Communicate Like a Pro | Michael Smoak (HigherUpWellness)

Interactive Transcript

Speaker A Today's conversation is one I've been looking forward to in my head for a very long time. I'm honored to welcome a new friend onto the podcast. Michael Smoke, or how so many people know him online as Higher up Wellness. Now, when it comes to the art of communication, not just speaking clearly, but being heard in a world where attention is harder to hold on to now than ever, I mean this when I say this. There are very few people I'd consider operating at as high of a level as he is. Mike isn't a guru and he's not playing a character. He's a communicator in the purest sense. Someone who spent years posting, teaching, coaching, and refining his craft until his message became impossible to ignore. He started in fitness, but what separates him is the way he took those roots and built something much bigger. A framework for how anyone can stand out and connect, no matter the room, the platform, or the goal. Michael has amassed millions of followers across different media platforms and started public speaking challenges that an estimated 30 to 40,000 people have partaken in on line. It is actual madness when you look at what he's accomplished. And in this episode, we cover a lot. How standing out and perfecting communication is a skill that you can develop and learn to improve, and how to actually do that. How to master the balance between simplicity and depth when getting your point across, and the verbal, visual and vocal cues that make the difference in being overlooked or not heard and being remembered. The skill of communication touches every single part of your life. Your work, your relationships with others and yourself. Get it right and it amplifies everything else you do. If you've ever felt drowned out or that your voice just isn't being heard in a credible way, this is the episode for you. My co host, Mariana is out of town today, so this conversation will be between just myself and Mike. This episode is also brought to you by Legion Athletics, but I don't want to waste any more time on different announcements, so I will leave all the important notes in the caption so we can get into it. So, without further ado, this is Michael Smoke.

Speaker B No, I trust you fully on this one. Okay, cool.

Speaker A This is going to sound weird. I wanted to start off by reading a couple statistics that I think are actually relevant to the conversation we're about to have on how different the world is today, specifically than a few decades ago, and why this skill that we're talking about matters a lot. According to Statista in 2024, this is the stat that blew my mind. The global Volume of digital content created, captured, copied and consumed online. So this is just like social YouTube podcasts. TikToks was 149,000 exabytes. And just to put in perspective, for the 99% of people who don't know what an exabyte is, just 5 exabytes is the equivalent of every word spoken by human beings since the dawn of humankind up to today. Just five. So 149,000 of those just last year. That's a lot of noise is the point I'm trying to make. And I want to start with this because that noise doesn't just stop on your phone or online. And I think this is where it highlights where people are struggling with. Like if you or someone you know is currently looking for a job, 20 to 30 years ago, the average mid sized company, if they posted a job opening might get like 20, 30, 50 people sending in their resumes. Now with things like what LinkedIn. Indeed, that same opening is getting hundreds if not thousands of applicants that you now have to stick out and compete with. If you've ever been on the hiring end. I don't know if you've hired people for your business. Looking through that many applications, they all start to look like the same exact thing. Or what about trying to find someone that you want to spend your life with, right? A quality person to date in a relationship 20 to 30 years ago. You meet people through like friends, maybe school, work, your parents, if you got cool parents will hook you up. But even then your dating pool was a few dozen people max. And today with virtually. I think everyone's still using online dating apps, which I'm actually a big fan of. It's how I met my fiance. Instead of a few dozen people, it is now competing with hundreds if not thousands of people to find someone. All of this to say knowing how to stand out. I think today is a survival technique in the world. And no matter how talented or educated or hardworking you might be, if you aren't being seen or heard in a credible way, you will probably fall very, very short of any goal you have. And to wrap up this long winded intro and why I'm excited to talk to you is because I feel like the connective tissue that holds all of this together is the layers that are effective communication. And I'll say this honestly, and that's why I was pumped out of this conversation. I do believe you are in a league of your own when it comes to that skill. Like I don't shut up about it if I give A presentation on content making. Your name's in there just because of the base of how important that skill is and how good you are at it. So before we dive into tactics, I want to start by asking you two things. First, can you try to define what communication is past? Just the words that are used when speaking. And then what do you think it is that most people get wrong about it?

Speaker B First off, thank you for saying the kind. The kind words that means more than you know, especially coming from a guy like you. And I'm. I'm just honored to be here. Honestly, this is a really cool full circle moment. I've been a fan of you since before I started creating. This is all still fairly new to me. So to hear that from. From someone like you, man, it means the world, Tony. So thank you. As far as communication and how I define it goes, I love the frame you put on it, that it is a form of survival. I don't think you could be more dead on if you tried. I've never actually heard it that way. It's beautifully put. To me, I believe we are only as good as our ability to tell our story. And communication is how you relay and fit into the world, how you place yourself in the world and how others place you based on what you say. Now, there's, of course, components of that that are very complex. We can get into the science and statistics on the first impression and what happens in those first 0 to 7 seconds and how much control we really have over that. But to me, communication is our ability to place ourself in the hierarchy of the world. Whether we're qualified and competent to be in the place we put ourselves in the hierarchy or not is really irrelevant because I've seen plenty of people who aren't, on paper, qualified to be in their place in the world, and yet there they are. Why? Because they have an incredible ability to tell a story and to make complex information about them themselves. Theories, ideas, concepts, the world around them. Very, very simple. And that is a superpower that I think people believe inherently is static within them. And what I want to change people's mind on is that communication is just like a muscle. You can train it, strengthen it, and develop it over time through repetition, progressive overload, and a little bit of healthy stress. So that's what I define communication as. And what I think people get wrong about it oftentimes is it's limited to where they believe it or perceive it to be limited to words. Communication, they believe to be this static one narrow lane of talking. What Do I say, how do I improve my communication through the word choice? But the reality of it is, according to research, only about 7% of communication is actually in the form of the words that we choose. The rest of it is nonverbal pitch and tonality. So things like body language, eye contact, hand movements, and how we say what we say. You know, Jim Rohn said communication is 20% what you say and 80% how you feel about what you say. It's a lot of percentages I just threw at you. But the point in Jim Rohn's quote is that you can say a lot of things a lot of different ways or you can say the same thing a lot of different ways and get a completely different reaction from a person, a significant other, a crowd of people, the Internet and social media as you and I do. And understanding just how complex and diverse those facets of communication can be is really going to be important to people who take this seriously when it comes to being a proficient, an effective communicator.

Speaker A Personally, when I heard a similar stat a few years ago, I didn't break down the percentages, but someone I knew, a friend that was in school for occupational therapy, was, was telling me about this. As far as what percentage is verbal, non verbal, all these different cues. At first, I'm not gonna lie, I just didn't buy it. I was like, that's a made up stat. But I feel like that's a lot of people is when you hear the word communication, you just think words. And I don't know about you, like the moment you realized this was something that was a skill, as in you could train it and you can get better at it. It wasn't just something inherent to you. I don't know if there was a moment for you, but growing up I struggled and thought that this whole world was kind of against me in different places. Like I wasn't great at school at making a ton of friends. And at first I was just blaming. I don't even know everything external. But the older I got and the better I got at communication and started treating it like something you can learn is when I realized back then I'm like, oh my gosh, no. I just sucked at trying to say what I was thinking. Like so many people are geniuses in their head, but you're only as smart as you can communicate, not as smart as is in your head. And I think so many people limit themselves with that. As far as things that get people wrong, do you think people spend the time of day even looking at past the verbal, but the vocal, the visual, the different cues that go into it. What would you say are, like the two or three most important parts, past the words that matter?

Speaker B I think that there's this. There's this cycle in psychology called the competence cycle. And it's. I think it's four phases. You have unconscious incompetence, which is, I don't know what I don't know. And then you have conscious incompetence, which is, I now know there's a lot about this thing that I need to learn. And then you have conscious competence, which is, I'm kind of figuring it out, but I have to think about what I'm doing while I'm doing it to make sure I don't mess it up. And then you have, lastly, the mastery piece. You have unconscious competence, which is where the pros in their respective spaces are. LeBron doesn't think about what he's doing on the court to put up that insane shot. He just moves his body, knows what to do. He's unconsciously competent of the skill set when it comes to great speakers. I think of people like Tony Robbins, Simon Sinek. Maybe someone's listening to their favorite church pastor and just has this. They have this incredible way to relay a message with conviction. And you don't know why, but you love it. And to me, great communicators. So much of what they do appeals to the listener, subconscious mind, and we don't even realize it. But there are things that we can do to make us appear less or more competent when we're in that public speaking setting or when we're in an intimate communication setting. So I don't think people are aware of just how complex this can really get and how much their word can have. I mean, scripture, the Bible says life and death is in the tongue. It's in the power of the tongue. Like, the principle of understanding how powerful our voice is goes back thousands of years. And I think if people can take themselves from unconscious incompetence, which is, I didn't know what tonality was. I didn't know what pitch was. I had never heard of a filler word. And then move into conscious incompetence, which is, okay, I now know that I say, like, a lot. I say way too much. I know that I go upward with my voice far too often instead of downward or neutral, which makes me sound nervous. These are things that people need to take themselves from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence about so that they could then move to sharpening those skill sets. So for me, I think the things that people should really focus on is less about what they're saying and more about how their tone comes across when they say it and what they look like when they're communicating it. If they got those two things absolutely down pat. According to the research, roughly 55% of communication is completely non verbal. Roughly 30 to 35 is in the tonality pitch area and somewhere between 7 and 10 is spoken word choice. So for me, the top two things we can focus on is how we look when we're presenting or when we're talking to someone physically. And that we can go into appearance and dress and haircut and all of that stuff that really matters as well as how do you sound when you say I'm interested in learning more about you? Do you sound curious? Do you sound nervous? How does that person perceive what you say about them when you ask them a question? Like that phrases is simple as that can be perceived as sarcastic or genuine just on how you say it.

Speaker A I don't know if you have a friend like this, but where they could tell you the dumbest story about nothing that matters at all, but you are just hooked and grabbed on. Do you have someone like that in your life? And it's the funniest thing in the world and you're like, what did this person just tell me? Nothing meaningful. But you're laughing, you're engaged like that. So it's interesting because you talk about the visual aspect and I don't think anyone considers that, at least initially a part of communication. But I think the visual cues are huge. I talk a lot about the non verbal aspect of that when it, it comes to content creation. But I'm curious when it comes to how you communicate, how much of that is just how you are presented. As in am I wearing an ironed T shirt? Did I shave? Did I brush my teeth this morning? Just general hygiene, stuff like that versus almost the energy. You show up with like a smile on your face, your, your eyes are bright. Is that separated or all joined together.

