Dancing in the Discomfort Zone with Anne Bonney
Let's face it, life is uncomfortable. Whether it's interacting with other humans (or trying to), going after our goals and improving our lives, or understanding other people's perspectives, preferences and proclivities, being able to face the discomforts in life with courage, compassion, confidence and resilience will make life a lot more enjoyable! So join me as we DANCE IN THE DISCOMFORT ZONE! We'll explore new ideas, learn how to build our confidence, courage and resilience, and laugh a little too, because life is serious enough. We need a little cha cha, and a little ha ha every once in a while! Welcome to the Discomfort Zone with Anne Bonney!
Dancing in the Discomfort Zone with Anne Bonney
Curiosity Changes Everything | Lois Barth
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
When life throws you a curveball, what's your first instinct?
- Defend yourself?
- Shut down?
- Get angry?
According to leadership expert Lois Barth (www.loisbarth.com), there's a better option: Get curious.
WATCH THIS EPISODE ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/4kUmYfmi5go
In this episode, Lois shares how curiosity, compassion, connection, and courage can completely transform the way we live, work and interact with others.
From overcoming a life-changing eating disorder to helping organizations build healthier workplace cultures, Lois offers practical tools for replacing judgment with curiosity and "being nice" with something far more powerful: genuine kindness.
If you've ever struggled with difficult conversations, imposter syndrome, change, conflict, or your own relentless inner critic, this conversation is packed with practical ideas you can start using immediately.
In this episode:
• The difference between being nice and being kind
• How to have difficult conversations without damaging relationships
• Why disruption can become your greatest teacher
• Replacing your inner critic with curiosity and compassion
• How healthy workplace cultures are actually built
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Disruption as a Mindset
01:45 Lois Barth's Journey and Philosophy
07:17 The Four C's: Curiosity, Compassion, Connection, and Courage
11:26 Curiosity's Role in Disruption
14:30 Implementing the Four C's in the Workplace
20:34 Creating a Culture of Beautiful Honesty
27:59 The Structure Behind Honest Conversations
Want more from Lois?
Lois works with heart-centered go-getters who crave greater meaning, fulfillment, and impact in their lives by helping them clarify their goals, foster well-being, and be more effective leaders. A term she refers to as Behavioral Wellness Meets professional development. She has been the makeover life coach for SELF Magazine; Fitness Magazine and Fit Blog (Sears) which to date 3 million people registered for. Lois has been quoted and published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and SELF Magazine. Her speaking clients include Capital One Bank, L'Oreal, Women in Banking & Invesco to name a few.
Anne Bonney is a keynote speaker and emcee who helps organizations lead through change by building resilience, emotional intelligence, and courageous communication.
Welcome to dancing in the discomfort zone. This week with more to get rid of go-getters who have greater meaning, fulfillment, and impact in their lives. And to be able to clarify their goals, foster well-being, and be more effective leaders. This week has been the makeover life coach for Zelf magazine, fitness magazine, and blog, which today three million people have registered for. She's been quoted and published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fantasy Company, and Zelf Magazine, and her speaking clients include Capital One Bank, L'Oreal, Women in Banking, and Investgo, just to name a few. And today we're going to be talking about disruption and the mindset. And I'm super excited to welcome Lois Barth to the show. Lois, thank you for being with us today.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much, Anne. I'm so excited to be here and talk about disruption. I live in New York City, across the street from the noisiest, biggest hospital, and I help people have to um learn how to self-regulate and not take stress in. So the irony was not lost on me. So we're just gonna disrupt if we hear little beeps or sirens, my background music. We're gonna go back to New York City. In New York City, and how can we shift that thought right now we're having? So Anne, it's so great to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, it's great to have you here and uh back from my old stomping grounds in New York there. Yeah, come back and visit. Yeah, I I'd love to. So talk to me a little bit about where how you got to this point of specializing in helping people think differently about change and disruption and all that stuff. How did you get here?