The Food Medic - S9 E4: How to become a better communicator with Adrienne Herbert

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

Back for the third time, Adrienne Herbert shares her top tips when it comes to communicating effectively, drawing from her experience as a podcast host and international keynote speaker working with brands such as Microsoft, Apple and Google. Adrienne is the epitome of a digital entrepreneur, former Director of Innovation at the UK’s leading fitness app Fiit, and has recently joined Jaguar Land Rover as an advisor on their Future council. Check out Adrienne over on her instagram @adrienne_ldn This episode covers: What makes a great communicator How to pitch great ideas in a clear and effective way “It’s not what you say, but how you say it” Communicating during conflict and difficult conversations Tips for making a great first impression when networking Communicating better in personal relationships How to connect and make an impact during online presentations If you loved it you know what to do - leave us a review, a rating (hopefully 5 stars) and share it with someone you know will love it too. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Grocer $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Hello and a very big welcome back to the Food Medic podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Hazel. I'm a medical doctor, nutritionist, personal trainer, author and founder of The Food Medic. Today,

we have Adrienne Herbert back for her third time on the podcast. She's actually the only person to have made it here for a hat trick but she also has so much value to offer and I always come away with so much from our conversations. If you're new around here, hello and welcome and I highly recommend you bookmark Adrienne's older episodes on the Food Medic podcast to listen back later. In case you haven't heard of her before, Adrienne is an international keynote speaker, podcast host and author specialising in wellbeing, technology and innovation. She delivers workshops and talks for brands such as Microsoft, Apple and Google to empower their employees to perform at their best in work and

life. If you want to learn to communicate effectively in a boardroom, meeting new people or in your relationships, this episode's for you. It's a brand new year and naturally many of us are setting goals and resolutions for 2023 and one of my resolutions is to be more consistent with my bedtime routine so that I can set myself up for better sleep and recovery overall. One tool I'll be using to help me with this is my WHOOP. Many of you will know I'm a huge fan of WHOOP already and I've recently joined their scientific advisory board but if you haven't heard of WHOOP before let me quickly explain. WHOOP isn't just another fitness tracker. WHOOP is constantly measuring important metrics and vital signs like resting heart rate, heart rate variability, activity levels and sleep performance.

The WHOOP algorithms then process all of these inputs to provide you with personalized recommendations and coaching feedback to help you accomplish your goals, whatever they might be. So if you're setting some goals, whether it's preparing for your first half marathon, or like me, trying to get more sleep, Whoop are here to help each and every member in their community set and smash their goals and resolutions for 2023. If you're interested in improving your health and overall performance, you can go to join.whoop.com slash thefoodmedic to get started. Adrienne, welcome back for the third time. Patrick, thank you for having me back. No, I'm so happy to have you back and it's always a joy when we record together whether it's on my podcast or your

podcast but also you have evolved so much in the last couple of years you've got so much experience speaking on your podcast speaking as a keynote speaker to a room full of people and so today's conversation is a little bit different I want to chat to you about communication yeah I love talking about this. And I think as we're probably going to get into so many different styles of communication, times in which we need to communicate. And as you rightly said, if you're a professional speaker, if you get paid to go on stage and deliver keynotes, people might assume that you're just a natural speaker or that you're just confident or extroverted. These are the things we typically associate with people speaking and presenting.

But actually, a lot of communication is often one-to-one it might be communicating with your partner it might be with just a team of your boss it might be communicating with someone for the first time is very interesting so things like job interviews or dates and actually communication is a skill there's so many different parts to it that we can all learn regardless of whether you want to present on stages or whether you just want to have better conversations deeper relationships be able to express your ideas and pitch your ideas in a more confident way so I'm sure there's loads of things that we can get into yeah so many and I mean even before we were good friends I used to really admire your communication skills especially the confidence and how well you can put across great ideas and I don't know if you feel like this but

for me it's never come natural like I've had to really work on my communication skills but then I look at people like you and I'm like she must she was just born with this ability to communicate do you think it's like a gift that some people have do you think you can I don't know work on it and teach yourself how to be a good communicator absolutely yeah absolutely can that is the good news so communication I mentioned is a skill so what is a skill a skill is essentially the ability to do something well. And what helps us to develop a skill is two things, experience and learning. So if we were to think about a really obvious example, like a physical setting, like playing tennis, the first time you pick up a tennis racket, you know, of course, there is some innate talent.

And I think the difference between skill and talent sometimes gets confused but some people have an innate athletic talent or ability which will take them so far so they might feel quite natural to pick up the tennis racket and they might have good hand-eye coordination but then the layer on top of that is the skill so I mentioned experience and learning so the experience of hitting the ball looking where it's going adjusting you know how hard do you hit it you know the the angle of your wrist all of these things you are experiencing every single time you hit the ball and then the learning part might come from an external coach so that's when someone else tells you have you thought about this did you know about that this technique this pattern so that can be applied to anything and if communication is a skill then through experience and through learning we can

all become better at it regardless of your initial innate talent. So regardless of whether you've always been that, maybe as a child, the person that stood up in front of your family and said, hey, hey, hey, everybody listen to me, everybody watch my show. Or if you were the person that kind of sat on the periphery and observed other people and then, you know, didn't speak until spoken to. Or, you know, I think in the classroom environment, there's those people who naturally want to entertain, you know, the class clown, the person that wants to make you laugh, or the person who really prides themselves on getting things right.

