Why Soft Skills Matter In Coaching with Dan Bolena

In this episode of Soft Skills: Strong Results, I’m joined by Executive Coach Dan Bolena to explore the power of interpersonal communication. You’ll learn how developing personal attributes like self-awareness, self-management, and self-expression can transform both personal and professional relationships.

Dan and I break down the gap between perception and reality, showing how understanding how others see us can improve interactions. We discuss practical strategies for embracing feedback, managing emotions, and expressing thoughts clearly to foster stronger connections and build trust.

Our conversation emphasizes the impact of personal attributes on leadership and team dynamics. By cultivating intentional communication practices, leaders can create high-trust environments that encourage engagement, collaboration, and meaningful relationships.

After listening to this episode, you’ll walk away with actionable steps for enhancing your interpersonal skills, from seeking feedback to practicing small, consistent changes in daily interactions. Dan and I provide tools for developing these essential soft skills, helping you connect more deeply and achieve greater success.

Key Takeaways:

• Personal attributes like self-awareness, self-management, and self-expression are essential for strong interpersonal communication. 
• Understanding the gap between how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us can prevent misunderstandings. 
• Feedback is a powerful tool for growth when approached with openness and intentionality. 
• Leaders who demonstrate empathy and consistency build trust and engagement within their teams. 
• Intentional practice and small daily steps are key to developing strong communication skills. 
• Vulnerability and authenticity in interactions encourage deeper connections and stronger relationships.

Pick up my book The Power Skills Portfolio: A Leader's Guide to Soft Skills

I'm here to help you master your soft skills and take your communication to the next level! Learn more at CharlieKrebs.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Soft Skills Strong Results. I'm your host, Charlie Krebs. You're about to learn practical strategies to master interpersonal communication. So let's get started. Good day, and welcome to Soft Skills Strong Results, practical strategies to master interpersonal communication. This is season two, episode five, and I'm Charlie Krebs. I'm your host. So today our guest is Dan Bellina, and he is the CEO of Imparo Coaching. You had told me this before, but I think this is worth repeating. Can you explain what that title means and tell us a little bit about your business, Dan? Absolutely, Charlie.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Well, first of all, thank you for having me here. I'm very honored to be here. So thank you for the for the invite. Um, yes, so Emparo Coaching, there's a bit of a story behind it. So Encaro Imparo is an Italian phrase, which means yet I am always learning. I came across this phrase probably a decade ago. I was working with uh a colleague of mine, and her salutation in her emails was Encaro Imparo. And it stuck with me. And I it just it stuck with me because I consider myself a lifelong learner and I love to learn. I'm a student of life. I'm I'm convinced that uh I just love to learn. So it stuck with me in such a way that when I uh retired from the corporate world and I was adventuring off of my own and and this this whole notion of like, hey, what what kind of a company name are you going to have and the brand and the marketing is there's a lot, right? When you kind of process that. So what I try to do is just kind of peel the onion and uncover more about me. So how can I bring me into my brand? How can I bring me into my title my company? How can I bring more of my essence in terms of like who I really am and what I believe in? And that phrase was in my head, and I just kept thinking it has to be something in the in that space in Karo Imparo. What can I do with it? So I started doing some research on whether other companies out there and coaching names. And there is another Imparo Coaching. Uh, it's it's a it's a European-based entity. There's nothing in the US. So I thought, oh, that's it, right? That's it for me. And so I landed on Imparo coaching. And if you go to my website, emparocoaching.com, you will see references to Michelangelo. Michelangelo was uh known uh in his last of his days that he had on this earth. Um, and he died when he was in his mid-80s, and back then it was a long, long time that someone lived. Michelangelo coined the phrase Incaro Imparo because he himself, as a learner, if you look at what he did in his life, he was a sculptor, he was an architect, he was a painter. He didn't want to paint the Sistine Chapel. He didn't want to do it. He did it. And look how profound that piece of art is today. Look at the sculpture of David. Um, the basilica uh in Italy was designed by Michelangelo. Uh, Leonardo da Vinci was a student of Michelangelo. So this whole notion of learning stuck with me. I'm like, man, like, like, like for some reason in my life, I just went down that road of I'm a student of life path. So I tied it into that. And and the reason I'm in the executive coaching space and the personal transformation space that I am is when I was 25 years old, I was in a I was in a sales role. Uh, and I will put it out there that I was very coin operated. I was in sales, I wanted to make money. And I was struggling. I was struggling to sell. I was struggling to communicate and to connect with people to, to, to, to achieve the life that I wanted. So I hired an executive coach. Cost me $5,000. I didn't have $5,000. Gosh. So I put it on two different credit cards. It was a six-month experience. And what I went through in that executive coaching session, I still use some of the exercises today with my clients. And it's it's such a profound impact on me that um, you know, one of the things I he, my coach, made me do is come up with a symbol of me. What is my symbol? And my symbol is the constellation Orion with a circle around it. That's what I landed on when I was 25 years old. So when I was about 50 years old, I have a tattoo on my left arm, which is that symbol. So, so it's really profound that I went through is such a such a transformational coaching experience back then that I wanted to, when I kind of like left the corporate world, I want to want to do what I have a passion for. So combining coaching with this idea of learning, I find myself drawn to people who have a growth-oriented mindset to want to learn. So this notion of learning, always wanting to learn, I hope I attract those people because I'm attracted to those people too. So show me somebody wants to learn and has a great attitude, and I'll show you somebody who can accomplish great things in life, right? So that's kind of the backstory behind it. It's a long one, but uh, that's the references to Michelangelo and Carmen Imparo and ultimately Imparo.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Great. Well, let's talk about soft skills a little bit. How do you, there are a lot of different definitions out there. How do you define soft skills?

