Dr Laura Sicola - Leadership communication expert

This is episode 244 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast, where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport, and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Hello, Dr. Laura Sicola. I am so excited to have you with us on the Empowered Team Podcast for our listeners. Dr. Laura Sicola has a background in research and at the same time, or your PhD, so I want to learn a little bit more about that. But what excites me the most is the work that you've done so far. You have a book called Speaking to Influence, Mastering your leadership Voice. You have a podcast called Speaking to Influence. You've done a TED Talk, which is a fantastic TED shot talk, which will. This link will be in the notes for everyone to take a look at. I've also put the link to your book on Amazon into the show notes as well. Thank you. Because it's such a powerful topic and I think that communication unites us as humans. So I admire greatly what you're doing. Can you share a little bit about how you got into this particular profession or niche or topic? What brought you to this?

It is a fun and kind of convoluted journey, but I'll do the short version. But first of all, of course, Kari, thank you so much for inviting me to join you on the Empowered. I so admire the work that you do in empowering everyone from athletes to corporate executives and everybody in between. So everybody who's tuning into this, you're so smart for having found Kari and joining her on this journey, and I'm just honored to be a part of it today. So thank you. I. So I am a teacher and I'm a linguist by background. My. That's where my PhD comes in in education and linguistics, looking at how we process speech, how we learn. What is it about the way when you listen, what is it that makes what you hear go either in one ear and come out the other or go in and stick? And once you start to figure that out, how do you reverse engineer that, so to speak, so that you can figure out, all right, well then if I want this message to stick in that person's brain, what do I have to do so that it doesn't just go in one ear and come out the other? And that's where I've gone from the research space into the applications in professional life. That's where the book comes from. That's where. And I say semifacetiously that this particular book, Speaking to Influence that you referenced is the first one that I wrote really intended for just common consumption, for the everybody to be able to get value out of as opposed to research journals and academic textbook kind of stuff. And I felt a little dirty having a book that didn't. Wasn't full of citations and footnotes and all that kind of stuff. But it's fun. I got to tell you lots of stories in it, et cetera. But it really is just looking at how to close the gap between what you think you say and what someone else thinks they hear and getting. Learn to close that gap to get to yes more often. Because I think that's really where the majority of strife in the world comes from, whether it's person to person or team to team or country to country. Because you're both looking at each other and saying, but you're not listening to me. You don't understand why can't. So when we take that away and we realize how to, to remove those barriers so that you can hear each other, you can speak each other's languages so that people understand not just what you said, but what you meant by it, that's where you become empowered.

Oh, I love this. I love this on so many levels. And removing that friction that's happening when someone doesn't feel heard or creating that connection, when someone feels that bond and somehow they really jived. I think that's fantastic. We when one of the first things you said was about, you know, going in one ear and out the other. And Paul and I often joke about that when we're meeting new people with their names. And we, it is a running joke. And we've done the techniques of, you know, repeating their name over and over or what is their name. There's memory techniques. We've had experts give the techniques. However, what I'm hearing from you is that maybe it's not the memory, maybe it's the delivery, maybe it's the what we. How we've received it. Because Paul will literally, he won't mind me saying this because we joke about this all the time. He will literally have a four letter name and come away with, well, his name was Glenn. And I'm like, no, it was Gord. His name was Doug. No, it was Dave. It'll be the same. We have four letter, six same, same starting letter.

But the rest of it is total.

And, and we are big hearted humans. We want to connect with the other humans. So is there something that's going on there with the linguistics, with the, the learning on our part? What's happening with, with people who are having a hard time in that first meeting scenario.

