Avoid These 3 Conversation Pitfalls For Masterful Communication | Toolbox

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32:03You give value. And this is really one of the core tenets of our X Factor Accelerator program, and it's why we've been teaching boot camps and training the military for the last 16 years, because we believe essentially all human relationships are built on humans feeling heard, appreciated, and accepted. So what does that mean? Giving someone attention, as we talked about in the first pillar, being an excellent listener, is step one to giving someone value. And if you're constantly coming back immediately with rapid fire follow-up questions or you're having your interjection of humor, you're not listening.

32:43You're not giving that person your full attention. You're waiting to jump back in and take the spotlight. Well, the second one, approval. How do you give someone approval? How do you make them feel really good for sharing with you and open up that door, as Johnny said, to more vulnerability? Well, you don't give approval by cracking jokes about them, by making what they just said the butt of the joke or yourself the butt of the joke. That's not going to make the other person feel approved and feel good and comfortable in that environment. And the last one is acceptance. So if we can give approval, we can say, that was amazing.

33:16We can share what we like about that story. If we can let them know what about their personality traits shine through in their communication, or we can get to the unsaid, we're actually giving that person approval. We're letting them know that we actually enjoyed this conversation. We enjoy communicating with them. And acceptance is actually welcoming them into your tribe. We've talked a lot about the show, how humans are tribal by nature. As herd animals, we need to be accepted in order to feel safe, in order to feel like we're not putting ourself in a dangerous situation. So the quicker you can give someone your attention, give them that approval, what you appreciate about them and welcome them into your tribe, exchange contact information, add them on LinkedIn, ask for their phone number, suggest hanging out again.

34:04Giving that value to the other person is a core tenant of being a powerful communicator, allowing the other person to feel their best when communicating with you. AJ, I want to add there that the whole mechanism is about chasing comfort. We're wired to chase comfort and allowing people to have attention, get approval and be accepted into the tribe allows them to feel comfortable. So that mechanism is inherent to all of us. And if you learn how to use it as what we do in our implementation sessions, then you have a superpower that others are not using. And the science here is so abundant that they're not just studies to be found, like their entire university degrees to be found on that matter.

34:55So I want to present something that is really close to my heart. And this is something that Carl Rogers, this really renowned psychologist, one of the big originators of therapy and how it's done these days. This is something he wrote in 1957. It was republished 2007 in the Journal of Consulting Psychology because it's still relevant. And it's called The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic Personality Change. Now, it sounds a little bit far off to go into the therapeutic realm to discuss giving value. But listen, in therapeutic relationships, 60 % and more of the outcome are solely based on the connection between the therapist and the client.

35:43So guess who really, really, really needs to be good at connecting with the other person. So what Rogers came up in his core conditions for effective therapy was what he called unconditional positive regard, which is just a fancy scientific term for acceptance, and emphatic understanding, which, you know, is attention. And he showed that acceptance simply allows individuals to express their feelings. They don't have to have fear. They know they're not going to get judged. it allows for the client, for the one that's being listened to, to really have their emotions, their content understood. And the entire approach massively improves those interpersonal relationships and the communication between them.

36:42And so at the end of his article, he wrote, these hypotheses hold in any situation, whether it is or is not labeled, psychotherapy. So learn from those that, you know, walked the talk. And are the masters, truly. You think about your relationship with your therapist, it often is one of the relationships you hold in the highest regard, because they pay full attention, they accept you for who you are, and they appreciate you being candid and sharing and opening up with them. And when you can combine those three A's and giving value and what the other person is sharing with you, it's an unlock that we've talked about numerous times in the show, makes that person want to spend more time with you.

37:29What is more important in being a powerful communicator than having your audience want to spend more time with you, to chase hanging out with you, to chase more conversations with you, to invite you into their tribe, into their life. And going back to what we said earlier around humor, sometimes that humor can be a defense mechanism. Sometimes relying too much on humor, not giving value to the other person, can be you utilizing a defense, a shield of laughter, to guard yourself from having to be vulnerable, to open up, to get the other person sharing. And we saw this exact thing happen with Jake, right, Johnny?

38:10Yes. It was about, what was that, a year ago? We were running one of our classes for the special ops guys. It was a huge group that were coming through. And one of the guys, Jake, part of his job was diplomacy. He needed to interact with a lot of people. And he had dreams of getting into politics. Now, politics is certainly a glad hands sorted job and you need to be out there and put yourself out there. And certainly that was Jake's strong suit. He was he was he loved talking with everybody. He's he was an extrovert. However, his fast talking, wisecracking attitude got him a lot of guy friends to hang out, to go to the bar.

