Speaker 1: Today's quote is for Monica Hess from The Washington Post,
Speaker 1: writing in November of twenty nineteen. It's about the general
Speaker 1: reaction to Marie Ivanovitch testifying during the the Old impeachment trial.
Speaker 1: This quote is part of the inspiration for the final
Speaker 1: segment of this podcast, when I asked my guests to
Speaker 1: bring in a voice they admire. Here's the quote. We're
Speaker 1: in the early stages of building a listening library of
Speaker 1: powerful female voices. We still can't ask. As Senator Klobascher
Speaker 1: pointed out in a presidential debate quote, who is your
Speaker 1: favorite woman? President? End quote. During the height of Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton's sixteen campaign, she was so besieged with charges of
Speaker 1: shrillness that the Atlantic magazine interviewed experts to figure out
Speaker 1: what made her voice so allegedly irritating. They found that
Speaker 1: her so called shrill voice was actually quote average in
Speaker 1: pitch and loudness for her age and gender end quote.
Speaker 1: The issue wasn't how she sounded, It was how she
Speaker 1: sounded to us, a listening public without the oral reference
Speaker 1: library to assess female authority, trustworthiness, and power. Our voice
Speaker 1: is a reflection of our life experience, where we've been
Speaker 1: and who we've listened to, but we can also own
Speaker 1: it and even change it if we want. This is
Speaker 1: the podcast that's all about the voice, but it's also
Speaker 1: all about power, Who has it, how we get it,
Speaker 1: and how we sound when we have it. I'm Samarve.
Speaker 1: I'm a dialect coach for actors in Hollywood on projects
Speaker 1: like the upcoming Wonder Woman's sequel, and I'm also a
Speaker 1: speech coach for entrepreneurs, politicians, creatives and women everywhere who
Speaker 1: need to use their voice to get what they want.
Speaker 1: Welcome to permission to speak. Let's do this. Today's guest
Speaker 1: is John Neffinger. He's a man. He talks about trigger warning, um,
Speaker 1: the the guy who's our president, and nonetheless I wanted
Speaker 1: to have him on because he's a world class communication
Speaker 1: coach whose book Compelling People is taught at top business
Speaker 1: schools around the country because it synthesizes a massive amount
Speaker 1: of the most recent studies on how we're perceived and
Speaker 1: makes it super clear. We can argue the fairness and
Speaker 1: whether we have to follow the rules just because they're
Speaker 1: the rules, and I do, but we can't argue with
Speaker 1: the data. It's depressing and it's enlightening. He was also
Speaker 1: the calms director for the Democratic National Committee and coach
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton leading up to the election, which we talk
Speaker 1: about here, as well as his thoughts on Elizabeth Warren
Speaker 1: suspending her campaign. We had a lovely chat geeking out
Speaker 1: about coaching people, since we both do so, and it's
Speaker 1: full of practical advice that I hope is useful. This
Speaker 1: is John, So your book Compelling People or Compelling People. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know there's a double um focuses largely on two
Speaker 1: different metrics, strength and form. Yes, it is metrics. It
Speaker 1: is one framework. It is there. Yeah, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a really nifty framework and it's one that comes
Speaker 1: in handy in a lot of the kinds of conversations
Speaker 1: that you have where you're thinking, you're you're trying to
Speaker 1: make sense of all of this soft and smushy whether
Speaker 1: it's vocal tone or posture, body language, or the stuff
Speaker 1: that makes us react to each other the way that
Speaker 1: we do. But it's very hard to see which parts
Speaker 1: are doing what thinks right. And so this is a
Speaker 1: framework that helps organized redibly simplifying. It's really simplifying. We're
Speaker 1: talking about strength, we're talking about as you say in
Speaker 1: the book, the root of respect, and we're talking about warmth,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the root of affection. Correct, how much
Speaker 1: someone likes And you can map these on top of
Speaker 1: everything from you know, the sort of energy somebody walks
Speaker 1: into a room with, and their look and their gender
Speaker 1: and their race and their age and their height. But
Speaker 1: you can also even map it on like sounds that
Speaker 1: we make that's on soft versus hard, And you can
Speaker 1: map it on how we apologize. If you say you
Speaker 1: realize you hurt someone, that's warmth. If you say you
Speaker 1: commit to not doing it again, that strength, and it's
Speaker 1: not a good apology if it doesn't have both. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know, right, you can and then obviously also on leadership,
Speaker 1: and that's where correct correct, Yes, So where do you
Speaker 1: want to start? Well, my first question is, just to
Speaker 1: back up for a second, is how do you describe
Speaker 1: what you do because obviously can be so wildly learned.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you got have to. I just do
Speaker 1: lots of different stuff I do. I know, right, I
Speaker 1: am very very fortunate because I do a lot of
Speaker 1: things for a lot of folks. Over the course of
Speaker 1: the year, interesting things come up, and mostly it adds
Speaker 1: up to enough money to pay my rent at the
Speaker 1: at the or my mortgage at this point at the
Speaker 1: end of the year. So so I you said how
Speaker 1: you said that with a lot of strength, and then
Speaker 1: you warmed it up at the end. There it's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's the thing. You gotta do the thing right. You
Speaker 1: got to watch the talk. So so look on paper,
Speaker 1: you are a speaking coach. That's right on paper. I
Speaker 1: describe myself much the same way you do write um
Speaker 1: that I help politicians and others, be the organizational leaders
Speaker 1: or other folks in the media, or advocates or school kids.
Speaker 1: I work like I'll work with anybody to express themselves effectively,
Speaker 1: and so I like to work with people who agree
Speaker 1: with who I want people to hear um. But other
Speaker 1: than that, it's people from all walks of life. And
Speaker 1: then there's also a whole strategy side. There's a whole
Speaker 1: strategy side. And I do a lot of other comps,
Speaker 1: Like I've been the COMPS director for the Democratic National
Speaker 1: Committee Party at some point. So there's a bunch of
Speaker 1: other associated communication. How quote unquote we present ourselves and
Speaker 1: what we're presenting ourselves with. We don't just tell people
Speaker 1: to fill your voice to the edge of the room.
Speaker 1: There are more things than that. Yes, there is a
Speaker 1: much I don't know if you've talked about this before
Speaker 1: in this but there is a much misquoted study from
Speaker 1: the early seventies Morabian. Do you know about Merabian? He's
Speaker 1: like a local boy, right, he was at u C.
Speaker 1: L A. And you don't know everybody in l A
Speaker 1: is not from l A. Okay, that's fair. He was
Speaker 1: transplants fair enough, fair enough like DC. But he was
Speaker 1: doing these studies where he was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how do you decode the emotion or what's the most
Speaker 1: important channel through which we interpret the emotion of somebody
Speaker 1: who's talking to us. And so we got three We
Speaker 1: got their words, and we've got what we're seeing, and
Speaker 1: we've got what we're hearing. Obviously you're hearing their words,
Speaker 1: but the music in the time of the tone in
Speaker 1: the voice. And so the punchline is that the way
Speaker 1: it's mostly told is the words are only seven percent
Speaker 1: of the communication and some vast majority like more body language,
Speaker 1: and then between and is tone of voice. And that
Speaker 1: leaves less than ten for us to very depressingly, uh
Speaker 1: reflect the content of what we're trying to very nice,
Speaker 1: he said, But what he was actually asking is where
Speaker 1: does the emotion come through? And what he was doing
Speaker 1: to come up with these suspiciously precise numbers was to
Speaker 1: hit them against one another. So we've all been in
Speaker 1: a room where somebody stands up at the front of
Speaker 1: the room to talk to us and says, I'm happy
Speaker 1: to be here today because and you're like, really are
Speaker 1: you now? Clearly not? Or if the bodyline, which is yeah,
Speaker 1: like he wants to our confidence that we're saying confidence
Speaker 1: sounding things that I don't belong here, then we we
Speaker 1: believe our eyes and our ears over the right, over
Speaker 1: the content, over the words themselves. So it's a very
Speaker 1: clever way to figure out what matters in terms of
Speaker 1: the emotion just by pitting the channels against you another.