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thank you so much, Ann. And I love your brand so much because disruption is such an important element. I mean, it's here to stay, right? And it's how are we going to navigate it and not I I speak a lot about resiliency. It's not how to bounce back, how to bound forward. How to use disruption to actually move yourself forward, to reinvent who you are, for lack of a better catchphrase, but also how you want to show up. So one of my loisisms, which stands for lessons, opportunities, insights and solutions, say that five times fast, is life is always talking, make sure you're listening. And for me, you know, it's just that's what it is. If we just stay aware and awake and compassionate, then wow, we can just learn and grow so much. So I had a horrific eating disorder in my teens. Between 15 and 17, I went from 120 pounds feeling fat, ha, to 91 pounds to 180 pounds in less than two years. Yeah, I know. That's what the look on the face of most people who saw me four years later. They didn't recognize me, but worse, I didn't recognize myself. And what happened was what I realized is nothing, and and I know we both share this as being Sparkle Sisters, Anne, is that when you have so much, you put the joie in your de Viv, right? You've got to, you were blessed, we were blessed with incredible life force energies. It's just who it's just our, you know, divine DNA, right? And nothing is worse than uh when a belly full of passion and a head full of negative self-talk. And my critics, for some those of you who are astrology people, I have like four planets in Virgo. I come from parents who were incredibly loving but also brutally hard on themselves. So um that was me. And I was relentless with myself. Relentless. And I was, as I live now in New York City, I was. It's funny how life shows up. I was locking the door, and my my character, my head critic, who I call Slash, he's sort of like Chucky from those movies. Here I am to ruin your day! You know, so that was him or her or it or non-binary, and I was locking my door um to just do something. And Slash said, You're never gonna lose the weight. You're gonna be 180 pounds for the rest of your life. And somebody else entered, some other part of me, which was I call uh my lovey, my loving, open voice of intuition. She calls herself sweetheart, and just a very quiet voice. She's just said, yo, sweetheart. She's from Brooklyn, I'm from Long Island. And she said, Yo, lovey, yo, low.
SPEAKER_03How would you live your life if you could never lose or gain another mic drop? Mic drop.
SPEAKER_02And like, you know, automatic pilot, but not the bad one that causes you to do scroll. But like it was like this spiritual awakening. I went back into my apartment, I took out the scale, and we have in our hallway one man's trash is another person's cool stuff pile, and I wrote, This scale works perfectly, it just no longer works for me. And I went back and I started to automatic writing, free associate, a hundred things I'm waiting to do until I get thin. And I purposely, because I love language, I know we both share that, I called it my weightless W-E-I-G-H-T.
SPEAKER_03Huh?
SPEAKER_02And I had things on it like buy a bathing suit. That's not black, and in New York, that's like taboo because everybody wears black in New York. Wear the bathing suit, flirt with guys even if you don't think you're in their league. What else? Audition for shows even if you don't feel you're good enough. And I made a commitment that I would go through that list. It was about a hundred. I don't know that I went through all of them, but what I did find out, some I was shaking in my boots. Others I was like, I put my life on hold for what? Are you kidding? You know, like a guy rejected me. I was like, I'm still breathing, I'm still living. Life goes on. And so, what started happening is I started getting curious. So even when I started to binge, and I continued to binge, I got curious. I was like, huh. What would just happen that you think caused you to binge? I was like, well, I was with a friend, but I often overeat when I'm with her, and they didn't have the term friend of me then, and I went, I need to drop her as a friend or actually have a real conversation.
SPEAKER_03Beautifully honest conversation, which I'll talk about later. My whole world opened up for me.
