Mastering the 2/10 Rule of Communication: Jake Stahl's Guide to Advanced Sales Psychology

Dive deep into the psychology of sales and communication with Jake Stahl, a conversational wizard who is turning the sales game on its head with his adaptive conversational blueprint. Our enlightening chat on Catalytic Leadership unveils the secrets to building lasting relationships and steering clear of robotic script reliance. Jake's 210 rule is not just a number—it's a philosophy that transforms sales calls into a masterclass in human connection. As we move through the art of tailoring dialogues to individual motivations and contexts, you'll learn why a one-size-fits-all approach is a shortcut to mediocrity.

Ever caught yourself tuning out during a monotonous sales pitch? We've all been there. But imagine flipping the script and engaging in a sales conversation that's as stimulating as a double espresso shot. We cover the ground rules of fostering genuine curiosity and rapport, striking the perfect balance between listening and leading the conversation. Jake's insights into emotional intelligence illuminate the path to become not just a better salesperson, but a true relational architect. Our discourse on the "210 rule of communication" promises to sharpen your outreach and increase your close rates through the power of personalized engagement.

As Jake and I share our personal strategies for continuous learning and self-improvement, take notes from our stories of leadership development and networking. Discover the profound impact that books can have when revisited with a new perspective, and why scribbling your thoughts in the margins might just unlock a new level of understanding. From neurolinguistic programming to the gentle art of listening, this episode is a treasure trove for anyone looking to enhance their professional communication skills and fulfill the fundamental human desire to be heard. Join us, and witness firsthand how acknowledging this need can skyrocket your relationships and success.

Connect with Jake Stahl on LinkedIn for insights and discussions. Visit his website at jakestahlconsulting.com to lear

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Check out our new online membership site, with new resources by Dr. William Attaway and his team added weekly: https://checkout.catalyticleadership.net/

Chapters

• 1:46 From Sales Prodigy to Conversational Architect
• 10:51 The Power of Words and Cadence in Sales and Communication
• 16:31 The Art of Authentic Connection in Sales Conversations
• 21:25 The 2/10 Rule: Enhancing Communication Through Strategic Interaction
• 26:22 Continuous Learning and Adaptation: The Path to Effective Leadership

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:00

I am so excited today to have Jake Stahl on the podcast. Jake's a pioneer in conversational dynamics and a highly regarded fractional chief learning officer. He is revolutionizing sales through his adaptive conversational blueprint, turning sales professionals into relational architects capable of forging profound connections with prospects. Integral to that approach is the 2/10 rule, which challenges traditional perspectives on conversation and emphasizes the importance of rhythm and cadence. With a rich background spanning 30 years, Jake has shared his expertise in training and development across six countries, impacting over 10,000 individuals. Master Mason and a father of four, Jake seamlessly blends practical experience and insightful wisdom in his pursuit of the perfect conversation. Man, I'm so glad that you are here. Thanks for joining me today, Jake.

Jake Stahl: 1:00

Thanks for having me. I appreciate that awesome intro.

Intro/Outro: 1:05

Jake, thanks for having me. I appreciate that awesome intro. Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host, author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway: 1:21

I got to say in search of the perfect conversation is a little intimidating. I just got to tell you like it sets the bar really high for what's happening today. I'm going to do my best to lean into that Sounds good. I would love for you to start by sharing some of your story with our listeners, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

Jake Stahl: 1:46

Yeah, so I was always in sales. I was in sales from the time I was a kid. I was always trying to sell something. And when I got into corporate America and I was selling regularly, I sold for four different companies and I was always right at the top. And when I went with one particular company, they asked me if I'd be interested in training other people to sell. And I had never really given it a lot of thought, and so when they asked me to, I said sure, and the journey was fraught with danger. Little did I know, because when you're trying to train other people, it's do you make them like you, do you make them mimic what you do, or do you help them with their own way? And it went to a long journey, years worth of making a ton of mistakes. And then I came with a company who gave me the chance to be as part of a directorship for learning. So I was not only helping other people learn, but I was taking responsibility of helping other trainers get started.

