Full Transcript for The Verification Era: Why "Trust Me" Isn't Enough Anymore with Henna Pryor

verify. 00:04:32.278 --> 00:04:44.588 Meaning humans generally, we trust each other until something smells a little bit off, maybe something seems a little bit fishy, our spidey senses have activated, then we would go verify. 00:04:44.718 --> 00:04:47.149 Let's go make sure this is what we think it is. 00:04:48.059 --> 00:04:51.059 paradigm has irreversibly shifted. 00:04:51.829 --> 00:04:53.678 have to like it, but you have to acknowledge it. 00:04:53.678 --> 00:04:56.579 We now live in verify, then trust. 00:04:56.889 --> 00:04:58.329 We verify first. 00:04:58.329 --> 00:05:00.019 I call it the verification era. 00:05:00.048 --> 00:05:01.889 So how does this actually look in real life? 00:05:02.149 --> 00:05:03.838 Let's talk about the simplest examples. 00:05:04.069 --> 00:05:07.519 You know, before somebody goes on a date, they Google that person. 00:05:07.528 --> 00:05:10.809 If they didn't, we would say,"Are you trying to be murdered?" Right? 00:05:10.809 --> 00:05:18.139 Like, you need to know something about this person before you go on a date, before you ingre- agree to engage with a product, a brand, a seller. 00:05:18.298 --> 00:05:19.579 We're doing some searching. 00:05:19.588 --> 00:05:21.249 What does the internet have to say about this? 00:05:21.249 --> 00:05:22.428 What does Reddit have to say? 00:05:22.588 --> 00:05:26.059 A lot of that happens before, but here's the one that's even crazier. 00:05:26.288 --> 00:05:28.809 Verification is now happening during. 00:05:29.168 --> 00:05:37.559 I could be on a Zoom call with somebody who's trying to sell me something, convince me of something, and I'm quietly over here in AI or in Google. 00:05:37.668 --> 00:05:43.519 In four seconds, I can verify whether what you're saying, what you're claiming is correct. 00:05:43.538 --> 00:05:48.778 And we are doing that in increasing measure because we are so cognitively overloaded. 00:05:49.129 --> 00:05:50.619 We don't know what to trust anymore. 00:05:50.629 --> 00:05:54.468 It's so much, you know, on the AI and the deepfakes and the scams. 00:05:54.658 --> 00:05:56.468 Did a person write this newsletter? 00:05:56.629 --> 00:05:57.689 Did a robot write it? 00:05:57.699 --> 00:06:17.928 Our brains are so exhausted from trying to figure it out that whether we can name it or not, we're relying both on that verification mechanism, we actually go verify, and then if we're not sure about that result, we're relying on something even deeper, which is our sense-making mechanism, and that's rooted in patterns, in signals, things that we don't even realize are happening. 00:06:17.928 --> 00:06:24.369 So people just have to have this awareness that the world we lived in before is gone, and we need to make adjustments going forward. 00:06:25.023 --> 00:06:37.343 Yeah, and you know, you talk a lot about this sort of believability crisis, and I was just reading an article the other day, I, I can't remember where I was reading it, uh, but it was talking about

the rise of these zombie media companies 00:06:37.478 --> 00:06:38.139 Mm-hmm 00:06:38.302 --> 00:06:50.952 buying all of these domains that used to be legit blogs or, uh, news outlets, and they're cranking out literally tens of thousands of articles a day in some cases, and click farming. 00:06:51.213 --> 00:07:20.202 And I recently had someone reach out to me on LinkedIn and said,"Hey, you don't know me, but I follow your work, and I wanted to make you aware of the fact that there is this, like, click farm zombie website using your name and byline on articles that are very much not written by you." And so I then had to go and chase down and find who was doing this and say, you know,"Cease and desist right now, immediately. 00:07:20.202 --> 00:07:30.793 Take all of this down." And so as I was reading in the book about this believability gap and what's happening, that was obviously very fresh in my mind because I've just lived through it. 00:07:31.093 --> 00:07:49.322 Of there are so many false signals being put out there, even if you're not a content creator, even if you're not somebody who's sort of public-facing, this deficit of trust is, I think, ever-widening, ever-growing, and we're all sort of having to, like, repent for the sins of others. 00:07:49.333 --> 00:08:00.653 Like, we've got people who are coming in with this baggage that may have nothing to do with us, but it's sort of like every country song where it's like, you know,"What is the damage you had before you met me?" Like, what, what happened? 00:08:00.952 --> 00:08:12.213 That's sort of how people are showing up in not just sales situations, but you know, I have to decide, am I gonna trust you before I decide am I gonna like you? 00:08:12.213 --> 00:08:13.132 Am I gonna listen to you? 00:08:13.132 --> 00:08:17.923 Am I gonna, you know, engage in whatever it is that you're trying to, to talk to me about or sell me, et cetera? 00:08:17.923 --> 00:08:20.442 And it's just a really wild new normal. 00:08:20.875 --> 00:08:21.225 Yeah. 00:08:21.225 --> 00:08:31.915 I love what you said about this, uh, I don't remember the exact phrase you used, but essentially this, this false proxy that a lot of these signals have created because let's just say, Brittany, let, let's use an example from our industry. 00:08:31.915 --> 00:08:35.195 Brittany and I are both, you know, we love our jobs as speakers, as authors. 00:08:35.644 --> 00:08:45.274 There are an abundance of top 10 speakers on X that now exist on the internet. 00:08:45.995 --> 00:08:49.504 wanna name names, but some of these lists were created by our colleagues. 00:08:49.855 --> 00:08:51.995 They literally bought a donai- domain, right? 00:08:52.004 --> 00:08:53.625 Top such and such speakers. 00:08:53.955 --> 00:08:58.284 They put themselves at the top of it, then they put a few other people on it, and they... 00:08:58.304 --> 00:09:00.875 The reason they did this was for discoverability. 00:09:01.274 --> 00:09:04.205 Now, some of these people have been found out. 00:09:05.115 --> 00:09:05.914 Here's the thing. 