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Feb. 1st, 2023: Cultivating Meaningful Relationships with Jon Levy

Nik Tarascio

So today I'm coming to you with one of the world's leading experts on how to create and cultivate influence, how to create community and connection. And he's gonna be talking to us about how that relates to ultimately creating fulfillment, what really matters in life. Really excited to have you join us for this one. Welcome to the dream beyond. I'm your host, Nik Tarascio. I'm a CEO, musician, an overall seeker of Truth, inspiration, and simply put, how to live the most fulfilling life possible. Growing up surrounded by extremely wealthy and successful people gave me unique and unfiltered perspectives of those who have seemingly made it through on the dream beyond, we're letting you in on what it really takes to achieve your dreams. What happens when it turns out your destination isn't the promised land, you are expecting how to process the lessons from your past while mapping of course to true fulfillment. Let's get started. Alright, everyone, please welcome John Levy. He's a dear friend. And I wanted to talk quickly about how we connected. And then I'll say a little bit about who this guy is because he's a total Rockstar. First, we connected at an entrepreneur event where someone said to me, if you'd like adventure, you got to meet this guy. And we ended up connecting in a hotel room randomly while he was getting ready, putting on his, you know, putting on his outfit ready to blow everyone's minds, because the guy just looks like a million dollars everywhere he goes, you could tell by that beard trimming is amazing, by the way. Well done. And so yeah, he we got into the idea of adventure and creating kind of these engaging moments, moments of delight, and just messing with people's expectations and creating cool stuff. So I think he and I really connected on that topic. He loves adventure, we ended up I think it was what we had for people that had no idea where they were going, you put them on a train. How did that go? How did you do that?

Jon Levy

So what I did was, I actually sent each person a riddle, with a bouquet of flowers. And the riddle sent them to meet at a specific train station at a time. And then when we boarded, when they saw everybody was there. We all boarded the train, went to the station, right by your airport, and hanger. And then we went to Block Island for a day adventure that you mostly lead from that point on, because I don't really know Block Island. And you took us to like, what was a labyrinth? You took us to some events and food we went bike riding it was just like a beer farm.

Nik Tarascio

We went to the farm. Oh, and I was a Z dog. Yeah, so it was a lot of surprises like that. So John, and I connected in that way of just trying to create really cool experiences for people. And I mean, Johnson interesting guy. As I said, I'll give a little bit of his background before we dive in. behavioral scientists, New York Times best selling author, mostly known for his work in trust, human connection, belonging influence, and really specializes in and I'm reading your bio, by the way, because there's so much stuff you do, and I don't want to blow it really specializes in applying the latest research to transform the way companies approach marketing and sales customer, or consumer engagement and culture. And you work with everybody, right? Like you've got like the Googles InBev. Samsung, like, you mess with all the big guys,

Jon Levy

if there's like a big company out there, I've probably worked with them. And that's really because nowadays, people are having a really tough time connecting with each other. And it's not surprising, right? Where a lot of people are working from home. And in general, since about World War Two, the amount of social organizations and the amount of time we spent socializing is has really reduced dramatically. And so that's where I kind of fit in.

Nik Tarascio

Awesome, well beyond that. I really love your salons and your dinners, which again, the high level of that is John invites a bunch of incredible, incredible people to a dinner or a salon and they're not allowed to say their last name, or what they do until later in the evening. So you're hanging out with all these people like I have no idea what you do, but you seem pretty cool. And when you find out who it is, it's someone who runs some country somewhere, generally someone who's king or queen of the world somehow so it's been awesome. Just to be in your orbit and meet the people that you've cultivated and really just your friendship more than anything has been a true gift. So thanks for carving time out to talk to us and I am curious because I don't know if I've ever asked you this but what was your earliest dream in your life? What did you hope you'd be when you grew up?

