July 31, 2025 • 65 mins
Overcoming Fear: Helping Leaders Speak with Confidence
In this episode of the Learnings and Missteps podcast, host Jesse interviews Jimmy Cannon, a voice and public speaking coach from the UK. Jimmy shares his journey from being a performer and singer to becoming a specialist in helping leaders speak without fear. The conversation covers the importance of energy, finding sincerity, and overcoming performance anxiety. Jimmy discusses his work with clients across various industries, helping them find their confidence and improve their communication skills. Key topics include the impact of mindfulness techniques, the concept of psychological flexibility, and the importance of being sincere rather than just authentic. The episode also includes listener shoutouts and personal anecdotes from both Jesse and Jimmy about their experiences with public speaking and leadership.
00:00 Introduction and Setting the Stage
00:43 Meet the Expert: Jimmy Cannon
04:15 Jimmy's Journey: From Performer to Coach
06:49 Understanding Performance Anxiety
09:06 Techniques to Overcome Speaking Fears
13:41 Real-Life Applications and Success Stories
27:47 The Power of Positive Thinking
28:11 Overcoming Life's Challenges
28:39 Embracing Opportunities
29:25 Building Confidence in Communication
30:55 Helping Professionals Speak Up
32:24 Voice and Confidence Connection
33:45 Success Stories and Client Transformations
39:35 Clarity, Precision, and Confidence
48:13 The Importance of Sincerity
55:16 Final Thoughts and Resources
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do I do that?
(00:00):
I'm not going to do that.
Just do it, because it's eithergoing to go wrong or it's going
to go right, and then, as yousaid before, we're going to
learn from that and we're goingto.
Yes, that's the key thing.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
What is going on L&M family.
Back again, and this time I'mgoing to.
For some of you, I know I'mgoing to get you a little
nervous, because we're goinginto the number one fear that
most people have and if you'rein the game of leadership and
understand the value ofinfluence, you're going to want
(00:38):
to take notes, like if you'redriving right now, go ahead and
listen to it and then come back,because today we have a
specialist in helping leadersspeak without fear, coming to us
all the way from the UK.
His name is Mr Jimmy Cannon.
He's a voice and publicspeaking coach and I was like
(00:59):
stalking him, doing the internetstalking checked out his
YouTube channel, which you needto go check out after this one,
because he's got a lot of reallyinteresting insights into how
people speak and their tone andtheir energy and where their
voice is coming from, like allkinds of really powerful stuff
that I know will help youelevate your leadership game.
(01:20):
But before that, if this is yourfirst time here, this is the
Learnings and Missteps podcast,where you get to see how real
people just like you are sharingtheir gifts and talents to
leave this world better thanthey found it.
I'm Jesse, your selfish servantand we about to get to know Mr
(01:43):
Jimmy Cannon.
Mr Jimmy, how are you doing,sir?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
jesse, I'm very good.
I'm just completely enthralledwith your intro and your story
and everything.
It's fantastic.
So I just want to be here andI'll tell you.
What I didn't ask you is are weon video?
Do I have to do my hair or isit just purely?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
you're beautiful, you're perfect.
Okay, perfect for audio video.
All of the above.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
That's fantastic.
Well, it's lovely to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Thank you for the opportunity of course I just I
didn't think about thisbeforehand until right now.
I'm like wait a minute.
And I'm glad I did it, becauseit would have come out different
, like I'm doing this, all this,like doing my thing in front of
an expert, in front of aprofessional that helps people.
They're like oh so I'm glad.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I was thinking about it before.
Not at all, I think.
Here's I mean, can I just?
Can I start?
Can I just take the stage alittle bit here?
I mean straight away.
I'm thinking, as soon as youcame on online, your energy is
just absolutely superb and it'smesmerizing, is your energy.
It's absolutely superb andthat's the key.
So one thing is finding theenergy we spoke about this a
(02:53):
little bit before we startedrecording, didn't we?
And just finding the energy toreflect the passion that you
have for what you do, and it'sevident that you have that in
spades.
As we say, I'm connecting toyour industry as well, somehow,
but that's incredible and thefact that you're actually doing.
Nobody's going to criticize youif you're doing what you should
(03:16):
be doing, and it's obvious thatyou're doing what you should be
doing.
So I'm not thinking for asecond.
I'm not judging you for asecond.
I'm thinking this for a second.
I'm not judging you for asecond.
I'm thinking this is afantastic opportunity to be here
and share my experience and myviews and methods with your
audience, and I'm grateful forthat.
So here I am.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Recognize my energy and it sounds like yeah.
Between 6 am and 9 am.
Most of the time people aresaying like Jesse, turn it down
bro.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
That's too much.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I can't help it, I'm having fun Now.
So you're in the business ofhelping leaders speak without
fear, which I totally get it,and I know it's a super
impactful service you provide.
So the first question that cameto my head is how did you
discover the secret sauce aboutspeaking without fear?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Well, ok, so so I was working with people before
covid, before what I call thedark times in London.
Yes, some would argue it'sstill the dark times, but it
depends which side of the fenceyou're on, I suppose Political.
Let's not talk about that.
So before COVID, I was workingwith people one-to-one and I was
helping them.
Actually, I was doing a lot ofperforming and I'm a singer by
(04:40):
trade, if you like and I wasdoing lots of singing and
performing.
Obviously, covid hit All thetheat singer by trade, if you
like and I was doing lots ofsinging and performing.
Obviously, covid hit, no, allthe theaters in london.
Everything shut down and, yeah,that's it.
Bang.
And I was incredibly lucky thatmy wife is still a teacher and
she was getting some moneycoming in and we all suffered
quite all of us, everybody inthe world suffered, obviously,
(05:02):
but you know particularlyartists and performers because
they had no way to perform andthey couldn't do anything.
So I I was also working withpeople one to one, but I was
helping them project their voice, give that, give it change the
variety of their tone.
I actually helped them sustainand maintain their voice for
(05:22):
longer, which was something thatI was doing before COVID, as
well as teaching singing.
So I took my singing experienceand skills, I suppose, into
speaking.
So in COVID I decided to do amaster's in vocal pedagogy,
because that was, I had loads oftime, what else are you going
to do?
And so I ended up doing amaster's.
(05:44):
I ended up, a lot of peoplewere coming to me.
I remember having one clientwho came to me with.
He said I saw I get like a,like a swallowing feeling in the
throat.
I thought this is fascinating.
I had my first assignment wasgiven to me.
The brief was this is anacademic ma that I did in voice
pedagogy and I was, even thoughwe learned quite a lot about the
(06:07):
voice and the physiology of thevoice etc.
Which was one of the reasonsthat I did it, because I wanted
to know more about the voice.
I wasn't that.
I mean you've got a lot of whatwe call geeks over here.
I mean I don't know if that's ageneral, generalized word.
So lots of geeky kind of peopleon this MA and I'm a bit of a
geek, but not that much of ageek, and I wasn't that
(06:32):
interested in the cricothroidmuscle which is contracting on
the dysphonial muscle, so Iwasn't so interested in that.
What I thought, right, I'm goingto do a bit of research into
this swallowing thing that wasgoing on.
So, looking back sorry, lookingback I the research I did was
(06:53):
this is this thing is calledglobus pharyngeus.
So this is a thing that acondition that some people few,
very few people have where theyfeel that they need to keep,
they need to swallow, and it itcomes from Roman times actually,
where it was a sign of invertedcommas madness.
So people, if you had thisfeeling of swallowing, they
would think you were just amadman in the village.
(07:14):
So I think times haven'tchanged much.
So one of my clients had thisfeeling and I did a bit of
research into it and what it isis it's a somatic or
physiological response toanxiety.
So we all have right.
So when we feel nervous, werush our speech, our heart rate
(07:35):
increases, we have sweaty palms,we start there's lots of
physical stuff, the vocal tract,the larynx or the vocal tract,
contracts and tightens and youget a dry throat, lots of
symptoms like that that you feel.
So that was really interestingto me and my mentor said to me
why don't you, why don't you godown the performance anxiety and
(07:57):
then I thought, oh, and then Ifound about, I found out about
public speaking anxiety and what, how you introduced at the
beginning.
It is, I still think,apparently number three in the
top feared things in the states.
So I studied performanceanxiety and straight into that,
and then branched into publicspeaking anxiety and I ended up
(08:18):
doing my masters and thenafterwards studying behavioral
therapy and specifically,exceptions and commitment
therapy, because most of myclients I don't know why, but
most of my clients and still docome to me with I think I've got
a weak voice, I think I've gota quiet voice.
I don't speak up.
I can't speak.
I don't feel like I can speakup.
(08:39):
This isn't your issue, by theway, jesse.
You, it's not nothing.
I can't help you with anything,with anything.
You know, I think you're fine,I think you're gonna be okay,
yeah, so, um, so that's what Ido, that's where I am, and here
I am and now and I had to getthis we all have to learn how to
do everything online.
I had to learn about zoom,still learning about zoom and
(09:01):
everything else.
I had to put a website together, and so so I did that, I
studied that and this is what Ihelp people do.
I help people manage theiranxiety through mindfulness
techniques and I help themimprove the quality of their
voice.
To feel and sound moreconfident in the moment is what
I do, which.
I absolutely love doing.
I'm going to stop talking,shall I stop talking now.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
You're good, oh man, so much, and I'm gonna dive in
multiple places.
What you just said was in themoment right, that's what I
heard you from speaking anxietyand deal with all the things in
the moment, which is a nuancethat I want to explore.
Yeah, um, that will beimportant for our listeners,
because when I'm hearing a coach, a voice coach or speaking
(09:45):
coach, I'm thinking you're goingto help me understand what to
do with my hands when I'mtalking and how to posture.
