Topaz Adizes: The Impact Questions

The heart is made to love, and it wants to be seen, and it wants to see. That's when we feel connection, and we all are yearning for that connection. That has not changed. What has changed is the rate of which we are communicating, how fast we're communicating. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And today's conversation is with Topaz Adizet, and he is the founder and CEO of The Skin Deep, which is an Emmy award-winning experience design studio focused on transformative power of human connection, and he is an expert in asking better questions, which I think, no matter how good we get in sales, or in life, quite frankly, or how experienced we are, we can all do better at asking better questions and listening, which is what this one was all about.

So, this one's a really interesting conversation about the human experience and how we're losing connection and how we need to get it back, basically, right? Well, I don't want to say losing. It's shifting quite significantly, and especially with social and AI. So, we dove into that right out of the gate and a little bit of his background as well. And he's got some cool things that he does with his kids and with his people that he works with about, for instance, like, ask me questions to prove that I'm not an AI bot doing this, right? Because we figured out, like, hey, this is something that's really dangerous right now, that we're living in a digital world, and so are our kids. So, how can we prove that the person we're talking to is an AI?

I thought that was a really interesting little experiment because I had to think about some questions. But the point is, is it gets down to our shared experiences. Because AI can tell me about my background, my history, and everything. But when you and I get together, you and I have a very unique conversation or experience together. And when I can ask about that, that's not something that AI can figure out. So, it was really interesting of weighing how to get down to that. But from there, we talked about what has changed in relationships and building relationships and what hasn't. And I love his whole mentality of, like, look, we just all want to be seen, right? And the other thing that hasn't changed is what you practice, you get good at.

Now, what has changed is the rate of connection and how fast we're trying to make these relationships and also that we just aren't practicing the right things anymore. So, how do you practice listening? We dove into that. We dove into how to really make sure someone's heard and tied some connections between personal and professional relationships here. And as always, you've probably heard me ask this a million times, which is, can you teach curiosity? And you're going to have to listen to the rest of this one to figure out his answer. So, I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Topaz Adizez, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast, my friend. How are you doing?

Yeah, man. Good to be here. I'm so excited for this. Are we ready? I know you are. I know you're ready. I'm always ready, my friend. Yeah, I know. Let's go. Like you heard, man, you listened to a couple of these before. Tell me about the origin story. What makes Topaz Topaz? Tell me about the parents, like, where you grew up, where you get the bug, and everything else? I think I've just always been interested in people, probably because my parents got divorced. They fought a lot as a kid, and you're trying to figure out what's going on here. But I was always just curious in people, talking to people, asking questions. When I was 18, 19, 20, and I got a hand on a camera, on a video camera, and I went traveling, I just used that camera to ask people questions.

It was a great bridge, door opener into other people's worlds, right? And that kind of led me on 20 years of filmmaking. The last 11, I've been running this experience design studio called The Skin Deep, where we're really exploring human connection. Transforming, you know, how is our relationships as human beings, the experience of being human, shifting in lieu of all these technologies that are coming about? Because no doubt, we are so good at adapting to change. We humans are just so good at adapting to change that we quickly take what was once crazy and random, or what, to, oh yeah, that's normal. And yet, we don't realize how it's changing us. And I created an experience design studio to explore that.

So, for the last 11 years, one of our flagship winning things was The And, is this project called The And, where we basically bring two people to a room, film them with three cameras, give them a bunch of questions, and we watch what happens. It's a great space for humans to be humans. And basically, I like to a book, I like to do all these car games, and basically, it all started because my parents fought a lot as a kid. I was four years old, and my brother was 15 months younger, and I'm trying to protect him, or just kind of make sense of the world, and I was just wondering, like, what's wrong here? Why aren't they connecting? And I think that, it kind of led me on that journey. That was a question.

That was a question that kind of led me. Curiosity that led me. Love it, man. So, I want to dive into a little bit of that, but you said something interesting there, which is, you know, how is human experience shifting? Like, and I'm curious, how are you seeing it shift? Like, especially right now. Totally. With, I mean, there's one thing about social media, and there's a whole nother thing about AI, and I'm starting to get really concerned, because I got a 14-year-old daughter here, man. And I'm starting to really get concerned that this, that the online relationship, so here's my, here's kind of my fear, right? It's like the movie Her. Remember the movie Her? Totally. Totally. So, she's, you know, the, all these kids grow up in this digital world, because right now, for instance, you and I are looking at each other, but this is a digital representation of you.

This is not you. Mm-hmm. Now, I'm a 49-year-old man here, so I remember relationships, you know, I know what it's like to sit down with somebody and have a cool conversation and network and all that other stuff, but these kids are growing up with this digital representation of the person on their phone. And now AI is getting to the point where I'm not, I might not even be able to recognize if this is actually you or not. Mm-hmm. And so, like, help me understand, like, from your perspective, how are you seeing this, this experience shift and what are kind of the, the positives and negatives about it from your perspective? Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that for the last 11 years, and it was really focused around the internet and technology, but now that AI here, it's just, it's just more fuel on the fire.

And I think it's really important to ask the questions, to focus on the questions you ask, because to say, is this good or bad is actually irrelevant. It doesn't matter. It's fucking here. You know, it's like you're in a flood and you're wondering, is the flood good or bad? It doesn't matter. It's flooded. What are you going to do about it? So, social media, like, what are we doing about it? AI is here. What are we doing about it? I mean, there's a game that I play with my team that I think is funny is, because every week we have, like, a team meeting where we wrap, you know, just connect and wrap up the week when we play it, we ask them questions, but there's a new game I created, which is, like, all right, ask me a question that proves, like, in the answer I'm going to give you that I'm not an AI.

