In this episode of The Missing Secret Podcast, John and Kelly talk about the power of using questions to influence people. Kelly has built her business career around asking great questions. It plays out throughout her life. John talks about using questions to influence people regarding embracing think it be it. As an example, sometimes he will ask a person how do you create success in your life. That’s a question they probably haven’t been asked before. And so after a minute or two of stumbling around looking for the right answer, it becomes apparent to both John and the person that they don’t really have a way of creating success in their life.
Then John asks the killer second question. How’s that working for you? John then politely and respectfully gives them the answer. It’s not working out as well as you would like because you’re just winging life. You don’t actually have a way of doing life. When someone asked John how he creates success, he has a pretty clear answer. Your daily actions determine your success in each area of your life. 95% of your daily actions are unconscious. Therefore I gain control over my unconscious daily actions by feeding the succinct articulation of my life to myself each day. That rewires my autopilot. And causes the right actions happen automatically without thinking. And I have a powerful force pulling myself forward to my desired life. John gives another example. Oftentimes he will say that the most significant thing he ever learned in his life is that 95% of a person’s daily actions are unconscious. And so he will ask the question to someone as to whether they believe that or not. More often than not, they say they do believe it.
Then the second killer question. So what are you doing about that? Do you see the profound implications of that? The Takeaway is using questions are profound. In the last half of the episode John and Kelly talk about this idea of deep thinking two times a week. A powerful technique that is part of the think it be it methodology. It’s a three-step process. The first step is just sit down and write in your thinking tablet anything that comes up for the first 10 minutes or so. Then the second step. Figure out a question to ask yourself. Usually regarding what your biggest challenge at the moment is. Then the third step is to recap what you learned and defined the action steps. John and Kelly discuss in the think it be it methodology this ongoing dance between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The deep thinking technique two times a week is influencing the conscious mind. Then the daily reading of one’s visualization is impacting the subconscious mind.
About the Hosts:
John Mitchell
John’s story is pretty amazing. After spending 20 years as an entrepreneur, John was 50 years old but wasn’t as successful as he thought he should be. To rectify that, he decided to find the “top book in the world” on SUCCESS and apply that book literally Word for Word to his life. That Book is Think & Grow Rich. The book says there’s a SECRET for success, but the author only gives you half the secret. John figured out the full secret and a 12 minute a day technique to apply it.
When John applied his 12 minute a day technique to his life, he saw his yearly income go to over $5 million a year, after 20 years of $200k - 300k per year. The 25 times increase happened because John LEVERAGED himself by applying science to his life.
His daily technique works because it focuses you ONLY on what moves the needle, triples your discipline, and consistently generates new business ideas every week. This happens because of 3 key aspects of the leveraging process.
John’s technique was profiled on the cover of Time Magazine. He teaches it at the University of Texas’ McCombs School of Business, which is one the TOP 5 business schools in the country. He is also the “mental coach” for the head athletic coaches at the University of Texas as well.
Kelly Hatfield is an entrepreneur at heart. She believes wholeheartedly in the power of the ripple effect and has built several successful companies aimed at helping others make a greater impact in their businesses and lives.
She has been in the recruiting, HR, and leadership development space for over 25 years and loves serving others. Kelly, along with her amazing business partners and teams, has built four successful businesses aimed at matching exceptional talent with top organizations and developing their leadership. Her work coaching and consulting with companies to develop their leadership teams, design recruiting and retention strategies, AND her work as host of Absolute Advantage podcast (where she talks with successful entrepreneurs, executives, and thought leaders across a variety of industries), give her a unique perspective covering the hiring experience and leadership from all angles.
As a Partner in her most recent venture, Think It Be It, Kelly has made the natural transition into the success and human achievement field, helping entrepreneurs break through to the next level in their businesses. Further expanding the impact she’s making in this world. Truly living into the power of the ripple effect.
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Transcripts
John Mitchell:
Welcome to The Missing Secret Podcast. I'm Kelly Hatfield, hey, and I'm John Mitchell. So here's the topic today, the power of a question to influence somebody. Now, I know this is right up your alley, Kelly, right? It is.
