#97: Communication Hacks To Make Our Lives Better with Dr. Julee Hafner

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel. I feel incredibly blessed to be here with you all today, just enjoying being alive at this moment, feeling so lucky to be breathing, knowing of course that that's not a guarantee all the time as we all know that. Underneath the surface, but, but in my conscious thoughts, I'm not always so appreciative of the fact that it's just good to be alive. And more than anything, I know that we're all evolving. I'm always evolving. I'm always growing. If I'm not growing, then I'm dying. And so I feel in growth mode in this moment. I hope you do as well. I gotta believe you're only consuming this content because you yourself are in growth mode as well. So Welcome to the show. I've got an incredible guest, somebody that I absolutely adore, that I get to spend some time with now. So selfishly, I get to do that, but I also have the honor to be able to share this individual with all of you, and you'll get to learn from her. She is an incredible communicator. She's an amazing diagnostician, if that's a word. Somebody, somebody that can take a look at how we communicate, how I communicate, you communicate. And let you know where it is that you might be missing the mark, or at least not speaking heroically in a way that moves other people, is courageous. And there's a depth to that conversation that I really am interested in having today. So I'll jump right in with an amazing educator, speaker, author. Her name is Dr. Julie Haffner, and I'm just thrilled to have her on the show today. So Dr. Haffner, it's so great to have you with us.

Thank you so much. Oh my goodness, what a wonderful introduction. You're incredible. You're absolutely incredible. Thank you so much. And I'm loving being here and I'm very appreciative for sure.

Wonderful. I was going to ask you, what's one thing that you're grateful for in this moment?

I already answered it. It's my telepathy. What can I tell you?

Ah, telepathy. I am most grateful for my telepathy when it's turned on. This is not where I expected to start, but I'll go with it.

Do

you think that we all have telepathic powers of sort or abilities?

You know, Adam, I really believe that every person is made up of energy and we sense in the environment the energy that's there. We all are communicating constantly. And whether it's a nonverbal, it's an energy like a telepathy type of information. We're communicating something every single day, no matter whether we just sit and stare into space Or we're actually out there doing something fun.

Wow. We're all communicating every day. I mean, I don't know that anybody could or would argue against that. And some of that communication is verbal, like you said, it's things we say to people, and, and some of it's nonverbal. Share a little bit about your background because this— I want to dive into what nonverbal communication might look like and how that communication different or could be different so that our lives might be better, different, and even better in some ways. So, uh, yes, share a little bit about your background if you would.

Well, let me just tell you, I'm a consultant speech pathologist working with people, uh, wide backgrounds and educational levels. I also have my PhD in leadership. So that's my educational background. But let me tell you, I'm a lifelong learner. And as such, I am interested in so many things, personal wellness, professional and personal growth. And when you talk about communication, we really figure that everybody listens to the words and everybody's so interested in, oh, this is the message, but there's so much going on underneath the message that you just don't realize. That's the nonverbal message that you're sending out all the time.

Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about.

And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now, we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

And when we talk about nonverbal communication, we're talking about all those gestures and the eye contact and all the, these subtle parts of language. And in my book, The 7 Tactics to Communication Completions, I go through all of those. I look at the 7 tools that you can use to figure out what really is that message. Not just what the words that the person is saying, what's underneath it? What parts do you need to be aware of? And what things don't kind of connect? Why is it someone that you meet immediately, right in 2 seconds, that you feel there's something about that person I'm not too sure about? That's our survival mode, and that's our excitement going on full tilt, saying, oh, there's something about this person. I don't know what it is. What do I do? So that's all about nonverbal communication. Lots of stuff.

We're constantly assessing. This is the way I look at it. We're assessment machines. We're meaning-making machines. And we have to make meaning out of things for us to feel safe in the first instance, right? I mean, we all want all these great things happening in our lives and we're working toward those things. But the basic instinct is our survival instinct. Right. You're looking at the noise in the bush and you're thinking, is that something that I'm going to eat or is that something that's going to eat me?

Yeah. It's a filtering system. You're constantly taking incoming stimuli and you're filtering, you're sorting it out and you're saying, what do I do with this? And think about it. We have millions and millions of messages that are coming into our brains every day, whether it's the media, whether it's your conversation with me right now, those are all stimuli. What's going on in the background? Everything's information. How does he deal with all that stuff? It's a challenge. It really is.

Yeah. So does that mean everybody's walking around sort of with their heads muddled with all this information, all this stimuli?