Ah, I like that. Because how do you know? How do you know? How do you know? And if you play that game, what you'll find is that the questions that make sure that the person you speak to is not an AI kind of avatar is asking them about specific moments that you've shared with them that reflect an emotion or a shared memory that a unique perspective is, like, kind of through the vehicle of an emotion. Because otherwise, if you go, you know, where was I born? Well, an LLM, a large angle model could find that out. Anyhow, let's go back to what's important. Like, you asked about how it's shifting and something I think a lot about. Man, where do we even begin? Like, our grandmother used to write, and I'm 48, I fell in love, I was in high school, I wanted to play soccer abroad, so it was summer abroad, I couldn't see her, she was back in the States, and I would write her letters.

And I'd write that letter, that ink would bleed into, from the pen, into the paper, I'd link the envelope, I'd post it, and I'd wait. I'd wait three weeks for a response. Nowadays, if you don't get a response from a DM in three minutes, you think you're being ghosted. If you don't see that delivery mark, double check on WhatsApp or whatnot, the rate of change is changed so much that I don't think, even though we call it love, even though we call it patience, even though we call it communicating, I don't think it's the same thing. And just a simple example, my grandfather, you know, he flicked me on the back of the ear one time, I was talking to a friend on the phone, it was a rotary phone, one of those that you, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

Even that, right? You remember that, the sense of patience, of like, I mean, we don't even need to know phones anymore, we just say, call, call Jimmy, call this, boom, automatic. So, I'm sitting on the phone and my grandpa comes, flicks me in the back of the ear, and I go, well, what are you doing? He goes, what are you doing? What are you doing? I'm like, I'm talking to my friend. He goes, you don't use the phone to talk to your friend, you use the phone to make an appointment to talk to your friend in the park. You talk to your friend in the park when you're sitting next to him, not on the phone, and God knows how much it's changed now. But we're not so aware of it. That's what I'm trying to bring to the foreground, is being conscientious of the changes so that you utilize technology to facilitate the emotional experience you want to have as a human being in this life that you have.

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Now let's get back to the conversation. Yeah, it's, you know, I said that exact thing to my daughter, right? So my wife's like trying to prevent her from, I go, look, we're not going to prevent her from using this stuff. So I told her, I go, first of all, we just have to instill confidence and that type of thing, because that's the big battle against all of it. But I told my daughter, I go, look, I don't mind if you use social, just use social. Don't let it use you. And that's the key. It's like all these kids are reacting to whatever it is, and they're letting the algorithms dictate where they go. I go, no, no, no, if we give you Instagram, if we are going to go on and we are going to force feed your feed with positive stuff, with positive affirmation things, with like, you know, educate, because otherwise you're just a victim to the algorithm and they're going to dictate wherever you go.

But if you think about it and you leverage it to build relationships to really, then it can be an absolute superpower. Well, let's talk about the superpower, which is amazing. I mean, if you think about the people you would meet before the internet came out, like the love that you'd find, the business partners you'd find, it was predicated on physical proximity. You met them at church, at work, supermarket, your friend's party. Okay. Now, you can actually go out and find people that relate to similar interests to you that have nothing to do with physical proximity. That's no longer the basis of connection. What the basis of connection now is interest and passion. And you can find some guy in China who has the same passions for remote control airplanes as you do.

And you have this incredible, you can cultivate that. That's an amazing superpower. We're no longer physically proximate. Right? And so utilizing these kind of superpowers, I think, is really, we're having a conversation and we're miles apart. Different time zones. It's wonderful. The access of information that we have now is way beyond what it had when you and I were growing up. And if we teach our kids to learn and study the way that you and I did, which is basically memory recitation, it's not going to be helpful at all for them. Pointless. Pointless. So, you know, walking into the future and knowing that, to me, is not about the answers. It's about the questions you ask. So the question is like, okay, are we going to give her a social media night?

Is that a really good question? Versus how are we going to utilize social media to her benefit? How do we deepen the word benefit? To what benefit? So that she feels more expansive, so she can tap into her passions that might not be in her community, but might be in the world. And then we can facilitate that. I mean, we have to shift the way we're thinking because we do have these superpowers at hands. And if we don't use them, they'll use us. Yeah. And that's my biggest fear is like that we're, and I hate to say it, but like we're a large portion of our population are just sheep and they just kind of keep going through the motions. They show up. They're almost like the NPCs in video games where they just kind of get up every day.

They do their thing and they just wait for somebody else to tell them what to do, i.e. social media. Whereas the ones who have, I don't know, I'm called unplugged from the matrix, if you will, but like the ones who are just like, you know what? Great. I'm going to learn this shit so I can learn. I tell everybody, you've got to learn the game before you, before you break the rules of the game. You got to learn the rules of the game so that you can break the rules of the game. But you got to learn them first. And my question, I guess for you is, are the rules changing? Like, you know, fundamentals, for instance, right, when it comes to human connection and those types of things, there's some deep psychological things that do not change about us as human beings.

But what are you seeing as changing right now as, as kind of the core? I'm curious from your perspective, because I just, I don't know the answer to this question. I'm searching for it. Well, what do you mean when you say core? Like, what do you, what do you mean? I'll use like a core of human interaction, core of relationships, right? To your point, like it was proximity. So I was at the church and da, da, da, versus now I hit you up online. It's a 30 minutes, a swipe left. So are my, my relationship development skills, if you will, which were what they were 20 years ago when I first, you know, 30 years ago when I got into business and how we develop relationships and build relationships, are the fundamentals still there or have they shifted?

Yeah. Great question. So there are things that have not changed, such as we all want to be seen. In my opinion, we all want to be seen. For me, watching over 1200 pairs of all kinds of relationships in 10 countries for the last 11 years, sit down and face each other and ask each other questions. People still want to be seen. They want to, we call it connection. We call it love. It's, you want to show yourself and be seen. And there's things that you need to do in order to make that happen, creating a safe space, albeit uncomfortable, ask well-constructive questions. But fundamentally, when I'm sitting there watching our, I mean, we, we have a production. I'm sitting there, my team and I are sitting there all day long, literally watching like seven therapy sessions, seven pairs sit there talking to each other and we don't do anything.

