March 4, 2025 • 31 mins
Michael Chad Hoeppner, author, professor, and the Founder and CEO of GK Training, shares the very specific background he and Adam have in common, and covers topics such as embodied cognition, the Lego trick for memorization, the 5 P's of vocal variety, a tactical exercise for sales people, the BAD speaking advice you've heard 100 times, being present for the audience, the risk in using prepared materials, and the parallels between sales and acting.
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Episode Transcript
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Adam Outland (00:00):
Welcome to The Action Catalyst. Today's guest
(00:02):
is Michael Chad Hoeppner, thefounder and CEO of GK Training,
a firm dedicated to givingindividuals, companies and
organizations the communicationskills to reach their highest
goals in work and life. He's acoach, a professor and a
curriculum designer at ColumbiaBusiness School, as well as the
author of the new book, Don'tSay, Um: How to Communicate
(00:24):
Effectively to Live a BetterLife. Michael, thank you so much
for making the time. I wasreally looking forward to this
conversation for many reasons,one of which is that both my
parents were opera singers.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (00:35):
Yeah, I knew that. I mean, I of course,
did a little research about you,and that's the coolest thing,
because you have already ashorthand vocabulary for a lot
of this. And my parents similar,were both professional cellists.
Adam Outland (00:48):
Wow.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (00:48):
Yeah, similar kind of artistic
passion, but yeah, my mom, infact, is retiring from the
Colorado Symphony Orchestraafter 63 years.
Adam Outland (00:58):
Wow!
Michael Chad Hoeppner (00:59):
In the orchestra, yeah, my dad played
more than 50 so together theyhave something absurd, like 115
years in the symphony, orsomething crazy.
Adam Outland (01:07):
That's amazing. You can tell your parents that I
was temporarily dedicated to thecello until we moved to Boone,
North Carolina, and my parentsdecided to relocate our house
about a half a mile from wherethe bus would drop you off,
uphill. And in order for me topractice, I had to slug that
thing all the way. And quicklylost my inspiration.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (01:28):
Time to switch to a violin, right, or
the triangle.
Adam Outland (01:35):
The triangle sounded like it would have been
a good choice. Well, that'samazing. So yeah, you know, I
can relate a lot to what it'slike to grow up with music. And
there's part of your story I wasreally curious about, which is,
you know, what was your initialinspiration to become on day?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (01:49):
Hilariously, nothing of the kind. I come from
a blended family, eight of uskids all together, and none
pursued professional music. So Idon't know if it skips a
generation or what that wouldbe. But I actually was focused
on, I wanted to be apaleontologist or an
archeologist or a marinebiologist, and that obviously is
(02:09):
not what has come to pass. So Ididn't really get interested in,
let's call it communications ofany kind, until middle school
and high school, and that waswhen I was getting into theater
a little bit. The pivot I'llhone in on, is actually fast
forwarding all the way untilabout oh 2010, or so, which is I
was a professional actor forabout 10 years, Broadway film
(02:30):
and TV and but what I began todiscover is that even more
interesting than portrayingcharacters on stage, I became
totally fascinated by how peoplelearn to do that activity. And
so I started becoming reallyobsessed about, how can you help
people be more more effectiveand calmer and more themselves
(02:50):
in front of audiences? So thiswas a somewhat natural evolution
into that. The biggest thing isthat we really developed a way
in which to use embodiedcognition, and by that, I mean
getting people to use theirbodies to build habits. So, you
know, like the adage of learningto ride a bicycle and you never
forget, and we developed a wholesuite of kinesthetic tools to
(03:11):
help people be more effective.So they're a little bit related
to theatrical training, but notreally, because I kept hiring
actors to try to be coacheswithin our firm, and they looked
at me a little bit baffled whenI would teach them some of these
exercises. I really discovered,as an actor, half my time on
stage was slightly equivalent totorture, painful, agonizingly
(03:35):
self conscious, hyper aware ofevery little thing, and
relentlessly self critical.Many, many artists out there,
and certainly most performingartists out there can relate to
that. And what I discovered wasthat if I could put my focus on
something very concrete, it wasliterally the only way I could
navigate through those, thosemoments of like, really painful
(03:56):
self consciousness. What Idiscovered was that, or that I
thought about it, the worse Ifelt, and the more I obsessed
about my feelings and my painand things like this, the worse
I actually felt. And what Idiscovered was that simply
doing, putting the focus ondoing and doing behaviors, and
just putting one foot in frontof the other actually led to
(04:17):
much greater healing and greaterescape, deliverance, all those
sorts of words. For many people,public speaking is equivalent to
agony. If you give them veryconcrete things that they can do
and succeed at, they can getpast this agonizing moment and
experience a little, tiny, briefmoment of victory. And from that
(04:37):
moment of victory, you can buildand build and build, and pretty
soon they've established acompletely different kind of
muscle memory that can help themsucceed. One of the first
profound experiences I hadindividually coaching someone is
when I dreamt up this Lego blockidea because he was having a
really difficult time memorizinganything. And so. What I was
(05:00):
trying to get him to do was togive himself just a moment
longer before all the terribleself critical, berating voices
came alive in his brain. And soI had him share one idea at a
time and stack a Lego block atthe end of each idea. It gave
him something to do. Rather thanyou're terrible, you can't
memorize anything. What aterrible communicator you are.
(05:22):
He had a distraction, somethinghe had to do, and then in that
moment, this total miraclehappened, which his brain had a
moment to think and actuallyrecall the information he was
trying to remember. So it wasthis really powerful moment of
kinesthetic learning. Fromthere, I just developed these
exercises working with with reallife communicators, both very
high stakes communicationsituations, like presidential
(05:45):
candidates for debate prep, butalso people much more, you know,
Junior, which would be like highschool students trying to get
better at speaking so they cangive a good oral report.
