Jon Levy, YOU'RE INVITED: The Art and Science of Cultivating Influence

[1:51]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Zippy Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen Vaccine Research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time to Write a New Publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, and my website is zibbyowens.com. Okay. Now back to this amazing podcast. Special announcement. I am teaming up with Katie Couric Media's wake up call and random house to give away 100 copies of the book Stranger Care by Sarah Santillis. I'm really excited about this. Here's a little about Sarah's book, and we collectively are giving away a 100 copies. After their decision not to have a biological child, Sarah Santilles and her husband Eric decide to adopt via the foster care system. Despite knowing that the system's goal is the child's reunification with the birth family, Sarah opens their home to a flurry of social workers who question them, evaluate them, and ultimately prepare them to welcome a child into their lives even if it means most likely having to give the child back. Stranger care is an illuminating read, and Sarah will be on this podcast soon. So if you would like to enter for a chance to win, please go to the link in the episode description from right where you clicked on it and enter your email address first and last name. By doing so you're agreeing to the sweepstakes official rules and agree to receive communications and special offers from Katie Couric's wake up call and moms don't have time to read books. Thank you for doing it and enter to win today. Just go back to the episode description. Thanks again. Doctor. John Levy is the author of You're Invited, the art and science of cultivating influence. John is a behavioral scientist best known for his work in influence, human connection and decision making. John specializes in applying the latest research to transform the ways companies approach marketing, sales, consumer engagement and culture. His clients range from Fortune 500 brands like Microsoft, Google and Samsung to startups. More than a decade ago, John founded the Influencers Dinner, a secret dining experience for industry leaders ranging from Nobel laureates, Olympians, celebrities and executives to artists, musicians and even the Grammy winning voice of the bark from Who Let the Dogs Out. Guests cook dinner together but can't discuss their career or give their last name, and once seated to eat, they reveal who they are. Over time, these dinners developed into a community. With thousands of members, influencers is the largest community of its type worldwide. In his free time, John works on outrageous projects, among them spending a year traveling to all seven continents or to the world's greatest events, Grand Prix, Art Basel, Burning Man, Running of the Bulls, etcetera, and barely surviving to tell the tale. These adventures were chronicled in his first book, The 2AM principle, discover the science of adventure. Welcome, John. Thanks so much for coming on moms don't have time to read books to discuss You're Invited the art and science of cultivating influence.

[4:51]Jon Levy: Oh, are you kidding? I'm super excited, especially after I I got this wild gift bag. I got so curious what's about to happen next.

[5:00]Zibby Owens: Some people have a lot of questions about some of the stuff. I had a lot of questions on the the heart that I sent to go with moms don't have time to have sex. People were Oh, that's so funny. DMing me like, what am I supposed to do with this? So

[5:14]Jon Levy: it really was an ice pack that go like any mom like, it goes like, the moms knew, but a lot of people aren't moms. Anyway Yes. I'm very much not a mom. Yeah. Maybe one day. But Yeah. I should have done, like, a different gift bag for different people, but I didn't anyway. For the next book. Anyway, can you please tell listeners what You're Invited is about and what inspired you to write this book? Oh, for sure. So first of all, I grew up like a pretty lonely kid. I'm really geeky. I'm a behavioral scientist, and that kind of started at a young age of being really into, like, technology and sci fi. And back in the eighties, that was not a cool thing. Like, no. Now, literally everybody knows the comic books that I used to read as a kid because they're the highest grossing films of all time. But back then, I just wasn't popular. And I thought was that that was a real rarity. Right? I was under this impression that, you know, I see shows like Saved by the Bell growing up, and I think, oh, everybody has this kind of wild group of friends, and they're always up to antics, and it's just kind of me. And as I grew up, I realized that that wasn't so much the case. In fact, in 1985, the average American had just about three friends besides family. By 2004, we were down to two. And so in less than a generation, we lost a third of our social ties. And that trend has probably increased over time. And I know people like to blame social media and all that, but the real culprit is probably people moving a lot more frequently. Because every time you move, you reset your social ties. And so it turns out a couple of things that are kind of wild. The first is that the greatest predictor of human longevity, us living a long time, isn't that like awesome kale salad from, you know, sweet green or whatever. It's number two is strong social ties. And number one is something called social integration. It's that you come in contact with a lot of people, you're part of a community. And so if you look at the business side, you can track a company's stock value, employee sick days and profitability, the level of trust. And so for just about anything we actually care to succeed at, or care about who we're connected to, how much they trust us, and the sense of belonging that we share is at the core of all of it. And so the book explores this idea of how do we make deep and meaningful relationships with anybody. Doesn't matter if they're a global leader or a celebrity or a community leader that you just find really interesting. How do you build trust in a meaningful way? And how do you foster the sense of community and belonging around you?