00:09:05.924 --> 00:09:07.845 Brittany and I don't do this. 00:09:08.684 --> 00:09:10.294 We would never do this. 00:09:10.294 --> 00:09:14.485 I know Brittany and I are friends outside of this conversation, so I know Brittany's, you know, work ethic, and she knows mine. 00:09:14.485 --> 00:09:15.365 We would never do this. 00:09:15.945 --> 00:09:33.985 However, if Brittany and I now were to show up on a completely legitimate top list, because somebody might have a whisper that something like that can happen, that legitimate l- list is now slightly thrown into question. 00:09:33.985 --> 00:09:34.644 They're like,"Well, is... 00:09:34.745 --> 00:09:44.365 But is that one real?" So it creates exactly that you said, a downstream ripple effect where we have to feel increasingly skeptical of everything, even the legitimate. 00:09:44.365 --> 00:09:50.585 Just the existence of the fact that we could get burned means that we now check everything because we don't want to get burned. 00:09:50.674 --> 00:09:52.934 It's created a whole new operating system for people 00:09:53.759 --> 00:09:54.818 It absolutely has. 00:09:54.839 --> 00:10:01.418 And, you know, I think a really interesting dynamic of this is the ages and sort of generations. 00:10:01.688 --> 00:10:04.019 And I've got, not to, like, point any fingers, 00:10:04.472 --> 00:10:04.552 Sure 00:10:04.818 --> 00:10:09.928 but I've got, I've got a couple of aunts who will share, like, any AI-generated, 00:10:09.931 --> 00:10:10.490 Mm-hmm. 00:10:10.639 --> 00:10:11.828 animal video, right? 00:10:11.828 --> 00:10:15.568 Like, you know, maybe the duck really was skydiving, right? 00:10:15.589 --> 00:10:16.619 Like, and they don't care. 00:10:16.619 --> 00:10:18.589 They just see the cute animal video, and they share it. 00:10:18.788 --> 00:10:27.469 Uh, but then my, my boys, who are six and nine, are so skeptical, and the phrase they use all the time, as I'm sure your teenagers both, uh, do, too, is,"That's AI." 00:10:27.626 --> 00:10:28.037 Ja 00:10:28.239 --> 00:10:42.379 then ironically enough, they will go to AI to verify whether or not this is a real Rottweiler and panther who happen to be living together in Siberia as friends, as one of my favorite Instagram follows happens to be, or AI-generated content. 00:10:42.389 --> 00:10:48.999 And it's, it's, it's, it's kind of dystopian when you think about it, that we're using AI to verify whether or not stuff is AI. 00:10:49.249 --> 00:10:56.698 And in the book, you talk about the difference between believability and credibility and sort of the nuance there and what that means and how you can be one and not the other. 00:10:56.928 --> 00:11:02.759 Um, and again, I think this is something that maybe a lot of people have not thought a ton about yet. 00:11:02.808 --> 00:11:07.928 As always, you're on the, on the cutting edge of, of the thought leadership here of this category.

00:11:07.928 --> 00:11:24.379 But I think it's something that people are gonna spend more and more time thinking about, both on the receiving ends and the sending ends of those signals, because this gap is gonna continue to create all kinds of, you know, I don't think it's being too dramatic to say economic chaos. 00:11:24.530 --> 00:11:25.711 Oh, yeah, absolutely. 00:11:25.711 --> 00:11:27.870 I think s- so let's make that distinction real quick. 00:11:28.071 --> 00:11:39.480 Credibility, when you think about credibility in the traditional terms, it's things like, you know, your title, your expertise, uh, you know, if let's say your brand, the, the awards you've won or the, the reputation you've built. 00:11:39.841 --> 00:11:42.880 Credibility still gets you in the room. 00:11:43.671 --> 00:11:45.770 not saying credibility doesn't count for anything. 00:11:45.780 --> 00:11:52.451 Credibility 100% gets you in the room, believability is what decides whether you get to stay there. 00:11:53.260 --> 00:12:00.221 And we are not unfortunately, again, it pains me to say this, we are not in a second chances climate anymore. 00:12:00.581 --> 00:12:06.370 So again, you know, we can talk about this from a thousand different ways, but let's look at just the recent example, Ed Sheeran. 00:12:06.390 --> 00:12:07.581 You know, this is not about politics. 00:12:07.581 --> 00:12:09.971 I'm just gonna paint a very specific picture about timing. 00:12:10.221 --> 00:12:15.620 Ed Sheeran had, you know, a, a believability crisis recently with the whole thing about his opening act, and it... 00:12:15.941 --> 00:12:21.441 politics, whatever they may be, the problem is he did not respond himself. 00:12:21.500 --> 00:12:27.821 Maybe it was the PR p- people's guidance, but he didn't put out any sort of response to the issue for a full 14 days. 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:36.461 So when we think about believability, that delay in a past life may have read as thoughtfulness. 00:12:36.610 --> 00:12:40.260 It may have read as legal is, you know, involved. 00:12:40.331 --> 00:12:43.660 We have to wait until the PR team gives him the okay to say something. 00:12:44.010 --> 00:12:57.270 But in the world we live in now, where DoorDash tells us that our food will be here between 3:32 and 3:35, people do not have days of patience to decide that Ed has something to say about this. 00:12:57.341 --> 00:13:01.591 I understand if he can't take a position right away, but he needed to taste, ta-- say something. 00:13:01.821 --> 00:13:04.640 Now, were years of Ed Sheeran's credibility destroyed? 00:13:04.711 --> 00:13:11.181 He's still a brilliant musician, but was his believability amongst his fans, you know, taking a hit? 00:13:11.331 --> 00:13:12.780 It currently still is. 00:13:12.910 --> 00:13:20.591 He's still trying to figure out how to get out of it, and it had more to do with those signals, the lack of saying anything, than it did with anything that he actually said 00:13:21.328 --> 00:13:37.519 100%, and you know, one of the same, one of the things I say all the time is everyone is in the experience department, and every single person at your company is responsible for the perception of your brand, for the interactions that shape how people think about your brand. 