How to BE a Better Communicator with Jane Hanson

INTRO

Kathryn Thompson  00:02

Hey, hey, I am super stoked to have Jane on the show today. Without further ado, I'm just going to turn it right over to you, Jane so that you can let our listeners know who you are and what you do.

00:11

Well, thank you so much, Catherine. And it's absolutely lovely to be here with you today. So I am a reader, I love to call myself a reformed television broadcaster. And what I mean by that is I worked at the for the NBC networks, mostly in New York City for approximately almost close to 30 years. And then one day, I had an aha moment, which was, people would walk off the steps and they'd say, I didn't get to, I didn't get to say what I wanted to say. And I would, you know, my retort would be, well, I led you down a garden path, and you merrily went along with me. And I realized how people don't know how to appropriately communicate their messages, which is a huge problem for any kind of an entrepreneur, or any, anybody who's anybody who's got a brand of their own. I mean, the world is all about communication. So I set out to become a Communication Coach. And selfishly, one of the reasons I wanted to do it is because I wouldn't have the kind of deadlines that one does in the television news business. But I also, I also felt that I could really help people. And it's proven to be true. So I love it, I coach people on how to make great presentations, how to do fabulous interviews, how to get media attention, how to do videos, how to be at conferences, and then I do a lot of that same speaking myself. So the whole full circle of being a great communicator,

Kathryn Thompson  01:40

I love it, I love it. And my listeners know that my background is also in communications. And so I know we're going to have a really amazing talk here. And I want to unpack the whole thing around communications, because you mentioned something really key and that is, everything is communication, regardless of whether you're in business, or you have a real, you know, partner, husband, wife, whatever, like everything boils down to how well you can communicate. And I know one of the things you say is, you know, it's what you say how you say it, but also the body language behind what you're saying. So let's dive into that and unpack those communication a little bit. And what makes a really great presentation or communication, whether you're speaking at an event or showing up on social media, whatever that might be?

02:28

Well, I think it's super simple. You have to think, first, who are you talking to, and put yourself in their shoes. So it starts with really understanding what you want to say, but how it's going to resonate with that person, because I can say one thing to a four year old kid, and I can say the same thing to a grandmother, and it's coming out completely understood in two different ways. So you got to first think about your audience. And, and you have to also, especially in today's world, we've had so much junk happen in the last couple of years. The the empathy and the compassion for somebody else's point of view is key. So it starts with really thinking about them. All the great speakers that I've talked to, and I've done, I've done a lot of work in putting together some courses and things like that, and talking to people who are known as great speakers. What they all tell me to a person is that you show up to give and not to take, which means you're giving somebody something, when you're communicating with anybody There's reason behind it. Are you communicating with somebody to tell them you love them? Or are you communicating to say buy my product? Or are you communicating to say, let's share ideas, so we can come to an understanding whatever it is, whatever it is, you are giving something, and you can't just think you're taking it. The other thing is, you have to understand that people are a heck of a lot smarter than you think they are. And so that you have to get them to trust you my favorite quote that I use it. Every single training I ever do comes from Maya Angelou, which is people will forget what you said, they'll forget what you did. They will never forget how you made them feel. So focus on how you're going to make them feel and your purpose and then everything starts out much more smoothly. So that's kind of number one. And that's displayed, not just by the words you choose to use, but boy the way you use your body. Yeah, we're doing just sound here. But through even through sound, our our bodies are saying something. And if you think about that, logically, it will be for men and women kind of walked the earth. We are when we first began doing and I should Let's say we didn't have a spoken language. We only got one 160,000 years ago, and we have been walking on Earth for millions of years. So how did we communicate and understand each other? We did it with grunts and facial expressions and gestures, and, and posture and everything else. And we still do it today. A really fun little trick to do is to turn off the sound when you're watching television, and you can still figure out what the story is.

Kathryn Thompson  05:29

Yeah. So cool. I never even thought about that piece of it. But and the body language thing is so cool, because it's so true, right? It's like, that is one whole expression, right? Eye contact, frowning, of the phrase, face smiling, not smiling shoulder posture, all those sorts of things have this deep expression. And, and the words kind of follow that?

