E114A - Throwback with Jesus Hernandez

It's more than just a conversation around a book and around a great guy social media mogul but also talks about his journey through communication , which , strangely and just perfectly , becomes mastered through the 12-step program where he learns to be vulnerable and learns to really understand what his purpose and what his plan in life is . So listen to him .

He's a consultant and author podcast host , and I don't agree with this aspiring social media mogul . Jesse is a social media mogul . Jesse , welcome to the program .

Now , I don't mind being the peacock and getting all the attention when we're live , and you got the rooster on your shirt . I don't mind that , but that's different than me writing about the stuff . So , in terms of if anything was left out , no , I think that covers it . There's probably stuff , but I think we're good .

Welcome right here . Jesse has written a couple of books and started live streams and all kinds of things since the last time we met .

Hey , it's your baby , you don't tabulate your own deal , but I kind of definitely dove into the book and I've got to say this first , a shout out to you directly you are responsible for , I believe , any success that the I should be giving you royalties on the uncommon communicator podcast . We met early , early on , and you inspired me to podcast .

You know we were at this lean event which was five bucks or something to go to a Gemba lock and you were just even a portion of . You weren't even leading it and you mentioned podcasts and I'm like , hey , what's this about ? I don't think I had listened to a podcast before . Then .

I thought , man , if Jesse can do this , I want to do this and I did so . You , you inspired me to start my own podcast and I appreciate that and really , oh , a lot of its growth to following the social media logo that you are . But you wrote a book right here . It's the promise and it is your second first book .

I want to explain that before we move on to this one . Yeah , yeah .

I was like , okay , I want this to be like essentialism . Like you've read the book , essentialism I don't think so . Amazing book , great ideas in there and the five dysfunctions right , lindsay O'Neill and kind of the way they write their books is a story and there's takeaways .

And so I started writing it and the idea was I became aware that two things I became aware of . One was I became aware of when I transitioned from achieving to contribution , my life got better . The other thing was when this was least bought , he made me aware that my story could inspire other people to forgive themselves or to forgive family members , etc .

And give them hope . So , anyways , I was writing the book . That's right .

About that time , jennifer Lacey and I started having the , the live streams about five S in relationships , and so after those live streams and you were a part of those , a lot of people were part of them , kirby , kirby coats had asked like hey , Jess , like I wish there was a place that I could just have like all the nuggets , all the great practices that

people shared in the chat , and I said , Okay , well , I got all the transcripts , the transcriptions . I'll go read them and find them . I spent about 10 minutes reading and I said hell with this , I ain't going to read all of this . It was like eight and a half hours of content and then I said , wait a minute , I've got all this transcribed .

Kim White Princess Kim was she was my coach in publishing the first book . I sent her an email and said , hey , I got an idea . This was like December two years ago and she said , yeah , let's do it .

So we did , and so I had to pause on this book because that was the first book worked through producing Lean and Love , and then , once that got out , I picked up this book again . It was interesting because when I read my original transcript , I was like this is garbage . This is like weak sauce . Kindergarten tough guy , stuff right .

And when I mean by kindergarten tough guy , I mean like not . So this is just superficial top water skiing crap . And that's because , through the live streams .

I discovered that this vulnerability thing was a thing and I didn't understand it at first , but people were like Jesse , it's because you share your mistakes and you just talk about anything , any mistake that you made , whatever I learned . I was like , oh , and that was valuable for people .

No-transcript , like my mindset had shifted such that it was like that first draft was like there was no vulnerability , it was very cerebral , super intellectualized , and so I said hell with that , I'm going to go deep . And then that's what happened . So that's why it is my second , first book .

So let's talk about the book first , that structure . I like talking about the structure of your book . It is a bunch of stories which are fantastic , right , and they're doing , they're serving the purpose which you want is these stories help impact and lead to the message .

But there's a couple of things that I noted in here is every one of your titles are questions , almost every single one of them , and I thought that is Jesse and in it which made the investigator and me say where is the question in it .

