Become Happier with Better Communication Skills

If your umbrella intention is to have ambition. I want great relationships and I want to learn from others. That frames every method, every tactic, and every principle underneath. Okay, learning. Here's another one. Honoring. I love this one. Very few people talk about this, so I think it's important in a relationship, in your communication. Your communication style should be honoring of other people. What does that mean? Honoring means you hear what they say, you reflect it back. You honor that. Welcome to your growth day training. We are going to talk about advanced communication skills so that you can deepen your relationships, survive this very tumultuous time in cultural conversations, and finally have the confidence that you need to show up and live the life that you desire. And when you feel like you can communicate well, I always say communication is the number one most important skill, and we all know that. But very few people practice it at an advanced level. Most people could just kind of go through the motions and they wreck their relationships. They go through the motions. They don't lead well. They go through the motions. They don't express their deepest truth. They don't express who they are. They're scared to set boundaries, scared to say no. Scared. Scared to speak up and be vulnerable. And so they watch their life not come to magic, not come to life. And what I wanna do with you today, to work together to develop personal and professional development, like develop yourself, both personally, in your relationships, professionally, in your health, in your finances, in all areas of your life. And most importantly and most importantly, be more intentional about the month ahead. Those of you who show up here, will you give yourselves a round of applause here. This is a big day. I. I recognize and I honor your time. I get the fact that you chose to work on yourself today. Grab a journal so that you have your own journal for the month with us. So you're always working on yourself and tracking when there's so many other things you could be doing. You are working on yourself so that you can become more, reach your potential and hopefully serve other people and make your difference. I know that's what unites us all here. So I'm excited to be with you here today. This is one of my very favorite topics, communication. Because the way that I grew up, I was not surrounded by a lot of great communicators. You know, I grew up in an old Irish mining town and had been, you know, economically depressed for 100 years. You know, so people didn't really communicate and share that much, especially the men in my life. There was not much vulnerability. The only expression of vulnerability was when they got really mad and smacked you and then felt bad about it and apologized later. If you got an apologetic look, it was a good day. So there wasn't a lot of that around then. When I went into high school and college, I recognized I was lacking in the ability to express myself. I recognized I was lacking in confidence. I recognized that I was always in, like, arguments with the girl that I was dating at the time, with my friends. And I was always like, why? Why am I always arguing with people? Why am I always upset? How come they don't understand what I'm saying? And I realized my friendships were superficial. And so I just wonder if any of you have ever been in relationships or are in a relationship right now where you feel like the communication sucks. Raise your hand. You know, and now can you also admit that maybe you haven't developed the communication skills you need yet? Raise your hand. You know, I also recognized that when I got into business, I would go into these meetings, and I was nervous and I couldn't speak up for myself, and I was awkward, and I just. I wasn't able to convey my ideas. I didn't have an idea for the business or for the company I was working for, and no one would really listen. And I couldn't figure out how to persuade them. And worse, after the meeting, I'd be upset, and I'd go to people. I'm like, well, no one understands me in there. And people would say, well, you know, you're not really arguing for what you want here. And I realized I was just. I was holding back. Can any of you guys raise your hand to this? That you hold back Your own thoughts, your own desires, your own dreams, your own goals, that sometimes with a spouse or with a partner or with somebody you are even actually leading or serving, you don't say what you mean. You don't express your truth. And so the communication between the two of you or the group of you falters, and you're not able to put your ideas forward. You don't feel as engaged in that community or with that team. And you just wonder, why is this not getting any better? Some of you have been in relationships or marriages, and year over year over year, you couldn't break that communication pattern. Either they didn't communicate the way that you wanted, or you don't communicate the way they wanted. And it was like night and day. And you kept thinking, well, something will change. So you tried things, well, maybe we need more date nights. Maybe we need a vacation. Maybe we need to go to the Spa together. Maybe we should take more walks. But what has to happen on all those things? Better communication. That's it. See, people try all the time to change their environment, they try to change their relationships, and if they don't change their communication skills, nothing really changes. Who's ever experienced this before, right? You think, oh, I'm going to move to a new city and have a whole new friendship circle. And you showed up in a new city, no new friends, communication style. What happens? Or communication approach. What happened? Oh, I'm going to change that job and my next team will listen to me. And you went to that team and it was also full of more idiots. It was also full of more people who don't get it. It was also more full of people who didn't support you. Why? Communication, right? We have to recognize we are the source of our own pain so often because we don't develop our communication. And that is why I'm here to recognize you and to honor you and cheer you on. This is the day to grow. I mean, I can't believe how many people begin their month and they have no intention for themselves, no intention for their family, no intention for their career, for their mission. And they just go through the motion the whole month. This is the day to be together, to celebrate together, to learn together, to grow together. How do you advance your communication? And I'll share my perspective. We need you participating in the cultural conversations that are going on around the world right now. We need you participating with your family and with your spouse, with your partners. Talking about being more communicative about where our world is is what's going to help us improve it. But you've heard that saying before, is all it takes for evil to prevail, for good people to say nothing. And so our job is not to just learn today, communication so we can feel confident in social situations. It's, let's change the cultural conversations happening around the world. Let's develop ourselves so we can contribute more calmly, more peacefully, more fairly, more inclusively, more thoughtfully. How many of you can be honest and raise your hand right now? You probably should have been more communicative with your family and your teams this last year. You know, in a very difficult time, people