How Visual Thinking Builds Trust in Business Relationships | RR347

It. Hello everyone, and welcome to this

week's episode of relationships rule. My guest this week is Todd

churches. Please welcome him as I do. Welcome to the show, Todd.

Thanks, Jan. It's great to be with you today. I first met Todd

when I heard him speak briefly at an event that I was online

listening to, and it was somebody that just piqued my

interest immediately, and I wanted to know more, so asked

him to be on my show, and he kindly agreed to do so, and here

we are. Todd is the CEO of big blue gumball. He's an executive

coach, a TEDx speaker, and the author of the book visual

leadership, leveraging the power of visual thinking in leadership

and life. And Todd believes that how we see the world shapes how

we lead, communicate and connect. And he just well,

you'll hear and see what I'm talking about when we get into

the conversation. So we're going to explore how visual thinking

helps business professionals communicate with clarity, build

trust with prospects and partners and create meaningful,

lasting relationships. And I want to start actually by

laying, laying the foundation for the for my audience by by

asking you to define simply, in you know, just an overview of

visual thinking and visual leadership? Sure.

Thank you. Yeah, visual leadership is the

application of visual thinking to the practice of leadership.

So when people say visual thinking, what do we mean by

that? It's basically about thinking in pictures as opposed

to words and numbers. So it's almost like, if you're going to

use do a lot of work around metaphor and analogy. It's kind

of like, if you think about words, I think about like a Word

document. If I think about numbers, I think about an Excel

spreadsheet. If I think about pictures, I think about

PowerPoint. So it's kind of like taking a PowerPoint view of the

world. But it's not that you can just live by PowerPoint alone.

You need to have all three formats. So you need to think

about words and numbers. And similarly, I always say that

there's three F's, facts, figures and feelings. People are

motivated by feelings. Relationships are built around

feelings, right? So you can have all the facts and figures in the

world, and you need that to back you, back you up, but it's the

feelings that are generated visually that lead to

emotionally so. So that's in a nutshell, which is an idiom or a

metaphor. That's what visual thinking is all about, thinking

in pictures and communicating with pictures.

So right off, I have to ask, what if that

doesn't come naturally? Well, what's

interesting is, yeah, that's a great what's

interesting is, our brains are wired visually. So if you were a

cave person walking 1000s of years ago through the jungle and

you heard rustling behind you. What do you do? You hear the

rustling, but you turn around to see what it is. Is it a friend

or foe? Is it a saber toothed Tiger, or is it, you know, a

buddy from the other cave, right? So it's kind of like,

that's just the way we're wired. So as humans, we are wired

visually, and we are wired for stories. And similarly, what

it's not just visual imagery, but it's also visual language.

So that's something we could talk about too. So if I use a

metaphor that's visual, if I tell you a story and paint a

picture with words, that's visual. So it's not just about

taking in visuals through our physical eye, but it's about

thinking in our mind's eye and what we could picture in our

mind's eye. So even if you're blind, because sometimes people

say, Well, if you're blind or sight impaired, where you left

your glasses at home. Does this not apply to you? It still does.

So yeah,

but I always think of myself, and maybe I'm

beating myself up, but I think of myself as more of a left

brain person and the creative. Although I am creative in some

ways, I don't discount that for myself, but when it comes to

using visual imagery, I struggle like I'm not the storyteller in

that regard. And I I think that it comes like it just drips off

your tongue. I mean, you tell stories about everything. Has

that visual component, and I don't think I would have to

think about it to make it happen. Yeah, some

things come more naturally, organically. Yeah, I

was a big reader. I was actually not a business major, as most

people think, but I was an English literature major. So my

background is in literature and Shakespeare and poetry. So

through that, I picked up story and language and metaphor and

imagery, right? So I just apply that to the world of business.

But like even for yourself, you know, you created a podcast, you

created a business, you created relationships rule as a brand.

So you are creative. You just are creative in a different way.

