WEBVTT
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You've rehearsed it in the shower in the car at two in the morning, staring at the ceiling, the perfect thing to say in the conversation you've been dreading.
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And then you walk in, they say one sentence, and your perfect script is gone.
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Your face goes hot, and you hear yourself say the exact thing you promised you wouldn't say.
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You skipped a step.
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Almost everybody does.
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And today I'm giving you that step plus the seven-second tool so that your next hard conversation goes the way that you planned it.
00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:30.879
If there's a conversation that's weighing on you right now, or one that you keep pushing off, this episode's for you.
00:00:31.039 --> 00:00:31.600
Stick around.
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Welcome to the Magnetic Communication Podcast, where we make emotional intelligence simple, real, and usable.
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I'm Sandy Gerber, speaker, author, and certified communication and emotional intelligence trainer.
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I'm here to give you quick tools you can use right now to talk better, lead stronger, and connect deeper.
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Let's go.
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Welcome back, besties.
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It's so good to have you here.
00:00:52.159 --> 00:00:59.359
So today we're talking about difficult conversations and the first level of a connected conversation, the one that almost everyone skips.
00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:01.520
And I'm gonna walk you through my EQ switch.
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It's a seven-second tool that will calm your body before you open your mouth.
00:01:05.359 --> 00:01:09.920
And with Mental Illness Awareness Week starting, we're talking about the hardest conversation of all.
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So let's get into it.
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Twenty years ago, I was an award-winning communication expert.
00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:15.040
And you know what?
00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:18.480
I was failing at the most important conversations in my life.
00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:20.959
You know, I didn't have a communication problem.
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I had a self-understanding problem.
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And you know what's funny or ironic, if you will?
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When I took my EQ assessment, my emotional intelligence assessment, guess what my lowest score was?
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Impulse control.
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The communication coach, the lowest score is impulse control.
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Yeah, I know.
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I feel first, I move fast, and I want it now.
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That's just how I made up, right?
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So that's fantastic when I'm creating something, but it's less fantastic when someone across the table says something to me that lands wrong and my mouth starts moving before my brain has slowed it down.
00:01:53.519 --> 00:01:56.319
And recently, friends, I got tested on my own tool.
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I was spending some time with a friend that I care about and their partner, and I asked the partner a question, you know, the kind I always ask, and they just stopped talking, like conversation over.
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And the next day, I brought it up with my friend, and my friend told me that their partner feels like I asked too many questions.
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Ouch.
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The annoying part?
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It's true.
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I do ask a ton of questions.
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I'm basically a three-year-old with a podcast.
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Why?
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But why?
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You see, because I find people so fascinating and I cannot stand surface talk.
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If I'm choosing to spend time with you, I want the conversation to count.
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So there I was with someone I love, and the emotion came up fast.
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My lowest scoring EQ skill wanted to fire right back at them.
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I wanted to defend myself, explain why questions are good, even give citations.
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But instead, I used my own tool, and I'm gonna walk you through it.
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So once I was calm, I could see it clearly.
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That person that said that or thinks that is unhappy.
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And unhappy people tend to make the people around them unhappy too.
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So firing back would have made me one more of them.
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I teach connected conversations in three levels: aware, express, and engage.
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Aware is knowing what's going on inside you before you even say a word.
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Express is sharing how you feel so you're heard and seen and valued.
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And engage is asking a question and then not being the next voice heard.
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So most of us jump straight to express.
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We pour every ounce of energy into the words.
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How do I start the conversation?
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What if they get mad?
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What am I gonna say if they say this?
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It's important to know that if your body is already in fight mode, your words don't stand a chance.
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Even the best opening line in the world comes out sharp when your jaw is clenched and your heart is pounding.
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The other person doesn't even hear your words, they hear your tone.
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So they get defensive, and now you've got two people in fight mode.
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So aware comes first every time.
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And there's real science behind this.
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In a UCLA study, Matthew Lieberman and his team found that putting a feeling into words calms your amygdala, the part of the brain that's like your alarm system, and it's called effect labeling.
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So naming the feeling turns the volume down.
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You're actually calming your body down just by naming your emotion to yourself.
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The EQ switch has three steps to switch you into a more emotionally intelligent headspace so that you respond, not react.
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Locate, name, and breathe.
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So let's start with step one.
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Step one is to locate.
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Find where you feel it in your body, the emotion.
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Is your chest tight?
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Did your stomach drop?
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Is your jaw clenched?
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Your body registers your emotion before your brain even figures it out.
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So start there.
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When my friend told me, I felt it in my gut first.
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And then I had this tingling behind my eyes, you know, the kind that feels like you're about to cry.