Adam Outland (05:55):
Yeah, quite, quite a wide range. I remember the
first time I encountered achallenge speaking. If I wasn't
in a good head space, I, like,my vocal cords would, like,
constrict or something, and I'dhave to, like, clear my voice,
like, seven times. Superannoying.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (06:10):
Yes. So blushing, you know, turning beet
red, dry mouth. There's a wholebunch of things that people
experience that are thesephysical manifestations of
feeling tremendously nervous.
Adam Outland (06:22):
And so, your process is often to try and work
through the I don't you call itpsychosomatic part, but the
emotional response, the nervesbefore diving into maybe more of
a tactical approach?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (06:34):
Yeah, you use the tactics to unlock what I
call a virtuous cycle of goodcommunication. So you
essentially fix the problem withthese kinesthetic tools. They
use embodied cognition. Theychange the pattern dramatically.
And then once the pattern ischanged, what also tends to
change is all those automaticresponses that are happening
(06:57):
when the pattern is not goingwell. So there was a person I
worked with one time, who wouldalways blush very, very
intensely, and I mean,instantly, she would start
public speaking, and instantlyturn beat red, and she felt
terrible about this, and veryself conscious. And so the first
thing she said to me is, I haveto stop turning red. And I said
back to her, that's not true.You have to stop moving your
(07:18):
feet. She looked at me ratherblankly, and what was going on
was that she would beginspeaking, and totally different
than how she would stand or useher body, if she was talking to
a friend at the proverbial watercooler, she would begin to
relentlessly shift her weightback and forth, back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth,almost like miniature pacing,
(07:39):
but very rapid, rapid pacing. Atthe same time, she'd be turning
beet red, and she'd be trying tohide this by continually
smoothing back her hair over herface, trying to almost
camouflage this activity withthis motion of her hands over
and over again. So I actuallycrouched down, and I gave her
feet some physical feedback tofind stillness that tapped on
(08:00):
the top of her feet, put somebooks on top of her feet to keep
them anchored to the ground. Andwhen she did that, all of a
sudden, magically, she actuallytook a breath in. Her diaphragm
dropped down. Her lungs filledwith air, and her entire
communication instrument becamestill. And all of a sudden, she
spoke more slowly. For a moment,she breathed in. She got a
(08:21):
better idea. She realized sheactually has something to say to
start the speech off, and shedidn't blush.
Adam Outland (08:28):
Sometimes you have to act your way into proper
thinking, instead of trying tothink your way into proper
acting, right?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (08:33):
100%. If I could, if 1,000% was a thing,
I would say 1,000% but 100% Yes,precisely. Actors know this as
Inside Out versus outside inapproaching of a character. You
can see this in other aspects oflife too. I mean, anyone who has
become aware of some of the sortof approaches or focuses for
(08:53):
health and wellness and mentalhealth, you hear people talk
about saying out loud eachmorning some gratitudes or doing
these physical things that arereminding you of some of the
mindsets that you want to keep.And yes, absolutely. I mean, if
you want to go religious for asecond, think of all the
religious traditions in theworld and how very often, if
(09:14):
there's a level of devotion thatis trying to be unlocked, they
actually do physical rituals,sometimes even regimens. And
yes, these ways of acting, andif you want to use sort of
philosophical language, actingvirtuous can unlock positive
feelings too.
Adam Outland (09:33):
So almost an anchoring and through your
physical actions. One of thethings I just... not to do a
perfect segue here, this willjust kind of take us a different
road. But I have to ask for ourlisteners, the five Ps of vocal
variety. I'd love to hear whatthe five Ps of vocal variety
are, because I've learned howimportant vocal variety is.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (09:52):
Yeah, the first thing I should say is I
did not invent vocal variety.Humans use vocal variety. We've
been using it as long as. We'rehuman, and there's some really
important reasons why we use it,which we can get into but let's
cut to your question, which isthese five Ps and those five Ps
are pace, pitch, pause, powerand placement. Probably the
(10:15):
first four are instantlyfamiliar. Let's go through them
quickly. Pace is speed, sothat's fast and slow. Pitch is
the note on a musical clef, highor low. So high or low, pause is
exactly what it sounds like,silence, and maybe even varied
lengths of silence. Power isjust another word for volume, so
(10:36):
that's loud and soft, and thenplacement is probably the only
one that's not instantlyfamiliar. Placement means where
is the sound placed in yourbody. A big misconception that
people have about speaking isthat it's a totally cognitive
activity, like if I think ofsmart words, I will say smart
(10:56):
words, but it's actually aphysical activity. It takes 100
muscles to do what you and I aredoing right now. It's a physical
activity. I mean, even just theact of enunciation, if you think
for a moment, even just sayingthe word enunciation, how deeply
physical that is, that final pof placement, just to be very
clear, because sometimes peopleget a little confused about
(11:18):
this. That means where the soundis placed in your body. So the
The easiest example to thinkabout is, if you have a friend
with a really nasal voice,what's happening technically, is
the sound is only amplifying inlike the nasal passages in the
nasal area of the face. Sothat's if P placement, and we
use these 5p of vocal variety todo a whole bunch of really
(11:42):
important purposes, like conveymeaning, convey emotion, create
surprise, and more and but thoseare the five P's.
Adam Outland (11:50):
It's amazing. And as you keep going, I just, you
know, I do actually a lot ofinterpretation of these lessons
with my kids, because it's sorelevant right now. Yeah. And
you know, your voice andcommunication is like the one of
the most essential things that Iwant to make sure they they can
do, because it's so critical tohuman relations. So anyway, I
love all of this training as aparent just as much as a
(12:13):
professional.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (12:14):
Yeah, let's talk about kids for a
second. So we are actually inthe midst of a real crucible
moment in which how our kidslearn to speak is a little bit
under threat because they spendso much time looking at these
devices right here. And forthose of you who are just
listening, of course, I'mholding on my cell phone and
because they're not actuallykind of learning interpersonal
(12:35):
behavior and interpersonaldynamic in the same three
dimensional, 24/7, kind of waythat previous generations did.