And one of the things I loved and I highlighted this, you have

all these different you have key symbols for customizing your

LinkedIn profile, right? So you have stars and you have all

these different images and symbols. That's visual thinking,

right? That's visual communication. So if you just

attach an emoji onto a text message, you're visual right?

That's you're translating. If you just use them. Emojis,

people may not know what you're saying. If you just use text,

you may not get people's attention, but if you send a

text with an emoji, or post something on LinkedIn with an

emoji, it's that combination that gets people to gets

people's attention, helps them to understand and gets them to

remember, which I phrase as attention, comprehension and

retention, right?

I saw that. Yeah, okay, so, okay, you've answered

that question. You often talk about the power of metaphors and

analogies. Can you share an example of how one used, how

using one helped clarify a complex idea and strengthen a

relationship? Sure.

Well, one thing we don't realize is how often we

use metaphors and analogies to compare one thing to something

else. So when you do that, it explains and say, this is kind

of like that, right? So I use a lot of people. Some people may

be listening on the audio, but if you're watching on the

YouTube video, I use a lot of baseball analogies because I'm a

big baseball fan, but if I'm talking to someone in Europe, I

may use a soccer analogy, but it's called in soccer. In

Europe, soccer is called football. So if I say football,

people, maybe in America are thinking of this football as

opposed

and he's and and Todd is holding up different

toys a little

so I use a lot of props in my work, a lot of

visuals. But that's the thing. Like, I say football, you may be

thinking soccer, I may be thinking American football. So

we have a disconnect, right? So if you're saying football, if

you're talking to someone from Europe, you may want to say

American football, as opposed to, right? So it's, again, it's

about using a metaphor. It's about speaking the language of

your stakeholders. You know, sometimes one of my coaching

clients was avoiding the most important issue that he needed

to discuss, and I said, I'm holding up a stuffed elephant

right now. I said, You're not talking about the elephant.

You're not addressing the elephant in the room, right? So

he laughed out loud, but it was really impactful. Because, one,

it's a metaphor the elephant in the room, it's not a physical,

literal elephant, but it's that big thing that we all know is

there that no that everyone's ignoring, right? So we use

metaphors like that all the time, and it just adds color and

creativity and impact to what we're talking about. And a

little bit of humor as well. And humor, yeah, humor goes a long

way. One of my clients was talking about when I was at IBM

in 1980 and I held up this dinosaur. I have this

Tyrannosaurus Rex. And I'm like, you know, you're thinking,

you're impressing people with your wealth of experience, and

your younger employees are thinking, This guy's a dinosaur,

right? So again, it's again, it's the impact of that visual.

He will not forget, right? I could say you sound outdated,

and blah, blah, blah, you hold up the dinosaur. He actually got

himself a little dinosaur to keep on his desk to remind him

to try to be more current with his stories and his

but I do want to say that the elephant in the

room. When you held up the elephant, it reminded me of how

you started and your story about going to Hollywood and what you

ended up doing. Did you go to Hollywood with the idea of

writing there? Or did you know what you wanted to do because

you didn't end up doing there what you wanted to do?