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And what's wild is that this step of locating your emotion in your body, it actually makes you more present and you're not spiraling in the what ifs and how dare they.
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Step two is to name the emotion.
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Name it quietly in your head to yourself.
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You know, skip the I'm fine and find the real word.
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What are you feeling?
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So then I named it in that situation.
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I felt misunderstood.
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I felt hurt, sad.
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And under all of those, the big one.
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I felt not worthy, not valued.
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And that's a lot of feelings for one comment about questions.
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And that's the point.
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If I hadn't named them, they would have done the talking for me.
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And once I could put words to them, they got quieter.
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Step three, that's to breathe.
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Now you're not just gonna break in a box breathing.
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That's not realistic.
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This is a specific breath.
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It's called an EQ breath.
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It's three seconds in through your nose and four seconds out through your mouth.
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And the key here is to do it quietly.
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That longer exhale that you take tells your nervous system that it can stand down.
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So I took one EQ breath without saying a word.
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Three seconds in, four seconds out, and that's a seven-second gap.
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And in those seven seconds, I was able to calm myself down and choose my words carefully.
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See, I didn't flinch and I didn't fire back.
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I said, that's fair.
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I do ask questions.
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I just wish they were able to communicate their discomfort to me instead of going silent.
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After all, we've been friends for a long time.
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So, Besties, let's try it together right now.
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Think of a conversation that you've been avoiding.
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Locate where that emotion is feeling in your body, and then name what you're feeling, the emotion underneath all of it, and then breathe.
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In for three, out for four.
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That's it.
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You can do it before you knock on someone's door or in the middle of a meeting, and nobody will know.
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They'll just think that you're very thoughtful.
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And once you're calm, then you can move on to express and engage.
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Next week is Mental Illness Awareness Week in Canada, and Saturday, October 10th, is World Mental Health Day.
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So let's talk about the hardest difficult conversation there is.
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The one where you're worried about someone.
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The coworker who's gone quiet, the friend who stopped showing up, the family member that's really struggling.
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Most of us say nothing because we're scared of saying the wrong thing.
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And that fear is a feeling.
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So locate it, name it, and breathe.
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And then say something simple.
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Like, I've noticed you seem off lately and I care about you.
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How are you really doing?
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And then listen.
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Sometimes the person who needs the conversation is you.
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Aware works on the inside first.
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If you locate it and name it, and the same heavy word keeps showing up day after day, I want you to pay attention to that.
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Tell someone you trust.
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And if you or someone you're talking to is in crisis, in Canada, you can call or text 988 anytime, day or night.
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Your assignment this week, pick the one conversation you've been avoiding.
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And before you have it, use the EQ switch.
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Locate, name, and breathe.
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And then have that conversation and see what's different.
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If you want more support for the words for express and how to listen and engage so the other person calms down too, I teach all of it in my webinars, courses, and workshops on handling difficult conversations.
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Thanks for listening, besties.
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Locate, name, breathe, and then talk and connect.
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I'll see you next week.
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Please take care of you.
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You know, I really believe the more that we build our emotional intelligence and learn to communicate with intention, the more connection and love we create in the world.
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If something landed for you today, please pass it on.
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Share it with a friend, post it, or just start a better conversation.
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And you can grab tools and training anytime at sandyger.com.
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And you can find me on Instagram at ConnectWithSandy G or Connected Conversations HQ or over on YouTube at Connected Conversations SG.
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Let's keep learning to communicate to connect.
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You've rehearsed it in the shower in the car at two in the morning, staring at the ceiling, the perfect thing to say in the conversation you've been dreading.
00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:11.279
And then you walk in, they say one sentence, and your perfect script is gone.
00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:15.759
Your face goes hot, and you hear yourself say the exact thing you promised you wouldn't say.
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You skipped a step.
00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:18.480
Almost everybody does.
00:00:18.559 --> 00:00:25.440
And today I'm giving you that step plus the seven-second tool so that your next hard conversation goes the way that you planned it.
00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:30.879
If there's a conversation that's weighing on you right now, or one that you keep pushing off, this episode's for you.
00:00:31.039 --> 00:00:31.600
Stick around.
00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:37.920
Welcome to the Magnetic Communication Podcast, where we make emotional intelligence simple, real, and usable.
00:00:38.079 --> 00:00:43.280
I'm Sandy Gerber, speaker, author, and certified communication and emotional intelligence trainer.
00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:49.280
I'm here to give you quick tools you can use right now to talk better, lead stronger, and connect deeper.
00:00:49.439 --> 00:00:49.840
Let's go.
00:00:50.079 --> 00:00:51.200
Welcome back, besties.