You know, they want to get 10 out of 10. There's all these different things in our personality, but the skill part that, you know, you mentioned with myself, have I always been able to communicate? I think in some ways, I've always been able to observe and connect the dots so I think I'll talk to you later about this kind of like wide frame of reference so the wider your frame of reference the more experience you have the better you'll be able to connect dots and to empathize and to communicate but the part

around the the learning has been very intentional I have done practice I have done repetition I have practiced and this is the thing that I think hopefully people will be encouraged by is that there are things that I can teach you which are simple simple things some of them sound super obvious about preparation about practice about maybe recording yourself and listening to how you sound getting feedback from others all these these things are skills, they're teachable, and we can all learn to become better communicators if we want to. Yeah, yeah, I would completely agree with you on that. What do you think makes a good communicator?

What are the characteristics of someone who is good at communicating? Well, I think depending on the setting, it's definitely, it varies. I think something that people don't necessarily think of straight away when they think about what makes a good communicator, they think about the speaking part, but it's actually the listening part. The best communicators in the world are incredible listeners because they're observing, they're listening, they ask a lot of questions, they know who they're speaking to. They can almost speak in that person's language. So they know who they're speaking to. And you're someone who does this incredibly well hazel because

if you think about a doctor you think about someone in the medical profession there might be some really granular thing that you're working on there might be some words that people don't understand there might be some complex nuanced things that actually aren't that relevant to the problem you're trying to solve or to what the person cares about speaking to them in a way that is like this is what this person cares about so therefore speaking to them in a way that they understand using words that will evoke a feeling using storytelling these things are actually what makes people good communicators and that doesn't mean oh as a doctor you have to dumb things down or oh as a coach someone's saying oh you know they've got to yes simplify it it's not about

that I think often academics and kind of highbrow people will snub that idea of you know like i think even growing up sometimes we think we've got to use the biggest words we've got to sound smart we've got to sound impressive to show people how how much knowledge we have and that will make us better at communicating but in fact the feeling the human element being able to evoke a feeling in people to galvanize them to take action towards something you know people who think about activism and people that give these incredible speeches they're moving people to action because of the feeling they evoke and it's the same within you know a business or an organization if you're leading a team and you want people in your team to

understand the mission to feel empowered to feel motivated to want to strive to work for you to work hard it's not going to be you know this really impressive complex uh language and saying it to them in a way that doesn't make them feel anything I think being able to communicate ideas being able to get people to feel something and then I think in order to do that we have to be we have to be real we have to almost let down some of those falsities or those like how do I sound professional how do I look smart yeah to just show them that you're human as well so it's quite complex around like what is a good communicator but the key part that I always want to mention is

being able to listen yeah and being able to ask questions and it's so transferable to every job and every relationship in every situation and when you were just kind of mentioning me being a doctor, a huge part of medical school training is communication skills. And across the board in every medical school, you will do communication workshops. They increase in their frequency closer to to graduating because you can have all the knowledge in the world and you can know about every disease in the world. And someone can walk through with this presentation that is born to a textbook. If you can't get that information out

of them or if they don't feel comfortable enough to share it with you, then you're not going to be able to diagnose them or help them. And so a is like listening making them feel comfortable open-ended questions and then going in and kind of being an investigator and finding out what it is just when you were saying that I was thinking about how important it is because some people might be listening to this podcast and think well in my job communication isn't that important when actually yes it is and it will make you more efficient at your job a better team member and probably feel more confident in the work that you're doing absolutely and outside of your job role people might think as you said if communication isn't something they're focused on before we all have relationships nobody lives this life alone

and so what you just said when you talked about diagnosing a patient, the patient doesn't come in and you just tell them information. You just said that you ask them questions. You have to kind of tease out the information, ask those questions. And as you said, make them feel as though they can tell you the answer. They don't they don't want to feel embarrassed or feel shamed. And that's the same in our relationships. If we want to get a positive positive outcome if we want to have a deeper understanding of the person we're having a conversation with think about your partner your your friends your children then don't start by just talking at them start by being that investigator that trying to find the diagnosis problem solver ask them questions and that knowledge of learning about them is going to help you it's going to help you understand them more it's going to help

hopefully you know resolve conflict. There's all these things that, yes, in a professional setting, incredibly important. Having humility, being able to empathize with people and look at, OK, where are they at in this situation? You will not find that out if you don't start with questions. Yeah. And so what about if you're in a work situation and you have or, you know, you're pitching to someone, a brand and you want to get a job? What are some of your tips to like pitch your ideas or present your ideas in a really clear and effective way? Because in that situation, you're maybe not asking questions. It's like your opportunity to sell an idea.

OK, OK. So if you're pitching an idea, then you might have some material prepared. I say that's the main thing often now people will present slides right they'll have a presentation they'll have slides it's not just them speaking and I think that also is is helpful for a lot of people so when you're preparing when you're rehearsing make sure that what you're saying you have you know real knowledge of what you're saying make sure that you've done the preparation in your presentation the slides make sure that they it's relevant what you're putting on there and then I'd say go through it and try and eliminate