Speaker B Everything is completely intertwined. You know, there's a study that found that the first impression of people was made by subjects in this study as early as 150 milliseconds into the interaction. I'm not an expert, but I don't think you have time to reach out and shake your hand and say hi before that impression is made. Now then we have to ask ourselves what are we looking at? What is the person seeing in their early reptilian brain that makes you perceived by them that quickly because it's something instinctual within us. What you said earlier, it's how you look, are you, well, kempt, Are you wearing a ratty T shirt or a button up in an interview setting? Are you overweight? You know, that's one of the things that people don't touch on a lot. But the unfortunate reality, the rule of the game just is people make snap judgments about you based on your appearance and how you show up physically with a smile, with a good physique, in clothes that fit you well, clean cut from a haircut and shave standpoint. If you're a guy, that stuff matters. They've done a bunch of research around correlations between people who perceive someone as clean cut and healthy and how they perceive them as their ability to lead as well as their competence. People literally found those who were physically fit, well dressed, and looked the part. They perceived them as more competent without ever having said a word to them. They placed more faith in them as a leader without ever having said a word to them if they just had to make a snap judgment. And so that really plays to the importance. And again, is that fair? Not necessarily. But who am I to say what's fair within human nature? And I think the way that I view it is we can either sit on the sidelines and complain about how the rules of the game are unfair when it comes to this, or we can learn the rules and bend them to our will. And I think the latter makes a lot more sense than the former.

Speaker A Initially. Off the cuff, it does sound a little, I don't want to say like even vain, but it just kind of hits you like, that shouldn't be how it is. That's at least I think, how it comes off the cuff.

Speaker B I agree.

Speaker A It almost does make more sense that you think about it. It almost signals unconsciously to the other person a little bit about you. And it doesn't tell anything definitive for certain. Getting to know someone is important, but it does send little signals like, oh, this person takes care of themselves. They respect themselves. That means they probably will have higher odds of respecting you. They might treat you well. They obviously treat themselves well. Like, it kind of does give helpful signals. And not to say that you should just judge people based on that. I'm guessing you didn't always realize this, but once you did, did you struggle with the vanity piece of that? Like, why should I have to make myself look better for you?

Speaker B I realized it in hindsight after I got in shape. I used to Be overweight. I was never morbidly obese, but I lost back in 2018, 2019. I was, I was like 235 pounds, which at 511 is not favorable. And I wasn't working out. It wasn't like I was a bulk 235. I was just a frat guy drinking too much. I just looked sloppy, man had a bad haircut, chin beard. It was a dark time, all right. I don't like to go back there too often, but I realized that once I got in shape, I lost 60ish pounds, got down to 170 pounds. A little thin for my frame. I can't believe I just admitted I was five' eleven on the podcast.

Speaker A Clear that part out.

Speaker B We all know six foot kings are lying, but I got down a little thin. But I did notice like I shaved my face because you know when you're overweight your face is rounder and when you get leaner it looks more shapely and you want to show it off. So like I clean shaven, I was fit and I noticed that people just treated me differently that I understood in that moment. Pretty privilege was real. Skinny privilege, fit privilege, whatever you want to call it as a man, it is unfortunately real. I wouldn't say that I felt bitter or resentful or angry about that. It was just more of a, oh, this is the way that things are. So I might as well take advantage of it. And I'm blessed to have that level of ignorance about it and not have gone critical thinking with it because I probably could have gone down a rabbit hole of being pissed. But it was one of those moments where I just understood that this is the rule of the game and I might as well reap the benefits of it to the best of my abilities.

Speaker A I think that's the best way to approach most of life though. There's plenty of ways that things just don't make sense or shouldn't even be that way, but they are. And what are you going to do? Complaining is not productive. Might as well just kind of shift it. So I hate to see it through the lens of content creation, but I almost see it as a little visual hook. And I was reading this cause I was giving a presentation on this just two weeks ago. I was talking about the aspects of a visual hook compared to just an audible hook. And it is outrageous how much more quickly your brain can register images compared to sounds. I think an image. And this is where I use the idea of like a block in content in as little as 13 milliseconds where it takes hundreds to finally understand, could even take seconds, even longer to really grasp the complex pieces that are being spoken to you. So past just how you present yourself with clothes, clean cut, shaven hygiene, what other things go into it? Is it the eye contact? Is it the smile? Is it the other pieces that I don't even know what I'm missing? What else goes into it?

Speaker B Yeah, warmth and body position are really, really big when it comes to interpersonal interactions. So looking someone in the eyes, but not for too long, is important. There's a line, there's sort of soft line past like three to six seconds of continuous eye contact. Probably you're going to creep the girl at the bar out. Fellas, relax. But to look someone in the ey, smile when you walk up to them and extend that hand outward is really important. When you talk to someone, there's an act in a subconscious communication called mirroring. If you want someone to feel more engaged and more comfortable with you, you actually silently and slightly after them, mirror their position, their posture, and their body language. So if you and I are talking in a real life setting and you go and you start to swing one leg out and lean on your right leg a little more and maybe cross your arms. Now, in some ways, this could mean you're becoming more closed off to my communication subconsciously. But if you seem warm, you seem engaged, you're doing a lot of soft nodding about 20 to 30 seconds after I can start to mirror that position. Similarly, and studies have shown us that people tend to have more meaningful and worthwhile communications when they mirror their counterpart effectively. It's sort of a strange human phenomenon. I don't want to butcher this stat, but there's a really interesting statistic I learned from the Sandler Selling podcast about the psychology of sales, because so much of what we're talking about right now is sales. Like, you want to find a partner, you need to sell yourself on being the best option. Everything in life is sales. We're selling people on us being a preferred information source for content. Everything in life is selling. And communication is huge in that the first place we process data is within our limbic system, and then it goes to our frontal lobe. I think the numbers were something like our frontal lobe processes at like 20,000 bytes per second, and the limbic system processes data at 2 million bytes per second. So it's much more rapid and it's much quicker. That's why when we're having a conversation and something triggers us or we have that gut feeling of anger or doubt. That's our limbic system talking to us. For me, little things like that help me understand. Like we're probably appealing to a person's limbic system. When we match them, when we mirror them, when we have open, soft eyes and a smile, we don't appear predatory. We appear to be at an allied level. Like, this all goes back to early human nature and how our brain perceives threats, which is really fascinating.

Speaker A This is giving me a funny memory. When I first read the book, what was it? How to Win Friends and influence people. Yeah, usually like 18, 19 year old, the first book you read, if you're trying to get better at this. And I'm thinking this is something that I don't know if you can off the cuff, just start doing without coming off weird. You're talking about, like staring at people in the eyes. I remember after reading that book, every conversation was, Michael, how's it going today, Michael, I was just repeating your name a hundred times. It was like, in the most awkward sense, because that book, that was one of the rules. I feel like this is the same thing. And it's easy to overthink body language to the point where I feel like if you're starting out and you're focusing too much on that, it would be hard to even listen to what the other person's talking about. Therefore, you're not gonna be able to have a good conversation. You're not gonna communicate well. How much of good communication would you even say is listening to the other person, like putting the other person first, regardless of all the initial stuff we're talking about?

Speaker B Oh, it's. It's everything, truly. There's so many old adages for that, but everybody's favorite subject is themselves. And if you wanna be sure a person walks away from an interaction with you and says, I really like that person, and I don't know why. It will be because you let them talk about themselves more than you talked about you. It's just that. It's just again, a rule of human nature. I learned a lot of what I know now about communication from the background I have in college, my academic background, my college degree, as well as postgrad in the workforce. I was a part of a training system called Sandler Sales, which I alluded to earlier. They have a rule in sales conversations that it should be at an 80, 20 split. You should be listening 80% of the conversation, and the prospect should be talking 80% of the conversation. And of your 20%, most of it should be asking questions about the other party. I mean, you have two ears, one mouth. Use them accordingly. It's a very simple rule to remember. Too many people talk themselves out of romantic partners, friendships, job opportunities because they just don't know when to land the plane and stop talking. So asking questions and letting the other person open up about themselves, especially in that introductory phase of getting to know a client, a prospective client, a company, a person, a friend is critical for that part of the process.

Speaker A That's always a piece that I've brought into thinking about relationships, and not just like romantic relationships, but with your. With your family, your friends, your everything, how important that aspect is. And I do feel like it does transition over. So I'm almost trying to, you know, not put the. What do they say? The cart before the horse, in the sense of. I could see myself learning about this, focusing so much on, am I crossing my arms? Am I mirroring this person? To totally forget the most important piece. I don't know if the conversation is like big rocks versus little rocks, things that produce 90% of the results versus 10% of the results. Listening's up there. I would say, from what you're talking about, listening's up there. What are some other big rocks before getting into some of the smaller ones that people might not need to worry about at first?

Speaker B Yeah, listening in no particular order. And I love that analogy. I love the big rock, little rock analogy. I heard Lane Norton use that a decade, decade ago. And I've used it so many times to describe any major.

Speaker A I repeat it 100 times.

