Building Authentic Communication: From Breathing to Body Language with Bailey Massey

“Bailey Massey: If you build your confidence, your communication and your voice sound more confident, and if you build the skill with your voice and your communication so that it sounds confident, you then believe it.”

[INTRODUCTION]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human, where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives.

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that’s with our families, co-workers, or even ourselves.

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens.

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni.

Alex Cullimore: And this is Alex Cullimore.

HOSTS: Let's dive in.

Authenticity means freedom.

Authenticity means going with your gut.

Authenticity is bringing a 100% of yourself. Not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.

Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.

It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.

Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.

It's transparency, relatability, no frills, no makeup, just being.

[EPISODE]

Alex Cullimore: Hello, Cristina.

Cristina Amigoni: Hello.

Alex Cullimore: I am getting just darker and darker here as the sun goes away.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah.

Alex Cullimore: I realize how dark my vision has gone.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It is looking very dark over there.

Alex Cullimore: We just had a great conversation with our guest, Bailey Massey.

Cristina Amigoni: We did. On communication, which is –

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, this is our hot button topic of the day.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. As she said, it's the universal solution. I believe, it's the universal problem.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. It's the solution because it is the problem. It is what is generally missing. It's surprisingly hard to understand for a species that relies on it entirely.

Cristina Amigoni: I know. I know. 

Alex Cullimore: One that we somehow don't teach well. We teach all kinds of skills. Then the one about actually communicating anything that might come out of those skills, we somehow miss most of the time.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. I know. Communicating communication skills, it's where we miss. Somehow that seems very intentional. There's very little self-reflection and self-awareness when it comes to that. We're very quick seeing something that we receive and saying like, “Oh, God. You send me an email with all sorts of details. I have no idea what that is, because it's the first time I hear it.” Then we turn around and do the same exact thing and have zero awareness that we're causing the same, or similar feelings to everybody else.

Alex Cullimore: Yes. Yes. It's amazing how much we assume people are listening to us and how little we might want to listen to other people.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes.

Alex Cullimore: This is a great conversation, loaded with all kinds of practical tips for how to think about communication both internally and externally and to think about how to improve it for yourself. Lots of super interesting stuff. I’m sure a lot of reason to generally reach out to Bailey and figure out what else she can do, because I think there's a lot of need for the communication help she provides.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Definitely a lot of it. Enjoy.

Alex Cullimore: Enjoy.

[INTERVIEW]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. We are joined by our guest today, Bailey Massey. Welcome to the podcast, Bailey.

Bailey Massey: Hello. Thank you so much for having me.

Cristina Amigoni: Nice to have you.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. We're excited to have you. To give the audience a little background, who are you? What brought you here?

Bailey Massey: Yes. My background is I am a speech and communication coach, but I did not start there. I began as a speech therapist and was lucky enough to start in Los Angeles, so I was thrown into film and television, voice, dialect, accent work that expanded into communication, public speaking, coaching. After I moved to Colorado from California, I decided to start a business that did not go anywhere, and so I expanded and was like, oh, I also do all this other communication work, and that took off. That is what I've been doing pretty consistently for the past three years.

Alex Cullimore: That's awesome. That's a fun journey, as well as an incredibly necessary skill currently. I believe, that is what our number one thing we've been fighting with Cristina. All the time, all we hear is like, “Oh, we need to improve our communication.” Then there's so little understanding of both how, but there is an understanding that it needs to happen.

Bailey Massey: Yeah. I always say that communication is the universal solution, and pretty much any problem, any scenario relationship could be improved at least a little bit with better communication.

Cristina Amigoni: I completely agree. It definitely is the universal solution and the universal problem.

Bailey Massey: Yes. Perfectly said. Yeah, that usually tends to be the big – you're not communicating well. We didn't communicate well. They didn't. Yeah, it gets the blame.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Bailey Massey: In terms of also, I'll mention quickly the need for communication, I have also found most recently that the need for the less familiar listening component of communication has also been ignored.

Cristina Amigoni: We have found the same, which is why we really focus on listening as a core skill to practice and learn and actually get into, pretty much as foundation to everything else. It's like, we need to collaborate. Okay, let's learn to listen. We need to lead. Okay, let's learn to listen. We need to live with other humans. Let's learn to listen.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I mean, our leadership program that is a full day on listening. One of the things we always think about in communication that seems to be forgotten and easy to forget, especially in the corporate world is that communication is both the giving and receiving of information. It is only done when somebody receives the information that is intended, not just when you've sent an email that you believe has given all the information.

Bailey Massey: Yes. That reminds me of the communication chain I always think about in the sense that there is the context, there's the relationship, but you are just the sender with your ideas and your understanding, and there's all these other places that it can completely blow up before you even get a response and have to go back and forth and a lot of room for error.

Cristina Amigoni: Indeed. As a communication coach, what's your definition of communication?

