Interview with Jerome Wade - 004

Q1:  How would you describe your personality? Extravert / Introvert / ambivert (a mixture of both) / how do you believe your personality affects your interaction with people?

Q2.  When you walk into a room and do not know a single person, how would you respond?

Q3.  How important is communication in a business interaction? 

Q4.  How do you utilize asking questions in a conversation?

Q5.  What impresses you with another person in an interaction?

Q6.  What mistakes do you see people interacting with each other? How should they change it?

Q7:  What would you say is still challenging for you when interacting with people?

Q8:  Who is or was your biggest influence in your life on business social skills? (Aka: communication / conversation/ connection?)

Top Five Rapid Fire Round

• Good or bad remembering names 
• Good or bad listener if completely honest?
• A strength you bring into a conversation 
• What is your pet peeve or just drives you crazy about people?
• How do you know when you’re starting to connect with another person?

Bonus Question - you buy five questions you get one free…

• What are you learning right now / how are you being challenged?

______________________________________________________________________________

CONCLUSION

What is one quote, comment, challenge you want to leave for us?

Jerome Wade LinkedIn

Jerome Wade Website

Resources to Use:

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:52

With a heart pulsing to transform unrealized potential into high-performing leaders and teams. Jerome delivers innovative strategies to create next level results. Consistent with its adventure lifestyle, Jerome thrives with helping leaders at every level become high-altitude leaders who courageously create a balanced future.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Hey buddy, good to see you, good to chat with you. Looking forward to a great conversation today. I'm doing well. Actually, right now we're in the Pacific Northwest. We're spending a few months traveling the US in our RV, just having some adventures and fun. And uh so part of this is I get to do my business on the road, uh, whether it's coaching uh or if it's an on-site training, I just fly out of whatever local airport is. So it's a it's a good day today, beautiful, beautiful weather today. And this background is real. By the way, the background that you see on the screen is real. Wow, that's a great question, Brian. I mean, uh I guess the business that I do is I help people understand, you know, their personality profile, how to leverage that for leadership, business ownership, team leadership, supervisories, uh, etc. And I think the reality for personality is that it is a significant influence, right? When you have somebody like myself, I'm considered height dominance. Um, so it's easy for me to engage in conversations with complete strangers. That just walking through the the park here that we're in today, I've got new friends all over the park. Um he's the coolest dog ever. But because I am a height dominance guy, I don't have any inhibitions. I it doesn't I can jump into any conversation virtually with anybody at any time. Um, so that's good. And then, but I have to understand that too, uh, because high dominance people can be more direct, uh, they can be misunderstood sometimes. Hey buddy, good to see you, good to chat with you, looking forward to a great conversation today. Uh, I'm doing well. Actually, right now we're in the Pacific Northwest, we're spending a few months traveling uh the US in our RV, just having some adventures and fun. And uh so part of this is I get to do my business on the road, uh, whether it's coaching uh or if it's an on-site training, I just fly out of whatever local airport is. So it's a it's a good day today, beautiful, beautiful weather today. And this background is real. By the way, the background that you see on the screen is real. Wow, that's a great question, Brian. I mean, uh I guess the business that I do is I help people understand, you know, their personality profile, how to leverage that for leadership, business ownership, team leadership, supervisories, uh, etc. And I think the reality for personality is that it is a significant influence, right? When you have somebody like myself, I'm considered height dominance. Um, so it's easy for me to engage in conversations with complete strangers. That just walking through the the park here that we're in today, I've got new friends all over the park. Um he's the coolest dog ever. But because I am a high dominance guy, I don't have any inhibitions. I it doesn't I can jump into any conversation virtually with anybody at any time. Um, so that's good. And then, but I have to understand that too, uh, because high dominance people can be more direct, uh, they can be misunderstood sometimes. Hey buddy, good to see you, good to chat with you, looking forward to a great conversation today. Uh, I'm doing well. Actually, right now we're in the Pacific Northwest, we're spending a few months traveling uh the US in our R V, just having some adventures and fun. And uh so part of this is I get to do my business on the road, uh, whether it's coaching uh or if it's an on-site training, I just fly out of whatever local airport is. So it's a it's a good day today, beautiful, beautiful weather today. And this background is real. By the way, the background that you see on the