For some of us, yes. There are people that cannot decide how— what thing to listen to, what thing to pay attention to. So it's a real difficult problem for a lot of people to be able to sort out what's important for them. And even back from the days of the caveman, we needed to know what was safe and what wasn't, what people were safe, because you don't just walk up to anybody because somebody might hit you on the head. That'll be it. Yeah, so we're in survival mode a lot of times, which is why we are so stressed about what that information is coming into us and how we communicate with each other. It's real important that we all know about that.

Yes. You know, I want to draw a conclusion here, and I don't know if it's appropriate to do so, but does survival mode— does being in survival mode also mean being stressed or being in stress? Is that fair?

Yeah, because think about it. Your brain only is able to process so much information and decide about X and Y and Z, but meanwhile A, B, and C are coming in, and the brain's going, whoa, stop. Halt, I can't do it all. And we get really stressed. We get— sometimes the processing system is not quite as quick, or we fail to make that connection between what's coming in and what's, you know, what we should be processing it as. And that's a big problem. And it does lead to stress. We can't do it all, unfortunately. Sorry. Sorry for everybody listening.

But we want to do it all. So let's be straight about that, right?

We do. Absolutely.

Who doesn't want to do it all? I mean—

Overachievers are us.

Yeah. I'm hearing you say is on some level communication has something to do with our instinct or our programming for safety, to avoid pain or to avoid something really catastrophic happening to us. And then there's other types of communication where we're trying to learn new things. Like you said, you're a lifelong learner and so acquiring that knowledge and caveman examples of that might be where's the best food, where do we find water and shelter, that kind of thing. Let's talk about what does communication look like today for people? We're not exactly watching out for the dinosaur stepping on us or something anymore, I don't think. Right.

No, unfortunately not. But think about the impact of technology. We use the cell phone, we use faxes, we use computers, we use— and look at Zoom we're talking on now. We use all these technologies to help us connect. So what do we need to develop there? That's our lifeline, our connection. And we as human beings, we are hardwired to connect with each other. So not only do we need to survive, because as a species we have to survive, we also need to share knowledge as to how to survive better. So both of those things are extremely important. And today, because of— through the miraculous thing of technology, or the bane of our existence for some of us, technology really makes a difference in how we connect and how we feel about that connection. Because if we don't connect correctly, it leaves us feeling empty and hollow, and that's not a good thing.

No. I'm not going to be a predictor of anything because I'm not in that game, and, and I'm not a sociologist either, but it will be interesting in 50 years to look back and see what did happen to the connections, to those all-important connections. I know before we turned on the record button, you and I were talking about people living in the box and part of what is required to feel connected in society is that you're in the box because you're in the box with everybody else who's in the box. And when you're outside of the box, you're unique and maybe you're doing it your way and you feel good about that and you feel enlivened about the fact that you're living your unique way and yet you're disconnected. Or may feel disconnected from those who are in that herd or in the boxes representing the herd. And we're herd animals. I mean, as people, as human beings, but as sort of any living organism, we all are connected to everything else. Whether we require that or not, I think is— I won't make that judgment. But to me, of course, how can we be connected? How can we be a cell in the organism? of a greater thing, a greater being, a greater existence or energy even, and not have a requirement that we feel connected to it, that we have some awareness of being connected to it. So outside the box is great, and yet there's this urge, I think, in all of us on a physical level, on an emotional level, on a psychological level to also feel connected and one with the herd as well. So there's this potential that in communication and advances in technology leading us to be able to work at a distance— there's a great book called The Future of Work by Thomas Malone, a Harvard researcher and professor, talking about how technology advances have enabled us to move further away from the kingdom, you know, the corporation being sort of that hub in that kingdom Where everybody gets to see each other and communicate and meet in the break room and at the water cooler and the jokes and the harassment and all the other stuff that goes on inside of a workplace. But now the movement is toward virtual working and so many people, more than a billion people, are working virtually around the world and that's going to increase even more over time. It's just the observation that communication may be even more important in the future Where we're not in that central hub, we're not in the box, we're not in the herd, in the corral with all the other of our species.

Let's think about that just in general. Communication is so essential to our lives. It is our connection, our human connection system. People today now are reporting more and more feelings of loneliness and unhappiness. And there was a recent study from Harvard University that they said that loneliness, that feeling of just disconnect, is up over 300% in the last few years. And when we look at technology, who's making the further and further and further away connections through, through technology, we realize that we need that face-to-face human connection. Technological opportunities to connect like you and I are doing right now is not enough. And people are finding that the right kind of communication, that human connection, is really essential to their feelings of connection, happiness, and lack of loneliness per se. So that's what really is important. Let me say that again because I think it's really important. Happiness comes from our ability and opportunities to connect face-to-face with others. That's communication in a nutshell. So when you talk about that, I think in 500 years, hopefully we're going to go back to at least some face-to-face communication. It's real essential.

