Becoming a Master Communicator: Balancing New School Technology with Ol' School Simplicity with Author Renee Marino. (2021)

coach and she's going to talk more about her book. So, Renee, are you there.

arguing sometimes but nonetheless communicating and connecting. And because of that, all throughout my life, I was always intrigued with the way people communicated and why, and the years that I was recording music, I even created a song called Communicate Go Figure. And then in twenty seventeen, I started doing my most recent Broadway show, which was Pretty Woman, the musical, just like the movie, and I had this idea to write a book. I've always been a writer since five

years old. It was one of my other passions. And after talking to my girlfriends in the dressing room about who's dating who and if they're bringing up conversations that are on their minds, and just all this talk about communication, I said to myself, there's a book in this and especially nowadays, as you mentioned my title, balancing new school technology with old school simplicity, that subtitle is really about

the fact that we are now in this digital age. Right, everyone's with a smartphone, We're all connecting virtually, and it's such a beautiful gift, but if we don't learn to balance it with those more personal channels of communication, like face to face, picking up an actual phone to your ear to have a conversation, or handwritten letters. Right, remember those if we don't balance that, then we're in for problems. And I've faced it in my own life. I've witnessed

it in my clients, in my friend's family. When we rely so heavily on technology, so many misperceptions happen miscommunication. And I'm sure you know as well as I. In life everything starts with communication, business, personal lives. So that's really where the book developed from, right.

going back and forth texting one another. When it gets to the point that you're texting paragraphs to someone and the subject matter is serious or something that really needs to be dealt with in person, or where you can hear the tone of someone's voice, that's a sure sign to say, Okay, this texting needs to stop. I'm going to pick up the phone, or I'm going to say, William, how about we meet for a coffee today. I'll meet

you over lunch and we can talk about it. Then the problems really start when we continue the text messages, We continue the email threads when they've gone far beyond the time that they should when we are discussing matters that shouldn't be connect You shouldn't be connecting over these matters. If there's no tone right email text, there's no tone, Like you said, how many times I'm sure all of

the listeners can agree. Have you sat there with your smartphone and someone texts you and they put an emoji and you're like, oh, why they use that emoji, like, what's said about? Are they upset with me? Maybe it's because I said this, you know, And two hours goes by and you have wasted time energy on what an emoji meant. In the book, I call this the three act play, which is the drama that we put ourselves through the rumination that we put our minds through in

asking ourselves what could it be and why? Instead of having that direct communication and just saying, hey, William, when you text me that emoji, what do you mean by that? More often than not, the response is usually oh, I was kidding around, or I don't know, didn't even realize I put it there. And then you realize, oh my goodness, I've wasted hours of my life. I've wasted so much energy.

I could have written another book, and here I was stressing out about something that didn't even matter, right, And I.

and emails and things like that. You talk also kind of about the technology affecting really old classic skills that we've lost, which is just basic writing or expression, just simple expression that we take for granted. One hundred years ago, the writing was so much better than now. Can you expand on that?

it is such a lost art. And not only that, the kids in school don't know how to take proper notes because of that. Right when we were in school, I'm going to speak for the both of us, you kind of knew how to take notes because writing was a part of the curriculum. But now not only is it not part of the curriculum, but with smartphones and the notifications going off and the distraction. It pulls the kids right out of what they were even trying to take notes on. And my sister in law has said,

this is such a problem. It's such a problem for so many of their students, and I hear it all the time. I spoke to so many parents teachers in researching for my book, and I'm telling you it was like ninety eight percent of them agreed that children now day's children, young adults, they have lost the art of being able to write a complete sentence. And many people nowadays could say, well, it's no big deal, right, I

have grammarly, I can just figure it out online. But at the end of the day, don't you want to know that if you had to for a job interview write a paragraph about why you're the best person for the job, you want to be able to do that because what we write is a representation of us. When I write you a handwritten letter, William, that's a representation of my feelings towards you. Right, it's a very personal

it's a very personal skill. And the fact that it's becoming a lost art it breaks my heart, it really does.

We're tasks switched, switching all day long. So when it comes to fully listening in a conversation, it's becoming less and less the more technology gets advanced, because our brains are now programmed. I say the book, I say, we are like Pavlo's dogs, right conditioned to tune out the minute we hear a notification go off, the minute a new ad pops up on a on a link bar, and this is causing us to become much less, much

less apt to listen. And it's very much a problem because, as you said, that is such a crucial part of communication. When I can sit here and fully listen to you and take in what you're saying to me, without thinking, without focusing on myself, right, not thinking about what I'm going to say, how I'm gonna respond, but fully absorbing what you are sharing with me. It's a gift on

both parties, right. I give you the gift for this open platform to be heard, and I give a gift to myself to possibly learn something, to experience a new perspective. And we lose these gifts when we are so consumed with ourselves, we're consumed with winning the argument, or we're consumed with sharing our opinion. I don't care about what you have to say, but let me tell you what I know. And we can see it, right. I think we can see it in the world right now. We

