Scaling With People
Tired of spinning your startup wheels but never gaining traction? Buckle up, founders and CEOs, because this podcast is your rocket fuel to profitability! Every week, we ignite explosive conversations with bold-faced founders, brainy experts, and even a few out-of-this-world vendors. Get ready to crack the code on growth, master employee engagement, and blast through your scaling goals. We’re talking real-world strategies, actionable tips, and perspectives that’ll make your business do a cosmic dance. So, strap in and prepare for lift-off!
Scaling With People
Unlocking Emotional Intelligence: Jennifer Gardner on Leadership Influence, Storytelling Strategies, and Overcoming Public Speaking Fears
Unlock the power of emotional intelligence in business success with insights from our special guest, Jennifer Gardner, an esteemed attorney and influence expert. Ever wondered how understanding emotional dynamics can transform your leadership skills and decision-making? Jennifer shares her journey and expertise, highlighting the pivotal role of storytelling and emotional intelligence in effectively leading and influencing others. Discover how empathy and self-awareness can help craft messages that resonate with people's fears and aspirations, and hear about a groundbreaking legal case where these skills made all the difference in advocating for a client.
Conquer your fear of public speaking and the anxiety of being judged by embracing and understanding these challenges. We explore practical techniques like grounding, breathing, and the strategic use of pauses to enhance communication clarity and presence. Jennifer provides invaluable advice on engaging your audience and avoiding jargon to ensure your message is not only heard but felt. By finding and focusing on your purpose, you'll learn how to connect more deeply with any audience, becoming a relatable and effective communicator. These insights promise to transform the way you approach speaking and influence others, leaving a lasting impact on your personal and professional life.
Welcome everyone to today's Scaling with People podcast. I'm Gwenevere Query, your host and founder and CEO of Guide to HR. Today, we're going to be talking about emotional intelligence and the importance of having it and how to get it to build your business, and I have Jennifer Gardner on the call today with us. Welcome, jennifer. Tell the audience a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Hi Guinevere, so happy to be here. I am an attorney. I've run my own business for 32 years. I started 32 years ago when everybody was surprised. Yeah, and everybody was so surprised to think that I had the nerve to think I could do this myself. Right, and I had very little mentorship, very little training and in spite of the odds I succeeded. And I've been fascinated with why I was winning all my cases, why I was able to get these great results for my clients. And so I have been very busy for most of my career studying influence, persuasion, advanced trial skills, that kind of thing, and it's led me down all kinds of wonderful rabbit holes. And so now, in addition to being a lawyer and consulting with clients and representing them in courtrooms, I also am teaching for continuing legal education, credit the art of influence, and I have my own curriculum for that and I do private consulting on that and I run something called the power lab sessions. So that is, that is me in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:Now I don't know if the listeners caught it, but I'm talking about emotional intelligence and then I bring on a lawyer. So like I feel, like you know, there is a little bit of a connection, but there's a wait. Wait, what? What's going on here? What are we doing? So I love that story of just how you ended up kind of going and finding this like niche, of understanding that your job, and pretty much anybody's job, really, no matter what we are doing in the world it's all about storytelling and it's all about the influence that you have based off your words and presentation and how you come to the meeting or to the event. And so, tell me so. You kind of built this curriculum around it for your law students, but you've also now realized there's this impactful opportunity within the business world too.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Emotional intelligence is a huge component of being a leader and in the business world they look at leadership and what it takes to lead requires power and influence, and the people with the highest amounts of emotional intelligence are shown to have the highest emotional intelligence. You know the best leadership skills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, as you're working with people on this, whether they're lawyers or business owners or maybe both, because they have their own law firm what are some of the things that you've seen kind of be like, oh, if I could just get in front of that person and help them understand how they're coming to the table, how they're presenting themselves, and they would just tweak it here or there, it would give them so much more influence. What are you seeing? Some of the trends I guess I'm asking in regards to how people are behaving that could be better if they had that knowledgeable emotional intelligence aspect emotional intelligence aspect.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that. Well, first of all, let me just back up and say that a lot of us we have outstanding technical proficiency in what we do, right, so you have people with great engineering and science degrees and computer science degrees and even law degrees come through really good training and education and not understanding what it takes to convey their ideas in a persuasive way. And I really do believe that understanding how to persuade, regardless of the work that we're doing, is critical to our success and being perceived as a leader and ultimately motivating people to do what it is you need and want them to do, so that you can succeed in whatever it is that you're doing. Everything we want is, on the other side of the word, yes. How do we get people to say yes to us?
Speaker 1:Is that what's in it for them or what's in it for me? Right? Why would I say yes? What am I going to get out of it?
