Diana Alt [00:00:04]:
Hey, Diane Alt here, and this is Work Should Feel Good, the podcast where your career growth meets your real life. Each week I share stories, strategies, and mindset shifts to help you build a work life that works for you on your terms. Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Work Should Feel Good, the show where your career growth meets your real life. I'm your host, Diana Ault, and today my guest, Michael Roderick, and I are going to talk about how clarity, curiosity, and real relationships can open doors that maybe you never thought possible. Michael has had a wild career. He's— it's taken him from the classroom to being a Broadway producer, and today he helps entrepreneurs and executives communicate their ideas and build meaningful relationships. He's also the host of the Access to Anyone podcast, which I'm really excited about. I didn't even know he had that podcast when I invited him, but when I was researching the show today, I was like, wait a minute, I, I'm, I'm so smart for inviting Michael on the show.

Diana Alt [00:01:09]:
And I'm just so excited to have him here. I met him at a conference that's actually called the Unconference that our friend Vince Pugliese runs, and he's just the kind of person that y'all need to hear from. So you can think a little bit more creatively about connecting with people. So anyway, Michael, all of that said, welcome to the party. How are you today?

Michael Roderick [00:01:30]:
Yeah, I am fantastic. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Diana Alt [00:01:35]:
Yeah, I'm excited to have you too, because I feel like we are in the age where connection is everything. So it's like, what is the antidote to this AI everywhere nonsense? That's, I mean, it's a meme at this point. People are joking about Em dashes and all your assertions and observations have to be in lists of 3.

Michael Roderick [00:01:57]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:01:59]:
And all these things, which kills me because I'm like, that's a very valid way to write. But still, I love the podcast because it's the antidote for that and all of your topics are the antidote for that. But here's what I need to know before we get into your career story and everything. You have a lot of stuff behind you. So, y'all, I'll narrate it. I'll narrate it a little bit. Michael and I both have ridiculous backgrounds. Like, mine has— mine has Buc-ee's stickers and like a postcard that's a sketch of Jesse Cole from the Savannah Bananas.

Diana Alt [00:02:34]:
You've got Captain America and Silver Surfer and Spider-Man. You are a Marvel guy. What made you a Marvel guy?

Michael Roderick [00:02:41]:
I, from, from a very, very early age, I just, I loved Marvel Comics. And I was always just reading them and reading all the different stories. And I always was just a very, very big fan of that. And behind me, a lot of what you'll see, these are all actually popcorn buckets. They are collectible—

Diana Alt [00:03:06]:
Wow.

Michael Roderick [00:03:06]:
Yeah, popcorn buckets.

Diana Alt [00:03:08]:
You have a Loki popcorn bucket. This is priceless. I love it.

Michael Roderick [00:03:12]:
Yeah, it's insane. It's absolutely insane. The power sword in the back there, That is a, um, that is actually a drink container. It is a 40-ounce drink container.

Diana Alt [00:03:26]:
How did you start collecting Marvel drink containers and popcorn buckets? And you guys, literally, like I always say, you only have to listen to this show, but if you pop over to YouTube and you see this Loki situation, it's pretty great. So Um, yeah, how'd you get into popcorn buckets as the vehicle for your fandom?

Michael Roderick [00:03:48]:
Yeah, so it really started with— I was, you know, I would always go to the opening night of a lot of the Marvel movies, and then, um, and I think it was, um, Spider-Man, um, uh, No Way Home, and I was there for the opening of that and they had the Doctor Strange— they called it a popcorn vessel, and it looked like the Doctor Strange cube that he uses.

Diana Alt [00:04:18]:
Oh, popcorn?

Michael Roderick [00:04:19]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:04:20]:
I don't collect that many things, but I might have bought that. I love Doctor Strange. I grew up like not superhero-y, and it was more DC because I grew up on the Superman movies And the Batman TV show. And then we Incredible Hulked in the '80s too. We did that too. So that was my little Marvel homage. But I have a favorite. Who's your favorite Marvel character or a couple of your favorites?

Michael Roderick [00:04:52]:
100% Spider-Man. Spider-Man's always been my favorite character.

Diana Alt [00:04:56]:
Why do you love him so much?

Michael Roderick [00:04:59]:
I have always been fascinated with the level of complexity of his character. The idea of of a hero in essence really just kind of becoming a hero because they're motivated by guilt. It's like kind of brilliant, right?

Diana Alt [00:05:19]:
Yeah. It's such a different story than the revenge motive that Batman has. So that's a really— I've never thought of it that way. So I am Very much. I like Tony Stark. Like, I like Iron Man, but I like Tony Stark. Um, yes, genius billionaire playboy philanthropist has got to be one of the best lines anyone has ever uttered in a movie. But I've always been really drawn to him because of how freaking imperfect he is.

Diana Alt [00:05:50]:
Like, brilliant, brilliant and imperfect, and well-intentioned but pragmatic, and a little side of ruthless, but—

Michael Roderick [00:05:58]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:05:59]:
I don't think innately he was ruthless. That's, that's what I like about Tony Stark. So, um, well, thanks for sharing. Thanks for having an interesting background, because I always hate when it's like, oh, so glad to have you. Like, can we talk about something that is a little bit off the beaten path? Because we're about, we're about to spend another 40, 50 minutes on actual stuff that can actually help your career. I don't know that Marvel will help your career. Although before we go, um, my best Halloween costume that I ever wore to work was Pepper Potts.

Michael Roderick [00:06:31]:
Oh, nice.

Diana Alt [00:06:33]:
So I went to work, I found out I had not worked at a company for very long. I found out that they actually liked to do Halloween. I didn't have costumes laying around, didn't feel like buying one. So I did Pepper Potts. I can't remember which one it was, but she wore a black, like a really crisp white blazer and a black dress. And I took my work badge, which is just like the white badge, like there's nothing, not even a picture on it. And I got a label maker and I wrote Virginia Potts on it. And the people that got it got it.

Diana Alt [00:07:02]:
And the people that didn't get it didn't get it. So that was my really good—

Michael Roderick [00:07:07]:
I love that.

Diana Alt [00:07:08]:
It was kind of a joke because like my boss that I had, I called him Tony Stark because he was, he wasn't ruthless, but he was like brilliant and a little bit mysterious. throughout the hiring process, and I'd only been there like 6 weeks. So shout out, Afshan, if she— if you hear this, you were my Tony Stark. So, um, you have had a wild career journey.

Michael Roderick [00:07:28]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:07:29]:
And I, I always, I always love when I go and look at the backstory of people because we have all these weird-ass ideas that you— like, it's like we think we're still— like, people have these weird ideas, like we're still in the boomer or even silent generation age where you major in the thing and then you start in the mailroom of the thing and then you become like chief whatever officer over the years if you get there. And you, let's just say, did not do that.

Michael Roderick [00:07:59]:
No.

Diana Alt [00:08:00]:
So you, you, you earlier in your— was your first job out of— was your first big guy job teacher or did you have some stuff before that? Okay. Yeah. So walk us through how you go from teacher through Broadway and now into what you're doing. I wanna hear a little bit of that backstory so people can see that it is possible to do what you're doing.

Michael Roderick [00:08:27]:
Yeah, yeah. So while I was teaching high school, I was teaching at an all-boys local high school in Manhattan. And basically I was getting my master's in educational theater from NYU. So I was studying theatrical techniques and applying theatrical techniques to classroom scenarios.

