Episode 207: Larry Silverberg- Transforming Leadership Through Authentic Relationships and Heart-Centered Leadership

Larry Silverberg  00:02

So, Golden key ingredient to authentic relationship. What relationship is built from is tension. That means that if you’re lost in thought, a relationship is impossible. Now relationships are the source of life itself.

Intro  00:25

Welcome to the Making Sales Social Podcast featuring the Top Voices in Sales, Marketing and Business join Brynne Tillman and me, Bob Woods. As we each bring you the best tips and strategies. Our guests are teaching their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Enjoy the show!

Bob Woods  00:50

My guest for this episode of Making Sales Social is Larry Silverberg, a renowned New York City-based acting coach and founder of the True Acting Institute. We aren’t going to be talking about acting in the traditional sense, though, we’re venturing into a space where acting in the world of business intersects. Larry advocates for what he calls heart-centered leadership to help senior executives and Emerging Leaders attract and retain the very best talent. 

They’ll share how heart-centered leadership can be applied to organizations, as well as on professional networking platforms like LinkedIn, we’ll get into that a little bit. But it’s going to be mainly focused on the executive suite, although we are going to talk a little bit about sales as well. So with that, Larry, Welcome to Making Sales Social. 

Larry Silverberg  01:40

Hi! Thank you. Nice to see you today. Thank you for inviting me onto your podcast.

Bob Woods  01:44

Oh, certainly. Absolutely. So our first question on Making Sales Social is always what does Making Sales Social mean to you? And you’re probably gonna have a little bit of a different perspective, because you’re more on your side of the street, as opposed to ourselves.

Larry Silverberg  02:02

Yeah, well, let me just give you first a little background about what’s bringing me into this whole corporate venue, the whole corporate Yeah, I’m, as you know, Bob, because you took a look, and you’ve been looking at my website. I’m an author of many books on acting. And I’ve been very fortunate. My wife and I have traveled the world and I’ve trained actors and directors and acting coaches, mainly for the last 15 years, I’ve been training professional acting coaches, professors. And so I love, I absolutely love what I do. I have, I have a deep you know, Bob, I have a deep aching, a longing to make a bigger difference. 

Because what I have seen in the work that I do with my people, it’s very interesting, my work has been focused, very focused on the craft, the art, and craft of acting yet, my students who are all adults, professionals, come to me continually have come to me and say, “Not only has my acting improved, not only in my booking films and TV shows, in Hollywood and in New York, but my whole life has transformed my relationships, my relationships have strengthened, I have more authentic relationships, I feel more intimacy and honesty and transparency and trust and all of these great things.”

So you know, and now I have seen that continuously. I’ve been doing this for 30 years. And I know that the work that I do is full proof that the exercises, which are absolutely step-by-step, lay a foundation for these incredibly powerful things to occur for human beings. Now, what I have noticed in the last few years, especially, I would say during COVID, but before that, even in the corporate world, in people I know and family members in a lot of people I talk to and then people who have studied with me who also are very involved not just in the acting world, but also many of them in the corporate world. 

I see tremendous suffering, suffering. And that’s a very powerful word. And it’s a word I don’t think is used very often when people are talking about how corporate leadership is suffering. Now, I don’t like I don’t particularly like suffering very much. But here’s the thing about suffering. You know, you may find this interesting, Bob, that if we really, if we deal with the reality of our human condition.

We know that we only understand that we only know anything by contrast. What I mean is, we only know up because we know down if there was no down, we wouldn’t know we only know joy, because “We know pain, If there was no pain, We wouldn’t know joy.” So I’m not a big fan of suffering yet at the same time. We know that it’s absolutely built into our human experience.

Bob Woods  04:57

Yeah, it’s almost a tool. Well, it’s almost a tool, I would say, wouldn’t you say?

Larry Silverberg  05:03

Yeah, well, we could call it a tool we could, but it’s certainly instructive. But here’s the thing. I don’t want to add any additional suffering to anyone and I am part of my own particular mission. Now, this may sound pretty far out, and maybe it’s a stretch, and maybe people would say “It’s unachievable, but my personal mission is to end human suffering.”