Speaker 2:Exactly. You need to craft a message and communicate in a way that's going to speak to the underlying fears, aspirations, motivations, desires of the people that you're, the humans that you're trying to influence, and I believe that that starts with you. That starts with you being able to look inside yourself and understand on a deeper level, what are you afraid of, what are your biggest wishes, hopes and dreams. It really requires that you develop your empathy skill, and empathy is one of the primary factors that goes into assessing how much emotional intelligence an individual has.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think about it in regards to, like, as a founder or a leader, you really need to be focused on that one thing, that keep focused on what you're doing and why you're doing that, and if you don't understand that, then how can you be focused on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So tell me, like so when you're working with people, like what is the biggest transformation, what's a story that you could share confidentially don't need to name names or anything but what's the biggest transformation you've seen when helping people find that emotional intelligence and be able to actually execute on that?
Speaker 2:On the emotional intelligence well, they're able about at a really fundamental human level that involves emotion. They're tapping into the emotional content of whatever the issue is that's before the decision maker and before them. That's really your job is to find that emotional content and communicate about it in a vulnerable, authentic, real, human way, and this is how you create resonance and this is how you get people to decide for you. And I recently had a client who had difficulty doing just that. So we spent a lot of time understanding what were the human dynamics that led to the dispute, that she was a lawyer in the context of right, she was representing one of the parties and she got real clear on those dynamics so that she could argue not just from a legal perspective but from the perspective of the human perspective. How is this affecting her client and the other parties and the witnesses, and what was really at stake, the emotional nuggets of what was motivating all of the parties. That actually leads to the actual story of what happened and when you can talk using plain language about that, it's magical, because she reported to me that she won. She won her summary judgment motion, she won her trial.
Speaker 2:There were remaining issues that needed to be tried and, more importantly, because of techniques that I taught her about how to get focused on herself while she was in the middle of giving a presentation.
Speaker 2:Let me just back up and say she was terrified of arguing in court, of speaking in court. She didn't know where to begin or what to say, and so I gave her some great tips and pointers for how to stay composed and stay focused and speak in a compelling way, despite the fact that she was being judged and criticized. She knew it, like everybody's assessing everything that you do when you're in a courtroom right, because ultimately, they're going to make a decision and they're weighing your credibility as well as the credibility of the case, and it's a daunting task. So at the end of the day, she won both at summary judgment and then the rest of the issues at trial, and she wrote me and she just said this is amazing, thank you, thank you so much. So that's a story of how, by working on her emotional intelligence, we were able to get her an amazing result.
Speaker 1:And, as you're saying, as you're sharing that story, I think about it from a founder's perspective. Like you know, you're going out and you're getting funding and, although it's not a jury and someone might not like, end up, you know, going to jail over a situation, hopefully right. But like, you're in front of these investors and how do you, how do you bring that emotional intelligence to these investors? Or they're? They're people who are their job is to spend money on, on potential companies that are going to succeed, knowing that, oh, unfortunately, a lot of them are not right, so they know that they're not always going to get their money back. So how do you like, when you're thinking about that audience and you're thinking about a founder preparing themselves to get in front of these investors and hopefully get to that? Yes, here's my go and do what you want with it to grow your business. What are some key like, maybe a point or two that we could give our audience to like prepare for that conversation.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that they really need to do two things. First of all, they want to be able to demonstrate to the investors that they are someone who is capable of leading this company to profitability right, true, and that right. So they need to. In order to do that, they need to establish credibility and authority, and the best way to do that is to engage two different types of an approach simultaneously. One is to focus on the intellectual side, which, if I can get nerdy and talk about neuroscience here for a minute.
Speaker 1:I will Please.
Speaker 2:That's the part that is in our left brain. Our left brain is the gatekeeper, it's the rational decision maker. The right brain is smaller, it takes up less geography inside our brains, but it's the part of our brains that feels and is emotional and it can override the left-hand side. So, when speaking to an investor, you need to have a combination of the intellect to establish your authority and your credibility, as well as understanding how to appeal to the right side of the brain with and getting the investor or the decision maker to feel strongly about the investment that they're going to make. And I would do that by explaining again in very plain, non technical language why why this is going to impact the consumer or whoever, whoever's going to benefit from, whatever the technology is, whatever the widget is that we're selling here on a very real level, how this is going to change lives in a positive way and ultimately make money, make this a profitable venture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it, that's so great. And then I got to ask cause? I also know sometimes I get flustered in conversations and as a founder myself, but also as a executive working with other executives and boards and whatnot, what. So what could you? Could you give us one of those tips that you gave that individual in the story you told us about how to like just stay composed within yourself and get through something that could be very nerve wracking, especially for founders who are going out and getting fundraising for the first time. I remember coaching through a CEO who was like I'm going to get even funding for the first time. I've never done this, I don't know what I'm doing. Like she's really nervous about it. Right, like anything that we do for a first time, of course there's nervous about it. We are. It's so unexpected, we don't know what to do. How do you prepare for that and show up as your best self?
