Hey, this is John Fuller, and we're getting ready to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Focus on the Family. But the celebration won't be complete without hearing from you. We want to know how Focus on the Family has helped you survive the toddler years, navigate the teen years, or be reminded that you're not alone. How has God used this ministry to encourage you? Tell us when you click the link in the show notes.
We think about these things in terms of whether a relationship is significant or superficial, but the goal is: am I conveying God's love or am I allowing my junk to get in the way?
Well, that's Deborah Falleda. And today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, she's going to be sharing practical ways to improve your people skills. This is going to be a fascinating conversation. We're so glad you've joined us. And I'm John Fuller.
John, self-awareness can sometimes be so elusive, right? For me, it can be.
Well, I think for all human beings, because we're, at some level, we're typically self-absorbed. Maybe you're doing that very little, but most people do it quite a bit. Let me give you an example. I travel a lot, so physical awareness. I am always amazed going up an escalator at an airport, how people are trying to figure out where to go and they stop at the top of the escalator, and you got 40 people coming up behind you.
And all of a sudden, everybody's scrambling to move around this couple that stopped to look at their map on where they got to go or their ticket, right? And I'm going, man, have some self-awareness is what I'm thinking going by. And the same is true emotionally. It might take a little more work, but you've got to think, okay, how am I going to go? Am I coming across?
If you've got three or four relationships and they're giving you the same signal, it may not be them. It might be you. And I'm starting to do that more at my ripe age, but it's a great thing and it's a biblical thing to do. Yeah, and we love having Deborah here. She always brings energy and connects with our listeners so well.
She's a wife, mom of four, and a licensed professional counselor and really an expert in cultivating healthy relationships. Today, we're talking about one of her books called People Skills: Your Relationships Are Only as Strong as Your Skills. And we've got copies of the book here, and you can learn more about Deborah on our website. Deborah, welcome back to Focus. It's so good to have you here.
Always good to be back with you both. It's fun, and you always bring such great insights. You're a listener, viewer, favorite.
So we appreciate you taking the time and having you come out. Your husband was able to join, and I believe your son, right? They're walking around. I think they're doing an Odyssey tour. Looking at the Foley room, we call it.
And people that come, particularly in the summer, you can come to focus, the campus, and spend some time here and see that Foley Room. That's all the sound effects that they can do for Adventures and Odyssey. But listen, your book called People Skills, we throw that term around quite a bit. But what is your definition of people skills? You heard mine.
Physical surrounding, like think a little, get out of the way. Yeah, I think the easiest definition is how we show up in relationships, if you want to think of it that way. And I think this really matters not just to the health of our relationships, we want our relationships to be healthy and strong, but this also matters for us as believers. I think of Paul in 1 Corinthians 9 when he says, I have learned to become all things to all people, so that by all means possible, some might be saved. And so, how we show up in relationships is either going to convey God's love to the people in our lives or convolute it.
Yeah.
So, we really need to get better at this. Yeah, I agree. You had a couple, I think, named Lisa and Theo. I'm sure that's not their real names, but what happened when you were doing counseling with them that gave you some insight into this area? You know, oftentimes I'm working with a couple or a family.
Family, and someone in the family is convinced they don't love me. This person doesn't love me. They're not doing this. They're not doing that. They're not good listeners.
They don't look me in the eye. They're not prioritizing me. And so many times I find myself saying, it's not a lack of love. More often, it's a lack of skill. There is a skill set to how we communicate and convey love to the people around us that many of us have not been learned.
And not only that, sometimes we learn the negative from our family of origin, from the way that we grew up. And we bring that into relationships. But what we need is to hone our skills so that we can show love to the people in our lives. Yeah.
You know, so often you take these assessment tests, you know, and you always think, yeah, you know, I'd score myself a nine or 10 in people skills. And then when others are assessing you, whatever that might be, a 360 at your employment or whatever it might be. Typically you, the Perceiver takes a much higher position of their skill set than those around them. A, I guess, why do we do that? And B, it kind of does show a disconnect with reality, right?
It really does. We don't really realize how we come across. And in one of my books, I talk about something called the better than average effect. And it's the idea that there was a social study where they had people rate themselves on a scale. And what was interesting is they asked them things like, How kind are you?
