Latest / Pathological Positivity / Connection Through Curiosity – with Molly Ketcham – Episode #669
Transcript
- This is Live On Purpose Radio episode 669, connection through curiosity with Molly Ketchum. Now is the only time to create and live the life you love. I'm doctor Paul Jenkins, the positivity psychologist. My job is to connect you to powerful positive psychology principles that immediately upgrade your relationships, business, and mental health. Are you ready? Let's jump in. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Live on Purpose Radio. This is doctor Paul, the shrink who expands your life with another episode of Live on Purpose Radio. And joining me today is a professional speaker. She is also an expert in human connection. And there are some very unique ways that she approaches that, including music theory, which I think is really interesting. And she has become a valued friend of mine. Welcome to Live on Purpose Radio. Molly Ketchum. Thank you, doctor Fall. You know what? We were in an event together recently and I got to learn a little bit more about what you do. And I know, for example, that you talk about positive, curious, and grateful mindsets as essential for meaningful conversation and to create connection. Talk about that for just a minute. But in the context of why that's so important to you. Throughout my twenty years in the meetings and events industry, I found that relationships were critical to your success in the workplace. And I watched people who navigated those conversations and those connections and those relationships with ease, And I was so fascinated by it. So I truly believe that, it was originally, like that spark was created when I was in corporate America. And I just noticed that, like, what is it about those people? Do they have charisma? Are they really super smart? Are they very fluent and well spoken? What is it about them? And the more I paid attention to the way that when I interacted with people, the way that I felt, I realized that it was not about being the loudest voice in the room. It was really about the way that you paid attention to other people. Because when you pay attention to other people, then it helps you... Then that person feels seen and heard and valued. So, that's where it started. That's where my interest grew. Like, I really started diving into it at that point, and studying what is it. Can I share a little story with you? I hope you do. Okay. My husband and I walked into a bar. No. It's not a joke. Wait. Hold on. Two ketchums walk into a bar. The bar was gorgeous. It looked like we'd step through a portal into Ireland. I I was... It was just beautiful. We sat down on the bar stools. I looked up and there was a sign that made me curious. So I asked the bartender about it. And the bartender turns out he was the owner and he was from Ireland. So I was fascinated. I started asking him questions about his journey and he was and I shared thoughts on his experiences and before you knew it, we were deep in conversation. When we left the bar, my husband turned to me, laughed, and said, well, you were in full Molly mode, which I thought was very funny. So full Molly mode is what he calls it when I am really engaged in conversation with someone because I am just so curious. I wanna know. So I did a little dive into full molly mode. What is it that I do? What's, and I realized it was... It was as much mindset as it was strategy. Because at first, I was like, why... I did this technique and I did that technique. But then I realized, no. It was actually a certain mindset that I brought to a conversation. And that's and then emerged the positive, curious, grateful as sort of a walk you through a conversation from hello to goodbye. A positive mindset opens the conversation. A curious mindset helps you find the connection. Oh, and the grateful mindset helps you leave the conversation gracefully. Leaves that positive lasting impression. So this actually becomes a framework for the actual conversation. Yes. Yes. And when I share it in my keynotes with people, they're taking notes. And I had someone tell me, like, like, a couple of months afterwards, she said, Molly, I have your positive, curious, grateful on a little sticky note on my computer. And every time the phone rings and I get on the phone with a member, you know, she could work for an association and the members would call and... But she goes, I use your framework. I can... I gotta put my positive mind frame... Mindset on first and then I use my curious and then my grateful and it helps me guide, you know, guide me through the conversation. You know what? I just realized something as you were sharing this. Because I do a lot of work with families and have through my whole career. Right? That's... The... One of the things I'm known for is positive parenting. Mhmm. And I've had this conversation just earlier this week about how we need to give up being controlling and start being curious. Now that came up in a parenting setting. And I'm just putting that together about why that's so powerful as you're sharing your experience here, being curious. What if a parent approached a conversation with a teenager, for example, without the agenda of I need to get them to whatever and simply showing up with curiosity. What what impact does that have? I'm just curious what your thoughts are about that. Oh, doctor Paul, you're speaking my language. Curious parenting is near and dear to my heart. It is something I did... I have one child. I have a son. He is now 19 years old. And around the time he was three or four, I would say I did a lot of self discovery, a lot of self development, learning about myself, using that curiosity on myself to gain some self awareness, right? And as I was doing that and I was fascinated by how curiosity and getting to know myself is empowering, that was... It's like such a good feeling to know myself. I was teaching these things to my very young son. I remember my mom saying to me, gosh, you talk to him like he's an adult. And I and I said, well, I mean, he's just a little adult. He's he's a little human.... Human being. Right? Mhmm. And so, yes, ever since he was young, I would take that approach of of being curious because, I knew that if I went into my conversations with him with a, you need to do this, and I know what's best because I have thirty plus years experience, you know, than you, It wouldn't it wouldn't result in a great, outcome because he'd throw a fit or you don't know me or, you you know, the... Those rebellion. This is your area of expertise, but I knew that if I approached the conversation like that, I wouldn't get what I wanted out of it. And I wanted a close relationship with