There are, there are a number of things involved there. And it's funny that you mentioned that specific example. The, the TED Talk, which you had referenced earlier is entitled want to sound like a leader? Start by saying your name. Right. And to. To your point. Yes, of course, our look, our listening skills nowadays are suboptimal, shall we say, more often than not because we're distracted and 40 billion other issues getting in the way. But that I was sending. There is always partial onus on the speaker to make sure that they're saying their name in a way that the listener can process and retain. And there are three or four things that we tend to do that actively make it harder for the listener to understand our names when we introduce ourselves. So I like to joke with my clients, like, with regard to them introducing themselves to somebody else. I can't fix the listener. I can fix you, because I'm here working with you. So let's get it right where you're saying your name in a way that doesn't make the other person want to say, sorry, what was it? This was it. I'm sorry, could you say that? Taking away that need. So, number one is speed. Most people blur through their name at a million miles a minute because they're like, oh, I don't like to talk about myself. Oh, I've said my name a million times. Oh, I'm sick of my. Yeah. But for that person, it's the first time. And not only is it the first time, no matter how, even if your name is super simple like Ann Smith, it's not predictable. So you have to give them a chance for their brains to actually latch on and catch up with their ears. So if you speed through too fast, by the time they even realize you're talking, they already missed it. It's too late there. So, number one, slow down. Say your own name at a pace that feels unnaturally slow. It'll feel unnaturally slow to you. It will not sound unnaturally slow to them. They won't even notice that you slowed it down. And to the extent that you and whoever you're talking to perhaps come from different language backgrounds, different regional accents, dialects, or maybe your parents just got really creative when they named you and they named you something that somebody may not have realized was the name in the first place, you never know who you're talking to. All those factors, you need to slow it down even more. Consider them like the layers of the proverbial Onion, so to speak. So slow it down. Number one. Number two, break your name into components. So if you're going to give them your first name and your last name, don't smash them together in one stream of sound. So instead of Laura Scola, I would introduce myself as Laura Sicola. So they can hear there's a first name and a last name. Right. So instead of Car Schneider. I'm sorry, what is the response you're going to get at that point? Kari Schneider. Let them hear that there's two pieces there. And then the third part is we want to give a little bit of melody to it. And what people don't realize is that we expect almost an auditory period at the end of the sentence. So instead of just having it be monotone, Laura Sekola. Or even in two pieces, Laura Sekola. It would be Laura rise on the first part to say, I'm not done yet. There's more. That's part one. And then put a little break, as we mentioned, and then drop on the second name, Sekola. Your voice is dropping. So if you were to hum it, it would be. And then post the names into it. Laura Sicola, Kari Schneider. And as you do each of those pieces, people go, all right, I got that. That. That made sense. You'll be shocked even on the telephone if you're leaving a voice. Well, not leaving a voicemail because they won't ask you to repeat, but if you're leaving a message with a. An assistant or somebody, they won't ask you to repeat. They'll go, oh, they may ask you how to spell it, but they won't ask you to repeat because they didn't understand what you said. It's amazing the response you'll get that.

Is so powerful and I think so helpful for people because it's taking ownership and responsibility for delivering the connection. Yes, that's how. That's how I see it. Because ultimately it's easy for Paul and myself to say, oh, well, clearly they didn't deliver their name very well if we can't remember it. And that's just not going to fly if we really want to make connections with other people. So I love these techniques because I think that they'll make a huge difference for people. You. There's a concept that I want to have you go into a little bit, and it's the vocal executive presence. There's a number of leaders that I work with, leaders in companies in their own businesses, and people who are responsible for groups of humans, whether they're Coaching teams, whether they're teaching in a school, whether they are trying to get a pitch across for venture capital. What is this vocal executive presence? What does that mean?

Your vocal executive presence is. I think most people are familiar with the concept of executive presence in general, which of course there are many different definitions of. But when I like, I like the term vocal executive presence because it's about both your literal voice and your figurative voice. Your literal voice speaks, you know, everybody knows what that is. What is the sound of the words as they're coming out of your mouth? And what does that connote? Does it project authority? Does it sound confident? Does it sound hesitant? Does it sound approachable or relatable? But then there's also your figurative voice, which is your internal voice, your message, your ideas and how you frame them. If you're a writer, you may call it your author's voice. What is, how do you frame your message as you formulate the words? When you take that concept of what is your internal voice and match it with your external voice so that you can articulate it for the rest of the world to hear, how does it land?

What impression do you make when you say that? I think of. I think of reading a story to a child. Yes, you can read that story to a child and you can read it word by word. And that child is probably going to tune out because there's not the animation or the excitement or the, the vision of what's happening coming through the voice. The words are there on the paper, but it's what someone can bring to the words. Yes. To make the connection for the other human to receive, perhaps.

Yes, absolutely. And you know, Kari, I love that example for two reasons. One is because what you're describing, you have. There's no inspiration behind the words if it's just delivered flat. Right. If you're just letting the words fall out of your mouth and the. So I'll geek out on you for two seconds as a linguist.

Yeah. Oh, good.

