David Bell  
I think, in terms of listening with our eyes, listening with our ears and listening with our heart.

Jeff Ma  
Hello and welcome to love as a business strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business, but we want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I'm your host, Jeff Ma, and as always, I want to have those conversations and hear those stories from real people, real businesses and real life. And my guest today is David Bell, and he's over. David Bell has over 30 years of experience in the financial service industry, specializing in sales, development, leadership, training and coaching. He's worked with financial advisors, frontline bankers and leaders alike. David obtained a BBA in general business from the University of Texas at Austin, which happens to be my alma mater as well, so that's great. And David is an international coaching Federation, certified coach, and he serves as the chief encouragement officer with Discovery Zone coaching LLC. I want to share a number of other awesome accomplishments. He served on the board of directors and as past president for the Association of town development Houston chapter. David is a current member of the international coaching Federation Houston chapter, and serves on the board of directors for the Texas coaches coalition. He's a distinguished Toastmaster with Toastmasters International, and a member of Talking Bull Toastmasters. And outside of work, David says he enjoys spending time with family, hiking, reading, journaling and volunteering. So with that, I'd love to welcome David to the show. How are you doing? David,

David Bell  
I'm doing wonderful. How are you doing today? Jeff,

Jeff Ma  
I'm just doing great. Everything's great. Weather's great here in the Houston area where I live. But with great weather comes great allergies. So that's what I'm dealing with, how about yourself?

David Bell  
I can appreciate that I have a little nasal congestion myself.

Jeff Ma  
Well, David, we have an we're going to have a conversation today. Is what I, what I what I always have. But today I get this really meta opportunity to talk, to have a conversation about conversation. And so before we dive into that, I want to hear a little bit more about you as not only just the chief encouragement officer, which I have questions about that, but just really honing in on your passion. So the question would be, what is your passion, David, and how did you kind of arrive to find that passion.

David Bell  
Great, great question. I use a hashtag a lot of times when I post on LinkedIn, and it kind of it syncs up with me, because it reminds me of what the things are that drive me. And it's hashtag lead love and learn. And so even though learn is on the end of that, that's kind of what drives me. I'm a Constant Learner, life learner, always looking for new information, maybe sometimes too much information. But on the other side of that is leading, taking opportunities to step up, step forward when there's an opportunity to do so. And you can start with leading yourself, or you can lead other organizations, other organizations, other individuals, and then the middle of that is love, which is the connection here. I think that we have is it's doing all that in love. And when I say love, I think of it in terms of, I care, I care about you as a person. I care about you as an organization, but showing up is someone who cares.

Jeff Ma  
I love that and and I guess I have to know a little bit more about giving yourself the title chief encouragement officer, which is little unconventional, but I love so talk a little bit about that, please.

David Bell  
Well, you know, when you start a new business, they ask you to what's your title, right? Or when you send somebody an email, what's your title with the organization, and everybody likes to put CEO. So I just thought I would do a little twist on CEO. And encouragement is actually, as a Christian, my you know, I believe in spiritual gifts, and encouragement is my spiritual gift. It's the gift of encouraging others. And so that's the reason I decided to select that title, Chief encouragement officer. And it reminds me that, you know, even though I'm here for business as well, I'm also here to encourage others and even to encourage myself.

Jeff Ma  
I love it. I love it. And to dive right in, let's, let's talk about, I mean, your background is heavily in finance and numbers and math and dollars, and it's been no secret on this show before that it's, it's somewhat difficult to find. The crossover for some people, between finance and love at times. So how did that connection happen for you? Where does that crossover? And how do we get to where you are with with, you know, love, after you know what, 30 years of in finance.

David Bell  
It starts a long, long time ago in a small town in Henderson, Texas. I was raised by a single mom. I lost my father when I was six years old. My mom had five children, and she raised all those children all by herself. When I was young, I had a lot of opinions about how she spent money and how she handled finances and how she dealt with business and and so that that influenced me. And as I got older, I realized how incredible a lady she was to be able to raise five kids on her own as a bookkeeper for a family owned business. And because of that, it made me realize that, you know, planning and strategizing and all about money is something some people don't like to talk about. As a matter of fact, she never had that conversation with me. And so I went off to college, and my brother became a financial advisor, and while I was at college, he sent me a gift of a book. It's called Money dynamics of the 80s, by Vanita van Castle, who's also was from Houston, Texas. I think she's passed away now, but it was a wonderful book, and when I was reading that book, it made me realize that people need to have that conversation about money, and that I could have that conversation because I understood money, I understood how it worked, and I could talk to others about it and maybe help them with some of the things that my mother struggled with when we were growing up, that I could help others. And so I went into financial services as a financial advisor early career, and I soon learned that that I love finance, but I love teaching more than I love finance. So that's where the learning development background came from.