Diana Alt [00:08:55]:
I love that.

Michael Roderick [00:08:56]:
Yeah, it was an amazing program. It's a fascinating thing where what you do is you take theatrical elements and you apply it to actual school subject matter. So think of, imagine rather than learning vocabulary by just memorizing, you act out a vocabulary word or you do a still image of that word or something of that nature.

Diana Alt [00:09:22]:
That's really cool. That's really cool. And I'm like, I've, I have a little fascination with improv too. Like there's not enough locally for me to regularly do it, but I've done a few classes and I'm freaking terrible. But there's like that thing where you're taking something intellectual and inhabiting your body with it, which a lot of like nerd cerebral kids like I was, Didn't do that. And another thing that comes to mind is I used to work for a nursing education tech company, and one of the colleges that was my company's client had a partnership between the theater department and the nursing school.

Michael Roderick [00:10:01]:
Oh, very cool. I love that.

Diana Alt [00:10:03]:
Because then they could work through simulations. So they would use people out of the theater department, whether they were majors or just took electives or like wandered in and said, I want to help with that. And they would have those people do more robust simulations. So what a cool thing.

Michael Roderick [00:10:19]:
Yeah. Yeah. So it's actually interesting that you bring up the idea of simulations because basically I sort of went on this journey from being a high school English teacher to becoming a Broadway producer in under 2 years. And a lot of people were like, how did that happen so quickly? Sort of how did you sort of move so fast? And because I haven't been following that—

Diana Alt [00:10:47]:
And my audience, I'll tell you what, my audience might not actually know what a Broadway producer does because most people are just thinking of like, they either aren't thinking of it, confusing it with director, or just going like, yeah, that's the person that wrote a check so they can get the Tony. So tell us a little bit about what your job is. that trajectory and then what, what the hell a Broadway producer does, or at least what you did as a Broadway producer.

Michael Roderick [00:11:14]:
Yeah, sure. So, so basically, um, if you are in the early stages of trying to be a Broadway producer, you don't write the checks yourself. You go out and you raise money. So you find people to write the checks, like you find investors to write the checks for the shows, and then after a certain amount of money raised, you get a credit on the show is the way that it works.

Diana Alt [00:11:44]:
Okay.

Michael Roderick [00:11:45]:
So when I was kind of early, early stage in all of this, and I was just sort of trying to go out and raise money, one of the things that I realized was that most of my colleagues were trying to basically negotiate with other producers for credit. So they'd go to a bigger producer and they'd say, hey, I'm gonna raise X amount of dollars for you. And then I want my name above the title, or I wanna be your partner in this particular thing. So for me, I just wanted to get better at raising money because I knew like that was a really important skill.

Diana Alt [00:12:25]:
Yeah, no matter what you're doing.

Michael Roderick [00:12:27]:
Exactly. So I went to producers and I said, listen, I don't care about credit right now. I care about getting better at raising money. So if you're willing to just give me paperwork, I'm happy to go out there and just see if people will invest or get involved in your show. And the interesting thing about that was while many of my colleagues were kind of putting everything into one show and trying to get above the title, I was getting multiple shows and paperwork for multiple shows. So when I went to an investor, or somebody who was, you know, interested, I actually had a portfolio of shows to show them. So it was easier for me to raise, raise money because if somebody didn't want one thing, there was usually a pretty good chance they wanted something else that was part of sort of that, that list.

Diana Alt [00:13:22]:
That is interesting. Mind-boggling. And also makes a lot of sense. Like, who do you work— is that an independent job? Like, did you have Did you work for a production company? Like, what was that?

Michael Roderick [00:13:36]:
Yeah, so the early— so the very earliest portion of it, I was an intern in Ken Davenport's office. And Ken Davenport's now a pretty well-known Broadway producer, but at the time, Ken was still an Off-Broadway producer. And to just give a little bit of education around that, Off-Broadway is basically smaller houses and relatively smaller budgets. And Broadway theaters are physically on Broadway. Like they're in the Broadway box. They're in a certain area of Manhattan and they have a certain size of seating to be qualified as a Broadway theater.

Diana Alt [00:14:19]:
I went there for the first time last— I went there. I went to Broadway last year. Like I'm picturing it. I hadn't been to New York since I was like 19 years old or something. I finally went last year because Leslie Odom Jr.

Michael Roderick [00:14:33]:
Of course.

Diana Alt [00:14:34]:
Was at Hamilton. Did I buy tickets to see Chris Jackson in October too? Yes, I did. So, but I'm picturing that. Yeah, I saw that. I saw that on like the Today Show announced it or whatever. And I'm like, 30 minutes later, I'm like, I don't want to pay 3 times as much. Let's get 'em now. So, so basically you were working, you worked off-Broadway first and then you moved to Broadway.

Diana Alt [00:15:00]:
Is that how it went down?

Michael Roderick [00:15:01]:
Yeah, I started, I raised money on an off-Broadway show, which basically kind of gives you the credibility, right? So people see that you're able to raise money. They see that your name is attached to that particular, that particular show. And once that happens, other Broadway producers will come to you and say, okay, I saw that you can raise money. raise money, do you wanna work on my show? Do you wanna raise money for me?

Diana Alt [00:15:28]:
Got it.

Michael Roderick [00:15:28]:
Now, the interesting thing about all of this is that what they say about Broadway is that you can't make a living, but you can make a killing. And the reason behind that is that if you are the lead producer on something, yes, you're part of the budget. You take an office, you know, you take an office fee, but everybody else below that lead producer is in essence a partner who is raising a certain amount of money, and the only way that they ever make any money is if the show recoups its investment, right? And very few shows ever recoup. So there's lots of it.

Diana Alt [00:16:09]:
So you have to have a good picker. You have to either do it for the love of the, of the hunt, or you have to have a good picker, or preferably both.

Michael Roderick [00:16:19]:
Exactly, exactly. So, so to that point, you know, in the industry there was a lot of individuals who basically they were on their own trajectory, right? Like they're trying to become bigger producers, they're trying to sort of make bigger things happen. And as happens a lot of the time in those, in those types of environments, you'd get people basically being like, Well, these are my investors, so I'm never gonna introduce you to these people because, you know, and it was like a lot of, you know, that type of stuff.

Diana Alt [00:16:51]:
Competition.

Michael Roderick [00:16:52]:
Exactly.

Diana Alt [00:16:53]:
Competition culture.

Michael Roderick [00:16:55]:
Yeah, but for me, I, you know, I was basically like, you know, if you wanna know this producer, if you wanna know this investor, I'm just gonna make the intro between the two of you because it helps the industry overall And I don't really care. Like, if I go further, great. But like, it's not that big of a deal to, at least to me, to beat out this person, right? Or to—

Diana Alt [00:17:22]:
Well, and what's so interesting about it is like, I don't, I don't have like a lot of billionaires in my cell phone, but I do have some people that are pretty damn well off. And the people with the deep pockets know each other. So it's kind of ridiculous to be down here trying to make it and gatekeeping these people that, fun fact, already know each other anyway.

Michael Roderick [00:17:45]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:17:46]:
So it's like, what do you— you're just at that point, it's a dick measuring contest at that point of like, I'm the producer that can— gross. So, but yeah, collaboration over competition. You just decided it didn't matter. So we're going to get into connecting with people a lot because I'm kind of obsessed just with the name of the podcast. And we're going to get into that later. But what did you do after your experience as a Broadway producer? How long did you do that? And then how did that trail into where you're at now?

