“The key to leadership is being vulnerable.”
Although this concept has been trending for more than a few years now, there is still plenty of ambiguity around what that actually looks like in the real world. We know this because as a leadership development company, we consistently get questions about it – What do I need to be vulnerable about? How much is too much? When is the best time to share?
Today’s episode answers these questions and several others, to help you become a better leader and teammate through a willingness to share your flaws. A few specifics we address are:
- How the perception of credibility has changed over time
- 3 key features of credibility
- How the vulnerability loop enhances relationships
- “The little things” that contribute to trustworthiness and warmth
Referenced Resources:
Valued: If you’re struggling with feeling under-valued in your current job or position, this episode is just a starting point for ways to influence how you’re perceived by others in the workplace. Our online course Valued covers this topic in more depth, as well as working as a go-to guide for all things finding, solidifying and maximizing the job. This resource will teach you the skills you need to become irreplaceable within your organization.
1:1 Mentoring: For anyone looking for someone to lean on, act as a devil’s advocate, or just run ideas and decisions by, this program is designed to provide the support and accountability you need. We have a wide variety of mentors in many different locations and walks of life available to provide you guidance and training tailored specifically to your needs. Apply for our 1:1 Mentorship Program today, or reach out to us at info@artofcoaching.com, and we’ll get you moving in the right direction!
TRANSCRIPTION
Brett Bartholomew 0:00
A Few things are more frustrating than when you feel like you’re overwhelmed in over your head or not sure what to do in a particular situation. Furthermore, many of you do not need me to tell you this, there are certain things in life that reading a book, or even listening to a podcast aren’t gonna help with, because what you are contemplating or what you’re dealing with, is really complex and requires another human being to bounce ideas off of. This is why the art of coaching mentoring and strategy program exists.
Now, I want to be really clear, if you haven’t heard about this, this is something that we haven’t marketed much. But it’s always been a pet project of mine, especially because I never had a formal mentor to work with when I was navigating a lot of things in my life, and really even now, but what we do is we provide you guys with direct advice and applied strategies that you can use to better navigate relationship issues, work issues, big life decisions, or even just small stuff that you’ve wanted to get off your chest for a while. Yes, there is a common misconception that our company just because we talk a lot about communication and behavior, only deals with communication, or maybe entrepreneurial type stuff.
Our mission here at art of coaching is to help all of you with the messy realities of leadership in life. So it’s very broad. And we have people in this program that come to us with a wide range of issues or just things that they want to chat about and get advice on. And like I said, we can do this because all of our coaches have experienced these things as well. The fact is, and you know this to be true, coaches need coaches, leaders need someone to listen, and the messy realities of real life require real solutions from people who will shoot you straight. I’m biased, but I don’t think anybody does that better than our organization.
So all you need to do, there’s no travel involved, there’s no complexity, this is all done virtually, is go to artofcoaching.com/mentoring. I’ll repeat that, again. artofcoaching.com/mentoring. Fill out the form, and a member of our team is going to get back to you. And I want to be clear, once again, our network of coaches have worked in a variety of industries. They work across multiple time zones. And none of this requires any travel or managing of logistics. on your end, it could not be simpler.
It’s like Uber for advice or lift for advice or choose whatever is available in your country for advice with qualified coaches. It’s literally the most accessible way that you can get the help with what you need right now. And I’ll close it off like this. Nothing is more expensive than bad advice. Nothing is less productive than being prideful or not seeking a second opinion. And nothing is more valuable than getting a coach for yourself. Someone who will listen and help you create a strategy tailored to you to help you get out of your own head and moving forward once again. Go to artofcoaching.com/mentoring right now.
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 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.
Hey, thanks for sitting down with me for another episode of the podcast. Today we’re going to talk about credibility now to ground this episode and give you a why. Why are we going into this today? It came on the back of a conversation we had with one of our mentoring clients, a supremely bright individual who was talking about something that he recognized in terms of a tendency he has and he’s a business owner. And I’m gonna paraphrase things. And of course, I’m not going to use names for the same reason I keep any of our clients names private. But he essentially said, I realize that when I’m talking about my business to other people, prospective clients in particular, I tend to talk about the benefits or I tend to talk about things that speak to how good we are, how this can help them and not in a way that would be pretentious, just as anybody would talk about that. Right?