00:13:37.519 --> 00:13:46.528 And one of, a, a very similar to the, you know, Ed Sheeran not saying anything, we-- I think a lot of times people think like,"Oh, it's a 24-hour news cycle," like,"This is gonna pass. 00:13:46.528 --> 00:13:57.278 People are gonna move on." But I think we've seen the opposite, which is every hour you stay silent feels like an eternity, and people are going back to everything that you've done, questioning everything that you've said. 00:13:57.519 --> 00:14:14.038 And I saw this play out over the summer with Buc-ee's when John Oliver did a story about Buc-ee's suing all of these small businesses for trademark infringement, and some of them were, like, wildly seen as, like, I don't know, that's a stretch. 00:14:14.428 --> 00:14:23.469 And then the week after the show aired, they went after a small business in, I think it was Beaver Creek, Ohio, or Beaverton, Ohio, somewhere with beaver in the name. 00:14:23.749 --> 00:14:29.889 And Buc-ee's said nothing, and this news story kept going, kept going, kept going. 00:14:30.068 --> 00:14:38.139 John Oliver talked about it for, like, three weeks in a row, four weeks in a row on the air, and there was literally no response at all. 00:14:38.359 --> 00:14:43.369 And so what started happening was the world filled in the narrative, right? 00:14:43.399 --> 00:14:52.288 And they said,"Big, evil corporation bullying this small business." And then when their CEO finally came out and said something, it was wildly off-key. 00:14:52.469 --> 00:15:04.629 Again, not to get political, but he said something to the effect of,"We're gonna go in the conservative red states that appreciate us instead of those liberal places that don't want it." Like, it was so wi-wild, 00:15:04.773 --> 00:15:05.322 Yeah 00:15:05.649 --> 00:15:13.328 and I, like a whole bunch of other people, was like,"Ooh, this kinda changes how I think of Buc-ee's," right? 00:15:13.328 --> 00:15:19.089 Like, thought it was, like, just this fun, very over-the-top, American, larger than life Texas whatever. 00:15:19.458 --> 00:15:33.058 And as those days went on and then turned into weeks, and then when they finally had a response, it was, like, wildly not something that, that, like, a PR expert had, had, you know, had any eyes on or any part of. 00:15:33.298 --> 00:15:42.538 Clearly, I was like,"I don't wanna wear any of my Buc-ee's stuff anymore," because the brand no longer meant what I had told myself it meant. 00:15:42.778 --> 00:15:44.379 And that is the gap, right? 00:15:44.389 --> 00:15:56.208 Between what is the message that you're perhaps trying to send out into the world and what is being not just received by the public, but then, like,

redisseminated and shared, right? 00:15:56.229 --> 00:16:05.089 Like, the reputation, like the who we say we are versus what the world says we are, and that is the heart of what this book is all about, of why that's a huge problem 00:16:05.291 --> 00:16:05.890 Mm-hmm. 00:16:06.109 --> 00:16:07.119 you can do to close that gap. 00:16:07.410 --> 00:16:10.821 Yeah, I love everything you said, and specifically, there was one thing that stood out. 00:16:10.821 --> 00:16:17.390 You said, you know, early on that it used to be that certain things would last, you know, twenty-four hours in the news cycle, and we say it would pass. 00:16:18.150 --> 00:16:19.091 Today, the... 00:16:19.091 --> 00:16:20.221 You know, back in the... 00:16:20.250 --> 00:16:21.671 Look, I was born in the early eighties. 00:16:21.890 --> 00:16:28.980 It used to be that something lived in the news cycle, and then unless the news cycle kept talking about it, it would pass. 00:16:29.010 --> 00:16:30.451 They were onto the next thing. 00:16:30.630 --> 00:16:31.910 That was pre-streaming. 00:16:32.020 --> 00:16:33.120 That was pre-Internet. 00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:38.421 Today, everything lives in a permanent, frozen, searchable record. 00:16:38.691 --> 00:16:43.270 So not only can the news linger longer, we can take screenshots. 00:16:43.721 --> 00:16:44.130 We can 00:16:44.253 --> 00:16:44.273 Ja 00:16:44.370 --> 00:16:45.600 you know, find proof. 00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:57.211 And so again, this is where politics aside, you know, when Ed Sheeran tried to take a s- a stance of, you know,"I don't like to bring politics to the stage," and then everyone picked up their screenshots that said,"Remember when you talked about Ukraine? 00:16:57.461 --> 00:17:12.060 Remember when you talked about Brexit?" So then what happens is outside of it being, you know, feeling like a lie, what he dealt with was, in the book I talk about layers of congruence, he really created a fracture in character congruence. 00:17:12.310 --> 00:17:27.280 You are saying, you are claiming publicly that you are X, and yet your micro signals, your micro claims that you have made over time, our brains are pattern recognition machines, even if we barely remember you saying it, oh, we remember when push comes to shove. 00:17:27.590 --> 00:17:36.421 And B, even if we don't remember it clearly, it doesn't take more than two seconds and a phone to go find it, and these things become very difficult to recover from. 00:17:36.431 --> 00:17:36.651 What... 00:17:36.661 --> 00:17:38.941 You know, unfortunately, we are in cancel culture. 00:17:38.941 --> 00:17:39.840 We are in all these things. 00:17:39.861 --> 00:17:48.111 I'm not saying that's right, wrong or indifferent, but it breaks my heart that these things are preventable just by being a little more conscious of some of these areas where gaps occur 00:17:48.903 --> 00:17:49.532 Absolutely. 00:17:49.563 --> 00:17:51.212 And I, let's talk about that congruence. 00:17:51.212 -->

