#018 - PERMA-V: Building Relationships to Enrich Personal and Professional Growth

Robert Greiner 0:02

Welcome to the Wanna Grab Coffee podcast. Today we discuss how to flourish through building exceptional personal and professional relationships. We talk about relationship dynamics in the workplace and why it is so hard to build friendships as we get older. Finally, we discussed the idea of active constructive responding as a way to exponentially increase the relationships with those around you. Thanks for joining us today and don't forget to hit the subscribe button or reach out at [email protected]

Charles Knight 0:33

What's up, guys?

Igor Geyfman 0:33

Hey, what's going on, Charles?

Robert Greiner 0:34

Hey, how's it going?

Charles Knight 0:35

Pretty good. Really because I'm here with you all.

Robert Greiner 0:37

Yeah, I've been looking forward to this all week.

Charles Knight 0:39

Yeah, I know. It's been a challenge kind of scheduling things. But you two are really important to me in my life. But I'm glad we're making this work, even though we've got kids doing virtual schooling and, that that's actually kind of the topic of discussion today. You know, we're continuing our series talking about perma v. And we're at the stage where we're talking about 'R' for relationships, I don't remember when this, this dawned upon me, I think I was reading something it was like a Harvard study. It was one of those longitudinal ones seemed like they tracked people over their lifetime. So very, very long thing, which is fascinating in and of itself. But it was about, you know, what are the factors that contribute most to satisfaction and happiness in life? Number one predictor of long term happiness and life was meaningful relationships. When I read about that study, I kind of took stock of my relationships in my life, personally and professionally. And I found it to be quite lacking, actually, you know, it's a, an area of my life that I had neglected for one reason or another. And I became really intentional about trying to acquire new relationships, and deepen existing ones. And I found it to be very, very difficult for me. And so I wanted to ask both of you, when you think about your relationships, your ability to make new ones to deepen them, is that something that comes easily and natural to you or not?

Robert Greiner 2:17

This is a really interesting topic, because it seems to get and I think there's research around this, it gets harder to develop friendships and relationships as you get older. And I think a lot of that has to do with the numbers game, when you're in, let's say, high school, you interact with hundreds of people a day, because you're in all these different classes. And there's different people in different classes, and that your school might be very large. If you're in college, there's all sorts of organizational events and things like that. We work with several people who some went to Baylor some went to A&M and somehow they found each other and got married, because the football team like travels over there pretty frequently. And so I think you're just in proximity to a lot of people at while you're younger. And then as you get older, I think maybe two things happen, you get a little bit more unique and your quirks and interests and you're sort of more hard coded the way you are And then you also come in contact with fewer people. And then you throw in things that make you really busy, like having kids and things like that. Where it might take an hour to make a friend in high school, and 30 minutes to make a friend in college, it might take 10 years to make a friend when you're 40. And so yeah, I think that's a really interesting point. But if you flip it on the other end of that coin, how many people do you know from high school and college that you haven't talked to sense and you would have considered them friends, maybe even best friends in those periods in your life. But that proximity effect is really the only thing that you shared in common that kept you close. When you went apart, you went your separate ways their relationship kind of fell off. And so I would say for me personally, I think that I can connect with people quickly, especially in a work setting. I don't know though how quickly I can develop new friendships. That's a little bit different.

Charles Knight 4:06

Can ask a follow up question, Robert?

Robert Greiner 4:07

Yeah, sure.

Charles Knight 4:08

I think it's because you said you're an extrovert, right?

I am.

Self-proclaimed extrovert.

Robert Greiner 4:14

Well, I guess quantitatively proclaimed, that's what all the tests tell me. But yes.

Charles Knight 4:20

Both self proclaimed and quantitatively, objectively determined to be extroverts.

Robert Greiner 4:24

Yes.

Charles Knight 4:25

My intuition is that extraversion and introversion has something to do with being able to acquire and deepen relationships. Do you have a reaction to that? Do you think it makes it easier, difficult? Does it not apply?

