Episode 53 - Communication That Works - Why They Can’t Hear You (and the 3 Questions That Fix It)

In this episode of Three Questions, I break down why communication often fails, even when your intentions are good and your knowledge is solid. Using real life examples (including one with my dad), I show how small changes in language, timing, and listening can turn resistance into understanding. You’ll also hear why communication is less about delivering information and more about creating meaning.

In This Episode You'll Hear:
• Why teaching from your understanding instead of theirs creates disconnect
• What people actually need to hear right now (and why we overcomplicate it)
• The subtle cues (pauses, hesitations, questions) that reveal communication gaps

Whether you’re working with clients, leading others, or trying to improve your relationships, this episode will give you practical tools to be heard and understood.

Links & Resources For This Episode:
Episode 14: Communication, Huh?
Find a Neuro Studio Teacher Near You
Connect with me on Instagram
Connect with me on Threads

Transcript

Meghann Koppele Duffy: Welcome to Three Questions where critical thinking is king, and my opinions and research are only here to support your learning and understanding. Hey, I'm your host Meghann, and I'm going to be joined by a box of tissues because living with a high school history teacher, you know those germs, they came home.

I've got a little bit of a cold, so I will do my best to not sniffle into the microphone 'cause that is the grossest sound. And I will do my best to communicate with you because today's episode is all about teaching and communication. This is episode communication part two. Now, when I first started this podcast, I think it was episode 14, I did an episode on communication.

Please go back and give that a listen. It was one of my favorites, and I know I say that about a lot of the episodes, but I think it's really going to kind of foster some deeper understanding. And maybe to get you to look at communication in a different way. So full disclosure, you know, I'm an open book.

I wanted to do this episode because of a specific client I had yesterday. I had to prepare myself mentally, physically, spiritually, all the above. Mostly because he's one of the most important people in my life. My father, now, I talk about my family a lot. They're very important to me. My dad is very private.

So he might kill me by saying this, but I'm pretty sure he's not one who listens to podcasts. My dad recently last year had metastatic prostate cancer and he went through it. Chemo is brutal despite what he says. He was a trooper and he handled it as well as can be. But if you or anybody you know has to go through any sort of treatment, whether it's for cancer or something else, it can really take a toll on your body.

My dad's experiencing a lot of fatigue. My dad is also experiencing some muscle wasting and weakness, and a lot of his joints are hurting, not just because this cancer had spread to the bones, although it's under control, but because he has a lot of musculoskeletal issues. But here's what the episode is about.

How do you convey an important message to someone who doesn't maybe necessarily wanna hear it? We all have family members, and if you're in the movement field, we have a lot of solutions for the people we love. And it can be frustrating when it, they seem to not listen, but it's not about us. It's not that they don't want to listen to us.

There's a communication barrier. And what I want you to think after today's episode. I'll use some examples of how I've used these tools, but I really need you to see yourself in this episode. Maybe pick a person in your life where there's been some communication breakdowns or maybe a situation, whether you're teaching or talking or sharing with a person who you feel like is not hearing you.

Keep that in your mind and ask yourself these three questions. Number one, are you teaching speaking? Or just communicating from where you are at or a place of understanding of where that person is. So what do I mean by that? Are you speaking from your understanding or from theirs? And this is a really tough question because I think everybody is doing their best to be clear.

Everybody is doing their best to try to explain something in a way that they think the other person can receive it. But I see this in myself and I really see this in my students, which has made me look and go, oh my God, I do the same thing. I see this when I'm teaching my advanced courses or even beginner courses.

We have gone through a process of learning about any topic and we forget where we started. And we often teach from that destination of deeper understanding. Let me give you an example to ground this work. My dad has ca came in with really bad foot pain. He goes to the podiatrist. They have agreed to give him a cortisone shot.

My dad loves a cortisone shot. Why does my dad love a cortisone shot? Because the pain goes away. But I need to ex explain to my father, yes dad, I understand the pain is gone right now, but that's because it's decreased the inflammation, you don't feel it, but it's going to allow your brain to reuse that pattern again.