Let me know what you think about this, whether you agree with the statement I'm going to make. There's 2 types of communication to me. One is communication that we have with other people, just as you explained how important it is we are connected to other people, others of our other human beings. And the other communication is internal. So one is external, one's internal, one's with others and one's with ourselves. So do you agree with that?

Oh, absolutely. I think we put on the facade to communicate face to face. And even through technology. It's the messages that are within ourselves and how we decide what we want to say to ourselves. And one of the things I really feel is that we have a choice every day to be heroic. And by heroic, I mean we want to have our communication effective, authentic, and we also want To be the message that we want. In other words, when your communication inspires others, you learn more, you do more, and you can become more. That is the heroic communication that we need to keep putting into our brains every day.

You've done me a big favor here, which was to answer a question I was thinking about, which was It's

telepathy!

Do you have to be a hero? On what level in speaking with yourself, having internal conversation, or even in your communication with outside of yourself, to other— with other people, to what degree does that require an element of courage? And by that I'm saying the world is— we're getting messages from left, right, and center. As you say, we have this desire to connect and loneliness is something that's not out of the norm today. Anxiety, depression, loneliness— these are things that people feel regularly. And yet, to be able to reach out to another person to connect so that you don't have that feeling of loneliness, that could be a dangerous activity. And the more we are moving away from the workplace, the central hub of seeing people where you have to— Wow, the pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5 business leaders across the globe have taken, and all you have to do to get your own free Resilient Leader Assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Communicate because you're working with them face-to-face or back-to-back, cubicle-to-cubicle, office-to-office, whatever it looks like or it did look like. Now, people are working from their home. They're working from coffee shops. They're working from the beach. They're working from virtually anywhere, but they're by themselves in many ways. The ability to connect with people is going to require— and speak even— 'Cause our company works with speakers on their ability to speak publicly and be able to be effective at doing that. There's an element of courage that's required. So I was trying to tie together this idea of that courageous communication with what would be valuable in terms of whether it's alleviating this, the issues of loneliness and aloneness or feeling alone, the ability to sell something, to be able to be more effective at selling yourself, at selling product you might have, real tangible skills. So tell us a little bit about heroic communication and how it is that you teach that, what's required, are there steps involved?

As you know, I'm a coach and an author and also a speaker. I do a lot of programs, workshops, and things like that to help people learn the essential skills to becoming heroic. And heroic is obviously— it may be a subjective term, but nonetheless, we are all capable of rising to the occasion, to being more. And let me tell you a little bit about heroic communication. Basically, it's a 2-step process. You've got to have both steps. You have to have the desire to act, and then you have to have the decision to act. Let me give you an example. I think probably for the people that are listening and watching this, that maybe an example would be a better way to get this point across. I know the other day I was at Starbucks, and I think everybody has been to Starbucks once in their life, even by force. And I was standing behind a lady in the line. She was talking just kind of to the air. It was kind of the weirdest thing I think I've ever seen. And she was saying, sort of muttering to herself, my husband doesn't understand me. He's a pain. I mean, I think we've all been there. Married or not. And I had to sit and think for a second, and communication in my head was going off. Oh my God, what's going on? Is she crazy? Okay, she's— maybe she's not crazy. Maybe she's just angry. What do I do? Do I open up and make a conversation? Do I try to connect with her and maybe I can help? Or do I just get my coffee and quickly walk out the door? And I think we've had all had that situation where we've had to make that fork in the road. We've had to go one way or the other. Well, because of the way I am, I opened up and I created a conversation. And through our conversation, we got the chance to share and connect. I had some pieces of information that were helpful for her. She calmed down, she thanked me, and we still got the coffee and got out the door in a pretty good time. It's making that decision to connect, making that vulnerability that you have, and not being afraid, listening to those voices in your head, don't connect, oh don't, don't say it, don't, is to reach out and take that chance to create that bond and that connection. That's heroic communication. Could I be more? Yeah. Could I do more to help my fellow person in the Starbucks line? Yeah. And could she become better, calmer, all those things? I could answer yes to all those things. So when I did that, I left with my coffee and I felt great. I took the chance. I decided To connect. I had that desire, but I decided to connect and did. That's hero communication.

