Jon Levy - Influence and adventure

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Guesting in for today’s podcast is a Behavioral scientist, consultant, and NY Times Best Selling author specializing in Connection, Trust, Community, and Influence. He is no other than Jon Levy. Jon specializes in applying the latest research to transform the ways companies approach marketing, sales, consumer engagement, and culture. His clients range from Fortune 500 brands, like Microsoft, Google, AB-InBev, and Samsung, to startups. Now, Jon talks about his struggles and discoveries on human traits that allowed him to understand better why personal barriers to human communication exist.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[03:40]</span><strong> Why should I listen to you?</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">You should listen to me because a random talk will be more entertaining than listening to another crime drama on your podcast. My first book was about the science of adventure and what leads us to live exciting lives, so if you happen to run into me in public, you’ll most likely have a great time.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[04:42] </span><strong>How did you end up doing this endeavor?</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I believe an eighth-grade teacher arrived and declared that we were going to redistribute the seating chart in secret, and she let each child submit two people they wanted to sit with and two people they didn’t want to sit with. I noticed one child with whom no one wanted to sit, and it was me. Nobody wanted to mingle with me since I was a nerd. In the 1980s, I was fascinated with computer technology. And it was not a cool thing to do. I reasoned that if I could understand human behavior, I could make some friends. And I wish it had a philanthropic bent to it. However, the truth is that as a child, I was pretty lonely.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[05:54] </span><strong>What kept you from going down that path?</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I thought I was one of a kind b