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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The topics and opinions express in thefollowing show are solely those of the hosts
and their guests, and not thoseof W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are
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(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio. What's Working onPurpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder
the answer to this question. Peopleache for meaning and purpose at work,
to contribute their talents passionately and knowtheir lives really matter. They crave being
part of an organization that inspires themand helps them grow into realizing their highest

(00:44):
potential. Business can be such aforce for good in the world, elevating
humanity. In our program, weprovide guidance and inspiration to help usher in
this world we all want Working onPurpose. Now here's your host, Doctor
Release Cortez. Welcome back to theWorking and Purpose Program. Thanks doing again

(01:06):
and again this week. It's greatto have you. This show has been
on air since February of twenty fifteen. It is my pride and joy.
I'm your host, doctor Elise coreTest, joining you live from Dallas home
base for me. If we havenot met, chat and you don't know
me. I'm a management consultant,organizational logo therapist, speaker and author.
My team and I at Gusto Nowprovide a system to enable companies to enliven
and fortify their culture and operations byarticulating their purpose and building inspirational leaders and

(01:30):
cultures activated by meaning, purpose andshared learning. The system turns your company
from a flatline EKG to a vibrantdestination workplace where engagement, performance and retention
are measurably elevated. You can learnmore about us and we can work together
at eliscoretest dot com and gustodashnow dotcom. Now getting into today's program with
us is Talia Fox. She's theCEO of Kusai Global, Inc. Which

(01:53):
helps her clients to maximize human potentialby leveraging strategic intelligence and helps individuals and
organizations foster conected cultures and promote consciousequity. She's the author of the Power
of Conscious Connection for habits to transformhow you live and lead, which we'll
be talking about today. She's Joystoday just outside of Washington, d C.
Tell you, welcome to working onPurpose. So great to be here,

(02:15):
Ha Lise, it is so greatto have you. As we were
saying before we got on air together, you know, one of the greatest
things about hosting the show is becausemost of my guests come through public relations
people, I meet people I wouldn'totherwise get to meet, including you.
So I'm delighted to meet you.As you know, I've read your book
cover to cover and because I knowyou better than maybe our listeners and guests
do so far, would you justintroduce yourself and say a little bit about

(02:38):
where this beautiful love system that youcreated came from. Absolutely. So,
I've been doing this work for almosttwenty years. And what I mean by
this work is I'm an executive leadershipstrategist, so I've been working with organizations
and my journey for this book startedas a mom. That was I became
a single mom. I wanted tolose weight, I wanted to achieve a

(02:59):
lot. I was studying psychology andI said, there's got to be a
hack for our lives. So thisbook is really this combination of what I
learned as a therapist, actually lookingat cognitive behavioralism, which is how do
you take your thinking and impact yourbehavior. I also think about the existential

(03:19):
questions of what is this life about? And then combining that with the leadership
skills that you need to achieve something. I feel like I'm onto something here.
At least I'm hacking our lives tofigure out how to both be happy
I love the word vibrant and excited, but also to achieve really important things.
So this journey has been quite aride, and in the book,
I've tried to captivate that and toshare what I know with the world.

(03:45):
And you did it beautifully. Asas I was saying to you, I
really appreciate that you really let usinto your life and your connection with your
father and just some of those beautifulmemories and the things that he taught you
along the way that if you've infusedinto your life and your work too,
it's really beautiful. Thank you somuch. You're welcome. So as I
want to do, I like toread sometimes direct passages from the book just
because it's so beautiful how you renderedthis, and then I'll ask you to

(04:06):
comment on it. So you saytoward the beginning of the book, you
say, quote our behavior and habitscan turn us into zombies, ignoring life,
rejecting uniqueness, defying problem or denyingproblems, and forgetting to look up
and gain clarity about how we chooseto live. The nightmare is real when
we are not conscious and connected tosomething bigger. Yet, as with all

(04:29):
nightmares, you can wake up witha little shift, You can gasp back
into the light to realize that youaren't really in danger. You just need
to experience more conscious connection. Andobviously to me, that's the promise of
your whole book and your system.So I mean, that's gorgeous. That
is just a gorgeous, compelling grabyou in around your neck passage, Dahlia,

(04:50):
thank you. Yeah, you know, we are in a very interesting
time, and I think we've beenin this time for several years where it
just feels like we're not listening toeach other. It feels like a nightmare.
People feel disconnected. One of theinteresting things about working in with large
corporations and businesses is I was justastonished at how much therapy is needed,

(05:12):
how anxious people are, how sadthis us, and we don't have tools.
I think one of the issues thatwe're having in this world is that
we think that we should know whatto do, and we think that it's
intuitive. So the promise of thebook is definitely we don't have to choose
this nightmare. There are some skillsand there are some habits that we can
practice that allow us to be present, to be happy, and to achieve

(05:36):
some really great things. I lovethe words that we're used in the beginning
of this podcast. To elevate humanityis really really critical here. Agreed.
You know, it's so interesting.There's some beautiful, nice overlap and congruence
with our work. You use theword zombies. I use the phrase walking

(05:59):
debt in my first book, andthat really came to be when I'd be
asking audiences or speaking audiences and Iwould pose the question what are you passionate
about? There'd be this sea offaces that were struggling looking for the answer,
and they didn't know what it was. And I could tell they didn't
have an answer to the question.And I have been a member of the
Walking Dead, I know if I'vebeen a card Carring member, I understand.
So there's no judgment in this thisis about how do we help?

