of you that are Influence Ecology students who have contributed to my life, whether that could have been you being at a conference or on a conference call, that I may have listened to live, or listened to recorded. Nearly everybody in the Ecology has given me, something for me to chew on, to reflect on. Or something that you may have just said about yourself, or something you’re dealing with on a podcast, that caused reflection for me. Nearly everybody in that room, that’s been in that room more than once, has contributed me in some way. And if it weren’t for you and Kirkland having constructed this long before I ever became a student, I would have never had that opportunity just from the… just the bottom of my heart. Thank you guys for being here and having created this environment, that I just got to step into as a student, write relatively small set of checks, compared to the checks you guys had to write early on to build all of it.

And to all the other students that take time to be on the calls, on the podcast, share your thinking, get up in front of the room and share something that you learned. There’s probably something about nearly every student in my notes of something I’ve learned from them at a conference so, thanks to all of them and thanks to you and Kirkland.

John Patterson: Well Paul, thank you so much for being a guest today. It’s a pleasure-

Paul Adams: Well thanks for having me.

John Patterson: In this episode’s talk, we’ll hear a segment of a webinar on the value and cost of people’s personality in transactions. While many people around us are eager to point out our value, or perhaps, we’re quiet eager to let people know about our value. It’s very unlikely that we’re surrounded with the opportunity to have a mirror reflect back to us, the cost we are in transactions. So we can lower our cost. And in doing so raise our value. Here’s the talk.

John Patterson: You can start to look at your own personality from this framework. So for example, if you tend to be a little more skeptical, you enjoy the narratives around facts, judgements, assessments. People count on you to keep the standards, keep the guidelines, let everybody know how things are run around here. You know, those kinds of things.

If you’re a producer down at the 6 o’clock place in the transaction cycle, you might be much more objective if things are what they are. It’s black and white, it’s on or off, it’s in or out, this is the checklist, let’s get it done. We do this, it’s just simple. It’s all black and white, where at the top of the transaction cycle, you have a personality and a better personality who’s a little bit more subjective.

Subjectivism `as a philosophy is simply that everything that I can experience is just an interpretation of the mind and those things are malleable, they change. The producer would say, “No, no, no. This table’s not an interpretation. If I leave this room, this table’s still going to be here.” The inventor would say, “No, no, no. Who knows if it’s really there? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s an interpretation. Maybe there are possibilities we have not considered about what is real and what isn’t real” right, you can hear all of that. Or performers, performers really are able to construct narrative in the moment. You can call on them to stand up in front of a room or… you know, go talk to somebody, and they’re always able to construct proper narrative. They’re able to construct that narrative because they are steeped in the present moment, in the now, with people, amongst others, in relationships. Their biology is wired on, “Are we good? Are we good? Are you good? Are we good? How’s our relationship?” It’s all that sort of stuff.

So you may start to identify personality from that perspective, and I have an entire sort of chart, if you will, that we might come back to in a moment. I know people love it, so I’m not going to look at that for just about a sec But I want to do is have you consider perhaps which personality that you might identify with for the moment and start to address perhaps, the asset you are. Because every one of us is an asset when our personality is aligned with the proper role in the transaction.

An inventor’s, as we said, tend to be future based, idea oriented people, they’re self reliant and highly subjective in their thinking. While performers tend to be present based, relationship oriented people who are inclined to be highly flexible in their thinking.

Producers tend to be short term and objective in their thinking, and are highly work oriented doers. And judges tend to be skeptical people relying on standards, competence and evidence, prior to taking action.

Skepticism, skepticism simply is, “I don’t know yet. Show me the evidence. I’m not sure I agree. Show me the evidence.” So when our assets are aligned with the proper place in transaction, then we tend to accelerate those transactions. However, we also tend to grind transactions to a halt, we stop them, because we’re… our personality is also a liability if our personality is misaligned, with the proper role in the transaction.

So an inventor may tend to halt transactions with new ideas, or need to control. And may avoid or dismiss relationships or judgements, in other words, may tend to dismiss the personalities on either side of the transaction cycle. In other words, going here, and this is the same for all the personalities, so an inventor may tend to dismiss sort of the value, of the other personalities in the transaction. Especially the one that follows it, right?

So as we said inventors tend to halt them that way. Performers tend to halt transactions with relationship concerns. Like a little bit too concerned for relationship, so they got to stop everything and make sure we’re good. Or they tend to stop transactions with mood campaigns. A mood campaign is a kind of, “Oh my gosh, isn’t this amazing? Don’t you just love this? I love this food. Don’t you love it? Gosh I…” They’re campaigning for mood. Or they may avoid or dismiss commitments or facts.

Producers tend to halt transaction with premature, unnecessary doing. They’re always quite ready to get to work on something where, we’re just talking about some ideas here, just hold on. And they may avoid or dismiss completion or flexibility. Producers tend to like things to be consistent as they are. You know let’s just get the procedure set up, once and done.

Judges tend to halt transactions with authoritative evidence, or confrontive standards, “No, no, no, that’s not the way we do things around here.” … Right? And may avoid or dismiss vision or repetition. So we want to begin, as I said, point to both the asset and the liability of our personalities in transactions.

John Patterson: My special thanks to our guest, Paul Adams. In our show notes you’ll find links to connect with him, and all the links to websites, books for downloads, mentioned in this podcast.

The Influence Ecology Podcast is produced by Influence Ecology, LLC in Ventura, California. This episode was recorded July 15th, 2019 and was produced by Tyson Crandall and John Patterson. You can find a transcript for this and other episodes at InfluenceEcology.com. This episode is made possible through the assistance of the Influence Ecology Faculty, Staff, Mentors, and Students around the world. Co-founder Kirkland Tibbels and our colleagues comprise an international collective of professionals who are active in the development of the philosophy of Transactionalism and the discipline of Transactional Competence. Kirkland is considered a leading philosopher and authority in the field and he has authored more than 500 papers on the subject, study, and discipline.

This episode includes contributions by Karal Gregory. The podcast theme is by Chris Standring and titled ‘Fast Train to Everywhere.’ You can subscribe to the Influence Ecology Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or via email at podcast@influenceecology.com.

If you haven’t yet offered a rating or review, I ask that you take a moment go to iTunes or your podcast app and let us know what you think. This helps us more than you know.

Trisha Tyler began studying with Influence Ecology in 2012. She was single, struggling to transform a team’s performance, and had a fair amount of consumer debt. During her early participation, Tricia became a disciple of accurate thinking as it made her a better leader and decision-maker, good mentor, and coach. As a graduate of our curriculum, she is now married, has had several promotions and raises and now lives a life of surplus – a surplus of income, freedom, and adventure. Her experience and her journey are a case study in the kind of accurate thinking and planning that allows for living an inspiring life.

Here’s the interview.

Below you’ll find a transcript of this podcast episode that has been edited for your reading pleasure. You’ll also see links at the bottom of this post where you can find more information on the people and ideas mentioned in the episode.

by John Patterson
Produced by: John Patterson & Tyson Crandall

“If I haven’t done the accurate thinking about what my aims are and my conditions of life, I wouldn’t be able to do those things because I’d be wasting my time chasing something around.”

Highlights from the original interview with Trisha Tyler

“I’ve given up that naive notion that I’m the one who’s supposed to do all of those things and instead I just make myself very valuable to those around me by doing the things I do great, and doing a lot more of that and doing that almost exclusively.”

“We define value as it’s useful if it’s got utility, right? And then it’s the scarcity of that utility, is everybody able to provide that same usefulness? If so, then it’s going to be difficult to really be perceived as highly valuable if everybody can provide it or a lot of people can provide it.”

“One of the best ways to increase value is just go, “what do you count on me for that you really want?” And if you really know the person and you really can take it go, “what’s the other stuff you’ve got to put up with to be able to get that?” Because the more I can remove the stuff that they’re just putting up with which we also call high cost behaviors, the more I can remove those things and those antics and behaviors, and whatever you want to call them, or reduce them. And the more I can focus on doing the things that they really want to count on me for, I’ve already increased my value there. And those can be really small steps that can make a big impact.”

Here’s the latest interview

Trisha Tyler: My name is Trisha Tyler, and I am a partner with Mercer. And my specific role is I co-lead our west market health business. So we do health consulting with employers to help them purchase healthcare for their employees and their families. And so I lead basically a third of the country, if you will, along with my colleague, Hayley Tevin.

John Patterson: Fantastic. And the third of the country that you lead is which part of the country?

Trisha Tyler: It’s the west. The we look at it is everything from Denver west.

John Patterson: Very good. All right, very, very good. First of all, there’s a few things I want to say to welcome you to the podcast. One, I always have had a place protected in my heart for Trisha Tyler for very many reasons. One is you’re the third person I ever interviewed for the Influence Ecology podcast. Your picture has adorned our podcast marketing everywhere it goes. And it’s such a great image of a cheerful and knowledgeable. Anyway, I always loved the picture, so it’s always been great for that.

And then you have many roles with Influence Ecology. First of all, you’re an esteemed alumni, meaning that you’re someone who’s completed our entire curriculum. You have participated since 2012. So seven years, so you can believe that. Can hardly believe that time has flown. And then finally, you also serve on the board of the Institute for Transactional Philosophy, which is now something new that is around these parts. We might say a little bit about that, but welcome to you. Thanks for being here. And I always can’t wait for people to hear what you’ve got to say.

Trisha Tyler: Thank you so much John.

John Patterson: So there’s a few things that I think are very useful for us to talk about. One is we interviewed you some time ago and that interview, and in fact I’ve told many people about that interview for a variety of reasons. One is that interview is for a particular customer of Influence Ecology. As our listeners may or may not know, there are people that participate here, some of which are entrepreneurs, some of are small business owners, some of people are executives within larger organizations. And whether or not you are starting something new or you’re immersed in a larger enterprise, ultimately what we’re working with people to do is to increase their value within the marketplace or within the enterprises that they work. And yours is the podcast I often refer people to when I say, “Look, there’s an opportunity for you to increase your value in an enterprise. Go listen to Trisha, she’ll tell you how.”

Trisha Tyler: Very true.

John Patterson: So as our poster child for that, anything else you want to say to our listeners about that particular aspect of your journey? We’ll let people know where you are now, but anything you want to say about the earlier parts of your journey and increasing your value?

Trisha Tyler: Yeah, sure thing. Probably one of the most important things that I got a lot of things out of my fundamentals of transaction course, but something that really stood out for me was being high cost, being low cost, and how to look at any environment in which you participate. And thinking about how can you be as valuable as possible in that environment, because that makes it easier to get things done to meet your conditions of life or meet your aims. And that just became really clear to me, not always clear what exactly needed to be done, but that there was an inquiry to take, and to take stock of my own behaviors in the way I transacted with people. The way I made requests or didn’t make requests and how that could be high cost. So just because I had good intentions with people, did not mean I was a good Transactionalist.

I continue to learn more and more about that and obviously as I grow in my career or I grow in new communities, or wherever that may be, it’s looking at what is needed in that environment or what is it that I can provide that is an offer of help or support, that would be meaningful and valuable for people. And then how can we exchange on that value? It’s not necessarily tit for tat, it’s not like that. It’s just it’s important to meeting my aims that others know that I’m valuable to them and that I work to make sure I’m valuable, and that that value over time changes as anything does in a marketplace. What was valuable in one environment last week may not be the same thing as in that same environment next week, or in another one at the same time.

So it’s being aware of that and thinking about what is needed here or what can I provide here. So it’s helped me define more of my career, just helps me in a lot of aspects of life.

John Patterson: I think there’s a way for us to make this clear too, because you may know that we’re doing some work in enterprises now. And one of the things that’s often being addressed is value and cost of any individual in a transaction. And to make it very simple, sometimes we’re a cost and sometimes we’re a value. But just because we’re valuable, doesn’t mean we’re always valuable. Sometimes our value is also a cost.

So there is a training for people to do so that they can understand that they are in fact a cost here or a cost there. And if they want to increase their value, they better reign in their cost. Any comments?

Trisha Tyler: No, it’s really true. I don’t think there’s any absolutes to your point. I’m not absolutely always valuable. And this notion of being high cost in something in Transactionalism or just inside of influence ecology, it’s just sometimes I can be the nicest person in the world and still high cost to get something done with. So it just depends on the personality I’m working with and what we’re trying to do. Sometimes I can be high cost to somebody because I’m not relational enough with them. Right? So just depends on that high cost. It’s in the eye of the beholder for sure. It really is thinking about how does that individual transact? What is going to meet their needs as well? And it’s not only about that, but it’s having the awareness to take that into consideration as to how am I going to engage, how am I going to talk with speak with this person?

What kinds of requests might I make of them? What kinds of offers might I make to them? And then the low cost piece is just taking out the noise that might be in the transaction, making more work than there needs to be for any given person in the process.

So I think about both of those things. And value is definitely a reflection of what was the cost as a part of the transaction. So I could have something incredibly valuable, but if I’m really high cost in the process, someone is still going to weigh that. They’re still going to say, “Yeah, she can produce great results. But man, what was the cost to get to that point? Am I willing to bear that?” So they’re both important.

John Patterson: From time to time I’m working with people, and I’m doing the best I can to bring to light the cost they are in a transaction. Perhaps they are unaware of that their series of questions is a cost. Not always of course. Like you said, you have to know the situation. You have to know when it’s appropriate, when it’s inappropriate, when it’s costly, when it’s a value. If you were going to give your two cents to anybody listening, maybe this is their first podcast and they’re wondering how am I lower my cost in my enterprise? Certainly there’s the other side. How can I raise that value? And your previous podcast addressed that, and we’ll put a link in so people can hear that. But if you were going to give your own two cents about how might a person in an enterprise lower their, what might you say?

Trisha Tyler: I would say rather than thinking, “I need to know this from every person that I’m interacting with,” you want to take just even a sample size of three, three probably most important people that you know that you definitely want to be low cost and very valuable too. I had an executive coach tell me years ago, “Your boss needs to be one of them.” [laughs] Yeah, it’s kind of important. And then there are influencers around you, right? It’s on necessarily just those at the top of the hierarchy. In an organization, anybody who works in large global organizations like the one I work in and work with clients who are large global organizations and whatnot. It may not necessarily always be hierarchical, but you know who the influencers are and definitely the people who are most impactful for meeting your needs.

And from there, you want to start to look and see, first of all, you might want to inquire about what is their transactional personality type to get a sense of how do they want to be transacted with. So that’s important, that’s just a stylistic consideration.

And then thinking about what’s important to them? What are they trying to achieve? And thinking about how I’m a help to that or how I want to be helped with that. And then there’s just basic John, inquiring. How could I make it easier on you? It’s just a question in any given way. I want to help. I know that you’ve got a big job or I know you’ve got a lot of accountabilities, and I’m here to help. Here’s some things I can offer. I just want to know is that going to be valuable to you? Not just the open ended question. How can I help? Because that now is high cost as well cause the individual, it’s uncommon upon them to answer that question. And they may not be thinking about your help. Getting to know the ways in which you are hard to do things with and not taking that personally but taking it as well within your purview to do something about. I think is a really good way to be willing to change the way you do things to be easier for people to get things done with.

John Patterson: Take us on a short little journey of your career, your money, your relationship journey. And there’s a lot of things that have happened in seven years. When you first started with Influence Ecology, there were your aims back then. I know that you were committed to increasing your income and looking to some of your long term aims and goals. But just take us from where you started seven years ago to where you are now so people get a sense of what you’ve accomplished over that time.

Trisha Tyler: Seven years ago, I just relocated to California from the East Coast. I had taken a role within the company I worked for at that time and it was leading a small team of people. And I had not done the accurate thinking about the difference in moving from where I did on the east coast to being in California. There was quite a cost difference. And I think I’d done a little bit of calculating but not the appropriate amount of thinking about it. I had my fair share of consumer debt at that point, and I did want to earn more money, because I legitimately to be able to have it all work. And I wasn’t succeeding in the role that I was in. It felt like a struggle to really get the transformation done in that team that needed to be done.

And I was also single. I just started dating who is now my husband, Jeff Miller. So we had just started dating at a distance at that point. So just to fast forward to where we are now. So Jeff and I are married. We celebrate our fourth anniversary here in just a matter of days. So this week, and-

John Patterson: Congratulations.

Trisha Tyler: Thank you. And we live in Seattle now, and I joined Mercer back in 2013. So you can see, started studying in 2012. Really started to assess what was going on. So that’s where their main aims are being met, those types of things to my fundamentals of transaction. And one of the things the founders and the instructors always tell us is don’t make immediate changes.

So I did, I waited about a year to make those changes but had a much better sense of what I was looking for in an employer, in an environment, in a team, and even in just the role in general. And made the move to Mercer in 2013. So I’ve worked through a number of positions with them at this point, but it’s been applying a lot of what we’ve studied in Influence Ecology that’s really helped me.

John Patterson: So now your starting position for somebody to equate it to where you started and where you are now. Say what that is.

Trisha Tyler: At my previous employer. I was leading a small team. I mean literally a team of about eight people. And today we have a team of over 200. Well I can’t share the exact financials of what I lead. It’s many, many, many, many, many times what it was beforehand. And in terms of the accountability I hold of the kind of other revenue that I lead a business of the revenue of the size that it is. So I have just a lot more accountability of a lot more people who roll up to me. And it’s just a different brand of the firm that I work for. So very well known, I would call it creme de la creme brand. We’re known for the kind of excellence that we have. So I’m in a very different environment than I was previously and amongst a lot of incredible people that I love getting to work with. So just overall, the whole picture has been very different and just a complete upgrade for me.

