- Who here runs out of things to say from time-to-time in conversation? Could be with a stranger, could be with even a
friend or a family member. No? Okay. Should be most people by the way. (laughs) Years of coaching, it's
usually most people. You might be better at it than most, but even some they're like, "I'm sitting with my mother and suddenly there's an awkward pause." Now you might have your go-tos, which are the weather's
pretty crazy, right? (audience laughing) So some rain last night, the storm. It's realizing that yes,
content is important. Even in an event like
this, content's important. If I were to just be like,
blah, blah, blah, blah, you'd leave very fast. (audience giggling) But content isn't all. Vibe is also important. In a way, vibe is even more important. So I'll introduce this topic which I call the four
layers of communication. If you think of in any interaction there's always four layers going on. At a surface there's what you say. That's layer number one. And that's what everyone's
so obsessed with. What's the perfect thing to
say during a job interview? What's the perfect thing to
say when meeting a stranger? What can I say? But although it might be
the most popular layer, it's the least important. Layer number two is how you say it. So there's what you
say and how you say it. There's what you say and how you say it. There's what you say and
there's how you say it. (audience giggling) There's what you say and
(giggles) there's how you say it. Yeah, there's how you
say it and what you say. Same words said very differently. You can also notice in this
second layer how you say it. One, the pitch. This is a very simplified
model, but quite important. Audits, when you're talking is your voice going up at
the end or down at the end? Up is never good. Why? 'Cause it's not your
natural way of speaking. Up is the people-pleaser, try-hard, fake front way of speaking. Oh, really? Oh, you came to the event? Oh, there's how you say
it and how you say it? What? The weather? The storm? Goes up. It's fake. Would you ever talk like that when you're just feeling
completely at ease with friends or family? Oh, really? Oh, you have a pen? (gasps) What?
(audience giggling) That's so crazy. Literally the voice of fakeness. (audience giggling) How do you talk when you're with your your
closest friends and family? Your voice goes down at the end. Now, not down in a negative
way like, "Hey dad. Yeah." (audience giggling)
No. Or, "Hey man," or, "Hey, how's
it going? Oh, taking notes?" No.
(audience giggling) But the way you naturally
talk even with a smile, you're like, "Hey, how's
it going? Oh, cool. Hey, I'm Julian." It's going down. So that's one model. But instead of being so
concerned with what you say I'd be much more concerned
with how you say it. Now there's a third layer. That's your intention behind it. What you say, how you say
it, your intention behind it. So let's take this idea. This is the land of frames by the way. Let's take the idea of offering
value versus taking value. Everyone hear of this? Offer value, don't take. Well, if I were to ask you is asking someone a question
offering value or taking value? - Both.
- Depends. - Who says taking value? Raise your hand. Really? - Asking a question?
- It depends. - Asking a question. Say you were to say hi to a stranger and I'm like, "Hey, go
and ask them a question." Is that offering value or
is it taking from them? - Taking.
