Ep 10: The Neuroscience of Storytelling and Connection with Founder of Story and Spirit, Michael Kass
“Connection is the only reason we’ve survived as a species. If we don’t get better at this, we won’t survive.” - Michael Kass
About this Episode
In this episode of Seeking the Overlap, Baily Hancock sits down with Michael Kass, a transformational facilitator and expert in storytelling, to uncover the neuroscience of connection and the art of being present. Together, they explore the power of shared stories to sync our brains and deepen relationships, the societal forces that keep us disconnected, and the simple yet profound practice of presencing as a countercultural act. Whether navigating a networking event or seeking more meaningful relationships, this conversation will inspire you to connect with others—and yourself—on a deeper level.
Topics Covered
The science of neural coupling and how storytelling creates shared brain activity.
Why true listening is rare and how to cultivate it as a superpower.
The role of vulnerability and risk in building authentic connections.
How being present is both a radical act and a pathway to survival as a species.
Practical strategies for catalyzing connection in professional and personal settings.
Resources Mentioned
Visit Michael’s websites:
About the Guest
Michael Kass is an international facilitator, consultant, and healer who works with organizations and individuals to bring humanity, resilience, and a sense of the Sacred back to leadership and change work. Michael is an ICF Certified Executive Coach, Certified Breathwork Facilitator, has completed Trauma Informed Heartmath Facilitation Training and Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Training with the Embody Lab. He is the author of Story Maps: Wayfinding Tools for the Modern Seeker, co-author of the Hollywood Homeless Youth Partnership’s Ethical Storytelling Whitepaper and serves on the Advisory Council for the International Dignified Storytelling Project. He probably likes chocolate at least as much as you do.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
04:34 Understanding Neural Coupling
09:17 The Power of Storytelling
16:47 Trusting the Flow of Conversation
20:21 Presence and Consciousness in Conversations
25:24 Self-Discovery Through Conversations
27:09 The Importance of Micro Interactions
28:17 Overcoming Fear in Social Settings
30:31 The Role of Presence in Networking
35:01 Authentic Networking for Long-Term Success
Interview Transcript
Introduction to Seeking the Overlap
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Baily Hancock: welcome to Seeking the Overlap, the podcast where we're creating a more connected world, one conversation at a time. I'm connection strategist, professional friend maker, and your host, Baily Hancock.
What if the key to building deeper, more meaningful relationships wasn't about what you say, but how present you are? In a world designed to pull us in every direction, how do we create the kind of connection that truly nourishes us? Today's guest, Michael Kass, is here to help us unravel that mystery.
Michael is an international facilitator, consultant, and healer who works to bring humanity, resilience, and a sense of the sacred back into leadership and relationships. he's an ICF Certified Executive Coach, a Certified Breathwork Facilitator, and the author of Story Maps, Wayfinding Tools for the Modern Seeker.
In this episode, Michael shares the fascinating science behind neural coupling, a process where storytelling synchronizes our brains and builds shared experiences. We'll also explore why vulnerability and presence are so transformative, and how small shifts in how we listen and show up can deepen our connection with others.
Get ready to rethink what it means to connect in a world that's more distracted than ever.
Baily Hancock: Michael Kass, welcome to the show.
Michael Kass: Thanks friends. Good to
Baily Hancock: I'm,
Michael Kass: Hi.
Three Truths, No Lies
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Baily Hancock: glad you're here. Before we dive into your expertise, I'm doing a segment called three truths, no lies to help our audience get to know our guests a little bit deeper on a human level before we dive into the expert level.
What is a book, movie, or TV show that you've read or watched multiple times?
Michael Kass: The first one that comes up is a book called for love of the game by Michael Shara, which was turned into a not very
Baily Hancock: I was
Michael Kass: with
Baily Hancock: gonna say, wasn't there a movie? Okay.
Michael Kass: And it's a weird one because I don't really like baseball at all. it's about baseball. And I read it, when I was 15 and I think I read it while I was on the plane to Japan for an exchange program and for, and I was just in tears. The whole time. And so for 10 years, 15 to 25, I would read that book multiple times a year. And
Baily Hancock: Wow,
Michael Kass: think it was really about the persistence embodied in it. And then there's a love story, which I've always been a sucker for. So that's the first one that comes up.
Baily Hancock: that's it, that's a lot of times.
Michael Kass: It's many times. It's many for sure. Yeah, but it, you know, it gets to the point where it just becomes a very comforting ritual. It's a short book, like less than 200 pages, I think. And so you can just kind of go through it and it's just beautifully done. I think the other thing I love about it is what shines through is the author's Just like devotional love of baseball. So even though I don't care about it at all There's something in the energy of the way that he shares the stories and the details of it that just kind of translates and makes You fall in love with it.
