Bridge the Gap Unspoken Language of Leadership and Success - Jennifer Edwards

32:00Instead, our goal as great leaders and helping other people become great leaders is to be in pure curiosity and wonder, what don't I know I don't know? And to let their brains explore in a safe place where my face is present and not assumptive in every given moment. And I know you do that because this is what you do on your podcast. So how do you act? I mean, you're, you're brilliant. The way you get people to share things that they would not normally share, how do you, how do you do it? You must have a routine long before you start. So I just send them lots of money in advance. You already know this.

32:36I've already given you a hundred million dollars. That's the true. Yeah. Yeah. That's simple and easy. And a Ferrari. and a Ferrari. Four of those have showed up. So mazel tov, congratulations. So for me, I just am constantly asking what I'm curious about. So as far as it goes back to your conversation of curiosity, like when you were telling me this, I'm like, okay, this is great. How do I do this in business? How does this produce an effect for me in business? I was like, okay, so I want to ask Jennifer, okay, we're getting it. We're aware. We're present. That's cute. That's nice. How does that monetize?

33:06How do I lead my team with that? How do I show up in advance where I'm trying to go? So if I'm in business, And I'm trying to build this community, which will make you just completely unstoppable. If you can master community now, as things are falling apart inside your org, and you can create it so people will bleed for you. And I have very specific ways that my team is willing to bleed for me. How are you, which the simple answer is you must be willing to bleed for them. They must see you bleed first. That's how you get your team to bleed for you. Simple and easy. And there's conversations we have about leadership and where to lead and how to do that, which we can get into if we want.

33:36But for you, when you're working with your clients, what is the normal goal that they want more than anything else? And what's in their way from getting there? The normal goal is always optimization. I can't tell you. All of my clients are looking to optimize whatever their product is. And they're looking to optimize their human suit, specifically how their brain thinks about the product opportunity or the solution sale they're looking to create. and what is in their way is them always what in their way is ego fear um a defense doing it the way we've always done it it is always myself i am my worst enemy and i'm sure you found the same thing charles so if there's one thing we have to do constantly in our human suit is start asking keep asking ourselves how is this serving me and what am i unwilling to get curious about that could actually be the thing that could change us all, how it could repackage, how it could reiterate something.

34:39And we get way too stuck in the mud. I'm sure you know that because, okay, I got to give you an example. When I wrote my book, there were sentences I was addicted to. I loved. I didn't want to give up. And I was challenged by our editor and she asked me this and it was a slap. Do you want to look smart or do you want to make an impact? And it was a hugely different conversation. I talk about this all the time. Do you want impact or do you want income? They are not the same. They are not. They are not the same. And people turn like, oh, I want to do this or I want to do that. And I did a podcast with an individual and I said, what's your filter?

35:18Because he's a billionaire. His kids are billionaires. I go, what is the one filter you give before you start a business? He goes, does it serve and help a billion people? And I was like, and I was like, Okay, hold on, time out. He goes, that's the rule. If you're creating something that does not serve and help a billion people, he goes, don't worry about the income. Can you impact a billion people? If not, don't do the business. And all of a sudden, all of my business failures went and went away. So to your point of what your editor said, do you want to be intelligent and seem intelligent? What do you want?

35:49Or do you want impact? So yeah, it's a huge one. The defining questions. And I think the other thing I have to always work with my client is the quality of our questions. We're not asking only ourselves, but we're asking our teams. And how much of a disruptor are we willing to be of our assumptions? Right. Because that's ego. It is ego. And we're comfortable. Go back to my brain file cabinet. Am I willing to actually bring in a brand new file that I've never had before? Or am I going to keep circulating on what I know, I know, I know? Charles, you and I know this. We are in the next evolution, revolution, the next iteration of society where information will be coming so fast at us that the one thing we as leaders, and I believe this with all my heart, the one thing we as great leaders have to do is upskill our ability to ask great questions about the information coming in.

36:48That's what I do. Yeah, I think it's interesting. People said this recently, they said information is like salt. And I was like, wait, what? They're like, salt in ancient time was the most valuable resource on the planet. Now you can get containers of it in the dollar store. Salt is like, information is not like salt. Information used to be coveted and we used to fight for it and protect it and all that. Now I've got enough AI out there that'll tell me everything and tell me how to build a nuclear bomb if I want to. Information is free. Implementation and connection to information, totally different conversation and what i loved about what you do is the idea that it's the same because you and i both like sayings if you want to go fast go alone if you want to go far go together you have all the information just like everyone else does we all have the processes like everybody else does we have the systems like everyone else does do you have the community to execute on it and most people don't so when your clients come to you and say i get it my ego is in the way i am the only problem that i'm ever going to have and i am the only solution that i'm ever going to have We know that.