Jake Stahl: 2:53

So, I would love to say I had the secret from day one, but you know, my path had all sorts of rocks and pitfalls in it and you know.

Dr. William Attaway: 3:05

Thankfully it wound up here. You know some of our listeners may not be familiar with the term chief learning officer. You know a fractional CLO may not be something they've encountered before. How does that differ from, like, a VP of sales or a chief revenue officer?

Jake Stahl: 3:21

Yeah, so the fractional CLO is somewhat of a unicorn in the field. One huge position a lot of major corporations have is they have the head or VP of training and development. So if you want to think about it as a synonym, it's basically your head of training and development, and the way that differs from a CRO or a CSO is that the CRO and CSO typically say a CRO or a CSO is that the CRO and CSO typically say this is what we need to hit, this is how quick we need to hit it, this is how many calls I want made per day. This is the cadence I want to go out. This is how we follow up. This is how we write contracts.

Jake Stahl: 3:57

So they're really the process, part of it. Where I take over is when the person starts to dial the phone, so I guide the process of what they say, how they say it, when they say it, what their follow-up looks like. So I work hand in hand with CROs and CSOs all the time and it makes an amazing team. I also honestly work with a lot of CMOs and chiefs of customer experience, because sales isn't just about selling a product. It's about working hand in hand with the marketing and customer service organizations to make sure that there's a united front and a consistent front on messaging.

Dr. William Attaway: 4:40

I've been looking forward to this conversation for a couple of reasons. One was I wanted to dive deeper on something you mentioned when we talked previously. You talked about your adaptive conversational blueprint and absolutely fascinated me. I would love for you to dive into this. What exactly is that?

Jake Stahl: 5:10

So when you see a typical sales organization, what they do is they put a script in front of them and they say follow this script and you're going to be fine. And what you're going to find is one out of every 10 phone calls results in a close. So math sales becomes a math game, and the funny thing about that is that resembles nothing else in the real world. So I don't go to 10 grocery stores to find the best loaf of bread. I don't date 600 people in an effort to find that one true person. I do a lot of investigating in the beginning and I adapt my ways with the people that I encounter. So, to get to answer your question, my degree is in psychology and I have certifications in neurolinguistic programming and what always fascinated me was the inability of many people who have a script to adapt on the fly. So what I did was I developed a program where people it would change their sales talk from literally the time the other person picks up the phone.

Jake Stahl: 6:06

We get rid of things like how are you? Because it's just not effective and it signals you're a salesperson. But then, as we go through the process, I teach you how to understand exactly what that person's motivations are how to get their dream outcome or exactly what they want out of the call, how to assuage their fears, how to make sure you're fitting what they need and keep in mind. I get asked all the time how close does this come to manipulation? And it's not manipulation. It's actually finding out what that person wants and filling their exact needs. So the conversational blueprint also takes you into localization and message. For instance, if a person in New York City is calling another New Yorker, their conversation would be much different than if they're calling somebody in Savannah Georgia. Many sales programs don't account for that. It's the script is the same no matter who you talk to, and that's that. So I literally give people a blueprint on how to get from A to B, but it's not teaching them a script or a process. It's teaching them how to have the perfect conversation.

Jake Stahl: 7:16

So, define the perfect conversation.

Jake Stahl: 7:19

The perfect conversation, in my mind, is when both people walk away from the conversation knowing that they would gladly converse again and this could be a sales pitch. This could be you and your significant other talking on the couch, it could be you and a parent. But, and think about it this way, when was the last time your cell phone rang and you looked at the number or saw the picture that came up and you went, oh god, I just can't do this right now. That is a person you did not have the perfect conversation with prior right, because you already have it scripted in your head that it's going to go poorly right. And then there are other people where their number comes up and you're like, oh my, my God, that's Jake. Every time I talk to him, I feel great and we both walk away feeling good. So the perfect conversation to me is you both walk away happy with how things went and would gladly talk again. Wow.

Dr. William Attaway: 9:51

That's fascinating and I think every one of our listeners can resonate with that, because we've all had those moments when somebody does pop up on the phone and you're like I really don't want to answer that, and so often we don't.