Jon Levy

Oh, wow. As a really little kid, I think I wanted to be an architect or a transformer because like I'm talking really little because transformers

Nik Tarascio

some people in their 20s want to be transformers so let's not

Jon Levy

I don't blame them. optimist is like a superstar. So I think the the problem was that I wasn't really ever clear on what I wanted to be. There were things I wanted to accomp Wish I wanted to impact education, I wanted to help people see opportunities. But I feel like my career has changed three or four times. And I frankly have no idea what I'm going to be when I grow up pretty consistently, my entire career is about how do I connect with people and create meaningful relationships. But in, you know, 10 years ago, it was about helping brands connect with their customers. Now, much of my time is spent helping companies connect with their employees, and employees with each other, and help people create those really meaningful relationships that positively impact our lives and careers. So if you're, let's say, a startup, and you want to connect with the right investors, or the right customers, how do we actually do it? And that's really what I've kind of focused on. Because frankly, we we are lonelier than ever, as a society, I mean, it is just staggering.

Nik Tarascio

Are you lonelier?

Jon Levy

I grew up really, really lonely. I think I'm unless I've focused on spending quality time with the people I really care about. And, and that's made a profound impact. I don't think I'm alone. I mean, everybody,

Nik Tarascio

I was gonna say, I've never seen someone spend so much time intentionally cultivating meaningful friendships. And that's what I really like about what you've done is, it is really about friendships, I've always felt like I didn't have to put up a front in the kind of environment that you create. In fact, it almost felt like it was designed to strip the front of like, don't bring all your resume in here, don't throw your accolades around, show up as a human and connect to another human. So I really do appreciate that about you.

Jon Levy

Here's what's really interesting, I think it was research done at Columbia University's grad school program like the Columbia MBA. And they asked people how important is networking for your success, and they ranked it incredibly high. And then they observed people at networking events, because when you're in the business school, you go to a lot of them. And what they found is that nobody actually met anybody new, almost the entire time was spent with people they already knew. And when you evaluate people's emotional relationship to the activity, their implicit association, people related to it as wanting to wash their hands, like they felt dirty from the idea of networking. What's interesting is the emotional relationship we have to making friends is really positive. Which means that networking is not the way to go. The fact of the matter is that we don't like the idea that we are building a relationship, just to, quote unquote, use somebody or gain something. We evolved as a species because we put effort into each other. And there's a natural given deck. And that's what really makes us happy. I love this. So when I talk to people about relationship building, community building, or even networking, I emphasize don't feel bad that you don't like networking. It's completely not natural. No, it just means that we have to change the context in the activities and the conversations that we have around. Because if you couldn't go to an event, and walk out with 20 new friends, and maybe one of them's one of them has a business opportunity. Great. It accomplishes what you actually wanted from networking, without the negative feelings, but with rather a positive experience of relationship building.

Nik Tarascio

So I'd be curious to kind of build off of that, because one of my questions for you today was really around the idea of, you know, again, your book is all about cultivating influence, which again, I think is all about creating connections. So how does influence connection and fulfillment relate? Because that's really a lot of what my audience I'm speaking to is like, it's yeah, a lot of people have the external successes, but there's something missing. So how do you correlate those two things?

Jon Levy

So I would argue that influence your ability to have an impact on a person, or an outcome is a byproduct of who you're connected to, how much they trust you, and the sense of belonging or community that you share. And the example I give is, if I'm not connected to you, it's really hard for me to influence you. It's possible you just have to be really a lot more planned around it. That even if I'm connected to you, if you do not trust me, why would you listen to a thing I said, influences Empower, influence, people opt into their aren't forced to do something. And the third is, you'll notice that you're more likely to do it. If the community around you is already doing it or or C's alignment around it. Meaning that if all of your friends are using the iPhone and you're using an Android, it's a matter of time until you're probably going to switch to iPhone. And so that in its base characteristic is kind of what? What influence is. It's your ability to connect, build trust, and create a sense of belonging around something. Now, how does that relate to fulfillment? Well, when we really look at the research on fulfillment, There's that famous Harvard study that's been going on for 80 some odd years, do you know what I'm talking about where they followed, it was all guys, because I think back then there were only guys at Harvard. But when they examined all of kind of the predictors of the things that mattered. satisfaction and happiness comes down to meaningful relationships. So your ability to have meaningful connections, high levels of trust with them, and really a sense of safety and belonging, to feel heard, and to feel safe. That's going to have a massive impact on the quality of your life. And I think when the great examples of this, if you're really willing to take a look, is actually Amish culture. I know it's a bit of a funny direction to go. Have you ever heard of rune Springer? No. It's so apparently, I'm not an expert on this. In many Amish cultures, at a certain age and people's teenage years, they leave the religion for a year or so and get to experience the world. And they do drugs and they party and they go all out. And at the end of that year, they have the option to rejoin the community, or enjoy the the rest of the world. And overwhelmingly, almost everybody comes back to the community. And I think the why is that when push comes to shove for human beings, belonging is probably the most important thing. Like, have you ever heard of Maslow's higher order of needs? Sure. No, it's on the bottom. It's like, water, food shelter. You know, the basics. Have you ever heard of some of these? I'm sorry.