It's fraught. It's in a littlebit of danger right now, and I
applaud you for taking your oneand a half year old's
development seriously, becauseit matters, and we take these
skills for granted. We shouldnot.
Adam Outland (12:54):
Hmm. I don't know how much international work you
do, but do you find change basedon the geography someone's grown
up in, like a German personwho's working on public
speaking, versus someone who'sFrench or Korean? How that
impacts those five Ps?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (13:10):
Yeah, for sure. So to answer the question,
yes, I've worked with folks onmost of the continents of the
globe and all kinds of differentwalks of life. I for many years
when I lived in New York City, Itaught at Columbia Business
School in the PhD program. And alot of the folks who get their
PhDs at Columbia speak Englishas a second or third or fourth
(13:31):
language. I coach in the startupworld a lot, and a lot of the
founders who are buildingcompanies in the US speak
English as a second or third orfourth language, and oftentimes
hail from somewhere else. Andthere's two ways I would suggest
we think about this. On the onehand, there are the core things
that humans do, and we do themall over the world, and that's
(13:51):
partly because we arecommunication instruments.
Communication is not a side cardof being human. We built this
incredible system of spokenlanguage to be able to team up
and gain an evolutionaryadvantage over somebody else or
some other creatures, or stopthe marauding, you know, cave
bears or whatever it is. So thisis just part of being human. But
(14:14):
then on top of that core, thereis endless complexity with how
different languages work. Soyes, there are these these
changes and these differencesall over the place. And then
oftentimes, what you're tryingto do, though, no matter what
culture, is not unlock how anAmerican would speak, or how a
German would speak, or how aBrit would speak, but you're
trying to unlock how that personwould speak, but crucially, when
(14:40):
they are not thinking aboutthemselves and how they speak,
but thinking about the personthey're trying to reach, and all
of what we think of as thebehaviors of presence or the
behaviors of confidence, thatmeans enunciation and eye
contact and gestures and all therest these come out flawlessly
when we're in that. Activity ofreally, truly trying to reach
(15:02):
the other person. So no matterthe culture that I'm working in,
that's what I'm trying to helppeople unlock.
Adam Outland (15:07):
So important. What do you see as the bigger
challenges as it relates tovocal, not just vocal variety,
but speaking in general, forsalespeople? What are some of
the common concepts you end upleaning into the most with
people who are in thatprofession?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (15:22):
I'm going to offer a tactical suggestion
first, because it's so usefuland so relevant to selling, and
you can do it today and makeyour life better right away. I
teach an exercise in a skillcalled linguistic Well,
actually, sorry, the exercise iscalled finger walking. The skill
is called linguistic precision,which means, essentially, are
you choosing words, or are wordsjust choosing you? So the
(15:44):
exercise is simply when you'repracticing asking questions and
getting better at doing that,you walk your fingers across a
table or desk, choosing each andevery single word that comes out
of your mouth. The finger stepsare the equivalent of the act of
choosing words. So in a sense,you're walking your ideas across
(16:04):
the table. Now that's the skill,but the way to apply it, if
you're in a selling situation,is to practice asking single
questions with linguisticprecision. There's no filler, no
non fluencies, and then at theend of the question, draw and an
imaginary question mark insilence. Now this is really
(16:25):
powerful for people in a salesrole, because what you'll see is
that oftentimes they're great atchit chat, they're great at
rapport building, they're reallygood at asking questions to
learn more about the person. Andthen they get to the crucial
moment of asking for a nextmeeting or asking for the
business, and theircommunication falls apart, and
they ask like, nine questions ina row, and they talk really
quickly and a bunch of samples,and they go down, they back up,
they don't let it and all of itcrumbles. And so you're
(16:48):
practicing this very singularskill of asking one question
with linguistic precision andthen tolerating relaxed silence
at the end, so that you buildthe muscle of saying something
like, how would you like to movethis forward? When would you
like to meet again? Is thereanyone else that we should loop
into this conversation? Andthese kind of, what we call, you
know, closing questions, andvery often, sales folks will
(17:11):
have a moment or two withininteractions that feel really
fraught for them. And if theycan build that skill single
questions with linguisticprecision and relax silence at
the end. It really helps them.
Adam Outland (17:24):
That's great. That's a great technician way to
look and reverse engineersuccessful communication. You
have this engineer mind aboutyou that's allowed you to
extrapolate the tools to makesomeone a good speaker.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (17:36):
Yeah. You ask really insightful
questions. I don't actuallyrelate to having much of an
engineer's mind, I think I havemuch creative artists mind, or
even an inventor's mind.Creativity is the thing that I'm
pretty much addicted to. What Iwould say is that the
engineering concept is right ina certain way, which is I became
frustrated with how stymiedpeople were by really bad
(17:59):
advice. And I don't mean to saybad advice, like they're being
sabotaged by people, but badadvice sounds like this. Just be
yourself. Just beconversational, Just be natural.
These sorts of things areintended to relax the the person
you're talking to, but theydon't, because all they do is
make the person think more aboutthemselves. And they're not
relaxed. They don't feel likethemselves. They don't feel
(18:21):
conversational. They feelperhaps rocked with self
consciousness, as I becameinterested, like, how can you
get in there when someone hasbeen really messed up, and
engineer them for greatersuccess? By setting up their
physical and their vocalcommunication instrument for
success. I helped set them upfor success, but it's them who's
(18:44):
doing it when they have like anengineer, set themselves up, set
their physical and vocalcommunication instruments up for
success. All of a sudden, theirbrain is dazzling, and it does
what it's incredibly good at,which is thinking about ideas
now that it's not totally jammedup with anxiety and and
multitasking of Don't benervous. Don't look like an
(19:05):
idiot. Don't look like a fraud.Don't mess up. Don't all of a
sudden, brilliant things comeout of their mouth. And if we
think of part of speaking asthis act of being present and
being focused on the otherperson, you can't be present if
you are thinking about all thestuff you forgot, or anxious
about all the stuff you're aboutto forget. So very often,
(19:27):
written materials, althoughintended to be a support, very
often, they cannot be thathelpful, because it puts you in
the past or the futureendlessly. And the act of
speaking is a physical one.You're not going to be giving
someone a PDF with a bunch ofbullets on it. You are turning
air into sound and then soundinto words. You're doing it real
(19:48):
time, and it's being receivedreal time. So anything you can
do to help yourself be in thepresent, as opposed to, you
know, those two other time zonesthat are not that helpful can be
powerful. Because here's thefunny thing, I've actually
helped many people experiencethat, that wow, I'm better when
I'm not quite so anchored to mynotes. The hard part is getting
(20:11):
them to have the trust and faithto actually try and test it
without it, and kind of gettheir sea legs with that,
because it it takes some braveryof letting go.
