Unlocking Charisma and Leading with Presence with Richard Reid

Tim: 0:08

Welcome back to Speaking with Confidence, a podcast that helps you build the soft skills that lead to real results Communication, storytelling, public speaking and showing up with confidence in every conversation that counts. I’m Tim Newman, a recovering college professor and communication coach, and I’m thrilled to guide you on your journey to becoming a powerful communicator. I want to thank each and every one of you for your support. It truly means the world to me. If you have questions or if you want something covered on the podcast, send me a message. Please visit timnewmanspeakscom to get your free e-book. Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and how to Overcome them. Today’s guest is Richard Reed. Richard is a seasoned therapist, coach and organization well-being expert with over 20 years of experience. He helps individuals and organizations unlock their full potential and thrive. From trauma recovery to executive coaching. He brings a pragmatic and approachable style to every endeavor. He’s also the author of the Amazon bestseller Charisma Unlocked Richard, welcome to the show.

Richard: 1:11

Hi there, Tim. Thanks for having me. Really good to be here.

Tim: 1:15

I’m glad you could make it. I’m really looking forward to talking with you today. There’s so much I want to talk about. I read your book and it makes so much sense. But I have so many questions because I never really thought about charisma in the way that you present it. But you know the way you present it and the ideas. I was like, wow, I can’t believe that I’m just thinking of it this way, this way. Was there something that kind of led you down this road to get into Charisma from a leadership perspective and a research perspective like this?

Richard: 1:53

Yeah. So it all started from working as a therapist. In the area of London that I was working.

Richard: 1:58

At the time, there were lots of quite affluent people, people who were in their own businesses, entrepreneurs, and a lot of the issues they were coming with were around things like confidence, around connecting with others, influencing others, and I thought how can I package this in a way that I can take to organizations? Because I think even in this day and age, from my view, there are lots of people who can benefit from therapy, but lots of people attach a stigma to the idea of therapy, whereas if you present it in terms of coaching skills and business skills, people buy into it far more. But essentially you’re offering the same same service under under a different, under a different name. So I really thought how could I package all of these things together? And the idea of charisma seemed to really, really work because at the very least, it creates a conversation. You know, even if I’m talking to mates at a barbecue, you mentioned the word charisma, everybody’s got something to say and it generates a conversation.

Tim: 3:00

It really does. And it’s funny you said that you know, in terms of of therapy, I’ve got an office mate who is a therapist and and a coach and she said something to be almost the exact same word for word about two weeks ago and what she’s doing is kind of giving up her her therapy practice and moving on to coaching, because it seems to have a better um connotation to it and doing some of those same things and and it just, it just makes a whole lot of sense. It gets rid of the negative connotation and I don’t know if you notice I I kind of chuckled when you said but a lot of people could benefit from therapy.

Richard: 3:36

I I agree with you yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely believe that I do, yeah so, uh, but I think a lot with with charisma.

Tim: 3:47

You know, when you and I talked a little bit about this when we did the pre-show, the, the difference between charisma and and charm, um, it’s really about manipulation. Is that, is that? Is that? Is that a fair assessment?

Richard: 4:01

for me, the the one of the risks with charm is that it’s it’s about manipulation. But but for me also, um conjures up ideas of, of superficial, superficial, uh, connection skills and actually what we’re talking about with charisma at least the kind of charisma that I teach and coach to people it’s about um being authentic. It’s about being who you really are, being comfortable with that and using it in a flexible way that also brings out the best in other people. So it’s the true you connecting with the true version of other people, and what you’re trying to do with it is to create what we call a virtuous circle. So it’s not just about how can I say whatever I need to say here to get what I need from this situation. It’s how can I try and create win-win situations that actually make other people come away feeling good about themselves too?

Tim: 4:47

right, right and and building that, building building relationships and building connections, um, really does it. To me it’s a domino effect, right, because you don’t really have um, yeah, can’t have trust unless you have, you know, good, good relationships. You can’t have good relationships unless you, uh, have good communication skills. So so to me it’s all kind of you have to have everything along the way to to be able to get to where you want to get to absolutely so.

Richard: 5:19

So, quite, quite right, as you say, for me it’s about creating safety in relationships, safety where I can trust you. I can trust you with a job, a project, my money, or I can trust you, um, to share things with you that I might not share with other people about myself, and I think you know, one of the big things I I’ve learned from, from working in the therapy world, is that a lot of the problems that we have come from, uh, the idea that actually we hide parts of ourselves away, parts of ourselves we don’t think are acceptable, parts of ourselves that don’t fit with everybody else and what we perceive to be society’s expectations, and obviously we’ve all got to adapt slightly according to the environment that we’re in. But actually when we develop the confidence to show those other parts of ourselves, that’s how we celebrate our uniqueness, that’s how we make ourselves more memorable, um, and, and part of charisma is about us showing that to the world, but also helping other people to bring that out of themselves as well yeah, and you know, I think about it.

