Welcome to the Telling of Story Podcast. I’m your host, Storyteller Jewels, and along with my guests, it’s my endeavor to explore the art and science of storytelling, to attract, engage, and retain a business audience, and to unpack why it works for some, and not for the many that try.

Listen in as Jasmine talks about linking your communication to the bigger picture. 

Yasmine: This is something that most people don’t expect, but actually the starting point is not even your communication. The starting point is getting very clear. Where are you going? What is the bigger picture? And wherever the bigger picture is, then the question is my current way of building a narrative serving me and my goals.

And oftentimes what people do is they end up just speaking, but they don’t know how it’s linked to a bigger context. 

Jewels: In this episode, I have the pleasure of talking with Yasmine Khater. Yasmine is a leading sales strategist and the founder of Smooth Sailing System, a company that helps businesses develop more efficient systems so they can work smarter and boost profits.

With a degree in psychology and communications, Yasmin has spent the last decade helping thousands of clients in 10 plus different countries improve their sales by incorporating cutting edge neuroscience strategies. That same approach also led her to build six multi six and seven figure businesses.

Yasmin is a TEDx speaker and has been featured in Forbes, Inc, HuffPost and Cosmopolitan. Yasmin, welcome to the show. 

Yasmine: Thank you very much, Jewels. I’m excited to be here. 

Jewels: Yasmine, tell me, how did you get into this line of work? 

Yasmine: So, I oftentimes, like, I love the quote by Steve Jobs, is that, you do things and then it doesn’t really make sense, and when you look backwards, it’s all connected.

So when I was a kid, when I was about 13 or 14, this very big thing happened in our life. And it was when my dad [00:02:00] lost his job. So all of a sudden we went from being super comfortable and never having to think about things to having to always hear the statement that we don’t have any money. And my mom at one point said, any activities that you want to do, you have to pay for it yourself.

So I went from being the super shy kid that was obsessed with like painting. And if I wanted to keep on painting, I would have to sell my paintings to cover my classes. And I think that was the beginning of realizing that what a sale is really just a conversation and not just with the person that you’re selling to, but also with yourself.

And that was really the beginning of just realizing that as someone who wants to be able to create the life that they want, the number one skill that you need to have is to be able to sell your ideas. And if you can sell your ideas, whatever they may be, then you can always guarantee for yourself an option, a career, a way to make a living and to have the [00:03:00] life that you desire.

Jewels: And so tell me a little bit about the business and how you go about that. What is it that you do in order to help those types of people to be successful and actually make a sale and make a living, right? 

Yasmine: Yeah. So I work with different audiences. I work all the way from the top 100, like from the companies like Salesforce and Gartner and Microsoft, all the way until like micro businesses that are making six figures or like multiple, or even like, And there’s actually two components that play a big part in a sale.

The first component is being very clear what you actually want. I know it sounds really basic, but most people think that they’re clear, but they’re not. And because they’re not so clear, then they’re having to manage the volatility of emotions that they have to go through in their head. And it kind of feels like you’re on this boat and the boat is super, has no way of being buoyant.

So you’re like kind of going up and down. And once you’re able to get very clear what it is, and you can [00:04:00] figure out what’s the best way to get there. And a lot of times what people are doing is they’re not getting clear and they’re not mastering their inner narrative. And those two things together really mess up how you go ahead and do that.

Jewels: Yeah. You had a number two, you said. 

Yasmine: Yeah. Sorry. I don’t know why I paused. This is part of it is that a lot of times people don’t know how to do it. And that’s actually an issue. So what I’ve. My clients that I got to work with was Kikkoman, the soy sauce company, right? And they’re like the leading soy sauce company in the world, right?

Like everyone in any place in the world. But when they went into India, they were trying to sell the same way they had sold in other markets. And the problem with that is that they didn’t think about what was happening locally as context and the numbers were not being hit. So when we dug into what was happening in the local context, one of the things that’s beautiful about India is that in India, when it comes to soya sauce, they [00:05:00] think that white soya sauce is good soya sauce.

Because they don’t have a big Japanese culture. So they had this cheap soy sauce come into the market and then everyone just sees it as this white soy sauce. Kikuman is coming with this dark soy sauce and they’re like, what the hell is this thing? Nobody wanted it. And then once we were able to shift it to be like leading chefs are using this, something that like the people who are like, who are experts are using, they were able to boost their sales.

