Reflections - Three Tips for Inspiring Others (Adam Galinsky episode)
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This is Smart People Podcast, a podcast for smart people, where we talk to smart people, but not necessarily done by smart people. Hello, welcome to Smart People Podcast Reflections. Chris Temp here, so glad you decided to tune in and hopefully reflect with me, depending on when you listen to the last episode. In this episode, I'm going to be reflecting on my recent conversation with Adam Galinsky,

As we talked about, among other things, his new book called Inspire, The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others. Now, as is customary for this format, I'm going to follow kind of three different chapters in these episodes. So the first one is why I chose this author or this topic in general.

The second is what it was like to talk to this guest. You know, a lot of these people have experienced high levels of success or fame or things like that. And so I'm going to let you know my perspective. And then third is my takeaways from the episode. So let's start with why I chose this author and this topic. And I want to start with this, which is you've probably noticed I try to steer clear of basic business topics, right?

Such as leadership. Like I really don't want to just cover leadership in general. I think there's a couple of reasons for this. One is I do that for my job. Like I do leadership development and executive coaching and I do love it, but this is a different outlet. The second is that space when it comes to a thought leadership space is not just crowded. It is like, it's just brutal.

So many people want to write about it just so they can speak about it, just so they can coach people about it, just so they can make money in it. And that I'm just not interested in that. We all work and we all have leadership as part of our lives. And I think it's a critical topic, just not one that I want to cover often. So it's funny because this is technically a leadership topic. However, what interested me about this was the following.

First, I listened to the TED talk that our guest gave and thought he was well-spoken, sharp, good storyteller, great communicator, and had interesting things to say. So that's always a benefit. Second, I like the lens of inspiration. I think a lot of this episode was focused on the idea of inspiring others. And I don't think you have to be a leader to do that. In fact, I

And as somebody on the inside, I think I'm right here. Many times people write about topics they're interested in and then figure out how to tie it to leadership because companies have money and people want money. Therefore, if they can tie their expertise to a company's best interest, they're more likely to be financially successful.

What I'm saying is I notice a trend of people taking any topic that they're interested in or well-versed in, figuring out how to tie it into leadership so that they can sell that topic into companies.

I'm not at all saying that's what Adam does. Okay. Adam is legit. I mean, he's been doing this for ever. He does the work. He has the research. I mean, he is not one of these people who just slaps his idea on a book so that he can sell speeches. Trust me. But there's a rabbit hole I'm going down, which is just in a lot of these instances, I want to talk to the people because they're knowledgeable and genuine.

And in this case, I wanted to talk to Adam about things like inspiring others. What inspires people? Not from a lens of leadership, just from a human interaction and dynamics, which is what you'll find we talk a lot about, right? Is social hierarchies and human interactions. And lastly, when I looked into Adam even more, he's got a really cool background as we talk about in the episode. And I'm going to get into here in a moment. So that was why this episode and why Adam.

So the second part in these is my experience with Adam. And Adam was different in some instances, pleasantly so. And I'll give you an example. At the end of the show, he said, hey, listen, if you know of any other podcasts I should be on, please let me know. And I said to him, I'll think on that. The first one that comes to mind is a friend of mine, but his show is pretty small. I don't know if it's something you would want to do.

And Adam said, no, I am happy to. I don't care about the size of the show. I love doing this. Trust me when I say there are not a lot of people in his shoes that would say that. Not because other people are greedy, but people are busy. And so they try to optimize where they spend their time. But that comment alone made me realize like Adam really enjoys educating others on the fruits of his labor, if you will. It's a really authentic comment.

Another interesting little tidbit about Adam is that

He followed up after the interview and wrote a thank you note, which is abnormal, but not unheard of. Right. And again, this is a positive, but it just made me realize, you know, he is often touting this idea of inspiration and building human relationships and leading others, all the things we discussed. And so that is a practice I'm sure he follows.

has put into place, writing thank you notes, to practice what he preaches, to walk his walk. It was done with intentionality, which I just, again, I really respect. Other than that, really straightforward interaction and my spidey senses, which trust me, I've honed them over 15 years, where this is a good dude who knows his stuff, wants to get it out in the world, believes in what he's doing.

And again, I will tell you when this is not the case. Okay, so that's my experience with the guest. Now let's get into my takeaways for this episode. And I'm going to give you four of them. And the first one, I just couldn't help it. You hear me in the episode geek out right off the bat about Adam's experience dealing with the landmark case, Dominion versus Fox News.

