The Power Bible: In Conversation with Comedian and Author Brendon Lemon

Voiceover Artist 0:00

Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you’ve come to the right place. ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things productivity, here are your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17

Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I’m Ray Sidney-Smith.

Augusto Pinaud 0:23

And I’m Augusto Pinaud.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:24

And welcome to ProductivityCast. Today, we are bringing you a special episode as we are want to do a few times per year we interview people who we think are going to be useful to you out there in your productivity world. And today, we’re going to be talking about a book called The Power Bible by William Beteet III and Brendon Lemon. And we actually have Brendan Lemon with us. So just a little bit about the book. So you have an understanding. I’m just reading here from the Amazon description here. This is a quotation that James all teacher, you know, presents at the beginning of the description, it says, quote, the core of the power Bible is how to light the mastery and confidence in yourself at a deep internal level, and using that confidence outwards, to clearly see the various frames and agendas being used by the people around you, end quote. And so the the description moves on to say, to have power over another one must first have power over one’s self. And so this is a book of teaching you how to really assume that intrapersonal individual and societal control and to do that, as I said, we have Brandon lemon here on the show. Brendon from his website is a comedian from Detroit, where he started performing regularly at a famous comedy castle at the age of 16. Two years later, he was filmed for the documentary funny, which featured Christopher Titus and Mike Green. He moved to Paris in summer 2013 to both write and perform stand up in both French and English. He returned to the US and live between Colorado and Chicago in Illinois, performing and writing plays as well as being featured on a TV show Sex sent me to the ER and the movie. Do you believe he lives between Chicago and Detroit currently, and so welcome to ProductivityCast Brendon.

Brendon Lemon 2:08

Hey, thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:10

It’s such a pleasure to have you join us today. We have a lot to ask you and to discuss about the power Bible. But first, did I miss anything?

Brendon Lemon 2:17

No, you got it? I’m I think I would the Asterix that I would say to update that bio from from my website, I should probably go do it is that I have since moved to New York. But now I’m due to the pandemic in Austin, Texas. It’s about the only place you can do comedy in the United States right now. So I’m doing a lot of outdoor shows.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:35

As a New Yorker. I’m I was raised in New York City. I’m a Brooklynite and but now I live in Pittsburgh. So you’re you’re in my hometown, or we’re in my hometown for a while and now you’re in Austin, another of my favorite cities in the country. Austin’s a really good city.

Brendon Lemon 2:51

It’s really cool. Pittsburgh is great, though. I went to Pittsburgh, and I was like, this is a more functional Detroit. Yes, yes.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:58

It’s like the Midwestern vibe with a bunch of small towns mash together. It’s really remarkable right

Brendon Lemon 3:04

around the rivers dude, it’s great. Very, very cool. I

Augusto Pinaud 3:07

really like that description of functional Detroit.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:13

Alright, so let’s get into the power Bible. Why did you sit down and decide that you’re going to write a book about power? Where did that come from?

