Talk About Talk - Executive & Leadership Communication Skills

Do you know how to tell your story effectively? The story you tell could be at work in conversation with your boss, in a job interview, or perhaps you seek to write a novel? Best-selling author and legal veteran Norman Bacal shares how stories are impactful because they connect us through our emotions and life experiences, how the best lawyers are the best storytellers, why we should all have a rehearsed 60 second infomercial about ourselves, the process of writing fiction and non-fiction, how to address the media, and the power of metaphors.   References & Links Norman Bacal Website – https://normanbacal.com/ LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/norman-bacal-16772a23/ “Breakdown” by Norman Bacal – https://amzn.to/2Rk4DHd “Odell’s Fall” by Norman Bacal – https://amzn.to/36ndGet Recommended book: “TRUE FIT: How to Find the Right Job by Being You” by Jim Beqaj- https://amzn.to/2R8rd5e Talk About Talk & Dr. Andrea Wojnicki ? LISTENING with author, consultant & best-selling author Norman Bacal (podcast episode #41) – https://talkabouttalk.com/41-listening-with-norman-bacal/ ? STORYTELLING with Harvard professor & author Jerry Zaltman (podcast episode #11) – https://talkabouttalk.com/11-storytelling-with-harvard-professor-author-jerry-zaltman/ ? Subscribe to the Podcast: https://talkabouttalk.com/podcasts/#subscribe ? Andrea’s email – Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com ? Free Weekly Email Newsletter – https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup ? Website – https://talkabouttalk.com ? Private Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Dr. Andrea Wojnicki: Thank you so much for joining us, Norman. Norman Bacal: Oh, thank you for having me. AW: If you don’t mind, I’d like to start with some background. I’m curious. Were you always a writer? NB: It’s an interesting question, because it’s got two answers to it. If you had asked me before my 40th birthday or earlier, did I ever think I would write a book? The answer was never. But I actually started my career doing a lot of writing, particularly as a student and young lawyer. My boss was asked to give many speeches, and he had to publish articles and I pretty much wrote all of them for him. So I did a lot of writing early in my career. I wrote my first technical article when I was about a fifth year lawyer. It had to do with actors coming to Canada. So I did a fair amount of writing in the first – probably 10 years of my career. And then as my career advanced, as I became more successful, I discovered what successful lawyers discover, and that is your phone never stops ringing. You spend most of your time either in meetings or on the phone. And all the writing is now done by junior lawyers who are working for you. Then as I advanced forward into management that continued even further, so the higher up I got in the organization, the shorter my attention span got, the less writing I did. And as I said, by my 40th birthday, the one thing I knew for sure was that I was never going to write a book. I was reading good authors on vacation. I can remember the moment it happened to me, I was reading The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje – and I read it I put the book down, at about the halfway point, and I looked at my wife, and I said, I will never write a book. AW: Oh, you explicitly said that? NB: Yes. AW: that’s amazing. NB: But career goals change. AW: Did you ever keep a journal or any kind of – write anything personal like that before? NB: I kept a journal for six weeks when I was 19 years old on a trip to Israel. I actually filled one of those empty books with writing and that was my summer goal. And from that point on, I never lifted a pen. No interest. Although once I became a managing partner at Heenan Blaikie, I said, you know, it would be really smart to just keep a regular journal of not only what I was going through, but what my feelings were and, and the events. And of course I did none of that. AW: Right. I think many of us have good intentions. NB: I can’t tell you how many people I’ve run into who say “I’m sure I have a book in me.” Well, sure, so you can get it out. AW: And we’ll get into that. Most people do have a story. NB: Right. AW:  So one other question. Just focused on what you said about the career trajectory, perhaps of a typical lawyer. Do you think that lawyers generally make good writers? NB: I would say probably we’re above average, if you look at the population in terms of writing skills. Because just to survive law school, you have to be able to write. One of the key things that you’re taught, one way or the other, is how to communicate, particularly in writing. And as a young lawyer, particularly if you’re being trained properly, there’s somebody watching you all the time and making very certain you are very precise. AW:  So I’m just going to add this quote here from your book on page seven, you talk about Danny, who taught you to be meticulous, and this is the quote. He says, “Every word has a meaning and every meaning must be applied with precision. Ideas are meant to be expressed in a particular way. As lawyers we craft with words, and our task is to master them.” NB: I don’t think he particularly meant written word as opposed to spoken word. AW: He meant both? NB: Yeah. But he particularly stressed – It was interesting, because Peter Blaikie was probably one of the best litigators that the province of Quebec ever produced. And he actually ran for office a couple of times even. He ran for the leadership of the party. Peter’s name was on the door, the law firm. He was magnificent in court, and he could take a losing argument and find a way to convince a judge that it was the winning argument. But Danny was a big stickler.  Anyone can walk into a courtroom with bad facts, create an argument that will fool someone for a short period of time. But it’s only by writing them down and capturing them that you’re able to prove that it works. Because on review, your words aren’t going to hide somewhere. They’re there, they will always be there on the page. AW: So I know this is getting technical, but when you’re in a court of law, it is being transcribed. Right? So it is it is formally documented. NB: Yes, but, and I was not a litigator for a living. I litigated, I think, seven cases in my entire career, and they were all early on. But the one thing I’ve discovered, and this was much later in my career, is that success in a courtroom, the people who are the greatest successes are the best storytellers. And it’s not just about who has the best legal brief. It’s sometimes about who tells the best story, who conveys the story, and actually captures the emotion. Because judges are human. They are subject to the same frailties. And when two parties come to court, very often the judge is looking for – it’s not necessarily who wins on the legal technicality, but more so who in his heart or her heart-of-hearts ought to win, based on the details of the case. So if you understand how to tell the story, to tug on those heartstrings, you probably have a much better success record in court than anyone else. AW: What are some techniques or tactics that a great litigator, for example, might use in crafting that story? NB: It starts and ends with storytelling, to be able to take a boring set of facts and convey them in a way that captures the judges’ attention. And litigators will tell you this, you can’t afford to lose the judge. The judges are human. They’ve shut their brains down. They’re no longer listening to you. I did some studies. I discovered the average attention span is eight minutes. And at the end of a courtroom, or anyone, anywhere, the average person’s attention span is: they will start to drift after a few minutes unless you come up with little tricks to keep their attention going. AW: So be honest, eight minutes is higher than I thought. NB: Well, in this in the computer age, maybe it’s down to two. AW: Yeah. NB: But if you can’t figure out a way to continue to be interesting, and to tap into people’s emotions, you know, no one is ever going to remember what you said when you make a speech, but they will always remember how they felt when they left the room. AW: I’ve heard that. That’s absolutely brilliant. Okay, maybe one of the most important strategies or tactics for developing a good story is to make people feel emotions, bring them on an emotional journey. NB: You have to take them on the journey you have, and I’ve certainly learned this writing fiction, you have to be able to tap into their experience. So it’s not just your experience. Most people are, you know, they have one subject that interests them far more than any other subject and that’s themselves. So you need to be able to get there to get into their heads to tap into some story that you’re not even telling, but that parallels some story they’ve lived. Great litigators also know how to read people. So you have to read your judge. You know, when you’re losing someone, and I can’t tell you how many lawyers I’ve met, that are completely self-unaware, that they just cannot read people. And if you can’t read people, you can’t possibly win a case. AW: This is leading a little bit into listening, which is another topic that we’re talking about. But I have to say when I read Breakdown, I had a slightly positive bias coming in because I had met you on the phone and I know people that think very highly of you. So I found Breakdown to be incredibly relevant and compelling. And you know, I consciously wasn’t thinking of myself in the story, but I probably was thinking about what I would do. Anyway, it is absolutely a fantastic story. And the fact that it’s real, makes it all the more compelling. So shifting to your writing of this story. I have a question about when you were living the story before you started writing it. Did you ever think yourself, “this is a story that needs to be told?” NB: The simple answer to that question is absolutely not. When you are living a crisis, you are living it, you are breathing it, you are taking it to bed with you. You are either sharing it with your loved ones or you’re not. And if you’re not, you’re become slowly but surely this horrible person that’s going through this on your own. But ultimately, the stress of going through a difficult situation. And for us, it was a business breakdown. But the case of other people’s? It could be sickness, or losing a loved-one, or some crisis in your life. You’re focused on only one thing, and that’s getting through the next day. And you might have a path forward in terms of where you think it needs to go. And in my case, that becomes the only driving force in your life. Put everything else aside, this is all you’re going to deal with. There’s no notion that one day I’m going to write a book about it. And even as it was failing, and even in the early days post failure, people would come to me and say, “well, that must have been quite an experience to live through!” And I can remember my thinking was, because they’re trying to make you feel better. And they’re saying, “well, it’ll make you stronger”. And I’m thinking to myself as well, “you live through this and you get stronger – because I can’t see how this is ever going to make me stronger.” And why? Because when you’re in it, and even in the post stress of living through it afterwards, you can’t see anything good coming out of something like this. AW: I was questioning whether I should actually even ask you that question. Because as a director of the firm, you are responsible for a strategic level of oversight and direction. But then to have that even higher level of meta thinking like, in my life, what does this experience represent? It’s crazy because your very survival depended on what your course of action was and what your direction was to the firm. NB: So it was interesting. It was fairly simple. If we’re going to jump forward to the end days, just for people who haven’t read the book. There was a one-year period where I was out of management and literally I was a spectator to this, which was probably the worst part. First of all, because it’s one thing when you believe you have the power in your hands to affect the outcome, it’s quite another when you’re a passenger on the ship and you see it’s beginning to sink. And you know, it’s in the hands of a captain, you just cross your fingers and hope they know what they’re doing. And each day starts to feel a little more bleak when you as you slowly come to the realization that things are not getting better. So for a quite a long period of time, I was quite powerless and that is probably the worst possible feeling in the world. I have to say in the final two months, when I step back into a leadership position, the ship was halfway sunk at that point in time. It was. And I’m, in some respects, a little bit embarrassed to say, it was the most exciting and invigorating experience I’ve ever lived. Because here I was with the opportunity to step in. I did a one-week analysis as to how to save the patient. I came up with a plan. I became extremely enthusiastic that we could actually pull this off, that we could save the firm, that life would go on and that things would be okay again. And the adrenaline rush coming from those feelings carried me for almost two months. And in that period I used to feel almost a euphoria. Like I’d say, I’d probably liken it to feeling like Superman. I can do anything. I can do this. We are going to succeed and why? Because your brain cannot allow for an even an inch of doubt. Because as soon as you start doubting yourself, you’re finished. Right? So I had to believe, and this is Norman, in hindsight, looking back, as opposed to Norman prospectively looking at it. I had to believe that this was going to be a success that we were going to be fine. And it wasn’t about ego so much as here’s just one more challenge in my life. I can pull this off. AW: well, you would have regretted it if you hadn’t tried that. NB: I can’t even imagine not trying. AW: So you said that in the couple of weeks after the firm ceased to exist legally, that everyone was coming to you and consoling you. They had words of wisdom to share. And you just kept thinking, “This was such a horrific experience. Why don’t you try it?” You know, you want to talk about resilience! What was your main inspiration to write the story? NB: My entire adult life was attached to the firm. I spent the last 25 years of my life building it. To me, building it meant the name Heenan Blaikie was on the wall of the building where it was sitting along with the names of three other firms at the corner Bay and Adelaide. So that was a big deal. It was the space we had. It was all of – not just the lawyers, but all the support staff. You know, we had helped create their lives. And I was a big believer that if you’re going to work, you’re going to have fun working, and that this was going to be a great experience in your life. And that was our firm philosophy. So here we were coming out of that and being perceived by the world … the Newspapers called it the greatest Canadian failure in Canadian law firm history. Well, how do you like being associated with that? AW: that’s not a nice superlative. NB: No, exactly. Not the one you want to be your legacy. And ultimately, my wife came to me about three months later after the firm’s demise. So it was February. She came to me and in June, with, what they used to call it, a nothing book. It was just a book that’s empty with about 200 pages in it. And she put it down on a table beside me and she said, “Listen, you have two choices. You’ve become a very angry person. And you need to process your feelings. And either you’re going to write them down, or you’re going to go see a therapist. Those are your two options right now, because you can’t continue being this person.” So I thought about it for just a couple days. And just getting back to your diary question. I had never kept a diary. I always wished I had. I didn’t even know where to start. So I said it. You know what I’m going to start from a feeling perspective. I’m going to write what the last day felt like. Because I insisted on being the last person to leave. I felt like literally the captain going down with the ship. It was Valentine’s Day, it was a Friday night and I was looking out the window, it was dark out over Lake Ontario. And there was nobody left and I walked around the hallways and there were these huge boxes that you collect recycling in. And there’s a little bit of literal leftovers, but otherwise it was the place was a tomb. AW: I have to tell you that it was very vivid image and, and I thought you were talking about the process of writing the story, but you’re also talking about how the book unfolds. So it is written chronologically, I guess, with the exception of the very beginning. It does start with this. NB: When we were publishing, I concluded that the book has to start at the end because the process started at the end. And once I finished writing that’s how that felt. I said okay, … because there was no way I was emotionally ready to look at the final year and everything that we went through. So I said, you know what? I always talked about keeping a diary. I’m going to go back to day one in law school and bring it forward. And then at some point, I’ll be, I’ll be ready to write about this. And I thought, well, it’s, you know, it’ll be a really nice memento for my children. It’ll be my memoirs. It’ll be for my children only. There’s no more firm. I can’t take them to visit. But what I can do is tell them, this is the story of my life. And it was handwritten. By the time I got to the last year, I had been writing from mid-July to mid-December. AW: Okay, that’s pretty quick, actually, isn’t it? NB: It was just every story I could remember. And I just wrote them down. Some of them I couldn’t remember the chronology. I didn’t care. I just wanted to have it. I’d filled up pretty close to six of these books. And I developed an abscess on my finger and that’s when I knew it was time to take a break. And then I came back, we took a family holiday, we came back at the beginning of January, I said okay, now I’m going to type it up. And at that point, I typed it in and that’s how I that’s how I learned how to type. You know, until then I was a hunt and peck kind of email sender. I probably type about 35 words a minute now, but although 34 of them are wrong. AW:  yeah. NB: Like, my fingers are dyslexic. AW: It’s funny, you know, a lot of people know that they should learn to type. And it’s not until it’s not until I was actually writing my dissertation that I really learned how to type fast. But there we go, we are creatures of necessity. NB: So I wrote it down. And then the Danny fellow I mentioned earlier… I had the 750 pages of manuscript and I hadn’t spoken to him in years, and I picked up the phone and called him. And I said, “Listen, I’ve written a memoir of the firm. I’m a little shaky on the parts in the period that I hadn’t joined the firm yet – in the early years. Would you mind reading that?” He said, “Well send me the whole thing.” He said, “I’m very curious about what happened after I left the firm.” When he and I were finished with it. I called a friend of mine who was an agent and a friend of mine in Los Angeles, who’s a producer. He said, “Listen, send me the first 50 pages.” And he actually sent back some script notes and the agent, we spoke for about 15 minutes and he said, “Listen, call me back when it’s 300 pages, because no one’s that interested in your life!” So that’s exactly what I did. It’s interesting because no one teaches you how to write a book unless I suppose unless you study English and you learn, take creative writing. AW: It’s true. They tell you how to write essays. And that’s it. NB: Yeah, the hardest part is to find the storyline in all your stories. So compiling this meant a lot of the 400 pages are on the floor, some of the most salacious stuff. And certainly the one thing I did discover was, I left a lot of my anger on the floor. AW: Oh, that’s fantastic. So it was cathartic? NB: And that’s what it was supposed to be – a cathartic experience. And by the time I was about a year out, the anger was gone. And after the book was published, once I started, once I went on a speaking tour and I’m still on it, and talk not just about the experience, but everything I learned about building a career, building an organization, leading an organization, I slowly but surely discovered that I had no anger left. I was actually able to look at it, at least from my perspective, objectively, and come to my own conclusions about what we did right and what we did wrong. AW: Okay, I have so many questions that I want to ask you, starting with something that occurred to me probably when I was reading the second chapter. If I was a lawyer, writing the story about a law firm with a bunch of lawyers, I would be pretty afraid of other lawyers being litigious. That must have crossed your mind. NB: Oh, that absolutely crossed my mind. So I had I had a rule of thumb. And this I say, somewhat facetiously, but if I was going to write a story about you, and you had way more money than me, I was going to be very careful. And if I thought you had less money than me, I worried a little bit less. So that it’s a bit of a joke, but there are a few people who I write about where the chapters were probably rewritten at least 15 times and then read by my lawyer to make sure I was on the right side of it. Interestingly enough, I only got one threat. That was before the book was published, by one of the anti-heroes of the book. Yeah, I suppose if you picked it up and read it, you figure it out. AW: Yeah. I can’t actually remember his name… NB: It doesn’t matter, because I’m not going to mention it now. And he called and said, Listen, just so you know, I am litigious. And if there is a shred of evidence in here of libel, I won’t hesitate.” I couldn’t help myself. I listened carefully. And I waited till he was finished. And I said, “Well, I guess there’s you only have one choice at this point in time.” He said, “What’s that?” I said, “You’re just gonna have to buy the book and find out.” AW: Oh, brilliant. I love it. I love it. I thought you were gonna say, “I assumed nothing less.” Which of course is true. Another question that I have is: did it occur to you that this book would make a great movie? NB: I didn’t really think so. A few people have said maybe a TV show but the problem is with writing about reality is you do have to be extraordinarily careful about libel. So it could turn into a really good fictional show. The problem is no one would believe it – based on what you see about law firms in either in Hollywood or on Canadian television. It’s not real life, probably any more than the hospital shows are AW: right. It drives doctors crazy. That’s funny. Did you when you were writing it, and maybe even more when you were editing it and refining it, did it cross your mind that you are being implicitly prescriptive and teaching lessons to people who may be creating cultures, creating organizations? NB: It occurred to me when I sat down, I had breakfast with Jonathan Kay, formerly of the National Post, fantastic writer, and I’ve known him for many years, and I gave him an early draft of this. He looked at it he looked at the draft. He said, “Norman, you’ve written three books here, three books that have never been written before.” One is a case study on how to develop as a professional. He said, “If you separated that out and sold it, that would be a successful book. So then you’ve written a book on how to build an organization and philosophies behind building a successful organization.” He said that too on its own would be a successful book. And he said, “The third one you’ve written, which is also unique,” He said, “You’ve written a book on the elements of the breakdown of an organization as an insider, as opposed to an outside forensic analysis of what happened. Nobody ever writes about their own failures like this.” And I went back, I thought about it for a week. And being the stubborn person that I am said, Okay, I’m not separating this into three books. But internally for organization purposes. That’s exactly what I’m going to call them. So the book is actually set up as  book one, book two, book three. AW: Thank you, Jonathan Kay. Yeah. And really, that’s what it is, is three separate case studies, and I think makes it a little more compelling. Certainly when I speak at universities, and the theme of my lectures is “I used to be you.” How did I get to be me? It’s really book one of this the first third of the book and better, what are the things that they’re not teaching you in school that you need to add to your playbook in terms of skills in order to succeed as a professional. AW: I’m wondering what part of this process was the most difficult and also what part was the easiest for you? NB: The easiest is the writing. The first draft was was easiest. It’s … AW: I have to stop you right there. So many people say that writing is incredibly difficult and way more difficult than people think it is. And you’re saying that was the easiest, NB: What I discovered and it’s like anything else, once you once you develop a habit, and I developed a habit of writing, at minimum three hours a day, so I’d come home from work at around nine o’clock, I’d sit down at the kitchen table, and I would start to write and my rule was, I’m not allowed to get up till I’ve written six pages. That was just my rule of thumb and what I discovered after a shorter period of time that I expected it to happen. I read this book once. It’s says you can create or break any habit in 21 days. So if you do anything for 21 days consecutively, it’s a habit and it becomes hard to break. And this was true. It got to the point where I couldn’t go a day. And sometimes I had trouble not writing on the weekends is that AW: so was that because you thought you were going to lose momentum? Or is that because you were actually starting to internalize this positive reinforcement, the effects of writing? NB: Once I started writing, the stories just started coming, pouring out, I couldn’t get to them fast enough. And I had 35 years of stories to tell. And many of them were completely disconnected. But they were just interesting stories. And once I was going I had this habit I, you know, got to the point where I couldn’t wait for work to be over — classic work to be over — which I began to dislike more and more every day, as the writing was replacing it. One might call it a preoccupation. In reality had developed into an obsession. AW: preoccupation, perfect word. NB: That was the easiest. Ultimately, the hardest part is the flip side. The part that makes it so worthwhile, I can’t think of the exact word but the part that I find the most …. AW: compelling? NB: thank you, the most compelling piece is the teachings that come out of it and my ability to teach. And, you know, and the evolution of my next career, which is as much as anything else, a teacher. So here I am, I’m in this new career, and I’m focused on passing it on. It’s like passing on every bit of wisdom that I learned from others. I don’t pretend to be, you know, wise on my own. It’s all lessons that I picked up from others along the way that I now feel the compulsion to pass along. And the cost? I have some partners who don’t want to talk to me anymore, or who avoid me.  There are a lot of them who have refused to read the book.  Only a few, on the basis that I never should have written it. That I’ve broken the code by pulling back the curtain to show what happens in law firms. AW: Wow NB: but then there are others who found this also to be the most troubling part of their life. And even the notion of opening page one is like ripping off the scab. They’ve gone on with their lives, they buried their anger, it’s still there. They haven’t,… I’ve had the opportunity to process my anger. AW: What you’re really talking about is resilience. And I think back in those decades when this was happening, resilient, the word resilience, obviously existed. But it wasn’t on the tip of our tongues. And nowadays, the audiences of university students that you’re talking to now, resilience is a key trait that we’re all seeking, right? NB: Yes. And I’ve always considered myself fortunate. It’s in me genetically. It’s not something I had to go out and seek and find. I still remember my first interview at Heenan Blaikie as a law student and they didn’t hire me. They didn’t hire me for quite a number of years … AW:  You came in through the back door, I think? NB: Yeah, but trying to get through the front door. The question the interviewer asked me – the following question: “How do you behave when you’re under stress?” In the first interview, and I remember I heard the question. I’m thinking to myself, well, the real answer is I don’t usually feel stress. Like what stresses most people just doesn’t stress me. But I know if I answer that, either they’re not gonna believe me or they, they’re going to think I’m a headcase. That was the honest answer. I just don’t process stress the way other people do. I feel it, but when it’s happening, my reaction is usually Okay, let’s deal with it. I’m a “Let’s deal with it” kind of guy, which is quite unusual for lawyers, in fact,.. AW: really? Because I think a lot of successful lawyers seem to be that way. It is exceptional, but maybe not as exceptional in law. NB: It is. And this by a clinical psychologist, so I’ve studied he’s interviewed well over 10,000 lawyers, his name is Dr. Larry Richards. He’s a doctor as well as being a lawyer. AW: okay. NB: And his conclusion is, compared to the average population, we are incredibly less resilient. AW: Really? NB: We are more analytic than the average. Considerably more analytic. We are highly skeptical, and I’m not sure whether the law schools attract that kind of personality or they train it. AW: Probably a combination. NB: What he was saying is particularly for law firm leaders, it’s important to understand that we generally assume when we’re reviewing staff, when we do reviews. The common wisdom on reviews was the critical sandwich. So between any piece of criticism, you should have at least two positives, right? AW: Right! I actually talked about that in another episode. NB: And when it comes to lawyers, it’s not correct. It’s more like – the ratio is more like – four to one. AW: Wow. So another great thing about the Breakdown story is that it gave me an insight into what lawyers are like. And as you say, they may not be as resilient as, as we thought they were, or, as I guess as desensitized as I had in my mind, they may be. There was a great quote that I absolutely loved. I stopped. I underlined it. I folded the page.  On page 248. He said, “Lawyers with time on their hands are management’s worst nightmare. Like dogs who run in circles, pee on the carpet and chew on furniture when they haven’t been walked in the morning.” and I thought, Wow, that is beautiful. And then I started to think about many of the other metaphors and analogies that you had included. And a few of them would be when you were talking about Danny’s story and the Hotel California – how you could never leave. NB: Right AW:  and karate lessons. So the story of you signing up for karate with your son and then going through and getting your black belt – in several degrees, I think – a black belt. And how that was a similar story to your career. And then later on in the book, you talked about how a number of partners in the firm deserted the marriage. So I guess as a storyteller, I was wondering if you could share a little bit with us how you come up with these powerful metaphors and analogies when you’re writing? NB: A great question. And it’s particularly interesting because when I finished Breakdown, I had already started writing my first fiction, again at my wife’s instigation. Because again, I didn’t think I had fiction in me and writing your similes and your metaphors is a much more critical component than it is in writing a nonfiction. AW: Why? Why is that? NB: Because, I used to think fiction was you simply make up a story and you write it and you’re done. Which should be a lot easier than writing Breakdown, for example, which is, you have to be careful. Your facts have to be right. When a story is going the wrong way, you’re stuck with it. You can’t fix it, you just have to go with at least what your version of the truth of that story is. Whereas in fiction, as a reader, it all appears to be so random. And it isn’t. Fiction, in fact, is just the opposite. And this is something I had to learn the hard way. And it took me four years to learn it. In fiction, everything is connected right down to the last simile and the final metaphor. So I may be describing this coffee cup on the table sitting between us. But to tell you it’s a red coffee cup is a bore to a reader. But if I can tell you the symbolism of red and what it means to me, and if I take you through the thought process of the red cup that my great grandfather passed along to me as a child, and therefore the fact that you put a red cup on this table is the most meaningful thing you could ever do for me, creates a bond between you and me that you are not aware of, that I’m aware of, that the readers aware of. But suddenly this red coffee cup takes on a whole life of its own in fiction. And if you can do that, as a fiction writer, you have succeeded. AW: And to your point that you made earlier, it evokes emotion, right? NB: So when I talk about lawyers in Breakdown, it’s a kind of a standing joke. Some call it herding cats, but I always liken them to a pack of wolves or dogs. And therefore, when I was thinking, when I was just thinking through the writing process of that sentence. Who knows. I can’t tell you why it flashed in my head. But I had always likened lawyers to dogs in one way, shape, or form. And it just, sometimes the ideas just pop into your head and you go with them and you finish writing it and of course, I finished writing it when I’ve rewritten it for the hundredth time. Readers have a tendency to believe that the story kind of writes itself, between first draft and publication. I’m writing frontwards, backwards, sideways, upside down right side up and looking for every possible connection from beginning a book to the end. And it’s about searching for those connections. It was interesting. I had a comment from one reporter who reviewed the book. And in our interview, he said, “I had no idea that lawyers were real people. That they behave just like the rest of us.” And in some respects, they’re worse. But he said, as much as anything else, I had to bring home the humanity of the lawyers in this book. We’re not these gods on pedestals, like we need to be for our clients. Yes, that’s an act we play when somebody comes in, when we ned to be objective. But as soon as you put us into a subjective situation that affects all of our lives, we behave just like you, in fact, sometimes worse. AW: But the other thing that you were documenting, or maybe reifying, is the fact that successful people can be associated with failure. NB: Successful people are always associated with failure. What you generally see, there are few of us who have been successes in our life, who have known nothing but success. And I always felt it and it was, it was more when I actually went through what I did go through that I learned way more from my failures. And I had to document them in here. Just – I made some terrible mistakes as managing partner and I learned from them. I learned all kinds of things from them. And it made me a better leader. AW: One of the top podcasters out there, and also author, Tim Ferriss, he often introduces his interviews with the experts with a reminder to the listeners that we all put our pants on one leg at a time. And this person may have achieved mega stardom, mega celebrity, and mega success, but they learned lessons along the way from their failures that got them there. So that’s the resilience thing, right? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. NB: Yeah. Looking at, frankly, if you go back to the beginning of the book, I talk about how my first four years of practice, I was going nowhere fast. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I got a review at the end of my fourth year that was less than stellar. And it was to put it in a nutshell, you have all this talent, you should be further ahead of where you are right now. But I can’t tell you why you’re not. So imagine getting that kind of review. And that’s that was the wake up call for me. Actually more for my wife. She was one who spent probably four hours explaining to me what that meant. But I woke up the next morning, literally, I would say a new person. And it was a transformation you’d probably only see in a movie, but I decided that was it. I was until that point. AW:  That was when you provided an ultimatum at that point, right? Based on your wife’s encouragement. You said, you went back and you said, “this is not acceptable.” NB: I said it’s not acceptable. But I still didn’t understand what it meant. And what I did about it was I took control of my career at that moment in time. I said, “Okay, this is what I’m going to do,” and I started discovering things about myself that were always there to be found, take the initiative, get out ahead of it, never ever cede control if you don’t have to. And I say that in a more of a positive way than it than a negative way. But I mean, if you have the opportunity to achieve something, go for it. Don’t wait for somebody to step up into it. And from a leadership philosophy perspective, sort of became my, my love vacuums. And that is, if you want to succeed, look for the vacuum and fill it. Don’t look around and say, I wonder why nobody’s taking care of this. Do it. AW: When you said, vacuums, I thought you were talking about your early days. NB: Yeah. Well, AW: it’s an interesting choice of metaphors. NB: I suppose that ever occurred to me until this moment. AW: fill the vacuum. And there you go. Another metaphor. One other thing before we move on to other types of storytelling. I just, it occurred to me when I was reading it, and now again in this conversation, that your wife had a huge impact on the story of your career, didn’t she? NB: Yes, she did. AW: Wow. NB: And that brings us back to the marriage metaphor. She’s always been there for me to pick me up when I was down. To sometimes to push me along when I was going too slowly. Most important, she has always held me to a standard that I haven’t always held myself to. She always believed I was capable of more than I might have thought up at the time. She told me I had to trust her. AW: Well, yeah, I mean, it sounds as if she had so much respect for you. And you knew that and therefore, there was such a positive lens on everything that she was saying. Okay, let’s shift gears then to other types of stories and storytelling. So when I think of storytelling, the first thing that comes to my mind is being in the elevator with the president or the CEO of the organization that I was working for, and thinking, gosh, I wish I had a great answer to when she asked me, “so what’s going on Andrea?”  So this it’s not exactly an elevator pitch, but the short form narrative of what’s going on in your career. Can you talk a little bit about how important that is? NB: Wow, that was a loaded question. AW: Yeah. So I have this – I honestly have this visceral visual image of it. There was a glass elevator. She gets on and I go, “Oh, God”, and she goes, “Andrea, what are you working on these days?” I’m such a loser. I have no idea what to say. NB: And we all go through that. Even some of us who’ve had success or in the mid points in our career, we have those moments where we say Oh, God, I wish I had the canned speech ready for that moment. There’s a fellow by the name of Jim Beqaj. He’s written a fascinating, it’s a tiny little book on job interviewing. And it’s all about matching yourself to the place where you work so that you’re aligned. What Jim advises is before you go out and interview you should actually sit down and do your 60 second infomercial on yourself. I know it cold, and that the 60 second infomercial is about who you are, what you think is important, what you want to get out of any job you take. And then you play that when you go for your interviews. And I know we’re all worried when we do that, well, they might not like the real me. I need to project what I think they want me to be, not what I am. And Jim says that’s the recipe for job disaster. You’re way better off not getting hired because the employer looks at you and says, That’s not the kind of person we’re looking for. Then when you take that job, and they discovered two months later, that’s not the kind of person we were looking for. But they made the mistake because you’ve been too busy acting in your interview. AW: That is fantastic advice. I love that the 60 second infomercial. NB: So you know flashing forward to that moment when you’re with the CEO in the elevator and they say, “what are you up to?” when they say it because, well, first of all, they’re nice enough to actually know you work there. And they have some ideas about who you are, if not a lot, but they actually couldn’t care less what you’re working on at the time. Really what they want to know is a little bit more about you. AW: That’s probably true. NB: And that’s your moment. And if you have that 60 second canned infomercial, your answer is, you know what, here’s what I love about our organization. And this is what I’m doing to help to help make it even better. AW: Okay, another type of story that I wanted to ask you about is the story that’s being told in the media. So you can answer this however you want, whether you have general advice for how people interact with the media, or maybe it’s with your experience, with Heenan Blaikie, and you knew that the story was hitting the media and how you dealt with that. Do you have any comments about telling your story through the media? NB: Yes. I’ve done some media training largely for crisis management, because we had a few crises along the way. And the first one in the door was the crisis management expert in terms of what do we say. It’s not just the media. It’s what do you tell the media? What do you tell the people who are working for you? What do you tell your partners? How do you manage the entire process? And we’re going to start with honesty. But the key –and this I learned through experience– is you need to understand your core message. So whatever it is, you’re not going to be able to spin the story because someone else is writing the story, the only thing you can do is stay true to your core message and make sure that gets out. So it doesn’t pretty much matter what the questions are that you’re being asked. So and unless you’re on live TV, everything you say is going to be edited and taken out of context and repurposed as a tool of whoever it is that has the angle on the story they’re going to write. So what you have to do is understand that less is more, and your job going into that interview, is to stick to your core message. This is what I want the world to know. And it doesn’t matter how many times you have to repeat it to get there. And you may frustrate the interviewer. But so what AW: I’ve heard those interviews on the radio. They ask this question, it’s like no, I got one message for you. NB: Yeah. AW:  and the less is more, I guess the more you give them, the more they can take out of context. NB: That’s right. And not only that, the more you say the more you relax and the more likely you are to say something that you swore to yourself, you wouldn’t say. AW: is there anything else you want to share with the listeners about storytelling? NB: The one thing that I’ve learned – and it’s interesting because I see it now in my writing. And I see the parallels that I’ve learned, because I’ve been speaking for many, many years. And that is: you need to connect with emotion. And I’ve said it before, but you need to connect with emotion and life experience. And ultimately, the experience of the listener and the experience of the reader is somewhat the same. I need you to feel in some respect that I’ve changed how you see the world. AW: Another question that I wanted to ask you is, have you inspired anyone else to write their story who otherwise maybe wouldn’t have? NB: Not to my knowledge, but the nice thing about speaking to a lot of people is you’re inspiring people and you don’t know what the impact is. And I love that. I love not knowing who, 20 years from now will say, I went to listen to on of Norm’s speeches 20 years ago and it changed my life. And occasionally someone will write me and tell me that, and that is better than anything anybody could ever tell me about… about anything. You tell me I had a positive impact on your life. And that’s the reason why I get up in the morning. AW: Oh, okay. Well, let’s leave it at that. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your expertise about telling your story. NB: Thank you.   THANKS for listening – and READING!  Web: https://talkabouttalk.com/ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/TalkingAboutTalk/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/talk_about_talk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkingabouttalk/ Email: Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com         ***When referencing resources and products, TalkAboutTalk sometimes uses affiliate links. These links don’t impose any extra cost on you, and they help support the free content provided by TalkAboutTalk. The post #42 TELLING YOUR STORY with best selling author & legal veteran Norman Bacal appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Listen, as Norman Bacal, author, consultant, and 35 year legal veteran, shares his insights and stories about how active listening can help you not only learn, but also improve your relationships with co-workers, clients, family, and friends.  You will learn strategies for active listening, including the ideal mindset for listening, what to project, how narcissists are (sometimes) non-listeners, tips on small talk, as well as advice on developing relationships with clients.    References & Links Norman Bacal Website – https://normanbacal.com/ LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/norman-bacal-16772a23/ BOOKS: “Breakdown” by Norman Bacal – https://amzn.to/2FDyu6E “Odell’s Fall” by Norman Bacal – https://amzn.to/2TdbinM Also recommended book “Quiet” by Susan Cain – https://amzn.to/39TR2xD   Listening References  Types of listening http://changingminds.org/techniques/listening/types_listening.htm https://www.prdaily.com/4-listening-styles-communicators-should-know/ Narcissism & listening https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/narcissism https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201509/what-is-the-most-overlooked-symptom-narcissism Active Listening https://www.fastcompany.com/90372821/how-i-learned-to-be-better-at-active-listening-as-a-manager? Julian Treasure TEDTalk  https://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_5_ways_to_listen_better/   Talk About Talk & Dr. Andrea Wojnicki Free Weekly Email Blog – https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup Subscribe to the Podcast: https://talkabouttalk.com/podcasts/#subscribe Website – https://talkabouttalk.com Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ Andrea’s email – Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com   INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Dr. Andrea Wojnicki: Thank you so much, Norman, for joining us here today to talk about listening. Norman Bacal: Oh, thanks, Andrea. AW: I have a question for you to start with regarding the significance of listening. How would you say listening ranks in terms of significance in effective communication versus all the other skills that we can acquire to become effective communicators? NB: I don’t think anything else comes close to listening, because most people talk because they want to be heard. And it’s a very tough skill, because most people would prefer to be speaking than to be listening. We all want to be heard. We all want to feel we count, which is naturally at odds with listening to someone else’s point of view, and then allowing it to have an impact on your own. AW: What other communication skills do you think might be almost as important – or next on the list? NB: Reading visual cues is really important. So sometimes it isn’t what people say. It’s the way that they say it. The way that they’re sitting in their chair. Sometimes it’s the way that they walk into the room that tells you much more about what they have to say than what’s coming out of their mouth. I think there’s a huge issue relating to subtext. Very often the conversation we need to be having isn’t the conversation we’re having. AW: This takes me to the definition of listening, because some people would say that perceiving or decoding the information that the encoder has provided, is actually listening – whether it’s verbal, oral communication or nonverbal communication, right? NB: That’s right. There’s so much in a conversation that isn’t being said. So for example, the way you nod your head when I’m speaking, is giving me a signal that what I’m saying is resonating. Or if I’m speaking and you’re rolling your eyes at me, it’s telling me you probably think I’m completely bullshitting you or you’re angry at me. And it’s really important when you’re speaking to be reading the other person, because communication isn’t just about having words come out of your mouth, even though some people believe that. It’s about discovering whether the other person is actually open to hearing what you have to say. Of course, it’s much easier to say in theory than to actually live through it. And I know through countless exchanges I’ve had with people that have failed. But ultimately, there are so many, not only verbal, but non-verbal parts of the exchange that are happening. And of course, that can only happen when you’re face to face. It becomes much more difficult when you’re doing this over the phone and trying to decode. And it’s pretty much impossible when it’s by text. AW: So assuming we’re talking about verbal communication then, what does it mean to be an effective listener? NB: That is a loaded question. AW: It is. NB: I can probably explain it through an example. It’s my first year as managing partner of Heenan Blaikie. And when you’re the managing partner, people walk into your office with their problems pretty regularly. If they’re comfortable. I had one partner walk in one day. Plops himself down across from me. And I’d known him for many years. And he starts telling me this tale of another partner who’s making his life miserable. And they’re in another office. And as he’s talking, the only thing going on in my mind is: I have no idea how I’m going to help. Like, I just, I just have no idea. It’s a tough one. I’m like, maybe I’ll go speak to the other partner afterwards. But I don’t think that’s going to work. And he must have spent half an hour in my office describing the problem and his great unhappiness with how this was impacting on his life. And I was sitting there thinking the whole time, I am a failure, I cannot do this job. I cannot be the managing partner of a firm because I have no idea how to solve problems like this. I went home that night and I told my wife and I just unloaded. She didn’t have any particular advice for me on that one. But she said, Listen, it’s, you know, it’s part of the job. AW: She said, Listen? Ha ha. NB: No, she said, just to know I was listening… I was able to relay exactly what he said. I was listening pretty carefully, but I just couldn’t figure out how I was going to help him. When he left he left just you know, his shoulders sagged, he looked depressed, walking out the door. And I felt like my shoulders should be sagging too, as I’m walking out the door, and probably they were. He called me a week later from the other office. And he said, Norm, I just wanted to let you know how great you are at your job. I almost fell off the back of my chair, like, What are you talking about? He said, I came in to see you last week, and I needed to unload. I had this problem. And as you were listening to me, it became quite clear to me that the only person that could solve this problem was me. And I knew you couldn’t. That’s not your job. I have a problem with a partner, I need to go deal with it. And once I heard those words coming out of my mouth, it became clear to me what I had to do and I’m going to do it. I just wanted to let you know, I really appreciated the fact that you sat there and listened to me blather on for half an hour about this. And that was the day the light bulb went off. That sometimes the process of just giving someone an ear is enough. That’s all you need to be doing and it’s not a failure. In fact, it’s a sign of success. AW: Hmm. So one of the benefits, or positive outcomes, of being a great listener is that we can help people solve their own problems. What are some of the other benefits or reasons why I might want to be a good listener? NB: The things we have to say just aren’t that interesting. Most people are most comfortable speaking about themselves. Fortunately, and this is just my makeup. I don’t feel the great need to talk about myself. And when I do talk about myself, part of my brain is feeling uncomfortable, like I’m going on a little bit too long. I’d rather be listening than talking to start with, so it’s not like I’m this genius that has figured something out. I just naturally prefer to be listening than to be speaking. I’ve seen people at the other end of the spectrum, and you can read it in their eyes. As you’re speaking to them. They’re already formulating their next argument. And that sometimes happens to me – none of us are perfect. But if you’re busy formulating how you’re going to respond. that generally leads to interrupting syndrome – like I can’t let you finish. What I have to tell you is just so important that you just need to stop speaking now and listen to me. And you can feel it. And they don’t realize they’re not listening to you. AW: It makes people feel bad when you interrupt them, right? Like, you must not value them. NB: Yes. Listen, I interrupt people much more often than I wish I did. But every time you interrupt, you’re basically telling them, I don’t need to hear what you have to say. Because what I have to say is paramount. So you’re pretty much dissing them. AW: So I’m really intrigued by what you said about the fact that you have this belief that maybe what you’re saying isn’t as interesting or important as other people and that this is an intrinsic thing that you have – a natural way of being. Is that related to being an introvert? NB: I don’t know if it’s related to being an introvert. It might be. But the reality is, my makeup is I don’t want to bore you. And I know if I’m going on too long with a story, there’s a risk that at a point in time you’ve clicked off. It happens to me mostly when I talk about writing, because I find actually people have had no interest in what I did is a lawyer and so I rarely talk about it. Because if I tried to explain to you what I was doing on a deal, your eyes would fog over pretty quickly. So I just never bothered. But when I talk about writing, writing is something lots of people think – God I wish I could write or maybe I should do it, or how do I do it? So it’s something I like to talk about, because I think it actually ties into this secret desire, we all have, to write. But I’m very conscious when I’m speaking, that maybe the audience is sitting there saying, Okay, enough already with your writing. AW: back to what you said about being concerned that you say might be boring people. Do you think that listening has to do with the ego? I’m wondering if people who are very egocentric, maybe it’s the interrupters, who are taking up too much of the conversation? NB: People who are egocentric like to talk – that is my experience. They like to talk. They like to be the center of attention. They like to put on a show. I have lived for many years with a partner who is just like Donald Trump. There’s certain characteristics of people who have high degrees of narcissism. All tied to – it’s all about me. And I know you have to be at least as interested in me and my stories as I am, and therefore I’m going to tell you all of them. AW: I am –  when we’re done this interview – going to check, I’m sure (99% sure) that someone’s done the research on listening skills and narcissism. NB: Oh, okay. AW: Don’t you think there’s got to be probably a correlation? NB: One of the greatest narcissists I’ve ever met… AW: Greatest narcissist? Haha. NB: Yes. AW: Most extreme narcissist? NB: Yeah. Well, he’s got some greatness to him. And he’s also got some huge character flaws. He’s like a character out of a novel. He is also the best listener I’ve ever known. AW: Really? NB: Yeah. One on one. He is the best listener. I’ve learned listening skills from him. He will not ever interrupt you. He will listen. He will take notes to what you’re saying. He will wait till you’re finished and then he will start. AW: He may be so manipulative though that he’s conscious of that? NB: No. He’s genuine. I’ve seen him in enough situations. It is genuine. He’s genuine and a very successful business person, probably as a result. AW: Well, let’s dig into developing listening skills. In your book. Breakdown, you say, “for four years, I observed Jean Potvin at work. He was a master. He taught me the value of listening.” Can you share with the Talk About Talk listeners, what exactly did he teach you? NB: Apart from anything else, he took me to every meeting he went to. Normally when you’re the kid at the bottom of the totem pole, you don’t go to meetings. How does anybody expect you to learn? I just kind of scratch my head. That was something I insisted on when I became more senior. But he would get clients in a room and he’d get them talking about their stories, which did two things. One, it bonded him to the clients. And second, he found out the things he needed to know about them – to better serve them. So there wasn’t a direct line between what he was asking them and the legal work they wanted to hire him for. But it gave him information. Perhaps some context to be able to serve them better. AW: I am so conscious of interrupting you now… So you learned from that the value of asking people to tell their stories and you also learned, I guess from him being a great role model, how you could then become a manager and help bring someone up. What else did you learn? NB: Well, he wasn’t the only one teaching me. There were a number of mentors who went out of their way to make me a better lawyer. Three come to mind. Jean was one of them. Richard Lewin was a second, and Danny Levinson who was third. Danny and Richard worked very hard on my writing skills. Yeah, for that I’m eternally grateful. They made me become a lot more precise. For Jean, it was about his skill with people. Jean was the master in dealing with people. AW: and a master listener? NB: And a master listener. But he just had this elegance and grace about him. But I observed – it’s funny because you learn things not only from people who do things well, you also learn things from people who become negative role models – where it’s in a meeting with either a bad listener, constantly interrupting, or lawyers who introduce themselves to clients and spent the first five minutes talking about their qualifications. And I said, Okay, I’m never doing that, because you’d watch the clients, their eyes would glaze over. What I learned in terms of client service was it’s about paying attention to them, finding out what their needs are, finding out as much as you possibly can about their business objectives. When I advanced to become the leader of the firm, one of my roles was going out and meeting with the CEOs of the businesses we represented. And I would never have them come to my office. We had one huge worldwide drug manufacturer. I went to visit them and took the tour as to how they manufactured one of their drugs. I was the first lawyer they’d ever dealt with that took the plant tour. And if you don’t think I didn’t own them after that meeting! Not only that, in the course of our discussions, I found out three or four things about the company that none of our lawyers knew, none of any of their lawyers knew, because they use multiple law firms. So we had a huge jump. I’d come back to the office and say, Okay, here are three issues we didn’t know about. Let’s get to work, and we’re respond to them immediately before… the client still hasn’t identified them as problems, but they’re going to be problems. AW: Wow, very proactive – directly based on your listening. NB: It wasn’t just listening. I mean, listening is part of it. It’s part of what I’d say – the larger category is… caring. Particularly if you’re in the service business, it’s more than empathy. It’s showing that you actually care about them and their businesses and their problems. I used to go visit CEOs and my first question would be okay, what’s keeping you up at night? It’s not about are we doing great service and please give me compliments or criticisms to take back. It’s what are you not able to identify to anybody else? Or maybe even to yourself that’s bothering you? AW: In a similar vein, you said, “There are no secrets in a small office. One simple technique worked well. I listened.” And you were talking about when you were a managing director, and I think you were going out to the Calgary office, and you said that the only thing really on your agenda, there were some people that you need to touch base with formally, but your main objective was to walk around, meet people, talk and listen. NB: Yes, I kind of happened into it. It’s not like I went out there with a strategy. But ultimately, after few years, it became a strategy. I realized it. AW: brilliant. NB: But simple. There’s no magic to this. It’s just you walk around you talk to people, they’re going to talk to you. AW: Yeah, it’s simple. But … You said that it wasn’t a strategy that you had on your to do list. But it feels like it’s not being productive. It’s a quote-unquote, soft skill. But it’s critical, right? NB: I always felt that even in the big offices, that walking the halls was critical. AW: What I’m hearing, though (and this may be readily apparent to other people, but I hadn’t really thought about this before explicitly), is that when you are proactively explicitly listening, there’s the content of the message that you’re hearing. But then there’s also other side effects that are happening that are that are more important. More important than the content of the message, and it’s the fact that someone feels like they’re being heard? NB: yes. AW: So I’m hearing that we can establish ourselves and the benefits of being a great listener by walking around and asking people to share their stories, to share their thoughts, to tell us what keeps them up at night. Also, by not interrupting. And as you said before, by not assuming what I have to say is the most important thing. Rather preferring to listen to what the other person has to say because it might be more interesting. Are there any other do’s and don’ts that you can share with people about listening skills and things to work on that might make us better listeners? NB: Something I can sometimes be quite weak at is paying attention. You know, we talked about listening but it’s not always easy to stay engaged. And I’m sometimes the worst culprit. I find that my attention sometimes wanes. And the other thing and you just pointed out to me is – put your device away. There’s nothing that hurts more, whether they admit it or not, in the middle of a conversation, than to respond to a text or ring. Because when you think about it, if it was anything else, you wouldn’t take it. AW: right. It is offensive. I’ve been in meetings where people have pulled out phones. And I think, to the credit of the person that’s running the meeting, they actually stopped the meeting. And I’ve also been in personal conversations where someone has picked up their phone and I’ve said, do you need a minute? NB: There you go. I mean, that’s, that’s when people do it. And the problem is, it’s become socially acceptable. I’m guilty of it sometimes, too. I have a rule whenever I’m out with anyone, if my wife calls I say, I’m, I am going to interrupt that because she and I have a rule. She’s not going to call me… AW: You let them know in advance? NB:  I’ll warn them in advance and say, listen, the only call I will take is from my wife. They can accept it or not. In the end, she’s the one I’m going home to! AW: Some of my friends that have that rule about their kids. And we will be in a restaurant and they’ll say the only person I’ll pick-up for is my kids and then the kids keep calling and calling and calling and I’m like, you need to tell your kid that unless it’s an emergency. they’re not valuing your time. NB: So the devices are the biggest problem, biggest communication problem today. AW: I agree. I agree and it is becoming so socially acceptable. But the truth is we can’t track two conversations, right? I mean, I don’t know anyone that can read a conversation on their phone and be engaged in a verbal dialogue effectively. NB: Something I learned from a speech coach: studies have shown that you cannot listen and read at the same time – and you can’t possibly absorb. So if I put a slide up on the screen while I’m talking, you’re either listening to me, or you’re reading the screen, but you’re not doing both. More likely than not, you’re not doing either. So if you’re going to put a slide up, wait till you finish speaking, tell people what they should be looking at on the screen and then shut up and let them read it. AW: That is such great advice. And I’m thinking also sometimes there’s just an image instead of words so that you can look at an image that may be reinforcing the words that you’re hearing, but NB: exactly AW:  it’s like, we’ve taken this now to the context of listening as someone who’s in an audience, right? But it’s actually the same thing. You can’t listen if you’re distracted. NB: That’s right. AW: Let’s shift gears then to listening and small talk. I wanted to ask you this because you said in the book a few times that you struggle with small talk, which really surprised me, because you’re not socially awkward. I can tell the listeners that. And you are a fantastic listener. In fact, that’s how I met you. I told someone who we know in common that I wanted to interview someone who’s a great listener and your name came to her mind immediately. How is it that we can reconcile that you’re not great at small talk, and yet you are a great listener? NB: Some tricks that I learned. The most important, and I teach this one, particularly to students and young lawyers: you will inevitably be in a cocktail party situation, could be the person sitting next to you at the table and you’re stuck with them for dinner, or you walk up to someone at a party and that person is a stranger. The whole idea of walking up to them is something you don’t want because how are you going to start what you’re going to say? My wife taught me two things. First, is pretend you’re conducting an interview. That you’re the Interviewer we’re most worried about exposing ourselves, telling our story, not boring the other person. But if we walk up to the other person, and we start asking them questions about themselves, they’re talking about their favorite subject and makes them feel immediately at ease. She said, If you do that, they’ll walk away saying you’re the most interesting person in the world, and they will have learned nothing about you. And it is inevitably true. People, when you get them talking about themselves, they start feeling a comfort level with you. And you don’t necessarily – you can choose to give up something about your life, but you don’t have to. In the end, they will think you’re very interesting. AW: So when I was an undergrad student, and I was on the job market, I went to a seminar and the person said something very similar. They said, the ratio of the conversation where you’re talking versus where the other person’s talking can often dictate how they’ll feel about you. So make it your objective to get the interviewer to talk more and for you to talk less because they’ll like you more. And I kind of made it a game in my mind. I found it kind of fun, too, I think as a 21-22 year old naive undergraduate student, I’m thinking I need to tell them how great I am. I need to fill all the silence with my accomplishments, right? And actually, I should have been listening to what they had to say about the company and … NB: My wife was the master of the interview, she went for 10 interviews got 10 job offers, because she was able to do this. It took me a lot longer to figure it out. And I said, there were two. The second in terms of getting through those moments is to imagine that you’re having a dinner party at your house and a stranger walks in the door. And what’s the first thing you do? Well as the host, you welcome them, AW: you engage them in conversation. NB: Engage them in conversation, you don’t think twice about it. So imagine you’re in this room where you need to meet people. You got to get through the evening. And the simple skill I learned was: just pretend this is your party, not someone else’s, and walk up to some people who look particularly alienated and just pretend you’re the host. So same thing you end up asking them about themselves. You start a conversation with anybody. Three minutes. I mean, the other thing I tell people is generally easier to hunt in pairs, not on your own. So you go to one of these things with a friend, you can’t brag about yourself, but your friend can and vice versa. If somebody puts their arm around you and said, Did you know that Norm did this? It’s a conversation opener. AW: I may have been involved in some of those scenarios at various cocktail parties. Yeah, I remember that. It’s like, I don’t really want this job. But I know you do. I’m your wing man. I’ll talk about how great you are! NB: Exactly. AW: I love it. Is there anything else that you can advise people about small talk? NB: Again, better to approach it by asking questions. And as soon as I understood that, it got me over the hump and then ultimately they’ll start asking you questions and then you’re fine. AW: So your asking questions comment actually is bringing me full circle, because when I asked you the question about what other communication skills may be almost as important as listening, in my mind, I was thinking actually asking questions could be that skill. But perhaps asking questions is listening? NB:  Yes. AW: So it’s saying that the second most important communication skill is part of listening? NB: It’s a strategy. AW:  Okay. Fair enough. Is there anything else you want to add about listening and how we can become more effective listeners? NB: Why don’t you talk to me about what you think about listening? AW: Haha. Humour. NB: There you go. AW: Okay, so now we’re going to move on to the five rapid fire questions that I asked every guest. NB: Okay, sure. AW: The first question is, what are your pet peeves? NB: For me? The biggest one is waiting in lines. I think I’m a patient person. I describe myself as a patient person. But put me in a line or in traffic and I become a very impatient person. AW: Why do you think that is? Is it because you’re wasting time? NB: I can’t explain it. It’s because I think at heart I’m a very impatient person. I’m trying to be patient. AW: okay. Second question. What type of learner are you? Visual? Auditory? Kinesthetic? or some other kind of learner? NB: To really learn, I need to go through the experience myself. And I learned this particularly in karate, I had to actually do it. And I had to do it wrong 10 times and had to have somebody watch me and say no, move your fingers four degrees, and you then you when you feel it, when you’re throwing somebody by just grabbing their fingers and flipping them backwards–my thumb and my two fingers can take hold up your wrist, and I can flip it over on your back– if I get it exactly the right way. But until you’ve experimented with it, there’s no way ,there’s no way to figure that out. AW: So you’re a kinesthetic learner? Does that mean that you can’t learn vicariously when it comes to, I don’t know… NB: I can’t learn how to write by reading. AW: There you go. NB: I have to learn to write by writing – and then the light bulb goes off. Or I have this moment and writing is the most unbelievable experience when it happens to you. I’ll be writing and suddenly the characters have taken over the scene. And I’m just a scribe. I’m just writing down what they’re saying and what they’re thinking and what they’re feeling. Because it isn’t me anymore. They’re in some part of my brain. AW: That’s how I feel when I’m painting and I get into flow. NB: There you go. AW: Okay, question number three, introvert or extrovert? NB: Unquestionably introvert. I prefer to listen than to talk. I’m not sure if it’s a skill or a deficiency. I have learned many coping skills. I’m generally a shy person. I’ve learned how to cope. I’ve learned how to speak. And I’ve read Susan Cain’s book on this too. AW: Quiet? NB:  Quiet, which made me feel much better. You can learn the skills to cope, but at heart I would just assume be sitting quietly, reading a book, then engaged in a long conversation with someone. AW: Question number four: communication preference for personal conversations? NB: When I’m in a rush, I text. I try and avoid social media to communicate with people. I only do that when I have no other way of getting in touch with them. My strong preference is face to face because you can read the eyes and I think frankly, texting is terrible. So unless I’m texting you – I’ll meet you here at this hour. Generally I’m headed for disaster. AW: Okay. What about phone? NB: Phone is fine, but nothing, nothing beats face to face, right? Nothing. Particularly if I want something. If I want something, if I want to achieve something, I will never do it by email. I will never do it by text. I will occasionally do it by phone, but it won’t nearly be as successful as sitting down face to face. And because then you can feel me. AW: And the last Rapid Fire question. Is there a podcast or a blog or an email newsletter that you recommend the most? NB: No.   