- Who says taking? (audience indistinctly speaking) Now, we always think if you're looking at it through the first layer
or even the second layer, it could be taking. But what it really comes down
to is the frame underneath it. Your intention behind it. So I can go up to
someone and say I'm lost. I'm like, "Excuse me, where's the church? Where's the church? Hey,
where's the church?" I could even say, "Excuse
me, where's the church?" But if you sense I really need it, like give me the answer, it's taking. But I can also ask the same
question offering value. "Hey, excuse me, where's the church?" Good vibes. Where's the church? What time is it? What's your name? Do you know Julian? It's offering in the intention. That's the land of frames. The same as I am good enough. Hey, two plus two equals four. Hey, two plus two equals four. I'm good enough. Intention. Even here speaking it's like
one is, "Do you like me?" That could be a frame and then it impacts what I say and how I say it. The other one is, "You love me." (audience laughing) And then there's what
I say and how I say it. Now, what you realize with these layers is that people are so
obsessed with the surface ones 'cause it's easy to see, easy to work on, but the deeper you go,
the more powerful it is. Your intention behind
it is much more powerful than how you say it, which is much more
powerful than what you say. And then the fourth layer is your overall level of self-esteem. How confident are you with yourself? How grounded are you in yourself? You could also think in spiritual terms. Are you low vibration, high vibration? The deeper you go in layers,
the harder it is to fake. You can't fake your level of self-esteem. We call these honest signals. You can easily fake what you say, harder to fake how you say it, harder to fake your intention behind it, harder to fake who you are. Get it? Now, understanding these
layers what does it mean? Knowing that the deeper, right? Layer number four is more
important than three, two, one. It means that if you keep
running out of things to say you're just too focused
on layer number one. Am I saying things perfectly? Is the content right? Versus, well let's be
okay with even messing up how I say what I say, the content itself. Sorry, not how I say. Let's mess up what I'm saying so that I'm at least on
top of how I'm saying it. Now, notice even there I made
a mistake in the content, but in terms of how I
explained that mistake there was no shift in that. There was also no shift
in the underlying frame and no shift in me saying, "Oh, my confidence is dropping. Oh, no. Did you notice the mistake
I made in the content?" (audience giggling) So, step one is focus
on the deeper layers. Surface layer, what you say, does not matter as much
as you think it does. Even in terms of humans
we are pre-verbal beings. When you're born, you
don't know how to speak, you don't have a vocabulary. How do you learn through feeling? Emotional intelligence. Even rewind time back in
pre-historic dinosaur times, did they have a language? No. It's like, ha-ha, he-he, ha-ha-ha. And you can communicate
just through sounds. We're still very much in touch with that. And once more, that is where
the honest communication, the stuff that's hard to fake almost impossible to fake is at. Just think too, if you were
to hire someone in your life. Like say there was a task that
you had to hire someone for where if they messed it up, your life would just go down the drain. Would you hire someone
just based on a resume, a written resume? Yes? No? - [Audience] No. - Even if it's perfect? No. You'd wanna meet the person. So what does that mean? The content isn't enough. When you meet the person are you just gonna focus
on what they're saying? Hey, I'm a great person.
I'm very responsible. Are you just gonna take
the words at face value? No. You're gonna look at, well,
how are they saying it? What's the vibe? Are there any red flags in
terms of pre-verbal things, stuff you can't even put into words. It's just something you feel, right? That's much more important. So, take off the importance and the less importance you
place on layer number one, the less you're gonna
overthink and get stifled and the less you're gonna
run out of things to say. Get it? Now, on a deeper level too it also means lowering the
bar for what you have to say. And this is a bit counterintuitive. You might think that to present yourself in the most confident way, everything you say must be perfect. But if you actually accomplish that it wouldn't be confident,
it would be try-hard. Get it? If I could just be cool and just be perfectly do all
the things that cool people do, then I'd be cool. No, you'd be try-hard. 'Cause cool people don't think like that. Cool people aren't
worried about being cool. Confident people aren't
worried about being confident. They're actually so confident that they feel comfortable
saying even dumb things. They get away with it. They break the rules of
cool, which makes them cool. So in a conversation if everything
you're saying is perfect, what's the other person gonna think? This is a little fake and try-hard. This isn't natural. Wow, this person must really
care about this conversation for bringing just the
perfect lines to the surface as opposed to someone who's like, "Hey, I'm Julian and I like salad." What? Did you say, "I like salad"? What? And the fact that I don't
care and that I, again, lower the bar communicates actually value. Wow, he must be so
comfortable with himself. He can say that. And then really let this one land with this lowering of the bar. What it means is that at any point in time you have a million things you could say. None of you are completely enlightened. None of you are the Dalai Lama where it's like I ran