And certainly the place I have focused now, my attention right now is in the corporate world, because I have seen now look, you know, I’ll tell you something a few weeks ago, I don’t know. Did you see Bob, did you see the report from the Surgeon General, On the epidemic of loneliness?

 Bob Woods  05:47

I do remember that. Yeah, I do remember that.  

Larry Silverberg  05:50

It’s very, it’s very powerful. And so what we know is that huge numbers of people in every sector are experiencing life, dampening, debilitating, and a sense of loneliness and isolation. Now, not just because they’re alone, in particular, even in the midst of many people, they’re feeling. They’re feeling tremendous loneliness and isolation. Now, in the corporate world, what we must deal with is this suffering that people are experiencing.

 Not just because maybe their jobs are hard, or they’ve had a particular situation that morning before they came to work. But this vast, sweeping epidemic of people feeling disconnected from other human beings that they’re within the present moment. This is where now I like to simplify the whole thing. I don’t like complexity in everything I do. I try to make it very simple. And in this arena of corporate leadership, I like to boil it down to make it very simple. 

I don’t mean easy, because as we know, growth and change ain’t easy. But it doesn’t have to be complicated. So the thing that I’m advocating is that leaders start to deal with it. First of all, the fundamental component is the foundation. Now, you know, if I asked you, this is a very obvious question. I love very obvious questions. And as I said, to make things simple, if I asked you, Bob, if you’re going to build a new house, what’s the first thing you have to do?

Bob Woods  07:25

Foundation. 

Larry Silverberg  07:26

Exactly, you’d have to build a strong foundation, because if you don’t, everything that’s built on top of it is going to crumble. So then we must ask, what is the absolute fundamental foundation component in what I’m calling the art of true leadership, and the fundamental component of true leadership of great leadership, what I call Top 5%, leadership now top 5%. Now, I would hope that all of your listeners, I’m hoping that what I’m the people I’m reaching the leaders I’m reaching, are striving to be in that top 5%. 

Because you know what, the 95% are tearing away at the very fabric of their corporations, we must strive to be in this what I call the top 5%. And that means we must lay a very strong foundation first. So what is that fundamental component? That fundamental component, Bob, is an authentic relationship. And this is the thing that is vastly missing in the corporate sector, because and here’s why I’ve done a tremendous study on this. 

I’ve read report after report, I have interviewed many senior executives, and I’ve talked with employees. And what we know is that first of all 80% of fortune 500 company leaders say they cannot attract the top talent. We also know from studies that 75% of the top talent in corporate corporations worldwide are thinking about another job. Why do we have such a vast problem? It’s because what’s missing is that foundation fundamental component of great leadership, which is authentic relationships. So this is a big conversation. 

And this is something we can get into so what does that actually mean authentic relationship? What, makes for an authentic relationship and what do I have to do to revive it? Because here’s the thing, I thought, You know what, I go into many tangents. So I’m going to ask you sometimes if I, if I go into tangents, you help bring me back, because you gotta bring me back to where I was because I can get lost along the way. 

You know? So the thing about authentic relationships here’s and I hope this will be very encouraging. I say something to everybody I work with, and the people I’m working with and the executives I have started to work with. The thing I say is that you were born in every human organism. I was born to be a top 5% leader and I can prove it. And the reason I say that is Bob, when you think that, of course, you may not remember this too well, but when, when you and I, when we popped out of our mothers, when we were first born, what was the first thing we were born into?

Bob Woods  10:18

I would say, like nothingness or whatever, just because you don’t know what’s going on.

Larry Silverberg 10:23

You don’t know what’s going on. But there was something that existed before you popped out. But there’s, but what we’re talking about now is authentic relationships. And what we know is that you are born, we are born out, this is wonderful, we are born out of relationship, and we are born into relationship. 

There is nothing that exists, there is nothing that we know about exists. That is not in a relationship. If you think about it, there are no flowers, where there are no bees, the sun, and our bodies and the trees, photosynthesis, vitamin D relationship, the moon and the tides, relationship, we’re talking about something huge here. 

