You could throw a rock at any street corner and hit someone that’s preaching about following your passion — or any other self-help cliche that’s antiquated and out of date. It's part of the reason that personal development has a bad rap. Too many self-proclaimed gurus are giving out tired advice that’s neither timely nor relevant. It’s like telling someone in the worst moment of their life to “just think positive.”
Entrepreneur Jordan Harbinger, of The Art of Charm podcast, is changing the self-help industry with... [+]
And then there are the entrepreneurs behind The Art of Charm podcast. Jordan Harbinger, A.J. Harbinger and Johnny Dzubak have spent the last 10 years approaching self help differently. They interview and study successful people — from all walks of life — and deconstruct their habits into easy, practical steps any entrepreneur can use to lead a better life. Their podcast consistently ranks in the top 50 podcasts on iTunes and is the #1 podcast in their category: Management and Marketing. (They purposely avoid the self-help category.)
I’m a big fan of what Jordan, A.J., and Johnny are doing. It’s the perfect example of entrepreneurs entering a crowded industry, innovating and being rewarded for it. In their case, they’ve been rewarded with a business grossing 8-figures per year. Recently I had the chance to get on the phone with Jordan Harbinger to discuss their podcast and how it interrupted the personal development industry. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation:
What is the show and how is it different?
Jordan Harbinger: The show that we run essentially discusses magnetism, charisma and personal growth in a very non-abstract way. Some people say things like, “Think positive” or some other cliché about “moving forward” — it’s always sort of woo-woo. So we got really sick of hearing no practical advice, especially for younger folks, that made any sense. It was always things like, “If you want to meet people, put yourself out there.” Well, what does that mean?
Garrett Gunderson: Or, “If you can believe it, you can achieve it.”
Harbinger: Right. Or, “You can do anything you put your mind to.” Or “Give value” is one of the big non-actionable ideas that was spread around.
Gunderson: Because what does “give value” mean?
Harbinger: Yeah, it doesn't mean anything. Especially when you're 22 or 25 and you don't have money. Or you're thirty and you're in a middle management career. What does “give value” mean then? Buy lunch for my boss? That's not going to get me anywhere. So people don't do it because it doesn't mean anything. And there’s zero visible ROI for these folks.
So we decided to read a lot of books, talk to a lot of self-help people and put their stuff to the test to find out whether it actually works. And we found that a lot of what's written out there is not only too vague, but a lot of these authors and speakers and thought leaders don't actually apply any of it themselves. A lot of it is their 20/20 hindsight.
So that's what the show became — it’s a chronicle of our journey testing this stuff. And now it's more about getting great advice from well-known people and asking them questions that nobody asks them. Like asking NFL players how they stay tough through difficult moments in their lives, not just asking for cliche advice like, “Focus on the team.”
Gunderson: Or “Just taking it one game at a time.”
Harbinger: Exactly. It's such a cliché. So we seek to separate the ridiculous from the real messages out there. Our guests aren’t life coaches. These are professors, they're doctors, they're neuroscientists, they're philosophers, writers, thinkers, athletes. They're not people who say, "I've got a personal growth message." They're people who have done something incredible that needs to be deconstructed. And the core of the show is deconstructing what these high performers do and teaching the listener how they do it.
We’ve had Larry King on to talk about conversation skills. We've had CIA agents talk about how they read people and how they get information out of people. And we've had CEOs of various companies come on and talk about how they make tough decisions, because they have to make decisions where thousands of lives are affected.
Gunderson: Another interesting thing is that, I think you’re a millennial, and the stereotype is that millennials don’t work very hard. But you’re proving that wrong.
Harbinger: Yeah, I was born in 1980, so I'm technically a millennial. But I grew up in the Midwest with a Midwestern work ethic. My business partners, A.J. Harbinger and Johnny Dzubak, are also from the Midwest.
Where a lot of people have the cliché in mind about quick, easy wins. But we've been doing the show for ten years. We have an 8-figure revenue stream now, but we’ve also been doing it for so long.
Doing anything for ten years as a millennial is pretty much unheard of. And yet all the science that shows successful people do things for a long time. How come we don't follow that? How come we want to pick and choose which cliches we want to follow? It’s because working hard and getting really good at something sounds far less exciting than “follow your passion.”
Who Are Some of Your Favorite Guests?
Gunderson: So who has been a guest on your show that has given really practical, actionable advice?
Harbinger: Cal Newport is one. He wrote a book called So Good They Can't Ignore You and another called Deep Work. And it's all kind of contrarian.
For example, people say, "Oh, you've got to be on Twitter, you've got to be on Facebook, you've got to have thought leadership and you've got to do this." And his arguments are, "No, you need to actually get good at some things. Stop trying to market yourself, stop trying to figure out how to do 25 things at once. Focus on one or two things, get really good at them, dig so deep that you actually innovate in your field and then you can start worrying about people noticing you.” Because that's the only way you really differentiate yourself from other attention grabbers — it’s to have something better. Not just more exciting.
Also, he says skills trump passion. You have to develop passion for what you're doing and what you're good at, not get good at what you're passionate about.
And he doesn’t just opine on this, he studies it. So he spends time with farmers, venture capitalists, computer programmers and PHD professors — and he takes real data from studies and shows why these preconceptions are wrong. He doesn't just write a big opinion piece on it.
Gunderson: That’s great. Who else has been a guest?
Harbinger: We had Hines Ward, the NFL player and Super Bowl XL MVP, and he did a great job. He said you can either believe what other people think about you or you can explore what you're capable of.
And I don't think he intended it to be brilliant, but I thought it was secretly brilliant because nobody thought he could do anything. He's this half-black, half-Korean kid, and he moved to America where he wasn't accepted by the Asians and wasn't accepted by the African Americans. So he thought, "I need to go into sports because it's an escape.” And he ignored what other people thought about him, not to succeed, but because other people thought negative things about him and that gets old and sucks.
But I said, “Well, wait a minute. If you ignore what people say about you because it sucks, why not just always ignore what people say about you? There's never going to be a benefit to it. Because if people say great things about you, you're just going to believe that and not achieve anything. And if people think negative things about you, then you're screwed if that's all you listen to.”
So he just ignored all of that and started playing. And that's what got him where he is, because he was obsessed with it.
Gunderson: Cool. And I know you’ve had some other amazing guests like Robert Cialdini (the author of Influence), General Stanley McChrystal, neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris, screenwriter of “Rounders” and “Billionaires” Brian Koppelman and pro skateboarder Tony Hawk. And people can check out those podcasts at TheArtofCharm.com or on iTunes.
Harbinger: Yeah. And there are literally hundreds of episodes of the regular show — we just put out episode #586. After episode #250, which was Robert Green, I remember sitting down and thinking, "I'm starting to get the hang of this."
And after episode five hundred I'm thinking, “Now I'm really starting to get the hang of it.” And I know that at episode #1,000 I'm going to think “Now I really have a clear idea of how this should go.”
And this is contrary to what most people think about that. They want to get good at something quickly. But really, anytime you think you've achieved something, you need to take a step back and ask, "Am I really world class at this? And what do I need to do to get at that level?" Instead of asking yourself why you aren't world class already.
