Transcript

#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career w/ Todd Davis - Author & Senior Leadership Consultant

From Heather Monahan · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 39 min · 8,244 words · 46 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career w/ Todd Davis - Author & Senior Leadership Consultant", an episode of Heather Monahan published December 17, 2024 (39 min, about 8,244 words). It mentions 23 people, works and ideas, including The Seven Habits, Interpersonal skills, Empathic listening, Emotional Bank Account, Stephen R. Covey.

What this episode is about

In this discussion, Todd Davis, a senior leadership consultant and expert in the "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," explores the timeless principles of effectiveness that underpin successful careers. Drawing on his extensive experience in talent development and executive recruiting, Davis highlights how adopting these habits can significantly impact professional growth and organizational success.

Key takeaways

  • Like fine wine, 'Seven Habits' ages gracefully; even college grads geek out over a 35-year-old book.
  • Independence is adolescent; interdependence is adulting. Real growth happens when we collaborate, not just self-sustain.
  • Simple isn't easy—Habit One's 'be proactive' sounds like a bumper sticker, but it's a life-altering mindset.
  • Words wield power: choose proactively. Language shapes your brain's creativity, yielding better problem-solving strategies.
  • Dependent adults exist; consider it a leftover dependency from infancy. Strive for maturity and responsibility.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: The Seven Habits, Circle of Concern, Circle of Influence, Everyone Deserves a Great Manager
  2. – 10:00: Private Victory, Public Victory, The Seven Habits
  3. – 15:00: The Seven Habits
  4. – 20:00: Interpersonal skills, Backcasting, Mind Movies
  5. – 25:00: The Seven Habits, Empathic listening
  6. – 30:00: Empathic listening
  7. – 35:00: Emotional Bank Account
  8. – 39:16: FranklinCovey, The Speed of Trust

Notable quotes from "#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career w/ Todd Davis - Author & Senior Leadership Consultant"

  • Back with us this week okay I'm really excited for you to meet our guest today Todd Davis is a senior leadership consultant seven habits content expert and thought leader at…
    about Todd Davis · at
  • Years old what am I going to learn from that but to your question Heather it is it the seven habits are based on principles of Effectiveness Dr cvy Stephen rvy who made the…
    about The Seven Habits · at
  • Maturity level of interdependence so they're built around a framework we called the maturity Continuum and we start out in the world as dependent you know we have the mindset…
    about Maturity Continuum · at
  • Know the stimulus we separate stimulus from response we learn to work within our circle of influence versus our circle of concern and we learn to use proactive language the pro…
    about Circle of Influence · at
  • Dependence to becoming independent and they help us attain what we call the private Victory it's where we become trustworthy you know people who do those three things you think…
    about Private Victory · at
  • AI yeah well boy I would tell any of them now I don't think AI will ever replace the interpersonal skills that we're talking about you know and the emotional intelligence but I…
    about Interpersonal skills · at
  • Progress and growth and in the seven habits portion of the platform there is an AI tool to practice empathic listening and so you can set up a situation in this tool that we…
    about Empathic listening · at
  • Our relationships and there's a there's a really cool exercise we do in seven habits it's it's called the emotional bank account and thinking about our emotional bank account…
    about Emotional Bank Account · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

  • FranklinCovey — Company · 1 mention · first at
    To just our website which is simply our name www. Franklin cvy COV is inv victor.com franklincovey.com there's a search engine there they can look up anything and everything…

Products & tech

Concepts & topics

  • The Seven Habits — Concept · 8 mentions · first at
  • Interpersonal skills — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • Empathic listening — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • Emotional Bank Account — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • Maturity Continuum — Concept · 1 mention · first at
  • Circle of Influence — Concept · 1 mention · first at
  • Circle of Concern — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    From response we learn to work within our circle of influence versus our circle of concern and we learn to use proactive language the pro the the science that shows the words…
  • Private Victory — Concept · 1 mention · first at
  • Public Victory — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Something we can create together those three habits form what we call the public Victory because we're winning with others now we have this trust that we're building with…
  • Backcasting — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Through and inhabit to begin with the end in mind there's one of the activities we do is called backcasting this is super powerful backcasting is they partner up and they think…
  • Mind Movies — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Examples that you're that you're giving us you know what about have you ever heard of Mind movies before mind movies yes no tell me so it's interesting because what it's doing…
  • Human resources (HR) — Concept · 1 mention
  • SEE-DO-GET model — Concept · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

