Just like your favorite sitcom, we’ve put together a compilation episode! Enjoy the key messages from our interviews this past year.
Happy Holidays!
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Introduction 0:07
Welcome to the listen first podcast brought to you by the Chapman foundation for caring communities. Our vision and mission is to strengthen relationships and build stronger communities through listening, leadership, care and service to create a truly human connection. Learn and partner with us as we imagine a society in which people care about each other. And listen first.
Adam Salgat 0:37
Hello, and welcome to the listen first podcast. My name is Salgat. And this is a very special episode because it’s our last episode of the year to start things off, I thought it would be cool to share some of the statistics around our podcast with you the listening audience in 2020 22, we really 17 episodes and accumulated almost 7000 listens. Since launching the podcast in 2018, we have almost accumulated 35,000 Total listens. While the vast majority of our listeners this year have been in the United States, we have also seen listens come from Germany, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Australia. Inside of the US, Columbus, Ohio is our top city, followed by Boardman Oregon, Ashburn, Virginia, and Midland, Michigan. I’d like to take a quick moment and say thank you. Looking at those numbers makes me realize that we are reaching many people and moving them along their journey to help make this world a better place where everybody matters. The name of this episode is our key takeaways for 2022. Just for you. You’ve likely noticed at the end of each podcast, I typically ask our guests for their key takeaway. The purpose of this is to give you the listener, one or maybe two things to think about or begin practicing in your everyday life. So as you might have guessed, today’s episode is a compilation of all of those key takeaways, and a few additional clips. Let’s begin with discussing disk just like we do in the our community lessons course. And episode 84 and 88 titled digesting desk, Katie Trotter breaks down the behavioral tendencies in detail. Here’s a clip where Katie creates a situation that can help us quickly remember the desk tendencies.
Unknown Speaker 2:32
So a d i s&c go on a road trip, the D tendency says Get in the car, it’s time to go I’m driving, they’re telling and it’s about the task. The I says woohoo, shotgun, I mean, awesome playlist, you guys are gonna love it. So they are telling but it tends to be about the experience and their active and fast pace. We joke sometimes that the guest tendency might not get in the car until someone actually invites them into the car. And when they climb in the backseat. They’re thoughtful. So they’re asking things like, Do you have enough legroom is the temperature okay? Do you have snacks because they probably pack some. And then the see tendency gets in the car and ask thoughtful questions like did you remember to get gas before we get into the city? Have you pre printed the parking pass that we’ll need? Do you have your tickets, so they’re asking those questions, but focus more on the task.
Adam Salgat 3:22
Our next key takeaway is taken from our skill snippet episode number 89. Titled, get your flex on and get work done. Share it Bryce reminds us about the importance of style flexing, and why we should be mindful of it.
Unknown Speaker 3:38
So remember, style flexing is communicating with the other treating them the way they need to be treated. When we put in the energy and effort to do that, well, it saves time. It enhances our relationship, it makes us more productive. And hopefully, if we all practice it, we all go home with a little bit more energy. Rather than just taking our leftovers out of the office for the parts of our lives with the people that we’re really going to be going the distance with.
Adam Salgat 4:07
Sure just mentioned that there are people we are going to distance with in our lives. And I believe she’s referring to our partners, our kids, extended family. And as a leader, it is important to be good stewards of our people’s time, so that they have time to spend with those people. In Episode 85, titled, When military lessons or researchers pipeline to leading change. Gen. Rudolph of the Michigan Air National Guard touches on this subject.
Unknown Speaker 4:36
I think for me, the key takeaway was that we know we don’t get more time, time is that one resource that we can’t add. And so thinking really hard about not only what kind of training we we provide, but the way that the delivery of the training is conducted really matters. And so I would offer to listeners that if they can think really heard about how the training is delivered, does it follow, you know, researched, studied best practices for adults in particular, you know, think about how you deliver training and not just why and what because I think that can really make the difference where we, where we are not only effective with our in good stewards of the money, and in our case of the taxpayers money, but also that we’re good stewards of their time, because that’s something that we can never give back to people.
