The Art of Noticing: What The Noticer Taught Me About Marriage & Business (Ep. 278)

"When I read a book, I'm not on a race to read a million books in a year. That's not happening. When I read a book, I read it, and then I'll probably reread it if it's really good because I want to apply what's in the book or I really want to remember what's in the book. I'm not just reading it to say, 'Hey, you know what? I read The Noticer. Checking that off the list.' No, no. That's not how I read a book. We're not on a race to get to 52 books a year. I don't frankly care if you read 52 books a year. What did you learn? What did you retain, and what did you implement? If you didn't do any of the above, then what's the point? You just got some time on your hands, so you're reading? Implement it."

Hello, hello, and welcome back to the podcast. Thank you very much for being here. We're gonna change it up today because I have been thinking about this for a long time, and I've thought, "You know, people probably don't care about what I read," but I'm gonna just do it, and I do a lot of reading.

I listen to a lot of podcasts and that kind of thing, but I also listen to a lot of books. Really good books, I will buy the book and then I will go through the book as well, or I just buy the book to have the book because I like it.

Now, I am a very, very fussy book reviewer, if that's such a thing. And the reason why is because there's a lot of books out there that are just fluff. Or somebody else has said the same thing, or other people are saying the same thing, and you just keep repeating it.

Now, as somebody that's an author, do I say the same thing as Nelson? Yes. Did I just put it in different words? Yes. Does it make you think? Yes. Those are the books that I really, really like, is the stuff that makes you think.

So I am going to share my books with you periodically, not all the time. This is not gonna be a podcast for book reviews, but I am gonna share the books that I like with you, and I'm gonna share just a little bit about them, and then you guys can decide if you want it or not.

The first one that I want to share is one of my favorites, and it is The Noticer from Andy Andrews.

I would absolutely love to meet this guy because almost every Andy Andrews book I have ever listened to is amazing. And when you listen to books, some of them are just bad. Like, they just don't do a good job. Andy reads his books, and he is such a good storyteller. I just… love him because if I'm driving, like, you kind of forget where you're going on the road 'cause you're so into the story. It's like you're living it out. It's like a movie. It's that good. It's not just blah.

He has The Noticer, and then he has The Noticer Returns. The Noticer Returns is, mm, it's pretty good, but it's not as good as this one.

The Noticer is about really — if you need marriage advice, I think everybody getting married should read this book. Listen to it, whatever. Go download it right now. I don't know Andy, but Andy, I'm here if you wanna c- if you wanna call me.

Here's what I like about that book, is it really talks about you noticing what other people do for you. Some people call it love language. If somebody bakes a lot for you, then they like to give. If people like to give, then they want that given back to them because that's what they appreciate, a homemade item, a craft, a whatever.

And I have applied this to business, so hang in there with me. This is not a marriage counseling session over here. But this applies to every piece of life. You figure out and you watch people.

And this book has really made me become more of a watcher of people, like watching their body language, listening to what they say, watching what they do. I might watch what they post on Facebook. It gives you some insight to that individual. If you are taking all of those things at surface level, you are missing a massive, massive opportunity to make a connection with somebody.

I'm just gonna use my friend Karen as an example. She is the sweetest person on the planet. When I worked with her, it was constant that we were being brought donuts, some sort of baked goods. She always had treats on her desk. In fact, today she's my insurance agent for property and casualty insurance, and it does not matter. I can walk in her office tomorrow, and there's a thing of candy on her desk. She is the entertainer. What does Karen like? She also is going to like gifts. She's also going to like that same treatment back to her.

So I have a friend in the agriculture industry, and she loves to take things from her garden, bake them, and then distribute them throughout the community. Her neighbors get baked goods. Everybody's getting baked stuff. And so I needed to send her a thank you gift, and I was like, "Man, what do I send her?" And I knew that if I made my homemade chocolate candies that I used to make and have a business with, that she would so much appreciate those, and she did.

She loved them. She might not eat chocolate, I don't know. But the time that it took me to make those, and the love put into them, and the thought put into that meant more to her than, oh, if I'd have sent her flowers or just sent her a regular thank you card.

That is what this book is about. He does go a lot into couples, and the whole story is about a couple. Not how they were not getting along, but it was about how she wanted him to trim the shrubs around the house, and he wasn't getting that done, and she was frustrated. And her thing is acts of service, which would be one of the love language things out there. Now, I've never read that book, it's just what I hear.

If you're trying to connect to somebody, I don't care if you're trying to sell to somebody, you're just trying to make a connection to somebody, you're trying to connect and stop fighting with your spouse or your kids, what is important to them is not what is important to you. So why are you not noticing all of those things that you can do for them?