So the thing that, again, striving to be a top 5% leader, the first thing that we must do is revive. And this is why I say it’s encouraging. And why I say you were born to be a top 5% leader. We know what that is. We were born in an authentic relationship, it already exists. So maybe I should define a little bit of what I mean by an authentic relationship. Would that be a good idea?

Bob Woods  11:34

Yes. So definitely an authentic relationship? And definitely, the concept of heart-centered leadership as well, because I think, for us, this is what it’s going to come down to especially, these leaders are out there, and they’re seeing all of this discontent among their workforce may not know why. And, it’s like, you hear about the great resignation, and you know, everybody, right like that there are songs and everything. And the good leaders are like, okay, I can improve. What do I use this to improve?

Larry Silverberg  12:15

Yeah, so look good, yes, the great resignation, and the people leaving in droves, and it really hasn’t ended. But when you talk about heart-centered leadership, this is why I’m calling my work now. Which we’re preparing all the new websites and all that people can now go to track the institute, but I’m calling my new work the leaders to be a leader of human beings. That’s a very specific thing. To be a leader of human beings, when we don’t have to worry about those machines too much. Yes, we got to oil them and keep them going. 

But you know, they don’t. They don’t have the kind of sensitivity and sensibilities that a human organism does. So we must move toward the old model of leadership, we call it transactional. Yeah, we have the old model that just isn’t working. I think we all know it everyone reports after another is talking about moving from transactional leadership. What does that mean? That means, look, I pay you, I pay you good money. So keep your mouth shut and do your job. 

It doesn’t work anymore. It’s been shown that people are leaving jobs and taking less pay because they don’t like their boss. They just don’t feel aligned with the mission of the company. Right? So how do we get the employees to jump on board with us when you can’t make it happen? So here’s Okay, so you asked about heart-centered leadership. Here’s the key. A lot of these words emotional intelligence presents all of this jargon. I don’t like jargon. 

I just don’t like jargon. It’s you know, these catchphrases, they don’t really mean anything. What means something is when it’s talked about that you as a leader must become compassionate. You must have empathy, you must be actually listening. They call it active listening. Well, here’s the problem. “You cannot take compassion,” “You cannot pretend empathy,” when you revive and as I said, I said it was going to be encouraging.

Because you have all of the abilities, all of the skills, the full capacity to be a leader that is a leader at the top 5% level, who has the ability to be in an authentic relationship. And what that means is, here’s the key. These are the three most important words for everybody who’s listening to take away in terms of leadership. There are some words we want to take out of our leadership vocabulary. And then there are some important words we must include. And these are the three The most important words we must include that are cues of safety.

I’ll say that again, “Cues of Safety.” Okay, and what I mean? Yeah, what I mean by cues of safety is when you are in an authentic relationship you exude, you give off, you exude what’s called cues of safety. Now the person standing in front of you, your team, your employees, they are a nervous system. Over millions of years, we have developed this highly refined nervous system, that nervous system is constantly on the lookout for danger. It’s also on the lookout for cues of safety. 

Now, when you exude cues of safety, suddenly, this is the beauty suddenly, your employees trust you. They fall in love with you. They’re transparent with you, they’re honest with you, they are no longer stealing pencils from the supply cabinet, Right? They are no longer doing the least work required of them. They are no longer staying home, absenteeism goes away. People show up at theirs as their whole selves. They will do anything for you. 

They will work extra hours. And you know what, here’s the thing because here’s the thing about. I love this. Here’s the thing about compassion and empathy. People, a lot of leaders who have been talking to a lot of senior executives, they hear the words compassion and empathy. They think it’s like, “Ooh, like touchy feely kind of stuff.” It’s like it’s, um, I’m being too touchy feely. No, here’s, here’s the truth. 

When you exude cues of safety, now, only now. Okay? Will you be invited by your employees wholeheartedly invited to be rigorous with them, and create a rigorous, rigorous environment where they are held accountable, because you know what? People want to be held accountable. Because if they’re not, they think their work doesn’t matter. And if a person doesn’t believe their work matters, they get depressed and they leave. They’re gone. Right? 

Bob Woods  17:14

Yeah. 