Jeff Ma  
That's amazing. You were in a you're an accountant before you knew you were an accountant, I guess for your family, your mother having opinions about how she spent the money?

David Bell  
Well, I had opinions. It wasn't because I was accountant or that I knew anything about money. It's just I had opinions. And a lot of us do have opinions about money. Actually, I believe we all have a relationship with money as well, and that relationship could be a positive relationship. It's one of abundance, or it could be that relationship of we're always, you know, afraid we don't have enough, and so I grew up thinking we didn't have enough. For some reason, even though I had everything I ever needed, I had all the food, all the housing, all the clothing. I never missed a baseball game. I never missed a school activity. I had everything I could possibly have. And you know that I admired my mother so much because she did do all of that on a very meager salary and a bunch of crazy kids.

Jeff Ma  
Well, let's move into the topic of conversation, then I think in a lot of your coaching, facilitation and speaking, I know you speak on a lot of different topics, but I invited you today to have a conversation about conversation, so maybe you could kick us off with kind of your stance on why this is an important topic as it pertains to love in the workplace or just caring for people. What, Where does what is conversation as a topic for you?

David Bell  
Conversations? You know, they happen everywhere. We have personal conversations. We have conversations in the workplace, I do a lot of volunteer activities and have, you know, conversations in the community, so they always matter. But in the workplace, I found early on as a financial advisor, and then a trainer of financial advisors and also bankers, that we were called to go out and get business right. And in order to win somebody over, to gain their business, we had to have that conversation with them. And talking about finances is not always easy for people. And you know, starting out with a question, what is your net worth? May not be a good idea to start a conversation, because it doesn't. You haven't built the rapport. So what? What I learned from that experience in financial services to learn how to build rapport, to build trust, to build confidence, and then show your expertise and how you can help someone and be consistent in following up and touching base with them and letting them know that you care. So that's that's an important conversation to have, and it deals with our relationship with money again, but then over time, as I went into leadership roles, leader as a. Financial Advisors, leader of a training team, leader in nonprofit organizations. I learned that it was critical to have conversations there as well, and I like to say better conversations start with listening. And I feel like I'm talking a lot today, so I'm not really demonstrating that. You're doing a wonderful job demonstrating that, but I really do think better conversations start with listening.

Jeff Ma  
So I think that's I don't think it's a foreign concept to many, where we all understand that listening is often more important. I guess we don't all understand, but maybe this my bias showing, but we all understand the importance of listening when you're coaching and working with people around how to have better conversations like, what? What are the types of ways that we can listen better, I guess, or what? What is wrong with listening today?

David Bell  
Yeah, there's a lot of books written on it. Actually, David Brooks, who's PBS correspondent and works for New York Times, wrote a book How to know a person, and actually had a chance to see him speak this last year. But he covers this topic really well. I cover it from a little bit different angle, and whether it's classroom training, public speaking, or having a one on one conversation, I think in terms of listening with our eyes, listening with our ears and listening with our heart. And most of us were kind of trained to listen with their ears, right? What did, what did they just say? You know, repeat it back to them, but listening with your eyes, for example, can show you a lot of things about a person. For example, if they're looking the other direction, you know that they're really not listening to you, and so sometimes you may have to check in with that person, or vice versa. I may be looking the other direction. So I really want to focus on looking the person in the eye, being present, being in the moment with that person, but also looking at their facial expressions. If there's a nervous kind of expression on their face, or they're frowning, or they're smiling, picking up on those things. And then body gestures. There's research that's out there that says 55% of all communication conversations is about body gestures. And I never forget, in a corporation, you know, somebody would be talking to me, but they'd be walking away from me and to me that was sending me a message that they really did not want to have this conversation, versus somebody who may be stepping in and leaning forward and leaning into the conversation. So listening with eyes is is critical. Listening with ears, the Center for Creative Leadership, right? So there's three qualities there, what we're what we're feeling, what we're thinking and and what, what are the values? So what? What's actually the words that are being said in the conversation that's important? What are the feelings that are being expressed? Is somebody angry? Are they sad? Are they happy? And listening for those words that illustrate that, and then listening for values what's important to them. I'll give you an example on that. My daughter told me something recently that was very important, and she wanted to tell me in person. And so I I picked up on her values. Our relationship is very important to her, and so that was the reason it was important for her to tell me in person versus over the phone or text or some other way, but picking up and listening for values for somebody. And then the last piece is listening with her heart. And this is a part I'm still learning. I think of several different things you can do when you're listening with your heart. But the first thing is, is judgment. A lot of us, when we listen, we're we're constantly judging what they're saying, how they're saying it, you know, their perspective on things, and all of a sudden it closes down the conversation. So in terms of listening with their heart, it's about being open, being curious, being willing to learn. What is this person's perspective? What is their life experience? What are they bringing to the question? And the more you listen with your heart, the more that it opens up that relationship and that conversation to the person. So those are, you know, and I think about listening, those are some of the technical things that I think about when I think about listening,