Michael Roderick [00:18:20]:
Yeah, so I was really in the game, I'd say, between probably like 2008 to 2012, somewhere around there. And I was raising on various projects and introducing people from the industry. I was spending a lot of time sort of connecting people within the industry. And when I had so many people ask me about how I had sort of moved so quickly, I was getting— because I was getting my master's in educational theater, one of the things that we had learned about was the power of simulation. So now if people act out scenarios, a lot of the time they'll do almost exactly what they would do in real life. So I started hosting workshops where I would simulate networking experiences. So I'd actually have people act out things like one-on-one meetings, job interviews, cocktail parties. And I noticed a lot of patterns in terms of how those people interacted.

Michael Roderick [00:19:26]:
And from those patterns, I built a bunch of relationship building frameworks and I started to teach those.

Diana Alt [00:19:33]:
Okay.

Michael Roderick [00:19:34]:
And when I would teach them and like teach these ideas, I would have people who could kind of just skip the line in their, you know, in, in their careers. And it was, it was a thing that started kind of coming up over and over again. And eventually it kind of got to the point where I would have people say like, you taught me something and I remember it even though you taught me it like 3 years ago. How do you do that? Like, how do you package things in that way? How do you make it memorable? Exactly. And that's what led down sort of the rabbit hole of, okay, well, let me actually study referability the same way I had studied networking and really start to think about this even more in the, in the idea of sort of how do ideas get packaged and positioned.

Diana Alt [00:20:24]:
Referability. That is such an important, like, Another pin. I'm writing that down on my little piece of paper because this is a lot of the people— a decent part of my business is actually helping people with job searches. So like, I want work to feel good. So it's like find, grow, develop in work that feels good. Even if that's I'm chucking corporate and I'm gonna go start my own business. Like, I work some with people that are doing that. And referrals come up all the time and people do not understand them.

Diana Alt [00:20:57]:
whatsoever. So I talk about them a little bit differently than some people do. But very cool. So is that— is that— does that take us all the way to now? Is that what you're spending most of your time on, or is helping people understand how to connect with each other and become referable?

Michael Roderick [00:21:16]:
So the interesting thing is, these days, a lot of the work that I end up doing, it's kind of evolved. So these days, a lot of the work I end up doing is with subject matter experts, people who who get paid for their brains.

Diana Alt [00:21:31]:
Okay.

Michael Roderick [00:21:31]:
And for them, this packaging and positioning piece is really, really important. And very often what's happening, at least for the experts, is that they're attracting what I call the aspirational audience. So people who can't really afford them, people who kind of want them to do everything for them. And a lot of the time, the reason for that is that they're not solving a success problem, they're solving a survival problem.

Diana Alt [00:22:07]:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Roderick [00:22:08]:
And a lot of their messaging and their language is geared towards that survival problem. So there's this whole other market, there's all these people who really would respect this person's brain and pay for their expertise if it was just packaged differently and if the problem that they were talking about and solving was one of those success problems. So that's a lot more of the work.

Diana Alt [00:22:35]:
We're just going to go there because we've taken you through and this is really important. So to give you context of— I actually just did a talk about the need to create advocates at a conference like a month ago. Because, um, in my— especially when I'm working with people in corporate that are trying to network, especially if they are in a job search, what ends up happening is everybody talks about referrals. And to the point, like, the, the ridiculousness is such that I, I was in tech for many years. Product management is one of the lanes that I was in, which is like one of the messiest at the center kind of roles you can have because you touch marketing and legal and finance and engineering and all the things. But I'm in a group called Women in Product, which I— it's on Facebook. I love this group. There's a lot of great discussion about how to grow your career, how to optimize your job search.

Diana Alt [00:23:29]:
But you know how Facebook groups can have an— you can post anonymously if the admin lets you do that?

Michael Roderick [00:23:35]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:23:36]:
Literally go into that Facebook group, which has like 37,000 people or something ridiculous. post anonymously and say, I work at— I want to apply for this principal product manager job at Stripe. Who wants to refer me? And it's like, bro, I don't know who you are. Like, why am I going to give you relational capital? Which is—

Michael Roderick [00:24:01]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:24:01]:
There's so much that's exactly the opposite. And so I came up with a frame— I'm still working out the framework, actually.

Michael Roderick [00:24:08]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:24:09]:
But basically to me it is clarity and care. Because it's not just enough to be connected anymore. This is where I'm playing with my framework, but it's like, if you are clear that, and you can make people feel like you care about them instead of you're just a connection on LinkedIn or whatever, then you can more quickly build advocates. And so if you are low on both of those matrixes, You're invisible. If you're clear, but nobody feels like you care about them, you're basically annoying. If you are not clear, but people feel like you care about them, you're confusing. And then if you're high on both, you're the obvious choice for whatever the hell it is that you're trying to do. So that's my little model I've been playing with for a little while.

Diana Alt [00:24:57]:
Yeah.

Michael Roderick [00:24:58]:
Yeah. No, I really love that. And I think that, you know, what I'll, what I'll sort of add to, to that is I often say that ambiguity is kryptonite to a connector. Oh my God. So if, if somebody's really good at connecting, right, and supporting you, their brain is, is really focused around specificity. And I've, I've had conversations with folks where they're like, oh, well, I want to talk to anyone who does this or anybody who's ever done that. And I always tell them, I don't know any anybodies. I only know somebody.

Diana Alt [00:25:33]:
Yes.

Michael Roderick [00:25:34]:
You have to give me a hyper-specific example. Otherwise I'm going to have trouble.

Diana Alt [00:25:41]:
I love that because the, the like job search equivalent, when you hear people that are like, I'll take anything, which I feel bad. Like when you're in the, when you feel like you're on the ropes and you're like, am I going to be able to keep eating and living indoors? Like that is a real thing. But like, I've never yet seen a job posting that had the title as anything. So you're talking about the people equivalent of that. And the specificity is so interesting because I, I know that, I mean, we know some people that are amazing connectors, like Vince is wonderful. You have figured out, do you have a book?

Michael Roderick [00:26:17]:
I am working on one.

Diana Alt [00:26:18]:
OK, well, you'll have to come back whenever you get the book done. But the specificity is so interesting because I'm a pretty good connector. And just this morning, I got an email yesterday, actually, from a guy I've known from an online community. I've met him a few times in person. And he just retired from the Navy where he was a CO. And, you know, he's like applying for a job in, you know, in civilian life.

Michael Roderick [00:26:45]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:26:45]:
And he said, here's what's going on. And I don't know how to make, you know, I don't really know how to make my Navy stuff speak to this person, but, you know, any help you can give me is appreciated. And I immediately go, Huh, he's in San Diego. I have a friend that was a retired Air Force officer that has been in the private sector for about 10 or 15 years. I can introduce these people. 5 minutes later, I have permission to introduce. That's how our brains work. 'Cause it's not just like, oh, it's a dude in San Diego.

Diana Alt [00:27:13]:
It's like, oh, officer.

Michael Roderick [00:27:15]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:27:16]:
Retired, transitioned, technical. Here we go, so.

Michael Roderick [00:27:22]:
Exactly.

Diana Alt [00:27:22]:
Really good. Great point.