37:48So how do you then take the next step to say, okay, I have to rebuild the connection because we've got it internally. We've done that. How do we build connection and community externally now? What are the tactics that we can do to do that? Yeah. I always encourage my clients to build a community with people who are geniuses, brilliant in their own lanes. Because a lot of leaders, we have to admit, they need to be the top dog in the organization. big mistake. In fact, my favorite leader is a man named Mark right now. I won't give you his last name. And Mark is a certified genius. And you know what he is fearless around is bringing in other geniuses.

38:32His whole goal is to say, if I in my community can surround myself with other people who in their lane bring an unparalleled optimization and skill set that I don't have, how much better can we be? Most leaders don't want to do that. They say they do. But there's a fear in it, isn't there, Charles? Have you ever noticed that there's a fear some people have in surrounding themselves with others who may be brilliant in their own way? So what I've learned is the people who are radically successful, the high-end ooh-la-la, they're driven by a certain amount of pain and fear. So one of the gentlemen that I'm standing up with here, he had tragedy early in his life and he lost someone.

39:13And he's constantly trying to prove to that individual i'm enough i'm good enough whatever it is another one of my clients um very high on spectrum he's very much on spectrum as far as ad or autism and all that he uses his pain to the point of just going going and going and going and we talked about this early on pain will get you moving it's just going to burn you out that fire will burn you ultimately so when we talk about getting in the rooms with those people of more impact of more connection how do you teach your clients how to do that how do they get into those rooms because we all talk about it raise your network if you're the smartest person in the room you're in the wrong room how do you push yourself how do you get yourself in that environment where you are around people who are smarter better more dynamic i have found it so much easier than most people think it's called okay walk me through that it's called identify who you'd like to be in the room with and the chances are if you're a person of character.

40:13You're going to be wanting to be in a room with a person of character. And it's as simple as this. If you pick up the phone and say, Charles, my name is Jennifer, and I've been watching you from afar, and I'd love a chance to learn from you, sit at your feet, and absorb you for an hour, would you be generous enough to give that to me? The answer is nine out of ten times yes. Now, we make it much harder. And I know that if I just pick up the phone and somebody calls me and they ask that, I want to pay it forward. Pay it to that next generation. So let me ask you this. What's the most courageous phone call you've ever made and been mentored at?

40:50Where have you said, done this and built a community? Like said, I want to meet this person and grow with this from this person. So it wasn't a phone call. It was at an event. So I was speaking at an event and I will leave the person anonymous. And I don't fangirl over a lot of people. It's just, there's only two people I've ever fangirled over one of them is the Dalai Lama and the other one is Neil deGrasse Tyson uh those are the two people I fangirl over and I'm like but I've met presidents I've met generals I've been really high-end people whatever um I was more I was more excited to meet the president's wife than I was to meet him because I knew she was like years more intelligent than he is uh he knows so if he's listening to this yes you can call up and yell me again for talking about that it's okay I don't mind.

41:33We'll talk about it again. For me, there was an individual at this event and I admired his ability to command the stage, which is something, it's just human behavior. And I love it. When we talk about community, we talk about connection, the ability to move a stage is, it's amazing. So I walked over to him because I had just gotten off stage and I knew he was there. And I walked over to him. I said, excuse me. I go, do you have a second? He's like, sure. I go, you're one of the better speakers I've ever seen in my life. I would love some feedback. what did i do right what did i do wrong if you have a minute i'd love to sit down i don't drink coffee but can we grab a coffee and he's like dude you crushed it i was gonna ask you questions and i was like and then we sat and we still have a friendship to this day but he sat down and it was having the humility to go to him and say you're amazing i just i'd love to get some stuff if you have a moment i'll buy you can i steal five minutes and i found blocking that in is important to hey you have five minutes you have 10 minutes and then i normally do it in weird numbers i'm like you have seven and a half minutes and they're like wait what yeah so you do it as well they're like wait what i did seven and a half minutes oh seven and a half because the brain then there's a different yes they're not exactly it's an energy snack they're like wait what yeah so that's that stuff that i've done is kind of to pivot that around like hey do you have seven and a half minutes so that was one of the times for me that's that it's worked is just walking up with a plate from a place of humility and saying dude really impressive And then the other thing I would tell people is whoever you're, so I have a client right now who's about to literally go meet Oprah Winfrey and she's freaking out.

43:08Like, oh my God, it's Oprah. What do I do? I was like, go research what she's talked about for the last two and a half weeks. Bring value to that discussion. Say, hey, I saw you did this and this. You're not like, oh my God, you're wonderful. You're amazing. Sure. Her brain turns off to that. She's in autopilot. She's in sleepwalking mode. Oh my God, can you help me? Sleepwalking mode. it triggers it because she knows to your point they know where to put the file in the filing cabinet sewing up a little bit differently and the other thing I will say on this because I want so many more questions for you is one of my clients wanted to meet another one of my clients who's a billionaire and he's never met a billionaire before and there was no way I could teach him what he learned at the end so he spent day and a half two days with him and we drove around and we ate and we saw the cars and we saw all the thing and we were driving away after day one and he goes dude, he's just a good dude.

