Developing a Leadership Mindset: Gratitude, Empathy, and Human Connection

In this episode of the Successful Life Podcast, host Corey Berrier dives into the importance of gratitude, empathy, and human connection. Reflecting on the busiest plumbing day of the year, he shares personal anecdotes about reconnecting with old friends and the transformative power of gratitude. Corey explains how daily gratitude lists have shaped his positive outlook and enhanced his relationships. He discusses the significance of empathetic listening in both personal and professional settings, emphasizing how understanding others’ perspectives can improve sales and client interactions. Corey also touches on the importance of following your gut instincts and setting personal boundaries. The episode concludes with a poignant story about the fragility of life, reinforcing the need to live each day with purpose and appreciation.

00:00 Introduction and Thanksgiving Reflections
01:29 The Power of Gratitude
04:26 Empathy in Sales and Life
07:27 Understanding Human Behavior
24:33 The Importance of Boundaries
25:51 Living in the Present
30:10 Conclusion and Gratitude

Chapters

• 0:00 Black Friday And Thanksgiving Check-In
• 4:26 Why A Daily Gratitude List
• 8:10 Recovery, Perspective, And Empathy
• 12:31 Leading Sales With Empathy
• 18:26 Reading Tonality And Micro Expressions
• 24:16 Trusting Gut Feelings And Flow
• 28:31 Expecting The Best And Letting Go
• 32:31 Listen First In Work And Relationships

Transcript

CoreyBerrier: 2:01

Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I am your host, Corey Berrier. And we are on Black Friday. Or for my plumbing friends, we are in the middle of Brown Friday, depending on when you're listening to this. If you're listening to it on the day it drops, which is every Friday at 4 a.m., then hopefully you get to listen to this before you go tackle all those plumbing jobs this week. If you're not in the industry, you have no idea what I'm talking about. But if you are in the industry, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Busiest plumbing day of the year. Not only is that, not only that, it's the busiest shopping day of the year, so they say. And um hope everybody had a thick uh fabulous Thanksgiving. I had a great Thanksgiving. I got to spend it with my dad. And uh now I'm back here recording this for you. And uh, you know, I've had a good week. Um, I've had a good week. I connected with a uh a friend of mine. I've known him for about three years. In fact, he's been on the podcast. His name is Derek Cormer, and uh got to connect with him this week. I'm gonna go down and see him at the first of next week and check out his company. And uh I'll keep you posted on that. So I want to talk about today gratitude. And gratitude is something that centers my life every morning. Uh, and if you've listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you know that I send out a gratitude list to about 126 people every single day. And the reason I do that is because for much of my life, uh I wasn't very grateful. I wasn't very grateful for things, you know, I took everything for granted. I wasn't grateful for the fact that, you know, I got up this morning, I worked out, I cleaned my apartment, I got to go have lunch, Thanksgiving lunch with my dad. And, you know, for years I would take those things for granted. I would take you for granted, I would take everything for granted because I was really a selfish human being. And over the last two and a half years since I've been completely sober, you know, a lot of that selfishness has dissipated. And a lot of it recently I've noticed is because I've, you know, I think there's always a selfish gene. I think I've mentioned this with everybody, but I view things in a way now that help me to be grateful. So back to the list. I know I'm kind of gotten off track here. So I send out that list every morning, and the reason that I send it out is because it helps me to frame my day to be grateful. And I list out five or six or seven things that I'm grateful for. One of those recently has been my buddy Ryan Wheeler, who has been in the hospital for about 30 days. Now his daughter broke her, broke her elbow, and she's been in now, she's in the hospital on Thanksgiving Day. And, you know, I look at my buddy Ryan, who I think the world of, who's the nicest guy you've ever met. And uh, you know, I love Ryan, but I wouldn't want to trade places with him right now. And so, you know, when I see a homeless guy on the side of the road, I used to think, what a, you know, what a loser. And now I think, you know, what is that guy struggling with? You know, or somebody cuts me off in traffic, you know, I realize that it's not they're not cutting me off in traffic. They just have something better to do or somewhere they need to get to faster, and they, you know, selfishly don't really care that I'm in that lane. And it's not even entirely their fault. They may not even have seen me. Could be a multitude of things. Maybe they just found out that, you know, maybe they just lost their job or their company's going bankrupt or their wife's cheating on them, or it