28 Jan 2026 · 5 min
Bill Gallagher shares a story about misreading a workshop participant's crossed arms and slumped posture, then learning to ask what's actually going on instead of assuming. Surface-level reads are often wrong. Real connection takes curiosity.
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Bill Gallagher
November 2, 2021
Doxatalent (doxatalent.com)
Align / Scoreboard (aligntoday.com)
scalingcoach.com
Chapters
Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done? I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent, and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have talent. Talk to Doxatalant and you won't be disappointed. Go to doxatalent.com Bill G Again, that's doxatalent.com BillG One more time. Docsatalant.com Bill G Check it out today. Do you have anybody in your world that's really hard to interpret, hard to deal with? You just find yourself always misreading them. I've got something for you on this. I've certainly had this before and I've seen it on my teams that I coach and work with. Hi everybody, my name is Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach, host of the Scaling Up Business podcast. We do tips, deep dives, interviews with gurus, stories from the frontline, getting real conversations with entrepreneurs, and we've got hundreds of those. Wherever you get your podcast audio or video content, you'll find us there with the Scaling Up Business podcast. You can also go to our own website and search that entire back catalog to find something that helps you deal with what you're dealing with right now in your world. You'll find all that@scalingcoach.com Anyway, I remember a woman that was in a workshop with me and extended a long form workshop and I saw her with her arms crossed and her body kind of hunched over, slumped down in her chair and she looked upset. She looked upset the whole time and I was really concerned about her stress, her well being, that kind of thing, interpreting her body language. And I just really felt like it was almost a distraction to me. And so at the next break opportunity, when I had a chance to go check in first, I did. I asked the other people supporting me in the room, hey, what do you notice about that gal? Like, what is there? I was almost afraid to confront her about it, but they said, oh, they'd noticed a little bit too. So I went to her and I said, hey, how you doing? What's going on? Well, she just opened up. Now that I was speaking to her directly, she like really opened up and talked about how inspiring this was and how connected she was and how my stories and examples were resonating with her and how I'm like, wow, you look really like. I hate to say this, but you look tired. And she said, oh yeah, I am really, really tired and I don't sleep, my back's hurting me and all that. Here's the thing I noticed we get a lot invested in our ability to read and interpret people and sometimes we're just plain wrong. Sometimes people say the wrong things, we misread it. Sometimes people even lie. Sometimes there's other things on. Maybe they've got some indigestion, maybe they didn't sleep a lot last night. Who knows what. But if you overweight your judgments, assessments, opinions of things you'll end up buying into and misreading clues that in some other situation. So got to go confirm and check things. Don't read people at a surface level. Don't assume you know what's going on. Actually check in and connect. Look, if she'd been really off in something, we'd have actually formed a connection in that moment. She wasn't off and we deepened our connection in that moment also because I actually showed some curiosity and interest in who and how she was and what was going on with her. I remain friends with her to this day at a distance, but that was many years ago and we're still connected. I see this again and again with my teens. You got to go check in with people. Sometimes it's just the way people present or something else they're going through that you might be misreading and and taking it might. It might get in the way of having a great relationship. Hope that's helpful for you. Like subscribe get these things every week. Give us a review if you like. Thanks. Keep scaling up. Talk to you next time. Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our scoreboard software. Powered by Align, it's the official software for scaling up. With Scoreboard, you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go. With their mobile app you can rest easy knowing that Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software, it's what I actually use to manage growth in our scaling up client teams online. Unlock clarity and results with Scoreboard by Aligned to try it now, go to aligntoday. Com Bill G One more time. Aligntoday Com. Bill G. That's aligntoday. Com. Bill G. Check it out and try it now.




