Interview with Jay Sullivan - 006

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 do you respond?

Q3.  How important is communication in a business interaction? 

Q4. Why is communicating effectively so difficult for some people? (Even giving presentations?)

Q5.  How do you utilize asking questions in a conversation?

Q6. What are some tips for becoming better listeners?

Q7.  What impresses you with another person in an interaction?

Q8.  What mistakes do you see people interacting with each other? How should they change it?

Q9. The ratio of how much we write to others vs. speak to each other has shifted in the last decade, and become even greater since the world got used to working remotely. How has that changed how we connect with each other?

Q10:  What would you say is still challenging for you when interacting with people?

Q11:  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 top five questions you get one free…

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

If people want to follow you or learn more about you, where could they find you?

LinkedIn - Jay Sullivan

Jay Sullivan books

Resources to Use:

The System Elite Connectors Use to Remember Names

If you’re serious about improving your business communication skills, I created a step-by-step system you can download right now — absolutely free.

👉 Grab it here: 

30 Connection Questions for Stronger Business Conversations

This is a proven question set to improve every conversation in the 1st 5 minutes.

👉 Grab it here: 

Buy the 1st 5 Minutes Book:

• 1st 5 Minutes Book

Follow Me on Social Media:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• YouTube

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Jay Sullivan is the former managing partner of edX.com and currently leads the firm's law firm group. He's an award-winning author and columnist and was adjunct professor at Georgetown Law Center and Fordham University School of Law. His book, Simply Said, Communicating Better at Work and Beyond, was released by John Wiley and Sons in 2016 and has since been translated into Chinese, Korean, French, Arabic, and Russia. As a contributing writer for Forbes.com, Jay brings relevant and timely advice on enhancing one's communication skills to the business community. Jay joined.com after nine years as a practicing attorney. He and his wife Mary live in Pleasantsville, New York, where they raise their four children. Well, I'm joined now with Jay Sullivan. Welcome to the Elite Business Connector Podcast. Welcome, Jay, and an honor to have you to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Ryan, thanks for having me. Perfect. So where is home for you? Home is Pleasantville, New York, just about 45 minutes north of New York City. Pleasantville, New York, New York. So are Yankees or Mets? I don't follow a lot of sports, but my wife is a huge Mets fan, so I am a Mets fan by default.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Guilty by association. So for our listeners, it's important to know how we connected. So I read your book before I met you, absolutely loved Simply Said, and quoted you in my book, Elite Business Connector. And then I reached out to you on LinkedIn, and you were kind enough to respond and allow me to jump on a Zoom call with you and to learn from you. And then you influenced me from your book. So I reached out to you through LinkedIn, and now we're connected, which I think is just a really, really cool story. So thank you for investing into me and now our listeners.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Well, my pleasure. Thanks for uh picking up Simply Said, and I'm glad you found it helpful.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Absolutely. In fact, so much that I put it in bibliography at the at the end of the book here and hoping that uh those that are find um value from the book will continue their learning and uh learning through um your book as well on Simply Said. So you ready to jump right in? I am whenever you're ready. So, Jay, how would you describe your personality? Extrovert, introvert, ambivert, which is kind of a mixture of both.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Never heard the term ambivert. That's an interesting one. I I guess I'm an extrovert and uh very comfortable just trying to connect with people. I think that everything is about building relationships and everything is about connecting with people. So, how do you do that most effectively? You just have to have the the wherewithal to say uh to introduce yourself and make a connection.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

So when you walk into a room, Jay, and let's say that you don't know a single person, how do you usually respond in those moments?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Well, I assume that everybody is feeling the same way I am, which is okay, we're all in this room together and we don't necessarily know each other, and they're wondering who am I, just as much as I'm wondering who they are. So I just find a way to break the ice by obviously if you're walking to a social setting, uh, you just introduce yourself because you're all there as the guest of someone else. If you are in a uh in a business setting, let's say at a conference, and you're walking, you're just walked out of a talk and people are standing around the buffet area and you're trying to break the ice there, you start with what's the most immediate. So you usually comment on, wow, that was a great speaker, or really, this is fantastic hotel, or look at the wow, look at the size shrimp they laid out in the buffet here. But you start with what's immediate to break the ice, and then you just build a conversation from there.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