Tim: 6:17

I had a conversation earlier today, uh, about the differences in in generations you know, and our generations there was. There was no individuality. That was something that was really frowned upon and if you, if you, tried to be individualistic, you were really kind of, you know, smack down. So and now we’re we’re in a time in society where we’re encouraging the individual to be individualistic. We’re encouraging the individual to be authentic and be who they are and not necessarily conform to what society or family or whatever it is what they expect of us.

Richard: 7:03

It’s a dangerous balance. What they expect of us, it’s a dangerous balance and I think you know I’m a big student of history and you see this in various points in history that the pendulum switches, doesn’t it? And sometimes in quite extreme ways, and then a lot of the time we then recalibrate, and I think we’re going through one of those sort of recalibration phases as a society at the moment. But I think for me, I’m all for individuality, but I I think we’ve also look at um rights versus responsibilities, that actually, if we want the benefit of structures, organizations, what structure society has to offer, we also need to, we also need to adapt to that to some degree and and hopefully we can find a balance where we can still be an individual but we’re also contributing. And I think the risk is at the moment we’ve got lots of people demanding their rights, my right to be who I am, but actually what? What are you giving back in return for that?

Richard: 7:55

right yeah, and that’s that’s.

Tim: 7:57

That’s the the tension for me at the moment and, and I think that’s a tension for a lot of people, I think, you know, I think people from our generation feel it and worry about it and struggle with it, and just, I think the people with the younger generations are too. And you know, I think I don’t know that there’s a good standard answer, but I do think that, you know, both sides have to have to be willing to meet each other somewhere in the middle. Right, I do. I think it’s our responsibility from our generation to reach out and try and and make those connections and and try and understand and bring them along, just because that’s again that comes from our generation. Right, it’s? You know, we’re the, we’re the, we’re the ones we’re not, we’re now the leaders, we’re now the mentors, the patriarchs, the matriarchs, what have you? And it’s our job to mentor and so forth. But I also think that the younger generations have to be willing and open to coming along for that ride and being open to having the conversations.

Richard: 8:58

So I think it goes both ways, Absolutely, and I think you know. Going back to what we were saying before about this idea of safety, psychological safety part of it is showing curiosity for other people’s positions, isn’t it? Even if we don’t necessarily immediately understand them or agree with them. Showing curiosity, affording respect, makes people more open to considering alternative viewpoints, and I think that’s what needs to happen here. And I think, as the older generations, inevitably we hold more power and influence in society, so actually it’s almost more incumbent on us to initiate those conversations.

Tim: 9:35

And being willing to not have the hardline stance, which, again, I’m sure you’re the same way. There’s some things that I’m willing to, to be really flexible on, but there’s other things I’m like I don’t know that I want to be flexible at all, but at least I’m open to having the conversation and and and listening and going from there and I think that’s, you know, from a broader societal perspective. I’m not sure that there’s many people that are, that are in that camp.

Richard: 10:06

No perspective. I I’m not sure that there’s many people that are, that are in that camp. No, I think that’s true and you know, I see it sort of in in terms of society. I see in in organizations as well that that often we’re quite transactional in terms of how we deal with people. So we, you know, we make assumptions about their viewpoint, or even if we know what their viewpoint is, we don’t take the time to understand the emotions that sit beneath that. And I think you know, even if fundamentally we disagree with somebody’s position, if we’re having a, a conversation of respect and curiosity, then then hopefully we can share why it is that we need to draw a line on something and people can, can negotiate with us how we, how we navigate that and I think that goes back to something that we talked about in in the in the pre-show interview.

Tim: 10:43

You know, listening and and listening, with the idea of um being being empathetic and listening to understand as opposed to listening to, to responding, and and those types of things yeah, and I think that’s that’s often the.

Richard: 11:04

The challenge, isn’t it, that we we don’t think about the intention we want to create in the conversation. We go with what our impulse tells us and actually, if we go into these types of conversations the intention that we want to understand and we want to collaborate and create something between us, then more often than not our behaviors align with that, whereas we go in there with no idea of what we want to do or we go in there with the idea that we simply want to undermine somebody’s position, then the barriers go up, yeah.

Tim: 11:34

And the whole idea of knowing when to speak and what to say when to speak, and I think that’s a –’s a.

Richard: 11:44

I think a lot most of communication is a learned skill, but I think that piece right there is is takes a lot longer to learn and we I think we learn more from trial and error than we do anything else sometimes yeah, yeah, I think I think that’s so true and some, some people never get there, but I think, um, for me, a big part of it is about how you manage your internal world, and if you are driven by your emotions and you’re driven by your impulses, then actually, as soon as you hear anything that you don’t like, you’re going to intercede, you’re going to cut somebody else off, you’re going to cause offense or cause barriers to go up.

