This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - The Power of Conscious Connection with Talia Fox | 263

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

In a world of surface-level interactions and quick fixes, what does it mean to truly connect? Today, Nicole is joined by Talia Fox, CEO of KUSI Global and author of The Power of Conscious Connection, to explore how authentic relationships and intentional leadership can transform our lives and work. Talia’s expertise as a psychologist and “inspiration Jedi” has guided leaders in organizations ranging from the U.S. Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs to Harvard and Howard Universities. Her mission? To help us trade transactional interactions for meaningful, conscious connections that align our values with our actions. In this episode, we explore: Why connection is a brave, messy, and essential act. How listening is the most underrated and impactful leadership skill. Tools for building conscious equity and connected cultures. How to align values with actions for deeper relationships at work and in life. 💡 Takeaways: Connection is a two-way street—when we truly see, hear, and value others, we also feel seen, heard, and valued. So let’s trade fake for real, surface for deep, and quick for meaningful. Connect with Talia Fox:  Website: https://taliafox.com/  Book: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Conscious-Connection-Habits-Transform/dp/1646871359 Kusi Training: https://kusitraining.com  IG: https://www.instagram.com/taliafoxspeaks/?hl=en Related Podcast Episodes: Loneliness And The Value Of Connection with Kasley Killam | 218 133 / Making Friends As An Adult with Danielle McCombs Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

I am Nicole Kalil, and you're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast, which means the world to me because I know you're busy, and I know that there are a ton of options out there. So I'm going to dive right into our topic for today. And that is the power, the value, and the innate need that we all have for connection. We're so desperate for connection that we're drowning in it. Zoom meetings, group texts, DMs, endless feeds, and pings, and yet we're lonelier than ever. Why? Because we're being sold connection like it's a product that we can buy or a shortcut that we can take.

And we're doing everything but actually connecting. We talk when we could listen. We scroll when we could be present and we skim through sound bites instead of really hearing the people around us. We are craving connection while actively avoiding it. We've swapped the real and the meaningful for the dopamine rushes and the digital applause,

hitting the like button on a stranger's vacation photo as a grand gesture of support, while meanwhile, the friends and family we love might be lucky to get a phone call every few weeks if we're not too busy. It's like we don't even talk anymore. I fear we've lost the skill of listening, of empathy, of curiosity, and even healthy debate. In a world of interconnectedness, we've lost connection with

each other and even with ourselves. So today we'll be talking about how authentic, conscious connection can be a game changer in our lives and our work, and why listening is the ultimate underrated leadership skill and how bringing our values back into alignment with our actions can help us be and feel more connected. I'm thrilled to have Talia Fox to share some connection wisdom. Talia is the CEO of Kusai Global, an inspiration Jedi, and a psychologist who understands what it really takes to foster connected cultures. With clients ranging from the U.S. Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs to Harvard and Howard Universities, Talia's mission is to help leaders foster

conscious equity and build cultures where human connection isn't just a buzzword, but the backbone of real success. Her new book, The Power of Conscious Connection, is all about giving you the tools to actually live and lead with intentional, meaningful relationships. Talia, thank you for joining me, for connecting with me today. And I want to kick us off by asking for you to explain what conscious connection is. I think we know, at least in theory, what connection is, but you very clearly call out conscious connection. So what is that? Thanks, Nicole. It's so great to be here. And I'm so glad that we're talking about

this very worthy topic. So here is something that might be surprising about the conversation of a conscious connection. It's actually less about this idea of connecting with others, because I think that that is something that we understand and we know about. But it's really more about connecting with our power to make decisions about how we're going to live our lives, who we're going to connect to, and really getting quiet and being so connected within, observing and listening in such a way where we are being guided to the right connections and the right experiences in life. You know, sometimes when you're trying to solve a problem, you don't want to think about the

problem itself, which is connecting. You want to think of deeper as to what is actually going on inside of me right now. What am I craving for? And why am I feeling? Even if I have people all around me so disconnected from my values and from myself. Okay, so that feels like a simple distinction with powerful impact. Even as you said it, I'm like, okay, yes,

