“Can We Talk?" How to Handle Tough Conversations in Business and Life

Marie Forleo:

Hey, it's Marie Forleo, and welcome to another episode of the Marie Forleo Podcast and Marie TV, the place to be to create a business and life you love.

So I got a question for you. Have you ever struggled to find the right words, especially when it's a really challenging or tricky situation? Have you ever found yourself trying to connect with someone, and either you or the other person felt totally frustrated and misunderstood? I certainly have. Well, my guest today is here to show us exactly what to say and not to say to have successful conversations in both our business and our personal life. Don't miss it.

Sam Horn founded the Tongue Fu Training Institute more than 30 years ago when she saw the need for stronger communications in corporations, government agencies, industry associations, schools and nonprofits. She's also the founder of the Intrigue Agency, which consults with business leaders.

She's a keynote speaker for numerous Fortune 500 companies, and Sam lives in Austin, Texas. Her newest book, Talking on Eggshells, is available wherever books are sold.

Sam, I love this frigging book. So I have my uncorrected galley here, and I can't wait to actually get my hands on the real version and share it with so many people. I think it's probably one of the most practical, useful books on modern communication that's ever been written.

And that I'm not hyping. Every single page of this book, I'm learning something, or I'm reminded of something. Or I'm like, oh yeah, I've got to print that out. Or oh yeah, I've got to share that. And the title is killer, so good. Talking on Eggshells. So tell us what it means to talk on eggshells, and why is it so common that we feel that way, and it's so difficult to get through?

Sam Horn:

I was giving a Tongue Fu workshop a few years ago, and I started by asking people what we could focus on to make the most of our time together. And a woman put her hand up and she said, "I work at a law firm for a very volatile boss." She said, "We never know what's going to set him off. We worry we're going to say the wrong thing. It seems like we can never say the right thing. It's like we're just walking on eggshells all day long. It's so stressful. We're just exhausted."

And I thought, you're not just walking on eggshells, you're talking on eggshells. And I bet we all have someone in our life, it could be at work, it could be a coworker, could be a VIP customer, could be someone in our family, and it seems like we are always on edge. We never know what will set them off. They have a hair trigger temper, or they're very sensitive, or they get triggered.

So that's what this book is about, is how can we think on our feet and seat around those kind of people so we say the right thing instead of the wrong thing.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, And I loved it too. Because it's so much about compassion and connection. And I love that you said in the kind of early parts of the book, you say, "The purpose of this book is to teach you how to be a force for good, and learn how to fight fire with water."

And I of course, you've got so many great quotes, and I love the Elvis quote, which made me laugh and it's so true. It's like, "When things go wrong, don't go with them." And I feel like I've certainly been there so many times in my life, where ... We joke because I have an alter ego, it's really even not that alter, Jersey Marie.

So especially with family or with loved ones, when you start getting into it, it's like, you did this or you said that. It's like, no, you did. It's just, all my defensiveness can come up so easily. And I feel like this book is brilliant for any of us who find ourselves in difficult situations.

So early in, you talk about something called interpersonal situational awareness. What is it, and why is it so important for our success both at home and at work?

Sam Horn:

Desmond Tutu has a wonderful quote about that. He says, "We've got to stop pulling people out of the river. We've got to go upstream and find out why they're falling in." And that's what interpersonal situational awareness is. It's the ability not just to read the room, what's appropriate, what's the tone? Why are people resisting already? What's the subtext?

And if we read the room, we can lead the room. You want a wonderful example of this?

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, please.

Sam Horn:

Well, I had an opportunity to speak for Cisco. So this is their learning channel, their top 430 executives. And one of them got in touch with me on a Wednesday. He was having an all-hands meeting on a Friday. And he showed me his PowerPoint slide and I asked, "All right, at the end of this, how do you want people to feel?" Blink, blink, blink, blink.

Feel? He's a Cisco guy, right? A techie. It never occurred to him. He wanted results, tangible outcomes, but feel? And he said, "Well, I guess I want him to feel proud. We really hit all our numbers, exceeded all our numbers."