So once that cortisone shot wears off, and let's not even talk about what it's doing to the bones. Okay? We know his history. I'm not even gonna go there, guys, but just from basics. In order to change a movement pattern, we can't subtract. We need to add something. So how do I convey to my father who's not really into working out,

dad, this is the perfect time to work on creating a new movement pattern. No, no, no. I'm feeling great, Meghann. Okay. So did you hear that communication breakdown? He's telling me he feels great, and I'm saying, no, you're, I don't care you're feeling great. You've gotta do work right now. Now let's put yourself in my dad's shoes.

You just finished a long, drawn out process of getting chemotherapy every other week. It's a lot of work. You've got a family, you've got a business. So he's working all the time. So now he's finally done with the chemo. His numbers are great. He got the cortisone shot. His body is feeling great. He's thinking, this is time to rest.

Where can we fill this communication breakdown? Now if you're thinking, oh, I'm gonna go scientific and explain to him the joints, that is the problem guys. The problem is you're teaching from your deep understanding, not the person you're communicating. So here's some tips I like to use. Listen to the other person and understand their background.

Now it's easy for me to understand my dad's background. I know his background. But if this is a new patient or someone you're interacting with, you wanna know what are their hobbies, what's their job? What are they good at? Are they married? Are they in their relationship? Do they have kids? Okay, so my dad is a finance guy.

That sounds so bad. He started his career in accounting and he said, I took accounting in high school. I loved it. And I'm like, that is weird. He likes the clarity of one plus one equals two. Debits and credits. Ooh. It's so exciting when things even out that excites him. Alright, cool. So I said to my dad, all right, so let's look at your p and l sheet.

Dad, right now you have, you've got your expenses and your income. Okay? They were pretty even. You were breaking even for a while. Okay? But then income started to drop, started to drop. So I'm using income as his pain. Income drop. Dad, now your expenses are too high. What are you gonna do? And my dad looks at me like I'm an idiot and goes, well, you have two options.

Either increase your income or decrease your expenses. I go, what are you gonna do short term? He's like, well, we need to increase the income. That's a given. But in the short term, until we have a clear solution to increase the income, let's see where we can cut back expenses. I go,. I said, okay, good. There's your cortisone shot, so you've got a problem.

You have pain in your foot. Now we know the long-term solution is creating a new, new movement pattern. Hello. I have this, I am kind of built similar to my dad. We have the thinnest legs and he rolls and sprains his ankle all the time. He has a lot of lateral midfoot movement, not a lot of subtalar and not a lot of hip mobility.

So he's over mobilizing from his foot. And I know this personally 'cause that's what I do. And I've gotta work on that. But that's a long distance race. Do I think my dad's gonna do what I do? No. I need to think of a short term solution. So, okay, let's get a cortisone shot. So let's kind of fix this problem right now.

Let's decrease our expenses. So you've got your cortisone shot that has decreased the expenses. So now we're break even again, dad. But now what do we just wait? Do we do nothing in our business? Well no, Meg. 'cause now we're at the original problem. We're at our break even point. And I said yes. So what happens when income goes down again?

Because you know the market. What are you gonna decrease your expenses again? What are you gonna have to lay off employees? Get rid of your store. And he's like, no, we're at our bare bones with expenses. I go, exactly what did the doctors say about your cortisone shot? This is the last one I'm giving you.

And I said, okay dad, we can't cut expenses anymore. What are you going to do? We've gotta change the business model. We gotta increase the income. I go, good. Now it's time to increase your movement patterns. Right? Now your brain thinks that movement pattern is the only one available to you. So when you go for a walk and you're in pain, but Meg, my foot isn't bothering me anymore, my knee's been bothering me.

I said, yes, dad, I understand that. But could that possibly be your foot isn't hurting? Because we don't have that expense anymore. We use the cortisone shot. So now your brain's trying to compensate, but it's, it's going up the chain a little bit. It's now, it's mobilizing your knee. But remember that knee injury you had when we were kids and you had to get surgery?

Yeah. Well, you really wanna scratch that itch there and make that knee hurt again. No. No, no. Well, what part of your body never hurts? Dad? I don't know. Do your hips ever bother you? No. No, no. Hips aren't a problem. He says to me. What about your spine? You ever get back pain? No. Never have back pain. What about your shoulders?

