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people with new ideas whether they have
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neurodiversity or
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not are threatening to the status
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quo right and there's nothing wrong with
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the status quo per se the reason status
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quo exists is because things are kind of
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working right and the people who are the
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most defensive of the status quo are
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people who benefit from the status quo
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so if you come in and say I'm going to
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try something new with good no guarantee
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of success and by the way if we fail
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you're all going to lose your jobs not
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lot of
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takers which is why most people don't
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start businesses most people aren't
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entrepreneurs and nor should they be
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because the chances of failure are
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overwhelming and even if you have the
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desire and you've got a family and kids
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like it's just not worth the risk
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because the chances are in the high 90th
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percentiles that you're going to fail in
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the first three years and so you have
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you have to remember that and so my rule
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has never been to try and convince
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people who don't want to be
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convinced cuz all you're going to do is
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fight I'm right you're wrong and they're
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going to say no I'm right you're wrong
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and you're both right contextual for me
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My Religion for new ideas has been
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something called the law of diffusion of
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Innovations bell curve in every
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population you're going to have a
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standard deviation you're going to have
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high performers you're going to have low
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performers you're going to have an
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average always right what EMT Rogers
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wrote about in the 1950s when he wrote
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about the low of diffusion is that the
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first 2 and a half% of any population
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this one included are going to be your
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big idea people your innovators Steve
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Jobs Richard Branson right the next 12
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and a half% of your population are your
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early adopters these are the people who
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are very comfortable spending time money
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or energy to be a part of something that
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reflects their own beliefs they have a
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pretty good res risk tolerance they
00:01:49
stand in line for 48 hours to see a new
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Star Wars movie where you could just go
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two weeks later and buy a ticket and go
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in for them that's worth it right then
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you have your majority the 68% more
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cynical more practical what's in it for
00:02:01
me will I get my money back am I going
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to get in trouble if everything goes
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wrong right then you have your laggers
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the last 16% the only reason they make
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any change is because you have no choice
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anymore the law of diffusion says that
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mass Market success or mass Market
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acceptance for any idea or product you
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have to achieve between 15 and 18%
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Market penetration and there's a social
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phenomenon that happens called a Tipping
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Point it just goes and the reason is
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very simple it's because the early
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majority will not try something
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something until someone else has tried
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it
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first problem is is that if you ignore
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this you'll always get about 10% of
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people who believe what you believe who
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see what you see right always ah love
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her she gets it oh my God he's an idiot
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he doesn't get it get what but that's
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how we describe it right and that 10% is
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not enough to make the system tip and
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that's where you get
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frustration and so uh What Jeffrey Moore
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wrote about called crossing the chasm is
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how do you get from 10% to 15 to 18% and
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what I learned
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is that the way you talk to early
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adopters is by starting with why talk
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about what you believe not what you do
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talk about why you're doing it not what
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the plan is right talk about the
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dream and what I learned was the more I
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did that the more I found the early
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adopters and they were willing to take
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risks and they were willing to
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experiment I built my entire brand with
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zero marketing budget and no public
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relations and at the time no social
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media right it's because I made a
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decision that I was going to Focus only
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on early adopters and I was going to
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start with why I got really good at
00:03:34
learning how to talk to people at an
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emotional level not a product or fact
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level right eventually the facts and
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product had to Bear out but that's not
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where I started start with
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why um and the system
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tipped and I've done it in companies
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I've done it in
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companies um and so if you want to
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affect change in your company stop
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trying to convince
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people so I'll give you real life
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example in the early days of me
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spreading this message of start with Y I
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was doing consulting because I still
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hadn't figured out like how I wanted to
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spread it and um uh I needed every
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dollar I could get I was living hand to
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fist I mean I had no money in the bank
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account literally like pennies and uh I
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remember a guy called me and he heard
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about me and he said you know I got your
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number from who you know whomever uh
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I've heard you do great work he
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literally said this to me convince me
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why I should hire you now as much as I
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needed his business I got very good at
00:04:31
hearing who's an early adopter and who's
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not convince me I should hire you not an
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early adopter so I literally I said to
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him
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don't don't he goes what I'm like I am
00:04:42
the wrong guy for you right but the
00:04:45
people who called me and said you're
00:04:47
onto something it's not perfect but
00:04:48
you're on to something I said yes to
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them every time even if they paid me
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zero because what ended up happening is
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they let me experiment on their
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businesses I would literally say can I
00:04:57
try something new on your company went
00:04:59
yeah try go
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that's an early adopter
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mentality going back to you find the
00:05:03
early adopters the ones who want to try
00:05:05
it volunteer I'll tell you a real life
00:05:07
example of how it worked inside a
00:05:08
company you'll like this
00:05:10
too a big company they got 100,000
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employees they wanted me to build a
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millennial training program for them
00:05:18
right because of the millennial
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leadership
00:05:24
issues so I said okay but we're going to
00:05:27
do it my way because this is how big
00:05:29
companies do things they spend lots of
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money to hire all the best people to
00:05:33
make the training program and then they
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launch it and they have PowerPoints
00:05:39
Galore saying this is why you need to
00:05:41
take part in this program and people go
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no and they go no it's really good and
00:05:47
then it fails it's good stuff just no
00:05:50
adoption and a lot of resistance I know
00:05:53
this because you can't take new things
00:05:55
and give them to the majority duh so I
00:05:59
said we're going to do it my way and
00:06:00
here's what we're going to do because
00:06:02
early adopters you want small barriers
00:06:04
you don't want to make everything too
00:06:05
easy you want small barriers right so I
00:06:08
said here's what we're going to do I'm
00:06:10
going to teach the first class and I
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don't know what the program is going to
00:06:12
look like we have no program we're going
00:06:14
to teach one class and I'm going to
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teach it and they have to apply we only
00:06:18
have a hundred spaces and they have to
00:06:20
apply to be a part of it and I made them
00:06:21
write essays from across the company we
00:06:24
made the announcement it's going to
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happen you had to we we did an
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application process wasn't easy we read
00:06:30
the actual essays and chose a 100
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people uh we told them that you're going
00:06:35
to have to come to New York for the
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training wherever you are across the
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country you're going to get no extra
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money for it um we said that nobody born
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before the year 1984 was eligible to
00:06:44
come into the room which means all the
00:06:46
senior leaders couldn't come spy on me I
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was the only person born before 84 who
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was in the
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room and it was fantastic and we had
00:06:54
tons of fun and at the end I said look
00:06:56
this program isn't built I need
00:06:57
volunteers to help build it and here's
00:06:59
the conditions I'm going to we can't we
00:07:01
don't have any more money to give you
00:07:02
you still have to do your regular job
00:07:04
it's not it probably won't help you get
00:07:05
promoted it's just that you think this
00:07:07
is important work I had 50 volunteers
00:07:09
from the room who wanted to help build
00:07:10
the program great I let them all go back
00:07:12
to their job they all fly home about two
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weeks
00:07:16
later the sponsor my sponsor at the
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company calls me up furious at me you
00:07:22
screwed me I'm like what happened he
00:07:25
goes I'm getting calls from across the
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country from all of these managers
00:07:28
screaming and yelling at me demand in
00:07:30
why aren't my people invited into this
00:07:32
thing and I leaned in I said that's
00:07:34
called
00:07:35
demand we created demand because all the
00:07:38
early adopters went back and said this
00:07:40
is amazing we need it no marketing no PR
00:07:44
no powerp points and best of all they
00:07:47
were going to build it for
00:07:50
us so that's how you leverage the low of
00:07:52
diffusion when you have new ideas in a
00:07:53
system that's largely resistant to new
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ideas