Yeah, I talked about in my TED talk, I say,

when I was a kid, I love television. I was obsessed with

Superman and Batman. I love television. So my dream was to

work in television in some way. But as I mentioned to you

before, even though I talk loud and fast because I'm from New

York, I'm an extreme introvert, so I never saw myself doing

anything on a stage or in front of a camera. So I thought being

like a TV executive or a producer or something. So when I

graduated from college with a master's in communication, and I

got a job at Ogilvy and me their advertising and speaking of

advertising, if you've watched, I just re watched all seven

seasons of Mad Men, which is just amazing. So that was a

little before my time in the ad agency business, but it just

reminded me about my year, my one year at Ogilvy and made

their advertising in New York. And I love the ad agency

business, but I had a very numbers based job. I wanted to

be an account exec or do something creative, and the only

job I could get was in the media department, and it was all

calculating ratings and shares and costs. And I was I learned a

lot, but I was miserable. So I decided to visit a friend in LA

my college roommate, and I saw the Hollywood sign and said,

This is where I have to be. So I went back to New York, gave my

Two Weeks Notice again. This was the most out of my comfort zone

thing I've ever done in my life. Up until that point, I just

packed my bags and I moved to LA with no prospects, no jobs. I

didn't even know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to

work in Hollywood in some Yeah, I was 24 at the time. I had no

money. Side side note is I needed a survival job, and I

applied for a job at a weight as a waiter at a restaurant and

bar, and they didn't need any waiters, but they needed a

bouncer. So I took a job as a bouncer at a nightclub, and I

thought I'd do that for a few months, and I did it for three

years. It totally pushed me out of my comfort zone, and it grew

my confidence. Confidence, my public my speaking abilities. So

whoever thought taking a job, I'm six foot four and, but I was

very, very skinny and, but I wore a suit, and you give the

give people a clipboard and put them behind the velvet rope, and

all of a sudden you have all the power in the world. So it's

amazing is that that bouncer job really boosted my confidence and

my speaking abilities, because I had to interact with people in

that job. But then I got a work for Aaron Spelling on dynasty,

just putting scripts together as as a production assistant. I

worked where else. I was at Columbia Pictures. I was in

comedy at Disney, and I was in drama program at CBS, drama

program development, CBS. So I had a number of jobs in the TV

industry, all entry level jobs, but I got my foot in the door.

Gave me a lot of experience. I learned what I was good at and

what I wasn't, and because I was introvert, I thought my work

would speak for itself, but I learned the hard way that you

have to speak for your work, and I didn't have the ability or the

knowledge to do that. So I ended up taking a job as a project

coordinator at the theme park company where a friend of mine

was working, and they promoted me to project manager, and they

said, you have to go to China to oversee the installation of

these robotic figures. That's where the elephant comes in, a

long way around. So we produced these robotic elephants, sheep

and cows for a cultural theme park in Shenzhen, China, which

is just over the border from Hong Kong, and I was terrified

of going. I didn't even have a passport. I didn't know what I

was doing, so I had to go over there with two crew, two guys, a

mechanical guy and an engineering electrical guy, and

we had to install all these robotic animal figures in this

theme park. And in the course of doing that, and interacting with

people who only spoke Chinese and we only spoke English. We

used a lot of drawings and sketching and body language and

gesturing. And that's kind of like my origin story from my

visual thinking based approach, is the fact that we don't just

communicate in words, but in tone of voice, gestures and in

imagery. So I'll stop there. But that was that's kind of like my

visual leadership origin story, the first time it hit me that,

hey, there's another way, and better way to build

relationships and connect with people and to communicate.

Yeah, I love the story. Thank you for sharing

that also, though, did it then take you, because now, as well

as writing your book over the years and putting these things

together, you you teach this at NYU in Columbia. So I would

imagine you had to do a lot more in terms of research, of theory

and all of that academic side of things. Yes. So what would you

say? You know, what are the three sort of biggies that came

out of that that like, Why did? Why would somebody who comes to

your courses, like people who are already in leadership

positions, or people taking MBAs, or, you know, all of that

stuff.

Yeah, so never. I never in a million years, ever

thought I would teach because, again, I was terrified of and

terrible at public speaking, so that wasn't even on my radar,

but which is a metaphor, I always point down my own

metaphors to remind people of how often we use metaphors, and

then I put them out of the air as other people use them. But

yeah, so I was out in LA for 10 years, and I loved it, but then

I got laid off from my last job. I broke up with someone, and my

father had open heart surgery and all of those things. My

mother just said to me, I think the universe is saying it's time

to come home to New York. So I did, and I moved back to New

York, and I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with

my life or my career or anything else. And I ended up taking a

job. I remember we used to cut out job ads from the newspaper

and clip them and highlight and everything. That's how old I am.