Speaker 1: But what it gets reduced to is seven percent of
Speaker 1: your communication. Only seven percent of your communication is what
Speaker 1: you say, so what right? So like read from the
Speaker 1: dictionary but just have really gleaming white teeth and stand
Speaker 1: up straight and no no. But the emotional content is
Speaker 1: why anybody is going to take time out of their
Speaker 1: schedule to go and visit with somebody and be in
Speaker 1: the same room as opposed to sending an email. Like
Speaker 1: we have lots of ways to send words around these days,
Speaker 1: but we take that time not just because of you know,
Speaker 1: conversation back and forth. We can do that electronically too,
Speaker 1: but we want to be in the same space because
Speaker 1: there is an emotional thing that happens when two all
Speaker 1: are together and seeing each other and being in each
Speaker 1: other's presence, and that's an important thing. That's what's what means,
Speaker 1: what gives meaningful and important matter. And so just for listeners,
Speaker 1: the sort of button of this misunderstanding of these three
Speaker 1: different statistics is that it's not that what we're saying
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. It's that if our body language and our
Speaker 1: tone of voice were not in alignment with what we're saying,
Speaker 1: we will not believe you. Yes, I use lots of
Speaker 1: political examples because that's where I hail from. And you know,
Speaker 1: Sarah Palin strode on the national stage and everyone went wow,
Speaker 1: who she And then she said down for an interview
Speaker 1: and couldn't string together enough thoughts and yeah, and it
Speaker 1: blew up. So you gotta you gotta know your content.
Speaker 1: But just knowing your content isn't enough to make it
Speaker 1: matter to anybody necessarily well, and also for those of
Speaker 1: us thinking about how to apply this in our lives
Speaker 1: to really trust that how we think about walking onto
Speaker 1: that stage and trusting ourselves and believe thing ourselves and
Speaker 1: the strength side of it maybe is actually going to
Speaker 1: have an impact. You know, we can't actually just know
Speaker 1: our material. We have to also trust that our body
Speaker 1: is going to reveal whether or not we feel like
Speaker 1: we deserve to be up there. That's right. So what
Speaker 1: is that mental work that we can do ahead of time?
Speaker 1: Which actually leads me to my real question, which is,
Speaker 1: how do you work with people? What? What is that?
Speaker 1: What is an hour long experience with me? Yeah, I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: let's say a new client, Let's say maybe somebody running
Speaker 1: for office. Let's say maybe a woman. I am working
Speaker 1: with a lot of just overachieving people who have a
Speaker 1: lot of smart thoughts because that's their job, and they've
Speaker 1: trained and you know, spent god knows how many years
Speaker 1: in school, and then I had all this experience, and
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of content rattling around in their
Speaker 1: heads upstairs. But often times the reason I get called
Speaker 1: in is because it's not doesn't seem to be coming
Speaker 1: out right, or doesn't seem to be having the intended
Speaker 1: effects and the desired effective, which we might say, literally
Speaker 1: everybody needs that. Everybody, all these perspective things were rattling
Speaker 1: around in our heads. Definitely, definitely, So when I get
Speaker 1: called in for essentially, you know, kind of remedial stuff,
Speaker 1: but it's not always remedial. Sometimes it's just like, look,
Speaker 1: we need to step this up, and we need to
Speaker 1: compete on a way bigger stage, and we've been used
Speaker 1: to and so let's let's talk about what's going on here. Um,
Speaker 1: Oftentimes I'm dealing with people who are very comfortable in
Speaker 1: an analytical space where they're thinking about stuff and there's
Speaker 1: logic and stuff makes sense, and they're much less comfortable
Speaker 1: in a sort of touchy feely intuitive space. And part
Speaker 1: of what's tricky about this for them is they feel
Speaker 1: like they're being thrust into a space where the rules
Speaker 1: of the game are not clear to them and they
Speaker 1: have no way to take control back. And when the
Speaker 1: game do you mean, like literally, when we're communicating with
Speaker 1: people to try to get them to do something for us, right,
Speaker 1: to have people respond positively to them and their message, right,
Speaker 1: And so part of the reasons to take the time
Speaker 1: to write a book about this and to you know,
Speaker 1: work with all these academics and think about this theory
Speaker 1: and structure. Is that part of what I will often
Speaker 1: do at the beginning of my session is to introduce
Speaker 1: that as a way for people to now have a
Speaker 1: way to think about what's working and what's not, what
Speaker 1: they're doing, and what levers they could you know, pull
Speaker 1: to change the outcome, because before it was just like,
Speaker 1: you know, you need better energy or more confidence or
Speaker 1: all things which are totally true and worth saying and
Speaker 1: worth identifying, but not super actionable for somebody who who
Speaker 1: is not comfortable operating in that space. I mean, you
Speaker 1: spend a lot more time on set than I have,
Speaker 1: and maybe on set that makes all this like oh yes,
Speaker 1: of course more energy, right, But my people, a lot
Speaker 1: of my people that's like, you know, you might as well,
Speaker 1: you know, grow another head perfect. I mean two things.
Speaker 1: One is, yes, when you're working with people who are
Speaker 1: professional performers and who have spent their lives trying to
Speaker 1: figure out sort of the mind body connections that they
Speaker 1: actually know how to sort of work the instrument that
Speaker 1: is themselves that's instantly easier than anybody I've worked with
Speaker 1: who's from the business or political sectors, because there is
Speaker 1: a disconnect. I mean, it just happens societally, like we
Speaker 1: get put in boxes and we get our heads cut
Speaker 1: off from our bodies, and you know, we forget how
Speaker 1: to like access joy and I'm really like, what was that? Seven?
Speaker 1: What was that? What's in the box? Um? And the
Speaker 1: other part of it is there's such an immediacy when
Speaker 1: you're about to go on camera and your scene partners
Speaker 1: right there and you're acting opposite them or on stage
Speaker 1: or something like that. But I imagine that sort of
Speaker 1: the further way the audience is, whether it's through a
Speaker 1: lens or you're on a big stage and the lights
Speaker 1: are blinding you. Part of this is like, how do
Speaker 1: we bring the version of ourselves that we're that we like,
Speaker 1: that we're used to when we're talking one on one
Speaker 1: with somebody and scale that up to these really like
Speaker 1: artificial feeling exactly exactly exactly. And for folks who are
Speaker 1: communicating not in character most of the time, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that most of the time, what we're going for is
Speaker 1: some version of how they are with their friends or
Speaker 1: wherever it is. That they're relaxed and comfortable expressing themselves.
Speaker 1: Not always some people that's not ideal and we need
Speaker 1: to about that. But a place where they are communicating
Speaker 1: authentically how they feel on the inside. That is what
Speaker 1: makes us first of all, that's what makes us trust people.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump communicates authentically the stuff he's either fooled himself
Speaker 1: about or the stuff he's trying to will into being,
Speaker 1: but he's definitely speaking from a place that he has
Speaker 1: some honest feeling around. It's the facts are all wrong,
Speaker 1: but he's saying what he feels in a way that
Speaker 1: for poor Hillary Clinton, right, who knew if she said
Speaker 1: one thing that was a little bit tinily factually questionable,
Speaker 1: she would get triple checked and wrung up for it
Speaker 1: by the media. So she when she's speaking, was constantly
Speaker 1: editing and monitoring what she was saying in a way
Speaker 1: that you could see the gears grinding as she spoken,
Speaker 1: so it looked calculated, even when it was her absolute
Speaker 1: best effort to be honest when it comes to the facts.
Speaker 1: So it's the speaking with feeling in politics. There's been
Speaker 1: an interesting move and I think this is true in
Speaker 1: the business world too. I don't know if it's everywhere.
Speaker 1: But basically we talked about going from oration to conversation.