Robert Greiner 4:37

Well, that's a good question. So my wife's introverted and she has probably just as many close friends if not more than I do. She builds fewer deeper relationships, I build broader, more shallow relationships. I'm not saying that in a bad way. It's just she's got friends that they can pick up right where they left off after years. I think extraversion introversion has more to do with your energy levels when you're in a group of people, I love being in a group of people, I love being on stage in front of people. I like attention being directed towards me. Diana's the opposite way. But I don't think that really has a bearing on building friendships uless you're so introverted, that you avoid the kind of gatherings where you might go to meet people. I don't think you're predisposed to make or lose more or less friends, depending on how you're wired. But I'm curious what y'all think about that, because I'm actually not sure.

Igor Geyfman 5:28

I think my experience is very similar to Roberts in the sense that I'm both a self proclaimed and a quantifiably proclaimed, extrovert. I do think it's easier for me to approach people, like I don't have reservations about that. And then I also think that having some of those, you know, you signal extraversion, whether you like it or not, and those signals can help make you seem more approachable. That's not reality, doesn't mean you're more approachable than somebody who's introverted, I don't think that actually matters, but you seem more approachable, and so people might approach you more. And so it gives you more opportunities, gives you more collisions, to develop new relationships. And so I think that's, that's an advantage that you might have. And I think in my experience, also, I think there is a depth thing too because, let's say that you are concentrating on a lot of relationships. To me, relationships are, I mean, they're very complicated. But at the simplest level, it's the time you spend with another person one on one, and it's through that one on one interaction, that you build the relationship, or you experience the relationship. And that experience can maybe diminish your relationship. You're like, I'd like to spend less time with this person, for example, or I'd like to spend more time with this person. And if you're extroverted, you're having more collisions, more people are approaching you, you're approaching more people. I think you spread that time around across more folks. And so that's why you may not, I don't think it's an ability to build deeper relationships. I think it's a it's a time factor.

Robert Greiner 7:21

Well, and to add to that, I think you're absolutely right, when you're in other situations, when you're younger, like school and sports and things like that, relationship building sort of facilitated in a way. That's right, it's encouraged. And when you get into the professional environment, you have to you have to select into those things. There's not as much opportunity or propaganda around for joining different groups and things like that you're kind of left to your own devices at that point.

Igor Geyfman 7:49

I think it's important to have at least one trusted friend/relationship at work, the difference between zero and one is, I mean, massive. It is the difference between being being able to succeed and fail at work, dreading or being excited about starting your workday, the difference between one and two, or one in five, I think is much less drastic. So I do think it is key to your well being and your satisfaction with work to have at least one strong friend relationship. And I'll look it up, but I think the research bears that out.

Robert Greiner 8:25

years, since: 1985

Charles Knight 8:45

I think there's a lot of factors that go into individual new kind of, maybe responses to and proclivities and struggles with relationships in general. And I think for our conversation for the rest of it, I do want to spend some time focusing on the professional side of relationships, especially because one of those things that impacts relationships at work that doesn't exist, or maybe it exists less. In, you know, outside of the work is the power dynamic. One of the things that I started to try, what I've learned is that no matter what my starting point was, I'd mentioned it's like, I found my relationships to be lacking. And I am not a self proclaimed, or quantifiably, you know, objectively confirmed to be extrovert. I'm an introvert, I know. And I have proof that I can make and deepen friendships. That's without a doubt. No matter where you are, there are things that you can do to build new ones and to deepen existing relationships. And I want to explore that a little bit with you all. I think the first strategy that I employed besides the the courage piece, because I actually set a goal like there's one year when I set a goal for myself that I was going to build, but I was going to find new friends like just aquire new relationships, the first strategy was to be vulnerable to actually put myself out there and say, I am actually trying to make new friends, as silly as that sounds. And that that worked pretty well outside of work, you know, because it's easy, because it's, you're kind of on a level playing field, I think everybody feels what you felt Robert, where it's difficult as you get later on into life to have those collisions. And that facilitated introduction to people vulnerability, though, at work. It didn't, you know, it had some other positive effects. But it wasn't the right strategy for me when it came down to building new relationships at work. And what I think I found is that the reason why I didn't work is because there's a massive power dynamic at play at work. I'm a vice president, and I talked to because we're such a transparent, flat organization, in a given day week, I could talk to people who just joined right out of college, I could talk to managers who were, you know, five years, my junior, I could talk to senior VPS, who are 10 years, my senior, and everything in between whether we like it or not power dynamic is at play. And I think that's why a lot of times, I'll hear people say, Hey, I have enough friends outside of work. I don't need friends at work, but people at work will just stay coworkers. And that's it. Have you all heard that from your teams? And do you think that's a bad thing? Is that a good thing? Is that the right approach?

