Good morning and welcome to the Increase Your Impact Podcast. I'm Justin Sua, episode 1,940. I've had the tremendous

opportunity and privilege to support and work with some of the best athletes and coaches in the

world. Now, what's interesting about this demographic is they are very, they play their cards very close to their vest.

They don't just open up to anybody.

They keep their circles tight.

And it takes a lot to be able to allow them to trust you, to be in a position where they trust you with their thoughts, their fears, their dreams,

what their process is like. And so it takes a lot of time. And over the course of 15 years or so,

working with this demographic, I have learned through trial and error and a lot of times

learn through failure how to connect with this group.

Now, part of it is they don't want me to just shove different tools and tactics down

their throats.

It's not something where I walk up to these guys and say, okay, let me give you principles

on how to be a high performer.

That's not how it works.

It starts off by building relationships so strong

that they can bear the weight of truth. Now that starts with getting to know them, building a relationship,

building a friendship and not trying to accelerate and move faster than the relationship allows, be able to respect their space,

respect their boundaries. And a lot of times it entails being masterful at small talk.

And not necessarily masterful, but being able to be good and effective at small talk.

Now, for some, small talk is annoying. And I'm with you. I'd rather have deep, meaningful conversations than surface-level conversations.

However, there's an acronym, a buddy of mine just shared with me two days ago that I want to share with you.

And as he shared with me this acronym, I thought it was really good because a lot of my best conversations, my entry-level conversations to deeper

...