Jake Stahl: 10:04

Exactly, and there's so many different keys to a perfect conversation. And the funny thing is, when people hear this term they think, oh my God, that must be complicated. But let's go back to when we were in five. Watch two five-year-olds interact. One will say to the other hey, that's my mom. Which one is yours? I like black. What's your favorite color? This is my truck. Do you like trucks? They have the perfect conversation. They walk away happy every time they talk. But it's a back and forth. It's a back and forth, it's a question and answer. It's based on interests. It's based on mutual goals. You know, kids can talk for two minutes and then go to their moms and say that's my new best friend. As adults we kind of lose that, and so I kind of teach people how to get back on that track again.

Dr. William Attaway: 10:51

You know you talk about how one or two words can make such a big difference in a conversation. Can you give an example of that?

Jake Stahl: 10:59

Yeah, and this is where it gets fascinating, because our brains are really attuned to certain words or certain phrasing. And I'll give you a great example. There was an experiment done in the New York Public Library and it was done by social psychologists and they said to interns they said they were in the copy room and people were lined up to make copies. And they said to the intern I want you to go ask if you can button. As you may have already guessed, new Yorkers weren't really keen on letting people button line. So they modified the experiment and they said give a good reason. So go in and say because I have a parking meter, because I'm late for an interview, because I need to get home to dinner and see what happens. Well, what they found was that there was an increase in compliance by 60%. You might say that's not too fascinating because they gave a great reason, but this is where it gets cool. So the experimenter said let's change it a little bit and instead of giving a good reason, just say because I need to make copies. So the line would be I'd like to button line to make copies because I need to make copies. But this is where it's fascinating almost exactly the same compliance rate, almost exactly the same compliance rate.

Jake Stahl: 12:16

So what they found was that because is the operative word, and if you think about it, it makes sense. We're a cause and effect being. When we grow up, it's why, why, why, why, why, why we want to know why A creates B, and so the thought is that this not only suits our need to understand why we should do something so why should I let you button line but it also triggers something in our heads that says this is a good reason for you to make an exception to your own rule set. So the because gives you a cause and effect. So one of the big things that people can do is, when you're giving a pitch or you're promoting an idea, always give the because and a reason following that, and it's fascinating how much it changes outcomes for people. Just one little word. That's amazing. It is amazing.

Dr. William Attaway: 13:15

You know one word. Making that kind of a difference is fascinating to me. You also talk about cadence. Yeah, you know the one word. This feels more like content, but you talk about cadence as though it's equally or even more important.

Jake Stahl: 13:30

Well, it is more important, and let's talk about first what cadence means. So cadence of a conversation is the back and forth between two people. So, as a podcast host, you're mastering the art of going back and forth. You ask a question, you delve in, you listen to the answer, then you adapt and you come back in and ask a question. So we've established a cadence back and forth in a conversation.

Jake Stahl: 13:56

What I think we all know inherently is that if someone speaks to us for 20 or 30 minutes straight, unless I paid to see that person and they're a public speaker, you're probably going to lose me at some point or another. Right, my mind's going to wander, I'm going to get bored, I'm going to want to interject. I'm going to get bored, I'm going to want to interject. So my theory and I've borne this out over the past 30 years of training is that once you establish a back and forth, once you establish that you're interested in the other party and they're interested in you, content matters at that point.

Jake Stahl: 14:32

But prior to that, if you and I haven't established at least a baseline relationship first and something outside the dreaded hi, how are you? Uh, the content's not going to matter near as much. Because if you think about every minute of a conversation, every minute of a conversation, I'm deciding if I'm going to give you more time in the conversation. So every minute you talk sets a precedent for the following minutes in the conversation. So if I can establish a trust, a likability and honesty, and I can take the time to do that and establish that we're both going to contribute, you're going to receive my content much better than if I delve into it right off the bat. So, yes, my argument is that cadence is far more important than content, especially in the beginning.

