Persuasive Communication with Dr. Barbara Tannenbaum

Julie: 00:00:03

You things strike fear into the hearts of women and men, as much as the thought of public speaking. There was actually a study that found that public speaking is the number one fear of the average person. Do you want to know what the number two fear is? It's death. Jerry Seinfeld talked about this in one of his standup routines, joking that the average person, if you had to be at a funeral, Would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. Welcome to episode 61. I'm your host, Julie Brown. And today I am joined by award-winning professor and consultant, Dr. Barbara Tannenbaum to discuss how improving our communication skills will increase our effectiveness as leaders and networkers. This episode is sponsored by Nickerson, a full service branding, marketing, and PR and communications agency with team members in Boston, Los Angeles, Miami and New York city. Visit them@nickersoncos.com. The importance of communication skills should not be surprising when you consider the staggering amount of time that people spend communicating. And it has been proven that people who communicate better. Are more successful. Why is this? You ask. The answer is among other things. Things. That great communicators tend to contribute more to their organizations and receive more opportunities for promotion. And recognition in their careers. Communication can disclose our authenticity, sincerity, and virtually every other aspect of our character. This is why I have asked Dr. Barbara Tannenbaum to join us today. Dr. Tannenbaum is a highly acclaimed award-winning professor. She teaches courses in public speaking and persuasive communication. And the department of theater, arts and performance studies at brown university. Additionally, she has a prolific consulting practice with national and international clientele. Consisting of doctors. Lawyers state Supreme and appellate court judges, politicians, including us senators, major corporations. And community leaders. Dr. Tannenbaum. Welcome. And thank you for being here.

Barbara: 00:02:27

Thanks for the invitation.

Julie: 00:02:29

I'm just gonna start at the very beginning and ask why is communications so important and business? And because this is a networking podcast and networking as well.

Barbara: 00:02:41

well. it's important in business and in networking because that's how the business and networking get done. Whether we network, we pitch, we interview all of that requires effective communication. And the good news is we can learn to do it better, no matter how good we are, or no matter how far we think we have to go, because people are always evaluating. By our communication. And sometimes we evaluate ourselves that way too. And we can be pretty harsh when we say, gee, I said this wrong, or I should have said that. So it is the vehicle by which our ideas are expressed by which we have human contact in so many ways, whether it is even now virtually another form of human contact. So communication is a life long learning index.

Julie: 00:03:35

I've heard you say before that all speaking is public speaking. So that's going to make some people nervous. Can you explain.

Barbara: 00:03:44

Well, unless we talk to ourselves, we always have, I'll call it an audience or an other. Even if it's one other person, even if it's a close family member, even if it's someone who comes to the door, asking for something, we always have human contact. And the good news is that the general principles that work in one-on-one communication work for networking, and they also then work for larger audiences. And so what I always suggest is that the habits that we have when we get up, say to do a presentation, or we meet someone at a networking event are habits that we have all the time. We don't suddenly acquire them, for example. Um, or, uh, um, uh, and so what I suggest is practice in those low impact encounters. You're talking to someone at home and say, I'm working on my ums and UHS, or I'm working to make better eye contact. Remind me if I'm not so that when I walk into a room full of people and I want to decide who to contact or. For an interview, or I am asked to do a presentation at work. Those are not the times to start thinking, am I going to, uh, or, um, that I promise that if you find a monitor, as I call them work coach or someone you hang around with the more frequently they interrupt the old behavior, you're doing this again. You're doing this again. You're doing this again. The more quickly that habit will change it most it'll be a couple of months. Considering how long many of us have had these habits. It's wonderful to be able to let go of them forever.

Julie: 00:05:22

When I first started professional speaking in front of large audiences. I would tape myself speaking in advance and I was mortified by how many times I used the word, um, as a space filler, or I would say like a lot. And then I would also say something like, I would say, you know, Do you suggest that people perhaps record themselves to see how they do actually talk?

