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EP572: Geoff Weinstein - The Magic Of Powerful Communication
113 Plays5 months ago
“One of the most important things about communication, of course, is authenticity.”
“When your communication isn't lean, people check out and they check out quickly.”
Have you ever struggled with public speaking? Don't let fear hold you back. Overcome your fear and practice public speaking through various life experiences. Becoming a great communicator isn't about being a "natural." It's about putting in the reps and embracing failure along the way.
Communication skills are not innate talents bestowed upon a lucky few. Instead, they're cultivated through dedication and effort. Just as you wouldn't expect to become a skilled musician or athlete without consistent practice, the same principle applies to communication. Whether it's mastering the art of public speaking, refining your writing skills, or perfecting the nuances of interpersonal communication, it all comes down to putting in the work.
Along the way, you're going to stumble. You're going to have moments where you don't quite hit the mark, where your message doesn't land as intended, or where you feel like you've fallen short. But those moments of failure are not setbacks, they're opportunities for growth. By embracing failure and learning from your mistakes, you're able to refine your approach, hone your skills, and ultimately become a more effective communicator. It's a journey of continual improvement, one that requires perseverance and a willingness to step outside of your comfort zone.
Geoff Weinstein is a star client from our exclusive mastermind, E-Circle Academy, and a leading global authority in communication. He talks about the importance of persistence and practice in becoming a great communicator. Geoff's journey took a significant turn when he transitioned from working in the hospitality industry to a role in communication within a bank's head office. It was in this new environment that he discovered his true passion for communication and realized the transformative power it held. As he pushed himself in the intricacies of communication within the corporate world, Geoff found himself drawn to the challenge of unraveling its complexities and unlocking its potential for positive change.
Expert action steps:
- Learn about human motivation.
- Cut the fluff.
- Be a chameleon.
Connect with Geoff Weinstein:Website: Visit Geoffweinstein.com to explore more about Geoff's work, his insights, and his upcoming events.
Head over to Geoffweinstein.com/gifts to grab a free PDF copy of Geoff's book and exclusive discounts for his lean email masterclass.
LinkedIn: Geoff Weinstein
Twitter: @weinsg
Instagram: @GeoffWeinstein
Facebook: Geoff Weinstein
Visit eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.
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Transcript
The Importance of Communication
00:00:03
Speaker
The heart of my belief system is that communication is the thread that runs through everything. In the world, everything that you do every day requires you to be able to communicate what's in your heart and what's in your mind. You're going to connect with people on a deep and visceral level.
00:00:22
Speaker
If you're not able to articulate yourself and create those connections, those bonds, you're just going to be sitting on the outside wondering why you're being left out of things and why you're running up against other people and feeling conflict and bumping up against resistance. No, the people who are able to communicate clearly, concisely, openly, honestly, transparently, authentically,
00:00:48
Speaker
Those are the people who seem to be the most effective at building all of those important relationships. Whatever area of life we're talking about, communication is always at the center.
Introduction to The Thought Leader Revolution Podcast
00:01:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Thought Leader Revolution with Nikki Ballou. Join the revolution. There's never been a better time in history to speak your truth, find your freedom, and make your fortune. Each week, we interview the world's top thought leaders and learn the secrets of how they built a six to seven figure practice.
Meet Jeff Weinstein: Communication Expert
00:01:19
Speaker
This episode has been brought to you by eCircleAcademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.
00:01:34
Speaker
Welcome to another exciting episode of the podcast, the Thought Leader Revolution. I'm your host, Nicky Ballou. And boy, do we have an exciting guest lined up for you today. Today's guest is a dear friend. He has been one of our star clients in our exclusive mastermind, East Circle Academy. And he is a leading global authority in the area and science and art of communication. I am speaking, of course, of none other than the one,
00:02:04
Speaker
The only, the legendary Jeff Weinstein. Welcome to the show, Jeff. Thank you,
Jeff's Early Challenges with Public Speaking
00:02:11
Speaker
Nikki. That introduction is wonderful. And I got to tell you, we're 30 seconds in and you're already schooling us on communication. One of the most important things about communication, of course, is authenticity. And Matt, do you bring it? Thanks, brother.
00:02:25
Speaker
Yeah, my pleasure, man. Good to have you here. So Jeff, the folks who listen to this show are entrepreneurs. These are people with a dream, a mission, a vision to shape the world and make it a better place. And they come on the show, not because I'm here every week, they come on the show because of you. They want to learn all about you, who you are, how your special brand of genius can help them get to the next level. But before they can do that, they need to
00:02:53
Speaker
get to know you so they can open up to you. So tell us your backstory. How'd you get to be the great Jeff Weinstein? Oh, wow. You know, I sometimes am amazed that I do this professionally because I didn't start out as a good communicator and I certainly didn't seek out professional communication as a job, as a career.
