677: Erin McGoff - How to Communicate at Work, Negotiate Your Salary, Write Cold Emails, Overcome Rejection, Run Better Meetings, and Build a Career That Matters

Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningliter.com for sure notes of this and

all podcast episodes. Go to learningliter.com. Now onto the night's featured leader, Aaron McGolf is the youngest of six kids, which means she learned early that if you want to be heard at the dinner table you'd better be quick and funny. Her parents are writers who told her to make a dent in the universe. So in an order executive told that then 23-year-old Aaron to be more realistic about her ambitions, Aaron responded

by getting international distribution for her documentary. Then while stuck in a tiny Brooklyn apartment during COVID, Aaron cropped up her phone on a window AC unit made a

TikTok video about job interviews and woke up to 20 million views. Today she's got millions

of followers from all over the world and is the best selling author of a new book called the Secret Language of Work. During our conversation we discussed how to best answer the question. So tell me about yourself. Then how to properly ask for and earn a raise. How

“to create a great five-year plan and more importantly why you should do it even though”

the world is really unbreakable. And then Aaron gave an incredible answer to the champagne question. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Aaron McAll. This episode is brought to you by Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional

services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you want to

learn more about the CEO, Bert Bean and Chief Revenue Officer Sam Kaufman check out episode four 24, we had a fantastic conversation talking about my partnership with the great people at Insight Global. If you need a higher one person, hire a team of people or transform your business through talent or technical services. Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Hiring can be tough, but hiring the

right person can be magic. Visit InsightGlobal.com/learningleader today to learn more that's InsightGlobal.com/learningleader. So I love reading the acknowledgment sections of books and yours did not disappoint. You write about your parents. Fellow writers, Chris and Claire, encouraging you to go out and dent the universe and that your dad also said you were born a leader. Keep telling me more about Chris and Claire when it was like having them as your

parents growing up. Oh, I'd be happy to. Yeah, it was great. I'm the youngest of six kids. So, yeah, it was a great upbringing. My dad is a business owner. He's born and raised in Scranton Pennsylvania, the son of a funeral home director. My mom was raised in the Texas Panhandle, the daughter of a single mom public school teacher. So they come from very humble backgrounds. But I watched them like that. I was growing up. They're life happened. We moved to DC. My dad started a consulting firm. He worked at IBM right at a college. Yeah. He's a very like charismatic and inspiring person. For sure. I actually have one of his books behind me here. And my mom's collection of poetry.

“Yeah, he's lots of phrases. And I think that the universe is actually taken from Steve Jobs originally. But I've always loved this idea of like go out and dent the universe.”

They didn't put a lot of pressure on me to necessarily like get perfect grades. They're going to Harvard or kind of check these boxes. But they more wanted me to just go out and use my privilege in this beautiful upbringing that I had to go make the world a better place. So, I definitely feel like I had a lot of privilege growing up with parents who really inspired me to have this intrinsic motivation. And I hope that I can replicate that for my future family. What about your siblings being the youngest of six? I mean, you know, we have five and our youngest

is just she acts way older than she is. She gets after it. She's the most aggressive on the soccer field. All that was alike for you having to like get attention. Probably when your parents are tired after having five before you. I mean, what was that like? Wait, you have five kids yourself.

“Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. Oh wow. Yeah. I'm a classic youngest child. That's why I can speak”

very, very quickly is because you have to be quick to get in your thoughts at the dinner table. Yeah. I was spoken down to my entire childhood because, you know, you're the youngest. You're the most naive in the family and you get a lot of unsolicited advice and feedback. So that's kind of why I think I love giving advice is because I was given advice my whole life and you don't get to make your own mistakes. Because everybody tells you, well, don't do this to that. Which is a good and a bad thing. I think

people need to learn how to make their own mistakes. But I'm very grateful. My older siblings are all mentors to me in different ways and I very, very much credit them for helping me with my success.

Well, I have six kids. Absolutely not. But I don't know how they did it. But yeah, I love being

part of a big family. So that's cool to hear that. What do they think of you now? 30 under 30. Absolutely crushing it, going to Davos. You know, you're making it happen in real time. What are your siblings and your parents think of you now? Oh, well, there's my parents and then there's my siblings. My parents are classic. I'm proud of you. You're crushing it. You know, my siblings

“soul job, I think in life is to keep me as grounded as possible. Keep you humble. That's right.”

Right. That's what siblings are best for, right? They roast me. They beat me down and it's great because it's all in, in good fun. We all, you know, roast each other. We're also really supportive of each other. My other siblings all do their own thing. Everybody kind of has their own company. Or they do their own independent thing. We're all very entrepreneurial. So I'll call my brother and I'll be like, hey, I just got this contract or hey, you know, how's an esk forward work?