05:55

Well, they have to, and if the words that you're saying like, if I'm saying you're fired, and I'm smiling, like, seriously, like, what's the truth here? Is this a joke? Or do you have you know, compassion? Or what kind of, you know, what kind of a jerk Are you? I don't know. So. So your words have to be in sync with what your body is saying. So now you drill down into all of that even further, there's so many I mean, you can take this thing to the nth degree. But the thing to remember is we make judgments about people before they open their mouth. So if you walk into a room with your hand outstretched, and you're, you're standing up straight, and you're walking boldly with a with a confident stride, people are going to want to talk to you, if you walk into a room with your shoulders slumped over, and you kind of got this wimpy little hand out there, you don't even and they're gonna say, How long do I have to be with this person? So we just send signals all the time. One of my funniest things are clients who say to me, I need to fix my resting face. Right, go with what's wrong with your resting face. And they say, and the people have figured this out, by the way, because of all the zoom and things we do, you know, Google means etc. And they'll say, my resting face looks I'm like, Look, I'm just like, I'm angry all the time. And I said, What are you gonna say? No, I'm just listening. Is it? Okay? Well, what they recognize is that people will see them on the screen. And they'll say, Oh, I must have said something wrong. They look angry. So I resting face has to look interested, and has to be low open, like we're willing to let somebody in. I mean, it's all this stuff that you never think about that sends signals that we need to understand.

Kathryn Thompson  07:54

Yeah, and it's, you know, you've interviewed a lot of people and done a lot of interviews. And so and I know, you had mentioned something about putting yourself in somebody else's shoes. Do you find it really hard for people to be able to actually put themselves in someone else's shoes and have that compassion and empathy? Is that like one of the things that people struggle with?

08:15

Yeah, absolutely. Because it's hard to know what somebody else is thinking. And we can't begin to believe we're reading their minds, because we're not that good. I can't read your mind. You can't read mine, even when we're with somebody that we're super close to. And then the other thing is, our perception of ourselves and other people's perception of those of us are completely different. Like we might think, oh, man, I just blew that I can't believe I didn't. And somebody would come up to me and say, that was the best speech you've ever done. And your mind is blown away. Because she's thinking, No, wasn't it? But so, and we're very hard on ourselves, too, by the way, but I think that gets back to that notion of if I were you, and sometimes this is the exact phrasing I will use, I would say I will say something like, If I were you, I'll bet you're wondering, right, right. Now, what? Sin this for you? Or you know, that old phrase wi I fm what's in it for me? Every single person is always thinking that to themselves, because  we are a little self absorbed. And we always are wondering what is why are they telling me this? What's in it for me? i Oh, so when you try to put yourself in their shoes, it means thinking about what do I know about them? Especially if it's like a big meeting or it's a huge conference you're speaking at or it's you're trying to sell a project or maybe you're trying to convince you know, your mother of something or your husband or your wife or your partner or your whatever. And you got to think Do I know they like this? I know they don't like that. And what I want them to like is what I know. They're not going to like now how am I going to persuade them? So you have to try to find out as much information ahead of time. And that's why good prep comes in to be able to be really persuasive and, and really good about getting your information across.

Kathryn Thompson  10:20

Yeah. And so what does that prep look like beforehand?

10:25

Well, there's, there's this wonderful thing out there. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's called Google.

Kathryn Thompson  10:30

Yeah. Google everything.

10:36

So I, I do a lot of prep work before I do any of my trainings, because I want to find out as much about the people that I'm going to be working with as possible. And so my, my training consists of not only what, why is this person coming to me? What are their goals, what a success look like? And then I want to look at previous video of them if possible, so I can make some kind of assessment of what I see that they were, they could use some help, or what they do really well, then I have them fill out forms. But tell me about your challenges. Tell me about your fears. Tell me what you're uncomfortable with? Because then tell me when you did something really well, because let's build on that. And then I will go look at stories about the company stories about them, I'll find out anything I can. And then I'll think about where are they located? What kind of geographical information might lead them towards acting one way or another. And then we talk about things like maybe there's a an accent that they have that they want to fix, or, or whatever it is. So I try to find as much information as I as humanly possible. Sometimes it's hard. But then you also want to find out, what are they competing against out there in the world. And who is somebody that might be like them? That could be either maybe somebody they want to be like, or somebody they that they admire or somebody they absolutely don't want to be anything at all, like so it's really a process of, of trying to understand fully. And I think you need to do the same thing, even in your personal lives, if you have issues that you need to talk through. And that I think sometimes it's more difficult. Because we do a really bad job of communicating I think with the people we love the most.

Kathryn Thompson  12:35

Yeah. And do you find that it's because we're scared of what the other person is going to say? Or how they're going to receive it? Or?