Richard: 12:21

So learning to be more emotionally intelligent, understanding what we’re feeling in any given moment, allows us to not dismiss that, but to choose if and when we share that and how we share that, and that’s really important. Sometimes there are things that we absolutely need to say, but thinking about the timing and the manner in which we deliver, that is so important in terms of the kind of reception that that message gets, and this is often where people fall down.

Tim: 12:48

So how do we teach people to get to that point? Obviously, I mean, we can get to that point by flying off the handle and we learn from negative consequences, but I don’t know that that’s really learning, that that’s just adapting to a negative consequence.

Richard: 13:08

it’s not learning how to, to understand your feelings, why they happen, when they happen, and then choosing to, to, to make better decisions so I think I think part of it is about developing more reflective practice in terms of how we operate, and I think you know, often what we do is we learn from experience. But we learn from those big experiences, times where things go badly wrong we think, well, I don’t want to do that again. You know there’s always going to be an element of that. But I think if we make it a daily attitude to actually periodically, throughout the day, pause and think how am I feeling in response to what I’ve just had in terms of an interaction? What am I feeling in terms of the interaction that I’m about to have, or what am I having as an experience whilst I’m having this interaction, the more aware we are of that, we can use that as signals, not signals that we need to immediately act upon, but signals as to where we stand with the position, and then we can start to learn the skills for managing that. So a lot of time when we’re feeling uncomfortable emotions, the brain tells us right, you need to do something with this right away. And so learning to moderate that is really important, not just in conversations but in general.

Richard: 14:23

And you think about society today more than ever, um, that there’s obvious examples of how we can get instant gratification. You know, particularly in the digital age. You know if you want something, you can order it straight away. If you want to send somebody a message, you can send it straight away, yeah, whereas before we had the ability to, to, to, to be able to hold back because we had to, because you couldn’t have what you wanted straight away or you couldn’t speak to that person until tomorrow. So there are benefits and there are difficulties that come with that, but I think, as a society, learning how to defer our immediate impulses is really, really important, because it gives us flexibility in terms of how we operate. And if we’re not used to that and every time we get an impulse, we act on it, however small that might be that trains the brain to expect that every time, and for me, that’s at the heart of so many issues within society that people cannot recognize or know how to manage those emotions.

Tim: 15:28

Yeah, and how much do you think technology plays into that? You know, cause, as you’re talking, I’m thinking. I don’t know if you had a rotary phone, but I remember having a rotary phone.

Richard: 15:38

Yeah.

Tim: 15:39

Yeah, yeah, so there was no call waiting even at that time. I remember when we got call waiting, I remember when we got an answering machine and I vividly remember, you know, leaving messages for people and wondering why they didn’t call me back four or five hours later. And now, if I send a text message let’s just say I send a text message to my daughter and she doesn’t respond in two minutes I’m like you know what are you doing? Well, yeah, so how much do you think technology has played into that, into that role of our expectations of wanting that, that instant gratification and, let’s just say, a decline in emotional intelligence and understanding how to deal with some of those things?

Richard: 16:25

Yeah, yeah, I think these challenges have been there since time immemorial, but I think, certainly, the digital age has amplified all of that, because we create a rod for our back, don’t we? We create all of these inventions with a view to making life easier, but they actually generate a lot of self-induced pressure to making life easier, but they actually they generate a lot of self-induced pressure. You know, as you say, you send a text or an email and we expect people to respond straight away and it causes anxiety when they don’t. Yeah, and we set those expectations up for ourselves as well. You know, if we’re quick at responding to things, people expect that from us every time, whereas if we’re slower to respond to things, people know that that’s how we operate and they get a little bit slightly more comfortable with it.

Richard: 17:09

So it definitely plays on all these uh anxieties that we have anyway about the unknown. It um encourages us to act, to act on impulse, to do things in haste, and the more that we do that, the more the brain latches onto that as a um, as a default position. It’s not something that we do now and again. It becomes a default position and a default expectation, and the brain is a creature of habit and it wants what it wants and what it expects to get. And if we don’t give it that, there’s a sense of the unknown and again, the brain doesn’t deal well with the unknown, so it’s definitely making things worse.

Richard: 17:43

And and choice as well. I think choice is another thing that actually we’ve got so many choices now that actually, um, you know, you go and order a coffee and how many choices of different coffee can you have, whereas in my day that you know, if there were two or three choices, you were lucky. Um, so choices as well means that we don’t learn to tolerate um, not getting what we want, things not being exactly how we want, things not being exactly how we want them to be. So all of these things affect our, our resilience and our expectations about what’s possible and what we want.