John Patterson: One of the notes that you made is that during your fundamentals and during your journey, you became a disciple of accurate thinking. I think that’s the word you used. I love that. So that accurate thinking around your money, around your health, around what you do in your spare time. Leading a balanced life, being in a relationship, the value that you bring to an enterprise. Your contribution to the world’s oceans and so forth. You’ve come a long way and done some pretty amazing things over the course of these years. Anything you want to let us know about what kind of accurate thinking has brought you and what we can learn from that?

Trisha Tyler: I can tell now that what I really want in the world is to help any person, any business, any advocate, any nonprofit, anything just to think accurately about how to have what they want in the world to come to fruition. And that’s never done as an individual agent. That’s never done as an individual. It’s always done in an ecology of some sort.

Let’s start with finances. The first thing I had to do is go, “Here’s how much trouble I’m in.” You have to start to look and not just see what’s my retirement calculator, but really where do I want to be? What does that look like? What does a budget into the future when I retire look like? What does it look like today? What can I reliably plan on? What does a market perform at over time? And then really being able to say, what do I need to do now to have that?

And I’m a performer, I identify with performers, a transactional personality type. So what is my a dominant need for happiness? Well, that is freedom. So dealing in financial matters and constraining myself probably was not my top priority for quite some time in my life. It didn’t mean that I just spent all my money, but it just meant I was also going to satisfy my need for freedom a lot. The way to accurate thinking in this performer’s heart is going I plan the future with good accurate thinking. And the resources that I need from other people who may think more accurately on a topic just have the depth of knowledge, and their specialized knowledge to apply to something to help me think accurately about it. So then I have the freedom in the moment to do what I need to do within a certain threshold and still meet that future need, those future aims and whatnot.

So there’s been, and I will say doing that with my spouse who identifies as a judge and as a transactional personality type, his dominant need for happiness is security. So those can be right, early in our relationship was like, that was one of my love this man, he’s those amazing person knew exactly who I wanted to be with and who I still want to be with. And I could identify very quickly this is going to be a real issue for us. And if we don’t really learn how to transact with one another on this. So we’ve gone through this really great journey to identify what that future looks like, and it’s created a lot of peace and a lot of freedom and security for both of us in the process. So that to me is probably, that’s worth every moment I’ve spent studying, every dollar I’ve just been on tuition and then some to be able to get to that place.

And we are in a great spot. We look at retirement or financial freedom, not having to work. Probably is within about eight to nine years, and that’s great. I’m 43 so that’s a good spot to be in. I know that I’m not hamstrung, I don’t have to, which is another thing for a performer. I don’t have to do this thing at this rate. I can choose to do what I’m doing and make the next choice, not just necessarily tied to what I must make, but is it the right opportunity for me? Is it going to make me happy? Is it going to use my skills and all that kind of stuff? So I have more considerations than just financial ones at this point given the work we’ve done on that.

John Patterson: Sounds harmonious. You didn’t say that word, but it sounds like your relationship with Jeff is rather harmonious. Definitely different needs for happiness. Yours is freedom, his is security, and you’ve navigated those waters very successfully and found a harmonious place to come from. I just think it’s always an amazing thing that in the study of transactional competence and transactional behavior and personality, both that relationships tend to couple up in that way. And that there is something wonderful that happens when both people are participating here and understand how to read the other, what matters to the other. But not like you should be more like me but instead no, I need to be able to talk your language. Any comments about all that?

Trisha Tyler: I’m a huge fan of judges. Probably out of just the love affair I have with my husband in general. Just appreciating how he thinks, the value I received from his thinking. Because judges are well known for their standards. They have very excellent standards. It is harmonious and it really is about being able to appreciate one another and know that I’m not just solving … in any marriage of course, you’re not just solving for one side of the equation. But being able to look and go what’s going to actually have this work for both of us? If I’m the only one getting what I want, then this is not a sustainable pathway for us. It’s about both of us. And because we have a better understanding of one another’s needs for happiness and whatnot, we can work together on solving for that, for inventing the transaction that’s actually going to work for that to encourage one another.

And I think that’s the other thing is the encouragement that comes for one another is really great. Like for instance, we had this moment last week, John. I’ve been running a lot, so I’ve been running a number of races. I’m training for a marathon, and this is one of the things that I took up when I came to Seattle. I wanted to explore the city through running, and it’s become something I do more of. I had an invitation to do this race called the Ragnar race in the northwest and it’s a 200 mile relay race. You do with 12 people on a team, six people in each van, and you run for 36 hours of one person running after another. This is how some people define fun by the way, which is I’m one of them. And I ran 18.3 miles in all of this.

But it was a consideration last week because I have a big schedule as you could imagine, and a full life, and things going on in my family, and we’re going on a vacation soon, and all kinds of things. My mom said, “Absolutely not. Your schedule is too crazy. There’s no way.” I said thank you. And I came home and I told my husband about it because it was an opportunity to just jump into it because somebody had dropped out. And he said, “Let’s see.” He goes, “This is on your bucket list, isn’t it?” And I said yes. And I live a pretty adventurous life. And I think you alluded to this just a little bit, and I’ll talk a little bit more about that.

But adventure is a really important thing. I think we think that sits as a condition of life aesthetic, but it’s really important. And I said, “Yeah, it’s on my bucket list.” He goes, “And you could figure it out on your schedule?” I said, “Yes I can.” He goes, “You’re trained for it so you can do the race.” I said yes. So you can see the process of us going through the accurate thinking together. And he goes, he goes, “I think you should do it. I know it’s crazy, but you’ve done crazier things, and you can totally do this.” So then he works through the process with me of getting me ready. Within 24 hours, it was done and I was planning to get on the van and all that kind of stuff.

So that’s the thing that happens when you understand one another’s, not just personalities like a textbook, but you understand what makes people happy and you can help work through that with one another. It’s just very supportive and encouraging.

John Patterson: You made a note, and it’s a fantastic bit of language. You said something akin to when you’re wasting resources, building surplus is hard. And in fact it rung like a great title of a podcast. Because here you are, you’ve been studying with us for seven years. We train people in how to think accurately about building transactions to satisfy their ends. And you have to start with your resources. And when you look at your resources early on in our programs, people often look and see they may have limited resources due to debt or they may not have built a surplus health, body, health, right? They may not have built the surplus of the kind of identity that can move mountains. And you seemed to have built quite a bit of surplus over the course of years. It allows you to adventure. It allows you to do some things I know you’re doing now. I’m interested if you’ve accomplished some amazing things. So anything that you want to say about those surplus you’ve build and what it’s allowed you’re to enjoy?

Trisha Tyler: Sure. Yeah. First of all, I think we should live full interesting lives. I believe that and I tell every one of the people, colleagues I get the opportunity to both lead and work with. You should lead full and interesting lives, whatever that looks like for you. And I think really what that translates into the work that we study, it’s the conditions of life that we study and thinking through those and go what would it look like to have that be satisfactory? You can aim for the moon and the stars and that’s valuable too and you should go, how do I get that to just where it will do? I’m satisfied with it and I know that I’ve actually achieved something that it makes me feel good about it.

And what I would say is an example of this is working in the United States a lot of times thinking that executive level leadership. There’s this notion that wow, I took a week long vacation. That’s the most you can get away with, right? You shouldn’t do any more than that. And I just don’t subscribe to this. I am responsible about how I take my vacations and I’m responsible to make sure that people know how to get things done in my absence. But I think there’s also this thing in the, we call the current, right? What people think is if you’re gone for any longer than that, they’re going to think they can do it without you.

And I just don’t subscribe to this. I believe that if I’ve actually been doing my job and bringing people along and developing them, and if I do the accurate thinking and the planning, this will operate without me. And that’s appropriate. And it should. If the system fails because I leave or any one person leaves, then I haven’t designed the right system to take care of what’s needed. Both my aims, the aims of the organization, the individuals in the organization, all of it.

So I feel a lot of freedom to go a 19 day scuba diving adventure in the next two weeks, just right after conference. They end of July. Jeff and I will go for 19 days. We’ll be in the Solomon Islands. We’ll spend 10 days on a boat that’s going to do nothing but scuba dive and one of the most beautiful coral reefs in the world. And we’ll be unplugged that whole time. Meaning there’s only one satellite phone on the boat. I’m not going to use it for anything unless there’s an emergency and only for people who need to contact me for emergencies will be there. And I will have the freedom to know that I can be free to be unplugged, and to see fish, and to see sharks, and to see all the things that I love that fills up my reservoirs. It gives me the mental health boost that I love, the sense of health that I lead, and just the adventure, and all of those pieces that are really important to me being a whole human being. I get that.

And people think, oftentimes in my environment they think I’m crazy. But I notice how much it inspires in many of our young people and inspires people of all ages, because it’s possible. It’s possible to do it and have a career still that grows. It’s also like I’m getting my pilot’s license, so I’m close. Not quite there. I’m almost there. So I would just be in my private pilot’s license. And I’ve been studying this about a year and a half now. So I’ve soloed, I’ve done my cross country solos, I’ve done my exams, all that stuff. And people think that’s crazy. “When do you have the time to do that?” Well, that’s oftentimes my weekend, but it’s worth it. It’s so much fun to be able to get in a plane and be able to fly, and go to someplace I probably wouldn’t have gone otherwise.

So I just think when you plan, you can have these types of things really work for you. Now the key there, and you’d mentioned earlier, if I waste my time, and my money, and my focus, all of which are limited resources. Chasing after things that I don’t know are actually what I want. And if I haven’t done the accurate thinking about what my aims are and my conditions of life, I wouldn’t be able to do those things because I’d be wasting my time chasing something around. Either something that somebody I admired had, or somebody told me that this is what a successful person looks like, or whatever. Whatever that thing is, we all are susceptible to those influences. We have incredible marketers in this world who will sell us all sorts of things. And it’s not just, they’ll sell us all sorts of things.

So if I am not rooted in what is it that I say I want and really working towards that, and planning for that, then I am fresh bait, so to speak, for anybody from a resources and my focus, my time, my money, and everything else. So I think that’s also part of what makes these things possible is being able to be focused on the things I want. And that’s in my work that I do every day for Mercer, it’s in my life in these other areas. So that’s what I would say about getting focused on those things.

John Patterson: You’ve been on a seven year journey to address the kind of accurate thinking that’s required to look at your resources, and to look at the resources you have at your disposal. To build your resources, to build a surplus of time and money, and things like that. Let’s think for just a minute about a listener who may be at the beginning of their journey. I have things I might say for them to start, but I’d like to know your version. If I was going to start off and start to take care of the resources that I need to live like you’re describing, which does sound inspiring, right? So where am I to start, do you think?

Trisha Tyler: I think where we start in fundamentals of transaction is a perfect spot. It is looking at my money, it’s looking at the work that I do. So how I spend my time, what I do with my mind and my body. It looks at our health, and it looks at our career. And career being how I’m known. What am I known for? Right?

And those four areas, there’s plenty of other areas to delve into. I do subscribe to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. You must have these basic ones I just outlined that we study quite a bit in fundamentals of transaction. Those have to make do for any other of these other ones to really be something you can accomplish.

So I think that’s an important part. You need to at least understand what you want in those areas and be able to see a pathway that you are embarking on to have those be satisfied before all of these other things open up. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t inquire about it, it’s just making sure you’ve got the right focus in the right place at the right time.

But it doesn’t take forever. We’re talking seven years. If you do the right work and you’re honest about it, and you can confront the naiveté you have about certain things that I’ve certainly have in spades, and I continue to have John, by the way. Unfortunately, you haven’t given us any solution for not having naiveté any longer. So it just happens. As you move into different environments and ecologies and whatnot. Now I’ve got a new naiveté-

John Patterson: Now we’re on the hunt for it, right? Now we’re like, where am I naïve? Let’s go look.

Trisha Tyler: Yeah, exactly. I just have a different set of tools is what I have, but I still have naiveté. So I think just starting there to be able to understand those things because trying to aspire for getting a pilot’s license but not being able to really save for my retirement would be silly. It wouldn’t make sense unless of course becoming a pilot was going to be a career and I was clear, that was an investment I was going to make otherwise. So just being able to do those types of things I think is really important.

John Patterson: The last thing I’d like to ask you about is career, because you’ve had an amazing career. And as we teach career for those that are new and maybe listening for the first time, when we talk about career, we talk about your identity of value and help. So how other people relate to your value, how they relate to your help.

A year ago we began something called Career Expedition, and Kirkland and I have observed your moving rather powerfully around the Career Expedition, especially as you moved into Seattle. Tell us a little bit about that.

Trisha Tyler: Well first of all, what I would say is you and Kirkland, you always design the best thing that we’re going to tackle at a conference and for an entire year. So it’s a theme of the year and oftentimes there’s an expedition involved. So I’m already on board with an expedition, given my love for adventures and whatnot. So the Career Expedition was one where we sat down, I did some work at annual member conference in January, which is always an excellent way to kick off our year.

And we had to first assess what was my career looking like in these various areas, what would I want it to look like? And then what would, you have to do some planning, and some strategies and some tactics around that. And it was out of that that I started to notice I was still new to Seattle. We just moved up here in the very end of 2016 and I wanted to become better known in the business community. And I knew there was plenty of one on one conversations and meetings I would have and whatnot. So I would want to make maximize and make the best of those. But I also wanted to start to build a bit of a brand. So I’d done that to a couple of different things.

But one of them was we had an award, the WIBLI Award that’s handled out by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, which is a very strong chamber of commerce here. And it was for the female leader of the year. And so a number of my colleagues nominated me for the award, and we had the meeting where we had the the banquet if you will, where it’s the unveiling of it. There’s just these really incredible, powerful women that have been here for a long time in this community, and any one of them was definitely deserving to win. When I read their list of accomplishments, I was like for sure she’s going to win. For sure she’s going to win.

So when I won, I was really, it wasn’t so much that I was surprised. It’s just I think I realized that there’s something I provide that’s of value to people. And what I was told there afterwards, the biggest reason why I won was because it was really clear how authentic my help was to mentoring other people in our business and other women. And it’s not even just specific to women, but that was also an important part of it overall is bringing people up in general. And John, honestly that’s just a passion of mine. I would do that whether they were handing out awards or not. Because I care about people thinking accurately, getting what they want in life, and developing to be able to get themselves to the place. I’m willing to have conversations and coach people in those ways to be able to do that. It’s just one of my delights of being a leader.

So to be given that award in a community that is well established, right? It’s very well established, there’s a lot of people who’ve been in this business community for a long time. It’s responsible for lot of ingenuity that’s spread across our country if you think about it, what all comes out of Seattle. And to be given that award, it meant and it does mean a whole lot. And also candidly, while it’s flattering on the one hand, it also made me even more accountable for making sure that I’m giving that into this community as well. So just gave me a greater sense of being responsible for how our community goes.

John Patterson: Trisha Tyler, thank you for the good and valuable help you are to us, to women, to inspiring adventure. It’s a pleasure to spend a little time with you today. Thank you so much for being here.

Trisha Tyler: Thank you so much. It is my pleasure to spend time with you all, and you’ve been such a huge part of my journey. And I just couldn’t thank you, and Kirkland, and the rest of the team for all the support you’ve been to me over the years.

John Patterson: My special thanks to our guest Trisha Tyler. In our shows notes, you’ll find links to connect with her and all the links to websites, books, or downloads mentioned in this podcast.

The Influence Ecology Podcast is produced by Influence Ecology, LLC in Ventura, California. This episode was recorded July 15th, 2019 and was produced by Tyson Crandall and John Patterson. You can find a transcript for this and other episodes at InfluenceEcology.com. This episode is made possible through the assistance of the Influence Ecology Faculty, Staff, Mentors, and Students around the world. Co-founder Kirkland Tibbels and our colleagues comprise an international collective of professionals who are active in the development of the philosophy of Transactionalism and the discipline of Transactional Competence. Kirkland is considered a leading philosopher and authority in the field and he has authored more than 500 papers on the subject, study, and discipline.

This episode includes contributions by Karal Gregory. The podcast theme is by Chris Standring and titled ‘Fast Train to Everywhere.’ You can subscribe to the Influence Ecology Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or via email at podcast@influenceecology.com.

If you haven’t yet offered a rating or review, I ask that you take a moment go to iTunes or your podcast app and let us know what you think. This helps us more than you know.

I’m often confounded by those who claim to know something but can’t teach it to me. The famous Nobel winning physicist Richard Feynman understood the difference between knowing something and knowing the name of something, and it’s one of the most important reasons for his success.

Richard Feynman lived from 1918 to 1988. He made his mark first with his work on the Manhattan Project then won a Nobel Prize for his work in developing an understanding of quantum mechanics, and finally was a much-loved professor of undergraduate physics at Caltech University.

As he explains it, there are two types of knowledge, and most of us focus on the wrong one. The first type of knowledge focuses on knowing the name of something. The second focuses on, well – knowing something. These are not the same thing. Your competence first depends on the accuracy of your understanding. He developed an intuitive way to understand called The Feynman Technique.

The Feynman Technique starts with writing out something as if to teach it to a child. If you struggle, you have a clear understanding of where you have some gaps. That tension allows you to discover the edge of your knowledge. As competence begins with knowing the limit of your abilities – this is where the learning starts. Go back to the source material and re-learn it until you can explain it in basic terms. Then organize the concept into a simple story that flows. Read it aloud. If the explanation isn’t simple or sounds too confusing, that’s a good indication that your understanding in that area still needs some work. But if you genuinely want to be sure of your understanding, run it past someone (ideally who knows little of the subject). The ultimate test of your knowledge, Feynman asserts, is your capacity to convey it to another.