But basically, I got a job as a project manager at a training

company, a leadership training company that needed someone to

help revamp their MBA mini MBA program. So even though I didn't

have a business background, I had done enough business where I

knew enough. And my one common theme throughout my entire all

my year, working years up until that point, was one after

another of Horrible Bosses, abusive, sadistic, malicious,

narcissistic, Horrible Bosses. And then when I worked on this

in this job for this management training company, I realized

that there's an art and science to managing and leading people.

And the light bulb went off was my light bulb. I keep my light

bulb on my desk, so the light, the light bulb went off, and I

realized that managing and leading can be taught and can be

learned, right? So that was the first time ever, because I was a

project manager, I managed people. I had no idea what I was

doing. I figured being bossy was just telling people what to do

and how to do it, because that's how I, you know, think about how

we were managed and we were led, right? Most people didn't do any

management leadership training or get coaching at that point at

that time. So once I discovered that I just got obsessed with

business books and management if you're seeing this on video, I

have hundreds of business books behind me. I've been reading an

average of one management, management or business book a

week since 1998 so 27 years, average of 50 a year. So I'm

well into 1400 business books, in fact, on LinkedIn last week.

If anyone goes to LinkedIn, you can see my latest post is the 52

business books I read last year, and I post one every year. So

but that's how I discovered management and leadership as an

art and a science, and the way I communicated was visually

because of my background as an English major, my years on TV

and advertising, it's just the way I thought and processed

information. So I started communicating visually. And then

a friend of mine, a colleague of mine, who taught at NYU, said,

You'd make a great professor, and I'm like me never in a

million years. And she introduced me to the head of the

department at NYU, and they needed someone to teach a

leadership graduate course, and I basically took the leadership

training programs I had designed for corporate clients, modified

it for an academic audience, and it's mainly people getting their

masters in HR and human resource management. And then, after

teaching at NYU for a couple of years, a friend of mine who was

teaching at Columbia said, I can't teach this semester. Can

you fill in for me? So I got I became a faculty member at

Columbia, so I've been teaching at NYU for 15 years in Columbia

for 12 years. And basically I teach management leadership, but

I use my visual thinking methodologies and approaches to

help people to do it more effectively. So that's the long

answer to how I got into teaching. And so I don't

specifically teach visual leadership. I teach leadership

with a visual leadership approach

well, and it just the thing that you just did it

in that in that story that you just told you, you naturally put

in something like you talked about the newspaper ads we used

to clip out. That's visual thing, right? You just put those

in there so easily. I don't, and I think those are the things

that make speakers interesting, and I watch TED talks, or I

watch people on stage, and I've been on stage, I talk to

audiences, but I don't think that I do those things

naturally. I like to engage my audience. I like to talk to

people in the audience. I like to get their their input, which

I see you doing and naturally, but I don't know if I tell

stories enough. That's the thing that that I'm always fascinated

by, in that that,

well, here's the thing, here's the good news. It

is teachable and it is learnable. So with that, it

starts with that awareness. It starts with watching and

listening to what other people are doing and saying, I need to

incorporate more of that into my repertoire. So I in my book and

in my teaching, I break it down to four categories using visual

imagery, which include concludes, pictures and props

and anything you can take in through the eye, maps, diagrams,

all that stuff is visual imagery. Category Two is using

mental models and frameworks, so a four box matrix or circle, or

any models that we use, like, for example, Maslow's hierarchy

of needs, or Simon Sinek has his circle of starts with y, right?

So those are mental models or frameworks. Category three is

metaphor and analogy, which we've talked about a little bit,

using something to compare to something else. And then

category four is storytelling with extra bonus points for

humor if and when appropriate, right? So those are like my four

buckets. So that's what I teach and train people to do. So I

actually wrote an article that anyone can look up for Ink

Magazine called, can you draw what your company does? Right?

