Simon Brown (00:02.341)
Hello and welcome to this episode of the Curious Advantage podcast. My name is Simon Brown and today I'm here with my co-author, Garrick Jones. No pool today, unfortunately, but we are delighted to be joined by Salvatore Manzi. Hi, Salvatore.

Salvatore Manzi (00:19.788)
Hello, it's an honor to be here.

Simon Brown (00:21.853)
A warm welcome to the Curious Advantage podcast. So Salvatore, you're a communications coach who works with data-driven tech leaders to help them share their ideas with clarity, with confidence and with presence. And over the two decades, you've guided leaders through boardrooms, global stages and high stakes moments, including coaching speakers at SXSW, the UN and even a presidential candidate. Looking forward to hearing more on that. And your new book is just out, so clear

and compelling communication strategies for big thinkers with bold ideas, which brings together about 20 years of communication strategies to help turn data-driven insights into messages that truly inspire and move people. So I'm very keen to hear more. But maybe let's start with the topic of the moment. So what do you feel about curiosity observatory? How would you define it?

Salvatore Manzi (01:15.256)
Curiosity is a gateway drug. What I mean by that is curiosity is what creates the sense of connection, it creates engagement.

It creates collaboration and it leads to that sense of wonder which is at the heart of life and living. mean, what I think about is a child. I don't know if you have children in your life, but watching a child is such fun because we get to watch their curiosity in unfettered, uninhibited ways. They just go and try and do. And that to me is the heart of curiosity, that sense of wonder and infusing life with all of that.

Simon Brown (02:02.337)
And so your work then sits at the intersection of leadership, of communication and collaboration. So maybe let's go back to the beginning of what took you into that space and what's your background that took you into the world of leadership and communication?

Salvatore Manzi (02:21.816)
Well, thank you. I was blessed to have a father who spoke at conferences and a mother who facilitated group events. So watching the two of them growing up, I would witness their enthusiasm after any kind of event. And I thought, wow, this is for me. I want to know. I want to try this. And unfortunately, my first time on the stage was a disaster.

Simon Brown (02:44.485)
You

Salvatore Manzi (02:45.324)
my voice started to pitch up so high that I actually lost my voice and I had to walk off the stage without any words. Could have been humiliating, but for me it did spark curiosity in the sense of how did my body betray me? And it...

sparked a couple of decades of researching neuroscience and psychology and organizational behavior to understand how the brain receives and translates and processes information how we as in groups of people relate to each other and can translate and communicate those kind of words and As I kept developing my own tools to help myself overcome what had happened and get better people started asking me How do I do this and I myself and I'm?

more introverted person. And when I started doing public speaking training, it was in the San Francisco Bay area. So I was working with engineers and scientists and data driven people. And I was like, these are my people. And the tools that I had developed were useful for them. And so yeah, that's how I got here and how I kept going. And I love it. I love helping people translate complex ideas and make them clear and inspirational for others.

Simon Brown (03:53.733)
you

Garrick Jones (03:59.463)
I'm amazed that somebody who describes themselves as introverted ends up in the one profession where you're on stage and you're coaching others and you're right at the front of the room, which I mean, it must be courageous at some point, and you talk about loving it now, but that must mean a journey you've been on.

Salvatore Manzi (04:18.69)
Yeah, it's a there. It is putting myself in the fire again and again and again that what I what I realized along the way as an introvert. It's actually more comfortable for me to own the spotlight than to be at risk of the spotlight coming to me. So if I take the courageous step of putting myself out there and taking control of the spotlight, I can redirect it. I can direct it the message. I can direct it to the audience. I can direct it to however I want. But

As an audience or a participant in the meeting, I'm constantly, as an introvert, like, whoa, here it comes, it's gonna, they're gonna call on me, right? But if I train myself to own that spotlight, I can do it. Are you, just for full disclosure, are the two of you more extroverted, introverted? you label yourself?