Speaker B Yeah, I love it. The big rocks of communication. Absolutely. Active listening is going to be right there at the top. Notice I said active listening, not listening. There's just little things like show the person you're talking with that you're genuinely engaged. Don't. Don't be a fucking sociopath weirdo and force the fact that you're active listening. Just nod your head, say, yeah, chime in and say, I get it. Totally. I've been there. Just little phrases to show like, I'm locked in on what you're saying. Showing the person that genuinely curious in what it is they have to say is a huge part of that conversation outside of that, especially in a public speaking setting. And I have a feeling that a lot of people listening to this show are probably aspiring creators, entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, they're going to have to be in a lot of communication situations where they're speaking to a crowd, albeit on their phone, to the Internet, or maybe in real life, the other big rock and you and I were talking about this before the show is filler word usage. If you say like and, and you use phrases such as things like that, you know, and the word right. The word right kills me. If you use those. Tony's. Oh, God. If you use those incessantly, not only is it really annoying to someone who, who does have a high level of communication skill, but there's this point where you tip the scale towards incompetence when you say it. Let's just take an example. I want anybody to think of their favorite public speakers. Maybe you're a huge Tony Robbins fan or Simon Sinek fan, like I am, as I alluded to earlier, maybe you love your pastor. Just listen to how many times those guys or gals that you love talking on stage say like or, you know. I promise you it is minimal, if at all. And it's because what's really happening there is all you are doing is creating a gap for your brain to catch up to your mouth because you're uncomfortable with a little bit of silence filling that gap. All you have to do is just take a brief pause and give your brain just a minute to catch up. And I did it four times right there. And nobody listening even noticed. That's all it takes. It's a brief one count and you are subconsciously filling it up with those filler words. And what will happen is people will deem you as less competent. One of my mentors said once to me on a phone call, I'll never forget it. He glossed over it and I went, I need you to say that to me again because I think it was incredibly important. He. We were talking about giving my first big sales presentation. It was right when I started in corporate it. And he said, remember, clarity and conviction is perceived by those who hear it as competence and confidence. Clarity and conviction. If you speak clearly, concisely, you don't bumble over your thoughts, you don't use filler words, and you can believe what you say. Then people are going to perceive you as competent, smart, and confident. What do they do with people who are confident and competent? They look to them, they trust them, they befriend them. And so the two biggest things that come up to me are absolutely, actively listening. And when you speak, stop saying like and so damn, damn much because you sound silly. Those are the top two that come to mind for me.

Speaker A And I'm gonna get into the higher up speaking challenge, which is one of my favorite freaking things in the world that I actually wanted.

Speaker B So cool.

Speaker A I'm. I'M pumping the brakes on it first because it like actually blows my mind. Like, like, like one thing that it took for me to notice was when I started filming the podcast, this was like three years ago. I thought I was doing a pretty damn good job at speaking. If you would have asked me if I'm using filler words, I. I'd say no, not really. Maybe one here or there. And it wasn't until I put that same audio visual into a software called Descript. But basically watching it back, the software is cool because it literally highlights different Filler words, likes UMS rights. You knows there's 15 of them that you can select. And I had said the word right to finish my sentence in a 30 minute conversation. It was like 165 times in 30 minutes. And if you asked me before seeing that, I would have said none, maybe a couple times, but nothing that anyone else would notice. And it took me re listening to it. And I see that so many times with people and their own content or their own podcast when they start out. I'm like, how often do you re listen to your own podcast? And the answer is hardly ever more than zero. And that's what it took for me at least to realize all the areas I need to improve on. Is filming yourself speaking one of the exercises or best tools you think there is to notice where those dips in your speaking is?

Speaker B The best athletes in the world all watch game film. They all watch film on themselves and they have other people critiquing it, giving feedback. Also, I apologize to anyone who is just scared senseless. I opened my water on the microphone and if I blew out your eardrum, I'm sorry about that. It was a sparkling water and I forgot I thought it was still. But my belief on skill developing is, you know, they say good artists copy, great artists steal. So why would I not steal the idea from the greats? If the great athletes and performers watch themselves committing their craft, why would I not do the same thing? And so, yeah, I believe that we treat speaking like an athlete treats game film. And if you're, you know, people, I said it all the time when I started. I hate the sound of my own voice. I don't like listening to myself. That's a very common thing that I hear in the communication space. If you hate listening to the sound of your own voice, this, it's either one of two things, if not both. Number one, you're kind of a shitty communicator and you don't like being reminded of that. And number Two, you just don't do it enough. I listen to all of my podcasts back. Chris Griffin, who's the host of a podcast called the Pocket, we were talking about this and he said people probably think I'm some kind of narcissist because when they ask me what podcast I listen to the most, I say my own. But the point is, I go back through every episode. I'll watch my content periodically. I've noticed I'm totally comfortable with it, watching it myself, other people watching it around me because I've done it so much, but it has made me so much better. I'll go back and listen to this and I'll find a bunch of stuff that I want to do better as a result. So if you're serious, those out there listening about improving your communication skills, filming yourself speaking and grading yourself on it, and if you could even take it a step further, doing it with some sort of accountability partner is going to vastly expedite your progress.

Speaker A It's insane to me to think how much ground I would have missed if I didn't do that. There's even a phrase or a name or a label for it. The essence of why you don't like hearing yourself speak, because I think that is a universal thing that happens to everybody. A big piece of it, too, that most people don't realize is when you hear yourself talk in your head, like me talking to you right now in your eardrums, you have this. This bass coming in from your throat, from your own vocal cords that doesn't show up when you watch yourself back on film. So your voice sounds ridiculously different. And I think that's what catches people off guard. It's not necessarily bad. It's just very different than you expect. So you don't like it because it's not what sound sounds like you in your head. This reminded me of this learned experience piece. Have you ever heard of the thought experiment called Mary's Blue House?

Speaker B What is it?

Speaker A It's called Mary's Room. It's a thought experiment. It's a girl who lives in a black and white house, and in this house has absolutely all the information could possibly ever in principle be discovered about the color blue. All of the information about the color blue could be discovered in this house, but the house is just black and white. She learns all of this and knows everything about the color blue. But once she steps outside and sees the sky or just something blue, the question is, does she learn something new? Everything here that is in this house, to know about the color blue is there. Does she learn something through experiencing that the first time? I think the answer is yes. Like experience can carry an opportunity for learning. Another way of thinking about it I've heard people talk about is like, the map is different than the territory. There's just some kinds of knowledge that you can only learn through experience. All of the complex problems you run into while doing it. So I know this might sound like a basic question, but for everyone out there who's stuck in that learning phase, studying, reading books, listening to us talk about what might be good to add into their communication, is that gonna even come a tenth of the way to what filming yourself for 60 seconds will do?

Speaker B It's not even close. I love that you brought this point up, because one of the most common questions I get when it comes to communication is, is what books do you recommend I read on public speaking? And I respond, I say, do you hear the irony in that question? You're asking me what to read about public speaking. You can read every book ever written on communication inside of that house. I love that analogy on that thought experiment. But until I put you on a stage in front of 150 people, you're not going to know what it feels like. Eventually you got to get out of the film room and start applying this stuff. You can watch all the YouTube fitness videos you want, but until you pick up a barbell, you're not going to grow an ounce of muscle tissue issue. So there are absolutely things, and I would, I would argue even this goes for probably every skill, that the application is so much more than the education or the application is the education really in real time occurring. And so for anyone out there who's really, really dedicated and committed to doing something like being a better communicator, it is of paramount importance that you put reps in far above reading or studying. Now it's important. I watch the greats of public speaking all the time and borrow some of the things that they do, but you're not going to find your style. I couldn't find my style until I started getting out on stages, in front of crowds, in front of groups, posting content. That it was there that I then honed my craft, and I think uniquely for public speaking and communication skills, too. It's the last thing so many people want to do. You know, in a survey, public speaking ranked number one as people's greatest fear ahead of death. That's how scared people are of this stuff.

Speaker A Dude, before you do it, the amount of your heart is racing and you're just sweating and you forget everything that you think of. It makes sense why everyone is terrified to do it. I want to ask about this higher up speaking challenge because I think should be studied as a social experiment. It's wild.

Speaker B Craziest part of my career.

Speaker A It would be so impressive to start a trend that just on base, thousands of people would follow. And that's even if it was just a hashtag on posts. If it's just a hashtag and you started that trend, that's still really impressive to me if you can do that to thousands of people. What my brain cannot conceptualize that is impressive about this is that it is probably in the not even just thousands, but what, ten to thousands at this point would you say?

Speaker B I ballparked it the other day and my guess is somewhere between 25 and 40,000 people, maybe more at this point.

Speaker A So tens of thousands of people that are actively doing what is on surveys the most terrifying thing a human being can do. That's what my brain can't conceptualize. Again, if you just started a trend of using hashtags or wearing a pink T shirt on Mondays, that's impressive. I'll give you claps for that. The fact that this many people are doing what is is not even arguably the scariest thing you could do on a repetitive basis blows my mind. So I don't even know if I know where that came from. Break it down. Why that started. Was it intentional? Unintentional?

Speaker B Where did this come from, man? I am the most blown away by that out of anything. This could all end tomorrow and I could hang my hat on that. I have made no money from it. I have not benefited from it. It is strictly the coolest thing I have ever been a part of and I take zero credit for that. Having taken off the way that it did.

Speaker A Zero.

Speaker B What happened was every once in a while I make a video and we'll even repost the same video about the power of communication. And it was in that video. I posted it twice about a month apart and it went viral both times. So it hit a pretty large audience. And in the video I talk about how important it is to be proficient at this and how you can get better at it. And you can have two people lined up next to each other other with the exact same qualifications. And the person that's going to win is the person that tells the story better. And in that video there was never. That's what's so crazy about this challenge, dude, is that there was no call to action for me. I Didn't tell anybody to do anything. I didn't say do this, tag me hashtag at Higher up public speaking challenge. No, I did not do that in the video. I just said some ways you can practice are and I said make a burner account on this app and talk for 60 seconds into the camera. That's all. It was a three second part of my video. I didn't allude to anything and people just took it and ran with it and started tagging me. There was no initiation by me. That's why this is so crazy. And it superseded me so far to the point it's so much bigger than Higher Up Wellness or anything. Like people are doing it and having no idea who I am and that's what I think is so cool. The source I give the most credit to is this guy Brandon. He's Jack guy, Asian guy, wears glasses. He's a content creator now. He didn't mean to be but he was one of if not the first people I saw do this and he is such an amazing example of what's possible and how social media is a lottery ticket. He made a video and simply said hi, my name is Brandon. Higher Up Wellness said that recording myself speaking into the camera every day for 30 days could change my life and change my communication skills. And so that's what I'm going to do. I'm very nervous but I'm hoping for the best first video ever on his burner account. Millions of views gymshark comments pro sports teams comment brands comment and overnight Brandon goes from 0 followers 0 posts to 1 post 40,000 followers. And I give all the credit to Brandon for taking this and run with it has nothing to do with me. And since then it has just blown up and I've seen people become content creators from it gain a hundred thousand followers. But even those who haven't think of one guy in particular who said I did it every day for 60 days and I didn't gain any following or anything but me and my wife are able to communicate on such a more deep level than before and that's huge. Yeah, I think that's what it's really about is just getting people empowered and comfortable to speak their mind in a way that can help others understand them and help them feel seen is what this is about. But that's a roundabout way to say that's how it started. And it every day I get get 100 to 150 new accounts tagging me and it's just incredible.