Adam Outland (20:21):
Yeah, I love that. And I, you know, I'd have to
include this question, because Ithink of sales and acting and
how they're similar in so manyways. In sales, I'm very clear
you have a sales script, there'sa purpose in remembering it,
because the words do matter toan extent, but not so much to
the extent that it affects theemotion of the conversation in
(20:43):
acting. This is the part in theworld, I don't know, and so I
would love your thoughts. Idon't know how often the
directors so hard on getting theexact words where you have to
get caught up in the words, orif you don't rehearse enough to
know all the paragraphs ofinformation, it creates that
trauma cycle of, am I, you know,saying the right line, or if
you're allowed to be emotionallyengaged, how does that? How does
(21:05):
that work in acting, and what'syour take on scripts versus no
scripts in communication?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (21:10):
So you have to promise to interrupt me
a lot in this next answer, okay,because that's a big, juicy
question, and we could do awhole separate podcast based on
that question. Okay, it dependson the version of stage
performance improv, there's noscript. There may be a couple
like pretenses or a couplestarting points, but then
(21:31):
there's no script at all. That'spart of the delight. Sort of
like watching jazz musiciansimprovise, you get to watch
people impromptu come up withthese hilarious and amazing and
heartfelt real time scripts.It's totally astonishing. On the
other side, you've got classicaltexts, Shakespeare, Chekhov,
things like that, whereoftentimes the script is so well
(21:53):
known that if you really had aline club, some of the audience
might Hey, he forgot that wordin general, stage acting is
required to be a bit moreprecise than film acting in a
couple different ways. So filmacting, as long as you're not
having to do a bunch of takes inwhich lines are are piggybacking
100% on each other, then you mayhave some freedom, and the
(22:16):
director may want to take justthe best take. So an example of
this is, if you're watchingserial drama, law and order,
those sorts of things, there'squite a bit of latitude with the
script. Other times, there'snot, and it also depends on the
playwright or the screenwriter.So there really is some nuance
there. But the place I want todo a tiny, deep dive, though, is
(22:39):
actually about this idea ofscripting stage actors. What
they're striving for is theexact opposite, that it's not a
activity of trying to rememberand a burden of mental memory,
but rather that the process oflearning this language actually
informs them, and so these wordsbecome irreplaceable. These
words actually teach them whothe character is. And if they
(23:02):
really get behind the words.They actually teach them what
the action often is. I mean, asan example, here's a piece of
poetry I question things and donot find one that will answer to
my mind and all the worldappears unkind. Now, if you
listen to that, a bunch of thosewords have final voiced
consonants. Question things donot find one that will answer to
(23:24):
my mind, final voice consonantsjust mean consonants that have
vocal tone, de ne, those sortsof things. So if you really get
behind that language, it beginsto activate a sense of
onomatopoeia, which is the wordsounds like the thing that it
is. And all those final voiceconsonants that can be drawn out
actually give you someindication of what the character
(23:47):
is doing, which is essentiallysearching and trying to squeeze
every possible answer, becausetheir answer list, they cannot
find the thing they're lookingfor. So I don't mean to get too
you know, dramatic or artsy withthis whole thing, but actors
often rely on the words. It'snot trying to master them all,
and it's a burden. No, thosewords are their tool, their
(24:10):
superpower, in many ways. Now,what the heck does that have to
do with public speaking? Thesame thing, which is, if you
have a script, first of all, doyou have to learn a script?
Learn it physically and learn itwith variety. Don't rehearse the
same way. Every time, don'trehearse the same way. Every
time, don't rehearse the sameway. Every time don't rehearse
(24:33):
the same way. Every time you'rememorizing vocal variety, you're
not memorizing the ideas. Somove around in space, walk like
an elephant, slowly, big,swinging arms through the room,
saying the words and the nexttime, whisper it into your phone
like you're at a library, tryingnot to get scolded by the
librarian. So you're learningthe ideas, but you're not
(24:55):
memorizing vocal. Variety alsoget to know the ideas in what
you're sharing, not just thewords in the page. In fact, I
often suggest that people writeout their scripts like a poem.
Make it look how the ideas makesense, not just how the word
processor has divvied it up onthe page. That has nothing to do
with the ideas and the lines. Itjust has to do with how many
(25:18):
characters fit on a line oftext. It's a big topic. It's a
worthwhile question you ask. ButI also don't want to give you a
whole soap opera on this one question.
Adam Outland (25:29):
No. I mean, it was great, and you've, you've split
up the little pieces of nuggetsof wisdom really well. Michael,
I hate to even in thisinterview, because I feel like
we're just scratching thesurface. There's like another
three hours in us. Where caneverybody go to learn more about
your work?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (25:45):
Sure, three simple places for the
book. It's just DontSayUm.comjust the title of the book .com.
Don't say um.com, my company'sname is GK training, and that's
the same URL. G K training.comand then you can find me on
LinkedIn. Michael Chad Hoeppner.