So if you were to explain what you do, and they have a

framework called I have it on a post. It here, similar to,

different from, better than if you had to explain what your

company does. What is it similar to? How is it different? And how

is it better? Because if it's not, people learn things through

connections to what they already know. So if you say it's kind of

like this, that's the similar to, if it's not different, then

why do we need you? So it's got to be different in some way, and

then how is it better like? So for example, your relationships

rule podcast, you could say it's similar to these other podcasts

that are about relationship building and building community

and connection and that type of thing. Here's how it's similar.

Here's how I'm different because of X, Y and Z, and here's how

it's better your guess or your approach, or whatever, your

interviewing skills. This is why it's better than others, right?

So if you can articulate that, people will say, oh, I want to

hear your podcast, right? So that's a framework that I use,

then, that I teach people. But we think through analogy and we

connect the dots. That's the basics of learning, right? We

connect new information to what we already know, and kind of

grow that tree to use that metaphor, right? Even as I say,

branch out. So because, like with trees, I could use all

these analogies. I could say, we plant the seed for ideas. We

branch out in new directions. We see which ideas bear fruit. We

get to the root of the problem, right? We use that language all

the time. For some people, it comes naturally. Other people

need to work on it, but the key is to keep developing those

skills to think and communicate visually, and that makes us more

effective, speakers, coaches, etc.

Yeah, that. And it just, I love how it just is

so innate for you. You used another one at the end of your I

think it was at the end of your TED Talk. I'm not sure where I

saw it, but, and it's so easy. It was like the past, the

present, the future,

the leadership journey metaphor that I use in

my TED talk.

I guess that's what it was. It was the rear

view mirror.

Yeah, yeah. So I actually used next week, my new

NYU class starts next Tuesday night, so I was just preparing.

So I give them a picture of a just the end from sitting in the

driver's seat of a car, and I talk about, what leadership

lessons can we take from this image, right? So you think, Oh,

this will take five minutes. It takes an hour to have that

discussion. The windshield represents the future and the

road ahead. The rear view mirror represents two things, one,

where we came from and how we got here, and also looking in

the mirror, literally, to self reflect on who we are and how we

are as leaders, and then your dashboard shows all your metrics

of how well you're doing, how So, how do you measure success?

So in a car, it's about where you're going and where you came

from, and how fast you're going, and what's if you need oil or if

your car is about to overheat, what's your dashboard in your

life, right in your business, how do you measure success?

What's the ROI of where you're spending your time? So just

using that metaphor, that leadership is a journey, and

there's two things. One, I talk about this in my class. We are

on a journey together for the next 14 weeks, from January to

May, this whole semester, we are on this leadership journey

together, but at the same time, each one of you in the class is

on your own personal journey, right? So just that metaphor is

really powerful. And then people start asking, Do you have enough

fuel in the tank? Are you on the right road also as a leader? Are

you in the driver's seat, the passenger seat, in the back or

in the back seat, right? Just that has a lot to do with how

you lead. Some leaders need to be very hands on. It's like I'm

controlling the steering wheel and the gas and the brake. Some

leaders say I'll move over. I will navigate. Other people will

drive. And some leaders say I'm going to sit in the back seat. I

trust my people to get us, and I'm here if you need me, right?

So just that conversation again. That's the metaphor I use it to

illustrate at the end of my TED talk, but that's such a powerful

image and metaphorical leadership journey, and you can

again, spend hours talking about it.

Yeah, it is. And so, okay, so now I'm getting

inspired, because I'm thinking that if you can find something

as simple as that, which is so complicated, but it's like, it's

the creative side of you, though, that starts with all

those different things around it, right from the back seat to

the front seat, to the mirror to the everything. It's all Yeah.

And so you start to think more visually, yeah.

