296: How to Ask The Right Questions To Unlock Wisdom, Support and Opportunity

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Hello everyone, this is Kathy Caprino and welcome to my podcast, Finding Brave. I've created this show for everyone who longs to create something bold and brave in their life. To rise up, speak up and stand up for who they are and to reach their highest and biggest visions. Each week I'll be speaking with inspiring guests from all walks of business, leadership, entertainment, the creative arts and the entrepreneurial world. And they'll be sharing their intimate stories of Finding Brave and offer their best strategies for building your most rewarding, joyful and meaningful life, business and career. Hey friends, thank you for joining me today. Before we get started, I wanted to share some news about my new two session LinkedIn consulting program expressly for folks who want to power up their LinkedIn profile and activity and take full advantage of all the amazing features and benefits LinkedIn provides. I'm very honored to be a top voice on LinkedIn now with close to a million followers and subscribers. And I have to say that LinkedIn has been a true game changer for me ever since I started publishing there regularly back in 2015. With more than 1 billion users, LinkedIn offers so many ways to move your professional endeavors forward. And it's not just for job search either. It's a powerful networking platform for anyone who wants to make a bigger impact doing meaningful work they love. Join me in this special LinkedIn consulting program. I have just a few slots open right now, so I hope you'll hop on those. I cannot wait to be of help. Just visit kathycapino.com LinkedIn support and register today. See you soon. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Finding Brave. Kathy Caprino here. I'm so excited to talk to our guest today and you know you hear this a lot from me, but I truly consider this podcast like a master's course in life and I learned so, so much from my guests and this will be no different. We have the wonderful Jeff Wetzler. Jeff. I'm pronouncing that correctly. Yes.

Yes, you are.

Great.

It's great to be with you, Kathy.

So excited to be with you to talk about your new book, which this is airing on the. When is it? The 16th. So your book has come out last week. It's so fun to launch a book, isn't it? Although you don't sleep, you.

It is exhilarating and exhausting at the exact same time.

When my book came out in 2020, my PR team, which is the same as yours, 48 PR, I believe they got me so many interviews that I put my head on my desk and I cried for about three seconds like.

I can't do this.

But that's what you want from your PR team, so.

Absolutely.

I'm so excited for you. And we are talking about how to ask the right questions to unlock wisdom and opportunity. Your new book. Let me tell you about Jeff. And then we're going to dive in about this book. What we need to know about asking different kinds of questions and how do we do it. Jeff is co CEO of Transcend, a nationally recognized innovation organization and an expert in learning and human potential. With more than 25 years of experience, Wetzler combines unique leadership experiences in business and education as a management consultant. I'm so interested in this work that you do to the world's top corporations. And a learning facilitator for leaders around the world and as chief learning officer for Teach for America. Wow. Un inexperienced. Jeff earned a doctorate in adult learning and leadership from Columbia University and a bachelor's in psychology. We have lots to talk about from Brown University, based in New York. He is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and is an Edmund Hillary fellow. All right. Holy cow, that's impressive. First, I need to ask you. This is your first book or no?

This is my first book, yes.

What made you say I have to write this book and I have to write it now? Let's just start there.

Well, so there's. That's a two part question and there's two different answers to each part.

Tell you're a learning expert.

The book has been rattling around in my mind for at least 20 years. And I still remember the moment I was. I was at the gym, swimming, and there was. I somehow had this thought. There is so much that is unspoken between people. And I thought, what if I write a book that's all about what. What goes unspoken? What are the things that people think and feel and don't say? So that's been around in my mind for a long, long time. And then about three or four years ago, I started. A couple different things came together for me. One is that the organization that I co lead was starting to grow and I was spending more of my time doing things like fundraising and management and less, having less of a creative sandbox. And I wanted a creative sandbox to start to play with ideas and put ideas out there. And then some of it is also that my kids are older now, they're kind of in their teenage years. My son is a senior, and they both needed it and wanted less of my time. And so I had, I had more time on my hands basically to do it.

Those are the answers.