Bailey Massey: Oh, I don't know if I've ever defined it. That's a great question. I should define that. I should have started there. I would say, if I was going to define it, I would say, it would be listening to understand and then responding without a filter.

Cristina Amigoni: I like that definition. I love the fact that it does not include sending information out, sending an email, doing a speech, talking at, or talking really that much.

Bailey Massey: I mean, there's even the non-verbal communication that so many people don't even realize that they're doing, or forget to read on others that then also can create miscommunication and problems as well.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Once you get better at listening to those non-verbal things, communication becomes a little bit easier, because like, yeah, I know they said this, but they really weren't acting like they meant that, or they really seem like they wanted something else. It's a lot easier to suddenly be less surprised and ask for clarification.

Bailey Massey: My nerdy side always comes out when I share that my favorite statistic is that only 7% of the meaning in your message comes from the words. 38% is your tone. 55% is your body language. I love to throw that at people, because it tends, they're not familiar with that, they're like, “Oh, I don't have a lot of control over my words.” I was like, yeah, so talk less.

Cristina Amigoni: Talk less. Listen more.

Bailey Massey: That mostly helps.

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. What's your face? Know what your face is doing, because it's communicating.

Bailey Massey: Your face is loud.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Your face is loud. Yes. I think I have a magnet that we found a while back at five below, like the $5 dollar store that says something like, I need to teach my face to speak in inner voice.

Alex Cullimore: Use its indoor voice. Yeah.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Use its indoor voice. When we saw it, my son, back then, he was he was nine-years-old, he was like, “Oh, mommy, mommy, we need to get that for you.” I'm like, “Do we now?”

Alex Cullimore: Then her face said a lot. She said, “Oh.” And there were expressions for all the audio listeners.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It's the only magnet on our fridge right now.

Bailey Massey: Oh, that's funny. You got an important message. Oh, that's funny. I feel like, with the increase in Zoom and remote meetings since COVID and all of that, I see some people who are overly like, in every meeting trying to compensate, people are like, “Look how happy and engaged I am right now.” But then, there's also the people that completely forget that their face is on a camera in front of every – Oh, man. It isn’t always great.

Alex Cullimore: We were recently on a town hall meeting with a whole company and the Zoom has a little gallery of the five-set speakers, or whatever. Then you could sell the ones who weren't yet speaking and were just off and distracted, and looking at something else, are very angry about this. You have forgotten that everybody can see you, haven't you?

Bailey Massey: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I feel like, there's also the disconnect. Not only have they forgotten that everybody sees them, but they're also like, “Oh, I can do my emails. Oh, I'm just going to quickly do all these things, or online shop and stare at stuff.” I actually use that reality that everybody's distracted by a million things, even worse remotely, that people who are so anxious and scared to talk during their Zoom meetings and present, I'm like, people aren't even paying that much attention to you. It's okay.

Cristina Amigoni: They really aren't. If you start scanning the faces, you're like, “You're multitasking. You're multitasking. You're multitasking. You're multitasking. You're multitasking and see.” It's almost like, eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Whose name can I say now? It's going to be like, “What? That was me. Okay.”

Alex Cullimore: You can have a jump reaction. Yeah.

Bailey Massey: Yeah. Just expect them to be distracted.

Alex Cullimore: In your work as a communications professional, what are your either favorite gaps that you see, or the most common gaps that you see coming up to people find?

Bailey Massey: I think breathing, believe or not. We need it to survive, but we tend to do it wrong. I feel like the breathing impacts the anxiety and the nervousness significantly. You're restricting your brain from oxygen, so of course, it's going to panic. There's that. Then there's also the lack of control over the breath that either leads to a really shaky voice, and oh, my God. Or the, I need to say everything I possibly can all in one breath and then hurry, hurry and then no one understands.

Cristina Amigoni: Alex doesn't know anything about that.

Alex Cullimore: Yes, I have been told maybe once or twice in my life that I speak too fast.

Bailey Massey: Well, pro tip, you can speak as quickly as you like. But if you take more breaths and pause in between and create chunks, people can still understand it. You can be like, “Ha, ha, I will continue to speak quick.”

Cristina Amigoni: We have a solution.

Alex Cullimore: I just have to take really loud breaths, so people just know I'm still going.

Bailey Massey: You just keep going.

Alex Cullimore: And there's more to say.

Bailey Massey: With a big jump in the pool breath. Yeah, breathing is surprisingly hard for people.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, it's one of those things that we based our entire company off of like, hey, let's be more human. You would think it would be the most simple thing in the world and it's like, breathing. I mean, that is something that is truly crucial to the act of continuing to exist. Yet, we don't do it perfectly and we don't always do it well. We have so little conscious awareness of how it's affecting everything that we do are and be.

Bailey Massey: Yeah, it's pretty interesting. People are always like, “Why am I not sure how to breathe right now?” I'm like, okay, well, first of all, you're overthinking it. Also, you're probably trying to force it. Let it happen. Just create space. That tends to be the thing that I think scares people the most is violence and space. They feel like their pause that they take between an idea is four minutes long.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It's maybe four seconds.

