How to Connect to Anyone | Soraya Morgan Gutman | TEDxWilmingtonWomen

[Music] Halina Sakhalin my name is Thor ayah it means queen of light in arabic i am from egypt hamdulillah [Music] other versions are having fear from disease [Music] in the nail from Frankfort why you look at me that way have you never seen anyone go from an Arabic Egyptian accent to a Deutsche a German accent really my name is Sariah Morgan guman my father is a first generation Egyptian my mother of first generation German my husband a first generation Russian and our dogs are Hungarian I bet you're wondering what our family holidays are like I bet you're also wondering what my background could possibly have to do with you everything but we'll get to that in a minute have you ever felt disconnected disconnected from a particular person that you most want to that you most need to connect to but seemed unable if so this talk is for you I'm gonna talk to you about how you can connect to anybody you need to connect to regardless of age personality temperament or background by the use of body language specific words and a clear attitude I call it C ad connect authentically by disarming and it starts with queen cleopatra she was an amazing connector but what's most fascinating about her is that Cleopatra was not even Egyptian she was ethnically Greek she was the first one in her family to teach herself Egyptian and not only that we know that she taught herself at least six other languages languages of people that were very different from her including her enemies so what was the result the Egyptian people loved Cleopatra she kept Egypt very prosperous during her reign and independent from Roman rule and other enemies for the twenty years that she ruled Egypt now it's fast forward 3,000 years to my beginnings my father Nabil was the first one in his family to leave Egypt my mother Erica was the first one in her family to leave Germany they met in an international party at the University of Toronto they both barely spoke English yet they fell in love got married and had me and when my father graduated we moved to Texas being raised in Dallas in the mid-70s was a challenge if you're half Egyptian and half German everybody in my neighborhood everybody I went to school with were Texas most of them never even left the state I had a hard time connecting with the kids it was a very lonely time for me and I've never said this publicly but I blamed my parents and I was ashamed of their thick accents people not understanding them I blamed my background of my parents for me not being able to connect it was at that time my father decided my brother Amir and I needed to spend some time in Egypt in Germany and when we were in Egypt I saw some very specific characteristics of Egyptian people first of all they move their arms a lot you can see here that's unware Sadat and that me before I went bleached-blonde with Anwar Sadat my father want an award for his contribution tribution zhingia physics would you all agree that we're going through a lot of change now in our country yeah well Egyptians actually not just do well in change they thrive in it Egyptians are big-picture they like to talk about their dreams and details details they're great at being able to connect with people they are very relationship based another interesting thing I noticed about Egyptians is that they look at life as a journey and if you look at life as a journey well when things don't go well in your family or they don't go well at work it's just really kind of a bump in the road because you're looking at the journey when we went to Germany I noticed characteristics that were almost polar opposites those that's me with my German relatives and that is that's Chancellor Merkel as you can see their body language very stiff German typically have very very subdued body language and unlike Egyptian they don't do well with change Germans thrive with structure and they're excellent planners they do care a lot about the details and unlike Egyptians they're not relationship based they're they focus on data and facts that they don't have strong relationships but that's not the highest component of a German the Germans unlike the Egyptians are very goal focused where Egyptians are about the journey Germans are about the goal so women we met back to Dallas with armed with this new data I had acquired at a very young age 12 13 years old I started looking at everybody in Dallas it was so clear to me oh he's an Egyptian she's a German and then what I did is I my behavior and my body language and the words that I used would mirror them so if I needed to connect to somebody who I could easily see was an Egyptian I used my body language more as they did and I would talk about their their ideas their dreams chitchat more before I got to the information that I needed and if I met someone who I could clearly see was a German I put my arms my side I waited for them to speak and I would respond in a factual accurate way you see this technique spawned my ability to start grow and successfully sell a business advisory company and I'm going to share one of the biggest secrets that has helped me in my life and has helped thousands thousands of entrepreneurs it's to be able to connect with somebody in real time and connect to them first by the body language are they an Egyptian are they German as you probably can guess even though I'm half Egyptian and half German I take more of the Egyptian temperament my husband Ilya he's very much a German his tone of voice is always calm no matter what's going on in our family I in 20 years I almost never remember him raising his voice that makes me feel very very safe and my daughter as well now my daughter Mila she's also very much a German like all high-performing German she's got a great work ethic she's also very good at details she's caught me many times leaving the house with two different color shoes on sweater inside-out with a label sticking out like she catches these minut details I never do also like typical Germans she's not very touchy-feely but over the years Mila has allowed me to give her big hugs because she knows it makes me so happy now unlike typical Germans however she's got a fantastic sense of humor I mean have you ever seen a German stand-up comedian but Milla's funny and that she gets from me now what about you are you more of an Egyptian or are you more of a German let's find out if you think you're more of a German can you raise your hand can you raise your hand okay now would you mind standing up that's right Germans I know it's so out of your comfort zone thank you stand up stand up German I asked the Germans to do it because I know it was more difficult for you now what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to look around at the people that are sitting like in looking around at the people that are sitting and now what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to take the hand of someone at a different table who's sitting I want you to look them in the eye and hopefully you'll be able to have a little chat with them at the break do that now reach across the aisle and take the hand of someone who's sitting Germans do that now excellent excellent thank you you can sit down now thank you thank you so we all want to be around people that are like us it's safe but real growth comes from people that are different so for example in our family I'm ethnically half German and half a Gyptian with an Egyptian temperament my husband Ilya is ethnically Russian with a German temperament how is it that we could have we have such differences but we have such a strong relationship Ilya and I believe powerfully in everything that matters to us let's take the raising of