Topaz Adizes
Appearances
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Your mind is a faithful dog. It will chase any stick you throw.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
the more uncomfortable the relationship would become, the less flexible and capable we would be able to perform together as a team because our relationship was strained. I just saw it as the sinews in your body, like the muscles and the ligaments in your body. If you don't stretch them, they become cartilaged, they become stiff. And then what happens? You don't want to rub it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
You don't want to stretch. Why? Because it hurts. Of course not. But the longer you don't, the more stiff it becomes. so that ultimately you can't move, right? So you're there, figuratively, you have a cramp in your leg, you're in pain, you can't move because you haven't stretched for a month, you haven't dealt with the conflict, so that ultimately you have to deal with it, it's even more painful.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And I realized, oh my gosh, when that comes up, approach it, have the conversation. Now, of course, many of us don't approach it because we don't have the tools. We don't know. And we could talk about that. The tools are create the space. We could talk about what that means. Construct good questions.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
But the point is, I learned from hard conversations in the startup years that initially I didn't want to have them. And if I didn't have them, the longer they festered, the more painful they would be later.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Okay, so first, whatever it is, let's create a scenario where you have to go and let somebody off. Let them go. Okay, so stop there for a second. First of all, what's the question you're asking yourself? You wake up, you know you have that 10 o'clock meeting, and you're probably saying, oh shit, I got to do that. Oh my God, I can't wait for that to be over.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
That line, I can't wait for it to be over, is actually an answer to a question you're asking yourself. What am I not looking forward to today? That, I can't wait for it to be over. You are asking yourself a question all the time. So stop right there, even before speaking to another person, change the question you're asking yourself.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
How could I make this conversation the most usable or empowering for them and for me? How could I take this moment to actually develop a stronger relationship with this other person on the other end that I'm letting go today? Everything, ask a different question. If you see yourself in a negative mode, beating yourself up, you're asking a disempowering question.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Because remember, your mind is a faithful dog. It will chase any stick you throw, and it doesn't care where you throw it. If you throw the stick into the mud, it will chase after the mud. If you throw up on a beautiful vista, it'll run up on the vista and look at the view, wherever you throw the stick. So if you say, what's the shitty stuff I have to do today? Great.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Faithful dog will chase that stick. I'll tell you all the shitty things you have to do today. No problem. Faithful dog. But if you say, today, in the challenging day that I have, where I have a bunch of things on my list I don't want to do, where is the beautiful moment that will change me forever? What is the five minutes I can cherish the most? Okay.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And I was really interested in cinema and the camera and talking to people to ask questions, to have conversations. to feel a sense of connection to other people. And I would think, yeah, it's because when you're a kid and your parents get divorced and your world falls apart and you're looking for that sense of connection. That was my experience for me.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
You just threw the stick in a different direction. And your dog will go find it. Your mind will go find it. So... Train your dog. The dog goes where you throw the stick. So throw the stick in beautiful places. What does that mean? Ask good questions of yourself. So you're going to that meeting, instead of saying, oh shit, how am I going to get through this? No. How can I make the most of this?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Okay, so now... That's asking yourself, that already changes your perspective on the whole experience because your mind is already coming with solutions, right? Now you go into the space. Number one is before you even ask questions, we have to create the space, right? What do I mean by that? Look, you don't sleep in the kitchen and you don't cook in the bedroom.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
You do certain things in certain places, right? Do we do that in our meetings at work? Do we let them, hey, this is this kind of meaning? This is this kind of meaning? Do we create the space where we understand, oh, this is the behavior that is conducive to the space we're in, right? We're setting expectations.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
So when you create the space so that people understand what is expected of them or what is allowed of them, or more importantly, you're basically giving them permission to be, then you're basically creating boundaries, right? You're creating a space. And in that space, people can feel safe albeit, let's not be confused with safety and comfort.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
You're creating a space where people feel safe, but not necessarily comfortable. Let's not confuse comfort and safety. Safety is one thing, but comfort, I mean, the best place to be, frankly, is in a safe place where you are uncomfortable. Because then you're growing. Like if I go bungee jumping, I'm definitely going to be safe.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Because I'm choosing the right vendor who's got the right bungee cord. And in theory, I'm safe. I'm not going to hit the ground because they know what they're doing. So in theory, I'm safe. But I'm definitely uncomfortable because I'm jumping off a cliff or I'm jumping off the bridge.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Right? But I'm going to have an incredible experience. I'm going to feel more fulfilled. I'm going to come out going, wow, that was amazing. Okay. But it's a safe place where I'm uncomfortable. The same thing happens in relationships. The same thing can work. So creating a safe space is important. And what that means is, A, you create the boundaries. You're giving permission for people.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
This is what happens in this space. And also you're outlaying an intention. An intention is different than an agenda. An agenda is where you end up. An intention is where you begin.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
not to be confused with like an agenda for a meeting. Well, an agenda for a meeting generally is we're going to talk about this. Then we'll talk about this. Then we'll talk about this. Then we'll talk about that. Then we'll talk about this. And ultimately you're saying, we're talking about these things. You're basically giving them like, these are the guideposts. The items we're going to hit.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
What I'm saying is when we talk about each of those items, are you saying, team, the agenda is I want you all to agree that this is the right decision. Think about it. You bring your direct reports into a room or you go into a room who is above you or whatever. And do they already know what they're going to do? And you know what they're going to do?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And they're just here so that they feel good about telling you what they're going to do? Or do they really want your opinion? And are we just here because they want us to get to where they want us to be and you feel it so you're not really showing up? Right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And so then here I am in my twenties with a camera and I realized the camera is a bridge. It's a door opener. You show up to someone with a camera and you ask a question. In some sense, it gives you a door opener. It's a bridge. And so I became a filmmaker for 15, 20 years.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Or you as the boss, you come in and are you really interested in what everyone else has to say? Or you just want them to buy in and you're just playing the games that they buy in because you're already there.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