43:56I was like, yeah. He goes, he's no different than me. I'm like, nope. And he's like, all your billionaires like this. I was like, all of my clients, I won't interact with people who aren't like this. However, they're all just the same dude because we think, oh my God, it's POTUS, President of the United States. Oh my God, he's a different human being or he's a billionaire, it's a different human being or he's won a Cy Young Award or won the F1 race. They're different human beings. Trust me, as someone who's been around these individuals, they are, I'll put it this way. you've written a book right yes i've written a book yes for me it was the most insecure moment of my life right because i put everything in because i'm like someone's gonna judge me so literally don't hire me for 25k a month yes just go buy the book i gave more value in the book than you get for me by the book so we're all radically insecure so when you wrote your book what was the name of your book bridge the gap all about collaborating in tough times how do we collaborate with the brain in front of us.

44:56So let's walk through that because I want to get tactical because you and I, when we talk, we go in so many different directions. I want to get locked in. How do we bridge that gap? Like tactically, I'm sitting across from someone who has vastly different political beliefs than me or vastly different ideas about the deal we're trying to cut or vastly different ideas of how they want to run the division where I'm underneath, where they're underneath my command. So how do you do that? How do you reconnect with them and bridge that gap? One word, psychological flexibility. We hear a lot about psychological safety in the world.

45:30It's critical. And there is a secret weapon. And that secret weapon is to walk in with a psychological flexibility. A willingness to be so present with the person you're in front of and ask questions like, tell me about, share with me, what about? and to be so engaged and so in wonder that when you're with that person, you can see why their truth is their truth, not from judgment, but from a real curiosity that you will find a third way. Charles, there is such an odd thing in our human suit. And our human suit is constantly looking for confirmation bias. We pretend we're curious or psychologically flexible, but we are not.

46:14We are looking to confirm what we know we know to make sure we really know it. We're looking to confirm our ego and our insecurities. So well said. No growth happens there. And so to bridge gaps with people in my family who share different political beliefs, I have to ask myself this. What is my outcome? What is my goal? What do I want? Do I want to confirm my bias? Or do I want to be present? How do I want to contribute into that other person's life? And if I can be clear on that and bring a psychological flexibility, I can change the dynamic and bridge the gap. Now, I want to say one thing. If it's a canyon and I have the ickies, you called them, I don't want to bridge that gap.

47:00I'm going to keep myself safe. There's a big difference between a gap and a canyon. And I think, you know, we talked about this before about being a zombie. there are times where i want to immediately my brain wants to go back into sleepwalking mode because it's got other things it wants to worry about so if someone brings a political belief or religious belief or something i immediately because i'm a minor in theology if someone brings up something religion i want to go into okay i know this conversation i've said this conversation i'm going to pull that folder out of that file or that file out of that folder and i'm just going to start regurgitating i'm like here we go i think to your point what you're telling the audience is Don't do that.

47:38Ask them very open-ended questions. And what were those three? You mentioned three open-ended questions. So there's three questions that really open up the brain. And then there's some other techniques. Let me teach them to you. The first question is, tell me about. If I ask you, tell me about, your brain is hearing, oh, there's not a judgment in the way you're asking me to explore the conversation. So I'll oftentimes use the tell me about four times. Someone will say, I'll say, so tell me about your choice to vote for X. And if I let them talk, talk, talk, and the next question I ask is, tell me about whatever their big energy was.

48:14And I let them start emptying their metaphorical human cup. And I don't jump back to position against or with them. I just let their brains rain. Let their brain drain. at the end, I can get to a different outcome than if I had tried to wrestle with them with my own thoughts, or as you say, my own knowledge and my own file in my head. So the biggest secret to bridging the gap is to not wrestle in the beginning with somebody. Let them fully express themselves. Charles, we live in a world where we ping pong back and forth. We don't let people fully wrestle with their thoughts. And when people fully wrestle with their thoughts, often they realize they don't have a full thought.

48:59They have an opinion or they have a bias. Have you found that? Yeah. So that's the tactical mirror that I use all the time. So you asked me, so to be able to put it up, tell me more about that. Hey, you believe in ABC. Awesome. Walk me through that. And then I said, okay, so what you're saying is this. And they're like, no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm like, okay. Seems like. There's a great author. His name is Chris Voss. Don't ever have steak with him and his son. They will eat it. His son is huge. man was got really great braden's great but he always talks about sounds like seems like feels like he wrote a book called um never split the difference chris voss great book sounds like seems like feels like so we'll sit there and when i'm talking to someone so i would start with your example tell me about why you voted for blah blah okay it seems like what you're saying is that and they will immediately come back no i'm not saying that i'm like okay it just seemed like that walk me through that what are that where did i miss you'll find sooner or later they can't regurgitate msnbc cnn fox whatever it is at some point that regurgitation they'll run out of fuel and they're just being redundant and they're like now we've gotten to the point where they need to so like in negotiation i always tell people don't start negotiation first because they're not going to hear anything because they have their negotiation that they built in their head they have to get to their points and they're trying to remember it the whole time let them dump first which i think is what you're trying to say am i correct oh completely let's have a one-way conversation So when I'm in business or when I'm with a difficult family member, the last thing I want to do is to trigger their brain by actually slapping it with an aggressive question that may be just really genuinely curious for me, but not to them.