need more communication, right? Everyone's going to talk about engagement, everyone's going to talk about community. Everyone's going to talk about changing the world. What's the through line that makes it all communication? And so I'm going to share with you 10 lessons I've learned that are sort of advanced Communication skills. So forgive me right off the bat, I'm not going to go to the junior varsity route of just saying, well, you should listen more, reflect back to what people say and just ask them lots of questions. Because I think there's a specificity in doing those things. There's a certain way to approach a relationship or a communication situation. There's a certain intention to have, there's a certain process that helps you become better at those things. So I'm going to share the 10 with you and these are going to come from a perspective of both the research. Some of you know, that's my master's degree is in organizational communication with an emphasis in leadership, trying to help people communicate better individually and on teams and organizations. So this is part of my academic career, but on the other side of things, I spend every day of my life being compensated for how I communicate. And so I've learned so much about that, so much about doing it through here, through, you know, live casts and videos. And we're all on video on Zoom. How many of you feel like you work for Zoom now? You know, who's logged in more hours for Zoom this year than you did in almost any other system last year? You know, it's like we all work for a communication platform now, it feels like, or you're on social media, you're doing that work to reach people and to communicate something, right? But today's emphasis, I'm really going to go and try to make it personal for you and really break it down to that individual one to one relationship for advanced communication skills. Because the principles I'll share with you today, these 10 principles, these 10 principles, I think they come to life when we're talking about one to one communication. But you'll immediately see how they apply to your team. How do they apply to major groups, how do they apply culturally as well? Okay, so I've got 10 ideas for you. So write down a list of 10. And here we go. Advanced communication strategies. Here we go. Number one, you must start with having the ambition for great relationships. Have ambition for great relationships. I know that might sound common sense, but it's not common practice. That's why so many people who could achieve greatness do not. I want you to think about this. Your ambition for the quality of relationships in your life is the umbrella principle. It's the umbrella value ethic that is driving how your relationships are right now. I can't tell you how many people I've coached and worked with in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s who never, ever set a true, genuine ambition for great relationships. Relationships that were vibrant, relationships that were deep, that had depth to them, relationships that made them feel engaged, happy, joyous, fulfilled. What most people do is they take the relationships that show up in front of them and go, I guess that's the way it is. I guess my parents are like that. Why have any ambition for anything better? They're never going to change. They start dating or they get married and they go, well, I guess it is what it is. I've been with her for five years, she's not going to change. And you get this idea that people don't change. And what you do is your ambition keeps falling and you allow your dream, your desire, your ambition for great relationships to continually get knocked down. And every time someone doesn't understand you, you've let your ambition for vibrancy and intimacy and sexiness and fun and joy in your partner. Relationships fall down. Every time you get in a fight, it stacks on. Every time there's trouble, it stacks on. And you keep getting more and more frustrated with the person. Your frustration grows into closed down communication. And now there's this distance, there's this block. And what people do is they immediately stop keeping their ambition for great relationships alive. I had the blessing of horrible relationships. Anyone else? I mean, I had terrible relationships. Just awful, just the worst terrible relationships. When I was a young man, right? This came up like I had this terrible relationship. I grew up in a town where everybody beat me up. You know, I grew up in a town where everyone. There's a lot of really, really, really just awful adult behavior. Grew up in a place where there wasn't a lot of good communication. I. My first relationships with people I dated were just horrible judgment, just horrible off, just like negativity and just, you know, huge demonstrations of anger. And it was just like, whoa. And the blessing was sometimes we, we need a change. For me, it was, I got a knock in the head with my car accident. Made me realize, actually, I don't like that. I want phenomenal relationships. I. I want phenomenal relationships with everybody around me. And so how many of you ever had that ambition before? And maybe you picked up a book like how to Win Friends and Influence People, right? Or how to Talk so People listen or how to, you know, argue and win every time. Or you picked up these books and you're like, oh, I need to learn how to share and communicate. Well, that was me. I was that dork my whole life. When I struggle with something, I go to books and I just Start reading on things. And one of the blessings was I read about these people who had great relationships and I never had that, but I kept my ambition. Here's the hardest thing to ask anyone to do in this particular year. Raise your ambition for your relationships. That you're just like, we're trying to survive and you're trying to blunt out the difficulty by just turning on the TV all the time or handing over devices all the time. And the ambition to have great relationships with the kids, with the spouse, with everybody else has kind of faded into I'm just going to survive. But I'm here to warn you as your coach that I'm just going to survive in this relationship, just trying to get through the days with this family. That ambition is lower than your potential, that ambition is hurting your intentions. That low ambition not to have something great is cheating you from fulfilling the destiny you were probably meant to have, but would require great relationships. And as your coach, I'm here to say be wary of the fact that you are so wary in your relationships. Be attentive to the fact like, oh wow, we are just trying to survive right now. Because that's a slippery slope, isn't it? How many know that? Like when you just try to survive, Imagine you run a business, right? You're a CEO, you're an entrepreneur, you're running your business. If you allow just surviving to last for months or years, that company never survives, right? Someone in that company must have ambition. For what? Growth? For better service, for better relationships with the customers. If you don't have that in the business, the business flat then dies. That's the same thing in marriage and relationship. The same thing in child parenting, the same thing. The same thing. Every time we don't keep an ambition to challenge ourselves to do better, we end up hurting the very thing. And so I'm here to say have ambition for great relationships again. And I know your first impulse can easily be, well, you don't understand my husband. Well, you don't understand these crazy kids. You don't understand this team. You understand my business. I, you know what? Don't be a you don't understand person because that stops you from learning. People say you don't understand, they cut off the very advice they need to hear because they want to self justify. Does it make sense that it's hard? Does it make sense? It's much more difficult with someone who doesn't listen. Does it make more sense when you have an obstinate husband, team or person in your business? Sure. Those are roadblocks Those are difficulties, those are struggles. But just because it's hard doesn't mean it's impossible to improve. Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's impossible to improve. You can improve your relationships, and I think you're going to find that, and we're going to start it right now. Do you want to improve your relationships? Let's do a gut check. How much ambition have you had recently for great relationships? Have you woken up about it? Have you journaled about it? Have you thought about it? Is it in your goal sheet? If I paraded in your house, show me the piece of paper that says improve this relationship. Show me the piece of paper that says create great relationships with everybody I meet. Show me the paper. Show me how often that piece of paper got journaled on. Show me how often you wrote that down, and then we can have a conversation that I don't understand. Right? So let's start with have you had the ambition? And if not, let's reignite that today. Let's reignite your desire for deep, compelling, beautiful, awesome, fulfilling, intimate, zesty, fun relationships. Again, you can have them. And if you stopped yourself from believing that, it only means you disengage from the skill set. You just. You just disengage from the development here. And that might sound like harsh or judgmental, a way for a coach to kick off with it, but I'm a high performance coach. I'm supposed to hold your feet to the fire a little bit and challenge you and say, this should be an area that you love working on. Raise your hands if you love communication. Yeah, you guys, I know, I get it. This is a great and a fun and a fulfilling and a great place to focus. So please, let's up level our ambition together, my friends, for great relationships. That's number one. Without that one in place, everything else is a principle. But it's unmoored from growth. It's unmoored from greatness, and we want to be connected to those things. All right, number two, as I've learned in my life and many of you have to, everything's about intention. Like, what is the intention of my communication with this person? And I believe there's three intentions we have to set. Okay? So this is what my idea is. You got to set intention for learning, honoring and improving. Okay? This is all one point. So please write this down. Set an intention for learning, honoring, and improving. This is my modus operandi. When I sit down with somebody, my whole thing in sitting down with people and this Is not just my coaching career. This is life. If we go to breakfast together, go to lunch together, hang out, my whole mode is I want to learn about this person. Notice I don't say I want to show I'm awesome. No, I want to learn about this person. Meaning, has learning been your primary mode of operation with your spouse recently? Has learning been your primary mode of operation with that team member? Has learning been your primary mode of operation in communicating to groups or when you're talking with your partner or that person who you love? Is it always just about? You got to tell them what you need, you got to tell them what the to do list is, you got to tell them what the agenda is. And you live in communication land. That is what I call agenda based, not learning based. Some people only talk at their kids. We're doing this, this, this, and this and this. But they never learn from their kids. So it's a different relationship. Right. Agenda based communication, which is usually to do list. What are we doing where we're going versus the first primary thing is learning. And I think this is so important. If we can just shift everything. Listen, I always tell people listening skills without the very primary intention of learning is just a tactic. Does that make sense? I know in like junior varsity levels of conversation about communication, be a great listener. Well, what does that mean? Well, the intention is to learn. Listening is one of the vehicles for that. So set an intention to learn more. We got to learn from each other again and be open to learning from each other. And instead of going at each other with our political agenda, going at each other with our to do list, Going to each other with our value ethic. Like, we stopped learning from each other as a culture. And that's how you get tribalism and division at the epic levels we face worldwide now. Because the intention to learn from another went out the window. And the intention to persuade or argue at or accuse other people went up. Right. So let's remember setting the intention for learning. Think about this. If your umbrella intention is to have ambition. I want great relationships and I want to learn from others. That frames every method, every tactic, and every principle underneath. Okay, learning. Here's the other one. Honoring. I love this one. Very few people talk about this. So I think it's important in a relationship, in your communication, your communication style should be honoring of other people. What does that mean? Honoring means you hear what they say, you reflect it back. You honor that. That's a great idea. Thank you for sharing. I appreciate you. I really value that you shared that I respect that you're participating right now. I'm thankful that we're having this conversation also saying very simple things like, I appreciate you did this. Good job at that. Honoring the other person so they feel heard, valued, respected, and appreciated. Honoring the other person so they hear. They feel heard, valued, respected, and appreciated. That's like, everything, right? How good have you been at honoring your partner, your spouse, persons that you care about? If your parents around have been speaking to them and honoring their difficulties this year? The people who you love in your life, your family? Have you been honoring their unique and difficult journey through what is a crazy and wild year? I mean, think about your last 10 major conversations. Were you honoring of the other? Now, my bet is in our community here, you do. We're blessed to be surrounded by high performers all around the world right now. In this coaching group with you guys, we got people on, I don't know how many zoom groups we're running. 