That's an agenda. You know how it's going to end up. The intention is, okay, you show up and go, guys, we need to make a decision. I have a supposition about the decision, but I need everyone here's feed buy-in and understanding and I could be wrong. or I need to know if we're really right, or if we tweak it. My intention is that we'll come up with a solution.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Exactly what the solution is, I don't know. Now you come from that space, it's an invitation for people to step in. An agenda is they feel like, this is not an invitation to step in, this is an invitation to play chess. Political chess, emotional chess, whatever it is.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
First, noting that it's a muscle, so that's great, because what you practice at, you get good. That's great, because this is not like a talent thing. It's actually a practice of a muscle. Okay, so then you know you can get good at this. Then two, how do we practice it? Great, well, there's many ways, right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
You can put the Post-it notes on the window when you brush your teeth in the mirror in the morning. Okay, that's one way. You could have the little rubber band on your forearm so you snap it and you snap yourself every time you're thinking negative thought and change the question. I mean, you can get a tattoo that has a question. I mean, you could do a lot of things, right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
The idea is, are you conscientious of it? That's number one. So now when we find ourselves going down that road, stop, turn back. I would just listen to a podcast where they say, was it yours? It might've been yours with that incredible guy with the incredible voice, Brian, Brian Tracy.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
the quickest path to beginning on the right path is when you realize you're on the wrong path and you turn around. So the fact that you're conscientious that you're doing it is number one, and you take a pause and then you turn around and you go back on the right path, whatever the right path is. But I'm saying is that, you know, it's a muscle. So you practice it. Great.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I can get good at this too. If I'm aware of it, then when I find myself happening it, then I can pause, turn around and move forward. or going back in the, right? And I think that's it. The rubber band, the notes, just being aware of it. When you find yourself banging your head against the wall, it's because you're trying to answer a question. It's really difficult to answer.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Don't stop banging your head against the wall trying to answer that question. Change the question. You're not asking a really good question. When you ask a really well-constructed question, The answer is much more obvious and fluid and easeful. And we could talk about what that means, but I repeat, if you find yourself banging your head, should I break up with this person?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And then the last 10, 11 years with my experience design studio called The Skin Deep, I'm really interested in how the experience, the emotional experience of being human is shifting. And that's what I've been, my team and I have been exploring for the last 10, 11 years.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Should I fire this person? Should I hire that person? Should we launch the product or not? Should I leave my job and start a startup? I don't know. Okay, wait, change the question, create a better, more specific, constructive question. And then the answer becomes obvious.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Okay. So if you're asking yourself a question and it's not working, as I just mentioned, right? there are three exercises you can do. Let's start with number one. Number one is I want you to brainstorm 30 other kinds of questions. And this is how you construct the questions. Here is the take home value if you're listening, because people don't talk about this.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
At least it seems that no one talks about it because when I talk about it, they go, oh, that really helps. Number one, you have three.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Yeah. You have three gaps. Okay. You're going to have three fill in the blanks for every question. And you're going to come up with 30 of them. The first fill in the blank is timeframe. What in the next three years? What in the next three months? What in the next week? What in the next six weeks? What in the next chapter? It has to have a timeframe. Okay. That's the first blank.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
The second blank is how does it make me feel? How does it affect me? that it makes me feel inspired, that it scares the shit out of me, that it's going to put me in a bender financials position so I feel stable, that I'm going to learn something I've never learned before, that I'm going to be able to have the sense of teaching, whatever it is. Second blank is how it makes you feel.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
The third one is how it affects others so that I can support my community, such that I can reinforce my relationship with my wife or be more intimate with my kids so that I can support my parents who are sick, so that I can be a pillar of my community, such that I can tackle the problems in my world that I think are important, whatever it is. You have three blanks and you create 30 questions.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
You just brainstorm. Then you look at that list and you circle the one that gives you the most energy and inspiration, the one that you're like, that's the one that on this finite time that I have on this planet as a human being, for right now, that's the one I really want to answer. You circle that one. And then the answers are obvious. Let me give a really simple example.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Should I break up with her? Should I break up with him? Should I break up with this person? I don't know. Yes, no, da, da, da. Okay, stop. Come up with 30 questions. And let's say you circle the one that you really like. Like, what in the next two years can I do so that I feel like I'm growing and challenging myself such that I'm in a position to have a family life with my ideal partner?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Okay, you circle that one. Now go, does this person fit into that relationship? Question. Yes, absolutely. Like I'm comfortable and I want to be with them. And even though I do think that this is okay or no, not at all. They don't fit the family life. So no, they're out. Change the question. Deepen the question. Time frame, how it makes you feel, how it makes other people feel.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And then the answer becomes obvious. And the reason that we have a time frame is because life is finite. It doesn't go on forever. You change. Things change. Where do we want to live? Well, we want to live without kids or single. It's different with kids. It's different when the kids are 15. It's different when the kids are out of the house. It's different when you're now 70 or when you're not.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
So it changes. So give it a timeframe. How it makes you feel is important because it gives you energy. And how it makes other people feel is because we are humans. We're in relationship. We're in community. If it's just about me, it's going to get A, narcissistic, and B, it's going to burn out. the energy is not resilient because it's not being recycled through other people.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
