April 28, 2026

Connection is the Secret Sauce Pt2

Connection is the Secret Sauce Pt2
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Join me in this part 2 of Connection is the Secret Sauce as I talk with Morag Barrett an expert on workplace connectivity and how connection builds trust and therefore productivity. Morag has written numerous books - the latest one is YOU ME WE. A must read. And she is a sought after keynote speaker We’ll be discussing how you build those lasting bonds that make all the difference in being an okay company to one that really rocks.

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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are

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Hi, welcome to my discussion with the illustrious Morag Barrett

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on part two of our talking about the traits of

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and connectivity for organizations and what leaders need to think

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about in terms of that regard. So, Morag, we got

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to trade number two, and there are five of them,

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so let's go through the Let's quickly, just hit on

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the first two so that the audience can get brought

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up to speed, and then let's go into the next three.

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Okay, Well, the practices we're talking about are highlighted in

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my book. You mean, we why we all need a

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friend at work and how to show up as one

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perfect and that came about a quick summary for those

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of you who are just joining us for part two,

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in which case, where have you been? Our research, along

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with Gallup, who's been researching engagement for the last twenty years,

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shows that we are in the middle of a relationship recession.

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We've got this digital transformation with AI happening around us,

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and yet one in four leaders who've completed our ally

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Mindset profile tell me, tell my team that they have

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no meaningful relationships at work. And it's heartbreaking, Linda, heartbreaking.

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And here's some other stats that we didn't share in

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the opening. In the first research shown the number one

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use for artificial intelligence, What would you guess is the

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number one use for artificial intelligence.

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I'm going to tell you what I would guess because

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I do use it a conversation connection.

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It is absolutely that ding ding ding ding ding, winning

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winner Chicken Dinner. It's not coding, which again it's being

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used for. It's not even idea generation. People are turning

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to artificial intelligence for conversation, for connection, to address those

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feelings of loneliness.

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Yes, and I.

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Too am an avid user. Claud and I have a

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somewhat close working relationship, but the shows, well, not that

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close but the research shows that whilst in the moment

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it gives us the illusion of connection, it doesn't actually

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close the gap on those feelings of loneliness. As human beings,

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we are hardwired for connection. And so in my Team

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and Eyes research in um Wei and in my first book, Cultivate,

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we're looking to address that gap, and we identified five

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practices that make a difference between No, I don't have

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meaningful relationships at work, and yes, heck I do. In fact,

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others see me as their meaningful relationship. So the first

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two practices we covered in the teaser episode abundance and generosity.

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Do I care about you and your success as much

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as I do my own. Doesn't mean I'm guaranteeing that success,

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but am I at least curious to understand what success

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looks like for you and how I may be helping

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or hindering. Number two is connection and compassion. This is

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where I see you beyond the job title that you're

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wearing right now. But I'm interested in your whole life,

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a little bit more of your journey, what lights you up,

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what frustrates you. I'm starting to braid the relationship at

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this point, and you mentioned it in our first conversation.

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This is where trust starts to really bubble up and

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help support us for the way forward. Because when I

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feel like I am seen, valued, respected, appreciated by you

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and to you, then I am more likely to have

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courage and vulnerability. The third practice.

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Which is a basis of trust.

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It is the basis of trust, but it's a chicken

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and egg which comes first. But if I feel like

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you've said, hey, morag, you've got this, go do it,

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I'm going to test those waters. I'm going to take

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informed risk. I may show initiative, I may put my

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hand up and volunteer what I might think is a

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daft or an obvious idea, and then depending on how

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you respond, will either put deposits in that builds that

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confidence or it doesn't. So courage and vulnerability they go

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hand in hand, and this was inspired by the work

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of Brene Brown. It is the true differentiator because if

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I think that this is going to be a black mark,

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if I make a mistake, it's going to be used

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to punish me, then heck no, I am not going

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to speak up, which is candor and debate. The fourth

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practice of having an allied mindset, so for you Linda,

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as you think back, We've got abundance and generosity. I'm

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looking outward, not just focused on me. We have connection

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and compassion, which is the importance of just slowing down

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to see and check in on how you're doing, not

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just what you're doing. That leads to courage and vulnerability,

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which means I'm going to take informed risk, show initiative,

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and then that in turn leads to candre and debate.

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I'm going to call out confusion. I'm going to ask

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the awkward questions. I'm going to give warnings of impending

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disaster before they arrive rather than the I could have

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told you so afterwards.

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Yeah, oh, I thought you were going to ask me

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a really crazy question. I'm going to go, oh God,

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I'm have to answer or something.

