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Embracing Courage and Communication: Insights with Michelle Gladieux · Authentic Living

• 0:01
  Welcome to Authentic Living with Roxanne, a place where we have conscious conversations
• 0:08
  about things that really matter in our lives.
• 0:12
  And now here's your host, Roxanne Durhaj.
• 0:40
  Hi, everyone.
• 0:40
  It's Roxanne Durhodge.
• 0:42
  Thanks for tuning in again this week to Authentic Living with Roxanne.
• 0:45
  I just wanna let you know I'm amazed how many of you listened, and I just want you to
• 0:51
  subscribe because we can just let you know when these cool people like Michelle Gladio's
• 0:56
  popping in to visit us.
• 0:58
  So go to iTunes, give her a review, show her some love so that we can have some more
• 1:03
  interesting guests like her on.
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  So, Michelle, thanks for being here.
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  And I'm let me tell you a little bit about Michelle.
• 1:10
  And Michelle and I have a lot, we were chitchatting, and we I thought, oh, we should
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  hit record because we're having so much fun off camera.
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  Michelle,
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  who the flower is gladiola, but I'll take that.
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  She's called the human potential whisperer, which I love.
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  And her mission is to grow people as leaders and communicators every day.
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  She's the author of award winning book Communicate with Taking Risks to Overcome the
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  Four Hidden Challenges.
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  And she's the president of her company, Gladio Consulting.
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  She's worked in Anubas Corporate Environments, HR Training Director in things from cold
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  storage to robotics, construction, male dominated kind of environment.
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  And she's a keynote speaker.
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  And she's designed over a thousand original seminars.
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  That's amazing.
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  And her positive effect on those who advises is evident after she just has one interaction.
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  I can tell you, we just met and that is so true.
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  Michelle, tell us what got you talking about courage?
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  Like, you started a path, it sounds like.
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  Did you go to a business school?
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  What did you do?
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  Sure.
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  I went to Purdue University in West Lafayette, and I studied psychology, specifically
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  organizational and industrial psychology, because I knew that I wanted to do something
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  along the lines of what you've done with your life, Roxanne, but I wasn't quite sure about
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  clinical psych.
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  I felt more called to how humans behave in the workplace and then over now a long career,
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  about twenty five years as an instructional designer, educator, executive coach, We
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  deliver, my team and I are a team of eight based out of Fort Wayne, Indiana, we deliver
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  very custom teaching for folks and we meet them where they are and we really need to earn their
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  trust and we do earn their trust and so we go down these curvy roads that people are on as
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  communicators with them whether it's a large group or one on one coaching and in all of the
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  obstacles that I've seen that hold people back from more joy and more respect, getting more
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  respect as communicators and throughout their careers, not to mention in their personal
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  lives, it seems to come down to can we be brave enough to learn about our strengths and
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  weaknesses as you well know and then work on the weaker points to help them become
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  strengths.
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  It's very possible to do so, and that, of course, requires courage and a good teacher or
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  teachers.
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  Life is a teacher, and all those we meet can teach us, or we can work one on one with a
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  coach to get to where you are closer to your potential, to get to where you're meant to be
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  in this life, which I firmly believe is as a message sender and receiver, we can change the
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  world, each of us in our very unique ways.
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  So courage became a theme of my book.
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  It's called Communicate with Courage, Taking Risks to Overcome the Four Hidden Challenges
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  because I tried to put my very best advice into a short book and keep it to the point and tell
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  personal real life stories about myself and real life people.
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  And wouldn't you know the theme that kept emerging really was gain skill and gain
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  courage.
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  Build it like a muscle.
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  Gain skill and gain courage.
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  Now the companies that hire you to do coaching, I'm gonna say they are companies that are aware
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  of the impact of increasing the skills of the people in the environment.
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  Sometimes when you go in, do you find that people are still shy they shy away from
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  coaching for fear that there's repercussions?
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  If someone owns a consulting company or whatever you're doing different sectors, I'm
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  gonna assume.
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  How open are employees to getting coached if the company buys coaching?
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  It's a great question, and there's always some hesitance.
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  I would be hesitating if you said, congratulations Michelle we've hired an
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  executive coach for you and you're going to take a personality assessment and get a 14 page
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  results report read all about yourself and the coach will be reading.
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  So you're right I understand that there are some people who are hesitant, but I think that
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  we've done a really good job of meeting that hesitancy by respecting it.
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  I will provide my personality report first to you, for example, if you're about to take the
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  survey online and that way you can see like how cool is this?
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  Look at it shows how extroverted introverted I am, what my style is, how I make decisions, how
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  I handle conflict.
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  So we try to give as much as we ask others to give, and a lot of my teaching and coaching
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  does involve references to personal current and past personal stories.
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  So it's an interesting fine line between very good friend and client, and we try to be a very
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  good friend to our clients while keeping professional boundaries where they should be so
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  that we can also deliver difficult to receive feedback sometimes, but always with love and
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  with respect for others' self esteem because it's a delicate balance and we've all had
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  bosses or teachers or coaches or guides who weren't really ethical or they weren't very
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  skilled at giving feedback.
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  So people do come in a little bit hesitant sometimes, yes, but they always find that it's
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  worth it and that we approach the work with humor and a sense of no one being better or
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  more valuable than any other human at the soul level.
