What If the Most Powerful Conversations Begin Before You Speak?

What if the secret to deep connection, trust, and impactful conversations lies in what happens before we speak?

In this powerful episode of Friday Feelings, host Jenelle Friday welcomes Geoffrey Owen, a thoughtful leader and deeply reflective communicator, to explore how emotional intelligence is most effective when it begins before the first interaction. Together, they dive into the art and science of emotional preparation—researching, reading the room before stepping into it, and truly seeing people for who they are before the conversation even starts.

Geoffrey shares how his approach to “pre-conversation listening” has transformed his professional and personal relationships. This practice—rooted in empathy, respect, and intentionality—has helped him create meaningful connections from the very beginning. By understanding someone's story, values, and background ahead of time, Geoffrey is able to lead with curiosity and compassion rather than assumptions or control. It's not about being overly strategic or manipulative; it’s about honoring the other person’s humanity through active, unseen listening.

Throughout the conversation, Jenelle and Geoffrey discuss how this EQ-driven mindset opens the door to trust, minimizes misunderstandings, and equips us to navigate challenging dynamics with grace. They explore how slowing down, observing patterns, and listening with your eyes, intuition, and attention creates safer environments for dialogue and growth.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• Listening Begins Before Speaking: How reading between the lines—emails, LinkedIn posts, team behavior—can help you enter conversations with greater clarity and purpose.
• Emotional Preparedness is a Trust Tool: Being intentional before a conversation shows you value the other person’s time, energy, and emotions.
• Empathy Over Control: Leading with empathy means letting go of the need to steer the conversation and instead allowing the other person’s truth to guide the way.
• See First, Then Speak: “If you’re not seen, you can’t hear anything.” Geoffrey unpacks this profound truth and how being seen (and helping others feel seen) radically shifts communication.
• Self-Awareness and Personal Growth: Both Jenelle and Geoffrey reflect on moments where EQ required them to pause, unlearn old behavior, and make emotionally courageous choices.
• Emotional Safety is the Foundation: How creating a space where others can bring their full selves—especially in leadership and customer-facing roles—is essential to building rapport.

This episode is more than a conversation about listening—it’s a masterclass in how to prepare emotionally, mentally, and relationally to make every interaction more human, more honest, and more impactful.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:05

Welcome everyone to another episode of Friday Feelings, the podcast where we turn emotions into power, vulnerability into strength, and remind you to feel everything, fear nothing, and transform your life. I'm your host, Janelle Friday. And this episode today is really exciting. We're talking about the power of listening before the conversation, building trust through preparation. So, what if I told you that the most powerful conversation you'll have with the customer actually starts before you even meet? Today, with my guest, we're going to dive into how listening and researching ahead of time can build trust faster and create stronger relationships from day one. So please join me in welcoming our lovely guest today, Mr. Jeffrey Owen. Uh Jeffrey, thank you so much for your time and being willing to come and speak with me today.

SPEAKER_00: 0:56

Well, thank you so much for having me. You know, I really like this topic. So really looking forward to getting into it today.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03

I love that. Well, before we dive in, um I'll just give a little bit of background. Jeffrey and I met um at a uh CSC conference, Customer Success Collective. And then, well, was it that or was it just CS100?

SPEAKER_00: 1:17

Just CS100. Yes, CS Provo.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19

Sorry, CS100 in Sundance, Utah last fall. Um, I gave a talk about employee engagement and EQ. And then Jeffrey and I got to sit at a table and get to know each other a little bit. And, you know, it just kind of has grown from there. Um, so Jeffrey, I would love for you to give our audience a little bit of uh background on you and why this topic is important to you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:42

Well, thank you so much. Uh really high level. I've been in the IT world for a long time, like most of our listeners here. Um, but you know, the big reason that I was interested in this topic is because emotions run through us every day. They run through our counterparts on the other side of the table, they run through our peers. Uh, and and understanding emotions is critical uh for the CS space, the sales space, marketing space, pretty much all of business because that's what we're feeling on the other side of those experiences that are delivered. So I really spent a lot of time investing uh my own personal time and work time to get familiarized with EQ. And so when you and I connected at CS100, it was it felt like a perfect fit. So really glad to be here.

