Wiley on Business
Wiley on Business
Larry Stevens - What are the three things you really need to communicate?
Do you want to see people grabbing their pens when you open your mouth, then you've got to learn the rule of three.
Join me as I chat with Larry Stevens, my former leader and an all around interesting and great person as he imparts some of the incredible knowledge of his career and two books.
J. Larry Stevens, a retired partner at the international accounting firm, PwC is Executive-in-Residence and Visiting Professor at Kennesaw State University's Coles College of Business where, as a member of the School of Accountancy faculty, he teaches courses in mergers and acquisitions and accounting. He is the author of Riding in elevators backwards and Curiosity Made the Cat and Other Myths. Also a really interesting fact to me, is that Larry hired me onto his team many years ago back at PwC, so I can attest that the stories he tells are actually true. Let’s dive into the conversation.
Hello and welcome to Wiley on business with authors. A podcast where we talk with the authors that business leaders are reading. It's a known fact that highly successful leaders are generally voracious readers, and that a great book can be one of the most efficient proxies for experience. My name is Jake Wiley and over my nearly two decades of business experience and client service, owning a business, as well as being a CFO, I've had the opportunity to see the direct impact great books, and thought leaders have had on business successes. I've had the incredible fortune to be able to sit down and chat with the authors of the books, the leaders we look up to are reading and share some of the backstory and insights that led to these thought provoking books directly with you. Larry Stephens, retired partner at the international accounting firm PwC is executive and resident and visiting professor at Kennesaw State University's Coles College of Business, where as a member of the School of Accountancy faculty, he teaches m&a and accounting. He's also the author of writing and elevators backwards in curiosity made the cat and other Mets. Let's dive right in. layer, Larry, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. And for those of you that probably don't know this, Larry actually hired me in the due diligence practice more years ago than I can count. And I had the opportunity to kind of live through some of the stories that he's written about. He's written two books are writing in elevators backwards, the aspiring leaders Field Guide to building relationships, and a new book, curiosity made the cat in other myths, breaking the rules and becoming extraordinary. So I'm really excited to chat with you, Larry, about the books, maybe some of the backstory, maybe even get some of the stories that I didn't hear when I got to sit under your wing back in the day. But thank you for joining me, and, you know, love to hear what you're doing these days.
Larry Stevens:Well, Jake, thank you. I'm delighted to do this. You know, it's been a long time since we've worked together. And and I actually missed those times. I retired in 2007. And, and I retired, you know, we make people retire at age 60, at PwC. And I retired at age 59. And my intention was to play golf 125 rounds a year, and get my handicap down from 25 to two. And I learned something over that period of time that no matter how much golf you play, you can't go from 25 to two, I got to a 12. But during that process, the Dean of the business school at Kennesaw State University said, Larry, you don't have anything to do, why don't you come teach? And I said, Great. What do you want me to teach? And he said, Well, why don't you make it up? And I said, well, Tim, I'd love to do that, because I want to teach English literature. And he said, You're a qualified to teach English literature pick something else. So I created a course in mergers and acquisitions, because that's what I did for the last 20 years, I was with PwC. And so I created this course, that took mergers and acquisitions from the beginning to the end. And I teach it in the MBA program at Kennesaw State University along with accounting, an accounting course for MBA students who don't really want to take accounting but but I try to make it at least interesting for them. So so I've been busy, and I'm still in the deal business, I do a deal or two a year, sell a company or two for friends. And you know, friends and family, I don't go out looking for anything to do but but, but, but I seem to stay really busy. I wrote the two books, I finished a third book, which is a golf book, which is at the printer right now, as a matter of fact, I hope to have that book out and back in about three or four weeks. So so I've been busy. But you know, during my during my career, you you appreciate this, because you were like this when you know, even when you were a younger guy at PwC. What I learned is that, and it took me a long time to learn this that CEOs of companies could care less about general Accepted Accounting Principles. And I used to spend my, you know, nights and days thinking about general gap general Accepted Accounting Principles. But I learned that C's don't they don't they don't think about that. They think about other things, specifically, CEOs think about how can I grow my company? Number one, how can I increase the value of my company number two, they think about where am I going to get the capital to grow this company? And number three, they think about what's the next big deal, what's the next big transaction? What's the next big event that's going to be a C step or a Sita you know, a real step change? in my, in my business. And once I realized that CEOs didn't think about accounting, I said, Well, I need to think about what CEOs think about and and, and I learned through that process that, that the real key to being successful is to be able to build relationships with folks. And I tell young people today that you start in public accounting, or you start in with some, you know, industrial company. And you're going to start off generally, as a technician, you know, whether you're an engineer, that matter if you're an engineer or accountant, or an actuary, or even a manager, you start off at a at what we would call a technical position, okay? And, and hopefully you transition from technical to being a consultant, where you're able to take your ideas and communicate them in a way that helps people solve problems. So you go from technician, to consultant, and then hopefully, if you do it really well, you go all the way to trusted business advisor. And that's the real key, whether you're a professional, or whether you're a manager at General Electric, you want to be a trusted business advisor. So the so your CEO trust you are if you're a consultant, your client trust you. And along the way, you realize that you in order to really develop relationships, you really do have to build, you have to build trust. Now, I wrote elevators, all over the world, every major city in Europe, and every major city, and a bunch of non major cities in the United States. And I learned over those years, it dawned on me one day that we all do the same thing, we walk into this little box in a building, and we turn around and we push the buttons, and we watch the floors go down and it stops and people come You know, come on the elevator