Ep 166: Monique Helstrom on How to Have Tough Conversations

Through her years as a fierce type-A, Monique Helstrom has sharpened her ability to take large complex problems and break them down into bite-sized, achievable nuggets which she now uses in her consulting and speaking business.

This bonus episode of The Leader Assistant Podcast is from a recent Leader Assistant Zoom Chat where Monique joined us to talk about how to have tough conversations at work.

Join me and Monique in Denver, CO on June 9 for the Leader Assistant Live: Masterclass!

Also, don’t forget to check out Monique’s online course – Introduction to Effective Communication – and remember to use the code LEADERASSISTANT at checkout to get $10 OFF!

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ABOUT MONIQUE

After nearly a decade as the Executive Assistant, Producer, and “Chief of Simon Sinek,” New York Times Best-Selling author and TED celebrity, Monique has had unparalleled experiences and gained unique perspectives from thought leaders, executives, celebrities, educators, military, and the general workforce that this world depends on. These encounters have equipped her with the tools necessary to disentangle common issues plaguing humans and businesses around the globe.

Through her years as a fierce type-A, Monique has sharpened her ability to take large complex problems and break them down into bite-sized, achievable nuggets which she now uses in her consulting and speaking business. She is obsessed with growth and development and hopes to spend her life showing others that they CAN achieve their next evolution, as long as they’re willing to.

She willingly admits that she has made a million mistakes in her life and career. Her greatest achievement has been that she can now admit it and learn about herself in the process so that she doesn’t make the same mistake twice. After all, we learn so much more when we fall down than when we pretend we have our eyes wide open.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Podcast Intro 0:03

The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident game changing leader assistants.

Jeremy Burrows 0:10

The Leader Assistant Podcast is exclusively brought to buy goody which provides effortless gifting for all occasions. If you’re tired of sending tacky impersonal business gifts, then you should definitely check out goodie my friends at goody offer a collection of hundreds of curated brands like Levain bakery, Thera body, milk bar, and Ember mugs. With goodie, if your recipient doesn’t like your gift, they can swap it out for one they do like you can find perfect gifts for any occasion. Whether it’s work anniversaries, birthdays, new hire onboarding or company swag. It’s free to start gifting and you’ll get a $20 credit when you sign up. Also, be sure to mention The Leader Assistant Podcast when signing up and goody will add an extra $10 credit to your account. So go to leaderassistant.com/goody to disrupt the inefficiencies in your team’s gifting strategy. Again, that’s a leaderassistant.com/goody Hey friends, welcome to episode 166 You can catch the show notes at leaderassistant.com/166. Today’s episode is a replay of the weekly leader assistant zoom chat, a recent session that we had with my friend Monique Helstrom former Chief of Simon Sinek Best Selling Author and Ted Talk speaker Monique and I talk about how to have tough conversations. So we chatted for about 25 minutes with some friends of ours all over the world. That would be you leader assistance because weekly we have a free zoom chat on Wednesdays at 2pm. Pacific 4pm Central 5pm. Eastern, we have a quick 30 minute zoom chat every Wednesday, you are welcome to join us for a future one just go to leaderassistant.com/community We use a platform called circle for the leader assistant community and you can join and click on weekly zoom chats and get all of the dial in info so you can join us for a future call. All right, well hope you enjoy this conversation with Monique Helstrom Be sure to check out her resources at Moniquehelstrom.com. Monique was executive assistant chief of staff to Simon Sinek, a leadership guru. So she supported Simon throughout his crazy, crazy boom and growth of his his business and influence with leaders all over the world. So she has plenty of great assistant experience. But then now she trains and coaches and speaks and helps assistants and executives. And one topic that she helps them with and helps us as assistants is communication and having hard conversations. And so it’s a very, very big part of our jobs, specially as leader assistants because leaders don’t run from the hard conversation. They lean into them and they have them. And so I’m going to let Monique kind of share a little bit. I’m going to kind of ask her a couple questions to get her talking. And then I will open it up for questions from you all. So first Monique, welcome.

Monique Helstrom 3:44

Thank you Hello to everyone. Thank you so many people for putting on your videos. It makes me so happy.

Jeremy Burrows 3:50

Oh yes. I love it. I love it. And then why don’t you tell us how long you supported Simon. And what you loved about being an assistant.