12:46

I think because it's so deeply personal, and so many emotions involved, that you want to be sensitive? Yeah, it's about how they're going to be received. I think you want to be sensitive to them. You also may be angry, or hurt. And then and maybe that's because of a misunderstanding. I'll tell you one of the worst things that's happened to relationships and miscommunication or texts.

Kathryn Thompson  13:15

Ah, yeah, you can interpret

13:18

them in so many different ways. You know, I can say, Wow, I love how your hair look today be in a text. And the person on the other end might have said, well, doesn't my hair always look good? So now they're thinking, Are you trying to tell me that my hair always looks bad? And just for once it looked good? And do I need to fix my hair? But other than that, instead of, you're just saying, You know what, you look especially cool today? And you know what I mean? It's yeah, so I just think I just, I just feel like, there's so much misinterpretation possible, even though I love the convenience of text, and I love the funny things you can do on it. But when it comes to something that's deeply personal, you can't use text as a mainstay of, of, of thinking that somebody is going to understand what you say, or what you mean, or interpreted.

Kathryn Thompson  14:13

And does the same go then for email, like if you were to communicate something in an email to a client, let's just say, if it's because I do find in the online space, for sure. You know, sending texts or sending emails or whatnot can be easier sometimes than jumping on a zoom call, right? If you're if you're working with people all over the world. Oh, yeah, you're not in an office space. You're not picking up the telephone. And sometimes I've had clients that have actually called me and the phone will ring and it's them and I'm like, hello, like, Why do you call it you know what I mean? Because it's, but it's, it's I know, they want to communicate something that's easier to communicate via telephone, or me hearing their voice than to type it up in email and that sort of thing. And so, do you find that an email as well can come across as having that misinterpretation.

15:04

It depends. I also do a lot of work with companies when I help their people clean up their emails, because one of the problems with emails is that you don't get to the point at the beginning, there's always this whole long thing about, well, there was Project X that we began to work on back in. And then it goes through every step of without getting to the bottom line, which is winning another $100,000 to complete the project. So, so I think that but I do think, you know, the world communicated through letters for a very long time. And there are some unbelievably beautiful letters out there that have been saved down through the centuries about, about political decisions about love affairs, about all kinds of things, if you go back and you read them, and you see how wonderful they are. But you need to really be careful about what you're writing. If it's a simple email that's explaining a project, and the ease and convenience of having it there in a written form that people can refer back to, I think that's important and significant, because sometimes on a phone call, you can say, yeah, yeah, that sounds great. And then you've taken notes, and you go, Oh, I can't read my own writing. Yeah. Right. So and I think there's nothing like a beautiful, beautifully crafted a piece of written words, that can really be something. But again, there's a whole bunch of things out there about, about writing, and even speaking, like Mark Twain and a whole bunch of other people who said, I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have enough time. Because it's all about editing it to make sure that things syncs are super clear. One of the things I recommend doing is reading it out loud to yourself before you ever hit send. And if you read it out loud, that helps you then understand, maybe I need to change that phrase, or maybe that's not the right word. So think about just reading it out loud.

Kathryn Thompson  17:18

Yeah. And I think to then, you know, also thinking back to what you had said before, is like the person receiving it, like, how are they going to receive this? You know, what is the words that I'm using is not going to land with them. But the whole body language piece that doesn't come through in email or

17:39

texting? Yeah, that's and that's the problem. Yeah, you can put all the smiley emojis you want, but they're still not seeing your smile. Yeah. So if you think about then the various components of body language. So you start with the eyes, we talked about eye contact, when you are speaking to somebody, how many times have you been in a room, and you're talking to somebody and their eyes are not looking at you, but they're constantly looking over your shoulder, which immediately it's so disconcerting, because you think they don't care what I'm saying, they're looking to see who's coming in that they want to talk to more than they want to talk to me. And so and that makes you feel disconnected, and it makes you feel unimportant. So the key thing is, eyes are the gateway to the soul. So you want to make sure you're looking at people's eyes when you're talking to them. You don't want to stare, but you want to at least have the ability to look into their eyes, then and of course that can be difficult with this, these zoom things because so you want to look at the camera because the camera or then because when you if you're looking to the side, like you're looking at the person, that's all well and good, but what they're saying is you're looking at the side and not looking at them. But in person, you want to obviously have good eye contact for a larger group of more than one person, divide the room into three. So I like to think of three pieces of pie of pizza. And then you will deliver a phrase to locate in one piece, you know, piece then you turn to the left and deliver another phrase there, turn it over to the right and deliver another phrase there and make sure everybody feels included with your eye contact. And then you can look at people individually and it accomplishes two things a everybody feels included and be everybody's watching and listening and engaging because they're scared to death. You're gonna call on him like, like being you know, in school, Oh, yeah.