Because what I really enjoyed about the book and it's almost like a mystery novel is you know if say here's a , you know here's a chapter , start right here that says you know , is there a prize in the darkness ? You don't start the each chapter with is there a prize in the darkness and then answer it . It's in there somewhere which is really kind of new .

I don't know if you did that purposely , but the question is hidden in there . So I love that because and as you , you know , you have master questionator as your title and that's something that you know , a moniker that you have given yourself , not me , we've all given .

I've given that to you as well , but it's all the chapters or questions which is really makes you dive into . Does that question fit me ? So I love the idea of it and I did something I don't normally do , which is I read the first chapter and the last chapter because I wanted to see how you circled this around , and so this is an interesting .

So at the end of your very first chapter , you said this we just can't keep living life the way we've been living it . We have to let people in . There are too many of us for you and me to continue walking alone .

Now that obviously you put that for a reason , tell me a little bit more about that , that purpose statement that you put in there , man , thank you .

The gist of that statement is and it's something that I discovered right , and you can hear all the details throughout the book but the gist of the statement is for a very long period of time , I believed I was the only one experiencing the pains that I was experiencing and I thought , like I thought it was unique to me because of my deficiencies , because of my

defects . And what I've learned over the years is that it's absolutely not unique to me and it's not because I'm my character defects , it's because I'm human and we're all human , right .

So , going back to the vulnerability thing , when I share the stuff , the dumb stuff , the short-sighted , selfish , embarrassing , shameful things that I've done and what I've learned from them , that helps others know that they are not alone and we're none of us are alone , but we're all walking I shouldn't say , oh , many of us are walking as if we are , and so

it's , it's a call out to say , hey , I got you Right . We're people , we make mistakes and we can learn from them .

And , and you know , walking the path in community is far more fulfilling than it is to be walking it independently , which ties to like the original idea of achievement and winning , Because when I win , everybody else has to lose , and when I achieve I have to do better , score higher than everybody else around me .

So that's the isolating experience , whereas contributing , sharing my gifts and talents , that is a communal experience .

In any message that we give , the most important thing is how we started and the and the second most is how we end it , and sometimes that's the most important because that's what people remember . But this is what you said today . I surround myself with people who appreciate the goodness . You likely have X-ray vision to .

You can see the enormous , gigantic human being that is in front of you , hiding behind fear , hiding behind perfection and avoiding rejection . Because you can see this , it is your responsibility to let them know what you see , pointed out , show them , help them understand . You see them because we all need to be seen .

that's how you ended it . You tied in that very first statement to the end , with some fantastic stories in the middle . But tell me about that statement , because that one really it's a challenge , but it's coming straight from your heart .

Kim Princess Kim is the one who arranged the sequence of the stories . The only one thing I wanted was story number one had to be number one because people needed to understand the title . The rest of it was up to her . I just left it up to her and so I got a credit her for that .

Now , but the fact that you put it together like that's pretty awesome , man . So that last statement in the end comes from and I think a lot of I'm not alone in . Rather , I know I'm not alone in this .

You know , when I think of me and kind of ties back to the bio thing , I see all of my mistakes , all of the nefarious things that I've done , selfish things that I've done , all the , all the goals that I missed , all the people that I let down , all the disappointment that that I contributed to people's lives , and I see it like like a hull of mirrors

right with jeans . They're magnified and amplified and contorted and really way bigger than what they actually are , and that's all that I see . And so that keeps me in this state of feeling less than . But when I interact with another human being , I'm just like you , saying that I've contributed to your path as a social media mogul . I don't see that .

The only time I see it , and the only time I can believe it , is when I'm seeing myself through your eyes , right , and so when people talk to me and share with me of how I've impacted their life , I've given them courage , how I've given them hope , how I pissed them off , like it doesn't matter when people are telling me what they see , I fall in love with

that version of me because it is true , but it is foreign to me , because it's not the version that I see all the time .