Larry Silverberg  17:15

Nobody wants to work in a place day after day after day, hour after hour. And think that their work doesn’t make a difference. Nobody thought you know what, nobody works for money. Yes, we work for money. Of course, we work for money, but nobody works for money.

Every person who’s working for you is there because they’re aching and longing to make a difference. In the time they’ve been given on this planet. People want to know they make a difference. Here’s the other thing people want to know. When you’re when you exude cues of safety. People feel witnessed. Bob, you have kids? Yes? 

Bob Woods  17:57

No. Dogs. 

Larry Silverberg  17:59

Oh, you have dogs. Okay. But you know this with your dogs and every person who has kids knows or if you’ve been around kids? I have two kids. When kids are little. They’re constantly saying “Daddy, look at me,” “Mommy, look at me. Look at me. Look at me.” You and I did this when we were little, every human being has an innate intrinsic need to have their life witnessed. Until you can be in an authentic relationship. 

That person does not feel they do not feel valued. They do not feel heard. You know why they don’t feel that way. Because they’re not being valued, because they’re not being heard. Now, in my work, in my work with people, what I have created is an incredibly effective step-by-step approach to reviving our ability to not just listen, but let me give you this phrase “To listen with the ear of one’s heart” to listen with the ear of one’s heart, Bob, when you hear that, what kind of listening because that suggests.

Bob Woods  19:02

It suggests. Empathetic listening, it suggests basically, that the person who was listening really cares and has and has empathy and really wants to be there for the person and not just you know, just blow them off or whatever.

Larry Silverberg  19:19

Yeah, you have to care but not to try to care not to try to be compassionate. But right exactly to you cannot fake your caring.

Bob Woods  19:30

Right.

Larry Silverberg  19:31

To actually care. Here’s another word that’s not used in the workplace too often. Love, love. You know what? I would ask every leader do you love your employees? Man, I’m telling you when I work with my students, I love them. I love them because I see them working hard. I see what they’re going through. 

I know the challenges they’re facing. It’s hard, man. It’s hard to do this work. Again, it’s not easy. It’s not complicated. But making an internal shift is That takes some doing, it takes some work, what we’re talking about is changing behavior. Now what we know is that most human beings, I would say, “95% would do anything. Not to be uncomfortable.” Right?

Bob Woods  20:14

Right. Brain coming in which I think that you were even talking about before. And you know, I think we all know what lizard brain means and, and the avoidance of that. And I think that that’s what you were getting into before. But that’s what I kept thinking, in my mind was the whole lizard brain mentality, and avoiding danger and going towards you had everything. Yeah, absolutely.

Larry Silverberg  20:37

Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. We’re sort of where our minds have survived, where we’re looking for a trouble machine. Right? That’s our survival mechanism. And that’s why it’s called mobilization, from fear. Now, when we have mobilization from fear, which is how most corporations, the environments, most corporations are creating, unfortunately, which is why we have the great resignation when you have mobilization with fear that’s fight, flight, or freeze. 

So people fight, go into fight-flight or freeze mode. Now, when we exude cues of safety, suddenly we create an environment that’s called “Mobilization without fear.” That’s when people can be creative. That’s when we get innovation. That’s when there’s a feeling of safety, that I can really speak my mind, I can say, I can give new ideas to the boss, because I know I’m not going to be shut down like in a mean way, in a mean spirited way. 

Well, my idea may not work out, but I trust that the boss has my best interests in mind. And together as a team, we all have the best interests of the company in mind. The only way companies can fulfill their mission in a big way, globally, to fulfill it in an integral way, is when you have the whole team facing in the same direction together as a unit actually enjoying each other and enjoying the challenges. 

Here’s Bob, enjoy. When I say enjoying the challenges, this is great. I love this because people are free. I think most people forget that, we don’t want things to be easy. You know, ultimately, we don’t want things to be easy. We love when things are challenging. If we’re in the right environment, this environment of safety, as I described, when you’re a kid, think about kids who skateboard. Now how many kids would be satisfied if they’re a skateboarder? Just going down the flat road?

Bob Woods  22:36

None are next to none, I should say Yeah. 

