Speaking and Communicating Podcast

because if I believe I'm not worthy or I'm not enough, then I will also show that in my behavior. Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I'm your host Roberta. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. And by the end of this episode,
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Please log on to iTunes and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review. Let's get communicating!
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My guest today hails all the way from Dubai. Her name is Silk Club. She's an executive coach, a coaching psychologist and hypnotherapist, and is here to talk to us about how artificial intelligence is making changes in our lives and in our leadership skills amongst other many topics that we will discuss today. And before I go any further, please help me welcome her to the show. Hi, Silk.
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Hello, Roberta. Thank you very much for this beautiful introduction. I'm very excited for our talk. I appreciate you saying that. Thank you for being here. Welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Okay, as you already said, I'm a coaching psychologist and executive coach and my emphasis is really to look at the psychological side of leadership.
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So you have several coaches that are more emphasizing on skills. And mine is more to really look on the mental, emotional, and even behavioral side of leadership. That's really my psychological background, and I'm really driven and very motivated and passionate about this topic. Excellent. Are you from Dubai originally? No, I'm originally from Germany.
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And I did my master's degree there. And then my first work was actually in Germany. And then I got the opportunity to work in Kenya. I lived there for nine years. Did some development work there, worked for a private company. And then since 11 years, I'm in Dubai. And what brought you to Dubai? A man. Oh, very important. Silke has her priorities straight. Awesome.
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How did you get started on the coaching work when you moved to Dubai? So when I moved here, of course I didn't have any clientele. So I was also employed in the first year, still in the education sector. And then I started slowly to build up my clientele. I'm quite active on LinkedIn, did several trainings also in business coaching. And slowly, slowly I made myself a name.
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And I got referrals. Most of my clients are actually far from Europe, not even from Dubai. When you got referrals, what do you think resonated with your clients so much they even referred other people to you? It was the results people saw in it because they came with one certain topic. For example, I feel really stressed, I feel burned out. My business is growing, but I don't know what to do.
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Or someone said, yeah, I really want to expand my business, but something is really hindering me. Or someone says, yeah, I have a lot of success, but something is missing. But then we realized there are much deeper layers under the surface topic. And people were quite impressed that they could really not only heal on certain levels, but also got new kinds of behavior.
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So when they acted before in a certain way, they have now an alternative how to act differently, realizing that this is a different way of coaching. So it involves several levels, like your mental level, your emotional level, your behavior, your spiritual level to really find out what your real life purpose is and what's your life's work. And what is the best?
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vocation you can actually select for yourself. So when it comes to root causes, the patterns, the things we keep doing even though we want to do something else or feel like something has to change, what is it that stops us from making those changes? Because our brain is wired for efficiency. So if you have acted in a situation in a certain way,
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The brain is already predicting, giving you the best efficient way to act in a certain situation because your environment is perceived and programs are already running. First of all, to understand, to make like a whole, to understand and create awareness why and how I am reacting in a certain situation. Then the next step is to really figure out is there a mental program that's running the show?
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because if I believe I'm not worthy or I'm not enough, then I will also show that in my behavior. So one step is also to see what kind of hidden mental program is there. And maybe to find out when it was created and find really strong evidence or strong events in your past.
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when this belief was created, then you have an understanding why similar situations were handled in the same way. This program was created when you were maybe nine, but it served you brilliantly at that time. But now you're maybe already in your late 40s, and then maybe that program is still running the show, but it's maybe not the best program to have. Is that where self-awareness kicks in as well?
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Yeah, because if you're not aware what is really happening, that's really the first step to make these hidden programs really conscious, because often they're already running in the background on an unconscious level. The brain is already predicting, giving you already the movement, giving you already the text to say, and this is based on your previous experiences.
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And when you create awareness, that's the first time you reflect on your behavior or you reflect on your mental program and you create a pause. And with this, you have now a chance to notice when you're in a similar situation and say, ah, that's my program running. And then you can decide if you want to act like always or do you want to act differently?
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but it takes effort because the other one comes automatically, very efficient. And the other one, reflecting what else you could do, it takes more up from your executive functioning over here. It works much slower and it takes up more energy. And therefore we try to reduce this mental load. When I guide people back, then we release this big energy of this mental program.