Tim: 18:14

Yeah, yeah, and I’m chuckling again. You know whether it’s coffee, because for me there’s, there’s only one way to get coffee it’s black, a little bit of sugar. I mean yeah yeah, I don’t, I don’t. I don’t need all these other flavors. I don’t need a mocha latte, whatever it is, I don’t need that.

Richard: 18:30

Yeah, it’s like a different language, isn’t it? Yeah, it is.

Tim: 18:33

But I’m also the same way with a lot of other things. I’m a plain, you know like this shirt is a lot for me.

Tim: 18:46

I’m generally a white shirt or blue shirt or and and when I go to the store and if I can’t find something just you know, regular whatever I get upset because it’s I don’t. You’ve got yes, you’ve got 30,000 shirts in here, but I just want a regular, plain, plain shirt, and so I ended up buying. If I find something, I ended up buying like five or six of them because I know I’ll never be able to find anything like it again. So it kind of goes that way with me. It’s just funny.

Richard: 19:13

Yeah, yeah. So I think we tend to see having things fast, having choice has always been a good thing, but I do think it comes with its own problems, and certainly in terms of how the brain operates it. It triggers all those challenges that we already have as human beings and it makes them much, much more severe, and I think this is one of the reasons why we’re seeing um more examples of anxiety amongst the younger generations is because, actually, they haven’t been trained how to manage those impulses and actually the the resources that are available to them, as tempting as they are, are making those difficulties more obvious.

Tim: 19:51

Right, right, yeah, again, I wonder. I’ve got grandkids now and again I wonder you know how we, how, how we were brought up and things that we were allowed to do and able to do, compared to my kids generations to now, compared to, you know, my, my grandkids generation, and the things that they’re never going to be able to do that we got to do, like going out and riding your bike unsupervised 20 miles away? Yeah, doing, I mean doing whatever, exploring and that freedom to to do things and make choices and decisions and good, good, bad and different and dealing with them and now with them being so structured and never really having that freedom to do some things, I only see it getting a little bit worse.

Richard: 20:54

Yeah, so you know, I agree, I think you know, for most kids now things are so structured and so sanitized they don’t have the opportunity to learn that natural resilience of when things don’t go according to plan, to be able to develop the resourcefulness to deal with those situations or even to be allowed to be bored. Right, you know, I think about when I was a kid. Yes, there were, you know, there were after school clubs, but most of the time you played out on the street and you made your own entertainment, yeah, and as the time, you, you played out on the street and you, you made your own entertainment. Yeah, and and and. As a result, you, you know, you, you became more creative, you became more resourceful. You, you learned to work through difficult situations, yeah, so again, I think you know there’s there’s a lot to be said for that. I think you know maybe we had too much freedom, but, um, I think, think again, you know, the pendulum’s gone the other way.

Tim: 21:44

Yeah, exactly, let’s get back into the whole charisma thing. One of the things that I really really liked about the book is is you talk about the pillars of charisma, and the very first one really kind of spoke to me and that’s presence. Yeah, and to me, presence is probably the key to everything, because if we’re not present, we can’t listen. If we’re not present, we can’t be empathetic, if we’re not present, we can’t build trust and relationships. Um so, so, uh, you know, I, I, I think that with a lot of things, and especially from from an organizational development perspective, from a leadership perspective, being present is obviously it’s, it’s key. But but how do we teach presence?

Richard: 22:42

Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s. It’s really difficult, isn’t it? And I think for me, again, to some degree, it comes down to emotional intelligence, and I’m a big advocate of things like mindfulness, and I’m not necessarily talking about mindful meditation, I’m talking about mindfulness in any given moment, making choices about where you put your focus, and a lot of the time we slip into whatever presents itself without necessarily realizing we’re doing that. So you know, how often are we listening to somebody and and actually we might be picking up the facts but not picking up the nuances, the emotion that sits beneath it. So you know, somebody said, what did they say? You might be able to recount it, but because you’re already thinking about what you’re going to say next, before they’ve even finished, you’re, you’re, you’re talking at each other, you’re not talking with each other, you’re not creating something between you.

Richard: 23:28

So being distracted number one, it means that you don’t have the capacity to to recognize what’s happening in real time, right? But number two, people pick up on it, people hold back from sharing things. You know, how often do we ask people how they are? But our body language, in the way that we say it says actually, all I want is the, I just want the quick answer. I’m letting you know, I’ve seen you, I’m okay with you, but I don’t really want you to tell me about, about everything that’s going on for you and people know that.

Richard: 23:55

So people you know and people give us a quick answer and and because we don’t create the time and space for people to realize that actually we might want something more for them and we give them an opportunity to expand on what they first say, those conversations remain on a superficial level, so we never really understand people. As a leader, even if you walk the floor, it’s really, really important to make people feel seen and heard. That’s how you create psychological safety. That means when you’re sending company-wide emails, when you’re talking about things like well-being or care for your people, that people genuinely believe that’s what you mean. It’s not just lip service.