him. I wanted a trusting environment. I wanted that influence that comes not from telling someone what to do, but by guiding them, by by listening and truly understanding what's going on in their world. So, yes, I did always approach it, my my parenting conversations with curiosity. You know, that influence that you mentioned, I think that's an earned position. We can't just assume a position of influence. Because like you said, I think if we approach it with with too strong of an agenda, it it creates a... An automatic defensive response. And maybe this gets back to what I think is the greatest gift that we have as humans. I think next to life itself, the greatest gift we have is the power to direct that life and the sovereign agency that we experience as humans. And our kids have it too, especially as they gain maturity. I mean, when they're little, they can't control anything. And so as parents, we get lulled into this sense of, oh, I control them. But that's temporary. Your son's 19. He can fire you at will. So true. I don't know, doctor Paul. I think I gave up with... On the control when he was four years old, and I wanted him to wear a certain outfit to get into picture day. And he threw such a fit on the floor. His face turned red, and then the pictures were terrible. And and I thought, well, never again. If he wants to wear the basketball t shirt, the... In the awful colors and market forever in history as that was him at four, then so be it. I would rather have that. Which is more authentic anyway. There you go. But the... So this idea of the earned position. I I remember a conversation I was having with Ty Bennett, who's a leadership expert and just an amazing speaker as well. And we were having this conversation about instead of trying to be interesting, try to be interested. And you and I hang out with professional speakers a lot. And, you know, hey, look at me. I'm all this and a a bag of chips and whatever. Right? We're trying to be interesting so that we can get booked to speak. But, really, it's about being interested. That that power of curiosity to create the connection. And this, I think, is is the brilliance of your approach because having that positive mindset, bringing in that curiosity to create the connection. And then I think you said that the exit is is much more graceful when when you add the gratitude piece too. Mhmm. Exactly. Yes. The influence that you can build with someone just by paying attention to them and putting yourself in their shoes and understanding their inner world without the agenda in mind, which is hard to do, especially in the workplace. But if you can pay attention to the next time you're in a conversation with someone, and if they tell you what you need to do versus asking you a question or what you want to do or what listening to you and just pay attention to how it feels. I think that's where I first started to recognize it. And I thought, well, if I feel that way, that I want people to be interested in how I'm doing and what I enjoy doing Mhmm. And my ideas for how to do it best, then then I wanna provide the opportunity for other people, even my son. So I... That's why, yeah, I approach the conversations with curiosity. I have to jump into a little different line of conversation for a minute because I know some things about you that our dear listener may not. And that you're you're an expert pianist. Music is just part of your heart and soul, who you are. And you've learned some things about... I... I'm going to use the word resonance and how we we resonate with other people too. Just like in music, there are resonant tones. And you taught us some things about this. I heard you speak in Miami. Mhmm. And you were teaching us some things about how how we anticipate things to come, and then we have to have a resonant resolution to that. Now I'm probably not doing this very much justice as I leave. But I see you smiling, and I would love to just turn you loose on that for a moment, if you would. Oh, yes. Thank you. So as I took a deeper dive into this moment of connection in a conversation, Whereas the original framework is very broad and very helpful, this takes us even deeper into really taking advantage of that opportunity to make a strong connection with someone. And I found that it is very similar to a great song that gives you chills. You know, those songs and you're like, you're listening and then it hits that note and you're like, oh, and you get the goosebumps. I love that feeling and you can have that feeling in a connection as well. So I started, diving into and researching the parallels, the similarities between a great song, what happens in your brain with the dopamine and the anticipation like you mentioned, and I found a similar correlation to a conversation where two people are truly connecting. Same thing happens with the anticipation and the dopamine release. And so I developed as another framework. I'm calling it the Cara code for unlocking influence because Cara, c a r a, are these four kind of steps, I guess, just to bring awareness to what you're what you're doing, but it starts with curiosity. Now curiosity in a song is that opening note. It's the tonic chord. It's the... It sets the tone for the for the piece of music. In a conversation, the curiosity is a meaningful question. This is where you're... You are, like, not asking what happened over the weekend for that person, but what was the best part of the weekend for you? The meaningful... It means it means something. It's real. Right? Yes. And then what happens? They're responding to you, and you are listening. You are attuning to them. I love this word attune. It is applicable in the musical world as as well as in interpersonal conversations. And so in a conversation, you are attuning to the speaker. They are sharing with you this meaningful question, the answer to that, and while they're sharing in the back of their mind, they're thinking, do I really matter? What are they gonna say when I when I finish answering this question? So, we have that anticipation. Okay. So, back to music, the anticipation comes, the attunement comes from the song. Doesn't... The great music is all about contrast. The, the tension and release. So, the tension comes from taking the song everywhere but that tonic chord. So, as it finds its way back to the tonic chord, then we have resonance. So the tonic chord can also be thought of in popular music terms as the chorus. This is where we we know the words. We're so excited to, like, because to sing it, and we have that that, ah, yes, feeling. In a conversation, resonance comes when the speaker answers the question and the listener, you as the listener says, I totally get