In the whirlwind of our daily lives, we often underestimate the profound impact effective communication can have on our relationships. Whether it's with business partners or within our family unit, the way we convey our thoughts, needs, and intentions is paramount. It's not merely a soft skill but a cornerstone of success, both professionally and personally.

The High Stakes of Ineffective Communication

Imagine this scenario: a crucial deal is on the line, a partnership that could redefine your business. But the lines of communication are blurred, misunderstandings ensue, and suddenly, the deal falls through. This isn't just a hypothetical situation; it's a real consequence of not having a solid communication framework in place.

In the realm of family, the repercussions are equally profound. Miscommunications can lead to strained connections, misunderstandings, and even the erosion of the very foundation of your relationships. It's not uncommon for marriages and family bonds to suffer due to a lack of effective communication.

Communication: The Link Between Success and Harmony

Effective communication is the linchpin that bridges the gap between ambition and achievement, ensuring that both your professional and personal endeavors thrive. It's the key to unlocking doors and forging enduring partnerships in business. Equally, it's the glue that holds families together, nurturing love, understanding, and trust.

The Three Frameworks: A Glimpse into Transformation

If you're ready to revolutionize your approach to communication, I've got something special for you. In the latest episode, I unveil three powerful frameworks that can redefine how you interact with those around you. These frameworks are not just theoretical concepts; they're actionable tools that can revolutionize the way you connect with business partners and family members alike.

Are you prepared to take your communication skills to the next level? Don't let miscommunications cost you deals, your marriage, or your connection with family. Tune in to our latest episode and gain access to the three game-changing frameworks that will empower you to communicate effectively in any situation. It's time to unlock the potential of your relationships and pave the way for a future filled with success and harmony.

Remember, transformation begins with a single step – in this case, a click. Seize this opportunity to revolutionize your communication skills and watch as your business partnerships and family bonds flourish.

Don't wait, start your journey towards stronger, more fulfilling relationships today!

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November 8, 2023

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Transcription

[00:00:00] I'm going to jump into the topic, which is cost of not communicating properly. And there are a few frameworks I want to walk you through around communication. First of all, what happens when we don't communicate properly?

[00:00:14] And then I'll go into at least three frameworks that will help you set the intention so you have a better chance of communicating better in your relationships.

[00:00:25] And so, let's talk about the cost of it, and I put it as that because there is an incredibly high cost to not being able to communicate properly. What we're specifically talking about is how we communicate with the people in our life. That could be your life partner, your wife, your husband, that could be your children, that could be your business partners, that could be your customers, clients.

[00:00:51] That could be your collaborators, people you're, um, in collaboration with in several different forms. So those could be long term ones, like your business partners. Those could be short term ones. I know real estate investors have short term partnerships as well. Um, I generally focus on longer term partnerships than, than what most people do, but because one of the things that I've learned is that it actually takes a lot to communicate.

[00:01:17] And if you guys have heard anything in the area of relationship, especially intimate relationship, you know that whenever you try to look up how to solve challenges, like, are you communicating properly? Like, this is like the tagline for, we're not communicating. Everybody's saying is like, we're not communicating properly.

[00:01:34] I think we need to learn how to communicate, but nobody really knows what that means, actually. It's been said over and over. So we repeat it over and over, but let's break it down.

[00:01:44] So what breaks that communication cycle? First of all,

[00:01:48] what happens is that as we're starting our life, when we come into this world, we learn how to communicate based on the environment that we grew up in. So this is how human beings, in fact, this is how mammals learn in general. We come to this world as babies, as kids, the only forms of communication we have around our needs is when we cry, we communicate certain things.

[00:02:13] Uh, when we have certain gestures is most of it is body language and our emotions on our face. So if you're a parent, you know that, like for, for a baby, they actually have different types of crying, mean different things.

[00:02:27] Like, one of our family from friends, they came over to our place a few weeks ago and I was holding her, her son.

[00:02:32] He was very little. And he had a soft cry and he's putting his thumb in his mouth. I'm like, it looks like he's hungry. And she's like, Oh, you know that? I'm like, Hey, I've gone through two at least with this, that it's very clear. So for even with our older kids, we know that like whenever my daughter starts crying, I kind of listen to how intense the crying is and how pitchy the crying gets.