If you are a family business and you are in business together, and you have your kids working for you, or you have employees, you think overtime is what is important to them, but in fact, what might be important to them is making sure they can go get their kids from school, having a day off, whatever that might be.

My daughter's boyfriend started working at a new company, and in the interview they asked him, "What's important to you, money or time off? Which one would you choose?" And he said, "Time off." And they said, "Oh, okay, so if we have overtime, we'll just give that to somebody else."

Interestingly enough, he will work overtime now. He takes his days off too, but if they need him to work overtime, he's happy to do it because they're super good people to work for and it's fun. His previous job was not fun, and so he's thinking, "Oh, I want the time off." But he's willing to work because they obviously make work fun. They're super nice to him. He really, really likes them because they, again, are most likely noticing how to get a positive response out of him. And so if that is making work fun or incentivizing him with a couple of things, they're gonna do that and then they get to have him as an employee longer.

I have two employees. One of them does not like to do any kind of crafty things, and the other one does. And so for our Christmas party, I said, "Well, what do you guys wanna do?" Like, we take the day off for our Christmas party around here.

I do not believe, as an employer, I need to ask my employees to give me their evening away from their children and their house. They spent all day with me, and now we're gonna go someplace in the evening and have a Christmas party, or I'm gonna take their Saturday or Sunday off of work to have a Christmas party. A Christmas party is work. We take the day off.

So there's not a lot to do during the day here, okay? We can't go get a pedicure or… I mean, we could, but none of us are into that. There's just like we can't go to a concert or a show or anything like that 'cause those things rarely happen.

So last year we did a craft, okay? I don't mind doing a craft. It depends what the craft is, but I don't mind doing a craft. So I made a tie blanket. Tarisa was making a craft, and Jess was like, "I don't wanna do a craft," right? I'm like, "Great, then don't do a craft." But I'm gonna notice and I'm gonna pay attention to what Jess likes, and if that's not what Jess likes, then that's not what we're gonna do. Or she doesn't have to do it. I'm not gonna force her to have to do a craft. I said, "Well, then just come over and visit. Like, if that's all you wanna do, we'll do crafts while you visit with us," and she just kind of went around the house and visited with everybody and watched us do crafts. It was great.

But I think that a lot of times, even as a business owner, when I am meeting with a client, I am going to notice how they treat their spouse, how they talk to their spouse, how they talk about people. What is important to them? Is it that they want to go on a vacation they never get to go on? Is it that they want a vehicle? Is it that they go volunteer and they have a nonprofit? What are those things that your client, if you're the business owner, what are those things that you're going to notice about them that they're doing to you? We need to do that back, okay?

My husband, in 22 years of knowing him, 22, almost 23 years of knowing him, he has never once raised his voice. Never once. I just hit something with the mower a couple of weeks ago. It was, like, a pipe for our septic tank. And he had just told me, "I need to cut that off, but I'm not gonna cut it off at ground level because you need to see it so you don't hit it with the mower." 'Cause yes, I do those things from time to time. He calls me Sparky 'cause I hit a rock and sparks were flying. So yeah, you know, it happens.

So I hit this pipe, and I broke it off, and I messaged him, and I'm like, "Please don't kill me." And I sent him a picture, and I'm like, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. This is gonna be such an expensive fix." And he replies back, he's like, "It's not a big deal. I'll… it's a super quick fix. It's not a big deal." Zero care that he had to take an extra 15 minutes, 10, 15 minutes out of his day to go fix that, and it really was, like, not a big fix. But it was still the point that I did it.

I would have been annoyed. I would have been annoyed. But because I notice he never gets upset, I therefore rarely get upset with him because I am not going to give him a different treatment than what he gives me. There's a respect.

I am going to do the same for a client. If a client is going to send us a gift, if a client is going to call me instead of email me, I am going to call the client back. I'm not going to email the client back. I will return that in the form of a phone call because that client likes to be called.

I just learned this about Tarisa, and you guys have all heard Tarisa on here. So I was telling Tarisa's husband, I said, "She's terrible at texting back." Like, "She's busy," and I just figured it was 'cause she was busy, and he said, "She would prefer a phone call." I'm like, "Oh, I did not know that," because she doesn't always call me, so I didn't notice that, right? But now I know that, so I still text her, but I know she would much rather have a phone call, so we will have a phone call 'cause that's what she appreciates.

This book just puts that into perspective of paying attention to what other people are doing and then understanding that is how they want to be treated back. If you are going to come into a meeting and be belligerent, and you're gonna cuss with me, and you're gonna be condescending, well, you're gonna get that back because that's apparently what you want. If you're willing to talk to me that way, then I'm more than happy to talk to you that way. I can do that. I can honor your wish.