Brendon Lemon 3:22

Yeah, this is good. This is a good question. So I it should I should back up and say that it you the book came together. Because my co author and I, William petite, the third met in Chicago doing comedy. And what’s kind of funny about that is that we were not when I first met him, I was like, I can’t stand this guy. And we did not. We did not get along at all. Like all good marriages. We started that way and realized after getting to know each other a little bit more. We actually had a lot in common. And it wasn’t just comedy. It was a lot of our background was really similar. We came from very different places. I grew up in Metro Detroit in the Midwest, from a what start would call a petite bourgeoisie family. He came from a very bourgeoisie family. He was born in Britain, raised in Hong Kong, his dad’s from St. Louis. He’s mixed race. He’s got a very, I mean, Bill has a very and he talks about in the book, very diverse background. I have I have a very, I think white bread American background. But I think that our experiences growing up in my case is shifting sort of post colonial Detroit, in his in a in Hong Kong and all over caused us to reflect a lot on our sort of mutual alienation as like his adolescence, and I know this is really going down the rabbit hole. But that’s a long winded way of me saying that, once I met him, and when we realized what we had in common, we had a common story of trying to figure out who we were related to the world of shifting sands that we kind of grew up on and you And what we began to realize when we talked a lot about it was that we had done a lot of work. We’re both philosophers. He’s a lawyer, I almost went to law school until I was literally talked out of it by everyone in my life. And I literally everybody I talked to, would say that I had, I have a degree in philosophy, which I joke is a degree and asking really good questions like, what’s the meaning of life? And do you have any change, it basically allowed us, I think, to see how we needed to, at a fundamental level growing up, go inside of ourselves and kind of pick apart our feelings and how our feelings created beliefs, and how those beliefs influenced our identity and our person and how we worked our way out in the world. And going through that process, we developed a similar philosophy. And we realized, as we talked about it more and more, we really had something to create. And I think that the power Bible was finally created, because we wanted to produce something, we had something to share. And we wanted to produce a book that we wish we had, when we started this process out. We wanted something that somebody could take, and really try to understand how do I get what I want in life? How do I win conversations that matter? And winning conversations that matter isn’t just tactics that happen in a negotiation, or interpersonally, it also happens inside of yourself, the first conversation you have to win is with yourself. And that’s what we realized, I think was missing from a lot of books that we had read on the subject. And that’s what we wanted to create with our Bible. That’s a very long winded way of answering your question.

Augusto Pinaud 6:36

But that was one of the things that as I progressed in the reading was exciting for me, because I obviously didn’t know what to expect when I begin the book. But one of the things I found when when we talk about power is the power towards daughters and how we’re going to control that. And that is, so what it is. But if you don’t control yourself, if you don’t learn how to do it inside first, then the outside it’s not real. So that was as I begin progress into the book, one of the things that got me into it and got me more interest. And we’ll get to my questions that I have in a bit. Was that part of how you it is in a way more about what you’re? Yeah, it talks about a little bit about the others. But it’s really more about how you are going to use the tools and the framework to apply it yourself. Now. It’s really exciting for

Brendon Lemon 7:32

me. Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. Because I think you know, I mean, there’s I guess there’s two things I want to say there. One is, you know, character matters. And I think that, you know, in the world we live in right now, especially in the last, I would say five to six years, there’s been a real movement towards, you know, just what pragmatically what actions can I take to help me get my goal, and that’s helpful, and those things are important. But, you know, if we live in a world of small wins, we tend to miss the actions that could take you to a big win. And how do I get what I want out of my life is a question that’s deeply internal. And it has to begin with that reflection. So a lot of the feedback we get on the books people go, Yeah, I bought this book, because, you know, I bought Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power. And I saw this book and Amazon, welcome. surprise to me is like, you might you bought 48 Laws of Power, you might want the power Bible, and people start reading it. And they realize, oh, this is not like 48 Laws of Power. I mean, it is and it is and it’s almost like this is the complimentary other side of the conversation that Robert Greene started when he began talking about tactics that you can use to gain power. Ours is like, Yeah, that’s great. You could there’s a ladder you can climb and our book definitely has some of those tactics. But it’s also like, Where does the structure of this ladder even come from? And let’s talk about that something that I’m glad most readers I think are pleasantly surprised to learn. And the second thing I want to say just on this is I’ve been asked a lot in many in you know, different interviews I’ve done for the book, Why did a stand up comedian write this book. And I think it’s fascinating because when you’re on stage, I can see you guys have both laughing at this already. One of the things that I think is fascinating about this is that when you’re in comedian is being in the business of frame control to an audience of people and when you’re onstage character matters. You have to the crowd needs to know that you believe what you’re saying they need to be led with the logical the discursive logos of the message you’re delivering the pathetic or emotional message you’re trying to deliver. That’s how material resonates. And it’s when it lands and when it goes wrong, it goes way wrong. If you’re telling jokes and the audience’s on board, you’re done. Like you’re, they’re gonna turn on you. So it’s actually a really good arena for understanding frame control because you’re testing this out your character who you are in front of an entire roomful of strangers to see whether or not they buy into

Raymond Sidney-Smith 9:52

it. Before we move on. You mentioned frame control and the concept of framing. So can you explain that for listeners who haven’t yet read the book This is maybe the first time they’re being introduced to the power Bible and the book itself. Can you explain that just briefly for folks, so they have an understanding about what you mean by Frame and Frame control?

