172. Bring Mindfulness to Your Communication
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The joyce in vows of the holiday season, IT can be so much funder, reconnect, rest and reflect. But for many of us, the holidays also bring communication chAllenges in conflict. To help you through the holidays, we're releasing several episodes, design to assist you and maximize the fun and minimize the frustration.

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We position ourselves to be more connected and effective when we take time to reframe our approach to achievement, empathy and our purpose. I'm matter perhaps, and I teach strategic communication at stanford graduate school of business. welcome.

Think fast, talk smart. The podcast today, I am really excited to chat with martial gold smith. Martial is a world renown coach and author.

He's been named the number one leadership thinker in the world and for years has the number one executive coach globally. Martial, thanks for joining me. I am super excited for our conversation today.

Oh, thank you so much for inviting me on our to be here.

excEllent.

Shall we get started?

Loves get excEllent. As you know, we're all about helping our listener's home and develop their communication skills across all of the work you do with global leaders. What is the most common communication advice you find yourself?

Giving three words, positive, simple and focused. I think people tend to talk too much, get lost in concept to keep IT. Some have a clear liniers thought pattern that people can follow. And if you have about twenty different things to cover, do in two different meetings, do IT all that was. And finally, keep a focus so people understand what you're doing, what you're saying IT and how you're saying IT don't have excessive complexity.

So keeping IT accessible for your audience, making sure it's not too much. And if IT needs to be, make IT more than one communication really, really helpful. You talk about an earned life. I'm curious to have you share with us what you mean by an earn life and how do we achieve an earn life when so many of us are, as you write, addicted to achievement?

Well, i'm going to read the definition just to make sure I don't get IT wrong. So I brought my handle book cares. We are living in earned life when the choices, risks and effort we make in each moment align with overarching purpose in our lives, regardless of the eventual outcome.

Now that last part is the nine western part, regardless of the eventual outcome. Now you mentioned addiction to achievement, great western disease. I will be happy when, if achieve that would make you happy, everyone I coach would be dancing off the walls with joy, everyday happiness, and achieve in our independent variables.

Be happy to be happy. Achieve to achieve, never believe any amount of achieve will make you happy. Now there's no wonder we believe this.

The entire western ethos is you will be happy, win. You may have seen this art form. There is a person, they sad, they spend money, they buy a product home and become happy. It's called the commercial. Now we have less money in the product.

right? So IT seems to me that we're chasing the wrong goal. And the goal is, if you want to be happy, work to make yourself happy.

It's not about getting all the achievements in the accolades, especially here in west stern culture. For sure. We conflict the two. And what I hear you saying is that leads us down a path that will never get us to that goal of happiness.

The boot disturb is called the hungry ghost. The hungry ghost is always eating and never fall excelling.

I'd like to turn back to your coaching experience, especially around communication. How do you suggest individuals adapt their communication styles as they are sent the ranks, particularly when they themselves are already seen as top performers? What is that they can do to adjust and adapt as they're evolving in their careers and in their life?

I did write a book called what that you were here won't get you there, which can address this. this. And here's what this is for the great individual achiever, IT might be all about me.

For the great leader, it's all about them and the big transition is transitioning out of this is all about me, great achiever and right, prove myself to its all about them, which is, by the way, phenomenally difficult to do. It's hard not to win all the time. Prove you're ride.

Let me give an example. One of my great coaching clients of japan government was see of glaxo p and I said, what you learn about leadership as see of this company said, i've arned a very hard lesson. My suggestions become orders.

I said, there's smart their orders. They're stupid. Their orders, I went them to be orders, orders, if I don't, to oris anyway my suggestions or orders.

I H G P. When you learn from me, I learn one thing before I speak. Breathe is IT worth IT is IT worth IT?

My friend alan mali, great guy, turned for around. Allen has a discipline. Somebody ask me a question. Nobody says, is there anyone else in this company or me else, weekend heart can answer that question Better than me. If the answer is yes, why am I talking right?

Listen, wonderful. IT sounds to me that changing our perspective and approach really matter when we're looking for happiness, when we're looking at a treatment. And I love what you said, a very tactic, practical bit of advice.

Take a breath, take a breath and think about the implication. I think there is a pressure that we feel, especially in leadership roles, to act quickly, to be decisive, and that pause to think about the ramifications. Is this suggestion likely to turn into action? Am I the right person to speak? Do I know what i'm saying? So perspective shifting is important. That means that we have to think about what's important for us and not necessarily just fall a victim to what we think is what we're proposed to be doing .

before speaking. network. breathe. Is my comment going to improve these other human beings, commit them? If the answer is no, breathe again, is IT worth that? Now, maybe my comment is little bit Better, but maybe the commander will go down at home preedy.

