Part 1: Positive Communication Habits That Set Great Leaders Apart with Julien Mirivel

Most people, many people think that communication is just a way of transmitting information. It's a way of, you know, just sharing messages and our technologies capitalize on that. But what you really have to understand is that the act of communication is actually an act of relating.

Foreign. Hi dear friends. Welcome to the Happiness Squad podcast where we share weekly tips to help you flourish and make work well, being your competitive edge. I'm your host, Ashish, and I'm delighted to host my dear friend, Dr. Julian Marivel, who's a professor of applied communication at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock and one of the founding scholars in the field of positive communications. Julian has published four books on this topic and delivered hundreds of trainings worldwide. His mission is to help us speak in ways that inspire, uplift and unite at work and at home. In this first of two episode series, Julian shares the personal stories that led him to dedicate his life to this work. And we explored the first three foundational behaviors that we can all integrate around greeting, asking and complimenting. If we have to communicate positively, you'll walk away today with practical insights to build stronger relationships and unlock greater performance. One conversation at a time. Hi there, Julian. It is so lovely to have you with us on the Happiness Squad podcast. Thank you, thank you for joining and sharing the amazing work you've been doing in the field of positive communications.

Thank you so much, Ashish. It's a pleasure to be with you and I'm so looking forward to our conversation as well.

So, Julian, I'm curious. I wanted to start with a little bit of the spark behind your mission. Right? I mean, it's, you know, academic life. You dedicate yourself to a topic, you research it extensively, and it's quite different than all the self help gurus out there on LinkedIn, you know, posting five times a day, five times a week on things that not necessarily always research back. So, so what first drew you to really dedicate your life to studying this topic of positive communication? Was there a moment that clarified for you how powerful words can be? What was it?

So I think there's a couple experiences that really have made kind of have leaned me in that direction. And the first one is a person. So we're going to talk today a lot about communication, but really we always have to realize communication is connected to people.

Yes.

When I was an undergraduate student, I fell in love with the study of communication and I had a wonderful mentor. His name is Marvin Jensen. And I think he really truly inspired me to reach for a higher level of being in the way that I engage with other people. And in fact, everything he taught me now, I graduated in 2000, so 25 years ago with my BA and I went on to do my master's and my PhD. But when I came to UA Little Rock as a faculty, I basically decided to go back to what he was teaching me. So instead of continuing, I was trained as a microethnographer, as a discourse analyst, which I love. But really my passion, which was grounded in what I was learning from Marvin in his classes, I think changed and really influenced me. He left all of us, the students, by saying, if you're going to be a communication professional, your mission is to exemplify that the spoken word, spoken honorably and well, can make a difference that no other form of communication can equal. So that was, you know, he wrote that 26, 27 years ago when I was taking his classes. I still remember it today. So I would say that's a key experience. There's another one that's a little bit more personal. Do you mind if I share it?

Please? Okay, please.

So the other story is simply, you know, I'm originally from France. I came when I was to the United States when I was 15 years old. I flew from Geneva, Switzerland as a young 15 year old who wanted to learn English and landed in the.

Wow.

What seemed at the time like the middle of nowhere, they call it Iowa. And I landed in Iowa and I had to stay with the host family. But one thing you should know is that in that experience, I couldn't speak the language. I couldn't. I really didn't know the language at all. I couldn't express myself, I couldn't understand anything. I couldn't really listen or connect. And as a result of that, I became really, really tremendously isolated. I could not interact with my host family, I could not make friends at school. And it really became kind of at some point I decided I'm going to do everything I can to learn the language. But the beautiful part of it was that as I learned the language, as I learned to improve my communication skills, well, the magic happened. I started to build relationships with people and in fact made a very great friend who is like a brother to me. We're a lifelong friend and he inspired me to come back. So I came back to the United States for a second year. I've been in the United States ever Since, became a US citizen now just a year ago, for my 30 year anniversary into 2024. So I think these two experiences being completely isolating, realizing the power of communication for relationship and then meeting Marvin along the way is really what triggered me in that direction. So I'm in Iowa. I'm picked up by this host family and begin. Really, the journey began with me not speaking a word of English.

That must have been so hard.