Igor Geyfman: 11:30

I've seen it and I, I've felt that tension, I'm still really split. I have definitely been friends with people that have reported to me. And I've been friends with people who I've reported to. And there's there's pros and cons to that. And I think you have to be very good at compartmentalizing and not taking things, personally. But my perception is that at the highest level of relationship, whether it's personal or professional, that person, you should have a trusted adviser really like relationship with that person. That that cuts both ways. And, um, and so let's say you're working for somebody, you know, they're your boss, but you're also friends outside of work. It's very easy, if you don't manage that, and compartmentalize things in that relationship, to either take advantage, or be taken advantage of. And also on the other side, there's an external perception, hey, those two are buddies, Igor will never get in trouble. You know, no matter no matter what happens. And whether that's true or not, sometimes having those close relationships can definitely bring out those feelings in others. And so it's something that you have to tread with a lot of nuance, and I think for, for some people, they would much rather draw a line and say, I don't want to do that. Like I don't, I don't want to spend a lot of energy managing that nuance. And I would much rather, you know, spend my energy somewhere else. So that maybe answers the question around, you know, can you be friends? Or should you be friends in a power, in a work environment where there's a power imbalance? Right, where one person reports to the other? And then the other question, which I think is maybe a little bit more clear to me, is, should you have friends at work? Like, is it okay to say, I don't want to have friends at work? Are you going to be as successful and as happy and make as much progress in your job? If you only have non job, friends? I think the answer that question to me is no. A lot of my energy and a lot of my success at work has come from really strong relationships. And a lot of of times those relationships tended to be peer relationships. And sometimes things shifts, here and there. You know, somebody gets promoted a little bit earlier or whatever, but it's still like kind of close enough, where it's not like a huge difference. I think most of my successful relationships have been peer friendships, at work. And I do think that you should develop friendships at work. Maybe not with your boss, or with your direct reports, though.

Robert Greiner: 14:44

Let me start with the second one, which is I have enough friends in my life. I don't need to make friends at work. I don't know that I've ever met anyone who truly has more friends like genuine friendships than they know what to do with. I have a feeling that when you hear excuses like that, it has to do with I'm introverted, I don't like putting myself out there, I don't really want to build strong working relationships. And so it's kind of a cop out or excuse.

Igor Geyfman: 15:09

It definitely definitely sounds like a cop out.

Robert Greiner: 15:11

It does, I could be wrong. My advice there is you must, must must build exceptional professional relationships at work, whether you want to call that friends or not, I think you're running into a danger zone, if you try to actually go into the friendship zone with people that you have role power over. A classic example is, if you went to a party, Igor, with a manager that reports to you, they would introduce you as Hey, this is my boss, Igor. Right, like there's that power dynamic is in play in social settings anyway, so I'm not even sure you can actually be friends with those you have role power over in the truest sense. But that doesn't mean that you can't have exceptional working relationships with your directs. Or no, I think that's just a key element. Or you can call it friendship or not, I'm with you. Some of my best longest friendships were made with people that I work with. And I think that's especially when you get older, like we talked about before, that might be the only place where you meet other people, I think when the power dynamic comes into play, when the role power comes into play, that definitely makes things a little more challenging.