SPEAKER_01: 2:36

Yeah, I love that. And thanks for sharing that. And I would say, as I've gotten to know you, and I've said this to you before, you are a very analytical, uh-driven individual. And the way you present yourself and the way you speak is very eloquent, very educated. Um, and I really appreciate that because the way you talk about things makes me think, right? I love that you challenge kind of the status quo a little bit. And really one of the highlights that you and I have gotten to talk about is the progress, the growth, and the investment that you've been making into your customer accounts within customer success and how successful you've been at that.

SPEAKER_00: 3:14

Oh, absolutely. You know, the the uh that has been uh a big turnaround for some of the accounts, actually. Um a turnaround, but also like you said, the conversation before the conversation, right? Like that was a critical piece you brought up earlier. Uh, I think when when CS uh has over the last several years, CS has evolved, and we really have focused on our playbooks and customer health and uh putting automation in place, which kind of lost sight on the human aspect of our counterparts who are receiving the services that we're delivering. So I think it's really important that we dig into this. And and part of one of the success stories that I'll share today, and we'll talk about it, involves um understanding your counterpart before you meet with them as much as you can, or getting ready, prepping yourself so that you're in the right emotional resonance state, so that you're prepared to have a good conversation with someone, right?

SPEAKER_01: 4:21

Right. And and I really try to keep this podcast neutral, whether you're in sales, marketing, legal, right, customer success. We we both come from a CS background, that's why we're connected. But to the core of what we're talking about, um, the framework of this discussion falling under the banner of EQ is first of all, social awareness, understanding the counterparts' needs, challenges, and emotions before engaging that social awareness, being aware of where other people are and how you're going to impact them and how they're going to impact you. And then the other pillar in EQ, which is relationship management, how thoughtful preparation builds rapport and credibility early, right? Managing relationships that we're required to manage because it's your job title, managing relationships in your personal life because you care about those people. The skills and things we're going to talk about today are transferable whether you're talking about a professional career or your personal life. So now that we've kind of laid the groundwork, um I would love for you to share us uh with us a catalyst type of story that really speaks to your realization that this had to be a part of your approach.

SPEAKER_00: 5:33

Absolutely. You know, there are several stories that come to mind. I kind of go with uh uh uh the the good, the bad, and the ugly, right? I like going in reverse so we can build up towards what what what the good looks like and what we should be doing in the future. I love that. Um so the the ugly situation is when you have no context for the person you're about to speak with. You you go in without an intent, without an objective in mind, and really without uh an idea of your emotional state or your counterpart's emotional state, or an intent for what the what you want to get out of that emotional experience that you're both you both are in. You don't really play in the self-awareness, you don't in any of the categories of EQ, you you just you're you're blind to that. You go in blind. So that there are a couple of situations in the CS practice or the sales practice or marketing where if you go in blind, um it can it can create a situation where there's a complete disconnect at the very beginning of that interaction. If it's a sales call and you're not you don't think through EQ ahead of time, um or the outcome of the emotional state that you want your counterpart to feel, they're gonna not necessarily feel it. It'll be like shooting in the dark. Um, especially since most of the time you're prospecting, and if you if you miss the mark, then the relationship might have been lost before it could have started.

SPEAKER_01: 7:13

And let's caveat something, let's caveat something really quick, which is when it's a computer to a computer doing processes, that is a transactional relationship. Yes, when it's one human being talking to another human being, it is a personal transaction because as a human being, I cannot have another conversation with another human being without emotions. We can pretend, we can ignore, we can fake it, but the truth is I would challenge anyone listening to this podcast right now, think back to a conversation where emotions were not included or you didn't feel anything. Chances are pretty good you can't find one. So, to your point, Jeff, which is um, Jeffrey, which is I have to think about my emotional state and I have to consider the other person's emotional state for a successful productive conversation right out of the get-go. Is that a fair assessment?