out of things to say. I've been alive so many years and there's just nothing in here. No, there's always a
little voice yapping about. You all have it. But what we do is with
everything that pops up we're like, "Hmm, is it
good enough? Nah, nah." And every now and then one
thing just passes the surface. Lower the bar and just let it flow. The higher the bar, the more of a barrier there
also is between you and others, less connection. So lower it. Next time you run out of things to say just (blows raspberry)
say what's on your mind. Even if it is, "Hey, I
ran out of things to say." What's so bad about saying that? Even if you're with a family member. At lunch with my parents,
I don't know what to say. "Mom, dad, I ran out of things to say." So what? It's actually funny in a way too. You could actually laugh at it, which takes the pressure off of it. What if you were to just
embrace and just own whatever's going through your
mind, whatever you're feeling? Like say, I came up
here and for some reason I was just really anxious
and I was just like, "Hey everyone, I'm just
very anxious right now." And say I actually started
breaking down in tears. It'd be pretty funny. Some of you might be like, "Oh no," but it'd make for some crazy story. You're like, "I went to this event and
this speaker just cried the whole time in front." (audience laughing) Right? Now, if that were to happen on my end that means there's more inner
work to be done at home. But in the moment, I mean,
what else can you do? But just kind of embrace and laugh at the craziness of it all. And that too, stop trying to be so cool and embarrass yourself more. For real. One thing I firmly believe is that not enough people
embarrass themselves. If you don't embarrass yourself, you're not taking big enough risks. You're not playing to win enough. You're playing too safe and you're too much of a people pleaser. Get embarrassed. If you don't have interesting
stories in your life, same thing. Get embarrassed more. Those make for crazy good stories. No one wants someone where every
interesting story they have is where they succeeded. Hey, do you wanna know
how I was cool yesterday? You could be like, "Okay." Do you wanna know how I was
cool the day before that and the day before that and
how every day I'm so cool? Okay. Hey, do you wanna know this
crazy embarrassing thing that happened the other day? Oh yeah, give me that.
(audience giggling) It resonates, okay? So once more, lower the bar. Put it out there, see what happens. You'll be surprised. And also notice what
gets triggered within you in terms of resistance to doing this. Let go of that. And it will lead to a much more
just pleasant way of being. By no bar, no filter, it will attract people you're
truly meant to connect with. And ultimately, that's how
you also find your tribe as we talked about. If you keep putting out a fake front, how do you expect to
attract authentic people you resonate with? You won't. You'll only attract people
who resonate with that front. And one last thing, this also means if you
decide to start being real and authentic right now, it's gonna scare away
some people in your life. They're not gonna be cool about it. They're gonna be like,
"Wait, what? What is this?" And what does that mean? It just means that they
only resonated with you when you were fake. This is also called the destruction
phase of transformation. It's not just peachy. It's not like, "Hey, let's be authentic. Oh, it's so smooth." No, it's be authentic. Some people might be like, "What is this?" They'll judge, they'll get mad. And you might even lose
people in your life, even close friends, maybe
even in a relationship. That can happen. And that's where you have to also decide, "Well, how important am I to myself? How important is my own wellbeing?" And although it might suck at the surface and it's not black and white, it doesn't mean I'm gonna
cut them off completely. But yeah, it might change. The dynamics might change, the
relationships might change. In the end, nothing out there, even a relationship is worth
compromising my own wellbeing and the relationship I have with myself. And I've talked about this
in another event recently. There's this old but famous movie called "The Dead Poet Society". If you haven't seen it, watch it. It's a very sad and in
a way troubling movie with Robin Williams. And he's this unconventional
teacher at this school. And I won't spoil it, but
there is one of his students who wants to do theater. That's what just inspires
him in an authentic way. But his parents, his father
especially, isn't about that. And he keeps going back and
forth and I wanna do it, but my dad, but my dad. And there's this key moment
where Robin Williams takes him and says, "Hey, when are you
gonna stop playing the role of the good son, of the
dutiful son, just living again? You're playing this role of
the good son for your father and you're just gonna be you." And it really speaks to
you 'cause you're like, "Well, where am I playing this role?" Maybe you're playing. Are you friends? - No.
- No. Okay. - Strangers.
- Strangers? - Yeah. - Did you talk a bit before? - Yeah.
- Yeah. - Were you playing a role? - No.
- No. - No, really?
- We're both nervous. - We were talking about
our feelings right now. - Okay, well we might dive into this, but. (audience laughing) But for everyone audit, are you being you or
are you playing a role? Are you playing the good
son, the good daughter, the good child role,
the good sibling role, the good parent role,
the good friend role? Or are you being you? Drop the roles. You're not meant once more
to act your way through life. You're meant to live
your way through life. Okay?