And it's really cool to be able to collaborate, but also still be like really goofy and silly with each other. When you think about people who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time, one of the commonalities is there who the people that they surround themselves with and it sounds like in your case, just having that core family unit, the ones that keep you humble, the parents who are proud of you who have told you to make a dent in the universe. I love that. I think it's inspiring

to hear. Yeah, definitely. And a sense of humor too. It's huge. I think my success, well, I know

“my success is attributed to my sense of humor. I gave career advice that was funny. And like,”

nobody I'd ever really seen that before. You don't get that unless you're the slightly bullied youngest of six kids in your entire life. So I definitely thank them for giving me a sense of humor. What are the other groups that you said? Thank you too. We said, quote, to anyone who said I was too ambitious or I was too young or I was too green or I just needed to quote be more realistic. Thank you. And you said seriously, spite is a really fantastic motivator for me.

And I got to use that motivation to write a whole book and power people to follow their dreams. It's funny how that works. Can you talk to me more about the fuel spite of the ones who thought maybe you were thinking too big and how you use that fuel to do big impactful things? I think I was a sophomore in college. I paid like 150 bucks, which back then was a lot of

money for me to go to this women and film networking event. And I will never forget it. I came in,

dressed up, prepared. I had a little teaser for this documentary I was working on and I met with this head of a women in film organization. First of all, she was 15 minutes late to her 30 minute window. And then I turned on my iPad and I started to show her the trailer and I was all excited. And I was as energetic young woman in film. And what I was doing is really realistic. I had raised money. I had gotten a grant. Like I was I was an idiot. I had a lot to learn. And about 30 seconds

“into the trailer, she paused it. And she said, "You need to be more realistic." She totally beat me down.”

She was just like, "You need to wait your turn. You need to climb the ladder. You need to do this in 10 years." And looking back, I just see that she was projecting so much insecurity onto me. Unfortunately, I'm pretty actually good at dealing with rejection and disappointment. Like I said, I'm a commander's fan. So that was ingrained in me myself. It was a good last year, though. Jaden Daniels. I mean, you got a few good Dan Quinn's awesome. Don't even get me started.

He's a lesser than show. I've talked to him about it. So I'm a big Dan Quinn fan. Are you into it? You got it? Oh yeah. We just had so many injuries this year. Sorry for the sight tense. But you told me beforehand that your football fan and commander, so we had to go there at least a little bit. It's taught me to be very resilient. I should say. And I know that I said spite is a big motivator. I'm actually not a very spiteful person. I'm not a very grudgeful person. But when somebody tells

me I can't do something that I know I can do. I think that youngest child then comes out in me. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to make you regret saying that. And so I did. I went on like, I got to put it to your fellowship. I flew to the other side of the world. I hired a crew, I raised up this money. I got the film done and premiered a featured documentary film when I was 23 years old. That got international distribution. And so I don't know if she knows that.

But I love that she said that to me because it set me off on this trajectory to just prove her

wrong. I always say it's like rejection rage. Like I tell people when you get a rejection in an email,

you've two choices. You can let that either beat you down and say, oh man, tell yourself the story where you're not good enough or you can say, oh, I'm going to show them. And the latter is much more beneficial for your career and for your mental health. One of the things I found to be inspiring that I've learned from this show and then meeting other people who are in powerful positions, and you've been in those rooms quite a bit early in your career is almost everybody,

literally, almost everybody is figuring it out as they go. They have no idea what they're doing.

Nobody knows what they're doing anyway. So I might as well go for the big giant thing. You know,

“that's what I'm inspired by reading your book and reading about your story and you is the fact”

that you get into these rooms. Yes, you know, sometimes you get in there like, wow, well, she's got it figured out. He's got it figured out. But a lot of times you get in those rooms and you say, doesn't really know what they're doing and figuring out as they go, I might as well shoot for the

big thing. Yeah, my podcast is actually called no one knows what they're doing. Yeah, that's always

been my mantra. I was saying, you know, nobody knows what they're doing, no one knows what they're doing, everybody was born the same way. I dumb squishy baby, everything anybody knows they learned because what I see a lot as people walk into rooms and they think, I'm like, I don't know, to be here, everybody here is just a nightly better than me. When really they were just born under different circumstances and had opportunities that you maybe didn't have. And that's why

this secret link to work my book is so important because it's an education that not everybody had equal access to. Everything is figure outable. You can learn anything. I mean, I made a huge career pivot. I think that's one thing that my parents definitely instilled in me was just like, you can do

whatever you want. We're all going to be dead in 200 years for meat sacks on a floating rock.

It's not that deep. If you're willing to work, though, you're not entitled to anything, but it is out there. I feel like that's a big part of the story, too, when it comes with you, Aaron, it is, you can do anything if you're willing to do the work. That's really important. If you're willing to do the work and there's another really important element here, whatever I say, no one knows that they're doing people say, oh, well, a pilot knows how to fly

“a plane or you need to listen to doctors. You need to listen to science. That's not at all what I'm saying.”