Larry Silverberg  22:37

Next to next to none. So what did they do, Bob? So what did they do? What did the skateboarders do?

Bob Woods  22:43

They find all different types of places to challenge or what parts of Parker it’s a, you know, like a skateboard park or just like a downtown landscape or whatever. I mean, you see that stuff? All the time.

Larry Silverberg  23:00

Yeah,  I mean, that’s right. They want ramps, they want all kinds of crazy stuff to jump up. We love when you know why we love when things are hard. Because when things are hard, when we succeed, when first of all, it takes all of our energy, all of our commitment, all of our strength, all of our emotional, spiritual, psychological effort to get put into the accomplishment of this really hard thing. This is the hero’s journey, isn’t it? So, but the great thing is that when we accomplish it.

What is the result? How do we feel when we accomplish this really hard thing? How do we feel? Oh, great. Oh my god, we have triumphant success, right? Incredible, incredible satisfaction and joy. This is why we love when things are hard if everything comes easy. A lot of people would rather everything come easy. Well, no, you know what, nothing great can be accomplished when everything’s made easy. But we know that everything has value in this life. 

We know this, we know the reality, we may want to ignore the reality but the reality is anything of value is challenging. Yet this accomplishment of it is extraordinary. And what I’m looking for with my clients, the people I’m working with, the senior executives I’m working with, I work with people who want extraordinary results, extraordinary results. That’s my interest.

Bob Woods  24:32

So with that in mind, let’s talk about any success story that you can share where we’re at now. All this stuff has gone in its work and be as specific as you can be obviously without you know.

Larry Silverberg  24:48

Well, I just give you let me tell you first and first of all, most of my success story because I’ve been training access for 30 years I have just had one actress, a very wonderful actress could just get booked into major TV series. And I’ve had those successes for 30 years. So my students are working actors in Hollywood. But I’m so I’m making this, you know, I’m making my expansion now into the corporate world. So it’s, it’s much newer, but I’ll tell you a wonderful story. I love this. 

I was talking with a big senior executive a few weeks ago. And he heard about my new work, he connected with me on LinkedIn, which is making people check out my LinkedIn. I’m starting to make connections there. I have some videos where I talk about my core values in this right in the leaders of human my leaders of human beings and my core values. But here’s this. I love this, because I think this is very instructive. And here, here’s what happens. 

So this, this very big senior executive from a very successful company came to me and said, “Larry, I know that I know your specialty. I’ve heard about your work.” And here’s my issue, I am stuck in my head. And I love this. Because for 30 years, for 30 years, my actors who come to me they go, “Larry, I’m stuck in my head.” And this is one of my specialties is helping people get out of their head. 

Because when you’re stuck in your head, you cannot get into what I call the flow of life itself. When you’re in the flow. You may have heard this term the flow, a lot of people talk about being in the flow athletes talk about it all the time. I used to be a basketball player. Oh, you’re shaking your head. So you know, you know about the flow, Right? 

Bob Woods  26:27

Yeah, absolutely. 

Larry Silverberg  26:29

Yeah, it’s been widely talked about. And here’s the thing, athletes talk about it, I used to be a basketball player. I was a high school basketball player. So I never reached the level of you know, NBA now we’re enjoying the finals of the NBA. But I had moments, Bob, where suddenly, every shot, no matter where I was, on the court, crazy shots, everyone who pushed right through the net. And when I felt that incredible sensation of being riding on this, like this force that was taking me for a ride.

I didn’t have to do anything that became effortless. So there is this thing called the flow. And I think leaders need to find a way to enter into this place that you absolutely cannot make happen. This is where we feel a great sense of relaxation and creativity, you know, innovation, it all starts to happen effortlessly. And this is the work I’ve been doing for 30 years as an actor absolutely to be effective. 

And to get cast in these parts you have to purposely enter that place called the flow of life itself, yet you cannot choose it or make it happen intellectually. So what I do is I have ways of training people so that what I call it, we unlock the gate. And when we open the gate, the flow becomes available to us. And that’s my work. So you asked for the example I again, I’m sorry, Bob, tangent after tangent. That’s my life.