If you’re a skilled coach, are you talking about the benefits of working with you if you’re a lawyer, the benefits of employing your services, anything like that? And he stated, what I really struggle with is just the vulnerability piece. and an individual that I worked with just said, Hey, you probably win more people over if you were just bit a bit more transparent or vulnerable. And when I asked him, I said, Well, why do you think you did this. And he said it’s just, I tend to be somebody that leans on rationality a lot. I’ve listened to your show before I’m familiar with your work, I tend to be just more of an analytical person, a realist in terms of my communication style.
And so it’s not that I don’t want to be vulnerable, it’s just that it’s my tendency to speak to pragmatic benefits. So it led to a really interesting discussion that I think will help many of you. And as always, it doesn’t matter what profession or walk of life you’re in. Many of us want other people to perceive us as credible. And we want to be credible and perceived as credible, because that allows us to help more people earn their trust, so on and so forth. And within the research of my next book that I’ve done, and so much of the other work that we’ve done at art of coaching in general, this is something that we’ve dove into a good bit.
And what was interesting to me, and I’m going to reference some notes here from time to time, but I’m not going to get so into the weeds that this ends up becoming some four hour episode we’re going to keep those 30 Minutes or Less is when you look at credibility and you assess how it’s perceived now versus in other points in history. For the most part in history, we looked at those that had some kind of formal authority as being credible. Now in today’s world, that could be those with licenses, certifications, degrees, just certain positions. They’re CEOs, they’re billionaires, formal authority can be looked at in a lot of different ways. But in today’s world, today’s world, we look at it very differently.
The acid test for credibility in today’s world is this mix of competence, and warmth or competence and trustworthiness, things that we’ll dissect more in a moment. But I want to talk about why that’s changed over time. One of the major reasons is there’s a lot less trust in general, and authority figures today. Well, why? Because we’ve seen authority figures do a lot of, we’ll just put it this way, disingenuous odd, untasteful things as time has gone on, we’ve also just realized that those with formal authority don’t have some god given, talent or state necessarily, or skill that elevates them above others.
you look at leadership theory. And a lot of the research in the past, people very much believed in this idea of what invariably was talked about as the great man theory. We would talk about it as the great person theory today. But the great man theory, essentially stated that there are certain people that are just born with certain skills and trades, inborn, whatever Choose whatever you want there that make them just more knowledgeable that make them better that make them above the rest of us. And that’s largely been disproven. That’s been disproven over 50 years of research, as a matter of fact, whether you look at the research done by Stojoel, or others, they’ve shown that, of course, that’s not true.
Of course, there are people that are born with certain advantages, but it’s all about how those advantages or lack thereof align with the context, right? The context is what made that fit between, hey, here’s the resources or the skills or the traits, or the knowledge that I have. And here’s the context that those things are delivered in are put into action. And that’s what determines a lot of that success, right? There’s nobody out there. There’s no one trait that guarantees success 100% of the time, and we’ve recognized that. So when there are certain people that want to lean on just formal authority, or titles, or credentials, or anything like that, or even their experience, to try to gain the trust of others, they’re going to be sadly mistaken, that that’s just not how that works anymore.
And it also is worth mentioning that and many of you have recognized this, there are industries that have really capitalized off of that perception before we go into it further. There are people that have capitalize on that perception, perception and that desire for credibility in that way. I talked about a lot my first career as a strength and conditioning coach, people are sold this idea of if you get these certifications, right, get this certification with kettlebells and then speed and oh, by the way, do you know how to teach Olympic lifts you know how to do this. So not only would you have to get a certification to become a strength and conditioning coach, which even to sit for that the main one, you would have to have a degree in a related field.