Experts know what they're doing. They do. They're experts. It's more of a new zoom out in general life. The sentiment is that nobody's a neatly better than you or a neatly knows more than you. They are experts in their craft and they know how to do the thing, but nobody predicted the pandemic. Nobody knows what's going to happen tomorrow. No one. So it's just about remembering that we're all in the same boat here. My best piece of coronavirus is to get really, really, really good at what

you do. So good. They can't ignore you. This Steve Martin's stuff, right? Not about an agent or any of this stuff just gets so good at the craft of a thing that you're choosing to do. I want to get into some of the tackle things that I learned from reading your book. Okay. I love the world's worst interview question. Okay. The world's worst interview question. Want to want you to tell me why that's the worst question. And also, I'd love for you to tell me how to best answer it because

everyone is still going to get that question. That is. So tell me about yourself. Why is that the worst question? And with that said, how can you best answer it? I hate this question so much. That was my first video to go viral in early 2021. I posted how to answer the worst job interview question.

Every tell me about yourself. I posted it. I went to bed and it woke up and I had like 20 million

views. So I was like, okay, I did something right there. Because it's something everybody struggles with. And it's a terrible question for two reasons. By the way, if you're somebody who hires listening to this, I would encourage you to rephrase this question. But anyway, it's terrible because one, it's lazy. It's just not specific. And two, it's really hard for the interviewer to trunque their entire life story into like 90 seconds. So what I did is that I came up with the template

that anybody can follow. And it's really, really simple. It's just past present future. And you just give one or two sentences, reach category. And then you can tack on maybe a little something fun at the end, a little spice, a little pizzazz. You know, it would be a hobby that you're into. And I'd be happy to give you an example. Please. So I used to use myself as an example, but it's really boring because I don't have a typical career. So now I use L Woods.

From legally blunt lover. I like to pop culture whenever I can like, I'll pull from the office. There are parks and rent because it just makes it a bit more fun. So if I was L Woods, I would say my past is I studied fashion merchandising at UCLA. And I was a president of my sorority delta new. Then I went to Harvard Law and I studied constitutional law. And then the present would be after graduating and passing the bar. I accepted a job as an attorney

for Woods and Associates and absolutely loved my job as a lawyer, prosecuting criminals and advocating

“for my clients with a 95% success rate. And then the future, this is really, really important because”

this is where the interviewers, yours are going to perk up because they're going to say where his person going. And so you want to keep it truthful and honest, but also in line with this role that you're applying for. So I like to say something like looking forward, I'm at a point in my career where I'm ready to lean into a lifelong passion of mine, which is animal rights. So I want to use my skills to advocate for the voiceless, through legal advising. So when I saw this position open up,

which ideally would be a position in animal rights, legal advising, I knew I had to apply.

you can always add something fun at the end. And on the weekends, I like to go on hikes with

my dog or something like that, just to make it a bit more human. Really well done, not surprising, given that I've seen a ton of your short form video. Now, for the leader, the one asking the

“questions, what is a better way to ask that question? I think it's really simple. It's just to read”

the resume real quick before they come in the room and to ask something more specific. So for example, I see you've primarily worked in litigation. What makes you want to come work in apps, you know, a corporation, or for example, I saw you graduated and then went back to school to years later. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Just get a little bit more specific. And the thing is, is that the higher quality, the question, like the questions you're asking,

you're very high quality, the higher quality the answer is going to be. So it's actually just

in the interviewer's best interest to be more specific. So that word, specificity, is like one of my favorite words in the history of the world. Because if you are sending a cold email to somebody and you want to meet with them, the chances of getting a good response dramatically increase if you are specific, specific praise, specific question. Think about the times Aaron that you get

“emails that say, Aaron, I would love to take you out for coffee and pick your brain, right?”

It's disgusting. It's gross. It also, it also is the opposite end of the spectrum to specificity. Or if someone said, Aaron, I watched a specific short form video about how to deal with the question, tell me about yourself. And when you said this thing, it really peaked my curiosity. I would love to talk to you more about that. Or whatever, something more specific about you and your life. What is it like being the youngest of six kids, having parents who are actual writers?

The fact that those questions are more specific and more personal, peak your curiosity and make you want to give better answers or at least interest you more. And so you're more excited and dialed in and that leads to a much better conversation. That isn't just for podcast. That's for life. That's for conversations. That's for interviews for a job, whether you're the leader or the person going for the job. I think these are life skills that you're teaching, not just career skills.

Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, people always say, this isn't good just for careers. This is

good for my personal life, too. And I'm like, yeah, that's her strategic communication. It's careers are a bit more narrow because in your personal life, you can just get away from that person. But in your career, you're going to have to work with people that you don't like. So you have to figure out how to communicate with them. And I loved what you said about cold emails. I've made several videos on how much I hate the phrase, pick your brains. It makes me think of a little

bottom of me. But yeah, if somebody messages me and they say, hey, you know, are you free for a coffee chat? Like, no, I'm not. But hey, I heard you on Ryan's podcast. I really like to say about this specifically, I'm in a similar scenario where I'm a, I go to your old, a mother that is going to get a response because there's that mutuality there. There's a mutual connection. There's a similarity. And they took the time to actually invest. So I completely agree with you there.

