TLDR;
Hello there!
I’m Michael Hunter, founder of Uncommon Teams, and I’m so glad you found this episode of the Uncommon Leadership Podcast.
I started this series because I constantly meet leaders battling burnout and searching for deeper impact.
While I may not have all the answers you’re looking for, I truly believe that professional and personal success hinges on aligning personal fulfillment with business objectives.
And today, my extraordinary guest, Stephen Snyder, reveals how he found his compass.
Stephen, a seasoned insurance and employee benefits expert, shares how a quirky DISC assessment helped him uncover his unique personality.
This self-discovery fundamentally reshaped his approach to every interaction—especially the tough ones.
You’ll also hear Stephen’s powerful realization about navigating uncomfortable situations, like networking events, where he discovered that authentic connection isn’t about rigid tactics or hard sells, but about embracing shared vulnerability and genuine curiosity.
Our conversation then deepens into why Stephen’s profound empathy isn’t just a personal trait, but an indispensable asset in leadership.
Join us, and you just might find the key to unlocking your true self for greater happiness in work and life.
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Learnings in a Nutshell:
- Understand your own personality and triggers to lead yourself and others more effectively.
- Realize most people feel awkward in new situations; this shared vulnerability builds confidence and connection.
- Empathy is your superpower.Seeing people as individuals, not just roles, builds trust, solves problems, and creates psychological safety.
- Communication and relationships are two-sided. When we invest in people authentically, the ripple effects extend far beyond our direct interactions.
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Want to get in touch with the speakers?
AboutStephen Snyder:
Stephen Snyder is an insurance and employee benefits expert with over 16 years of experience, passionate about helping people navigate complex systems and build genuine connections. He champions a people-first approach, using his insights to foster empathetic leadership and empower thriving teams.
Get in touch with him: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephensnyder1/
About Michael Hunter:
Michael Hunter, founder of Uncommon Teams, empowers leaders to cultivate harmony, unlock team potential, and help people “debug themselves.” He guides clients to integrate mind, heart, body, and spirit, fostering safe environments where individuals and teams achieve uncommon impact. You can connect with Michael Hunter by clicking on this link:
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Watch the Uncommon Leadership Podcast:
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Presented By: Uncommon Change
Transcript:
Michael Hunter
Whether you want more innovation, more easily, you’re feeling burnt out or overwhelmed, or you simply know that something isn’t quite the way you know it can be. You are not alone. I hear the same from leaders every day. On Uncommon Leadership, we explore aligning personal fulfillment with business success, creating authentic teams, and cultivating the resilience, adaptability, and ease necessary to move beyond simply surviving today’s challenges into thriving.
I am Michael Hunter, and today we will uncover fresh insights into what it means to lead in today’s world. Joining me today is Stephen Snyder. Stephen lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He’s a husband, father of two girls, and in his words, a washed-up former college baseball player.
He’s been working within the insurance and employee benefits arena for 16-plus years. Taking everything he’s learned about the healthcare system and helping all the rest of us better understand and navigate it for ourselves and the people we care about. That’s family, friends, and especially employees.
Welcome Stephen.
Stephen Snyder
Thanks Michael. Thanks for having me on.
Michael
I am excited for this conversation today.
Stephen
Yeah, likewise. I appreciate you reaching out, and I’m excited to see where this conversation leads.
Michael
I pulled you out from what I saw in your LinkedIn and in your profile, and then the premade conversation that we had, had me even more excited.
I love finding leaders who bring humanity into business, and especially aspects like healthcare, which so often are so frustrating to those of us who have to use it and don’t have much choice about how it happens to us.
When did you first recognize that integrating your whole selves, bringing that into everything that you do, might be a valuable approach?
Stephen
That’s a good question. For me, I’d say it was probably around 10 years ago, and obviously I don’t have the exact date and time of when that took place, but I remember, in a previous role in a leadership position that we had, we started doing these DISC assessments.
Prior to that, I had never done one. You kind of know your personality a little bit, but this particular one, it broke down obviously where you were, and then they had a little fun with it too, and told you what kind of bird you were. Like an eagle. Was it the dominant or D personality? I was, what was the “I”? A parrot.
An “S” was a dove, and a “C” was an owl. And obviously they had a little fun with it, ’cause obviously the founder of this company was himself, he would call himself a high ‘I’ very high parrot. So he had to have fun with everything that he did. But anyways, so it really got into understanding like how we, how I thought.
Normally, how others viewed me, and how I viewed myself under stress and under normal situations. And I started to recognize it, and I’m reading it, I’m going, wow, that’s spot on. So it helped me to recognize triggers amongst myself. And then of course, being a, I was a high S and a high C just for the listeners to know.