25% of it because often you're putting way too much information in it's kind of information overload I'm so guilty of this right well this is something I've definitely learned in the last few years because I think I probably used to do this so much I'd have so much information to share so many ideas I'd want to just give it all and actually it's quite overwhelming for people to just it's too much so if anything i'd say to people if you can simplify it what's essential and take some things out and make it shorter and then so once you've got your your presentation or your slides or even if you've just got one page of information rehearse it make sure you go through it and as i said make sure you have a real knowledge of of what it is that you're pitching at the start of your presentation direct the the audience or the

person you're presenting to and a good example of this i literally did it a few weeks ago so i do advisory and i do consultancy and somebody said oh could they take me through their updated pitch deck because they're trying to raise investment for their their their new business so i said sure and i was doing this actually with my husband and at the start of the presentation start the pitch I said oh if I've got questions if I've got notes if I've got feedback do you want me to like as you're going through the slides do you want me to stop you and say what about this what about that do you want me to just hold all my questions for the end the guy that was presenting and pitching his idea was like uh I don't know I don't mind like whatever you want and so that I kind of said

to him my first piece of feedback was direct your listener or your audience and tell them what you need from them tell them what you want so tell them I'd love it if you could write your questions down get a pen and paper and please at the end make sure you've allowed time for them to ask you those questions because if they start throwing questions in halfway through it might derail you you might run out of time you might not even get to the end of to the best bit of your idea really simple thing right at the start and the last thing if I could is as I kind of mentioned before around this like perfection or professional or like people want to invest in other people people want to work with people they want to know people and you're a human being so don't try and change yourself in that environment

you know again when I consult and you know when as you know I'm on an advisory board for one of the biggest car companies in the world and when I first went in to start working with this team I definitely thought okay well I'm that's not my world you know I'm not in the automobile industry and even in the tech space there's a limit to my knowledge in the tech space so I could try and go in and be you know oh I'm gonna try and be different to who I am and speak in a different way and present in a different way and kind of and then you leave and you feel like oh they didn't really get the real essence of you they didn't get your energy or they didn't get your passion people will listen to pitches and they'll hear ideas but they will remember the person they'll remember how they felt they'll remember

that energy and that passion far more than what was on slide eight so if i could i'd say do the prep tell people what you want them to do and then when you're presenting it shoot your shot what have you got to lose be yourself and that sounds so like be yourself but really let down those like shake off that kind of i'm doing a podcast today so i'm going to speak a little bit slower like i don't speak slow like i've got energy so just do it in your way because it's uniquely you and no one else can deliver it in your way yeah I love I that is so important I think it's really important to not just think about what you're saying but how you say it and I think anyone who's ever done a TED talk or TEDx talk like they teach you that so much so

because like I did a TEDx talk a couple of years ago and I found it so challenging because they're like, you can have your idea, but it's how you share your idea and you go through this process of like learning how to be really great at telling a story essentially. And it's the pressure because it's

minute by minute by minute I know when I did mine I was like but I just want to talk and they were like you have this you have that countdown clock don't you that's it and it's ticking away and yeah I don't know what your experience of that was like but for me I feel like mine was you know that that last piece I just said about being yourself I didn't know then that that was so important I wasn't myself I was trying to be I'm doing a TEDx so I've got to be like this TEDx person when actually looking back I don't I don't feel proud to probably share that whereas if I did it now I would just stand and deliver it as me so I think you know obviously should have would have kind of this is why I said it's a skill we can get better at if you want proof of that then look at people's you know

earlier work and you'll be like oh gosh like she was terrible she was really stiff and wooden and boring mine was boring yeah no I I feel you and I also like when I did mine I was very early on in my career and and didn't back myself as much and I was very nervous um so I would 100% like agree with you and that I'd love to redo it but reading books like talk like Ted and things like that like they always talk about storytelling and like some of the great communicators like Brené Brown she's just so incredible she's so herself she's so authentic and she brings the audience in and she'll just tell a random story about her kids

or like picking up ice cream. And I'm like, I'm sold. Yeah, and she's herself. You said she has an accent. She has an energy. She's not trying to be the professional speaker. She's Brene Brown. People know her.

Her ideas are great. Her books are wonderful. Her talks are amazing. But it's her name. People smile when they see her face. When they say her name, you see a smile on people's faces. So it's her. It's the essence of her being herself because someone else could pick up Renee Brown's

presentation or talk and deliver it but it wouldn't evoke that feeling that you described because it's not being delivered by her yeah that's it what are some kind of tools that maybe you use or you think people can use to evoke those feelings or think about how they can really like keep the audience engaged yeah okay well I also want to touch because you said you just skipped over in your last part about I was really nervous you said that I was really nervous and I thought actually that's probably something that comes up for a lot of people is okay all this stuff's great Adrienne Hazel I hear what you're saying when I'm doing it by myself but when I'm doing it in front of somebody else the nerves kick in and it's a different story.

So I think something to be mindful there around the preparation and around some of these tools is that you might feel nervous when you are presenting or when you're speaking in front of a group of people, small or big, forever. You know, and I think that is also a key because some people think, well, I'm nervous now. But oh, surely by the time you've done it a hundred times, oh, Adrienne, you're not nervous anymore. you know and I think that is also a key because some people think well I'm nervous now but oh surely by the time you've done it a hundred times oh Adrienne you're not nervous anymore no I still feel nervous sometimes you know and I think that's okay just accepting like maybe you'll always feel nervous because it's important to you and because it's the human condition to know that when there's lots of eyeballs on you you feel a certain way that's self-awareness you know you know as a child right it's like again if you have to go around the class and everyone has to read something out as soon as