Tim: 24:31

Right, it’s not coming from HR. Hr says we got to do it, so we got to do it.

Richard: 24:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But actually how you manifest, if I’m an individual within your organization and I know that when I speak with you, you’re genuinely interested and you’re genuinely present, I’m more likely to believe when you’re saying these other things.

Tim: 24:49

Yeah, I’ve got a friend who, with his team, he’s got a schedule that he reaches out to every person on his team on any given day throughout the week. So, whether they realize it or not, he’s reaching out to them to show that he cares and show that he’s interested in different ways and at different times. And that’s something that he does to show the presence, presence to show the the that he’s interested in them. And when he does that, he doesn’t necessarily always talk about work-related things, it’s other things, it’s family, it’s it’s whatever, absolutely, really, really important that you’re not just here to do a job.

Richard: 25:40

I, I, I care about you as a, as an individual. I think you know even more so when you can remember things that you’ve spoken about with that person. You remember what their kids are called, you can remember what they like doing. That goes a long way.

Tim: 25:53

Yeah, it really does. And then we have technology and like this, for example, when we, when we’re talking about being present, this is something that I really struggle with, richard. For me to be present, I need to be looking at you, but I need to be connected here. So I miss the nonverbal cues, I miss the facial expressions, I miss the hand gestures, the body language. How do we, because we’re so reliant on this type of technology, how do we overcome that?

Richard: 26:36

Yeah, yeah, well, I think that it’s a really interesting point. I think for me, the first thing is setting the intention. When we go into meetings, you think about most people at work. Now, particularly since COVID, it’s back-to-back video meetings, it’s not meetings in rooms, and when you were meeting people in the room you’d have the preamble before the meeting started. You’d have the time after the meeting where actually you warm up, you get to know somebody as an individual.

Richard: 27:07

We don’t have that anymore and I think the risk is that we become very transactional, right. What are we here to talk about? Yeah, and and, and there needs to be a purpose to a meeting. But actually easing into the meeting, creating a bit of a buffer time around the meetings you haven’t got to immediately start, you haven’t got to rush off and setting the intention actually I just want to connect with people, I want to see how people are doing is really, really important, and I think you know it demands a lot more when, when we’re operating online and and certainly if you look at some research that was done a few years ago by microsoft, they did brain scans of people who have back-to-back meetings and actually the stress response in your brain heightens when you have back-to-back meetings. So what that means is you immediately become less emotionally intelligent because you’re consumed more by your own emotions. You’ve got less spare capacity to think about what’s going on for other people unless they’re very, very explicit about it. So actually realizing that means that we can start to mitigate against it. We can set an intention when we go into meetings that we’re going to be attuned and present for people. But also, even if we’ve only got a few seconds or minutes before we go from one meeting to another, we can start to think about those transitions.

Richard: 28:15

How am I feeling after that meeting I’ve just had? Is there something I can do to offset that? Or, being aware of it, can I at least tread a little bit more carefully when I go into this next meeting? And a lot of time we don’t do that. We take that emotional baggage, that emotional leakage from meeting to meeting and even if we think we’ve had a very good meeting with somebody, how we’ve delivered our side of the conversation will inevitably be affected by what we’re already carrying if we’re not aware of it. So for me, those are things that we can do. I think the other thing we need to do is slow the conversations down. Yeah, give more people time to, to expand on what they’re saying, particularly introverts, right, introverts need more time to reflect, to express themselves. So inevitably in any environment, particularly online, if we’ve got a group of people, extroverts are going to dominate. It’s a lot harder to recognize when people aren’t contributing. So you’ve got to take the time and consciously draw those people into the meeting.

Tim: 29:14

Yeah, again, those are really good points when you think about introverts and especially on this type of call. Unless they’ve really prepared, unless they’ve really have something to say or have a spot in the meeting, they’re not going to speak. I think they’re less likely to speak here than they would be in an in-person meeting.

Richard: 29:43

Definitely it’s a lot easier to hide, isn’t it, when there’s a group of you and you’re online. So I think you know with that. I think one thing is having an agenda before the meetings. You know how often do we use the meetings as the time when we actually decide what it is we’re going to talk about, and I think even a brief agenda a few minutes before the meeting means that for anybody but particularly introverts, they’ve got more time to reflect on what they might want to say. So you’ve given them more of an opportunity. But I think you’ve also got to slow the conversation down to allow them to fully express themselves, and I think maybe even inviting them to lead on a particular point helps them to become more part of the conversation helps them to become more part of the conversation.

Tim: 30:27

Yeah, and again, that’s part of from a leader perspective, knowing who you’re leading, knowing what’s going to help and make them successful and putting them in those positions so that they can be successful is a critical piece.