5, 6, 7, 8 zoom groups right now, right? All around. All around the world. We got people communicating and participating right here. And if you think about it, that's a beautiful thing about our community here, right? You're more likely to be people who show up for a session like this. You know who usually isn't here? The bad communicators. Because they go, I already know it. You know? No, you're the learner. You're the person who wants to develop in this way. So I'm honoring you as a community for caring enough to develop this skill. But this is a very key principle in your communication patterns with other people. Is learning there as your intention? Is honoring the other there as intention? Even when I go into a place where I know I'm going to have a conflict with someone, my whole mindset shifts. Make sure they feel honored and respected in this process. Make sure they feel that. Honor them. Honor them for showing up. Honor them for trying. Honor them for a good job when they do a good job. Honor them for sharing their voice. Honor them for participating. Honor them for giving you the time of day. Really, like, if we can remember the value of each relationship, everything can change. All right, so our intention is for learning, honoring, and the last thing is improving. You want the most advanced communication skill in the history of the world. Try to improve another person's day. Try to improve another person's day. Listen to what they're saying and try to ask questions or give advice when it's sought or share an idea to help them improve their situation, their day, their. Their feeling, their mindset. My Mode is whoever is here. I am here to be of service. Whoever's in front of me, I'm going to try to really learn about them, to honor them as a person and to help them reach whatever goals that they're after. Right. You've heard me say that in my mission statement forever. It's like, to help people achieve their goals faster. That's just part of the conversation with me. And. And I think that's given me great skills with other people because it's taught me how to listen for what they want, which we'll talk about. Okay, so this one, I know I'm belaboring this point, but I think this is so important. You've got to set that intention. I'm going to learn here, I'm going to honor this person. I'm going to help this person improve. I'm going to learn here, honor this person, help them improve. Learn here, honor this person, help them improve. That little triangle of goodness is running in my brain all the time, and that helps me. I don't always get it right. I'm not a perfect communicator, but I think I get paid at the level I do as a coach. I think I have the depth of relationship with my family and my friends the way that I do, because these things are my value ethic. Don't always get it right. Plenty of time, just like you. I can be in a hurry. Plenty of time, just like you. I've got an agenda. Plenty of time, just like anybody else. We don't always understand people, appreciate them, agree with them, that's okay. But when I lead with these things, I want a great relationship with this person. So I'm going to learn. I'm going to honor them, I'm going to serve them. From that perspective, my odds of having great relationships are way high. So let me jump into something that I think screws it up for you. Number three, stop trying to impress people. You know, stuff. Trying. Here's. I mean, think about how many arguments you have or how many disagreements you have because you're trying to impress upon somebody that you, you know, everything that you're right, you're trying to impress them with your status, your credibility, your, you know, Instagram post that isn't quite real. You know what I'm saying? And a lot of communication problems happen because we want to impress other people. And here's what I'm here to share with that. The opposite, to me of stop trying to impress people is for you to have the confidence in self that you don't need to do those things. Because in communication, when you are braggadocious, in communication when you seem narcissistic, in communication, when you seem like you need to know everything, people are less trusting, open, authentic and vulnerable with you. Think of how often you try to impress people, right? Even. Even a conversation with someone, you have to tell them, well, I've been through all these things and I know this exact thing. Even in a conversation, you feel like you have to make a case of all your different. You know, you have to form a case like you're a lawyer and you're talking to your spouse, trying to build the case against them, to demolish them. By the way, I've been guilty of that and I get in trouble for it all the time. So I'm not here to say I got it all figured out or impress you that I have all the perfect relationships. I'm here to tell you I know when I suck, when I'm terrible at relationships. It's because some part of me, some part of me felt unheard, undesired, unworthy. So because I internally felt unheard or undesired or unworthy, I tried to impress. And what did that do? When you try to impress at somebody what they do, you don't see it, but they kind of shut down. They're like, oh boy, they think you have a lot of ego. They think they can't trust you. They wonder why you are always trying to prove yourself versus just be with them. Who's ever been on a date with somebody who just tried to prove themselves the whole time to you on a date? Anyone ever go through that and you're just listening to this person going, we're already on the date. We're good. Like, you already made it through a first qualification. We're here. Like, you don't have to give me your resume. Like, we can talk. But you ever been there where someone just trying to prove themselves that trying to improve is coming from? They've often in their life felt unheard or undesired or unworthy. And so for if you find yourself doing that, it's time to explore those things, right? Explore those things with the coach, Explore those things with a therapist, Explore those things with your journal, whatever you got to do. But really think there, it's like, wow, why do I have to do that? Because what that feels like, you have to understand when you try to prove yourself, when you try to impress other people, what happens is one, it knocks you out of your authentic open heart. It knocks you out of presence. But it also makes them feel like you're posturing. And so I had to learn that. You know, we teach a program called Experts Academy for years which where we taught marketing and influence with other people. And I always share that the first pillar in the marketplace is of positioning, of helping people understand who you are and what you stand for. But I saw so many people try to position themselves as the number one something. And by the way, if that's true, that's okay. But if you try to impress that upon an audience too fast without sharing authentically who you are, they don't like that. I always say you can't share your success until you shared your struggle because then they don't believe the success. They think you had a silver spoon or your luck didn't do it versus you earned this. So these are all ideas coming back to don't try to impress so fast, right? Some of you run ads and your ads are, you know, look, you know, think about all those guys you see running ads with their Lamborghini, right? Or running ads and they're showing off the fancy thing. What do you usually think for the most people, they're not usually impressed with that. They're kind of turned off by that. Why? Because why do you have to start your conversation with me showing me your watch or your car or your house? I'm not saying that that can't be effective for a certain segment of people, but I hear say one on one, huge turn off with a team, huge turn off with a group of people. You're trying to actually have a relationship, not just sell or convert turn off. So I hope you consider some of these ideas. Hey guys, it's Brandon. I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter because I have a resource for you related to this episode and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra. If you've ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmo.com, click on Private Group to apply to see you can get into Ultra Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well. Just