It's a value to other people. So you do that, circle it. That's one huge tool. And then there's two others. One is question loops. So the most famous question loop is why? Da, da, da, da. Why? Why? And you just keep asking the question, why? Should I quit my job? Why? Well, because I'm not feeling so much about it and I'm not sure why.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Because, you know, I feel like I'm wasting my time, albeit it's supportive. Why? And you just keep saying, why, why, why, why? There's other question loops that you can ask, right? Like, why? Then you go, well, because this. What would it give you? What would give me this? What if you already have it? Well, if I have it, I have it here. Why? What would it give you? What if I already have it? Why?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And you loop that and see where you go. And then the last one, which is a plug for myself, is one of my additions is these boxes of 200 questions that we sell in all kind of relations. One of them is a self-deck. Questions to ask yourself. So you list out the question, the big question you're asking, the enigma, the challenge you're facing.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Then you randomly pull out questions that I ask and you answer those in relation to the big question. And that helps elucidate the feelings you're having, the options you're having, the things you're concerned about. And that's a great way. You're shooting arrows of questions at the main enigma that you have, but a variety of them that are different and unique.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And that helps you pull out the yarn, the string to pull apart the ball of yarn that's all confused.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
For me, when I construct a question, my team, when we construct questions, we usually have five aspects that we try to place on the question. At least five or most of them. The first one is don't make them binary. We discussed that. And you're saying, well, why are we constructed?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Sometimes I'm talking about constructing questions where you're exploring your relationship, where you're stretching it, where you're learning something new. I'm not talking about a conversation where you're into a space where you're making definitive decisions. Yes, no, we do this or that.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I'm talking about the questions that elucidate your connection with other people, that give you a sense of deepening your relationship to them. That makes it more resilient, more fulfilled. Those conversations. A, have a question that's not binary because it ends. Yes, no, left, right, done. Two, have questions that are empowering. We talked about the dog chasing the stick.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I mean, don't say, why do we fight so much? Because they're going to tell you, well, we fight so much. Instead, you can make it constructive, empowering, saying, what is our biggest challenge relationship right now? And what do you think it is teaching us? Because now we're going to, okay, well, it's teaching us. Now it's more empowering.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I don't know, the makeup of my personality, along with that experience of a feeling of lack of connection. So I went in the opposite direction. I searched for connection. I searched for intimacy. And, you know, my 20s and 30s, as I was exploring my own romantic relationships, I could feel the reverberations of the divorce in my own patterns, in my own way of thinking.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
We're going to get the answer, but we're going to shift it into something that's empowering. What is it teaching us? Or how is it making us better? How does conflict make us better? Third one is make sure that it's a connective question. And what do I mean by connective? Is that it acknowledges the people in the conversation. So if I ask you, Ilana, what scares you the most?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And your best friend comes down the street and says, Ilana, what scares you the most? And a stranger comes up and says, what scares you the most? You're going to answer to those three people, your best friend, me, and a stranger, the same thing, snakes, or apocalypse, or whatever, bank, I don't know, whatever it is. That scares me the most. It's the same answer regardless of who's asking it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
What a missed opportunity. Ask a connective question that acknowledges the people in conversation. So I would change it to, Ilana, what do you think scares us both the most? And that immediately requires you to acknowledge me and our relationship and what you know of me.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Thereby, you would not answer it the same if I asked you that, and if your best friend down the street asked you that, and if a stranger asked you that. Because it acknowledges the unique makeup of our connection. So make the question connective. Make sure that it acknowledges the two of us are in conversation. Yeah, the connection.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I don't know even if I like humans. We do some terrible things. But I love humanity. And what is humanity? Humanity is not what's in us. It's what's between us. If you see yourself in a negative mode, beating yourself up, you're asking a disempowering question. Should I fire this person? Should we launch the product or not? Should I leave my job and start a startup?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
In a business setting, what is the mission of the company? Well, you'll answer that question. Okay. Instead, make it connective. How do you think we both see the mission the same and different? And whoever you're speaking to, you're going to answer that differently because it's a different person.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And then the fourth one is, and this is kind of two sides of the same coin, but make the questions connect two disparate ideas. They have to create a pause. It's really helpful when it creates a pause so that you're actually exploring in a new space between two neural nodes. Connecting two neural nodes for the first time takes time. What do I mean?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I mentioned before, how does conflict make us better? Or what about this for your coachings? What does earning money cost you? What does the pursuit of earning money cost you? What is your favorite lie you love telling yourself? And what is the truth you hate telling yourself? It's like positive, negative. It's putting two things together that we don't often ask.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And the flip side of that coin is putting yourself or someone else in other people's shoes. So Ilana, what's the hardest thing being your friend? And then check this out. If we're in a conversation, it goes, what do you think is the hardest thing about our relationship? For instance, this is a power play. is that if I say, what is the hardest thing about our relationship? I ask you that.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
That puts you in a position of power because you're going to say what is factually, right? But by me just adding, do you think or do you feel, this is your opinion. This is subjective. So when you're in a conversation, just adding, do you think, or do you feel to any kind of conversation? That's their perspective. That's their experience. That's their unique point of view.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And they have the right to that versus saying, Hey, why do we fight so much? Which is obviously not constructive, but what is the biggest challenge in a relationship versus what do you think is the biggest challenge in a relationship? What is stopping me from success? What is stopping me from hitting the sales goal? And you tell me, or versus what do you think is stopping me from stopping? Right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
So just that player play helps, but going back to things, putting in each other's shoes is really helpful. And the last one is simply, if you can offer the questions as a gift versus an agenda versus an attack, obviously, or as a chess match, then people are more willing to open up and come. And that means that you're asking the questions really out of curiosity.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
