welcome to new beginnings with karen dell and i am so pleased to have joining me eileen senate who is founder and c e o of speaking that connects so welcome thank you be here yeah i'm so glad to have you we were at one of your monthly networking events correct and you always have great topics they always resonate with me and when i miss one i always feel like i'm missing something but the most recent one you had the topic of differentiation and it really sparked in me the need to have a conversation around that because a lot of people are looking for ways to differentiate themselves either for their work or their business dating it's a hot topic how can i you know separate myself from the crowd stand out be authentic and i was really intrigued that you chose that topic so that's what we're going to cover today fantastic so i wanted to learn a little bit more about  the whole notion of differentiation you chose that for the networking group as an opportunity to think back to something very remote so can you just tell us a little bit about kind of what your thought process was because you were the facilitator sure so you know this monthly networking group has been going on for about eight years and i designed it not really knowing what was going to happen with it and now i see they have a process and i was tired of some of the other styles and networking i thought i wasn't really intimately connecting with people so i wanted something a little different and the topic is very relevant to business absolutely and i've been business over thirty years ago for employed that is an entrepreneur climbing you know one step at a time and i remember when i first started out how confused i was when i just started picking out a business card i just thought i'll get a card i didn't think about font and color and texture and cardstock and am i a speech coach in my a speech and communication trainer in my communication consultant and i'm all of those thing absolutely but at that moment it was very telling that there were many ways to look at oneself especially if you're putting yourself out to the business world so having done these monthly meetings over time i'm always looking for like what can i pick as a topic and it just felt like how do you differentiate yourself from other speech coaches other sites of communicators dentists electricians why you do i pick this person over that person if the price is the same and they're dial seems compatible there's a lot there are a lot of factors i think that go into that f salut lee absolutely so just to describe for the audience you had us go around and pick a story that was early in our careers as i recall i asked a question tell me about or tell me about a job that you had way back when that was challenging in some way and then after that what value very different stories can you share some of those well there was a retired gentleman who shared about his working in a slaughterhouse can slaughter house and he was really into the head chopping and talking about a cross country trip sometime in his early life where he wound up and i think montana i'm not sure as a cowboy right or a cowboy han and shuttling crap you know onto our truck in order to cross the country make you know his way across the country and these were very colorful and surprised me although this setting often brings out the most authentic of the people that she talked about you know i think she was in austria or germany and worked in a small town kind of as a waitress and it was the most fun she had had idea of complexity in people that we tend to say where a coach or where a dentist or electrician and it is very finite and very small by comparison to who we really are right which has everything to do with our backgrounds our experiences and our whole experience our holy spirit which which i think that's why that resonated with me one is because we laughed and two i think everyone really went back you know because of the question that you asked to not what they're doing professionally now but these early experiences really did help to shape who they became even though they kind of tucked it away in the recesses because you know they're a lawyer a scientist or you know a computer programmer filmmaker whatever it is and i think why it just resonated with me was one because you could see another layer of the individual and one that they probably it's not that they don't value it but i don't think they think about it and they don't see it as a differentiator and yet it is right there's so much of our early bird lives that are really have texture and meaning and influenced who we are how we became who we are and often unless you're in ferebee or you're talking with your best friend right those are kept to a very small group of people and i guess i pride myself on asking kind those kinds of questions that will bring out that depth of who that person is so i can really know that was a lot of fun it was a lot of putting and putting me on the spot for this friday's meeting to come up with another exciting question right right no that that that exactly it was a lot of fun so how how do we you know if we're a lawyer a doctor an accountant's an executive coach a dentist a plumber how do we then apply  differentiator so that we separate ourselves from everyone else and feel comfortable with that because you know we want to have a professional demeanor we've now gone on to  get you know degrees or certifications that make us professional right so a lot of our personal life is not shared and it's not supposed to be shared though and networking group of the type that i've designed is it's out of the box different kind of group and of course if you are applying for an engineering job and you were a slaughterhouse of hands twenty years earlier that might not come up but i think it's important that people look beyond the moment even