I’m not, I’m not doing  podcasts yet. No. AW: but what about email newsletters? NB: I hate them. AW: Oh, really? NB: Yeah. AW: So where do you find out about great books to read? NB:  A fair amount of word of mouth. Sometimes I’ll just go I’ll go TPL and hit their choices. Like I’m not moved by ads and stuff like that. AW: Thank you very much for your time and your expertise Norman. NB: Alright, thanks.   THANKS for listening – and READING!   Web: https://talkabouttalk.com/ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/TalkingAboutTalk/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/talk_about_talk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkingabouttalk/ Email: Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com     ***When referencing resources and products, TalkAboutTalk sometimes uses affiliate links. These links don’t impose any extra cost on you, and they help support the free content provided by TalkAboutTalk. The post #41 LISTENING with author, consultant, & legal veteran Norman Bacal appeared first on Talk About Talk.

An efficient summary of the 19 Communication Skills from 2019, including the words we say, types of implicit communication, tips for specific people & contexts, & important meta learnings.   THANKS for listening – and READING! Let’s TALK! Web: https://talkabouttalk.com/ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/TalkingAboutTalk/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/talk_about_talk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkingabouttalk/ Email: Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com   TalkAboutTalk CORE BELIEF: “When we communicate effectively, we can be a better manager, co-worker,  parent, partner and friend.         TalkAboutTalk BRAND PROMISE: “TalkAboutTalk is the communication learning platform that will help us catapult our career and enrich our relationships by providing us with communication skills and confidence.”             ***When referencing resources and products, TalkAboutTalk sometimes uses affiliate links. These links don’t impose any extra cost on you, and they help support the free content provided by TalkAboutTalk. The post #40 – 19 COMMUNICATION SKILLS from 2019 appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Working with difficult or negative people can be stressful. Learn reasons why people act so negatively and what you can do about it. Human Resources expert Tamara Finlay suggests diagnosing the issue using the SCARF model, then shares specific Do’s and Do-Not’s, depending on whether it is your peer, your subordinate or your boss.   References & Links Tamara Finlay LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamarafinlay/ Expert Interview on Talk About Talk episode #37: “Communication Media: Phone or Email?” – https://talkabouttalk.com/37-phone-or-email/ THE SCARF Model – Dr. David Rock  David Rock – https://davidrock.net “Your Brain at Work” by David Rock – https://amzn.to/349u0hQ Articles – http://web.archive.org/web/20100705024057/http://www.your-brain-at-work.com/files/NLJ_SCARFUS.pdf https://hbr.org/2012/10/being-the-boss-isnt-so-stressful http://dcntp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Readiness_for_change.pdf Other References  “Six Thinking Hats” by Edward de Bono – https://amzn.to/353YiUA “Communicating Change” Talk About Talk podcast with Professor Ellen Auster – https://talkabouttalk.com/28-communicating-change-with-ellen-auster/ Talk About Talk & Dr. Andrea Wojnicki Free Weekly Email Blog – https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup Subscribe to the Podcast: https://talkabouttalk.com/podcasts/#subscribe Website – https://talkabouttalk.com Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ Andrea’s email – Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com   INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Dr. Andrea Wojnicki: Thank you Tamara, so much for joining us here today. Tamara Finlay: My pleasure. Thank you for having me. AW: Okay, so communicating with difficult people. I guess by definition, this is a negative topic. I know it’s a topic that causes people a lot of angst as several listeners have emailed or mentioned to me that they have difficult or negative people at work, and they just don’t know how to handle it. They’re looking for some tips on how to best handle this. So in your experience as an HR professional, do you think that it’s common that people have challenges with difficult people?  TF: I think at the end of the day, we’re human and humans are complex, with such diversity in the workforce right now, more so than ever in our entire history. We all have our unique personalities, preferred ways of communicating and doing things and everything is changing at the speed of light. Inherently people are going to be stressed. stress causes certain behaviors. And I think what we’re seeing is not necessarily negative people. What we’re seeing is people behaving in a way that we may not like. AW: So this is an interesting question is, at least as far as I’m concerned, is it true maybe that some people are just difficult, like it’s part of their personality? TF: I think we’re all attracted to different people for different reasons. Obviously, we’ve all experienced where we’ve got some relationships that are way easier than others. And some we have to work on more than others, right? We’re not going to love everybody, but we can certainly appreciate them for what they bring to the table, that people’s inherent wiring or what their natural go to is. I’ve used a tool in the past that actually has been effective, where I had this one team member that always approached things right out of the gate. From a negative perspective. AW: I’ve worked with those people; the default answer is “NO”.  TF: There’s a lot of value in that in the right circumstances. So what we actually did is we learn about the six thinking hats technique, are you familiar with it? AW: Yes. TF: So what it is, it’s a model that can be used for exploring different perspectives. And you can put on different hats depending on the circumstances or what you’re trying to achieve. It’s a great way to solve problems as a group. So you could have an entire group, even though one may be natural wired as a black hat, the pessimist, and one is more the yellow hat, which is an optimist, but you can have the entire group say, Okay, let’s now put on our black hat and think what are the risks if we do it this way? AW: So that would be like the devil’s advocate sort of? TF: Exactly. For this six thinking hats technique, the WHITE hat focuses on the facts. The RED one focuses on emotion. The BLACK hat, which is the one we were just talking about, is more the pessimist. It really is. They’re careful, they’re cautious. The YELLOW focuses on what’s good. So the optimist. GREEN focuses on possibilities. And BLUE focuses on organizing, it creates a common language and takes the emotion and the personal out of it. It took me a while to get to this point to really appreciate the black hat. But I’d rather have the black hat and know as many risks and challenges up front so we can fix them or mitigate or deal with them before we go and launch a whole new program. I love this framework because we want to pull out those different perspectives. AW: So would you try to hire people that represent each of those hats? Or would you say, today in this meeting, you’re going to have the black hat? or would you say during a meeting, each of us need to try and represent all of the hats. How does that work? TF: It can work in so many different permutations. Yes, when we hire we obviously want to hire for diversity. So we’re hiring for different things we don’t have, and some do assessments in terms of preference of working styles, thinking styles, that type of thing. It’s really about leveraging the diversity and people’s strengths to create that inclusive culture. I’ve seen it work effectively so you’re not just pinpointing Hey, you, you’re the black hat, I need a black hat…. AW: I can imagine that happening. TF: It’s “Let’s all put on our black hat today. And let’s go through what are the risks?” Now inherently, someone who’s naturally wired as a black hat will probably be the first out of the gate or will have the most extensive list. Well, that’s great, right? But it gets people thinking and using different parts of their brain. AW: brilliant. How do we handle someone who’s got some negative stuff going on? It could be a sick relative, they could be exhausted because they have a new baby at home, whatever the situation is. How do you handle that? TF: So I think there’s two different things here. One is if you’ve got someone whose behavior has changed, then you want to understand why everyone’s talked about work life balance. I don’t think that exists. I think it’s work-life blending, and it ebbs and flows. And it’s a give and take. It’s not like we can park our personal when we walk into work. And when we walk, when we walk in the door home is not like we’re parking work. So it’s really how do we blend it as best as we can. So hopefully, you’ve created a trusting, safe, psychologically safe environment, that you can have those open and candid conversations and help them as a human being not just as an employee. AW: I love that point. Of course, we need to have boundaries. But as Professor Ellen Auster, who I interviewed about change management said it’s great to initiate or end an email or a conversation that you’re having face to face with a colleague with how was your weekend or how did that event go that your daughter had or whatever and to actually really mean it. TF: for sure. Because again, you’re trying to connect emotionally. One of the things that resonated with me is in a moment of crisis. If someone wasn’t getting paid to be there would they be there? So if this is happening after hours? Or requires extended hours.? You want people to want to help you, they’re going to help you as a person, not because of the job, right? So how do you get that if you don’t have some type of emotional connection and relationship with them? AW: this leads me to the next question, which is what if you’re in a relationship situation at work where the person who you’ve identified as being difficult may be jealous of you or is highly competitive? And I can tell you I have been in this situation it was when I was in my 20s and I had some coworkers that were intensely competitive to the point that it affected our productivity. TF: This is where I use the SCARF Model. It was introduced to me by a neuroscientist, Dr. Carlos Davidoff, it’s really helpful in dealing with resistance and threats. The pace of change, we’re always running at mach-7. And running at mach-7 often puts us all under a lot of stress. So the behaviors of people under stressful situations, how do we create that psychology? Please safe environment, S is for Status. So the perception of being compared either higher or below our peers, okay? C is for Certainty. So it’s all about the need for clarity and ability to make accurate predictions about the future. A is Autonomy, and its sense of control over events in our lives. And R is for Relatedness. So sense of having shared goals. So it’s really that sense of belonging being in the group. And then the final one of SCARF, F is Fairness, the sense that we’re being respected and treated fairly in comparison to others. When that’s at risk, that’s when we start to see all these what you so called negative behaviors. So it’s all about the brain and how we behave and why is that so what are they motivated by? AW: So they want to get a promotion and they believe that if you get one, they aren’t. TF: Look at the pie scenario. Do we only have X many slices, or can we increase the number of slices? Or can we make a bigger pie or create two pies? AW: Sometimes in my experience, these people may believe that there is a finite pie, not an infinite pie, right. And if you get a big piece, they get a small piece. TF: I look at it as a view is my responsibility as a leader to try to unlock that for them to help them learn and grow and really develop? AW: So I think you just answered my next question, is it helpful or necessary to diagnose what’s going on in order to deal with it? TF: Absolutely. In my work and personal experience, if it’s left undiagnosed, not only does it not go away, it often explodes. It gets worse. AW: Right. So after we’ve diagnosed what may be going on in the relationship, or with the person that is, quote unquote difficult, we need to know what to do how to handle the situation. And when I was doing some research for this episode, I read something about transitivity which is another theory that I love, and it applies to so many relationship contexts and communication contexts. And this particular article said something about dealing with difficult people is not when we should be thinking about transitivity. In other words, two negatives does not equal a positive. We need to deal with negativity in a positive way. TF: Again, this is where it’s tapping into the human and the emotional connection. What would you want in their shoes? They may not even be aware of the impact their behaviors having and so if you built a relationship that’s based on trust, and you created that trusted environment and psychologically safe environment to be able to provide that ongoing back and forth feedback in real time, saying, this is how it makes me feel – because no one can tell you how to feel. AW: Can you share with the listeners some of the more typical reasons why someone might be difficult? TF: Often it’s because they’re acting out of fear. So again, that comes to the SCARF model, what’s motivating them is they perceive risk. What they perceive has changed. So is it because they feel they don’t have the tools that they need to do their job? to do something new? something’s changed? is it that they’ve got something completely different? personal issues going on that they need to deal with? So there’s various different things. But again, that’s why I think the SCARF model is so effective because it’s our natural wiring, it’s about the brain. AW: Okay. The first thing we do is diagnose and use the SCARF model. So status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness and think about which one or ones of those reasons that someone may have or behaving in a difficult way. TF: And not only in others, but also in ourselves. Absolutely. So what are our triggers? So for example, I know under certain circumstances, that’s going to be my trigger, and I’m going to behave in a way I don’t want to behave. So now knowing that I can catch it, and hopefully stop it before it starts. AW: This has such relevance. Even Within like a family dynamic and a personal situation, TF: Sure, absolutely. You can apply this in all parts of life. AW: So what then should you do – you’ve number one done the diagnosis, what’s the next step? TF: Depends what role you’re in. And I think it’s really exhibiting empathy and kindness, then it’s setting clear expectations and making sure people have the tools to do their job. So it comes down to Maslow’s theory, let’s cover off the basics so that people can really excel they can get to develop self-actualization, all those great things you want to real time. AW: So can you provide us maybe with – I’m putting you on the spot here – but with some scripts, things to say when someone we’ve diagnosed what the situation is, and we want to make it clear that we want to help the person and we want to continue working with them? TF: You just said right there. If it’s coming from your heart, again, it’s based on that relationship, then people are open to that it’s like then how can I help you? AW: I had one situation when I was a manager that I sometimes think about was one of my things that I’m most proud of, I got promoted slightly in advance of one of my peers. And then I was putting the awkward, we were putting the awkward, situation of me managing him. And for the first week, it was incredibly challenging, and we were butting heads, and we kind of didn’t know how to act. We went from peers to subordinate and boss. And so I asked him to come into my office and close the door. And I said, Listen, you need to get promoted. And I need to be identified as a great manager. So let’s get you promoted as quickly as possible. And let’s make that our goal, because that’ll also make me look like a great manager. And we can do this, and he was like, he actually hugged me. And he got promoted pretty darn quickly because we were both totally focused on that. So we came up with, you know, basically common ground. TF: Well, it’s all about creating a Win-win. So whatever makes sense and is appropriate under the circumstances. I also had similar scenario where I ended up managing my peer as a direct report and her entire team, AW: I can imagine that that would be particularly sensitive conversation to have, particularly when you’re working in HR! TF: for sure. It was definitely a challenging moment. But we got through it quite well. AW: So what are some of the more common mistakes that people make when there’s someone difficult in their office? TF: Well, there’s a bunch of things. One is just ignoring it and thinking it’s going to go away. I have yet to see it actually go away on its own. The other thing is it just going out and talking to other people instead of talking to the person directly. AW: I think that’s a big one. TF: It’s a huge one. And so again, it creates this big snowball, and all these are avoidable. AW: So when you’re doing the diagnosis, that doesn’t mean collecting information from other people? TF: Well, yes and no, it really depends on the circumstances, but you can do it in a very professional respectful way. AW: Sometimes the relationship is dictated to us as we know personally and professionally in terms of our level. Do you have any advice specifically about dealing with a difficult subordinate and then dealing with a difficult peer and then dealing with a difficult boss in terms of a subordinate? TF:  I think we just talked about that where you’re their leader, and that’s where I think it’s your accountability as a leader to really in private work with them to understand where’s this coming from? These are your expectations. These are of the observations This is how it’s made you feel, or others feel or what have you. AW: I think your privacy comment needs to be double underline there, no matter who it is TF: absolutely it this is something that’s confidential. And then in terms of a boss, I’d say it’s somewhat similar. Hopefully you’ve created or trying to focus on creating a good working relationship. You don’t have to be best friends, but a good working relationship and it’s the same thing. I would say the peers probably the most challenging, AW: probably the most common too? TF: I see relationships amongst peers, where there’s no clear accountabilities. I always encourage: first, go to the person directly, because it’s much easier to catch it, you’ve got more examples. And it honestly, it actually helps build the relationship going forward. So that’s where I recommend taking people out for coffee for lunch walk. And what I found effective is really trying to get them outside of the normal environment. So go for a walk to the coffee shop or to lunch or get to know them as a person. Because once you know someone more on a personal level, it’s amazing how much better you can work together. AW: That’s true. That’s true. Your comment about having a difficult boss reminded me of the story when I had a very, very difficult manager and I remember I called my dad who lived in a different city and I said, Dad, I don’t know what to do, because I don’t respect him. And he’s incredibly difficult. And he said, Well, here’s two questions. Number one Does his personality and his behavior represent the culture of the firm you’re at? Because if it does, you need to get out of there. And I said, No, it doesn’t. He said, Okay, so you’re probably fine. And number two, does this provide a learning opportunity for you? I said, Well, yeah, how not to treat my subordinates. And he said, Okay, so you’re all good. TF: Great questions. AW: Yeah, thanks, Dad. So in my mind, I have a hierarchy of responses going from ignore it to implicitly dealing with it to explicitly having a conversation with the person which I hear is your main recommendation. And then the last rung of that hierarchy is going to your boss or going to the HR department and formally complaining, under what conditions would that be the ideal response? TF: based on your continuum, (A) that you’ve actually observed this type of behavior with your own eyes, and (B) if you haven’t been successful in resolving it on your own, or (C) it’s escalated in terms of impact. That’s where I think the whole escalation process comes into play. AW: Okay, what does HR do when someone comes in and says, This person is making my life hell? like that something’s got to happen, or I’m leaving? TF: Well, it depends on what it is again. And actually, interestingly enough, it comes back to your dad’s questions to understand is this behavior, what we want? Is that who we are as an organization? If it’s not aligned, then we need to understand is this a one off? Is it circumstantial? Or is it inherent? And if so, have we not done our job in terms of acquiring talent to ensure that they’ve got the same values as we as an organization AW: and or clarifying what the expectations are? TF: Exactly. AW: Okay. Is there anything else you want to add about communicating with difficult people? TF: I keep coming back to this. We’re human and we have emotions, and we’re not robots. So treat people like humans connect with them on a personal level. And remember the whole SCARF model. I think it’s a phenomenal model in terms of how we control and manage our own emotions and know our own trigger points, as well as for others and recognizing it in others. AW: Thank you very much Tamara, for sharing your insights and your expertise about dealing with difficult people. TF: Thank you for having me. I’ve really enjoyed our dialogue and I’ve learned a few new things to try. AW: Oh, me too! Thank you.   THANKS for listening – and READING! Web: https://talkabouttalk.com/ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/TalkingAboutTalk/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/talk_about_talk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkingabouttalk/ Email: Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com          TalkAboutTalk CORE BELIEF: “When we communicate effectively, we can be a better manager, co-worker, parent, partner and friend.        TalkAboutTalk BRAND PROMISE: “TalkAboutTalk is the communication learning platform that will help us catapult our career and enrich our relationships by providing us with communication skills and confidence.”           ***When referencing resources and products, TalkAboutTalk sometimes uses affiliate links. These links don’t impose any extra cost on you, and they help support the free content provided by TalkAboutTalk. The post #39 Communicating with NEGATIVE PEOPLE – with HR expert Tamara Finlay appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Gift-giving is a highly symbolic form of communication. Are you a good gift giver? In this podcast you will learn how to think about gift-giving more rationally, with research-based tips about what matters and what doesn’t. Here’s a hint: We should worry less about how much money we spend. It’s typically the “low substance, high sentiment” gifts that are appreciated. It really is the thought that counts! References & Links Gift-Giving Mauss, Marcel (1924) THE GIFT https://archive.org/details/giftformsfunctio00maus/page/n9 Belk, Russell W. (1976) “It’s The Thought That Counts: A Signed Digraph Analysis of Gift-Giving” Journal of Consumer Research Belk & Coon (1991) “Can’t Buy me Love: Money, Dating & Gifts” Association for Consumer Research Geisler, Markus (2006) “Consumer Gift Systems” Journal of Consumer Research Sherry, John F. (1983) “Gift-Giving in Anthropological Perspective” Journal of Consumer Research Sherry, McGrath & Levy (1993) “The Dark Side of the Gift” Journal of Business Research Ward, Morgan K., & Broniarczyk, Susan M. (2011) “It’s Not Me, It’s You: How Gift Giving Creates Giver Identity Threat as a Function of Social Closeness” Journal of Consumer Research Wooten, David B. (2000) “Qualitative Steps Toward an Expanded Model of Anxiety in Gift-Giving” Journal of Consumer Research Professor Russell Belk Professor Belk’s York University Schulich faculty page Talk About Talk episode #17: What Our Possessions Say Talk About Talk & Dr. Andrea Wojnicki Free Weekly Email Blog – https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup (sign up now to get your FREE printable PDF of the “5 Steps to Improve your Communication Skills – ABCDE”) Website – https://talkabouttalk.com Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ Andrea’s email – Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com   THANKS for listening – and READING!   Web: https://talkabouttalk.com/ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/TalkingAboutTalk/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/talk_about_talk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkingabouttalk/ Email: Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com                  TalkAboutTalk CORE BELIEF: “When we communicate effectively, we can be a better manager, co-worker,  parent, partner and friend.         TalkAboutTalk BRAND PROMISE: “TalkAboutTalk is the communication learning platform that will help us catapult our career and enrich our relationships by providing us with communication skills and confidence.”           ***When referencing resources and products, TalkAboutTalk sometimes uses affiliate links. These links don’t impose any extra cost on you, and they help support the free content provided by TalkAboutTalk. The post #38 GIFT-GIVING appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Do you know when to use the phone or email?  What about text, social media, and face-to-face meetings? How do you feel when you hear the phone ring?  In this podcast episode, HR expert Tamara Finlay shares advice and frameworks to help you choose the ideal communication media or platform to optimize your communication.   REFERENCES & LINKS Tamara Finlay LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamarafinlay/ Recommendations: FastCompany Allegra Shaw   Talk About Talk & Dr. Andrea Wojnicki Talk About Talk podcast episodes mentioned: How to Conquer your Email Inbox Authenticity with Ana Serrano Free Weekly Email Blog – https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup Website: https://talkabouttalk.com Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ Andrea’s email – Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com   INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Dr. Andrea Wojnicki: Thank you so much for joining us, Tamara. Tamara Finlay: It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for including me. AW: Okay, let’s back up and provide some context. First, what are the main media that you’ve observed people using at work – to communicate? TF: Now obviously, there’s all kinds. There are all your typical ones, like email, text, chats, everything else. The list continues to grow, and nothing’s falling off. I think that’s where we’re, all of a sudden, the pace of change is just so rapid fire. As our world gets faster and faster and more complicated, I like to bring it back to basics. Why are we communicating? We’re communicating because we want to connect with people. We want to connect either intellectually, or emotionally, or to do something – more the action piece of it. It’s either the head, the heart or the hands. Depending on what you’re trying to engage, is going to depend on what communication style or what communicate channel you’re going to use. So if you’re trying to engage the head, you’ve got a lot more communication channels that you can use, you can pretty much use most of them. Whether it’s email, text, or face to face in meetings, pretty much any of it works. But when you’re trying to connect with the heart, it’s all about emotions. It’s all about relationships. Nothing beats that more than in person, face to face, because 55% is body language, right? And you lose all that. And that’s why there are so many misinterpretations – when it’s heavily email or text or other communication methods, other than the face to face.   