We're going to do the L&Mfamily member shout out and this
one comes from the tick tockthis.
I love his name, crack pack.
Thank you, crack Pack, forleaving this comment.
I love his name, crack Pack.
(10:18):
Thank you, crack Pack, forleaving this comment.
He said dude, you got reallygood leadership tips, especially
for the construction industrythat one.
But the whole point is when youget a chance or feel the urge to
leave a comment, send a DM,leave a review, do a share, all
of the things.
I super, super appreciate itand it gives me the opportunity
to shout you out again in thefuture, like that's what first
(10:42):
comes to mind.
But what you're saying is likesure, and in the moment, so in
your stuff, like what was it?
I'm sure you're doing research,you got to interact with a
bunch of people and maybe yousaw some common themes of like,
oh there's, this is somethingthat a lot of people struggle
with.
What was it?
(11:03):
That like not necessarilyseeing the problem, what helped
you feel good and say that'swhat I really want to help
people with.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
That's a great question.
I love that, and so give me acouple of seconds to process
that I love.
This is what I love.
I love helping people findtheir true.
This is going to sound reallyhippie, and can I go down that
road?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Come on, bring it, bring it.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I love helping people find their true selves, and
find their true selves in thatthey appreciate what they can do
and what they have done andtheir skills and their
experience.
So that is the main thing and Ifind, jesse, that I find that
(11:53):
I'm yes, I can help you with thevoice, I can give you some
techniques and some skills tomanage the anxiety, but what
actually helps is us doing somecoaching together, coaching them
to really appreciate theirworth.
That's actually, if I thinkabout it, that's what I really
love doing is finding their why.
(12:14):
I suppose, to quote Simon Sinektheir purpose in life, what
their values are, and it stemsfrom acceptance and commitment
therapy.
But really it's about what isyour passion?
What do you love doing?
Why are you doing what you'redoing?
And if you can keep going onthat path, then nothing should
stop you from doing what youlove doing.
(12:34):
The thing that is stopping youisn't real.
This is like for me, it's likethis is a yeah, this is a like a
explosion when I found this out, which is that our emotions and
our thoughts or feelings arethe same thing.
They are just feelings, ourthoughts, our thoughts.
They are, and our feelings arefeelings.
(12:56):
They are nothing else and weare fused.
So part of acceptance,commitment therapy, is like
psychological flexibility.
So flexibility, so it's beingable to in any moment realize
that I don't have to react tothat emotion.
I don't have to, I canacknowledge it, and this is
where the acceptance comes in.
(13:16):
I can acknowledge it, see thatit's there, but I don't have to
surrender to it, and that'sreally vital.
So when people say to me I'vegot the thought that if I speak
up in a meeting, if I put myhand up and speak up, then I'm
going to be judged, I'm going tofeel judged, I'm going to be
judged.
There's a lot of people in theroom, they're staring at me and
(13:40):
that's just a feeling, yes, andyou can control that.
And that's what we I loveworking with people on that
because it's quite and it's aquick.
It's a quick switch, it's amindset switch that literally
the next day not all the time,but I will often get somebody
saying to me or sending me avideo or an email saying Jimmy,
(14:02):
I had that conversation with aguy that I can't stand speaking
to because he's a, he's asomething, and he's nepotistic
or he's arrogant or whatever itmight be.
I I just don't.
I don't click with him at all,but I had a conversation.
It went really well.
I controlled the environmentthat we're in, I controlled the
conversation.
I asked the right questions andI got the answers that I needed
(14:24):
and we moved on.
That was purely because he madethat switch in his head, which
I just love that.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Oh, my goodness, I can imagine.
So it seems to me like you'regetting a whole lot of
fulfillment from the work thatyou do now, absolutely Wow.
(15:05):
Absolutely understanding whatbrought me fulfillment, that the
doors blew wide open.
Before that it was always hard.
Now you you said it's almost,it's almost like a switch right,
and I see this, I imagine I seethis in the States and I want
to see you see that over thereon your side.
I haven't met a single person,except for maybe super arrogant
people like me.
They completely understand howmuch value that they have.
(15:26):
Almost everybody that I meetundervalues the life experience,
the energy, the lessons thatthey've learned, severely
undervalue what they just bringto the table transferable value.
Do you see the same?
Speaker 1 (15:45):
thing over there all the time.
All the time I do and this isreally interesting because we
all have a different experienceand something that I'm learning
to do I mean these, quitefrankly, in these podcasts and
my, my social media is to tellmy story, and I thought quite
recently actually probably sixmonths ago that I don't, didn't
really have a story.
(16:05):
I I I right right I still, in away, I still think I don't have
a story because I don't feelthat I've suffered particularly,
but it's all relative, isn't it?
I have suffered, but I've alsogained, and we've all got the
roller coaster of life.
We've all gone through theroller coaster of life and we,
you and I, were speaking about.
(16:26):
Wouldn't it be great to be ableto start at the beginning,
where we are now?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
With the knowledge, can you imagine?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Can you imagine I tell this to my daughter, if you
would just listen to me,because I know so much more than
you could possibly imagine, butof course she's 11, and she
doesn't listen to me.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And she wants to do her own thing.
Right, she's never gonna listento me.
She won't, she won't.
We gotta have the learningscars.
Yeah, friend of mine said likeit's the learning scars that you
need, like, sure, the knowledgeand information, yeah, but
without the scar it doesn't meananything, like you know, damn
it, you're right, exactly,exactly, okay.
So I want to do some timetraveling, sure, before COVID
hit and like COVID totallytransformed everything for me.
(17:11):
Similarly to you, like I was aninternal consultant for a large
construction firm here in theStates, yep, and I was like I
ain't doing those teams callsand zoom crap, like we need to
be in person.
It's the only way to do it.
And then COVID hit.
They said you need to work fromhome and figure out how to do
your job virtually like oh mygoodness.
And that was the catalyst for mestarting this podcast right, I
(17:33):
needed an yeah now and then,like the rest is, history
totally shifted my career, likein my, my quality of life.
Even so, you were down, what Iunderstood down about your
performer, singer you're thevoice coach at the time.
Yeah, and kovid hit.
You said, okay, I need to go,I'm going to do something, let
(17:53):
me go learn, let me get masters,yeah, and that kind of opened
up another path.
And then there was anotherlittle sidestep from there and
then so like maybe I going toask this clearly Was that
planned?
Like Ovid was not, but fromgoing to get your master's to
the business you do now, yeah,no, I remember now I did my
(18:18):
master's.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
What's the word?
I delayed I would do.
I delayed my doing the master'sit because the code come up and
I originally initially did itbefore I started in 2018 and I
did it because I had I gotoffered a job teaching at a
university, westminsteruniversity in london, teaching.
(18:41):
I was a voice for westminsteruniversity and I said to my and
I'm quite being quite frank withyou all the time, but I've got
to be very frank with you andsay that I was self-taught as a
musician, as a singer, and Imean I had some singing lessons
but I didn't know really whatthe hell I was doing.
I was just, you know, I endedup going to some singing lessons
(19:04):
at the age of 28.
And because one of my, a friendof mine, who's a great piano
player and producer, said Jimmy,look, I think you're straining
your voice, I think you need todo, you need to get some singing
lessons.
And I took that quitepersonally and went and got some
singing lessons, right, but Ididn't know anything really
about the voice how to use theabdominal muscles, how to create
(19:26):
sublateral pressure, how to usethe abdominal muscles had to
create sub little pressure, howto create different resonances,
how to lower my larynx or keepmy larynx flexible.
When I wanted to sing high inchest voice, I had no idea what
chest voice, head voice, fulltest, none of that had no idea,
absolutely no idea.
So I was just singing.
What I did was which I I usedto do a lot, and I'm very good
at doing it, I must say, because, which is this?
(19:48):
I used to mimic singers, right,so I can sound like certain
singers, and I still do the samething when I'm coaching and I'm
doing voice coaching, because alot of people say oh, I want to
sound like this singer, thisspeaker.
I can't necessarily sound likethem.
I can't sound like obama.
I wish I could, but, forinstance, or, or I can do trump,
maybe you know, but um, yeah,or yeah, so, but I can.
(20:10):
What I can do is I can analyzewhat they do I'm kind of going
to teach it but I can analyzewhat they do in their voice, or
how they do it and how theycreate that, that delivery.
It's not just about the soundof their voice, but it's also
how they use the pace and thepause and their total qualities,
etc.
So I didn't.
I started doing the ma becauseI wanted to learn more about the
(20:30):
physiology of the voice, butthen covid hit and I delayed it
for a year and I ended upworking with clients online that
were as I said.
I had a client come to me as aand he had problems with his
throat, so I just went down thatkind of rabbit hole of research
and I ended up doingperformance anxiety and I had no
(20:54):
idea there was performanceanxiety or public speaking
anxiety.
Yes, isn't that crazy.
I just realized that actually.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, I think, and there's another side of the coin
, right Like when I'minteracting with people that are
self-proclaimed as shy people,I think they're the most
interesting creatures in theuniverse.
Because I don't understand it.
Now, here's one of thoselessons for the 11-year-olds out
there that you're not going tolisten to.
If you get extremely curiousabout a shy person and start
(21:24):
asking them a bunch of questions, you're not going to get any
answers because they're shy,like it's.
They have a response.
So I don't understand that.
And so, like the performanceanxiety, I don't understand it.
It's like, what do you mean?
Like attention in front of athousand people?
Hell, what do I got to do?
I'm in.
I don't understand, like how itwould be less than amazing.