And and so , like I know how I feel when I'm around people that reflect back to me the greater things that I ignore , and so that's the idea , right , surround myself , if I surround myself with people , because for a long time I doubted it , I discounted like , no , no , you don't , you just don't know all my garbage , right , the only reason you're saying is

because you don't know , I finally got to a point where , it's , like you know , I'm very selective about who I surround myself with , and those people are like ballers , right , like they contribute to the community . They're not just about themselves . They have accomplished great , they're very accomplished in their careers .

They're honest , they're , they're good people , and because they are , I need to believe what they're telling me , and so it's that kind of it's a little weird thing , but it's what helps me get away from operating in a sense of deficit , right , meaning like I'm trying to make up for something and keeps me in a place of contribution .

How do I continue to share my gifts and talents ? I'm not always aware of the gifts and talents , I'm not always aware of how I impact and touch people's lives , until somebody tells me and they show me through their eyes of what they see . And so that's the point .

Right Is find people around you that that they tell you things that you don't want to believe because they're not lying , and that gives us freedom , right . That gives us permission to continue being super awesome .

You know , in a lot of sense this is a book to help anybody out of who's into addictions , and you're specifically talking about substance and alcohol . But those type of abuses fit any type of addiction and a lot of construction folks have them .

You know there's a lot of alcoholism , a lot of drugs and stuff involved in any business that you're at , but specifically in our trade as well , in construction , is workaholism . I mean , there's things that we become addictive to . You know , I'd come from an alcoholic family myself and I never , you know , built into alcoholism . But do I have addictive tendencies ?

Yeah , did I have over 40 bonsai trees at one point because 39 wasn't enough right . And then , for the most part , though , my addictions have been towards , you know , work , like last night . I worked till 7 o'clock at night because I wanted to get that floor done .

You know , there's things that become important to us in our work , which is just as much of an addiction . So these things fit . But in diving into your stories there's the reps you talk about . Right , and I hadn't thought about AA in that whole process .

Being getting talking about these things more is something that you're doing with people now , especially through the live streams . You know there's , there are things that I'm realizing like why , why ? Who am I who have not been emotional for most of my life , purposely , you know , struggling with some things ?

It's because I've never talked about these and you're drawing these out in people now as well . But I see that you've put the reps in because , like I can't get through it . You know I can't barely talk through it , but how therapeutic was it to also put all of that stuff out there for everybody in ?

Most of the stories in here are tied to my addiction with alcohol , because that's what I got arrested for and I'm grateful that I didn't get arrested for some of the other things . But I'll tell you like I'll hit on this and so hope maybe people can can do some self-reflection .

Some of the symptoms of me being going down the path of addiction to whatever it is like you said work , marathon , run-in , womanizing , like all of the things is all . The rest of my life is in disarray . My weeds are three foot . The weeds in the yard are three foot higher than they ever been .

None of the dishes are washed , none of the clothes are washed . Everything's a mess . The trucks are freaking mess , like the chaos in my life . It looks the same regardless of what I am being consumed by . So it is absolutely .

Alcoholism is a thing , right , and there's some other stuff that comes with alcoholism , but having an addictive nature and over rather neglecting the other important things . For one thing is also a symptom of addiction and requires attention . So now , but back to the reps . That was the question . Right Is the therapeutic nature of getting this book out .

So when I was in South Carolina , when I started doing the speech to text , it had a lot of road time , windshield time . I was driving back and forth , I was going to Clemson with Adam to do a thing and anyways , I was surprised at some of the stories . I think the last four stories are the ones that moved me the most . It drew out the most emotion .

I didn't expect it to happen and as I was like speaking the stories , some of it like I cried on most of them , and when I say cry I mean like teary-eyed , you know , choked up a little bit . But those four stories , at the end , even when I recorded the audio book , you can hear my voice cracking and me trying to maintain composure .

I ugly cried when I recorded them right , and it was hard because I had to go back and like figure out what the hell I was saying , because the voice didn't pick it up right . And the interesting thing . So after I did it . I'm like , okay , why is that ? Why am I like what is going on ?