Barbara: 00:05:53

I absolutely do the first time you listen, though, you may want to do with a friend who is willing to give you positive reinforcement about this, because we do tend to be so harsh on ourselves. We other ourselves, we say things to ourselves. We would never say to other people in terms of the evaluations, but while you're on this, I'd love to. Talk a little bit more about what I call those powers Apres or those kinds of habits that we have. You mentioned several here. I suggest that you start with email because often we use them in right into, and it will be much easier to edit your writing than it would be to edit your speaking. Gets a little more complex. So words that you said are awesome and, um, is a vocal, non fluency in the research. And there are four reasons to get rid of that particular term. The first one is that they're distracting and way back when I was in college chemistry class, we had a professor who, um, so often that we took turns, counting very bad strategy. We never learned the chemistry. It was embarrassing. But it was the young count. The second reason is that there are data that would indicate that if I say, um, it makes me, sound less knowledgeable now it's Okay. If I need to think about an opinion, but if someone says what's your name, um, or, uh, anything like that, it shows hesitancy. Number three, it can even go further and it can start leeching credibility. What do I mean by that? There's a study that says even 10 times in a presentation. If I, um, people start wondering, am I making things up? Am I really sure? So let me give you an example. Doctor, doctor, tell me what are my most recent test results. Um, That bad. Huh? Or mom and dad or mom and mom, did you use drugs in college and often there's the, um, and they think, is this going to be an honest answer? And the fourth reason, and I know that there's an international audience here, is that in Turkish? And I won't repeat the word, but it's very similar to the word that we're talking about. It's a slang word for women's genitalia. That is a bio term. So especially if we are working with international audiences, as we often are that vocal filler will be offensive on top of all of the other reasons that I gave, but generally. What you do want to do is pause, not forever, but it shows thoughtfulness. It takes up space. It can show power. One thing to be hurtful about when I said don't pause for too long, is that often in a group, people interrupt you. Then they see. As if you're done and I can wedge in, in general though, it's thoughtful. Think about when you, um, many people do it as a ramp up to a sentence. Well, what did it did it, um, often we do them between ideas rather than within ideas. So we need to be more comfortable with the silence when we're with people we know and love. We can sit in silence and feel comfort. But when we're not, I want to paraphrase a quotation. I used to use for one of my classes. I'm afraid of silence because I'm afraid in the silence. You're judging me without my input.

Julie: 00:09:21

Hm.

Barbara: 00:09:22

And I think that's wise because we think if we fill up the silence, it somehow or stalls the judgment, but that judgment and it doesn't have to be a harsh judgment is always there. That's we look at people, we listen to people. We think about how. Are making those choices. That's why it's wonderful to start making those choices in a conscious way, because people assume that you chose to wear that you must know what it would communicate or not communicate. And what do I mean by that with zoom? Sometimes people forget that it binds Stripe or even a. A heavy weave, could Waray or strobe on camera. There are studies that tell us the darker, the color you wear, the more powerful you will be seen. So what's your goal in a networking event? You mentioned in my lovely introduction that I work with politicians and I am often someone who doesn't want to be seen. Announcement events because it signals to the press that this person has a coach. So I am in a sea of dark suits after work. I wear a dark suit, but if I'm marketing myself and I'm at an unbanned, especially if I'm speaking, I might wear a red jacket because I want to stand out. So everything that we do about communication has consequences and we have control over much of it. Let me get back if it's all right to. powers operas that I would love to. One of them is just probably the weakest phrase in the English language that I know is, well, it's only my opinion or I just think,

Julie: 00:11:03

Uh huh.

Barbara: 00:11:04

and it takes away. I always say just as fine as a time to reference, I just came from the cafeteria. Any other time. It just, I just, or even, I think I say to my politicians running for office, would you vote for someone who says, I think I have a plan for the economy. I believe I have a plan for education. No, I have a plan plans succeed or fail, but they also change, but we don't want to hire someone who thinks they have a plan. For their lives. We want people who plan, even if the plan changes, you mentioned, you know, my parents broke me up, you know, at an early age when they would say no, Bobby, my family name, we don't know. And if we do know, why are you telling us it worked? You also mentioned like, like is a generational word, like, like, like, like, like life, life, and it's not like anything it's again, become a filler kind of sorta tell me nothing actually. And basically, basically tell me nothing often we use the word, but, and we mean, and I thought your presentation was. But, and he was like, okay, you really didn't, you're just waiting to get to the, but I noticed with a friend who wanted to come for a weekend and I had worked late Sunday afternoon and he said, I'd love to come for the weekend. And I said, well, I'd love to have you, but, and I thought, what does he hear? Don't come, I'd love to have you. And I want you to know that late Sunday afternoon, I have a work project. And I said, that's fine. I was going to leave after brunch. So that one takes practice for me. Very, really crazy. Week modifiers. This is pretty important. Important adds value pretty takes the value away. But what about this is really, really important, better to drop the pitch a little. It will be heard better, especially by people with hearing loss. Since much of that happens in the upper registers rather than the lower registers initially. If you are visible gesture or sometimes gesturing helps us, whether people can see us or not. And I did see videos of blind children talking to other blind children. They know that their audience can't see, but they still gesture. It helps the articulation of the idea. And I know that to be true. I gesture when I'm giving directions on my mobile phone to someone who can't see me. But rather than this is really, really important. This is important or use a stronger word. This is critical. So don't be afraid of using strong language. I think we are apologetic often in our lives. When we certainly don't need to be. And let me add one last one, although you, and I'm sure many of the people who are listening to this may have a long list that they'd like to add to, but mine is to be honest. And when someone says that to me, I wonder what the rest of the reason station is, or the rest of the conversation at a networking event might be so candidly, perhaps, but not honestly, I'm hoping for that as a minimum standard.