39:01He would get invited to a lot of things that were very social in nature, but he started to realize that there was other events that his friends were going to that he wasn't getting invited to. And these were the more serious type events that he needed to be going to in order to meet the people he needed to move up. and what he realized in the class was his fast-talking wisecracking self got a lot of laughs and connected with the guys hey this is the guy that you want to be hanging out at the bar with on saturday night we're gonna have a lot of fun the laughs are going to be flowing but he's not the guy that you want to be taken in to meet uh some of the governor and uh the other people working in the office this week at this networking event because he's a little bit wild.

39:55He would never know what he's going to say. And so because of that, he realized that this wall, this hurdle had been put up. And so giving him this opportunity to learn how to give value, acceptance, approval, and attention, he then had added a completely new skill set to his conversational extroverted self, which made him an extra powerhouse. And, and once he was able to break the humor wisecrack pattern and his friends recognize he has this new ability to connect and do that fast due to his already inherent extroverted skills, that was, those hurdles didn't exist anymore. He flew through the ranks.

40:40And here's a situation where he realized that he was also getting a lot of humor back, right? If you're the wisecracker, well, that's what you're going to get back. Stronger frame dissolves the weaker one. But in that humor, in that banter, if that's where you live and that's where you play, you're not going to get to the point of connection. And what you're going to be memorable for might not be exactly the impression you want to make. Certainly not in professional career settings. So let's talk about the third pillar of being a powerful communicator, because this is a very popular toolbox episode we've covered in depth.

41:15We'll link in the show notes. But I want to highlight this again because many of our new listeners may not have heard of this concept. And it really is transformational to your communication. So we touched on the first pillar, listening, and the five levels and really understanding what to listen for. And then we touched on how important it is in our communication to really value what the other person's sharing. Well, there's a third piece to this that we need to pick up on. And again, communication is not just you talking. It's not just you being the messenger. It's you allowing the other person to share with you.

41:46And what they're sharing, there's a specific signal that Dr. John Gottman in his research on successful romantic relationships coined as emotional bids. And when you can recognize emotional bids, these are the moments in conversation when the person you're speaking with wants to connect with you, is making a bid a vulnerability for deeper connection, letting you know, I feel safe, I feel heard, and I'm excited to connect with you. When you can pick up on these connection signals, emotional bids, you become a powerful communicator because now you know the person likes you, the person wants to connect with you, the person would love to share their contact information, would love to spend more time with you.

42:29So whether it's romantic, social, or professional, recognizing these emotional bids are really the key to you creating those powerful relationships in your life. A problem that we see in some of our clients is that because their professional life is so logical and so analytical, as Johnny talked about, we work with doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, problem solvers, engineers, and even military special operators, where data and analysis is in high demand. Well, sometimes that analytical mind can trip us up in communication. It can keep us from seeing the subtle signals and cues that the other person wants to connect with us.

43:10Emotional bids are not logical. They are subtle cues in conversation that if you're only tuned in to the logical part of the conversation, you're only listening to the context, you will completely miss in conversation. To go back to what I was saying in the last piece was we chase comfort. Where we're comfortable is where we tend to stay. So if you have an analytical job where you are problem solution oriented, you have to analyze data and then with that data, come up with a solution in order to get over whatever hurdle is in front of you. And you make money doing that. That puts a roof over your head.

43:58That puts food on your table. That puts clothes on your back and you get good at that. You start doing very well in your career because that is a strong suit. That becomes where you're comfortable. And think of that. If you spend your whole day in an analytical solution-oriented mindset, you're training your brain, you're creating pathways for it to be efficient and effective thinking in that manner. And that will do great at work in your analytical job. But that same skill set that allows you to do great at work pushes people away socially. Because in order to connect, we have to share an emotional space and you share emotional space through developing your empathy and this goes back to what aj was saying about if we're only listening to the data right that those first two levels well because we're trying to problem solve we're getting all the information that we need to help this person get over the hurdle but for a lot of people they don't want help getting over the hurdle or they already know the answer.