Overcoming Fear and Discovering the Power of Communication
00:03:17
Speaker
And this all goes back to I was 10 years old.
00:03:20
Speaker
And I had to deliver my first speech. And I think we all probably can go back in time and think about the memory of a speech in school. Anyway, for this one, I'll never forget that day, this guy who had to go first. I'm thinking to myself, I'm glad I'm not going first. So he gets up and he goes first. He walks up to the front of the room.
00:03:38
Speaker
And he kind of puts his hands down on the table. You know, that authority pose of steepling puts his hands down on the table and stares us all down like he just looks around the room with total confidence and authority. This memory is just ingrained in my mind. And he and as he looks around the room, he pauses and he goes silent. And then he says this as his opening line, he says, the Loch Ness Monster.
00:04:07
Speaker
fact or fiction. And he put it just like that. And he went into this unbelievable speech about the Loch Ness Monster. And I'm sitting there listening to this guy for a few minutes, you know, totally enthralled by his speech. I didn't really know much about it at the time. I was 10 for goodness sakes, right? And so as I was listening to him, though, my heart started to sink and I went a little deeper and deeper into my chair because I had to go second.
00:04:37
Speaker
and you know what they say that you never go on after a really good speech you never want to follow a keynote speaker and that's what this kid was he was a keynote speaker
00:04:47
Speaker
And I went up after him and I was just a basket case, right? I got up there. I had no plan. I had no script really to speak of. I had no structure. And I just blew it. And so this was my beginning, right? This is my beginning in communication. But I'll tell you what happened as a result of that event I developed, I guess I can call it a debilitating fear of speaking in public.
00:05:11
Speaker
And I couldn't do it. You know, at grade seven, I had to give another speech all through high school. I had to give speeches every time I got up to speak. I just blew it every time. And and I just I couldn't I couldn't shake it.
00:05:25
Speaker
And I think a lot of people had that experience with the first speech, right? And you hear a lot of people say, well, the number one fear in life that goes back to the 1970s, of course, that's an old statistic, but there's some truth to it that it's a number one fear for people that they don't want to speak in public. And that was me. That was me for many, many years. And it wasn't until
00:05:48
Speaker
The turning point for me was when I was 18, my sister asked me, my older sister, she said, Jeffrey, will you give a speech at my wedding? And I said, automatically I said, no way. But then I decided, you know what, I'll do it. I'll try and see how it goes. So I gave a speech and I held the microphone in my hand for the first time.
00:06:09
Speaker
And I actually had a lot of fun with it because I was talking about a topic that I knew really well as my sister. And I had a lot of fun poking, you know, teasing her and having a little bit of fun at her expense. And I discovered that it didn't have to be a Loch Ness Monster moment, right? It could be something really fun and enjoyable. And this is one of my big lessons in life is that just because you fear something for a long time doesn't mean that you're stuck with that fear.
Career Shift: From Hospitality to Communication Specialist
00:06:35
Speaker
So I overcame it. And then when I was 19, I went to university and I decided I was going to run for student council. And of course, you have to give a speech. So I did it there. And there I learned this is a platform that has some power attached to it. You know, you can influence people with the way that you communicate. And so that was another lesson that I learned.
00:06:57
Speaker
And I kind of went along after that. I had some jobs in hospitality. I don't know if you knew that about me, Nicky, but I worked in hospitality for many, many years. And I learned some face to face communication skills, but I never really had to give any speeches or anything like that or do any kind of formal writing or PowerPoint. But I was developing my skills all along and I didn't even realize it. Then it wasn't until the 1990s, late 1990s, I went to work for a big bank.
00:07:23
Speaker
And I started there thinking I'm going to make a lot of money in finance and the stock market and investing and all that. But I didn't really enjoy that as a career. So I switched into the head office and became a training and communication specialist and then went on to manage a couple of different communication teams. So we were responsible for a whole bunch of different stuff. But that was when I really discovered my passion for this thing called communication.
00:07:50
Speaker
And I've been doing it ever since. And I've stayed there for about 10 years at the bank.
00:07:55
Speaker
And in 2006, I decided I'm going out of my own. I had a bit of an entrepreneurial bug all along. I'm like, what am I going to do for a business? And I had this opportunity to start a business doing training in communication skills.
