E225 | How to Get Someone Who is Shy, Quiet or Less Social to Open Up

Picture this: you’re talking to someone you just met at a social gathering, negotiating with a potential client or presenting to a group of skeptical attendees. Try as you might to connect with or get them to share or interact, they give you absolutely nothing in return… 

It’s the equivalent of talking to a brick wall.  

While frustrating, getting someone who is shy, quiet or less social to open up is one of the most useful and important skills you can build as a communicator, and it all comes down to properly deploying a few specific but underutilized tools. 

On today’s episode we cover: 

• The one skill that will allow you to connect with anyone
• When and why you should stop asking so many questions
• The 5 key tools / tactics to try when talking to a shy person 
• How to MASTER the awkward pause 

A couple announcements:

• We know selling yourself and your work can feel slimy and gross. But if you’re creating real value that can help even one person, we believe you have a responsibility to share it. If you don’t, either someone else will or you’ll be passed over and left behind. 

Join us Tuesday, June 28th for a FREE workshop in which we’ll give you tools to self-promote in a tactical and ethical way so you can make the impact you want. Check out the FREE workshop here: Artofcoaching.com/impact 

• Today’s episode is brought to you by Momentous. You don’t need me to remind you how important what you put in your body is and the impact it can have on your health. Whether you’re a world class athlete or someone who sits at their desk all day in the corporate world, Momentous has products that can help you perform at the highest level. They are all quality tested at the highest level, and they are for anyone who wants to feel better without overthinking their nutrition. Use Code: BRETT15 for 15% off your order.
• Support for today’s episode also comes from Dynamic Fitness & Strength. Dynamic offers the highest quality strength and conditioning equipment designed just for you, your space and your budget. Whether you’re looking to outfit your college, high school or professional gym or even just your garage, check out our friends at Dynamic and tell them Team AoC sent you!

If you want more behind the scenes, raw thoughts, and helpful tips, check out artofcoaching.com/begin!

Brett Bartholomew  00:03

We all know what it feels like to be looked past, glossed over or undervalued at some level, whether it’s a job you didn’t land, a promotion you didn’t get, or someone gave their business to somebody else who really isn’t as dedicated to the craft as you are. These things can make us feel angry and empty and frustrated. And at times, it leaves us wondering why doing the right thing in the right way feels like such an uphill battle, especially if we don’t want to resort to incessant self promotion. As a matter of fact, self promotion is an incredibly uncomfortable topic for many, a lot of you let me know this in a Twitter poll I recently conducted. But the fact is, it is a necessity at some level, especially if we want our work to make an impact. I mean, you have to realize there’s 8 billion people in the world, if you think they’re just going to find out about you without you sharing your work, then that is a little naive if you really think about it. So what if I told you that you don’t have to feel shame or guilt for promoting yourself or your work. And that despite the countless ways we see people doing it wrong, and being slimy, there are strategies to spread the word about you, and what you do in a really authentic way that gets into the hearts and heads of your dream audience. Now, this isn’t something I talked about without having struggled with myself. This is something I’ve had to deal with a lot in my career from writing a book, starting a business and gaining clients across 22 different industries. And now I want to share my playbook with you because it was something I didn’t have when I was kind of lost trying to figure out alright, how do I do this? How do I stand out without selling out? We really try hard to do everything at Art Of Coaching with honesty, integrity and quality. And while we’re absolutely imperfect, we do stand by our word. So if these words describe you, be sure to go to artofcoaching.com/impact to get details on a free resource that we are going to be releasing soon to help you navigate the uncomfortable aspects of self promotion. Again, that’s artofcoaching.com/impact. And we are going to limit this to 100 people. So please do not wait. Go to artofcoaching.com/impact If you do not want to be undervalued, overlooked or miss unique opportunities. Okay, I also want to thank Momentous for sponsoring this episode. Just as all of us at Art Of Coaching, discuss the critical nature of the words we choose and the impact it has. None of you need me to tell you the importance of what you put in your body and the impact it has on your health. I could care less if you’re a world class athlete, more of the uncle Rico archetype or simply somebody that sits at your desk all day in the corporate world. What you put into your body matters and Momentous makes products that are no nonsense quality tested at the absolute highest level. And therefore anyone who wants to feel better without overthinking their nutritional support options. You don’t need to be OCD or you don’t need to track all your macros. Momentous makes it easy. So skip the fads, master the basics, and go with Momentous by visiting livemomentous.com And you can save 25%. Guys, that’s ridiculous. 25% By using code B, R ,E, T, T, 2, 5 at checkout, that’s B, R ,E, T, T, 2, 5; Brett25 at checkout.