Brendon Lemon 10:08

Yeah, absolutely. So frame control. The concept of framing comes from the field of neuro linguistic programming, which is sort of a science that I want to say how do I want to say this, it’s like hypnosis is sort of based on this idea or the field of hypnosis. It’s almost like the study of how language interacts with the brain is what Neuro Linguistic Programming is, and hypnosis kind of comes out of that. That’s not to everybody listening is like, why is he talking about hypnosis, but the concept is hypnosis is someone who’s speaking past your pre reflective mind past your neocortex. And speaking directly to your unconscious mind. That’s where frame control occurs, it occurs in your unconscious mind, you can feel frames, you might not even be aware that they’re affecting you, that’s part of the reason we wrote this book is to go look, you’re living in a world of frames. And to explain what a frame is, it’s the context in which the data or information occurs, that gives it meaning. So what is, you know, in the example we use in the book, and I’ll use it again, here is what is a what is a police officer, if I took away all of your cultural frames, a police officer is just a human being who is wearing typically a blue uniform and has a piece of brass on their chest. That’s it, there’s no any authority that they’re invested with our social environmental frames that have been enforced to say that when a police officer starts talking to you, their word has meaning they have the backing of the state behind them, those are all frames, and you know, much like they say, in the matrix, you know, once you kind of learn this, you can understand some frames can be bent and some can be broken. That’s basically what a frame is. But it’s not just I mean, that’s a clear example. But it’s not just that, you know, we can frame each other in conversation in any, in any conversation in which more than one person is engaged, there are a number of frames moving around that conversation, you know, a, just a good one from United States. And this happens to be relevant to me, because I’m, I’m single and dating here in Austin, Texas, is that there’s an assumption in the United States that whenever two people of the opposite sex are speaking, there’s some romantic component. That’s not true in Europe in the same way, that’s not true in in the same way that it is in the United States. And that’s a cultural frame that’s unspoken, but enforced, socially. And so one of the things that people have to do in the United States in order to relieve that subtle tension is to mention early in a conversation, like, oh, I have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or my boyfriend or girlfriend said this thing or that thing, in order to insert that information and change the frame by saying this is not a romantic conversation, I’m just letting you know that right now. That’s what a frame looks like is that there’s a subtext, moving underneath the actual discursive information at the surface of the conversation, you have

Raymond Sidney-Smith 13:00

to apply a declarative statement in the in the environment in order for people to to basically disregard this implied environment underneath at all the implications that kind of sit behind any thing. If you take a photograph, look at any photograph, it’s a frame, it’s something that has experienced and there’s lots of things going on, the person could be smiling, because there’s someone making fun of them behind the camera, man, right? You don’t know those things. And so those the implied components that we look at it, if we take away all those implied components, then we just see what is as opposed what Yeah, b

Brendon Lemon 13:30

Yes, that’s correct. And and, and, you know, if you if you believe philosophers like sadboys, Zack, it’s actually almost impossible to to get out of the idea to see the object in itself, it’s very difficult and you have to, you know, almost, you have to, you have to, you know, your brain does this spontaneously, I just want those listeners to understand this, your brain does this spontaneously. And it’s, it takes more energy for you to step outside and go, Okay, what is really happening here to figure that out. And what we’ve tried to do in the power Bible is give a toolbox that allows the reader to just to use before lots of power as a jumping off point, again, is to go, okay, Robert Greene saw these 48 Laws of Power, but why do they work? And we’ve tried to give the reader a toolbox to understand okay, now I can start seeing the unspoken subtext to why these tactics work socially. And, you know, we spend a lot of time in the power Bible talking about that, and probably half the book. And once you’re able to see these sort of unspoken deeper parts of the matrix, you can begin making choices with a lot more freedom than you had previously. And that that’s the concept of power. That is the concept of power that we want the reader to take away from the power Bible

Raymond Sidney-Smith 14:55

right taking these these involuntary mental processes and making you more aware Have them by bringing them from unconscious involuntary to conscious and voluntary, which is

Brendon Lemon 15:05

because that’s important. That’s exactly right. Yeah, you nail that, right.