The most important probably thing is that, like, over the last 20 years or so, I've been able to see how the tools and ideas in this book, which I have been very fortunate to inherit from just incredible mentors, have made such a huge difference for me and, and for the people I've been able to coach around me that I just felt like it was time to pay it forward. I wanted to, I wanted to offer to other people what I have been so fortunate to receive as well.

That's why we, that's. Those are the reasons we want to hear someone writes a book. Because you're saying these things, you're thinking these things, you're coaching these things, you're communicating these things over and over.

That's right.

And you realize, oh, what am I doing? Let me, let me put it. Oh, I love it. You know, we talked earlier. You're trained in psychology. I'm a former therap therapist. So I do have to ask you this. When you were swimming.

Yes.

And you, you thought, there's so much that isn't being said and isn't being asked. Can I ask you exactly where that thought came from? Were you realizing, gosh, I want to ask that person that so much, but I don't. How did you recognize that? And the people. The reason I asked these questions. It's also like a coaching thing that you can. When someone tells you something, don't just take it and go, huh? Try to dig a little deeper. Like, okay, you had an idea that there's a lot that's unspoken. I want to know why, how you.

Know that you are modeling some of the very question strategies I talk about in the book, including one that's literally called dig deeper.

There we go.

I love it. I love it. And since you, since you're a therapist, I'll go back to my childhood and we can. It always starts there, somewhere. When I was a kid, I. I grew up in a situation, a community, where I didn't always feel safe, and I sometimes felt different from other people for just for who I am and my religion and just things about myself I couldn't change. There were various signs around me that led me to think, you know, you're not safe. Always saying what you think and feel and no. And so I learned to stay quiet rather than announcing my opinions. I would ask questions. And after a while, I realized, you know, I've got a lot going on in my head that I'm not saying that I think is kind of interesting. I'd love to share. I wish someone would ask me. I bet other people do, too.

That hurts my heart that you were in that situation. I'm sorry. And it's led you to be who you are today.

I feel like, as you said earlier, you know, it's everything we have in our life, we learn from and we grow, and I think it becomes a muscle. Yeah, hopefully.

Hopefully. Can I ask you, when you said I couldn't say everything I wanted to say, so I asked questions. Tell me what you mean by that. Because you couldn't say it, you wanted to know more, more from the people who are treating you this way?

I wanted to. Well, I wanted to engage. And if it felt like a safer way to engage would be to listen and ask questions than to just put my thoughts out there, you know, whether that was true or not or right or not, our, you know, our child minds come to whatever they come to. But that was. That was what I told myself. And I think when you do that long enough, it becomes kind of a habit or a way of being our muscle. And I will say, even there's. You know, there's many situations today, even when I as a grownup, when I'm at a dinner party or with other people and I'm thinking to myself, I wish they would ask me some questions. I'd love to share more with them.

Oh, gosh, that's so fascinating.

And I think I'm not the only one.

I could do a whole podcast on that. What that does say for a later conversation is sometimes for many people, it's difficult to introduce a thought. Do I say it here? Is it comfortable? Is it safe what people think? Because sometimes I talk about deep, hard things, and some people are having dinner and they're like, I don't want to answer that.

Right.

Part of this is knowing when and how to introduce it. The thing you want to say, you know, yes, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about asking questions. So I know you have a whole amazing framework and we're going to get into it, but tell me what you think asking the right questions does for us. Why should people be listening to this and taking your advice? Why?

So I think every single one of us is surrounded by people in our lives who maybe like me or for other different reasons, isn't telling us everything that they're thinking, feeling and knowing. That might be our friends, our family, our customers, our colleagues, our bosses, people we manage. In doing the research for this book, I discovered, you know, my experience is far from unique. In fact, it's almost the norm that people are not telling us what they all of what they really think, feel and know, including some of the most important things. And it's not just in workplace settings. I mean, I found, I came across a study that says somewhere between 60 and 80% of Americans admitted that they don't even tell their doctors all the important things that their doctor needs to know because they can't believe you're bringing that up.

Because I'm having some migraines and some floaters and oh boy, you know, I went to the doctor, but there was, I came back and thought, why didn't I say this right?