Julie: 00:14:20

I'm so glad you brought up the hearing loss, I'm doing my research right now on a podcast for how we can be more inclusive of the deaf and hard of hearing. some people know that I've dealt with hearing loss in my right ear so I'm starting to be more cognizant of how we can be more inclusive of the deaf and hard of hearing. So I'm doing my research right on that right now.

Barbara: 00:14:44

I would love to see that. I used to say when I started with an audience that if you can't hear me, you don't need to raise your hand or ask for permission just to yell out louder. I'll take it as a good sign that you want to hear me.

Julie: 00:14:57

Yeah.

Barbara: 00:14:57

On the other hand, I have been told by members of the community that sometimes people are embarrassed by having to ask for that accommodation. So I'm learning as you are new ways of trying to be more inclusive. Let me just critique my own language. I said, what I'm trying to do, that's another phrase you may want to eliminate. We don't want to hire people who are trying. We want to hire people who are doing try and somehow we think it's a wedge. Well, I don't have to take responsibility, but commit yourself. Do it. Don't try to.

Julie: 00:15:29

Yeah. A number of the people who listen to this podcast are professionals who. Either have to present their work at a conference setting or in an interview setting to win projects in the course of your talk. You talk a lot about connecting with your audience, and you'd mentioned it at the beginning of this podcast, connecting with your audience, whether that's one-on-one or a group of people, or in a large audience, what are your strategies for connecting with your audience?

Barbara: 00:15:59

Well, audience analysis takes place before you do the presentation or in preparation for a major event, it takes place during the event when you're watching and listening. To your audience. As a professor, you can always tell about three or four minutes before the bell would rain. We don't have bells and whatever anymore in the classroom so much because you'd hear people rustling and packing up their things to get ready. So we need to pay attention to our audience? all the time in terms of how to connect with them. Common ground, finding things value. Experiences that you share in common similarity is one of the ways in which we can create credibility with an audience. One of the things that we also need to learn to do, and I just modeled it for you is use that word way. And now I'm not talking about the Royal we, the nurse who comes in, says the patient and how are we feeling today? Well, I'm feeling like crap. How are you feeling?

Julie: 00:17:04

Okay.