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No, I'm just going to pause dramatically and allow you

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to just build from there.

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Yeah. Well, that that was really terrific. And I what

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I love about your five connectors or connection characteristics, Yeah, practices,

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that's what you call them, is that you know they're

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not the standard. They really dig deeper into the human psyche,

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and that I like a lot because that forces people

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to be much more introspective about how they're interacting and

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why they're interact with others.

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Well, that's why the book title is how how you

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need that? Why we all need a friend at work?

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And how to show up as one? Because it isn't

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just about what can you take from others. It does

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require that introspection of what can you offer with out

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with guardrails so that you don't just become a yes

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person supporting everybody else, but your own needs are being

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minimized and going back to the ally mindset profile Again,

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those of you have not yet done it, we saw

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a flurry of completions and insights following the first episode.

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You can take it for free and contribute to our

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research at sky Team skye Team dot cloud as in

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cloud in the Sky, SkyTeam dot Cloud Forward, slash you

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me we and here's some of the other surprising insights

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tell us. Okay, so we're talking disconnection. Thirty percent of

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the leaders who've completed us tell us that they have

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felt disconnected from the work that they're being asked to do.

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That's that's substantial.

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They're going through the motions, they're on their hamster wheel.

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I am just getting through the grind, the nine to five.

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If I'm lucky the eight to eight if I'm not,

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whatever it might be, they're going through the motions. Twenty

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five percent say that they have felt disconnected from their

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colleagues and wiping. Seventeen percent say I'm disconnected from both.

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I don't care about the work and I don't seem

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connected to or cared about or care about my colleagues.

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And that's a double whammy, because what's going.

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I was just going to ask you, So, people that

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feel that disconnected from the work and their colleagues, how

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do they how do they behave in the in the workplace?

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What are signs that you can see that that's where

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they are.

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Well, I've got two answers to that, because theirs have

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many answers. The first comes from doctor Vivic Murphy, who

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was the prior twice Surgeon General of the United States,

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and he published a white paper on the epidemic of loneliness,

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and the research clinically is clear that when we feel

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disconnected both from the work and especially from our colleagues, stress, anxiety,

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all sorts of health issues accelerate. He likened loneliness and

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disconnection to the equivalent of smoking fifteen cigarettes of day

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Wow so you know, if you say you're not on

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smoker or you don't inhale, I'm going to call BS

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because our nervous system doesn't know the difference, and so

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it is impacting how we show up. Now. The second

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answer to that question is, even though I've written two

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books on this, even though I talk about it every day,

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I have been there. I have felt lonely sitting on

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my sofa with my family all around me. I've felt

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lonely sitting in a coffee shop in Manhattan with millions

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of people around me. And I've felt lonely at and

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disconnected at work. And here's what it does to me

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in the short term. I put my head down and

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I work harder, because if I can show you the value,

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maybe you'll see that I'm hurting, that's my word for it,

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but you can see that there's something up. I try

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the psychic approach, the productivity approach, but invariably that busness

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just takes me away from the need to invest in

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my relationships and to make the implicit explicit. And so

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when I'm busy and I'm ruminating about that and feeling disconnected,

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it's then the one am lying in bed going.

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Is it just me?

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Everybody else seems to have it together. I must be useless.

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It's me. What I've come to realize is we're all

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wearing this mask of how are you doing, Linda, And

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the answer is invariably I'm fine, great.

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Yep, gop great. So we do that, come back and say, actually,

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I really sort of suck.

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Yeah, so not many and I'm not necessarily ascribing that

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that's what we should do, right, But we can come

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back with you know, I've had better weeks. I'm looking

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forward to X or you know, I'm glad you asked.

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I've been wrestling with this part of the project. Do

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you have fifteen minutes? I'd love to get your input.

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And we underestimate just how much others want to hear

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from us. We write a story that says, hey, here,

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I am working from home. Linda's busy. I won't call her.

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Oh it's seven o'clock at night. Even though we are friends,

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I'm not going to call her in the evening because

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I mean, personally, that's how I was brought up. You

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don't phone people in the evenings when they are relaxing.

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And those stories with us and when we're working remotely

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here's the other heartbreaking statistic. It's easier to pretend because

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we can all do fake perky for thirty minutes on

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a zoom call and then hang out and go, oh

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my god, this sucks. So how do you reach it? Yeah,

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here's the counterintuitive finding from our ally mindset profile. We

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ask people where they are or the environment in which

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they're working, and they're given the choice of in the office.

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And we've seen all the return to office debates, hybrid

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a little bit of both, mostly remote, so once a

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year we get together for a team session or whatever,

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and then fully remote. Who do you think from our

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research in those four categories, from in the office to

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fully remote, who is the most disconnected?