This conveyance is where competence and teaching go hand in hand. Learning is a reciprocal, cooperative effort, requiring inquiry and engagement on the parts of both students and teachers. In doing so, both parties learn a great deal about the subjects AND themselves. Together they discover something new while validating or modifying their approach, understanding and the application of that knowledge in practice.

On knowing something Feynman says; “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Joe and Joni Rocco are life-long learners. Married for 20 years, with four children and a thriving business, they have a newfound role as teachers to their family, their employees, and the community. They own Artistic Floors by Design, a boutique wood floor contracting business in Denver, offering Colorado’s only Nationally Certified, Award-Winning Wood Floor Advanced Master Craftsman.

Studying with Influence Ecology since 2013, their income has increased, their relationship and family life has improved, and they are working on training their employees to experience the same satisfaction with their skills. We interviewed them in 2016 and as part of our ‘where are they now’ series, wanted to offer an update. To develop her competence, Joni has graciously offered to mentor other students at Influence Ecology and more recently, joined our faculty. Why? Teaching allows mastery not found by any other means.

Below you’ll find a transcript of this podcast episode that has been edited for your reading pleasure. You’ll also see links at the bottom of this post where you can find more information on the people and ideas mentioned in the episode.

by John Patterson
Produced by: John Patterson & Tyson Crandall

“I have not yet found an industry in which the transactions cycle does not apply. It exists everywhere, from wood floors to our married life […] It’s just that your feet are in a different spot during some of those transactions, but there is no industry where it doesn’t matter.”

Joni Rocco: I’m Joni Rocco, married to the great Joe Rocco, who is Colorado’s only nationally certified, award winning wood floor advanced master craftsman. So, he handles all of the production and operations of all of the sales.

Joe Rocco: I am Joe Rocco. I’m a 26 year hardwood floor mechanic, and a 15 year business owner. Joni and I endeavor, together our clients, to produce, I think, two unique experiences.

One, usually they can’t drag people into their houses after we’re done, because people don’t want to walk on our artwork, and then once they actually get them into the house, they can’t drag them out because people don’t want to go home to their own houses.

John Patterson: That’s great. That’s well said. Joni, when did you first start participating?

Joni Rocco: In 2013. So, six years.

John Patterson: Fantastic. So, anything else you both want to say about what’s happened to date?

Joni Rocco: Well, we’re always evolving. I think that’s important to remember, because when we were on the podcast a couple of years ago, it felt like we had done it, you know? I mean, we felt like things were going really well, but there were other things that we wanted to do. So, now we have a couple more employees who work for us, and so it’s this constant evolution and change. A constant reinvention of what we’re doing. So, I would say that is a really big piece if it, is that we celebrate our achievements, but at the same time, continue to move forward. That’s definitely been a huge part of your program and the learning that we’ve had around that. I really don’t remember what our life was like, I think I blocked it out, before we started [inaudible] Influence Ecology. Because it’s just so much better. Sometimes it’s harder, but it’s better. It’s a better harder.

Joe Rocco: Yeah, absolutely.

John Patterson: Say something about the awards that you’ve won and the recognition that you’ve had.

Joni Rocco: He doesn’t like to brag about himself, so it’s not just him now. We’ve had our employees win some awards, and that’s been really exciting, too. So, there are three major contests in our industry, and we have won awards in each of those contests, and those contests are international. They’re open to countries and places like Dubai and Russia and Australia and France and England, New York, LA. So, to say we have competed against and won is like the Grammys of our industry, the Oscars of our industry. So, that’s an honor, and we are counting 11 of those awards right now, plus Business of the Year through our local Chamber of Commerce, which represents 600 businesses, and I think more than 14,000 employees. In 2016, we won that.

John Patterson: That’s fantastic. Congratulations to you both.

Joni Rocco: Thanks.

Joe Rocco: Thanks.

John Patterson: That’s really fantastic. I love, I think small businesses are big. I think they’re a big deal. They’re the fabric of this country, they’re the fabric of many countries, and when people do it and do it well, then they ought to win awards and be held up, so it’s one of the reasons I wanted to have you both here.

Speaking of all of that, one of the things that I found useful about you both, and what I could hear and what you just talked about is that you’re spreading the wealth now. So, what I mean by that, and I see you both shaking your head. You’re spreading the wealth a bit, and so you’re spreading the wealth, as you just said, with some of your staff who are now winning awards themselves. But I would bet that you’re training them, you’re helping them, you’re teaching them what you know. You’re mentoring them in some way, so anything you want to say about that?

Joe Rocco: That’s probably my realm, because I handle all of the production and all the operations, and I have to say that Joni and I have had numerous discussions surrounding this topic.

I came from a business where I didn’t feel valued, where I came up through the business as just kind of, I was a laborer. It was kind of difficult, because you knew you were doing good work and you were asking, you know, to be recognized, but you just weren’t. So, it’s always kind of been in the back of my head that I wanted to own a business and be able to add value and lift up my own employees. So, shortly after we, or I, took the program, it became quite evident to me that your program provided at least a framework so that I could achieve that aim through building a technical manual for our company, and running our business in a way that met those aims to provide value and say thank you to our employees, who, even though they’re our employees, and I really don’t want to call them our children, although sometimes they act like it.

You know, because you always want to keep that separation there, but we really have an ethic around them being a part of this business because they provide so much value to it. I don’t want them to ever think that I’m the man and they’re just providing me with their labor and I’m making all this money, because that’s the farthest thing from the truth. So, we’ve heavily invested in their education. We’ve always recognized their input in the awards that they’ve won. We pay for their training, and we’re eventually looking at some type of an employee ownership.

All of those things are because we have an ethic and an aims surrounding our business that you guys provided as a framework to construct that with. So, that’s been super important.

The real icing on the cake is our clients now, when they write about us, they don’t necessarily write about Joe and Joni. They write about Kevin and Paul and what they did. How that worked and the communication. So, the proof is really in the pudding that it’s really working amazing.

John Patterson: What’s that been like for them?

Joni Rocco: You know, you’d have to ask them, probably.

Really, there’s this conversation around the trades that says, “That’s a good option to fall back on.” And in my opinion and my observation of watching the four of them do their work, it’s nothing to fall back on. If that’s the way the narrative is in this country, I’d like to take part in changing it, because the trades build art and we design dreams and environments for people to live in, and we make this country great.

I mean, how do you get your milk? How do you get your chicken? Somebody drove it to you, somebody made it for you. To say that it’s something to fall back on, it just gives me chills to think about the potential and the opportunities. So, they’d have to say what they think about it, and they’re pretty quiet sometimes. But I mean, they’re a part of it, and they know they’re a part of this business, they’re a part of skilled trades, they’re a part of the industry. They’ve had conversations with other industry leaders, they’ve traveled to take trainings. They matter to us, and I think that they would say that they know that they matter to us. They each have our foundation document, which is something that I stole from Influence Ecology and recreated for us. So, they know that they matter, that that’s part of who we say we are, is based on who they are.

Joe Rocco: I think for me the last, probably, capstone of it is that your program has been so impactful for us that eventually we will ask them to be part of the program, so at least they have some basic understanding of where we’re going. But also that it adds so much value to their own life, in producing their own aims and trying to meet those aims.

John Patterson: That’s great. I’m curious about the way in which what you’ve learned to, sort of, [inaudible] throughout the ecology of your [inaudible] you touched. Generally speaking, when people do our programs and they thrive and they succeed and they see things working, then they can’t help but share it. They can’t help but tell people, or they can’t help but teach people. Joni happens to be somebody that is mentoring our programs, because she, like many, are smart enough to know that there’s a kind of mastery available when you’re teaching people something. Joe, if you’re teaching what you’re teaching, I’m sure you could also speak to the real value of having to describe to someone or teach somebody something that’s … you’re just so skilled at without, you know, you have to stop and put it into words and make it real for people and so forth.

So, there’s a reaching through, not just your staff, but also into the lives of customers or perhaps into the community or the [inaudible 00:18:35]. I just am curious about how your success has sort of reached into the fabric of the community in any way. Anything else you want to say about that?

Joni Rocco: Definitely. It matters in terms of how we present your education, and I think that people, especially our customers, will say to us, “I’ve never had an experience like this before.” So, there’s the product and the process that we go through. One of the things that I learned from my experiences in your coursework is that we are the expert in what we do, but we are also the expert in teaching people how to engage with us, how to hire us, and then how to transact with us. That has really become important to both Joe and me as we watch our kids grow up and be a part of our greater community, be a part of the church that we belong to, and how do we work with those folks in that community? All of the different aspects of our life. How do we teach people how to work with us to build meaning? To not just get something like a paycheck, but to build meaning in both of our lives, in both parties lives.

Joe Rocco: I think for me, probably the light bulb went off, I mean, I think everybody grasps the concept of reciprocity in business and life, you know. But I don’t think, at least from my experience, I never understood that, you know, I think I was always waiting for somebody to give me something and then I would reciprocate. Doing Influence Ecology, I think I finally realized that it’s okay to give first and, maybe you don’t receive it in kind, but just the fact of giving creates that reciprocal nature.

We went to a local arts [inaudible] Parker a couple of weeks ago and we decided, kind of on a whim, that we would help them out with some flooring needs that they needed, you know, because we wanted to support the arts and all of that. Just through that endeavor, we were rapidly [inaudible] but we were recognized publicly while we were at this other event. I mean, it was amazing the number of people that just came up and said thank you, you know, for giving. Then a couple even called us later to say, “Hey, can we get an estimate?” So, not that we were looking for it, but that’s kind of an aside from what you get from the reciprocity that we learn in Influence Ecology, I think.

John Patterson: That’s great.

I’m thinking of, in the United States- for all of our listeners, by the way, there’s people listening from all over the world. I’m thinking of a program called Fixer Upper in the United States, and I see you both are familiar with that. For those who don’t know it, Fixer Upper is a television show and there is a couple, Chip and Joanna Gaines, and they’ve basically started just by flipping houses and then they basically have built a small empire worth probably many millions of dollars. Many, many millions of dollars. Sometimes, in speaking with you both, I think of them because they’re both people who are not only committed to doing great service and the help that they provide flipping a house, but they’re also committed to giving people a kind of home, or a kind of experience that they cherish for years to come. At the same time, it’s my experience of them that they’re always at work on, not just flipping houses, but building the community and tending to the community.

So, Influence Ecology, in the very early parts of what we teach, we’re training people to transact for more of what they want. We’re training people to produce influence and compliance throughout their transactions, whether or not they’re small transactions or large transactions. But if you take influence and compliance out into the community, and people are observing you thrive, they’re observing you succeed, it’s natural for them to come and say, “Hey, what are you doing? Can I have a little of that? What are your tips?” And it would be natural, of course, to, as I said, share the wealth. To mentor, to help out, to teach, to offer a little wisdom here and there. And I’m wondering if you have anything else to say about that kind of influence in the community at large.

Joni Rocco: I think a lot of it matters if you know who you are, then you know how you can transact and communicate better with other people. I use the example of me being a performer, and going out and selling work. There are times when people ask me questions, and instead of having to say no to them, we’ve created a terms sheet, so that I can put that in front of them and say, “These are the things that we do and don’t do, and this is my gift to you.” Because as a contractor in the construction industry, you usually don’t find out in writing beforehand what is going to happen inside of your home. But this helps speed up production, and then you can ask me all of the questions that you want to ask me, and then I help our employees to make this project go smoothly.

So, there is some of that, like a, “Whoa, this is really different.” So, when that happens, you take the opportunity to share some of our learning. We talked with a few real estate agents, because they’ll say things like, “I have a builder you should meet.” And we say, “That’s great, but we’re good.” Because [inaudible] that’s not our customer. There are a couple of really good builders in town that we do work for when they need something that’s very specific and specialized. But other than that, our customer is somebody who appreciates being educated and understanding the product and the process.

That’s, I think, a reflection of your education, because you do something very similar. You teach people how to work with you throughout the programs. I’m really enjoying the mentoring experience, because I get to watch you teach it as opposed to just try to focus on the content coming my way, but to be able to observe you attend to helping people meet their aims. That’s just been a tremendous experience for me.

John Patterson: I wanted to ask you a little bit about that. Because, you know, part of, for anybody, you start a company and you start to train and develop other people and you start to mentor other people and you start to realize what you know. You start to … you start to take stock of the things that you haven’t really ever had to explain to people. They’re just inherent, they’re a thing you know.

So, you start to teach something, and Joni, you’re now, you’ve been invited to be a mentor with Influence Ecology’s programs and you’ve been mentoring for a few programs. You know, mentoring, from our point of view, is a commitment to mastery through teaching. That there’s always something that you master when you have to teach it. Or we could say it a different way, that you don’t know something until you do it. But there’s a kind of fitness that comes with practice or a fitness that comes with my having to put what I know into words, give it to another person, have them do that thing in such a way that it produces the same result I got. That’s not easy, and people assume it is, but it’s not easy.

So, I’m watching you both shake your heads. You know, for whatever reasons, whether or not it’s teaching somebody exactly what you do and the floors that you, you know, your beautiful artwork. Or, Joni, you’re teaching people the fundamentals of transaction program. So, I’m curious to hear from both of you a little bit about what you’re learning through teaching. What are you observing about that?

Joe Rocco: I observe, at least in the operations portion of our business, trying to teach our technicians that, and I think you hit it right on the head. Your breadth of knowledge, the breadth of your experiences, there’s so much value and it’s almost incomprehensible to be able to try and narrowly define every consequence and potential of, if you don’t do this exactly like I say to do it, like you said, you’re going to end up with a different outcome. So, being very specific, almost to the point of, and for us and because of your program, we have a technical manual that basically says, “This is how you do it, and if you follow these exact words and do these exact steps, we should get the same outcome.”

We had a little bit more of a challenge. Well, I’m sure you do too, because some of our employees aren’t Native American or English speaking, and so you get into that issue of, okay, does this word mean the same thing in the same context? So, that becomes an issue. What I’ve taken away, at least from our guys, is if I ask them, if I explain something and then ask them, “Do you understand?” And they say, “Yes.” That might not actually be the honest truth. They might have understood it the way they understood it, but it’s not necessarily the way I wanted them to.

So, for me, I have to say, “Did you understand?” Yes is their usual response. “Okay, now repeat it back to me, and then I can see if you can … ” and I know you’ve done this in some of your sessions, where you say just a small sentence, repeat back to me what I just said, and it’s amazing how we don’t hear or remember exactly what was said. Then I have them actually do the work, make sure it follows the procedures.

Joni Rocco: Because our company is based on a customer experience, we can teach production all day long. But if they struggle to have a color conversation with a home owner or they’re challenged by, you know, “How do I understand what she’s telling me? She wants brown but brown is about 8 billion different shades.” You know? So, there’s a color conversation, there’s a, “We’re going to do this, this, and this, and we’ll be here for this many days.” We have a lot of that set up already. But because we’re customer intimate, our technicians have to be customer intimate, too.

We only started talking about that about a year and a half, two years ago. Joe and I were sitting around and we were like, “Shoot, this isn’t just about sales. The experience goes all the way through production.” So, you have that, like I said, constant evolution of your offer in the market place and trying to tweak it to make it to be the best fit for who you’re really trying to target.

So, the production training. I just see that all in, you know, in what you say, too. I’ve watched him do the work, and then I watch our employees do the work, and they’re catching on and I will attempt to do some of the work. It’s a great core workout, to hand scrape a floor. So, I’ll go in and I’ll try and do it, and I am just struggling. You know, with a tiny little patch, and they’ve got a whole room done. But it’s about the touch, the application, I mean it’s just, it’s like a dance that you do with your customers, too.

John Patterson: Joni, now that you’re mentoring the fundamentals of transaction program, how does all of what we’ve been talking about correlate? You know, what kind of mastery is coming to you by mentoring the programs?

Joni Rocco: It’s helped a tremendous amount to be able to walk people through their processes and listen to where they’re struggling, and then try to help them so that they don’t suffer. I think it’s okay to struggle, and sometimes we have to suffer, too, because we decline something that we should be accepting, or you know, we’re countering something with a market place narrative that is an inaccurate. But it’s really helped me to be able to back off a little bit as a mentor, and start to ask questions and listen for certain cues as to what they need or what they’re trying to achieve.

That’s been so useful in my client relationship, too. Just to walk into a home where people say, “Well, we know we want a wood floor.” Well, what exactly do you want? Because we can do a lot here. Then listen to them, kind of talk through the, “Well, I really like this type of design and we’ve got this many kids and a dog and so I don’t want to see scratches and how can we hide those and how can we distress the floor?” Our experiences of late have been a lot more custom. Wire brushing techniques with wood, hand scraping techniques. There’s some other treatments that we do with colorants and finishes, but it’s based on, you know, “I really like this look, I saw this room on Fixer Upper and I really want it.” So, all of those things, I think, just being able to ask questions and attend to what they really want has helped a lot.

John Patterson: I’ll say this, I don’t want to out words in your mouth. So, mentoring the fundamentals of transaction program has shaped how you hear things?

Joni Rocco: Yes.

John Patterson: Yes, okay. So, I’ve often said, you know, when somebody says, “Why should I mentor a program?” Or, “Why should I mentor anything?” My first response is, well, look, you both have taken what we teach and applied it in the way that you did to your business. So, you’ve got your version of what we teach applied to your business. But now if I’ve got to apply those principles in a legal situation, at a hamburger franchise, in a large technical organization, with an independent startup.