Speaking of communication, you write good professional communication is like chess. The obvious

“move isn't always the most advantageous for winning the overall game. You have to know how to play”

and think several steps ahead. What did you mean by that? So a lot of powerful communication actually comes down to emotional regulation and being mature. So oftentimes, I'll post a video with good communication advice for the real world in in reality, not just, you know, an internet sketch that's funny, but something that's actually going to be effective. And people will say, they'll come at, you know, every now and then, why can't I just say what's on my mind? Why do I

just sound like a robot? Why do I just sound like a corporate droid? And it's funny because, you know, if we just act impulsively, like from our id and psychology, you just, you know, say what's on our mind all the time, it doesn't actually get you where you want to go. And so that's why my whole book is about your desired outcome. It's about always keeping in mind what the end goal is. It's check me. So a lot of people, most people just play checkers, it's you said this to me. I'm going to say

this to you. But it's about thinking, what is this relationship? What is my goal at the end of the day? And how is this person fall into my life? And how can I use Mount Sounds as I say in the book, you know, to get what I want? So I always say a good communication is just not checkers. It's about thinking 10 steps ahead. And I don't mean that in a manipulative way, it's more in a regulatory way where it's like, how can I maybe bite my tongue now or phrase something a little bit

kinder so that I don't regret the way that I spoke tomorrow? Yeah, can I pose what is a real life

let's say you want a promotion and you've caught the eye because of your great work from a very

“powerful, important person at your fortune 100 company who's like an SVP or greater.”

That person while they are awesome at their job, they're really good, their leadership role,

they're powerful. They also have a big ego. They are a fan of themselves. And we all can

picture some of these people. So you want a promotion or more money or something like that for them. You want to stay at the company. This person already kind of is into your work because you've crushed it and you do really good work. What are some general kind of ways you would approach a person like that in order to get to check me in order to get to the thing that you want, whether it's promotion raise all of the above? It's a really great scenario. It's also a very

common scenario. Ben there. Yeah, right, you've been there personally. Oh yeah, for sure. I weren't in corporate America for 12 years before doing all this. So there are absolute, the Harvard Business School West Point grad to have it all, the perfect resume, super powerful, very

smart. Also, ego is definitely there. Yeah. Yeah. I personally never been really great at dealing with

ego. That's like half the reason I let the film industry was there was so many people. I was like guys, we're not saving lives here. Every penny needs to dial it back up. But what I'm curious, I'll give my feedback and advice. But I'd be curious also to hear what you would say as somebody who has dealt with this first hand, it sounds like not just one time. So a lot of being a great communicator is actually putting your ego to the side. And it's something people are really hard at doing because

we're trained from a very young age to protect our ego and our reputation and to stand up for ourselves.

“However, in some scenarios, it requires, and I am not saying you should gravel. I mean, you should be”

fake with anybody, but just thinking about this person, not you. And that's what I mean by putting your ego to the side. Just taking a break from thinking about yourself and just thinking about this person and thinking about what their life is like and what their goals are like. So they're a senior VP at this company. They think they're really cool and they're in a position to give you something that you want. If I was a betting person, I would actually bet that they aren't actually

super egotistical. They're probably actually really insecure about where they are in their career and they probably wake up every morning because they don't know what they're doing. And they think, am I, am I at the right company? Should I have what and started my own company out of college? Maybe they've issues with their marriage. Maybe they've issues with their kids. They have

dirty laundry. They're just a person. So I always try to humanize people, give people the benefit

of the doubt. Don't make people wrong, which is really hard to do especially in the same age when people get heated very, very quickly. And just try to humanize them see them as a person and think about what their goals are and how can you align your goals with their goals and try to have that authentic relationship with them. Again, not thinking about yourself, but putting yourself in their shoes and then figuring out how you can align those goals. Yeah, and definitely where

you can appeal to their ego, ask them about themselves and what their goals are and listen.

“Like shut up and listen, I think we do a little bit too much talking sometimes. When we're trying”

to either negotiate or strategize, it can be very beneficial to just embrace the silence and some active listening, but yeah, I love to hear your thoughts. Thank you. I think that's super helpful, by the way. And I agree with all of it. I think one, and this is kind of come about naturally for me, probably with the course of doing 670 of these things, curiosity is an amazing way to show love. Being genuinely curious about a person is to me, again, it becomes more natural.

And I think everybody has a story and there's something I can learn and I'm fascinated by people's stories, but acting in that way actually makes them like you. That's good with a person who has an ego or is insecure all the above. So being curious, as you just said, also, there are probably really good attributes. There are things that that person is probably really, really good at. It doesn't hurt to remind them that you see that. Mmm, I like that. It doesn't hurt.

Yeah. And it's got to be real, though. It cannot be has to be genuine. Got to be genuine. So if they are good at, or whatever the thing, they have to be if they're in that role they probably are. Whatever those things are, again, what's the magic word? Specificity, tell them that you have learned this from them, that you appreciate this about them. It's got to be real. It's got to be genuine. It'll bring you closer. People like other people who

like them. When you tell somebody something nice about themselves, that shows you like them. At least that part about them. They're probably going to like you. So people promote and hire people that they trust and believe in and people that they like. And so there's are some ways

Those have been helpful ways. By the way, they kind of leads to good relationships just in general, like with my wife, I do the same thing. And she's not ego-tistical. She's not any of those things.