I said, "Great, what else?"

And he said, "Well, I guess I want them to feel excited."

I said, "Great." I said, "You think you might want to put some pictures of people in your PowerPoint?" Because Marie, it was all graphs, and grids, and numbers. And if we want to connect with human beings we ask, how are they feeling? How do we want them to feel? And we bake it in. One other quick thing. I asked him what time the meeting was. It was at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon.

Marie Forleo:

Oh, gosh.

Sam Horn:

Marie, everyone was going to have one foot out the door.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Sam Horn:

So see, this is how we read and lead the room. The first words out of his mouth, he actually wore a watch. He put it on, he said the first words, he said, "I can only imagine you're thinking it's 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, so we're going to keep this to a half an hour. I promise you're going to be out of here by five. Rock and roll, let's go." He won them at hello because he read and led the room. That's interpersonal situational awareness.

Marie Forleo:

Sam! Come on Sam Horn, laying it down. But you know, give so many beautiful examples for every strategy in the book. And I love that. Because there's so many times, and I've experienced this quite frankly, as someone who runs a company. Been doing this 22 years. And there have been times, historically, where there's been a person who asks for something, or makes a request at the wrong ... I'm like, how can you have not known that was the really wrong time to do it?

And a person who is otherwise so competent and so wonderful at the skills of what they do. And when this notion of interpersonal situational awareness, I think it's so important, and for me too. I try my best, way not perfect at it. But try my best to think into how other people are feeling before I go and make a request, or you know what I mean, ask for something. I'm like, oh, wow. I actually know someone in their family just had a big health scare, and their whole thing is falling apart, and it's stress. I'm going to wait a couple weeks. I'm going to wait a couple weeks.

I'm going to put my needs over to the side and know what's bigger is the long-term relationship. And you go into so many examples about that. So I wanted to highlight that. Because I think for anyone watching, whether you're a boss or you're on a team, to be able to contextualize your requests, the things that you want in the spirit of what else is going on, it does a lot.

Sam Horn:

What you're saying is, is it my agenda or is it their agenda? Right?

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Sam Horn:

And just because it's important doesn't mean it's welcome. And if we ask ourselves, Marie, just like you said, is this good timing? Yes, I deserve this raise. Yes, I'm putting in long hours and so forth. But are they in the mood to say yes?

Because if they're impatient and rushed because they've got 10 minutes and they got to get out the door, they're not hearing what we're saying, they're resenting us. Now we got a no, and it was because we didn't have ISA, we didn't read the room.

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Sam Horn:

So what you said, yes.

Marie Forleo:

No, it's a tip. It's honestly a tip. Because I even think about it when I'm working with outside vendors or outside teams. Nothing to do even with my company, but even in my personal life with designers, our contractor, our builder, same thing. I'm like, I'm not going to ask for this on Friday at 3:00 PM, even though I had this great new idea for a thing that I want to do.

Because it's like they're burnt, they're toast. It's like end of the week. It's, I can write that email. I can pre-schedule it to go on Monday, or even better, Tuesday morning. Because Monday mornings are a lot for most of us. It's just that intentionality, I think, makes a huge difference.

All right. I want to talk about something. This was such a moving story to me. The power of proactive grace. And the quote that you have in the book by Joyce Meyer, I think is everything. I'm going to read it. "Being negative only makes a difficult journey more difficult. You may be given a cactus, but you don't have to sit on it."

That was another one. I'm like, Sam and I, feel like you and I share so much DNA of stuff that makes us laugh. Can you share the story about Aunt Kay?

Sam Horn:

What? Is this a rhetorical question, Marie?

Marie Forleo:

No, please do.

Sam Horn:

My Aunt Kay is 84 years old. And she volunteers at a hospital five days a week. She drives to a local hospital, and she helps out at the help desk.

Now, she was doing this through Covid. And I asked her what it was like, and she said, "It's very stressful."

And I said, "Can you think of a situation especially when, instead of reacting, you were able to respond and help the person in the moment instead of make things worse?"

