149 - Top 5 Communication Tips & Trends For 2023

In this episode, Christopher Peck shares the 5 Top Communication Tips & Trends for 2023.

Christopher  is a Communication Coach based in Denver, Colorado. He’s been featured in “Preferred Health Magazine,” the “Emancipate Your Mind” podcast, and “Talking Live” with Dr. Robi Ludwig. As a shy, awkward kid growing up, communication didn’t come naturally to Chris. He was bullied, had difficulty standing up for himself, and adopted a strong “people pleaser” persona to make friends and build relationships. Chris eventually found stage acting and directing and used the tools of the theatre to embolden his own intentional communication style. Now he uses theatre arts inspired training and techniques paired with strategic communication practices and innovative psychological research and data to help clients master their influential voice.  

 Communication is hard, which is why Christopher partners with passionate, motivated people interested in progressing, empowering, and in some cases, reclaiming their voice. Whether it’s preparing for a Ted Talk, developing your organizational story, or asserting healthy workplace boundaries, Christopher helps clients make communication a little bit easier. 

To sign up for a free communication consultation, contact Christopher at www.speakintoactioncomm.com

Follow him on Instagram @chrisspeaksup

In this episode we cover:

4:10     Great Listeners

6:23     Curiosity + Interest

8:44     Give That Space

11:10   Public Speaking & Interpersonal Communication

15:43   Insecurity & Fear

17:08   Listening To Listen

21:04   Intentional Communication

22:33   Eye Contact

26:38   Practice

29:32   Goals

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Special thanks to Christopher Peck for being on the show.

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Transcript

Did You Know  0:03  
Most of us know about the importance of eye contact. But did you know that there's such a thing as too much eye contact? Eye contact fatigue is real, which is why research concludes eye contact is most effective when utilized 50% of the time while speaking and 70% of the time while listening. 

Intro  0:22  
Hello, action taker. Welcome to Live Blissed Out. A podcast where I have inspirational and informational conversations with business owners and subject matter experts to help you get the scoop on a variety of topics. Tired of hesitating or making decisions without having the big picture? Wanna be in the know? Then this is the place to go. I'm your host Marisa Huston, helping you achieve bliss through awareness and action, so let's get to it. In this episode, Christopher Peck shares five top communication tips and trends for 2023. Christopher is a Communication Coach based in Denver, Colorado. He's been featured in preferred Health magazine, the Emancipate Your Mind podcast and Talking Live with Dr. Robi Ludwig. As a shy awkward kid growing up, communication didn't come naturally to Chris. He was bullied, had difficulty standing up for himself, and adopted a strong people pleaser persona to make friends and build relationships. Chris eventually found stage acting and directing and used the tools of the theater to embolden his own intentional communication style. Now he uses Theatre Arts inspired training and techniques paired with strategic communication practices and innovative psychological research and data to help clients master their influential voice. Communication is hard, which is why Christopher partners with passionate motivated people interested in progressing, empowering, and in some cases reclaiming their voice. Whether it's preparing for a TED talk, developing your organizational story, or asserting healthy workplace boundaries, Christopher helps clients make communication a little bit easier. To Sign Up for a free communication consultation, context, Christopher at www.speakintoactioncomm.com and follow him on Instagram @chrisspeaksup. 

Disclaimer  2:11  
The information opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. This podcast should not be considered professional advice. 

Marisa Huston  2:23  
Christopher, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you here.

Christopher Peck  2:28  
Hey, Marisa. Yeah, I'm excited to be on it.

Marisa Huston  2:29  
Yeah, this is gonna be fun. I like talking to communication coaches, because communication to me, is such a huge part of life. I don't think I mentioned to you that I was actually a communications major in college and I really, really enjoyed it. Even though you learn these tips in school, it's different to apply it in day to day life and try to improve upon it. Really, it's the skill that is gonna elevate you to a level that you couldn't even imagine because we are social creatures after all.