screen is real. Wow, that's a great question, Brian. I mean, uh I guess the business that I do is I help people understand, you know, their personality profile, how to leverage that for leadership, business ownership, team leadership, supervisories, uh, etc. And I think the reality for personality is that it is a significant influence, right? When you have somebody like myself, I'm considered height dominance. Um, so it's easy for me to engage in conversations with complete strangers. That just walking through the the park here that we're in today, I've got new friends all over the park. Um, he's the coolest dog ever. But because I am a height dominance guy, I don't have any inhibitions. I it doesn't I can jump into any conversation virtually with anybody at any time. Um, so that's good. And then, but I have to understand that too. Uh, because high dominance people can be more direct, uh, they can be misunderstood sometimes because we are direct. Um, then if your personality profile is more extroverted, of course, then you can be the life of the party. I'm not so much the life of the party, but I can be very direct in conversations or, you know, in conversations. You get your high extrovert that is uh really great, that kind of the gregarious uh personality that can dive right into friendships deeply and and conversations. You've got the person that is uh what we call high-paced person, we need very patient people. Their personality is going to influence how they engage, less forward, uh, more as you could consider it a little bit introverted, but they're gonna be less forward. But it doesn't mean they won't have engaging conversations. You know, a high conformity person is a person who is uh details matter and rules and regulations matter to them. And and so again, you're gonna see a little bit different initiation into that conversation, how they initiate the the dialogue or the communications with another person, but not only for interpersonal reasons, we need to understand these things, but also in the entertained dynamics because this is going to, you know, Jerome's gonna speak a certain way, Brian's gonna speak a certain way, uh Slate and Joan are gonna speak certain ways. And it's important for us to understand that so that there isn't misunderstandings. When when we understand and we're able to identify a person's you know personality, then we can understand where they come from. Now, let me also just give a little caveat here. It doesn't excuse them from you know the misuse or the misapplications of their personality profile, but what it does is it explains them. And so when in a meeting and I have uh a guy on my team as a high extrovert, he's very chatty and we need to get to the point. Well, I'm a get to the point guy, I'm a high dominance. We we don't want to mess around, we want to get the job done, let's win, right? Let's let's win the day. But but when I understand that that staff member's or that leader's profile is to have more conversation, I need to respect that and actually encourage that. Um, and then at the same time, the other team members need to know what each other's profile is or what their um you know personality types are because that explains why they're communicating the way they are. Um, it explains how they're going to engage. And so I think personality profiling is very important. It's something I do in my business um with teams and with individuals, and even for organizations that are looking for hiring to use a tool that gives them precision insight onto what they're getting before they ever get that, before they even offer a job to that person. So, but yeah, personality profile influences our communication significantly in my well, mostly from screwing it up. So I've read well, it's you know, you know, listen, there's sometimes there's only one way to learn something, right? So this is one of those things that I should have known better as a leader, but I was leading a very uh rapidly growing uh I had found it. Uh things were going amazing. We were meteoric, went to the moon. Things were we were having a blast. Um, and we were having to hire pretty pretty quickly. And my my intimate team at first could understand me, right? They they got me, my intensity, my drive, my direct nature of conversation. Um they they understood my decisiveness. I I don't typically him haw about things. Once I have an idea, I'm like, let's go for it. I lock into it. But as the conversation grew, I I became less aware of other people's personality profiles. And this is before we ever did really any type of assessment or anything like that. So we were kind of leading in the blind, communicating in the blind to a degree. So a lot of pain and a lot of frustration and a lot of turnover happened there for two or three years at that organization because it was it was mostly we did not understand the power of under knowing a person's, intimately knowing another person's established you know, personality profile. So a lot of pain came from that, a lot of misunderstanding, a lot of frustration, and then the impact on the organization. I mean, it can be significant. When you have communication breakdowns, when you have a failure to communicate, um, you cannot lead your organization successfully. It will stymie the growth, it will limit your profit, your revenues, it will create significant turnover, and the cost of turnover is extraordinary. And so this for me came from