though i believe everything's in the moment to acknowledge where you've come from and it could be your roots and your family's influence and your college and your culture but also it could be you were shy and then you had a transformation or you were in a in a different field and you burned out and then your passion iraq arose and you're now in that field and that can come out in conversation so tell me about yourself  know and it's a combination of i think the the deepest part of differentiation is really knowing who you are absolutely and i know we're on the same page yes this is when you are conscious and aware and full of your authentic self you have to think too much about how you differentiate yourself you've differentiated yourself you're the only you there is right now so the but if you're you know on your path there are challenges and tips and things to take in that will help you to get there but i think self examination reflection processing one's journey i think those are the things that come together to help you be yourself with all the outer pieces like a business card in the font and the colors in the texture or your website or your photograph and other things we can talk about that he blend in integrate you know the outside part with the insight part yeah and what i would add on to what you're saying is those early experiences help to give you the foundation for transferable skills so even though it may have been a crappy job you've learned something from it about resilience goal setting determination what you don't like what you do like it could be how to handle adverse situations the gentleman who travel cross country to add another layer of texture he i believe was either from the bronx and so he was a bronx cowboy in montana but you know there's a sense of adventure sometimes handling ambiguity so there's usually some foundational skills that are games that help to build that often to city that we may not tap into or be aware of you know often enough and to bring that  the forefront so with what you do with people in terms of speaking that connects you know how do you draw that out so that if i'm reserved or shy or too boisterous and maybe i have to tone down how i present myself how do you work with that allowing me to be authentic but also hearing some of the feedback that i may be getting which is why i would want to be a client of yours right so you were right timely on the page in my mind you know good how do i work with people right there are very there are there are two types of client types that come my way often one is a person who's got to do a presentation who who is not so happy about presenting to groups and then there are clients that come for communication coaching who's bosses in companies may have referred them because of a style or something such as not speaking up at a meeting doesn't know how to self promote last two l also ask questions to get people to dig deeper so i want to know about their background you know where did you grow up and why one of my favorites is because i'm the oldest a seven children would mean that tells a big story does that does the over responsible for the mother's helper have i had any fun in my life ok and so when i find out like if you're an only child how was that for you you know tell me you know an experience or you went to private school did you like being in a parochial school i hear none stories you know especially you know for people who are fearful of public speaking sometimes cultural and educational system have some culpability there i might ask about a wonderful experience they had in a cough an experience they had at their job tell me one thing you are really confident about and there's usually something i put on a great coach of kids that play soccer so how would you apply that greatness of nurturing good team playing to yourself since you don't promote yourself that well maybe there's not an immediate answer but in the provocative question absolutely and the answer was like i have to think about that i'm always doing for others so i get very i feel good about myself when i do for others but why can't i do that for myself and it won't look the same but can you cultivate that sometimes i think i have an exercise and it's kind of a brainstorming of roles that you have in your life and then sometimes so as to rate them in terms of confidence or performance and usually you know there's the father the son there's the family and then there's the coworker the manager and then there might be the the vis the singer in the choir or the dog lover except try and inevitably there are pockets of really greatness and authenticity and ease with one's self and really self knowing in one or two or three roles and then the contrast of looking at but i don't feel is good here is a springboard for conversation of course and insight so it has to do with the dialogue and i know we share the similar kind of oh yeah interest in bringing out the best in people absolutely so what are some of the kind of common pitfalls we're not talking about business cards here or color but i know those are obviously tangible things that people have to make conscious decisions about right but what are some of the i guess more of the inner psychological behaviors are barriers that people exhibit they get in the way of their differentiation or could be decision making that they make you know if that if the latest car dash in fashion is people gravitate towards that which is not necessarily being authentic and you can substitute car dash in with you know and tailor or whatever and it's selling at macy's or whatever your favorite store is and i'm not saying there's anything wrong with any of that but in terms of differentiation and being authentic sometimes we do things to be sane versus being different and so i'm just wondering have you seen with some of your clients common