And she thought about it, and then she lit up and I knew we had an example. And she said the week before she was at the help desk, and a woman blew in through the front doors. She was holding her phone up. She said, "My daughter is in the ER. She was in an accident." She said, "I've got to get in to see her."

Well, now the policy during Covid was no visitors, or one visitor per-person. So Aunt Kay called the ER, there was someone already with the daughter. So she had to deliver the bad news to this distraught mother that she couldn't get in to see her daughter.

Well, of course the woman lost it. She's screaming, she's crying. Now here's the crux. Here's where the cactus is, and we don't have to sit on it. Over on the left, if we say there's nothing I can do, it's not my fault. I didn't make the policy, don't blame me. We go down the rabbit hole of being adversaries.

Instead, Aunt Kay asked herself these four words, how would I feel? How would I feel if that was my daughter in the ER? And someone had told me I could not get in to see my daughter, who is in trauma? And it moved her from, “there's nothing I can do” to “let me see if there's something I can do.”

She called the ER and she asked a simple question. She said, who is with the daughter? It was the Uber driver who had brought her daughter in. Well, Kay explained the situation to him, thanked him. He left, and the mother was able to be with her daughter. And it was because of those four words, how would I feel? Which moved her from impatience to empathy.

Marie Forleo:

That's so beautiful. They're like four magic words, how would I feel? How would I feel? I often try and think about that, living in New York City. And I've gotten better at this over time, but it still flares up if I get impatient. Or I'm like, I can feel myself kind of going there. And then I try and think about it, whether it's with an Uber driver or taxi, whatever's happening, traffic stopped up.

I try and go, there actually might be an accident up there. There actually might be someone, something's going terribly wrong, and I just need to sit with myself and calm down. But that, how would I feel? Is just beautiful.

The other thing I love, and I feel like this is so critical for all of us, but especially for anyone who works front-facing, customer experience, customer service. Again, every human. But you say, when people complain, don't explain. Explain that, Sam Horn.

Sam Horn:

Isn't it logical? We think if something goes wrong, if we explain why it happened, people will forgive us. Right? No, they get angry because explanations come across as excuses.

So instead of explaining, which makes things worse because they feel we're not being accountable, take the A train, AAA. Agree, apologize, and act. And here's one of my favorite examples. When we were talking about this in a workshop, a man did one of these, "Ugh!"

I said, "What?"

He said, "I wish I'd known this Friday."

I said, "What happened?"

He said, "I was going to pick my wife up after work." He said, "There was an accident on the freeway. It was gridlock, couldn't move forward." He said, "And my phone had died. I couldn't call my wife." He said, "When I got downtown from a block away, I could see my wife pacing up and down the curb."

He said, "I pulled up, she yanked the car door open."

She said, "You were supposed to be here an hour ago!"

He said, "Don't blame me. I've been stuck in traffic."

She said, "How was I supposed to know that? I didn't know if you were in some ditch somewhere or if you'd forgotten."

He said, "Get off my case." He said, "It ruined our evening." Yeah. He said, "If I'd known this when I pulled up and she yanked that car door open and said, "You should have been here an hour ago," I would've said, "A, agree, you are right. I was supposed to be here an hour ago.” A for apologize. “And I'm sorry I didn't pick you up on time.” A for act. “And in the future, if I'm going to try and pick you up on a Friday, I'm building in a cushion for Murphy's Law."

When we take the A train, instead of explaining, we are commiserating with the other person, so they feel seen and heard and understood, they're a lot less likely to kill the messenger. Now we're on the same page instead of side against side.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah, there's two things I want to kind of dig into a little deeper there. One was, I love you do this in the book all over the place, where you cite where you've had workshop participants or people in that you're working with say, "Hey, but hold on."

And in this particular instance, you had folks who, if they admit that they were wrong or say, I'm sorry, it could have legal ramifications. Thinking about paramedics or first responders, right? And so can you speak into how there's actually the express train? Because there may be those A) exceptions to the rule or instances where an apology may not be necessarily appropriate, necessary, or again, could put you in some type of legal jeopardy.