Adam Outland (26:05):
Wonderful. Well, I will be looking at your
resources for sure, and I'm surea lot of our listeners will be
as well. Thank you so much forjoining us.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (26:13):
Thank you for the interview, and thank you
for the really interestingquestions. I know that can also
sound like lip service, likeevery guest is like, what a
great question. You're so smart.But really fun to get to answer.
Welcome to The Action Catalyst. Today's guest
(00:02):
is Michael Chad Hoeppner, thefounder and CEO of GK Training,
a firm dedicated to givingindividuals, companies and
organizations the communicationskills to reach their highest
goals in work and life. He's acoach, a professor and a
curriculum designer at ColumbiaBusiness School, as well as the
author of the new book, Don'tSay, Um: How to Communicate
(00:24):
Effectively to Live a BetterLife. Michael, thank you so much
for making the time. I wasreally looking forward to this
conversation for many reasons,one of which is that both my
parents were opera singers.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (00:35):
Yeah, I knew that. I mean, I of course,
did a little research about you,and that's the coolest thing,
because you have already ashorthand vocabulary for a lot
of this. And my parents similar,were both professional cellists.
Adam Outland (00:48):
Wow.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (00:48):
Yeah, similar kind of artistic
passion, but yeah, my mom, infact, is retiring from the
Colorado Symphony Orchestraafter 63 years.
Adam Outland (00:58):
Wow!
Michael Chad Hoeppner (00:59):
In the orchestra, yeah, my dad played
more than 50 so together theyhave something absurd, like 115
years in the symphony, orsomething crazy.
Adam Outland (01:07):
That's amazing. You can tell your parents that I
was temporarily dedicated to thecello until we moved to Boone,
North Carolina, and my parentsdecided to relocate our house
about a half a mile from wherethe bus would drop you off,
uphill. And in order for me topractice, I had to slug that
thing all the way. And quicklylost my inspiration.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (01:28):
Time to switch to a violin, right, or
the triangle.
Adam Outland (01:35):
The triangle sounded like it would have been
a good choice. Well, that'samazing. So yeah, you know, I
can relate a lot to what it'slike to grow up with music. And
there's part of your story I wasreally curious about, which is,
you know, what was your initialinspiration to become on day?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (01:49):
Hilariously, nothing of the kind. I come from
a blended family, eight of uskids all together, and none
pursued professional music. So Idon't know if it skips a
generation or what that wouldbe. But I actually was focused
on, I wanted to be apaleontologist or an
archeologist or a marinebiologist, and that obviously is
(02:09):
not what has come to pass. So Ididn't really get interested in,
let's call it communications ofany kind, until middle school
and high school, and that waswhen I was getting into theater
a little bit. The pivot I'llhone in on, is actually fast
forwarding all the way untilabout oh 2010, or so, which is I
was a professional actor forabout 10 years, Broadway film
(02:30):
and TV and but what I began todiscover is that even more
interesting than portrayingcharacters on stage, I became
totally fascinated by how peoplelearn to do that activity. And
so I started becoming reallyobsessed about, how can you help
people be more more effectiveand calmer and more themselves
(02:50):
in front of audiences? So thiswas a somewhat natural evolution
into that. The biggest thing isthat we really developed a way
in which to use embodiedcognition, and by that, I mean
getting people to use theirbodies to build habits. So, you
know, like the adage of learningto ride a bicycle and you never
forget, and we developed a wholesuite of kinesthetic tools to
(03:11):
help people be more effective.So they're a little bit related
to theatrical training, but notreally, because I kept hiring
actors to try to be coacheswithin our firm, and they looked
at me a little bit baffled whenI would teach them some of these
exercises. I really discovered,as an actor, half my time on
stage was slightly equivalent totorture, painful, agonizingly
(03:35):
self conscious, hyper aware ofevery little thing, and
relentlessly self critical.Many, many artists out there,
and certainly most performingartists out there can relate to
that. And what I discovered wasthat if I could put my focus on
something very concrete, it wasliterally the only way I could
navigate through those, thosemoments of like, really painful
(03:56):
self consciousness. What Idiscovered was that, or that I
thought about it, the worse Ifelt, and the more I obsessed
about my feelings and my painand things like this, the worse
I actually felt. And what Idiscovered was that simply
doing, putting the focus ondoing and doing behaviors, and
just putting one foot in frontof the other actually led to
(04:17):
much greater healing and greaterescape, deliverance, all those
sorts of words. For many people,public speaking is equivalent to
agony. If you give them veryconcrete things that they can do
and succeed at, they can getpast this agonizing moment and
experience a little, tiny, briefmoment of victory. And from that
(04:37):
moment of victory, you can buildand build and build, and pretty
soon they've established acompletely different kind of
muscle memory that can help themsucceed. One of the first
profound experiences I hadindividually coaching someone is
when I dreamt up this Lego blockidea because he was having a
really difficult time memorizinganything. And so. What I was
(05:00):
trying to get him to do was togive himself just a moment
longer before all the terribleself critical, berating voices
came alive in his brain. And soI had him share one idea at a
time and stack a Lego block atthe end of each idea. It gave
him something to do. Rather thanyou're terrible, you can't
memorize anything. What aterrible communicator you are.
(05:22):
He had a distraction, somethinghe had to do, and then in that
moment, this total miraclehappened, which his brain had a
moment to think and actuallyrecall the information he was
trying to remember. So it wasthis really powerful moment of
kinesthetic learning. Fromthere, I just developed these
exercises working with with reallife communicators, both very
high stakes communicationsituations, like presidential
(05:45):
candidates for debate prep, butalso people much more, you know,
Junior, which would be like highschool students trying to get
better at speaking so they cangive a good oral report.
Adam Outland (05:55):
Yeah, quite, quite a wide range. I remember the
first time I encountered achallenge speaking. If I wasn't
in a good head space, I, like,my vocal cords would, like,
constrict or something, and I'dhave to, like, clear my voice,
like, seven times. Superannoying.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (06:10):
Yes. So blushing, you know, turning beet
red, dry mouth. There's a wholebunch of things that people
experience that are thesephysical manifestations of
feeling tremendously nervous.
