The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:20 - 00:00:32:04
Kevin Eikenberry
You've heard it said that we are all in the people business. Research and personal experience consistently tells us that interpersonal skills are the overwhelm main key to success in business and our careers. Our guest today would agree with all that. And that's why, he suggests we focus on growing our relationship currency. You may not have heard that phrase before.

00:00:32:05 - 00:00:59:06
Kevin Eikenberry
That is our focus today as we build habits to help us communicate better, build trust, and have greater influence or relationship currency. Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are here to help you reach your potential as a leader and a human being. Growing personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger difference for your team, organization, and the world.

00:00:59:08 - 00:01:16:01
Kevin Eikenberry
If you are listening to this podcast, you could be with us live in the future when you could learn more about this information sooner, when you could get a leg up, if you will. And the only way to do that is to get connected with us on either Facebook or LinkedIn. Two of the platforms where these episodes live stream.

00:01:16:03 - 00:01:41:21
Kevin Eikenberry
You can connect with us there. Get the inside scoop, know when we're going to go live? Just go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linked in. If you like what you hear today and you want to help in developing the leaders in your organization. Let's talk. Reach out to us at info at. Kevin I can very com and we'll schedule time to learn about your needs and share how we might help.

00:01:41:22 - 00:02:11:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Today my guest let me bring him in. No further ado. My guest today is Ravi Rajani. He's the author of this book that I just mentioned a second ago. Relationship currency. Let me just introduce him formally for you. He's the author of Relationship Currency five Communication Habits for Limitless Influence and Business Success. He's an international keynote speaker, communication expert, and a LinkedIn learning instructor with popular courses on both conscious and charismatic communication.

00:02:11:20 - 00:02:33:19
Kevin Eikenberry
He has worked with leaders, teams and organizations including at Oracle, Net, Sweet Tea Mobile, Sherwin Williams and of course, many more. He lives outside of London with his wife, son, daughter and their West Highland terrier. And now you have just endeared yourself to all the dog lovers, Ravi. And so welcome to the show. Glad to have you here, sir.

00:02:33:21 - 00:02:49:13
Ravi Rajani
Thank you, my friend, and I appreciate the intentional introduction. It still feels cool to hear the word author. I know it's a label, I know it's a title, but it still feels cool. You know, after you work on a body of work for so long, it feels cool. You know, I got to say, it feels cool.

00:02:49:15 - 00:03:10:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, we might end up talking about your intentions, your internal story as it relates to that. In a minute. We'll get to that. That's a little bit of a preview. But before we go, before we go there, let's talk about this phrase relationship currency. It's the title of the book I often say when I hear hear things, you say, well, I know both of those words, but I may not know them when they're hooked together.

00:03:10:16 - 00:03:21:13
Kevin Eikenberry
In this case, I think I do, but I think it's from a context perspective. It's helpful for everyone to have a sense of what you mean when you say relationship currency.

00:03:21:15 - 00:03:39:12
Ravi Rajani
More than happy to give you my truth. But as we as I do talk. Ladies and gents, if you have your own definition of relationship currency, let us know in the chat. I'm curious to know. Let us know if you know in the chat. If you're listening to this right now on the podcast, you can't do that. But anyway.

00:03:39:14 - 00:03:44:13
Kevin Eikenberry
But you can think about your answer because that thought is still useful, right? For you. For you personally.

00:03:44:15 - 00:04:12:13
Ravi Rajani
Exactly, exactly. Now for for me, relationship currency. Here's how I see it, Kevin. You know, we have relationships which are sacred currency, which carries a connotation of transaction, but side by side, when you pair them together, it's about two human beings coming together to engage in a meaningful value exchange, and you helping somebody achieve more of what they desire without self-interest.

00:04:12:13 - 00:04:15:20
Ravi Rajani
And the key word being without self-interest.

00:04:15:22 - 00:04:33:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Absolutely. And the other thing about the word currency is, you know, and you said at the end of value exchange that when we think about that word currency, we think about there's value there. And I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it's about it's about them. It's about being other focused as it relates to that.

00:04:33:12 - 00:04:59:17
Kevin Eikenberry
We'll get to all of that. But there's something else that I love about the title of the book. Tell me long term listeners will not be surprised, but it's the fact that you said habits, right? You didn't say, what are the skills? You said, what are the habits? Now I know you. This was intentional. I also know no 1st May have ever asked you this question, but why do you frame this around habits?

