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After a brief rant about their listeners in Iran and the intimidation tactics of police in the United States (get off topic much, guys?), Kurt and Steve discuss a recent study about confidence.\xa0 According to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, well all have some internal wiring that makes us want to trust strangers.\xa0 Despite being told not to trust them our whole life, strangers are able to gain our trust.\xa0 Whether it's online or at a retail storefront, we are more likely to trust strangers when there is a social norm involved.\xa0 When we feel it's our duty or responsiblity to trust others, we're likely to comply.\xa0 This is because the human brain wants to creat short cuts and make decisions easier.\xa0 So it's likely to make you trust people that maybe you shouldn't. Kurt suggests that it's better to trust and risk getting hurt than to never trust anybody.\xa0 Otherwise you could end up "living in a van down by the river."

Continuing onto the topic of charisma, Kurt and Steve briefly review last week's subject, passion.\xa0 You have to have passion (only one guy has ever been able to be passionless and still hold our attention).\xa0 But beyond passion, you have to have confidence.\xa0 But how do you know when you've crossed the line between confidence and arrogance?\xa0 It's okay to be aggressive and try to show that you have confidence.\xa0 We want confident people that we can trust to tell us what to do so we don't make mistakes.\xa0 That's part of human nature.\xa0 But as we said before, avoiding arrogance is key.

We can avoid arrogance by taking criticism with an open mind and heart.\xa0 Kurt uses a recent interaction with his teenage son to illustrate this (way to go for the low hanging fruit, Kurt).\xa0 Confidence is about you serving your prospect.\xa0 Arrongance is all about you and what you know and how great you are.\xa0 We all hear the same objections over and over again.\xa0 We think that we can jump in and cut the person off and give them the answer.\xa0 But that crosses the line between confidence and arrogance.\xa0 Your prospect has to verbalize the objection as this is likely the first time they thought it.\xa0 This takes time and there is simply no way around it. Steve then can't help himself on the food front and compares spending sales prospects to a delicious rack of baby back ribs.\xa0 And no, listening to him explain it probalby won't help it make anymore sense than it does here.\xa0

But what if you aren't confident?\xa0 What if you're new or what if you don't even believe in your product?\xa0 Sometimes you have to fake it until you make it.\xa0 Sometimes you have to do what athletes who are in a slump to.\xa0 You have to stay in the game until you get even a minor victory that you can build on.\xa0 But if that doesn't work, sometimes you have to make a change.\xa0 Ironically enough, passion again comes into play here.\xa0 If you aren't confident you aren't passionate.\xa0 If you aren't passionate you aren't confident.

Finally for this week's blunder, Kurt and Steve revisit the gift that keeps on giving, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling.\xa0 Kurt and Steve discuss the PR debacle this has become and why Sterling is a horrible example for anyone who finds themselves in a situation where they need to back peddle.\xa0