[00:02:56] That helps me understand how hurt she's in, whether physically or emotionally. So it gauges my response. A lot of times when I'm paying, when I'm with people and I hear the crying and I see my wife going, I'm like, she's fine, but sometimes you'll get really hurt and you can hear like, she can't even her voice stops.

[00:03:14] And then all of a sudden a big shriek comes out. It's like, holy shit, she's hurt. We got to go. Like, this is like, I'm describing this because this is baseline to all human beings. It doesn't matter where you come from. Our natural form of communication is with our, with our voice, with our expression, with our body language.

[00:03:30] And by the way, all of, like, all of our life, that form of communication never goes away. We do that all our life, and about close to 90% of communication is like that. It's through our emotions, our body language, and those sort of things. We communicate confidence with our body language, with our voice. We communicate anger, frustration, resentment with our voice.

[00:03:51] Uh, with our energy, we communicate love with the way that we sound. Those who have partners, uh, life partners, they know, like, my wife doesn't just say my name, she says it in, in multiple different tones, so if she says, Faisal, I know that she wants me to do something. If she says Faisal, it means something else. If she says a different way, it means something else. I know what they mean because I've heard her tone so many times. And sometimes I'll go up there and I'm like, I don't like the way you call my name because I'm in trouble most of the time.

[00:04:25] So their tonality communicated more than the word itself. And this is why tonality, body language, our energy; makes a huge difference in communication.

[00:04:35] So what is the cost of that? So for example, with our kids, if our tonality is not clear and we're always angry, they don't know how to differentiate between you being always angry and them always being trouble versus them doing something specific.

[00:04:50] So for example, If a parent is really strict, they might just, a kid is doing their normal stuff and they might get angry and get them to get up. Now they're communicating certain things in that moment. But it might not be what they're trying to communicate. They think that being strict and very rigid will help that kid, but it's actually communicating very specific things every time.

[00:05:12] So that means that kid only sees that person as an authority, not a trusting person, but somebody who will punish them or, or give them certain things to do or not to do if they don't do them or they do them. So they associate a certain feeling with them. But let's say a parent knew exactly what their intention was, and they were angry at certain points, but not angry at other points.

[00:05:34] They used anger and frustration as a leverage point, but not as a way to punish them, but as a way to communicate certain things. And the same thing with love. They know if your kid doesn't know when you're being loving and kind and connected with them, they don't know how to respond to you. I'm sharing these like basic things in your household because everybody has had parents or caregivers in their life.

[00:05:55] And we've gone through that. Now the same dynamics show up in our partnerships, uh, in our business partnerships, like our partners know from our face, generally what's happening. If they've spent enough time with us. For example, we're going through a difficult period in our partnership with my business partners and like we were having a difficult conversation.

[00:06:15] One of the first things that stood up for me with my business partners, I had never heard that kind of tone of resentment from him for the past four years. And that was the first thing that stuck out. I'm like, like, Hey, this is what I hear. What's happening? Um, and that was an alarm for me. It's like, why is there such resentment there?

[00:06:35] Um, or that's the tone that I hear. The tone was communicating more than what the words were. And this is very important, um, for, for us to understand. So if we're not paying attention to other people, which means that if we're not present, we're not even noticing this stuff. Um, and the cost can be loss of relationships.

[00:06:57] The cost can be that somebody might be going through a difficult period and you're not even noticing. And they might not be noticing it either themselves. So that's the, a lot of times people don't even realize their own needs in this process. So that could be a business partner, that could be a life partner who's a grown adult.

[00:07:16] But they might realize at some point that, holy shit, they are building, harboring resentments or they're harboring, uh, feelings that they didn't know how to express. And now you're having to deal with that. You're like, how do I do what happened here? And it's, it's of course, both sides, both sides were not paying attention.

[00:07:35] One side didn't know how to process that the other side wasn't paying attention to what the other person needed. Um, and this is very important for us to understand because it doesn't matter what kind of partnership you're in, what kind of relationship you're on, even in sales calls, for example, with your clients.