(21:48):
The other side of that coin iswhat's obvious to me is not
obvious to others, and so I'msaying that yeah because, yeah,
does it land like that?
when you're working with people,it's clear as day how impactful
they are, what, what theirmessage, where it comes from,
(22:08):
and how transformational it canbe.
For others, you can see it andit's obvious to you, but for
them it's like the furthestthing from their consciousness,
and so being able to see thatand showing them what you see
sounds like that's a part ofyour work.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, Very much.
The interesting thing is, youwouldn't believe it, but I am
actually introvert.
So so I really hate socialsituations.
I hate going to parties.
I hate meeting people.
I'm not please.
If you invite me to a party,I'll come.
I'm sure I'd love to come toyour parties.
I'm sure they're a guest, butum no, so I.
(22:47):
I.
I'm sure they're a gas, but umno, so I, I but so.
But my performance is definitelya mark I put on show, so I'm a
professional as in I'm puttingon.
I wouldn't say I'm so that I'mvery much aware of the
theatrical side of things whenyou're putting on a show now.
So I'm either working withpeople that they're experts in
something but but they mighthave anxiety to.
(23:09):
So OK, let me give you an idea.
Your industry is theconstruction industry, so that's
your niche, the audience youspeak to, so I do.
I have a client at the momentwho is in that industry.
He's in Melbourne in Australiaand he is fine when he's on the
job, he's fine.
He is fine when he's on the job, he's fine.
(23:30):
He's fine when he's on the job.
He's fine when he's got toolsin his hand.
But take the tools away fromhim, which is the same thing as
the mask, the theatrical mask.
The same thing as if I put mysuit on and I go to, I get on
stage and I start singing as ajazz singer, then I'm, that's my
mask.
But if I take my suit off, I'm avery different person, and this
(23:53):
is very common with performers.
That they are.
You think they're going to bethe same person.
They were on stage and they'renot.
And there's people getdisappointed right when he has
to put his tools down and speakto maybe a member of the public,
particularly somebody up theline, hierarchically so founders
or CEOs of the company or othercompanies.
(24:15):
That he's working, he is purelyhis, and this is only one
example but that he's.
It's purely his perception ofhow he feels about how he sounds
, how he comes across.
And here's a really interestingthing he has some old friends
(24:40):
and I'm really making sure thatI'm being very careful here and
it's confidential I'm not goingto be mentioning any names and
it's a large world and I thinkit's probably unlikely that
anyone will know who.
It is right, so okay.
But he does have some oldfriends and they have banter
right and when he's in theircompany he feels obliged.
(25:04):
Even though he's 20 years onnow and he's got his own company
, he's got employees, etc.
He feels that he needs tocontinue that banter and he
doesn't have the kind of theconfidence to do that in a
normal situation.
And that's what makes himanxious is going back in time
(25:27):
and realizing that he that whenhe felt that he couldn't really
compete with the rest of theguys in the crew, so yeah, and
you must hear this all the timethat type of thing.
Now he's got a, now he's inmanagement, as it were, he's now
got to speak to the big chiefsand he doesn't have the
confidence to do so, mainlybecause of that.
(25:47):
So we've been working on hisvoice, we've been working on his
confidence and how he comesacross.
The main thing here, jesse, ifI may, is his sincerity and,
just allowing so, I use the wordsincerity rather than
authenticity.
I feel that authenticity isused over yes, really I agree
yeah.
So sincerity for me is a bettersort of adjective to use or
(26:10):
description to use about how yourepresent yourself in the most
sincere way, regardless of whatthe reaction or perception of
others might be, and I thinkthat's the key thing.
There's no point in trying toput on a mask unless you're on
stage, like me, unless you arein the theater and you have to
(26:31):
put on a character.
So, yes, you know, be yourself.
I think that's come out of yourhead, and be yourself is the
thing, and it's really hard todo sometimes yes, oh, a hundred
percent so there's.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So there's two buckets that my brain is
bouncing between.
One is like how many customersif you don't already have them?
You should have right Clients.
The other is this thing thatthe story that we tell ourselves
.
We create this list of chaos,failure and like cataclysmic
(27:07):
torture, but it's all pretend,it's all made up, it's just what
I'm thinking.
And then we behave, or, to usethe word used earlier, we
respond in such a way as if it'sfact, as if it's true.
But we can like, since we'rerunning crazy with our
imagination on the negative sideof things, the negative
(27:28):
potential, we could also use ourimagination and create a list
of amazing things that couldpossibly happen which are also
not true, and then it's likelet's go find out which is true.
So just kind of balancing itand I think you helping them
with that is amazing ofbalancing it and I think you
(27:49):
helping them with that isamazing.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
But I suppose that the significant difference there
would be if you're talkingnegative and positive attitude
mindset wise, it's, yeah, morelikely to go.
So, whatever you, your mind isfocusing on, this is this?
Whatever mind, whatever you'refocusing on, if you're thinking
negative thoughts, negativethings are going to then happen,
and vice versa, if you thinkingpositive thoughts, it's more
likely that positive things aregoing to happen.
(28:09):
It's very difficult to do.
Life gets in the way.
I've got kids and, you know,wife and challenges and mortgage
and everything gets in the way.
And the roof needs doing, thefridge needs fixing and I'm
waiting 10 days for a part toarrive, for some engineer to
come and fix it.
There we are, so life gets inthe way.
It's frustrating, but that'sinteresting about having a
(28:34):
positive mindset and thinking inthat way.
I think that's definitely theway forward, because the
negative side of things eventhough and even though the
positive things are justfeelings and emotions at least
you're not going to be avoidingopportunities, which is what
most people do.
(28:55):
So yes right if you were, if youweren't avoiding situations,
you were just kind of diving andjumping in the deep end and
what for whatever, what,regardless of whatever was going
to happen, that's actually thebest thing to do.
So just to do it, rather thanto think, oh no, what happens if
I say this or I do that?
I'm not going to do that.
Just do it, because it's eithergoing to go wrong or it's going
(29:18):
to go right.
And then, as you said before,we're going to learn from that
and we're going to yes, that'sthe key thing, yeah, yeah, and
we're going to.
That's the key thing.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Yeah, yeah, the learning.
So back to the, the I would saythe oceans and oceans of people
that you can serve.
What I'm getting is hell.
I'm thinking of like youngprofessionals, right, cause I
did have that apprehension orhesitation to speak like out in
the field on the job side, backwhen I used to like do real work
(29:46):
, I didn't have a problemtalking to my people, holding a
meeting, calling people, like itwas this, you just got to make
things happen.
But when I had to go to theoffice for a meeting, like in my
brain there was theseexpectations of a vocabulary
that I needed to use and I didhave that and I got over it,
(30:07):
right, I was like, oh, there isthere hell, there's some people
as dumb as I am in here.
I can do this.
And then, and so when I'm like,if I think of stratus, right,
stratosphere, different levels,when I'm in a different
environment where people dressdifferently and speak
differently, you can help peoplewith that, like in the service
that you provide.
So it's not like, necessarilythis is messy.
(30:31):
I don't have to be doing a tedxtalk in order for you to help me
.
Would that be an accurate?
Speaker 1 (30:37):
absolutely, and I that's what I started doing with
people on that level of alreadyprofessional speakers and I
thought that's, I thought that'swhat I was going to be, who I
was going to be serving, and Istill do the odd person like
with, like matt, who just wantto top up, they just want to
improve, improve themselves andself-development.
But I generally and I'mactually more interested in in,
(30:57):
quite frankly, in in workingwith people that find it very
challenging to speak to certaingroups of people, whether it be
a group of people or a certaintype of group of people that
they whether it's a hierarchy,it could be that you're I had.
Actually a couple of years agoI had a foreman who was fine on
(31:18):
the phone, he was fineone-to-one and this is very
common to the people I work withbut every morning he had to go
out on the floor as the foreman.
Now I can only imagine this,because you can probably see
with my nails and hands, you canprobably see that I haven't
done a decent and actualphysical job in my life.
So I can't relate to you onthat level, I'm afraid.
(31:41):
But he told me, and veryexplained the whole situation,
that he had to go out on thefloor and do a.
I forgot what he called it, butit was in the morning.
He would like it was.
This is health and safety.
He had to do it in the morningevery morning.
Hi guys, can you come over, canyou come over?
And he just didn't have thevoice.
(32:02):
People were saying, hey, Ican't hear you.
You know all this.
So he didn't have power in hisvoice.
He felt really nervous, he feltreally shy and just felt that
everybody was staring at him andjudging him and basically
taking the mickey out of him.
So that's what we worked on andwe worked on his comments about
that and therefore theinteresting thing is that it's
(32:25):
not really about the voice.
Most people come to me and I'mlistening to them and I'm
thinking there's nothing wrongwith your voice and actually,
unless you've got a dysphonia ornodules or polyps, you need to
go and see an ent.
Unless you've got, why are youhere?
So but actually what I've?
I've stopped saying I can'thelp you, because actually I can
(32:45):
now help them, because it's notreally about the voice, it's
about confidence or their lackof self-worth.
Ironically, the voice finds itsown confidence when you find
confidence to speak.
Finding that confidence helpsyour voice to be more and more
flowing and therefore moreresonant and therefore more
projecting.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yes, I think you used the perfect word.
It is a miracle like findingthat switch or that button and
that you help people do that,cause I can.
I can imagine that you havewatery allergy type moments,
meaning your eyes water well uppeople that say thank you, I got
the promotion.
Thank, thank you.
I closed the deal.
(33:28):
Thank you, I had a standingovation.
Yeah, like, how like all thetime?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
yes, yeah, all the time, all the time I have.
