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.