lessons learned in the trenches. Uh good heart meant well, but I didn't understand, I didn't know what I didn't know. And once we brought uh an assessment into our organization, uh, this is one that I founded that it just started changing the game. Now I understood why, oh, okay, that's what's happening. Oh, that's what's going on. Again, it helped me understand them. So then we could get to effective communication, outcomes, quicker outcomes, great dialogue, more process loyalty. Uh, so the the the the net result of learning this was significant. I mean, like, I can't even I can't overstate this. Um, it's powerful when you know another person's and you can communicate in the language they speak because not everybody speaks Jerome language, right? Not everybody speaks Brian language, not everybody speaks, you know, Sally, John, Susie's language. But when I understand their language from a personality perspective, I can start speaking their language, and it just accelerates the outcome, accelerates the communication, streamlines it. You got more efficiency, more effectiveness in the organization when you are. So yeah, it came from a lot of pain and frustration. Well, that's the most important aspect, if if I'm gonna be honest with you. One of the things that had to change in my organization is because high dominance people are very directing type of people. Again, we typically think pretty quick on our feet. Doesn't mean that we're always right, but we're we're we're quick on our feet. We are always processing strategy, we're always processing next steps, and we can be a little bit impatient, sometimes impetuous. So, what we have to learn is that the solution is not to be the problem solver. And when you are that high dominance person, it's easy for us to be the problem solver. We're wired for it. This is what we do, man. We're continually thinking about how to win and how to advance and how to grow and how to go. But the reality for, and I I would say this for any personality type, but especially for high dominance people, is you must become the the best question asker, right? If you are solving all the problems, here's something, here's something profound for you, Brian. Write this one down for those of you listening. Write this one down. If you're solving the problem, you're the problem, right? If you're in a senior leadership role and you're the one solving the problem, why do you have a team? Why do you have staff? Why do you have people helping you get the job done? If you have all the answers, and then here's what's happening is when when you are answering all the questions, when and I'm not talking about asking questions, I'm talking about when you're answering all the questions and you're solving all the problems, you are the problem in the organization. You're the choke point, you're the limiting factor. So this is a big adjustment I had to make instead of giving directions, right? That'd be very directed. Let's go here, let's do this. Oh, here's the solution, here's what you do. Uh, do these three things and whatever is my formula prescription for success. Then um, but then I started changing the game. I tried flip, I started flipping the script, and that was when I became the best question asker. So instead of them coming and saying, Romy, uh, my nickname is Romy, they'd say, Romy, I've got this situation. We're trying to work through this, we need your help. All right, how can I help? Normally in the past, I'd listen to the problem and fixed it. Okay, guys, go do this, and and everything will be great. But then I stopped doing that because I was limiting their brain, I was limiting their intelligence, I was limiting their brilliance, their talent. So I just started asking questions. I said, Hey, tell me what you feel is the best solution forward. Well, that's interesting. Why do you feel that way? Well, that seems like a great step moving forward. Why are you asking me for my right? So it's stop answering the questions and start asking better questions. And so here's what happens uh from a team dynamic when you are a senior leader, high dominance, uh for anybody for that matter, but particularly those that have positions of of authority, instead of being so directive, why don't you be the guy that is more Socratic, where you're asking questions, you're you are seeking to uh enable and empower and um activate to uh spark their brilliance. When you have all the answers, you are the problem, right? You're solving the problem, you're the problem. Let them be the problem solvers, let them use their brilliance, because then at that point, not only do you have their hands of in of skill and you got their heart, you've got their head. And that's the trifecta, that's the trinity of a person's gift that they bring to an organization is that they have uh their entire faculties are now engaged, not just you know, whatever technical skills they have, not whatever education they have now, their brain is fully activated because it's it's on them to solve the problem instead of you being the problem solver. So it's uh it does take some adjustment, but I can tell you it seems at first that it takes longer to get to a solution, and it might at first uh take a little bit longer. However, over time, a few weeks, a few months, all of a sudden now they're coming to you with less and less questions because they know what your answer is going to be. What do you think is the next