Because some of that stuff happened back when I was a kid , yeah , and the difference was I used to cry tears of anger , I used to cry tears of pain and regret .

This time those tears were maybe tears of empathy , like , because I know what I felt back then and that kind of feeling came up and I also know that I have come a long , long way from that and I also know the impact that I've been able to have in other people's lives because of that experience .

And I was also excited about oh my god , I'm putting this thing out there into the world . Imagine the impact it can have going forward .

And so the tears this time were like , filled with all of that right , they're tears of hope , they're tears of healing , tears of understanding , and so , in terms of therapy , it helped me really , because I don't think before then that I wasn't aware of the progress that I have made around those issues .

And so what it helped me understand was like or maybe it helped me turn really negative , dark times into meaningful things that could help other people . And so if I had , I experienced a mind shift of my own in the process .

First I wanted to talk about the whispers .

The whispers pop up randomly , sometimes when I'm running , sometimes when I'm in the middle of a presentation . They are like little data points . They look like a comment or a question by someone else .

When I'm listening to a book , something in the content I'm consuming may connect with an idea or a question I've been chewing on and make the next rightest step a little clearer . The feeling in my gut says yes , that's the way , that's the thing I need to get unstuck .

I call them the whispers because I really can't take full credit for the clarity of the direction . It feels more like I'm being guided into discovery . That statement , that idea really connected with me because and I've heard you mention that before this podcast is a result of a whisper . You hear something , you get an idea and somebody says what about that ?

That whole idea ? I'm not sure about the Oprah part , but tell me more . This seems like the whispers have been a big part of your life ? Have they always been there , or has this been something that you decided to start listening to ?

I know this because even early on , as a foreman or when I was transitioning from installer to foreman and all of a sudden there were deeper , greater asks of me in terms of taking responsibility and leadership , I fought against it . The whispers were telling me do this , this is your gift , go do something with it .

I ignored it and continued to say no , no , no , I'm not going to be one of those suck asses , I'm an installer . Blah , blah , blah . The friction that I experienced in my life by ignoring the whispers is one of the contributors to my substance abuse and to the things I did to escape from my life , which most of that was self-imposed friction .

They've always been there .

When I started deciding to listen to the whispers , things have become so much easier and way , way , way more fulfilling , the reason I have to credit the whispers . Like , even when I have my 60 minutes of thinking time every day and I'm journaling , sometimes there's something that comes out like whoa , I got to write that down , or I was jogging .

Just like you said , I write it down and I can't take credit for it . I think that's an important thing , because I don't know if you know , but I have a pretty healthy ego . If I credit myself for being a genius and discovering all these things and creating all these things all on my own , I know where that road takes me .

These things , these ideas , these bits of clarity that pop up , help me understand or show me like oh yes , that's connected . That's something I've been thinking about . Now I'm going to take the next rightest step , what I mean by that . So example I was talking , I got interviewed . I was interviewed on a podcast super awesome interview .

The line of questioning was around how do leaders connect with people in the field ? I just kept answering the questions . It was good conversation . Then , after that , I started thinking well , that's interesting , because when I was doing the in-person training , part of that was to go out and meet people in the field .

A lot of the folks that were going through the training struggled with well , what am I supposed to say ? What do you ?

I said , well , I don't think that's not part of the curriculum , because it's virtual , it doesn't fit . Of course . He gave me he's like come on , jess , you're weak .

After I got off the call with him and , mind you , these are things that have happened , let's say , a 24 month timeline of all of this he hits me with that and I'm like oh , okay , I need to do something . On the podcast the other day they asked me a bunch of questions around this . This happened way back then . There's something there .

I was listening to another podcast and they were talking about email courses and then , boom , it all came together . Now I wasn't actively trying to figure out what email course to produce . The whispers showed me what the next rightist step was , and so it's just that right , and it also frees me up because I'm obsessive .