And people, and you know, when, when asked why didn't you tell your doctor something that could affect your own health, maybe it's life and death, People said, well, I didn't want to waste their time, I didn't want to burden them, I didn't want them to judge me, I didn't want to be embarrassed. And so you, even when it comes to, you know, something that could benefit ourselves, people are withholding. And so I think that that's a treasure, that's like a treasure trove of information. And if we could tap into that information, we would make better decisions because we would know important things. Just think about how our doctors could help us. For you know, as one example, if they knew everything. But we would also be more creative, we would save time and I think very importantly we would have closer relationships with people as well. And this is not just about asking questions to extract information for ourselves. This is about transforming our relationships with other people because when they are thinking and feeling something and not telling us, they're not self expressed. So if we ask them the right questions, we give them the chance to also do the kind of sharing that I, you know, that I sometimes hope people ask me questions so I can Do. So it's. It's a benefit for ourselves, the benefit for the other person. And it's. And it's a benefit for our relationships.

How beautiful. I know I'm on to something with person. Great. Because I have 50 questions, so I'm going to have to rein it in.

Love. We're good at it.

Oh, and going to have. We're going to get into your framework in the book. But if you had to say one word that sums up why people don't share, what would be helpful to share? I have an idea what it is one thing. If you have to lump it all together, why don't I say to you what would be.

You force me to say one word. I would say fear.

I would say shame. What do you think?

I think those are cousins because I think that, you know, we're afraid of being ashamed. We're afraid of being judged. We're afraid of putting tension into the relationship. There's other reasons too, but I would say that is the top reason.

If I had to always break it.

Down to one word.

I believe we're here on this planet to deal. Deal each of us with our fear. There you go.

Yeah.

And. All right, so let's dive in. Where do we begin? Where do we begin? If. Okay, I'm listening to Jeff. I want to ask better questions and again, I think you're saying it's not just to tap in to information that's going to help you, but I think asking them questions is going to help their own life, don't you?

Absolutely. It's going to help them clarify their own thinking, express their own thinking, push their own self reflection, be more self expressed, be more connected to you. So it really is mutual.

And do you, before I'm letting you talk about the format here, how we do it, do you feel this applies equally well in personal relationships and when you're leading or in your colleagues or the people that work for you?

I think it's equally important in both of those. In both of those. And the. And the context and dynamics. Dynamics can be very different.

Right.

It's applicable everywhere. And there's really interesting research that shows that even in our most intimate relationships, we're not good at knowing what our partners are always thinking, feeling and knowing. In fact, we sometimes, sometimes we're overconfident because we've lived with them for so long. We know them for so long, we think, oh, I must know. That can sometimes be the place where we know the least.

I'm thinking about myself sometimes. I sense what People are feeling, and then you don't know what to do with that. I can usually sense the energy, even though the words coming out of your mouth are not matching that energy. And then you. One has to decide, okay, am I going to ask a question here? Or is that. Do you understand what I mean?

I do. I do. And it's. What's interesting is that there is. There's a researcher, Nick Epley, who studies. Can people actually read each other's minds? Can you actually know what someone's thinking and feeling? And what he has found is that some of the most common strategies, including like, try to put yourself in their shoes, don't work. Even read their body language doesn't work in general. Now, I do believe some people are more intuitively apt at that than others. But really, the only thing he has found that reliably lets us know what someone else is thinking and feeling is to ask them.

Unfortunately, some people's language isn't sufficient to really express what they're feeling anyway. That's not the point. But sometimes if you can tap into energy, you can feel something that they can't. They're not even aware of themselves.

I believe that. I believe that.

That's another book. All right, now tell us what to do. I know you have this beautiful framework. It's gorgeous. Can you walk through those five steps, please?