 

Brett Bartholomew  03:27

Welcome to the Art Of Coaching Podcast. I’m Brett Bartholomew and at a young age poor communication nearly cost me my life. Now, I help others navigate the gray area of social interaction, power dynamics, and communication so they can become more adaptable leaders regardless of their profession, age, or situation. This podcast is for everybody who is fascinated with solving people’s problems. So if you’re in the no-nonsense type who appreciates frank conversations, advice you can put to use immediately, and learning how others navigate the messy realities of leadership. You’re in the right place. I’m glad that you’re joining us. Let’s dive in.

 

Brett Bartholomew  04:14

All right, today, we’re gonna get into something that is going to be applicable to a lot of different aspects of your life. And it’s all centered around how do you get somebody that is “shy to open up”, or even how to get somebody that is just quiet to open up. This is something we’ve been asked by a large number of you guys. And this can have many applications. The themes that I just shared don’t have to be the only situation it’s limited to, you might be in a negotiation and another party might not open up just because they don’t want to share some cards that they’re holding. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be about Shy People or Quiet People. What this is about is really how do you deal with what we can refer to as the brick wall effect where you’re putting yourself out there or you’re speaking, you’re disclosing, and no matter what it seems like nobody else is gonna budge. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  05:05

Now by default, since we’re covering a huge topic here, you have to take the advice in context. Generally, when people reach out, they’ll just give me something vague. They’ll say, How do I get somebody I work with who’s shy to open up? And inevitably, it helps me give a better reply, if they give specifics such as well, what have you tried in the past? How are you as a communicator? How do you know? What you know? Why are you perceiving them as shy? There’s so many questions, there’s at least 30 things I want to ask folks. But I know the reality is sometimes people just want some bare bones principles. So we’re gonna go through a number of them here, they’re certainly not the only tactics you can use. They’re not the only principles you can draw upon. But hopefully they stimulate some ideas and give you some thoughts. Now, let’s kick it off with something that is not helpful right off the bat. And that is the age-old advice, well just ask open-ended questions. And here’s what I mean by why it’s generally not helpful when dealing with somebody who is seemingly closed off or not talking much, whether they’re coming over to your house for dinner or any other situation. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  06:11