Augusto Pinaud 15:08

So those couple of things that are interesting for me, I understood the concept of framing really quick, I was born and raised on a different country, Spanish is my first language, I moved to the United States, when I was 25, to learn English, so so as you said, I got into this country with no frames, I mean, or any I couldn’t speak the language, I couldn’t settle. Let me go to the restroom. Okay, that was not a possibility for me, other than signaling that allows me to analyze things on a different way than the person who has been living on a certain unconscious frame. I mean, give me a lot more clarity when you said, Okay, I’m a comedian, that it’s forced to change into those two frames that the reality frame what people is understanding, as you’re telling the joke, and then for me, because if you don’t speak the language, you can do comedy. And it was really frustrating, you know, to when I moved to this country, and I watch all this comedies, and people laugh around me, and I’m like, Okay. I’m for a person who learned a second language or a third language, the moment you start getting those subtleties, those switches on frames for using the terms of the book, it is, it is really awesome that, okay, now I can really move into this, that’s that that’s an experience for a person who had you know, the ability like you, hey, I started comedy. So, or I went to learn the second language, and all this. But when I was reading one of the big questions that I that came to me often, and maybe because you know, the guy who had a hammer, see nails everywhere, okay, as a coach, I see, okay, how can I help the people who work with me to see this to implement this easier? That was something that I come for a second book or workbook, but I will love for Okay, as you said, you spent a lot of you guys spend a lot of time on the book, explaining the concept now how a normal human being can go and really get into the depths of that implementation, because I think it is not a oh, I’m going to make this change. And it’s done. I think the more you look into it, the deeper it gets, and the more challenging it’s going to get to

Brendon Lemon 17:22

I think there’s two things I want to Yeah, there’s a couple things I want to respond to in that. First of all, which is that you’re exactly right, that I think a lot of you know from for Bill, I think a lot of things that he realized which led us to write the book was his childhood that he moved from Britain, Hong Kong, Euston, Texas, I was Midwest, but I, as an adult moved to France more than one time. And the cultural differences, I think, were really start to mean exactly the way that you’re describing trying to do comedy in another country is like, I mean, it’s, I can’t think it’s like trying, it’s like going to try to swim in water to swim in like jello or something like, it’s a completely different material that you’re trying to the movements might be the same, but like none of the locomotion is where it’s working. So one of the things that you were saying what, you know, how can we take this and sort of apply it to our lives? I think that part of part of it is I think, deconstruction, which is I think nothing new in the in the world of philosophy, but but we have a lot of what we call rituals in the book activities that the reader can do to learn more about themselves to kind of go outside themselves to to ask themselves questions in a way that they maybe haven’t been asked before to them about their own experience. And in the second half of the book, we give a lot of recommendations for sort of tactics that people can use specifically interpersonally. You know, one of the revelations, I think, that we have Bill and I both had that, that we wanted to put in the book was the idea that, most of the time, many of the problems that we think we have in our life are due to large forces that are outside of our control, but in reality, are either interpersonal problems between us and another person, or between us and ourselves. And if we’re able to show that and have a handful of different tactics, like we have in the books, such as labeling, which is very powerful tactic zooming in or zooming out a couple of tactics in terms of frame control, which I can explain, that’s kind of all you need, you really only need a handful of those tactics to overcome most issues that you have, sort of in your life. And the problem is just recognizing the issue. And that’s why a big part of the book is devoted to that part. And the exercises that we suggest in terms of rituals at the end of many of the parts of the book are meant to help expose those, you know, what is the actual problem here? Is there even a problem here? You know, that, I would say that’s, that’s where we go in terms of where the rubber meets the road and helping people

Raymond Sidney-Smith 19:50

is it Giada Mala, the French Moroccan comedian, he has a Netflix special, and he does it in English, you know, coming to the United States. From a you know, French Moroccan, you know, and that language he really does it. He does it so well in, in understanding culture and the context and all of those pieces. It is such a I mean, I’m marveled by the fact that he can do that in another language so that you could go from the United States and go to France and do comedy there especially since culture is different the way in which they perceive comedy and other just it just had to you because that that is just remarkable