step forward? Well, that's interesting. Why do you feel like that's the next next step? Well, it sounds like you've got this figure out. Why are you coming to me? Now they realize the new pattern and the new norm is they're smart enough, you trust them, and you need them to lead at a very high altitude and so that you can stay at the altitude you should. Well, I think the superficiality of our world is one of the issues. I mean, we've we've got there, there's well, I mean, I guess there's probably layers to this that are that create um concerns about how how deep should I go in this conversation. Um I think part of the superficiality of corporate America is that it doesn't really engender deep, meaningful relationships. I mean, you're working with these people hours and hours and weeks and weeks and years and years, and and sometimes you don't even know what their wife's name is. You don't even know they had three kids, you don't even know that they had a dog, or you don't even know that they're battling some significant illness. Um, because there just isn't it doesn't engender the type of culture that human beings desire and long for, but on the other side of that, it's because there's there could be, you're putting yourself at risk. How vulnerable do you want to be? Um, and which is sad because life is only truly meaningful to the depth of the relationships that we have. I mean, we can have all of these experiences. As you know, I'm I'm a global traveler, I do all sorts of, I'm a pilot, I'm a sailor, I do all sorts of adventure sports, and those are all fun. I love doing those. But the most meaningful aspect of life is the deep relationships, the deep friendships where we exchange ideas and there's value and respect and meaning and time spent with other people that matter to us. So for me, I think uh this is maybe a long way around as answering your question, but I think the reality is that we're we don't have um it's it's the the issue is vulnerability. How vulnerable will we be? And in corporate America, it's very difficult to make yourself vulnerable because that can bite you in the ass real quick. I mean, that can come back on you real quick, and that's unfortunate that we see that kind of behavior taking place. I think there's two things, Paul, for me that I Brian is that um that I try to focus on. First of all, is honesty. Um what I mean by that is this I'm very transparent. Have I had some wins in my life? Absolutely. Have I had some losses in my life? Uh I've had some ugly losses in my life. And so I think the when when you are presenting yourself with humility, with with that level of, you know, you're you're you're not all that in a bag of chips, you know, nobody has all their shit. Nobody does. Some have it a little bit better than others, but most of us are struggling with our own stuff. Nobody even knows about it. But I think when you have that level of honesty and that level of humility, it's easy for an audience to embrace you, to open their heart to you. I mean, one of the glaring stories of my life, and I don't like this, but it is what it is, is I I learned a valuable lesson when I moved out of leading the organizations that I had founded in the past, businesses and nonprofits, that audiences wanted to hear the real story. I mean, they don't want to just hear the success, they don't want to just hear the rise, you know, everything that, oh, it's so great. We're at the top of the mountain, and everything was this. And they really want to hear the struggle because they're struggling. They're they want to hear the journey, the difficulties, the hardship, the heartache that you had to endure and what you overcame and and what where you got stuck and where you broke uh through. Um, so honesty, humility are very important aspects to being a professional speaker. But I think this is true in any dynamic. Let's say I'm coming into an organization. I just had a sales call last week for a client that is looking for comprehensive training for their organization. It's in an industry that I love to work with. I'm an aviator, so uh it's in an industry in aviation. I'm like, yeah, I mean, this is gonna be amazing. But my first goal is to build trust. And the only way I can build trust is with that humility and that honesty that I just share in the conversation, which I think also leads to um transparency. I think there's some vulnerability there that uh are very important, but all of this leads to one word authenticity. Uh, nobody likes a poser, nobody likes a pretender, nobody likes a fake or a fraud. I mean, it's it's no good. So, like that sales call last week, I this is a deal that I definitely want, um, not just because I love what I'm doing, but I love that specific industry in addition. But I want to make sure that I'm very open, very honest, very transparent, very humble in the conversations. However, humility doesn't mean you lack confidence, right? So you can still be very confident. There's a big difference between arrogance and confidence, in my opinion. And confidence is where all of us should be. We should speak confidently and clearly, but it's telling the stories of frustration and struggle where people identify with you as a human being that gives them that insight that they're really looking for. Uh, and when I learned this lesson, uh, this is a number of, I don't know if it was 10 years ago, maybe less, maybe seven, eight years ago, but I was sharing