Okay, let's geek for a second. So the, the word inspire actually comes from the same root as the Italian or as the Latin inspirare, which translates to to breathe life into or to breathe spirit into something. So when you are speaking, if you're trying to inspire, if you want a message that inspires the listener, that means you have to breathe life into it as you deliver it. You can't just text it to them and hope that they have a mind blowing moment. How are you breathing life into your message? And how does that message then breathe life into the listener. That's the inspiration that you convey. And it's fun because the, with the children's books that you mentioned, there's a number of people that I work with where part of what they want help with is that especially guys who have a kind of a deeper voice or people who are just very low key don't really monitor a whole lot. Right? The. I can't stretch my voice a lot. You know, that's just. I don't have it. And I'll say, yes, you do. Here's how I know. And one of the examples that we'll use is if you've got children, how they read stories to, to their children. And so for two recent clients, one is from. He was born in Iran, so his first language is Farsi. And he, so we had him do experiments because he's got a baby at home, a little, you know, one year old. I said, I want you to read him a story in Farsi and record it. And read him a story in English and record it. And it was so much fun to see him reading these little baby, you know, cardboard books kind of and realize that no, he really did animate more. And another one who's this great big guy from Texas and whatever else. And we said, you. So I sent. He also has a young child at home and I sent him one of my sons favorite books to read to his kid. And just watching this person who swears he does not emote when he talks suddenly go. And it was, I burst out laughing. He sent me the video, it was fabulous. And so we said, you know what, what that shows is that you do have the ability to play your instrument, the instrument that you were born with. You're just not used to playing it in this other way. You're used to playing, you know, jazz. And now we got to teach you how to play it for classical or something along those lines. But you do have it and you do know how to use it. We just need to, to, to hone the skill a little bit more so it's there.

So it, it's, it sounds like an animation of the words. And when we breathe life into it, we're literally breathing our own life into those words. And then, but what, what we're being, maybe perhaps some of us being limited by might be the context that we're in. So we may be in a context that we're not accustomed to breathing our own personal life into those words, or we're not accustomed to animating it in a certain way in that particular Environment or context. Yes. And it sounds to me, and I may be reaching here, but it really sounds to me like the kind of coaching that you're doing is allowing people to find their own self expression expression to increase their confidence and truly find ways to express the voice that they just haven't practiced.

Yes, absolutely. It is. So much of it is mindset which is something you are exceptionally well versed in. And even in this context it is the mindset of the speaker that goes, well, I can't do that. I mean if I speak that way then they won't take me seriously. I mean I have to sound serious. I have to sound for. I have to sound, you know, that executive presence. I have to have gravitas. That's the word everybody, everybody loves to drop. Have to show gravitas at work or otherwise. Well, but there's different energies and the ability to seamlessly weave strategically. Not not equal proportions but on when it's appropriate between energies. I like to call them head, heart, fire and fun. So.

So good. Yes. Okay. Yes. Go. Go on.

So number one is head energy. This is your intellect. This is your power. This is your, you know, either straigh knowledge. Sometimes a little bit of drop the hammer, if you know what I mean. When you're gonna bring your strength.

Yeah.

Your heart is your empathy. Your heart is your approachability, your relatability. A little vulnerability. It doesn't have to. It's not weak. Let's get that straight. It's not that. Head is strength and heart is weak. Heart is. Is heart vulnerable? Yes, when necessary. Insofar as you're not just try. But sometimes it's just letting people know that they can be vulnerable.

Yeah.

With you. And you're not going to hurt them. You're there to support them. Fire is the think about what do you. If you could just have anything in the world and there was this explosion of possibility, what would it be? So it's your. What do you aspire to? You want. This is your inspirational language. And then fun is fun. So where can you play just a little bit. Maybe it's a little tongue in cheek comment. Maybe it's a little. Maybe you're actually telling a joke or it's a funny story that you're sharing or you're teasing somebody a little bit or whatever it is. Where do you include a little fun? Is it an icebreaker to. To warm up the zoom meeting with the rest of the team. But and it's not to say that you need 25% of each. Absolutely not. It may be 80% head, but 5% of this, 10 of that, whatever percent of the other one. So where's the balance? And when does the other person need to hear that little bit? It's like if you're mixing a cocktail, you're not going to have equal parts of all the stuff that goes in there. It'll be a squeeze of this and a drop of that and a shot of this and a couple ounces of something else. That's what makes the flavor that's unique to that drink. You need that flavor that's unique to that message for it to taste just right and hit the.

For that context, for the context that they're in. What. What needs to be delivered at that time. To me, what I'm hearing is that the perfect mix of those would be a child's book and that all of us need to be reading some children's book to practice our delivery. Is that. That's what I'm hearing.

Really? That certainly is something that forces you to remove your inhibitions. You cannot read a children's book with characters and do voices and whatever else and. And just be completely monotone, like you're reading off a spreadsheet. That won't work. But even when you come to your I, it's important to realize that in some ways, when you're. In order to show your gravitas, you'll. Your gravitas in a place where you need to be taken seriously will be more evident and more digestible for the audience. If you also sprinkle in a little bit of fun, a little bit of fire, a little bit of heart as contrast. It's just like, I'll go back to flavors. You've got your sweet, salty, sour, bitter. You don't just want something that's all sugar. A sweet chocolate cake tastes better when a little bit of salt is added in there. It adds richness. It's not just flat sweetness. You need that balance.