Bailey Massey: If that.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Your brain into that panic state and then it starts to fill in all kinds of words and you're like, “Oh, my God. How long has this pause been going on?” It reminds me of stage work when you ask people to just stand still for a second, but they know that their hands can be seen. We just have this weird compulsion to be like, “What do I do with the hands? Is it weird if they're just sitting here? Is it weird if –” They float. They float all the way and you're like, “That's so much weirder. You have to put them down.”

Bailey Massey: Well, I'm not even controlling them right now. Oh, that's funny. Yeah.

Cristina Amigoni: Floating hands. That's interesting. Maybe it's floating hands and hold your breath at the same time and see what happens.

Bailey Massey: Do not recommend that.

Cristina Amigoni: That's what not to do when you're trying to communicate.

Alex Cullimore: Our next business is the antithesis of Toastmasters. We'll make you the worst possible public presence you can be.

Cristina Amigoni: I think we already are. We are focusing on listening, not speaking. There you go.

Bailey Massey: That's so funny. Yes. How to make a bad impression. Got you covered.

Alex Cullimore: Breathing makes sense. Some more control over that, helping you understand and regulate some of your internal environment. What else have you noticed people either trip over, or don't necessarily consider?

Bailey Massey: I would say, the next part would be structuring and having a framework to their message. I think that’s similar to just rushing and trying to get every single concept and idea out at once, that instead of that, that you could present a little bit at a time. Whether it's in a meeting, a conversation, a presentation, reading the room, figuring out where your audience is, what they get. Right now, you're both nodding your head, so I can tell you understand what I'm saying. If you were both like, “What?” I would know I need to detour and maybe differently. Taking your time, small little bits that you can structure and shift and be more flexible with.

Alex Cullimore: I didn’t realize this podcast was just going to call out on my behaviors. That's crazy.

Bailey Massey: Yes. Which actually makes me think, the nodding, that's my biggest complaint with – not that you. I'm happy that you're nodding.

Cristina Amigoni: We're going to stop nodding right now.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. We’re just going to hold dead still for the rest of this.

Cristina Amigoni: I got holding my neck. It’s like, don’t move, don’t move, don’t move. Then the breathing. You’re not moving.

Bailey Massey: That is the stereotypical number one thing. If you Google how to be an active listener, it's like, nod your head. I feel so many people are like, “Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.” But internally they're just like, “And then I'm going to say this and do this and do this.” It's like, you need it, but you need to do it authentically.

Alex Cullimore: That is the huge piece that I feel like sometimes we have to reiterate a few times. People are like, so we're supposed to listen to people. What if we don't care about what they're saying? Well, it's going to come across. People are going to notice.

Cristina Amigoni: Going to show.

Bailey Massey: Yeah. I mean, there's always something you can be curious about and learn about, so go that way.

Cristina Amigoni: Ask yourself, why do I not care about what they're saying? Is it a bad time? I have something else in my mind? Is it that I really don't want to listen to this one person? Is it the topic?

Bailey Massey: Yeah. On you if that's the case, and not them.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. We all take it personally when we find that person drifting off across the table. We're like, “Oh, it's me. It's me. It's what I'm doing.”

Bailey Massey: It feels loud. It feels like, “Eh, I don’t feel great.” Definitely, not only hits the ego.

 Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It's like the person with a face that doesn't move, or with the very, almost pissed off look in a presentation and then everything just becomes about them, because you can't unfocus from that facial expression. You're like, “Okay, now I have to impress them. I have to impress them. Let's see. I need to see a muscle move in that face.” You can forget about the rest of the room.

Bailey Massey: Yeah. Then it's so distracting, which probably is a huge impact to just the confidence as well, which is similar to the blank screen of a million empty boxes on Zoom that people is terrified of.

Alex Cullimore: That happens to me. Actually, recently on a video meeting, we were talking and somebody was holding so still, I thought their Wi-Fi had died. I thought it was just a totally frozen frame. Then suddenly, they blinked and I was like, “Oh, my God. They're still alive. Okay. All right.” I don't know what turned them to stone, but something did.

Bailey Massey: Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, that's human as well. Having that response and recognizing the reaction and whether they're purposely doing it or not. Without that, you're losing so many connection opportunities.

Alex Cullimore: On the other side of the coin, what are the top things that you find yourself coaching people through to improve their communication and then it actually provides results?

Bailey Massey: In addition to the breathing and sequencing their ideas, I think one part of that that builds on the delivery component, that would be the emphasis, and figuring out what the common thread and things is going to be, so that they can use their voice to say like, “It's a beautiful day,” as opposed to, “It's a beautiful day.” Sell it. Show it in a way, so that people can understand the better. I think working through how to pick, or I shouldn't say pick, because you can't pick it. You need to feel it and have it be genuine in terms of what's emphasizing. Otherwise, it's like you're just talking and then things are – Not at all.