Kathryn Thompson  19:43

Don't call on me.

19:45

on me. So. So that's the eyes. Then we get to the facial expressions. And a lot of that revolves around the mouth, which has, I can't remember how many muscles we've got. So Many muscles in our face and so many nerves and so many things. And, of course, smiles are the most wonderful things and they even resonate. Smiles resonate, when you can't even see person, they resonate through audio as well. But you know, but you need to smile when it's appropriate. And, obviously, and not when it's not. But you can also have other facial expressions, you can have the frown, you can have the, like, puzzlement, but kind of like, ah, you know, the mouth open, you can have the mouth kind of cursed, which makes it look like you're angry, there's just so many different emotions that we can have with our, with our mouth, and in all around, you know, the cheekbones, and the jaws and all of that. So that's another part of the, of the component. Then there's the head when you tilt the head, and if you're tilting the head, you know, kind of to one side, it's like you're listening, there's, but if you tilt it another way, it's as if your disbelief like, I don't believe or this guy, Sam. So there is there's so many different things that you can do with it. It used to be in times, back in ancient times, when everybody was worried they're gonna get killed walking down the road. Nobody wanted to allow their neck to be too vulnerable, because that's a great place where they'd get stabbed. So, so it's so we were very vulnerable about  not allowing our necks to be bared. So but that's, I don't think we need to worry about that. Quite.

Kathryn Thompson  21:32

Yeah. That's interesting, though, when you think about how we've evolved, right? Like how we've evolved and how we don't do it necessarily anymore. But it's interesting, because, as you were saying that I tilt my head to the left, when I'm like, listening intently. And then when you talked about that, I didn't even notice I was doing it. But then I noticed that I shifted my head to the right where I was like, huh, really, like, we used to protect our neck kind of thing. It was kind of like this, like, like, right? Yeah, questioning, yeah,

22:05

we do all this stuff. Okay, so now we have, okay, so now you know, now you keep your your guard down. Now let's talk about our posture, especially when, in no one we're in zoom calls and that sort of thing. We want to have a nice upright posture, we don't want to slump. Because slumping gives the impression again, that you're disengaged. And also that you're not confident. So we want to be but we don't want to be rigid, because if you're rigid, then people are going, Oh, look at that rigid person. So, so again, so and then the other thing, another thing is, if we lean in, it shows that we're really engaged or when we're saying something, and we lean in, it means that we are super, it's just super important to us, like it's a, it's a body signal of listen up to this, because this is key when I lean in. So that's another  part about our body, then you get to the hands and the gestures. If you've ever watched anybody speak, who keeps their hands in their pockets, or their hands rigid to their side, you are riveted to the fact that they aren't moving their, their their hands versus listening to what they're saying. So it's the key is kind of anything that distracts the tracks. On the other hand, if somebody's got their arms, and hands flailing all over the place, you're thinking, What is wrong with this person. And again, you're not listening to what they're saying. So in natural conversation, we use our hands for emphasis or use them for descriptions, you know, we might put our hand one way to say, so on this side is x, but the other side is y. So now we've used you know, our hands as a way of separating. So that becomes really a way of helping you just making our message clearer. And that's the intent hands are considered to be actually a second language. Think about, like, if you go to a foreign country, you don't speak the language. Yeah. How often do you use your hands as a way of helping foster some kind of understanding? Also? Yeah, all the time. So hands become crucial. But again, they have to be in sync with what you're saying. And if you overuse them, people will, will then focus on the hands and instead of what they what you really want them to hear. You don't want the hands to be, you know, like there's neutral poses. Like if you put your hands in a little steeple pose. So people out there listening if you put your hand so like your finger top index fingers are together, that's considered a very neutral pose. If you can't hold your hands out, why not totally why but your hands are open. That's kind of like you're open to something. So there's a lot of different ways in which we send signals with our hands, how we sit or how we stand If we stand with good, I have an old poster that says, there's a person standing, beautiful, beautiful posture, and it says, Good. And then there's somebody who's slumping, it says, evil. Slump, you're evil. I mean, maybe you're just tired. Yeah, totally. And then there's the thing about crossing your arms. If you cross your arms when you're listening, that can give a signal that you're not interested, that you're closed off. It can also mean frankly, for women were cold. Yeah, totally. So many ways of of interpreting this stuff. But the key to remembering it is, we want it to be in sync with what we're saying. And to help make it clear because it's all about speaking, clearly. Yeah.