Barbara: 00:17:05

If I am a member, I used to say women day and I do identify as a woman. So now it's women, we, and it's finding ways to make that connection for sure. Sometimes I also think we need to let go. Our own perspective on ourselves a little bit. And let me tell you what I mean by that you mentioned the interview situations. I was working, doing workshop for women at Wellesley college, which is a women's college in Massachusetts. And one of the metaphors I came up with that I used for the students. And I now use for all people is if you have trouble selling yourself, because it feels over the top and phony and all of that. Sell yourself as if you're selling your best friend, that would be easy. And that metaphor has truly helped. Now. I also want to acknowledge that there are cultural differences in selling yourself and I do workshops for international students at brown all the time, because internationally people do not sell as hard as we in the U S do. And it would seem over the top and impolite and garish in so many ways. but we sometimes, especially as women are so afraid of that being called the whatever word, and then he have ourselves as aggressive that we pulled too far back. We don't sell hard enough. So what are the components of credibility? Not just for women, but we need to be thoughtful. Expert or expertise, and that can be our education and it can also be our experience. And increasingly now experience is becoming more important than education so that we used to go to doctors and lawyers, offices and see nothing but diplomas on the wall. Many fewer of those. Now you get a recommendation personally from someone else and that network is much more viable. We also can create credibility by creating trustworthiness. Now that sounds like a tough thing. How do we do that? We can create trustworthiness. I gave some hints earlier by not using ums and AHS. People will trust us more. And at least us culture often by making direct eye contact, not locked up. I call that the cat stare, the cat will always win, but a willingness to encounter. And when, and who knows, if we will continue this practice, we used to shake hands. I would often on-site when I was doing a training, do an exercise where I would say, turn to a person that you didn't come with, shake hands and introduce yourself to them. And it makes. Sometimes it's a, it's a department. And so you sort of know everyone and then give the other person feedback on the introduction. And the goal is to get them to remember your name. And then I say, Okay. everyone face me and no cheating. And then I asked them for the eye color of the person that they just met. And I have done this one internationally for Google and Microsoft and the light. And it's so. Startling still how few people actually look someone in the eye. Now, again, I know culturally a woman, especially in business, looking a man in the eye is probably not a good idea. Even the handshake. If I read a very relative. Orthodox Jewish person or a Muslim person. women shaking hands is not the thing. And so if you have doubt, wait until it's extended, so always cultural differences, but I think we need to learn to look people in the eye and not apologized or what we say, not fill it with her. Um, uh, We can be more streamlined in that way. Those are all things that add to our trustworthiness. Prior record is something that also, if I can tell you I've done this before and here are the quantifiable results, then I will have more trust in my ability to do it again. As I mentioned earlier, similarity is a part of trustworthiness as well, and building credibility and also, and especially important. Yeah. For women is being likable. Now this gets into a real dilemma and I don't know if I'm allowed to plug another website, but if I could, it's done by a philanthropist and it's called the Barbara Lee foundation. And what Barbara Lee does, which is extraordinary and unusual is she funds bi-partisan research. And in this day and age, especially in the U S anything that's bipartisan is rare than it ought to be. But so she has Republicans and Democrats doing research on how to get more women elected to office. And one of the things that they do talk about is that women, men don't need to be as likable. They just need to be qualified. Women need to be qualified and likely. And it's sad for me that my own son said he would vote for Hillary, but he just didn't like her and a standard we don't use for men.

Julie: 00:21:59

Sure.

Barbara: 00:21:59

So how can we be likable? Well, that's been studied too, so people like us, if they feel listened to so we can listen carefully and repeat things. We also like genuine compliments and many of us are very clear about the ones that aren't, when they feel oily, it's the salesperson who tells you, you look great and you know, it doesn't fit. but genuine compliments are appreciated. And then again, we are liked by people who are. To us and where we emphasize that similarity. We like people like us,

Julie: 00:22:37

In the intro I talked about it. Public speaking is the number one fear over death, knowing that this is a huge source of anxiety for people, and probably keeps people away from a lot of opportunities because they don't want to be in front of a crowd speaking, even though they know their topic inside and out, how can we help people become more comfortable being in front of audience?

Barbara: 00:23:03

Well, perhaps by letting them know that we don't many of us, maybe all of us start off that way, being comfortable. my report cards. It's from grade school and high school all came back, ideal student, but quiet, quiet, quiet. And when I started teaching my mom and dad said, Bobby, you're going to get up in front of people and talk. I thought, no wonder I have no self-confidence about this. So get rid of. And I will say that what helped me get past myself, if you will, was having something I felt was so important to talk about that I wanted to concentrate on getting that message across way back. When I was in college, there was the Vietnam conflict as it was called, and I got a chance to debate a us Senator on whether or not we should stop the war and feeling that. That was important, feeling that, and I started doing volunteer work. That's a great way to do it. If you have time for me, oncology, it was with the American red cross I got a chance to give out information on disaster relief, which I felt was very important and the community got important information. So I started doing that. And then when I moved to Providence, worked with what was then called the rape crisis center. And I'm still doing volunteer work for them. Now called day one. So there are so many community. Places that need your help. Often they will give you something to show or a myth quiz or something. And there isn't a lot of presentation. They will train you often. And I do a lot of training the trainers to do that. And you get exposed to such a wide variety of audiences. I always said, if I could talk to a, a middle school auditorium full of kids about sexual assault, I could talk to anyone about anything.