we know subconsciously that we're wired for connection, that we want to connect with people. But this idea of creating the connections we actually want or asking, what is it that I'm missing right now or craving right now and who and in what ways will I get that? Am I understanding what you're saying? Or very simply, what do I have the power to do in my life? So it's being conscious of the power that we have to make an impact on all of our choices. The number one choice is how we are connecting to the world and to other people. And so it's really about, it's about choices. A lot of people, you know, I think that in some ways, I'm a therapist, by the way, I was a therapist before I came into this work. And so boundary setting, and some of us feel drained by connection. Some of us feel like the people that we're around and the experiences that we're having are not satisfying. And so this conscious connection is like this moment where you're taking a deep breath and you're like, wait a minute, I'm really powerful here.

I have choices. You know, no matter what I'm feeling, this isn't something that's victimizing me. I can sit back and be a strategist around how I use my power and my thoughts and my skills in order to get that feeling. I actually describe a conscious connection of that. If you've ever climbed a mountain, it feels like that really cool, beautiful, free feeling. You're on the top of the mountain, the air is cool, and you just feel like things are right and moving in the right direction. That's what it is to be both conscious and connected. I love the element of choice in that. There's so much power in it. And

I think, or at least I said it in my opener and I am curious your reaction. I think a lot of the connections that we're making today are unconscious. It's like a default, right? We know subconsciously that we're missing something or that we want something or that we're craving something and we find ourselves on social media or on a Zoom call or shooting out a text or whatever it might be without taking that step back to identify that we have so many other available choices? Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. We're living in a world where things have gotten really squirrely and kind of unnatural, right? And I think that the biggest sad thing about people these days is that we all feel like we're supposed to intuitively know how to handle the level of just technology and the pinging and the phones and all

this other stuff. Like we actually think that we are built for that. We are not built for that. Right. And so we actually need to create, we need to stop for a moment and create a bona fide strategy. Like it needs to be almost like a type A strategy. Like how am I going to manage my sanity? How am I going to make better choices? And you're doing it not just for success because I love success and money and all that good stuff. Like that's going to be, you know, the benefit of this. But you're also doing it because you want to feel good and you want to feel happy and

you want to also feel like you're building relationships and connections that, that are going to work for you and move you towards something that you want. And the work that you're doing and have been doing, what do you see as the choice or the connections that we're craving that we're missing? You know, we, we hear that we're lonelier than ever before, even though we're surrounded by constant communication. And so what are you seeing generally that is missing and that we're craving? So the work that I do, I'm a leadership strategist. I actually go into these organizations and I really watch people almost like a reality TV person, right? I watch people and I look at systems, right? I look at things that organizations are doing with their people and identify strategies

to have them do it better, to connect differently and to move toward meaningful goals, right? So I take that same business strategy and you can apply it to the individual and think about what you're craving. Because I'm very, you know, in my book, for those of you that might have read it as I was a single mom, and I just come from very humble beginnings. And so you can't get to certain places without having a lot of self reflection. And so what I am seeing now, people are, I think we're having also a fake epidemic. I'll use that where, you know, you have more than ever, people are trying to figure out the right thing to say. We're putting our messages now in chat GPT. We're like trying to find like the perfect language and the perfect way of operating with each other. And it's turning into this barrier to authentic connection. And here's the challenge. Those people that feel like they're being real and authentic, they end up being direct and rude. Or if they're in the

workplace, they're just very unskilled. Like, I get it that you want to be honest, but that just wasn't appropriate. And that wasn't skilled. And so and then you have the other side of someone that comes in, and they're so rehearsed. And so you know, off on script that you're like, gross. And you just make me want to vomit. Right. Yeah. So there's a middle ground to like having this skill to be able to cultivate ourselves, but to be authentic and feel good about how we connect. And so one of the strategies to doing that is to really try to walk around in a place of what's important to me and who am I, not how do I need to talk? How do I need to walk? But it's like, who am I? And in this moment, am I reflecting those values or what's important to me? So really quickly, for example, you know, I had this woman

that I was training and coaching and she's the sweetest person you'll ever meet. Like she takes care of her family and her parents, she has autistic child. And when she gets into a room, she always has a scowling look on her face. And she's, you know, she says things like, really, what is it that you want? And she calls herself so real, right? She like, I'm real, because she tells, she's known for being rude and real. And I'm like, you know, you are the like, nicest person I've ever met, but offline, which tells me that that persona that you're putting is fake. But she's craving, she doesn't know how to be vulnerable. She's craving control. She's craving power. And it's being masked by her idea that she's being real. But many of us are actually being fake and we don't even know it. Okay. There's a lot there. I know I personally struggle with this.