Jeff Ma  
I love that. That's a great I'm gonna clip that that segment and use it, with or without your permission, David, when it comes to conversations and listening, of course, is I 100% agree with everything you're just saying about it. When I think about the challenges that come through conversation, I my mind immediately goes to conflict. I think, if you and I are best friends and we're having a great day, conversation sounds easy. I can listen. I can listen with my heart. It's all happy things. But when it comes to conflict, disagreements and. Things like that. How does, I guess, listening, or any other kind of topics around conversation? How do you start, uh, tackling this topic when it comes to, I guess, conflict based conversation?

David Bell  
Yeah, a lot of lot of books been written, Crucial Conversations. This one of them fierce conversations is it is another one. And if you were to read my assessment scores on having difficult conversations, I tend to avoid them. That's the way I've lifelong dealt with them. I just avoid them. And so if I don't have them, it's okay. But the fact is, if you don't have the conversation, you probably don't have the relationship. And so I think creating a safe space to have that conversation is a key piece to it. I think the other piece to it, and this is it's funny, because I've decided to kind of focus on better conversations, because I figure if I start having conversations with them, that I'm really listening to them and trying to understand them and gain their perspective and curious about it, that that conversation will be more open, more positive, and therefore I won't even have to go to the the crucial conversation or the conflict conversation. But if the relationship is is, if it's in good place, then it's about, what's the issue, what's the issue we're facing, what's the challenge, what's the problem, and let's define that. And so you and I are here, Jeff, and we're having this conversation, and out in front of us is this issue. So the question is, how do we want to work together to approach this issue. Let's, let's brainstorm. Let's come up with some solutions. Let's come up with some agreement on how we can move forward and what's a positive next step. And so in terms of dealing with conflict, start with just having better conversations. But then as you, as you do have an issue, a challenge or something, create that safe space that trust in the relationship, to to come together, to resolve it.

Jeff Ma  
Yeah, and I think you're, you're how you're describing. It moves me towards kind of, I guess my home base, which is around relationships, and like you mentioned, like, how to how like when we talk about conflict, there are, I think all of us would rather avoid conflict. For the most part, we it's uncomfortable. I know I don't like it, but at the same time, I think you hit the nail on the head for me where, if not having it means that our relationship either stays where it's at, or or many, many times, gets worse. I think when we talk about culture in a workplace, it really is a culmination of how we treat each other, behavior on each other, and the relationships that we have with one another. And so do you have any thoughts or advice around leveraging these crucial conversations, or how to leverage these crucial conversations to make sure that you know at a higher level, that culture is being accounted for, that like relationships are being built around this.

David Bell  
Well, I think the the agreement, having an agreement to what are the next steps? Where do we go from here, and that we can mutually agree to disagree, maybe on some things, but what are some positive things that we can do moving forward? What are some positive steps? And so that agreement, and then the accountability to that becomes critical everything. There's a course called five behaviors by by an author that wrote the book on, you know, team development, and the baseline for that is trust and and so everything starts with trust, but then once you have agreement and you have the accountability, then you start to work together toward the results. You know, I, I'm sounding a little pollyannish, like everything works out, you know, perfect. It doesn't always work out perfect. I mean, I've had relationships in the workplace that were always challenging for me, and I just want to bring my best foot forward. I'm the only that's the only thing I can control. I cannot control what the other person does. I cannot control what they say or how they feel, but I can be respectful to them, I can be curious about resolutions and possibilities, and I can manage relationship from a positive perspective, from my end. And so after that, you know, that's that has tended to work for me. Most relationships had had in the workplace have been positive, and so I don't know that. Have the answer for you, but that's that's been my strategy.