00:04:59:18 - 00:05:22:10
Ravi Rajani
You are the second person I would say not the first day. The second I know you're like, damn it, I was hoping, but this, this is, this is the second time and I and I enjoyed the question because here's my truth around it. If we break it down, really what we're looking at is as authors, if we're going to give ourselves that label, which we'll get into in a minute.

00:05:22:10 - 00:05:53:23
Ravi Rajani
But as authors, speakers, people who are gifted the opportunity to actually inspire change, what we're really trying to do is inspire change. And change is hard. What we're trying to do is have somebody depart from an existing set of behaviors and substitute them for another set of behaviors, and when done consistently, they will turn into habit. So really, my goal with calling everything a habit was at a macro level.

00:05:53:23 - 00:06:23:15
Ravi Rajani
Yes, we're calling them a habit because that's what I want others to embody. But each habit comes with a practice and an associated behavior. And the idea here is if you resonate with it, if you try a practice on for size, you'll engage in that behavior more consistently. A proportion of those behaviors will turn into habits, and before you know it, you'll reach unconscious competence with the skill set in question, which is becoming a masterful communicator and earning relationship currency.

00:06:23:17 - 00:06:42:16
Kevin Eikenberry
I love this because, I mean, I've said, and this is why people that know me, that are listening will smile. That for a long time I've said, listen, it's not about skills like I'm in the business of helping people learn. I'm in the business training and consulting and all this other stuff. And so people are focused on skill set, but it's mindset, skill set, habits set.

00:06:42:19 - 00:07:00:05
Kevin Eikenberry
If we don't change, the habit, doesn't matter. Like I can have the tool in my toolkit. Yeah, I don't pull it out. It really doesn't matter. So I'm all in and the book does a great job that I want to get to these five habits. We will not have time. I'll just tell everybody up front. We will not have time to talk in any depth about all five.

00:07:00:07 - 00:07:24:01
Kevin Eikenberry
Okay. Now probably talk about a couple, and we'll get there. But before we get there, there's a couple of underlying pieces before we get to the habits. And, and in part I think this is, this is Kevin getting at the mindset part of this. And that is the first thing is the word influence. Again in the title you say limitless influence, which sounds pretty good.

00:07:26:00 - 00:07:50:06
Kevin Eikenberry
When you talk about the word influence, for some carries some baggage. Right. So let's talk about what you mean here. I think if people have been listening, they they're not going to be surprised by how you answer. But it's important that we talk about what we what we're talking about here related to influence and, and the underpinning of this whole conversation.

00:07:51:06 - 00:08:05:11
Ravi Rajani
Well if you're listening to this live let me know what is the first word that comes up for you when I say the word influence. I mean, Kevin for you when I say the word influence, what's the, what comes up for you. What's the first word that comes up to you.

00:08:05:13 - 00:08:28:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, for me the first word is opportunity. But I've done that very exercise with lots of people. And I know that you often get a lot of well, you get a lot of well, what about manipulation? You get a lot of you get you get a lot of there's a lot of tension that for some people around that word that it's not always greeted with positive intention.

00:08:28:12 - 00:08:32:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Right? It is for me, but it isn't for everyone.

00:08:32:06 - 00:08:54:05
Ravi Rajani
That's true. That's true, my friend. And it's funny. The name of the book. Fun fact the name of the book originally was Limitless Influence. So get this I'm at an event, flew down to Fort Lauderdale for this event and I connect with this individual. We're having fun. We're connecting. We're going deep. Because you've written a book. I said, yes, I have, he said, tell me the name.

00:08:54:05 - 00:09:22:09
Ravi Rajani
I said, limitless influence. And he like what I said, limit this influence. He's that was his first reaction. I don't like it. And I was like, okay, tell me more. And he said, listen, influence. You may think about it in a beautiful way, but your ideal readers, they may resonate with it in a sense of, manipulation.

