Connection is a Business Strategy with WSJ Bestselling Author Steven Van Cohen

In this episode of Catalysts, I sit down with Steven Van Cohen—global leadership consultant, executive coach, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Connectable. Dubbed “The Leadership Whisperer,” Steven helps companies reduce isolation, improve well-being, and foster true belonging in the workplace.

We explore what it really takes to build a culture of connection—far beyond icebreakers and happy hours. From combatting loneliness and creating psychologically safe teams to rethinking one-on-ones and using learning as a tool for relational growth, Steven shares actionable insights backed by data and grounded in empathy.

If you care about creating teams that perform, stay, and grow together—this is the conversation you’ve been waiting for.

🔑 In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why connection is one of the most underrated performance levers in business
• What it means to be “connectable” as a leader (and how to get there)
• Why one-on-ones fall short without structure and intention
• How L&D can counteract rising workplace loneliness
• The role of vulnerability—beyond just “getting personal”
• Why micro-moments of connection matter more than you think
• How to build a social regimen into your team's workflow

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Transcript

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Hey there and welcome back to Catalysts, the leaders shaping the future of learning and growth. I'm your host, Jacob Ratliff, and this is the show where we spotlight the bold thinkers, builders, and leaders who aren't just responding to change in our industry. They're actually the ones driving it. Today I'm joined by Stephen Van Cohen, a global leadership consultant, executive coach, and the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Connectable. Known as the leadership whisperer, Stephen has worked with top organizations like Salesforce, Zoom, Bank of America and Home Depot to improve well-being, reduce isolation and boost belonging at work. In this conversation, we're going to chat about how connection fuels performance and what it takes to build cultures of togetherness in a hybrid world. So Stephen, Thank you so much for being on today. I'm really excited for the conversation we're about to have. Yeah, it's my pleasure Jacob. Thanks for having me. So many leaders, whether they're leading an organization or managing, a discrete team, they know that belonging is important, right? In theory. But my first question is, how important is it really, especially when it comes to driving measurable business results? You started off with like the biggest and toughest question, Jacob, for us to answer. There's like no softballs. This is just fast, 100-millan-hour pitches right down the middle. Okay, well, we'll jump right in then. uh To your point, there is absolutely a consensus among leaders that the quality of relationships and the strength of connection within a team matters. But when we decided to write our book, we literally spent the first 125 pages of our book, Building a Business Case for Why It Matters. And as someone who has done a lot of executive coaching and leadership development and has spent a lot of time with a lot of people across different organizations trying to find ways to build high powered and super successful teams, I knew connection mattered, but not to the extent of which it does. So super high level, we know that when people show up to work feeling socially disconnected, they're seven times more likely to be disengaged. And Gallup tells us that disengaged employees make 66 % more mistakes. We know that when people feel socially disconnected, they're five times more likely to miss work due to stress or illness. We know, according to the data, that better connected teams perform 56 % better from a peer performance standpoint than teams in similar roles who don't have as strong of a connectedness level. And we know that intent to quit goes up by 313 % when people show up to work feeling socially isolated and disconnected. There are hundreds of studies and there are all of these statistics that paint this picture that is very clear that when people show up to work with low quality relationships or a lack of strong connection, engagement, performance, retention, health, wellbeing, creativity, innovation, and any other business metric that we care about suffer significantly. A lot of time when I'm working with leaders, it's my job to roll out this business case and say, hey, I know you guys care about this, but you should care about this a lot more than you do. here's why. So I'll stop there, Jacob, but that's the quick and dirty of why connection is really important in the context of work. Thank you. So yeah, the quick and dirty is all of the numbers point to, yes, it matters significantly and tremendously. So I'm curious from your perspective and from the perspective of the research that you've done, when we talk about belonging, what does true workplace belonging really look like? And what is the role of learning and development leaders in helping to create that? Yeah, that's an awesome question. So there's like all these words that are very similar, right? We have like belongingness, we have inclusion, we have connection. There's like a lot of similarities between these terms. What we talk about is we talk about team connection. And for us, team connection is defined as the collective pull to be all in. And for us, that means that team members should show up to work and feel a healthy rapport with those that they collaborate with. It's this idea that when I show up to work, like I don't have to wear any armor in my meetings. When I share a thought or an idea, like it doesn't echo across the room, like it actually lands. People really listen to you and want to understand my thoughts and perspectives. It's this idea that before, you know, I even ask for help. I know people have my back and they're willing to assist. And it's this idea that we're not