Sam Horn:

Marie, I love pushback. And that's why hopefully these ideas are real life. They're not Pollyanna, pie in the sky.

Marie Forleo:

Totally.

Sam Horn:

Like, “Oh, yeah, right? You don't know who I work with.”

And so let's talk about, if you're thinking, if I apologize, I'm opening myself up for liability. So here's the example, and we'll unpack it. Is that I was speaking in Honolulu and an emergency tech put his hand up.

And he said, "Sam, we've been told never to apologize because it can open us up for liability."

And I said, "Well, what's an example?"

He said "Last week," he said, "There was a drowning in Waikiki." He said, "We left within 10 minutes of getting the 911 call." He said, "By the time we got there, it was too late. And the wife of the husband who had just drowned grabbed me and said, ‘If you had gotten here sooner, you could have saved him.’”

I'm not going to say you're right. The express A train is just acknowledge and act. Say, ma'am, I can only imagine how you feel in this situation. How can I support you? Are there family members that I can call? Are there belongings that we could collect?

You bypass the, you're right. We just acknowledge how they feel with, I can only imagine. Not, I know how you feel. That's presumptuous. I can only imagine how you feel. And then immediately move to what we can do in that situation to help instead of just, hey, it's not our fault. Don't blame us. That's how.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. Oh gosh. Takes such practice. But it's like these are life-changing skills. Life-changing. And I wanted to say something not in the book, but it was really funny because it reminded me. I remember Josh and I, my partner of 20 years, we were on a trip in Italy once. And it's like our favorite place to go, Italy in general.

And we were driving around. And on this particular trip, I think I was just ... I'm not easy. You know what I mean? Sometimes I'm a really easy person, and other times I'm not an easy person. And especially at the beginning of a vacation, in those days, I was so wound up so tight that it would take me a couple days to unwind. Do you know what I mean? By the time I was like, oh, wow, I'm actually on vacation. I can chill out.

And so we were going to a new place, but we just kept having all of these bickering things. Where the GPS, and which road are we on? And this, that, and the other thing. And we're just like clashing. I'm like, this sucks.

And then I looked up how to say in Italian, you're right. And it was like hai ragione, right? So it actually became, Sam, this running joke that every five minutes we started screaming at each other. No, hai ragione, hai ragione, hai ragione! And it was hilarious.

But just even in partnership, the power of telling the person that you love they're right, even in jest and even in joke, it was amazing how that acknowledgment of the other person's perspective, how it instantly de-escalated, it got us to laugh. But just the power of saying, you're right.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that story with you because I thought you would appreciate it. And if you ever find yourself in Italy bickering with anyone you love, whip out an hai ragione. Hai ragione.

Are you loving this conversation with Sam? I certainly am. And you got to take the next step, which is to grab my number one New York Times bestseller, Everything is Figuroutable. It's an amazing book that you don't just read, you need to do it. And I promise you, it will change your life. Head over to everythingisfigureoutable.com and grab your copy today.

Sam Horn:

It's like at the moment of truth, there are reasons or results, right?

Marie Forleo:

Yes.

Sam Horn:

And so you're going to, there's always reasons why we could get upset with someone, how we could blame them for something and complain about the circumstances.

However, at the end of the day, results are, well, you know Mary Morrisey. Her favorite quote is, "Hold the vision, not the circumstances." Right?

Marie Forleo:

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Sam Horn:

Your vision was to enjoy this time with Josh in Italy, and is the GPS what you want to remember about that? 

Marie Forleo:

Totally. Me telling him, "You're not following it right."

So I love this one, too. I want to turn the tables, speaking of which. And let's talk about the fact that when we are the ones that know that we're frustrated or upset, what should we do when we know we're about to lose our temper?

Sam Horn:

We've already talked about how rude, what a jerk. I can't believe they're saying that, right? And turning contempt into compassion. And by the way, you know that at the Hoffman Institute, they have, and John Gottman have discovered that contempt is the number one precursor to divorce.