it's on you that doesn't mean that you can't present that doesn't mean that everybody in the audience can see that you're nervous not always I think you can kind of just deliver it anyway and just accept that that feeling is going to be there but things that people can do practical things that they can do in terms of practice and repetition I think it's incredibly important to it's difficult to do it people don't enjoy it but listen to yourself and watch yourself you know like the worst you've got it's the worst thing ever but you've probably got an iphone and you can record it also because that way you can time it yeah you know that's the worst thing is when people have too much to share and not enough time and they just feel like they have to rush rush rush and then at the end they're like oh I didn't get to say this and I should have

said that and it's because you haven't had enough time and I think people are scared of having too much time like empty time to fill yeah which is always better if anything because you can just yeah ask a question or you can kind of ad lib if you're confident to do it time yourself film yourself record yourself get some feedback from someone who you value their opinion and who you know you know you have to be quite thick-skinned I think if you want real honest feedback but just get some feedback from someone else and positive and negative so maybe get them to tell you three things that they really enjoyed three things that stood out about your presentation or three things that they they really enjoy when they have a conversation with you and then maybe share two

two or three things that they think you could improve on or things that derail you or maybe just things that weren't that engaging or repetition sometimes we repeat ourselves and we don't realize actually you really wanted to make that point but you said it three times so just getting feedback from someone who you trust and then taking that away not trying not to be too kind of defensive and going oh no that person's wrong just going okay cool if I can maybe improve that five percent ten percent try again again experience and learning keep doing it put yourself in positions where you have the opportunity to present and to speak and to communicate and again I want to bring it back to these kind of one-to-one conversations as well the only thing that makes a difficult conversation worse

is delaying it and I often think that when we don't have conversations it becomes this much bigger thing it's a skill it's going to get better it's going to get better but also a skill if we don't do it gets rusty right it gets dusty so if we haven't picked up that tennis racket in a while it's you know it's going to be harder so, keep practicing and and keep going. I love that. And if I could add one more, it would be find out who your audience is, because this is a mistake I've made. And oftentimes I'm speaking to health professionals. And if it's like a teaching session, then it's like a bit more academic. But then sometimes I'm doing like corporate talks where it will be in a law firm. So they've got no knowledge of the advice that I'm going to provide.

And I've definitely run into issues in the past where I've pitched it too, too heavy. And I'm just looking at a room full of people where they're just like yawning. And I'm like, and this was by Paper Wallace et al. 2015. I'll include it in my notes later. And they're like, what is she talking about? And it's almost like overcompensating to like tell people I know what I'm talking about. Oh, my gosh, this is a feat. Oh, I'm going to jump on this.

All they wanted was for me to just be like, let me know that I need to eat my five a day. Do all these like strategies, like deliver it in a know that I need to eat my five a day do all these like strategies like deliver it in a way that people want to hear it and don't feel like you need to dress it up or be fancy or yeah oh my gosh I want to jump on that so yes they're finding out who's in your audience thing absolutely and also finding out I guess what other things are happening so for example if it's a conference or if it's you know if there's loads of speakers throughout the day and going back to the point I've got so many things here I want to jump on but one of the things I said earlier around like doing it my way now and just being like no one else can deliver it like me I'm just going to do it my way one time I had to

really practice that and kind of remind myself of my own advice was during lockdown when I got asked to present to a huge conference team at Microsoft. And this was an internal event that they were doing. And I looked at the bill of who else was speaking over this, like, I think it was two days. And I was just like, oh, my gosh, what am I going to add? Like these kind of incredible speakers, one who I absolutely love and adore, Adam Grant, author. And I think he was closing it. And it's just like, I was like, I can't add anything to this.

And just what you said then about overcompensating. What am I going to say and do that they've never heard of before? And as you said, it doesn't always have to be that you can hear something in a different way with a different energy. And I thought that I was like, well, they're probably going to hear from this person, this person. But they're not going to hear from someone delivering what I'm saying with my energy, with my enthusiasm, with my passion. So that's what I did did I just did it like that did it like myself so yes the overcompensating thing I think a lot of people do it even in you know in a work setting let's say you've got the opportunity to pitch to a manager of a new idea or in an interview you really try to yeah like prove yourself and sell yourself and like tell

them everything that you've ever done and all the things you know and all the skills you have and yeah it can be overwhelming when actually they're far more likely to just want to know you what you care about how you work why you're interested in doing it and then of course if they really want data points and proof and you want to you know hit them with some statistics and give them a case study cool but knowing your audience is key and yeah not trying to i think we have i think the whole overcompensating thing probably overlays quite well with the imposter syndrome. Yeah. You know, of like, I've got to be this kind of person to be in this kind of space.

So yeah, there's a lot in there. There is a lot to unpack there. But I'm glad that we covered that off. And I think that comes with, I guess, experience as well, because like, I no longer do that anymore. And it goes back to the whole thing that communication is a skill and it also evolves and will be different depending on what situation you're in. Quick one I have a new and exciting membership coming out and I want you to be the first to hear about it. I started The Food Medic over 10 years ago and my mission has always been to bring evidence-based