Generally, you know, we tend to think and I know the world is in love with a whole start with why and that can be very purposeful in some circumstances. But when somebody is reticent to share, and let’s go with a personal example, for a moment, meaning this is not a business negotiation, where it could be a tactic, but maybe somebody came over to your house, and maybe you’re coaching somebody, when they’re reticent to share. Asking them a lot of questions only puts them more into a corner. Have you ever had somebody that says, hey, if there’s anything I can do, let me know, or what would be most helpful to you right now, on the surface that can look like something that is incredibly thoughtful? But some people that feels like, well, I don’t even know where to start? I don’t know if I feel right, asking you for help? I don’t know what is presumptuous? I don’t know what is too much? And so it’s important to just be wary about the advice to ask more open- ended questions. There are some folks that remember might be quiet, because, you know, certain information has been used to harm them in the past, they might have anxiety, social anxiety. And so when you just keep the attention on them, it can make them suspicious, or it can make them close up. Now, of course, there’s always a duality to these answers. But I hope you understand what I’m saying. And many of you can relate. Even I, when I go out. And I’m probably more I’m an ambivert. I mean, most of us are a mix. But if I am bombarded with questions constantly to a point, I don’t want the attention on me. So be wary of people that advise you just to ask them more open-ended questions. That’s number one. And I just want to start off with that. And number two is, make sure you’re making room for them to speak. And what do I mean by this? If I can share a personal failure in the past, you know, there’s some times where I felt like I had to fill every void, that I can feel like this is a teacher, a coach and a business owner as well. I want people to have so much value when they come to our workshops, I want you guys to have value when you’re listening to the podcast, I want to pack as much value relative to the context and the communication medium that I can so that people know that I care. But that’s a huge weakness, feeling like there can’t be this silence or that you can’t like a good bottle of wine, let it breathe for a moment means that you’re never really giving that other person an opportunity, then in the past, I tend to downplay the fact that some people need a little bit more processing time for them to be able to form their thoughts. And that doesn’t mean that anything’s wrong with them. It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with you or what you said. It just means that we all process information and our thoughts and our words at different rates. So you have to check yourself and say, Is this my own insecurity here? Am I just trying to fill a gap? Am I just trying to talk so that there’s no awkward pause when the reality is an awkward pause might be exactly what you need. So if you think about this, and this was advised by clinical psychologist Chloe Carmichael, she had said, the more you take responsibility of filming the conversation, the less the shy person will need to step forward. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  09:21

Alright, so what does that mean? It means the same thing we’re just talking about. Make sure to control any nervous energy you have and also those expectations. Remember, it’s okay, if somebody doesn’t open up to you right away. You shouldn’t have that expectation anyway. Now of course we can get into well what if this is the first time I’m conversing with them? Or hey, I’ve been patient for six months. Take a beat. We’ll get there right now let’s just talk about some baseline principles. And remembering that this is a two way street. One side is also explore their interests. Now they don’t have to tell you their interests outright for You To Know them, many extraordinarily quiet or reserved or in some cases, even subdued individuals that I’ve worked with, either as executive coaching clients with art of coaching, or in my prior life when I was just doing strength and conditioning. I mean, they will communicate in every aspect of their life from the car they drive, to the clothing they wear to the type of phone they use, people are always telling you something, you will have to pay attention, you have to read between the lines scan their body, obviously in an appropriate way. What I mean is, is there a ring on their finger? Do they have a tattoo? What’s the band that they’re wearing on their shirt? Is there a certain thing that you notice about their shoes? Oh, those are Chuck Taylors Oh, this is this. Even the people that I’ve worked with that claim to not be material at all generally have something about them that they treasure, maybe they buy old vinyl records, and they respond to music that’s playing, maybe they it’s a beat up pair of Chuck Taylors I remember there was somebody that I worked with that said, How old are those shoes? It looks like you’ve been mowing lawns in them for about 10 years. And they’re like, Oh, dude, these are classics. I have 42 pairs of these exact shoes. And then we had a conversation about that. So one piece of advice I give people is just are you really looking and listening as closely as you think, remember, and this is something we evaluated our apprenticeship. We tell people that, you know, it’s not just the verbals and the nonverbals. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  11:27

But it’s also like we have a category called aesthetics, what we’re wearing how we present ourselves, that tells us a great deal about our interests. So I gave you the wedding ring example, I gave you some shoes, like I’ve had people pull up in cars before and then they’re huge. Car nerds, not because of the car was nice, but actually because it was a clunker. And I found out that individual loved fixing up cars. And you know, just be okay too. If you swing and you miss be okay, if you swing and you miss, we’ve all had those awkward moments. I mean, I’ll shoot myself in the foot here with some of the advice they gave you. I remember one time that as as an individual, I was like, Oh, how long have you been married, and they had a ring on their finger. And unfortunately, that person had lost their significant other two years ago. And they’re just like, I can’t bring myself to take it off. And My heart sunk. I mean, it’s sunk, and I apologized profusely. But it was a bigger deal to me than it was then they said, Listen, I know what I’m doing. I, I wear it for a reason. You don’t need to feel bad. And and so their point was this shouldn’t keep you from asking questions. Right? Like, I just, that was an embarrassing moment. For me, I felt awful, because I felt like there was something that maybe I should have asked around that. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  12:40