How long have we?
How long do we have you?
Speaker 2 (33:43):
start reading them off.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I love it.
Yeah, no, I'm just I've got astory, I've got a story, but if
we've got, if we haven't come,on, please.
I want to hear yes well, I can'tagain, I can't tell you, I
can't tell you the company.
But imagine cfo of a company Iwas working with last year he
was working with I think this isvery common.
So, like you, he worked fromthe bottom.
(34:04):
He was in security, startedoffice security and 25, 30 years
ago and worked his way up,learned all the skills all had,
did all the jobs and learnedeverything about the company.
Going through the weeds, goingthrough the hierarchy, going
through the gatekeepers, heeventually became cfo, which is
(34:26):
wow, no qualifications andreally quite if I told you what
the company is, you wouldwouldn't believe it.
He was at the point where hewas.
The offer was on the table toretire.
He would have had a wonderfulhis, everything would be paid
for, everything would have beensorted, had a nice house, he
(34:48):
could go on holiday and he wasin London.
But the other option was thathe was going to maybe work for
another company in the sameindustry which was in Europe and
he was headhunted and he wasoffered something around there.
So it was an option.
Now the challenge that he washaving was that the company, our
(35:11):
family-run company, and theyhave been since the beginning,
30, 40 years ago.
Now there's a brother in thecompany and that brother has no
experience in the company.
He's just been brought up it'scompletely nepotism right and he
(35:31):
thinks, obviously thinks thesun shines out of his backside
and therefore knows what needsto be done.
Now my client had not only thatrelationship to deal with but
has or had a monotone voice andspoke very quickly.
So very intelligent, veryskilled, very experienced, and
(35:55):
he also had to do quite a lot ofmedia interviews etc.
And that was a worry becausethere was a lot, if you and if
you knew the company, you'dunderstand.
But there was a lot of healthand safety involved.
So and there was a lot of newscoverage around the health and
safety and he had to be theambassador for the company in
(36:17):
that sense and he his tone ofvoice, really wasn't that
empathic.
So we were working on theempathy of his voice, the pace
of his voice and the tonality ofhis voice, to create more
empathy and to slow down as wellas in meetings, try to
understand the relationshipbetween him and this other, the
(36:40):
brother of the company or of thefamily, and how he would deal
with that.
So we worked very much on theimposter syndrome that he was
feeling because he felt that hecouldn't live up to or really
compete with his other characterwithin that environment.
And the good news is that hedecided not to retire, he
(37:01):
decided not to move to Europe.
And six months ago he emailedme and said Jimmy, listen,
thanks for the sessions.
They were fantastic.
I've I'm now ceo of the companyabsolutely fantastic.
So I was so bowled over.
Now I'm not taking I'm nottaking complete credit for it.
(37:21):
He's a very strong individualand it was just somebody to for
him to realize that he doesn'tneed to leave, he doesn't need
to stop, he can continue becauseof how he feels about himself
in within that environment, withthat person, and I think, yeah,
(37:42):
it's great, isn't it?
So that's, I don't know, I'vecome up with the question, but
but that's, yeah, perfect.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Again.
That's why I kind of, when yousaid miracle, I'm like, yes,
because what I think you do isin the work, like working with
the client, you help themdiscover the next level or the
next phase of what's possiblefor them, and that's a miracle,
(38:09):
right, Like, like there's, weget to these.
I think we get to these blocksin our minds, just in life in
general, where it's like okay,well, five years ago I had this
plan and I'm here and, man, ittook me five years to and I'm
here.
So we can't really, I don'treally see another level.
Like it's just like this iswhere I'm at and the work that
(38:29):
you're doing, with the anxietyand the confidence and the
acceptance, and that's a big one.
All of a sudden the ceilinggoes away.
Yeah, and that's profoundbecause we're all walking around
with some kind of ceiling.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, no, I'm sorry to interrupt.
No, absolutely.
I think the thing with him, theceiling for him, was the
boundaries and limitations thatthis other person and then other
members of the founders of thecompany and the hierarchy of
that were sort of creating thisas, as you said, ceiling that he
felt he couldn't just get.
He couldn't get through becauseof his feeling of imposter
(39:08):
syndrome that he didn't have, hedidn't have the family
connection, he didn't go to theright school, he didn't speak
the right terminology, butactually he was the right man
for the job.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Yes, and when he realized that see everything
opened up yeah, and that's whatyou're helping them see, like
you're helping them see thegreater version of themselves.
It could, yes, exactly likethat.
Yeah, I think that's beautiful.
Now I was peeking on yourwebsite and I saw one of the
components on there aboutclarity and precision, and I I
(39:43):
have an assumption here, but Iwant to ask like which comes
first?
Is it confidence and acceptanceor clarity and precision in our
, in the way we communicate?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
That's interesting, I think, a lot of the time when
we're not confident because wedon't feel that we have the
clarity or the articulation toarticulate what we want to say.
So I believe that I've startedcoaching before, I've started
working on the confidence beforeI work on the voice, and I felt
(40:19):
obliged.
I still feel obliged becausemost people come to me about the
voice.
So we do start with the voice,but very quickly we get to the
confidence and that's generallyreally, because how many people
do you know that you cannotunderstand what they're saying
at all unless American Englishor British English is not their
(40:42):
first language, which issomething that I do deal with.
I'm not an accent coach, but Ido have some clients that
English is not their nativelanguage.
So that is definitely.
There's definitely a barrier,definitely a limitation, and
that's something that, eventhough I'll give you a story, I
(41:03):
have somebody I'm working withnow.
He works for, I think I can say,the company, because it's huge.
He works for apple.
He's a it guy with apple.
He's indian, english he's works, he lives in the states, he's
indian and but he he feels thathe's not getting his point
(41:23):
across or he's not being heardin meetings, generally speaking.
He came to me initiallythinking that it was his accent.
But really, how many people inthe States who are, say, indian
of inheritage, can you notunderstand?
Very few or very few, nativeand non-native speakers can you
(41:48):
not understand?
Because they've made aconsiderable effort to come to
the states or the uk, whereverit is to make an effort to most
people?
Let's not get into that.
But most people have made aconsiderable effort to integrate
into the culture andcommunicate there into the
(42:10):
culture because they have towork and I'm absolutely not
diminishing their heritage andtheir accents and their culture.
I think that's incrediblyimportant and I wouldn't want
anybody to get rid of theiraccent incredibly important and
I wouldn't want anybody to getrid of their accent.
But I can.
I can understand 98 of what he,99.6 of what he says.
There's the occasional word andthere's, with indian english
(42:33):
speakers, it's the t and the dand the retroflex tongue.
That's the couple of thingsthat might be something that
might be a barrier to him in hiscommunication.
But most of all it's his lackof confidence in himself that is
the problem.
It's not the voice, it's notthe articulation.
So, to answer your question,eventually I work on the
(42:54):
confidence, and then thepresence, and then the voice.
That would be the linearapproach that I would use.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
No, I one, I love the stories because I know people
can connect to the stories,right.
I mean, I'm in San Antonio,Texas.
I was brought up only speakingEnglish and my mom she was
brought up speaking Spanish, washer primary language, but they
decided, no, we're not going toteach you Spanish because of the
(43:20):
problems that they had inschool for speaking Spanish.
Like it was a bad thing.
Back then it was a good thingand now, who the hell knows,
with all the other stuff that'sgoing on, but we won't talk
about that.
I can understand folks thatspeak in Spanish, English,
jumping between languages.
I can understand people withheavy accents where I struggle
(43:43):
understanding people back to theclarity and the precision
people that I would.
That I label as very lowconfidence, because they use a
million words and before theyever say a damn thing, it's like
what did you just?
Was that a question?
(44:04):
Was that a statement?
Was that a burp?
Like I don't know Cause it wasso many syllables that were not
necessary that I say, Ooh,there's a confidence thing there
.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
I'm just about to forgive my ignorance, but I'm
just about to do a video.
I've just decided that I wantto do so.
The client asked me to do areview on somebody I did.
Actually, I did a review onAndrew Tate, but that's another.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
I saw that.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
No, I watched that today but I was quite interested
and I thought it might be quitesort of newsworthy and sort of
what's the word I look for?
I can't think of the word, butnow in the present, being the
new mayor of New York, I can'tremember his name for the life
(44:51):
of me, but he I've watched.
I want to do a review of hisspeaking and because he's
evidently a good communicatorand I think that seems to be one
of the reasons that he'sevidently a good communicator
and I think that seems to be oneof the reasons that he's got in
is because he can communicateand he can represent through his
communication the community andthat seems to be the reason
(45:13):
that he's got it.
I don't know much about thepolitics.
I should do.
I'm very ignorant with thepolitics.
Unfortunately I skipped theheadlines really.
So that's my father-in-lawalways goes on to me about that.
I should know more about theculture and the news going on,
but life gets in the way.
But I want to do a review ofhim.
I've watched a couple of hisvideos.
He's very diligent in what hesays.
(45:35):
It's very purposeful and that'sthe key.
He's obviously also practicedit a lot, because he's probably
done hundreds of interviews likethis and that's practice, and
the more you do that, the betteryou get at it.
So that's the thing that'sreally interesting for me is
that he's very purposeful andclear about his message and
(45:56):
that's the key thing.
And you're absolutely right,somebody that lacks that
purposefulness, if you like, aregoing to use that type of
language, that type of speechlanguage, filler words, et
cetera, so that unfortunatelyundermines the expertise and the
intelligence when you'respeaking to people.
(46:17):
So it might be an inflection,it might be their vocal creak,
it might be a filler word, itmight be an accent.