Entrepreneurial Journey in Communication Coaching
00:08:10
Speaker
And so that's what I started doing in 2006. And since then, I've been coaching individuals, entrepreneurs, business owners, and business leaders on communications.
00:08:21
Speaker
That's my backstory. That's a phenomenal backstory. And let's unpack some of what you said. You spoke about your first speech and how let's face it, you suck at it, right? And, you know, that's a tactical term, sucked at it. So what that instantly brought to mind is a
00:08:48
Speaker
is a little quote that I composed, a Nicki Ballou original quote, and it goes something like this.
00:08:56
Speaker
If you want to be a winner, you have to be willing to suck at something before you can be mediocre at it. You have to be willing to be mediocre at it before you can be average. You have to be willing to be average at it before you can be decent. You have to be willing to be decent at it before you can be good. You have to be willing to be good at it before you can be great. And you have to be willing to be great at it before you can be the best that ever you get.
00:09:24
Speaker
And it strikes me that that was you. You could have crawled into a ball and said, I'm never speaking in public again, or you could have chosen the path that you chose. And that's powerful, Jeff, right?
00:09:38
Speaker
I love that Nikki saying it makes so much sense not just for communication, but for anything in life. There are entrepreneurs listening to this call who are resonating with that statement, I'm sure. It speaks to the very soul of progress and accomplishment
00:09:56
Speaker
And just that feeling of satisfaction you get from overcoming that thing that you fear for so long, then yeah, you kind of develop a new respect for it. And then it just goes from there and it grows and it gets bigger and it gets an energy of its own. So I love the way you put that spot on.
The Role of Communication in Personal Success
00:10:16
Speaker
Thank you.
00:10:18
Speaker
You also realize that in order to become a good speaker, a good communicator, you need to put in the reps. You need to speak. You've got to do it. Talk about that.
00:10:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's like anything. There's a saying that there are some people who are naturally good communicators, and that may be true in a few cases, but I don't really buy it by and large. I think most people you look at like
00:10:51
Speaker
Martin Luther King Jr., or John F. Kennedy, or some of the revered speakers in history, and you could take any number of examples, you look at that person and you think, wow, that's a really good communicator, and they were born to that. I don't buy that. When you go and look back at Martin Luther King's history, for example, there are lots of versions of the I Had a Dream speech before the one that we're all so familiar with, the one that really changed our thinking.
00:11:19
Speaker
on humanity. And there are other examples of that too. Kennedy's speech of we're going to go to the moon in 1963, that was a famous speech, but it had different iterations before he brought that into the limelight. And I think you're right, there are lots of reps that we have to do with any skill
00:11:43
Speaker
And to become really good at it, to become masterful at it, it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of practice. It takes a lot of reflection. And it takes a lot of kind of openness and willingness to change and grow. So yeah, absolutely, Nicky.
00:12:01
Speaker
Yeah. 1,000%, right? 1,000%,
Adapting Communication Styles in the Digital Era
00:12:05
Speaker
it really does. And the other thing, Jeff, is you hit the nail on the head that the statistics that people quote about the biggest fear that most people have in speaking in public is an old statistic.
00:12:25
Speaker
I'm not aware of anyone having done another survey on that topic, but if anything, I think people are more deathly afraid of speaking in public today than they ever have been. People are less likely to show courage to go out there and communicate.
00:12:42
Speaker
For crying out loud, most people don't even want to have a conversation on the phone. They don't even like communicating that way. So if anything, I think that the fear of public speaking has not diminished, but it's actually grown exponentially. And I'm wondering what your comment on that is.
00:12:58
Speaker
Oh, wow. This is a big one, Mickey. This is a can of worms. Right now we're seeing one of the biggest sea changes in communication styles that we've ever seen. And a lot of this we can trace back to COVID and working at home and working remotely and cocooning ourselves at home. My my son was in grade eight when COVID hit. And so he graduated during COVID. We did a drive by graduation. It was beautiful.
00:13:22
Speaker
But it was what it was. It was a drive-by. It wasn't a real ceremony where everybody kind of gets together and experiences the cloak and the gown and the hat and all that. And it was different. And all of our experiences over the last four years, almost to the day, have been different. And communication has been one of the bigger, more significant changes that we've seen come out of the last four or five years.
00:13:51
Speaker
where people are much more comfortable in that safe place, which is sitting in front of the computer instead of sitting across the table from you. I hear a lot of people now, and I never heard this before, I'm hearing it more and more from my clients, that their people are really struggling in these dynamic live face-to-face communications, whether it's one-on-one or one-to-many. A lot of people are shying away from it because they got that little safe space at home.