Monique Helstrom 4:01

Oh, man, so long as within from us the decades just under 10 years. It was a it was a very short and very long 10 years. You know how you can have a day or a year or week go by that just flies and all of a sudden you’re like how did that all go down? How did that go so fast? And then other days you’re like is it only two o’clock? So they were some of the longest and shortest days of my entire life. And it really it was being in the system was everything that I was supposed to be? I’m detail oriented. I love activating projects. I love turning ideas into real things. I love being a support system. I love taking care of people I love fixing problems. So before I even knew that I was born to be an assistant I was born to be an assistant. So I’m lucky that I actually found that profession.

Jeremy Burrows 4:56

Awesome. Love it. So why Is it important for us as assistants to have difficult conversations and know how to have tough conversations? Yeah.

Monique Helstrom 5:13

So this is obviously my soapbox, I have two online courses about communication, it is so important to me. Communication, to me is the most important skill that we were never taught. You know, we don’t take classes in school on how to be a good communicators on how to have Converse hard conversations, how to give feedback, how to take feedback, you know, we learn more about World War in school than we do about how to actually communicate and how to do what we need to do in order to be our best selves. So I’m extremely passionate about teaching communication in general. And even more so lately, about how to have hard conversations, you know, these conversations hard conversations are going to happen, whether we want them to or not, they are coming at us. Other people want to give us feedback. Other people want to tell us that they are that we hurt their feelings, or something these are happening whether we want them to or not. So the only choice we have is to avoid them completely. And just not not talk to any other humans and run away from every situation that could possibly bring in a hard conversation, we can run away, or we can do them badly and make more regrets for ourselves. Or we can finally figure out how to do them with skill and intention and attention. So I am, hell bent if to use that word on teaching the world how to have these hard conversations. I’ve had a few experiences lately that really kind of knocked me out. I actually had a friend who, instead of having a hard conversation, she just ghosted me. And this was a friend that I’d had for a very long period of time. And I guess I said something that offended her. I wanted to have a conversation with her about it. And she straight up ghosted me. So I was like, even more reason why we need to have these conversations because it’s coming at work. It’s coming with our family. It’s coming with our friendship group. There’s no way to get around it. So let’s actually learn how to do it. Well.

Jeremy Burrows 7:15

Yeah. So how could you give us maybe a practical sip on? I’m sure. So you actually I want to I want to do some mass confession because mass confession is good for the soul. So raise your hand physically or digitally? If you thought of a tough conversation that you need to have when when she was talking? Okay, yes, yes. Lots of people think. Okay, great. Now, I gotta have this tough conversation. So okay, so we can all relate. So what’s step one? Monique, what, what? Okay, you’ve thought of the person that you have to have that tough conversation with? You know, obviously, it’s common thing with seeing the number of hands go up. What is step number one?

Monique Helstrom 8:03

Step number one, as it always is to prepare ourselves, we tend to go into these conversations, scribble a couple of notes down about what we need to say what is going to come out of our mouths, but we rarely pay attention to what we’re feeling before we even go into that conversation. What are our motives? What what happened earlier in the day, you know, where we’re coming from? Did I get into a fight with my partner? Am I mad at something that happened at work? Am I bringing in baggage to this conversation, and we so rarely think about what we have to wait, wait, we’re caring when we’re going into these conversations. So first and foremost, we need to make sure that we’re going in unencumbered and that we have the right motive. If your motive is to win, to be right to gain acknowledgement to prove someone else wrong, very, very common, then we’re not going in with the right motive either. And we’re probably going to get the experience and we’re going to get the outcome that we’ve been dreading. So a very easy, quick, actionable tip for everyone out there is go in, ready, calm yourself, calm your mind, be present. If you need to meditate if you need to take a walk, if you need to put your face in the sun, if you need to watch a video of cute puppy dogs on YouTube, whatever it is, do whatever it needs to do for you to calm your central nervous system down Calm, calm your inner self down, be present and figure out what your motive is. Before anything else even before a word comes out of your mouth. That’s my advice.

Jeremy Burrows 9:41

Yeah, I love it. So one thing that I do to kind of call my my inner self, if you will, is I just remind myself that I’m a valuable human being no matter how well or how poor this conversation goes. In other words, if this conversation I’m about to have goes very, very, very poorly. That doesn’t make me less of a valuable person. And so just detaching my worth, from how this conversation goes, helps me kind of get ready to have that conversation. Yeah. And then, you know, the other side of it would be, how, how can we a lot of times when we have these tough conversations, we feel ourselves becoming defensive, and in sport, or even aggressive? Because we’re trying to be defensive, whatever. So how do we how do we combat the urge to defend ourselves?

