Latest / Daily Influence / 686. Communication Is Not a Soft Skill: Turning Clarity into ROI with Shelley Goldstein

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686. Communication Is Not a Soft Skill: Turning Clarity into ROI with Shelley Goldstein · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IE Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Be sure to follow, subscribe, and share Daily Influence with someone who could use a little extra positivity today.
• 0:39
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• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to Daily Influence, I'm Greg Klinow.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: Today I'm excited to welcome Shelley Goldstein, leadership development coach, author of the number one international bestselling book, remarkable speaking, and the creator of the remarkable framework.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Shelly works with executives and business owners operating in high stakes environments, helping them turn communication into a measurable leadership lever.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: One that saves time, builds trust, and directly impacts ROI.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: Her work challenge is the idea that communication is a soft skill.
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm thrilled to have her join this today.
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: Shelly, welcome to Daily Influence.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, and I am thrilled to be here because I love having these discussions.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, we do too.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So to ground our conversation, could you share a bit about your background and what led you to the work you do today as a leadership development and the communication coach a lot of what led me here today was my own deficiencies, I guess you could say my own fears, the things that held me back and in that process when I started to unlock.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: My communication's ability and capabilities and skills and I learn to tap into my journey of things I've done along the way.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: It really started to embole me and empower me and I felt I could really share this with people.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I'm doing now is sharing those solutions.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: the way I've learned, the way I'd like to learn, what I've taken from the different avenues and helping embold and empower others.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, your journey really reframes how leaders think about communication and that leads us into influence.
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: Can you tell us about a moment or experience where you saw your work create a meaningful positive impact on someone's leadership or confidence?
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'd have to say almost every coaching session.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: goal is to help people get successful, feel the confidence.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I work really hard at basically abandoning an agenda and really, truly listening to the person who's in front of me.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when I do that, the times I do that, it reveals so much more because my concern now is focused on that person meeting a goal.
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I just had it the other day with a client who
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: was, you know, the person is the CEO of the organization and they're out there raising money and they're stuck in the weeds, the daily task of what to do.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so working through some of the training, that person started to get frustrated and the whole conversation came out of, what's your big vision?
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's the big vision?
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're the CEO, you're the visionary, not the person in the weeds.
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And once we started to identify and connect to their journey, their legacy, their vision, the conversation totally changed.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was an aha moment.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I feel those.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do make mistakes occasionally, and I catch myself.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I lean into those moments, and they really just remind me of,
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: how empowering the work can be.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Moments like that often shift, not just outcomes, but identity.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because it's a double we have.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Who, what makes you and I different?
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: What makes every other communications coach different, strategist different.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And especially with AI on the scene, helping us do things that maybe
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: One dimensional, our advantage is that identity.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Tap into that journey, tap into your legacy, your history, what have you been doing?
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: No one else has that experience.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: AI doesn't have that experience.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's, yes, how you can take that identity and embrace it, good bed and indifferent, because that's what people really want to hear, right?
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: We talk a lot about personal responsibility and leading from the inside out.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: You said your work transforms identity, not just outcomes.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: Why is that distinction so important for leaders today?
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: You want to not only embody what you've done and who you are, but unless you really get out there and share it through your work, how else will you motivate people?
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: How else will you get people to champion?
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: your vision and want to participate in the movement in the next journey and the outcome is if you focus on the outcome I want XYZ goal.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing wrong with having goals.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Don't get me wrong.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if you're solely focused on the goals, sometimes you lose sight of really what's his take.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mentioned working with a client and being hyper focused on them letting go of my agenda.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was really important if I wanted that person to have a transformation and really take the next step if I stuck to an agenda and wasn't really listening to what that person needed the outcome I wanted, not what they needed.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing a disservice to them, and they're doing a disservice to the people around them.
• 6:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we can't always just be goal-focused.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's really an internal vision, an internal belief that we have to make sure we share with others.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and once leaders see themselves differently, they begin operating differently, especially when stakes are high.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely because the pressure is I need to perform.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I need to meet numbers and absolutely business functions on being successful and having revenue.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it's how can we put that together for ourselves and for our teams.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're focused on your vision.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: How can you get the team to want to participate in that?
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's really.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: listening to what they need, inviting them to participate in the end results, the goals that you're going on, as opposed to telling them tasks and things they have to do.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a very different approach.
• 7:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: You help leaders move away from seeing communication as a soft skill and instead as a profit center.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: What changes when leaders truly understand communication as a strategic business tool?
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So many times it comes to us that, oh, yeah, a soft skill and interpersonal skills, they're the top things that all of the recruiters are looking for, every business is looking for, but there's so little education on in training on what that needs, how do I improve those skills?
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So in working with executives, the bottom line is what counts, right?
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: We talked about the revenues.