Wow. That's a really great example, by the way. I mean, we've all been in the Starbucks line and sort of saw somebody or observed something. And look, most recently, I mean, you talk about how poignant that example is in the context of what's going on in the world. Starbucks in Philadelphia had a very big issue show up right there. Yeah. 2 guys, African American men that are meeting someone, waiting to meet someone at a Starbucks for a business meeting, a real estate meeting, you know, they asked to use the restroom, etc., and they're escorted out by the police.

Unbelievable. I mean, there's the chance you're working in a Starbucks or you're in a Starbucks and you see something. Guess what? You have that ability to desire to figure out what was going on. You had to make that decision and take that chance. That whole thing could have been solved in 2 seconds if somebody went over and said, oh, how are you doing, by the way? You know, whatever. And it started a conversation. You just— the gentleman, I'm sure, would have said, hey, we're still waiting for our friend. We don't want to get our coffee yet until he gets in because we'll drink it all. We'll have to order another one. You know, I mean,

Exactly. It

could have solved the problem.

Right. So heroic communication in that instance could have solved that whole issue.

Absolutely.

Pretty interesting. And it also sounded like— I'm debriefing it in my mind as I'm listening to you— there's 2 parts. Seems like there's a 2-part process to what is heroic communication, or at least how it is that it shows up. Could you share? Is it in fact 2 parts?

Absolutely. Because there's a lot of times we Say, for example, we walk into that Starbucks and we have no desire to connect. We're having a bad day. We don't want to— so right then and there, the whole process is gone. Then we may have the desire to talk or to connect with that person, but then we have to do something. We have to open our mouths and we have to let out an appropriate comment. So it's a 2-step process. The decision, the desire and the decision has got to happen together because if you have a desire without a decision, nothing's going to happen. If you have a desire and you don't act, guess what? Nothing happens. So it's real important that both things have to occur.

So desire, meaning the, this part inside of you, so the internal communications that says, hey, I want to connect. I want to help somebody. You know, let's say I want to sell my services. So many people are shy about asking for the sale. They're shy about asking for what it is they want, which is to engage in a relationship of some kind. Right. Whether it's a professional one, as in, here's a product I think would be of value to you. Are you interested in learning more about it? Can we have a conversation about that? Or, you know, on a personal level, hey, I'm interested in you. I'd like to learn more about you. I'm curious about you and would love to get to know you. And people are shy about connecting at that level as well. And again, I think this is only getting more prevalent. So I'm not, as I said, my disclaimer, I'm not a sociologist, a psychologist, etc. But so we'll know 50 years from now when they write about this stuff what actually was going on. But the more people are working virtually in that central hub of some kind, To communicate, the communication skills can erode. They can become atrophied like when you don't exercise your body or your muscles, they atrophy, they get smaller. It's possible that the communication skills could be going in the wrong direction. And that's why I think the work that you're doing and the work you've shared with us today is so profound. It's so important. And there is 2 steps, it seems. The desire to connect and then the doing, the part that says, I'm gonna actually Do something. You could have been standing on that line at Starbucks watching this woman in some form of pain or confusion and just decide, I'm going to get my coffee and leave. And a lot of people probably walked right past her and watched, witnessed, et cetera, and said, hey, not my fight today. What can I do? And she could be crazy. I don't want to get involved in that.

And there's a lot of internal conversation. I think people laugh about the angel and the devil on both shoulders. Should I? Yes, no, yes, no. It kind of gets crazy. You have to say, what's my goal in everything? Do I want to end loneliness, be happier, make connection, or do I choose not to? Because I think as we go through all these problems in our world and we say, I'm going to close my eyes to being a human being in the world, That's kind of a sad thing. And sometimes we need to have those difficult conversations. We want to get something, a problem solved, but we have to decide to act.

Yes.

You know, if you're negotiating something, for example, some service that you didn't like, you need to speak up and say, hey, can we work this out? That's a difficult conversation. Who wants to be a complainer and a whiner?

Or to be confronting people. I mean, that's, I think, one of the hardest things for anybody I know. The most difficult thing in their communications is when they have to hold someone accountable or give them feedback or when they're the recipient of feedback. So there's no question that it takes courage to speak up. What are the ways that you can develop or cultivate more heroic communication within yourself?