We just sit there. We're recording, make sure the cameras are running and the space is there. We're really good at letting humans be humans. It's a privilege. It's an honor. How many people get to do that? Even therapists who get to do that, they're asking questions. They're like guiding. They're part of the, in my world, well, what we do, no, we just pull up, place the questions and watch what happens. And we do that for hours at a time. And I'm watching that for years. And it's an honor privilege because I'm seeing the vulnerability people. And what I've learned is that hearts are made to love. The heart is made to love. And it just, and I just, I just see it as just people. The heart is trying to find its way through the maze of your own shame and trauma and scar tissue, emotional scar tissue of what you've gone through to then reach out outside of your own kind of internal patterns and challenges to then into culture and society, which has its own rules of stigmas and what it is, to just reach and connect with another yearning heart.

And it wants to be seen and it wants to see. And that's when we feel connection. And we all are yearning for that connection. That has not changed. Right? What has changed is the rate of which we are communicating, how fast we're communicating. How, and I'll tell you what hasn't changed, the rule that what you practice, you get good at. What has changed is the things we're practicing. Maybe in the past, you'd sit in the park, like my grandfather used to say, and you'd listen. So you practice sitting there listening. When I spent time with the cowboys in Colorado with the ranches there, they would have conversations. And then after some moment, they just stop and there blew to be about 90 seconds of two minutes of silence.

And me who had been living in New York for so long, I thought that silence was my cue to get the fuck out. They were like, get out, leave. We're done talking. No, that wasn't the cue. It was like, there was pauses to see what else comes up. There's time. Now, the urge for connection, the urge to like see each other, the urge to communicate, the fact that what you practice at, you get good, that hasn't changed. What has changed is what are we practicing? We're practicing social media, like watching things that are just yelling at us or us yelling into the social media, saying what we're doing in our world and just putting out, where's the listening? Are we practicing listening? I don't think so.

Right? So it's like the tools that we're using are shifting the things that we do as practice. Therefore, it's shifting what we're good at, but it's not shifting the core fundamental fact that we all want to be seen, that we all want to be connected to other people. Right? How do you practice listening? I know that sounds like a dumb question, but to your point on that, like silence is the most awkward thing most people have to deal with. It's like they feel like they have to fill it with something. And you and I both know that silence is gold. I mean, especially if I'd spend this on the sales side of the house, like, you know, there's the old adage of closing, right? Where, you know, you see, you ask the closing question, then whoever speaks first loses.

But like, and that's kind of dumb, but, but there is something to that in the sense that like when I ask a question, even if it's a closing question, you might be genuinely thinking about and probably going to say yes, but you're kind of cultivating what you want to say. And if I jump on that, because I I'm uncomfortable with, with that silence, I might derail your thought process. And all of a sudden you might be like, wait a minute, maybe I don't want to do this. So it's actually in your best interest to shut the fuck up when it comes to asking a question and listen, but I don't know how to, I don't know how to tell people how to practice that. Man, that's, that's great. So I think there's two things that we should just distinguish between in a client sales relationship where you're, you know, offering services or products to people.

It's a different kind of listening than if you're with a relationship of someone and it's kind of more on the personal reflection of life as a friend, as an intimate partner, as a family member. In the workspace, what I recommend is playing it back to the person. And what I mean by that is, because how many, how many times does this happen? And definitely happens when you're being sold, at least when I'm getting sold to, is that I'm saying something and they cut me off and like, yeah, yeah, it's kind of like this, that, that, that, that. And in my mind, it's absolutely not like that. Right. But because I don't want to be rude and say, no, fucker, you're not listening. I'm just going to, I just continue like finishing.

And I don't want to be rude and be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I continue on my track and we're on two different tracks. But that happens all the time. People don't want to be rude. People don't want to, like, A, when you're listening, are you listening for a response and you're thinking about your response? Because then you're not listening. You're just prepping your response. You're just prepping your response to make the sale. You're prepping your response so that they say you're right. You're prepping the response to show how smart you are. So you're not listening. And the best way to practice, one, in terms of work, in my opinion, work, is that before you give them your thought, play back what you hear them saying.

And then give them three options. Option one, no, that's not what I'm saying. Right? That's not what I'm saying. So please, I want to play back what you're saying because I want to make sure that I get it. Please tell me if I'm saying what you're saying or if I'm not right, if I'm not getting it right. And if I'm not getting it right, like, please say it again. Because it's important for me to understand where you're coming from. Because this goal is going to inform me in the better way I can serve you. Second option is, yep, that's exactly what I'm saying. Thank you. Okay, so if that's what you're saying. Now, what happens to the person who says that? They've heard you play it back. They're like, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Their body physiologically relaxes because most of the time when we have conversations, you think it's about being right. It's not. It's about being heard. Right? This also works with your partner, with anybody who they're interviewing with. When you're like, okay, they heard my POV. They get my POV. They might disagree with it. But I know they heard it because they just played it back perfectly. So second option, first option is like, no, that's not what I said. Second one is, yes, that's what I said. Thank you. And then we move on to a response and then you feed them. But they know they've been heard. And the third option that they have is, you know what, now that you say it that way, shit, I don't think that way.

Oh, you know what? I learned that because now I heard it played back to me. It actually gives me a deeper understanding or a different nuance. So let me continue on that. And this is a great way to activate listening and definitely in the client-sales relationship for them to know that you are listening because you're paying it back. And the physiology relaxes because they've been heard and they know you're on the same page. And now we can move forward together. Do you, have you ever read anything like Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference, him, right? No, I haven't. I haven't read Chris Voss. Just in the master class, right? Negotiator. Yeah. You might be, because he's got some little nuances of like, of that scenario, like called mirroring, right?