00:14:20
Speaker
So, that's, you know, you hear about all the benefits of working at home, and there are many, but this is one of the costs, I believe, that we're going to have to do some cleanup on as the years go on, and some serious coaching, especially for younger people who never, you know, entered the workplace surrounded by people, but surrounded by Zoom people, right? And they never got that organic on-the-job training of how to
00:14:46
Speaker
how to sell their ideas, how to talk to people, how to communicate their thoughts. And that's a real deficiency. I'm curious to see how that's going to develop.
Understanding Lean Communication
00:14:56
Speaker
We're still really early in our reckoning on that one. So, yeah, thanks for bringing that up. But that's not going to be the end of the conversation on that one. It's going to be going on for some years to come. Well, look, my view of the lockdown era is that
00:15:16
Speaker
Certainly in Canada, our government took liberties with the truth when it came to the dangers posed by the COVID-19 virus. There's no question the COVID-19 virus was a dangerous virus to some people and killed some people.
00:15:37
Speaker
But if you look at the numbers, the swine flu virus 10 years before was more dangerous. It killed more people. Yet the world did not go on massive lockdowns. Schools were not shut down. Workplaces were not disrupted. So I think the government is certainly in our country of Canada, and I would suspect also all over the world,
00:15:58
Speaker
has a lot of blame that it needs to share for what it did to people. And the Prime Minister of Canada and his cabinet and many of the provincial premiers need to be called to task and to account and they need to be held accountable. I believe that jail time is an order for Justin Trudeau and for many of the other premiers.
00:16:21
Speaker
for what they've done, the mental health issues that caused in our children and in so many people in the workplace. But at a human level, taking the victim aspect of this aside, if you want to be a success in life, if you want to be the best you can be, I would argue the number one skill you need to learn is how to communicate powerfully and effectively with your fellow human.
00:16:52
Speaker
I want you to comment on that. At the heart of my belief system is that communication is the thread that runs through everything. I'm right with you on this. If you look at your personal relationships, your family relationships, your friendships, if you belong to a faith organization, those relationships, if you're in a social club, the people who you hang out with,
00:17:17
Speaker
That work in the world, everything that you do every day requires you to be able to communicate what's in your heart and what's in your mind. And if you do a good job at that, you're going to be able to thrive because you're going to connect with people on a deep and visceral level.
00:17:38
Speaker
If you're not able to articulate yourself and create those connections, those bonds, you're just going to be sitting on the outside wondering why you're being left out of things and why you're running up against other people and feeling conflict and bumping up against resistance. No, the people who are able to communicate clearly, concisely, openly, honestly, transparently, authentically,
00:18:04
Speaker
Those are the people who seem to be the most effective at building all of those important relationships. So, yeah, it's a thread that really runs through everything and whatever area of life we're talking about, communication is always at the center. Yeah, communication is the superpower, arguably. Yeah, agreed.
00:18:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, Jeff, if there's a businessman or woman listening to this episode and they're thinking themselves, OK, Jeff, I buy into what you're saying. So clearly I have a communication problem either with myself. I need to be a better communicator personally or within my team, my organization, my company.
00:19:02
Speaker
And I don't know what to do about it, to solve it, to transcend it, to transform it.
Addressing Email Overload and Productivity
00:19:11
Speaker
Your answer is? The answer is that in this day and age, in the digital age, when people are busier and more distracted than ever, when it's harder than ever to grab attention and engage people.
00:19:24
Speaker
You have to communicate using a process called lean communication. This is what I do. I'm a lean communication coach and for an organization to succeed, they need to communicate in the business world in a language that works for this digital age with the context that we're in right now and that's lean communication.
00:19:50
Speaker
OK, so say more. What is lean communication? Why should listening care? And how can they apply it to their own context personally, to their business context and to the context of running a group of people?
00:20:11
Speaker
Yeah, great questions. Wow. Where do I start? So that's good. That's good. This is it. This is why we roll. No, that's good, Nikki. Fantastic. So so lean communication, we'll take it back to the word lean. Let's start with that. So lean, actually, you've got a bit of a lean story, don't you? Do you want can you give us like a 15 second lean story of your recent accomplishment? We'll start with that.
00:20:39
Speaker
recent accomplishments in what? Yeah, you're a lean transformation. Okay, so I gained 50 plus pounds over a 12 year period when I got out of the fitness field. And I was disgusted with myself and chose to do something about it. So I hired someone with a track record of helping people in my age group.