pitfalls and it could be some of the things i've just stated yes so i was asked by you to talk about differentiation my first thought i think i share it with you it's like oh facilitating a discussion about differentiation in the stories is a different role than being this week or right in an interview about differentiation so i did some homework and i also did so for flexion and i looked at it from an inside and an outside model and so we'll go to the outside later because you asked me about pitfalls and i think more of the pitfalls have less to do with the outside i would agree they have more to do with what i call the invisibles which are your thoughts and your beliefs and your fears and your selling collections your self talk so i remember and  use myself when i was in my thirty's so i'm in business a short time i went to a management consulting networking meeting and prior to becoming an entrepreneur i was in the mental health arena i did not have to wear a jacket or business attire i had just learned that i'm just learning how to network and i go to the marriott and i walk in the room and they're all suits they're all men with gray hair not probably not all right my hair is great underneath the color but but not at that size  pitfall was the thought what can i offer these are people twenty thirty years older than me they've been in business much longer than i have i have no clue about networking and of course i could answer that question in a positive way come back to myself and say you have a lot to offer but i think some people stop at i'm nervous i'm scared i can't this is going to be horrible it's a lot of negative self talk you know i mean i know it because i've been there oh we all have we all said and it's so great to be say ninety nine percent free of it and say it never happens right those are i think the obstacle to knowing oneself and what i say around public speaking or any communication shift behavior that we're working towards projection of i can't do this or i know i'm going to fail or nobody will want to talk to me or i i'll just have a horrible experience you can still be nervous and then let it be bla and you could to supplant it with an intention or an affirmation and some people don't like that affirmations so you could just leave it quiet and let the silence and  be part of the the situation experience i'm nervous and i'm here and i'll do the best i can or i'm i'm nervous i don't know what to say i want to make a connection so i think it's the inner feelings of but not the feelings and it's the talk around the feeling right that i think shut people down and don't allow for the authenticity because if i think i'm really nervous it's real it is real it is room but you know what i like about what you're saying is be quiet or acknowledge that you're here anyway because the self talk will walk you over the cliff all the you know i'm nervous and you know people are not going to like me will you just as you said leave off people are not to like you and you even thinking that there's some other psychological things going on but stop is what you're saying don't go there just say i'm nervous and i'm here and i'm going to do the best i can i love that in the time we have remaining because i'm almost out of time so you know we talked about some of the pitfalls so how do you help clients overcome that once you ask the provocative question what are some of the techniques that you use that really help them get over the hump and maybe have a story without names yeah actually more of a technique than a story look at this i think it applies someone who says i'm so nervous about public speaking or i'm so nervous about sitting down with my boss or i'm so nervous and i turn red in front of a group and i you know a sweat and i feel embarrassed  like ok that parts are right you know ervice you're embarrassed you sweat those are physical those are emotional that and all center can experience and then when they had i know i'm just going to do an awful job again so if it's modeling it's practicing a behavior to extinguish another behavior that old what behavior is patterned and connected my nervousness is approved it means something and you language it and you create a step towards that reality unconsciously so let's let's stop that practice you can still feel nervous i feel nervous and i know what you know i have to you know and so the so i do that sometimes i will audiotape a conversation for example someone who doesn't have the same negative self talk they fill their language with you know those you know what i mean it out too much so similarly you have to see you or hear it or get it sometimes i'll transcribe fifteen minutes and look let's count how many you know what i mean he said within five minutes read it back to me because i am a language person right you know linguistics communication right from the start so oh my god i just say that quite a bit all right now we need it and cross it out and let's put silence there instead right sometimes you have to do techniques that i learned as a speech pathologist working with challenge communicators to either lost their speech or stroke or or who never develop speech like autism early autism or who've developed but had trouble riders the things that were hard of hearing so these lesson plan back around and talk about differentiation yeah really has served me to program innovative techniques to help people with less physical and emotional challenges but  to communicate at their best and to be the most that they can be right know that's that's outstanding and we are out of time but this is a great place to pause and i really thank you for focusing on how to differentiate yourself and more importantly how you help clients to do that in their speech that connects thank you very much it was a pleasure to be here thank you thank you and thank you for tuning in