Speaker A Can you briefly even just because I Realized we might have skipped this part and there might be someone who's unfamiliar with it. Can you explain what the challenge is and the purpose of it? Just in the short sense, because I think we missed that part.

Speaker B Yeah. Very simple. What it has turned into, what the people have made it is every day for 60 seconds, unfiltered and unedited people pick up the phone. It's a minimum of 30 days, but some people are doing a hundred, some people are doing a full year. They just keep going. Every day for at least 60 seconds, you just pick up the phone, you record yourself and you talk. There's no rules on what you can talk about, what you want to talk about. I generally advise people pick a field or topic that you're passionate about because that can be easier to speak off the cuff on. You know, the. The analogy someone used for me once is if. If you were in a room full of people and someone picked you and said, stand up and talk about something you love for a few minutes, that's probably the thing you should do. And then it just evolves. People talk about their days, their outlooks, what they're going through, but that's it. Pick up the phone, record yourself all unfiltered, unedited for at least a minute and do it every day and watch some facet of your life improve.

Speaker A Two pieces that popped up in my head. One, that part on the husband and wife almost breaks my freaking heart because it so many people discount communication for just something that is or content creators or public speaking. And if you don't do that, if you're in an office job or whatever, it's not going to apply to you. And that could not be further from the truth. It bleeds into every part of your life, especially relationships, and not just romantic. Every relationship you have, even with yourself, I would argue every relationship with yourself. I think communication improves that. Now, something that I hadn't thought of before, this conversation that I did just when you put this is we're talking about how filming yourself and rewatching it gives you that feedback loop. But there's an added aspect to this challenge which is posting it publicly. I would almost think initially that you could gain all of the pieces that you need to improve on communication wise without posting it. But there's this added layer of posting it that now my brain is starting to think of all the different things that that adds to it. What do you think that adds to it? On top of just filming, rewatching yourself without posting that public aspect, it eliminates.

Speaker B The Fear from people's minds, that is public speaking. You can improve your communication if you just sit back and watch yourself talk. But when you put it on the Internet, for people, at least in their minds, it makes it more real. It's. It's a simulation to getting up in front of a crowd and mimicking that biggest fear ahead of death, that people were that petrified of public speaking. And there's a human nature component to that, too. We have all eyes on us in a setting. There's this fear of being rejected or cast out. So the fear that so many people deal with in their lives, which is filters and programming, that is a byproduct of their own experiences that they let define them. What will they think of me? What if they don't like me? What if I fail? What if I'm rejected? What if I have to get up in front of a crowd? You're addressing five of people's biggest, most common fears. When you take that video and then just put it on the Internet, and the truth is, either it sucks and nobody sees it, or it pops and it changes your life. And I think that, that the. The putting it on the Internet adds an accountability because eventually there will be people that pick up and expect it from you, and that allows you to show up whether you want to or not. Like, we could go deeper and deeper with this man, but I think that becoming a better communicator and becoming truly comfortable with public speaking are different.

Speaker A That's where my brain's racing onto now. Just that small aspect of posting, it almost doubles the return you get on it. Because I'm almost thinking, now you're now watching that video. If I just took it and didn't post it, I had no intent to post it, and I was just watching it back on myself. I'm seeing it how I see it, and I'm almost going to give myself a little bit of grace. But as soon as I hit post, even if not a single soul views it, I'm now watching it, thinking, what are other people going to see? What is everyone else going to see in this? That's not just me. And I feel like that elevates what you get back just from the communication standpoint, not just the aspect of doing hard things and how important that is. It's almost like the. The ice bath conversation, where this is actually one of the things that I might have messaged, Dylan, before you and I had even connected ever on social media, was when I was watching you do ice baths every day and you were Getting so much shit from the evidence based fitness community on it. This is not optimal for hypertrophy. I'm like that's not the only thing this is doing. If you've ever done it, the hardest three minute thing that you could intentionally do, I would argue that's out there. Like there's so much that goes past it and you had brought it up one day, I'm like thank. Because so many people just do it and then stop doing it because others bully them and say this is stupid, you're not going to build muscle. It's like that's not everyone's only goal in life. And that's one of the first things I remember about your content actually sticking, sticking with me.

Speaker B It's so important to do difficult things for the sake of them being difficult. And I love that you brought that angle in man. Like that is an angle that will increase people's sense of fulfillment and purpose and drive and literal will to live. I mean it's been beaten to death at this point since Huberman talked about it. But I caught so much shit from the evidence base. Faced 160 pound lifters that told me it was off. Sorry I'm being a, that's a bit tongue in cheek there. But the, the guys that are telling me it's not optimal for hypertrophy, that's not why I'm doing it. And by the way, I'm happy with the way I look. I'm doing it because it sucks. It sucks. And I love genuinely the physiological increase in catecholamines that I get from it, the dopamine, the adrenaline. I feel great when I get out of cold water, but if I start my day with something hard, if I break my day up with something shitty, if I willfully subject myself to manufactured adversity in a world that is so comfortable, I set myself up to handle involuntary adversity. Andrew Huberman has this great quote. He says we should do self elected hard things so that when life's non elected challenges arise and they will. I can tell myself I don't know how I'm going to get through this. But I know that I can do hard things. And it makes so much sense to me that at a physiological level our brain doesn't recognize where stress comes from. It just knows. Stress, no stress. It doesn't know if your cortisol is high because you're in ice cold water or because the rent is due and you don't know how you're going to pay it or you have a Sick family member, something I know intimately. And so it is important to put ourselves in stressful situations that forces our nervous system to expand the capacity within which it feels safe. Because that's what everything comes back to is our nervous system sense of safety in a setting. If you're uncomfortable with getting up in front of a crowd, your nervous system is going to light up like a fireworks show. You're going to feel unsafe, safe. How do you make it feel comfortable in that setting? You expose yourself to it. And that's why I did the ice baths. And that's an added layer of the public speaking challenge. And there's neuroscience to support the part of the brain, the anterior midcingulate cortex. It's the only part of the brain that we know of that literally can elicit hypertrophy and atrophy when we take on self elected challenges. And when they stimulate that part of the brain, the amcc, it seems to be associated with human beings literal will to live. So we can draw a conclusion from that, that if we do things we don't want to do often, that we can literally increase our sense of purpose, fulfillment and our will for being on the earth. That's worth hopping in cold water and filming myself if you ask me.

Speaker A That sounds kind of important.

Speaker B I'm no scientist, I'm no human, but it sounds important.

Speaker A Yeah, it sounds kind of important. May I ask a personal question about you and some tough times you've been through? Because now I'm curious in looking at this, how recently had you gone through that tough aspect with family that you had mentioned?

Speaker B I mean, you know, you, you navigate through it in different parts throughout the duration of your life. But last June I moved back home, just high level without getting too into the weeds on the first part of it. But I, I was in a very long relationship, we lived together, had a dog very long and broke up. That's obviously tough. And so I just move home. I'm going to reroute my life, regroup. And I come home June of last year thinking, oh, I'm going to move to Tampa, Florida. I'm going to get out here, new life for myself. And turns out my dad was sick and that began to progress to me moving home fully, living with my parents for seven months, taking care of my dad, helping my mom take care of my dad. And then what ultimately evolved to basically being his full time caretaker and then hospice nurse until he ultimately passed away in January of 2025. So my dad died this year about nine months ago now, eight months ago now. And just now coming out the other side in the last couple months of the grief and things that follow that. So the last, I mean, truthfully, the last 16, 18 months of my life have been this like constant state of extreme tension and challenge. But I'm incredibly thankful for it. So to answer your question, it started really in June of last year and when my dad passed in January, that brought a lot of the hard stuff to a head. And then navigating this, this new chapter of life without him has been, has been challenging at times as well.

Speaker A I'm sorry to hear that because no one deserves or should ever have to go through that. So I'm sorry that you had to go through it especially so recently. But what I am now curious about is that's I would say arguably one of the tougher things a human would have to go through. Was there ever a before Michael that wasn't as leaned into this friction, this hard thing kind of lifestyle? And I'm curious if anything in your past when you were younger teenager, early 20s, that you had to go through that might have even felt harder than what you just went through because you don't think you equipped yourself beforehand. Was there anything like that or you've just been just a hammer since birth? I don't know.

Speaker B Oh, not even close. I was softer than baby for most of my life. I hated conflict, I hated hard conversations. I didn't take care of myself. I had no confidence or self belief. And you know, I look back on the last two and a half years of my life, maybe even three, when I ran my first marathon and having this confusion about why I was so convicted and why I was so happy to do all these hard things and why I so intuitively and quickly understood that I need to do hard things to prepare me for life's challenges. And I think it was God getting me ready for the worst thing I would ever go through. Like my dad and I were like this. Like we joked that when one of us goes, the other one's going to have no one to speak the language to. Like we were, we were that tight. He was my best friend. And I believe so deeply that you can't mimic the death of your best friend and the suffering that they go through and what you have, what I had to do for him through ice baths and marathons and hard training. That's not what I'm saying. I do think I made myself and my nervous system more durable and resilient and able to sit in discomfort comfort because of how often I was putting myself out there in other facets of my life, how often I was stretching my capacity. I don't know if I would have been as well adjusted. And there's a great deal of change that I went through in building a relationship with God as well. And the coaches that I hired and worked with throughout that process with my father that got me to be where I am now, which is truly okay and happy. But outside of that, I really think that the Lord was preparing me me through putting certain people in my life that I didn't understand at the time and through having me fall in love with manufactured adversity and telling other people about it. Because I do think it really did make me and my nervous system more durable through that period. But it really didn't turn on in me like that until maybe 2022 is when I really understood the power of number one, creating confidence through evidence and number two, how important it is to take on self elected challenges.