The high C in me became the classical overthinker, and I was like, and started overthinking everything about it. But as I got into it, I recognized, I started to recognize cues and triggers about myself, and going, okay, well, how do I bring this authentically to myself every single day? The first was by starting with the classic overthinking, and then before the actual application of it.
But it allowed me to really understand myself, how I thought? How I, and what were the triggers that led me to that way. I continue to figure out how I can be better at everything that I do and improve, and then also bring that to others would that I was leading at the time as well.
Michael
And for audience who don’t know, disc in the DISC are one of the cluster of personality assessments that businesses use.
Stephen
There are a million of those out there.
Michael
Was your company using DISC be for a particular reason, or this was something that they happened to use at this point? And then,
Stephen
I actually don’t know the answer to that. I just know that where I was. I was living in Kentucky at the time, and the company was segmented in each of their own individual markets, and the Kentucky market had implemented it.
I think it had been rolled out company-wide. But it was just one that we were on the forefront of doing such an in-depth analysis with it from the from one of the actual founders coming in and leading a an all day workshop. Within it that was preceded by us answering a, I can’t remember how many questions.
It seemed like it was probably a thousand questions. I’m sure it was only 20, 25 questions, of answering like this most describes you, this least describes you, you know, all of those things that whenever you do kind of any kind of personality assessment, they’re trying to figure out what or where it is.
But I just thought that it was interesting ’cause I think it was, they’re rolling it out to a leadership team first. And I think it was more for, us as a leadership team to be able to, you know, one, know ourselves. So we can best lead, but two, be able to know our own people, so we can pull the best out of them also while still being able to drive more sales at the same time.
You know, so I think it was us trying to look into buying cues and things like that, but what I got most out of it was, you know, knowing myself, but then also knowing those that, that were under my leadership. Leadership and then the sales was later because obviously those things mattered, but it was about how do we get the best out of the, out of ourselves and out of our teams.
Michael
In however much detail you’re comfortable relating, what are some of the triggers that this assessment helped you understand about yourself and what changes did that drive in the way you approached your work and the people you worked with?
Stephen
So I think sometimes allowed for a couple things and that I don’t always love confrontation, but so sometimes when it comes up with, something that may be confrontational, I may need to, and I know that it may be confrontational, like knowing I need to have that difficult conversation going ahead and bringing out that difficult part of the conversation upfront so that way I can go and get it out of the way.
Because otherwise I’m gonna overthink it. I’m gonna put it off for hours, maybe even a day, and then at the end of it, that conversation lasted what, maybe five minutes? And it was never as bad as I thought it was gonna be, or even just in situations where maybe you’re trying something new, you do overthink it, something like that.
You overthink it or you put yourself in a stressor situation where I become, this was, what was I thought was interesting as well, is that I was a high S and a high C, but underneath, like when it came into a stress my high C, I became a high D at the same time, I would argue with myself about why I just needed to go, like most high Ds do just, hey, get straight to it. But the C would be telling me, well, no, you need more information. So I think that was one of the things that recognized too, one of those under stress, I became kind of argumentative with myself. But then recognizing too, same thing, the pulling out of the aspects of how I work best and then, you know, putting in processes to allow me to fall back on instead of just always trying to wing it at the same time.
Michael
How have you found that, where you self-assessed, back then has evolved over time? If you look at yourself, if you were to take the assessment again now, how close to what your results were there, do you feel you would be now?
Stephen
That’s interesting. The one that was the lowest for me was the ‘I’, and you know, being the interactive, essentially being the extrovert.
I’ve always found myself being on that introverted, extroverted line, but I think it was because when I was around people that I was comfortable with, the extroverted side maybe showed up a little bit more. So if I was around, say, 10 people that I knew very well and then a 11th person came into the equation, that 11th person would never know that I was an introvert.
So I think that is probably the, if I were to do it again, I think maybe the, ‘I’ would show up more. And I noticed this more when I go to events such as like networking or things like that to where you really do have to put yourself out there a little bit, that I’m finding myself much more initiating conversations versus going over to say, Hey, I see Michael, let’s go talk to him.
I see him three times a week, but let’s talk to him at a networking event when I need to go meet new people. So, I may, Michael may be my initial point, but I’ll say, Hey, well Michael, good to catch up with you and go find myself or bring people into the conversation, Hey, have you met Michael? Or Michael, have you met so and so? And really finding myself to being in a situation. But I think my extroverted side maybe came out a little bit more, and, showing off a little bit more, you know, quote unquote, like better way of saying that kind of personality, from that standpoint. So not feeling uncomfortable going to an event.