I love that. And respond responding to the immediate on there. In my book, we talk a little bit about that. And it's called reading the room and then beginning the banter. So that banter right there, you've read exactly what's in front of you. In this case, you're mentioning if it's a lunch right there, the buffet that's there, or if it's commenting on the speaker that is common ground that you had just had mentioned on there. So I absolutely love that.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

So why is and always stay positive. Don't be the the Debbie Downer. So you want to make sure that you you're saying something positive, even if you didn't really care for the last speaker, uh, you you make a comment about you know, they've got lots of great speakers at this event. You don't even have to comment on the one you didn't like.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

So let's say that somebody did speak negatively in that moment of that, and they're mentioning that to you. How would you respond in that moment to that negative comment?

SPEAKER_00 4:43

I usually flip to something positive. So uh the there's no reason to go too far down a rabbit hole of something negative. So it's and obviously uh most people don't like spending a lot of time with somebody who's just complaining about something. So there's always something positive to say about whatever went on. And so if I walked out of a uh, we don't need to keep using that same example, but just if I walked out of a talk and I, you know, the speaker was not particularly engaging, the and somebody said, Wow, that was that was dull. I probably try to find one nugget that I took away from the thing and said, uh, yeah, it was a little flat, but I did enjoy that comment he made about this.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

That's excellent. That's and it's great advice of that, especially to the other person is negative, trying to bring them up and uh not going down that rabbit hole with them.

unknown 5:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Why Jay is communicating effectively just sometimes so stinking difficult for some people?

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Sure. Uh well, obviously, a lot of it means what do we mean by effectively? And obviously, in my mind, effectively would be that I'm getting my point across, I'm having a conversation, we're starting to build a bit of a relationship. And I think one of the reasons that people have difficulty communicating effectively is we're all basically self-focused. And that's that's not uh a selfish thing or a Machiavellian thing, but we're all wrapped up in our stuff because that's human nature. So the challenge is to get beyond our immediate stuff and thinking about our stuff and instead think about how this other person is taking in this communication. So one of the key things we do at Execcom is teach people how to be less focused on themselves and more focused on the other person when they're communicating. It's always about asking yourself, why is she reading my email? Why is he attending my meeting? What are they trying to get out of this presentation? And if I think about what the other person is trying to get out of the exchange, I'm simply going to do a better job communicating.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Love that. Love that. So, how do you utilize asking questions then in a conversation?

SPEAKER_00 6:47

There are so many great questions you can be asking people, and asking questions shows that you're interested in the other person. If you're trying to figure out what to say to somebody and have a conversation with somebody, the easiest way to do that is to be talking about something that they can talk about, because there's no point in discussing something where they're out of their realm. So asking people questions allows you to understand how to target my information. So let's say, for instance, I was meeting with a client. Now I'm a client relationship person. I am connecting with buyers all the time who buy professional services like uh, well, professional training services. So, but I teach writing, negotiating, client development skills, presentation skills. I don't want to go into a sales call and start talking about my writing program if this person doesn't care about writing programs. I want to say I teach A, B, C, D what's helpful to you for us to have a conversation and what are the needs you have, and start by making sure whatever I'm sharing with them is targeted to what they need. And even before that, before I even lay out all the stuff I tip I teach, I would start by saying, what would be most helpful for you today in terms of our conversation?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Well, and I love the questions too, Jay, because you're giving, well, the the other person options. So whether the options may be of the two or three or four things that you're offering to them, but then also to your stopping to allow them to be able to answer without going way too long that they're even forgetting what in the world, what was the question that you had asked?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Keep it simple. Very simple, straightforward questions. Give people some options. Uh if you think they need options, but I often will just start conversations with clients where somebody has set up a meeting. I'll start clients' uh conversations after a little bit of chit-chat. I'll just say, what would be you appreciate your time today? What would be most helpful today in terms of how we have a conversation?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

