Everybody loves a good reading list and I have a new and updated reading list for you if you are the type that is always looking for a new book to read. This spans a wide variety of categories, right? I'm a bit believer in that just want to be wellrounded, whether it's about business, whether it's about psychology, relationships, even a bit of non-fiction here and there. So if you want to look at more than 230 books that I love and some articles as well, go to artofcoaching.com, slash reading lists, all one word, now. That's artofcoaching.com slash reading list.

And again, you can use these things from any category.

It's not meant to be like the end all be all we update this fairly frequently.

We're going to do another update later this year,

but whether you need a new spring read, summer read,

or you're just looking for something to upskill your team,

check it out. That's artofcoaching.com slash reading list. Now. Welcome to the Art of Coaching podcast. I'm Breb Artholomew and at a young age, poor communication nearly caused me my life. Now I help others navigate the great area of social interaction, power dynamics and communication so they can become more adaptable leaders regardless of their profession, age or situation. This podcast is for everybody who is fascinated

with solving people problems. So if you're in the no nonsense type who appreciates frank conversations, advice you can put to use immediately and learning how others navigate the messy realities of leadership, you're in the right place. I'm glad that you're joining us. Let's dive in. I'm going to do a fun episode. This would fit into the B side category of article coaching episodes. If you're not familiar with that, that means I told you that periodically we're going to do these kind of fun after dark tongue in cheek, but still helpful episodes, right? These are episodes that remember, I'm only going to say this once whenever you're listening to an episode like this or a B side episode, it's tongue in cheek. We're not looking to look at things from every perspective and we're not looking to manage everybody's emotions who wants to be offended. This is the after hours George Carlin, Bill Burr, kind of fun energy that gives you something useful, but also gives you something where you're like, my God, this guy's a little nuts. So let's have some fun. Now, here's the opening kind of tone of the tone setter. We have all been in conversations whether you want to admit it or not, where you go into it with the right intent, you're curious, you're present,

you want the other person to feel heard,

but then five minutes later,

you are bashing your brains in,

or fantasizing about faking a phone call from the IRS

just to get out of it.

Now I'm not talking about you're engaging

with some kind of passionate storyteller

or genuinely excited person.

I love those, let them go. Let them talk. I'm talking about the conversational equivalent of a black hole. These soul sucking folks that just feel like they need to go on this millennia long monologue, right? The ones where you give them an inch and they take a filibuster. So today, we're gonna talk about five ways to make any conversation better. Some will make you better at engaging, some will just help you survive without losing brain cells. Let's have some fun. By the way, quick shout out to my friend, Stu McMillan, who one day basically told me playfully that I was one of these and all own it. He basically said, hey, I don't want to feel like every time I talk to you, I'm listening to a Bartholomew podcast. That one almost got him a left hook in the face. But I also appreciated it because it made me more self-aware and something that I tended to do around stew and certain friends, people that I don't see often, I don't get a talk to as often as I'd like,

but when I do, I get really excited because it's like, here's a buddy. A buddy that you can have locker room jokes with, you can be off camera. So I did realize like, yeah, you're kind of right. When I am around you, I feel like there's so much to catch on up on and I know that you're passionate And that while you might not be as laquacious verbally, holy shit, buddy, you pound the keyboard, you abuse keyboard.

You're on the FBI's most wanted list for abused keyboards with how much you type in your your stories and whatever. But the point was is I was like, I can be like that around certain friends. I know another friend of mine like Lauren Vessel, like we get along very well. She's a friend and a client. If I was around her, it would be very hard

because we both are just multi-passionate and we, you know, I'd go, go, go, go, go. We're my friend Brad from college. So we all have those moments, own it. This is something different. This is for people that have no social grace. They're not interested in having social grace. They're not interested in being self-aware

and maybe some of them are, but whatever.

So one of the things that I do is the last letter game. All right, so we play a game at our apprenticeship to help people with listening. The idea is that last letter first. So you have to pay attention to the last letter of the word they end every sentence with. Now the idea, how we use it for people that struggle with listening is in a dialogue and I'll give an example, you need to respond with a word that begins with that letter. So for example, if that person said good morning, the last letter there is G, good morning. So then how would I respond? Good morning to you, how's your day going so far? The last letters are really great.

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