Alex Cullimore: I pick every third syllable.

Bailey Massey: Exactly. Especially with technical people, they really want to have a formula of like, well, how many words? Which word? How do I know? Okay, so it's not how it works. I always focus on helping people be as present as possible in real life as much as they can to recognize, “This is how I feel about this thing. This is what happened and this is what I thought.” So that they're connecting the memory to an emotion. Because then, automatically when they go to tell this story, the emotion is there and it's not a forced emphasis. It feels more genuine.

Alex Cullimore: I like that a lot.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I like that.

 Bailey Massey: Yes. Then okay, so that was my number one. Then my next one I would say is perspective. A lot of times, changing the perspective helps, because we are so in our heads and we have so much, we'll call it baggage influencing our worldview and how we see our confidence and all of those things. Getting people to shift that is really helpful. A perfect example of that is the caveman talk. I always have people think about way back in caveman days. If there was a ton of eyes on you, you were probably about to be something's dinner. I can think you're going to –

Alex Cullimore: It’s a good start.

Bailey Massey: Same thing applies with like, “Oh, my gosh. I just don't want to disappoint them or mess up. That's so scary.” Same thing. If you were a caveman and you were kicked out of the tribe and all on your own, you're sabretooth tiger dinner. Having just this simple conversation with some people to be like, you're not going to die. Giving a presentation in a boardroom. You're totally fine. I have people that are like, “I did the caveman talk and I got through it.” It's just a mental shift that works for some people. There's the second.

Then, I would say my third would be preparation, because people don't know how to prepare in a way that works for themselves. Then, they get into a situation and panic, because they don't know what to do, and so that's scary when you're not in control. Being able to set themselves up for success, because they know usually what they want to say and are probably the expert on what they're being asked about.

Alex Cullimore: It's a running through line there of the need to be genuine, both preparedness and what works for you. If you're going to be more emotive, make sure that it feels genuine. Not just, I'm going to emote exactly 37% of the time and make sure that's exactly where my emotion comes out.

Bailey Massey: Full shot collar every time you got to do it.

Cristina Amigoni: Now, we go back to mono tone. The horizon –

Alex Cullimore: Anyway, one thing I thought was very interesting about this article –

Bailey Massey: Oh, man.

Alex Cullimore: What are some good ways to help people get in touch with some of that genuine side then and really know what does it mean to prepare for themselves, for instance?

Bailey Massey: I think the best thing is to talk out loud. Get comfortable with how you sound, with what your habits are, and record yourself, hear yourself, because most people tend to hate listening to themselves. That's fine, but that's your voice. That's who you are. There's some things you can change. If there's something you want to change, you can probably shift it. More than anything, just finding the confidence and the fact that you are genuine in your way and you have your own voice, so use it and practice it. That only comes with comfort. The first time is always scary. The more and more and more you practice and hear yourself, the easier it's going to be to do that moving forward.

Alex Cullimore: That makes sense. Yeah, I like that. That's one that we struggled with. When we started our podcast, we did all of the editing ourselves and we had to suddenly listen to ourselves. The amount of filler words was horrifying. That was a good corrective moment of, oh, okay, I'm going to need to be a lot more conscious about how this is coming across.

Bailey Massey: Yes. Oh, for sure. It's crazy the things we don't realize that we do, or say, or whatever our habits are, until somebody points them out, or we see them. Then sometimes that's worse, because we're our worst critics, usually.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, definitely. We've talked about the speaking communication. What other communication gaps do you see? You talk about the chain of communications, like all the things that could go wrong. What are some of the biggest gaps, especially in the world that we're in, which there's a lot of electronic communication, non-face, voice, breathing communication, whatever that is, whether it's text messages, or emails or presentations that just get sent out, what do you see as the most needing help?

Bailey Massey: I think, I would say, putting, or trying to figure out what the person means and trying to find meaning in it, that is more negative than it needs to be. For example, I was just speaking with someone this morning and she was talking about how she was supposed to present in a meeting. Her section was skipped over. She was like, “Oh, my God. They skipped me on purpose.” She had this whole story in her head. Then she found out after the fact that the guy's computer was frozen and he couldn't see that she had messaged to be like, “Hey, you skipped my part.” It was very much just an accident. But she had gone through this whole thing that was about her not being good enough and them judging her and not wanting her to talk for who knows how many reasons. I think that overthinking and trying to over-interpret. He said, “Hey, do you know what that means? What does that mean when he said, hey?” Anything.

Cristina Amigoni: That's better than us saying anything at all.

Bailey Massey: True.

Alex Cullimore: Maybe. Maybe.

Cristina Amigoni: Maybe.