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  So you show them your assessment?
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  Absolutely.
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  Wow.
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  What vulnerability is that, right?
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  Because to be able to do that, to be able to share, especially if somebody's got a bit of
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  trepidation, I don't know what's going to happen here.
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  What a nice way to open the door for them because you're kind of saying, I've done it.
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  I'm not so good at over there.
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  I'm actually pretty good over here, in the middle over here.
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  Because then they kind of go, oh, it's not something that's being done to me.
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  It becomes almost like an invisible collaborative relationship that you're starting
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  to get into.
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  So true, especially the conflict management breakdown that shows the five ways that humans
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  can handle disagreement and then what the client's preference is and how often they use
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  each style and my competing score has been way too high for too long but I have wrangled it
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  I've wrangled it down so that it's not the whole pie and there are other slices of the pie
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  and I can do things like accommodate compromise avoid etc collaborate but I'll show them that
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  right away sometimes and say and look at yours, look at how balanced you are with how you
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  handle conflict, what coaching do you have for me because I am overly competitive and that's
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  interesting also to be able to receive instruction from our clients has made me better
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  at what I do and has made our team better for sure.
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  Based on the sector that you're serving, and I'm going to assume it, are you in lots of
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  different sectors with some of the contracts you're dealing with?
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  Got it.
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  Yep.
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  What sector might be a bit more closed off compared to other I could name some.
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  Just asking
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  to hear.
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  Yeah.
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  Bet you could.
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  I have to be careful.
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  Right?
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  No.
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  Don't say anything if it's one company that you happen to have.
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  I wouldn't.
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  We try to only share actual names when we have compliments to give, whether it's we're talking
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  about one human or And
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  then, commit, commit, then deliver.
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  Right?
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  Absolutely.
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  Folks who are used to being the highest powered person in the room through positional power or
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  personal power, such as doctors Okay.
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  Professors, commanders in the military, high ranking political officials, and not always.
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  Sometimes they can be the most excited and the most open about how they might receive four or
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  five goals.
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  The way I I do it, the meeting is up to two hours once a month, and then I spend a few days
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  creating a very tight, succinct, doable goal plan that has four or five baby steps for the
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  client to take before we meet again in thirty days.
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  And many of these folks that are high ranking are very interested in getting better.
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  It really has a lot to do with self esteem, upbringing, and personality, I think, but I can
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  think of some challenges where we really had to prove our worth, right, and demonstrate that
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  even if you are high powered and highly successful, there's sometimes in that case is
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  even more to learn because how will you get people to feel at ease and give you real deal
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  feedback, for example, if there's some difference in political power or positional
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  power?
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  In my book that I wrote on return it's ROI return on relationship.
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  Yes.
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  So we talk and I look basically, it's written to the leader to look at his or her kind of
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  spectrum in five areas.
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  Right?
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  Communication, connection, decision making, balance processing, and recognition.
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  Like, so if I don't know myself in those areas, it's kind of hard to impart it.
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  Let's say, Michelle, and I know we wouldn't be very different, I could just tell by talking to
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  you.
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  But if we're that different from someone else and we're not recognizing that we're not able
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  to blend because maybe you're the left brainer that's so microscopic that you're able to see
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  patterns and I'm a big picture kind of person.
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  We're just gonna sometimes be diametrically opposed in how we kind of look to say goals or
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  communication.
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  So the leader kind of looks at his or her style, especially when they're under stress.
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  And how do they come across and what could they learn so that they can enhance their capacity
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  to connect?
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  So it's interesting that you're seeing with some of these senior leaders, it's not just
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  about the position, but it's so many other different elements that might impact them.
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  Well said, and Roxanne, I feel like you're speaking directly to me and coaching me as I
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  think about, I'm a driver expressive or DI if it's a DISC person if that's that we're talking
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  about right?
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  Yes.
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  And how just how much work it has been for me to realize the other 8,000,000,000 people on
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  the planet have very different mixes of personality and upbringing strengths, life.
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  I think I went for a long period in my life believing everyone experienced life the way I
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  do, and it was not beneficial especially in negotiation and conflict scenarios, and what is
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  that?
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  But personal relationships are all that.
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  Right?
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  And how hard it is, as you say, to blend, but I love a challenge.
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  And I do think about those styles I have less of, like amiability and analytical style.
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  And I I'll sometimes picture a person that I know and respect who has that style that I wish
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  I had going into the situation, and I will think about acting as if, and I know you've
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  been a therapist for many years.
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  I don't know if that's something you ever recommend, but when you 're talking about
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  blending, you talking about acting as if and adding some style that's usually not ours
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  trying that on blending?
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  No, I think the overarching element is awareness.
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  Right?
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  So when I deal with senior leaders or whatever and they say I'm really good stress.
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  I'm more succinct.
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  And, you know, I'd be like, oh, okay.
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  If their analysis of themself is incongruent with their teams, there's a disconnect.
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  So, like, when you're coaching, okay.
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  Well, if you're just giving yourself an eight in all these areas, but everybody's giving you
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  a one or two, does that disparity exist for a reason?
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  Because they're too sensitive, Roxanne.
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  And I'm like, okay.
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  We all have blind spots.
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  Yeah.
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  That's fine.
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  Mine is microscopic, analytical, wanting to make everybody happy and try to be
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  collaborative.