[00:07:51] If you don't notice what's happening on the other side, it's very, very hard to be good at sales. A lot of the things that used to work with sales don't work anymore because a lot of it is around empathy now. A lot of it is around doing discovery. Now asking questions. Even the bigger companies are, uh, going towards questions, uh, like using questions as a framework for, uh, for scripts.

[00:08:14] It used to be that they used to give them like long scripts. A lot of bigger companies are discouraging, like ask questions, give salespeople the room. To be able to go back to questions and, and, and hear out the client. Because a lot of sales is becoming coaching and it has always been, but it's moving away from this information type of sales process.

[00:08:35] So what, what does that mean? So what could be the cost for you? The cost is that if you're not, conscious of this process, this can cost you your own wellbeing. This could cost you a relationship with your wife. This can cost you a disconnection with your kid. This can cost you a disconnection with a business partner that could completely take the business in a different negative direction.

[00:08:54] It's this could cost you sales or, or your whole sales process and your business. whether it's with investors or in a different sales model.

[00:09:04] So a few things I want to talk about, like a few frameworks that I want to share that will help you show up with with a mindset that will help you communicate better your needs. And understanding the other person's needs a little bit better.

[00:09:19] I want to talk about these frameworks. The first framework to understand is The relationship quality, any kind of relationship quality equals the quality of the communication itself, which means how you're showing up with your physicality, your tonality, your gestures. How you feel makes a big, big difference. Then your words add power to it or take away power from it. So your words are important, but people see your body language much faster than they see your words. In fact, most people make up their mind about you as soon as they look at you without even realizing it.

[00:09:54] So understanding that part is really, really important. The first piece that comes in, most people when they jump into a conversation, for example, me jumping into this conversation, I have certain intentions. But I was not taught this growing up. I was told to just go to school.

[00:10:09] I was told to just go meet with this person. I was told to go do this and I was told things like be yourself. But what I wasn't told was that no, you need to set an intention. What is the purpose of this conversation? What is the purpose of this interaction? So one of the first things you need to understand is intention.

[00:10:28] What is your intention when you're about to interact with somebody, whether that's in a, you're going into a difficult conversation with your business partner or with your child, or is just a normal thing where like, what is your intention or is your intention to be playful? Is your intention to show up with presence?

[00:10:45] And the other piece of it is what is the outcome you're hoping to gain, gain out of it? Are you trying to connect? Are you trying to understand the other person or you're trying to come up with an agreement on something? What are you trying to do? If you're clear about that, that takes care of, I would say, about 70% of your communication.

[00:11:05] Why? Because if you've gone through arguments with, let's say, with your wife or with your husband, and you guys kind of argued about that thing. It just came out of nowhere and then you went away and you're coming back and you don't go with intention and back into that conversation,

[00:11:21] what ends up happening very easily is that you get carried away because all sorts of things come up in arguments that are interconnected in different ways. And before you know it, you're arguing about 10 other things that had nothing to do with the thing. But if you came in with the intention was that, Hey, I really just want to understand her and I really want to resolve this thing.

[00:11:43] Those are my intentions. And my outcome is by the end of this, that I want us to have come to a resolution. So whatever the other person is storing, you're looking at it through that lens. And the lens is resolution. The lens is that I need to understand what this person is going through. Same thing with business as you're negotiating like partnership challenges or something else.

[00:12:06] You need to understand how you're looking at this. Is there an intention behind it? Are you trying to kind of win in this negotiation and win big? Or are you trying to understand what, what are the ambitions? What do they need so I can create, possibly create a win win situation? And that's a very different take on it.

[00:12:26] So But without a if you just did this, if you just went in with an intention with every interaction you had, it doesn't even have to be a challenge. So for example, going in and seeing your family, your attention could be Hey, I just I just want to be present with them. And what I want them to feel at the end of this interaction is that I was fully there with them.

[00:12:45] We were playful. We were connecting. We were this. That was my outcome. And if you go with that, 70% of the issues will be gone. Most people don't. If you go into a business meeting, my intention is to address this issue, this issue, and our outcome is to get moving on this project. That deals with most of the problems.

