stop assuming and start asking so that you know for sure what is being understood. And you know for sure that when you walk alongside each other for this common goal, you are stepping forward in aligned action because you have a common understanding. This is your Badass Journey podcast. I am Terrine Walsh, serial entrepreneur, growth strategist, executive leadership coach and best-selling author.
Each week, I will bring you a guest or a thought that will help you align what you love with what you do in order to build that badass life and business you dream of. Welcome everybody to another episode of your Badass Journey podcast. I'm really excited to be here with you today. So thank you for listening, thank you for downloading and subscribing the podcast means so much.
And I am loving seeing your questions come in on my texting platform. For those of you who are taking advantage of how to connect with me and ask your questions based on the dialogue here through the show, I really appreciate each of you messaging me. I'm trying my best to get back to each one. And I decided for today's episode to answer one of your questions because that's what that platform is for.
It just finished my morning rituals. And for some of you who are new to listening and maybe this is the first episode, you're listening to, I am someone that really sat in a lot of dysfunction as part of my Badass Journey and have found new ways to thrive in today. And also love sharing those with you. Part of that are my morning rituals.
That's what sets me up each day so that I can serve all day long. I believe you have to take care of yourself first. And if you are new to listening to me and you're not exactly sure, how do I take care of myself at first, feel free to text me at 917-540-5782 and put the word AM ritual in your text. And I will shoot you over what I do every morning.
It's something that I found that if I don't take the time for me, then at this point, it's even less than 60 minutes, I think. I spend in the morning sometimes it's longer, but generally I give myself at least an hour where I get my meditation in, I get my centering intentions together, I go ahead and I do my workout, my stretching, my body movement must happen first thing in the morning, otherwise it won't happen at all throughout the day. And you know how busy we are in our meetings, right? And then I move into getting ready for the day in order to serve all day long, because as an owner of a business that is built on serving others, I need to make sure I take care of me first.
So if you would love to have access to my AM rituals, please go ahead and text me. Just grab your phone. You're probably listening to your phone right now. So just go ahead and look at it, open up a text message, dial the number 917505782 and text the word AM ritual to me.
And I will send you over what that looks like if that helps you at all. You know, that's what I'm here for. But now let's look at what today's question is from one of my amazing community members who has asked this question on how can I connect better as a leader of my team with my team? How can I connect better?
How can I build better connection? Love this question because I'm all about the connection. I'm someone that yes, I can be on a large stage and talk to many audiences and make every single audience member feel as though they connected with me. But what really fuels me is a deeper connection where we can connect one on one or in small groups, intimate groups, dinners as or workshops, I host, whatever that looks like, but go deeper.
And when a leader is asking me, how can I connect better with my team? I mean, it really, especially as an executive coach also, because I've worked with so many C-suite leaders, I love to look at where are they potentially assuming they know something and where do they actually need to start asking? So as leaders, right? And especially if you're in middle management and most of most of us are, whether or in between the board of directors as a C-suite member and having to lead our direct management team and the company in a certain direction, you're in the middle.
Even when you're owning your own company as an entrepreneur, you have your clients who have their demands, your team that needs to show up to deliver out that you're in the middle. And when you're in the middle of something, if you really want to take clear, aligned action, you have to stop assuming and start knowing. I wrote about this in Chapter 8 of my lead with Value Book, and I found that it was the number one thing I would have to go into environments and squash when I found that, especially when leaders tell me, my team is not supporting, performing in the way that I had intended or we're not hitting our deliverables or there's something that doesn't seem to be flowing well in regards to what we are trying to accomplish as a group. To me, it means that there's a breakdown in communication somewhere.
That's the first thing I look at. I know that sounds super easy, but it's actually the most complex part of any team coming together and any leader trying to lead in a way that is directive and inclusive. Communication is so key. So when I say you have to stop assuming and start knowing, it means you have to start asking questions.
A lot of us, even our team members, are potentially sitting in an assumption that they know what they're supposed to be working towards, that they assume they have all the information, or they assume that one conversation that you had with them four days ago is the same directive that's going to happen today. And so they're going along a path based on that potential assumption. But did you qualify it? Did you ask them if they actually know and understand the direction they're going?