Adam Salgat 5:27
The following sound bites from Episode 86 class is in session, five tips to connect with your child at the start of the school year, with Mickey Gibbs and Mike despairs. While this podcast did focus on the beginning of the school year, these tips can be adapted to be used anytime we are around our children. Here’s tip number one,
Speaker 3 5:49
door openers are super simple. It’s an easy way to increase connection with your kiddos. And honestly, it can work with a four year old and it can work with a kiddo that’s a senior in college or even older. Because really, the key to door openers is just shifting a question to a statement. So I don’t know about you. But when I was growing up, my mom would pick me up, you know, after school every day. And the first thing she would say to me was how was your day? And I would answer fine. Yeah, good. It was good. It was bad. It was stressful. But when we say to our kids, how was your day? We’re implying a specific answer. But if we say something simple, like tell me about your day, it really has complete control over our kiddo to answer in any way they want. They can share a feeling, they can share a description, they can share something that happened.
Adam Salgat 6:40
And tip number two.
Unknown Speaker 6:42
And remember, transitions are very difficult for humans in general. So I have to be really, really careful because I’m not a super patient person. And my youngest daughter is now a junior in high school. And she’s got a lot going on with volleyball and different classes taking dual credit college and all this stuff. And she’s more introverted, or I’m more extroverted. So when she says, you know, it was fine. If I just wait and I’m a little bit patient, don’t respond just kind of way, way, way. Maybe a door opener. It’s amazing what I’ll figure out what finance but the worst thing that I can do is like, Delaney, how was school? How was first period? What did you do in first period, you have homework and second period was volleyball. Where did you go for lunch? Did you ever make money? Did you have gas in your car, you know, just start hammering rehearse with those questions, because nothing in this world will shut her down, or most kids down, when we just start to like, level into them with all these questions when their whole world is just new. And all these different feelings and emotions are just coming to the surface anyway.
Adam Salgat 7:47
And Tip three, my quick story is about my six year old who went to her first day of first grade. And when she got home, I used a door opener. And I said, Tell me about your first day of first grade. And she said, I already told mom. So what I replied back was just simply, okay, I’m here if you want to talk about it, a minute went by or so. And she says a pigeon brought us our snack today. And so that led me to ask a few more little bit interrogated questions, because not often do you hear that kind of response, but first day of school. And you know, she filled me in that the teacher read them a book and brought him a snack. And so we had some fun and it was good conversation. But I kind of just let her lead the conversation from that point forward to that’s kind of my tip is to let them lead the conversation. And tip for
Unknown Speaker 8:36
always try to think connection before direction. So before I ever say anything like hey, have you gotten a job yet? Or how are your grades going? How do you bought groceries, laundry, you know any of that type of stuff? What is that connection point for that other human being that you can provide. But knowing how the other human being truly connects first is critically important. It’s just a really good thing to think about with your kids. And it will help their stress level and that venting, just kind of subside and come down quite a bit. You always think about okay, how am I gonna connect? How am I going to connect, it’s plenty of times to direct later on. But it’s such an easier part to stay and help them in their thinking part of their brain as well.
Adam Salgat 9:21
And lastly, Tip five.
Speaker 3 9:23
So when your kiddo comes to you, you know particularly it’s it’s stressful. It’s the first week of school, you might have a six year old whose little friend at school took their toy away from them. You might have a middle schooler who doesn’t have a friend to sit with them at lunch. You might have a freshman in college and can’t find the dining hall. Whatever those problems are. When they call you, when they come to you with those problems. It’s important to remember that their emotional level is up and that executive functioning part of that brain can’t function until you get that emotion down. There’s only really one way to get it down. And that is to listen to them. You want to empathize with them. The key to empathy He is just to think to yourself, What is my child feeling right now? Let’s say they’re frustrated, think to yourself, I know what frustrated feels like, that’s empathy right there. Then listen a little bit to what’s going on with them. Listen to the feeling they’re having. And just say, it sounds like you’re frustrated because you couldn’t find friends at the lunch table, you just need to stay in that listening mode, but stay out of problem solving.
Adam Salgat 10:26
And Episode 87, a mom’s story, how I connected with my kids early in the school year. And you can do we chatted with facilitator, Jill right. In this sound bite, she reminds us that sometimes you just need to let your kid let it all out.
