Emotional Magnetism: How to Communicate to Ignite Connection in Your Relationships

| Author : Sandy Gerber, May 2022

What’s It All About?

In our personal and workplace relationships, we’ve all come across this frustration situation: you’re telling someone about a topic that’s important to you, but the other person just isn’t understanding what you’re saying! In her book Emotional Magnetism: How to Communicate to Ignite Connection in Your Relationships, my friend Sandy Gerber digs deeper into why situations like this happen—and shares how we can dig in deeper, discover our biases, and find the path to productive communications.

Specifically, Sandy’s book is built on four communication motivators that “magnetize” our attention and motivate us to listen and act. Together, they spell “SAVE”.

Safety
Achievement
Value
Experience

Using practical, real-world examples, Sandy breaks down each of these communication motivators and shows us what happens when we fall into one of these four categories. Through her stories, you’ll be able to identify your own situations where there’s a block in communication, and learn what you can do to overcome it, have more win-win conversations, and ease your own vice to be right.

As someone who is always learning about self-awareness and my own emotions, I love how Emotional Magnetism made me think deeper about how I can communicate my own needs with others. This read left me with the space and energy I need to understand myself, others, and the “magnets” for stronger leadership, better outcomes, and ultimately, more profits.

And as a fellow Canadian, I love that Sandy’s book shows she’s a true Canadian! At just 169 pages (or four hours on Audible), Sandy respects the time of others by leaving out the fluff and getting right to the lessons we can all use for better communications and a better life.

Favorite Quote

“The more empathy we create, the more relationships we nurture and potentially save, and the more love and acceptance we create in our world.”

Biggest Takeaway

When someone is sharing their own situation or looking for help, it’s easy to give in to the desire to take over the conversation with your own similar situation. For example, if someone is telling you about the big fish they caught, you might be tempted to tell them about your even bigger catch. This is a classic situation, but when we block the opportunity to help and connect, it drives disconnect and hurts our relationships. I love how Emotional Magnetism highlights common communication blocks like this. I also appreciate how it opened my eyes to so many new things, even after many years of working to grow my own emotional intelligence.

Bonus information

When you visit Sandy’s website, you’ll find a quiz to learn about your own SAVE type. There’s great value in seeing your results, and knowing your type will help you increase and understand your own communication strengths and skills.

I enjoyed not only taking the quiz myself, but also sharing it with my partner Diana. Once both of us took the quiz, we were able to have a great conversation about each other’s emotional needs and gained more insights into the importance of growing together.

If you take Sandy’s quiz, I encourage you to look at your results with curiosity instead of judgment. Get rid of your biases and have fun! By learning more about your communication blocks, you can bring more curiosity and self-awareness to your everyday interactions.

Reviewed by: Trevor Blondeel, April 14, 2023

At Manufacturing Greatness, Trevor Blondeel works with manufacturers to connect the top to the shop floor. If you’re ready to improve your own organization, contact Trevor to learn how Manufacturing Greatness can help you build stronger leaders and develop a dynamic, high-performing workplace.

Mindfulness Manufacturing

Our show is about providing listeners with real stories that come from a place of experience, transparency, and authenticity. Most importantly it’s about what we learn from these stories and applying Mindfulness in our everyday work and personal lives.
Our intention is to create an environment where people can learn through open honest discussions on how we apply Mindfulness. Although our experiences and stories come from time in a manufacturing environment hence the title “Mindfulness Manufacturing”, we still see our discussions and topics relatable to any organization or profession.

When a mistake occurs on the plant floor, your mind might jump to one question: who caused this issue, and should I write them up for their mistake? But there’s a more productive approach you could be taking—and in this episode of Mindfulness Manufacturing, guest Dr. Jake Mazulewicz breaks it all down!

With a background as a firefighter, EMT, and military paratrooper, Jake knows the challenges of high-hazard industries, and works with organizations to reduce errors and create safer, more reliable workplace environments. In this episode, Jake shares why you can’t procedularize everything, including the way you handle errors and accidents, and offers great insights and stories about how to use connection and curiosity to improve safety, address errors, and strengthen your organization.

3:35 – Procedures and policies are the work that is imagined, and on the floor is how the work actually gets done

4:19 – The work as-done is almost always radically different than the work as-imagined

5:20 – Even when you have standards and people show up wanting to do a good job, you can still see issues that need to be addressed

6:44 – There will always be areas that absolutely need to have procedures in place

8:02 – There are also adaptive jobs, which leans less into procedures and more intro troubleshooting and tacit human knowledge

10:56 – In an ideal environment, both mechanistic and adaptive models are used and respected and needed

12:11 – There are four levels, ranging from strict procedurals to looser guidelines that show what to do, but not how to do it

15:36 – Tacit knowledge gets shared through conversations

16:22 – A way to share important information is to have frontline experts record videos sharing their insights to problems, especially those that are not covered in procedures

19:44 – Through conversation and connection, more knowledge is shared

21:58 – Debriefing also plays a central role

23:45 – If you have strong discipline, you’ll find more freedom

25:31 – In most situations, errors are signals, not defects

27:07 – When an error occurs, be curious and find the deeper cause of the problem

Connect with Jake Mazulewicz

Find him on Linkedin

Visit his website