Speaker A Your dad sat down sounds like an amazing person. I know so many people probably wish they could have that kind of a relationship and I guarantee you probably felt the same way, like just beyond lucky that you were his son and he could have that relationship because a lot of fathers don't have that either. And looking at going through all this, I've seen people that the loss of someone close can derail their entire life. It can wreck them for understandable reasons. Like it's, it's such a massive change, it makes sense why it can derail and people have to quit their job and go into hiding and just dwell on this piece. I don't even want to draw this comparison. But to look, look at how these seemingly smallish skills can, can really go so far when it comes to different aspects of your life. It's not just a how well do you speak on camera or how well do you show up? It's. It's scary to think about. I'm sure you've probably gotten lost a hundred times thinking about it. I'm thinking now your relationship with yourself and if that's improved back to the communication aspect because if you don't understand how you're feeling on the inside, I feel like it'd be hard to navigate and get out of that. If you don't have the basic communication skills, it'd be hard to navigate what's going on inside. And I would almost argue that's probably the most important relationship that getting good at communication would improve. Am I off the mark on that?

Speaker B I've had people ask me a couple of Times. And this isn't something I'm necessarily proud of, but it's become a pattern. The two questions that stick out is people ask me if I'm doing okay because my dad died. What is it? Was it September? He died eight months ago, January 19th. And a lot of people are still just swallowed by grief at that point. And number two, how am I so introspective? That's just a general question outside of the death of my father. And I do believe a massive component in my ability to understand myself and look out for myself is in how I talk to myself. And I have an understanding of myself because I know how to communicate what I'm feeling to others. Thereby I can communicate what I'm feeling to that little kid in me that was so hurt by his dad getting sick and dying. And the reframe that I put on it, which was that I think a lot of people don't really realize. As I said earlier, life and death is in the tongue. The words they choose, the communication skills or style or word choice they have around hardship can really define if it keeps them in shackles and bondage or if it sets them free. For example, a lot of people will just say without thinking, when someone dies, oh, I lost my, my dad, I lost my brother, I lost my wife. I had Peter Crone on my podcast a few months ago who's a very well known self help coach, if you will, life coach of sorts and in real time. He coached me through the death of my dad. And one of the things he challenged me on was he said, I want you to stop using the word lost. You've said that a few times. You didn't lose anything. I didn't lose anything. What I found was a relationship with someone that was so great that it was worth feeling these feelings of heaviness, sorrow and grief over. He says that, you know, you didn't lose your dad, he died. That's different. If, if you lost something, it would, it would have, it come from this place of scarcity. In reality, you had the gift of feeling a great joy with him once. Something many people like you just said never get to feel they have a lukewarm relationship with a parent. And he said, would you rather trade what you had with your dad for an extra 20 years with him for a lukewarm relationship? Or would you keep it the way it was and just be on fire with him, his best friend, and him die at 27 years old? And I said this way, every time, I would do it all again exactly the Same, because this was a gift. So the communication I have with myself and the word choice around trials and tribulations that I face in my life, I'm very, very particular and careful of. And it has led me to understanding myself and that inner child we all have that was wounded or suppressed or insulted at one point, so that I can ultimately look out for that kid and me and understand myself better and in turn, show up better for other people in my role in my interpersonal life in the world around me. It's. It's critical. You're spot on.

Speaker A It's something that I don't know how many people ever get to. In thinking like that. Like, words matter. And I annoy the crap out of people that listen to my podcast sometimes because I will spend a certain chunk of every little piece just defining simple words because words matter. How you like. This story is crazy powerful. Like how you talk to yourself. You just. The word choice you use. If you ask anybody, I lost my father, and my father died. What's the difference between those two sentences? 99% of people will say it's the same thing. And if you really pay attention to words and how much they matter, it's almost a little terrifying because it's. It's subconsciously just training your brain where to look in the world. Something I didn't realize until I went through a pretty tough mental health battle in, like, early 20s. I didn't realize that that was the key aspect. I was training myself to look at just all the best, all the negative stuff, and I was ignoring and blocking out anything that could be good or could be beautiful. And it's scary to think about how much that matters and how little people put attention to that. So let's go back to just talking, speaking about all these pieces. I feel like it can be a fine line between thinking I need to be as complex and accurate as I possibly can when learning what words to use, how to structure my sentences, and keeping it simple, which is usually more effective for you and others? When people are learning how to speak better, when they're expanding their vocabulary, how much effort do you think they should be putting towards complexity versus just keeping it simple? How important is keeping it simple?

Speaker B I think it's of paramount importance. You know, there's a great quote out there that I think. Don't quote me on this, guys, is from Thomas Jefferson, and it says, Never say in two words what can be said in 1.

Speaker A 1.

Speaker B One of the biggest problems in communication is people just ramble. The thought is not concise. A friend of mine's dad, once he had a. He's one of those old southern guys that had a quip or a witty remark for everything. And if. If you would drone on too long, he would say one of two things. He would either say, brother, land the plane, or he would say, I just need to know the time. I don't need to know how the watch is made. And I think those are so funny. But most people tell you about the making. I don't need to know how the watch was made. I just need to know the time tells me me. Give me what I need out of this interaction and stop saying too much. I think it's either from a fear of nervousness that people ramble or this desire that's rooted in some sort of insecurity to prove their competence. But generally the sharpest, the best communicators, the most powerful people in a room are not the people that talk the most. They get their point across as effectively and efficiently. Keyword as possible. It always comes back to simplicity. My friend Nick Comodina, who actually, our friend, we're both friends with him, says the most profound truths in this life are usually the simplest. They don't require a ton of thought. Occam's Razor says the most likely explanation is usually the simplest one. And if we can just always come back to the least common denominator or the most simple explanation for things, we can probably come across as the most competent person in a situation. So I would tell people, stop. Stop losing the forest for the trees. I'm speaking like Yoda right now. But there's so many aphorisms that help, that help me understand this, that the simpler you can make something for yourself, the higher likelihood you have of being able to relay that message to yourself intrinsically and then to the people around you.

Speaker A I'm going to screw up this guy's name. It was this, this quote by Blaise Pascal, who's this French mathematician in like the 1700s. Anywho, he basically, at the end of his life, was writing all of these letters to try and pass on what he had learned, like all of his knowledge, all of his notes, notes. And at the end of it, he wrote a note that basically said, I'm sorry this letter was so long, but I didn't have time to make it shorter. And I love it because it sounds paradoxical, right? Like it is so much harder to be concise and clear than long winded when you get a point across. I want to hear your take on this, but I would Almost say after people understand how to cut out filler words. That might be the next biggest problem people face is how to condense what they're saying, how to stop going, going on. How do you practice that? How do you get better at that?

Speaker B This is the reason that aphorisms are so popular. I love aphorisms, which are short, punchy phrases that have a broader meaning for life. And I developed my love of aphorisms through listening to Chris Williamson, host of the Modern Wisdom podcast. That man speaks in aphorisms, and he's very aware of that. He says it all the time. There's a reason they're so powerful, and it is because they get across such a broad message in such few words all the time. Like Tony Robbins. The one that comes up for me is we don't experience life. We experience a life that we focus on. That's one sentence. And that was. That's revolutionary for millions of people to hear. But it's one sentence. He didn't go into some complex Harry Potter CVS receipt, length, thought. It's one sentence that provokes something within us to then think intrinsically in detail about it. And then. And so there are these series of rules or reminders I have in my own head when I'm giving a presentation, I'm giving a talk, I'm practicing my public speaking, and it's land the plane, meaning I'm always looking for an opportunity to close the loop on my thought as quickly as possible and think of aphorisms. Keep it punchy, keep it short, keep it powerful. So if people can just focus on the how, which I'll get to in just a minute, to make things short and concise, they can at least come across as more profound and intelligent. And I think that comes from what we talked about earlier. Not just an application of public speaking, but an application of the things that you believe in. I you. We can speak on the importance of doing hard things and help people understand it because we do it every day. I can understand how to explain muscular hypertrophy to somebody because I've been in the gym a few times a week for a decade. That's why we understand it, is because we're masters of application. Dare I say, masters might be a stretch, but we've applied it so many times that we can't help but understand it in its simplest terms. And I ask people to study the experts and the greats in any given field. Listen to the way that Tony talks in his content. Listen to the way that Lane Norton, one of the Best minds in the space. They all speak in relatively simple terms because they understand it so well and yet they have these incredibly complex minds and these insane certifications. But they can explain it to a middle schooler if they had to. And that's your benchmark for how? Well, how ready am I to teach someone about something? Could I pull a seventh grader in and explain this concept to them? And they go, oh, I get it. It's a really good indicator. Always be focusing on apply, apply, apply, until you can understand it so deeply that you can explain that phrase in one word and not two or that concept.

Speaker A It's something that I see so many very educated people struggle with online especially. This is again, back to the content domain, which I hate to keep pulling it back to, but it's hard for people to, in a sense, dumb it down to make it more simpler. I don't know if there's a name for it like the curse of knowledge, that thing where basically when you understand something so deeply, it can be very hard to imagine what it's like not to understand it anymore. And a lot of people that are very educated, you probably see this in this industry as well, the fitness industry. How many people with doctorate degrees, some of the most brilliant minds you'll ever speak to, but their content doesn't connect with anybody, mostly because they're speaking in the longest, most drawn out, complex terms and jargon that nobody knows what it means. Nobody knows how to follow that. And I think they're missing that big rock that you mentioned up front, which is the piece of you're not thinking about it from the other person's point of view. That's what I've always said about communications. It's not as much about what you say, it's about what the other person receives. And I think that's a good step of getting outside yourself and learning how to do that. Have you done anything intentionally to help yourself get to that perspective? How do you get someone to see from another person's point of view how something might be received? Is that possible?