[00:13:06] Now, a couple of problems comes in when you go in with these intentions because we're taught these are not normal things. Natural things that we, like as human beings we were born with, we're taught these things. The first one is there are a few things we do in relationships that don't serve other people around us.

[00:13:24] In fact, it takes away from that. I want you to think about this model, caretaker versus caregiver. This will help you communicate much better. And this connects to the intention. And this is your bigger intention in life, is that how do you show up in your relationship? Are you caretaker of the people around you?

[00:13:41] Or are you a caregiver? Here's the difference. A caretaker is somebody that is constantly giving, like giving support. A caregiver is somebody who is empowering the other person to empower themselves. So a caretaker is somebody who would, um, every time their child struggles, it was like, Hey, let me, let me help you.

[00:14:01] Let me fix you. They're, they're having a hard time like a little child putting on their pants. A caregiver is that they will help them a little bit better. Like, Hey, you can do this. Can you put your foot here? Can you, can you put it on this way? A caretaker in a business form as you hired somebody and, you're kind of, want them to take on a role.

[00:14:19] It was like, Hey, Nora, this is how you do this. Don't do this this way. Caregiver is somebody who would be like, you know what? Um, here's how we've done it in the past. What are your ideas around get them to take some ownership around that? Here's how we've done this. What are your ideas? And then support them in developing that role, that skill set within that.

[00:14:40] So, and there's a common phrase that we say is that don't, don't give a man a fish, teach, teach a man to fish. Right. And because if you teach him, they will fish for their lifetime. But if you give them the near, they're fully dependent on on you. And this is a it's a very hard road to cross for a lot of people, even entrepreneurs when they get to a certain level.

[00:15:01] And I'm going through that process actually very hard to give away a lot of like a lot of responsibilities that you've been responsible for all of your career. Which means that if I'm running a sales process and I bring, I'm bringing in a team, I need to trust them and see the results and I need to guide them along the way, rather than saying, no, I'm the only one who can do this.

[00:15:20] Or if I'm doing certain things and, and I've done them for so long, like I need to deal with the thought process that somebody else could do it better. And a lot of this is like, we don't want to let go of control. So my question to you is think, think about your life. Where are the areas you're showing up as a caretaker and caregiver?

[00:15:39] And by the way, caretaker is important, but at certain points, you might have to take care of a child if you're a mother, you will be a caretaker, but after a while, as they develop themselves, you need to start to let go. It's similar with, with, with other people that we're guiding around us too. So keep that model with you because what, what that will do is that will enhance your intention when you're with people, you have that lens and the lens is that I'm actually empowering this person to be a leader in this role, or am I getting them to become more dependent on me, whether that's a role is in a company or in your personal life.

[00:16:14] And that that's important piece to keep in mind. This is the last one. This is probably one of the most powerful distinctions that I've learned is expectation versus agreement. And this is one of those areas that impedes communication. And here's where it comes from. So you might have heard phrases like.

[00:16:32] Um, well, he's an adult. He should be able to do that. Well, he's a grown child he should be able to do that. That statement is full of a lot of things in there. And here's the assumption in there because somebody looks like a grown adult, we assume that they come with certain skill sets. Now the problem is that they might have not gone through a similar opportunity or training like you.

[00:16:54] So you're assuming that they, just because they look like an older adult, they have the same exact skill sets as you or other adults around. And so you're basing that expectation on the fact that, on that assumption that they have that. The same thing shows up in other places where as soon as we go into a marriage, for example, we expect the other person to act a certain way based on whatever we're taught or whatever we've seen.

[00:17:19] As soon as we hire somebody, we expect them to show up diligently, but they might not. So what does an agreement look like? And this is a very powerful, this will take away a lot of the frustrations that a lot of people have in their life. Um, the only time we get to have any expectations is if we've actually created an agreement around it.

[00:17:39] So for example, you might sit down with your wife or husband and say, Hey, these are the things that matter to me. These are my values. These are the boundaries around my relationship. These are the things that are important to me in terms of how I want to be treated. These are the things that are important to me around how I want to be seen out in the world.