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I would say sometimes in the office.

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See this is why we're friends. I know thirty eight percent,

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thirty eight point six. I'm just reading the results here

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so I can be accurate. As of today, thirty eight

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point six percent say that they who go into the

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office say that they are disconnected from work, with twenty

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seven percent saying they're disconnected from their colleagues, whereas fully

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remote it's around twenty percent on both those measures. So

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the conventional mindset is that working remotely is what causes disconnection,

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but that's not what.

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The data shore not necessarily Yeah, and.

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I'm wondering this is something I'm going to dive into

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more deeply. Is well. Firstly, my mindset if I am

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remote is I know, I'm not going to see you

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at the water cooler for a cup of coffee. But

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going into the office, the mindset is I've made the effort.

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I've just driven an hour into the city and I'm

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the only one here. Or I've driven an hour into

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the office and now I'm spending all day on zoom

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calls because everybody else is somewhere else. I may as

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well just stayed at home, and it just widens the gap.

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So this brings me to the fifth practice, which is

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action and accountability, which is, if we're feeling disconnected, we

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have to take accountability for that. Others aren't psychic. I've

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learned we need to share a little bit of you know,

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I'm feeling a little out of the loop as to

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what's going on, or Heylinda, I've seen you on the

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last seven zoom calls. I'm curious about your role at

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this company. Do you have ten minutes? Everybody has ten minutes?

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Get on a call, but spend some of those ten

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minutes finding out about what lights you up, not just

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what are you doing? So accountability is own it, share it,

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and create those micro moments of connection. And then, as

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a leader or a team member, instead of just getting

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onto your meetings and it all being business business business,

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literally spend a few minutes talking about what did you

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do at the weekend, What do you have coming up?

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Open the door for the conversations that would have happened

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organically in the elevator, over lunch, maybe for a drink

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after work that don't happen when we're working across time

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zones and geographies.

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You know more. I want to just add to that

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a little bit because I was talking to somebody else

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this morning about the cultural differences and how culture does

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come into play in some of this, and I was

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really surprised because I was I'm a Northeastern person and

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then I moved out to the West Coast to do

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what work for a big corporation out there. Such a

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dichotomy in terms of how people interact with each other

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in the Northeast New York area. People come into the

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room boom boom boom, likes here's our task, let's get

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it done. In the on the West coast, you have

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to do the social chit chat or whatever, because that's

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what brings people in and it's it's really funny. It's

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a huge adjustment for you know, people who are by

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I wanted to say bipostal, but by coastal, by coastal. Yeah,

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it's a it's a hugue. That's such a great observation.

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I mean I had the same moving from the UK

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to Colorado, learning from the nice to meet you too,

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the let's.

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Have a hug, and it was like whoa back right.

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Now? We go through the dance of are we shaking her?

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Were bumping, elbow bumping and coming in for a full hug.

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It's like a little meeting dance for birds. But but

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this goes back to something that we talked about in

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the first episode, which is to make the implicit explicit.

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And when the pandemic happened, it did a doozy on

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all of our relationships because we all grabbed our bags

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and went home for what was initially going to be

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two years, and then two years, two weeks, and then

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it was going to be three months, and then we'll

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be home, you know, back in the office. By the fall,

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nobody realized that it was going to be two years.

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And unfortunately, because of that, we force fitted how we

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did it in the workplace in three dimensions to how

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we did it in the virtual workspace of two dimensions.

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We didn't make adjustments for how do we connect? And

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prior to the pandemic, I was one of those. I

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was definitely of the opinion, if you want to be

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a better human, you have to do it in a

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room with other humans. All our leadership programs were done

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in person. Well, the pandemic pay to.

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That that got kissed kissed away.

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It did. But here's what I realized is that when

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I made when we make an intentional choice to show

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up all in, to emote to the camera, to share

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a little bit more of what we're really thinking and feeling,

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it is possible to create deep, meaningful relationships even if

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we've never met in three dimensions.

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I agree totally.

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And some of the leaders I've coached, some of the

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new friends that you and I have in one hundred coaches,

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some of them I've never met in person, but I

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know if they called now, or if I called them

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and said I need help. We would be there for

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each other, right and we all need at least one

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person who, no matter where they are on the planet,

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has our back and would be there for us in

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that moment of need.

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You know what, it's so interesting my cameras not not

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cooperating with me. But what's so interesting because I worked

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for heal Packard. We had this technology way before the pandemic.