And I think as a component that people don’t realize that if you do not know how to craft a sales narrative. Then you’re going to get stuck. So the first thing is getting clear about where you’re going and getting clear about what’s happening in your head as you’re making these decisions. And then the final thing is actually, do you know how to even craft the story to make sure that’s more compelling for your audience?

Jewels: So tell me a little bit about that process, because I also find that people think they’re pretty clear on what they do and what they’re able to offer. But in fact, it’s very complex from the outside and can be quite [00:06:00] confusing. And whilst they have the benefit of all the information that they’ve built up over a period of time, anybody on the outside doesn’t, right?

So I also find that people get really confused as to what their message is. And then they overcomplicate it and it just creates this confusion in the market rather than being super clear. So tell me a little bit about that process for you, because I think anybody listening to this probably is, uh, has a bit of that problem as well, where they might be overcomplicating something that they need to fix.

In fact, make super simple, and it’s not easy, right? I know that the simpler you try and make it, the harder it becomes to be super clear, right? Um, tell me a little bit about that process for you. 

Yasmine: Yeah, so this is where like mastery comes in, like to simplify things. And the first step in how to do that is oftentimes people make the mistake of thinking that I just have to pitch.

And they just try to go out and just share. But the reason why [00:07:00] that’s wrong is because when you are speaking about what you have to offer without knowing the context of what is actually happening for your buyer. Then you might be in a different conversation that isn’t relevant. And so people like will close the doors.

And lots of times when I work with like technical leaders, like they’re like going ahead and that’s great for the CTO, but if you’re going to sell to the CEO or the CFO or the procurement officer, it’s a very different narrative and you have to understand like what is their pain point and how do you contextualize it?

And oftentimes something that most people like, well, my students will laugh at is what I would tell them. Nobody cares what you want. Like I care what you want, but your clients don’t care what you want. Your clients only care about day one. So to do that, we need to get very clear. And I call them like the four hats when we come to this work.

And the first hat is the hat of a journalist. If, for example, you’re dealing with a CAO, a CEO, like their role. is determined by their [00:08:00] numbers. So they care about their metrics, whether it’s sales, profit, risk management, and so forth. So that’s it. So anything that’s extra, anything that’s a nice to have.

That may not be the primary way you tell the story. That might be more of what happens in the back end or the chair at the top is that you will be able to achieve these goals and so forth. So oftentimes people like forget that and that’s where like that important hat is really important and I’ll give you an example about that in a second with a company that I helped raise over a million dollars for funding just because they were getting that hat wrong.

And then the second hat that you have to get have on is the hat. Of being a lawyer, because just for example, you might, if you, for example, let’s say you want to, you want to lose weight, right? To lose weight, Jewels, tell me some of the options people have to lose weight. 

Jewels: Eat less, eat better, more exercise, reduce less calories, more consumption of more usage of calories.

If that makes sense in the main ones, I guess. 

Yasmine: And then within [00:09:00] that as a subcategory, are you doing keto? Are you doing whole foods? Are you doing the Mediterranean diet? Are you doing the Atkins and then exercise? Are you running? Are you cycling? Are you Pilates? Like there’s millions of variations and the issue that people have is that I say just exercise.

And that worked 15 years ago. But today the market is so complex, you need to build a case on why this approach is the best approach. And most people don’t do that work. And when they don’t do that work, what happens is they’re not really hitting hard on what the impact needs to be. And therefore they’re not having a compelling reason for me to pick you versus somebody else.

And then the third hat that you have to wear is the hat of realizing that nobody likes you. Especially now when people are so stressed out to be told what to do. So when you tell them what to do, they actually get turned off by it and they get actually kind of triggered by it. Because when you tell someone like, go eat [00:10:00] your vegetables.

Who does that sound like, Jewels? 

Jewels: Parents, telling their two year olds. 

Yasmine: Yeah, and people are like, you should be doing this. Who are you? I don’t have to do anything you tell me to do. So people let you go into that kind of reaction. And this is where, like, the third hat is being the hat of a doctor, an expert.

I am recommending, based on what I understand about your situation, here is how We can get the results, you know, here’s the next action steps to get there. And it’s a very different way than just going ahead and pitching because people need to understand that context. So going back to the example that I mentioned earlier, one of the companies I got to work with is a company that has a beautiful mission.

And what they do is they help people who have dengue, like, you know, by the dengue disease. 

Jewels: Yeah. Dengue fever. 