I'm guessing we all do. Is this idea of values being, as you said, what's important to me and who I am day in and day out. I sometimes think we've, you know, kind of put it in the, like, this is what we put on a poster or on a sign. These are my values. Or this is who I am when everything is going according to plan or I'm in a good space, I find it exceptionally hard in today's day and age to hold on to our values when things get tough or when we're faced with somebody who's challenging us or our values. And even more so, how quickly we hold other people to this really high standard of our values, but then sort of let ourselves off the hook. As we're recording this, it's a little bit after this, the most recent presidential election. And I'm most concerned about that. Like we claim to value kindness. We claim to value curiosity and empathy or whatever it is that your core values are. And I'm just not seeing very much of it. And I'm trying so very hard

to hold onto my values right now when it's hardest to and finding it really challenging. Talia, I don't, I'm kind of all over the place with this, but any reactions? Yes. You're asking, I think, the most important question that we need to be asking during this time, right? We're in a, we're in a world that's very like politically divided. I think so many people just agree that things just feel a little off and I won't even go deeper to what that is, but it just feels off. And I think that this is, you know, on all sides, it's expansive, right? That I've talked to people. And I think that you're absolutely right, that what we're having is everyone is trying to figure out how to be skilled on how to advocate for themselves, express their ideas, express their values, express their fear.

And at the same time, the goal is hopefully to have connections and to be open to somebody else. And here's the deal. This is what I said before. As human beings, we are not trained to have these kinds of conversations. So I'm in the world of having literally the 10,000 hours of this strategic communication and helping people negotiate and have sensitive conversations, right? Most of the world has not had that level of training. I actually feel like it should be just a mandatory thing

of what is the skill? Because the skill is, and this goes back to being authentic. I had a conversation with someone and I got upset. And I feel like I violated my values because one of the things, I got this from a guru, is when someone's in my presence, I want them to feel uplifted or the same, but not diminished in any way. And I feel like because of my fear and because of my anxiety, that I do feel like that there

was a level of me diminishing this person in some way. But the piece for me was I had compassion and grace for myself. And the conversation is, you can probably imagine, given my life experience, how hard this is for me. With that said, what I said, I did not mean to make you feel that way. That was my fear talking. That was my anxiety talking. And I really care about you. And I want us to be able to have a conversation, but like really just expressing like, I'm sorry, this is how I spoke to you. And even though we have a lot of differences, I don't feel good about that. Right. But being able to have conversations that

can be kind and loving and having grace for yourself that there are certain topics that are super triggering. You know, people have a lot of stuff that's going on. And so we also don't want to have the standard of perfection there either. And if that person would have said, well, you said it, I'm not taking it back. Then I get to have grace for myself. Like I did what I needed to do to speak honestly, but I also am worthy enough to make a mistake and to be able to love myself and forgive myself, even if the other person doesn't feel

that they could forgive me for a mistake. I wonder your thoughts on this. As you were talking, it makes me feel like, well, first we need to practice this skill. As you said, we're not being trained and we're not putting ourselves in the environment where we get to practice this very often. And my thought was it's probably best to practice with people we have a relationship with. There is a level of care or respect that already exists so that you can make mistakes a little bit more freely, I guess, and that there might be more grace as opposed to, I think a lot of us are making these mistakes or trying to have these conversations in snippets, like in an online space or in the comment section. I'm afraid it's creating more disconnection than it is conscious connection.