hi and welcome back I'm so glad you're back with us this week okay I'm really excited for you to meet our guest today Todd Davis is a senior leadership consultant seven habits content expert and thought leader at Franklin cubby with over 35 years of experience in Human Resources talent development and executive recruiting as the former Chief people officer and Executive Vice President Davis was responsible for the global talent development in over 40 offices reaching 160 countries additionally he authored and co-authored Wall Street Journal best-selling books including get better 15 proven practices to build effective relationships at work and everyone deserves a great manager Todd thank you so much for being here today well thanks for the invitation and maybe we could just read that over again that felt really good I love being introduced it's so funny everybody always loves the bio I always think so

funny it's like our highlight re Our Moment well you're you're very gracious thank you very much and thanks for inviting me well seven Habits of Highly Effective People is an iconic book can you give us obviously you are the master at all this why is it so powerful and and why is it so Timeless yeah thanks for asking so I as you mentioned I've been with Franklin cvy I've been I've been with them for 29 years now and uh and so I've had I've been exposed I read I first read seven habits about 31 years ago it was first published in 1989 so about 35 years old and you know if I'm if I were new listening about this and never heard of seven habits I might think okay well that's great but 35 years old what am I going to learn from that uh but to your question Heather it is it the seven habits are based on principles of Effectiveness Dr cvy uh Stephen rvy who made the point who wrote the book and made the point always that

he didn't invent the habits what he did was watch individuals like Heather and other people who were so effective in their roles and teams and organizations how effective they were and watched what do they do on a consistent basis to get not just get any results but get the results they're really seeking and then he put those into a those principles into a context that we could discuss them and talk about them and so all of that is to say because these are based on principles of Effectiveness they are as relevant today if not more so than they were when Dr cvy first wrote about them it's just amazing to me that they seem pretty simplistic um I'd love it if we could get into actually talking about um the seven principles and understand why it is is why each one is so powerful you bet H happy to do that one one other thing that you just brought to mind when we talked about the relevancy I was out

delivering a keynote last two weeks ago now and a Gentleman came up to me after he was probably in his mid-50s and he said Todd I got to tell you my son just graduated college in Portland and he called me two nights ago and said Dad I just read the most amazing book have you ever heard of The Seven Habits of Highly affected people and and this gentleman's name was Ross we both laughed but but in addition to laughing I just thought isn't it amazing how Timeless these are you know this recent college grad is reading he's going wow this is going to make a huge difference in my life so so let me get to your yeah to to give a quick overview we'll do the reader Digest condensed version for for those who are new to seven habits the seven habits the whole uh intent of the seven habits is to become even more effective uh than than we are right now and to become effective we want to reach this maturity level of interdependence so

they're built around a framework we called the maturity Continuum and we start out in the world uh as dependent you know we have the mindset of you're responsible for me tell me what to do it's not my fault that kind of mindset and and that's fine of course when you're a newborn you're dependent on everybody to take your parents or whomever to take care of you but you know have you ever worked with an adult who's dependent and tell me what to do and it's not my fault yeah and so the goal of course is to move from that stage to becoming independent and the first three of the seven habits are what move us from being independent to or excuse me from being dependent to Independent habit number one is to be proactive uh and and to your point these are these are very simple but says easy does hard is what I have found out so to be proactive is all based on the principle of choice we have a we there's

so much we can't change or even influence but we can choose our response to any situation and so in in habit one being proactive we learn how to be more uh thoughtful in our responses we don't just let a stimulus you know our response crash into this thing that you know the stimulus we separate stimulus from response we learn to work within our circle of influence versus our circle of concern and we learn to use proactive language the the pro the the the the science that shows the words we use shape the creativity or or open up the creativity in our brains so that we can come up with more effective Solutions so that's that's habit one now I could ramble on all day so I want to pause after habit one to see if you have any questions or if I'm if I'm talking too much so I I want one of the things I wasn't aware of was the structure or strategy and how they're actually laid out so there is an importance in this