(06:20):
So I want to next if wecan just kind of now lay out first,
because we're going to dive into yoursystem here, If we can just
lay out your beautiful love system here, the system of habits that you've created
that will help transform how we liveand lead talk us through them, please
absolutely. And just to add onto what you were just saying, what's

(06:41):
so critical about passion about waking upis I'm also a strategist, so I
have learned that if you have asystem of being, you will have an
edge and likely be the most street, strategic and smartest person in the room.
Because we are surrounded by so manyzombies, so there are two to
this one you'll get really happy.But the other side is it's very strategic

(07:04):
around accomplishing great things, moving people, driving change, all of those wonderful
things. In the Love system,by the way, it is by not
by design that it spells out theacronym love. I actually came up with
the skills first, and then ithappened to reflect love, and so it
was so beautiful. I pulled ittogether and it was like, oh,

(07:27):
it's actually love. So the lovesystem is a set of habits that we
practice on a regular basis, andit applies to anything that you may need
to accomplish. Really, if youread ten thousand hours of leadership development training
and books, it would boil downto these four habits. It's lve,

(07:47):
listen, observe, align with yourvalues, and engage and at each of
these habits is connected to a verycritical leadership skills that changes everything. It's
so Chris. I love it.Of course, since we've laid that out
at the beginning. Now I wantto spend the rest of our time together
really diving into your system here andagain I just think it's so accessible.

(08:09):
So one of the things that youbring to life here that which I think
is so important. You know,just being really talking about listening consciously is
so transformative. And what I alwayssay in my programs is, you know,
when you really listen to someone,you just melt them, because so
seldom do they get that experience ofreally being listened to. And there's something
you can see it when you can. You know, I've witnessed it when

(08:31):
I've been in restaurants and out andI could see the people that are really
connected powerful through listening. And soyou say you go on to talk about
it will feel like a magic bullet. I completely agree with that. And
so you say, you know,to connect to learn to access miracles.
There's a few concrete steps that youcan take to actually improve your listening and
your emotional intelligence. But first youtell us you have to pay attention to

(08:52):
how we listen, and you gaveus five ways that we tend to listen.
Would you walk us through those?Yes, So we have these listening
personalities, and part of this iswhat I like to look at as a
leadership strategies or what are the barriersto listening. Some of us may say
listening, I've heard this before.But there's a lot of deepness to this

(09:13):
listening thing, and we're not doingso well at it. This is what's
causing the zombie effect, and thisis what's actually I will tell you give
me any problem that you have,and I promise you that there's some level
of your listening that is impacting thatproblem. Finances, relationship, you're not
getting up, promotion, whatever itis. There is a listening strategy that
we can implement to solve those problems, and it probably starts with your personality.

(09:37):
So there are several different ways thatwe have these personalities. We have
the fact hunter that means you're biasevery time you listen, you're just listening
for the facts. We've got theplugger. These are people that are just
constantly you think, you know,you have all this knowledge and you're literally
just listening so that you can upliftyourself and you can get in there and
share something, all right. Wehave the entertainer listeners, which they're always

(10:01):
just kind of trying to put onThey want to put on it. They
want to get a show actually andobserve a show. So we have these
very specific personalities and I go intoa couple of others in the book that
really determine how we listen, andit filters out probably critical information that we
need not only to make some realgreat decisions, but critical information that we

(10:22):
need to form a more conscious connectionand a more strategic connection with the people
to whom we're speaking. Mm hm, remind me what the thrill seeker listening
type is about. The thrill seekeris when they're listening, they're completely bored
if you're not speaking in a waythat's very you know, excited, and

(10:43):
they have to be entertained a lotof people that are thrill seeking listeners.
They probably also binge a lot onNetflix. I'm one of them. I'm
aware of my desire to thrill seek, but I actually meet those needs for
myself and when I'm listening, I'mreally listening for that use imp priorities.
So I have some listening strategies toovercome what some of the natural tendencies may

(11:07):
be in our personality. Mm hmm. That's so gorgeous. And I know
you talk about in your book aswell, and I do too, But
it's just the power of employing curiosity, right, being generally curious. Years
ago, what not them? AndI guess that was maybe five years ago.
He was teaching at Southern Methodist University. I was teaching junior and senior
level students communication and things like that. And also one of the courses I

(11:30):
took I taught them was how toget and keep their first job. So
the one of the things I hadthem doing was I had them out going
to network and they were like,oh, doctor c You're not going to
make us go talk to people thatyou that we don't know, are you?
I said, Oh, I am, I am, I'm going to
quip you with the ability to godo so, and they were like,
you know, it's so nervous andjust the last thing they wanted to do
was to talk to someone they didn'tknow. And I said, you have

(11:52):
this really powerful tool, it's curiosity, and it was so great, so
many of them would come back,doctor C. I mean, these amazing
people, am like, isn't itamazing what happens when you actually show up
and go looking for and listening towhat someone might have to tell you.
It's so big, you know,it's interesting. This piece isn't in the
book. I probably should have addedit, but there are five ways to