see it in the news, we see it everywhere. No one is actually having a conversation. And I really believe William. I believe it in my heart that this book is going to help so many people because breathing is very much I'm sorry, Communicating is very much like breathing. We don't often think about it until things go awry. You don't think about how you're breathing until you can't breathe and you're having an anxiety attack and you're like, can't

catch my breath. The same thing happens with communication. You go about your day communicating in the way that is most natural to you, and then you come across a block, whether it's a miscommunication through a text, or your boss actually didn't get your email and is now having, you know, telling you that, oh, I feel like you're not working effectively, and meanwhile you sent the email but it went to spam. So we aren't conscious of how we're communicating in our relationships,

personal and professional until something goes wrong. So my hope with this book is that it's going to bring awareness to all of us to say, Wow, well do I do that? You know, do I check in on the phone after I've texted a friend for hours and check in and just be like, hey, are we good? Did you understand what I was saying when I text that if we're not aware of that, then that is where you know, we can experience a lot of heartache and a lot of miscommunication.

How is your day, what's going on? You're feeling okay? And with technology, the way that it has inhibited us is it makes it really easy for us to escape ourselves. And I say this all the time because I believe it so strongly. The most important communication that we have is within ourselves, and that sets the tone for all of the communication we have in our ex sterior relationships. So if we are not having honest conversations with ourselves,

how am I feeling today? Renee, what's going on? What's what's bothering you? Really and taking the time to write about it. Simply asking the question how am I feeling and then writing about it first thing in the morning can set your day off in such a positive way because you've now checked in with yourself first. And because of technology, what do many of us do? Eyes are open, grab for our phone, We scroll, we scroll, and Brendan Bouchard, who I love, talks about this. He talked about this

in one of his podcast episodes. The danger in doing that is the minute we wake up, we're checking out of our lives and into someone else's. And what does that do? William? We go into comparison mode. We look at Oh they're doing this, man, I'm not doing well enough. They look so happy. I don't feel happy because we're comparing our real lives to this beautiful culmination of photos and videos that the other people have allowed us to.

No one's taking pictures or videos of when they have just argued with their husband or their wife, or when they're in their room crying by themselves because they feel lonely and they feel confused. Those aren't the pictures that are being put up in most cases, right, There are some incredibly authentic people influencers who make it a point to show that side, and I love that and I honor those people, but most of us are not doing that.

So remember that the next time you compare yourself. When you start to feel a little crappy about yourself, take a pause and say, Okay, hold on, I'm gonna remember what Renee said. This is not all as it.

oh man, this is terrible. This is really horrible. Maybe you can talk about some of the old school simplicity things of me forgotten in the high tech world.

balance of new school with old school. I was out to dinner one day with a dear friend of mine and the two of us are catching up, having a great conversation, and next to us it's a family of five. It was two you know, parents, husband and wife, a teenager, and then two young children. And I kid you not, the entire meal, no one spoke. Each of them had their heads down in a digital device, and even when

the food came, they kept it in their hands. And I'm not kidding when I say my heart broke, because, again, going back to my roots, what I'm used to, when you sit down at the table, that's when you communicate the most. You're talking, checking in with each other. And that's to me where I feel love. I feel community when I'm around the table and I can be eating with my friends and having that conversation. And there was none of that. And my friend and I we couldn't

believe it. You couldn't help but be aware of it. I mean, they were sitting right next to us, and I was just like, what a waste of time, right, this precious time that we are given. Life is so short, no one ever knows, and we have this gift to be with our family members, and for two hours they couldn't put those digital devices down. And the sad reality is we're becoming addicted. We're addicted to picking up our phones even when we're totally unconscious. I've done it. This

is why I can write about it. For four seconds, nothing's going on and I pick up my phone and I'm thinking, Renee, what are you doing? So seeing this family was really what propelled me to write this book. But going back to what you asked about, what old school simplicity qualities are we missing that we can still adopt. Number one is having the phone put away. Studies show that even just having a phone out, like your cell phone out on the table, if you and I are

out to lunch, proves to be a distraction. Even if you're not touching the phone, it proves to be a distraction to the other person because you're aware of it right it's there. We know that at any second an alarm could go off, someone could be texting you, and it changes the fullness of the conversation. So I would say, first and foremost, having our phones put away when we know we're going to be meeting with a friend, a

family member, take that time put the phone away. Also this element of slowing down right our nerve of his

systems have sped up. And as you just mentioned in the book, I talk about when my husband and I took our beautiful vacation to Italy, I felt it like I literally felt a complete shift just from having my phone away, only out when I took a picture and then put it away, and sitting eating meals amongst the Italians who are so leisurely in how they eat, They take their time, there's no rush for the bill, and I felt like my days were tripled, the time of

my days was tripled. And then I come back to the States, I go back to my regular life, and I'm thinking, you know, I'm on my computer all day, I'm on my phone, I'm here, I'm there, And at the end of the day, I always find myself saying, where did the day go? How did this day already pass us? And it's because it feels like technology causes us to press the fast forward button on our lives.

no distractions, not even the TV. Dad's playing music, kids are dancing, and it just kind of like juxtaposed with our current day, like where you've gone down a road. I don't think it's it's it's that great. I mean, this whole technology and I.

over dinner. What she used to be very much of a tradition that I don't even know if it is anymore. People get fast food or don't even cook a meal. So that level of communication and interrelation is so important.