00:21:07
Speaker
achieve success in this arena and over a six month period with his help, I dropped 58 pounds. 58 pounds. That's a pretty good accomplishment. I heard you mention that on another podcast. So I figured it was safe to ask you about that. And I asked you about it because it bears directly on what I do.
00:21:27
Speaker
Okay, so lean from a physical perspective, right? For our body, our bodies work better when they're lean, when you trim the fat, when you burn off those extra pounds that are getting in the way of your ability to be healthy and fit and active, so that you can thrive in life, right? And so that's from a physical perspective, you had a coach to help you do that, okay? So when we take that to communication,
00:21:55
Speaker
It's exactly the same. So communication is a process, right? And this actually goes to manufacturing, right? This is where the concept comes from, from Toyota. And the idea of Lean is that you've got a process with a bunch of steps. And it starts with the creating of the message.
00:22:13
Speaker
The creation happens, then you send the message. After you send the message, people look at it. And after they look at it, they decide whether or not they're going to read it. And then after they read it, they decide whether or not they're going to take the action. And so that process, when it's lean, you get from the creation of the message to the action happening really quickly because there's nothing in the way.
00:22:40
Speaker
Okay, but most organizations are not lean, and then they're in fact the opposite of lean. And so along the way, they've got all these bottlenecks that prevent the message from being opened, being read, being, you know, engaged with at any kind of level.
00:23:01
Speaker
And in fact, a lot of messages now are ignored altogether. And then you're just sitting there wondering, Hey, did you even get my message? And then of course, if that happens, there's no action taking place. Okay, so lean communication is becoming aware of the process of communication. First of all, that it is a process. And then it's a process that's full of extra fat or waste. And that waste needs to be stripped out.
00:23:29
Speaker
So that's kind of at a very simple level what I do. I'd look at the process of communication and every organization has a different process with different sources of waste. And together we identify what those sources of waste are and we strip them out. So what you're left with is a clean process, a lean process where the communication happens here, it arrives here, the action happens without very much delay at all. So that goes for the individual,
00:23:58
Speaker
for a small team, for a large team, for a full organization, it's all made up of a bunch of communications taking place over the course of the day. So that's kind of what the lean is in a nutshell. And then I'm a coach, just like the coach that you had to help people recognize where those sources of waste are, and then helping change the techniques and the thinking
00:24:24
Speaker
so that they can communicate without all the extra stuff getting in the way. And why should they care to do that? What is the outcome if they communicate in a lean fashion? So, you know, in life there are lots of reasons to communicate. With business, there are really just a few reasons to communicate, right? You communicate because you want somebody to
00:24:53
Speaker
think a certain way or know something or believe something, right? But most of the time we want them to do something. And so your communication at work almost always has an action attached to it of some sort.
00:25:14
Speaker
And you should care about this because if you're sending a message and you're not getting the desired response, if you're not getting people saying, hey, that makes sense, let's do this. If you're not getting enthusiasm for your idea, you're not getting traction, you're just sitting there spinning your wheels. All the work that you do is going to go to waste because there are a lot of good ideas that are out there that aren't communicated well and those ideas just die.
00:25:42
Speaker
And that's why we need to care. All the entrepreneurs sitting on this call listening have the same challenge, right? They have a service to provide. They have a superpower that they want to share with the world. They hopefully want to serve their fellow human beings in a certain way. And they're doing it because they love it. Now, they get paid for doing that, of course, and there's some satisfaction from getting paid for what you love doing.
00:26:07
Speaker
But ultimately, they want to accomplish things, they want to build things, they want to scale their businesses. And you can't do that if your communication is full of all this waste. Because the waste becomes a distraction and the distraction becomes a barrier and people check out. That's the reality of the society we're in today, is that when your communication isn't lean,
00:26:32
Speaker
people check out and they check out quickly. It's like they're holding this remote control in their hand. And as soon as you start to get off topic and away from things they care about, they're gone. That's the danger of communication waste.
00:26:48
Speaker
You know, it didn't used to be like that in the old days when I first got into this business. Business communication was a beast of its own, right? It was a very formal kind of language that everybody saw business communication. That's different. You know, it's got to be very formal, very professional.