SPEAKER_00: 8:12

That is a that is a fair assessment. If you don't do it, you're gonna find yourself one of those ugly interactions where no one's the same page versus the bad situation where you've dug a little bit and you get a sense of what might be coming, but you don't have an intent. So it's it's like you you have an objective for the call in terms of the technical aspect to it. You're there to move a sales deal forward, you're move, you're you're helping with onboarding, you're doing whatever you're doing, but you don't really think about your intention behind your counterpart's emotional state, because at the end of the call, they're gonna walk away with something. What is that something? It's a feeling, right? It's a feeling of of either being on the same page, a feeling of confusion, a feeling of of frustration, a feeling of excitement of the opportunity moving forward. So if you don't think about the feeling, you might have hit the checklist items that were on your to-do list, which is a it's it's better than ugly, but still pretty bad because you didn't really drive the conversation forward. The good conversation takes uh the model and flips it into EQ instead of just you know ugly.

SPEAKER_01: 9:29

Well, let's um before we get into the just before we move to the good stuff. Yeah, yeah. I want to define when you say intent, because when you say intent in the context of what we're talking about, I'm like, well, my intent is to um give the customer a good onboarding experience, to give them the tools that they need, to make sure they feel comfortable before they jump in. That's my intention, right? But you're talking about something different. Can you define for us what you mean by intent?

SPEAKER_00: 9:56

Yes. Let let's the what we'll call it the emotional intent. Uh the the the value driver of any conversation is twofold. One, you need to get something done, and you want the person to feel something. The int your their intent should be aimed at both. You should get the you should drive the conversation forward, get something done, and then you should also want them to feel something based on the thing you get done. So if that's if that's doing a product demo, you want them to feel excited about the product, right? You want them to feel something. Uh if you if you're onboarding someone, CS worldboard, um, you want them to feel like they have a clear picture over the next steps are feeling clarity, that's a feeling. I I I can see the vision forward. Um intent is you want you have an idea of what you want to get done, and you have an idea of what you want them to feel. So a lot of people, a lot of people in the CS space and other spaces I've seen, they focus on what they want to get done only. And they go do it, which is great, but they don't think about the intent from a I'm gonna call this from the CX perspective, um, which is more the emotional journey that goes in into the process. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01: 11:15

Yeah, that's that's super helpful. And I and I appreciate that definition because I think in a in a stressed state, in an overwhelmed state, when you say that word intent, I'm very clear about my intentions, right? So the whole point of this conversation is to get to a deeper level to really understand what's missing from interactions, and I would I would transition what we're talking about with intent with personal relationships too, outside of work. And I have a conversation with someone, there may be no intent. It may be just sharing information because we're having coffee together. There's no like outcome I'm looking to achieve with that conversation. But when I think about intent from a personal aspect, I always let's let's take our conversation. I want you to feel safe. I want you to feel transparent and safe to be vulnerable. I want you to feel good about our interactions. And when you walk away, my hope is that you're like, that was awesome. I can't wait to talk to her again, right? I would say that's a pretty good way of defining intent when there's no outcome or purpose to the conversation you're having with someone. Is that a is that a fair assessment, do you think?

SPEAKER_00: 12:22

I think I think that's a fair assessment. You kind of touched on almost values-based conversations, values-based leadership. Yeah. And then kind of bringing that into focus based on the emotional state that the values would bring out from that person in that conversation.

SPEAKER_01: 12:39

Yeah, true. All right, so let's talk about the good.