So the method is called the ask approach. And these are five practices that, when put together, I think, really give us the greatest possible chance of. Of tapping into what the people around us know, think, and feel. Each of these practices is based in science and research, but also practice tested by myself and by. By many others out in the world. And I've tried to bring them together in a way that is accessible. And it starts. The first one is choosing curiosity. Because if we just try to ask questions and we're not actually internally genuinely curious, people will know that. But conversely, if we are truly curious, we really want to know, which I. I'm sensing that kind of energy from you, that kind of curious energy. I think it causes other people to want to share as well. Just even before we ask a question, if they can sense that we're genuinely curious, they're going to want to share with us more. Choosing curiosity ultimately comes down to centering ourselves around one question. When we're interacting with someone, which is just the question of, what can I learn from this person? It gets us out of the mindset of, are they right? Are they wrong? What can I tell them? How can I get them to do something And I just bring myself back to what can I learn from this person? Because I believe that there's always something and something important. Important that we can learn from every person, but that that question gets shoved to the side, gets clouded by our own judgments or anxiety or stories. But if we can bring ourselves back to that question, that can then lead us to all kinds of other curious questions, like what are they seeing that I don't see? Or what has their experience been in life? Or what impact am I having on them? All of that is inside of what can I learn from this person? And that's what choosing curiosity is about.

I have things to say just to amplify.

Please say them.

I think that that is also, I'm going to say it a spiritual thought because we often think, you know, you're a different political. You take a different political stance. I have nothing to learn from you, really. I mean, we are more than that. We're more than all of these categories. So to me, it's a loving spiritual idea that no matter who you are, I can learn from you.

Absolutely. And you know, even if I do disagree with you and I think that you're crazy for what you believe, it's important for me to learn why you believe it so that I can see where that's coming from. Even if my only goal is to change your mind, I need to know where it's coming from so that I can know what to speak to. But to your broader point, your deeper point about the spiritual, the spirituality, I think it is. I think it is a stance, it's an orientation, it's a way of relating to other people. And if we actually believe, as I know many spiritual traditions do that, whether you call it God or the divine or the great mystery or whatever exists in everyone, then when we're curious about other people, we are actually curious about, you know, the mystery of life as well.

I love it. And Jeff, I have to tell you this, it comes to mind, I interview a lot of people, right? And a lot of people. Illustrious five, you know, best selling books. They will connect with me online. How do I want to put this? Kindly after the interview. And when I put out the interview and it, it's usually because it's not that they really want to connect, it's that probably for the most part, it's that. And they have big followings too, so I'm not putting them down, but it's really like, Kathy will help me because I'll put out. Yeah, transaction. That's the word you are really Literally one of the only out of 200 who tried to connect with me beforehand.

Wow.

You sent me and I didn't even see the LinkedIn connection until somehow I saw a notification that shows me that you live and breathe that. Not that you're thinking for hours about Kathy Caprino, but even that action shows me that there's a connective impulse that you have that's. And maybe your PR team did it, I don't know. But what do you think about this comment, what I'm saying?

First of all, it means a lot to me. I really appreciate it.

It means a lot to me.

Thank you. And I do think that curiosity is really about connection. In the book, I actually define curiosity as a specific type of curiosity. It's not the curiosity of, you know, what's the history of Russia or why do trees grow this way. I call it connective curiosity. It's kind of like striking that you pick that up and say that because I do think that that's really what curiosity, when we think, when we're curious about the, the people, their experiences, what they know, what they feel, it has a connective consequence. Connective curiosity.

Rich.

And I learned in doing the book that the, the Latin root of the word curious is care. So curiosity, I think, yeah, is, is an act of care for other people.

I love it. We're going to move on to the next, but there's one other thing I want to say. I've been on a lot of interviews. You have, you're going to start to certainly and probably have one thing that people do that shows they're not really curious is they might have a list of questions and they ask you and you answer, but they don't follow up.

Yes.

They just read the questions. Yes. So I have a tip, but I want your tip. You wrote the book on this. If I'm asking you something and you answer it, try to see if you can create a follow up question that, that amplifies, that expands because if you leave it laying there, I, I don't think you, the, the curiosity didn't really go deep enough. What do you think?

