EP65: Communication, Wellness, and Business Relationships with Connie Whitman

This is winning with wellness, a podcast about inspiring the wellness warrior in you. If you are feeling lost or alone in your wellness journey, or are looking for new ideas and inspiration, you are in the right place, a place you can learn about all things wellness in business life and living your host Jenny rice, we'll be bringing you inspiring stories and practical tools to improve your overall wellness personally and professionally. Imagine what living a life of wellness would be like. Thank you for joining us today.

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of winning with wellness. We are so excited to have you here to inspire the wellness world and you I am absolutely thrilled to have Connie Whitman here with me. Connie, welcome to the show.

Hey, Jen, thanks for having me on. I'm excited. And you know, I love having conversations with you. So

I totally can't wait. So for those of you that are joining us today, thank you for making you a priority by taking the time to spend this 20 plus minutes with us to inspire different ways of thinking about your wellness journey and how you can be proactive in that process. I want to share a little bit more about Connie before we get started so you you know her more intimately. And then we're gonna dig into her expertise and have some conversation. So everybody Connie is known for her high energy which will become very obvious once we start talking. She's passionate, heart centered and enthusiastic approach in to sales, teaching and coaching. And that's how Kanye and I met we actually met through business and we've become fast friends. So the thing that's great about businesses always leads you to relationships. So Connie has been the CEO of changing the sales game for 20 plus years helping business owners leaders and sales teams build powerhouse organizations. She's a three time number one international best selling author for her book ESP which is easy sales process. Seven Steps to sales success speaker and podcast host which have been on our show you guys should totally check it out. Connie's inspired teaching transformational tools and content to ensure that business owners and salespeople grow their revenue streams through enhanced communication skills. She is absolutely thrilled to share inspiring content on our international podcast, the changing the sales game and alignment of change. And you know, I know you guys are listening to this bio going like how does this have anything to do with wellness? And what's really amazing is Connie is a communication specialist. And we're going to talk about how that impacts our lives and our wellness. So again, Connie, welcome. Thanks for being here.

Thanks, Jen. Who is that person you just introduced? Me she I like her.

Honestly, you know, these are the things we read about ourselves. Are we here and we're like, online to celebrate and pause. It's like, man, I've accomplished some pretty cool stuff. And my Yeah, yeah, baby. Connie, because we want to focus this conversation around, you know, wellness, and what does wellness actually mean to you?

You know, it's funny, Jen because like everybody else right? Oh, eat healthy, move your body make sure you rest get enough sleep. Really, really though, I think for me when when I think about living a healthy lifestyle. Yes, all of those things are, of course paramount. But from for me at the core. It's a strong mindset. You know, I've been I do a lot of speaking and among a lot of podcasts. And it's interesting how some of the that like this. This is a very interesting question that I don't get asked often. And at the core, I think it's why I have a healthy, vibrant life. Because of my strong mindset of I am happy. I am joyous. I love my family. I love my business. I do what I love everyday, like, everybody's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, all of those things combined creates joy. And I really believe that's the center, the center stone of living a healthy lifestyle healthy and productive.

Because this is the thing that's so fascinating to me is and I've shared this thought on a few podcasts and this might resonate with you. It's amazing to me when it comes to our health. We almost have to be run over by a bus sometimes before we move into action. But before we step in, because there's always something else we can put first. And it's amazing. I love that you you highlight that it's you know really being proactive and moving into action and doing those kinds of things. And that's one of the things I love about you is that you are, you know, gear full into movement and action. So when we think about when when you think about your own personal wellness journaling, and what's got you from A to B, is there something that you would share with your younger self, that, you know, now has been one of the best things that you could have done for yourself when it comes to wellness?