00:17:56.472 Let's talk about some of the gaps because, I mean, there's so many incredible frameworks that you introduce, so much fun. 00:17:56.633 --> 00:18:07.123 By the way, this is also a very, if anybody didn't know how much Hena loves, like, old school hip hop, you will absolutely know after you read this book, which I adore. 00:18:07.303 --> 00:18:07.553 I know. 00:18:07.692 --> 00:18:15.262 Hena, do you wanna maybe take this moment to, like, humble brag about perhaps your, your greatest accomplishment in life that you shared recently on the internet? 00:18:15.363 --> 00:18:15.633 Do you, 00:18:15.865 --> 00:18:16.125 that 00:18:16.462 --> 00:18:16.702 follower? 00:18:16.894 --> 00:18:21.244 that on, on LinkedIn, it said people who follow Hena Briar also follow Snoop Dogg. 00:18:21.244 --> 00:18:22.724 I about fell out of my chair. 00:18:22.964 --> 00:18:31.555 I said,"There's, there is no award or trophy or bestseller list that will compare to this moment of knowing that we sit in the same category." Snoop, 00:18:31.636 --> 00:18:33.196 You may also want to follow. 00:18:33.247 --> 00:18:34.457 Yes, incredible. 00:18:34.565 --> 00:18:35.095 perfect. 00:18:35.136 --> 00:18:38.646 okay, so let's talk, let's talk about those, uh, those layers or levels of congruence 00:18:39.125 --> 00:18:39.694 Yeah, okay. 00:18:39.694 --> 00:18:40.494 So here's, here's... 00:18:40.494 --> 00:18:43.174 I think as we go through the four, I want people to know this. 00:18:43.305 --> 00:18:55.325 When you first hear them, they are going to seem like prevailing wisdom, and to some small degree they are, but they now have an outsized math of breaking them. 00:18:55.335 --> 00:19:00.045 So there are four layers of congruence to, you know, just to kind of lead into this. 00:19:00.154 --> 00:19:01.884 Clarity is now table stakes. 00:19:02.515 --> 00:19:05.144 Confidence in your messaging is now table stakes. 00:19:05.464 --> 00:19:09.335 Competence, being able to do what you say you're gonna do, table stakes. 00:19:09.345 --> 00:19:11.505 All of those things are an expectation. 00:19:11.505 --> 00:19:16.065 You are not gonna create a fan, let alone a superfan, without having all of those three things. 00:19:16.325 --> 00:19:25.085 But now, with us being so bombarded by stimulus and not knowing what to believe, the things that our brain are also scanning for are congruence. 00:19:25.335 --> 00:19:27.674 And so I break these down across four layers. 00:19:27.694 --> 00:19:44.714 Congruence as a definition simply means that what you say, you do, and what you mean to say, the intention and the truth of the, the actual matter underneath of it are all pointing in the same direction, and it's a little less simple than it sounds. 00:19:44.724 --> 00:19:47.474 So number one is communication congruence. 00:19:47.734 --> 00:20:01.944 Communication congruence asks the question, do your words actually deliver what you mean, or does something else, either your tone or some hedging or your filler, sneak a different message in? 00:20:02.765 --> 00:20:03.815 You're not lying. 00:20:04.255 --> 00:20:07.214 There's something that's being snuck in, so that's communication. 00:20:07.214 --> 00:20:08.654 The second one is belief congruence. 00:20:08.674 --> 00:20:15.164 Did you walk them through your reasoning, did you just hand them a conclusion and hope that they trust it? 00:20:16.345 --> 00:20:19.644 People are not willing to have a handed conclusion and a trust me anymore. 00:20:19.644 --> 00:20:20.335 Spoiler alert. 00:20:20.634 --> 00:20:22.974 Number three is contextual congruence. 00:20:22.974 --> 00:20:33.255 Contextual asks, does your signal still land when it travels to a room that you didn't intend it for, where no one knows the full context of your message and no one owes you the benefit of the doubt, right? 00:20:33.265 --> 00:20:34.305 Does it still hold? 00:20:34.474 --> 00:20:46.454 And then number four is character congruence is does the version of you that you curate, keyword curate, and we all do it, and broadcast hold up when somebody meets you on a regular Tuesday afternoon? 00:20:47.615 --> 00:20:58.214 four are way sneakier than we realize, and most of us, the most high intent, high achievers ourselves with significant gaps in those spaces without even realizing it 00:20:59.134 --> 00:21:14.575 So how can we realize it and how can we audit that gap if we wanna look at our own signal integrity to correct some of these issues before they become, you know, hugely disproportionately impactful in our lives in a negative way? 00:21:15.019 --> 00:21:18.169 Yeah, I think, you know, the, the-- let's just take one at a time. 00:21:18.179 --> 00:21:18.818 Let's take, uh... 00:21:18.818 --> 00:21:22.169 I, I talk about communication a lot, so today, I wanna talk about the belief congruence, right? 00:21:22.169 --> 00:21:25.638 This idea of, you know, do they know the full reasoning that walked you there? 00:21:26.058 --> 00:21:39.108 I wanna just honor that there was a period of time where leaders across industries or business owners, when something went a bit, you know, sideways, or we were trying to present a new idea, we were told, you know,"Present this idea with confidence. 00:21:39.138 --> 00:21:40.338 Be unflappable. 00:21:40.499 --> 00:21:42.648 Be, you know, a hundred percent firm in your conviction. 00:21:42.648 --> 00:21:46.898 If you have that f-- you know, firmness in your choice and your conviction, people will just follow you. 00:21:46.959 --> 00:21:47.749 They'll get on board. 00:21:47.749 --> 00:21:53.058 They'll inspire followership." Those days are not anymore. 00:21:53.078 --> 00:21:59.509 We are much less likely, as a current population, to just take somebody's word as,"Trust me, this is what you want. 00:21:59.798 --> 00:22:03.388 Trust me, this is good for you." We're like, but why? 00:22:03.528 --> 00:22:12.808 How-- Can you please t-- you know, tell me how you got there?" So I open