Yeah. It's interesting because. And I love that you're using food as an example. You know, there needs to be a little bit of salt in order to bring out the flavor. It. What it says to me is that when people don't have a read on another person, especially if they haven't been around that person very much, then that little bit of contrast gives them the information that, oh, this means they're serious. Because I've seen them be welcoming and warm and light and a little bit, you know, this or that. Oh, and now they're here. But the reason that they know that is because there's a difference in if they were the same the whole time. Oh, this is how they always are. If they're really intense the whole time. Oh, this is how they always are. When. When is there the most important part? I don't know. Because they're like this all the time.

Yes.

But I think that's really. I think that's a great way to describe it. Just what needs to be there in order to bring attention to whatever the thing is that needs to be delivered.

And it's something where you can play with your audience as well. I did a talk. There were a couple hundred members of the mostly IT and cybersecurity division of a massive insurance company. And I'm. I'm doing my talk, and I could see there was a little contingency of. Of guys over in the one corner. And this was their body language as I was talking. And.

Welcome.

Okay, right. Exactly. And you know, I. And I talk to. In when I'm on stage the same way I'm talking with you here. You know, this is my energy. This is my. My style. And I'm watching them, and I finally was like, okay, I can either let them intimidate me or I can just make them part of the show. I think I'm gonna go with plan B. So it was. And it wasn't a big deal, but it was. You know, every now and then I would say something like, I will get you to smile. Just letting you know that these guys over there. Nope. They're like, you will not make me smile. I will win. Just wait. And then I turn back. And of course, the rest of the audience cracked up. And you know, those guys, little by little, I warmed down until I finally come, like, aha. I knew I would get you. And then you swing back into it. But if you're. You don't take your content less seriously. You just want to make sure to take yourself not too seriously. That's the balance. That's where you show confidence that you can play without losing stride. That's power.

It brings your. It brings your humanness out, which brings out the. Your ability to connect with other humans. Because if they feel like you are unapproachable, then it's going to be hard for them to connect with you overall, let alone receive what you're saying. Yep. I wanted to touch on. You know, we're in an age, and I'm very aware of this with five kids, four of them are young adults. That is very different from the world that I grew up in. They communicate very much through messages. And our kids, I don't think, you know, obviously I'm biased, but I don't think our kids are as. As maybe. I think they're more expressive than many young adults. However, with this day and age, with so much of a default to technology in the form of communication, maybe less voice, less in person, less video. What are some of the real pitfalls you see in communication? And I. I mentioned one to you earlier before we got on air, which was the. This up speak, this kind of questioning intonation that happens from sentence to sentence, even though it's not a question. Yep. So what are. Is that one of them that you would say would be a form of poor communication? Or are there. Are there a real top one or three methods that are really big mistakes? Poor. Poor communication. What would you say as. As the main ones?

That's a long list, you know, which is. So everybody check out the book. That's the easiest answer to that one. But the. Let's see. The easiest way, I guess, to look at it is that it's important to recognize there's a fallacy in the adage. It's not what you say, it's how you say it that matters.

Okay, tell us.

Okay, so we've all heard that expression, right?

Yeah.

And the problem with the expression is that the. It's missing the context. That somebody. That someone says that when they're upset with something and the other person made a statement where technically what they said was fine, but they're inferring something from the delivery. So in that case, the problem was how they said it, not what was said. But that's not a universal. What is universal is that for a message to be received as intended, what you say must be congruent with how you say it. It is the alignment between the content and the delivery. That's where credibility is found. And when there is a lack of alignment, that's where the problem is. Because on the one hand, I could say to you, nice haircut. Okay, well, the words were the compliment. Or at least look on paper like a compliment. But you can hear from my delivery that I'm not exactly sincere in my delivery, in my offering, shall we say. But at the same time, I could say something on the flip side where the words aren't very nice, but the delivery is lovely. No, Carrie, I. I don't think there's a problem. I. I just think you're kind of an idiot.

That said that. There's nothing.