Dr. William Attaway: 15:25

So, if I'm understanding this correctly, cadence contributes as much or more to the know like and trust factor than content 100%.

Jake Stahl: 15:36

And that's not to say content doesn't matter. It does. But until you've established that rapport in the beginning, the content's not going to have the impact you want it to.

Dr. William Attaway: 15:46

That's fascinating and I think that's something that every person listening can take and use. It is so easy to get into the monologue, particularly on a sales call. I want to give you all this informationologue, particularly on a sales call. I want to give you all this information and we just do a data dump.

Jake Stahl: 16:01

Exactly, and when I do my reach outs, like I network constantly, and when I do my reach outs, the first three or four reach outs have nothing to do with me or what I do. It's all about the other person. And a funny thing happens by the time you do the third or fourth reach out, not talking about yourself at all, eight people out of 10 will say wow, I've talked a lot about me through this whole thing. Tell me about you. That's when the content matters.

Dr. William Attaway: 16:31

My goodness, that is true. I've taught for many years that people's favorite conversational topic is themselves, and what you're doing is you're inviting them to talk about themselves, to share, about something they know and like to talk about. That's fascinating.

Jake Stahl: 16:48

Yep, and once you get that rapport, anything that happens after that is going to be viewed much more favorably than had you started with that. I get DMs all the time on LinkedIn that put this long sales pitch and I have no idea who you are and so you know. I talk with a lot of colleagues of mine and those get erased immediately, and I think that's kind of where the AI starts to fall short. It's a wonderful accomplice to your business, but when we rely on it too much, it gets a little crazy. Right before I came on the podcast, I got a message from somebody that said I haven't heard back from you, so I assume you're not interested. What's hysterical is that they have an appointment to speak to me on Friday.

Dr. William Attaway: 17:37

Oh, that's great.

Jake Stahl: 17:38

Yeah, so it's. When you lose the person in the process, it may do more harm than good.

Dr. William Attaway: 17:48

So so when you're on the, when you're on a cold call, right, how do you get away from hi? How?

Jake Stahl: 17:55

are you? Great question, and I want to talk just a tad bit about why. How, hi, how are you? Is so tough? My wife and I were out shopping and we walked past another couple and my eyes locked with the other gentleman's eyes and I nodded my head and I said hey, and he said fine thanks, how are you?

Jake Stahl: 18:16

So we fill in the gap, exactly Right. So the reason I how are you is tough is because it creates what we call a conditioned response, and I'm sure you're acutely familiar with that, as are your listeners, that certain things in life happen that were just conditioned. Somebody says I love you. It's like I love you too, how was your day? My day was good, how was yours? So when we drive somebody into a conditioned response, we eliminate them from the shackles of having to think about the conversation where in reality, we want them to think about it. So one thing that I advocate for is do some research before you call anybody. Know a little bit about them, a little bit about their business, and when they pick up the phone, say to them I am so glad you picked up the phone, I was really looking forward to talking to you today. My name is Jake, I'm from so-and-so, no, how are you? And you're putting them back and complimenting them right away oh wow, you were looking forward to talking to me. That's great.

Jake Stahl: 19:20

So what comes to your mind when somebody says I was looking forward to talking to you is why, what are we going to talk about? And there you have it. You have interest, and from that point on, you talk about them and their business. Hey, I see you run a trucking company and, man, you guys must've had a tough during COVID because you look like you're succeeding now. Tell me what happened. Automatically you're creating that trust by the time you get to the point where you talk about your product. If they haven't asked you why you're calling. By the time you do say why you're calling, it's going to be a completely different conversation. And again tie this back to something like dating. When you're about to go on a date, you look up their Facebook, you ask them what restaurants they like to go to. You look up all their social media so you're prepared. Why wouldn't we do that on a sales call? And yet most companies I contract with it's something they don't do effectively.

Dr. William Attaway: 20:16

Do you think anybody can learn this, Jake?