There are other people that then would sell other certifications. And since it was a field that by and large, had a really hard time showcasing its objective value because you could be a really great strength and conditioning coach, but your team could lose because of a number of other complex variables or anything else, people just they went for these things, certification after certification. I mean, imagine being a personal trainer or strength coach in a crowded market, and you’re surrounded by all these other people. And then you’ll do anything to differentiate yourself.
And I have friends that are lawyers and doctors, and they have their own versions of these things as well. And if it’s not in their license, or the licensing or anything like that, they’ll just be other methods or techniques. Right. So we’ve talked about that. And we just by and large, have learned as a society that there’s a limit to the credibility of those things, there’s a limit to the utility of them. Now, on the other hand, while we’re on the subject of doctors incredibility interesting article, and I’ve talked about it a number of times on this podcast and cited it before, from the frontiers in psychiatry, it’s called when your doctor gets it and gets you the critical role of competence and warmth, in patient provider interaction.
And I’m going to tell you how this can apply to you and business and so many other things in a moment, let me just get through these pieces. And this article in particular, was really focused on demonstrating the elevation or I would say, What do I want to– the escalation or just how much the placebo effect was increased if patients had a connection with their doctors, so we know that the placebo effect works in general, right? And if the placebo response, or the response to that placebo on the patients, and it was really dissected into two dimensions, the patient’s perception of their doctors competence, and perceptions of warmth, right.
And it talked about, well, what really elevated that suppose it effectiveness of the placebo. And we’re not going to go through all this. But as you can imagine, right, when somebody perceives somebody as getting it being very competent, and being warm, right, trustworthy, vulnerable, all those things, the effects of the placebo were increased, they felt like it was better now just think about that, in every walk of life, if you run a business, people are going to be very happy if you get them results. But many of them are going to be even happier if you get them results. And you’re just a good person, maybe that’s you send them a gift a couple of times a year to show your appreciation, maybe that’s you always get back to them. You show deference.
There’s another article that talks about how many companies will retain certain law firms, or lawyers or legal counsel or however you want to look at it, not based on whether that law firm or that lawyer wins a lot or or gets them even the desired results all the time. But whether or not that firm, or that individual picks up the phone, and is accountable and perceived as trustworthy. So my point here is just briefly, if you are hoping to be perceived as credible, simply by being good at what you do, or simply by going out and getting every credential and certification and advanced degree and whatever, you are going to be sorely mistaken.
People do not judge credibility, in a purely rational manner anyway, that’s just not going to happen. So one thing I was telling this individual is, look at your website, look at your marketing materials, look at all these things. Is everything just based on the argument of expertise, the argument of results? Or do you appear as somebody who also was really attuned to the people side of things, as well. And as I mentioned, this is something that of course, there’s always going to be certain people that say, Well, I don’t care about that. I don’t care if somebody is warm, I just want result. That’s fine.
We’re talking about broader evidence here. We’re talking about the fact that people just from a human nature standpoint, because we know this, from a human nature standpoint, we have a need for connection. Humans are social creatures that we seek connections, and a perception of warmth fulfills that need, right? And we like feeling that others are compassionate towards us. And this is going to lead into one of the most impactful ways of how you can really increase your credibility, or perceived competence or any of those things. And it’s a little bit counter conventional. It’s by showing your flaws. It’s by admitting your flaws.
You can get a lot farther by doing the thing that you are often most insecure about. Talking about your imperfections. I’ll give you an example. All right, so our entire company, art of coaching is based on people, teaching people how to connect more, right? We sit at this intersection of relationships, entrepreneurship, and leadership. So all of our products and services and all that are all geared towards how can we help you deal with the people side of things, including that within yourself more effectively. And something we tell people, and it’s just straight forward is, hey, our sub is research backed.
It’s been road tested through a wide variety of interventions, and with a wide variety of organizations, but we’re not perfect. We never ever, whether you come to our speaker school, our apprenticeship course, which is our deepest and most immersive course on all things, human nature, communication, psychology, behavior, change, our entrepreneur essentials course or any of that, we will never guarantee that, oh, now your lives Perfect. Now, everything’s easy, we are never going to guarantee that we’re going to be able to answer all the questions you have.