one being the first yes foundational because I mean if if you and I give up our give up our freedom to choose what what our life's going to be like or you know what well then we we there's no need to even go into the other six habits so it's foundational this be proac say wait a minute I'm in charge of my life I'm not going to give up that uh choice to the outside circumstances or other people well if I'm in charge of my life that leads me to Habit two which is begin with the end in mind and this habit is based on the principle of purpose I like to think of it as habit one I've decided I'm the captain of my ship so habit two begin with the end in mind I got to chart my course I got to decide what is it that I'm going to do with this life of mine and then habit three is to put first things first and this is based on the principle of focus I'm the captain of my ship I chart my course well now I got a set sell I

got to I got to take action where the rubber meets the road and these three Habits Like I said move us from dependence to becoming independent and they help us attain what we call the private Victory it's where we become trustworthy you know people who do those three things you think about them in your life they you can count on them they do what they say they're going to do they're they're they're trustworthy people and that and that moves us up to Independence where we're now ready to start building trust with others and that leads us into the next three habits habit number four is to think win-win and this habit is based on the principle of abundance you know how do we all win together I I I want to find out what's a win for Heather and I want Heather to know what's a win for me well if we're really having this mindset or this attitude of win-win that leads us to Hab at five seek first to understand then to

be understood I want to make sure we have a win-win relationship so I'm going to take time to understand what's a win for you and then and then uh you you hopefully want to learn what's a win for me and habit five seek first to understand then to be understood is all based on the principle of respect you know I respect you enough it doesn't mean that I have to agree with you on everything or whatever but I respect you enough to really understand your point of view and once we've done that we've we have this mindset of win-win we've taken time to understand each other then we can easily move to Habit six which is synergize this is based on the principle of creative collaboration we may not always get to Synergy and we can talk about what Synergy is but synergize creative collaboration if we have a win-win mindset you and I and if we take time to understand each other we can leave our Eagles at the door now and

start to really brainstorm and come up with third Alternatives which is what we we say Synergy is an idea that's way better than your yours or mine but something we can create together those three habits form what we call the public Victory because we're winning with others now we have this trust that we're building with others and then surrounding if just picture a circle around those six habits is habit seven habit seven is sharpen the saw this is the Habit based on the principle of renewal it's it's I liken it to the to the um instructions were given when the planes taking off and the flight attendant says if cabin pressure drops you're to put your mask on First and I bet when I was a little kid and I first heard that I probably thought well no my mom told me to put everybody else's mask on them first but the principle in habit 7even is to sharpen your own saw put your mask on first not because you're

selfish but because by doing so you can do then so much more for for everybody else to be that much more effective so sharpening the saw is habit 7 and it it's really the gas in the engine for all the other habits how is that very helpful thank you for thank for exping so how does somebody develop a habit though it's one thing I feel like to be aware that these are the right habits and it does make sense but how do you actually rinse and repeat didn't do it such a great yeah such a great question so obviously reading the book this book has sold over 40 million copies it's just it blows my mind it's translated into I think 38 different languages now around the world 40 million copies and continues to sell thousands of of copies every month so so we can read it but to your point okay I can read this and say gosh this makes sense how do I become this in the work sessions and we we update the work

session the seven habits it's called The Seven Habits effect we update that about every 8 to 10 years we just launched our newest version seven habits 5.0 and and so that's why we appreciate you inviting us on the podcast and why I'm out traveling the globe to to do uh overviews of what we're talking about here but in the work sessions we dive deep it's two days worth of content that can be delivered uh concentrated over two days back to back spread out virtual on demand and in the work sessions we go in and study a particular habit and then with with each habit let me let me back up here the the most significant thing about learning any habit but particularly the seven habits is something we call the SEO get model it's our paradigms the way we see things influences everything we do and of course we know if what we do gives us the results we get but what is so powerful about developing any habit is

backing up and saying wait a minute am I seeing this situation this person this relationship accurately or am I seeing it how I'm I just convinced myself that it is for example if I'm a if I'm a micromanager I bet people are familiar with micromanagement if I'm a micromanager how do I see my people well I probably see him as incompetent so I got to do everything for them or I got to criticize hover over triple check and if that's what I do what kind of results do we get poor mediocre at best and then I see those poor results and what do I say to myself as the micromanager see they are idiots I got I got to micromanage even more it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy all driven by inaccurate or an incomplete Paradigm so to your question with each habit we start out with a paradigm habit one be proactive an ineffective paradig might be hey this is just the way things are there's not much I can do about it and

