Mastering Effective Communication & Handling Conflict Will Transform Your Life | Richard Newman

The way to figure out how to be engaging with the message, definitely got to get the words right. Words can be very powerful, so you've got to be careful on those words. Sure. But then you've just got to think, okay, what's my target here? What is the aim of this speech? Is this speech aimed to excite people? Is it there to make them feel disappointed? What is the emotion?

I had to make sure the tone and the inflection and the cadence in my voice was matching what the words of music were matching. And that not easy to do.

I often say that, you know, being a great speech maker on stage is like being a surfer on the ocean. You can train all you like being a surfer. When you get out on the ocean, you have to feel. How does the ocean feel today? Is it. Is it dead calm? Is it choppy? Are there playful waves here? Because I have to meet it where it is, then be skillful enough to sort of take people where I'd like to go. So, you know, communication is very much about that.

Welcome to my podcast, you, Must Be out of youf Mind. And today I have another great guest I'm really excited to have with us. He's the CEO of BodyTalk. He works with business leaders, teaching them how to communicate, speak in front of large audiences. His book is you Were Born to Speak, which sounds fascinating, a very interesting read. So I'd like to welcome Richard Newman. Welcome, Richard.

Thanks. Thanks, Don, for having me here. I appreciate it.

Yeah, no, I love the work that you're doing. You know a lot about communication and how people need to learn how to communicate better, speak better, and that's a lot of what we do. You know, I know we were talking a little bit before is, you know, when people. What we do is we talk to people who have had traumatic or disturbing events in their lifetime, how that interferes with their ability to stay present and in the moment. And then that's going to affect their ability to communicate and connect. And they're going to bring in their own what I call atmospheric conditions so their life and their atmospheric conditions comes into a relationship. So if they've had a lot of dark, stormy, atmospheric conditions in their life, it's very easy to see how that could affect a relationship. So share with us a little bit about what you do and the kind of work that you're helping people with.

Yeah. So if you like. I mean, the way that I'm approaching it, we're dealing with very similar things much of the time. So the way I would see it is that what you're doing is working from the inside out. So working with that mind to then shift what the behavior is on the outside. And a long time ago, I stumbled across this ability to do things the other way around. So I was always fascinated with body language. And it's an area that I've been studying for so many years and read hundreds of books on it because I just wanted to make sure that I was doing it well myself and then would talk about it with people and, and then, you know, managed to start getting paid work and the business grew and word of mouth to where we are today. But along the way, what I discovered is that when I changed someone's body language, it changed how they viewed themselves and it was starting to unlock some of the beliefs they had about who they are and what they do. And particularly when I was coaching people in groups where I'd give someone an activity to do, where I might, for example, get them to change the pace that they're speaking at, get them to use the words of maybe, you know, famous presidential speech and get them to stand differently. And suddenly they're getting this reaction from people in the room who are saying, wow, you've got so much charisma, you've got so much authority, look at the gravitas that you have. And it's giving them a completely different perception of self. And so they're starting to release some of those old beliefs of nobody's listening to me, I'll never be a good speaker, no one cares about my ideas. And these sort of beliefs started to unlock. One of my favorite stories on this is there's a lady who is a partner in a financial company and she went on a two day workshop with my team and she came back for a booster session about six months later. And everyone's coming up to me saying, have you heard about what's happened? And I said, what do you mean? She said, and they said in you won't believe how different she is. She has, she's got such a better marriage at the moment, her relationship with her children is different, she's happier every day, she's engaging with clients, she's sparkling in every meeting. And I was scratching my head thinking, I'm sure that she came on a presentation skills course, so how is, how is that impact happening in the rest of her life? And she walked into the room, she wanted to come up to me and give me a massive hug saying, you just cannot believe how much you've changed my life. I thought, well, you know, I didn't I didn't attempt to do any of those things. What we were aiming to do is to get you reconnected with your voice, get you reconnected with your body. And essentially what that tends to mean is, let's figure out, you know, from where you are right now, for most people, for anybody listening, is that you tend to have habits and armor that you've built up physically. So behaviors that you have day after day where you think, oh, this is me. You know, this is just who I am. I behave this way, I act this way, therefore, that. That's me. And you build up this sense of ident around a very limited set of behaviors. And when we start to free someone from those limited behaviors, they expand and realize they are so much more than how they've been behaving and speaking over the last few months. And so they. They come back home to themselves, is often the expression that people have. I was. I was coaching a music producer once who's made lots of famous bands sell millions of records, but he just. He never gestured. He thought that it wasn't business, like, to gesture. He said, wow, you'd like. You've. You've given me my arms back. I didn't realize. I haven't used these for years. And now I feel free and I sort of feel happy, and I feel confident in a way that I didn't for so long. And so, you know, without having any of that sort of psychology or science background myself, we were able to tap into something that was beneath those behaviors, working, working that way around. So, I guess, you know, in some ways, like we were saying, you and I are sort of approaching that same kind of challenge, but from different perspectives.

