[00:00:00] Hala Taha: Welcome back to the show, young improfiters. We live in a highly connected world, but it feels like we are less connected than ever. And AI is only going to make this worse. It's not going to get any better. So we need to figure out how we can go back to creating those meaningful human bonds that we need.

And today, my guest is Cal Fussman. He's an expert interviewer, he's a writer, a journalist, a speaker, and the host of the Big Questions podcast. Now Cal is my friend and I've listened to his interviews and he's absolutely amazing at getting people feeling comfortable, sharing their secrets with him, and he's talked with some of the most powerful people in the world from Muhammad Ali to Jeff Bezos to Richard Branson, and he's gotten incredible stories out of these people.

And he did that. by creating comfort and trust. So me and Cal ended up talking for about two hours, so we split this episode into two parts. Part one is a lot of storytelling from Cal, and he's an excellent storyteller. And he tells us how he traveled the world and became an awesome interviewer. By these travels because he had nowhere to stay and he had to convince people to allow him to stay at their house for 10 years.

He traveled all over the world and that's where he really honed his interview skills. So he tells us this story. We also talk about how to ask meaningful questions, how to listen better, how to story tell better all of these skills we need as an entrepreneur so that we can build our network. So that's part one of the series and part two.

We focus on AI, but without further ado, here's my conversation with Cal Fussman.

Cal, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. 

[00:02:55] Cal Fussman: I cannot think of a better place to be right now, Holla. 

[00:03:00] Hala Taha: Me either. I'm excited for this conversation. We're going to have a good one. So I had the opportunity to go on your Big Questions podcast a couple months back and then we became friends. We've talked since then.

You're a great guy. I had such a great experience on your podcast because you were just such a good interviewer. interviewer. You ask me questions that nobody asked before. And you are actually really honing in on a special skill that I have, which is reading ads. And you were really impressed with the way that I read ads.

And so I'm going to flip it back to you because I'm really impressed with the way that you interview people in general, right? You're just such a great host. You ask great questions, you're a great listener, and you really have obviously honed a real talent for being somebody who interviews others. So let's start here.

Tell us about how you honed your skills as an interviewer and walk us through your career journey in general. 

[00:03:54] Cal Fussman: Okay, so let me take you back 

to November 1963. I'm in second grade. Shortest guy in my class. Middle of the room. Miss Jaffee, the teacher, is called out in the afternoon. She comes back in a moment later a different person.

I mean, her face has turned to chalk. She's wearing the same clothes, but we are different. Looking at somebody that has gone through something that we don't know what happened, it's serious. And she tells us that President John F. Kennedy has just been shot. 

A little while later, everybody runs home, turns on the TV, and We listened to Walter Cronkite, who everybody watched on CBS back then, tell us that President Kennedy had been assassinated.

A little while later, we learned that Lyndon B. Johnson, the vice president, had stepped up, taken the oath of office. Now, I had just turned seven. The week before I never dealt with death before and my parents, they didn't know how I was going to take it. This is like a national tragedy. It was all anybody was talking about.

And I'm going to tell you how naive I was. I thought if you had an, a middle initial. That meant you got to be president. Only people I ever heard of with middle initials were John F. Kennedy, now Lyndon B. Johnson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman. So I'm thinking, this guy, Lyndon B. Johnson, he knew he was going to be the president.

And, How's he feeling? And I couldn't wrap my head around it because I didn't know if he was happy to be the president, if he was sad to be the president only because of the assassination, or if he was scared to be the president because they might want to kill him too. So, my parents call me over the kitchen table and they're saying, Cal, we just want to tell you that this is a terrible tragedy, but tomorrow morning, we're You're going to wake up, you're going to have breakfast just like you did last Saturday morning.

You're going to go out and play. Things are going to return to normal. Country's dealt with this before. And you can sleep okay. So, I take this in, they go to talk to my little brother. And I'm sitting at the table and I just, I can't wrap my head around what is going on in Lyndon B. Johnson's mind. So I pick up a, Pencil and piece of paper.

And I just start writing dear president Johnson. How does it feel? Are you happy to be the president? Are you sad? Are you scared? I wished him well. And the timing was perfect. We had just learned how to address an envelope in school. I knew where the stamps were, where the envelopes were. Fold the letter up, address president Lyndon B.

Johnson, the White House, lick a stamp. That's how we used to do it. Put it in the top right hand corner. And didn't tell anybody about it. Next day went outside and I just took it with me and dropped it in the mailbox. And for a couple of months passed, just forgot about it till about six months later, my mom comes running into the apartment with an envelope in her right hand, over her head from the white house addressed to me, and we open it up in front of president.

