Ep44_SecretCommunication
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Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Decide Your Legacy podcast. I'm your host, Adam Gragg. And if you haven't already done so, and you found this podcast helpful, please pull out your phones, give it a, like a rating, a review on wherever you listen to your podcast. Apple Spotify I'd really appreciate it. It helps to show, grow organically, which it is and has.

And it's been thanks to your reviews. So today we got a great topic. We're talking about communication skills, actually four secret communication skills that I see the most effective communicators applying, but I don't think you're gonna have heard some of this stuff before, because I haven't talked about it in previous episodes and.

It's gonna be applicable to your work and personal lives. So I get the question often from companies, in fact, one company right now, they want me to come out and do some training on communication skills. And it's a big construction company. I also get this from families consistently. How do we communicate effectively?

What can we do differently? We just are misunderstanding each other. So that's what we're gonna address. I'm gonna address in depth today. So a few things I like to do every episode share some risks that I've recently taken, and it's almost become like an addiction where I keep taking more and more risks.

Believe it or not. Although. You know, some are scarier than others. But one thing that I did is I went and talked to a gal at the pool who I had never met before and sat down, introduced myself, asked her what she was reading. I was terrified. she was attractive. Any, and I did it. So who knows what comes of it, but I did it.

I did it. I surprised with my daughter, my nieces in new Orleans, they had no idea. They're about her age. She's 15. We flew out my brother and my sister-in-law. They knew, but we surprised them at the door. They had no clue. We were gonna be in town. I got it all on video and there's gonna be a link in the show notes to that video is a really, really great time.

I saw a lady. and a guy in a car with a university of Oregon Duck's license plate, kind of license plate holder. And they were in a parking lot. And I'm like, whenever I see that in Wichita, I get really curious. So I pulled away and then I actually went back. Asked them, Hey, what's up with the license plate and sure enough, they had moved here recently from Portland and their big organ ducks fans, and it ended up being a good positive conversation.

And then I did a weird thing. I actually went to a sound bath meditation class that one of my friends. Invited me to, and it was pretty cool. I slept really good that night. So, actually fifth risk that I took, and this may not seem like a risk to you, but it was to me. So my two administrative assistants, I went to Bath and Body Works and got 'em a really cool each of 'em a really cool candle, one of their nice, cool three wick deals and gave it to them.

And they were super excited. I was nervous cuz I don't give gifts a lot in anyway, but it ended up being a really positive thing. So if you don't know already, I'm Adam Gragg, I'm a legacy coach. I'm a speaker podcaster as you know, mental health professional for coming on over 20 years, I started in 98, 99 and my life purpose is helping people in organizations find transformational clarity.

The kind of clarity that propels them for, to face their biggest fears and to live and leave their own chosen legacy. The clarity that gets them to that place where I just gotta do this thing. I know I was made for this living without regrets. And I talk about stuff that a six year old can understand.

You can talk about the concepts with your six year old. Like one of my last podcasts was on conflict resolution. Every tip there, you could talk to your six year old. All the topics I discuss. I struggle with myself and are things that I'm working on. So communication is an issue. I have communication problems pretty much every day, even though I do and talk about this stuff for a living, it's a foundational skill.

And there are many problems that happen when we don't communicate. Well. One is that families can really deteriorate. Companies can be inefficient, got, you know, broken families, the [00:05:00] consequences of poor communication and stuffing it and keeping it inside can lead dead diction depression, trauma bonds with dysfunctional people, disconnection from our own own emotions.

We're not communi. We have to communicate with ourselves. I mean, that's, it can lead to divorce, job loss, lot of consequences to not doing and not effectively communicating. And so if you found this podcast helpful so far, please subscribe, hit the link, shatterproof yourself. It's a mental health stress checklist.

There's actually 27 items on there. You're gonna get that for free and you're gonna get life balance tips, ebook, and you're gonna get five days overpowering anxiety, some really cool stuff there. If you sign up. I'm gonna talk about communication skills, not the typical stuff that you would actually hear normally.