00:00:51.280 --> 00:00:52.079
It's so good to have you here.
00:00:52.159 --> 00:00:59.359
So today we're talking about difficult conversations and the first level of a connected conversation, the one that almost everyone skips.
00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:01.520
And I'm gonna walk you through my EQ switch.
00:01:01.679 --> 00:01:05.200
It's a seven-second tool that will calm your body before you open your mouth.
00:01:05.359 --> 00:01:09.920
And with Mental Illness Awareness Week starting, we're talking about the hardest conversation of all.
00:01:10.079 --> 00:01:11.040
So let's get into it.
00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:14.319
Twenty years ago, I was an award-winning communication expert.
00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:15.040
And you know what?
00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:18.480
I was failing at the most important conversations in my life.
00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:20.959
You know, I didn't have a communication problem.
00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:23.120
I had a self-understanding problem.
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And you know what's funny or ironic, if you will?
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When I took my EQ assessment, my emotional intelligence assessment, guess what my lowest score was?
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Impulse control.
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The communication coach, the lowest score is impulse control.
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Yeah, I know.
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I feel first, I move fast, and I want it now.
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That's just how I made up, right?
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So that's fantastic when I'm creating something, but it's less fantastic when someone across the table says something to me that lands wrong and my mouth starts moving before my brain has slowed it down.
00:01:53.519 --> 00:01:56.319
And recently, friends, I got tested on my own tool.
00:01:56.480 --> 00:02:05.840
I was spending some time with a friend that I care about and their partner, and I asked the partner a question, you know, the kind I always ask, and they just stopped talking, like conversation over.
00:02:06.239 --> 00:02:12.400
And the next day, I brought it up with my friend, and my friend told me that their partner feels like I asked too many questions.
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Ouch.
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The annoying part?
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It's true.
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I do ask a ton of questions.
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I'm basically a three-year-old with a podcast.
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Why?
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But why?
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You see, because I find people so fascinating and I cannot stand surface talk.
00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:29.280
If I'm choosing to spend time with you, I want the conversation to count.
00:02:29.360 --> 00:02:32.719
So there I was with someone I love, and the emotion came up fast.
00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:36.000
My lowest scoring EQ skill wanted to fire right back at them.
00:02:36.159 --> 00:02:40.639
I wanted to defend myself, explain why questions are good, even give citations.
00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:44.719
But instead, I used my own tool, and I'm gonna walk you through it.
00:02:44.879 --> 00:02:47.520
So once I was calm, I could see it clearly.
00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:50.400
That person that said that or thinks that is unhappy.
00:02:50.479 --> 00:02:53.599
And unhappy people tend to make the people around them unhappy too.
00:02:53.759 --> 00:02:56.400
So firing back would have made me one more of them.
00:02:56.560 --> 00:03:02.240
I teach connected conversations in three levels: aware, express, and engage.
00:03:02.560 --> 00:03:06.560
Aware is knowing what's going on inside you before you even say a word.
00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:10.719
Express is sharing how you feel so you're heard and seen and valued.
00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:14.960
And engage is asking a question and then not being the next voice heard.
00:03:15.199 --> 00:03:17.280
So most of us jump straight to express.
00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:20.000
We pour every ounce of energy into the words.
00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:21.680
How do I start the conversation?
00:03:21.759 --> 00:03:22.560
What if they get mad?
00:03:22.639 --> 00:03:24.719
What am I gonna say if they say this?
00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:30.560
It's important to know that if your body is already in fight mode, your words don't stand a chance.
00:03:30.719 --> 00:03:35.599
Even the best opening line in the world comes out sharp when your jaw is clenched and your heart is pounding.
00:03:35.759 --> 00:03:38.800
The other person doesn't even hear your words, they hear your tone.
00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:42.080
So they get defensive, and now you've got two people in fight mode.
00:03:42.240 --> 00:03:44.400
So aware comes first every time.
00:03:44.560 --> 00:03:45.919
And there's real science behind this.
00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:56.960
In a UCLA study, Matthew Lieberman and his team found that putting a feeling into words calms your amygdala, the part of the brain that's like your alarm system, and it's called effect labeling.
00:03:57.039 --> 00:03:59.680
So naming the feeling turns the volume down.
00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:03.599
You're actually calming your body down just by naming your emotion to yourself.
00:04:03.759 --> 00:04:10.639
The EQ switch has three steps to switch you into a more emotionally intelligent headspace so that you respond, not react.
00:04:10.960 --> 00:04:13.039
Locate, name, and breathe.
00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:14.319
So let's start with step one.
00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:15.680
Step one is to locate.