Yasmine: Dengue fever. Yeah. So when you have dengue fever, everyone gets treated the exact same way. And there’s no differentiation. Now, this company has a test that can find out if you’re the 1 percent of dengue fever patients [00:11:00] that will have severe conditions.

So that means that 99 percent who are spending thousands of dollars on going to the hospital, getting treatment, don’t have to spend it because they’re able to see you are at high risk. You are not. Isn’t that amazing? So you can imagine the benefits for the insurance companies, for the government, for individuals.

There’s so many benefits about that. But their positioning was like, Oh, it’s better for the world. And I’m like, yeah, great. Cool. But if you’re looking to pitch money to an investor, they have to see revenue. And that’s not a compelling narrative to get there. And they wish to raise the money because they didn’t simplify the message.

So once I started working with them, we were able to simplify, cut the noise, and within like less than a month, they were able to raise a million dollars in investment, just because they got the message nailed down, and they were able to put on the different hats, and make the story more compelling, and most people don’t realize that When you’re complicating it, it’s because you’re sharing what you think is the opinion.[00:12:00]

But again, nobody gives a shit about what you think it is. They only care what’s in it for them. And that’s just the honest fact about how to go ahead and build better narratives. 

Jewels: Beautiful. I got three hats. Did I miss one? So the journalist, the lawyer, the doctor. 

Yasmine: Yeah. 

Jewels: Was there a fourth one? Did you say there was four hats or three?

Yasmine: The fourth hat is an extra hat that’s gone beyond the narrative and it’s really the hat of a scientist. 

Jewels: Okay. 

Yasmine: And what a scientist does is they go back and they analyze. Where did I mess up? Did I skip the journals and go straight to the lawyer? Did I go and I, I was more like not being a doctor. So that the scientists is like going into like micro improvements, micro decision making and so forth.

And the people that I get to work with that have incredible results spend a lot of time being the scientists. They don’t just do the same habit over and over again. They use every opportunity to see, Hey, which hat am I missing? And this is where, like when I work with enterprise level [00:13:00] solutions, you cannot have all three hats by yourself.

You need to work in teams because you’re setting a complex solution. You’re typically, when you’re selling to an organization, you’re selling to six to seven decision makers. So then therefore. You need to use your team. You need to use who you have available to give you that perspective. And the more that we can use that as a way to build better narrative, you’re able to stand out in the marketplace.

You’re able to differentiate, you’re able to close more sales and so forth. 

Jewels: So just so I’m clear, I love the hats, by the way, it’s fabulous, fabulous way to think about it. Can you just help me out? Is it something that you do in order, for example? So do you have to go in that particular order or is it more contextual?

So I use the journalist for this type of person and I use the doctor for that type of person. How would you use the hats? 

Yasmine: So let’s think about it for a second. And I love that question, right? Whoever you’re speaking to, if you don’t know the context, how impactful is that? 

Jewels: Well, it’s obviously going to be [00:14:00] reduced, right?

So it’s a step in the dark. 

Yasmine: A step in the dark. And most people think that just because I spoke to this person three weeks ago, I asked those questions, it’s still the same context. And context change. So you have to always do it in that order, because if you don’t know the context of what’s happening, because I, for example, like one of my clients is like Lego, right, and they were working on an issue on the supply chain project.

Within six weeks, it’s changed, right? Within six weeks, the CEO, the C suite, the VPs have a different focus. So if you go in and you told me this six weeks ago, is this still the case? You can totally be off. So you need to always do it in sequence because once you get the context, you can always customize the case because if you build a case and the case is not longer relevant for that context.

You got to adjust it, especially when talking about senior level enterprise solutions, because you’re doing that. Even for example, in the B2C market, like things change, especially now with AI. So just because you had this great idea that [00:15:00] worked for six months, for one year, you might have to localize the messaging.

And I have, for example, one of my clients, they sell like tatami beds, the Japanese beds. And when they were selling those beds for the longest time, for 20 years, they sold the same way. Today it isn’t working. And why is because they haven’t spent enough time putting the hat of a journalist to localize their message.

Are they doing it that to improve sleep? Are they doing it to be able to minimize space? There’s so many different sub categories. So the more that we get super specific about the hat of a journalist each time, then it becomes more and more powerful. 

Jewels: And 

Yasmine: sometimes if you’re new to something and might be spending more time as a journalist hat.

And somebody was just like checking in, saying like, last time we spoke, this is what was happening and so forth. Or this is where the market is going. And what’s amazing about data is that it can give us those insights where you can be having that journalist and build that case within the data to go ahead and make a big difference.