So, I mean, it's very typical to talk about assertiveness and focusing on the other person's interests and paraphrasing. And I know I've talked about that before being positive five to one positive, negative, watching your body language, being confident in yourself. Telling yourself the truth. I mean, those are all things I've discussed in previous podcasts, but these four items I have never actually discussed.

So let's jump right in number one. Number one secret is never give your power away. Don't give your power away to anybody. And by that I, what I mean is that you give your power. If you let the other person's reaction or response dictate what you say or how you act or how you behave around somebody, if it takes you away from being yourself.

In that interaction, then you're giving your power to somebody else or some circumstance never. Nobody deserves that. Not your spouse, not your kids, not your friends. Nobody deserves to take that power away, their power to choose, to decide, to make decisions and emotional manipulation and control is how we give.

If we give into that, we're giving our power. I am responsible for my emotions. You are responsible for your emotions when I make your emotions, my responsibility, I'm giving my power to you when your emotional reaction to me, or what I perceive could be your emotional reaction to me is keeping me from saying something that is true and necessary and kind that I'm giving my power to you.

That's never healthy. Not to your boss, not to your parents, not to your neighbors. And when we let things bother us at a significantly high level, even if we don't address it, let's say your neighbor doesn't mow is lawn. Doesn't take care of his front yard. Yet you take really good care of yours and you go home at night and you're really mad and angry.

And to the point where you may call the city to come out there and check on their lawn, that kind of thing. You're giving your power away, cuz you're letting somebody else's actions impact you at such a high level that it's ruining your evening or it's stealing away joy in your life. You don't want. You can choose not to give your power away.

And we do that by focusing on what is in our sphere of influence, because I can take care of my side of the street. I can mow my lawn. I can, I guess, mow your lawn, but that'd be kind of weird. I can keep my driveway clean. I can paint my house, but I can't control what you actually do. So we focus on what we can do.

I had a client just recently. He is from a situation where both his parents were alcoholics. And he lost a sibling. In recent years and has one other sister in this one, sister functions at a high level. I mean, she doesn't get sucked into the family drama, but he consistently gets sucked into the family drama and says things like I can't.

Not get sucked into the argument or it ruins my day when they criticize me or I just don't say anything. I just don't say anything. And I've challenged him multiple times on many occasions to actually say what you need to say, but remember your emotional reaction is under your control. And so if, for example, in this situation, there's some potential domestic violence.

So. The parents sometimes get violent. And I said, go tell your parents, go tell your mom that if she does hit you, you will call the police. Do that. When you're calm. I have parents do the same thing with their grown kids who can potentially get violent. I said, go home today and tell him that if. You throw something at me, or if you hit me or if you, I will call the police, but you gotta fall through with it.

You gotta, and that is gonna help you retain your power. And you gotta say it calmly and lovingly and kindly as best as you possibly can. So of course, you've heard the quote, Eleanor Roosevelt, nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission. Two things I do with clients in session. One is called a role play.

And the role play is when they have these triggering situations where they tend to give away their power, they play the role of the other [00:10:00] person acting out. And then I play the role of them addressing it in a calm way. And they can watch how I address it and how I would address it, which it is easier for me.

I don't have the same emotional pull, but that's a role play. And then what we do is we rehearse it often afterwards, where they rehearse being themselves in that situation. addressing it a assertively in a calm way, but not giving their power away. So it may require you to walk away. It may require you to leave.

Sometimes it may require you to say, I'm not comfortable with this conversation and I'll come back and talk to you about it in a day or so. But I promise I will address it again. It may mean breathing. Doing some things to relax yourself before the interaction preparing in advance for that interaction.

So number two, secret communication skill is don't give up. It's easy to give up because other people get defensive. And when people are defensive, they have something they're hiding or defending. Generally they could be really just annoyed with you, cuz you are always pressing them. And that's a whole different thing.

That's a nagging kind of thing, right? This is like core issues that, you know, you need to address and they always get defensive. I told you my mom recently for the first time shared with me some of this stuff. That happened to her when she was a kid, because she was born with a birthmark on her nose.