And what a powerful question to start. It seems so simplistic, but even just starting off that whole interaction of that, the amount of good you're going to get from just simply asking that question can really make sure that keeping things on the guardrails. One of the things that you had talked a lot about in Simply Said, Jay, that I really appreciated was listening. So, what are some great tips, some ideas, some suggestions that you could give to us on becoming better listeners? Because obviously that's just critical within uh communication.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Right. And we all need to work on our can on our listening skills. No matter how good we think we are at it, we always have to work at it. My wife and I have been married to for 33 years, and on occasion, she will still say to me, You teach listening skills? Because I'm clearly not doing a good job. So the job of all of us is to build in little habits for ourselves. I, when I'm teaching an in-person program, I will hand out to people a simple laminated card that has three questions on it. And the questions are very simply, how can I help? What would be most helpful to you? Would it be helpful to you if I blank? And just to have those three questions in front of you. So for your listeners, again, if you just want to write these down on a post-it note sticking on your laptop, how can I help? What would be most helpful to you? Would it be helpful to you if I blank? Those kinds of questions allow you to be much more engaging with people and keep your conversation targeted on what's important to them. We all make assumptions all day long. We start a conversation, the first thing we do is make assumptions about what somebody wants, what their focus is, what their objective is in a conversation, what they might be saying to us. If instead we just start by saying, How can I help when some when somebody connects with you? That's a powerful way to just stay completely open, make no assumptions about what they're looking for. And then when they start to share, when they've shared some information and we're now we're ready to tell them what to do, to just be able to say to again back up, not make assumptions and say, you know, I'm hearing a lot of different challenges here. We could do A, B, C. What would be most helpful to you? Most helpful and you in the same sentence has an amazing impact on people. It makes them stop and realize you're not just trying to be helpful, you're trying to be efficient. And I promise you, they will always focus on the word most. Most helpful? It'd be most helpful if you did this. And now I'm doing what's actually most helpful to my client. And then that final question would it be helpful to you if I blank, I Brian, have you ever talked to somebody where you can tell from their tone of voice that they are wandering in the wilderness? They have no clue what to do right now. They're they're a client, they've called you, they've said, Brian, I've got this challenge, and I don't, and it's clear they're lost.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Absolutely. On the plane with a guy that like yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Okay, so when somebody's lost, it's not helpful to say to them what would be helpful to you. They're gonna say, I don't know, Brian, that's what I'm calling you.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

So now you have to make an assumption, but don't move forward on the assumption without checking in with the person. There's a big difference between saying, you know what, Jack, here's what I need you to do, here's what you should we're gonna do here and take an over and saying, Jack, would it be helpful to you if I did X? Now the implication is clearly I'm not gonna do X unless it's actually helpful to you. I could say, yeah, that's exactly what I need. You've solved this problem. Or you might say, you know, no, that's not really what I'm looking for. And you say, okay, great, let's talk a little bit more. Let me understand the issue a little better. So by asking those questions in that order, you really set yourself up for success by digging a little deeper with the client.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

So after asking those questions, or think of those are great simplistic questions out of there. Obviously, the best move then is just shutting up and listening to the answers to those questions.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Absolutely. And the other factor, if you're just in a conversation with somebody, or let's say I was just on a panel where we were talking about improv uh is a panel based at my law school, Fordham Law School, uh, is a panel about how to improve civil discourse in society and just in our conversations in general. We're also people tend to be so polarized these days. And one of the key concepts that I think is really helpful is adopt a two-question model when you're speaking with somebody. So you and I are talking about something, you express an opinion. I want to immediately tell you why I disagree with that opinion. If instead I train myself to ask you two questions about that opinion, and they'll vary, obviously, based on what the opinion is or what we're talking about, but to just start by saying, well, Brian, I appreciate you sharing that thought. Help me understand why that's important to you, or help me understand the uh why you feel that way, or just simply why do you feel that way? And then not just taking that answer, but listening to your answer and asking a second question more in-depth about that response. It gives me pause, it makes me slow down. Now I'm not jumping down your throat in response to an opinion I didn't like. I'm actually trying to understand who you are and why that's important to you. And it slows us down and allows us to be more civil and thoughtful in our conversations. But two questions, each in response to anything.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

And I like it, Jay, that it's on the same channel. So we call it on our side two QM, two question minimum. But it has to be on the same train of thought because it's so easy to ask one question and then another question that has nothing to do with what you just asked originally. And so you're conversation. Exactly. Imagine that, right? But you're making sure that it's on those two questions on the same train of thought. But also like it too, with making sure that it's allowing you not to go off the rails, especially if it's a polarizing question or response back where it's going to cause an argument or cause some discourse from that.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

