Business Owner Breakthrough Podcast

Better Language = Better Leader with Ray Ciafardini Jr.

September 28, 2021 Pete Mohr
Business Owner Breakthrough Podcast
Better Language = Better Leader with Ray Ciafardini Jr.
Show Notes Transcript

Ray Ciafardini joins me again for another great interview all around the power of language. The words that you use matter and can make you or break you as a leader. Ray’s an NLP coach and goes through some great examples of how words can be misunderstood. So many actionable things to think about in this podcast!

Here’s a glance at what you’ll learn from our discussion in this episode:

  • The meaning of communication is in the response we get.
  • It doesn’t matter what you say, it matters what they hear.
  • The difference between the Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic components of language
  • The strategy of matching and mirroring.

For more information and to learn more about Ray, you can go to www.mycoachray.com or look for the MyCoachRay Club on Clubhouse

If you’re ready to transform your entrepreneurial frustrations into freedoms by cutting through the chaos and using frameworks that help you run an even better business and enjoy an even better life, simply go to:   www.Mohr.Coach

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Ray Ciafardini  00:00

Going back to that idea of the visual, the auditory and the kinesthetic I have a good friend. And when we were having this conversation around that, around that idea of the visual, the auditory and kinesthetic, she got this like little smile on her face. And it was like a light bulb went off. And she just goes, that makes so much sense why I'm visual. And when people say, Do you hear what I'm saying? I feel like they're yelling at me. Right? So it doesn't matter what I say. It's what she heard. Yeah, I love that so powerful when we can start to identify that and, you know, we have to take that as feedback. And this is why that flexibility whether someone's in sales, or a leadership role, or whatever that is our ability to identify and see how people are taking on the language that we're presenting to them. Well, we can then adapt accordingly to communicate and create better relationships build trust faster, so many different benefits come from that.

 

Pete Mohr  00:55

Hey, it's Pete and welcome to another edition of the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast. It's the series designed to provide the tips and tools that will help you cut through the chaos and create the clarity that will transform your business and life as a leader. Always remember, clarity creates confidence and confidence ignites momentum. Today, I had the opportunity to have another conversation with Ray chaffer, Dini and Ray joined us a while back, and it's so great to have him back on. We're going to discuss lots of stuff all around the power of language and the language you use in your business and in your personal life. And now we'll get right into it with Ray chaffer Dini.

 

01:37

Hey, Ray, welcome to the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast. It's great to have you back here today. Thanks, Pete, I appreciate you having me back. I'm really excited today to talk all about language. And you and I are both coaches. There's so much stuff around the language we use in our businesses, the language that other people are using with us, and all of the things around that, whether it's for our businesses or our personal lives. Language is such a key piece of what we do every day. And people seem to underestimate it sometimes. But it's very powerful. I absolutely agree. It's how we take our inner world and express that to the outer world, like you said, whether it's in a coaching relationship, or in a leadership role, how we communicate with the people around us It does it makes all the difference with the work that you do, how do you sort of break up the different parcels of language and what, you know, when you're looking at some of this stuff? You're very good at picking your language, you know, in all of our conversations that we have, and we speak fairly regularly, every morning on a clubhouse room and power life. But all of those things are very, you craft your words, tell me a little bit about how you arranged that why you do it. And the power of that. Yeah, I appreciate that question, Pete. So two beliefs, one comes from my field of study. And that's the idea that the meaning of communication is the response that we get, the way that I interpret that is it doesn't matter what I say, it matters what you hear. Now, because of that, and this is a another belief that I hold or just something I work to live by with my language is that I believe that precision in language is important. And it's not just precisely trying to express what I desire to get across. It's to formulate that communication in a way that it's best received by the person that I'm trying to communicate that to some people look at things visually, right? Other people hear they're auditory and other people are more tactile. Talk a little bit about that and how we're framing some of the language even around how people absorb the language. I love that question. Pete. You're absolutely right, that we all have visual auditory, kinesthetic components to how we take on the world, right? We have our five primary senses visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory being smell, and gustatory being taste. And we typically experience the world visually, auditorily, and kinesthetically, just to clarify that most people aren't going around smelling other people to see if they like, licking walls to see where they are. Right. So having said that, yes, we all experience the world using those three primary visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. And we typically lean on one, we hear this in language, you may have someone who says, I see what you're saying, or I hear what you're saying, or Yeah, I feel Yeah. When we start to identify that and we can start to speak to people in the language in which they're speaking to themselves. It just resonated a different way with that individual and we can communicate with them in the way that they're currently communicating with themselves. And it's so powerful. So when you're doing that, are you saying basically, like, if somebody says, I hear you, you should be saying, Do you hear me when those kinds of things are we mirroring essentially is that the suggestion? That's a great strategy, you can use those words back, and if there's enough of that, even something a second ago where I made the comment, you know, it resonates with people right rez

 

Ray Ciafardini  05:00

nating that's an auditory word. Right? So absolutely, if I noticed that repeating back those words going in that same See, can you visualize that? What picture popped into your head? All of those types of words? I'll stay in that vein.