I 100 agree. And by the way, also just what you said and then asking the question what the, what do you think is a sign of your curiosity? And it's a question strategy that I call requesting reactions, which I think is a very rare thing that people do. Most of the time people say their thing and assume if, if I have a reaction, I'll tell you, but you're inviting that reaction. So it's Beautiful modeling and this idea of asking follow up questions. Actually, when we get to the practice called Listen to learn, I talk a lot about that and I, and I use a metaphor called pull the thread. And so when someone says something, don't just leave it there, you know, pull the thread. Because so often the most important thing they have to say is not necessarily the first thing that comes out of their mouth. I mean, you probably know this as a therapist, but in that part of the book, I talk about the doorknob moment. I don't know if that's been your experience.

Yes. But as they're walking out the door, the client.

Yes.

They turning the nor the doorknob and then they say, by the way, that's the most killing myself. I'm like, what? Hang on.

Right, right. Where was that? The first 49 minutes of our session.

Unfortunately, I have someone waiting outside. But no, no, no, I don't, I'm not trying to make light of this, but they will often have the revelation at the doorknob moment. Right.

And I think that by asking these kinds of follow up questions and staying with them as opposed to just moving on, we reduce the chances of missing that.

I love it. There was one other thing about curiosity I wanted to ask you. I would like your thoughts on this. I also learned as a therapist, when you want to understand a motivation, don't ask, why do you think this?

Yeah.

Because why can make us defensive.

Exactly.

So I mean, I asked you why you wrote your book, but I think another way that's a little less intimidating is what went into that or what contributed. But I'd love your thoughts on.

Absolutely. Yeah. My questions, I think are not always, do not always fall into that trap, but they can, they can sound more accusatory. If I'm standing above you and we working together, I say, why are you doing it? Like that someone could feel thinking I'm judging them. But if I said to them, you know, I'm noticing that you're doing this in a really different way. That's intriguing. I think it might be able to help me save time. Can you tell me more about why you're doing that? See, in that context, the why, the.

Why is like, look, they think it's good, it's helpful. Let me talk about it.

Yes. So it does depend on what goes around the why. But I think generally speaking, if we can say more things like, you know, walk me through your thinking, what led to this, how you get to this, that can be safer than people interpreting the why in an accusatory way.

Beautiful. Look, you can answer every single question I ask perfectly. All right. Make it safe is your second aspect of this framework. Let's hear about that.

Yeah.

And.

And so make it safe reflects the idea that even if I am curious to learn from you, if you don't feel safe telling me your truth, you're not going to tell me and I'm not going to learn, and there's going to be a barrier between us. And so making it safe is about trying to make the other person more comfortable, making it easier, making it more appealing for them to tell us their truth, especially hard truths. And even what we were just talking about this why question. If we precede the why question by saying, you know, here's why I'm asking, you know, that's one of the strategies inside of make it safe that I call opening up. It's basically not making them guess at our agenda. It's also revealing something vulnerable about ourselves before we ask them to do the same thing. Potentially, some of it is also about choosing the time and space and place to do it. Where in where they feel more comfortable, not where we want to do it. So I have a teenage daughter, and when she comes home from school or over dinner and I say to her, tell me about your day. What'd you learn? How to go. I get absolutely nothing.

Really. She wants to decompress. She doesn't want to use.

She wants to decompress. She wants.

I'm having pasta now. I don't want to talk to you.

About my day, but if I want to learn what, really what's going on in her life, then I have to stay up till 11pm when she's done talking to her friends and she's done doing her homework, and I'm exhausted. But at that point, it all comes out. And that's about, you know, that's part of making it safe for her is choosing the context that she's going to feel most comfortable sharing what I want to learn. So it's really about letting, you know, following their lead on that.

I love it. Can you tell us more about what makes it not safe? I remember what I wanted to tell you about this and see. Tell me. If you think I've coached, you know, over 20,000 people, a lot of people, and that's a lot of sessions. I try to ground myself. I try to meditate a little bit before I try to ask my higher power, but every once in a while, I blow it. And when I think about when I blow it, it's because I don't have the sufficient level of compassion. Like they keep doing self sabotage or they keep blaming other people for what's happening to them. And no matter how we talk about it, they don't want to take responsibility. Every once in a while I'm too caffeinated, I'm too tired and I'm not blaming those things. I should be in control. But I will lose compassion and it'll show in my words. I'll get angrier. But thankfully that's not too often and immediately I can see. Can you tell me how compassion helps make it safe? Does that fit into that framework? That number two?