If I’ve got to apply these principles across all these different situations, different industries, different occupations, different cultures, and I have to think through them and apply, not just from a pat answer, but really listen carefully and be able to offer some kind of recommendation based on what I can hear and what I know, it trains me in a way that I wouldn’t be trained if it was just me applying what I do to my situation again and again and again. So, any comment on all that from either one of you?

Joni Rocco: Yeah, and there’s something to be said for how I can hear something in another industry, and then pull it into my own offer as well. We’re members of many flooring groups internationally, on Facebook and other social media sites. One of the things we hear a lot is, “Well that just won’t work in my area.” So, you know, if we didn’t grow and didn’t have a lifelong learning orientation, and weren’t able to hear those things from other industries, and be able to help with that, then we wouldn’t be evolving like we are. You know, we’re not going to dump stain out of a can, so that’s my two cents on what I hear from other industries. Even the application of bringing it back to our own company, for sure.

Joe Rocco: My two cents would be, I guess, I’m not involved with the program, although I have been in the past. But I hear Joni, and obviously we talk about things that go on and her experiences with mentoring and MAP2 and all those things. We routinely talk about them and just through the conversations, she’ll say something like, you know, “There’s concept of attending to this or that.” And I’ll ask a question and then it will spark thought in my mind about how does this affect our production or our operation when at our customers’ house? Yes, we’re there to do the work, but we’re also there to attend to the fact that this customer is expecting a customer intimate experience, which goes beyond just doing X, Y and Z to have a great floor. So, that helps us.

Then we just recently had a conversation about the ethic that we surround our business with, and we had to make a very difficult choice to tell someone who is fairly close to us that something they had done was not in accordance with our business ethic, and so could you please remove that from the public’s view? It was a difficult decision to make, but it was something that came out of our teaching and our learning at Influence Ecology, and something that we’ve hold very dear. So, we made the hard decision and they accepted and we’re back to everything being okay now. So, a lot of things come out of just listening to her talk about what’s going on in her continued education and learning mentoring.

Joni Rocco: Truly the beauty of your program is that I have not yet found an industry in which the transaction cycle does not apply. It exists everywhere, from wood floors to our married life. It is a series of reciprocal exchanges, from who’s going to pick up the dry cleaning and get dinner started, to who’d going to pick up this kid and, I mean, there is a constant reciprocal exchange happening at all times. It’s just that you’re feet are in a different spot during some of those transactions. But there is no industry where it doesn’t matter. So, that in and of itself was great learneing for me, becoming a mentor and seeing how, you know, sometimes people will say, “Well, I work in government and so this whole transactional situation or becoming scarce, I can’t make that work.” And I find that to be a total cop out. I think you can make anything work when you take the care to design it and you really think through what you want to accomplish.

John Patterson: I accept, I accept.

All right, any final words? Anything else that you want to say, since we’re sitting here talk to the public? Anything else you want to say?

Joni Rocco: Just thanks, probably, is plenty. Because you really have changed our life dramatically in ways we had never expected, and to see you teach and observe this program at work impacting other people’s lives, I’m just so grateful to have you in my life, professionally as a mentor of my own, but also personally as a friend. I have a great deal of admiration for you, John, and your program is just top notch. I’m grateful to be a part of it in all of the different aspects that I’ve participated.

John Patterson: Thank you. Thank you very much.

John Patterson: In this episode, we include a small segment from our membership program webinar where we talk about knowing and deliberate practice. I offer this as teaching and mentoring, as a kind of deliberate practice for those who seek to master something. This clip includes contributions from members Brady Uselman, and Simon Chesney.

John Patterson: Well, we’re going to address deliberate practice in a particular way, but I’m certainly going to take a moment in a few minutes to talk about a kind of feedback that’s available. Because I think most don’t take advantage of a kind of feedback that may shorten the duration of time. I’ll point it more to that in just a moment. But I’m going to make sure that we understand deliberate practice specifically.

I also want to include the fact that some people are quite familiar with deliberate practice. Maybe you’ve been around Influence Ecology for a while, and so this is a familiar notion for you, or you’ve even studied it. I invite those who are in that category to listen or perhaps consider where you may be naïve, or perhaps there might be some hubris about your participation with your own practice and your aims. So, that’s one thing. Then on the other end of the spectrum, for those of you that don’t know anything about this notion of deliberate practice, we’re going to do a bit of a review of each of these items and make sure that it’s quite clear for you.

So, in doing so, starting with number one. Deliberate practice is designed to produce results using the body of knowledge which exists in each field about how performance is developed and approved. It’s not a case of someone trying spend some time talking a few practice swings, or fiddling around in a self-managed attempt to get better. Rather, deliberate practice is designed by someone who is an expert in the field and who can teach you how to get better.

So, let’s just take that one on for a second. Because I don’t think, because I’ve heard people address this and study this. I don’t think it’s that I’ve heard people talk about deliberate practice in that way. I think most people that I hear talk about deliberate practice speak about it more from the, “Well, I’m going to self-manage my attempts to practice.”

All right, Brady. So, you’re, in studying this slide, what do you want to say about it?

Brady: In the area of sales or … being an entrepreneur, I have to do sales, and I have people that are experts at sales in my network, and so, I was just thinking about how I would have practices for my conversations that I have with my clients, you know, against what my consultants or my friends would say is the best way to present what it is my company does, right?

So, I would go out in the field, I would do something. I would record my calls, tally up my results, and then I would come back and analyze those with someone that’s, let’s just say a professional, or better at sales than I am. As a way of, I would call that deliberate practice, that’s specifically designed to improve performance in the sense of being able to go back to my subsequent sales calls and basically apply what I learn. Is that kind of an example of what … ?

John Patterson: Yes, it is. It’s a perfect example of it. Perfect example. Great. Brady, anything else about that, or anything you want to ask about it?

Brady: No. I just know that I do this for things that I don’t want to do, and I do it for things that are in my specialized knowledge of the areas that I want to get better at. So, it kind of seems like something that you, any kind of activity that you need to do with an aim that requires deliberate practice, it’s kind of just something that’s available to do, if that makes sense. Even if it’s generalized knowledge, like sales, which is kind of generalized. Or if it’s specific. I still have the same kind of deliberate practice available for both those domains of knowledge.

John Patterson: Good, thank you. I’m going to go to Simon, well see if we can come back. Simon, yes please.

Simon: Well, I’ll share that I’m engaged in deliberate practice around my aim to certify as a internal scaled agile program consultant, which agile trainer, which is a train the trainer level of certification. I that context, I have a mentor who works for Scaled Agile, Inc., and I regularly meet with my mentor, who reviews my experience reports and asks me questions about them. I create opportunities to receive feedback from people who are more experienced than I am in presenting some of the topics and material.

I get feedback from Alex Boul, who is extremely accomplished in the area that I’m developing my expertise. I invite feedback from Cesar Idrovo, who I believe is on the call today, who is extremely accomplished in this area, as well.
Simon: So, those are some of the things I do to get feedback that’s useful by experts who can teach me how to get better.

John Patterson: Good. Number two, repeat it a lot. I often think of golfers, for example. I don’t play golf, but if I did, I would imagine that I might have to practice putting a lot. I’ve often heard about Tiger Woods, for example, who continues to practice the basics all the time, constantly repeated so many times that they can perform flawlessly. I think that’s one of the things that we want to focus on about deliberate practice. It’s repeat it a lot so that in all the variety of ways that you might come up against this particular situation or that situation, it allows you to perform flawlessly.

I was just having a conversation, in fact, yesterday. I was talking about leading programs. I’m talking about leading the fundamentals of transaction program, because we’ve got people who are training to lead the fundamentals of transaction program. We’ve got people who are mentoring that program and seek to certify themselves [inaudible] that program, and I was saying to Alex, “Can you imagine having to address, for 10 years, in 100 different ways, the answer to a question about how you might apply one of our principles to a situation I’ve never considered or imagined?” And that I would need to be able to, in the moment, in the moment, make what I’m saying or what they’re asking, make those things relevant. There is an ability that I performed over time, through practice, and I’ve had so many of the people who are mentoring the fundamentals of transaction program talk about the extreme value of that kind of practice. Same with people who have continued to show up on the FOT calls, and listening to them, because they’re in constant state of evolution.

After a while, you start to hear the ways in which you might perform in the moment. The things that matter to you.

John Patterson: My special thanks to our guests Joe and Joni Rocco. In our shows notes, you’ll find links to connect with them and all the links to websites, books, or downloads mentioned in this podcast.

The Influence Ecology Podcast is produced by Influence Ecology, LLC in Ventura, California. This episode was recorded May 23rd, 2019 and was produced by Tyson Crandall and John Patterson. You can find a transcript for this and other episodes at InfluenceEcology.com. This episode is made possible through the assistance of the Influence Ecology Faculty, Staff, Mentors, and Students around the world. Co-founder Kirkland Tibbels and our colleagues comprise an international collective of professionals who are active in the development of the philosophy of Transactionalism and the discipline of Transactional Competence. Kirkland is considered a leading philosopher and authority in the field and he has authored more than 500 papers on the subject, study, and discipline.

This episode includes contributions by Karal Gregory. The podcast theme is by Chris Standring and titled ‘Fast Train to Everywhere.’ You can subscribe to the Influence Ecology Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or via email at podcast@influenceecology.com.

If you haven’t yet offered a rating or review, I ask that you take a moment go to iTunes or your podcast app and let us know what you think. This helps us more than you know.

Marcus “Bellringer” Bell is an American music producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, singer, social media influencer, activist and entrepreneur.

Having first participated with Influence Ecology in March of 2012, we interviewed him in Aug 2016 – and focused on deliberate practice – that “most people don’t and won’t practice”. His piano practice began at age 2 with his first record company by 12 years old.

In his lifetime he has marketed and promoted, produced, remixed and written for, mentored and developed some of the world’s biggest superstars and brands including Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Snoop Dogg, Timbaland, Sony Music, Warner Brothers, Arista Records, EMI and Universal Music. He has also created music for worldwide brands such as McDonald’s, General Mills, and Peter Diamandis. Bell has also written and produced chart-topping songs for artists in Turkey, Lebanon, India, Japan, Korea, and Europe.

Today, we talk about how to go from unknown to known – and what it means to be well known. After the break, we’ll listen in on a webinar where Co-Founder Kirkland Tibbels and I talk about our career identity and how some people may not truly understand how powerful this is.

Below you’ll find a transcript of this podcast episode that has been edited for your reading pleasure. You’ll also see links at the bottom of this post where you can find more information on the people and ideas mentioned in the episode.

by John Patterson
Produced by: John Patterson & Tyson Crandall

“The more I shared my value of help, the more opportunities open up, the more money I made, the more related I became to other people of influence, et cetera, so actually holding back your life actually is a disservice for whatever that aim is that you have to help people. If anything, you want to turn that light into a high beam.”

Marcus Bell: Thanks for having me, John always good to be in conversation with you and 2012 is when I first started taking courses with Influence Ecology, so seven years later, wow, a lot definitely has changed in my life over the past seven years and certainly over the past three years, so it’s good to be here with you.

John Patterson: Yeah, absolutely. It’s always a pleasure to spend time with you. Unfortunately, people can’t see us. We’re seeing each other on video and I always got a big smile on my face when I speak with you. There’s so much that we could contribute to people on this session and I know one of the through lines for all that you do is a commitment that you use your own specialized knowledge to help people, to contribute to people in some way. There are a few endeavors that you’ve created in order to help people and I’d love for you to just tell us about those, especially if they’re things we don’t yet know about or perhaps things that have happened in the last three years.

Marcus: Sure. Inside of the last three years I’ve started a new company designed actually to help people go from unknown to known and so inside of that, the name of the company is Audience Academy. About three years ago, maybe over three years now, I partnered with a recording artist who happens to be a data scientist and internet prodigy and we joined forces together and combined our specialized knowledge in social media to help people elevate from success to significance and so it’s a program that we created that allows people to reach large audiences.

One of the things that I’ve learned in training over the years is to seek help… as much help as possible to forward things and before three years ago, I was doing a lot of one on one coaching with celebrities, one-on-ones with developing artists, developing influencers and so when I met Shelita, that’s my partner’s name, Shelita Burke, I recognized wow, this is an opportunity with her specialized knowledge and my specialized knowledge to really make a bigger impact and so now that network of influencers that have participated in our programs has reached over 4 billion impressions last month.

John: Jesus.

Marcus: 4 billion.

John: Wow.

Marcus: Some of the participants have gone from just starting to having audiences of over 500,000 followers across platforms, hundreds of millions of people seeing their messages of empowerment or help and so it’s been quite a three year journey and being able to express that part of myself because I’ve been acquainted to visibility and notoriety my entire life and so to be able to share that with others who really want to make a difference for humanity has just met so many of my aims and goals like that.

John: That’s great. Well, first personally congratulations. Really congratulations and good work. I know that you’re committed to that more than anything else and it drives a great deal of what you do and as last time we talked, we talked a little bit about your mother, quite an influencer herself in her day and in her time, I think that the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree on that one and you have in all that I’ve ever seen that you do, being committed people can harness their talents and share them with the world. It’s a fantastic thing to watch.

Marcus: Yeah, I definitely get it from my mama and she passed away back in September and so I’ve been looking at how to have her legacy live as an example for other people who want to make impact as well and so it’s been a discovery as I’ve discovered letters from Martin Luther King Jr’s family to her in newspaper articles with her and Arthur Ashe, Williams and Ashe and how they broke through whites-only tennis tournaments back in the ’60s and her civil rights activism and so I am a living legacy of my mother actually.

John: Fantastic. You want to say your mother’s name?

Marcus: Her name is Carolyn Bell and she was a national tennis champion and she was Carolyn Williams at the time and she played in the US Open.

John: That’s great. I think what would be useful is to let our audience know a little bit about where you are now. There are some of what you’ve already talked about in terms of your accomplishments, the work that you’ve done with Shelita Burke. I’ve remembered a few conversations that you and I have had or where I’ve listened to you on some of our own program calls where I’ve heard some of the accomplishments with Shelita with some of the work, in fact, some of her own music, some of the other accomplishments in social media. I’d also love to hear just a little bit about the book because you’ve written a number one book. Tell us a little bit about those kind of accomplishments and then I think I want to take this in another direction after we’re done with that.

Marcus: Okay, sure. I have been at work on creating a book or it’s probably been seven years that I’ve been actually at work on creating a book that would be an all-encompassing artist development book and so two years ago, and I’ve been writing the book with my mother and so we would talk every week and really examine what it takes to be a successful recording artist in the world and so the book that got released is actually a small piece of one chapter in that larger book and so the name of the book is the Bellringer Branding Bible.

It is the collaboration of me and my mother and that chapter is around basically creating identity in the marketplace for recording artists and it ended up being number one in three categories in Amazon. It was so exciting to be able to share that accomplishment with my mother before she passed.

John: That’s fantastic.

Marcus: Yeah. Around the time that the book came out actually was the time… so there was a missing of Cardi B inside of that book and that was right around the time that she first got released into the marketplace. I had been tracking her activity before the book came out, so as the book started to happen on the charts, so it was Cardi B who I at the last minute put her in the book and then with Shelita, I also mentioned her in the book, she was one of the first artists to… well, the only artist actually to create a blockchain and I’m the first producer to have a block chain in the world of blockchain technology.

The song that we had released, the EAP we released charted in billboard. That was another accomplishment that has happened since our last podcast and it’s been quite a journey over the past three years on both my family side as well as my professional side and all these other conditions of life as life happens and as I continue to grow and develop as a human being and experience the fullness of being alive and being ambitious about living a fulfilling life.

John: Fantastic. What did you learn over these last three years with… I imagine that you learned a great deal from Shelita Burke, by the way genius, very, very gifted woman, but what have you learned over these last three years about that kind of growth and influence and the tension and what are some things to share about that?

Marcus: Well, before I had really been focused on being in the background and supporting others and becoming famous and known and visible and I’ve been ebbing and flowing in and out of the spotlight or front stage and backstage my entire life and so what I decided over the past year, basically as a result of my mother’s passing, she was an example of someone that was in the foreground as a national tennis champion and she got a lot of press and she moved to the background and basically wasn’t interested in being known.

She was more interested in the groundwork of the kind of social justice activities that she was doing. When she passed there’s that legacy where now I’m holding with inside of one hand my own career and identity and then in the other hand I’m holding the legacy of my mother who the world will know about as a result of some of the activities that I’m going to take on and honors her legacy. I recognize that if you have value to offer people just as you can one on one with someone, you can do one to millions.

John: Yes.

Marcus: I can be more help for people the more visible that I allow myself to be. I can’t say the amount of interviews that I’ve declined and opportunities that I’ve turned down for visibility and so now I recognize that I can be more help the more people can be able to access what I have to offer. It’s not for fame’s sake, I’m not really interested in that. It’s for… I really truly love human beings and people and I really want to have my life to be in service of helping massive amounts of people that want to have meaning in their lives and over the years I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on my own personal development and I’ve seen a lot of the world and experienced all different types of things from grief and going through situations with the foster care system and I’ve experienced a lot of different things that I can offer help as people go through their own personal journeys and so I’m going to be speaking more about those kinds of things and share more of my life with people and like that.

John: That’s great. I just did an interview with someone else we were having a conversation and I think you and I might be able to bring something to the forefront to make something more clear, but she was concerned for being in the foreground and preferred being in the background and considered herself an aspect of a whole transaction or a whole situation.