Jewels: So are these hats used in [00:16:00] all interactions? So if I’m just having a meeting, I’m starting with the journalists and working my way through. If I’m presenting a proposal or a solution, I would also use the hat. So is it pretty much every type, every type or every example of communication there is, you, you continue to use the four hats?

Yeah. 

Yasmine: Think about like sales copy in the end, if I’m reading a copy of sales, if it’s for my context, I’m paying attention. If it’s not, I’m already tuned out. 

Jewels: Yeah. 

Yasmine: It was talking about a conversation, even with the friends, right. You’re meeting someone. If you’re making it about what’s happening for them, they’re going to like you a lot more.

Because at the end of the day, like if for you, if you want to make a big impact and be persuasive, it’s really. Getting out of your space and realizing how can I help the person in front of me get to where I want them to get to, right, wherever they want to get to, I’m helping them get there. And as long as you play that role of being the Sherpa, whether with a friendship, a relationship or with a client.

You’re going to [00:17:00] realize it’s always the same kind of sequence. 

Jewels: And can I use it right down to microforms of communication? So if I was doing an advert or a social media post, would I still use the same flow? 

Yasmine: Same thing, because any kind of social media post or even ad will have a hook. 

Jewels: Yeah, right. 

Yasmine: Hook is just being a journalist.

It’s all that it’s doing. And then the call to action is being the doctor, where the doctor is saying, take this up. Want to improve this, join now, right? It’s very simple. But if you want this kind of result, you come here and we’ll help you. 

Jewels: So for somebody who’s maybe listening to this conversation and going, yeah, holy hell, maybe I’m a little bit scattered in my communications.

How would you, where would they start? What would be a couple of good steps apart from coming and visiting you and doing some courses and bits and pieces, which is fabulous. What would you recommend they do just from a, even as a starting point, so I can learn firstly, and then understand what it is that I should be thinking about when I’m approaching people, when I’m talking to people and what am I really listing [00:18:00] out for.

Yasmine: So this is something that most people like don’t expect, but actually the starting point is not actually even your communication. The starting point is getting very clear. Where are you going? What is the bigger picture? And wherever the bigger picture is. Then the question is my current way of building a narrative, serving me and my goals.

And oftentimes what people do is they end up just speaking, but they don’t know how it’s linked to a bigger context. So once you get very clear where you’re going, what do you want to achieve and so forth, then it’s about going back and asking those questions because these are hard questions, Jewels, it sounds like it’s simple, but making it about the impact that you want to create is not something that people think about.

Most people are thinking, is anyone going to buy from me? Oh, they have, it’s just like, no one in the market has money. It’s like, what are you talking about? The market has trillions of dollars being transacted. Every time there’s money flung around is whether you’re receiving that money or not is because you’re doing this work.

So the first step is really getting clear. What is that vision that [00:19:00] you have for yourself? The second step is realizing is my current way supporting me? Is it serving where I want to go? And then you put on those three different hats. Because if you don’t have it in that order, then you’re going to have a really difficult time because you’re going to be like opportunistic and constantly shifting gears because you’re looking for like something to like stick on you and that becomes a lot of intuition that’s untrained and causing a lot of stress and overwhelm.

So that’s why the beginning is always, where do you want to go? What narrative do you have around there? And then, okay, let’s, let’s turn some skills around is the market. I’m going for the right market is the buyer I’m going for. Do I even understand them in the first place? And then is the case that I have built compelling enough or not?

And sometimes it isn’t. And then therefore you have to go in and if you’re a small business owner, you have to adjust your process. And if you’re a big company, you have to adjust your messaging around it because this is what’s happening. The more you help a client get [00:20:00] results, the more they’re going to stick and going to come back because they want to, they want you to help them again and again.

Jewels: What maybe has come to a surprise to a lot of people, I think once they get through a certain amount of personal experience is how much structure there actually is or needs to be behind communication and sales and marketing. Right. In general, a lot of people see both those. Types of activity is somewhat art rather than science.

So you’re either good at sales or you’re good at marketing, you’re creative, or you’re a great salesperson, whatever that is. They think it’s more in an innate ability. And yet when you start to break it down, it’s actually quite a process. Once you discover it and whether it’s your version of that, which is the three hats, which is beautiful, I love it, but there’s, there’s multiple versions of both sales.

Process and marketing process. And I think a lot of people might be a little bit surprised because even though, even somebody who’s been around for a long time, if they’ve done it a certain way and [00:21:00] sort of got away with it for a long time, they think they’re just kind of half decent or half good at.