Absolutely. I think that people can sense that when they sense that we are more in a judgmental space as opposed to, as opposed to receptive and open, they're going to feel it and that's not going to feel safe to them. And so part of creating connection with them is I love that concept. Almost like a compassionate connection.

That's it.

It's required for us to do that. It a hundred percent goes into it.

I think it's required for every one of these things that that's in your framework. Yeah. So I don't know how folks, do you have a tip for that? How before you engage in this whole process, do you have a tip for grounding in. In an intention or I mean you.

Use the word when I'm too caffeinated as one example. And I think that goes along with the. Just the pressures we feel in life to move fast, for speed, for urgency. And so I don't think there's a complete answer to your question, but I think that maybe a partial answer to your question is slowing down, slowing ourselves down. That can give ourselves, I think, room to reconnect with our compassion. That can give ourselves room to actually bring that question, what can I learn from this person as opposed to what's my judgment of this person? Back to the center. But I would be curious if you have additional thoughts on how to reconnect to compassion too.

What a great question. You know, again, I don't mean to go heavily spiritual, but it hitting me if I'm really doing something where connection's critical or if I'm giving a talk, I actually ask my higher power, let this be for the highest good of myself and for everyone who's hearing it.

That's beautiful.

So sometimes I think we have to slow the heck down. You're right. It's not about getting it done and what do I know? And it's about what can be that for the highest good of us all here.

And I do think people sometimes say, oh, I don't have time to slow down. I can relate to that as well. I can feel that too. And then I always ultimately realize I'm going faster. If I actually slow down, I can get further.

Slowing down gets. Is so much more productive. Really? Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you. All right, number three, pose quality questions. Okay, tell us, how do we do that?

So a quality question is simply a question that helps us learn something important from someone. I think if we were to record. If we were to play a trans or look at a transcript of this conversation. You have modeled so many quality questions already, just to name a few. The requesting of reactions. Every time you tell something, you then say, what do you think about that? And I think it's so rare to do that. But questions like, what do you think about that? How does that land with you? What's your reaction to that? What might you add to that? What might I be? What might I be missing? All of those are in the category of requesting reactions. And in the book, I talk about a half dozen or so really overlooked strategies like that that can really help us, including ones that, you know, that you also model, like digging deeper. There's another one called see what they see, which is to say, tell me what was going on for you at that time. Tell me a story. Help me understand, you know, what experiences got you to that as well. So often I think we will stop at someone's opinion or dig deeper and get their reasoning. But to really understand the full texture of where they're coming from, we need to see what they see. And we can invite people to do that through questions like that. There's quality questions that invite people to share their best ideas with us by saying, you know, I've got a dilemma. How might you handle this? Different things like that. All of those are examples.

Oh, that's a good question. How might you handle that?

Right. Right. And you know, what's interesting is that people have ideas about that, but if we don't ask them that question, they may not even realize they have those ideas. Or if they have those ideas, they may not know we want them. But there's just so much genius around us that we can tap into through these kinds of quality questions.

Oh, I love it. You know, I learned as a therapist, I'm sure, you and your psychology training and I believe this. Every behavior is understood, understandable when you understand the context. Every behavior. Even a serial killer, I mean.

Right.

Typically, they've been terribly abused and something's not right.

There's a sense in people, even if it doesn't make sense to us. It's the quality questions that really help us to understand what's the sense, at least from their perspective, in what they're doing.

I love it. I have to ask you this because it's actually happening in my life. I'd love to know what. I have absolute trust that what I'm going to ask you, you have a formula for a suggestion that's.

Now I'm nervous, but let's try so several.

Over my many years of living, I'll have people in my life, whether it's, you know, close friends or colleagues or clients, and they will say how they are taking something that I can see is terribly stressful and upsetting. And I can see that what they're getting from that other person, that person is incredibly insecure or perhaps a narcissist. So what my friend is getting and taking in, I'm trying to tell them not to.

Yes.