and then people exit the elevator, it occurred to me one day that this is crazy, because I'm riding an elevator, you know, every day. And I'm seeing and I have a captive audience. And I'm like, I'm sitting on a ham sandwich, starving to death, I'm looking for clients. And they're all right around me. So one day, I decided that I would just not do that I would not. When I when I walked on the elevator, if there were six or eight people on there, I would not turn around. I would simply engage them in a discussion by starting by saying, you know, Hi, I'm Larry Stevens, I'm with PwC. What do you do? And the fascinating thing is, I met CEOs of companies, I met lawyers, I met consultants, I met prospective clients, that I that became clients from just a meeting in an elevator, right? it more interesting than that I met staff accountants that work for my firm that I had never met before. So it was a fascinating process for me. And so I've so now I teach young people, just try it one time, just walk into an elevator. And don't turn around, just engage yourself in a conversation with the closest person. And you will be amazed at the impact that it will have on you. It's hard to do the first time but after you do it two or three times you become a real pro at it. And it's almost a challenge to see how much information you can glean from whomever you have on the elevator. The magic is the elevator police. Nobody ever calls the elevator police. Though there's nothing bad that can happen from from from doing that. And you will in you will, it will be the start. Doesn't that mean you're going to have a relationship, but it's the start of a relationship because you have engaged someone that you would not otherwise have engaged with?
Jake Wiley:Yeah, I think to what I want to make a real point is that a lot of authors write books and there's you know, anecdotes, this is this is very true. This is what writing in an elevator was like with you when I worked with you. You actually did that.
Larry Stevens:You know, and then I think you bring up another interesting point that I have conversations with young staff at the firm. And we talked about building relationships and business development. That's my role. And one of the things that I always tell them it's like I wish somebody had told me when I started to keep my relationships going with all of the people that I knew, like I had a start class of people that I worked with in overtime.
Jake Wiley:People left and they went did things. And you know, my mindset, and this is this is a school thing, and I'm sure your course is different. But school teaches you to be an individual performer. And to to excel and not work as a team can't cheat, like, you got to figure this stuff out, when you go into the workforce, and you do the same thing. And I'd watch people leave. And I was like, Okay, well, bye, you know, like, we'll never see you again. Where those people are today is amazing. And it's astounding. And it's one of those things where like, it happens so fast. The man, if I just stayed in touch with the people that I really enjoyed, from the gecko, I'd be in such a you know, it's like a compound effect. And that's, that's my message. And I think that, you know, when you talk about being a technician or a consultant than a trusted business adviser, I guess my question to you is, can you short circuit the process to get there quicker by focusing on these relationships? Or do you have to go through this natural progression?
Larry Stevens:Well, it's clear to me that, that one of my cardinal rules of relationship building is that relationships don't just happen, relationships must be created, they have to be created. that's, to me, that's the number one rule. And it's a long term process, okay. It's a long term process to do it. But if you do it with oil, it's, and you have a strategy for building relationships. It's just like depositing money in a stock fund, or having a stock portfolio that will pay dividends into the future. If you have a strategy for building relationships, and you make deposits, in that process, it will pay dividends for years and years to come. And as a matter of fact, it'll pay dividends long after you're 80 or 90 years on this earth have ended, because of the impact that you will have had on other people you will, your your your relationship building will long outlive yourself. And so, so it takes a while to do it. And I tell this story. And I asked young people this all the time. If they know who john Connally was, and virtually none of them do, or john Connally was the governor of Texas, in 1963. More importantly, he was in the front seat of the limo that was carrying john kennedy, when john Kennedy was assassinated. The governor was shot himself. One of the things that happened was after he left political office, he went back into the old business and was a consultant and a lawyer. He had a group come to him from a from some other territory and said, Governor, we're trying to get into C axon, and we have had absolutely no success. Is there any way you can help us? And the governor said, Well, let me think about it. And he picked up the telephone, made a phone call in about 10 minutes, he hung up, and he said, gentlemen, would next Thursday at nine o'clock be a good time for you to see the CEO of Exxon. They were flabbergasted and said, oh, gosh, Governor, that would be a wonderful thing. But one of them had the good sense to say, Governor, how much is this going to cost us? And Conley said without blinking an eye, well, so far, it has cost you $1 million. And one of the guests said a million dollars, Governor, it took you 15 minutes to make that phone call. He said false. He said it took me 30 years to make that phone call. Because Conley understood something that I tried to teach everybody about relationship building. And that is that relationships take a long time to build. So you start small and you do as you said, Jake, you have to find ways to sustain those relationships, because we've all made the mistake of having a relationship and letting it grow cold. And then you know, a few years later, we need to call on that person. But but it's a cold call then because we haven't we have just not paid any attention to it. So relationships must be created. You have to be created. They don't they don't they don't just happen. The second thing I tell people is the way to accelerate relationship building is to make sure that you have three things that you focus on in every meeting that you have. Okay? And one of those is building trust, you have there three components that I think every real good relationship, every profitable relationship, every long lasting relationship is going to have. And that's you got to have, you got to have mutual trust. Second thing, you got to deliver value, every relationship, there's got to be mutual value between the two parties. And third, you have to have some level of chemistry, you know, you have to be able to stay, I can at least stand being in the room with this person, right? You don't have to love them. But you got to be able to get along with them. And in the way it works is if Jake, if you and I have a meeting, and and, and we walk away from that meeting, and you say, you know, I really was interesting meeting with Larry, he actually showed me something that I didn't know, he actually I saw something that