Christopher Peck  3:01  
I couldn't agree more. It's interesting that you were a communication major. I feel like outside of communication majors, most of us don't have a lot of educational opportunities to improve as communicators. I think most of our communication habits come from either organic experiences and trial and error, or we see other individuals emulate communication skills for us and we take on those. And so, we don't have a lot of opportunities to improve as communicators, to have other individuals guide us in order to be better communicators. For me that's become so much of what my work is.  It's just helping individuals. Because communication is hard. Sometimes it's nice to have someone in your corner who can help you make it just a little bit easier. 

Marisa Huston  3:52  
Yeah, it's something we do every day and yet many of us are not really skilled at it. We really don't understand how to make the most of it. And I think that's why this conversation is going to be really helpful to our listeners. What are we talking about today? And how do you feel we can help them be better communicators?

Christopher Peck  4:10  
Yeah, so a couple of months ago, I had this wonderful opportunity. There's a magazine called Preferred Health Magazine that reached out. They were looking for communication coaches to do a quick little write up in their winter edition. My article was selected. The title of the article is Top Five Communication Trends For 2023. And what I really wanted my focus to be on, because I knew everybody was going to want to talk about like, how we can be better communicators in terms of the language we use or the way we speak but basically what we're saying. And my growth as a communicator has come from the other side of that, is how can we be better listeners? How can we show up for other people in our community, listen to their needs, listen to their wants, and give them the opportunity to take the stage through the conversations that we have?  So instead of thinking about communication from what we should be saying and what we should be doing, I wanted to focus on communication from how we show up as great listeners. And so the top three things that I came up with, I want people to ask better questions in 2023. I want people, I call it listen to listen, as opposed to listen to respond. And I want people to really make eye contact in 2023.  Then I have a couple more. But those are the big three that I wanted to focus on this year, is that people can ask better questions, listen, to listen and make eye contact with individuals in their community, they will be amazed at the type of deeper, more meaningful relationships they start creating in their personal and professional lives. 

Marisa Huston  5:44  
Oh, I so agree. And you know, asking questions, to me is a definite skill set. Because we feel awkward when we're around other people and don't really know what to say. I mean, if you think about going to a networking event, for example, and you're standing around, you don't know anyone, you're trying to get past that. And then you feel like, well, how do I ask a question? And I just walk up to somebody and say, the usual like, what do you do? That sort of thing. I think that we do it more robotically, because we think that that's the approach we have to take. But, asking questions daily in everything we do to show our curiosity and interest in another human being I think is so powerful. 

Christopher Peck  6:23  
I couldn't agree more. And the two words, you used curiosity and interest. I think you hit the nail on the head. And for me, when we think about asking questions, it really goes hand in hand with this idea of listening to listen. What you were talking about, this sort of like robotic feeling we have, this expectation that we walk into a networking group, or we have a one to one, or we're just calling an old friend. And we ask that question, what do you do? And I would say, 75% of the time we ask those questions, because we're waiting for an opportunity to respond and start talking. Oh, well, Marisa, what is it that you do? And then you tell me, and it's Oh, that's so cool. I'm a Communication Coach, I do this, I do that. We're looking for that opportunity. And I think a lot of that comes from insecurity. I think a lot of that comes from shame. I think a lot of that comes from maybe we grew up in an environment where our family or friends or teachers didn't listen to us. And so we feel like we have to slide in there immediately and say as much about ourselves as we possibly can. When the reality is, if I asked you a question about you, and then just take a step back and listen to listen, we will end up in an organic play, especially if the connection is right. And when we shouldn't be building deeper, more meaningful relationships with everyone. But if the connection is right, that organic opportunity is going to be there for the two of us to engage in a meaningful conversation, not because I feel like I have to assert what I need to say, but because I am genuinely interested in you, and I'm genuinely curious in you. And eventually that curiosity is going to come back and you're gonna look at me and you're gonna go, Chris, I've been talking about myself now for so long, what do you do, right? And so giving that opportunity in that space for individuals to share about themselves, and then just seeing how that pays dividends in terms of the maturation of a conversation, and eventually relationships. 

Marisa Huston  8:13  
A lot of times, it's very telling when you meet somebody for the first time, and you're genuinely curious, and you ask them what they do, and they spend the next 10 minutes talking about themselves and never once come back and ask you, What about you? And I truly believe that these people don't do this intentionally. They just get so excited that you care and are showing interest in them that they completely forget to ask you or want to learn about you. And I think that's a learned experience as well, don't you think?

