0:01 [Music] who are you and where are you going what do you want for the next 24 minutes we're going to design and attain your ideal life [Music] on the way to wow show together we'll find the ideal path to get you back on the track to success and happiness
0:36 on the way to wow show with your host kevin bemel it's the new year's eve episode so i gotta dress up but we've got a real treat for you in in this week's show one of my guests is michelle tillis letterman who's going to talk to us about how to really make the kind of connections that will create authentic relationships that not only can help us reach our goals
1:11 but can enhance our lives for however long we're on this mortal coil before that we're going to talk to our favorite wow tender katie o'donnell she's going to mix up a fantastic cocktail and then we're just going to talk we're going to chat for a few minutes about this whole way to wow and the three pillars of attainment really get into what that's all about stay tuned [Music] so for this special new year's eve edition of the way to wow show
1:47 i had to bring back our original wow tender katie o'donnell and katie's going to mix up a a another cocktail for actually for just the two of us and we're going to talk a little bit about what the whole show is based on and and i i couldn't think of i mean you know straight out of the 20s although we're in the 2020s now but uh i mean wow wow thank you so much for coming again oh yeah my pleasure thank you for having me back i really appreciate it um i had fun drinking with you last time so i figured we'd do it again
2:23 i'm going to make a jalisco old fashioned for you today so i chose this because you were mentioning that you have three pillars to your you know the concept behind everything so i wanted to make a three ingredient cocktail so we're going to start off with some simple syrup you can muddle a sugar cube if you feel like it but this kind of tends to give it a little bit more um consistency throughout the cocktail so i like to use simple syrup just about a quarter of an ounce not a lot you see i didn't even measure it it's fine okay and then we're going to use some of these bitter men's um they're mole bitters so they're actually based on the hakken mole which is really fun and interesting
2:59 especially around the holidays it has a nice has a lot of spices to it cloves it's really really delicious so we're gonna put in two of these into each of them now is mole chocolate based like the sauce or i am not a cook i've never made mole in my life i know there's other kinds of mole so you can have traditional mole which it does seem like it has some like cacao or you know interesting baking spices but then they have yellow mole and they have red mole so yeah there's all different kinds of of this mole sauce and then we're going to use this is san
3:35 matias grand reserva it's an extra niejo tequila i chose this one because it's made at this place called casa san matias it's in jalisco and it was the first ever female owned and operated my hands are shaking because i haven't had a drink yet i'm just kidding it's the first female owned and operated tequila distillery ever so she took over in 1997 the distillery's been around since the late 1800s but she took over in 97 her husband tragically passed away and she was a single mother of six she was college educated but obviously never ran a distillery before but knew the ins and outs and so
4:10 she is really someone to model your lifestyle after she cares about her community she cares about the wellness of the people that work for her and that live around her and also the agave plant which is really really important to mexicans as it is basically how they used to survive right so that's what we have here so we put those in there and then we're going to just stir it up a little bit so yeah this is a really beautiful tequila once you get into the three years and older you get a lot more intricate sweet flavors so it's really nice for this
4:45 time of year kind of gives you that sweet tooth without maybe having to have all those cookies i don't know [Laughter] or maybe with the cookies maybe with the okay guys i'll give you for sure yeah just gonna let it it'll ice down a little bit too as we are drinking it so not a big deal and then we're gonna take this orange and just garnish the top of it where'd i put your fancy new peeler here we go this is the best peeler for appealing citrus fyi so i'm so glad it's a peeling peeler it is an appealing peeler don't worry i'm keeping my day job then we're just going to put the rim
5:20 around the top there that's optional i like it on this kind of drink because i do like the added citrus aspect to it oh you can just see it you can see it squirt out right it's beautiful all right so here you go you can smell the the orange and the citrus that is for you beautiful cheers cheers mmm get that it does have that chocolate note it does from those bitters for sure and then enter a little spice beautiful beautiful so let's go have a seat and we'll talk [Music]
6:01 very nice very delicious tequila for sure yeah well thank you so much for having me back i appreciate it yeah absolutely thanks for coming yes um why don't you tell me a little bit about how this show got started yeah so you know it really was an outgrowth of the work i did in the navy so when i first got off active duty i worked with military people transitioning to civilian life and one of the things i found out was it was a really tough transition to go from this very strong ingrained
6:37 military identity to some kind of at least hybrid identity military civilian that our fellow citizens could relate to right so you were telling me earlier about um um you know someone you know in business who's who's like really military gung-ho and it's like kind of like where is this guy coming from so see in the military environment that's totally normal but you get into civilian life and it's kind of like you know shipmate um you you you gotta
7:12 work within how people are used to being in the world intimidating a little aggressive so what i found is i i would typically ask people two questions and one is who are you and the second is what do you want so they answered to me well if i said well who are you say well you know i'm i'm a chief petty officer in the navy it's like gotcha what is the demand for chief petty officers in the civilian world and the answer is it's both zero and huge because what chief petty