A couple different ways. Obviously, one of the biggest ways is through personal coaching because each person has their own barriers, roadblocks, and giant boulders in front of them that they may not be perceptually aware of. So I like to look at them and assess them and talk with them and see where we need to focus. So that's one thing I want to say. That's my disclaimer. And the other thing is to simply change some of the perceptions, that developing that awareness, putting those people in front of the boulders and saying, yeah, there it is, there's what you need. And then creating the ability to change some of the internal communication with themselves. I do a lot of programs.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode. Of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today.

Whether it be workshops or one-on-ones, That talk about how do we place the previous learning and the internal dialogue that we have with ourselves? How do we replace it? Because it's really important that we're ready to replace. We know that things are going to happen. We want to make sure that we don't just say, oh, I'm never going to say that again, because guess what? You create a lovely vacuum. And you know what vacuums do? They suck in all kinds of junk, anything that you come across. And there might be worse programming, it might be worse comments. So what you want to do is carefully and systematically replace the old with the new and improved, better version of yourself. And that takes practice and skill. There are certain techniques, of course, compensatory techniques that I teach. Right.

And courage too.

And making that decision that you want to be better. How many people out there want to be better? That's courage right up front, right there.

Well, I have so enjoyed this conversation today. And I'm certain that the folks that are watching this, listening to this from all over the world, which is really amazing, have gotten great value out of it. I would love for you to say the name of your book once again. I know of course it'll be available on Amazon and we've got full show notes where we'll— those of you that want to find out more about Dr. Julie Haffner and her work, the show notes will have that including website addresses, etc. But yes, if you could, what's the name of that book again?

It is The 7 Tactics of Communication Completions: How to Build Trust.

And there's also an accompanying workbook, right?

There is an accompanying workbook that is now out too. The workbook's great because you get to take the activities and you actually get to do some self-development. My website is drjuliehaffner.com, and I would certainly love to have comments, read the blogs, and feel free connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. It's sort of like—

You covered them.

It's like the communication on the TV. There's 500 channels and there's nothing on.

Oh, that's so funny. Well, There are a lot of channels for communication these days, which is fantastic. So I will say this again, show notes are terrific, everybody. Dr. Haffner, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show, a joy actually. I appreciate you. I appreciate the message that you shared with us today. All of you out there, I wanna say this before we depart. Of course, we'd love to get your feedback as well. So if you could leave a review on iTunes, we really appreciate that. Yeah. You can leave comments at adammarkel.com/podcast. We'd love to hear from you. If you haven't yet subscribed to the podcast, please go ahead and do that. Check out all of the back episodes. We've got some really incredible ones. And our Facebook group, which people are— I've said this for a while, it's growing in not just size but in the engagement. Tremendous engagement in this Facebook group. You don't always see that, but there are so many people out there who are making the conscious decision to pivot. In regard to their mind, the way their mind processes information and how they end up doing things as a result of that, what it is that they're doing for a living, the decisions they're making moment to moment. There's lots of subtle and not so subtle pivots in our lives and to make a conscious decision to be better, to work on that self-improvement and that personal or professional improvement as well. As Dr. Hafner shared with us, I think is fundamental. So before we end our podcast today, I want to remind us of something that's so important, and that is that today was a blessing. This moment is absolutely a blessing. And my wish, my hope is that those blessings just continue to multiply for all of you, and that tomorrow you get to do something absolutely miraculous as you were able to do this morning, and that is to wake up. So I've shared for many years around the world a 3-step morning ritual, which I think is fundamental in making those changes possible. So those conscious pivots are supported by the fact that we have to take care of ourselves, that we have to have rituals for our own resilience. And the best one I've got is the one that wakes That starts the day and involves waking up. So number one, that we wake up tomorrow, and I hope that you are, wherever you are right now, agreeing and deciding that you will in fact wake up tomorrow, both the physical sense as well as waking up your consciousness that much more than it is even today. That's one. Number two, that you have a moment of gratitude at that time that you realize that is a gift And it wasn't guaranteed, and so it is in fact a blessing. So number 2, that you are grateful in that moment. And lastly, if you're willing to do this, either from your bed or from the floor or whenever it is that, that you're reminded of, of what a blessing your life actually is, that you say these words out loud. Talk about communication, and words is in fact heroic communication, that it is courageous to say out loud I love my life.

I love my life.

I love my life.

I love my life.

And one last time, I love my

life.

Oh, thank you so much for joining me in

that. I'm so grateful to be here. You're so wonderful.

Have a wonderful day, everybody. Ciao for now. We'll see you soon. Bye-bye.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcasts. For more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot Community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.