Communicating with Heart: Sandy Gerber on Mastering Connected Conversation

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Live in the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today we're going to be talking about communication and having more connected conversations, as I am joined by the communication coach and emotional intelligence trainer, Sandy Gerber. Sandy is also a best-selling author. Her book, Emotional Magnetism, has won the 24 International Book Awards. And Sandy is also 16 out of the top 30 in the world of communication professionals, and her mission is to help people have a connected conversation. So we're going to be talking to her about everything that she does and that she's up to and gonna be up to. So Sandy, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Thank you, Curtis. I'm looking forward to a great conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Happy to. So hi everyone. I'm Sandy. I'm a certified communication coach and emotional trainer, and I'm a speaker and an author, but my passion truly is to make people understand communication is a little more simpler and make it easier for people to communicate, to connect at work and at home.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

I know that you had a uh painful moment as a mother, and then you were able to build uh build up to British Columbia's uh top 100 company. Can you walk us through that?

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Yes, it was uh it's a story I'm not very proud of, but it's important to share it because I think that's how most of us grow when we hear how people have come from failure to success. This about 15 years ago, I was um I felt like a fraud, Curtis, because my life, I looked from the outside, I looked successful. And, you know, I had the awards and the office and the team and the big clients, and I was killing it from nine to five. But in my personal life, my relationships, my communication was a mess. You know, I had a failed marriage, I was burnt out, I hadn't spoken to my friends in weeks. So this incongruency of what my life felt like and what it looked like really became a concern for me. And it drove me to really start identifying my own communication and learned. I spent about a decade, a good part of a decade, learning everything I could about communication and emotional intelligence so that I could find the key to to connection, you know, what was really lacking. What I wanted in my life is what my parents had. You know, they were married 52 years, and I still remember them walking down the beach holding hands, you know, years into the marriage. And I thought that's that's what I want. Um, so that sent me on a journey. The failure came about because at that point I was feeling that way, but it wasn't until I was, you know, I was the executive, I was traveling all over the world, and I was trying to launch e-gaming in Canada. And so we had to go to really exotic places. And I had traveled, and my children were little. They were, you know, two and three at the time. I all I wanted to do was come home and just have some fun with them and spend time with them. In the morning, I woke up, we were at our family cottage, and we went for a little walk, the three of us. And my son broke free of my hand and ran ahead, and he tripped over a tree branch and he started crying. Of course, he'd hurt his little knee. So he's crying, and I ran over to him and I said, Oh, Jackie, it's okay. Mommy's here, I'll make it all better. And he looked up at me and he said, No, Rachel. And Rachel was my nanny. So I can still feel that in my chest, in my heart, when I when I share that story, because I just never could have imagined that my son would call out for anyone but me. And it really showed that I was failing as a mother in that situation. I was focused on my career and not really focused on my children at the time. So that was a huge aha moment for me. And I realized, you know, okay, I that evening, you know, I said to my husband at the time, okay, that's it. I'm gonna stay at home 100% of the time. I'm just gonna devote my life to my children. And he laughed because, you know, if anyone knows me, I do a lot of things and I like achieving goals. It's actually what drives me and my emotional need is achievement and experience. You know, I had my mat on my mat leave, I had my alpha on my uh soup cans alphabetized. Like I just didn't like just doing little bits of work I wanted to achieve. And so for me, um, I had to find a balance. I had to see what what was it that I could do to make sure that never happened again, that my children always called out for me and that I had some sort of a balance in my life. So I went back to my employer at that time and a couple of weeks later said, you know what, this has got to be my priority, my children. And so I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave this job and I'm gonna start my own, you know, consultancy. And he said, Well, let us be your first client. And I hadn't even considered that at the time because I thought, well, I was just so focused on making the shift. So that happened. I opened up my business in my bedroom, and I'll be clear, it was a marketing consultancy in the bedroom. And so I decided to have the kids write an in and out sign. We put it on my door, and my business was open. And from there, I learned some hard lessons. You know, it was one thing to help people market their business, it's another thing to sell your business, and uh, and that set another journey for me. So the failure really was a moment in my life where I had to really evaluate my priorities. I then created my business to align to my my schedule and the children's schedule and the things I wanted to do. And then clients fit in where it was appropriate. And I ended up, you know, really growing that business to a top 100 because of a couple of techniques I learned while I was on my journey. So it's been uh been an interesting way to turn from a significant personal failure into a professional fit and professional success.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Well, congratulations on that.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Let's talk about uh what is one emotional intelligence tool that people can use that would improve a hard conversation.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