It's about simplifying complexity. If you

think about work and life are so complex, if you have an idea or

business proposal or whatever. How do you simplify, not dumb it

down, and not strip it of its nuance, but simplify the

complexity so someone else can say, I see what you're saying,

right? Exactly. So like an exercise I might do in the

classroom is, I'll say leadership. How is leadership

like a blank? And you have to use any object in the room so it

could be, how is leadership like a clock? How is leadership like

that banana sitting on your desk? How is leadership and

again, it forces people to connect the dots and find

there's a quote by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. A

wonderful harmony arises when we join together the seemingly

unconnected or disconnected, right? So you need to take two

disconnected things and connect them all of a sudden, it could

serve as a catalyst to new ideas, innovation, metaphors,

ways of thinking about things.

Yeah, that's that's fascinating, actually.

Okay, I thought of something that, oh, I know, just on an

aside. I just wanted to ask you, because I'm still looking at all

those books behind of the 52 books that you read last year,

what are your top three?

Oh, that's a tough one. Off the top of my

head, I'll talk about the one that's most current, because I

teach this in a leadership workshop. Joel Barker's book

paradigms. Joel Barker just he's he's a futurist. He just passed

away literally a year ago this this month. And I got to know

him. Got to be friends with him. I watched his video like 30

years ago in a leadership training course I took. I got so

obsessed with his concepts. And if you think about what is a

paradigm, it's become kind of a clash cliche, but your paradigm

is the lens, using a visual metaphor, the lens through which

you see the world, right? So we all see the world through our

life experiences, our upbringing, our education, our

culture, all of those things shape what you see, but also and

also how you interpret it, but also what you miss and what you

don't see, right? So just the concept of paradigms, and when

we talk about a paradigm shift, it's not about like switching

from coke to Pepsi, but it's like switching from water out of

your tap to bottled water or to start so it's kind of like

changing the whole dynamic of how you do things. So in March,

I'm teaching a leadership program for Wall Street traders,

and this will be my 21st time over the last 18 years teaching

this program. It's out of client, but it's for Wall Street

traders. Who fly in from all over the world to take this

program, and we start the morning of day one of this three

day program, talking about, I show them the 20 minute

paradigms video. It's really dated, because they're talking

about the latest audio music technologies, the mp three

player. So it's long before DVDs, so it's after the

cassette, but before CDs, and definitely before Spotify and

and streaming. But so the content is outdated, but the

concepts are timeless. That's the way we put it. So it's like,

if you could take these concepts and apply it to today's world,

how is AI changing our world? How is this new technology

changing our world? So that's the book that I'm re, I not only

read books, a lot of books, but I also re read a lot of books.

So it's interesting to go back to some of the quote classics,

like Good to Great, or, you know, In Search of Excellence,

and see what still holds up 30 years later and what is

outdated. And so that's an interesting

exercise, I'm sure, and it's funny, because

it's like I'm a movie person you just mentioned. You just re

watched at Mad Men all seven seasons. I never would think to

do that, because there's so many new things I want to see that I

haven't seen and yet And yet. Every time someone talks about

the brilliance of so and so in that movie, I think, oh, I

should watch that again, because it was really good, and then I

never get to it. So I should start making a list, because I

think that, yeah, there's there. There are some worth doing that

with,

and it's interesting seeing it through

the lens of who we are today, right? Like I was an English

major, right? So I read Hamlet for the first time at age 15.

Reading Hamlet at 15 is different than reading it at 30,

which is the Hamlet's age in the at the time of the play, and

then reading it at 40 or 50, right? So the book stays the

same. It's still Shakespeare's original from 400 plus years

ago, but you've changed, right? So there's that saying, you

know, a person can't set foot in the same river twice, because

the person changes, as does the river, right? So that's a

metaphor, right? So it's interesting to see things

through a new lens. And my favorite quote, I know you like

to hear that there's the quote by Marcel Proust that I end my

TED talk with, that the real voyage of discovery consists not

in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes. So just

seeing the world, seeing your relationships through new eyes.