Yeah, no, that's fascinating because that's exactly what it is. We call it like a shift in perception because they've attached a whole bunch of meanings to their life about things that they experienced early on.

And I'll give you a great example. How I really developed the program was because of my wife and daughter. My wife had trauma in her childhood. I had none. I had this amazing childhood. So I'm growing up thinking everybody lived with my parents. The parents that never yelled, never screamed, never raised their voice, never hit us. And I meet her when I'm 18 and realize that her father was not like that. He was a very angry, violent person. So my wife was living with that. And I remember she one time she saw all my grades from school, and she goes, wow, school was so easy for you. That must have been nice. And I said, of Course, school was easy for me. I'm coming home. Not worried about what's going to happen to me tonight. I don't have to worry what's going to happen tomorrow. I said, you had no safe. No safe place to land. You're in a constant state of flight. And so she was a BC student, not a bad student, but I knew she was a lot smarter than she was giving herself credit for. And I said, I can imagine how difficult it was for you to sit in school and concentrate right when you're worried about what's going to happen when I get home and what just happened to me this morning. I said, that would interfere with anybody's ability. I said, you're very, very smart. But she never felt smart. And after, obviously, she went through our program, she's my best researcher now. She's amazing. She'll send me articles and say, did you read that? And I'll go, yeah. And she goes, you remember that part? And I'll go, where was that? She'll go, oh, come on. Like I said, she's remembering these things now because she's not having that same issue. Which is just what you were talking about.

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, mindset, it's is so profound in what it allows you to do or not. Not allow you to do. And actually, I realized this, I was starting to bump into this as well a little bit a few years ago, working with clients where we were talking to them about communication, and we'd help them devise a really compelling story and amazing visuals and talk to them about, you know, their. Their posture, gestures, body language, getting them freed up and to a state where they could do something. But eventually I'd reach with some people this limitation where they look at me and they think, look, I know exactly what I'm supposed to say. I know. I know exactly how I'm supposed to act. I just can't. And we then had to figure out what. What is it in your mind that you're saying to yourself or what is it that you believe that is preventing you from moving your arm, that is preventing you from saying the words that you know so incredibly well? And so allowing people to. To get to that state of total presence being okay in the fact I'm here right now and my mind isn't straying off on any old stories from the past. And getting them to a place of confidence within themselves was key to then unlocking the rest of their ability to communicate with anybody. As I often say, with communication, it's a two Way process. You've got to be there with the other person. You've got to be feeling a sense of connection with others, not just saying the right words. And so to do that, you've got to be in that moment with that person or with, with that audience. And to do that, create, you need a presence of mind that's going to help you unlock the communication.

And that's really something they need to learn because it may not come naturally to them. And then you can see how, you know, a relationship can break down because they don't know how to communicate. I talk about the words and the music. You know, the music may be coming from a loving place, but the words don't match. And then the person gets offended and you're saying, well, what did I say? I didn't say anything. Why are you upset with me? Right, yeah. My wife. What I didn't understand when I first met her is if I said something simple like, you know, no, I don't like that, she could start to tear up and cry and say, why are you upset with me? And I would say, I'm not upset at all. And she'd go, yes, you are. The way you said it, you were getting upset with me. And I said, where did you get that from? Because now she wasn't wrong and I wasn't wrong because I didn't say it that way. But if I had a little tension in my voice, it could have come from something earlier in the day, the drive home. She could hear that like I yelled at her. Because people who have been traumatized, especially as children, are highly sensitive to sound. So she could hear it completely different than I was saying it. And so I had to try to. The thing that she was teaching me though, is how this, how our program was developed was how to communicate. I had to make sure, just so you talk about the congruency, I had to make sure the tone and the inflection and the cadence in my voice was matching what the words of music were matching. And that's not easy to do, especially if you've has somebody who is being hurt a lot in their life. They're looking for those danger signs. And I always say to people, it's impossible for you to sabotage yourself. Because I hear them say that all the time, well, I sabotage my relationships. And I say, well no, you can't do that. The brain is survival based. It's trying to protect you. It thinks you're going to have a problem so it'll move you in another direction or create a Thought pattern and behaviors and habits, just like you were talking about to actually move you away from pain.