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it to my other relationships we resolve issues quite quickly then because there's no um holding grudges silent treatment any of that it's just like it's uncomfortable sometimes I don't like what he has to say but we work through it and I think it's also made me a bit more confident when I'm kind of having to have difficult conversations with colleagues. And it's not always negative things, but, you know, sometimes you have to deliver feedback and people don't always want to hear that feedback. So what would be your advice when it comes to like effectively communicating when it's a difficult conversation and just like being able to show up and just be brave enough to do it. Be brave enough. Well, oh my gosh, so much in here. So yes, many people are conflict avoidant for lots of different reasons. It's not always the reason

people think, which is just like, oh, I don't like conflict because I'm an introvert or I don't like conflict because I just am a people pleaser and I like to keep the peace and sometimes I guess there is elements of that but it does take courage to to have difficult conversations and and if you care about something deeply if you care about a relationship a marriage a partnership then actually what better thing to do than to say this is so important to me I value this so much I want it to be the best that it can be so let's have this honest and difficult conversation instead of as you said like head in the sand or you know resentment's going to build it's fine because I don't really want to you know stir that up so I think the first thing to know is that by having that conversation by facing the conflict it is because you care and even saying that to

the person you know it's because I value you it's because I want this relationship to be the best it can that I think we should talk about these things so there's that the courage part I think that a really interesting thing to try and understand here is that sometimes we have a commitment to something else which is what stops us from wanting to have the conflict so a good example might be some people say that they find it difficult to have difficult conversations with their parents so let's say they have I don't know especially around holiday times you know people say I have to visit my parents and like they're going to nag me about this or my mum and they just have this thing where they feel like they can be honest and open and say to their mother or their father

you know this is how I feel when you say that this is how I feel when you do that and it's not because they're afraid it's not because they don't want to necessarily upset them. It's because they have a commitment to a role or a relationship or an idea. For example, you know, I really love my mum. She's done so much for me. We have this great relationship. So you're so committed to the idea that you think that having a conflict or having a disagreement means that the other isn't true anymore. Does that make sense? But we can have both. Both can be true. Another part is around understanding that there might be things that they're going to say that you don't want to hear there might be some things that you're going to say that they don't want to hear and so sometimes much easier isn't it to just say you know what we kind of know it but we'll just leave it over there

but as i said before the only thing that makes a difficult conversation worse is delaying it because other things you know people can't read your mind as well and if someone loves and cares about you if they're doing something or if you've had people can't read your mind as well. And if someone loves and cares about you, if they're doing something or if you've had a conversation and it's not gone well, then often we can think, well, they're doing that on purpose or they just don't care. Or, you know, I've asked them before, they don't listen. The communicate thing, how different we are when we communicate

is something that I find so interesting. Asking, asking, asking, asking, what do you need? What would you need in this scenario ideally to make it the best that it could be for you from your perspective and then listen and then tell them well from my perspective in order for this to be the best for me i would need this this and this you have to tell them they can't read your mind so often i think with conflict we assume so many things we make assumptions about what the other person thinks about what they feel we assume that they understand our point of view and often they don't so yeah i think there's a lot of things here but

i think first thing i would say is if it's a conflict if it's a difficult conversation with someone that you love start off with that start off with i value you i care about you i love you i want this to be the best it can be so that's why we've got to talk about it then if you need to repeat yourself repeat what you need what you want what you what you are willing to do and then also ask them questions and really listen to what they say if you feel like they're not getting what you're saying ask them to repeat back to you this is a skill thing that people can do either in business or in personal settings and they might think oh it's a bit formal to like do that with your boyfriend or with your friend but it really works and it's basically to swap roles

so to kind of say to them okay let's swap positions okay we're talking about this thing i'm over here you're over here let's swap what do you think that i want what do you think that i need what do you think that i'm annoyed about and then you have to do it in reverse and hear what they say and often it's not what you're saying like that's not what i'm annoyed about at all or that's not what I'm saying so it shows you that when we think we're listening often we're just waiting to speak so listen really try and listen to understand and then if you can tell the person back okay I think this is what you're saying I think this is what you need am I getting that right and then if you are you can kind of work from there but it's not easy and it takes it takes effort.

Yeah. Can you repeat that again? Because I'm like, that sentence you said, sometimes we think we're listening, but we're just waiting to speak. We are just waiting to speak. So that is, you're in a conversation with someone and you can tell when people are rushing you as well because they've got their point.

Okay, so they want to prove you wrong or they want to win you over or they want to tell you why you're wrong or why they're right. So you're talking and they're going, yeah, yeah, mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. But they launch in. So what I've just said, you haven't listened to it. You haven't thought about it. You're not responding to what I've said. You're just waiting for me to stop talking. So the space for you to interject with your point.

Now, Adam Grant, who I who I love and I can talk about all day long, he is a wonderful communicator. He is a wonderful author, wonderful speaker. And he talks about this politician, professor and preacher. And essentially a politician is, you know, yeah, trying to win you over and a preacher is trying to, you know, tell you what to do. And a professor is trying to understand and ask questions. So often I feel like in the politician, in the kind of winning people over mode, that is when we're not listening to what they're saying at all because we're just trying to pull them over to our side of the bridge

by saying, listen to me, listen to me, listen to me. And actually, if you listen to what they're saying, you can tell when someone is responding to what you're saying as opposed to just jumping in with the next thing. And even in even in like day to day conversations, even if it's not a conflict, if you ask someone a question, listen to the answer and respond to it before you move on to talking about yourself. Before you say, oh, yeah, me too. And, you know, there's a lot in there around, yeah, listening to understand and not just waiting to speak. 100%. And I think also being in a space where you are calm and collected and not heightened, because when we're in that like fight or flight mode, you are just like shooting from that like frontal lobe, like attack, attack.

And you're not listening to them. And you think that they're the enemy when they're your partner or they're your business partner or your colleague and it's very easy to lose sight if someone's raising their voice or if you don't feel calm and collected so I think sometimes it's really valuable to be like I'm gonna take five minutes to just like collect my thoughts and then can we speak about it then? Yeah. Yeah, there's a few things here.