Nik Tarascio

I was gonna say the basic survival needs, right. Like, I got a house.

Jon Levy

Yeah, let me ask you a question. Have you ever heard of somebody starving themselves in order to fit in? Like, they want to be skinnier? So they're more like? Yeah, a few times? Yeah. Right. It's like, kind of cliche. Yeah, so it kind of shows us that belonging may actually be more of a base need than even food.

Nik Tarascio

That's interesting. I've never thought of it from that lens.

Jon Levy

And so if we look at how to punish people in our society, what we do is we put them in solitary confinement, we say you can't be around people. Or we say you're an exile, you're not allowed to be part of the group. It's devastating. And when you look at the great predictors of you living a long time, as nice as it is that you might go to like Barry's boot camp three times a week. What's a far, far greater predictor is number two, strong social ties and number of close friends and family. And number one, social integration, the number of people you come in contact with today. And so really, everything that matters to us comes down to meaningful and valued relationships.

Nik Tarascio

So let's continue down that because what, what's coming up for me, as you're saying, this is, I wonder if you've experienced or have thoughts on the idea that as someone climbs the ladders of success, or climbs the mountain of success, right, it's a smaller group on top, and you actually belong less in society. And so I often wonder if success by nature removes that sense of belonging, and then it's a much more difficult and challenging circumstance to create that sense of it. I mean, and that's what you're doing at your events, right? You're saying like, Let's strip away all those things that actually, though, you're great. And though you get all this attention when you're when you're the author, not the reader, you're in the minority.

Jon Levy

So I would I would say that there's a few interesting paradoxes from a research perspective. I haven't looked at the specific work, but apparently, there's something called the power paradox, which is the skills necessary to get into a position of power aren't necessarily the ones that are displayed once people are in power. So to get to power you have to be liked and you have to be able to get consensus and all these things. And then once you get into power, there's kind of this inverse reaction where people feel like they have ultimate control and everything. So I think that from one side, there is evidence to suggest that people's behaviors actually change, the more successful they get, right? And there's that cliche phrase absolute power corrupts absolutely. Right. And it's lonely at the top. I think that there is that possibility. But it's also I think, a factor of how you got there. Were you the type of person to build community and belonging along the way, were you the type of person to develop relationships outside of your industry or across so that maybe you're the one fostering belonging at the office, but the place that you and the community feel the most is maybe at your mosque or synagogue, or church or your yoga studio or with your family. So there's lots of places you can go for this experience of belonging. And there are a whole collection of private communities where the people at the very top actually hang up. Now, I don't, you know, not a president or something like that. I don't hang out there, like, but think that there's something to what you're saying, which is that the more successful you become, the more polls there are on your time. And the less of that time seems to be spent with the people you love the most. And I think that that has a risk. There's probably also a place where you have so little that you have to dedicate all of your time to make money so that you can support them, rather than actually spending time with them. So there's probably like a nice mid spot there. I don't know what it is.

Nik Tarascio

Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, thinking about that, you know, again, it's growing up around private jets. I've seen a lot of people that had everything, but just seemed very lonely. They feel they seem very isolated. And like, or maybe it wasn't even loneliness. It was more that I'm surrounded by people that want something from me, and I know it. And so that trust piece, wasn't there.