Garrick Jones (05:06.951)
That's a great question. mean, I can go first. know my category is I am an.

introvert that requires other people to recharge. you get different types of introverts and extroverts. You get introverts who need to be on their own, and then you need introverts who need to recharge their batteries with other people. You get extroverts who have to be with other people, and then you get extroverts who need to recharge on their own. So you get those kind of four categories. I'm an introvert who needs to be on my own to do things, but I need to be with other people in order to recharge. So I'm constantly

moving between the two.

Salvatore Manzi (05:45.518)
Fantastic.

Simon Brown (05:45.926)
framing of, yeah, that you need that energy to recharge. I I split, I think so. I'm very happy in my own company and don't need to draw energy from others, but I do also very much enjoy and draw energy from opportunities where we'll get that attention as well. So maybe I'm a fickle introvert and extrovert. I'm not sure how I would describe that.

Salvatore Manzi (06:13.742)
Ugh.

Garrick Jones (06:13.979)
You said that it can be taught empathy, Salvatore. And so, and it's interesting to me that you've learned to own the space and to control it. And then you've talked about empathy and that can also be taught even to high powered executives who often skip things, know, to rush to get things done. How do you teach empathy?

Salvatore Manzi (06:17.102)
Hmm.

Salvatore Manzi (06:34.062)
Right.

I love the pivot to empathy because it is the heart of communication in my work and in my book and in my work I teach the number one principle of communication, you then me. You then me.

If I can express acknowledgement, validation, reflection about you, your world, your situation, your thoughts about the content of what I have to share, before I get to my message, it creates a collaboration. greases the wheel and creates a conversation. So you then me. And to your point, what a lot of leaders do, especially in a fast-paced dynamic environment, is they skip the empathy part.

And I learned that you can teach empathy out of 20 years of coaching. I was constantly sent into the offices of people who were getting 360s that they were not showing or demonstrating empathy. And over time, developing the you-then-me principle where they gamify...

demonstrating acknowledgement or validation before speaking, it develops the muscle of empathy in that person. And I would offer to anybody out there, if you've ever been told that you lack empathy or that you're too rushed or that you're too transactional, one thing that you can do is once a day,

Salvatore Manzi (07:57.994)
Challenge yourself to say three things about the other person before sharing your thought, comment, idea, response, whatever it is. Just once a day, develop the muscle of going three deep on an acknowledgement, validation, or reflection about that person or what they just said before getting to your own.

point or agenda and you'll develop the muscle and you'll also develop the reputation as somebody with empathy.

Garrick Jones (08:27.473)
So if I go three deep on what you've just said, to get a, I hear that you talking to me about that empathy can be taught. And I also hear that high-powered executives often skip and rush things to get things done. And I think I can relate to both of those. But, and then you've also said there's a point about the you then me. If I think about you then me.

first before I asked the question, these help develop empathy between us. How did I do? How did I do?

Salvatore Manzi (09:02.102)
Right. Like Simon, I'll let you, like you were listening. What was your as an outside observer?

Simon Brown (09:09.381)
And I think it demonstrates you're listening, demonstrates that you've taken on board the key pieces and sets up the conversation in a more positive way. So I like it. Yeah.

Garrick Jones (09:19.493)
Try not to drop the mic then.

Salvatore Manzi (09:19.594)
And yeah, can I offer can I can I offer a little polish? Are you open to polish? What I would offer if I were coaching you is yes, you got to three, which is great. The first two solid you started with I hear you saying right? Sounds like it sounds to me if I could read like those are wonderful. pivot points prompts to initiate. There's a little word that you threw in there that I want to flag and that is the word but

Garrick Jones (09:23.586)
You

Yes please, yes please.

Garrick Jones (09:35.515)
Yeah.

Salvatore Manzi (09:49.883)
I offer to leaders that you get one butt a day. You get one butt a day. That's it. Otherwise, it's no butts. And it comes from the world of improv. I don't know if you've ever heard of the yes and technique.

Simon Brown (10:02.277)
Yes, we've had sessions in past with Dan Klein and all around.