It was. In some ways, it was devastating. You know, it was very isolating. What happened is because I couldn't speak, I couldn't understand, I couldn't express myself. You very, very quickly feel completely isolated and alone. But it became a motivating force for me to learn the language. And the beauty, which is what I teach to people today, is that as I developed my communication skills, as I learned to express myself, as I learned to understand what people were saying, well, the magic of communication took place, because communication is always relationship. And as I communicated then I started to build these really meaningful connections. But it really was building my communication skills that allowed me to transcend my sense of aloneness. And I think that experience, as well as meeting Marvin along the way, really shaped my focus on positive communication.

You know, I love both of those stories, Julian. No, I really do. And, you know, it's interesting, most people. And I'm so drawn to your work and especially this work around positive communications, because many people, you know, think about language as a way we describe the world.

Yeah.

They might even describe. And it can be describing the external world. Right. Here's what I'm seeing. I'm sitting in the garden. There's a tree. There's some birds outside. Or I describe my inner world. This is what I'm thinking. I was like, oh, my God. For my listeners, in a moment of transparency, we were recording, and my camera went off. And before that, my headphone wouldn't connect. So I'm like, oh, my God. Julian must be thinking. I'm like, complete novice. Like, what. What have I gotten myself into? But, you know, so I might describe my thought or what I'm feeling. Right. But we always think about it as describing. But I think there is a deeper role that language play. And that's why your work, I love. We generate new worlds, New worlds, new realities for ourselves and others through the words we use. And they matter.

Absolutely.

And nobody teaches us how to do that in a. In a more positive way versus not. Right.

That's correct. Yeah. We don't really get a lot of training, but it's also a fundamental change in your thinking. Right. And I do think that in my work, I try to change that thinking because most people, many people think that communication is just a way of transmitting information. It's a way of, you know, just sharing messages. And our technologies capitalize on that. But what you really have to understand is that the act of communication is actually an act of relating. And so relationships are always in the making. It's just a question of whether they're formal, distant, you know, isolating, or they are, you know, connecting you or really warm and friendly. So really, what we're doing is we're just navigating this world by how we are interacting with one another.

Yeah, no, it's beautiful. So I want to talk a little bit and have you define positive communications.

Sure.

Because there are so many who will say, you know, oh, positive communications. You're just talking about all positive positivity. Right. But that's not what positive communications is. So describe for our listeners. When you say positive communications, what do you really mean by it?

That's a great question. So, in general, I've got multiple definitions, but I'm referring to behaviors and actions in the act of communication that people take that are productive, Meaning they lead the relationship in a good direction, that are healthy. They reflect our potential, our possibility in terms of how we communicate. They reflect a sense of confidence in who we are, but also in the relationship that we have with other people. So there are a lot of behaviors that would qualify for that. But I like to always make clear that positive communication is not just about being friendly. It does include politeness. It does include friendliness, but it's also an optimistic way of engaging with people. It's also a healthy way of engaging with people. And it reflects behaviors that, to me, connect to an ethical way of being. So sorry to explain. This is going to get a little nerdy for a second.

No, no, no. I think it's really important, especially in today's world. I don't know. I don't. You know, 90% of the time, what I'm getting from the press, what I'm getting externally is not any of that. So. No, please get into the details. I think it is important to know what we're talking about.

Yes. I mean, so in my originally kind of like earlier work in terms of getting at the behaviors we'll talk about in the model here, I really started with this notion of excellence that dates back to Aristotle. So, you know, what does it mean to be excellent? And Aristotle was very clear that being excellent is actually living in accordance with virtue, that our capacity as human beings, we can fall flat. Right. We sometimes make mistakes. We can be obviously violent and problematic, and we can attack each other. But there's also sometimes where we really shine. And so I think for me, positive communication is a word I use to talk about moments of communication, things we do, things we say that exemplifies a higher level of being, this notion of excellence. So just to put it succinctly, positive communication is not just being nice. It includes things like being courageous. It includes things like speaking truth to power. It includes things like confronting and really living towards a sense of social justice. It's you can be both, you can be, you know, encouraging and also at the same time sometimes need to speak truth to power. And, and we want positive communication to be conceptualized in that way.

Yeah, it's beautiful. You know, in a lot of the work we do with Pearl, we talk about having constructive conflicts and oftentimes team leaders say, wait, what do you mean? I thought conflicts are, conflicts can be constructive. I'm like, yeah, absolutely.