And the amazing thing about it, Hala, was that it wasn't written to a second grader. It was written with dignity. And I knew that because the second sentence began something like, In answer to your query, and I had no idea what a query was, but I knew suddenly the apartment was filled with people. They all wanted to hold this letter from the president.

Principal of the school found out about it, was calling, wanted me to bring it in. And in that moment, my life changed because I knew the power of a question. It could get you to the most powerful person on earth. And I knew that I was going to spend the rest of my life asking questions and also telling stories about the answers I got because the story about the letter to the president followed me around for the rest of my life.

So that's where it started. And very few people You know, when we talked, um, big questions, you were telling me about your background, and it's very uncommon for people to know what they're going to do when they're six or seven years old. You might have thought you were going to be a singer. 

[00:09:05] Hala Taha: Yep. 

[00:09:05] Cal Fussman: You had a great voice.

And you had a lot of really smart people around you, siblings, and so maybe you thought you were gonna go into medicine. 

[00:09:18] Hala Taha: Yep. Like everyone else. 

[00:09:20] Cal Fussman: Yeah. I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life asking questions and telling stories. It was done. So the next step, I went to journalism school. Back then, in the early 80s, this was before cable TV.

Cable starting, and ESPN, I think, started in 1980. In the 70s, we came up in that era, it was a very cool thing to say, write a column for a newspaper. Everybody saw your face, you said what you want. It was kind of like being the mayor of the town without having any of the problems. You just write, everybody loved you.

And so that's what I wanted to do. And when I was about 22, I actually saw my face in the newspaper writing a column. And it kind of made me aware that, oh man, like this is great, but am I going to do this for the next 50 years? Is there more out there? 

[00:10:25] Hala Taha: Yeah. 

[00:10:26] Cal Fussman: And this amazing magazine started in New York and they called me and asked me to come.

I went and then it opened me up to interviewing all of the superstar athletes I ever wanted to meet. It was a dream. And then the magazine, which was a critical success, it was an entrepreneurial failure. Finances didn't work out. And all of a sudden I'm 23 years old, and I have no idea what to do. Now, you went through a lot of changes on your way up.

Yeah, when I listened to your story, you almost became an expert at pivoting and knowing where to go and transforming yourself. I didn't have that. I didn't know what to do.  

 So, I called up my mom and dad and I said, you know, I think I'm just going to take some time off. I didn't really have much money and just travel a little and let things clear.

[00:11:36] Cal Fussman: And this was the next big step in your question, because principally for those four words, I had no money. I mean, I didn't have money to stay in hotels every night, even hostels. And so the way this trip evolved was I would go to a train station or a bus station and I would. look for a destination that was coming up and just buy a ticket.

It didn't matter really where it was going. What mattered to me was the walk down the aisle. I'm walking down that aisle and I am looking for an empty seat, empty seat next to somebody who looks interesting. Somebody I think is going to trust me. Because I know once I sit down in that one empty seat, I got to make my choice here.

Conversation's going to start. By the end of that conversation, by the end of that trip, I need them to invite me home. Otherwise, I got no roof over my head. let me tell you how seriously I took this. I'm walking down that aisle and I see a beautiful woman. No rings on her fingers. She could be smiling at me.

She could be a supermodel. I just walked right on by. Cause, let's face it man, she wasn't gonna be taking me home. But that grandma in the back, That 83 year old toothless grandma eating crackers out of her purse? She could be a winner. So I go to the back of the train, hungry, I sit down next to Grandma.

She doesn't speak any English. I speak very little Hungarian, you know, hello, how are you? And I turn to her as the train starts rolling, saying, What makes a great goulash? She has no idea. Now we're, it's a game of charades. We're just trying to make ourselves understood. The beauty of this time, this is before the Berlin Wall came down, this is Eastern Europe, young people who were learning English saw this as like a tremendous opportunity to meet somebody that is American and could teach them English.

So they would come over to these conversations. And I say to Grandma, He wants to know what makes a great goulash. Goulash. And as grandma looks at them and says, you know, I've been riding this train for many, many years. I've seen some of you and her chest is kind of swelling with pride because she wants to tell me all about her goulash.

But she says to them, never once has any of you come over to me and asked about my goulash. And this young man from thousands of kilometers away. comes to Hungary because he wants to know about my goulash. Well, you tell him he's coming home with me and we're going to prepare him goulash tomorrow night.