had just been discussed for me. And he explained it and clarified it. So I really learned something from he delivered value. And you know, he plays golf, I play golf, we you know, we we actually worked at the same firm once upon a time, so we've got some chemistry, but then you say, Jake, but you know, I don't know if I can trust the guy. Because, you know, he's a little bit like a snake oil salesman, I'm not sure that I really trust him, that relationships going no place, right, right. So what you have to do is to make sure that you have all three of those. Similarly, you may trust me, and you may even like me, but if you walk away saying, God, what a waste of my time, I didn't learn anything, he didn't show me anything new, then that relationships not going anyplace. So So the second big thing for me is, you have to you have to learn and appreciate the calculus of trust value, and chemistry, because that's what will make a relationship sustain itself. Right, it'll make it it'll, it'll keep that relationship fresh, if you have made the effort to invest in it. And then every time you have something to do with that individual or that company, you make sure you deliver value, you leave them some value. And and and folks appreciate that. Well, let me ask you, let me ask you a further question. Right, we'll go back to the example of you and I, I have always, always appreciated the conversations, you know, way back when we first started working together the insights that you've given, but I don't necessarily know that I bring the value to the equation for you. Right? And I would imagine that a lot of our listeners feel the same way is that yes, we've got people that we love and they're almost consider them like mentors. Whereas you know, how are we bringing value back? Yeah, well, that's a really interesting question. And it has a fairly simple answer. And that is that you don't always have to tell somebody something brand new to to create value for them. Oftentimes, just clarifying an issue that they are well aware of but you bring some clarification to it will add value to them for it for example, it's like the old finding Waldo you know, while those on the page someplace but it but but and some people can find Waldo quickly. Others it takes a while, takes them a while. But if you can, if you can bring clarity to a subject for an individual than that that's adding real value. You didn't tell him anything. You didn't you didn't invent something for him. You didn't tell anything brand new, but you just clarified what they what they were looking at. But there's some other things that you can do, Jake, one of the one of the easiest things that I've found that you can do to really build relationships is to open doors that are closed for other people. And in within your within your circle of influence within your sphere of influence. You know, people and you have access to things that they may not have access to. And if you can give them access, it may not cost you anything to do it. But you have really built a relationship with I'll give you the best example I have is I had a dentist years and years ago, and I had an opportunity I was in his office and I had an opportunity to Go to dinner that night with Arnold Palmer. And I was pitching a golfer at that point in time. And, and I had something else that I had to do that I just couldn't get out of. So I said to my Dennis, Nick, would you would you be interested in going to dinner with Arnold Palmer? And he said, Oh, God, you know, Larry, that would be absolutely wonderful. And so he did go to dinner with Arnold Palmer. Now, if I met Nick Jones, that's been 20 years ago, if I met Nick Jones, on the street, or at the golf course, or at church, or whoever I might see him today. The first thing that he would say to me is Larry, did I ever thank you for introducing me to Arnold Palmer, you say, been 20 years, and it is still having an impact on him? Because there was a door closed, and some money open that door for him. And it's though in its level, and I know that because every time I see Nick, that's what he says, did I ever do that? Thank you for introducing me to Arnold Palmer. So there's some simple things you can do. The other thing, Jake, that you that that business people can do, is to be sensitive to those folks around them, especially people that work for them. And in terms of their emotional state, if you and I knew the number of people that even work in your office at PwC. If you and I knew that the issues that they were dealing with internally, be it financial, be at marital, be it family, be it health, you know, any number of other things, it would scare us to death to know some of the burdens that they're dealing, you know, the issues are dealing with, sometimes the best thing you can do, the easiest way you can do to add value is just be an encourager just encourage somebody from time to time and you'd never know what impact, you know, a in an encouraging word can have on somebody who might be otherwise struggling, struggling, you know, with with an issue. So there there there are, there are a bunch of things you can do to add value without having to, you know, recreate the wheel for somebody. Yeah, I think that the encouragement piece is great, right? Because you don't want to necessarily take on somebody burdens, or get them to unload on you. But at the same time, just being there at a time where they feel like they they may not have that support is so powerful. I mean, I know I've been there. And you almost feel like people are clairvoyant when they come up to you it just the right moment and give you a thumbs up or a pat on the back. And that's amazing. Nope, you are you are absolutely right. Let me ask you a strategy question. I think, hopefully, I'm attributing the right author. But Keith Razi mentioned that most people kind of look at the relationships is kind of like a pie of equity, right. And if you, you make an introduction to somebody, or you connect to people, you're kind of making a withdraw. In his point was you're actually making the pie bigger, right? Because you're building relationships, you're making connections, that that could be really valuable, and they're not all going to be home runs. But I think that that's a that's a mental shift. It's been one for me to write and say, Well, I don't want to bother these people. You know, I think they might be a good fit or that could be good for one of these people. What what are your thoughts on that? You know, because you mentioned opening doors for folks and I think that that's a that's a great segue there. Yeah, um, I don't think you can ever go wrong in and making an effort to understand people to get acquainted with them even if even if the relationship never goes any place. I spend a lot of time telling people about their the first impression that they make and and and you know, they all story Yogi Berra said he only you know, you only get one chance to make a first impression right? But but but it but but it's true and you you can have an you can have a real impact on on folks that you meet and that relationship may never go anyplace because because the you're going to leave top of the head consciousness in them, and they may see somebody you know, the next day, and they remember what you said to them. You know, the old game six,
Jake Wiley:six steps to Kevin Bacon. Yep.
