I am Charles Schwartz Show - Bridge the Gap Unspoken Language of Leadership and Success - Jennifer Edwards

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

In this thought-provoking episode, Charles sits down with Jennifer Edwards—executive coach, speaker, and author of Bridge the Gap—to explore how curiosity, connection, and psychological flexibility can transform both leadership and life. Jennifer unpacks the power of showing up “clean” in every interaction, revealing why most people fail to connect not because of others—but because they haven’t first connected with themselves. She shares practical tools for breaking out of “sleepwalking” routines, disrupting ego-driven patterns, and creating conversations that open doors instead of closing them. Together, they dive into what it really takes to bridge divides in today’s polarized world: the discipline of asking better questions, the courage to hold space without judgment, and the humility to prioritize impact over looking smart. From tactical daily practices like mindful mornings and walking meditations, to high-level leadership strategies for building trust and community, Jennifer shows how anyone can cultivate connection in a disconnected age. This isn’t just a conversation about communication. It’s a masterclass in building resilient relationships, leading with curiosity, and creating environments where people—and ideas—can truly thrive. KEY TAKEAWAYS: -Why true connection starts with showing up “clean” and being grounded in your own values and presence -How to break out of “sleepwalking” through life by practicing curiosity and disrupting automatic patterns -The difference between reacting from ego vs. responding with humility and awareness -Practical tools—like mindful mornings, journaling, and walking meditations—that reset perspective and energy Head over to provenpodcast.com to download your exclusive companion guide, designed to guide you step-by-step in implementing the strategies revealed in this episode. KEY POINTS: 01:18 – Showing up “clean” in conversations: Jennifer explains how being fully present and grounded changes the way people experience you—while Charles notes how leaders often underestimate this simple shift. 04:42 – Escaping life on autopilot: Jennifer describes the dangers of “sleepwalking” through routines without awareness—while Charles reflects on how intentional disruption sparks growth. 08:10 – Curiosity as a leadership superpower: Jennifer shares how asking better questions opens connection and trust—while Charles highlights how curiosity dissolves barriers in polarized environments. 12:35 – Ego vs. impact in decision-making: Jennifer unpacks why leaders often choose being “right” over being effective—while Charles points out the cost of ego-driven choices. 16:20 – Practical resets for daily clarity: Jennifer introduces mindful mornings, walking meditations, and journaling as tools to re-center—while Charles ties these practices to sustainable high performance. 20:55 – The power of psychological flexibility: Jennifer explains why adaptability and openness are essential for modern leaders—while Charles connects it to resilience in business and relationships. 25:30 – Building bridges that last: Jennifer closes with strategies to foster trust and belonging—while Charles emphasizes that true leadership is measured by the quality of connection you create.

Welcome to the Proven Podcast, where it doesn't matter what you think, only what you can prove. Today's guest is Jennifer Edwards, a person who's bridge the gap and proven that success always starts within. That if you're going to show up and build true authentic connection, you have to do the work. Everyone focuses on strategies and tactics and all of these different things. But until you master this, it doesn't change anything. Jennifer gave a master class on how to actually do, connect, and show up in a way that can influence entire rooms, be it a boardroom, or an entire audience. All right, the show starts now.

Everybody, welcome back in the show. Jennifer, I can't tell you how excited I am to have you here. I am so glad, Charles. I've been looking forward to our conversation and happy end of the summer. It's good to be together. Yes, we have tried this for a while. So we've had audio problems and we've tried this like four or five times.

So finally glad that everyone else gets to hear of the conversation that you and I have already had multiple times. Yes. For the four or five people on the planet who don't know who you are, and you give everybody a little bit of who you are, what your success has been, and what you're passionate about. Great. So at my core, I am passionate about bringing curiosity in this edgy world we're living

right now, especially as AI increases and as polarization and disconnection increases, Charles, I think the most important thing we can do as humanity's upskill are connection skills. Curiosity may be the only antidote there is out there right now to the breakdown in relationships, and that's what I'm about. So I love this idea that we're polarized. What are you talking about? It's 2025. We sing United like everyone loves each other and everyone agrees on everything.

It is something that we found and that is showing up every single day and it's been proven in business that people who have worked together for years won't communicate each other in business environments. Same thing. At home, there are couples that have gotten divorces because of things over the last, let's say, eight years. We are more divided as a nation than we've been since the Civil War. You've got ways to reconnect people, and they're tactical. When you talk about reconnecting with people, most people can't connect internally with themselves, let alone to their neighbors, let alone to their loved ones. So walk me through how we do that.

You are so right. I think people think connection is actually about the other person, and it's actually about me and my human suit. Charles, I love this expression, and it's like we all live in a human suit, and I can't zip it on and off. and that expression, wherever I am, there I go, the very, very most important thing we have to know about connection is, I have to come in clean, clean, like clean eating, right? I have to come and clean, aware of the metaphorical backpack I have on my back.

And if I really want connection, I have to be willing to be with the brain in front of me for the optimization of connection. And most of us think, oh, no, I'm just going to connect if the other person connects. No. I only connect if I'm connected deeply in my two brains, then I have a great connection with another. And for those of you who are not watching this, the two brains are head and gut. You missed her point to both because they have to be connected there. So it's really important. When we talk about this, even in relationships, most people don't do, and you have this placebo or this idea they haven't done the work. And most people haven't detailed that out. But they show up in a relationship expecting someone else to help them. Like, hey, this is going to fill my cup, even though my internal cup is empty. I have to fill it myself. When someone says, I need to show up whole.

I need to show up with my two brains, if you pointed out, connected. What are steps that they can do? What are questions that they ask every morning that you've seen that have created those results? Oh, that's great. Have you heard of the expression as you start, there I go? Yes. I love that expression because as we start, the rest of our day will unfold optimally or suboptimally. So one of the most important things I know through the research and through practical applications with myself and the hundreds of clients I work with is the very first thoughts we put into our mind set us up for success or not.

So many of us to come up clean think that the very first thing we should do is scroll through Instagram, check our email, blood ourselves with outside noise that has no relationship to self and to self value and like that whole. cleanness of self. So to show up clean and to really optimize connection, I challenge all of us, and it's hard, Charles. I'm sure you and I know this both, to work on our breath, to take a moment to focus on gratitude, to set our brain, our prefrontal cortex, that part that makes us uniquely human, where curiosity, reason, logic, and the ability to be compassionate and courageous and curious sits, set that up for success. No matter what, what you do, you can take time to breathe. You can take time to meditate and take time to really get intentional and ground yourself and who you want to be and how you want to show up

that day. That's step one. So one of the things that I do is I always say your morning starts in your evening. The evening before is how your morning starts. And one of the simplest cheat codes that I learned a long time ago is only call $6 is the little timers that you have for like lamps or your lights in the house that you would go there, turn themselves on and off. I have one in my home that turns off my internet at 10 o'clock at night. It just kills the internet to the entire date. It's gone. There's gone.

So there isn't any, I'm sitting on my phone anymore. There isn't any, because I will bypass that. So I've got a box. All of my charging stations are on the other side of my house. I do not keep them near me. So that's the first thing I do when I get in the house. But again, at 10 o'clock, it shuts off. So that's a tactical thing.

But when people talk about meditation, there's all these different ideas. Like you have to sit there and say, I'll move for five hours. And that might work for some people. great. I meditate why I work out. I try to use the idea of Boshito, which is the meditation in every action. So when they're asking these questions and they're going into meditation, what are some of the meditation practices that you use that you've seen that have been successful not only for you because you've been through some stuff, which we'll get into, but also for your clients. It's such a good question because you made the point. There isn't one way to meditate.

There are the ways that work for you. And you're not going to find out what works for you by trying at one time, you're going to have to embrace or you're going to get to embrace a period of trying different things. So for me personally, it is a walking meditation. One of the things I realize is so much noise in my life and so much noise in my head that if I can get in that small, still silence, walking in nature, inhaling through my nose, exhaling through my mouth, maybe with one word or one gratitude, that's how I get myself out of chaos and into a sense of presence. Now, Charles, I'm sure like you when you meditate, it's not like it's easy. Don't thoughts, don't you have to always keep bringing your thought

back to one thought? So I have found a way around that. But yes, there's always, if I'm trying to get to here. Okay. So what I've learned is this chaos, as you said chaos, there's absolute chaos inside. I will sit there and again, wrote a book about it and everything. Have it for free, give it for forever. There's four versions of us in my head. And they all are trying to grab control the wheel. I will sit there with four pads of paper and four color pens. And I'm like, okay, y'all want to talk. Let's go. And I'll sit there and I'll write out whatever they're saying. It doesn't have to make logical sense. It just, they need to be heard. And then they shut up there. It's very much like children. If I sit there and say, yes, sweetie, you did a great job.