00:27:05
Speaker
And that was the expectation. It's got to be really good grammar and punctuation. It's got to be perfect English. And there are all these kind of expectations attached to business communication. That's changed. Now, people just want to get the message and move on to the next thing because we're so busy now prioritizing. We're not thinking anymore. We're just prioritizing. And so when you put a communication in front of a busy person who doesn't want to think and doesn't want to read and doesn't have time to do anything,
00:27:33
Speaker
You need to give them a communication that's easy. And so you need to care because the only way you get cooperation is if you make it easy for people and you make it appealing to people. There's something you said which really struck me. When your communication isn't lean, when there's a lot of extraneous garbage in there, people check out and that's true. Inside,
00:28:00
Speaker
the work that I do with men, because I run a men's organization called Sovereign Man. We have a philosophy we call truth quickly. We don't let a man just start going round and round and round when he's attempting to make a point. He needs to make that point in the fewest number of words possible.
00:28:28
Speaker
You know, I'm a writer as well as a speaker. And when I taught people how to write effectively, I say that if you can say something in 10 words rather than 50, you should say it in 10 words rather than 50.
00:28:45
Speaker
Because the more words you use, the more extraneous words you use, the more likely it is that people are gonna check out as you say. And when people check out, your communication doesn't land, you don't get what you want and you lose.
00:29:00
Speaker
Absolutely. You know, a chapter, a chapter in my book, Nikki, uh, is cut the fluff as a whole chapter on writing and communicating effectively in the digital age, right? As you've got to cut the fluff. People just don't want it and they have no patience for it whatsoever.
00:29:22
Speaker
That could be a good name for this episode. Cut the fluff. I love it. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's good. I think that's very, very, very good. So, Jeff, tell us about your book. Yeah, the book is called Buried Alive, digging your way out to clear communication.
00:29:47
Speaker
And I wrote this book when the digital age really started coming to bear. So it's a few years old now. But I actually started rereading it the other day. And I thought, wow, this is all still spot on. Nothing's changed as far as the principles in the book. The book is talking about how to build. It's really targeted to leaders. So how do you create a culture of lean communicators working for you?
00:30:16
Speaker
It goes through all the different principles of how to approach communication, how to structure your message in a lean way, how to cut the fluff, and all sorts of wisdom for leaders to adopt a lean way of thinking on their team.
00:30:38
Speaker
And one of the interesting things that I started noticing back around, you know, 2015 was that a lot of leaders were just accepting everything that was happening with their communication. So email overload, of course, has been around for a long time. That's not going away. That goes back to 1993. I'll talk about that some other time. But email overload is a disaster for most organizations.
00:31:04
Speaker
And it's really curious to me that almost all leaders have just ignored it or accepted it.
00:31:11
Speaker
because it's one of the biggest sources of waste in the history of corporate North America and the world. In fact, I believe it's one of the primary sources of waste and lost productivity. And yet it just goes on and it seems like nobody wants to do anything about it. This was this was part of the reason that I that I wrote this book was to wake people up to this massive source of wasted productivity sitting in almost every organization that I worked with.
00:31:42
Speaker
And so that was kind of the impetus behind me writing the book and taking all the thoughts in my head that I collected over the years and putting it into a guidebook for a leader of any organization, big or small. So for an individual sitting on a team is great for you. For an entrepreneur with a few employees, it's great for you. For a leader of a small team, it will help you create a stronger team, a team that's more productive. For a large organization, it creates a culture of communication
00:32:11
Speaker
across that entire team. So that was really what I wrote it for. And it's a book full of kind of wake-up calls and challenge to change the thinking on the way we communicate to suit this digital age we're in, but also a lot of very practical techniques. So that's the book, Buried Alive.
00:32:33
Speaker
digging your way out to clear communication. I was trying to capture the frustration that I heard from my clients, right? This kind of overwhelming, I don't know what to do about this because I go away for lunch, I come back, I've got 50 emails.
00:32:49
Speaker
And I actually got a client who said, Jeff, you got to come in and talk to me about this email overload. I read your book and I want to talk about this because this is a big problem on my team. So I walked in, his name's Paul, and I walked in and he was the president of a division of one of the big banks.
00:33:06
Speaker
So he had a big area of responsibility. He had a few hundred employees. And I went in there all ready to talk about the ROI of the lean email program
Strategies for Effective Communication
00:33:15
Speaker
and all that. And we started talking about it. And you said, we've got these efficiency problems. We're overloaded. We've got too many emails. People don't know how to write their emails. They're writing them way too long. They're copying. So he started giving you the normal laundry list of kind of common complaints, the surface stuff, right, of what we see with email.
00:33:36
Speaker
And I'm sitting there, but okay, that makes sense. I can definitely help you with that. And then he went a little further though and he said, but it's also actually affecting our productivity because we're growing like crazy here. And I just don't have enough capacity to deal with all the new clients. They're big clients coming into this division, right? They're like commercial clients. So they're coming into this division. And I don't have the time to put into these clients because I'm so bogged down with email. I'm coming in early every day.