Marie Forleo:

Really.

Sam Horn:

And it's the eye-rolling, right? Oh, here they go again. And that if we are feeling contempt for someone, we're othering them, right? They're the jerk. They're the one. And we talk about owning our response instead of othering people. And I'm going to tell a story on myself. Can I do that?

Marie Forleo:

Please, tell all the stories you want. You have great stories.

Sam Horn:

Okay. There's a woman in the speaking industry who's an icon in our industry, and we had monthly calls. And we've been doing that for 20 years. And in a phone call a couple years ago, she said casually that she felt the president was the best president we ever had.

Now, Marie, I didn't share that opinion. And I felt the exact opposite. And at the end of the phone call I was thinking, I don't know if we're ever going to talk again. Because I couldn't believe that someone I cared about and respected, admired, believed something that was the polar opposite of what I thought.

And then two things happened. I read a quote by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And she was asked on CBS Sunday morning that, wait a minute, you go out and see the opera with Justice Scalia, and you are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. How can you do that? And she said six words, Marie. She said, "We are different. We are one."

And I thought, wait a minute. Am I going to lose a 25-year friendship over what we have in conflict? Or am I going to focus on what we have in common? What's more important here? And I thought proactive grace, now how can we do this?

Well, I grew up riding horses in a very small, southern California town. And there was quicksand in these dry river beds. Now, did we not ride our horses anymore because of that dangerous quicksand that can suck us in? And the more we struggle, the more we get sucked in? No, we avoided the quicksand.

So this person and I decided that politics was a quicksand conversation, and we were just not going to go there. Because we valued our 25-year friendship, and we realized we are different, we are one. And we chose to focus on what we have in common instead of what we had in conflict.

Marie Forleo:

I love that. That's so beautiful. Let's talk about handling an accusation. So for example, let's say somebody lobs a negative accusation your way, whether it's at work or at home, or even online.

You say you don't want to deny it or you're going to end up debating it. Tell us about that. And what the heck do we do instead? What do we say instead?

Sam Horn:

Oh, I will always remember the epiphany I had. I was speaking at a women's conference, and this was in the Q&A. A woman put her hand up and she said, "Sam, why are women so catty to each other?"

Hoo, I had heard that question so many times I decided to Don Draper it. Don Draper of Mad Men said, "If you don't like what's being said, change the conversation."

Because look what happens if I said, "I don't think women are catty to each other." We're debating her point. We're arguing it, and in a way we're proving it. If someone says, now don't get mad, and we say, I am not mad. If you say, women get so emotional, I am not emotional! Now we are.

So do you see how denying a negative accusation actually reinforces it, and sometimes proves it? So instead of deny it, we redirect it.

For example, when I said, "Ladies, let's agree. We're never going to ask or answer that question again. We're not going to repeat it because repeating it reinforces it. We're going to change the conversation. Say, do you know what I found? Women are real champions of each other. In fact, I wouldn't have the speaking engagement if a woman mentor hadn't recommended me for it.”

So here, someone says, "You don't love me anymore."

"I do too love you!"

"What do you mean?"

Back and forth, right?

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Sam Horn:

We come back with these four words, what do you mean?

They may say, "Well, we never go on dates anymore, all we..." Oh, now we know the real issue. What do you mean uncovers what's really going on. We can address that instead of reacting to the attack.

Marie Forleo:

Love it. Love it. Another chapter I loved was 11, it's called Sad or Unhappy. I want to talk about how most of the time when someone is sad or unhappy you write, "They don't necessarily want to feel better, that they want to feel heard." I learned this, Sam, and it changed my life.

Friends and colleagues of mine, it's a couple, Harville and Helen Hendrix. They wrote a book called Getting the Love You Want. And so I learned it as mirroring. I'm wondering if you can tell us and share us an example.

Because oftentimes, especially if you're in today's world, there are so many difficult things that happen and unfold, and it seems like at a quicker and quicker pace. And it could be loss, it could be grief, it could be a diagnosis, it could be a divorce, it could be a tragic accident.