Julie: 00:24:52

I think for me, what helped me. Get better at professionals speaking public speaking was knowing that I knew my topic inside and out, knowing that when I was up there on the stage, that there wasn't going to be a question I couldn't answer. That was very, very powerful for me. That made me feel like I deserve to be there. And that gave me the confidence to speak louder on that stage.

Barbara: 00:25:18

I think that's incredibly important. And certainly I love best when I have interviews like this. And you're asking me about things that I know, but sometimes I'm asked to speak on things that stretch me and I certainly do do the research, but again, I do. That self-critic thing that says, I don't know enough. I don't know enough. I don't know enough or what I know is recent enough or it's gendered or it's whatever. And so what we need to do is not shoot holes in what we do know, so that we can find that confidence. And I would say to know this about speaker anxiety is that very few people will notice. Sometimes we think we have to point it out. I'm so nervous. No, it just highlights it. I call this the don't look at my shoe hypothesis. I was walking on canvas and an older woman who is a friend of mine, said, I said, hi, Ruth, how are you doing? She said, fine, Barbara, but don't look at my shoe. It's broken. Well, I never would have thought to look at your shoe. I have enormous feet and I'm not exaggerating here somewhere between in the U S the size 11 and 12, or at least a 42 in European sizes. And I, so I don't look at shoes. They're not just not cute in my size, in the same way. And suddenly I couldn't help it. It was as if she highlighted it for me, that I had to do it. So. Very few people will notice I want to talk about a study that was done out of the Harvard business school, because it's relevant here. When we get nervous. According to this study. And it was done by a woman who, when she was in college, sang in an acapella group and she noticed every semester new students would come in and audition and everyone was nervous. And some people succeeded despite the nerves and some people, the nerves overwhelmed them. So she starts. With acapella groups and she eventually gets to public speaking. She says two things happen when we get nervous. Number one, she would call a change in the arousal state. And I think for each of us, we know what that his heart begins to pal. Maybe we get sweaty, maybe we get jumpy, whatever that might be. But number two, we might call the balance. Is this positive or is this negative? She found that the people who. Succeed, despite the anxiety or fear, don't try and change that. Physiological state, because then when I'm saying calm down and I can, I feel worse, but there's, but I will claim here. And very importantly, that energy attracts that what we need to do is relabel. And so we need to not tamp down that energy so much that it goes away. Excited is a good thing. There was an old time folks that heard Dave van rock was his name. And I had a chance to sit next to him in a bar between two of his sets. And I said, so it would tell me about performance. You said there was only one night. He ever gave a bad performance and it was the night. He was not nervous, no energy. So when you talk about feeling competent, there's an energy that comes to that. And that's what I hope for, for each and every person. And I also know that you can model confidence, even if you don't feel it. And I. Asked to do a presentation. Uh, first time in a very highly sought after consulting company. And it was going to be my first time in Stanford. And I miss pact. I had a pair of shoes that didn't match, I had a Right. and a left, but I had a heel and an flat, I had a suede and leather and I had to go in and. I, my husband's tying to solve for me. And this is Deborah tannins work. She's a researcher out of Georgetown, in socio-linguistics. She says that often when women have problems, we've talked to men and I know this is gender binary and well, let's say all women, all men, and I'm not even saying we have to use that terminology. I'm just reporting her research. That what some of us talk about. We might call the men if we want to hear, but, um, we don't want to be solved by them. We just want them to listen, but they want to help. And they go to the solving and that makes us feel like enough already. Let's just get to the solution. So my husband was trying to think about a solution. Well, you could go to the mall. There's a mall in Stanford. Yeah. but it opens at 10 I'm. Eight. And so he says, well, you're wearing slacks. And I said, Yeah. what color? I said, black, are you wearing socks? Yeah. What color? Black. I've got a great idea going into your socks. I said, I cannot meet the managing director of this consulting firm in my socks. And besides which I'm not asking you what to do, I know what I'm going to do. And he said, what's that? I said, I will walk out. With great confidence. And he said more power to you. I went, they showed me to this office. I could use that day down the long wooden corridor, and you can hear it. Cook clump, cook clump, clump, right. One heel, one flat. And I gave work presentations that day. With people very close. And then I have four individual consults in the afternoon. Not one of them noticed. I told my students about this speech that semester and one of my students gave her final speech at the end of what she got. Wonderful feedback. I have two different shoes. Did anyone notice, uh, we just need to ignore what keeps us from doing what we need to do, but not ignore our audience and the fact that they deserve our full attention, not our feet.