AW: And if you’re in a sensitive context, as you said, if it’s emotional or heart driven, then perhaps that nonverbal communication is even more important. TF: Exactly. Because you want a bit of more of the two way dialogue. It’s really hard to have two way dialogue in an email or a text. AW: That’s a great point! TF: And then the hands … so the three H’s or the head, heart and hands, the third one is the hands, that’s really where you can be quite directive, task oriented, and that’s really where the written word is fine. And that’s where emails, chat, text is absolutely fine. AW: Okay, so the hands just to clarify is about what we’re doing next, it’s clarifying next steps, for example, in a project at work could be could be a subordinate clarifying next steps with his or her boss or vice versa. TF: Exactly, or an event just confirming details, location, that type of thing. AW: Okay, you said so many things there that caught my attention that we could unpack. Your first point about more and more medium being introduced into our communication opportunities. Of course, that’s true, but I hadn’t actually thought about the fact that we are being overwhelmed with more and more apps, platforms, and different communication medium and nothing’s falling off. TF: It’s so true. And it’s interesting because having worked my entire career in more mature organizations that are quite traditional in terms of how we approach work… When I joined a FinTech company just over a year ago, I had quite a bit of culture shock. So I was used to somewhat less paper. But this was literally no paper, all the offices or cubicles were open spaces. They were lucky you got a drawer. So clearly, it was all on the digital in one of our key communication tools is Slack. Now, it’s I think they would describe as a collaborative team tool. We use it for pretty much all our internal communications. You can do it individually as text messaging, you can do it as groups, which are called Slack Channels. And I’m embarrassed to say that it took me probably over a month to figure out you could actually call through Slack. AW: Oh, really, I didn’t know that. So just for some other context here, I have an episode on conquering your email inbox and Slack came up as an opportunity – as a technology hack – to conquer your email and I read in a couple of articles that is widely used within organizations. And previously, some industry observers or analysts thought that it may replace email, but it certainly isn’t doing that. But it sounds like it’s alive and well and doing well. You tell me: Does it work? TF: I think it’s fantastic. It’s certainly what I love. It was actually refreshing once I kind of figure it out. And you can also attach items to it as well – like a document and what have you. And you can delete it and remove it if it’s highly sensitive, confidential. So that’s obviously a lot of the work that I do. What I love about it is that it’s all internal. So if I’m looking or referencing back to anything from anyone within the organization, I go to Slack. Email typically is just for external. Okay, so this is really new to anyone over the age of 30, I’m sure or anyone who’s not in a startup environment. Quite honestly, it’ll take a while before large organizations. I’m sure there’s groups within larger organizations that are using it. AW: The other thing that you mentioned, your head, heart and hands framework is absolutely beautiful. It’s probably an effective way of just making a simple decision about what communication tool you can use. So as an HR professional, do you hear from people or perhaps have observed them failing to use the most effective communication mediums? So – not thinking about the three H’s? TF: Of course, I think we all get caught up in that. And unfortunately, being in human resources, we often see the negative impact of that and the unintended consequences. AW: HR is not hearing about the great wins. I mean, unless someone’s formealy winning an award probably, right? But they’re not coming to you saying, guess what we did great today?  They’re coming with problems. TF: Right, exactly. A lot of the time we’re cleaning up messes quite frankly. AW: have you heard of situations where either people are complaining about other people not using their communication medium effectively, or that was your diagnosis? So there’s something catastrophic happened within the organization. There was something blew up and then your diagnosis is well, you know what it may have been because of the communication medium they should have been face to face when they were using text …? TF: For sure. Obviously, that’s more of a regular occurrence. As we get more and more communication channels. One of the things that we try to do is understand about behaviors. But what’s coming across and is being communicated to us is about a person. AW: So in your experience in helping people to communicate most effectively, have you noticed a correlation between age and media preference? TF: I think the reality is Millennials are the first generation that have grown up with the internet right? So obviously, their natural go to and obviously gross generalizations is: quick text and things on their smartphone, and all that. But just like with any other generation, you’re going to get the full spectrum. And as a Gen X, I love texts. Being in the right circumstances. AW: So we shouldn’t be stereotyping broadly that everyone in Generation Z is a certain way everyone in Generation X a certain way, Millennials act a certain way. But they’re probably, as you say, are some general trends. One of my listeners, actually on social media , was sharing his story about personally hiring a contractor. And this gentleman is in his, I think, his early 70s. He’s working full time, highly productive, and he went to hire a contractor and this contractor insisted on emailing and texting him and he’s like, we need to talk. He said, I gave him three shots where I said, we can set up a meeting, or you can call me again, we can set up a meeting or you can call me three times and then he said, I just let it go. I went to another guy. Yes, he was older. He came and saw me. We communicated through telephone, and he got the job. So I mean, there actually is something at stake here. To me, that story illustrates a gentleman who was trying to provide an olive branch. Like talk to me on my terms and here’s what they are, and it was ignored, and then the guy didn’t get the job.   So I think it’s a valid point. It’s a two way street. Again, know your audience, regardless of the age of this gentleman, he preferred to communicate in person. If this is your boss, and it’s a preferred communication style, you learn to adapt. Well, I actually created an acronym, ACE. AW: I love acronyms!  I love it. Because it’s helpful to remember right? TF: Absolutely. AW: an acronym. Let’s do it. TF: Exactly. So it’s: know your AUDIENCE is the A. And it could be an individual or a group, what’s their preferred method of communication? And then the C is CONTENT. So why are you communicating? Is it confidential or not? And what is it that you’re communicating? AW: And that also could be the head heart and hands thing? Yes? TF: Yeah, exactly. AW: Beautiful. So you actually have your three H framework coming into your Ace acronym. I love it. TF: Exactly. And then the E is the ENVIRONMENT. A lot of the work I do is confidential. If I want to have a confidential discussion, knowing that the person that’s on the receiving end is in a car with a bunch of other people, I clearly don’t want to do it that way. I may choose to do a text or schedule some other time. AW: Brilliant. When you and I were preparing for this interview, I independently created a list of criteria for choosing the most appropriate and effective communication medium. And you’ve just gone through how you can use this as framework. But are there any other specific criteria? TF: Sure, email is a great tool. If you’re really confirming decisions that were made, made steps next action items, if you want to go back and reference something that’s actually a great tool. AW: So that would be – in your three H framework – that would be the hands. TF: Okay, exactly. And then there’s handwritten or typed letters. Again, this comes back to what I said at the beginning where we just keep adding stuff but nothing’s coming off. Some people may have forgotten about that. And in fact, as I thought about this is like, could you even recognize your colleagues or friends handwriting at this point? AW: Interesting question. Yeah. So think of the impact that would have though, if you actually gave someone a handwritten note, because it’ll blow them away. TF: Exactly. And really you would stand out. For sure. It  depends on what you’re trying to do. Then phone calls and face to face. Again, that’s where you’re coming back to that’s more of the heart. If you want to connect emotionally, if you want to brainstorm if you want a two way dialogue, that’s where that’s probably the best use. AW: So another way of putting that I think, is if the tone really matters, of course, tone always matters. But if the tone really matters, if something sensitive, and you want to capture people’s body language, that’s where it comes into play as well. Got it. TF: Now. One of the downsides of that is which is really about collaboration. It just takes more time. So you have to factor that in and build that in and that’s why the other thing is – I think people are defaulting to the text or what have you. Because it’s fast, but what it does is it takes it off your plate and puts it on someone else’s plate, and you have no idea if they’ve actually caught that ball. AW: This is a slight diversion from this list of communication media options, but you’re making me think about the implications of people working at home. TF: So you know, what’s interesting is if you do it remotely all the time, absolutely, and I know of a company how they’ve done this – because they’ve got a lot of remote workers around the world, which I found fascinating. They have designated robots with video cameras that you can control remotely to do your drop ins. AW: Oh my gosh, we need to add this to our list of media. TF: Exactly. It is a bit mind blowing. But where there’s a will there’s a way. AW: wow, you know, where I thought you were headed. I thought you were gonna say on the two days per week when you’re at home, you do as much as you can on email, a little bit on phone, think about the things that you can’t do face to face and then on the two or three days when you’re in your office, of course, that’s when you both your formal meetings and you do your informal lunches or dropping by someone’s office to say hello or to share something. TF: Absolutely, that’s where you just have to be very diligent and really make a concerted effort. It’s really hard to build relationships remotely, it’s easier to maintain remotely. So even if you’re a remote worker, it’s if you can have that initial period of building. So whether you go there on site for a brief period of time up front, then it’s much easier to do that. AW: That could also be a criteria for choosing the media, right? So one of the other criteria that you can use for deciding which medium is most appropriate and effective is the stage of the relationship. That was not on my list before. TF: That’s actually a really good way of looking at it. I haven’t thought about it that way. AW: But you’re right. TF: You articulated it back to me in a different way. Wow. So all companies need to be technology companies … Pretty much every company I know is saying we’re trying to maximize people and cultures as a competitive advantage. But the people that are winning in this are really the ones that can execute effectively on it. AW: Right. What do you think about Zoom calls or Skype calls or FaceTime? TF: I think it’s a great proxy for face to face. Obviously, you need to have good technology and bandwidth for it can be effective. It’s not 100%. But it’s definitely better because you do see some of the body language you do see some of the interaction if it’s more of a group thing, but you still don’t get it all because once the video is turned off, you have no idea what’s going on afterwards. AW: That’s right. There’s the explicit conversation that’s going on. And then there’s the subtext, right? Unless you’re face to face talking to someone, there’s often a subtext and even in board meetings, we think about people texting each other under the table, right? they’ve literally got their phone under the table and they’re texting other people. TF: Oh, for sure! One of the things that I learned and really resonate with me is it’s really maximize that subject line. I’m one of these people that gets bombarded with emails, I’m just scanning. If the subject line attracts my attention, then I open the email, otherwise it remains closed forever. AW: I actually mentioned that in the podcast episode about conquering your email inbox, you can use it to highlight important details, I guess, especially again, back to your point about email. It’s the hands, it’s the tasks and the next steps and what better way to highlight that. TF:  Exactly. So you want – in terms of action – the required by date, you want to highlight whatever the key critical items are in the email. The other thing that I learned is, how do you know what you’re communicating is being received as intended? AW: Great question. TF: That’s why we have a lot of these challenges, because there’s so much room for misinterpretation when it’s just words on paper,  in email, what have you,  and not the full body language and nonverbal cues. Email is really more about one way. Yes, you could argue it’s two way but how do you know they’ve even opened your email? AW: Right. TF: How do you know they read it? How do you know they’ve actually read it? AW: So I think that’s one of the reasons that emojis have become so popular so quickly, is people are saying I want to make sure the person knows – I’m being sarcastic. So I’m going to put a little winky emoji. Or I want to make sure the person understands that that was a joke. So I’m going to put the laughter emoji. TF: That’s a very valid point. They try to put a bit of the emotion accentuating their key message, AW: But it’s almost a cliche, right? that you’re not sure if the person was serious or not. And it’s email and Oh, boy, you’re missing so much context of the communication TF: Right, exactly. AW: So I have another question for you related to email. What do you think about Reply All? TF: I’m not a big fan. And it really depends on what it is. If it’s something that’s a value to everyone on the distribution list, then it makes sense. The majority of the time I don’t believe that actually add any value. It it just clutters people’s email box even more. And it makes you look bad because you’re not valuing and respecting their time or their inbox, so to speak. AW: So I agree 100%. I think people need to really think hard about each individual. And if you’re like, well, I can’t think about each individual will then take them off the list. TF: Exactly. So again, that comes to ACE – the Audience. AW: Absolutely. TF: So who is your Audience? And then you go into the Content. So why are you communicating what value is it to them. So that’s why I really like these two frameworks, because you can pretty much bring it all back to that. AW: That’s fantastic. So we can fold in all the other criteria that we talked about. Some communication medium may be more expensive. So I’m thinking at the extreme is you have to fly to another continent or whatever – another city – to meet with someone face to face. That’s kind of the extreme cost, right? TF: That’s pretty much the only one that really has a cost associated with it.  I would argue the other costs are the cost of doing business. If you don’t have access to some type of video conference in today’s day and age, then I don’t know how you’re still in business, to be honest. It’s the travel costs for the face to face. And that’s where hopefully, there’s been some budget for the initial relationship building and then the maintaining can be done in the video conferencing or other methods. AW: The other side of cost that’s not monetary, though is the convenience factor, the time factor. And there’s kind of two ways of thinking about that as well. There’s how much time is it costing me to produce this communication, this one way communication that I’ve initiated? And then for the receiver, it’s do they have to respond immediately? Or is for example, picking up the phone, right? Or can they do it on their own time? And this is what I hear from a lot of younger people. I’d rather text or email because then I get it off my plate and it’s up to the person when it’s convenient for them to respond. TF: Yeah. AW: head nods! I mean, so but I’m basing this comment about older people preferring phone based on the five rapid fire questions. And I always ask what’s your communication medium of choice for casual conversations. And there is a very, very high correlation between age and media choice, where older people are very consistently saying face to face in the phone, and younger people are saying text and email. TF: And again, I think it all comes down to the environment we all grew up in. And it depends how much of a learner you are. I’m a lifelong learner. I love learning about new tools and new things. And if there’s a better faster way of doing it, absolutely. But this also reminds me more about how millennials approach work in general. And an example is when work has been assigned to me as a Gen X. I think, okay, these are all my tools such as Microsoft Office, what have you. How can I make the tools work for me to get my job done? What I’ve been fascinated and absolutely love is what I’ve seen Millennials do. They’ll first Google anything, and reach… AW: …including the how to how to do what I’ve been just told to do? TF: exactly. And reach out to their network. And they can get a far more comprehensive solution way faster. That’s not even the future. This is the now. So quite frankly, I think some of the dinosaurs need to start adapting but also the Millennials need to also adapt. I think there’s a happy medium and it’s knowing when to use what. AW: so I just recently whenever an appliance breaks – so my first was my dishwasher was leaking, and then my refrigerator started leaking. Guess what? I fixed both by going to YouTube. The poor service guys. Although some of the more pioneering ones are actually producing the YouTube videos and they are getting 10s of thousands of hits. TF: Well, and I think this all comes to technological advances in general, all the basic stuff. Absolutely. How fantastic is that? Because leave the repair people to do the complex stuff. I’m sure that’s what they want anyway, they don’t want to be doing the basic stuff. So you can apply that to pretty much any work. So as long as it’s continuously learning and growing, and we all need to do that you’re either going forward or going backwards, there’s no standing still. AW: I will quote you on that. I like that. Is there anything else you want to add? I think one of the most important things that I learned from this conversation is the audience content and environment acronym. So the ACE acronym and then within that, particularly the under the C – Content, the head, heart and hands framework. Is there anything else you want to add for listeners just to think about when they’re choosing which medium to use for communication? TF: I think a good reminder is just remember, we’re all human. We’re not robots. It’s a good reminder to just to pause and think about why they’re doing what they’re doing, sending the right communication to the right people at the right time, for AW: Okay, so now we’re going to move on to the five rapid fire questions. So first question, what are your pet peeves? TF: I think my biggest pet peeve is closed mindedness. I’m a lifelong learner. I love to learn. I think it’s really important that everyone does, AW: I can imagine someone coming into your office who’s struggling, and you may be diagnosing the fact that they are not a lifelong learner and they don’t have an open mind. TF: I think the reason why people aren’t is because of fear. And so then it comes back to the scarf model, right? You’re either moving forward or backwards, there’s no standing still. So people may think they’re standing still, when actually they’re being left behind. AW: Brilliant that is absolutely eloquent. And I am definitely going to quote you end up in a big red box on social media. Next question, what type of learner are you? TF: I’m a fast learner for sure. And I learned by doing so doing and seeing AW: Okay, Question number three introvert or extrovert? TF: I was gonna say you guess, but I definitely get my energy from people so I guess that makes me an extrovert. AW: I can definitely tell that you are an extrovert. You probably love being interviewed but also doing interviewing. TF: for sure. I love both sides. AW: I can see that. Okay, question number four: communication preference for personal conversations. TF: So my bias 0 I put it out there – my personal preference because I’m a relationship person. I love people and really connecting emotionally one on one so I’m all about the face to face. AW: Okay, last Rapid Fire question. Is there a podcast or a blog or an email newsletter that you find yourself recommending the most? TF: The first one that jumps to mind is FastCompany. Are you familiar with FastCompany? AW: i subscribe. TF: I absolutely love it. I was very excited when Fast Company went online. I’m a techie at heart. I actually started as a computer programmer in banking banking at one of our big five banks…. So I love all their focus on new technology on innovation and that really fuels my creativity. AW: I’m with you and I will gladly share a link for the listeners to that. Is there anything else? TF: I’ve got a few others. Another one that actually is a friend of mines daughter. Her name is Allegra Shaw and she’s a lifestyle and fashion blogger, Instagram or and YouTuber, and she’s been doing it since she was in high school. And because she’s a Millennial, I’m fascinated how they choose to communicate and interact with each other and the broader population. AW: So I’ll get the link from you for her as well for sure for her Instagram account and YouTube channel. Is there anything else you want to add to share with listeners about choosing the optimal communication medium for their communication? TF: I think it’s just again, another reminder: We’re human and humans have a need to connect emotionally. So just pause before you just start hitting send or firing things off. And just again, I think the frameworks are helpful, especially the, the head, heart and hand to figure out what it is you’re trying to do and why. AW: Brilliant, thank you very much for your time and for your insights to me. TF: You’re welcome. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. That was fantastic.   THANKS for listening – and READING!   Web: https://talkabouttalk.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/talk_about_talk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkingabouttalk/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/TalkingAboutTalk/ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/ Email: Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com                  Talk About Talk CORE BELIEF: “When we communicate effectively, we can be a better manager, co-worker, parent, partner and friend.   Talk About Talk BRAND PROMISE: “TalkAboutTalk is the communication learning platform that catapults our career and enriches our relationships by providing us with communication skills and confidence.”         ***When referencing resources and products, TalkAboutTalk sometimes uses affiliate links. These links don’t impose any extra cost on you, and they help support the free content provided by TalkAboutTalk. The post #37 COMMUNICATION MEDIA: Phone or Email – with HR expert Tamara Finlay appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Youth mental health concerns such as anxiety and depression are common. Nicole German, founder of The Maddie Project, shares her experience and thoughtful advice to parents, family members, coaches, teachers, anyone who interacts with youth.  We need to step-it-up with awareness, empathy, and advocacy. “Anything we can do is goodness.” Doing little things and doing big things will make an impact, potentially saving a life.  Shine bright! REFERENCES & LINKS Nicole German & The Maddie Project  The Maddie Project – http://www.themaddieproject.ca/ Donation Page – https://my.charitableimpact.com/campaigns/the-maddie-project-0350d836-cf47-4735-8602-a57990626e03 Maddie’s Healing Garden at North York General Hospital – https://nyghfoundation.ca/news-and-publications/north-york-general-opens-first-of-its-kind-outpatient-mental-health-centre-for-youth/ Email – info@themaddieproject.ca Twitter – @nicgerman and @maddie_project Instagram – maddie_project Facebook-https://www.facebook.com/themaddieproject Other Mental Health Resources Kids’ Help Phone – https://kidshelpphone.ca Children’s Mental Health Ontario: https://www.cmho.org/ Suicide Prevention Lifeline – https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ CAMH – Centre for Addiction & Mental Health – http://www.camh.ca/ Huffington Post – “Frame of Mind” Series – https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/news/frame-of-mind/ Other articles: https://projects.nj.com/features/depression/index.html https://www.fastcompany.com/90414436/mental-health-symptoms-reported-by-60-of-employees-study Talk About Talk & Dr. Andrea Wojnicki “Beyond Condolences: Supporting Your Grieving Friends” podcast episode – https://talkabouttalk.com/19s2-supporting-our-grieving-friends-with-psychotherapist-grief-counsellor-andrea-warnick/ Free Weekly Email Blog – https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup Website: https://talkabouttalk.com Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ Andrea’s email – Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com   INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT  Dr. Andrea Wojnicki: Thank you so much, Nicole, for taking the time and sharing your story with us today. Nicole German: Great. Thanks for having me. AW: So I thought it would be nice if you could start by telling us a bit about Maddie. NG: Sure. So I’m the mom of three kids. And Madeline, who we also call Maddie, was my oldest daughter. And so she was one of the easiest babies you could ever imagine. Actually, she was very easy going. And then when she had two younger brothers, she really became the nurturer. So typical big sister looking out for her two younger brothers. And then as she progressed through life, I would say was definitely on the spectrum of high performance, whether it was academically or through sports. And very social, very well liked. And as she approached adolescence and puberty, some things started to really change for her. And I think as first time parents, we weren’t really sure whether this was just things that were from a puberty perspective, or there was really more to it. So  she progressed into middle school and high school. She started to struggle with,  not being able to get her homework done, or not wanting to go to sports to compete, sometimes not going out with friends. And the reality was that we thought it was just a phase. But in fact, what we learned over time was she had anxiety and pretty severe anxiety. And so, the thing with anxiety is that it’s really hard to focus when you have anxiety. And when you can’t focus, it’s hard to do homework and then when you don’t do homework, you don’t do well in school, which makes you feel terrible. And it becomes really this vicious circle and so in essence, that was really the beginning of a journey for Madeline and her struggling with anxiety and in essence depression. AW: Can you tell us a little bit about The Maddie Project? NG: Sure. Madeline struggled with depression for a number of years and it got more challenging over time. And it really came to the point where she passed away from depression. So she took her own life and at that moment when we had to communicate to people that she had died and why she had died, it was like these floodgates opened up. There were so many families, actually, from grandparents to parents to teachers and coaches and even youth themselves that came forward and told their story that either they had a sibling or a child or a parent that either they had lost to suicide and depression but never spoken about it, or that they were in fact struggling. And so what became very apparent was that it was sort of this hidden disease that nobody really wanted to talk about, AW: would you say taboo? NG: Definitely taboo. And I think there was a there was a shame and so when Madeline was sick, she was in hospital and she really said, “Mommy, don’t tell anybody that I’m here.” And so we really were living these two lives where, at the end of work every day, we were rushing to the hospital to be with her, but nobody knew,  outside of very close family and a few friends.  You kind of equate it to say,  if my child has  cancer and was in hospital for cancer, there would be no question that we would talk about that. But because she was there because she had attempted suicide, it was taboo to speak about and fear that she would be judged. Right. AW: So do you feel like that is changing a little bit? NG: Yeah. So I mean, I think it’s a spectrum, if we kind of think back to kind of the  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest kind of perspective, we’ve made huge strides. I would say that the youth now that I see are speaking more openly about mental health, which I think is great. I think when it comes to, youth and their parents, if you’ve kind of lived it, people are more open, but there’s still a real hesitancy or sort of a judgment on how to even respond to that, right? Because it’s complex, and it’s also hard to relate to it. As my youngest son would say, it’s really an invisible disease. And you don’t really know when it’s going to show up right… AW: invisible disease. That’s, that’s amazing. I did a podcast episode with a grief counselor a couple of months ago. And she was just talking about how even death itself is taboo. So it’s almost as if there’s a second layer then, right? Because you’ve experienced a death, of a very close family member. Yeah. And it was through suicide. NG: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, I find, when Madeline was struggling, it was it was very hard for me to relate and understand, because I very much grew up in the world of: if you get up and have a shower and wash your face, you’ll feel better. But the reality is that depression isn’t like that. Like when you say you can’t get out of bed. It’s truly because you can’t get out of bed. And now having lived through a tremendous tragedy, and experience, grief. It’s very relatable. The notion of saying I don’t have the energy to get out of bed, and it’s incredibly frustrating. I mean, there were moments and – there still are, I mean, it’s a number of years later, where I don’t have the energy to drive my boys to sports because I just I physically don’t. And you know, calling in that favor without kind of explaining why… it’s challenging, and some people think, sometimes you feel like oh, I’m not being a great parent. But again, grief has some of those symptoms that are similar to things like depression and in that way, right? AW: Even like PTSD? NG: And even PTSD, exactly right. And so I think, having that self-awareness of saying, it’s okay, it’s okay that today’s a day that you need to just be okay to yourself and allow others to help you. AW: Part of that is what you’re doing here today – being on this podcast and hopefully encouraging other people to have open conversations – whether they themselves are experiencing mental health issues or talking about mental health concerns. NG: Right and I think we all have mental health. It’s really a spectrum you have your up and days down. I used to say to Madeline that everybody has these challenges and some people have different levels of resilience at different moments in their life. And so the complexity of  whether it’s everything from nutrition to biology to heredity to social to just environments,. And so I think we all have good days and bad days. And so you can equate it to that. Right? And it’s very much a spectrum. AW: So does it help to equate it to our physical health? I mean, it sounds as if what you’re describing are symptoms of someone who is physically exhausted or maybe has the flu. Right? NG: Exactly. I mean, everything, just for clarity. this is always my own perspective. I’m not a professional. And I believe that mental health is like nutrition, we should wake up and think about it every day, right?  And where are we on our scale? And so there are physical symptoms, but sometimes there aren’t. Sometimes it’s literally something that might trigger you to react in some way. We have to really have our eyes wide open. I’ll give an example of Madeline in particular, when she was 11. She had these severe stomach aches Everything else was she was functioning perfectly well doing well in school sports, everything. And I took it to every doctor under the sun. And we had all of these tests, not a single one said anxiety, because everything else in her life seemed perfectly A-Okay. And I know now in hindsight, for sure, that was anxiety and it went away over time. And so she got she got better with her stomach aches. But again, it was just like not kind of having the eyes-wide-open to sort of say, maybe there is more to this and maybe it is something like anxiety.  When she was young she was a perfectionist. She wouldn’t do her printing at Montessori because she wanted it to be perfect. And so if she couldn’t do it perfectly, she didn’t want to do it at all, right? So again, like when you kind of look,… AW:   it’s always hindsight is 20-20. NG: Of course, but I think those are the things that are for all of us. And any adults that are exposed to kids are just like… the kids that go on are starting to go off the rails. Or acting differently than when they were children, those are the kids that we actually need to empathize with. Rather than label them, say, Oh, that’s the bad one, I don’t want you hanging out with that child anymore because they’re a bit of a troublemaker, but actually, you know what? They are not intentionally bad, there’s more to their story. And so, I always tell parents – that’s when you need to invite them over for the family dinner, and sometimes getting out of their own family space to kind of make sure that they’re ok. AW: So, as parents and caregivers and teachers, we’re always constantly monitoring children for their physical health ailments, right? It’s like this mental health spectrum needs to be assessed and we need to be aware of it. It’s just awareness. Right? NG: Absolutely. It’s awareness and it’s empathy. It’s realizing that the kids are under a lot of pressure to perform these days and to really race through life. And the reality is, is that there’s no hurry, and there’s no rush. But also to kind of coach them through these types of scenarios. And so if they don’t do well on a test, let’s sit down and help coach them through that, right, the more that we can kind of teach them at a young age to get through those challenging times, but also just those basic resilience or, mindfulness or, when I’m feeling stressed, how do I breathe? Or how do I think? Or how do I take a moment to … really consciously give them those life skills to kind of take them on, throughout the course of their life? AW: It’s like resilience training, but getting it really down to physically and mentally – what’s going on? NG: Exactly. AW: Do you have advice for parents and maybe someone who’s listening to this? And they’re thinking, Oh, my gosh, my son or my daughter sounds like that. And maybe it’s been in the back of their mind and maybe because it still is, to some extent a taboo in our culture. They haven’t done anything about it. Whereas if it was a physical ailment, they would have called their medical doctor, can you recommend what they should do? NG: Yeah, for sure. Unfortunately, at least in Canada, and lots of countries around the world, it’s very hard to get access to care whether it’s paid or not paid or through health care. It’s a challenge because there’s such a great demand. So number one is that as a parent, you need to advocate for your child’s health care, first and foremost. So don’t wait. As soon as you start to see signs, speak openly with the child to let them know that if something’s not feeling, right, that’s okay. They don’t need to know why that just that they need to kind of check in to explain that and then bring in that community or that circle of care. Yeah, it’s really for kids to articulate if they’re feeling off. AW: They don’t have to know the answer why, right? NG: Or if they’re feeling tired, or they don’t feel like going out with their friends, or they can’t focus.  