Again, any reactions? And I swear, I'm going to ask you questions about your book and the habits, but I'm fine with this. I'm actually enjoying it. So, okay. So I have a couple of things to share on that. I mean, one is, I think Brian Tracy has this quote, it's really good to be tension relieving or goal achieving. So what people are doing is they're actually using online, not for any goal. You know, like I think we're under the mask as I'm trying to make something better. I'm trying to get a point across. But getting a point across to the other side by disparaging or calling people names and all that other stuff, your goal is not to get a point across. Your goal is to, you know, create conflict or to just

relieve your own tension. So I think that there needs to be, it won't be everybody, but there needs to be a rise of a group of people that are able to take a step and be goal achieving as opposed to tension relieving. Again, it won't be the masses of people potentially. I mean, I would love to have it be the masses. That's my goal in life is to have like this like mass experience of people connecting and interacting in a very specific way. I think it would change the entire course of humanity if we could. But we can start with just a few people where, you know, do you want to be right? Or do you want to be free? And do you want to feel a sense of peace and joy right those are those are the choices and so too much conflict too much even sharing your ideas and these

disjointed ways that are just ways for you to just kind of get it off your chest um it might be cathartic for you but are you picking the right venue and are you picking the right safe space and the right people to express yourself in that way? And so this is where it's conscious, your conscious connection. Are you conscious about the way that you're connecting with people? And I want people to be very selfish about this. Is it serving you well? Is that serving you in any way?

Afterwards, do you feel like you can be more present for your children? Do you feel like getting up and making a casserole or are you feeling depressed and depleted and lack of energy? And you even want to like call into work the next day. So I just want people to kind of identify when we make these decisions to connect in non-conscious ways. I didn't say unconscious. That means we'd be knocked out, but we're drunk. Yeah, right. Yeah. Don't do that. Well, that's happening too, but that's a whole other topic. Is there, there is a sacrifice to our mental health. There is a sacrifice to our peace. I feel like you brought us full circle back to the power and the choice that we

have and also the what's important to me and who am I? Because I know when I have gone into the not conscious or the relieving tension, I often don't feel proud of myself on the other side. I often feel drained or like, why did I do that? And I know that feeling. I don't like that feeling. So, you know, back to the opportunity for conscious connection. In your book, your subtitle is Four Habits to Transform How You Live and Lead. Can you explain those four habits? Is that the love framework? Yes. Okay. It's really funny because we went back and forth, I mean, the publishers, because the love framework, these are the habits that I identified by reading hundreds of books and identifying leaders from all walks of life and 20 years of work.

And it came down to four simple things that really skill us up in order to have these conscious connections. I had these habits written down and my son at the time, who was really young, he was like, hey, that spells out the acronym love. And I'm like, I have to use it. Although I don't know if I should. So anyway, it happens to be, I think, connected to a way that we can all connect and love each other. So those habits, there are four of them. And these four habits are, if you do these every day, it has absolutely changed my life. And I've seen it work miracles in other people's lives. It's to listen. Listening is not just listening to other people, but listening to yourself.

So like taking quiet moments to really manage and watch the thoughts going in your head and learning emotional intelligence as a skill in order to be an amazing, I mean, masterful listener. Like we need to master that quality so that we can access unlimited wisdom, access unlimited wisdom. The next one is observe. So observe is like the Sherlock Holmes ability to think in systems. So it's your idea of getting super quiet, almost Matrix-like. And instead of talking so much and being frazzled, you're the person that's sitting back and looking for connections. Not just in other people and what's going on in your world, but even in yourself. Something as simple as, hey, when I get enough sleep, I tend to make it to the gym. You're just looking for connections in the world and seeing how you can utilize those observations to unlock genius once again.