Julie: 00:30:43

That is great. I've heard you say that people will forget about if you're a professional speaker or you're speaking to an audience about, they'll forget about 65 to 80% of what we say way to be. Rememberable. Is to keep it simple. And one of your presentations, I heard you repeat Ronald Reagan's line from, his 1972 Berlin wall speech. Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall, six words that are so memorable. What is your advice to craft our own simple and memorable tagline? When we are presenting?

Barbara: 00:31:17

So the first thing is to keep it short. Now, the way that I put it in the extreme is subject. Object stop.

Julie: 00:31:28

Yeah.

Barbara: 00:31:28

And therefore parentheses, we cannot hear parentheses. So short is better. I was being interviewed at a large financial firm and they said, so tell me what makes you different from all of the other consultants we might hire? And I said, in a word credibility, And then I said, would you like me to talk more about that? But I wanted them because often people making decisions have to sell you to someone else or sell the idea to someone else and the, and the, well, what did she say? Well, Barbara is the one with high credibility. Right. And here's what we talked about. Repetition will increase retention and learning theorists. Tell us, in order to remember an idea, we need to hear it between two and four times fewer than two, we forget more than four. We start getting annoyed. So that old adage, for those of us who might remember newspapers, tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them. And that's that three, which walks right down there. Humor will help us remember. So I gave you several examples for why we might want to get rid of ums and UHS and most people, although I don't think it's funny. Remember the so-called Turkish example because it is jarring in its own way and embarrassing as a different kind of humor. I guess we can do stories and examples. And so the confidence example of. Don't look at my shoes or my shoes where people didn't look at my shoes. People might remember more than here are three things I want you to remember about building confidence. So it's a willingness to think about what brings information alive and the first day of class, or when I do trainings, I'll often ask for a hand show and I'll say, please raise your hands. If you've ever heard a speech that went on too long. Everyone raised their hands. Please raise your hands. If you've ever heard a speech that was too short and everyone stops to think. So we've already learned that lesson from each other and from our own experience. It's like packing for a trip if you have time. Or if I have time, I put out everything on the bed and then I pick and choose, what do I really need? But if I don't. Everything goes into the suitcase. And so it's that willingness to edit. And somehow we don't say the speech out loud, we say to ourselves, now I'm going to talk about this, or now I'm going to talk about that. So we don't know how long we have in real time. We don't know what the Payson should be. We don't know really what sounds right and what doesn't. So all of that. Editing. So that what shines through is the essence of the message that you want to be remembered. I do start preparing every presentation with the idea of if they remember one thing, what do I want it to be?

Julie: 00:34:15

Uh, that's great. That's great. I think that's super important. I think it took me a while to figure that out when I was giving speeches, because I wanted everything to be in there and I wanted multiple light bulb moments. But the truth is, if you look at your statistics, 65 to 80% being forgotten, the one light bulb moment is more.

Barbara: 00:34:40

Yes. And it's 85 to 80% is, is a variety of studies, but that's done almost immediately. So six weeks from now, what do I want you to remember from my interaction with you and the audience to remember. I would go back to Aristotle, who said, it's all about goal oriented and audience centered communication. What's my goal with this particular audience. And since it's hard to change your audience, you may need to either change your goal, make it a little less immediate., so thinking about what your goal is, and if I can a phone call, I never, even if I'm expecting it, I don't answer it on the first drain. Always the second, I don't want to be rude, but that first rain is what's my goal with this particular one. Do I need to apologize. Do I want to ask for business, do I run a reconnected on a personal level? Do I want to ask how they're doing given a hard week? Whatever it might be.

Julie: 00:35:39

Are there certain things in nonverbal communication that we should be trying to do when we are communicating one-to-one or when we're in a large audience?

Barbara: 00:35:49

Absolutely. Eye contact again is critical. Not only because people want to be looked at, and there are data, again from Denver tenants' research that this is an important, especially for women. And sometimes once my husband was in the kitchen with me and he was moving around doing different things in the kitchen. So I stopped talking and he looked at me. I said, I'll wait until you stop so that I can continue. So I've been listening. I said, okay, then repeat everything back. And he. But I didn't feel listened to without the eye contact. I think that for audiences, it's not just look over the top of people's head. If you have trouble making eye contact that metaphorical third eye, that's just at the bar. It looks for most audience? We talked a little bit about what we wear. Something that gives you confidence that you're not pulling and tugging yet. Again, go to what's your goal and what's your audience. My example, if I want to stand out, I might want to wear a bright color and so think about certainly what's flattering to you. What feels comfortable? You don't need a lot of different outfits to feel that you've really nailed it going in with one of them.