Mommy's watching you. Daddy's watching you. If you're doing that, it's fine. So I'll brain dump it out. And then once they all feel heard, then they'll quiet down a little bit. So if I'm doing a walking meditation, I'll just repeat back in my head. So if you're in the airport walking around talking to myself, I'm not on a phone call, even though I have my AirPods on. It's because I've lost my mind. So I'm trying to get that calmness so I can push that out so I can get to come and find my center is letting it all out. Instead of resisting it, just saying, okay, one side says, you have to go grocery shopping. Okay, what do I need to grocery shop for? And I'll just write it out. Even though it's not important for where I want to go that

day, it just wants to talk about her. So, oh, you have to buy your aunt Susie this. Okay, cool. I'll just write it all out. Or, hey, you're not enough or whatever the thing is that day, whatever the wall of noise, I'll let it all out so then I can get to it. One of the things that I found, and I'm curious if you've run into this as well, is if I'm trying to talk about A, my mind wants to talk about everything but A. It wants to do everything else. So how do you run into that? So I call that my inner narrator.

And one of the things I'm aware of is that a lot of times something, I want to think about one thing, but all the other things I call them barking at me. And what I actually do in that situation is I actually talk to that bark. And I say, thank you for sharing. I don't really need you right now. I'll get back to you. Like, just like you, I say it out loud. And if that bark keeps coming, I keep saying it.

But I also understand that that bark is trying to keep me safe, trying to do other things for me. So I don't want to belittle the barker. And so I really embrace her, and I call her Hannah. And I say, Hannah, thanks for you. Oh, my God, I love that you named her. Yes, I have named all of mine as well. You have to name them.

And the reason that you can meet, I want to jump in there's a dog. And there's a dog named Spot. And I say, come here, Fluffy. Spot's not coming to me. Because no, he's not. You've got to name them. Because that's why we name things. We hooky the identity of them. Then we can bring them closer and then we can call upon them. And then they feel held. So I love that you named her. Sorry. I just feel so time. Keep up. I'm so glad you understand because I actually named her a soft, soft feminine name because the bark is so masculine and loud at me. Interesting. So I actually. invited myself to say, oh, that's just your masculine energy driving something unnecessary. Let's meet that with her. And so Hannah is just trying to keep me safe and I talk to her.

I think the other thing that's really, really important in the noise and the head is to realize biologically, your brain is focusing on so many different thoughts that you can't get mad at it. I want to really bring grace and gratitude to my brain thinking it's just trying to keep me in my base biology alive and thriving. It's looking for threats out in the universe. And it can't change that. So give her grace, give her love and realize that if you can be gentle to her, she will come back to you and you can find a new way to use your brain to engage softer more presently. I think one of them that helped me, because I grew up in South Florida. So we have different types of road rage in Florida. We have different

type of drivers. I remember I was in Pittsburgh. Yeah. I was in Pittsburgh and someone cut me off because I grew up in Florida my whole life. And then I was in Pittsburgh because I may or may not have discovered girls in video games at the same time in college. So I may or may not have had to take a break. I'm just saying. And I had pulled into Pittsburgh and someone cut me off. And the Miami version of me was, I'm going to go home. I'm going to follow you to your house. I'm going to let your goal fishing fire. I'm like, that's it. It's murder, death, kill now. And then this guy cut me off. And he's like, oh, sorry.

And he waved at me. And I was like, sorry. And my brain just kind of blew up. But in Miami, we have intense road rage. We're all armed. South Florida is very heavily armed. We're very aggressive. It's just, that's the culture down there.

And when I'm listening to Ramstein and other music, I'm like, yeah. So I had that moment. And I remember 10 years ago, I was having a moment. I was like, that's it. I'm going to this person's house and lighting their goldfish and fire. It's all. It's just everybody's going to die. And I remember asking a simple question was,

does this get me closer to my goal? If I do this, we'll get me closer to my goal. And I was like, no, then what am I doing? And I literally had to pull over because I hadn't had the balance yet. I hadn't figured out gratitude. I hadn't figured out meditation. I pulled over on the side of road,

and I just stopped. I was like, okay, what are you doing? What is your goal? Does this help you get there? And then that became a narrative for everything I do. So when you're talking to Helen, what are the questions that you asked that have been that filter

to kind of stop to reset? Because for me, it was, does this help me get to my goal? No. that I walk away from immediately. And that's happened in business. It's happened in relationships. It's happened in everything I do.

I'm like, does this get me closer to what I want? Nope. I stop it immediately without even hesitation. I think you might be a twin from another mother because the question I ask myself is, how is this serving me? Yeah. Now, the interesting thing is, is it probably is serving me in some way.

Oh, absolutely. Probably, right. Absolutely. And the crazy thing is, is I can still choose like you do, that question is my pattern interrupt. So if I can actually ask myself, how is this serving me? It makes my brain have like a spotlight.

And to actually look at the behavior, or let's actually take it back, of the energy in my body that's becoming a thought, the thought's becoming a word or a sense of rage, and the rage could turn into an action. If I can pattern interrupt that more quickly by asking how is that serving me, I can get better to my goal.

Or for me, it's the word optimal. How is, how am I getting optimized by this? Right. Got it. I love that that your filter is optimal. So for me for a long time, it was joyful. Mike, is this joyful? And that served me for a really long time because I grew up and this isn't mine.

This is NLP. This is, I didn't invent, I am not sourced for anything. I am synthesis at best. I am not source. This idea of a primary question of everything was, you know, is this the right thing to do? That was my original primary question, which is catastrophic because there is no right. There is no wrong. There just is.

So once I pivoted that, I went over to Joyful. And I was like, okay, but that's a different life now. If I'm trying to do the right thing versus the joyful thing, that served me for a while, but now my truth has changed, and now it's pivoted over to something else. So things will constantly change. When you're going through and you're having these pattern interrupts, what are some of these pattern interrupts that you've given to clients? Well, that's a great question.

So pattern interrupts actually start before the interrupt. And they start with an acknowledgement that the person I'm with is doing the best they can with the skills they can access in the moment that they are in. Think about that for a minute. Do you think you agree with that? I've tried to get there. I don't have the level of gratitude and grace at this point because most of the time, that is on the journey for me because most of the time, I'm just going.

Because having the humility and the awareness is hard for me sometimes because sometimes I'm just like, why did you not book two seats on a, plane, which then I have to go back to myself and be like, okay, why didn't you upgrade to business class? This is on you. Take ownership of this. So that is where I am right now because, but at first, I'm still in that vibration. And I know I'm working on elevating my vibration of my default is, if you've been in line for 30 minutes at Starbucks and you walk up and then try to decide what you want, I should have the right to let you on fire. I'm like, oh my God, I'm down the way. I know what I want. So I'm still working on that, that understand that, you know, people show up

they're doing the best they can or the best they're, that's what it is. That would be a better one. The best they're willing to do because they're not the best they can because I think people have limitless potential, but they're not willing to put in the effort because it's different I want to lose weight and I'm willing to lose weight. So for me, that's where my struggle is. Yeah. Well, there's a formula that I teach all my clients and it's the process, it's the new book I'm writing Charles. And it's this idea, I don't have a title for it yet. It's eight chapters in that there's a formula that says an event plus a response factor equals your outcome. In other words, events come and go.

Outcomes take care of themselves, but you only have authorship over what? Your response. In an every given moment, we're an event right now on this podcast. When I wake up, it's an event, when I'm in Starbucks, when I'm on that business class seat or the other seat that I should have upgraded for, I get to have ownership. agency, authorship, choice over one thing, who I am and how I show up. All right. So, but.

But how do you know, because so many people don't know who they are? And this is an important thing, where we're, most of have been built to your point earlier, we're just trying to survive, that our brain is designed three things. Can I eat it? Can I fornicate with it? Is it going to hurt me? That's the only thing that is your brain cares about. People haven't done the work to figure out, because this is, we all know what to do.

We have access to an iPhone. We all know how to make money. We all know how to save taxes. I literally had this conversation with a client. Yesterday, like, how do I save taxes? I was like, Google costs segregation. I'm like, it's there. This isn't complicated.

Like, yeah, but I don't know how to do it. I'm like, you could Google it. So it's a choice. So people don't know who they are, even though we have all the strategies. How do you walk your clients? You mentioned you're writing another book. How do you want your clients to really figure out who am I? Because if you don't know who you are, you don't know how to show up properly.

Such a good question. And it hurts my heart that deep down inside we are so busy, we never take the time to find out who we are. So first I want to say is I think that a lot of the world walks through the world's sleepwalking and not only. Yes. So for the sleepwalker people, it's constantly all of us just an invitation to be present with that sleepwalking person. Because we sleepwalk too. Let's not deny it. Absolutely.

