Mindful Communication and Active Listening + EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENTS!

Happy Holidays everyone, whatever holidays you celebrate. I just wanted to say that thank you for being here and I wish you all of the best, whether it's health, wealth, happiness, love whatever you're manifesting in 2024. I truly hope that it comes true, and thank you for being part of this journey. So today's episode is a brief one. I wanted to share my key takeaway from the community discussion that I was part of tonight, and I wanted to end it briefly with a new announcement. Every Wednesday night, I'm part of this discussion forum where we talk about growth, mindset and wisdom, and tonight the topic was on the importance of communication, so I wanted to share some of the key takeaways.

The main thing is we live in a very digitally heavy, information-heavy age, so there's information thrown at us from left and right and top and bottom, diagonally, whatever on social media and emails and newsletters. There is so much, so many notifications, so much information just thrown at us that sometimes it's hard for us to filter what's helpful, for us to know what to filter out, and there are a lot of communication coaches, public speaking coaches, storytelling coaches out there who preach their style you have to talk this way, you have to present yourself a certain way, etc. But my mentor tonight added a fresh new perspective. In my mind, there is no one right or wrong way to communicate. If we're being truly mindful of what we're seeing, what message we're trying to convey and how we're doing that, we have to adapt, we have to be flexible, of who's listening, who the audience is. That was the key takeaway for me today. There is no right or wrong way. So one thing about my mentor whenever he speaks to different individuals, I was able to notice the change in his tonality, his pace, the kind of jokes that he throws out. So it's not always the same. His communication style isn't always copied and pasted towards every individual. It's catered towards his listeners. So if his audience is a group of young adult students who are lost in their career path, he knows what they will find inspiring and funny and etc. Compared to a group of, let's say, retired people who are just now looking to figure out what to do with their lives.

So truly impactful and effective communication is adaptability, is flexibility based on who our audience is. And funny, because that applies to social media and online as well. We have to know who we're speaking with. If you're messaging someone on LinkedIn or you're creating content for LinkedIn, you're more likely to create something professional and articulate, and maybe you are dressed nicely right. Compared to if you're posting something on Instagram, you're more casual, the content is more visual and there's a whole lot more entertainment added to it. Of course, there's an exception. I actually like a sense of humor in LinkedIn content as well, and I prefer content that has a sense of humor, but that really depends on who your audience is.

And in order for you to effectively convey your message towards your certain audience, I mean, of course, first you have to know your audience, but knowing that we're past that stage, we have to be adaptable. So that was my biggest takeaway there's no one right or wrong way of communicating. We just have to be adaptable, and adaptability also comes from active listening. Another thing I noticed about my mentor is that he's genuinely interested in whoever he's speaking with. In order for us to really engage in a conversation, instead of brainstorming what we're going to ask next or how we're going to react, we have to truly be in that moment, here and now, and we have to pay attention to their needs, desires, goals, whatever it is, and once we figure that out, we're able to not only empathize better with them, and that's when we're able to more effectively adapt our communication style towards their need. And it's also important to do some mirroring in communication as well. If you're speaking with someone who's talking very calmly and softly and gently and at a slower pace, it makes sense for us to kind of match that tone right. On the other hand, if you're speaking with someone who talks at a very fast pace, energetic wow, oh really, that's what it is, oh yeah, then you want to be on that frequency, that same level of energy. You just gotta we gotta be on their frequency, match their energy. So that was my biggest takeaway and I wanted to wrap up this episode with fun and new and exciting announcements.

First of all, you and I both know that we went through some huge rebranding. I love talking about entrepreneurship and profits and businesses and being able to interview other entrepreneurs, but that was never my true passion as an introvert who's always been so passionate about learning how to communicate more effectively and persuasion and social interactions, and why and how people communicate better. Those are the things that I'm truly interested in learning about and after a long time, I decided to go through the rebranding because it just clicks for me. My soul relates to this. Now Introvert on stage podcast feels like it's truly my passion project. Now it's no longer let me do this because I think it'll make money. It is now. This is what I'm truly passionate about, and hopefully I get to share what I learn along the way on my journey and grow with my audiences, and that's how introvert on stage podcast was born, and I actually have a lot of exciting guests lined up for 2024.

Some of my professors and public speakers and professionals that I connected with in life on LinkedIn, during networking events, whatever it is. Exciting stories await, and I'm starting to realize that, as the brand introvert on stage, it doesn't really have to be all introverts who are overcoming shyness or anxiety and things like that to be on the show. It can be literally anyone and everyone, because, first of all, I believe everyone has that introvert within us. Nobody loves public speaking, and if you do, you would also be a good fit for this show, because I would love to have you on here and share your love for public speaking and how we can get a piece of that excitement for it, and I would also love to bring on guests like myself, who were so extremely shy, but I was able to overcome that shyness, etc. So, in order for me to overcome my extreme introversion, I spent 20 plus years studying communication, taken on every single opportunity for me to be on stage, public speaking, emceeing an event, theater, I said yes to whatever that made me uncomfortable and required me to be on stage in front of a lot of people. It was really scary and uncomfortable, but that's why I'm able to share these stories with you and that's also why I have so many stories as well.

But the thing is, I recently ran into this wall of imposter syndrome. Am I qualified to be teaching this? Am I even allowed to talk about public speaking if everything that I have learned so far is just self-taught? I don't have a certificate in communication or public speaking. It's just solely from my own experiences, which is one of the reasons why.

Another exciting announcement is that I'm going back to school as a communication major, something I always wanted to study but didn't even know that was a major until now. So I'm truly excited? One of the classes that I'm taking next semester is on persuasion, so hopefully by the end of next spring, I'll be able to persuade more people to listen to this podcast with us. So that's my other announcement. So I'm starting to meet a lot of exciting people along this journey and I want to bring them on, so that's my exciting news for 2024. I'll be bringing on more guests and, of course, I'll continue to do more solo episodes. But that's it for today and I hope you guys have a wonderful holidays, whatever holiday you celebrate, and I wish you all the best health, wealth, whatever you're manifest in 2024. They will all come true. So thank you for listening and see you next year. Bye.