45:23They're looking for empathy and connection to know that they're not alone in their struggle. The only way to do that is to share that emotional space. So once we see these patterns arise, now we can go through the effort of giving you new tools to use so you can develop this skill. And then what we're doing is we're skill stacking. We're now adding a completely new conversational tool to one that you're already good at, which opens up more opportunities. It makes you extraordinary, truly. That's part of unlocking your X factor is understanding the nuance in communication and then using that nuance in science to your advantage.

46:12This is one of those situations where when our logical brain overpowers us, we could get hung up on small details in the content. Hey, AJ said Detroit, but then he was talking about New York. Didn't he say he lived? And you can get hung up in your analysis on the imperfection that is communication. And that will keep you from hearing the emotional bid, the opportunity that the other person is saying, AJ, I want to connect with you. I'm enjoying myself, this has been a great conversation. I want you to know that I want this connection. I want this relationship. And I'll be honest, there are often times in conversation where I don't know if it's going well.

46:52I don't know if it's not landing, if it is landing, if things are great. Sometimes we've talked about the body language signals, about processing face, and the other person might not seem as animated or engaged as I'd like. But I'm still listening for the emotional bids because the emotional bid is the surest sign that the other person is enjoying this conversation, wants a connection, and is the seed of the relationship that can blossom. So when you start to recognize emotional bids, and there are literally tens of them, like there are so many emotional bids, we'll share a cheat sheet for you in the show notes, as well as the end of the episode for you to download to check out the emotional bids.

47:31But the important aspect here is when you tune into the emotional bids, you recognize the opportunities for connection. The other person then wants to share more and, of course, build that relationship with you. So you go from not only having charisma to then utilizing that charisma to have great communication to then building relationships. That's the entire point of communication. The stronger relationships you have at work lead to your career advancement. the stronger relationships you have socially and romantically actually lead to the longevity in your life. You have a happier, healthier life if you have strong relationships.

48:09And you can only build those strong relationships with powerful communication. So first, when we're talking about emotional bits, we do need to talk about Dr. Gottman, who you've heard us talk on this show so many times. And what he did was, this was in 1999, he designed a lab in the University of Washington campus, and he made it look like a bed and breakfast retreat. It was affectionately known as the Love Lab. And then he invited 130 newlywed couples to this retreat, to this Love Lab. Of course, they knew this was a study, they knew what was going on. So they would go there, would spend time there, and he would observe them in their day-to-day interactions with each other.

48:56Now, what he discovered was that throughout the day, these partners would make requests of one another, requests that weren't based on the content of what they were saying, not on logic. They were requests for a connection, and he called those emotional bits. So after six years, here's where it gets really interesting. After six years, he followed up with those 130 couples that he had in the love lab. And he discovered that there was a huge difference between those couples that were still married at this point and those that got divorced or were in an unhappy marriage. And the difference between those two, can you guess it, were emotional bits.

49:43Those that were still happily married, they reacted to 86 % of each other's emotional bids. Those that didn't make it through those six years, they were at the 33 % mark. And remember, these were newlyweds when this study was done. So even there, 33 % of emotional bids at a newlywed stage didn't quite cut it. Now, you must be thinking, what are some examples of emotional bids? And we'll link up the cheat sheet and the show notes, I want to share just a few of the ones that we've highlighted so you can get a sense for what an emotional bid actually looks and sounds like. Now, the first one is a bid for an extended conversation.

50:26As an introvert, I will find myself often being short, to the point, being concise. But when my wife is actually trying to build a deeper connection with me, she'll ask me deeper questions to share a little bit more. And if I'm super logical, I might be like, well, why do you care about this? Why do you care so much about what specifically Johnny and I were having for lunch? When in actuality, that's an emotional bid. She's looking to connect. She's looking to place herself in that emotional space with me and Johnny enjoying that business lunch. Another one could be a bid for emotional support where your friend at work might say, hey, I'm really concerned about my upcoming performance review.

51:04I had a rough quarter. I'm afraid I'm going to be put on a pip. I'm afraid that I'm not going to get that promotion. Well, that's them expressing an emotion that's concerning for them and looking for emotional support from you. So you may be in situations where an emotional bid is actually the other person hoping that you'll support them and be there for them in their emotional state of need. Another simple one is just a bid for interest. Are you interested in going to check out the Barbie movie with me? Hey, do you want to go check out Oppenheimer this weekend? They're looking to gauge if this is something that can be a shared interest between the two of you.

