2416 - Improving Business Relationships by Mastering Communication Styles with Sara Gilbert

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0:46Visit podverified.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it.

0:56With us right now, it's Sarah Gilbert. Sarah, you're a professional speaker, you're a training consultant, you're an award-winning business strategist and mindset coach. I love what you talk about. You are found on the web, Sarah, at sarahgilbert.coach. Sarah, thank you for joining us. Well, thank you very much for the invitation. Glad to be here. Yeah. Yeah. So before we get going, always love hearing what leaders do for fun when they're not at work. And I think we share some interests on this one, although you've definitely plus one did. Tell me what you kind of, when you're not at work, what are you doing for fun?

1:35I geek out on making all my own cleaning products, beauty products, and gardening inside. Like I'm growing a celery in my kitchen. Oh, my gosh. So cleaning products, from what I've heard from people who make their own cleaning products, and in fact, this is, I really need to do, so I write a syndicated newspaper column for my other company, Savings Angel, which I've been writing for 14 years. I need to go back and I need to write this article again. Last time I did this, I found out, I'd love your take on this. There are some myths that I think people have. And also like one of the biggest things that I learned is a lot of your basic cleaning supplies.

2:25I mean, folks are way overpaying for a lot of cleaning products. All right. School us, Sarah. My favorite one, it's going to be very weird because when people come up my place, they're like, what is this? I always have in a jar some orange peel and vinegar. Yeah. So orange peel and vinegar. So we're used to lemon, which is a regular one, but either one with this orange peel and vinegar, and you put that in a mason jar or whatever, in a glass jar for two weeks, and it is seriously the best cleaning product for absolutely everything in your house. And it smells amazing. And yes, it just that people when they open your cupboard and they see a jar of like orange peel and a liquid, they're like, what are you doing again this time?

3:14And that is the easiest and yeah, it doesn't cost anything because you're eating the oranges anyways. And vinegar doesn't cost anything. Yeah, vinegar is so inexpensive. Vinegar is, you know, so for laundry in particular, I there was I don't know if I can remember this podcast, but I basically listened to he's there's some guy and I think he's called like the laundry king or something like that. so against harsh detergents uh and softeners it's like it's just so bad for your clothes it's and but he's such a fan of vinegar uh for yeah it really is it's it's fantastic i i use it for everything but i didn't think to put orange peels in there so so obviously that's going to help with the smell it's you know going to add you get the zest from the orange uh does does the orange actually then improve yeah because there's actually something in the orange peel that makes it more efficient so it's actually not just the smell but there's something in the in the orange peel and I can't remember off the top of my head what it is but seriously like you wash your floors you wash your kitchen you know your bathroom window it was like mirrors and everything with it and it's just and that's it me too i'm not really into like i i stay away as much as i can of any chemical products so i'll do like my face cream i'll do my hand cream i have a girlfriend of mine who does her own soap so i don't need to do that one i don't but uh yeah i geek out on doing things like that like right now like i said i'm growing a celery stick in my i i love that i love that now uh so i was just telling you so fruits and gardens are fruits and vegetables i I don't really have much luck with them.

5:03Flowers, I do great. Trees, I do great. Citrus fruits, I live in Orlando. So citrus trees, I generally do pretty well. Like our lime tree is like insane. Like how much fruit kicks off of it. And pineapple as well. I grow pineapple, but they take, I think, 18 months to grow. So it's like you plant it and it's like fully grown. And we'll see. In a year and a half, we'll see. So the saddest thing is when the deer come and steal the pineapple when it's nearly fully ripe. So you have to put nets all over it. And that just happened. I just put nets all over my pineapple. The deer still managed to get in there and eat it.