Richard: 30:45

Yeah, so being as inclusive as you can be, because otherwise, in any environment, but particularly online, extroverts are going to dominate, and particularly when the conversations are becoming very transactional. It’s about exchanging information. Things tend to speed up.

Tim: 31:01

Yeah, With me not teaching anymore. I’ve been telling people over the last month or two I I really enjoy doing these, these things, but what I miss is that personal interaction. I I miss the in-person. I miss the shaking somebody’s hand or sitting down across from somebody or next to somebody, you know, just having a conversation about whatever it is. And I was at a conference, you know last week and how much more invigorated I was being there and when I left, as opposed to again. I really do enjoy this, but I miss that personal thing.

Richard: 31:38

Yeah, I mean, it’s a natural human experience, isn’t it, to be physically around other people. So you know, we’re putting an obstacle in the way of that when we operate in this way.

Tim: 31:52

And I think you know, as I look at the other three pillars of charisma, and especially now with technology and society, where everybody’s talking about AI and nobody really has a true understanding I mean, if you think about it, five years ago we weren’t really talking about AI. And now all the tools that we have and the power that AI has, and when nobody really knows what is coming next to me, I think we’ve kind of lost the whole idea that it doesn’t matter. Everything is about personal connection. Everything is about personal connection. Everything is about personal relationships. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. If you don’t know how to communicate with people and build personal relationships, you’re not going to be successful, the organization is not going to be successful. And that kind of goes to the third pillar of charisma and the warmth and connecting through care, Because if you don’t know who they are, again it comes back to what you said it’s transactional, it’s not transformational.

Richard: 32:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you’ve got to understand the individual that you’re with, to know what it is that is most likely to give them what they need to feel safe and reassured. And I think again, look back through history. You think about the Luddites in England into the 17th, 18th century, smashing up machinery because they thought they would take their jobs. It’s always been the case that people have had this fear that it’s going to take away people’s jobs. So, actually, people adapt, and the thing that is consistent throughout time is it’s our interpersonal skills that make all the difference, and that’s what we need to focus on. And in the future, that’s where the jobs will be offering those things that AI will never be able to offer Ever.

Tim: 33:43

And it’s funny because AI, I use chat GPT for a number of things. It’s, it’s. I mean it’s it’s. They’re great tools, they really are great tools, but I don’t think we should be relying on them. And I put a prompt in to chat GPT. It basically said through all of our chats, describe me. And it spit something out that I thought was was somewhat accurate, but but really kind of funny. And you know, I put it out to some people in my network and they said, yeah, they’re right here, they’re right here. I would never have said that about you, but it’s actually correct.

Tim: 34:22

And it’s funny that I don’t see myself that way, but other people see you that way and just some of those inputs that we’ve done, that the machine learning can do that.

Richard: 34:42

It’s still got a way to go. I’m not sure it’ll entirely bridge the gap, but it is enormously powerful. So I supervise a few therapists and I’ve got one therapist who I supervise and he uses AI. When he’s got a challenge with a client he says well, you know, this is the situation, what do you think? And actually he says he’s found it really useful, not as a substitute for what he does, but as an accompaniment and just another option for bouncing ideas off. So you know, I think there is the possibility for sort of a hybrid approach. It’s not sort of one or the other.

Richard: 35:25

But even still, I don’t care how good it gets, it’s not going to replace meeting somebody sitting, I don’t think, shaking their hand it’s just no, no, no, no, because you know essentially, you know, however much we sort of um build ourselves that we’re effectively sophisticated animals yeah and like other animals, we’ve got basic requirements that we need to maintain well-being and equilibrium, and one of those is physical human contact.

Tim: 35:56

Right.

Richard: 35:58

We need that and if we don’t have that over extended periods, then actually we start to get out of balance and I think you know again, that’s you know. Going back to what we spoke about earlier in terms of the younger generation, I think we’re increasingly seeing this that people aren’t formulating long-term relationships, there’s more and more single people. All these things inevitably have a bearing upon people’s mental health.

Tim: 36:25

So in South Africa and in the United Kingdom, are any of these things being talked about or taught in in in schools, in public education or anything like that? Because at least over here we don’t talk about it at all? I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s don’t even bring it up because we’re so focused on test scores, we’re so focused on on those all these other things that maybe they’re important, maybe they’re not, but we’re missing these, these critical skills.

Richard: 36:52

Yeah, well, I think it’s probably the same in the UK and South Africa to some degree. I think we’re still very much attached to that Victorian curriculum. It’s about test results, it’s about formal subjects, and there’ll always be a place for those, I’m sure. But there is a change in the tide though. There is more work that’s been done around things like mindfulness and well-being, um, and I guess the other thing that’s happening is that a lot of schools are bringing in charters that say right, we, we, we, don’t allow any any um phones in in the school. We are encouraging parents to sign up to the pledge that actually they will limit the amount of screen time that their children have. So they can’t enforce that, but they are trying to get parents to buy into, and a lot of parents are. So things are changing, I think, I think, but we are still heavily attached to that old sort of antiquated um school curriculum that you might have even seen 100 years ago.