go to progressmode.com number four. This is important. People say, how do I listen? I say, well, what you are listening for is you're trying to ask about feelings, goals and process so what makes you a great communicator? If you and I have lunch and. And I walk away and I'm like, wow, she was a great communicator. Why am I going to say that? Usually because you helped elicit my feelings, you helped elicit my goals, and you helped elicit my process. How's it going? Great listeners aren't just reflecting things back to somebody. Great listeners are also helping others share more. And what do people love to share? They love to share things about their life, their passions, their interests. Okay, you can reflect those things back to people. But if you go one level deeper and you're the person who helps people share their feelings around you, I mean, isn't it funny? The most advanced communication strategy in the world is to elicit emotion more. Elicit emotion more, to ask about their feeling. So when they describe their day, instead of you saying, oh, then what did you do next? That's like procedural. And say, it's like, oh, how did you feel about that? Some of you guys know I was lucky to work with and know and do business with one of the persons considered one of the great interviewers in history. Two different types of people with. Larry King is a great friend and mentor and done work with him. And Oprah Winfrey, great friend and mentor and done work with her. Both of them are master, master listeners. Something I learned from Larry that I'll never forget, that I will never forget is I was kind of asking him what makes a great interviewer, and he gave me this example of the question. One of the first questions he asked Mark Zuckerberg, who's the CEO of Facebook, as you guys know, right? So the CEO of Facebook. So think about this. You have the opportunity to interview Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, at a time, especially when they interviewed, was, you know, the. Pretty much the biggest conversation in the tech world. The fastest growing company in the tech world. It was, right, Everything. So you get to sit down, somebody who's building the biggest platform literally in the history of. Of the planet, they're running it, what are you going to ask them? Here's what Larry told me. He asked Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, his first question, or sorry, his favorite question to him was, so, Mark, what's it feel like to be the CEO of Facebook? What's it like to be the CEO of Facebook? He went right to trying to get to like, what does that feel like? That's a big company, you know, you reach, you know, 2 billion people. Now what's that feel like? See Great. Communicators are listening, observing, asking about feelings. Emotion, right? Oprah's magic on her set was she was able, through her vulnerability and her openness for 25 years on television at the top, to be able to have people feel so comfortable with her presence that they would openly share their feelings where that wouldn't happen on other shows. Right. You watch Oprah Winfrey and then you watch like, you know, a news television broadcast. It's completely different. The engagement she had with other people because she was willing to go into emotion. You've got to be willing to go in emotion. If you're trying to do anything with people, lead them, persuade them, sell, help, serve. Emotion has to bubble up. You need to elicit feeling from people way more often. Way more often. It's not just, hey, honey, how did school go today? Well, I went to this class, I had this for lunch. This kid was nice. This kid wasn't. It's like, how did you feel about that? How did you feel about that? What were you feeling when that was happening? These types of questions are so basic and people forget to ask them, but that's what's really advanced because that's what elicits more. What's advanced in communication strategies. What elicits more? What elicits more, but not just more information, more feeling. The two number one viral content creators on Earth today, Jay Shetty and Prince ea, both of them have had billions, with plural, billions of video views. I asked them about how they make that content go viral. What was their conversation? Emotion. You got to tap into people's feelings. You got to think about, what do you want them to feel after and through the video. Feeling and emotion are their primary modus operandi. It's like you have to have to think about that. So your job, elicit more feeling, ask more, think about the dinner. And this is so basic. Think about your last 10 dinner conversations. Did you get to any emotion or feeling of how the person felt about that day? Did you go there? Because great communicators go there with their family, with their friends, with people they lead. So I said, you're listening for three things. Feelings, goals. This is so important. Great coaches, as an example, always say, oh, so once they get the feeling, oh, what did you want to feel? What did you want from that? What are you hoping is going to happen? If everything was great, what's next month look like? What are you trying to do? What are you trying to do by the end of this month? The end of this year? Right. Just getting people to Speak about their goals, their desires, their ambition, their hopes, their dreams. Great communicators do that with people, you know, really great communicators do that. I've been blessed to work with two different presidents, two different US Presidents, one Democratic, one Republican, so don't you freak out. And what I noticed in both of them, in both of them, their ability to have a conversation with people and ask them about their family and what they want for their family. Think about that. The greatest politicians in the world are talking about, this is what you probably want for your family. Or asking, what would you like for your family? What do you hope for in your career? What would you like this nation to be like? What would you like this country to be like? That question of, what are our goals here? What are we trying to do here? What do you want? What are you after? That's the questions of great communicators. So I said, feelings, goals, and this last place, which is so important. Process. Process. Tell me how you did that. What were you thinking through when you were doing that? What did you want when you were doing that? How did that turn out? If you could do it again, what different. What would you do differently? This is. These are procedure. These are process questions, right? Questions about not just how's it going, but how are they feeling, thinking and experiencing how it is going. But now we have bigger things to talk about, larger concerns. And because of that, it's easier to get conversation going. But a lot of people forget about process. You know, did you talk with your family about how these last 30 days went for them, how they felt, what they wanted, where they want next month, how they want it to go now, literally, on this conversation, on a walk this morning with my wife, before I even talked about what I was talking about here today, it's like, great, but what. What do we want now? Like, we're always kind of recalibrating. How do we want our day to go? We talked about morning routines, or we talked about, like, what we want to learn. And just in a conversation about, what do we want it to be like now? Great communicators and great relationships and couples are always talking about that. How do we want to live? What do you want