Salvatore Manzi (10:08.499)
Damn quite amazee! It took me six months to eliminate-

but as a reflexive word in transitioning from one side to the other. A lot of people go from you then me with a but and it is smoother and more accessible when it's an and. Even if I'm about to tell you that everything that you just said is wrong. If I can set up with three, this is what I'm hearing you say, this is what I believe that you're saying, and this is how I can see it works in your world. And here's every way that you're wrong.

that and greases the will, whereas the but negates everything that you just offered. So one thing that I would offer, and you did ask for that, I would say, like, eliminate the but, and you've got a solid mic drop moment.

Garrick Jones (10:58.001)
was very helpful, thank you.

Simon Brown (11:02.211)
And this is once a day builds the habit, but this should be something where actually we use this in every meeting or is this when I guess when is this most powerful and when should we be looking to adopt this approach?

Salvatore Manzi (11:20.224)
I would offer to anybody wanting to...

Exercise this and develop this do it in a low stakes environment do this with your partner and do this with your kids do this with your with peers non high stakes meeting and tell the muscle develops because in that high intensity moment, it's hard to reach for validating reflecting Acknowledging before so develop the muscle in the low stakes. But to your point, yes It can be inserted into every conversation every interaction ideally every time

you open your mouth, you start with an acknowledgement or a reflection of the other person before getting to what you heard. And that is the essence of that person beginning to feel heard and seen, lowering their defenses. It's a neurological thing, it lowers the defenses. Okay, I don't have to assume that you got it and you just gave me an answer. I can actually feel and hear what you said and I can either correct or I can feel seen and then listen to your perspective as well.

Simon Brown (12:23.309)
And what sort of results have you seen from the people that you're coaching with this? How has it transformed, how they've interacted with stakeholders, with teammates, with their partner? What have been the results you've seen?

Salvatore Manzi (12:38.89)
I would offer it also to you that there's probably parallels to infusing curiosity into. It's probably a very similar thing. What I've noticed is especially with...

data-driven communication, tech leaders, scientists, people who are trying to express complexity to a non-data audience, it becomes a critical moment. And I have, I can give several examples. One that I like to highlight is a woman who was in charge of the data for a very large health organization and was not getting progress on her initiatives. They were being ignored, talked over, just dismissed. She began

Speaking the data in different terms and acknowledging what she's hearing to then Submit her ideas. There was a moment where She's like, yeah, this is where I'm supposed to ask. How are you feeling? Like it's that it's that moment of like, yeah, I have to wait and ask you How is it going? Because as a data-driven professional she knows that when I'm in the zone I'm working data to data and when she's working with her team it's data it's zeros and ones going back and forth, but when she

then pivot to key stakeholders making decisions, they feel a lack of empathy and they don't connect with her. So when she started using the you than me, she started connecting more and she went very quickly from director level to senior VP.

Simon Brown (14:09.477)
And so maybe coming to some of the other things that you have in your book. So one of the principles I think is around dialogue, not download. So tell us more of what does that mean? Why is that critical? And is that also for sort of data heavy environments or is that one you can apply across any environment?

Salvatore Manzi (14:16.91)
Hmm.

Salvatore Manzi (14:29.196)
I would apply it to any environment and the dialogue not download is based on the idea that we can only absorb so much information.

before we need to interact with it, process it, connect with it. And as a professional and an expert in your field, you are going to have all of the data and all of the research and all of the rationale. And if I try to convince you by giving everything to you, but surely if I just tell you everything, then you'll make up your mind and agree with me. It lacks the ability for that person to connect. So dialogue dial mode is the essence of...

Stopping, offering a reflection, offering a moment for questions.

I don't know if you call this in your experience, but fireside chat and town halls became the norm. Instead of all hands and our business meeting, they started renaming them with the idea of making conversations more of an interaction and allowing people to have insights from the information rather than just a lecture where you're giving me all the information.

Simon Brown (15:20.548)
Yep.

Garrick Jones (15:32.743)
Mm.

Simon Brown (15:41.412)
And that may, yeah, guess that may be counter to the way.

some of us default to I guess of I have all of this information this will make a really compelling case so if I share all of that information on why it is so important or so whatever that's going to make the strongest case but what I'm hearing is actually that becomes overwhelming maybe and stopping, pausing, inviting reflection actually creates a stronger landing of the message we're trying to get across. that, am I understanding that right?