Bob Woods  28:03

Right, though. It’s all built.

Larry Silverberg  28:06

So as I was saying, this executive came to me, he said, “I heard that you help people get out of their head. Because when you’re stuck in your head, you cannot be in the flow.” So I said,” Yeah, that’s true.” He said, “Yeah. So he goes, Larry, we were talking,” he said, “Larry, here it is. This is my problem.” It’s happening right now you’re talking to me, we’re talking and I’m thinking about what I’m going to have for lunch. 

So it’s me and what I told him, Bob, is that you are already by telling me that you’re aware, you’re actually aware that you’re in your head, you will already have reached a very high level, because 95% of human beings are not at the level of awareness. You know, the phrase, it’s a very popular phrase, there’s a reason it’s so popular, the phrase is lost in thought 95% of human beings spend 95% of their time lost in thought. Now Bob, when you’re lost in thought, Where is your attention?

Bob Woods  29:09

Yeah, I was gonna say you’re laser-focused on those thoughts and then everything around you just gets filtered. filtered out, or even just shut down.

Larry Silverberg  29:19

Exactly, you just summed it up, your attention is on yourself, it’s going inwards towards yourself, and you are no longer available to the world around you. That’s a dangerous place literally and emotionally, in every way. It’s a dangerous state to be in. When you’re in your head lost in thought, your attention is on yourself. 

Now this is the work I do. I revive each person’s ability to give their full 100% attention to the person they’re with and to the world around them. Because when your attention is on yourself, you only have the possibility to have three best friends, I bet you know who they are? Who are your three best friends, When your attention is on yourself?

Bob Woods  30:05

Would that be the typical me and myself and I?

Larry Silverberg  30:08

Exactly. Right. Right? Do you and you know what, me myself and I, they’re not a lot of fun. They’re not a lot of fun. And you know what, here’s the other thing, we could go into a lot of, you know, the psychological, proof of this. But the thing is suffering, we talked about suffering, the roots of suffering is when our attention starts to turn inwards towards ourselves. You see, when we’re born, our attention is fully outwards towards the world around us. 

We’re curious, we’re interested, we’re just right, we’re fully involved, we’re connected and intimately involved with everything and everyone. And then slowly as we grow up our big for many reasons, our attention turns inward. And this is the beginning of great suffering. This is why there’s meditation, Zen practice, and Buddhist practices, all of these things to deal with, as Zen calls it our monkey minds, which are jumping from thought to thought to thought to thought. 

So if we’re, if we’re lost in thought, we cannot function in any way as a leader or in any other way. Because we are no longer available to the people that we’re working with, or to the world around us. So anyway, us, um, I’ll come back to this example. So I told the person that he was already at a very high level because of his awareness. As we know, change only happens from awareness first, and if so the first thing we have to do is ask, What can we do? 

The first thing every person must do if this is of interest, I never give anybody advice to do anything they’re not interested in doing. But if this is of interest to you, those of you who are listening, the first thing we must do is to bring awareness to how often we are lost in thought, because as I said, change only happens with awareness. And what starts, what happens is, you know, it’s like this, Bob, if you were a fish, and I said to you, if I said to a fish, I said, “Well, what is water?” A fish would say, “Water, water, I don’t know, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s only when the fish jumps above the water and looks down and says, “Oh, my God, that’s what I’ve been in all this time.” 

And that’s the shocking realization, when people realize how much they are lost in thought, you see, here’s the thing, I’ll let me give you one of my favorite quotes, the greatest gift you can give to another is the quality of your attention. The key ingredient of a relationship. I know we’re probably getting close to the end here. But we’ve been talking your ear off. But the key ingredient, the golden key ingredient to authentic relationships, what relationship is built from is tension. That means that if you’re lost in thought, a relationship is impossible. Now relationships are the source of life itself. Right? We said that we know that two people come together to make life right. That’s how you and I were made by our relationship. 