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  And sometimes people don't wanna do that.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  Right.
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  So I in certain areas.
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  So I then I'll say to them, okay.
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  So you think you're pretty good with how do you communicate when you're stressed.
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  I would like you to go home and speak to your youngest child.
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  And what if and they'll say, what am I asking?
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  I said, I want you to ask your youngest child the last time you were really stressed how they
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  would describe you.
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  Oh, boy.
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  And then they go, I'm different at work than home.
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  I said, are you?
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  Right, and then what happens is, I said, Don't start with the oldest.
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  The oldest is gonna give you what you need because they're thinking, What do I have to say
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  to kind of get out of this?
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  Then the middle one might be more in the middle and the younger one's just gonna give it to you
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  full on, boat bearings.
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  I know you grew up with six children in your family, right?
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  Yes, yes.
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  I'm the middle child, so guess what?
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  I'm the child.
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  I'm like the plates at the circus that try to keep everything spinning and make sure
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  everybody's okay, right?
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  You are a highly skilled communicator and I'm just so I've been listening to the podcast
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  congratulations on the three twenty episodes that's a big deal.
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  Thank you.
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  What a volunteerism thing to do to help educate all of us.
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  Well, I love meeting fantastic people.
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  And I listen to a lot of podcasts myself, but what happens is when I meet you, I learn all
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  the stuff that you've been doing in your world, and then I get exposure to all the something
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  new from a different angle.
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  So I and I think to me, it's and I'm an extrovert, obviously, and so I get energized by
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  doing these.
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  So I think I just like some people will say, Oh no, don't you think about yourself in camera?
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  I said, I used to, maybe for the first ten.
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  And then after that, I didn't think about it after that.
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  So I think to your point, it's about knowing what your strengths are but how do you approach
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  it so you can enhance the capacity to deal with your blind spots because it's no right or
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  wrong.
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  But in turn, once you get that, then you're able to that force field around you becomes a
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  little bit more permeable because you're understanding the personalities that you're
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  around to be able bring out the best out of potentially the people that you're dealing
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  with.
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  Right.
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  Which is the very definition of leadership, and we don't need a fancy title to make big waves,
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  big positive waves in our organizational culture.
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  In most places that we work, I would say people are underestimating their ability to make a
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  positive difference.
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  If they were to work on gaining some skill and courage in communication, they could have a
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  more impactful positive impact in their work and in their personal lives as well.
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  Oh, absolutely.
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  So let's talk about the four blocks because I'd love to hear more about that because it's I
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  often say it's I'm a great communicator, but nobody likes conflict.
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  We think of conflict as being a big blowout or something big.
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  You have to really think, well, it's maybe not that bad.
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  I have to practice a little bit.
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  I still don't like it.
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  And I've done it for thirty years in my role.
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  So what are some of those blocks that stop people from having courage to communicate?
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  Sure.
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  There are four that I write about in Communicate with Courage and they are hiding
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  from risk, defining to be right, rationalizing the negative, and then settling for good
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  enough.
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  And I spend about 10 pages per chapter towards the middle of the book helping people see if
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  they have this hidden challenge and how and out of the subconscious or out of their peripheral
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  vision so that they can work on it.
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  There are a couple supporting chapters I want to just mention around the hidden challenges
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  that include strength and vulnerability, which is saying nobody's perfect and meaning it.
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  We also have risks, a chapter about risks not worth taking because we can't just claim I'm
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  being courageous and rush in to do damage.
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  The most important conversations to have and then the last chapter is the complete risk
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  taking communicator.
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  But back to your question about the hidden challenges, would you like me to speak about
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  any of those hiding from risk, defining to be right, rationalizing the negative, or settling
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  for good enough?
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  Well, why don't you define them a bit?
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  Then I have another question for you based on who you coach in reference to the most, well,
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  the one that seems to show up the most.
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  So let's just define them because I think that's important.
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  Absolutely.
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  Hiding from risk is leaning on our masks that we wear, hiding, fear of exposing a weakness
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  that is either a real weakness or one that we might just used to have dealt with and have
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  overcome, but we don't recognize it yet.
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  So we're feeling intimidated in some way, and what we do is we try to get past that.
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  I ask people to decide to engage more when it involves their values, and then in the book,
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  teach them how Okay.
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  The second challenge is defining to be right, and that is when we put just too much stock
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  into our own assumptions and our own life experience and being so sure that it's just so
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  darn sure of our position or our opinion or the way that we think things should be handled that
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  people eventually begin to stop sharing diverse thought that could
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  It's like the it's like the curtain goes down, and you know you've lost them.
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  Yeah.
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  You can't tell her anything.
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  You can't tell them anything.
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  He's not gonna listen, and you can develop a reputation for that if you're not careful.
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  That can be remedied, and I have some coaching clients that are really working to come back
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  from that kind of reputation.
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  But that is the hidden challenge of being a definer and defining to make sure that you are
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  right.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  The third challenge is rationalizing the negative.
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  This is a pet peeve of mine.
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  I've worked hard to try to maintain an optimistic mindset.
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  I believe strongly that we can be realistic and optimistic at the same time.
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  But if you are falling into rationalizing the negative, you honestly might be a drag to work
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  with or to live with.