Salvatore Manzi (16:14.506)
I would concur and a wonderful you than me offering that acknowledgement reflection of what I just said. Yeah, you've probably seen this in your own world where people have come to you like maybe even do you either of you have children by the way? Yeah, where they come and they make that case and these are all the reasons and there's not a lot of reason or logic to it but like the

Simon Brown (16:28.547)
Yes, yes.

Salvatore Manzi (16:38.85)
They fail to often see the need to engage you in the conversation to make that pitch. I don't know if you've experienced that.

Garrick Jones (16:47.527)
yes. I get text messages sometimes going, I want something. And it's direct like that. And then then there's usually a conversation. Well, let's see whether it's going to cost you. But once in a time, you've got you've got your book clear and compelling.

Simon Brown (16:49.884)
you

Garrick Jones (17:13.687)
You've been through the whole process of writing a book, which we have, and it's fascinating and interesting. And it's quite exciting to get it to a point where you can actually convey something and you're excited about what you want to say. If.

If I had to ask you about that experience and this book, what are the most important things, I know we have to read the book, but what are the things that you really feel you want people to get out of reading this book? What's behind why you've written it and what you want to communicate?

Salvatore Manzi (17:51.791)
love the question, but I'm so curious to talk about your experience because I was sharing with Simon earlier, I did it in a vacuum. I was by myself and I set my own hours that you did it the three of you. Like how did you navigate? He said you had like, milestones and stuff. But yeah, I'm okay. We'll put that aside for a minute. I'll get to your question. Maybe you can share the and yeah.

Garrick Jones (18:14.471)
It's a great question. Yeah, you first.

Salvatore Manzi (18:19.15)
To your point, writing the book, were so many things after 20 years of doing this work that I wanted to convey to people. Number one is that you and me principle, but the essence of my work is breaking down communication into three pillars, content, delivery, presence, with presence being a critical piece to focus on in order to convey.

the message and create connection and presence is made up of so many different things that the so around the world of presence and what I hope that people get from my book. It's not meant to be a cover to cover read. can pick it up and just read one of the strategies but in the presence pillar and the strategies there the the thing I would love for people to take away is that you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be present and presence.

comes when comfort meets authenticity, which requires a bit of self-awareness, other awareness, and room awareness. And the heart of that is curiosity. Curiosity is what drives that, which then enables you to be present in the moment and hold the space and then project the type of presence that you wish to convey.

Simon Brown (19:38.598)
So it's presence in the sense of being presence which then leads to projecting one's presence. When I first heard presence I was thinking that's around me trying to have gravitas or trying to create a presence but actually it sounds like it's presence comes about as a result of being present in the sense of listening, empathy, really hearing what someone's saying. that the case?

Salvatore Manzi (20:06.476)
love your approach to this, the idea that I want to come with a sense of gravitas, I want to come with the idea of having a commanding presence in the moment, and what I'm hearing you say is that it has to be grounded in that curiosity about the realm.

I would agree 100 % that it is about presence, is about showing up in a way that connects authentically with my audience, not just projecting an idea. If I could add a little caveat there though, there is a need to fake it till you make it.

because we have been conditioned to show up a certain way. We emulate other people and assume the way they're doing it is the way it needs to be done, but it might not be authentic. So there is a point of fake it that you make it in order to try on leading from a different part of ourselves to break out of that conditioning to convey the presence that we want to convey.

Garrick Jones (21:03.397)
hearing you talk about presence, not perfection is really interesting for me because we get to speak to a lot of people on these podcasts from all these different perspectives and many people say similar things and some people say things we probably have heard before. But this is a completely new idea for me, Simon, I have to say, and I'm loving it, the relationship between curiosity and presence that I'm...

What I'm hearing you say is I am more engaged and I'm more engaging if my curiosity, if I'm, you know, if I'm authentically curious about you and about what the topic is and that curiosity brought forward is engaging and enables presence, enables people to pay attention to me a little bit like the story you told about the lady in the tech company. That's great.