I think there's first we need to tell people and be clear on what emotional intelligence is. It's getting a lot of talk right now, but I don't think people are very clear on what it is. And I I define it as your ability to notice, to understand, and to manage your emotions and the emotions of others. A lot of us haven't been trained on how to manage our emotions or or express them. And so when we find ourselves in situations that we we need, we need to share how we feel, we're not entirely sure how to do that. So there's a bunch of tools that I've created in my own journey and also in my coaching and training of companies and their teams to simplify a way to communicate how you feel. So there's a bunch of different levels, but let's say we'll start with first of all, if you're gonna learn to communicate better with anybody, you need to first understand how you're communicating with yourself. We have full-blown conversations with ourselves. And most of the stuff we say to ourselves, we would not say to the people that we love. And so we need to check in first on how we're speaking to ourselves. One tool that I share that's really successful and easy to do is called first and last. It's your first thought of the day. So before you've even lifted your head off the pillow, reached for your phone, what are you thinking? What's that thought that's going into your mind? And when you intentionally place that thought there, that sets the trajectory for your day. So waking up and saying, you know, most of us would be like, oh, snooze, or oh, I've got so much to do, or I'd be thinking about a problem that I that's consuming me. When you intentionally say something like, you know, I am competent, or I have everything I need to be successful today, that sets the trajectory for your day. And then the last thought of the day is even more powerful because science tells us that last thought goes into your subconscious and your subconscious works through that thought while you sleep. So many of us will put the phone down or we'll think about a problem and we're bringing that into our sleep. But when you intentionally craft your last thought of the day, then you're also bringing that into your subconscious and consuming yourself with that thought. So these act like first and last act like bookends to your day, and it can be a very powerful way to shift your self-talk. So that's one tool that I know many people who have seen me speak and I have coached found very transformational for them. And no one needs to know you're doing it. You just do it for yourself. It's a very powerful tool.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Well, when there's a moment that someone is feeling activated, talk about some best practice tips that people can use to regulate their emotions in that moment.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Yes. So there's a tool called EQ Switch. You know, many of us have been taught or been told to just pause, to just breathe, but not really shown how to do that. And and the thing with communication tools that I found in my experience and my journey is that they're not easily able to be pulled out of your pocket and used in the heat of the moment. And so the EQ switch is a tool that I adapted from yoga practices, from some self-development work I'd done, and also communication best practices. It is three steps. It's backed in neuroscience. So the first step is if someone's triggered or emotionally activated by something, the first step is to notice where that's presenting in your body. So you're going to locate it, the actual emotion in your body. And the reason we do that is because our emotion shows up in our body before it shows up in our mind, before it even registers in our mind. You know, we might have clenched hands or a hot face. If it's me, my face goes bright red. If, you know, maybe it's shoulders, they they start rising or you feel that in your gut. So what you do is first recognize that, locate it in your body. The second thing you do is you name what you're feeling, the actual emotion. You don't need to do this out loud, you just do it to yourself. And this is the piece that's backed by neuroscience. Dr. Matthew Lieberman at UCLA, him and his team proved that they call this effect labeling. When you name your emotion, you're actually calming your amygdala. So that's like your brain panic button, the area in your brain that registers threat. You're actually reducing that activity by 50% just by naming your feeling. So think about that. What we're doing, Curtis, is first we're saying, where is this emotion showing up in my body? Then we're saying, you know what? I'm feeling frustrated. And just by saying that to yourself, you're calming your body down. The third step is to take an EQ breath. Now, this is a specific type of breath. It's seven seconds. It's three seconds in through the nose quietly, and four seconds out through the mouth quietly. The key here is to be quiet. If you're doing this during an argument, then you're having another whole argument if it's not quiet. So you locate it, you name the feeling, you do this seven-second breath, and now your body is regulated that you can actually choose an emotionally intelligent response. So the key here is when you go through these quick three steps, you actually shift from reacting to responding and from impulse to intention. And that's what true leadership is, that's what true connection is. Creating that space so that you can have an emotionally intelligent response.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Well, explain to the listeners what emotional magnets are.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