50:33And you know what the last question I want to ask is? The question, like, why? So, Charles, you and I are in a conversation about business, and you're struggling. You're an employee that's struggling. And I say, why does your pipeline look so lean right now? Why did you build the deck like that? What do you actually feel inside your body when I say that? Resistance. I want to engage. Yeah. It's kind of like when you tell your partner, what do you want for food? Where do you want to eat today? Uh-uh. Yeah. that's i'm not a big pronoun person but this is when i get into pronouns where i sit there and say you know what do you want to eat say what did we like last week what would we love to have today what are we feeling we versus i we we versus you because now it's a confrontation now you versus me correct there's no collaboration and that y word triggers me to go to life or death fight or flight because now it's my identity i've attacked who i am as a human being 100 so we never want to lead with the why question.

51:33We want to lead with questions that open up the brain to say, hey, I'm with you. I'll listen. I'm looking for the third way. Lots of voices enter, new thoughts exit. I really think we need to be careful about the energy and the tone and the language choices because words, they build worlds. I love that you spoke about energy and tone. People don't get that. Can you walk the audience through? Because I've taught this forever. Can you walk people through energy tone and cadence when you talk to someone yes my favorite example is these three words it is raining it is raining is a simple sentence but depending on how i deliver that i will be sharing my my my my poker hand it is raining it is raining it is raining and as you and i know people are not looking for words they're looking for the energy behind the words and what it tells you about them and so energy completely changes who you are experienced to ask and i know you've seen that as well because you are very attentive in when you're working with clients and teaching them negotiation and how to show up optimally how do you help people understand tone i do something called the dude exercise because guys yeah so as guys we use the term dude especially if you're gen x uh best generation ever i'm just saying right well right now so the greatest generation is the greatest generation but after that i kind of like much gen x so um no bias there no bias at all no no so but with we use dude so when i'm talking to a buddy of mine and every guy will get this i'm like dude now i'm upset with him dude i'm surprise so we play the dude game like how many different and i'm like listen just how many different ways and i will sit with a client we'll just get goofy because the minute you start using dude it dude yeah the watches come off the the ties come off we're like dude or dude because i swear to god if your side of the species wasn't on the planet we would just revert to dude that's all you would be duders we're just like dude dude so we play the dude game so that that's great that's a big part we play the tonality with with that the second thing i teach is mirroring and we've all heard about mirroring so you mirror body language mirror tonality mirror breath and this is hard and the next evolution of that is mirror heart rate so it takes a lot of energy to get to that but you will be able to mirror if you mirror someone's verb that verbiage their physiology you then mirror their breath your heart rate will change and match that we know this from couples when couples are in love their heart rates just like they're walking will sink so you have the ability to do that teaching people how to do that when they're across the table from somewhere to mirror their heart rate all the walls go down all of them so you have to be able to again to your point bridge that gap and these are some of the higher end techniques that if you don't know these things you're going to come in with a strategy that you learned on chat gpt and because you didn't talk to jennifer and you don't know how to bridge this gap you don't know how to build this connection to another human being and i think to your point it worked out really well I'm just going to ask I'm not going to push my opinion because my opinion is never going to change it just is what it is my ego is going to feed that unless I come in with humility to say okay I'm open to what I don't know because we don't value what we know as much as we don't value what we don't know so showing up and saying okay walk me through that my aunt is a great example of this I live in South Florida as we mentioned I've had guns since I was way too early and I can't admit it while I've recorded live so I've had guns for a very long time and my aunt was like you shouldn't have guns she's very anti-gun and I love her for it she's great and I get it I understand that and in the last two years there has been a massive rise of violence towards my community and it got really really ugly you know there's people walking around with SWATs on their shirts and stuff and they're flying flags Nazi flags around and she turns around and she goes can you take me shooting And I didn't take that opportunity to say, okay, no, I'm going to get in your face.

55:52You're horrible. I told you you should do this. You should buy this. You should buy that. I was like, whenever you want. Sure. Steve was open to sit there and I didn't take that opportunity to say, you're wrong. Whenever you want. I will sit down. I go, how about we start instead of you shooting since you've never held one. Let's just sit down. I'll take it apart. It's basically a paperweight at this point. Let's have you just hold it and see how you feel. So in negotiation and in business, have you found when you need to bridge that gap, what works the best for you when it's a huge organization?