from this life? What do you want from this life? What do we want together? How should we do this journey together? That's process, right? Communicators are doing that all the time. What should this feel like? What should this be about? How do we want it to go? That's process. All right. I hope you guys like this one, that was just one point. Okay, that was ask about feelings, goals and process we talked about. Number one, have ambition for. For great relationships. Number two, set intention for learning, honoring and improving the lives of others. Number three, stop trying to impress people. Number four, ask about feelings, goals and process. Number five, deconstruct your triggers. When you're in a conversation with someone, what usually pisses you off? What upsets you? What gets you angry? Do you know what usually makes that happen? What is it that someone says or does that makes you impatient, infuriated, upset, hurt, detached, disconnected? Like you should really think about? What is it that people say or do that makes me have less good communication skills? Like, what is it that threatens your ego, that shuts you down, makes you lash out, hurts your feelings? Do you know those things? Very many people in this world are operating impulsively. It's just always impulsive. They're just like being around a caged animal. They never know what's going to happen with them because that person has never taken away their triggers. This is where. Why are great communicators so often people who also had therapy or had coaching or do the personal development like you are doing right here, because it works. Because when you know thyself, you don't lash out at others. When you know thyself, when you're good with who you are, and when you have learned that space between stimulus and response and taken ownership, responsibility, control and engagement over that space between stimulus and response. Like, it's super hard to make me angry anymore. And I grew up in like super fast, impulsive anger. In family, friends, the culture that I grew up, like, anger was everywhere. Impatience was everywhere. Anyone else have this? It was just like volatility all the time, right? That isn't in my heart anymore. Because when I was young, I was somebody who some of you guys know. Like my, my. My background is like one of the things that was very passionate about in my life was martial arts. Because I grew up getting a lot of fights. I didn't know how to do it, so I got in martial arts to learn to take care of myself better. Not because I thought it was interesting, because I didn't want to die. So I got passionate about it. And unfortunately, my first year or two in college, I would use that to my advantage. So my friends, we'd be out at a bar or somewhere or out on the street and one of them would mouth off to somebody and their fight would start and I would always jump in and I would always, I always, instead of De escalating, I would be happily de escalated. Like someone's, you know, mouthing off to one of my friends. I'd get in, I'd mouth off to them, and I'd be willing, like, because I could handle myself. I had a lot of confidence in myself. But the problem was it was not being aimed towards good ends. And so what ended up happening was I didn't realize how easy it was for me to get triggered into wanting to fight, like, literally physically. And I recognized I was like, why does that happen? And it was because, oh, you know what? I don't feel respected in my life. I don't feel like I have command in my life. I'm frustrated by that. I'm angry about my lot in life. I'm angry that these people treated me angrily. I'm angry that there was so much anger around me. Anyone know what I'm talking about? And so what would happen is any threat to my ego, I would feel angry about it, and I'd lash out. And I spent all of my 20s trying to decouple from that triggers, trying to recognize I need to learn how to deal with that. Luckily, I was a resident assistant in College. Any RAs out there? Resident assistants, college. So I lived in a dormitory, and I had floors of people who I was responsible for. You know, new incoming freshmen, usually freshmen or sophomore who were living in the dorms. And it was my job to be kind of like the caretaker slash police, right? And so I had to learn to have literally drunk freshmen screaming at my face in the middle of the night. I had to learn to deal with people, walk up to a couple who were fighting and screaming at each other and make sure they didn't hate me and, like, defuse that situation. That only worked because I learned to defuse myself. I learned to remove my triggers by asking, what are my triggers again? What makes me angry? What upsets me, what hurts my feelings, what shuts me down? You need to know those things and do the work on those things and then recognize when they're happening. Be more observant, like, oh, I recognize I'm getting upset about this right now. My ego must be engaged. I notice I'm not breathing. Let me take a few breaths here. Let me not reply right now because I'm not going to say something that is honoring of this person or honoring of my character. Okay? This would be something I would usually lash out against. This would be usually something I get upset about. Let me just hang out here for a minute and not have to escalate here's how you know if you've been triggered, you escalate or you shut down as your first response. Automatically, you just shut down or you escalate. It's like. It's like there's a polarity there. It's, like, immediate. It's physical, it is impulsive, and it is a pattern that you drop into, right? You either shut down or you escalate. And there's no gray area, there's no time between the triggering incident and that response of either shut down or escalate. That's how you know you really need to do some work here. My job isn't to be your therapist here, but I would happily cheer you on to get one. If you've never had a coach who reflects back to you, wow, you really think everybody's an idiot. Or you seem to get in all these arguments all the time, and you haven't had that feedback yet. That might be a good place for you to explore therapy or coaching. And I say that in a world where there's this mental health crisis, but still, most people don't get a therapist. I'm like, or get a coach. And it's like, you have to. You have to learn to navigate these things by talking them through. As a young man in my 20s, I had to talk about my anger. I had to talk about what shut me down. And in those discussions, I learned about myself. And then I read so much in psychology, I was like, wow, I definitely am not good at that. So I kept reading. I read books on anger. I read books on impatience. And that just helped me, because for me, I go to books. Maybe you go to somebody else. Maybe you go to therapists. But you want to explore these things. You must know your triggers. And if you're watching this entire conversation, you're like, brendan, I'm not someone who gets triggered. I'm like, oh, good thing the holidays are coming up for you. And you're about to learn. If you don't feel like you get triggered, thank God the political elections are happening here in the US and you're about to learn where you do get triggered. Because when there is huge emotion about something, you're being triggered, and it's probably coming out in your communication style, and it's probably pushing away people. This is a good time to explore those things. Okay, that's number five. Deconstruct your triggers. I love. This is my favorite