51:41Now, those are just a few examples of emotional bids, but the point is the person is looking for connection in their communication with you. And when you start to recognize these seeds of connection, you actually water them so the relationship can blossom. And now you've become a really powerful communicator in that You're leveraging conversation for connection, for relationship building. And these emotional bids, although Dr. Gottman's research is in romantic relationships, they're found in every social, professional, and romantic context imaginable. Because as humans, we have an innate desire to connect with one another.

52:22So if you find yourself wondering, why aren't these conversations going the way you want? why are you struggling to build and foster the relationships that you really want in your life, we ask you to check out your listening. Can you level up that listening, that first pillar of powerful communication? Are you giving value to the people that you're speaking with and communicating with? And are you able to recognize the signals of when people are actually trying to connect with you. Because if you don't recognize them or turn away from those emotional bids, as Dr. John Gottman says, you're actually breaking that rapport.

53:03You're breaking that attempt at connection. And if you keep breaking it, that person's not going to want to spend time with you. It's not going to feel comfortable inviting you. Or even worse, it could end up in divorce. It could end up in you losing your job. Now, this was really pronounced with one of our clients, Colin, who had immense success in his career. In fact, he sold the company and had an exit, and he was trying to figure out what to do next in his career. He joined the program feeling, after moving to a new city, that he was struggling on the social realm and the romantic realm. He was guarded in sharing his career success because he didn't want to invite the wrong people in to build relationships with.

53:46He didn't want people seeking just his status with this great accomplishment in his career. So when he joined the program being super logical, he was wondering why he was struggling to form the connections and the relationships that he really wanted. And in the X Factor Accelerator, we worked through the concept of emotional bids and it was that real light bulb moment for him of all the signals that he was missing out on. His logical brain wasn't allowing him to see in conversation around him of people wanting to be his friend for the right reasons, wanting to go on a date with him for the right reasons.

54:20And he was completely guarded about all of his professional success because he didn't want to attract the wrong people. Colin was a good looking dude. He was over, he's like, what, six, two, blonde, sold a tech company, loaded. But he was having massive relationship problems. And if I remember correctly, I think Colin had also had gotten a divorce as well. and he's trying to put himself back out there in a new town to start all over and he realized that there was this gap it's like he he's like wait i'm a good looking guy i i i'm i i just sold a tech company i should be rolling here and he was having a difficult in fact he was getting a bunch of dates through the social media dating apps like tinder and bumble but here's this guy blonde super tall uh has done really well for himself and he can't get second dates and he's also it got to the point where he didn't want to go out on any more dates because he recognized that there was a problem so it would be effort spent only to gain the same results So Colin started to look for answers for this problem.

55:41And it was funny because he had stumbled over our podcast about emotional bids. And he totally saw that that was the problem. And when he came to us, it was like, can we work on this? I've already figured it out. This is it. This is what I'm missing. and to go along with this. Because Colin was so successful in tech, he built his own company. He spent all day in problem-solution-oriented mindset. And not only that, Colin had, as you brought up, AJ, what we call processing phase. So for a lot of us analytical thinkers, when we go into our head and we're going through the analytics and trying to come up with a solution to the problem.

56:35We could either go poker face, there's just no emotion that we are showing, no expression, or that expression looks frustrated or even mean, which breaks rapport. If somebody's trying to connect with you and they don't see any expression or emotion in your body language, in your non-verbals, they are going to feel that you are negating their attempt to connect through an emotional bid. And that negating makes those people who are putting themselves out there contract, right? They're not going to be so willing to do that. And you're now missing those opportunities. So here's these, these girls who found Colin incredibly attractive.

57:27They're out on a date with them. And because he's in his analytical mindset, showing processing face, they're confused. They don't know what's going on. They're uncomfortable. And what do we chase? Comfort. So they opted out of having another date. So for Colin and recognizing this, learning to identify them and then learning how to validate them through conversation and through non-verbals, it completely changed his life. Yeah, I remember Colin. I also remember Matt from our emotional bids implementation sessions. And what we're doing here, what we're doing in those sessions is something that our listeners might be thinking right now, maybe it's like, okay, I've heard about the concepts.

58:18I'm going to get the cheat sheet. And then in the next conversation, I'm totally going in for the emotional bids. And there's like, well, that's actually a lot. Like, am I doing this right? What could I do better? And that's why we brought the implementation sessions in because what we're doing is we're meeting over Zoom and we have 10 people in the workshop. And then we start explaining the concept of emotional bits really quickly. And then we team people up and we say, AJ and Johnny, you're going to have a conversation for a minute or two. And every one of us, we're going to listen in and we're going to give you feedback at the end.