But we can guarantee that we are going to give you pragmatic strategies, hands on practice, and a lot of feedback, and that we will do our best that even if we don’t know the answer, we’ll find it out for you. Right. And I’m of the opinion, that telling people that just saying, Hey, we’re not perfect, we’re gonna make mistakes, but we’re gonna work our butts off for you. And we’re gonna give you tools and strategies that absolutely can help you. That’s not a weakness, that’s a benefit.
Hey, quick personal note here. So I’d appreciate it if you tune into this. And maybe I shouldn’t share this. But I’d really like to, despite running a company that is largely focused on communication, and understanding power dynamics, and human interaction, I fall short a lot. My wife and I have been together for 13 plus years, we get in arguments, we fight, I lose my cool sometimes, in many areas of my life. And for a long time, I felt like that made me a failure. And then what I realize is, it’s exactly what we talk about at art of coaching and why our products exist.
None of us are ever going to be good enough at communication. My doctorate doesn’t mean that I’m going to be a perfect communicator, the fact that I write books on this doesn’t mean that I’m going to be a perfect communicator. And if you already feel like you’re good enough in your professional life, well, then I just ask you to consider if you’re where you want to be in your personal life, do you interact with your spouse, or your partner, your significant other, the way that you want to, do you always show up for your kids the way that you want to? I think if you’re being honest, we all fall short. And that’s where our work can help.
We don’t do a bunch of pie in the sky solutions. We’re real people who have real flaws just like you. But we take a research backed approach and an experience led approach to help you improve in those areas that matter most. So if you want to improve as a communicator, whether it’s for your job, whether it’s for your loved ones, or whether it’s for yourself, personally, check out what we do at artofcoaching.com. We have virtual mentoring that you don’t have to leave your house for. We have live workshops where you can connect with other humans, anything that sits at the intersection of relationships, leadership, or entrepreneurship, we have solutions for it.
So join us, we’re a bit of a group of misfits, we’re imperfect, but I can promise you this, there’s no way you’re gonna get involved with any of our programs, and not come away with actionable insights that transfer to every part of your life. So reach out to us once again, artofcoaching.com. Or you can email us direct at info@artofcoaching.com. We would love to help
Telling people that just saying, Hey, we’re not perfect, we’re gonna make mistakes, but we’re gonna work our butts off for you. And we’re gonna give you tools and strategies that absolutely can help you. That’s not a weakness, that’s a benefit. Because there’s a great quote, and I apologize, the attribution is not in front of me. But there’s a great quote that says, telling the truth, in a world of deceit is a revolutionary act in and of itself, right? Like, we live in a world today, where everybody’s trying to show themselves as an expert, everybody’s trying to say, I’m the best, I’m this, even certain people that are trying to do it, utilizing a form of impression management where, they try to downplay it, but they’re really saying that they’re better, you know, whatever.
And when everybody’s screaming the same thing, going the opposite direction is a really good choice sometimes. Right? Like everybody is trying to show that they’re perfect, or that they have this and they have bad, they’re all trying to stand out. So I’m gonna cite some research here real quick. And this is from a variety of sources. One of them is Oh and Harvey, and then I’ll read some of the other research but I don’t want you to get lost on that. They say this is to researchers, gas Insider. And if it Seder I apologize on the rare occasion that you’re listening from 2014 identified three important features of credibility.
First, it’s a perceptual phenomenon, right? It’s the target who decides whether somebody is credible or not. Right? And they’re going to do that, that’s going To be situational that’s going to be dynamic, all those other things, and that is the second. The second piece is it’s situational. Somebody might be regarded as credible in one context, but not in another, for example, alright, I have a background in strengthing auditioning, I have a master’s degree in motor learning, even though that’s not my career anymore. I believe I’m a pretty credible person to talk about training and all those things, even though that’s not my wheelhouse anymore
I still stay up to date on that it’s still something I’m passionate about. My doctoral work is focused on communication strategy, power dynamics, training those to become more effective communicators. So based on studying communication, and human nature and psychology, I believe I’m a fairly credible person to talk about those things. What I’m not going to do, on the other hand, is start giving you advice on medicine. Right? What medicine you should take, what I’m not going to do is start giving you advice on if you have a friend who unfortunately is handicapped after a car accident, I’m not going to start getting into the treatment of that I’m not going to start getting into other areas, that would just be borderline unethical.