Larry Stevens:You know, where you play the game and you Pick one movie star and you're trying to get them all the way to, to, to Kevin Bacon. Well, I think that works in in relationships. If I asked if I touch you, and leave a something in your head, and the next day, you have an opportunity to see somebody else. And there's something that strikes there that you know, that you think, is worthy of mentioning the meeting that you had with me, then I think it I think it it actually plays out that it's not just the person you're talking to. But it's it's 234 steps down the road where you are, you are making having an impact. So I tell folks, don't ever be embarrassed about going and calling on someone, even if you don't think there's a lot to be gained. Because if they're the right kind of people, you need to know I have this rule, you can never know enough people with money or access to money. Think about that, you'll never, I don't care if you're a doctor, a lawyer, engineer, an accountant, a preacher, a priest, or rabbi, an Indian chief, I don't care who you are, you can never know enough people with money or access to money. And what that means Jake is you don't have to know rich people, you just need to know people who do know rich people. Because six degrees to Kevin Bacon, if you and I were to sit with your partners in Nashville, for example. And if we had five or six of us in a room, there's probably nobody of any significant importance in Nashville, that we could not find a warm introduction to. Because I may know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody. And it works that way. If we were to sit in a room and brainstorm about wanting to meet any individual in Nashville, we can usually it's surprising that in six degrees, you can't get to somebody who has a relationship with that person. So So the key is you got to touch a lot, you want to touch a lot of people. And you're not going to spend forever on every one of those potential contacts, you know, you're going to prioritize and manage those relationships. I asked people to identify, tell me your top three relationships. And you can break them up, do you want to give me family relationships and business relationships, that's fine. But give me the top three relationships. And then I say when was the last time you actually sat down face to face with them? Well, COVID has kind of changed that. But When's the last time you had a meeting with them? When's the last time you talked to them. And it's amazing how many times I hear people say they have a good relationship with somebody, but they haven't touched them in six months. That doesn't work. If you want to have a relationship, the contact needs to be constant. And it needs to be you need to work at it. It is a it is a job to build relationships. Because I want to constantly make sure that I'm in front, if I got a prospective client, I want to make sure I'm in front of that client some way. Even if it's just me sending them a handwritten note, with an article that i've you know, torn out of a magazine, anything that I can do to make the other party feel important because here's the deal for me, in building relationships, everybody wants to feel important. I don't care. All of us want to feel important. My job as a relationship builder is to let them feel important. Matter of fact, it's better than that. I want to make them feel important, right? I go out of my way. And one of the easiest ways I found to do that is using personal stationery. Now, in a world of technology, young people resist this a little bit because if you're over 25, you only communicate via email. If you're under 25, you only communicate via text messaging. That way, you don't have to use punctuation and you can just make up, make up acronyms and words, right. But here's what I tell folks. If you want to build a relationship with someone that is important to you. Then send them a handwritten note the next time you meet them, or you want to talk to them, send them a handwritten note. Then you're in your own handwriting and put a stamp on it and send it to them because when they open that envelope up Got your personal stationery and your handwriting, the first thing they're going to think is, gee, I must be important. If they were willing to take the time to write a personal note to me, they must feel like I'm in. I'm important. And it's a very simple thing. And stationery these days doesn't cost very much. And it's very simple. But it has a huge impact on people, if you're trying to build a relationship with them a huge impact when they know that you cared enough to not just send an email but to go a step farther and send them a little something different. And I you know, along that line, if you want to build if you want to be really effective at building relationships, you have to master the continent the word called land, Yap, you know, land Yeah, I should. Yeah, you know, you know, land yet because you're, you're in this business. But for those that don't know, land, Yap, it's an old Cajun word that that Mark Twain said in his book life on the Mississippi that he wrote in 1953, that it's a word worth going all the way to New Orleans to get what it means is just a little something extra. The concept, of course, is the old baker's dozen, if you you know, if you went to a baker, a local bakery, and you've been you bought 12 rolls, the baker would always throw in a 13th groves definitions, a baker's dozen. And, and, and it's that little something extra so so in building relationships, if you will always in, you know, try to give the person you're dealing with the person that you're talking to just a little more than they expected, you know, just exceed that. And you don't have to exceed expectations wildly. Because just about everybody does what's expected. So when you're building relationships, if you give them a little something extra, just a little bit of land, yeah, you'll stand out like a sore thumb. Because folks just don't do that, you know, this day in time, because we're all so busy. And we're using emails, and when we don't have time, we don't have time for ourselves much less, we don't, you know, time for other people. So anything you can do to go, just a little above board will make a huge difference. And you see, it's not one big thing that makes you good at relationship building. It's all the little things that you do. Because what happens is you develop and building