SPEAKER_02I lost 35 pounds. I just ate differently because I was no longer using food to punish myself, to pursue this elusive thing called perfection, which you and I know both don't exist. And I got really curious about curiosity. And that's those are four of the two of the four C's brand, courage to sparkle, are curiosity and compassion. I got compu compassion with myself and curious. And my whole life started to open up from that place. Now, did things magically change overnight? No. But I felt like, oh my gosh, like these are the keys to the kingdom. Because we live in a culture that is either very, very we were just talking about it before our call today, that in the communication space and leadership and in work cultures, right, loyalty is unprecedented. Like the bar is so low people are tripping over it, right? There's a lack of loyalty on both sides. And what I see in communication and leadership is often they're either um ghosting or vague feedback or um cancel culture, you know, work cultures, or the other is people just dribble out of their mouth. They have no filters, and they call it just being honest. No, you're being a jerk, and you're being mean-spirited, irresponsible, and hurtful. And there's a middle ground. So, anyway, that started me becoming very, very curious. And I also, I know we both have a performance background, I got really fascinated. I was like, well, who are these characters? Right? That's what's great about being a performer, is like, who are these characters? And what I've really come to see, and it's part of the neuroscience part of my courage to sparkle brand, is that these are not our internal devils and angels. They're coping strategies. Right, the Slash, Slash was there as a coping mechanism. The only way Slash had a toolbox that was like, I don't know, um, one of those little toy toolboxes, and that's the way Slash felt it could whip me into shape to move me forward. Um and I've I've since done a lot of studying around neuroscience, and I really believe a lot of our negative self-talk is rooted in the fight, flight, freeze part of our brain, which is part of, you know, the reptilian brain, which is part of our survival, right? In cave days, you needed that reptilian brain alive and kicking 24-7. But the amygdala, bless its heart, as they say down south, you know, has sort of become very oversensitized with all the stimuli we get. And the part of our brain, the curiosity, compassion, lives in our prefrontal cortex. Um, I love, I'm kind of a neuroplasticity nerd and a word nerd. But we don't need to vilify those parts. We just need to upgrade them. And that's where curiosity comes in. Somebody says something that's hurtful, if we can get compassionate with ourselves and go, ouch, that was an oui. What did it trigger in me? What might that person be going through? We can go to that person in a lack of rather than a dysregulated emotional Ferrari way, we can go to that person and go, hey, what's going on for you? Hey, that's out of character for you to say that. Are you are you okay? Or how can I support you? So that's be basically my four C's are uh curiosity, compassion, connection, and courage. Because I feel that you can absolutely transform work cultures, leaders, and people. That when we bring those four C's in, miracles happen. And I've had some of the most bizarre, you know, one of my hobbies is heartfelt existential conversations with strangers on the bus subway. I've had the most extraordinary experiences from just employing those tools, those C's. I mean, I'm just saying on the personal level, on the professional, the work that I do with companies and B2B, B2C. So that's how I stumbled upon the brand.
SPEAKER_00Nice. I love it. Now, when we're talking about disruption, curiosity comes in in a big way. When we're thinking about the mindset and the way we're thinking about moving through life, um talk to me a little bit about that connection, because you're taking those Cs, of course, they're all related to disruption. Um, but connect curiosity for me. Absolutely specifically, because I think it's a huge piece, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. Great question. Thank you for asking. Um we can easily go into automatic pilot, same old, same old. Disruption goes, whoa, right? And we're most people, no matter what, how big a game they play, most people are resistant towards change. You know, we are. Um there are people who go big a go home, like you who climbs Machu Picchu in a weekend or whatever, or probably way more than that. But but we all have those areas where change is confronting. And so disruption is very confronting for that part of us that just wants consistency, certainty, that are largely living in a very survival part of the brain. So when we can get curious to our fears, when we can assume less and ask more questions of ourselves, of the situation of others, that's when we're less reactive and we're more inquisitive. And that's why I think we fall in love with children and animals, because they're so curious. It's just who they are. You know, you you plunk down a hundred bucks for a game, the kid's more interested in the box than the game. You know, uh it's just pets, animals, they're fascinated. Um, and so that's where I think I believe and I have found that curiosity interrupts. It's you assume less. You you talk less, you listen more. You actually want to be in the other person's world. You want to be in your own world, on your own reactions. That's where emotional intelligence comes in. Wow. You know, I just did a talk, a global talk for women in finance around imposter syndrome. These were very high-level successful women who still struggle with the imposter syndrome, right? Putting their hat in the ring on a in a meeting. So they can if they can get curious to go, why am I not saying anything right now? Hey, that person, man splained me, woman splained me. Like, how do I get back in the game so that I don't go on undercover instead of berating ourselves? So that's where I believe I think you almost can't disconnect. Yeah, you must conflate curiosity with compassion. Because you have to be in that moment compassionate with yourself. Hey, I'm having a reaction.