And so the trade ride ends. Grandma takes me home and the next night I'm sitting at the head of the table and she is on a roll. She's called her friends. Her relatives, the whole room is packed with people. As grandma puts down the goulash right in front of me, I lift it up. And as soon as it hits my lips, my eyes close with rapture and my cheeks rise, and the crowd goes crazy.

He loves grandma's goulash. And a five day party starts. Everybody wants to meet me. At which time somebody comes over and says, have you by any chance ever tasted homemade apricot brandy? I said, no, because my father, he makes the best homemade apricot brandy you will ever taste. You gotta come to the house, taste this brandy.

Okay, so we go over and we taste the brandy, at which time another guy comes over, asks me if I want to go to the paprikash capital of the world. I must see it before I leave hungry. And that is how I started to get passed around the world. 

[00:16:01] Hala Taha: Oh my gosh. 

[00:16:03] Cal Fussman: Families took me in and then they called relatives and said, well, we got this American guy.

And I literally, they put me on a bus. I would go to the other town. People would be waiting for me. And that's became very addictive. And it lasted for 10 years. 

[00:16:23] Hala Taha: Wow, 10 years, you were traveling all around the world? 

[00:16:28] Cal Fussman: Yes, went through Europe, South America, some parts of Africa. I saved Asia for late in life, I don't know why.

figured it seemed like the thing to do. And I also went all around North America and people just were incredibly accepting. And after a while I could get on the train or the bus, if people weren't passing me. And just see which empty seat was the right one, sit in it, and people took care of me. 

[00:17:08] Hala Taha: What an incredible story.

[00:17:10] Cal Fussman: And that's where I learned to interview. Because, think about it, a lot of it is, number one, making people feel comfortable. I felt comfortable the moment we started talking. On my podcast, on your podcast, that's the key. If you can make somebody feel comfortable, then they're not crossed arms and holding things back.

Now, when I started to travel, there was no internet. So often, two things happen. Number one, people would tell me secrets. Or try to tell me, they may not have spoken very good English, they could tell me things that they wouldn't tell their neighbors or even family members because then it would get around.

[00:18:05] Hala Taha: You didn't know anyone else, so. 

[00:18:07] Cal Fussman: I was going to be gone and that might never be seen again. So we'd have these really intimate moments, and two, the second thing that happened, and this actually really translates into what I'm doing with workshops to bring people together. Because I would go into a town and everybody would come in the room.

And people would start talking about the place, what they loved about it, in ways that you would often see the other people who knew them look at them thinking, I never knew that about you. So I was actually bringing together these people who were seeing each other every day over things that they might not have realized about each other, just because I was being curious.

Thanks. They had accepted each other, and I was just filled with questions. And so that was the huge, huge evolution that allowed me, when the trip ended, I met a woman, headed to a beach in Brazil, immediately fell in love. And she actually stood next to me, I didn't sit next to her and we got married and came to the United States and that's when I started to work for Esquire Magazine where I took this style of interviewing into the room with the world leaders, presidents of the United States, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union.

business leaders, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos, all the actors, musicians, and it was different for them because I just treated it like I was sitting next to them on the bus. I wasn't asking those journalistic questions that are supposed to get to the core. And which they're thinking they might not want to answer.

I'm just going in curious. And this column that came through it called What I've Learned, it was written in their words, and contained the information that they were giving me, these nuggets of wisdom. And it was completely different from anything you ever saw, and it became the most popular feature in the magazine for about 20 years.

And so that's where it came from, this hybrid of knowing what I was supposed to do with then innovating in a way that I had no idea where things were going, but I just allowed it to happen. There was preparation and understanding, but there was also a preparation to improvise. Which may seem like a paradox, but I can tell you a lot of stories about being caught in the moment where I was told an interview that I thought was going to be an hour and a half had been cut down to 10 minutes with Mikhail Gorbachev, meaning the story was never going to be written.

And I had to figure out a way to make Mikhail Gorbachev want to talk to me. For 40 minutes. And I did, I did by asking him a single question. 

[00:21:53] Hala Taha: What was that? 

[00:21:54] Cal Fussman: When I walked into the room, I knew I had to do something drastic. And when they told me I had only 10 minutes, I knew that, all right, it's 10 minutes, but it's going to be two minutes of us shaking hands, sitting down, exchanging pleasantries.