I agree. I have typically come from being for something, being for some transactions, some endeavor, some initiatives, some movement if you will and this last year in 2018, Influence Ecology launched the career expedition and we started to talk about our knownness, our being known and not just being known as in, oh I know him, I know her, but being known for some kind of help, being known for the value of our help and I myself have experienced moving much more into the foreground in my city, in my neighborhood, in my community, in my family.

There’s an experience of moving to the foreground relating to myself not as me, I could care less. Again, not about the fame, not about the ego, but more about, oh, I represent something. I represent a kind of help, something for people, something like that Marcus and I can see that that resonates with you and I just want to hear your comments about that.

Marcus: Sure. Well a lot of people have something about being known, have something about celebrity and fame, that it’s difficult that you have to have a bodyguard if you get too big and if you’re from a southern African American family like the one that I came from there’s a, don’t put yourself out there too much because you know other… jealousies or you know you want to stay as humble as possible and all those types of things and actually I have to unlearn some of those conversations because the more I shared my value of help, the more opportunities open up, the more money I made, the more related I became to other people’s influence, et cetera.

Actually holding back your light actually is a disservice for whatever that aim is that you have to help people. If anything, you want to turn that light into a high beam and have that high beam project the value that you are of help kind of like the… if you think of the superhero characters like Batman, you know how do you, yeah, exactly, that you want to have a bat signals for the help that you are and you never know what that’s going to look like.

Are you going to be that person that is going to need a body guard, probably not. Probably the… if you’re really known in your community, if you’re really known in your state, if you’re really known nationally, people mostly are generous about allowing you your privacy.

John: Yeah.

Marcus: Yeah. I was walking out of a coffee shop and Dave Chappelle was in a coffee shop just sitting outside and I grabbed the coffee and I walked out of the shop and I saw Dave there with some… a couple of his friends and so forth and I acknowledged him, he acknowledged me back and I got into the car and I said, “You know what? I’m going to stay here for a second. I want to see how the environment is responding to Dave.” And I just hang out for about five minutes and watched people do double takes and no one went over and interrupted him with his friends. Everyone well past… respected, here’s another human being just being with friends and so-

John: I have the same thing.

Marcus: Yeah.

John: Yeah. I have a… In Ojai, California where I live, we have… it’s so terrible, I can’t remember his name, Jason something from How I Met Your Mother, the television show, How I Met Your Mother and he’s a local here and I see him quite frequently walking around the street, sitting down having a beer, going to the cafe to have a coffee and mostly just people are gracious with him, let him have his space, people will say hey Jason but he literally enjoys very kind of normal private life as a quite known celebrity in this town and it’s been that way for many people as well. Yeah. It’s great.

Marcus: Yes, so there’s that kind of celebrity and there’s the kind of celebrity where you can’t walk through the mall, but most people aren’t going to experience that and so that’s part of the work that I do in helping others with their visibility is to work through those types of misconceptions and myths.

John: It’s really good. I’m wondering about… I both mentioned being known for its own sake like fame or people might know me but unless they know me for my help, right, unless they know me for what I bring, what I contribute, there’s a difference, right, in the work that you do with people, do you address in some way being known for your help, for your talent or your skill versus fame, and if so can you say something about that?

Marcus: Absolutely. One of the biggest parts of what I do with people is really to unearth what that value is because it may not be obvious what that value of help that someone may be.

John: Do you have an example?

Marcus: For example, there will be an artist that believes, oh well people are coming to my page because of the photos that I put out there, right, but in actuality it is the authentic way that they are being in social media and sharing their journey and their struggles that actually is drawing people and so as they show their own transformation in social media or in their lives that that is the thing that is attracting people not necessarily just the pretty picture or the nice voice.

John: Yes.

Marcus: And so part of the discovery is… discovering will actually… what is it that you are help for? Because if you are thinking that it’s your voice that is the help and is actually your sharing who you are as a human being, that is the help then gosh, that informs a different type of activity, that informs a different way of looking at how you talk about your life.

John: The work that you do…. Do you find that, I’m just reflecting on many of the people that I’ve connected with as celebrities over the years whether or not they sing or songwriters, actors and so forth. I often do connect with those somehow on a personal level as if I identify with them or it may not be their talent per se but they let me in in some way, maybe in the way that they just really… when they sing they’re just saying, this is me I’m sharing myself and you connect with it as opposed to somebody who’s trying to do a performance for example.

Marcus: Yes.

John: Is that what you mean and is there anything else to say about that?

Marcus: Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean. The more open an artist is, the more it connects to the humanity of another person and I would assert that the more open we are as human beings, the more we connect with other human beings so it’s not just the artist that they may be visible and then you can see it is on “blast” because it is on television or is… millions of people are seeing that openness but I would assert that if you’re in a small community or if you’re in your family and you open yourself up to allow your full expression, that it will connect with the other person that’s observing that in a heart feel way and so whether you’re a CEO of the company and you’re being authentic with your employees about some struggle with a decision that you may have that actually offers a demonstration of courage to express that vulnerability.

We as human beings we connect to vulnerability because if someone’s able to express one ability opens up the space for us to be human and not have a facade or play a role that we’re not in that way. It’s good to have our hearts broken. It’s good for me to have my heart broken because it allows me to access something deeper inside myself and connect with my own humanity and be able to appreciate something else about another person and if we’re operating from that space, oh my gosh, what’s possible for the world if people allow themselves to be vulnerable.

John: Beautifully said. Sounds like a great recipe for success for an artist, a businessman, a family man, a family person, you know, any of that. It’s really great and these lessons, some of the things that culminated in your early life with your mom, was this some of her teaching or something you discovered on your own?

Marcus: This is something that I discovered on my own and through a lot of study of human behavior and social psychology, and psychology and a lot of self discovery and journaling and digging for what value I have to offer as a human being, as an artist, as a producer, as someone that helps other people is… come’s from a lot of failure, a lot of not having interactions go right and what was missing and seeing, well what was missing in that? Oh what was missing is that… and that is they are me and they don’t know that they’re me because I didn’t open my mouth and share how much I really can empathize because I’ve experienced that as well.

John: In this, where are they now, one of the things I’d like to ask about is your participation here. You’ve been participating for seven years. Just really is funny to me to think it’s been that long or that short I don’t know which, but for anybody listening, why that length of time, why are you participating? I mean, aren’t you done yet? Aren’t you cooked yet? Why are you still participating here, that kind of thing. I’d just love to hear what you have to say about it.

Marcus: Sure. I really enjoy the community that Influence Ecology is. When I was going through the hospice situation with my mother last year, the amount of help that was available inside of the community from talking to a neuroscientist to… administered us in the community to people that are working on legacy or like the type of conversations that were available just because they are expert in a particular area and they make themselves known to be of help and so when I needed the help I was able to reach out and it helped me really with my thinking around working through my mother’s death and all of that.

Inside of me there is this desire to have the type of consistency inside of my studying and practicing and experiencing and so when it comes to like the music industry for example, I call myself a lifer. I’ve been doing it my entire life and I love what I do. I’m going to be doing it probably until like, I physically can’t do it and if I can’t physically do it by then I’ll be able to use my mind and still do it.

John: That’s right.

Marcus: And then when I lose my mind… There’ll be an AI version of Marcus Bellringer Bell that will be able to make those decisions based on all the decisions that I’ve made thus far in my life. Once I join a community and I see that I continue to get value and I’m still able to contribute value, I like to stay in community, it becomes home for me and the participants inside of Influence Ecology have actually, has become family.

John: Yeah, me too.

Marcus: It’s become a family and so whenever you have an extended period of time with people with rigorous study and people who’re going for their aims and people are experiencing life through all of that you just develop a bond, so I’m bonded with you all in and now I’m looking forward to participating on the board to help make this available for more people like that.

John: Yeah, with the institute for transactional philosophy, we haven’t addressed that on any podcast, so this is the first mention of it, but yeah, you’re on the board for the institute for transactional philosophy and that’s going to be an institute dedicated to the research of the philosophy that is the foundation for all that we teach. I look forward to that meeting and for the work that we’re going to be doing over the coming year or years.

Marcus: Yeah, absolutely, and the other part is, I’m a little bit of a geek, so I like studying philosophy and human behavior and personality in transactional behavior and all of the things that have been developed and are developing and emerging out of how the trainings are growing and I’m applying all that I see fit to apply inside of the music industry and the way I’ve been developing the companies that I’ve created as well.

John: Great. All right, Well Marcus Bell and maybe we’ll do a, where are they now in another three years or 10 years or something like that. I don’t think this is the last time to have you on the podcast, but thank you so very much for being with us today. It’s been a pleasure. Absolute pleasure and I wanted to find out if there’s anything else that you wanted to say or anything else that we should know before we exit today.

Marcus: I just want to say to whoever’s listening, wherever you are, wherever you are in the world, wherever you are in your life, really allow yourself to be known, vulnerable and become visible for the help that you are for other people.

John: Great.

Marcus: Uplift humanity.

John Patterson: What would it mean to be well known in the industry, organization or ecologies where you currently transact? What would your transactions produce if the people with whom you transact were seeking your attention and competing to do business with you rather than the other way around? Here’s the talk.

John Patterson: What I do is I’m going to give you the floor to talk a little bit about each of these so we can address these different conditions of your identity, the different states of being known or your knownness and in specific ecologies. Yeah, please.

Kirkland Tibbels: Yeah, so we just simply took a look at… with some research and study, we just took a look at what are the levels of knownness, how are we known and especially as we enter into a particular discourse industry or so forth, we often find that we’re simply unknown and it’s valuable to recognize that we carry no identity of value and help. Now you may have some recognition and something to keep in mind, I can tell you in my Toastmasters organization, there are some people who they have recognition, they have some celebrity, but if you ask what value that they bring, it would be difficult to articulate that and that’s what we find a lot of times in organizations where people can’t quite understand why the company doesn’t value them. They don’t recognize them in terms of something specific. They have no identity of value, help or harm and we’ll talk about harm in just a little bit.

The second area is somewhat known, so there is some knownness so that a majority of the people in that ecology may have some idea from other narratives or some carried narrative that you bring some value and that’s important to begin to recognize and that’s an area to start to become somewhat known in a particular ecology it’s a place to start and to be known in my mind as being low cost and of high value is the narrative to produce. It’s the activity produce, so you show up, you’re valuable and you’re low cost.

That is where you start to become known. A majority of the people in that ecology know you, they’ve heard of you, they recognize you as someone who is of value. That means you’re helpful and it’s specific as possible. They know to come to you for a specific kind of help or they don’t want to lose your help, it would do some harm if they did.

Now being well known is a category that takes a little extra. We like to call ambition and well known is an identity that goes with a kind of character. It’s an identity as a representation of your ethics, of the kind of power that you bring to a particular organization. People who are well known in one category are often invited to or one company or one organization or industry or one discourse are often invited to participate in others and invitations and offers expand the better and well known you are in one particular ecology, but notice that we’re aiming toward a kind of concentration and focus. That’s part of the how to we’ll get to in a minute.

Being well known as an identity of value and help, it really starts to weave in to sort of the DNA and the character that you are bringing to a particular discourse or transaction and then it’s followed that that begins to be almost part and parcel of who you are, that the next step in being well known is being so well known that you’re actually celebrated in that particular discourse. You’re known in a particular way.

Now it could be that you’re notorious, we’ve covered that in our other lectures, but in this case we’re talking about what it would mean to have an identity that is so associated with the constitutive aspect of that industry or that particular athletic endeavor or that particular philosophy which is certainly the aim and the legacy I hope to produce is to be so intertwined that it’s almost woven into what it is that it’s given by the embodiment and representation of what you produce as an enterprise, as a philosophy or even as a person and so the category there moves way beyond and be just simply known as but it becomes constitutive of the thing itself, so nobody gets there without being well known and that’s the category that we’re looking to produce here.

John: We want to take a second also and make sure that we bring some clarity to the identity of value, help or harm. We’ve used that particular phrase in most of those definitions of knownness, so there’s something to understand about these things. Value is simply the comparative worth of your resources. There are people who offer very, very valuable resources and other people who don’t.

For example, I tend to look at things and you tend to look at things with it a comparative eye, with a, well that seems to be more valuable than this. That seems to be more useful than that. She seems to be more valuable here, he seems to be less valuable there. We tend to approach value from a comparative set of lenses and so value for the first part is a comparative kind of worth of those resources, whether or not they’re human resources, tangible or intangible resources.

Secondly, help by that we simply mean the offer of your resources or the offer of your solutions to specific breakdowns. One of the things that I do recently is I was attempting to make a move into a particular group of people. I located the person that I thought was the center of influence in this group of people and I wrote an email to talk about the specific help I could be to a breakdown I knew they had, and rather than sort through meeting the people in this general ecology over the course of a year, 90 seconds later I was invited to a lunch and now part of a rather important committee that moved me rather quickly because I offered help. I offered a very specific solution of help to breakdown.

Kirkland: Well, that piece right there is something that we teach again in our most fundamental program, our fundamentals of transaction program that, one of the things that in a general discourse it seems like the right move to make is to simply say, “How can I help you or how can I be of help?” Now that’s better than nothing. Okay, I’ll take that if that’s all you got, but I want you to think about where the cost ends up in an offer of help like that.

If you come to me and say, “Hey Kirkland, how can I help you?” Then all of the costs and the effort and the energy is over here with me to assess all the things that I have to assess about you and your offer and your resources. All the work is on me now to think and to assess and to inquire accurately about what resources that you have and I’ll be doing my best guesswork without doing another set of inquiry to say, how can you help?

The most powerful offer of help you could make is exactly how John demonstrated it and that is a specific offer of help with the resources you have available. Hey Kirkland, it looks like you’re struggling with that heavy box. I’m actually a heavy box expert, can I help with that box? It’s a specific offer of help and by the way, if you ever see me struggling with a heavy box, the answer’s yes come help me with a heavy boss. That’s a specific offer in a particular transaction and that’s what carries value and that produces a particular kind of identity. Again, low cost offer of help and value in an area that is of concern to a specific group of people or as we say, a specific ecology.

John: I’m thinking about, we lead a global conference, I’m standing up in front of a room of a bunch of people from around the world and I’ve got to train the people that work with me to take care of me during the conference. Now you can imagine if one of those people walks up to me and says, “Hey, can I get you anything?” Or one of those people knows to walk up to me at specific points and say, could I get you a glass of water? Very, very different. Very different. I can say yes or no to that one. As soon as they say, “Can I get you anything?” I got to now sort out what might I need and do I need anything right now? Am I get… all that kind of stuff? It makes all the difference in the world.

All right, well I’m going to do one other piece here so we set an identity of value, help or harm, but the other thing about harm and the way that we use this and the way that we mean it is simply that if I will move my help, it produces a threat. That’s the way to think about it. I certainly don’t want to go around the world harming people, but one of the ways that I know that I’m valuable, that I know that my help is highly regarded where I know my resources are worth a great deal is that if I were to remove them, people would say now hold on a second. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. No, no, no we need you.

The removal of your help produces threat, that’s what we mean by that and we find sometimes, I love this when we work with people who work with customers or we lead in particular topic on this piece. We’ll say something like, “Hey, if you removed your help, would anybody care?” And it’s a real, gosh, it’s sometimes sad to watch, Kirkland people go, God, if I removed my help I don’t think anybody would notice.

Kirkland: Yeah. That’s what we find in people who do our programs at mid-level management or above that sometimes the toughest part of the assessment process of their current standing in a transaction is to come face to face with the fact that they’re not all that after all, that the kind of identity that they’re producing doesn’t match the identity they have in their own mind about a particular kind of transaction.

John Patterson: My special thanks to our guests, Marcus Bell. In our show notes you’ll find links to connect with him and all the links to websites, books for downloads mentioned in this podcast.

The Influence Ecology Podcast is produced by Influence Ecology, LLC in Ventura, California. This episode was recorded May 23rd, 2019 and was produced by Tyson Crandall and John Patterson. You can find a transcript for this and other episodes at InfluenceEcology.com. This episode is made possible through the assistance of the Influence Ecology Faculty, Staff, Mentors, and Students around the world. Co-founder Kirkland Tibbels and our colleagues comprise an international collective of professionals who are active in the development of the philosophy of Transactionalism and the discipline of Transactional Competence. Kirkland is considered a leading philosopher and authority in the field and he has authored more than 500 papers on the subject, study, and discipline.

This episode includes contributions by Karal Gregory. The podcast theme is by Chris Standring and titled ‘Fast Train to Everywhere.’ You can subscribe to the Influence Ecology Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or via email at podcast@influenceecology.com.

If you haven’t yet offered a rating or review, I ask that you take a moment go to iTunes or your podcast app and let us know what you think. This helps us more than you know.

To develop our fitness to transact effectively, we must practice.

For example, consider how we get competent at swimming. We could read about it, study it, watch videos, discuss it, and perhaps even practice on dry land and yet still we wouldn’t know swimming until we got into the water and tested our understanding through action. Furthermore, our fitness to swim could not be developed in a single attempt.

For competence, knowing requires doing and fitness requires practice.

We would never consider that we know how to swim or are fit to swim until we get in the water. Yet, in our experience, many people claim to know things they have never themselves done, practiced, or applied. Often, we claim to know a topic we’ve merely read in a book or seen online. In fact, our collective wisdom allows us to share in a kind of knowledge illusion, where we all think we know more than we actually do and rarely inventory how little we truly understand.