one. Number six. Don't be in a hurry. Don't be in a hurry. I know everyone's in a Hurry now. And it's super unfortunate that so many people are in a hurry, you know, and yet most people have the time. Today, North Americans spend about four to five hours on television and probably another one hour on social media or news. That's consumptive. That's not like they're not looking for inspiration. There's no task at hand. They're just like blindly scrolling, they call it. Well, check this out. That five hours a day, that ends up being like almost 200 work days a year. It's a ton of lost time and opportunity. Most people have the time to have a conversation, but they're prioritizing getting back to their phone. They're prioritizing getting back to their email. They're prioritizing doing that thing that they think is so important. And they deprioritize the person right in front of them so their spouse is sharing something. Their spouse can't even get to the story before they have to pick up the phone and look. So that person in front of them is less valued and prioritized than what's on the phone. And so that's why we have to teach ourselves. Put the phone over there, have dinner, have conversation. You know, don't look at it. Even though you feel compelled to, don't. You gotta deconstruct that addiction you have with the interruptions you allow. But also, don't hurry. Here's what I mean. I think about one of my great friends and I'd say role models in my life, guy named Ethan Willis. Many of you guys met Ethan at our growth events before. He's one of my partners in one of our companies and someone I just admire more than anybody as a man, as a CEO, as someone, you know, who has eight children. He has eight kids. He's the most patient guy I ever met. I just think about. I always think about when I'm in conversation. He's never in a hurry. Even though I know he has a huge company to run with, you know, near 100 employees, eight children. He's the bishop of his church, so the community needs him. I think he's one of seven kids. So he's got family everywhere, all around him. And he's, you know, a partner in multiple companies. And so here you are, admired in your community, needed by a major family, busy as heck. He's like talking at a cool, calm running stream all the time. Never in a hurry. Never in a hurry. And I admire that, and I aspire for that. To be patient with people is to be present with them. To be patient with people is to be present with them. And when they feel your presence, you. They share more with you. When they share more with you, they value you and your communication more. You know, and often people say, but, Brandon, I really am so busy, I have to be in a hurry. I go, no, no. You can be busy, but not in a hurry. And learning the difference between busy decoupled from hurry is where life comes back. You can also set boundaries. I have clients all day long who want to talk to me for hours and hours and hours, and I just glide right in and go, you know What? I've got 30 minutes today, and I really want to hear where you're at and how things are going. And we're going to do 30 minutes. I've got to stop strong at 30 minutes, but I'm really interested to hear how it's going. So let's have this conversation. And that 30 minutes I make feel like 90 minutes. But guess what? At 30, we're done. I don't. They're right. I'm sorry. You know, I'm sorry. I have to go. We promise to be done at 30. I got it. I got a jet. That's it. I don't say it disrespectfully, but I keep the time. And I think this is what's really important for those of you who are struggling as leaders. Walk in that conversation, have that opening conversation, and let them know how much time you have. Letting people know how much time you have is showing that you respect your boundaries. It's making sure you have a way out because you're gonna have to go do something else. But it's also during that time, saying you're. You're receiving all of this time right here, just you and me. And in that time, it's uninterrupted. I don't look at my phone. I don't try to. It's like we're just there. We are. Unless we're working on some tasks together or I have to look at my computer because you know how it is with team or something like that. They're asking you things. You're. You're here. Are you on Zoom, your desktop? Who. Who's talked to your desktop or your monitor and forgot you were on the screen over there? Any. Anybody going. You know, it's just, like, hard to keep it all together sometimes. I've got, like, four screens going on here. I don't know what's happening. Don't be in a hurry. Don't be in a hurry. For those who teach, I'm always here to say, like, don't be in a hurry as you're teaching either. Just one thing at a time. Do what you can. All right? Number seven. Make friendliness a discipline. Make friendliness a discipline. What? I mean, when I was in 20, someone said to me, make every person you meet a friend. And I'll never forget that. Make every person you meet a friend. Be open and friendly to other people, even if you don't agree with them, even if they're on the other side of the street politically, even if they're across the aisle, even if they haven't been perfect for you. That ability to go, okay, I see you as a friend. Let me treat you as a friend. That's simple. Things is like smiling at other people, asking how they're doing, asking about their emotions, asking about their goals, asking about their process. Everybody. Being a friend has changed my life because up to that point, everyone was, what, an enemy? Everyone was an enemy or an obstacle, right? Or someone to be, like, manipulated or used to help me get something right. That's how we are as teenagers, often because we don't know other models. But as soon as you're out of your teenage years, it's like, learn to make people friends, keep people you know close, and be open with other people. Like, I try to. You know, I love watching, like, my wife Denise. She'll try to. The hostess, the waiter, the chef, the people we walk by on the street, she smiles. How you doing? She's, like, happy, and she's an introvert. But every person she meets that one on one, she's always, like, so friendly to them. And sometimes, you know, I'm in my head because I'm the professor over here, so I'm just thinking about something. All right, I got. All right. Hi, how you doing? It's a discipline. Every person you meet. Challenge yourself to meet with friendliness. Number eight. You have to speak your truth without seeking agreement. I love this one. You can share who you are, what you desire, what you're after, without trying to make other people understand or approve or validate or reflect it back to you. This is where marriages get in trouble, right? One person is always trying to speak just to get the other person to comply, listen, or validate versus just, like, be cool that you shared it. My whole life, I don't. Like, I'm blessed with this. I. For whatever reason, I don't care if you agree with me. I don't care if you see things exactly my way. I don't need you to understand me for my dreams and my ambition. No one has to approve, no one has to even acknowledge, no one has to agree for me to make progress tomorrow towards the things I matter that matter to me. I'm going to live my truth. Whether or not I have rows of people cheering me on or zero right. I'm just going to share what I'm passionate about and what I believe in. Even if crickets come back, which happens to me all the time, like you, you'd be amazed. I share ideas with, with, with, with