Plus, my questions would have to be translated into Russian and his back into English. So he was down like four minutes before me. And I immediately looked at him and you could just tell he was in town to speak about abolishing nuclear weapons. I could immediately tell he was expecting my first question to be about nuclear weapons, world events, what it's like to be.

negotiating with President Ronald Reagan. And I immediately just looked in his eyes and said, what's the best lesson your father ever taught you? And he just didn't say anything. He just kind of was looking up. And when, when people look up to the right, after you've asked them a question, you know, they're looking deep inside themselves and time is passing.

He didn't say anything. And then he's looking at the ceiling as if there's a movie playing on it. And he starts telling me this story. He was a boy, and his dad got called up to fight in World War II. And, uh, the Gorbachevs lived on a farm. And he's describing this trip from the farm to the town to drop the dad off with all the other soldiers.

And he's describing it in this detail, and I'm sitting there thinking, Ah, man, you just messed up, Cal. That's the worst question. This interview's gonna be over before the Gorbachevs even get to town. But they do get to town. And when they get to town, Mr. Gorbachev takes the family into a little shop. And he gets everybody some ice cream.

And Gorbachev is remembering this ice cream. He's remembering the aluminum cup that it was served in. And he's talking about this cup of ice cream as if it's in the palm of his hand. And the more he's talking about it, It's like we both have this realization that, man, this cup of ice cream is the reason he was able to make peace with Ronald Reagan and end the Cold War.

Because this cup of ice cream contained the memory of what it was like just before your father went to war. The dread of not knowing whether you'd ever see him again. So he's looking at the ice cream, I'm looking at the ice cream, he's looking at the ice cream, looking up at each other, and we're thinking, man, this is deep.

And just then, the publicist, who was the one who called me and said, you know, remember that interview that I told you would be an hour and a half, it's only 10 minutes. She comes to the door and said, Ms. Gorbachev, time for the interview will have to be over. And he looks at her and says, No, I, I want to talk to him.

She's shocked and slowly backs out the door, and the conversation continues and goes deeper. So 10 minutes later, post comes in again. This time a little more sheepishly says, Mr. Gorbachev cow time. No. Gorbachev said, I, I wanna talk to him. She backs out the room. The conversation continues, goes deeper till 10, 20 minutes passed and she comes in and now she is.

at the edge. Like, Mr. Gorbachev, Cal, please. The day was planned to the minute. We got a long line of people out the door to see Mr. Gorbachev. Please. And Gorbachev looks at me and he smiles and he says, you know, hey, what, what can I do? And we concluded the interview, but I had the material to fill out the column.

It was a huge success. And when I thought back on why, Holla, I realized that I never would have gotten that insight. If I hadn't asked my first question to the heart, I'd gone in with a canned question, would have gotten a canned answer. Interview would have been over in six minutes, 10 minutes, whatever.

And I never would have known what was possible. So that's a piece of advice I tell everybody and entrepreneurs, especially you meet somebody, try and aim your first question for the heart, because once you've reached into somebody's heart. You can then take it to the head and then follow the heart and the head on a pathway to the soul.

And so I hope that somebody who's listening is going to put that to good use. 

[00:26:47] Hala Taha: What an incredible story. I love hearing about your journey and it's so cool that you got your interviewing skills just living real life. And we were talking offline. How a lot of my listeners, they're not podcasters, they're entrepreneurs or small business owners or corporate professionals, but we all need to learn how to make people comfortable, how to be good listeners, how to ask good questions, how to build relationships, because that's what it's all about.

And to grow in your business, you need to have a powerful network. You need to be good at making relationships, having people trust you, be comfortable with you and so on. So let's start there. You mentioned that you know how to make people feel comfortable. What's your advice in terms of tactics to get people to feel comfortable to open up?

[00:27:34] Cal Fussman: Okay. Let's say I'm an entrepreneur selling something. What's the most important thing to me? Knowing what my customer or would be customer is thinking, there's nothing more important. You can have the greatest idea in the world, if there are no customers that want it, it's not going to fly. So, just, Asking your customer or potential customer or anybody that you're talking to about the thing that you are trying to create or that you're selling to get a gauge on whether they would be interested in purchasing it or whether they know somebody who'd be interested in purchasing it.

That's the bedrock right there. And so many times I run into entrepreneurs. And they don't ask those questions. And, and when I'm talking about asking those questions, it's different. This gets to your question. It's very different from putting out a survey that says. On a scale of 1 to 10, what do you think of this?