Talk to us about, if you're with a friend or a loved one or a colleague or someone who's sad or unhappy, how can we, because most of us do want to connect, and most of us do want to reach out and comfort that person, but we can feel so insecure because we don't want to say the wrong thing.

Sam Horn:

Well, you wrote a book called Everything is Figureoutable, correct?

Marie Forleo:

Yes. Yes.

Sam Horn:

And we think that the way we help is to offer advice, right? It's like, well, have you tried this? Well, this happens to all of us. Well, I remember the time this happened to me. We think that giving advice is helping. Guess what? It shuts people down because they don't want advice. They want our ears.

So here's an example. When my sons were growing up, I'll always remember, Andrew needed to get glasses. And so we come home and there's tears streaming down his eyes. And he says, "All the kids at school are going to laugh at me." So what do I say, Marie?

"The kids at school aren't going to laugh at you. They'll probably even notice it."

He said, "I look like a nerd."

"Andrew. You don't look like a nerd. I think you look good."

And he stormed into the house. Because I was offering advice. I was trying to comfort and console him, and I was contradicting him. So instead, you learned it from the Hendrixs. We paraphrase what they're saying so that they say, exactly.

So I said, "You don't like how you look in your new glasses?"

"Yeah, all the kids are going to laugh at me."

"So you're afraid the kids at school are going to laugh at you?"

"Yeah."

And Marie, we know when we're giving our ears instead of advice, when they almost say that guttural, "Yeah," that's when they feel heard. That's when they feel understood. Because we're giving our ears instead of advice.

Marie Forleo:

I love it. The one part you tackle that, I think it's one of the most dreaded things in business or life for most of us, myself included, networking. And I think it's one of my least favorite questions ever.

Is when I'm somewhere and they're like, "So what do you do?" I feel myself literally check out of my body, and want to be put on a spaceship going to a different planet.

But you show us how to respond to the what do you do question without having the elevator pitch. Walk us through it.

Sam Horn:

Yeah, I'm so with you. You're a people person. And that feels so transactional, doesn't it, Marie? It's like, I help blank do blank. That's a speech. Do you know anyone who likes listening to a speech? It's a monologue. It's not a dialogue.

So here's a quick example of how we turn a speech into an introduction that gives people a hook on which to hang a meaningful conversation. So I'm speaking at Inc 500, and we're working on our elevator intros.

Here's Colleen. And I said, "So what do you do?" And she said, Uh-huh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Infobesity. At the end of 60 seconds, none of us knew what she did, and she was the CEO of the company. I said, "Can we play?" She said, sure.

I said, "What do you do that we can see, smell, taste, or touch?"

And she starts saying something about MRIs and CAT scans. And I said, "Oh, do you run the medical facilities that offer MRIs and CAT scans?"

She said, "Yes."

I said, "Don't say that."

She said, "Don't say that?"

I said, "Because if someone says, what do you do? And you tell them, they go, oh. You just ended the conversation. We don't want to end the conversation. We want to open it." I said, "So ask a three-part question. Do you know anyone, could be yourself, a friend or a family member who's had an MRI or a CAT scan?"

She said, "Sam, what's this about this three-part conversation?"

If we say, have you ever had an MRI CAT scan? And they say, no, we just ran into a conversational culdesac. So as we say yourself, someone else, we give them space, right?

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Sam Horn:

Now they're in control of the conversation. And they may say, oh yeah, my daughter hurt her knee playing soccer. She had an MRI.

So we ask a three-part question. We listen to what they say. Third part, we link what we do to what they just said. Oh, I run the medical facilities that offer MRIs like the one your daughter had when she hurt her knee playing soccer.

Look, Marie, in 60 seconds, we had a two-way conversation. We actually customizing it and confirmed how they are already familiar with what we do, and both of us have talked all in 60 seconds. That's a connection, not a speech.

Marie Forleo:

It's so good. This yours, honestly, because I've investigated a lot of different approaches to that over the years. Yours is my favorite, I'm just saying it. Go on record. It's the best.