that. That makes sense. I admire that, or you share a laugh together. And then the last step in this framework is amplification because don't end there, right? Don't just, like, build on that. Keep it going. Ask another follow-up question, tell me more statement. Keep it going. Amplification it was... Is what makes it last and the same thing happens in music. It's what makes that song stick in your head long after it's over. You know, it's interesting. As I listen to this again, and I've heard you teach this concept before, but I'm thinking about how I have naturally noticed that. But you're coming in and putting a framework on this because we've all been in those conversations where it's clicking. Mhmm. Right? And and I've asked before when I do trainings or whatever, I'll say, is this ringing and singing inside of you? And what it means is, you know, is that connecting in a way that that causes that resonance that we're talking about. Mhmm. Oh, there's something magical when you are... Feel like you are vibrating on the same frequency Mhmm. As another. And we are and we're made up of matter. We are we are just vibration. And when you can really attune to the person's energy, the other person's energy, you're vibrating on their frequency. So resonance is a real thing that you can achieve with another person. I I really want to underscore that because before I became a psychologist, I was a chemical engineering major. I was really good at all the math and science and I kind of geeked out at, at these things. And when you're talking about resonance, k, in, in the physical world, even at an atomic and subatomic level, everything is energy. It's vibration. And energy has frequency. We can even measure it. Right? We we can put electrodes all over your scalp, and we can measure the actual electrical frequencies that are being emitted by your brain. Yes. Think about that for a minute. So, so those frequencies are either going to resonate and be compatible with each other or they're going to be dissonant. And this is why you can walk into a room and they say, feel the vibe. Yes. Exactly. Which is short for vibration. Just just to put that together. Yes. Thank you. We talk about that all the time. It's a real thing. Yes. So, Molly, as you're sharing this, I I really want to underscore that because this is not the woo woo, mystical, fluffy versions of of this that you might hear sometimes. This is real, And there are frequencies. I've worked with clients in the past, for example, when they're feeling angry, they go to their playlist, their angry music. Right? Because it resonates with them. They're on that frequency. If you want to change your frequency, you can change the input, and it's gonna be discordant at first. It's not gonna jive with you, but you can bring your energy up to that level. Mhmm. And so we can manipulate this too. Have you noticed that you can also manipulate... I don't wanna say use the word manipulate. You can affect the frequency of another person in a conversation. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. So it comes from a two... First, you need to come in and you need to attune. Right? You do this as a therapist. You you pay attention to that that frequency that someone is vibrating or operating at, where they're coming from. And you... There there are ways using your tone of voice, your your body language, your responses even, where you can raise the frequency. Or maybe there's cases where you need to lower some frequency and and vibration. And I... That... I think that is just fascinating that we can do that as human beings if we pay attention to that energy. It's it's driven a lot by mirror neurons. Mhmm. I think you've heard of this concept too where we we have actual neurology that's built into us. It comes free in the box with every human where we pick up on the energies of others. And we call it mirror neurons, but if someone is experiencing pain, for example, it's going to have an effect on us as we witness that. We talk about empathy, for example, which is driven by this very process. And I think it's because of those energies that we... When we attune to them, when we become sensitive to them, it puts us in position to actually connect. Right? With... And connection is your thing, Molly. Yes. Connection through curiosity. Right? Yes. Oh, this is fun. We could probably go on for days. We could, doctor Paul. I don't think we will, though. This time, I mean. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe we'll do a multiple day seminar sometime. Would you guys sign up If Molly and I do a seminar together, just open it up, possibly. I love it. I love it. Molly, we're gonna let you go for today. But before we do, where can people connect to you? I know you've got a website. It's your name. Right? I do. It's mollyketcham.com. And Ketcham is with an a m at the end. It's not as... It's not the common spelling of Ketcham. A m not u m. Correct. K e t c h a m. And Molly is the first name with two l's, not one. And a y. We should be able to get that. Okay. We'll get you. And we'll put it in the show notes too. Molly, I know you speak powerfully on this topic. I I was in the audience listening to your presentation. It was expert. You should do this professionally. Oh, wait. You do. I wanna acknowledge that because, what I experienced in your audience that day was lights going on and feeling that resonance with your message. You do this very well. And so, dear listener, as you're tuning in, you might be thinking, who are we gonna bring to our conference? Well, Molly Ketchum. Go invite her to come. And Molly, you've got some other things going on that people can find out about on your website. Yes. Is there is there some final thought you'd like to leave our listeners with today? Yes. The next time that you observe behavior from someone that doesn't really jive with, well well, let's say, your vibe, I will challenge you to just wonder. Just say, I wonder. Get curious. Ask a question. When you're curious, you are open. You are not judgmental. They can't happen at the same time. So be curious and make a connection with that person. Learn what's going on in their world. That is powerful. Thank you. I think some better connections are gonna be happening soon wherever this podcast lands. Perfect. Thank you so much for having me, doctor. Oh, thank you for being here. Folks, you've heard it from an expert. It's time for us to now go apply what we've learned and live on purpose. Did you get what you came for? Give yourself the gift of taking real action on what you realized today. Please share this episode with someone you know would value it, and leave us a rating too. It's time now to live on purpose.