Yeah, I mean, I see this a lot that I often talk to people who are speakers speaking at a conference saying, look, you need to be aware of the fact that you can work as much as you want to work on how you're going to communicate, but part of the way that any audience, whether that's one person or a thousand people, part of the way in which they respond to you is going to be related to what you do. But another part of it is based on everything that's happened in their life up until this moment. And so there can be reactions you get that you completely, you can't expect. And they, they are not remotely going in the direction then that you imagined because you say one thing or you refer to one word or phrase or a metaphor, or you mentioned the word elephant and then suddenly a story's happening in the person's head that has nothing to do with your words, actions and behaviors. And you just need to be mindful for sort of looking out for those moments because it has to be that, that sort of two way street. I often say that, you know, being a great speech maker on a stage is like being a surfer on the ocean. You can train all you like being a surfer, but when you get out on the ocean, you have to feel, how does the ocean feel today? Is it, is it dead calm? Is it choppy? Are there playful waves here? Because I have to meet it where it is and then be skillful enough to sort of take people where I'd like to go. So, you know, communication is very much about that. And just in case anybody's thinking, oh, but I don't know how to read people in that side of things. I was, I'd always been aware that I had a struggle with communication and wasn't quite picking up things in the way that other people were. And in fact, when I was 16 years old, a friend of mine bought me a book called Body Language by Alan Pease. And she said, you need to read this. And I said, what do you mean? She said, you're just really bad at it. Go and read this book. And I started to read it thinking, wow, this is amazing. But then I thought, well, maybe does everybody else know this stuff? And it's just me that needed to read this book. Anyway, you know, cut to just recently I was diagnosed high functioning autistic, which generally means that you miss some of the social cues that neurotypical people, which is sort of 90% of the population that they would pick up on generally. But if anybody's sort of listening, thinking, oh, well, yeah, I'm just not very good at reading people, you can absolutely get past it. I'm at the point now where I teach people what those cues are because, you know, I'm. It's an area that I have studied for so long. So it's not that you. You can't, you know, if you're not born instinctively looking out for things that you can't see it, you will be able to pick up those pieces. So, you know, it's key in communication to be able to. To work on what you're doing as well as reading what's coming back. And to come back to your earlier point, Don. Yeah, absolutely. Tying in all of your communication into something that is congruent. Understanding the body language, the tone of voice and the words. If it's an important message, you've got to get them all going in the right direction, because otherwise you can say exactly the right words in a meeting. You leave, and people have gone in totally the other direction than you were hoping for, because the body language and the tone of voice is what they were really paying attention to. And I see this with like a CFR speaking at a team meeting or conference all the time. You see them saying, yeah, hi, everyone. I'm really excited to be here today. Good things happening in the business, and it's been a great year. And you just think, well, you know, if it's a good year, tell your face like, let me hear that in your voice. Because you might say that, but I'm going to believe what you're doing physically. So you've got to make sure that congruent behavior is there so people genuinely understand the message.

No, that's such a great point, because you're right. And a lot of people. That's what I'm saying, the words in the music. So the words could be exactly what they wanted to say, but the music is not. It could be the reversal. So sometimes the music looks really good and the words don't match, or it can be the other way around. You know, there's, you know, there's a lot of songs out there. Have you ever listened to a song and you love the song, but you've never really listened to the lyrics? You know, I was talking to somebody the other day, and it's like the Bruce Springsteen song Born in the usa Everybody thinks that's a patriotic song, but if you listen to the words, it's about a Vietnam vet coming back after the war, Right. And things are not good for him in the usa. But people think that song is, you know, they start singing Born in the USA and it's not matching up with what was said. So it is really, really powerful. And like, when you're saying about body talk as well, and the body language is so important because people don't. They'll spend all this time on the speech, right. And not give any thought to what they look like standing on stage. And if they look uncomfortable, people are not going to be resonating with their message.

Yeah, exactly. And I remember that reminds me of I went to a speechwriting conference in Washington, D.C. a few years back, and they were talking about this speechwriting contest that was coming up for the year. And there was professional speechwriters from all over the world. People who'd been writing for presidents and CEOs of big companies were there and they said, you know, we'd really like you all to put yourselves forward for this, for this award. It's the most prestigious order you can get in speechwriting. And I said, can I, can I ask a question? How are you, how are you going to measure which one is the best speech? Like, do you need a video to see the audience's reaction to know if it, if it did the job or not? Or do you need a video of the speaker to see, like, did they actually deliver it in a way that was impactful? They said, no, no, we're going to measure the entire thing by just looking at the words on the paper. And you know, sometimes people think, so I've run this company, Body Talk, that I'm all about the non verbal side. So to finish that story, I then entered a speech which, which I gave to an audience of about a thousand students in, in Rotterdam, I think it was, and, and completely unexpectedly won the competition for speechwriting because I love words, but, you know, I essentially wrote down stories that I would then be, you know, delivering in this speech. So I think the words are critical and very, very powerful. But like you say, they have to be to be delivered in a way that's going to engage. Because I've said this to audiences many times. I've said, think about this, you've got two options. If you could grab an average person from the street and get them to read to you from the works of Shakespeare, or you could choose your favorite actor and get them to read to you the ingredients on the back of a cereal packet, which one would you rather? And they always, every single time, every Audience I've done that with Worldwide has said, I want to get the actor off, my favorite actor to read a cereal packet. I say to them, well, why is that? Well, it's because the delivery is just so compelling, I could listen to them saying anything. So it's critical that you make sure that you're doing that. And the way to do that, the way to figure out how to be engaging with the message. Definitely got to get the words right. Words can be very powerful, and people are going to quote those words. If it's an important meeting, they'll say, but she said this. So you've got to be careful on those words. Sure. But then you've just got to think, okay, what's my target here? What is the aim of this speech? Is this speech aimed to excite people? Is it there to reassure them? Is it there to make them feel disappointed? What is the emotion I want them to walk away with such that in a week's time, and if someone says, hey, how did you feel about that speech that Bob gave last week? What is that word? What do you want them to be feeling a week from now, two months from now, after that meeting happens? And everything you do then in that meeting needs to head towards that emotion. The body language, the tone of voice and the words needs to go in that direction so they walk away feeling that about your numbers. You could say 11.7% in a conversation, but, you know, how are they going to feel? Do they feel like that's big or small? Do they feel like it's good news or bad news? That's all going to come down to your communication. And, you know, to wrap that up in what we're talking about before freeing that self up, you know, going in that direction, that can, that can take you away from being self conscious and allow you to be a bit more free. But you do need to make sure that you've let go of the armor of the past when you walk into that meeting to have that conversation. So you are free, like a blank canvas to make any message come to life.