Baily Hancock: Okay. First and last thing you do every day.
Michael Kass: I want to give the aspirational answer, but you said it had to be true So first thing as I look at my phone I don't
Baily Hancock: Michael Kass looks at his phone the moment he wakes up. Yes,
Michael Kass: and I'm never sure what time it is. And so I look to look at the time and then, oh my gosh, there's so many alerts that of course need to be tended to immediately.
Baily Hancock: yes. The world has been moving while you've been sleeping. How dare it?
Michael Kass: sleeping, there's stuff happening. So that is the first thing. The last thing is I brush my teeth. And that my body has learned that means it's time for bed. So I'll brush my teeth. I'll literally climb into bed and maybe I'll say to my wife, I'm so wired. I'll never get to sleep. And then I'm out
Baily Hancock: You're one of those.
Michael Kass: Oh yeah.
Baily Hancock: I love it. Okay. Final question. What's a nickname you've been given and who gave it to you?
Michael Kass: The only nicknames that I've had are like shortened versions of my name.
Baily Hancock: Oh, well, you've made it out alive then because clearly elementary school and middle school were good to you.
Michael Kass: well, right, my last name is Cass, and so like the meanest thing people would do is take the K off of it, and so they would, they'd call me Mick Ass. But that
Baily Hancock: Not even that creative.
Michael Kass: I know I'm like, that's literally my initials with my last name that ouch.
I don't know.
Baily Hancock: You're right.
Michael Kass: yeah, but that's it. So yeah, my, my classmates in fifth and sixth grade would call me Macass.
Baily Hancock: Well, you've made it out unscathed then. I think that is very lucky. My last name is Hancock, so I'll just leave it there. Middle school was a bit rough.
Okay.
Unique Camp Experience
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Baily Hancock: So let's get into it.
Context for our listeners, Michael and I met seven plus years ago now at the Unique Camp where I met so many of my most fascinating friends that have come into my life. And if you're not familiar with the unique camp, it was this creative conference for creatives, entrepreneurs, day jobbers, really anybody that wanted to disconnect for four days.
They confiscate your cell phone. At the beginning, you're at an actual summer camp. And you're surrounded by all these adults with no name tags, no qualifications, no credibility, like everybody's just a person. And so I think because of that, the relationships I formed there just inherently were so much deeper than ones that I've met in other circumstances, where there were those layers to things before you really got to know the human, you got to know their title first and their job first and their, you know, expertise first, but at camp, everybody was just a person.
All feeling a little bit uncomfortable because we were out of our comfort zone. We didn't have our cell phone as our crutch and you had to just talk to people. Michael taught a storytelling workshop that like single handedly changed the way I think of my own narrative and my own story.
So hi, glad you're here.
Understanding Neural Coupling
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Baily Hancock: When we caught up a few weeks ago, you casually dropped the term neural coupling. And I've been thinking about it ever since in the context of connecting with other people. So give us the middle school version, what is neural coupling,
and how that helps us create this shared experience that deepens connection. Cause I think that's what was happening at camp , and that's why we all feel like we know each other, even though we were only together for three and a half days.
So what is neural coupling? .
Michael Kass: 15 years old from 2009 out of Princeton. And they basically hooked a bunch of grad students up to brain scanner machines, fMRIs, and had them, had one of them tell a story and the rest listened to it. And what they found very quickly is that the listener's brain and the storyteller's brain started to sync up, So when storyteller's brain. with story, not in the kind of strategic communication sense, which tends to be very surface level, but in the way that evokes emotions and sense memories and a sense of place and a sense of dramatic tension. If I'm telling you a story that has those characteristics, right, my brain is lighting up like fireworks, right? All different parts that don't generally light up at the same time. are activating if you're listening to someone who's having that experience in their brain, your brain starts to do the same thing is what they found.
They called it neural coupling, because that's what it is. And so when it comes to creating connections and community, one of the reasons that like in the teams and workplaces, people can spend 12 hours a day together and still feel like strangers is that they're operating at a purely transactional kind of concrete or analytical level. coupling not happen when we interact in that transactional way. It only happens when we're interacting in a relational sensory way, which is why a camp when people are wiggling together. on the ground as worms, or we're sharing stories, or dancing together, right? All of these things are creating physiological connection between people.
Baily Hancock: So is it dependent upon Obviously it's dependent upon particular variables or factors. I can imagine like concerts are for sure. One of them, right? So maybe that music piece, which is that vibration and that sound. Is it also, I mean, is it the same thing as when people go through a traumatic experience together that they tend to feel bonded or is that like a different thing?