What it is they’re doing, but if they start to apply some of these methodologies, it’s amazing. Cause I’ve seen it too, right? It’s amazing how much they can further develop and act, be more consistent. And I think that’s the key. When you talked about that boat, what I thought about it was being a business cause I’ve been in business for 30 plus years and I know what it feels like to be on the rocky boat, right?

So some days you’re up and it’s all awesome and everything’s going well. And the next day you’d completely down and you want to chuck it all in. And it’s, you know, it’s all going pear shaped. And the difference really is that consistency piece and particularly around driving the revenue. If you’re able to do, uh, follow half decent process, which takes you to a point, you’re then able to then convert sales.

Ultimately in a consistent regarded fashion to keep that business a little bit flatter or hopefully growing over a [00:22:00] period of time, rather than that boat sensation that you talked about, which I love to that analogy. That’s exactly what it’s like, right? It’s crazy. It’s on the open seas. 

Yasmine: It’s open season that also put in mind, like sometimes I want to just rocking.

Sometimes it’s rocky and then you also have like holes so like you’re trying to like plug in the holes so you’re like drowning and it’s rocking and you’re like, I don’t want to do this anymore. And this is really where it’s like getting very clear. Are you in the right boat? Where are the leaks coming from?

And how do you master one thing at a time to get to where you want to get to? And then there’s the thing is what I love about business is actually so many ways to achieve the same goals. There’s so many things that you can do. Like I have some clients that I work with that are growing because they’re able to grow their team, right?

I have other clients who are growing through acquisition of another company. I have other clients who are growing through partnerships and different markets, right? So there’s so many ways, and there’s just only three of the many ways to grow your business. But in the end of the day, you need to know where do you want to go?

And then is [00:23:00] my narrative and I’m messaging the right one for the right audience. And once you have that, then you’re going to be able to go a lot faster, a lot smoother and smooth sail through that chapter instead of going like, ah, as most people do. 

Jewels: I love what you said there, right at the beginning where you said, make sure you’re even in the right boat.

That’s kind of an interesting one, right? So a lot of people are in something that maybe they shouldn’t be, right? And it’s not actually achieving what they’re trying to achieve. And that’s something that’s quite difficult to admit as well for a lot of people. Like, actually, I’ve made, I’m going down the wrong path.

I’m in the wrong, I need to switch quickly. Otherwise it’s not going to go well, but they hang onto it because that’s been their, their baby kind of thing. So that’s an interesting part. 

Yasmine: Yeah. And I’ve been there. So it’s really hard because at one point I grew a production agency and we went from zero to seven figures within 18 months.

So like, it was amazing. I’m like, yay, I have achieved this. But I’m like, why am I so freaking miserable? And I’m like, is [00:24:00] the business model that I created. I didn’t want to be a part of like, I knew how to grow it. I just didn’t want to grow it. So it was like, and then it’s really difficult because you’re like, shit, I’ve done all this work and has a positive return.

Do I leave this boat when it’s already sailing and it’s already working? And that’s, once again, getting very clear, like, where do you want to go? That’s why I always like hammer that point because there’s no right or wrong way. There is no right and wrong way of doing life, which is about getting clear.

Is this in the path of where I want to be? 

Jewels: I love too that business, like you said, was there’s so many ways to, to grow a business. So many things, so many aspects that you can do and switch and change. So there’s a, it’s a weird conundrum. There’s kind of no rule book, but there is at the same time. Right.

So there’s micro rules that if you follow, Then you’re able to grow and you’re able to achieve stuff. And what you’re talking about there, those three hats, for example, that’s one of those micro rule books that if you’re able to implement that, no matter what type of business you’re in, [00:25:00] you’ll be able to take it forward.

So there’s no big rule book that says you must run a business this way. But there’s lots of micro rules that you can latch onto that in conjunction with perhaps some other rules, you hopefully will be able to grow their business. That’s what I love about it. Cause every business, even though two businesses may look the same on the outside, but can be completely different on the inside and still both do very well or some both could fail as well.

Yasmine: A hundred percent. And this is where I’m a big proponent on systems and why I love systems so much because Like those micro plays, those micro ways of playing the game is really you adjusting and understanding, like whether it’s like getting clear, like, where are we currently at? Like truly where are we currently at?

And then also, where do we want to go? And then how do we get there? And then also how do we track and tweak things? And these are all higher level plays that have so many sub plays within it. That will get you the results that you want to get to. 

