Being a founder makes you an authority figure to other people.  We think it’s important to be aware of how your words impact others.  While some people may feel intimidated around you, there are likely some ways you can lower the nervousness they feel.  

When you are interacting with an employee, be conscious of the weight that you carry in impacting their lives.  Having a reverse respect for people allows you to gain some equal footing.  Getting that person’s context first gives you the opportunity to do things better for that person and provide a better overall experience.  Hiten says if he doesn’t have a person’s context, he can’t impact their world as much as he’d like to.  

Additional thoughts we discuss around this topic include:

Hiten’s way to get context following receiving a compliment

How understanding context changes as your business grows

Realizing that even if people are aware of you, they don’t really know you

We discussed more about interacting with your employees and team in episode 43, Impulse Driven Communication.   

Today’s Tips:

Hiten:  Sometimes you don’t know another person’s context and what they think of you.  Be more open to sharing more and learning more before you even get to the heart of something.  Waste some time - try to understand each other a little bit.

Steli:  Ask yourself what you might be frustrated with when you think people aren’t understanding something and then ask yourself what you can do about it to change it.   

We invite you to join our Facebook group, which is 1,000 members strong!  It’s great to have such an incredible group of entrepreneurs out there making it happen every day.  Please join us in our Facebook group and share your experiences, challenges, and motivation.  

We would  like your email address at The Startup Chat  because we will be sharing some special podcast episodes and other things with the people who are only on our email list.  Click the link above to and fill out the email address box to become part of the community.

As always, you can hit us up on Twitter @Steli or @hnshah, #thestartupchat. Let us know where you get your motivation.

Want Steli & Hiten to record more episodes of The Startup Chat?

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