I wanna know more about that. I've also talked to you about opposite to emotion action. A lot of times on the other side of our anxiety and our fear is the breakthrough is that thing that we're being challenged to work through to get to the other side, I once was kind of marginally dating this. Hanging out kind of beginning stages of a relationship.

And there was something, I think it was about a month and a half into it or a month into it or whatever, but there was something that concerned me and it was just a friendly kind of, Hey, this kind of concerns me, cuz this doesn't seem like a safe situation. And the reaction to that was she couldn't take it.

She got up and left and then she eventually came back, but it was highly triggering. And I tried not to make it trigger me cuz I knew my motives were right, but it was showing me. A defense mechanism. That's very easy is showing me that there was probably some real truth to what I had said. And potentially other people in her life were not willing to share these things.

And it was a pretty big concern. I was told by my mom recently a story where she, one of her best friends in college, she was a sophomore in college and one of her best friends, dad had died on the operating table, having surgery for lung cancer. My mom who was living at home, she was going to junior college at the time.

She walked into the house and told her mom about this situation and her mom, my grandma, she said, you go over to her house to Sue's house right away, and you be there for Sue. And my mom did not want to. And she said, I can't, mom it's too uncomfortable. I can't do this. This is too hard. And her mom said, I do not care.

My grandma, you are going to your friend's house and you're gonna be with. You are not coming back in this house, get in the car and drive over to your friend's house. And my mom said she did. She went over to her friend's house and it was very uncomfortable and it was very emotional. But to this day, my mom's 74 years old to this day, that friend who at the time was 20 or 21 thinks her and remembers that situation, how she was there for her in that moment, you can't give up.

My daughter recently, we recently went to silver dollar city and I was in line for one of the rides. And I just had, we were having a great time. We were really, really light, you know, drinking, lots of pop, eating a bunch of good food, which I think they have really good food at silver dollar city, but we were having a good, good old time.

And I just kind of saw an opportunity because she had brought up school starting. And I asked her, I said, Emerson, what are some of the things that you're worried about with school starting? What are some of your fears? And she said, I don't wanna talk about this here. We're having fun here. This is a, you know, she got very resistant to answering that question.

And then I shared with her, I didn't give up. Basically. I shared with her what I remember feeling before a new year in high school and before a new year in college. And I shared some of the typical fears that I would have, like, am I gonna have the same friends? Are am I gonna feel connected to the same people?

Are people gonna have changed? What are my classes gonna be like, am I gonna have fun? Are these teachers gonna be whatever? And she listened to me share. And then I asked her the question again, what are some of the things. That you kinda worry about her that, you know, and then she was more open. I mean, she was resistive, but she was more open and she shared, well, I don't know if some of my friends are really gonna be the best friends for me anymore, or if I'm gonna have the same friends or if I'm have the same friends in my classes or may have classes without some of my friends and, you know, it's.

Some uncomfortable situations socially, mainly. And that led to a really great conversation. She started to open up and I actually told her kind [00:15:00] of what I do in those situations, the questions I ask myself, like, is it true? You know, how do I benefit from thinking this way? What's the cost. What's a better perspective.

And I try not to be a counselor ever. I'm dad. I don't put my counselor hat on with my friends, my family. I try to talk from my own personal experiences, but she was able to see that because one of her big fears was not trying, you know, being situations where she doesn't engage socially when she wants to like school dances or drama or music or things like that.

She was able to recognize that the benefit of not trying was it was gonna keep her safe on her own. It's gonna keep her safe. So that anxiety rises up in us. We want to give up, but we still push through it. And we get to the other side, a client recently shared with me a poem from mother Teresa. It's called do it anyway.

And I love this. I'm gonna link to this poem. I know I've been reading some poems, but it's real quick. So people are often unreasonable, logical, and self-centered forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you being selfish and having ulterior motives be kind anyway. If you are successful, you'll win some false friends and some true enemies succeed.

Anyway, if you're honest and Frank people may cheat, you be honest and Frank, anyway, what you spend your Le your years building, someone could destroy overnight build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness or maybe jealousy, be happy. Anyway, the good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Do good.

Anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give the world the best you've got. Anyway, you see in the final analysis it's between you and God. It was never between you and them. Anyway, don't give up. Don't give up. I'm also gonna link in this podcast to the poem. If read by Sir Michael Caine, it's a wonderful poem that, one of my favorites.

And then how did you die from Edmund Vance Cook, a great reading of that, you know, and If it's written by Rudyard Kipling, so number three, the secret. Something, you probably don't hear a lot. And this is what I did with my daughter is I started to share my own stories. I started to share from a place of my own vulnerabilities and weaknesses with my daughter.

Like I get scared with speaking every single time I speak in two days to a company and I always get pretty much terrified before I get up on stage. I get terrified some before I do a podcast, I mean, really. Get kind of terrified and anxious, but you have to be vulnerable to make connections. You have to take a risk to make connections with people and my clients and people that review the podcast.

I mean, consistently what I hear from people is share the personal stories I thought, and I've told many clients this. I thought that just as a therapist, when I went through the divorce, which was devastating, I thought my career was. Who's gonna trust me, who's gonna listen to me with tips on communication.

Who's gonna respect a guy that went through a divorce in a counselor role, a family therapist role kind of type thing. And, but what I've found is, yeah, I have lost some clients because of that, but I've also gained a tremendous amount of trust. Because they know that I'm willing to be open. I hit it for a while.

A long time. I didn't anyone to know about it, actually. Honestly, I just kind of dreaded. I wore my wedding ring for a significant period of time after my divorce was finalized. I didn't want anyone to ask me about it, but I found that when I'm vulnerable and open, most people like 80. Plus percent of people they're receptive to that.

They they're, they're, they're warm to that. They like knowing that somebody's real and human and has imperfection. So you can share them, you don't share them to get sympathy. You don't share them to get some kind of some, get some kind of blessing, you know, you're sharing them to help the other person. If you share a vulnerable story with the motive, if the motive is purely to help the other person to grasp the concept, to be more open, to see that you can relate, then that's a good motive.

That's a great motive. Just like I said, when I speak, if my motive is to impress or to be funny, or to look good or to meet a girlfriend or to. Look smart, or to be this guy on stage that everybody looks up to, then I'm gonna suck. But if my motive, if my objective is to help the people in the audience and to look at them and say, there are some people in this audience that I may have been blessed with some information and tools and tips that can actually help them.

Then I lose my fear. It goes away. So if your motive is to share your own stories, to help, it's gonna be a wonderful thing and don't do something that's gonna embarrass you. I mean, just for this, and don't kind of cross the line and share things that you'll know are really awkward being, you know, it's something we gotta be kind of careful with, but air on the side of being more open than not.

I know for me, assuming I thought about. Just recently, that was really difficult is a month and a half after my divorce was finalized. I had a speaking engagement for a big company in, in Newton, Kansas, and I hadn't done any speaking since then. [00:20:00] And my confidence was shot. I was just not at a good place.

And I was looking back at that point in my life. And my level of mental health was not great. And I remember for that entire weekend, trying to prepare for this presentation, but not being able to focus because I had all this other junk that I needed to work through. Related to grieving my divorce and I ended up pacing my house.

We'd sit down and try to focus on the presentation of preparing for it. And then I couldn't focus and I'd end up just pacing. And I couldn't get to the place where I could actually start making some progress. I luckily knew the content well enough and I got through it. Believe it or not. Thanks to some friends.

One of my good friends, Daniel, was with me that day when I spoke, I didn't feel like I did a great job, but, you know, I did the best that I could. I did it anyway. And when I work with clients, my ultimate goal is they find clarity that helps them to face their fears and to move on. In areas where they might be stuck to make significant progress, they're gonna retire and have the best years of their life in their retirement years.

They're gonna transition to a new career and have an excellent time in that new career. They're gonna have great success in their current relationships and they haven't had great success in the past. They want some kind of major breakthrough, but in order for us to have that breakthrough, a lot of times we have to work through our past trauma.

We have to work through the past, which I had to start doing in order to actually get to the other side in that situation. And it's pretty crucial. And so with a lot of clients as I work with and I take 'em through, what's called the legacy journey. Part of that is dealing with your past. It's dealing with your perspective, your own personal sense of self-worth relationship skills.