Jewels: I also love [00:26:00] process. And I think one of the things that I find still quite somewhat amusing, if you like, is that sales and marketing in particular as highly regulated as other aspects of the business.

Right? So you can’t not follow the rules and the process around accounting, for example, your finances must be done a certain way every time. And they will, you know, you would, you will achieve what you’re trying to do. Same with operations, you go to the nth degree. If you’re a manufacturing company, for example, you will have processes out the wazoo that drive that business from beginning to end to be able to create your widgets the same way every time.

And yet when it comes to sales and marketing, that’s the one area that a lot of companies just don’t put that same discipline into, it might not be the Like I said, the rule books might not be as stringent. in sales as they are, for example, in accounting, but there still needs to be some rules. There [00:27:00] still needs to be some process so that the business as a whole can operate day in, day out the same way different people in the organization can follow these rules in order to achieve a certain outcome.

And what, I mean, do you find that as well? Do it, does it surprise you to some degree how little Process is in and around sales and marketing. 

Yasmine: I don’t think it surprises me because I didn’t have any of the process. The reason why I love a teacher stuff is because I had to learn the hard way. I had to learn and suffer for like nearly a decade, the hard way.

And now that I get it, I’m just like, you can put me in a situation and I can flip things around because I’ve learned it. So I don’t necessarily. I’m surprised because I had to go through that struggle. I had to realize, Oh, like maybe this current approach isn’t serving me. Maybe hiring this person and expecting this hire to fix things for me.

Isn’t it going to serve me if I don’t give them the right direction to be the captain of that boat. And I think that’s a part that like. It’s why I love this work so much and why it’s [00:28:00] like really for me, not even work. It’s like more just a calling is because once you get that your whole life will change.

And for me personally, like I have a degree in psychology and I actually care about the mental health of these leaders. So I just use sales and systems as a way to do it. But that’s actually a bigger driver for me. Once you understand how to play this, you’re not going to have burnout. You’re not going to have diseases because you’re no longer stressed because you understand that you have the right place for where you want to go.

And that’s something that’s probably like a more philosophical way of how to operate and think about things. So that’s how I think about it. 

Jewels: Tell me a little bit more about that because stress and overwhelm and mental health is a big at play at the moment. I’m not sure about in Singapore, but I know in Australia, there’s a lot more evidence around it that it is people are being affected.

Right now you could blame COVID for some of it, but I don’t think it’s all to blame in that regard. Tell me a little bit more about that work that you’re doing around that sort of [00:29:00] mental health space. 

Yasmine: So a lot of times people don’t realize, but like when you have anxiety, procrastination, or you’re really like strung out about things, it actually is a response to fear.

And the reality is the world today has gotten way, in one regard, easier, but in another regard, harder. And harder because we have to make so many decisions every single day. And this is what actually causes people to get burned out because they’re thinking is it the right choice? Am I doing the right thing?

So they’re always constantly thinking about those things and that’s where they have so much frustration. And the frustration can be completely replaced by having systems in place. So when I’m working with people, I discover certain patterns. And like certain patterns, for example, the person will always say yes to things.

That’s a very big pattern. If you always say yes to things and you physically only have 24 hours in a day It is a recipe of anxiety It is a recipe of burnout and i’ve experienced that so I don’t judge it, but I understand it [00:30:00] Another form is the person who is constantly thinking it’s not good enough.

So they’re constantly in perfectionist mode. And that causes another form of anxiety and burnout, because you’re always like holding back for the right thing. And then you have the people that I’ve gotten to work with as well, who are using a lot of aggression and how they work. And we’re not talking about aggression, where I’m going to go to Jews and beat him up.

But we use aggression by like just increasing the decimal of your voice, right? And as a result of that, like you get angry, not only at a situation, but you get angry the whole day, get angry at yourself. And it’s all happening internally that also causes anxiety, overwhelm, and burnout. And then the final one is people who just avoid making decisions.

And I love this quote that says, If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not making any decisions. And it’s because of the fact that you’re hoping that you’re like, don’t have to do that. But the reality is, whether you take an action or not, you made a decision, maybe not the one that you wanted, and so forth.

So we have those four common [00:31:00] reactions that people have that all causes burnout. And this is really where the space of knowing and understanding the systems on how to be able to identify, up and how to regulate it come into play. And all of these can be tackled by having systems in place in your business so that you understand, Hey, I don’t have to react this way because I have more visibility on what’s going on.