that chapter with an example of a VP of sales who is trying to roll out a new commission plan to his team, right? 00:22:12.808 --> 00:22:14.499 And he's like,"Okay, these guys are gonna be excited. 00:22:14.528 --> 00:22:17.159 We're gonna do something that's really gonna move and shake things up. 00:22:17.159 --> 00:22:25.368 You know, if people do well, they're gonna make more money." But of course, it is 2026, so what does this sales team immediately do following the call? 00:22:25.759 --> 00:22:32.058 They take that new commission plan, they run it into AI, they say,"Who's gonna make more money? 00:22:32.118 --> 00:22:37.699 Who's gonna make less money?" They find out that the middle population is all basically taking a fifteen percent pay cut. 00:22:38.898 --> 00:22:40.669 The top producers, they're gonna do great. 00:22:41.138 --> 00:22:43.608 The bottom producers, unscathed, same, same. 00:22:43.989 --> 00:22:47.128 The whole middle population, fifteen percent pay cut. 00:22:47.618 --> 00:22:51.568 Now, is there potential that they can do great under this new plan? 00:22:51.578 --> 00:22:52.078 Yes. 00:22:52.419 --> 00:22:54.068 Was the VP of sales lying? 00:22:54.348 --> 00:22:55.298 Absolutely not. 00:22:56.028 --> 00:23:01.588 But they did not show the path that was taken to get to this new commission plan. 00:23:01.588 --> 00:23:04.459 They didn't talk about what they weighed, what they discarded. 00:23:04.608 --> 00:23:08.558 They didn't talk about the fact that for some people, this would temporarily look like a pay cut. 00:23:08.848 --> 00:23:12.459 So because they didn't talk about all of that and just said,"Hey, this is gonna be great. 00:23:12.469 --> 00:23:15.409 Trust us," it looked like an omission. 00:23:15.429 --> 00:23:22.269 It looked like lying, and within two seconds, they had a spreadsheet called What Leadership Didn't Want To Tell You, and it was flying in the group chat. 00:23:23.169 --> 00:23:25.148 This is the moment in time we live in. 00:23:25.148 --> 00:23:39.588 And so again, brands, leaders, we all have this obligation to understand that, you know, blank belief and trust me, it doesn't work the way it used to, and if you don't address the questions people are now going to ask, you will create a signal gap for yourself, no matter how good it is on paper. 00:23:40.830 --> 00:23:46.800 Yes, and, you know, as I was reading that part of the book, I was reminded of... 00:23:46.871 --> 00:23:55.371 So there's a book, in full disclosure, I've not like read this entire second book that I'm about to mention, but, um, one of my, one of my kids' doctors had brought it up at one point. 00:23:55.381 --> 00:23:56.971 The book is called Good Inside. 00:23:56.971 --> 00:23:57.770 It's very famous. 00:23:57.770 --> 00:23:59.070 There's this author, Dr. 00:23:59.111 --> 00:23:59.790 Becky... 00:23:59.800 --> 00:24:00.270 Yeah, Dr. 00:24:00.270 --> 00:24:00.881 Becky somebody. 00:24:00.881 --> 00:24:01.671 I don't know her last name. 00:24:01.980 --> 00:24:07.500 Um, and I, I didn't finish the book, just but that's like ADHD, not like any indictment on the book. 00:24:07.770 --> 00:24:08.671 It's a parenting book. 00:24:08.941 --> 00:24:18.240 Um, and she talks about this idea of what she calls MGI, which is what's the most generous interpretation that I can have of whatever just happened, right? 00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:20.161 So like, how can I give people grace? 00:24:20.171 --> 00:24:27.461 How can I err on the side of like, you know, the like just what is the most generous interpretation of this moment? 00:24:27.681 --> 00:24:32.381 And what struck me, uh, you know, and I remember in the book being like,"Oh, that's really nice. 00:24:32.381 --> 00:24:33.490 Like, I should work on that. 00:24:33.490 --> 00:24:34.590 I should in my own life 00:24:34.820 --> 00:24:35.351 Mm-hmm. 00:24:35.500 --> 00:24:56.141 look for the most generous interpretation all the time instead of the like where, where, where is the like, you know, fire, dumpster fire that my brain goes of like this happened or that happened." But in reading your book, what became so apparent to me is that we have all been trained, whether it's, you know, the algorithms or the dopamine or whatever, to not look for the most generous interpretation. 00:24:56.181 --> 00:25:00.840 Instead, we are doing the opposite, which is are you... 00:25:00.901 --> 00:25:06.441 So like I remember, uh, early, early on when I was in New York, I... 00:25:06.540 --> 00:25:07.780 It was before I lived in New York. 00:25:07.800 --> 00:25:14.500 I was interning there, and I got scammed by one of those people that would like stand in Union Square and be like,"Oh, we're gonna sell you like this... 00:25:14.691 --> 00:25:24.391 You know, there's like this salon, and they're gonna like give, you know, color your hair and dye your hair and do a blow, and it's gonna be amazing and all these services, and this is like$1,000 worth of services. 00:25:24.391 --> 00:25:30.121 And, you know, you can get it today for$100'cause we're looking for, you know, however many people," or like whatever it was. 00:25:30.141 --> 00:25:33.441 And it obviously it was like a complete scam, total, total disaster. 00:25:33.780 --> 00:25:46.691 Um, but because of that, I was like,"I am never gonna trust a street vendor again." Like, you could be a Girl Scout, you could be whatever, I am like,"You are gonna scam me," because my lived experience taught me this is a scam. 00:25:47.141 --> 00:26:04.653 And Throughout the book, when we talk about this shift to verify then trust, and how much believability is suffering right now, I think it is because collectively we all feel like we have been scammed. 00:26:04.663 --> 00:26:05.603 We have been conned. 00:26:05.643 --> 00:26:18.663 There are so many examples, first-hand examples, and examples that we all, like, have heard about from people we love and trust or the media, and I was just thinking throughout the book of

why this is so very important and sort of aligns with that. 00:26:18.903 --> 00:26:27.323 It would be great if everyone had the most generous interpretation, but we have to now assume to be successful that people are going to have the least generous 00:26:27.343 --> 00:26:27.982 Угу 00:26:28.633 --> 00:26:30.282 and that, I think, is what we have to plan for. 00:26:30.282 --> 00:26:33.002 And everything else you said before is, like, it's table stakes. 00:26:33.002 --> 00:26:40.292 Like, we have to meet this level of, um, verability? 00:26:40.532 --> 00:26:47.083 I, I don't even know what, what is the word of, like, what we have to be able to, to, to, to show up with to earn the right for someone 00:26:47.191 --> 00:26:47.330 Ah, 00:26:47.363 --> 00:26:51.242 to take what we're saying into account 00:26:51.434 --> 00:26:53.674 Yeah, it's, it's, it's verifiability, I think is 00:26:53.704 --> 00:26:54.464 Verifiability. 00:26:54.474 --> 00:26:54.825 Thank you. 00:26:54.825 --> 00:26:55.255 Yes 00:26:55.365 --> 00:26:59.904 I often say instead of just being compelling, now need to be confirmable. 