And uh why how they explain why smart people still struggle in relationships.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Well, I have to share a little story with you there on how I discovered it. So at that moment where I was feeling, you know, fraudulent in my life, I was looking for all sorts of resources and knowledge, and I stumbled across this book from the 60s. And it was research that was done on emotional motivation. And it was called the emotional appeal theory. What it what it proved in this work that they did, research of thousands of people in the 60s, was that all of us are just motivated by four things emotionally. And if we understand which one of those emotions, uh, what they'll call, they called emotional appeals, I call them emotional magnets. If we know what our magnet is and we share that with people, they understand why we make the choices that we do. So when I read this the first time, everything just started to make sense. Like why I chose the careers I did, the choices I'd made in my personal relationships, everything started falling into place. And it was liberating because I realized that's truly what I emotionally need. So I had this information and I started using it in my business as it was in the bedroom. And I was using it in networking to instead of feeling nervous about meeting new people, I would think to myself, instead of saying, what do I say at these events? I would think, what can I learn from these people? And I'd try and find their magnet, you know, and ask questions to see what they're motivated by. And then my network started to grow tremendously because I was having these amazing conversations. Then I applied it in my sales and I used the four magnets, and I'll go through them shortly. Those four magnets, when I used them in my sales, I was closing things faster. People were whole holding meetings with me. Um, cold calls weren't cold anymore. I was able to communicate to people's magnets. So I'd seen, Curtis, that this had worked so well in my business that I thought, you know what? Now I'm a single mom. I've been a single mom for 10 years. I think it's time to get back on the dating scene. And so I thought, I wonder if I can use these magnets in the dating situation, in a personal situation. So I went on a first date with this fine fella. And sure enough, I used this conversation, the emotional magnets, on our very first date with my now hot husband of 12 years. And it wasn't exactly first date banter, but it was really important because we'd cut through all the noise and we got to what really mattered. And I said to him, you know, there are four emotional magnets. They tell you what you're emotionally motivated by. I am motivated by achievement, and I'm motivated by experience. And I told him the other two, and he told me his. And ever since we've been honoring that in each other. So there are four magnets. There's an acronym for it, SAVE, S-A-V-E. The first is Safety. That's people who need, you know, security, structure, uh, predictability, ease. There's achievement, so people who are motivated by recognition, competition, uh challenge, thought leaders, goal setting. There's value, people who are motivated by worth and growth and significance and legacy. And there's experience, which are people who are looking for impact and creativity and curiosity and progress and change. So that's once you understand what your emotional magnet is, it's very easy, as I said, to understand the choices you made, but also to share it with the people in your life so that they understand a little bit more about you and stop labeling you with terms they don't understand, who you are and why you're making those choices, they all of a sudden empathize with you because they know what you need. So it's a very powerful tool to use. I have a um quiz in my book that helps people to deduct what their uh magnet is. And also it's pretty easy to tell once you go through the upside and downside of each of the magnets. But I'll tell you, once you know, you just want to share it with everybody in your life because it uh it truly helps you understand more about yourself. And I think the heart of good connection and good communication, when you understand yourself, you can connect with anyone anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Well, since you mentioned it, go ahead and tell the listeners about your book. Tell us what we can expect when we read it and uh where we can get it, why you decide to write it.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Sure. Thank you. Uh emotional magnetism was the journey that I was on. It took me nine years to write. I wrote it at night when my children were sleeping. And it was very cathartic for me because I also walked through that journey step by step. The tool, the book is divided into three sections. It's called Emotional Magnetism. It's popular because it's helping people to save their marriages, helping them to sell better, helping them to be better leaders, parents, friends. And as I said, really understand why they make the choices that they do. The first section of the book is really about what's blocking communication in your life. There are 16 different ways that we block connection and communication. And most of us aren't even aware of them. We do them and we don't even know. So I spent the first section really identifying what blocks communication and connection. The second section is really the quiz. It's the upside and downside of each of the four magnets. And in there, you start to understand the people in your life, like your names of people and colleagues and friends pop into your head like popcorn when you read that section. Because you're like, oh, that's why they made the choices they have. And then the third section, I'm really proud of that section because that's where most development um nonfiction self-development books stop. They tell you certain things, but they don't tell you how to implement them. So in the third section, I really go into detail on how to apply the magnets in your sales, in your marketing, in your personal conversations. And I have examples there of scenarios that you can use for each of the magnets. So it's a powerful tool. You know, when I wrote it, I was, you know, wanting to share it with people because people asked me to. They asked, what is going on in your life? How did you finally find this success in your personal life? And I started sharing it in the book, and then people started saying it was resonating with them too. Now it's in multiple languages, and I'm just thrilled that it's helping people to communicate, to connect.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

So the communication failure that changed that traject trajectory of your life, was that the uh interaction with your son when he uh hurt his knee, or was it something else?