Simon Brown (22:02.341)
You

which I think ties to some research. I remember saying, I think it was Harvard research around curiosity leading to improved teamwork. And that was with a view that being curious around other people's points of view. So someone in my team has a completely different point of view from me, rather than taking that as a negative and a front, actually being curious around why would they think that? What do they know that I don't know? And that curiosity reducing

conflict creating genuine interest, guess the empathy that you then me and that creating a stronger team dynamic. So I think it feels like it all ties together nicely.

Salvatore Manzi (22:44.032)
It does tie together and if I could, I want to unpack what Garrett just said about presence and I want to unpack what you just said about curiosity leading to In my book I go into assume positive intent, to your point Simon. That is such a cliche, assume positive intent, right? I'm a lifelong nomad. I've lived in dozens of countries and dozens of cities and what I learned is...

Assuming positive intent is not a muscle, I mean, it's not an intuitive, because we are survivalists, we're protected, right? So we're not gonna assume it. Learning how to assume positive intent in a diverse culture is what leads to that curiosity, that leads to better collaboration. And the way that I offer to anybody out there that's listening how to really embody and exercise assume positive intent is this.

Start by asking yourself when it comes to that person, that culture, that project, what are your thoughts? Where do those beliefs, experiences, thoughts, where do they come from? What are they grounded in? Are they true? Where is the gap? Where is the not true? Where is the question? What is it that you need to learn in order to understand it better? I'll give an example. I have a...

Cell phone carrier here in the United States that I am constantly in friction with they're constantly changing the rates changing the things I'm getting different things on my bill so every time I call them I go in with this story of like They're why are they they in and I have to check myself I and what I do is I go back over my story What is my story about the carrier customer service in general? I start making a list of what is positive well?

99 % of the time I'm doing pretty well with it. And then when I get on the call, I go in with curiosity and more of an open mind. You can do this in the same thing with a team situation. Maybe there's somebody that you have friction with. What's that friction based on? What's the story of the person has? Where is your curiosity around it? To create that assumed positive intent and then create better collaboration among the team. I feel like I might have.

Salvatore Manzi (24:58.338)
gone too deep on that, I also want to come back to the presence. So how do we do this? We have a lot to, can we keep going here?

Simon Brown (25:04.407)
Absolutely. So I was reminded as you were talking, so was doing a session on the book earlier today to a group of leaders. And one of the things as part of that was looking back on was a podcast we did with Warren Berger, who wrote the book, The Most Beautiful Question. He's a questionologist and he talks about a jugular question, which is why do I believe what I believe and what if I'm wrong as the follow up one? I think that's a super powerful one. What assumptions am I bringing into this?

Salvatore Manzi (25:27.982)
Mmm.

Simon Brown (25:34.311)
Yeah, that's it to your point of how do I better collaborate? How do I understand diverse culture? Why do I believe what I believe? Questioning one's own assumptions and then a follow-up of yeah, what if I'm wrong?

Salvatore Manzi (25:47.469)
That is beautiful. The game changer for me was in conversations along the questions like that. What is it I need to learn? What is it I need to learn from this conversation? If I go in with that awareness, I have a more constructive conversation, even when it's difficult or high intensity.

I kind of want go back to presence, Garrett. You brought it up that you haven't thought about it. And one of the questions I have is when you think of presence, who do you think of? Like, who is it that you say, that person, that he or she has presence? What is it, who is it, and what is it that they're doing?

Garrick Jones (26:30.641)
Well, I mean, being a musician, I immediately think about a conductor at the front and some of the conductors that I admire. Some of the people like Michael Tilson Thomas, Gustavo Dudamel, for example, who's just moved in and out, even Papiano.

Salvatore Manzi (26:34.669)
Okay.

Garrick Jones (26:50.279)
in the UK or Gurdjieff, who's somebody I don't necessarily get on with. I certainly don't get on with his politics, but I do get on with him as a musician. So the idea of somebody having to come out as an ordinary person and stand in front of a group of professionals, whether they're talking or whether they're conducting, know, everyone's going to deliver in some way. But then they have to develop an immediate empathy with that group of people.