[7:53]Zibby Owens: Wow.

[7:54]Jon Levy: And tell me more tell listeners more about the dinners that you started doing and the dinner series and cooking together with people you didn't know. Anyway, tell Yes. You know? For sure. So my life is really I'm gonna say this in the most ridiculous way possible, and then I'm going to actually explain it. So I've spent much of my adult life convincing people to come to my home, cook me dinner, wash my dishes, clean my floors, and then thank me for it. Now I know that sounds completely ridiculous. And as I promised, I'll explain. In around 2008, I was kind of like the stereotypical person not living up to their potential. Was incredibly in debt from college. I was overweight, single, like, you know, just things weren't going according to plan. And I came across a study, and this was kind of crazy, that looked at the obesity epidemic. And what the researchers found was that if you have a friend who's obese, your chances increased by forty five percent. Your friends who don't know them have a twenty percent increased chance. And you have a five, I'm sorry, and their friends have a five percent increased chance. And it's true for happiness, marriage and divorce rates, smoking habits, voting habits, really, everything passes from person to person. So I said, I have to figure out how to get the most extraordinary people in our culture to come together so that we can have a positive impact on each other. And what I did was I researched human behavior. And from that knowledge, I created a secret dinner. 12 people are invited. When they arrive, they're not allowed to talk about what they do or even give their last name. Then they cook dinner together. And when they sit down to eat, they get to guess what everybody does. And they find out that it's a Nobel laureate, an Olympian, a celebrity, the editor in chief of a magazine, so on and so forth. And I've hosted over 2,000 people at two twenty seven dinners in 10 cities in three countries. And so it's become probably the largest community of its kind in the world. And I ended up losing the weight and getting out of debt, mostly because of great advice and support from the people around me. Amazing. You're, like, the only person to have dinner parties and lose weight. Oh, yeah. Do you wanna know the the little secret? I've I would love it. Yeah. So we had a well known journalist come, and she said, I was expecting a phenomenal meal and decent company. I got the exact opposite. So I've had the same meal at almost every dinner, right? So over 200 and some odd times. I've stopped Oh, it's burritos. It's like guacamole burrito. It's just something that you can assemble any way you want. So with everybody's absurd dietary restrictions from keto, pesco, whatever, all the way to kosher and halal, we needed to figure something out that worked. So I've just stopped eating the meals. Like, I'll instruct people, I'll let them cook, then I'll just be like, okay, I'm just gonna guide this and you can all eat it. But the food isn't any good. Like, let's be honest, it's a bunch of people who don't know how to cook cooking.

[11:01]Zibby Owens: Go to Chipotle. It'll be better. Sorry. No. No. No. It's great. The thing I didn't totally figure out how you did in the book is how did you attract all of the people who are all these, you know, highly influential notable people? How did you start? What was, like, your first dinner, and what was your second dinner? And how did you get to a point where you could invite all these