SPEAKER_00: 12:42

Ooh, the good. We already talked about it a little bit. We already talked about you know, we we we know we need wait in any uh I'll give an example. I'll I'll give my uh my example. Uh we we were working with a client who had a not a great reputation with some of their internal IT. Um that information was shared ahead of time. Uh, we we we got that we got that information, and then I I understood what we needed to do to help them get out of that situation. But what I had to think about differently was how do I need to get in the same page emotionally with them so I can feel what they're feeling, uh so I can I I used this word earlier, uh resonate with their current situation. So I tried to put myself in their shoes and that's all the touching on empathy, touching on some of the the EQ skills. Um but what the the the situation ended up being was I had this pre-sale, like we'll call it the meeting before the meeting, uh, with our sales team and our onboarding team and other teams, got the same page emotionally based on the client's current state, and then we met with the client and oh my gosh, fireworks. Because I understood where they were emotionally, I could match their tone, I could match their energy, and I could I could basically label the problem emotionally, like uh I don't know that uh there's some great negotiator books out there, um never split the difference and uh empathy and business. Uh and they talk about labeling the emotions in a situation to basically clear the air, and that gets the person to say yes or no. Yes, that's that's right, or no, that's not right. Let's talk about this a little bit further. And that call, uh because I resonated so well with my counterpart, they ended up singing our praises all the way up to the board of directors, and we have a great relationship with that client now. So I love that. Yeah, I think I think EQ when you when you take it to this level and think about your intent behind the meeting of someone at an emotional level, it can really change the outcomes of what you're trying to do.

SPEAKER_01: 15:10

So, can I play devil's advocate a little bit with you?

SPEAKER_00: 15:13

Of course, always.

SPEAKER_01: 15:15

Because I've had someone say this to me in my career in CS that I care too much and that the emotional investment I'm making in relationships, whether they're internal or customer-facing, is not sustainable or scalable. What would you think of that feedback?

SPEAKER_00: 15:37

Understanding emotions is part of what we're talking about here in the learning about EQ and taking EQ into business and bringing that into focus into all areas of running a business. When you say investing too much in emotions, that's like saying you're investing too much into people, right? Like it doesn't make any logical sense to me. Um when we think about the business historically from early 1900s until today, there was a lot of mechanical processes and things are put in place to try to help and you know protect people because we were hurting people uh uh as a as a like basically as a as a humankind, right? So we we we stepped away from that narrative. We're no longer just machine parts in a factory, right? We we're people, each of us are individuals. So I think right now, particularly in uh the world around us, investing in EQ is more important than it ever has been because we're hyperconnected, um because we have this paradigm shift where uh the world uh is is focusing on the individual experiences of the people in work. So uh understanding EQ is even more important than it ever has been. So you saying, oh, you're investing too much in the emotional state of someone else. Well, no, you're you're investing in the success of that relationship.

SPEAKER_01: 17:13

Yeah, that's where I'm at. I also want to acknowledge that we know that emotions take physical form, right, in our bodies. And so am I physically exhausted after a very busy workday investing my emotions into other people? Yes. I would be lying if I said no. However, when you build these types of relationships and the people that you're meeting and the things that you're doing, it's a it's a good exhaustion. It's like after you go to the gym and you work out and you're like, I'm so sore, but I'm so, I feel great. You know, it's it's that kind of place that I feel myself in. And it's always worth it. The exhaustion mentally and emotionally is always worth it when you're doing good for someone else and you're pouring into someone else. So um part of what you identified was we have to name emotions. And and then there's gonna be a whole nother podcast episode about this, but specifically, you know, you kind of gave me an example when we were prepping for this of good emotional discovery. Do you remember that? Talking about the thought experiment.

SPEAKER_00: 18:15

Yeah, I do remember that.

SPEAKER_01: 18:17

Can we talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00: 18:20

Yeah, are we are we you're talking about like identifying the emotional state based on the physical characteristics of how you're feeling? Uh okay. Yeah. So I, you know, when you're how how what how do we want to approach this? We want to do kind of like the prepping for a meeting, the conversation before the conversation, or we just want to go into how to do it.

SPEAKER_01: 18:43

I I think let's do the how, because I think we've talked about it's important to do this, it's important to understand your own emotions, it's important to try and identify the other person's emotions, but I really want to understand how you do that.