Unfortunately, it might be justthe way that you pre-preface
what you're going to say, as yousuggested, but in in various
filler words or arbitrarysyllables that you know that
crop up, and if you can't get tothe point quickly, then people
(46:37):
are going to be judging you onthat.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
So that's really that's the key thing, yeah yeah,
yeah, I luckily again I'veprogressed through a bunch of
different things and ordifferent, we'll say uh,
demographics professionally, andI was an installer out there
doing installing plumbingsystems, cussing smoking
(47:00):
cigarettes, drinking beer, likeI was one of the got promoted to
foreman superintendent, spentmore time in the office and I'm
like ooh.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Oh well, you know what.
They're kind of human like me.
Then I went and that was like alocal business here in the San
Antonio area.
The next job I got was workingfor one of the biggest
contractors in the country here.
The next job I got was workingfor one of the biggest
contractors in the country hereand I totally in my brain it was
going to be this group of likethe titans of industry with the
(47:30):
highest level of intellect.
It always every word they usecounted and it was sharp and it
was empowering and there weresome pretty talented people
there.
But I'm like, oh wow, like Ican hang with these, like
they're kind of human, just likeme.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
And it was in that big step that I thought was
going to be.
I really honestly expected tocompletely fail and be fired
within a year and then said, oh,I can actually bring value and
help people in a meaningful way.
When I came to terms with Idon't have to try to sound like
anybody else.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
I act.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
That's actually misplaced energy If I just
conserve that energy.
And you use the word?
It wasn't a?
Oh gosh, it wasn't authentic.
What use the word?
It wasn't uh, oh gosh, itwasn't authentic.
What was the word you used?
Sincere?
Sincere, yeah, if I just givemyself permission to be
sincerely, yeah, you me,absolutely.
(48:35):
Yeah, I'm gonna do it and seewhat happens.
And my goodness, mr j, likewhen I did that and the first
time, like I saw the way the vps, right, all the vps of the
different business units acrossthe central united states, how
they responded, I'm like I Ithink I'm.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
This is absolutely and that's amazing.
So again, two or three things.
Here's I unpack this.
I'd love to that expectation foryou when you were introduced to
that circle of people yes thatgroup was that you were going to
be down the ladder, so to speak, socially or whatever it might
be.
So that's that, that's purelyyour expectation of what that
(49:16):
would be.
But what you didn't realizeperhaps at the time, if I may,
is that you were perfectlyjustified to be there because
you had been promoted.
And you've been promoted for areason because you have the
skills to be where, yes, youwere, and they're where you are
now, and otherwise you wouldn'tbe there.
If someone is at the cusp ofwanting to be somewhere, well
(49:39):
then they might need to work ona few things, but if you're
already there and you'restruggling, well, that's
definitely worth.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
You know, looking inside, Right, yep, yes, nice,
(50:38):
right, nice, yeah, mm-hmm,that's awesome.
(51:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,okay, okay, okay, yeah, yes,
(52:10):
absolutely, yeah, yes, yes, thisis dad.
Oh, man, but that's a beautifuldata point, right, it's because
(52:35):
he plants in your head likehe's memorable.
You can't forget him.
Now, is he being sincere or not?
Who cares?
Plants in your head Like he'smemorable, like you can't forget
him.
What now?
Is he being sincere or not?
Who cares?
You can't forget him.
Like.
I get people that think I'mbeing insincere, like it's so
often because, like, I'm on thepodcast, I do live streams, and
(52:59):
then I meet people in real lifeand they're like, oh, my God,
you're the same.
Like, what are you talkingabout?
They're like I just like you'rein, you're the same, like the
way you show up on the thing.
You're the same in real life,like, how do you do it?
It's like coffee man, I drink alot of coffee.
And the way to go back to thesincerity, I think it's for them
(53:36):
like, oh, that you are sincere.
You're not playing a role hereand then taking the mask off,
like you said earlier.
Right, yes, yes, yes, yep, yep,yep, yep.
(54:29):
That's a goal.
No, no, yes, yeah, you're not atag team.
(55:12):
We'll take days.
You'll get day one, I'll getday two.
That would be amazing, oh man,okay, so where do I mean?
I'm assuming I think you saidyou've got hell.
You're international, you'recoaching people from Australia.
You've had a client here fromthe States.
So if somebody said, oh, mygoodness, this is what I need,
how do they get a hold of you?
Nice Good, jimmycannoncom.
(55:39):
I'll make sure we put that inthe in the show notes.
Yes, yes, absolutely, and I'mgoing to include your youtube,
(56:18):
the link to your youtube channel, because it is something like
and I don't know if this is agood thing, maybe it's a bit of
a threat, mr cannon, but I'm Ilike watching YouTube in the
morning, not watching.
I'll just let YouTube channelsplay in the morning while I'm
journaling and kind of planningmy day out.
And I love the way you're doinganalysis of other people like
well-known, maybe popular,famous personalities, famous
(56:47):
personalities, and you'reanalyzing their speech and like
the physical part of it and thecadence and the tone and I'm
like, ooh, this is, I'm going tobe consuming me more of that.
And L&M family, y'all need todo it too, especially if you
want to elevate your game andinfluence people, to transform
your life and their life.
Now are you ready for the grandfinale question, mr Jimmy?
I know you are because the workthat you do, I recognize is
(57:17):
like, transforms the lives ofindividuals and transforms the
lives of the people that theylove and care about, and because
of that I know you're ready forthis question.
So here it is.
What is the promise you areintended to be?
(57:37):
Absolutely, I'll give you thebackground on the question.
So it was actually.
I just celebrated nine years ofsobriety three days ago, thank
(57:58):
you and I was in rehab the lasttime and one of the clients, one
of the counselors, told me.
He said Jesse, you're up hereplaying games.
You don't have a problemadmitting that you have a
problem.
He said your problem is youhaven't accepted.
And I said what's thedifference?
And he says you haven'taccepted that you will never
(58:21):
become the promise you areintended to be if you continue
living life this way.
And in that moment I knew ofthe aspirations, the hopes, the
dreams that I had for me.
I could feel the aspiration,hopes and dreams that my mom had
for me, had for me.
(58:46):
I could replay all thedisappointment that I and hope
that I stole from people becauseI wasn't on the path that I was
supposed to be, which is tobecome the promise that I am.
Does that help?
Yep, yes.
The contribution or impactyou're going to have on the
(59:21):
galaxy, okay, yes.
Legacy yep, sure, thank you.
(01:00:58):
Yeah, and you know what'sbeautiful is.
You're doing it right, Likethat's what you do, and you're
going to continue to do that.
Amazing, beautiful, well, didyou have fun?
Ah, yes, excellent, there we go.
(01:02:01):
It was medicinal.
Thank you for sticking it outall the way to the end.
(01:02:24):
Excellent, there we go.
Link in there.
You just click that and you candownload the PDF.
And if you share it withsomebody that you know who might
feel stuck or be caught up inself-destructive behaviors, that
would be the ultimate yousharing.
That increases the likelihoodthat it's going to help one more
person, and if it does help onemore person, then you're
(01:02:48):
contributing to me becoming thepromise I am intended to be.
Be kind to yourself, be cool,and we'll talk at you next time.
Do I do that?
(00:00):
I'm not going to do that.
Just do it, because it's eithergoing to go wrong or it's going
to go right, and then, as yousaid before, we're going to
learn from that and we're goingto.
Yes, that's the key thing.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
What is going on L&M family.
Back again, and this time I'mgoing to.
For some of you, I know I'mgoing to get you a little
nervous, because we're goinginto the number one fear that
most people have and if you'rein the game of leadership and
understand the value ofinfluence, you're going to want
(00:38):
to take notes, like if you'redriving right now, go ahead and
listen to it and then come back,because today we have a
specialist in helping leadersspeak without fear, coming to us
all the way from the UK.
His name is Mr Jimmy Cannon.
He's a voice and publicspeaking coach and I was like
(00:59):
stalking him, doing the internetstalking checked out his
YouTube channel, which you needto go check out after this one,
because he's got a lot of reallyinteresting insights into how
people speak and their tone andtheir energy and where their
voice is coming from, like allkinds of really powerful stuff
that I know will help youelevate your leadership game.
(01:20):
But before that, if this is yourfirst time here, this is the
Learnings and Missteps podcast,where you get to see how real
people just like you are sharingtheir gifts and talents to
leave this world better thanthey found it.
I'm Jesse, your selfish servantand we about to get to know Mr
(01:43):
Jimmy Cannon.
Mr Jimmy, how are you doing,sir?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
jesse, I'm very good.
I'm just completely enthralledwith your intro and your story
and everything.
It's fantastic.
So I just want to be here andI'll tell you.
What I didn't ask you is are weon video?
Do I have to do my hair or isit just purely?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
you're beautiful, you're perfect.
Okay, perfect for audio video.
All of the above.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
That's fantastic.
Well, it's lovely to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Thank you for the opportunity of course I just I
didn't think about thisbeforehand until right now.
I'm like wait a minute.
And I'm glad I did it, becauseit would have come out different
, like I'm doing this, all this,like doing my thing in front of
an expert, in front of aprofessional that helps people.
They're like oh so I'm glad.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I was thinking about it before.
Not at all, I think.
Here's I mean, can I just?
Can I start?
Can I just take the stage alittle bit here?
I mean straight away.
I'm thinking, as soon as youcame on online, your energy is
just absolutely superb and it'smesmerizing, is your energy.
It's absolutely superb andthat's the key.
So one thing is finding theenergy we spoke about this a
(02:53):
little bit before we startedrecording, didn't we?