relationships, you develop a smelly reputation, a smelly reputation. And I tell people, you want to be good at relationship building, then you need to have a smelly reputation. And that always leaves them hanging, of course, want this reputation. And and and i and i explained to them well, when there's something interesting about reputation reputation as a couple things that are fascinating to me. Number one, reputation has a very long shelf life. It has a very long shelf life. And so you know, if I do something good, I never get as much credit as I deserve. If I do one thing bad, I get a lot more blame, I call it my theory of of a non proportional reputation destruction. Because if I do one thing bad, I get a whole lot more blame than I deserve. So in and reputation has a long shelf life. So So I think in building relationships, you have to be very careful about not only protecting your reputation, but helping people understand your reputation. reputation is simply that, you know, that's the that's the collection of all the faults and remembrances that people have after you after you've left their presence, right? When you leave. And they think about you. They think of that, you know, that's your reputation. I want you to have I want people to have a smelly reputation. Because I want the you know, here's what I here's what I liken it to I call it the smell of the place. If I go into a company, and then Mac was a big company or a small company, if I walk into a company In about 15 minutes, I can tell you the culture of that company. And I have a very, you know, proprietary secret way of doing that. I'll tell your audience that, thank you. It's proprietary, they have to promise not to tell anybody else. But the secret is, I just listen to how the people in the company talk to each other. I watch the receptionist, and how he or she deals with the telephone and visitors coming in. I watch the associates of the company as they walk by and talk to each other. Give me five minutes at the water fountain inside, and I can really tell you about the culture. And when I walk away, you see, I know I know about that company, because I've got the smell of the place. You know, I got the smell of the place. I think people are I think people are that way. So the you know, I liken it to I grew up in Macon, Georgia. And I went to the Georgia State Fair when I was a kid. And if I sit right where I am now and close my eyes for about two or three minutes. I can I am on the Midway at the, at the North Georgia fairgrounds, I can smell the sawdust. I can hear the Calliope I can smell the greasy Nathan's hot dogs and french fries. You say? Because I've got the smell of the place. People are the same way. When and when, when someone when when you leave someone, the question becomes what kind of smells? Do you leave? You know what, what, what's the fragrance that you've left in your wake. And the fragrance that I encourage people to do delay is a fragrance or a smell of service. You want them to go away, you want to walk away from somebody thinking they really cared about me. And you know what, they went out of their way to do something for me. And they've promised to do this for me. But if you can leave an attitude or a fragrance or a smell of service, then you have left a reputation that will be remembered. And not only that, it will be impactful, not just to that person, but to the next person in the next person. Because you know what they're going to talk about you they're going to talk about, you know, that consultant or that person or that individual, they're going to talk about you more than one time. And so your reputation has a way of multiplying. Think about it, if it's a terrible reputation. That's why you have to be so protective of reputation and building in building, building relationships. And I love what you're saying there too, because it's it's all about the strategy there is you have to have a strategy. And it's there's got to be forethought. Right, you can't just go in and hope for the best in terms of the smell that I guess that you left, you know, in your wake. It's how you approach that from the get go. And you have a strategy and you're thinking about it. And I have this theory, it's really more like my life mantra here is that life is going to be hard. Either I can choose what's hard, meaning that like I get up and I plan and I have a strategy. And I execute that. And then like to your point, it's like a snowball, I reaped the dividends down the road, or I can wake up, just hope for the best and deal with all the challenges that come my way because I wasn't prepared. I didn't plan for it. But either way, I've got the same 24 hours in a day. And only one way is this going to work out for me, you know, favorably and the other way is totally leaving it up to fate. Yeah, I look I've found that relationships are have to be intentional. Yep. relationship building has to be intentional and, and and sometimes it is difficult because oftentimes, we have to deal with people that are totally different from us. I've had to build relationships with folks who were I had nothing in common with. So how do you develop a relationship with someone that you have absolutely nothing in common with you know, you think about it, you may you may drink alcohol and I may drink alcohol making this up. But, but but but you drank only French wine and I drink Budweiser. And if I could get Pabst Blue Ribbon, I would drink Pabst Blue Ribbon. You might you like you like racecars. But you like Monaco, you know, open wheeled Grand Prix racing. And I like dirt track. You know, race cars. You like music and I like music you like, but you like opera. And I like a Garth Brooks and country western. You see, we have some similarities, but we are worlds apart. And and so how do you develop relationships with folks that are completely different than then then you are. And so you have to be intentional. I'll give you one example. I wanted to build a relationship with the president of the with the of the opera. I don't know. The only opera I know is Madame Butterfly. And that's because Mike Douglas took Glenn Close to the Madame Butterfly opera, in the movie fatal attraction. Okay. So that's all I knew about. That's all I knew about opera. So I thought, how will I ever have a discussion with this guy about opera? So I said, Okay, I gotta do something. So I went to Barnes and Noble and I bought a book called opera 101. It