 

Pete Mohr  05:14

No, I love that whole concept. And I mean, that's an NLP concept. Right?

 

Ray Ciafardini  05:19

It is, and NLP without going into, you know, the long history of neuro linguistic programming. It was based on modeling. And what the founders and creators of NLP did was they went out, and they just modeled excellent communicators. And they found that this was something that those great communicators were doing. They were identifying how people were expressing themselves. And they found a way to identify what those are, and then be able to model those language patterns to better connect with people.

 

Pete Mohr  05:43

What are other great ways that people can acknowledge or understand better using proper language?

 

Ray Ciafardini  05:49

That's a great question, Pete. So we've talked about the idea of the representational systems, the visual, the auditory, the kinesthetic, other ways in which we can use our language is if you've ever spoken to someone, and maybe you've heard these things before, like, their head is in the clouds, or they're stuck in the weeds, right? Yeah, well, sure, some people will use more abstract language, right. And those are potentially big picture thinkers, they don't, they aren't necessarily in the weeds, right. And then you have the people who are in the weeds, then you start talking about these big ideas, and they just get overwhelmed, right. So even the abstraction or the specificity of our language, there are a lot of different ways that we can recognize how people are communicating what's going on inside of them. And then as you said, matching mirror, right, we can mirror that language, or we can match that language. And through that process, if we can meet people where they are, we can slowly start to guide them in other directions, meaning that if I am speaking to someone, maybe a coaching client, who is just thinking big picture, right, and they can get stuck there, and they don't know that first step to take, well, I can meet them there. And I can slowly guide them into the details. Well, that takes flexibility and language on my part, right? Because again, going back to the idea that the meaning of communication is the response that we get, I need to meet them where they are to potentially move them to another place. I love

 

Pete Mohr  07:08

that the meaning of communication is the response that we get. And I know you've said that already. But why don't you explain that just a little bit more for our listeners?

 

Ray Ciafardini  07:17

Yeah, absolutely. If you believe what I believe that to mean that it doesn't matter what I say it's what you hear, going back to that idea of the visual, the auditory and the kinesthetic, I have a good friend. And when we were having this conversation around that, around that idea of the visual, the auditory and kinesthetic, she got this like little smile on her face. And it was like a light bulb went off. And she just goes, that makes so much sense why I'm visual. And when people say, Do you hear what I'm saying? I feel like they're yelling at me. Right? So it doesn't matter what I say. It's what she heard. Yeah, I love that so powerful when we can start to identify that. And, you know, we have to take that as feedback. And this is why that flexibility, whether someone's in sales or a leadership role, or whatever that is our ability to identify and see how people are taking on the language that we're presenting to them. Well, we can then adapt accordingly to communicate and create better relationships build trust faster, so many different benefits come from that.

 

Pete Mohr  08:15

Yeah, you know, a lot of people that listen to this podcast, are entrepreneurs and in sales, I mean, most entrepreneurs are in sales, because they own their business and their leaders and every leader is selling. How can we use this to be better salespeople?

 

Ray Ciafardini  08:29

Yes, such a phenomenal question. At a quick example, I can share and I think for business owners, I think that this is applicable or anyone, it's the recognition that different words mean different things to different people. And there's this great exercise that I learned years ago, let's say you have a bunch of people in front of you. And I would set this up to say, Hey, I'm going to give you a word. And in a moment, I'm going to give you a word I want you to write down the first five words that come to mind. And in exercise often give the word success. So if you're listening, and you want to try this with the word success, have the people in front of you write down the first five words that they think of when they hear the word success. And every time I've done this, Pete, I've done this and you know, smaller groups, 1012 people all the way up to hundreds of people. And it's so phenomenal that no one ever has the exact same five words. You know, occasionally you get people to get three and you know, if there's going to be you know, whatever fraction of the room, maybe they have one. And what that tells me is that if we're having a conversation, and you're five words are money, Vegas, or whatever it is in minds, like charity, and you know, all of those things that I asked you to do you want to be successful. And you're like, yeah, I'm like, great. Let me show you how to be successful. Well, we're having two different conversations,

 

Pete Mohr  09:33

from our perspective at the same. But again, from their perspective, it could be very different, right? Because they're hearing it differently. Absolutely. Right. And I really think that's an interesting perspective. And I'm so glad you brought that up today. We need to be conscious about this stuff. When we're talking to people we need to be conscious about instead of just talking that's where I like to say, you know, we need to have big ears and a small mouth. From that perspective. We really need to listen to their length language in order for us to use the appropriate language for them?

 

Ray Ciafardini  10:03

Absolutely. And I think it's appropriate to ask. Yeah, and find out what those things mean. And there are a lot of books written on the topic, even things like the five love languages, right? You hear people talk about quality time, well, what does quality time mean to you? Because I mean, I'll tell you, my girlfriend and I, we have drastically different definitions of quality time, Mike could be right on the couch for two hours watching the show together, hers is me talking to her for two hours. Now there's right or wrong, they just mean two totally separate things.