Jeff Ma  
In your experience with working in consulting and coaching, have you seen a lot of dynamics between I think in the workplace, we have a lot of what, at least on the surface. Task based conflicts and conversations. So we have a lot to do, and so we'll have to talk about it. We have to meet about it. We have to get things done, and sometimes we don't agree, and so we work them out. But when it comes to, I guess, conflict and this uncomfortable space, a lot of times what's underlying our conflict can also be relationship or relational based conflict, or it can even be values based conflict, where we just don't align on how we don't see eye to eye in those ways, and they still show up as task based conflicts, because we're at work like, what are your thoughts on? Like having conversations at the relational and even value based level in the context of work, is that? Is that okay to do? Or how do we approach that if, if we need to? There's

David Bell  
a lot of work that's been done on that in the in the workplace, and you know, most organizations will have a list of values that they espouse and that they hold, hold firm too, and I think it's a great tool. One of the things I would do with teams was we would align our values. We talk about our individual values. And there's some assessment tools out there that you can talk about either your individual values or your team values, but Barrett values is an example of that. That's an assessment tool that's out there. And I think having the conversation about values is where to start, because I know that you're different than I am, and a lot of times we align ourself with people who are like, we are, right? That's an easy one. Oh, I like to fish. Oh, I do too. Let's go fishing, right? But, like, I have a brother that loves to go bass fishing. I am not a fisherman. I'm really not and so, you know, he values that for recreation and things like that. So that's not a place we can connect. But you know what I do is I try to be curious about it. I try to have conversations with so where are you going fishing this weekend? What are you doing? What? What's the newest with your boat? I and if you if I go into two territories with my older brother, I can talk about fishing where he's fishing when his next tournament is, and asking questions about that, being curious and being respectful, but that's something that he really values, even though it's not something I enjoy. And I'll even go fishing with him from time to time, just to put myself in his shoes, so to speak, and hang out. It gives me a chance to hang out with him, learn something new. And you know, he's even willing to cut my bait if I need to. He's that kind of guy, you know, so he knows that it's not my my thing. But then there's other things that we connect on. Our faith is one of them that we connect on, family is one that we connect on. And so those are similar values. So I think we look for similarities, but we celebrate our differences, and we learn to appreciate and again, that may sound a little Pollyanna just but I think having respect for other people's beliefs and values is important to honoring that conversation and also honoring the relationship.

Jeff Ma  
You know, it's, I think, the second or third time you've used the word curiosity. And I love, I love that, that idea for for many reasons, and for many aspects of culture. I think curiosity in my book is, is the source or the solution, not the one solution, but the starting point for many, many mindset issues and attitude issues and things like that. So you've used it a couple of times now. Is that also central to is that, like, a central component for you to having better conversation, better relationship, is that, I know you said listening, but How's that different?

David Bell  
I'll go back to the hashtag lead love and learn. And when I look at the Learn, that's the way I learn. Oh, how does that work? And and when you're talking about conversations, for example, especially with people in business development, asking good questions becomes a part of having a good conversation. And questions that start with what and how are generally really good questions. Like, what does that mean for you? What? What does that value? I see it as this. What do you see it as? And just being curious about where they are and where they're going, because sometimes what you'll discover, especially in business development, is where they are and where they want to be. There's a gap there, and in that gap is opportunity for business solutions and things that you may be able to help them with the same way with team development within an organization, finding, finding those asking those questions about it. I'll give you an example. I had an employee once that previous boss had shared something with me, right? So it was. A positive thing. So every time I face this in play, I always had this in the back of my mind what this previous manager had said. And so it, they call it confirmation bias, right? So I'm looking for it. But when I had to really practice doing in that is being open to this person and asking them questions and understanding where they were, instead of using what somebody else told me. And so I think that's another example of how you can build relationships in the workplace by being curious, saying, Hey, I noticed you did it this way. What? What's that about? What? What is your reason for doing that, or what makes that work? And and they'll share with you, and then you learn. So I'm back to the learning part. So curiosity feeds the learning.

