You're Invited

Jon Levy

• Publisher: Harper Business
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780063030985
• Topic: Crescita personale
• Subtopic: Successo personale

** A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USAToday Bestseller **

Regardless of what you want to accomplish, from growing your business, creating a great company culture, championing a social cause, or affecting your habits, you can't do it alone. The people around you define your success (whatever that means for you) and they have the potential to change the course of your life.

That's what You're Invited is about: The most universal strategy for success is creating meaningful connections with those who can impact you, your life, and the things you care about. But how do you make those connections and build trust quickly? What do you do if you're introverted or hate networking?

Behavioral scientist Jon Levy had no money, reputation or status, but was able to convince groups of Nobel Laureates, Olympians, celebrities, Fortune 500 executives, and even an occasional princess to not only give him advice, but cook him dinner, wash his dishes, sweep his floors, and then thank him for the experience. The goal of his gatherings, much like this book, was not networking, but to build meaningful and lasting relationships.

This private community based around the dinner experience became known as "The Influencers", named for the member's success and industry influence. Since its inception more than a decade ago, The Influencers has grown into the largest private group of its kind worldwide, with a thriving community both in person and through digital experiences.

In You're Invited, Levy guides readers through the art and science of creating deep and meaningful connections with anyone, regardless of their stature or celebrity, and demonstrates how we develop influence, gain trust, and build community so that we can impact our communities and achieve what's important to us.

Part I

The Influence Equation

Chapter 1

The Power of an Invitation

It was the fall of 1961 and Jean Nidetch was having what she called a “thin day.” At five foot seven and 214 pounds, the thirty-eight-year-old self-described housewife from Queens, New York, was, by her view, the view of her neighbors, and the view of practically everyone other than her loving husband, overweight. Dressed in a size 44 muumuu that she relabeled a size 20 in an effort to make herself feel better about her proportions, she went to the supermarket to pick up groceries. As she checked out, she felt the need to assure the clerk that all the boxes of cookies were for her kids, but the truth was that Jean would hide them in the bathroom, where she would binge eat entire boxes at night. As she strolled the supermarket aisles, an acquaintance complimented her on how great she looked. Jean welcomed the kind words, and then the woman added: “When are you due?” Jean was mortified—the woman thought she was pregnant. When she got home, she looked in the mirror and promised herself to use those words as motivation to finally lose the weight. Jean believed that through self-control and determination alone, she would achieve her goal. She was wrong.

Anyone who has ever committed to a weight loss diet knows that hard work and self-control just aren’t enough. Jean had tried every outlandish plan to reach a healthy weight, from eating nothing but eggs or grapefruit, to starvation, to the latest celebrity fad she would read about in a magazine. She would always be able to knock off a few pounds, but the moment she reached for her favorite foods, she would overindulge, and the pounds would come back, often with a few extra. After years of this she realized that if she was going to lose the weight and keep it off, she needed a different approach. One year later Jean had lost seventy-two pounds, but what was truly exceptional is that over the next fifty-three years not only would she keep them off but she would help tens of millions of people around the world lose hundreds of millions of pounds, likely saving countless lives. In the process Jean Nidetch became a multimillionaire and an international celebrity, all in an era when her credit cards still said Mrs. Marty Nidetch. If you have ever heard of Weight Watchers International, it’s because Jean understood the importance of human connection and the community effect.

While Jean was an overweight housewife looking to get healthier, Frederick Bailey’s story couldn’t have been more different. Though the stories are separated by over 120 years and are incomparable in their challenges and motivations, on closer examination you can see an incredibly powerful connection between the two. It was September 3, 1838, and to say that Frederick was anxious would be an understatement. As an escaped slave, he knew his life was on the line. If he were caught, he would be tortured, possibly shot, or torn apart by vicious dogs to be made an example of.

His plan was to avoid being noticed by jumping on the train just as it was leaving the station from Baltimore, Maryland, a slave state, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a free state. Once on board, he would sit segregated with the other Black passengers in the “negro car.” He hoped that the jostle of the train and the busyness on board would prevent the conductor from noticing the discrepancies in his papers. This would be assuming he wasn’t recognized by someone and captured or arrested at the border. To fool the conductor, Frederick managed to secure borrowed papers from a local free sailor, and to play the part, he dressed in sailor style with a red shirt, hat, and cravat.¹ If he was lucky, the combination of papers, outfit, and his knowledge of ships (he was forced to work at a shipyard for some time) would be enough to throw off suspicion. When the conductor came, Frederick passed him papers with a prominent seal on them to demonstrate their authenticity. With hardly a look, the conductor moved on, and Frederick had made it through his first challenge. Over the next day he would go from train to ferry, to train, to steamboat landing at Philadelphia. At each port, he avoided the possibility of police or bounty capture and the numerous men who, with a long enough glance, would recognize him. After arriving in Philadelphia, he boarded one last train to New York, and by the next morning, he was a free man.