00:34:05
Speaker
I'm reading my emails on the train. I'm spending the day in back-to-back-to-back meetings on my lunch hour. I'm cleaning up email. At the end of the day, I stay for another hour to clean up email. Then I go home. When I should be having supper with my kids and my wife, instead, I'm on my computer dealing with email. Next day, I get up and it starts all over again. It's not just the frustration of email overload and all the stupid things that people do to you.
00:34:35
Speaker
It's also the impact on the business, the lost productivity, right? The inability to really serve your customers, but it also trickles into life and this poor guy, you know, Jeff, I'm dying here. I haven't seen any of my kids and their school plays. I haven't been to their sporting events. I feel like I don't know them. And my wife, we're not doing well, you know, like I'll be honest with you because a lot of my day is either meetings or email.
00:35:05
Speaker
I'm like, wow. So like there's this onion out there. I kind of see it like an onion. You peel the layers off, right? And you got kind of the outside layer. That's all the stupid stuff that happens with email. But you dig a little deeper and you see the business impact of email overload. You go deeper into the core and you got real human beings who are suffering every single day and they're just spending their whole day on email.
00:35:33
Speaker
I said, sometimes I come in on the weekend because that's the only time I can get it all done. I said, what about vacation? He goes, no, are you kidding? I go on vacation. I'm on my laptop again. Well, anyway, this, uh, this is what's, this is what's going on right now, right? With, um, with this overload is crazy. It's this chaos, Nikki.
00:35:55
Speaker
Yeah, I can see that. Good story. Really, really good story. So, Jeff, if someone is interested in getting in touch with you, getting a copy of your book, aging you in helping them, their organization, what's the best way?
00:36:13
Speaker
Yeah the best way is to jump on a discovery call with me and we can just talk it through this is one of those things right with communication what's the best way and I found that the best way is to have a conversation whether it's five minutes ten minutes thirty minutes doesn't matter to me if I can help you the only way we can find out is if I understand the dynamics of what's going on in your shop.
00:36:34
Speaker
get on a call, book me for a call and we'll talk. You can tell me what are you experiencing? What are some of those outer layer things that you see day to day? Okay, let's go a little deeper. How's that impacting the business? And how's this impacting you personally? And then we kind of get into it and we find out where the issues are.
Exclusive Offers for Listeners
00:36:53
Speaker
And then we figure out the best way to do it. It could be, you know, it could be one-on-one coaching.
00:37:00
Speaker
It could be a team program. I hate to say workshop, but sometimes a workshop is the best way to do it.
00:37:08
Speaker
But typically, a longer program where you can actually implement some change over time is typically a good way to engage me. And sometimes, it's a complete organizational program. So, it depends, Nicky. That's the best way. Depends on the circumstances, but the best way to get started is jump on a call with me. And I'm very happy to do that. I love talking to people. I'm an entrepreneur myself.
00:37:32
Speaker
I'm in a small office here and I love connecting with people and talking to people about what's going on in life. So it's nice for me, even if it's not business, it's just human connection, which I really appreciate. Great. And where do you want me to send them to? Yeah, I have a page, Nikki, that I set up for you and it's called Podcast Gifts is what I'm calling it.
00:38:01
Speaker
I have a few gifts that I'm willing to offer to people. And the first one is a 30-minute call. I'll give you the page address first. It's jeffweinstein.com forward slash gifts.
00:38:18
Speaker
And that'll take you to the page called Podcast Gifts. I just set this up. So this is what I offer. So the first one is a discovery call with me, where we get on a call and we just talk. You can tell me what your challenges are, and we can figure out if there's a fit that I can help you. If I can, fantastic. The second gift is a PDF copy of my book, which you can download right from that page.
00:38:47
Speaker
And then the third one is a discount for my next lean email masterclass, which will be coming up in May. The date's not nailed down yet, but a nice discount for your listeners.
Expert Tips for Enhanced Communication
00:39:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We will make sure that we put all that in the show notes.
00:39:13
Speaker
When we wrap up this interview, we ask you as our guest expert for your top three expert action steps. In bullet point form, what are your best pieces of advice for our people? OK, can I split it into two groups of three? Go for it. OK, the first one is for individuals, because I know we have individuals on the call. So for an individual who wants to become a stronger communicator,
00:39:41
Speaker
to kind of capture the things we talked about today. Number one, learn about human motivation. And the idea is that before you communicate, you need to know what makes your audience tick. So that's number one. If you can't do that,
00:40:00
Speaker
Your communication's dead in the water, I'll be honest. So that's kind of core. If you do nothing else as a communicator, understand that it's about the other person and then figure out how to nail their primary motivational trigger, that's number one. Number two, we've already said it, cut the fluff. And you've got to question the value of every word. And you've got to kind of be ruthless about it, okay? And then number three, really good communicators know that they have to be a chameleon.