Unfortunately, you do see that today, you see people that are experts in a certain field and a very narrow field at that, giving all kinds of advice. I’m not going to do that. Now. Well, I tell you, based on my personal experience, thoughts, might I get into conversations with people where I give my lay opinion, sure. But by and large at art of coaching, we’re going to talk about things that are at the intersection of leadership, relationships, and entrepreneurship, because that’s what we do in psychology and communication and behavior change is that the piece at the intersection of those things, right. And then another piece is that credibility is dynamic perceptions of that change over time.
Think about something that someone rather who was looked at as a guru for a very long time, I don’t know, maybe they had an influential YouTube channel, or they were on social media, or maybe you’re talking about somebody 50 or 60 years ago that had a platform. And then something happened. And it could be something like a scandal, or it could be just something basic, or it could be just they, time pass, and some of their theories and concepts and principles were debunked, and they’re no longer perceived as an expert. Right. And that can happen to all of us.
I mean, if you change careers, you might not be looked at an expert, I just stated that I stay on top of strengthing conditioning stuff and, and that’s something that I’m still interested in. But there might be people that think, Hey, you don’t do it anymore. I don’t care. If you stay up on it, you’re not an expert, that’s fine. Right, you’re not going to be in control of all those things. What I’m saying is you have to lean into what you do have control over. You have control over the efficacy, or the legitimacy of the methods that you use the principles behind them, you have control over the skill in which you implement them so that you can help other people.
And you absolutely have control over whether or not you decide to be vulnerable, and transparent. And talk about flaws. You do. And so when we look at the warmth piece, I mentioned how trustworthiness is a part of that. Right? And and so much of trustworthiness is about you also controlling your own bias. If somebody comes to you, and you’re not skilled at something, but they seem to be seeking your services. And let’s say you’re like, Yeah, I’m good at that. But there really might be somebody better for it, you shouldn’t be surprised if that client then pays for your services instead.
And this happened, this is another thing that’s been looked at in the research is even if you recommend somebody else, to do a job, right, somebody comes to you and you recommend somebody else, there’s actually an increased likelihood that that other individual will actually take part in your services. Why? Because they perceive you as working against your own self interests, and thus less biased. So there’s all kinds of ways but we’re just trying to keep a much more simpler employer.
All I want to say is think about your flaws, right? Think about your flaws. And think about Is it paying for you to not mention those things, you think it’s making you more or less relatable? Another example is we have people that teach for us at art of coaching, we have a facilitator program. Well, there is a stark difference between when you see one person teach, and let’s say they know their stuff, but they don’t really give a lot of personal examples about their struggles or where they failed. And another person teach who may know just as much as the first individual, but does open up.
Almost universally, our audience gravitates to those that are more open. And it’s a tricky thing because we’ve talked to people about this before. Hey, you’re you’re really good at this. But why don’t you open up why don’t you share the audio is looking at you as a subject matter expert. They want to hear about your struggles and you know what they say. And when individual Well, I know I just, I don’t know I struggle with that, I’m a perfectionist and I don’t want to let my guard down.
It’s like, that’s okay. But what’s that worth to you? What’s that worth to you? being perceived like that when in reality, it’s cannibalizing the very thing. There’s a quote that we have in our online course, Valued, and it comes from, I believe, it was Erving Goffman. And he said, This central feature of a stigmatized individuals situation in life is to gain acceptance and respect. Ironically, that is precisely what that stigma puts at risk. And what that means is, is if you’re somebody that thinks, sharing your flaws, your weaknesses, your imperfections, anything like that will stigmatize you. Well, that’s exactly what you’re doing to yourself by not being willing to do that.