All the time. I just go between sleepwalk awake, sleepwalk awake. But to be present with somebody when you're awake in sleepwalking long enough to allow them to maybe have a new thought or a new sense of awareness that there is more for them than sleepwalking while not judging their sleepwalking. That's the key. That's the key. Because an example of sleepwalking, for those of you are listening, when you get up in the morning, what order do you? do you do, do you go to the bathroom first or do you brush your teeth? And when you're brushing your teeth, do you always go to the same teeth? Because I always brush in the same

pattern. That is a routine. It's a pattern that is just sleepwalking. I'm mindlessly going through that. That is a micro example of what we're doing in most of our lives. When we interact with people, especially here in the United States, you know, for the foreigners out there, when they come to the United States and we go, hey, how are you? When an American asks you, hey, how's your day going? We don't want to know. It is a formal, we don't want you to break down. I said, well, my dog just got run over, and I won the lottery, and I had a really great pizza. We don't care. It is just a process.

So that is one of those sleepwalking moments where we're just saying, hey, how are you? Watch how you're interacting with people. That's an example of sleepwalking. Because we do that in business and relationships, in investing, and scaling, we sleep rock through the same patterns. And some of those patterns are, they serve as well. I brush my teeth pretty well. I'm really relatively good at this. My dentist will tell you, good job.

So, but in business, I had to pivot because, again, to your point, is it getting me the outcome? Is it, is this serving me? Is this going to where I want to go? So when, back to the question of how do they figure out who they are, get out of that sleepwalking, what is something concrete? What are questions they can ask to break that pattern? It's a great question. Years and years ago, I met a, I got trained in a methodology by Dr. William Glasser called reality therapy. And there was a set of four basic questions that you could ask yourself to get out of sleepwalking. And it went through this order is, what do I want?

What am I doing? Is what I'm doing, getting me what I want? And if not, what's my plan? And it made it really, really simple. Because if I actually want to get out of sleepwalking, I got to start getting clear about what I really want. What's optimal for me? What's my goal, as you said? Most of us are sleepwalking so often.

We just even forget that we have agency over what we want. So the poor question to make it so simple for all of us is, what do I really want? And very few of us spend enough time thinking we have authorship of a want. It's interesting you say that because I've hunted after what I want, what's going to make me happy. And I learned two parts of this. There was one question where there was a guy who asked a Buddhist monk. He was like, I want to be happy. And how do I become happy?

because that's a question we asked. I just want to be happy. I'm on this journey. I do the yoga. I do this. I just want to be happy. And he goes, well, is there any happiness

in what you're doing? And he's like, no. He's like, so if you want to be happy, it's very simple. Stop doing all the things that make you unhappy. The only thing that will be left will be what's happy. And then the other one that I learned,

which was really powerful for me, was the conversation of the David. So there's this huge culture. It's in Florence, I think of Florence of David. And they asked Michaelangelo, if I'm doing this, right? How did you make the David?

If I was the right artist. And he goes, I just took away all the parts that weren't David. When I carved in the Marvel, I just took away the parts that were David. So those are those. When people get stuck, like, what is my goal? Like, I don't know what my goal is cool. What isn't your goal? This is about that.

What don't you want in life? Like, I don't want to be 500 pounds. I don't want to be broke. I'm like, cool. All right. So we're not going to do anything that feeds towards that. And then you slowly get going there because as much as I would love that hope and intelligence and awareness and vibrating on a high level would get you there.

Sometimes you just got to let the lion out of the cage and be chased by it because fear and pain will get moving. It won't sustain you, but it will get you moving. So if you're stuck and you don't know who you are, let's start with what stares the crap out of you because you will start moving. So brilliant. That fuel of fear will drive us. But you know what sustains us? And you and I've talked about this in the past is the power of a community. Yes, the power of an environment. And I really believe deeply that as we get deeper into technology and as my three daughters and as I watch what's happening in society, so much of our time is living in a comparison of artificial making. And there is a epidemic as we have seen through all the

research of loneliness. And the antidote to change is get in a community. You are the sum of who you surround yourself with and build a decision in your choices of what you want to be with people who will hold you capable, not accountable, capable to that greatness you want to become even if you're not there yet. Right. And just being around them will elevate you. It's interesting because I'm up right now on traveling, which is why this wonderful background, and I'm up in Lexington right now. And I'm around people who are just, they're brand new to me, their gifts, they're amazing human beings and we went to a football game, which I don't like watching men in tights play with balls. It's not my thing, but I understand men like sports, so have fun. We go to a football game

and we're in the clubhouse and it's beautiful. It's there. There's food. Everybody's having a great time and there's kids running around. But the conversations I'm having in those environment, not from a place of them bragging or them showing off, leveled me up because the people I'm in there with, I'm like, oh my God, okay, you're working on this and you're doing this and you're doing that. And this was a 14-hour drive. I just got the car. It's like, here we go. Let's go hang out and do this. And I've been up for a couple of weeks. It's amazing that we are all one plane ticket away, one six-hour drive away from a completely different life. And people don't do it. So when you have to build community, because you do this really well, you talk about community,

you talk about building connection better than almost anyone I know. How do you build that community if you've never done it? Because you've only known your house, your home, your street, your neighborhood. I mean, you get away from that. How do you face that? First, you have to understand your brain does not like change. So the very first thing we have to understand is like, remember those file cabinets back in the old days? You'd pull them out the metal file cabinet

and you'd look in and there'd be all these folders in them. That's what our brain is like. And those folders in our brain are all the things we know we know, where we're comfortable. And when a new person or a new idea comes into our brain, it looks for a file to slot it. And if it can find it, it's like, oh, yay, no change necessary. Yet when a new person or a new idea, like you just said at the clubhouse, enters your brain, most of us, most of our brain send middle finger energy to that new idea and say, reject, get out, I don't have a home for you in my brain.

To build new community, to build new courage inside of yourself, to start the neuroplasticity of your brain, and to really want to. to know what you don't know you don't know, or explore people you're uncertain about, but you know might have contribution to you. You have to invite it into your brain and to help your brain find a new folder. And that's not natural. And so I'll ask you, well, I'll ask you, Charles, when have you encountered a new person or a new idea that you were like in a little bit of resistance energetically to? And you said, no, I'm going to be curious long enough. Okay, so tell me, how do you do it? Because I bet you do it the right, the scientific way. How do you do it? So for me, it's, again, it's very tactical.

You know, I've learned very early on that human brains, I don't have a negative connotation toward things that are selfish. I just don't. All human beings are driven by, hey, this is my goal, this is what I want to do. This is how I'm trying to get there. Yeah. When people, you know, a friend of mine, he's an officer, and I said, you know, what are you going to do if you're putting your life on the line every single day? I go, are you worried about that. He goes, I will be so proud to die for to service. And I was like, that is driven by not, because it was like, oh, that's service to others. That's not service to others. That's service to himself. Again, there's seven human needs that we talk about. And when I talk

to him about it, I was like, wait, wait, time out. You want, you're willing to sacrifice your life for someone else because you want to be seen as the person who wants to sacrifice his life for someone else. And I was like, holy Moses, like in combat. People like, I'm willing to die from my friends in combat, my brother. So I've been around people who are operators because They want to be like, no, I want to be a good brother to them. It always comes from a self-serving need, but there's this negative connotation towards it. This idea like, okay, I want to be there for my wife. It started with an eye.

It's like, it's like, it's the people, the monks who are like, I'm proud to be humble. I'm like, wait, what? That's not how this works. So if you're going to, I want to reach this level of awareness or this high vibration where I'm not driven by ego. It started with I, dude. So you're starting with this idea that all human beings are driving towards however they want to see the world, or perceived in the world, understanding that it goes. So if I meet

someone, I start with, what is, what is this connection? How does this serve me? Is this dangerous? So that's always where I start with first. Is it a real danger or a perceived danger? And so that's step one, because I grew up in a very violent environment on my page. Is this person dangerous? The second thing I go into is sitting down and saying, does this person fire off what I call icky's? In other words, do I have a gut feeling that just does not resonate with me? And if it does, I always honor it. Anytime I've ever violated this, it always come back and bit me the ass, always.

And then do I sit there and say, okay, if this person is not a threat and this person doesn't give me any ickies, do I have the bandwidth to sit down and just truly, as you said in the beginning, sew up with both minds and be present and just be open to whatever comes with it? And sometimes, right,

someone will talk to me about how wonderful Indian food is. I hate Indian food. I don't like spicy things. Vanilla ice cream is too spicy for me. I just can't do it. So I'm like, I'm great. I'm glad that works for you at the football game. Someone was sitting down and telling me how the defense was. I couldn't care at all, but I wanted to connect with him as a human being. So I listened to how footballs are different.