That, you know, this person is cruel to you because he or she is jealous of you. Or you challenge this person and he's an extreme narcissist. And here's what's gonna happen. But I know this, and darn it, I don't know why I don't stop myself. As a child, I would sometimes feel like something bad was happening, and my mother would try to explain it away that you shouldn't feel like this. Why are you worried about that? You're wrong to feel that way. Are you following me, Jeff?

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Well, when you're told you're wrong to feel a certain way, that doesn't help you not feel that way. It only makes you feel shame and.

You feel bad for feeling bad.

Right. So I hate it when I do this to my friends or whatever, but I'm trying to make them feel better that that person's just terribly jealous of you. So for you to take that so hard and take it so personally, but it doesn't work. Does this fit into your framework at all? How can you help someone? Through asking. Yeah.

So the final part of the framework is called reflect and reconnect. So I'm connecting this to being the person who has received something from someone else that makes me feel bad.

Great. And not that I want you to have that, but. Yeah. Understand.

Yeah. And if we don't reflect on it and we just take our automatic reaction, they said this. That must mean I'm incompetent. Or that must mean they think I'm terrible person or any number of things like that, without reflecting, we end up getting stuck in our prior stories.

Story.

Exactly. But when we can reflect, and I believe reflection is often a team sport where I can say to you, here's what I heard. Can you first of all, help me sift this through?

You mean say that to the offending person?

No, no, say that actually to a friend or a colleague, coach or a therapist. But we can take what we heard from other people and actually invite the people around us who care about us to help us reflect. And I use this kind of method that I call sift it and turn it. So sift it is first to say, you know, of all the things that I heard, I don't need to actually take them all in. There's probably a lot of junk in there, but there's some nuggets. And so first of all, if you're my friend and I'm saying to you, this person told me this, it makes me feel terrible. I might say to you, can you help me just think through what's important to take in and what can I let go of? But then the turn it part is to say, all right, from what I actually heard, my first turn is to say, you know, how should this affect my story? And this is where you might be able to say, well, that person themselves might be up against something or they might be insecure or whatever. And then what steps should I take from this? That's the second turn. And then third is, is there anything in here that actually, you know, would help me grow in my deeper stuff, in my assumptions and my ways of being and so on. And so it's really helpful to do this reflection with other people, especially if it's one of these things that feels.

Hard for us or hurtful to us that answers it. And my. Imagine if we all ask these questions all the time.

Right, Right.

I mean, we would be different people in about two weeks.

And asking is not just about the questions we ask to other people. It's also about the questions we ask ourselves, like the ones we're just talking about.

I would be careful to choose your board of advisors carefully.

Yes.

Because a lot of people are going to give you the wrong answer and not a helpful answer based on their limited. Would you agree?

Their own stuff. Yeah. And I think it's important to have more than one person on our board of advisors as well, and ideally people who have diverse relationships to us and diverse assumptions themselves. And then we get to ultimately reconcile it.

Oh, all right. I'm Aware of our time. But number four, we didn't talk about.

We jumped over number four. Yeah. Although we touched on it briefly. It's called list Listen to learn. And so once we ask the question, really it all comes down to how are we listening? Even just as I look at you right now, I can just see such an intent listening posture that I feel the energy is like that you're listening to learn as well. But listening to learn is so different than listening to respond, listening to prove a point, listening to defend ourselves. It's really listening to take in what's most essential that someone is saying and even what's most essential that they're not saying. And in this part of the book, I talk about, we need to listen through three channels. The channel of content. What's the information? What are the facts, the data, the claims, the propositions, the channel of emotion. What's the feelings that are being expressed and displayed? And the channel of action, what is the other person actually doing? Are they repeating themselves? Are they asking us questions? Are they pushing back? Are they supporting? And when we can listen through these three channels, we can literally triple the amount of information that we're taking in from someone. Just in the same way that I think someone who's like a music aficionado might listen to the vocals, and then they'd hear the percussion, and then they'd hear the harmony, and then they'd hear the piano, and they can take each piece in, but then they can put it back together and hear something far richer than if we haven't trained ourselves to do that.

And so are you a musician, by the way?

I mean, just an amateur musician?