“I still try to act the same way. It works. I mean, so I think again, these are like more life skills”

too, but it's being aware, being curious, noticing, and then just saying it. And it seems to help you connect with people. Absolutely. 100% agree. And I think you hit the nail in the head with it has to be genuine and specific. A lot of people ask me, well, Aaron, how do I not make it feel so transactional or like I'm using them? And I'm like, well, don't make it transactional and don't use them. Just be just be genuine. I'm sure you can find one thing about that person that you

truly admire. I mean, they didn't get there for nothing. So yeah, just always try to find like a

yeah, and don't, if anybody's listening this, don't ever give compliments that you don't mean, because people are actually way better at stuffing that stuff out than people realize. Absolutely. 100%. Okay. I love your video on this one, running meetings. So this is a leadership podcast. Leaders run meetings. A lot of meetings are run really, really poorly. Let's wait for everybody to get in here. You know, and it's 407. I noticed you were early to this zoom call,

not surprised knowing you. How can we as leaders run world class meetings, especially let's run meetings. So at least others aren't secretly dreading them using your language. Like, how can we run world class meetings? There are thousands of management books written on meetings and meeting bloat. And just the time that we lose in meetings, especially since the pandemic meeting bloat has gotten really, really bad. And on one hand, not everything has to be efficient. Like, it's okay,

sometimes, have 50 minutes of smart talk with your team. That's fine. I'm not telling people that they shouldn't do that. However, the most loving thing you do for other people is respect their time. And a lot of time is disrespected in meetings across the world in, you know, the country. So

my first tip for running incredible meetings that people look forward to going to and are very,

very productive is to maybe not have the meeting. A lot of meetings are completely unnecessary, or at least the way that they're set up, or the people who are invited, or the way that they're run are really, really inefficient. Some companies have fantastically creative policies, like, no meetings Mondays, or no meetings mornings, or what company is it? It does 25-minute meetings, so there's always, like, fat. There's always buffers on both ends. I think finding these creative

solutions can be really fantastic. Another thing, in addition to just deciding if there has to be a meeting at all, is making sure that the right people are invited to the meeting. There's a lot of different experts who will say, you know, four is the right number, five is, you know, if you go over that, it's, I don't know, you can read different people and decide for yourself, but just make sure that

only crucial people are invited. And then third is to just happen agenda. I mean, when was the last time

you went to a meeting and at the top of the meeting, they said, here are the three things we're

“in a cover today, and here's the goal this meeting. That's what a high-performing people do,”

and they don't just do that in the meeting itself, but they put it in the calendar link, and they put it out line. And it doesn't have to be anything insane, it can just be three bullet points, and then a goal. Here's what we're going to do at the end of this meeting. Don't have brainstorming meetings, have meetings with very tangible goals at the end, state them up front, and make sure that that goal is going to shift by the end, or some other, you know, meeting has been set to achieve

that goal. And one of the just, like, really practical tip for any managers out there, emails, septic lines are very underutilized source for respected people's time and communicating clearly. I really love it. Actually, my doubts company, I think, is where I learned this from. They would put three different tags in the septic lines of their emails. They would put, like, request, informational, or like, it was a command or something. And they were basically three categories of

emails, so you knew in your email inbox exactly what was going to happen. And that would translate to meetings as well, just being really clear about what type of meeting it was, and what the goal was, you will be shocked at how much more you can get accomplished in a much shorter amount of time with just clearly labeling your emails, meetings, and what the goals are. I like that. Okay, I'm going to ask a question about something I terrible at. And I hope you can help me. So

“you could ask this to interview sometimes, where do you see yourself in five years?”

I struggle to do this beyond, like, next week, a more out-downs. Let's do the work in front of me as hard as I can and be as prepared as possible and I'll worry about next week, next week. You know, not always great, but can be effective in the short term. How do you best make a useful

other people might approach them. So I actually don't really believe in making a five-year plan and sticking to it. Maybe that's my type Z personality or whatever I have, but I just think the world is changing way too rapidly to put yourself in a box. However, I may use huge, huge fan of making a five-year plan. And that's because the exercise of thinking about future you actually creates new neuro pathways in your brain that change the way that you think about yourself in your

“life and even what you're going to eat for lunch that day. So I would say a happy life is an”

intentional life. And a lot of people, I dare say the vast majority of people float through life. They kind of take it one day at a time and they act very reactionary. So this happens when I do this, this happens when I do this. The exercise of sitting down and making a five-year plan and thinking about, okay, I'm 25 now, when I'm 30, like what I'm actually 30 years old and my 30th birthday, what do I want to feel like? Like what I want my bank account look like? What kind of card do I

want to be driving? You don't have to stick to it, but just thinking about what do I actually want

in five years? That is such a powerful exercise to just do the actual exercise and then you can

throw it away. Or you can adjust it or you can create five different five-year plans, which is something I recommend, especially for people who are young and don't know which path they're going to take. But thinking about the future is self-care. That's just what I think and discipline a self-care for future you, and especially to highly recommend if you have a boyfriend or a series

“partner or if you want to sit down with them before you get married and do this together because”

your five-year plans might look a really, really different and this might be a very revealing time for you or they might look really, really similar, and they might double down, but it's really, really important to think about your future. What are some of the things on your current five-year plan? Oh, so I'm 30, so I'll be 35 in five years. It's probably a kid in there somewhere, maybe two, we'll see. I am married, I've been with my husband since I was 14, so it's probably about time.