I was like, okay, awesome. So I think it's, for me, it starts with those. I'm curious what your scientific method is, because you've written a book and you've talked about this, and you've had some trials and tribulations, and you've got three little girls who aren't literate, that you've gotten through and you've raised them. What have you taught then? Well, one of the first things I hope that I've taught them

that is we only learn and grow through fumbling forward, failing forward. So one of the things I have teach my children and my clients is we have to start embracing falling forward. And so if there's one thing I know, it's that I have never learned anything through my success. And success is bleeding.

Who just said, oh, Scottney Sheffler, I'm a golfer, said it the other day that he's won and one and one and after he wins, the biggest tournament, the next day it's just back to the grind. It's back to doing the basics. So how have I taught this over and over? What's the actual scientific success? It's discipline and practice, realizing there is no destination, it's just a journey. it's about showing up with a commitment in every single conversation making sure you're awake

and when you're asleep walking moving too awake to realize that the person I'm in front of has a legitimate lived experience perspective set of moods biases mental models that informs them and how to see the world and when I am with anyone I have to know that I get to travel to their place to understand their truth and their reality because it's not wrong. It's just what they see. And if I'm willing in any situation in business at home in my community to be with someone, hear this, with them, like generally with them and where they are, I will find something new, I will find something that can grow me even if I don't agree with them. That's the key. So that, I've known that as holding space.

which is the greatest gift you can give for someone. It's you hold space, but it's hard to do. You've done this on a very high level. You've taught people out of hold space and business to create success. Because a lot of people who listen to this are, okay, this is great and this is all fluffy. This isn't fluffy. This is the core of what you need to do in order to show up. So I'd love for you to talk about kind of how you teach your clients to hold space.

What are some of the success and some of the challenges that you've been through where, you know, all of this has been born from? Holding space with a client, with anyone, it starts long before I walk into a room, long before you walk into a room. We live life coming in hot way too often. And if I really want to hold space and be with someone and maximize my brain's ability to think, reason, and to find a third way, my job is to make sure I'm optimized. Here's how we do it. The very first thing we do is we make sure we have done some breathwork. We make sure our jaw is loose, our shoulders are loose. And we make sure we have a context that says, when I walk in that room, my ambition,

I love the word ambition. Ambition is not about achievement. It's about an energy of how I will show up. My ambition is to be so present that a new idea arrives that none of us expected to arrive. A new experience or a new flow or a new business opportunity arrives because in the room, have not come with preconceived solutions. I haven't come with a talk track of how I'm going to show up. The only track I'm bringing is an ambition to be in wonder. Now, what's the skill? It is just that, Charles, you know that. You know and I know that if I walk in with a agenda to move someone,

to manipulate someone, I won't be able to be in curiosity. I'll be playing chess. Instead, our goal as great leaders and helping other people become great leaders is to be in pure curiosity and wonder what don't I know I don't know and to let their brains explore in a safe place where my face is present and not assumptive in every given moment. And I know you do that because this is what you do on your podcast. So how do you act? I mean, you're brilliant. The way you get people to share things that they would not normally share, how do you do it? You must have a routine long before you start. So I just send them lots of money in advance. You already know this. I've already given you $100 million. That's the... True. Yeah. Simple and easy. And Ferrari. And a Ferrari.

Four of those have showed up. So Mazel Tov, congratulations. So for me, I just am constantly asking what I'm curious about. So as far it goes back to your conversation of curiosity. Like, when you were telling me this, I'm like, okay, this is great. I don't be used in business. So that doesn't introduce an effect on the end business. I was like, okay, so I want to ask Jennifer, we're getting it, we're aware, we're present, that's cute, that's nice, how does that modify? How do I lead my team with that? How do I show up in advance where I'm trying to go? So if I'm in business and I'm trying to build this community, which will make you just completely unstoppable, if you can master community now, as things are falling apart inside your org, and you can

create it so people will bleed for you. And I have very specific ways that my team is willing to bleed for me. How are you, the simple answer is you must be willing to bleed for them. They must see you bleed first. That's how you get your team to bleed for you. Simple and easy. And there's conversations we have about leadership and we're going to lead and how to do that, which we can get into if we want. But for you, when you're working with your clients, what is the normal goal that they want more than anything else? And what's in their way from getting that?

The normal goal is always optimization. I can't tell you, all of my clients are looking to optimize whatever their product is. and they're looking to optimize their human suit specifically how their brain thinks about the product opportunity or the solution sale they're looking to create. And what is in their way is them, always. What in their way is ego, fear,

a defense of doing it the way we've always done it. It is always myself, I am my worst enemy. And I'm sure you've found the same thing, Charles. So if there's one thing we have to do constantly, in our human suit, is start asking or keep asking ourselves, how is this serving me? And what am I unwilling to get curious about that could actually be the thing that could change us all? How it could repackage, how it could reiterate something. And we get way too stuck in the mud.

I'm sure you know that. Because, okay, I got to give you an example. When I wrote my book, there were sentences I was addicted to. I loved. I didn't want to give up. And I was challenged by our editor, and she asked me this. And it was a slap. Do you want to look smart or do you want to make an impact?

And it's a hugely different conversation. I talk about us all the time. Do you want impact or do you want income? They are not the same. They are not. They are not the same. And people turn and like, oh, I want to do this wrong. And I did a podcast with an individual.

And I said, what's your filter? Because he's a billionaire. His kids are billionaires. I go, what is the one filter you give before you start a business? He goes, does it serve and help a billion people? And I was like, okay, hold on, time out. He goes, that's the rule. If you're creating something that does not serve

and help a billion people, he goes, don't worry about the income. Can you impact a billion people? If not, don't do the business. And all of a sudden, all of my business failures went and went away. So to your point of, you know, what your editor said, do you want to be intelligent and seem intelligent? What do you want?

Or do you want impact? So, yeah, it's a huge one. the defining questions. And I think the other thing I have to always work with my client is is the quality of our questions. We're not asking only ourselves, but we're asking our teams. And how much of a disruptor are we willing to be of our assumptions? Right. Because that's ego. His ego. And we're comfortable. Go back to my brain file cabinet. Am I willing to actually bring in a brand new file that I've never had before? Or am I going to keep

circulating on what I know I know I know. Charles, you and I know this. We are in the next evolution, revolution, the next iteration of society where information will be coming so fast at us that the one thing we as leaders, and I believe this with all my heart, the one thing we as great leaders have to do is upskill our ability to ask great questions about the information coming in. That's what I do. Yeah, I think it's interesting. People, People said this recently, they said, information is like salt. And I was like, wait, what? They're like, salt in ancient time was the most valuable resource on the planet.

Now you can get containers of it in the dollar store. Salt is like, information is not like salt. Information used to be coveted and we used to fight for it and protect it and all that. Now I've got enough AI out there that'll tell me everything and tell me how to build a nuclear bomb if I want to. Information is free. Implementation and connection to information, totally different conversation. And what I loved about what you do is the idea that it's the saying because you and I both like sayings, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, we go together. You have all the information just like everyone else does. We all have the processes like everybody else says. We have the systems like everyone else does. Do you have the community to execute on it? And most people don't. So when your clients come to you and say, I get it, my ego is in the way. I am the only problem that I'm ever going to have and I am the only solution that I'm ever going to have. We know that. How do you tend to take the next thing? back to say, okay, I have to rebuild the connection because we've got it internally.

We've done that. How do we build connection and community externally now? What are the tactics that we can do to do that? Yeah. I always encourage my clients to build a community with people who are geniuses, brilliant in their own lanes. Because a lot of leaders, we have to admit, they need to be the top dog in the organization. Big mistake.

In fact, my favorite leader is a man named Mark right now. I won't give you his last name. And Mark is a certified genius. And you know what he is fearless around is bringing in other geniuses? His whole goal is to say, if I in my community can surround myself with other people who in their lane bring an unparalleled optimization and skill set that I don't have, how much better can we be? Most leaders don't want to do that. They say they do. But there's a fear in it, isn't there, Charles?

