If you've ever been in a position where it seems like no matter what you say, people are just not listening to you or feels like somebody needs to hear it from a different voice, because even with your credentials and your experience, something is just not getting through. I mean, we've all heard that phrase, the expert is out of town. Consider our inservices. We have helped organizations around the world ranging from Turner Construction, Apple, major league sporting organizations, engineers, first responders with inservices geared around conflict resolution, having hard conversations, communicating across silos, how you can help members of your upper level management, better gel with or get along with other aspects of management. I mean, one of the most recent ones we did, there are some folks in the workforce of this particular organization that felt like they were being bullied. And upper level management felt like, listen,

we're just giving them directives.

This is something that we've always done in this company. We know that we need to be socially agile, but sometimes the job is the job. On the other end, the folks in the other side of the company just felt like, hey, we get that the job is the job, but there also has to be some middle ground in terms of how you communicate with us,

and it can't just be directives

and pressure tactics all the time.

We help you deal with the messy realities of leadership. We're never going to come in and just be a parrot or an echo chamber. We are going to come in and help you guys work through honest, straightforward issues that cost organizations in some instances hundreds of millions of dollars or a lot of time wasted. You don't have to do much research to find this.

Miscommunication is really costly for organizations.

So if you want to get more work done waste less time and have a more well-rounded or at least

more communicative staff, reach out to us at info at artofcoaching.com.

That's info, I-N-F-O as an information at ArtofCoaching.com. We would love to work with you. Welcome to the Art of Coaching Podcast. I'm Brett Bartholomew 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. Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Articaching podcast. Today, we are going to discuss a topic that was requested by a member of our Mighty Networks community. And it's been something that I've seen people talk about a lot and it makes sense. Let me get to it though. It is all about how do I avoid information overload and just get better at making sense of information. And the crux of it was, we all have a lot of information coming at us. It doesn't matter whether it's the scientific journals you read as part of our profession or another trade related research that we encounter or some other trade related research. The news, although we're not really gonna focus on the news because we know that 90% of the time that's bullshit. And then other things that we really need to know how to better direct our energy. Because a lot of us have so many things to manage and we only have so much bandwidth emotionally and cognitively. So I wanna ground it in the fact that, you know, for me, the number one skill that I think we have to teach our kids, and if you don't have kids, just those around us, those you mentor, whatever, is not just how to seek out the right information, but how to make sense of information, right? Not just how to acquire more of it. People love to acquire information, but more information by itself, especially in a world that never shuts up, is not going to help, right? Because everybody drowns in information, but then we get starved for clarity, and we're like, all right, well, how do we sort this? How do we make sense of it? So let's talk about this, and we'll skip around a little bit. But if we were just asking, and I think I agree with Noval Harari who wrote sapiens, he also had a great book, 21 Lessons for the 21st century, although it's a bit, you know, it's, it's nerdy. And there's some things where you're like, okay, is this more of a, a rant or a pitch, but he's a great thinker if nothing else. And I think that he does a great job writing.

Then he was talking about too, in the world where none of us are gonna lack information and AI only gives us more information, we have to figure out how to make sense of information. So I started thinking, I'm like, okay, how would I teach my son or how do I teach people around me? And what are even things that I repeat to myself When it comes down to how do I make sense of this? So let's start there first and then we'll talk about information overload Especially because we've already done a podcast on that and then shameless plug We also have a module on managing information overload in our online course valued which is on sale right now at ValuedCourse.com. So first things first, when it comes to making sense of the information you get and not getting bogged down, always understand like what is the main job of that information? What is that information that you've acquired? What is that supposed to do? So say you go to a workshop or you read a new book or you take an online course or you even digest this podcast. If you don't know why you're taking something in, then everything is going to feel urgent and important. I mean, that's just the core of it. And so the core idea is you have to have a clear question or priority as you evaluate this information. think think, hey, what decision am I trying to make? What problem am I actually trying to solve? What skill am I actually trying to get better at right now? That alone will help you cut so much confusion because you're gonna quit trying to hold 20 threads in your head.

So for example, for me, my inbox, you know, I have some, what, sub-stack threads, I follow a sub-stack thread of a book agent. She writes some wonderful stuff. I follow some stuff from the psychology realm, social psychology realm. It's a lot to stay on top of. And I wanna read all of it because I'm a greedy little information demon.

And for me, I have to think, okay, what And I want to read all of it, because I'm a greedy little information demon.

And for me, I have to think, okay,

what's the need to know for the now?

Because when we think about the definition

...