how did I circumnavigate around people emotionally? And I'm talking about the intimacy. And I think in 2014, when you looked around the world at the time and you saw how technology was shifting so much politics, it was shifting the financial currencies with cryptos coming out and dating. I mean, people were using dating apps and it was really coming.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
The agenda thing is that when anyone comes to you or you go to anyone, just think about when people come to you and you feel like they already know the answer. Or someone asks you a question and you feel like it's not a real sincere question. It's really like it's a chess match. You're not really engaging with them. You're playing chess. So you're not thinking about the answer.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
You're thinking about what should the answer I give in lieu of the context out of which that question came. So when you have an intention, it's like an open space where you don't know where you're going to end up, which is a vulnerable act. But that vulnerable act invites other vulnerability out. And sometimes that's what we need to have. Often that's what we need to have.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Matter of fact, I think we need to have that more. And that's why it's the work that I've been doing.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I did two conversations with my dad, five years apart. And actually the first one we did 10 years ago, but my team members forgot to hit the audio record button. It was like an amateur. Wasn't able to post that one, but we do have five years ago and a year ago. So five years apart, the questions are provided, you know, they have to be surprises. So there's rules in the space of the and, right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Where I can't know what the questions are and neither can my dad. So our colleague at the time, Rosie, she wrote the questions and they're beautiful. And And the reason that I can't be the one asking the questions in the experience is because there's no equanimity because then I'm in control because I'm writing the questions. So I have to be just as surprised as my father.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
That creates a safe space of equanimity. You know, I think, look, I can't have the conversation with everyone in my family. It's a testament to the relationship I have with my father that we can sit and discomfort and also allow the autonomy of the other person's opinion. For me, my father is one of the coolest, most interesting, charismatic, unique souls that I've come across in my life.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And I wanted to obviously have the conversation with him, but in terms of publicly sharing it, because I'm a very private person, I didn't really want to do that. But then again, You know, if I'm going to talk the talk, I need to walk it too.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And if I've been privileged to have all these incredibly courageous people to step into the ant and share a bit of themselves and their relationships with each other and with the public, I should do the same. And so I did. And fortunately, my father agreed to it as well. But there's two conversations. One, what, five years ago before, two weeks before I had life-threatening surgery.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And I was single at the time in New York and I just saw how technology was shifting the way we were relating to one another. But at the core, like if we go to the seed, I believe for me, at least in the current understanding of my life and the current vantage point of looking back, is a sense of disconnection as a young child, trying to make sense of this huge world.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And then, what, last year. Now, the law changed in those five years. I became married. I became a father. But look, I can't have that conversation with other people in my family, for instance. Not as a judgment call, but people's ability to sit in discomfort, I think, is also commensurate to the quality of their experience of living. That's my opinion.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And I don't mean as a judgment call of better living or worse living. I just mean the depth of the emotion of which you experience in the act of living. It's deeper. Why? Because you're sitting in more discomfort.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I'm passionate, I love what I do. I get a lot of energy from it. It was not sustainable for a long time. And it was not sustainable because I had an unhealthy relationship to money. And then basically I had to do a substitution. It wasn't money, it was energy. And when I understood it was energy, what that meant for me was, okay, I'm gonna put something out into the world. It's a lot of energy.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Hopefully it has enough value in the world such that more energy comes back so that I'm not depleted, but I actually get more energy. such that I can put more energy out into the world. Now that excess energy, some people call profit. You invest into something, a service or a product. You put it out into the marketplace. You're offering value to people.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
You get paid for that and hopefully get in excess of the energy and the amount that you put in. And with that excess energy, that profit, you then are able to put more out into the world that can offer more value.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And when I was able to do that substitution, I was able to move more freely from the vantage point of an artist, because an artist wants to create value all the time, in my opinion, but they're not looking at sustainable value over time. And I was putting a lot of things of value that were winning awards and people love, but there was no business model and not excess energy was coming back.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
No profit was coming back. So I was getting depleted. And in the end, I couldn't walk the 10, 15 minute walk. It took me from my home to my office. And when I was done, I had to jump in the Uber and pay the $10, take a five minute Uber ride back. to just put on crickets in my New York Brooklyn apartment because I was burnt out, man. I was living in New York for 18 years.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I was running the startup for eight at that point. And I was burnt out. And for me, it was making that substitution of like, no, no, no, I need to change. It's not just about putting out value and just not getting things back. I need the excess back. That excess is not profit, it's energy. Why? Because I could put more out in the world that I think of value.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Because what drives me is not money, it's value. and I mean value in a more artistic sense of putting out there the things that I think are important.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And I think that there's a book that I read was super helpful for me. I don't remember the author, but it's The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. And it was super helpful for me because the underlying idea is that for those children who are the children of divorced families, in the back of your mind, you have this sense that everything will end.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
There's a relationship to money and then there's a relationship to business, right? Because money, you could be a freelancer. I mean, I was a freelancer, director and cinematographer and editor for years and I was still dealing with this problem of my relationship to money.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
But then I started a business and that also had a whole other relationship to business, which is how do you show up as a leader? How do you create the space to enable people to deliver the most, not just for themselves, but also for the sustainability of the enterprise that's collective? Because For many years, for me, the most important thing was each individual's path.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
But then the actual company itself was not sustainable and I had to carry it. And then, you know, I'm facing tons of debt or I'm facing tons of channels and everyone goes and I'm left holding the ticket in my hand. And, you know, I have children and like, wait a second. And there was a long journey. It's 11 years. Yeah. And I think I've worked in three offices in my life. One was...