• 8:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if I can show you,
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: how effective communication spending four minutes to effectively communicate your vision.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I could show you that at the end of the week, I could save you 18, 19% of your work week by cutting your meetings from an hour to 30 minutes.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I could probably based on your salary, let's say you've got a five figure sale.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: You could say five figures of income,
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: over the course of the year.
• 8:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: With that interest you.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: So taking the effective communications piece is not just about presenting better, having grovey toss and getting through the slide deck quickly, it's about turning that those messages, the clarity of what you have to say and saving time and money.
• 9:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now multiply that times every manager, every employee in your organization,
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, all of a sudden we have hundreds, maybe thousands of hours to do the work we're hired to do, to use that time to build relationships, use that time to be creative as opposed to being stuck on that hamster wheel, because I mean, you know, three meetings a day.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's the transition piece, and that's what I've been able to work with with my
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: We look at that here at I business advisors as smart communication thinking of it as specific measurable attainable relevant timely and when you're communicating you have to think about those.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, five words, and that shift the lines closely with how we think about the clarity and the accountability and strong teams and both your remarkable framework and our smart approach emphasizes clarity, alignment and measurable results.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: How does responsible influence show up when communication is clear and intentional and tied to our ROI?
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think we can make influence happen.
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: But we could take ownership of what we do.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: and in being clear on what you want and why it's important for the group to be involved in it and using a specific example, so people have a storyline that they can connect to.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: That storyline is playing in the heads of the people that you're talking to.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they start aligning and the influence comes from that relationship.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the only responsibility you really owe to yourself is owning that idea, and part of the influence is inviting people to contribute to it, to challenge it, to have a conversation about it.
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that's so true, and today, technology is changing how leaders communicate at every level.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: Are you using AI in your work?
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: And if you are, how is it guiding leaders to use it responsibly without losing authenticity or trust?
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is so interesting because in the last month alone, I have had several clients come to me with very specific language.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: How can I have regulation and cognitive clarity and high-spits, stakes, scenarios?
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, when many, you know, I'm talking like four or five, people come to you within a short time with that specific language.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's not just rolling off the cuff, and I realized a lot of them were using AI to self-diagnosen coach.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're speaking.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it was so interesting about that was the result on how to do it was not necessarily apparent.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I started to dig into that.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So AI became sort of, I'm going to call it a red flag, but it was a marker to say, this is how it's impacting the people I work with.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do I need to do to meet my clients?
• 12:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: where they are on the AI front.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, AI isn't always right.
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not always wrong.
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: In this case, there was some very valid information.
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I took my remarkable framework.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I added those elements in something I called the pressure response pathway.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the tools are all there.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're just, we work on them in different ways to address the regulation.
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: nerves are just freaking out and you've got your first few seconds of a meeting.
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do you do?
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So using those tools in the pressure response path might help you get there.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do you get cognitive clarity?
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm answering these direct questions and I think AI is really played a big part of that because honestly I didn't look at it in those terms before these conversations.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: and as tools evolve, the human element of leadership becomes even more important.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: So where AI was helpful in that, it can't bridge the gap.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: It also can't help the person tap into their experiences, their legacy, their ideas.
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't understand the emotional component of it.
• 13:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's where the real work comes in.
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I look at AI, and I love it.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a copilot.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I use it for a lot of tools and organizing.
• 13:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: the way I run my business, but it's not how I run my business.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's a great way to look at it.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know, in Shelley and closing, what message or words have been encouragement?
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: Would you like to share with listeners who lead and aspire to make a positive difference through how they communicate and show up for others?
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Really look back, remove yourself out of your current role and look back,
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: on your journey to get where you are in the seat today and tap into those moments, the struggles, the successes and embrace those and remember to bring those into the room when you're speaking with your investors, when you're speaking with your teams to stay present
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: and give yourself that identity, give yourself that unique angle you need to stand out as a leader of your own making.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's great advice.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_03]: Shelley, thank you for joining us.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: If our listeners wanna get in touch with you, what is the best way to do so?
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm on LinkedIn, and also you can go to remarkableSpeaking.com and on the contact page, there's the best way to do this.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: ways you could set a zoo schedule, connect with me on all these other channels, follow my YouTube, go at it.
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: Wonderful, we'll put all this in the show notes.
• 15:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: Shelley, thank you for reminding us that communication isn't just about what we say.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's about how we lead influence and create clarity for others.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: Your work reinforces something we believe deeply at daily influence.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: When leaders take responsibility for how they show up, communicate clearly, the ripple effects are lasting for teams, organizations and communities, and so grateful for you joining us today.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Greg, this has really been a great conversation, and thank you for those really insightful questions.
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in to Daily Influence.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: I hope today's conversation brought you inside an inspiration.
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_03]: If it's spoke to you, share with someone who could use a little positivity today.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: Remember, small actions create big impact.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: Keep showing up, leading and growing one day to time.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: Until next time, stay inspired and keep having a positive, responsible influence.
• 16:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: Bye-bye.