You know, and I think a lot of people fall into that. So yes, if I could talk to my younger self, you know, my kids just both graduated college and you know, 20 to 25. So recent college grads, I wish I knew then what I know now from the framework of I thought it was about working hard, nose to the grindstone, don't come up for air, keep working, pushing, push, push. And you know what, it's all nonsense. The harder I think I've pushed through the years, in spite of pushing so hard, I became successful, but I believe my success could have been amplified had I just slowed down and rested more in my younger years, because like you said, I have high energy, I've always had high energy. I'm a passionate person. I've always been passionate. So think of me in my 20s. Now, I'm 60. Right? But think about that 40 years, and I'm still so energized. I believe it's because I've realized you gotta slow down to speed up sometimes. And I didn't know that in my 20s. So not working so hard. I know that sounds so counterintuitive. But for me, I think that's that's the truth. That's what I've learned in the past 40 years.

You know, that's such a powerful statement. Because many of us, I come from a long line of entrepreneurs, many of us are raised with whether we're taught it or we see it. And a mess of us I think it's absorbed is grind, work, grind, burn the candle, burn the candle, and not realizing that that actually doesn't put us in the most optimum state for decision making success, etc. So I thank you for shedding the light on that coming from a place of success and realizing slow down and enjoy the journey. It's such a powerful thing to slow down. When when you say that I'm curious, there's gonna be people listening right now going like, how do I slow down? Whoa, wouldn't have you developed in your lifetime? As a professional, that you've learned how to slow down so you can speed up?

Yeah, and I want to answer that. But I want to go back one quick step until my kids again, 20 to 25. And I see them and they should work hard. Listen, you got to work hard, right? There's no free lunch out there. I totally agree with that. But certain things like I'm saying to them, you need to suck that up right now. Because you're new, you have to prove yourself all of those things. You have to build your credentials, right? Nobody owes you anything right now. So I do believe all of that. So when I say work hard, I do think we have to work hard, but they do my kids work out right? They we come down the shore, we have a shore house, my son and his girlfriend were down. So all of those things. We're teaching them to learn how to unplug. And so that's that's the balance, I guess that I'm trying to teach them, which I didn't know no one taught me so that I think is one frame of reference I wanted to share. Now as far as slowing down the these have been important modalities, I guess, if you will, or ways of thinking now. So a couple of them you're gonna laugh at well, one is meditation. I think it's critical that I meditate every day. Another thing for me as I read something, it could be for fun. It could be for learning it could be for my own education, my own great be a lifelong learner. But I read 20 minutes a day, put a timer on 20 minutes. What is the thing that's intriguing me it could be a Numerology thing. It could be something fun. So that's another thing that I do faithfully daily. The other thing is, what was I going to say? With the meditation? Oh, so word searches. I know. I'm a dork. I love doing word searches. So when I'm feeling a little stressful, I think Okay, that's it. You're you're not productive anymore. Because you're you're reading the same paragraph over and over. Everybody can relate to that. It's time to unplug. We normally I'd be like do more, just suck it up and do more read that paragraph again figure it out. It's it's not productive. And it's frustrating. And it depletes your energy. And it makes you sad, right? It lowers your whole vibrational energy. So doing the word searches, it's mindless, it's fun, and I get lists I've got especially if it's a fun one that you know the book you buy. That's another one do something mindless it doesn't have to necessarily be meditation, but do something mindless that you like reading a book. That's another one for me where I forced myself to say that's it. I want I really want to read that book I was reading I need to do an hour of reading now. So it's the you have to be mindful of when you're feeling the frustration And what is your go to, it could be painting, it could be writing, it could be drawing a picture, whatever, whatever it is for you. But yeah, the cross The cross puzzles, I love, I love doing them.

I am so thankful that you talked about when you talk about like doing something soothing and mindless per se, you know, you can't see the air quotes you didn't once mentioned going to social media, because that is where the majority of people go to check out. And it's not soothing you or releasing you. It's it. That's a whole other episode. Obviously,

just really quick on that I am on LinkedIn every day, that's mostly where my people hang out. So I spent five, it's a habit again, five minutes on LinkedIn doing what I have to do sending out gradual Natori. Again, building that network and building the relationships. It's important. So that's part of my habit in the morning. But I my screen time on my phone is 20 minutes a day.