How good are you at Parallel Parking? You know, 10, 10. Exactly. Everybody rated themselves as better than average. Not everybody can be better than average, right?
Mathematically, that doesn't compute. And when I was writing People's Skills, there was this really fascinating trend. You know, oftentimes when I'm writing a book, people will ask me, What am I writing about? And when I let them know, they'll say, Oh, that sounds like a book that I could use. With people skills, almost 90% of the time, when someone asked me, What are you writing about?
Oh, people's skills, they would say, I know somebody who could use that book, but very rarely. Rarely did they acknowledge and have the insight and awareness to say, you know what? I could use some people skills in my life. And that just shows us the lack of awareness that we have with regards to how we come across. Technology has had to have made this worse.
I'm talking about social media. You know, again, you go to a restaurant, you see a family of four sitting there. Everybody's into their phones. They're really not talking to each other. We try in the daily household and when we're at a restaurant to put those phones away and actually talk to one another.
But technology has exacerbated the problem of learning. People skills and communication skills.
So, how, especially with 2030-somethings, not to pick on you, but I know you just haven't had a non-digital environment. You were born into it. And so, for digital natives, particularly, how do they look at that, or how do all of us look at this a little differently? It's okay, we need to practice good people skills. I mean, that's very intentional.
It's very intentional. And sadly, I think we're just on the brink of this getting really bad in our culture with how much tech saturation. We live in a world where you used to have to go to the grocery store. And have a face-to-face conversation with the cashier.
Now you pick up your phone, put in your order, and say, leave it at my door.
So you don't even have to have a conversation. And I never want to talk to you in the process. No eye contact, no engagement.
So even the natural opportunities that we would have had to practice our people skills are gone.
Social media wires us to be so self-focused and what you said earlier, self-absorbed. We're thinking about what we want, what we think, what we feel and believe, our opinions. We're posting. The spotlight is on us at all times when we're engaging on social media. It's very hard to turn that off.
When you go back into the world and all of a sudden have the focus on the people around you.
So we're wiring our brains to be even more self-absorbed, and it's starting to affect. Our real life relationship. Let me ask right here: you know, how does a person who is doing a better job of self-awareness?
Okay, they're hearing us talk about this, they're going, ooh, that's an area I could do better. And what's something they could do to intentionally kind of break the trap of digital and be more people-focused? What do you think of in your head to get you in a better place? Yeah, well, I think awareness and boundaries with our phones is really important. Like you mentioned, making sure we're putting our phone down, looking people in the eye, being aware of how our body language is coming across.
And I think one of the most important things is our listening skills, our ability to actually receive what people are saying. When we're on our phone, our mind is fragmented. We're multitasking. I hear what you're saying, but I'm also thinking about something else. There's a lot going on.
And so being able to focus on what someone is saying and actually receive it as part of listening. Is a lost art these days. You know, some of that, and I'm laughing here because I've actually used that argument. You know, this job trains us very well, John, to be able to listen. We have to read prep that we've got.
We've got notes coming from the producers. And so I'm always telling Jean how effective I am at doing three things at once. Focus has trained me to do this. She doesn't seem to be one over with that. She doesn't agree with me.
She's not appreciative. In fact, one day, I mean, seriously, I was watching a football game, reading parts of a newspaper, and she was telling me a story. And she came over and said, What did I just say? And I gave it to her verbatim. And she grabbed my cheeks and said, I need your face.
Yeah.
So the point I'm making here, maybe it's not so much what we need as the listener. It's what the communicator needs for us to give them the feeling that I'm hearing you. Yes, that's a big deal because it's not just about what you are receiving, it's about what you're communicating in that moment. In that regard, you had a story of body language, which is so funny because we can give off body language. I think this may be one of the harder areas to understand how you're being perceived.
I don't know if that's true. You can affirm that. I think I can know my words when I'm being sharp-tongued with something or, you know, a verbal expression. I understand that better. Like, why did I say it that way?
I think my face and my body language is a little more difficult to know. Is that fair?
Well, the only people that really stand in front of a mirror when they're talking and interacting are actors, performers who are training for a play or a drama or a TV show. The average person is not looking in front of a mirror while they're interacting, while they're angry, while they're upset, while they're listening, while they're talking. I mean, even right now, we're communicating to one another, but I see you, you see me, I don't see myself. And so I don't have anybody to give me that feedback. And so in People's Skills, I give you some exercises that you can actually do in front of a mirror.