Kathryn Thompson  25:50

And the people, like you said, again, like those, the people on the other end receiving it. And one of the things that I know, when I was used to do tons of in person presentations was, I would try to read people's facial expressions, but like you said, I was rarely right about reading them in a lot of ways, right? If I would see someone like kind of have frown or have this, like open mouth, right, it was usually because I was saying something that was new to them. But I was thinking when I was seeing them that it was old, they're not liking what I'm saying. Or they're disagreeing, and we get in our own head as we're speaking, trying to read the room, right? Because that was one of the things I was always taught was like, I try to read the room, read the room of the people, and I get it read, understand who you're speaking to understand who you're connecting to understand what they're about, so that you can deliver a message that lands with them. But while you're in it, not trying to be safe, psychic interpret of like, what how they're receiving it, right? Because, like you said, you can walk away and someone come up to you and say, Oh, my God, that was the best presentation ever. And you're like, Oh, my God, I thought I bombed it. Do you know,

27:01

me? Because I saw that guy over in row three, who was on his phone the whole time? Right? Totally, totally. And that's, by the way, it's a big difference between men and women. Because there's a great story about how women will be giving a some kind of a presentation to a room, and they'll see somebody on their phone like typing away. And all of a sudden they get rattled and think, clearly, I'm not good enough. I'm not getting through which they change up. How can I do it better? Instead of continuing on with their presentation? A guy. And there been studies that show this, a man will say, Huh, See that guy over there? They'll think one of two things, either he's missing the best presentation of his life. Or I'm so good. He's tweeting about me.

Kathryn Thompson  27:52

Amazing what other differences are there between men and women that when it comes to communication,

27:58

women perceive themselves to be 30% less than they are men perceive themselves to be 30% better than what they are. Because of the differences in the way that we women, okay, let's put it this way. Women love to be people pleasers. We always want to make everybody happy. We want to make sure everybody in the room loves what we're saying. We will feel sad. If not everyone gets it. Men don't care. They're there with a purpose. They know their message is important. And they're delivering it. So, of course they'd like it to be well received. But they're also thinking to themselves. What I got here is good. So the secret for for N for women to think about is focus on your purpose. If you focus on why you're there, instead of focusing on is my skirt too short. Oh, my hair doesn't look so good today. Oh, that guy over there isn't listening to me. Just focus on what your purpose is. Because you're there because you know something or have information that the people in the room don't. You're the expert. So focus on delivering that and show your passion. And you'll be terrific. And get get your head get out of your own way. Because that's really a that's it's really super important to do is get out of your own way.

Kathryn Thompson  29:26

Yeah. And do you find that while you're in, like doing presentations or women during presentations, like we talked about the guy in row three that's on his phone, and how that can literally take you off the rails? What is something that someone can do in mid presentation to sort of get out of their own way and get back into focus? If they're starting if their mind starting to kind of wreak havoc?

29:52

I would first of all make some kind of a reengaging move. When what I mean by that is that Attention spans are really short. Eight seconds is the average length of time before somebody has a little another little thought in the back of their head. So we want to do something to reengage the audience. Um, how do you do that? A whole ton of different ways you can move on the stage, if you're using slides or images, change the image of tell a story. refocus your eye contact, change your volume, change, just change something, because that will snap people back to attention. And that will snap you back to your purpose. And I always I always try to have in my back pocket either a fun story I can tell. Or something about the audience, maybe something I've noticed about the audience that might get everybody going, Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I saw that to something that connects you to people. So that's a really important to, to think about. I mean, because you may not have lost them at all. By the way, you might be perfectly fine. It's all in your head, just reengage, find a way to reengage, and it's so simple.

Kathryn Thompson  31:12

Yeah, I love that. Because I know, like, I know, I experienced that I'm sure my listeners experience when they're doing presentations, or speaking gigs or whatever, that somewhere along the way you can get derailed. And so that reengagement piece, I think is so cool, whatever that might be, and having those back pocket stories, or whatever.

