I’m passionate about showing people how to connect better and how to create relationships. Relationships matter.
In a recent episode of The Debbie Nigro Show, I welcomed Donald Weber, a renowned communications coach, to dive deep into the art of empathy and how it helps us create meaningful relationships both personally and professionally.
Donald Weber, who started off as a shy introvert, shared his inspiring journey from being bullied in school to coaching some of the world’s most elite leaders, including members of European royalty and Fortune 100 CEOs. His message is clear: empathy and strong communication skills can transform how we connect with others, whether in business or life.
Fostering Empathy and Meaningful Connections
One of the main topics we discussed was empathy—understanding and connecting with others by identifying their emotions. Donald stressed the importance of being self-aware and recognizing your own emotions before trying to connect with others. He emphasized that listening and showing genuine interest are key soft skills in building trust and fostering lasting relationships.
As a fellow communication expert and author of “How to Talk to Strangers / Advice from a Professional Stranger Talker”, I agree wholeheartedly that empathy plays a critical role in real conversations and successful collaborations.
Donald and I also both highlighted the importance of self-control, and I threw in mention of my “24-hour rule” for managing emotions before reacting. Ah the things that come with wisdom!
Learning from the Greats
Donald Weber attributed much of his success to influences like Dale Carnegie, author of *How to Win Friends and Influence People*, as well as personal mentors like Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra. His message to listeners was clear: continuous learning and self-improvement are critical to becoming a better communicator and leader.
Who Donald Weber Helps
Donald Weber’s clients range from high-profile individuals to top-tier organizations, all seeking to improve their communication skills. Whether in one-on-one sessions or private workshops, he provides custom training to help leaders develop empathy, emotional intelligence, and effective communication strategies. Often he does this very privately.
Some Key Takeaways ….
Empathy and Emotional Intelligence: Understanding others’ emotions is key to forming meaningful connections.
Active Listening: Show genuine interest in others and listen intently—communication isn’t just about talking.
Self-Awareness: Being mindful of your emotions helps you better control interactions.
The Power of Patience: Waiting to respond when agitated can improve outcomes.
Learning from the Best Books like Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” offer valuable lessons.
Want to learn more about fostering empathy and becoming a better communicator? You can find Donald Weber online by searching “Donald Weber Communications Coach.”
Want to learn how to better connect with people in person? You might want to grab a copy of my book, “How to Talk to Strangers / Advice From a Professional Stranger Talker” by me Debbie Nigro. It’s only 66 pages. You can start communicating better in about an hour. LOL
Meanwhile enjoy this podcast our live conversation on The Debbie Nigro Show – airing weekdays 11-12 noon EST live out of WGCH Radio studios In Greenwich, CT and airing live online at WGCH.com. If you’d rather read than listent the transcript of the audio is below.
Follow me on Instagram for more of everything upbeat: @therealdebbienigro
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
0:00:00
I got to get Donald Weber and tell him, Donald, what are you doing, Donald? I’m over here waiting for you. I’m giving you love. I’m promoting you. We’re supposed to talk about empathy and I have empathy.
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0:00:10
Welcome to my show.
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0:00:11
I’m empathetic on my part, does it?
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0:00:13
Nice to meet you, Donald Weber.
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0:00:14
Yes, actually, what happened is I hadn’t received the phone, the phone
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0:00:18
number until a few minutes ago, so I was actually waiting on Zoom. We’ve got a Zoom link and it hasn’t been connected so I’m still confused.
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0:00:30
That’s all right. You know why this happened? It’s a generational divide. You assumed we were going to go Zoom and you had to be dressed up and I’m sorry you had to get dressed for no reason and I’m over here and this is radio, audio and I take it and make it a podcast and put some pictures and a whole nice…
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0:00:44
But now we’re together. I think the best moments in life are when wisdom and youth share time together.
I love what you stand for and I too am a passionate person for showing people how to better connect and to how to better, you know, get people on your side when you want to get something done by connecting, how to connect with them, how to create relationships.
I know you’re more than a communications coach and you’re pretty much a master at teaching
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0:01:34
empathy and creating meaningful connections that, you know, let people create together, move forward together, and you empower leaders to foster relationships that matter. So how did this start in your life? Were you a kid who was always out there and talking to everybody?
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0:01:52
No, I was actually kind of an introvert, but I was kind of like an outsider. I was bullied a lot in school as a youngster. I wasn’t particularly popular, though I wanted to be. I wasn’t very good in sports. But that started changing when I, in my later years of high school, and then really, really took off when I got into university. And I’d paid credit my dad with a lot of that, because he started getting
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0:02:14
me to read books like about books from Dale Carnegie, and how to win friends and influence people, and this kind of material. So I started learning about listening to people and smiling and Being oh wow, you know, yeah
1
0:02:28
I just wrote a book first of all huge Dale Carnegie fan and a shout out to your father for being smart enough to Encourage you to to read his work.
I just wrote a book and it’s about the same idea It’s called how to talk to strangers advice from a professional stranger talker And I really share much of what I’ve learned in my life, which is very similar about how you, you know, communicate with people, connect with people, have real conversations, you know, how chance encounters can turn into wonderful things and how to be the person, you know, who’s confident and
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0:03:00
get out there and, you know, all those wonderful tricks. You do it more on a professional level and do you call yourself a something-ologist? What do you call yourself?
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0:03:13
The name I use is communications coach. I mean, really, it’s more soft skills training, but kind of Google sort of limits us when you’re trying to market services and products and stuff. Yes.