00:09:22:11 - 00:10:00:23
Ravi Rajani
You guys have a think about it. So I sat with it and I was like, damn, it got to change the name of the book. But luckily I didn't have to change anything inside the book because the book was always about relationship currency. So if you that's a good sign. My publisher was happy about that. But, you know, for me, if we look at the definition of influence, according to Oxford Learner's Dictionaries now I'm paraphrasing, but something along the lines of the effect that somebody or something has on the way that the thing works or develops now for me is I talk about in the book, really, it's about the positive effect that we have

00:10:01:03 - 00:10:45:00
Ravi Rajani
on an event, on an individual and no more that, really, or rather, let me, let me, let me be more specific. The positive effect that we can have on an individual to increase their receptiveness to change. Now, to me, often the word influence gets muddied with the word influence, or influential. And I decide to keep it really, really basic where listen, if our job is to help somebody achieve and receive more of what they desire without self-interest, we need to increase our capacity to have a positive effect on that person, to support them with that process.

00:10:45:02 - 00:11:07:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I love that. So, I promise we get to some of the habits and we will. And the other, and so that's that, that definition, and that perspective and influence is woven through all five, like, so if you're listening and you say, yeah, I, that I like that definition I'm in, then you want to don't go anywhere.

00:11:07:08 - 00:11:27:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Stay right here. But there's another underlying, principle that you talk about early, but it's woven through the whole book, even though it happens to be inside of one of the habits. Right. And it's the idea of trust. And what I'd love for you to do real quick is talk about what you call the three C's of trust.

00:11:27:04 - 00:12:01:06
Ravi Rajani
I love it. Well, for me, in order to establish trust with another human being in a conversation, we need to earn the three C's and those three C's, connection, character and competence. So connection at the most basic level, I see as the the emotional glue that forges a bond between two human beings in a given moment. Then we've got character, which is the invisible values that travel with you, your energy, your verbal communication and nonverbal communication.

00:12:01:06 - 00:12:29:04
Ravi Rajani
And then you've got competence, which is your ability to signal your expertise in solving somebody's big problem. As a result, increasing or decreasing your credibility stock. And the idea is every habit that I teach inside of this book helps you UN one of the three C's or all of the three C's, and ultimately strengthen trust in any and every conversation.

00:12:29:06 - 00:12:54:03
Kevin Eikenberry
I want to go back to something that the short little story you told about when you were in Fort Lauderdale and and you said, I met this guy and we had a connection. And because of you did not know you just met this guy, I think. So you had a connection, you may or may not, you may not have really known a whole lot about his competence, whether he knew much about whatever you may not have had.

00:12:54:05 - 00:13:23:01
Kevin Eikenberry
You had some sense of character from the as you've described it, from the conversation. But the point that I want to make from this story is that you trusted that person from the connection point enough alone to help you rethink something really important. And the reason I share that is that. Because I've talked with lots of people and done a lot of training and talking about trust over the years, and some people think about it like, you can't like you have to earn it and you never going to get it.

00:13:23:01 - 00:13:45:01
Kevin Eikenberry
It's going to take forever to make that happen. And there's truth there, but it's not total truth there. Your point is like, it can happen. We can make that. We can make a connection, and people will feel something in a way to say like, there's I can I can trust this person, at least in some ways, right. Much more quickly.

00:13:45:01 - 00:13:48:07
Kevin Eikenberry
So comments, thoughts about that?

00:13:48:09 - 00:14:07:16
Ravi Rajani
Well, I'll give you an example. Let's go deeper into this because this is exciting. So I'd love to hear your take. And if this resonates or if there's anything I've missed or misunderstood, but let's go deeper. So this individual, it was an agent at a speaker bureau, okay. And they were there to listen, to hear me deliver a keynote.

00:14:08:03 - 00:14:31:22
Ravi Rajani
Look at my friend, my friend Nishu in the comments. He since really enjoyed listening to this revelation, especially a concept around the three C's. I love it, I love it so yeah, there you go. Nice. You're getting some prime time action there. So here's here's the background. He had spent, you know, a couple of hours with me already before that comment.

00:14:32:00 - 00:15:03:12
Ravi Rajani
So let's look at connection now before the day started, we had a few conversations. We exchanged stories. That emotional glue began to build. Throughout the first hour or two. Character. What I saw about this individual is that they operated with integrity. They didn't tell me, they showed me. And here's why. When they were listening to other speakers, they spoke their mind in a kind and compassionate way.