But guys, there’s gonna be some times where you just don’t get it right. Another piece there is letting go of your agenda. We’ve had people over to our house for dinner. And you know, you want them to feel comfortable. You’re, you’re maybe meeting the spouse of a good friend of yours. And so you’re asking some questions, you’re not getting a lot back. And really, what I found is you can have tremendous success, just letting the conversation flow. And this is everyday interactions. I remember when I worked at Southern Illinois University, I had to go up from the strength and conditioning department to somebody that was in the Business Administration, part of the school and talk to them and man, they were just always either extraordinarily brief. Or sometimes they wouldn’t even say anything. And they just hand me what I needed. And in a really kind of stern way, I didn’t really get it. And then one time, I had to ask them questions, because I had to get a legal form for a student athlete. And they really opened up about some of this stuff. So I just asked them the obvious, but where did you go to school to learn this? What got you interested in this, and they talked about that ad nauseam. And so sometimes when you just let the conversation flow, either maybe somebody else at the dinner table, brought up something and somebody showed interest, or they raise your eyebrow great go there. Or you’ve gotten to a depth an in depth conversation about their zone of genius, and they started to go on from there, great, go. But let go of your agenda, the conversation does not always have to go where you want it to go. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  14:08

Now, for those of you still in the strength and conditioning side or the training side, this holds true with athletes as well. There were plenty of athletes and my guide Don Terry Poe, if you’re listening to this, man, I know you’re coming on. I think you can laugh about this. The majority of our conversations were about family and things like that, even when I needed to talk to him about something training related. I always made sure to anchor it in conversations that were around his main interests first, because that just you know, it takes away this thing sometimes if somebody’s not interested in a certain subject, or it just allows a little bit of a blanket of warmth to kind of envelop the rest of the conversation. So by letting go of your agenda, you create that opportunity. I’ll give another example here as well. Something else I found that works extraordinarily well when almost all else fails is bringing another party into This situation. Now I understand, as I said at the beginning of the episode, this isn’t always going to be something that you can do depending on your context. But it doesn’t mean it’s not valid to explore. So there have been times where let’s say we use the dinner example, even just making sure my wife is present. Or maybe there’s another friend present that is in a related field as the individual I’m trying to connect with, that can make a big difference, or when I worked with athletes, and maybe there was an athlete, because I didn’t really do one to one. So we always had groups, but maybe I partnered different athletes up at a certain rack or in a certain drill. And I was able to code a little bit for things that I witnessed and their personality. So I could get to guys that were a little bit more quiet, you would think, well, why wouldn’t you pair them with somebody more talkative, you can do that, too, you need to mix with these dynamics, it has worked both ways. I paired somebody that’s reticent with somebody else that’s a little bit more reticent, or quiet or reserved, that works great. Sometimes that just led to people being quiet. I’ve led to I’ve had somebody that’s a little bit more quiet and subdued to somebody that’s a little bit more interactive and engaging. And that’s where to well, these things will vary across contexts. stuff that I’ve done that works well in the United States, perhaps didn’t work so well in China. But generally, people being the social creatures that they are, are more likely to open up when there’s somebody else around that kind of, you know, breaks that awkward dynamic of just one to one. This is oftentimes why in negotiations, people will also use mediators, because sometimes we can get so attached to our own language, and our own agenda, that, you know, we just failed to connect. So it’s okay to use mediators.