5:44I was so mad because I was waiting a year and a half for that thing. Now, meanwhile, I can go to Aldi and get one for about two bucks. But there's just something about going your own. There's something about doing it ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, and so just, I'm sorry to keep talking about this, but I love this. So garlic, so things like garlic, turmeric, onions, ginger, so easy. You can, this blew my mind. Here I am, you know, in my, in, in my young fifties, I did not know that you could take green onions, throw them in the ground. They turn into big onions. same thing with like all those other things i mentioned you know you just kind of break it apart and it's just like so i've got so many of those things going on uh and um it's it's so great plant-based milk i you know oh my goodness yeah i won't go and buy plant-based milk it i'll just do it from home you know it's so much simpler and i know what's in it and yeah yeah you gotta so now Well, you know what my Instagram feed looks like.

6:50No doubt, no doubt. Okay, Sarah, I honestly, I could talk about this for the next half hour. I would love to. But we got to talk about what your professional superpowers are. Can you give us a quick overview of the impact you have in the world? So my superpower is really on how language shapes human behavior and human dynamics. and it's my it's my superpower but it's also my gift because that's the only thing that we have in life are words can i go start right off the bat because i know you and i i want to go so i i follow um some really great folks online jefferson fisher is one i know does a lot of great work out there um you know i really want to go right into this.

7:40And I want to ask you, how do you think social media has impacted our communication? I mean, not just on social, but, and I'm curious about this and AI, I have to believe that people who spend, you know, a fair amount of time on social or with AI, like that should, like you would think that that would affect your in real life communication because it's such a weird distorted world on social that we all take part in, or most of us take part in. And, you know, any observations on that? Well, what's interesting with AI, it's, so there's three types of intelligence, right? There's regular intelligence that we all have.

8:35There's super intelligence and AI goes in that category. And then there's supra intelligence. And this is what understanding psycholinguistics and the impact the words have. Because when we are speaking with someone, we can pick up on what's not being said, what's being said with a weird tone of voice. We have intuition. we have something that ai doesn't have and will never have and that's right so we can pick up on things that ai will never be able to pick up because that's super intelligent it's that it's that intangible thing that being said um i think what we like we bash a lot about ai and everything although everyone uses it but a lot of people bash on it but what i like to bring forward regarding AI is like AI allowed a lot of people to have conversations that they wouldn't have had otherwise because they were not comfortable.

9:38AI allowed people to handle better situations because otherwise they wouldn't have had another perspective. In business, how many business proposals were sent out because of AI because people don't know how. It allows people to brainstorm. A lot of people brainstorm with their AI. I'm one of them. So it gives words when people don't have words. Oh, absolutely. And we got to give, give it a hand for, we got to give it that. It's not always right, but it sure is helping in difficult situations. Yeah. A lot of your work, Sarah, obviously it's in the workplace. You work with leaders. What would you, so when you're, when you're giving your Sarah Gilbert 101 talk.

10:27What are the main tenets that you typically cover? Well, first understanding the role of emotions in communication. Because as humans, we're just a big bubble of emotions with shoes on. That's all we are. So communication is about understanding first that we are just two bubbles of emotions. I need to understand the emotions that I'm in and the emotions that the other person is in. And my role as a leader, let it be with a team or with a client, is to reduce the gap of where the person is versus where I am, because that causes friction. That causes misunderstanding is when, for example, a client comes in and he's not worried and somebody says, oh it's going to be okay there's a the emotional gap is too big so understanding that we are all just bubble of emotions too and that makes a huge difference is that we all have linguistic styles and when we understand that and when I speak in conference I often bring a story from my own life where I almost lost a client just because we had different linguistic styles yeah so business I'm a very moving towards let's go let's do this per type of person and my client was moving away she wanted less problems she wanted to be less complicated so every time I was bringing up an idea a strategy or solution I was like let's do this and then we're going to have this and it's going to help you grow and it's going to be more efficient but she didn't want to have more efficient she wanted to be less complicated so every time we had a meeting every time I saw it on my agenda I was like oh my gosh it's going to be complicated I just didn't want to go and she thought she found I was pushing so we all have and there's different modalities in terms of understanding our different linguistic styles but like the whole idea between behind communication is to understand that it's like I'm a shore you're sure there's a river between us and my job is to build a bridge.

