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Most professionals spend 80% of their workday communicating — and almost none have a system for getting better at it. Conversations That Count changes that.
Hosted by David Shaft — President's Club Banker at Rocket Mortgage, Dale Carnegie graduate, and Detroit storyteller — CTC delivers real conversations with executives, industry leaders, and everyday professionals who break down the communication skills that actually move careers forward.
New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Professional multi-camera video production on YouTube. Full audio on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
What you'll learn:
• Workplace communication: better meetings, tougher feedback, and difficult conversations that don't blow up relationships
• Public speaking and presentations: how to open strong, handle Q&A, and keep any room engaged
• Professional networking: small talk that leads somewhere, LinkedIn outreach that gets replies, follow-up that builds real relationships
• Storytelling: how to tell your story in 60 seconds and communicate with impact in any room
• Leadership communication: negotiation, influence, and the Dale Carnegie principles that still work today
CTC is syndicated on the Mission Matters Network and features professionals across automotive, finance, tech, healthcare, and Detroit's growing entrepreneurship scene — because great communication looks different in every industry.
Whether you're a mid-career professional chasing a promotion, a manager who needs to run better meetings, or anyone who wants to communicate with more confidence, credibility, and impact — this show was built for you.
Free resource: Download the free Communication Playbook — 10 frameworks, scripts, and exercises to help you communicate like a pro. Get it at: https://ctcpodcast.media/free-playbook
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube — and never miss an episode.
Stories That Stick. Skills That Scale.
David Shaft: You spent your entire life saying, why me?
Why should it be me?
You spent the entire life proving it.
Now, believe it.
Welcome everyone to Conversations That Count.
Now, I know normally we have someone
who either I'm interviewing
or I'm going over an interview that I did with them.
Well, today, what we're going to do instead is steal
a concept from one of the greatest artists
to ever make music, Little Dirk.
By that, I mean we're going to follow something he said
and it was treating the mic like therapy
because I talked to it.
And that's what I'm going to do with everyone here.
And that's what you're going to do with me.
We're going to have a therapy session together
and we're probably going to do this for a little while
and we're just going to go over different concepts,
different things that really sparked something in me
that I wanted to share with all of you.
The first one today is going to be a concept
of why me versus why not me.
So I bring this to you because I had a mentor
who I was talking to them about like the two halves of me
that feel like they're always fighting.
And that is why me, right?
The part of me that needs to prove why I should be here.
Why should I get a seat at the table?
And that's the part that's like,
oh, I always have to be winning.
I have to show the world why they should recognize me.
I have to be number one.
I have to make the most money.
I have to be the best looking, right?
The why me, why it should be me.
But then there's the other part of me.
And that's the why not me, right?
This is when you think of like when someone says delusional
or when you meet those people who like have delusional
beliefs of like, yeah, you know,
I'm gonna, it's gonna be me who does it
just because I said so.
Nothing else.
They have no proof, no evidence, nothing.
I wanna tap into this person.
So bad, the one that has nothing to prove,
but believes that they should have everything.
The just delusional confidence versus the confidence built
on shaky ground because it always has to be backed
by some type of evidence.
And I just kept like I kept talking to them about like,
how do I become this and stop being so much of this?
And they sat there for a brief second,
didn't say anything.
And they said why when they finally did speak
and they said, why does it have to be one or the other?
I didn't have an answer.
I don't know.
Why does it have to be one or the other?
It turns out it doesn't have to be one or the other.
Turns out it's something in the middle, right?
So, and it took me a minute to understand it.
And I was, after they froze for a second,
gave me that response.
I froze for what felt like hours
because I didn't know what to say back.
And it turns out that the why me, right?
The part of us that is like, man,
I have to show why I should be recognized.
I'm, you know, I've done these things.
I have these accomplishments.
If you can meet that why me with the why not me,
that delusional part that just says, you know,
what you deserve to be there regardless.
