Right at the start of the interview she goes after him.
No pleasantries, her opening question is an attack.
Without hesitation she’s going for the wound.
And it’s not even politics.
This is business.
It’s all good, he’s a master at this.
“Stock lagging”
“When you look at the strategy set by Goldman Sachs,” the Bloomberg reporter opens this interview, “Help us understand Goldman’s stock has been lagging on a price to book basis from some of its rivals, what are investors not seeing?”
Not nuclear, but aggressive, right?
That’s her opening question to the President of Goldman Sachs, John Waldron.
Right out the gates she’s challenging him to explain their lagging performance.
Now, look what he does with it.
“Well, first of all it’s great to have you in our building, thanks for taking the time,” he begins, “Today was an important day for us, as you said it was our second investor day in our 23 or so years as a public company…”
Boom
Do you see what he did here?
In linguistics you’d say that he stole her “frame.”
Immediately you see he sidestepped her question like Ali dancing a jab.
Her frame was along the lines of—
Your stock and valuation is lagging, so convince us what investors aren’t seeing.
Answering directly would have pulled John and the conversation straight into the nitty gritty of stock price and price to book and strategy and whatever, whatever.
But what did John masterfully do?
He “chunked up” to a larger frame of this important and rare occasion where Goldman is demonstrating its commitment to communicate more with investors.
This he warmly nestles inside a meta-frame of thanking and welcoming her (really, the audience) to “our” building.
A fertile frame for the conversation to grow.
As a comment on the video imperfectly captures with some typos—”might god are these people good salesman.”
Frame control
You know that words don’t really matter, right?
Sure they do if you run out on the street and call someone the c or n or some other offensive word.
But in the context of influence the actual words that you use might only be a tiny 7% of your communication.
The study that is always cited on this may not be mathematically accurate, but directionally it captures the truth that your words are only a tiny part of your message.
What matters most, perhaps as much as 93% or more, is the way that you use your words.
For instance, notice the difference between screaming the c-word at someone all red on the street vs. laughing and joking around with a good friend.
The quality of your voice and how your body “speaks” are the bulk of your communication, and what matters even more is the frame that you put it all in.
Changing the frame of a painting transforms how it appears and the same is true with conversational frames.
Even the same words said the same way can convey an entirely different meaning.
Frame games
All day every day people are playing frame games.
They are so effective because while almost all people are focused on the minutia of words being used, they most often invisibly step into whatever frame is established.
For instance, if I say that it’s so gorgeous in New York right now, it doesn’t matter what the “fact” of temperature is.
It could be “freezing” cold or “stinking” hot, but my frame just communicates gorgeously.
This is why media is so dangerous for your brain and our world.
The devil’s most devious trick was convincing you that it didn’t exist and this is the world of frame control.
You can be telling the “truth” just stating “facts,” while using your frame to entirely distort meaning.
Just look at how the right or left media oppositely report on Trump being indicted, for instance.
The same “factual” information framed opposite ways.
Speaking of the devil.
Trump
Trump is BY FAR the best at this that I have ever seen on the world stage.
This is why I wrote the book on him thrashing 16 of the GOPs finest to win the 2016 nomination.
Of course I get that few people want to believe that Trump is good at anything, let alone this, which is why he thrashed them.
Other than wizards like Bandler and masters who manipulate minds I’ve never come across anyone who dominates the frame better than Trump.
You’ve seen them throw just about anything at him and he’ll just keep using it to extend his lead.
This is how he won last time, and it’s how he’s winning again.
The only question to him winning 2024 is who he’s competing against.
Biden at his best is also exceptional at this.
Like every top politician, just like we saw John Waldron do, decades ago he learned to stop answering the question you’re asked and reframe.
Biden
In the right media Biden recently tripping on stage is framed as proof that he’s unfit for president.
To the left, like come on, what are you talking about, everyone trips over.
Truth is in the eye of the frame holder.
The left have proven to be WAY more effective than right at controlling the frame and their ONLY risk is a misstep by Biden on a live stage.
Last round he had more than enough to stand with Trump and this election will be determined by how he does standing toe to toe.
Apparently the democratic party had decided to avoid democratic debates.
So the first time you’ll know is when you see which Joe stands on stage with Trump.
Will it be one who out frames or gets out framed?
Winning frames
I guess in the end that’s what I’m really writing you about here.
John Waldron is one of those few who REALLY wins on Wall Street.
While just about everyone else grinds it out “trying” to reach his seat, John along with his long-term partner David Solomon carved a highway to the top of the street.
There are lots of reasons for this, John’s exceptional communicating being just one.
John is one of say less than 10-20% of bankers (even at Goldman) who generates meaningful revenues, which is why he’s one of few bankers I ever worked with who I modeled for developing this system for Rainmaking Bankers.
Most bankers monotonously read boring books like it’s client sleepy time, while John is a commercial killer exceptionally communicating.
Too, he is exceptional “internally,” as they say, again, all communicating.
In this one interview you immediately see John reframe her attack by paving a warm road for communicating the Goldman strategy.
It sounds like he’s just speaking, because he is, just speaking most effectively.
Are you?
You can say anything just about any way.
And almost always almost all of us are communicating in less effective ways, including John btw in later parts of this interview.
It’s never our fault.
Nobody teaches you anything about this most crucial life skill even though you’re communicating with yourself and others all day every day.
Worse, you’re told that these are “soft skills.”
When they are the most hardcore skills that made all of these presidents.