Michael Roderick [00:27:24]:
And I think the, I think the other thing too that is really important if you are wanting to make introductions or you want to, if you do wanna connect people, is asking really good questions about what somebody else is actually looking for. And I've had a lot of conversations in the past where somebody is, you know, they are selling a particular type of service and that service is at a certain price point. And I'll basically— and sometimes you'll get people who are like, well, I don't wanna say my prices, and they get kind of cagey. And I'll basically say, okay, so no worries if you don't wanna talk about pricing, but if I were to connect you with someone, what is the range we're talking about so it doesn't waste your time?

Diana Alt [00:28:12]:
Right.

Michael Roderick [00:28:12]:
You know, if you give me some idea, then I know, okay, this person is at that level. They, you know, they have invested at that, you know, at that stage before. Or no, they, you know, no, they haven't. So I think like that aspect of my belief is that you can help anyone if you ask enough questions. If you just like keep kind of digging, you're gonna figure out what's gonna be supportive to that person.

Diana Alt [00:28:38]:
Yes. And it's so easy. It's so easy to practice this too, because you're, you're talking in context of like, oh, you know, someone's a business owner and they have consulting package that's $50,000 and you need to find the people that would drop $50K on the new brand strategy or whatever. But also, like, if you just want to go find like a place where adults can do, do tap dancing— if you say, I need a hobby, if a person is in front of you saying, I need a hobby, and you just say, hmm, hobbies sound good, like, I, I have a hobby. No, what kind of hobby? Do you want a physical hobby?

Michael Roderick [00:29:17]:
Exactly.

Diana Alt [00:29:17]:
How far away do you want? How, how much? How involved are you? Are you looking for a free hobby? Are you looking— do you— can you spend a little money? Oh, you used to tap dance when you were a little kid? Like, I'm a, I'm a career coach. I help people figure out what they want to be when they grow up. So it's like, what did you enjoy when you're 8? Oh yeah, when you're 8, do you want to do that again? Yeah, I love that. What a great point. So talk to me about what you mean by referability, because you used that term earlier. I talked about it a little bit differently, but We'll go back to Michael's definition of referability. If you think about someone like me, what would make me a person that would be referable for you?

Michael Roderick [00:30:00]:
Okay. So, in essence, there's kind of, there's 2 things that I think really contribute to someone's referability. You know, there are 3 factors that you have to pay attention to. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to do— I'm going to talk about the conceptual element of this and then I'm going to talk about the practical element.

Diana Alt [00:30:24]:
Please do. I love that. Yeah.

Michael Roderick [00:30:26]:
So the conceptual element of this is what I like to refer to as AIM: accessibility, influence, and memory. Those 3 things—

Diana Alt [00:30:35]:
Accessibility, influence, AIM. Okay. I don't know what I heard. I don't know what I thought you said, but accessibility, influence, and what did you say? Memory. Memory.

Michael Roderick [00:30:49]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:30:50]:
How funny is that? What? What was the M? I did. I really did forget what he said. That was not performance. Sorry, guys.

Michael Roderick [00:30:59]:
That was not a bit.

Diana Alt [00:31:00]:
That was not a bit. I can do a bit with the best of them, but that was not a bit.

Michael Roderick [00:31:05]:
Yeah. I love that. Um, so your first hurdle is always accessibility. If you want to be referable, basically people need to feel like they understand what you're talking about. If anybody ever feels stupid, they're not going to— they're going to shut down.

Diana Alt [00:31:26]:
Don't make people feel dumb, guys. Do not make people feel dumb.

Michael Roderick [00:31:28]:
They're going to shut down. So a lot of the time what we need to do is we need to think about Okay, what is the thing that like most people already get and make sure that we hook whatever our innovation is, whatever our new idea is onto that thing.

Diana Alt [00:31:46]:
Right.

Michael Roderick [00:31:47]:
And the metaphor I often use around this is in the theater world, if we think about the theater world, there's the aspect of if you're a scrappy small theater, and you have a very experimental play in your season and you want to be able to fund that experimental play, a lot of the time what you do is you do Oklahoma because everybody knows Oklahoma. It— you'll get all the old folks in to buy it, right?

Diana Alt [00:32:20]:
Yeah.

Michael Roderick [00:32:20]:
Like, yeah, it always will, will land because everybody already gets it. And then once they're in, they're into your season. There are a lot of people who are like, oh, well, yeah, I'd experiment with You know, your, your new kind of—

Diana Alt [00:32:33]:
I'll go see this, whatever it is, every brilliant thing that nobody understands. But we've all seen the clips of Daniel Radcliffe and Mariska Hargitay, and you're like, I like them. I don't know what this play is, but, but I'll do that.

Michael Roderick [00:32:48]:
Yeah, exactly.

Diana Alt [00:32:48]:
Very cool.

Michael Roderick [00:32:49]:
Oh yeah. So we always need to start with like, am I making sure that whatever I'm starting with is accessible? Like people can already get it. They can already understand it. The second piece is influence. And a lot of us have learned, especially because there's been books written about the idea of influence being, I'm getting you to do something through these like different techniques, right? Like that exists in the world. But true influence is when you do something without me asking you to do it.

Diana Alt [00:33:22]:
Yes.

Michael Roderick [00:33:23]:
Why would you do that? Well, you do it because it makes you look good to the people in your world. So if we want something to be referable, it has to, when shared, make the other person look good.

Diana Alt [00:33:42]:
That is so huge. And I, you know, I talk to people a lot about impressions that they give. I just had a conversation with a client who has like a really good Full-time job she just landed. She really likes it. She wants to do it for the foreseeable future, but she also wants to start kind of like a creative brand on the side that's about helping, helping people live their best life. We'll just leave it at that. I mean, there's more to it, but— and we were talking about social media and she's nervous to be on social media because like us, Jenna, I don't know how old you are, but I'm a Gen Xer and it took me—

Michael Roderick [00:34:17]:
I'm a Gen X. Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:34:18]:
Okay.

Michael Roderick [00:34:19]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:34:19]:
It took me a minute to be willing to be on camera. And I had someone push me really hard and was like, look, no one's gonna watch the first 50 videos you make because it takes a while for it to even get traction. So just get the reps. And I said, you know, right now, like polish is not in.

Michael Roderick [00:34:39]:
Mm-hmm.

Diana Alt [00:34:40]:
The, the, you don't have makeup on, you came, you came in from the gym and you had a thought like that is playing right now, all the people I know that are like YouTube and short-form video experts, because everyone else assumes something polished is AI. So just, just do it. Just get some reps. So yeah.

Michael Roderick [00:34:58]:
Exactly.

Diana Alt [00:34:58]:
And when you do, when you do that, you can take the people that feel like, well, I also just came in from the gym and I also don't feel so great because I worked 9 hours today, but I can meditate for 20 minutes. and calm myself or whatever it is that you're trying to influence people to do. What a great, brilliant example. So I also think of, okay, I'm not a Swiftie, but I am a Kansas City Chiefs fan. So I'm like a Swiftie-in-law. And no, like Taylor Swift never got up and said, everybody needs to bring friendship bracelets to my concerts. Like she didn't do that. People just started doing it, doing it because it seemed cool.

Diana Alt [00:35:40]:
So that's, that's another example of what you're talking about, right?