Jon Levy

Can I flip the model for a second? Yeah, absolutely. So I generally say that there's an inverse relationship between money and community. And the reason is that community occurs when people invest effort into one another. When you invest effort, you feel ownership and belonging. Right? Like you matter. The wealthier you are, the less, you tend to expect others to contribute. So if I have nothing, and I'm having a baby shower, then all of my friends chip in and put effort. If I am really wealthy, and I'm like, Oh, we're doing a baby shower, I got everybody massages, and we're going to the spa. Everybody's off doing their own thing. We're not actually connecting. So I think that there's something to that, which is, if you go luxurious, and ignore what actually causes us to connect, you can isolate. But I also want to throw out the flip side, which is, I was at a conference, not a conference, an event done by an organization called the creative coalition. It's a group of celebrities that go and advocate for the National Endowment for the Arts every year in Washington, DC. And it's writers, actors, musicians, it's all the celebs, a lot of them you would recognize. And I went along as an author, and the president of the organization is giving a speech. And he said, a lot of people talk about celebrities and say, What right, do they have to give an opinion on politics just act, you sound like an idiot. And he pointed out, one of the great things about this country is that everybody has a right to express their voice. And the second is that acting is like any other industry, in the sense that you could end up with absolutely brilliant minds. Mira Sorvino is, I think like a PhD in Asian cultures or something like that, or Chinese economic like, you know, and Sharon Stone is in Mensa all the way to complete and utter morons. And the expectation that just because somebody was good at making enough money, or inherited enough money to afford a private jet, would mean that they figured anything else out is an unfair expectation. I think you'll find some people who are incred pretty lonely in every industry because people are just lonely right now. And some people who are incredible at connecting others and hosting great events. And so I think that you'll find a range anywhere you go.

Nik Tarascio

What a powerful ideas and ideas in there. I mean, even for me, as you're saying it, I'm like, oh, man, do I try to buy away some of the actual, like, heavy lifting of relationship building at times, right? Like, even as a company, it's like, oh, well, I want to make sure everyone's needs are taken care of, versus like, maybe the need is actually more of My Presence.

Jon Levy

Maybe it's not even just your presence, maybe the need is to do less so that others do more. So that they feel invested in care more.

Nik Tarascio

That's interesting, too. So like, not coming in and being the hero, just saying, like, I trust you do it?

Jon Levy

Yeah, because then, or figure something out, if you're in trouble, give me a call. But I trust you, here's your budget or something, right? The reason I say this is that, let's say even in business development, your your customer might actually enjoy the experience more. When they invest a little bit more effort into defining the experience. A simple example is, I don't remember which food company it was they they opened a make your own pasta station at the on site. And so people would pick which pasta, which toppings, which sauces, all of it, who would be made in front of them. And the return rate was essentially near zero. Because once you've made all the selections, and the decisions, you feel really invested in it, and it was yours, you were the one that made the decision. So you better be happy with it. And so it's actually people's investments of effort that cause them to care. Not interested the opposite.

Nik Tarascio

It sounds like boot camp in a lot of ways, right? Like once people go through boot, yeah, they're like I had to work for this. This is this has inherent value and worth me.

Jon Levy

Not only that, for human beings. And this is really funny. When something is good, we remember it is good. But there's also a lot of cases that when something is bad enough, we remember it is good. So you hear people saying I lost all my money, but I earned it back, and I'm better for it. I'd prefer not to go through that, are they actually better for their in their brain, they are totally convinced of that. You will not be able to convince them otherwise, they're not fooling themselves. It's actually they view it as better. And that's wild. But that's how we are, which is that we value the things we put effort into and the lessons we learn from it and the growth that we experience from it.

Nik Tarascio

Interesting, I mean, I'd love to, I'd love to, again, follow that thread too. For people that are kind of climbing the ladder still and trying to figure out, you know, hey, we're in a world of Instagram and influence and all that and monetizing our Instagram pages, I'd love to understand more of what determines whether influence goes down the road of, you know, being fulfilling, creating something that matters versus it's just empty, it's actually almost you become a slave to the influence machine that you're trying to be a part of.

Jon Levy

So I think the key here is to separate two really important things. One is influence my ability to have an impact on a person or an outcome. And to separate that from audience. Audience tends to be a one directional conversation. Maybe there's some comments back. But here's the interesting thing. If somebody is an alcoholic, and they go to Alcoholics Anonymous, they can go to a meeting anywhere in the world and feel belonging, their participant invest effort. If I drop off, let's say you have 100,000 fans on followers on Instagram, those people aren't meeting up without you. There's no actual community. If you're the Girl Scouts of America of the USA is the technical title. Then there are meetings, people are investing effort. If the CEO of the Girl Scouts stops working on a particular day, the meeting still keep taking place. The community is actually there. Those friendships exist, even if the meetings aren't taking place. That's community. Right? If the pope retires, the church still exists. So I have a ton of respect for people who can make incredible content on social channels, it really is an incredible skill. But let's not confuse that for a second with building community or creating a sense of belonging. Because although people might love what you say, although it might even impact their lives, it's different than you having a meaningful relationship with somebody. And so, if you're going to go down the path of building a massive social media audience, you have to be really sure that you are emotionally stable enough to handle the whims and the ups and downs of the likes, then the lack of likes and the follows and the lack of follows, and the unfollows and all of it, because then you're no different than the New York Times you're dealing with subscriptions.