Speaker 1: So oration is this sort of formal thing which, if
Speaker 1: you think about it, just from a technological standpoint, right,
Speaker 1: go back a few hundreds of years when they used
Speaker 1: to teach rhetoric in schools like that was the main
Speaker 1: topic of conversation. Is how you do this in locos
Speaker 1: and path ups and all this stuff. And if you
Speaker 1: think about it, you've got no mike. We don't have
Speaker 1: one of these things here. And so you are if
Speaker 1: you're standing in front of a crowd, you have to
Speaker 1: project to the back of the room kind of thing
Speaker 1: for people to hear you. And if you want to
Speaker 1: be covered in the media, you have to write this
Speaker 1: speech down so you can give it to the newspaperman,
Speaker 1: which means that if you're gonna tell them that you
Speaker 1: gave the speech, then you have to give the speech.
Speaker 1: You have to write the speech down first and then
Speaker 1: stick to what's on the page. Right. And the amount
Speaker 1: of ways that this has changed. Right now, every one
Speaker 1: of us has a like enormous TV the size of
Speaker 1: a like seven year old in your living room, right,
Speaker 1: and you and it's h D and you can see
Speaker 1: every poor well no, there's people thankfully for that, but
Speaker 1: but you can see every twitch of every facial muscle,
Speaker 1: and we want to because that's how we know that
Speaker 1: you're getting a straight dope from that person. Right, Very
Speaker 1: different totally. It's that real authentic feeling. And if even
Speaker 1: feels like they're reciting lines, this is a thing that's
Speaker 1: you can bridge this, and you know more about how
Speaker 1: to bridge this than most people do. But forget the
Speaker 1: act of reading, right. We all know we can see
Speaker 1: somebody looking at the page and they're looking down and
Speaker 1: then they're looking up a US, Okay, fine, their reading.
Speaker 1: The act of citing something that someone has memorized. Unless
Speaker 1: you're a pro at this, that is a different mental
Speaker 1: activity than just what you and I are doing now talking, right,
Speaker 1: And what that means is it has this different set
Speaker 1: of nonverbal behaviors around it. So when you and I
Speaker 1: are talking, we can see each other, we know that
Speaker 1: we're just speaking what we're thinking and feeling in the moment.
Speaker 1: That's the real deal. If I'm reciting something, all my
Speaker 1: non verbals are going to be different. My vocal tone
Speaker 1: will probably be different, my my visual will definitely be
Speaker 1: different unless I'm really really good at this, right, But
Speaker 1: so so the other major factor when you're reciting is
Speaker 1: that you can't pivot. You're not listening. Yes, exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: it's not going to fit My answers aren't going to
Speaker 1: fit what you're saying at all, right, yeah, and so
Speaker 1: if you're doing that, people know. And then in my world,
Speaker 1: in the political world, the question is immediately okay that
Speaker 1: it's not you. Yeah, you agreed to say it, but
Speaker 1: I have no idea what team of you know, consultants
Speaker 1: and polsters and gods who else wrote that crap for you?
Speaker 1: And so I get that you've signed off on it,
Speaker 1: but I still don't know who you are, except that
Speaker 1: you're someone who signs off on whatever somebody else tells
Speaker 1: me to say. That's not where we're going. You gotta
Speaker 1: bring it. You gotta be real for people to be like,
Speaker 1: that's who I want in charge. So it feels like
Speaker 1: a authentic equals good. But be what if your authentic
Speaker 1: self isn't doesn't huge to what not even but doesn't
Speaker 1: he to what society says is what we're used to
Speaker 1: seeing a powerful person looking and sounding like and you know,
Speaker 1: working with a type a straight white man where the
Speaker 1: problem is like, let's bring out some warmth. Great, yeah,
Speaker 1: we know about that. I mean, you know this sort
Speaker 1: of idea of where he used to being analytical but
Speaker 1: of we got to tell some stories in here because
Speaker 1: I hear stories or what what tick right? I mean?
Speaker 1: But inevitably there is some element of that. But I mean,
Speaker 1: there's this great line from Rebecca Trayster's book Good and
Speaker 1: Mad where she's talking about your work and she says
Speaker 1: that for men, a little bit of warmth goes a
Speaker 1: long way, and for women a little bit of strength
Speaker 1: goes way too far. Yes, what do you do when
Speaker 1: somebody's authentic self quote unquote isn't as palatable to like
Speaker 1: the old Guard of listeners? Yeah, So there are different
Speaker 1: ways to think about this. So if I want to
Speaker 1: explain this within the strength and warmth framework, the old
Speaker 1: Guard has the power, doesn't want to give it up
Speaker 1: any more than anybody else with power does, and they're
Speaker 1: looking for some things. There's some stuff that they're looking
Speaker 1: for that registers to them frosty as they are as
Speaker 1: warmth from that audience's point of view, something that's familiar,
Speaker 1: something that validates how they are in the world, right,
Speaker 1: and so how do you appeal to those people? Some
Speaker 1: of it is ask kissing. We all know that, right.
Speaker 1: It feels like what we're also talking about is short
Speaker 1: term versus long term, because in the short term, for
Speaker 1: somebody who say hires you, we're saying, how does that
Speaker 1: person who hires you succeed in the narrowly defined success
Speaker 1: that they're going for in the next pitch or the
Speaker 1: next cycle or the next whatever. And in that case,
Speaker 1: success means playing by these rules and dialing up the
Speaker 1: thing that they're missing. And then there's the much longer
Speaker 1: term idea of where we're going with all this and
Speaker 1: what responsibility or opportunity we each individually have in saying
Speaker 1: just because this is how it's been done. Absolutely, if
Speaker 1: you look at change or persuasion as something that we're
Speaker 1: trying to do in this communication space, right you almost always, yes,
Speaker 1: you need somebody's attention, and that's a preliminary thing, and
Speaker 1: you may need to break some china to get there,
Speaker 1: But for the most part, you're meeting your audience where
Speaker 1: they are at now. First. Then once you've established to
Speaker 1: your audience that you are worth listening to, now you
Speaker 1: can introduce new thoughts. Now you can introduce new ways
Speaker 1: of thinking and new approaches that might include having their
Speaker 1: ears more open to a different kind of approach the
Speaker 1: next time within the system. To you gotta win the
Speaker 1: game before you can change. All right, we're gonna take
Speaker 1: a break if you right back. Hi, We're back with John.
Speaker 1: We were talking on the break about how important it
Speaker 1: is to remember that we have a body in all
Speaker 1: this work. And John, you mentioned that you do warm
Speaker 1: ups with people sometimes if the environment seems to allow
Speaker 1: for it, kind of whenever it can be gotten away with,
Speaker 1: which is its own issue. But yeah, well when can
Speaker 1: it not be gotten away with? Because I'm interested in
Speaker 1: corporate culture and culture, what sort of work culture? Uh,
Speaker 1: you know how how it loosens over time? Well, it
Speaker 1: can be a little bit abrupt, and these things like
Speaker 1: a lot goes into that judgment, a lot like are
Speaker 1: you right after lunch and everybody's half comatose? Or first
Speaker 1: thing the morning? Is actually sometimes these are actually good
Speaker 1: excuses to do this. The move that I'm talking about
Speaker 1: is getting everybody up out of their seats, moving around
Speaker 1: for just a minute. And there's there's a whole scientific
Speaker 1: piece about why that's a good thing, and it's an
Speaker 1: opportunity to explain that that why that matters. You have
Speaker 1: a relationship, a working relationship with Amy Cutty, do I
Speaker 1: feel like is known for allowing people to take up
Speaker 1: more space with their bodies. This is the thing which
Speaker 1: has all the scientific basis and there's the Harvard hanging
Speaker 1: over it all. I mean, these are sort of encourage
Speaker 1: people to loosen up around this stuff? Does that work?
Speaker 1: I mean, what's people's reactions? Like, everybody get up right
Speaker 1: if you move around and take up lots of space.