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  It it can literally be a drag on others' energy, and rationalizing the negative happens
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  when we choose a pessimistic mindset and we shield ourselves then from taking chances to do
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  the hard thing.
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  The best thing is sometimes the hardest thing in communication, like facing a conflict or
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  negotiating, maybe asking for help or saying I'm sorry or I love you or I need this to
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  change.
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  So I ask people and teach them to put some courage and faith and time into visualizing
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  possible positive outcomes and it's really working well for me.
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  You mentioned I've created over a thousand original seminars and been doing this for
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  twenty five years flying here and there driving here and there and every time I have an
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  opportunity to speak to keynote if it's a workshop or a seminar I spend time alone
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  visualizing just how that's going to go, and now for twenty five years that's pretty much
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  how it's gone.
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  Things like people are laughing, there are hands up, people are eager to answer questions
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  and share stories, and people leave with goals, very specific baby step goals to help them
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  become better team members, employers, communicators overall, presenters, writers, and
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  it's never a perfect presentation or a perfect event.
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  But I do believe that if I were rationalizing the negative and expecting things not to go
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  well, they would not have gone so well so far.
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  Nice.
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  Nice.
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  What is what do you see as being the one biggest block?
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  Like
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  Should I mention the fourth just real quickly?
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  Yes, please.
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  Settling for and I probably talked too long on that one because, as I mentioned, it's a pet
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  peeve of mine.
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  But settling for good enough is just what it sounds like, really.
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  It's striving, striving, not striving, it's just accepting instead of striving towards a
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  more viable, helpful, successful outcome.
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  So it's stopping it good enough instead of striving toward having interactions that can
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  slowly but surely change the world, change the company, change our families and change
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  ourselves.
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  Sometimes knowing when to call it and say, I think we've resolved it enough or learning when
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  to let things go.
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  And I'm sure you see that in personal relationships.
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  I think of my life in personal relationships, if you get the person that's gonna just not
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  listen and you think, okay, just have to agree to disagree.
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  Sometimes you have to take that road.
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  Very hard for me.
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  Some more good coaching from you.
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  Have to practice that all the time but sometimes or because me, my personality is I
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  want to get to the bottom of it.
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  What happened?
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  Were you tired?
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  Like in my personal relationships and then my son will say, Mom, can we just let it go?
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  Can we just let it go?
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  Sometimes you do.
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  Well, our job is to analyze communication.
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  So it is hard to let's give a shout out for everyone who is in our friend group and family
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  group.
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  I'm sure that
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  Oh, yeah.
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  And they'd be like, really?
• 22:55
  Hey.
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  We're blooming where we were planted,
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  though.
• 22:57
  Yeah.
• 22:58
  Can I ask a question about your books real quick?
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  Sure.
• 23:03
  Okay.
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  I'm in the process of acquiring them.
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  There's the Authentic Connection Movement and then a Therapist Insider's Guide about healing
• 23:11
  the past.
• 23:12
  Which is more recent and which would you recommend a person?
• 23:16
  I'm going to read them.
• 23:17
  Which should I start with?
• 23:18
  The first one is a Therapist Insider's Guide on Healing the Past.
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  So that's the first one.
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  I wrote that ten years ago.
• 23:25
  Okay.
• 23:26
  So what I did was I was not practicing at the time, and that's when I started my business.
• 23:31
  Okay.
• 23:32
  And I decided to analyze my own life at that point, which we're not supposed to do when
• 23:37
  we're in practice.
• 23:39
  So what had happened was I decided that I was going to help people out that would not to talk
• 23:46
  to someone that did what I did for a living.
• 23:49
  And a lot of changes had happened in my life at age 44.
• 23:54
  So I basically deconstructed my life from birth all the way up to 44 and analyzed all of my
• 24:01
  relationships like any psychologist would, along with steps with if there are issues in
• 24:07
  those particular areas of your relationships, what you could do to enhance them.
• 24:12
  She had kind of like the good, the bad, or the ugly, looking, using my life as a template.
• 24:16
  People said to me, oh my goodness, I can't believe you're talking about this.
• 24:19
  I said, if one person reads this, one person, and they're able to make changes in their
• 24:24
  friendships or whatever, then I've made a difference.
• 24:28
  So that's the first one.
• 24:29
  The most recent one, which I can send you because you're sending me one of yours, is ROR,
• 24:34
  Return of How Authentic Leadership Builds More Resilient Teams.
• 24:39
  That just got released last year.
• 24:42
  I love the return on relationships.
• 24:45
  I have never heard that referred to.
• 24:48
  Copyright that quickly.
• 24:49
  Well, will be copyrighted because it's in your it's your book title.
• 24:53
  Of course, return on relationships is in general, and it's actually a scientific term,
• 24:58
  but in reference to what I'm talking about, it obviously copyrighted that way.
• 25:02
  So I would say either one, it depends.
• 25:07
  The first one is written for more kind of either way you can learn about yourself in
• 25:13
  relationships.
• 25:14
  The second one is more to the leader that wants to learn about what he or she needs to do to
• 25:20
  enhance their capacity, to be more authentic and connect so that they can allow each of
• 25:27
  their teams or different business units to relate to them because they would have known
• 25:31
  how to adapt their behaviors to meet them where they're at.
• 25:35
  Beautiful.