Unknown Speaker 10:43
I think the biggest tip is kind of what what we’ve been talking about is recognizing that they’re feeling a lot of things. They may be feeling stressed, they may be worried they may be, you know, my kids, kids, kids are mad that they’re, you know, back in school, and they can’t sleep in as late as they’d like to six year olds right now, right? Yes. And so sometimes remembering that that piece of the logic and the emotion and being the place where they can vent and not being compelled in that moment, to tell them all the reasons why that doesn’t make sense. That’s dumb, that’s wrong. And listen to them, reflect it back, if you can, those feelings are really trying to understand where they are, even if we as adults think that that’s trivial, or we know that that’s not a super big issue. To them. Right now. It is
Adam Salgat 11:35
another parenting reminder come from Episode 83 Parenting without creating dependency with Dr. Gina Wilson. She touches on being present in the moment as often as possible.
Speaker 2 11:48
Depending on what my motivation is, in that moment, I think it drives whether I’m in my seat tendency where I’m just trying to get an I’ll use the same example of my daughter’s hair, where I’m just trying to get it done. Or where I’m in my eyes to where I see it as an opportunity for connection. So what I have tried to do and build the habit around is when I’m in direct, you know, moment. Regardless, I tried to be more perfect, right? Right. But yeah, just really honoring the fact that when I am one on one with any of my people, whether it’s my husband, my daughter, my son, that I’m there, right, right, because you can’t construct when it’s going to be this very important moment of conversation. Like kiddos don’t work like that, like families. Humans don’t work like that. Like we can’t be like, you know, and yeah, and sitcom TV, it’s like, you know, a very, very special episode of No, that’s not how life works like a Monday, we don’t get the notice on our calendar to say, you’re gonna have a very special episode of your life today, like lean into it. Oh, they come out of nowhere. And if you’re on autopilot, sometimes you miss it.
Adam Salgat 12:58
Episode 77. What if your child doesn’t need you to save the day, we have a conversation with Mickey Gibbs and her daughter Katie. And this soundbite both of them offer some parenting advice on how to connect with your kid.
Speaker 3 13:13
I think the thing I would want parents to take away from this is that we leave the class looking at where we think we are with our skills, you know how we sort of do a learning path assessment about how we think we are with each of the skills just surely at the end of the three days. And if you left the class like me feeling very overwhelmed, like you almost don’t do any of it. Well pick one thing, just pick a skill. Is it empathy? Is it listening? Is it effective confrontation, whatever it is pick one thing and just try doing it different. And as you try doing it different, you’re gonna fall, because it’s like brushing your teeth. With the other hand, if I asked you to get up every morning and brush your teeth with your non dominant hand, you would have toothpaste all over your mouth. So okay, eventually you won’t, you’ll get it right and your brain is going to learn to do it the way you want to do it because your brain has muscle memory. So just keep trying and don’t beat yourself up about it.
Adam Salgat 14:12
That’s great advice. I remember, by the way, something that was told in our class about brushing with your obscene you write lots of toothpaste all over the mouth. Because I tried it. It was hard. Katie, any key takeaway you want for our listeners,
Unknown Speaker 14:25
I’m gonna guess from the kids perspective to the parents, I would say, try to remember that when we’re entering, you know, those late middle school years, those early high school years, it’s really our time to develop our skills and learn who we are. So like, Yes, you are our parents, and we obviously still want your help, and we still need your help are certainly not independent. I mean, I’m 21 and I’m still not really that I’m independent, but you know, not completely in any sense. So I think just try to remember that we’re trying to think Yeah, who we are. And we need the space to do that.
Adam Salgat 15:03
The following clips are from episodes that focused on committed relationships. And the first key takeaway is actually one that I provided in Episode 79. vacationing with your partner, smooth sailing or rough waters. I think this reminder is timely, as many of us will be traveling with family over the holidays. My key takeaway is, when traveling with your family, it’s very important to give each other as much grace as possible. Yes, there are going to be things that somebody handled, compared to you know, that one spouse handled and the other spouse did not and vice versa, and just give each other time to take care of it. And be aware as much as possible of what they might be going through. Because it’s very easy for, you know, to sit back and then to judge and just say, well, didn’t you do this? Or what about that. And we got to keep in mind that everybody has the same goal in the end is to have fun, enjoy each other’s presence, and to have a great time. And if you’re going to Disney enjoy the happiest place on earth.
Unknown Speaker 16:11
I love it. From episode
Adam Salgat 16:12
82, vowing to stay connected, we hear from Ryan and Melanie Pominville of the Michigan Air National Guard. Their key takeaway talks about the our community lessons class and how it had an impact on their relationship.