Jeff Ma  
That's a highly relatable story. I have to imagine everyone's had impressions of others affected by what they've been told, especially in the workplace, and that confirmation bias is easy, easy to creep in, easy to take over. So that's actually some really, really relevant advice that you got me thinking. So appreciate that as we, as we kind of reach the end here, can you talk a little bit about your actual, I guess, Discovery Zone coaching kind of your just what what you're up to and what you actually do. So just to round out, kind of like the experience here of David Bell,

Speaker 0  
okay, well, Discovery Zone coaching, it started with listening to people like you and others in the work in in the business world, you say you got a niche. You didn't say this, but a lot of people say you gotta find your niche. You gotta find what, what you're really good at, what your passion is, and all. And I've always been involved in sales and sales development. I love sales actually, working for some financial services organization, they don't want to call it sales because they don't want to be sales people. They want to call it business development. That sounds more serious, right? But it's still the same thing. It's about creating relationships. It's about understanding the needs of the person and building that relationship and then possibly, uh, salute, providing some solutions for them. And so I'm going to have to backtrack here. I lost my train of thought of where I was going. So ask me the question again.

Jeff Ma  
Discovery Zone coaching. Give us the Okay. Give us the give us the story and the spiel.

David Bell  
So, so the niche is you could work on sales. Well, sales is a long process. You've gotta build rapport, you gotta network, you gotta find prospects. You gotta do the discovery. You've gotta present a solution. You've gotta close the cell. Then you have to follow up. I'm like, I'm I'm at that point where I realized that the real sweet spot for me is the networking, the developing the relationship, and then getting that person to trust me, so that they'll do business with me. And so Discovery Zone, I decided that's the sweet spot is I like to be in that zone of discovery where I'm asking questions, I'm asking about the person, I'm learning about them, so that then I can tee up maybe a recommendation for them. So that's the part with the sales but then the leadership side is as a leader in the workplace, whether they're leading a sales team or you're leading a training team or maybe a marketing team, it's using those same skills of building rapport, building trust, asking really good questions, to have to improve the conversations you're having so that then you can create strategies to accomplish what the company or the organization's wanting you to do. And I'll just go one or two steps further with that same thing. Discovery helps in families. Listening to your spouse, helping helps in in families, listening to your children helps. I love to tell the story, but I won't now about my daughter and her you know, saying, Dad, you're not listening to me, it matters, and people notice when you're not listening. But even in the community, people that you come in contact with that you may not work with every day, but you're in a volunteer role with them, is being curious about them, what what their purpose for serving is, where they're going in their career and then their lives and with their families. And so I've just found that this discovery is a is a sweet space to be in, and so my goal is to help others become better at Discovery and to help teams become better at working together and knowing each other. And I have some tools that I use for that everything. Disc is one of them where it's about communication styles and understanding communication styles. I also work with workshops around listening skills and discovery skills, and so those are the things that I'm doing. And then I do individual coaching, whether it's a person who's in business development, they're responsible for a goal. That's what I've done most of my career. Is what they call performance. Coaching helping somebody achieve their goals, but now working with leaders who they may be new to that role, or they may be struggling to get their team on board. So how to how can we get them to reach their goals? And so I do the coaching around those things.

Jeff Ma  
Awesome. Well, David, I appreciate you giving the time today and taking the time to talk about conversations. But the takeaway for me has been that, you know, curiosities at the center and something that we can really keep practicing. You've reminded me in this conversation that, you know, we're never, ever going to get to like, the perfection of curiosity. There's always some kind of bias in the way. There's always some kind of like over comfortable, comfortable feelings in the way of of really pushing ourselves to genuinely be curious about others and for others. And so I'm really inspired to kind of reignite that, that passion of mine, that I've always had, but you've reminded me that, hey, I haven't been practicing this for a while, so appreciate you bringing that and having the curiosity to join as well.

David Bell  
Well. Thank you very much. I've enjoyed it, and thank you for the opportunity, awesome.

Jeff Ma  
Thank you to our listeners. Hopefully this has sparked your curiosity, and if you haven't already checked out our book, please do love as a business strategy, still on sale everywhere. Go get it and Subscribe. Like this podcast. Give us the feedback we love it, and with that, we'll see you in the next episode. Thank you, everybody.