Michael Kass: Right? So if you think about that's, you could call it trauma bonding or experiential bonding. That's a sense of kinship that is simply there because we've had a shared experience of grief or joy or whatever, right? Childbirth is one of those. Losing a parent at an early age is one of those, but it's not really neural coupling so much as recognizing a type of experience. Whereas if you're at a classical music concert or in a breathwork class, there are things happening that are bringing your bodies into coherence, right? And same with story. if you get like the audience of the moth, for example, one of the reasons people got so into that, the stories. are fine, but it's about the experience of being together, listening to them.
Baily Hancock: So it seems like there's a physical, a major physical component that takes place, whether it's like you're actually moving or it's just on a physiological level.
Michael Kass: Oh, for sure. And endocrine, right? It's also your body, especially with storytelling, what the research shows is your body starts secreting the hormone oxytocin, which is our empathy hormone, right? It's the only reason, one of the only reasons we've survived as a species because people are super annoying. If we were not designed to connect in that way, like bond through these types of relational activities. Why would we protect each other?
Baily Hancock: God I wonder.
Michael Kass: I wonder, right. Which is why I think, you know, two of the first things that we evolved to do were, or three of them were to like wiggle our bodies in rhythmic ways which you could call dancing make music and sound and tell stories. Right?
The Power of Storytelling
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Baily Hancock: So with the storytelling component, as it relates to neural coupling, you mentioned, you know, if somebody is telling a story, not a surface level transactional story, but like something that's coming from somewhere deep and resonant, what is happening on the When that story is kind of hitting all the right notes, right.
And there is that neuro coupling and everybody's in this like time paused flow state of connection, what's going on and can you intentionally, and I don't want to use the word manufacturer, but can you intentionally cause that reaction if you're trying to catalyze a connection with somebody new?
Michael Kass: Totally. Yeah, so there's a few things happening, right? You mentioned the flow state. What's happening in terms of brainwave activity is if somebody's really engrossed in a story, their brain will drop into an alpha state, which is the flow state. And alpha is a relatively slow brainwave usually around 4.
5 to, I'm going to make this up six Hertz, but if you were to look at it, it would look like a nice steady kind of sine wave. Right. And that kind of opens up the space for connection.
Deep Listening and Connection
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Michael Kass: And so one of the challenges though, that listeners have, even when I'm doing storytelling workshops, one of the cues that I'll give people is as the listener, your only job is to listen, but culturally we're predisposed to interrupt or to ask questions or to do which is not actually listening.
It's a performative thing to demonstrate listening. is actually a very. Almost meditative, deeply presencing process. to really listen, not just to words and content, but to the energy of what's going on is transformational, both for the listener and for the speaker, the storyteller the whatever. So if you wanted to manufacture that, which is essentially what I do in storytelling workshops, right, if you're facilitating it, one of the ways to do it is to say, you know, our only job as a listener is to listen. and to receive storyteller or the speaker's work with an open heart. If you're like in conversation with someone, there's not too much you can do.
One thing that does tend to work that I talk with folks a lot about is if you're frustrated with the level of an interaction and you're like, I'm not getting anything. This is boring. Or this is, you know, we've all talked to people who you get into a conversation. You're like, this is literally killing my soul.
No energy here. Is it, if you put a little bit more of yourself on the line, And take a risk, not open your heart and reveal your deepest truths, but simply say something human or ask a question that elicits. of pause thoughtfulness in your conversation partner, then you're actually going to drop into a deeper space, right?
So just because a conversation is at a transactional, not very human level doesn't mean it needs to stay there, right? And so if we take the risk to bring it a little bit into a more deeply human place, 95 times out of 10, which isn't how mouth works, People will need us there because we're hungry for it, especially in the U.
S. We're just hungry for even an ounce human connection.
Baily Hancock: Oh man. Okay. There's so much in there. So one thing that you just said that I wrote down immediately was receiving. And I think that gets at the core of what connection, one of the basic outcomes of connection, right? Like best basic outcomes of connection is feeling received by somebody else, feeling seen by somebody else.
And. It's interesting because I think we're told to be good, active listeners. And, you know, that has always been like, that is the way to do it. You are an active listener, so you're really paying attention, but you mentioned like active listening in and of itself can be performative and it can also suck you right out of that.
That resonance that can happen when you're just releasing anything and you're just being there. You're just, you're on the receiving end of whatever this other person is putting out. So it's interesting that even if, let's say you and I met at a networking event, this would never happen with us.