And this couple that you were talking about. The wife in the relationship always looked angry and upset. Her facial expressions were negative, they were cold, they were apathetic. And so the husband came in and said, You know, she always seems to be upset with me. She's always angry and annoyed at me.
And she's like, No, I'm not. Why are you saying that?
Well, look how you look. You always look upset. You're scowling. And no, that's not how I feel on the inside.
So eventually, in session, he says to her, Well, tell that to your face because it's not getting communicated. And as we processed that, It became clear that she actually does have this cold demeanor, this lack of self-expression on her face. And when we unpack that a little bit deeper, she grew up in a chaotic home where it was easier to remain neutral, to not show your feelings so you wouldn't get in trouble. You know, so dad, who is an alcoholic, wouldn't get angry at you. And so now she's kind of become conditioned to have a very neutral to negative face so that she doesn't show what's going on on the inside of her.
And that took some time to make those connections for her and for her to now be intentional to smile. To open her eyes up, to look warm and friendly.
So, I guess the question is: what's your resting face? You know, for those who are listening, when people see you for the first time, when you walk in a room, what does your face communicate before your words?
So, how do you go about ascertaining that? Because again, you're not in front of a mirror. Do you ask your spouse? Do you ask friends that you can trust? Yeah.
What does my resting face look like to you? I think it's a really brave question. It is. And one that we. Probably don't ask.
We don't ask people, how do I come across? What do I look like? How do I appear? But I also think the practice of looking in a mirror is really great or taking a video and re-watching it. I mean, we have the luxury as communicators of watching our videos back and seeing how we come across, but the average person doesn't get that.
And so I think that's an important practice to be able to invite feedback in those different ways and then be intentional about smiling, about open versus closed body language. Closed body language is when my arms are crossed, my hands are crossed, I look like I'm saying, stay away from me, even though that might not be my intention.
So open body language looks a little bit different. My hands are open, my arms are not crossed. I'm smiling. My eyes are open. I'm looking at you.
Deborah, for the Christian thinking and hearing this, they could put an overlay on this to say, well, this is who I am. This is the honest me. If I do anything other than that, I'm manipulating. And I want to be faithful in front of the Lord. He created me.
I mean, you're hearing my argument. I think you can knock this down. But for that person that has that sincerely held belief that, you know, Yeah, I do not have a warm, friendly face. That's the way it is. Yeah, a lot of people think certain things are just part of their personality.
When really many of the things that we bring into relationships are conditioned, they're the way that we learned to show up, the way that we were conditioned to come across in relationships. God wants us to communicate love in every possible way. And if that includes our body language, then we need to make sure our body language is in alignment to God's love. Not just say, well, this is just my personality. No, the question is: what is God's best for me?
And how do I become in alignment to be able to show his love to the people around me? Yeah.
Deborah, one part of the book addresses confidence, and you framed it in terms of public speaking. And you had kind of an aha moment, it seems, or at least a shift in your thinking when it came to the number one thing that most people fear, and that is having to speak publicly. I think I heard that spiders and snakes rank lower on the anxiety scale than public speaking. Yeah, it's true because when you walk into a room, you know, whether you're on a platform on a stage or whether it's just a cocktail party, you know, when you walk into a room and you are aware. What are people thinking of me?
Do they like me? How do I look? Am I boring? Am I interesting? What you are perceiving is what am I getting from them?
What feedback am I getting from them? And when you think about it in those terms, your anxiety is going to spike. You know, I was saying how. The first time I spoke to a group of a thousand, I was nervous. It's like, what are they going to think of me?
Are they going to like this? Is it going to be boring? Am I going to be entertaining enough? And at one point along the journey, God stopped me in my tracks and said, You are so focused on what you are receiving. And I want you to focus on what you are giving.
What are you going to give? Give the gift that I have given you and leave it there. And stop being so focused on what you're getting from them and all the feedback and what they think about you. That changed everything for me. When I step up on a stage, it's about what I'm there to give.
And I think that mindset. Can help us as individuals when we walk into a room. Imagine you walk into a small group. Imagine you walk into a church where you don't know anybody. Imagine you're walking into work and you've got to interact and mingle.