Like kind of repeating back, like first of all, somewhere, but what, what's an interesting nuance that he, that I picked up on was like, when you do that, right? When you summarize, but let me make sure I heard you're right. What you're looking for is, is that's right versus you're right. Like if somebody's like, oh yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right. Yep. That's it. That's more than placating you. Like, yeah, okay, cool. Yeah. You're the smart. But if they're like, no man, that's right. Like you nailed it. Now all of a sudden they're heard. And, and, you know, he has a similar philosophy of like, that's all people want to do is they just want to be heard. So no matter how contentious the situation is, if you can make them feel like you're genuinely listened and heard them, then you can diffuse almost any difficult situation.

And one thing, yeah, I agree with that. And I think one also thing to be aware of is some, we do that now and some people will go, I hear you. And then they move on to their response. Yeah. And that also can piss people off because they're like, you're just saying you hear me, but you didn't hear me. You didn't hear me. So actually you have to play it back. You gotta play it back. Like, I hear what you're saying. What I'm hearing you say is this. Ah, they did hear me. And they've taken the time to play it back. How do you like, yeah. Sorry, go ahead. I think that's in the realm of the workspace. I think creative listening, well, I call creative listening. I got it from a very good friend of mine who's brilliant, Richard Tripp.

But it's that, I think that's a good way of practicing because maybe the first time you play it back and you've created, you know, they're like, no, that's not what I'm saying. And they're like, okay, let me hone in on this. Because be aware when you're hearing conversation, you're really hearing your own thoughts of the response instead of actually taking them in. Can you teach curiosity? Good question, man. That's something that's come up a lot because I don't think you can teach curiosity. But I think we're curious about many different things. So I'm curious about people. But you might be curious about the psyche of people. Right. You might be curious about sports. You might be curious about wine.

You might be curious about cooking. I couldn't care less about cooking. Right? I mean, I do, but not really. It's like, how do you find what people are curious about? And what are you curious about? And clearly, like, I mean, if you're in the sales profession, you must be some level curious about people. People's psyche. Because you're a people person, a relationship. You're building relationships of which you are offering immense service to that you're offering them to help them. Right? And I think you have to be curious about problems. You know what I mean? Right. Like, tell me about that problem. Like, there's you and me relationship-wise. But I'm, like, from a sales standpoint, I'm trying to figure out what is this real problem here.

Right. Right? And maybe you don't have to be curious about both. Right. Like, maybe you're a great salesman because you're really curious about problems and you don't actually care about, maybe that can work. I just think it's like, don't fake the curiosity. Because people feel it. And on the flip side, they also feel the curiosity. When you're curious and you're asking from that place of curiosity, they feel it. And they're like, okay, let me feed that. They feel it and they want to feed it. So, don't fake the curiosity. Find your curiosity and cultivate that space, the questions that come from that space. Love it. Let's go to that personal because you got them looking at the skin deep here.

Some of these, and I kind of watch some of them. How do you delineate when it comes to miscommunication, right? And questions. And I'm going to use the broad strokes here of men and women, right? And again, I know there's millions of gray lines in between this, but I'm just going to bucket these two here. And the general sense of men are very factual and objective and kind of simple and women are emotional and whatever. So, regardless of if it's a male or a woman, how do you use questions, I guess, to get to break between the objectivity and the logic and the emotion? And is there one that's more important than the other when it comes to getting to a mutual agreement, if you will? Wow. Wait, break that down because that's interesting.

You said, you're defining between the objectivity and the emotion as though they're different or they're opposed. Right. So, say I'm a logical person, right? And I'm like, so one of the things, and the reason I bring this up is because, you know, if you take the word feel out of the conversation, it gets down to the why, right? Because I can't control how you feel about something. I can control what I did to make you feel that way. So, one of my buddies who went to therapy, he said, like, his doctor, his therapist literally told him, because it's him and his wife were just yelling at each other all the time, and they were like, hey, just for a week, you can't say the word feel or think in your arguments.

You have to tell them why. And so, when they would start arguing, it'd be like, well, I feel like you don't listen to me. It's like, I can't do anything about what you feel like I do. Tell me why you don't think I listen to you. Well, the other day. Why do you feel I don't listen to you? Yeah. And the other day, I came home, I was telling you about my day, and da-da-da-da, and you were zoned out, you were looking over my shoulder, and then you forgot that we were going out tonight. It's like, okay, now I understand why you feel like I don't. It's not that I wasn't listening to you. It's just that, right? So, I guess, is there something to be said for objectivity versus subjectivity, feelings versus logic, when it comes to coming to a mutual agreement, and can you get there from a questioning standpoint?

Yeah, that's great. Oh, man, there's a lot we can talk about there. So, all right, let's talk about the objectivity, subjectivity. There is, okay, bottom line from what I've learned from doing this for so long is that all the power is in the questions. It's not in the answers. And we are so focused on the answers that we miss out the fact that you might get the right answer to the wrong question. And when I mean wrong, it's like, it's just not going to, it's not a powerful question. It's not going to put you, why did she break up with me? Okay, how helpful is that question going to help you? Versus what am I going to take from this relationship that I'll carry to the next? Right? What have I lost in what I'm going to become?

Or what am I losing in the thing that I'm becoming? Right? Right? So, I've just seen that always, that the answer is shaped by the question. So, you're already shaping the answer in how you construct the question. If you ask your kids, if you ask your kids, do you want to go to sleep now or later? You know the answer is later. Or if you say, you want to go to sleep, they'll say yes, no, no. But if you say, do you want to sleep on the bed or the couch? Not sleeping is not an option. The question already presupposes that you're going to bed. The questions shape the answer. And we don't learn how to ask quality questions. We don't learn that. We learn it maybe from modeling in your family or modeling in your peer group.

And all the power is in the questions. So, check this out. Subjectivity. You're in a conversation with someone and you say, I don't know, why do we fight so much? It's not a good question, but let's just say, why do we fight so much? Why do we argue? Why did I hurt you? You know, why are you upset at me? Whatever. Just add the words, do you think, do you feel? So, it's opposite to what your therapist said, right? But I think the therapist had a great point, which is different. Which is to communicate to the other energy that needs like tactical things to actually hold. Because feeling is totally lost and they have no idea. And that, I don't consider that male or female. I consider it masculine and feminine.