00:27:00.606 --> 00:27:01.356 Yes 00:27:01.875 --> 00:27:08.605 You now need to be able to have somebody, anybody be able to validate and verify the claim that you're making. 00:27:08.605 --> 00:27:18.214 So I wish we were all giving the most generous interpretation, and I say this squarely in the book, generosity expensive. 00:27:19.194 --> 00:27:24.494 It requires us to do some mental gymnastics to be like,"Is this what this person meant by that? 00:27:24.714 --> 00:27:26.355 Maybe they were having a bad day. 00:27:26.505 --> 00:27:33.575 Maybe they just rushed and got at this email." That requires a lot of mental lift on our part to find the generous interpretation. 00:27:33.765 --> 00:27:37.855 As a mother of teenagers, I will do that work with my teenagers. 00:27:38.244 --> 00:27:46.045 I am less inclined to do all that mental work with a, you know, potential seller that I don't know yet. 00:27:46.075 --> 00:27:49.845 It is much easier cognitively to be suspicious. 00:27:50.164 --> 00:27:51.875 Generosity is expensive. 00:27:52.154 --> 00:27:53.505 Suspicion is free. 00:27:54.194 --> 00:27:56.255 Su- suspicion is also safer. 00:27:57.025 --> 00:27:58.835 keeps us from getting bamboozled. 00:27:58.934 --> 00:28:12.775 So suspicion as a default state is actually just our, you know, very subconscious, sometimes conscious, but subconscious protective mechanism going,"I don't need-- want to be the one who gets bamboozled." And so we do, you know, what you did. 00:28:12.775 --> 00:28:24.414 And here's the other interesting rub about your experience on the street is it used to be, okay, Brittany had this experience on the street, now she's probably gonna be really careful about going to a salon that's offering that much of a deep promo. 00:28:24.634 --> 00:28:25.944 Of course, that makes sense. 00:28:26.414 --> 00:28:29.484 But now the internet is interneting. 00:28:30.335 --> 00:28:32.494 Reddit has that exact same story. 00:28:32.654 --> 00:28:45.625 That never happened to me, Brittany, but if I read that on Reddit or if I heard you say it, and all of a sudden I was offered a deal at an up-and-coming salon that's trying to get their name out, I have no real personal reason to be skeptical. 00:28:46.085 --> 00:28:49.744 But we accept certain corners of the internet as truth. 00:28:49.755 --> 00:28:50.494 It's actually a very 00:28:50.527 --> 00:28:50.767 Yeah 00:28:50.934 --> 00:28:51.974 thing I talk about in the book. 00:28:52.214 --> 00:28:56.795 We have super low levels of trust in institutions, in corporate and government. 00:28:56.974 --> 00:29:00.855 We don't-- You know, trust is at an all-time low for those institutions. 00:29:01.065 --> 00:29:08.375 But if it's, like, somebody on the internet like us, TikToker that we follow, we're like,"Oh, they're telling the truth." We, 00:29:08.734 --> 00:29:12.384 But I think that is eroding so fast too because of like those zombie websites. 00:29:12.384 --> 00:29:27.694 The story that I was saying before, the fastest growth in those AI-generated, um, news stories and articles is fake first-person experiences where the AI is writing in that like very 00:29:27.818 --> 00:29:28.259 Yeah 00:29:28.974 --> 00:29:45.134 trustworthy like,"I am a grandma, let me tell you what I learned about gardening," or, you know,"Here's what happened to me with my kids," because that historically has been such a high, um, trust signal when you're like,"Oh, well I'm re- I'm reading from this 00:29:45.553 --> 00:29:45.942 right? 00:29:45.994 --> 00:29:55.345 personal story from a reporter or somebody who, you know, 10 years ago we could, we could say they likely have journalistic integrity and I can trust this because it is a verified source 00:29:55.722 --> 00:30:00.623 Yeah, it's, it's so the, the term is cheap signals versus costly signals. 00:30:00.653 --> 00:30:04.432 It used to be that a personal story was a costly signal. 00:30:04.432 --> 00:30:09.073 It required us to share an experience that felt authentic to us with a level of detail. 00:30:09.242 --> 00:30:15.403 But now it is not very hard to fabricate a story of that nature with the help of AI, right? 00:30:15.403 --> 00:30:21.492 So certain things, and again, this is evolving by the day, that used to be a costly signal. 00:30:21.492 --> 00:30:24.772 For example, a personalized thank you letter to a client. 00:30:24.823 --> 00:30:32.083 You know, personalized I'm using in quotes because the old ways of personalization of I did research on the customer, I included some, you know, details. 00:30:32.673 --> 00:30:41.522 If it is now something that is scrapeable by AI and that is your standard for personalization, signal. 00:30:41.583 --> 00:30:44.053 My 14-year-old could do that in four seconds with his phone. 00:30:44.413 --> 00:30:51.923 You know, a personalized, you know, costly signal thank you

letter is,"My God, Brittany, last time we talked, you told me about this, you know, with your kid. 00:30:51.923 --> 00:30:56.823 How's he doing?" Um, you know, putting that in the note or, you know,"When we were on our video conference, I noticed that beautiful piece of art. 00:30:56.843 --> 00:31:00.942 Do you still have that back there?" Those are the things that AI struggles to scrape. 00:31:01.262 --> 00:31:07.923 So the definition of costly signal continues to evolve, and the cheap signals continue to cheapen. 00:31:07.932 --> 00:31:11.002 It just, you have to keep your eye on the ball, and that requires some effort 00:31:11.878 --> 00:31:14.699 I cosign on this 1,000%. 00:31:14.739 --> 00:31:20.179 I just saw a video on, like, Instagram of one, somebody selling, like, an AI course I think probably, 00:31:20.394 --> 00:31:20.404 Mm-hmm 00:31:20.439 --> 00:31:21.959 and it was one of those, like, autoplay. 00:31:21.969 --> 00:31:30.628 Like, I wasn't trying to watch it, and then I, like, rage watched the whole thing, where she was talking about whatever skill that she'd built, and she was like,"I know my prospects better than they know themselves. 00:31:30.648 --> 00:31:37.219 I know more about them than they do because I've bought the data and I've done this, and I've, you know, written written the skills," and blah, blah, blah. 00:31:37.459 --> 00:31:42.019 And I think, I mean, first of all, I think that's, like, icky and skeezy. 