Igor Geyfman: 16:15

I think you're right, Robert, about like, I'm thinking through most situations, I think I've been in several situations like that, where either I would introduce somebody who's like, Hey, this is my boss, or something like that. And part of part of it is also like, don't say something silly here. Because I might have, you know, egg on my face for, you know, whatever reason.

Robert Greiner: 16:37

So you've just, you've just defined then that they're different than a friend.

Igor Geyfman: 16:40

Yeah, I have, I want to say I have like half a dozen friends now real friends that I used to work with, where we used to have a power dynamic relationship, while we work together. We no longer work together, as we stopped working together, our relationship deepened. And I consider those people real true friends, no caveats, not a friend from work, you know, not none of that sort of stuff. And and those are both people that have worked for me and people that I've worked for, I think, in every instance for it to, like really crystallize into like, a no, you know, where you don't introduce somebody as, Oh, I used to work for, for this person, or that even for to crystallize like that it did take us not working at the same company anymore.

Charles Knight: 17:27

Yeah. So it's, it's interesting, because I think we have tried to define some of these different types of relationships, or we haven't talked about mentors. You know, we've talked about peers and things like that, I think the good news is that there is a strategy that I'll share that anybody can use at any time, for any type of relationship, whether it's, there's a power dynamic at play, whether personal or professional, we've been talking about professional ones here. But this technique, it's you know, scientifically validated, right? This comes from positive psychology, it's actually really simple to inside, I want to share that with you all and kind of explain, explain the technique and maybe talk through times that you've seen different different flavors of this. So this technique is called active, constructive responding. And so it is a way to think about how do you respond to someone who has shared good news with you, because again, this is about positive psychology. And so the context of this is that somebody, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a loved one, maybe it's a co worker, maybe it's your boss, they've come to you and shared some good news. And the research shows that people tend to respond in one of four ways. And you can think of this like a two by two, like a matrix, you know, four quadrants sort of thing. And the axes, one of the axes, is passive, or active and the other axes is constructive and destructive. And so in the top right, which is where everybody wants to strive, whenever you talk about a matrix, that's where active constructive, responding lies. Let me tee up, or maybe ask Robert or Igor, has somebody come to you with good news recently, that you'd be willing to kind of share and talk about here? And we can, we can explain the different quadrants through that example?

Robert Greiner: 19:32

Well, we did just have a very successful go live at one of our clients, years in the making. And this is sort of the culmination of a very long program and lots of planning. And it really, the business case that was around this body of work was really this piece needed to get completed in order to be fully realized. And so this win means a little bit more to the team, to the firm, to the client, and then maybe an typical project.

Charles Knight: 20:00

Is there an individual that comes to mind that has either come to you and said, Hey, we did it; like we made it. We've we finished all this years of work.

Robert Greiner: 20:11

Yeah. Yeah. The manager on the project has been with it since the beginning.

Charles Knight: 20:16

Okay. All right. So somebody's been there from the beginning, has invested a lot of time and energy comes to you, Robert, and says, Hey, man, we did it. We got it across the finish line. You know, we did what we said we would do, got all of these benefits, etc, etc. Okay. So let me walk through four different ways that you could respond, Robert, then let's see how you actually responded. Yeah. Which might be fun. And interesting. One way to respond, is active, destructive.

Robert Greiner: 20:47

Well, you got it done. But it should have been done a month ago, and you missed a couple of things. And why are you even telling me this right now? Because you know, we still have a warranty period in front of us. So get back to work.

Charles Knight: 21:01

Man, that was really good. I was not expecting you to hit that spot on. But yeah, that that is clearly going to squash that person's positive emotions, it's gonna diminish the success that they felt. And clearly that can harm that relationship. Now, the vast majority of people, I think the three of us encounter would never say things like that.