came with a book and two CDs. And for 30 days, I did nothing in my car on the way to and from work, but to listen to opera. And by the end of 30 days, 40 days, I could talk about altos, and Contra altos, and I could talk about arias and this movement and that movement. And I could talk about the various operas, and I so I developed a talking point education. And what I've found, if you're intentionally relationship building, and you want to have relationship with somebody that you don't have anything in common with, you got to find something that they love, you invest a little bit of time to develop a talking point education, start a conversation with them, and then they will educate you. I've done that over and over and over again, I did it in Houston, Texas, with a guy who was a wine connoisseur, and I don't drink wine. So how am I how am I gonna have a discussion? This guy lives wine. So we were in a restaurant, and there was a $50,000 bottle of wine on the menu. And so I said, Well, let me see what I can do. So I said, Henry, can you tell the difference between a $50,000 bottle of wine and a $300 bottle of wine. And before the night was over three and a half hours later, he had educated me on the soil conditions in France, where he lived, versus the soil conditions in California, around growing grapes. So all of a sudden, we were we were best buddies. And I actually sent him a case of wine from North Georgia. He's, you know, back and said, You guys should continue to grow peanuts and peaches and don't try to break. But you see my point, you see an intentional in your relationship building, and it pays dividends when you make the effort to do that.
Jake Wiley:That's a that's that's a great story. And I guess, you know, flipping flipping the page here a little bit to your second book, as we talk about becoming extraordinary. And by the way, for my listeners out there, all this relationship, you know, these golden nuggets that Larry's dropping on us here in writing elevators backwards, so I highly recommend reading and I've read it several times. But you know, areas would kind of pivot to you know, curiosity made the cat another mess, I guess give us a little background on on that that book while you wrote it. And?
Larry Stevens:Yeah, well, if I had, I have heard being a southerner. I have heard these expressions all my life. And some of them I understood some of them I didn't, but I had heard forever. Curiosity killed the cat, for example, what does that I can, I can think I can figure that out. But, but then I kept hearing you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Or, you know, don't count your chickens before they hatch. Or a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, right? Or haste makes waste. Or the early bird catches the worm. And I started thinking about all those sayings thinking that we've grown up. Hearing that, and to some extent adapting our approach to life based on what we want. Someone has told us can or can't Have you done so? So for example, when somebody said, the early bird catches the worm? Well, I went back and did the research and found out that that is blatantly not true. The early bird didn't catch the worm, for example, how many of your listeners remember Friendster? Not very many of them. Friendster. It was a forerunner to Facebook. And if you go back and look, there were two or three. Facebook, look alikes that were there long before Facebook. But they didn't last, right? Facebook came in and built on everything everybody else was doing and added to it. If you look at Google, we think that's the cat's meow. Well, what you learn if you do the research is that there were a bunch of search engines before Google. And, and, and, and then what you what you learn is the first mover stepped in where there's extreme technology advantage. The first mover is generally not the most successful company. First, mover, rarely is the first mover, the most successful company. So does the early bird catches the worm, not not nest, not not necessarily another chapter in the book, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, again, is just blatantly not true. If you look at the science around learning, what you learn is that you can learn new stuff all the way into your 70s or 80s. It's not reason that you can't learn it, learn new stuff. And there are techniques for doing that. And I in this book, I try to help folks understand how you can renew yourself, sort of break the rule of you know, if you're 50 years old, and you think you can't learn something new, just just not the case, there are some techniques that you can use. Going back to curiosity, you say I believe curiosity didn't kill the cat. I believe curiosity was framed. Reality did not have a great defense lawyer. Because curiosity is what makes us who we are. If you remember, as a five year old are anybody any of your audience who has had five or six year old kids who play softball or T ball, and you you look out in right field where you're standing, and they're chasing butterflies, and they're digging up worms with their feet, they're doing anything but focusing on the on the ball game? And the reason is, they're curious about everything around them, everything. That's why kids jump in mud puddles, they're curious as to what it feels like to jump in a mud puddle, the stick your shoe in a mud puddle. As we grow older, we lose that curiosity. Because norms, you know, the rules come into play. And they say, Jake, you shouldn't step in mud puddles. Right? So are there certain things that you shouldn't do? You're, you're too old to do that. And so we lose that innate curiosity that that drove us as kids. And only only a few of us can maintain that curiosity. I mean, it's curiosity led Thomas Edison to do what he did. His curiosity LED, you know, Steven jobs to do you know what he did. And and again, you can name one, you know, person after another. So somehow, what I hope folks can do just from reading the book, is to find ways to reignite that sense of curiosity that they had as young people and it makes it a lifelong embrace it as a lifelong learning process, where you are curious about everything around you. And if you do that, not only do we learn more, but you just might have a breakthrough every now and then right at lunch and so all of those old myths I try to the bunk, the bunk the myths, you know, so that so that you can break the mold, if you if you will.