Really, the first step is allowing those kids to put their – encouraging those kids to put their hand up for help. And whether that’s with a parent or an adult that’s trusted. But often cases, there may not be a solution out of the gates. But just to know that someone’s there for you is incredibly important, especially,  at early stages. AW: So in addition to encouraging kids to put their hand up, as you said, to say something’s wrong, even if they don’t know why, what else can parents do in terms of helping their children? NG: So the first step is going to your family doctor. Letting them know, see how they can help to triage and really do some assessment. And then the next part of that is really looking within your community in terms of what access to care there is. So in some cases, there are walk-in clinics or resources at school. So really, look within the community of care to see what’s available and continue to pursue, even if there are waitlists. But to continue to, of course, put yourself on the waitlist, but keep calling back, especially if it’s a more severe scenario. In the case of acuteness, or if you’re worried about suicidal ideation or what have you, don’t take it lightly. Definitely go to your local hospital. I think that’s something where, even if kids are talking about that, it’s not something that we should take lightly. And then there’s a number of triage centers, like Kids Help Phone can help. There’s the navigation program that can really sort of say, I’m in this situation now, based on what you’re hearing,  what, what are those best solutions? AW: So really be looking for access to care that way and being a proactive advocate? NG: Absolutely proactive. And so to the degree that you can, making sure that their teachers, guidance counselors, even coaches and close friends of parents are aware that, they’re struggling. Because I think the greater that community of care is, the more supportive they will be of the child, whether it’s your own kid or someone else’s. AW: I love that point. NG: Yeah, exactly. And I think for the kids too. We talk a lot about never leaving anybody behind. And even just having that notion of, it’s sort of basic principles but like treat everyone the way that you would be wanting to be treated. Because you don’t always know what’s going on behind the scenes. So if someone’s kind of off on their own or seems to be struggling, you don’t have to be best friends with them. But just  saying hello or being there or, walking down the hall with them. I think it’s really encouraging as well. AW:  Nicole, honestly, when I pick my kids up from school today, I’m going to be talking to them differently because they always tell me stories about quote unquote bad kids. NG: Yeah. AW: Yeah. And instead of saying, oh, man, just what was that kid thinking? It’ll be: What do you think’s going on? NG: Exactly. And I think, when you lose someone or you’ve been close to, dealing with someone struggling with pretty severe mental health challenges, it changes your perspective completely. For me it’s still feels very irrational and how you can lose someone that way? But it’s an illness, right? And so it’s not like they intended it.  Typically when you see someone in public environments, you know, whether they’re on the street or whatever, each of those individuals have a story, right? So even if it’s a young child and they’re being at quote unquote bad kid,  maybe there’s more to it. Right. I think I think that’s,  the way that we should look, especially for young people, because, they’re just still little AW: and they’re still learning. NG: Yeah, exactly. AW: Learning to deal with the world and also with themselves. NG: Exactly. AW: So when I was preparing for this interview, I read something that you wrote that’s online, and you said, doing little things and doing big things to help. Can you describe what that means? NG: When The Maddie Project was sort of formed, and we had great community engagement, we worked together with North York General Hospital to support Maddie’s Healing Garden. So we pledged to raise a million dollars – which for me, well, it was a legacy for my daughter – was a big monkey on my back to have to raise a million dollars and  not being a fundraiser … and so it was momentous. And we had incredible support to make that happen, and it’s been fully funded and open now, which is amazing. But what I realized is that anything that we can do is goodness, right? And so whether it’s $20 at a bake sale, or just wearing a T shirt with The Maddie Project or Shine Bright on the back.  People say, Oh, what is that? and saying, Oh, it’s,  for Youth Mental Health, just having that conversation is so critical. And my sons are engaged in their school communities and speaking. And we say, if you touch one kid in that audience, and they go home and tell mom or dad or their trusted adult, that they’re struggling, like, you’ve saved a life, potentially, right? Like you’ve made a huge impact. So just as we say, just by sparking conversations, we’re making change. AW: Wow, that is incredibly inspiring. Is there anything else you want to say to parents in particular, again, perhaps coaches or teachers, about mistakes, from your perspective that you see them commonly making or things that you wish they knew? NG: I think the biggest thing there is empathy. I think to the point around, we all have rules and regulations. But when you see a kid that particularly – you’ve known in the past is acting differently. Just that notion of eyes-wide-open is not to judge based on their behavior at that moment, but just know who they are. Or that,  we as humans are all good people. So I think particularly these kids, they’re up against such different environments, and  20 years ago, the pressures that they live, and so I think that would be one point, but most importantly, is to have an open dialogue about mental health at the dinner table, with friends, kids’ friends around the table, just making an open conversation. So people aren’t afraid to talk about or aren’t ashamed of speaking about it, not feeling off or having to get extra help from a therapist or  whatever they’re needing to take some days off of school. I think it’s really important that we can just be speak openly .And not to judge. AW: That’s great advice. I want to change gears here a little bit and ask you about the role of social media in adolescent mental health. So we’ve all heard horror stories about kids that have been bullied online, and then they’ve become anxious or depressed or both. And I wondered if you had any perspective on that to share? NG: Yeah, for sure. my professional life is surrounded around social media and social media marketing. And so,  the platforms exist. I think there’s a lot of good, there’s a lot of opportunity around creating connections amongst people, but it’s really exposed a challenge for our kids and a distortion to reality, not just for children, actually for everyone, and in fact, sort of addictions. And so I think the idea of having open conversations around like what reality is, and what isn’t, and then the notion of watching your kids for what they can handle and what they can’t. Because that I idea of posting the perfect picture – or you know – who engaged with it and who didn’t? It’s not even bullying but can be perceived by a young person is feeling like I didn’t  get as many likes or… AW: The like count thing is huge. NG: Yeah, even if there are comments made, it’s not the same as a conversation. What I used to say with Madeline is that when you interact with a person face to face, they would never engage with you in the way that they did online. And so I think every family is different. They chose to how to how to manage and monitor social media for their kids and their families. I think the idea is just again, to be aware of how much time they’re being spent and how it’s actually impacting them in their behavior, right? Because I don’t know that it’s going to go away. And so we just need to make sure that we equip our kids with the right tools on how to engage and how to live with that in their life. AW: I think it’s a very fair point about it being a personal decision about how you how much you monitor. A couple times I’ve sat down with my kids to go through their phones with them. And actually, based on this conversation now, I will try to do that more frequently, but in a different way. Like we would look at people’s posts and say, Why do you think they did that? NG: Yeah. AW: And yeah, do you think there’s a filter on there? And what do you think their goal? Was it to get likes? Or was it to shame someone else? Or – and I love your point about, they would never say it to your face, but they’ll type it there. NG: Exactly. AW: Yeah, I’ve read two pieces of research recently, like within the last two months, I would say, that are interesting. In this context, one said that for teenagers, there’s a simple correlation between hours spent on social media and depression. Full stop. NG: Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t surprise me. I mean, the statistics are there for sure. And I think not just for kids, right? Even for adults. We’re all subject to using that as a primary form of receiving content. So it’s hard to kind of step away and walk away. The idea of  both my boys go off to wilderness camp in the summer and the idea of not having any device around ….so that they actually learn to communicate and articulate. AW:  imagine! NG: Yeah, like, like for multiple days over a month. It is really actually – it’s really important. It’s fundamental. I think again, another point to be eyes wide open is really to understand the statistics. I mean, even after we lost Madeline, I was astounded by the statistics. So,  one in five kids will struggle, only 25% will get access to care for mental health care, and suicide in youth is the second leading cause of death. And so those statistics are real, right? And they’re horrifying, frankly. And I’m a huge believer that if we don’t help these kids today, we’re not going to have a workforce in the future, right? Or we’re not, because I mean, these are our future, or they’re the future workforce. And I think we, whether it’s the government, corporate Canada, and we in the communities, we have to help these kids make sure that they have the tools and the monitoring,  to make sure that their mental health is stable, for the long term. AW: Right. And I just wanted to add the other research that I read said that children’s anxiety goes up when they have their phone in their room – when they’re trying to sleep. And I felt like, well, again, this is not just kids, adults should have their phone outside of their room. Then you’re not thinking about all the texts or whatever the comments that you’re missing from your friends online. You’re just sleeping. Your phone’s beside you, when you’re in bed. You’re not freaking out. My daughter, when I sent her to bed the other night, she said, Mom, if you could see my phone right now, my friends are all chatting. And I’m like, well, maybe three of the 10 are but they’re exhausted. And frankly, you need the sleep. NG: Yeah. Well, and I think while the utility of a phone is amazing, because it frankly does everything for us – you could do grocery shopping and you can interact with people across the world. And so often we have it by our bedside, right? Whether it’s for your alarm or,  make sure that the older teenagers get home on time and things like that. It’s a challenge. Right? And I think Arianna Huffington has done some great research about how do you shut down in the evening right? It’s more around adults – but I think the same practice lies with the, with our young people to realize what is healthy behavior? I get it used to be – in our day – not watching TV. AW: Right! Exactly. NG: Not falling asleep with the TV on in your room or whatever that is. So I think again, it’s the same kind of behavior is really forcing yourself to decompress without that. So that we can get a healthy sleep and kind of clear the mind of, of any types of anxiety. AW:  what helps me a lot is to remind myself that our jobs when we were teenagers was to push boundaries against our parents and it’s the same thing. Now our kids are pushing. It’s their job to seek access to their phone or to try to stay up later and it’s our job to set boundaries that are healthy for them, right? Mentally and physically? NG: Absolutely right. I find it’s challenging. I know in our family, we had discussions of what is age appropriate to get a phone. Once we got to the third child from him having a phone, it gave us a little bit more independence because we knew that he could not only interact with us, but also with his siblings, if you know they were going somewhere together, what have you, and so… AW:  also taking an Uber! NG: Yeah, exactly. Right. So I get it. Back to you can do anything from your phone. But yeah, the notion of boundaries is really important. But again, I think it comes back to like the articulation of why. It’s not just like, you can’t have your phone after 10 o’clock, or whatever the time is. It’s like really? Let’s talk about it right? Like why does this make sense? Or maybe on a Friday night, it’s okay or whatever that is, because they can sleep in or I’m not sure. Again, but just you have to – each person and each kid is so different. AW: I feel like the question of why is a bit of a meta-theme here, with this discussion. You said earlier, that we should be encouraging our children to come to us when they have issues or challenges. Even if they don’t know why, and then we talked about also when someone’s misbehaving, you shouldn’t just accuse them of being bad. You should question why. Why might they be acting that way? Right? NG: Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. And we always jump to the conclusion or versus really looking at – what are the symptoms?  Is there a rationale? What’s going on? I mean, even for teachers, right, I think, again, schools have to have their rules and the regulations. But not every kid has a diagnosis of anxiety. And I mean, I have a great little story about Madeline. She was in grade nine that she started a new school. The policy was that if you didn’t show up for a test or an assignment, you got zero. And so she had a classroom presentation of which she went to the bathroom because she was having an anxiety attack. So she didn’t show up for the presentation. And so I went into the teacher the next day, not asking for her to … I was really good. I was really asking her, can you bring her in on a one-to-one, let her do the presentation and tell her what she would have gotten? I wasn’t asking her to not give her a zero. And she said, No, she didn’t show up. She gets a zero. And I said, I understand that. But I’m asking you to kind of, throw her a bone. And I said, I said, she was in the bathroom with an anxiety…. She had an anxiety attack. And she said, Well, she didn’t, she didn’t tell anybody. And I said, well, because she’s anxiety, she’s horrified to let anyone know. And she said, Well, she doesn’t have a diagnosis, for anxiety, and I said, and I didn’t actually say this, because I didn’t want to drag her into my life. But I was like, that’s because I’ve been waiting on a waitlist to see a psychiatrist for six months. So I, like, again, it was that vicious notion of a vicious circle again. And just the idea of the empathy to say, I had a kid who’s struggling and she’s not a bad kid, she had an anxiety attack. Why don’t we bring her in and just show her that she’s capable of doing a great presentation or coaching her through it, versus these are the rules, the rules are zero. It was very, it was black or white, and I think, again, and as a parent, I mean, I was sitting there emotionally,  trying to not ask for a bending of the rules for my child, but having a bit of empathy and … AW: so next time she wouldn’t have that anxiety attack because she would know that she could do it! NG: Exactly. But even just knowing like, I’m capable of doing it right. And so again, it’s just the challenge of like, there is a lot more to that story than her just not showing up to do her presentation. AW: Right. NG: And so I think,  we can all we can all work better on that. And give people the benefit of that. AW: So is there anything else you want to add? Especially, I think in terms of parents talking to kids? NG: Yeah. I mean, I think our mission is really to help raise awareness around youth mental health to reduce the stigma, first and foremost. And the second is about creating uninhibited access to care. It’s really kind of breaking down the barriers so that families and their kids can get their  foot in the door. And so, I think coming back to what can all of us do is just be opening the conversation about mental health. When you see somebody acting differently or being off, it’s just to ask, how are they doing? Is everything okay? Right? And to let them know that you’re there for them. You don’t have to be a solution or, but just to know that you’ve got a support system, I think it’s so important. AW: That’s is almost identical to what I heard from the grief counselor, in terms of how to speak, how to support your friend who’s in mourning or who’s grieving – is you don’t have to provide solutions. You don’t have to provide answers. You just need to know that you’re there for them. NG: Exactly. Yeah. It’s amazing. Yeah. AW: Okay. This is a bit of a rude transition. But now, let’s move on to the five rapid fire questions. I hope you can have fun with these. NG: Yeah. AW: Okay. The first question is, what are your pet peeves? NG: Leaving all the cupboard doors open! You walk in the kitchen and all the cupboard doors are open. I think I would go with like the front hall clutter. I can handle it if it’s out-of-sight-out-of-mind from that perspective. And I think committing to your word. So when people sort of say, Well,  I’m going to get together on Friday and then like never deliver on that and they keep rescheduling,… AW: okay, second question. What type of learner Are you visual, auditory kinesthetic, or maybe some other kind of learner? NG: Definitely visual. So I’m a visual, I would say experiential learner, I absorb content and information or just like, especially culturally, when you’re traveling somewhere just like sitting in a space and just really taking it all in. I think for me, I’m very much a visual learner, AW: and how does that affect your communication? NG: It’s interesting because I do a lot of virtual work. So I definitely prefer things like video conference and leveraging that as a form of  virtual meetings and online but more interactive. So work in progress. So rather than waiting for kind of a final result is really having iterative work in a collaborative way. AW: Next question, introvert or extrovert? NG: I was born an introvert, but I’ve been coached to be an extrovert. I would say I remember as a child being incredibly shy, standing almost behind my mother, at family parties and being very, very shy. I think over time just through work, cultural experiences. I’ve kind of I’ve pushed myself to be more extroverted. AW: Well, I’ve seen you on stage behind the podium talking about The Maddie Project, and you are phenomenal. NG: Yeah, when is it when it’s something you’re incredibly passionate about, it comes a lot easier, that’s for sure. I’ll say when you have to stand in front of really anybody to talk about something that is incredibly challenging, it takes a ton of courage and a ton of energy and vulnerability. AW: Right. NG: And so I think that has definitely taught me a lot about who I am, but also understanding that when you have big presentations, particularly around The Maddie Project, that you give yourself some downtime, after the fact. Because I’ve spoken with other parents that have are strong advocates for youth mental health, that have lost their kids, and the level of exhaustion kind of when you come through it. It’s amazing. AW: I can’t do imagine. That would be exhausting. Okay, communication preference for personal conversations? NG: So for me, in person is always the best, of course, otherwise it’s FaceTime. So I use FaceTime a lot a lot. I travel a fair amount, and so I’m not always here. And it’s interesting because even my youngest son won’t text or call, he’ll just FaceTime me. So doesn’t matter what time of day or what have you. It’s just something that is more of his thing. And so definitely… AW: maybe he’s like you and he’s visual as well. Right? NG: Maybe? Yeah, it could be. It could be that, it could be that. AW: Okay, last question. Is there a podcast or a blog or an email newsletter that you find yourself recommending the most? NG: So this one, I would say no. I would call myself a content junkie. I love podcasts, but I really focus on the topics and I have a kind of a broad range, but I actually love and I find myself spending a lot of time listening to podcasts about people talking about their life stories. AW: So autobiographies? NG: Autobiographies, or just famous people or business leaders that are sharing their journeys. And it’s amazing to really see the correlations of people sharing very challenging times in their lives, but they continue to progress and move forward. And so there’s no one podcast per se, but right now, podcasts are my medium of content. I used to run listening to music and now actually I run listening to podcasts. AW: Amazing. So how can listeners connect with you if they want to ask you about The Maddie Project or anything else? NG: Yeah, so we’re almost on every channel online. So things like Facebook, Instagram, AW: not surprising NG: Yeah. And so that’s the best way. We’re small and nimble. So we really try to respond where,  again, really community based. We’re trying to connect people with either resources, or other parents that are going through similar situations, but living true to our mission is that we’re just there. To be of whatever support and offer kind of a listening ear for those that might be struggling. AW: That’s great. Thank you so, so much Nicole, for sharing your story and your insights. I really appreciate it. And I know a lot of people do as well. NG: Yeah. Well, thanks for shining a light on us and on mental health. This has been great.   THANKS for listening – and READING!   Web: https://talkabouttalk.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/talk_about_talk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkingabouttalk/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/TalkingAboutTalk/ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/ Email: Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com            TalkAboutTalk CORE BELIEF: “When we communicate effectively, we can be a better manager, co-worker,  parent, partner and friend.”        TalkAboutTalk BRAND PROMISE: “TalkAboutTalk is the communication learning platform that enriches our relationships and enhances our career success by providing us with knowledge, strategies and confidence.”     ***When referencing resources and products, TalkAboutTalk sometimes uses affiliate links. These links don’t impose any extra cost on you, and they help support the free content provided by TalkAboutTalk. The post #36 Talking YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH with Nicole German, founder of The Maddie Project appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Why is it so difficult to talk about money? Does your family have a budget? Do you have an updated will?  What about a power of attorney?  Listen and learn as experience strategist Kelly Harper shares strategies for talking to your partner, your parents, your children and your friends about money.  PODCAST: https://talkabouttalk.com/35-money References & Links  Kelly Harper LinkedIn:      https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-harper-7638104/ Recommendations: “Daring Greatly” by Brené Brown Colleen Dilanschneider “Know Your Own Bones” Money References Couples and finances https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/budgeting/budget-meeting/?aff_sub2=homepage https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/in-it-together/201807/the-top-4-stressors-couples-today%3famp https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/money-causes-the-most-stress-for-couples-according-to-new-ally-survey-2018-06-12 Talking to Children about Money https://www.daveramsey.com/blog/how-to-talk-to-your-kids-about-money https://www.google.ca/amp/s/childmind.org/article/talking-kids-money/amp/ Wills com co CANADA: https://www.canada.ca/en/financial-consumer-agency/services/estate-planning/resources-estate-law.html ONTARIO: https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/justice-ont/estate_planning.php US: https://www.state.gov/wills-trusts-and-estates/ Talk About Talk & Dr. Andrea Wojnicki Taboo Topics covered by Talk About Talk: Profanity (clean or explicit) Our health & how to talk to your doctor Mortality & supporting our grieving friends How to effectively provide negative feedback Free Weekly Email Blog – https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup Website: https://talkabouttalk.com Facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ Andrea’s email – Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com   Interview Transcript  Dr. Andrea Wojnicki: Thank you so much for joining us here today, Kelly. Kelly Harper: Thank you for having me.   AW: Let’s start with – why is money taboo? KH: So I’m a baby boomer. And if you think about our parents and their generation, there were things you didn’t talk about. My mom would say you didn’t air your dirty laundry in public. And I think money was one of those things, it was kept very private. And so if you’re brought up in a house where money is private, parents aren’t even talking to their kids about that. Now, what’s interesting now is we have this whole shift almost everything we do is public with social media. But that seems to be one of the last things that shifting, and I think it’s doing a lot of harm, because we’re not talking about something that’s really, really important. AW: So as you were describing this, I was thinking she’s right, because things like mental health used to be taboo. And now we’re talking about it, right? KH: right. AW: Things like death. There are books being written explicitly talking about our mortality, and end of life and how we grieve KH: I think Money …and financial literacy and financial education is going to need a bit of a movement where we can feel comfortable talking about it. The mental health example is a great example. AW: Right? So is it because money is kept in our private bank accounts and in our wallets, it’s concealed. So there’s that part of it, there’s the fact that our bank accounts are not on display, the outcome of having money may be on display in terms of where we live, what we drive, how we dress, I’m still not sure the why it’s taboo. KH: It is on display more than it used to be. Whereas in the 50s, and 60s, everything was a little cookie cutter, you didn’t kind of know what was happening behind closed doors. And I think part of it is we’re all looking for validation, and how money has become this symbol of success is maybe one of those pieces of validation that we don’t want to talk about. Because how I value money or success or define that might be differently than how you define that. And so I don’t necessarily want to get into that conversation because I don’t want to be left feeling that I don’t measure up. Or the opposite, I may not want to make someone else uncomfortable because they don’t feel that they measure up. So it cuts both ways, whether you don’t have enough, or you have more than your friends, it becomes sort of a hard bridge to cross. AW: very well put. And I think that you just provided us with so many directions that we could go in, but first, I kind of want to close the loop on the taboo topic. You and I were at a conference recently, an Ensemble conference, where they were talking about the future of wealth and a lot to do with money – and you shared with the audience some research about conversations between parents and kids. Can you talk about that? KH: We did a number of years ago – I was leading financial literacy strategy at BMO Financial Group, and we did a study on financial literacy and education specifically around what we’re you’re talking to your kids about, and 64% of parents who would they would rather talk about Kids about sex than money. It’s like, wow, have things changed, right? That that’s a staggering statistic. And that we also found out that only 47% of Canadians have a budget. I’ve learned that it has nothing to do with gender. It has nothing to do with education. There is a values component to this. I’m convinced you’re either born with a spender or a saver gene. And you can argue nature or nurture – but there’s something about the environment you grew up. A lot of researchers talk about what is that first memory of money that you have. But these are conversations that parents aren’t comfortable having, and I think a lot of it stems from –  if you are not confident, you are not going to want to have that conversation. So if you’ve made mistakes, or if you’re still struggling, you really don’t want to expose that to your kids. You don’t want to you know, be vulnerable to your children… I thought about this a lot. Also, I’m a big fan of Brené Brown, and it’s like when we’re vulnerable. We see sharing our vulnerability of shame. So we need to overcome that fear and start having that conversation. AW: So you said there that 64%, or roughly two thirds of parents would rather talk to their children about sex, which is perhaps one of the more ultimate taboo topics than about money, which is fascinating and frightening. KH: They’re thinking, well, they’re going to get that in school. It’s not part of core curriculum. And to be honest, financial services organizations need to do more. When you see ads for companies like cash money to a young teenager who’s like, Oh, I just need 100 bucks till payday. It’s the worst trap they can fall into because they don’t understand compound interest and what happens when you miss a payment. I always believe it’s a shared accountability between parents, families, educators and financial service institutions to help drive this conversation and create good habits and confidence. AW: So let’s start diving into then the various stakeholders that you just listed there and let’s start first with talking to our kids about money. How can we prepare our kids to be financially responsible? KH: So I think the first thing to do is not assume that it’s too late to start, or I can’t talk about this when my kids are young. So there are different lessons, you teach your kids all the time that are age appropriate. So I’m not talking about explaining compound interest to a five year old, that doesn’t understand fractions. What I am talking about is having conversations that are in the moment. So if you’re grocery shopping, and your kid says, Can we stop at McDonald’s for dinner on the way home? It’s like, well, we could but we’re at the grocery store. And so instead of spending $25, for a family of four to have dinner at McDonald’s, we could buy a whole chicken and we could buy some vegetables for salad and we could eat for probably a couple of meals. Maybe we pick a special dessert to go with dinner instead of the Happy Meal or whatever you’re going to have at McDonald’s. You need to stop Having those trade off conversations early, because at the end of the day, this is about needs and wants. And this is about really understanding, I think some of the trade-offs that we all need to make. I’ve heard stories about kids that went off to university and they’re living in an apartment eventually not outside of a dorm where they don’t have a cafeteria necessarily to eat at and they have to stock their own fridge and they actually don’t know how to grocery shop, because that was always looked after for them. AW: So right. I appreciate that implicit advice even about bringing your kids shopping with you, right. One thing that I’ve done just recently, I started to show my kids on the labels where they have the price per kilogram, the really small writing in there. And so now they think it’s really cool to go in and compare with cereal, for example. KH: I think a lot of the teenagers think that there’s a grocery fairy that just puts the groceries in the cupboard. They just show up. AW: And one of the things that you mentioned there was distinguishing for children between needs and wants. How do you work conversations about that with your children, and when is a good time to start doing that? KH: So I think again, it comes back to what’s age appropriate. So as your kids are getting older and you’re thinking about trade-offs, do you need a new pair of jeans? Or do you want a new pair of jeans and then having that conversation? So why do you want these? Why don’t you like the ones that you have? And maybe you’ll find out in that conversations like, well, I’m getting teased at school because I’m wearing Walmart brand, and all the kids are wearing something else. I don’t even know what fancy jeans are anymore. AW: it changes – it changes all the time. KH: So then have that conversation, but it’s like, okay, so there’s nothing wrong with the pair of jeans that you have, but you want another pair of shoes. So let’s talk about that. And then let’s talk about the trade off, but you also want x, y and z. So which do you want more? And this is our budget for this and how do you have that consultation budget, giving them a budget? And I think what’s interesting as we talked to different stakeholder groups, and as we did research, I said, I find that this isn’t about gender, education, or even how much families make. But I think the conversations actually are harder when families aren’t struggling to make ends meet. Because when you’re struggling to make ends meet, it can be a very honest conversation. It’s like no, I can’t buy new jeans right now because we have to pay the heating bill or the hydro bill. But when you’re not struggling, it’s harder to have that conversation because you yourself are not making those trade-offs. And I think as parents, we want so much for the kids in our lives that we want to be able to give them that and when we can, it’s hard to pull back and not do that without having a conversation about why you might still buy the new jeans. But at least you’ve had a different conversation getting to the new gene, right? AW: So that means we’re not going to order sushi tonight. KH: We’re not having sushi tonight. Or if you could be watching a TV show or a movie where someone is making a choice and say, Hey, what did you think about that? And then just build that into the conversation. Especially with kids. You don’t want this to be heavy. You want this like Oh, Mom, you don’t want the roll of the eyes. And I know I’ve talked a lot, but I just wanted to touch on I went to some research a number of years ago and it talked about the power for children to know they’re being invested in and so and what they commit to school. And so if you’re saving for your kids’ education, and RRSPs, tell them, because they will know that they’re being invested in. Hiding that as a big surprise. “Surprise! We have money for school for you!” is actually not helping. It’s a signal as a parent, you’re investing in your kids. So tell them we’re going to be okay. AW: I think that is absolutely brilliant advice. And I definitely hadn’t heard it before. I hadn’t thought of it. KH: Yeah. Again, back to the whole point that talking money is talking taboo. Why would I talk to my kids about the RRSPs that I have? Right? It was a wow moment for me when I heard it. AW: Yes. And the other sort of positive externality that’s coming out of that is you are explicitly telling your children that you are investing in them.  