(12:15):
sort of fabricate love for someone tofall in love with you. And this
is even you can use this romanticallyor in business. One of them's eye
contact another one or you know,shared values, heightened experiences. And the
fourth, the fifth I won't talkabout here because it's not appropriate, but
the fourth is getting someone to helpyou. So actually listening to someone and

(12:37):
being able to listen for advice,listen for guidance, particularly those that are
starting out in their career. Thatis a huge strategy to be able to
form a relationship where people have buyin, but it can't happen if you're
not willing to listen. You knowthis in the in the book at least
that there is a tangible dollar amountthat I have seen clients lose because of

(13:01):
their poor listening. I had theopportunity to connect someone. They wanted to
go into motivational speaking, and Iconnected them with someone I remember that story,
Go ahead, Yes, I connectedthem with someone that was the person
to know in this space. Thisperson only had fifteen minutes. They went
on and on and on, neverasking one question, and there were so

(13:22):
many nonverbal cues that you know theother person was getting antsy. And so
at the end of this experience,I asked this person I was coaching that
I took there and said, youknow, how do you think it went?
And they were like, it wentgreat. And it was so interesting
because he was so well intentioned,but he just basically vomited his entire resume

(13:43):
the whole time and he didn't getany information. So he went into a
meeting already knowing everything that he spentfifteen minutes sharing. So it's the portal
to wisdom, and it's the keyto being able to even innovate and that
you know, there's another person thatI hooked up with, this exact same

(14:03):
woman, and literally they made overa million dollars in public speaking, but
they spent their experience with her.They spent the entire time asking a ton
of questions and listening. So I'veactually seen some tangible financial, you know,
disparities just based on this little,seemingly you know, simple skill of

(14:24):
listening. That's a great example.Okay, so then let's just go ahead
and top this off with the cherry, shall we, Because you provide in
your book a ninety day listening challenge. What's that? So a ninety day
listening challenge is a challenge of actuallyintentional questions and conversations. So many of
us when we engage with people,we ask questions, how's the weather,

(14:48):
what about that sports game? Andso the listening challenge is to ask people
things like, what's important to youthese days? What are some of your
goals, what are your values?And just listen, find a little bit
about people that goes beyond just someof the superficial experiences, particularly those that
you're working with and people in yourpersonal life. The other thing is listen

(15:11):
to your mind, ask, askyourself questions, what's important to me,
what am I liking? What aremy goals these days? And listen to
the answers that come to you.So this listening diet will support you in
gaining wisdom about people and about yourself. And that wisdom is going The reason
I call it a miracles because there'sthis organic, natural epiphanies that happen,

(15:33):
ideas that come to mind based onyou intentionally spending ninety days gathering information and
listening to people. So beautiful,talk about changing somebody's lives. All right,
And with that, let's give ourlisteners and viewers their first break.
I'm your host, doctor Releas Cortez. We on the area with Talia Fox.
She's the author of the Power ofConscious Connections for Habits to transform how

(15:54):
you live and lead. We've beentalking about the first element of her habit
cycle, that is listen. AfterRick, we're going to get into the
powers of keen observation. Stay withthis will be right back. Doctor Elise

(16:19):
Cortes is a management consultant specializing inmeaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and
author, she helps companies visioneer forgreater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevatefulfillment, performance, and commitment within the
workforce. To learn more or toinvite a Lease to speak to your organization,

(16:40):
please visit her at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get
your employees working on purpose. Thisis working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes.
To reach our program today or toopen a conversation with Elise, send
an email to Alise K A.L I se at at least Coortes dot

(17:03):
com. Now back to working onPurpose. Thankteresting with us, and welcome
back to working on purpose. I'myour host, doctor release Cortes, as
I too, am dedicated to helpingcreate a world where people realize their bit
to let work are led by inspirationalleaders that help them find and contribute their
greatness, and we do business betterin the world. I keep writing books,

(17:26):
researching and writing books. So thelast one I have at came out
in March of twenty twenty three.It's called The Great Revitalization, How activating
meaning and purpose can radically and livenyour business. And I wrote it for
leaders to understand today's new playing field, which Talia, you talk about too,
and then I include twenty two bestprojreices to be able to fold into
your culture to help you achieve that. You'll learn more about this book at
at Leastcortes dot com or find iton Amazon if you are just joining.

(17:51):
My guest is Talia Fox. She'sthe CEO of Kusai Global, Inc.
Which helps her clients to maximize humanpotential by leveraging strategic intelligence and helps individuals
organization's foster connected cultures and promote consciousequity. Sounds really good to me.
Okay, So now that we've coveredlistening and really helped our listeners and viewers

(18:11):
understand the promise of really listening,well let's not talk about observation. Yes,
So the first step, of course, is working on your listening,
and then after that observation is connectedto something called systems thinking. I love
Yes, I systems thinking. I'mobsessed with it. It's not just this
idea of sitting around and looking.It's about looking for connections. So one

(18:37):
of the connections I made early onat Least was that there's a connection between
going to the gym in the morningand getting enough sleep. Right, So
that's the observation to get that it'snot finding the perfect diet or finding the
perfect trainer. You need to goto bed, and if you drink too
much caffeine and if you work toomuch. All of these things are actually
connected to whether or not you're goingto feel good and healthy. So these