could literally be anything. And so I think recovery has given me a perspective that helps me have a lot more empathy for people. And you know, that has carried over into business for me because I think about, and I mentioned this on one of my previous podcasts, maybe been last week. It was last week, you know. So when when if you're in a sales role, you know, when people don't buy from you, you got to empathize with those people. And if you start out with the empathy in that sales process, uh then people believe that you can feel their pain. And as an example, I'll just say, you know, like, you know, Mr. Customer, I know today you you didn't wake up. You didn't wake up expecting to have to call me and replace this system. Let's just, I'm gonna walk through this with you. I'm gonna answer any questions that you've got because I know this is a big decision. And I want to make sure that I answer everything for you and uh so you can make the right decision. And whatever that decision is, whether it's to go with me or whether it's to call another company out, I just want to make sure that I've done my job today to help you because I know this is a tough situation, and you're probably worried about, I mean, you might be worried about how you're gonna pay for it or if there if there are financing options or how quickly we can get out here. And I'm gonna cover all those things today in this conversation, so I won't leave any question unanswered because I've been right where you are, and uh a few years ago I had to do the same exact thing. It was unexpected, it was the middle of the summer, and uh fortunately I I knew who to call. And um, and I know for you, you know, this may be the first time, sir. Is it the first time that you've ever had to call an HVAC company? And then you have to go with that answer and go from there. You know, you gotta kind of fill out what they say and listen to their response. It's much like when I'm sponsoring guys, you know, I if I ask a few questions to get a temperature on how they're feeling, then I've gotta I've got to sit back and listen to what their response is and gotta read their facial expressions and pick up on their tonality. Are they talking really fast? Or are they, you know, are they talking really slow and low? And or are they really excited? All three of those could mean, you know, where the all three of those could determine the direction of where that conversation goes. And it could be three different directions. And I think because I've worked with with human beings in this realm for so long, and I've just a I was I I love studying human beings, I love watching people's facial expressions, I like listening to their tonality and seeing micro expressions, and micro expressions, whether you know this or not, you know, as humans, if you're talking to someone and they have a, you know, they let they put off an incongruent micro expression. In other words, you ask them how their day is, and their mouth kind of frowns a little bit and they say it's great, you subconsciously pick up on that frown opposed to what's coming out of their mouth. Now you may not realize at the time what's happening. But what happens is you wind up not trusting that person because something just doesn't seem quite right. And I don't know, imagine if you've I'm sure you've been in that position before when somebody's been telling you a story and you go, something just seems a bit off about this story. I can't put my finger on it. I'm not saying that the guy's lying, but I don't know, something just seems a little bit off. Well, you know, if you're in sales or you're in you manage people, you've had this experience because customers lots of times will um, you know, not tell you really why they're not moving forward. And so it's your job to ask better questions and pick up on those small micro expressions, so then you can kind of figure out which way to go. And I do the same thing. I do this with everybody that I talk to. And I wouldn't say that I'm an expert at it, but I've just observed people for so long, and I've been in a lot of crazy situations, whether it be in business or whether it be personal or been in recovery, you know, you get met with a lot of different folks throughout your life. And if you're conscious, if you're aware of what your your surroundings, I should say, then you'll start picking up on these things. It probably has helped that I've listened to a thousand books on this, and I've studied human behavior for quite some time. And humans are just humans, you know, they're um everybody's different. Everybody talks different, everybody says different things, everybody says, everybody acts differently. And I think where a lot of people get stuck in picking up on these human interactions are if you're not acting like me, then it's wrong. And that's that's crazy, you know, um, and it's pretty selfish, back to that part. And so not everybody's gonna act like you. Um, but you know that intuition when you get a you know, you get that gut feeling that something's not right, and then that something comes up and it's not right, and it's a bomb drop. I'll give you a great