Michael Roderick [00:35:44]:
Yeah, exactly. It's, it's how you look to other people, right? And it's like, think about if you recommend a TED Talk and people find that TED Talk really useful or really helpful to them, they remember you as the person who introduced them to that TED Talk. Right.

Diana Alt [00:36:06]:
So basically just being a good curator of people, books, information, whatever. It doesn't mean that you have to have a PhD in whatever, but you have to have enough interest to know what's good and then a willingness to be generous and connect. Okay, cool.

Michael Roderick [00:36:22]:
Exactly.

Diana Alt [00:36:23]:
And let's talk memory.

Michael Roderick [00:36:25]:
Yeah. So the, the trick, the tricky part is that most of the time, We could have the best thing in the world, but if it's hard for somebody to actually remember it, then they are significantly less likely to share it, even if our thing is better. They'll always share the thing that's easier to remember.

Diana Alt [00:36:47]:
Yeah.

Michael Roderick [00:36:47]:
And the way that I like to think about this is if you want people to remember more, you focus on less, and that's language, emotion, simplicity, and structure. So I'll start with language. If you have your own name for something, it basically carves a piece of mental real estate in somebody's brain. So if I say venti, there's kind of no question of which brand— Yeah, it's Starbucks. Right, I'm talking about. When we have our own names for things or we use our own terms, what happens is That now sticks in somebody's memory, right? So that's the language piece. The second piece of it is emotion. When we are emotionally aroused, and it doesn't matter whether we're sad, happy, laughing hysterically, whatever it is, if we are feeling something emotionally, our brains become kind of like a sponge and we remember more details.

Michael Roderick [00:37:53]:
And very, very often—

Diana Alt [00:37:54]:
Including when you're mad. Even, even mad. Because sometimes, sometimes the way— like, we all know that the controversial creators that are in our feeds are popping up on our YouTubes where it's like, I'm kind of pissed off after watching this person's stuff, but I'm not pissed off at him or her. Yeah, I'm pissed off at the topic. And now I remember. Okay, cool.

Michael Roderick [00:38:19]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:38:19]:
So exactly.

Michael Roderick [00:38:21]:
So that emotional piece is another memory element. But the, the S, uh, the first S is for simplicity, where our brains can only process so much information at one particular point in time. So if we don't give somebody something that's easy to carry, we say there's 14 steps, nobody remembers the 14 steps, but we say there's 3 steps And for the most part, most people are gonna remember the 3 steps, right?

Diana Alt [00:38:55]:
Yeah.

Michael Roderick [00:38:56]:
And then the final piece is structure, because our brains need order in order to process information. So if we give somebody a structure, if we say this comes first, this comes second, this comes third, or we, we give them some way of putting the content into a box, If you will, people are far more likely to translate that and share it in much the same way that we just kind of went through this. And what you have to remember is AIM and then accessibility, influence, and memory. And if you struggle with all the pieces of memory, you have the structure of LESS to remember language, emotion, simplicity, and structure if you need it.

Diana Alt [00:39:41]:
You just gave a masterclass. in simple communication that, like, simple, clear communication that you can hang on to. Because I think a lot of times I, I work with a lot of people that, I mean, they got master's degrees in engineering and computer science or like an MBA from Columbia, you know, just brainpower galore.

Michael Roderick [00:40:06]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:40:06]:
And the thing that I latched on to, I don't know the first person that I heard say it, I wish I did so I could credit them, but I say all the time, clarity beats cleverness every single time.

Michael Roderick [00:40:20]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [00:40:20]:
Clarity beats cleverness every single time. And so many of us were raised like, especially people that were constantly, um, complimented when they were younger for being smart.

Michael Roderick [00:40:33]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:40:33]:
This was me. We start to put our personal value on being smart instead of just realizing, like, we have value as humans, as blank slates.

Michael Roderick [00:40:45]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:40:46]:
But then we try to be clever. We think we're Hermione Granger. We think it's Leviosa, not Leviosa. And we have to tell people that all the time. Yes, I'm a Harry Potter fan too. And the message gets lost in things. So I love talking to people about what do you want someone to say when you're not in the room? And to me, that's one of the most clarifying questions because no one gives you a paragraph when you ask them that question. But if you ask them what they're great at or what they do or whatever, they'll be like, well, I was, you know, I was born on a farm in the Midwest.

Diana Alt [00:41:28]:
No, I don't— like, great for you. I'm glad for you.

Michael Roderick [00:41:31]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:41:32]:
I'd love to hear that story. But like, that's that's not helpful unless I'm a farmer and I need your help to farm better or whatnot.

Michael Roderick [00:41:40]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:41:41]:
So cool. Yeah.

Michael Roderick [00:41:43]:
So the— so that's the conceptual, and I'm going to turn this right into the practical for you.

Diana Alt [00:41:48]:
Yes.

Michael Roderick [00:41:49]:
Right. So if, if, if whether it's that you're trying to find an opportunity as an entrepreneur yourself or whether it is you're just trying to find an opportunity, I think this particular concept will be helpful from a practical standpoint. So from an accessibility standpoint, most of the time we are taught to pitch. We are taught to basically show somebody or tell somebody what our value is. And we get these elevator pitches of, I help dog owners in Peoria serve da da da da da. And all of these things. And 9 times out of 10, people gloss over and they're not interested because the first hurdle, again, is accessibility. And if you're just telling me about what you have to offer and what you do and what your solution is, you're forgetting about my problem, right?

Diana Alt [00:42:54]:
Right.

Michael Roderick [00:42:55]:
There's no discussion sort of within, within that. So the way that I like to flip this is if you want to make your conversation with somebody accessible, open with a discussion of the problem that you solve.

Diana Alt [00:43:15]:
Yes.

Michael Roderick [00:43:15]:
And give it a name, because if you give it a name— I call this the target problem. Like, most of the time people think target market. And they're like, okay, I'm looking for, you know, women between the ages of 35 and 45 who live in Manhattan or whatever. And instead, you're thinking a target problem. You're saying, okay, if this is an issue, what if I gave it its own name? And suddenly when people heard it, they were like, oh my God, that's— that is me. That's exactly what's—

Diana Alt [00:43:50]:
Yeah.

Michael Roderick [00:43:50]:
what's happening, right?

Diana Alt [00:43:52]:
Yeah, that's really helpful. So, so I'll throw something at you.

Michael Roderick [00:43:56]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:43:57]:
Um, this is, this is workshopping, guys. We did not— I— we did not do— we did, we did not write this sketch out. Like, this is real. So one of the aspects that I do in my business is job search. I said that earlier. And a lot of people in the last few years that have come to me are people that have worked at the same company for 10, 15, 20 years. They didn't— like, LinkedIn was barely a thing the last time that they had to look for a job, and then they get laid off. Like, and I live in Kansas City where Oracle has a big presence.

Diana Alt [00:44:32]:
That's been a lot in the news. So I could simply say something. I give people— I give confidence in the job search to long-term laid off. Like long-term laid off that feel not confident. So that's a starting place I could work from.

Michael Roderick [00:44:51]:
Yes, exactly. Yeah. And what you would do is not even— you wouldn't even start with the aspect of I do this for, for, for this group. You would start from the standpoint of one of the things that I've observed, one of the things that I've seen Is this epidemic of what I'm referring to as long-term laid off. So these are individuals who have spent all of this time in a particular position and suddenly they're in like— they basically feel like once they've been dropped, they're like the new kid in the job search, even though they're towards the advanced portion of their career.