“Relationship is the key source ingredient of life itself.” That means without relationship, no life, without attention, no relationship. That means that without attention, life we are at the end of life itself. Yeah, this is why this is the source, we talked about the epidemic of loneliness, the root cause of the epidemic of loneliness, and this and the key ingredient to the solution for it is the reviving of authentic relationships. When you have an authentic relationship, loneliness goes away, because the other person feels valued heard, and that their life is being witnessed. So I think you were asking What can one do? What can executives do that can somebody take away? What can they actually start to do?

Bob Woods  34:12

Yep. Right. Next question. So yeah, absolutely. Perfect. 

Larry Silverberg  34:17

 I read your mind. Yeah. Here’s the first thing. Now I can’t get into all the exercises because I have a whole I actually am offering a three day retreat on heart centered leadership. It’s a retreat. I will bring two companies with a group of 20 employees, emerging leaders, senior executives, I will also be offering my three day heart centered leadership retreat at a distant location where I will bring in 20 People from different companies. 

For right now, I’m looking to connect with companies who want to bring me in to do talks. I can do one day seminar, executive seminars. The thing I love doing most is taking three days. My whole Our center is a true leadership retreat, where I will work hands on taking people step by step by step, and revive all of these wonderful innate natural skills and abilities, to as I said, “Bring them back to having an authentic relationship so that all of these other great things can start to happen.” But here’s one thing that people want to take away something that they can think about, consider and start to grapple with. And that is to exercise their interest. And this is why I say a leader forgets about being interesting. A lot of leaders worry about, oh, I have to be interesting. I have to have this thing called executive presence. 

You cannot make yourself a presence. You want to have a presence. Here’s the key, because presence is great. You know, you want to be commanding, you want to be listened to, you want to be heard as a leader, Right? Well, here’s the key to presence, forget about being interesting, “Be interested, be interested.” And I would like everyone to consider this very seriously, to exercise your interest in who the other, that person is standing right in front of you, you have no idea what they’re carrying around the old trauma, the suffering that they’re carrying, be interested, be curious. 

I’m not saying be a therapist, not the only person who should be a therapist is a licensed therapist. What I’m saying is Be curious, be interested, the more you exercise your interest, ask questions. I heard a great, wonderful executive from Adobe give a talk and she said, “You know what? Slow down, ask the person s the SQ employee, “How are you doing?” But you but you gotta mean it? You have to mean it. Now, I would, I would venture to say that most people listen and most leaders, if I said, “Would you choose to add to the suffering of your employees?” 

Would you choose to purposely add to the suffering of your employees? I would venture to say that most people would say no, of course not. Of course not. Well, then I say do anything and everything possible to raise yourself to the level of top 5% leadership where you exude cues of safety so that your employees, your leaders, your team feel safe to be their whole complete selves with you to show up at 100%. Right? To show up at 100%. 

To get on board with you to face in the same direction, to invite you to be rigorous with them, and to love it and to enjoy it, to have fun and to get up every day enthusiastic about coming to work. Now how many people every day are enthusiastic about going to work? I don’t think it’s the majority. And I think that’s a shame. I think it’s unfortunate. And this is my manifesto and my mission. I want everybody to be happy to come to work, Right? 

To feel satisfaction to feel like they’re making a difference. And I want leaders to institute and create an environment where that happens. You know what not only will the employees and the team leaders be happy and satisfied and know they’re making a difference. But the senior executive will also feel the great satisfaction of knowing that they made a difference in every person’s life who works with them. That’s a big thing. Right?

Bob Woods  38:27

That’s huge. That’s huge. And I cannot think of a better place to wrap up this conversation, which has just been absolutely enthralling for me to listen.

Larry Silverberg  38:37

Oh,. Good, good, good, good. 

Bob Woods  38:41

We get into like nuts and bolts stuff about sales and stuff like that. And everything that we’ve discussed here, one of the things that I like is that not only are we talking about like leadership, including sales, but there’s a lot of things here that salespeople can pull out when it comes to customers and things like that to think out of that transfers over very easily into the relationships that salespeople.

Larry Silverberg  39:04

Oh, yeah, man. Yeah, I can add if you’d like to close with something about sales, I can add something one of the most important things that I can offer in terms of thinking about for salespeople, thinking about being effective as a salesperson, and here it is, you what we must all must do is get our attention off of the now this is hard. And I know salespeople will really relate to this, we must take the attention off of the results. 