00:15:03:13 - 00:15:22:03
Ravi Rajani
They didn't mince their words. If they saw something, they said it. So I knew this person really is going to operate in a way that is congruent with their value system competence. He was one of the few agents chosen to be in that room because he spent decades looking at different speakers.

00:15:22:05 - 00:15:24:18
Kevin Eikenberry
He and he got that one coming in.

00:15:24:20 - 00:15:51:21
Ravi Rajani
He had that off the bat, right? Because he didn't I didn't have to see him. But my skepticism, because if we look at trust and skepticism normally when we enter a room, right, Kevin, trust is at its lowest and skepticism is at its highest, assuming it's a complete cold audience. But more than often that's not the case because people are building a story in their own mind about you, from your social media, from what they're seeing, what they're hearing, sometimes good, sometimes bad.

00:15:51:21 - 00:16:13:21
Ravi Rajani
But you get you get what I'm coming from. So what I'm really trying to say here is he had established the three C's very quickly, and as a result, I trusted him. But then here's the kicker. It requires I think kick is the right phrase, I don't know. But here's the thing, okay? It requires self trust to take on somebody's feedback.

00:16:14:00 - 00:16:28:00
Ravi Rajani
Sit with it. How does this feel intellectually? How does this feel intuitively? And then make a decision? Because I can tell you now 100 people, other people may have said the same thing to me that that day, but I probably wouldn't have taken it on board this same way.

00:16:28:02 - 00:16:57:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Exactly. Right. So just as a little insight to all of you, especially if you're, well, whether this is the first time you're listening or whether you've been here before, I can tell you that I think about these three ideas when I'm building my converse, planning for these conversations, and when I'm having these conversations. Why? Because I want you as a first of all, I want to have some of that built with my guest because it'll make a better conversation.

00:16:57:19 - 00:17:19:23
Kevin Eikenberry
And I'll make a better podcast. But if I can build that in some way, even it's just at the start with a guest, then that creates something far better for the audience, which is the ultimate goal for both, in this case, Ravi and I to do so. I sure, you know, you and I, we could spend our entire time on those three season.

00:17:19:23 - 00:17:37:23
Kevin Eikenberry
We've already spent half our time on that, but I do want us to go a little further. But I thought that was a really important way to help people. There's other ways that we can deconstruct trust if you want, but they mostly all come back. Whether you use those three words or not. They come back to those three ideas.

00:17:38:04 - 00:17:58:04
Kevin Eikenberry
And too often people seem to think that trust isn't all of them, that it's like one of them, like a new leader will say, well, I, I don't have confidence. I've never done this before. How will they trust me? And I'll say, that's part of it. It's not all of this is important. This. Right. As in just say, using that as an example.

00:17:58:04 - 00:18:23:19
Kevin Eikenberry
So, there are five habits we are not going to get to them all. I hinted at one of them already, and I said, and the first one is what you call, figuring out or understanding our internal story. And I love you talk about this one because I think it's so important. And it's what happens before we get to a conversation.

00:18:23:19 - 00:18:32:16
Kevin Eikenberry
It's what happens before we get to communication. Why is this included? What is it? Why is it included, and what do we need to be thinking about here.

00:18:32:18 - 00:18:51:23
Ravi Rajani
To be sensitive to the time that we have? Let's let's boil it down to the following sentence. Right. We are the stories that we tell ourselves. We, the stories we tell ourselves. Now, let's back it up just a little bit. I said to you at the top of this show, man, it's so cool to be given the label of an author.

00:18:51:23 - 00:19:10:13
Ravi Rajani
It's so cool to say author. Now let's be real. The word author, the word leader, whatever it could be. Entrepreneur is a label. Now, if you go into your kitchen, you open the cupboard, you pick up a jar and you see a label on it. Good. I want to see a label on it. I want to know that this is jam.

00:19:10:13 - 00:19:41:12
Ravi Rajani
I want to know the ingredients. I want to know that the identity of this product is fixed. Trying to apply this to a human being. And it can be problematic because what we end up doing is engaging in behaviors that are congruent with the label, and it can leave us creating this self-imposed cage where we secretly and subconsciously once again engage in behaviors which are designed to protect that identity.