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I mean, it existed and everybody was trying to get

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because they were selling it and all that stuff and

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trying to get people to use it, and nobody wanted

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to do it because it just wasn't as much fun

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as a face to face. Well, we've all been forced

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to get used to it, and I think in many

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ways it has created at some level greater connectivity. It's

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way different than having a phone call. It's you know,

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when you can sit across from which I'm stone to

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speak and you know you know the person and you've

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met the person previously, you can make an emotional connection.

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I think. But you're the researcher on this topic, what

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do you think?

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So I do? I mean that was my point is

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that when we choose to lean in it, absolutely it's

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the modern equivalent of the airmail letters I used to

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send my pen pal in Australia. It's just it's quicker,

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an instant. But when we're multitasking, when we're just giving

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it short shrift, it gives the illusion of connection. And

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so if we are feeling disconnected, reach out, send that

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message to the awesome colleague that we talked about in

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episode one. Surprise them and make their day slow down.

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And the next time you're getting your coffee and actually

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see the barista and have a short common the station,

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compliment somebody as you're opening the door on their jacket

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or whatever it might be. But as our colleague Howard

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Pragus would say, find a way to make someone's day,

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usually by saying thank you or I see you. It

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costs us nothing, but it can have a huge ripple

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effect on how people show up for others and for themselves.

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Right, and it can do a ton for this feeling

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of isolationism and lonliness, which actually has become a pandemic

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in and of itself.

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Yes, I mean, certainly you talked about cultural differences. The

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research and the reading that I'm doing right now is

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that this truly is as Dr Vivit Murphy described it

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an epidemic of loneliness that's happening around the world. And

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even if the people listening and watching this are not

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experiencing it right now, somebody they know is And that

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is the key wake up here is what are you

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doing to help others to feel like they belong, that

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they are connected? Because when we're worried and feeling stressed

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and anxious and disconnected, then our work suffers, our health suffers,

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and our quality of life suffers.

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You know it just it just strikes me that these

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are such important dynamics and you really have to be

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sort of plays into my realm. But as a leader,

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you have to be very self introspective. You need feedback.

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You need to understand how you operate and how you

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take in these various different dynamics to adjust, not to

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adjust yourself frankly, to the environment, the team, and the

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culture that you're parted you're part of. So Maura, give

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us give us your final thoughts here? What are what

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are your what do you need to tell? You've told

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us what we need to do, but give us the

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final like do this.

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So ask choose the people you'd depend on at work?

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What's one thing I can do to be a better leader, colleague, partner,

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whatever it might be, what's one thing I could do

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to help us to be more successful together? And then

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take that information and make a choice. Are you ready

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willing and able to lean into it and to do that?

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Because here's what my research and my life experience has

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continue to show me every single day that success in

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business is powered by our relationships, especially now when we're

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seeing jobs being reworked and replaced by AI. It is

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our relationships that are going to help us to navigate

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that Maelstrom and land the next role. So success in

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business is powered by relationships, but success in life that's

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powered by connection, and that is going just that a

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little bit deeper in understanding the who you're working with

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and what lights them up and what drains them, going

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beyond the transaction and being transformational so that we can

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be better together. Relationships, Connection, it's everything.

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It's everything. And you know what I have to tell you.

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We've known each other a long time and we've helped

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each other through quite a number of personal businesses, right,

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and my conversation with you today lit me up. It

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just lit me up. It did really. It was oh yeah, well,

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oh I got the sign wrong whatever, but it really

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it really did. I always loved talking to you and

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I love hearing from you. You're so insightful. And if

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people haven't gotten your book you me, we we they

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should get it.

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And the new edition, the second edition of Cultivate, which

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is where it all started. Yeah, but connect with me

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on LinkedIn?

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Yes, how do they get in touch?

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Shot a moreag? Sorry?

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How do you? How do people? I know you gave it,

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you know it's more, but how do people get a

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hold of you? More? Morerag? You said it before, but

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say it again?

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So Morerag Barrett. Find me on LinkedIn. It is me

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that is responding to all comments. Connect with me there.

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You can find more about our leadership programs and team

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00:24:24.519 --> 00:24:30.680
and executive coaching at SkyTeam dot com. And because threes

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00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:34.680
just the perfect number, there's more Rag Barrett dot com

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00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:38.400
where you can learn about my keynote speaking and inquire

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00:24:38.480 --> 00:24:43.440
about availability. Thank you for the opportunity and the conversation, Linda.

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Well I will. I'm just going to give you one

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final little plug because you know I'm a keynote speaker too,

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and you're fabulous. You can light up a group of

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executives leaders for any company and have them lead, leaving transformed.

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So thanks Moragg for everything you've done for me. I

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appreciate it.