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0:03:27
Because communication, there’s so many different facets to it. It’s not just a matter of saying, oh, I’m gonna learn these linguistic tricks to persuade other people.
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0:03:35
There’s a lot more to it, you know?
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0:03:37
Sure. You know, from active listening
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to having the other person’s
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0:03:40
best interest at heart, not just trying to get what you can get out of them. Showing genuine interest and curiosity about other people. Again, empathy, being able to identify other people’s emotions. You know, one day maybe somebody’s very pleasant,
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0:03:53
and another day they seem not so pleasant, but perhaps something’s going on in their personal life or happened that day that it’s affected their mood or their emotional state. Also learning to control your own emotional state. Self-awareness is critical and for emotional intelligence, Debbie.
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0:04:12
If you’re not self-aware, how can you be really emotionally intelligent? And I mean, like if I’m talking with somebody and I’m not even aware of my own emotions or my own,
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when I say self-awareness,
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0:04:23
I’m not talking about self-consciousness. I’m talking about just being aware of your own emotional state and how you’re feeling inside Because that transmits so directly to other people. I’d love to read your book
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0:04:33
I’m definitely sending you a copy but you see you’re hitting a nerve and I have myself. Two reasons why today is a good time for you to be on my show. One I was very empathetic in my post today I’m an Italian American. I’m proud of my heritage, but I was very empathetic in my post, both to the pride of the Italian Americans trying to celebrate today, and also to the pain of the indigenous people.
So I showed great empathy, I thought, in being open to the fact that we now have new information about how this celebration, the person whose name is attached to this holiday is attached to. So, I took the time there to have a better understanding, and still want to better understand. I also when you said self-awareness have a new rule
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0:05:17
I’m not new but something I practice where when I’m totally aggravated with something or somebody or somebody or something goes wrong and I feel like I want to you know Do something say something. I call it the 24-hour rule. I let it sit because I do not want to communicate when I’m agitated with anybody you you like that idea ?
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0:05:35
Thousand-percent. I that’s called wisdom and experience in life A thousand percent. That’s called wisdom and experience in life. You get irritated with somebody, you want to answer with an email and then just having the wisdom to say, you know what, I’ll just wait a bit before I send this off.
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0:05:54
And then so many times you go back and you read it, you’re like, oh my goodness, I’m glad I didn’t send that. By the way, sometimes my 24-hour rule, if somebody really aggravates me, it goes 48, 72, like I have to take a whole week, and I’m like, all right, all right, all right, all right. But it does, the things do change,
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0:06:08
and your understanding when you process stuff. Who do you do business with? Like who hires you? Donald Weber, fostering empathy connection, and lasting and value communication.
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0:06:19
I’m very fortunate, I work mostly in Europe, and I work with a lot of times, like uber well-known people. I mean when I talk about PRPs, I’ve had the occasion to work with two of the members of the Royal Family in Europe, Prime Minister’s offices, yes, members of Parliament of the European Parliament as well as national parliaments, High Court justices in Luxembourg, I mean many, many CEOs of Fortune 100 companies.
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I’ve been very blessed.
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0:06:50
You’re a guy who is unbelievable from a kid who was bullied and didn’t communicate to serving the royalty of the world. How did you become so good and how did they find out you were so good to hire you?
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0:07:04
It was through referrals. training facility up in near Brussels and Studying them I got I don’t know if I’m so good, but I’ve studied a lot of books and Studied a lot of people who show amazing amounts of empathy and high character And trying to model these people everything from like Stephen Covey
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0:07:23
Years ago. I met Tony Robbins before he was really that famous actually wasn’t famous at the time, and then many other like notable people, Deepak Chopra, in fact I used to know his family, I went to school
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0:07:46
with him.
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0:07:47
Wow. So hanging around, being having the opportunity to have access to these kinds of people really helped me sort of develop myself and also a willingness and an interest in helping others and realizing that I have my own defects and these defects or these shortcomings you might say are something that I needed to improve and work upon and it’s kind of a process. The journey is not over yet, I’ve got a long ways to go yet.
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0:08:12
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re all defective.
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0:08:18
I don’t know if everyone is but I can speak for myself.
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0:08:21
I joke around sometimes, everybody has their own flavor of crazy hiding underneath their exterior. It’s okay. We’re just human, right? We’re just humans trying to do our best job of being human. And I, too, am a person who, yeah, drawn to high integrity people. You’re fascinating, really fascinating.
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0:08:41
So when you meet with people to educate, I mean, even companies, do you do it in a setting where you’re in a, I don’t know, a hall or you do it personally? We’re running out of time so I just want to hear the answer.
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0:08:55
We do it both. Most often it tends to be one to one because these people don’t like to keep their confidentiality. They don’t like to be too public about training. Typically what I learn with these people is I do a little research, I background, get information about them. and then I listen very intently.
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0:09:17
Oh boy, listening is a number one skill. I want people to know how to reach you. We’re out of time, but you’re so special. How do people get in touch with you, Donald Weber?
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0:09:25
If you just type in Donald Weber or Don Weber Communications Coach,
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0:09:30
I’ll pop up on Google.
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0:09:32
Yeah, and send me your face cream and I’ll send you my book, okay? Okay, sounds like a deal. Nice having you on the show today. You have a wonderful day. Great to meet you, Donald.
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0:09:43
Great to meet you too, Debbie. Thank you so much.
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0:09:45
Onward. Thank you. Onward. Thank you. Back in a moment on the Debbie Nigro Show.
Transcribed with Cockatoo