Is it a 6? Is it a 7? Is it a And whose 6 is another person's 9? We don't know that. It's very different from looking somebody in the eye and saying, what do you think about this? Do you like this? Does it bother you in any way? And I think you'll find people will be happy to tell you how they feel or think.

And then you can actually take it deeper because you may have ideas on which way to go. And you can say, would you like it better if I chose A? Or, would you like it better if I chose B? And maybe they might have an idea. Man, you know, there's the t shirts, Life is Good. It's got this smiling face that became famous.

The whole brand was done around it. And it only came about because there was a party at the owner's home. They had been trying to sell t shirts for like six years on college campuses, getting soaked in the rain, getting thrown off campuses, not having a license. Just barely making it as their dream, and all of a sudden they had one party, and somebody put this image of a smiling face on the wall.

And as soon as they saw it, they said, there it is. That's the centerpiece of our brand. And these things happen because you're asking people to either look at something and respond to it, or maybe they have an idea that's going to change your life because you were. In one place, but their idea will take you to another.

You know, there's a story about Steve jobs when he was creating the Apple store. He really wanted to do this. And there are a lot of people in the company, and this is after he came back from being fired. There was still pushback on a lot of things he wanted. And the store was one of them because they're saying you're going to put these stores in the mall.

Nobody's going to go into these stores. And not only does he want to do it, but he wants to do it on a really high level, spending a lot of money. And they designed one in California as a model. And he's on his way to see it. It's just about to be shown. And he gets in the car with somebody who he really trusted, also worked at Apple.

The guy said, Steve, this is wrong. It's not it. It's not designed right. And Jobs went crazy. Shut up. Like I don't want to hear it. And then was silent for the rest of the ride. And he didn't even say anything to him in the car. They went into the store and Jobs had to give a talk about this being the story of the future.

And he just said, no, this isn't right. We got to reconfigure this and people have to help you. Here's the thing, Holla, that this is where I'm actually, my whole life is going. And this is a sign of a good interviewer because you took me on this wild route to the place where I am going. I am trying to connect people.

I think we live in a really disconnected time, at least from my perspective, because I can remember. How things connected in the 60s, 70s, 80s, I was there and we really have to think about how our connections help us collaborate better. You being in a room alone is not gonna really stand much of a chance against having ideas about what you're doing come at you.

And having teams of people collaborating to get the most out of themselves, but we're all remote working now. I'm not saying this is bad. I get it. It's all good. It's just that there's got to be a framework. For people to be able to a couple of times a year get together so they understand who they're working with.

They understand what that person appreciates. It's not just a zoom call. You know, there's a book like the five love languages where it was written by like a psychologist. And he was really smart because he talked to so many people. who are having troubles in their love life. But there's different ways that we want to feel loved.

Some people, they need to hear it. Some people, they need a present. In his case, it was five, but it's no different at work. There are some people who need to hear, hey, what you did is great. Some people don't need to hear it, but maybe they're looking for a gift of sorts. 

[00:34:02] Hala Taha: Yeah, a raise or a bonus or something.

[00:34:04] Cal Fussman: Exactly. Everybody's got a different way. And if I don't think that comes through zoom calls. Serendipity comes when you don't know what's going to happen next. On a zoom call, you kind of know this is what the zoom calls about. So I think it's so important to look for ways, especially if you're an entrepreneur, to connect with people face to face and ask them questions.

People want to be listened to. 

[00:34:44] Hala Taha: That's why I wanted to have this conversation because I feel like you have so much to offer to get people to open up, to get real bonds with people. Because I feel like asking good questions, relevant questions that elicit meaningful responses, actually listening, the basis of all relationships.

[00:35:03] Cal Fussman: That's what a relationship is. It's asking good questions and listening and having an authentic conversation. 

You know, this really overlaps with business. I'm going to give a talk next week and I'm just thinking about this topic because, okay, you know, I started out asking questions, writing. Now I talk.

Talk for companies about this and something occurred to me when I thought back on a story I wrote at the end of. Last century about learning to be a sommelier. And that is the idea of you go into a, like an upscale restaurant and there's somebody who comes over and it's going to match the wine for the moment.

And I trained under. The best sommelier in America. A woman named Andrea Emmer. And, uh, do you follow, uh, the WNBA women's basketball now? 

[00:36:06] Hala Taha: I don't. 

[00:36:07] Cal Fussman: Oh, you gotta watch Caitlin Clark. And Angel Reese, but Caitlin Clark is somebody who's going to be one of the biggest people in America. See, this is why I love it, Holla.