Brendon Lemon 20:28

he is he’s hilarious. I gotta mention a couple others to his sugar Sammy, who is a Canadian comedian from Montreal. He’s a trilingual he does shows in English, French and Hindi, because he’s Indian. And is hilarious. The guys are real talent. Also Eddie Izzard, who does comedy now in English, French and German. And the guy I mean, he will do shows in Berlin and do all three languages in the same show. Which is,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 20:53

which does not how bad his Germans not bad. I studied German, so I but but it’s, yeah, it’s not bad. So it’s good. It’s

Brendon Lemon 21:01

my German is terrible. I love German. I love speaking German. I think it’s hilarious to speak German. I actually think it’s a very, I think it’s a very poetic and beautiful language. But if you think if your idea of poetry is like what is like speaking with marbles in your mouth, there’s, like, I think it’s a beautiful language does I know, glows this whole disk avoider. Like it’s a big red building. You nailed it. It’s funny, because, you know, our relationship with Germany and America is fraught by 20th century history. But I didn’t realize how important both philosophically and also culturally, the entire German experience was until I went over to Germany in 2013. And it’s funny because I spent a lot of time in France. I know, this is getting way outside of the point of the ProductivityCast. But I went there. And I remember thinking, I’ve spent so much time in France, Why have I never come over to Germany, it’s clean, everything runs on time, people are really nice. They drink beer at breakfast, like what am I? How did I not know?

Augusto Pinaud 21:55

I have a one more question. Because I, I agree that you have a lot of exercises and, and things for a lot of people, you know, again, you come with it, if you allow me to say this, I do cheat on the sense that you want to be a philosopher, so, so making difficult questions. It’s okay, you know, hey, we make difficult questions and difficult to answer and have beer for breakfast. Okay, but that’s not everybody’s, you know, for a lot of people, those that we call, quote unquote, difficult questions are challenging, and they have not asked them themselves. So from the reader perspective, some of them were challenging and challenging in the sense that for a lot of people reading that question, forgetting about answer, asking themselves the question reading the question was like, I don’t know if I’m comfortable asking that question to myself. So I’m not because of that. And please don’t it’s not the question is, I worked with, with, with clients who have not done those difficult questions have not looked into, you know, those things. So, so those questions aren’t completely out of their comfort zone. So if you were going to make one, what will be the first thing that you will tell people? Okay, if you’re uncomfortable with this, with the with the questions, was the exercise, do this? Is there anything that you will? You know, because I think, and I could be wrong, but I think for for some people, you know, finding that initial question that will let them get their toes wet, okay, it’s going to allow them to grow to their more challenges. There were some of them that were really interesting for me, okay, that I was like, Oh, just I like this question. But tell us, me who loved those kinds of things. That’s probably you based on what you share. But, but I also could see some of those questions on some people as we push this book out there. And I will note is, I will don’t feel comfortable me asking myself that question, even if nobody ever is going to listen to read the answer. So what would you recommend to that person who is reading this to misunderstanding the importance of the frame, but he’s completely out of their comfort zone?