Let's say we met somebody at a networking event. Who's just very transactional. They're there to shake hands and exchange business cards. It sounds like what you're saying is you can literally like, kind of, despite what's coming from them, you can still put yourself in that place of really what it sounds is like more deep listening or just receiving whatever they're saying.
And then by kind of volleying back something that perhaps invites them to go slightly deeper, it's likely they will follow you there. Is that right?
Michael Kass: Yeah, or you can break them out of their pattern because if people are in that sort of networky pew, pew, pew kind
Baily Hancock: Yes.
Michael Kass: they're not present, right? They're
Baily Hancock: No.
Michael Kass: and they're not in their bodies. And so one thing, That you can do, going back to the other conversation we were referencing, is if you get curious.
My favorite thing to do is say Wow, that's super interesting. Here's something I'm curious about.
Baily Hancock: I'm
Michael Kass: It doesn't really matter what you ask as long as it's kind of human. Or, wow, that's amazing. What's bringing you joy right now? Is another one is right. Helping people connect. We tend to, especially in professional settings, connect through challenge or accomplishment or work trauma, right?
Like, Ah, things are so hard right now. Blah, blah.
I have a partner who I'm working with where project where every time we talk, they just go like, Oh, you know, just busy. And I'll go like, oh
Baily Hancock: Another day.
Michael Kass: Another day. Oh, we're gonna get through it. All right. Well, what's
Baily Hancock: Let's grind it out.
Michael Kass: Right. What if we created relationship through the lens of joy and excitement and vitality? Not that the challenges aren't real, but why do we always center that? So that's another way to do it.
Baily Hancock: One of the things I teach in my art of connection workshop is instead of sitting there preparing your list of questions that you want to ask the person, which is what we often do when we're in the listening place, we're running through our list of okay, what am I going to say next? What am I going to respond to this with?
And that's another thing that just sucks you right out of the moment too, because you might be listening in one ear to what they're having to say. While in the other ear, you've got your own voice saying, okay, next, you're going to say this and oh, you can say me too on this part. And, you know, there's this this lack of presence in that way of conversing with somebody and connecting with somebody where you're already two minutes ahead of the conversation as a way to seem more prepared and more professional or more together. But I think if we can find a way to trust. That if you're just there all the way, if you're just fully present in the conversation, that will naturally come.
Trusting the Flow of Conversation
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Baily Hancock: Do you ever work with people in that capacity where it's okay, how do I build up that muscle of trust that like, I'm going to have something to say next, even if I haven't been preparing the whole time that they're talking from my turn to talk It can feel really intimidating to just trust that the conversation will flow naturally versus needing to have a script that you return to
Michael Kass: It's bigger than just conversation because if you are not able to trust the intelligence of a conversation, Then that trust doesn't exist anywhere in your world. In any conversation, if two people or two beings are actually deeply present, then they're tapped in to a consciousness or an intelligence that doesn't belong to either one of them, right? There's something that wants to emerge through the relationship. if they are interacting in the way that you're talking about, of trusting that the thing will come forth You know, that's coming from somewhere
Baily Hancock: Yeah.
Michael Kass: and it's coming through in my kind of the way that I read these things coming through that consciousness. That wants to emerge. And so really the conversation becomes an act of deep listening to the space itself. Right. And in service of something greater than either the either person or the group that's interacting. I mean, that's essentially, to put it in businessy terms, the idea behind a mastermind group
Baily Hancock: Right.
Michael Kass: group of people gets together in deep presence, there is another intelligence that emerges.
That's incredibly beneficial, right?
Baily Hancock: Do you think that's possible in any conversation?
Michael Kass: A hundred percent. Yes,
Baily Hancock: Man.
Michael Kass: Any conversation, anytime two beings are in any sort of relationship with each other, the potential for that kind of emergence exists.
Baily Hancock: It seems like we're all gripping so tightly to the steering wheel that we can't just let the car veer where it wants to go.
Michael Kass: no, and it will always take us someplace infinitely more interesting than we would drive it.
Baily Hancock: It feels like one of the hardest and potentially easiest things to do is be present.
Michael Kass: It, I would say it's the simplest thing,
Baily Hancock: Sure.
Michael Kass: it's incredibly hard because our entire culture, like the culture you and I grew up in and were educated in is oriented towards depresencing,
Baily Hancock: Do you think that's intentional? I
Michael Kass: that's designed. That doesn't just happen, right? That's something that has to be cultivated. And so there's a whole thing that relates that sort of separation from presence as a part of the larger project of colonization of what happens when some force comes in and severs cultures from their roots. And there's like a deep trauma there. So even though being present, right?
