How to Elevate Yourself, Your Conversations, and Your Future

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

⏤MARCEL PROUST

Four years ago I discovered the remarkable work of the late Judith Glaser, author of Conversational Intelligence®️ , and many other notable books.

Judith was the keynote speaker for a conference I was helping to organize in the Washington, DC area. As a result, I worked with her on several occasions to plan and conduct events and programs for the conference.

Until that time, I was not aware of Judith and her work, and I frankly remember being mildly interested in learning how to have better conversations.

Don’t we all know how to have great conversations? 

I, fortunately, read her book Conversational Intelligence to help me prepare for my meetings with her.

While I enjoyed the book and learned many interesting and fascinating new ideas, I still wasn’t sold on the potential and power of conversations. 

One phrase that repeatedly came up in the book and in my conversations with Judith was ⏤

To get to the next level of greatness depends on the quality of the culture, which depends on the quality of the relationships, which depends on the quality of the conversations. Everything happens through conversations! 

The idea fascinated me, yet I didn’t fully appreciate the transformational power of conversations, and if I should give them more attention.

But Judith was passionate about conversations and her knowledge and energy on the topic were contagious and inspiring. 

It kept me searching for more. 

Four Years Later

Now let’s advance the calendar almost exactly four years from that time to a recent conversation and interview with Aviv Shahar.

Aviv Shahar is the author of Create New Futures, a fascinating new book on how leaders produce breakthroughs and transform the world through conversation. 

There’s that word again⏤conversation.

Aviv offered a fascinating response to my question, “What do people really lack and long for at work?” 

In part, he said ⏤

Whether people know it or not, they long for self-insight and for getting themselves back. When you get yourself back, that’s a big part of perhaps what you’re looking for. Because inside it, you get to appreciate the human condition and your own conditioning too. 

Aviv’s words riveted my attention and spoke directly to the heart of my work, who I am, and whom I am becoming.

I am fortunate to have spoken with so many inspiring leaders. Many of these people share the deeper side of themselves and how they see the world in these conversations and interviews.

One of the cumulative impacts of having this experience is that I have discovered it heightens and advances your own deeper understanding of the “human condition and your own conditioning too.”

Why is this important?

Because it brings about a deeper understanding and capacity to have new conversations.

When I had new conversations⏤initially through my interviews at 5 Minutes to Process Improvement Success and Exploring Forward Thinking Workplaces⏤I was surprised (or maybe even shocked) at what I was hearing and learning. 

In time, I realized that I was creating the conditions for new conversations to occur and for wisdom to emerge. 

All of which remarkably begin to change you from the inside out. And when you change from the inside out, what goes on inside quiets down. You become more open and creative⏤and less reactive and judgmental.

Or as Aviv Shahar says, you begin to “appreciate the human condition and your own conditioning too.”

This remarkably leads you to bigger and more empowering new conversations. 

A Place to Start

Getting to a place of greater self-insight and doing the work I am doing is for me the place Aviv points to in his response to my question above.

I’d suggest this is a place many are looking to discover to move their lives and what they care about forward.

Getting yourself into new conversations is an amazing and perhaps unexpected way to harvest who you are and the creative part of you.

It also connects you to the field where new ideas and everything else comes from. You become a vortex or focal point for a conversation and a new future to unfold.

We can all enter this space. 

Conversation is the core mechanism to enable and facilitate change, transformation and the evolution of an organization on the path to enable and to create a whole new future.

Please take a few minutes to read my interview with Judith at How Do We Tap into the Best Conversations that People Could Have?. My interview with Aviv is in my new book, The Future of the Workplace, coming October 2019 from Apress.

To your great work life & success!

Bill Fox

Co-founder

About Bill Fox

I help CEOs and leadership teams achieve their most important strategic objectives by introducing a Forward Thinking approach. This approach helps people discover how to advance beyond best practices, working harder, or even smarter in the post-Industrial Era. In my interview series, Exploring Forward-Thinking Workplaces, I lead a new type of conversation for the 21st Century with global business and thought leaders that is uncovering exciting new solutions to our most vexing workplace challenges. 

My new book The Future of the Workplace will be published by Apress in October 2019 and is available for pre-order now at Amazon. 

To learn more or get in touch, visit https://billfox.co.