Bailey Massey: You just said maybe. What does that mean? Should I go into that? That could mean this. That could mean that, right? So many people when they're not confident, dig into that. I think that we forget that we can also ask questions to clarify, but we could also go in with a more positive like, look for the best and hope that's what the situation is. Then if you need to adjust it, you can communicate that later, too.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. That is one that definitely feels pertinent. I've experienced it personally. Definitely, we've watched it happen is the not assuming positive intents, not assuming that this is meant well. I used to have a friend who we'd experienced something together and that I'd later hear him tell a story about it. I'd be like, “That is not what happened at all. I don't know what your interpretation is. That was wildly different than what I thought it happened.” There's also that idea of permanency, I think, where I've said something and I have no chance to correct it, and so I better say it right the first time. Or they've said something, I don't want to clarify it. I should probably know the details. If I don't know the details, I'll go try and find the context on my own. Then that leads to all kinds of things. You spread that out over a larger organization and now you've got all the different interpretations moving at the same time with no clarity and that can really spin out of control quickly. Or at least spin into a lot of different interpretations.

Bailey Massey: Yeah. Everybody's scared to make the mistake, to not have all the answers, to try to force something when you're not expected to know everything. That's impossible. If you don't have all the information of what you should know, have a plan to figure it out and communicate that plan.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It's fascinating, the negative assumptions that we make. Learning to recognize those. Even, you noticed that somebody becomes very hurt when they're about to get, and they're nervous about communicating something. The assumption of that I've had in the past, it's just like, “Oh, my God. They're pissed off. But I don't know why they're pissed off, because it doesn't make any sense. They weren't five minutes ago, or yesterday, or an hour ago. What did I do?”

Then having to stop that and be like, “Okay. If I don't know what's going on, maybe it's not that they're upset. Maybe they're nervous about what they're about to say.” Ask with something that's coming up. That's the facial expression. That's the non-verbal communication that comes through is that.

Bailey Massey: Oh, for sure. They probably have no idea they're even doing it.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. They're letting that goal of that story and just be like, I can still show up curiously, because I don't actually know what's going on.

Bailey Massey: Yeah. Wow.

Alex Cullimore: That's another funny portion you mentioned is those times where you are doing things that other people recognize, but that you might not even know that you do. That's another reason I like that recording yourself idea, because there are definitely times where like, either you think you're being really covered with your expressions and more secretive with it, but it's all over your face, or you don't realize that something's all over your face that you don't even – and you don't think you're intending to go out there.

Bailey Massey: Yes. Bringing it back to your, what do I do with my hands when I have to record their whole –

Cristina Amigoni: You float.

Bailey Massey: You're up there. When they see like, “Why am I standing like that? What was I doing?” All these weird things that you then see, but then they can fix it. It does help. Then, I usually will have people find their comfortable spot and force them to stand in line at Starbucks off of their phone, so that they have to get comfortable. Because they think we also are used to like, “Well, if I'm bored, I'm just going to pick up my phone and I'll do this.” We hide ourselves. The openness. Be there, be present, be vulnerable, help people get comfortable with that.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. There’s a comedian I saw recently talking about how nobody ever uses the word mindfulness in the 80s, because we didn't have phones. At all points, you would wait for a bus. That was a mindful moment. What are you going to do? You're just going to wait. You’re there with your thoughts.

Bailey Massey: That is so true.

Alex Cullimore: Now, we just pull out our phones and look at and check out our emails and do this, whatever else, and it's an immediate reaction. We are losing all of that chance just to be and to get comfortable with being and not having to have something motivating, or stimulating us at all times.

Bailey Massey: Yes. We were just on vacation and staying in a hotel. My son got to watch old school TV that had commercials. Every time a commercial would happen, he'd be like, “Can we skip this?” I was like, “No. No, you cannot.”

Cristina Amigoni: You can’t.

Alex Cullimore: It's horrible. Welcome to it.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. We only have two channels and they're in black and white, and one of them is going to go off at some point and be all fuzzy.

Bailey Massey: You have to get off the couch to change it.

Cristina Amigoni: Then we're going to have to move the antenna and stay still like this, in this completely uncomfortable position as soon as we find the right spot for the antenna.

Bailey Massey: Oh, man.

Alex Cullimore: If you missed something, wait the two weeks to seven months before that comes back on TV.

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. You're not going to know when it is.

Bailey Massey: You just let it go.

Cristina Amigoni: You just let it go. Yeah. It's fascinating. I've actually recently, and I forget a lot, but I've tried to practice not picking up my phone whenever I'm waiting. Whether it's at the airport and I'm at the gate waiting, it's like, what if I do what I used to do pre-phone, which is just people watch, look around, people watch. Or the dentist, or whenever – there's a waiting. It’s like, I'm just going to sit here.

Bailey Massey: That's smart.

Alex Cullimore: Of course, nowadays, all these people watching is just watching people on their phones.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes.

Bailey Massey: That is true.

Cristina Amigoni: Then, somehow inviting people to talk to you that you don't necessarily want to talk to, because you're actually looking up.

Bailey Massey: Right. Be like, killing connection? What is this?

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. That's where you're like, “No, no. I actually don't want to communicate. I'm just in a mindful moment.”