Well, you know, remember that one time I had a rotator cuff injury? I go, yeah, what helped with that? Uh, the exercises you gave me. I said, okay. I let that go. So I said, okay, dad. So you're telling me your shoulders don't bother you. Your hips don't bother you in your spine? Yeah. So I said, your shoulders. And your hips are the two most mobile joints in the body.

I want you to move those every day. Well, how do I do that? I'll show you. And I want you to move your spine. So there's three things I want you to do to increase your income. Dad, we're looking at your p and l sheet. I want you to move your hips. I want you to move your shoulders and move your spine. Okay?

So dad, what are the three things we're gonna do? Well, I'm gonna move my hips, shoulders, and spine. Cool. Now let's look at doing it. So I got him down on the ground and I gave him the most simple hip and shoulder exercises. I didn't give him all the technique or the reflex stability. I said, dad, lay on this towel.

Do you feel the towel on your spine? Yeah, Meg. Alright, now drop your knee right and left. Do you feel how your spine wants to shift on the towel? I do. Well, can you do this exercise without shifting on the towel? And he goes, let me try. He did it. I said, great Dad, that was moving your hip joint. That's it. I go, that's it.

Get up. Sit on that chair. Hold this towel. Move your arms. We went out and in. We did one palm up and one palm down. That was moving your shoulders. Oh. And I said, and dad, we can couple up shoulders and spine. Hold your arm straight and now look at the towel and rotate your body. And the best part of the whole workout.

Oh my God. So my dad's straightening bending his arm, holding a towel and he turns and he goes, oh, this one's a little taxing. I was like, dad, you're literally just rotating your body. And we were laughing, but he's like, oh, but I kind of feel my whole body working here. And I said, good. So now did I fix his foot pain?

No, but I have encouraged him to make a change by equating it to something he understood, which was a p and l sheet. Now again, it can be difficult 'cause you might not understand the other person's business. I remember at one of my favorite sessions ever, I wanted to do a mic drop moment. This very wealthy man, I'm not even gonna say where it was 'cause it might give it away.

Very successful business guy. And he would go in and reorganize businesses to make them more efficient from like, you know, people at the line. Like he brought efficiency everywhere. He was an efficiency expert. So I come in, he had some musculoskeletal issues, some, um, his teacher brought me in for a consult and I said, and I listened and I said, okay, here's what we need to do.

This, this, and this. And he goes, well what about this, this and this? And I said, oh my God, that's a great idea. So like when you go into a business, you change like 10 things and then see where it lands. And he looked at me and started chuckling 'cause he knew where I was going. I said, let's do that. Let's do X, Y, Z, A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

And then you tell me which one of those you think was best and we'll circle back in a few weeks. And he looked at me and I go, what? He said, I get it. I said, listen, when you go into a company, what do you often do? He goes, I change one thing. I go, do you change the biggest thing? He said, not always.

Sometimes I have to, but those don't always end well. Oftentimes I change something people did not like anyway. I said, say more a lot of times we just get stuck in routine, so we don't necessarily kn know or have the time or energy to change something. So I said, say more so I go into something people don't like already and give them a different solution and then see where it lands.

I've said exactly what we're doing here. I want you to do this specifically and see how it trickles through your body because your body is just like a company. It all works together. And I said, he goes, okay. I said, I know you heard me. Do you have full buy-in? He's like, I don't know. I go, I don't think you do, but when your way doesn't work, I am here.

Call me when you're ready. It took about six months, but he called me when he was ready 'cause his way did not work. Despite everything he knew about efficiency and organization, he still thought he could outsmart his own body. So think about this with communication. Don't teach from where you're at. I could have talked to my dad about fascial connections and muscles and why the hip is connected to the foot and why we have to address that shoulder injury and what's going on with your eyes, dad?

I could have gone through all that, but my dad would not have had a clear place to start. I wasn't communicating in a way that he understood it. Now, with that, we can't just leave it there. We have to also answer question number two. What does this person need to know right now? So we kind of answered that a little bit.

What does the person you're communicating need to know right now? Let's switch gears. Let's stop talking about my dad. Let's talk about you guys. You ever have a friend or a spouse or someone that that's kind of not giving you what you need and maybe you're being passive aggressive, or maybe you're making suggestions for them.