It frees me up when I'm stuck on something of like okay , I'm at a point and I know I need to get the next thing , but I can't Now I just leave . I'm just going to leave it , put it on the shelf for a little bit , because I know the whispers will show me what to do with that idea , and it may not . It may be next week , it may be next year .

I just need to leave it there . That's the whispers .

And then there's times where they're so loud that you have to listen and there's enough connection right , and so you have to find the right time , the right place . But I just thought that was that really stuck out for me in that section of the book , because that really connected and then it's going to connect with a lot of people because they're going to go .

Oh , that's why that's why I do that . So I appreciate you bringing in the whispers and kind of sharing a little deeper talk into that . I do want to talk briefly about chapter five , I believe . Now , chapter five is what are you waiting for ? Another question , but the thing that stuck out for me . There's a couple of things in here .

One is so you're preparing for potentially being incarcerated . So what does Jesse do ? Jesse's like I'm going to make the best time of this . What am I going to learn and get out of this I'm going to have all this time I'm going to . You know , you're like the Shawshank Redemption . You're going to become a lawyer or something .

Right , you got it all and you wrote this what could I learn if I had no distractions ? So you start creating a list of this potential time which , for you to sit , I got to imagine is was , in your mind , going to be probably a prison in itself . Well , you're like , how am I going to make the most out of this ?

But this is the thing that stuck out in that chapter my own thinking can be a prism and I don't have to wait for incarceration to take action . Bingo , there's so many times that we wait for that moment , and this ties into your whisper comment as well , too . You don't have to wait , like most people solve problems when the problem arises .

Yes , that's where , when I have time , especially on my job , you know I get some free , free brain load . In fact , there's one particular job we were on . We had just I had taken over and we had a ton of problems that got to the point where I then we had a really young group of field engineers and other assistant soups .

I'm like what are we going to solve today Like we had no problems , like what are we going to solve today and that's what I got from that is , instead of waiting for that potential incarceration ? You know , you're saying I can do things right now .

The world's against me , like it's just like you can't win , no matter what . Most of it is because of my own decisions and my own actions , right , and he would always tell me . He would say what can you learn from this ? Right , like , I know I'm like and I'm like , what do you mean ? He's like , I know it sucks , but what are you learning about it ?

What can you learn from this ? So it was always that . What can you learn from this ?

So , anyways , this last time I was like really , really looking at 10 to 15 years in prison , it was a , it was a reality that that could happen , and I know that if I get stuck in my head around how horrible it's going to be , I'm going to lose my career , I'm going to lose my licenses , I'm going to lose family money , property , like if I get .

Those are all true , but what is also true , or what could also be true ? I could also learn a lot . And then I said , okay , what is that condition that I'm going to be in if , if I go to prison , like , well , I'm not going to be distracted , right , like I'm not , I'm not going to have my damn phone bugging the hell out of me .

Okay , so focus , if I have focus time and I have this just enormous amount of time to do whatever I want with what could I do ? What I've always wanted to learn , and I start . I wrote down a list of a whole like learn the right , left handed .

I wouldn't do that now because I got a lot of things going on , but I've always wanted to be ambidextrous , right , and so what that helped me do working on that list because I didn't just do it in one sitting it helped me change my focus . So every time , the like , the scary , negative idea crept in , it's like , yeah , yeah , that's true .

And but what could I learn if I'm while I'm there and writing down that list ? And this didn't happen immediately .

So I wrote the list down , you know , went through the whole thing , went to got my attorney they don't give me prison time and I think that's actually when it came together , when they gave me my sentence , which was , you know , relatively like considering what I did , I said you know what I don't need to like ?

I have this list and I think I mentioned in the book one of those was reading Moby Dick . I don't have to wait to be in prison to do that . So I got Moby Dick on Audible and I listed . It was awesome . I was like , wow , now I understand why people make such a big deal about the book itself .

And then it was like , well , what else on this damn list can I do ? Why am I waiting ? Like I don't have to wait . And then the realization was we all kind of create our own prison , like the prison is in our head . The circumstances or our physical environment is a whole separate thing .