Yeah. And that armor that you're talking about is their protection. It's the way that they figured out how to protect themselves. And so the mind, again, is just doing something that it believes they need to do in order to be safe, because everything's coming down to safety and wanting to be safe.

You know, and I look, I remember reading about Abraham Lincoln. You know, you probably would have been a great guy to help Abraham Lincoln because apparently he was petrified of public speaking. And almost literally wouldn't have been the President because he was asked to speak in front of the Republican National Convention and turned it down because he was so scared. Right. And eventually he ended up coming and speaking. But the way he did it, and I like the way he explained it, he said, in terms of speech writing, he said, if I related it to chopping down a tree, if somebody said, I need to chop down this tree and you've got six hours, he says, I would spend the first four hours sharpening the ax. And, you know, that whole idea of preparing and what he decided to do, which was effective for him, was because he wasn't somebody that wanted to go on and on. He kept his speeches very short, chose his words very. And he spent most of his time preparing that speech as opposed to the delivering and practicing of it. And that what made him a very effective communicator. So I'm sure that's probably the kinds of stuff that, you know, you talk about when you teach people as well.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's reminded me of. To give a comparison on the British side of things. Churchill was famous for saying that, you know, if you. If you want me to speak all day, I'll get up and I'll just. I'll start talking, that's fine. But if you want me to speak for five minutes, I need eight hours to prepare so I can go in there and really make it worth people's while. And apparently would do a lot of writing, rewriting, pacing around his house, saying things out loud until he got to the point where he's like, that's the message and I'm ready to come in here and give it. And, you know, I think that's a good point for people to think about is how much preparation, how much thought, how much intention are you really putting into the communication that you have day to day? I think what we have these days is that there is less gap between meetings that people have. So they have zoom meeting after zoom meeting booked into their diaries, where they might have 10 of those in a day and they don't even get up from their chair. Whereas what we used to have was maybe two or three meetings a day, and you might drive from one to the other. You've got an hour to get your head together about, okay, what do I want to do in this meeting? Where are we going to go? What do I think is important to say? And that's been cut out for a lot of people who now have more meetings. So I would always say to people Before a meeting, take whatever time you have, even if it's 30 seconds, and just work on your intentions. How do you want to show up and how do you want them to feel by the end of that meeting so you can move things in a more positive direction.

Yeah, no, it's so true. The preparation of it. And one of the things I thought would be interesting to share is, you know, because in the US we have a lot of these school shootings and this is sort of a great way to talk about communication. These school shootings obviously is a big problem around the United States. But one of the things that they've discovered is that the post traumatic stress that children would experience from one of these school shootings, what they have found is, you know, where most of the post traumatic stress was coming from, seeing their parents when they got reunited, because they were looking for that. I'm going to be okay. Everything is safe. I've got you. And the parents are hysterical and losing control. That put more fear in them. Right, because they didn't feel safe, you know, And I was on a podcast one time and somebody said, what's the best advice you can give to parents? And I said, make your home safe. There's got to be the place where they can land and they get. Because they're going to get bumped around at school by teachers and coaches and things like that. You know, I did as well, but I never had any major traumas and but my parents were so calming and nurturing and safety oriented that I instantly, my nervous system would come back into regulation because I felt safe in my home. I could talk to my parents. I knew I wasn't going to get yelled at. You know, it was a very unique childhood. But if parents can learn to be able to do that, you know, we all have our, you know, tough days at work and we come home and maybe don't take that time. Just what we're talking about. How do you talk to your children? Take some time before you say something. Think about the words you're about to use or the tone and everything in your voice, because that is going to have a major effect. And then your children, if they don't feel safe, and then you say, I don't know why my child wouldn't come and talk to me about this problem. It was because maybe the way you reacted when they told you about something else or overreacted to something else. Our children are basically looking to us for the guidance. Am I safe? You know, and I heard one thing I thought was really interesting about you, when you talked about before, when you were about four or five, you were going to a school and then they changed schools. Right. And you went from this outgoing, very, you know, happy child to sort of going into a shell, right?