Way to like that. Oh, I wish I could say that. I don't know what my name is, I should probably check. But it is definitely higher than that. So I commend you, I commend you, because also to what keeps you present in what's happening in your daily, daily moments in life.

And Jen, when we look at Facebook, it's compare phobia, I think, Oh, they're doing that I'm not doing that. So that depletes the energy, again, that vibrational energy because we go into prepare a phobia, even though we're happy for the person, right? You still compare yourself. So really, I'm 20 minutes a day, and most of it is checking texts, believe it or not, I am rarely on social media. It's unless it's for business, and responding and networking and doing those kinds of things. I do not check people's feeds and stuff that they had a martini with dinner. And by the way, I never post anything like that. I'm not that interesting. I know that.

Okay, I think you're interesting, but I love that you put your energy into another area. So let's because I can't believe how faster time goes when we're together, I want to kind of dial in knowing that you really thrive around communication. That's one of your passion pieces when it comes to what you do with with people you work with, and how you know how you connect with people? How do you feel communication impacts people's wellness?

You know, I don't think we think about how we communicate, we say what we have to say. And unfortunately what happens generally because humans we have a six second attention span. And I know many of the speaking things that you've seen me, you know, do my speaking gig. Six second attention span of goldfish has seven seconds. So just think about that for a minute. The other problem is while we're because we have a six second attention span, we're really taking turns talking at each other. So while you're talking, I'm literally and I'm not, of course, because I've trained myself to be very present as I communicate. But typically, it's like, well, when she shuts up, I'm going to say that but I bless so she can see how smart I am right? Or what should I tell her next, that'll be the big podcast interesting, instead of being present and really listening to the question. So that's the other problem. And the last thing is, when you're really good at communicating, you really do shut your mouth. So we're listening 70% of the time. And and I can't express the magic that happens. When we're in listening mode 70% of the time, it forces you to be present. You learn so much about the other person, you can then turn around and say, you know who you need to meet? How many times Jenny, do you when I talk. And at the end, I'm like, oh, you know who you need to meet, because I'm listening to the content of what you're saying. And the last thing is, from a conflict standpoint, I'm sales, right? Everything is all I don't want to get the objection, when you really learn how to communicate again, and the way I teach it personally, from what my experience is, I have my own my own communication model, which is a free gift that we'll share at the end. But all of those pieces of the puzzle, it helps you connect at a level of ease and grace. So every conversation you have, it lacks conflict, you are coming from this place of love, care and respect and accepting the person for where they are. And then when you are making especially if you're a business owner and you're trying to make that sale, you'll never get an objection again. So that is to me the biggest piece of the puzzle, because you're always coming from love and not from lack, if you will, and you're you're in such control of the conversation and I don't mean that in a bad way. You're in control of yourself and listening because you're you're really being present 70% of the time that when you do respond, you're nailing it 100% of the time with the client or the prospect or you A family member or your kid, or your mom or your dad, you fill in the blank, you're just you're coming from their perspective, always. And that creates ease and grace in our conversations.

And what's so vital about that? And what you share about that, is it just one I, you know, highlight that, again, is being present allows you to respond effectively, because most people, when they're delivering information to us are coming from a place of good. But yes, calculating what we're trying to say, we're not listening to the context, we're not listening to the we're not looking at the verbal and nonverbal cues, we're missing so many pieces of those puzzle. And all we're doing is amping up to an answer that is could potentially be perceived inappropriately due to the conversation. So I just love that. Your passion is communication. And at the core, yeah, core, because what happens, and you and I both know this, that it doesn't matter that your you know, your subject matter is business people. If you are in sales, if you're telling your family what they're going to have for dinner, you're a salesperson, right? Like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what it is, we're always selling different things. Do you want to go to a specific movie and your your best friend doesn't want to go to that movie? You're in a sales situation? Right? So it's, we need to look outside the box on that. And I appreciate that you're sharing that I would love for you to take just a few minutes to share about the free offer that you talked about. You're giving people an opportunity to go to your website, correct? Yes. Happened to an assessment about communication. So yes, mind sharing a bit more. I've done it. It's pretty sweet. Yes. Yeah. So here's my sharing.