00:19:41:12 - 00:20:13:02
Ravi Rajani
So I'll give you an example, something that I personally did when it came to looking at the book. This is my first rodeo with writing a book, so I wanted to embody the identity of a world class author. So I would say I'm a world class author, and I wanted to embody that identity. But very quickly as I started going through the writing journey, I switched it to, I am someone who writes books because does that mean I say no to coaching, consulting, speaking opportunities, new?

00:20:13:04 - 00:20:36:00
Ravi Rajani
Or I would have to if I just say I am an author now, the label I'm proud to to own. Father, husband, right son, brother, friend. But outside of that it can get tricky because it leads to certain beliefs and the stories that we tell ourselves which show up in our conversations. What do you think?

00:20:36:02 - 00:21:00:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Oh 100% like I, I've written a lot about this as well. And I one of the things that I say is like, it's hard. And you said this earlier like it's hard to change a habit. It's harder to change an identity and it's nearly impossible to change a habit if it's, if it's, if it isn't connected to, aligned with.

00:21:00:23 - 00:21:01:21
Ravi Rajani


00:21:01:23 - 00:21:34:16
Kevin Eikenberry
The identity. So I love your point. Like there's a, there's a, there's an, there's a powerful idea about manifesting, but there's a very powerful idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy that we want to be really careful about. And I love that you started here, because how can we build relationship currency with others if we're not clear for ourselves about what what we're about, what we're trying to be, and it's going to be really hard to change the other habits if we don't have this.

00:21:34:20 - 00:21:36:07
Kevin Eikenberry
I love the I love this game.

00:21:36:07 - 00:22:07:17
Ravi Rajani
First, I'm sorry to interrupt you there, Kevin. I just to add something that my friend is, if you look at a lot of the individuals that listen to this show, they may say things like, I am an empathetic leader. Okay? Now they proudly wear that label and title. So maybe when it comes to owning or rather setting boundaries, having difficult conversations, they go, oh, I can't do that.

00:22:07:19 - 00:22:17:22
Ravi Rajani
Yeah, I'm an empathetic leader. I'm this, I'm that. So it's quite interesting when we expand our identity and expand our being beautiful, things happen. So.

00:22:19:02 - 00:22:42:03
Kevin Eikenberry
You are right in that you are right in the design geist of my last book, Flexible Leadership. Right. That, that that I call them flexors. Like there's a tension between two things, right? Like, I am more about the people or I'm more about the outcomes. Well, we need to be about both. And yes, I can know that I lean toward the people side, but there's a time when I have to let go.

00:22:42:03 - 00:23:03:21
Kevin Eikenberry
I have the situation. The context dictates where I need to be on that. And that's why this identity stuff is so important for us to be careful about. We don't have more time to spend there. I want to get to a couple more of these habits, and I want to get to another place where you and I are in agreement, which is about charisma, because you say unearthing charisma, which is another reason why you.

00:23:03:23 - 00:23:08:16
Kevin Eikenberry
It would have been hard to put charisma in here if it was a skill. Right?

00:23:08:18 - 00:23:09:01
Ravi Rajani
We always.

00:23:09:01 - 00:23:23:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Say more. Say more about that. Because you start out that chapter, and I'm like, preach on, brother, because you're exactly right. And so many people miss this point. Really important.

00:23:23:11 - 00:23:39:12
Ravi Rajani
I know I did growing up, I, I grossly missed the point. And by the way, before we get into it, Cyrus Lane says hi. How are you doing, my friend? Good. Good to have you. If you got any questions. By the way, don't hold back. We, We are here. We are ready. So, charisma. I had it all wrong, Kevin.

00:23:39:17 - 00:24:06:09
Ravi Rajani
I had it all wrong. I thought it was about accolades, Awards, the spotlight. And look, I've got to give my youngest self kudos because he did the best he could with the consciousness that he had at the time. So let's integrate him for a moment and say thank you. But what I now believe in this season of my life is charisma is a superpower that we all possess.

00:24:06:14 - 00:24:26:19
Ravi Rajani
It's innate. We need to unearth it. And when we do, it allows others to feel significant in our presence. Meaning, if you make people feel like they matter when they're around you, you, my friend, have unearthed your charisma. So let's get tactical here. Let's say you're a leader and you're wondering, how can I do this in the next 24 hours?