Christopher Peck  8:44  
Absolutely. When we create space for other people to share about themselves, you're right. A lot of individuals, they've never had that space before. When we talk about communication, so many individuals, their communication is one, learned experiences, trial and error and two what's been emulated for them. And if what's been emulated for them, is be seen and not heard, or they've been shut down every time they try to ask something, the number of individuals who I've sat down with and had one to ones with, the first thing they say to me is well, I'm an introvert, and then they go on and they spend the next hour talking my ear off. It's like you might be an introvert, but you also have so much to say. And I think what's also important within that is go ahead and provide that space. Go ahead and give that space.  Because even if you don't get the opportunity to then share about yourself, that individual that you just connected with remembers you. And of every single person they meet that day, they remember you because you showed a relentless curiosity and interest in who they are. And to them that is so much more valuable than what you do or who you are or how you help. Just showing genuine interest in another person makes you memorable.

Marisa Huston  10:02  
100%. As human beings, we care about ourselves for the most part, I would like to think. And so if you put the focus on the other person, then you've heard it before, Christopher, like people go, this is such a great conversation. And the entire time they were talking about themselves. They get a perception, because the conversation was about them. And that's just a natural thing. And it's learned to try to overcome that and really put the ball back in the court of the other person and say, but I want to learn about you, too. What about you? Given that these main three points you were referring to are things that you feel very important that we need to focus on, do you find that more people are becoming aware and asking the question back? Or do you feel like it's still something that people need to pick up on? For example, I meet a lot of people and I would say, at least 50% of the time, people never asked me about me. And I don't know if that's the statistic. Are you seeing that people are more aware to ask other people? Or is it still that one sided thing where it's usually one person showing more interest in the other?

Christopher Peck  11:10  
Statistically, I don't know. I have not observed a change. And that's part of the reason why I wanted this to be the influence of my article.  Is, we spend so much time talking about how to get rid of filler words, or how to show up confidently when we're public speaking. We spent so much time talking about communication from the perspective of how we can speak better and we have put very little effort into how we can listen better.  You've got two ears and one mouth. You should be listening twice as much as you're speaking. For almost 100 years now at least we've been talking about the importance of listening, we've been talking about the importance of asking questions, we've been talking about the importance of connecting with other human beings by showing curiosity. Then we immediately forget about it, and talk about how we can be better communicators from the standpoint of how we can speak better, how we can show up better, how we can appear more confident. So from that perspective, I'd say I haven't seen a huge change. And that's why the influence of this article in particular was so important to me. The other thing is, when I first started this work, which was back in 2016, I'd been working at a college in Mobile, Alabama, I'd been working in their theater department. And so when I made the pivot into this work, it was from a theatrical perspective, and particularly working with public speakers. And so my influence was I wanted to help people be better communicators in the way that they show up and present themselves. What I realized as I was doing the work is I'm a great public speaker, I was a terrible interpersonal communicator, I love showing up on stage in front of 1000 people. I get to control the content, I get to control the language, I get the script ahead of time, I get to be the center of attention. I love public speaking. But when I got into more interpersonal conversations, I found that my one to ones were far more vulnerable, and made me far more uncomfortable, because I had to learn how to share the stage with someone else. And so I'm thinking if I'm a Communication Coach, and I'm coming at this from this public speaking perspective, but the part that I'm having the biggest challenge with is asking questions, listening to listen, making eye contact, showing genuine curiosity and interest in other individuals, I bet you there are a lot of other people who are struggling with that, too, and don't even know, because their sole focus on communication is how can I be a better speaker? Not necessarily, how can I be a better listener? How can I ask better questions? How can I show up for other people better?

Marisa Huston  13:48  
And it's interesting that you separated those two areas, because I can guarantee so many people listening right now, did not know the difference. You just lump in communication and the perception is, How's my TED talk? Can I get up on stage and look really great in front of an audience? But, you're talking about two different things. The conversation we're having now is very interpersonal. It's not about standing in front of 1000s of people. We're just having a conversation. And it's very different from the approach that somebody on stage would take.