I may sit in the car for a moment before I get in, just kind of compose myself. But, I’m still going in and feeling much more comfortable in those scenarios. I think it’s more like those social settings. To where I was never socially awkward, but it was a, I just didn’t necessarily want to, maybe didn’t always want to be in a social setting because being a much more naturally introverted person, it was, you know, that wasn’t the most comfortable place for me to be.
So social settings I think are probably where that’s probably changed more, and I found myself being much more comfortable in those scenarios.
Michael
What has helped you gain that comfortableness?
Stephen
I think it was more or less just the doing it over and over again. You know, I moved to the, this kind of back to for individuals listening. You know, I moved to Dallas-Fort Worth in, you know, November of 2020 and basically knew nobody here. So I was having to rebuild a whole new network of people, business, you name it.
I had to go find something new. So having continually going to those networking events or other social settings, I think constantly put me in those, in that uncomfortable. So I think it was more or less just embracing the fact that, hey, look, if I’m gonna get anything, I’m gonna improve or, find anything different, I’m gonna have to just get uncomfortable with these scenarios and just gotten a little bit more comfortable being uncomfortable.
So I think it’s, but it’s also allowed my natural, what I feel is my natural personality to come out. It’s just more on the forefront than on the, I guess on the back burner.
Michael
What helped you get through that uncomfortableness long enough that you could start being comfortable both with the uncomfortableness and with, it sounds like you were seeding more into where you naturally are versus where you had been for whatever reason?
Stephen
I think it was, as I gained more interactions with people and going to these different kinds of events or whatever it may be, that I noticed that everyone else kind of felt the same. So it allowed me to feel comfortable knowing that everybody else felt wrong, uncomfortable also as maybe, hopefully it doesn’t sound sick, but, that other people felt that way also.
But that was kind of the case, is that I saw that was the, that was it, and I recognized that I wasn’t the only person, but also just saw interactions that others were having as well is that, we all felt uncomfortable, but at the same time though, everyone was just doing it anyways and we all kinda had the expectation, Hey, we’re, I’m here to meet somebody.
Whether it be, you know, just a business acquaintance, a new person, whatever it was, I think that just, I think that gave me a little bit comfort as well, is that we’re all there trying to accomplish the same thing. We weren’t selling anything. Nobody was there selling anything, ’cause I think, you know, that’s where networking kinda gets a bad rap is that you’re there, you’re networking and you’re trying to sell something or someone’s trying to sell you something.
I thought that wasn’t the case. Everyone was just there just trying to meet somebody new and it was just trying to draw a conversation and then reality, hey, we’re just, meeting new people and introducing yourself to a couple new people that night. And not looking at it as, okay, I’m walking into a room, say 300 people, and then I have to figure out how to navigate 300 people.
It was just figuring out, okay, I just need to navigate meeting a couple people, initially. Introducing myself, getting it outta the way, maybe seeing you at the bar or we walked in together and saying, Hey, I’m Stephen. What’s your name? And then, letting the conversation go from there.
Michael
So that insight that everyone else was just as uncomfortable as you were, sounds like it was really key to letting yourself engage with the situation and with your emotions about being there. What helps you recognize that’s what was going on with everybody, that they were right there with you?
Stephen
That’s a good question. I think it might’ve been more just as I became most comfortable or a little bit more comfortable, I started noticing people doing some of the trends that I would do.
Maybe kind of going in standing next to the bar or standing off into the side and recognizing that there were, you’d find those in multiple corners of the room, that there were some people doing that, or, you know, checking their phone or Hey, I just, I just got a text message. You probably didn’t, but, because I did, I wasn’t getting them, but I just had to check the phone because it had to make me look like that you were doing something.
So there wasn’t, you weren’t standing out. But in reality, that person, we kinda were standing out sense of, I can tell this person may or may not feel comfortable being here. So I think it just allowed. So from that standpoint, I think it has allowed me to do that. But also from an overall perspective, it allowed me to recognize that in people and just being, you know, kind of being a people person in general, even though the DISC assessment wouldn’t have necessarily said that, or people may not recognize that initially allowed me to kind of pull out those, pull out those conversations also.
Michael
I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that your ability to empathize with the others at these networking events is a big reason you are so successful at helping people navigate healthcare systems. That there you also can, that you are also putting yourself into their shoes and hearing that with all of your knowledge of ways that the system can help them. And putting these two together to bring them along that journey in a way that feels safe for them from the start.