SPEAKER_01 5:17

You know, great question. And um, you know, I thought to myself today, uh, how do I define them in in my conversations with the people that I'm working with? I define soft skills as personal attributes. Right? Personal attributes. So soft skills and versus hard skill. What is a hard skill? Maybe we start there. Hard skills are things that are measurable. They're they're they're outward facing. Getting a degree and doing this and doing that and being technically trained on something are considered hard skills, right? And I personally I never really like the term soft skills because it's just it, I don't know, it never really defined anything for me. So what I try to do is put it in the personal attributes bucket. So personal attributes, um, I look at it in three different ways: self-awareness, self-management, and self-expression. Right? So when I when I work with leaders in that space, I I because I like to break things down into the fundamental level for them, because they think, oh, I've got self-skill, I've got this. I say, great. Tell me about your self-awareness. So what do you mean? You know, I I know how I come across. I'm like, oh, interesting. Anyway, we we start to peel that on you back. And I when they found that when we explore each one of those personal attributes, it means more to them in that sense.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

So what does self-expression, how does that tie into the whole mix?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Self-expression. Um, how you're there's how we think we come across to people, then there's how you're coming across to people.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Uh no, you know, one of the things I have several assessments that I use in my coaching conversations uh never fails when I do an assessment. One of them has where people will rate, rate somebody and has the ability to give personal comments. The profound insights that are gained from that feedback is in terms of what we think we're expressing versus what's being what's landing, there's always a gap. And in and having someone being open to receiving feedback from others in that way, I I have not had one session where there wasn't just a profound takeaway that truly made an impact on the person's behavior that received the feedback in a very positive way, that they were then able to connect deeper.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