Yeah.

And I think, you know, based on what I know from what I do, is that was coming from not feeling safe, maybe not being able to fit in, which is a survival part of our brain. Because fitting in means you're safe, because if the tribe excommunicates you, you're not safe anymore. Right?

Yeah.

So tell us a little bit about that. I thought that was a great way to talk about it.

Yeah. So when I was four years old, I mean, apparently I've heard the stories on it, that I would go to school, I'd be skipping to school, having a great time. I had a little gang of friends and really loved it. And then just before my fifth birthday, we moved and I went to this new school. And I remember.

The beginning of this day quite clearly. It's my first sort of strong memory that I went into the school and looked around this classroom. I thought, wow, this is exciting. I'm looking forward to this day. And then the next memory I have during the day is that I'm sitting at this table, these tiny little tables you have in these classes when you're five years old, where small, you know, table and these chairs around. And I'm just trying to connect, trying to speak to the other kids around that table. And they were sort of laughing and then turning their back on me. And then I tried to speak to the kids on the other side, laughed and turned their back. And so I felt for a moment like I was completely cut off. I didn't have anyone around me that I could speak to or connect with and just burst into floods of tears. At which point the teacher came over and said, you know, why don't you just. Why don't you draw a picture of your family? Maybe that'll make you feel better. Don't worry about anything else. Just do that. And so I drew a picture, and the teacher said, before I was drawing it, she said, by the way, do you have any pets you could draw your pet? I said, yeah, yeah, I've got a dog. And she said, what type of dog do you have? I didn't know there were types of dogs at this point. I just knew we had a dog. That's the only thing. It was a yellow dog that, you know. What other type do you have?

Yeah, so the only. The only breed I could remember hearing about in a movie or something was a boxer dog. So I said, oh, it's a boxer dog. And I remember thinking, oh, boxer dogs are brown. I better draw a brown dog when I draw this picture, otherwise I'm going to get it wrong. And then at the end of that day my mom appears at the school to, to pick us up and she's got our big yellow dog, big golden retriever dog there and, and the teacher said, I thought you had a boxer dog. And they sort of had this laughter between them of oh, isn't this funny? It's not really a boxer dog. But in my head I remember at the moment thinking I'm completely alone, the kids won't speak to me and now my parent and the teacher are laughing about me and I must be completely incompetent and I sort of shut down and you know, I don't hold a grudge in any way, of course any like that. There was nothing wrong with them laughing. It was a funny sort of situation. But I translated it into there's something wrong with me and then sort of, you know, shut down at that point in communication. Took me a long time to open up again. But yeah, to come back to your point about, you know, kids feeling that they've got a safe place, you know, now that I'm older, I've got two kids of my own and it's a real proud moment as a parent where, you know, on the weekends we'll say to them, hey, you know, what do you want to do? We could go up to the park, we could go see your friends, we can go to the cinema, we could go to the beach, what do you want to do? And quite often they'll say, do you know what, I just love spending time at home with my family and I feel really grateful that that's the case that you know, just hanging out together where we might, you know, read a book or do a board game or just chat is something that is their favorite thing in the world to do. Really, you know, really means a lot. I sort of treasure looking after them in that way and making sure that they come back home from all the challenges of school and come back to that safe space.

Yeah, and it's so important for parents to understand, you know, if you think back, just like in a situation like that, most people would not figure that that could have created that kind of a shutdown for a child. But a four or five year old child doesn't have enough life experience to understand what this means, what the meaning that your mind Attached to it is I'm not safe. Right. And you can see how easily that could. And the, the one that my wife talked about too, is she shared with me this is before we were ever doing this program. But I remember her just sobbing, telling me this story of she was in school and she was in class and the teacher had her come up to the front of the class and she then started firing multiplication questions at her to answer. And she completely froze. And she says, I can remember seeing that everybody was so uncomfortable, even the other kids. And there was uncomfortable laughter at the same time as she could see these children even trying to give her the answers. But she completely froze. And in her mind, she wasn't smart.

Was a teacher intentionally trying to do that? Not at all. Right. But that's the kind of impact that, you know, those kinds of experiences can have on children. And if you don't take that into account when you're raising your children, then without any intention at all, you can create these, what I call those emotional concussions that can happen. Sounds like that's what you had at that point. Again, they're not trying to hurt you. Your mother loves you. Right. She never would have. But not understanding what that did for a four or five year old child, it's really critical. And if you can keep that in mind, you know, and especially, you know, what you're doing to teach people how to communicate, you know, how powerful it is that it even is for our children. And.

I love the statement that. Also, the other thing that's so important is listening. Right. And I don't know if you know Lou Holtz, you've ever heard of Lou Holtz. He's a famous college football coach here, but he's very funny at the same time. He's on shows all the time. But he was a coach for Notre Dame and that's where he really got his most fame from. But he had a statement. He goes, he says, I never learned anything while I was speaking.