working alongside one another. We're actually working for one another. Like it's that intangible feeling that hopefully you and many of your listeners have experienced where you just want to come to work and give your best because you care about the people on your team. You care about the people in your organization that you serve. And you want to be able to just show up because the quality of those connections is so strong. So when we talk about this idea of connectedness or belongingness, that's sort of the embodiment of what those terms mean to us. Excellent. And I'm hearing from what you're describing this element of showing up with a little bit of vulnerability and how that requires creating a psychologically safe work environment. I'm curious if you could speak to that, role of vulnerability when we come to this conversation. Yeah, I think that word is so interesting. I think people misinterpret vulnerability to be this sensation where I just have to like cry in front of you. Like, I'm going to be vulnerable. Like I need to like open up the deepest recesses of my inner being so you can see everything and anything. And I have to kind of display that openly. And to me, that's not what vulnerability really is. Vulnerability is a willingness to have hard conversations. It's a willingness to say you don't know and you don't know. It's a willingness to raise your hand and ask for help. It's a willingness to be able to just like be in that moment and be authentic in how you're showing up. And teams who can create space or vulnerability in that kind of context can really flourish. Our teams that tend to be like all in for one another, right? Because if you're displaying some of those tendencies, I can better show up and serve you and help you and support you and guide you and... do what I need to do as a team member to help you find success. So there is an element of that when we think about this idea of connectedness. There's also this like misconception that connection is we're just going to like have fun with one another. Like we just need to like do a happy hour every month and go do a charity event or do two truths and a lie. And if we do like a bunch of icebreakers, like that's going to create meaningful connection. And while that could be helpful in sparking some rapport, that's not really the essence of how you can create uh sort of a culture within a team where connection can flourish. Connection requires way more than icebreakers and happy hours to be able to actually build it into how we operate with one another. I love that you mentioned that, a few years ago working on a project with the L &D firm I'm a partner in, we were working with a large financial services institution, really training their managers on how to have effective one-on-ones and really coaching sessions basically. And we actually sat in on some of these one-to-ones that managers were having with their direct reports and they were social visits. which, like you said, go a long way in developing that rapport and building those relationships, but fall short when it comes to actually improving performance. So I'm wondering what insights or words of advice might you have around striking the balance there? Oh, that's a great question. So there are three things that leaders can do to build really strong, meaningful feelings of connectedness within a team. It's a part of a model we call the Be Connectable model, right? So like when someone's teachable, they're ready and willing to be taught. When someone's connectable, they're ready and willing to connect, right? It's this idea that I am open. for business when it comes to connection. And I'm really mindful of how I'm investing in building connection with those around me. So the Connectable model has these three parts. One is leaders are really good at building trust. The second is they're really good at getting in sync. And the third is they're really good at validating. And we can get into however many of these you wanna dive into, but the second one, getting in sync. is really aligned with what you were talking about with your client of having these one-on-ones. Like having one-on-ones is a really good strategy, but there needs to be some structure to those one-on-ones to make sure that A, the onus doesn't fall on the employee to have to come up with things to talk about every time. And B, there's opportunities for the leader to do the kinds of connection building things in the flow of that one-on-one that are really ripe for the taking. So in one-on-ones that we designed for our clients and as a way to get in sync with somebody else, oftentimes we use it as a way to seek advice where the leader is able to ask questions, to get guidance and perspective from their employees on how they might be able to help solve a problem or overcome some kind of a friction point. It's a way to collect feedback. It's a way to get to know you on a more personal level. Like there's all these little things that we should do in the flow of a one-on-one to help. um So yeah, when it comes to Building connection, getting in sync is really key. It's hard to connect with others if they don't feel like you understand them. If you're not on the same page, if you're out of sync, you're going to feel like you're wandering and this person doesn't get it and that's going to create a separation. So finding ways to really make sure that you and the people around you are moving in the same direction and have that alignment and that understanding is really key and making sure that that sense of connectedness is in play. Certainly, and so one of the things I've noticed again in my own experience, let's specifically talk about this example of one-on-ones, is that sometimes managers see this one-on-one structure or recommendation or guidance and they roll their eyes and they say, my goodness, this is just another thing that I need to do. I'm already doing all these different things. and now I have to be a coach as well. Now I have to have these conversations on top of it all. What would you say to a manager who might be