SPEAKER_00: 18:57

Yeah, let's go into the how that's a that's a good segue. Um, so I think there's some good ways to look at your current emotional state because in order to resonate, I love that term, I'm using it today. Um, in order to resonate with your counterpart, you need to know how you're feeling, right? Which is part of self-awareness and part of um part of the EQ stack. Uh it's important to know where you're feeling tension in your body, where you're feeling temperature raises in certain parts of your body, because that indicates an emotional state. And your emotional state impacts how you think, and it therefore impacts how you're perceived, because it you're it's gonna show up on your face, right? Um, or it's gonna show up in the tone of your voice. So identifying and discovering how you feel um and putting a label to it kind of negates it, or the very least, you can now choose how you react to it. I'm feeling blank, right? It's kind of a mindfulness practice to a degree, right? Yeah, I'm feeling blank because of blank. Oh, I have some tightness in my my lumbar area because I'm feeling anxious. I'm feeling anxious. Okay, how do I deal with that? Why am I feeling anxious? What do I do with it? So I think discovery is really important. And if you do that before you're in a meeting or during a meeting with a with a client or a colleague, um, it's gonna calm you down. Like I'm feeling kind of heightened right now. So I gotta, I gotta label it and then I gotta breathe through it.

SPEAKER_01: 20:40

Yeah, totally. Well, and and again, identifying your emotions, you kind of hit a key word here, which is why. Why am I? If you're feeling anxious, why are you feeling that way? Does it have to do with the person on the other end? Does it have to do with the fight you had in the morning with your spouse? Is there other are there other things in your life that are triggering those emotions? And by going through this quick little minute of self-discovery and you answer that question, man, I'm feeling really upset and anxious. Does it have anything to do with my customer meeting? Well, no, because it it's triggered from this. I can then reset my my mindset and shift and go into that customer meeting prepared. Um, and the struggle is if you can't do that for yourself, then the process of identifying emotions in other people will be even that much more difficult.

SPEAKER_00: 21:28

Exactly. Exactly. Uh it's hard to identify the emotions of another person if you really have no idea how you're feeling at that moment. You're going in blind, like like we talked about earlier. You're kind of walking into a situation emotionally blind, and there's really no chance necessarily. I mean, there's there's a random chance you just they might be blind too, and you might just end up being in the same page.

SPEAKER_01: 21:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:57

Well, you shouldn't hope for that, right? So

SPEAKER_01: 22:00

Okay, so you talked about how to define for yourself. Let's talk about how do you then work to identify the emotions of your counterpart.

SPEAKER_00: 22:08

I I think that has to do with some training. So I'd like so there's an activity that I can recommend, uh, and it's pretty simple. Um there's we'll call it like an emotional bingo. Like an emotional state bingo, right? Right. Um, like so if you can label the emotions of a colleague, you don't have to tell them. Don't you can say it, hey, it seems like you're feeling blank, but if you if you don't feel comfortable going to them directly yet, that's okay. Just write it down. Or, you know, we'll have a takeaway with this, we'll have a little bingo sheet, right? We talked about that earlier, and just knock it off for yourself and knock it off for your counterpart. Um, if at least identifying your current state and then identifying their state will start to train you to do it naturally. Right now, it's kind of a forced behavior if you're getting started in this EQ space. Um, but that's that's the way I would start is label your emotions and your counterparts' emotions and do that 10 times in a week or once a day. And if you can't do it once a day, maybe do it once a week. And then after a month, you'll start to fill up your bingo sheet.

SPEAKER_01: 23:29

So I love that. Well, and and uh Jeffrey, you participated in the 12-week EQ boot camp I did, and we kind of did that exercise. So, following today's episode, if it uh I'm gonna provide a link to a bingo card for yourself and a bingo card for your customers, as well as a link to what we call a feelings wheel, which identifies most of the major emotions in a deeper level so that you don't have to say, Well, I feel happy, I feel sad, I feel mad, I feel scared, right? There are so many other emotions attached to that label that by going through those words and understanding what you're really feeling again, the more educated you are and the better relationships you're gonna build. So um let's let's transition that into can you give me an example or a story of a time where you were able to successfully identify the emotions of your counterpart and they didn't match yours? And how did you shift to manage that other person's emotions?