And actually one thing that I think will hopefully change people's relationship dynamics when it comes to this thing, one thing that I think causes a lot of conflict is not getting a response that you want or a response that you need. So, you know, when I mentioned in the part about pitching, I said direct your audience and tell them what you want them to do. That is a game changer if you start to do that with your partner so a good example is let's say you come home from work and you've pitched an idea to somebody or you've had a conversation with your manager your boss and they didn't listen and you're really annoying you feel like they never

listen to you and if you start saying that to your partner before you start I know this again it sounds quite formal but before you start say to them what do you need now it's really simple do you need me to just listen to you you just want to let off steam I'm going to appease you I'm going to nod my head and say oh you know what Hazel I'm really sorry that that that guy sounds so annoying I'm really sorry that that happened to you today like oh I'm really sorry just nod and listen is that what you want or do you want me to help you solve this problem because if I start suggesting solutions well why didn't you say this well why don't you tell him that next week when you go into work make sure you do this send an email do this you're like oh my gosh you're making

me more stressed because I just want to tell you about my day and now you're telling me I should have said this and why don't I send this almost the person feels as though you're criticizing them more because they're saying well I would have done this and I could have done that and it's almost suddenly becomes this thing where you're like you're just making it worse you're criticising them more because they're saying, well, I would have done this and I could have done that. And it's almost suddenly becomes this thing where you're like, you're just making it worse. You're just like them. So I think often if people just told someone, this is what I need or vice versa, I really need you to help me problem solve.

Like, don't just listen and go, oh, sucks. Help me, like come up with a solution, but tell them which one it is. And it is honestly is a game changer. But then the part around emotion, and as you rightly said, when we are in a heightened state of emotion, when we're not calm and rational and thinking about our best communication skills or is this the right time to communicate or the right way,

then it is really helpful to, yeah, if the conflict or conversation or the communication is breaking down, if it is not effective, then the best thing to do is to pause it to take a break it might be to go away and write down your thoughts so often i say to people you know send an email which again seems formal but there's something great about writing your thoughts down to share them with someone one is it takes time and effort and energy it doesn't take a lot of time and effort energy to just shout something out or to just kind of be combative, but to write down structured ideas,

this is my point, this is why that takes time and effort. Also, for the other person to receive it, they can receive it in a way, they can't interrupt you. They can't be, they just have to receive it and read it, process and hopefully respond.

So again, I know a lot of people probably don't want to send emails to each other or maybe even just just writing it in a notebook or you know writing it down and saying hey you write down what you're thinking I'll write down what I think and let's switch and let's talk about it coming away from conflict and thinking about when we are wanting to show up as our best selves and we're networking and we're meeting new people and maybe we've not met them before and we've got a couple of minutes to introduce ourselves and hopefully build a great connection what is your tips when it comes to that yes great question well the first one is about using people's names now this is something that is super important there's a lot of research around this.

There's a lot of studies that look at the psychology and the neuroscience of what happens when we hear our own name. So, you know, you might be in a busy, crowded setting. And if you hear your name, you will hear that. You'll hear that word where you might not hear other words. So there's definitely this recognition of our name. And it's also nice. We feel a much deeper connection with people when they use our name and it's also nice we feel we feel a much deeper connection with people when they use our name so someone literally when you meet them for the first time saying your name

and you might just say hi i'm adrienne and they might say hi i'm david and actually saying back to them hi david how are you doing saying their name out loud not just for their own benefit but you're also more likely to remember it as well which is important because often people will go oh no i met that person before I remember their name so using names is really important and so that's the first thing use the person's name and if you've got the name wrong or if you can't pronounce it ask them there's nothing worse right than someone saying your name wrong so then again saying someone oh sorry can you you know make sure I'm pronouncing your name right and then use their name um another thing is again we've talked so

much about asking questions i can't over state the importance of asking questions and there's a lot of again reasons for this from a kind of psychological perspective and when i interviewed a yale professor zoe chance she has written a wonderful book called influences your superpower and she talks a lot about the power of persuasion and influence and how some people will be able to speak in a way that makes people really listen and pay attention and something that she shared in there around the questions idea is that the parts of the brain that light up when we have the opportunity to speak about ourselves is the same area you know the same dopamine release that we have when we do enjoyable things so when we eat chocolate or when we have sex she was saying that same part of the brain lights up when people are

given the opportunity to speak about themselves now it's interesting in some environments you might think this is my opportunity to pitch myself so this is my like you say you only have 10 minutes and how am i gonna make a good impression and make sure that they um you know want to work with me or continue this conversation and so it can seem quite counter but in fact what you need to do if you can is just right at the start of the interaction ask them a question something about themselves it doesn't have to be like super deep question but it could literally just be like you know often people say how was your day or what did you do this morning but like a bit more granular so you know you could be like oh how

was your day have you already had breakfast or you know just ask them a question or maybe something a bit less um vague um but really listen again listen ask a follow-up question before you dive into your like formal okay this is what we're here to do this is the 10 minutes and and even in a work setting i think if you have for example 30 minutes in a meeting with someone and you have that meeting every week often it can be a thing we just go into the agenda points okay so everyone's here are we here let's do the thing and it can be so nice and so refreshing when someone just kind of yeah starts with a you know how was your weekend or how are your kids have they finished school you know for summer or for christmas or just asking a personal question i think is a great way to kind of build rapport