• 25:36
  And I think authenticity is the close cousin of vulnerability because we fear that if we bring
• 25:42
  our authentic self sometimes to the workplace in a professional way, I don't think it's fair
• 25:46
  to show up in my jammies and say, this is authentically me.
• 25:49
  I mean, really putting my soul in positions where my mouth is.
• 25:54
  Absolutely.
• 25:55
  Absolutely.
• 25:56
  That does require courage to be vulnerable, and I find that clients and I, all of us, probably
• 26:02
  need to do what you did, somewhat of a life review, maybe not to the extent that you have,
• 26:07
  which is very brave work, thank you for doing that because as soon as others see themselves
• 26:11
  in you they will have a new friend on the page and have some ideas.
• 26:16
  Yeah
• 26:17
  because you're going through things and stuff like that But people always are so afraid.
• 26:22
  They think, If I see a psychotherapist or a psychologist, something must be wrong with me.
• 26:27
  And I go, It's really it's just people living lives and things happen.
• 26:31
  And it's how what could you do if you would not go get the professional help or perspective,
• 26:37
  you could read this book and then walk away with it.
• 26:39
  My first counseling appointment was in 02/2004.
• 26:42
  I was going because of relationship difficulties and had degrees in psychology, but
• 26:48
  certainly respected that I can't be a great listener to myself.
• 26:52
  Yes.
• 26:53
  And the first thing that this person said to me, sort of poured out my heart for a few
• 26:56
  minutes and she looked at me and said, I think that you might have to look at lowering your
• 27:01
  expectations of people, lowering your standards.
• 27:05
  And I got my stuff, put it together, thanked her for her time, and left because I believed
• 27:10
  that the one thing you can't tell me is to lower my standards in a relationship.
• 27:16
  And I think we both I went back to her.
• 27:18
  We're lifelong friends we're still in touch after the therapy ended and I see her point and
• 27:29
  I realized that my expectations were overly high at the same time I believe that high
• 27:34
  expectations are appropriate in relationships and how people treat you.
• 27:39
  She was maybe a little bit ahead of you.
• 27:42
  She was a bit ahead of me.
• 27:43
  Right, which is oftentimes what happens.
• 27:47
  Kind of like when you're coaching too.
• 27:48
  Right?
• 27:49
  You kind of know where people are gonna land or where they potentially should land, I should
• 27:53
  say.
• 27:54
  But, you know, I often say it's like your x-ray vision is so enlightened because you think of
• 27:59
  all the people that you've ever coached or the same with me.
• 28:01
  We can see things because we've done so much of it and you gotta hold on tight.
• 28:07
  I was ready to hear that.
• 28:09
  Thought that Put
• 28:10
  on, back up, go reverse.
• 28:12
  I'm out of here.
• 28:14
  You're like, bye bye.
• 28:15
  See you later.
• 28:16
  But that but stuck with me, you know, that night when I interacted with that individual,
• 28:21
  had in the back of my head, do I have fair expectations of people?
• 28:25
  And I realized I sometimes have overly high expectations of myself, and then my anger at
• 28:31
  myself about that is creating a situation where I might have overly high standards and others.
• 28:37
  And it's a it's a joy now to have walked the twisty road that of things, as you said,
• 28:42
  happens, that life has thrown at me.
• 28:44
  I like to tie that into teaching and coaching, and I think it's a fine line to know where to
• 28:49
  use humor and how much to divulge, and I'm careful about that.
• 28:53
  But I do share about myself, and I find that I'm becoming a better educator and coach the
• 28:57
  more I'm willing to open small parts of myself and share that vulnerability back to what we
• 29:02
  were talking about with, like, providing the personality assessment to someone so they can
• 29:06
  read about my business.
• 29:08
  Just sharing to share, but sharing it for it to be instrumental to to that teachable moment and
• 29:13
  you think that's gonna make the difference versus, you know, somebody else that's sharing
• 29:17
  everything.
• 29:17
  Well, the client doesn't wanna hear everything about our lives.
• 29:19
  They might like in all They're like, okay, hold on, this is about me, isn't it?
• 29:24
  Oh no, can you imagine?
• 29:26
  Right, that's So
• 29:28
  going back to the four Challenges, yep.
• 29:34
  What is the number one that you have seen in your tenure of doing this kind of work?
• 29:40
  Or is that a hard question for you or is that That's a good question
• 29:43
  because the book was just published in late twenty twenty two, and these were new concepts
• 29:50
  that I was writing about for me at the time.
• 29:53
  So I'm just starting to put into coaching goal plans.
• 29:58
  Please read my book and tell me which of the four hidden challenges would you like to
• 30:02
  overcome through this coaching, three or four months of coaching?
• 30:06
  Oh, interesting.
• 30:07
  So you're going get some amazing information from that, and it's going to be so interesting.
• 30:13
  It's, yeah, biology, attachment theory, which, you know, and then how we project it out into
• 30:19
  the world based on our connections with others and who's triggering us and what skills do we
• 30:25
  have, what skills don't we have, so many variables.
• 30:28
  So I think it could be a split based on any combinations of things about why people might
• 30:36
  have any one of those goals for.
• 30:40
  I would love to hear what you find out as you do more assessments.
• 30:43
  I think we're going to be staying in touch.
• 30:45
  I think.
