How Successful Leaders Communicate Effectively w/ Joel Silverstone

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast. I am your host, Roberta. If you are looking to improve your communication skills both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. And by the end of this episode, please remember to subscribe, give a rating, and a review. Today I have the pleasure to be joined by Joel Silverstone. He is a senior professional skills trainer and coach at the great Canadian training and consulting company. Before doing that, he used to be a professional actor at Canada's very own Hollywood. Joel is also a host of the Great Canadian Leadership Podcast. And before I go any further, please help me welcome him to the show. Good morning, Joel.

Good morning. It sounds like the beginning of the Muppets.

It's Joel and Roberta. I'm finally here. Yeah, it's time to get dressed up.

I can't remember how the song goes.

You see, you can tell you're an actor. You can improvise on the spot.

A long time ago. A long time ago.

Yes, Joel. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, thank you for that warm introduction, Roberta. And when I saw that there was a podcast, that you have a podcast on communication skills, I knew I wanted to have a discussion with you. You've done such a great job of bringing so many different guests on this podcast. So thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to talk communication skills, which is a passion of mine for the past 20 years. Yes, a long time ago, I was a professional actor. But for the past 20 years, I've been speaking at conferences, presenting, delivering training, coaching, designing training, all on leadership, difficult conversations, which is what we're going to be talking about today, how to give feedback and communicate to really to collaborate. Because I always believe, and we've all seen it, that in every conversation, there's a turning point. And it's so subtle, that turning point in the conversation where it could go either way. And that's what I'm fascinated with was, oh, that was the clue and cue that you could have gone deeper to that relationship where you could have created more collaboration, or you could have made that person feel recognized, understood, validated. And instead, you missed that moment. And now the person has gone to silence, or they've withdrawn, or they've gone into a fight mode, if you want, so to speak. So that's my fascination with that. At the Great Canadian Training and Consulting Company, I am the Senior Professional Skills Trainer and Coach. Where we have an extensive library of courses that lead those courses around the soft skills, around the communication skills. Because what we're seeing in the industry is that these skills of communication— and thank you for doing this podcast, Roberta— is now essential skills.

Oh, thank you.

They're essential skills. And I think that's what people are seeing now. And that's what we know the challenges for HR and learning departments are, is that with all this technology going and it's going at such a rapid pace, that our ability to connect with each other, to collaborate, is becoming more and more important. And also our emotional intelligence, how we handle stress and how we handle each other, is becoming more important in this day and age with the remoteness and with all the technology and the distractions that we're having.

Very key points you mentioned there. First of all, when it comes to soft skills, I had a guest before who said a lot of the executives she works with They say, I can teach them the technical. Because, Joel, let's be honest, university can only teach you so much about the actual day-to-day job. Yes, you learn that technical skill, but when you come to work, they actually show you how things are done. Yeah. A lot of the executives say, I can teach them the technical. It's the soft skills that we struggle with.

Yeah. What's amazing, Roberta, you nailed it, is that working with so many leaders and executives, and when you work one-on-one with them, when you do the coaching, how so many of them share I hope nobody knows I don't know what I'm doing. Like, they know, like, they got into this role because of the skills that they have, that they were good in sales, or they were good in time management, or they're good in processes. But when it comes to managing the people, that becomes a whole other story. So you can manage that data, or data, however you want to say it, but managing the people is something you don't learn in school. And that's why these professional skills is becoming so essential.

When we said the very foundation of this podcast, The higher you go, the less the technical.

Yeah.

And the more the managing of people and project teams. So as you said, the person came here with the technical skills and suddenly, I don't know what I'm doing, because you now have to put this team together and see things from a bird's eye view instead of I'm sitting in my cubicle and I'm programming.

Exactly. You know, as we see this trend now, so many people looking to see that the grass is greener somewhere else. And if you ask them why they're leaving, number one is because, yeah, they didn't feel recognized, validated, heard, understood. Yeah. And they somehow think that an organization invests a lot in ping pong tables or perks, but are not maybe investing enough in their people, especially their managers and their leaders, who need to put more time into connecting one-on-one with their team to make sure that everybody feels heard and validated and recognized, but also giving constructive feedback that helps them grow. It doesn't always have to be participation medals. You know, with constructive feedback, it always has to be very specific and it has to be about not the person, but the issue. What is it that they sort of need to develop versus me saying, Roberta, you need to be more confident. That doesn't help you.

So vague. If I stood up now, I have no idea what Joel expects me to do.