 

Brett Bartholomew  16:47

Quick break to remind you of something I said at the beginning, guys, make sure you go to artof coaching.com/impact. Right now, we are going to cover a free training on all things ethical self promotion, so that your work is not overlooked. or undervalued, I get it selling ourselves and our work can feel slimy and gross. So instead, many of us just keep our heads down, we work harder, and we hope good work will just speak for itself and be noticed by the right people. But the fact is, it’s a loud world if you do not share your value or tell your story, somebody else will or you’re going to be ignored. So if you identify as a leader, you need to understand self promotion is both inevitable, and non negotiable. And it can be done in an ethical and tactical way, please go to artofcoaching.com/impact. Now, we are putting our heart and soul behind this. And we want to help you get your work into the hands of more people. That’s the artofcoaching.com/impact.

 

Brett Bartholomew  17:50

People will also use mediators, because sometimes we can get so attached to our own language, and our own agenda that you know, we just failed to connect. So it’s okay to use mediators. And that involves dropping your pride to a fair amount. I found that even when I had interns, if there was an athlete or individual that connected really well, with an intern, guys, I don’t need to be the star of the show for everything, let that intern kind of take the lead in the negotiations, maybe they came from the same city, maybe they like this same food, maybe they knew somebody. So that goes back to just being a better observer. And I’m going to take a pause for a moment to let that one hit. It goes back to what I said earlier, when I said look at their aesthetics, what they’re wearing, what they’re driving, so much if I could boil the rest of what I’m going to tell you and everything that came before it down to one thing, how you get a shy person to open up how to connect with somebody that’s reserved, be a better observer, and have a bit of patience, have a bit of patience, somebody that I we put out a survey before we did this episode. And one of the answers that we had got from somebody who identified as a very, quote unquote, shy and awkward person is they said, You know, I just prefer when the person I’m talking to talks a little bit about themselves. I don’t like being the topic of conversation. I very much like interaction, but I don’t really know how to do it. And I don’t want to be made to feel bad for that. And awkward silences are also painful for me as much as it is the other party. I just have a little bit of social anxiety. And I end up forgetting just about everything, when somebody puts me under the spotlight. So the person I’m talking to says something that I can add on to, then I’ll warm up. So that leads me to the next piece is and I want to be careful on how I phrase this. But when you disclose, right when you self disclose, it can be so, so powerful. And there’s many aspects to ourselves, right? There’s our personal self, which is what makes us unique as an individual our ideas, our emotions, our values, our beliefs, there can be our cultural self. And this is adapted from two researchers, Stuart and Logan and work they did in 1998. That is their identification with an ethnic or maybe it’s a spiritual or religious, gender, social class or other grouping. There’s many different kinds of ourselves. And of course, professional self can fit into that. But when I met with a lot of silence or reticence, and this is especially true when I’m teaching workshops, because while people that either come to our speaker school or Brand Builder or apprenticeship that are a little quiet at first and of course, why wouldn’t they be, they’re coming to learn, they may know a lot about you, they may know not not know much about you, but they don’t want to seem like they ask a stupid question. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  20:40

There are times where I will gain power by reducing my power or tell an embarrassing story about myself. I’ve had somebody that, you know, they really struggled kind of knowing how to answer a question. And I said, Listen, no matter what you say, you’re not going to sound as dumb. As I said, when I answered this question by saying blank, or I promise you, whatever you’re feeling right now, I understand to some degree, because when I’m writing my book, even things I know, inside my head, can be really hard for me to put on the page. Or I think of my neighbor. And I’m trying to give you guys as many examples, I’m doing it right now, one of my neighbors came over to work out in our garage, and I was teaching him a movement called a single leg, RDL. And man, he was wobbling all over the place. And I said, Listen, you got to remember, this is a skill, it’s going to take a long time to learn. And you should have seen me when I first did this, and when I was trying to demonstrate it, I mean, I looked like I had troubles with it as well. But just to normalize these things a little bit. I think that that is something that so often leaders and coaches alike forget your you have such urgency. And by you, I mean me, I’m here to, to create, change and make an improvement, that you forget for a moment, that if everything is about that other person, and you don’t help them see you in a different light, you know, you’re just really going to have a hard time connecting, I always say, remember, people only invite you into their life as an expert, right like that, or you’re only an expert, sorry, you’re only an expert, when somebody invites you into their life as one, you’re only an expert, when somebody invites you into their life as one. And you can do what I just did there. Like that’s a quote that I’ve used in my book, and I flubbed it. But why would I edit that out? Why would I change that we make mistakes, we have all looked foolish, share some of those things. And then don’t expect a response. Don’t expect them to say, Oh, my God, thank God, you said that I totally get it make sense. Remember, leave room, it may take three to four interactions. I think we’ve all had that experience where we felt like somebody didn’t like us, or they didn’t connect with us only for later to find out through a mutual friend. Oh, hey, Georgia said she had a really good time at your dinner, or so and so said they really enjoyed your workshop. And I’m like, Really, they didn’t seem to interact too much. And they’re like, yeah, that’s, you know, that’s kind of them, they just kind of take that in, they’re very analytical. And then I kind of breathe this, this sigh of relief, I’m like, wow, that that means a lot. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  23:08