kind of stuck in that thought process? would probably ask a few questions. I would probably ask a question along the lines of, is it important that your team members know that you care about them? And if they would say yes, then I would ask another question of, does having one-on-one time or dedicated conversation time with your team members, does that help show that you're invested in their success and care about their perspective? you know, want to make time so they can be seen and understood. And if they said yes, that I would ask a question of like, well, what's the problem? You know, like, why is this something that's so restrictive? You know, like the research is really interesting, man. We found that it takes as little as 40 seconds for two people to have what's called a restorative exchange. Restorative exchange is this idea that we're in contact and I leave that contact feeling uplifted. So like, I have two daughters, my youngest daughter, she's three and I can go anywhere with her and if I'm holding her in my arms at like a checkout line of a grocery store and some perfect stranger who I've never met before turns to me and goes, oh my God, your daughter is so beautiful. I feel incredibly seen and I feel validated and there's just like, uh an emotional response that happens when somebody does that to me, and that could take as little as a few seconds, which means that if we are intentional with what we say and how we say it, and if we know what to do to make certain people have some of those emotional responses that pull them closer to us, it doesn't take a long time. You don't need to have like 45 minute one-on-one check-ins for people to feel seen and understood and appreciated, cetera. So if I'm a... Coach working with a leader who was really having a hard time with dedicating moments in their calendar to do some of this, I would really try to get them to understand the impact that it has so they could feel more confident in dedicating that time accordingly. Yeah, and not to put too fine a point on it, but one of the things when we're talking about developing learning solutions, for example, is we're all about right now micro learning, building in learning into the flow of work. It's a continual process. And what you're describing seems very similar in terms of connection. but that's kind of what we're talking about here is building in these micro moments of connection into the flow of everyday work. Would you say that is that fair? I would say you're spot on. Yeah. One of the things that's really interesting, you just sparked a talking point that I think is worthy to quickly address. One of the things that's interesting with the L &D profession is L &D is really, really core in being able to create connection in the flow of work. So L &D sort of has... two parts to play in this new phenomenon that we're experiencing as humans called dependency shift. Dependency shift is this new thing that's happened over the past 20 years where we have no longer become as dependent on one another as we used to be, right? So like at work 20 years ago, if I had a question that needed some kind of an answer, like I had to find the person in the organization who knew that answer, right? I had to go find the person asking the question and then someone had to like teach me or show me or guide me or instruct me. Now, because of the advancements of technology and all of the different kinds of learning tools that we can find in all of the instructional videos and all of the articles, like, you know, we have all of the world's thought leadership curated into our search, blank search boxes on our devices. We're no longer as dependent on one another as we once were. And that has created huge missed opportunities for feelings of connection to take place, especially in the context of work. We know that Gen Z, those 26 year olds and younger, in 2019, they became the loneliest generation on the planet. Sub 80%, 79 % of Gen Zers in 2019, pre-pandemic, said they sometimes always feel lonely. That's never happened before in history, where the youngest generation had loneliness levels that superseded the oldest. And part of the reason why is this generation grew up in a world where they didn't really need to lean on others because they could figure all of the things out on their own using their devices. And this dependency shift has started to create separation. So I bring all of this up because from a learning standpoint, one of the learning strategies that I like to deploy with my clients when I'm doing learning activities is this idea of learning enough to be dangerous. Where we want to teach enough. to where they understand the basics, but then they have to apply the learning in a way where they're getting feedback from others, or they're leaning on others to close some of the gaps, or there's some kind of like a component to the learning experience that involves another human so that connection can be built and hopefully learning can be strengthened. So from an L &D standpoint, I think there's such an opportunity to really lean into this idea of how can we create learning moments that just aren't about knowledge share, but really are curated in a way and set up and structured so that the learners have access to other people and can really build some connection uh using that as a resource at work. Yeah, I design and deliver a lot of instructor led training for organizations and it has been shocking to me to see a shift in how excited people are for an in-person two day training session, specifically one where they're going to be interacting with each other a lot. many of whom are, are Gen Z. And in those two days, they are having to depend on each other for feedback or to collaborate on a project together. And I can see in their eyes, on their faces, how much life they're getting out of that. Whether or not they realize what's happening, they're responding really well to it. And so right before we hit record a few minutes ago, you mentioned something really interesting. specifically said that learning lessens loneliness, which