Yeah, I've heard that phrase. Yeah, I love that. And I must say, with the teaching work that I do, I love it partly because I learn something every day when I'm not speaking, when the students are speaking and saying something and I get to see what I'm teaching through their eyes, through their perspective. There's so much power in doing more of the listening. And if anybody is involved in sort of coaching or mentoring, leadership can be very effective by listening as much as you can to what's, what's happening around you and, and often like this the small little whispers of what happens of someone doing like a little throwaway sentence. They, that can often be the magic that leads you into, wait a second, they said that, but they haven't emphasized it. I think there might be something in there that, that, that gives me a key just to unlock what's really happening in this situation. So yeah, you know, when we're coaching people on communication, we focus a lot on like, what are you going to say and how are you going to act. But also then you've got to think about what am I really hearing back? And we talk about, you know, three levels of hearing too. So what are the words you're hearing? You know, are those words positive or negative or emotional words? Are they getting more positive during this conversation or less positive? So you've got to listen to the words. You also need to listen to the tone that the words are delivered in. But thirdly, you've got to listen to the body language that goes with those words as well. So what is the overall package that you're getting here? And once you do that, it becomes much more, you've got more to focus on so you can have more intentional listening. So the listening and the conversation can go much deeper because you're not just waiting for them to say that word that allows you to come out with that sort of pre rehearsed answer for that particular objection. You can really listen in to what's happening.

Yeah. And what I do is I do a four hour session with people sort of to clear the trauma so we can eliminate post traumatic stress, anxiety, panic attacks in four hours by resetting the memory, resetting the way the brain works. But the one thing that I do during those four hours is I listen very carefully. And at times what I'll say to somebody is, I've been listening very carefully to what you were telling me. Because you're right, there are some times that they'll just drop this one little sentence, almost like it was a matter of fact kind of a sentence, but it was significant. And then I'll have to make, I have to continue listening to them, but I have to make a mental note to come back and say you said something very interesting. Interesting. Let's, let's look at that and tell me what you meant or tell me what you were thinking when you said that. And sometimes you'll just open up a whole world that they have sort of been holding back. And, but when you put them into a safe environment, like when they're sitting with me for four hours, they'll Say, I haven't thought about something in years, and all of a sudden it's coming flooding back in, because when the mind feels safe, it's going to open up to you and tell you a lot more than you maybe consciously knew were going on. So, yeah, and I love it. And we've got to share the story because I think it's so fascinating because I'm sure this is where you learn so much of this is spending time with the monks, the Himalayan monks.

Yeah.

Can you give us a little update on that?

Yeah, sure. So, I mean, you know, when I was finishing high school, so aged 18, almost all of my friends were going off to university, higher education of some sort of. And I knew that I wanted to do something before I went to university. I wanted to go and explore the world, but I also wanted to give back because I'd had such a nice and safe, comfortable upbringing. I got a good education and I thought, I want to go and give back to people who need my help. And I found this opportunity to go and live with a group of Tibetan monks who had never had a teacher before, but had reached out to an organization saying, look, we'd really like an English teacher. And so I was given this post to go out and live with them in the foothills of the Himalayas up in Northeast India, up near Darjeeling, where the tea comes from. And I would be living there with them for six months, teaching them English. So, I mean, long story short, I got out there aged 18. I'd never been overseas without my parents. At this point, I had two days travel by train across country from Delhi, across up to where I needed to get, and eventually found this monastery, at which point I realized that they didn't speak English. They spoke Tibetan, Nepali and Hindi, but. But no English. So we didn't have this common language to communicate with. And we sat down, they brought me into their kitchen and gave me a cup of Tibetan tea, which, if, you know, people haven't tried it, it's. It's a third tea, a third butter and a third salt. So it's. It's fairly disgusting. And I thought, well, I better be nice about it. I need to be polite and just drink this tea, even though I don't. I don't like it because I'm going to spend some time with them. And we're just sort of looking at each other, really staring at each other, saying a few words and realizing, okay, there's no language that actually works here. And what we realized, though, over about an hour or so of Sitting together was actually through. If I really worked at it with my body language and tone of voice, I could get them to understand some of the things that I was saying. And it started to teach me this. This law of congruency, that if you really want to be an effective communicator, the body, the tone of voice, and the words need to go in the same direction. So when I eventually then started teaching them, I'd be teaching them in their kitchen. We didn't have, like, a proper classroom. We had blackouts every day, so we were usually using candlelight. We had a few pieces of wood that we nailed together and painted black so I could put up something of a blackboard behind me. So, you know, no, there was no technology. We had no WI fi back then, no emails, nothing like that. Just cut off from the outside world. And I would then teach them. And if I wanted to teach them the word excited, I had to sound excited and look excited. Otherwise they didn't know what the word meant. I could be saying pineapple, they'd have no idea. And so it taught me that sense of, okay, communication is much more effective when it is congruent. When you're. When everything you're doing goes in one direction. And then, you know, the same is the case, though, when, when people understand your words, you might think, well, you know, I don't need those skills that you needed in that monastery. But actually if you. If you speak in a meeting and you say you're excited, but you don't sound it and you don't look excited, then people believe the body language is true, not the words. Because, you know, we have these sayings like, seeing is believing. And so I came back with that sense of, I always want to read. Has this landed with the person I'm speaking to? And, you know, how do I want them to feel? And I've got to get everything going in that direction in order for the communication to really work. And the funny thing is, when you have everything going in one direction, then this is where what people talk about as someone being a. As a charismatic speaker, because we think, wow, it's just so electric and engaging. And I don't know why I'm so focused on them. What is it they're doing? Well, everything they're doing, every cell of their body is going in the direction of the message. So, you know, that was a really powerful piece that I was able to learn from these monks. The other thing I did learn from them was powerful listening, too. They didn't feel the need to Jump in and say something when you stopped saying a sentence. And so when we got to the point where I was trying to teach them English, they were starting to teach me Nepali. We got to a point of understanding some words. I would then say a sentence where I knew that they knew these words, but they would sit there in quiet contemplation, sometimes for 20 seconds without replying and sort of be looking at me and going.