• 30:46
  I think.
• 30:47
  Yes.
• 30:47
  You remind me of a chef who can open the refrigerator and make a beautiful gourmet meal
• 30:54
  with what you have by figuring out how things work together.
• 30:59
  Well maybe that's the way my brain works right and my cookery teacher would probably say no
• 31:05
  don't ever put her in a kitchen.
• 31:07
  Okay.
• 31:08
  She is bad.
• 31:09
  But really
• 31:11
  our viewers and listeners to this particular pod episode, I hope they're taking from this.
• 31:18
  You can show up at any point in your life at any age with any mistakes and scars and
• 31:23
  weaknesses, and there is a way forward and there's information out there both in people
• 31:29
  and in that can help you and self study so that you can have a yesterday that looks different
• 31:35
  than tomorrow.
• 31:36
  I was just coaching a group of young people that are going to the Indianapolis State House
• 31:42
  to try to present their they're going to present their bills at the state house, and
• 31:46
  they've been working on them for six months.
• 31:48
  So their teacher called me in to a y w YMCA in Northern Indiana on one of their meeting nights
• 31:56
  and said, Michelle, please help them with presentation skills because we what we have
• 32:00
  here are high schoolers who are nervous about presenting.
• 32:04
  Right?
• 32:05
  And as I listened to them introduce themselves, I just said, could everyone please just give me
• 32:10
  your name and tell me something about your bill that you're presenting and then something you
• 32:14
  love to do that isn't school?
• 32:16
  And each person went, and one young lady did a good job with her content and explained her
• 32:20
  name and what her bill was about and then what she liked to do when she wasn't at school, and
• 32:26
  then she added, and as you can see, I'm not a very good public speaker, and I said, you were
• 32:32
  getting an A plus until that last moment.
• 32:35
  I would just like you to add yet.
• 32:37
  So can we go through the whole thing again?
• 32:38
  And she went through her three answers and then said, and I'm not a good public speaker yet.
• 32:43
  So I hope that's how our listeners feel that they're maybe not where they want to be yet,
• 32:48
  but with a it's amazing what a little effort in getting feedback about your communication,
• 32:53
  dropping some of the walls you have that protect your fears, and being willing to
• 32:58
  acknowledge what you would like to learn or do better.
• 33:01
  It also helps people around you see you differently when you're willing to have brave
• 33:06
  things like that come out of your mouth.
• 33:09
  And to also have the proper guidance, Michelle.
• 33:11
  I think using your example with your therapist, whether it's personal and you need a therapist
• 33:17
  or it's corporate and you need a coach to recognize that one benefits the other always,
• 33:24
  right?
• 33:24
  Because once you're making a shift, don't say, when I was in corporate, I'd say, leave
• 33:29
  personal Roxanne at home and bring corporate Roxanne to work.
• 33:33
  And we try to kind of slice that down the middle and really we're one of the same, like
• 33:37
  our triggers and the things that really get under our skin and those types of things.
• 33:42
  I that a lot.
• 33:44
  I hear, Oh, I'm a completely different person at work than I am at home because folks will
• 33:49
  get our personality and communication survey as they enter coaching programs or training
• 33:54
  programs, and they'll say, should I answer this as work me or home me?
• 33:58
  And I said, well, these are going to be questions about you at work, but you're not
• 34:03
  that different at home.
• 34:04
  Probably, you're still the same you're still the same person.
• 34:07
  So that's an interesting I've always thought that there was more mapping over of personal
• 34:13
  traits between home and or personal life and professional life than most people acknowledge,
• 34:18
  but they'll say things like, oh, I'm in charge at work, but at home, I do what my spouse wants
• 34:24
  me to do.
• 34:25
  How do you respond to that?
• 34:26
  You tell them you think the triggers are still the same?
• 34:29
  The strengths are
• 34:29
  They display themselves in a different way, right?
• 34:33
  So if you're my employee and I'm telling you what to do, you might contain your reaction to
• 34:39
  the fact that I'm triggering you.
• 34:41
  But at home, you probably can be a bit more maybe you'd go and scream in the other room and
• 34:45
  your pillow at your spouse.
• 34:49
  Or start an argument.
• 34:50
  Start an argument or say something that you can't take back or whatever.
• 34:54
  And it's really kind of the brain is showing you something is happening.
• 34:58
  I'm having this big visceral reaction.
• 35:02
  This is big.
• 35:03
  What where am I where is this taking me?
• 35:06
  And I always say, then we go down the ladder and say, where is it repelling you back to and
• 35:13
  what's that kind of belief about yourself that you need to kind of come to terms with.
• 35:19
  And to recognise that, okay, I know where I am but that's not now.
• 35:25
  And how is it that Do I have the skills?
• 35:27
  If I don't have the skills, that's one thing.
• 35:29
  We can teach skills.
• 35:31
  And how do I practice it even though I get exposed to the skills too?
• 35:34
  I'm sure you do a lot of that with coaching, right?
• 35:37
  Shut down, I climb up or I get a little bit more aggressive or whatever.
• 35:42
  But it's kind of learning where we all have brains and bodies, Right?
• 35:47
  And if we just recognize that we are people all trying to get through a day and have that peace
• 35:53
  of mind and to do good work.
• 35:55
  I truly believe that we all want to make a difference.