That’s it, and so I’m just urging you, no matter what you do, no matter where you’re at in life, I just want you to think about what is a fly should share what is someplace where, what something I could be more open about that would really help people relate to me a bit more. And it’s not the point that like, listen, sometimes, like with anything, the pendulum can swing way too far, there are some people that all of a sudden are like, alright, well, now I’m gonna be so vulnerable, I’m gonna tell that you never want to be so vulnerable, that it erodes people’s confidence in you.
Like universally, like if all of a sudden you started talking about all these areas that you struggle, and you start going in deep and you start getting into your personal life, and you just kind of don’t, you got to put boundaries and limits on this right people, leaders don’t need to know it all. But people still need to have faith that you’re the type of person that’s going to figure it out. So and I feel like unfortunately, I have to mention that because there will be people that try to take that too far. All I’m saying is that if you want to build credibility, you want to build trust, it comes down to just more than knowing your stuff. It comes down to vulnerability. And the easiest way to do that is being willing to share your flaws.
Alright, so let’s talk about some other things. And this is so you can really enact it, and then we’ll give some more take homes. Right, so just clarifying questions for you to engage with. Think about a time when somebody else’s admission of a flaw, change your perception of them for the better, because they’re likely is one, it and I can speak to this because I’m a guy that wrote about being hospitalized at a young age, for an eating disorder. In my first book. That was one of the most embarrassing things and personal things I feel like I could have shared, yet it contributed to conscious coaching, becoming a best seller.
And there’s a difference to doing that. Because you actually think it’s going to help people and doing it because it’s performative. People will know the difference. They will. They will know the difference. Another thing, how might, acknowledging your own flaws actually make you a better leader, or team member? How? Being able to say hey, and this even goes into feedback, if you’re giving somebody feedback, saying, A I have some feedback I want to share with you. And for what it’s worth, this is something that I struggled with for a very long time.
So the overarching message here is I really want to help you with it. Because I think once you can get past this sky’s the limit. So here’s the thing, and then you just get into that. And I have to do this all the time, when I’m teaching people at our speaker school. It’s funny, like, acknowledging my own flaws, is what helps me create better content for all of you. I think about this stuff, I go out there and share it. And then I try to make it actionable. Another piece, how can you balance being open about your flaws without undermining your own credibility or authority? And that’s a tricky one, that’s going to be so individual, right?
If you’re a doctor, if you’re a surgeon, brain surgeon, you wouldn’t want to be like, Listen, I’ve done 480 of these, and then studying this all my life, but occasionally I make mistakes. So you might not wake up from this. Probably don’t want to say that that’s better just handled through the waivers and all the other things, but you don’t want to undermine your own credibility and authority. The key is just like think of it as seasoning. Right? The main meal is what you’re really great at what they should be competent in and the skills you bring to the table. And then your flaws, embracing those things. And talking about those are just a little bit of seasoning sprinkle it in, because the whole point is just for people to realize like, okay, this person is not trying to come across as blank.
And also in certain contexts. It’s so the other person opens up. That’s the vulnerability loop. And you’ll hear me do it a lot on this podcast. You know why I have to do it a lot, because very few guests come on. Here unprepared to talk about their expertise or their book or their business or whatever. They have no trouble talking about that. On the other hand, those same guests usually really struggle, really struggle talking about themselves. And as we mentioned, a ton of different times, you are not an expert, until somebody invites you into their life is one, I’ll say it again and again and again.
So one of the things I have to do, when I have people on the podcast is say, hey, I need you to know that our audience really values transparency, people that listen to our podcasts and do it because it’s no BS, they’re not looking for some pie in the sky, a one size fits all answer, they want to know you’re a human. And you’d be surprised at how many people including big names are like, Yeah, I got it. And then boom, we hit it. And even when I try to give them an open ended question, or I’ll try to share a mistake, or I give them some ground, like, boom, they’re off to the races talking about their stuff.
