 communication is not just you talking. It's not just you being the messenger. It's you allowing the other person to share with you. And what they're sharing, there's a specific signal that Dr. John Gottman in his research on successful romantic relationships coined as emotional bids. And when you can recognize emotional bids, these are the moments in conversation when the person you're speaking with wants to connect with you, is making a bid of vulnerability for deeper connection, letting you know I feel safe, I feel heard, and I'm excited to connect with you. When you can pick up on these connection signals, emotional bids, you become a powerful communicator because now you know the person likes you, the person wants to connect with you, the person would love to share their contact information, would love to spend more time with you. So whether it's romantic, social or professional, recognizing these emotional bids are really the key to you creating those powerful relationships in your life. A problem that we see in some of our clients is that because their professional life is so logical and so analytical. As Johnny talked about, we work with doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, problem solvers, engineers, and even military special operators, where data and analysis is in high demand. Well, sometimes that analytical mind can trip us up in communication. It can keep us from seeing the subtle signals and cues that the other person wants to connect with us. Emotional bids are not logical. They are subtle cues in conversation that if you're only tuned in to the logical part of the conversation, you're only listening to the context you will completely miss in conversation. To go back to what I was saying in the last piece was we chase comfort. Where we're comfortable is where we tend to stay. So if you have an analytical job where you are problem solution oriented, you have to analyze data and then with that data come up with a solution in order to get over whatever hurdle is in front of you and you make money doing that. That puts a roof over your head. That puts food on your table. That puts clothes on your back and you get good at that. You start doing very well in your career because that is a strong suit. That becomes where you're comfortable and think of that. If you spend your whole day in an analytical solution oriented mindset, you're training your brain. You're creating pathways for it to be efficient and effective thinking in that manner. And that will do great at work in your analytical job. But that same skill set that allows you to do great at work pushes people away socially because in order to connect, we have to share an emotional space and you share emotional space through developing your empathy. And this goes back to what AJ was saying about if we're only listening to the data, those first two levels, because we're trying to problem solve, we're getting all the information that we need to help this person get over the hurdle. But for a lot of people, they don't want to help getting over the hurdle or they already know the answer. They're looking for empathy and connection to know that they're not alone in their struggle. The only way to do that is to share that emotional space. So once we see these patterns arise, now we can go through the effort of giving you new tools to use so you can develop this skill. And then what we're doing is we're skill stacking. We're now adding a completely new conversational tool to one that you're already good at, which opens up more opportunities. And makes you extraordinary. True. That's part of unlocking your X factor is understanding the nuance in communication and then using that nuance and science to your advantage. This is one of those situations where when our logical brain overpowers us, we could get hung up on small details in the content. Hey, AJ said Detroit, but then he was talking about New York. Didn't he say he lived and you can get hung up in your analysis on the imperfection that is communication and that will keep you from hearing the emotional bid, the opportunity that the other person is saying, AJ, I want to connect with you. I'm enjoying myself. This has been a great conversation. I want you to know that I want this connection. I want this relationship. And I'll be honest, there are often times in conversation where I don't know if it's going well. I don't know if it's not landing, if it is landing, if things are great. Sometimes we've talked about the body language signals about processing face and the other person might not seem as animated or engaged as I'd like, but I'm still listening for the emotional bids because the emotional bid is the surest sign that the other person is enjoying this conversation, wants a connection and is the seed of the relationship that can blossom. So when you start to recognize emotional bids and there are literally tens of them, there are so many emotional bids, we'll share a cheat sheet for you in the show notes as well as the end of the episode for you to download to check out the emotional bids. But the important aspect here is when you tune into the emotional bids, you recognize the opportunities for connection. The other person then wants to share more and of course build that relationship with you. So you go from not only having charisma to then utilizing that charisma to have great communication to then building relationships. That's the entire point of communication. The stronger relationships you have at work lead to your career advancement. The stronger relationships you have socially and romantically actually lead to longevity in your life. You have a happier, healthier life if you have strong relationships and you can only build those strong relationships with powerful communication.