Young and profiting. And I feel like I'm young and profiting telling you about these young people who are profiting. This woman, she just graduated from college last year. It went from Games in the WNBA, where they might get 3, 000 people, now they're going to bigger arenas and selling out. People are paying 400.

tickets to see her, Caitlin Clark, and she shoots from nearly half court and the ball goes in a lot of times. And she passes in a way you can't imagine it. Well, this woman that I'm talking about, this sommelier, Andrea Emmer, the best way I could describe her was she was like Caitlin Clark. She walked out on the floor and she did something that is incredibly entrepreneurial.

And incredibly businesslike, even though you didn't know it because you thought she was just enhancing the experience that you're going to get the best bottle of wine at a price that you could afford. And I thought about it and I realized that sales is leadership and leadership is sales. So follow me on this.

She's going around. She's starting a conversation with the people at the table. What is she doing? This is exactly what you were saying. Holla. She's asking questions. What are you having to eat? What kind of wines do you like? What taste do you like? Cause she's got to pick the best wines for them, but also she's got to be very cognizant of the price.

Somebody's at that table is paying and she doesn't want anybody to feel uncomfortable. By bringing up, well, this is going to cost you 80 bucks. Then you want the 80 bottle. You want the 20 bottle. And look back then, it always made me feel a little uncomfortable when that sommelier or the waiter came over.

Cause I didn't know anything about wine until I went and learned about it. And you could easily get ripped off because, you know, the waiter could tell you anything and any just, it could sell you a bottle that they weren't moving and they just wanted to get out of the restaurant with a high price to it and you didn't know the difference.

[00:38:48] Hala Taha: Yeah, you wouldn't know. 

[00:38:49] Cal Fussman: I watched her ask these questions, listen, and connect the dots because she, she had a wine list that had 1500 wines in it. She knew these wines, she had stories about the wine, and she could describe the wines to people, and then she would figure out who's picking up the tab, and she'd, without anybody else saying, point to, do you like this one, and then, but she's pointing not to the wine, to the price.

Are you thinking of like the 20, the 35, or the 50? Without anybody else at the table knowing. Anybody else at table is watching her work. They're thinking we're getting the best experience. And what is she doing? She's selling, but she's also leading the table to the best choice for them. And then, when they make a decision, and they love it, it's like watching Caitlin Clarke throw up a three pointer.

Right? The people are so happy. And what happens afterward? The people leave, but they want to come back. They want to buy again. Not only that, they want to tell their friends, I know Andrea, she's the best sommelier in America, went through the competition, she's the best. Tell her you know me, and you're going to get a great experience.

And so you see the leadership behind all this because she's literally leading people to come back in. She's leading them to tell other people to come back in. And that is amazing. Great, great strategy for an entrepreneur. If you can listen like that and you could connect the dots and then gently nudge people, don't throw down some big deck and say, buy this or buy that.

No, you gently nudge them so that they actually think it's their decision. Even though you were guiding them all along, which is. What does a great leader do? You know, he or she puts out the information that makes people look up and say, yeah, I want to get behind that and then make it their own. So all these basic skills that you would think, oh, Cal's a, he's a writer, he's a journalist.

No, it's the same thing. It comes down to asking the right question, listening, connecting the dots, telling the story, and then the little nudge. And that's, that's sales. And that's leadership. It's the same. 

[00:41:48] Hala Taha: So I learned something from my client and she talks about the laws of likability and she taught me about three stages of listening, which I thought were really interesting.

So there's inward listening. So somebody says, Oh, Hala, I love Thai food. And you're just like, Me too. Thai food's my favorite food. Then there's outward listening, where it's like, Hala, I love Thai food. And you actually reflect it back on the person to keep learning about them. And you say, Oh, really? Like, what's your favorite Thai food spot?

Or what's your favorite food? Or why do you even like Thai food? And you make it more about them, not just reflecting about yourself right away, right? And then there's intuitive listening. Hello. I love Thai food so much. Oh my gosh, you sound so excited. Are you thinking about going to Thailand one day?

You're not just listening to what they're saying. You're trying to feel like how they're feeling about it. I always carried that with me because a lot of people are at this first level of listening where they're really just listening. Only thinking about their own experiences. They're asking a question just to respond back to give their own story or their own opinion.

Where really if you want people to like you and really deepen the relationship, you want to keep digging deeper and deeper and tell them that you're listening by doing that. And then they'll like you more because they realize like, Oh, you're listening to me because you're, you know, deepening the questioning about what I'm even saying, not just going back to yourself.