[11:23]Jon Levy: big deal people? So here's what's interesting. The first dinner, the people weren't nearly as impressive. I'd describe them kind of more like community influencers rather than industry. Right? The industry people really have an impact on the industry. When you win the Nobel Prize, you have an impact on biology or whatever. That one. The people that I was inviting, you know, it was February. It was like, people had a large following on Twitter or people who were celebrity hairstylists and things like that that had a lot of status, but weren't, industry defining. And the first dinner was a hot mess, literally, like an actual mess. I had no idea what I was doing. The air conditioner broke in the middle and like, it was August or something, I don't even remember when it was. But people were like, still loving the experience because it was so different. And I just kept doing it. It took me, I think, five or six months to run another. And then I did it again and again. And I kept increasing the frequency, which is what led to me eventually being able to kind of invite more impressive people. Because let's say you attended, I'd ask you, okay, who's the coolest person you know? And then you'd be like, oh, I actually have this one friend who's a writer who's an Emmy winner. And I say, great, can we invite them? And then the Emmy winner comes and people are like, oh my god, now they're Emmy winners at these things. And then they're like, oh, I have a friend who's an Academy Award winner, you should invite them. And so if you just keep doing it, that's one thing. The second thing is, when you really understand and you build around the characteristics that engage people, then it attracts a lot more people. And I'll give you a simple example. You've probably had a lot of impressive guests over the years. If I invite one of them or invite them to another casino themed fundraiser, does that sound particularly appealing? No. No. They've been to like 100. They would much rather just give a check and have a night off. Right? And that's because that kind of stuff won't engage people if it's the same old stuff. And if you really want to connect with highly influential people, you have to stand up. So I recommend that there's kind of four characteristics that you really need to put into something to get their attention. The first is, if everybody's after them, it means that they tend to want things from them, right? They want their money, their time, their expertise, like all these things. So my first policy is that everything we do has to be generous. That's not to say that it couldn't be a business experience for business development, right? It's not like I can't have some kind of benefit, but that the intention is to really provide people with something. Now, where most companies go wrong is that they do things like take people out for expensive business dinners. Right? And I'm assuming at some point, you've been invited to these really awkward experiences. They take you to, like, a fancy dinner, and then it's like an awkward interview till you find something to talk about. So the key isn't that because it's really hard to win people over with gifts unless it's something they're already really passionate about. But there's something called the IKEA effect. And the IKEA effect says that we disproportionately care about our IKEA furniture because we had to assemble it. And this is true for anything we put effort into. So, here's a, like, the fun example for moms. The reason that people love their own kids is not despite the fact that they're a pain in the butt, but because of it. Because we have to stay up late and take care of them, and we worry, and we think about it, and we have to find tutors and do, like, all these things, that investment of effort actually causes us to care more. And so, the form of generosity that I really like is the forms of generosity that allow people to put in effort together so that they care about each other more. So, let's say I want to be generous and connect with you. I'd say, Hey, why don't you join me for a fitness class? That way, of just getting, you know, cocktails at a bar or something and having to feel like an interview, then we're putting effort into something together. And we end up caring more about each other. So that's on the generosity. The other thing is novelty. Things really have to stand out. So let me ask you a question. What's the most novel thing you've done recently? I started this podcast. I started live events. I started a salon.

[15:48]Zibby Owens: I have started a TikTok thing. I I don't know. I've I've been doing a lot of novel things like that, I think.

[15:55]Jon Levy: And it's exciting. Right? Like, when something feels new and different, there's an excitement around it. It feels like you can optimize or, like, improve, and you feel like things are growing and getting better. Right? And that's one of those things about human beings is that when something is novel, it triggers a section in the brain called the SNVTA. The name really doesn't matter. It's the major novelty center. And it responds relative to how novel something is. So the more novel it is, the more it's triggered, and the more it entices us to explore and understand something. And so if we're doing that same old thing, nobody was going to see the Broadway show Cats anymore. But when Hamilton came out, they're like, wow, this is new, this is different. I'm interested. Then everybody wanted tickets. You getting to experience TikTok and play on it is new and different and exciting. And so the key is that whatever we do can't be a copycat version of somebody else's. Right? If somebody were to try to release another podcast on the exact same theme, people wouldn't really care. It's been done. You've kind of have your niche that's novel, and it wouldn't be nearly as interesting. The third characteristic is that the most influential people in our culture, everybody thinks that they spend their time with other influential people. They actually don't. They spend most of their times with their admins, some with their staff, and maybe now they've been locked with their family in their homes for a year and a half. So if you can provide an environment with other really influential people, they will go far out of their way for it. And you can look at things like TED or Davos. People spend tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, just to be in the right room. And so my objective became create a generous experience, one that is novel, it's designed completely different than anything else out there. And that is incredibly well curated. So that way, you know, that every person in that room is somebody you would want to meet. And that becomes such an attraction, and develop such status, that people will go far out of their way for it. And here's the thing, it takes a while. And the reason is that developing meaningful, long lasting relationships can be accelerated when you understand how it works. And I cover that in the book. But it still takes time to develop a sense of belonging and community among people. And so you can have really fast results, but it's still not just going to be like, in one week, everything's done.