Diana Alt [00:45:33]:
Yeah, they're in the senior part of their career, but they haven't looked since they were 23 years old. Oh, okay. This is really good. So what do you do after the target problem? I'm so glad that all these get recorded because now—

Michael Roderick [00:45:46]:
Yeah. So, so once you've gotten into the target problem, now the person is either going to be like, oh my God, that's exactly what I like, what I've seen, right? Like, that's exactly what I'm going through.

Diana Alt [00:46:00]:
That's me or that's my friend.

Michael Roderick [00:46:02]:
Okay.

Diana Alt [00:46:03]:
Exactly.

Michael Roderick [00:46:04]:
So I often like to say a target problem gets people to raise their hand, and then a target solution gets them to open their wallets, right?

Diana Alt [00:46:12]:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Roderick [00:46:13]:
And basically gets them to buy in in some, in, in some particular way. So if you frame that and then you basically say, and because I've worked with so many who have dealt with this, I've found that the best thing for them to do is this, and you give that thing a name, right?

Diana Alt [00:46:33]:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Roderick [00:46:34]:
So I'll give you an example from my world, right? So 9 times out of 10, when you are a subject matter expert and you're paid for your brain, you have not nailed the target problem. Like, you have not figured out the name for that thing that you want to that you want other people to identify with and sort of understand.

Diana Alt [00:47:04]:
Yeah.

Michael Roderick [00:47:04]:
But the fact of the matter is, you've been taught that attention equals money. So you've been taught that if you just have a big idea and you have a good idea and you're out on social media, like, you're gonna get the opportunity there. But that Activity only equals attention. It's talking about the target problem that gives you inquiry, that gets somebody to say, okay, now you got me. Now I know what's going on. So to answer your question though, inquiry doesn't get them to buy in. What they need is an explanation of the outcome. And it's easy to remember because it's IPO, right?

Diana Alt [00:47:46]:
Yeah.

Michael Roderick [00:47:46]:
Idea, problem, outcome. So when you talk about the outcome, you're able to basically say, I've got a process or I've done this thing or I do this thing that helps folks with this, you know, with this particular process. And this is the outcome that they get. This is the thing that happens for them.

Diana Alt [00:48:07]:
Yeah. And I like the word outcome better too, because so many people, we love to throw around the word transformation. And I'm like, and yes, some things transform, but like sometimes, like I went to the movies last weekend. I went and saw Supergirl. I enjoyed it. Some people don't, but, um, I enjoyed it. I just wanted to like enjoy a Sunday afternoon with my friend. Like my outcome is—

Michael Roderick [00:48:37]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:48:38]:
I had a good Sunday afternoon with my friend watching a movie we were interested in. So when we talk in super lofty terms, sometimes we veer over into trying to be clever. Yes. Like, what's the transformation? Like, transformation— I'm not a butterfly. I'm not like a caterpillar that turned into a butterfly. I'm a person that like felt a little more uplifted because I watched a movie on the big screen that needed to be watched on the big screen. So that is so interesting. Yeah.

Michael Roderick [00:49:13]:
And what you're highlighting there is that that language around transformation is what attracts an aspirational audience and the aspirational buyer, because the aspirational buyer doesn't want to accept that they have any responsibility and they want to see you as the hero that solves everything. So when you use transformation and you say, I'm going to transform you, that person is basically putting all the weight on you to do everything for them. Whereas if you say the outcome is this, but you've got to put in work to have the outcome, it's a completely different thing.

Diana Alt [00:49:49]:
One of the things I say a lot is I'm not an accountability coach. That's just not— that's not my style. There are people that do that very well. And if that's what somebody wants, that's fine. But any time I find myself working with someone who, despite all the questions I might've asked in a sales cycle, really needs like the kick in the ass. It just stretches— it stresses me out. Like, I, I don't want to do that. Um, I want people that want it enough that they're gonna do the work and of course ask me questions, but I'm better.

Michael Roderick [00:50:25]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:50:25]:
Discernment is one of my top gifts. So are you familiar with Working Genius?

Michael Roderick [00:50:31]:
Working G. I feel like I've heard that term.

Diana Alt [00:50:33]:
Patrick Lencioni developed that about 6 or 8 years ago. It's really good. I just, I've been nerding out over it lately because I love a good personality test. But like basically asking the right questions, identifying the problem, discerning like what to tackle next is my gift. But trying to go after people to be like, no, really, you should apply for 5 jobs this week. No, really, you should. I don't, I don't want to have to hold that in my head because that's, yeah. not the right thing.

Diana Alt [00:51:00]:
So, well, thank you for running through those, those frameworks. They're so good. I want to make sure that we get into the framework that actually made me want to have you on the show, though.

Michael Roderick [00:51:10]:
Sure.

Diana Alt [00:51:11]:
And that is because, so, when we were at the Unconference, I must have heard 6 or 8 people say, you've got to hear, I mean, I heard Michael talk about this. And I don't know, I don't remember if you led like a little table talk or if you just were talking to people about this or what, but they're like, this whole scientist, celebrity, magician thing, what is this for? What are these? Talk us through what those are and like how we can identify which we are. And should we be all 3 at some times? Like, give, give it to me because I missed all of it in February.

Michael Roderick [00:51:48]:
Yeah, so, so basically this is a— this is the triple threat, right? And in the theater world, there's the idea of the triple threat being you're an actor, singer, and a dancer. But what a lot of people don't know, unless you've been in the industry, is that the order of those things is actually incredibly important to your success.

Diana Alt [00:52:07]:
Okay.

Michael Roderick [00:52:08]:
So if you are an actor, singer, dancer in that order, that means acting is your top talent. As a singer, you're strong, but not as strong as an actor. And as a dancer, you can move, you know, you can do pretty— you can do pretty well, but you're not going out for 42nd Street anytime soon, right?

Diana Alt [00:52:27]:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Roderick [00:52:27]:
So what actor— what actors will do with their triple threats will be that if, let's say, acting is at the top, you're focusing on film and TV, you're focusing on straight plays, you're focusing on musicals with a really good book, because those are the things that are going to show off your acting talents and get you the traction in your career.

Diana Alt [00:52:49]:
Okay.

Michael Roderick [00:52:50]:
So now that's our accessibility piece, right?

Diana Alt [00:52:55]:
Yep.

Michael Roderick [00:52:55]:
Right, that's the thing. Um, so my concept is a triple threat of thinking talents.

Diana Alt [00:53:05]:
Okay.

Michael Roderick [00:53:06]:
And that is the scientist, the celebrity, and the magician. So if scientist is your top thinking talent, if it's the one that's on the top for you, you're a highly analytical thinker. You love breaking things down. You love doing research. You can spend days just digging into a lot of topics, but you may not be nearly as excited about being outside of the lab. Like, you may actually really enjoy more of like, I want to get into the nitty-gritty versus being out front.

Diana Alt [00:53:40]:
Whereas if celebrity— I did the— I supported the research on the second name on the paper, and thank God no one's asking me to keynote. Right.

Michael Roderick [00:53:49]:
Yes, exactly. Okay, exactly. If celebrity is your top talent, you're highly relational. You love connecting with people. You may also enjoy sort of being out front and, and, and being that sort of center of attention. But you may not have nearly as much enjoyment in the science of it all and all of the nitty-gritty and the details. You're really much more like, I want to hang out with people. I want to do more of the relational stuff, and you're not spending a lot of time being as excited, right, about, about the science of it all.