And just finding the energy toreflect the passion that you
have for what you do, and it'sevident that you have that in
spades.
As we say, I'm connecting toyour industry as well, somehow,
but that's incredible and thefact that you're actually doing.
Nobody's going to criticize youif you're doing what you should
(03:16):
be doing, and it's obvious thatyou're doing what you should be
doing.
So I'm not thinking for asecond.
I'm not judging you for asecond.
I'm thinking this for a second.
I'm not judging you for asecond.
I'm thinking this is afantastic opportunity to be here
and share my experience and myviews and methods with your
audience, and I'm grateful forthat.
So here I am.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Recognize my energy and it sounds like yeah.
Between 6 am and 9 am.
Most of the time people aresaying like Jesse, turn it down
bro.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
That's too much.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I can't help it, I'm having fun Now.
So you're in the business ofhelping leaders speak without
fear, which I totally get it,and I know it's a super
impactful service you provide.
So the first question that cameto my head is how did you
discover the secret sauce aboutspeaking without fear?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Well, ok, so so I was working with people before
covid, before what I call thedark times in London.
Yes, some would argue it'sstill the dark times, but it
depends which side of the fenceyou're on, I suppose Political.
Let's not talk about that.
So before COVID, I was workingwith people one-to-one and I was
helping them.
Actually, I was doing a lot ofperforming and I'm a singer by
(04:40):
trade, if you like and I wasdoing lots of singing and
performing.
Obviously, covid hit All thetheat singer by trade, if you
like and I was doing lots ofsinging and performing.
Obviously, covid hit, no, allthe theaters in london.
Everything shut down and, yeah,that's it.
Bang.
And I was incredibly lucky thatmy wife is still a teacher and
she was getting some moneycoming in and we all suffered
quite all of us, everybody inthe world suffered, obviously,
(05:02):
but you know particularlyartists and performers because
they had no way to perform andthey couldn't do anything.
So I I was also working withpeople one to one, but I was
helping them project their voice, give that, give it change the
variety of their tone.
I actually helped them sustainand maintain their voice for
(05:22):
longer, which was something thatI was doing before COVID, as
well as teaching singing.
So I took my singing experienceand skills, I suppose, into
speaking.
So in COVID I decided to do amaster's in vocal pedagogy,
because that was, I had loads oftime, what else are you going
to do?
And so I ended up doing amaster's.
(05:44):
I ended up, a lot of peoplewere coming to me.
I remember having one clientwho came to me with.
He said I saw I get like a,like a swallowing feeling in the
throat.
I thought this is fascinating.
I had my first assignment wasgiven to me.
The brief was this is anacademic ma that I did in voice
pedagogy and I was, even thoughwe learned quite a lot about the
(06:07):
voice and the physiology of thevoice etc.
Which was one of the reasonsthat I did it, because I wanted
to know more about the voice.
I wasn't that.
I mean you've got a lot of whatwe call geeks over here.
I mean I don't know if that's ageneral, generalized word.
So lots of geeky kind of peopleon this MA and I'm a bit of a
geek, but not that much of ageek, and I wasn't that
(06:32):
interested in the cricothroidmuscle which is contracting on
the dysphonial muscle, so Iwasn't so interested in that.
What I thought, right, I'm goingto do a bit of research into
this swallowing thing that wasgoing on.
So, looking back sorry, lookingback I the research I did was
(06:53):
this is this thing is calledglobus pharyngeus.
So this is a thing that acondition that some people few,
very few people have where theyfeel that they need to keep,
they need to swallow, and it itcomes from Roman times actually,
where it was a sign of invertedcommas madness.
So people, if you had thisfeeling of swallowing, they
would think you were just amadman in the village.
(07:14):
So I think times haven'tchanged much.
So one of my clients had thisfeeling and I did a bit of
research into it and what it isis it's a somatic or
physiological response toanxiety.
So we all have right.
So when we feel nervous, werush our speech, our heart rate
(07:35):
increases, we have sweaty palms,we start there's lots of
physical stuff, the vocal tract,the larynx or the vocal tract,
contracts and tightens and youget a dry throat, lots of
symptoms like that that you feel.
So that was really interestingto me and my mentor said to me
why don't you, why don't you godown the performance anxiety and
(07:57):
then I thought, oh, and then Ifound about, I found out about
public speaking anxiety and what, how you introduced at the
beginning.
It is, I still think,apparently number three in the
top feared things in the states.
So I studied performanceanxiety and straight into that,
and then branched into publicspeaking anxiety and I ended up
(08:18):
doing my masters and thenafterwards studying behavioral
therapy and specifically,exceptions and commitment
therapy, because most of myclients I don't know why, but
most of my clients and still docome to me with I think I've got
a weak voice, I think I've gota quiet voice.
I don't speak up.
I can't speak.
I don't feel like I can speakup.
(08:39):
This isn't your issue, by theway, jesse.
You, it's not nothing.
I can't help you with anything,with anything.
You know, I think you're fine,I think you're gonna be okay,
yeah, so, um, so that's what Ido, that's where I am, and here
I am and now and I had to getthis we all have to learn how to
do everything online.
I had to learn about zoom,still learning about zoom and
(09:01):
everything else.
I had to put a website together, and so so I did that, I
studied that and this is what Ihelp people do.
I help people manage theiranxiety through mindfulness
techniques and I help themimprove the quality of their
voice.
To feel and sound moreconfident in the moment is what
I do, which.
I absolutely love doing.
I'm going to stop talking,shall I stop talking now.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
You're good, oh man, so much, and I'm gonna dive in
multiple places.
What you just said was in themoment right, that's what I
heard you from speaking anxietyand deal with all the things in
the moment, which is a nuancethat I want to explore.
Yeah, um, that will beimportant for our listeners,
because when I'm hearing a coach, a voice coach or speaking
(09:45):
coach, I'm thinking you're goingto help me understand what to
do with my hands when I'mtalking and how to posture.
We're going to do the L&Mfamily member shout out and this
one comes from the tick tockthis.
I love his name, crack pack.
Thank you, crack Pack, forleaving this comment.
I love his name, crack Pack.
(10:18):
Thank you, crack Pack, forleaving this comment.
He said dude, you got reallygood leadership tips, especially
for the construction industrythat one.
But the whole point is when youget a chance or feel the urge to
leave a comment, send a DM,leave a review, do a share, all
of the things.
I super, super appreciate itand it gives me the opportunity
to shout you out again in thefuture, like that's what first
(10:42):
comes to mind.
But what you're saying is likesure, and in the moment, so in
your stuff, like what was it?
I'm sure you're doing research,you got to interact with a
bunch of people and maybe yousaw some common themes of like,
oh there's, this is somethingthat a lot of people struggle
with.
What was it?
(11:03):
That like not necessarilyseeing the problem, what helped
you feel good and say that'swhat I really want to help
people with.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
That's a great question.
I love that, and so give me acouple of seconds to process
that I love.
This is what I love.
I love helping people findtheir true.
This is going to sound reallyhippie, and can I go down that
road?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Come on, bring it, bring it.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I love helping people find their true selves, and
find their true selves in thatthey appreciate what they can do
and what they have done andtheir skills and their
experience.
So that is the main thing and Ifind, jesse, that I find that
(11:53):
I'm yes, I can help you with thevoice, I can give you some
techniques and some skills tomanage the anxiety, but what
actually helps is us doing somecoaching together, coaching them
to really appreciate theirworth.
That's actually, if I thinkabout it, that's what I really
love doing is finding their why.
(12:14):
I suppose, to quote Simon Sinektheir purpose in life, what
their values are, and it stemsfrom acceptance and commitment
therapy.
But really it's about what isyour passion?
What do you love doing?
Why are you doing what you'redoing?
And if you can keep going onthat path, then nothing should
stop you from doing what youlove doing.
(12:34):
The thing that is stopping youisn't real.
This is like for me, it's likethis is a yeah, this is a like a
explosion when I found this out, which is that our emotions and
our thoughts or feelings arethe same thing.
They are just feelings, ourthoughts, our thoughts.
They are, and our feelings arefeelings.
(12:56):
They are nothing else and weare fused.
So part of acceptance,commitment therapy, is like
psychological flexibility.
So flexibility, so it's beingable to in any moment realize
that I don't have to react tothat emotion.
I don't have to, I canacknowledge it, and this is
where the acceptance comes in.
(13:16):
I can acknowledge it, see thatit's there, but I don't have to
surrender to it, and that'sreally vital.
So when people say to me I'vegot the thought that if I speak
up in a meeting, if I put myhand up and speak up, then I'm
going to be judged, I'm going tofeel judged, I'm going to be
judged.
There's a lot of people in theroom, they're staring at me and
(13:40):
that's just a feeling, yes, andyou can control that.
And that's what we I loveworking with people on that
because it's quite and it's aquick.
It's a quick switch, it's amindset switch that literally
the next day not all the time,but I will often get somebody
saying to me or sending me avideo or an email saying Jimmy,
(14:02):
I had that conversation with aguy that I can't stand speaking
to because he's a, he's asomething, and he's nepotistic
or he's arrogant or whatever itmight be.
I I just don't.
I don't click with him at all,but I had a conversation.
It went really well.
I controlled the environmentthat we're in, I controlled the
conversation.
I asked the right questions andI got the answers that I needed
(14:24):
and we moved on.
That was purely because he madethat switch in his head, which
I just love that.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Oh, my goodness, I can imagine.
So it seems to me like you'regetting a whole lot of
fulfillment from the work thatyou do now, absolutely Wow.
(15:05):
Absolutely understanding whatbrought me fulfillment, that the
doors blew wide open.