So related to the topic of taxes, then, let’s move on to beneficiaries and wills. And we’ve all heard the horror stories of people who have a relative who dies in a car accident. Suddenly, and there’s absolutely no will whatsoever or even if there is one, it hasn’t been discussed. Maybe you can share some nightmare stories with us, they will scare people into talking about it? KH:  So the first lesson that I’ve taken away rather recently (I am an executive in the state right now, an estate that I wasn’t expecting to be an executor of.) This is part of being an adult, having a will. Some people think, well, I don’t own a home, I don’t need a will, or I own a home, but I don’t have kids. So I don’t need a will. You need a will. This is part of the adult thing. What a will does, it is a way of telling your family what you want, when you’re not there to speak for yourself. And it could be as small a thing as where you want to be laid to rest. It could be you know, when my nephew was really, really young, and you always look at this book, and we would share this book together. It’s making sure that that person gets that memento. So it’s not even about money, per se thinking about how you want to be remembered how you want that memory to be preserved with the people that love you, they’re really hard conversations to have. My first piece of advice would be to start small. So just it’s almost like having the money conversation and relationships that will talk about start small and kind of know your audience. So you have to have a written will. Okay, there are all kinds of sites online to do wills. We actually just I just heard of a fabulous one called willful recently. There’s all kinds of legal documents that you can get at Staples or online, there are two forms of will in Ontario I can I can’t speak to other provinces, a handwritten will completely handwritten in your own script and signed by you will serve as a valid will in Ontario. And I’ve had that experience with a cousin that had died. A printed-out will that’s not signed or not was witnessed is not going to be valid. So if you use a tool or if you use some sort of template, you need to print it, you need to sign it and it needs to be witnessed by two adults that do not benefit from the will. AW: Otherwise it’s kind of a conflict of interest. KH: Right. They can’t benefit from it.  But this can be very simple and very straightforward. You could do it in word or if you have very simple, you know, wishes or very straightforward estate this is another word estate. People think estate is, you know, a sprawling acreage home. And the estate is everything you own. The government will take its share –  so unless you have those documents, the government takes … it can’t be probated, and they start taking a chunk of everything. AW: So what I’m hearing then is that when you have a will, that you’re really doing yourself a favor because you’re ensuring that your legacy is what you want it to be. There’s also the benefit though to everybody else that’s involved – the family and close friends of you when you’re gone. KH: There’s so many emotions, there’s so many difficult things happening. Are there children involved? I mean, there’s an emotional loss . And so the more that you can think of, and write down and share your wishes, … The last thing that your loved ones have to think about doing are those things and they can be, as I said, they can be small or big things. And so it is the gift that you give to those that you love – having a will. AW: I think you’ve convinced me. KH: And so a number of years ago, I had a good friend of mine come to me and say, my wife, and I are updating our will. And they have three kids, and they said, If something happens to us, we’d like you to take care of the kids. And I was like, really? Since it can be awfully crowded in my one bedroom apartment. And he’s like, No, no, the money comes to the kids. I’m like, okay, and I said, I’ll do it on one condition: that you tell your family that that’s what you’re doing a decision like that, that is so important. Even if you’ve written it down. Again, it’s emotional. Well, why isn’t it me? Why isn’t it them? Why is it you know, someone outside the family? So that was my one stipulation. And you know, they’re happy and healthy and their kids are wonderful. It was it was a difficult conversation, I know, for them to have and it was a difficult conversation for them to have with their family. But that was really important to them. And then as you start getting into parents that are divorced and you know, second families.  It becomes more and more complicated. AW: And probably therefore then more and more important. KH: Yes, right. Exactly. AW: I like your advice about making sure that all of the potential involved are communicated with in advance? KH: There is no more formal reading of the will…  you know:  we’re all going to get together in the lawyers office and we’re going to read the will … what do you mean that happened? It rarely happens like that anymore. But there’s still could be a real surprise for some people that could again, create tension and anxiety in a period that’s so emotionally difficult already. And it’s easy to say, Well, I won’t be there to manage it. But that’s a copy of it … AW: That’s a cop out! KH: If you love your family, it’s a gift. AW: Let’s move to another stakeholder than and specifically talking to your partner. So it could be who pays the monthly bills, who does the investing, what is disclosed, should we have separate accounts or joint accounts, who has access,… but then also longer term planning. I’m sure you’ve heard horror stories. KH: Financial stress is one of the number one stressors. Seven out of 10 couples will say it’s their biggest stressor in their relationship. AW: So 70%? KH:  70% say it’s a significant tension in their relationship. It’s still I think, often cited as one of the number one reasons for divorce. And again, it might not be the ultimate reason, but it creates other tension and other stress. And it’s often about back we talked earlier, the different values and how you manage money. And so I think when you think about having that conversation, it’s like what we talked about with kids, you’re not going to have a complicated mortgage conversation with a five year old. You’re not necessarily on a third date going to jump into some of these topics that for some people are kind of heavy conversations to have as the relationship develops and matures. Can we deepen that conversation? So early days, you know, you can start looking for cues, does your new partner want to go out all the time, and not stay at home? Or going to lavish restaurants? What’s their tipping behavior? So start having conversations about, well, what vacations do you like to take? How do you like to spend your time and that’ll sort of gauge and again, they’re awkward conversation. So you kind of you kind of wade into it like a pool, you don’t dive into the deep end, right? AW: If you’re on like a second or third date, and you’re not sure – you want to ask them about their financial expectations. It’s kind of the same. You hear about couples hinting that … “so do you want to have kids someday?”, right? KH: Yes, exactly. Going humming along, like everything’s great. And then later, well, let’s buy a house. And it’s the first time we’re at the bank and our credit scores are on the table exposed in front of us. It’s like, honey, you didn’t tell me about that credit card, or I didn’t know that that happened. And it’s bad. It’s back to the shame and the vulnerability of maybe we’ve made mistakes. AW: Is there a list of conflict triggers? specific, financially related topics that couples may disagree on, so there could be the extent to which you’re comfortable with debt or that you are in Debt right then there’s your relative affluence. What are some other things that couples may get into arguments about? KH: Part of it is just your outlook on saving and planning. A lot of Canadians don’t plan. And this is why retirement planning is so hard because one it’s if you’re in your 30s or 40s, or if it’s like it’s so far away, so many people that you know, are entrepreneurs or they started a second career later in life and they’re moving towards something different that this notion of retirement is even changing to think about planning and visioning. Well, what do you want? Like what do you want our life to be in five years to do? AW: Never mind 20 years? KH: Never mind 20 years – like do we want to go on vacation next year? Okay, so there are two ways to pay for that. We can save or you know, we’re just going to put it on our credit card and kind of run the numbers when you see the numbers on paper. They don’t lie. There was a great Sex in the City episode where Carrie was trying to buy a condo and she realized that she had $40,000 worth of shoes in her closet and that was a down payment on a condo! AW:  That perfectly relates to the next question that I was just thinking that I was going to ask. We’ve heard of this high-low thing. And I think it was Sharon Stone who went to the Academy Awards wearing an Armani suit with a Gap t shirt. KH: Yeah, yes. AW: And it was the high low. People often have something that they love to indulge in. I know people that aren’t particularly affluent, but who will spend a lot of money on wine, they’ll have a wine cellar in the basement. And that’s just their thing. I can imagine that particular thing that people spend their money on could cause conflict in relationships, right, especially if it’s not shared, if it’s not a shared passion. KH: And so I think it comes back to – we tend to have long term relationships with people that we share values with, and money and how you manage money really is one of those values. I believe very much in Yours, Mine and Ours, and it’s like that’s your money and you can spend your money however you want. We have our bucket for our shared goals. And then I know have mine as well talk to me about how that work. Almost every bank today makes it easy. We all do online banking; it’s probably cost virtually nothing to set up. So set up a system. So use the tools that are out there. It’s amazing when you even start tracking your expenses. And I know I’m jumping around here, but some people don’t even know where they spend their money. And because we’re in a plastic society, and debit is so peripheral and Apple Pay. We don’t even have a sense of how much money we’re spending. And at the end of the month, you see where you spent your mistake. Wow, I did not realize that’s where all my money went. AW: So that’s kind of what I was saying at the very beginning. Part of the reason that money may be taboo, and maybe it’s actually becoming more taboo, because it’s becoming even more invisible. We don’t have the paper and the coins in our wallet anymore necessarily. KH: Just track your spending, go to your credit card at the end of the month, and oh, Amazon, audible. What are all these Apple pays, you’ll be surprised where all the money’s going. AW: I agree with your point, though about it becoming on one hand, maybe easier to track because of all these apps but your point was, it’s also more difficult to track when I look at my visa bill at the end of the month, a big part of it is Amazon but they don’t actually say what it is KH: Right! AW:  And I’m just oh my gosh! I don’t know if it’s groceries and some of its clothing some of its household stuff. There’s no distinguishing it there. KH: So this is why I’m happy we still have an LCBO because it says LCBO on the credit card. And it’s not mixed in with my grocery. AW:  That’s funny! What about with our parents? (and I think the big one here is wills.) We want to make sure that their wishes in fact become a reality, right?  Should we broach that? How do we broach that? KH: It is still for your parents about protecting what they’ve built, as well as giving you some peace of mind. But there are three things that are really important. There needs to be a will they need to have a power of attorney. So a power of attorney for personal and a power of attorney for medical decisions. Okay. The power of attorney for medical decisions is if your parent or parents one on one Both of them are incapacitated and can’t make medical decisions that you decide who will make medical decisions for them. Again, these are emotional conversations, but generally that you only have to have at once. So sit down after dinner and say, you know, let’s carve out some time when we talk about a couple of these things. And your parents might have it, you don’t even know that they have it. And all you need to say is great. When was the last time you looked at it? Are you still really comfortable with it, and that’s great. You don’t necessarily need to know the details. The medical one kind of helps because especially you think about blended families. So the second one, the power of attorney for personal care is if your mom can’t sign her signature anymore, or they have some what a lot of spouses do today, which helps with that as they have joint bank accounts. So they also think your parents might think well, everything we have is joint and Everything I have is going to your mother and everything your mother has is going to me, so we don’t need these things. Well, it’s fine when the first one goes when the second one goes, you still need those things. So even if you never need the power of attorney it helps to have on because it becomes very hard later, if there’s any change to get one of those things done, and they’re super easy to do, they don’t cost any money to do. AW:  So be proactive, again, proactive? KH: you can find these forums online and just go in and have that conversation and then the will with your parents. Again, it’s the same thing for them. What’s more important is how do you minimize tax that the estate may have to pay? And you just want to know that your parents are setup and if they don’t want to talk about the details. AW:  What if they don’t want to talk about the details? KH:  I think you have to be honest first with yourself about why do you want to know the details like I want to know so that I don’t need to worry about it. I won’t be stressed about it, because I’m going to be stressed about enough or be that I’m confident that we haven’t missed anything and see just because so I can plan as well. Just like as we talked about having a having a will it’s like a gift to your families, the same with your parents. It just gives everyone some peace of mind and then also know what’s kind of coming down the road so that arguments will come up, you’ll be able to focus on the memorializing and the great memories you have. They’re actually now mobile notary services. It’s a great idea. I wish there was a notary that they’ll come to your house. So bring your Little staff don’t meet you at Starbucks. So again, it doesn’t have to be difficult to do. You don’t need a lawyer to do it. AW:  Okay, so we’ve now covered talking to our children, talking to our partners and now talking to our parents. So the next stakeholder that I’d love to cover is when we’re talking to friends about money, particularly when our friends’ relative affluence differs from ours. And I know you have some interesting perspectives. KH: Oh, that’s that one’s really hard. I think I talked about Brené Brown. And when we share our vulnerability, it feels like shame to us, but others see it as courage. It’s really hard to tell your friends that you can’t afford to do something when for them. It’s easy to do. And my experience is that most people at some point or another had been through something similar in life positions, like hey, do you remember when you were in college and we couldn’t all go out and so we would stay home and just have a really fun house party because it was too expensive to go out. Things are a little tight like to think we could do that next time. And I’m happy to host at my place instead of going out for dinner …and have that conversation, because it’s hard, so bringing it up to your friends is really, really hard. But I think if you’re there, your friends are going to understand. And I think having that conversation is really important when you’re talking to your kids as well. Sometimes they don’t want to admit that they can’t do things with that their friends are doing. And so if you can sort of role model that behavior and sort of share that, it’s back to just we have to, like lift the lid off all this taboo, but I really do believe that if your friends or your friends are going to understand and they may also say, Wow, we didn’t know! Don’t worry about it. It’s okay. AW:  What about the other way around? What if your friends wins the lottery, like oh my god, I’m so jealous that happened to them. Or now you have all the money and your friends don’t have the money. KH: If you’re the other way around. I think you need to be sensitive that not everyone may have the cash flow that you do that you do, right, and kind of be sensitive and again, look for cues, but even that’s hard sometimes because we’re all keeping up with the Joneses. Right? AW:  it seems like common sense. But to be honest, I’ve seen people be incredibly insensitive. And they’re otherwise caring people, but they forget. Everything’s relative, right? KH: And we become a victim to our lifestyle, and we make assumptions about how other people live. That’s where gratitude comes in and being fortunate for what you have. AW:  nicely put. Okay, now I’m going to move on to the five rapid fire questions that I ask every guest. So you ready? KH: I’m ready. AW:  First question, what are your pet peeves? KH: People that don’t say thank you. It can be a thank you wave when I’m driving. Or if I hold the door open if someone doesn’t say thank you. Basic manners. AW:  manners? KH: manners. AW:  Okay, question number two, what type of learner are you? KH: I’m a visual learner. I like storytelling. I like to be able to see something and I still write a lot of things down because it’s the act of writing it and seeing it that helps me remember it. So I think that falls into visual learning. AW:  Visual, and also if you’re writing it, sometimes can be kinesthetic, too. KH: Yes. AW:  Number three, introvert or extrovert. KH: So I’m an extrovert. But I actually sit in the middle. AW:  I think most people do. KH: And there is a spectrum and you’re not one or extreme. You’re just in the middle. And so I am fine. You know, networking, going out and meeting new people, but then sometimes I just like to stay at home. AW:  Okay, question number four: communication preference for personal conversations? KH:  I love text now, because I’ve never been a chatty, chatty on the phone – for a long time. AW:  Last question, is there a podcast or a blog or an email newsletter that you find yourself recommending the most? KH: Brené Brown. I actually have a tattoo that says daring greatly. AW:  Wow. And that was from her Daring Greatly book – when I turned 50. I wanted to make some changes in my life. And I chose to take that on as a mantra and all kinds of things changed my life, all for the positive. It’s been really amazing. For work. There’s a researcher, her name is Colleen Dilanschneider, and she has a company called know your own bones. She does this great research on why people go to attractions and museums, simple things like that. And it’s very cool. AW:  Okay, yeah, I’ll put links to those in the show notes. KH: Thank you. AW:  Any last advice? We’re talking about money and relationships and communicating about money? Is there anything else you want to add?  KH: I would just add, don’t think that you’re the only one. I think if we find ourselves stuck or, or we’re afraid to start the conversation, there are probably others in the room or others in your circle of friends or family that feel the same way. And so take a bit of a leap of faith. It’s work, you know, adulting is hard. AW:  Adulting is hard. KH: Adulting is hard. You know, when we were teenagers in our 20s, like, Oh, it looks so easy. It’s like, this is hard. It’s hard work. Relationships are hard work. Work is hard. You know, managing all these things. Money is hard. AW:  Money is hard. Thank you very, very much for your time, Kelly. KH: You’re welcome. My pleasure.   THANKS for listening – and READING! Web: https://talkabouttalk.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/talk_about_talk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkingabouttalk/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/TalkingAboutTalk/ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/ Email: Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com      TalkAboutTalk CORE BELIEF: “When we communicate effectively, we can be a better manager, co-worker, parent, partner and friend.        TalkAboutTalk BRAND PROMISE: “TalkAboutTalk is the communication learning platform that enriches our relationships and enhances our career success by providing us with knowledge, strategies and confidence.”         ***When referencing resources and products, TalkAboutTalk sometimes uses affiliate links. These links don’t impose any extra cost on you, and they help support the free content provided by TalkAboutTalk. The post #35 LET’S TALK ABOUT MONEY with Kelly Harper, experience strategist appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Lessons from the Improv comedy stage can help us improve our communication skills! Comedians Sandy Marshall and Sandy Jobin-Bevans share their expertise – and a few laughs – including playing the scene you’re in, the beauty of mistakes, knowing your audience, testing your audience, “YES-AND,” burning a suggestion, and more! Whether you’re pitching for business, interviewing for a new job, or talking to your kids, these improv lessons can make you a more effective communicator. Thank you Sandy & Sandy!   References & Links Sandy Jobin-Bevans Twitter: https://twitter.com/SandyJBevans Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sandyjbevans/ Sandy Marshall Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarshallSandy Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marshallsandy/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandymarshall/ Other References Norman Howard (their firm) – https://www.normanhowardco.com/ Second City – https://www.secondcity.com/ Essentialism by Greg McCowan (book) – https://amzn.to/33oZTTT Talk About Talk & Dr. Andrea Wojnicki Free Weekly Email Blog – https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup Website: https://talkabouttalk.com Ep.22: FUNNY TALK with comedian & professor Hillary Anger Elfenbein – https://talkabouttalk.com/22s2-funny-talk-with-stand-up-comedian-business-school-professor-hillary-anger-elfenbein/ Ep28: CHANGE MANAGEMENT with professor & author Ellen Auster – https://talkabouttalk.com/28-communicating-change-with-ellen-auster/ Facebook Group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ Andrea’s email – Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com   Interview Transcript Dr. Andrea Wojnicki: Sandy and Sandy, thank you so much for joining us here today. Sandy Jobin-Bevans: Well, thanks for having us. Sandy Marshall: Thank you, Andrea. It’s good to be here. AW: Let’s start off for people that maybe don’t have context. And can I ask you, Sandy Marshall to describe what is improv comedy? SM: Improv comedy? I’m going to start and answer. And then I want to hear what Sandy says. I would say improv comedy, at its core, is about listening and thinking on your feet. Improvisation is an art form. It’s been around for quite some time in comedy. Improvisation really is thinking on your feet and being agile and building on what someone else is saying. SJ-B: Yeah, I think that’s a good distinction. It doesn’t have to necessarily be comedic to be effective. You’d be an improviser that’s using improv techniques and not have to be funny. Our background is in the comedy side of it. AW: So if I was to go to an improv comedy show, can you share with the listeners just how that would unfold? SM: Sure. Yeah, I probably would have a host who would come out on stage Welcome, everybody. Hopefully that person would not say “How’s everybody doing tonight?” Cuz they might actually be truthful. SJ-B: Okay, yeah, Bill Hicks used to say as a stand up comic, he used to say that when you say How’s everybody doing tonight, you just wasted three seconds of your time on stage. So don’t –  just assume everyone’s okay. AW: So actually, when I was learning to do podcast interviews, someone said, Don’t ever ask people on mic how they are. And I’ve noticed since then very few interviewers on the radio – you rarely hear them say, how are you? But every now and then you hear an inexperienced person say, How are ya? SJ-B: Nooooo- it’s an unnecessary moment. SM: That’s right. Yeah. So the host would come out, SJ-B: back to the back of the show. AW: awkward silence! SJ-B: That’s right. Yeah. SM: So if you’re seeing an improv show, it may consist of, you know, a series of improvised scenes or monologues or songs with an ensemble of somewhere between three and six or seven people on a stage. Sometimes the scenes themselves are much longer, some are shorter. There are distinctions in improvisation between long form and short form. So get to the joke quicker, you know, beginning middle and end. In some cases, there’s a long form, it’s a little more like jazz, it might be a longer scene. Really the show consists of a group of people making everything up on the spot based on a suggestion from the audience. SJ-B: Yeah. And when the show goes well, people often watch it and say, that had to be planned, because it was so good, it had to be planned. And when the show goes bad, they never want to see a comedy show again. So the best thing I think that can happen to you is that you can have, say you had six scenes in a night, five are great and one’s terrible. So they realize that they couldn’t have planned all that because you wouldn’t want that terrible scene. Yeah, it’s very true if it’s too good, and sometimes it’s detrimental. So it’s a strange thing, AW: because then people think it’s ,,, SJ-B: Oh, it’s planned. It has to be planned. There’s no way you guys just thought of that in your on your own. Yeah. AW: I think that fact about something being too consistently good, affects a lot of contexts. It just reminded me when people write a recommendation online, for example, there’s research that shows that if they’re glowingly positive and they refuse to say anything negative about it, then people discard it. And they say it’s not credible. If you just have to say one little thing and it’s kind of like: five out of six, awesome improv skits? That was real. SJ-B: Right, right. You were talking about a resort and you’re like the beach was amazing. The food was amazing. But there were not enough towels. Yeah, I believe it. AW: Yeah. So when you first described or defined improv comedy, the first word that came out of your mouth actually made me very happy. It was listening. People have asked me, What do you think is the number one most critical communication skill? and if I had to choose, it would be listening. So hopefully we can we can build on that a little bit, when we get into the section where we talk about improv skills. As you were also defining improv, I was wondering, are the three to six people on the stage – are they competing? Are you competing with the other comedians? SJ-B: Well, the whole idea of becoming an improviser is that you wouldn’t be competing because we always talk about we’ve got your back or a we always talk about being others-focused as well. So if you’re making other people look good, that’s a huge skill we have as improvisers I think if you’re competing, it’s a good idea to go be a stand up. And I think that’s definitely a different atmosphere. Certainly there are people who become pretty competitive on stage, but then the end up just doing lots of scenes alone. SM: It’s very true. Yeah. SJ-B: It shouldn’t be like that. The great shows are when everybody’s there to look out for the other people that are on stage. AW: Well, it sounds like fun actually. SJ-B: It is. It is very fun. That takes time to become a very good improviser. But it doesn’t take much time to go to an improv class and just start. People have a blast doing it. And you know, we teach a lot of corporate improvisation and teach improv skills to a lot of big companies. And that’s the first thing – they’re very trepidatious and then they realize, oh, we’re laughing we’re having a good time. AW: So did you take classes on improv? SJ-B: Personally, I was in Winnipeg, and I was studying to be a high school history teacher. A friend of mine was saying, well, we have an improv and sketch troupe and one guy can’t make it could you improvise in the show tonight? I had never improvised my entire life and taken a class never done it – never. And he’s like, you seem pretty funny. And I did in front of a paying crowd of like 300 people and that was my first time ever improvising, and I didn’t take a class until six or seven years later. When I got to Second City, they were like: you should take class. Please just to learn the terms we use. AW: You didn’t know the vocabulary? SJ-B: No, not at all. So I was like, okay, AW: so what is some of the vocabulary? SM: I’d say like a core tenet is the phrase YES AND. So, using the word yes to build on an idea that somebody else is offering something. You might say it’s his initiation, or an offering and an improv scene, you know, things like callbacks or edits or support. There’s a thing that every improviser does before a show and they’ll say got your back. So before the group goes on stage. Everybody’s backstage getting ready to go on with a lot of confidence, a lot of energy. Just a quick moment where everybody, one-on-one says, got your back, got your back, got your back and something we don’t really see in everyday life as well. As Sandy said, we work with businesses or groups, you can tell pretty quickly if a group does have each other’s back or doesn’t. But in the improv world, when you’re doing a show, ideally, you’re going out and you’re really focusing on how can you best listen, work with your fellow improvisers and get each other’s back, and then have fun along the way. Because if you’re not having fun, the audience definitely is not going to be having fun. SJ-B: No, and they’re the first ones to notice when things are going wrong. The audience knows something’s wrong … The other thing is offers. Offers are things that you’d make a suggestion in a scene. So an offer should be accepted. The YES AND  side of it is: yes is I heard your offer,  I use your offer and then and is I build on that offer. Offers are a big terminology. AW: So you don’t literally say the word offer on stage? SJ-B: No. That’s just what we call it. I made an offer and you didn’t accept it or I made an offer. It was great that you accepted it would be something you talk about after the show. The thing about coming from out West was we had all these other terms like pimping. So pimping is when you say to somebody, okay, now you’re going to sing a song – so you make somebody else do the thing you don’t want to do. And in Winnipeg we used to call it shivving each other like a jailhouse term. You got shivved. Thanks for shivving me in the back with that. AW: So in the shownotes, and I’m gonna have to have a list of the vocabulary terms that we’re learning. I just have to say, there’s been now probably at least three times in just in the last couple minutes, where you guys have said things where I’m like, wouldn’t it be nice if we acted like that at work and wouldn’t it be nice if that was the kind of camaraderie that we had before we went into a big brainstorming meeting, or we went into even a board meeting? SJ-B:  yeah, it’s more like don’t screw this up, John, Rather than, I’ve got your back. AW: It’s like, it may be the competition thing, right versus the we’re in this together. SJ-B: When we teach improvisational skills to people that are generally in business, they tend to pick up things and go, Okay, let’s make it easier for each other. When we do like pair exercises. Salespeople tend to go, “I tried to make it hard for Steve and Steve figured it out. But I just kept making it hard for him!” It is very competitive. They’re trying to make it too… They’re trying to mess each other up. They’re often trying to find: how do I win this particular exercise? When you’re not really supposed to win them, but they do look for it. They look for the way to win an improv exercise. AW: Like I’m the funniest and you look like an idiot. SJ-B: Yeah, I just make you look bad. They have the opposite idea of how improv works. SM: A lot of that comes from fear as well. I think too, right? So if in the boardroom or onstage people aren’t naturally supportive, there’s always something else going on. Improv can be a real metaphor towards where somebody is on the day. And early on in improv classes, one of the things we do teach students is that this is a safe space to be confident to take chances. And in life, we don’t always hear that, especially in the business world. If you’re new to a company and you’re getting on board and you might hear, we really want you to take chances and help you know, those thinking new ideas and may not be a company that walks the walk with that, right? Somebody might confidently share some ideas and quickly get shut down, right? So you really have to walk with that. And as you’re trying to be an improviser, one of the first skills you need to really develop is confidence and being confident to speak in public, confident to take chances in front of total strangers in an audience of people that have paid money to be there. So in that scenario, you really can only rely on the support of your fellow improvisers to get your back and that helps continue to breed more confidence. But when you’re seeing that competition or people pimping each other – in some cases, it’s just kind of in good fun. Because everybody’s been doing this a long time. It’s kind of a fun way to mess with each other. In most cases, it can be about fear or lack of confidence or something. AW: Yes, and I’m sure when that kind of stuff happens on stage, there’s reciprocity right away. SM: Yeah, yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. In some cases, like in the in the business world. If you hear people get shut down in meetings, something I often think of it, it’s okay, whatever, you’ll be okay, where you don’t take it personally or more like, you’ll be okay, yeah. SJ-B: I want to say one thing though, I’ve actually taught an improv class at a company. So what we try to do when we’re teaching these improvisational skills to businesses is – you can’t have anybody in the room that’s not in the workshop. So you can have someone standing on the side with a clipboard, or like they –  they tried to do it, they often try to do sit on the sides. AW: They’re curious? SJ-B: I want to watch all these people actually in this scenario, and then sort of started analyzing how these people are in our company. So that’s not a very comfortable way to jump into an improv thing. And I actually had a client a couple years ago who I said, look, nobody can just be standing on the side. They have to be involved. I know you’re probably gonna make judgments, these people are going to still make judgments. They’re gonna be involved and be there. And he said, Oh, yeah, no problem, no problem. He showed up the workshop and walked up, shook my hand said, “nothing I could do. These four are going to watch.” So he ambushed me. Totally changed the tone of the room, because there’s now 20 people going, am I gonna keep my job because I made a bad offer as an improviser? So they do try to sneak in.  