Now, every salesperson right they of course want the results they want to make the sale but you know what? If your attention is on the results, what it makes impossible is the most powerful thing to occur. That’s going to have the person who you’re hoping will buy from you in whatever form that is. It will prevent them from falling in love.with you, because you know that people will do anything, they will buy anything, they will, right if they fall in love with you. 

And that means to be living with them moment to moment to moment being caring for them being curious, being interested in all the things we were talking about in leadership, if a salesperson is actually not faking it, not pretending it because you know what, again, that nervous system over there, they knows, they know when you’re full of it. They know when you’re full of it. They know when you’re just trying to get to the sale. 

It’s like the difference between a one-night stand and a loving relationship, where sex is the culmination and the reflection of two people loving each other, loving each other dearly. Right now as a salesperson, do you want one a one-night stand with your clients one after the other? Or do you want to have a long-lasting, loving, intimate relationship where they come to you over and over and over to buy the things you offer? Because they know you care about their needs. So now I’ve heard many salespeople talk. I’ve talked with many of them. They say that one of the hardest things is to let go of the results.

Bob Woods  41:14

Yeah, absolutely. 100%. I mean, we talk about detaching from the results all the time, too. So I mean, we are we are completely insane.

Larry Silverberg  41:27

Well, you know, yes, in any great art form. And I think sales is an art form. Absolutely. It’s an art form. What I mean by art form is, and this is the other thing, you can read book after book. And same thing with leadership. I don’t like this idea of strategies and tactics, the same thing with sales. There’s 1,000,001 tactics and strategies, but you know what. 

You go try to use those tactics and strategies, then the problem is you can have them all worked out in your mind, but then suddenly, you have a human being over there. Suddenly, all those tactics and strategies may not relate to what’s happening at the moment. You know, what a great sales meeting is an improvisation. And here’s where I bring in the acting. Because for actors, they also if they’re, if they’re thinking about the results.

When they’re in front of the camera, like, “Oh, man, I hope I’m getting a great review, or how do I look in the shop cannot function,” you cannot, and the first salesperson that your mind is on the results, and your tactics and strategies, you’re not in relationship with the person who’s in front of you. And so all of it is going to fail miserably. So we must take our attention off of the results. And what we must do is enter into a wonderful relationship.

Bob Woods  42:39

Yeah, that’s it. Relationships. It’s all about relationships. So yes, if people want to get in touch with you, yeah, they can. They can look you up on LinkedIn. Silverberg, And I just want to make sure that we spell this out Silberberg, B-E-R-G.

Larry Silverberg  42:57

Yes, Silverberg S–I-L-V-E-R-B-E-R-G they can go, they can check out my very new LinkedIn as I’m making this shift in my you know, as I’m broadening my work, they can also my email is simple. It’s just Larry at larrysilverberg.com. I don’t have that website and websites been worked on. It’ll be finished eventually. But they can reach me that way. 

And I invite people to have a great conversation with me and in a conversation with me in a few minutes, I can really identify where they are with their challenges in terms of all the things we’ve been talking about. And we can, I love working with people. I love helping them in this way. So I invite all your listeners to have a great conversation.

Bob Woods  43:40

That sounds absolutely terrific. Larry Silverberg. He’s living at the intersection of authenticity and leadership. And we’re so happy that you joined us on the show today. Really appreciated.

Larry Silverberg  43:52

Yeah. You’ve been a great partner in this little improvisation we just did.

Bob Woods  43:58

Yeah, exactly. I love it. And thank you for streaming this episode of Making Sales Social. So remember, when you’re out and about this week, or whenever you’re out and about Be sure to make your sales social. 

Outro 43:58

Thanks for listening and joining us again. For more special guest instructors bringing you marketing, sales, training, and social selling strategies that will set you will park don’t forget to subscribe to get the latest episodes from the Making Sales Social Podcasts, Leave a review down below. Tell us what you think, what you learned, and what you want to hear from us next. You can also listen to us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play. Visit our website socialsaleslink.com for more information.