Presencing is the simplest thing. we can possibly do. It also is an incredibly revolutionary act that is kind of dangerous to the culture. And if you're in a corporation, incredibly dangerous the construct that is like dominant corporate culture. For the most part,
Baily Hancock: It seems like one of the most rebellious and counterculture things you can do is Be fully present, whether that's with yourself in your job, in connection with somebody else, and.
Presence and Consciousness in Conversations
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Baily Hancock: Trust that when you can be in that flow state, which is pretty much what it feels like and what it is, that whatever needs to come through and wants to come through will, and you don't need to control and grip so tightly to it and taking this back to conversation with other people.
It could be a fascinating experiment to run the next time you're in a situation where you are meeting new people for the first time to go in almost agendaless. Or script lists, where you just show up in that exact moment with that person and see what happens when you just ride the wave of the energy that comes forth between the two of you in conversation and see how different those new relationships form and emerge versus the ones where you come in with your elevator pitch and your agenda.
Of, you know, throwing out as many business cards and collecting as many as you can, so that you grow your LinkedIn following. But instead going in thinking, okay, there's, you know, potential for, let's say five to 10 new things to emerge in this room with these people that I don't yet know, or don't know very well.
I think that could be a very fun and terrifying experiment to run.
Michael Kass: for sure. And to do that, I mean, I think taking, especially if you're at a conference or something where there's so much it's like a boiler room. Everybody's looking for something. Are you useful? I was just at one recently and I had my. You know, it was the opposite of unique camp.
So we all had little name tags and it was like being back in Los Angeles. People would look at me, get curious for a second, look at my name tag, not recognize the organization. And then just I would become invisible. It was It's so weird. I love that idea of The other piece is like, when we're trusting that, and you're talking about riding the wave is what are we trusting?
Baily Hancock: Oh, good point. What are we trusting Michael?
Michael Kass: That's a great question,
Baily Hancock: Ha
Michael Kass: you know, in my mind, we're trusting spirit.
So if you think of consciousness as everything, and the only thing consciousness is. here to do is experience itself in different ways. So if I walk into a room, I'm an expression of consciousness.
You're an expression of everybody, the dog, the service dog's an expression of consciousness. And if we go into it with that framing and just go Oh, I'm going to experience different aspects of myself,
Baily Hancock: Yes.
Michael Kass: which have nothing to do with my business card. And who knows what might happen if we enter into it with that level of awareness, because it can help other people remember that, oh, right, I'm also an expression of this.
Even though most settings we will never explicitly have that conversation, there's something really beautiful that happens if even one person is holding that awareness.
Baily Hancock: Right. So you almost don't need the buy in of the other person.
Michael Kass: no, you don't need their conscious buy in because at a cellular level they know it.
Baily Hancock: That'd be so fascinating to run this experiment, especially in a conference setting where, like you said, it is just intense. People have agendas on agendas and expectations and fears and all of the things. And then later the people that you connected with like months later, ask them like, You know, did you find anything interesting about our conversation? Or what stood out to you when we met?
Building Deeper Connections
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Baily Hancock: It could be very cool down the line, if you've built those relationships, as you're getting to know them beyond that experience. If they did feel on some level that the connection with you was stronger, or they feel like they just like you more, they just get you more, or, you know, they always say, Oh, let people do all the talking.
They'll love you more. And it's okay, yeah, but that's so one sided and that's, that does not make a connection. But it could be very interesting to ask down the road if somebody felt what you were putting out basically.
Michael Kass: Or even just remembered the interaction, maybe not the content of the conversation. I had this happen a couple years ago where somebody I had met five years previously, like we ran into each other at a conference, and we both were like, I remember you. I don't remember anything we talked about, but there was something in the quality of the connection. that created an indelible memory beyond the linguistic level.
Baily Hancock: Usually,
Michael Kass: it. It was really cool.
The Power of Shared Experiences
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Baily Hancock: yeah, usually the way that shows up for me is people will say, Oh, you just loved your energy.
Michael Kass: Sure.
Baily Hancock: a very LA thing to say, right? I don't know what I just really wanted to get to know you. I loved your energy. And to me, That's a recognition of Oh yes. Okay. We were doing the thing.
We were doing that, that like consciousness mirroring for each other.
Self-Discovery Through Conversations
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Baily Hancock: I've been thinking about this a lot lately, as I'm working on my book, seeking the overlap. One of the things I've been thinking about is how Really it's through connection with other people that we're able to connect with ourselves and we're able to get to know ourselves and identify who we are in the grand scheme of things.