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
In university, I had a summer internship at Idea Lab under Bill Gross, and it was really hard for me. Showing up to an office, as awesome as that place was, just like, I couldn't be at the same desk from nine to five every day.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And then there were two directing jobs I had where, same thing, until you were on set in prep and everything, you know, you're showing up to a desk and you're nine to five. And I found myself that I would get the work done in half the time and the other half the time I was pretending to work. This is something I can't do. I cannot spend my life pretending to do the job.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I can't waste the most important, valuable, finite thing I have is my time, is anyone's time. So it was really difficult for me. So for me, it was always like either on my own as an independent contractor, or then 10 years ago, I said, okay, I'm gonna start a business. And that's been a long up and down journey. And I think, I mean, I've learned so much.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I've learned just because it doesn't happen when you want it to happen does not mean it's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen on your timeframe. So be patient. Don't beat yourself up. Be resilient. This is a marathon. It's not a sprint. There's ebbs and flows. When it ebbs, prepare for the flow. When it's flowing, prepare for the ebb. My dad has a great line. He has two.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Well, I think one of them is probably cliched. He's like, fire fast, hire slow. I think that's like a well-known line. And then the other one, maybe it's also well-known. I don't know if you often use, but the one he always told me is like, if you're not growing, you're dying.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Well, we're good here. We're staying here. Well, then you're dying. If you're not growing, you're dying. And not to be confused with what does growing mean? Growing doesn't mean necessarily going up. It might be meaning going deeper, right? It doesn't necessarily have to mean you have to increase your sales numbers. Maybe it just means increase your EBITDA, increase your efficiency.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
It does not always mean, I don't, in this kind of manner of like, we have to get bigger and bigger.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
whether it's a friendship, romantic, or even a work partnership, you assume it will end. So whenever you're in a relationship of any kind, you're in the back of your mind, you're like, okay, how's this going to end? And if you ask the question, how's this going to end? Well, there's a multiple ways that it can end.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Absolutely. I'm going in my head because I just had a conversation with a very good friend of mine a week ago. And he's a very successful editor and he's looking for another business of passive income on the side. And so he wanted to pick my brain because he'd seen me do that journey, right? For the last 11 years. And it's interesting.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I kind of walked him through the process in my mind, which was interesting because the first time I really shared it, because first time someone asked me, But what came up was what she says. The first thing is, what is it that you want? What's the question you're asking yourself? right? I mean, there's many ways you can go off and try to, and make money, but to what end?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
What will you do with that money to do what? Because maybe you have that, you know? It's like the famous thing, like, well, I want to make money, so I have free time. Well, right now, do you have free time? I have lots of free time. Well, then what's the problem? You know, if you're working really hard to have free time, but you have free, like, what is, it's not just that, is it something else?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
So number one is, what's the question you're asking yourself? And then number two, you know, for me was the Venn diagram in terms of what career path, what should start a business and what degree is, where do you feel you get energy from? And where do you feel you offer value? Where do those two overlap? And then anyways, I continue him down on a journey and business model, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
But at the end of the day, like where someone else is saying, hey, we want to grow this exponentially and then make an exit. Okay, great. Why? Well, no, but many of us are finding ourselves answering questions that are given to us by our friends, our culture, our parents, and actually not of ourselves. You want to grow this to be exponential so you can, why?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
That's because the line you hear on social media and that's what everyone else is doing. What is it that you want? What is the question you're asking yourself that gives you the answer of what it is you want? And then let's shape your business around that.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Exactly. It's like you might have the same answer to two different questions, but the energy, how it flows through the system is different because you ask a different question. Example, I have a brother, super talented musician, genius level musician. For many years, he was making his music. Why? Because he had to prove himself to his dad. Oh, that sounds familiar. That was exactly me.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
But in the book, it says for those who do not come from divorced families, they don't have that conception of the world. Things don't necessarily have to crumble and fall apart. And I think that is one effect that I saw as a lingering effect from that childhood. For many of my 20s and 30s in relationships, it was always like, how is this going to end?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
That was exactly me. Same thing. Okay, so you're making music, and this is just a very simple example, but it might as well have been me making films. Same thing. To prove yourself to your father. Okay, so imagine that energy and the needs and the emotion going into it of the struggle.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
If it doesn't succeed, then it's a reflection of, okay, I'm making films, he's making music, trying to prove yourself to your father. Okay, there's a lot of energy that's not being really efficiently used. Then you ask different questions. You know what? What is it that I love? I love making films. I love making music. Why? Because I love how it shines on people. Great.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
So do the same thing, but ask a different question. Not how do I prove myself to my father, but how do I do more of what I love? You're still making music. You're still making films, but it's coming from a different place. It's coming through a different system. If energy flow is efficiently flowing through the system, so you have more energy to do the output.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
One of our questions that we ask, yeah, exactly, is that if you could go back to any point in time Where would you go? When would you go? And what would you tell yourself? Because it's different, right? And the other interesting question is like, okay, if the Topaz or the Alana five years from now was here right now, what would she tell you? From the future. Forget the past.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