(19:00):
kinds of connections are actually more concernedabout outcomes than they are about our opinions
what we think should be happening.So observation is really this whole opportunity to
become very strategic about how what you'rechoosing on a regular basis is impacting your
outcomes. I just think that isso so powerful, especially when you talk

(19:25):
about the system's piece. I alsostudied that for my doctoral work as well,
and just it's so when you startto recognize just you know, the
beauty of the interdependence of everything aroundyou, it's so compelling, so alluring,
and as you talk about in yourbook, it just it elevates your
consciousness, your intelligence, your connection. It's so beautiful. Thank you.
Yeah, you know, And whatI love about this book when I told

(19:48):
you kind of packed a lot ina small book. But the whole idea
is that you do this and you'llbe so smart innovative and strategic at work.
But then you're happier because you're findingall of these other ways in your
life to feel great and to lookup and see how interdependent we are,
and it really changes everything about howwe live and how we lead and how

(20:08):
we plan and structure our world.Completely agree, Okay, so we go
on extra values. That's the Vin this we want. I want to
first if we can you really distinguishvalues in your book, really specific about
value. So let's maybe if youcan first start there of how you're distinguishing
values. Yes, so you listen, you observed, so you have all

(20:30):
this great information and you're smart aboutthe information. And so now we've got
to say, what is this for? This is that existential question, what
is this life about? What's themeaning behind it? And this is where
the values comes in. So valuesin the book, the V represents two
things. One, it does representboth your values, so those things that

(20:52):
you say are really important to you, and it represents the value that you
place on things and other people.And so I know that we like things
to be tied in the box.With the V, We've packed in all
of the things that support you onliningyour behavior with what matters most, which
is what you care about and whoand what you care about. Okay,

(21:15):
here's the delicious crossover between what youdo and what I do. So I
am a logo therapist. I don'tknow if you know doctor Victor Frankel's work,
you know he he's you know,he created from the existential psychology around
logo therapy, and he talks aboutthree principal sources meaning. Meaning is our
chief source of energy in life.It's our chief source of motivation, et
cetera. And there's three three principalsources. And the way that we experience

(21:38):
meaning is along our value system.So what you find meaningful will probably be
different from what I find meaningful becausewe have different values. But the more
that we can actually live our livesaround actualizing or activating those values, the
more meaning we have, and thereforethe more energy we have. And that's
how your work and mind connect.Isn't that cool? It's so cool?

(22:00):
And I think that it gets trickyright in this world that we live in,
because what I think is happening isthat once people understand that meaning right,
and I love a search for meetingright, once people understand what's important
to them. Now, we haveto hold ourselves accountable, but whether or
not we're choosing and aligning with thatimportance. And what I think is happening

(22:22):
to many of us across every aspectof our lives is we're experiencing the intention
behavior gap where we intend to bea particular way. You know, I'll
tell you I teach classes over thepast twenty years and if you have people
raise their hand, if you askwho in here is kind? You'll have
a thousand people raise their hand becauseit stribes. Then I say, what

(22:45):
evidence do you have that you're akind person? What have you done in
the last twenty four hours that waskind? And so what we need to
do is really start to hold ourselvesaccountable. What are our values? But
are we choosing to stay aligned andcommitted to those values no matter what?
And the thing about values is thatwe actually need them in the face of
conflicts. Right, So if someoneis being rude to me, that's when

(23:07):
my kindness is most needed, notwhen we're in a group of people that
agree with us and that are youknow, from our same neighborhood rights.
That's where I think the value systemcan really help us change the way we
live in lead and get different resultsand relationships. And you illustrate that beautifully.
Tell you in your book when youtalk about meeting with the CEO who

(23:30):
asked you'd go get a cup ofcoffee for him before you sit down to
talk business, and you went,what do you mean you want me to
get a cup of coffee? Thenyou've got to check yourself though, and
you went, hang out, whatvalue? What are my values here?
And you checked in with your values. Then you could sit down with him
and have a really good, productiveconversation about the business. And then you
realigned what does that productive business relationshiplook like anchored in respect? And as

(23:55):
you say in the book, onceyou laid it out like that for him,
he went, you know, realizedthe error of his ways. But
if you had just like gotten madand stomped off and said, you know,
you're a jerk, you wouldn't haveone gotten the probably the contract to
the relationship that you wanted or theresults that you want you'll be able to
impact that organization. So I thinkthat is such a really compelling example and

(24:15):
it speaks to what you say sobeautifully in the book about how your your
values ought to be a roadmap foryour behaviors. Absolutely, you know,
thanks for bringing up the coffee withthe CEO. That actually was such a
powerful story. Well, and peoplehave told me, you know, for
our listeners. I literally just finisheda Harvard fellowship. I was growing my

(24:36):
business. It was a huge contract, and the CEO he just took his
hand and showed me away like afly, asking me to go get him
a cup of coffee. And Ifelt really diminished in every way. And
I was raised to speak up formyself and I had to stand there and
say what's important to me and whatam I committed to? And then,
you know, part of this isabout the listening and observation. I've been

(24:56):
trained in that over the years.So my emotional intelligence tends you. You
have high emotional intelligence when you listenwell and you can you can control yourself
right, You can control those impulsesand so really it's so hard though when
people are triggering you. I wasreally triggered in that moment. But the