Tim: 37:48

Yeah, yeah, what you know, my last year or so of teaching I’ve, what I found was I I couldn’t really even teach the subject matter very well, because it wouldn’t, wouldn’t really matter, because if they can’t communicate, if they can’t go out and and just hold commerce you know adult professional conversations yeah, it doesn’t really matter. So so we focus a lot, a lot on those things.

Richard: 38:12

Yeah, so those foundation skills are missing, then you know it completely undermines everything else you’re trying to do, doesn’t it yeah?

Tim: 38:18

Exactly, Exactly so. So what about storytelling? I mean, I think over the last few years, I think the whole idea of storytelling has has really come, has really kind of blossomed, and a lot of the people that I talk with think that there’s got to be some grand story of their life. But I tell them it’s not. It doesn’t have to be a grand, it’s just your story, it’s your life, it’s your experiences. You went to the grocery store, you got a flat tire and you, you know, you fixed flat tire, but you had a conversation with somebody who’s a connection over here. I mean, that’s how it’s not. It doesn’t have to be a an in-depth, you know, Academy award winning story, it’s just a normal everyday life.

Richard: 39:05

Yeah, yeah, and I think again, it’s about. It’s about being authentic and being your true self, isn’t it? And I think, a lot of the time, people don’t share stories about themselves because they discount them. It’s not other people discounting those stories, it’s them discounting them.

Richard: 39:21

And I think there’s a lot to be said for people owning their stories, whether it’s their life story, whether it’s the story of what happened to them that day, but owning that stuff and if you think about you know some of the more famous people that we regard as being charismatic, they have a story and it’s not always a linear story.

Richard: 39:38

It’s like things go wrong, but actually they’re often stories about redemption, about resilience, and actually that not only inspires other people, but it’s also more relatable for other people. People think, well, I’ve not had that, but I’s also more relatable for other people. People think, well, I’ve not had that, but I’ve had other things happen, and so suddenly, even if we’re very successful, they think, well, actually, maybe you are a bit like me, maybe I can relate to you and talk to you about things that are important to me, that are happening for me, and I think that that’s important and you know, you see this even to this day, within the realm of leadership, that leaders think they’ve got to present themselves as being perfect. They’ve got to present themselves as knowing everything. And actually, number one it’s not true. And number two it puts you on a pedestal. It means other people are frightened. People are frightened to talk about what’s really going on.

Tim: 40:23

Yeah, and they’re just normal people. And they’re just normal people and that’s so in the space that one of my previous lives, professional lives. You know a lot of professional athletes, a lot of those types of things, and people would say are you getting autographs? I said no, they’re just normal people. They’re normal people like you and me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one, that’s my job. It’s not appropriate. Number two, when they’re not over here doing their sports, they just want to be left alone. They just want to go live their life. They want to have a wife, they want to have kids, they want to go to the so much better than everybody else. Okay, they’ve got a very special talent. I’m not saying anything other than that They’ve got a very special talent, but they’re no different than you and me. They really aren’t, really aren’t.

Tim: 41:36

And you know, there was a time I was with my family and we stopped by a college that I went to that wanted to go in the bookstore and a famous professional athlete was in there. And I’m just going on about my business and one of my daughters says, oh, it’s so-and-so. I said yeah, and she said can I go talk to him? I said, well, I wish that you wouldn’t, but you can if you want. I mean, she, she was a young girl which is very different than than me, and I said but if he, if he says no, if he’s with his family, you gotta leave him alone.

Tim: 42:00

And he, he was actually very, very kind, very, very um appreciative, and when she came back she asked why I didn’t do it and she kind of learned because you know, the kids kind of grew up in that area that you know again, they’re not that. Yes, they’re special because they’ve got a great talent and they make a lot of money, but they’re just normal people. And I think that the general population, when it comes to leaders, whether it’s athletes, whether it’s fortune 500 ceos, whatever it is they they tend to put these people on pedestals and they don’t even want to be on that pedestal, but it’s it’s a lot of you know, having worked with some of these types of it’s a lot of pressure to carry to be that yeah, that uh perceived person all the time.

Richard: 42:50

But it’s also also quite lonely, because it means actually, when you’ve got your own challenges, if that’s what people expect from you, it’s very difficult to then say actually I’m struggling with this.

Tim: 43:01

And when they do, they have a feeling that people think less of them, and most of the time that’s not true either. They’re saying, wow, I can, he has, he or she has those issues, what, what can we do to help them?