And that occurs to me. And what's fascinating about that, again, is the question of presence. The presence, you've really got me thinking, I have to say. So Tori, and thank you for that, because what I'm really thinking about is if I am curious, and if I am curious about the other, curious about who I'm engaging with, even if I disagree with them or I don't know with them, I don't think there's somebody that I...

would get on with, for example, if I stop and I'm curious about something about them or about the situation in an empathetic way, I immediately gain presence. I that talks about almost like a quantum relationship between us and the other individual. We establish a relationship just from assuming that condition.

Salvatore Manzi (28:01.356)
Thank

Garrick Jones (28:11.707)
And that's really got me thinking. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. But back to your question, who does it make me think of in terms of presence? I mean, yeah, I've spoken about conductors.

Salvatore Manzi (28:23.018)
I love, well first of all, I love the two parts that you brought up. Thank you for that. One, conductors for me too convey presence. When you watch a conductor start, it's very intentional, slow.

They bring it all together. They don't whip it up. There's a moment where they're taking in the entire room and you can see as they walk into and take the stand, there's a moment where they are showing that curiosity. Where is everybody out? Who seems a little bit, who's not sitting straight that I need to keep a little bit of eye on or keep a little bit closer? Who can I bring in directly to bring into the harmony of the entire group? I think a conductor is a brilliant demonstration of

presence. love that. And curiosity! Curiosity is the heart of creating that presence and I would offer again that it can be taught. And the curiosity in the sense of in my book I go into self-awareness, other awareness, room awareness. Every situation has those three factors at play in communication.

Is your message going to land or not land is determined about self-awareness, other awareness, and room awareness. So once a day, along with the other exercise, once a day, set a timer and do a deep-diving curiosity about one of those three perspectives in the situation that you are in.

Maybe your alarm goes off and you're in a meeting. You can look around the room and say, how does the lighting in this room affect the way people are interacting? How does the seating affect it? How does the variation, the size of the table get really curious about the room and how that is impacting the conversation? Once a day, try it with other awareness. How once a day try it about your self-awareness. What do you bring to develop that curiosity and to your point, create a greater

Salvatore Manzi (30:19.93)
sense of presence when you're communicating.

Garrick Jones (30:23.559)
One of the things that I'm really enjoying about our conversation is how practical you make it and how you bring it back to practical cases and things where it's happened. I have a question about one that I know about, where you've supported entrepreneurs and executives preparing for fundraising. And apparently, they're the case where the people you were advising overshot their goal by $100 million.

Salvatore Manzi (30:49.868)
Yeah, that was pretty exciting.

Garrick Jones (30:52.167)
That's a great wonder, if you ask me. What communication and how did comms and presence and how, I mean, how did you enable that? What was that about?

Simon Brown (30:52.415)
That's quite impressive.

Salvatore Manzi (31:01.39)
To your point, I was in the Bay Area, so I was working both with Y Combinator, a lot of startup founders, a lot of people going into first, second, third round funding. And so it became sort of a curiosity of mine of how to connect their brilliant ideas, their vision.

with funders who are going to understand and grasp that vision. There's a pitch formula. We don't need to go into that here, but there is a structure to a pitch that if you follow it, you're going to have more success in leading to the outcomes that you want. That formula amplifies something that a lot of people get wrong, and this is something that I think was critical in that situation. When people tell stories,

They often start with the what and not the why. This is what I did. This is what was going on. This is what we did to help them. let me tell you about the time that I solved this problem. This is how we did it. We need to start with the why. We need to cultivate the reasoning around the pain, the problem that we're solving until our listener can relate to.

find relevance in that pain, they're not going to care what you did or what your solution is. So the first part of creating an effective pitch is really creating that sense of relevance around the problem and the pain. With that particular case where they overshot their goal by 100 million,