Speaker 1: And basically, in the early days when people were nervous
Speaker 1: before speeches, the standard prescription was jumping Jack's twenty outside
Speaker 1: right now out and they come back in and be like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, this feels better. And it was that mechanical because,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, we have a body, and all of
Speaker 1: that stuff that's going on the experience of being nervous
Speaker 1: and all of that tightening and warbling and weirdness is
Speaker 1: energy that's being directed by various glands and things going
Speaker 1: on in there. And you can seize control of that
Speaker 1: a little bit by moving around in certain ways. So basically,
Speaker 1: move around, take up space, shake it all out a
Speaker 1: few minutes before you're doing whatever it is you're doing.
Speaker 1: In at the very minimum, it takes the edge off
Speaker 1: what you're doing. But if you're really whoop and holler
Speaker 1: and get into it, you get yourself in a totally
Speaker 1: euphoric but much more confident place to be able to
Speaker 1: stride into that situation and have people go, oh, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: what's what this? This is interesting? What's this going to be?
Speaker 1: So you seem like a real person, You seem like
Speaker 1: a real person who's not wanting to crawl into a
Speaker 1: whole because you're terrified because this is a very and
Speaker 1: it is it's we get called upon when you're successful
Speaker 1: in life and you get asked to speak to groups
Speaker 1: of people at once. It is nerve racking. Right. All
Speaker 1: the studies show people would rather be, you know, in
Speaker 1: the coffin than doing the eulogy or eaten by a
Speaker 1: shark than whatever, all the public speaking stuff, And there's
Speaker 1: a good reason for it that people totally just don't appreciate.
Speaker 1: The good reason is this, So if you and I
Speaker 1: are now sitting across table from each other, that's great,
Speaker 1: and as I'm talking, you're not checked out, You're not
Speaker 1: just like staring at me like you would a YouTube video.
Speaker 1: You're nodding, and you're mum m m, and you're making
Speaker 1: good eye contacted facial expressions and all of these good
Speaker 1: things that tell me you're doing great, keep going right.
Speaker 1: If I weren't doing this, this is good, we could
Speaker 1: do a little experiment. No, please don't. If you were
Speaker 1: just staring at me blankly, I would start to get
Speaker 1: a not in my stomach after just a couple of minutes,
Speaker 1: because I'd be like, oh, oh, this is bad. Oh
Speaker 1: this is going horribly wrong. And what happens when you
Speaker 1: do this in front of a whole group full of
Speaker 1: people is to them, it's not a conversation. They are
Speaker 1: the audience and you are the television, and they are
Speaker 1: off the hook for this interaction. And no matter how
Speaker 1: much you love your favorite TV show, you do not
Speaker 1: nod and and whatever at the screen as it's going.
Speaker 1: So they're just send them encouragements, right. Oh, that would
Speaker 1: be like get the net right. So, so they're just
Speaker 1: rocked back letting it wash over them, which means they're
Speaker 1: staring blankly at you, not one blank face, but a
Speaker 1: whole sea of blank faces. Now and so of course
Speaker 1: you're going to get not in your stomach and like
Speaker 1: have all kinds of physiological changes that signal nervousness because
Speaker 1: it looks like it's going horribly because why aren't these
Speaker 1: people talking to me? Right on a really basic level,
Speaker 1: if you look at someone saying we get you, that
Speaker 1: means they don't get you, or at least it opens
Speaker 1: up the question in your mind, and then you're spending
Speaker 1: half your time up there thinking hate me. Right, And
Speaker 1: because when people normally approve what you're saying to them,
Speaker 1: you get this whole stream of feedback that's not there.
Speaker 1: So how do you break that pattern? Right? Right? Picture
Speaker 1: them that no, do not, picture them in their underwear.
Speaker 1: I think that was the Brady bunch. I don't know
Speaker 1: how that guy it's that that's not what you do.
Speaker 1: So first of all, you can strengthen your own sort
Speaker 1: of confidence and take control of your own physiology, just
Speaker 1: the way we're talking about before. For sure, part of
Speaker 1: it knowing is part of the battle. Knowing that that
Speaker 1: seal blank faces, that that's what's happening when you see that,
Speaker 1: and also knowing that when your lizard brained you know,
Speaker 1: sees that you are going to have some of that
Speaker 1: physical reaction, even though you know why they're doing that,
Speaker 1: and that's okay to the problem. The real you know,
Speaker 1: sort of public speaking fantastic stories of the disaster and
Speaker 1: when the wheels came off and all the rest of that.
Speaker 1: That stuff happens when people beat themselves up for it.
Speaker 1: When people get nervous in the moment it's still a moment,
Speaker 1: and then they say, oh my god, I'm nervous. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I'm screwing this up. Oh my god, why
Speaker 1: am I nervous? Like, and people will tell themselves, they'll
Speaker 1: set themselves up for this. They'll say, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be great at my talk as long as I don't
Speaker 1: get nervous. Well, guess right, recipe for disaster. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm really asking, I think is probably how do
Speaker 1: people change? How do you get people to change? You know,
Speaker 1: I mean, how do they get themselves? Because obviously it's
Speaker 1: if they've paid you, they have a vested interest in
Speaker 1: making that change. But also it's really high right, somebody
Speaker 1: who's right in the check thinks that this yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that's right. There's also the question of buying it,
Speaker 1: just like exactly. Yeah, yeah, I know that as a coach.
Speaker 1: So your book is structured in two main parts, the
Speaker 1: hand youre dealt and playing that hand, which I think
Speaker 1: is a really handy way of thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: what we have control over obviously certain aspects. And you
Speaker 1: talk about this at the beginning of the playing the
Speaker 1: hand section, where we're sort of going from here's what
Speaker 1: you look like and you can't control it into here's
Speaker 1: what you can control, and you say, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of sort or you can't do much about the way
Speaker 1: that you look, etcetera. But that's exactly why these physical
Speaker 1: attributes are far from the last word on how people
Speaker 1: judge your character at the end of the day, character
Speaker 1: as a matter of who you choose to be, not
Speaker 1: the way you happen to be born. And then you know,
Speaker 1: you talk about there's unconscious stuff, and then you say
Speaker 1: unconscious stuff meaning we're lost in thought or we're having
Speaker 1: these moments like we're just describing. And then there's this
Speaker 1: line that I wanted to read. But even if a
Speaker 1: lot of behavior is unconscious, nearly all of it can
Speaker 1: be subject to conscious choice. You can choose not only
Speaker 1: to behave differently, but to learn how to behave differently.
Speaker 1: You can take steps that change the way you react
Speaker 1: unconsciously in the future. Some of these changes require a
Speaker 1: lot of practice, but others just take a little imagination.
Speaker 1: Will you tell me what that means? You know? Where
Speaker 1: I start thinking about this is back with our friend
Speaker 1: Arabian we talked about a little bit earlier. Because the
Speaker 1: reason that we trust the visual more than we trust
Speaker 1: the vocal, and the vocal more than we trust the
Speaker 1: words is those are in reverse order of conscious control.
Speaker 1: We have to consciously choose which words are coming out
Speaker 1: of our mouth by and large, and since we're choosing
Speaker 1: the words anyway, the vocal tone is sort of right there,
Speaker 1: so we can play with that a little bit consciously
Speaker 1: more easily too. But when we're forming words, we're mostly
Speaker 1: not thinking about where our hands are or posture or
Speaker 1: any of that stuff. And so as an interpreter of
Speaker 1: human communication, I know that most of the time the
Speaker 1: things that I'm seeing are going to be controlled not
Speaker 1: by somebody deciding what to show me, but just by
Speaker 1: how that person feels right, and then next most for
Speaker 1: vocal tone, and then lastly for the words themselves, which
Speaker 1: they're consciously choosing so the question is, how do you
Speaker 1: take at some point conscious control of what's going on
Speaker 1: with the rest of that stuff, Not because we want
Speaker 1: to lie, but because we want to actually express ourselves
Speaker 1: even more confidently, even more effectively. And part of that
Speaker 1: is muscle memory, the kinds of things that we might do.