It's not personal. I mean, It's. It's fine. Right. But it's like, excuse me, but I'm receiving it fine and being nice. What's the problem? How I said it wasn't that good? Yeah, but you're, you know. Or if you're factually inaccurate, that's. It doesn't matter how confidently you deliver it if your facts are wrong. So it is really about the content and the delivery. It's the people don't realize that much of where doubt is cast on what they are saying, where others are a little skeptical, just not quite ready to say yes to yet is because they're inferring something's off. Because you don't realize that your content and your delivery don't match. They don't align. So part of it is the word choices. So. And word choices can be anything from how many fillers do you use? Ums. You knows, so I mean, like how many do you just turn on the fire hose and drown your audience in data that they don't understand, they don't care about, they don't know why it's relevant, it's boring. It's whatever else versus telling them a story and a story with a purpose and that's concise and gets someplace interesting and it's relatable to the other person. Is it about the diplomacy? Is it about how much jargon you use that is or isn't relevant? Is it all acronyms and Alphabet soup that nobody else is familiar with? There's your content challenges from the delivery part. One of the things you mentioned was upspeak. And upspeak is that pattern that sounds like you're asking questions even when you're not because your voice keeps rising over and over. I'll stop now. So nobody tunes out with bleeding ears. But equally. And part of why that's a problem is. Now let's be really clear. There are conflict. There are cognitive and affective repercussions of or impacts with upspeak. The cognitive is objective. The emotional or affective is subjective. So the. With regard to the emotional or the affective, some people find it annoying, some people don't. That's in the like beauty's in the eye of the beholder. So is what is annoying or attractive in some social groups? That's how they all speak. And that's part of the in group dynamic. They like it. Okay. No judgment on that part.

Yeah.

But know who your audience is.

Yeah.

And be able to control that because the cognitive part is not negotiable. The cognitive part is not Based on the person. It is the fact that when you are. When the. The tonality patterns are constantly doing the same thing over and over. What we're doing is we're distracting the audience. We're not giving them anything for their ears to latch onto. Usually when we speak, the idea. If you listen to the rest of the. Your comments and mine, as we've been having this conversation, we emphasize what's most important as we're talking, and that helps people focus, that helps people's brains take notes without having to process the entire sentence first to. To know intuitively what they should be paying attention to. And if you don't do that, it's over and over again, or just letting their ears focus on whatever's last in the sentence, then you're distracting people from what's most valuable, and it's harder for them to pay attention. Plus, the monotony in that makes people tune out, so then they don't even want to listen because it's musically boring to listen to. And I don't mean that in a. In a judgment sense. It's just. It's. There's nothing unique to. There's no stimulus for them to keep focusing on new. So they. It's harder for them to cognitively process and retain what you've said. So it's only going to hurt you, especially in importance conversations, if you do that. And so. And that's just one thing. I mean, vocal fry is another massive culprit of lack of credibility. So vocal fry is when people tend to talk like this, maybe you can hear that crackly, gravelly sound. A lot of people may start, okay, but then they kind of trail off at the end of their sentences into that frying pan. It sounds like bacon frying. That sizzling sound.

That's the. That's the captain of the airplane.

Is that what you hear?

Yes.

So we got to make sure your captain's got enough coffee that he's gonna get reached altitude.

We will be reaching altitude.

That's funny. Yeah. We've reached 29, 000ft, and we'll be cruising altitude soon. Yes. Which is ironic because it's usually the flight attendants, male or female. By the way, this is not a gender balance, even though it tends to be men get pegged for and men don't get noticed for. Even though men are just as culpable that upspeak because the flight attendants say, welcome to United Airlines. Today we'll be taking Flight 642 out to Orlando, and we're looking forward to Having you and it's gonna be 75 degrees. And the, they, it's like, oh my gosh, please make it stop. But so, yeah, we got all sorts of airlines and we love airline pilots and crews and, and all that kind of stuff. So there's nothing there. But yes, there are certainly vocal stereotypes that go along with the, with the roles.

This is so good. I love this. You, you had mentioned three levels of impact and being able to plan for them. What, what are those three levels of impact? And, and how do we plan? What does that look like?

When we're, we're often surprised that we don't get the response that we want from somebody. And a big part of that reason is because we haven't actually thought out what impact we want to have on that person as we're talking to them. And the, it's almost like if you get in a car and you turn on your GPS and you say, okay, Siri, go.

Well, go where?

