90. Transformational Conversations with Dr. Linda Street

Jan 5

2022 is the year we’re going to try to have deep, open, transformational conversations. These conversations will help you understand yourself and others better. I’m joined by my friend, Dr. Linda Street, to talk about how you can better find yourself by understanding The Conversation Dashboard and your response to conversations.

The Conversation Dashboard

Resistant: Not going to take much from the conversation
Skeptical: Willing to engage a little bit in the conversation
Wait and See: Willing to see how the conversation plays out
Experimenter: Willing to try things and see how it plays out
Co-Creative: Willing to go all-in with you in the conversation

Listen to Episode 90 Here

Or listen on your favorite podcast app: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android

About Dr. Linda Street

Dr. Linda Street is a board-certified Maternal-Fetal Medicine Specialist, Life Coach, and speaker who focuses specifically on Physician Negotiations.

She is the Founder & CEO of Simply Street MD Negotiation Coaching where she pairs her coaching tools, experience in negotiating as a physician, and negotiation techniques to help physicians take charge of their lives and negotiate for the salary they deserve.

The Types of Conversations We Have

Are you ready to uplevel your conversations in 2022? Dr. Linda Street opens up this talk about transformational conversations by explaining the different levels of conversation. As we go up through levels 1, 2, and 3, the depth and openness of the conversation changes.

We focus this conversation on level 3. These are the deep, open, transformational conversations that so many of us aren’t as familiar and comfortable with having.

There’s a certain level of vulnerability we need to be comfortable with in order to get deep and transformational. Part of this is examining your own response to vulnerability to see how well you can show up to a bigger conversation.

Transformational Conversations for Deeper Understanding

Linda talks us through The Conversation Dashboard and explains why you might have a certain response to a conversation. When we’re not as invested, or even triggered, by a conversation, we’re more likely to have a cortisol, stress response to it.

Transformational conversations happen when we are open to what you’re talking about and have an oxytocin-based response. Linda explains that your response to a conversation will also depend on your phase of life.

Finally, we talk about the impact of transformational conversation. These deep conversations help you to not only understand the person you’re having them with, but they also help you understand yourself. Linda explains how you can have a transformational conversation with yourself for self-exploration.

What conversations will you have in 2022? They might be hard, they might be easy. Who are you having them with? Let me know in the comments below!

In This Episode

What level 1, 2, and 3 conversations are [5:00]
Why we’re not as familiar and comfortable with transformational conversations [8:00]
How vulnerability relates to transformational exchanges [10:45]
Why you might have a cortisol response to a conversation [19:15]
How a conversation might affect us differently depending on what stage we’re at in life [23:00]
How having transformational conversations helps you understand someone better [26:40]

Quotes

“Ask yourself, “How am I approaching this conversation? How am I coming to the table so that I can get what I need out of it?” It’s that awareness to be able to come to the conversation so you’re most suited to being able to have it go further. To have it open up those transformational possibilities.” [15:10]

“The acceptance that it’s not going to be perfect and that’s okay is okay for certain seasons. There are seasons where we need to have parts of our life on autopilot. But when you’re in a growth season, it’s so suffocating to just be in the status quo. To just neutrally plug along because ‘it’s not awful so I might as well just stay here.’ That’s when you have a higher cortisol response. That’s when you need to push yourself into more curiosity-based places.” [22:29]

“Using open, transformational conversation is like brainstorming because you’re not attached to a specific path from one thing to another, you’re just looking for different possibilities to get to a desired outcome. You might not even have one desired outcome, you may be open to several, but you’re just exploring possibilities. This is being willing to be in brainstorming mode in a conversation instead of being attached to the route. It’s less attached to how you get there and more open to having a brainstorming-type conversation.” [27:36]