Speaker 1: We put a lot of emphasis on the what we
Speaker 1: call the warm up or team. I'll give you a
Speaker 1: quick story. So first time I went on TV at
Speaker 1: National TV was it was what's his name, Chris Matthews,
Speaker 1: and so I was doing like body language interpretation on
Speaker 1: some debate thing, and I was excited, and I sat
Speaker 1: in a little booth in a little box, and it
Speaker 1: was a remote thing kind of like this, and I
Speaker 1: had all my answers for everybody, Yeah we're not really,
Speaker 1: but but the like me and the mic right, And
Speaker 1: I wasn't sitting there with Chriss, so he was in
Speaker 1: some some other city. And I was really enthusiastic and
Speaker 1: it was great, and let's just say the effect was
Speaker 1: not what I wanted. And what I mean by that
Speaker 1: was I was like waggling around and jumping all and
Speaker 1: doing this thing with my neck that kind of looked
Speaker 1: like a bad Stevie Wonder impression so ironic that you
Speaker 1: were talking about yes, right, And so the next time
Speaker 1: I went on this is the actional part when I'm
Speaker 1: sitting in the chair and I miked up and made
Speaker 1: up and all of this stuff. What I did in
Speaker 1: that moment to kind of get my body language in
Speaker 1: my muscle what we call short term muscle memory, the
Speaker 1: short term muscle memory where I wanted it to be
Speaker 1: was I just did this little miniature movement like I
Speaker 1: was heading a soccer ball back of soccer practice. Boom boom, boom.
Speaker 1: And what that did for me is then when we
Speaker 1: were live, I didn't have to think about it that much.
Speaker 1: Where my body went when I started to talk was
Speaker 1: here instead of so forward and backwards, instead of side
Speaker 1: to side in a serpentine motion, which was not but
Speaker 1: the forward and backwards. If you're in the room with me,
Speaker 1: you'd see is like, not, yeah, it's not No, it
Speaker 1: was not huge. I was not jumping out of my
Speaker 1: chair and thrust in my forehead at the camera. But
Speaker 1: but it changed posture and it changed movement, and it
Speaker 1: was much more at least appropriate for that setting. Right,
Speaker 1: And you can change the stuff, and you can be
Speaker 1: who you want to be. So how did you think
Speaker 1: about the actual content of what you were saying while
Speaker 1: also thinking about do this thing with my body? Well,
Speaker 1: this is the beauty of the warm up or team, right,
Speaker 1: which is in the moment, I was thinking about my content,
Speaker 1: but my muscles were doing the thing that i'd been
Speaker 1: doing a couple of minutes ago, a couple of minutes before,
Speaker 1: which is for and backwards thing, And so it was
Speaker 1: much easier for me to reproduce that in the moment.
Speaker 1: You know, you have a limited amount of bandwidth, limited
Speaker 1: amount of conscious bandwidth in the moment, and the more
Speaker 1: nervous you are, the more of that shrinks. Right, So
Speaker 1: you can't control everything all at once, even if you
Speaker 1: have very specific, fantastic plans for how you're gonna do
Speaker 1: your voice here and you're gonna do your other thing here,
Speaker 1: and no, no, no no, it's going to happen in the moment.
Speaker 1: And so it's like Ron popeel yes said it and
Speaker 1: forget it. No late night infomercials, so you're setting your
Speaker 1: your that's right. So like early eighties introvercials, late night
Speaker 1: sleep deprived idiots buying things that don't work. So by
Speaker 1: practicing that, I'm more confident that my body is going
Speaker 1: to do the thing at once. And this is something
Speaker 1: I imagine with clients you have to sort of just
Speaker 1: lightly convinced them of because there is that sense of like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, how could I possibly keep track of
Speaker 1: all these things at once? But no, actually like doing
Speaker 1: this little bit of practice ahead of time, and then
Speaker 1: you don't think to your body right, and then you
Speaker 1: don't have to keep track of it. The a number
Speaker 1: one question. I don't know if it's always people's first question,
Speaker 1: but it's the thing that they actually do need to
Speaker 1: know and don't know when you're speaking in public unless
Speaker 1: you have no cards or a clicker or a podium
Speaker 1: or a mic. Is what do we do with my hands?
Speaker 1: It's like being the boy at the sixth grade dance
Speaker 1: and like do I snap? Do I point? What do
Speaker 1: I do? I don't know. For the women listening, I
Speaker 1: feel like that's a really funny, like revelations about what
Speaker 1: we're thinking about. The boys had no idea. They knew
Speaker 1: like if you guys wiggled a little bit, it looked
Speaker 1: pretty good. And for us, it's like all of our
Speaker 1: gestures that we've been rehearsing for the last few years
Speaker 1: were from football, which does not look it on a
Speaker 1: dance floor. It's a different thing, or baseball anyhow. So
Speaker 1: the question of what to do with your hands, mostly
Speaker 1: when we're talking this is not universal. Mostly when we're talking,
Speaker 1: our hands move, and that's great. It gives some visual
Speaker 1: interest and kinds energy. There's an old saying in this
Speaker 1: business it's just the public speaking piece, that your audience
Speaker 1: is never going to be more interested in your material
Speaker 1: than you are. So if your hands are dangling at
Speaker 1: your sides and just your mouth moving, and you're not
Speaker 1: even excited enough about it to move your hands, it's
Speaker 1: going to convey that like this as dry as dust,
Speaker 1: why would they be interested in? Like you clearly want
Speaker 1: to be somewhere else, Why should I want to be here?
Speaker 1: But mostly, if we can start feeling a little bit,
Speaker 1: our hands are going to do a thing until you
Speaker 1: reach the end of the sentence, the end of the paragraph,
Speaker 1: if you want to think about it that way, and
Speaker 1: then suddenly your hands have no idea where to be,
Speaker 1: And there's a whole catalog of things that they do
Speaker 1: in that moment that are mostly awful. And awkward and
Speaker 1: visually very distracting to your audience because we're visual creatures
Speaker 1: and those hands are speaking more what happens at the
Speaker 1: end of their story, that's right, And usually it's some
Speaker 1: sort of clutching, nervousness or weirdness, and there's every different
Speaker 1: variety of thing, and so there are a couple of
Speaker 1: things that don't look bad. So one of the things
Speaker 1: that we do, again, the warmer routine, is a great
Speaker 1: place to reinforce this is go through motions that show
Speaker 1: how do you come back to a resting position that's
Speaker 1: usually your hands nested one inside the other around sort
Speaker 1: of belly button belt buckle. Yeah, you're you're doing it
Speaker 1: sitting down. It's belly button belt buckle level. We can't
Speaker 1: talk about this about becoming self conscious? Yes, oh god.
Speaker 1: Back when I was single, oh my lord, Like it
Speaker 1: was the worst part when I had to explain what
Speaker 1: I did for a living, because as soon as people
Speaker 1: figured out that I had something to do with body language,
Speaker 1: suddenly they're shifting nervously in their chairs and just entirely
Speaker 1: self conscious. And it was awful. Yes, I get this
Speaker 1: as well, Yes, but the voice I feel like thinking
Speaker 1: about my accent. I'm like, I'm thinking about the content
Speaker 1: of what you're saying and your body language and your
Speaker 1: exactly exactly and think, so you know about this, you
Speaker 1: don't have to mention it. I want to say though,
Speaker 1: because there's a natural segue in here when you're talking
Speaker 1: about people up on the podium and being interested in
Speaker 1: their material. I would love to know what makes you tick,
Speaker 1: what makes you want to do this, How are you
Speaker 1: contributing to sort of like how I mean a little bit,
Speaker 1: I'd like to know that, but also really like what
Speaker 1: makes you excited? So okay, where to start? So me,
Speaker 1: you want to talk about me? Is that's what you're saying.
Speaker 1: You want to talk about me? So you are my
Speaker 1: guest and I am your guest. Okay, So me, I
Speaker 1: would like to take this moment to appreciate that you
Speaker 1: were the first straight white man we've had on and
Speaker 1: I value so that even you are having a moment
Speaker 1: where you're like, oh, God, surely no one wants my
Speaker 1: boring suburban upera ship. No, I'm not to be fair.