Nik Tarascio

In your experience, the people who are generally optimizing for an craving the social following, would you say that the driver that makes them go there as the exact reason why they shouldn't be doing it? Because it is about an external validation?

Jon Levy

I think that it's a complex question. And I'm not qualified to just speak to what's actually driving people. I think that it needs to come with a really serious warning, which is that that kind of validation is known to increase rates of depression, isolation. And it causes people to focus on things that aren't necessarily healthy. And you just have to know that you are mentally, you have the mental fortitude to handle it. Because otherwise, you're playing with fire. There is an incredible potential for people to build thriving businesses, and, you know, thriving audiences on these platforms. But you just really have to ask yourself, do you want friends or followers? And you can have an incredibly successful career doing something just slightly different. If you focus on building the right relationships in person. And then net net, it's probably way more positive. I'd rather have 100 Close friends than 10,000 followers.

Nik Tarascio

Yeah, I mean, I think you hear these stories of like, Oh, look at like, the coal bears of the world, right? These people that all were friends in these improv troupes, and then you see all of their careers bloom together. And I imagine that was exactly that. It's the rising tide of a circle of friends.

Jon Levy

Yeah, it's, and when you really look, most people get their jobs through friends and, and social ties. And don't get me wrong. There have been times when I've gotten speaking gigs and stuff like that, because I posted something. But I'm very clear. I'm producing content for a platform. Whether somebody likes it or not, has nothing to do with me and my relationships.

Nik Tarascio

Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest takeaway from everything you said, which I really, I mean, it makes me question a lot of the ways I've shown up in my life and what rooms I've ended up in, and why is really going back to is, is my time intentionally put to cultivate meaningful friendships, because it sounds like of all the strategies to create a fulfilling, successful life, that may be one of the single most important things.

Jon Levy

Here's what I really like about it, is that when you actually break down most people's strategies for success, they're completely not reproducing. You listen to like these guys like Grant Cardone, and are even tried to reproduce what Bill Gates does. And it's completely useless. It worked one time for one person with a specific set of personality traits. It's kind of a waste, and then they'll spout out a bunch of kind of BS explanations that may or may not be true at all, like when you look at the research and compare it to what they say, it doesn't really stand up. In the meantime, there is virtually no doubt that our relationships matter. And regardless of how introverted shy extroverted a person is, everybody's capable of having relationships. It's just a matter of what scale. So, it seems from a relationship standpoint, or a strategy standpoint, relationships really stand out as kind of like this very clear, a number one that matters. It's the who not to have.

Nik Tarascio

So I'd be curious to know, a little bit deeper into that as like I look at my time and again, I'm surrounded by a lot of entrepreneurs and people that put way too much time into their work, which leaves very little time for the other stuff, for the friendships, for the family, for the hobbies, for the gym for all that stuff. What advice do You have for someone that does have limited time to do that, like, how can I make sure that what time I do put into friendships, it has the maximum impact and meaning. And when I say impact, obviously, it's depth of connection. It's not like I want to get something from them beyond that. But I'd be curious to know what you've offered to emphasize something.