Is my comment going to improve this relationship with somebody I love? But the answer is no. My understand that Peter record where here on earth to make a positive difference, not to prove of a smart.

not prove or right. excEllent. So be thinking about the difference we have to make and reflect on IT before we act first.

One of the many things that you talk about that really resonates with me, and we've spent a fair amount of time talking about on this podcast, is the notion of feedback. But you talk not about feedback, but feed forward. Can you explain what you mean by feedforward and discuss how this approach helps individuals focus and improve?

Here's the kid. Ask for ideas for the future, not feedback about the past. And two, when you get ideas, you can't judge and critique.

Ideas can make a good idea, bad idea. Or to do that, they work. Listen, smile, take notes and safe. Thank you. Now again, back to butsu.

Budi said, only do what I teach words for you if that work for, okay, don't do IT well feed forward. You ask for ideas. You get the ideas.

You thank them. You treat the idea like a gift. So my, give me a gift, something stupid gift, dumb gift.

I don't like your gift. Thank you. That would be IT is all .

about I like how just framing IT just the word itself sounds positive and invites people in because you're absolutely right. People get very defensive when you hear I have feedback to give even if IT ultimately as praise people really defensive. And I like that.

IT is something that you seek. You ask, what are the things that I can do? And you help the person focus on the future, not what the past behavior has been.

We can only control what's going ahead, not what's happened behind. And I like that. And again, a theme i'm hearing in your work, martial, is take time, listen.

And it's in that listening, not just to others, but to yourself, that can help you really change. And I appreciate that in your book trigger, you talk about how our environment can shape our behavior. Can you share some strategies on how individuals can create environments that support positive behavioral change for themselves and others?

Well, the first thing is figure out what your triggers are. And we all get set off by certain things in environment we may get angry at in appropriate a drink, too much smoke. I mean, whatever is for you, IT is for you, work out, not work out, positive or negative.

What are the things in your environmental trigger ing? You number one. The number two.

Learn to avoid, if possible, avoid the ones that set you off. Avoid the people that set you off. Avoid the bad behaviors that set you off in the wrong direction.

I mean, if you can't avoid adjust, learn to breathe again, breathing, and think when this happens. This was exactly when I tend to lose IT. Learn to identify those things, breath, breathe, breathe. And then realized, we are constantly bombarded by our environment, and we are constantly in this role of error, rapid input change and IT is very hard not to let IT control us.

I really like this idea of take the time to think about what triggers you identify those trigger, see them. So we actually have some control. You refigure up to boot.

Sm, I have studied these turn philosophy. I aligned myself more as a towel than a boodh. But the difference between reacting and responding is something that I think you're touching on here.

You want to give yourself a little bit of time so you can make a conscious choice and react appropriately, rather than just responding as the trigger might prompt and make a choice about that response. One of the things I heard you say was, hey, I see the trigger and i'm going to walk away or i'm not going to play that game. I'm not gonna sucked in.

And that's so important. Another theme i'm hearing as you talk is this notion of reflect, listen, slow down, read just your frame or your perspective. Thank you. You talk about a success checklist. Can you share some of the items on the checklist so we can all benefit? And are there any that have higher priority than others of the questions on the checklist?

I do something everyday called daily questions. Now I highly recommend that to all of your list or daily quits a great idea day, make a list of what you think is most important in your life, and every question has been answer yes, no or number, and every day you felt the form. And in the way you get a little report card.

Now been doing this twenty five years. I'm going to warn all your listers in advance. I start, they are pretty.

now. I am going to give your listeners and viewer six questions to ask himself. You just do this every day.

You're going have a Better life and I were more in advance is hard to do this. They all begin with trees called, did I do my best to now my daughter Kelly gues, a professor. Banter build.

If SHE taught me the idea of active questions, the advantage of an active question is you're looking in the mirror. Don't blame others. Number one, every day did I do my best to set clear goals.

Not did somebody set goals for me. He did. I said my own goals, too, that I do my best to make progress.

Three, we've talked about this every day that I do my best to be happy everyday. Did you try to be happy today? Never before did I do my best to find meaning. Waiting for the world that give you meaning in life did I do my best to find meaning in my life.

Number five, did I do my best to build pop of relationships? And finally, number six, did I do my best to be fully engaged every day? Go through that checklist? Did I do my best to? Now, a research on this is compelling.

If you do this every day, guess what? You get Better. I can tell you it's hard to do why it's embarrassing, but I still grow up every day. Yes, so I not work out when I should. Of course, for human .

having a ritual, a practice of inquiry on reflection is critical. And I love what your daughter told you about active inquiry as a way of really driving change. And IT seems to me that not only on a daily basis can this help us change our behaviors, but perhaps we notice patterns over time that can help us begin to see larger areas of change that we might want to make.