What if our focus were: what do I have to offer? What gift do I have to bring here? I think that could really change how we engage with people. I appreciate that. I do have a child who has some anxiety, and I've often prayed with them before they go to an event or something.
I've said, I pray God speaks to you and through you because I think He does use all of us to strengthen the body. We have contributions to make, is your point. We all have a unique voice, unique gifts. And even if the only thing you're offering is the gift of your attention. That is a beautiful commodity.
That is something that you have to offer. You speak in the book about communication styles. I think there's four that you mentioned. Let's talk about those. I think you had aggressive, passive, passive, aggressive, and then assertive.
So let's just give a definition to those. The best way to think about this is if you were at a restaurant. Your order came out and it's not what you ordered. What would you do? The passive communicator thinks, ah, you know, it's okay.
I can live with this. They're busy. Look how busy they are. Look at this waitress running around. I'm not going to say anything.
The passive communicator honors the story, feelings, and experiences of the person in front of them, but not their own. I'm laughing because that one, how many times have you sat down at a table with others and you're going, oh man, this is horrible. And then right then, the way the service person steps to the table, how's everything? Oh, great. Thanks.
It's all good. Exactly. That is so funny because that happens to, I think, to all of us. Because we don't want to do it. We don't want to make them cook it differently.
So you're honoring them, but you're not honoring your needs. Whereas the aggressive communicator is like, what is this? This is wrong. This is not what I expected. I need a discount.
I need this to be made right away. They are honoring their needs, feelings, and experiences, but they're not honoring the person in front of them. That is an aggressive communicator. The passive-aggressive is interesting because they don't honor the person in front of them. Neither do they honor themselves.
They'll say, you know what, I'm not going to say anything. No big deal, whatever. This is annoying. And then when the waitress comes by, they're rude, they're cold, they leave a small tip, and then they go home and write a negative Yelp review. They don't honor their needs, feelings, experiences, but they're also not honoring the feelings and experiences of the person in front of them.
But what we seek to become Is an assertive person that's able to honor my own needs and feelings and experiences, all while honoring the person in front of me.
Something as basic as, hey, I you're working so hard and I really appreciate you. I noticed that my meal was wrong, and if you could take a minute to fix this, that would be really great. Thank you.
Well said. And think about it in terms of deeper conversations with a friend, with a spouse. Hey, I'm sure that this isn't what you intended, but when you said this, It really hurt my feelings, and I'd like to talk about it. Think about that in these harder conversations that we have with people, it can make a big difference. Yeah, but Deborah, the one thing I've often said, people that listen regularly or watch on YouTube, you know, when you're talking to a counselor, which you are.
You say it so well because you help people, you help couples practice that. The regular person, we're angry, we're upset, you've touched a trigger of mine.
So, in our marriage relationship specifically, we don't tend to respond like that. Whenever I hear the counselor say, Well, the way to approach that is to say, honey, I hear you. And I really want to do better for you. Instead, we're going, why'd you say it to me like that? There is such a distance between those two.
And I guess the question I have for you is: why? This is a person we love. This is our companion for life, hopefully. Why wouldn't we treat them with a better way of communicating? Why do we go right to the Cutting language.
Yeah, because we show our worst selves in our closest relationships. And I don't think we take the call seriously enough. to model Christ and the church in our relationships. We really don't. I mean, if we took that call seriously every morning, that I am a reflection of Jesus to my spouse today, It would radically change what I did.
But the beautiful thing about this is, we're not after perfection. This is a skill set. We are learning to become more like Jesus along the way. Each day, I'm practicing these things. I might not always do it right, I might not always get it, but the goal here is that when I become more like Jesus, it actually makes my relationships better.
This is for me as well.
Well, and refraining from saying something, you know, Gene and I were in Ephesus not long ago, and just thinking about Jesus in front of Pontius Pilate. You know, this is the Roman Empire, they're the thing, they're the powerful. And Jesus standing there, he knows what's going to happen. He knows Rome's going down 300, 400 years from then. But Jesus chose to say nothing.