And again, if you listen to the episode and you pay attention to the news over the past couple of years, it was basically when Fox News completely created the false narrative that the voting machines in the previous presidential election were rigged. Hence why Biden won. And Dominion was the company in charge of many of these voting machines. Without going into more detail, I'm pretty sure that's the gist of it.

As Adam explains, and perhaps this isn't as much a takeaway as just a reminder. Like I remember when that happened and Fox had to pay close to $800 million for lying. What's crazier is to think about this.

Essentially, that settlement proves that Fox News completely created a national conspiracy theory of voter machine interference that directly led to things like the January 6th attack on the Capitol and many things that followed. And yet it was a lie. They would not have paid $800 million to

If it was the truth. And it's like, it almost never happened. Like that was their price of doing business. That was their price of creating division. I just, that is, it's crazy to me. And so to have somebody like Adam, who was there in the courtroom, uh,

behalf of Dominion is really interesting. So maybe not a takeaway, just a reminder of that and how we need to be careful where we get our information from and hence actually why we do this show. As a small business owner, my favorite thing about posting a job on LinkedIn is that when I hit post, I

I clock out and LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes it easy to post your job for free, get qualified candidates, and manage them all in one place. Plus, LinkedIn extends the reach of your job post by allowing you to share it with your network. And hiring managers that add a hiring frame to their LinkedIn profiles receive two times more qualified applicants. Go to LinkedIn.com slash achieve to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Okay, now let's get into the more typical takeaways.

The first is I really like his idea of expanding the status pie. When I used to work at Franklin Covey and I would teach the seven habits, one of the habits is think win-win. It is the belief that many of us think in order for me to win, somebody else has to lose.

So in order for me to get a raise, you can't get a raise or for me to get a job, you can't get a job or for me to win something, you have to lose something. And trust me, when you hear this, it makes logical sense at first. However, in the seven habits and then in this episode with Adam, there's this kind of belief that like, well, what if we just made the pie bigger and we could both win and

And so Adam talks about how if you regularly recognize and appreciate the contributions of others, it could be work, it could be friends, it's everyday interactions. It lifts them up and boosts your own status in the group. Again, this is part of that

social dynamics and social hierarchies component. He says, here's a quote, when we give credit to the contributions of others, they rise in status, but so do we. We've shown in our research and dozens of studies that when people share credit, they expand the status pie. And I just enjoyed that because as I mentioned in the episode, I try to do that, but there is something we are taught since we are little, which is like, this is mine. And I,

I need to be recognized for it. I need to get the A. And I think Adam puts logic and research behind this idea that if we share or give away recognition, it actually elevates us in the eyes of those around us. So takeaway number, we'll call it 1B. The next one, we'll say officially moving on to 2, is this idea of really focusing on the language you use in the moments that matter most.

Now, look, we all know storytelling is important. We all know about, you know, the impact our words have. But Adam gave a really good example. So he says that one of the things him and his colleagues studied is how using visual and metaphorical language predicts who wins presidential elections. And that is an example of how a certain type of language can impact and inspire and move others into action.

So he gives this example. He says, it's as simple as if a company says our mission is to make our customers smile. That is more visual than a company that says our mission is to make our customers happy.

So a big takeaway for me is just not only to be aware of my words and my language, but in times where I want to move others, influence others, maybe even my children to think about how am I creating a story in their mind through imagery, metaphors, visual language. Really enjoyed that piece.

The last one is relatively specific to leadership. And so I know I said we don't get into that too much, but I do think it qualifies for other aspects of life, such as in your relationships, in your marriage, with your kids. And it is what Adam calls the leader amplification effect.

It's the idea that whether you're in a leadership role, you're mentoring someone, you're interacting with others, your words and actions carry more weight than you realize, specifically based on where you stand in the social hierarchy. His quote is, when we're in a position of leadership, even our small, subtle, offhand behaviors get amplified. The question is, what is that impact going to be? Is it going to be good or is it going to be bad? End quote.

Now, I don't think it's rocket science to realize if you're a leader, people are watching what you do. But the conversation that ensued was when we talked about how everything you do is going to be interpreted by those that are following you, whether formally or informally.

And I got to tell you, that in my mind is the weight or the burden or responsibility of leadership. And so it kind of ties in with the last takeaway, which is to choose those actions and those words wisely based on the impact and the relationships you want to have and you want to foster. So those are my key takeaways from my episode with Adam Galinsky.

Hope you enjoyed it. Hope you had some takeaways. If you're enjoying the series, would really appreciate if you let me know. You could let me know by rating it on Apple or whatever, but you can just email me, smartpeoplepodcast at gmail.com or tell a friend, even better. All right. Hope you enjoyed these reflections. Have a great week. We'll catch you in the next episode.