Christopher Peck  14:21  
Right. Well, and if I can admit this, one of the things that we talked about is we're shooting from the hip right now. You didn't send me questions ahead of time, I had no time to prepare. So even the conversation that we're engaging in, in this moment, it's spontaneous, it requires us to listen to each other in order to engage and continue moving the conversation forward, because there's that lack of preparation. And that's one of the things that I love so much about public speaking, is I can prepare and prepare and prepare. But in these vulnerable interpersonal communication situations, I really have to rely on a different skill set within the communication umbrella in order to show up and be the best version of myself.

Marisa Huston  15:04  
Yeah.  I just love this because it's so true. And the funny thing is, I love this type of spontaneous conversation and I could not get myself to get in front of stage and plan. I love the genuine conversation that we're having with no other purpose than to talk from the heart and discuss what we think is going to be helpful to other people. Now that we've defined that, I think our listeners will then understand the difference. Because it does take different skill sets to do that and you obviously have your preference, and I have mine. And one doesn't necessarily overlap the other. You're better at one area than I am yet, we're still communicating.

Christopher Peck  15:43  
Well, and the important part too, is that we not negate one or the other. You've talked about your preference in interpersonal these spontaneous individual conversations. But you also know that this conversation is going to be heard by hundreds, if not 1000s of people. You are engaging in public speaking right now. I prefer the public speaking side of things and so the audience size doesn't intimidate. It's the vulnerability that comes, insecurity, the oh, what if she asked me a question and I don't know how to answer that? The audience member is gonna think I sound weird or don't know what I'm talking about. There's all those insecurities and vulnerabilities that oftentimes come when we just have these spontaneous conversations with one another. There's all that insecurity and fear that exists that I think becomes magnified.

Marisa Huston  16:29  
And the reason being is trust. I look at this conversation we're having right now, as a dance. We have to trust each other. I trust you. I bring you into the show, because I know, you have so much to give our listeners and I want to learn. And I'm curious, and I genuinely want to have this conversation. But at the same time, you have to trust me. It's this little dance that we play, from a conversation point of view. And when you're talking to somebody who isn't dancing, who isn't along with you, then that can become a challenge. And it's very scary, because you're putting your trust in that individual. And if it's not there, you really can't be genuine. It's hard to do it.

Christopher Peck  17:08  
Absolutely. I love that you say that. I love that you bring up that idea of trust. Because I think about this idea of listening to listen, where we have no agenda outside of our honest curiosity for the people in our community. But how many times have we engaged in a conversation where our intention was to listen to listen, but then we feel like the trust isn't built. Or, we've had so many conversations with individuals in the past where we feel like we were never given space to share about ourselves too. And so we've taken all of that on, and now listening to listen is completely out the window because we don't trust listening to listen. We listen just long enough until we can find a way in and start talking about ourselves and how important we are and how what we do is going to change the world. And we try to get there as quickly as possible because we haven't had enough experiences, we haven't had emulated for us enough positive communication, tactics and skills. And so we don't trust concept like listen to listen. I guarantee there's somebody listening to this podcast right now, who's like, yeah, I tried to listen to listen all the time and then the other person dominates the whole conversation and I don't ever get to say anything. I hear that person. What I'm telling that person is listen to listen anyway. Because you may not feel like you got to say what you want to say but that other person remembers you, I promise?

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Marisa Huston  19:03  
Absolutely! And I was actually gonna ask you that, Christopher. I think the reason there's a problem is because people don't know what that really means. In the sense that, well, what do you mean, listen to listen? If somebody says something, aren't I supposed to respond? Because if I just sit there listening, then it's gonna look like I'm not having a conversation with them. I'm just going to sit back and let them do all the talking. I mean, at what point do I know it's okay to engage in the conversation? And I think it's that little gap there, that people don't get. So then they're like, well, your telling me listen to listen, so what does that mean? I just sit there and do nothing? The other person is not going to like that either. Because they're gonna feel like well, why aren't you talking to me?