Have you ever noticed that there's a fear some people have in surrounding themselves with others who may be brilliant in their own way? So what I've learned is the people were radically successful. The high-end, uh-la-la, they're driven by a certain amount of pain and fear. So one of the gentlemen that I'm standing up with here, he had tragedy early in his life, and he lost someone. And he's constantly trying to prove to that individual,

I'm enough and good and enough. health, whatever it is. Another one of my clients very high on spectrum. He's very much on spectrum as far as ADD or autism and all of that. He uses his pain to the point of just going, going and going and going. And we talked about this early on. Pain will get you moving. It's just going to burn you out. That fire will burn you ultimately. So when we talk about getting in the rooms with those people of more impact, of more connection, how do you teach your clients how to do that? How do they get into of the rooms. Because we all talk about it. Raise your network. If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. How do you push yourself? How do you get yourself in that

environment where you are around people who are smarter, better, more dynamic? I have found it so much easier than most people think. It's called, pick up, it's called identify who you'd like to be in the room with. And the chances are, if you're a person of character, you're going to be wanting to be in a room with a person of character. And it's as simple as this. If you pick up the phone and say, Charles, my name is Jennifer, and I've been watching you from afar, and I'd love a chance to learn from you, sit at your feet and absorb you for an hour. Would you be generous enough to give that to me? The answer is nine out of ten times, yes.

Now, we make it much harder. Yes. And I know that if I just pick up the phone and somebody calls me and they ask that, I want to pay it forward. Pay it to that next generation. So let me ask you this. What's the most courageous phone call you've ever made and been mentored at? Where have you said, done this and built a community? Like, said, I want to meet this person and grow with this from this person.

So it wasn't a phone call. It was at an event. So I was speaking at an event, and I will leave the person anonymous. And I don't fan girl over a lot of people. It's just, there's only two people I've ever fan girled over. One was in Dalai Lama, and the other one is Neil deGrasse Tyson. Those are the two people I fan girl over. And I was going to say, but I've met presidents, I've met generals, I've been really high in people, whatever.

I was more excited to meet the president's wife than I was to meet him because I knew she was like years more intelligent than he is. He knows. So if he's listening to this, yes, you can call up and yell me again for talking about that. It's okay. I don't mind. We'll talk about it again. For me, there was an individual at this event. And I admired his ability to command this stage, which is something, it's just human behavior.

And I'd love it. When we talk about community, we talk about connection, the ability to move a stage is, it's amazing. So I walked over to him because I had just gotten off stage and I knew he was there. And I walked over to him, I said, excuse me, I go, do you have a second? He's like, sure, I go, you're one of the better speakers I've ever seen in my life. I would love some feedback. What did I do right?

What did I do right? If you have a minute, I'd love to sit down. I don't drink coffee, but can we grab a coffee? And he's like, dude, you crushed it. I was going to ask you questions. And I was like, and then we still have a friendship to this day. But he sat down and it was having the humility to go to him and say, you're amazing. I'd love to get some stuff.

If you have a moment, I'll buy you, can I steal five minutes? And I found blocking that in is important to, hey, you have five minutes. You have 10 minutes. And then I normally do it in weird numbers. I'm like, you have seven and a half minutes. And they're like, wait, what? Yeah, so you do it as well. I did seven and a half minutes all the time.

Because the brain enters a different list. They're not accepting it. Exactly. It's an energy snap. They're like, wait, what? Yeah. So that's, that stuff that I've done is kind of to pivot that around. Like, hey, do you have seven and a half minutes? So that was one of the times for me that it's worked is just walking up with a place from a place

of humility and saying, dude, really impressive. And then the other thing I would tell people is whoever you're, so I have a client right now who's about to literally go meet Oprah Winfrey and she's freaking out. Like, oh my God, it's Oprah. What do I do? I was like, go research. what she's talked about for the last two and a half weeks. Bring value to that discussion.

Say, hey, I'm sorry you did this and this. You're not like, oh, my God, you're wonderful, you're amazing. Sure, her brain turns off to that. She's in autopilot. She's in sleepwalking mode. Oh, my God, can you help me? Sleepwalking mode. She triggers it because she knows to your point,

they know where to put the file in the filing cabinet. Throwing up a little bit different. And the other thing I will say on this, because I want so many more questions for you is, one of my clients wanted to meet another one of my clients who's a billionaire, and he's never met a billionaire there before. And there was no way I could teach him what he learned at the end. So he spent day and a half, two days with him, and we drove around and we ate, and we saw the cars and we saw

the, all the, the thing. And we were driving away after day one. And he goes, dude, he's just a good dude. I was like, yeah. He's no different than me. I'm like, nope. And he's like, all your billionaires like this. I was like, all of my clients, I won't interact with people who aren't like this. However, they're all just the same dude. Because we think, oh, my God, it's it's it's potus president of the united states oh my god he's a different human being or it's a billion it's a different human being or he's won a sly young award or won the f1 race they're different human beings trust me as someone who's been around these individuals they are i'll put it this way you've written a book right yes i've written a book yes for me it was the

most insecure moment of my life right because i put everything in because i'm like someone's going to judge me so literally don't hire me for 25 a month yes Let's go by the book. I gave more value in the book than you get for me to buy the book. So we're all radically insecure. So when you wrote your book, what was the name of your book? Bridge the gap. All about collaborating in tough times.

How do we collaborate with the brain in front of us? So let's walk through that because I want to get tactical because you and I, when we talk, we go on so many different directions, I want to get locked in. How do we bridge that gap, like tactically? I'm sitting across from someone who has vastly different political beliefs than me or vastly different ideas about the deal we're trying to cut, or vastly different ideas of how they want to run the division where I'm underneath, where they're running from my command.

So how do you do that? How do you reconnect with them and bridge that gap? One word, psychological flexibility. We hear a lot about psychological safety in the world. It's critical, and there is a secret weapon. And that secret weapon is to walk in with a psychological flexibility. a willingness to be so present with the person you're in front of and ask questions like tell me about, share with me, what about?

And to be so engaged and so in wonder that when you're with that person, you can see why their truth is their truth, not from judgment, but from a real curiosity that you will find a third way. Charles, there is such a odd thing in our human suit. and our humans who is constant looking

for confirmation bias. We pretend we're curious as psychologically flexible, but we are not. We are looking to confirm what we know, we know to make sure we really know it.

We're looking to confirm our ego and our insecurity. So well said. No growth happens there. And so to bridge gaps with people in my family who share different political beliefs, I have to ask myself this,

what is my outcome? What is my goal? What do I want? Do I want to confirm my bias, or do I want to be present? How do I want to contribute into that other person's life? And if I can be clear on that and bring a psychological flexibility, I can change the dynamic and bridge the gap. Now, I want to say one thing. If it's a canyon, I have the ickies you called them, I don't want to bridge that gap.

I'm going to keep myself safe. There's a big difference between a gap and a canyon. And I think, you know, we talked about this before about being a zombie. There are times where I want to immediately, my brain wants to go back in the sleepwalking mode because it's got other things that wants to worry about. So if someone brings a political belief or religious belief or something I immediately, because I'm a minor in theology, if someone brings up something of religion, I want to go into, okay, I know this conversation, I've said this conversation, I'm going to pull that folder

out of that file, that file out of that folder, and I'm just going to start regurgitating. I'm like, here we go. I think to your point, what you're telling the audience is, don't do that. Ask them very open-ended questions. And what were those three, you mentioned three open-ended questions. So there's three questions that really open up the brain, and then there's some other techniques. Let me teach them to you. The first question is, tell me about.

If I ask you, tell me about, your brain is hearing, oh, there's not a judgment in the way you're asking me to explore the conversation. So all oftentimes you use the tell me about four times. Someone will say, I'll say, so tell me about your choice to vote for X. And if I let them talk, talk, talk, and the next question I ask is, tell me about whatever their big energy was. And I let them start emptying their metaphorical human cup. And I don't jump back to position against or with them. I just let their brain drain. Let their brain drain.

At the end, I can get to a different. outcome than if I had tried to wrestle with them with my own thoughts, or as you say, my own knowledge and my own file in my head. So the biggest secret to bridging a gap is to not wrestle in the beginning with somebody. Let them fully express themselves. Charles, we live in a world where we ping pong back and forth. We don't let people fully wrestle with their thoughts. And when people fully wrestle with their thoughts, often they realize they don't have a full law. They have an opinion or they have a bias. Have you found that? Yeah. So that's the tactical mirror that I use all the time. So you're asking me to be able to put it up. Tell me more about that.

Hey, you believe in ABC. Awesome. Walk me through that. And there's okay. So what you're saying is this. And that's not what I'm saying. Okay. Seems like. Seems like. There's a great author. His name is Chris Foss. Don't ever have steak with him and his son. They will eat it. His son is huge. Man, it's got really great. Braden's great. But he always talks about sounds like seems like, feels like. He wrote a book called Never Split the Difference. Chris Foster's a great book. Sounds like seems like feels like. So we'll sit there and when I'm talking to someone, so I would start with your example, tell me about why you voted for blah, blah, blah. It seems like what you're saying is that, da, da, da, da. And they will immediately come back. No,

I'm not saying that. I'm like, okay, just seem like that. Walk me through that. Where did I miss? You'll find sooner or later they can't regurgitate MSNBC, CNN, Fox, whatever it is. At some point, that regurgitation, they'll run out of fuel. And they're just being redundant. And now we've gotten to the point where they need a thing. So, like, in negotiation, I always tell people, don't start negotiation first because they're not going to hear anything because they have their negotiation that they've built in their head.