Because often you don't know an opinion you have on something until you're faced with either the same opinion or the opposite. And you can say, Oh me too. Or, Oh, that's so interesting. I don't feel that way at all. So it's almost like. One thing I would maybe implore the listeners to do is as you are connecting with people, regardless of whether it's in the parking lot, dropping your kids off at preschool or in the grocery line, or at a conference is to really go into it with the mindset of self discovery through conversation and connection with others, to be able to look at it as oh, I'm basically going to receive how somebody else is showing up in the world and be able to identify and say Oh, me too. Oh, not me. Oh, that's me too. And you, it's this idea of seeking the overlap and it's yes, of course, to find common ground with other people. And when I say seeking the overlap, I mean, finding the piece on the Venn diagram between you and another person that is the same, but it's also a self excavation.
It's a way of identifying. You can't know what's in your overlap with somebody else until you know what's in your circle. And yeah, this idea of connecting on this deeper level, even if it's not vulnerability vomiting all over them, right? Like you don't have to tell your trauma or your childhood story, but like just being able to take it just slightly deeper than the surface level stuff.
I think it can be this beautiful exercise and understanding yourself better at the end of it.
Michael Kass: Totally. Yeah.
The Importance of Micro Interactions
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Michael Kass: I mean, one of the things that I always notice when I'm out in the world that even micro interactions, like you were saying at the grocery store or at the whatever, are incredibly nourishing,
Baily Hancock: Yeah.
Michael Kass: There's, And we've gotten away from that, mostly because of internet.
Like, why would I go to the grocery store if I can
Baily Hancock: I don't even go to the grocery store. It's true. I have so many few so fewer human to human bumping into each other opportunities than I ever have.
Michael Kass: Yeah. Yeah. So like yesterday I went to a coffee shop and I ran into somebody I hadn't seen in months and we had a five minute conversation. I was like juiced up for the rest of the day.
Baily Hancock: Right.
Michael Kass: there's also a sense where, like where we are wired for interaction. And we're wired for relationship, and those relationships don't always have to be deep. They can be glancing, they can just be like little moments of shared presence. But if we stay up here, if it's all just exchanging money, or exchanging widgets, then it doesn't do the thing, right?
Overcoming Fear in Social Settings
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Michael Kass: We actually have to and that can be really scary.
Baily Hancock: Yeah. Well, there's always the fear of rejection or
Just not being received the way you want or perceived the way you want. I mean, God, there's so many layers between what you think about yourself, what the other person thinks about what you think about, they think about you. And it's just good Lord, you can never truly know what the other person is really thinking of you.
And even if you did, it's almost none of your business because. They have so many filters that they're applying to their perception of you. So it's you could just scrap all that. And I think the moral of the story that I'm taking away from this is show up to any interaction that, you know, we'll be generous that you have the energetic capacity for, cause we're not all there mentally all the time to be able to do this.
With this feeling of Let's see where this goes. If I can just you know, give them a little bit, something more than just, Oh, it's hot out again today. Huh? Yeah. School's busy, huh? Yeah. You know, all of the people stuff, it's if you can take it deeper, like you said to that spirit level or that soul level or that consciousness level, that really does it's energy giving versus energy taking, right?
Connection-Centered Thought Leadership
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Baily Hancock: And I think about this in terms of even, you know, to take it from like a marketing perspective of your business. One of the things I teach is connection centered thought leadership. And the idea behind that is, yes, you can go beyond social media and post reels and tick tocks and you know, engage with your followers.
That to me is draining as hell. And it always makes me feel worse than it did before I signed on. But if I can be in a room with people and I can leverage storytelling and connection As a vehicle to make my message get through easier. With less friction, the outcome is always better. And I always leave feeling infinitely more full than I did before.
I have more energy. I'm like, you said, you're juiced up the rest of the day. You're like, Oh, that was good. That was so good. So I think if we can try and make that be a thing, even if it's once a day and hell, if you're really at a deficit once a week in the beginning, I think it's the most worthwhile experiment we may run.
Michael Kass: Totally.
The Role of Presence in Networking
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Michael Kass: I mean, I would say that even if you don't have the energy to do it with other people. And this sort of, you know, meditation is one way to do it, but there's lots, is like cultivating the capacity to be present with ourselves. Because a lot of the folks I work with spend a lot of energy not acknowledging what they're experiencing in any given moment, whether that's frustration, anger, love, joy, like whatever it is, whatever that experience is, there's a lot of energy denying it and making that experience wrong. Because For whatever reason, and there's infinite reasons this happens they believe they should be experiencing something else.
Baily Hancock: All right. We all think
Michael Kass: having
Baily Hancock: supposed to be happy all over the time.
Michael Kass: totally. Right? does that come from? And who benefits from that belief
Baily Hancock: Right. The people selling you the happiness tools.