(25:18):
idea that at the end of it, I made a decision align with my
values. I feel like there's aprofessional consistency that is so helpful as you
move and have many different experiences withdifferent people. Yes, and there's two
other things I want to say onthis topic because it's so so, so
powerful, and the way that youhandled yourself, because you exercise that high
emotional intelligence, you were in touchwith your emotions, your emotions and your

(25:42):
values, and you knew what youwere what you wanted to do. There,
you were able to have an extraordinaryimpact. And if you hadn't been
able to control your response, yourreactivity, your responsibility, as we say
in local therapy, then you mighthave had a very different result. And
so in the process, what youdid was you gave that CEO some very

(26:03):
powerful, loving coaching. Yes.You know what's interesting when it comes to
values, I think we either thinkwe have to be a doormat or we
have to speak up and be direct, but there is actually a more strategic
way. So what I think wasso important about the story, and I
shared it in the book, isthat I wasn't just going to let that
go. I had a conversation withhim and shared my perspective and why the

(26:27):
value of respect is so important tome. And what's interesting is not only
do we get the contract you endedup after that he never did anything like
that again, it was ultimate respect. So I set those boundaries, but
I was able to do it ina way that was definitely more strategic and
didn't create conflict. We had aconscious connection and even became later on friends

(26:51):
as we move forward in that relationship, which is the beautiful part of getting
to work with people and really matteringin their lives. To the effect too,
of your capacity to speak up foryourself. I really just want to
call out and celebrate the story thatyou share in your book about when you
and your dad go into this restaurantand are denied service, and you're eight
years old, and he was goingto just take it on the chin and

(27:12):
say, Okay, we'll just takeour business elsewhere, and you were like,
hang on a minute here, Ijust sort of think I have something
to say. I just watched thatin my mind, tell you, and
I just thought, from an earlyage, you just understood who you were
in the world and what you coulddo, and you understood how to speak
up. And you called the managerover and said, hey, this is

(27:33):
what's happened. And not only didthey seech you, I think you say
in the book they treated you tothe meal. Is that right? Yeah,
they camped our meal. Yeah,it's so interesting. As you bring
up this story, I'm surprised thatit's still it still sometimes makes me a
little teary eyed, because now Ithink eight years old is pretty young.
And you know, the story inthe book is that my father I found
out later on that he was aliterate for most of his life, and

(27:56):
he has a very thick accent,and so you know, my home they
called it the King's English. Iwas able to speak and really articulate myself,
and I also grew up with afamily of speakers, and my grandmother
was really strong, and my fatherwas in a situation where he was a
wonderful, brilliant but there were somethings about him that people did not fully

(28:18):
respect. He would be ignored,and yeah, they completely comped our meal.
But I realized this is kind ofthis work. I came by honestly
because my dad felt ashamed his eightyear old having to stick up for him,
and then the hostess that denied aservice felt sad and embarrassed, and
so I felt I did such agood thing. And I remember, at

(28:41):
that very young age that I said, I want to do something where we
all can get some relief right.I think we're all making decisions. Some
of them are good, some ofthem are not. We get mad at
each other, we hold grudges,but I really would love a world where
we can really thrive, acknowledge ourmistakes, and engage in consistent behaviors that
connect us and not divide us.I'm with you. I'm with you.

(29:03):
Let's go on the road together.So much fun. Let's do it.
Okay. So, now we've beentalking about values and what you just said
there about let's, you know,come together and connect. I want to
know if we can bring that overto what you talk about in terms of
cultural competence. I just I'm soand we talked about it before we began
the show. The world is soneat in need of connection and stop the

(29:27):
divisiveness and looking for what's right andgood and other people and how we can
connect with them. And so youhave something in your book, a strategy
that you call the Connection Accelerator Method. Can you talk a lot about that.
That sounds amazing with regard to culturalcompetence. Yeah, so it's the
CAM method. So cultural competence isyour willingness to adapt your behavior to differences

(29:51):
and to other people so many ofus are in these silos, and we're
on this zombie routine, and we'rereally drawn to people that are us like
us, and drawn to ideas andthinking that matches our own thinking. So
if we're going to drive change andthrive and even just have fun in the
world, it's important to develop skillsthat allow us to be more comfortable about

(30:15):
adapting who we are and how webehave to differences. So this CAM method
is a process in which you intentionallyexpose yourself to different things. And I
do it in a really fun way. I will go to a movie theater
and watch a movie that I typicallywould not watch or want to watch,
and I've just been able to learnso many different things. I will read

(30:36):
a book by an author that maybeI wouldn't normally read, And so I
always ask myself, am I beingdrawn to things that are in my lane?
How do I expand my thinking?There's a lot of research on creativity
and innovation. Not only will thisCAM this accelerator method help you be more
culturally competent, it also will triggerlevel of innovation because the more exposure you

(31:02):
have to various things and ways ofthinking, the sharper your brain is so
everything that I talk about the book. It's that threefold of meaning in life,
how you can you know, adjustand be happier. But then also
there's a lot of strategy behind itto achieve more and to do all the
things that I know everyone is interestedin in their own own lives and their
own careers. I think that's brilliantyou're reminding me, Talia. I'm working