Stephen
I think that’s a fair assessment that, and so, not necessarily a wild guess, as he said, that being empathetic and being able to actually put yourself into someone else’s shoes and, understand it and be able to sit on the same side of the table and see it through the same lens that somebody else has and see their frustrations, whether it be from the healthcare system or through events and seeing it, ’cause we’ve all, you know, dealing with it. Maybe or hearing it often enough, you kind of start to see it and empathize and understand why people may have certain perspectives that they do. From the networking one, it was, you know, because I was dealing with it myself. And then from the healthcare side of things, it was from having many conversations with people that they just didn’t understand it.
So it was something that they just avoided altogether. So, and really kind of boiled back to just a little bit of, just education and having a conversation with somebody about it, because I think sometimes we can all be fearful that, you know, our lack of knowledge, on a particular topic makes us smaller or beneath somebody else.
When in reality it should open up a conversation to be able to say, tell me what you know about X topic and then that person showing, being able to showcase their expertise and putting, essentially putting the spotlight on them. You know, not to sound egotistical, but that’s where, how allowed me and on the healthcare side of things, to be able to try to spotlight on being able to sympathize and empathize and communicate and educate at the same time.
Michael
Is your aptitude with empathy, to really get into the frame of reference for the person or people you’re speaking with, is that an important aspect of how you build cultures where your people and the people you’re working with feel safe and empowered to bring their unique talents into everything that they do?
Stephen
Absolutely. You know, we have to in the business world or, whatever it is, we have to think of everybody as people, because that’s what they are. They’re people. I think oftentimes we look at things as being, especially in the business world, we looked at things as being kind of a cog or just a barrier.
But in reality, we’re all people. There was recently a, it’s been six months or so go for those that are TikTok followers. It was a TikTok trend of people talking about this is who they think they’re emailing. Then there’s this, but then it slashes into a new video and it shows like, this is what you’re, this is the person you’re actually emailing.
And it was, while funny as a trend is start, you think about it a little bit too going, yeah, everyone kind of has these, same challenges and issues. But here’s who they are really on a personal level. And I think that’s who we have to kind of bring that out is we have to get to know people on a personal level and actually try to build a relationship with them, because that’s what’s important.
You know, it’s the whole getting to know, you know, the whole sales aspect of things. You know, people know, buy from people that know, like, and they trust. But then it’s also the, people don’t know how much you, know until much you, until you show how much you care. So it kind of goes into both aspects of things.
It goes back to getting to know people as people and, really understanding them and their story, because that’s important to them. And I wanna know about it.
Michael
Yes, it’s transforming the person you’re talking with from an abstract person to a very specific, unique, particular instantiation of all the factors that you’re recognizing or identifying with in the person. It’s not just that they’re a person, it’s not that they are a Irish American engineer who plays hockey at night and has a daughter who’s into thrash metal. It’s that you’re talking with Malakai Johnson, whose daughter is Samantha, and they have a cat, Tabitha and all of those details I’ve highlighted engaging all of those unique aspects that make Steve as Stephen, Michael, Michael, Malakai, Malakai.
Stephen
Yeah, absolutely. And getting to know them and, you know, helping to know what makes them tick as well.
We all have some challenges. We all have different stressors, and we all have different ways on how we deal with some of those, at the same time. So I think that’s, you know, knowing each of those allows us to be able to, you know, kind of let people to be authentic and, be able to work through problems or challenges better because we understand people as people and so we can try to help navigate that at the same time.
Michael
In a business context where, on top of getting to know the person, we also are, need their help with a problem. We are trying to explain, we want to get to a point where we can explain how the challenges they’re facing, we might be able to help with. We want to do the thing that we do that helps us help them to help our company make business.
How do you balance those two aspects and how do you know at each point in time what that right balance is?
Stephen
Yeah. That is a challenge and sometimes, as in leadership role, sometimes we can be, always wanting to solve the problem for somebody. So I think sometimes it helps us to get in their frame of reference as well by, just by asking, well, hey Michael, what is it that you’ve, what is that you’ve tried and what was the result of it?
So that way we can see, you know, what their thought processes were, and how they work through problems and challenges as well. Or is there something that you’ve thought about that maybe you haven’t tried? You know, so it allows us to kinda get in their mind a little bit and see what they’ve tried, maybe where their frame of reference is as well.
But I think the biggest thing is just being open to having the conversations with people. And what I mean by that is showing that we’re open and saying that someone can come, if we say that, someone can ask us a question. This being like my fifth grade teacher and saying, Hey, there’s no such thing as a stupid question.