So sometimes I would imagine that that gap might be something that they don't want to admit. Absolutely. So so how do you help them bridge that and embrace that gap so they can, to go back to what you said, so they can learn.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Well, I hate to use the old adage of you can lead a horse to water and they don't always drink. So I I had a scenario, uh a person that uh received um some really straightforward, candid, not so good feedback. And in in my conversations with this person in my interactions, it was kind of clear that I I had a feeling that there was going to be some really pointed feedback, and there was. And after going through the assessment and reading all the feedback, my approach to it is I I will work with you in the spaces that the person wants to work. I don't force feeding anybody on anything. So my question is hey, of all this feedback, what will be one thing you'd want to work on? Dead silence. Absolute dead silence. We must have sat there for a minute. And he finally came back and he said, you know what? I understand why these two people said this. And the reason they said that's because I failed to deliver on a promise that I made to commit to helping somebody in his doon to do some nonprofit work. Now I understand why those people have since acted differently since that day. I will reach out to them and I will apologize that I missed that deliverable and I will make sure that I follow through on on my word. So when there's when you ask a profound question of somebody, what I've learned is it's so such a critical skill for leaders. Just let the other person think on it. Don't rush somebody. Because they're literally creating new neural pathways in their brain on what they want to do in front of you. And when he said that, that was and then from because that opens the door for other things, right? To your point. But it has to be they have to be willing. But uh y'all, I also we also have to give them space to accept the feedback, process it, and then get it through because it's sometimes it's it triggers things in you, right? And be subtle.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Let's talk about leadership for a bit here. Let's think about a leader that uses soft skills effectively and trains their staff to do so, and let's talk about a leader that doesn't. What's the difference between both of them? And how does that impact, say, the bottom line?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

The difference is um it's it's a con it's it's it's it's the relative depth of understanding of self-awareness and awareness of others. So self-awareness is more, it it's really it's truly understanding how you're coming across, what you're saying, and how you're feeling, being able to express how you're feeling in a certain situation without it, you know, kind of like just kind of throwing up, right? But then on the awareness of others, it's understanding how their words, their actions, how they ask questions make others feel. So the bottom line is, and I and I have this playing out right now in a couple of different scenarios. In one scenario, there's a there's a situation where there's a lot of trust that's built inside the organization from the senior leadership team. And it's because they um they they bring that trust into their um their way that they ask their questions. Um in another scenario, there's uh with even the way the question is asked, there's a less less trust in the organization. And that trust not being there causes other types of questions within the employees, right, within the team, uh, which then leads to just skepticism and and less engagement. So what I've seen in terms of like you know, getting employees to be engaged, right? Trust is vital. So if you if you trust your folks, you know they're there to to to do well for you, let them let them flourish, engagement soars.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Let's take somebody that has a hard time trusting people. For whatever reason in their life, they have a hard time trusting people. How do you help them trust people?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

What I found is the old Dr. Seuss cliche, no matter where you go, there you are. They're having a hard time at work, they probably have a hard time kind of outside, yeah. Right? So it's there there's a deeper something going on. What I try to do is explore ways to, in small increments, find ways to build trust in a way that's friendly to them.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

And I have them pick out whatever the scenario, it could be a sibling, it could be a spouse, it could be a family member, it could be the Uber driver, it could be anyone that you just want to start just to have just test your trust in others. Where do you feel comfortable doing it? And then, okay, how'd that feel? Great. Where else can you expand and let them show you where they can then that they're comfortable expanding, where that trust can win?

SPEAKER_00 12:34

So, how much of a connection you think is there is between somebody's personal life and their leadership life? There's a pretty strong correlation there.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Yeah. It's it's I I've not Yeah, it there's definitely a connection, even though s back in the day it was always set we separated those things, right? And because we had we went to work, we were at work, we went home, and we were just a there's no doubt today. Look at the amount of remote employees, okay? You're working from home. You have kids running in the background. You know, it's so it's very much correlated today. So that tie-in is vital. And I've had in coaching conversations, and typically executive coaching tends to focus on the business issues and professional issues. But I've had conversations where clients have come back and said, Dan, I had a conversation with my wife, and I asked her this question that you know we talked about, and oh my God, she looked at me like I was, she asked me if I was feeling okay, and we had the best weekend. So people are people, you know, and some of the folks in our life are closer than others. How we interact with those folks and the questions we ask, it it's it bleeds. There's the streams cross for sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

One of the things that you mentioned earlier in your bio, you talked about soft skills as the true differentiator in the world. What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_01 13:54