(31:26):
with an organization and developing their leadershipteam as well, and one of the
leaders on the team told me somethingvery interesting about his approach to learning,
which speaks to what you're talking about. He says that he reads, forget
how many books a year, Ithink it's thirty books a year, but
he intentionally reads them across the differentgenres, and because he's trying to,
you know, become well versed,you know, whether it's you know,

(31:48):
politics or economics. He says,you know, the hardest one, the
hardest genre for me to read isromance. I don't want to read romance.
But I just think that is sobrilliant that he intentionally reads across the
genres thirty books, especially because hedoesn't want to read most of those genres.
So to your point. It's soso smart. It is my favorite
thing. So the thing I justgot back from Elisa is I was in

(32:09):
the Swiss Alps with people from literallyten different countries, and it was exhilarating.
Here we are hiking, and Icouldn't believe it how much we had
in common. And I just learnedso much about practices and thinking. And
many of us have read some ofthe same books, but I learned some
new books. And so in mylife that is one of my biggest strategies.

(32:31):
I'm very intentional about exposing myself tovarat to so many different things,
not just for work and for businessto understand people, but for the joy
of it all. I agree.I agree, travel is amazing, right,
and it's like got to be thebest drug out there, the best
drug. All right, let's grabit our last break here, I'm your

(32:51):
host, doctor Elese Cortez. We'vebeen on the air with Talia Fox.
She's the author of the Power ofConscious Connection for Habits to transform how you
live and lead. We've been talkingabout her full system of habits here.
We covered listening, observing, andvalues. After the rik, we're going
to get into engage. Stay withthis will be right back. Doctor Elise

(33:27):
Cortes is a management consultant specializing inmeaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and
author, she helps companies visioneer forgreater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevatefulfillment, performance, and commitment within the
workforce. To learn more or toinvite a lease to speak to your organization,
please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get

(33:51):
your employees working on purpose. Thisis working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes.
To reach our program today or toopen a conversation with Elise, send
an email to a lease a lise at elisecortes dot com. Now back
to working on purpose. Thanks stayingwith us, and welcome back to working

(34:20):
on Purpose. I'm your host,doctor release Cortes. I mentioned to you
in our last break that I justwant to put out another book, The
Great Revitalization. I also wanted youto know that I created an assessment.
It's a three page assessment that youcan actually download from my website to see
to what grade you actually have tothe extend that you're actually meeting today's workforce
needs. And interest. It's atboth alascortest dot com and gustodashnow dot com

(34:45):
if you are just joining us now. My guest is Talia Fox. She's
the CEO of Kusai Global, Inc. Which helps her clients to maximize human
potential by leveraging strategic intelligence and helpsindividuals and organizations foster connected cultures promote conscious
equity. So, all right,tell you for this last bit here,
I wanted to get a little bitfurther into the engagement before we do.

(35:05):
I really want a presence, justsomething really beautiful about your book, Just
again the promise of the structure hereand this idea of how love really harnesses
the power to engage in the world, your family, your community, and
your work. I think what Iknow from my work is that people crave
connection. They want to know theymatter, they want to know that their

(35:28):
lives are worthwhile. And so Ireally see your system as a way to
really catalyze, vitalize and activate that. So I just want to again speak
to the promise of your book beforewe get into the engage part. Thank
you so much. Yeah, youknow, it's it's interesting because some of
us also are looking for love inall the wrong places right. We want
to feel that we matter. Wewant to align with our values. We

(35:52):
really want to be happy. Wewant to make great choices that reed contentment
you know there. We want connection. The thing is we may not be
able to get that from everyone inthe world because we are living among unfortunately
zombies, people that aren't looking up. And so with this system, the
love system, not only is ita way to step up and really be

(36:13):
the leader of connection. If youare the model of how we can listen,
how we can observe, how wecan align with our values and engage,
you begin to be the accelerator andthe exponential impact on other people,
and in turn you will get thatlove and get your needs met. But
if we're constantly trying to get otherpeople to give it to us, we're

(36:35):
off the mark. So we've gotto make sure that we're finding our people
and our clusters to be able tolove without the need for other people to
be in agreement or to do thesame things, completely agree, completely align
on that. Okay, So nowlet's hit the last habit here around engaging.
And I really appreciate that a partof what you talk about here in

(36:59):
which we hit upon a little bitwhen we were talking about observation, but
you talk about how engaging includes developingthe capacity for asking really good, provocative
questions. And I completely agree withyou that the quality of your questions,
not the quality of your answers,as you're distinguished in the book, is
really critical. So talk to usa little bit about engaging and developing this
capacity to be provocative in our questions. Yes, so you've listened, you

(37:23):
observed, You've got this great information, you know what's important to you.
So now it's time to go outinto the world and connect. And so
the skill that we need is toincrease our capacity to have great social skills
and to communicate effectively. Part ofthat communication is how do you ask questions
that give you more information, thatengage people, and that create environments and

(37:47):
communities where we are really connecting ina conscious way. Right, So asking
questions like you know, what's happeninghere, what's not happening here? Asking
questions what are the opportunities that wehave together, what are the key goals?
There are so many different things thatwe can ask that go beyond just