So, I take it away from the gender, just make it like an energy. Because, you know, we have a lot of LGBTQ couples and they might be both gendered female. But there's definitely a masculine energy in the room. And it answers differently than the feminine energy. So, but in that case, you have, if you add the words, why do you feel? Or why do you think that we fight so much? Or that we have a big conflict or whatever. By making that, you're making them give you a response that is subjective. Right? If I say, why do we fight so much? Sean, you're going to be like, well, whatever your answer is, that question puts you in the position of being the arbiter of objective truth. She'll say, well, we fight so much because of this and that.

I say, well, no, that's not true. We don't fight. So, already that sets us up for conflict because that's not my reality. Your answer is not going to be. But if I say, hey, John, why do you feel that we fight so much? You go, well, because this, this, and that. I can't argue with that. That's your feeling. That's what you think. I think in the case of your therapist, which I think was actually really good, they're saying like, look, you say that, but I can't do anything actionable on your feelings. And that is, again, like, sometimes we need to have what the answers are in order to act on them. But what I found in the years of doing this is that it's not about the answers. It's about sitting in the discomfort of the questions.

It's about sitting in the discomfort of the questions. You're sitting there, contentious part, calling at work, your partner at home, whatever it is, kid. Just ask the question, and you know what? You don't have to answer it. Maybe the answer will come up in a week when you're on that walk, finally, or after, you know, who knows, after the dinner, something comes. Ask the question and allow yourselves to be uncomfortable and sit in that space. It's okay. Because oftentimes we confound safety with comfort. You think you're uncomfortable, therefore, you're not safe. You think that if you're safe, you're always comfortable. No. So as soon as you ask the uncomfortable question, you're like, race didn't get the answer.

You get in the fight, da, da, da, da. Like, no, no, no. Hey, you know, we have a safe space enough that we can ask a question and sit in the discomfort of that question. How do you... That's a lot there. Yeah. It is. It is. So a lot of, again, emotional-driven stuff is hard to deal with, right? Because it, again, it's... Yeah, for masculine energy, it's like... Brutal. Because it's just like, I don't know what to do with it. But it comes back to, like, what do you practice? Like, we're not practicing sin and the emotion. And that's why oftentimes in our spaces, usually there's one energy that brings the other person. Usually in the past, it's very often been, like, a feminine energy that's more holistic and wants to express emotion while the other more reserved, concrete, direct energy, masculine energy, does not.

However, what we've seen is that once you step in that space, the masculine energy, which always addresses challenge and wants to overcome challenge, goes, oh, wait, wait, we're in this space? This is the challenge now is to actually have this? All right, let's go there. Let's do it. And it might be hard for them. And that's why it's important for us, again, like, ask a hard question and you're trying to search for that feeling and you don't really know. I mean, I remember going to therapy in my 20s and she goes, how do you feel? I go, I don't even know what you're talking about. And she gave me a list of, like, 50 feelings. She's like, choose one. I'm like, what? Look, I get it. I mean, but the point is, when you first jumped on that bike without the assist in wheels, I mean, you fell off.

So, you know, you learn, the first time you got on a surfboard, you fell off. You didn't catch a wave. You got to, like, practice. So how do you practice it? You got to be comfortable in the uncomfortableness and be like, okay, I don't know how to articulate my emotions. That's cool. And your partner can be like, hey, thanks for just sitting in the space with me. And I think that's what we're, so because in our effort to always find the answer, whether it's at work or in the relationship, we're running past the discomfort of sitting in the space, which is where the answer is seated and it will soon blossom. But in our rush to get the answer, we're not, like, giving you the space to sit and practice the feeling of, like, listening to yourself, seeing what that emotion is, and allowing you to be you.

I don't know. Maybe it's too foo-foo. I feel like it's too foo-foo. No, no, no. I feel like all this is just, you're like, this stuff is, again, doesn't make any sense. Like, give me space. Let me do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, sorry. No, it's not at all. Because, look, we're talking about human connection here at the end of the day, right? Whether it's sales, whether it's personal relationships, whether it's partnerships, it doesn't matter. It's about finding a way to connect with people in a way that isn't superficial, that isn't artificial. And I feel my fear, and there's a reason I was interested in this conversation, is I feel like we're just sprinting towards artificial. And our relationships are so shallow these days.

And we don't even talk, like, we're all arguing. There's no middle ground anymore for anybody. It's, and nobody's willing to listen, really listen, but also nobody knows the right type of question to answer to listen. And I think that's the challenge. It's like, you know, here's one I'd love your opinion on, right? It's like, why, when some, let's talk political. I'm not going to pick sides here, but it's like, a lot of people are like, well, why do you feel that way? Well, that's like, that's again my, like, this is why I feel this way, because, and now it's an argument. But it's just, instead shifting it to slightly, say, could you help me understand how you got to believe this? That's a nice question.

Right. So instead of why do you believe this? Well, fuck you. This is why I believe it, because now you're going to be like, well, that's not true. Like you said earlier, but if it's just take a step back, could you help me understand like, where did you, how did you all of us like, because I remember you back in whenever, and you believed these things, and now you, it feels like you've, you've done something different. So how did you come to this belief? But do you see how you adding, can you help explain to me how you came to this? Can you help explain to me that instantly puts you in a vulnerable position because they're helping you. Just by putting that in the construction of the question, already you're offering kind of a leaf, a peace offering, because you're making yourself vulnerable.

You're going, hey, I need help. Like, whoa. Now, if they're an asshole and they're going to come at you aggressively while you put that, it's, you know, it's more difficult for you to attack someone when they offer you a question like that. It's much easier to attack someone in defense when they're pointing a finger at you. Why the fuck do you feel like that? Versus, hey, can you help explain to me why? And now, obviously, you can say that in a tone that feels the same as like, why the fuck? But if you come with curiosity of like, hey, I'm curious about this. I respect this and this about you, but this I don't really get. And I'm really curious. Can you help explain to me? Like, because I'm curious, not because I want to prove you wrong, because I do want to, I do respect your own opinion in your own space.