[18:35]Zibby Owens: Wow. This I find so fascinating. I've always been so interested in understanding consumer behavior, human behavior, psychology, marketing. And it's so funny because as I read your book, I was like, wait, this is part of how I did all of this stuff that I didn't mean to. Right? Like I didn't sit and think like, how can I, you know, make like my goal was never to make connections necessarily? It was just to like try these things. But the things that you say, which now I see you're doing with me, right? Like you start off, you confess that like you used to be overweight and you used to be a nerd and immediately like we have a bond and I'm like, okay, he's doing like that part that he says you have to do when you connect with someone. And like, right? That's how I naturally talk to people. Right? Like my, you know, I find out the air conditioning man's wife has is going through IVF in like two seconds because like, just like talked Yeah. To Yeah. Right? Like, I'm like but to do it, to to like have it written out in a book for people who this isn't a natural skill set for, I found totally fascinating and didn't even realize it was something that A, people wanted to have as a skill set or B, that could be taught in a book because here's the book and you even have a formula. I was like, this is crazy. You had, I don't even know where it was, but it was like influence equals, parentheses, connections times connection times trust, end parentheses, to the power of sense of community. I mean, this is like crazy. Anyway, I just think it's so neat because one of my oldest friends was like, well, you do this podcast whenever, but like actually what you're best at is connecting people. That's what you do well. And I was like, Oh, I hadn't even really thought about it like that, because I've never been good at introducing matchmaking or anything like that. But this is just something that makes me feel good. Yeah. Which you have turned into, like, a quantifiable something that you can acquire.

[20:38]Jon Levy: So it's really interesting that you say this because I'm not that person who ever had natural skills in these kinds of things. You either, where you grew up, who you grew up around, you know, or for whatever reason, kind of developed more as a natural. Right? The people that I'm like, I was a wallflower, shy as a kid. I was shy as a kid. Will give you I was very But, anyway, keep going. It's funny because people confuse shyness with introversion, and they're really different. Mhmm. So you can be a really shy extrovert, and shyness is just more about fear of social judgment. It's a muscle you can kind of build up and get over. So this is all to say that I was like, maybe I could kind of reverse engineer what people like you do, because then maybe I could have some friends finally. And luckily, it worked out. But I also want to tell listeners that it's an equation, but there's no algebra, like, there's nothing to solve. That's not like the type of equation that you're ever going to use. It's more just to understand the relationship between things, how important trust is, how important it is to connect with people, and how profoundly important this sense of belonging and community is. And like your friend said, if you can really connect people, if you can provide an environment where relationships are formed, your life becomes significantly better. Because the more connections there are between people that you really admire and respect, the more positive influence they have on one another, and the more your life improves.