It's not as big or condemning as our own mind is , and so that's the gist of that idea .

You know , you didn't have to wait to do that , and I think that that connects with a lot of people , because we wait for those waypoints , right , and sometimes , when that change is going to come , when we're sitting here , we are sitting here scrolling through TikTok and looking at videos , thinking , you know , what could I be doing to better my life ?

Well , I'll do that tomorrow . But when you're in prison , you know every day is tomorrow . I guess , I don't know , I've become a little better saying than that , but that's , I think , a key point in anybody's successful journey in life , which you're helping them to understand .

And also , you know there's so many threads in there that tie to your project as well too . You know , as a lean , you know so many times I am the victim of tomorrow . You know I will do that tomorrow . We'll be back tomorrow .

You know , last night they were working until you know , at 3.30 , I was told we had three to four more hours left and it's like , how about tomorrow ? I'm like , no , we're going to get it done today . I want my tomorrow . Yes , so there's just things that you become a victim of tomorrow . And it stops that . It says what am I doing now to bring purpose ?

So , man , I appreciate that chapter . I do want . There's one more chapter . I want to dive into this one here . Chapter 11 , when is I right ?

This one I have struggled with for most of a lot of my career and especially when I got into general construction . A lot of people don't know that . You know I was in industrial construction mill right by trade . So I've worked through the trades and you know now I'm the evil general contractor . You know , and people don't know that there's a history behind .

Everybody right that this has not been . It's like oh , you're the contract . In fact , felipe said that he says you don't post anything about your life . You know when you were in the trades . I'm like I need to change that . But with that you come into general contracting and a lot of superintendents are I , I , I , I right , I did this , I was .

I've worked with a superintendent who built the Ikea in town all by himself . Oh , yeah . Bigel , ikea , and then he also built this gigantic hotel at the Denver International Airport and so everything that he has done he built right . Those are his stories .

But we go and we hear that and and you really touch on it pretty deeply within when this here , when is I right ? I do want to talk about this , so this is just a quote . I want to first , you have to know that these are emotionally charged conversations . I credit this to the repetitions , repetitions or reps we get .

Sharing our issues openly with strangers . This builds a high threshold of vulnerable , vulnerability and real human stuff .

So , first , you know you , you're setting up this I thing because the other part is that you know I'm I'm worried that it's going to be self centered , you know , and how I use the word I , I don't right , I've used we a lot when it is me , I've used so because I want to avoid that . But I think you opened up .

There's a little bit of a key in here that you really get in in talking about the delivery of that . So this chapter , I think here here's a quote from you . He was extremely vulnerable because the whole thing about this I thing talks about somebody who changed your perspective on stuff .

And in addition was this , and this was somebody who was presenting at an AA meeting . He was extremely vulnerable . He shared details that most of us spend our whole life hiding .

This speaker , you know somebody had asked me , or a lot of people would ask me back when we were doing the five S and relationships thing is like , how are you so vulnerable ? It's amazing how vulnerable you are , your vulnerabilities and so on . Like , what in the world are you all talking about ?

Then I got clear like , oh , you share your , like the dumb things you've done . Like , oh , okay , that's vulnerable . Then , yes , I do that . And then I started asking myself there's so many people asking me about this . And , yes , and , and I don't know how I built that Like , how did I develop that strength to be vulnerable and share whatever ?

And so I was thinking and I'm like , oh , you know what it was . It was from the years and years and years that I spent in 12 step meetings , because in those meetings you are invited to say hi , my name's Jesse and I'm an addict or I'm an alcoholic or whatever , and talk about your issue . Whether it's good or bad doesn't matter .

For the first two years , I would not . There was no damn way I was gonna raise my hand . But I saw people demonstrating the behavior , right , like they were doing it . They were saying hi , my name's , whatever . This is what I experienced , you know , my wife , my girlfriend , whatever , the judge , whatever , like all the stuff , and even celebrating good things .