Michael Kass: Yeah. But
Baily Hancock: Capitalism.
Michael Kass: one, like a few years back, I was just having a gnarly day.
And I was like, I don't want to be gnarly. I should be having fun. I just literally it took less than a minute. I just went, Wait a minute, I'm just I just feel anxious and miserable and sad. And the second I acknowledged it, it passed,
Baily Hancock: Yeah.
Michael Kass: right? simply being with what is ourselves can actually create that same sense of, nourishment and re energization
That we can go out into the world and be present in a real way.
Baily Hancock: I think that's also maybe a good practice to do in that moment of connection with somebody else is even leveraging that as an opening for conversation, right? If you're at a networking event and I don't really know anybody that doesn't feel some level of anxiety in those circumstances, even if you're an extrovert to the extreme, there's still this deep seated fear of What if nobody likes me?
What if nobody wants to talk to me? What if everybody thinks I'm dumb? Or whatever. And it could be interesting even to use that as like an icebreaker, if you will, of Hi, I'm Baily. How's it going? Yeah, I just, I don't know how you're feeling, but I'm just like, Oh, there's a lot of people here. Did you come with anybody?
Are you here by yourself? Leveling with somebody and giving the other person an opportunity to also pause and acknowledge how they're feeling. That could be a shortcut to, to snapping you both to this hyper present state, which can then be step one of a really impactful and like meaningful conversation.
Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Kass: of. In essence, what that is it's a unstructured check in moment. If you think of any group where it's like, Hey, what's present for you right now? And that's how you start a meeting. That's how you start a group, but you don't need it to be a meeting. It can simply be like, Hey I'm experiencing a little bit of nervous right now, but I'm super curious to know more about you then people will tend to meet you there.
Baily Hancock: And you know, worst case scenario, if the other person's Really? I feel great. Okay. That's cool. What makes you feel so great? What do you love about these events? Have you always felt really great in these kinds of circumstances? Tell me, how do you do it? Do you hype yourself? Like you can use that as a doorway too.
Michael Kass: Well, it's a doorway, but then also. If they start to share what they love about things because of neural coupling, you'll also start to experience that love,
Baily Hancock: Right.
Michael Kass: So if I'm experiencing anxiety and I'm like saying, Hey, so good to meet you. Large crowds. They make me a little wiggly and they go Oh my gosh, I love it.
Oh, what do you love about it? They start to explain. Suddenly your nervous system is going to attune to that
Baily Hancock: Right.
Michael Kass: it easier. So
Baily Hancock: I mean, so it's a win. There is no downside here unless you both being like, Oh God, I feel awful and sweaty and anxious. And then it makes the other person feel that way too. But maybe, yeah, right. You just compound the anxiety, but then at least you formed this like common ground with the other person.
And maybe you even say, okay, what if we just stick together the rest of the night and we be each other's wing person for conversation. There is no failing here. There is absolutely no failing the circumstance. If you show up with this open mind, open heart, willingness to level with somebody I think it can only succeed.
Michael Kass: Yeah. Yeah.
Baily Hancock: Yeah.
Michael Kass: might not look like you're used to it looking,
Baily Hancock: Right.
Michael Kass: you'll feel it, right? You'll feel a shift,
Baily Hancock: Right. And at the end of the day is exchanging the most business card success.
Authentic Networking for Long-Term Success
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Baily Hancock: I would argue that forming a couple of like deeper, meaningful relationships will always be more beneficial long term than 30 shallow ones, because when you actually connect with somebody It's it opens so many doors that you can't imagine are even possible to open, you know, to your point about being overlooked when somebody thinks, you know, Oh, I'm not going to get anything from him or he doesn't work somewhere fancy that I'm trying to get it into you.
They have no idea. You're. Connections that you have or your experience or your interests or the things that aren't public yet about what you're working on I guess the moral of that story is like, never, ever write somebody off ever for a billion reasons. But if not for anything other than you just don't know, like I've started having this mantra lately of people are portals to experiences, to opportunities, to ideas, to wisdom, to just literally All of my everything in my life have come through people and through my relationships and life is long if you're lucky and people will go through many iterations of their career.
I mean, I think millennials and beyond more than anybody, right? We're all going to have, I don't even know how many jobs I'm going to have by the time I die. And so you just don't know where people are going to end up. And also, I would also argue that There is no professional networking versus personal networking.
If you're just connecting with human beings who also have jobs and who also have lives, you just don't know where those are going to lead to. And I think the more you can show up authentically and as yourself, the more they're going to become portals for you in ways that you could never imagine.
Michael Kass: No notes.