12:35So understanding how I'm feeling, how I'm seeing the world, how my perception is seeing that you have the same thing. And my role is to build the bridge, to understand that we are different. So going to somebody else's linguistic style, going in somebody else's beliefs, and in that aspect. What would be some of your favorite questions that someone could ask to understand the emotions behind where someone is. It's not as much as questions to ask or as to what to listen for. Because when you listen to somebody talk, the way that they structure their sentences, what they say, the verbs that they use, it tells you everything that's going on inside.

13:27So if somebody's saying like, I'm a perfectionist, you know that they're going to procrastinate. you know that they're going to hesitate because that's the identity that they're giving themselves. So first I can understand that that's what's going to happen. Then I can challenge the belief, bringing a different perspective, such as, I love that you strive for excellence.

13:54So I'm changing from the identity to a behavior. When somebody says I'd like to, what they're saying is, I doubt. When somebody is saying yes but they're really protecting a fear, a pattern or belief. But when I just take it as is yes but often people see it as an objection. It's not an objection. They're protecting something. So the first is really to understand, to listen between what the person says and what they mean. There's a gap. Yeah. Before saying anything, pay attention to the gap. Sarah, these communications issues, you know, in the workplace can be exceptionally costly. We might, as leaders, just look at it and say, well, that's just people.

14:57That's always going to be the way that it is. But as leaders, I feel like we do have, we have a responsibility to make investments in this direction. I'm sure you agree. If we, I mean, if we're interested in the positive outcomes that can happen, and I'm sure you have some experiences with what happens when you're able to impact communication transformation within an organization. How's that for a nice softball for you?

15:32And for sure, because the only thing that we have in life is communication, our words. We really don't have anything else. So if somebody, their linguistic style is their driver, they're all about, you know, going forward, going forward. And somebody on their team is more of an analytical profile where they're more cautious, they're slower, they're more intentional. If it's just if the relationship is just at the first level, for sure, it's going to explode. because they're different. But as the leader, our role is to listen to the gap, go to that second level, and really cherish the relationship.

16:12And often, you know, that's like, often just pay attention. When you're about to go see somebody with who there's friction when you talk, because you have different styles, just saying to yourself, like, what do I like about this person? What do I appreciate about this person? will change the way you show up. And it can be like the way that they do things, but it can also be, I like her hairdo. I like how he, you know, he makes jokes. It doesn't matter. It actually helps you get out of your own head first and to be open to a different perspective and really listen to not the words that are being said, but the meaning that is behind those words.

16:57And that's our role as leaders. Yeah. Sarah, your website is sarahgilbert.coach. Can you tell me a little bit about how you engage with leaders? Obviously, you do a lot of speaking. I don't know if you do workshops or hands-on or anything like that. so speaking and consulting so i offer trainings in businesses yes because i want people to build better human dynamics that is my whole goal i want us to stop underestimating what we're capable of because that's what we do with our mindset and then have better human relationship and human dynamics in business so yes they're speaking there's there's on-site um training I also have what's called the Evolution Suite, which is a series of different programs and masterclass that people can take on anytime online that will offer a different perspective on how to be captivating, how to understand how questions work, the language of client experience, because client experience is a language, to put tools in our human toolbox.

18:07And that's really why I do what I do. your website is sarahgilbert.coach so our friend that's listening here uh i know you've got some resources where would you recommend they go from here well they can go straight out on my website sarahgilbert.coach i have a website i have a quiz on there that's called um the um archetype of relationships so to understand how you build relationships so some people are very directive in relationships. Some people stay into like the friend zone in the relationship. It's a quiz, especially people in sales love it. And there's a masterclass that's coming along with that, but really start by understanding yourself.

18:49And when we understand ourselves better, then we can understand others better. That's the plan. I love it. You've got some great video content as well that, that folks can access from your website, Sarah. It's been a great conversation, Sarah Gilbert, your website, sarahgilbert.coach. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. No, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.

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