I've been there before I think we can drift into that but a Proactive or a highly effective Paradigm is I am free to choose and I'm the one responsible for my choices and if we take that Paradigm on then in in in habit one there are three specific practices that we dive deep into with activities and rinse and repeat as you say we we learn ways to separate stimulus from response we talk about what's the last time you were reactive and what did that feel like what would be some better ways to respond how do we learn to pause before we respond and it might be as simple as I count to 10 or I do box breathing or whatever or it might be something that I I look at my last week and I look at those times I was reactive and I write down because those things are going to repeat themselves again and I want to be prepared so so there activities like that that we do throughout the days and they are and I know I sound dramatic

here but I'm I'm I'm telling you from my experience they are life-changing they are powerful where all of a sudden I've got a long ways to go but I think about just in that one habit how much more proactive I am today than I was you know when I started with Franklin cvy 29 years ago so they are they are tried and tested and true my gosh I love that you brought up that idea of responding instead of reacting to people because so many people in today's world with the political climates and what not are triggered constantly and you see getting angry and getting upset and actually um when you were talking about the the workbook exercises that that you do to help people stop reacting I thought of my own I worked side by side with a woman who did not like me and would try you know tirelessly to trigger me and how could how could someone not like you Heather what are you talking about there there are a few people out

there okay so so she would intentionally try to trigger me and when I was younger I would play the game I would react and get upset and it was exhausting and not a good look for me right of course and I would end up being the one that looked like oh this lady's losing it what's wrong with her she's upset she's yelling she's you know it wasn't working for me and so for me the the way I ended up teaching myself to beat it uh was I would visualize that person whoever you're potentially going to react to puppeteering you like pulling strings on you and control oh that's a good visual yeah oh my gosh and it made me that made me so mad that I said no way am I letting anyone do that to me anymore so I would in the moment that you were talking about whether you box breathe or whatever that pause moment is for you I would see the puppeteering happen and immediately I would stop and detach from whatever that situation was I'm not

going to participate good that's a I love that example I'm going to borrow that if you don't mind I love that please put it in the course I'd love for you to do that you know another you just reminded me of one of the other activities that is so it sounds so simplistic it is so powerful we do this we have participants write a it's called an I may not be able to statement and so they have to write a statement I may not be able to and then they fill in the blank but I can and they fill in the blank so for example someone's in a company they really love but they're kind of burned out on their role they've done it for so many years and they just they want to say with the company but and the company's not going to change their role so I may not be able to change my role but I can explore other areas of the company where I might be interested in and looking and and people again it sounds so simple but

people have these real aha moments going wait a minute I I can make a choice here I I have more influence than than I think I do one lady though I got to tell you she wrote this table was laughing this this is about a month ago this table was laughing I went over I said okay what's so funny here and this woman said she hated her house by the way and she said I wrote I may not be able to convince my husband to move but I can make his life miserable for the rest of our marriage I said okay not quite what we were going for but I guess that is being proactive so are we looking for but okay fa fair enough yeah so so in each of the habits we have a series of activities and exercises and then they make commitments to themselves there's a there's of course a work and everything they go through and inhabit to begin with the end in mind there's one of the activities we do is called backcasting this is super powerful backcasting is

they they partner up and they think about an act a goal that they would like to achieve that might take anywhere from three months to a year uh one one person I was working with they have this goal of running a marathon and they were set on that and so they visualize and I'm sure your reader or your listeners are are familiar with visualization exercises but they visualized the day they accomplished that goal they they just crossed the finish line of the marathon or this one gentleman he was uh building an addition to their home and he had never been a general contractor before but he just finished the you know cutting the ribbon so to speak on their new addition and they visualized every detail and they partner up and they tell their partner they talk for you know 10 minutes each about what it feels like I just crossed the finish line and I'm getting all these cheers and people are handing me roses and I pick the middle

and it's it's just this defining our outcomes before we act beginning with the end in mind and picture and people come out of that and they go wow I can do this I know I can do this now I'm super excited to get started so anyway sorry I get passionate and I talk too much I love these real life examp examples that you're that you're giving us you know what about have you ever heard of Mind movies before mind movies yes no tell me so it's interesting because what it's doing is sort of taking what you just described um and this idea that you know uh we have this goal in mind and we've already achieved it um and feeling the feelings of actually having it happen but putting it into an actual movie that you create utilizing canva and adding music to it and the whole reason the why you add the music to it is to elicit this emotion that you know really get excited and believe something you know really

