Know Thyself

Is there something communication-related in your own life that you're struggling with or would like advice on? If so, message us that concern either on Facebook (@EffectiveCommunicationwithPhil) or on Twitter (@Effective_Comm) and Phil will dedicate an episode to solving that problem

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And now Effective Communication with Phil Zeller, CEO Dale Carnegie Southwest, Michigan.
I've got a question for you today. How focused are you,
Phil Zeller? Effective communication? Seriously? How focused are you as
a person? You got to know thyself right to thine
own self be true? That classic Shakespearean quote. Well, I

(00:21):
was challenged several years ago. I think I shared with
you before in the show I was working with fifth
graders for three years. I know, Jeff Foxworthy had that
show where You're Smarter than a fifth grader? And I
went and worked with fifth graders for three years. I
tell you what I learned, humility. You want to learn humility,
go spend three years with fifth graders and you'll come
humbled very fast. Working with fifth graders, and in that time,

(00:45):
I had one young man coming to me. He goes,
mister Fild, do you have ADHD? And I said to
this young man, what is ADHD? And I tell you what.
He spent the next ten minutes tell me what ADHD was.
And when he got done, I thought, well, you know what,
maybe I do have it. I just don't know because
I've been diagnosed. And he goes, yeah, I've been watching
mister Phil you got it just like I do. And
he said to what do you do to control it?

(01:07):
And I said, focus, focus, You got to focus on
being in the moment and he goes, yeah, he goes,
that sounds good. I don't know how to do it.
And I thought, you know, how many times do we
feel one of that situation. Somebody gives us really good
advice what they do to overcome a challenge their face
with even a challenge that we say they have, and
they tell us how they overcome it, and then we

(01:29):
discount it because we decided it's not going to work
for us. And why do we decide that? Well, there's
a multitude of reasons, but the bigger thing on this
show is we look for solutions, right, We want a solution.
That's that's why you're dialed into effective communication, look for
how do you deal with these things quickly and efficiently
make them happen. Well, I caught myself just the other
week in a situation and I need to follow my

(01:50):
own advice. I'm going to share it with you today
to cement it in my own head. If that's okay,
Thank you very much. I was in a median and
I got a new watch last year, and this new
has alerts on It is a digital watch, and it
gives me alerts and it's connected to my phone. And
for the longest time I hadn't fully SYNCD it with
my phone, but recently I did. I actually my son,

(02:12):
my son is the one who got me the watch,
and so I said, Hey, is there anything cool I
can do with it? He said, canah, you can do this again?
Let me see. So he said it all out for me.
So I'm sitting this meeting last week and all of
a sudden, my phone is on my wrist. My watch
is starting to vibrate. Lim what is going on my wrist?
I look down and it's something that I don't need
to read. It's some news alert or some ESPN alert

(02:34):
or something going on my phone. I don't know what
it is, but I'm like, Okay, I just allowed myself
to get distracted. That's unacceptable. I can't do this. So
now the next step is, Okay, how do I turn
those alerts off on my watch? Because I don't want
those when I'm meeting with people. I don't want to
be distracted because a big thing that takes us off
of our game and our focus is the distraction. And

(02:57):
if I'm meeting with somebody, there's a purpose that meeting.
I tell you straight up right now, if I meet
with somebody, there is a purpose to that meeting. Now,
that person and myself we will define what that purpose
is through our own perception of our own reality. And
I guarantee you if you ask me why I'm meeting
with you or meeting with another person, oh, I will

(03:17):
have a reason. I always have a reason. I was
taught this by a mentor mind Phil clem Rest in Peace.
My good friend always would ask his first question when
you met with him, why you're meeting with me? And
conditioning everybody. He wanted a mentor to realize that there
has to be a purpose for why you're meeting. So
your purpose is there, It's got to be created. So

(03:38):
I always ask myself before I go into a meeting,
why am I meeting with this person? Or why am
I giving this presentation or even just a conversation? Why
am I having this conversation. By thinking about it ahead
of time, it gives me an opportunity to realize an
outcome because I can think about the outcome ahead of
time and ask myself, how do I want to feel

(04:00):
when this meeting, this presentation, or this conversation is over.
And what I want to feel is I want to
feel good. I want a positive reaction coming out of it.
I want an action step that's going to lead to
more opportunity, more things happening that are positive, that says,
you know what, my time was used wisely here because
it's going to create more opportunity. And so these are

(04:22):
things I'm constantly thinking about when I'm meeting with people,
are talking with people, and during that conversation, as I said,
you've got to remove the distractions. Now, once you got
the distractions out of the way, and you have a
goal for this meeting, this presentation, or this conversation, whatever
it may be, understand how you're going to feel and
it's done. Then during that meeting or that presentation or

(04:44):
that conversation, what things do you need to understand? What
questions do you have to ask? What feedback do you
have to hear? What do you have to know during
this conversation so that you can walk away from feeling
the way you want to feel. So these are all
things to keep in mind when you're having conversations with

(05:05):
people or giving a presentation or just having a conversation
just because understand why you're doing it, how do you
want to feel when it's over. Remove all the distractions
and make sure you're seeking understanding because your goal is
to get that feeling for yourself. You've earned it, now
go make it happen.