56:26Because you've worked with very high-performance CEOs. How do you bridge that gap for their entire teams downrange? Before we go there, can I ask you a really important question? Sure. No, podcast is over. Click. Okay. So I am flirting with a new way of engaging with people. I'd love your perspective on it. So I completely agree about the matching heart rate and the matching vibration. And I've noticed that if I change my vibration in a moment of tension, I can sometimes flip the entire room. So let me give you an example. There's a ton of, oh, it's a tense conversation. And instead of meeting the tension with the tension, one of the techniques I'm really engaging with and practicing is getting really soft and gentle or inverse if it's too soft and gentle, raising the vibration to flip the script on how the brain is connecting to the information.

57:29You have to have a lot of experience in that. Did you talk a little bit about that? It's an interesting way to change the vibration in the room to have the brain think differently. Right. So I think what you're talking about is pattern breaks. And I've ruined this one now because I've talked about this before on another podcast. And I've actually had people come up during a negotiation and they've used it against me now. I'm like, do you listen to my podcast? I want to send me that podcast. I haven't listened to that podcast. Okay, I'll just tell you what it is. So they did a study. And again, again, I'm not, I'm not source of synthesis.

58:00They had took a lady and they gave her a clipboard and they gave her a container of liquid. And they said, Hey, do you mind if I asked you a question? And they said, sure. And she was okay. Well, can you hold this for me? And why she asked the questions and they hand the drink. So coffee or whatever it is. And then they walk away to whoever she asked questions to. And another person goes, Hey, we just hired Susie. I would love for you to get feedback on what you think of her. some of the people said that she was warm and inviting other people said she was cold and distance same tonality same question same attire what was different the drink it was either hot tea or a cold drink so then we're holding it it influenced their perception so when i'm in this tough negotiation i will do a pattern break which i can't do anymore since i've already made it public so this is a byproduct of doing a podcast i will sit down when you're just we're just buddy heads with teams or potential clients or negotiating for hotels or buildings we've reached the point where i can tell we're done everybody's sponge is full we're just getting into ego we're not working anymore i will sit there and go hungry i'm like anybody like foe i'm like anybody know what foe is and i will normally pronounce it wrong i'll be like anybody what food is and they're like wait what i'm like yeah food they're like foe i was like yeah that's soup i'm like i'm sorry i just can't think they're like no it's fah and they're like okay i was like there's this place let's just can we just sell this for a minute we've been here i haven't eaten all day do you guys mind it's on me i'll buy it i will then go and we will proverbial break bread with each other but we'll eat soup that deal closes every single time at that fah restaurant every single time because i pattern break it so being able to do pattern breaks on a high level sometimes they can just be silly yeah if you want to make it so it it doesn't logically it won't logically make sense toward the harvards and the yales and sorry guys i've had to deal with you guys it won't make sense to them it has to be so one of my clients his pattern break when he was stuck into it i'll give you two examples one of my guys massive ptsd he's got tbi a traumatic brain injury been in combat was a marine gone through some stuff at some really intense level and he was very mad at me when we were working on what we were working on that's okay okay you can punch me as hard as you want in the face on one condition look what's that i'm like you don't get to smile he's like oh don't worry i won't smile i said perfect i said ready i will ball up your head he bought up his head and i got close enough so he could strike me i said cool take your finger your other finger and shove it up your nose and he's like what and he jams it up and he's like what the hell and i said now you're laughing you don't get to punch he's like so it was this pattern break another one of my clients whenever he got stuck um he very powerful individual um i will not give you his name because he will be very upset that I told people this.

1:00:38But do you know what it's called when you pants someone? When you grab the side of the pants and you... Okay. So pantsing someone, we do it... We did these guys... I don't think girls do that. Girls don't do this. Guys will pants each other as a joke when we're like teenagers. We'll just grab the side of the pants. And I couldn't get him to snap because he was just in it. He was just, he was low vibration. His ego was involved. He was scared, feared. I grabbed the side of his pants and pantsed him. And that broke his pattern. So he was... Okay. Normally have your boxers still on. I'm not taking everything down, just the shorts.

1:01:08And that broke his pattern. So to your point, yes, you've got to break patterns. And it could be as easy as moving a cup out of the way. But I'm curious, how do you bridge that gap? How do you get across that line? How do I break that? I do this. I am oftentimes doing exactly what you do. You're using humor. You're using food. What we're really doing is we're bringing it back to a shared humanity. It's not really me versus you. It's finding a new we. And so just like you, I think, I love your ideas. I'm going to try some of them. I do pattern interrupts. I call them pattern, not shifts, but pattern interrupts.

1:01:43And it's about bringing something, an unexpected moment of levity, humanity, or a new thought that reminds us, oh, actually, this is just business. This is just a game for identity out here. We're more than that game. and so when you can bring that it helps the brain stop being hyper focused on one thing and sees the bigger picture i like to think about it like this is i remind people that we're actually at the buffet table we're not just in the lettuce right there's a lot of other options to make this salad beautiful it's not hyper focus on one thing and i do that that way one other thing i'd love to do is I love to ask people a question in the middle of the pressure that you talked about is tell me what would matter most to you in this deal.