honestly is not a uh perspective I see a lot from thought leaders in this space. So I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on, addition to this dependency shift, how else does learning lessen loneliness? Well, let's talk about the excitement of those Gen Zers coming to the in-person learning programs. And let's give you some context for why that is. So oftentimes when we think of connection, we know that we have like a biological pull towards other people, right? Like even if you're the most introverted person on the planet, like you still have some social desires that need to get met. in order for you to feel competent with whatever the quality of your connection is in life. And what's really interesting is the way in which our brain interprets feelings of connection, it tends to be very surprising to people. like, what happens is if someone feels excluded or isolated or lonely, the part of the brain that registers that response is the same part of the brain that registers physical pain. It's the part of the brain that flashes when you're in danger. It's your fight or flight threat response section of your brain that says like, dude, you're in trouble. Like you need to figure out a solution because right now your body's being flooded with stress hormones and you're literally in an adrenaline state trying to figure out how to survive. And the reason our brain responds that way is because many, many, many, many moons ago, like when we were early humans, Like we depended on each other a ton, right? Like we can't out muscle a bear. can't out run a lion. We can't out swim a shark. We don't have protective armor. We're not that strong or fast or fierce. And yet like we sit at the top of the food chain only because we learn that we can work together and together we can do amazing things like build shelter and farm and hunt and raise children, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So today, even though we don't have some of those same survival needs, our brain still is biologically responding in this threat detection state. So when people are not getting the kinds of social interactions that they crave, they're literally going through fight or flight, which means when I can go to a live training session and get some of that social exposure and really have some quality time with people above and beyond us hopping from Zoom meeting to Zoom meeting to Zoom meeting, like you're getting that social nutrients and like that nourishment. and it feels really good. And I know that learning and doing in-person events can be taxing because people are overly busy. But when people can actually show and make the time to your point, Jacob, like most people are thrilled to be there and they get a lot out of it and they're filling up their connection quotas in a really big way through those activities. So when I think about this idea of learning, lessening loneliness, There's really a lot to it, right? There's the fact that when you learn in a social environment, you can build some of those natural connections, just kind of in the exercises and activities you're doing with other. Learning gives you an opportunity to come up with new goals or new aspirations. And when you come up with new goals and aspirations, oftentimes that causes you to lean on others. We know that like from ATD, ATD found that you're 86 % more likely to make good on a learning goal when there's somebody holding you accountable. So if I'm going through a learning experience and there's someone there to like be my peer partner or check in or follow up, that's all connective, being able to have that person help coach me and guide me to success. We know that when you learn new things, you tend to want to share those things with others that creates more opportunity for connection. So there's like all of these layers of connected inducing things that just get sparked from learning. And to your point, most L &D practitioners are not sitting in their strategic sessions, working with the operations leaders to say, hey, if we want to build meaningful connection on your teams, let's use learning as a strategy. And here's how we can think about using learning as a tool in that toolkit. So I'm with you. think there's a huge opportunity for L &D leaders to rethink how they're doing their learning as sort of a catalyst to employee engagement and employee performance and retention and success and health and wellbeing and a whole bunch of other things. Excellent. Thank you so much. And I know you've worked with major companies across a variety of sectors. So I'm wondering what patterns do you see in organizations that have successfully built a culture of connectedness and what patterns have you seen in those organizations that have struggled perhaps? Yeah, the biggest differentiator for the organizations that we work with who really benefit from building more meaningful connection and those who continue to struggle is intentionality. Just like with anything, like if you're really intentional about doing something, you tend to be able to do it, right? Like if I want to get super duper fit and I'm really intentional about going to the gym every day and eating the right things every day and like, that's top of mind for me and I'm really committed to doing that, then I'm going to do it. If I want to like get super ripped, but I'm like, I'm too busy to do this or I'll go to the gym tomorrow or I know I shouldn't eat this, but it's easy for me to eat. So I'm just going to do it. Then like the intent isn't there and the commitment isn't there. And I'm not going to see the gains and the results. And from a work standpoint, that is really where we see the big difference building connection and creating. know, stronger relationships within a team. It's not as hard as many leaders think, but it does require vigilance and it does require investment. And it's something that I have to really be mindful of if that's something that's important to me in our success. So that would be the biggest differentiator is just how intentional are the leaders when it comes