Kelly Hatfield:
It is. And, you know, I always say, like, the quality of your life. I don't say this. This is somebody else's. I'm not sure who said it first, but the quality of your life determined is determined by like, the quality of your the questions you ask, the quality of your relationships is determined by the quality of the questions you ask. And so I'm very excited about today's topic,
John Mitchell:
Right? You know, I think you're thinking about Derek Hardy, you just did something, oh, a month ago about, you know, what's biggest question in your life? You know something around that. But I know
Kelly Hatfield:
John, without John Maxwell is huge on I think that's he. He has a version of that. And we got picked up from Tim originally in his one of his leadership books.
John Mitchell:
Right? So how do you use questions yourself, in in your business life?
Kelly Hatfield:
Oh my gosh, I use them in everything I do, in my communication, on whether it's related to business or personal. But as far as business is concerned, I mean, everything starts with a question. Everything starts with one question. And if I've done it right, you know. So whether it's prospect, call, you know, whether it's a candidate, call, whether it's it, all of these are influence conversations of influence, right, you know. And whether it's with a team, you know, member, or the team in general, I'm always, always, always seeking first, to understand. So I want to understand the perspective, the needs and wants, like, what is the usually we're his sitting down and having a conversation. The one of the very first things I say is, you know, hey, it's my understanding. You know that today we're having XYZ meeting. What are your hopes and expectations? What would you like to get out of today's meeting. So I'll start with that to just get an understanding of like, okay, what is their expectation coming into this meeting or this conversation, or whatever the case may be,
John Mitchell:
Right? Well, you know that is powerful. I've been coming at this from a little different perspective, but understanding why, questions are so powerful, and I see that everybody is basically living very shallowly, and there they have so much coming at them that they can be awake, but they're not really awake. And unless you use the power of a question to focus their attention. You can say stuff to a goes in one ear out the other. They don't even know they heard it. But when you when you step back and go, okay, it was pointless to tell people stuff. So I've got to focus their attention with a question. And I'll give you an example. So I had someone that was, was interested in, in really embracing, think it be it. And, you know, I saw that the way to influence my question is, is just to go. So, how do you create success in your life? And you know, first of all, nobody's really asking that question. And second of all, they that have thought about it that much, but then so they they'll answer the question, they'll stumble around with it, and it'll become obvious to to them and to me, that they really don't have a way of creating success. And so what's once that sort of plays out, then the second part is, why was I working for it? You know, that said to what Israelite, huh, it's not working that well for, you know, now they are open to, well, what do you got I would, you know, typically say, Well, you know, it's not working out, not well because you're just winging line. You know, I know from experience, I was winging life until I was 50, and so I'm not throwing you under the bus. I'm just telling you that you suffer from the same thing I suffer from is, is not having an actual intelligent way of doing life. And you know, it's, it's interesting. Now, if somebody asked me that question, you know, how do you do life, or how do you create success in life? You know, I go, Well, you know, my daily actions determine my success. And 95% of my daily actions are unconscious, therefore I gain control over my unconscious daily actions by beating the succinct articulation of my life myself each day. And it causes the right actions to happen automatically, and I have this powerful force pulling me forward to my desired life. You know, I you know, that's pretty good.
John Mitchell:
Pretty good. Pretty hard to argue that, right?
Kelly Hatfield:
Yeah, absolutely,
John Mitchell:
Yeah. The other example that they came up recently, I was talking to a coach that's interested in in licensing our methodology. And, you know, with coach, it's a little different. You can't really, well, I guess you could. But, you know, it's a little more difficult to say, Well, how do you create success in your life? Because if they're a coach, they've got a they get at least conceptually, they have a way of doing it. But I was telling this coach, and I was, you know, sort of dealing with this idea of, don't tell them, you know, ask them a question. And so I said, you know, the most significant thing in my life that I ever learned is that 95% of my daily thoughts and actions are conscious. And I said, Do you believe that, you know, they you generally, they'll go, Yeah, I do believe that. I say you are just to you know, if you had any doubts, if you if you Google it, what percentage of my daily thoughts and actions are unconscious? Big dark letters is going to save 95% and it's going to give you the Harvard study the back set up. And I said, but here's the key second question. Well, what are you doing about that? You know, do you see the profound ramification to that, like I did when I'm turned 50, and, you know, generally, that really stops. They're like, you know, they're generally, they're not going to say, No, I'm not doing anything, but you're gonna hear words coming out of their mouth, but the net effect is their identity, yep. And so I see the power of a question to focus people, right?