Bailey Massey: I'm being mindful. Leave me alone.

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. This is not an invitation to talk to me.

Alex Cullimore: I'm connecting to the moment. Not you. Come on.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes.

Bailey Massey: Oh, man. Yeah. I do enjoy the walk in security and the cues at the airport, because I feel I have zero responsibility in that moment. I've already got my ID. I've got my stuff. I'm ready. I'm like, I really, truly enjoy that, strangely, because there's nothing.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Just sit and wait.

Alex Cullimore: Literally nothing you can do. You just wait till the front of the line.

Bailey Massey: Then you stand and try to get your shoes off.

Cristina Amigoni: You try to figure out what to do with your hands, because you're just standing there.

Bailey Massey: Always.

Cristina Amigoni: Always.

Alex Cullimore: The TSA always pulls me over. I don't know. I just go floating through like this and everybody's reeling.

Bailey Massey: Oh, man. Now that I'm thinking about traveling, I think about the people in TSA and they're saying the same things all the time, and I remember I just traveled, so I was like, “Man, they sound angry.” I'm like, of course they do. They've had to say the same thing. I can understand why they also don't have the greatest reputation, because –

Cristina Amigoni: They sound angry all the time.

Bailey Massey: - closure that people get to them. They could be the most lovely people.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Yeah. Most flights are what? In the middle of the afternoon. But they have to be a TSA all the time, so they have to be a TSA from 8 in the morning. They've already done this for five hours, reminding everybody to take out water bottles and please, for the love God, take your shoes off, whatever it is. Just going to sound upset after that.

Cristina Amigoni: And use the bins. There are bins. You're not supposed to not use the bins.

Bailey Massey: Although in fairness, I feel like they change the rules every time.

Cristina Amigoni: Well, yeah. Every airport is different. They have the same structure, like physical structure, but every airport is different.

Bailey Massey: Yeah. It drives me nuts.

Cristina Amigoni: Which is fascinating, given that it's the same organization.

Alex Cullimore: With the same expectation that everybody should know it when they walk up. I don't live in St. Louis. I don't know what you got from me.

Bailey Massey: First letter.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Now it's definitely more of a memory of like, okay, this is Dallas. Remember Dallas rules are different from number rules, which are different from symbolist rules, which are very different from New York rules. Yeah.

Alex Cullimore: Like a different style of pizza in every place. Bailey, as a coach, what do you end up having to remind yourself of? What do you find yourself tripping over the most?

Bailey Massey: Getting out of my own head, because we just talked about not putting the ideas of somebody else onto a written thing, or I definitely, maybe this is my perfectionist self, or my overly self-critical part of me, where I will over analyze things a little bit too much, instead of just letting them go. I mean, they were where they were and moving on. I think part of that is wonderful and that I'm able to continue to find ways to make myself better and do things differently in a better way. Also, it doesn't feel good to be like, “What did I do wrong?” I'm trying to be more positively critical and moving forward and take the advice that I give to people.

Alex Cullimore: Those are good intentions.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah.

 Alex Cullimore: I once heard, feed forward, instead of feedback, just to try and redirect to the idea of this isn't about retrospective, it's about what am I going to do moving on? Well, how is this going to help me not – It's not that I didn't make a mistake or whatever. It's just, what does that mean? I could either dedicate my entire life to time travel and see if I could undo that, or I could live in the linear time that we are almost certainly going to live in.

Cristina Amigoni: That's not linear, but that's what we believe it is.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, whatever. Our experience of linear time.

Bailey Massey: Absolutely. Oh, I'm going to borrow that from you and use that. That's going to be super helpful.

Alex Cullimore: I borrowed that from somebody else. Shout out to whoever came up with that one.

Bailey Massey: That guy. Yeah, because I definitely always tell people, especially when confidence is a thing is to, don't track the things that you did poorly, but track what went well? What did you do great? Then build an ad and do that more. That's one of the things I try to tell myself, as opposed to being like, “Oh, but you did this,” and getting down on that. Yeah, I'm going to use that.

Cristina Amigoni: Speaking of confidence, we touched on it a little bit at the beginning, but how much do you see the improvements needed in communications are due to confidence improvement?

Bailey Massey: I think it is completely connected in a very reciprocal way, in that if you build your confidence, your communication and your voice sound more confident. If you build the skill with your voice and your communication so that it sounds confident, you then believe it and become confident. I think it really builds upon itself.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, I think that makes sense. We were just talking to somebody else on the podcast. He was talking about how to make change, we have to do things that our brain believes in. I think we can't just say like, “I want to earn more money and now I'm going to imagine myself to be a millionaire.” Your brain is like, “That's not what's happening right now. That's not this at all.” But if you give yourself small steps, or you give yourself those, the reinforcements, then your brain can start to move and actually change its behavior and understand things in a different lens, instead of being just trying to jump to the finish line of, here's what I want to be. I want to be the most confident person ever. Like, okay. Is that going to happen right away? Or are you going to build the habits and then you'll feel more confident and then that confidence will beget more habits.