Speaker 2:I think that fundamentally, we need to accept and acknowledge that everyone is afraid. Everybody is afraid of presenting and being judged and criticized and missing the mark and disappointing ourselves and disappointing other people and possibly failing. We're all afraid of that. So that's the beginning. Anybody who doesn't admit they're afraid, I think is out of touch with their own humanity and to me that's a recipe for potentially failure. So I would say firstly, just get comfortable with the fact it's natural to be afraid, and then I would ask them to check in with themselves and see where is this fear affecting them in their bodies, and then I would teach them some techniques to feel safety in their bodies, even if it comes to breathing. And I know there are people who are like don't tell me, I have to breathe. They don't want to hear that. Right, they're really wound tight because really really most right, I read that all the time.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, you know comments from people on social media or whatever that are written on other people's posts about meditation or somatic experiencing, which is the discipline that I'm that I'm referring to, which is all about how to find safety in your body, and I've taken that to. How do you find safety in your body when you have to be visible and being visible is terrifying because of what's at stake, right, yeah, so I would tell them to breathe and put their feet on the floor and pause, because there's a lot of power in silence, and become thoughtful and really get grounded inside themselves as to why are you here. We lose sight of our purpose and our passion and our mission that got us to this scary place in the first place. Right, why are you here? What are you here to do? Why is it important? Why does it matter? And then talk about that in the plainest of terms, plain English.
Speaker 2:So many of us who are super educated, we're all up in our heads and we like to use fancy terminology. That's not going to help you win. You have to speak in a language that your audience can understand at an emotional level, and you have to breathe and you have to slow down and stop trying to sound like the smartest person in the room, because while you think you're winning, when you're doing that many times, you're just alienating your audience. So that's what I would say is understand and accept. It's natural to be afraid. Our nervous systems are wired to protect us by having certain fight, flight, freeze responses. Right, and then how you deal with that, aside from big pharma, is you breathe yeah, you breathe, and you do some introspection to understand and unwind what are the emotions that you're over coupling with this sensation. And seriously, it sounds simple and it's elegant and it is and it works.
Speaker 1:So a couple things there I want to pick up or not pick up, but like pick up on, I should say, is one. I have heard the take a breath, the pot. There's more power and pause than you know and after I heard that the first time I heard that and I started listening to people, especially speakers. They do have that pause. They have that pause. It might feel dramatic to some but it really is like oh, let me read, like let me reengage with you, you pause, I need to kind of get back to I might be zoning out with something right, or it brings the audience back to you. I also find that I rather pause than put the filler words in um, uh, you knows, oh, my gosh, I've, I've.
Speaker 1:I interviewed a guy that was like you know, he said it so many times. I think he said it four times in one sentence. It was so distracting. I don't think I got anything else from the interview, it was just so distracting. And so there is a lot of power to that pause and practicing I just said a couple minutes ago, but practicing to take out those filler words and not have that be part of your vocabulary, it's tough, it's very tough, especially in our more casual, relaxed culture that we have, like you would never hear an um word back in the Victorian ages, right, like I wouldn't think you would. I would, I should say. But so that's one takeaway. I got for sure out of that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I struggle with ums and ands. I don't do a lot of like. Like makes me kind of crazy. I don't think I say a lot of like unless I'm speaking to another person who's saying a lot of like and then I mirror them, right. That influences your your speaking pattern, right.
Speaker 1:Naturally.
Speaker 2:But I try to stay away from ums and ands. I tend to fall into that trap when I'm thinking I mean it's a filler word because you're thinking, and I'm trying to practice taking a breath every time I want to say an um instead of saying the word um.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I have a CEO I work with. I really appreciate the fact that when I ask him a question and he has to think about it, like you can tell, he actually breaks eye contact because he's like, let me think about this. He's like looking down, he's like, let me, I can tell he's thinking about it and it's okay. Like it's okay to be that way.
Speaker 1:None of us expect everyone to have all the answers, and it's okay to take that moment to let me think about this, and it could be, let me think about this. I have the answer, but I want to think about how I want to communicate it to this audience, right, going back to the storytelling aspect of it. And then the other thing I liked that I took away from that was or the earlier comment was don't be this like, don't be the smartest person in the room. Don't be so in your head that you're just like talking about all these different either technical words or jargons or whatever the subject matter expert that you are in the room. You are trying to get to a yes with these investors.