example. Um, my ex-girlfriend and I broke up a few months ago, and you know, I had that gut feeling. I had that gut feeling that something wasn't quite right. But I ignored that feeling and I pushed it to the side and I said, okay, don't be negative, you don't think that way, you need to be optimistic, all that stuff's great. But when you get that gut feeling in the, they call it the second brain, you should probably listen to that gut feeling because there's a lot of times that gut feeling is right. You know, when people say, Well, you should follow your instincts or you shouldn't follow your instincts. Well, the my instincts have led me down the wrong path, and my instincts have always led me down the right path. Meaning it's still my instinct, whether it was a good decision or a bad decision, uh, it was still my instinct that led me there. And I'm not saying that all gut feelings are good or that are gonna flush out to be a positive thing. And I'm not saying that you should be able to like, you're not psychic, right? But there are certain things in life, there are certain people in life that you just get that feeling, and that feeling could be that um on the opposite end, not not them being shady or not telling the truth, but it could be that you get that feeling of comfort with that person, and everything flows, the conversations flow, the ideas flow, your ideas almost seem like they're coming from the same place, almost as if you're taking the words out of one another's mouth, and that is actually called a um flow state when you can have a conversation back and forth and and the conversation flows uh uh with ease. And I get to have those conversations a lot of times, and it's either you know can be in recovery for sure, and it also can be outside of recovery, you know, um, and being able to recognize when those things are happening, you know, and not self-sabotaging those things. Because I think sometimes, as I mentioned in the past podcast, it's you know, sometimes we are really hard on ourselves. Uh, we're the probably the hardest people on ourselves than anybody else in our lives. And, you know, instead of maybe thinking that you don't deserve something, maybe look at it like you do. I mean, just imagine what if you every time you go, well, you know, that's probably not gonna work out for me because it's just too good to be true. The other shoe's gonna drop. I should expect the worst. Well, what if you expected the best? What if you didn't think the other shoe was gonna drop? What if you did believe that you were good enough for whatever situation this is? You know, what if what if you were in the right place at the right time? Well, Corey, this never happened. I had bad luck. Well, if you think that way, you're gonna keep having bad luck. You know, you're gonna keep being in the wrong place at the wrong time if your mindset is I'm gonna be in the wrong place at the wrong time, opposed to just making a choice to change your mindset and say, I'm, you know, I'm gonna be in the right place at the right time. And it's gonna be the exact right time I'm supposed to be there. And that's been my experience. Things don't happen on my timeline, things don't happen when Corey wants them to happen, they happen on for me is God's timeline, and in really not a second before. Now, I can try to force something, I can try to force a round peg into a square hole, and guess what? It's never going to fit. And, you know, recovery has taught me, just like I mentioned last time, not every customer's for you, and not every situation's for you. Not every situation is for me. And so sometimes you just have to cool your jets, be patient, and wait for that right girlfriend or that right position, or that right whatever it is you're trying to manifest in your mind, and uh let go of control, which is really hard for a lot of folks. You know, trying to control the outcome of something is I mean, it's it's in our nature to want to go do things, especially as men. We want to make sure that we fix things. I mean, if you're married, if you've ever had a girlfriend, then you know, I don't know if you know this or not, newsflash. Your job's not to fix everything. Sometimes your job is just to listen. That'd be great if you could ask that question before the conversation, if you just say it's with a girlfriend or or a wife. Am I giving advice in this situation or am I just listening? And you will set yourself up for success, my friend, if you do that. Because we just naturally want to try to fix things. We want everything to go smooth, we want to do everything in our power to make it right. Well, sometimes making it right is just listening, especially when it comes to a female, male-female relationship. And um, you know, it's just about communication and asking that question up front will help you to better communicate with your partner. I guarantee it. Like I guarantee it. And listen, just like people, just like your customers, if you're in sales, if you allow your customer to talk long enough, they're gonna tell you exactly why you're there, exactly how you can help them, and exactly what their real problem is. And it's not just