That's kind of a great, heavenly example of what you're talking about. You don't always have to say what you know is true. One of my favorite quotes is from Amy Carmichael, and she says, If I cannot rest under misunderstanding without defending myself, then I know nothing of Calvary love. Wow, play that back and forth and listen to it 10 times. Deborah, you have a fascinating chapter in the book about making deposits before making withdrawals.
I get that emotionally, but explain what you mean by that. Yeah, oftentimes in relationships, we're quick to offer what needs to be changed or adjusted or a suggestion or a question. And all of these things, if you think about your relationship like a bank account, they're things that require withdrawals of energy and emotions. But sometimes we require that and ask that, hey, I need you to do this differently. I didn't like how you did that.
Before we've made deposits of affirmation and encouragement and validation to the people in our lives.
So think about, you know, for every criticism, you want to give three to five encouragements. It is easier said than done with marriage and with parenting. But if we could keep that at the front of our mind, the more we've deposited in the account, the more we have to draw from and the healthier the account of the relationship will be.
Now we've talked about that marriage relationship. This is more of a parenting one, but you practiced that with, I think, your 14-year-old daughter of making those deposits.
So when you had to kind of get the withdrawal. Yeah.
Yeah.
In the middle of writing this book, actually, I was talking about encouragement and validation and making deposits. And she had walked in and interrupted my writing process to ask a question. And it was funny because in that moment, I could have said, Hey, I'm in the middle of something. But I was like, you know what? I got to practice what I preach.
Offered her validation and encouragement, closed my laptop. Try to be present with her. Your attention is one of the most valuable gifts you have to give to the people around you. It's one of the most important people skills that you have is your undivided attention. And when we can give that gift, again, it's a skill.
You know, it's easy to be distracted. It's easy to have a fragmented mind. It's easy to be scrolling on our phones while they're talking to us. But to be able to be intentional, to give the people that we love the gift of our attention is an important people skill that not only shapes their value and self-worth, it also shapes how they show up in relationships as well. Because we learn by modeling, these things are caught more than they are taught.
So as we model people skills in our family, we're teaching our kids how to do the same. Yeah, this has been so good. Man, we have just run out of time, but let's stick with it, come back next time, and continue. Can we do that?
Sounds good. Yeah.
So we've covered the body language. And some of those people skills that you need. I think it was really practical, don't you, John? And let's continue that discussion. Come back next time, listen to some other practical ways to improve your communication.
We're going to cover triggers and trauma-based responses, those things that happen to us in our family of origin that cause us to first respond in a way that we probably don't intend to respond with, and it ends up damaging relationships.
So come back next time and let's continue this great discussion. And meanwhile, Deborah's book is really packed with practical advice to improve all of your relationships. And again, the title is People Skills. Your relationships are only as strong as your skills. And when you make a donation of any amount to focus on the family today, we'll send a copy of Deborah's book to say thank you for partnering with us in ministry.
And we're adding a special incentive right now, John. If you can make a monthly pledge of $30. Or more by July 31st, we'll send you a Focus on the Family travel mug. I'm smiling because I have one. And we'll also add four ounces of a special blend coffee that John actually selected.
Yeah, and let's clear the record up. It's not a blend, it's actually a single origin coffee. Did you tell these firstborn? I love it. I love it.
It's great coffee. Yeah, but seriously, just like coffee in the morning, our monthly donors are the fuel that really keeps us running here at Focus on the Family. Generous contributors who work with us to strengthen marriages, equip parents, save pre-born babies' lives, and help their moms too. And also, of course, to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. Last year alone, 440,000 parents were equipped through the resources here at Focus on the Family.
That is a huge number, almost half a million. And that includes 80,000 parents who were helped through a crisis in their parenting. Your monthly donation. Are helping to transform this country one family at a time.
So let's do ministry together. And now is a great time to become a monthly donor. It's easy to sign up, and you'll get our special limited-time coffee offer and a great resource from Deborah Phileda. Donate when you call 800, the letter A and the word family, or check the show notes for details. And on behalf of the entire team, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we continue the conversation with Deborah Falleta and once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Hey, this is John Fuller, and we're getting ready to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Focus on the Family. But the celebration won't be complete without hearing from you. We want to know how Focus on the Family has helped you survive the toddler years, navigate the teen years, or be reminded that you're not alone. How has God used this ministry to encourage you?
Tell us when you click the link in the show notes.