The recent Gladwellian phrase of “putting in your 10,000 hours” refers to this aspect of this discourse on practice: the notion that “talent” and specialized ability, expertise, and knowledge are as much a function of the environment as they are practice—a lot of deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice shapes the experience that in turn shapes the perception of new opportunities. Simply put, you do not and cannot see the same tennis ball serve as someone who has deliberately practiced the ability and expertise to return thousands of serves.

Suzanne Pool is a Cambridge grad developed her early career as an intellectual property lawyer working for large and small media organizations across London. She says: “did well financially but I was fat, unfit and bored with life.”

When she began our programs, she realized that she didn’t understand everything that was being taught – and had to consider her arrogance in relation to learning. She started applying deliberate practice to her habits and lost 70lbs in 18 months, grew a business in a new field and internationally, developed new partnerships. She states: “Having broken through my own barren, celibate, career-dominated life of my 30s – to living a fulfilling, adventurous and seriously fun (in all ways!) life in her 40s, I show her clients it is possible to grasp life by the horns, conquer their fears and live life as a daring adventure – no matter their age, or where you live in the world!”

Suzanne now owns a consultancy for Women’s Sexual Empowerment and supports women in their 30s, 40s and beyond – to have the most mind-blowing sex and enjoyment of their lives! As she says “You want your orgasm back – And it’s been missing for more than a decade?” Speak to Suzanne Pool.

Here’s the interview:

Below you’ll find a transcript of this podcast episode that has been edited for your reading pleasure. You’ll also see links at the bottom of this post where you can find more information on the people and ideas mentioned in the episode.

by John Patterson
Produced by: John Patterson & Tyson Crandall

“We live in a society that rewards overnight success, but we forget how much those people who’ve had overnight success have put in to being in that position. And probably it was many, many years of effort, and toil, and sweat and tears. And actually, the success is in having put in that effort.”

Suzanne Pool: Hello, John. My name is Suzanne Pool. I live in London, in the United Kingdom. I am now a coach for women, I empower women to enjoy sex in particular. In my former life, I was an intellectual property lawyer in the media industry, but I’ve undergone a major career transition in the past two or three years. As I said, I live in London. I am a born and bred Londoner. And I have studied at very well-known universities around the world, including Cambridge where I have a degree in history. And as I said, I was a lawyer for about 15 years in the media industry before I changed career. I am in my mid-40s, and I’ve been participating in the work of Influence Ecology for approximately two years at the time of recording. And I’m forever grateful for having encountered the organization.

John Patterson: There are a few things, by the way, you sent us some notes, and one thing that I often do is take a look at the journey that’s unique to you and perhaps there are things about your story that might be quite beneficial to people. As you know, and I think you’ve listened to many podcasts, many people have spoken on personality. Many people have spoken on some common kinds of things, but you bring up something that I just love talking about, because I think it is an often underutilized aspect of people’s accomplishing amazing things, and that is habits and practices. And so I want to get to that in just a minute because I think it’s an important piece. But before we do, it’s always useful for people to have a sense of you prior to Influence Ecology and what was life like? What were you dealing with? Describe Suzanne Pool of what, two or three years ago, if you would.

Suzanne: Yes. Well, so as I said in my introduction, I’ve gone through quite a major career transition in the past two or three years, and I would say that my happening upon Influence Ecology happened about the same time that that career transition… It had already begun before I came across Influence Ecology, but I was going through a transition. So at the end of 2016, and currently we’re in early 2019, I had been laid off from my job as a lawyer for a telecoms company and my father had passed away. So I had been through two very significant major life-changing events simultaneously. And up to that point, I had been quite a successful intellectual property and media lawyer in London working for some of the very largest companies in that sector. If I named them, almost certainly people listening to this would have heard of, I’m not going to say the names but they are very well known organizations.

But I found myself at the beginning of 2017 without a job, but also with needing to administer my father’s estate and support my brother and other family members and myself through that process of grieving for my father, and also not having employment. So I was left with a question of, “Well, what do I do now?” I’d been practicing as a lawyer for about 15 years, as I said, and it was great, and I was financially successful, and it was a good career, but I was a bit bored. And so I was looking for a new challenge, and at the same time, Influence Ecology was introduced to me. And the notion of transactional competence came into my parlance. I didn’t really know what it meant. And I can talk about what that does mean if you’d like but I think you’re better at that than I am. I was a transactional lawyer. That’s what I’d done. I’d negotiated contracts for my entire career. So transaction was something that I was very familiar with.

Influence Ecology had me think about transacting in a different way, and that spoke to curiosity for me around how I wanted to show up in the world. Which brings me to my new career, which I’ve had for about 18 months now, around empowering women and coaching women, really to have fulfilling lives, but in particular amazing relationships and amazing sexual relationships.

John: And when you first were introduced to Influence Ecology, did someone introduce it to you as, did they say the words transactional competence? Did they say anything like that? Did you happen to go, “Oh, yeah, I’m good. I’m good. I know transactions.” What attracted you to it? Or what was the thing that you heard that kind of had you go, “I should check this thing out.”

Suzanne: Yes. I can speak directly to that. So I was introduced to it by a friend of mine, Liz Marley. I’d known her for about 13 or 14 years at the time. I hadn’t seen her for a while, but she was somebody that I knew well and whose opinion I respected. And she emailed me quite randomly having seen some posts on Facebook, where I was sharing about having been made redundant and the situation with my father. She offered me an opening for a conversation, I would say, about different things and ideas that she had come across. And also just an opportunity to really talk and create a space for communication, which I appreciated. And one of the things that she introduced me to was Influence Ecology and really all she did was sent me a link to the website. She didn’t actually say anything specifically about it, other than, “You might be interested in this.” With a link. And she had participated in the fundamentals of transaction course, and I clicked on the link and there was the video of Kirkland Tibbels, our co-founder, speaking about ambitious adult and thriving in a really uncertain world, I would say.

What was said in the webinar about, well, frankly, working less, making more, essentially having more fun, really spoke to me. I can hear goals that I had for my life being articulated in what it was that I heard Kirkland talk about. So then I got in touch with Drew, and before I’d even had the appointment with Drew I was like, “Well, I want to apply.” And I have to confess I am a little bit arrogant. So when I say I wanted to apply, for me, that was given that then I would be accepted. I’m grateful that I was because here we are two years later.

John: So in everyone’s journey, there’s your life before, there’s sort of what happens when you’ve start studying with us, you know, where you discover you’re naive, or perhaps you discover a little conceit, or ego, or naivety, whatever the case may be and you began to perhaps discover where. While you may have thought you were transactional and competent, especially with what you did in your previous career, how did you begin to discover that you were naive about your own transactional competence?

Suzanne: Yeah, so transacting was something that I was very familiar with and the act of negotiating contracts. And so there was much of the technology in the work that was quite familiar to me, in terms of the articulation of it, but I think one of the things that I found most curious was very early on in fundamentals, you speak about the 13 steps of transacting. And I remember reading the 13 steps, and I related to my… I still do relate to myself this way, but I related to myself as someone who picks things up very quickly. So I can read something and really understand it on the first go, because I’ve trained to do that over 20 years. And I found myself having to reread this document several times and looking at the words thinking, “I know what each one of those words means, but I really don’t understand what that entire sentence means.” That was really out of my comprehension. You could say I was naive, I was naive to this language and articulation that I just didn’t understand, and I didn’t know what to do with that. So I was partly agitated by it. It sort of upset me slightly. But also, I was excited by it because I’d become quite complacent in my career, and I think what I was looking for with something that fired my intellectual brain.

John: Tell us a little bit about some of the results or outcomes of this. And in your notes, you really did say a few things about relationships, habits and practices, and commitment and consistency. And I think those are important bets distinctly but together their makeup is something rather remarkable. So just tell us a little bit about how those three things were either impacted, perhaps relationships were impacted or how those three things assisted you in what’s happened now?

Suzanne: All of life now is really inconceivably different from how it was two or three years ago. I travel the world at least once a month. I spend more time away from my home than I do at home. I think most critically, one of the outcomes that happened after my father passed away was that my brother came to live with me. And that was supposed to only last for six months. At the time of recording, it’s been two years. And there was no way that in 2017, my brother and I could possibly have conceived of living together for two years amicably, let alone actually, and we do live together amicably. Plus, I’ve lost 70 pounds in weight in the last 18 months, so I’ve lost about five dress sizes. I am a regular attendee at a strength training gym, and I’ve got the records for the gym in weightlifting, for women. And my business is growing in a way that I really didn’t expect. I’m sought of after to speak, I’m invited to participate in podcasts like this one, but others and I am offered large scale stages to speak on. So people know me and I am developing a reputation in my new career.

And I attribute all of that down to the work that I’ve done with Influence Ecology. And I think the thing that you speak to about relationships and commitment and consistency is the thing that has really transformed for me in my work with Influence Ecology, in terms of understanding that the smallest detail makes a difference, when repeated, consistently. Done once, it might produce the result, but if you want that result to happen over time, then you need to repeat that pattern over and over again. And what I used to do before Influence Ecology was I would throw the baby out with the bathwater. So I had a history of yo-yo dieting as an example, where I’ve lost pounds of weight many times. But I would reach my goal, and then I would kind of go, “Well, I don’t need to do anything else.” And then over a short amount of time, the weight would creep back on because I’m… Not even creep back on but pile back on because I didn’t ever follow the consistent patterns that were required to maintain that weight loss. And I didn’t know how to do that.

And what I’ve learned with Influence Ecology is to establish a foundation for myself. So what are the practices that really make a difference to my life every day? For those I can say getting up early in the morning. So usually around or before 6:00 AM in the morning, what to eat each day, how to exercise, and then rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater when something stops working, because things do stop working, they don’t go quite the way that I want them to go all the time. Looking at what are the dials that I’ve turned? What are the things the habits that I know work, that I’m not necessarily following as consistently as I want to, and then putting them back in? Or, how can I challenge myself to the next level in the habits that I have? So weight training is a really good example of that.

The way to progress in weight training is to put more weight on the bar. But most people don’t do that, they do more reps, which does produce a result. But I’ve learned that going to the gym, wherever I am in the world is fundamental not only to my physical well-being, but also my mental state, makes a difference to how I feel, and my ability to do work. And if I want to improve, challenge myself, so lift more. Even if it’s just one or two pounds more, lift more, but do the work. It’s the same with my business development, in terms of contacting people, maintaining relationships, making sure that I follow up. Working with people in my team, writing, I’m writing a book. And the way that that is moving forward is because I write every day. And I just didn’t know that before. I really didn’t.

John: I happen to be working on something right now for another program. And it was up in front of me this morning and yesterday and I’m doing some writing on this, but I’ll read a part of it. It says the recent Gladwellian phrase of putting in your 10,000 hours refers to this aspect of practice, the notion that talent and specialized ability, expertise, and knowledge are as much a function of the environment as they are practice, a lot of deliberate practice. Deliberate practice shapes the experience that in turn shapes the perception of new opportunities. Simply put, you do not and cannot see the same tennis ball serve as someone who has deliberately practiced the ability and expertise to return thousands of serves. And there is a kind of knowing, a kind of experience that arises through the practice of practicing. And I hear you talking about fundamentally the practice, if you will, of developing practices, and attending to your practices, and continuing to validate, modify your practices in accordance with your aims. First, anything you want to say about that. And then second, I’m going to ask you, what does that have to do with transactional competence? Because it sounds like something separate, right? So first, anything you want to say? And secondly, what does that have to do with transactional competence?

Suzanne: Yeah. The first thing that I would say about practice for practice sake, is that that in itself is revolutionary to me. So I practice yoga, and I have practiced yoga for a long time, very sporadically. But in the last two years, I’ve become very consistent with my yoga practice, and it gets better because I practice every day. And the creator of the system that I practice, which is Ashtanga Yoga, Pattabhi Jois said, it’s 99% practice, 1% theory. And so I think that speaks to the Gladwell comment. Yes, it has lots of benefits to me, but really, I practice because I practice. And the discipline of that is very satisfying.

I think that is what I would say about transactional competence. The practice of practice for the sake of it creates a trust in myself, a relationship that I have with myself for reliability, and steadfastness that enables me to engage in conversations and relationships with people that I might not otherwise have had, because I felt too flimsy in them. So I can be more demanding of other people, because I know that I’m demanding that of myself. And it also creates a flexibility, which is surprising, because practice takes discipline, which often is seen as rigid. But actually, in the having clarity for myself about what my boundaries are with my time, in particular around, I practice this, I do this exercise, I lift these weights. In having that clarity, I can then afford others space to create for themselves. It creates a clarity with me. That means other people can be clearer for themselves. And again, I didn’t know that.

I’ve always thought that I’m a lawyer, I understand obligation. I thought I knew what a person of integrity is. And actually, that required quite rigorous examination. That isn’t over, by the way, like I continue to engage in the inquiry of what is it to be someone who engages in deliberate practice, for the sake of it. That in itself is an interesting inquiry, in that I used to think deliberate practice was to accomplish a goal. And it’s very difficult to accomplish a goal without deliberate practice. But I think the beauty of deliberate practice is the deliberate practice, not the accomplishment of the goal. I think the Gladwell comment again spoke of this, where there’s innate talent, where we’re good at things because we said we’re good at things, and you don’t actually have to do any work to become good at them. And the reality is that a virtuoso musician is a virtuoso musician, because of the virtuoso, and they’ve practiced a lot to get like, probably way more than the 10,000 hours, Malcolm Gladwell speaks to. To become the virtuoso, that has them be the sought-after concert performer that they now are.

And it’s the same, so you’re not going to walk into a room of 10,000 people and be able to deliver an inspiring motivating speech that rouses them on your first go, it just isn’t going to happen. You need to rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and refine and refine and check out what you’re saying, and do it again, and throw it away and bring it back. We live in a society that really looks to instant gratification and satisfaction of need, immediately that need comes to the surface. And that will satiate a desire to eat a chocolate bar, but it won’t have you cross the finishing line in a marathon. And it won’t have you create a successful business. And it won’t have you get out of debt if you’re in significant debt.

We live in a society that rewards overnight success. But we forget how much those people who’ve had overnight success have put in to being in that position. And probably it was many, many years of effort, and toil, and sweat and tears. And actually, the success is in having put in that effort.

John: I think it’s worth mentioning, this is the year of ambition for Influence Ecology. In other words, this is you could say the year where what we said at our global conference in January of 2019, was we challenged people to develop a plan for some ambitious aim. In other words, an aim that is difficult to achieve. What we’ve been finding is that people are experiencing that when you attempt to accomplish something that’s difficult to achieve, your inspiration to accomplish that aim, if you will, goes up and down. I myself have been in some of the worst moods I’ve been in a while because I’m finding my incompetence, or my inability, or my lack of fitness for those things I seek to accomplish this year below par. They’re not where they need to be for me to accomplish those aims. So, what do I do? Well, I practice, and I practice, and I practice, and I practice, and I practice, and I practice. And I’m finding myself developing fitness in ways that I never imagined. So anything else you want to say to the topic of fitness and practice and habits?

Suzanne: I think you’ve summed it up really, really well. All I’d say is that in reference to the ambitious aim, what I’ve really learned is that in fulfilling an ambition, you have to do some work, and it requires deliberate practice, and just having the ambition isn’t sufficient.

“What I’ve really learned is that in fulfilling an ambition, you have to do some work, and it requires deliberate practice, and just having the ambition isn’t sufficient.”

John: I’m very happy that you’re now speaking in front of people. You’re quite, eloquent, authoritative, and you’re a rare combination of those things, and a commitment that people, and particularly women, I think that your specific customer, experience as you say, mind-blowing sex and enjoyment in their lives. And so I would expect if we investigated a little bit that you find that’s not happening. People might be experiencing quite the opposite, or perhaps they… You could say whether or not their concerns, issues, body image, who knows whatever goes on, where someone doesn’t allow themselves to enjoy sex, or whatever? I’m not the expert on this as you’re. So I just want to turn our attention to this, as I know it’s titillating, and I know it often gets a smile from people whenever we talk about it at a conference. But I find what you do to be an important thing for someone that probably has a reach into so many areas of their lives. So I want to let you talk about what you do a little bit.

Suzanne: Thank you, John. My personal belief is that having a fulfilling sex life is really a foundation for having a fulfilling life in all aspects, like you just said, at the end there. So when you are experiencing an intimate connection with another, usually your partner, then there’s a freedom that comes from that, that allows for more joy to be expressed, and freedom to be expressed and experienced in life. And it is sadly the case that not only do we not experience that level of connection and intimacy with another, but we just all ready don’t talk about that we’re not experiencing it either. So there’s a notion that we see Hollywood movies, where it looks like a couple are riding off into the sunset happily ever after, and at the same time, they’re jumping into bed with each other and ripping each other’s clothes off. And most people are looking at the screen and wondering why they don’t have that. And what I would say about that is that, well, they might not want to have that. And actually, they probably don’t want to have that because that’s fiction, it’s a movie.

But having a really beautiful, intimate, close, loving connection with a partner or another human being, allows for someone to see you in a way that we no longer have to hide ourselves from who we truly are. And when we stop hiding ourselves from being who we truly are, that’s when you can have that level of connection. So what I find amazing about the work that I do is the symbiotic relationship of allowing someone to see you, because you’re seeing yourself for the first time, and you’ve become okay with who you are, to allow someone to see you. And it speaks to the flexibility that I spoke of earlier, which is having open, transparent, clear relationships, in all aspects, in sexual relationships, in business relationships, in familial relationships, in friendships, makes things easier and I think more fun.