Michael Roderick [00:54:31]:
And then finally, If Magician is your top thinking talent, then you are 100% wired for novelty. So you have a talent for really kind of seeing the new angles in things. You're an incredibly innovative thinker. You're always coming up with kind of new ideas and new things that blow people's minds. But repetition will kill you, even if it's making you successful. So even if something's working—

Diana Alt [00:55:02]:
Right.

Michael Roderick [00:55:03]:
That search for novelty will kind of pull you off course. Now, where it gets the, the most interesting is when you actually look at it from this triple threat angle. And you say, if I put my triple threat, if I put my thinking talents in order, what is that order? And it starts to help us see, oh, that's the reason I don't like this. That's the reason I do really well with this. That's the reason I enjoy these elements. I don't enjoy those elements.

Diana Alt [00:55:37]:
That is so interesting because, uh, especially as a person that literally has a degree in science, um, I have a, I have a bachelor's degree in chemistry and a master's degree in engineering management. And I used to say that I, and I went to a college that was like 80 plus percent, like science and engineering type majors. And I used to say I was the most right-brained person walking around on that campus. My dad used to say that I majored in extracurricular activities because I was in student government and Greek life and all this kind of stuff. So scientist is my third.

Michael Roderick [00:56:17]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:56:17]:
I love to read, but if I think about writing a long-form piece of content and it's like, oh, I have to go cite something. No. We don't. I don't want to do that. If something comes across my desk and I'm like, oh, I need to do a reaction to that article from Harvard Business Review or BuzzFeed or wherever we're gonna react, I can do that. Um, and I can go down a rabbit hole whenever I'm interested in a problem, but I suspect that I'm— and I like the novelty. The, the Magician thing is interesting too because of all the people that are running around um, resisting content repurposing and like getting out of content in their business because they're like, but I like to create. I like to, I like to create the thing.

Diana Alt [00:57:04]:
So, um, yeah. Is this going to be in your book?

Michael Roderick [00:57:08]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:57:09]:
Are you writing about this in your book? I can't wait.

Michael Roderick [00:57:11]:
Yes, I'm definitely writing. Yeah, I'm definitely writing about this. One of the things that I'm really kind of pulling apart is the fact that I believe we've lost a lot of the rigor in our thinking as a result of all of these technologies, platforms, all of these things that basically make decisions for us to the point where we're not really getting a chance to be very creative in our decision-making anymore. And it's keeping a lot of us stuck.

Diana Alt [00:57:41]:
Yeah, it's, it's very interesting that you bring that up because I've had A number of people on the show, like this is not an AI show, but sometimes it feels like it because I'll have a string of people. But, um, yeah. I talked to a guy named Michael Hirsch recently who is a consultant. He, he was in product leadership at like multiple tech companies and now he's a consultant going into companies to help them use AI strategically. And the whole thing he's trying to get them to do is to make room for the creativity and the thinking and the interacting with the market and actually figuring out what the right problem to solve is. So which are you? Like, if you were ranking your triple threats, which are you?

Michael Roderick [00:58:25]:
Yeah. So I am magician, celebrity, scientist in that order. Okay. Yeah. 'Cause I am 100% wired for novelty. I am always, I hear 99% of what people tell me in black and white and 1% in color. And that's one of the sort of core things that always sort of strikes for me is that everything I do, I always am looking for like, well, what's the other angle? Like, what's the different sort of element? But I'm also highly relational, right? Like, I love meeting people and sort of connecting with people and doing, you know, that work. And the interesting thing is that the scientist side Really shows up in my building of frameworks.

Michael Roderick [00:59:17]:
So I'm able to think very scientifically about, okay, if I were to explain this to somebody, how am I making this simple?

Diana Alt [00:59:25]:
How am I going to teach it? Yeah.

Michael Roderick [00:59:26]:
Exactly. And sort of breaking it down. But I, you know, I very rarely would go and read like a full research paper. I would more likely be like, I want to know Kind of the main principle of that research or a really interesting story within that research, and then just talk about that or tell a story.

Diana Alt [00:59:48]:
I like to— so are you familiar with CliftonStrengths? That's another personality model.

Michael Roderick [00:59:55]:
A little bit.

Diana Alt [00:59:56]:
Yeah. Okay. So CliftonStrengths, like if you hear people saying my top 5 are Input, Learner, Intellection, like it's Gallup owns the methodology, but— and I'm certified as a coach in that. It's not like the main thing that I do, but I find it super interesting because, um, I— Input and Learner and Intellection are my top 3, which is like the overthinker's trifecta. I have an overthinker, Miss Overthinker badge for a reason, because that kind of became— it was a, it was a big, big, big hurdle for me early on when I was full-time in my business.

Michael Roderick [01:00:30]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:00:30]:
But I'm the person that will read the stuff and just kind of like absorb it. And I'm also always the one that can pull it out of the pocket. Like, oh, you want to know this? Well, this is the perfect podcast episode that isn't even, isn't even mine. Like, this is some other podcast I listened to 2 years ago. And so it informs everything that I do, but God help me, I do not want to sit down and go look for the stuff. Because I teach from practical—

Michael Roderick [01:00:57]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:00:57]:
I teach from practical lived experience, plus this weird accumulation of knowledge. So That feels, that feels celebrity magician-y to me, not scientist-y to me. So.

Michael Roderick [01:01:10]:
Yeah. Yeah. No, I would 100% agree. I would 100% agree.

Diana Alt [01:01:15]:
So access to anyone. We went for an hour and we're going to talk for a short period of time on this. And because you have a book, at some point you're coming back. But talk to me about this idea of access to anyone. I know that the principle is you believe You have a co-host for that show, right?

Michael Roderick [01:01:34]:
I did. We ran the show for a very long time and then I took it over for a little while and then I put it on hiatus.

Diana Alt [01:01:43]:
Okay. Well, you should, but it's out there so we can learn from it still. But you have this belief that almost anyone can access almost anyone if they play their cards right. What are the top couple of things to playing your cards right? And what is one of the most like moonshot, I didn't really know if I could get access to this person, but I did, people that you have personally experienced?

Michael Roderick [01:02:14]:
Yeah. So, so I'll start with this point, which is most people think that access is about getting your foot in the door, right? Or, or getting in front of somebody. But all access problems are solved with interest. If I can make you interested, the access takes care of itself.

Diana Alt [01:02:40]:
Hmm.

Michael Roderick [01:02:41]:
So when I understand and know what you're interested in or what would be compelling to you, Which is different than just attention.

Diana Alt [01:02:54]:
That is different than just getting attention.

Michael Roderick [01:02:57]:
Yes, very, very different than getting attention. And the way that I like to think about this is that basically there are 6 currencies that people care about. There's, there's 3 that are very general, and then there's 3 that are a little more deep. So the first set are what I refer to as the TCM index. So that's time, connections, and money. So every single individual has some sensitivity around their time, their connections, or the relationships that they have and the money that they have, you know.

Diana Alt [01:03:35]:
Which is why people say those are the only 3. If you're not doing one of those 3 things in your business, you don't have a business.

Michael Roderick [01:03:41]:
So exactly.

Diana Alt [01:03:42]:
Exactly. Cool.