Jake Wiley:That's a really important Story two about jumping in the mud puddle. It's funny because I have a four year old daughter. And yesterday, we had this exact moment where she was standing in front of this big mud puddle, just looking at it. And her brother was trying to get her to jump over the mud puddle, right. Like that was that was the thing. And she was just looking at that thing. And she finally just jumped straight in the middle of it. And you know, and we're like, Don't jump in the mud puddle. We just, you know, washed your clothes. And it's, it's funny how you pick that example. And it's like, now I look back, and it's like, oh, you know, it's so true. Right? Because you we are all so kind of like conditioned like, exactly what you're saying curiosity killed the cat. You know, it's it's trying to get you in line and thinking like, okay, here are the masses. And you think about there's there's people that argue the education system is built for people that work in factories, which very well may be true. But what do we do we stifle innovation, we stifle that creativity. And everybody does it. And I appreciate that. Because that one that one hit that one hit home. And I actually had this thought the other day. Yeah, like, what if, what if every day, I did something that was exciting, you know, like and had that like a little bit of fire, as opposed to just like just working through the day, like, How different would my day be? So actually, in the morning, I actually try to write something down that I'm going to do that's like new or exciting. And that's exactly you know, what you're talking about here, and it makes such a difference?
Larry Stevens:No, it makes it it makes a huge difference. One of the things that tell folks is start with something simple. Like rather than take your normal route, to work or to home or to the grocery store, drive a different route. Just go out of your way, if it's going through a different neighborhood. If it's, you know, if it's taking a little extra time to avoid the expressway, just do it periodically, because there's no telling what you might see or what you might learn. The other thing I tell folks is, when you get in the car in the morning, and you turn your Sirius radio on, rather than turn it to Fox News, you know, 114, r to MSNBC, or R or even to, you know, to the bridge or some you know, music station that you're familiar with, tuned to something completely different. Like, for me, I grew up as the Baptists of you know, in the Baptist Church. So one of the things I've been doing is I will turn the radio on to the Catholic channel. And it's fascinating what I learn about Catholicism and the Catholic Church and, and all of a sudden, I say, you know, what, we're all pretty much the same. There's not a whole lot of difference in what we really, you know, down deep what our real beliefs are. And I walk away and pier and I do that often, I'll turn the Catholic journal account alone, just to learn something completely new, something completely different. It's the same thing I tell people about building a reading strategy, one of the things I think you do and building to build relationships that you ought to do, I'm jumping back to the old book, is you have to have a reading strategy, because there are people that believe that love makes the world go round. And it doesn't, it's relationships that make the world go around. And in order to build relationships, you need to be a broad thinker, because CEOs don't want to talk about accounting. So you got to be able to talk about what this is. And the way to do that is to be an avid reader, but not just picking up a book because the cover looks good, or because somebody tell you to read the book, but you want to have a strategy as to what you read, right? Because it'll make you a broad thinker. And so and I tell people, you ought to have a biography going all the time. And I don't care if it's a biography of of Patton, or if it's a biography of Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook, or whether it's a biography of Donald Trump, our Andrew Jackson. You know, if, if, if everybody thought that Donald Trump was, was a little bit crazy, and was maybe the craziest president we've ever had, and like, I'm a Trump guy, so I can call him crazy. But, but even if you're, if you thought he was crazy, or the craziest president, it's not true. If you read Jon Meacham, his book called American lion, what you'll find is the seventh President of the United States was exactly like Donald Trump. It's almost a spitting image of Donald Trump and the way he thought You wouldn't know that unless you unless you would word go read Jon Meacham book called American line. You know, I think people can't be truly educated unless you can talk about the world's great religions. And that's easy to do, because there's a book that I recommend called the world's great religions, and it takes the five great religions of the world. And if you study that book, take you two hours to read it, you have a much better sense of what's going on in the world and why it's happening. Because religion has been such a part of our culture for the last 1000 years, that things that are going on around the world, you know, have their roots in some religious events of the past. So, so reading becomes very important, but not just reading, you know, your industry text or not just reading the, your, your Forbes magazine, but reading well beyond outside of your outside of your comfort zone. I tell I tell guys, if you want to pick up a Cosmopolitan magazine, every now and then, or a, alright, Home and Garden, and that's completely out of your comfort zone. But amazing what you can learn when you read stuff that you're not that you don't normally, it's you don't normally read, because what I want you to do, is I want you to be so well read that if you're at a cocktail party, and a CEO, you know, raises a question about his big issue, which might be whether to outsource to India, or Vietnam, when he stops outsourcing to China, I want you to know something about India and Vietnam. And I want you to know something about outsourcing. And you get in you get that by reading, you know, and there may be any, any number of other topics that that you can discuss, it just improves, I want you to I want people to improve their interesting person question. Because the more interesting person you are, the more comfortable you're going to be in environments where you have to meet people that are different than you are. Yeah, that's, that's very true. I like that.