It’s why many of you have given us a feedback where you said, Hey, I like this solo episodes, because I know what you’re gonna get to, and you get to it with a guest. Sometimes you don’t always know you don’t, because you don’t know how vulnerable they’re going to be, you don’t know if they’re going to open up. And that’s why some people have turned to the three and four hour long podcast, there’s an art to it, listen, they get them relaxed, they don’t even start talking about the main thing first, they talk about general concepts.
But if you’re saying, well, Brett, why don’t you do that now, how many people do you know have the time to listen to for our podcast? Right? So I want to give you the need to know for the now with some bang sprinkled in. But when you are trying to land a Sale, or when you’re trying to win somebody over, of course, all in an ethical way, I’m not going to anchor everything I say in that that should be assumed at this point. You get more out of them. And thus get better at using that three r method. We talked about research, relate, reframe when you open up first.
Alright, a few other clarifying questions and use these with your staff to. Think about a time where you finally did acknowledge a personal flaw, maybe you’re avoidant? Maybe you are just insecure in some other area of your life, how is acknowledging that lead to your own growth or improvement? Pretty basic. And if you just think about some of these things, common misconceptions of admitting flaws, your own flaws, how acknowledging your own flaws makes you more effective. When somebody else’s admission of a flaw change your perception. When you answer this, you have a lot of aha moments.
You have a lot of aha moments that make you realize like, okay, yeah, maybe I should just kind of calm down a little bit, and realize that what I’m doing here is building this perceived or actual similarity to another. And that when you build similarity to another, there’s an association of strong feelings, or empathy. That’s what we have there. Soyour ability to kind of be perceived as likable or relatable, is always going to be perceived by your willingness to be vulnerable. And there’s a lot of other things that are chiming something as simple as being able to if you look at the research, other things that help improve likeability or perceived similarity is being in contact with somebody under a positive circumstance.
If you remember celebrating New Year’s Eve with somebody, boom, they love you, they and if that was a good experience, and if there’s a positive memory, Robert Cialdini talks about, if you have a cup of coffee in your hand, you put it down and you shake somebody else’s hand, and your hands warm, that feeling of warmth can transfer to that other person, more so than if your hand is cold, or clammy, or anything like that. Use of less formal names politics aside, when George W. Bush was in office, he gave people a lot of nicknames. There was an openness there. And you might say, Well, how’s that about flaw?
I’m no longer even just talking about flaws. I’m talking about things other than competence, things related to warmth, of which sharing a flaw is one piece. Okay, so not going to beat a dead horse wanted to give you some things to chew on today. Apologies if I went kind of quick. I’m still in the stage of writing a lot. My book so my brain is racing. All you need to take away from this is that if you want to be more credible, go the counter conventional route. Be willing to share your flaws, be willing to be more open, be willing to talk about your imperfections of yourself or your product or your service or your business or your skill set. And you will be surprised at how much people appreciate it.
And if they don’t guess what falls under the category of you’re not going to win them all. Not every opportunities for you. And I’ll be frank, I mean just as a business owner, right. My livelihood depends on having customers and people that believe in us. Even if you as a listener, were just like, yeah, no, man.That’s not me. Like, I’m not interested, if you were to tell me that your services can’t solve all my problems, I wouldn’t come to you. Well, as a business owner, I’d say that you’re not for us. And I think you’d feel the same way.
I’d love to know what flaws maybe you’ve been too embarrassed to admit to or speak to or mentioned in the past, and how that’s impacted you? And maybe how, being willing to do so impacted you for the better as well give me examples, give me circumstances, share these things. If you have questions you want us to go deeper into any particular research. I know there are some circumstances where I misspoke. I was getting ahead of myself. This is an improvised episode. So if there’s something I can clarify for you, let me know we’ll do future episodes on this. And as always, we love hearing from you so reach out to us at info@artofcoaching.com and we will happily help you any way that we can. All right for myself and my team is Brett Bartholomew Art of coaching podcast talk to you next time
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