00:24:27:00 - 00:24:48:04
Ravi Rajani
Well, one of the practices I actually talk about in the book is learning how to give genuine compliments. And I say genuine because if they're inauthentic, you're in trouble, my friend. So once you learn this, if you weaponize this, that's on. You don't say, oh, I listen to this podcast with Kevin and Ravi, and this guy knew, don't blame us, okay?

00:24:48:10 - 00:25:17:18
Ravi Rajani
Do not weaponize this. So imagine if I'm at an event, Kevin, and I see you speak and I go, oh, man, that was a great speech. Such a great speech. You're like, oh, okay. Thank you Ravi. It's well-intentioned, but it lacks depth. It lacks specificity, it lacks impact, it lacks authenticity, it lacks many things. So how do we transform that compliment?

00:25:17:19 - 00:25:46:01
Ravi Rajani
Let's talk about something that I call my ASI framework. Authenticity, meaning lead with a genuine and positive observation, as is specificity, meaning avoid being generic and I is impact. Meaning talk about how this specific moment impacted you. So let's run it back. I hear you speak. You come off stage and I say, Kevin, that was the best keynote speech I've heard at this conference for the past two days.

00:25:46:03 - 00:26:13:08
Ravi Rajani
That moment in the first few minutes where you spoke about the pain that you went through and imposter syndrome and writing flexible leadership, it really connected with me. I tell you what, it's actually inspired me to use more vulnerable personal stories in my next book and in my next speech. I thank you for that. That embodies right.

00:26:13:08 - 00:26:41:08
Ravi Rajani
I see authenticity was the positive observation of that's for me, the best keynote I've heard. Specificity. What you did in the first three minutes impact how that moment impacted me. Now run it back. Right. Let's run it back. If you're a leader trying to acknowledge somebody in your team, know this. That research has shown that when somebody receives a genuine compliment and actually activates the same part of our brain that lights up when we receive a financial reward.

00:26:41:08 - 00:27:03:13
Ravi Rajani
So when you acknowledge somebody for their genius in public, you make them feel like they matter when they're around you. And I remember back in the day, there was a guy who I worked with in corporate, and he would acknowledge me in front of my boss and in front of the whole team for my gifts, and he would do it in such an elegant and authentic way.

00:27:03:13 - 00:27:08:06
Ravi Rajani
And by the end of it, I just wanted to run through a brick wall for this guy. Right?

00:27:08:07 - 00:27:38:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. So, you we were talking earlier about our internal story, and I if I can tie these two ideas together of these two of the five habits, I would say this that if we can, if we can move our internal story to saying that we have charisma or that we are charismatic, that serves us because charisma is that that ability for people to feel attracted to us because of how we made them feel.

00:27:38:11 - 00:28:05:05
Ravi Rajani
Right? Exactly, my friend, and seeing it as I am someone who makes people feel significant when I am around them. So we're moving from the label of charisma to, okay, expanding our identity. But exactly as you said, you know, if your if you don't have a story that you're telling yourself that abundant and you are stuck in reactive behavior.

00:28:05:07 - 00:28:28:17
Ravi Rajani
Now I'm going to pull from the definition of the spiritual wisdom of Kabbalah. When we talk about reactive behavior, we're talking about behaving as grounded in lack, scarcity, or fear. If you secretly are worried about your number two surpassing, you, quote unquote. If you're secretly worried about losing your job, if your secretly worried about being seen as a fraud, you won't be telling yourself an abundant story.

00:28:28:17 - 00:28:34:14
Ravi Rajani
And as a result, the compliments you give one inspire change. They made this fuel forced.

00:28:34:16 - 00:28:56:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, 100% 100 so we don't have time to dive into the other three. I was really hoping to, spend time on. Let's see. This would be the second of the five habits. We don't have time. I want to just tell everybody this. So I've been talking with Ravi Rajani, the author of. If you just came in late, of relationship currency.

00:28:56:21 - 00:29:17:10
Kevin Eikenberry
And I would say that, if you've if you've been connecting with any of the stuff you talk about, you want to copy. But I would also say that you want it if for no other reason to read about the second habit, which we're not going to talk about, which is, conscious questioning and deep listening. And the reason that I think Ravi, like lots of stuff, has been written about questioning.