Monique Helstrom 10:44

Sure. So I want to first say that we can and should always separate the, the WHO from the what the meat from the action, because you might have done something and have caused an action that hurt someone that you needed to, you know, that someone needs to have a hard conversation with you with you personally, to making sure that we separate that wheat from the web, just because you need to have someone needs to have a hard conversation with you doesn’t make you a bad human. Just like you were saying, Jeremy, you’re still a worthy and wonderful and special human being whether or not somebody has to have a hard conversation with you or not, it is all about our motive, it is all How about how we handle it. And so when we go in with the right intentions, and the right motives, that’s a good start. But making sure that we separate the me, the human me from the things that I did know, who we are. And what we do are two different things. So we might have had an action that you did something that doesn’t mean that you yourself are bad or good human being. So separating the wheat from the what. Also, I always recommend, you know, whenever you feel your that, that oh, that, Oh, my back’s going up against the wall, I can feel it. Ask questions, I immediately will take two big breaths, I will normally tell people I need I need a second, I take to be huge, do yoga breaths, get some oxygen going through my body. And then I ask questions. What do I not understand? What do I need to know? What exactly did I do to cause this issue? Who else was affected? There’s so many questions that we can ask. But instead we assume that we know all the answers to these questions, we assume we know the intent. So those are my two biggest tips separate the wheat from the wheat from the meat or it’s separate the meat from the what? And make sure you’re you’re going in with inquisitive and curious mind. So that you can really know what the actions that you did how they affected other people.

Jeremy Burrows 12:51

Yeah. Well said. So, one more question for me, and then we’ll we’ll get into questions from you all. So how have you? Or how can we as assistants prepare our executives, for having a tough conversation? Or have their going into a tough meeting when they know it’s gonna be rough or whatever? How can we as assistants prepare executives?

Monique Helstrom 13:24

Sure. So I’ll give you two tips. Number one, remember, the it’s all about timing and location, location, location, location, making sure that we have favorable conditions around the conversation that we’re about to have, you’re not going to go for a run in the rain. So don’t come at somebody when it’s raining in their world and expect a good outcome. So we know our executive schedule, don’t book a really hard conversation with them after they’ve had nine meetings back to back and it’s at the end of their day. And they had a terrible meeting with their board of directors. And and and and, and it’s a Friday afternoon, we know when the good times are to have these conversations with our executives. Just be weary and making sure that you’re doing them at the appropriate time in the appropriate location. The other thing is having the other person whether they’re your executive or not be prepared for the conversation at hand. So often we get so stressed out and we get so anxious about the conversations that we have. We tend to throw what I call verbal grenades. We unleashed the pin throw it at someone, you hurt me, you did something right away right away. And we’re not having them. They’re not prepared for the conversation that’s coming at them. And we have to be very, very cognizant of not throwing these verbal refrains at our especially at our executives, let them know, hey, I need to have a hard conversation with you about XYZ. It involves this thing that happened last week. I blocked a time on our calendar tomorrow morning. Ain’t no you don’t have anything to do just before just after. Here’s the points that I want to hand off. Let’s talk about it tomorrow. I’m very excited to really get through this with you as a team, as opposed to like, you put a meeting on their calendar, and then they look at you like, what’s this meeting about? You’re like Buddha, that’s never going to work out the way that we want it to. And the outcome that we’re expecting is going to happen. So prepare, prepare, prepare them.

Jeremy Burrows 15:27

Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. So all right, we’re gonna take a few questions. Sandra had a good one I’m going to read but I actually would prefer you all to raise your hand. And we’d love to see your faces. And have you asked the question on video. So raise your hand and I will call you out for the next question. But the first one is, how have you had the experience where you’re in a meeting with your executive and others and someone in the room gets defensive? And the whole conversation shifts? And you’re watching your executive thinking of oh, now what? So maybe just some tips for communication or redirecting or, you know, policing, a hot issue if it gets interesting in the middle of a meeting?

