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At any point in your career or in your business, you’re going to meet people that you’re excited about, whether it’s celebrities, whether it’s that entrepreneur that you’ve been looking up to your entire life, whether it’s that senior executive that you’ve been trying to get in the room with, whether it’s the athlete that you dreamt your entire life of someday meeting the way that I met Billie Jean King. You will be in the room with people who are the apex of everything you’ve ever dreamed, and you will be nervous and you will want to get something out of that. Especially if you’re looking to partner with them with your career, with your business. You want to walk out of the room, not looking like the president of their fan club, but like somebody that they want to do business with. And the power compliment is exactly that.
I was in a situation where I was having brunch with the Billie Jean King. And I wasn’t sure how to navigate the fact that I was hearing stories about her from before that I was born through my childhood. I had studied and learned and watched her play my entire life. And here I was wanting to partner with her on my business. I could have just said, “I’m a huge fan. My dad told me stories about you when I was barely able to walk.” I could of gushed and told her all the reasons that I was the biggest fan, but it would have put me in a position without power. It would have put her in a position also of discomfort of being stranded an entire brunch with somebody who is asking her for an autograph. It wouldn’t have created a really productive environment.
And so instead, I waited, I listened, I got to know her. And at some point in the conversation, she said something along the lines of, “I’m not an entrepreneur. So I don’t know about these things.” And then she proceeded to finish her sentence. And I found something where I am definitely more of an expert perhaps than Billie Jean King. And so the power shifted, or there was a potential to shift that power. Not to dominate over Billie Jean, but to really be her peer in this one topic.
And so I came back to her and I said, “No offense Billie Jean, but to be somebody at your level, to have managed your career and your brand for the many years that you’ve done it on your own without a boss, without a company that’s managing you, but really just managing your brand and your entire career for all these years and still be where you are in your career is to be entrepreneurial. So I know you just said you weren’t an entrepreneur and you don’t know about these things, but I look at your career and I think you’re an amazing entrepreneur and you know exactly what you’re talking about on this topic. And I’m a relatively successful entrepreneur so I happen to know. And I can actually give you an authoritative view on this topic.”
It was a thoughtful compliment. It was not a puppy dog compliment. And it was one that shifted the power so that now she knew that she was sitting at the table having brunch with somebody who was an expert in her field, who wasn’t trying to dominate over her or be a puppy dog, but was truly being an equal. So at the end of the day, the power compliment is about practice. It’s about doing it every day, all the time. If possible, a couple of times a day. And getting to the point where you are able to be in the room with people that allows you to punch above your weight class and always come across as an equal and somebody that people want to do business with them.