[00:18:00] These are the things that are important to me, how I want to conduct my life. What are the things that are important to you? And we figure out what everything is on the table. And based on that, we create an agreement. Okay. Here's how I'd love to be treated. Here's how. And I, this is what I hear that you want to be treated based on that.

[00:18:17] We create an agreement, we move forward. Now, of course there's a refining process because that's the prototype, but now based on those conversations, we can say, okay, we agreed on that, how can we improve? What did we do good? What worked, what didn't work? What can we do better? And we keep refining them, but we don't assume that just because somebody is in a relationship, they know that already.

[00:18:41] A lot of people get frustrated and they build resentment because they assume that the other person should know that. And the better assumption is that they don't know anything, let's figure out where we're at. Let's put all our cards on the table and let's create an agreement. You can create the same thing with your Children, for example, based on your values, you can say, Hey, when they get to a certain age , like even from a young age, like if my child is talking to somebody in a rude way, like another child, and I'll pull them back and I'll say that's not what we do in our family.

[00:19:12] That's not our values. We treat people with kindness. And then I model that in my behavior. I have to do that because otherwise they won't get it. And, uh, same thing with my employees. So, for example I'm working with a sales setter, and a salesperson. That salesperson is communicating on behalf of my brand.

[00:19:33] And I, and I watch that communication. And I'm like, oh, okay, this, uh, like I see how you're doing this. But this, these are the things that, these are, this is how we approach our clients. We give them a little bit more space. We, these are our values. Can we adjust to that? Can we, can we do that? We can improve on that.

[00:19:49] And then we slowly build the process around that, but we create an agreement around it. We don't get frustrated just because we have an assumption and that expectation, and you can apply the same thing to everything. So, um, so I want to summarize this because it's very important for you. If you're not communicating with, uh, communicating properly within your relationships, which is the biggest challenge in human life, Um, it's likely costing you all sorts of frustrations, all sorts of resentments, all sorts of guilt, all sorts of things that you're dealing with consistently, that's boiling up to all sorts of negative things that are happening in your business and personal life.

[00:20:31] The way to deal with that is first of all, understanding how communication happens. So it happens through your own energy. It happens through your own body language. It happens through your own thoughts and emotions. Without you even saying words, your words can amplify whatever you feel and they see it ahead of time.

[00:20:48] They can become much more positively powerful or destructive. Now, how do we do that? Well, the starting point is to have an intention. We interact with somebody, anybody. And anything, the better we get at this, the better we are able to communicate because now we're in charge of our own intention, which means that we're in charge of our own energy.

[00:21:09] How do we show up there and what do we need from the other person? And that need is very important that, Hey, I need this person to be more loving to me. I need this person to show up better with my clients. I need my child to be better with other people. And so I work through them.

[00:21:24] The way we do that is that we show up as caregivers, which means that we show up as leaders who take who empower them to develop skill sets rather than just making people around us dependent on us. By the way, this is the way to scale a model as well. Because if you can create a few leaders around you, they can create other leaders to it's called servant leadership model.

[00:21:46] And the last one is expectation versus agreement. It's not falling into the belief that just because somebody is an adult, that's because somebody is a leader in a role, just because somebody is an employee, they should know, they should know exactly what to do. Understanding where they're coming from, where their gaps are, and how can we create agreements around moving them forward?

[00:22:09] All these things that I'm talking about, they're actually time incentive, they're effort incentive. In the short term, but long term, what that means is that you can scale this. You can exponentially move that forward. And a lot of people don't do these things. One, because they don't know about them. Two, because it takes a lot of effort.

[00:22:26] They're trying to bypass and shortcut communication with people. And when they do that, things break down in the long term. 10 years later, you find problems in relationships. 20 years later. Three years later, you find out that this you were never aligned with your business partner on 10 years later, you realize that your kid is doing things that is making you feel ashamed of them, and you never address that, and it's not the kids problem.

[00:22:52] It was your problem because you never talked about that agreement. and these are very common things that happen with everybody.

[00:23:00]