1:02:36And a lot of times if I can do that, it's not about the deal. It's about the impact of the family. It's never about the deal. Oh, you found that. It's never about the deal. It's not. It's about the impact or the legacy or whatever it is. Get people to remember what they're actually fighting for. One of the strategies I use to do a pattern interrupt is I will set an alarm on my phone on purpose. I do this too. You see who it is. During the meeting, I will have the alarm go off. I'm like, that's unacceptable. And I will toss my phone on the other side of the room. I'm like, that's not important.

1:03:13I want to be here. And all of a sudden, someone sees, they're like, oh my God. they put me in front of their phone oh my god they will it'll it'll just pattern interrupt them so hard they're like okay i need to be fully focused this guy threw away his phone because for them not having their phone next to them is this huge thing so they just see perception as reality wow he's willing to put his phone on the other side of the room to have this meeting so when i walk into meetings as well if i if i know it's going to be tense in advance I would walk in and I'm like, hey guys, how you doing? And I'll look at my phone, turn it off, drop it in my bag, and I'll walk away.

1:03:50Hey, you just nailed something. Charles, I can't tell you how important this is. And I asked the audience this. Do you know that when I actually ask people when the last time they remember being fully experienced and listened to, they can't tell you? Because it's this. Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, uh-huh. For the audience, I'm looking at my phone and you think I am not present. This individual item, this object called a phone is grabbing more of my attention. And the human, we are crying out as a human species to be seen, understood, and valued. You know, our emotional needs are aching. And so if there's one thing we can all do to bridge the gap in business, in our families, and in just the average experience i have driving through my starbucks line give someone your presence that is what they want they don't want your words they only want your energy what a gift that is in business that has how you can be a remarkable business leader a thousand percent so the people that i and again i've talked about people i fanboy over uh one of my people he's no with us he passed my uncle barry was the best at being present that i've ever seen in my entire life and i spent a finite amount of time with him in my entire life i didn't i only got to meet him about a year before he passed away so i spent a very limited amount of time with that but his impact in my life because the maybe across that whole year maybe two hours maybe of total time maybe we went to a red sox game so maybe five hours that we spent around each other he was completely there whenever i spoke and it is a powerhouse move to do you just sit there and you stop and there's physiology you could do to lean in but you sit there and he would mirror my nodding he'd mirror my breathing and he just did this naturally because he generally loved human beings i don't have that blessing but he generally loves human beings so if you're in a business environment where you don't have this one-to-one when you can't do the game and you can't do the phone game how do you teach your clients to connect on that high level so connection i'm going to go back to the very very beginning does not happen with if i want to i'm a big leader and i'm coming into a big room and i want to connect and i want to create an experience where we all leave with many voices come out with a great solution let's just set that up that's what typically what we're looking to do it's not about me in the room it's about who i am before i get into the room I cannot stress this enough.

1:06:29You know, the most important thing there is for connection, for breakthroughs, is being present in your body and being your uncle. What was his name again? Barry. Barry would have been great in those rooms because what he would have walked in with is a sense of like, it's almost like an aura that you walk in the room. You walk in the room and people know you are here. You are not here. Right. You are here. and if you want to be here it is that simple and that hard i remember the there is uh president of the united states uh bill clinton walked into the room and the person i was hanging out with at the time was not a fan i'll say the best as possible she was desperately not a fan of the individual and bill clinton is not an attractive man before we went into the event uh at least for she did not feel he was attractive some other people might think he's attractive i i don't know he's got external plumbing doesn't do anything for me sorry so we go in and she's like i can't believe i'm doing this stupid i don't want to be here she was really upset 30 seconds into the room he just saw him walk on a stage and she goes okay now i kind of want to hook up with him what the just happened he had this aura about him i remember looking over her and i was like how So how does someone build that level of aura, that level of intensity?

1:07:48Because some people just have it. They either repel or they draw you in. I'm an expert at that because I think about that all the time. And it comes back to when I walk in a room, who am I going to be, not what am I going to do? Big difference. We've been taught in the world to do, once I do something, what I'll have and I'll be happy. And I like to flip that and think to myself, no, actually, it all starts with who am I going to be? Am I going to be generous in a room? Am I going to be wanting to be seen in a room? I mean, like, and what you focus on is what you will see and what you will create.

1:08:28And so if I actually am clear and I'm telling my client that they're going to go and pitch to, one of my clients just pitched it, Andreessen Horowitz, and they got a great raise. And the question I was is, it's not what you're doing. It's who you're being. They are buying the energy of connection to who you be. Not who you are, who you be. Like the being deep inside of me that compels them to say, I trust you. I can smell your commitment. I have a question. Do you find it's easier to do that now or it's harder to do that in this time and age? Never thought about that. Let me think about that. What do you think?