Richard: 43:20

and and so it’s kind of the exact, the exact opposite, exactly. But unfortunately a lot of the time because there are those kind of hesitancies that issues that could be addressed relatively easily become bigger things. And you know, we see it so often that way in the news with celebrities that it’s only when the wheels really come off that the issues become apparent. And a lot of times it’s because they feel this barrier. Yeah, yeah.

Tim: 43:47

We had a young man, high-profile athlete, getting ready to be drafted in the NFL, committed suicide because he was, you know. He got himself in some trouble and apparently that was his only way out of it. And that’s part of the problem Again, you know, with going back to the whole idea of therapy and being able to uh talk things through and and and, uh figure, figure things out, and that’s kind of it’s, it’s about normal, normalize the experiences in it, whether it’s charisma whether it’s mental.

Tim: 44:31

So you’re not the only person that’s felt like that. Right, right, it’s sad. I think you know I don’t want to go too far down this road, but the mental health system here in the United States is completely broke. We don’t have nearly enough therapists. We don’t have. We’ve come a long way in the case of some of these things, but we don’t have the resources to truly help some of these people.

Richard: 44:53

Yeah, yeah, and it’s. You know it’s the same. It’s the same in the uk, I think there’s there’s more people that are open to receiving therapy than certainly when I first started as a therapist, but the resources aren’t available. You know, it’s a it’s a minefield as well, because there’s no government registered accreditation. So you know, pretty much anybody can set themselves up as a therapist and, you know, cause all kinds of damage.

Tim: 45:12

Yeah, yeah, no, oh well, I it’s. All we can do is encourage people to to be open and and and and share and and help guide them in the right direction. I guess, yeah, but if for a young person, what would you say would be the one thing that they should do to start building charisma, to start building those communication and leadership skills that they truly need?

Richard: 45:45

Yeah. So I think one of the biggest things that you can do is start to develop and demonstrate curiosity for other people. So I think you know, I remember back to sort of being a teenager and being quite idealistic and quite firm in my views about things. And actually, you know, as you go through life you hopefully become more flexible. As you, you know, you have your own challenges. You come into contact with different types of people and I think one way of fast, of fast tracking that is to show curiosity for people’s positions.

Richard: 46:14

Ask lots of open-ended questions. Create space for people to elaborate on what they say. Don’t just, don’t just respond the first thing they say. Give them space to add to that and actually what you might find is that you develop more empathy for people’s positions. It might even be that it challenges some of your views about your own life and the way that things should operate. So that’s the biggest thing you can do. You know, a lot of the time when we’re we’re we’re we’re meeting people, we feel it’s almost like we’ve got to put on a performance. We’ve got to come out with lots of interesting things to say. But actually interesting things flow from asking questions, not from putting on a performance that’s, that’s true.

Tim: 46:51

It’s it’s because, for the most part, people are surface level people. It’s when when they start um, when they can ask those deeper questions, those meaningful questions, that’s when when things really start to start to come out. But trying to get, trying to get young, younger people to understand that and to truly think about what they want to know, again, yeah, you gotta know first off who you are and and do some research into the, into these other things before you just go out there and start asking, you know, superficial questions. So that’s, that’s a, that’s a process, but it’s, it’s not hard to do. Anybody can, can do this if you just spend, spend a little bit of time it exactly whatever somebody might say.

Richard: 47:41

You know even it’s talking about their weekend. You know we tend to latch on to the facts of what they did at the weekend, but ask them what that means. To what was that like? What did you enjoy about that? Yeah, you seem really excited. What did you enjoy about that? You seem really excited when you’re talking about that. Getting people to tap into the emotions of whatever it is they’re telling you deepens the connection. Really, it helps you to understand why people do what they do.

Tim: 48:05

Well, Richard, thank you so much for your time today. Where can people find you if?

Richard: 48:11

they want to work with you and buy your book. So if you want to find out more about me, you can find me on LinkedIn. So it’s Richard Reid, spelled R-E-I-D, or you can go to my website, which is wwwrichard-reidcom. Awesome.

Tim: 48:24

Well again, richard, thank you so much for spending some time with us, my pleasure. You so much for for spending some time with us my pleasure again, really good actionable advice and um I I really hope people go and and and read buy your book and read it.

Tim: 48:37

It’s, it’s an easy read um and thank you one more thing when I, when I get a book, I don’t I don’t start at chapter one and read all the way through. I I open it up, I look at the table of contents oh, this looks like a good chapter, and I read it. Then I bounce back and forth and it’s an easy read. It’s an easy read. Lots of good tips in there, lots of good strategies. So go buy the book and read it. But again, richard, thank you so much for spending time with me.

Richard: 49:06

Thank you, tim, really appreciate it.

Tim: 49:09

Be sure to visit speakingwithconfidencepodcastcom to get your free e-book Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and how to Overcome them. You can also register for the Formula for Public Speaking course. Always remember your voice has the power to change the world. We’ll talk to you next time, take care.