I love it. I'm a singer on the side.

Are you really?

All my life. Oh, my God. That was a beautiful analogy.

Do you recognize that?

I do. It's exactly what I think we do, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, now, the action piece. Can you give us a tip about that? If I'm in connection with you and I'm watching your action, what can I do with that? What's helpful?

I think it's really about observing. What do I actually see you doing.

And what am I going to learn from that? What is the point of watching you?

I've noticed that you've repeated yourself three times of that same point. And then I can ask you, do you feel like I might be missing what you're saying, or is there something important that you want to be conveying here that I might not be getting? Just as one example. So observe and then ask I'm always.

Crying on this podcast. Why does that make me teary? Because if we can do this, first of all, you have to be a strong person. You're going to have to grow here, people, to do this. Because let's say you're coming at me and you're repeating something three times and there's emotion there. If you're repeating it three times, I'm not getting it. You're frustrated with me. Something's not going well that you have to repeat it three times, I think.

Yeah.

Or it's so important to you, you're going to say it three different ways.

Or I'm just unaware of the fact that I'm repeating myself. Yeah.

But for me, let's say there's emotion.

Yeah.

And you're a little annoyed at what I've just done. So you're repeating.

Yes.

What the average, very reptilian brain does is defend. Yeah, yeah, we get scared. But for us to sit in our own power and breathe, take a deep breath and say, wow, I'm not going to defend. I'm going to try to understand. You've said that three times and you're, you're sounding, you know, pretty agitated. Can you tell me what I'm not getting?

Yes.

Not what you need to hear from me, but what am I not getting?

Yes. That's a beautiful modeling and illustration of that. And I think the strength to do that, it does require us to muster that kind of strength. But I think it comes out of the intention. If we're starting with the intention of listening to learn, then it's a natural thing for me to say, I want to learn. What's that about? What's going on?

This is just a brilliant, brilliant book that everyone has to read. And I don't say that all the time.

Oh, my gosh.

Truly. Look at the learning here. And I know you have to go. Where do we soak all this up, Jeff? Where do we get the book? Where. Where do we send people? Where?

The book is called Ask. Tap into the hidden wisdom of people around you. You can get it anywhere books are sold.

And we'll link to it below.

Of course, there is a website called www.askapproach.com and on there are articles and podcasts and videos and different things like that. And also a self assessment to test your own ability to learn from others and which of these practices you're stronger in and which ones you need to grow in as well. And then people can connect with me and follow on LinkedIn. Jeff Wetzler as well.

Yeah, I can't thank you enough. I have learned so much and this book is so important for us in in a gentle, kind, loving, compassionate way to we can learn to be more and get beautiful connection that isn't happening with everybody that we want to connect with.

Thank you for modeling everything that's in the book. Truly I love this conversation.

Thank you so much my dear. Please come back again and happy book launch.

Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it so much. Thank you. All right everybody have an amazing Finding Brave. Two weeks soaking up this information and trying it. Try it right now and let us know wherever you see it, what you get from it and any questions you have. I hope you find it helpful. Thank you again everyone. Thank you Jeff thank you Kathy hello everyone, Kathy here. I am beyond excited to announce the upcoming launch of Kathy AI, my new digital clone created with the amazing team at Delphi AI. Kathy AI brings my career growth, teachings and guidance directly to you anytime you need it. Drawing on my 17 years of career in leadership coaching, writing and speaking, I've trained Kathy AI using over 2.5 million words that I've written and that have reached over 41 million readers worldwide. My goal to make Kathy AI your trusted resource for career leadership and personal growth, offering real time strategies, tips and answers to your most pressing questions. All subscribers will get tailored support to help their career visions become a reality. Plus, we're offering some exciting bonuses and benefits when you subscribe in the introductory period and it makes a fantastic gift for friends, family and colleagues. I cannot wait to share Kathy AI with you. Stay tuned@kathycaprino.com in my newsletter for all the details. It's coming soon and I so hope it's helpful to you. Thanks so much for joining us today and please don't forget to check out finding brave.com for more programs, resources and tips. And tune in next time for your weekly dose of Finding Brave.