00:31:42.019 --> 00:31:48.409 Also, I think there is a whole subset of people that do not understand that humans are not comprised of ones and zeros. 00:31:48.719 --> 00:32:08.469 And for the people who think like,"Oh, I know what you're gonna do, I've, I, you know, I, I will put predictive analytics ahead of human experience," like, I, I think the real opportunity, and you talk about this a little bit in the book, is for the people who recognize this now, go buy Stick With That in stores today. 00:32:08.679 --> 00:32:22.769 For the people who read this book, for the people who recognize this, for the people who, I don't wanna say overcorrect,'cause it's kind of just like a return to, like, what has always been true, and you talk about that a little bit in the book too, of technology has, has exploded this as a phenomenon, but this is, none of this is new, right? 00:32:22.788 --> 00:32:24.949 It's like everything else in the human experience. 00:32:24.949 --> 00:32:27.288 These, we've, we've lived through versions of this before. 00:32:27.509 --> 00:32:55.288 The people who understand this and adapt to this moment in time are going to not see incremental return, they're gonna see exponential returns, because it really does feel like we are getting close to a tipping point, and pretty soon people are gonna be like,"Enough is enough," and hard unsubscribe from all of the, like, an algorithm did it, all of the things that used to be costly and are now cheap as those, as those signals. 00:32:55.530 --> 00:32:56.681 Yeah, it's really... 00:32:56.701 --> 00:33:04.500 So the part that I really, I felt tickled by, and I f- I feel like I'm gonna shamelessly plug here, I got to interview some of the top thinkers on influence and trust for this book. 00:33:04.500 --> 00:33:04.820 You know, I 00:33:04.873 --> 00:33:13.022 Pl- I was just about to ask, so pl- I was gonna say you are one of the smartest people that I know, but you did not just use your experience and your research. 00:33:13.022 --> 00:33:14.113 You brought in so many experts. 00:33:14.113 --> 00:33:18.133 So please brag, please list them, because I wanted to make sure we drop this. 00:33:18.133 --> 00:33:21.272 There, there's so many incredible thinkers in this book 00:33:21.277 --> 00:33:49.467 You know, I reached out to the likes of Adam Grant, Seth Godin, um, you know, Daniel Pink, Robert Cialdini, uh, y- Tasha Eurich, Dorie Clark, Michael Bungay Stanier, and people who have studied influence and trust deeply, and I kind of came at them with this idea of you've ever taught and written about is correct, and in my opinion, partially now incomplete because things have changed so much. 00:33:49.787 --> 00:33:52.636 And what really just, you know, warmed my heart is they're like,"You're right. 00:33:53.807 --> 00:34:10.567 Because the world has changed so significantly, so a lot of what is taught in the book is that used to work in the influence and trust space, many of them still do to a point, but a lot of the stuff we now need to do to get ahead, to break away from the pack, is going to feel counterintuitive. 00:34:10.777 --> 00:34:16.907 For example, you know, everybody will teach you lead from your company's strengths, lead from your brand's strengths, lead from your strengths. 00:34:17.086 --> 00:34:20.416 Well, if you were to go into AI, it will tell you the strengths first. 00:34:20.657 --> 00:34:28.726 So the person who is now breaking through the noise is actually the person who doesn't do that, is the person who says,"You know, Brittany, I'm gonna get on your podcast. 00:34:28.757 --> 00:34:42.896 I'm not gonna lie, I, I do not feel completely equipped to, you know, beautifully connect this to superfans, but I'm gonna do my best, and here's where I think I could still add value anyway." That, to people now, is refreshing. 00:34:43.266 --> 00:34:49.817 You're like,"Oh, well, she's telling me the truth up front, so she's probably not gonna BS me later on either." Right? 00:34:49.836 --> 00:34:51.746 It helps lower that wall early. 00:34:51.746 --> 00:35:00.297 So, like, leading with the con, leading with the drawback, these are techniques that, you know, while they've always existed in some small capacity, now are moved up to the top. 00:35:00.646 --> 00:35:02.016 Most sales teams haven't caught up. 00:35:02.016 --> 00:35:03.507 Most leadership teams haven't caught up. 00:35:03.686 --> 00:35:11.907 There's a lot of opportunity for us to rewrite some processes based on the times we live in now

and not the ones that we wish we lived in from five to 10 years ago. 00:35:12.528 --> 00:35:13.918 Huh, ugh, I love this. 00:35:13.978 --> 00:35:19.438 Okay, I don't wanna make you pick a favorite because there are so many incredible insights in this book, so many great interviews. 00:35:19.608 --> 00:35:30.489 But just share one or two things that as you were working on this, as you were talking to some of these incredible thought leaders in the field, that you just, you know, made you so happy to be able to, to share with the world 00:35:30.954 --> 00:35:35.775 Yeah, one of my favorites actually, uh, Adam Grant taught it to me as we were talking through the ideas of the book. 00:35:35.775 --> 00:35:49.125 It's called The Knowledge Persuasion Model, which is once something becomes known and understood as a tactic or a technique, start to immediately become doubtful of it, right? 00:35:49.125 --> 00:35:51.405 It starts to feel like a tactic and a technique. 00:35:51.405 --> 00:35:58.755 So, uh, I used, um, an example that I don't think this ever made it into the book, but I, in my mind, I always think of Chris Voss' mirroring. 00:35:58.974 --> 00:36:02.735 You know, he's the, the FBI hostage negotiator, and he teaches a technique called mirroring. 00:36:02.755 --> 00:36:07.485 And if you do mirroring correctly, it's a technique deeply rooted in empathy. 00:36:07.804 --> 00:36:19.355 So the simple version of it sounds like, um, if I were to say, you know,"It's really, really expensive," then Brittany would say back to me,"Expensive?" And then I would respond, right? 00:36:19.405 --> 00:36:21.385 That's kind of how the technique works. 