to actually doing the things that are connected in nature. it sounds like it's much like any other type of business strategy, right? It's not a passive process. You have to prioritize it. Similar to like going to the gym. If you want to get ripped, it's not only a matter of intentionality, it's a matter of prioritizing. Yeah, one of the things that we recommend is I love this idea of building a social regimen. Just like you have a regimen for a lot of other things in your life, a social regimen is essentially dedicated time that's reoccurring on a calendar that builds in the kinds of pro-social exposures that are really good for teams. So like I'll give you three examples of what a social regimen looks like for some of our clients. One of the things that our clients are really good at, some of our clients do this once a week, some of them do it once a month, some of them do it once a quarter, but they organize what's called a team crush. And a team crush is when the team gets together, usually on a Friday at the end of the week, before the weekend begins, and that team can just communicate the sort of feelings of admiration that they have for one another. So I might say like, I want to crush Jacob this week because man, he was so helpful in building out this learning path and... I really was having a hard time and he was monumental and getting me over the hump. I want to crush Michael because Michael was so good at dealing with his client was really frustrated. And when the team can just have five to 10 minutes and just acknowledge each other, call each other out for the things that they've done, that's really connective and bonding. So team members who build that into the flow of their work on a weekly, on a monthly or a quarterly basis, they tend to see gains from that. Another one is doing what's called the stoplight. So similarly, there's a cadence that our clients will use this on and a stoplight is this idea that when we give updates to one another, we're really structured in how we give these updates. This idea of a stoplight comes from a guy named Alan Mullaly. He used to be the old CEO of Ford Motor Company. And he noticed when he took over as the CEO during a time when like they were losing market share like crazy, he noticed he would have these meetings with his direct reports and uh All of the updates that they gave are always like amazing. Like things were great. There were no problems. Everything worked perfect. And he knew like this was totally not true. things were going poorly and they were losing market share and there were problems. So we devised this thing called the stoplight where every time that his direct reports would go through and give updates, they had to give a green update, which was something going well, a yellow update, which was something that's on the radar that might need addressing, and then a red update. something that was not going well, that was a fire or an obstacle or some kind of a friction point. And by forcing people to give updates in that way, it allowed for him to get a lot more data and information and allowed the team to understand where each other was so they can better support and guide and give resources. So that's another one of those activities where the team can really come together. give more tactical updates using that kind of a strategy and that's really connective. And then the last is, I love this activity, it's called uh Show and Tell. Show and Tell is exactly what you would think Show and Tell is. You're channeling like your inner seven-year-old. And the idea is one person once a week literally does a Show and Tell. And for two to five minutes, that person showcases an artifact of significance in their life. They tell the story behind it, why it's important to them. And then the team can ask questions about that experience or that artifact. And it's just a really good way to get to learn more about people. And it's not like an icebreaker in the sense where like, I'm putting everyone on the spot where they have to come up with this thing in like five seconds and then social anxiety kicks in and people are like, crap, I don't know what to say. This is embarrassing. When it's scheduled and the people know like when they get to go and they can plan for it and people get into a flow where it's only a couple of minutes a week, it's not as eye rolling as some of the other icebreakers that people tend to do. It's like, that's another example. So there's all these things. Yeah. It's not just intentionality on the end of the organization, the leadership, but intentionality from the people who are in the proverbial trenches working together. Exactly. Yeah. We know when team members have time to prepare, when there's context given for why they're going to do something, and when it's not overly time consuming and it becomes a part of the rhythm of how the team works, oftentimes those kinds of activities that are seen as like eye rolling icebreakers actually become foundational activities that the team members start to really enjoy and look forward to. Yeah, that context piece in particular, because I'm sure we've all been in those situations where we're doing these really cringey, awful icebreakers and we don't really know why we're doing them, what we're trying to achieve, which means we don't really get a whole lot out of them. There's also a difference between like getting together for a meeting to like solve the problem. Like we're here for an hour because we need to achieve X. And then at the beginning of that thing, we're distracted by doing an icebreaker. It feels counterproductive. So it's like, we're not here to do the icebreaker. We're here to solve problem X. So it's like, let's just go solve problem X. This is just a distraction for, you know... why we're actually together in this moment. That's different than, we're gonna carve out five to 10 minutes on this day to do this thing for this reason. Prepare and get ready, because this is what we're gonna do and here's why. That's a very different experience for someone who's engaging with