Speaker 1:So you nailed it on the alien. Don't alienate them by like, showing up like super I'm the smartest person in this room. These people have been through a lot, they have seen a lot, they have talked to a lot of different founders. They're just as smart as you, maybe in a different way. And to show up talking to them at that level where, yeah, you can prove and demonstrate you know what you're talking about in your field of expert and what you're you're growing your business on, but you're able to do it at a more like business savvy, knowledgeable, human being level.
Speaker 2:I think so, and I also think that's how you build rapport, and rapport is really important for having influence.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Like I said, you want people to feel an affinity with you, you want them to like you, and they're going to invest in you again and again and again until you get to that profitability, because sometimes those first early investors are going to come back at the very end when you need that last 10,000K just to get you to that last stage, and you don't have time and the capability or like that capability but the time to go out and get that last 10, you just, you know, hey, you invested me at the beginning, you believed in me, we're almost there. Give me 10 more thousand dollars and we'll be there, kind of thing, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So, um, guinevere, it's for me, influence is. It happens when we build a relationship with people, and that's exactly what you're discussing here is a relationship where there's trust and there's rapport and there's affinity and there's an emotional connection, and you build that one word at a time. You build that by having integrity and doing what you say you're going to do. When you say you're going to do that, and by being able to connect with these investors on a human level. Maybe you're a young founder and you have a paternal as far as like age difference investor. Maybe you can establish a bond that resembles like a father son thing. I think that one of the things that stops us from fully stepping into our leadership shoes is by being afraid to admit what we don't know and by being afraid your influence when you say you know what I don't know. I have to look into that.
Speaker 2:I'm sure I can find the answer for you. I will get back to you.
Speaker 1:And when someone says that to me, my respect for them goes up a hundredfold, because they're not faking it till they make it and telling me something that they think I want to hear. They're telling me the truth and they're building that trust of I don't know. But I'm going to get back to you, I'm going to look into it, I'm going to get the answer, I'm going to get back to you and then, obviously, following up with that, and that is really powerful.
Speaker 2:I think so. Better to guess your way to success and a lot of money, right? I mean, those are the people that get in huge trouble right?
Speaker 1:I mean, those are the people that get in huge trouble, right? Yep, I think the one founder who's in jail right now. We won't name names, but we all know who I'm talking about, right, I was thinking of the same person, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great mind, right? I just know yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, gosh, it's fun talking about this.
Speaker 2:We could probably talk about it for hours on end, but, as we wrap up today's call, any last final tips, tricks or tools you want to share with the audience today, or thoughts even, I think that emotional intelligence is really, really important, and the thing about emotional intelligence is that it's a soft skill and the components of it can be learned, and so I would just give to your audience the takeaway that they can learn these skills.
Speaker 2:Maybe they're nerdy or they're bookworms, or they feel like they don't have the people skills that it takes to be able to navigate all the different things they need to navigate as founders and CEOs, but the fact is they're smart and if they're willing, if they're curious and they're willing to explore what it takes to have the emotional intelligence which I was trying to say in the very beginning of our interview is the hallmark of a good leader, I think they're going to be able to communicate up to investors and whoever's buy-in they need to generate really effectively, as well as motivate their teams to follow them and to get the job done. That would be my takeaway. You can learn how to do this. It's all very learnable once you know what it is.
Speaker 1:And I actually would double down on that Even if you know what it is and are already doing it, that doesn't mean you can't learn more and become better at it. There's always room for improvement. No matter what we're doing, even as a subject matter expert, there's still room for improvement.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You've got to practice, you've got to train. The best trial lawyers I know have decades of experience and win multi-million dollar verdicts on the regular. They're practicing and they're training constantly. This is not something. You set it and forget it. It's like you can't go to the gym one time and expect to have amazing results.
Speaker 1:Oh, wouldn't that be wonderful though.
Speaker 2:Wouldn't that be wonderful. I would love that, but it doesn't work like that. In fact, I probably should make my way there today. In fact I will but the thing is is you have to practice, you have to train. Get a coach, get a leadership coach, start a group, tell stories for fun. All of these things are helpful in giving you the confidence that you need when, when it's your turn and your time to step up and communicate and there's a lot on the line.
Speaker 1:Well, jennifer, that was wonderful. I got a couple tidbits out and I hope the audience did as well. Thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate it and, to the audience, we hope you have a wonderful rest of your day evening, wherever you are in the world, and we'll see you on the next one. Thanks so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Guinevere.