So or maybe your your intent is not to just come back with a a uh a challenge to it, it's just to walk away from the conversation. Well, now we haven't neither one of us has gained anything. I haven't gained an understanding of who you are, you haven't had a chance to hear my thoughts on it. So we both lose out. So just being open to asking a couple questions. So if you're in a conversation with somebody, Jay, and they are not listening, how do you suggest we handle that if somebody's just coming back at me, it would depend on whether it's is this a client setting where the client really isn't listening to my ideas, in which case I'm not doing a good job as a client relationship person. I need to figure out why my thoughts are not being heard well by this person. Uh, if it's just a more social conversation where somebody's just, they've just shut down, they're not listening to me at all, uh, and they're really not interested in learning. Uh, I change the quite honestly, I would change the topic. You're not gonna get through to that person in that setting. They're not interested in hearing your opinion. And the expectation on their side is that you're just gonna sit there and listen. So depending on who they are, I might I may sit there and listen. If it's your father-in-law, sit there and listen. Uh, you know, if it's somebody else where you can walk away from the conversation, walk away. It's not a lot of fun sitting there talking to somebody where they're not interested in a conversation, they're interested in pontificating.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

And those people sometimes are so blatantly obvious, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Right. Right. And and that's why listening skills is listed as the number one communication skills. We did we did a uh we did a survey many years ago in our classes at Execcom and asked people what are the most important communication skills for a listener? I'm sorry, for a leader. And we gave them a whole series of things like uh having a booming voice, having a clear message, having a dynamic presence. And listening skills was listed number one more than anything else by a huge margin. So when we went back to people and said, why are listening skills so important for people to have? The response was to gain trust and respect. If you want the trust and the respect of the people around you, you have to be known as a good listener. If you're known as a good listener, people seek you out to work with you because you come across as genuinely interested in solving our problem. If you're not known as a good listener, people avoid you like the plague because you come across as just full of yourself and not really open.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

So then why do you think we have such a hard time listening? It seems like we always want to be listened to, but we're often not a good listener.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Great point. And one of the reasons is that we all think ours, we're all basically self-focused. We're all wrapped up in our stuff, and we tend to think that our stuff is more interesting than other people's stuff. And it's harder to listen. Listening's not easy. It takes a lot of effort to listen really carefully and ask an intelligent question at the end. And asking, I'll quantity asking intelligent questions, particularly if you're in a business setting and you're trying to demonstrate you know your stuff, you can show you know your stuff really well by asking a really thoughtful, insightful question. So that instead of pushing information at somebody, you ask a question that shows to the other person, wow, this guy knows what he's talking about. Or he really hit the nail on the head with that question because it gets to the key point here. And you haven't told them any information yet, but by asking the question, you look really smart.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Great, great, great response on there. The ratio, Jay, of how much we write to others and we speak to each other has dramatically shifted in the past decade. And we've become even greater since the world's gotten used to working remotely, which who would have thought about that 10 years ago, right? How has that changed how we connect with each other now that we're back to person to person for the most part?

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Great. Uh it's an it's an excellent question. And it really is something that is overtaking the business world, how much more we're writing than we've ever written before. Because you used to, the instinct was to pick up the phone and get on a call with somebody. Now nobody just calls somebody. You always email them first to schedule a call if you're going to do that. And most people try to take care of a lot of their substantive business through email. While you can, well, clearly you can write and create a sense of a relationship through writing to people. People did it through handwritten letters for years. Emailing people than speaking to them directly. And the challenges are it's really hard to build a relationship. Emails are more about getting transactions done. You know, can you send me that document? Did you have a chance to look at what I sent over? Any questions? Can you respond to the following questions with regard to this deal or this project? Those are transactional types of communication. And email is wonderful for them. Email is also fantastic for giving people a quick pat on the back. Really appreciate your comment in the meeting. Thought you did a great job here. It was great having a chance to connect. It's a horrible medium for giving anybody any kind of negative feedback. It will always come across 10 times worse than it was intended, even if it was intended to be harsh, it'll come across much worse. And it's no, it's not really an effective medium for building a relationship. So one of the challenges we have now is people need to learn how to write better and then decide when to write and when to ask for a meeting.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