And I can see how this type of string can help what we started this interview with, with this notion of breaking the achievement cycle and IT forces you, these questions are really not about achievement. They're about how you are in the world and in that, to me, is very valuable. I like that you use old school ways of helping us get Better reflection and asking ourselves questions.

But you also are stepping into the present and future using artificial intelligence. I'd love to hear a little bit about how you are leveraging some technology to help people take benefit from your experience, your wisdom and your thoughts. Well.

i've always want to give away everything I know to as many people as I can. It's been hard to figure out how to do that. I failed in my efforts for about twenty years.

I tried all kinds of possible as I didn't work. And now IT is amazing. So I have to go to martial goals with one.

A, martial has two else goes with that. A I, you can ask you deep questions. IT is unbelievable.

It's amazing. We actually are working on something very similar for the podcast where we've uploaded transcribe of some of the guests and some of the discussions we've had. The ability to focus our in the moment need and get responses from experts like yourself, I think is a fantastic advancement and something that A I can really enable.

And while there are lots of concerns around the eye, for sure, this is an amazing use case. A frequent question I get asked, and I can only imagine you get asked to, is, how do I speak up? How do I assert myself in my position when talking to people who are hire up in the leadership hierarchy? I'd love to hear your ideas on this.

Well, you know, I had the honor spending many days with Peter druck er before he died and he taught me this lessons which i've shared with people at all levels of managed with here is points. Number one, our mission life is to make positive difference, not to prove a smart, not prove right. Number two, every decision life is made, but person is part to make the decision.

Make piece with that that the smart st person, the best person, rational person. And then number three, if I need influence you and you have the power to make the decision, there's one more to describe you. Customer, one word described me.

Sales person, customers don't have to buy. Sales people have sell. And as we go through live, think like that great sales person, i'm here to make a positive difference.

How can I do this in the best way I can? And like any good sales person, you know you sell what you can sell, you know what to change. What you can change, can sell, you can change IT.

I really appreciate that advice and that especially that last piece about it's your job to sell what you have, the ability and control over selling and looking at that relationship that way, I think, can make the daunting task sometimes feel more manageable. And we can leverage skills that we know we have we've been able to sell in position things. excEllent.

Thank you. Before we end martial, i'd like to ask you three questions when I create just for you. And the other two are similar to those I ask across all my guests. So you up for that, I want to come back to the notion of feed forward. I am curious reflecting on some recent feed forward information you've received, would you mind sharing what that was and perhaps what you're doing to adjust and adapt based on that feed forward information? Well.

doctor ordering, you're taught me a great lesson. He said, your life's Better to give people unconditional love. One person gives you unconditional love.

Your life is Better for my grandkids, both my daughter and doctor bober, right? All I do know, to give unconditional love, I write a letter every day, tell him my love. Everybody went. So that's a positive example.

I love that positive example. And the advice that comes from IT for all of us, unconditional love. Question number two, who is a communicator that you admire and why .

friends are self? She's no longer with us. Francis is an amazing human being. I'm going to give you one little story about her and communication.

Though he asked me to do a program for the girl scutts, I said, I can do IT back and only work on saturday. If you said you prove you work saturday, we work saturday. I said, france is so embarrass to say that i'm a different city every day.

Get, get my closed stone. Not a problem. We get a laundry here.

Are you put on your laundry in a pile and perhaps someone pick up your dirty cloth and to get your clothes done? Everything be fine. And I just appreciate your help and and thank you.

I wake up in the morning i'm talking to have the girls out to new york and chicago very distinguish women and look, walk across the holes, friends of cells and Carrying my dirty close. Now, talk about communication. SHE didn't have to give a speech about the leadership, humility.

Who is the customer? How do you treat volunteers? No, to me, a great communicator. It's what's on the inside.

It's the action. Not necessary, the words that matter. Thank you for that. Final question for you. What are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe?

Positive, simple and focus, right? I positive. I am up. I'm positive. I'm giving a message that people will listen to and appreciate the every tune can remember eight unrelated words or piece of paper, so I can babble stuff all day. They remember IT. Anyway, it's going to be reason with several origins lost and focused a clear, understandable pattern. And again, if you got too much to say to a little right.

And IT is with deep gratitude that I express my thanks for your time with us today, the lessons about slowing down, listening, reflecting, understanding the true nature of what excites us. This is how we become not just Better communicators and Better leaders, but certainly Better people. Martiall, thank you so much.

They are used much honor to be here.

Thank you for joining us for another episode of think fast, talk smart, the podcast. To learn more about personal development, please listen to episode one thirty eight, the gram either. This episode was produced by Jenny una, Michael Riley and me matt ibraheim music is from floyd wonder with thin to pot in podcast company. Please find us on youtube and wherever you get your podcasts, be sure to subscribe and radius. Also follow us on linked in and instagram and check out faster, smarter doi o for deep by videos, english language learning content and our newsletter.

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