Unknown Speaker 16:29
It is it is a simp simply a statement that you that you have to add that you have to answer for yourself as if you care about those in your span of care. truly care about the people in your span of care. This course will allow you to do things that you either may think that you’re really good at already, it’ll make you do them better. And the things that you may not be good at, they’re going to show you ways to just make, you know small steps towards finding that to be a new comfort zone. When we went into the course we were like What else are we going to learn about each other and about ourselves. And it was a lot so never think that you know enough about yourself for others because there’s always more.
Adam Salgat 17:15
The next sound bite from Episode 75 titled, you don’t appreciate me how to make sure you never hear this. This one is one of our longer sound bites today, Katie Trotter and I discussed utilizing FBI statements as positive reinforcement. There are times when we could tailor our message or FBI statement to the person, right. So depending on what we know is going to impact them or connect with them a little bit more. And one of the things that comes to mind is knowing their love language. There’s typically five love languages that are considered words of affirmation acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time and physical touch, thinking about what’s going to make a biggest impact on who you’re sending that FBI statement to can make a big difference. And can you talk about that a
Unknown Speaker 18:04
little bit? Yeah, and Adam, I love that you tied it to the love languages, that’s one component that you can start to get to know better about your partner. For some of us, we’ve been through like disc, behavioral tendencies to understand Are people really more focused on the people side first, or the test side first, and all of these things you can take into account when you think of the impact statement. So if you think about FB, and I the feeling is my feeling it is what it is, right? It’s how I feel the specific behaviors, what I noticed about the person, but really tailoring the impact is kind of for the other person, in my opinion. So for Jonathan, for example, if I were to get done saying, hey, when you took care of the girls homework assignments tonight, I felt so relieved. My natural inclination, impact wise would be say something like, it makes me feel even closer to you write something like that. That’s about how I feel again, and that emotional connection. For Jonathan, I think it would mean more to him, If I could tailor the impact to say, it allowed me to get through all of my work projects. And now I can have more time together with you. Right? It’s that quality time that would appeal or the efficiency that I was able to have as a result.
Adam Salgat 19:15
That’s cool. That’s cool that you can kind of think about that, or, you know, take the moment to figure out what what’s gonna mean or connect with that person a little bit more. I just goes the next step further, right?
Unknown Speaker 19:26
Yeah. And it’s all about knowing your partner, and it’s okay to have more than one impact. If you want to throw two of them in there, that would be fine for you.
Adam Salgat 19:34
So our goal then is five messages to butter them up. Really bad news?
Unknown Speaker 19:42
No, the goal of all of this is to continue to look for things that you value and appreciate about your partner and then share that with them in a way that is going to have a big impact. And everything that happens from there is just what would you say? frosting on top is that the tray Get your
Adam Salgat 20:00
frosting on the cake. Yeah, there we go. Any of those kinds of cliches that makes sense. And it’s one of those elements that as we move closer towards Valentine’s Day, as we in Michigan, drying it through what I like to consider our dark season, this season of winter, where it’s really easy to kind of get down in the dumps without as much sunshine and general warmth. It’s good to think about the things that we can do to have an impact around us to make us feel better to make us happier, to help people that we care about the most. That is one of the things I love about the our community listens, class and communication skill set is wow, I know it initially kind of looks at yourself, and you think about how it works in a work environment. I love how much it comes back home, the focus areas that we have now with parenting and committed relationships, being just as big as the other spaces. I look forward to continuing to grow in those spaces as organization.
Unknown Speaker 21:03
Adam, thank you so much for having this conversation. I think at first sometimes picking a small goal can be really helpful, right? So if it’s, I want to try to appreciate verbally one thing a day for a while. And I know sometimes people talk about how it can feel a little bit scripted or my partner is going to know what I’m trying to do. And I often when couples share that say absolutely. And that’s okay, because what you’re trying to do is to continue to grow and your appreciation for your partner. So give each other a little grace and space if it feels a little bit clunky at first. And I think people will be pleasantly surprised at how easy it starts to roll off your tongue as you get going.
Adam Salgat 21:40
As always a key takeaway, I think you’ve kind of already mentioned it, but maybe just one really quick thing. reiterate a key takeaway for our listeners,
Unknown Speaker 21:48
you have the choice on where you want to focus your attention. As it comes to your partner’s behaviors, pick a positive one.