There are no dumb questions. The only one that’s dumb is the one that’s not asked. Because if you have that question, I promise you somebody else has the same question. So if we can help to kind of bring it out, and then it shows through us too. And then if they do come up this, they’ll say, Hey, here’s what I’ve tried, or here’s what I was thinking but I’m not sure how to start it. We can figure out how people best learn, through implementation also. Yes, trying and implementing things is usually the best way of, learning and making mistakes, but at the same time, some people may just see it differently. And, here’s what I mean as, I’ll use myself as an example.
I’m a watch. Then do kinda learner. So if I were come with you with something, I’d say, Hey Michael, would you mind showing me, even if you screwed it up, I’m gonna appreciate the fact that you did that. But I’m also gonna see too that okay, I don’t have to be perfect with this ’cause because again, I can be the classic overthinker, and that it may need to be a perfectionist.
So when I see you mess it up, I go, okay. He’s still here. I can do this too and then working myself through it or just maybe taking that person that may be that, dominance type A, you know, that more, that type A personality that I’m not necessarily, and seeing them work through a problem or challenge with the confidence that they have, and then being able to mirror that because I think that is something that, you know, different personality types have the ability to do.
And sometimes you have to understand what other people’s personality types are. Do they mirror things as well? And I know that’s one thing that I’ve done well. So again, just using myself personally, is that I can mirror people pretty well. So if I can see someone else do something with strength and confidence, I can follow that.
But also knowing too, some people may just need to be okay, I’ve seen to try this five times and it come back to you and tell you what the results were. Okay, good. Sometimes that’s what we need. You need those as well. But others might need a, Hey, I need to see this a couple times before I really feel good with it.
But then still coming back to, Hey, you gotta at least give it a shot. After we’ve done it three or four times now you give it a shot, ’cause nothing’s ever gonna be perfect. Especially then identifying someone like myself who may be that perfectionist and say, Hey, it’s okay. I’ll show you one or two different times, but you need to, but then I wanna have you do it once.
So, you know, and for, you know, in sales, hey, if we’re gonna prospect, I’ll do it once, you do it once, I’ll do it twice. You do it once, whatever, you, I’ll do it five times and you do it once, whatever it is. You know, just kind of creating a little bit of that to help create that confidence and, having a little bit of a comfort zone while also understand that they’re stretching it just a little bit, for somebody to follow along with it.
Michael
So, would it be fair to say that the best way to move the business forward is to build a relationship and the best way to build any relationship is to engage the individual?
Stephen
Yeah, absolutely. I think it starts with engaging the individual. We do need to know them and how they think, and obviously as you’re building a business relationship, the personal relationship is gonna come along the way and they’re gonna get to know, you know, what it is that they are striving to accomplish.
Who are they? Who are they doing this for at home? Or who are they doing this for in the future? ’cause we’re getting to know them and getting to know them on a deeper level, we can help to figure out how to best help them to navigate those situations as well.
Michael
So that’s at least part of the business value of creating these cultures where everyone feels safe and empowered to bring their unique selves into everything they do. Is there other business value that comes out of building these sculptures?
Stephen
Yeah, I think having different points of view, points of reference, like, because I may be the more strategic, say, call it strategic thinker, the one that’s gonna be thinking out four or five different outcomes for the one question. Somebody else may be able to come up with that, with an answer to it quickly. So they bring different points of view, different opinion to the table, but getting to the same result.
But I also think at the same time, it creates a little bit of stability for a company as well, in knowing that as you’re investing in this person, they’re gonna wanna reinvest back into the business, which then allows you to keep people, which then allows you to continue to build the brand of whatever you’re looking to accomplish.
You know, brand awareness, recognition, but then also allows to bring in new people on top of that as well. So kind of creates a little bit of a, not lack of better way, saying our rinse and repeat, but you are trying to create that, you know, a system where people are able to do it continually. So then that way you’re able to put someone in and everyone just continues to be able to build on top of one another and, they feel comfortable and empowered to have that conversation, be able to bring in an opinion or a different idea, to the equation that’s, somebody else may not have, maybe not thought about before.
Michael
So in some ways, what I’m hearing you say is that whether the person is an employee or a customer or potential customer, doesn’t make a difference. The approach to take with that person and that business value that comes out of this is exactly the same across both. Get to know the individual. Build that one-on-one relationship with that particular individual.
And from that comes all the other things we want from a business relationship, whether that’s as an employee or as a client.