And I also understand what’s happening. And then the third thing as a result of those things is when you have those things in place, then you can also have people on your team be clear who’s doing what and oftentimes they’re not clear. And then it all falls under your hat and then you’re feeling also more stress and overwhelmed.

So within that it’s a lot of understanding again What is the narrative you’re telling yourself and how you’re regulating with that and this is where you have a rise in diseases Because people don’t realize if you have a growth in your body, there’s scientific proof today It is because you haven’t dealt with [00:32:00] your emotions.

I wish I could say something else But my dad had cancer. My auntie had cancer. They had a lot of sadness in their life and that manifested in a disease You So this is where like, for me, some of these understanding, what is your response when you’re fearful and what you’re fearful to today is very real.

AI is a big cause of fear. COVID was a big cause of fear. Initially we had the computer big cause of fear. Now we have so much more than the computer, like the speed of processing today is so much faster. And then you also have the economy becoming more complex. And then you also have the marketplace is becoming more competitive.

Before you would compete with the jobs just in your area, and now you’re competing with jobs and people from around the world and technology. So it’s like, there’s so many layers where it’s no wonder people are afraid and that’s completely normal, but how do you adjust and adapt to that? That’s more important.

Jewels: So with those four different traits or reactions, if you like the yes, the perfectionist, the aggression [00:33:00] and the avoidance kind of fact, is that right? I’ve got those four, right? Is it common that perhaps you’re not necessarily one or the other? Like sometimes you’re the yes person. Sometimes you get, might get angry about it, but sometimes you might avoid it.

Like I know I go through each one of those at different points in time. Is that kind of true across the board. So it’s really sort of where are you sitting right now? And reacting to, and what’s causing that particular reaction for that particular trait. So if I’m a yes person, maybe I’m feeling a bit insecure about the business that’s coming in and I just need to say yes to everything so that keep the business afloat, for example, that is it true to say that it could even be in a, in one particular day, I might go through the, all four of these things.

Yasmine: So people typically will go through all four, depending on the context, like me personally, I used to be a jazz, if it was people that were more senior than me, right, but moments. It was a customer support person. I would go into aggression because they were lesser. They were on the phone. I [00:34:00] couldn’t see them.

So then like my inner rage would come out. Now put in mind, whatever your reaction is, not who you are, it’s only who you are when you’re afraid. It’s like the little child within you trying to react and try to get like the right approval. Like for me, I was a yes person because. I grew up in a house where my mom had me and she had my brother 14 months after me.

So when he would cry she would pick him up when I would cry She wouldn’t because she had a toddler a baby in her hand and I was a little toddler So I learned to get that validation by always being the good girl. So fast forward in my career I would say yes because I wanted to be the good girl Even when I had a team that I had hired and I was paying the salary, I wanted to be the good girl.

And the reality is you cannot be a leader and constantly reacting like that. So you will adjust because how we grew up as children impact how we react to situations. But you will typically have a couple that are like your go to. There’s some things, for example, that you might be completely avoiding it because it’s like [00:35:00] way too big.

And you don’t know how to navigate through it, but you’re constantly like just blocking it out. So you’ll go through all four of them, but you’ll typically have one or two that are your like, go to that you’re like, 

Jewels: yeah, go 

Yasmine: tos. Yeah. This 

Jewels: feels like a conversation that we could do an entire podcast series on, and I’m sure you possibly have in the past.

I just want to switch tack just briefly for a second. And this is possibly my final question for today, but I noticed on your LinkedIn profile in your banner. You’ve got a little phrase there that says make more time and profit. Through persuasive storytelling. Now, this podcast is about storytelling, the telling of story.

So I’m just curious to understand what does that mean for you and how do you show people what is persuasive storytelling and how would one use it in business to make, as you say, to make more time and more profit. 

Yasmine: So when I look at like storytelling where people get it wrong, if people think it’s more like once upon a time.[00:36:00]

And that’s one from a story. But for me, process of storytelling is helping someone have an awareness as a better way of doing something, having someone commits to a different way of doing something and having someone change to a new way of doing something. So it has a little bit of a different outcome that you want to have with it.

And the reality is if you have that as an agenda, then instead of going back and forth with lots of time on things, you can have things happen faster. But to give you an example of that, one of the clients I got to work with is a bank and they used to have like their operations team, whatever the sales people said, the operations team would build, right.