Speaker B Yeah, I think a piece of it goes back to the deep understanding, but then we know that's not far enough because we see, like you just said, so many great minds on the Internet that have 1500 followers. And I've seen some of them grow bitter and resentful because they think they have all of this knowledge. People even reached out to me and, and said really hateful stuff like, I have more certifications, more knowledge than you, and you don't deserve the platform. It's like, well, there's a reason people aren't listening to you and they are listening to me. That's the truth. And it can be very hard for experts to put themselves back in the shoes of the beginner, whether that is because of their ego, because they generally lack the ability to communicate a message. But before social media, I was in cybersecurity sales and there was always a two person team on every sale. We had the engineer who did all the work and the stuff that really mattered. And then we had me, and then we had the client because without me, the engineer would muff every single sale because he would confuse the ever loving shit out of the client. And it was my job to know enough about what the engineer was saying and to know that the client had no idea to be the mediary between the two too, to be the mouthpiece to help that client understand why all of this guy's knowledge and skills were important for their business. And in communication, in content creation, people need to be their own engineer, their own doctor, their own high level, whatever certification you want to call it, and their own salesperson. They need to have that identity within them that can take the concepts, condense them and relay them. One of the things that would work for me really well was repeated auditory exposure. I'm an extremely auditory guy and I get asked a lot like why where did the breadth of knowledge on random topics you have come from? Because I talk about a bunch of random stuff and it really just comes from. I was spent. I spent thousands of hours in the car over the last eight or nine years commuting to class. The work that I had was far away. And I would listen to Huberman Lab Mind Pump sales podcasts, the Sandler Selling System podcast. I would listen to the same episode a few times and would jot it down, jot down like my brain dump about the episode in my iPhone notes or in my notebook pad and would just repeatedly hear it until I understood it or could take the thought and then translate it in my mind so that I understood it. And I guess I'm just lucky to have a certain level of, I don't know, incompetence that I have to make it simple enough. And how I relay it so that I can understand it is how other people can understand it too. That's what people lack, that salesperson within them that goes, how do I take this meaningful concept and make it really, really simple?

Speaker A That story reminds me of the skit that Key and Peele did.

Speaker B What was it called?

Speaker A The Anger trans translator. Do you remember that skit by chance? Or is that.

Speaker B No, no, no.

Speaker A It was like the president is just this hyped up angry person and he had an anger translator next to him. So he would speak angry like Yale doing. It's a hilarious skit. I wish they came back. But he'd have this translator that would, in a kind, professional way, just explain it to people. That's what that skit about the sales just reminded me of. Because that's so true. You almost need a little self inside that can in a sense audit you a little bit.

Speaker B Yeah.

Speaker A Say, hey, they're not going to get this. What is the other person seeing? What is the other person hearing? When it comes down to this, and it's shocking, at least what I would think is how little you need to be effective in getting a point across. I spend the majority of my time in scripting my content. If I take a very complex idea, I will spend three to four times longer just cutting things out, taking things away from it to get it to the final stage of where I think people are going to. It's going to resonate and people are going to be able to understand this. And I feel like even just filming yourself and listening it back will do a good job of you understanding. Like, I do not need to be talking about X, Y or Z. The less you say, the more weight each word carries. Now there was a trap that I fell for and a lot of people do when trying to be personal is you study a lot of these, these great speakers, the Tony Robbins, the Simon Sinek. And it's almost hard to feel authentic and to find yourself in all of that and not just feel like you are being someone else character. When everyone's super, nobody is. If you want to be different, what advice could you give to people on how to do that? How to maintain authenticity and not feel like you're just copy paste version of X, Y or Z.

Speaker B The Incredibles reference there was wonderful. If everybody's super, nobody will be. Love that shout out syndrome. But authenticity and vulnerability, I almost treat them synonymously, are superpowers that are not tapped by people. Communication is a superpower. Executive presence is a superpower. There's so many things that are incredible to have at a high level, but the two that I think people are really scared to tap into, but it will ultimately be what people are most afraid of. And what I was, I guess, blissfully ignorant of is to truly be their unmasked selves because there's thousands of people talking about Caloric deficits, protein, strength training. There's thousands of people talking about mindset tips, communication, and there's someone asked me how I stood out a similar question as you weed it down the funnel. There will always be thousands of people in their car, crashing out on the Internet on camera like I do. But there will never be anyone who is me doing all of those things. And there will never be anyone who is you listening to this, talking about those topics. And if you can really tap into your essence who God created you to be, what your purest image is, and not let your ego think you have to wear this mask to be someone that you're not. And that would be a deeper conversation that we go into as to why people feel they can't truly be who they are. And I had to do a lot of deep work on myself and have even changed in the last few months with that revelation. But a lot of what prevents people from doing that is a set of subconscious programming that they see the world through, that they have to be do perform a certain way to earn love, validation, respect because of something that happened to them. A narrative they let be true about themselves earlier in their life. And it's the same or similar for a lot of those specialists and experts and doctors who can't blow up on the Internet. Their ego wants so badly to prove they're competent that they're willing to give out these long winded explanations because they think that that's what it takes. But paradoxically, to show your competence and your intelligence. The simpler you can make something, the more valued and respected you are going to be by your peers. And so a different deeper conversation, but understanding what keeps you listening to this from being your true authentic self on the Internet or in your life life, why you feel the need to wear a mask or that you need to earn love or earn attention and that you're not enough as is is incredibly important. Someone commented on one of my videos about authenticity, something to the effect of stop holding back the gift that is you. Somebody is waiting to receive it. It's so true. And there's this meme I posted in a photo dump once of a couple of luchadors like the Mexican wrestlers. And it's. And he's got this dude in like a face lock. He's holding his face like this from behind and the guy open, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's like this, he looks in pain and it says like God trying to show you that your authenticity is a true gift to the world and what everybody needs.

Speaker A Okay, what Every.

Speaker B It's great, dude. What everybody's craving in a world where we've never been more connected and yet people feel so alone is the opportunity to feel seen, heard and understood and related to. And if people can relinquish their ego and surrender the need to control an outcome, come and just be who they are, they will be amazed by who comes into their life, the opportunity that enters their life, and really just the abundance that comes as a byproduct. But it's so precious because so many people are unable to do that. And that's what I've been blessed with and convicted by, is I've noticed the more of my life and myself that I'm willing to share, the better the fruit I bear. It feels like God's calling me to be obedient to him through showing the deepest, darkest parts of me and talking about stuff on the Internet that I genuinely find uncomfortable to share. It wasn't great to talk about taking care of my dying father, but it has empowered so many people to get through those kinds of times, and I'm thankful for that. And if that's what I need to do to continue to open up and document my self work to help other people do it, then that's what I'm going to do. And so that's the superpower that people need to tap into, is the ability to be unapologetically who they are.

Speaker A That experience is so unique on its own, one that you've been through or any hard experience that anyone's gone through. I feel like a part of why it might be so hard to share publicly is because you're like, no one will get it. No one will get it. If I lost a job, even though hundreds of thousands of other people have also lost their jobs, they won't get what happened to me. My unique circumstance. And I feel like a trap that people fall into by holding that back is if they ignore, neglect that part of them for too long. It could not even just be online, but within their circle of friends and who they show up and how authentic they are with them. You build that this thing that isn't you anymore. And I feel like that could trap you in a pretty dark place mentally where you're never going to feel like yourself anymore. You're going to feel like you're just putting masks on and you forget which face is yours if you're not being authentic. And I want to hear your thoughts on this because now my brain's spinning and thinking in part it might just because of how Judgmental people are online. You don't have to post online to see how nasty people are in comments. Especially today. It would be terrifying because you know you're going to get some of that. That's kind of a good little callus that I feel like posting online and getting to grow online has brought is learning how to deal with that kind of stuff. But there's also billions of people on this earth. So even if you have the most niche, weird hobbies, interests, things that you've been through, even if 0.1% of the population, which is almost nothing percentage wise, gets you on something that is hundreds of thousands of people, people that get you on that, that's almost overwhelming at that point. And it's another layer that I keep connecting back because I'm so obsessed. Sorry I keep bringing it up to that higher up challenge is that's another hurdle that goes into that posting in a public setting does is it really is going to show you, hey, are you cool to be authentic? Are you going to show who you are to the world? I could film myself talking about the deepest, darkest parts of my soul and rewatch it to myself, no problem. Am I going to put that up and say, okay, world judge it. That's powerful to think about. Did you ever feel like you held yourself stuff back before all of this? Was there something that clicked that made you do it or what?

Speaker B Yeah. I want to quickly give a nod to how right you were about what you said. We've all seen the memes of something and, and the top comment is, I swear I have no original experiences in my life that show. It's like the, the most niche meme. You think there's no way anyone else has been through that. And then you're like, wow, this has 200,000 likes and 10 million views. This goes back. There's a. There's a verse in the Bible, Ecclesiastes 1:9, and it says, what has been will be again. What has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. That literally just means my grandpa used to say, ain't nothing new under the sun. There's just new people doing it. We've all been through the same thing. There are very few unique, original experiences out there. And people that lean into that and can talk about it are going to find their audience. It really is. That's exactly how it works. You're spot on. And to answer your question, man, did I feel like I was holding back. I'll be honest with you, dude, I didn't Realize until recently how deep some of my subconscious programming went and the stories I told myself because of experiences in my early and mid childhood about, you know, my, my issues with inadequacy and wanting to be enough. The mask I was wearing was off when I created content and back on in my real life. It was almost, almost like higher up wellness, which I will never unironically refer as myself to. Like, that's a crazy thing to do. But like the, the username, the account was my excuse, my time to step into the space of being who I felt most aligned with. And then as soon as the camera shut off, I was back to people pleasing, gonna abandon myself to be liked, to be loved, to be enough. And I realized that just a few weeks ago. And my life has changed drastically since that time. So for me it was the opposite, even though it sounds counterintuitive because it's going out to the Internet. Like I always say, the Internet's not real life. Like I don't. I get crazy hate comments. What do I do? I put my phone outside and go for a walk with my friends. To me, what petrified me was being who I wanted to be interpersonally with the people I had to look in the eye. And so I used the Internet as my outlet to do that. And then I realized like, oh my God, when I'm myself, people follow, like people listen. And I wouldn't listen for so long. And it just took me being broken repeatedly and repeatedly through hardships that I realized like, I need to be this guy all the time. That was my revelation was stop being a wuss and only being who you say you want to be behind a camera and be that person all the time in your relationships and your friendships and your job with your clients. And that's when things really started to shift.

Speaker A Interesting. I don't know if I've heard that before. The flip of where you were to.

Speaker B Weirded counterintuitive parents paradox.

Speaker A Would you almost call higher up, for lack of a better term, and alter ego at a point? Like, it really was almost a flip of a switch. It could almost be a dual personality thing. Would you call it that?

Speaker B Unfortunately, I'm not necessarily proud of that, but yeah, that's. That's exactly right.