7:50 officers do is very valuable in civilian life but but someone who identifies as a chief petty officer and acts like a chief petty officer acts in the navy the demand for that in this in civilian world is zero and then what do you want to do that was also tough i i you know i want to have an impact great how right so you know our for our parents they were given the answers to those questions but but we're not and so we have to figure that out and those are tough questions to answer when we're not given any tools
8:26 you know for doing so yeah absolutely there's a lot more options it feels like yeah these days so how you've been talking about these three pillars of attainment maybe dig into those a little bit for me and explain them and what their purpose is yeah so there's really i don't think there's anything particularly innovative about the three pillars themselves you know physical mental spiritual those are the three realms of life i mean the idea of having three pillars really relates to the fact that we we tend to um understand life in triplets or in in
9:02 groups of threes we remember them more easily we relate to them more easily we sneeze in threes yeah exactly right but but yeah i mean you you see you know there's the old saw you know famous people die in threes i mean although it seems to work that way um but and even like in the religious realm so there's the trinity right the the father son and the holy ghost um in judaism there's a similar concept when you get married it's it's you your spouse and god is part of that that you know triplet if you will so
9:37 three seems to resound with us and i've explained this before in one of the interests of shows so three is a an inherently stable structure if you have three legs no matter what all three legs are going to be firmly on the ground it may tip a little bit one way or the other but here once you had a fourth leg one leg is in is inevitably going to be a little bit off from the other three and so it's going to wobble so with three we have insurance inherent stability and that's hopefully the place that we can get to at least you know sometimes during our lives so then within each pillar are three realms as well so
10:14 in the physical pillar uh health finances and play right so looking at at health i mean i think there's there's some truth to the idea that you know without your health what what have you got right you really can't engage in the other things nearly as well so so and we've we've talked about this i had a guest on in the first episode um megan rederoth who's with with next house so what are the you know the the tenets of of good health it really comes down to you know sleep diet and exercise and if we can deal with those well
10:51 so not only they're going to make us healthy but they're going to then set the foundation for the whole rest of our life so finances right i mean we need the resources we this isn't we don't live in the times when you know you can wander off into the forest and you know trap and hunt and build a i don't know a cave or you know carve out a tree or something so we we have to figure out what are we going to do in order for what are we going to do start a business have a career how are we going to generate a cash flow and then once we're generating cash flow how are we going to use the excess hopefully that we make
11:26 to save invest protect our wealth right those are all principles of good finance and then play right um all work and no play makes you know katie a dull girl right although i can't imagine i don't can't imagine katie being a dull girl but right we need to have so play is very important it actually fosters creativity right it helps us relax reduce anxiety so there's there's lots of it even for adults we think of play as being something children do but as adults we need to have our
12:01 our play right this is this is you know part of my play right i agree with that yes so then in the mental pillar we've got um relationships learning and mindset so i i suppose there are people out there who think that they can have a good life without relationships with other people but hopefully one of the things we've learned through this whole period of covet and all of this is that it's very very difficult to have a a worthwhile wonderful life without
12:36 being involved with other people um and so we need to build those relationships and not just for for business reasons but for um social reasons for family reasons all that um learning i think and and that's a lot of what this show is really about it's pr it's giving people the resources to learn about all these things to give us the opportunity to develop new i hear new ideas develop new possibilities for our lives right so um i can't remember who said this it may have been felix roy hatton but
13:12 don't quote me on that but he said you know you should read a magazine on a subject that you are not interested in at all at least once a month because you'll be confronted with something that's completely new that you can integrate into your life in a way that will help you move forward right and then of course mindset so you know we want to develop in general a positive mindset although you know i i i will be candid when i say i think there's such a thing as toxic positivity
13:48 i just was looking into this topic today so that's funny yeah yeah right i mean my dog just died okay i'm sorry that's not a happy event let alone you know something i'm i'm not gonna i'm i'm not prepared to find the positive in that right when my dog died it was the first time my daughter ever saw me crying and she came to me and she said daddy you're crying i said well you know very sorry that you know little jiggers is is his dad right it was so there's a time for positivity but there's also a time for having a mindset that helps us move
14:23 through those very difficult moments in our lives that helps us mourn helps us grieve because that's part of getting back to a positive place right and so then there's the spiritual realm so family god and identity and and and family is a tough one i i i think it's in many ways it's much easier to have good relationships with non-family members than it is with family members because family members have learned how to push those buttons to drive us insane in about you know 13 seconds right
15:00 but hopefully you know one of our tasks as adults i tell people is to reconcile our lives in spite of all the mistakes that our parents made we can't spend our lives blaming our parents they did the best they could presumably and so once we turn i don't know 16 18 21 whatever the age is we have to say this is what i tell my mom mom thank you for all you did i know you did the best that you possibly could i'm still messed up in these places