Adam Salgat 21:59
In Episode 78, we continued our theme of positive feedback, but this time looking at it through the leadership lens. This episode titled giving tough feedback, giving praise and owning up. Jules Maloney shares with us how to create FBI statements to help improve company culture.
Jules Maloney 22:18
The key takeaway is that this is a tool that you can have handy at any time, don’t be afraid of it, practice it in low risk situations practice with the recognition message. The more you get comfortable with it, the easier it will be to access it when things are more difficult things or higher risks or your higher level of vulnerability because you might have made a mistake and you need to own up to it. Practice practice. And I think you’ll see rich rewards come to you with that practice.
Adam Salgat 22:48
One workplace and Michigan has put their entire team through the our community lessons course. And we caught up with their executive director and episode 81 titled OCL skills transforming workplace culture. That feel of Habitat for Humanity for Kent County explains the responsibility of leaders to help their staff grow as people.
Unknown Speaker 23:10
First of all, our current environment of listening and understanding and giving people an opportunity. I think we project a lot of right now. It’s I don’t I don’t want to listen, I just want to be heard. I think those are two different things. I think saying exactly how I feel sometimes is not is not the message that someone is able to pick up. I believe as an organizational leader, I have an opportunity here to make folks we’ve said it a couple of times that better human right. And so that’s important to me as an as a leader in an organization anytime you can provide an opportunity, and it falls within your budget or your ability. It’s your obligation. And so I want to provide my staff, a level playing ground. I don’t want it to feel like why do this job. And so I’m don’t have a manager or director title. And so that doesn’t mean anything, because it does.
Adam Salgat 24:13
Our last clip and key takeaway is from Episode 80, the great reshuffle, what is happening. Chapman foundation CEO, Misty Jenks explains why people are looking for career changes, and how leadership is key to keep the talent in their organization. Today’s topic is the great re shuffle. So in doing a little reading about this more than 47 million people walked away from their jobs last year, according to the US Department of Labor, but as you shared with me, it’s not that they’re walking away. And that’s kind of where this term great reshelve will come from.
Unknown Speaker 24:48
Yes. So early on in the pandemic. It looked like it was a great Rexach nation where individuals are just walking away from their jobs, but what we’re actually seeing is they are prioritized More of a work life balance and the culture of an organization. And so they’re going out and searching for a better alignment for their career.
Adam Salgat 25:08
So I do want to take one quick moment and let everybody know that if you hear us state any statistics or quotes from an article, we will have links in the description of this podcast, that you can go read the full information and get more in depth. So you just mentioned about people looking for what aligns with them. A recent MIT Sloan Management Review found that higher wages are not even among the top 15 reasons for the turnover. Rather, there are things like toxic culture, job security, the pandemic and feeling on recognized for their work as some of their top motivators. So talk a little bit about that. You just mentioned it, but what have you seen? What have you heard when it comes to that realignment of people’s priorities?
Unknown Speaker 25:49
So I think the thing that’s really coming to the surface for most individuals is how we are no longer just looking for work to be our only fulfillment. So we’re looking for a more balanced approach. And so as we talk about work life balance, we all know what that is, but also getting more meaning and purpose out of the work that we do. So all of the hours that we’re spending at work, having them aligned to our personal values, and making sure the impact that we’re making is important to us in the world.
Adam Salgat 26:17
Talk a little bit about your key takeaway, Misty, how important is it for leaders to be a part of that?
Unknown Speaker 26:21
I think my key takeaway for this is that leaders have a more important job. Now more than ever, how you show up as a leader affects your team. And your communication will affect the culture, your employee satisfaction, and the retention and just their lives on a day to day basis. So it’s really important as leaders, we are taking a critical eye to ourselves and making sure that we’re creating a flourishing culture where employees can align their personal values to the values and the work of the organization, making it meaningful for them.
Adam Salgat 26:59
Thank you, everyone for such an outstanding year. We are very grateful for your listenership. Our team has been working on upcoming podcast episodes already. So if you liked the last key takeaway there with Misty Jenks. Be sure to stay tuned for our first episode in January, where we will be going over new statistics about the great reshot. Again, thank you so much. It is greatly appreciated knowing that you are out there listening to us and moving along this journey.