that the AC broke. That's not the real problem. The real problem is you've inconvenienced their life. The real problem is you've held them up from going to work that day. The real problem is my wife is screaming down my neck because she woke up and it was 100 degrees in the house. And so the real problem is I want to get her off my back. The real problem is I want to get back to work and make money because I'm not making money sitting here with you. The real problem is I want to make sure this gets done quickly and efficiently, so you efficiently, so you don't have to come back. That's what people really want. So you got to figure out how to solve their problem, right? When people first come in to recovery, their problem is I don't know how to stop drinking and drugging. And there's a major problem. But the real problem, let's just be honest, there that is the problem. But the real problem is there are consequences. They've done something wrong, they've got a DUI, they've committed a crime, they've lost their job, they've lost their wife, they've lost their kids, or all of those above. And so if somebody says, Oh, yeah, I just want to quit drinking, yep, no, that's not really it. Yeah, I know you want to quit drinking because you want to solve these other problems behind it. And so I use my ability to read people, to communicate, as I do in business, the same way I would do in recovery, the same way I would do in a personal relationship. They're all the same. And, you know, is it always the easy way out? Not necessarily, because sometimes you just got to be patient and really listen to where that person's struggling and see if you can figure out the real reason why they're there. And if you've done this enough times like I have, it doesn't take near as long to figure these things out because if you've had the experience that I have both in sales and recovery, you don't you know that people are not going to tell you right off the bat what the real issue is. And so if you're a technician in the field or you're a comfort advisor or field supervisor or an electrician, listen, um go back and re-listen to that last part because if you just learn how to look, most guys in the field, especially when it comes to technicians and and and guys that are doing the work in the trades that are turning the wrenches, you don't really love talking to customers to begin with. So use this as a superpower, it's gonna allow you to not talk as much, which is what you want, and to continue to get the answers that you're looking for. And uh check your ego at the door. You know, your ego is not your amigo. Uh and if you can do that, and it takes it takes practice, uh, and it takes some coaching, and it takes some um, you know, practice this at home, practice this with the person at the store, practice it with everybody that you can come in contact with, and you'll get better. You'll get better at listening. And let me clarify the difference in empathy and sympathy. Empathy is I can, you know, I can relate to you, I can put myself in your shoes. Sympathy is I feel bad for you. I feel bad that you're going through this, and you can feel bad, but people would rather be people would would rather you have empathy for them than sympathy. Sympathy can feel um can feel like woe is me, or like you you know, like I'm less than. And you don't ever want to make anybody feel less than, whether it's a customer or somebody coming into recovery that's new, or a girlfriend, or boyfriend, or whoever. You want me to you want me you want to make people feel comfortable. And that goes with anybody in your life, even people that you don't really care for, you know. If you have those people in your life, you know, it's you know, not everybody not everybody is gonna be your cup of tea, but everybody deserves the respect of you listening to them and uh being a good human being. And it doesn't take a whole lot to be a good human being. You gotta be less selfish, and you gotta think about other people, and I think if you think about other people and have empathy for them, you're gonna be more of a likable person. And people like people they like, right? People, you know, that will have less interactions with you if they think that you're, you know, condescending or that you're a terrible listener, or if you talk over people, gosh, I can't stand when people talk over me. But I also realize, you know, they just don't know any better. You know, their their emotional intelligence is subpar. And I'm not making fun of them, I'm just saying like I know how to regulate that, and I regulate that through, I just stop talking and wait for them to finish. And if it happens multiple times, let's say you're in a conversation with somebody and they interrupt you four three or four times. Eventually, if you just stop talking and wait for them to finish whatever they feel like they need to talk about, pick right back up where you left off and keep talking. You know what I mean? And and just you don't have to be a jerk about it. But they'll they'll eventually get the idea. Now, if this is with a customer, you gotta be a little bit more conscientious about how you're