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[25:22]Zibby Owens: It's amazing. Yeah. I mean, at the beginning of this podcast, and I don't mean to, like, talk about myself, I just feel like it's, like, a relevant case example. Yeah. I started doing live events where I would bring together all these people, friends of mine and also authors. And what you're saying is so true because at some cocktail party, my husband and I were going to have he was like, Why don't you invite some of the authors that you've been interviewing? And I was like, Oh, I doubt they'd want to come. You know, why would they want to come? And he's like, Maybe they'd want to come. Why don't you just invite them? And they all came, and they had the best time, and my friends had the best time. And that's how I came up with this idea to have like a book fair and have all the authors who I had on my podcast come and meet all And the so then I just kept meeting. All the authors would tell me like, wow, like, it's so isolating actually what we do. Yeah. And we haven't found a community before. And I didn't do it. Like, I didn't do it. I didn't set out to have a goal to do it for this, that, the other thing. Like, I just thought it would be cool and whatever. Like, it wasn't as calculating. Like, I feel like calculating sounds very negative, but I feel like in the book, there's like a way to sort of set a goal and achieve it by means of these sort of personality tactics and group, you know, management manipulation almost. Like, I don't know. But yes, I was I'll

[26:35]Jon Levy: point to one thing around that, which is in the book, I go deep into this idea, or I reference it several times more properly, that behavioral science is one of these kinds of crazy things that could be used in really wonderful ways, but it could also be used in really terrible ways, like cigarette companies. And the difference between manipulation and benevolence is if you're willing to tell people the way that it was designed, and they're okay with it, you're in the clear. So if when at the end of the dinner, people often ask questions, and I say, listen, we cook dinner together because of the ITA effect. My objective was for you all to become so close with each other in such a short period of time that I didn't know any other way than to get you to put in joint effort into something. So we focus on because the fact of the matter is that the people that come to my events, overwhelmingly, like there's no business case for us knowing each other. I've never done work with like Olympians or Nobel laureates or even any of the Oscar winners or Grammy winners. Right? It's really about

[27:41]Zibby Owens: how do we foster interesting relationships that people are excited about. So, like, I know you said some of your goals were meeting new people and having friends and, you know, getting off, you know, off the couch and losing weight and all this stuff. Yes. But like, ultimately, that's not like, it had to be more than that. I mean, you could do that. Like, was your goal to write, like, a Wall Street Journal bestseller and, you know, to I don't know. Did you have a bigger thing? Like, was it fame or money? Or like, were the like, did you have, like I I wish I was motivated by money. I think it would probably make my family happier.

[28:18]Jon Levy: Much like you. Right? I'm like, oh, that's cool. I'm really driven a lot by novelty, just, like, doing new things. And it's generally, it's money doesn't come from that, like maybe eventually, in the very long term. But I really love this idea of meeting cool people. And I really love being able to hear their insights and stories. Right? Like the way that the let me see if I can share kind of some odd ones. I had probably the foremost expert on venomous animals, or insects, I think is snakes, and, you know, all these other like, yeah, whatever it is technically come. And it turns out that he's a PhD in pharmacology. And the reason is that a ton of medications are actually made from venoms. So he goes around the world collecting specimens, and then genetically sequencing them, getting their venoms, and figuring out how to use them to make medications to help people with heart problems or so on, right? Or sedatives and things. Getting to hear something like that blew my mind. And there's 11 other people at the dinner that each have that kind of insight into a world that like is completely separate from mine. I hosted the woman who won the Nobel Prize for discovering telomeres. You know, those, like, the tips of our DNA that's like the plastics on the shoestrings. And there's all this hype now of like, you can reverse telomere loss and all that kind of stuff. And what she said to me was that if you have very, very short telomeres, that probably is a bad sign. But it's not like having longer tips on the shoestrings makes wearing shoes any better, right? Or lacing your, like, a certain point, long enough is long enough. And she's like, now getting that kind of insight from the person who's the world expert on it, like, that's pretty cool. And that's the kind of stuff I love is like, now I have access to and know something. And I get to talk to this person that's just absolutely incredible. And I'm, I'm personally very driven by that. I always knew at some point that it would pay off. And so from like a business standpoint, but I wasn't clear how. And so I always had two policies. One is that at every event, I'd have at least one journalist, because I knew at some point, I'll have something that I'd want to tell a story. And so when my book came out, you know, my first book came out, it was like 100 articles written about it. And I was on all the shows and all that kind of stuff, right? And the second was that I would shoot for diversity of attendees above anything else. And what's been wild about it is that all the places that I think I'd get business may or may not have come. So I've been like, Oh, I want to work with a big tech company, so I'll invite a bunch of them. But then the actual business comes from all the random companies that I've hosted over the years, not ever the places that I thought they would. So I really stopped trying to predict what'll happen and what'll work. And here's a simple example. I just got I hosted the president of one eight hundred Flowers, not a company I ever thought I'd do any business with. And now he's like, oh, we want you to work on a project with us. Like, I could have quite literally never predicted it. My team found him, I had no idea. I met him at a dinner, we became friends, and that's it. So in the early days, maybe a little. Like, I knew I wanted status. But nowadays, I have no clue where anything will come from.