I think, learn how to use the internet. I talk in the book about generations before us who are still not used to technology. It's important for the younger generations to take that time. Sit down with your grandmother, your great grandmother, show them how a video call works, because it is important to understand how how it all works. But at the same time, I keep going back to the balance. It's the balance. It's not all one or

all the other. It's balance. Because I want to be just as good communicating with you in a room, William as I am behind this screen. I do. That's the goal, and that's actually what I teach, right. I have a Connecting on Camera course where I help people to bring their real selves to video, so that way, when they're speaking on camera, it's just like if they're speaking to

someone in person. But if we don't understand how to really gauge both of these worlds, then we're in trouble because if we're either left behind because we're not involving ourselves in technology at all, or we're getting lost in the technology and we're allowing that technology to control us and to almost be the puppeteer with us as the puppet.

have a fake self or a mask. So if you have if you as a communicator are encouraging people to be authentic they have to also watch out for being inauthentic online. Would you agree with that? Yes?

on a keyboard that we do in person. And what I see where I see the disconnect is people that I know on a very deep level. I will sometimes see a social media post of theirs and I have to look twice because I'm like, who wrote that? And what if they've done with my friend? Because I know they would never ever say that to someone in person.

And a practice which I share in the book but I want to give to you all now is the way to help this is to say to yourself, before you're going to post something on social media, ask yourself, would I have the confidence to say this same thing

in person. If the answer is no, great, have a cathartic writing session, write it in your journal, put it away, and then just write the post how you would be comfortable saying it in person, because then you never have to worry about inauthenticity someone walking up to you and saying, oh, I saw that social media post, let's talk about it. And then you're like, oh right, not that that may

never happen. But the point is, if you want to live your life the way I love to live my life, as an honest, authentic human being, you want to be the same person online that you are when someone meets you outside in your neighborhood, that you are when you're speaking on stages, that you are when you're sitting in a virtual meeting. It needs to all be the same person. And often in this day and age, what I'm seeing is a separation of identity, if you will, Yeah.

myself as an example. You already know I come from this loud Italian American family. So where I'm most comfortable communicating is direct verbal interaction. Again, I love texting and emailing just as much as the next person. But when push comes to shove, I am making an appointment to see you in person as fast as you can text the word high and again that's because of my upbringing.

And all of us have our communication home, which is the way we're most comfortable communicating because of what we're accustomed to from our upbringing. It doesn't have to be just in your household, from your mom and dad. It could be if you were someone who was always around your friend's family, or if you happen to be a caretaker of your parents or grandparents. That all affects the

way that you're comfortable communicating. And I talk about one of my amazing clients who grew up in a family, and she said this one day in our session William and I can talk about it because she gave me full, full reign permission to talk about this, and I write about it. In the book, she talks about how she grew up in a family that was communication phobic, and when she said this phrase, I was like, this is brilliant. It's brilliant because it's something that so many people face,

but they haven't put words to it. And she went on to elaborate that growing up, her family never talked about feelings. They never talked about deep level things. Everything was very surface. How are you, how's your day great?

start to experience other styles of communication. And she was able to do that just through the awareness of realizing, like, Wow, I've lived my whole life avoiding so much, and here I am at this age now struggling and I understand why.

So I think that that's a really really powerful chapter in the book, and it's actually chapter one because it's like, let's start out, let's be really transparent with ourselves, and in the book, I'm your guide, right, I'm here to let's call this out for ourselves because nothing is solved without first self awareness.

ten percent of what we read. We finished the book, it goes on our shelf and then, as Tony Robbin says, it becomes shelf knowledge. But for me, I'm interested. I love personal development. I love the world of self help and doing whatever I can to expand myself and my understanding of the world. So by having that reflection section, it gives you a chance to take a second pause and really allow that information to be digested.

people all over the world. I've talked to people all over the world Israel, Europe, so very important to be a very skilled, if not master communicator. I definitely agree with that. Is there anything you'd like to add? Anything I missed before we wrap bard about thirty three minutes.

then we can so easily get pulled away. Right. We can become the most distracted creatures in the world if we don't take a second to ground ourselves and figure out what we want and how we want to connect in our personal relationships and our professional ones.

And this is a tool that I actually have in my book. But these two bonuses that you get are amazing because you can start to use them right away skyrocket your communication skills and then it'll get you excited for the book.