 

Pete Mohr  10:29

Ultimately, it's still called quality time, right. So it's quality time for you quality time for her. But two different things. That's I think, where the the main problems lie is the the generic sort of terms and phrasings of these things, and how we perceive things often creates confusion on the other person's part. And that's where we get the disconnects, we get disconnected with our customers, we get disconnected with her family, we get disconnects with our friends, because we just assumed that crazy word make an ass out of you and me, right? We assumed that they knew what we were talking about.

 

Ray Ciafardini  11:04

And in certain situations, contextually It couldn't be appropriate. If I see I'm angry in the middle of a conversation, chances are you're going to stop me and say, So what exactly do me my angry, right? Because you've experienced it before. And in those situations where, hey, I want to help you be successful? Well, if I just assume I know what that means for you, versus asking, Hey, what does success look like for you? Or what would it sound like? If you were successful here, right? Again, going back to that visual auditory, asking those questions and figuring out what it means to the individual it matters. And in sales that matters, right? What would a win in this relationship look like for you, rather than just assuming that what I'm about to present is the win

 

Pete Mohr  11:40

rate, give us another tip around language that you might have up your sleeve that our listeners would like to hear?

 

Ray Ciafardini  11:46

Here's a great one for helping people uncover resources. And it's a phrase, if you will, so occasionally as a coach, or you're leading people, and you ask someone, you know, they come to you, and they present some sort of challenge, right? And you know, we've talked about this before, where you can be a professional problem solver, or you can help them to uncover whatever solution they need. And you'll have people say things like, Well, you know, I don't know what to do here. And this language right here, very simple to help them uncover. It's very simply, well, hey, I get it, I hear it, I recognize that you're saying you don't know, hey, if you didn't know, what would a solution B. And when we start to use language like that, if you did know, what would a solution be? And it's amazing what that starts to uncover. So so far, I mean, we've talked about language of communicating. And we can also use these phrases to help people unlock stuff that's already inside of them. So I encourage people to give it a try. So it says, Well, I don't know, Hey, cool. You don't know if you did know, what would it be. And it's amazing how resourceful people can be when we use the appropriate language to draw those resources out

 

Pete Mohr  12:52

of them. I just kind of heard on another talk the other day, about the idea around brainstorming and the fact that if you put that person into somebody else's shoes, like if you said that, and then you said, Well, what do you think Steve Jobs would have done? Or what do you think Elan musk would do in this situation? Or, or any of those things? What What do you think whoever would do? What do you think about that idea? As far as opening up the language into that same question?

 

Ray Ciafardini  13:18

I think that when it's the right person, it puts them in an absolute growth mindset. years ago, when I was in sales, I used to hear that a lot. Well, you know, if this person were in your territory, what would they be producing? And that was kind of like that. Right? Right. I think it does. It gets people thinking outside of the box, because they recognize other people and maybe doing things or thinking ways that they don't think,

 

Pete Mohr  13:39

yeah, like if the bottlenecks were removed here for you, what would you do? There's so many interesting ways to use language. I really appreciate our talk here today. Ray, I'd love to have another chat with your upcoming soon. Again, you know, our listeners loved the first one. And I'm sure they'll love this one to tell everybody how they can get ahold of you. And if there's anything that you want to add into that, go ahead, feel free.

 

Ray Ciafardini  14:01

I appreciate that. Pete, you mentioned a little bit ago where they can find us that's on clubhouse every morning at 6am. Eastern time. We talk a lot of language in there. Right. So this is a topic that interests people, they can join us there. Yeah, if anyone has any questions on this, my website is my coach, Ray calm and I use language to help people create breakthroughs in their lives. So it's something that I'm passionate about and something I have the opportunity to use with clients and I appreciate ask

 

Pete Mohr  14:25

them question. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for spending some time here. Again, Ray and looking forward to seeing you again, probably tomorrow morning. I appreciate it. Pete Thank you. Well, that was an awesome conversation with Ray think about how you can apply today's simplifying entrepreneurship topic all around the language that you use in your leadership, how can you put it into action? You know, think about the idea of key points that Ray brought up, you know, the meaning of communication is the response that we get. It's really interesting when you think about that, it doesn't matter what I say it matters what they hear two different frameworks. I really liked that the difference between visual, auditory and kinesthetic and how you can use your language to wrap around that the way the other person's talking to you so that you can mirror back to them in their own way. And really enjoyed our conversation and some of the examples that Ray used as well. And think about using those with your team. Think about using them with the people around you so that you can better communicate and actually get across the points to them in their language and how they perceive it. So glad that you stayed with us here spending the time and learning all about language. If you like the podcast, please share with your friends, invite them to listen and most of all, subscribe to the podcast so that you can hear future episodes. For more information in my coaching and my leadership programs visit www.Mohr.Coach or you can email me directly at Pete@Mohr.Coach and until next time, make it a great day.

 

16:08

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