Robert Greiner: 21:26

Can we linger on that? Because I do want to dig into what you just said, yes, you wouldn't go as extreme as I went. But I have seen, especially professional situations where there's some good news to be delivered, or you finally got over this hump, you solve this really hard problem that you were thinking about for a long time. And you feel really good, you want to go share it, and it's just, it's kind of like, Hey, I got a, I got a B plus on this test. Well, why wasn't an A? You're always trying to find something where I didn't quite meet some imaginary standard that just happens to be 1.5 times whatever the person brings to you. And I think we can inadvertently fall into that act of destructive, even if it's not as overt as I was just now.

Charles Knight: 22:08

That's, absolutely right.

Igor Geyfman: 22:10

That's the immigrant parent method.

Robert Greiner: 22:12

Which is something that you know, a little bit about, I think.

Igor Geyfman: 22:15

Yeah, nothing, you know, you got you got an A, why is it not an A plus? All those all those sort of things? I mean, that's very, very common in immigrants. You know, I got that growing up.

Charles Knight: 22:27

Yeah. And, and this is good, because there is a spectrum here, right. It's not just a light switch. So there's a spectrum of destruction that you can do. And you can do that passively, too. And so so let's think about the passive, destructive way to respond to that,

Robert Greiner: 22:45

Hey, did you get my email about this other thing that I need from you sort of changing the subject or focusing on something that I need versus acknowledging the win or the positive emotions of who's coming to you?

Is that really what that means?

Charles Knight: 23:00

Yeah, that's, that is right. It's a, it's very well, it's not very subtle, but you just flat out really ignore the thing that they are excited about, and you make it about something else. And I think a lot of people may respond in that way, if they're not paying attention, you know. So that's why it's, it's more of a passive thing, just being busy, right, and not paying attention. And picking up on body language, and some nonverbal cues about the other person can make us very easily fall into that category. Right? We're just like, oh, we're just not paying attention, we didn't realize that that manager was super excited, and that we should linger on that we just wanted to get on to the next thing. And I think when I think about how I respond, I very often respond in this next category, which is passive constructive. So it's passive, constructive. So Robert, you want to take a stab at that.

Robert Greiner: 23:53

Hey, good job. Thanks for letting me know. See Monday.

Charles Knight: 23:56

Yeah, right. It's in the affirmative, right? Like you acknowledge it, but probably don't give it the space and focus and attention that that person really wants or needs at that time. And so it's definitely better than Well, hey, you made all these mistakes along the way. So let's not get too excited, but it's not as good as it could be. Because it definitely it definitely has this sense of, let's just shut it down. Now. Hey, nice job, period. Let's, let's move on. And so this is where I think we all have work that we can do to move into this active constructive space. And so, Robert, back to you. What would that look like in this situation?

Robert Greiner: 24:38

Hey, great job. I know you worked really hard on this. You and the team really crushed it here. I knew from the beginning that you would be able to absolutely destroy this project. you prove me right. You made me look really good. Thank you so much. Job well done. And it's been a pleasure to to see you grow your career on this long project. It must feel really great to finally have this behind you. And it's something that you'll remember and draw back upon for the rest of your career.

Charles Knight: 25:08

That was pretty good, because you acknowledged what you thought that they were feeling. I think you can go one step further, Robert, above and beyond that,

Robert Greiner: 25:16

Well, good. I do want to hear that. Because what I just said was roughly the conversation that I had. So that was how I responded, which in the world of spectrum, and as we're talking about this, this is really helpful. It's somewhere maybe 75%, on active constructive, but I do as I was thinking about this exact conversation, thinking about your description of it, I think there is, there's more I could do in the future. So I'm really excited to hear what you have to say here,

Charles Knight: 25:45

The simplest thing that I can offer to really kind of crystallize in any situation, what is active, constructive, responding mean? It's really about helping the other person like this manager that you were talking to, you want to get them to relive the good experience that they had that makes sense. So it's like, hey, they experienced this good thing at some point in the past. And then they're like, oh, gosh, I need to go tell Robert, this. So they come to you. And they they share a little bit, right. It's like, man, it feels really good to get this across the finish line. And so our job in that situation, if we are active, constructive responding, is to encourage the other to relive the experience, right, so that they can experience all those positive emotions again. Igor, you've been listening to Robert, kind of chime in on these different things. Where would you say you fall in terms of how you typically respond when somebody comes to you with some good news?