positive is happening in your life but it's exactly what you're saying and this is from Dr Joe despenza you know different teachings but so very very similar and it's so interesting to me when you look across life and these different authors and and different leaders and different teachers but so much similarity in what actually works for people yeah I love that example I'm going to borrow that from you too because to your point music it for most people it's such a it's such an inspirational element you know to to when you're when you're Vis in a visualization exercise so that's yeah that's very cool same same same idea for sure yeah and definitely works I've heard some great success stories on that all right so what are some helpful habits for embracing and navigating the new world of AI because I'm sure you hear as often as I do people are just shut down about it they they don't want to embrace it much less try it much less

do anything how can we help those people to be open to AI yeah well boy um I would I would tell any of them now I don't think AI will ever replace the interpersonal skills that we're talking about you know and the and the emotional intelligence but I can't tell you how many times I've had to uh you know we we'll get a custom assignment from a client and they I I was just teaching a course on leading generations and while I've done a fair amount of work in leading different Generations I'll use chat GPT and say hey here's here's the elements I want to add and here's what I want to talk about and boom it'll pop out a pretty a pretty sophisticated uh skeleton or framework that of course needs your element now your personal touch but um I'm not quite I I usually get the question how how do we make sure that AI doesn't you know there is there still a need for seven habits because of AI so I usually get

the opposite we did a we just did a participated in and read the reviews of a study of 290 uh business practitioners that use AI on a regular basis and we they were asked in this survey what are the most important skills even with all that AI can do for us what are the most important skills that are needed to grow your business and the top three were Integrity creativity and interpersonal skills or human skills things that AI can't really do and so that that and that makes sense to me I mean we all we we you know I don't know that um AI will ever be able to listen to you or me empathically and reflect back to us what we're really feeling but boy I I would embrace it I mean I'm I'm I I apologize that I'm not the expert on on telling you all the ins and outs of AI but I just know from a practical standpoint how much it's helped me to get my creative thinking going by you know asking a question or saying Help Me

develop uh a framework for such and such and then and then it's a great starting point for me to to take off from what will be some of the tactics to develop a new habit like just going to chat GPT first like how could advise us on like how to start just practicing something like that more yeah well in our in our uh seven habits we have a we have a a without I'm trying to think of a short way to explain this we have a learning platform at Franklin cvu that all of our all of our content not just seven habits but all of our uh work Solutions are on and we have a platform for that so that it measures in in companies and organizations it measures the Learners uh progress and growth and in the seven habits portion of the platform there is an AI tool to practice empathic listening and so you can you can set up a situation in this in this uh tool that we have through AI on the platform and you can put together a scenario okay

this person I'll go back to the friend that didn't like you or the person that didn't like you okay I work with someone and and for whatever reason we are not uh we are not sinking and everything I say she criticizes or he criticizes and so you can feed that information to it and say I'd like to have a conversation um how would you begin the conversation and a I will say to you I would start by saying Joe I'm I'm really hoping that we can get to a great working uh uh relationship and I want you to know my only intent in bringing this up is to see if we can figure out how to improve our communication skills I'm open to you know it'll tell you things to say you're going oh wow that's a really and you're writing down notes I'm going to that I'm going to say that so so I mean that's just one example of AI out in the world but but how we use it on the platform to practice seek first to understand then to be

understood um it's so interesting to me that this seven habits has been around for so long yet you're incorporating and integrating the newest technology into it and putting it to work for the users thanks for calling that out Heather because that is why while this was written 30 you know 35 years ago it's based on principles that principles are is true gravity was true forever and will be true forever these are principles so they don't they they don't age out now their applications age out the way we use them we have to change all the time and so to your to your well well stated point they the way we use those now in this world of technology and and uh all of the you know being being proactive putting first things first habit three boy putting first things first has always been difficult but now when we have so much information coming at us you know know in every minute I mean think about that I can't

imagine your email piling up right now while you're taking this time with me and so how do we learn to prioritize and determine what are the most important things I can't do it all nobody can do it all so how do Effective People decide what am I going to accomplish this day this week and what am I going to be okay with not getting to in this age of Technology that's one of the most important questions I think we can figure out for ourselves oh it's so true all right so to go to the opposite of AI to your point how do you recognize the key human skills emotional intelligence collaboration trust and resilience and how do you improve those yeah well I I in in the course in the in the seven habits course in the work session we go into Workshop activities where people use very real situations and and you know they have to pick a situation they're comfortable sharing with somebody and then people have reps at