Stephen
Yeah, I think so. And from just, from our own unique perspectives as well. It allows us to be more comfortable in the conversations as well, ’cause I think, you know, especially in sales, we can all, we can be, you know, very head down, focused on certain things and can stress our own selves out but in reality, if we’re just trying to have a conversation with somebody and be genuine about it, then you’re actually gonna be able to pull out conversation from somebody. You know, especially in those sales conversations where somebody may necessarily be, they understand that’s the sales conversation.
They’re not necessarily wanting to, be there. But if you’re showing genuine curiosity and asking genuine questions to somebody, it’s gonna show through and they’re gonna, someone’s gonna feel comfortable answering questions, and carrying on a conversation with somebody. Whereas if you’re just feeling like you’re asking a question just for the sake of asking the question, you’re gonna be able to notice that an actual conversation is taking place. So I think it’s that as being authentic in, what we’re doing, from that conversation standpoint, but also, you know, showing unique and true curiosity in the person that we’re interacting with.
Michael
And kind of every conversation is a sales conversation. It’s in every conversation. In every conversation, at least one of the people involved is asking at least one of the other people involved to give them something back where this is feedback on my code review, help fighting or approaches to a problem, all the way up to the, I know that I am a sales person and you’re a prospect, or vice versa.
And we all explicitly are having a sales conversation. Everything is implicitly a conversation, a sales conversation.
Stephen
Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s right. And I think it’s just trying to make it a more authentic conversation, and not rigid and scripted, that, especially like in a sales conversation, we try to make it seem to be, you know, have an idea of, especially if you’re going into an interaction with somebody, you know, try to have an idea of what you want to discuss, and let the conversation take it, where, it needs to go, but show genuine curiosity in the questions that you’re asking and, listening specifically to what’s being said so that way you can carry the conversation the way that it needs to be conducted. We’re not just asking questions for the sake of asking questions. We’re going, okay, well now I’ve asked question number seven here, let’s actual follow up on that because it, because a point may have been brought up in a conversation, like even on ours, you may bring up something. I may say something and you go, oh, I hadn’t thought about that. Let’s talk about that instead. It’s just a matter of kind of keeping the, you know, you may have a framework for a conversation, but you wanna make sure that you’re following up on a question where it needs to be followed up on because it may be an important point to that person that, actually needs to be discussed.
Michael
It may be an important point to that person, and it may be also a signal to whole another levels of value that can be uncovered that you can add to each other.
Stephen
That’s right. I think so.
Michael
When I am having conversations with someone, every time I hear, That’s a really good question. I know that I’ve, this is a strong signal to me that I, found one of those inflection points that would be so easy to skate right past. And if we dig into it, there’s gonna be. Enormous value for all of us coming out of that conversation.
Stephen
Yeah, no, absolutely. When someone says they gotta, that’s a really good question. They likely meant it, and it just means that you’re having to really think about that now. A sports podcast I listen to, I mean, they have a little bit of satire to it, but they talk about that. They go say, Oh, did you hear that?
That was a really good question. So that’s what got me thinking about that. When you said that, I was like, yeah, ’cause it does get us on a different level of thinking when we know that there was a good question being asked. So it’s gonna allow that person who was asked the question to being, you know, having to think a little bit deeper, a little bit harder about what they’re gonna say, because they did think of it so profoundly.
Michael
So with all of this conversation and business value that’s coming out of this, on top of all that is there’s so much change, uncertainty, and often resulting from that overwhelm that we’re dealing with these days. How do you help the people that you’re working with, whether that’s teammates, customers, prospect of customers, find their way through all this, and find a way that is safe for them?
Stephen
I think it’s just knowing from the beginning that there’s open lines of communication. And ultimately too as well, knowing what the end goal or end objective is. Let’s just say, let’s just use a, client conversation. For example, if we know what their objective is to achieving, say, three to five years from now, I may ask that around their benefit program.
Because that’s what I do. So, you know, tell me three to five years from now, if we’re having the same conversation, what are we celebrating? What did we accomplish over the last three to five years? But they may also start, they may jump into something that’s happening in their business. So I think it’s knowing and kind of keeping that open line of communication.
So everything that we’re doing is being intentional, moving it towards whatever the end goal is. And same thing, if you’re someone in your, you know, under your leadership, what is it they’re wanting to accomplish? If it’s a revenue goal, is it a, you know, or why is it the revenue goal?
Is it because they, you know, wanting buy a house or what? Whatever it is. The kind of understanding like, what, are we all working towards? I think is kind of going back to that remembering, that part of the conversation, and that again, it goes back to the one, open communication, but also two, the knowing of people.