58:52And it's always so interesting when you have two people have that conversation and everyone else is like, oh, oh, they missed one. They missed one. He should have said this. Oh, he negated that emotional bit. He completely skipped over that one. And then we're like, time out. We come together. Everyone shares what they've seen. And not only do the two volunteers that had the conversation learn so much about what they did right and what they did wrong, Everyone else is learning from everyone else because the way that Matt picks up on emotional bits is maybe a tiny little bit different than Colin.

59:26And Colin is like, whoa, you know, I can learn something from Matt here and the other way around. And they're just so much fun. Like it doesn't feel like, oh, I need to learn something. It's like, wow, this is exciting. This is something that I have never experienced in my life. I've never seen those emotional bits out there. And now I can just pinpoint them and totally lean in and acknowledge them. And that's the power of reviewing the game tape in the X Factor Accelerator. I was just watching Quarterback on Netflix and seeing how professional quarterbacks live and breathe their iPad with game tape, reviewing what's the opponent doing, what's going to happen next.

1:00:02If I see this pattern, how can I recognize that? That's exactly what we bring into the X Factor Accelerator is the ability to review game tape on your nonverbal communication, on emotional bids, your active listening, on your storytelling? And how many times in your life are you in a supportive environment that's really geared to help you improve your communication, not tear down your communication, not insult your communication, or give you unsolicited feedback on your communication, but to learn from each other to bring up everyone's level of communication. And that's why in recapping today, when you recognize these three pillars of being a powerful communicator, you're on that second step towards being extraordinary, when you become a more adept and engaged listener, when you actually can give value in your communication to others where they want to spend more time investing in a relationship with you, and then when you can recognize those signals, those seeds of relationship, those emotional bids as we called them, to use them as an advantage to create the relationships that strengthen your career trajectory, that build the social ties, that enrich your physical mental health and the romantic relationship that keeps you from getting divorced and separated and struggling romantically, you actually unlock that X factor in yourself.

1:01:20And that's why we love what we do. And that's why I wanted to share these three pillars with you today and bring in Johnny and Michael here to share anecdotes and science behind why this work is so powerful.

1:01:41Whoa! I bet you guys are still taking notes. AJ, that was an action-packed, info-packed, science-packed episode on communication. So many gems in there. Absolutely. In fact, one of our LinkedIn followers started taking our shows and breaking them down with pages of notes and then sharing them on LinkedIn. This is definitely one of those episodes. This week's shout out goes to our in-person X Factor live Las Vegas participants who joined us last weekend for an epic experience. Everyone had an amazing time and we're excited to do more in the near future. There were many great moments and participants, but I wanted to mention a few standout moments, starting with Nate, who challenged his introversion and uncovered some blind spots that had made his networking a chore.

1:02:29Watching him become more confident each day was so much fun. And seeing the impact it would have on his growing real estate investment business was so exciting. Crystal joined us because of our social anxiety that was holding her back from building relationships in a new city. She had multiple breakthroughs in mindset and skills with the support and encouragement of other participants. In fact, she really lit up over the course of the weekend. And I can't wait to see her again in Miami for our next X Factor Live event. Absolutely. Lastly, I want to mention James, who started off the weekend a bit reserved and a bit skeptical, but the last field night blew his mind and showed him what he's truly capable of using our influence and persuasion conversation frameworks.

1:03:12Absolutely. And if you're interested in learning more about The X Factor Live or joining us for the next experience in Miami, head over to unlockyourxfactor.com today and learn more. All right. Before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harreld and Eric Montgomery. Johnny and I would love a huge favor from you. If you enjoyed this episode, learn something valuable, or just had a laugh with us, head over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. It helps the show grow and allows us to bring on amazing guests and content each and every week. Also, I just started posting over on LinkedIn and I'd love to connect with you.

1:03:47I'm sharing stories from our programs, my personal life, and lessons about growing your influence, networking, and leveraging your social capital to accelerate your career. You can find me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com slash in slash AJ Harbinger. Also linked in the show notes. We hope you have an epic week.

1:04:26But you had your taste of black only yesterday. Yeah, but I remember you. Oh, yeah, I remember you.

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