What would the Alana from the future tell you right now?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Exactly. She'd tell you, relax. You're doing great. You're doing wonderful. I would be like Topaz, don't stop flossing. Keep flossing. Take care. And more green tea, Topaz, please. You know, like.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I think one day I'm going to die of nostalgia. Since having children, it's much better. But before I had children, nostalgia was very hard for me. So that's why when you asked me to go back, probably many points. I mean, I'd like to say I don't have many regrets. I do have the thing that I haven't made the most.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I haven't made the most of my time in terms of reading as many books, paying attention to as many of the beautiful things in this world, like food and art and music and nature. And I wish I studied philosophy at Oxford and Berkeley. I wish I read more of the books. I wish I spent more time. But then again, doesn't everyone say like youth is wasted on the young?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Like you're young, you have all this energy, you can... But yeah, I wish I spent more time reading the riches of humanity, the literature, the music, the books, and really plug that into my brain more. Because if I did that, I would have much more informed opinions now or positions now, or God knows how that would have shaped my outlook on life and what I could share here with you now.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
So that doesn't bode well for the longevity of a relationship when you're looking at about how it's going to end. Because really, you're trying to just protect yourself, right? But if you're protecting yourself, you also can't necessarily extend beyond the reaches of the wall that's protecting you. So you're limited in the emotional experience you can have because you are protecting yourself.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
What would you tell yourself?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
You know, it's funny you say that because when you said the billion dollar thing, what hit me was the idea that billion, 100,000, 1 million, seven, eight, whatever. These are just numbers. These are digits, right? Yeah. but they represent something deeper. They represent what you become.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
But the life is like, what are you learning? You know, like you said, like I couldn't, but I had to learn the things I had to learn. Like, so it's like, it's a signpost, but actually what it is, it's like a becoming, like, In order to be in that place, you're learning things and you're becoming. At the end of the day, it's a number.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
But what is not just a number is the things you've learned, the relationships you've built, what you've become as a human. Do you know what I mean?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Thank you. Thank you for this space, Ilana. Thank you for the time.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
You are both protected by the walls, but you're also captive to the walls that protect you.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Yeah. I mean, look, I'm not a therapist and my experience comes from really being very curious of human nature and being able to create spaces where you could, or one can have a real experience.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And in this sense of the end, I've been honored and privileged to be in the space, my team and I, I haven't been in all 1200, but my team and I have been in the space for over 1200 conversations of all kinds of relationships in about 10 countries.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And that is where I come to you now with my experience, not only my life experience, but obviously, you know, how many people get to really see that many conversations between people. in a real intimate way. And even if you think about therapists, therapists get to see a lot of conversations, but therapists are part of the conversation. They're guides within the conversation.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Okay, wait, change the question. Create a better, more specific, constructive question. And then the answer becomes obvious.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
If it's a couples therapy, they're asking questions, they're guiding. Here, I pose the questions, you sit back, and the participants are having a conversation, and we witness that. And that's a really honored place to be in, and there's a lot of learning and illumination that comes up inevitably from being in that privileged position.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Why did it become a success? Why did it become a viral success? Why did it speak to people? Because people in a digital world, they needed a sense of humanity. And we are the corner of the internet where you can get a digital dose of humanity. And the question is, what was this guy talking about? What is humanity? I don't know even if I like humans, to be honest. We do some terrible things.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
But I love humanity. And what is humanity? Humanity is not what's in us. It's what's between us. When do you feel humanity in your life?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
When you have that incredibly intimate conversation with a total stranger, like we used to be four phones and you're walking on the street or with a taxi cab driver before we were all lost in our phones, in the elevator or on the airplane or in that random moment where you had this conversation with someone and you sense a greater sense of us, whatever that means, you're not alone and you get a sense of this connection to humanity or you're in a sports team.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
and you're all striving for the goal and you win or you lose and you sense this sense of connection, coherence with other people, or you're in the business team and you're struggling to hit a quarter or something or to get the product out in time or to make an incredible video game, whatever it is, and you succeed and you look at each other in the trenches, there's that sense of connection that there's something that we're doing together that we can't do alone.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
That's a sense of humanity. Or in your relationship, you get in a big fight with your partner. You don't even want to talk to them. And you explode and you have a conversation. And at the end of it, you come back together and you sense, you know what, we're stronger. I'm not alone in this journey of life.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
That sense, all this sentiment of coherence, resonance with other people because you're on a common journey. You're sharing an experience, albeit unique to each one of us. That's what humanity is to me, and I love it. It gives me a sense of greater amplification of what it means to be alive. And so that drew my interest into the end, which was, what's the end?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
The end is about the space between, because a relationship is not you or I, us or them. It's you and I, us and them. It's the and that connects us. It's the and where humanity lives. So how do we cultivate that? How do we illuminate that? And that's what we've been able to do with the and because we bring people to a room, put them facing each other. We film it with three cameras.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And for anyone listening, just go check us out on YouTube or TikTok or Instagram, wherever. And you'll see moments where people are faced and we show you both their faces at the same time. And that's what's important. It's both faces at the same time.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And we can talk about why that's important because very little footage these days of any type of media content, you never see both the speaker and the listener at the same time. Here we are showing you both because we're saying it's not just the listener that's as important as the speaker. It's both. Because everything we watch is just the speaker. You always see the person speaking.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Anyhow, long story short, that's the end. And to me, that cultivates the thing I love so much, which is humanity. And the privileged position I've had from watching that is, oh, I have over 1,200 data points, 1,250 data points over 11 years now, is how do you create the space to have these type of conversations that illuminate our shared humanity?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Before we go there, I just want to frame it. It's not that it's about having hard conversations. I would suggest a formula like this. And you hear Esther Perel, who's, you know, the incredible thought leader in the space of relationships. She says, the quality of your life is commensurate to the quality of your relationships, right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