15:35 and it's completely my responsibility now you have no you you need not carry any guilt on my part going forward and i say we need to take control of our lives that way um you know god is is i think it's a complex subject this these days although something like you know 90 plus of americans say they believe in god what does that really mean and what and and how do we um relate to people who don't believe in god you know can can someone who believes in god have a relationship with someone who doesn't i think we can one of my closest friends
16:11 uh you know as an atheist so what you know what does god really want from us i would argue he wants us to take care of each other in the way that he takes care of us and so then there's the final uh realm of the spiritual pillar which is identity and there's really two parts to our identity one is our purpose that's who we are kind of inside so in my case i want to be a loving supporting husband for my wife
16:46 hannah i want to be a a dad to my daughter madeline who can help her learn to deal with the world in a productive way i want to be a supportive friend to rick and steve to stefan and sierra and aaron and and to you the kind of friend who if the chips are down you can call me up and and the one thing you'll know is you can count on kevin and and and when the great things happen in life you you can also call me up and you'll
17:22 know that you know i would at least doing metaphoric backflips because real ones would probably break my neck sorry so those are all part of my purpose who i want to be and then there's my mission what i want to accomplish vis-a-vis other people so that's in the end that's really what the way to wow show is about this is my mission is to help people figure these questions out to answer them and and and in doing so to live better more enjoyable
18:00 lives and not just for them but for everybody who's important to them that's awesome so i mean this is the new year so if someone wants to jump into this self-realization process what are your tips and guidance to do so yeah so i mean watch the show of course you know maybe subscribe to um to the c-suite channel or to the youtube channel so you can watch the show on a regular basis um and maybe even more so give us some feedback
18:35 you know where where are the struggles in your life because then all find someone to come and and talk about that address that specifically to help people get over that hump and then stay tuned for i mean we hope to develop programs to help people maybe have a group we can join in together and and really this is not something you you sort of take care of and and okay i'm done i don't have to ever think about this again this is this is life so we'll live we'll live life together that's awesome well thank you so much oh you're welcome thanks for thanks for coming cheers cheers
19:11 happy new year [Music] so my guest is michelle tillis letterman i got to michelle because i found her book or one of her books actually the 11 laws of likability and really just fell in love with her approach to developing authentic relationships and i knew i had to have her on the show and fortunately she responded yes to
19:46 my email request michelle started out life as a professor at nyu she was a corporate executive and also a cpa or as she calls it a recovering cpa and then she went into relationship coaching and training which is the world writing of course which is the world that she inhabits now and michelle has has a new book out it's called the connectors advantage and so our our talk with her i think is timely because she the connector's advantage is sort of the next step
20:21 after the 11 laws of likability so michelle thank you so much for being on the way to wow i'm happy to be here and i'm feeling a little underdressed but i'm i'm so glad well this is our our our new year's eve uh episode and so uh you know it's it's actually my i should have uh alerted you um and and maybe even sent you a bottle of champagne but well behind us exactly looking forward to the future so michelle talk to me or talk to
20:57 us if you would how do you go from being a corporate executive and a cpa who are notorious right for being you know you name it boring unpersonable and by the way that doesn't describe describe the cpas i know but that's the reputation they have right so how do you go from from that to being one of the you know foremost experts in america on relationship building i thought i was gonna break the mold of what a cpa personality was and apparently they broke me instead
21:33 after being the only woman on a trading floor and the only woman on a global venture capital team i really started to see what was broken in the communications in leadership and management in these organizations and i was in a lot of different big firms you know in in my decade of trying to you know be the employee and what happened was they sat across from me trying to pitch or convince and they weren't focused on the things that really influence and relationships is the first thing that influences people do business with people they like
22:09 and that relationship will get the business over a better price and over a better product and i started to just across from people saying can i teach you how to do this [Laughter] like if you want my money this is not the way to get it so so that's a good segue can you summarize for us briefly uh the 11 laws of likability or maybe at least the the ones that are most important to establishing those authentic relationships so i'll give you kind of a encapsulation of the first book and how it leads into the second so
22:45 um when we think about the laws of likability i wrote this book trying to explain how do we um how connection forms right and what do you do before during and after a conversation so before it's about authenticity and understanding how you see yourself how others see you and the energy you're bringing to a situation the middle part of the book is about the conversation itself and i kind of teach the anatomy of a conversation from curiosity to listening to similarity to mood memory and making sure that we make somebody feel good in that that exchange and the last part of the book is
23:21 after that conversation how do you move from one interaction into extended connection and that's where we talk about familiarity giving and patience and all of those concepts are kind of the foundation for what i have evolved my thinking into which is the mindset of a connector so the connector's advantage is is mindsets that we embody in all of our interactions and i i see this look of curiosity and here's the difference because i get this a lot people come in and they'll say well what's the difference between