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the activity is reduced. You can say, okay, I can perceive this situation very differently. It's not like my mom now or my dad standing in front of me when I speak to my colleague, it's actually my colleague. This is not me being the nine year old. Exactly. What I then also do when we have reduced this mental program, the frequency of it.
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what kind of other behavior you want to show now, and to train this new behavior. So if you decide now instead of pulling back, because the whole program was I'm not enough, and therefore my action in the past was to withdraw. Now I realized, okay, that's a program from the past. I can pause and then I say, what would be the best behavior? Maybe ask a question.
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Did you mean like that? But then you have to practice it because you need a new program now that has to be rehearsed so that you can also take up this new behavior. And make it the new program. And it will not always work because the old drive is still there, but it's okay. It's like you're training in a new sport. You also have failures in between.
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It's only to realize it and then say, ah, yeah, next time it will act like this. I train my new behavior. We usually talk about public speaking and say, you know, the pause is very important to help you remember what you need to say, calm your nerves. It looks like there's this recurring theme of how important it is to pause. Yeah. And this brings you in control. Therefore, you're brought into conscious level.
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So you're not acting out of an impulse. The pulse brings you into your body. You're saying psychology, locus of control. So that you don't go back and say, oh, I didn't mean it like that. I was just heated at the time. Exactly. In one of your YouTube videos, you gave three tips on how to deal with a toxic boss, which a lot of people deal with. Would you like to share those with us, please? Yeah.
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What is often underlying is a very low self-confidence of that person or a hyper-confidence that is not even up to catered in reality. So the first step is to be aware not to threaten that person. Yeah, so that they feel threatened by you. So the first step is a knowledge, what they tell you and they say, ah.
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Here, people are not really working, all useless, and nobody is really trained here. Let you say, oh, I see it's really overwhelming. Acknowledge one of the feelings they're expressing to you. That's the first step. And then the next step is to give them two alternatives. You're the manager of the team and he is telling you, nobody's working here. Then you say, okay.
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What do you think we could do? Like feedback interviews with all of them or shall we set a stronger goals? What do you think we should do? And then often they take even a third alternative and maybe that's the one you actually wanted. Yeah, but not to create a very open discussion in an open discussion that person can get lost. So you create a safe.
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that you acknowledge how that person feels, only one sentence. The next one is to give two alternatives. What should be done? A, B, and often they come up with C, because they want to be in control. And then the third one is if they go astray to say, okay, that's an important topic, now I would really like to come back to that one.
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because I believe it really will help the whole team. Right. Don't discuss anything back. It will lead to a never ending slot. I wonder if that can apply in our personal lives as well. Yeah, I also met people in my personal life who are difficult people and often they are also very charismatic. Yeah, so they have great ideas and their vibe. It's really amazing.
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But there are also times when they're really in their lowest and whatever you say, it just hits you back. And whatever you say, it's not the right thing to say at that moment. And even there, I use the same strategies. Whenever I start arguing back, it's useless. I acknowledge the feeling they're in because they want to hear that. And then I say alternatives.
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And at that moment, I also don't refer back to me because they want to be in the center in that very moment. So back to what you said, your clients are feeling overwhelmed, stressed and burnout. Whenever I have a guest from the US, especially they say, we talk about this so much and mental health, but nobody does anything about it. What do you think? But it means effort, yeah.
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you really have to change certain behaviors. If you think you're stressed and overwhelmed, the first step is get a good night's sleep, but that's already difficult for people because they think they have to work up to late hours. And if they don't do that, they won't be able to really cover all the tasks they have to do. And of course, it's not true. Nobody can concentrate for 12, 16 hours. It's not possible.
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you really have to change. So the sleep gets seven to eight hours and people think, oh I don't need so much sleep, but in fact 95% of the population need that. And what are you doing for your mental health? If you said you heard so much about it, what are you doing? Are you having a regular activity workout? So if you're not going to the gym, are you having
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that you say, okay, I'm stretching, I'm jumping at least for 10 minutes. You don't need to go to the gym, drive there. Very short interval trainings like the Tabata workout, that's just for four minutes. This you can integrate within your day. If you do three Tabata, you have then in total 12 minutes. That's already an activity. You have done something really great. And research has shown if you actually do that.