Um, if you're looking for a good book, this is one of them. Anything by Andy Andrews is good. I will probably not go over the rest of his books because they're not… I haven't found one that probably needs its own 15 minutes like this one does. But you have The Noticer, The Noticer Returns. I don't remember what the… Oh, The Traveler's Gift, Mastering the Seven Decisions. Those are DVDs. Yeah, he's got a lot of good stuff. I've tried to get him to speak at one of my events and I don't hear back from him, so assuming he's busy, 'cause that's what happens.

But if you guys… Here's the other thing. If you guys have a good book recommendation, like it better be good. If you have a good book recommendation, send it my way.

I heard somebody talk about this the other day. They read a lot of books. It's actually another book that I just got done reading. They read a lot of books, but he doesn't finish them all. And he said, "If it's not good, I quit. There's not a rule that says you have to finish the book." And I laughed because I have a lot of books I've not finished, and I feel guilty 'cause I've not finished them. Like, gosh, did I miss something? Like, usually there's one thing from a book you're gonna take away, and I'm like, "Oh, I bet I'm missing something from that book." But it was so bad that I just didn't finish it.

I read one not so long ago, it was How to Work with Difficult People, I think was the name of it. I was so mad when I got done reading it that I thought, "Am I the difficult person?" Because this book just basically said, "Hey, you need to pander to them. If they're difficult, you need to just pander to them and let them be difficult." What? That's the dumbest advice I've ever heard. I'm not gonna pander to somebody that's difficult. Like, why would I do that?

And so I got to a certain point of it, and I just quit reading. Like… Or I should have quit reading. I actually finished that one 'cause I thought, "Is there something I'm missing here?" 'Cause there's difficult people in the world, and I really wanted some insight on how to work with them, and pandering to them and not calling out their difficultness is not how I'm gonna work with difficult people.

'Cause I am a very firm believer that if you're being difficult, then you need to be called out on it. Why would you not? Like, if I'm being difficult and I'm being stubborn, like if I'm being stubborn about this right now, you are free to email me and say, "Mary Jo, you are being stubborn about this." No, and you are free to convince me otherwise. Just like you are free to email me and say, "Hey, Mary Jo, you are missing the boat on crypto." Okay, fine. I'm always happy to listen.

But when somebody's being difficult, it is very, very hard for me to not say something. And I'm like, so they just are allowed a pass because they're angry or whatever? Yeah, I got done with the book and I was irritated. Would not recommend that book in any way, shape, or form.

Now, I've had other books recommended to me, and people think that they're good, and I'm like, "This book is… Like, it's not catching my attention in the least." So if you have a good one that you think I will like, send it my way. I'm open. I have Audible credits that I have to use or I'm going to lose them.

But I'm not gonna finish it. If I don't like it, I'm not gonna finish it. It's just how I am, you know? Like, there's a lot of books to read, I don't have a lot of time.

And when I read a book, here's the other thing, I'm not on a race to read a million books in a year. That's not happening. When I read a book, I read it, and then I'll probably reread it if it's really good because I want to apply what's in the book or I really want to remember what's in the book. I'm not just reading it to say, "Hey, you know what? I read The Noticer. Checking that off the list." No, no. That's not how I read a book. We're not on a race to get to 52 books a year. I don't frankly care if you read 52 books a year. What did you learn? What did you retain, and what did you implement? If you didn't do any of the above, then what's the point? You just got some time on your hands, so you're reading? Implement it.

The last book I was reading was talking about that very thing. I will be doing a book review on that one. I just got the book in the mail, and that one is so good that I need to… And I talked about it with Tarisa too, but it's so good that I wanna listen and read at the same time, and highlight, and mark, and write, and… So good.

Let me know if you have readings. Let me know if there's something on here that we have not discussed about infinite banking, finances. Let me know if there's somebody you want me to interview.

I reached out to a lady on TikTok that does mortgage loans, and I'm excited. She's agreed to be on the podcast. We just gotta figure out a day that we're going to be able to record. I just wanna bring you guys as much information as I possibly can. So if there's somebody that you think that I should be interviewing on the Without the Bank podcast, even on the farming side, but on the Without the Bank side, I really want this podcast to be focused towards business owners. So if there's anything that you think I should know, send it my way.

All right, you guys, you let me know. If you need anything, maryjo@withoutthebank.com. Grab your Life Without the Bank book, your BYOB book, read them, schedule your appointment, and then we'll see if it's a fit for you. Otherwise, you have a fantastic rest of your day.