Adam Outland (06:22):
And so, your process is often to try and work
through the I don't you call itpsychosomatic part, but the
emotional response, the nervesbefore diving into maybe more of
a tactical approach?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (06:34):
Yeah, you use the tactics to unlock what I
call a virtuous cycle of goodcommunication. So you
essentially fix the problem withthese kinesthetic tools. They
use embodied cognition. Theychange the pattern dramatically.
And then once the pattern ischanged, what also tends to
change is all those automaticresponses that are happening
(06:57):
when the pattern is not goingwell. So there was a person I
worked with one time, who wouldalways blush very, very
intensely, and I mean,instantly, she would start
public speaking, and instantlyturn beat red, and she felt
terrible about this, and veryself conscious. And so the first
thing she said to me is, I haveto stop turning red. And I said
back to her, that's not true.You have to stop moving your
(07:18):
feet. She looked at me ratherblankly, and what was going on
was that she would beginspeaking, and totally different
than how she would stand or useher body, if she was talking to
a friend at the proverbial watercooler, she would begin to
relentlessly shift her weightback and forth, back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth,almost like miniature pacing,
(07:39):
but very rapid, rapid pacing. Atthe same time, she'd be turning
beet red, and she'd be trying tohide this by continually
smoothing back her hair over herface, trying to almost
camouflage this activity withthis motion of her hands over
and over again. So I actuallycrouched down, and I gave her
feet some physical feedback tofind stillness that tapped on
(08:00):
the top of her feet, put somebooks on top of her feet to keep
them anchored to the ground. Andwhen she did that, all of a
sudden, magically, she actuallytook a breath in. Her diaphragm
dropped down. Her lungs filledwith air, and her entire
communication instrument becamestill. And all of a sudden, she
spoke more slowly. For a moment,she breathed in. She got a
(08:21):
better idea. She realized sheactually has something to say to
start the speech off, and shedidn't blush.
Adam Outland (08:28):
Sometimes you have to act your way into proper
thinking, instead of trying tothink your way into proper
acting, right?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (08:33):
100%. If I could, if 1,000% was a thing,
I would say 1,000% but 100% Yes,precisely. Actors know this as
Inside Out versus outside inapproaching of a character. You
can see this in other aspects oflife too. I mean, anyone who has
become aware of some of the sortof approaches or focuses for
(08:53):
health and wellness and mentalhealth, you hear people talk
about saying out loud eachmorning some gratitudes or doing
these physical things that arereminding you of some of the
mindsets that you want to keep.And yes, absolutely. I mean, if
you want to go religious for asecond, think of all the
religious traditions in theworld and how very often, if
(09:14):
there's a level of devotion thatis trying to be unlocked, they
actually do physical rituals,sometimes even regimens. And
yes, these ways of acting, andif you want to use sort of
philosophical language, actingvirtuous can unlock positive
feelings too.
Adam Outland (09:33):
So almost an anchoring and through your
physical actions. One of thethings I just... not to do a
perfect segue here, this willjust kind of take us a different
road. But I have to ask for ourlisteners, the five Ps of vocal
variety. I'd love to hear whatthe five Ps of vocal variety
are, because I've learned howimportant vocal variety is.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (09:52):
Yeah, the first thing I should say is I
did not invent vocal variety.Humans use vocal variety. We've
been using it as long as. We'rehuman, and there's some really
important reasons why we use it,which we can get into but let's
cut to your question, which isthese five Ps and those five Ps
are pace, pitch, pause, powerand placement. Probably the
(10:15):
first four are instantlyfamiliar. Let's go through them
quickly. Pace is speed, sothat's fast and slow. Pitch is
the note on a musical clef, highor low. So high or low, pause is
exactly what it sounds like,silence, and maybe even varied
lengths of silence. Power isjust another word for volume, so
(10:36):
that's loud and soft, and thenplacement is probably the only
one that's not instantlyfamiliar. Placement means where
is the sound placed in yourbody. A big misconception that
people have about speaking isthat it's a totally cognitive
activity, like if I think ofsmart words, I will say smart
(10:56):
words, but it's actually aphysical activity. It takes 100
muscles to do what you and I aredoing right now. It's a physical
activity. I mean, even just theact of enunciation, if you think
for a moment, even just sayingthe word enunciation, how deeply
physical that is, that final pof placement, just to be very
clear, because sometimes peopleget a little confused about
(11:18):
this. That means where the soundis placed in your body. So the
The easiest example to thinkabout is, if you have a friend
with a really nasal voice,what's happening technically, is
the sound is only amplifying inlike the nasal passages in the
nasal area of the face. Sothat's if P placement, and we
use these 5p of vocal variety todo a whole bunch of really
(11:42):
important purposes, like conveymeaning, convey emotion, create
surprise, and more and but thoseare the five P's.
Adam Outland (11:50):
It's amazing. And as you keep going, I just, you
know, I do actually a lot ofinterpretation of these lessons
with my kids, because it's sorelevant right now. Yeah. And
you know, your voice andcommunication is like the one of
the most essential things that Iwant to make sure they they can
do, because it's so critical tohuman relations. So anyway, I
love all of this training as aparent just as much as a
(12:13):
professional.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (12:14):
Yeah, let's talk about kids for a
second. So we are actually inthe midst of a real crucible
moment in which how our kidslearn to speak is a little bit
under threat because they spendso much time looking at these
devices right here. And forthose of you who are just
listening, of course, I'mholding on my cell phone and
because they're not actuallykind of learning interpersonal
(12:35):
behavior and interpersonaldynamic in the same three
dimensional, 24/7, kind of waythat previous generations did.
It's fraught. It's in a littlebit of danger right now, and I
applaud you for taking your oneand a half year old's
development seriously, becauseit matters, and we take these
skills for granted. We shouldnot.