Let's see what else. I don't know, I'm actually really happy with my life right now, so if my life looked like this in five years, I would be really happy with that. I liked my house, I like my dog,

I like my job, so for the first time actually, I think my five-year plan, it doesn't look

that different except for the whole, you know, kids flipping your world upside-down thing that will probably change a lot for me, eventually. I identify with that, too. I did this actually with my team of coaches recently and said, "Hey, okay, what's the dream set up for us? What are we doing? Where are we at?" It was funny, I feel so lucky to get to work with my guys, but one of my teammates scared and soaks, just one of the greatest he goes, "I gotta be real with you, man. I want to be

doing exactly what I'm doing right now. This is the dream." I mean, one that made me feel very good, but I believe him completely, and I thought, "Me too? Me too?" I'm sure there'll be different things,

“so that's why the five-year thing sometimes is hard because if you feel fortunate to be doing”

something very cool that lights you up every day, and you know, like, Ninja Kick out of bed is another one of Garen's bosoms, I'm not excited before the alarm goes off because of what I get to do today. It is a pretty cool spot to be in, but it also maybe there are bigger things that could help me put a bigger dent in the universe to use your dad's language. Maybe that could be part of it too. Do you have those big, put a bigger dent in the universe beyond being a mom and things like that

that you think could be on that list? Oh, yeah, definitely have financial goals, you know, want to be financially free next five years, so that's a big one, and I'm founding a text start up right now, so I want that to be very successful, preferably in the next six months, but, you know, five years, I want it to be helping lots and lots and lots of people and having

transformed the job market. I want to be working on my second or third book. I really like

writing a book after writing short-form content. It posed a particular challenge, you know, writing, but I really liked being able to expand and having space to expand after years of fitting things into 60 seconds. Really, I'd mission driven, so my goal is to help as many people as possible in profound ways and to make money while doing that and to wake up every day and feel really relaxed and happy. Anything that can fit into that is on my five-year plan.

Maybe this is a weird question based on just watching your videos. Do you want to act or be a part of big movies? You do it really well. You usually play both roles. If there are two people in the video, you're both the boss and the employee or whatever. Do you want to do

actor at all. I did work in the film industry, and I do have a little personal goal. I would

love to have a film at Sundance, which is funny. I'm going to Sundance next week. That's always

been like a dream of mine. I'd still like some film industry goals. So actually, what my general goals is to get really rich and then to start my own film production company and then to fund people, I want to fund because so much of the film industry is gatecapped and even more and now with these consolidations happening, there's like five people in Hollywood who can green light your project and they only green light existing director's project. So anyway, I want to be the

person until people yes. And yeah, I mean, I have pitched actually a few series. The past few years have gotten really close to getting them green light, but the film industry is a commitment that you're in, or would you be in them? Yeah, nonfiction though. So they wouldn't be a documentary or say. Structured reality. Yeah. What would that look like? I can't really get into any type of details, but I personally really like unstructured reality or structured reality shows.

“And so I think these kind of like social experiments are really interesting, and I would love”

to executive produce some of those, but the industry is really not on a place now where it's taking any type of creative risks. So it's a dream to be for for the next five year plan. Yeah. I appreciate the transparency of saying, I want to get really rich. So I can do this green light cool projects that I would do as well as others, just being that honest instead of acting like that's not what you're trying to do. I think it's inspiring for people to hear. Oh yeah,

it's like totally fine to say you want to make up about ton of money. I mean, a lot of people are raised with that being discouraged, because especially in like religious communities, like all that scene is greedy. It's absolutely not. It's greedy to make a bunch of money to keep it and do not put it back into the economy or put it into people, which a lot of people do. But my goal is to make a ton of money and then use money, which is power, to give wonderful people

opportunities to then and return and make the world even better. So yeah, those are the types of people we need to make rich. I agree with you. Speaking of that, you have some

“stuff in your book as well as videos about people who want to ask for a raise. What is the best way”

to ask for a raise? Oh, you know, one thing about writing a book is that you write a whole chapter on something and you're like, where do I begin? There's so much I could say, you have a whole TED talk on asking for a raise. My first tip is to fix your mindset before going into it. So a lot of people think, oh, I need to go in and ask for a raise pretty please. That's actually not at all what you're doing. Your job is transactional. You get hired to do a job and you do that job and they pay

you. It's 100% transactional and it's a deal. So they're paying a market value for you to do a job

and you agree to that market value. You said, yep, that sounds good. The problem is that it's