that they cannot ask questions now of course in a normal conversation you'd ask questions but for this activity they cannot ask they they excuse me they can only ask questions they cannot comment or advise or probe they just have to say well gosh so how did that make you feel and of course it feels scripted and it feels a little bit uncomfortable but it gets people understanding that they how much they didn't even realize they kind of respond autobiographically you know it's human nature to listen with the intent to reply Al Bet everybody that's listening right now if they're being truthful would say yeah there are many times when I'm face to face with someone they're talking and I'm not talking and I'm looking at them and I'm nodding my head but in my mind I'm already formulating my response we all do it and I think it comes I believe it comes from a good place it's not helpful but it comes from a place that we want to we

want to help we want to solve we want to fix and so I hear just enough of what you're saying to think oh I know how to solve this as soon as she stops talking I'm gonna jump in and and while that sounds helpful because my brain is focused on what I'm going to say I'm missing out on half or three4 of what you're saying and so habit five based on the principle of respect we're saying suspend those feelings don't give up don't throw them away but suspend your thoughts your your your U response long enough to really hear the other person to the point where when they finished you say gosh help me understand more about that or when you said frustrated tell me what about that and I'll tell you when you start to listen with empathy to someone they are shocked but shocked in a good way because so few of us do it and so you know you have that person those people and when we do it when I was the chief people officer for

18 years this is very true I I can't tell you how many times I'd be in my office with two leaders that didn't get along or or even just one-on-one with someone that were trying to work out a problem and if we were there for an hour I would talk maybe I'll bet 8 to 10 minutes of that hour they talked the rest of the time and so we'd finish this this session and I would almost start laughing because they would say God this was so helpful thank you so much I can't believe you are just so wise and I'm thinking well I didn't say much of anything I just listened but that is the power of really listening with empathy not trying to to be the not trying to have all the answers but helping others really be reflective of what they're feeling and what they're thinking I mean I loved your example of the the interaction you had with his person who you realized and hopefully it was unintentional on her part but where she

was just kind of manipulating the whole conversation with this puppet and a good listener can help somebody come to that realization saying so why why help me understand why you respond like that well because she says this thing and it triggers me okay but she's but do you have to be do you have to be triggered is that something you could you know so and I'm not trying to get into therapy here I'm just saying empathic listening we care about these relationships at work and our personal lives we will truly seek first to understand can you give us an example of some of the people that you've worked with that that you've seen a break when doing these exercises oh absolutely absolutely so so gosh too many to call from but someone will say uh this is I I will change the names to protect the innocent but someone was was frustrated that they weren't getting any recognition for the work they were doing

and they were on this project team and and they said you know and I'll just use Joe as the leader Joe Joe never calls me out I helped put together that whole uh third hour of this work session or I helped put together that spreadsheet and when when the executive team was congratulating Joe never said well I want you to know that you know Sam did a lot of this too and she was great at this and I say okay do you think do you think Joe did in this particular example I said so do you think Joe was wanting to make them think that he did it all she and and this person Joe said no I don't think that I said is Joe you are obviously a very thoughtful person do you think do you think Joe um is even aware that he's doing that I don't know I said have you ever had a conversation with Joe have you just told him not in an angry way but just say Hey Joe I maybe I'm being too sensitive but I kind of felt like when

we met no I've never said that would you be willing to say I mean I don't want you to feel you know uncomfortable but is that something you'd feel comfortable doing and this person would say to me well how would you say that and i' tell them so that's just an example just just helping people come to their own uh uh realizing that you know there aren't there aren't tons of bad people in the world well I don't know maybe there are but but I think most people have good intent they just not may not be as self-aware as they'd like to be so I will get out a t-chart all the time and I'll say okay so in listening to you here's what I understand is important to you what do you think is important to Fred and so many people mature you know educated people would say well I don't know I'm not Fred I know that but if you were in Fred's role what do you think would be important Fred well he'd want to make sure that the projects done on

time okay let's put that down what else well we probably want to make sure that that we do this with excellent and it's so interesting to coach people and get them in the in the mindset of thinking about the other person you know putting themsel in the place of the other person so those those are just I'm probably getting off topic here but those are some very real outcomes of taking time to understand each other it's so powerful I um was an assistant teacher at Harvard for a sales and leadership course and the professor was teaching exactly what you're talking about right now I'm sure charging a lot more because they throw the name Harvard on it but but I'll tell you it was exactly what we were discussing and it really was about sales which I mean to me everybody's in sales anyways but it's absolutely the the most successful salespeople speak the less and we looked at all the data points and they've studied this at