Adam Outland (12:54):
Hmm. I don't know how much international work you
do, but do you find change basedon the geography someone's grown
up in, like a German personwho's working on public
speaking, versus someone who'sFrench or Korean? How that
impacts those five Ps?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (13:10):
Yeah, for sure. So to answer the question,
yes, I've worked with folks onmost of the continents of the
globe and all kinds of differentwalks of life. I for many years
when I lived in New York City, Itaught at Columbia Business
School in the PhD program. And alot of the folks who get their
PhDs at Columbia speak Englishas a second or third or fourth
(13:31):
language. I coach in the startupworld a lot, and a lot of the
founders who are buildingcompanies in the US speak
English as a second or third orfourth language, and oftentimes
hail from somewhere else. Andthere's two ways I would suggest
we think about this. On the onehand, there are the core things
that humans do, and we do themall over the world, and that's
(13:51):
partly because we arecommunication instruments.
Communication is not a side cardof being human. We built this
incredible system of spokenlanguage to be able to team up
and gain an evolutionaryadvantage over somebody else or
some other creatures, or stopthe marauding, you know, cave
bears or whatever it is. So thisis just part of being human. But
(14:14):
then on top of that core, thereis endless complexity with how
different languages work. Soyes, there are these these
changes and these differencesall over the place. And then
oftentimes, what you're tryingto do, though, no matter what
culture, is not unlock how anAmerican would speak, or how a
German would speak, or how aBrit would speak, but you're
trying to unlock how that personwould speak, but crucially, when
(14:40):
they are not thinking aboutthemselves and how they speak,
but thinking about the personthey're trying to reach, and all
of what we think of as thebehaviors of presence or the
behaviors of confidence, thatmeans enunciation and eye
contact and gestures and all therest these come out flawlessly
when we're in that. Activity ofreally, truly trying to reach
(15:02):
the other person. So no matterthe culture that I'm working in,
that's what I'm trying to helppeople unlock.
Adam Outland (15:07):
So important. What do you see as the bigger
challenges as it relates tovocal, not just vocal variety,
but speaking in general, forsalespeople? What are some of
the common concepts you end upleaning into the most with
people who are in thatprofession?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (15:22):
I'm going to offer a tactical suggestion
first, because it's so usefuland so relevant to selling, and
you can do it today and makeyour life better right away. I
teach an exercise in a skillcalled linguistic Well,
actually, sorry, the exercise iscalled finger walking. The skill
is called linguistic precision,which means, essentially, are
you choosing words, or are wordsjust choosing you? So the
(15:44):
exercise is simply when you'repracticing asking questions and
getting better at doing that,you walk your fingers across a
table or desk, choosing each andevery single word that comes out
of your mouth. The finger stepsare the equivalent of the act of
choosing words. So in a sense,you're walking your ideas across
(16:04):
the table. Now that's the skill,but the way to apply it, if
you're in a selling situation,is to practice asking single
questions with linguisticprecision. There's no filler, no
non fluencies, and then at theend of the question, draw and an
imaginary question mark insilence. Now this is really
(16:25):
powerful for people in a salesrole, because what you'll see is
that oftentimes they're great atchit chat, they're great at
rapport building, they're reallygood at asking questions to
learn more about the person. Andthen they get to the crucial
moment of asking for a nextmeeting or asking for the
business, and theircommunication falls apart, and
they ask like, nine questions ina row, and they talk really
quickly and a bunch of samples,and they go down, they back up,
they don't let it and all of itcrumbles. And so you're
(16:48):
practicing this very singularskill of asking one question
with linguistic precision andthen tolerating relaxed silence
at the end, so that you buildthe muscle of saying something
like, how would you like to movethis forward? When would you
like to meet again? Is thereanyone else that we should loop
into this conversation? Andthese kind of, what we call, you
know, closing questions, andvery often, sales folks will
(17:11):
have a moment or two withininteractions that feel really
fraught for them. And if theycan build that skill single
questions with linguisticprecision and relax silence at
the end. It really helps them.
Adam Outland (17:24):
That's great. That's a great technician way to
look and reverse engineersuccessful communication. You
have this engineer mind aboutyou that's allowed you to
extrapolate the tools to makesomeone a good speaker.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (17:36):
Yeah. You ask really insightful
questions. I don't actuallyrelate to having much of an
engineer's mind, I think I havemuch creative artists mind, or
even an inventor's mind.Creativity is the thing that I'm
pretty much addicted to. What Iwould say is that the
engineering concept is right ina certain way, which is I became
frustrated with how stymiedpeople were by really bad
(17:59):
advice. And I don't mean to saybad advice, like they're being
sabotaged by people, but badadvice sounds like this. Just be
yourself. Just beconversational, Just be natural.
These sorts of things areintended to relax the the person
you're talking to, but theydon't, because all they do is
make the person think more aboutthemselves. And they're not
relaxed. They don't feel likethemselves. They don't feel
(18:21):
conversational. They feelperhaps rocked with self
consciousness, as I becameinterested, like, how can you
get in there when someone hasbeen really messed up, and
engineer them for greatersuccess? By setting up their
physical and their vocalcommunication instrument for
success. I helped set them upfor success, but it's them who's
(18:44):
doing it when they have like anengineer, set themselves up, set
their physical and vocalcommunication instruments up for
success. All of a sudden, theirbrain is dazzling, and it does
what it's incredibly good at,which is thinking about ideas
now that it's not totally jammedup with anxiety and and
multitasking of Don't benervous. Don't look like an
(19:05):
idiot. Don't look like a fraud.Don't mess up. Don't all of a
sudden, brilliant things comeout of their mouth. And if we
think of part of speaking asthis act of being present and
being focused on the otherperson, you can't be present if
you are thinking about all thestuff you forgot, or anxious
about all the stuff you're aboutto forget. So very often,
(19:27):
written materials, althoughintended to be a support, very
often, they cannot be thathelpful, because it puts you in
the past or the futureendlessly. And the act of
speaking is a physical one.You're not going to be giving
someone a PDF with a bunch ofbullets on it. You are turning
air into sound and then soundinto words. You're doing it real
(19:48):
time, and it's being receivedreal time. So anything you can
do to help yourself be in thepresent, as opposed to, you
know, those two other time zonesthat are not that helpful can be
powerful. Because here's thefunny thing, I've actually
helped many people experiencethat, that wow, I'm better when
I'm not quite so anchored to mynotes. The hard part is getting
(20:11):
them to have the trust and faithto actually try and test it
without it, and kind of gettheir sea legs with that,
because it it takes some braveryof letting go.