really showcasing that you're listening and if this is in a real life setting as opposed to perhaps a digital setting then mirroring is something as well that psychologists talk a lot about now are you familiar with that idea it's not necessarily something I want people to just try and really mirror because it can feel quite awkward it says if someone said for example try and mirror the person's uh body language it can sound a bit contrived but essentially what it's saying is that if someone is if you've built a rapport with someone if your if your brains are kind of working in this like synchronized way then you will naturally um mirror them so you might nod your head when they're nodding their head you might have um your arms folded if they've got their arms folded you might you know there's

different things and and again if we think about different people's body language in general um we can have body language that can be really kind of forward and take up a lot of space you know we might talk about you know men typically sitting in a specific position or being very open and just using gesture and having an open front of their body and and again with the whole body language thing apparently if we can see people's hands we are more likely to trust what they're saying and i know that sounds weird but it's because apparently obviously our hands are yeah if we can't see someone's hands it's like what are they doing with their hands like and again if you're on if you can't see someone's hands for a different reason maybe you're on a screen then it's a really simple and silly thing

but sitting further back so they can see more of your upper body shows that you're giving them focus and attention. You're not distracted. You're not looking at your phone. You're not doing something else. So I thought that was quite interesting when I heard that about, oh, seeing your hands makes you trust what they're saying more.

But it's something to do with, yeah, recognising that you're both engaged in this conversation. Yeah, absolutely. It's so interesting. And I think like I've definitely heard when you have like an open hand gesture as well that is also like helps someone feel like they're kind of

being part of this conversation with you and it's like very engaging versus if you're standing there with your arms crossed and like telling someone like this is what i do for work that and it's it's very defensive and closed off. And it's not giving them the opportunity to feel part of the conversation. Yeah, yeah, just using your hands. Although it's funny, because when you do when you do training for public speaking, often people will say, don't just stick you like too much, you know, do the power pose, put your hands on your hips or, you know, point or, you know, the list of 123. So there are these things which again, they can be contrived. I think it's all about trial and error and using them but being mindful of them

and I think the mirroring thing is a really important one because as well even things around eye contact and how close you stand to somebody and how loud they're speaking there's all these things which if we can kind of get on the same level the the short interaction will feel much more engaging so if someone's speaking really really loudly and you speak really really quietly it's this imbalance it's kind of a bit odd it's a bit weird so it's like trying to find this like neutral neutrality of of mutual respect of mutual you know both people speaking the same amount as well we've all been you know i know i said i love to talk but i love to listen and we've all been in conversations where you feel like oh

you just can't get a word in and it's like that also doesn't feel good no so yeah trying to have a balance and I mean it's so much easier with you sitting in front of me and us having a conversation or if we're in a room and we've just met because I can see you and we're speaking and one of the difficult things I think is now that we do a lot more conversations online or on zoom or on video chat um you're battling with lots of different obstacles like sometimes the connection's poor so the other person drops off people speak on top of each other um you can't see their hands you can't see what they're doing um sometimes people blur the background and it feels like

you're in the supernatural universe like what what advice do you have for it when you are in those situations and you do want to connect with that person and make them feel heard and make them feel listened and also share your ideas yeah it's a good one so do you think more in a professional setting first yeah work environment yeah I think that we have so many people of course have switched to this hybrid working digital working and it's additive in so many ways it's allowed there's countless benefits but we also always have to consider when we gain so much what do we lose what are we losing and we are losing I think a lot when it comes to connection and real communication because as much as being able to see someone on a video

screen and being able to hop on in from home is great so much I think it's something as high as like 70 or 80 percent of communication is non-verbal it isn't just about what we're saying and it's about yeah the real kind of yeah just sitting opposite a person or being next to them in a room and there's all these things that we lose on on this digital first world so i think it's incredibly important firstly that as much as you can eliminate distractions do not try and multitask there's nothing worse right i mean you're looking at someone and you're speaking and they're looking off on their phone or they're looking at tabs and people type you know they're in a meeting and they're typing notes and they're looking at slack and they might say that they're typing up stop stop it stop doing other things and focus on what the person is saying and try and give them your

full attention and energy just as you would if you were sitting opposite them so yeah trying not to multitask um it's also incredibly rude because sometimes people are just like am i is it that boring like you want us to listen when you talk but now when it's other people's turn you're just yeah too busy and too important to pay attention so I think value and respect and show people that you are really listening I think that setting out before the meeting again I talk about you know gender and points it can be really really boring but just just really being like does this meeting need to be a whole hour if it does then what are we here to do and just being mindful of the time that you're taking you know time is a big one as i said if we've only got 20 minutes are you rushing trying to get too much information in then you're not gonna people aren't gonna be as engaged

because it's too much do you always need slides that's the thing i say because i you know and probably similar to you if i'm presenting a webinar if people have looked at slides all day for two years like do we want to see more slides sometimes it's more engaging for them to see a face for them to see your eyes for them to hear your voice and to see your hands gesturing so you know there's different things sometimes if you really need the slides like share them in advance or put them at the beginning and then take them down and ask people to have um the view prop so that they can see you full screen uh taking making sure that yeah if you're in a

meeting with everyone's got their cameras off and you're just speaking to some initials asking people in advance to say i really hope i'd really like it if everyone could show up to the meeting put the camera on just show that you're engaged try as best as you can there are some things i don't think we can ever replace but i think there are definitely things that we can do and over time i think in the pandemic people kind of got a bit lazy and you know as you said about connection issues people would like dial in and they're like oh I'm in the car and it's like super dangerous for a start but they're also like I'm not going to have my camera on I'm just dropping off something or I'm doing and it's like you could never do that before yeah you know you couldn't drop into a meeting and just listen in

whilst you were I don't know walking your dog so I think you know be give it the time and the energy that it deserves like show up fully and you'll get a better outcome as well yeah that's so important and it's so true of like these little habits that we pick up and if you get away with it then you're like oh my god I can get away with so much more but if you were to show up physically you're not going to get your phone out in the middle of a meeting and you're not going to be tapping away on your laptop. You're going to be engaged. And I think putting a screen between people does really change that, even when it's like personal communication.