• 35:58
  We all want to have that imprint in the environment that we're at.
• 36:03
  And I think when to your point, when you're meeting people and I'm meeting people, I'm just
• 36:06
  saying, hey.
• 36:07
  We're all in this together.
• 36:08
  I'm trying to do this too.
• 36:09
  What are you trying to do kind of thing?
• 36:12
  And when you collapse the kind of the strata between you and that person that you're
• 36:17
  coaching, what happens is it's like a it's a win win.
• 36:19
  Right?
• 36:19
  But it's being able to get them there by your relationship with them.
• 36:25
  Well, this is why you wrote the book about it.
• 36:28
  I'm thrilled to to I'm thrilled to make your acquaintance and to see the overlap in our
• 36:33
  work.
• 36:34
  I wanna mention to listeners that if what Roxanne is saying is hitting a chord with you,
• 36:40
  I just wanna mention a page number.
• 36:42
  I think that some of our listeners today might enjoy checking out a letter I wrote to
• 36:46
  conflict.
• 36:47
  I wrote a love letter to conflict from my heart.
• 36:50
  Why would I feel that I'm in love with conflict and disagreement?
• 36:54
  And that's in chapter six, and it's on page 85.
• 36:57
  There's a love letter to conflict.
• 36:59
  I want to refer our listeners to it.
• 37:01
  I think it would help them approach their next difficult conversation with more ease.
• 37:06
  A love letter to conflict.
• 37:09
  That's interesting.
• 37:10
  I'm a weirdo is what that confirms.
• 37:12
  I didn't say that.
• 37:14
  And but I think it's speaking to the functionality of it too.
• 37:17
  Right?
• 37:18
  Right.
• 37:18
  Absolutely.
• 37:19
  Every behavior has a functionality to it.
• 37:22
  And when you kinda, like you said, writing a love letter to it, it's making you look at it
• 37:27
  from the angle of it.
• 37:29
  Why did I have to develop this particular relationship with you?
• 37:33
  It served, purpose.
• 37:35
  And then when you alter it
• 37:37
  Well and, yeah, those difficult conversations have been with me my whole life.
• 37:41
  Yeah.
• 37:42
  Yeah.
• 37:42
  I wonder if others feel the same.
• 37:45
  Absolutely.
• 37:45
  And if we're not having them, that's not a good sign.
• 37:48
  Yeah.
• 37:49
  So Michelle, I have I know we've we're probably just at time, but I wanna ask you a bit about
• 37:56
  conflict on teams or between different stratas of levels of the organization.
• 38:04
  So let's say you've had some unresolved or maybe a little bit of conflict that was not
• 38:13
  dealt with in a proper way.
• 38:15
  The company recognizes that they want things to get better.
• 38:19
  How open generally are people that are hiring you to look at this is a bit of a this is
• 38:26
  something happening over here.
• 38:27
  This is happening over here to collate all the information you're getting to be able to
• 38:32
  develop a strategy kind of long term for communication because it means they have to do
• 38:37
  some cleanup.
• 38:37
  Right?
• 38:38
  Some time.
• 38:39
  Some very open, and I would say that has to do with not only our approach, but word-of-mouth.
• 38:44
  They've often had someone that they trust in the same industry or neighbor in a different
• 38:50
  industry say, call these people.
• 38:53
  Also, they see that we are going to do our homework and remain fair and respectful about
• 38:58
  all positions and points of view.
• 39:00
  And then as the coaching begins, we can get we can ask people to think about where apologies
• 39:05
  might be deserved because that takes courage.
• 39:07
  And it really does make life less complicated if we're willing to take a look at where an
• 39:12
  apology might be deserved.
• 39:14
  And I spent some part of this sometime this weekend working on some notes of apology with
• 39:20
  one of my coaching clients as a matter of fact.
• 39:23
  Nice.
• 39:23
  So, there's some thoughts and we can look at it as no one grows without conflict.
• 39:28
  So, we teach the difference between destructive and constructive conflict and then, we try to
• 39:34
  make sure that what teams are doing are having conflict about ideas and directions and
• 39:38
  decisions and who's got the call on this, whose call is it, rather than personalizing conflict
• 39:45
  and making it Roxanne against Michelle and now my team doesn't interact with your team well
• 39:51
  etc, so we do spend some time preventing or dismantling walls around empires as well and
• 39:57
  usually those walls go up for understandable reasons and sometimes I have I remember in one
• 40:03
  hospital I was trying to help people through team conflict and I asked so I wanted to do one
• 40:09
  on one interviews with everyone, and I did.
• 40:11
  That was interesting because I planned to be on-site for about four hours that day in a
• 40:15
  spare hospital room and I remember thinking, wow I've been here twelve hours.
• 40:20
  To think everyone wanted to talk for just a half an hour about this problem was naive and
• 40:24
  we got to the other side of it and we got to see them performing high performing and happy
• 40:29
  again.
• 40:29
  One of our most popular workshops is called Secrets of Happy High Performing Teams because
• 40:35
  to be very honest there aren't that many happy and high performing teams.
• 40:40
  I see a lot of happy teams who maybe aren't as effective or a lot of high performing but
• 40:45
  they're not very happy with what they're doing or where they're working so we've now spent
• 40:50
  some time studying and we can teach what are the concepts and how can I be a team member who
• 40:55
  contributes to make this team happier and higher performing?