Until I finally did it myself and because I was , you know , I had the privilege of going to these meetings for so many years I got very practiced at saying hi , my name's Jesse , I'm an alcoholic , and this is what I did . Today , this is a dumb thing that I did . Or blah , blah , blah . And I think it was .

I don't think I know those reps of saying hi , I'm a human being and I have problems . Or hi , I'm a human being and I have something to celebrate . Build the strength for me to be super , super vulnerable .

You know , relatively speaking , and we don't practice that , we don't . There's really there's very few venues where we can just say it out loud to discover that the sky's not gonna fall down right Like me sharing my garbage . Oh , at first , for two years I wouldn't , because I didn't want to be judged . I didn't you know , blah , blah , blah .

And then , when the first time I did it , guess what happened ? Nothing . I felt better . And then I did it again and guess what happened ? I felt better , like , oh , it's not that bad Now .

So there's that one thing , because I am talking about what I personally experienced and very few people will challenge that or judge that , because it's my own personal experience . Now it drives me nuts when people say I built that , I'd be like you know damn way you built that .

And I'm sure that's not what they mean , but I know what I feel when I hear them say that right . So I was always kind of similar to what you stated . I'm very like I pay close attention to me not saying I when it was a we thing , but then I went all the way over to one side of the pendulum when it's always we and never me .

When I heard this gentleman speak , it was powerful , right . Like you know , he shared his experience , but he spoke from I .

He didn't say you know , when you're in addiction , da , da , da , da , da da , or when you do like he didn't say that he said I , my addiction , my experience , my errors , my shortcomings , my wins , like it was all from an eye perspective .

And I remember thinking like , wow , he talked about himself in terms of I , but I wasn't disgusted by him , right , it didn't give me license , like I didn't disengage like I normally do . I was like , oh , wow , what was that ? And it was because of the way he delivered the message . He was , it was from a perspective of ownership .

He was owning his experiences , he was owning his mistakes and that was the difference . And so it was really important because it transformed the way . Like from that point , I decided , okay , from now on , this is how I'm going to present and I mentioned it in that story you know , I used to follow the practices that they right .

Whatever public speaking , like all those classes , you know , make sure you let them know , give them your credibility . You want to give them your credentials before you start speaking , because people want to know why they should listen to you .

I stopped that crap , those two slides with , you know , my credentials got deleted immediately and I just jump into it and start sharing my experience around the thing , whatever it is I'm talking about .

It also helped me stop like from that point forward , I have not done a presentation on anything that I don't have real , real experience doing , and what I mean by that is like if I'm going to be like teaching or facilitating some learning and I can't apply the concept or the practice in my personal day to day , I'm not going to try to teach about it because

I can't speak from my own experience . I have to attach it to somebody else's article or white paper or whatever , and if that's the case , I have no business doing it .

And so that's gotten me very , very comfortable with I and , more importantly , it becomes easy to say I in a non-self-serving manner when I only speak about things that I've lived and experienced directly .

So this is definitely our communication moment to talk about , right , because you are , you're out there , you're a public speaker , you've experienced something that through Toastmasters , they call it the icebreaker . It's the very first speech that you give and whenever I'm coaching somebody , I'm like this is going to be the easiest , hardest speech that you ever give .

It's the easiest because all you have to do is talk about yourself , like we can do that . It's hard because it's your first one , but that whole principle kind of gets lost through the course of these pathways that we have , because then we're teaching on things that we don't . And that's now has been my coaching thing is like what talk about ?

The things that you know ? Because then you can talk endlessly about it and people know that if you're talking about something that you don't know , then people know that . They know right away and you know it right . And it's hard and it's difficult to get through and it's not fun . You probably have had the luxury of giving the same message more than once .

Every time that you do that you build those reps and in my mind it's getting better and I'm sure for you the message is getting better . But if anything it's getting easier because you're having the ability to meet the audience's needs , because you're familiar with the topic .