Like we're talking about here and emotional health. And so you may wonder why do I bring in a coaching podcast of these. Topics like anxiety and trauma. Well, I do that because those things are necessary, foundational skills and things to make progress and to overcome in order for you to get the clarity, to have the clear head, to get to that next level, which I needed.

And luckily my friends helped me with, but I needed that to get to the next level and to get back on track with my coaching speaking counseling and everything. So the fourth thing. So number three was share your own stories, share some stories from your own. Your own personal struggles. People will be receptive to that.

Most people, good people, but the fifth secret is, is dig deeper, little bit different than do it anyway. Or don't give up digging deeper. And this, when you are talking to somebody people's defenses may come up, but if you are a good listener, Then you're gonna see that there are some pain points potentially in some of these relationships and those pain points are going to indicate areas where you can dig a little bit deeper.

So for example, somebody may say, well, I'm just so frustrated at work that nobody seems to communicate well and be on the same page in our communication strategy. I mean, people are often misunderstanding things. They Don. Get it, they don't get it. And we send out emails every week and they just don't get it.

Or. People at work, just have a bad attitude. And I'm frustrated about this bad attitude that people have or people aren't putting in enough effort. And my family's not connecting the way we want to maybe very subtle things that they say after you've started to establish a relationship, but you can actually dig deeper.

You can go, you can pick up on that and don't give away your power by getting sucked into their defensiveness or be getting sucked into their frustration. Don't give away your power and dig deeper. So some of the questions I like to ask to actually dig deeper. So they are expressing that communication is a problem at work.

You can ask them, well, what do you really want? And then get 'em thinking. And it's a great question. Start with what or how and great questions have a pause generally to them because people start to think, what would success look like here? Kind of a variant of what do you want, but a little more detail.

How can you get there? What ideas do you have? What have you tried in the past? What's gonna have to change for you to have that kind of life or have that kind work environment, or to have that kind of level of communication. What ideas do you have? And here's some of my other favorite questions and digging deeper is if you were happier, how would people know.

how would you be different prior to my all time? Favorite question and digging deeper is how would you act if you were 10 times bold or 10 times more confident? How would you act? What would you do if success was guaranteed? One of my other favorite questions is what does success mean to you here? And these are things in communication.

When you can look somebody in the eyes and you can ask these types of questions with genuine concern or genuine curiosity in appropriate settings, you'll win people over. You'll learn so much about people. It'll make the relationship fun. These are fun, deep kind of questions. And then at the end of the sessions, people will often tell me something they learned or they want to apply.

And I love asking them, you know, [00:25:00] so you're saying yes to this. What are you saying? No, to. What are you saying? No to another favorite? What energizes you, you know, what makes you wanna wake up in the morning and just get your day started? So that's what I got for you today. Those four things, four secrets.

Don't give away your power to anyone don't give up, share your own stories, be vulnerable and dig deeper when appropriate dig deeper, dig deeper. So what insight did you gain from today? We change because of first of all, awareness, we're aware there's a problem. And then we accept that. It's a problem.

That's gonna do some damage if we don't correct it. And then we take some action. What action are you gonna take? Based on listening today, make a decision to apply something. It's probably going to be some type of emotional risk where you could get rejected, an emotional relational risk. If you found the podcast helpful, please give it a like, and a review on Spotify or apple link to shatterproof yourself mental health, stress checklist.

And I'm also working and have just started working on a course called shatterproof yourself. And it's all about anxiety and stress and resiliency that you're gonna want to not miss. When I release that sometime in the coming months, if you wanna have me out speak, I can do it over zoom and I can do it live.

And I'd love to go visit your company. I don't really want to go. All the way to Florida. I wouldn't mind going to Hawaii, especially if it's Maui to go speak, but I don't like to travel a whole lot. I'll probably do zoom if it's over in Massachusetts, but who knows, maybe I'll come out to your place, make a decision, make it your mission to courageously live the life.

Now that you wanna be remembered for 10 years after you're gone, you decide your legacy. You decide your future. No one else. I appreciate you greatly and I'll see you next time.