Jake Stahl: 20:19

You know, the cool thing about this is we already know it. We were all five once. We all know how to do the conversation. So I guess the real question is not can we learn it? But can we unlearn some of the bad habits we have that keep us from doing this properly? And the answer is yes. It's a simple process. If we just learn that listening in the beginning and not having the blatant desire to talk about ourselves and our product right away, we can make huge strides.

Jake Stahl: 20:54

And I will say this does cause a little bit of stress once in a while between myself and a CRO because they'd like so many calls made in a day and if you're going to truly talk to somebody, you're not going to get to do as many calls in a day. So oftentimes the CRO and CS do as many calls in a day, so oftentimes the CRO and CSO and I will strike a bargain If we see an increase in close rates. Well, the lower the number of calls needed and I'm all for that. This is a growing process and people need to grow into its success. It doesn't happen overnight.

Dr. William Attaway: 21:25

I know you're currently working on a book about a theory you call the 2/10 rule of communication. What is that and how?

Jake Stahl: 21:33

does that work? So the 2/10 rule goes back to the cadence thing. One thing I found over teaching and this was across all countries I've taught in is that people are always taught learn to listen, listen better, converse better, and yet nobody ever really goes into the how do you do that? They go into the why, they go into the principle, but the how has always been elusive. So what I did was I developed the two 10 rule, which says that for every two 10 minutes you talk, you generate approximately two minutes worth of questions in the other person's head. I found this to be true over the past 30 years. So when I develop a presentation, if it's 60 minutes, I allow for 12 to 15 minutes of questions at the end, because that's probably what I'm going to get. So if that's the case, then what if we reverse that? So if that's the case, then what if we reverse that and we say, for every two minutes that you talk, you create an interaction with the person on the other side. Maybe you ask them a question, maybe you repeat back something that they've said so you can get further clarification. You do that for every two minutes and at the end of 10 minutes you say okay, we've talked for a while. I just want to make sure we're on the same page. Did anything come to mind we didn't cover yet? So all I'm doing with the 2/10 rule is I'm telling somebody to put police tape around time parameters in their conversation and make sure that you're doing interactions. And I'll be honest with you, I've had some clients that bought a stopwatch and they use that to start off with and then after a while it becomes habit.

Jake Stahl: 23:15

The only part about this that can be confusing is some people say well, what if it's a short conversation? Or what if it's less than 10 minutes? Two in 10 are the maximums you should go. Two and 10 are the maximums you should go. But as far as I'm concerned, you can make it a 30 second, one minute rule where every 30 seconds you interact and every one minute you kind of gather things back in and check for questions.

Jake Stahl: 23:38

But establish that cadence so that you have that back and forth to increase understanding. So that's what the two 10 role is all about back and forth to increase understanding. So that's what the 2/10 rule is all about. And, like I said, through 30 years of experience and 10,000 people trained, I found that it has become just. It's just, absolutely true and it works in practice. I just did this with a company not long ago when we increased their sales by 3X and we increased their customer service ratings by one and a half stars, just by changing and doing the adaptive blueprint and putting in the 2/10 rule. It's amazing what happens.

Dr. William Attaway: 24:13

Jake, this feels like an outgrowth or an expression of emotional intelligence to me. It feels like this is a way to leverage that in a way for business. But we know some people are higher in emotional intelligence than others, and so I want to circle back around once more, because some people may be pushing back and saying I just don't know that my team can do this, I just don't know that my folks are capable, I don't think their emotional intelligence is that high. What would you say to that kind of a state?

Jake Stahl: 24:47

Well, that's an excellent point and I've never been asked that. So let's unpack that a little bit. So emotional intelligence, as you know, allows you to adapt to a conversation, not like the blueprint, but more on an emotional level. So if somebody is super low, you don't want to rush in and say, hey, I just got promoted, you know, so boiling it. Want to rush in and say, hey, I just got promoted. So boiling it down to something that simple.