00:29:17:10 - 00:29:30:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. But the way that you frame up conscious questioning, just without being able to dive in, just tell people what the what you think the three kinds of conscious questions are.

00:29:30:11 - 00:29:57:09
Ravi Rajani
Let's do we do it in 60s you say? Yeah, because 60s no conscious questions. Asking a question with positive intentionality, not negative intentionality. You can go deeper into that in the book. Now let's talk about one type of conscious question. You can ask a story worthy question, as I call it, aka an open ended question. Meaning the North Star is simple.

00:29:57:11 - 00:30:07:09
Ravi Rajani
Yes, somebody exchanging a story with you, but the ultimate North Star is somebody posing.

00:30:07:11 - 00:30:38:11
Ravi Rajani
Saying nothing. Reflecting. And thinking, wow, I've never been asked that question before in that way. AKA telling them a positive story about you because you have a character of intention. Let's walk through a quick example instead of you saying, hey, do you want to switch suppliers? You could say, hey, could you tell me about the moment when you first sentence trouble with your existing supplier?

00:30:38:12 - 00:30:51:18
Ravi Rajani
Oh yeah, I remember it was last year around Christmas when they hit us with an 18 price, 18% price increase, 18% price increase. Yeah. It was all of a sudden a beautiful conversation is beginning to occur and rapport is being built.

00:30:51:20 - 00:31:15:18
Kevin Eikenberry
Yep. Perfect. As one of only three types of those questions. There's there's another habit about storytelling specifically in the last one kind of comes back to where we started about, trust me, about becoming communicating to become a trusted guide. So those are the five habits we don't have time to unpack them any more than that, because I have a couple of things I want to ask you, Ravi.

00:31:15:18 - 00:31:34:13
Kevin Eikenberry
But I do want to ask this because some people may be thinking, that, hey, the world is more complex than it used to be because I'm, I'm having conversations. I'm communicating may not be having conversations, but I'm communicating with people that I don't ever. I'm not in physical contact with. They're on different work schedule than me.

00:31:34:13 - 00:31:54:23
Kevin Eikenberry
They're halfway across the world. We're all remote. Like, whatever. Is there any specific thing you would say to us? Because most of us are actually in that context one way or the other. Is there any specific thing you'd say about these ideas that distance.

00:31:55:01 - 00:32:00:04
Ravi Rajani
Just some understanding the question, the concept of communicating in such in any.

00:32:00:04 - 00:32:00:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Of these sorts of.

00:32:00:21 - 00:32:02:06
Ravi Rajani
Ways. Yeah, okay.

00:32:02:09 - 00:32:11:23
Kevin Eikenberry
That is complicated in some ways because we're doing in at distance. So acknowledging that fact, what advice do you have?

00:32:12:01 - 00:32:45:21
Ravi Rajani
I would say ask yourself who do I need to become? To ensure I have more presence in every conversation. So I'll give you an example for me personally, I like to have a daily spiritual practice which allows me to ground myself when I feel grounded. I enter every conversation feeling less reactive. When I feel grounded, I'm not operating from a place of scarcity.

00:32:45:21 - 00:33:07:04
Ravi Rajani
I'm operating from a place of abundance. And when I'm feeling grounded, I can listen to the other person I really can, versus thinking about what cool thing I want to say next. So I would invite your listeners to think about what practices could they engage in to elevate their presence in their next conversation.

00:33:07:06 - 00:33:28:23
Kevin Eikenberry
I love that so much. And I can tell you what it isn't, which is to run from meeting to meeting and tell yourself you're busy because like that is the antithesis of what Ravi just said. So I'll I'll leave it there. There's a couple of other things I want to ask you, Ravi, before we go. So. And I'm really curious, what do you do for fun?

00:33:29:01 - 00:33:50:20
Ravi Rajani
Well, I have a three year old and a one year old, so there's. There's lots. And the dog eye. Yeah, exactly. And a dog. So where it's hanging out with my kids, you know, it's hanging out with my kids these days. I mean, it's season right now where, you know, them being three and one, it's like that is still cool.

00:33:50:22 - 00:33:54:14
Ravi Rajani
Every day is a new day. And I know that they'll come in.