Have you asked, do you have what you need in order to accomplish what this is? Because a lot of the times we assume when we give a directive or we maybe have made a statement, and our interpretation skills, each of us, have a different way of interpreting information that is different from each other. And what I mean by that is, when I say something, to one team member, another team member could interpret it a totally different way, because they are exposed to different things. Not everybody has been brought up in the same thinking, in the same method of translating information in the same way to deliver something, because we require diversity across our team in order to have the best results in the end, right?
So diversity also includes the way we communicate. It is different for each one of us. So as a leader, if you're trying to be a conscious leader and you're trying to connect deeper with your team, you have to stop assuming that one method of sharing information for the directive that you want the group to move against is the best form of communication for everyone. You have to start asking, what is the best way for me to translate my needs with you?
Or if you're in a group meeting and you are sharing a thought to ask the question and say, okay, who wants to tell me what was just said in your own words so that I make sure you understood where we're headed? Creating that opportunity for a higher level of communication automatically creates a deeper level of connection. You know why? Because now you know that person better.
You know that if you want an effective relationship between you and your team member or your cohorts or your colleagues, that when you learn their communication style and what they need in order to understand the information you are sharing and vice versa, then it's so much easier to communicate between you to what actually needs to happen next. And you start to build a cadence between you two that it becomes faster and faster to deliver against because now you actually understand each other's needs around communication. And you're no longer sitting in assumption thinking, oh, well, I told him the strategy, you know, January 1st, it's now June 15th. And they still should get it, right?
How many things have been interpreted between January 1st and June 15th? So many, right? Are you revisiting the conversation and reaffirming that what was understood once is still the same understanding today? How often do you actually revisit conversations and say, hey, are we still on the same page?
Did we learn anything so that we can move forward together in a better way? So connection, and this is my advice to you and how I actually coach others too, is to stop assuming and start asking so that you know for sure what is being understood. And you know for sure that when you walk alongside each other for this common goal, you are stepping forward in aligned action because you have a common understanding. So I hope that helps you.
And thank you for sending in that question. I if you want to dive in deeper or leverage the tools I have in my book lead with value, it is in chapter eight for those of you who have it. If you don't available on Amazon for you to grab it. But truly that was one of the biggest lessons learned for me when I would come up against conflict and work environments.
It was all based generally on a misunderstanding of what that end goal was. And we were leading with assumption versus leading with knowing. So start having those conversations. If you need facilitated guide chapter eight has things to work through, things you can actually facilitate with your team, with your group to build a deeper connection.
And I know the values in there because that's what I do when I enter companies and help them increase their performance. But it's something that you can leverage right now just by asking the questions. It's that simple. And if you are one of the people listening that is a fear based person, someone who has all these grandiose ideas, things you want to do next, things you want to do different.
And you're assuming you know the answer before you even try. That is another area for you to work on where you need to stop assuming the end result is going to be a bad result and start knowing for sure by just putting it out there. But I'll elaborate more on that in our next solo episode coming direct to you. And again, if you have any questions that you would like to have me answer on the show that would give you the support you need in order to take charge of your badass journey, go ahead and shoot me that text 917-540-5782.
And I will respond to your questions as I live. I will text you back obviously, but I will also bring the conversation to the podcast so more can benefit because you're not the only one with that question. And I am here to serve. I hope you have an amazing day ahead and I will see you in the next episode.
Wasn't that such a great episode? I know you got amazing takeaways from that. What I would love for you to do for me if you can help me extend my reach is go ahead and subscribe to the show so you get the latest notification and listen before anyone else. Also, if you could go ahead and post your review, your five-star review will help me get other people interested in this conversation and extend my reach of impact.
Most of all, I would love for you to share this with your community. It means so much to me to have you as a listener and I would love to connect with you. So if you have any questions you'd like me to answer on the show, go ahead and email hello at karaonkwalsh.com and my team will make sure that I get your questions so we can get them answered on the show for you. Thank you so much for listening today and I'll see you on the next episode.