a very dark story in my my you know executive life where I was at the top of my game, but at the end of my rope. I mean, we got everything we want, but I was losing everything that I love. And I, the story is painful for me. But so I sat down in front of an audience and I, for the first time ever, I told them the God's honest truth. I told them, I told them the absolute dark story, right? Of how I I allowed myself, you know, uh, because of my drive for to achieve and my drive for success, to drive myself into the ground and and what it cost me and and the embarrassment that I experienced and all of this. And I remember one of the gentlemen, and this was a uh community uh elected official that that's they were elected officials in the audience that I shared this with. And um the guy after this, he said, I how how do you have the courage to share such a painful story? And he says, We don't have we don't have speakers who do this. Nobody tells us the truth, you know. But that's the I think for me, I realized that day that's what people want to hear, is they want to hear the real story, they don't want to hear the bullshit story, they won't they don't want to hear the story where you're all glamorous, where you're you know, they that you've got it all together, which is the nobody has it all together, like I said a minute ago. We've got bits and pieces together, but we don't have it all together. And I think that's what audiences want to know. Listen, you're okay. You need to normalize the struggle and normalize the frustration and normalize some of the failure that they're experiencing so they can, uh so that they can give it hope uh for their story because they think their story is worse until they hear yours and you're like, you know what? It's I'm not that bad. Or oh, he's struggling with some of the same, or struggled with some of the things and the same things I'm struggling with now. Oh, that's a deep question there. Um Gosh, I I guess not nobody is directly coming to mind, um, which is a sad story, I think. You not have a significant and or an initial response of somebody coming to mind, except for one. And it was more from the perspective of being a public speaker, and he was leading a very effective nonprofit organization in Hawaii. And what I saw about him was a lot of what I just shared with you actually. So it he was very authentic, he was very transparent, he made himself very vulnerable, and he would talk about the struggles of executive leadership. Um, and this came almost at the time when I was kind of at the end of my rope. So it was a very important, very important uh person, and his message was very important to me at the time, very relevant to me. But I would sit and listen to him, and he would share some of the most intimate details that were like of a story, right? He would unpack a story in such a way that you were in the story. It wasn't just the story, it was like he invited you into the story. And I think for me, uh that was that that was probably the most significant influence in my communication, public communication skills, uh, than I've ever seen. But I also think there's something else too. I uh I was writing my first book, uh, which is my only book so far. My next book is coming soon. But I was writing my first book and I read a book by Stephen King called, oh my gosh, what is on writings? That's the title of the book is on writing by Stephen King. There's only one thing you need from that entire book because there's a whole lot of you know, just a backstory that it's kind of cool to know, but it's not helpful in any other way. Um, he said this remove every word that is not the story. So a lot of times we're insecurity causes us to say more, insecurity causes us to write more, insecurity influences us to add more to it because we don't feel like it's enough or we're enough. And and but he just said this, and I thought that was maybe the most profound thing I've ever heard from a writing perspective. Remove every word that's not the story. Otherwise, there's there's too much in it that is unnecessary or it's overtold or oversold. And I think that's important too in a sales environment. You don't want to oversell a client. Um, you you want to adequately, you want to professionally, you want to with excellence, you know, convey your solution, your answer, uh, how you are going to change the game for them and what your product or service is going to do to benefit their company. But I think you want to remove every word that's not the story. And part of that is to find out what's the client's story, what is their struggle, because that's their story. And when you understand the client's struggle, you understand the client's story, and then you can speak remove every word that is not the story, so focus on their story, focus on their struggle, and then how you can solve that problem. Um, how your solutions can benefit their organization. Um I think part of that, this is this is another great question, is is to um is when they are oh gosh, what's the word? They are not um gosh, why is this it's right here, it's right here on the tip of my tongue. The mistakes that they make is when they are not present in the moment. That's the biggest one, I think, even for a speaker in an audience. If you're having a conversation with your spouse, your significant other, you're trying to have a conversation with your kids. Um, that I think has been a strong point