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during your work day, it actually helps you. Your activity and your focus level gets actually up. If you hear phrases like, I hear you, Silk, but I don't have 12 minutes to spare. I have so much work to do. Why do we not think we even deserve to give ourselves the 12 minutes a day? It's 24 hours. It's an excuse. As I said, the brain is
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very efficient and you are in your comfort zone. To change your behavior, it's effort. It's not pleasure in the beginning. In the 10 minutes you're talking about mental health, you could have done two tabata workouts. Change is effort. There's also a section of psychology. It's behavior therapy, really pure behavior therapy, where a new behavior is
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cut into sequences. For example, you want to go to the gym now. Okay, I have to schedule for it. I have to put my shoes. I have to take the keys and whatever the sequence of that behavior. And whenever you do it, you get a clap. So normally, if you want to train very new behavior, then you would really acknowledge every single step you do. But that's also effort.
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because to sit down and take the sequence of it. Or you have someone who works with you, like a friend of mine, she is a yoga teacher and she knows everything about health, everything. But now she builds up her business and it's a lot of stress and she has two toddlers. So she started to eat so unhealthy, ice cream, water, and she gained a lot of weight.
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And so she has all the knowledge to do it by herself. She got now a health coach who gave her a schedule and they meet every week. And then she has to give a feedback how the things are working. Not everybody is self-motivated because it's effort. But if you have someone who motivates you, who drives you, who congratulates you, who cheers for you, then any kind of new behavior will be rewarded.
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then you have this pleasure and it's dopamine release and then you continue on your path. Therefore a lot of people are getting coaches. That's why you addressed also that there's so much depression in entrepreneurship. Yes. Now let's talk about your favorite topic, artificial intelligence. Yes, as a psychologist I'm really really drawn to it.
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And I was asking myself, how would I use artificial intelligence in my coaching or in any kind of leadership coaching? I came up with some insights when I would use it. What I'm doing currently once in a week, I give people a prompt. They can give into a GPT that has to do something with leadership skills. And the prompt I do, I already know.
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a word to ask and maybe have a reference of a person who is really quite experienced in it. For example, I had something about new leaders, what kind of traps they can have. And there's a person who even wrote a book about it and came up with six traps someone can fall into. So I created the prompt to reference also that person, very specific.
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so that leaders can really train themselves in a very short sequence. So because they just give in the prompt, the right information, I test it if the right information is also reproduced. And then if a leader gives that prompt in, then they have a very good overview of what basic skills they would need. Any kind of skill development, I think it's more information-based.
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For that, I would use artificial intelligence. I found it quite intriguing. People are also discussing, to summarize what I'm talking with people, but that of course has a privacy issue, because where are the data saved of that person? On which platform and if it's connected to OpenAI, I don't believe it's the right thing to do. This would be quite...
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good because then the whole meeting could be summarized and you could even go a step further after you have summarized the client gets automatically certain tasks in between sessions is like a coach in between who will say okay you had this task how far have you reached yeah so instead of me cheerleading at the side this kind of cyber coach
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would continue coaching the client on measurable results. So there is a change of behavior and to have them be a cyber coach to cheer up that person to continue with the new behavior. And like you said earlier, a lot of people are not self-motivated. So that sounds like something they could really use. And then I have sessions mostly two weeks in between.
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And so I'm following up with them, but often they don't read my messages. Yeah. Because then they're like their own world and meeting here and meeting there. Yeah. And everything is back to normal. But if they had this kind of cyber coach who really says, okay, where are you? So that people are not losing track, what we have discussed and to cheer the person up.
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he motivated to continue with it, what I don't see is on this emotional side. When I have these sessions where people are really going into emotions that are going back in time to really hold the space for that person. And this is what I think is more this biological thing between living beings to really hold the space and ask.
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questions affirm the person that it's okay to feel like that. Yeah. And to guide them slowly out of the emotion so that they don't get stuck. Yeah. To help them to process it in that sense. And that's also what homo sapiens is. We are maybe not homo sapiens, they're most intelligent ones anymore because our brain is not there.
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to process so much data in a short while. The synopsis and its chemicals and whatever. So we can never think so fast, but we can really start to be more in tune with ourself to really understand us much better and understand other people much better. I'm glad you highlighted living beings and emotional aspect.