And then they would come back with a response. Whereas what we have, you know, in day to day life in conversations is that it's a fraction of a second in between one person finishing talking and another person starting to speak back and forth. That sort of banter that happens between parties. But you know, what I really felt though, was that they were truly deeply reflecting on everything that I had to say. And I felt very much heard by them and that, you know, that they were present with me in everything that I was saying. So, you know, I learned that value of just quietly being with someone. And, you know, I think that when I'm working with salespeople, often salespeople think, well, the way to sell is to speak really energetically and just say everything I can say and tell people all about the features and this thing and this thing. And actually the best sales technique is often just to sit and let the other person talk and make them feel like you've really heard them. And this is what I do. Certainly when I meet clients and they say, hey, we think we might want to work with your services, I don't ever go onto a call saying, let me pitch my services. Here's my slide deck, here's my brochure or anything like that. I just go on and ask questions and really, truly listen to what they need. And at the end of that conversation, I understand what they need from me so I can send them a better proposal. And they feel heard, they've built a relationship because they feel like I've properly listened to who they are, what they need. And we've started that, that journey together through listening rather than speaking.

Yeah, and that's so powerful because I remember before I ever did this, I used to have a company where we had salespeople and I had this one guy, very smart guy, knew the products really well, an mba. So he had all the credentials, but he just didn't sell very well. And he had lots of appointments he got. So every week he'd come in and he'd sit down and his manager worked with him and he'd come in and sit down with me and I'd share and he'd say, I'd say, take me through one of your presentations. He'd take me through it next week. He'd come in, take me through it again. And then I don't know how many times he'd come in, but it was eventually one of the times he came in, I said to him, I said, oh, my gosh, I just realized why you're not selling. And he's like, oh, good, what is it? And I said, you don't listen. I said, every week you keep coming in here asking me the same questions, I keep giving you the same answers. And you come in next week as if you never heard it right, and you do the same thing over and over. If you're not listening to me, then you're not listening to your, your customer. So you've got to start to learn how to listen. And that really, totally turned it around because he had everything else. But just like you said, it was like, the faster I can talk, the faster I can get to a close. And just. But they were probably giving him five different, you know, buying signals and he missed all of them. Just went right through. Right. He was trying to close them. Then they got, I got to get rid of this gu.

Not.

He doesn't care about me.