That becomes kind of the whole key to public speaking is be familiar with the topic and then you can go up there and have fun . So I think that just it's so neat to see that weaved into your book . This whole public speaking you know huge like tip on how to be successful is wrapped up in just one little note on the I portion of chapter 11 .

And they knew it right , like oh , he's a fraud , he just read some article and now he's talking about it . Yeah , but now , whatever I'm talking about , when somebody asked me a question I got some deep real life experience . Like I have swam Through the experience .

I know what it smells like , I know what it feels like , I know what it tastes like and the answers that I can provide to the questions I get are Much more actionable , whereas before it stayed in the conceptual perspective and and so maybe to the to the uncommon Communicator community , if you can't answer a question deeply on the presentation you've presented ,

that's an indicator that you've got to live and experience the topic that you're discussing just a little bit more .

Right , you've all been there with the guy where , you know , you just know that he's just babbling on and you know , I do want to touch on one thing that you talked about as well too , which is really when you know the topic and you're sharing that topic there's there's something that is being open about it like one thing that you do , and one thing I

struggle with is I sanitize my Conversations , you know , and that's something that I just still in work . I mean it's difficult for me because all of my stories in the past were this guy , this person , this individual , this company , and I've sanitized those and looking at it through this perspective is Am I just making stories up , you know , to fit my need ?

And I mean these are , these are real stories . But I don't have and I haven't stored those facts in my mind that you know , on January 7th we did this with Bill , you know , out on the Malt House deck .

You know those are true things that happen and I think that's an important part of how you tell stories is you use real names , real people , real color , you really paint that picture and it's okay and you share this with me and not on this podcast yet .

But you talked about how you kind of evolved through that as well , too , where you thought I didn't want to mention the company or get them in trouble Well there . And then you did it and did you . Of course , you know you always pushing , pushing a little bit , aren't you ? But did you , did you get in trouble ?

No , right , and those things bring true value and I think that's the other component . I know I'm working on . That's something that I'm processing through . But what I've decided those because I've stuffed a lot of emotions and feelings and everything away for years that that's gonna have to happen on my new stories , because I don't .

I don't think I can dig the facts out of some of these older stories , otherwise I'm just making them up and then I truly am just making this story timeframe . But , jesse , I've really enjoyed this time meeting and connecting with you again , your way of telling stories and especially that you put them into a book .

Really we use , you know who you are and I think there's a lot of value . I'm gonna encourage everybody will have a link in the show notes on how to buy the book . Look into it . There's an audio version of it as well . Well , links to your website . But how else can tell us how ? How else can people get a hold of you , man ? So ?

The other way , I am am hyperactive on LinkedIn and , and so , in terms of like daily habits , I spend a good amount of time on LinkedIn every day , and so if people want to connect , make a comment , what like , let's connect there and and get a feel for what you're really dealing with , because if you want to work with me , this is what you're gonna get

Right , and and so maybe I'd rather I recommend that you get a feel for the flavor that I bring , and you can do that best through interacting on LinkedIn . Obviously , on my website there's links to my email address and all the other socials , all the other good stuff . But , james , you and I were talking about this before we started .

Let me know you're there , because the one thing that drives me nuts is not like good feedback , I love it . Critical feedback , I love it . No feedback , I hate it . It drives me nuts . And so , if you're there , let me know you're there , because it really does mean a lot to me .

The uncommon communicator moment is , says this is you know , we've been talking for an hour . What sums up ? What do people leave with that they could use from this conversation today ?

The one thing that people should take away from this conversation is the value in sharing your story From your perspective , with all the dirty details . The value is it's liberating and healing for you as an individual . It gives people hope and Gives them permission to do more of the same .

I mean , james , you've said it several times there's a lot of things that you haven't shared For multiple , for many reasons , and you're not the only one and so , in sharing our story as courageously as as you can right now right , you'll get more courageous or as you get the reps in but share , share , share your perspective with all the dirty details , and it

will help you build deeper commune connections with the person that's directly in front of you .