• 40:59
  But Kurt
• 41:00
  Sounds like a nice cross section, right?
• 41:02
  Yes.
• 41:03
  If you're lucky enough to be thinking, yes, my team works hard.
• 41:06
  We have positive results, and also I enjoy these people.
• 41:12
  Spend a moment in gratitude because my team and I are in and out of hundreds of organizations a
• 41:18
  year or interacting with hundreds in a year, and that's not very common.
• 41:22
  And we're trying to make that the commonplace event.
• 41:25
  Know, we probably will run out of time in this lifetime, but then the next generation can take
• 41:29
  over to help create happy high performing teams and we can all be part of that by summoning
• 41:35
  courage to grow in skill as a communicator.
• 41:38
  And courage is something intangible, but it is absolutely vital, and we can only do that for
• 41:45
  ourselves.
• 41:45
  We have to find it within ourselves and pull that forth, and it's worth the effort.
• 41:51
  So just a little there's a little commercial for you for I think you agree with me that we
• 41:56
  should all be looking at ourselves loving ourselves but also seeking baby steps.
• 42:01
  Two step forward one step back it's not going to be linear it's twisty but the gifts are
• 42:07
  amazing and they're unknowable and they can start at home or they can start just between
• 42:11
  you and a friend or you and a co worker.
• 42:14
  Absolutely and it really does start with you in whatever role you're playing as the leader and
• 42:20
  whether it's at home or whether it's in your community, whether it's a corporate boardroom,
• 42:26
  you might be leading, right, at any given point.
• 42:28
  And getting in alignment with the leader that you wanna be within is the gift that you give
• 42:33
  the others that are that you're privileged to be around.
• 42:37
  So getting in alignment with the leader you want to be within is the gift you give to
• 42:41
  others.
• 42:42
  Yeah,
• 42:44
  that's what I think.
• 42:46
  We have to love ourselves to be able to do that and that is sometimes the toughest thing.
• 42:51
  Absolutely.
• 42:53
  So for leaders listening, and they're saying, I think we might have some of these issues,
• 42:58
  Michelle, but I don't know where to start.
• 43:03
  Tell them where they should and how you might be able to help them.
• 43:08
  Sure.
• 43:09
  I'm in Indiana and in The United States.
• 43:12
  You could directly contact me on my cell phone, which is (260) 450-4202 or you could visit our
• 43:23
  website and pick up contact information there and so much more.
• 43:27
  It's really been a labor of love for us.
• 43:29
  We've posted a ton of great real life q and a with clients, newsletters there to sign up for.
• 43:36
  That's gladioconsulting.com and that's gladieuxlikex-rayconsulting.com.
• 43:45
  I named my company twenty one years ago after my parents.
• 43:50
  They're both deceased now, but they definitely instilled in me a lifelong love of learning,
• 43:56
  and in their honor I will be pronouncing and spelling that last name forever Roxanne.
• 44:03
  Oh, so we didn't name the company Training and Coaching Solutions.
• 44:07
  We named it Gladio Consulting, but I would love to hear from you.
• 44:10
  And we do put a lot of good research, and we make the newsletter fun.
• 44:14
  And that's called Breakdown, named after a favorite Tom Petty song of mine.
• 44:19
  Awesome.
• 44:20
  So what am I taking away?
• 44:22
  I think when I listened to Michelle, I realized that unfortunately, a lot of people still have
• 44:31
  a definition of conflict as being something that's out of control.
• 44:35
  And once we start to realize that it's really the ingredients for enriching connection and
• 44:43
  relationships, then we're going to be looking at it in a different way.
• 44:47
  So when there is difference, look at it as a growth like this is the universe saying there's
• 44:53
  something to be learned here.
• 44:55
  I'm seeing it different.
• 44:57
  Their lens is different.
• 44:58
  Their values may be different.
• 45:00
  Or something's blocking us, but it doesn't mean that it has to be like a shutdown.
• 45:06
  It's like being the Columbo in between the back and forth where you're thinking, What is it
• 45:11
  that this person is trying to get across to me that I'm not getting?
• 45:15
  And to ask more questions instead of going in our heads like we do and say, Ah, there we go
• 45:20
  again.
• 45:21
  Somebody's gonna tell me what to do or whatever.
• 45:24
  So to recognize that it's something that I think we're gonna learn till we are no longer
• 45:29
  and we always can strive to get be better.
• 45:33
  So thanks for hanging out again.
• 45:35
  I'm launching a course on the ROR in June.
• 45:39
  So I would love for you to sign up.
• 45:40
  Go to roxandarhodge.com/quiz.
• 45:44
  Fill out the quiz, and we'll get back to you with next steps for the course.
• 45:48
  Again, Michelle, thank you so much.
• 45:50
  It's been always a pleasure.
• 45:52
  And when I meet amazing people, think how lucky am I to be able to do what I do.
• 45:58
  So thank you again, and everyone, take care, and we will see you soon.
• 46:03
  Thanks for tuning in to Authentic Living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive,
• 46:09
  healthy change.
• 46:10
  Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach.
• 46:14
  To work with Roxanne, visit RoxanneDurhaj.com/blueprint.
• 46:20
  We'll see you next time on Authentic Living with Roxanne.