They’re like build a technology software based on what the sales teams wanted. But what was really crazy is the technical operations team knew that some of the request the sales teams had was not possible to create. They knew physically impossible to make that, but because their [00:37:00] response was to avoid questioning superior, I felt like the sales were just operations.

They didn’t do that. So this company lost about like maybe about like a hundred million dollars in a year working on a project. That actually had no purpose, no waste of doing, and it was because, like, first of all, the sales team wasn’t able to be persuasive and like being very clear and understanding what would get in the way.

And then the technical operations team just couldn’t also be persuasive and telling them like, Hey, this won’t work. They would say like, it won’t work, but the sales team wouldn’t hear it because they were just not, they’re not speaking the same frequency. So this is what I mean by saving money and saving time is if we’re able to have those collaborative conversations, because we have that common vision, we know what needs to be there.

The people who are afraid to speak up and the ones who are afraid of messing up also understand the context of what is possible. And this is where oftentimes businesses don’t [00:38:00] realize the opportunity costs of not learning this. And like how much you waste anyway, in your businesses, according to one of the researchers on HR says like companies are 40 percent losing money because they’re not being productive.

And that comes because a team don’t know how to communicate what needs to be done. So if you can cut that expense in a business and make that into revenue generating activities, companies would grow a lot faster as well. 

Jewels: It harks back a lot to what you described earlier as understanding the context of the person you’re communicating to, rather than the context you’re communicating from.

So it’s no good you spreading out what you think is important. It’s what is it that is important for the person who needs to hear it. And starting from that angle and understanding that context in order to build the narrative and communicate better, right? 

Yasmine: And the reason why I figured out these hats is because I studied communications and psychology.

So I was really good at [00:39:00] this and by the time I had to teach it because I had requests on teaching this stuff, I was like, what am I doing? And I realized that I wasn’t ever speaking at the very beginning. I was using my investigative journalist hat to be like, okay, what is actually going on here? And then thinking about like, what would be like the hook that makes it more compelling.

And then doing that over and over again, then the rest becomes really easy because you understand the context, you understand what’s going on, what is being said, and then And not being said, those are very two important parts in any story. And most people are just taking the face value, and then they wonder why they’re stuck, why they’re frustrated, and why they’re not getting the result that they want to get.

Jewels: Yasmine, I’ve truly enjoyed our conversation today, and there’s a whole bunch of stuff that you’ve got me thinking, and I know the audience is thinking about as well. At the beginning of the podcast, you mentioned that you had a very special gift to offer to the listener. Can you tell us what that is? 

Yasmine: Yeah.

So I obviously, for [00:40:00] reasons that are linked to my life experience, losing my dad and my auntie, I love time and I love helping people get back more time because they’re focusing on the things that matter to them. So the gift that we have is to help you assess what is your time and how are you using your time?

Because if you’re able to focus your time on more high value activities. That will make things go faster, help you build more revenue. That will be how you grow your business and how you scale, whether it’s in a career or whether that’s in your own business. So the gift is really like a time audit. It’s one of the favorite tools that I have that I work with my clients on to help you assess.

What are you doing and what is your time worth and how much you will get if you keep on doing those things. And then we have a whole checklist on how do you do higher value time so you can make the boat go faster and it’s results that you want to get to. 

Jewels: Excellent. And how would one access that? [00:41:00]

Yasmine: So if you go to the website, I am smooth sailing.

com slash more time, you’ll be able to download it. 

Jewels: I am smooth sailing. com forward slash. 

Yasmine: More time. More 

Jewels: time. I’ll put that link in the show notes for everybody. Yasmine, it’s been absolutely a joy to have this conversation with you. Where can the listener find out a little bit more about you? 

Yasmine: Yeah. So I run two different programs, one for the bigger businesses, which is over at the sales story method.

And then you can kind of connect with me. You could find me on LinkedIn. You could find me on Instagram and so forth. And then I also run a program for small business owners. These are companies that are making anywhere from 100, 000 to 5 million in revenue. And that’s over at the iamssmoothsailing. com.

And then you can get on the wait list and get some tips and tricks on how to be able to grow your business. Because that you have more systems, more profits and more time, which is again, like the biggest asset because in [00:42:00] the end of the day, everything else you can make more of, but the time that you have, you will never get 

Jewels: back.

Yasmine, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much. 

Yasmine: All right. Thank you so much, Jewels. 

Jewels: Cheers. I love the four hats Yasmine walked us through. The journalist, the lawyer, the doctor, and the scientist. Much love. Chat soon.