Before that it was always hard.
Now you you said it's almost,it's almost like a switch right,
and I see this, I imagine I seethis in the States and I want
to see you see that over thereon your side.
I haven't met a single person,except for maybe super arrogant
people like me.
They completely understand howmuch value that they have.
(15:26):
Almost everybody that I meetundervalues the life experience,
the energy, the lessons thatthey've learned, severely
undervalue what they just bringto the table transferable value.
Do you see the same?
Speaker 1 (15:45):
thing over there all the time.
All the time I do and this isreally interesting because we
all have a different experienceand something that I'm learning
to do I mean these, quitefrankly, in these podcasts and
my, my social media is to tellmy story, and I thought quite
recently actually probably sixmonths ago that I don't, didn't
really have a story.
(16:05):
I I I right right I still, in away, I still think I don't have
a story because I don't feelthat I've suffered particularly,
but it's all relative, isn't it?
I have suffered, but I've alsogained, and we've all got the
roller coaster of life.
We've all gone through theroller coaster of life and we,
you and I, were speaking about.
(16:26):
Wouldn't it be great to be ableto start at the beginning,
where we are now?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
With the knowledge, can you imagine?
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Can you imagine I tell this to my daughter, if you
would just listen to me,because I know so much more than
you could possibly imagine, butof course she's 11, and she
doesn't listen to me.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And she wants to do her own thing.
Right, she's never gonna listento me.
She won't, she won't.
We gotta have the learningscars.
Yeah, friend of mine said likeit's the learning scars that you
need, like, sure, the knowledgeand information, yeah, but
without the scar it doesn't meananything, like you know, damn
it, you're right, exactly,exactly, okay.
So I want to do some timetraveling, sure, before COVID
hit and like COVID totallytransformed everything for me.
(17:11):
Similarly to you, like I was aninternal consultant for a large
construction firm here in theStates, yep, and I was like I
ain't doing those teams callsand zoom crap, like we need to
be in person.
It's the only way to do it.
And then COVID hit.
They said you need to work fromhome and figure out how to do
your job virtually like oh mygoodness.
And that was the catalyst for mestarting this podcast right, I
(17:33):
needed an yeah now and then,like the rest is, history
totally shifted my career, likein my, my quality of life.
Even so, you were down, what Iunderstood down about your
performer, singer you're thevoice coach at the time.
Yeah, and kovid hit.
You said, okay, I need to go,I'm going to do something, let
(17:53):
me go learn, let me get masters,yeah, and that kind of opened
up another path.
And then there was anotherlittle sidestep from there and
then so like maybe I going toask this clearly Was that
planned?
Like Ovid was not, but fromgoing to get your master's to
the business you do now, yeah,no, I remember now I did my
(18:18):
master's.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
What's the word?
I delayed I would do.
I delayed my doing the master'sit because the code come up and
I originally initially did itbefore I started in 2018 and I
did it because I had I gotoffered a job teaching at a
university, westminsteruniversity in london, teaching.
(18:41):
I was a voice for westminsteruniversity and I said to my and
I'm quite being quite frank withyou all the time, but I've got
to be very frank with you andsay that I was self-taught as a
musician, as a singer, and Imean I had some singing lessons
but I didn't know really whatthe hell I was doing.
I was just, you know, I endedup going to some singing lessons
(19:04):
at the age of 28.
And because one of my, a friendof mine, who's a great piano
player and producer, said Jimmy,look, I think you're straining
your voice, I think you need todo, you need to get some singing
lessons.
And I took that quitepersonally and went and got some
singing lessons, right, but Ididn't know anything really
about the voice how to use theabdominal muscles, how to create
(19:26):
sublateral pressure, how to usethe abdominal muscles had to
create sub little pressure, howto create different resonances,
how to lower my larynx or keepmy larynx flexible.
When I wanted to sing high inchest voice, I had no idea what
chest voice, head voice, fulltest, none of that had no idea,
absolutely no idea.
So I was just singing.
What I did was which I I usedto do a lot, and I'm very good
at doing it, I must say, because, which is this?
(19:48):
I used to mimic singers, right,so I can sound like certain
singers, and I still do the samething when I'm coaching and I'm
doing voice coaching, because alot of people say oh, I want to
sound like this singer, thisspeaker.
I can't necessarily sound likethem.
I can't sound like obama.
I wish I could, but, forinstance, or, or I can do trump,
maybe you know, but um, yeah,or yeah, so, but I can.
(20:10):
What I can do is I can analyzewhat they do I'm kind of going
to teach it but I can analyzewhat they do in their voice, or
how they do it and how theycreate that, that delivery.
It's not just about the soundof their voice, but it's also
how they use the pace and thepause and their total qualities,
etc.
So I didn't.
I started doing the ma becauseI wanted to learn more about the
(20:30):
physiology of the voice, butthen covid hit and I delayed it
for a year and I ended upworking with clients online that
were as I said.
I had a client come to me as aand he had problems with his
throat, so I just went down thatkind of rabbit hole of research
and I ended up doingperformance anxiety and I had no
(20:54):
idea there was performanceanxiety or public speaking
anxiety.
Yes, isn't that crazy.
I just realized that actually.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, I think, and there's another side of the coin
, right Like when I'minteracting with people that are
self-proclaimed as shy people,I think they're the most
interesting creatures in theuniverse.
Because I don't understand it.
Now, here's one of thoselessons for the 11-year-olds out
there that you're not going tolisten to.
If you get extremely curiousabout a shy person and start
(21:24):
asking them a bunch of questions, you're not going to get any
answers because they're shy,like it's.
They have a response.
So I don't understand that.
And so, like the performanceanxiety, I don't understand it.
It's like, what do you mean?
Like attention in front of athousand people?
Hell, what do I got to do?
I'm in.
I don't understand, like how itwould be less than amazing.
(21:48):
The other side of that coin iswhat's obvious to me is not
obvious to others, and so I'msaying that yeah because, yeah,
does it land like that?
when you're working with people,it's clear as day how impactful
they are, what, what theirmessage, where it comes from,
(22:08):
and how transformational it canbe.
For others, you can see it andit's obvious to you, but for
them it's like the furthestthing from their consciousness,
and so being able to see thatand showing them what you see
sounds like that's a part ofyour work.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, Very much.
The interesting thing is, youwouldn't believe it, but I am
actually introvert.
So so I really hate socialsituations.
I hate going to parties.
I hate meeting people.
I'm not please.
If you invite me to a party,I'll come.
I'm sure I'd love to come toyour parties.
I'm sure they're a guest, butum no, so I.
(22:47):
I.
I'm sure they're a gas, but umno, so I, I but so.
But my performance is definitelya mark I put on show, so I'm a
professional as in I'm puttingon.
I wouldn't say I'm so that I'mvery much aware of the
theatrical side of things whenyou're putting on a show now.
So I'm either working withpeople that they're experts in
something but but they mighthave anxiety to.
(23:09):
So OK, let me give you an idea.
Your industry is theconstruction industry, so that's
your niche, the audience youspeak to, so I do.
I have a client at the momentwho is in that industry.
He's in Melbourne in Australiaand he is fine when he's on the
job, he's fine.
He is fine when he's on the job, he's fine.
(23:30):
He's fine when he's on the job.
He's fine when he's got toolsin his hand.
But take the tools away fromhim, which is the same thing as
the mask, the theatrical mask.
The same thing as if I put mysuit on and I go to, I get on
stage and I start singing as ajazz singer, then I'm, that's my
mask.
But if I take my suit off, I'm avery different person, and this
(23:53):
is very common with performers.
That they are.
You think they're going to bethe same person.
They were on stage and they'renot.
And there's people getdisappointed right when he has
to put his tools down and speakto maybe a member of the public,
particularly somebody up theline, hierarchically so founders
or CEOs of the company or othercompanies.
(24:15):
That he's working, he is purelyhis, and this is only one
example but that he's.
It's purely his perception ofhow he feels about how he sounds
, how he comes across.
And here's a really interestingthing he has some old friends
(24:40):
and I'm really making sure thatI'm being very careful here and
it's confidential I'm not goingto be mentioning any names and
it's a large world and I thinkit's probably unlikely that
anyone will know who.
It is right, so okay.
But he does have some oldfriends and they have banter
right and when he's in theircompany he feels obliged.
(25:04):
Even though he's 20 years onnow and he's got his own company
, he's got employees, etc.
He feels that he needs tocontinue that banter and he
doesn't have the kind of theconfidence to do that in a
normal situation.
And that's what makes himanxious is going back in time
(25:27):
and realizing that he that whenhe felt that he couldn't really
compete with the rest of theguys in the crew, so yeah, and
you must hear this all the timethat type of thing.
Now he's got a, now he's inmanagement, as it were, he's now
got to speak to the big chiefsand he doesn't have the
confidence to do so, mainlybecause of that.
(25:47):
So we've been working on hisvoice, we've been working on his
confidence and how he comesacross.
The main thing here, jesse, ifI may, is his sincerity and,
just allowing so, I use the wordsincerity rather than
authenticity.
I feel that authenticity isused over yes, really I agree
yeah.
So sincerity for me is a bettersort of adjective to use or
(26:10):
description to use about how yourepresent yourself in the most
sincere way, regardless of whatthe reaction or perception of
others might be, and I thinkthat's the key thing.
There's no point in trying toput on a mask unless you're on
stage, like me, unless you arein the theater and you have to
(26:31):
put on a character.
So, yes, you know, be yourself.
I think that's come out of yourhead, and be yourself is the
thing, and it's really hard todo sometimes yes, oh, a hundred
percent so there's.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So there's two buckets that my brain is
bouncing between.
