A few years back, I sat across from a young sales rep after a keynote who told me something I still think about. He said, “I know all the techniques. I’ve read the books. I still don’t know why I’m not closing.” I asked him one question: “What did the last three people you talked to actually say to you?” He couldn’t answer. Not because he wasn’t listening for an answer. Because he wasn’t listening at all. He was performing.
That conversation is the thesis of this entire episode, even though I recorded it years before I ever spoke with Joshua Bandoch, Andrea Waltz, Alan Stein Jr., or J.R. Briggs. Four different fields. Four different careers. One shared discovery: influence is not something you perform for people. It’s something you build through restraint, repetition, and the discipline to stay in the unglamorous fundamentals longer than everyone else is willing to.
About the Voices Behind This Conversation
Before we get into it, it’s worth knowing who’s shaping this conversation.
- Alan Stein Jr. spent years as a performance coach inside the NBA, training some of the game’s most elite athletes. He’s since built a career translating that world of high performance into leadership and business, and is a three-time author.
- Andrea Waltz co-authored Go for No!, a book that has reshaped how thousands of sales professionals think about rejection, replacing the fear of “no” with a framework for using it as fuel.
- J.R. Briggs, author of The Art of Asking Better Questions, brings a background in leadership and pastoral care to the discipline of inquiry, studying what separates a good question from a transformative one.
- Joshua Bandoch wrote How to Get What You Want, a deep dive into the science of persuasion, drawing on behavioral research to explain why influence works the way it does.
Four different careers. Four different lenses. But as you’ll see, their conclusions converge in a way that’s hard to ignore.
Let’s unpack how that shows up, one theme at a time.
The Myth of “Basic”
Alan Stein Jr. spent years around elite basketball performance, and he tells a story about arriving before sunrise to watch one of the greatest players in the game train privately. He expected flash. What he found instead was a grown professional, arguably the best in the world at his craft, drilling moves a middle schooler could execute.
That image should unsettle anyone who thinks they’ve “outgrown” the basics of their profession.
Here’s the pattern I’ve seen in every high performer I’ve studied, on a court or in a boardroom:
- They don’t skip the fundamentals once they’ve achieved success. They protect them.
- They treat repetition as identity, not punishment.
- They separate “familiar” from “mastered,” which most professionals never do.
In business, the fundamentals look like:
- Listening without formulating your next sentence while the other person is still talking
- Asking a question you actually want the answer to, not one designed to move the conversation along
- Following up with intention instead of habit
Try this before your next important conversation: name the one fundamental you’ve quietly stopped taking seriously, and do it once, on purpose, before you walk in. Not as a technique. As a discipline.
Rethinking Rejection
Andrea Waltz has spent her career studying our relationship with the word “no,” and the most striking part of that conversation wasn’t the philosophy. It was the confession underneath it. Even professionals who consider themselves excellent at reading people often give themselves the “no” before anyone else has the chance to say it.
Watch how quietly this happens:
- We soften the ask so a rejection stings less.
- We interpret silence as a verdict instead of a delay.
- We decide someone isn’t interested before we’ve actually asked them anything.
Every one of those moves feels like self-protection. It’s actually self-sabotage, because it removes the other person’s ability to say yes to something they were never offered clearly.
Here’s the exercise worth trying this week: the next time you feel yourself softening an ask “just in case,” stop and ask it plainly instead. Not aggressively. Just honestly. Let the other person give the real answer instead of the one you already assumed for them.
Questions as a Form of Leadership
J.R. Briggs introduces a distinction that has changed how I evaluate every room I walk into: diminishers versus illuminators. Diminishers, often unintentionally, treat people as a means to an end. Illuminators ask questions that make people feel genuinely seen.
The difference isn’t charisma. It’s intention, and it plays out through what Briggs calls levels of questions:
- Level one — simple facts, low risk, appropriate for strangers
- Level two — light thoughts and feelings, appropriate once initial trust exists
- Level three — hopes, fears, and desires, reserved for real relationships
- Level four — the deepest layer of human experience, reserved for a rare few
Most professional relationships get stuck at level one for years out of habit, or jump to level three too fast and create discomfort. The leadership skill isn’t asking deeper questions. It’s reading the room accurately enough to know which level actually belongs there right now.
A quick self-audit: think of your last five meaningful conversations. Which level did you operate at? If the answer is “level one, always,” that’s not caution. That’s a ceiling you built yourself.
Persuasion Isn’t What You Think It Is
Joshua Bandoch dismantles one of the most common myths in business: that persuasion is a performance of confidence and polish. It isn’t. It’s an exercise in restraint.
The most persuasive professionals in any room are usually doing the least talking. Instead, they:
- Ask questions built to surface what the other person actually wants
- Let silence do work instead of filling it
- Resist the urge to “sell” and instead let the other person reveal their own priorities
- Use that information to serve the outcome, not manipulate it
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: the person talking the most in a negotiation is usually giving away the most leverage, not gaining it. Listening isn’t the passive half of a conversation. It’s the strategic half.
Bringing It All Together
Strip away the four different fields these guests come from, and you’re left with one unified argument: influence is not something you display. It’s something you earn through discipline most people are unwilling to sustain.
- Discipline in the fundamentals, long after they stop feeling exciting
- Discipline to let “no” be information instead of identity
- Discipline to ask the question that matches the trust actually in the room
- Discipline to stay quiet long enough to actually hear what’s being offered to you
None of these ideas are complicated. That’s exactly why they get skipped. Complexity feels impressive. Discipline feels boring. But boring, practiced consistently, is what separates the professionals people remember from the ones they forget.
I built my career on the belief that the 1st 5 minutes of any conversation determine everything that follows, and every guest in this episode confirmed that belief from a completely different angle. That’s not a coincidence. That’s evidence.
Action Items
Put these into practice before your next important conversation:
- Audit your fundamentals. Identify one basic skill (listening, question-asking, follow-up) you’ve stopped taking seriously, and practice it deliberately in your very next interaction.
- Catch your self-inflicted “no.” Before your next ask, notice if you’re softening it out of fear of rejection. Ask plainly instead, and let the other person give the real answer.
- Match the question to the trust level. Before a key conversation, decide in advance: is this a level one, two, three, or four relationship? Ask accordingly.
- Run a conversation audit. Reflect on your last five meaningful conversations. Were you stuck at level one? If so, identify one relationship ready for a deeper question.
- Practice strategic silence. In your next negotiation or sales conversation, ask one open-ended question and then say nothing. Let the other person fill the space.
- Lead with intellectual humility. In your next team meeting, invite feedback on a difficult situation before offering your own solution.
Want This Framework in Your Back Pocket?
Want all four frameworks in one place, ready to reference before your next big conversation? I put together a free companion cheat sheet that breaks down each guest’s core concept, a real “elite move” you can apply immediately, and even the research behind why “Look At You, Not Look At Me” actually works. It’s the fastest way to put everything from this conversation into practice without having to take notes.