They have to get to their points and they're trying to remember it the whole time. Let them dump first, which I think is what you're trying to say. Am I correct? Oh, completely. Let's have a one-way conversation. So when I'm in business or when I'm with a difficult family member, the last thing I want to do is to trigger their brain by actually. slapping it with an aggressive question that may be just really genuinely curious for me,

but not to them. And you know what the last question I want to ask is? The question like why. So, Charles, you and I are in a conversation about business and I say, and you're struggling, you're an employee that's struggling. And I say, why does your pipeline look so lean right now? Why did you build the deck like that? What do you actually feel inside your body when I say that? Resistance. I want to engage. Yeah. It's kind of like when you tell your partner, what do you want for food? Where do you want to eat today? Uh-uh. Yeah. That's, I'm not a big pronoun person, but this is when I get into pronouns where I sit there and say, you know, what do you want to eat? Say, what do we, what would you like last week? What would we love to have today? What are we feeling? We versus I. We versus you. Because now it's a confrontation. Now you versus me. Correct. There's no collaboration. And that Y word triggers me to go to life or death, fight or flight, mom or dad. Because now it's my identity. I've attacked who I am as a human being, 100%. So we never want to lead with a Y question. We want to lead with questions that open up the brain to say, hey, I'm with you, I'll listen. I'm looking for the third way.

Lots of voices enter, new thoughts, exit. I really think we need to be careful about the energy and the tone and the length. language choices, because words, they build worlds. I love that you spoke about energy and tone. That people don't get that. Can you walk the audience through? Because I've taught this forever. Can you walk people through energy, tone, and cadence when you talk to someone? Yes.

My favorite example is these three words. It is raining. It is raining is a simple sentence. But depending on how I deliver that, I will be sharing my, my, my, my, my, my poker ant. It is raining. It is raining. It is raining.

And as you and I know, people are not looking for words. They're looking for the energy behind the words and what it tells you about them. And so energy completely changes who you are experienced as. And I know you've seen that as well because you are very attentive in when you're working with clients and teaching them negotiation and how to show up optimally. How do you help people understand tone? I do something called the dude exercise. I don't know. Yeah, so as guys, we use the term dude, especially from Gen X, best generation ever. I'm just saying, well, right now. So the greatest generation is the greatest generation.

But after that, I kind of like that's Gen X. So I will see. No bias there. No bias. No, no. No, no. So, but with, we use dude. So when I'm, talking to a buddy of mine, and every guy will get this. I'm like, dude. Now I'm upset with him. Dude. I'm surprised. So we play the dude game. Like, how many different, and I'm like, listen, how many different ways? And I will sit with a client and we'll just get goofy.

Because the minute you start using dude, it, dude. Yeah, the watches come off. The ties come off. We're like, dude. Because I swear to God, if your side of the species wasn't on the planet, we would just revert to dude. That's all it would be. You would be dooters. We're just like, dude.

dude duh so we play the dude game so that that's great that's a big part we play the tonality with with that the second thing I teach is mirroring and we've all heard about mirroring so you mirror body language you mirror tonality mirror breath and this is hard and the next evolution of that is mirror heart rate so it takes a lot of energy to get to that but you will be able to mirror if you mirror someone's verb the verbiage their physiology you then mirror their breath your heart rate will change and match that we know this from couples when couples are in love their heart rates, just like they're walking, will sink.

So you have the ability to do that. Neaching people how to do that when they're across the table from somewhere, to mirror their heart rate, all the walls go down, all of them. So you have to be able to, again, to your point, bridge that gap. And these are some of the higher-end techniques that if you don't know these things, you're going to come in with a strategy that you learned on chat GPT and because you didn't talk to Jennifer, and you don't know how to bridge this gap.

You don't know how to build this connection to another human being. And I think to your point, it worked out really well. I'm just going to ask, I'm not going to push my opinion because my opinion is never going to change. It just is what it is. My ego is going to feed that unless I come in with humility to say, okay, I'm open to what I don't know. Because we don't value what we know as much as we don't value what we don't know. So showing up and saying, okay, walk me through that. My aunt is a great example of this.

I live in South Florida. As we mentioned, I've had guns since I was way too. world, and I can't admit it while I've recorded life. Okay. So I've had guns for a very long time. And my aunt was like, you shouldn't have guns. She's very anti-gun. And I love her for it.

She's great. And I get it. I understand that. And in the last two years, there has been a massive rise of violence towards my community. And it got really, really ugly. You know, there's people walking around with swaths on their shirts and stuff. And they're flying flags, Nazi flags around. And she turns around and she goes,

then you take me shooting. And I didn't take that opportunity to say, okay, no, I'm going to get in your face. You're horrible. I told you should do this. You should buy this. You should buy that. That, da, da, da, da, da, da.

I was like, whenever you want. Sure. Steve was open to sit there, and I didn't hate that opportunity to say, you're wrong. Sit down. I'll sit down. I go, how about we start? Instead of you shooting, since you've never held one,

let's just sit down. I'll take it apart. It's basically a paperweight at this point. Let's have you just hold it and see how you feel. So in negotiation and in business, have you found, would you need to bridge that gap? What works the best for you when it's a huge organization? Because you've worked with very high performance CEOs. How do you bridge that gap for their entire teams downrange?

Before we go there, can I ask you a really important question? Sure. Because I don't want to lose it. No, podcast is over. Click. Okay. So I am flirting with a new way of engaging with. people. I'd love your perspective on it. So I completely agree about the matching heart rate and the

matching vibration. And I've noticed that if I change my vibration in a moment of tension, I can sometimes flip the entire room. So let me give you an example. There's a ton of, it's a tense conversation. And instead of meeting the tension with the tension, one of the techniques I'm really engaging with and practicing is getting really soft and gentle or inverse, if it's too soft and gentle, raising the vibration to flip the script on how the brain is connecting to the information. Have you to have a lot of experience in that? Did you talk a little bit about that? It's an interesting way to change the vibration in the room to have the brain think differently. Right. So I think what you're talking about is pattern breaks. And I

I've ruined this one now, because I've talked about this before on another podcast. And I've actually had people come up during negotiation, and they've used it against me now. I'm like, do you listen to my podcast? So I want to send me that podcast. I haven't listened to that. Okay, I'll just say what it is. So they did a study. And again, again, I'm not sourced on synthesis.

They took a lady, and they gave her a clipboard, and they gave her a container of liquid. And they said, hey, do you mind if I asked you a question? And they said, sure. And she was, okay, well, can you hold this for me and why she asks the questions? And they hand the drink. So coffee or whatever it is. And then they walk away to whoever she asked questions to. And another person who goes to, hey, we just hired Susie.

I would love you to give feedback on what you think of her. Some of the people said that she was warm and inviting. Other people said she was cold and distance. Same tonality, same questions, same attire. What was different? The drink. It was either hot tea or a cold drink. So then we're holding it.

It influenced their perception. So when I'm in this tough negotiation, I will do a pattern break, which I can't do anymore since I've already made it public. So this is a byproduct of doing a podcast. I will sit down when you're just, we're just buddy heads with teams or potential clients or negotiating from hotels or buildings. We've reached the point where I can tell we're done.

Everybody's sponges full. We're just getting into ego. We're not working anymore. I will sit there and go, hungry. I'm like, anybody like, Foh? I'm like, anybody know what foe is? And I will normally pronounce it wrong. I'll be like, anybody what food is?

I heard that. And they're like, wait, what? I'm like, yeah, food, faux. They're like, foe? I was like, yeah, that's soup. I'm like, I'm sorry, I just can't think. They're like, no, it's fath. And they're like, okay.

I was like, there's this place. Let's this, can we just sell this for a minute? We've been here, I haven't eaten all day. Do you guys mine? It's on me. I'll buy it. I will then go, and we will proverbial break bread with each other, but we'll eat soup. That deal closes every single time at that restaurant, every single time.

Because I pattern break it. So being able to do pattern breaks on a high level, sometimes they can just silly. But if you want to make it so it doesn't logically, it won't logically make sense toward the Harvard's and the Yale's. And sorry guys, I've had to deal with you guys. It won't make sense to them. It has to be, so one of my clients, his pattern break, when he was stuck into it,

I'll give you two examples. One of my guys, massive PTSD. He's got TBI, traumatic brain injury, been in combat, was a Marine, gone through some stuff and some really intense level. And he was very mad at me when we were working on what we were working on. That's okay. You can punch me as hard as you want in the face on one condition. Like, what's that?