31:33

And the one other thing to think about this is you might get rattled, because you you forgot to say something. Right? Ah, the audience doesn't know you forgot to say it, they didn't know it was there in the first place. So you know, in your head, and that's why you should never memorize, by the way. But in your head, you're thinking, I forgot to say that data, point 1.2. And nobody knows you forgot to say that data point. So get over it. Just keep going. And then if there's a way to end it, and if it's important, and you want to reinsert it back in, then do it along the way. But you don't. You're you nobody knows which that you forgot something. It's no big deal.

Kathryn Thompson  32:13

Yeah. And you talk about the memorization piece, because I know people ask me, like, how do you get up and just talk and normally, it's just I get up, I have my purpose, I have my points I want to cover and I just get up and I do it. But there's others that will sit and try to memorize a script. And it becomes so it's comes off as so robotic, would you agree? It's

32:35

not only robotic, but it puts you in a predicament that if you forget it, you are screwed. Yeah. Because you can't you don't know where you're going next. So what I suggest is a of course, you practice, practice, practice, be if you do have, if you do have slides or anything of that sort. They're your cues, make them they I love beautiful images, because images remind you to tell a story, or to talk about whatever it is you want to talk about. But use them as your cues to help you with what you're with what you want to say next. But or have had just index cards that have bullet points on it. Yeah, I just think memorization causes difficulty. And nobody does it right. And nobody's going to be perfect at it. And so and you're just gonna kick yourself. It's not worth less sometimes. Sometimes you want to change things up because something happens in the audience. Like, maybe you said something and they start to laugh uproariously. And you didn't think that they were gonna do that. So now you might want to say, Huh, so you want to make some remark about? Well, you guys really liked that. You know what else happened? But or it's just, there's just, there's something's always going to happen. So if you've memorized it, you just put it gonna put pressure on yourself, you don't need.

Kathryn Thompson  34:09

Yeah, having that flexibility sort of flow with the moment. And again, sort of read the room in a lot of ways, right? If someone's laughing or the group's laughing or they, you know, they resonate with something you say that maybe you didn't think they were going to resonate with and you're able to kind of spin it a different way if you want or go in a different different direction.

34:29

to it. Yeah, you can add something to you can say, Oh, by the way, let me just add one more thing to that.

Kathryn Thompson  34:34

Yeah. Which adds I think, some variety and uniqueness to the conversation because if it's so scripted, and so planned, like I said, it just comes off so robotic, but like you said it's if you even one minute forget, right? Like I've been in presentations where someone's like, Oh, I lost my line and they're trying to find their line on the on the script that they've written and it's just slike being able to flow with it, but I get to the fear of public speaking and thinking, if I don't have it perfectly crafted, the alternative is I'm going to stand there and not know what to say at all, which, if you're an expert at what you're doing, you should know, you should be able to hold a conversation for at least 25 to 30 minutes.

35:22

Right? And that's the key word conversation. And then, I'm not suggesting that you don't craft carefully the message, because you need to craft it, you need to think about, what do I want the audience to walk out the door with or walk off the zoom with? Because that's crucial. And then you build everything around that. And so you do have to craft the message well, but crafting the message. Well, if, if you're like most people, and you're an expert on one thing, you're probably going to be talking about the same thing a lot. Yeah. And you're going to tell some of the same stories, and you're going to talk about the same data. And it's a new audience. So even though it's all to you, it's new to them. And so one of the strategies is to figure out how do I tell that same story in a way that makes it interesting to me at that same passion that like, even though I'm telling that story for the 200th time, I'm still equally The best example is comedians, okay. Everybody thinks you're walking in to listen to a comedian or you're watching him on TV. And you're like, Wow, they're so good at just impromptu. It's rarely impromptu. I did a an entire show. And comedians, once a trail them all over New York City to various comedy clubs, and went to all their practices and all this stuff. These people have done the same joke 400 times before, sometimes before they presented on a stage, because they want to get the timing just right. And yet they have the ability to make us think he just made it up. Yeah. So and it's about keeping that passion alive.

Kathryn Thompson  37:19

I love that, because I hear so often from people that that very thing is like I've, I feel repetitive. And I feel I'm bored with what I'm saying. And I'm bored with the message. And I have a one of my best friends husband's a comedian. And I remember going to all of his shows, and hearing the same jokes over and over and over again. I mean, I laugh just as hard every time because the energy and all of them the passion behind it that he brought every time but for other people in the audience, they thought this is the first time he's telling this joke, right. And it's not it was literally the 400 or 500 time or whatever. But it's one of the biggest hang ups I think with a lot of the clients that I work with anyways, and my audience is that repetition is like I don't want to sound boring, or I feel like I've said it over and over. So I love that little insight there of just how to keep it passionate for yourself so that you don't get bored with your own message, because people need to hear it over and over to the repetition is important.