Jon Levy

It's also okay, if you want something from them. You can be friends with somebody, and have a real desire to let's say, start a company with them, or hope that they invest in your company, or, you know, a million other things. It's okay. Like human beings can't. Human beings can't survive without each other. It's just, we're not designed that way. We're not the fastest, we're not the strongest, we survived because we invest effort into one another. So my biggest recommendations are pretty simple. One is, research suggests that we kind of max out at five really productive hours a day. After that we're kind of just futzing around. So ask yourself, Okay. When I stopped being productive, how can I shift gears to either reset, get some rest so I can be productive? Or is there a relationship I can invest it into? The second is, I try to combine relationships with all the things I already do. So I'm not a big fan. And this is kind of sound funny of meals with people. And the reason is that they often feel like interviews. And I also stopped eating rather early. So unlike the jerk, who would go to a meal and not eat anything, but I am a huge fan of taking walks and exercising together, there's significant evidence to suggest that if we go through the experience of a workout together, we'll like each other more at the end. And so instead of somebody saying, Oh, can we hop on Zoom together, I go, You know what, I have a workout at four o'clock at this place. Do you want to meet me there we'll work out and then take a walk. And then we end up liking each other more and feeling more connected. And we might only spend 30 minutes talking just like on Zoom. But I get to feel like I did something healthy for myself. And they feel more bonded to me in the process. And vice versa. That's probably the third is take the things that you already love. And bring people around you around them, or join groups that already exist. You'd like hiking, great set up like a standing once a month, every set for Saturday of the month, we hike this trail, anybody's welcome more, we're going to talk about our careers, and what we're dealing with the halo effect of being around each other, and talking to one another, and starting and stopping conversation. And the activity itself, allowing you also to be quiet and think while you're walking suddenly allows for a sense of connection, and community. So what would have been also a really nice activity that you would have enjoyed by yourself, now becomes community building, and even potentially business development. In the book, I go much deeper into this and how you would do it for companies and organizations. But the key here to realize is that relationships are the basis of our and I'd say sleep, and relationships are kind of like the basis of our health and well being and our happiness. Everything else is also the things that we do to support that. And that doesn't, I'm not trying to take anything away from the satisfaction of success and, you know, the, like the concern of fame and all that you can have all that too. But realize that, that don't think people really regret being like, wow, I wish I spent less time with my kids. I wish I had fewer friends. It's not the kind of thing that we're wired to say. nearly ended up being happy that we have meaningful relationships.

Nik Tarascio

So kind of bringing it to a close I'm curious specifically about you, as you know, again, whether you're not you feel it from the outside man, you are a very, very successful person in those things that really matter. The friendships, the impact you have in the world, the way you help other people, that beard. I mean, there's just a lot of stuff that working for you. So my curiosity is, you know, again, to the name of the show, what is your dream beyond what do you dream about now?

Jon Levy

So, I am going to be a father in May, and I am spending a lot of time thinking, what are the lessons that I'm going to pass down and what's going to be useful to make this little girl's life incredible. And I'm Emily really preoccupied by that? And I bet my answer would be different. If you would have asked me six months ago, my answer would have probably been, how do I create deeper bonds between the people that I've hosted, I've hosted over 2500 people at my dinners, and several 1000 More at my salons. And I, I'd look at how to bond them more so that they could create a greater impact. That's kind of been a big focus of mine.

Nik Tarascio

Well, first of all, congratulations. I know you told me a couple of weeks ago, but again, it's just so and it's really, I'm super, super excited. Yeah, that's what we just spoke about, right? Like it comes back to the meaningful connections, I can't think of a more meaningful connection than a father and his daughter. So I'm very much looking forward to the intentionality you bring to that role as well. I'm sure you're going to be amazing at it. And yeah, I mean, just from this, the kind of the big thing that I take away from what you said is, it's amazing, like you're bringing science to one of the most simple concepts, since the dawn of time is just like, be connected to other humans in a meaningful way. Be a good person have deep, fulfilling connections. That's what makes life worth living. And sleep. I heard that too, and sleep so I can talk,

Jon Levy

it's really hard to be happy. If you're totally sleep deprived. It's just, you can do a little bit better with less food, but like sleep is just your train wreck without it.

Nik Tarascio

Yeah. So thank you for that. And again, this was very meaningful for me, and I hope I hope the audience really loves what you shared as well. And, you know, again, if you're curious more about it, yeah, I'm gonna hold up the book, you're invited. It's a great book. And again, the whole back section of the book is really about how to apply a lot of these principles and practice in different mediums. So you know, again, thank you for taking the time and again, grateful to call you a friend. Thank you for listening to the dream beyond. I hope that you received whatever message or inspiration you were meant to get from today's episode. I had a great time recording it for you. If you love the show, please take 30 seconds to subscribe rate and review it. That really helps get the word out. And if you want to connect with me, you can find me at:

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