Speaker 1: I'm not asking about your boring suburban upbringing. I'm literally saying,
Speaker 1: what makes you excited about this work? Because you know
Speaker 1: how humans communicate? Is I have reason? You know, I
Speaker 1: excited should be exciting? Right. Two thousand and four there
Speaker 1: was an election and the Draft Dodger beat the War Hero,
Speaker 1: and I first of all didn't want that to happen um,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want it to happen again. And so
Speaker 1: the reason that I do this had a lot to
Speaker 1: do with politics, and politically, Democrats fancy the right person
Speaker 1: to win. Yes, I want the right person to win.
Speaker 1: And for the most part, there are some arguments about
Speaker 1: policy or whatever, But for the most part, the people
Speaker 1: that I want to win are the ones who are
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to govern the country in
Speaker 1: a way that makes everybody the most people like some
Speaker 1: kind of maximal happiness. So you can argue about what
Speaker 1: the end state is. But then there's another party that
Speaker 1: makes a very good thing taking money from people with
Speaker 1: power and money and keeping their power and money safe, right,
Speaker 1: And that's it was sort of always us, And that's fine.
Speaker 1: But I want the good guys to win because I'm
Speaker 1: a Star Wars kid, and so their own biases that
Speaker 1: if we just explain to the people how good our
Speaker 1: ideas are, they will choose us to implement those ideas
Speaker 1: for their benefit. And if they're not choosing us, we
Speaker 1: just have to explain it more thoroughly. Yes, we got
Speaker 1: to hold them in their seats longer and make them exactly. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the party that's doing this as an investment basically for
Speaker 1: their clients who are their donors, know how to put
Speaker 1: on a show. They know how to put on a
Speaker 1: show because they listen to best practices. And it's not
Speaker 1: so much the scientists. Even that they're looking to is
Speaker 1: Madison Avenue and like, so what works. But the point
Speaker 1: of this podcast truly is about best practices for those
Speaker 1: of us who don't necessarily look like the old guard
Speaker 1: thinks power should look or sounds. Yes, you know, I
Speaker 1: asked some friends if they had any questions for you,
Speaker 1: and all of them head questions. I mean, sure, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: obviously that all of them ask the same question in
Speaker 1: different ways, and it is the same question, which is,
Speaker 1: how can we come across as knowledgeable, confident sort of
Speaker 1: without coming off as threatening or aggressive or a bitch?
Speaker 1: That's that b word? Ye, it's my I am there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I prefer not to, but everybody I don't have to.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows what and truly the other questions were how
Speaker 1: do you speak truth to power without fear of retribution?
Speaker 1: How do you maintain your heart health when you must
Speaker 1: align with expectations of female communication in systems that often
Speaker 1: do not allow for truth to be spoken? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know. And the other one is about how do
Speaker 1: you get permission quote unquote to be justifiably angry without
Speaker 1: the perception of being a bit and being treated in
Speaker 1: a weird, placating, dismissive way. Right, And so the questions
Speaker 1: that I can answer more easily are what kinds of
Speaker 1: communications are received well and allow you to be effective
Speaker 1: within the context of the organization. The questions that are
Speaker 1: trickier our heart health and where do I put all
Speaker 1: this anger right? The pretzeling of ourselves in order to
Speaker 1: do this right? So if I can execute this, do
Speaker 1: I have like a closet I can just go scream
Speaker 1: into for five minutes and let it all out or
Speaker 1: whatever that is? And that is a bigger challenge for sure.
Speaker 1: There's also that makes me think of statistics. I've heard
Speaker 1: that like, the more women in leadership, the more parity
Speaker 1: there isn't an organization, the less these issues actually come up.
Speaker 1: That's right, and so there is a long term strategic
Speaker 1: plan if the strategy, yes, okay, which is to meet
Speaker 1: people where they're at now and succeed so that women
Speaker 1: are in charge and win the game. So you can
Speaker 1: change it, right, So once you have women in positions authority,
Speaker 1: and they're all these expectations, and I guess, for good
Speaker 1: and for ill, right that like, once we put women
Speaker 1: in charge, everything will be wonderful and there will be
Speaker 1: much more empathetic leadership and outcomes will be greater. And
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how to right. I've been schooled that
Speaker 1: the answer to the patriarchy is not a matriarchy, right,
Speaker 1: it's feminism. Is that we're not actually saying hierarchical structures
Speaker 1: are fucking awesome. Let's just do there. That's right, That's right. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: it's a whole different way for like maybe like a
Speaker 1: little bit just to like, but now, I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: the whole lie of patriarchy. I think this is good
Speaker 1: for man. I mean it will actually be pretty great.
Speaker 1: Will tell you it's good for everyone because everyone knows
Speaker 1: their place. And let's look politically, there are a whole
Speaker 1: lot of women who voted that way because of much
Speaker 1: more comfortable lifelong indoctrination is the patriarch and fear of
Speaker 1: change and all the rest of it and proximal power.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's white women that we're talking about, totally, totally.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a really interesting one and or some
Speaker 1: really interesting research done just politically to figure out who
Speaker 1: are these women and how do we talk to them
Speaker 1: and what are their lives like? And it was like, yes,
Speaker 1: there are two earners in the household, but my house
Speaker 1: is a much happier place when the man in it
Speaker 1: can feel like the head of the household and feel
Speaker 1: respected and feel like he's living the life his father lived.
Speaker 1: And having Hillary Clinton in charge of the country is
Speaker 1: going to like mess with that and some deep band
Speaker 1: And I know that in the relationships in my own
Speaker 1: life the men in my own life, as a you know,
Speaker 1: completely out feminist who tries to live my values, I
Speaker 1: know what it is in those tiny moments of disagreeing
Speaker 1: with a man to make sure that they still feel
Speaker 1: great about themselves. Yeah all, And we don't like to
Speaker 1: talk about this much. And for many people it's not
Speaker 1: a practical consideration. And that's a wonderful thing. But for
Speaker 1: many people. The threat of physical violence is a real thing,
Speaker 1: not from strangers, and that's part of life for way
Speaker 1: too much of the population. Still, so you're such a
Speaker 1: good straightway. Um, you worked with Hillary during the campaign,
Speaker 1: is that right? Can you tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about what you focused on. So we've focused on the
Speaker 1: impression that she was making and how she was coming across.
Speaker 1: So I worked with her very specifically around each of
Speaker 1: the three general election debates against Donald Trump. And so
Speaker 1: she was being pitted against this monstrous figure who was
Speaker 1: super hostile and takes no prisoners in his own approach
Speaker 1: to communication, and she I was in the classic double
Speaker 1: bind where she had to project authority, she had to
Speaker 1: defend herself against this guy was by definition a competitive endeavor,
Speaker 1: and yet she had to be appealing to voters as
Speaker 1: somebody that they would potentially be seeing every day on
Speaker 1: their media and could not appear to abrasive, could not
Speaker 1: appear off putting in that way, which, as we know,
Speaker 1: is really hard for women to accomplish both of those
Speaker 1: things at once. I mean, one thing that I do
Speaker 1: remember clearly, because it was such a ridiculous thing to
Speaker 1: have happened, is that I was literally you know me,
Speaker 1: the hell am I was literally advising Hillary Clinton world
Speaker 1: historical figure that it's a sexist country and not not
Speaker 1: like she didn't know that. Of course she knew that.