Bailey Massey: Yeah, absolutely. I think that also helps with the control and the awareness of what you can and can't control, so that you can feel confident knowing that you have something that you can change and shift in some way, because you've done it slightly and you can keep doing it a little bit more. That makes sense.

Alex Cullimore: That's the other really good one. Yeah. If you can change something, you can change lots of things. Just the ability to have changed something can sometimes get you unstuck, even if you don't know how to change the next thing that you want to look at.

Bailey Massey: Yeah. I feel like I saw a quote recently that said something along the lines of, if you're feeling overwhelmed about changing, it just means your first step is too big, and to bring it back with it. I was like, “Oh, that makes total sense.” Or the task is too hard, or something along those lines. I think that is very true and much more manageable for everybody, regardless of whatever the thing they're working on is.

Cristina Amigoni: We may have to steal that one, because that makes a lot of sense with the paralysis of change that we are surrounded by and then we work with our clients, especially on – it's like, how do we get to living on Mars? I'm like, how about something a little bit smaller?

Bailey Massey: We are ahead.

Cristina Amigoni: Let's open the door and leave our house first.

Bailey Massey: Example times. Yeah, really breaking it down. I think that's also something that I've noticed from people who are at a higher level and don't see the nitty-gritty little everyday tasks that are required to make this run is that high level thinking is wonderful, except if it's not considering all the little things that happen below it, then there's tons of miscommunication and jumped steps that then collapse everything.

Alex Cullimore: That's definitely one we see in the corporate world a lot is that, “Hey, this is our vision. Let's get to this goal.” Then everybody's like, “Okay, but here's where we are today and you're talking about being on top of the mountain. How are we supposed to just leap up to that? We're not Superman. It's not going to happen.”

Bailey Massey: Yeah. I feel like I use the bake a cake analogy often with people, where it's like, just because you mix it all together and put it in the oven for one minute doesn't mean you're going to have the cake. You need to give it the time. Then you might need to frost it. There's other steps. You have to take the time.

Cristina Amigoni: You have to mix it with the right order of ingredients and the right ingredients. Otherwise, you can put it in the oven and take it out after a minute, it's not a cake.

Alex Cullimore: Step one, bake a perfect cake. Done.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Done.

Alex Cullimore: You mentioned also listening to understand. Getting on the receiving end of communication, what do you end up helping people with most to help digest what's coming towards them?

Bailey Massey: Walking through a lot of removing expectations, because that tends to get in the way and change what they're trying to understand, instead of just listening to understand. Then from there, working on being comfortable, being vulnerable and not knowing things, or not understanding and digging a little bit deeper. Asking those questions. Then, I think the best strategy I've seen for people is the validation component, where it doesn't require you to agree with somebody. But if you can validate them positive or negative, whatever it is, you're at least present with what they're saying, what their issue is, and then you can build and adjust as necessary from there.

Alex Cullimore: That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Our listening framework is LAVA, where you listen, deeply listen, and then acknowledge, validate, ask an open-ended question. How do you get yourself into the habit of being able to reflect, understand, digest, not endorse, just understand, digest, be able to repeat what people have said, validate what they say, and then come back and get even more curious.

Bailey Massey: Yeah. Build from there. Really truly want to understand. Again, back to what Cristina said earlier, if you don't care, that's wrong. Why don't you care? Why don't you care? Because you probably should.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Or just address that. When it's somebody that says like, “Yeah, I have this friend that keeps coming to me and wanting me to listen, and I really don't care what she has to say.” I'm like, well, maybe you're not friends. Do you want to address that? Because that seems to be the block, not the fact that she wants to talk to you all the time and you don't care to listen.

Bailey Massey: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Don't want those friends. Oh, my gosh. I feel like, I also – a challenge that I give people who don't like going to the company dinners, or having to go to network events when they just hate those, because they feel really fake. I'm always like, okay, you don't have to be fake, but you do need to be strategic. I give them a challenge of, okay, you need to learn five things about different people while you were there. It doesn't matter what it is. It could be they're going on vacation. They just adopted a dog. They love a certain show. Their team won something. Doesn't matter. If you can just challenge yourself to have that knowledge, it's going to force you to lead with curiosity. That has been helpful for them, especially in a corporate setting, because then all of a sudden, they have this background knowledge and they can be like, “Oh, hey, Susan. Your son graduated. How was that?” Then that person is like, “Oh, my God,” and it feels so good and familiar and it helps. That I think is a really great strategy to challenge yourself, to just learn five things and let them stick. Then there's no ulterior motive other than learning them, and maybe it expands and maybe it doesn't, and that's okay.

Alex Cullimore: I like that a lot.