[00:43:19] Cal Fussman: Yeah. Do you really care what I think? As opposed to the first brand of listening that you're talking about, which is Listening. While you're not really listening, you're thinking of what you want to say next. 

[00:43:34] Hala Taha: Exactly. 

[00:43:35] Cal Fussman: So these things are incredibly important, whether you are hosting a podcast, writing a story as a journalist, It's telling a story, being an entrepreneur, working in a company.

It's the bedrock of connection. And if you think of it this way, if you can't connect as best you can, how can you collaborate as best you can? It just doesn't make sense. Connection is collaboration. 

[00:44:11] Hala Taha: You must have told like a hundred stories on this podcast. So I have to ask you, what is your formula for telling a good story?

It's probably coming so naturally to you now, but if you had to teach somebody else how to do this and be engaging, what would you say? 

[00:44:25] Cal Fussman: This is basically the hero's journey. Everybody can do this. Everybody's an expert at it. Why? Because they've seen this a million times on movies. And in fact, what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you six steps.

And then I'm going to come back to you and ask, okay, Hala, give me your favorite movie and take the main character and guide them through these six steps. And you'll see works because this is the formula that's employed by Hollywood. Now, if it's an independent movie that goes all over the place, it's a little different, but.

If it's a big selling Hollywood movie, it follows along these lines. So one, you need a vulnerable character. There is no story without a vulnerable character. Done. Nobody cares. Otherwise, we need to see some kind of vulnerability. And not only that step number two is we need to see. intention of that vulnerable character to get past their vulnerability to wherever they want to go.

So you got steps one and two vulnerable character intention to get to a better place. Step three, obstacles. Obstacles come up and stop the vulnerable character from getting where they want to go. Step number four, a mentor appears. Some kind of mentor who has maybe been through this experience before, has wisdom around it.

Maybe they don't have any wisdom, but they got ideas that can help the vulnerable character get past the obstacles. and get to a place of transformation. So now through the first four steps, we've seen the vulnerable character stymied from the beginning, running into obstacles, but now they've met somebody along the journey that's taught them something to get to that following place.

But you know what? It's not enough. There's still another obstacle to stop the vulnerable character. And As they're going through this, they're applying everything they've learned along the way and, you know, use the force Luke. And then step six is a place of transformation where everything that the vulnerable character has learned has been applied and get past the obstacles.

To a place of transformation that you might not have even really seen what's coming. All right, so give me a movie that you love, give me a character that was vulnerable, let's go through the six steps. 

[00:47:38] Hala Taha: I feel like I hate this exercise because I don't watch a lot of movies, but why don't we do Barbie, the latest Barbie movie.

Did you watch that? 

[00:47:46] Cal Fussman: I did. 

[00:47:47] Hala Taha: Okay.

[00:47:48] Cal Fussman: Twice. 

[00:47:49] Hala Taha: I feel like I never remember movies. What happened with her in that movie? 

[00:47:53] Cal Fussman: She starts out great. She starts out, everything's perfect, right? 

[00:47:58] Hala Taha: Yeah. She's like, lives in a perfect world. She's dating Ken. They're happy. And then she, what is it? She goes to the real world, right?

She starts getting like, uh, feet basically, right? She gets her feet. 

[00:48:11] Cal Fussman: She wakes up one day and it's not perfect. And that's what sets her off on the journey. And she goes to look for a mentor who says, you gotta go. Into the real world. So you see that like Barbie started with everything perfect, but then something happened that just Made her imperfect.

And then there you go. That starts her on her hero's journey to get back the perfect world. Now, in the meantime, all these things get shaken up. That puts Ken in a new position. Where this vulnerable guy all of a sudden finds out about this world driven by masculinity. And he's going to become somebody different.

And you see them, she's going to meet people. She meets a mom and a daughter. And the daughter doesn't like her. And she can't believe it. Obstacle. Obstacles. And then the mom actually has to step up and mom has the love of Barbie because different generations. And so you see them fighting through all the obstacles, but more than one mentor is coming in here, people who are helping Barbie on the journey.

And then, you know, Toward the end, what's happened? Barbie's world has been flipped upside down. And now you've got women who are, were strong and assertive and ready to run the Supreme Court are now putting their heads on the shoulders of men who are playing crappy guitar and just being in love. And everything has got to be flipped over for Barbie to have her world back.