That's excellent. And when should they decide when to write and when to make the speaking on that? Because I think that just lends to that question.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Sure. Have you ever, Brian, have you ever gone back and forth with a client uh three or four times in rapid succession trying to solve a problem? And you know they're sitting somewhere where they have time because they're responding to you in the moment, but you keep going back and forth, and part of your brain is going, this would be a lot faster if I just called them.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Yes, because I'm usually the one who picks up the phone.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Right. So, and and so that little signal that's telling you, yeah, this is really this is taking too long, and they're not understanding what I'm saying. Because what had to explain this fully with the right tone of voice is really it's just better to pick up the phone. And that's the instinct to just your next email or text back to the person is do you have time for a quick chat? I think we can resolve this pretty quickly on the phone. And just use your own instinct and how you're feeling about the conversation to decide. Do I just ask for a quick call?

SPEAKER_01 21:30

What mistakes, Jay, do you see people?

SPEAKER_00 21:33

And by the way, it's it's never, I want to talk to you about this. It's you get away from the I want and you make it more about I think it might be helpful to both of us if we just get on the phone.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Good word, good choice of words on helping it. No, and I think that was a really good value add on there as far as I think it would be it would be helpful instead of I want to talk on there. So good choice of words there, even though it's seems like semantics, but actually it's it's better said to say I want to be helpful on there. Absolutely. What mistakes, Jay, do you see people in People make interacting with each other and how should they potentially change that?

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Oh, there's so many ways we do well and ways we we run into trouble when we're interacting with people. So uh one of the key things we do, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, is we make assumptions. We make assumptions about people's motives, we make assumptions about their objectives with regard to something, and we make assumptions with regard to their attitude. So what I try to do, what I think it is helpful to most people, is take people at face value and assume positive intent. That's actually a line one of my clients uses, one of my clients use for uh all of their employees. Everybody is required to assume positive intent. So when somebody comes into a conversation with you, if you assume that they're trying to trick you or they're trying to manipulate or they're trying to do something, if you assume that you're gonna have a defensive tone of voice, you're gonna have your defenses up in lots of different ways, as opposed to just assuming they're coming at you in good faith and with honesty. Now, if you know this person has ulterior motives, you're gonna factor that in anyway. But take each conversation and just say to yourself, in this instance, I have to assume this person is dealing with me fairly and openly and honestly. And that will allow you to have the right tone of voice and facial expression while you're you're interacting with them.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

And that's good too, because it's so easy to just assume the negative on there. And then it's almost that negative bias that everything that they're saying all of a sudden is, well, see, there it is, there it is, there it is.

unknown 23:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

So the opposite it all okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

It also ties to emails, we were we were talking about a moment ago. Good point that emails are because it is just a string of words, it's divorced from the tone of voice and the intent, the body language and the facial expressions, that the full picture of communication that we get when we're talking to somebody face to face. And as a result, our brain fills in all the blanks, fills in all that sense of how is this person, what's their intent with regard to this? So I respond to somebody says, Can you uh would you consider doing it this way? And I write back, sure. I might be saying, sure, like I'm glad do it that way. Or somebody might interpret and interpret that as sure. I'll you know, all right. You're making me do it. Hint of sarcasm, uh hint of sarcasm or just disappointment or disgust, whatever people are gonna fill in how they think you're coming across, which is why it's important to always make sure, even in those real quick exchanges, we have we do a little bit more with the pleases, with the thank yous, which uh if I've ever written sure, I back up and I write glad to. You know, which is the same, can in my mind command the same meaning as sure, but glad to, it's hard to read negatively.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

What would you say, Jay, for you specifically is still challenging when you're interacting with people?

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Listening. I I I teach this for a living, and I still could do a better job listening to people and asking more questions. And then doing all the things we just talked about, I could do a better job listening, I could do a better job assuming positive intent, I could do a better job not making assumptions about what people are saying. And uh those are just classic traps we all fall into.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