SPEAKER_00And is that what the communication piece of your work is?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Communication and leadership. I again I don't think you can separate them out.
SPEAKER_00No, I agree with that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and I believe everybody is a leader. I don't think it's about the number of people who report to you, I think it's the number of people you impact and the depth of the impact.
SPEAKER_00The abil yeah, the ability to impact them at all.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so t give me some examples of of companies that you've worked with and sort of how they've they've implemented the four C's. Uh how how does that look at the ground level in the workplace?
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, thank you so much for um asking that. Um, well, I'll I'll give you an example. I um and this whole thing about being beautifully honest, which we could talk about later. Um, but I had um a very interesting experience several years back where um a client, um I'm sure you've heard the term scope creep, we've all experienced it. And it was supposed to, it was this very large program. We were we got our pillars in place, we got our focus, and all of a sudden she started adding things like structural re-org, like change management, and I was like, that's not what I signed up for. And my I felt like my stomach was having a heart attack. And um, I thought to myself, well, if I was coaching myself, what would I do? And it was it was a nice size contract, so you don't want to necessarily give that up, let's be real. And I called her back, and and she was sort of prickly at best, and I I thought to myself, and instead of saying I'm really uncomfortable, I said, How do you feel our meeting went? And she said, I went great, I'm really excited. And then I just let there be pause. Curious. She goes, How do you feel? I said, I feel like we're heading for a train wreck. And she goes, Really? I said, Yeah, we started here and now we're entering these things. I feel that people, the attendees, the team members will feel railroaded that maybe you're not talking about a restructuring and blindsided. I said, You're not gonna look good, and they're not gonna get much value, and I'm gonna be the fall guy, and nobody is gonna win silence.
SPEAKER_03She burst into tears.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and she said, I just need to make some changes, and I don't know how. And I said, Great, good for you. Let's talk about that. She talked about the changes that she wants to make, and I said, That's not what I do. I said, I can refer that out. I can find somebody. I said, but your your folks were so excited about this program. It was community building and and well-being. And I said, Would you be open to a couple of different alternatives? And she said, Sure, I said, This is a one-year program. We can go six months in. It was only once a month. And I said, see if the culture changes, and if they if it does, you might not need that other thing. Or if it's six months, then you can actually hire somebody separately. And she said, I can't believe that you would have the willingness to have this conversation. Nobody's ever had that conversation with me. And I said, I said, It's my integrity, it's my work, and it's your work, and it's your word. And what happened was people really, everybody was nice, you know? Nice culture. And everybody was nice, but nobody was really talking, nobody was having transparent conversations, and we talked about curiosity. We did things that were very counterintuitive. Um, we had one month was just hobby day, where everybody went around and shared their hobbies and passions, and they were like fascinating. People created origami structures that were nine feet high, and somebody had a pencil collection, quirky. And what happened was people became really curious about each other. They would send each other articles. Hey, there's this pencil structure in blah, oh, I went to Bangladesh, I brought you back some pencils. Like, and people started to really connect, they left their niceness. They were still, um, they were no longer, you know, there's a distinction between nice and kind. I heard this wonderful Instagram. If you have spinach on your tooth and and somebody doesn't tell you, then they're being nice. If they do, they're telling, they're being kind. But that was one of the things that really opened up is they started to connect on a much deeper level. They felt confident and competent to have the heart of conversations. And I did circle back with them a couple of years later, and she said, you know, we didn't need change management. Now, sometimes you need change management in structural reworld. But that was one situation. I recently did a really wonderful executive, fractional executive leadership program for for a company PE financed, and um all of a sudden I learned that the C-suite needed way, they were way more siloed. And how do they how do they connect with messaging? On the keynote level, one of the things that I love to do is to have fun and storytelling and humor, um, but also have vulnerable conversations. And I know you use a lot of humor and a lot of storytelling field. Our dear friend Kelly Swanson said storytelling is the Trojan horse. Well, I think humor is, right? What do they say? Humor is uh comedy is tragedy plus time. So one of the things is to be able to um make people laugh at things that they were usually embarrassed or ashamed about, but then how are we gonna talk about? Um, and so in terms of leadership, creating a safe space to really um have the difficult conversations, but look at like, hey, we're not taking we're not taking enough inspired actions. So I hope that answered your question.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, and and its connection piece is really important. Is that kind of the first step to this beautiful honesty to being being able to create that culture where honesty is welcomed and kindness is the default versus nice.