The true differentiator is a result of being intentional. Soft skills don't happen by accident. They're you yourself, you're in the profession of helping leaders and folks develop soft skills. You see the value. Your clients that you work with, you know, maybe they see a gap, right? Um, the folks that I work with. You're not going to go to sleep and wake up and be a better soft skills person. Your personal attributes are going to probably be the same. You got to wake up and identify what are the things I want to work on that will help me connect better with people. How can I connect better with people, better and and and deeper, right? And then that's the differentiator. So that leader who can connect with people quickly, and we all have those people in our life that are like, somehow they know us, right? How do they know us? Somehow in their life, they've developed those soft, they those personal attributes, their soft skills, right? So it's but it's intentional. You really got to be intentional about, I want to work on these things. I want to, I want to know what my weaknesses are. Even if you don't know where to start, how about that? Geez, I wonder what I could develop better to have better self-awareness.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Start with that. We've we've talked about soft skills in terms of leadership and things along those lines, but how do you, Dan, use soft skills to train your clients?

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Really good question. Um I try to practice when I'm preaching here. So one of the things that I will try to do is model, give examples. It's really common for me to switch gears with someone and put, we'll do a role play. Say we were talking about something, somebody's struggling with how something, how they would ask a question or what they would say. We'll do a role play where I'm them. They'll say, okay, you be that person you're describing, I will show you how I would approach it. And don't ask me what I said and how I come up with what I said. Just know I'm going to say what I'm going to say. And then you better, if you want to write down some notes, go ahead. But we role play it. So I try to model for them what I think, well, my approach would be. Is my way the only way? No. It's just a way that, like, it's, it's, it's, if you consider it softer or or that you can connect more into their world, that's what we're trying to do. Right. So I asked him at the end of it, do you feel we we connected on that? I'm like, yeah. I was saying, great. What's preventing you from just doing a snippet of what I just did? I don't know if I can sound that good or what's let's give it a try. And then I switch gears. Let me hear you. So they're in this safe space and they can try it. And then all of a sudden they're like, ah, it wasn't so bad. The world didn't melt when I stub my toe. We're no, it didn't, did it? But you're better for it and we're going to keep going. So that that's kind of how I I kind of bring it into that kind of conversation.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

What what is connection? I mean, how do you explain to somebody, if they're not a person that interacts well with people, how do you explain what connection is and why it's important?

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Well man, that's that's that's a great question. It just it it it's it's a way you can connect with someone, uh you don't have to it doesn't always have to be verbally, you connect with someone. It could be nonverbal communication where you're connected. So connecting with somebody is having the ability to to see them. When you when you connect with someone, you see you see them. Your judgment is neutral. My judgment's neutral of whoever I'm talking to. I see that person for I see their fears, I see their strengths, I s I see them. And I and I communicate to them that I see them and it's okay for them to be them in front of me. And then they're my degree of vulnerability, and one of the things that's so important about a leader, an organization's degree of vulnerability is directly correlated to the vulnerability that the senior leader, a CEO, exhibits. We hear it a lot. It's it's tried and true. So if you want your teams to be vulnerable, leadership starts first. Leaders go first.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

I don't think everybody's going to feel comfortable being vulnerable. So so I would assume that you do little steps with people. And so is that one of the ways that you help people learn soft skills or little steps at a time? Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

So there's there's there's varied approaches, and it's a scenario where it's like, hey, look, if we wanted to, if we wanted to bring some vulnerability into this, let's come up with 10 ideas on how we can do that. And let the team tell you. Well, let's just talk about what we did for our summer vacations. Let's just talk about where we're going to go on vacation next year. Even things like that. It doesn't have to be like all of all of our stuff, like what made, you know, when I was a kid, this happened. No, I'm not talking about that. Let's just start sharing some of those things to be, let's be humans in front of other humans.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

See, I think some people would refer to that as it's too touchy-feely for them. Absolutely. And everything like that. So is there a way to help people embrace what others would call touchy-feely? I mean, you talk about, let's talk about what we did over the summer, or, you know, so these little incremental steps, and and that helps people be better leaders when they can connect with everybody, right? It does. It does. It does.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