So I would like to know what, like how you came to that conclusion, because it's not even for you to convince me, right? When you feel that in the sense of the question and the construction of the question, both the tone and the construction, it puts you in a much better position to have a conversation that facilitates some sense of connection versus not. And you just shaping the, that's what I'm saying, like the powers in the question. And we're all focusing on the thing we want or the answer. And it's like, okay, whatever you want, focus on the question, shape the question in a way that already directs them to make it conciliatory, to make it a space where you can actually learn to understand one another and connect.

What's the difference between like asking a question to understand and like a leading question? So some of the stuff that you've talked about is kind of like, you want to know like kind of where you're going with this is, but there's two trains of thought on this. One is, I actually don't want to do any preparation. I just want to come in curious and I just want to ask a bunch of questions, see where this goes, right? The other one is like, and I'm going to angle this on the sales side of the house, like I need to get this motherfucker to close this deal. So I'm going to ask leading questions, some assumptive questions and I'm going to try to lead this person and there's this negotiation book out there called Getting the Yes, which is the whole concept of you get a bunch of little fucking yeses and all of a sudden you get yes at the end.

It's like you have all these questions and I remember I sat through a timeshare pitch and they asked me and I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And it's just like, you feel like you're being manipulated. And so there's one thing about like seeing where you want to go versus just being, what's the balance here? And I guess I know it's situational based, but. Yeah. You look, I don't know. I mean, I don't, I'm not well established in the space of making the sale and understand that language. I'm just established in the space of my experience of having conversations where people can connect and understand each other in a way that they hadn't before. And what I tell people is what's imperative about in order to do that, you need to create the space and ask well-constructed questions.

What I hear you saying is, what's imperative about creating the space is that you articulate your intention, not your agenda. The agenda is where you end up. Okay. And people can feel that. So in a sales, you're, you want to articulate your intention, which is where you're beginning, but not your agenda, which is where you're ending up. And oftentimes, when people are sold to, they can feel the agenda. When your partner comes to you and says, why did you leave the toilet seat up or why didn't you clean the dishes or why didn't you do this? You're not really listening to the question. You can feel the agenda behind it, which is like, oh, I fucked up. I better like find my way out of this. So when you feel an agenda from someone, which is like, they want to get you to where they want to go to, what comes out from you is your head, which is there to protect you.

And it's like, wait one second, there's something going on. There's an agenda here. They want us to get to point C. I don't want to get to point C. I don't even know. But the point is, if you say the agenda where we begin, then it's like, okay, that's where we begin. I don't know what we're going to end up. We might not make the sale, but this is where I'm coming from. And if they know where you're coming from, there's a level of trust that comes out because like, oh, that's where they're coming from. They feel it. Let's take the positive version of this for a relationship. Yeah. Right? So my agenda is to save my marriage. Okay? So do I ask questions like, or my, or I guess maybe, maybe my intention, but no, I think your intention is to save your marriage.

Like, you don't know how you, you don't know how to save it. If you, your agenda would be, I'm going to save my marriage by apologizing to her or getting her to apologize to me or for us to do this, then you think you already know the solution. You think you already know the answer. Gotcha. Okay. But your intention, see how it sounds like, in that case, would be like, my intention is like, yo, I want to save my marriage. That's where, I don't know how to do it. No, but keep, does that work or no? Let's go. Well, does that, does that limit your curiosity in the sense that if I, if my intention is to save my marriage, I'm going to ask questions with a specific intent in mind, right? To, to save my marriage because I want to get to the deeps of it.

But maybe you are on a different playing field here, right? So, so for me, try to force this down versus just having a conversation about where the fuck are we right now? Yeah. And can we save this marriage? So I guess, like, right, so, yeah, great, great, this is good. Look, you go to your partner and you start asking them questions. Why do you think we fight so much? And what, what is it teaching us? They're like, where is this coming from? Yeah. They're like, where the fuck is this coming from? No. If you come and say, listen, I, I feel, right? I feel because that's my own experience or I'm experiencing for whatever reason because this, this, this, that, that makes me feel that like our, our relationship is at risk and I, and I want to save it.

I'm not sure how to save it, but I want to save it. So therefore, I like to ask questions and I want you to ask questions. Now we can play like this car game. We can play this book that I found, whatever, but I got questions. Then they know where you're coming from. And then they're like, okay, let's go on this journey. Versus, hey, our relationship is at risk and I think the only way for it to solve is that we have to have deep, meaningful connections where we both cry and hug each other. And the other person is like, what the fuck? I don't know if that's what I want. I don't know. Then you're like, you're forcing me into a corner. So the point is this, look, humanity, it's not inside of us.

It's between us. So how do you cultivate it? That sense of connection is not inside of you. It's between you with other people. So the question is, how do you cultivate that space? You cultivate it by inviting the heart, if you will, the feelings, like safe space, uncomfortable, but to converse. The mind though, that shit's built to protect you and it's great at protecting you. So you have to invite conversations that invite, you have to create and cultivate conversations and invite the heart out, not the mind out. If you come to one and say, hey, I want to have a conversation because you hurt my feelings and I want you to apologize to me, your mind is going to come out to the foreground and protect you.

And like, now you're having a conversation with the other mind and that's not really going to connect you. Instead, you say, listen, I'm really upset this thing happened. I don't know why it did or how it did, but I just want to have a conversation to explore it. I don't know where it leads to. I don't know where I'm going to, where, you know, I'm not looking for an apology, but I just, I'm looking for greater understanding. That's what I'm looking for. I don't know how, in what form is going to come. I don't know where we'll end up, but I know where we're beginning and people know where you're starting from. And that's more of an invitation for the heart to come out versus the mind. Because as soon as the mind comes out, now we're playing politics.