Three years later, Frederick, now going by the last name Douglass to avoid recapture, accepted an invitation to attend a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). It was hosted by William Lloyd Garrison, the publisher of the abolitionist paper the Liberator and cofounder of the organization.² Douglass was invited to share his story with the crowd. When Garrison heard Douglass’s words, he immediately knew that Douglass could become an important figure in the movement. What Douglass could have never predicted that day was that thanks to the Influence Equation and the power of an invitation, two ideas we will explore in detail, his public speaking and writing would play a critical role in the movement to end slavery, the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the freedom he and his fellow Black men, women, and children deserved.

Jean’s goal and the abolitionists’ goals were clearly different, which is why I chose their stories. They were separated not only by more than a century but also by race, religion, culture, and objectives. Jean was committed to the very personal struggle of helping people of all walks of life find health. After all, at least 2.8 million people die due to obesity-related issues every year.³ And the abolitionists were fighting for the social and moral obligation to give freedom and equality to humans in bondage. Even though their journeys and missions were incredibly different, what led them to succeed was the same thing: they found a way to bring people together and create deep and meaningful connections between them.

I came to realize the importance of creating meaningful relationships through a very personal journey. By my late twenties, I had mounting debt and a failed startup, I was overweight, and I was struggling in the greatest economic downturn we had seen in more than a half century. I had become the poster child for “Not living up to his potential.”

Fortunately, I was able to piece together what Jean realized in her weight loss program and the strategy the AASS used to spread their message looking at scientific research. I examined studies on human behavior, neuroscience, economics, and decision making in hopes of developing personal and career success, and for me, the results were life changing. In fact, it was so compelling, it led to a career as a behavioral scientist, consultant, and researcher. What I did with these insights was strange to say the least. I convinced complete strangers, many of them among the most influential people across various industries, to cook me dinner. Over the course of a decade, this dinner developed into what many consider to be the most exclusive dining experience in the world.

We host twelve strangers at a time, but there’s a catch. Not only do the guests cook the meal together but, as they do, they can’t talk about their careers or even give their last names. Once seated to eat, attendees discover their fellow guests are all industry leaders, from Nobel laureates, celebrities, and Olympic medalists to award-winning musicians, artists, and even the occasional member of a royal family. This experience became known as the Influencers Dinner because of the ability of its participants to influence their industries. As participants bonded at dinners, cultural events, and reunions, the Influencers community developed the mission to positively impact each other, our communities, and hopefully the world. Since its inception, I have hosted thousands of people across hundreds of dinners and developed a consulting firm that works with many of the world’s biggest organizations to help them connect with their employees and most important customers in deep and meaningful ways. We have created private communities for tech brands and healthier company cultures for consumer-packaged goods companies. We have reimagined sales processes for startups by focusing on developing meaningful and lasting relationships with customers, and supported nonprofits in creating cohorts of donors who are loyal to the cause. Every dinner, event, and project I work on reaffirms a single universal idea for success that I learned in a seminar at the age of twenty-eight:

The fundamental element that defines the quality of our lives is the people we surround ourselves with, and the conversations we have with them.

Until I heard those words, I had been trying to improve my life by using strategies from every personal development/business book or class I could afford, hoping that they would fix the things that I thought were wrong with me. My life improved, but it was exhausting, and I spent my twenties beating myself up for not being rich, not having a perfect body, and not having an ideal relationship. Instead of insecurity and failure, I wanted the ability to produce extraordinary results and engage with people I thought were important. After all, those who are important to my success could be irrelevant to yours. In short, I wanted influence. I’m not talking social media influence—that didn’t really exist back then and, frankly, I don’t eat avocado toast and I look terrible in a bikini, so I don’t think I’m suited for that career. I’m talking about the ability to influence my career and income. I also wanted the respect of business leaders, the ability to impact a social cause I cared about, and to have a healthy lifestyle.

If this seminar leader was right, there was a much easier way to influence the direction of my life. I needed to surround myself with people who had the characteristics I admired. Instead of setting a 6:00 a.m. alarm to go to the gym, maybe I just needed to make friends with athletes and fitness enthusiasts, then exercise would be part of my lifestyle. Instead of trying to stick to a budget, if I had friends who were experts at business, I would understand how to earn more and have the connections to find a better job. After all, making friends with people I respect and admire sounds a lot more appealing than hitting snooze four times and feeling bad I missed a workout or getting credit card late charges.