So just remember there, when we’re thinking about what disclosure is, because that’s really anchoring, what I’m talking about, at this point, being able to share stories of your own, like it is it is the actual process of just communicating information about yourself verbally to another person, that’s all you’re doing, give them something to anchor off of, give them something to kind of take, take a bite off of so that there’s a little bit more room there. And we do this in negotiations as well, when we’ve dealt even with podcast sponsors before, right, and maybe we’re getting into negotiation, we can certainly relate I mean, some sponsors may have never paid for advertising before anything like that, they can be nervous that they’re going to waste money. So one big part of that negotiation is saying, I’m going to make up a name here, hey, Sal, I get that it’s a big ask, and that you guys are kind of taking a leap here and doing this kind of marketing for the first time. This is why we’ve created this deck for you, or this is why we have these three options, because we know what that’s like as well. And if it gives you a little bit more room to breathe a little bit more room to decide what’s right for you. We just want you to know, these are all the angles we’ve covered. And you can come in at any price point. And we haven’t had one sponsor that hasn’t appreciated that. And so giving people options, and just taking that time is is a great is a great choice there. So what we’ve talked about, we’ve talked about being a better observer, looking at things non verbally exploring their interests, letting go of your agenda, so a conversation can flow, bringing in an additional party that maybe they connect with more, giving them space and time in general, making sure that you don’t always feel an urge to fill the conversation or fill the pause with more and more and more.

 

Brett Bartholomew  24:53

Making sure that you don’t just bombard them with open ended questions because that can put more attention on them here’s another piece to your homework, do your homework. And I have to do this anytime I have a podcast guest on, I don’t get a chat with many of these folks beforehand. I don’t always get to talk to them. And I think of some of the most recent guests. But even plenty of them. I mean, there was one, Robert Greene that I had tried talking to for more than five years. So you know, you don’t, you don’t always know much. But what you can do is you can dive into their history a little bit, and you can try to find commonalities. I mean, this is the whole purpose behind LinkedIn, guys. People want to see mutual connections, that well, if people use it, right, some people just accept everybody on LinkedIn. And then it’s really hard to see who they have mutual connections with. I remember that happened recently. Somebody goes, Oh, I looks like we share my common friend. And I’m like, No, I don’t know that individual. And I had found out that a previous assistant in the past had accepted a request. And they said, Oh, well, they’re, they’re using your name all around town like they know you. So I had to correct that. So no offense, if I haven’t accepted your LinkedIn request, you that can be resolved just by you sending me a note and saying, here’s how we know each other. This is kind of what how your work has spoken to me, and then I’ll accept you. But I certainly don’t accept people that just coldly reach out. My point being is, you know, being able to have a little bit of information. And it can be as basic as let’s say, I have my friend Daniel over for dinner. And maybe I haven’t met his wife yet. I haven’t realized. But this is hypothetical. And I say, Hey, man, I’d love to meet your wife and connect with her as well. I mean, we’re gonna be neighbors, what are some things that she’s into? And then that way, when I meet her, I can say, Hey, Catherine, Daniel tells me that you really like drawing pictures of cats. I’m making that up, obviously. And she’s like, Oh, you did your homework. There’s just simple things like that, that are so dumb. Ah ha. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  26:46