You'll be the smartest person in the room if you can just zip it for a minute and observe. So the first two are you're gathering intel. You're listening, you're observing, gathering intel. The second two is your active piece. So the second two is once you've listened and observed, what do you do with that information? Well, you use that information to align with your values. You ask yourself the question, you know,

what's important to me? What's important to other people? And you use that as a foundation to create decisions, to decide if you're going to go online or not, to decide what you're going to eat or not. All of the decisions and all of the things that you say and do are in those values. I actually even use the word cultural competence in my book, which is this idea of understanding your values, how they're different from others and coming to some kind of peace around our world and our differences and how you can value those differences without sacrificing who you are and what's

important to you. And then the last one, and we started this conversation with this skill, which is this beautiful opportunity to communicate with authenticity and to communicate in a way that reflects your power. So you have listen, observe, gathering intel, value, and engage. And that's where you're out in the world doing something that's meaningful and communicating in a way that leads you towards everything that you could ever want. So I know your book is about living and leading and the acronym love in business might be a tough transition. So I appreciate you sharing where it came from too. How do you see, how do you leverage the love framework in businesses, not just to make culture better, but to also improve results? Because I think most businesses want both or see them both connected, right? Like we want a great culture, but we also want to improve our results. So the love method actually, although I have not called it the love method, it's actually a strategic framework that happens to just make that acronym. I wanted to do something

for the masses, has been tested and used really in business. And I would say probably some of the most complex business systems. And so if you had to look at that system from a really high level business strategy, it's listening to your people, observing data and like what's real. So you can't just listen to people. You have to see, does that match up with the data? So that's collecting your intel, revisiting what's important to the company and where you're going, what are your values, what are your goals? And then the last thing, creating a full

strategy and plan that communicates in such a way that reflects those values, reflects what you've observed, and it reflects what you've listened to. And so you keep doing that over and over again, whether you're doing a strategic plan, whether your goal is to improve, you know, customer engagement, whether it's to make, you know, improve the bottom line, you want to double the bottom line, you've got to listen to your customers, observe what's actually happening, identify what's valuable to them, what's valuable to you, what's important. And then you have to engage the customers in such a way that reflect those things. It's a pretty like simple, but it's hard and it works. Yeah.

And I debated about even asking the question and I'm so glad that I did because that was simple and powerful. Simple in, it's not hard to mentally grasp. I'm not sure that's simple in execution. You probably need somebody like you to help go through it. I want to hone in on the listening part. Are we very good listeners? You work with businesses and organizations.

It feels a little bit like an underused skill that we're getting worse at. Is that true? What do you think helps us be better listeners? Yeah. So I think, I think listening is almost the skill is almost becoming a crisis. You can almost call it like some level of like the lack of it. Part of it is, I told you, I observe people and my background is in psychology. So what I noticed that people are doing is because of, I don't know, maybe there's so much going on in the world, we're either distracted or becoming more and more self-centered. So sometimes people at meetings, if you really pay attention to them, I actually can see in someone's eyes, I know this is going to sound

really bizarre, Nicole, if they're thinking about themselves as opposed to thinking about somebody else. I can watch people. You will see they're like thinking about their hair. You'll look in their eyes. If you're like paying attention, you'll see that it's a complete obsession with like how they're looking, how they're sounding. And they completely missed the mark that they're there to be of service and that they're there to do a job. And they've also completely missed the mark to listen to what the other person's saying so that they can craft what they're going to say according to what they just heard. So that is a huge problem, the level of self-centeredness. So the things that work is that we can't

underestimate and think that listening is just a natural skill. And you're like, yeah, I've heard this before. It's in every leadership book. Like every leadership book mentions listening. It is something to actually practice. And the way that you practice it is when you come to a meeting, you actually have a listening strategy and an intent. And so you ask yourself what kind of information, and this is even if you're having a conversation with your child, what kind of exchange is this? What kind of connection is this? And so what is the appropriate listening strategy that I need to use right now? And so some of us, if you have a real hard time being distracted, you may say, I'm looking for three core values. When this boss is talking, I want to look for clues as to what's important to them.

And so you give yourself a goal, right? Or you might say, I'm actually going to listen for hot words in this organization. There's going to be three, four words that everybody uses over and over again. So that might be your listening strategy. So you come up with a strategy for the kind of intel that you want to collect. And when you go in to meetings or even if you have a conversation with a partner, a child, whatever, you have a little bit of a thought as to what you want to gain from the situation. If you have no idea, then you might have to have a focus strategy.