[31:55]Zibby Owens: Wow. Well, I think it's also this, like, huge sense of intellectual curiosity. I mean, that's sort of what it is. It's like like, I've realized, like, nothing is more interesting to me than other people's stories about themselves. And I don't know why, and I realize not everybody shares this, but I do not get tired of hearing people's life stories. Like, I would wanna know a lot more about your life story if we had more time. Like, I'm like thinking to myself as you're talking like, okay, well, like, I wanna hear more about his childhood and like, let's hear more about, like, where did he where's his family originally from? Like, what you know, like, all of these things, like Oh, that's a really weird answer. So I'm I don't look it really, but I'm mixed race.

[32:35]Jon Levy: And so my grandfather is from Yemen. My grandmother is either North African or Turkish, we're not really sure. And then the other side is Dutch. So I was kind of like, I look very, I'd say, probably Mediterranean or European, but my siblings don't. Like, you would look at us and you'd be like, they're probably not even related. We're like every shade of the spectrum.

[32:59]Zibby Owens: Wow. See, that's so interesting. I don't know. Anyway, but I think it's also finding what fascinates you, right? Like, everyone has something that fascinates them and there's no judgment. Like, for you, it's really fascinating to learn, like, little bits of things about a ton of different things.

[33:17]Jon Levy: Right? Like Oh, yeah. I I want, like, I wanna know all of it. Right? And I will say this. It's not like this is purely, like, altruistic or something. This running these dinners, I do them in five cities or four cities every month before the pandemic, it costs a lot to fly around, costs the supplies and everything. I have an entire staff that just does that of like, four people who are semi full time. And so, it's like a serious investment. Now, if you want to start your own, you know, you can start with no investment, right? And it's like, just invite a bunch of people and you take them on a hike or something. But the dividends that it's paid off are ridiculous.

[33:58]Zibby Owens: Do charge the guests to come? Nothing.

[34:02]Jon Levy: I feel like it would be super shortsighted to be like, hey, Deepak Chopra, could I get $50 for some terrible burritos?

[34:12]Zibby Owens: I assumed that I just wanted to know it's like people were like, you should charge people to come to your salons. And I was like, what? How could I, why would I do that? That's so like, you would never do that. So short sight. Yeah. Don't get me wrong there. You can absolutely charge.

[34:28]Jon Levy: So, you remember those three, those three things that I talked about, I sometimes say four, which was the generosity, novelty, curation, right? Doctor. Yep. That to attract people. If you even have one of those that's really high, the other two don't matter. Right? So, if you have something that's extremely novel, like the Hamilton tickets, people are willing to pay for it. It doesn't have to be extremely generous, and it doesn't matter who's in the room. Right? Now, it'll the tendency is it'll up the curation, but it's not a guarantee. Something like Davos, the talks, you can just watch them online, right? People are fundamentally paying for who's in the room. And so you can absolutely charge. But I think the question is, what are you trying to accomplish? Are you looking for a business? Are you looking for something that really impacts the quality of your life? Not that you can't do both, but just much harder. And so for me, what I cared about was impacting the quality of my life, because I can't be bothered in my mind to start selling something. There are organizations that are semi similar that are out there, but none of them have had our longevity. And frankly, I'm the amount that I can make from speaking and consulting dwarfs anything I'd ever be able to charge for the the dinner. Right? Like, how much could I charge people for really bad burritos?