Speaker A Well, I, I would have pushed something like that down earlier, but I was watching and listening to, I'm spacing his name and it sucks. So I apologize to him. He's definitely not listening to my podcast. But it was Kobe Bryant's mental coach and he took Kobe through this Psychiatrist took him through when. When Kobe went through a really tough lawsuit in Colorado, in Denver, and his career just kind of got thrown off, he was one of the greatest in the world. He was trying to hire this guy to find out how to get it back. And that's where this guy helped develop what people now know as mamba. Kobe would go by the mamba, and he's talked about that, in essence, elsewhere. When he stepped on that course, it was the mamba. It was not Kobe. Kobe was not there in the most literal sense of that was a different human being in that moment than when he stepped off and was with his family. And I didn't think that that could almost be like developing a superpower at that point in helping step out, because I know that's helped me, and I feel like it could help so many people. Step outside of your comfort zone is because you might be afraid to step out of it. But if you create an alter ego strong enough, however you want, to build them up, all the qualities you want in life, who's strong, who's resilient, even if you aren't, they could. And if you can do something to switch that and say, oh, I'm higher up. I'm bloom right now, whatever it is, and step into that, I feel like people could take advantage of that as a superpower. Do you think that could be a tool people use to get good at this, this skill that is the most uncomfortable skill in the world?

Speaker B Yeah. Yeah. I actually really like that refresh frame on it. It could be a. Let this be someone you step into to act boldly until you can mesh the two identities and just be that person. Like Nick Comandina, who I alluded to earlier, Our mutual friend has this exercise. He takes his clients through of a higher timeline self and a lower timeline self and clearly delineating who those people are so that you know when you step down to lower timeline that you can step back up into higher timeline. It's like getting clear on who you want to be, basically. And that's the great point. Stepping into that alter ego for periods where you really need. Need that superhero to step in. And then eventually you operate from that place of divine inspiration long enough that maybe, God willing, those personalities and who you truly want to be mesh. But yeah, I think that's actually a really, really great exercise for somebody that's. That's trying to step into acting more boldly or doing something they're afraid of.

Speaker A Fake it till you make it is what comes to mind. When I hear That I hated that quote. It feels fake, it feels inauthentic. But if you want to reshape your brain in a certain way, you have to do things that you, you just don't do right now. You don't have like you have to fake it to a point. And I know that feels, at least to me, super inauthentic. And I just delayed doing it for so long because of that. But it helped me get through so many of the toughest times in my life where like I sucked at relationships when I actually was single for the first time out to a five year relationship in Atlanta, all alone like a one bedroom house. I had no super deep friends out there yet. And I started to build this picture of who I wanted to be. And I would just think what would that person do in every scenario that I'd be go through? And it was in the sense of finding a good relationship, but what would that person do? And I would just start doing those things. And it did become automatic in a sense. And now do you feel like with how much you've done it, would you say Michael and higher up are kind of synonymous, they're the same now? Or do you still step into a role when you do certain things?

Speaker B I fall short every day for sure. I have times where I slip back into that programming the people pleaser, nice guy and I don't do the right thing buying me often. But I'm getting better every day. And I think knowing now that the, the higher up thing was a way for me to feel safe coming from that place of authentic expression. Being aware of it allowed me to mesh into it more easily. And so yeah, I think I'm definitely getting closer every day. And I'm, as I do it, I'm seeing more evidence that that is actually me truly anchored in who I am. And I'm seeing it in how people are showing up around me, how opportunities are coming my way. Interpersonal relationships and dynamics are changing a lot of. And it feels the most aligned. That's the word that always comes to mind for me is I feel the most aligned when I'm operating with those two Personas, if you will, in unison in lockstep with each other. So yeah, definitely far more than I was even just a couple of months ago. I had some things that created revelation within me two or three months ago that really changed how I show up. And I just feel much more anchored in my sense of self. And the more I lean on that evidence, the more I look for opportunities to do it again. And Again and again and the better my life gets. And I hope to get to that point of, of enlightenment, if you will, where I can just stay in that state whenever I need to be in it.

Speaker A You said something that brought up another thought for me that might pop up in others heads when they're trying to create this, this alter ego, whatever it might be, is. I feel like intent matters. Listening to you say that. As far as there's faking it until you make it, that can feel disingenuous. But if you are intentional about why you're doing these things, things you've taken the time to break down and establish, why do I want to act like this in the world? Does that matter? Like, do you think people can sense that coming off of you, whether or not you have that depth of understanding why you're doing it in the first place?

Speaker B Yes. Energy is real, man. And it's a good example of this is content creators who never pop. We've all seen those creators. It's like you're kind of. You kind of just seem like you're trying to be like Creator XYZ or I can feel within your content there's this lack of authenticity. It's a vibration and it can be felt through a phone screen like, I'm convicted about what I talk about because of what I went through with my dad. The core message being you get one body and you have a laundry list of problems until you have a health problem and then you have one problem. And whether you know why I'm convicted because of what I endured doesn't really matter. What you know is that you can feel it when I talk. And that's why some people listen. That authenticity that, that alignment can be felt and perceived. So if you're faking it till you make it to a degree where, where you can't possibly see yourself being this version of a person, or you're using that alter ego for malicious intent to mistreat or misuse people, yeah, that can be perceived and you deserve to be had for that. But if you're operating from a place of ethics and morals and true kindness and you just want to step more into that, and there is a difference, I want to delineate between being nice and being kind. When you operate from a place of wanting to be kind to yourself, that could look like laying firm boundaries. It could look like having uncomfortable conversations and people are going to be able to perceive quickly through their own intuition. If you're doing that out of a place of alignment and respect for yourself and Ultimately for them and it's rooted in truth versus if you're just trying to put on some facade, but really you're actually fragile and delicate and driven by your ego. There's a huge difference that people can very clearly discern. Especially if they're tapped in with themselves and they're aware of these things, they're going to see right through it.

Speaker A With your background insane feels. I'm trying to feel like if you're, you're a type A, type B kind of brain. This is something I struggled with. Is that sounds off the cuff for lack of a better term, a little woo woo. Right? You can feel it, the energy, the things are there. I used to totally not give any attention to that stuff because I just dismissed it all. To me it was all horoscopes and stuff like that. It was all in the same. And I know people listening, at least some people out there are going to have that first knee jerk reaction to not give any into it. I'm trying to think of a better word than fufu but I can't. So I'm gonna keep using fufu. If it's feels fufu and you're just not getting it because you're resistant to that. Have you always been that way? Have you always been just like I'm open to energies and feeling these things or were you a type A before when you were sales based and did you kind of scoff at this stuff before and can you pinpoint what might have changed you? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B I mean if, if, if a year and a half, two years ago you told me I'd be talking about this stuff, I probably would have laughed you out of a room. But a lot's changed in my idea of spirituality, religion. I wasn't a believer in God not that long ago. A lot's changed for me and people perceive me on the Internet as a very analytical, logic based guy. And I am. I believe you can play in multiple energies. There's a time to be woo woo and, and energy and heady and there's a time to lock into logic. But there's a time where logic doesn't really fit a certain scenario and this is one of them. So what I tell people is if this sounds too far fetched for you to handle right now, roll it back until you can get to a level that is practical and applic you. So I think the easiest form is. Let's go back to what we were talking about at the beginning of the episode. If energy and aura, if you will, seems beyond what you're willing to understand or even accept. Okay, let's take the two people that walk into a room. And one is overweight, unkempt, scruffy beard, bad haircut and a T shirt with a stain on it. And one is noticeably, visibly jacked, clean cut, and comes in in a fitted, tailored suit. They're talking about the same exact, exact thing. Who are people, on average, more likely to look to and listen to the guy in the suit? Why? He has a different energy about him. He presents a different message. He emits a different intent. That's energy. That is a form of energy because you are perceiving him without him necessarily saying anything at all. So something is being emitted from him through his appearance, an outward reflection and being perceived by you and your subconscious mind. That's energy. And I don't think anyone, no matter how analytical or logic driven you are, can disagree with an analogy that simple. And then you just start to evolve your understanding of it. Because once you realize that you can do that and control outcomes based on that, you start to question, like, how far can I really take this? What else can I manipulate and change? And that's when you go down the rabbit hole.

Speaker A It opens a door that you cannot shut. Okay, I like that because that's something a lot of people struggle with. Myself in the past, too. Like, there's a lot that you can just feel. The thing that popped up in my head, that is so stupid. I remember this old boss that I had explaining, this has something to do with Cleanline. Not even just how you show up or talk or anything that we've even spoken about. But for some reason, it made that thought click in my head. And that's the difference between when you just do a quick pickup and clean a room versus when you deep clean it, right? Like, get the grout in there, you're on your hands and knees, scrub and stuff. If you just had a snapshot of one that you deep clean versus just picked things and tidied up on, you probably could not pick out with your eyes what's different between the two photos. But if you're in those rooms, you can feel it. This feels just. Just clean. I don't know why that made it click. It was so stupid in my head sometimes, I don't know about you, you just need something repeated in a weird way to flip a switch in your head. And you're like, wait a second.

Speaker B Aphorisms, baby.

Speaker A Yeah, it just helps. Click. So I know you got about what we got. We got a place to be in here. So I got like three questions I want to ask you. One that's going to be more applicable to people that can take home from this on how to better their own vocabulary, because that's something that's a tough skill to practice. One that's a little personal, and then two is this interesting quote that I really read that this, this conversation going into it, it made me rethink this quote. And it was a quote on how school tests your weaknesses, but life rewards your strengths. But I feel like what we've talked about today contradicts this because I would argue for most people, the vast majority communication skills would be a weakness, aside from people who, whose jobs have pushed them that way or haven't been intentional about it. But the, the quote went like this. It said, school tests weaknesses, life rewards strengths. Spending more time on our weakest areas is tem. Mostly rewards us for investing in our strengths. Imagine a student who struggles with math but excels in writing. In school, they might spend hours raising their math grades from a C to a B, but spending that same time on writing might get them from an A to an A plus. Focusing on math makes sense when you're taught to think in grades, but it doesn't make sense if you think about life. The difference between an A and an A in writing ability might mean the difference between a New York Times bestseller read by millions and a book that only 100 hundred people read, addressing weaknesses only to the point of getting them where they stop holding you back and then after that, to concentrate on your strengths. When I heard that the first time, I was like, that is very powerful. That that's, that's true in so many instances. I feel like this might be an exception to that rule. If this is a weak spot for you, I feel like bringing it past the point of just where it's not holding you back only has upside, massive upside, because it reaches every corner of your life. Life. I want to hear your thoughts on. On that quote.