So that might mean, for example, I have people all the time that want to have a hard conversation about something. They want to talk about their lives and they literally just want me to listen. And so what I do in that situation is I'll say, I want to be completely focused and committed to you. So I am going to put a timer on for 10 minutes. And for this 10 minutes, I am going to listen and be completely and fully committed to you. I can't listen to you for a half an hour, go on and on and on about your issues with your boyfriend. Yeah, right. Like, I just know, I'm just going to be like, no, but I love that because I think if somebody feels that somebody's

invested and fully engaged with them for 10 minutes, they're going to get so much more out of that than when they go on and on and on for 30 minutes. And you know, the other person is, as you said, thinking about something else. I mean, I don't, I think we're fairly obvious. I often notice when, and I catch myself doing this too, is listening to respond, right? And you can see that they're already formulating their thoughts and what they're going to say. And it's like, but I'm not done yet. What a difference it would make in all of our relationships if we actually gave somebody 10 minutes of focused, engaged listening for no other purpose than to be there to hear. I think that would be a pretty incredible starting point.

Yeah. My girlfriends, they love it. They literally will send me a text and be like, can I get a fast 15? I love it. And I'm like, I absolutely, they love it. They literally will send me a text and be like, can I get a fast 15? I love it. It's in my book. I talk about the fast 15 and I'm like, I got you a fast 15. Like, let me have it. Like what's going on? And it's, it's, it's really a powerful experience. I just will add very quickly to this listening strategy or skills around this. Becoming a really great asker of questions is also a listening strategy. The kinds of questions that you ask will be able to give you more intel and

give you more opportunity to be supportive and connected to people. Okay. I can't believe we're already toward the end of our time. So I'm just going to ask one last question, which is what would you recommend as a first step for anybody who's listening in that wants to be more conscious in creating their connections? It just really wants to create deeper, more meaningful connections with people. What, what are the best next steps? Yeah. So I would say, and I have some great tools in the back of the book, like a whole strategy, but I would just start by scheduling 15 minutes tomorrow morning to listen to your thoughts in your head and just to ask yourself, you know, what am I craving? And this whole existential

question of, you know, where am I really heading, right? That would be my first question, my first thing that I would do, just kind of having some quiet 15-minute reflection time. The second thing that I would do is I would do a, I call it a 90-day listening diet, where you are going to make a commitment that everybody that you engage with, you can set boundaries on the time, you don't have to give people all of your time, but you are going to gather information about who people are specifically about like what's important to them. And it's not about you sharing what's important to you.

Your goal is to understand the people in your life, in your business, in your work, what's important to them. And at the end of that 90 days, the intel, if you talk about leading or even living, the level of connectedness you're going to feel with people and your ability to lead and motivate them is just going to skyrocket. So it's a listening diet, I call it. So that would be my first step as you start the love system. I'm personally going to do that.

And Talia, this conversation has been fascinating. I have 100 more questions, but thank you for sharing of yourself and your wisdom. I know it's going to have a great impact on our listeners. I also know they're going to want to learn more. So I'm going to send you all to the website, which is kusitraining.com. That's K-U-S-I. Talia, did I say that right? You did.

Okay, just making sure. And then the book is The Power of Conscious Connection. Get it on Amazon or order it from your local bookstore. Let's keep them in business. Talia, thank you, thank you, thank you for your important work. Thank you so much. Okay, friend, if you're missing real conscious connection in your life, you are not alone. Me too. I am one of those people who craves it and yet finds myself in my own way. There are times I'll choose the comfort of a good book over the discomfort of meeting someone new. I get caught up in all

of my to-dos when I could be reaching out and really listening to somebody that I love. And I feel the same pangs of disconnection after a day filled with nothing but screens instead of giving and getting a hug, shaking a hand, or simply being in the same space with someone who matters. Connection isn't easy. It's risky, it's raw, and it doesn't come with guarantees. But it's also what makes a life worth living. Choosing real connection is a brave and necessary act.

It's a two-way street and a reciprocal experience. We feel seen, heard, and valued when we see, heard, and valued when we see, hear, and value. So let's trade fake for real, surface for deep, and quick for meaningful, because that is woman's work.