Speaker 1: But if you want to be in charge of a
Speaker 1: sexist country, then there are some things that you should
Speaker 1: take into account that are different than then how you
Speaker 1: might otherwise. I much less. I wro only in the like,
Speaker 1: oh my god that then like that, Yeah, I fucking
Speaker 1: know that. Right's much for like? Yeah, I mean thanks
Speaker 1: for exactly exactly well, and not just the female experience
Speaker 1: but her unique Look. The reason I'm asking is now
Speaker 1: that Elizabeth Warren has dropped out, I can't help but
Speaker 1: wonder if there's any way the outcome would have been
Speaker 1: any different, if the stuff that's within our purview had
Speaker 1: been different if she had demeanor, No question. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you want me to analyze Elizabeth Warren what happened
Speaker 1: with that? I can do, yeah, not think directly. And
Speaker 1: I love her and have a lot of thoughts about
Speaker 1: what she did effectively and less effectively. Look, there's a
Speaker 1: narrative that I think is accurate that says, whether it
Speaker 1: was a conscious decision or not, that she kind of
Speaker 1: sacrificed herself to save democracy from the billionaire interloper, that
Speaker 1: she used the occasion of Bloomberg's first appearance on the
Speaker 1: debate stage to lay waste to him in a way
Speaker 1: that crippled his surge in candidacy at that point, but
Speaker 1: also painted her in not the most appealing light. She
Speaker 1: came down hard on him, and that was not necessarily
Speaker 1: the most flattering image she could have projected for herself
Speaker 1: at that Do you think, though, that it was meant
Speaker 1: to suggest him as a proxy to how she would
Speaker 1: be with Trump in a debate. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: that's a strategy too. But if that was her strategy
Speaker 1: to say, here's how I would approach Donald Trump, and
Speaker 1: here's how I would appear on America's television screens in
Speaker 1: October of asking to be their next president, I don't
Speaker 1: think it was a good answer. I think it was
Speaker 1: way too harsh, frankly, And even though if a man
Speaker 1: did exactly the same thing, it worked in terms of
Speaker 1: blowing up the target, Yeah, for sure. But I fired
Speaker 1: a sacrif faced her own her own. There is something
Speaker 1: we call the quality of life voter theory, and that
Speaker 1: is that it is actually very rational to vote for
Speaker 1: somebody who you find pleasant, because the chances that their
Speaker 1: policy prescriptions are the right ones could get past would
Speaker 1: have their intended effects are very remote and very hard
Speaker 1: to judge for your average voter. But your average voter
Speaker 1: is a pretty good judge of whether, if this person
Speaker 1: were elected, that the experience of having them in their
Speaker 1: lives and talking to their coworkers and their kids about
Speaker 1: this person and hearing them on their radio every morning,
Speaker 1: whether that would be pleasant or not, and that affects
Speaker 1: their quality of It is the implication that if she
Speaker 1: had not eviscerated uh Bloomberg, that her campaign would have
Speaker 1: done better on Super Tuesday. It depends what else she
Speaker 1: had done instead. She can be very winning. She's a
Speaker 1: fantastic communicator, not just because she's freaking brilliant, but she
Speaker 1: has a tone that she achieves sometimes that is just
Speaker 1: so lovely, that is both authoritative but so empathetic at
Speaker 1: the same time. She does the strength or balance really beautifully,
Speaker 1: but she doesn't always stick to that. She often does
Speaker 1: other things instead. Town halls energy is so different than
Speaker 1: her debate energy. That's right, that's right, and the debate
Speaker 1: is a competitive endeavor. And so it's understandable that she
Speaker 1: goes there. I mean, look, I would have liked the
Speaker 1: narrative to have been that that way that she you know,
Speaker 1: handled Bloomberg, which made you know, women around the country
Speaker 1: cheer at somebody who wasn't just playing um, you know,
Speaker 1: the the nicest women, thank you. But but because of
Speaker 1: our own experience being within the double body, seeing somebody
Speaker 1: oh my god, yeah love you know, sort of unfurl
Speaker 1: it in their way, unapologetically, it would have been great
Speaker 1: if the story had been and that worked, and she
Speaker 1: was rewarded and in some the way she was. There
Speaker 1: was some surge after that, obviously, probably from the people
Speaker 1: who saw themselves in her, But then for the ultimate
Speaker 1: narrative to have been you know, oops, that fucked her,
Speaker 1: that pretty hard to swallow. Look, I don't think it
Speaker 1: was just I think there was a moment there ahead
Speaker 1: of Super Tuesday for her to show us her most
Speaker 1: compelling version of her that everybody would feel fantastic going
Speaker 1: to sleep at night and waking up in the morning
Speaker 1: knowing she was in the White House and in charge
Speaker 1: of everything, and she did not show us that. She
Speaker 1: chose instead to cut this guy off at the knees.
Speaker 1: Looking at the example of Obama and how he never, ever,
Speaker 1: somehow and in his entire public career, let himself be
Speaker 1: seen showing I don't have any visual for it, except
Speaker 1: possibly like the sort of like surge of strength when
Speaker 1: he said bin Laden has been killed. But even that
Speaker 1: wasn't anger. It was just like intensity. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean he looked annoyed a lot when he was president.
Speaker 1: He was dealing with all this other stuff, but he
Speaker 1: didn't do the angry thing. That's a good point, because
Speaker 1: you know, I think that the thing that you know,
Speaker 1: people like me bump up against when we're told that
Speaker 1: women can't show anger in public is like, you know,
Speaker 1: fucking we can. We just have to figure out how
Speaker 1: to do it right. But maybe the answer really is,
Speaker 1: if you take from you know, the Abamba lescon, the
Speaker 1: answer really is try to channel it into something else
Speaker 1: that is just more palatable. And listen, I have a temper,
Speaker 1: and mostly I don't like that, but it's certainly part
Speaker 1: of who I am, and I don't like to tell
Speaker 1: people you cannot do that, but I think it is
Speaker 1: certainly instructive to see that our first African American president
Speaker 1: is somebody who had that whole aloha spirit going and
Speaker 1: never ever, ever, once even gave us a visual that's infuriating.
Speaker 1: I need to take a break to U, simmer and
Speaker 1: come back to find out whose voice you've picked. So
Speaker 1: we are back and we are going to talk about
Speaker 1: the person whose voice you brought in for us, John,
Speaker 1: who did you bring it? I brought in the former
Speaker 1: governor of the great State of Texas and Richard. What
Speaker 1: a classic, classic, gorgeous archetype of dating yourself here, I think, well,
Speaker 1: and for all of us who were not necessarily conscious
Speaker 1: and certainly conscious of the political world in the eighties. Um,
Speaker 1: she really burst onto the national stage in the eighty
Speaker 1: four and then especially the eight Democratic National Convention where
Speaker 1: she was the keynote speaker. And we're going to listen
Speaker 1: to a little of that. Why did you choose her? So?
Speaker 1: I chose her because to me, she's as good as
Speaker 1: anybody male female at projecting all of the things that
Speaker 1: you want in a leader all at once, and to
Speaker 1: some degree that makes her sort of so wonderful that
Speaker 1: she's inaccessible that the lessons from listening to her are
Speaker 1: probably harder to implement to some degree. But I do
Speaker 1: think there's a lot there to unpack, and I think
Speaker 1: it's worth just admiring the fact that it can be done,
Speaker 1: and it can be done at such a high level
Speaker 1: in such a compelling way. And she's just marvelous to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna listen to a little bit. Behind his calm,
Speaker 1: there's an impatience to unify this country and to get
Speaker 1: on with the future. His instincts are deeply American. They're tough,
Speaker 1: and they're generous, and personally, I have to tell you
Speaker 1: that I have never met a man who had a
Speaker 1: more remarkable sense about what is really important in life.
Speaker 1: So she's talking about failed Democratic candidate for presidency and
Speaker 1: nine eight Michael Ducacus and I chose that clip partly
Speaker 1: because actually of the content of it, because she actually
Speaker 1: talks about what leadership means, you know, but also for
Speaker 1: the style. She was known for her one liners and
Speaker 1: her humor, and so this was a bit where she's
Speaker 1: not relying on that, and yet it's still, you know,
Speaker 1: extremely strong when we look at her. If anybody wants
Speaker 1: to go to YouTube and check this out. Texas Treasurer
Speaker 1: and Richards gives the keynote address at the nine Democratic
Speaker 1: National Convention, that's what it's called. You know, the look
Speaker 1: of it and the sound of it are somewhat surprising,
Speaker 1: especially I think for modern audience, because she really looks
Speaker 1: like a I mean, she looks like Nancy Reagan, you know,
Speaker 1: she looks like the eighties, and but she looks like
Speaker 1: a specific kind of grandma who should be like really tight,
Speaker 1: and yet she's got a looseness and a sparkle to her.