Monique Helstrom 16:16

Sure. So those two things, if we want to hold that piece of the conversation at that very moment, in order to keep the meeting going forward? A acknowledge the person acknowledge their fears, acknowledge what’s going on, don’t put words in their mouth, say, it’s, I feel like you’re, that’s something’s coming out for you. I see your shoulder shrugging, you know, only tell them the things that you’re noticing that you’re in a bad spot, because you can’t tell anyone that you know, know that for sure. We have to know the talk about the things that you do know that you’re observing. It seems to me like you’re frustrated, because I’m seeing signs, I want to let you know, I want to talk with you about this. And we will, we will get to this at some point. I’m making a note right now that we are going to go over this again, tomorrow at two o’clock. Most of the time, people get very upset when they don’t feel heard, when they don’t think that their problem is going to be solved. So assuring someone, we I promise we’re going to get to it, you actually have to do it, then can’t can’t just jump over that step. But make sure that they know when they’re when the problem is going to be addressed. Now, if it’s taking over the conversation, again, listening, hearing people out and letting people have the experience that they do that they need to have. But I want you to stay calm, clear, relaxed, feeling good feeling in your center of space, breathing, somebody else’s emotions are not your emotions. You don’t have to take on their issues. And then you get and while they’re, and then everyone’s and then everyone’s going crazy. You stay calm, your demeanor stays good, whether you need to have a couple of breaths or not. And frankly, if they’re at and coming at your executive is your executives place to shut that conversation down, not necessarily yours, and you can bring it to his attention and say, it seems to me like Laura has something to say why don’t we address that issue right now? It’s all about your calm demeanor.

Jeremy Burrows 18:35

Speaking of calm demeanor, Jennifer actually had a good question any tips for controlling your emotions so we feel like we can’t breathe very well. We made me feel like we’re starting to become emotional and she mentioned any type of perceived conflict, often her reaction is to cry. So it’s so difficult to continue the conversation when you feel that emotion those tears Even coming on? Yeah. So

Monique Helstrom 19:01

I will say first that emotions absolutely have a place in the workspace. As long as it’s the right emotion. As long as it is the appropriate emotion we are emotional beings, we are human beings. And we get defensive and cry and laugh and we scream and we do all the things. So it is okay. And I personally am on a mission to to bring emotions back into the workplace and let it be okay and let it be something that we can all do if we need to. Now I understand at some points that is not appropriate at that manner. So there’s there’s various things that you can do you know, Amy Cuddy’s whole book presents I just read president’s getting Cadiz book for the third time maybe because I love it so much. You know there’s something about making ourselves bigger. You know when we tend to get scared or fearful or upset we get small we hunched in our shoulders, we put our shoulders down you lower our chin space. So if you’re feeling like you’re getting emotional, make yourself bigger, put their shoulders down and pretend that you have weights on them. Turn the corners of your mouth up a little bit. Breathing, you know, open your arms to put your both your feet on the floor and start wiggling your toes, there’s a lot of things that we can do to make ourselves bigger so that we’re not cowering. This is going to help us show the right emotion rather than this rather than this tight, tight inwards. So that’s just one. I have a lot of tips there. But that’s just one easy one. Awesome. All right,

Jeremy Burrows 20:37

raise your hand and I want to hear from somebody on video who has a question for Monique. And while we’re waiting, just a reminder to join us in Denver, I posted the link again, if you want to get her $300 communication online course that she just launched, and a discount to the Denver registration all in one bundle. You can order today at leader Asst. live.com/denver. Raise your digital hand if you have a question, and we’ll go to you. I know there’s probably a couple more in the chat, but I’m going to pretend to ignore them. And now here we got Lisa, Lisa, sprinkles, I’m going to actually have to unmute you hang on. Okay,

Speaker 4 21:19

my question is, one of the big drives that I’ve had in my career in the last three to five years is kind of working on branding, like my own personal brand. And maybe how do I align with my executive brand? When I interview for a job that I’m going to be taking? The first thing that I ask is the executive, what is your brand? And how does that align with what you’re doing now? And I’ll be honest with you, in the last few years, every single executive that’s been in the field for a long time has been stumped by that question, like, what is the brand? So my question to you is, you know, I’m very curious of, you know, all the experience, which is amazing that you have, how do you identify like, what do you think of as your personal brand, and you know, what you’re trying to portray, as you’re meeting with people and teaching and coaching and those kinds of things? What’s like, at the maybe top three things that you look at for your own brand? And you know, keeping that tight?

Monique Helstrom 22:14

Are you asking for me to tell you how to find your own personal brand? Are you asking me what my personal brand is?

Unknown Speaker 22:20

What your personal brand is? Yes, yeah.