I even had a scenario where I was teaching, the guy got fired. He got fired because his offers. They didn’t like them. And the person in the class was secretly grading people basically, and just said they would come in. And it was like Ted’s not here anymore. AW: Wow. SJ-B: Yeah. AW: Wow. So basically what was happening there was their objective was completely different from what you thought the objective was.  You thought it was improvisational skills. SM:  Yeah. AW: That they could then translate into real life and real work. And they were: let’s put them in this awkward situation and see who thinks and who swims. SJ-B: That’s exactly what they’re doing. And they just thought like, Ted’s had enough warnings. He’s gone. So that was really weird and shocking, because now everyone the next day, second day was like on edge because he’s not there anymore. AW: Is this Survivor? SJ-B: Exactly. So that’s the completely wrong attitude to have when you’re bringing improvisers in to teach communication skills or storytelling or things like innovation. It’s like, you know, someone didn’t innovate properly. They’re fired. That’s not the right message for sure. AW: Or they didn’t brainstorm properly. You know, they say there are no bad ideas. Well, actually, there are bad ideas. SJ-B: Yeah, there’s that one idea Ted brought. SM: The funny thing about building on the one idea. Funny thing about that is, oftentimes that idea is the germ for the solution everybody was looking for, but they just didn’t see it in that context on that day. And improvisers going through training programs will often say, I didn’t get a lot of stage time. Yeah, you know, and you’re like, that’s okay. Like, not everybody gets us. There’s nobody gets the equal amount of stage time you go to an improv show. Back to your earlier question. You won’t see everybody play equal number of crazy characters every night. You’ll see some people surprisingly, play a lead a lot. And some people play support, just because that’s a natural evolution of those scenes. I can remember there was one audition way back in the day, where there were a couple of people who quickly took center stage. And I was like, Well, I guess I’m just going to sweep the floor. And I ended up getting the gig because I was just the sweep the floor guy in the background and wasn’t trying to compete, but it was… AW: Were you literally sweeping the floor? SM:  With a with a mimed broom. Mimed. But I gotta say it. I gotta say the mimed broom: that gets to object work. That’s more terminology. You’re asking me about what that would be called object work They’re objects that don’t exist. AW:  So that was gutsy though! SM: Yeah. SJ-B: Yeah. But you stood out by taking a backseat. SM: Yeah. AW: But you were also demonstrating that you are engaged. I love how this is going back and forth between what is only appropriate on the improv stage, then what is only really appropriate in the boardroom and understanding about the kind of implicit or tacit communication that’s going on amongst employees, right? So you need to know your audience. SJ-B: You do really need to know your audience, which is a big part of what we’re instructing, when you’re talking improvisers for sure. And it’s like, that’s the skill that people learn when they’re doing storytelling or presentation skills. Knowing your audience is so much different, right. AW: So there’s knowing them in advance. SJ-B: Yeah AW: Being prepared, right? And then there’s also getting to know as you’re performing? SJ-B: Absolutely, you can test an audience as you’re doing it. There’s some simple ways to test an audience. While you’re doing it. Swear once. See how that goes. Maybe do something like, maybe something that pushes the sexual envelope. See how that goes. Try certain things to do. AW: So go through the taboos one by one? SJ-B: Oh yeah, you just like you can filter through like four or five pretty quickly in the show. Now you can see where the audience is and where they want to go, where they don’t want to go. Because if it’s a random theater crowd, you don’t know they are until they arrive. AW: I was watching some standup on the weekend. I think it was Kevin Hart. And he said, you know, the thing about going on stage is: everybody there wants to laugh. Well 99%? SM: Yeah. SJ-B:  Yeah, right. AW: Well, there’s probably 1% that really is just trying to shoot you down and heckle you. SJ-B: That’s a big part of being a performer is definitely to accept that the audience wants you to succeed. It’s just like going to an audition too. If you go to audition, the casting director wants you to succeed, because that’s makes their job a lot easier. They can pick somebody who’s going to be great. AW: I tell that to my kids, when they’re going to tryouts. The coaches want you guys to kick butt so – go. SJ-B: Makes their job easier. SM: And also when you’re casting, you don’t want to sit there all day and see everybody not do well.  You want to see them rock and kill it. So you want to create that environment where they’re set up to succeed. They know it’s a safe place. And you’re like, even though small little moments when somebody is coming into a casting session, or an audition ago, hey, Andrea, we’re glad you’re here today. You good? Okay. Great, have fun. It’s cool. You sweated about this audition or this scenario for at least a week, if not two, you’ve talked to 10 other people about it. There’s a lot of pressure in the industry about what this specific moment could be. But let’s put that aside and just know, hey, we’re just in this room on this day, and hopefully, you can have fun and, you know, maybe it moves forward. And if not, then maybe we’ll see you next time when it’s all good. You know, because you don’t want to be – I think in those moments, there’s this like, industry perception around the crazy audition or it’s all this pressure and that and there is. But a lot of it doesn’t need to be there. And the people who are auditioning in those scenarios or casting. They don’t want people to be in their heads or SJ-B: No. But I would say the worst audience is if it’s your ex girlfriend, so that’s bad. AW:  Did that happen to you? SJ-B: if you have ex girlfriends, boyfriends, ex husbands, wives… Well, yeah, for sure. And then you can tell when there’s people in the audience that just hate you. So they’re like, they just want you to be terrible. AW: Can you share any details? SJ-B: I only would just say like, I’ve had the experience of like, you are performing sketches or improv after your ex girlfriend’s troupe has been on and they’ve been terrible. AW: Oh – she’s a comedian too? Oh – bad! SJ-B: Yeah. And I’ll go on stage media to Yeah, and then you go on stage and it’s just like, they’re like, just arms crossed, like I hate this. So there are definitely those kind of scenarios where this person can’t stand me. They are here to watch me fail. They just definitely happen. AW: So then the analogy, then back to the boardroom. Yeah, is the guy that goes up to do the pitch. And then he leaves the room and his colleague goes in to give a different pitch, and only one of the pitches is going to be accepted. Right. And so it’s a zero sum game and the thing about comedy though, is that it’s not a zero sum game. You can laugh at everybody. SJ-B: Yeah, yeah. SM: Yeah.  That’s true. SJ-B: Unless they broke up with you and then I just keep circling back to that. It was a long time ago. I remember this, but that did come back to me. That is an example of a bad audience member. SM: And somebody who’s out to get you –  also to your point, if you’re able to laugh at everybody. You have to start by laughing at yourself and be able to look in the mirror and go, Hey, like, I’m not perfect. I’m kind of giving it all and having a lot of fun in this scenario, and if people are doing that, they’re like, okay, I can do that as well. AW: So there’s balancing that you said before – confidence, right? So there’s balancing the confidence with also not being too full of yourself. SM: For sure. The confidence piece is: I’m confident in being imperfect and flawed and I will make a ton of mistakes, and I’m gonna have a lot of fun along the way. And if you want to come along for the ride, that’s cool. SJ-B: And the audience appreciates that for sure. the honesty of like, I made a mistake. I don’t want to own it. AW: So they say self-deprecation. It’s kind of like low hanging fruit in stand up? SJ-B: Sure. I would agree with that. For sure it is. The greatest stories are how bad the audition went. And that’s the story you tell at the bar, right? And my wife’s an actor too. And often when she’s about to do an audition or callback or something, I’ll say, look, either have a great audition or have a great story. Just come home with something. So come back happy or come back. I gotta tell you what happened. It was so brutal. AW: You are going to be quoted on that.  That is so beautiful. SJ-B: So much fun to have a bad audition story when it goes wrong and it’s just gold. Gold. Yeah. AW: So and then the analogy there is when you go to do a job interview, right, and you either get the job or you have a good story. SJ-B: because that’s exactly it. That is an audition. It’s a job interview every single time. SM: So when you’re pitching business to use that is a contextual tie-in to improv and all this stuff we’re talking about – With pitching the business, if you’re pitching a new client, as an example, people want to see you be able to react to questions out of nowhere, think on your feet, they don’t want to see a deck for 100 slides. That’s the know your audience piece, no more than 10 slides. But they also want to know, hey, if we ask you a stumper question, or if, you know, Carol, the main boss, comes in at the last half hour, I don’t know where that you’re going to be okay. And that’s where the improv training comes in. We’re kind of in a boardroom. Like, you know, if you’re pitching business in the boardroom, and you’ve already improvised, there’s really not a lot that’s going to be potentially worse than some of these crazy situations or scenarios because it’s in an office in a protected environment. With rules and regulations. AW:  But sometimes it is high stakes and it’s got the adrenaline going and I think … you’re getting presentations and people are firing questions at you … SJ-B: But as improvisers we often say to play the scene you’re in, not the one you want to be in. We say you play the scene you’re in not the one you want to be in. AW: That’s a great mantra or quote as well. I love that. I love that! So and it’s also at a meta level, right? It’s the scene you’re in like, what is your life or what is your job, right? Yeah, but then there’s also I was actually thinking you were gonna say something about your kid who you thought was a goody-goody in a straight-laced A+, comes into your house –  stoned.  You have to play the scene you’re in. SJ-B:  Yeah, right. You can’t say like, you should be this or I thought you were this. Exactly that’s exactly it. Or it’s like, you know, you’re in this great scenario for parents. Your kid comes up, says I’m gay. Play the scene you’re in, and not the one you want to be in. Right. So it was kind of scenarios or I don’t want to go to college –  play the scene you’re in. SM: That’s a great point and tying the play the scene you’re in piece, along with what you’re saying, Andrea, about answering tough questions or being in a corporate scenario or being in the hot seat. There’s another piece of lingo which is really simple. A phrase called Thank you, which we use all the time, where if a tough question comes up, and … say you’re pitching business, and if somebody asks you a really tough question, you go, thanks for the question. That immediately defuses any sort of anxiety you might have just by a little bit. It gives you two seconds to think about your answer. And it also tells the group, you’re cool with it. It just level sets everything. It’s a little piece of jujitsu in those high pressure situations. Let you go, let’s you say, Oh, thanks for that. Okay. Well, here’s what I think. AW:  I think you gotta be careful with the tone though, the way you’re saying it is very, like great, right? SJ-B: Thank you, Diane. Wow, okay. Wow, thank you for that I was in a flow, but you’ve just stopped it for your question. SM: Thank you for that soul killing question. Yeah, yeah, but you’re right, like a genuine thanks. In that moment. Taking time to connect with a person helps diffuse any sort of pressure you might have. It also just gives you a chance to sit with it for a second. Versus going, Oh, well, well, well. And I think it’s those micro moments that make everybody else feel at ease in business situation. So if the power goes out or if the deck doesn’t work. So it’s like, Hey, if you’re presenting, don’t take the hundred slides, it’s a follow up like, it’s a big win to go into a business pitch and just have a conversation with somebody – that’s improvised. Obviously, you have to keep the train on time, you have to get your points across, you have to have a beginning, middle and end to a conversation. But the same time if you don’t hit slide 49, literally nobody cares. And a lot of people put a lot of pressure on themselves, to have that script in hand, because they may not have just the comfort of having a real conversation, where they might have the pressure of getting all these ideas across when you really could do that over a longer period. AW: I just have to say I feel like you’re speaking to me, the podcast host that has the list of questions in front of her.  I’m trying really hard not to look at it. SJ-B: this, this is actually your intervention and I hope you appreciate it. It’s gonna get really tough for you in about 10 minutes, but we’re just easing into the real intervention. Okay. I have a letter from your child here. Dear Mom. No, I think… SM: What  copy would you like? Yeah. SJ-B: That is such a true point to say thank you. I would say one thing that is a gift when people have a question, everyone else might be thinking it. And I and oftentimes when you pitch to a boardroom of people, and no one asked the question you leave there and like, I don’t really understand that. I didn’t want to ask a question, but I don’t understand it. So moving on, that at least gets that they’re interested in engaging and clarified. I think that’s a gift to people. That’s what I think. You should be genuine. SM: You’re really good at asking that. You say that quite often on calls and meetings. You’re great at that. You’ll say I have a question that everybody else might have. But I’m fine to ask it. Yeah. What time do we have to be there tomorrow? Whatever it is, right? Because then everybody goes, thank you for asking the question that was on everybody’s mind. AW: I’ve actually seen that in board meetings when somebody asks something and you physically see people go, Oh, yeah, thank goodness. So then if you are the one that’s on stage and you explicitly thank them, then it kind of really just reinforces that you’re putting everybody at ease. SJ-B: Well, if you say thank you to a suggestion from the audience as an improviser, they’re going to give you more suggestions later. But if they give you a suggestion, and you’re like, really? okay, fine! We’ll go to a gas station. They’re never going to give suggestion at any improv show. Humiliated you’re, you’re embarrassed. SM: Hundred percent. That’s something we see with newer improvisers a lot when we’re teaching is, let’s say, Hey, can I get a suggestion for location? Paris? No.  Not that.  Then they’re like okay, then forget it. Never mind. SJ-B: Now everybody’s got it? AW: So that’s going against the YES AND. SJ-B:  Yeah AW: you don’t say no, you always say yes. SJ-B: And yeah, absolutely. AW: And where in Paris? In the market? SJ-B: Yeah, you can push it for sure. You can totally say that. Like, let’s shrink it down a little bit. You can totally do that. But you can’t just say no, we’re not going to Paris. SM: If you don’t want a specific suggestion. By the way. There’s a trick that a lot of improvisers use called burning a suggestion. Oh, kind of a backstage thing where you’ll say, Can I get a suggestion for a location? Like a Starbucks or a bathroom? And so if you don’t want a specific suggestion you put in in the ask. So can I get a suggestion for character name – like Sandy? SJ-B: Yeah. SM: Then if someone says Sandy, then you’re like something besides that, then you’re creating this agreement with the audience that you’ve already suggested a couple of examples already. Yes. Usually when you’re doing somebody these shows we asked for location. Everybody will always say a Starbucks or a bathroom. If it’s someone famous it’s Donald Trump. AW:  Really? SJ-B: Yeah, it’s really Starbucks or a bathroom or if its someone famous it’s Donald Trump. So you want to say like someone famous like Donald Trump, then you just burn that you don’t have to do it and it’s out there. It’s a great idea. Yes. SM: You don’t want to do a scene about Donald Trump. Nobody needs to see it. We’re seeing it every day. We don’t need to see a scene of a famous person like Donald Trump or Jesus. So when you’re doing work for .. AW: Does Jesus come up a lot? SJ-B: That’s right, you’re agnostic or was it you know, like, you would never talk with Jesus. That’s your thing, right? SM: I would talk about it. SJ-B: You just covered politics and religion. SM:  That’s exactly it. Things you don’t want to do in some unknown audiences or corporate audiences you don’t want to ever tackle politics or religion. Because in those scenarios in like when we’re getting ready for these shows will usually ask the planners, when we say something who’s everybody going to look at to see if it’s okay to laugh? Yeah. And they’ll say, Carol. Great. Can we get Carol on a call? AW: That is a question! SM: We’ll often ask that, and then they’re usually a really honest with us and they’ll say, you know, because they’ll, they’ll often say, we really want you to push the envelope, we really want you guys to kind of go for it. They may, they may,… but they may not know what that necessarily means. So really, pushing the envelope might be something super, super offensive, or unplanned or unknown for this one company, right? Yeah, we usually just say, who’s everybody gonna look at to see if it’s okay to laugh? And we get that person on a call or to sign off on the actual content. And then if they’re in on it, then the show goes way, way better. SJ-B: Oh, yeah, definitely. AW: Uh huh. Okay, let’s move on. What is it or what are the things that comedians do that makes them so great when they’re on the stage? Is it for example? (And now you’re going to have to say its NOT that!)  Is it filling awkward silences? Is it creating awkward silences? Is it taking people outside of their comfort zone? SJ-B: Honesty. For me is key. Honesty is always key. So doing things that people relate to. You can have an entire scene is just a simple activity that everyone does and that can kill because everyone goes, Oh, I can relate to that. That’s exactly how it would be. There’s a famous scene in Second City called “Shower,”  where it’s a guy just having a shower when he washes his penis… Anyway, the crowd goes crazy because they’re like, Man, that’s his shower. All he’s doing is having a shower. And it’s funny, but that’s a very honest thing. Honesty would be really big. SM: Yeah, knowing who you are and having fun with that, I think is a understanding of who you are as a performer and as a person and being okay with it. I am a tall, lanky, dorky person who likes to do math on the weekends. So like that’s … AW: Aren’t you a dorky scientist in a commercial right now? SM: I play dorky scientist in a commercial, which is a dream come true. I just show up in my own labcoat. With my own clipboard. Yeah. AW: I can’t unsee that when I look at you. SM: Thank you for saying that, because it’s actually just like it is on the weekends. No, but it’s like, I think it’s, we think of like delightful people – who we love seeing on stage, they’re just having a blast every night. They’re laughing, they’re there to have fun and to play. So there’s a play element in that that should be fun. It should be relaxed and chill and rewarding and that kind of thing as well. But it should also be fun. So when you’re seeing people like being honest, they know who they are, but they’re also having a lot of fun with that. That’s something it’s really hard to learn over time. Because I think when you’re coming up as an improviser, you’re like, I want to be exactly like this person, and I’m going to grow up to be the next so and so and so and so or whatever, but then you’re like, no, it’s like, I’m just gonna do my thing, then a lot of stuff unlocks. And the audiences respond to a lot more. Then you become more comfortable with not having to be all things to all people. I think the confidence thing you’re talking about with like not being too polished, and I’m super confident guy, you what I mean? SJ-B: Yeah. I think comedians are also successful if they are respectful of the audience. They know what the audience wants. Certainly when a comedian starts to freak out on some audience member – we’ve seen – that’s happened. The audience all hates that. No one likes that. Or if there’s someone heckling, they take care of it the right way. And I also think a very important part of being successful in comedy is knowing when the show is over. Time is everything and leaving them wanting more, of course, is an old saying, but it’s very true. And a lot of comedians lose the show because they go too long. AW: I feel like all of these things that you guys are listing are all lessons in life. SM: They are. SJ-B: Yeah, maybe they are. Yeah, exactly. Know when to leave the party. Right? That was the Johnny Carson phrase, which was, I left the Tonight Show because you got to know when to leave the party. So when you’re actually at a party? Yep, there’s 10 people left. I don’t want to be the last guy. Yeah, I’m going to leave now that that’s a really important thing. That’s exactly what it is. When you’re pitching something, make it short, make it get to the point then get out of there. AW: Make them curious about what else you can do? SJ-B: Absolutely. SM: And one other one that I have to throw in as well is empathy. And so people who are really good improvisers, I feel like are really empathetic and they’re just good human beings. And they might be like, that’s a really good person. That is because they’re really great listeners. They’re really empathetic. I see that in the business world all the time. And people don’t have that extra dose of empathy. So improv really teaches you that – like seeing something from somebody else’s perspective. Or just knowing – it’s not all about this show. We also want to be good people in like life yeah, we want to be good people. Yeah so, I think that’s the thing like in business and comedy and improv in life is like, are you just focusing on making the other person look better? Are you focusing on trying to do a little better for the world everyday versus a little worse for the world? And if you are, then you’re successfully improvising. AW: That’s right. What are the skills that the employers are looking to train their staff in when they hire you? SJ-B: They want to break down silos and get people talking to each other and but that’s a big one right away is like how do we get everyone talking to each other. AW: So it’s social? SM: I think you’re right about it. The core is talking to each other. Yeah. And communication. Like that’s probably the base. I think if you’re looking for extensions or like some tentacles, right?  Like the big hydra, this would be. You’d have change management or effective brainstorming, presentation skills, storytelling. Every company in the planet on a first call will always, always, always, always say – without hesitation – we’re going through a lot of change. So everybody’s always going through a lot of and people don’t like it. They don’t like it. Yeah. So how do we deal with that? So change management, when you’re improvising, you’re literally dealing with change on the fly in front of audiences on the spot. So how can we unpack those skills and teach them to people who work in offices every single day, so that they manage change more effectively? So change management’s a big thing. AW: Okay, I need to be mindful. And I want to get to the five rapid fire questions. But before I do that, do you have anything else that you want to add about improv and thinking and talking on your feet? SM: The other thing I would add is thank you for having us. It’s been fun. It’s fun to hear what both of you guys have to say about this. In terms of thinking or talking on your feet. I guess I would add that there’s really no right or wrong. SJ-B: Exactly right. Everything that’s right or wrong is an offer. In fact, the mistakes are where the best comedy comes from – always. The mistakes are so golden and so many great sketches and improv scenes come from mistakes. So being afraid to make mistakes is the worst thing you can do. Be free to fail and fail fast and all those things they say but: go be terrible if you have to. And as some people say, just dare to suck. Yeah. AW: because then you have story material. SJ-B: Oh my God, that’s the best stories. AW: Okay, now I’m going to fire the five rapid fire questions at you. SM: Great. AW: Okay, so Sandy Jovan-Bevin. What are your pet peeves? SJ-B: Where do I start? Oh my gosh, I have so many pet peeves. Well, currently, my pet peeve is the cat down the street that keeps crapping on my lawn. But that’s not really a universal pet peeve. I think one of my biggest pet peeves is when I go to pitch doing a show or teaching and someone starts off a meeting and says, You know, I don’t like comedy, but what do you guys gonna do? That’s an incredible thing because I’m so sad for that person. And just like, you’re just my golden moment there would have been just you have a sad life and then end the meeting. That’s a big pet peeve to kick off by saying I don’t like comedy. SM: We’ve actually heard that now. AW: Really? SJ-B: Oh, yeah, several times. Yeah. I don’t like comedy. AW: Does that mean I don’t like to laugh? SJ-B:  Yeah, no. I don’t like to live. Like, what kind of life is that? It’s crazy. That’s my pet peeve. AW: Okay, Sandy Marshall? SM: My pet peeve is when people don’t do what they say they’re going to do. So if they’re going to email you by Friday, and they don’t email by Friday. I just don’t understand it. I think being non committal. Sandy will attest to this. I think it’s when people actually just don’t get back on email. Like how could you not get back on email? Like we’re, we’re rocking on this thing. We’re rocking on this email thread. AW: There’s a lot of people that have a lot email issues. SJ-B: Wow. Interesting. AW: There are people that in my close circle of friends that have over 14,000 unread emails in their inbox.  Can you imagine? SJ-B: No, that’s SM: Yeah, I honestly want my gravestone to literally – I wanted to read at least he got back on email. SJ-B: It’s noted. SM: Thank you. AW:  I have a paper for you to read. Okay, great. Sandy Marshall again, what type of learner are you? SM: Probably I learned most by doing something. Probably a physical learner by performing or teaching or direct. AW: Okay. SJ-B:  I learn most by making mistakes. So if I screw up I generally learn from that mistake. If I’m doing things great, I don’t learn anything from it. AW: Next question. Introvert or extrovert? SJ-B: Extrovert. Totally. AW: Hundred percent? SJ-B:  Oh, yeah. It was no doubt. AW: and Sandy Marshall? SM:  I would say introvert. I think I can dial up the extraversion when I need to. But you know, looking at what extroverts might get versus introverts to recharge the battery. I get my battery recharged by reading books over the weekend. SJ-B: You said earlier you do math on the weekends. SM: I do math on the weekends. AW: You’re just a total nerd on the weekends. SJ-B: On the weekends? SM: Thanks! How do we all really feel? Let’s have this be the intervention. SJ-B: I’ll bet a lot of stand-up communities are introverts for sure. And that’s why they just get so freaked out after shows when everyone comes over to talk to them because they’re like they’re just really want to go home now. Yeah, it’s like paralyzing almost. AW: That’s really interesting is it? We shouldn’t make assumptions about a person’s personality based on how they’re acting in front of the class or in front of the boardroom or on stage. SJ-B: Absolutely not. AW: The next question is: communication preference for personal conversations. Sandy Marshall? SM: In person. I always like in person over phone or email. I’ve do a lot of work over the phone, a lot of work over the email, but I really like in-person. SJ-B: Completely agree. In person. AW:  They’re both looking at me with their heads nodding. SJ-B: Next. This is Rapid Fire! AW: Last question. Is there a podcast or blog or an email newsletter that you find yourself recommending the most? SJ-B: You have to listen to Dexter Guff is Smarter Than You. I think that’s the smartest, best podcast that’s out there right now. Dexter Guff. Please check it out. AW:  I will. SM: I completely agree. It is really actually, I think it’s the funniest podcast out there. AW:  Oh, I am definitely gonna listen to it. SJ-B: so start from the beginning because it has an overall arc that happens through the whole thing. AW:  So okay, I’ll put a link to the shownotes so the listeners can also check it out. Is there anything else you want to add about improv and thinking and talking on your feet? SM:  Tuning in to how many times you hear yes or no, during the day or in your own language is interesting. I think something from our side of the table that we can hear after a while is when people tend to say no a lot. It’s kind of, you know, we’re sort of our antennas up to it. Just pay attention to how often you’re saying yes, and how often you’re saying no. Conversely, there’s a really good book about saying no, called Essentialism by Greg McCowan. It’s one of my favorite books. It’s a business book, but it’s all about setting up clear boundaries. So when you get into improv obviously, like Sandy was saying, you have to keep the train on time, know when the show is over. So you have to have fixed boundaries as well. So looking at when no can also be effective in life is really useful because if you say yes to everything on the planet, you’re just gonna, you’re not gonna get anything done. So you have to kind of balance both of those. But, you know, listening when you say yes or no was interesting. SJ-B: I have absolutely nothing else to add. Thank you. AW:  Except a little laugh. SJ-B: Yeah. AW:  Thank you so much for sharing your time and your expertise, and I had fun. SJ-B: We had a blast.  I’m speaking for me. SM:  I had a blast as well. Sandy. Thanks for having us, Andrea. AW:  My face actually hurts from smiling. SM:  Okay, good. Thanks for having us. What type of what type of learner are you? Are you audio? visual? AW:  Definitely visual. SM:  I think we need to hear your rapid fire on the podcast. SJ-B: That’s right SM:  At some point. Maybe next time.   THANKS for listening!   Web: https://talkabouttalk.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/talk_about_talk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkingabouttalk/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/TalkingAboutTalk/ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/ Email: Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com     TalkAboutTalk CORE BELIEF: “When we communicate effectively, we can be a better manager, co-worker, parent, partner and friend.   TalkAboutTalk BRAND PROMISE: “TalkAboutTalk is the communication learning platform that enriches our relationships and enhances our career success by providing us with knowledge, strategies and confidence.”       ***When referencing resources and products, TalkAboutTalk sometimes uses affiliate links. These links don’t impose any extra cost on you, and they help support the free content provided by TalkAboutTalk. The post #34 LESSONS FROM THE IMPROV STAGE with Sandy Marshall & Sandy Jobin-Bevans appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Authenticity is important for both people and for brands. But what does it really mean to “be authentic”?  Ana Serrano (CFC chief digital officer) shares her expertise on authenticity, including how the digital realm has amplified the performative nature of authenticity and how inauthentic “green-washing,” “art-washing” and “social impact washing” on behalf of brands can backfire. References & Links Ana Serrano and CFC LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/anaserrano1/ Email – aserrano@CFCcreates.com. Canadian Film Centre (CFC) – http://cfccreates.com/ At the CFC – http://cfccreates.com/staff_members/52 Ideaboost – http://cfccreates.com/programs/20-ideaboost Recommendations: The Logic – https://thelogic.co/ The Discourse – https://www.thediscourse.ca/ Exponential View podcast – https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/exponential-view-with-azeem-azhar/id1172218725 Podyssey – https://podyssey.fm/ Other References JCP – Journal of Consumer Psychology – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273490018_Brand_authenticity_An_integrative_framework_and_measurement_scale Forbes – https://www.forbes.com/sites/nikkibaird/2018/08/03/brand-authenticity-is-it-really-that-complicated/#292d31a7481e MarketingLand – https://marketingland.com/brands-strive-for-authenticity-as-audiences-turn-a-skeptical-eye-toward-ads-236295 Racked – https://www.racked.com/2018/7/18/17578786/feminist-brand-apparel-capitalism Sydney Morning Herald – https://www.smh.com.au/world/coke-worker-sacked-for-drinking-pepsi-20030615-gdgxls.html https://www.brandauthenticity.org/brand-authenticity.htm Psychology Today – https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/click-here-happiness/201904/develop-authenticity-20-ways-be-more-authentic-person Psychology Today – https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201605/what-mr-trump-s-success-teaches-us-about-authentic-branding Psychology Today on Trump – https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201605/what-mr-trump-s-success-teaches-us-about-authentic-branding Talk About Talk & Dr. Andrea Wojnicki Weekly Email Blog – https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup Website: https://talkabouttalk.com Facebook Group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ Andrea’s email – Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com   Interview Transcript Dr. Andrea Wojnicki: Thank you so much for joining us. Ana Serrano: Thank you. AW: Let’s just get right into the nitty gritty and start with what your definition of authenticity is. AS: I think it’s the act of being real or true. And it’s interesting that I’m using the word act there. Because it’s either you are real or true. But can you also act real and true? And I think that’s the purpose of this conversation –  is to unpack where that performative aspect of authenticity lies. AW: Okay, so let’s unpack it. So let me ask you one question. First, is there a difference between real and true? AS: No, I think they’re different. I think, in a weird way, real, could have more scientific proof around it. You know, you could imagine observable phenomenon as being real. True, perhaps, is less observable and is also attached to a certain amount of subjectivity. So that’s not from the Oxford dictionary or anything like that. But that’s how I would make a distinction between the two. AW: Okay. So an example of that, that I’m thinking of, is someone who is expressing their true beliefs about something. But when you hook them up to an MRI, or something that’s taking latent measures of their physical reactions, it would say that what they’re saying is true, actually, is not really what their body is saying. AS: Sure. Sure. That’s an example. Yeah. AW: So in your definition, you also used the word Act, which is just getting right into it! AS: Yes! AW: There’s what we want to be. And when I say we, we are of course talking about us as individuals in the many roles that we have, but also us representing the brands that we work on as marketers. AS: Yes. AW: So what do you mean, when you say act? AS: Well, I think especially today, although I’m not sure to what extent the digital realm has amplified the performative nature of authenticity? Perhaps authenticity has always been performed, even without the performance being mediated by any kind of media, okay, whether that’s print, books, etc. But I think it is important to understand that there’s a fine line between being authentic and performing authenticity. AW: Okay. So the being is your true self? AS: Well, I wouldn’t call it true self. It’s actually it has to do with how much we mediate our representation of ourselves to others. So some people think that we’re constantly mediating how we want others to see us.  So any kind of communication is a kind of conscious or unconscious projection of ourself – in the way we want to be perceived. AW: So as a psychologist the term self-awareness is coming up. And, it’s to the extent to which you’re self-aware, have appropriate behaviors or were. And then presenting or performing, consistent with those. AS: Yes, it how much is the presentation of the self in any way, shape or form performative unconsciously or consciously? And so, in a way, if you think about that, then all of a sudden, any of the ways in which we represent ourselves as either being authentic or victimized, or, or those are could all be performative in a way? AW: Yeah. So my brain’s exploding with all the different examples, right? How did I dress to come here?  Was I my authentic self? Am I doing something to make you think something? AS: And so … but I think –  I don’t want people to get all freaked out about this, because it can get really kind of like, Oh, no, am I really not being true? Because I’m performing my truth, whatever. You know, I don’t I’m not saying this to give us yet another thing to be anxious about. I’m just saying, you know, communication is complex, basically, which is what your podcast is all about. It’s not, it’s actually not just a simple you relay a message, and someone receives it. There’s a lot that goes on in the relaying. And there’s a lot that goes on as it travels. And there’s a lot that goes on when it’s received. AW: Absolutely. Okay. So we use the term self-awareness when it comes to an individual, what would be analogous to that for an online brand? So as a human, I’m self-aware. As a brand? AS: Well, I think what I have noticed, being, I would say, a medium expert at social media (and I say medium because I think I’m adept at managing my social media profiles, or at least my performances and social media), if you will, but I’m certainly not, that’s not my full time job. And so I don’t devote 100% 24-7 of my day to it. But you know, posting often enough, you start to understand the cadence, the tone, the responses, the phrasing, the nuance. I don’t know if this is the way it is for everyone. But that’s actually what makes social media fun for me. So I see it as a kind of like a conscious, creative craft, where I’m trying to really –not to be inauthentic– Okay, again, because I’m trying, it’s not like I’m trying to pretend to be anyone else other than I am, especially in the personal social media accounts that I have, or platforms that I that I’m in. It’s more like, I have an idea that, you know, Instagram is a private account for me. And that’s where I talk about my son. Actually, it’s less about how I talk about my son. It’s actually a space where I’m trying to display my visual prowess. So for me, Instagram is all about the type of photography I like to take. And the kind of things that I’d like to present about my visual eye, if you will. Unfortunately, or fortunately, my poor son, you know, beleaguered son is my is my model in many of these photographs, right? So that’s, so that’s become my thing. On Facebook, I’m a lot more of the citizen activists type sort of persona. And that’s certainly a part of my life. But that’s what I’m sort of curating in that platform. And so, I know which parts of myself I’m showing on which platforms, and depending on those selves, I start to really understand that the stuff that I talked about– the cadence, the tone, the things — and then you start to understand what people respond to. And so you, you give them more of what they’re looking for, depending on the responses. AW: So it sounds like you’re describing a learning curve. Right? Where, as you said, if you were on at 24, seven, , learning curve would be vertical., quickly learn what gets responses. Is that the goal? Kind of playing the devil’s advocate here, but is the goal to get responses? AS: No, I think, well, is it the goal? Let me see. Let me see. For sure, the platforms are created to encourage that kind of feedback loop. Right. So for sure, like the answer can’t possibly be no. The answer is definitely a yes. But the but then the question becomes, is that the only goal? And I don’t think it’s the only goal? You know? So the answer is yes. Not necessarily because that’s the explicit sort of perceived and conscious goal you might have. For many people, it’s probably not conscious. Unless that’s really what you’re doing, which is if you’re an influencer, and you know that you’re counting your likes, because that translates into money. But for most people, I don’t think they’re really think of it as like, Oh, I want 300 likes for this. That’s my goal. I don’t think they consciously think that. But I think because the platforms are built that way, you can’t help but make that be a metric to determine whether or not what you’ve said resonates. Its less about the likes, really, it’s more like, Am I looking stupid when I post this? Or does this resonate? So it’s about resonance, I think in many ways, which is slightly more nuanced than likes. Because I think likes is a very transactional, which is like, I want likes, because it makes me money. For the average person who’s just using social media, to start to curate conversations with their communities. What they’re really looking for is resonance. AW: Right. And probably from people that they respect. AS: Yes. From people that they respect, so there’s a qualifier to that. So it’s not just the quantity, but who, who responded. AW: So whether it’s in the context of social media, and also, again, whether it’s personal or for a brand, why does authenticity matter? AS: Because the media is an intimate medium, the medium appears to be one-on-one. Okay? So if you look at YouTube, for example, there’s a reason why all the major YouTubers have their face– the first thing you see is their face. And they go, Hello, everybody!!! You know, it looks like they’re talking to you. They’re connecting with each individual. AW: It’s like podcasting, right?. You’re literally in people’s head. With your earbuds. Yeah. So it’s because of the intimacy of the medium, despite the fact that it was never meant to be this broadcast medium. I mean, what’s really interesting about digital network media, is it was supposed to be this kind of like multi-channel many-to-many, one-to-one broadcast medium. That was the antidote to the broadcast media of television, where you’ve got the expert telling everyone what to do, right? But what’s happened, I think, is that you’ve had the weird shift, where many of the mainstream platforms–  especially the ones, the monopolies, like YouTube — it’s become a broadcast medium, which is one too many. But it disguises itself as a one to one. AW: What do you mean by that? AS: Meaning, it’s definitely a one to many, but it feels like it’s a one-to-one because of the intimacy of it. AW: Okay, you know, and also, I’m not sure if you were getting at this, but the democratization of it, where suddenly the person that was being broadcasted to can spell it out. AS: Of course, of course, that’s a key part of it – is that it’s a two-way street. AW: So what happens then, when a brand or say an influencer, whoever it is, is perceived as being inauthentic? AS: I think you can get a backlash very, very quickly, you know, very quickly. I mean, you just have to, I’m almost scared to bring this up. Okay? Three weeks before the election, we have a perfect case study of a brand – you know, one of our revered brands in Canada, the Prime Minister’s brand –  taking a beating for things that were revealed, that did not fit the brand that they were promoting across all the media platforms, including social media. The social media use of the Prime Minister’s office with Prime Minister himself was quite adept. There are many, many instances of posts that spoke directly to creating an intimate relationship between the life of the Prime Minister (the kind of ordinariness of his life )that and… AW: actually, you know, his employment of social media, particularly Instagram, I think is actually part of his brand. It’s not just the message, but it’s also the medium. AS: Exactly, exactly. And then, and then you’ve got the stuff that came out and the yearbooks… I think where people really looked very carefully was like, Okay, so how is it going to respond to this? How is he going to,… how authentic will his response to this particular issue of the yearbook photos be? And that authenticity is an interesting to think to watch, because it’s different at a press conference (distributed via media channels), when versus when he has prepared remarks, versus whatever he tweets out, versus the subsequent tweets that he might put out that’s more formal versus … So it’s like, you then see, wow, you know, it’s a very difficult thing to cultivate. (Now I’m talking about it is true authenticity, which is even weirder!) but you know, it’s very difficult to cultivate sort of a more conscious …Well, I guess, true authenticity, I think. AW: you know, so I think this is actually a great example. Yes. Because you spoke about your books from what was it? 15 years ago? AS: 2001. AW: And then so there’s the consistency of what he’s communicating in terms of his values. implicitly, right.. And today we and explicitly advocating things, and then also today, it’s across mediums. Here’s the meta question is authenticity, consistency? Is that really what it is? AS: No, no, no, not at all. I don’t think so at all people change, people change. I think I think the best we can do with authenticity is:  as close to an expression of what you believe to be true at the time that you’re telling it. AW: So personally and professionally, I agree. But the rhetoric, the discourse out there right now is all about how can we trust him if he said and did this 15 years ago, and now he’s saying and doing something completely different? AS: So if I were to do an audit of the responses to his responses, let’s say. There’s responses to his apology that’s politicized. And then there’s a whole bunch of responses to his apology, that I think span the continuum of understanding that they buy the sincerity, or at least they believe that he thinks he’s being sincere in his apology, but there are those who don’t care how sincere he is, and therefore still will chastise him for not knowing any better. And then there are those who say, okay, he may think he’s sincere, I’ll grant him that, but let’s look at his actions. And then the other part, which is like, let’s check out what he does from here on in, you know, AW: so the responses then are, you’re basically creating a segmentation scheme, right? There’s well, who cares? People that don’t care. The people who are politicized the ones aren’t the people who believe them, the ones that, ones that think people could change the one thing people fundamentally can change. So across all those things, you have a myriad of segments that you could put people into. But the truth is, this is a huge challenge for him. And the other example when I google “inauthentic brand, faux pas” the example that came up a couple times was Whole Foods in the States, which was touting all sorts of great values for our planet and for our people. And then they were caught putting barely perished, in fact, not quite perished food,  out in bins, like in the garbage basically, they were…: AS: Oh, dear, I didn’t even know about that. AW: it was a long time ago. So whether it’s your reputation at work, and something happens, and people think what she’s not as professional as I thought she was! Or it could be your prime ministerial candidate who’s trying to get re-elected and something’s rediscovered from your past. Or it could be that you’re a retailer who has explicitly touted certain values.. And you’ve been caught doing things that are inconsistent with those. Yes. What can you do I probably employing digital media again, but what can you do about that? AS: Well, I guess the one thing we haven’t talked about is like, you can think you’re authentic. And I understand there are certain moments when you can’t actually reveal, especially if you’re in public office, let’s say. It might be very difficult to actually say exactly what you feel or think. Right. So I get that part. But if you didn’t have to worry about that, and you could actually do this, then the other part that I think helps us determine how authentic that piece of communication is, is whether the attendant actions, either at the time or in the future, match what’s being said. AW: So I’m walking-the-talk. AS: So I think part of it is has to do with this walking-the-talk thing. AW: And then in the new digital economy, would be demonstrating that in an appropriate way across each platform. AS: I think in the digital economy, what is absolutely clear, is how you behave is so much more easily capturable, if you will. Information moves so fast, and travels so quickly, that it’s very difficult not to get caught in a lie. If you are actually saying one thing and doing another. I think I think that’s very hard to do. Unless, well, maybe I’m being naïve? Maybe that is easier to do, then, you know? Certainly there are lots of examples of corporations doing things for a very long time that the public didn’t know about. Right? And so it depends on your timeframe. Eventually you get caught? I don’t know. AW: I found lots of stuff, when I was doing the research on authenticity, about Trump. There’s the question of whether he is authentic, because he seems scattered and it’s down to the consistency thing, right? AS: I think Trump is a very interesting figure, because I think (well, that’s an understatement). But weirdly enough, I think he is authentic, in that he truly believes what he is saying is real or true at the time. So that is what translates across media. And perhaps that’s what has translated to his supporters. They believe him, when he says, you know, whatever, I can’t even … AW: We’re going to make America great again! AS: Exactly. He conveys it with unequivocal belief. And so I guess, his supporters – that delivery resonates with his supporters. I can’t say whether he has any mental illness or what psychological profile he has. Certainly, there’s been enough written about him by experts who are suggesting that he is a particular type of psychological profile, in which case, that particular profile tends to be delusional. And so the delusion extends to – him really thinking that what he does and say, is true and real and comes from this authentic place. AW: That’s fascinating. Actually, a psychiatrist, I suppose, would be the person that would do the assessment or analysis of this. But when I was doing the research on authenticity, they said in the psychology, it’s true self, its original self, it’s vulnerable self and its consistency. And then for inauthentic, it’s fake self, idealised, superficial, pseudo self. And these are qualities associated with narcissism. Which is a term that I’ve heard associated with Trump. But then he also gets written up as being the most authentic candidate, because of exactly what you just said: He says what he thinks. AS: So yeah, that is right. It is absolutely, it is absolutely a conundrum. AW: Okay, I actually read something yesterday on LinkedIn that a friend of mine posted. And it was a comparison of Millennials versus Gen Z, their work styles and their true values and their desires and all sorts of things. And on one of the lines, it said that millennials prefer brands that share their values, and Gen Zs prefer brands that feel authentic. And I was like, Wow, so the older folks, they want to hear about what the brand’s values are. And I think I feel like this gets a lot of discourse in marketing writeups and branding, right? Like, what are your brand values? Make sure you’re communicating it consistently? and etc.? Is it unique enough? Is it consistent enough? And then apparently, Gen Z, they care less than I just want the brand to feel authentic? What do you think about that? AS: I actually think that they mean the same things. The difference is that where the values get distributed to Gen Z is in the digital media platforms. And because the digital media platforms are intimate media, the way values get reflected in the feeling of authenticity, I actually think they’re the same thing. Where it gets tricky is this notion of feeling authentic and or being authentic. I honestly think it has to do with a deliver a medium, and I think Instagram is your medium. The sharing of values on Instagram, let’s say is, is really the feeling of authenticity in that medium. AW: I think I’ve got it; I think it’s: we share the same values. Perhaps they’re saying that the generation Z’s are more open minded to diverse perspectives. And as long as you are being AS: oh, interesting. Do you think that’s what it is? Might be? That’s interesting. So do you think then that Gen Z, is all about self-actualization? AW: That wouldn’t be a bad thing, would it? Another thing that comes up in the writing about authenticity is the difference between being nice versus being good. So nice is more conforming to expectations and being pleasant and acting positive. Versus being good is about being honest. When I think of branding, I think of the conflict, I guess, between being for-profit, but then also having strategic priorities or values associated with the firm, that really aren’t related to profit at all –  that you that you want to communicate, because they’re socially valued. Do you know what I’m trying to say? AS: Umm hmm. No, no, no. I mean, we are in that kind of bizarre arena right now, where there’s a lot of greenwashing. There’s a lot of artwashing. There’s a lot of … AW: love that!!! AS: … social impact washing, or what have you, right? Where corporations are using some of these changing cultural values to promote their activities or their products, thinking that that’s all that’s required, essentially, and for the benefit of their shareholders. And that’s what I mean, I guess by saying, you know, you do that at your peril. Because more and more people are getting cynical. And really, it’s like the post-Snowden world, right? Where it’s not, you don’t have to be a whistleblower, to kind of be in that mode of trying to ensure that who you say you are is really who you are. From a brand perspective, I think that’s a very difficult road to travel, if the type of marketing that you end up doing is just lip service to certain cultural values that aren’t really part of your firm’s core DNA. AW: What is the definition of it being core to your DNA? AS: So that, again, I think there’s a there’s a continuum of thought around that right. So for the purists, if you will, core DNA means is it embedded structurally and the way you do business. You know, so do you treat your employees well? Do you give the minimum wage? Do you have gender parity? Do you have…, and that’s for a particular set of values. Obviously, not all corporations will purport to have those values. But for the ones that do, you know, there are certain structural issues around how you run your business that are going to matter to those shareholders who have bought into that type of branding, if that’s what you used. AW:  And that’s where Whole Foods got caught, right? AS: yes, exactly. Exactly. AW: They weren’t doing the things they said they valued. AS: Exactly, exactly. So that’s the hardest part. And then I think there’s a whole variety of incremental moves towards that structural end. And that’s where I think people are now. Where they’re trying to negotiate Exactly. Where is the line? AW: So the other continuum – that was Nice versus Good, okay? or nice versus honest. And then the other one is Individualism versus Conforming, or individualism versus outer authenticity? You’re conforming to expectation. So, perhaps social expectation. Corporate expectations AS: So for me as a brand. The way I would like, not as a personal brand. I don’t mean that like that. But, but I’ve always been a proponent, visa-vis, versus businesses to really understand what their differentiated value proposition is. And so because I think if you know, what your differentiated value proposition is, and it has to be a value proposition, meaning you are actually delivering value to someone. And if you know what makes that value unique to someone than you, then you’re able to connect with that someone and that someone will connect to you and perhaps purchase your whatever it is you’re purchasing, okay AW: Can I just interrupt you to say… That was beautiful marketing. AS: Was it? AW: Yes, absolutely. AS: Okay. AW: You should teach a class! AS: But anyway, to me, that is actually the expression, a brand’s expression of authenticity, because you know, what your product is, why you made it, why it’s good, why it’s important, why it’s valuable, and to whom and for whom. And so I think it’s really important to have that as part of your core. And then if you understand that, and the marketers of your firm know that, then they know how to communicate that value. And that becomes an authentic way of communicating that value. AW: But I have to tell you, based on my experience in consulting, working on boards, so many organizations are just stuck missing that. They don’t understand that there is something about them, that is probably important to them. It’s also important to their current and prospective customers or consumers, that is unique versus their competition, and they need to find that thing and hang their hat on it. AS: Yeah. AW: And then they will be authentic. And they will succeed. AS: I suppose that is such an important perspective for me, because we run an accelerator. So you know, we’re dealing with founders and start-up founders all the time. And that is a core thing if they don’t know what their product is doing and why. So people talk about it as product-market fit. I actually hate that terminology, I don’t think it has the essence of that notion of delivering value to someone. So the product-market fit is almost like decoupled from the reason why most people do this kind of work, which is, they do it because they found something that they think would be a value to other people. And they want to see how they can make them, how they can share. So there’s a generosity and sort of creative act and entrepreneurship, that in a weird way, I think has been stripped out from all of the rhetoric surrounding start-up ecosystems, especially the ones that are coming out of Silicon Valley. Because they’ve made it this kind of scientific three-step way of how to make profit, you know? As opposed to really looking at like, Well, why do people make things? You know, what is this creative act all about? AW: Right, right. They’re trying to systematize it. They’re putting textbook frameworks basically on something that is much simpler than that. But yeah, another way you have to almost like, allow yourself to be vulnerable to get what it is. AS: Yes, exactly. Exactly. AW: Well, when you were talking here, I was thinking, I know exactly what I’m doing what, I am so passionate about communication, and how powerful it can be if you know how to do it. And I want to learn more about that myself personally, and share what I do know, with people to help them become more effective parents, coworkers, managers, whatever they’re doing, right? So okay, I’m going to ask you one last question. In terms of advice for listeners. Obviously, being perceived as being authentic is a positive thing. So what can people do to ensure that they are perceived as authentic? AS: So because there’s actually a video of me floating around on the internet with me saying this, I’ll say it again. So my biggest advice to myself to my son, and in fact, I just shared this with them the other day, which will make the audience members laugh, perhaps. And certainly, the young people that I mentor, is, it’s really, really important to know when your *&%$# stinks. AW: Bahahaha AS: That is one of the most important things. It all stems down to self-awareness. You can’t actually be authentic, if you don’t have an awareness of how you process information, synthesize and process… When I say information, it doesn’t have to be just words, it can be what you see and how you feel, and all that sort of stuff, right? AW:  internally and externally? AS: Yes, internally and externally. If you have no knowledge of how regulated or unregulated your emotional responses are.  And so self-regulation is one of the most important skills that we’re going to need as we try to negotiate what … It will be a very difficult time in the next 25 years, you know, as the planet gets taxed, with the issues plaguing us, and as we need to start sharing space with a lot more people. This is not just an issue for our daily lives in terms of our jobs. It’s going to be an issue of survival, right? AW: You’re thinking about yourself, your family, and then humanity, right? AS:  Yeah. AW: Beautiful. So now I’m going to ask you the five rapid fire questions that I asked every guest. Okay, the first question is, what are your pet peeves? AS:  Oh, my gosh, I don’t have very many, but like –people who are fake. AW: people who are not self-aware? AS:  People who are not self-aware. Yeah, I would say yes. But I have a lot of compassion for people who aren’t self-aware too because it’s very difficult work. So it’s both. AW: I could just going off on that! Second question. What type of learner are you? Visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or some other kind of learner? AS:  I would say visual, I am a reader. Is that visual? AW: Do you draw things in your mind? Do you think in pictures? AS:  Do I draw? Hmm. What I like to do is really make connections, that’s my favorite thing in life — is to gather data from all sorts of different corners, and then start to draw connections between them. That’s what I like. AW: So one of my favorite people on the planet, whom also I interviewed in my 11th podcast focused on storytelling, is a professor at Harvard Business School. And he says that being able to make those connections from apparently disparate places is actually a key indicator of intelligence. And I think it’s true, though, right? AS:  Yeah. AW: If you can be abstractly about something, and then bring it in … Okay, question number three, introvert or extrovert? AS:  I’m an introverted-extrovert. It means that on the whole, I’m extroverted. But then I crash very quickly. And so I will perform, perform, perform, and then I need to Netflix and chill for hours on end. AW:. Okay, question number four: communication preference for personal conversations. AS:  This is the pet peeve of my entire social circle, which is I like to call people. And they’re like, why aren’t you texting me? Stop calling –  including my partner! It’s like, you could have told me that in a text. Stop calling us. AW: Why do you think you want to call people all the time? And your friends and colleagues don’t? AS:  I don’t know. I guess I’m a chitty-chatter. I don’t know. I just need …that’s how I connect. Texting I find, is too. Oh, you know what it is? I know what it is, weirdly enough. Anytime I write,  I think of it as a creative act. And so even texting or email or whatever. Not to say that I overthink my texts or anything. But you know, you’re creating something. So you search for the right GIF or whatever. Well and for me, when I’m talking on the phone, I feel like it’s more natural or more spontaneous, more spontaneous. AW: Interesting. Is there a podcast or a blog or an email newsletter that you recommend the most lately? AS:  Well, I’m a big fan because we invested in them. So obviously, The Logic and The Discourse are our two local news sources that I go to often. The logic is from Toronto, and it focuses on the innovation economy in Canada. And then The Discourse is another local news, but it focuses on communities. So they have particular issues surrounding different communities. So I like those. I like Exponential View. And then in terms of podcasts, I guess you’re not allowed to use this term anymore. But I’m not a loyal podcaster because I pick and choose episodes and I flip and flit and fly around. You know, I’m a podcast slut. AW:  People use podcasts like that! Now more they’re googling within podcasts. AS:  Yes, yes. Okay. AW: We’re not all sluts! AS:  True, that is true. So there is one thing I do want to recommend. So for podcasts, again, another company that we invested in at Ideaboost, it’s called the Podyssey. So it’s the Goodreads of podcasting. And so it’s a place where people who love podcasts can talk to each other, and you can share and recommend episodes and things like that. So you should be on Podyssey for sure. AW: Okay. I’m in! How can listeners connect with you? Can they email you or? AS:  They can definitely find me via email. So it’s aserrano@CFCcreates.com. AW: okay. Oh, we will link to that in the show notes. Is there anything else you want to add about authenticity or communication and authenticity? AS:  You know, only that this is has been such a great conversation. I’m now really, really curious about all the other podcasts in the series and I can’t wait to listen to them. AW: Oh, that’s great. Thank you so much for your time. It was great to get to know you better.   THANKS for listening!   Web: https://talkabouttalk.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/talk_about_talk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkingabouttalk/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/TalkingAboutTalk/ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2512948625658629/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/ Email: Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com       The TalkAboutTalk weekly email blog is your opportunity to receive one concise email from me each week, highlighting knowledge & strategies that will help us become more effective communicators. 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