It turns out that all those things you did
while feeding the why me, feeding that ego,
feeding that shaky ground,
it should feed the why not me.
It should feed the delusion.
And is it really delusional?
If, when we really think back at all the accomplishments
we've had, all the things we've done,
all the people we've met, places we've been,
things we've seen, is anything really delusional?
Is any bit of it?
No.
I mean, there are people who have accomplished way less
and gotten way more.
But it doesn't change that all the why me's
that made you earn the first place
in your four by one in high school,
or maybe it's what made you move on
and get your own place at 18 or 16,
or maybe it's why you got that huge promotion at work
that you fought for,
or maybe you haven't gotten the promotion yet,
but it's everything you've done in the meantime,
where you should be delusional enough
to believe that you deserve the promotion.
All of that should meet in the middle,
and it should feed the why not me.
And once I really understood that it's all those things I did
that actually make the why not me
not even delusional anymore,
it just makes it what I should believe is possible.
And in fact, to believe anything less
than great things are possible
is an insult to all the times I said why me
and prove why it should be me,
to believe that it couldn't be me,
or to believe that even thinking more is possible,
that's a negative delusion that does nothing to power me,
does nothing to better me.
Once I understood that,
I understood that it was supposed to be somewhere
in the middle all along.
It was never supposed to be me,
never supposed to be why me versus why not me.
I can't make that any clear, right?
It's like I put this versus here,
and that was the problem.
I was fighting myself the entire time
when it was never supposed to be a versus match,
it was always supposed to be right in the middle.
I was supposed to have why me meet why not me.
And all the things that I've won and did and accomplished,
they're the exact same reason why it's not delusional
to believe that I can do more, or be more,
or get more, have more and accomplish more.
The only difference is,
you're doing more, having more,
being more and accomplishing more,
it can't just be to feed my ego
and to then always have me saying why me.
It's like those things are the things
that should make me delusional, even more delusional, right?
But they're the things that should make me believe
I can do even greater things.
So every time you think about all the things you've done
in your life, all the places you've been remember,
those are all the reasons that it should be why not me.
Steve Harvey has this thing, and I love it.
He says, you have 100% survival rate
for every single thing you've been through.
100%, no matter how crazy things you've been in your life,
you're still here in a life to tell about them.
So just because of that sheer fact,
you've survived 100% of the challenges that have arisen
is enough to be delusional and believe
that you can do and be more, whatever that is.
And be more doesn't mean, again,
it means you'd have to have more accolades, more awards,
it just means that you can have more
whatever it is that you want.
You just have to believe why not me
because you spent your entire life saying, why me?
Why should it be me?
You spent the entire life proving it.
Now believe it.
So it was never why not me versus why me.
It was always just most importantly,
it was always just you.
So thank you all for listening
to another Conversations That Counts episode.
I'm gonna work on continuing to give you
these quick fights, these quick realizations.
And thank you all for tuning in.
I hope you had therapy today, like I had therapy today.
Let's go out there, let's continue winning,
have fun, don't forget, leave a like, share, subscribe,
whatever platform you're listening or watching on
because we're on all of them.
We're on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, the whole nine yards.
So remember though, if you and us
cause now we're in this together, see you all later.
Thank you everyone for watching another episode
of Conversations That Count.
Sometimes what we find is YouTube will unsubscribe us
from our favorite channels, as well as when we finish
an episode, we'll have enjoyed it so much.
We'll forget to hit the subscribe button
because we'll be so caught up with it.
My ask is so that we can keep the channel free
so that I can continue bringing you amazing guests,
continue bringing you amazing practices
that improve all of our skills
as we go into every day and every week.
If you can hit that subscribe button,
if you can like, share, it goes a very long way
to again, keeping the channel free,
allowing us to continue providing you amazing content.
And my promise is I will only continue
to improve the content, improve the guests
and improve the best practices every single time.
I will make sure every week and every month
that it only gets better for you.
So again, thank you all for tuning in.
Thank you for watching.
And I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.