And I think there is nothing worse when you are at lunch with a friend or out and about or on a date and they get their phone out or whatever and it's just like they're not doing it from a place of like hatred or to upset you or anything or because they're bored but it's because sometimes we've we've just developed these habits and we don't realize that we're doing them in situations where we really should be placing our attention somewhere else oh my gosh yeah that is such a thing a habit and I think you know myself included I've started to notice times when I go to look at my phone and then I go don't when I was writing my book the last one I would have to put my phone

on airplane mode and then put it in a drawer in another room yeah because I was like it's not good enough just go in airplane mode in the drawer at the desk that I'm in yeah because I'm just going to open that drawer and I'm just going to take it off airplane mode yeah and um you've got to have the effort of like go up the stairs get the phone yeah yeah so put it in another room like I think it was James Clear who mentioned that on the podcast that like up until lunchtime his phone is in another room because he does his best work in those hours that is genius why is it so hard to do that yeah and one for parents if there's any parents with you know kids with phones and ipads and all these kind of things it is you're literally making like a barrier for yourself and for them and it's kind of setting them up to fail if they have their phones in their room their ipads

in their room and of course i know i am i think anything to do with parenting is so individual that i'm always like oh you, reticent to say anything. But in my experience, I just think I am setting my son up to fail if he has a phone and an iPad in his bedroom. I'm like conscious that we're running on time. OK. And I have three more questions for you, which we end the podcast on. And they're different to the last time. So you do not know these ones.

Oh, gosh. So the first one is, what is one thing that you've changed your mind about oh one thing I've changed my mind about what in life in anything oh I love this question so much I wish I had a fantastic answer something that I have changed my mind about oh my gosh I love this question and this is before I even answer what I'm thinking the reason I love this so much is because I mentioned Adam Grant's work he wrote a book called think again and it's all about this it's about being willing and curious and open to changing your mind when you receive new information do not be cemented in an idea because it's the way it always was doesn't mean it's the way it always is and I love the book I tell everybody to read it

and it will change the way you think so something I have changed my mind about I talk to people a lot about goals about setting goals about working towards goals and often people push back or sometimes they push back I think we've discussed this before around being satisfied with the now you can't be happy now if you're trying to constantly self-improve if you're always looking to the future if you're trying to get bigger and better then you're not happy with who you are today and therefore you feel like you're not enough something I've changed my mind about is this idea that striving for more means that you're unhappy with what you currently have you can strive for more and you can be so abundantly happy and grateful and fulfilled and

know that who you are today and what you have today is wonderful and brilliant and abundant but in a year or in 10 you're going to have learned new things you're going to experience new things you're going to met new people and you might and probably will want different things. You can have both. You can feel both. You can set big, audacious goals. You can say that you want to reach for the moon and you can still be incredibly grateful and happy for what you have.

That one's great. I love that. And I completely agree. The next one's a little bit easier. What's a non-negotiable in your day? A non-negotiable in my day everybody knows is the power hour so it's non-negotiable what I do in the power hour the first hour of every day what I do in that time changes but having a power hour is non-negotiable I thought you're going to be like go for a run no no I'm watching you running in the snow and I'm like adrian i know i wouldn't

normally you're motivating me so much right now i wouldn't normally but i'm training for the marathon so i have to stick to the plan so it was one of those where i think i probably would have been like it's snowing take a week off yeah but i gotta stick to the you got it there you got and you'd sammy with you yeah and finally what would be your death row meal oh i love this question podcast i don't know the answer to that one i have to think hard about that one my death row meal would be a prawn pad thai wow with no peanuts it's very specific a prawn pad thai with no peanuts i would probably have a side of some pak choy and some broccoli and i would have a glass of pinot noir I love that

there you go I love how specific you are amazing what a great conversation um everyone already knows who you are because you've been on this podcast so many times but please remind us best place to find you what's coming up that you're excited about okay great so best place to find me online would be the power hour podcast or instagram it's adrienne underscore ldn and what's coming up i'm excited about as i mentioned i'm training for the marathon so i say excited but it's probably a mixture of excitement and being absolutely terrified i've done the marathon in london once before and it wasn't the best experience so i'm really hoping this time it's going to be so much better and I'm excited about continuing to continuing the work that I'm doing around communication around hopefully helping specifically women actually in different workplaces in different work settings to not only you know have the confidence to use their voice but to

learn these different skills around how to amplify other women's voices as well and how to become yeah more confident communicators well thank you for coming on the podcast again thanks for having me back hazel this podcast could have been twice as long as it was well i'll see you for part four we've got lunch after this so i can just pick your brain then yeah thanks again thank you so much i don't know about you but I came away with so many good nuggets of information from that episode a reminder to myself to cut down on the information I share in my presentations because I'm definitely guilty of overloading my slides please let me know if you love this episode and if you do you know what to do please leave a review a rating hopefully five stars and share it with someone you know will love it too. That's all from me. See you again next time.