The Author of The Million Dollar Handshake Catherine Molloy says proper communication can even save lives.

Can anyone be a skillful communicator? Sure, you just have to fine-tune your communication skills. Here’s a useful tip: start passionately.
Catherine Molloy is an award-winning Sales and Customer Service expert, also known as the author of ‘the Million Dollar Handshake’. She teaches people how to self-lead to be effective at the work place and improve their personal lives too.
Catherine says that a few tiny tools can make us more confident. They can be implemented quickly.
‘It’s not about me, it’s about you.‘ Catherine says it’s important to understand ourselves in order to be more positive. This allows us to understand others and interact properly by focusing on them too.
Her real passion is using her skills to help the poor in Africa. ‘It’s all about not just the money for you but what you can do with it.’ Making a difference in all social classes makes her feel fulfilled and passionate every day.
Do you want to improve your communication skills? Use this resource and remember to share it with your friends and spread the passion.

Live Passionately

Moustafa Hamwi
Passionpreneur & Chief Energy Officer
Award Winning Author & Speaker

TRANSCRIPT:

Moustafa: Hello everyone and welcome back to Passion Sundays, the best way to end a week and start another. Our guest today is the author of The Million Dollar Handshake. She helps people connect better and today she will help you build your passion tribe – Catherine Molloy. Thank you for being with us today!
Catherine: Hi! How are you?
Moustafa: I’m really excited! That was a million dollar handshake.
Catherine: That was a very good handshake!
Moustafa: A million dollar handshake. Well, tell me about The Million Dollar Handshake?
Catherine: Ok, so it’s something we’ve developed in the last 30 years through body language. So understanding that these tiny tweaks can make a big difference. And it’s our first 7 seconds, it’s how we connect.
Moustafa: I love that. And then, what are the top three, four or even one thing in the first 7 seconds that you focus on?
Catherine: Ok. So eye contact is really important. And when we’re shaking we are making sure that our shoulders, our hips are aligned so the person in front of you is the person you want to connect with and give your full attention. Not looking over their shoulders, their watches and all these different things.
Moustafa: Ok. And getting to the actual handshake element itself. I mean too many people have different variations. You know, you have the nutcracker person that comes in really strong. You got the people who are like the dead fish type. What’s the best balanced approach to a handshake?
Catherine: The best balanced approach is the straight one. We want our wrists to connect so that’s really important. So not to shake too many times. See how your fingers are at my wrist?
Moustafa: Yeah.
Catherine: Well, in some cultures, in martial arts you can touch a point there that can bring someone to their knees.
Moustafa: Ok.
Catherine: So it’s really important not to go up someone’s wrists because that can be dominant as well.
Moustafa: Ok, I never noticed that. I get that. Ok.
Catherine: Yeah.
Moustafa: So there is a lot more subtle signs in a handshake than one would imagine.
Catherine: There are a lot more subtle signs. It’s amazing! But it’s just the tip of the iceberg. So we created a conscious connection framework and it is changing lives! Because once we understand how we communicate with ourselves, how we lead ourselves, then we can start to lead others. It changes lives and it saves lives! You know, in Australia alone we have one in four under the age of 24 suffering mental health issues and it’s the way in which we communicate to ourselves. So the first thing I love to do is to work with people for them to understand what they are saying to themselves each day. How they are self-sabotaging. Because in a nanosecond, we can change the way we feel, we can go in confident with the handshake and we can meet and greet people and start our lives fresh each day.
Moustafa: Wow! And how can you use all of which you just mentioned into building a passion tribe?
Catherine: How can I?
Moustafa: Yeah.
Catherine: Well, we’ve already started. So we place every year at least 150 people that have been suffering into the work force. And it changes their lives once they can understand how to work in teams. So for the corporates it’s really about being with everybody so everyone needs to come onboard and understand how to self-lead because we can’t lead others until we understand how we affect others. So it’s not about me, it’s about you. When we lead each other today how I want you to feel about our interaction.
Moustafa: That’s powerful. So creating a passion tribe around you that connects with what you connect with is not really about us, it’s about them.
Catherine: Correct!
Moustafa: But also that’s in a way sometimes it becomes a little too selfless that we lost center. Too many people are so centered around others but they don’t have their own center in a way. It’s beautiful that I want to think about you but I want to be able to know me first.
Catherine: That’s why we start with the self-leading of ourselves. So when you come to us, we start with your body language, we work with the mindset and most importantly the behaviors. Because worldwide when you take away verbal and non-verbal language, there are just 6 facial expressions recognized worldwide. We are left with the raw behaviors of people. So I let people understand who they are so that they can be more positive so then it’s ok to understand who that other person is. If I’ve had a bad day and I bring it out on you, what’s that experience for you? It doesn’t help the business, it doesn’t help for business growth and it doesn’t help me personally if I’m thinking negatively and I’m miserable all the time.