Jake Stahl: 25:10

I would say that this is extremely simple to learn and a lot of it is just learning to stay quiet for a little bit and ask the right questions. And, honestly, one of the things I teach is, if you don't know the right questions to ask, then just talk to the person and paraphrase what they said in just a shorter sentence. So a great example is my wife's been in banking and she'll come to me at the end of the day and she'll say, well, we discussed ACH today and I was talking with the tax department and because I want to be involved, I'll say, wow, so ACH was an issue today. So I'm just doing an empathetic statement back, checking for understanding and allowing her to continue, but it keeps me focused as well. Right, I'm forced to listen. So can a sales team do this? Yeah, and I've proven it can be done with many sales teams. Is it difficult? Yeah, for some people it is.

Dr. William Attaway: 26:23

I have some people that pick this up immediately and I have others that we work on it for weeks and they struggle with it and I think one that should be asked you have the right people in the right seats on the bus.

Jake Stahl: 26:32

to quote Jim Collins right and here's the difficulty is that salespeople have it rough. Having been one for a while, I understand the pressure that's involved, but the expectation is different too. A lot of people will say to a salesperson we're a salesperson, just sell. But nobody ever goes to a CEO and says, hey, you're a CEO, just CEO. It's a much different expectation. So salespeople tend to be churned and burned and not trained to the utmost degree. And that's where kind of a puzzle happens. Right, why would you pay 18 grand to onboard somebody, because that's the average cost of bringing somebody on board. Why would you pay 18 grand to do that over and over and over again when you can spend 18 grand on a training program that can bring all those people up to speed? No doubt it's just one of those little anomalies I haven't quite figured out yet, and it's a conversation I have with companies all the time.

Dr. William Attaway: 27:32

So good, let's turn to you for just a minute. I'm curious how do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with new leadership skills that you're going to need a year, three years, five years from now and that your team is going to need you to have?

Jake Stahl: 27:49

Well, there's a couple of facets to that. The first is I network constantly. I probably have 15, 20 networking calls a week. So I talk with all different people of all different shapes and sizes, and what's cool is that's kind of a numbers game, too right. So you talk to enough people and you find people that can upskill you and you start to relate with them more. I had a public speaker that was a very good friend of mine and she said you're the sum total of the five people you talk to the most. So when you network you can pick that group of people you want to talk to the most.

Jake Stahl: 28:24

The second is I'm an avid reader. I always have a stack of books that I'm going through. Most of them I get halfway through and I switch to another book and then I wind up switching back later. So every book I have is filled with highlights and dog ears and notes in the margins. So I do that. I also do I like to go back to school for things Like I just went back to school for the neurolinguistic programming to get my master's certification and I'm thinking of taking hypnotherapy, just because I think it would be neat to understand more about the way the human mind works, and I read a lot of works on social psychology. What verbiage works? Why does it work? Why doesn't it? And then, last but not least, I like to do speaking engagements and I like to attend speaking engagements. So I do some keynotes during the year and then I like to attend them, because some of the keynotes given are by brilliant people and I love to pick their brains. So that's how I try and stay sharp.

Dr. William Attaway: 29:25

I think that that mindset of a continual learner is shining through loud and clear from you, and I think that's why you're able to help and continually help so many people, because you never settle right, you never drift or coast. I know enough. I know you're constantly growing, you're constantly learning. I think that's what the best leaders do and I think that's an inspiration for everybody listening to do the same. If you could go back and talk to yourself when you were 20 years old, knowing what you know now, what would you love to go back and tell yourself?

Jake Stahl: 30:03

If you could tell yourself one thing one of my curses throughout life is wanting to be a perfectionist, wanting to get something just absolutely perfect and right before I move forward with it. And I think if I went back to my 20 year old self, I'd say nobody is perfect and don't let the quest for perfect impede your progress and um that's good.

Jake Stahl: 30:28

Yeah, I've had a lot of down times in life where I criticize myself for not being perfect and not being ready, and I think we all get into those dark corners once in a while, right? So I think I will go back and just reassure myself that you're going to be okay. People are winging it, just like you are, and that's how they learn. So that would be my advice to younger me, that's good.

Dr. William Attaway: 30:53

You already mentioned that you love to read. You read a lot. Is there a book that has made a tremendous difference in your journey that you would recommend to the leaders listening that they pick up and read?