So that way, when there are stressors, when there are things that are happening, just saying, Hey, you know, here’s what that process looked like. Here’s kind of what we had talked about before. Here’s ultimately where you were trying to move towards, you know, and then, you know, saying, is it, you know, is it moving us closer or further away from that?
But I think it is, I think it starts with knowing, you know, kind of Stephen Covey aspect of, you know, keeping the end in mind, but also just knowing that it’s, you know, keeping open communication. So that way you can work through problems, challenges, and having solutions for everything.
Michael
For people who are, who’ve been here, have been enjoying this conversation, want to start, want to open that conversation with someone not sure how to get started. How can they, what are some first steps they can take?
Stephen
I think if you’re a classic overthinker like me, so I’ll start with people like myself as you know, jot down a few different things of what you’re hoping to, kind of same thing, like what are you hoping to accomplish? What are some of the, what are the, maybe a couple of the challenges that you’re dealing with and what are you wanting to get out of it? So, you know, so not having it scripted, but at least have you a frame of conversation to know what you’re wanting to accomplish, within that conversation.
And then, two, just remembering someone else may be afraid to have that conversation as well, but just bring it to the forefront, you know? Nothing can get fixed or solved for if we don’t know what the problem is. So if you’re having a problem and no one else knows what it is, again, same thing. I can be guilty of being the person that doesn’t ask for help. So, sometimes my own advice is, you know, for myself, my advice for others is sometimes for my own self is, bring, you know. Just make sure to bring it up. You know, it’s not the end of the world to bring up the conversation, but just knowing how you can work yourself through it as well.
But kind of reestablishing expectations as well when it comes to conversations like that. You know, keeping regular communication, if it’s with a boss, you know, whether it be, a weekly conversation, a monthly conversation. Just have it, have something scheduled. But then, you know, but then allowing each person to come to the table with, certain topics that mean that they feel like they need to be discussed. Unless they’re kind of those quote unquote on fire issues. They, you know, if they’re on fire, they need to be brought before a monthly meeting. But just having, you know, keeping that open dialogue and just saying, Hey, this is what we’re, you know, we can talk about these different problems, challenges, here are some solutions that we can work through.
So I think it just starts with, you know, knowing what we wanna talk about, kind of jotting some of those things down, and then being able to, and then just bringing up the conversation.
Michael
Create a draft agenda. Remember that the other people in a conversation have agenda as well that make conflict with yours, and then it comes back to come in, approach them as an individual and open, have that, one-on-one on one-on-one on one sometimes connection and focus on following the conversation where it wants to go, and trusting that the outcomes you hope come out of that will come out in the right ways.
Stephen
Yeah, absolutely.
Michael
For everyone who’s watching, listening, reading, and would really digging everything we’re talking about, would like to go more in depth with you about these topics, creating authentic relationships. What’s the best way for people to find you, connect with you?
Stephen
Yeah, they can find me on LinkedIn, it’ll spell my name, Stephen with a P-H, S-T-E-P-H-E-N. Then Snyder like the pretzels, just unfortunately, as I tell everybody, there’s no relation to the pretzel, family. But, so S-N-Y-D-E-R and I’m in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. So you should be able to find me there, like Michael said, you know, in my profile I say that I’m a washed up former college athlete.
That’s right there in my headline. So when you find that person that, that’s me.
Michael
That’s great. And I’ll have a link to that in the show notes. And then you have the YouTube channel as well. What do you talk about there?
Stephen
Yeah, I do. Mostly it is an education channel for business leaders on insurance topics. So it may not be for everybody who’s listening to this unless you are one of those like, Hey, I dunno how to do something with insurance. What is this term? What is that term? And you know, kind of using the baseball terminology of when I played. We’re kind of at the height of the steroid era back in the mid 2000s.
It is called performance enhanced benefits, on YouTube. So kind of performance enhancing your benefits is kind of a play on that, instead of performance enhancing drugs, just performance enhanced benefits on how you can get the most outta your benefit program. And just different things to think about.
There’s things that are there. Most of ’em are short clips, you know, of, you know, two to three minutes long. You gotta keeping it short and sweet, ’cause unless you’re an insurance person like me, you probably don’t wanna talk about insurance or listen to it all the time. So I try to keep it short and sweet for the audience, to let them just kinda give them a quick few nuggets.
Michael
That’s great. I appreciate the humor that you bring to everything that you do.
Stephen
I try to have some fun with it. That’s something that I’ve tried you, when you talk about, talked to the beginning of our conversation, you know, bringing in the authentic self. I feel like I’ve got a little bit of a personality, so, you know, try to bring that out and remember that other people have that as well.