00:40:31
Speaker
So you have to adapt your style, your tone, the level of humanity that you insert or remove from the communication depends on the audience. And so adjust your style depending on your audience. Be a chameleon. So that's for any individual looking to be a stronger communicator. For a leader, for a business owner, it's a slightly, well not a different set, it's a second set of things to think about. So number one, reject communication waste.
00:41:01
Speaker
Don't be like all those leaders out there who are OK with 25% of their employees' day going into email. Don't be OK with that. Don't accept that. OK, look for a better, more productive, more efficient, more effective workplace, and you do that by stripping out the waste. So reject it. Number two, as a leader, your people rely on you to create healthy communication rhythms and standards.
00:41:32
Speaker
So I had one executive I worked with, a senior VP at one of my clients, and she had a 15-minute huddle every day. Every morning before the day started, she got her key people together and had a huddle. That was a communication rhythm where she demonstrated the importance of staying in touch with her people. I love that. So a good rhythm. And your team, it's got to match your style and your team and your business, but create something where you're regularly in touch with your people.
00:42:02
Speaker
And number three, this is a big one for a leader is avoid the voids. And by voids, I mean communication voids.
00:42:13
Speaker
And if you've ever been in a situation where somebody should be communicating and they're not, it's very uncomfortable. When you're expecting the leader to come out with a message or an update or an announcement and it doesn't come and it doesn't come and it doesn't come, they've created a void. And that's one of the most destructive forces in organizational culture is a communication void because people will fill up the void. The void has to be filled.
00:42:40
Speaker
And they'll fill it with garbage. They'll fill it with assumptions and gossip and speculation and emotions and anger and frustration. And that will destroy the culture of your team. So avoid those voids. No, those are great expert action steps broken up into two groups of three. Love it. Love it. Jeff, before we wrap up this awesome interview,
00:43:09
Speaker
You've been one of the folks who's actually worked with us. Tell the people a bit about your experience that are stuck, that are looking for answers on how to get unstuck when they're considering, hey, should I consider working with this crazy Nicky Baloo fellow? This crazy Nicky Baloo fellow, absolutely. Nicky, I think the world of you, you know that. I think you are a guy who has a heart for people. You have a heart for helping people.
00:43:39
Speaker
And I think your model that you use is a way of plugging entrepreneurs into a community, a community of people who are like you or who are striving to be like you, I guess, right? Who see the way that you operate and they say, hey,
00:43:57
Speaker
I feel really good when Nikki does this or treats me that way. And I want to be a part of that. And I want to emulate that a little bit. And so there's a whole community of little mickeys around you. Right. And I think what you've done is you've created a community of really supportive people who are authentic.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:44:15
Speaker
who are looking to grow their business and eager to do so and you've given a whole bunch of different ways for people to do just that. So yeah absolutely if you're an entrepreneur and you're sitting there and you're stuck and you're wondering how do I grow how do I scale how do I
00:44:31
Speaker
How do I build my sales technique or my presentation technique or my thinking? Sometimes it's just almost always thinking that's involved, right? Thinking incorrectly about the way you're approaching your business or yourself or your beliefs. This is a community where you can dig into some of that.
00:44:50
Speaker
and experience some real growth personally and in your business. So absolutely. And Nikki, you didn't tell me you were going to ask me that question. So this was not a planting question. This is just my honest reflection on my experience with you and absolutely forever changed by the work that you've done. Thank you.
00:45:08
Speaker
My pleasure and thank you and yeah we we don't usually uh pre-plan questions with people on this because I want the podcast to be a conversation and I don't want it to come across as scripted because that's boring and who the hell wants boring? The podcast should be interesting, exciting, it should have potential so that's a good way to put it. Jeff thanks for coming on the show, great to have you on brother.
00:45:33
Speaker
Yeah, Nikki, thank you for inviting me. Yeah, you bet. That wraps up another exciting episode, the podcast, the Thought Leader Revolution, to find out more about today's amazing guest, the one and only Jeff Weinstein. Go to the show notes at the thought leader revolution dot com or wherever you happen to listen to this episode, be it Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, Audible or what have you. Until next time. Goodbye.
00:45:59
Speaker
This episode has been brought to you by eCircleAcademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.