I'm like, you don't get to smile. He's like, oh, don't worry. I won't smile. I said, perfect. I said, ready? I go, ball up your head. And he bought up his head. And I got close enough so he could strike me.

I said, cool. Take your finger, your other finger and shove it up your nose. And he's like, what the hell? And he's like, now you're laughing. You don't get to punch me. He's like, so it was this pattern break. Another one of my clients, whenever he got stuck, very powerful individual. I will not give you his name because he will be very upset that I told me about this.

but do you know what it's called when you pants someone when you grab the side of the pants and you draw okay so pants in someone we do it we don't think girls do that girls don't do this guys will pants each other as a joke more like teenagers

we'll just grab the side in the pants and I couldn't get him to snap because he was just in it he was just he was low vibration his ego was involved he was scared feared I got the side of his pants and pantsed them

and that broke his pattern so he was fucking okay normally have your boxer still and I'm not taking everything down just the shorts and that broke his pattern. So to your point, yes, you've got to break patterns. And it could be as easy as moving a cup out of the way.

But I'm curious, how do you bridge that gap? How do you get across that line? How do I break that? I do this. I am oftentimes doing exactly what you do. You're using humor. You're using food. What we're really doing is we're bringing it back to a shared humanity.

It's not really me versus you. It's finding a new we. And so just like you, I think, I love your ideas. I'm going to try some of them. I do pattern interrupts. I call them pattern not shifts, but pattern interrupts. And it's about bringing something, an unexpected moment of levity, humanity, or a new thought that reminds us, oh, actually, this is just business. This is just a game for identity out here.

We're more than that game. And so when you can bring that, it helps the brain stop being hyper-focused on one thing and sees the bigger picture. I like to think about it like this is I remind people that we're actually at the buffet table. We're not just in the lettuce. There's a lot of other options

to make this salad beautiful. It's not hyper-focus on one thing, and I do that that way. One other thing I'd love to do is I love to ask people a question in the middle of the pressure that you talked about is, tell me

what would matter most to you in this deal. And a lot of times, if I can do that, it's not about the deal. It's about the impact on the family. Oh, you found that. It's never about the deal. It's not about the impact or the legacy or the whatever it is. Get people to remember what they're actually fighting for.

One of the strategies I use to do a pattern interrupt that I is I will set an alarm on my phone on purpose. I do this too. You see who it is. During the meeting, I will have the alarm go off and like, that's unacceptable. And I will toss my phone on the other side of the room. Like, that's not important. I want to be here. And all of a sudden, someone sees, they're like, oh, my God.

They put me in front of their phone. Oh, my God. They will, it'll just pattern interrupt them so hard. They're like, okay, I need to be fully focused. This guy threw away his phone because for them not having their phone next to them is this huge thing. So they just see perception as reality. Wow. He's willing to put his phone.

on the other side of the room to have this meeting. So when I walk into meetings as well, if I know it's going to be tense in advance, I will walk in and I'm like, hey, guys, how are you doing? And I'll look at my phone, turn it off, drop it in my bag. And I'll walk away. Hey, you just nailed something. Charles, I can't tell you how important this is.

And I asked the audience this, do you know that when I actually ask people when the last time they remember being fully experienced and listened to, they can't tell you? because it's this. Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, uh-huh. And so for the audience, I'm looking at my phone and you think I am not present.

This individual item, this object called a phone is gabbing more of my attention. And the human, we are crying out as a human species to be seen, understood, and valued. You know, our emotional needs are aching. And so if there's one thing we can all do to bridge the gap in business, in our families, and in just the average experience I have driving through my Starbucks line, give someone your presence. That is what they want. They don't want your words.

They only want your energy. What a gift that is in business. That has how you can be a remarkable business leader. A thousand percent. So the people that I, and again, I talk about people I fanboy over, one of my people he's no longer with us, he passed. My uncle Barry. was the best at being present that I've ever seen in my entire life. And I spent a finite amount of time with him in my entire life.

I only got to meet him about a year before he passed away. So I spent a very limited amount of time with that. But his impact in my life, because the maybe across that whole year, maybe two hours, maybe of total time, maybe we went to a Red Sox game, so maybe five hours, that we spent around each other. He was completely there whenever I spoke. and it is a powerhouse move to do.

You just sit there and you stop. And there's physiology you could do to lean in, but you sit there and he would mirror my nodding. He'd mirror my breathing. And he just did this naturally because he generally loved human beings. I don't have that blessing, but he generally loves human beings. So if you're in a business environment

when you don't have this one-to-one, when you can't do the fun game and you can't do the phone game, how do you teach your clients to connect on that high level? So connection, I'm going to go back to the very, very beginning does not happen with, if I want to, I'm a big leader and I'm coming into a big room and I want to connect and I want to create an experience where we all leave with many voices and come out with a great solution. Let's just set that up. That's typically what we're looking to do. It's not about me in the room. It's about who I am before I get into the room. I cannot stress this enough. You know, the most important thing there is, is for connection, for breakthroughs, is being present in your body and being your uncle. What was his name again? Barry.

Barry would have been great in those rooms because what he would have walked in with is a sense of like, it's almost like an aura that you walk in the room. You walk in the room and people know you are here. You are not here. Right. You are here. And if you really want to be here, it is that simple and that hard. I remember there is

President of the United States Bill Clinton walked into the room and the person I was hanging out with at the time was not a fan I'll say that as nice as possible she was desperately not a fan of the individual and Bill Clinton is not an attractive man before we went into the event

at least she did not feel he was attractive some other people might think he's attractive I don't know he's got external plumbing doesn't do anything for me sorry so we go in and he's like I can't believe on doing this stupid. I don't want to be here. She was really upset. 30 seconds into the room. He just saw him walk on a stage. And she goes, okay, now I kind of

want to hook up with him. What the hell does just happen? He had this aura about him. I remember looking over at her and I was like, how? So how does someone build that level of aura, that level of intensity? Because some people just had it. They either repel or they draw you in it. I'm certainly an expert at that because I think about that all the time. And it comes back to when I walk in a room, who am I going to be, not what am I going to do? Big difference. We've been taught in the world to do, once I do something, what I'll have and I'll be happy. And I like to flip that and think to myself, no, actually, it all starts with who am I going to be? Am I going to be generous in a room? I'm going to be wanting to be

seen in a room. I mean, like, and what you focus on is what you will see and what you will create. And so if I actually am clear, and I'm telling my client that they're going to go and pitch to, one of my clients just pitched it and Dresen Horowitz, and they got a great raise. And the question I was, is it's not what you're doing, it's who you're

being. They are buying the energy of connection to who you be. Not who you are. Who you be. Like, the being deep inside of me that compels them to say, I trust you. I can smell your commitment.

I have a question Do you find it's easier to do that now or it's harder to do that in this time and age? Never thought about that. Let me think about that. What do you think? Where did the question come? What are you thinking about?

I personally feel it's never been easier to create connections with other human beings than it's been now. Because to your point, this stupid thing, this stupid device has the phone, because we're so connected, we're so desperate for that drink of water in the desert. We're so desperate for connection that if I just show up, I'm like, I just want to connect with the person.

And again, I don't know a whole lot about football. I never really have. It's just not my thing. Again, Mennonites playing with balls. It's not my thing. So I walked in and I got invited and I was like, hey, I don't think about football. I'm like, why does this do this? And I was so happy just to talk about, he's like, okay, well, this is.

this and this. And I'm like, yeah, but why this? And we just, he was so desperate to have that conversation. And it was authentic questions. Like, I wanted to know. It was like, why does this happen this way? Or why do they do this? And why don't they do this play or da-da-da-da? He loved it. And we talked about it. And all of a sudden, now I'm his buddy. And if we're going to wrong, I love talking to the guy because he'll listen to this. I love talking about what he shared in there. That was really cool. I did not know that this is how coaches plan out. I did, like, for example, at the game, there were three people giving out plays to the team. Okay. I was like, why are there's three people giving up?

And then they had different shirts on and they had flags behind them. And they looked like the people who land planes if you had given them crack and they were on speed. I was like, what the heck is going on? They're like, oh, it's a decoy strategy. I was like, wait, what? It's like the other team's trying to read their plays. So they're using it. And then they tell people each time different color shirts and different, that's what they're giving away from the plays.

And they're telling the team. I was like, huh. Son of a bitch. I would have never thought that. Like, I just, oh, cool. That was interesting to me. So for me, when I want to create connection, it's always about, okay, how do I want to make that person feel?