1:09:11Like where did the question come, what are you thinking about? I personally feel it's never been easier to create connections with other human beings than it's been that. Because to your point, this stupid thing, this stupid device has the phone, because we're so connected, we're so desperate for that drink of water in the desert. We're so desperate for connection that if I just show up, I'm like, I just want to connect with the person. And again, I don't know a whole lot about football. I never really have. it's just not my thing again men in tights playing with balls it's not my thing so i walked in and i got invited and i was like hey i don't know anything about football i'm like why does this do this and the guy was so happy just to talk about he's like okay well this is this and this and i'm like yeah but why this and we just he was so desperate to have that conversation it was authentic questions like i wanted to know i was like why does this happen this way or why do they do this and why don't they do this player he loved it and we talked about it and all of a sudden now I'm his buddy.

1:10:10And if you're wrong, I love talking to the guy because he'll listen to this. I love talking about what he shared with me. I'm like, that was really cool. I did not know that this is how coaches plan out. I did, like, for example, at the game, there were three people giving out plays to the team. Okay. I was like, why are there three people giving out? And then they had different shirts on and they had flags behind them and they looked like the people who land planes if you had given them crack and they were on speed because I was like, what the heck is going on? They're like, oh, it's a decoy strategy.

1:10:38I was like, wait what he's like the other team's trying to read their plays so they're using and then they tell people each time different color shirts are different that's what they're giving away for the plays and they're telling the team i was like huh son of a bitch i would have never thought that like i just oh cool that was interesting to me so for me when i want to create connection it's always about okay how do i want to make that person feel now what do i want what is my goal how do i do i want them to because i have a friend of mine is a comedian he's like i just want to make people laugh and i was like yeah but that's not connecting with them so he's like i can't find in his case he's like i can't find a relationship people just they view me as this dancing monkey i was like dude your intent is just to make them laugh of course you're the dancing monkey so when you're bridging the gap and i'm going to keep pushing on this when you're working with clients and and you're there they're coming to you because they're in a specific pain how do you fix that pain so what is the pain that they're in and how do you fix it i can't fix that pain i can only offer their brain a chance to see things differently.

1:11:39Let's be really, really clear. The only thing I can do is affect me. But what we can do to help a client fix their pain is decide if it's worth fixing first. No one does anything without a really important reason. So it always starts as, why would this be worth it to you? And sometimes it's not worth it. Let's all admit it. It's not worth it. And once we determine if it's worth it, we have to go into the human suit and say, what am I committed to changing? You brought it up about people who say they want a diet, but they won't stop eating, right? The question really is, is what is your level of commitment, of discipline?

1:12:14It's a beautiful word if we think about it, to get skills toward transformation and change. And then the real question, and I'm going to keep coming back to it, is what is your willingness to be present in the room without, with your ego, with your Hannah, your Barker, put on time out in a loving way so that you can learn and hear something differently. Charles, you and I both know this. The most important piece in the world is trust. People will buy what you are selling them, solution selling them, if they trust you. And I cannot scream, trust me. I cannot. Trust is an experience and it's a feeling that people get over time and it's based on one thing.

1:12:57Are you present with me and not running an agenda over me? With versus over. So constantly, that is the conversation I have to have with clients. Can you be with some, no matter how maybe crazy their idea is, long enough to maybe see something or to contribute a different idea with them because you've created enough connection? Charles when I when I when it gets down to it you said something really really you asked me do I think that it's easier to connect with people now as opposed to the future I don't I don't think I I don't think I agree with that I think the human condition is always starving to be experienced right interesting I think it's starving and I think that if there is one thing that you said that is I would agree with in that premise is maybe that because of because of technology

1:13:59people don't realize it's available to them and so they're excited to get engaged because they haven't had that but i don't think humans have changed over time i think actually we are so starting to be seen known understood and valued that it'll never change the human condition i I don't know. Do you disagree with that? Yeah, so I think we're saying the same thing. Okay. I agree. The human condition by itself has always wanted to connect. It's a survival mechanism. We need each other to survive if not the saber-tooth tiger eats us. We've always had that. That's hard-coded in who we are. What I think has happened is because there's the lack of that.

1:14:40In the past, you and I grew up at a time when we went to school where there wasn't cell phones. We had to actually talk to people. Wild. We had to interact with people. write letters yeah letters amazing right i'm sure you actually had to communicate you had to be present you had to give that person the gift of you which was being present so we had to do that we had no choice we would go out and we had to use our imaginations and ride bikes and then the streetlights would come on and we'd come back and yada yada that's that's we grew up with that we were forced where there was more authentic real present connection back then yeah now because of the little glass box in our pocket we blatantly walk around and ignore each other all the time i can't tell you how many times when i'm in new york i will physically have to move someone because they're looking at their phone they're gonna walk into me so i will physically just like hey how are you um and i'll just again i'm a i'm a big guy so when people walk out i'm just slowing down like hey how are you and just do like they're so starving self-induced starvation by the way because all of this is self-induced that when i show up with just a little bit they can be like oh my god you're i'm this oasis where i think when i was growing up to put it in a food metaphor there's a bazillion different steaks there's a bazillion different buffets and they wouldn't have cared about the one person giving out french fries but now since they've self-induced the starving mode i show up with a french fry the brain explosion oh my god connection it's here so for right so for me it's easier now as long as it doesn't come from ego because that's the other thing we're battling is so because again your phone the algo your algorithm will teach you and show you only what you want to know so i will mess with my friends phones all the time if they leave the room i will mess with that i will sit there and say hemorrhoid dream or hamster sacks and i'll read it and i'll say it into their phone like 15 times and then two days later it's all the hemorrhoid dream in their algo but like are you bastard so we'll mess with each other so we know that the algorithm is constantly listening so it's coding us to be disconnected so it's easier for me to bridge the gap by showing up to your point without an agenda to actually be present but most people don't do that because they're afraid well and i think most people don't do that for one important reason they don't think about how their energy their behavior and their Their quiet behavior impacts the room.