my daughter Mila I travel about once every couple of months and when I travel Ilya takes on the role that he knows that and has my daughter do all the things that he knows I would feel very strongly about we know that all is well at the well when we are with our family at Bible class and so when I'm not there my husband takes my daughter to Bible class and like he knows I would want to do he sits in Bible class my husband and I because we want to show our daughter that through our actions learning and growing and understanding the Word of God from the Bible never stops we agreed to raise our daughter Christian my husband is not just ethnically Russian with a German temperament he's also Jewish now I bet you're really wondering what our family holidays are like so we talked about connecting through body language I'm gonna share with you the most powerful word that you can connect to somebody that you really want to let them know you appreciate them and that question that word answers a question why and the word is because because when you put in the word because psychologically it makes five exclamation points on how much you appreciate that person what I really I want to thank you my dear millennium I want to thank you my dear atheist I want to thank you my dear liberal or conservative person that you must want to connect to because of your efforts it resulted in me in this way so connecting but these are all ways to make the first contact how do you sustain a relationship well there's only one way and that is by being authentic now you're probably saying to me well how can I be authentic when I when I'm having to connect with somebody that it's so different than me focus on your purpose and focus on commonality so for example here is a an informal picture of one of our company board meetings and you can see here is the CEO John Goldman brilliant visionary it's a privilege privilege to work with him his arms are up he's an Egyptian next to him by the way excuse me next to him in the plaid shirt if his brother who was very much a German you can see me my hands are up I'm the Egyptian and next to me are our other two board members Adriana and carry both Germans this is an example of a company that's thriving but how is it that our differences don't clash because we focus on a common purpose and our purpose is to actualize the highest potential of everyone we work with to help them thrive and we do that by launching their brand inside out and we do it by doing the right thing what we call be a mensch and that means sometimes we lose money if we're if we're doing the right thing by our client what is that one thing that is authentic to you that you could share to that one person that you must want to that you most need to connect with finally there's d4 disarmed so you can disarm through body language that's the first way you mirror the body language for a few minutes I'm gonna share with you the most powerful words you can use to disarm anybody you need to disarm but before I do that let me ask you this how many of you feel it's really important to be right at least 60% of the time can you raise your hand yeah I see a lot of Germans there now let me ask you this and please do not respond how many of you have ever gone through a divorce how many of you have ever had children that's made really bad choices now let me ask you this what did it matter that you were right if you couldn't connect to the person that you most want to connect to you see in our family my husband knows this really how I believe in God and Jesus Christ my Savior and the Holy Spirit and yet he is Jewish so with our daughter we teach her a commonality of the Ten Commandments what is it whether he thinks I'm right or I think he's right with our religion what does it matter if we connect and focus on the commonality that we both believe in powerfully from the old and new Testament the Ten Commandments now before I share these words with you I also want to say that you only say these words when you're in a position of power so somebody that works for you or a child or on an equal level in a healthy respectful relationship like a spouse and by the way you know you don't just say this when you're in position of power or in an equal position you say this typically when you know you're right I may be wrong I'm often wrong I want to get it right can we go over the facts and if they're Egyptian you say can we chat about this now if they're German you say can we make an appointment on Tuesday at 3 o'clock I may be wrong because the most important component that I learned from our trip back from Germany in Egypt was a sense of humbleness because what I realized when I went back to Dallas was that it wasn't because of my parents background that I couldn't connect to all these kids it wasn't because of their accents and it wasn't because I was ethnically German or Egyptian it was because of me my lack of humbleness my lack of interest in them my inability to listen to them to watch them to observe them now would you like to do what our family holidays are like so about 20 years ago we had our first holiday and we didn't know what to celebrate so we celebrated New Year's and the first thing my mother said to my mother-in-law did you like to see naked pictures of my daughter and she showed baby pictures of me and it broke the ice and since then we've been getting together every year for Hanukkah for German Christmas December 24th American Christmas December 24th 25th and Egyptian Christmas January 7th we get together not because we have to but because we want to it's not that we agree on a lot of things but we keep our authentic connection and in our family that's love and love of the children what is it with you what is it with you with that one person that you still want to that you still need to connect to that you can find authentically that that's strength sadly my mother passed away eight years ago and when I asked my father who had the most profound impact on him who helped him the most during his most difficult times my father said aside from my brother Amir and I there was one person far beyond anybody else and that one person was my Jewish mother-in-law Polina who has family in Israel just as sadly my father passed away three years ago I got the news while I was driving in my car with my daughter and I had to pull over in the driveway and when I heard the news this noise came out of my body that I couldn't even describe it was like an alien sound and my daughter who typically very German wants to know everything that's going on when things are not going to plan didn't say a word Mila just took off her seat belt took her hand and rubbed my arm don't be sad mom don't be blue I will always love you and that calmness gave me the ability in a very soft voice to call my husband to let him know the news that my dad had died and as soon as I told him he screamed the same guttural noise that came out of my body and I knew at that moment through the grace of God that these two most important people in my life had connected with me in a way that I had connected with people all my life so with our family with our diverse backgrounds can authentically connect I have no doubt that each and every one of you can walk out that door and connect to that one person you know you want to you need to connect to you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 232,909

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Business, Achievement, Body language, Communication, Community, Cooperation, Culture, Curiosity, Empathy, Intelligence, Middle East, Relationships, Society, Tolerance

Id: 4JNElVrSTjs

Length: 21min 50sec (1310 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 21 2016