And it's so ironic too, you know, because it's the things that we teach, but then yet, depending on how we're feeling, depending on the defensiveness, talking to another person, um being just tired can cause us to to respond a little bit more curt or without the very tools that we teach on a consistent basis that we're just like, oh, I wish I could just do that over. I had that yesterday, um, interaction with somebody and I was exhausted, and the person was pushing my buttons and uh just one of those were like, no, I've got to respond. I'm sorry, I'm I'm just gonna curt. I'm not feeling great on that. You know, by the build of apologizing, I felt like I could have done it, but it did put the conversation back on the tracks uh of that. But again, that's a great point in there. So would you is there anybody that has influenced you through the years in your life with business social skills that you could look back and go, you know, they've been a really good model for me, whether it's somebody that you've known personally or whether it's somebody that you've studied from afar? Is there a person or two that that comes to mind?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Sure. The number one person I think who who helped me understand good selling skills and and relationship skills was my father. He was a uh a sales guy. He never, I never heard my father say a bad word about anybody. He always assumed that people were operating with positive intent. He and he was very much an optimist, very outgoing. And he just wanted to be helpful to people. And that set the tone for all of his interactions. He treated absolutely everybody with respect and did not differentiate in how he treated people based on their status or their role in an organization or in just in life in any setting. And I think that that's the cornerstone of being an effective communicator, is just starting out by just being a really good human being.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Well, we share that because my father was the exact same with me. And whether he was eight or eighty years old, if you're in the in the presence of my father, you were the most important person in the room at that at that moment. So I think that's great that uh both of our fathers love that kind of influence and the legacy to both of us. All right. So I've got a top five uh rapid fire questions for you. You ready? Uh sure. Okay. Good or bad at remembering names.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

I work at it and I'm good at it.

unknown 27:58

Good.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Because I work at it.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Any certain tips that you have or suggestions that allow you to make get better at that?

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Sure. Somebody walks up to you and says, hi, I'm Bill. You say, Hi, Bill. Repeat, repeat his name so that you cement it for yourself. And then try to figure out what do I know about Bill that what am I seeing in Bill that reminds me of another Bill that will help me remember that? I met I met somebody named Carl recently. He's a really tall guy. I Carl was the tallest guy in my law school class. So when I saw this guy, he said, My name's Carl. I'm like, Carl, good to meet you. Really nice to meet you. And I'm looking at him going, he reminds me of the other Carl. And so I'll remember his name.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Good, very good. What if they're they have a difficult name or one that's just one of those, just like I've never I I just don't remember their name. I'm not gonna remember their name.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Sure. Uh, I will very directly when I see somebody again, I will apologize and I will assume that they don't remember my name either. And I'll say, I'm really sorry. I I know you told me your name before, and they'll tell me their name is and I'll say, and I'm Jay. And as a just acknowledgement that why would you remember my name? I didn't remember yours. And uh I also I I never assume somebody remembers. I came from a big family, so I never assume anybody remembers me from one minute to the next. So I I hope they do. I think they do sometimes, but I never assume it. So I always introduce myself again when I meet people who I think there's a slight chance they might know me, but I better check in.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

That's a great tip, Jay. Great tip. Go ahead and lay on the sword, assuming that people don't remember your name. Start with that. And it usually makes the other person feel that much more comfortable to share their name on that, which is obviously what we're looking for anyway, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Is also if if somebody's name is is not, let's say their uh their name is just unusual to you, whatever that means to you, and and they know it might be unusual to you. Uh there's uh I've often said when I meet people, because I'm teaching classes all the time, I've often just been very frank, say, I really want to make sure I pronounce your name correctly, and say, is it and I'll say the name again, or I'll say the name and say my am I pronouncing that correctly? Good. Uh and and just make sure, and it's a courtesy, and people tend to appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

You're exactly right. Definitely appreciate it because I think sometimes people would rather just get ish of their name correctly as opposed to completely not remembering it, but even more so if we can say it properly, I think it does show a sign of respect on their excellent.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Absolutely, and names are important. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

A strength you bring into a conversation.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

I smile and I I try to ask a lot of questions.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Very good. Very good. I like that on the ask uh the questions in smiling. That's very that's I've not had that one yet, so that's a really good one. What is your pet peeve or drives you crazy about people?

SPEAKER_00 30:59

You know, in the vein of trying to be positive around it, drive me crazy. Okay, so there's a question people ask. I'll go this route. There's a question people ask that really irks me. And it's when people you're having a conversation with somebody, because we've talked a lot about asking questions. There's some questions that are not helpful. And one of those is when you're you're talking to somebody and they say, Well, don't you think that X? And clearly they are not trying to understand your opinion or care about your position. All they want to do is put you into a corner where they can say, where they are forcing you to say yes and agree with them, as opposed to truly learning. There's just so much learning we all can do in life, and staying open to different opinions and staying open to different ideas. When somebody in a conversation just says, Well, don't you think that this they're not trying to learn? And um, you know, I think we've all had the experience where someone in our life, in our personal life, as we're heading out the door, they say they they ask ostensibly a question of are you wearing that? Well, you're halfway out the door. Clearly, you're wearing that. That is not a question, that is a directive uh and a comment. So it's about really asking, is your question intended to learn something, or is it just intended to force somebody into a particular answer or particular position?