38:18

Right. But to remember, the audience is always different. And so, and maybe and again, if you're thinking back to what I kind of said before, when I talked about how you don't say the same thing to a four year old, you went to a grandmother, you might be delivering the same information. But now let's say you're in Mississippi speaking to a crowd of college students, and then you're in London, talking to a bunch of, of engineers. And it's the same story, but you're going to tell it differently because of who the audience is. So it's, if you so if you think about, I'm going to talk to students in a way that resonates with them by the kinds of words that I use, and the phrasing of those words. And the engineers are going to understand something a little bit differently, so I can use other words.

Kathryn Thompson  39:14

Yeah. And I know you said to is like people are smarter than we give them credit for. And I love that because in the marketing world we often hear you know, you've got to dumb it down or, you know, speak at that grade four level and there was something I always kind of cringed at, because I was like, I feel like the audience I'm speaking to is a lot smarter than that grade four level, let's just say right, and so I I love that is that giving your audience more credit than I think that we sometimes give people when we are delivering presentations, that sort of thing?

39:48

Exactly. The one thing to watch out for is jargon, then words that might be very common to your particular industry, but that the outside world may not understand. Yeah, so that's the only crucial thing to remember. Because if they don't understand the word you're using or an acronym, like, that's the worst, like the P P, P. P, they've WC why to came across as a 155 blah, blah. I'm like, Okay, forget it. I'm out of here. Yeah. If I were in the office, and you said that to me, and I knew everything, I'd be like, Oh, got it. Yeah. So just be careful about that. Yeah, I

Kathryn Thompson  40:27

worked in government for a while. And so the acronyms were crazy in government. And I was like, if anybody, we have developed our own language, you know, just with acronyms alone, so anybody in the outside world would have no clue what we were talking about. I know you, I want to talk about small talk a little bit because I know you wrote an article for Forbes about small talk. And I know I have like a split with my audience, introverts and highly sensitive people that are like, I just frickin hate small talk. But I know you talked about if you do it well, you can see a really good return on that. So share with me a little bit about small talk and its benefits of it.

41:04

First of all, small talk is a way of think of it as an opportunity, instead of a drudgery. Then think about what commonality could you find with somebody? I frequently start small talk with a compliment. I mean, obviously, common ground sometimes is the weather, or maybe you're some kind of an event. And you might say, hey, what brought you here today? Or something like that? I frequently will say, I really like that dress, which, you know, who's the designer? Or what? Where did you? Where'd you get that? Or it's a, it's such a perfect color for today? I wish I would have thought of that. And then and then you start a conversation. Or just be bold enough to ask a question. People love to talk about themselves. They love it. And now I don't want you to be super nosy. But what happens when you start a conversation, you will find out you have some kind of a common shared interest, whatever it is. Maybe you're at a place and there's a beautiful windmill there and you say I love windmills and the other person goes, soda, why have you seen the one at blah, blah, blah, now all of a sudden, it branches into something more. So you learn something about people. But what it also does is it it makes you become a it takes that that introverted pneus kind of it takes it away. And it also helps others you know, most people at their heart and soul don't like doing this. They don't like starting out asking questions. So they're grateful to you for starting. So you'll find this, you'll find that suddenly you find something where you can talk about and then a third person walks up and you can now you can introduce each other. And then you get you get this conversation rolling. And it really it can really help you. I've I love I used I haven't done this in ages, because who rides elevators a lot these days. But I used to love doing elevators. And I'd start a conversation because you know how nobody would ever talk in an elevator. And I feel awkward going and then I'd get everybody talking and then they all get out. And what was that all