Cristina Amigoni: That's a great way. Yeah, I like that a lot. A plug for Apple. If they could track that on the iWatch on the Apple Watch, just like you track exercise and standing hours and just get a little ding, where you're like, you've reached five, move on to the next person. You've reached five, move on to the next person.

Bailey Massey: Or, it is new and you haven't asked anybody a question yet.

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly.

Bailey Massey: Go ask a question. Just like, go stand up.

Cristina Amigoni: The stand-up reminder is the ask a question reminder.

Bailey Massey: Yes. I think there's a million-dollar idea in that.

Cristina Amigoni: I am down here.

Alex Cullimore: I mean, AI could probably register that at this point, so it'll just count it for you. It'll just listen to your speech patterns.

Bailey Massey: What can’t I do? Actually, that makes me think about the idea of how – with AI being able to do pretty much anything these days, that the skill that is necessary to stand out and to move forward and connect is the interpersonal side. I'm seeing a lot of people, especially in the tech field right now, really wanting to work on their interpersonal skills, because they're recognizing that just what they know, the data, all of that, yeah, I do that now. They're really trying to have a presence.

Alex Cullimore: Actually, just had a conversation with the developer and he's been working for a long time in the field and he's using AI to do some things in code. He was like, “What I realized is I'm asking AI all the questions that I probably should have just been asking the developers this whole time.”

Bailey Massey: Hey, communication.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Back to communication, the universal solution and problem.

Bailey Massey: Yeah. Recently, I've also had to help some people with either resumes, or emails that they're putting together. I'll look at them and I'll be like, “You did this on ChatGPT, didn't you?” They're like, “How did you know?” I'm like, “Oh, man. It's really obvious.”

Cristina Amigoni: It doesn't sound human.

Bailey Massey: Use it for ideas, but be genuine again with it and put yourself into that.

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. They did some study where they had people generate essays just based on knowledge, or based on ChatGPT. By the end of the study, they were just copying and pasting from ChatGPT. They had English teachers read the essays from that and they were like, “It's grammatically perfect, but it is entirely soulless. There is no feeling.” That's why you could immediately tell every time something's AI generated, you're like, “Okay, yeah. First, this is way too perfect a sudden structure and it has no tone to it at all. It feels it's just a regurgitation of words.”

Bailey Massey: Yeah. It's wonderful, but I think people are becoming a little bit too reliant on it, because then if they don't have it, then all of a sudden, they crumble and we can't be doing that.

Cristina Amigoni: That's when all the eyes are on you and maybe you should think you're tonight's dinner.

Bailey Massey: Right. The preparation comes in. It all circles back.

Cristina Amigoni: And you stop breathing and your hands are floating.

Alex Cullimore: The sabretooth AI gets you.

Bailey Massey: Oh, my gosh. Great.

Cristina Amigoni: Last couple of questions for you. First of all, what's your definition of authenticity?

Bailey Massey: My definition would be being vulnerable to yourself and to who you're talking to. Because if you're being fake and filtering and trying to hide it, you can't possibly be authentic. I think being vulnerable is the true step one. We're breaking down steps to being authentic.

Alex Cullimore: That one feels like one of those huge first steps.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Well, the interesting part is that people actually believe me included that we can fake. Well, we really can't. People pretty much read through that, so there's still the gap of I don't know who you really are, but definitely know this is not who you really are.

Bailey Massey: Yeah. Well, and there's a reason why actors get paid as much as they do, because they are the strange people who are able to make it convincing with a lot of editing, of course, but they're able to do it. Yeah, it comes across immediately.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Indeed. Then lastly, where can people find you?

Bailey Massey: Yes. I have my website, which is baileymasseyglobal.com. I'm also on all the socials, like Instagram, Blue Sky, LinkedIn, all those things. Then I also have a page on Fourth Wall, where there's tons of resources in case there's specific areas that people want something to solve a small little step, a small little issue they're working on, or multiple.

Cristina Amigoni: We'll definitely have those in the notes.

Alex Cullimore: Thank you so much for joining, Bailey. Thank you for all the tips. These are all very, very fascinating pieces. I'm sure there's a lot more we can continue to discuss on communication.

Bailey Massey: Well, thank you for having me. It’s so fun.

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Thank you.

Alex Cullimore: Thanks, everyone, for listening.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

Alex Cullimore: Thanks so much for listening to Uncover the Human. We are Siamo. That is the company that sponsors and created this podcast. If you'd like to reach out to us further, reach out with any questions, or to be on the podcast, please reach out to podcast@wearesiamo.com. Or you can find us on Instagram. Our handle is @wearesiamo, S-I-A-M-O. Or you can go to wearesiamo.com and check us out there. Or I suppose, Cristina, you and I have LinkedIn as well. People could find us anywhere.

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, we do have LinkedIn. Yes. Yeah. We'd like to thank Abbay Robinson for producing our podcast and making sure that they actually reach all of you, and Rachel Sherwood for the wonderful score.

Alex Cullimore: Thank you guys so much for listening. Tune in next time.

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you.

[END]