Christopher Peck  19:42  
And how I would respond to that is you may feel like you're doing nothing, but I promise your other feels like you're doing everything. And what I like to tell people is you know, when every fiber of your being screams to respond, to fix, to argue to approve, just resist with these three words, Tell me more. Ask another question, share more about yourself, learn about the other individual. Because as you learn about this individual from a place of just honest curiosity, no agenda, just genuine interest in another human being. As you learn about them, you'll figure out, is who I am and what I do a good fit for this person? Is this a relationship that I want to pursue further, whether it's personally or professionally? We learn so much more about other individuals by letting them talk to us than we do by us talking to them.

Marisa Huston  20:38  
If they come back to you and say, What do you think? Do you agree? Do you disagree? That says a lot because that means they're asking for your opinion. At this point, they're telling you, I'm interested in what you think. And so that itself is so telling. Whereas somebody who just goes off, and never once asks you about anything, that is telling too. And so you're going to learn so much, just by letting that other person take the stage.

Christopher Peck  21:04  
Absolutely. And you're going to work towards that trust that you mentioned, that's going to allow for that deeper, more meaningful relationship to exist. We want to be in relationships with people that we can dance with. There's 7 billion people on this planet, we don't have to be friends and build deep relationships with all of them. And in fact, I would say that's unhealthy boundaries if we let everyone into our lives. Rather, we need to show up as the intentional communicators that we are, we need to model and expect the behavior that we want from other individuals, we need to see who plays that dance with us. And based on that information, we can say I want to build a deeper relationship with that person. I want to extend this conversation with another coffee date or another Zoom call with this person later. Like, I want to go deeper with this. Or those individuals that were like, you know what? I'm sure they're a nice person, but they're not my cup of tea. I don't have to continue this any further.

Marisa Huston  21:59  
And I think of those deeper friendships, like diving for pearls, it's not something that's just readily available. You really need to search for that. And then once you find those people, it's like unlocking magic. It's just the most wonderful feeling. Then I wanted to ask you too, because in today's world, this is so prominent, about making eye contact, which is that third element that you talked about, I find that with technology today, it's becoming increasingly difficult for people to look you in the eye and focus on you when they're having a conversation. Are you noticing that as well?

Christopher Peck  22:33  
Yeah. So it can be. My family and I went out to dinner yesterday and the particular restaurant that we were at, they switched over to an electronic method for taking orders. And I noticed that the waiter was connected with that electronic device, kind of like a cell phone the whole time and was never engaging with us at the table, was never making eye contact with us at the table. And so I think technology is playing a little part in that. Obviously, with Zoom that's made eye contact a little more complicated. I've done a little bit of research into eye contact and one of the things that I have found that I think is really effective, and I'd love for all of the listeners to think about is the idea of the 50/70 rule. And what that rule is, is that we should be engaging in eye contact 50% of the time, while we're talking and 70% of the time while we're listening. And I think this is important for two reasons. One, it reminds us that we do need to engage in eye contact. Eye contact, helps develop and create more powerful conversations in relationships. But the other side of that is, we don't have to feel the pressure to make eye contact all the time. And in fact, there's such a thing called shared focus, which is if you think about it, it's kind of like the climax of a great conversation. Two individuals, they're riffing with each other, energies are in sync, they're vibrating at the same frequency, whatever you want to call it. And it's building and it's building and it's building to this heightened moment of shared focus. But like any climax, the climax of a movie or anything else, like we can't live there forever. And so, a strategic breaking an eye contact is actually necessary in order to help move conversations forward.  Breaking eye contact when we change subjects or a new speaker comes in, something like that. Remembering it both from the perspective of we do need to be intentional about showing up and making eye contact but we don't have to put pressure on ourselves to make eye contact all the time. 

Marisa Huston  24:28  
Glad you pointed that out. Because I don't know if you know about those exercises where they asked you to stare at somebody and whoever can stare the longest wins.  The person's just looking straight at you not blinking for minutes at a time and it's really uncomfortable. And I think that when you're having a conversation if you look outside or up or down or change a little bit of direction, it's actually very normal and comfortable. You don't have to be completely focused. At the same time you don't want to be ignoring the person or never looking at them because they feel like they're not going connected to you.