John: You mentioned before that you are being invited to speak. Is there a particular topic you’re invited to speak on? Are people asking you to talk about this generally? Or is there something you tend to address when you go to talk?

Suzanne: This subject that I most usually speak about is women in the 40s and 50s, who feel like their sex life is passing… well, their life is really starting to pass them by. They’re somewhat consigned to the scrap heap of society, their children are getting older, they’re in school, or heading to university, and they’re moving towards menopause or going through menopause. And that is a time of life when women start to feel like their function as women has dried up, for want of a better word. And what I speak about is that it isn’t the end of life. And I offer some ways to bring the sexy back if you like, and have more fun, because there’s no reason at all that we shouldn’t enjoy healthy sex lives and healthy relationships all the way through to the end of life. And they certainly don’t need to stop when we hit 40.

John: Anything else that you would like to say?

Suzanne: I just express gratitude really for and appreciation for you and Professor Tibbels, as I like to call him in making Influence Ecology and transactional competence available in the world. I think it provides a unique platform for communication and relating with people, whether it be in business or in other areas of life. I know that Influence Ecology speaks particularly to business. It’s intellectually stimulating and challenging in a way that I’ve never encountered before, and I’m grateful for that. And the opportunity to come and interact with amazing people that I have lots of fun with, from all around the world is really great at conference. So I look forward to being with you guys in the future. And yeah, thank you, is what I’d say.

In this episode, we include a small segment from our membership program webinar, where we talk about knowing and deliberate practice. This includes contributions from members, Maura O’Flynn, and Jennifer Judy.

John Patterson: There’s a few things that I want to talk about in terms of deliberate practice and how it’s relevant. So one thing for sure, is we’ve said this in a variety of ways throughout our programs, and that is that knowing requires doing. I think what I’d like to do here is I want to work with somebody. So if somebody like to work with me a little bit, then raise your hand carry on, I’m going to have you call on someone for me. If you would, please raise your hand, and I invite you to participate with me.

Karie Kohn: All right. We have one hand out. How about Maura O’Flynn?

John: Okay, great. All right, Maura.

Maura O’Flynn: Okay.

John: How are you?

Maura: I am really good. Thank you, John. How are you?

John: I’m good. I’m good. So do this for me. So we’re going to study this for just a second, then we’re going to move on to studying this. I’m going to have you read it. We’re going to ask some things about it. Everybody else listening, to read this along with Maura and I and study this, and I invite you to place your ego or hubris aside, make sure that you’re here to study. Okay? So Maura, please, if you would read this from the top?

Maura: Great. Knowing requires doing. To develop our fitness to transact effectively, we must practice. Application is the act of purposefully and intentionally putting into practice that which we have come to understand. For example, consider how we get competent at swimming. We could read about it, study it, watch videos, discuss it and perhaps even practice on dry land. And yet still, we wouldn’t know swimming until we got into the water and tested our understanding through action. Furthermore, our fitness to swim cannot be developed in a single attempt. For confidence, knowing requires doing and fitness requires practice.

John: Good. So, what do hear in all that?

Maura: I really love the analogy. It’s sort of like the bicycle, but it’s even better because it’s swimming in water, because you could drown if you don’t know what you’re doing. And we act sometimes, like if we know something, knowing everything. And particularly for me, my ambitious aim is about my health and a lot of weight loss, and I know lots about that. But knowing and doing something are very different, and even thinking that I know and starting to do the things I know, don’t even show up the same in practice.

John: What about your fitness? Let’s say Maura, you were fit to swim five years ago, but you haven’t been in the water?

Maura: Yeah, we think just like someone says… Yeah, just like riding a bike. Well, let me assure you, I actually had that experience. I went to Hawaii last year. And I do love to swim and I can swim. But I noticed it was definitely different, because it had been a few years and I can… Definitely I’m not drowning I can get around, but swimming like to actually, like laps, that is very different than not dog paddling. And just because I knew it, and I was a great swimmer, let’s say when I was much younger, it’s not the same. And it’s not just the body, it’s also your you brain, how it works, it’s just different.

John: You’re addressing something, I think some people, I think generally you and I are naive to or perhaps we have some hubris about, which is that our fitness is always in decline. The fitness is the kind of skill ability, practice competence that is developed. And if I’m increasing my fitness to reach an aim, and I’m working on that fitness, I’m developing that fitness, and maybe on a scale of one to five, we’re just going to call it that for the sake of some rating. Maybe I have moved from a one to a two, now I’m at a level of three, I feel pretty good because I’m at a level of three in terms of some scale of fitness, I start to go to work on level of four. But now, you know I’m certainly a bit cocky, and I feel good, feel like I’m accomplishing something. So I stop practicing, I stop doing the work that I was doing before. And I don’t know it, but typically my fitness then slips backwards. And it might slip back to a three or a two. But lo and behold the hubris, I do the thing that I’ve known for a long time, or I’ve already demonstrated that, and then find myself unfit. Often a bit taken aback or surprised, by the way which fitness just simply declines.

I’m going to go to Jennifer Judy. I’ve got some other hands too. Thanks. Keep your hands up, guys. I have some more questions here. Jennifer, please. Anything else you want to cover be to this or ask?

Jennifer Judy: Well, the thing I would say is, I’ve transformed my physical fitness over the last 15 months, like really profoundly. And the thing it took for me was an extraordinary concentration. And the very first thing I had to do was start acting like I didn’t know what I was doing. And as background, most people here won’t know this, but I’ve been on a magazine cover in a bikini as a bodybuilder. So the opportunity that offered for hubris and thinking I knew how to do it was hilarious, because my doing that 15 years ago had zero relationship to the body I’ve got now. And at the time, I had a personal trainer who swore to me, “You are really always getting better, or always getting worse.” And I know I was kind of cocky about that, and I actually got that. I think I hear you saying that too. Really, and truly, those are the only options. Physical beings don’t stay the same, we’re not really made for that. So your two opportunities are just picking which direction you’re going.

John: That’s very good. Good. And then Jennifer, you know this thing about we wouldn’t know swimming until we got in the water, I wanted to take the moment to make a point about this environment called the water. Because, look, each of us knows practice or perhaps we know study. We even see it with some of our really, really smart folks here to Influence Ecology. They study on papers. They’re real intent about studying for a long time. They’re proud of it, “I studied for 20 hours.” Or whatever they may say, “And I wrote that thing out so carefully. And I wrote it out. It’s there, I’ve written it, I’ve read it, I’ve studied it and watched it.” But then we say, “Well, how many invitations did you make,” for example? “Oh, well, none. I’m just…” And I appreciate this study, by the way, I really do. But until we get in the water, whatever that water may be. And this is just meant to be an example of an environment where we must address our fitness in the environment in which it occurs. So anything you want to say about this and you’re done?

Jennifer: Oh, I could go on. And one of the conversations I have with people is people who are like, “Yeah, I tried dieting, you know I gave it two weeks, and I didn’t lose any weight and I gave up.” As background, and I really thought I knew what I was doing right and like the things that worked 15 years ago didn’t work now. So I actually had to fit to do things that didn’t produce the result I was after, but moved me in the right direction. It took like four months of work, which included a lot of failing at like what I thought I needed to do. For instance, giving up refined sugar was early on, and I know that’s not a thing for everybody, but it was for me. And there are so many opportunities to fail at that. But until you get in and start failing and failing and failing, and working at like, “Well, what new habits am I going to build? And what’s the stuff I’ve tried, that’s not working?” I’m a bit of a data geek and I collected an extraordinary amount of data. So when people are like, “Well, you should be able to eat this.” And I’m like, “Well, thank you for sharing. But I’ve tried that and that’s ineffective for me. It may work for you.”

Everyone’s got a different biome, different genetics, but you cannot just go read a book and actually have the result. And you won’t know what it takes for you to put it into practice until you start doing and swinging and failing.

John Patterson: My special thanks to our guest, Suzanne Pool. In our show notes, you’ll find links to connect with her and all the links to any websites, books or downloads mentioned in this podcast.

The Influence Ecology Podcast is produced by Influence Ecology, LLC in Ventura, California. This episode was recorded April 1st, 2019 and was produced by Tyson Crandall and John Patterson. You can find a transcript for this and other episodes at InfluenceEcology.com. This episode is made possible through the assistance of the Influence Ecology Faculty, Staff, Mentors, and Students around the world. Co-founder Kirkland Tibbels and our colleagues comprise an international collective of professionals who are active in the development of the philosophy of Transactionalism and the discipline of Transactional Competence. Kirkland is considered a leading philosopher and authority in the field and he has authored more than 500 papers on the subject, study, and discipline.

This episode includes contributions by Karal Gregory. The podcast theme is by Chris Standring and titled ‘Fast Train to Everywhere.’ You can subscribe to the Influence Ecology Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or via email at podcast@influenceecology.com.

If you haven’t yet offered a rating or review, I ask that you take a moment go to iTunes or your podcast app and let us know what you think. This helps us more than you know.

In Inglewood, California, Christopher Mercier, President and Design Principal of (fer) studio builds award-winning Contemporary Iconic Architecture designed by a process whereby the final form is a result of a unique and collaborative design research method entitled Form Environment Research – or (fer) studio for short. FER’s approach is to produce a unique iconic form that offers each client a strong personalized visual identity arising from exceptional care for their aims.

Christopher Mercier is a specialist in the human-environment relationship and uses the “environment” as a tool to help do a lot with a little. In today’s interview, we’ll speak with him to discuss the opportunities for building these “environments” to do the heavy lifting for us. After the interview, we’ll hear a segment from one of our webinars about building these kinds of environments to help us influence others to meet our ambitious aims.

Here’s the interview:

Below you’ll find a transcript of this podcast episode that has been edited for your reading pleasure. You’ll also see links at the bottom of this post where you can find more information on the people and ideas mentioned in the episode.

by John Patterson
Produced by: John Patterson & Tyson Crandall

“When you create some type of organization of spaces, rooms, or relations, you create that environment and that environment then ends up with a form that becomes an identity.”

Christopher Mercier: I’m Christopher Mercier, founder and president of (fer) studio. We’re an iconic architecture and urban design office in Inglewood, California. John, I appreciate being here this looks like it could be fun.

John Patterson: Yeah, I think it will be. Say a little bit about you first started participating in Influence Ecology in what year?

Christopher: Geez, I think it was at least two years ago now. Two and a half maybe. Something in there. And I started with Fundamentals of Transaction and originally I worked with Lorenda Phillips. And she was a coach for many years and I did her structures for success course that she did years ago. And Lorenda was the person who got me over to finally meet with you when you were doing a presentation in Pasadena. One of the workshops.

I went to that with doubts I would say. By the time I walked out of there, I was like, “Wow, this is really, really good. This is great. This has everything I’ve kind of been looking for.” So, I was really impressed.

John: And tell me a little about that. What was it that you were looking for, if you remember? What was it that had you say to yourself, “Well that sounds like something I should do.”

Christopher: You know what, it was just in the presentation and going through the conditions of life and personality types and everything. Over the years, I’ve been… read philosophy, this and that, and I’ve done this and that program. I’ve done some Tony Robbins stuff. All of these things that we’re doing were pieces of information that could be applied here and there. But I never felt like there was a comprehensive approach to something and I feel like that’s where Influence Ecology for me really comes together as it’s not just a business tool. It’s not just a life tool. It’s not just this tool or that tool. It’s kind of like the whole toolbox all together and that to me, was kind of groundbreaking.

John: I don’t disagree. In fact, we have a lot of people that say something like, “Well, I’ve heard this and I’ve tried that and I’ve studies this and I’ve applied that. But it seems as if you guys at Influence Ecology bring it all together in kind of a cohesive program.” Anything else you want to say about that?

Christopher: That’s been a key piece because I guess I think I’ve always struggled with… You do this stuff for your business and then your life’s over here, and it’s this separate thing. And now working with Influence Ecology, where I am now, it’s the first time where I’m kind of combining everything. And it all looks cohesive under one idea. There’s separate parts to these things, but it’s all a full, continuous, collected idea which I think is fabulous.

John: One of the things that you pointed out in your notes was you began to discover that of the many conditions of life, and by the way for those that are listening for the very first time, that condition of life is I don’t wanna say an unavoidable area of your life that all human beings must attend to. For example, money, work, career, relationship and many others.

So, Chris, in your notes, you talk a little bit about the conditions of life. As, we presented them, you began to see some things about thinking accurately about those different conditions of life and then how to take care of many of those conditions of life, perhaps in new ways. So, anything you wanna say to reflect on that part of your journey?

Christopher: Yeah. I’d say that I grew up in Michigan in a typical Midwestern, middle-income family household. And my parents always taught the idea of kind of hard work and you’re gonna get where you need to go and that was really the motto of everything. But having gone through Influence Ecology, everything we’ve done so far and what I’ve been doing is realizing that yeah, hard work is great but unless you’ve got plans and accurate thinking and you’re really setting yourself up to understand how you’re gonna address these things, it’s really not gonna happen. And so, that’s what I really have been working on over the last couple of years since I’ve started is really strategizing different plans for these different conditions of life and creating deadlines and goals and aims within each of them.

John: And prior to that time, were you just crossing your fingers or you were just working hard and thinking, “Well, if I just keep working hard it’ll turn out?”

Christopher: Probably a little bit of both. A lot of the second one.

John: Well I think it’s the same for all of us, right? I’ve got my head down, I’m working, this should turn out, right?

Christopher: It would be funny because partial plans would come along and you’d kind of have a plan for one direction for a while and then at some point that plan would kind of like, deluded. Then off to another thing. So, there was no kind of consistency with it either.

John: So I think one thing is useful to point out the design of our programs and everything else is kind of an environment. Our programs are an environment. One of the ways to relate to the name of our company, Influence Ecology, is this way.

And I’ve told this story a dozen times, but, that if I want to compete in the Olympics, then I have to go put myself in the right environment to develop myself. I have to put myself amongst other Olympic athletes. I have to put myself inside of kinds of frameworks and commitments and obligations. I have to eat like them, sleep like them… I have to be around people who are going to say, “No, no, no. Try that one more time,” and all of that.

So there’s an environment that’s built for people to be able to produce those rather uncommon result. So Influence Ecology, is an ecology that influences you and I to meet our goals. Or said another way, we produce an influence ecology that allows the environment to do the heavy lifting. In other words, we use the environment to help us a little bit. And I’m excited about that part of what we do in talking with you, Christopher, because as an architect. And not just any old architect, I’m going to ask you to brag a little bit about some of your accomplishments, but environment’s your middle name. I look forward to finding out a little bit more about that and its importance as far as what you do and what you offer. Anything you want to say about environment generally before I get onto that?

Christopher: Yeah, I think the environment is what we are all, in all the time. In terms of ecology and stuff. To me, it’s really the basis of how we as architects understand and structure the world. Environment is really all about relations and I think that’s a huge, huge point. And that’s something that we’ve built on with my firm, form environment relation. Form environment research and the funny thing is John, I’ve never said this but when I was developing the name years ago, I was back and forth between form environment research, what it is called today, and form environment relation. It’s a funny thing that I ended up on the one because I think both of them play into what we really do today.

John: And say more about that for people to understand form environment relation or form environment research, what does that mean?

Christopher: What we’ve been working with is the words, form environment research, which become F-E-R in our name, basically. Form is basically an iconic identity that a building or environment takes on. And then, the environment itself is what takes that identity through its organizational solution. So when you create some type of organization of spaces, rooms or relations within an environment, you create that environment and that environment then ends up with a form that becomes an identity. It is the research process, which we call our design research process, entitled Form Environment Research, that basically helps us establish those relations within an environment to create that form.

John: What do you mean by iconic architectural design or iconic architectural urban design in reference to F-E-R?

Christopher: I guess the first thing I’d say is I actually think all architecture is iconic. And it’s really just a question of what level or what degree of iconic-ness it really takes on. Some buildings are bland and I would say there’s almost zero iconic-ness. Whereas or authenticity. But as you increase something like the Eiffel Tower, there’s a huge amount. So all buildings have a level of iconic identity. I think that’s the nature of architecture. In my definition of what iconic is, it’s really what makes the form identifiable, memorable, as an entity.

And our process, at form environment research, why iconic form is important is it because each company or at least should have their own identity. And that identity should be derived from, and created out of, the relations of their environment. One of the ways we work with clients is we basically, we start off and we develop different relational diagrams. And what you’re trying to do is to look for ways that your first solve any breakdowns or any difficulties they’re having when they need efficiency. And this can go from a creative office space, this could be a museum, this could be done through residence. But it’s these relations that you’re looking for, that you’re trying to establish new organizations of those relations to create its own iconic form. And that form should become the identity of that specific customer.

John: And I’m thinking about, as an example. I’m thinking about when I grew up. When I grew up back in Texas… When I went to school, we learned very early on about certain types of architecture. For example, I remember bank architecture. So the banking industry in the old days, if you will, or in the early 1900s at least in the Unites States, need to represent something rather permanent and sturdy and authoritative. And so the architecture was heavy and it was stone and it was columns and there were pillars. So there was something meant to be demonstrated in that environment. In that architecture. And nowadays, as I’m looking at banks and watching bank architecture, it’s so funny I pay attention to this stuff still to this day. I watch bank architecture become a little bit more hip. You could say not so old white guy sitting in a… more hip, more of the times. So there’s a different kind of iconography that’s being represented in that architecture. So are those examples of what you mean or anything you want to expand on?

