For the past three weeks, I've been in a major offer and programs upgrade. As a seasoned communications professional, a self-proclaimed generous person, and someone who cares deeply at being effective, I've also been writing, a lot. As you know, longform is my favorite thing, not like ever, but it's in my top 10 alongside great chocolate, pizza and gelato, and while I love it, I'm trying something new, for a few days.
What was one VERY long essay, I have chopped it into what I hope will feel like delicious bite-sized chunks. Every piece addresses something about the work I do and who it's for. I mean to also address the unique difficulties that you or someone you know may be facing in the complicated era we have entered into since the arrival and broad adoption of AI. And yes, it will lead to the introduction of new programs, some free, some paid. More on that shortly. Happy reading/listening!
"I am bad at talking about myself."
(Inside voice: "IF they don't get me, they won't pick me." - for the job, the opportunity, the contract) That second sentence rarely gets spoken aloud, if ever.
There's a third one, continuing on that thread, even more rarely verbalised by the inner voice itself. Variations on "I'm not good enough", "I don't have what it takes", "It's too late for me."
Deep breath.
There's a fourth layer, further down. That deepest, primal level, exists in the confines of the mind, deep below the level of awareness.
"If I don't get this right, that's the end." Melodramatic, maybe, but not untrue. How effectively we communicate shapes how we are seen and understood by others. Our place in the world, surrounded as we are by, well, others, is defined in great part by this capacity.*
From friendships to love, work and career to family and beyond, our nervous system knows. If we fail to present well, we may get cast off, and yes, maybe even die. At least, that was true for our ancestors. Today, echoes of this social truth lives on in our tissues.
So when the words don't come, we stammer, forget our point, get clammy and numb, the alarm that fires off isn't about the words. It's about survival. "I am bad at talking about myself" is rarely the whole story. It's the acceptable story thought. The one we are okay airing out because we have control over how we communicate.
We can blame our communication for the lack of whatever it is we are lacking. But there is also hidden agency and possibility behind the words, should we choose to see it that way.
If we are bad, we could try to be better, even good. Or who knows, utterly brilliant?
As you understand, clients come to me naming the external issue - the communication, lack of confidence, the nerves, the opaque sense of not knowing the what or the how. And my job is to follow that all the way down, so that together we can examine, perhaps reframe or rewrite the layers of story.
Expect quantum shifts from the layers work.
Re-authoring the old hidden stories to support the external change. That's what I guide people to do.
What looks like a communication problem is almost always something else, and that something else is what my work is built to address.
*Communication isn't the only factor that determines our status, but it is one that is in most squarely in our control.