SPEAKER_02Nice. Yeah, I think I would actually think it's curiosity. Um, I don't think you can, like I guess there's all conflated. For me, when you can get curious, not critical, that's my Lois is move from move from criticism to curiosity instead of what's wrong, what's possible. I think when you can get curious, the first step is are you as a leader fostering curiosity? Not my my dear friend Ken Kilday, who I adore, he says core values are not what's on the wall, it's what's actualized in the halls, in the metaphoric halls, in the hybrid hall, which it's much harder with remote. But it's it's really about as a leader, are you fostering curiosity? I know you get this probably a lot, Ann, but when I'm brought in for keynotes, they're like, we want people to participate more, to give more input. People don't, and I said, all the time, and I said, Do you create a structure for people to participate? Because, oh well, we have the metaphoric suggestion box. I said, No, but have you actually implemented it? Have you brought it down to your weekly huddles? And they're like, no. And I said, So what is my messaging gonna do? I said, I can give you suggestions on how to actually create a culture, and I can embed that into the keynote. But in terms, how are you as a leader, as a culture, really making it about? Participation and input. So I think it's about getting curious and really fostering curiosity as a leader and a team. Um and I think part of that is also compassion, what people might be going through. Um fostering well-being, you know, people knowing how to dysregulate. When they're dysregulated, how to get centered. And and I I don't think tr you know, people use the word trigger like big T, little T trauma, big T, little whatever. Trigger is just a disproportionate response to a stimulus.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02It's even if it's something that feels dangerous, your reaction and anxiety is the ultimate trickster, right? You gotta go slow to go fast. Power of the pause. How are you doing that as a culture? If you're in a culture of VUCA, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, that's gonna make it harder. And then how out of that do you create the connection with each other and your leaders and your teams and your fellow C-suite? And then how are you fostering inspired action?
SPEAKER_00You know what that means, inspired action? I've heard that term so many times.
SPEAKER_02I know, I know. It's kind of a buzzword. Um, I, you know, I'm I'm kind of I'm a stickler about language. I used to think, oh, stickler is such a bad word, but no, I am. Um I feel sometimes the term take risks, it feels a little bit like there might not be any guardrails to take risks, because there are risks that are wonderful.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02You take them all the time, I take them all the time, but there are risks that like jump in the net will appear. Oh wow, I depend in my bank account and I have a broken neck, you know. Like so I like inspired action. Um, I I feel that we have a very strong intuition if we foster it, if we learn to trust ourselves and get support to trust ourselves and to know when we can't trust ourselves. So I feel that, I don't know, I'm sure you've had this, Anne, a million times that the divine beckons us, right? We have ideas, we have instincts, we and they keep coming back. And you know, are the parts of us that are scared, that are frozen, go, oh no, what if they don't like it? But when we keep having those inspired ideas, to take the risk, to get support and go, hey, I have this idea, I don't know if it has any legs, but what are your thoughts about it? To be able to really have a quorum or a culture. And I know that you know I'm a hopeless optimist and a hopeful romantic, so I know I'm talking about, you know, in very high-level optimistic terms, but it can be it could be nurtured in small and meaningful ways to foster. I mean, I was doing this um all-day workshop for a global PR firm, and it was so fascinating to me. We talked about how they structure their huddles. And they were like, oh, we start with victories and celebrations. And I said, and then what happens? And she goes, and then it's kind of the senior level people chime in, but the new newbies, the up-and-comings, the mid-management that we really want to develop, it's like the wall of silence. I said, Why do you think that is? What do you think is happening? And somebody said, Oh my gosh, we're starting the meetings with the bars so high. They don't feel like they're allowed. There's no space for the SEM have a little victory. Like that's why there's a little C and a big C. So that's why I called inspired action. And they said, let's re-reverse engineer the meetings. Let's talk about what stuff went down that wasn't so great, and ask everybody to jump in on what the solution totally changed it. All of a sudden they started coming forth. So it's about really looking at how are how are your team members and you being guided of what you see are the next steps. And how do you make the bar so low, and I mean that positively, that all ideas are truly welcome.