So your book is filled with so many real life stories from people who have learned these skills, how to give and get respect. Do you have anyone that's a favorite that you want to share?

Sam Horn:

I've already mentioned an Andrew story, I'm going to share another one because hopefully one of the things that people tell me is that Sam, these techniques work with our kids. They work with our coworkers, they work with our customers. They work with people who's 80 years old and who are eight years old. Well, this one worked with someone who was one year old.

And I had gone to New York to visit Mickey and Andrew and their one-year-old son, Hiro. And so we're in the living room talking story, as they say in Hawaii. And Hiro is in the creeping, crawling, standing stage. He creeps across the room and he hauls himself up on a guitar that's on a guitar stand in the corner. And he starts pounding on the strings.

Now, Andrew could have yanked the guitar way. He could have said "No!" He could have said, "Leave the guitar alone." All of that would've led down the rabbit hole of making Hiro feel bad, right?

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Sam Horn:

Guess what Andrew did instead?

Marie Forleo:

What?

Sam Horn:

He said one word, gentle. And Marie, I saw Hiro's face transform. And it lit up with wonder. And he reached back to the guitar and he went, strum, strum, strum. And he reached up to the chimes that were on the window and he went, chime, chime, chime.

And in that moment, Hiro made music because Andrew used one word that focused him on what he could do instead of what he shouldn't do. And that's kind of the core of this book, is how we can use words that shape instead of shame.

Marie Forleo:

I was going to ask you if there was anything else that you wanted to share, but it was so good. But I'm still going to ask you because I love you. Is there any, I mean, that was like, dude, that was a little mic drop moment. But for anyone still listening, going like, Sam is so ridiculously smart and amazing, is there anything else?

Obviously we want them to get the book. Because it's like a bible on communication. But is there anything that you want to leave people with? If step number one in their desire to be successful in their communications and be a force for good, what would you say?

Sam Horn:

It's easy to remember, TOE, talking on eggshells, right? So T is for think before you speak. Instead of telling people what you want them to stop doing, stop throwing rocks. What do you want them to start to do? Correct? So think on your feet, go from stop to start.

O, own instead of other. Saying, how rude, say, how would I feel? And it shifts us from choosing to say, there's something I can do here instead of, there's nothing I can do here.

And E, E is for empathy. And if we turn impatience into empathy, and frustration into faith that we can help, and contempt into compassion, I really think it helps us think on our feet and our seat so that we communicate in a way where people choose to respond in kind.

Marie Forleo:

So good, Sam. We only got to hang oult a little bit at JJ's event but I'm like, dude, I want to hang out with Sam Horn more. So we'll figure that out offline.

Thank you so much for your work in the world, and thank you for this beautiful book. I can only imagine, that is a lot. It's a lot. And it's so practical. And I hope that everyone gets it, and keeps it on their desks, and their tables, and shares it with their teams, and their families and all of the people that they love. So thank you for being you, and thanks for making time to be on the show today.

Sam Horn:

Thanks, Marie. You know, Catherine Graham of the Washington Post said, "To do what we love and feel that it matters. How could anything be more fun?" That's how we feel, right?

Marie Forleo:

Totally.

Oh my goodness, that was amazing. So now I would love to hear from you. I'm super curious, what is the biggest insight that you're taking away from this conversation? And most importantly, how can you turn that insight into action starting right now? Leave a comment below and let me know.

And by the way, if you enjoyed this, hit that subscribe button. It matters so much, it helps us reach more people. And plus, it'll make sure that you never miss an upcoming episode.

Until next time, stand your game and keep going for your big dreams. Because guess what? The world really needs that very special gift that only you have. Thank you for tuning in, and I'll catch you soon.

Now, if you enjoy this episode, then you have to watch this one next. It's with my favorite relationship counselors ever, and they actually saved my relationship. So click here, watch that now. You'll thank me later.

Helen LaKelly Hunt: 

It's really teaching a couple to slow down and become present for each other's experiencing,  everyone is just longing to feel understood and loved and cared about.