communicating with them because they're your customer and you're there to sell them something, and you gotta be a little bit more aware. But let's say it's a girlfriend or a boyfriend that's you know that interrupts you every five seconds, you gotta you gotta set a boundary around that situation, or it's just gonna keep happening. You know, and boundaries are important. Boundaries are important in your workplace, they're important in your relationships. And boundaries are not blocking people out. You know what I mean? You a boundary is saying, I'm not willing to continue. This would be internally, right? I'm not in, I'm not, I'm not gonna continue having a conversation with this person because they keep interrupting me. You know, again, that's internal. So you just got to be patient, let them finish talking, let them get out whatever they are trying to get out, and then just resume, right? Or you could even take it a step further if it's somebody that you have a personal relationship with and say, you know, I'm really having a hard time hearing you. I'm really having a hard time hearing you when I'm trying to finish telling you what I was telling you. And that'll shock somebody to their core, right? If it's a girlfriend or a boyfriend or maybe uh, you know, one of your coworkers, they'll get the hint. Right? But you can't say that until after they stop talking. So I think today's theme is you know human interaction and and um you know trying to put yourself in other people's shoes. You know, I I picked up a lady the other day, and uh it was the day before Thanksgiving, and she got in my car, and I was taking her to the airport, and her name was Grace, and I said, Grace, I said it's such a beautiful name. She was like, Oh, thank you. And she sits down in the car and she goes, You know, my niece, my niece just got killed last night. She's 30 years old. And uh, she was out drinking, it was three o'clock in the morning in Atlanta, and she's not even a big drinker. She just got promoted from work, from a job, her job at Delta. She's supposed to be getting married in March. Her mother's here out of the country planning the wedding. And just like that, that lady lost her niece that night, and what they don't know why. And so I think by me, you know, smiling and saying how much I really liked her name gave her an opportunity to tell me that story. And I was really grateful to hear that story, as sad as it is, because it helps me to realize we only have today. You know, we only have today. And just like that, that 30-year-old girl's life is over. And um, you know, we're not promised, we're not promised tomorrow. And so it's hilarious when I hear people say, Well, I'm gonna go to the gym tomorrow, or I'm gonna get on this diet tomorrow. Well, tomorrow may never come. So you might as well start today. There's no better time to start than today on whatever that thing is that you have been procrastinating on. Whatever you've been dragging your butt on, just start it today. Just start the diet today. Why would you wait till tomorrow? Stop drinking today, stop cheating on your wife today, stop smoking today. You may not have tomorrow. And so, you know, hearing stories like that helps me to be grateful for my life and be grateful for the things that I have and the people that I have in my life today. And so I I think as I started this about the gratitude list, I think that gives me an opportunity to tell those 126 people that I'm grateful for them and to share the things that you know I'm grateful for in my life in hopes that that maybe it sparks some gratitude in their heart. And I don't, you know, I do it because it helps me. And uh I know it does help some other people because I get responses back telling me that they're grateful that I send them this list. And it's wild because I wonder how many of them actually open it. But then if I for, you know, I don't actually forget to send it, but sometimes I'll send it out later than 3.30 in the morning. And if 6:30, 7 o'clock rolls around and that gratitude list hasn't been sent out, I'll get messages. Hey man, you alright? Hadn't received your list today. Just want to make sure everything's okay. And I'm thinking, holy cow, I didn't even think this person opened my list because they don't ever respond or they don't react, which is totally fine. But it's really interesting how that practice has kind of helped transform me into a person. That does care about other people in a deeper way. That does have more empathy for people. And uh and I am grateful for you. I'm grateful that you listen to this podcast. I'm grateful that um, you know, this is our sixth year uh this month actually is the sixth year I've done this podcast almost every single week. And um it helps me to be able to sit here and talk to you about these things. And my hope is that you know you get something out of it. And my goal is to improve your life while also improving my life by talking about these things. This is a special space for me, and uh I hope it's a special place for you. So appreciate you guys every Friday morning, 4 a.m. This podcast drops. I appreciate you, and we'll see you next week.