1:17:04There's this new idea I've really enjoyed thinking about, and it's about this idea that we're all a virus. Okay. I am a virus. Think about this. When I walk into a room, I'm an unconscious virus. Okay. My energy will impact the room for good or for bad. It'll impact the energy curve. And I don't think anyone, I talk about this with my CEOs and my leaders all the time. Like, you are a virus. you enter that room, it will shift the room. It will infect the room. It will create whatever your unconscious creation in the back of your unawareness is running on you. So the most important thing you can do is decide who you're going to be in that room, how you're going to show up.

1:17:50And the word that I've been talking about most of them is how can I be walk into a room clearly generous to understand the other brilliant ideas in the room that I might have been blind to before, that I might have been sleepwalking before. I can't emphasize this enough that there are no magic bullets except this one. How you walk into a room and who you decide to be in that moment will entirely shift everything. You know this. You know this. How you prime yourself, how you set yourself up for success, that bridges the gap. Leap walking, hey, that ain't going to work. Well, it's going to create something, but it's not going to be optimal.

1:18:36The intentionality of who we be in the world bridges all the gaps. The generosity I bring to the other person's perspective bridges the gap. Because everybody's fighting for something for a really good reason. right so if someone wants to learn how to do this how to bridge the gap and attract this down because most people and and you know this they'll come to us for strategies they'll come to tactics and how do i do negotiation how do i make an extra seven figures blah blah blah they don't a lot of this for you've gone over and this level of awareness and this level of vibration they never heard it before and they don't have someone tactics because you've done this for a very long time you've done it was very high performers if someone wants to bridge that gap how do they track you down?

1:19:20How do they get a hold of you? How do they start implementing this right now? Good, good. Thanks. I'd love them to buy a copy of our book, Bridge the Gap by McGraw-Hill. And in that book, they're going to understand a set of paradigms and tools that will have them start setting up their biology for success, understanding their identity and the skills that they can have inside that identity that'll bridge gaps. So for example, if there's one word that I would give you that I've experienced you in completely is it's inauthenticity. Not the authenticity that the world talks about, but the authenticity of like, I actually want to know who you are.

1:20:02I want you to know who I am. I'm going to be generous with how much I listen and how much I share. That is who you are at the depth of your core. And the very first thing we teach in the book is who are you? What's important to you? Why does it matter? Well, it matters because who you are in that room changes everything. Everything. And if you don't know who you are. So find me at howtobridgethegap.com. And most importantly, find a bunch of people in your life. If you don't find me, find other people in your life who make you think differently. I'm going to change that word. Find other people who invite you to think differently, who see you as so possible and so amazing, and they're willing to challenge your bullshit.

1:20:53Yes. I love the people who want to challenge my bullshit and get it in my face. I've got a lot of it. Oh, my God. There's a reason my eyes are brown. So if someone wants to track you down on social media or anything, is there other ways that they can get to you? What's the best way to do it? Yeah. Google Jennifer Edwards, how to bridge the gap. You will find me on a number of maybe over 150 podcasts. You'll find me on LinkedIn. And LinkedIn, I really attempt to deliver a value proposition that has us think about bridging gaps in our everyday life and specifically in business. And more importantly, give me a call.

1:21:28I love having conversations and I guarantee I'll do one thing with you. I'll be with you. I'll be present and I'll help you hopefully open a door to something you haven't seen about yourself. Jennifer, thank you so much for coming on and being with me and being present here and having this conversation. I've enjoyed it immensely. Charles, every minute I get to spend with you, create some laughter, some new learning, and I always leave more joyful than I became in. So thank you. Thank you so much. All right. Well, that wraps up another episode of The Proving podcast. Jennifer came on and she showed us exactly how to bridge the gap.

1:21:57How connections and communication and success all start with you. I hope you guys have found it valuable. It was a blast to talk to Jen for you should hear the conversations we have when it's not being recorded. It is wild. I think it's the best part of being a host of a podcast is the conversations you guys don't get to see. Anyway, maybe one day we'll bring everybody together and share it. In the meantime, go track down Jennifer. She's got a great book. I'll see you guys in the next episode.