Lessons
Class Introduction
04:52 2Why you Should Be Accurate
03:57 3Why You Should Be Early
10:22 4Why you Should Meet Weekly
06:09 5How to Get Credit for the Work You Do
09:09 6Make it Easy to Say Yes
08:05 7How to Deal with Someone at Work who Hates You
08:41 8How to Give a Presentation
09:07Lesson Info
Make it Easy to Say Yes
The boss is such an easy scapegoat. It's like everyone thinks bosses are put on this planet to try and ruin your life and I'm gonna tell you that's just not true. The bosses are human beings also, they're trying to do their best just like you are. Stop blaming your boss. Remember what I said at the beginning, the way to be good at your job? Take responsibility for your actions and overcommunicate like crazy. This is about taking responsibility for your actions. Stop blaming other people and figure out what you need to do and by the way, this is how I wanna go through life. I wanna go through life feeling like I'm always in control and I've got a way to fix or get whatever I want. If I advocate that responsibility and go well, my boss just doesn't like me. What is my options? My options are to just sit there and wait for the boss who doesn't like me to go away? They might never move. Instead, I wanna think, it's not my boss' fault, I wanna think, what could I have done to get a differen...
t result? How do I make it easy for them to say yes? It's not their job to say yes, it's your job to make it easy for them to say yes. Now you may not like that 'cause it means yes, a little bit of extra work but I promise you it's worth it in the long run. So, let's go through a few examples. The topic is make it easy for someone to say yes. If you're in the workplace and you ask someone for 30 minutes, chances are people don't have 30 minutes so don't ask for 30 minutes, ask for 10 minutes. Everyone has 10 minutes. Hey, do you have 10 minutes, I wanna talk about something. Yes. Hey, I have 10 minutes, I wanna pick your brain about that project, I thought you did a great job yesterday, yes. Hey, do you have 10 minutes? I really admire the way you handle yourself and I'd love to buy you a coffee, yes. Compare that to hey, do you have 30 minutes? Whoa, I gotta look at my calendar, you know what, I'm busy today, no, what is it, what do you wanna talk about? It's like oh, nevermind, it's not important. I've lost my moment, I didn't make it easy for the other person to say yes so start small. Don't ask for everything. The way you get to, these balloons are from my 10-year wedding anniversary, the way you get to a 10-year wedding anniversary, I didn't say hey, you are really cute, I like you, do you wanna spend the next 10 years together? I didn't start that way, right? That wouldn't have been easy for someone to be like yup, I'm all in! No, what I said was like hey, you're really cute, I like you and do you wanna go to dinner tomorrow? Start small, make it easy to say yes. Hey, do you wanna go hang out with our friends together like what is the easy way to get to yes with the confidence that once you get that yes, if it's going well, there'll be plenty of more yes' along the way so don't try and hit a home run. Make it easy for the person to say yes when it comes to the time, okay? The second thing I wanna talk about is high pressure moments. You'll remember I said earlier bosses are human beings and human beings don't like to be in high pressure situations and high pressure situations are any meetings with more than two people. If we're sitting at a table and there's three of us, I'm sitting there as the boss and I'm going oh man, those two people are looking at me. Oh man, are they out to get me? Are they trying to trick me? Oh, they're asking me to make a decision but I'm not sure if I should make this decision or not and now I feel a lot of pressure, oh my gosh, they're looking at me again. Okay, what am I supposed to do? That's a high pressure moment and that's asking a lot from me. And by the way, in that moment, my feeling is I don't want to make a mistake. So maybe you know what, I can't make this right now, let me get back to you tomorrow. Because it's a high pressure situation, you've put me on blast, all the lights are on me, give your speech, it's like I'm not ready, can I give it tomorrow? But, if you've given me the warning, if you've done it in advance, that's where the magic happens and this is one of my secrets to life. Ask for the approvals outside of the meeting. Ask for them outside of the high pressure moment, not with 10 people sitting around a table. Prewire your boss and say hey, I just wanna let you know tomorrow at the meeting, I'm gonna be asking for approval on this, here's the information that I have. Let me know if you need anything else to make the decision. I just said that one on one. Maybe I said it in an e-mail, maybe I said it in passing, maybe I said it in my one-on-one weekly meeting but the point is it's just me and that other person and now I've given them time to absorb it. I didn't go to them and be like I need you to make this decision right now. I'm not gonna do that, that's high pressure. No one responds well to high pressure. Instead, why not make it easy for them to say yes and say here's all the information you need and you've got 48 hours to get back to me. Easy and what's happened throughout my career is people go oh, you know what? The boss just likes Justin. He gets approval for everything. They just always say yes, she always says yes to him. And everyone's sitting there going wow, I guess she just likes Justin and the truth is no, she doesn't like me, I just made it easy for her to say yes. So, does that make sense? Take it out of the high pressure moment. It'll do yourself a favor too. So, that's what you wanna do there. The next thing I wanna talk about, this is my wife Mori, she looks fierce right there, right? Talk to your rivals and we all know what this means. There's people on the team who always have something to say about what you're presenting, right? You're talking to your boss, you're asking for approval, you're presenting something and they always have to say something. Now they might be mean-spirited about it. Usually they're just trying to add value or they wanna hear their own voice, whatever the case may be, but we all know that person that we work with and the problem is that's never gonna change. So, what you need to do is diffuse the situation in advance. Again, avoid the high pressure moment and instead what you do is talk to that person and go up to them or send them an e-mail and say hey, we're gonna make this big decision or I'm giving this presentation tomorrow, I wanted to send it to you in advance. Take a look at it, I would love to know any feedback or advice you had. You've totally rendered them useless. They cannot attack you in the meeting because you've already shared it with them and asked for their feedback. So, now if they attack you, it's only because they're an evil person and there aren't that many evil people in the world, there's just not, okay? So, defang your rivals, defang that person by talking to them in advance and by the way, you're showing them respect too. You're saying I respect what you have to say so I'm letting you see this early. Everyone responds well to a little bit of flattery. Hey, you always have good ideas, I'd love for you to take a look at it. Now what you're thinking is hey, you love to hear yourself talk, I'd really prefer not to hear you talk tomorrow so I'm giving this but what you're saying is hey, you always have good ideas, take a look and let me know. Let me know before the meeting so I can incorporate them. Now all of a sudden, look what happens, I show up to the meeting, I give my presentation, the boss is sitting there and they're going hey, wait, I'm gonna wait for Jen to say something clever about this and Jen doesn't say anything and the boss is like oh, whoa, if Jen thinks this is a good idea already, then I'm gonna easily give approval to Justin because I've taken away your fangs, I put you on my team. I took my rival and I put them on my team and now it's easier for me to get to yes. So, talk to your rivals. This isn't a competition and usually people are really nice and we all know that the best thing to do with a bully, you just confront them and then they just fall apart, okay? So, that's that. So, that's what I'm talking about when I talked about how do you make it easy to get to yes? That's your responsibility, okay?
Ratings and Reviews
Deb Boone
This class is wonderful! Justin's insights are both digestible and actionable. Very simple tactics that make a huge impact. I didn't know succeeding at your job could be this simple. It helped me realize my own areas of improvement and how I could be a better performer. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to crush their job!
bosleypalmer
I found this class by mistake and it turned out to be gold! The class is short, to the point, and very actionable.