The more quality relationships you have, the more the quality of your life. Okay, if we believe that's true, great, I believe it's true. Let's say that's true. Well, then what makes a quality relationship? And one thing, one way to build and to cultivate a quality relationship is quality conversations. So one suggestion is quality. There's acts of service. Okay.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
But one of them is quality conversations. We're humans and we have the gift that we have language. We can communicate these ideas and these feelings and communicate to another soul, to another heart and share that. We can communicate. We can have conversations. It's great. So what makes great conversations?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Quality questions. Exactly. It is the space in which you hold those quality questions. That's it. If you create the space, we can talk about what that means, and we construct really quality questions, we can have incredible conversations. If we have incredible conversations, we have incredible relationships. If we have incredible relationships, we can have an incredible life.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
If you're looking to have a conversation where you're exploring the grave, you're exploring your relationship, don't ask a binary question. If you begin a question with is, are, do, should, I don't care what comes after those words. If you start anything with is, Are, do, or should. It is a binary question. Is this the thing we should do? Are you in love with me? Do you love me?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Do you think we're happy? Should we do this? Yes, no, done. Left, right. You don't even have to tell me the question. Just tell me what the first word of the question is. Versus why, how. What or in what way? You start that, you cannot give a binary response. You can't answer, why do you love me with yes or no? You could say, I just do. That works.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
But what I'm saying is that the invitation begins with the question and the question even begins with the first word of the question. And we are not taught in our society how to build good questions. I was just listening to a podcast with Elon Musk where he said, he says, of course, many times we answer the right answer. We find the right answer to the wrong question.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
We spend so much time on the answer. We don't spend time exploring the question. And much like a race is shaped by the race course that it's run on, Our answers are shaped by the questions we ask.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And we do not bring enough attention to the questions we ask in every facet, whether it's your business, whether it's how you speak to yourself or how you speak to your children or how you speak to your partner. We don't pay attention to the questions we ask. And that is where 80% of the power lies.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Well, they can be hard for sure.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Absolutely.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Yeah, well, working, startup. I know you talk a lot about startups and your own startup and other people and supporting them and coaching them in their own career paths. So when I started The Skin Deep 11 years ago, it was very scary. There was a lot that I didn't know.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I remember speaking to the lawyer who was very expensive because my investor suggested I get a very good expensive lawyer because when we do exit, we'll want a good lawyer. And I was paying a lot for this gentleman's time. And I remember getting on the phone with him. He said, Topaz, you're asking these questions. Are you going to pay me $500 to answer this question?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
Or are you going to go Google and learn it yourself? Where do you want to spend your money? Where do you want to spend your time? It's like, wow, great. I remember the day one, I took a selfie of me and my two team members. At that time it was Paige and Heron. And I took a picture, a selfie, and I remember telling myself, Remember this image because you are scared shitless right now.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
But we all know you're smiling because you're like the leader of the startup and you're not going to show that you're scared shitless. But I took a selfie, I can show it to you, where I knew I benchmarked that moment and say, this is awesome.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I am going to photograph this moment knowing that inside this smile, behind this, whatever face I'm posing, I am shitting myself because I don't know what I'm doing. And not only that, but I've taken on my friends and families and investors' money. And so in that process, I remember early on in like one, two, three years, there would be times you have a small team, five, six, seven people.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
I got started in my parents' divorce as a four-year-old. I got started feeling disconnected from the two people I love the most and who did not seem to find a way to connect. That's where this pain became hunger. And then in my 20s, I studied philosophy and was trying to find how I can contribute.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
If You Want to Have Life-Changing Conversations, Ask These Tough Questions | Topaz Adizes
And you could feel a tension with somebody on your team. And you don't want to talk to them. You don't want to have to go in and lean into that uncomfortable conversation. And I just learned over time that the longer I didn't have that conversation with them,
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
You don't sleep in the kitchen and you don't cook in the bedroom. You do certain things in certain spaces. So are we articulating the rooms we're in in the house of our relationship? We're talking about work, right? What kind of meeting are we having right now? Do we tell the people to do that? Do we tell people what kind of meeting we're having? We're doing a brainstorming meeting, team.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
To say, okay, in that space, now we can ask these well-constructed questions that put us in discomfort and we can actually be uncomfortable because we know we're safe. But just because you're uncomfortable does not mean you're not safe. And vice versa, just because you feel comfortable does not actually mean you're safe.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
So making that distinction is good and not shying away from discomfort and actually leaning into it, but making sure that the space is created that you feel safe. And then you can ask questions in a way that reinforce that safety or not.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
There's a lot of power in the questions, and we're always so focused on the answers, and we don't realize how, by shaping the question, you are shaping the answer. This is huge. So let me just give a very simple example. It's 7.30, 8 o'clock, and you go to your kids, and you say, hey, you want to go to sleep? What do you think the answer is? We all know it's no. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
You ask the question, do you want to go to sleep? It's like, yes or no. I mean, okay. But if you go and say, hey, kids, you want to sleep on the couch or in the bed? You've already shaped the answer. The answer is bed or the couch. The question has shaped the answer, the options. Oftentimes, we're so good at finding answers, but oftentimes we find the right answers to the wrong questions.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
Put more emphasis on the questions. Why did this campaign fail? Why did this candidate not work out? What about saying, let me change that question. What can we learn from this campaign that we could take to the next? What was the failure of this candidate that started the company and didn't work out? What can we do to improve to ensure that the next one doesn't have the same failure?