Kelly Hatfield:
Oh, yeah, no. I mean, I use it. I've got an instance, a, you know, we've talked about this for on the before, on the podcast with just with my team, anytime they want an answer to something, or they come to me with a my first response is always a question, which is, well, what do you think you should do? How do you think we should solve this issue? What do you think the best path forward is to get them thinking more deeply about it? Because, to your point, people, oftentimes are in that real reactive mode, and they turn that part of their brain off. So that's a really great you know, that, again, gets some thinking about it, and there's that dialog that happens. But when I think about some of the most pivotal points in my life, and one in particular, which had to do with a coach before I started my first business that, and it was a mentor that I've been working with for years, who knew me really well, and I'd always been talking about starting my own business, but hadn't done it, and yet, here we are again, having lunch, and I mentioned it again, and he's like, Hey, let me ask you a question. He said, if we are having this conversation still, five years from now, how would you feel about that? And I stopped, and I said, disappointed. And he said, When are you going to do something about it? Then, yeah, you know. And again, it was just that power of a question that prompted me to think about this for a minute to you know that that was that, I think oftentimes the way that you've just framed the question that you're using, or the question that was used on me by a mentor, is often that thing that sets you back on your heels a little bit because you haven't thought that deeply about it, and then once you verbalize it and say it out loud, it's like, oh, you know. Anyway, as you were speaking, I was reflecting on that moment that I remember, you know, it was 20 years ago, and I remember it like it was yesterday, because it had that much of an impact on my life, you know. So, I mean, I think that just goes to show you the power of a of a question, and how meaningful a question can be.
John Mitchell:
And, you know, I think that it is, is your example brings, you know, being blunt with people like asking you when, when are you going to change that? Yeah, oh, yeah.
Kelly Hatfield:
It was like, a cold a glass of cold water, you know, in my face where I was like, oh, you know? And so, yeah, there is something to be said for again, just that direct communication that gets people to think,
John Mitchell:
Right? Well, you know, I think lesson for our audience is, you're trying to influence people. Just realize today it's, it's basically impossible to tell people anything, just, that's just the reality. And you got to be clever enough to figure out the question to ask, so that you can shape their their focus. And you know, it's it's interesting. My book comes out, and God is less than 30 days. It's 14th of January. Really nice. Yeah, you know, it's going to sell millions and millions. You know, I've been playing with the end of it, and, you know, I've decided that at the end of it, I want to say people wake up. Yeah, that's that blank, blunt thing coming, yep, wake up and and realize that, basically, you're just winging life and, you know, and realize the the scarcity of time, and realize that life is precious, you know. So it's, it's funny, I see that the book is a constantly evolving you'll bring, I mean, it'll be evolving to, you know, answer, putting it on the press, print. And I'm sure my, my publisher going to talk to you this evening is going to go, Oh, come on. Not another change, you know, it's, it just reflects, you know, me progressing there leaves us what I hope it is, yeah, no,
Kelly Hatfield:
Absolutely,
John Mitchell:
You know, the other thing I sort of wanted to talk about in today's episode is we don't talk about this very often, but how powerful it is to set aside time two times a week to deep think, you know, we spend so much time talking about the subconscious mind and and how to influence it and all that, when, in fact, you know, there's this, this constant dance between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind, and the two are so intertwined with each other and in our methodology, that setting aside Time to think two times a week is tremendously powerful, because that's a lot of where you figure out your life using logic, and once you figure it out, you go in your template and change it, and then that's where the subconscious mind takes over, and you feed that yourself every day, And then that makes the right actions happen automatically, but, but you gotta embrace this habit of deep thinking two times a week.