Michael Roderick [01:03:43]:
So a lot of the time what happens is we make assumptions about which of those 3 matters to the other person. And there are people who, if time is their most important thing, nothing you do around the connection side of things or the money side of things is gonna change their mind if time is at the very top.

Diana Alt [01:04:11]:
for them. Yeah.

Michael Roderick [01:04:12]:
And it's the same thing sort of across, you know, across the board. So when we understand the currency that matters to somebody, it changes the way that we approach them, the things that we do, you know, with them. And different people have different values for these currencies. Now, here are the deeper ones. Now, this is where we get a little more cerebral. The 3 deeper ones. Thanks. The 3 deeper ones are—

Diana Alt [01:04:41]:
I like to think.

Michael Roderick [01:04:43]:
Right, exactly. Like, get the rigor, right? Like, I don't—

Diana Alt [01:04:47]:
I could, I could not hang out with anybody and be fine some days because I like to think about stuff. So what are the 3 deeper ones?

Michael Roderick [01:04:54]:
Yeah, so the 3 deeper ones are mindset, approach, and positioning.

Diana Alt [01:04:59]:
Okay.

Michael Roderick [01:05:00]:
And when we deal with mindset, In many cases, what we're talking about is beliefs. And if somebody can kind of change the— our beliefs around something, for many of us, that's actually a very valuable currency. If somebody ever got you to change a belief, change a way that you saw something in your life, it may have been the most valuable thing to you during that time.

Diana Alt [01:05:29]:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Roderick [01:05:30]:
And in your, you know, in, in your life. So it in and of itself is a currency, but approach is also a currency because if we have been banging our heads against the wall doing something over and over and over again the same way, and somebody comes and introduces to us a new way of doing things, a new approach, That could end up being the most valuable thing in our lives. That could end up being the game changer. That could shift everything. And if you were to say, okay, which currency would I trade to have that understanding, to understand that approach? You may give a lot of money for that. You may give a bunch of time to that.

Diana Alt [01:06:19]:
Yes.

Michael Roderick [01:06:21]:
So then the final piece is positioning, and positioning is how we are perceived by others, how they see us. So that in and of itself is also a currency. So if I, you know, because I've been a Broadway producer, there are certain individuals who want an intro to me more because of the fact that I've been a Broadway producer.

Diana Alt [01:06:47]:
Yes.

Michael Roderick [01:06:48]:
That matters to them more, that positioning is really important, whereas there are other people that positioning does not matter at all. There are people who the positioning of the fact that I was a high school English teacher is actually more compelling and more interesting to them. Right?

Diana Alt [01:07:08]:
Right.

Michael Roderick [01:07:08]:
So we all have these different currencies that we basically— the way I like to think about it is we have a currency that we chase and we have a currency that chases us.

Diana Alt [01:07:19]:
Yes.

Michael Roderick [01:07:20]:
We have a currency that's a problem for us a lot of the time that we just can't quite nail. And then we always have one that's easy for us, where it's like, I just have a ton of this. It's just perfect. And the way that I like to think about it is that if you think about it in that same triple threat order, a lot of the time, whatever lands on the bottom for you that you're chasing, the answer to it is always in the other 2 things.

Diana Alt [01:07:47]:
That's a really interesting point. Um, I love that. And also like, I'm sitting here thinking about what I do, because most people think of, especially when we think of like the job search side of my business, they think it's about money.

Michael Roderick [01:08:03]:
Yep.

Diana Alt [01:08:03]:
Which, I mean, it's not, not about money if people need a job to eat and live indoors, but everybody's at a different financial place. And I work mostly with millennials and Gen X. So a lot of those people have more leeway financially than people earlier in their career. Not everybody, but some. But what I realized is the degree to which my value is in working on the deeper ones.

Michael Roderick [01:08:31]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:08:32]:
That's how I'm— that's kind of how I'm differentiating myself. This is so cool. I feel like I just like had a podcast, but I got coached by Michael for an hour, which I'm not mad about. So, um, so before we, before we go, I'll have one question I ask everybody, but I want to hear who is the most like wild, I did not really think I was going to be able to connect with this person, but I connected and had access to this person.

Michael Roderick [01:09:02]:
So it was, it was years and years ago. Um, and I, and I didn't expect this to happen at all. Um, but I read, um, Purple Cow and I used to teach Purple Cow to my students and I ended up just emailing Seth Godin and he got right back. Yeah. He got right back and I was like, that's just crazy. Right. Um, and then as time progressed, um, I actually ended up meeting so many different friends of his and people that he, you know, that he knew through these different sort of circles that I actually, um, got a chance at, at one point to go and hang out at his office, uh, for, for an afternoon. Um, how cool! In the early, early days of, um, uh, I think it was the Domino Project, which was very, very fun.

Diana Alt [01:10:00]:
Yeah, I, I found him a little later, but my my favorite book the last few years has been Song of Significance. And there's one line in that that's been a game changer. Like it's been a mindset unlock for several of my executive coaching clients because they're like, wait, what? You know? So I'll spoiler alert you on that one later. But my last question before we close is what is the worst piece of career advice you've ever received, Michael?

Michael Roderick [01:10:31]:
It's gonna be very counterintuitive.

Diana Alt [01:10:34]:
I can't wait to hear it.

Michael Roderick [01:10:37]:
It's open the conversation with, how can I help you? And I will tell you—

Diana Alt [01:10:45]:
The worst advice is to open the conversation with, how can I help you? Say more. We need to unpack this because that is counterintuitive for a lot of people.

Michael Roderick [01:10:54]:
Right? It's incredibly counterintuitive. So if I open a conversation with, how can I help you? I don't know you yet. I've already assumed that you need me and that you need help. So I've insulted you in our— in the initial interaction that we have, right?

Diana Alt [01:11:17]:
Yeah.

Michael Roderick [01:11:17]:
And if I don't get to know you and understand you, then I don't know how I can help you. So it's actually the worst thing that I can ask because I put you on the spot. You're trying to figure out how you can, you know, how I can help. It's much better for me to just ask you a bunch of questions and then make a guess as to something that might be helpful and basically say, hey, you know, you were talking about this. I would love to see if I might be able to connect you to this person or I know about this resource or whatever it is. Would that be helpful?

Diana Alt [01:11:54]:
Ah, I love that. I love that so much. Never underestimate the value of even 5 minutes of research about the person that you're walking in. And if you can't do it, then just ask them what's going on. I mean, because when you ask them what's going on, you draw the stuff out. Michael, so great to have you here.

Michael Roderick [01:12:16]:
Thanks.

Diana Alt [01:12:16]:
Michael's— all of his website and socials and all the things so you can get a hold of him. are going to be in the show notes. He's an accessible guy. I met him at a conference, but not for very long, and I DM'd him and said, hey, I want to do a podcast, and here we are. So, thank you so much, and we'll see everybody next time on Work Should Feel Good. Want some more career goodness between episodes? Head on over to dianaalt.com and smash the big green Let's Connect button to sign up for my newsletter. Let's make work feel good together. And that's it for this episode of Work Should Feel Good.

Diana Alt [01:12:58]:
If something made you laugh, think, cry, or just want to yell yes at your phone, send it to a friend, hit follow, hit subscribe, do all the things. And even better, leave a review if you've got a sec. I'm not going to tell you to give it 5 stars. You get to decide if I earned them. Work should feel good. Let's make that your reality.