Jake Stahl: 31:04

I would say 10X is easier than 2X would be my recommendation.

Jake Stahl: 31:11

There's a lot of great advice in there and there's a lot of great advice in there and there's a lot of great points in there and there's a lot of success stories in there of people that were down and out at one point or another or had just gotten fired and they really made something of their lives.

Jake Stahl: 31:26

But the thing to me that separates out this book is it's kind of an instruction guide. It's like okay, so here's the mindset you want to have. It's not just inspirational stories that don't tell you how to get from A to B, but this book actually, in my opinion, kind of works on your mindset and it says you're going to need to frame things and think about things in this way in order to get to this stage. And frankly, the title to me says it all. Who would think that tenets is easier than two X? But I found reading the book was a real panacea for me, at least out of the leadership books and entrepreneur books I've read, and that's to say nothing of the social psychology books and authors that I follow constantly.

Dr. William Attaway: 32:10

You know, often people are going to walk away from a conversation like this with one big idea, Jake, one big takeaway. If you could define what you want that one big takeaway to be, what would you?

Jake Stahl: 32:22

want it to be so involved in. This is a little bit of a story and to me, the takeaway is everybody wants to be heard and what's really neat is if you look back in the history books, you can see this from day one cave drawings. Even back to the days when we weren't real communicative, people were trying to tell a story, and in two ways they were trying to tell it for other people to read or look at, and they were trying to tell it so they could remember it and they could recall that story at any time. So when we look back at how much people need to be heard, we have to think to ourselves should I be focusing on that now?

Jake Stahl: 33:04

Hieroglyphics, paintings, sculptures, keynote talks, political speakers I mean, if you're a golfer, you don't buy a great driver and start driving 10 more yards and then not tell somebody. What's the fun of that? So we all want to be heard. So my suggestion would be the big takeaway is think about ways you can make people feel heard and listened to and watch how that exponentially increases your value to them. Because if people are happy when they talk to you, they're not happy with the conversation, they associate that happiness with you, and, if you're happy with me, whenever I need to talk to you, you're going to be willing to pick up the phone, and to me, that all goes back to just recognizing someone's need to be heard, and as a podcaster, you know this better than anybody, right?

Jake Stahl: 33:59

Everybody that comes on your show has the need to be heard 100% 100%.

Dr. William Attaway: 34:05

I love that. I love the others-centric focus there. Larry King once said something I've never forgotten. He said I never learned anything while I was talking, I've never forgotten that.

Dr. William Attaway: 34:22

I think, wow. He said if I'm going to learn anything today, I can only learn it by listening. As one of the great interviewers that I know, I sat up and paid attention when I heard him say that because I thought, wow, that's so true and I've tried to adapt that and I think what you've done today is really lay out the why. Why does it matter? Why does it matter so much that we listen? Well, that's how we learn and that's how we truly add value, and I believe great leaders, truly catalytic leaders, want to add value to those that they lead and those that they serve. Jake, this has been just fantastic. I so enjoyed this conversation.

Jake Stahl: 34:59

I did too. Thank you for having me. It's been quite an honor.

Dr. William Attaway: 35:03

I know people are going to want to stay connected to you and continue to learn from you. What is the best way for them to do that?

Jake Stahl: 35:10

They can do it one of two ways. They can look me up on LinkedIn I'm as Jake Stahl on LinkedIn and they can connect with me there or set up a time to talk with me. Or they can go to my website, which is jakestahlconsulting. com. And for any listener who wants to even explore ideas, I do offer a free one-hour consult, so they can just call and we can talk and if we wind up doing business together, great. And if we part as friends, well, we both have one more person that we can rely on in life, and I don't think any of us have too many of those that we can't afford to have, just one more.

Dr. William Attaway: 35:49

So true, and I bet, I'll bet that's going to be a great conversation.

Jake Stahl: 35:54

Yeah, hopefully the perfect conversation.

Dr. William Attaway: 35:58

I love that, Jake. Thank you again. Thank you, Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, Catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Dr. William Attaway: 36:38

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Intro/Outro: 37:21

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.