And sometimes, people might not like this bit of advice, you can do a little bit of creeping online. I remember another example. And a lot of this comes down to me having to work with people in administration, right, where they’re in a different department. But maybe they’re a gatekeeper. And I need a request from them. And it generally comes down to somebody that’s, that’s admin related, but being able to go online, and remember, a colleague was like, I can never get anything out of Angela. And I’m like, Well, what do you mean, get anything he’s like, I just, I came to her with a concern about HR, and she just doesn’t seem to care. And I want to be able to like, at least I don’t need to be friends with this person. But I need them to open up enough to like, feel like something’s actually going to be done about this situation. Well, they did a little bit of digging online, creepy, whatever it is, they find out some information. And this is, again, where there’s an art to this, they can use that but find a commonality. And if there’s not a commonality, just find something else and then learn about it. If you don’t know anything about spelunking, or you don’t know anything about deep sea diving, and somebody seems to be into that, is it gonna really hurt you to go into that experience, this is something that really powerful negotiators understand, it is all about finding common ground, it’s all about making that other person feel genuinely special. It’s all about taking interest in other people. And you can fake that all you want, but you’ll get a reputation for that. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  28:10

So you genuinely need to take interest, there have been plenty of times where in my research of somebody else, something that we call power mapping. Like we’re able to find so many unique commonalities. And even if I’m not into something that they’re into, in my research, I’ll be like, Damn, that sounds really interesting. And then I get into that, that makes me a more well rounded individual. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  28:30

So hopefully, some of these things are helping. I’m trying to take out, you know, some of the the cliche things like, oh, ask them better questions or mirror their body language? Yeah, I mean, these things can help. But I think we’ve all read them in leadership books before. And even if you feel like Well, Brad, I’ve heard these to hearing them, reading them, doing them and assessing whether you’re actually doing them well, are completely different things. Right? We all think that there has to be some incredibly nuanced information there doesn’t, you just need to make sure that you’re enacting on it. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  29:06

Let’s talk about two other things. One of the biggest is setting, choose a different setting. Change it up. And I’ve talked about this on previous episodes of the podcast. This goes with really situational context. There’s times where and I think a previous guest, Jess Ellis did this wonderfully. He was talking about an athlete that he needed to talk to they had a medical issue, that athlete would never come into the training room, because they associated that with negativity, being hurt, time away from basketball, just talked about how he was able to go find them, where they were the court shooting hoops practicing their shooting, different conversation. I’ve self disclosed about in the past about somebody that had some kind of feelings towards me. And it was clear that those things weren’t going to be resolved in the workplace. So I invited them out to lunch and we do Just hash it out. And I’ve been invited over to somebody’s house before as well find just another context. And there’s great research behind this. There’s great research that suggests people are more open to ideas and conversation in idyllic settings, guys, even on sunny days, people are more willing to talk on sunny days, they, they will have different conversations on a park bench than they will in an office. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  30:25

So think about that is that person and and don’t go so quickly to Well, that’s not an option. I only deal with this person in this context. I’ve given you some other options. And that’s where you’ve got to avoid being that individual. And I’m not saying you are, but somebody you’re going to encounter will be? They’ll say, Well, I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried everything. This is who you send, this is who you send this podcast to. You send them this podcast, and you also send them the one I don’t remember that right off the bat. But we’ll put it in the show notes. Why logic doesn’t change people’s minds. Because that’s another thing. People tend to think why? Oh, well, I’ve tried given them the facts. I’ve tried doing this. And I thought that would get them to open up? No, no, no. But if you change this setting, and you just think about all these other pieces, you are going to make tremendous headway in doing that. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  31:16