Everything doesn’t have to be so, same thing, so rigid. So we have to do it this way. People wanna have fun, they want to, you wanna bring certain things to life and try to bring some humor around the situation, that’s going on in, you know, in whatever particular area.
Michael
I agree. Everyone has a personality. Some of us have learned how to let it shine more than others have, and the more that personalities are engaged in a conversation, the more rewarding it is.
Stephen
Yeah, absolutely, and I think it’s about knowing what our personality is, just because we may see somebody that is, voice just may not be the right word, but you know, out there, with it and being, you know, that very extroverted person doesn’t mean that we have to be that.
I think that was something that I learned as well, is that I don’t have to be, I may need to exude some of that in certain situations. In a social setting, I may need to or exude more, more social, social things and be more social and sales settings need to exude, you know, obviously the confidence of somebody but at the same time doesn’t mean I need to be that way 24 hours a day ’cause that’s just not my personality.
That’s one thing that I learned as well is that you’d see some people who are the, like, you realize that this, again, that were the high ‘I’, that they just wake up in the morning and they’re just, go, go, go. But I can’t do that. I need a little bit of time to capture and recoup myself. I need that individual time to recharge my batteries.
Whereas someone else may just need, they may need to be around a hundred people to recharge their batteries. That is recharging their batteries. I think that’s one of the things that the DISC assessment, any kind of personality assessment kind of taught me was to know more about myself and that I don’t have to be like somebody else.
But just engaging in that conversation with someone who may be very introverted, how can we pull that conversation out of them to let them be comfortable so that way their personality, like you said, Michael can shine and can show through, because it allows them to be comfortable at the same time.
Michael
Yes, we all have unique talents. We all flex outside of our preferences, sometimes intentionally or not, and that can be really useful, as you said in certain situations, to flex out, to meet someone where they are so they don’t have to flex as much or to present a certain frame. As you said, when you show up in the social situations as more of a outgoing person that you might be naturally, and that’ll cost energy. So the more we can be aware of where our preferences are, and then intentionally aware of when we’re flexing out of them, then we can also recharge, as you said, to compensate for that so that we can sustain this long term rather than give, give, give, give, give, and then be drained and have nothing to give anyone until we find a way to recharge it all.
Stephen
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s knowing our personality and, where we gain our energy at the same time.
Michael
What have you found helps you regain your energy when you’re in situations that don’t let you do what you would prefer to do?
Stephen
I think it’s, you know, knowing that like as I’m driving, so I’ll just keep using the networking example, you know, as I drive over to an event, you know, using that windshield time as my individual time to be able to recharge my batteries, whether that be listening to music, listening to a podcast, you know, or listening to an audiobook, something that allows me to, you know, to just kind of, I’m not one that necessarily that sets in deep thought, but listening to those kind of puts me back into that area where I may be able to have some thought while I am listening. But I think it’s just having that, knowing you’re having that individual time, you know, I think, is big as well.
Michael
What would you like to leave our audience with today, Stephen?
Stephen
I think just knowing that communication and relationships are two-sided. Whether it is a sales relationship, client and prospect, or salesperson or whatever, or leadership to person, you know, it’s a two-way relationship. It’s not one way and that you really want to be able to know the people on a personal level, not just a business level. And knowing too that, you know, if, you know, say, Michael, if you were on my team and at the end of the day if you said that you needed to leave, you know, and you were going somewhere else, did I do everything that I could with the relationship with Michael?
Or am I looking back going, man, I really could have done this, or this, and better. You know, it’s kind of that, was it the Richard, I think it was Richard Branson who said this, may not have been. Anyways, it was the quote of, you know, what if we teach them and they leave? Well, what if you don’t then they stay? You wanna try to teach them that standpoint. You want to give them the information to go out into the world, but then, ultimately they’re gonna reinvest back into those that that invest in them.
Michael
Yes. And even if they never give directly back to us, by us investing in them, they’re taking that investment out to, into the world and to everyone that they interact with next.
And so that’s helping us invest in way more people than we ever could on our own.
Stephen
Absolutely.
Michael
Thank you so much for this conversation today, Stephen.
Stephen
Oh, thanks for having me on, Michael. This was fun. I’m glad that you reached out and that we were able to make this conversation happen this afternoon.
Michael
This was definitely meant to be. And audience, you were meant to be here as well. Let Stephen and I know, how are you succeeding in building amazing, authentic relationships? What is it you’re struggling with? We’d love to help and celebrate, and just plain old hear. Let us know. Thanks and have a great day.