Monique Helstrom 22:23

So my personal brand has everything to do with being human. I am a human being not a human doing. And I’m all about being human, which is why I talk about messy and weird and horrible things like hard conversations and feedback, and crying in front of your boss. And I will say pretty much anything I need to say, because we’re human, and I want to bring that back. We are not robots, we are not machines, we are absolutely human beings. So that is a huge, huge, huge piece of my brand. I would also say, you know, I’m low, outspoken and I always have been. So I think part of my brand is my loud mouth, that I’m willing to kind of say anything, and I’m okay with that. Trust me, I got into a lot of troubles in that when I was a kid about my loud mouth. But it has brought me to some great places in my life. So I, I appreciate that. I would also, you know, again, I teach human skills. So I’m all about part of my brand is really all about doing one step at a time turning that notch one at a time. You know, we don’t have to eat the entire elephant at one sitting, you know, what is one step we can do to move forward to be a better version of ourselves. And then what’s one more step that we can take? Do 1% every day or 1% Every week or 1% every month? I don’t care. But just keep turning that dial. And I think that’s a part of my, my personal brand. Thank you for that question.

Jeremy Burrows 23:50

Thanks, Lisa. All right. Anybody else? Raise your hand. Good Time for one, maybe two more depending on how quick it is.

Speaker 5 23:58

I think this is more of a statement than a question. I just want to say thank you. And I appreciate the insight because I’m one of these people that has really in the last I say, decade, stood up for myself. And I’ve been in those conversations that are difficult. I have cried, and you know what, I don’t care. Because in that conversation, I am letting them know what I’m worse. And I am worse than knowing that they’re making me feel like crap, I am worse than knowing that if they keep it up, I’m gonna walk out the door. I am worth them knowing that in this environment, if you want to yell and scream, this might be the reaction that you see. And I also want to say to all the women that are out there and Ami, not just women men two that are in this role, that if we know what our worth is and we stand on that platform, the treatment that we get means the tears will be less because they’ll respect you. And so Sometimes I have found when I’m at the edge of Tears is because I feel disrespected and not heard. And so I feel if you just stand up for yourself, and I love you, Monique, because I have gotten to travel with my mouth more times, and you can, you can count. And so I’m just like, You know what, forget it, if they don’t, if they don’t want to value me and understand that I have these opinions, and I have feelings, and I’m watching what’s happening here too, then maybe I don’t need to be here. And binding that strength has really helped me just keep championing forward. Yeah,

Monique Helstrom 25:33

standing up for ourselves and showing our words and being the best version of yourself. And all of these things has everything to do with self esteem, self worth, self respect, and it has very little to do with being mean, being rude being ignorant or being in your face, you know, I want to just be very clear that you can stand up for yourself, you can show your worth, you can be all that you can be and you don’t have to yell and scream and say mean bad words. So just I want to separate that just a little bit. Yeah.

Jeremy Burrows 26:12

Awesome. Mary, do you have a question?

Speaker 6 26:15

I do. So I’ve found lately that my executive is has removed me from the executive weekly touch bases that we have. So how do we as admins make our executive feel like what we have to offer is important enough for us to be involved in those conversations.

Monique Helstrom 26:44

Okay, so first, we can’t make anyone feel anything. Unfortunately, I really wish we all had a little secondary storage stick and could just push buttons and make people do things that would just be so much easier. But it’s not. So the two things I would first ask why you were removed from there and say, I want to have an honest conversation with you about why I’ve been removed. I’m curious to know, and really come open and honest and curious about why that change did happen. The other thing that I would recommend, or one of the ways that that I got into all these meetings that I showed that I was really to be in those meetings was talk about my strengths set about what I am good at, what are my tendencies, my habits, my strengths? And why was it important to have those strengths be a part of the meeting. So a when I was going through this exercise with Simon, I said number one, having more. Having more opinions and more strengths sets in the room is going to help diversity is good. diversity brings in innovation and unique perspectives and new perspectives. And so we need to have people that think differently, people that come from a different place, we need to have those kinds of people all in the room at the same time. The other thing that I told him was basically I said, Look, you’re a strategist, you go into these meetings, looking for the strategy, the overarching way that we’re going to move forward as a company as a team, I hear detail my strengths, that is an activator is detail oriented. I know what my strengths sets are. So when I go into a meeting, I’m listening for what are we going to do? How are we going to make this happen? How are we going to push this forward? So when you leave a meeting, Simon, you’re leaving with maybe two action items. And then you come to me and you give me two action items, and then five are left on the table. And we don’t know what they are. If I were to go into the meeting, I would lead to 10 action items. And you don’t want to have to tell me what they are. And so I said, look, let’s just try it, the me and on one meeting. And then when I went in that meeting, I was controlled and calm and present and willing to be there. And when we left, he said did you get the two action items? I said two, I have six number one, number two, number three, number four, number five, number six, I went through all of the things that he was like, I didn’t even think about half of those. They said yes, I know we listen for different things. I have a different strength set than you do. So under showing what your strengths that brings to the table and what his strengths that his or hers brings to the table is superduper important. It was a really quick answer but a quick long winded answer.