[35:57]Zibby Owens: And, like, there's a limit to these things. So Well, we've hardly talked at all about your writing, and we're, like, almost out of time because I'm, like, so interested in the content of your book. But what advice would you give to aspiring authors? I ask everyone this at the end, so I don't wanna neglect to ask you. I think my I can't speak to other people. I'm also not, like, Hemingway level, right, or any of these. I am very proud to say that I just found out the book's a New York Times bestseller. Oh, yay. Is exciting. Oh, what is today? Wednesday? Yes. The

[36:29]Jon Levy: list came out actually last week, but I haven't even announced it because I've been so busy. I'm so excited for you. Congratulations. Thank you very much. So I think there's two interesting tips. One is I've lost any emotional association to the things I write, in the sense that all I care about is that the reader gets the value that I think is important. And every opinion I have about my own writing is irrelevant. And so, I am willing to rewrite, throw out, kill every darling, you know, whatever it takes, because what's far more important than what I think about my writing is the value that my readers get. And so, that's really the absolute first thing that's important to me. And in fact, when I I'll tell you, when I submitted the first draft of my book, it wasn't even the first draft, was the first half or whatever it was. The book came in at, like, 90,000 words, and the editors said, John, we're gonna have to delay your book release. This is just frankly, it's a bit of a mess. I piled in all extra science that I'd like I geek out about and know, like, people are getting lost in the reading of it. I said, hey. Do me a favor. Give me two weeks. If I can't fix this in two weeks, we'll delay. And they said, okay. And I pulled, I mean, like, twelve hour days editing, cutting, like, just pulling out. I probably pulled out somewhere between twenty and thirty thousand words. To put that in perspective, the great Gatsby is like 35,000. Right? Like it's and just tossed it. Like it's gone. And when I submitted again, they said, we've never seen anything like this, like that kind of turnaround. And I really attribute it to the fact that I'm willing to be ruthless, and I'm willing to outwork everybody. The last thing is, and I think this is my shortcoming, people underestimate this idea of fluency. Shane Snow is a phenomenal author, talks about this in his book, The Storyteller's Edge. But if you do an analysis, there's like, you can take a copy of your text, put it into a, like, level of reading analyzer, and you can find out what grade level your writing is at. Mine is super high, and that's not a good thing. It's actually too high. Mine is somewhere around twelfth grade, which means it alienates a lot of people, because you might be able to understand the words. But that doesn't mean that it's easy for you to consume the information. Shane analyzed his at an eighth grade, which is much better. And he thought, oh, wow, eighth grade, that's kind of like terrible. Maybe I should be using more complex words. And then he put Hemingway in, and Hemingway analyzed at a fourth grade reading level. Wow. And so the problem is that I read a lot of academic stuff. And so I end up sounding too academic, frankly. When you look at really great writers, they have the ability to impart information in a way that's easily consumed. You're not tiring anybody out. It's fun. It's playful. Right? You read like Dan Brown, and you're like, the pages just fly by. And so I think we underestimate the fluency and how important that is if you want people to keep reading.

[39:45]Zibby Owens: Wow. That's awesome. Great advice. I love that. I'm gonna have to go analyze some of my essays or something. It's super easy. It's, cutting base. Wait. Seriously. How do you do that? What's the website called? Is it Oh, just do a search for, like, grade level analyzer or something like that, writing analyzer. Wow. Alright. I'm gonna do that. Look at all these suggestions. Thank you. John, this is such a pleasure. I'm so glad I met you. I'm so fascinated by what you do and how you've done it, and I'm just so glad I read your book and that our paths have crossed. So thanks. And hopefully, I'll get to host you soon, and you'll be hosting people again in person as well. Yes. That would be awesome. Alright. Take care. Thank you. Bye bye.

[40:45]Zibby Owens: and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.