Moustafa: So in the context again of handshakes and having a passion tribe around you… Let’s say I want to have that million dollar passion tribe handshake. Sometimes my passion tribe is about being powerful. Let’s say you are in a certain industries where the ego is high, where it’s about power play. You cannot be really a little bit too – I don’t know, let’s say centered, too timid, too reserved – because then you are going to lose that tribe around you.
Catherine: Ok, great. Good question! So I just want to show you something with the handshake. So for instance if I’m an aggressive man and I’m big and powerful and I make myself bigger, I come in for the handshake. Now I want you to go soft for a moment. Ok, this is my handshake. How do you feel?
Moustafa: A bit, yeah… You’re intimidating me.
Catherine: Yes.
Moustafa: Ok.
Catherine: So is that a good thing to do to people when you meet somebody? Or is it better to meet them at the same strength? So I want to show you something how in a nanosecond we can change our handshake. Watch this!
Moustafa: I see.
Catherine: See? So we can meet each other. So even as a top-playing person we don’t have to come in and be aggressive because if you are aggressive to me and you squeeze my hand really tight, you tell me all about you. So now actually you’ve given me the power because now I know how to influence you.
Moustafa: Wow! That’s powerful! So actually it’s counterproductive to come overly strong. Just to explain to the audience what went on the camera. So basically when I put my hand she actually did not resist, she was responsive. As I squeezed, she kept on and went back and responded to me. That’s very subtle. We can’t show that on camera, obviously.
Catherine: So in a nanosecond we have a rating between 0 and 10. A nice handshake is generally between 7. Sometimes women can be a bit softer so a man can immediately alter that. But don’t ever be softer than the person you are shaking your hand of. Meet them at the level or a little bit firmer.
Moustafa: So you basically just go mid-range and adjust.
Catherine: Not necessarily. Because… I want to show you! See? We met each other straight away. You didn’t have to come in soft and then go hard. It’s amazing! It’s a nanosecond!
Moustafa: And how can I go into that space? Because maybe I do a lot of work with myself, you are doing that. But how to explain this to an audience who hasn’t done this before? How can they know that natural flow?
Catherine: We do kine representations and we actually have the whole audience participating. We would bring people up as well and generally we have a lot of people coming up and interacting. So it’s really important to be able to walk away with those skills. So we get people three tools that they can implement immediately to make a difference. And of course, we got online so they can come in and start to work on their inner self-leadership.
Moustafa: So we are going to ask for our audience who can’t come to your workshops, one or two applicable tools. What can they do?
Catherine: Ok, fabulous! So if you’re a man, please shake the woman’s hand. In Australia, we let our webs touch.
Moustafa: Alright? Can we get that?
Catherine: So it’s really important that our webs touch. So if you grab me here, we haven’t really made a connection.
Moustafa: Ok, so we’re talking about this space. We need our hands to connect somewhere around here, alright?
Catherine: Yes, yes. Our webs. Because – feel this? Shake now.
Moustafa: Ok, so if you go closer to the fingers…
Catherine: This is the web.
Moustafa: The web, ok.
Catherine: So we want that to touch. I’m gonna show you something. If we go here, we haven’t made a connection. Feel this? Difference?
Moustafa: Oh, I see that locks in. (laughs) This is awesome! Thank you.
Catherine: (laughs) Ok, ok.
Moustafa: Phenomenal. I think we need to do a full review about this as there is a lot of close-up camera work that we need to do.
Catherine: So globally this is… I’ve been working in China, I’ve been working in UAE, I’m going to Hong Kong, I’m coming back to Singapore. So t’s something that we really want to share for the world to start thinking about who the people are but also understand who you are.
Moustafa: I love the passion for the million dollar handshake helping people build their own passion tribe!
Catherine: Yeah! And don’t be afraid of making money! Because if we’re making money, guess what? There are so many amazing causes that we can help with.
Moustafa: Of course.
Catherine: So my passion is we have a village that we are helping in Africa, one of the poorest ones we’ve been to in Uganda. So it’s all about not just the money for you but what you can do with it.
Moustafa: Amazing! I love everything you’ve just said! It’s been a phenomenal interview. Catherine, thank you very much for this and another million dollar handshake.
Catherine: Thank you!
Moustafa: Thank you! Awesome!
Moustafa and Catherine: Passion!
Moustafa: What do you think? I really hope you found this episode as useful and as exciting as I did. If so, please leave your comments on the blog below and share it with your friends or those who might benefit from it. And if you’d like more tools, tips, techniques and exclusive interviews that I only share on my website, go to Moustafa.com. Until next episode – live passionately!