Empowered Relationship Podcast: Your Relationship Resource And Guide · Dr. Jessica Higgins

ERP 508: The Power of Collaboration: Building Trust and Connection in Love and Life — An Interview with Leslie Grossman

·40 min·2 clips

Leslie Grossman reduces collaboration to three words: trust, listening, and curiosity.

1. Empowered Relationship Podcast episode 508 focuses on Leslie Grossman’s “Circles of Collaboration” and how collaboration affects love, family, and work. 2. Host Dr. Jessica Higgins is a licensed psychologist and relationship coach, and guest Leslie Grossman is a leadership expert and co-author who brings a business-and-relationships lens. 3. The episode asks how trust, curiosity, and deep listening create stronger bonds across intimate relationships and other circles of life. 4. Grossman says she has coached entrepreneurial partners, including people who are not married, and tells them to “divide and conquer.” 5. She says one person can lead in a specific area, but both people should listen carefully before the final action. 6. Higgins connects that idea to couples, noting that one partner may have more agency in some domains while still serving both people’s needs. 7. Grossman says the concept evolved over the last 25 years as she noticed that “great things happen when we work together.” 8. She also says her 15 years as an executive coach made her focus on leadership development, teams, and collaborative circles such as family, girlfriends, nonprofit groups, and workplace teams. 9. Grossman says her husband and her parents modeled collaboration through listening and solving problems together rather than telling each other what to do. 10. Higgins and Grossman talk about how collaboration differs from relationships where one person dominates or decides everything. 11. Grossman says people often think they already know what a partner will say, so they interrupt and start defending themselves before listening. 12. She names trust, listening, and curiosity as the three principles that make a relationship stronger. 13. Higgins adds that curiosity creates room to understand why a person feels a certain way instead of jumping straight to advice. 14. Grossman says deeper questions like “tell me about your work” and “what do you love about it” help surface common ground. 15. She tells a story about a woman in a business owners’ group who noticed she was having a hard day, asked about her son, and then shared insights from her own experience. 16. Grossman says that conversation built trust, created a 25-year friendship, and turned into ongoing business support between the two women. 17. The interview style is conversational and reflective, with Higgins using examples from client work and her own marriage to test Grossman’s ideas. 18. The tone stays practical and calm, with repeated emphasis on specific behaviors such as walking together, asking one question at a time, and keeping a list of unresolved issues. 19. Listeners who want practical communication tools for couples, families, or work teams will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners looking for a fast, surface-level relationship chat probably will not.

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