Brendon Lemon 24:14

Let me just see if I can contextualize the question as you just asked it. Maybe you’re like a Gousto, who’s taken a deep dive off of the diving board into the end of the pool that requires you to swim deeply in order to figure out what what is working with you internally. The question might be what what can I do if I do not have the time, energy resources, maybe even courage? And I don’t mean that in a pejorative way to dive into that area of the pool to explore what’s going on in terms of the frames around my unconscious self in the world? That’s a fair question. I think my easiest answer and what I coach people on is, if you’re going to do nothing else, please at least keep a journal of whatever happens to you during your day. I keep a notebook with you. And if you notice something shift, if you go, this was one way. And now it’s another way that I don’t know what happened. That is an opportunity to discover a frame that’s acting in your life. You know, if you find yourself, suddenly I was fine. And now I’m really mad, or I talked to this person. And most of the time we encounter frames with that feeling. I don’t know what happened. I started here. And now I’m here. And I don’t know what happened in the middle of that. The point of this is to try to understand what’s happening in the middle of that. And so if you’re, if you’re thinking, How do I become more productive? How do I, how do I win conversations that matter? It’s to uncover the middle part, the unconscious middle part of that conversation. That is, you know, if you, let me give a specific example. So let’s say you want to raise at work it, you know, and you you keep wanting to approach this conversation with your, your boss, or whoever is controlling your, your, you know, your your pay, you know, or let’s say you’re an entrepreneur, and you want to increase your, whatever your rate is for the work that you do. Trying to understand the frames that are moving around that conversation is critically important. So is it that the value I provide the organization is based on how productive I am? Is it based on the outputs the value of the output? How much of the output I’m getting? Is it? Or is it based on you don’t want me to leave? Because I’m more value you the reason you’re paying me is because you don’t have to solve the problem of my absence. Like there’s there’s a lot of reasons, and this is where the frame control part comes in. That you could you could approach that conversation. It’s not a reasons why that why they’re paying you. I mean, some people and I only learned this after I became a director, I mean, my day job, you know, because unless you’re Dave Chappelle comedy doesn’t really pay bills. My day job is in consulting with companies for sales, I coach sales teams and teach specifically people how to cold call and email and develop conversations that work. But a lot of the reason people will hire a players because they just don’t want them to play for Team B. And I, that may not be too surprising to you guys, or to people who are used to playing at a high level. But that’s the reason you can demand a premium look, you got to pay me a lot of money, or I’m going to go work for a competitor. That’s just the fact. And that’s a different conversation than going my work is worth XYZ to this company. Especially if you approach a conversation quarterly with your boss, and you leave that conversation going, how come I’m still not getting a raise? That is an opportunity to start exploring using the, you know, the notebook method that I’m describing. That’s something everybody can do.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 27:44

So you’re describing interstitial journaling, like what’s the what’s the, okay, great. I’ll put a link to that in the show notes. For folks. Interstitial journaling,

Brendon Lemon 27:51

I think is great is a great way to do it. I specifically keep a tiny notebook on my person where I write down if I notice, okay, something happened. And I’m not sure how I got from point A to point B. That’s something I’ll write about here. All the facts, I mean, that that, just to describe this to the listener, here’s the data. It was this time this day, here’s who I was talking to, here’s what we talked about. And then when I realized something had changed, here’s what changed. Here’s how I felt. That’s the kind of investigation that’s gonna uncover the missing middle frame of this interaction. You know,

Augusto Pinaud 28:24

as a person who began his life in sales and has been on one or two or more sales training. I never got a comedian what happened when I went to the thing years ago, they were serious and boring. Most of them if I may say,

Brendon Lemon 28:40

Yeah, well, that’s the thing is I you know, one of my previous to writing the power Bible, a book that I wrote was called How to cold call like a comedian. I just realized, you know, I did, I did comedy for years in the comedy for 20 years. And at a certain point, you know, comedy, like I said, doesn’t really pay the bills and I had to get a day job and I realized, oh my God, all these lessons from the world of Stand Up translate so powerfully in the world of sales, things that basic lessons that comedians understand people in the world of sales, you know, they’re you’re I’m reading books on sales and have like, the highest acclaim on Amazon and you read the book and you’re like, a comedian who’s been doing comedy for three weeks to tell you this. And yet in the world of sales, it’s like you should do gain rapport and be funny. Like, okay, I guess I should try that.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 29:28

But he is the is the ultimate kind of sales, right? You’re selling people on a situation you’re bringing them into it. So

Brendon Lemon 29:33

Colin Quinn would say you have to sell an audience every 15 seconds. You got to sell them on the next joke every every 15 to 30 seconds in the

Augusto Pinaud 29:41

past live to where I was a sales manager. That’s no different really than when you’re on this on the room selling to the person you have I when I work with people on on that and I coached them I always said you are if you do it good, just by yourself. 30 more seconds. And if you don’t pay attention, you’re out.