that. yeah, all of those little wrinkles make huge differences in adoption and buy-in and people actually showing up and being willing to do the thing. in our last few minutes together, I want to shift gears just slightly to chat a little bit about outward visibility and impact as a leader in this space. Because I know you've been featured everywhere from Fast Company to NPR. And my question is, how has sharing your perspective publicly and at scale really shaped your impact, the impact that you're able to have on organizations, on leaders. So I actually am someone who is very much not public facing. Like I don't have an Instagram, I don't have a YouTube channel, I don't have a Facebook. Like in the thought leadership space, I've taken a back seat because usually when people do the work that I do, it's all about exposure. It's all about lots of content and really they put a huge emphasis on sort of being seen. So with that context, you know, uh sort of out there, the exposure that I've been able to get has been really wonderful. And I got a lot of exposure when I wrote the book. luckily, the book that I wrote did really well, and it was timely and it hit a chord with a lot of people. So I got opportunities to share some thought leadership in that space. And I would say that being able to hit the Wall Street Journal bestseller list has amplified sort of my credibility to a new level, which means when I pitch clients, when they learn about me, um they're very open and willing to listen to what I have to say, which is really cool and a bit strange all at the same time. So yeah, it's been wonderful, but it's definitely something that for me is not sort of commonplace in what I do all day every day. And I really appreciate that distinction because, like you said, there is such a draw for people to focus on, showing up as a thought leader, building their following, getting that coveted top voices label on their LinkedIn profile. um But oftentimes they've not actually really done the work on the back end to warrant that. And so, I may be making some assumptions here, but what I'm hearing from you is you really pour yourself into the work and into developing something really valuable and the visibility and exposure kind of came as a natural byproduct of that almost. Yeah, that's well said, Jacob. I really, really love the work that I do in this space. I really believe that nobody should ever have to go to work and feel invisible. I think it is a real travesty that so many go to work and are unhappy with the quality of the relationships that exist. We spend so much of our adult life at work and the idea of going to work and not feeling appreciated or supported or cared for. Like all of those things, really hurts my heart. And I'm really motivated to help people not have to experience that. So to your point, I love the work I get to do. I love solving this problem with companies. I love working with clients who want to really build better connection within their organizations and see the value in it. I love coaching leaders. Like that stuff really lights me up. So I tend to spend most of my time on that. You're right, some of the thought leadership that kind of comes out on the back end is ah kind of secondary and it just happens on its own. So thanks for giving that summary, Jacob. That's a really nice way to condense it all. Certainly, thank you. moving towards closing things out, think the big last question is, I'm a huge fan of atomic habits and micro commitments. What is the small thing we can do to make an impact? So my question for you is, if there was one piece of advice you could give to leaders, something simple straightforward that they could implement in their daily or weekly routines. But what that be? It would be to be connectable and it would be to be a lot more mindful of how you're showing up and if you're showing up for the people around you. And I like to say that awareness is curative. Like you can't fix what you don't know. And if you're just being a little bit more aware of how you're showing up for others and how open you are for connection, it'll be really life-changing if you're able to just take a little tiny baby step towards doing a little more of that kind of stuff. from a frequency standpoint. So that would be my advice is to be more connectable. Thank you. last question for real this time, I promise. uh I have a bad habit of saying, and this is the last question and then continued going on and on. uh We'll be here for, you know, the next three hours. But for people who want to stay connected or follow your work, where's the best place to find you online? So I'm pretty easy to find on LinkedIn. I don't do Instagram or Facebook or X or any of the other social sites, but I am pretty active on LinkedIn. So Stephen van Cohen, I'm pretty easy to find. Or if people want to learn more about the work we do, syncsynclx.com is all things team connection and workplace connection and overcoming loneliness and all that kind of stuff. So they could check that out and feel free to reach out through that website because that goes directly to me. Excellent, thank you and I will make sure to add those links in the show notes for anyone who wants to check that out. Stephen, thank you so much for this conversation, for being so open to sharing your insights and your perspective. I really, really appreciate it. My pleasure, Jacob. Thank you. You know, conversations like this are exactly why I started this show and really love spotlighting leaders like you who are really shaping what's next in the learning and growth space. And so if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next and feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn using the link in the show notes as well. And if today's conversation sparked any ideas about how your own online presence of your own visibility could better reflect the caliber of your work in the L &D space, feel free to reach out to me as well. It's exactly the type of work I help people with. Thank you again for listening, and I'll see you next time on Catalysts.