SPEAKER_00: 24:27

That that's a great question, Janelle. And I I'd like to say it's easy, but it's not. Um it's is I will say it's a lot easier when you're on camera and you can see each other, right? Like um, in in today's world of remote working, or if you are remote working and cameras are off, then really what you're trying to do is identify the tone, listen for the tone uh of the person that they're speaking. Uh if you hear them pause or go silent, you know, let it let it linger. Let them have a chance to process what they're saying. Um when when I'm off, and I I've been in an I've been in a few situations fairly recently where my counterpart was uh feeling unheard, which is a feeling of frustration and a feeling of discontent with the current scenario they were they were in. And I was feeling super excited because I was bringing so much value, quote quote, bringing value to the table. And uh I had to check myself because when they started to speak, it was much slower. And it was there were there were many more filler words in their speech because they were like, um it seems like uh, yep, mm, just a bunch of filler. And what they were doing is they were trying to process their own vulnerability with how they were feeling, but they also knew the situation had to be dealt with. And they were there was this like gap. And so I had to like calm down and then I labeled their emotional state. And I said, It sounds like you're frustrated with how things are going right now. It seemed and then they I I I paused for a half second or so, they didn't say anything, so I kept labeling. It sound it sounds like you're you're uncomfortable with the result of the thing that just happened. And then they didn't say anything again, and I kept digging, you gotta keep going. Because the la as soon as you identify the right label, the right emotional label, that means that their brain says, This person is in check, they're in sync with me, they understand how I'm feeling, and all of a sudden they're more vulnerable to open up what's wrong. So I said, It seems like it seems like we we didn't hit the mark, and you're feeling like the value of the service isn't where it needs to be. And they're like, Yes, that's right. And uh and I heard the words that's right. I put those in quotes, write that down. That's right. When you hear those words, that means the situation, that situation that you just brought up is correct in their minds, which is really important. If they just say the word yes, it usually means they checked out. If they say no, it means you should dig a little bit further. Um, but if they say that's right, which this person did, that means I'm on the same page. That means we we can have a genuine conversation about the problems that we have just identified. So after that, well, I said, Well, what's wrong? And we we dug in, we dug in, what dug in, we we solved it, but we couldn't solve it until it was on the same page emotionally.

SPEAKER_01: 28:00

Well, and let's identify what are you silently telling that individual? You're telling that individual, I care. I'm not gonna just show up and say, Well, you're frustrated. Oh well, I don't care, here's the solution, and and name blame game, right? That you've done your homework to understand where they're at in their process. So we're if we take this from a professional professional level, you know, we talked about research. And when I think about research, it's what's the account history, what support tickets have they had? When did they purchase? What was the initial reason that they purchased? What was their why? You know, what's what's been their experiences as far as I can measure thus far? Um, where are they at in their customer journey or in their journey of the relationship? And then what are the communicated expectations that I need to know of if I can find all of that information, right? But then when you partner that with a genuine desire to understand how they feel, and to your point, you ask those probing questions and you don't let the first no or the first silent response go by. You continue to invest, you continue to dig, which is showing that individual, I really want to get this right. I really want to understand where you're coming from, and I'm not just gonna take no or silence for an answer because I actually care about the end result. I feel like that's that's silently what you're saying. And at this point in our society with AI coming in, these are the kinds of engagements that are gonna set us apart, that are going to win over unhappy customers, that are going to build brand awareness and brand loyalty because of how we treat people.

SPEAKER_00: 29:42

I'm a big fan of the Franklin Covey Institute. I I like that organization.

SPEAKER_01: 29:48

Um you remember their old planners, their stores and their planners. I don't know. Yeah, it was I love their stores.