Jake Wiley:I know, in the book, you know, writing, you actually have a reading program kind of laid out, which is, which is pretty impressive. That, you know, kind of covers all the bases, like what's important, what's trending right now, you know, Wall Street Journal type things, you know, then expanding your horizons. So I guess to everybody that's listening, these are great books. And I totally recommend that you go pick him up, because there's just so many gems and nuggets in there real. You know, Larry's not an anecdotal person, this is this is the life he leads. And this is this is the guy he is, and it's why I'm so excited to be here today. But I guess, Larry, a kind of a final question for you is, there's a lot here, right? There's a lot of meat on this bone. But as we think about like, what, if you were to go back and be able to talk to a young Jake, that's more receptive to your worldly wisdom? What would you have told me? What to start? You know, how to start? Like, what are the small things that we can do today? What start the strategy build a strategy?
Larry Stevens:Jake, I would I would tell you one of the one of the things in addition to building a reading strategy, because I do think that's critical. To make you a person who has the ability to communicate well. I would I tell people that the one of the most important things you can do is to master the rule of three. Now, everybody that's listening to this intuitively knows the rule of three, you just may not have focused on it. But everybody that I know, learned when they were kids, everything you learned you learned in threes. And I can prove that by you know, I'll let your audience you know, answer these questions for themselves. How many little pigs were there? And of course, there were three little pigs. How many blind mice were there? Yeah, there were three blind mice, right. There were three Billy Goats Gruff. And if we sat for 10 minutes, we could think of another 20 things that you learned in threes, when your mother Jay told you when you were very small, when your mother said, Jake, if you ever catch on fire, what are you supposed to do? Stop, drop and roll, not drop and roll. Now you see, you see, Jake, you didn't have to say, oh, let me remember now she told me to grab the curtains off the window and wrap myself up in him. She didn't say, Oh, I got to try to find some water. She didn't say any of that stuff. She said, Stop, drop and roll. And the reason she tell you three things is because even today, you remember them stopped dropping row. So I tell people, master the rule of three self, when you are communicating with folks that you want to build a relationship with, you can communicate a droid adroitly and efficiently without rambling. So you can teach yourself and, and your audience can do this, you can teach yourself to answer just about any question anybody asked you in three points. Now you have to practice this. So I encourage you to practice it on friends and family before you take it to a prospective CEO. But But you In fact, can learn to do this. If someone were to ask me, Larry, how do you how do you sell a company? I'm not gonna say well, you know, there's a bunch of different ways we could go about selling your company. You know, we got to think about your company and his financial position, and the buyers and, and that's not the way I would approach it. Because if I do that, I'm rambling, right? And all of a sudden, that instant moment, when I could have captured their attention and built confidence. I lose it by my rambling and thinking. So rather than that, when somebody says, Larry, how do you how do you? How do you say how you think, well, I go sell my company. And I say, you know, john, there are three big things that we have to do to sell your company. Number one, we have to get prepared. And that involves getting your financial statements and your house in order. Number two, we have to identify the prospective buyers of the company. And number three, we need to value your company. And if we do those three things, we'll be ready to sell the company that is so much better than me saying, Well, you know, there are a bunch of things we got to do. And there's a whole lot of details here. We got to gather and Sarah, Sarah, sir, all that detail can come later, I want to when I'm building a relationship with somebody, I want to capture their attention immediately. And let them have great confidence in what I'm saying to them. So if you were to ask me, how does, how does? How are we going to go to Mars? You know, how does Leon musk thing we're going to go to Mars, I can tell you is three things. If you were to say, Tell me the most important things about the Nashville Office of PwC. I could tell you three things are if you were to say to me, Larry, tell me about your golf game. And I there's 100 things I'd love to tell you. But I can summarize it in three points. And what happens when you do that? If I can summarize my discussions in three simple points. I see people I see my audience go to their pocket to get a pencil, because all of a sudden they know that I'm proud tising something that's important. And they're going to write it down. Right. And and when I say I'm going to give you three things, they immediately know, Holy mackerel, he's really thought about this. He said got three big things. He's thought about this. He's not just making it up on the fly right? Now, it's a confidence building tool. And if I could get it because I see kids in my my MBA classes, I asked them a question. And they wander around trying to look for an answer. And and I've tried to teach them when you answer a question for a professor the next time, I want you to say, you know that many many answers to that question. But let me give you the three points that I want to focus on. And it changes the demeanor of the discussion. Because you're building trust. And to me the most important thing and building relationships is building trust quickly. And if you can build trust, you're well on your way to building a really great relationship that will sustain itself,
Jake Wiley:Larry. Now that was awesome. I think the rule of three is something I've carried around and honestly, it lingers in the halls of PwC. Because I still hear about it. So there's your kind of constant dividends and payback. But thank you so much for for making the time to talk with me. I always love the conversations and I hopefully, I can pay you back somehow and make this worthwhile. But I've appreciated this tremendously.
Larry Stevens:Well, thank you. I'm delighted to do it. It's it's been fun for me. I can you know, I could talk forever about curiosity and build relationships. And I appreciate the great work you're doing at PwC. So keep keep it up.
Jake Wiley:That concludes this week's show. Thanks for listening. Please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform or directly on the site. Your comments are truly appreciated, good, bad or indifferent, and we'll help make the show better. This is Jake Wiley with Wiley on business and we'll talk again two weeks