One last one, I’ll give you it and then we can do a continuance of it if you guys like it is, you know, matching the tonality. This is something again, that we evaluate people on at the Apprenticeship workshop. And that is people can be intimidated by an it doesn’t need to be intimidated by they can be influenced by as a better term, a wide variety of factors. And I’ve had to learn this as well, I speak in a very convicting intense tone. And I’ve talked about in the past why I do that. Sometimes it’s just my natural, but I just live with a very intense urgency. This has been something I mean, I spent 15 years of my life having to communicate to nothing. But large groups, remember, and if you’re a new listener, it’s worth noting, like, the vast majority of my life has been situations where here I am five, eight, white boy from Omaha, Nebraska, having to communicate to large groups of professional athletes who collectively could be worth 100 to 200 million or more, and are the best in the world at what they do, as to why they should do certain things they don’t always want to do so that they can play at a higher level, or for a longer period, blah, blah, blah, my entire life has been coaxing and influencing individuals to do things that they may not do on their own. Or if they do do it on their own. They may not be able to do it at the detailed level they need to right everybody needs a coach. And this is you know, I think my it was our good friend Dr. Edward Coughlin at our leadership and strategy summit says coaching is coaxing. And if it wasn’t you Dr. Coplin, I apologize. I’ll go back. But coaching is coaxing, you do have to find a tone that works for people. So that means sometimes, let’s say a friend. And I always try to make up the situation. So I can give you guys tactical advice. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  33:00

Let’s say somebody says, you know, Brett, my wife really want like, I want my wife or my partner to listen to your podcast. But they’ve tried it before. And man, your tone just gets to them? Well, I can’t create a different tone for everybody, I’m sorry. But what I can do is make sure that there’s certain certain aspects of the podcasts where I speak a little bit more conversation. And other ones, maybe it’s a different topic. Or maybe I’m just kind of on one that day, where I’m not going to apologize for using my convicting tone, because my, my most loyal audience are the ones that you know, are going to listen the longest are going to be okay with me being me. But I try to think about this. And I have a sticky note on my desk, you can hear it, it’s right here. And it says, remember to switch it up, whether that’s the tone, whether that’s the cadence, sometimes not even being scared to take a pause, and take a drink. So change those pieces. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  33:52

Guys, we’re gonna stop there for today. I need your feedback, please email us at info like information at art of coaching.com. If you want more episodes like this, I don’t want to waste our time. I don’t want to waste your time. I want to provide material that helps. And on this podcast, we do it through solo episodes like this guest episodes, roundtable Live episodes. Remember, you can also go to artofcoaching.com/question. And you can fire us any question, but we desperately need your feedback. We want to create great experiences for you guys. So email us again, info at art of coaching.com. Let us know what you’ve been enjoying on the shows. Let us know what you’d like more of feel free to tell me I’m awful if that’s what you want to do, whatever. It’s all feedback. And if you’d be so kind consider leaving a review on AMA on iTunes or Spotify. For those that don’t know, these reviews are not waiting for us to get Pat’s on the back. They play into an algorithm. So there’s people all over the world that maybe don’t know about the podcast, and they only know about it if you rate it and rank it because that tells iTunes and Spotify. Hey, people are actually listening to this. We’re deeply grateful. Let me know if this helps. Looking forward to talking to you soon Brett Bartholomew Art of Coaching podcast

 

Brett Bartholomew  35:27

Wait, you guys are still here. Awesome. I appreciate it. Hey, if you want more behind the scenes info, we’re going to be putting a whole lot of new things on our newsletter. So if you like behind the scenes kind of day in the life type stuff, you want raw thoughts, helpful tips, and you just are the type that likes to think more critically, go to artofcoaching.com/begin we share stuff on our newsletter all the time that you’re never gonna get on our Instagram. You’re not always gonna get on the podcast. We’re really trying to create a helpful ecosystem of information here. So that’s artofcoaching.com/begin. Thanks again and be sure to tell a friend or two about the show.