Seeing your business through new eyes, it's, again, it's one of

the foundations of my visual leadership approach, is having a

picture in your mind's eye of where you were, where you are

today, and where you're going, and then saying, all right, am I

on the right path? Am I on the right track? Am I going 90 miles

an hour, but in the wrong direction? So again, we can

continue that journey, travel metaphor.

There's another one. Yeah, yeah, I love it. I

think you're actually you got me thinking. And I think that if I

pay more attention to it, you can develop it so I see that

now, yeah, for sure. One of your lines that I love is, if we can

get people to see the invisible, we can inspire them to do the

impossible. How does that apply to building relationships and

inspiring trust in today's business world? Would you say,

yeah, that's that's a great question. Well,

think of someone that you admire or that you might like to meet,

right? So you can picture that, and you say, oh, it's

impossible. If I I can never meet this person. You put

someone up on the pedestal. They're untouchable. They're

unreachable, but they're not you could send them and you can like

and comment on their posts and connect with them. You can reach

out to them. You can go to Here's how. I was telling

someone earlier today. He said, How did you get Dan Pink to

write a blurb for your hold on my book visualization? He said,

How did you get Dan Pink to write a blurb for your book. And

I said he was one of the people I would say in my fantasies, Oh,

I'd love to get him to blur my book, but he doesn't know me. I

don't know him other than the fact that I'm a big fan of his

work. He was doing a book launch event in New York. I went to

hear him speak. I waited online to get my book signed. But

instead of racing to go first, I waited to go last. Everyone else

was gone. He just plopped down in his chair. He was exhausted,

and he said, Have a seat. And we ended up talking for 20 minutes.

Yeah, perfect. And I said to him, I'm writing a book. Would

you know? He said, When you get to that point? I wasn't even at

the point yet. I said, Yeah. He said, Send me, you know, send me

an email and see what I could do. And he generously and kindly

responded immediately, gave me a great blurb, and now he's on my

book jacket cover. So again, I'm an extreme introvert that took

every ounce of courage to force myself to do that, and yet I

built that relationship based on I picture, am I better going

first or last? I picture that in my mind, so I envisioned it, and

it turned out even better than I expected, because he ended up

spending 1520 minutes talking to me.

Yeah, fantastic. I've heard stories like that

before, and I think for me, I always say, if you don't ask,

you'll never know, right? You don't get and because the answer

is always no. If you don't ask, the answer is always no, um. Um,

but I have to come back to that introvert thing for a minute,

because my understanding of being an introvert is not really

that it's more that you don't that you're you get your energy.

You get your energy from being more of being alone. Like you

told me that you started out writing, you love to write, and

you behind the scenes stuff. Yeah, if I

can lock my cell phone away and read for 12 hours

a day, that's my dream life.

That doesn't mean you're an introvert, does it?

No. A lot of people associate introversion

with being shy or quiet or scare other people. For many years, I

had social anxiety disorder, which I still do, but I force

myself beyond it. I still get the butterflies and social

event, social events, I'm usually the last one to get

there and the first one to leave, because it takes every I

feel like I'm when I'm at a social event, I feel like I'm

walking on a tightrope across the Grand Canyon, like I'm going

to fall off, and I just can't wait to get to the other side or

get home, right? So I think that's a big Susan Cain is the

guru of introverts. She wrote the book quiet, which is on

myself. She wrote that. So, yes, it is about where we get our

energy from. Introverts prefer to think before we speak, as

opposed to some people speak before they think. So there's a

lot of common traits, but the main reason I consider myself an

introvert is because that's I get my energy. My ideal balance

would be 80% of alone time and 20% interacting with other

people, right? My colleague, friend of mine, he's the

opposite. He likes spending 90% of his time around other people

and only 10% alone. So it's like I get energized by being with my

own ideas and designing and reading and creating and being

with other people just drains my energy.