What if you just told them what they need to know right now? Maybe you say to them, Hey, I know when you are feeling this way. Your strategies are this. But I think I need something different. Do you think we can work on that or do you think you could do that for me? What do they need to know right now to be successful?

We'll go back to my dad for a sec. He needed to know what he could do right now to get the ball rolling. So I started him with moving areas of his body that don't hurt. I have kind of a rule of thumb, if a part of your body doesn't hurt, you're probably not really using it. Okay. We overuse certain joints and sections and others just kind of follow along.

So just getting him started and knowing that he can move again without feeling in pain is going to help with his fatigue. I said to him, dad, energy gives energy, you know, and he kind of wanted a supplement or something. I'm like, dad, you've gotta move. You gotta get going. And that's hard. So ask yourself, what does this person need to know now?

Now the goal, what do they need to know right now to get to the goal? I call it step one. Everybody hates step one. And guys, I honestly am not gonna spend time on question two because this one is actually tough. I want you to think when you're having a problem, not what's the goal of the problem. So with dad, my goal is I need to improve his hip mobility.

I also need to improve the communication of the rest of his body to the hips and the feet. I need his body to communicate better. I wanna, honestly, my ultimate goal is get, his cerebellum to tune in more to movement errors. That's my ultimate goal, but my dad doesn't need to know that right now. What does he need to know?

He needs to know that he can move without being in pain, because if he feels that way, he'll be more motivated If you're having a fight with somebody. What do they need to know right now? Not the goal. Give this some thoughts. It's really hard. And guys, don't worry. Maybe through your conversation you say, Hey, I thought this might be a good place to start, but could this be a better place to start?

You never know. And last but not least, question three, which we'll spend a little more time on, is. Communication is actually more about listening. Listening with our ears, our eyes, energy, and listening is hard. Something I say to my students all the time, our clients, the people we love, the people around us tell us exactly what they need.

We often think we either know better than them or we miss it because we're thinking about our response. When you're communicating with someone, when you're teaching with them, what are their hesitations? So when you say something, are they engaged? Do they pause? Do they sigh? Do they look away? What are their hesitations?

And don't keep talking. As soon as you see, see a hesitation, say, hold on a sec. Repeat back what I said to you. Or maybe you do some motivational interview where you res repeat back. Ask them, does, can you re, can you, do you have any questions for me? And repeat back the question. They said sometimes just mirroring or repeating back what people say.

What often happens? Like, that's not what I said. Say, okay, that is how I heard it. Those are the words you used, but it sounds like that's not what you meant. Based off that, what do you mean? So every hesitation is an opportunity, not for a disagreement, but for actual communication. So when I started talking about my dad's hips, I felt like he would kind of go, yeah.

I was like, dad, I feel like every time I talk about your hips, you keep wanting to bring it back to the knee and foot. Why? Well, because I don't have any injuries in my hips. And I said, yeah, that's exactly it, dad. So let's go back to your p and l. Okay. My dad, he was in the supermarket business for a long time, so I use this example.

So Dad, we've gotta increase our income. You've got, he worked for a company Shop Rites. You got your ShopRite brand potato chips, which of course he responded, oh, the critical cut. And I was like, yes, dad. They were excellent chips. Those are your best sellers. However, a lot, a lot of people are asking for, you know.

Healthier chips or organic. So you kind of brought in new products, but they're not selling as well. And he goes, huh. So I go, so what are you gonna do? Are you gonna spend more to do a marketing boost to let people know you have organic? Or are you gonna maybe put the crinkle cut in front and sell them more?

He goes, well. I'm gonna put the crinkle cut in front and sell more. And then he goes, do you know that why? That's why we have those stands at the end of the aisles, like the Manns and stuff like that. Those are our top sellers. And did you know ever notice Meg? There's some that it's newer products. And I was like, yes.

I'm like, oh, so it's just to bring attention to it. He was like, yeah. I was like, cool. So right now I'm doing the same thing with your hip joint. I am trying to bring attention to your brain that you have this giant joint that can do so much more mobility. And then I showed my dad, I rolled my foot out and then spiraled my hip internally to get my entire foot down.