Igor Geyfman: 26:43

I think that 80% of the time, I probably respond with the third one, I acknowledge and congratulate the effort. I think that, you know, maybe the other 19% of the time, it's the second method. And it's usually if I'm under stress, I might just move on to the topic that I need to have covered, and pretty rarely, probably the 1%, you know, I'll go deeper into the discussion and kind of ask them to relive the moment. I, I can't remember the last time that I went from method one. I have done it, it's been a long time. So pretty squarely in number three.

Charles Knight: 27:28

Yeah, I think I'd be curious is to get ya'lls thoughts. But when I came across this technique, it was really clear where I fell. And I think, I think like, like you, Igor, it's in that passive, constructive response. But when I when I realized that, I realized that I responded in that way, across pretty much all of my relationships, you know, with my kids, even with friends and family, in addition to co workers. And it was really illuminating, that this thing helped me to see how I responded in my relationships, but then also gave me a really practical tip for how to improve all relationships. Like even with my kids, it's like, they're excited about something like, tell me more, really, how did it feel? What did you really like about that? And so it's, I think there is a lesson to be learned that this, this is a technique that improves that can improve all relationships. But it requires us though, to in the moment, recognize that we have an opportunity to deepen the relationship. Because when we are stressed, and when we are busy, and frantic, overwhelmed, it's easy to miss out on those opportunities. And just think about what do I need in this moment? Well, I need to get this thing off my plate, or I need to get this team member to focus on the next thing. So as leaders, I think that's, that's our call to action. Right? It's like we have to be mindful of these opportunities to deepen relationships.

Robert Greiner: 28:56

Can I bring everything together? Because I like I really like where you're going with this. Yeah. So early on, we talked about building friendships. Part of the reason I think it's also hard to build friendships is if you think of it like a game of tennis, like when I played tennis in school, it was, you're warming up you had this idea of a courtesy feed and a courtesy return. So if I'm playing with Igor, I would just kind of Dink the ball over to you to get it started. You would didn't get back and then the game is on. And that way you the balls kind of moving and you're in you're settled in a little bit before you start playing. I think there's an effectiveness were a issue with building friends where there's a ladder of things that needs to happen. And if you miss a rung of the ladder, the ability to cement a friendship early on falls apart and I think if you are working towards friendship, but there's there's a lack of effectiveness around becoming friends, building a friendship, the thing will just fall apart it'll it'll wither and die. So what we're talking about here is, and you hear this all the time when it when it comes to building relationships, advice around it is make the other person feel important. Let the other person talk, ask questions. The smarter you make them feel, the better you make them feel, the better they they think about you. And so when you're responding to good news, in this positive psychology way that we just talked, that is an opportunity to go one rung up that ladder, or to feed the ball back over in this game of friendship tennis, that we're analogizing here. And so yeah, for sure. And I'm thinking of three things, right? One is in a professional setting, you want to build great relationships with the people you work with, especially those that that report to you. And so you want the people that report to you to want to do a good job. That's just makes sense. And so the more that you encourage and give that positive feedback, when things go well, the more likely you are to get those behaviors in the future. So I love that. Second is with personal relationships. It's just a way to deepen the intimacy and trust and the personality of the relationship when you show genuine present, interest in another person. Olivia Fox Cabane wrote a really good book called the Charisma Myth where she outlines , if you want charisma, I broke that down into three constituent parts, presence, power, and warmth, and a lot of presence and a lot of warmth go into what we just talked about. And then third, I'm thinking about my kids. And all too often, you can look at something and you remember when your kids were really, really small, and they like lifted their head up, and you thought it was such a big deal, they held their head up for 10 seconds. And then they took a couple of steps, you know, it's like you can really get lost, it can go over your head, how big of an accomplishment some of these things are. And so stopping in the moment and being present. And acknowledging those things, I think are really great things to do. And this one skill can rapidly improve your relationships across every facet of life. And there's very few things in life that apply tricks, tips, techniques, hacks, whatever you want to call it skills, behaviors that apply unilaterally across every aspect of life. So what I'd love to get into now is what are some practical things we could do to improve this skill so that we can grow all of our relationships everywhere?