Christopher Peck  25:01  
Right. There are a couple of triangles that I teach individuals about in terms of creating focus. Because eye contact too, is all about focus. If I'm making eye contact with you, you're making eye contact with me, which means you're not staring at the wall, you're not looking at your watch, you're not looking at your phone, you're engaged in what I have to say. So, when we break eye contact and we do it kind of haphazardly, you know, we look over at the time, we can actually create a disconnect in terms of our conversation with others. What I encourage people to do is no don't make eye contact all the time. But there are a couple of triangles of focus that I teach. One is from the right eye to the left eye to the nose. If you just kind of stay in that small window. You don't have to make eye contact the whole time but by staying in that triangle of focus, your audience member, that other individual you're speaking to, is probably staying in the same place for you. If that triangle feels a little too tight, a little too restrictive, the other one that I suggest is from shoulder to shoulder to the top of the head. If you can just stay in that small window, again, you don't have to make eye contact the whole time, but you guarantee that you're not going to pull focus away to something that has nothing to do with the conversation that's taking place.

Marisa Huston  26:09  
That is super helpful. I never even thought about that. This leads me to the number five point, practice, practice, practice. It's like anything else. I think that in today's society, we think that everybody is naturally a good communicator, and there are people that are attracted to it and feel comfortable doing it and so it comes as if it's more natural, but everybody needs to practice. We're not born doing things. Everything has to be learned and applied.

Christopher Peck  26:38  
Absolutely. I would push back just a little and say, I think everyone thinks that they're a good communicator. When I first started doing this work, and I was telling individuals that I was going to be working with public speakers and helping individuals with their communication, almost exclusively, I would hear oh, my gosh, that's such a good idea. Everyone needs that. But what was being implied, but never said was everyone needs that except for me. 

Marisa Huston  27:01  
Yeah.

Christopher Peck  27:02  
I got that. You know? And of course, right? Because again, we have learned through our own organic experiences, we've learned through the communication that's been emulated for us. Maybe we had the opportunity to take some communication classes. In my experience, I had the opportunity as a theater major, and getting my master's degree in professional stage directing to spend a lot of time in theater. And so we all see communication through the lens of our own lived experiences. And as tends to be the case, we then say, well, I'm a great communicator, because I've done X, Y, and Z. And everybody else needs to work on their communication, because they don't do it well. And so I think you're right, and actually, the practice, practice, practice is one of the most important things for me, because I don't think we prioritize communication as something that needs to be practiced. We see our colleagues at work every day and we just assumed that the short exchanges and interactions that we have with those individuals is our practice. Or, we just don't intentionally think about practicing communication at all. But if we can prioritize coffee, get togethers, Zoom dates, phone calls, with friends, just opportunities to engage with other individuals, to think about how we want to intentionally show up as communicators in those conversations, and then just play with different ideas. And there's an exercise on my website, which I call honing in on your communication flavor, how do you want to be seen, felt and experienced by others? So if we show up in these conversations, we say, you know what, today I really want to be seen as like, confident and knowledgeable and friendly. Okay. Well, how does that motivate the way that you show up? How is that gonna motivate or influenced the language that you use or the  eye contact that you share or the questions that you ask? But just by being intentional in the way that we communicate with others, we can practice effectively playing with what feels good as a communicator and what are the skills that aren't really working for me? And then of course, getting curious about that.  Are they're not working for you, because they're bad skills? Or are they not working with you, because there's something going on inside of you that's getting in the way of you showing up the way you wish you could. 

Marisa Huston  29:09  
It's that awareness and having a goal. Really understanding what do you want to get out of this conversation? How are you going to give back? If you want to come across friendly, then what are you going to do in that conversation to come across that way? Just understanding that approach will put you in a better trajectory towards meeting whatever goal you set for that dialogue that you're going to have.

Christopher Peck  29:32  
Absolutely. And don't shy away from being intentional having goals. I've heard people who they get a little weird around having goals around communication, because to them, it feels inauthentic or they're doing something. And I'm like, Why do you feel that way? It's like having a goal for anything else. You know, showing up intentionally as communicators having a goal, knowing what you want, thinking about it from the perspective of what I call action based intentions. Like what do you want your audience to do? What do you want them to experience and go forward and do as a result of the conversation that you had with them then.  And thinking about it from that perspective and allowing those goals, then to influence every aspect of the way that you're showing up as a communicator. Whether you're talking to one person 100 or 1000.