SPEAKER_00So it's that safe aspect.
SPEAKER_02I call it safe and stretch. How do you create an environment that's both safe with a bias towards stretching? You know, I can I can I share this story that I heard about that, which I love. So I'm um one of my people on my Google, and I spoke to this woman at a party at networking, and I said, you know, talk about the safe and stretch, and we're all ideas welcome. She goes, Well, I had the privilege of working with Jim Henson of the Muppets. Oh for 25 years, for years. And we laugh on the weekly huddles because it's like an ideation session, and everybody's welcome, not just the writers, everybody. And if you had a great idea, he says, Ha, tell me more. The late great Jim Henson. If you had a stinker of an idea, he would take a pencil and go, Fascinating. Let me put a let's put a pin in that. And that knew that it was a stinker of an idea that he wasn't gonna use. But what happened is they all started laughing and they started having competitions of who had more, huh? They said, You had more pencils. He said, Yeah, but I had a tell me more six months ago. And it became this game. He normalized not taking people's suggestions. Brilliant. And he didn't talk about it, there weren't pillars on the wall, and this and that, you know, he just implemented it as a leader. And and I'm all about having core vision and and mission statements, so don't get me wrong, and and you know, having the core values, but he lived it. He lived it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right. Without without it ha happening when the rubber meets the road, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. It wasn't just rhetoric, it was real life.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Exactly. So this beautiful honesty. Is there a is there a structure behind that? Is there something that, you know, how do we get the courage to do that too? Tell us a little bit about that. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I come from debilitating people pleasing, like debilitating, to sometimes being a little bit of an emotional Ferrari.
SPEAKER_01We say and do things that we later regret. Are you feeling me in? Been there, done that, got the chocolate stains on the t-shirt to prove it.
SPEAKER_02So, um, no, I I'm always I love structure and playfulness, but all you know, I I like structure but also fluidity. The first step is when you have an oui, right? A trigger, whatever you want to call it, I think it's so important to do some real curiosity. Get really curious. And sometimes you can't do that because you're triggered.
SPEAKER_03So sometimes you have to go, okay, how do I how do I get regulated? There's a myriad of tools.
SPEAKER_02My my dear friend Elizabeth Browning, she talks about an imaginary monologue. Just say out loud in privacy of your own home what you'd want to say to that person, totally unmanicured, totally not PC at all. Just get it out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, riff on an email, save as draft. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00Don't put an address in it until you're right.
SPEAKER_02Don't put an address, um, some kind of release. Um, talk to a good friend. You know, um say, I just need to empty my basket. Alison Armstrong uses that phrase. Um then after you feel seen and heard and have a voice, then there's some work to do. What is because what triggers one person doesn't trigger another person. What's your spiritual classroom? Wow, I feel not heard. That's one of my like for me, I don't know what your spiritual classroom is. We have more than one, but mine is always being told as a child. Um, and even now, not always, but often like I'm too sensitive. I overthink things. And the truth is sometimes I do, but that's also I have great critical thinking. It's one of my superpowers. It's what what I do for a living, right? So if I hit a trigger, what would be one of your classrooms, Anne? Truth in advertising.
SPEAKER_00Uh quiet down. Don't take up so much space. Don't take up okay. Too much! Yes! Too much.