That is definitely then true. Yeah. So

I'm

Lacher kwaine. I love talking one on one like

this with people. I love sharing my idea a million times more

comfortable on a stage than I am in the audience. So that's

another example.

That's a really interesting example, right?

Yeah, because you can't see everybody, or you focus on one

person, or the lights are too bright, you

don't have that awkwardness that do I have to

talk to the person sitting there? Even, like, flying on a

plane, it's like, Oh, I'm gonna have to talk. I hope this person

doesn't speak to me, sitting next to me well,

and I'd be that person. I'd be that person, and

I know your life history in five minutes, if you like.

Well, here's a real life funny story. Real

quick, I wrote a blog post about I was flying down I'm a member

of Marshall Goldsmith's 100 coaches. He's one of the top

executive the top executive coach in the world. I was flying

down to Orlando for an event. It was actually the global, global

guru's event. I was nominated as one of the top 30 leadership

experts in the world. I came in number 30, so I was literally in

last place on the list, but I got an award and the plaque and

everything, and Marshall Goldsmith was going to be there,

and the guy sitting next to me on the plane, I'm like, Oh, I

hope he doesn't talk to me. He elbowed me in the ribs a few

times. He's just annoying me. I got to the event, and he was

there. He was one of the 100 coaches. I didn't know him.

Didn't talk to him, and then we laughed about it. He said, Why

do I know you? You look familiar. I'm like, because you

just elbowed me in the ribs for like, three hours on the flight

from New York to Orlando. But like, Yeah, we could have been

talking the whole time to someone who I had a connection

with, but we didn't discover that connection until we got

there. So again, that's the thing. It's like, you never know

who you're sitting next to on a plane, so

right, for sure. And actually, as I recall, I

think, from that connection with Marshall Goldsmith, I we

discovered that Sarah, Sarah MacArthur, yeah, that you knew

her, and yeah, and that you're gonna see her, her film, right?

Yeah, I saw it. I actually saw it on the screening

in New York, and it was great on because I teach a whole module

in my class on servant leadership, featuring Frances

hesselbein and Marshall Goldsmith and yeah. So Sarah is

amazing. She published one of my articles for leader to leader on

visual thinking two years ago. So she was

on my podcast earlier or maybe last year. I

can't remember.

So you never know who so where you have those

commonalities and connections, unless you talk to people say,

do you know so and so you live, connect with them on LinkedIn or

like and comment on their posts and see who else is commenting.

And it's like, oh, I didn't know, you know so and so. So

relationships do rule, because none of us, none of us can, you

know, make a living. Or very few of us can make a living without

interacting with clients, colleagues, people, referring

each other. So it's all part of so again, we have to kind of,

especially if you're an entrepreneur and you work for

yourself, which is very isolating and lonely. So we have

to give a shout out to David Schreiner Khan, because we met

at his smashing the plateau community. But through

community, we meet individuals, and then you never know where

things could lead.

Yeah, exactly. And it's been a pleasure to have

you on on the show you are a wealth of knowledge, and I, I

feel and hear your passion for what you do, as well as seeing

all those visuals that you, that you, that you paint. For the

picture for so I think that I know my audience is going to

enjoy this, and I want you to tell them where they can find

you and your book, and I'll put it all in the show notes.

Sure, sure, the best well, Todd churches.com,

just go on my website and it's c h e r, c h e s. And there you

can find my TED Talk information about my book and my visual

leadership approach, but also connect with me on LinkedIn.

Just say you saw us, saw me on Janice's show, and we'll connect

on LinkedIn. And I post on LinkedIn all the time, and happy

to engage with others on LinkedIn.

Sounds delightful. Thank you so much

Todd for being here. Thank you to my audience again for being

loyal listeners and now viewers and And please, if you enjoyed

what you heard from Todd, seek out his work and leave us a

review. We always like that. It helps going going forward. So

remember to stay connected and be remembered. Do.