23:56 networking connecting and i say networking is something that you do but a connector that's who you are and if you want to get all the benefits of a connector you know faster easier better results whatever it is you're working on whether it's the job whether it's a promotion whether it's a new client whether it's a referral even if it's health and happiness all of those things statistics will prove that you are going to get there faster easier better with relationships so what i'm hearing is the connector's advantage
24:33 while we may look at it as a way to improve our professional performance or professional prospects it could improve our relationships with our children our parents our our spouses is it does that am i in the right realm here or yes and because that's what a connector is is they are always prioritizing the relationship in all of their interactions whether it is personal or professional whether you're on the playground or in the boardroom you prioritize the relationship and you will see the result
25:08 and you know that's we say that but what does that mean and what does that look like and that's where the mindsets come in and actually one of the things i can offer to your listeners is a quiz to figure out where they fall on the connector spectrum because it is a spectrum and it starts with the non-connector which i would venture to guess none of your listeners are and then it goes to the emerging responsive acting connector and that's where we are initiating versus just responding and then we can move into like the upper echelons of connectors which is where we go deep or we go wide or we do both and so if you go deep in a certain
25:43 industry geography function you're a niche connector and if you are going broad up and down the ladder across industry across geography you're a superconductor and if you cross your country borders you're a global superconductor i think i'm i'm the i'm the latter because what we're looking to do here is is to really bring in the best people we can to help everybody out so what is on on that continuum that you just described how does someone get started on that continuum so we are always already on the
26:18 continuum and it's about where am i now and what will it take to get me to the next level so the mindsets and i'll just put them out there and you can pick one if we have the time to go through the mindsets of a connector are that they are open and accepting they have a clear vision they trust they come from a place of abundance they are social and curious they're conscientious and they have a generous spirit and i always have to count to make sure i get all seven of them i think you did but when we think about embodying those mindsets right it is what enables those
26:55 connections to form it is the perspective that helps us prioritize the relationships now we need to think about the way in which we are interacting so if you're on the lower end um what you may want to think about is how can i be more proactive how can i initiate more how can i think when i'm in an interaction with somebody let's just simply here's one thing everybody can do at the end of this show the end of each conversation or somewhere in that conversation simply say how can i help you or what are you working on or who would you be interested in connecting with the other thing i want you to do is have an answer when that
27:30 person asks you the same question and that's the mindset of a clear vision because if you don't know what you're working on then how are you supposed to get it faster easier and better so it doesn't have to be the huge thing it could simply be hey i'm looking to get another 100 reviews on my book or it could be something small but when somebody says how can i help you have an answer and that's just one way that we start to be more proactive and already embodying two of the mindsets excellent excellent and and and that's i think that's really the key
28:05 is is having that entry point i know i work with a lot of people coming out of the military and their perception is i don't have to network in the military but of course we do all the time it's just we're in such a comfortable environment or a familiar environment maybe is a better word so it doesn't really seem like networking which seems like it's such a daunting word i have to go meet strangers and and all these kind of things so i hate the word networking it has the word work in it who wants to do it so we should have net plane
28:41 i say just making friends connecting but you make a really interesting point because i actually wrote a book for veterans it's free it's called heroes get hired any veteran or their spouse can download it and one of the issues that came up when i was working with the veteran population was that idea of networking and relationship building and that it was a hurting and the truth is they have a real strong advantage there because there are so many organizations associations and groups that are there to support and so it's a much easier reach out than for people who don't have those um those mechanisms and resources in
29:16 place and the book has a whole list of those resources excellent so i'll get that link from you and we'll put it in the show notes and as well we'll put a link so that people can get your book the connectors advantage unfortunately we're out of time but i i think you've really given us a firm place to get started in developing the kind of mindset that we need to really become ever better connectors and for that i i thank you so much michelle and i thank you happy new year that's our show for this week you know
29:52 i've been blessed with the most fantastic production team and they're all here today stefan rick sierra my lovely wife hannah aaron steve our wow tender katie it takes all of these people to help us all get on our way to wow even bordeaux [Laughter] let's remember the advice that we got from michelle tillis letterman check out her quiz the links are in the show notes think about how we can really build our relationships
30:27 in the coming year to really make our lives strong 2020 it's been kind of tough i think but 2021 can be our best year ever stay tuned next week when my guests will be tina greenbaum and brian feminella [Music] courage at all times my friends happy new year
31:09 marie you are and ever will be my bow [Music]
31:45 you