Jeremy Burrows 29:30

Yeah, great question. Thank you. All right. Well, we’re gonna try to do I know we’re a few minutes over, Monique, if it’s our I always try to get to these last two questions quickly. And just you know, again, join us in Denver. We’re going to have a lot more time and a smaller groups, much smaller group. It’s good masterclass. It’s intentionally a small intimate setting where we can really dive in and dig in deep and then you get money. The online course if you sign up today, and then you’ll get you’ll get a coaching call with Monique for after the event, and then a coaching call with me as well, so that you can follow up and really get even deeper on all of these topics and more. So hopefully you can join us in Denver leader, Assistant live.com/denver. Anne Marie, hello, Anne Marie, once you share your question really quick, and then we’ll we’ll get to the Service Master group in their conference room.

Anne-Marie Staples 30:29

So Jeremy and Al Hussein have sometimes acknowledged with our group that the end job can be very lonely, and one of the reasons it can be very lonely is because sometimes we are asked to have hard conversations on behalf of our executive with people that report to him, but do not report to us. You know, for example, if we report to the CEO having hard conversations on his behalf, with other C suite, you know, direct reports of his Do you have any advice on having 100? You know, hard conversations with people who are often or maybe always superior to us, you know, on behalf of the CEO, but, but in a way that’s not, you know, undermining the CEO, not, you know, not delivering it like, oh, well, this isn’t my message. This is, you know, don’t shoot the messenger, you know, any mean those kinds of ways. Any, any thoughts.

Monique Helstrom 31:29

So that’s a hard one giving difficult having difficult conversations and giving feedback on behalf of someone else, your will always be shot as a messenger. That’s just because the words are coming from your mouth. So that’s a very difficult situation to be in. And I applaud you for doing that. And asking the questions about that. Feedback is feedback is feedback. And people are people are people. So even if they’re superior, making sure that you’re mentally prepared to go into the conversation. Do you have all the content and context around what is happening around the situation at hand, making sure that you go in fluid prepared, making sure you have your feedback statement, there’s, I go through in my course. So a way to get a feedback statement and actual sentence that you can use, making sure you have that prepared? And what the goals are keeping the goals of a conversation in mind. Are you just giving information? And that’s it? Are you giving information because you need something back? You need something to happen, you need to change to move forward, you need an apology? What are the motives? And making sure you’re staying unbelievably focused on what those motives are in order to have the conversation? Continue? So that was my really quick answer to that question.

Jeremy Burrows 32:44

All right, well, last one, ServiceMaster team, love to hear your question and get a quick answer for you. My

Unknown Speaker 32:56

question is, how

Jeremy Burrows 32:57

are your name please, surname? I’m Christian, I wasn’t I assume all of your names Work Service best?

Speaker 8 33:08

I mean, if you want me to be called Service Master. My question is, how do you communicate with somebody that isn’t actively listening to you and you’re trying to have a conversation? They’re physically present, but they’re not mentally present. And you are trying to make suggestions or trying to make things work better communication wise, between the two of you? So basically, one party is willing the other party’s not how do you? What are your suggestions on how to get that person to listen?

Monique Helstrom 33:41

Again, unfortunately, we can’t make people do things. But we can’t. So if this were me, if I was in a conversation where I saw the other person not not paying attention, I would stop. I would stop the meeting right then and there. And I would put down my pen and I would read everything from out in front of me and I would say, you okay? You’re right. What’s what’s happening? What? What is preventing you from being present here, right, right here right now. Because I can sense from the way that your eyes are again, only things that you can see, feel, hear, know that you don’t assume and don’t put yourself in their position, but the things that you’re seeing, you know, I can tell you’re looking up, you’re looking out the window, you’re tapping your foot, whatever it might be, I noticed these. So let’s just have a conversation about what’s going on. And just stop is you talking and talking and talking talking to try to prove a point is not going to help? It’s just going to annoy the other person? So honestly, if it were me, I would stop the conversation I would say okay, doesn’t seem like now’s a great time. We can have a conversation about what’s wrong. We can have a conversation about what what is getting in the way. But then why don’t we pick this conversation up tomorrow house 2pm. Just make sure that you’re you’re re visiting the conversation so it doesn’t die. But I wouldn’t keep terminate in the wall if it’s not.

Unknown Speaker 35:08

Perfect thank you

Podcast Outro 35:18

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