Charles Knight: 32:06

And I love that was a great summary. Yeah, I think for me, it boils down to we could all probably come up with a pretty standard list of questions, right, that we, we can ask the other in these interactions, you know, tell me more about how it felt when such and such happened. It's like, Where were you? You know, it's like, were you in the office? Were you in your house? You know, tell me about it. Were you out and about, you know, why do you think the thing was so successful? Right, getting them to reflect upon what was their contribution to whatever the positive event or situation was? I think that's what comes to mind is, there's probably just a basic set of questions that we can ask in those moments that really gives the other person permission to relive that experience, you know, and maybe it's okay to say, hey, and this is my experience, when I've tried this. Sometimes it takes a little bit of encouragement, people are not used to reliving these positive experiences, right. And so when we asked these questions, it may fall flat, and you might not get enough, but that's why having kind of a few questions that you can kind of continue to offer to get them to say, hey, look, I'm willing to pay attention here. Right? Like, it's it's okay to relive this right to share this, you know, together in this moment. Yeah, I think that's my, my thoughts.

Robert Greiner: 33:35

Maybe across three dimensions, then there's time. So how do you see this playing out in the future for benefit? Or what are the things that you were most worried about that you overcame? Right? So think about a time dimension, you can also think about like a people dimension, this is a really great accomplishment? Who helped you get there? Who are you most proud of? Who were you missing that you had to cover for? Those kind of things? Or you could think of like high level low level, right, depending on who you're talking to? What are the three hardest things you had to overcome? Or what are all the pieces that had to come together to make this work? Or hey, where where does this fit into the bigger picture? How, how is what you're doing? going to move the needle forward in the organization or whatever it might be. And so those are a few. If you think of time dimension, people dimension and then elevation could help inform how you ask those questions. And then yeah, I think definitely prod. We talked about this with gratitude. There's a natural aversion to bragging I think part of that is it's beaten out of us as young kids, you know, you, you go to who you think is a friend with really great news, and they respond poorly, either through jealousy or disinterest, or they weren't paying attention or whatever. And so, I think, yeah, that's a great What a great gift to give to the people around you, which is the ability to brag and not be judged, but be encouraged. I love it. This is good, the good stuff. Thank you.

Igor Geyfman: 34:54

This is a really important conversation about an important topic that we face at work. strong relationships are the fundamental core of humanity. And without relationships, we don't succeed. And so relationships at work relationships outside of work and be intentional about them is so, so important. So thanks for bringing this topic to the table, Charles.

Robert Greiner: 35:22

Yeah. Thank you so much.

Charles Knight: 35:24

So thank you all. And for those listening, really think about somebody in your life that you can practice this active, constructive responding. It's pretty easy, low barrier of entry. You know, there's a positive moment that happens. How can you let the other relive it? That would be my ask of you all today.

Robert Greiner: 35:44

And it's completely under your control?

Charles Knight: 35:45

Absolutely.

Igor Geyfman: 35:46

Thanks, everyone.

Robert Greiner: 35:47

Awesome. Well, hey thanks a lot, guys.

Charles Knight: 35:49

Alright, see you later.

Robert Greiner: 35:51

That's it for today. Thanks for joining. And don't forget to follow us on Twitter at #wannagrabcoffee or drop us a line at [email protected]