00:36:22.175 --> 00:36:23.704 it became very ubiquitous. 00:36:23.724 --> 00:36:29.034 People just wanted to use mirroring without the technique that underlies it, the deep empathy. 00:36:29.284 --> 00:36:35.034 So now, if people do that to me, like,"What are you trying to Chris Voss me right now?" Right? 00:36:35.034 --> 00:36:37.144 Because it, it became known as a technique. 00:36:37.144 --> 00:36:45.505 When everything starts to feel like it's being used as a technique or as a measure or as a metric, our, our bodies automatically put up a resistance to it. 00:36:45.764 --> 00:36:55.605 So the, you know, some of those interesting research studies like that I found fascinating because we're doing these things thinking they're still working, we're wise to it now, and we need to adjust and change course. 00:36:56.327 --> 00:36:56.646 I love it. 00:36:56.657 --> 00:37:01.677 It's like the people who love the band until the band gets popular, and then they hate everybody who likes the band. 00:37:01.677 --> 00:37:13.416 And they're like,"Well, you weren't here for the first album," or,"You didn't see this tour." Um, Hina, I could talk to you all day and all night, and I probably will, but we'll do it, we'll do it, uh, via voice notes in our text. 00:37:13.766 --> 00:37:23.016 As we wrap up this episode, where can people go to learn more, find more about this incredible new book that you have given us? 00:37:23.293 --> 00:37:24.532 Oh, I'm so grateful for the time. 00:37:24.532 --> 00:37:27.693 Uh, thesignalgap.com has lots of information about the book. 00:37:27.693 --> 00:37:29.652 It's available everywhere books are sold. 00:37:29.932 --> 00:37:33.972 Uh, I am Henna Pryor, H-E-N-N-A-P-R-Y-O-R. 00:37:34.222 --> 00:37:37.193 LinkedIn and Instagram are my primary playgrounds. 00:37:37.362 --> 00:37:43.643 And what I will say is this, is if you are a fan of Brittany's and creating funny, I was thinking about this before we got on. 00:37:44.063 --> 00:37:52.512 It-- The Signal Gap is really the inverse, the opposite of everything you teach, kind of like the watch outs and the other side. 00:37:52.512 --> 00:38:11.893 So if you're doing all the beautiful things that Brittany has taught you over the years about how to create I want you to be equally as passionate building awareness of the watch outs, because it is a sin to do all of this big, beautiful work and then have somebody not believe you because of something small that you don't even realize that you're doing. 00:38:12.063 --> 00:38:17.072 So they're very complementary to one another, and I'm just so grateful to learn from you and be in your orbit all the time. 00:38:17.731 --> 00:38:23.311 Yeah, I was gonna say, just to clarify, not the opposite meaning it's gonna teach you something different, the this is everything that you need to know. 00:38:23.331 --> 00:38:23.721 And, 00:38:23.777 --> 00:38:24.677 complimentary 00:38:24.740 --> 00:38:25.181 knows this. 00:38:25.210 --> 00:38:28.231 We, we have been so fortunate to share a ton of clients back and forth. 00:38:28.554 --> 00:38:28.965 Mm-hmm. 00:38:29.190 --> 00:38:34.420 so picky about who I will recommend as a keynote speaker because I wanna make sure it's somebody incredible. 00:38:34.420 --> 00:38:42.231 And any time I'm asked for a recommendation, I always say if you want somebody who's a similar vibe but totally different message, get Henna. 00:38:42.260 --> 00:38:43.760 If you liked me, you'll love Henna. 00:38:44.001 --> 00:39:05.630 Uh, that is true of the book, that's true of the keynote because as you said, it's sort of a totally different lens and look on something that is so incredibly important for what we're both talking about, which is how to have your message, your platform, um, your, your company grow because people love you, trust you, and wanna tell their friends about you 00:39:06.010 --> 00:39:06.291 Yep. 00:39:06.351 --> 00:39:09.460 Same, same, goal, two sides of the coin 00:39:10.110 --> 00:39:10.471 Yes. 00:39:10.510 --> 00:39:13.101 Well, Hena, thank you so much for coming on the show. 00:39:13.101 --> 00:39:18.811 I always love a chance to sit down with you, and I mean it when I say the bar was so high with Good Awkward. 00:39:18.820 --> 00:39:23.561 It is one of the very first best books I have ever read by an author. 00:39:23.570 --> 00:39:23.751 It's... 00:39:23.791 --> 00:39:24.190 It came out... 00:39:24.190 --> 00:39:31.820 And I, I remember, I remember I got the advance and I called Hena, and I was like,"I am so jealous in the best way'cause I'm proud of you as a friend" But there's so much stuff in here that's so good. 00:39:32.090 --> 00:39:37.451 Since your book came out just a few months before m- or after mine, and now your second book is way ahead of my second book. 00:39:37.481 --> 00:39:40.300 But it is so incredible good, and so incredibly good. 00:39:40.311 --> 00:39:42.221 You absolutely cleared the very high bar. 00:39:42.221 --> 00:39:44.271 So everybody go check out The Signal Gap. 00:39:44.280 --> 00:39:46.311 I promise you, you will love it. 00:39:46.420 --> 00:39:55.271 And if you don't already follow Hena, make sure you follow her because she is one of my favorite people, one of the smartest people that you will ever see on the internet, and hopefully have the pleasure to meet in real life, too. 00:39:55.440 --> 00:39:58.641 And her signals are 100% in integrity with each other. 00:39:58.650 --> 00:40:02.090 She's exactly the same person as you expect her to be 00:40:02.829 --> 00:40:04.039 I appreciate you so much. 00:40:04.039 --> 00:40:04.748 So much fun 00:40:05.903 --> 00:40:07.313 hey friends, one more quick note. 00:40:07.494 --> 00:40:12.833 Henna has been generous enough to give you the first chapter of The Signal Gap completely for free. 00:40:13.043 --> 00:40:23.074 All you have to do is go to thesignalgap.com/superfans linked in the show notes to get the first chapter, plus some other really fun bonuses that I'm not gonna spoil for you. 00:40:23.114 --> 00:40:25.503 Believe me, you are gonna wanna check it out. 00:40:25.704 --> 00:40:29.393 Robert Cialdini said this is both a page-turner and a game-changer. 00:40:29.403 --> 00:40:31.123 He's 100% spot on. 00:40:31.403 --> 00:40:34.344 thesignalgap.com/superfans