Julie: 00:36:59

What about our feet and the way we stand. Is there any importance on how are our.

Barbara: 00:37:04

So generally, and I wish you could see me, but maybe if you can't, you can try this. If you are able to stand, I would suggest Dan and try this for yourself. You want your feet placed about shoulder width, distance apart or underneath your hips. And if you studied self-defense and, and I've done that, that's the ready stance for most self-defense your feet are not. Close together, because then you have to move to move. It's much harder to move from that than it is to move. When your feet are more separated, this is much wider than most women's stands. So it's finding that stance and I practice it. I practice it. If I'm waiting for an elevator, I practice it when I'm waiting online at the market so that when I get up to do a speech, I never think about my stance. And it's always, well-placed taking. We want to take up space. And I know, again, as women we're taught, don't take up too much space. A smaller is better, but there's no reason for it. All of the data show us. It's how we think about ourselves. And you don't need to be tall to do it. Think about mother Teresa. Yes. Or think about mayor Bloomberg or other men who are not tall of stature, but tall of image.

Julie: 00:38:18

Yeah. The people who know me know I'm a small person, I'm five, two, I'm slight. And I once had somebody say to me, you are the biggest smallest person I've ever met.

Barbara: 00:38:34

Well, the image. Think about gymnast, right? Sticking the landing. They're huge.

Julie: 00:38:41

Yeah. Yeah. Taking up space is not about just the size of your body. It is the size of this space. You are allowing yourself to take up.

Barbara: 00:38:49

People always judge me as taller than I am. They will inflate me by four or five inches

Julie: 00:38:54

that's amazing. Barbara, you've shared so much today. How can people learn more about your practice?

Barbara: 00:39:03

The easiest way would be to check on my website, which is let me spell it. D Y N C O M m.com. So Don comm one word. I do trainings for individuals, corporate executives, organizations, and I also do a lot of individual coaching. I do believe that having the confidence and also speaking up is harder for women. And I often tell my daughter that part of growing up as a woman is unloading some of these behaviors that have been put upon. Because we are smart. We are confident when we find that place where we can tap into our own knowledge and experience, and it does need some forethought and some shaping and some practice, but so does everything worthwhile and what we accomplished. And we are so skilled at relationships. We are so skilled at so many things that we need to value it, and we need to let other people know and then model it for them.

Julie: 00:40:03

Right. That's great. Thank you so much for being here. I know how in demand you are, and your time is so thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate.

Barbara: 00:40:12

Thank you very much, Julie. I've enjoyed it.

Julie: 00:40:19

There is a reason why there is a waiting list to get into Dr. Tannenbaum's class every semester. Because having the tools to communicate powerfully and persuasively. Has the power to not only change the way you feel about yourself. But to change your life in your career as well. I know, I know that public speaking is scary. I do it for a living and I still get scared. But like Dr. Tannenbaum said, I've also learned to rename that feeling. To call it what it is, excitement and energy. I get excited to share what I know with an audience, not just because I am an expert in my topic. But because I know that what I teach has the power to transform careers. Whatever your next audience is, even if it's like your next phone call. I say to yourself, how can I connect with this audience? I've been even just that small shift. We'll start to make you a better communicator. How often do we enter our conversations? Distracted. Not fully present and not giving the other person or our audience in this case, our full attention. More often than we probably want to admit. Don't you think? So if all speaking is public speaking, Start with the interactions you have today. Be present. Use your body as part of the conversation. Create your stance, use your hands and just stipulate. Make eye contact. And instead of filling the voids with ums and AHS, use that time to carefully choose your next word. Small silences are okay. And you don't need to fill every single void with nonverbal sounds. So I wasn't able to find any witty drink names. I Googled six ways to Sunday for a cocktail, with conversation or talk or something like that in the name. But couldn't find one that. Didn't have really obscure ingredients in it. So I went with a great beer for this time of year. Jack's Abbey copper legend Oktoberfest. I've had this beer more times than I can count. And the website says it's the perfect beer for creating legendary times with legendary people. And today. We had a legend on this program. So it's fitting. Okay. My friends that is it for this week. Until next time. Cheers.