There was also a cultural difference. I won't say which, but there was a different country that was pitching to a different country trying to seek the funding. And the high context versus low context cultures came into play. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but the idea of communicating at a level that is appropriate to the context of the situation with that culture. And then also,

Salvatore Manzi (33:02.804)
Changing the way that a person communicates to meet that culture where they are so when the team was able to adjust their own cultural conditioning to mirror the cultural conditioning of their stakeholders and They were able to explain the pain points and build that relevance boom. They overshot the goal

Simon Brown (33:24.705)
And so how much of that was understanding the stakeholder more and the culture of the stakeholder? How much of that was the storytelling and getting to a strong why? I guess I'm reminded of Simon Sinek's work, start with why and the power of why from many aspects. yeah, and was it even then the sort of them, them, me type piece of what were the most powerful parts of, I guess,

that or was it a combination of all of those that they put into action and that blew the investors away and hence an extra hundred million thrown into the pot?

Salvatore Manzi (34:03.266)
Yeah, I would love to present you with a template and follow this and work, but it was individual to each team member. One team member was a very data driven.

Analyst who wanted to convey all of the data and stop there so for that person was really understanding how to build relevance before dropping and how to develop a conversation another person on the team was really needed that cultural difference so that they weren't coming across in a culturally inappropriate or a friction way with a new culture and another person on the team was really about the It was kind of a combination between the story and the the cultural differences, but

Simon Brown (34:39.513)
you can meet.

Salvatore Manzi (34:43.856)
but more on the storytelling part. So I would love to give you a formula. Unfortunately, every person I have encountered in these 20 years of coaching, close to over a thousand people, everybody has a different little nuance. What happens when the spotlight is shown on you? Something comes up that only that individual can start to work with to create a greater sense of connection with their audience.

Garrick Jones (35:10.311)
Does your sensitivity to cultural differences and differences among people and the empathy, does that come from your lifestyle, which as a digital nomad, for example, is how you characterize yourself. You work with leaders and teams around the world. Has this influenced your perspective on all of this communication?

Salvatore Manzi (35:33.647)
I love the question because I love talking about being a nomad. It's sort of a quirky part of my personality. I have been a nomad for the better part of my life. And I grew up in Kansas, which is in the middle of the United States, a very small conservative town. Went to a university, and I stayed in the International Hall. Exposed to, there were 49 different countries in that hall. It became a thirst. I couldn't quench. And so immediately after college, I started traveling around the world for seven years. And that has informed my

much of my understanding of communication. Noticing, first of all, the difference of how different cultures

communicate and it's not even you don't have to go across the country. You can go across a country. You don't have to leave the country to experience that. You go from New York to LA. There's a huge difference in the way people are communicating what they lead with when they start a conversation. It's fascinating to me. as a I'm very analytical and so I was studying how did these different cultures and then when I learned that there are research around the high and low context and the

There's research around how body language is communicated that infused my passion and unfortunately it's still an itch I can't stop scratching. I am stuck on being a nomad and I probably will the rest of my life. yeah, I'm rarely in a place for more than a couple of weeks.

Garrick Jones (36:56.775)
Do you travel a lot?

Garrick Jones (37:03.207)
Amazing. I have a question about curiosity, your personal curiosity. What are you most curious about right now outside of the nomadic lifestyle and outside of your work? What is Salvatore curious about?

Salvatore Manzi (37:18.478)
I kind of want to answer flippantly. Like my passion right now, my obsession is coffee. I'm curious about getting the very best coffee. Is it the light roast? Do I need a burr grinder to get that perfect grind? Like I'm like obsessive about that. But when you ask the question, what really comes up, I'm in America and I would say we're going through a difficult time right now where there's a lot of divisiveness and there's a lack of curiosity.

between two sides, there's a pitting against each other. And I'm curious how this is going to unfold, when it'll be a breaking point, when the need for protectionism from one side turns into curiosity and support. I have hope that we will get there. And I also feel sadness at what's going on. So that's where I'm curious.

Garrick Jones (38:10.471)
Do you think you might have some solutions, not you personally, but do you think there might be some solutions from your communities and people around you?