Speaker B Firstly, I agree wholeheartedly with the schooling system and what it. The school system is epitomized by the quote from Einstein that says if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. That's what school did for me. It harped me on, it made me focus on mathematics because that was where I was weakest and I never excelled. I was the, I was the C to B minus guy and it never taught me that I actually had really good critical thinking skills and I was introspective and I could speak in front of a crowd and I had to find that organically. Now it's important to note that everybody in my opinion has God given gifts that they then are. It's their responsibility to develop and hone. I wasn't just born with the ability to communicate in a way that made me stand out. I developed it through years of practice and training years to sharpen it. I was fortunate to have a dad that was a hell of a public speaker speaker and I was exposed to it early. That being said, the goal in everybody's life should be to take your weaknesses and turn them into your strengths and your strengths and turn them into your superpowers. There is nothing wrong with exploiting what you are God given good at. And the people listening to this can probably go from a piss poor communicator to a fantastic communicator. But the people who are already fantastic communicators can go to elite next level cream of the crop community. So some people listening to this might never be the TED talk public speaker that maybe they even want to be right now. But that doesn't mean they can't elevate to a point where now they've taken this thing that was actually holding them back and they got it to a level that can raise up their superpowers. Weaknesses have now become strengths. Strengths have now become superpowers. Maybe they are incredibly engineering and mathematically proficient, but now they have gotten their communication skills from bad to good or even great or excellent so that they can carry across that complex message through their work. So ultimately there's nothing wrong with leaning into the God given talents that we have and sharpening them to a razor's edge. But also emphasize the importance of weaknesses like school does, so that we can become a more complete and whole person. And I know I brought it back to this a lot, but it just came up. I used the word complete and it made me think of it. There's a piece of scripture that I love that I think about every single day. It's written right there on my whiteboard. It's James, chapter one, verse two through four. It says, count it all joy when you face trials of many kinds, because you know the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance run its course so that you may be complete and lacking nothing. And that can apply to so many things in life. But to those of you out there listening that are terrified to get in front of a crowd, or you're terrified to communicate, or you're Just flat bad at it. It is a trial, it is a test, and you should count it all Joy. You have the opportunity to improve it. And once you have the opportunity to improve, improve it, you will then be more complete and lacking nothing, you will be more whole as a person. So whether you're religious or not, that is objectively good advice and it is objectively true for hard times in life and sharpening new skills like communication. So I love that quote, I love that line of thought. Ultimately, I think we should just try to be more complete, well rounded human beings.

Speaker A I'm thinking after this conversation even that this is one of those skills that when you improve it, it's not the only thing that improves. It improves everything. When you're putting all this like, well, this doesn't, this doesn't apply because communication is one of those things. Even. I guess you could almost make that argument about a lot of things. I think with math, I hated it in school, even though I was oddly, that was the one thing I was decent at. But even if you get better at thinking in a mathematic way, it does help you with problem solving in other areas of your life. Communication, though, it really bleeds to everything now. Second question on that list. Total change of topics. Back to skill sharpening, getting rid of filler words, becoming more efficient, getting simpler at speaking. These are skills that I think can improve based on just videotaping and watching yourself back. How do you expand your vocabulary to sound how you want to sound? I don't know if you've heard somebody speak where you're just like, I don't know why or how, but the way.

Speaker B They just put it.

Speaker A I just had this realization watching Wednesday the Addams Family on Netflix. The way that Wednesday, Wednesday Adams, I don't know why. And her parents speak. I just will pause and rewind. I'm like, why? That's. They were talking about something stupid and I was mesmerized by Drawn In. How would you get better at expanding your vocabulary?

Speaker B There's a component of that that can be achieved through reading comprehension. Definitely. And that doesn't have to be. Read your favorite self help book. It can be anything, fantasy, fiction, nonfiction, autobiography. But what you're doing is you're tapping into someone else's mind and understanding how they relate to way unoriginal, albeit concepts or original. But understanding things that are a part of the world. Human dynamics explained through the eyes of an author or someone who's incredible at written word can definitely expand your vocabulary. My parents both are really articulate and they've spoken to me like I was an adult since they were little, or since I was little, rather. And I was fortunate to have that. But the thing that works the best for me, coming back to my unique skill set, being I'm a highly auditory learner, is I just listen to smart people. Like you just said you were watching a TV show and captivated by the spoken word. Everything is an opportunity to learn. It can be watching Wednesday on your favorite streaming platform. It can be listening to Andrew Huberman and Peter Ratia talk about health and longevity. They will use words I promise that you or I have never heard. Going as far as I've heard guys like that say something and I rewind it, I listen again, and then I go look the word up on Google and I just quickly have it locked into my subconscious mind. Like I'm. I'm googling stuff all day, constantly, just little blurbs, little thoughts, little why this is this way. And so I want to encourage people to be more auditory. Listen to the great mind, speak and read what you feel interested and captivated to read. And you will learn a lot of words just organically in a passage or paragraph that you never would have used in context otherwise.

Speaker A Vocabulary is a sticky, tricky part for someone. That's where at least even I personally struggle the most. Now, last one to leave it with. I think this is an interesting question because a lot of people, when you blow up online, you're to the point at another level, millions of people see you and have an image of you. Millions, like plural, millions of people have an image of you and automatically assume a lot of things about you. What do you think most people get wrong about you when they meet you in person? What do most people get wrong about you, period?

Speaker B Appreciate you asking me that. A lot of people on the Internet, one of the most common feedback point threads I get across, thousands of people, is that I'm to the point or that I'm blunt or that I'm no bullshit. And a lot of people love me for that and a lot of people hate me for that. And if there's one thing I wanted people to know about me before I make videos, before they form an opinion based off of a 90 second blurb of a thought of mine, is that I want them to know I have a deep empathy and understanding for whatever pain it is that they're feeling. I went through the worst year of my life. It was slow, it was grueling, it was tremendous at times. And I think one of the reasons I went through that was to give me a deep understanding for what depression feels like, for how hard it can feel to peel yourself out of bed when the last thing you want to do is something is seemingly meaningless in the midst of true pain in life. As train, as go for a walk, as eat well and then to still do it anyway. I want people to know when I make those pieces of content about doing the hard thing, whether you feel like it or not, it is not because I'm blind and their pain or that I don't understand what it feels like to have that deep spirit of depression like swallowing you whole. I've been there. I know what that pain is like. It's that I understand also that in those moments it is the most important it could possibly be to get up and do it anyway. Because when you can show up for yourself in times that it feels impossible, possible you can show up for yourself when things are good without even thinking about it. And not only that, but when you do the bare minimum to show up for yourself, your physical body, you give yourself a window of time that is for you and only you. And it feels like the world is caving in the person you are, the person I wasn't am on the other side of showing up for myself in that basic act of self love in the form of my physical health is a more well adjusted, more durable, more kind, loving and prepared person to take on life trials. And so that's what I want people to know is I don't make those for the people that say, you have no idea what I'm going through. You don't know what it's like. You don't know what it's like to feel anxious or depressed or sad or the pain that I'm in. I want you to know that I hear you, I see you and I've been there. And all I want to convict you to do is to get up and do it anyway. Because I promise you, I promise you, if you can find the strength to just show up, you are going to to be a completely different person on the other side of that trial. That's what I'd want him to know.

Speaker A I can see how what you say comes off as a little harsh, a little hard, not, not even like that's a bad word because there are some harsh people. You're not a harsh person, but I can see how that comes off. And I do feel like that would could eat at you a little bit on the inside knowing what you've been through and just saying, damn, I wish people Got this. I wish that part connected. I think that's powerful for a lot of people. Is there any final notes you want to leave with the folks out there? Where can they find you? What can they do? Yeah, more Michael.

Speaker B Higher Up Wellness on all platforms. Like higher up in the sky. H I G H E R. People always want to spell it H I R E. I'm not hiring. I'm not a recruiting firm, but Higher Up Wellness on all platforms. I have a podcast as well on Spotify, YouTube and Apple called the Higher Up Podcast. And I think the last piece of advice I would leave people with with is surrender the ego. Get out of your own way. Stop being afraid to fail. We have one life, and it is very short, and it is too short to live it at the expense of worrying what might happen or what people might think about us, because they're not thinking about us. So live how you want to live.

Speaker A And what was that episode of your podcast that was with. I'm spacing the name, so forgive me, Peter Crone. Peter Crone. Peter Crone was the title of it. Or was there something different for that? Because I want to put that in the link of the. The show notes so people can help a lot.

Speaker B And this. This was a podcast episode that I know would. Would benefit people because it has outperformed all of my episodes by 10x and it's all Peter. It's powerful. The. The podcast title is called how to Break Free from Suffering with Peter Crone. And that is the Higher up podcast episode 46.

Speaker A I'm gonna put that in the. The show notes for people too. Wondering too, because I know that that would probably help a lot of. I mean, clearly, if it's 10x, everything else. Analytics like that are so interesting.

Speaker B Ever had a podcast going go viral, but people were like, dude, you're on my Spotify homepage. I was like, I didn't even know that was an option. I didn't know you could do that.

Speaker A I think that was the first episode I messaged you about. I was like, yo, this one was huge. Okay, I remember that now. That was that episode. I've just put that together. That's too funny. Okay, so that's where y' all can find Michael. His podcast is exceptional coming from someone who listens. So go check it out. Even if it's not that episode, it's not your speed. There's plenty of other Goulds out there. But thank you, man, for coming on the show today.

Speaker B Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure and an honor.

Communicate Like a Pro | Michael Smoak (HigherUpWellness)

Interactive Transcript

Topics Covered

Related Episodes

Exploring Integrative Medicine and Holistic Health with Dr. Sandeep Gupta - Part One

The New Science of Women's Health with Tamsen Fadal & Dr. Amy Killen

216. Dr. Labib Ghulmiyyah: On How To Prepare Your Body for Pregnancy, Fertility Decline, and Preconception Health

Episode 5 - AI & Facebook to screen for depression

Share Episode