(38:08):
those surface questions that allow us toengage. The key here is that we
need to be able to practice andplan how we communicate. And many of
us communicate just like with the listening, we just have a habit of how
we communicate. We don't think aboutour pauses, We don't have a structure
in the book, I give youan outline and questions to ask. We

(38:30):
just kind of go out and wejust wing it. It's fine to have
those moments, but we want totake our listening, our observations, and
our values to actually develop a communicationstrategy that's engaging, and our connections will
be more meaningful and our impact willbe more meaningful. Yes, And I
want to take it one step furtherbecause I think this is so great for

(38:52):
anybody that's listening who is a leaderor aspiring to be a leader. And
what you talk about here with regardto asking the right questions is you talk
about how great leaders make rich connectionsby being great listeners and curious observers,
honing their community and inspiring action.But they when they ask the right questions
of their team, they enroll theteam because they're asking them for their ideas.

(39:15):
They're not just telling them what todo, which is not something that
motivates or inspires people. And sothat ability to ask those kind of questions
and really get people involved and committedand on board is so so powerful.
Absolutely, I call it. Youknow, I'm looking at the book here
now. I really have enjoyed writingthis book and just pulling it together.

(39:38):
But I'm thinking about we have achapter called the Million Dollar Leader, and
in that chapter it's literally about doyou ask the question, how can we
leverage our collective skills? What arewe willing to do to reach this goal?
What are we not willing to doto reach this goal? How do
we encourage innovative and creative thinking.I think sometimes we want to get straight

(40:00):
to the answers, but we forgetthat there is a lot of wisdom and
connection in the journey right to theend of the We just want to hop
to it. Give me your information, give me your brief, But have
you asked the right questions and haveyou really done an assessment as to where
people are in terms of how motivatedthey are, how much energy they have,
and what. I find that whenyou stop to ask these kinds of

(40:22):
provocative questions, the path and thestrategy changes because you know a little bit
more about how to go about solvingsome pretty big issues that lots of organizations
have so so so powerful. Andthe other thing that we know, of
course, this show has been onair for almost nine years, so I've
had a lot of people coming onand talking about the how leadership is evolving,

(40:45):
and what we definitely know is thatleaders can't do it alone. The
world is way too complex. Theyneed to solicit the input, the ideas,
that commitment of everybody on the team. And to what you're describing as
a beautiful way to do that,Yeah, I mean, I think the
bottom line is what do you dowhen you don't know what to do?
Right? And you ask questions?And then the other thing about these provocative

(41:09):
questions is that many of us arestill relying on outdated information and so we're
making a lot of assumptions and untilthe question has been asked, it's an
assumption until the question has been asked, and so many people it's funny.
I talk to clients all the time. This is something I'm going to say.
I would say off record, butit's on record. The clients are

(41:30):
going to hear this. At thispoint, many of my clients give me
a whole, you know, awhole mouthful about their interpretation or assumptions about
the organization. And I secretly tellmy team take it all with a grain
of salt, because they haven't askedthe questions. I really dig in to
see where that information's coming from.And sometimes it's just outdated rumors that have

(41:51):
been going around in an organization formany years, and there's not a lot
of teeth in it. They're justopinions. And so asking these questions really
helps us get to reality and getsthe truth so that our strategies will actually
work so good and we all needthis kind of help. And the other
thing I want to distinguish about yoursystem that is will be interesting in juxtaposition

(42:15):
against the next week's show with EdHess. He's talking about really developing your
person so that you can make itin today's world of smart technology and remain
employable, desirable in the world ofwork, et cetera. And one of
those ways, of course, isto become more human, right and to
become you know, are more emotionallyintelligent, which is a part of what
you're talking about as well. Sothere's a real there's real utility in this.

(42:37):
It used to be when I firststarted doing this. Maybe you too
is what we're talking about in manyways would be considered what we used to
be called soft skills and those thingsthat we don't talk about that at all
anymore. We never refer to thestuff as soft skills anymore. In fact,
I could almost say that what youand I teaches the hard skills of
actually making in today's world today.Yeah, well, you know, it's

(43:00):
interesting because technology is constantly changing andbecause nobody is as smart as we once
were because we don't know what's goingto happen tomorrow. These skills of connection
are really going to be the onlything that matters because the ability to predict
the future has been hindered. Soyou were really smart because you have all
this experience and so you really coulddo a whole lot. But now the

(43:23):
whole game has changed. We don'tknow next week what's going to happen,
and so we need that leader thatit's the I kind of start to dance
when I do this, but it'sthe it's the foundation of being agile.
The agility is critical, and thehuman piece of us is what allows that

(43:43):
agility completely completely align with you onthat. Yeah, one of the things
that you did in the book justa beginning that I thought was so powerful,
and I want you to kind oftalk about this here for our listeners
of yours who haven't seen this,is you have developed this powerful reframing exercise
that you teach and conducting your workshops. And i'll quote from your book,
you say the shift that you're tryingto help people with. The shift is

(44:06):
the art of reframing our perspective toget the energy we need to engage practice
speaking about your life in terms ofthe things you love, things that make
you happy, and things that promoteyour values rather than your misfortunes. So
you have this really powerful exercise thatyou take people through on stage. Can
you share that? Yes, So, just to give some context, the