00:33:54:14 - 00:34:00:07
Kevin Eikenberry
That's not always I hate to say it. That won't always. You won't always be cool like you are right now.

00:34:00:09 - 00:34:22:01
Ravi Rajani
Exactly right. I don't personally think I'm cool right now, but they do, so I'll take it. But you know, I'm very aware that very soon, at some point it will come and they don't want to hang out with that. I don't I don't think he's cool anymore. They see me for all of my imperfections and flaws. So for me, you know, being a present that is fun.

00:34:22:03 - 00:34:24:13
Kevin Eikenberry
And what are you reading these days?

00:34:24:15 - 00:34:58:09
Ravi Rajani
So I've just finished up, or rather, I'm finishing a book by Greg McKeon, and I may have butchered his surname, so apologies, my friend, if you are listening to this, but it's called Less is More. Is it called less is more? No essentialism. That's it. Essentialism. And the idea is less but better. And in a world that is so noisy which tells you you need to do more, be more, it's great to hear a narrative about sometimes less is more essentialism.

00:34:58:09 - 00:35:13:11
Kevin Eikenberry
We'll have the link to that in the show notes. We'll also have a link to Ravi's book relationship currency. But as I'm holding this up, where do you want to point people? If people want to get connected with you, ask more, learn more. Where should they go?

00:35:13:13 - 00:35:45:21
Ravi Rajani
So yeah, well, listen, firstly, if you feel called to purchase a copy of the book you can buy on Amazon or you could listen to it on audible. I narrated 12 hours in the studio over three days. It was tough, but I narrated it. And yeah, you can listen and learn more about the five habits there. But regardless, I'd love to hear more about what resonated with you the most and learn a little bit more about your leadership challenges so you can drop me a note on LinkedIn.

00:35:46:01 - 00:35:48:10
Ravi Rajani
You can drop me a note on LinkedIn.

00:35:48:12 - 00:35:56:00
Kevin Eikenberry
You can also go to the Ravi rajani.com, with the the on the front. I kind of like that my friend.

00:35:56:02 - 00:36:01:12
Ravi Rajani
Refuge.com was taken. You know. So what do we do. What do we do. We got to open up yet again.

00:36:01:14 - 00:36:16:03
Kevin Eikenberry
The Ravi rajani.com. So I don't have that problem with Kevin. I can get a.com. It's like there I, there probably are others. But anyway, by the way here's what you could do. I did this when my kids were little. I bought their I bought their domain names.

00:36:16:05 - 00:36:18:17
Ravi Rajani
Wow. That's cool.

00:36:18:18 - 00:36:21:16
Kevin Eikenberry
They didn't care for a long time. But anyway,

00:36:21:18 - 00:36:22:17
Ravi Rajani
Yeah, that is cool.

00:36:22:17 - 00:36:25:23
Kevin Eikenberry
It cost you like $15 a year. That's that's.

00:36:26:01 - 00:36:30:04
Ravi Rajani
Never heard that as a that's really never heard of it. Very unique. And I think.

00:36:30:05 - 00:36:53:23
Kevin Eikenberry
That, listen, everybody, there's a question that I ask here every week, and that's not a question for my guests. It's a question for you. It's just the only reason we're doing this at the end of the day, is for you. And the question is, now what? So, most important question you could ask yourself and answer yourself after listening, listening to a conversation about some really impactful ideas.

00:36:53:23 - 00:37:18:03
Kevin Eikenberry
Because ideas are wonderful, actions change the world. So the question here is what did you get today that you will act on? Maybe you're going to work on giving feedback using C, maybe you're going to think differently about your internal story. I don't know what it is, but what I do know is that until you take that action, none of this will have really made any difference or made any dent in the world for you.

00:37:18:03 - 00:37:34:10
Kevin Eikenberry
And you're here to make a difference in the world, so why not, right? Why not make that difference? So, Robbie, thank you for being here. Such a pleasure to have. You had a great time. I hope you did as well. And all of you that are listening. I hope you did, too. Which means if you did, you'll want to make sure you come back.

00:37:34:10 - 00:37:44:20
Kevin Eikenberry
So if you're not subscribed, wherever you're watching, you're listening. Make sure you subscribe and come back next week so you don't miss any other episodes of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.