length and you would see to your point of like speaking eight minutes and letting that other person you know speak 52 suddenly they feel heard suddenly they feel you're the smartest person or suddenly you closed the deal and it was just so interesting to me it all went back to this idea if we would just listen and ask more open ending questions people it Neuroscience shows people feel like dopamine hits from actually getting the opportunity to say what's on their mind I I couldn't agree more Heather and and you just caused me to think of I remember somebody a senior leader when I was coaching this person on this they said well my concern is if I just ask a couple of questions let them talk whole time while they're talking I don't agree with them Todd and so if I keep letting them talk and I said that's the part you got to be comfortable with they're not thinking you agree with them you're just creating

this safety this space for them to express their opinion and even if but but but really listen don't be thinking the whole time I don't agree with you be really hearing them out ask some clarifying questions but when they're done I promise you they're not so I bring that up because I know a lot of people think well if I don't talk they're going to think I'm agreeing with them they're not they're just appre that you're hearing them out and if you've truly heard them out and you say okay so you see it this way gosh I really respect that my take on it is this but I but I heard you and and here's and I understand why you're seeing that way I want to think about this but even in the end if you end up going with you know against what the fact that that you heard them out you're going to have so much more buyin and so much more of an Engaged employee by doing that that's been my experience oh so so true so

powerful and yet so incredibly simple but most people just aren't doing it and the world definitely needs more today okay so to that topic how does trust continue to be the most valuable currency at work and how do you build it and maintain it yeah that's I I love that because the real the whole thing about building effective relationships I mean you think about the most meaningful impactful uh effective relationships in your life I think about their mind trust is kind of the foundation of those things you know and trust doesn't mean we see everything alike trust doesn't mean that you always agree with me trust means that I I hear you I respect you I respect your opinion I um I don't I don't sugarcoat things I talk directly or talk straight with you but I but I balance courage and consideration and so I I think the greatest relationships both in professional life and personal life have this near-perfect balance of

courage and consideration I can say anything to you as long as I say it with respect true respect and I also uh can can can listen and ask you questions and have this considerate uh consideration uh as long as I'm doing it respectfully so balancing courage and consideration I think is the key to building trust in in our relationships and there's a there's a really cool exercise we do in seven habits it's it's called the emotional bank account and thinking about our emotional bank account with others much like a financial bank account in our emotional bank account we make deposits and we take withdrawals but unlike a financial bank account we should never be making deposits in the emotional bank account of others with the intent of taking a withdrawal I had this experience I wrote about in one of the books you cited where this long lost friend I hadn't talked to him for I can't remember how many years and he

called out of the blue it was so awesome we had been such great friends and he was talking for like 45 minutes so we're just connecting we got to go to lunch yeah and towards the very end of the conversation he said hey oh bye by the way do you guys still get discount tickets to that ski thing that and it was so funny Heather because I thought you just wasted 45 not wasted but you took 45 minutes it would have I would have been okay if You' called and said hey Todd I feel so bad we haven't connected for years and I'd love to do that I wanted to find out if you still get discount tickets and I also want to set up lunch but instead we did this dance so that would be an example of making a not a very sincere deposit emotional account with the intent of taking a withdrawal in the course do this activity it's really powerful you think about an important relationship in your life professional or personal and

then you go through on this document and you you document the last five interactions you had with that person whatever it was the last five interactions you got to really think about it and then you've got to think about how I'm looking to see if I have my book here how you think that person felt well for mine I picked my spouse um many people pick professional relationships I picked my spouse because I had been traveling a lot I had been gone a lot and the last five interactions were like quick phone call Quick goodbye quit you know and how did she feel dismissed rushed whatever and boy you look at that then we ask the question this important relationship what if we were to multiply those last five interactions say 50 times or 500 times what would be the impact on that relationship and so we we talk all about this with you know the level of trust you have in a relationship and kind of putting the breakes on things and saying