Christopher: The bank example is fabulous. And I can’t remember, I’m blanking, I think it might be Citibank? They have the new bank café or… So, when I look at that, the way that I read that situation is that what happened is that they reorganized the environmental relations of how the bank works which has allowed them to restructure an identity that you now recognize as the new café slash bank. So in other words, the way you use that interior space, the way that those conditions of environment relational things are going to happen inside the bank is different than what happened in the bank you’re explaining from the past which was a much more formalized and rigid structure with youth.

And I think this is where a lot of architecture goes astray. You can’t just apply an identity to a form, to relationships. You have to use those relationships to find the identity that comes out of that and I think there’s… You see a lot of buildings that look like one thing and you walk in the door and it’s something else and there’s this unrelated-ness that I struggle with. If it’s not intentional and if it’s not for a very good reason.

John: So, I think you and I, Christopher, to bring to light some things that you do naturally in your architecture and in what you’re focused on which is through the relationships between the individuals in an environment, the environment’s utility, all of the different functions. And there’s probably a lot I’m not even bringing to this example. But you make real, in architecture, those relationships into some iconic representation of those commitments so that when the architecture is present, that the architecture itself then does what to us critters that see it or inhabit it?

Christopher: What we started to do over the last couple years, thanks to Influence Ecology, is we’re starting to look at the relations in an environment as actually transactions. And we’re starting to look at the individuals, the groups, people, within those environments that create different departments, say, as also how they transact.

And the idea comes… kind of another level. What we look for is we look for… A client comes to us and they say, “Look, we’re having this breakdown. This isn’t organized right. It’s not flowing correct.” So one thing is to find that solution. That’s one level. The next level that’s more interesting to me, and it’s more important to what architecture can do, is that you say, “Okay. So here’s the solution. But what are the unrecognized opportunities that we aren’t catching?” So that’s where we look for and we bring in a word that we call cross-pollination.

A simple way to explain how cross-pollination would work if we were playing with this larger urban design project and it had in it, there was an elderly housing situation that was part of the project. And that was on one side of the project from the developer and on the other side of the project there was gonna be a preschool. A daytime preschool. And so what we decided to do was take that preschool and take elderly housing and actually merge those two programs. Because they’re two programs that have in one way, nothing to do with each other. But in another sense what the elderly individuals can gain from spending time or interacting or creating or transacting with the children of the day center and vice versa, creates that whole new cross-pollination opportunity.

And so what that does it says, well then what does that environmental situation look like? Where do they interact? How do they interact? And then when you work that out, then if you have wood as the form of this. And so, that’s where form environment research really comes around and that’s what we’re really after is we’re trying to not only solve the problem but we’re trying to find the opportunities that people aren’t even aware of so that in the end what we’re doing is we’re creating an architecture that helps really increase an individual’s or an organization’s performance in the world.

John: You know I’m working with a variety of different companies around the world and one of the things I’m helping them do is to use the power of environment. So, to make a long story as short as possible, sometimes within organizations, many people are attempting to produce buy-in. That’s typically the catchphrase to use for a whole bunch of influence and compliance that the people seek within enterprises. In other words, I’d like for my new initiative at the company, I’d like to get buy-in on this and have that thing go throughout the enterprise. I want that thing sort of, ingrained into the enterprise. I want these new practices, I want these new habits, I want these new narratives, I want these new ideas, I want these new standards to be accepted and complied with throughout the enterprise.

So that’s what we might refer to as compliance. And I will talk to them about building an environment that does the heavy lifting for them. And it’s often the case that someone will be really gifted in a particular aspect of this, like a performer personality which is the relationship oriented personality, will be quite gifted at building influence and compliance, producing buy-in. As a relationship person, going out and getting everyone on the same page having lots of conversations. But it’s much more relational and conversational. Whereas the judge personality, the person that’s much more about evidence and standards, will construct sort of the boundaries and edges, the guidelines, the standards, the policies and procedures to produce influence and compliance. Right?

So what we’re doing Christopher, is we’re working with people to understand that there are a lot of different pieces to the architecture of building an influence ecology. There is the ideas, there’s the relationships, there’s the processes, there’s the standards and you can hear all four personalities in that. There’s something to building an influence ecology where we take those things and use them to produce influence and buy-in within an organization or an enterprise.

Now, from what I can hear and what you’re doing is you’re doing something quite similar. Producing architecture that does some of the heavy lifting for your clients. It tends to speed the transactions in some ways and I’d love to hear your comments about that.

Christopher: Wow, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do too. Is really create an environment that really supports and enhances what people are already doing and really can take them to the next level. To me, it’s such an obvious thing that it needs to happen and it’s such an obvious place of what architecture should be doing. I’m great to hear that. This is really cool.

John: Well it’s great to hear from you too. I mean, I think that’s the fun of having two guys again, it’s been a while since I studied architecture. But what I loved about it was the relational study of it. What drew me to it originally growing up as a kid and loving to go outside and build stuff in my garage… But as I studied it, I started to understand how relational it was. In other words, that some people would throughout history build a church for example to embody the principles and ethics or perhaps the spirituality or the divinity of something. So religion expressed in architecture. And we have so many examples throughout history of acts expressed in architecture. Or acts expressed in this room. And so as people are listening, the reason I’m excited to talk to you about all this is because for you and I, it might be normal to think of well what’s the environment that it’s required for this aim. Now that’s ultimately what we’re talking about. What’s the environment required for this aim? Well I don’t know, what’s the aim?

It sounds like that form environment research begins with, “All right well what are the aims, what are the relationships here and then let’s take those aims and reify them.” That’s a word we use a lot around here. Make them real, produce them in reality. So that again, that environment does some of the work for us. I’d be interested in any comments about that. But also, I’m curious to know in some of the architecture that you’ve built, what have been some of the responses to the things that you’ve attempted to reify? Where you’ve taken ideas and placed them, built them into something real and concrete?

Christopher: I’m gonna refer to a project we completed a couple years ago in Santa Monica. It’s a residence. It’s for a couple, their children are grown and into college at this point. They had had a house in Sherman Oaks up on a hill where they grew up, had a swimming pool, decent sized yard and everything. And now that the kids were out of the house and everything they wanted to move out of Santa Monica and somewhere closer to a walkable kind of market and coffee shops and things like that. And so they purchased a property there, they tore down what was a perfectly fine small house on the property and it came to exactly your question about, “What’s their aim? What did they really want?”

And so, it was interesting because part of the thing that I think we do when we go through a design process, is we actually try to pull that question out of our client. Like, what is it that you’re really looking for? And it’s surprising how difficult that can be. In the end, what we created was a contemporary home, which is something that they were well aware they wanted. But the nuances or the environmental structure and organization of that house was something that they were not clear. So, we had to listen for cues. And some of these things were that they wanted a two-story residence with so many bedrooms and bathrooms because of resale. They wanted a house full of light. They wanted to never have to go upstairs if it was at all possible because they felt were gonna grow old in this house and we want to have a master bedroom on the first floor so we never have to go up there if we don’t want to.

And this can go on and on and on. There were a ton of these cues but the driving force there were a number of pointers. So what ended up happening is we developed the house where we had bedrooms on the second floor but then we took the house and we pulled the house apart down the middle. Down the spine. And so we created a two story street, if you will. What that became the circulation for both upstairs and on the first floor and it was visibly and physically open. So you could be upstairs on the corridor and look down to the corridor below. And so, what this did is it said because there was a master on the first floor, you don’t have to go upstairs but you will experience the entire house without having to got here. And it also allows when somebody’s at home, one of the kids are home and they’re upstairs, you can engage somebody from two floors and this was kind of my growing up as a kid and everybody’s upstairs yelling, “Mom,” because you need your shoes or something.

It was maybe a partial response to that of my youth. So we split the two in that way. Created this double hygge space. A master on the first floor and then what we also did is down that spine we created a linear skylight that tracks the sun throughout the entire day. So that spine becomes a two story piece that pulls the house apart, allows for the integration of the second floor which they never want to have to go to, and it also becomes a natural daylight piece for the entire day as the sun moves across the sky from East to West and it lights the house differently all through the day. So the house became the environmental or organizational aspect of the house was of a particular solution derived directly from what we learned in trying to understand their aims. And they loved the house. They absolutely love it.

John: I’d like for you to brag a little bit about yourself because I know that your firm has won some awards, received some recognition, there may be some things you’d like to say to brag a bit about yourself. So anything that we should know about what you guys have accomplished or anything about who you are?

Christopher: Well I think one of the unique things about (fer) studio is a lot of architects I think they specialize in building types. And that’s understandable. It’s a logical way to address things and become specialized. But we’ve taken a different approach.

So what we do is we specialize in a client who’s looking for something unique. A client who really wants to make something that’s out of the ordinary and is really particular to their lifestyle, where they want to go in life, what they’re looking to do and what they’re looking to achieve. And so, we will do a variety of projects to museums, to single family residences, to multi-family residences, creative office spaces. We’re recently working on a cannabis store. Any type of project is open to us as long as the client themselves is looking for a very, very specialized solution. And I think that’s where we really can bring a lot to the table.

John: That’s fantastic. I was looking up some information on you and I saw an article titled, Space Man. By the way, I loved this title so much. I thought, “God, that’s so great, I gotta rip that off.” It’s such a beautiful way of saying that you’re a guy concerned for environment, but I’ve read a few different articles about you and about what you guys have accomplished. Anything else you’d like to say that you’re really proud of?

Christopher: The last thing I’d like to say is, I think this is really important, is that what Influence Ecology has brought to the table for (fer) studio is… We’re reinventing what (fer) studio is using the 13 steps, using the Pattern of Inquiry, using the Transaction Cycle and we’re trying to completely restructure how we do, how we operate, and how we address situations. And it’s interesting for me because when I first came up with the idea of creating (fer) studio and doing these things, I was always looking for that and I never had a clear path as to how to do it. It’s really finally coming together. That realization is how to make that work. And I would say to everybody who’s studying with Influence Ecology is you really have to be patient. I know John, you, and Kirkland constantly say this. You have to be really patient about going through these steps and these pieces. They look awkward, they look funny sometimes. It doesn’t seem to be working. But if you keep plugging at it and keep plugging at it, it really starts to come together. And it’s really been doing that for us and I really appreciate that.

John: Well I hope you had fun today. I certainly did. I enjoyed talking about that subject, as you can tell. I love that subject as much as you. I think you might like that subject a little bit more than me but it’s hard to tell. I might have to arm wrestle you for it. I might go after that Space Man title, myself. It’s a fantastic one.

Christopher: Yeah, I’m welcome to share the Space Man title with you.

John: Well Chris Mercier, of (fer) studios, thank you for being with us today. It was a pleasure doing this interview with you and I look forward to letting the world know a little bit more about your talents and your studio.

Christopher: Well thank you, John. This was really great and I appreciate everything Influence Ecology’s done and… Thank you so much.

John Patterson: We offer a segment of our Fundamentals of Transaction program here to give an example of what it might look like to begin to build and expand your influence ecology. This bit includes myself and Vice President Drew Knowles in Auckland, New Zealand.

John: Well, I’m going to sum it up this way by saying money is the value of your help. It’s the value of your help. It’s how your help is seen as valued to others in the marketplace. That’s why we work so much on your being valuable or low cost. Both of those things are ways in which you can increase your value, or the value of your help. And your career is your identity. In other words, the way that people are related to your value or health in those specific ecologies.

So you build and expand the help, the others that you require to fulfill your aims in each condition apply. You get help by offering help. You get help by offering help. So when we began this entire session with concentration and focus, one of the reasons I’m committed that you began to concentrate. Concentrate your offer. Focus your offer. Make it quite clear that you want to expand the identity of the value and help that you are to others in the ecologies where your health is seen as useful.

So, you must build an identity of value or help to attract the invitations, offers and requests from powerful centers of influence. In specific ecologies, there is something important for you to understand about your known-ness in ecologies because you are already known, perhaps unknown. But you’re known as unknown. I don’t know that guy. I could see in there, but I don’t know him. So there’s a kind of known-ness, a value or health, ranging from unknown to celebrated in different ecologies. And we want to just caution you, don’t assume that your smartness, that you’re liked, that you’re productive, that you’re sufficient to meet your aims because you may be naïve to the actions required to produce an identity of value or help.

For example, do you only take, or do you offer help? Go ahead Drew.

Drew Knowles: Yeah, one of those things John I’ve been seeing and learning for myself is it’s not just help. Someone the other day was saying to me, “Oh, I offer my help often and sometimes it reciprocates.” I said, “Well, you could take that up one level. How about you think about what specific help you can offer.” And two examples, John.

One is the editor of this magazine, I found out earlier on, and I’m writing for them regularly now. I found out early on, he isn’t as networked as I am and I thought he must have access to everybody. But it happens that there are certain networks he doesn’t have access to. And he needs quality writer, quality speakers, all sorts. So I had deliberately, and it’s partly because of the other people that I know want to get a chance to write and deliver. I offered him a number of people recently where not they’re going to be speaking at certain events and writing certain things, and he’s calling me regularly. He rang me the other day. I talked to John said, “You’re doing this keynote for us. How can I have the day event be a really good lead generation for Influence Ecology and help you grow your business?” And I was like, “Go on.” And that’s the kind of thing that’s happening, right?

And then this new office space that I’ve got that the woman whom manages it, it’s a kind of co-working… I found out early on, and this is the key point everybody, is I found out their aims. What has her win in her job? And it so happens that people through the door of this beautiful office space that looks over the water in Auckland, is one of her KPI’s. So now we’re working together and we’re going to put on a partnered meet up event, and I’m basically going to bring a bunch of people through the door, which is what I want to do anyway. And she couldn’t be more supportive and helpful in making sure my office experience… They’re gonna open up to their members, and we’re in this incredibly lovely reciprocal relationship. Really, I just found out what are her main aims and thought to myself, “Can I or is there someone else that I know offer that specific help to help this person. Because then they are really gonna help me.”

And I could go on and on, but it’s about specific help. Not just saying, “How can I help you?” That’s costly.

John: Right.

Drew Knowles: That means it’s on them to think about how you can help them. That’s not an ambitious adult. That’s an adult. Anyway. That’s the last thing I’ll say.

John Patterson: Good, I’m gonna do a quick thing to the work. I’m gonna help the producers, or the more objective minded, and what does it mean or look like to build and expand your influence ecology? So, I’m gonna start right here with this. I’m gonna tell you my story.

So, first of all, I want to build and expand my influence ecology and cooperation in a very specific ecology. So, I live in Ventura, California. I moved to this area a decade ago. I live in Ojai, California, which is up the valley a bit, but I work in Ventura, California. And I have not been known publicly here and I’ve always not wanted to be known publicly here but I began to change my mind and look at how I might be known not just as, “Oh, that guy.” But being known for a very specific offer of help.

So, all I did first is I looked at this list and I asked, “All right. Well, in what ecology, what specific ecology might I want to impact? You know what, I’m gonna start with the Ventura Chamber of Commerce.” The Ventura Chamber of Commerce is quite celebrated in this part of California for a bunch of stuff. They’re rather unusual and kind of amazing group of people. So I thought, “Nobody knows me. I’m unknown.” Top of the list, unknown. No identity value help or harm. How might I become somewhat known or known? The Chamber of Commerce president and the chairman of the Chamber, I emailed them and I send them an email that says, “Hey. I was involved in Austin, Texas back in sort of the beginnings of what’s now South by Southwest if you know that large global conference and I was also involved quite substantially in attempting to attract the Olympics to Chicago and Chicago tech industry. I’d like to help produce some kind of global identity for Ventura. Can we talk?”

30 seconds later, I get an email back. I am not kidding. 30 seconds later I get an email back inviting me to lunch the very next day. That lunch led to a meeting with a committee head who happened to be one of the people accountable for LinkedIn Learning. So LinkedIn Learning is a campus nearby us. They invited me to now spearhead this particular group and now I’m one of the co-hosts for the 2019 Economic Outlook Breakfast for Ventura for 300 people, all the local politicians and VIPs. And we are pointing to a big future for the city of Ventura that my committee is ecstatic about. I am now quite known in that group, but I’m about to be not just somewhat known but very known. Perhaps well known in the city of Ventura for a very specific kind of help.

By the way, I didn’t ask to lead any of these things. I didn’t ask to head up this committee. I simply demonstrated my help and as I demonstrated my help, I was invited to participate. Now knowing I was doing an experiment in career ecology in building my influence ecology, I was very picky about what I say yes to and I said yes to a few things and I’m about to be quite known in this area for something that matters to me very dearly.

John Patterson: My special thanks to our guest, Christopher Mercier. In our show notes, you’ll find links to connect with him and all the links to websites, books, or downloads mentioned in the podcast.

The Influence Ecology Podcast is produced by Influence Ecology, LLC in Ventura, California. This episode was recorded May 1, 2019, and was produced by Tyson Crandall and John Patterson. You can find a transcript for this and other episodes at InfluenceEcology.com. This episode is made possible through the assistance of the Influence Ecology Faculty, Staff, Mentors, and Students around the world. Co-founder Kirkland Tibbels and our colleagues comprise an international collective of professionals who are active in the development of the philosophy of Transactionalism and the discipline of transactional competence. Kirkland is considered a leading philosopher and authority in the field and he has authored more than 500 papers on the subject, study, and discipline.

The podcast theme is by Chris Standring and titled ‘Fast Train to Everywhere.’ You can subscribe to the Influence Ecology Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or via email at podcast@influenceecology.com.

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