largely subjective, but it's also not. You can find a lot of data to back up what you should be paid. There's never better a better time for pay transparency ever in the history of humanity. So the one thing is, yeah, resetting your mindset and I actually encourage people to not say, can I have a raise? But rather, can I have an adjustment to my compensation? This is no longer an equal partnership when I accepted the salary, I was doing XYZ. Now I'm doing XYZ plus ABC. And so it's unfair now

and we need to adjust this to be equal to be a fair partnership. My phrase most uttered in the book is it's not personal. It's just professional. And sometimes when people when they hear me say that they say, oh, but it is personal, it's your life. It's not what I mean. I mean that it's not an emotional conversation. You're not asking for a raise. You're saying, we have a deal with partnership. We have a transactional partnership and currently you're getting more value out of this than I am and that's

it's just not going to work for me. It's like hiring a wedding vendor and then saying this is my price and you saying, well, I'm going to pay less. It's like, well, that's my price. That's super

I charge. It's just objectives. It doesn't need to be some emotional argument. The second thing

“is you need to have good timing. So going in after a big win, going in with the company is doing”

well, discussing at your performance review. These are all good times. However, it isn't just usually one and done. So whenever you're negotiating something, I guess this is number three, is that you need to know two things. The first thing is your audience. You need to know who you're talking to. For example, in a lot of big companies, your manager can't snap their fingers going to the payroll software and give you a raise. They actually need to go make the case to somebody else and

advocate on your behalf. So they can actually only get your raise if you give them a case to make to somebody else. So it's not about necessarily getting your boss to agree. That's just one half of the equation. You actually have to give them ammo to go negotiate on your behalf. That is

positions. The second thing you need to understand is your leverage, which I talked about a lot in the

book, you will not get a raise if you're about employee. They won't give it to you because they're like, why? We won't need to leave anyway. You need to be so good at your job. And I'm not saying you need to work hard, get their first and stay late. Yeah, I guess that doesn't hurt, but that's not being good at your job. Being good at your job is providing value, a ton of value, being great to work with and doing great work. And so the more leverage that you have, the more valuable you

are to this company, the more valuable they know you'll be to other companies. So the only chip you really have to play is the ability to walk away. And that's your leverage. I can go join another company. That's where the ultimate leverage is in other offer. That's a great way to negotiate.

“So yeah, first remember that it's not personal, it's just professional. And then of course,”

use the right language, of course. And then remember your audience and your leverage. And there's a lot more obviously in the book. I talked through a lot of different scenarios. If your boss is pushing back, you know what to do, but that's kind of the sort of it. Yeah, some of the be so good or they can't ignore you, is that play here, right? Be so good at your job. Also speaking to the other side of this, to the people who have the power to make these changes to give these raises,

when I was fortunate enough to be in leadership positions, you know, I had some studs like the superstars on the team, proactively giving them a raise without them asking for it. Yeah, those people were with me for life. I'm so close. And we haven't worked together in some cases for a long time. But you can do it as a leader. It takes work. You got to go advocate for them and you do it without even telling them. And then you just bring them into your office and say, by the way,

I love you. I appreciate how hard you work for us and for this team. Because of that, I'm giving

you this and you've earned it. And I will always fight to keep getting this for you. And don't just do

it at the time when you give them like once a year, score year or one out of whatever or five out of five. Do it like in a random time of the year when nobody's expecting it. It's just like gift giving, gift giving so powerful if you do it outside of the normal times of gift giving. I think raise giving. So to the other side of that as leaders, think about those people who are so good that they can't be ignored and be proactive, especially if they're the types who it would crush you

if they walk in your office and say, peace, you know, I'm going somewhere else because they gave

“me more money or something. So why not just be proactive, but I think that's what excellent”

leaders do as they're more proactive when it comes to using their power for good. Absolutely. Yeah, it shows the sign of a great, great manager. And also the flip side of that is most people won't have those proactive managers. I just had a guy message me yesterday and he said, I haven't

gotten a raise in four years. And I said, how many times are you asked? And he said, never. So we'll close

them out, so don't get fed. In general, in life, you can't expect anyone else to do anything for you, ever. No one can reach your mind. It's wrong. A company shouldn't go four years without giving somebody raise, but the word should as a prison. And you can't expect anybody to do anything for you. So you have to be the squeaky wheel. You got to make it really crystal clear. What you want, and when you want it, yes, be what you want into existence. I'm curious about you and your career.

So I feel like when you start with these viral videos, you kind of come at it from an outsider's perspective. But now you have this book called The Secret Language of Work, Penguin, Portfolio, right, like one of the best publishers in the world is giving you a big book deal, the books out. And it's crushing. Are you still what had this kind of outsiders view and perspective when it comes or are you more on the inside now because of your notoriety because of all of the awards you've

earned and the great work you've done. How do you manage that? Ryan, it's actually a really good question that no one's ever asked me before. And it's something that I would love to talk about. So there's something called the Knowledge Curse. I don't know if you've ever heard about it. But yeah, it basically describes when you are an expert in something. It's really hard to imagine not being an expert in that thing. And it can be really hard for me to remember what it was like

“to go into an interview with my hands clammy. Actually, I'll never forget that. That's that's”

ingrained in my brain. But other things, it can be hard to remember, you know, what it's like. And so there are a few things that I do. One, I move back to Maryland, like I live in the suburbs now. And I love living in New York, but my friends in New York were all crazy and vicious. They all do the secret language of work. They were anonymly. And so moving back to Maryland in the DC area, I get to experience, I don't know, people just working like normal corporate jobs a bit more.