SPEAKER_00: 29:56

I only I only bring them up because I that that first book, I think a lot of people and the listeners, you might have heard of it. Seven habits for highly effective people. I think one of the first ones was think win-win, right? I think we have to kind of go back to one of those principles, right? Think win-win. And um and also go back to begin with the end in mind, right? Beginning with the end in mind. What is your intention? Uh, and then think win-win. If you go into one of these situations where you're trying to beat them, which is never good if they're your customer, um then you're going to lose your audience, you're gonna lose your customer, you're gonna lose the relationship. Uh it's and the only way to have a true win-win is to be on the same page emotionally, because um how they feel about the result uh is the result.

SPEAKER_01: 30:53

Right. Right. So we're we're coming out on time, a couple minutes, but I want to talk about something that you brought up that I love, and it's be the doctor, not the pharmacist. So I'm gonna just leave that with you because I would love for you to help help me and help our audience understand that approach.

SPEAKER_00: 31:13

Yeah, you know, I uh I had someone recently remind me how important it is to diagnose and to uh understand and use your data and to um uh be the doctor, not the pharmacist. So it's kind of like a motto that I have. It's not like, oh, I have like five sticky notes like all over my desk saying be the doctor, not the pharmacist. And I've coupled that with something else that some other CS leaders have told me about recently. And it was um meetings are for bonding, brainstorming, and making decisions. And guess what doctors do? Doctors are bonding, they're brainstorming, and they're making decisions. Guess what pharmacists are doing? They're not bonding, they're not making decisions unless it's to deny you outridge, I guess, or you know, or uh, and they're not necessarily uh gonna be brainstorming, they're just there to fill the order. So, what our job is in the CS space and in other spaces and all for any real listener, if you can think about good interactions you've had with doctors in the past, because I know there's bad, you know, there's bad apples everywhere. Um good interactions you've had with doctors, they've come to the table and they've tried to understand. They looked at your chart notes, they look at your history, they try to understand the symptoms, and they try to understand how you feel about your symptoms. And all that goes into um the process of being a doctor, not just feeling not just giving you a prescription saying, go bye, deal with it, right? So that's kind of the mentality that I've taken, and that's the mentality that served me well working with clients because it takes a more holistic approach, not just IQ, but also EQ. Um, and then also now my meetings, I tell people we're gonna give their game onto this meeting, we're gonna braid store, we're gonna make a decision today, and they love it. They love it. I know that. Um, so that's that's that's the way I I've been uh working today, and it's been serving me well. And I think it'll serve you well too, if if you think about experiences that you've had with your doctors in the past where you're like, oh, you know what? Actually, that's probably the way that that model works is actually really nice, um, depending on the service providers you work with.

SPEAKER_01: 33:35

I love that. Well, we're gonna wrap up, and I'm gonna say specifically, this episode focuses on that EQ isn't just about what happens in the moment of a conversation. It actually starts before the first words are even spoken. When you prepare and research and truly listen to what's already available at your fingertips, you can set yourself apart by building trust early. You're engaging with true authenticity and you're strengthening relationships before they even begin. So, Jeff, one last shout-out. Where can people connect with you? Uh, what are you open to if someone's like, oh my gosh, I love this. I really want to connect with Jeffrey.

SPEAKER_00: 34:15

Uh, I think LinkedIn, right? Definitely go to LinkedIn. That's the number one place. Um uh I'm open for really any chat, conversation, coffee, lunch. Uh I am in Florida, good old state of Florida. So uh if if you're local to Florida, happy to meet you. Otherwise, um LinkedIn, we can connect up. Um, we'll chat.

SPEAKER_01: 34:38

I love that. Well, my final thought is that when you listen before you speak, you don't just sell, you connect. And connection builds trust faster than any sales pitch ever could. And so as I wrap today's episode, I'm gonna say again, to be inspired to feel deeply, to live fearlessly, and be authentic in all things. When you keep leaning into those feelings, true transformation begins within. See you next week.