43:39

about? So small talk can lead it is literally led me to places where I've gotten great news stories. It's led me to make new friends. It's led me to find common threads among peoples that I didn't expect. It's helped me understand other places and people in our world where we desperately need to do that. We need to understand each other, more and more. And, and so to be able to find common ground with any other human being eat for how a little a period of time it is, I think helps us each of us learn and grow and thrive. And that's where I see the importance of it. And I'm not kidding, I've gotten deals from it. I've gotten contracts, I've gotten clients, I've gotten all kinds of things. Have yourself an arsenal of questions. Yeah. One way of thinking about it. You can and you can think about as you're enroute someplace or even starting a meeting small talk. Actually, I should I should add this because I think it's really important. There have been studies done now that we've been coming out of COVID about how people have lost this art of small talk. And why have we lost it because we're no longer going into places where we had to kind of talk We get on these zoom calls, and you just go right into it. I recommend, even on virtual calls that you get on a little early. And you start by saying whoever's on you go, you go, Hey, Kathryn, how you doing? And just like I started with you, Where where are you? Where are you today? Where are you from? Are we talking together from? And so, so we get into this whole conversation. And I do that deliberately, with whenever I'm doing any kind of a virtual conference or, or a training I get on early, and I start talking to early people coming on. And it really helps me when I'm doing a webinar, because now I've talked to these people, and I see their names on the screen. And I can say, oh, Kyle, you know, we were talking earlier, you mentioned this, how does that fit into what we've just talked about? And so it makes it much more engaging? So and then when you think about walking, if you're going to a meeting, you walk into someone's office? Do you just sit right down and go, let's get right to this project? No, you might look around the office and say, Oh, I see you love sailing, you have all these boats here. And then they'll talk about, oh, I have a sailboat I love going on the weekend. It's my, it's my freedom kit, blah, blah, blah. Now you now you learn something about that person. So all of this helps in bonding us to other people. And you know, people go, Oh, small talk, blah, blah, blah, that's so boring. It's not worth it. Trust me. It's worth it.

Kathryn Thompson  46:33

Yeah, to even just break the ice in a lot of ways. But like you said to connect, find that common thread. Or if you don't have it with big, maybe you don't sail, but some of you know, sales or whatever, right? It's being able to create that common connection with someone or thread. But also, we come back to communication and tie it all back together. Right? It's like, it's just a way to create conversation and develop a relationship, which is what communication is all about at the end of the day.

47:03

And frankly, all business is about relationships. Yeah. Right. I mean, it just is, we would rather do business with people we know than don't know, we the relationship shifts that we develop through our friends that introduce us to other friends and introductions to other friends. It's, it's all it, it's what life really is all about is relationships, and how are you going to relate to one another, and we relate to one another through the way we communicate. And I don't think it's ever been more important than it is now. Because we just, we went through a form of hell, trying to figure out what was going to happen to our lives, our businesses, our, our, our support our everything. And so we it's almost some of it is almost a brand new way of looking at how we can talk to one another.

Kathryn Thompson  48:03

Yeah, so powerful. Is there anything else you'd like to share? Before we wrap up today? I know we've talked about a lot and covered a lot. And I know our listeners are gonna love this episode. And what you just said there is so powerful, so I don't want to take away from that. But is there anything else that you'd like to share? Before we wrap up,

48:22

I guess the one thing that I would urge people to do is to take chances. And by that be a little bold in and reaching out to people understand that we are all alike. And the other thing is that what will take you won't make huge strides for you is to be a great listener. And my mother always said one, you know, one mouth, radio, you know, get one mouth and you got two years for a purpose. And so, listen, because if you listen, well, you will learn so much, even in that small talk conversation or any conversations. If you listen, instead of immediately thinking about what you're going to say next, you'll learn something and you'll make the other person feel better you'll they will feel that you care, and that you truly are trying to understand them. So it's listening is at the core of great communication, being bold in daring to take some steps to do it well, and spend some time thinking about it. How can I be a better communicator because it will change your life?

Kathryn Thompson  49:39

Yeah, and all facets of it. Right? And the listening piece. So huge, so huge, and we tend to want to just, you know, react and speak back quickly. And we think that what we're saying is so powerful which it is But I think the way people feel when they know you're actually listening to them go so much further in a lot of ways than any words that you're ever gonna say.

50:10

You are so right. Because think about it logically, when you have a problem, and you discuss it with a friend. And they don't jump in with the solution, it just simply listen. It just makes your shoulders feel lighter. Your head feels better. You feel understood. And they haven't even offered up a solution of any sort to you. They just simply listened. So and that's body language one on one, two, yeah. Yes.

Kathryn Thompson  50:45

Yeah. Yeah. Where can people find you if they want to connect with you?

50:50

My website Janehanson.com. Do I have to do the www? No. But it's h a n s o n.com. And so that's my website. And my email is really simple because it's Jane at Jane hanson.com.

Kathryn Thompson  51:08

I love it. And we'll have all those links up in the show notes so people can access that there for you again, it's been such a pleasure connecting with you having you on the show, and I can't wait for this episode to

51:17

talk. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. You're welcome. Thank you