And that actually is something I'm really grateful for because I get so much insight into like, what's it actually like to work? You know, as a SPP at this government contractor. So that's something that, you know, I try to really talk to people as much in real life as I possibly can. And then also talk to people through dance. And very fortunate to have an incredibly

Carolina, what's it like being a nursing Kentucky? And I just kind of like listen to them and hear their stories about their bosses or their co-workers or their job search. And that really helped me stay grounded because I wake up every morning. I read three business and job market newsletters at minimum. And sometimes the data tells what really different story than people's actual experiences. So I am very grateful for my audience sharing their personal and it

notes with me on a regular basis. I get on calls with people for free. And I just like to listen

to what they're going through. But I like I worked at National Geographic in corporate for the first

two years of building advice at there. And so I'm not a stranger to it. But yeah, it is kind of

“a struggle sometimes or not a struggle. I think I successfully actually navigate that struggle”

of keeping that perspective, I should say. And remembering that it's one thing to give advice and it's another thing to follow it. And it's hard. You know, sometimes I don't even follow the other advice. So it's easier said than done all of it. You're supposed to have all the answers and have it all figured out. And yeah, that's at times. I remember speaking to James Clear about your habits have to be perfect. And he's like, no, but you wrote the book on habits of me,

but like you, right? We have the secret language of work advice with Eric. You're supposed to know

it all. And you're also, you're intelligent one, but you are just another human out there trying to figure it out. You know? Do my best. Just like everybody else winging it every day. It's like, "Oh, along." And yeah, I love this champagne question that I learned from my friend Jason Gainard. And I love to ask it to you. And that is, we're meeting exactly a year from now. And we're popping

“bottles. We're celebrating. I'm curious. It's your life. What are we celebrating?”

Ooh. I think we're celebrating a lot of things. Okay. I think we're celebrating my startup, stupid fish, helping, I don't know, at least 500,000 job seekers. So I'm working on putting it about themselves and find careers they love. That's a little ambitious, but I,

I always love to set my goals really high because I don't care if I fail. I just care if I

try to reach them. And yeah, I maybe signed a second book deal. That would be kind of cool. I already have my second book concept. And it's really good. I'm excited about it. And yeah, I don't know. If those two things happened in my career, I would be extraordinarily happy. I didn't just maintain my work life balance, too. Like if a year from now, I was still feeling this happy and relaxed in my career and fulfilled and getting to help people every day,

and in really meaningful ways, I can't ask for anything more. All right, I'm going to check back a year. All right, I love I'm going to check back. What about you, Ryan? I want to know yours. I want to have my next book, the actual artifact in my hands and be able to turn and look at the pages. That would be, that would be a pop and bottles moment to actually have the artifact of itself. And I'm on the path and it should happen, but it doesn't happen until it does.

“So I think that's like the status right now. I mean, the manuscript is done. So that's the hardest”

part. And so as you know, so I think that would be a big moment because I've done it before, but creatively, I think it's the hardest thing in the world to do is to write a good book and and work with one of the big publishing houses because they work very slowly, at least a lot slower than I would like, you know this. And so, which should be done, but I get it, they have their own stuff, but it should be quicker. So anyway, your book, to focus on that, I think is really well written.

It's fun. Your personality comes out. It's called the secret language of work. Hyper helpful scripts for every situation. Really good subtitle. To, I love that. It's like, it's like hyper helpful scripts for every situation. Really good. I encourage people to get it and read it. Aaron, thank you so much for doing this. And I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, definitely going to follow up with the champagne moment, hopefully within a year.

And we're talking about your startup, your next book, deal, work life balance, all that stuff. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much, Ryan. This is a fantastic interview. It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are sent me a note, Ryan at learningliter.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Aaron McGough, a few takeaways from my notes. Master, the quote,

tell me about yourself answer past present future with an extra personal touch at the end. Don't ramble. Don't apologize. Give them a clear story of who you are and where you are going. And then

Write it down. Where do you want to be? What do you want to be doing? Who do you want to be with?

“If you're married, do it separately first, then compare. Make sure you're building”

toward the same future, very useful exercise, even in a world that is uncertain and chaotic at

times it's useful to map this out. And then when you want to earn something from someone

“powerful, humanize them first, they're also just figuring it out as they go. Think about how you”

can align your goals with theirs. Practice active listening. Be genuinely curious. Ask questions,

listen. Ask follow-ups. Be specific. The word of this conversation is specificity. Make it a conversation not a pitch. Again, be specific. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for

“continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen. This episode”

of the learning leadership with Aaron McAulfe, I think she will help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that and you also go to Spotify, Apple, podcast, subscribe, write review, hopefully rate of five stars by doing all that you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so so much. Talk to you soon. Can we?