Speaker 1: And sound wise, I mean, she's got her accent. She
Speaker 1: talks about it in this speech and fact and references
Speaker 1: it and says, this is what a real Texas accent
Speaker 1: sounds like. If you've been listening to Georgie tell you
Speaker 1: Rich Bush too much, which is a beautiful way of
Speaker 1: owning your sound. Right. What you've got here is something
Speaker 1: that's authentic. So why would I hide behind you know,
Speaker 1: why would I discount it? Absolutely? And then what I
Speaker 1: love is okay. Content wise, what she's saying about this
Speaker 1: gentleman she's there to speak well of is that his
Speaker 1: leadership style is all American, that he's tough and generous.
Speaker 1: And I thought, well, what a talk about strength and warmth? Right,
Speaker 1: And then she said he has a calm exterior and
Speaker 1: an im patient interior. She's actually defining a style of
Speaker 1: leadership that you know, we should all emulate. And what
Speaker 1: I love that I really want to point out to
Speaker 1: people is she has his line at the end where
Speaker 1: she says he has a remarkable sense about what is
Speaker 1: really important in life. And I love that phrase because
Speaker 1: you know her phrasing, rather because to say a sense
Speaker 1: about what is important in life, I mean talk about
Speaker 1: an empty platitude. It could mean literally nothing. And if
Speaker 1: it was written either by you or by someone else
Speaker 1: and delivered by you, you could it is physically possible
Speaker 1: for every one of us to deliver that like it's
Speaker 1: just words. But instead she takes this pause right after
Speaker 1: really what is really important in life? And you see
Speaker 1: her just actually go there so that those three words
Speaker 1: mean like her lifetime of you know, God knows hardship
Speaker 1: and making her decisions and and you know, doing hard things,
Speaker 1: and it's all in that tiny little pause right before
Speaker 1: it and investing in I'm going to say something that
Speaker 1: sounds trite, but I'm going to fill it with a
Speaker 1: life is humanly possible, absolutely, and that if you want
Speaker 1: to talk about practical stuff, if you want to deliver
Speaker 1: something with strength that makes people sit up and take notice.
Speaker 1: The tone of how you deliver it is important, sure,
Speaker 1: but probably the most important thing is the pause that
Speaker 1: you take right before and right after what you say.
Speaker 1: The pause before gets people's attention because you were talking
Speaker 1: a second ago and now wait, the rhythm is different,
Speaker 1: what's happening, And so people perk up and they listen,
Speaker 1: and so that pauses Okay, you're ready here totally. I
Speaker 1: think what's gorgeous about the pauses that sometimes we hear
Speaker 1: that advice and we just think, like literally stopped talking.
Speaker 1: But the secret fill it. It has to be you
Speaker 1: know what makes a pause a pregnant pause? And the
Speaker 1: answer is that there's a real sense of expectation in
Speaker 1: it and that comes from us literally breathing thinking and
Speaker 1: interesting thought. We can see interesting thoughts on your face
Speaker 1: before you say them, and then you know, and the
Speaker 1: anticipation of what is going to come out and then
Speaker 1: it comes out. And no matter how boring of a phrase,
Speaker 1: it is important in life quote unquote, it feels full
Speaker 1: oh yes, because you're you're in that moment, in that
Speaker 1: moment of that pause, you're making sure everybody's with you,
Speaker 1: You're drawing them into you, and then you deliver it,
Speaker 1: and then you pause again to say you got that right, right, right,
Speaker 1: and that you can talk to you know, that confidence
Speaker 1: that I can take that pause and people will stay
Speaker 1: with me is they will, They almost always will. But
Speaker 1: to trust that you can take that pause is you know.
Speaker 1: That's That's what she's a real master class in. I mean,
Speaker 1: among other things, it is it's a gesture of strength.
Speaker 1: That's right to say that way that she feels like
Speaker 1: she's in her back. Do you know what I mean
Speaker 1: when you watch it, I mean it's it's a sound thing,
Speaker 1: but it's physical exactly. She feels like there's nothing about
Speaker 1: her demeanor. Talking about what we talked about earlier with
Speaker 1: the you know, Morabian stuff, there's nothing in her demeanor
Speaker 1: that says I don't belong here. M She owns it. Yep,
Speaker 1: she belongs right up there in charge of the room.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of thing that even though yes, she's
Speaker 1: a masterclass and on repeatable, it is that kind of
Speaker 1: thing that I think we can practice. I think that's true.
Speaker 1: I think the accent, as she said herself, is a
Speaker 1: little tough to image and if we you know, took
Speaker 1: kind of fact the right yes, no, not a good idea.
Speaker 1: And and she is both recognizable from her voice, she's
Speaker 1: recognizably female and older. There's a sense that she has
Speaker 1: she's lived some things, and so she's speaking with some
Speaker 1: experience and that comes through. It's always right there kind
Speaker 1: of in your face, that that's part of what you're
Speaker 1: hearing is somebody's lifetime of experience. There, that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's not going to be as applicable to all of us,
Speaker 1: but the pause and the way she executes that moment,
Speaker 1: you're right is directly useful to all. We can, i think,
Speaker 1: translate that age component, which you're right, we can't literally translate,
Speaker 1: but we can sort of metaphorically translate it onto ourselves
Speaker 1: in that it feels like the way she's using her
Speaker 1: age is she has earned the right or she has
Speaker 1: told herself you know, enough that she believes it, that
Speaker 1: she's earned the right to say, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean energy, It's like what a
Speaker 1: genius and we can all do yes, even if we're
Speaker 1: you know, not cracking our thirties yet or whatever. If
Speaker 1: you're confident in it if you are sure that it
Speaker 1: is the right thing and you can speak from there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not insistent in the sense of being agitated, right,
Speaker 1: it's not upset. It's totally calm. This is how it
Speaker 1: is because you just know, and it's a way of connecting.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not just reflecting on her that she's
Speaker 1: got an authority on this subject, but it's connecting to
Speaker 1: the audience. You know. What I mean is saying we're
Speaker 1: all in this together, right, right, Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: It's okay, Well, thank you, Yeah, thank you for bringing
Speaker 1: her in. She's like such a yea, you might as well.
Speaker 1: You might as well hear the best. Love it. I
Speaker 1: love it. I really appreciate that. Well, John, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Of course it was a pleasure. Thank you
Speaker 1: to John for coming in. You can find out more
Speaker 1: about him in the show notes or on our website
Speaker 1: Permission to Speak pod dot com. Also you can go
Speaker 1: to permission to Speak pod dot com if you have
Speaker 1: any awesome quotes you'd like me to read at the
Speaker 1: top of the episodes, and if you have any questions,
Speaker 1: I will do and ask me anything episode from time
Speaker 1: to time. And I want to know what is getting
Speaker 1: in the way of your voice. You can also send
Speaker 1: d M s or voice messages to our Instagram at
Speaker 1: Permission to Speak Pod, where we're posting a bunch of
Speaker 1: content and please join the community. Thanks as well to
Speaker 1: Sophie Lichterman and the team at I Heeart Radio, to
Speaker 1: Megan Read, to my family and cohort, and to all
Speaker 1: of you. We're recording this podcast in the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio studios in Hollywood on land that used to belong
Speaker 1: to the Tongva Indigenous tribe, and you can visit U
Speaker 1: S d A C dot us to learn more about
Speaker 1: honoring native land. Permission to Speak is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Double Vision Executive produced by Katherine
Speaker 1: Burke Canton and Mark Canton. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, listen on the ihart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your favorite shows. H