I mean, is there some form of that when you're making a sales, when you're like having a conversation that you, you know, you kind of want to avoid one side of their mind and another? Yeah, I'll always, most sales reps are scared to death of the objections. They want to avoid them at all costs. So they're going to try to angle everything and they're going to hear what they want to hear. That's the problem in sales is that they come in with a defined goal of what they're trying to do for the most part. They're trying to close the deal so they can get their fucking commission check. And really, ultimately what sales is truly all about is solving problems. And so if you go in with the mindset of, hey, I'm looking to solve a problem here.

And like I said earlier, you know, maybe I can solve it, maybe I can't. But my job is to help you either achieve your goals or solve your problems. And that's why I'm here. And I think if you go in with that intention, then you're open to asking and being curious and all that other stuff. But if you go in with the agenda of, I'm trying to close this deal. I actually just wrote a blog post on this about people who are starting companies. If you are an entrepreneur and you start a company with the end goal in mind, like I want to sell my company too, I want to go public, like the likelihood of you getting there is almost zero because entrepreneurship is fucking brutal. And if you don't absolutely love what you do and aren't passionate about the problem you're solving, the outcome is never going, you're never going to reach it.

So you start with the right intent to I'm trying to solve this problem and then you might go IPO, then you might sell. So I think it's, that's the challenge that most sales reps is like obviously the goal is to hit our quota, to hit, you know, right now at the end of the year, it's just like, holy shit, the amount of quote unquote non-listening and closing that's happening right now is brutal. And so, but if you just listen to people and figure out what their actual problem was and they felt heard, now all of a sudden, like they're, it's a relationship, it's not a sale. And that's, in the world I'm in at least, you're looking for the relationship not the sale. Mm-hmm. Because the relationship will lead to way more sales than anyone ever would.

That's what I hear. That's what I'm hearing is like, if someone's coming at you with a direct sale, they're not listening to you, you feel it and what comes out is your own mindset to protect you. Be like, I'm not going for this. This is, you know, this is a sale. Versus, if their intention is to understand your problem and help you solve it, then that kind of deactivates the mind that's protecting and it's like, okay, how do we get there? Yeah. Two more points on this. First of all, where'd the book, where'd the title come from? The And. Oh, because a relationship is not you or I, us or them, it's you and I. It's like us and them. It's the and that connects us, right? I thought it was like the opposite of the but, right?

Like, yes, but, right? It's like, you don't listen to anything like that. So, and versus the but. All right, cool. And let's talk, let's finish up with like, some super practical and tactical stuff here on like how people can practice asking questions and listening. And I, and I want to put this in the sense of helping me out. I'm going to be super selfish on this one. That, you know, 14 year old daughter comes home from school. What a, what a 99% of parents ask, how was your day? Yeah. Right. It's a terrible question. You know, fine, whatever. Yeah, I know. So, so what can you do? Like, let's talk about like, maybe a friend version of this or, or like a partner version of like, when you come home at the end of the day, like what's a, what's a question that, that would facilitate a much deeper and understanding and, and, and answer, if you will.

Man, I'm working on that. For, for the, for what? For like, for a kid, like for my 14 year old daughter, like what's the question I should ask her that, that'll facilitate a conversation. And then for my like, wife or partner or whoever else, like what are two or three things that people listening to this podcast could come off and say, you know what, when my wife comes home, when my partner comes home, instead of me doing the drone, like how was your day and that type of shit and she drones through her, or he drones through her thing, I want to ask a more meaningful question that gets to like something interesting. So look, I mean, okay, first of all, the kid thing, my kid's four, I get, I get the same thing.

He's four. I'm like, his friends get in the car, I ask them, they give me a whole hour long, my kid, he's like, nah, I forgot. I mean, it's just personality, but like, I know that, and I don't have an answer for that, per se, like the right question, but for the partners I do, and also like, look, this is what we miss, man. It's a, you got to create the space. You got to create the space because, because look, you don't have a great, I love this line. It's like, look, you don't cook in the bedroom and you don't sleep in the kitchen. You do certain things in certain places. Are you creating this space where like, yo, this is what we do. I'm trying to get my son to watch the sunset with me every day on the, on the, on the kind of like outdoor on the chair.

Trying to make that thing and see if that lasts. Definitely with my wife, everyone says like, hey, respect the date night, have a date night. You know, it's about creating the space, but then what do you do in that space? That's where you need well-constructed questions, right? Um, and, and, so one thing like, what I've heard, you know, I have another friend who's got a 16-year-old daughter and I was talking to him and he goes, you know, it's crazy. She comes home and I say, how was your day? Nothing, nothing, nothing. Then it's like 1130 at night and she hasn't quite gone to bed yet and I'm sitting there having like, whatever, a cup of tea before I go to bed and she comes to have a cookie and milk and she just opens up and I don't go to bed till one.

Sometimes you got to wait for the space to show up or you create the space without feeling it like an agenda, just an intention. You know, like, hey, this is our space every Saturday morning. We'll go for a walk and we get like a bagel and cream cheese. We don't have to talk about shit if we don't want to, but the space is there and it's there every Saturday. Or once a year for Thanksgiving, the family gets together, we know that's, but like, why do we have those? Because we create the spaces and hopefully in the spaces those things happen. I mean, fireplaces, why do you have great convos around fireplaces? Because there's nothing else to look at. And the fire, like, you know, it's like original TV, you know?

And so, are you, can you create the space? Now, creating the space means you put the intention, but you don't know what's going to happen in it. You got to be cool with that. You got to, if you put, my dad's always creating the space where it's like, we got to connect and everyone's like, fuck that. Like, you can't force me to, I don't want to step into that. So, you got to create the space and you got to, why? Because, look, it's much easier to open a gift than to respond to a finger that's pointing at you. Here's a space, it's a gift, there's no agenda, there's just an intention. What happens up, comes up. If it doesn't come up now, maybe it'll come up next week. That way, people don't feel forced.