Exactly. Exactly. And so that kind of feedback too, people think, oh, I'm giving feedback because I said Roberta needs to be more confident. Well, no, now you just shut down Roberta. Your mind is spinning. What does that mean? And now my leader thinks I'm not confident.

It's funny, you talk about exit interviews and moving to greener pastures. Yesterday, I literally had someone say he looks at the surveys, the studies, the percentages of how many people are leaving, not because they need more money, right? They are leaving because of my crappy boss.

Yeah, I would say nobody sets out to be a bad manager.

No, no. Yeah, of course not.

So it's like, they're not doing it on purpose. It's just a lack of investment in the training and development of these soft skills where your intention was good. I just said Roberta needs to be more confident. So I was giving her feedback. What do you want from me? It's not realizing if I'm an employee, I might not go up to my manager and leader and go, hey, you know what? That feedback actually is really not helpful. And now my mind is spinning. We should actually do that. And we could say it in a better way than I just did, but that will help them. But it's also. Where your intentions match your words. So the intention didn't match the words. When the manager says you need to be more confident, the intention was, I want to help you be better, but it didn't match the words.

I just didn't have the right words. When it comes to your acting career, yeah, what are some of the takeaways from that that you now use in your communication skills training and coaching?

Number one is about being present. So we always think acting is you put on this mask and then you become this character. But you don't. People always ask, how would you remember all these lines? If you're doing a Shakespearean play, how do you remember all these lines? Well, you don't remember the lines. You remember the intention. Why is my character saying this? What is beneath this? And then when you start thinking about the intention, you stop thinking about yourself. You stop thinking about trying to memorize just words that have no meaning. The words now have meaning. And this helps you to be present so that each time you're saying that, you go back to the intention. What the importance of being present in acting is, especially when you're doing film and TV, you do take after take after take after take, saying the same thing over and over again. We're not going to believe you unless you are fully committed to that moment. We don't see your brain thinking ahead of the next question you're going to ask. We don't see your brain thinking about the lines. We see that you fully believe what you are saying and that you're basically trying to move the audience. You're trying to cause that emotion, trying to get them to love you or to collaborate or to hate you or whatever that is. You're focused on the other person. So acting is really not focused on yourself. It's really being focused on what am I trying to do here and how is this going to affect the other person in this moment? So that's what being present is, I think, about the acting. And then the other one is I did many years of improvisation. There's this famous rule of improvisation, which is yes, and.

Yes, and.

Let's do something here.

Okay. Ready? Yes.

All right, uh, Roberta, let's pretend you and I work at the same company. And we are deciding now that we're all back together, we're going to have a big company get-together next spring, 2023. We're on the committee to come up with ideas for what we should do.

All right.

So we're going to brainstorm some ideas. Just so you know, Roberta, ahead of time, I'm always going to be answering with yes, but. Just so you know ahead of time, I'm forewarning you, I will be answering with yes, but.

Okay. Ready?

Ready? Here we go.

Do you think that we plant enough trees to replace the ones that we are cutting off and use wood for.

Yes, but that requires manual labor. And then we probably have to start investing in gloves and boots for everybody. And people, like, physically, are they able to do that? All right, so we'll pause right there. We're gonna do it again. Just so you know, now I'm gonna answer with yes, and.

Do you think that we are planting enough trees to replace the ones that we cut?

Yes. And I like this idea of How can we make the theme for our company retreat an environmental theme? And maybe tree planting could be something that we could discuss as a possibility. I like that.

Yeah. Do you think that as a species, we are making progress, that we're moving forward, and we are becoming better than we were yesterday? Yes.

You know, I want to believe that we are getting better. I think we did take some steps back with the remote. And I look forward to the possibilities of what we have learned from being remote and how we could have some discussions about collaboration and communication. And maybe this is so timely to have that company retreat then where we can come together and discuss what we want to see as our vision or as our mission for the future and how we could be more stronger as a culture. All right, pause right there. Roberta, how did you feel when I was answering with yes, but?

I felt like you are more focused on the problem. It makes me feel more despondent. Yeah, it's almost like things are getting darker.

I know, I'm a downer. And then how did you feel when I was answering with yes, and?

The and, you just came with potential solutions. It makes me feel like more confident about the possibilities. We might not have a solution now, but you know, there's hope.

Yeah.

It even changes my mindset as well, because I'm thinking, yes, we might not always go with every solution you suggested, but at least there's potential exploration, we can look into something There's hope, there's optimism, which creates enthusiasm now for the strategic getaway.

Yeah, there you go. So everything you just shared is exactly the purpose of this exercise is going back to our intentions. So yes, but it's intentions don't match my words. So I think I'm saying yes. And I'm giving a but afterwards and then I just go down that hole of that. So you never heard the yes, you just heard the problem.

Yeah.

When I said yes, and. I may not have agreed with what you were saying, that we're going to go plant trees as an example, but I'm adding to the idea. I'm giving some possibilities to that. So it's not that I was coming up with a solution. I'm adding to that, encouraging the idea, and I'm getting towards collaboration.

Mm-hmm.

So you feel more confident to share your ideas. And yes, and doesn't mean that I have to agree with you. Instead of trying to find the holes in it, trying to find where we have some common ground. what you're saying.

The common ground means we are going to explore and brainstorm where we could go with this and make things better.

That's right. And so this is really the goal for communicating difficult conversations is where can I find these yes and moments? Um, it doesn't mean you have to use the words yes and, but it's that mindset of instead of trying to make you look bad You know, we're trying to win the argument. Because this is the thing about a difficult conversation. When we go into a difficult conversation, you have to let go of trying to win the argument. Let go of that. Because the goal is not to win. The goal is to get to where can we collaborate? You know, again, the intention. Where can I create trust? Because if you and I are going to be working together in the same organization, we need to have a good relationship. And if I just keep pushing my ideas and you keep pushing your ideas, well, then we're just 2 magnets coming against each other.

Hmm.

It's just never gonna click. But if I have a mindset of not react but respond, so react is right away with, as soon as you start saying about the planting the trees, I start getting into no, no, no, no, no. And it comes out with yes, but and then this is never gonna work and da da da da. But if I respond, which is count to one two, one two. How do I want to respond to this? How can I keep this conversation going? How can I find some mutual ground? How can I think of the bigger picture, which is, at the end of the day, Roberta and I are on this committee to work together to come to this. So we're going to be together from now until spring 2023 working on this committee. So we have to find a way to work together. So if I make Roberta feel understood, feel appreciated, heard, then at the end, we'll have mutual respect because then Roberta will be open to my ideas as well. Roberta will listen to me as well. So I have to park my ego. As I always say, in a difficult conversation, one of us has to be the adult in the relationship or have taken acting classes. And the adult in the relationship is exactly that, is that one of us just has to put my ego aside, be focused on the other person, and be focused on the bigger picture. Another thing from acting or from improvisation is rule number 1 was yes, and rule number 2 is always make the other person look good.

Oh. When most of the time we are trying to look good.

That's right. When you're watching something on stage, an improvisation, and if you see another actor trying to embarrass the other actor, people are going to be turned off. But yet in life, in business, we try to make the other person feel smaller. Boy, that's really not a good idea. And I'll give you 5 reasons why that's not a good idea.

First of all, when you say, oh, I want to win this actor, what exactly did you win?

That's right.

Like I said, there was no collaboration. What exactly did you win? What is the prize?

Maybe short-term win.

Yay.

But long-term, there will be no trust. This person will not listen to you now anymore because they don't trust you. And you can't take it back what just happened, how you made that person feel. Neuroscience tells us that we make our decisions first emotionally, and then we use logic to substantiate it afterwards. Do I feel heard? Do I feel understood? Do I feel appreciated? Do I feel recognized? Do I feel validated? And then we use logic. So when we're arguing, we tend to use logic first and go, no, you're not listening to me. Here's the 5 reasons why this is going to work. And we just give logic, but we're not understanding what the emotion might be behind that. Once your emotions kick in, you're not even hearing any of the facts that I'm saying why this won't work. You're not even hearing anymore because right now you feel dismissed. And so your brain is now going into overdrive because we have something called self-talk. Which is—

Yes, inner dialogue.

You know, back to acting, we're writing the script in our head all the time. We think about 450 words per minute, but we can only say about 150. So that means there's about 300 words every minute that's like, you know, when you go to the souvenir store and you shake that little globe and all the snowflakes are flying around. That's what's going on every minute, those 300 words that we're not conscious of, but that are negative, judgmental often. So like when I'm dismissing your ideas, you might be thinking, oh, I knew it. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not fast enough? Why am I on this committee? You're judging yourself. It's got nothing to do with you. You're just being triggered because I'm saying yes, but those 2 little words.

Earlier you mentioned your brain thinking ahead because you wanna listen to respond.

Yeah.

Can you just explain to us what the problem with that is?

You just said it. The keyword there is problem, is that we're trying to solve the problem. So your friend is crying or your coworker is saying, oh, I'm so frustrated with my project manager. They keep changing the scope of the project. From a good place, you want to solve it, right? Your intention is good. But that's logic to solve the problem. What they really want to feel at that moment is they really want to feel heard, maybe even empathized with or acknowledged. Their emotions have to be spoken to. So that's what listening is. Listening is not thinking ahead. And this is hard because 75% of the time we are distracted while we're listening. And not distracted by our technology. We're distracted because we're thinking of that great question we're going to ask. While the person is speaking, you're going, I should listen to this because I'm going to ask him a question about this. And as you're trying to think of the question you're going to ask, you missed what I said. And then the other part is, if you're trying to solve the problem, the friend is crying or your coworker is complaining about something, all you're thinking about is, okay, maybe they could do this, maybe they could do this. You're thinking of— you're solving, but you're missing the opportunity to go, Hey, that sounds really frustrating. That sounds really difficult. That sounds like this, that was a really challenging time and stop right there.

Define the emotion they're feeling.

Yeah. Empathy is probably the most overused word in training. And what I've seen in so many businesses is people don't know how to put empathy into business because they confuse it with personal, which is if your friend is crying right away, we'd go into a very empathetic or even a sympathetic state and just go, oh no, that's horrible. Oh, I can't believe that. But in business, we don't quite feel comfortable to go, oh no, that's horrible.

Because you're trying to act professional. That's right.

You're trying to act professional. So there's something called cognitive empathy, which is maybe you're complaining about your project manager and saying this happened and that happened and they don't get it and they keep changing the scope of your project. I like the project manager, so I don't agree with you, but it's important to you and that's how you feel. I don't share your feelings. But cognitive empathy is, it sounds like it's been a really difficult go on that project. It's just recognizing for that person what's going on in their world. It doesn't mean I agree with you. Talking about the situation, not about the person. It sounds like it has been a really difficult project.

Back to collaboration as well.

Yeah.

A lot of marriage counselors would say, don't fight each other. The issue is outside, but what you're doing right now, the way you guys are arguing is you are fighting each other instead of collaborating. We are competing with each other to see, again, who's going to win.

I'm going to borrow from this 50-year-old book called Getting to Yes, which is a book on negotiation skills. And what they say in that book, number one, is separate the person from the problem. So going back to what you're saying about the 2 people fighting each other and saying each other is the problem, and I'll paraphrase that. And what I like to say is soft on the person, hard on the problem. And so what that means is I'll be thinking about more like, You and I, Roberta, we're in a disagreement. We're seeing each other as a problem. Well, maybe look at what the problem is. So almost like we're sitting side by side and we're looking at the problem together and trying to figure the problem out together. And that's what being soft on the person, hard on the problem. Instead of me being hard on you and then sugarcoating the problem. And so I need to be more empathetic to you.

Just like you were talking about the example of Me saying, oh, I cannot believe my boss did this, and telling my other colleague and they say, oh, he's actually very good.

That's right. I'm not really listening to you. Again, bad intention. I think I'm being empathetic. That boss is actually, is a really good person. You should give them a chance. Again, misdirected intention where my intentions don't match my words. My intention really was, I'm trying to make you feel good. That's my intention. The words are not matching that. And I don't realize—

And that's not what I'm receiving.

That's not what you're receiving. It doesn't matter what I say. It's how you receive it. That's what matters. And so when we're communicating a difficult conversation specifically, I want to think about what am I going to say that's going to not trigger you basically even further?

Because everything boils down to emotion.

This idea of pull and push. So pulling is exactly that, like where I'm trying to find a way to connect with you. I'm trying to find common ground. I'm empathizing with you. And then the idea of push becomes where we bring in the logic and the data afterwards and go, OK, well, we could do this because this will support the company retreats culture, and tree planting is good. Then we get into the details. But until we speak to the emotions first, and you can lower your temperature— because that's the whole idea is that the more we get into this heated argument, the more our temperature rises.

Yes.

I like the example you said about the crying friend, and you want to make them feel better. And that's also our other challenge is, We can't just all of a sudden move you all the way over to happy very quickly. You know what? Tomorrow's another day, or at least you have your job, or—

I'm gonna take you for a steak dinner. You're gonna forget all about 'em.

That's right. We're doing that for ourselves cuz we're uncomfortable. Can't you just feel better so that we can move on? I don't wanna stay like this. We don't want them to be angry, upset, sad, scared. So we're trying to say quick solutions. Quick solutions don't work until the person's temperature is able to lower. But we can't get them over to happy. If your goal is just get them over to happy, forget it. It's like trying to win the argument. It takes time. It takes time.

So we're doing that for ourselves. Wow.

Yeah. I see that the wheels spinning about the times that you've been in a difficult conversation and you're—

Because the intention is to help the friend, you want to soothe the pain.

It's all coming from a good place. But the intentions have to take a step back, and the intention has to be, first, how can I just work at lowering the temperature as an intention? Not get them over to happy, but just lower the temperature. How can I find a way to get to collaboration? How can I find a way to make them feel bigger, not smaller, as an example? How can I find a way to maybe seek some common ground or find a mutual purpose that we have, or focus on the future and not the past, as an example? Or soft on the person, hard on the problem.

I had a recent guest, his name is Doug Knoll. He talks about how to deescalate a situation by reiterating the person's emotions. Like you said, every time you've given an example, there always is the emotion tied to it. He said, oh, Joel, right now you are feeling frustrated. You are feeling hurt, sad, literally naming the emotion. Instead of jumping and saying, I'm going to take you out for a steak dinner. You're going to forget all about this. Tomorrow's another day. Puts it in a whole new perspective. Yeah.

It does. I like that. I'll use yes, and with this one.

Yes. Go ahead.

Yes, and I think there's a balance between telling the person what you see as the emotion and going out for the steak or the vegan dinner. And the balance is, and this is why I think the challenges in the corporate world, why empathy is so difficult, because you and I are working together. I might not feel very confident. Because I'm afraid I'm going to be labeling you by going, hey, Roberta, I see that you're frustrated. And then Roberta says, I'm not frustrated, but I am now.

Because here's the thing, we put on this mask of, I don't want to seem like I have no emotional intelligence at work because I'm going to miss out on that bonus and that promotion.

Right?

You want to look good and professional all the time.

It is. So it's that balance of where It's that cognitive empathy, again, where it's still acknowledging the emotion, but maybe acknowledging the situation versus putting it on the person. If I don't feel that kind of relationship with you, so I might just say, it looks like the situation has been really frustrating.

Look at the issue.

That's right. As we were talking earlier, Roberta, about South Africa as an example, we were talking about some of the issues there. And again, I just met you. And so I'm not going to say you must have been disheartened. I said, that situation was disheartening.

It's very different.

Because I don't want to label or put my own assumption that you were disheartened, but I'm giving you the option by saying the situation was disheartening. And then you don't feel that I've labeled you. And then I give you the option to go, no, it was okay. Yes, it was very disheartening. It was more than disheartening. It was horrible. It was sad. Or, you know, whatever that is, I'm giving you the option to, to name the emotions afterwards.

Because I know exactly how I felt at the time.

You know exactly how you felt. I can't assume that I know how you feel. So I like what he's saying because it's at least you're taking a stab at it. You're at least showing that you care. It's just, I find working with, in the corporate world, I see that so many people struggle with that, to want to say that. So that's why I say sometimes it's better to just talk about the situation or the problem and say, that's the emotion around the problem or the situation versus I'm saying you are feeling this.

Right. That's a very good point. Now give us a few minutes summary of what the Great Leadership Podcast is about.

Yeah, for sure. The Great Canadian Leadership Podcast, we have leaders and experts on leadership and communication skills. So these are often leaders that have invested in their own communication skills to basically to inspire, to create trust, and how they use that within their teams. And then we also have a segment where we call Failure Ta-Da. which is from the world of improvisation, which is to celebrate your failure. And the leader will share, felt like a failure at that time, but then became a huge learning moment for them. Because there's such a gap we see in the organizations with leaders and their communication skills, this is important to share that leaders are just like everyone else, and they're just trying to find their way. What they've seen, what works with communication skills and what hasn't worked with communication skills. It's exactly how we started this podcast, Roberta, I was talking about.

Mm-hmm.

You've gone from managing data or analytics to now you have to manage people. And it's a whole other skill set and how you communicate and how you make them feel is going to be very important to sustaining the culture within an organization.

That's really true. As I said earlier, they don't teach you that. And now you're just thrown into this deep end and you must learn to swim.

Yes.

I like the celebrating your failures segment of your podcast because One thing leaders have sometimes been accused of is they are not vulnerable enough, or maybe they don't have time to do that, to show their teams that, hey, you know, I'm human too. Hey, I make mistakes too. If I forget to cross my T's and dot my I's, let me know.

Right. Yeah, that's such a good point because they know that vulnerability is important. But how vulnerable should I be? Should I share that I had this past and da, da, da, da? But there's a fine line. It's really about— If you're sharing your vulnerability or failure story is that you're sharing it because there's a learning from that within the corporate environment or learning about yourself. That's where it's helpful to the people within your organization is sharing your failures. One was sharing, you know, I singled out someone in a meeting and said, so-and-so was so good and they did such a great job. And then afterwards, this person came up to the leader and said, just so you know, I don't like to be singled out. And now everybody's coming up to me and I'm very introverted and this is making me feel really uncomfortable. And so—

The intention was good though. Back to intention.

That's right. That's right. The intention was good. So now the, the learning from that is before singling someone out is check in with them. Go, I'm going to celebrate you at the meeting. I just wanna make sure you're okay with that.

Yeah. That is a very tricky position to be in.

Yeah. So that's an example of a failure. Failure is not like, you know, everything blew up. It's these subtle moments that you learn from that. And I think that's what, as we know, Roberta, communication, it's subtle.

Yes. Yeah. Let me give you an example. Maybe if he compiles a report to go to the client and he had a typo on the COVID or page or something, sometimes subordinates are afraid to highlight that because is he gonna think I'm not respecting him because he made a typo on this report? Little things like that. Back to subtle as well. Little things like that.

Yeah. I love that word, the human side, because it is. It's like, I made a typo. I'm human. I had a momentary lapse.

Exactly. We all do. We all do.

And it builds closeness because a challenge for some people also is how to give feedback to their leader. But if the leader shows that they're open, it makes better communication for managing up, as they say, which is you want to share something with your leader. And then everybody grows that way.

But they need to show that human side first for you to be comfortable to manage up.

They need to be the adult in the relationship.

Yes. Back to that again. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what a leader is, is leading the way. And you don't have to be a leader, right? Everything we do in life, I'll say this, is that every conversation you have from now on after listening to this podcast is your opportunity to make it a brand new conversation. Oh, say that again. Every conversation you have from now on is your opportunity to make it a brand new conversation. Let go of the past and really be present. Listen to that person. Listen for the emotions that's coming that you're hearing. Make sure they feel heard. In fact, you could rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 if you want to add logic to it. On a scale of 1 to 10, did you make that person feel heard? On a scale of 1 to 10, did you make that person feel understood? And on a scale of 1 to 10, did you add value? And value means you didn't solve it, but you listened and maybe you listened for a bit of the subtext that was being said versus trying to solve it. Or were you being competitive? And competitive is making it about yourself, which is, oh, let's go for the steak dinner. Oh, that boss. Oh, funny story. I remember when we went to golf and oh my God, funny. And it becomes all about you. So did I make them feel heard? Did I make them feel understood? Did I add value? Those are the 3 things you want to be able to do into that new conversation you're going to have.

Which are basic human needs. Isn't that all the acting up is about? We just want to feel heard, understood, and validated.

Yeah. Yeah. We forget it because we're so busy thinking about ourselves and fair enough. But if these relationships are important to you, then you need to give them importance. If you're working with someone personally or professionally, and you want to keep that relationship going. But also, you know, I mean, if you think about the people that you meet along the way, Roberta, that you've respected, are the ones who made you feel heard and understood, even if it was just passing by.

They actually say to be interesting, you must be interested in other people.

That's right. That's right. And then from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Stephen Covey says, Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Yes.

Yeah. And that's so true.

Joel Silverstone, thank you so very much for your time today.

Roberta, it was a great conversation. So glad to meet and talk about communication skills. And thank you for all your examples too. And thank you for participating in—

In the yes and in the yes part. I really enjoyed our conversation as well. And I'm going to continue to listen to the Great Canadian Leadership Podcast. Perfect.

Thank you so much.

That was Joel Silverstone, the Senior Professional Skills Trainer and Coach at the great Canadian training and consulting company Give Us, dropping so many gems today about communication and soft skills. Really appreciate you. Thank you, Joel.

Thank you, Roberta.

So Joel, before you go, please tell us where we can find you on social media so we can continue this conversation.

Absolutely. Well, Do connect with me on LinkedIn. So again, it's Joel Silverstone on LinkedIn. But honestly, if you have any questions or thoughts or comments, you can email me directly, joel@greatcanadientraining.ca. That's joel@greatcanadientraining.ca. Or connect with me on LinkedIn if that's easier to remember. Thank you, Roberta.

Excellent. I'm going to put that on the show notes as well so that everybody can find you. Thank you, Joel.