Kelly Hatfield:
Yeah, that's been a game changer for me, and as a matter of fact, such a game changer that it's part of my daily practice now, because it is absolutely made all of the difference, and I think it is one of the things that has really catapulted my gross businesses, because I'm able to it's really where I organize my thoughts. Yes, I get I was spending so much energy without realizing it, with these things have formed thoughts bouncing around in my subconscious, you know, bubbling up now and then where I remember, oh, I need to and then, you know that it allows, and it's not, I don't mean a to do list. I mean, I hear about something profound, maybe on a podcast, and I'm like, what if, you know, what if we implemented something like that into our businesses to help with you know, but without the thinking time scheduled, it stops at that thought, yeah, literally, I hear it. I'm like, what if it works around here in my subconscious, bouncers around for months and nothing materializes as a result of that thought that I had right now with that scheduled thinking time, and my brain, my reticular activating system, knowing that I have that thinking time,
John Mitchell:
Yeah,
Kelly Hatfield:
You've got to pull this into your because this is something that you need to, you know, think about a little bit more. And so it's been extremely powerful for me, because it's really an execution plan, like I will think about this. It'll help me think it through. If it's something I want to move forward with, then I've got I work on what my first action steps are that I'm going to take to start getting it, moving it toward the finish line. So it's been an invaluable tool for me. And I think a couple of things I want to point out it will going back and tying this to the question. I don't know if you noticed, but I posed that to myself in a question that's an interesting thing. What if, right, we implemented that into the business that will often be a prompt for what my thinking time will be. And so going back to the power of the questions that you're asking yourself, you know, there's a tie in there for me anyway, with thinking time, because so much of my thinking time starts with a question,
John Mitchell:
Right, right? Well, you know, and I point this out in my book, you know, thinking time has three takes steps to it. The first part is, is take 10 to 15 minutes and just write whatever comes to you know, and some of that is is going to be trash, and so you're sort of, you know, cleaning out the trash and but also something brilliant can come, you just don't know. So write whatever comes in first 10 or 15 minutes, and then the second part is, figure out. Question to ask yourself, can you see around whatever the biggest problem you have at the moment? Yes, and that is powerful because it changes sort of how your brain operates now that third component is after about 30 minutes of thinking, you just recap. What did I come up with in in like, three or four key concepts, and what were the action steps? Many taking attitude steps. We put them on next week's two dudes, but that's, that's the process. And, you know, we talk about how think it be, it is an actual way of doing life. And when you, when you look at it from the 30,000 foot view, really has taken your conscious mind and doing that, thinking time sessions and using logic and figuring out your life. Now this is after you're starting with the process, and you already created your your visualization, but so you engage your conscious mind to think about your life and and the tweaks and things like that. And then you know you're doing that twice a week. And then every day, you're influencing the subconscious mind by feeding the succinct articulation of your life yourself. Each day you know that, in a nutshell, is this way of doing life. And, you know, sort of incorporated into the template are a lot of great success concepts, you know, like the finding the six components of doing your best and and you're affirming your personal growth system so that you're always learning and growing. You're focused on what moves the needle. You're seeing your business three years from now. You know, there's so many sort of key concepts built into it, into the template. But in a nutshell, it comes down to influencing the conscious mind with the thinking sessions, and it's influencing the subconscious mind with your daily reading of your visualization.
Kelly Hatfield:
Yeah, so powerful. Absolute game changer.
John Mitchell:
Yeah, pretty simple. You know, anything else you want to cover today, any enlightening that you have, that you could possibly share with,
Kelly Hatfield:
Oh my gosh, that's no pressure there. Hey, I did. There is one thing that tacks on to the power of the question that I had thought of and didn't bring up at the time that I think is worth bringing up that and it goes back to when you are asking those powerful questions to like people want to be part of the solution. So when you you mentioned people don't like to be told what to do. If you just go in there and tell them that this is how it is. Are you trying to just educate them, and you're not asking the questions? You know, I think that's oftentimes why we get resistance as leaders. Is because we're going in with, you know, what our agenda is, or our, you know, specific vision is, or whatever the case is, and that's great that you have those things. But by asking the questions, and you begin to then either get buy in, or they begin to buy in on the idea. It's, again, all about influencing. We were talking about how to use questions to influence. And the reason why that works is, I mean, I think about too, you know, when you think about just who we are, our basic, you know, DNA, a lot of the time is when somebody tells us to do something, or that we should do something, we resist against that and go, Oh, yeah. Well, so that is another component of questions is that when you do that as part of the influencing process, and I don't want that to sound gross, you know, like, like persuasion or influence is a bad thing, we're not trying to get them to do something bad. We're trying to get them to recognize something about, you know, themselves, about, you know, again, it's a conversation. It's a discussion of influence. And so I wanted to point that out, because that's one of the reasons why it's so important, is when you get people talking, when you seek first to understand, when you are asking questions that potentially help lead the conversation down a path they really feel like they're part of the solution and and then buy into it.
John Mitchell:
Yeah, that's a very good point. I completely agree. Well, you know what? One final point. So if anybody is really interested in this deep thinking concept, I've got a eight minute video that explains it pretty darn well, and so email me if that's of interest to you, and I guess we'll see you next time.