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
The reason you tell them about the space you're in is that you're articulating what is permissible, what's acceptable, what we were suggesting. This is the behavior that we want. Ah, this is the game we're playing. In the kitchen, you know you're cooking. You're not going to sleep in the kitchen. And in the bedroom, you're sleeping. You're not cooking in there.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
So you're asking questions that are giving you answers that are constructive that you can actually have agency from versus saying, why did this campaign not work? Oh, here's a thousand reasons why not. Shift the question such that the answers you get are going to be constructive to your life, to your business.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
Let's just take a very simple question because power dynamics are really important in the workplace. And you're trying to create a safe space where you can share your opinion, but you also don't want to get fired or piss off the boss or the politics of the culture. So you're in a meeting. It's a group of you.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
And whoever's running the meeting with the power dynamics, let's say they are the executive who's running the meeting, has responsibility for some decisions or the unit leading the team. And they ask a question.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
First of all, the fact that they're asking a question is already a power play because they get to ask the question and everyone on the team is going, wait, why are they asking that question? But here comes that question. You're in the meeting and the boss goes, Stephanie, why did our marketing campaign fail? Why did the product fail? or whatever? Why did the product succeed?
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
That question shapes that your answer is going to give an objective truth about reality. It failed because this and this, this. Now everyone else in the room is going, that's not why it failed. No, wait, that's not why it failed. And now we have some type of conflict because the question has actually invited you to give an objective truth, which everyone else has different opinions about.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
If you just add the words, why do you think Or why do you feel? You see how that re-empts any kind of conflict going forward because this is your subjective opinion. I can't disagree with your subjective opinion. And by asking that, especially in the power dynamic space, it's like inviting you in to give your opinion.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
And this is inviting you to step in in a way that's safe because we can't really argue with your subjective experience. So you can say from my point of view, if the boss says, why did the product fail? your response can start just say from my point of view. But a better question as a leader is to say, why do you think, why do you feel? That's her experience. That's her POV. Thank you for your POV.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
What's your POV, Jimmy? And from that, we're inviting different POVs to illuminate all the opportunities for challenge. And then we could discuss from that, what do we think is objectively true or not? But just by adding, why do you think, why do you feel, is already shaping an answer that's less confrontational, less conflict. And there's a lot of little semantic differences
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
tools we can use in constructing questions to invite sharing while still keeping it safe, albeit uncomfortable.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
So the expectations, the permissions are clear. In our relationships, are we doing the same? So the work world is like, okay, if we call a meeting, what kind of meeting is this? What's the phase we're in now? Are we brainstorming? Because how many times are you in a brainstorming meeting where everyone's brainstorming? At the end, there's no decisions made. People are upset. Wait, hold on.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
This was a brainstorming meeting. So don't expect us to end up with a decision. or vice versa. It is a decision-making meeting. You're not interested in new ideas. We need to decide who's doing what by when and how. People are like, wait, they're never asking for ideas. And I know, we got to be clear about what kind of meeting this is. And that's part of the space. So that's one thing.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
Two, let's not confuse comfort and safety. Or let's not confuse discomfort with being unsafe. Let's not confound them. Safety is imperative, but discomfort is great. If I'm going to go bungee jumping, in theory, I should be safe because these guys have done it all the time. The rope is tested. I'm like the 5,000 person doing this. Okay, so in theory, I'm safe because they've checked everything.
The Action Catalyst
CLIP: Safety Is Not Comfort
They know the bungee is good. But am I uncomfortable? Absolutely, I'm uncomfortable. But that doesn't mean I'm not safe. Now, in your conversations at work or with relationships, are you safe? How do we create that safety? Well, part of it is articulating, hey, what's the room we're in? What are the rules? What are the boundaries here? What is expected? And then...