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Yeah, because it's it's hints of a little bit of manipulation.

unknown 32:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

You know, aren't you going to do that? You're going to do this right or or that. So I'm I'm with you on that one. So is the buy one, get one free on this, Jay? Last question is what are you learning right now, or how are you being personally challenged?

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Uh, in you mean on this podcast itself or in life in general?

SPEAKER_01 32:53

You in life in general.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

I the thing that I I think I'm learning is and challenged by is the same thing that we're all challenged by throughout our careers. And that is that we're always becoming somebody new. You and we're in a different phase in our life. You're at first, you're uh, you know, as you're maturing, you're uh maybe you're in a relationship with somebody and all of a sudden your life is different. Then you are in a new role at work and your life is different. Maybe you have kids, you're your life is different. Maybe you're now an empty nester, your life is different. Uh, then as you get more senior in your role, and your role has evolved into coaching other people instead of doing the work yourself, uh depending on your business role, uh, your role has changed again. And so I think all of us are on that constant journey to answer the question, who am I right now? And how do I add value in the position I'm in?

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Excellent, Jay. If people want to find out more about you or just want to look you up, how do they reach out to you?

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Well, they can find me at uh you can go to jaysullivanbooks.com or you can go to uh execcom uh and or just look me up on LinkedIn is usually actually the easiest. Is uh I'm there's Jay Sullivan, and the you'll see the execcom symbol next to my name if you pull up the right Jay Sullivan. Uh there are a couple other, but plenty of other Jay Sullivan's out there, but you'll find me pretty easily. Uh, and you can find me on Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Perfect. What I'll do too, Jay, I'll make sure that all those links are in the show notes as well.

unknown 34:25

Wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

To be able to reach out to you and to brag on you. Obviously, that's the way we connected. You know, I read the book right there, looked up uh to find you on LinkedIn. And uh to your credit, you responded back to that and uh man of your word on that aspect of that. So I greatly appreciate that. Um, last thing on this, any closing thoughts you'd like to leave with us?

SPEAKER_00 34:43

I one, for since you you've spent so much time writing out uh business travel, the uh we're all busy travelers, like we've got a lot going on, and we've uh those of us who who travel for it, uh, but we have a lot going on. So one of the things that I used to do at when I was on the road quite a bit, I sit down on an airplane, it's a place to get work done. I I've written uh all three of my books were written in part on planes, and uh you've you've got a lot to get done. You don't necessarily want to get trapped in the conversation with somebody next to you that you don't want. Um they don't want to get trapped in a conversation with me, I'm sure. So I sit down, I immediately start doing work. But as the plane, as the flight attendant says, okay, please buckle your seatbelts for coming in for landing, I will wrap up my laptop, put it away, and I'll turn to the person next to me and just say, Are you flying in or you're flying out? And I'll start again, starting with the immediate. We're on a plane. We're all headed, we're about to land somewhere. And in that, so I can have that conversation. I enjoy meeting people and I can have that conversation knowing that I'm neither one of us is stuck here for very long. If they don't want to talk to me, they'll cut it pretty short, or they know this isn't going to be that bad. I'm not gonna have to talk to this guy the whole time. Uh, and and we can make that connection and build a re and either connect with each other and trade business cards or contact information or whatever, or we can just have a really pleasant conversation for 15 minutes where there's no commitment.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Well, you're the guy that I like to sit next to on a plane then, because I think we would do the exact same thing. We'd get some work done and we'd uh have an interaction on there and uh you roll your books on a plane, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:22

You're exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Yeah, three of the four were so one during COVID. So excellent. Well, Jay, thank you so much for taking time for me. I've done I've learned from you immense different ways so far, and I'm excited for you to be able to uh through this interview uh influence of those that are listening along on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Thanks, Ryan. Thanks for the opportunity.