And so that journey just, it follows this whole pattern of finding mentors. In that case, many obstacles keep coming up and Barbie's in shock. To find out that a young girl can actually not like her and that way her world is is no longer the way and then meet the person who created this world and in the end the world is through her efforts turn back right side up and the hero's journey is complete.

So using those six steps. Anybody can tell a story, but we're talking about entrepreneurs. It's a little different when you tell a business story. Why? Because in the business story, you cannot be the hero. The hero is a vulnerable person. In this case, when you're telling your business story. The hero is your client.

[00:51:19] Hala Taha: Yeah, the customer is the hero. 

[00:51:20] Cal Fussman: The customer has an issue that needs to be resolved. And your product is the solution. So, what happens is the customer is vulnerable. The customer wants better. They have an intention to improve. But the customer can't get the right product. The mentor comes in. It's your company.

You are now the mentor. Your business is the mentor and your business is showing the client how they can get what they want. They don't have to be vulnerable anymore. You will take them past the obstacles. To a point of transformation and make them happy. And that is the business way of going through those six steps.

Very important because I don't want entrepreneurs to be thinking they can be Barbie and go through that journey because you don't want to look vulnerable. You want your product to be the solution. not character that needs a solution. 

[00:52:31] Hala Taha: And you can use these stories if you're doing presentations or throughout your website or on social media, you want to write stories to help people really connect with your brand and what you're selling and feel like they could be that hero, that customer and relate to the stories that you're telling.

So, you know that I'm an entrepreneur, I run a business, 60 employees. And I'm hiring all the time. And one of the skills that I find that a lot of people do not have is writing. So I find that still in my business, I'm writing so many of the communications. I'm writing the emails. I'm not writing social posts.

I have an awesome social team that's writing for clients and stuff. But when it comes to writing programs or FAQs or. Anything that I need either internally or very important external stuff, I feel like I'm still the best writer. And I feel like it's so hard to train people to just write clearly and just effectively.

So I just want your guidance. You're a professional writer. How can people level up their writing skills? Because people just don't have good writing skills. 

[00:53:44] Cal Fussman: I love the question because it made me think deeper. Number one, you could probably solve the problem by searching for somebody in a position that's extremely clear.

When you put out your job posting, letting them know this is a position for somebody who thinks clearly, communicates clearly, writes clearly, speaks clearly. 

[00:54:22] Hala Taha: This is my number one requirement from my executive assistant. Literally have a job post out and it's just like, you need to be able to think clearly, write clearly.

[00:54:30] Cal Fussman: If you can't, then please don't apply for this job. Because This is something that we are not gonna take the time to train somebody to do. We want somebody who wakes up in the morning and when they look in the mirror, they see clarity. 

[00:54:51] Hala Taha: Okay, young improfiters, so that was the first part of my conversation with Cal Fussman. Even if you're not a podcaster and you never conduct any interviews, I hope you took to heart some of the things that Cal said about the art of interviewing.

Because so much of getting along and getting ahead in the business world is about learning to get along with others. other people, to make them comfortable, to ask the right questions, and to build relationships with them. I loved Cal's approach of never sitting down next to an empty seat, whether it's on a bus in a foreign country or in a room of executives.

A healthy curiosity about other people is a skill of its own, and you can't develop it by sitting on your own. or by hiding in an office or behind a computer. Making others feel comfortable and engaging them in conversation can tell you so much about how they see the world, which can be invaluable business intelligence.

And like Cal said, most people want to tell you what they think. They're eager to share feedback and ideas. and their secrets. You just have to know how to prime the pump. All right. In part two of my conversation with Cal Fustman, we're going to take a deep dive into another skill that's becoming increasingly essential to have in the business world, knowing how to use AI.

Are you engaging enough with AI tools? If you're not like me, then what can help you get started? Stay tuned and check out the next episode of young and profiting to find out. Thanks for listening to this episode. If you listen, learned and profited from it, then why not share young and profiting with a friend or maybe even engage them in a conversation about the show.

And if you did enjoy the show and you learned something, then why not drop us a five star review on Apple podcasts? If you prefer to watch your podcast as videos, you can find us on YouTube. Just look up Young and Profiting. You'll find all of our episodes on there. If you're looking to get in touch with me, you can find me on Instagram or LinkedIn by searching my name.

It's Halataha. And as always, I've got to thank my production team for all their hard work. You guys are awesome. Thank you for all that you do. This is your host, Halataha, aka the Podcast Princess, signing off.