It's the results are tied to the impact of the question. I would have leaders think of the questions they want to ask their teams to get their teams to quote unquote be vulnerable. And even the word vulnerable sounds intimidating. How about, hey, let's just get to know you. Let's just sit down and have a conversation about vacations. Hey, what kind of cars you like to drive? Hey, where'd you go last weekend? Hey, where are you going for? You got any plans over the holiday weekend? Let's just start there and then see where it goes. Oh, you're going with your family. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, you're going with your son. Oh, and you haven't seen your son in in five years. Oh, and I'm sorry to hear that your son's going through something. Like all of a sudden, like snippets come out of things and then you shared something that was vulnerable. But it was in such a way that wasn't like, oh, I'm going to be vulnerable now, listen to me now. It's it was just a casual way to reveal something about yourself in a safe space.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

When I think if you can let people know that you find value in their vulnerability, and that you find value in them sharing their stories, and that how that you find value in how that helps create a deeper connection.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

And that value is expressed in how we treat one another. So I could say I value, Charlie, I value our relationship, or I can treat you as a valued friend.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

What are some ways to treat somebody as a valued person?

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Be respectful. Do what you're going to say you're going to do, honor the time that you have together, be appreciative, show gratitude, offer something back. Offer to help somebody. Someone says, hey, you know, I'm my car is in the shop. And hey, Dan, I got to go out there, take my car out and I got to figure something out. Hey, Charlie, I'll take you. So you listen for opportunities to to to help somebody. So one of the one of the things I love to hear about, and I talk about a lot, is goodness begets goodness. Right? So the goodness that somebody does, that's I don't expect anything in return. And if anything, pay it forward. So I so I do a lot of pro bono work, pro bono coaching, where goodness begets goodness, where good things that I bring to the world, I'm hoping feeds and inspires others that they go and help others and say, send me it, send me an email that if you help someone else out, just let me know how my helping you help them. And let's just keep doing that.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

I I'd love to hear those. Well, speaking of coaching, tell us a little bit about you. Recently had this 24 and 24. Can you tell us what that was about?

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Absolutely. So the 24 and 24 is an event, is a coaching event that I did. So it's my my goal was to coach 24 people in 24 hours. And um what I did, this was on August the 8th of this past year. I coached 25 people in 27 hours, um, back to back within a 25 hour period period of time. I set it up because I wanted to show the world. My goal was to break a world record, which I did technically, and I'm going with The process of working with Guinness and some other organizations to get a world record title. But I wanted to show the world the power of the power of coaching. I wanted to raise money. I raised over $3,000 for the Big Brothers, Big Sisters organization. And I wanted people to who maybe have never could afford coaching or go through coaching to experience what a coaching conversation looked like. And when I when I did it, I got to tell you, the first thing that happened was my first two coaching sessions. There were tears shed on both sides. And I was thinking, oh man, I have 20, 23 more people to get through. How am I going to do this? Emotionally, right? I did it, the grace of God, I think He held me in the palm of his hand for me to like have the strength and the stamina to get through 24 hours of that. And I had amazing conversations with people, raised money for an organization that's near and dear to me because I'm a big brother in the Big Brother, Big Sisters organization. And I showed the power, the world, the power of coaching, which for me, the way it touched me was just inspirational in and of itself, let alone the people I was able to coach and to have as a part of it. Excellent. It must take a lot of coffee to get through all of that. I'm a decaf guy, Charlie. So I like to say it was the caffeine. It was um, yeah, I I'm a uh I'm the bunny on uh the the Energizer and bunny commercials. I just somehow have a good source of energy. Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

So if someone wanted to get in touch with you about coaching, how would they do that? Yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

So my website is uh www.imparocoaching.com. Uh and they can reach out to me there, my and uh or my my aim email address, really easy, Dan at ImparoCoaching.com.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Great. Well, Dan, thank you so much for being here. It's been a pleasure. This has been great. Awesome. Thanks for being here. Awesome, thank you so much. And thank you all for joining us today on Soft Skills Strong Results. I'm Charlie Krebs, and remember that soft skills are the human side of success. Thank you. Thank you for listening today. Be sure to check out other episodes in the catalog and join me at charliekrebs.com to find out how I can help you strengthen your interpersonal communication skills. If you like what you heard in the podcast, check out my new book. It's called The Power Skills Portfolio a Leader's Guide to Soft Skills. You can find the link in the show notes.