SPEAKER_01 20:50

I think it's a bunch of um experiences that I've had, Curtis. Like the first one with my son definitely made me look at priorities in my life and where work was sitting for me. I've always been someone that's wanted to um push the envelope a little bit in everything that I do. And so I knew that I would continue to work towards my passion and follow my gut and my intuition. My I saw my father have a job for 30 years that he hated and he did it to provide for us. And I thought how how admirable, admirable that was. But for me, I also thought I don't ever want that. I mean, I want to ensure that what I'm doing in my life is making a difference. That's what I emotionally need. So, you know, that that episode with my son was one thing. Another was just really trying to help other people. I switched from, I think around 10 years ago, I switched from just delivering a service to actually being of service. And that was a huge change for me. Where, you know, I used to care about awards and titles and recognition, of course, especially because I'm driven by achievement. But now that achievement to me means more about how is this gonna help people? How, what is my legacy on leaving? You know, how the fact that that book's gonna be picked up when I'm long gone makes me really happy that it's gonna help somebody to have more love and acceptance in their life. So there's a lot of little things that have happened through my career. And, you know, I was a female executive in in three male dominated industries, finance, tech, and construction. And those experiences also helped me to see communication in the workplace and how we need to simplify that for people and make it easier for people to connect. So a whole bunch of experiences really formed, you know, where I am right now and the book itself. And now I'm working on my second book as well that's coming up next year.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Well, speaking of achievements, one of your proudest moments was winning a limbo contest at age 14. So tell the listeners about that.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Yeah, I like telling people about that because that's a moment where I realized I was terrified. And I threw my hand up the in the air and and uh volunteered to do a contest. And I remember that feeling in my stomach and in my gut, even in my heart. I can still feel it now, actually. How how scared I was of putting myself in a situation that was. Uncomfortable, that was, you know, very visible in front of all these people. And um, but just going for it anyways. And so that to me is one of the best accomplishments I ever made because it proved to myself that actually what that rush is like to try and do something and um and just go for it, even in the face of fear. And I, you know, most of my best successes have come from that feeling. And uh yeah, so I, you know, the limbo, I don't limbo anymore, I'll tell you that. But but uh it was it was not even really winning it, it was just being able to get up there and do it in front of, you know, I think there was about a hundred people in the in the room. It was on a family vacation. And at that age, of course, you know, being a a teenager, everything matters, um, especially how people think of you. And so I feel like that was one hurdle in my life that really taught me a lesson.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

What besides your book, your second book, tell us about any other upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Thank you. Um, right now I have the Magnetic Communication Podcast that is a love of my life. It's I I we all don't have very much time to listen to as much as we'd want to. So I turn that podcast into a weekly bite-sized podcast. So it's just under 10 minutes every week, every Tuesday. And my task and my goal there is to share a tool on the podcast that will help someone that week, so with their communication and their emotional intelligence. So I have a lot of fun. I share a lot of personal stories, I share a lot of experienced stories and being an executive, being a, you know, a manager, being a leader. And um, and on that podcast, uh it's it's very valuable. And I bring it up now because I actually just got nominated for the Women Podcasters Award for Mindset and Mental Health. And that means so much to me because it's really continuing the conversation that I want to do, right? I want people to know there's a place where they can grab a quick tool to help them communicate better with their loved one, with themselves and with their dreams and goals. So um, so I would ask people, you know, if they want to support that, that would be wonderful. It's magnetic communication and it's on Spotify and it's on Apple. And um, if you even want to support voting for it, that will help continue to raise the awareness of the podcast. It's women's podcasters.com slash magnetic dash communication. And that would be just so wonderful if uh we could continue to create this movement where people feel they're confident to communicate, to connect.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Oh, that's your contact info so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

They can contact me at sandygerber.com and of course on social as well. And I have a whole bunch of free resources on my site for people to help them and a blog there as well. So sandygerber.com would be great. Just reach out and connect. It'd be wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Well, close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners?

SPEAKER_01 26:39

I'd just say to the listeners, you know, most of us aren't struggling with communication because we don't care. We're struggling, most of us, because no one taught us how to say what really matters to us. So I would look at, you know, what's a tool that you can use today, a little tiny tool that you can use today to shift some of your communication. If you're feeling that your relationship is drifting, because we don't just end relationships, we drift. If it's drifting in your work or your personal life, then maybe start looking at your own communication. And as I said, listen to a tool, grab a tool, uh pick up a book, and help yourself to communicate to what you truly emotionally need in your life.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

All right, ladies and gentlemen, sandy gerber.com. Check out her book and podcast, and definitely go on there and vote for that podcast and keep up with everything that she's up to. And please follow Rate Review, share this episode to as many people as possible because Sandy gives some great tips in this episode about being able to have connected conversations. And if you haven't done so, please go sign up for the Living the Dream newsletter at www.curveball337.com. Leave us a review and check out um everything that we're up to and gonna be up to. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Sandy, thank you for all that you do, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Thank you, Curtis, and thank you for all you do to help people live the dream.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.