The Rising’s Growing Together Podcast - Stop Making These 3 Communication Mistakes

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

Most people think great communication is about what you say, but it’s actually about how you’re perceived. In this video, we’re breaking down the three biggest communication mistakes that are holding you back in your career and personal life and exactly how to fix them today.In this video, you’ll discover:- The Power of Vocal Variety: Why a "flat" voice is killing your engagement and how to use hand gestures to fix it.- The Storytelling Secret: How to "open loops" to keep your audience hanging on every word instead of just reciting facts.- The Art of Conciseness: Why trying to "sound smart" usually backfires and how to get your point across clearly.- Mastering the Pause: How to use silence and tone to project instant confidence and authority.Whether you're prepping for a big presentation, leading a team meeting, or just want to be more persuasive in conversation, these practical tips will help you build trust and speak with true impact.

Stop making the three biggest communication mistakes today. My name is Billy and I have a 15-year sales career that has helped companies that I've worked for generate over 7 million in sales. And I'm here to share with you today the biggest mistakes that I see, not just in the workplace but also in personal life, the three biggest mistakes that absolutely ruin your communication. First one is vocal, variety and hand gestures. The second is storytelling. and the third is over speaking. So I'm going to break these down for you so that you can stop making these mistakes and you can speak more clearly, more effectively and be taken more seriously. The first one is a vocal variety and hand gestures. So what I mean by that is imagine that you

were talking with your friend and you were telling them some really big news that you were excited about that had happened to you that week. Then naturally, the way in which you would be speaking would be full of passion, you'd explain the story of what had happened, your hands would be moving and all of this. Whereas if you take yourself out of that conversation with your friend and put yourself at the front of a boardroom or in front of people that you don't know that well, then instantly everything becomes much more insular. The way in which you speak becomes a lot flatter. You barely use your hands, you lose any facial expressions and what you're saying, just becomes instantly more boring, forgetable and very easy for people to interrupt you

and not take you seriously. So what I want to make you aware is that you probably do all these things in conversations with your partner, with your best friends, maybe even with your children, because children are very good at this. They naturally speak with all of this energy. But as adults, we kind of get that really stripped away from us, especially in professional environments. We think that being professional means we have to speak like this, very monotone, and it's just so boring. So this is what you need to do to make it better. You need to be aware of the pace in which you speak. So naturally, when people are nervous, they speak a lot bit faster and you really give the impression that you don't actually know what it is that

you're talking about. So you need to slow that right down. Instantly having control and speaking at a more understandable pace gives the impression that you're an expert that you know what it is that you're talking about. Then you also need to be aware of the tone and voice that you use, whether it's sarcasm, whether it's anger, whether it's disappointment. All of this comes from the tone in which you speak. You can quite clearly pick up on someone's tone, even if the words don't match what it is that they're saying. They might be saying, oh, thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate you being here today, but the tone of voice doesn't match what the words are saying. So the tone is actually the emotion in which you give the words.

So just be aware of your tone that you're actually using the tone that you want to convey the message. Another thing is using pauses. So a lot of pro speakers when they're delivering something, if they say something really important, then they will usually use a pause. This just allows them to deliver the message and for the people listening to know how important it is. It really draws you in, so that is another great one to use. Hand gestures. So a lot of us, when we're speaking, we use our hands.

We're quite comfortable with this one. This one's quite open, quite inviting. Instantly just turning your hands over the other way and speaking like this just gives the people that you're talking to a much more authoritative view rather than being open, welcome and friendly. So there's plenty of other hand gestures. Just be aware that you're using them in this kind of region. Anything too low down instantly loses authority. That's your first mistake is that you just strip all the personality away from what it is that you're saying when you're nervous and when you're maybe in a meeting with your boss doing a presentation. You just instantly

strip that away and that professionalism that we think is the message that we're conveying by making it very direct and monotone, it's just not fun to be listened to. So definitely inject more vocal variety and more hand gestures into your conversations. That's the first mistake. The second mistake is storytelling. So a lot of us, when we're talking, we speak with facts and we don't really speak with stories. So what I mean by that is, especially in my world, in the corporate world, where I'm in a sales role, I run sales teams, and their job is to build relationships with new businesses.