I go, so dad, watch this. So I just mobilized my foot. So I was just moving my foot and then I really turned my foot almost like kind of supinated, and then I internally rotated to get my foot down. I go. Look what I just did. I got my entire foot on the ground using just my hip joint. Interesting. So you're telling me if I move my hip more, I won't be aggravating my foot as much?

And guys, I literally wanted to say, are you effing kidding me? I have said that about a hundred times in every conversation we've had for the past two years, however. I swallowed. Took a deep breath and it was funny 'cause my mom walked in the room and she looked at me and I looked at her and I just smiled.

I said, yeah, dad. That's exactly what I meant to say. Does that make more sense? Yeah. Now the cool thing about my dad, he's not the kind of one person to be like, oh, you should've said that earlier. 'cause I might've lost my cool. He goes, oh, interesting. So I'm thinking, oh my God, all I had to talk about was crinkle cut potato chips to get this guy to move his damn hip more.

Hey, so again, prime example, when I talked to mothers, a lot of times I talk about their kids and I'll a client of mine, she shared this and I kind of thought it was so upsetting yet so beautiful. She said, Meg, as a mom, we're only as happy as our least happy child. And I, and I use that when we're talking about the body and movement.

And I said, yes, but I don't want you to imagine it, but think of a friend of yours who has a very sick child and a very healthy child. What would happen if she only pays attention to the very sick child? And this woman's looked at me right in the eye. She goes, oh, that healthy child is gonna seem to be okay, but they're gonna be shrugging in internally and it's gonna come out later in life.

I said, exactly, you've gotta pay attention to both. So we're using what we understand, but bringing into something people understand. So when they hesitate, we pause. What are the questions they keep asking? The questions they keep asking guys is not because they're not listening to you, it's because they don't understand what you're saying in a way that's meaningful to them.

So if they keep asking you a question, I want you to repeat the question back to them. I want you to say, Hey, you keep asking about the foot pain. Are you worried the foot pain will not go away? What are your concerns about the foot pain? Ask them questions about their question because here's the biggest thing I've learned as a teacher.

Students ask a question and then we give an answer based off how we interpreted it. But unless the student really understands their knowledge gap, or the teacher understands their unique knowledge gap, we might ask, answer the question in a way that confuses them more. Yep. And this is why I added into parts of our curriculum an entire lecture on how to ask a question, because asking a question is difficult.

So question their questions. Not to be annoying, but to try to dig deeper to find the knowledge gaps because if you do not know your client's personal knowledge gaps, communication, there's always going to be a disruption. There's always going to be a breakdown. So I always like to keep my communication episodes under 30 minutes because sometimes repeating ourselves is a clear indicator.

We weren't clear the first time. So question one, are you teaching from a place of where you understand it or a place where the person you're communicating is understanding it? Number two, what does the person you're communicating or teaching need to know right now? You don't have to tell them the full story, make sure they know that.

Keep in mind there are people that need to under that need to know the end of the story. And you can say, and I always say go back to the end of the story. I know this is the goal, but we need to do this first. And if you know their background and have gotten a good intake. You can say, I understand you have done it this way and this way, but those didn't work, so let's try another approach.

And number three, communication is more about listening, observing, and not taking things personally. So when someone pauses, they hesitate, they huff, they make a face. It's not because they are mad at you or think you're an idiot, they're frustrated. They may not, might not wanna do what you're saying. And deep down they know that's what they have to do.

They might keep asking you the same question because they still don't understand it. Not because they're stupid, but because they have to critically understand how it fits into their life, their cycle, whatever they're doing. And this is the challenge. Remember, we each have our own unique person, like personal knowledge gaps to everything.

We have blind spots. We have areas we focus too much on. That's the beauty of humans and why we're why we're different. So taking the time to listen to the questions, think deeper and asking more questions is going to lead to such better teaching and communication. So to close out this episode, I want you to think of maybe a better way.

I could have communicated this to you. So think of after all this episode how you might take those three questions I asked and create your own three questions about communication and teaching. Simplify it further. Use the example I use with my dad. Maybe change it based off you and I cannot wait to hear the improvements in communication or the changes you are seeing in your clients, your life, and any other aspect.

So thank you guys so much, and I will see you next time.