What’s Your Superpower?

This video is a part of a series of valuable and short videos on consulting done as an interview between Rocco Luongo, founder and coach at GoRocco.Pro and Jason Bell, a seasoned leader with a long career. At the time of this interview, Jason was finishing up his Master’s degree in Organizational Development and exploring options for developing consulting as a next-stage career choice.

In this video Jason and I discuss what my ‘Superpower’ is. This is a question I use with all of my coaching and consulting clients. It’s a simple and fun way to get people talking about their strengths. There are many books, podcasts, and articles written about ‘Strengths-Based Coaching’ and I am a huge believer in it.

Getting people focusing on, and developing their strengths, rather than focusing on and working on weaknesses, is a powerful technique which boosts creativity, happiness, and effectiveness. This means faster, more durable improvement for you and your client.  Full transcript follows:

Video Transcript:

 

Jason Bell:  Well you’re an easy interview in that

like just your first answer gave me a

lot of other questions I was going to ask

you so here’s here’s an interesting one,

what what’s your superpower in

consulting?  What sets you apart?

 

Rocco Luongo:  My superpower is the

ability to get intensely present and deeply

connecting with my client.

 

JB:  Intensely present and

deeply connecting?

 

RL:  Yes.

 

JB:  How do you do that?

 

RL:  Lots and lots of practice  . . .  [laughing]

you’re looking for a like a bulleted list of what are the

steps of getting deeply connected?

 

JB:  Well tell me what you want.

 

RL:  Sure well it is truly a superpower

and I say this honestly this sort of

like asking Yoda how he does it.  It

takes a lot of work.  It takes an intense

understanding of how your brain works

and how your body and brain are

interconnected and then ultimately

realizing that there actually is no

difference between your body and your

brain.  The connection, the distinction

between those things as man-made.  Your

body and your brain and your feet and

your digestive system are all part of

you and you need to understand when your

body is telling you something it’s a

reaction to something your brain is

doing.  So when you feel a stress

inducement or a compulsion to speak

before you do it you need to become what

Eckhart Tolle says ‘The Watcher of your

Thoughts’ you need to sit above your

thoughts and the greatest indicator when

your thoughts are leading you to speak

compulsively or to block you from

connection, the greatest indicator is how

your body is reacting to it so sometimes

it’s a feeling of a pit in your stomach,

for some it’s stress in the chest, some

people feel it in different places but

when you feel it, the truth comes from

your body and your mind tries to trick

you.  So you have to learn to be the

watcher of your thoughts, let your

thoughts come and go like ripples on a

pond (Shunryu Suzuki) and it’s kind of a

state some people call it ‘Zen-ness’ some

people meditate for it but it’s

basically being able to recognize that

you watch your thoughts and that your

thoughts can be damaging and you should

put them away and get intensely present

and deeply connect to the person you’re

speaking with so that you can pick up on

the cues of them not watching their

thoughts.  And those are the spots where

you have to play the long game, collect

the dots in a longer line and don’t

react to each data point.  So there’s

a piece of presence of patience and

also just deciding that I’m going to be

intensely present right now and do

it so that’s a that probably sounds

weird but you can read Eckhart Tolle or

Shunryu Suzuki and a number of great

sources of how to do it and then you

have to start doing it.  Then you have

to become your own coach.  You have to be

able to recognize that you have these

same programs that you run to and how

they manifest and how you speak and act

and engage with people and then you’re

able to recognize it in others without

drawing their attention to their own

lack of presence.

 

JB:  It’s deep.  I wrote a lot

and it’s funny a couple of these

spoilers, I want to come back to because

there might be some connections to

some things that I’ll ask you later.

 

RL:  Cool.

 

JB:   I already wrote down ‘don’t react to

each data point’ that’s sticky for me.

 

RM:  The trick there for me is

that often we are so programmed to

provide value instantly, that we get

something we realize it, and we want to

feedback and Heisenberg principle, you

cannot measure something without

changing it you want to change it as

little as possible.  That goes through

having a stoic face, a neutral

body position even micro expressions,

like a slight raise of the

eyebrow when someone says something

shocking, can change the way that they

say something.  In general, especially if

someone hires you for high dollars, I

charge thousands per month for only a

couple of hours per person.  So they

want to impress me and I have to be

ready to not sink into that honeypot

because we’re all prideful humans and so

I have to be stoic and be very mindful

the slightest micro expression, change a

slight tip of the head, a slight tick of

the mouth can change what they’re going

to say next.  So to listen deeply and

connect deeply and try

to affect the conversation as little as

possible so that they can get down into

what really matters.  I said earlier

we want to get that data point and then

feedback get the next data point and

feedback because we feel like that’s

efficient what Covey said interactions

between humans are not supposed to be

efficient they’re supposed to be

effective,

and so what you need to do is gather all

of those points and form a line and see

what this is really about and resist

both the reaction to speak and sometimes

it’s just because we don’t want to

forget oh **** I don’t want to forget

this and so there’s the level of just

developing your memory for it.  Anyway is

that what you do?

 

JB  Know like yeah if like

I learned this one a couple of years ago

if I wrote there’s something I know I

wanted to say at some point but I don’t

want to interrupt you just do that.

[Crosses fingers]

 

RL:  Yes and it’s funny where did you learn that?

 

JB:  Erin, my wife.

 

RL:  Very good I’ve seen lots

of people who do that

and I’ll tell you that’s a great skill I

do it similarly I go like this [touching

index fingers to thumbs] with my

fingers and what I’ve realized is that

actually does come back to a level of

connection, sort of connecting and

closing an energy loop through your body.

There’s a lot of value in doing that you

close your fingers together it completes

a kind of an energy cycle and it helps

you resist that physical urge, so

whatever the reason behind it is, I’ve

seen lots of people do that and that’s

that’s a technique I use as well.

 

JB:  And yet ironically I did interrupt you

sharing that point of how to not

interrupt.

 

RL:  Noted.

 

JB:  So, awesome this is high-value.