SPEAKER_02Yep. So let's say, yeah, you're too much, which is the other side of you're not enough, right? Yep. So I'm too much, so I get to go, okay, that's my classroom. And I like working with positive intelligent model of the saboteurs. Okay, my three top are a hyperachiever, hyper vigilant, and stickler. What is the belief that I'm carrying? I'm too much, I'm not enough. I have this thing called seven sassy words that will change your life. Does it serve me to believe that? Of course it does not. What does it serve me to believe? It believes that some people are gonna vibe with me and some people aren't. I'm not too much, I'm not not enough. That person is just not vibing with me, or that person's having a hard day. Okay, that's the curiosity, compassion, the self-regulation. Um, what and then then I need to look at what do I want out of this conversation?
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_02What do I want? If it's to be right, to be heard, buzzer, you're not gonna get that, right? Or it's it's not gonna bring the results. If it is to feel like I'm owning my voice, to be in the other person's world, so at first it is all about you. What do I need, what do I want out of this outcome that supports my growth? Um, and then I go into the other person's world, getting curious about the wiring of that person. What I know about that person. And if you don't know anything about that person, everybody needs to feel, everybody needs to feel like they matter, they're important, they're cared about, and that they were doing their best. That's the catch-all. If you don't know squat about the person, you can, and that's when you create the bridge. And then there's always a language. Um, my three catchphrases are I'm curious, I'm confused, or I'm fascinated. And I often, and I have a whole framework. I take people, I'm launching a pilot next month, I take people through a whole framework because language and the energy with which you share language is a game changer. And I often say to people, hey, I've created this thing called Beautifully Honest. I do it imperfectly and ongoingly. Would you be open to me being beautifully honest with you? And most people go, What is that? I go, I'm gonna tell you. And I go, and I'm not gonna, I'm gonna have hiccups, I might be awkward, and um, and and sometimes I say, so how does it feel to have me say something? I'm scared, I'm not gonna attack you, you know, and that calms people down. And and there's different ways you gotta iterate in a business setting, right? Obviously. And I say, so I'm really curious when you said this to me on that day, um, what I took it to mean was, and I'm curious, or sometimes I'll say, What were you trying to tell me? Or what was going on for you? And some people go, I don't even remember saying that. Oh my god, I was having such a hard day. Oh my god, we had to put my dog down. Oh my god, I'm so sorry. They go, no, no, no, no. I said, and there's I was a licensed medical massage therapist in a prior career, and it's a medical known fact that bones that break that heal properly become stronger than bones that were never broken. So I said, I'm not here to just level set our relationship, I'm here to transform it. And they go, wow, I said, so I tell them, bones that break, let's let's use this to actually have even a stronger connection. And people really appreciate that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think when you get into the habit of honesty, yeah, we all understand that we're doing it with compassion, like you said, tact and respect and yeah, all of that.
SPEAKER_02And then and then I'll say, and and then we'll talk about what happened, and I'll mirror back, wow, you felt this way. What could maybe I be doing or saying differently? Like, what's my role? And um, a lot of times people have said, I you know, you probably get this a lot, Ann, too. I just you have this just this big energy, like it's just like I'm so inspired by it, but sometimes it's I feel less than, and I go, wow, thank you for sharing that. Do you do you get that? I mean, I'm sure you have your own version. I don't want to put words in your mouth.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I I I haven't had that particular instance, but yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I know you're ventriloquism here, right?
SPEAKER_00And the cool part is when we come at the conversation from a solution focus versus an accusation focus. Again, curiosity versus animosity is the way I say it.
SPEAKER_02I love it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it gets there. I love that. I love it.
SPEAKER_02That's uh that's an anism.
SPEAKER_00But yeah. Loisbarth.com is your website. People can find information on your coaching, on your keynote speaking, on everything. Is there anywhere else people can uh find more about you?
SPEAKER_02YouTube.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um, and uh yeah, I would say YouTube and my website, LoisBarth.com. And I'd love to keep in touch. And thank you so much for inviting me and engaging in this really rich, juicy, sparkle conversation.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much. And I will put all of those links in the show notes for you all. Thank you so much for joining us on Dancing in the Discomfort Zone podcast. We'll see you next week.