family, with team, like big ideas, like huge game changing or things I'm passionate about and people go, oh that's good, that's nice. They don't like, it's like how do they not care? I shared my experience. If I got hooked by that, that would be a trigger. If you need people to understand, validate, reflect back and cheer on everything you're doing, that's a trigger. That's where you're feeling unheard, undesired or unworthy. But when you decide, oh, I can share my truth, I can put up my art, I can share my photo, I can do that post. I don't need the likes, I don't need the comments. That's my art, that's expression of my truth. Then you are authentic. The more you try to get everyone to agree with you, the more you distance yourself from authenticity. Right? It's different some people, it's very hard to seek agreement and validation, reflection from everybody and still share who you really are. Speaking your truth means you share with the world. This is what I want and you're willing to share with your spouse, this is what you want and be okay with their like you're crazy. It's okay if you share with your team, this is where you're going and five of them don't agree. You don't need everybody to comply. It's like you're going to go there no matter what, they're going to come along at some point or they're going to not be along on the journey. Not feeling like you have to control everyone's reaction to you is, is another way of saying what I'm trying to describe to you. I don't worry about everyone's reaction when I'm sharing my thoughts, my feelings, where I want to go, how I'm seeing and processing things. I don't worry about their approval and because of that I have freedom. And when you have more freedom in your communication, how you show up, not only do you have joy in your life because you're authentic and you're being coherent to yourself. But it ends up being over a period of time, more people want to be around you because your uniqueness. People are attracted to novelty, uniqueness, authenticity, truth. You so be wary of, like, oh, I only share this around this certain friend because she doesn't this, hey, don't limit yourself just because you don't get the head nods. Number nine. Make them a hero. Make them a hero. This comes back to honoring other people. I think it's important to make the other persons you're talking with feel like they're doing a great job and that you recognize their sacrifices, you recognize the challenges they have, and you make them feel like they're saving the day. You make them feel like their participation matters. But most importantly, you hold them in high regard. Right? Carl Rogers talked a lot about this, as did all the humanistic psychologists of this idea of what he called unconditional positive regard. Now, he was a therapist and a psychologist, so he was talking about how with clients, he had to give them unconditional positive regard. Didn't mean he approved or thought their character or all their judgments or behaviors were good. What it meant was you knew you were safe to be you around him because he had positive regard for you as a human. Having positive regard for other person is level one. I think what makes it advanced is when you recognize how heroic most people actually are. Right? We're in a villainization culture where everyone's a villain. I'm like, actually, Owen's a hero. If you saw the pain most people dealt with, the childhood they had, the lack of opportunities, the judgment, the racism they faced, the challenges they have, the issues in their work. You'd recognize, like, you know, what good. You know, what good for you, showing up every day and still trying. That's honoring. And when you say that to them, I appreciate that. I see that. I recognize that, like, let them feel like the hero in their own story. We're all storytellers, right? What is the quintessential storytelling framework that everyone knows works? What's it called? The blank journey. What is it? The hero's journey. You recognize the journey or others people are on, and you recognize those conflicts, those crises, those character development points, those. Those challenges. They face that reality. They keep showing up. And when they feel like they're the hero around you, they keep showing up. Isn't that a funny thing? Because very few people recognize, honor, validate, reward, and cheer them on. Yeah, maybe they don't need it from you but when you do it because you recognize them, it's a different relationship. Last big idea. And remember, I shared with you at the very beginning, I wasn't going to go with the basic stuff, just listen better or just share more. Like, those things are all important. But I think this one is a basic, and it is a fundamental. And that is number 10. Respect yourself. Respect yourself. Advanced communication is setting boundaries. Advanced communication is letting people know when they've stepped over the line. Not because you're triggered and you're, like, automatically impulsive, but because you have intention and integrity to stand for who you are. If somebody insults you or takes you down or speaks ill of you in a meeting, at the end of that meeting, you have the wherewithal to stand up and say, hi. That communication right there, that doesn't work for me. And let me share what I saw, what I felt, what I would prefer. Standing up for yourself. That's courage. And advanced communication often rests in the courage to be vulnerable, the courage to value other people, but the courage to stand up for oneself. If you're constantly bombarded by negativity or your spouse is always putting you down, at some point, respecting yourself is standing up for yourself and saying, it's not okay to speak to me that way. I remember I got in a fight, an argument one time with my wife, with Denise, and she literally said to me, she goes, why do you think you can talk to me that way? It was awesome. I was like, oh, my. I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm mad right now. Oh, my God, you're right. I shouldn't do. And I went and wrote that down. I thought that was so powerful that she just said, why do you think you can talk to me that way? And I was like, I can't. What am I doing? And it made me reassess. It was like this amazing, beautiful thing. I went and run. It was like, wow. I don't know why I'm talking that way. Because what you do is you tend to talk in your pattern, not in your intention. And so I hope this session with you has helped you see just a few simple things. Number one, have ambition for greater relationships. Number two, set an intention that you're there to learn. You are there to honor. You're there to talk about improving each other's lives. Number three, stop trying to impress people. Number four, ask people about feelings, their goals, about process. Number five, make sure that you deconstruct your own triggers. Number six, don't hurry. Number seven, make friendliness a discipline. Number eight, speak your truth without needing agreement or validation. Number nine, make them the hero. And number ten, respect yourself. I believe these are ten advanced communication strategies and tactics that will help you deepen relationships, honor others better, and with just those intentions, let alone the principles here of what to focus on, I feel like we could change the conversation and the tone in this world. Again, those are more advanced things. For the basics, you might check out my YouTube or my podcast, but I hope this serves you guys. I'm always trying to go, what's that next level for you?