I'm going to be a little bit more thoughtful about the interactions I have with the most important people in my life so so trust uh trust is really I think the key to every one of the habits that we're talking about here oh like you said it's the foundation of everything and boy that's scary when you play that game to actually think about what your relationship would look like if that went on for years exactly exactly we follow up by that I don't want to be giving the whole course here I mean I know we don't have time for that but we follow that activity by in the class we say okay we're going to take 10 five or 10 minutes right now I want you to make a deposit in the emotional bank account of someone to you it could be the person you just did the last five interactions and so people take time with their smartphones and they'll send a text or an email to someone and this happens every time somebody will somebody in the

class will say okay I just got a text back from my partner and he said has someone stolen your phone or who is this so oh my gosh that's terrible it's terrible and it's kind of humorous as well but it's it's a it's a wakeup call for a lot of us whether it's a colleag at work whether it's someone in our personal lives to just make sure we're being a little more meaningful with those most important relationships in our life I love that all right tell us a little bit about the course because I know we've been talking a lot about the book and I'm sure for people listening they're not really clear on exactly what the course is yeah so so the book is the book is the book uh seven halfens of Highly Effective People bestselling one of the bestselling if not the bestselling Business book of all time 40 million copies sold the course is two days worth of content so it's taking each of the habits we first we start

with some foundational principles uh which we talked about paradigms and we dive deep into our paradigms and how they shape everything we do and then we go into the habits and we take hours a couple of hours on each habit with understanding The Habit how to apply it in our current situations at work and and at home and it's it's taught over two days it's taught concentrated you know like I said it can be two full days back toback live and in person can be two full days virtually online like we're talking right now we'll have a whole class of you know 20 I just finished a class with 34 people for two days it can be do spread out sometimes people take a habit a week we get together every week uh there's an on demand version so there are modules where I can just do it self-paced uh all all Every Which Way and so who is this course made for like for anybody listening right now how do they know

that this is the right thing so organizations we we work primarily with organizations of really any size I'm thinking of organizations I've worked with we have we have about 70 Consultants that do what I do we also have uh a a certification program where we will we will certify your own trainers people in your company employees of yours that can then continue to roll this out a lot of people make it part of their orientation program because seven habits is really can be a great framework for the culture of any organization so people will usually choose to say Okay I want to have this team go through seven habits and we'll pilot it here and then we might might roll it out um you know to other teams within the organization so there's a lot of different ways that people decide to deploy this based on what they're trying to accomplish you know an organization may have a lot of turnover going on and people are

understanding really the the value that they contribute to the organization 7even Habs is used a lot for that because we understand our personal worth and and what we're doing for the organization so it's all about individual Effectiveness um we have a we have a role called a client partner we people in the organization that can work with your organization to determine you know what what is the best solution for what you're trying to achieve it most you know seven habits is a great starting place but it might be the Speed Of Trust which is another work session five choices to extraordinary productivity the four disciplines of execution we're big on numbers here so we have a lot of lot of numbers in our titles people go to learn more or if they want to actually um take the course yeah thank you for asking if they'll go to just our website which is simply our name www. Franklin cvy COV is inv

victor.com franklincovey.com uh there's a search engine there they can they can look up anything and everything and they'll they'll there's a whole um um all access pass care team that will respond to them and make sure that they get routed to the right people to to find out what they want to accomplish well Todd thank you so much for your time today thank you for all the work you're doing to help people be the best version of themselves and thank you for taking this incredible work and making it so relevant today we app appreciate you thank you for inviting me and thanks for those great ideas you shared that I'm going to start cop using now if they're not copyrighted right make sure you give your your girl heatherm Hanah shout out when you I will do that all right guys until next week keep creating your confidence you know I will be we'll see you then

Questions about this episode

What is "#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career w/ Todd Davis - Author & Senior Leadership Consultant" about?

In this discussion, Todd Davis, a senior leadership consultant and expert in the "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," explores the timeless principles of effectiveness that underpin successful careers. Drawing on his extensive experience in talent development and executive recruiting, Davis highlights how adopting these habits can significantly impact professional growth and organizational…

What is mentioned in this Heather Monahan episode?

23 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including The Seven Habits, Interpersonal skills, Empathic listening, Emotional Bank Account, Stephen R. Covey, Todd Davis. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "#485: Habits That MAKE or BREAK Your Career w/ Todd Davis - Author & Senior Leadership Consultant"?

The episode runs 39 min; the transcript is about 8,244 words in 46 timestamped sections.

More from Heather Monahan

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.