Brendon Lemon 29:59

Yeah, I think think that your your success, especially I mean, productivity depends on sort of two, I guess two different concepts. And in my opinion, the first is getting the things that you want. And then second is getting those things done quickly. And I think that the power Bible has sort of things to offer in both realms. The first is, how do I get what we want, we’re going to have to win conversations that matter, some of those are going to be big, and understanding how my role in them is critical to understand how to get that thing that matters. And the second is, how can I convince somebody to want to accept my agenda? How can I how can I get someone to in fact, think that my agenda is their agenda. And frame control is critically important to that point. And if you get good at using some of the tactics we offer, like labeling, or zooming in and zooming out, or pressure flipping, etc, those things can be used very quickly in conversation, to get people to jump on board with your with your agenda, especially if you can get them to think it’s their agenda. And, you know, I mean, I just deal with this right now, at my own job and without digressing is just that, you know, having conversations with superiors, you know, getting people with authority, especially seeing people with authority, which is a good part of the book is devoted to, and getting those people on board with, what you’re doing is going to open a lot of doors really quickly, it’s a lot faster in this world of sales, we say you start at the top of the pyramid, and then you roll down, it’s a lot faster to get to the top of the pyramid to the bottom than it is to go from the bottom of the pyramid to the top. So I would say that, and then just on a, you know, in a more philosophical level, I would say that the you know, Socrates said 2600 years ago, and it hasn’t really changed since that the appreciation of life is the exploration of the questioning. That’s, that’s what makes life worth living. And I think it’s true. And I think that if you’re someone who’s thinking, I just want to know how this book is going to ABCDEFG get me from where I am to where I want to go, sure we got a bunch of tools in the book that are going to be for you, that’ll help do that. But also, there is a whole experience of who you are, that this book will help you uncover. And not only will you get from A to Z faster, doing the things you want to do, but you’re going to actually learn a lot more about yourself and enjoy your life a lot more with some of the things that I think we talked about, and I don’t that’s not me blowing smoke, I think I think it’s true.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 32:29

With that, thank you so much for joining us here on ProductivityCast, Brendon.

Brendon Lemon 32:33

I appreciate you guys having me, honestly, this is great. And I would you know anytime you guys want me want me back we can we can make jokes.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 32:43

I think I think I would like that I really appreciate it your perspective on this book. And the bringing philosophy to something as interesting as how we deal with our inner and outer forces on in the world is just something that I think most people in the personal productivity space, don’t spend enough time understanding. And so we really appreciate your perspective in that regard. And so this has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much. That was Brendan London, who is the co author of the book, The Power Bible by Brendon Lemmon and William petite. The third, while we are at the end of our discussion, the conversation doesn’t stop here. If you have a question or a comment that you’d like to leave for Brendan, feel free to head over to our episode page on productivity cast dotnet there on the podcast website at the bottom of the page, feel free to leave a comment or question and we’ll be happy to read and respond to them there. In order to get to the podcast episode page quickly, just use the three digit episode number. So this is episode 126. If you go to ProductivityCast dotnet, forward slash 126. It’ll take you right over there. And that works for all of the episodes that we’ve put out in the past. Also on each episode page, you’ll find show notes. So if there’s something that we discussed in the podcast, we’ve put links to those items there in the show notes. And we’ve also put together a text transcript that you can both read on the page, just click that Read More link, or you can download it click on the PDF download link below the Read More link and it will download a PDF to your device. If this is your first time with us. Feel free to consider following us through your favorite podcast app, you can subscribe using the instructions from the subscribe tab on ProductivityCast dotnet. And if you’ve enjoyed listening to us for once, or if you’ve been listening for a while, feel free to rate and review us in Apple podcasts stitcher or wherever you can leave podcast reviews. Those ratings and reviews really help us grow our personal productivity listening community. And so thank you for doing that. If you have a topic about personal productivity you’d like us to discuss, feel free to head over to productivity cast dotnet forward slash contact, you can leave a voice recorded message or you can type us a message directly into the contact form. And maybe we’ll feature it on a future episode. I want to express my thanks to acoustic pinout for joining me here on ProductivityCast for this interview, you can learn more about him and his work by visiting ProductivityCast dotnet I’m Ray Sidney-Smith and on behalf of all of us here at ProductivityCast Here’s to your productive life

Voiceover Artist 35:06

And that’s it for this ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things productivity, with your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks.