What 3 Words Do You Want Them Saying After…?- with special guest Lisa James

Welcome to TFR This Feels Right podcast. Every episode, we're sharing impactful communication skills you need, or you didn't even know that you needed them until you've listened to this episode. I'm Joel Silverstone, your host, and I'm excited to have you on this journey with us. I'm also the founder of TFR This Feels Right, where for over 25 years, we've been helping leaders, and teams from top organizations build and elevate their communication skills in presentations, team building, and difficult conversations. And if you want to learn more, head on over to thisfeelsright.ca. All right, before we get to our episode, we kindly ask you to do us a favor. If you could leave a review, a rating, and subscribe so you don't miss an episode of impactful communication skills that feel right. Let's get to our show. What's the secret to leaving a lasting impact, whether through events or everyday interactions? Well, it all comes down to one powerful question. What 3 words do you want people saying after their experience with you? And we've got the right guest for that. It's Lisa James and she's the founder of the Wentworth Collective. They are the creator of extraordinary business and live events. Lisa is also a LinkedIn Top Live Event Voice. In this episode, we're gonna explore the importance of asking courageous questions, building connections through curiosity, and how vulnerability plays a role in authentic communication. And in this conversation, you're gonna uncover practical insights on turning moments into meaningful experiences, whether you're planning events, leading teams, or just aiming to engage more deeply with others. So tune in and learn how thoughtful communication shapes powerful outcomes and why at the end of the day, as the song goes, People are people, and they like to do cool stuff. All right, let's meet Lisa James.

Did you do? Did you do a vocal warm-up?

No, I didn't. What do I need to do for vocal warm-up?

Mama, mommy, mama, ma. Let's hear yours.

Mama, mommy, mama, ma. There we go.

And then a little going a little bit higher.

Oh God! Mama, mommy, mama, ma.

And a little bit lower.

Mama, mommy, mama, ma.

And here we go. We're ready.

We're ready.

Lisa James, welcome to This Feels Right Podcast. How are you feeling today?

Very good and very happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Well, my pleasure. I'm so looking forward to unpacking. You're the first event planner we've ever had on the podcast. So, you know, one of the reasons I had you on, I was so curious because you're dealing with thousands of people every year. And you basically have to nail it where everybody is walking away going, wow, that was really an experience. It wasn't just a lecture. So let's find out, how do you do that? What's your secret formula? What's the secret sauce to that? But my first question is, what led you? Because you probably— this is probably not what you were— as you were growing up, you're thinking, I'm going to be an event planner. So how did you become the event planner extraordinaire?

That's very kind of you to say. Well, I was a— my dad used to work for Pan Am, so I was a child of the travel industry, basically. Very, very fortunate to have traveled the world from a young age. It was ironically cheaper for us to travel to Miami, Caracas, where we'd see you and the family all those years because, you know, we didn't have to pay for our flights. So I got this zest for travel from a very young age. You know, I'd already been to Australia and I'd been to the States. And I remember teachers saying to my parents, Lisa tells these great stories how she's met Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. And they'd say, well, she has. So, you know, I had this— I was very fortunate to travel most of the globe and met some really interesting people along the way. I loved languages. I mean, as you know, our family is multilingual. So I really, especially Spanish, you know, because of our South American links, I really was keen to learn languages. My mum's first language was French. So I studied French and Italian at university. I studied Italian because I thought, well, if I learn Italian, it's similar to Spanish. And note to listeners, it doesn't work that way, kids. But anyway, I thought, well, you know, that's— so that was my passion to learn languages. And I was lucky again with Dad. I got jobs during the summer holidays. I worked for the likes of Marriott, Hilton Hotels, just doing like summer jobs. Went overseas as part of my degree in Italy and I worked for a company called Mark Warner, which is very similar to Club Med. It's a hotel hotel resort.

Okay.

And I was the receptionist there. And I remember there was, I, one time when my dad was giving me a lift to the station one day, I said, look, Dad, I'm gonna come back, you know, I'm gonna do my final year at university. I love the travel industry. I've got travel in my blood, but it doesn't really rock my world to, you know, book hotel rooms or book flights. He said, well, what do you enjoy doing? So when I was in Italy and I was the receptionist for this hotel company, I booked these go-karting and pizza trips. So my boss said to me, you know, I knew all the locals because I was the receptionist there and I put together these packages of this authentic local experience of go-karting and pizza trips. And I would liaise with the local suppliers. I got a really, really cheap deal. I befriended the water skiing instructor who would drum up the business on the pontoon and we would sell these go-karting and pizza trips and we would make a profit. And I said, look, I love putting these experiences together. I love seeing the smile on people's faces. I love seeing the suppliers, that local knowledge. And he said to me, well, why don't you get into conference and incentive travel? So what's that? Which he explained to me about these experiences. But the experiences that I had in hotels didn't get my foot in the door, nor being John Martin's daughter. So I had to start through a different avenue. And I worked for a publishing company organizing their, um, there were training conferences, really, really boring. And I remember when I got the job, they said, look, it's not, you know, glamorous, but we'll teach you everything you know about putting a experience together, which I did. So I started there working, as we call it, in-house. So for a corporate side, did that for about a year, went backpacking for 2 years, came back, and then I worked for an agency, um, doing what we call incentives, where they incentivize individuals. So someone reaches their sales targets and you'll go for like this once-in-a-lifetime experience to Dubai, all expenses paid, that sort of stuff. Um, Then I worked for another agency, basically worked for agencies for about 13 years, like on the corporate side, working with lawyers, doctors, insurance, pushing things together like conferences. I started there as an event manager, worked my way up learning how to run that business. And basically, to cut a long story short, Joel, 10 years ago, I started up my own business.

There was so much detail before. And then the last 10 years is like, and cut to, cut to.

I can give you a bit more detail. No, it's a basic— no, it's a basic— I can give you a bit more detail. I mean, you're gonna edit some of this out, but, um, I, I basically worked for an agency, and I then, I then had my kids. Life got too much. Um, it was a global business, and basically I had to move and have a bit more of a lifestyle choice. And I chose to go, you know, set up my own business because I was spending so much time on the business, um, you know, profitability. I wanted to go back to my passion, which was creating these awesome events, you know, and putting these programs together and being creative. And that's what I found by having my own business. I had more agency to actually sell the passion, and it sort of brought everything together— the travel, the languages, the culture. And I think, and I know we've spoken about this before when we were talking about it previously, I think all the experiences that I've had in my life brought me to this point when I had my own business, from having family reunions where we would all get thrown in together with lots of food and everyone talking together to, you know, the experiences of traveling overseas, learning the different languages. When, by the time I set up my own business, The Wentworth Collective, which I'll tell you about in a second, it was bringing all of that together to the benefit of my clients, which has been fantastic. And the name The Wentworth Collective comes from what I call collective thinking. when I was thinking about the name, I was thinking, what's my differential? And actually, it's, I've been doing this a long time and I know a lot of people. Then I think about my dad and his experience or the people that I work with and their experience. You know, they joke that if they, someone can phone me up and say, look, Lisa, we need, I don't know, extra turkeys because they've run out of Christmas. I know a guy, you know, we need a dancing company. I know, you know, I've built up a lot of contacts through my years of travel, curiosity, speaking to people. So how I've got to this point of event management is a love of travel, a love of the world, a love of people, cool experiences. You know, my spare time, um, we've got this like every month we talk about Inspiration Station where we share, um, what we've been doing that month. And a lot of that is just because we love doing cool stuff. You know, we love seeing the latest cool restaurants, the hottest bands. We've just been to the Brighton Fringe Festival. So it's about bringing that all together for our clients. My experience working for a corporate travel management company meant that I had exposure to the lawyers, to the insurance brokers, to the finance people. So I knew the quality that they would expect in event management.

Right.

But through the years now, I know that they're people and they just want to do cool stuff. So, If I'm going to sort of like, I suppose, as we say in England, big myself up, you know, like the reason why I am the sort of event manager extraordinaire, I think it's from the experience and it's the life experience and understanding people. And as we were talking about before, coming from this background where from a young age I was always immersed in lots of different cultures.

Yeah.

I mean, I said to you before, we'd have family gatherings and there'd be lots of languages being spoken in the background that I wouldn't necessarily understand. Food on the table, and we'd all have to muck in and get to know each other.

Well, you see, that's the difference between you and I. You're in it.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I'm out of it. I'm on the outside. I'm the outsider looking in on these things.

This— wow.

Okay, this is— there's a lot here from a communication standpoint, but also just from a life standpoint that what you bring to the Wonderwood Collective and is exactly that. It's the collective of working with the people, but it's also the collective of you know, traveling around the world and family experiences and speaking to so many different people and the passion and the curiosity. And I like what you said is that if we boil it down is that, you know, people and people like cool stuff. If we boil it down, that's exactly what, what you do. Let's talk a little bit more about speaking to people because this is something that a lot of people struggle with is How do I start the conversation? How do I, how do I get in? How do I connect with someone? Because here you are speaking about connecting with the water ski instructor and you're, you know, and that person is then helping you sell go-kart and pizzas in Italy. And you're meeting Laura, you're meeting so many different people and you're connecting with them. So I think they would love to know, how do you do it? What's your thought around that?

I think you've got to understand that people are people at the end of the day. It doesn't matter who you are or what your background is. You're someone's son, daughter, wife, husband, partner, parents, friend, you know, and it's about finding that commonality. And I think, you know, I've seen it when I've been with like the most stressed out lawyers and, you know, we're at an event, but ultimately I talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the hygiene factors of what people want. you know, food, shelter, water. And you see someone who, you know, is highly educated, dealing at a high performance level. But, you know, all they want to know is, where's my transfer home? Or where can I put my luggage? It's those basic needs that we all want.

Yes.

So if you talk to people and you connect with them and you find that commonality and you ask questions and you're curious, asking open questions— how, what, why, where— you know, ask them about themselves. Little things like, I don't know, do you have a dog? You know, you talk to someone about their pets, they could talk about it for hours. talking before about sports, you know, they're gonna have interests out of their work. And your— my role is to find that. And you want to do it in a way that doesn't appear that you're— they're in an interview, but they are asking questions, you know.

Yes.

That you— it's got to appear natural. But people are people at the end of the day. They go on holiday or they go for a run in the morning, and my job is to find that commonality or that interest that they have.

Yes.

And then you see them come alive. Sometimes it's easier than others. And don't get me wrong, Joel, there's been times where all my conversation cards have run out, you know, I've asked lots, you know. But more often than not, people are curious about life and they're interested, or they want to know what the latest film is or who the latest band is, or, you know, what the latest hottest restaurant is. So it's about— I think if you don't like people and you're not interested in people, then it would be very difficult.

Yeah. Well, I think that's, that's, it starts with that. You're, you're, you're going in with a curiosity.

Yeah.

And I think that's what's going to propel the open questions. And as you said, I think the biggest challenge for people when people do communication skills training is they always say, you know, ask open questions. But then those questions become exactly what you say. It becomes an interrogation process.

Yeah.

Why did you do that? Why did you think that was the right thing to do? It becomes an interrogation. But if you— and you may not find things in common, but it's that curiosity to what is it that we have in common, or what is important to that person. Like you said, like, you might see that the lawyer is a high— this lawyer's example may be a high achiever type of person, but what's really important to them is what, you know, what time is my transfer to get back to the airport?

That's right. And also, I think, I mean, I've got this through being older now and having a little bit more confidence, you know, to when I was in my 30s, but also being slightly vulnerable. You know, I think I mentioned before that I changed jobs, you know, to start my own company. A lot of that was because I had my own experience of burnout. Now I will openly talk about that. You know, I'm not worried, I'm not scared what people might think of me. I'm quite— I'm not saying proud, it was a very hard time for me in my career. It's part of my story now. But I'll say, you know, I experienced burnout. And more often than not, you're opening that door for someone else. And I've seen it before where someone's gone, you know what, I did too, and it was pretty hard. So you've got that, you can talk about it. Well, how did you get out of that? So you're finding that commonality as well. I think the other thing as well that I would say about communication, and LinkedIn is amazing. I mean, you know, you reached out to me. I think not being scared, going for it. The worst people can say is no. So I think another, again, if I'm going to, you know, big myself up, you know, skill that I have is like, I'm not saying I don't care, but I will always reach out to someone. I'm not shy in saying hi. You know, I've, I've connected with loads of people that I admire on LinkedIn, and I'll say, look, I love the work that you do. Sometimes they connect with me and it makes my day, and I'll screenshot it. And that's it. You'll start a conversation with them. But that's my network then. Here, I'm sharing all my skills now, you know. But I had it the other day. I needed to find a, I needed to find a chef in Madrid for an event that I'm doing in October. And I literally looked online, I couldn't find anything. Then I remembered I've got a really good chef here in the UK. So I reach out to them. So that network, that is, that for me is my goal. That's my collective. That's my value. And that's what I bring to my clients because my clients say that to me. They know that I know a lot of people and they're good.

Right. Oh, um, yeah, again, uh, love this because vulnerability is you know, as you shared your difficult time with the burnout, which was— can be very— it was a very personal difficulty and very private time for you. But you made the decision to be courageous into sharing that. And then that vulnerability opens up conversations because turns out a lot of us, a lot of people have had that experience and can relate. And your relationship goes on a deeper level.

Yeah, because again, we're people at the end of the day, you know. I've been very open about talking about my You know, I'm a woman of a certain age. I've been going through the menopause and I've been quite open about talking about that. And actually the response has been very, very positive. So I think if you put yourself out there and you'll talk about it, and I think my relationships with my clients are much deeper because they know us as people, whereas when I was younger, I had this professional mask on. So I think it means that you're not scared.

No, this is good. This is good. This is good. Keep going. Keep going.

Keep going. Yeah, but you know, you're not scared And that's going back to your original point about what makes a successful event. It's being courageous enough to ask those questions, you know, because you want to go down and down and down deep into asking what's really going to make these delegates feel, you know, at the end of the day, and the collective thinking comes to this, it's all about the experience and what that experience is. And I know we're going to talk about that in many other questions that you're going to ask, but what their experience is and how they feel. You can only get that by really asking those questions. Like, I can say to you, you know, Joel, what would you like for your birthday as a present? And you say, I don't know, I want a shirt. I could buy you any shirt, but really I need to say, okay, what kind of shirt do you want, Joel? Do you want it to have cuffs? Do you want it to be button-up? My success will be based on how much I know what shirts you would like rather than buying just anyone. And that's when I meet your brief.

Yeah.

You're gonna be— you're gonna trust me Because I've really got you and know what you need, whereas I could go anywhere and just buy any old shirt.

Yeah, well, and, and where— what occasion are you wearing this shirt? Where are you wearing this shirt? Are you wearing it for work? What is it? What is it you do? How do you want to appear?

Well, that's it. That's it.

And how do you want to feel wearing that shirt? I want to feel like a Viking.

Yeah, exactly. Well, that's it. So when you say what makes a successful event, what it's about Ask, being brave and being, you know, great to ask those questions and not being afraid. And I think for me now, my clients know that I ask a lot of questions, but they know why I do, because they know I want to get to the nitty-gritty. Because an event can be successful or fail miserably when you don't get— it's the little details that you don't get right. And I've, you know—

I'm gonna interrupt you here, because if you don't have the courage to ask those questions, then you're not going to get it right. Because you're not— because people are not very good at expressing what it is they want. And you're, with all your job and your expertise, you're able to ask the right questions where they actually go, I didn't realize that's what I wanted, but that is what I wanted.

That's exactly—

you verbalized it for me. Right? So you're—

Yeah.

That's— I love that. Courageous to ask the questions. And the other thing you also mentioned was, and this is really important for our listeners here about, because I get this all the time when I'm working with people, is people Are confused about being professional and about being themselves, and to find that right balance. And I see most of the time people get, especially when they're doing presentations, they put on their professional voice, and it holds them back, and people are not buying it. And it's the same thing. You know, from my my experiences being an actor, that was the biggest thing is that when you're acting, it doesn't work. Yeah, you have to be fully present and fully invested, and I think that's. what it is. All right, let's go. Let's go to our next question here. Yeah. And this is, this is the great segue of everything you were saying right now, Lisa, which is, how do you know that your event was a success? Like, what do you want someone saying afterwards? Or how would you phrase that?

Well, I think there's 2 things. There's 2 things. There's one thing, one question, and I'm sharing all my secrets here, dear listeners. So you can have this one for free. One question that I always ask my clients is, imagine we're now fast forwarding to the end.

Mm-hmm.

And they're in the taxi on the way home and they're making that phone call to their partner, kids, husband, wife, whoever, loved one, friends, and saying, oh my God, I've just been to this event and it was like this, you know, or they use 3 words to describe. What 3 words do you want them to say? How do you want them to feel? Because really, you make the most connection with people when you, you make the most connection with people when you make them feel. And that's when they're fully invested, you know, with what you're talking about and the key messages. So actually, you want them to feel— do you want them to feel inspired? Do you want them to feel engaged? More often than not, events finish on a Friday. So what do you want them to do on Monday morning? How do you want them to behave? How do you want them to feel? How do you want them to be engaged? For me, when I'm at events, and I've written about this actually before on my LinkedIn, you do all this preparation, like you're in like the war room and you're planning all of this cool stuff and you talk about, but you really don't know how it's gonna land. And I get so excited, like, oh my, I get excited for the delegates knowing what we're planning. But the minute that I know that I've nailed it is when I see them walk in and then they go and then they get their phone out and they take a photo. And that's for me, my work is done. I'm not saying that everything, you know, I want people to be in the moment, but it means that the work that we've done has been Insta-worthy or enough that they wanna take up space in their camera phone, you know?

And I think that makes me feel so I'm like, great.

They want to capture this moment in time. That for me, that job, my job is done because I feel they wanted to capture that moment in time.

I think you just came up with the buzzword that it's Insta-worthy, and that's how you know it's a success. And it goes back to basically how we want to communicate. And this is why I call the company This Feels Right is because it is, it's a feeling first. It's, it's a, it's an emotional connection to an experience, to our relationship, to our conversation first. And the first thing we sort of say is, you know, how does this feel? Did, did this feel right? Did this feel exceptional?

Exactly.

And then afterwards, as you said, and then they could start to use maybe, you know, the logic. Well, this happened that it was Insta-worthy. I was taking photos of it. And then what you want them to do Monday. So it really is a feel and, and think and then do.

Uh, well, that's it. You want people to take action viscerally, that they want, they want to do it.

Yeah.

Not because they're thinking logically. You know, you do want to change— as cliché as it sounds— hearts and minds, because that's when people are going to feel fully invested, because they have that emotional connection. And people, I'm sure, you know, there's lots of psychologists and lots of, you know, studies that have been done that people make decisions with their hearts rather than their heads, you know, and that's what you want them to do and to feel passionately about it without thinking twice. It's natural for them. And that's when I get the most joy, when you can see people are fully in the moment. I know we're going to talk about one of the activities I did recently, but when I see people in the moment, you know that the work is done and you're seeing them as people and you're cutting down those lines between the professional, moving it closer in the professional and personal life, and you're seeing them as people rather than Work colleague, which is easy. I mean, at the end of the day, and I think you get this as you're older, it's hard work trying to be someone else. It's far easier being yourself.

Yeah. Well, that's Oscar Wilde, right?

Exactly.

Yeah. But as you keep saying, I keep thinking, I don't know, maybe it was Depeche Mode. What's the song? People are people. So why should it be you and I should get along so easily? Oh, it's true.

Yeah, it's true.

The song that's gonna I think that's how it goes. All right, let's go to our— let's go to our final question. And then we'll ask where people can find out more about you and Wentworth Collective. But here's the final question. I said, because it's, it's an emotional connection, there's an action involved. And then, you know, one of the reasons I want to have you on the podcast is how do you get the buy-in? Like recently, I saw you were doing an event in California.

Yeah.

There you are in the UK, and you're doing an event in California. And you're getting people to do Art outside, which is, you know, I love that because people go to these conferences and, you know, tropical destinations and they're staying inside a boardroom. They could be in Cincinnati or, you know, Birmingham. They could be anywhere. Yeah. But you got them to go outside and do art. So how did you convince or maybe influence them to go with that?

Well, I think if we go back and part of the work that we do is whilst we organize events, yes, that's true. What we also do is we, when we start the process with our clients, we find out why they're running the event in the first place and we dig deep through our questioning to really understand why you're running it. And often there'll be some key messaging. So our job is to say, okay, well, how can we bring this message to life through the medium of events? And for example, often people talk about team building. So they want a group and I deal with a lot of global organizations. So, you know, we, you know, this particular event, we have 30 different nationalities. So you need to find a way to bring people together. Also, in asking the questions, you're digging deep and you're saying, well, okay, what are the parameters? When was the last time they saw them? Or they haven't, they've only been communicating through email. Or this, for sometimes this is the first time they've seen each other since, dare we say it, COVID. So they've got a moment in time where they're going to connect and they need to make it count. This particular art activity actually was drawn from, well, back in 2019, I ran an event for some lawyers in Berlin And we did a graffiti art activity. And what really struck me was how everyone really enjoyed it. So we did it because we were in Berlin and we'd be missing a trick if we didn't do graffiti art in a grubby club in Berlin. But what was really interesting was it was a real leveler. No one was a secret graffiti artist. And suddenly you saw them in Berlin.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, it wasn't the most salubrious of areas, but they were having this authentic experience. And that's what they loved. We provided something that they couldn't— if they rocked up in Berlin on their own, they wouldn't have been able to, you know, just do graffiti art with the equivalent. I don't know if you know Banksy, you know, like in Berlin, you know, he's like a famous like graffiti artist. So I saw the feedback of that. And then this particular law firm, a couple of years later, they wanted to do an art activity again. So, um, but you know, lawyers, they've been there, done that. You can't just do the normal you know, um, art activity, life drawing, or things like that. So I got inspired, and I've got it here in my drawer. I think I showed— I think I told you. I said, well, what I envisage— and again, this goes back to my experience of life and many trips to Disneyland— and I was inspired by— I've got— I'm holding in my hand this magnet, which is the Disney sign. It's got all the characters together.

Right.

And I said, well, how about we merge all the artists disciplines into a world that they can produce together. So we worked with a local company and the artists there to create this experience. Fast forward, and I'm sure it was a great success. Fast forward, I'm sharing this with one of my insurance companies, and he said to me, he says, oh my God, we're marking our 10-year anniversary. You seem so passionate about this. Why don't we bring this experience to California? I was like, brilliant. So because we ran this event before, we knew how it ran and the mechanics and logistics around it. It was very easy to bring it to San Diego. We found a local partner in a local charity called ArtReach, and it helped us fund school supplies for the local community. I think going back to your original point around, you know, how did I do it again? I'd seen the success. People are people. They want to do cool stuff. They want to learn something new. They want to do something that they can't ordinarily—

Right.

do under their own steam. And equally, it's a bit of bragging rights as well. Look what I did when I went there, you know, you know, like this, it was really cool. So Insta-worthy. Insta-worthy. Yeah. So selling it into my client, he saw the passion. Unbeknownst to me, and I didn't know this until we were there, his boss wasn't really into it. He's like, I think it's a terrible idea.

Right.

He said, look, Lisa's done it before with lawyers. Now, why did I know it was a success? Again, people are people, they want to do cool stuff. You're a lawyer, you spend all your time in your office, you're always on your phone, you don't get the chance to go out and be creative. And often I hear people say, I'm not creative. We're giving them permission, we're giving them an opportunity to learn something new. And our skill, what we do really well, is hold their hand and make them feel safe in that environment. So we're not going to make anyone feel stupid, we're going to manage it in a way, we're going to teach them. And also the timing. So it's 2 hours. So it's not that long. What's their excuse? We do it on a Saturday afternoon. All times we've done it, it's also like in the afternoon where they, you know, maybe their phone isn't nearby. So they're not gonna be distracted by client calls. And they've all loved it. Music playing, few drinks, you know, sun shining. It was fantastic. And what was interesting is I had people coming up to me saying, gosh, you know, I haven't painted since I was about 7 years old. I feel alive again. I haven't done something like this. So going back to your original point of, you know, how do you get to do it? I've seen the reaction and I've seen the response. So when I'm going to other clients, I'm saying, okay, you say they don't want to do art or they don't want to do it. I've seen it. I see that people are craving that sort of activity. They want to do something that's mindful. They want to go out of their comfort zone. They don't want to do something new. And then when they see all this artwork come together, it just reaffirms it.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, I don't know if we can show it or share the link afterwards of this word. It had the word partnership of independence. We had 5 different stations of Warhol, Basquiat. Who else did we have? Hockney. And we taught them something. They couldn't believe the art that they created.

Right. Yeah. So they amazed themselves.

They amazed themselves. But we held their hands and we, we brief our suppliers really well. So, you know, the charity that we work with, they've never done anything like this before. But we said to them, don't worry, we're gonna hold your hands. So our job, again, going back to your original question of like, how Why we events extraordinaire. Our skill is that we make everyone feel safe and we brief them and we communicate. We're very clear with our instruction and we go into the detail.

Yeah, it's, it's, well, it's, it's kind of going back to vulnerability. You're asking people to do a vulnerable thing, which you're very familiar with. So you know that if it's going to be vulnerable, that people need to feel safe and that they're not being You know, manipulated or forced into doing this, but it's gonna— but it's gonna be safe. And, and the, the feeling of accomplishment that comes out of this. But also, I like that you're leveling the playing field.

Yeah.

So, so-and-so is in accounting, and so-and-so is in HR, so-and-so is in legal, and so-and-so is the CEO. But you're leveling— we're all— but when we come to this, we're all at this, and we're— so it's a, it's common ground. It's a communal experience, which is— which helps go towards the goal. This is fantastic, Lisa. This has been so great. And you know what my takeaway from this is people are people and they like to do cool stuff. So I love that. Asking and asking courageous questions. If you don't ask courageous questions, you're not gonna get anywhere. Be prepared for disappointment because you didn't ask the, the questions that go underneath the surface. And then the final piece is whatever experience you want, whether you're meeting the person one-on-one or you're creating an event, what are the 3 words you want people to, to feel after that experience? Wow. You know, Lisa is Uh, inspiring, you know, that was— that might be the 3 words that somebody might say after this podcast. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so Lisa, where can we learn more, maybe about some of the work you're doing, connect with Wentworth Collective, or find out more about you?

Sure. Well, first of all, we're soon launching our new website, which will be wentworthcollective.com, but we've got our old one at the moment. But do look at our new website in the coming weeks. Um, on Instagram, The Wentworth Collective, on LinkedIn, The Wentworth Collective, and also me personally, Lisa James, on LinkedIn. I often share my musings and inspirational posts as well. And thank you so much, Joel, for this opportunity. I've thoroughly enjoyed talking.

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm gonna go find that song. People are people, so why should it be? Thank you so much, Lisa.

Pleasure.

All right. Thank you for listening to this episode of TFR, This Feels Right. And if this felt right, then please leave a review, comment, or ask us a question. And of course, we ask if you could kindly follow us so you don't miss an episode of Impactful Communication Skills. And speaking of impactful communication skills, you can learn more at our website, thisfeelsright.ca. I'm your host, Joel Silverstone, and happy to connect with you on LinkedIn. And we'll see you on the next episode of TFR, This Feels Right.