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Because at the end of the day, this is still a machine. It can have all the information in the world. We still need that human emotional connection and have another human validator emotions. Yes. I listened to a lot of podcasts and one was with Anil Saif. So he's a neuroscientist based in the UK. He was asked.
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to do you think that these machines will have a consciousness so that they also will have feelings? And then he said, how would you be even able to differentiate it? Because they can simulate it. Because feelings are different from emotions. Feelings is an interpretation of what is happening in your body. From the inside, what's happening in your body, there's another level in the brain and above the limbic system.
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that gives an interpretation what's happening in the body. And this is called a feeling. So a machine out of learning that when a person is like this and this and this, it's this feeling. So it's simulating to you that it feels. Then he also emphasized that we as human beings, we have a tendency, like for example, if you deal with a plant, you look at the plant
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Somehow you say, oh, the plant is looking towards me, yeah, or even an animal. So you're a model of the world, you put on an animal or on a non-living being, and the same you would do with the machine. And then you think it's acting like you, that it has similarities to you, because it's the tendency of the human mind to do so. The efficiency back again. Yeah.
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So you think that others are feeling the same to you, like another human being similar to you. Why are they even thinking differently? Or an animal, you interpret it that it really likes you and loves you. Then the discussion was, yeah, how do we know that our thing is not a simulation too? Yeah, of course it's a simulation because some things are happening in our brain.
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that are living, electrons and emotions are moving in our body. Also, our neurons are firing. And with the machine, it's only like the neurons, the analytical part of it. So they don't have all of the aspects that make us come to the feeling stage. Yes. So they don't have these living cells. They only have the neural network.
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Silk, you are part of the Forbes Coaches Council. What is it and would you like to tell us more about the work that you do there? Yeah, it's actually like a selective council. So someone has to recommend you to the council. And then a member of Forbes has an interview with you if you are eligible to join.
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And then you are connected to other people who are doing similar things. So it's networking, it's finding partnerships. You have the opportunity to write articles for them that are published under Forbes Coaches Council. Yeah, because it's then like-minded people. And you're also exposed to a big clientele of people where you can really showcase your
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talent or showcase or what you're offering. Congratulations. That means you really bring excellent results for your clients. My pleasure. Is there anything that you were hoping to share with our listeners today that I haven't asked you about yet? Maybe also to reflect as a listener, what you have heard today, is there any area in your life you would like to change something?
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Is there something you feel drawn really to change? Then you can really go further and see, do I really know about all my talents? Do I really use all my talents? Where I can really flourish? What could be really from my life's work? Am I living my life's work? Is that life work done in my current position at work?
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or can I also do it in my private life? If there's something you can find in your private life to really live your highest and best, your talents, your skills, where you think what kind of mission you have here on earth. After that, go even a step further and say, when I'm evolving, what kind of positive impact does that have even on my environment? As a mother.
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as a father, as a son, daughter, on my community around me. But also if you change what kind of impact that has on others and maybe that's worth to change. And to start, am I my best self already? List your skills, list your talents and see am I living them all. Words of wisdom from Silk Club who is based in Dubai, but originally from Germany.
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She is an executive coach, a coaching psychologist and hypnotherapist. Silk, thank you so much for being on our show today. I learned so much from you from just this one conversation. Thank you very much for inviting me and all to the listeners who are watching or listening to that interview. Thanks a lot. My pleasure. And before you go, please tell us where we can find you on the interwebs.
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on my website, that's brainbossmethod.com. And you can also find me under my name, Seke Glab on LinkedIn and on Instagram. Brainbossmethod.com. So what you were discussing during our conversation, was that the BrainBoss method? Yeah, it's the part of the BrainBoss method because it's a holistic approach.
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behavior analysis, hypnotherapy, systemic work, NLP coaching, theta healing, to really have a very individualized program for everybody. Therefore, it's important for me to have really a big toolbox that I apply. And then the BrainBoss method deals on a mental, emotional behavior and on spiritual level.
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No wonder why you were nominated for the Forbes Coaches Council. You have a whole toolbox that is here to help us in many different ways. Thank you so much for being on our show. Yeah and thank you very much. Have a lovely day. My pleasure, you too. Don't forget to subscribe, give a rating and a review on iTunes and Spotify and stay tuned for more episodes to come.