00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:18.399
Find where you feel it in your body, the emotion.
00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:19.680
Is your chest tight?
00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:20.879
Did your stomach drop?
00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:22.000
Is your jaw clenched?
00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:25.360
Your body registers your emotion before your brain even figures it out.
00:04:25.519 --> 00:04:26.480
So start there.
00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:29.360
When my friend told me, I felt it in my gut first.
00:04:29.439 --> 00:04:33.600
And then I had this tingling behind my eyes, you know, the kind that feels like you're about to cry.
00:04:33.759 --> 00:04:42.240
And what's wild is that this step of locating your emotion in your body, it actually makes you more present and you're not spiraling in the what ifs and how dare they.
00:04:42.639 --> 00:04:44.800
Step two is to name the emotion.
00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:47.040
Name it quietly in your head to yourself.
00:04:47.199 --> 00:04:49.759
You know, skip the I'm fine and find the real word.
00:04:49.839 --> 00:04:50.720
What are you feeling?
00:04:50.879 --> 00:04:53.040
So then I named it in that situation.
00:04:53.199 --> 00:04:54.480
I felt misunderstood.
00:04:54.639 --> 00:04:56.240
I felt hurt, sad.
00:04:56.800 --> 00:04:58.879
And under all of those, the big one.
00:04:59.040 --> 00:05:01.360
I felt not worthy, not valued.
00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:04.720
And that's a lot of feelings for one comment about questions.
00:05:04.879 --> 00:05:05.759
And that's the point.
00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:08.959
If I hadn't named them, they would have done the talking for me.
00:05:09.040 --> 00:05:12.240
And once I could put words to them, they got quieter.
00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:14.319
Step three, that's to breathe.
00:05:14.399 --> 00:05:16.319
Now you're not just gonna break in a box breathing.
00:05:16.399 --> 00:05:17.279
That's not realistic.
00:05:17.439 --> 00:05:18.720
This is a specific breath.
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It's called an EQ breath.
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It's three seconds in through your nose and four seconds out through your mouth.
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And the key here is to do it quietly.
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That longer exhale that you take tells your nervous system that it can stand down.
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So I took one EQ breath without saying a word.
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Three seconds in, four seconds out, and that's a seven-second gap.
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And in those seven seconds, I was able to calm myself down and choose my words carefully.
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See, I didn't flinch and I didn't fire back.
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I said, that's fair.
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I do ask questions.
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I just wish they were able to communicate their discomfort to me instead of going silent.
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After all, we've been friends for a long time.
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So, Besties, let's try it together right now.
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Think of a conversation that you've been avoiding.
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Locate where that emotion is feeling in your body, and then name what you're feeling, the emotion underneath all of it, and then breathe.
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In for three, out for four.
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That's it.
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You can do it before you knock on someone's door or in the middle of a meeting, and nobody will know.
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They'll just think that you're very thoughtful.
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And once you're calm, then you can move on to express and engage.
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Next week is Mental Illness Awareness Week in Canada, and Saturday, October 10th, is World Mental Health Day.
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So let's talk about the hardest difficult conversation there is.
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The one where you're worried about someone.
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The coworker who's gone quiet, the friend who stopped showing up, the family member that's really struggling.
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Most of us say nothing because we're scared of saying the wrong thing.
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And that fear is a feeling.
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So locate it, name it, and breathe.
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And then say something simple.
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Like, I've noticed you seem off lately and I care about you.
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How are you really doing?
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And then listen.
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Sometimes the person who needs the conversation is you.
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Aware works on the inside first.
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If you locate it and name it, and the same heavy word keeps showing up day after day, I want you to pay attention to that.
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Tell someone you trust.
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And if you or someone you're talking to is in crisis, in Canada, you can call or text 988 anytime, day or night.
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Your assignment this week, pick the one conversation you've been avoiding.
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And before you have it, use the EQ switch.
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Locate, name, and breathe.
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And then have that conversation and see what's different.
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If you want more support for the words for express and how to listen and engage so the other person calms down too, I teach all of it in my webinars, courses, and workshops on handling difficult conversations.
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Thanks for listening, besties.
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Locate, name, breathe, and then talk and connect.
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I'll see you next week.
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Please take care of you.
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You know, I really believe the more that we build our emotional intelligence and learn to communicate with intention, the more connection and love we create in the world.
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If something landed for you today, please pass it on.
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Share it with a friend, post it, or just start a better conversation.
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And you can grab tools and training anytime at sandyger.com.
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And you can find me on Instagram at ConnectWithSandy G or Connected Conversations HQ or over on YouTube at Connected Conversations SG.
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Let's keep learning to communicate to connect.