Where? You got to give me some coordinates. So the, the three levels of impact that you want to plan for, which create your 3D space point in space for Siri to take you, is, number one, a cognitive. Yes, cognitive impact, an emotional impact, and a behavioral impact. So level one, when you're done sharing what you want to share with them, what do you want people to think? That's the cognitive impact. What do you want them to know? What do you want them to understand differently from before you spoke? So are you going to change their thinking in one way or another? Maybe it's a 1 millimeter shift, maybe it's a mile, but how are they going to think or know or believe something different? Number two, the emotional impact that you want to have, how do you want people to feel based on what you've said about themselves, about you, about the universe, whatever. But how are you going to maybe bring down some walls, lower some filters, help them feel a little bit more empathetic, a bit more enthusiastic, a bit more relaxed, whatever it is, how do you want them to feel when you're done? And number three is the behavioral impact. What do you want them to do? Were you clear? Do you want them to go, that was nice, or do you want them to actually take action? Even in things like the podcast, we say, we hope you like the show. Would we like them to, would we like all of the listeners to then say, you know what? I liked it so much, I'm going to give her a five star rating on itunes or on Apple podcasts or whatever platform they're listening to, well, okay, did we actively ask them for that? Did they even think about it? Was it on the radar? Did we. And if we didn't, then, okay, then we. We failed to take the appropriate steps to help them get to the outcome, the behavioral response that we want them to have. So, by the way, everybody, in case you didn't take that hint, love this podcast. Go. Please give Kari a five star rating and a little one liner saying Kari is an amazing host. And by the way, totally tune in to the episode where Laura was joining her on it. You can't go wrong. Don't miss it. I love that. But nevertheless, so shameless. Pander there. But it's. I say that tongue in cheek because of course we'd love for you to do that. But it's also a perfect example of do you expect a behavior, but don't message it in a way where people may even realize that that was something that you were hoping they would do. It's like, why didn't they ever do this for me? Well, did you ask him to? Well, no, but he should just know.

Yeah.

Okay, you're lobbing.

You're lobbing balls, but they're going in the wrong direction or you didn't bother to lob it in the first place.

Right, Exactly. It's. You're playing the mind reading game. And I don't know about you, but I'm. I rarely find that that's as effective as they make it look on America's Got Talent.

No, doesn't. Doesn't work. I try to mind read all the time and I've failed over and over again.

Yes.

So good. I love this. This is so powerful because it's, it's putting us in a position of. I think it's putting us in a position of responsibility, putting us in a position of power and really giving us the opportunity to connect more effectively. When people want connection, they want to feel like they've understood the other person. But if they don't make the, if they don't make the attempt to really listen and to really deliver, it's not going to happen. It's not just going to naturally land because they started having a conversation that can actually disconnect people. So I love, I love how you're delivering this in, in giving us really these tangible pieces that we can practice. It's not just something that is an idea. It's something that we can actually practice.

You have to. Every time you open your mouth, you should be practicing it. It's because if you're not Then you're practicing something else that's less effective.

Yeah, I think that it can.

I make a point of distinction that I think is really important for people to understand.

Absolutely.

I'm not. This is not a blame the victim. This is about stopping the victim conversation. And I think we so often feel like, why aren't they listening to me? Why don't they understand? And I'm not taking that away and saying, it's not them, it's you 100% there. But it's recognizing that there are two main buckets, two main reasons why you don't hear the yeses that you want to hear. There are internal factors and external factors. The external factors are the things you don't have control over. Yeah, that's their mindset. The budgets, weather, pandemics, you know, whoever won the super bowl last night, I don't know. But the. Those things you don't have control over. But the other bucket are the internal factors. And those are all the things that you do have control over. What you do with your voice, the words that you choose, the diplomacy that you use, the fluidity of your sound and how many ums or you knows that you use. And if you fry out and sound like, maybe I don't really want to say this anymore, I'd rather be somewhere else. That's. What are you implying that you have control over that Breath support. So when you realize that, okay, you know what? All those things I don't have control over, I can choose how to respond to them, but I won't hold myself accountable for changing them. But all these things that I now suddenly realize I do have control over, when you take ownership of them and you realize how much power you do have, you can stop sabotaging yourself unconsciously and making your life harder and instead put all those tools in your toolbox, learn to wield them, and realize how much power you do have at your disposal instead of leaving it on the table.

So good. That is so good. It's. I'm curious here for you. You speak so eloquently. You know the research behind it. You know what really works. You've served so many people and helping them get where they want to go. Have there been areas that. Have there been times that you've felt like, I'm not delivering, I'm not getting this. How did you overcome maybe something that you used to do that now is easy and fluid for you? What was your overcoming? I guess I would say in. In this realm, it's, you know, it's.