Salvatore Manzi (38:23.694)
solutions to the challenges that are out there, it's...

There's the number one solution I would offer is you than me, obviously, but the, I think the key right now is to not take things personally.

One of my coaching techniques for a lot of people who experience fear about speaking in front of groups is to start with not about me. The audience's reflection, their sour face, that seeming disinterest when they look at their phone, it doesn't have to do with you. It doesn't have to do with you. It doesn't have to do with what you just said. I mean, there's a sliver of possibility, but it doesn't have to do with you, and we internalize that. And I think what's happening right now in America is they're making everything about

them. When you stop and ask any American, okay, well, how does that issue impact you and your life? Personally, they can't answer it. They can only spout the rhetoric that they're hearing on the news channels about how it's impacting our society. And so I think if there was an opportunity for Americans to stop and think, this is not about me. What is about me?

then they could take action to creating a better society.

Simon Brown (39:44.997)
So we're coming up at time. I'll give you an opportunity for one last thing to leave our listeners with, but maybe if I just do a quick wrap of the conversation so far. So I loved your opening piece of curiosity as a gateway drug, how it creates that sense of connection and that childlike curiosity, that sense of wonder, how we went through your painful experience of getting up on stage and losing your voice and how that actually inspired curiosity around the

Salvatore Manzi (39:47.158)
No! sorry.

Simon Brown (40:14.95)
what happened and I loved the actually to deal with that going forward. It was the fear of having the spotlight put onto you that actually led to I want to own the spotlight and be able to sort of own the dialogue and how that addressed that fear. The you let me super powerful and the practical piece of actually, you know, what should we do? We should take that away once a day, challenge ourselves. Let's come up with the three things first about the person that we're dealing with. And then when we're doing that, be

careful around the butt, we're only allowed one butt per day that actually it should be the yes and. How cure-off can be used in the data-driven communications, the story of the lady that was able to use that to her benefit. The three pillars that you have in your book around how it's dialogue, it's dialogue not download and how we need to think about content delivery and presence and the great conversation around presence. And then how we assume positive intent

but look at that through also then diverse cultures and what we can away from better collaboration and questioning our own thoughts which gets back into that of juggler question from Warren around why do I believe what I believe. Setting a timer and then looking at those three levels of awareness, self-awareness, other awareness, the lights, the seating, the table and that sort of room awareness piece and then going into the power of stories and starting.

starting with why and then your own personal curiosity around some of challenges we see. So loads we covered from all of that is there one thing that you'd leave our listeners with Salvatore?

Salvatore Manzi (41:54.639)
Thank you for that awesome reflection of our conversation. Yeah, I mean, wow, that was amazing. I would offer Victor Frankl's quote, often quoted, is that there is a space between stimulus and response. And in that space is our opportunity to make a choice. Curiosity is at the heart of that. When we become curious about how we instinctively conditioned

Garrick Jones (41:57.529)
He's pretty good at it, I have to say.

Salvatore Manzi (42:24.05)
act or respond to stimuli, we begin to build stronger leadership, stronger connections, stronger teams, and more effective communication all around.

Simon Brown (42:36.644)
Thank you so much for joining us, Avatorie.

Garrick Jones (42:38.555)
Yeah, thank you Salvatore. I've learned a huge amount and I've left me with lots to think about. I'm very grateful. Thank you.

Salvatore Manzi (42:38.754)
Thank you.

Salvatore Manzi (42:45.933)
My pleasure.

Simon Brown (42:47.086)
So this series is about how individuals and organizations use the power of curiosity to drive success in their lives and businesses, especially in the context of our new digital reality. It brings to life the latest understanding from neuroscience, anthropology, history, business, and behaviorism about curiosity and makes this useful for everyone. You've been listening to the Curious Advantage podcast. We're always curious to hear from you, so please do share what you found useful or valuable from this conversation. Do write a review, and do click on that five stars, and follow us on whatever your favorite podcast is.

and do check out the book if you want to learn more about the seven seas and do also please check out Sattvatore's book as well and with that thank you and we look forward to seeing you next time.