They got to feel like an opportunity to step in instead of like responding to being pushed against the wall. So, create the space, whatever that means. That's why road trips are great. What happens on road trips? You're in the car for four or five hours. By the third hour, you're done listening to podcasts, audio book, music, and you're like, you know, maybe the family's asleep and then you just, the conversation comes up because there's nowhere to go when you're there. So, see how you can create the space with your daughter and be patient. And then, in terms of constructing questions, here's a question. This is, I'll just give you one because there's five things that make really quality questions.

But here's like, a really good one. is make the question connective. What I mean by connective is that it acknowledges the person you're speaking to. It acknowledges the people in the conversation. So, if I ask you, John, what scares you the most? And your wife says, John, what scares you the most? And your daughter says, what scares you the most? You're going to give the same answer. Snakes. I fucking hate snakes. Okay. But if I say, if we change the question and make it connected, which is like, hey, John, what do you think scares us both the most? What do you think scares us both the most? You cannot answer that question the same way with me and your wife or with your daughter. It's different.

Right? So, tweak the question to make it connective. Like, hey, what do you think I misunderstand about you? And why do you think I do? Okay, that's like, whoever you ask that to is going to give you a different answer because you have a different relationship. So, by making the questions connective, which basically means you're acknowledging the person you're talking to and that makes it a unique moment, that's, that helps, helps a lot because you're asking a different question. Don't ask the same question. If you ask the same question, you get the same answer. How you doing? Fine. How's the weather? Great. Bad. Create different questions. Yeah. Actually, I've been practicing this with my daughter, so I'm like easing her into getting open.

First of all, it's just respecting the space, right? Like, I've stopped pushing to ask her and I just let her, we have dinner, you know, she comes, you know, whether she talks or not, she can't have the phone or the table, but whether she talks or not, I'm not going to force her, right? And, and usually she'll open up at a certain point, but what I've started to kind of do to get something going is instead of how was your day, which is just a terrible question to ask a kid, is what's your, what was your favorite part of today? There you go. What was your favorite? What was the hardest thing about today? What did you, what did you learn that surprised you? What shocked you? You know, I'm going to send you the kids edition, the kids edition, which works great with, and the reason is like, so you have a box and like, look, you go to your daughter, you go, hey, I just had this interview podcast with this guy and he sent me this thing and there's a game and like, let's try it.

By saying that, it creates a space. Now you pull out a random question, she's not wondering why you're asking that question. She knows. Well, because there's a game here, it's called the Ann and there's like 200 questions and then I have a note like really interesting questions that I don't think you've asked her before. When was the first moment you knew that I trusted you? You know? What do you think is the hardest thing about being, for me, about being your dad? She's now going to be her parent and herself in your shoes. Right? Hopefully you're asking questions and we have a lot, right, that like make you take pause because you haven't asked that question before or definitely haven't asked it often and that's where there's space for exploration.

That's where there's a space of anticipation or shit. This is what I would say, but what is he going to say? Right? I always tell people like what I look for in interviews like this or interviews with clients is to ask the question in a way that they genuinely say that was a good question but when they say that was a good question they pause and they think about the fucking answer before they do it because otherwise, oh yeah, if they just say that's a good question then immediately answer it's not a good question, they're just trying to make you feel good but if they're like man, you just, huh, and when I talk about adding value to somebody's life, if you can get somebody to think differently, I think you add value to their life, right?

Because I could go through my life like I got this, whatever it is and all of a sudden some sales rep asked me this fucking like ooh, holy shit, wait a minute, I haven't, huh, and all of a sudden my brain starts unraveling here about wait a minute, I might be missing something here, regardless of what that kid's selling me, like you just added value to my life because you got me to think a little bit differently than I was and if you can get that, you win in my experience, you tend to win, right? beautiful, beautiful, awesome, well this was interesting, I was kind of nervous coming in about like hey, am I going to be alright asking questions to somebody who's studying questions here? I got no real experience other than sales and having this podcast but I think going back to it, the reason I started this podcast was because I think I am, I've been blessed with being genuinely curious and I think it's because I know I'm not the smartest kid out there so I try to, and this is the way I learn, I learn from people who are smarter than me and I ask them questions to try to figure things out because I don't like reading shit and I don't like watching shows or any of that stuff so you know the curiosity factor I think has been a blessing for me and I'm trying to help other people like care enough to be curious about their profession, about the people they're talking to and I appreciate you sharing some of your insights here so no man this is great I got at least two pauses in there, at least three pauses you made me really, and I really appreciate that man, thank you.

Love it, awesome, well Tobaz, where can people find out more information about what you're working on, where do you want to point them, where can they find out more? Well 12 questions for love the book is out anywhere you get your books, ebook and audiobook, theskindeep.com we have decks for co-workers and team building to make really an incredible tool for really efficient teams, we got 15 other editions you can get for family, friends, kids, my favorite one is the self actually that you play with yourself which is cool, but that's all theskindeep.com and then follow social media is theskindeep, anywhere you get your social media, theskindeep. I'm looking at your YouTube channel here, it's theskindeep, right?

Yeah. Yep, there it is. Very cool my friend, well appreciate you coming on man, it's been a fun conversation. Absolutely brother, thank you. And everybody else, hopefully enjoy the conversation as much as I do, go home and practice some questions with your significant others or your kids or anybody because like I always say, the number one thing we could all get better at, I don't care how experienced you are is asking better questions. And then like I say at the end of all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today because no matter how bad your day is going or how bad you think it went, you make somebody smile today, you know you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that right now so thank you all very much and I will see you on the other side.

Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. With your support and our incredible guests, we're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now and I can't thank you enough. Now to keep the momentum going, it would mean the world to me if you could go and leave a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform and share some of your favorite episodes with your network. Also, I am super excited to be launching my new newsletter where I'll be sharing everything I know and everything I'm learning along the way while I'm out there selling every day just like you. Go to jbarrows.com slash newsletter to sign up today. Let's all level up and make this happen together.