(44:28):
reason I created the art of theshift is because adults actually are very sensitive,
and I think we get sad andour feelings get hurt pretty easily,
and we can get very discouraged.And I don't think that we like to
talk about how much that discouragement andthe sadness and the disappointment impacts are the
way that we show up and thedecisions that we make at work and in

(44:52):
our lives. We kind of havethis thing. You're an adult, so
you're supposed to be. You're aprofessional, you've been doing this for a
long time, and so you're justsupposed to deal with it. But people
aren't dealing with it as well asone might think. So the art of
the shift is based on the principlethat if you are energized and you're feeling
good, and you have a differentway of perceiving your life and your experience,

(45:14):
that you are going to engage ina way that is totally energized and
much more connected. And so whatthis is, I take people up on
stage. It's very popular and Ilove it. I actually have people that
call me offline saying can I havea shift? I just need a shift,
Please give me a shift. Iactually taught my sister how to do
this because I was like, someoneneeds to shift me, so she shifts

(45:36):
me sometimes. But what this isis if you share with me your three
most important values, that's all Ineed to know, and then tell me
a challenge that you are experiencing.I will almost kind of like that movie
Freaky Friday, jump into your headand give you a line of thinking that
supports feeling better, feeling more energized, and even support or it's your brain

(46:00):
and getting online that frontal cortex andprobably have talked about that on the show,
so you're not having the amignal attackgetting that frontal cortex online so that
you can begin to think strategically andclearly about what your next steps can be.
And I've actually seen miracles with thisshift. I've been doing it maybe
for fifteen years, and it isone of my favorite tools that I use

(46:22):
with leaders and people actually all allover the world. I do something within
an identity shift too, that's reallyreally powerful. So I really really relate
to that. It's just so soand people can't necessarily do this by themselves.
They need a little bit of youknow, tell you drop in or
divine drop in. So incredible.All right, we're almost out of time,

(46:43):
but I do want to give youjust an opportunity just to if you
can share or say in about aminute maybe or a minute and a half,
I want to just let our listenersand viewers understand, you know,
what your work looks like. Sowhen you go into an organization, you
know, can give us an exampleof how what we're what was the organization
up against, what are they tryingto accomplish, and how did working with
you and your team actually make adifference. So we have helped transform really

(47:07):
complex, big organizations. From aconsulting side, we go in and we
do listening sessions. We observe what'sreally happening, we see what the values
are, and then we engage theentire organization in change. And so many
of our organizations have dealt with alot of diversity, equity and inclusion issues.
Many of our organizations have dealt withactually hemorrhaging people and leaders. And

(47:30):
so this one particular organization that weuse the love system around and developed trainings.
Before they had a ton of conflict. People were quitting, they weren't
sure what was going on. Afterthey developed communities of practice, people were
signed up and had waiting lists toengage in learning experiences. There was literally

(47:52):
someone that wrote a letter saying thatif she worked at the organization for thirty
years and she was on her wayto quitting, and she's never been happier
than than the last six weeks.And it was literally doing I call it
a culture shot of love right goingin and getting to the root of what
matters for people and consciously connecting people, and it really drives outcomes and drives

(48:15):
results really beautiful work. Okay,so we have managed to get to the
end of the show already. Youknow, the show is listening by people
around the world who care about elevatingthe workplace, elevating the experience of work,
creating those cultures where people are ledby inspirational leaders we do business and
betters in the world. What wouldyou like to leave them with. I'd
like to leave you with this ideathat happiness and fun absolutely matter, and

(48:39):
for all of us that are dedicatingour lives to helping other people, that
it really starts with us making surethat you're shifted and you're ready so that
you can see the opportunities that liein our experiences with other people. So
starting with us, Elise, youand I making sure we're right, and
then we can elevate humanity really important. I'm with you, Talia. I'm

(49:01):
so grateful our pass across. Iloved your book. Thank you for coming
on working on purpose to share yourbeautiful perspective, ideas and your foe habits
of love. Thank you so much, Talia. I'm going to grab your
book to Elise. I'm so excitedto know you. Likewise, likewise,
and listeners of viewers are going towant to learn more about this woman,
Talia Fox, and the work sheand her team do at Kusai. You

(49:22):
also want to check out her book, The Power of Conscious Connection. You
can start just by going to herwebsite. It's Kusai Training. Let me
spell that for you. It's KusiTraining Kusi training dot com. Last week,
give you missed the live show youcan always catch to be a recorded
podcast. We were on the herewith Michael Levy, who's the CEO of
work Proud and online engagement and recognitionplatform. We talked about the importance and

(49:44):
ways companies can recognize the contributions oftheir people and how doing so activates that
their sense of belonging and desire tocontribute. Next week will be on the
air with Ed has talking about hislatest book, Own Your Work Journey,
A path to meaningful work and happinessin the age of smart technology and radical
change. See you there. Rememberwork as one of the best adventures and
means of realizing our potential and makingthe impact we crave. So let's work

(50:07):
on Purpose. We hope you've enjoyedthis week's program. Be sure to tune
into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes, each week on
W four CY. Together, we'llcreate a world where business operates conscientiously.
Leadership inspires and passion performance and employeesare fulfilled in work that provides the meaning

(50:29):
and purpose they crave. See youthere. Let's work on purpose.