Yeah. We do a lot of work with coaching people in the, the pharmaceutical industry who are in a position where they'll go and speak to doctors and they want to talk to them about the latest research, like, you know, breakthrough research that's come through on, you know, the way to treat a patient in oncology or something like that. And they book appointments to go into, to see these doctors. And when they go into the hospital, they, they go and speak to this doctor who's under tremendous pressure dealing with life and death situations all around them, needing to make, you know, decisions. And they see this person coming in with, often with like their iPad or their tablet, and they're ready to give them like this slide deck presentation. And they'll say, look, I know, I know we booked for a half an hour meeting. I don't have half an hour. I got seven minutes. Go. And so the person, when we went, when we're role playing this, they'll say, that's my, that's my reality. And I say, okay, let's, let's see the seven minutes. And the person sort of, they sit down in their chair and they get out their slide deck and they go, okay, let me go straight to slide number 7 and then slide number 17 and then slide number 26. And then, you know, can I get another meeting with you, doctor? And the doctor will say, well, I don't know, I'll see. Just, could you leave? I have to go. And so we coach them to say, okay, first things first, in that seven minutes, that person needs to feel heard by you. Because when they're dealing with patients, no one's saying to the doctor, by the way, how are you today, doctor? Like, what's on your mind? What can I help you with? They're going and helping everybody else. If you walk in there and say, you know, I've got data to talk to you about. I just wanted to know, how are you at the moment? How is it with treating your patients? What would be beneficial for you in this conversation? And suddenly this whole world opens up to them where the person thinks, I want you here meeting with me every week because you genuinely seem to care about what I need and where I am and you understand me and you're not going to just show me a bunch of data because that's what you show to everybody else. You're going to share with me something that's going to help me on my mission of the other sort of 80 hours of the week where I'm looking after people. And so there's huge power in doing that. And particularly right now where people are feeling disconnected. They've spent a couple of years in their homes, primarily where we went through a period of time, you know, certainly in my country, where we weren't allowed to go and hug our family, such was the pandemic lockdowns. And so people are really craving, even if they've seen people on video links, they're really craving human connection. They really want to feel like this person cares about me, I'm part of their tribe, they know me. I feel connected with them. And so the more that you can do to go and meet with people and. And ask questions and make them feel like they matter and that you've understood who they are, then the better the communication is going to be.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. When you're telling that story, reminds me of again, before I was ever in this, we had a company. We were trying to get a contract with this older, very established, 150-year-old company. And so we tried to get. I got a meeting set up with the general manager. My assistant had set it up. And so I thought this was a preliminary meeting just to talk about. So I show up there and he comes out and greets me, and he walks by and he points, he goes, this is my office. But we keep walking and I'm like, okay. And so we walk up and there are these two big doors. And he says, okay, the board is ready for your presentation. And I had nothing. I didn't have a presentation. I thought I was just coming to meet him. It was like a meet and greet. And instantly I'm like, what am I going to do? I have nothing with me. And so, just like you said. So I went in, I sat at the head of the table and all these gray haired guys sitting down this long table. And I said to him, I said, you know, I bet you're tired of guys like me coming in here and telling you that we can do this and we can do that. I said, I really want to hear from you, right? What could we do? What do you think is missing and what are the things that we could do to improve and let's see if we can try to help you get the kind of service out there that you would be proud of. And I interviewed them, I went around the table and interviewed all the board and they were all telling me, well, this is the problem with these kinds of brokers. And I went, I agree, right? I'm agreeing with all the things you're saying. And I got the contract. I never made a presentation, but I listened to them, right? And that was like, that was a fluke. But I was able to come up with that in that moment. Otherwise I would have just had to have said, yeah, I don't have a thing.

I think that, I mean, it's a great lesson for people to learn from because as you're saying that what was coming to mind for me was very similar situation happened to us where there's a huge telecommunications company who, they were looking for a supplier to work with them on a big leadership development program. And we found out, I think they were meeting with 10 different suppliers in a day and we were the last slot of the day, so truly getting the graveyard shift. And when we went in there, I mean, it looked like they'd been in there for about three weeks with you know, like those sort of coffee, empty coffee cups and stuff around there. And they said, you know, here's the screen and if you just want to plug in and show us your stuff. And I was never the sort of person that wanted to go in and do that. And I said, well, you know, instead of doing that, we're just, we're going to talk to you. And they said, but what do you mean? Everyone's brought in their slide deck and they brought in their brochures, where is yours? And I said, yeah, I think it's just better that if we really understand what you need, we're going to give you the right solution. So let's just ask you. And we had this great conversation with them and at the end they said, it's just so refreshing that you actually asked us some questions. I mean, you know, I feel like we've had a conversation today and it put us in a position that when we sent the proposal, we knew what they wanted, to be in it, because we'd asked them, we hadn't just said, we can do this stuff. Do you like us? And here's a proposal. I asked them loads of questions and everything they said went in the proposal document. And so we went on to work with them and trained hundreds of people at their company because we chose to listen rather than speak.

It's such a powerful lesson.

Richard, this has been great. And I know people have probably been listening very intently right to what you've said, and I think they can really benefit from what you do. And I know you have a summit coming up. Is that something that people can get involved with or be involved in listening to?

Well, I think actually, I mean, the best place for people to go if they're interested in finding out more and you want to stay up to date, people can go to ukbodytalk.com and on there we've got a resources page if people want to grab additional videos, articles, podcasts, that sort of thing, sign up to our mailing list and we can get in touch or if people have questions. The best place to find me on social media is Richard Newman body talk on LinkedIn. So come find me on LinkedIn. You can ask me any questions and fun stuff I put on Instagram. So Richard Newman speaks. But yeah, feel free to keep in touch and I'll be happy to serve people in any way I can.

What a great resource. So I encourage everybody, definitely take advantage of that opportunity. Richard, thank you so much. I really enjoyed this. I knew this would be a great, great podcast and we've learned a lot. So thank you again for your time.

I appreciate it. Thanks, Don.

That trauma loop that you were just describing, it's creating a glitch. It's an error message. Post traumatic stress, all those kinds of things are glitches and error messages. There are ways for you to be free, whether your life is being impacted with anxiety or with some physical elements that are results of what has happened in your life negatively, like the, the trauma, being kind of stored and coming out through auto. Autoimmune disease.