Adam Outland (20:21):
Yeah, I love that. And I, you know, I'd have to
include this question, because Ithink of sales and acting and
how they're similar in so manyways. In sales, I'm very clear
you have a sales script, there'sa purpose in remembering it,
because the words do matter toan extent, but not so much to
the extent that it affects theemotion of the conversation in
(20:43):
acting. This is the part in theworld, I don't know, and so I
would love your thoughts. Idon't know how often the
directors so hard on getting theexact words where you have to
get caught up in the words, orif you don't rehearse enough to
know all the paragraphs ofinformation, it creates that
trauma cycle of, am I, you know,saying the right line, or if
you're allowed to be emotionallyengaged, how does that? How does
(21:05):
that work in acting, and what'syour take on scripts versus no
scripts in communication?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (21:10):
So you have to promise to interrupt me
a lot in this next answer, okay,because that's a big, juicy
question, and we could do awhole separate podcast based on
that question. Okay, it dependson the version of stage
performance improv, there's noscript. There may be a couple
like pretenses or a couplestarting points, but then
(21:31):
there's no script at all. That'spart of the delight. Sort of
like watching jazz musiciansimprovise, you get to watch
people impromptu come up withthese hilarious and amazing and
heartfelt real time scripts.It's totally astonishing. On the
other side, you've got classicaltexts, Shakespeare, Chekhov,
things like that, whereoftentimes the script is so well
(21:53):
known that if you really had aline club, some of the audience
might Hey, he forgot that wordin general, stage acting is
required to be a bit moreprecise than film acting in a
couple different ways. So filmacting, as long as you're not
having to do a bunch of takes inwhich lines are are piggybacking
100% on each other, then you mayhave some freedom, and the
(22:16):
director may want to take justthe best take. So an example of
this is, if you're watchingserial drama, law and order,
those sorts of things, there'squite a bit of latitude with the
script. Other times, there'snot, and it also depends on the
playwright or the screenwriter.So there really is some nuance
there. But the place I want todo a tiny, deep dive, though, is
(22:39):
actually about this idea ofscripting stage actors. What
they're striving for is theexact opposite, that it's not a
activity of trying to rememberand a burden of mental memory,
but rather that the process oflearning this language actually
informs them, and so these wordsbecome irreplaceable. These
words actually teach them whothe character is. And if they
(23:02):
really get behind the words.They actually teach them what
the action often is. I mean, asan example, here's a piece of
poetry I question things and donot find one that will answer to
my mind and all the worldappears unkind. Now, if you
listen to that, a bunch of thosewords have final voiced
consonants. Question things donot find one that will answer to
(23:24):
my mind, final voice consonantsjust mean consonants that have
vocal tone, de ne, those sortsof things. So if you really get
behind that language, it beginsto activate a sense of
onomatopoeia, which is the wordsounds like the thing that it
is. And all those final voiceconsonants that can be drawn out
actually give you someindication of what the character
(23:47):
is doing, which is essentiallysearching and trying to squeeze
every possible answer, becausetheir answer list, they cannot
find the thing they're lookingfor. So I don't mean to get too
you know, dramatic or artsy withthis whole thing, but actors
often rely on the words. It'snot trying to master them all,
and it's a burden. No, thosewords are their tool, their
(24:10):
superpower, in many ways. Now,what the heck does that have to
do with public speaking? Thesame thing, which is, if you
have a script, first of all, doyou have to learn a script?
Learn it physically and learn itwith variety. Don't rehearse the
same way. Every time, don'trehearse the same way. Every
time, don't rehearse the sameway. Every time don't rehearse
(24:33):
the same way. Every time you'rememorizing vocal variety, you're
not memorizing the ideas. Somove around in space, walk like
an elephant, slowly, big,swinging arms through the room,
saying the words and the nexttime, whisper it into your phone
like you're at a library, tryingnot to get scolded by the
librarian. So you're learningthe ideas, but you're not
(24:55):
memorizing vocal. Variety alsoget to know the ideas in what
you're sharing, not just thewords in the page. In fact, I
often suggest that people writeout their scripts like a poem.
Make it look how the ideas makesense, not just how the word
processor has divvied it up onthe page. That has nothing to do
with the ideas and the lines. Itjust has to do with how many
(25:18):
characters fit on a line oftext. It's a big topic. It's a
worthwhile question you ask. ButI also don't want to give you a
whole soap opera on this one question.
Adam Outland (25:29):
No. I mean, it was great, and you've, you've split
up the little pieces of nuggetsof wisdom really well. Michael,
I hate to even in thisinterview, because I feel like
we're just scratching thesurface. There's like another
three hours in us. Where caneverybody go to learn more about
your work?
Michael Chad Hoeppner (25:45):
Sure, three simple places for the
book. It's just DontSayUm.comjust the title of the book .com.
Don't say um.com, my company'sname is GK training, and that's
the same URL. G K training.comand then you can find me on
LinkedIn. Michael Chad Hoeppner.
Adam Outland (26:05):
Wonderful. Well, I will be looking at your
resources for sure, and I'm surea lot of our listeners will be
as well. Thank you so much forjoining us.
Michael Chad Hoeppner (26:13):
Thank you for the interview, and thank you
for the really interestingquestions. I know that can also
sound like lip service, likeevery guest is like, what a
great question. You're so smart.But really fun to get to answer.
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