A lot of what they do, they need to know a lot of information about the product and service that they're selling. And I made this mistake for so many years when I first started. I thought if I just speak all about the product and the service and, and reel off as many unique selling points as possible and facts about the company, how long we've been in a business, the size, all of that would convey the confidence and the trust that I wanted them to have in my product and service. But it actually did the opposite. If you speak for more than, I think it's five minutes, just facts, then people start to switch

off. Stories are actually 22 times more likely to be remembered than facts. alone. So we need to move away from only speaking facts and we need to deliver the message of what we want to communicate in a story. What that could look like would be along the lines of if I'm trying to convey the message to you guys that confidence comes after taking action. That's the facts. You won't get confidence first. You need to take action and that's what will create confidence for you. That's facts. However, if I said the exact same message, but I wrapped it up in a story of years ago, I thought that when I become confident, that's when I'm going to start my business. That's when I'm going to put myself

forward. That's when I'm going to stand up in meetings and share my message. And what I come to realise is actually I had to put myself in these situations. There was this one particular time that a colleague dropped out. They weren't feeling well and I had to do the presentation. Well, I was so nervous. My hands were sweating. I was about to go out on stage. I thought I was going to forget all my words. And yeah, I stumbled a little bit, but I figured it out. And actually at the end of that, I realized, wow, maybe I can hold presentations. Maybe I should put myself forward for that next presentation for the company. And what I realized was that confidence wasn't going to come to me first, but by actually being on stage, that created the evidence that I needed

to realize and have the belief that I wasn't so bad at it and I actually managed to deliver the presentation strongly and then the results came that confidence started to build. Now that's just a really quick example, but you can see how it's so much more interesting to hear it in a story and you can see how it is easily more digestible when it's in a story versus when it's just facts.

If you can just imagine being in a sales pitch and they're listing off all of the facts about the company and the history, rather than actually telling you about the particular person who started the company and what it was that they were thinking and the first big mistake that they made, all of a sudden you have so much more interest. And naturally as humans, we want to close loops. So if you open a loop by introducing a story, I'm going to tell you the day where I made the biggest mistake of my life.

You want to listen to the end of that story because the loop has opened and you want to close it. So this is a big technique on content creators, but it's definitely a sales technique that should be used more often. Opening loops so that we deliver the information in a story and people listen to the end because they want to close that loop rather than just boring facts. So that is mistake number two. Now, mistake number three is another one that I think happens more so in the performance. professional world and I am so guilty of doing this for for many, many years. I used to think that if I spoke more intelligently and I use lots of fancy words and I spoke a lot, that that would build trust, that would build connection, people would believe in the product and the service that I was selling.

Now, what I've come to realize, again, a little bit like the storytelling, people don't like you to ramble on and on and on. And they especially don't like it when you try to. to sound super smart. What this actually does is it creates the opposite impression. So I thought if I did that, that I would be seen as the expert and naturally they would trust in what it was that I was selling. But what I realized is the truth of the matter is if you speak, instead of five, 10 minutes, you boil it down to two, three sentences to start off with of why they should be interested in what it is that you've got to say, a hook, a fact, a statistic about what it is that you're about to talk about, but you boil it down to a couple of minutes. This not only conveys

the message much clearer, it's straight to the point. People know what it is that you're trying to say. You don't get lost in the message. You don't get lost in the rambling. And you don't get lost in the intelligent words. You don't actually come across as smarter. You come across as more nervous even. People that speak clearly straight to the point don't need to ramble actually are more trusted. The message is clearer. They're able to really capture the interest of the people that they're talking to because they're not fluffing it up with lots of fancy words that some people won't understand. And actually they switch off because, well, if I don't understand it, then I'm not going to trust you and I'm not going to buy from you. So don't ramble. Don't try and sound smart.

keep it to the point, keep it simple, keep it the message as short and as sweet as possible, that's what's going to connect you with the person that you're speaking to. So yeah, there you have it. There's the three most common mistakes that I see all the time in communication, not just in the workplace, not just in sales, but between partners, even with your children, friends and family. Any important conversation that you're going to have, then please include vocal variety and hand gestures, please use storytelling, a set of facts, and keep the message short, sweet, and to the point, and don't overcomplicate it. There you go. There's some three tips that will instantly elevate your communication. Please start using them. You will definitely notice different. People

will take you more seriously. The impression that you create is going to be so much stronger could lead to who knows what opportunities by communicating clearer. You might want to follow along for more tips and tricks in communication.