Marisa Huston  30:15  
The bottom line is we have goals every day for everything. Sometimes we don't think about it but we do have goals. Like why do you get up in the morning and brush your teeth, or take a shower or drop your kids to school? Everybody's got an intention and a goal. It's just that we live robotically a lot of times, and we don't think about it. But when it comes to communication, it's so critical to really understand how you want to come across and how you want to make the other person feel because that's going to be a game changer. How do people get a hold of you, Christopher, and learn more about what you offer and get more information?

Christopher Peck  30:50  
Thank you for asking. I encourage individuals to follow me on Instagram @chrisspeaksup. You can also go to my website, www.speakintoactioncomm.com. If you're having challenges in your own communication, whether it's public speaking, I've worked with aspiring politicians, I've worked with startups that are looking to secure funding from investors and then I've worked with just a lot of executives or employees who are having challenging inter personal relationships at work. If you're having challenges in some area of your personal or professional communication, reach out to me. I offer a free consultation, we can talk about the challenges that you're having and create a strategy so that you can move forward and communicate more intentionally. Sometimes it's just really nice to have somebody in your corner, somebody that you trust, having a background in professional stage directing. Yes, it's the responsibility of the director to create a story, but it's also the responsibility of the director to be the first audience member. And I think so often, that's something that we're lacking as people, is that we don't have a trusted audience member who can sit there, watch what we're trying to put out and say this is what I'm feeling, this is what I'm experiencing, is that kind of what you're going for? That's one of the biggest things I do in my work is I am that trusted audience member who says, alright, Marisa, this is what you said, this is the impact that had on me, this is how I saw you, this is how I felt you, this is how I experienced you. Is that what you're going for? Is that what you're trying to accomplish? And if it's not what you're trying to accomplish, let's figure out what we can tweak so you can show up exactly the way you want.

Marisa Huston  32:33  
And it's not just unbiased feedback, but feedback from somebody who understands what to look for. A lot of times, we'll talk to friends or family and say, What do you think? And they won't tell you. Because they're so afraid of giving you the feedback that you may not want to hear. We can't improve if we really don't understand what areas we need to focus on, and not just understand, but then say, alright, I get it. I have a problem with that. Now, how do I address it? And talking to somebody like you who's a professional who says, well, here's some elements we need to be thinking about. That's something that a friend wouldn't be able to help you with. Everything we do in life is tied to communication and how we come across. It's just imperative that people start to try to improve themselves and do the work so that they can be better at it.

Christopher Peck  33:22  
Absolutely. You know, and the other piece of that, too, you talked about that unbiased feedback. One of the things that I ask clients to do as well is, if you want to watch or listen to your own work, and give yourself feedback, please do. But please do it through the filter of me. Because you Marisa will always be the harshest on your own communication skills. You're the only one who thinks you sound the way you do. A great like Morgan Freeman voice that we all think we have. 

Marisa Huston  33:50  
Yeah. 

Christopher Peck  33:51  
Because it's resonating. And then we hear ourselves. And we're like, is that really what I sound like? And it's like yes, to the whole world yhat's what you sound like. So, we're not going to focus on that. What we're going to focus on are the things that you can do, the things that are out of alignment with the intentional communicator you want to be so that you can move forward and be the best version of yourself.

Marisa Huston  34:12  
And I can't thank you enough for being here and sharing this with our listeners so that they can improve as well. We all have room for improvement. And it's important to start with that awareness and really understand what can we do to get there. Thank you again.

Speaker 2  34:27  
No, thank you, Marisa. This has been a great time. I've really enjoyed our conversation.

Outro  34:31  
That's a wrap for this episode of Live Blissed Out. Thanks to Christopher Peck for joining us and thanks for listening. If you have a question or comment for a future episode, all you have to do is go to www.speak pipe.com/lbovm or click the link in the shownotes to leave a brief audio message. If you find value in our show, please visit www.liveblissedout.com to reach out, subscribe and share on social media. This show is made possible through listeners like you. Thank you. So long for now and remember to keep moving forward!