of mine, whether I learned that or whether it's, I don't know where it came from for me, but I've I've pretty much have tried to make that a very important aspect of my interactions, uh, my communications is to be present in the moment when you are when you when you're all in. And I I this is what I love. And I did learn this actually now that I think about it. I did learn this from a guy who, a couple of guys who are public speakers. But you know, at the at the end of your presentation, people are coming up, they want to ask questions, they want to work out some of their stuff there, and that's great. But I remember watching these guys who were high-profile speakers, they didn't just bounce from one person to the next person to the next person. Whatever amount of time that person wanted, they would give. And even though there'd be a long line of people, they would give that amount of attention to that person. Now, of course, there's some limitations to that. Some of the conversations needed to have follow-up conversations. That's perfectly fine to say, you know what, love to have more of an in-depth conversation with you. Can we do this offline? Uh, so um, I think being present is is so incredibly important um and a key tool. Gosh, if you're selling, if you're you know, bleeding, if you're conveying, if you're communicating in any form, be all in. Uh, your energy is focused, your heart is focused, you care about this person, and they know it. Because when you're not present, it's just such I I walk away. I do. When I when I talk to somebody out there, how how how important they might be, when I realize they're not present, I'm great chatting with you and I move on because it's a wasted conversation for me. My focus these days has become more and more on how do I how do I truly become my best, the best version of me, my best self. Um, a number of years ago when COVID, actually early COVID, 2020, my wife and I at the time, because as a speaker, all of the events shut down for a year and a half or whatever it was. So business was almost non existent. I had coaching online and some training online, stuff that I was still doing, but the events and stuff were done. Um, so we traveled to the US and I was searching and seeking at that time. We just, my wife and I, uh in a family situation, she just lost her dad, my mom's dementia, other things that had happened um that were just devastating. And so it was kind of like searching my soul and trying to find myself because of all of that. But I came across the statement that said this life is not about understanding yourself, life is about creating yourself. And and that for me, I was trying to figure out, you know, you kind of try to make sense of why did this happen and why didn't that happen and what could I have done better? But sometimes those are helpful questions, but more more energy needs to be spent on who are you creating? Who's the you, the me that I'm creating, who's the you that you are creating? Because I know the future that I want requires me to be a bigger person, it requires me to be a better leader, a better communicator. It requires me to be uh requires more uh levels of discipline and more levels of commitment, consistent behavior day after day after day after day to get the results that I really want. So I I I think I really am, I know I am. This is my focus now, is is how do I really become the best version of me so that I can give the best version of me. I can give the best version of me to my wife, I can give it to my kids, and someday I'll have grandkids, I can give it to them and and to my friends, and to of course to my customers and my clients. I I want them to always experience the best version of me. Well, if I'm not intentional about that, it's not gonna happen accidentally. So um we have to know what we're pursuing. Gosh, this could be another great conversation, Brian. Uh we could we can know what we want, know where we're going, and then and then we create the the strategy, the steps to get us there. Give it go for it, buddy. Meet medium. Uh it does shock, it does shock some people sometimes, my recall, but it I would say medium-ish, maybe leaning more better. Yeah. Yeah. Great listener. When they make it all about themselves. When they make it all about themselves. Confidence. Certainty. Certainty, transparency, honesty. Well, I think the life that you want is it within your reach. Uh it may not feel like it right now, but it is. The business you want is within your reach. The goals, uh, the achievements, the success is within your reach. Uh, who are you willing to become? How are you willing to grow so that you can achieve that, so you can guarantee that success. Okay, buddy, I appreciate you. Thanks for everything you do, man. And anything I can do to help, let me know.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Well, episode 004 is officially in the books, in and out, and nobody got hurt. I'd like to thank Jerome Wade for his time and energy and investing into it. I hope you walk away challenged and better as a result of Jerome's interview. Remember that all of these episodes links are available in the show notes. I encourage you to subscribe to the podcast if you've not done so already and download any episodes you've missed. As we close, I'd love to hear from you and available for questions, comments, suggestions. Any ideas that you may have, and you can find me at Brian, VR YM.com.