Baily Hancock: Thank you. Thank you. Great. Yeah. I call it
Michael Kass: mic. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. If you think of networking as like literally building a matrix of connections,
Baily Hancock: curating your community.
Michael Kass: Yeah. Then it doesn't matter functionally what people do work because in a year they're not going to be doing that.
Baily Hancock: Exactly. Exactly.
Michael Kass: who's an assistant today will be the executive director, CEO, whatever in a year. I've, I can't tell you how many times I've met someone they've attended a workshop and then literally five to seven years later, they'll go I still remember that thing. And now I'm in a position to bring you in. Are you still doing this? Would you be interested? And I'm like, absolutely.
Baily Hancock: Yeah.
Michael Kass: those aren't even connections I've nurtured.
Baily Hancock: No.
Michael Kass: It's just because the connection, the initial connection, had that level of presence, right?
Baily Hancock: Exactly. I'm almost 20 years into my career now, and it is so bizarre. To look around and be like, Oh my God, all these idiots that I like went to college with are running things now are like, Oh, so and so's brother, who was just, you know, it's wild because people do become adults and they move into positions of power.
And yes, you should never build relationships with the, you know, purpose of leveraging them. But that is also part of the cycle of relationships. It's build, nurture, leverage, build, nurture, leverage, that is part of the energetic exchange. So don't do it with the express purpose of leveraging, but recognize that is an outcome that will naturally occur no matter what, should you have nurtured the relationship, you know, well, even to a very tiny extent through the years.
Final Thoughts
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Baily Hancock: Any final thoughts that you want our listeners to know? I feel like we've gone all over the place in the best way today.
Michael Kass: It's really easy to talk about this stuff. And we've gotten very facile as a culture with the language of presence and emergence and connection. And yet I don't see a lot of. Folks practicing it putting it into their bodies, and so there's a little bit of a trap. We've talked about that. We were talking about this earlier of like I get it. I've read the Ted Talks. I've watched the Ted Talks. I've read Brene Brown. I've listened to Baily. I've listened to Michael. I have the headspace app. I meditate for five minutes a day. That's not doing the thing. Right? And find opportunities, find communities of practice and I'm going to say this, I don't think it's too controversial, if we don't get better at this, we will not survive as a species.
Baily Hancock: Oh, I'm fully on that page.
Michael Kass: the only reason we've survived as a species is our ability to connect. And that's significantly degraded. So while we're talking about this in the context of networking, what we're actually talking about is survival,
Baily Hancock: As a species. I
Michael Kass: right?
Right?
Baily Hancock: agree.
Michael Kass: You know, no pressure,
Baily Hancock: No pressure, but get it together, people.
Michael Kass: Recognize that a lot of the resistance we experience when going into of risk and presence and joint humanity and consciousness is designed,
Baily Hancock: yeah.
Michael Kass: That is something is not a natural human response. And there's all sorts of ways to work with that.
Baily Hancock: Okay, everybody, you have your marching orders.
Michael Kass: Yeah.
Baily Hancock: be revolutionary, go be counterculture, go just literally, I say it all the time connect like a person, just like everything you need to know is already inside of you. All of it. It's already there. You just have to be willing to like search for the instruction manual within, right?
It's and all that requires is you releasing the control and just seeing what bubbles up to the top. Right. It's we're standing on it under this water. You know, we're in the water and like all of the answers are below our feet and we're just pushing them down all the time. And I think if we can just float a bit and let them rise to the surface, they're right there, but it does require faith and trust and all of the things that sound nice and are actually quite hard, but they are worth it.
This is the most worthwhile pursuit we're going to have as humans. Like Connecting with ourselves, connecting with others, connecting with the people in our lives, the people in the grocery store, like they're just, they are hits of purpose. I think too, and purpose feels so good. So it's one of those things that the more you do it, the easier it becomes.
And the more the it's like compound interest, right? Like the more you do this, The greater effect and impact and outcome will arise from it. And I really do think if the world was more connected, we wouldn't be nearly as bad off as we are right now, but everybody's just, they forgot, they forgot,
Michael Kass: Absolutely. Yeah. They forgot.
Baily Hancock: they forgot, let's just remember. So do that.
Michael Kass: So do that. worries.
Baily Hancock: Thank you so much, Michael. This was wonderful. I'm so glad you came on, and thank you for sharing all of this. And everybody, you, you know what to do and when you forget, just re-listen, and we'll remind you. And we've got this. It's gonna be great.
Michael Kass: We've got this. It's the easiest thing we've ever done.
Baily Hancock: And also the hardest. Thank you so much, Michael.
Michael Kass: Thanks Baily.