Now, what do I want? What is my goal? How do I want them to? Because I'm a comedian. He's like, I just want to make people laugh. And I was like, yeah, but that's not connecting with them. So he's like, I can't find, in his case, he's like, can't find a relationship. People just, they view me as this dancing monkey.

I was like, dude, your intent is just to make them laugh. Of course you're the dancing monkey. So when you're bridging the gap, and I'm going to keep pushing on this, when you're working with clients and you're there, they're coming to you because they're in a specific pain. How do you fix that pain? So what of the pain that they're in and how do you fix it? I can't fix that pain.

I can only offer their brain a chance to see things differently. Let's be really, really queer. The only thing I can do is affect me. But what we can do to help a client fix their pain is decide if it's worth fixing first. No one does anything without a really important reason. So it always starts as why, would this be worth it to you? And sometimes it's not worth it. Right. Let's all admit it. It's

not worth it. And once we determine if it's worth it, we have to go into the human suit and say, what am I committed to changing? You brought it up about people who say they want a diet, but they won't stop eating, right? The question really is, is what is your level of commitment, of discipline? It's a beautiful word if we think about it, to get skills toward transformation and change. And then the real question, and I'm I'm going to keep coming back to it is what is your willingness to be present in the room without, with your ego, with your Hannah, your barker, put on timeout in a loving way so that you can learn and hear something differently. Charles, you and I both know this.

The most important piece in the world is trust. People will buy what you are selling them, solution selling them, if they trust you. And I cannot scream, trust me. I cannot trust as an experience, and it's a feeling that people get over time, and it's based on one thing. Are you present with me and not running an agenda over me? With versus over. So constantly, that is the conversation I have to have with clients. Can you be with some, no matter how maybe crazy their idea is, long enough to maybe see something or to contribute a different idea with them because you've created enough connection?

Charles, when it gets down to it, you said something really, really, you asked me, do I think that it's easier to connect with people now as opposed to the future? I don't think I agree with that. I think the human condition is always starving to be experienced. Right. Interesting. I think it's starving. And I think that if there is one thing that you said that is, I would have. agree with in that premise is maybe that because of technology people don't realize

it's available to them and so they're excited to get engaged because they haven't had that. But I don't think humans have changed over time. I think actually we are so starting to be seeing known, understood, and valued that it'll never change the human condition. I don't know. Do you disagree at that? Yeah, so I think we're saying the same thing. Okay. I agree.

The human condition by itself has always wanted to connect. It's a survival mechanism. We need each other to survive if not the saber two tiger eats us. We've always had that. That's hard-coded and who we are. What I think has happened is because that there's the lack of that. Because in the past, you know, you and I grew up at a time when we went to school where there wasn't cell phones.

And we had to actually talk to people wild. We had to interact with people. Write letters. Yeah, letters. Amazing, right? You actually had to communicate. You had to be present. You had to give that person the gift of you, which was being present.

So we had to do that. We had no choice. We would go out and we had to use our imaginations and ride bikes and then the streetlights would come on and we'd come back. And yeah, yeah. I would. That's we grew up with that. We were forced where there was more authentic, real present connection back then. Now, because of the little glass box in our pocket,

it, we blatantly walk around and ignore each other all the time. I can't tell you how many times when I'm in New York, I will physically have to move someone because they're looking at their phone and they're going to walk into me. So I will physically just like, hey, how are you? And I'll just, again, I'm a big guy. So when people walk out, I'm just slowing down like, hey, how are you? And just do I. They're so starving, self-induced starvation, by the way, because all of this is self-induced, that when I show up with just a little bit, they can be like, oh my God, I'm this oasis where I think when I was growing up, to put it in a food metaphor, there was a bazillion different steaks. There's a bazillion different buffets. And they wouldn't

have cared about the one person giving out french fries. But now since they've self-induced the starving mode, I'd show up with a French fry, the brain explosion. Oh, my God, connection hits here. Give me a fry. So for me, it's easier now as long as it doesn't come from ego, because that's the other thing we're battling. is so because again your phone the algo your algorithm will teach you and show you only what you want to know so I will mess with my friends phones all the time if they leave the room I will mess with that I will sit there and say hemorrhoed cream or hamster sacks and I'll read it and I'll say it into their phone like 15 times and then two days later it's all the memory cream in their algo they're like oh you bastard so we'll mess with each other so we know that the algro is constantly listening so it's coding us to be disconnected so it's easier to for me to bridge the gap by showing up to your point without an agenda, to actually be present. But most people don't do that because they're afraid.

Well, and I think most people don't do that for one important reason. They don't think about how their energy, their behavior and their quiet behavior impacts the room. There's this new idea I've really enjoyed thinking about, and it's about this idea that we're all a virus. Okay. I am a virus. Think about this. When I walk into a room, I'm an unconscious virus. Okay. My energy will impact the room for good or for bad. It'll impact the energy curve.

And I don't think anyone, I talk about this with my CEOs and my leaders all the time. Like, you are a virus. You enter that room. It will shift the room. It will infect the room. It will create whatever your unconscious creation in the back of your unaware, awareness is running on you. So the most important thing you can do is decide who you're going to be in that room, how you're going to show up. And the word that I've been talking about most of them is, how can I be walk into a room clearly generous to understand the other brilliant ideas

in the room that I might have been blind to before, that I might have been sleepwalking before. I can't emphasize this enough that there are no magic bullets except this one. how you walk into a room and who you decide to be in that moment will entirely shift everything. You know this. You know this. How you prime yourself, how you set yourself up for success. That bridges the gap. Leap blocking, A, that ain't going to work. Well, it's going to create something, but it's not going to be optimal. The intentionality of who we be in the world bridges all the gaps. The generosity I bring to the other other person's perspective bridges the gap because everybody's fighting for something for a really

good reason. So if someone wants to learn how to do this, how to bridge the gap and attract this down, because most people, and you know this, they'll come to us for strategies, they'll come to tactics and like, how do I do a negotiation, how do I make an extra seven figures, blah, blah, blah, blah, they don't, a lot of this for you've gone over and this level of awareness and this level of vibration, they never heard it before. And they don't have some of tactics. because you've done this for a very long time.

You've done it as very high performers. If someone wants to bridge that gap, how do they track you down? How do they get a hold of you? How do they start implementing this right now? Good, quick. Thanks. I'd love them to buy a copy of our book,

Bridge the Gap by McGraw-Hill. And in that book, they're going to understand a set of paradigms and tools that will have them start setting up their biology for success, understanding their identity and the skills that they can have inside that identity that'll bridge gaps. So for example, if there's one word that I would give you that I've experienced you in

completely is it's in authenticity. Not the authenticity that the world talks about, but the authenticity of like, I actually want to know who you are. I want to know who I, I want you to know who I am. I'm going to be generous with how much I listen and how much I listen and how much I share, that is who you are at the depth of your core. And the very first thing we teach in the book is, who are you? What's important to you? Why does it matter? Well, it matters because who you are in that room changes everything.

Everything. And if you don't know who you are. So find me at how to bridge the gap. How to Bridge the Gap.com. And most importantly, find a bunch of people in your life. If you don't find me, find other people in your life who make you think differently. I'm going to change that word. Find other people who invite you to think differently,

who see you as so possible and so amazing, and they're willing to challenge your bullshit. Yes. I love the people who want to challenge my bullshit and get in my face. I got a lot of it. Oh, my God. There's a reason my eyes are browned. So if someone wants to track you down on social media or anything,

is there other ways that they can connect you? What's the best way to do it? Yeah, Google Jennifer Edwards, and how to bridge the gap, you will find me on a number of maybe over 150 podcasts. You'll find me on LinkedIn. And LinkedIn, I really attempt to deliver a value proposition that has us think about bridging gaps in our everyday life and specifically in business. And more importantly, give me a call. I love having conversations.

And I guarantee I'll do one thing with you. I'll be with you. I'll be present and I'll help you hopefully open a door to something you haven't seen about yourself. Jennifer, thank you so much for coming. on and being with me and being present here and having this conversation, I've enjoyed it immensely. Charles, every minute I get to spend with you create some laughter, some new learning, and I always leave more joyful than I became in. So thank you. Thank you so much. All right. Well, that wraps up another episode of The Proving Podcast. Jennifer came on and she showed us exactly how to bridge

the gap. How connections and communication and success all start with you. I hope you guys had found it valuable. It was a blast to talk to Jen for you should hear the conversations we have when it's not being recorded. It is wild. I think it's the best part of being a host of the podcast is the conversations you guys don't get to see. Anyway, maybe one day we'll bring everybody together and share it. In the meantime, go talk to Jennifer. She got a great book. I'll see you guys in the next episode.