It's a constant journey. You're never there. Any black belt in whatever form of martial arts will always tell you the. The more you practice, the more you realize you still have to hone. There's always more room to polish. So I don't at all want to project the idea that now I'm perfect and I get whatever I want, and everybody always understands me and says, yes. And look, I'm married with kids. We're all human. You know, there's plenty of times when you go, wait, what? And that's. That's just the nature of the beast right there. There's always those moments. But I think that part of the beauty is learning about where your own challenges are and realizing where I myself would get sucked into arguments that I didn't want to have, I didn't realize. And so, for example, in. In my book, in chapter eight, which is about listening to influence, there's a protocol that's in there because more, I'm. You've probably had similar conversations where you. And if it's your husband or your friend or whoever it is, you know, it's like two opposing forces and you're both trying to make the other listen first. And when you're in that adrenaline mode, it's very hard to listen when you feel like you need to be heard first in order for your ears. For most people, ears don't open until they feel like they've been heard. So. And we were wrestling with that early on in our. In our marriage, and I needed to come up with a system or a tool of some sort that both people would enter the conversation. Maybe not guaranteed that they'd fully get their way, but know that by the end of the conversation, both people would feel like they'd said their piece and they had been heard and understood as intended and received, and that there was the catharsis of that. And once they've received that, then it. Both realize that if both people feel that, that means you've also learned to listen to each other and you've been heard. So putting together that protocol and using it within my own marriage first and realizing, okay, that works, and we're not arguing about this anymore, and we. We are actually feeling closer by the end of the conversation. And that this isn't just a. For personal relationships, this can work if you're arguing with coworkers or other people. And I've had this, had a lot of clients working with it, then had miraculous results out of it. And that's the beauty is, you know, I had a Client who was a very high energy person, let's put it that way, and was constantly kind of at odds with a co worker a couple of years ago. And when I gave her this, the program and said the what's the right protocol? And said, try this, she came back the next, for our next session and she goes, for the first time in, I forget, two years or something, they'd been working together. She said, we actually had a really productive conversation and it was just collegial and we just got stuff done after using that. And it was such this revelation that they didn't have to just go head to head all the time. It's beautiful when those kinds of things happen. And it doesn't have to be rocket science.

No, no, it doesn't. And I love that, that example of the happy ending because it's all available to us. Yes, Many, many of us, maybe most of us have not been taught how to communicate in a way that serves both parties correct. You know, we, we grow up in different environments and oftentimes communication and connecting through communication hasn't been a priority or a point of focus in, in teaching as children or as students in school. So I think this is such a, such a needed part of who we are as humans and what we need. And when you point to your husband, sometimes the areas where we have the hardest time, that's where we can, if we can do it there and we can practice there, then we can do it anywhere. So I think that's fantastic.

You know what's fun is that just a last little anecdote here. It's been so effective for us in our marriage that we actually do workshops for engaged couples on communication and we use this tool and we walk them through how we do it and we have them do practices and those kinds of things. So in preparation for marriage, learning how to communicate, whether regardless of the topic, that's, that's mission critical. So. And to hear him share his side of the story. He's really cute in that. He'll. He says, you know, the first time that Laura brought this worksheet together to me and wanted to have this conversation, he said, I took one look at it and I thought this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Until it worked. Until it worked.

So that's the thing. So good. So, okay, I would be, my husband and I would be interested in that workshop. If you allow married couples versus just engaged couples, we could just pretend we're engaged. Tick that box on the forum. But I love that. I think that Would be fantastic for all couples, never mind whether they're engaged to be married or whether they're married already or just dating. I think it's such a powerful thing. So it's amazing with your teenagers.

We use it with ours. And it's great because once you've done it a couple of times, you start to know what the. You remember the system, you remember the. The tools that you need to use at each point. And then you don't need to go back to the worksheet. It just becomes part of your. Of your dynamic. You just know when it's time to have that conversation, and it's amazing.

That's so powerful. It reminds me. There's a tool that I use that I've used with my. My kids, especially a little bit with my husband. But it's a. It's a 1, 2, 3, 4 tool. It's a relationship tool. It's. It's the literally figuring out, do you just need me to listen? Do you need me to listen and respond? Respond or listen and give feedback? Do you need me to help listen and then help you? Do you need me to do it for you? And that's been so powerful in. In not only figuring out what they want, but also for them to come to the table knowing what they're looking for. Yeah. Instead of just these missing, you know, darts that are just missing the board every single time because.

Right.

They don't know exactly what they want, but they're coming to the other party, and this party doesn't know how to help because they don't know what they want.

And.

And so on, so.

Oh, that's so smart. I'm gonna steal those four. Those are awesome.

Yeah, they were from a relationship course that I did years ago. But it's. It's interesting that this topic really, you know, we're looking at vocal executive presence. We're looking at how to make a. How to deliver our name or really have impact when communicating with someone. And yet it comes full circle right back to communicating with those that we love the most. Because ultimately, this communication thing is about human connection, Whether it's your closest loved one, whether it's the person in the room that you're hoping to. To influence in some way, or you're hoping to be received by. And so I really value what you do. Honor it so much. Is there any last bit of advice that you would give your early communicating self that maybe you needed to hear when you were, I don't know, 20 years old or still not quite hitting the Mark, when it comes to communication, is there some bit of advice that you would tell yourself back then?