Jean eventually took this very approach. In time, she would surround herself with people committed to the same goals, but it took another experience for her to realize how much she needed others. Soon after she was confused for being pregnant, she heard about a free obesity clinic in Manhattan that was part of the New York Department of Health. After two buses and a train ride, she sat quietly in a room full of women looking to lose weight, listening to a slim and stern nutritionist she called Ms. Jones. To Jean, this woman was someone who had no empathy—she could never understand what it is to struggle with weight. Ms. Jones could never relate to the feelings of shame and sadness and the constant battle not to indulge. When Jean weighed in at 214 pounds, Ms. Jones assigned her a goal weight of 142 pounds. Jean was in shock—this was far less than she had ever weighed in her adult life. Ms. Jones stipulated that Jean would only eat the foods instructed, and nothing else.⁴

After ten weeks, Jean had lost twenty pounds. She was ecstatic with the results, but the weight-loss process was clinical and conversations between the participants wasn’t encouraged, leaving her feeling isolated and yearning for someone to relate to. If she was going to continue to lose weight and keep it off, she needed a better support system, one that encouraged openly discussing her struggle. So Jean did something unprecedented. She extended an invitation to her friends she knew were struggling with their weight to come to her house for an evening of mah-jongg. Six women showed under the guise of a game, but Jean’s real invitation was to a safe space for them to open up about their struggles with weight loss. As the evening unfolded, they shared their compulsive, unhealthy habits and their shames, and as they did, they began to feel liberated. It was the first time any of them spoke openly about their weight, all because of a simple invitation. One of the guests suggested they meet the next week, which Jean turned into every week. Meeting after meeting, her friends invited friends, and their friends invited friends, and within two months, her group had turned into forty women now meeting twice a week.

Jean was transparent about her lack of credentials. She wasn’t a medical professional, just a housewife from Queens, but the advice of doctors wasn’t working for these women anyway. What they needed was the incredible sense of community that is created when people can finally be honest about their struggle. The magazines Jean had been reading suggested that life could be a perfect dream with some simple solution, but for those of us living in reality, life is much more complex. We all struggle with something, whether it’s anxiety from work, the isolation of depression, the fear of poor health, feeling like a failure as I did, or something else uniquely yours. The difference between us needing to pop a Xanax, overeating, or hiding our problems and us finding a solution is our relationships. This was the beauty of Jean’s group. Jean provided a space for people to connect with one another, feel safe, build trust quickly, and in turn support one another. In that lies the strength of the community effect:

Our results are amplified when our relationships share a sense of community.

It seemed that Jean was proving my seminar leader right. These same women, pretending everything was fine, probably would have spent their time socializing around food, but Jean designed an experience that changed the context and turned the conversation to health. The consistency of running her gatherings twice a week led these women to form a shared sense of community around their weight issues. Instead of enabling unhealthy habits they became a nonjudgmental support system. Everyone who attended benefited from new friendships, habits, ideas, and routines.

It was at one of these meetings where Jean met Albert and Felice Lippert, a couple so plump they described themselves as beach balls. After four months of weekly meetings, Albert was down forty pounds and Felice almost fifty. They believed that the success of Jean’s experiences could be franchised, with Jean as the public face of the company. After incorporating Weight Watchers International, they held their first official meeting on May 15, 1963. Over four hundred people showed up to a space intended for fifty. Six short years later, the franchises that Albert dreamed up were growing and the participants were shrinking to the tune of seventeen million pounds lost. In 1973, Jean and the Lipperts celebrated their ten-year anniversary at New York City’s Madison Square Garden with a sold-out crowd of Weight Watchers enthusiasts. They had a lot to be proud of: the company had grown to 110 franchises and $15 million in annual revenue. By 1978, just fifteen years after its founding, the company sold for $71 million (the equivalent of about $280 million today) to famed ketchup company H. J. Heinz.⁵

Clearly an approach for success built on human connection makes sense. We can all think of stories of how human connection made the difference for personal, social, and business challenges, but after all my failed attempts to change my life, I wanted more than inspiring stories. I wanted evidence that focusing on developing personal connections would actually work, and for me, the proof came from scientific research that would have been no surprise to Jean.

By the 2000s, the obesity epidemic in America had reached a new high, and two researchers, Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, asked a question: Is obesity the type of epidemic that spreads from person to person like a cold or is it a personal experience brought on by other factors such as genes and habits? The answ...