Yeah. So a few years ago, I created my own model. There's there's many wonderful models out there, and I'm not taking anything against them. They just had to answer the questions, the way they have them set up, you can lie to yourself. And I don't mean that in a bad way, either, especially if we're working on a skill. And we think oh, yeah, I'm doing that even though you haven't really perfected it yet. So you can kind of cheat which online you can't so really comes out pretty pretty spot on. So you take the assessment, you get two reports, one spotlights your superpowers and it literally tells you how you're being perceived when you communicate, we need to know that we need to leverage that. Here's the more important report in my opinion, Jenny is the you get a blind spot, right? Your lowest score is your style, there's five different styles. So the lowest one is the sale that you don't have any of like you like for me it would be the precise assessor. All that means is I am not precise. I am not a perfectionist, I do not move slow, I do not think slow, I do not reiterate I do not I am not an innovator like Albert Einstein, right? He was a precise assessor? Well, I need to know that that's a blind spot. Because if I'm talking to an engineer, or computer program, or an architect, or typically precise assessors, I need to change how I'm showing up for them. I'm still me, but I'm toning me down way down, because it'll freak them out. And they'll be like, I don't even know what she's saying. She's talking so fast. So that's the power of understanding your blind spots. So you can you'll never, I will never become a precise assessor. However, I know how to communicate with a precise assessor. And I have architects and photographers and engineers, as clients because of that. So that's the power of the tool. And I just can I add one more quick thing. I think we have heard a minute. There's two conversations going on Jenny, think of an iceberg. And I know you've heard me say this before, right? That top 10% is conscious we I can see your body language, your Nile and you're smiling, right? You see me smiling, I'm using English. All of those things are very conscious and deliberate. 90% of our conversations are at that subconscious level. And that's where the communication tool lets you step in and gain a little more control so that you can only control you, I can't control the other person. But I certainly can control how I impact them hearing my message, hearing my solution, right? And how do I do that using the communication tool and listening 70% of the time, which again, is counterintuitive because we think, oh, I need to tell them everything I can offer them. No, they're not ready for all that. And when you understand their style, their communication style, you're delivering it exactly how they need to receive it. That's where the power lies.

And I love I just want to micro that down. We've all been in a relationship in a situation whether it's when we were kids to our parents or vice versa. We all know that moment when it's like this isn't the right time to ask that question. We all intuitively have felt that so what I love About this assessment that you provide, and a deeper understanding of how we personally communicate, it gives us a chance to really discern when do you know when is it the wisest time to share information and how to share it. Because we also want to make sure that people we're connected with are seen, heard and understood. So when we can meet people where they're at, it's such a powerful tool. I can't thank you enough for being on this show. Connie.

Jen, I love it. Thank you so much. Always good seeing you hanging out. And I, you know, for me, and I know for you, too, I hope everybody found value. That it's, it's okay, right to make money. And here's some tools to help you amp up, as well as listen more, right. But here's it, here's a tangible tool that you could start playing with. So yeah, I hope everybody enjoys it. Thank you so much.

Oh, you're so welcome. And you know, for those of you that loved what Connie was sharing about, don't worry, we're going to have all the information in the show notes. But Connie is also an incredible member of your holistic Earth. So if you can't find her on the show notes, which could happen I'm not sure how but technology does it. All you got to do is pop over to your holistic Earth and search Connie up in the directory and you'll find how to reach her there because she's a wonderful member of our community and there to inspire the wellness warrior and many people so thank you again, Connie, for being Thank you. Love you, my friends love you to thank you everybody for listening, for taking the time to invest in you to find a moment to be inspired by something different. I love the fact that we take a sales conversation and turn it into life because life is about sales no matter what that looks like. And you know, if you've got a two year old that's got to put on a pair of pants and doesn't feel like it you know all about negotiations. Oh, so thank you so much for listening. We hope you're inspired by this episode to move into action again. Find Connie at your holistic Earth and as well anything that will support your wellness is inside that vault for you to have access to so thank you again, Connie for being on the show.