Interesting. I think one of the pieces that I realized, I've always been a relatively confident public speaker as far as how effective I was, I suppose is for anybody else to decide rather than me. But I realized in my, I guess probably late 20s, the first time I saw a video of myself during a conference presentation and I realized I was, you know, there was so much I wanted to share in a, I don't know, 30 minute window. Something along those lines. I was trying to put ten pounds of sugar in a five pound bag and I talked so fast. And look, I realize that in this conversation I've definitely gone into my Jersey Italian, fully caffeinated mode on a couple of stories and I'm okay with that, but especially because half the time people are listening to podcasts on 1.25 or 1.5 speed anyway. Guilty as charged. But listening to that whole. There was no variation. I, I went for those 30 minutes or however long it was, just in Mach 3, it was so fast I didn't even understand what I said. And I was proud of myself at the time that I had finished. But I realized what is the value in getting a get it, being able to say everything you wanted to say if no one actually received it? They couldn't understand it, so they couldn't remember it and thus they can't use any of it. You win the battle but lose the war, so to speak. And that's what's most. That was a huge point of, of realization for me. I had to slow it down or at least learn when to vary and how. And that self awareness was probably the first really big learning step that I had for myself back in the day.

Oh, thank you for sharing that because I, I think that all of us need to know that experts like yourself have gone through those. Oh, how did I do that? And I needed to, I needed to come through it. On one last note, one last question I'd like to ask. It's. This has been just so much fun for me. We could go on and on, I think for another two hours. What? Is there one thing that still gives you a little maybe fear or anxiety when it comes to speaking? Is it. Is there something that, you know, just is a little tougher than the norm because you're so practiced at communicating with others, being in a public forum, Is there one that just kind of still gives you a little more anxiety or fear?

Well, let's, let's define the terms For a second. Excuse me, there's. Courage is not about being fearless. Those are not synonyms. Right. Courage is feeling the fear and doing it anyway. I wouldn't say that what I feel is fear there. I feel adrenaline. There's a little bit of anxiety. But anxiety is a, A little bit of anxiety is healthy.

When you feel like excitement.

Yes. And that's the thing you want to feel. Butterflies. I always tell my clients, the day that you don't feel any butterflies before a important speaking engagement, presentation, interview, whatever it is. Exactly. It's the day that you stopped caring. Go find something else to do with your life because you've checked out. So you never want to kill the butterflies. You just don't want them to overrun the farm.

Yeah.

If that makes sense. And the. So for me, where my adrenaline kicks in, of course the larger the audience, there's going to be a little bit more. But it's. I think you have to. For me, I don't want to ever allow myself to go down the, the mental death spiral of, of what if questions and the mantras that are self perpetuating in a negative way. The oh my gosh, I'm so nervous. Oh my gosh, I'm so nervous. Oh my gosh. Because the more you say it, the more you're just going to trigger the same adrenaline pumping. And the more you feel the adrenaline pumping, the more you're going to say, oh my gosh, I'm so nervous. So you're not helping, but your body doesn't know the difference and you would know this more than anybody. So you can give me more of the bioscience behind it, but your body doesn't know the difference between adrenaline that's from excitement versus adrenaline that's from scared or nervousness. So instead of saying, oh my gosh, I'm so nervous, change the mantra. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. This is such a great opportunity. I really want to kill this. I want to give them so much value. I want them to love every moment of this. This is going to be awesome. I. I'm so glad that I'm here. I'm so glad I had this opportunity and redirect that. So I guess the times that I tend to feel that most are when I have a new program that I'm launching because I'm testing something new material, new new stories, new content or a new audience. If the demographic that I've never worked with before or one that has a very, very strong bent in a particular direction. And I have to be extremely careful and meticulous in how to walk certain lines. Sure, there's a little bit of concern that you want them to understand your intention and not get misinterpreted as, you know, stereotyping or something along those lines, who knows what. So there's always a little bit of butterflies that kick in, but that's what makes it fun. Befriend the butterflies.

I oh, that's so good. Befriend the butterflies. Befriend the butterflies. And clearly your practice at that. I love how you framed it because this is what you do, this is how you practice it. And it's such a great example for those that you're coaching because you're practicing what you preach. So it's incredible. Well, I'd like to end there. I really, I. I love having you on. I think we can do this again at some point. I would love to. And I. I've so enjoyed this topic and this conversation and your incredible, valuable expert expertise. Thank you so much. Thank you. Dr. Laura Sekola and I will connect with you soon.

Perfect. Have a great day.

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