One is like how many customersif you don't already have them?
You should have right Clients.
The other is this thing thatthe story that we tell ourselves
.
We create this list of chaos,failure and like cataclysmic
(27:07):
torture, but it's all pretend,it's all made up, it's just what
I'm thinking.
And then we behave, or, to usethe word used earlier, we
respond in such a way as if it'sfact, as if it's true.
But we can like, since we'rerunning crazy with our
imagination on the negative sideof things, the negative
(27:28):
potential, we could also use ourimagination and create a list
of amazing things that couldpossibly happen which are also
not true, and then it's likelet's go find out which is true.
So just kind of balancing itand I think you helping them
with that is amazing ofbalancing it and I think you
(27:49):
helping them with that isamazing.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
But I suppose that the significant difference there
would be if you're talkingnegative and positive attitude
mindset wise, it's, yeah, morelikely to go.
So, whatever you, your mind isfocusing on, this is this?
Whatever mind, whatever you'refocusing on, if you're thinking
negative thoughts, negativethings are going to then happen,
and vice versa, if you thinkingpositive thoughts, it's more
likely that positive things aregoing to happen.
(28:09):
It's very difficult to do.
Life gets in the way.
I've got kids and, you know,wife and challenges and mortgage
and everything gets in the way.
And the roof needs doing, thefridge needs fixing and I'm
waiting 10 days for a part toarrive, for some engineer to
come and fix it.
There we are, so life gets inthe way.
It's frustrating, but that'sinteresting about having a
(28:34):
positive mindset and thinking inthat way.
I think that's definitely theway forward, because the
negative side of things eventhough and even though the
positive things are justfeelings and emotions at least
you're not going to be avoidingopportunities, which is what
most people do.
(28:55):
So yes right if you were, if youweren't avoiding situations,
you were just kind of diving andjumping in the deep end and
what for whatever, what,regardless of whatever was going
to happen, that's actually thebest thing to do.
So just to do it, rather thanto think, oh no, what happens if
I say this or I do that?
I'm not going to do that.
Just do it, because it's eithergoing to go wrong or it's going
(29:18):
to go right.
And then, as you said before,we're going to learn from that
and we're going to yes, that'sthe key thing, yeah, yeah, and
we're going to.
That's the key thing.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Yeah, yeah, the learning.
So back to the, the I would saythe oceans and oceans of people
that you can serve.
What I'm getting is hell.
I'm thinking of like youngprofessionals, right, cause I
did have that apprehension orhesitation to speak like out in
the field on the job side, backwhen I used to like do real work
(29:46):
, I didn't have a problemtalking to my people, holding a
meeting, calling people, like itwas this, you just got to make
things happen.
But when I had to go to theoffice for a meeting, like in my
brain there was theseexpectations of a vocabulary
that I needed to use and I didhave that and I got over it,
(30:07):
right, I was like, oh, there isthere hell, there's some people
as dumb as I am in here.
I can do this.
And then, and so when I'm like,if I think of stratus, right,
stratosphere, different levels,when I'm in a different
environment where people dressdifferently and speak
differently, you can help peoplewith that, like in the service
that you provide.
So it's not like, necessarilythis is messy.
(30:31):
I don't have to be doing a tedxtalk in order for you to help me
.
Would that be an accurate?
Speaker 1 (30:37):
absolutely, and I that's what I started doing with
people on that level of alreadyprofessional speakers and I
thought that's, I thought that'swhat I was going to be, who I
was going to be serving, and Istill do the odd person like
with, like matt, who just wantto top up, they just want to
improve, improve themselves andself-development.
But I generally and I'mactually more interested in in,
(30:57):
quite frankly, in in workingwith people that find it very
challenging to speak to certaingroups of people, whether it be
a group of people or a certaintype of group of people that
they whether it's a hierarchy,it could be that you're I had.
Actually a couple of years agoI had a foreman who was fine on
(31:18):
the phone, he was fineone-to-one and this is very
common to the people I work withbut every morning he had to go
out on the floor as the foreman.
Now I can only imagine this,because you can probably see
with my nails and hands, you canprobably see that I haven't
done a decent and actualphysical job in my life.
So I can't relate to you onthat level, I'm afraid.
(31:41):
But he told me, and veryexplained the whole situation,
that he had to go out on thefloor and do a.
I forgot what he called it, butit was in the morning.
He would like it was.
This is health and safety.
He had to do it in the morningevery morning.
Hi guys, can you come over, canyou come over?
And he just didn't have thevoice.
(32:02):
People were saying, hey, Ican't hear you.
You know all this.
So he didn't have power in hisvoice.
He felt really nervous, he feltreally shy and just felt that
everybody was staring at him andjudging him and basically
taking the mickey out of him.
So that's what we worked on andwe worked on his comments about
that and therefore theinteresting thing is that it's
(32:25):
not really about the voice.
Most people come to me and I'mlistening to them and I'm
thinking there's nothing wrongwith your voice and actually,
unless you've got a dysphonia ornodules or polyps, you need to
go and see an ent.
Unless you've got, why are youhere?
So but actually what I've?
I've stopped saying I can'thelp you, because actually I can
(32:45):
now help them, because it's notreally about the voice, it's
about confidence or their lackof self-worth.
Ironically, the voice finds itsown confidence when you find
confidence to speak.
Finding that confidence helpsyour voice to be more and more
flowing and therefore moreresonant and therefore more
projecting.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yes, I think you used the perfect word.
It is a miracle like findingthat switch or that button and
that you help people do that,cause I can.
I can imagine that you havewatery allergy type moments,
meaning your eyes water well uppeople that say thank you, I got
the promotion.
Thank, thank you.
I closed the deal.
(33:28):
Thank you, I had a standingovation.
Yeah, like, how like all thetime?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
yes, yeah, all the time, all the time I have.
How long have we?
How long do we have you?
Speaker 2 (33:43):
start reading them off.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I love it.
Yeah, no, I'm just I've got astory, I've got a story, but if
we've got, if we haven't come,on, please.
I want to hear yes well, I can'tagain, I can't tell you, I
can't tell you the company.
But imagine cfo of a company Iwas working with last year he
was working with I think this isvery common.
So, like you, he worked fromthe bottom.
(34:04):
He was in security, startedoffice security and 25, 30 years
ago and worked his way up,learned all the skills all had,
did all the jobs and learnedeverything about the company.
Going through the weeds, goingthrough the hierarchy, going
through the gatekeepers, heeventually became cfo, which is
(34:26):
wow, no qualifications andreally quite if I told you what
the company is, you wouldwouldn't believe it.
He was at the point where hewas.
The offer was on the table toretire.
He would have had a wonderfulhis, everything would be paid
for, everything would have beensorted, had a nice house, he
(34:48):
could go on holiday and he wasin London.
But the other option was thathe was going to maybe work for
another company in the sameindustry which was in Europe and
he was headhunted and he wasoffered something around there.
So it was an option.
Now the challenge that he washaving was that the company, our
(35:11):
family-run company, and theyhave been since the beginning,
30, 40 years ago.
Now there's a brother in thecompany and that brother has no
experience in the company.
He's just been brought up it'scompletely nepotism right and he
(35:31):
thinks, obviously thinks thesun shines out of his backside
and therefore knows what needsto be done.
Now my client had not only thatrelationship to deal with but
has or had a monotone voice andspoke very quickly.
So very intelligent, veryskilled, very experienced, and
(35:55):
he also had to do quite a lot ofmedia interviews etc.
And that was a worry becausethere was a lot, if you and if
you knew the company, you'dunderstand.
But there was a lot of healthand safety involved.
So and there was a lot of newscoverage around the health and
safety and he had to be theambassador for the company in
(36:17):
that sense and he his tone ofvoice, really wasn't that
empathic.
So we were working on theempathy of his voice, the pace
of his voice and the tonality ofhis voice, to create more
empathy and to slow down as wellas in meetings, try to
understand the relationshipbetween him and this other, the
(36:40):
brother of the company or of thefamily, and how he would deal
with that.
So we worked very much on theimposter syndrome that he was
feeling because he felt that hecouldn't live up to or really
compete with his other characterwithin that environment.
And the good news is that hedecided not to retire, he
(37:01):
decided not to move to Europe.
And six months ago he emailedme and said Jimmy, listen,
thanks for the sessions.
They were fantastic.
I've I'm now ceo of the companyabsolutely fantastic.
So I was so bowled over.
Now I'm not taking I'm nottaking complete credit for it.
(37:21):
He's a very strong individualand it was just somebody to for
him to realize that he doesn'tneed to leave, he doesn't need
to stop, he can continue becauseof how he feels about himself
in within that environment, withthat person, and I think, yeah,
(37:42):
it's great, isn't it?
So that's, I don't know, I'vecome up with the question, but
but that's, yeah, perfect.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Again.
That's why I kind of, when yousaid miracle, I'm like, yes,
because what I think you do isin the work, like working with
the client, you help themdiscover the next level or the
next phase of what's possiblefor them, and that's a miracle,
(38:09):
right, Like, like there's, weget to these.
I think we get to these blocksin our minds, just in life in
general, where it's like okay,well, five years ago I had this
plan and I'm here and, man, ittook me five years to and I'm
here.
So we can't really, I don'treally see another level.
Like it's just like this iswhere I'm at and the work that
(38:29):
you're doing, with the anxietyand the confidence and the
acceptance, and that's a big one.
All of a sudden the ceilinggoes away.
Yeah, and that's profoundbecause we're all walking around
with some kind of ceiling.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, no, I'm sorry to interrupt.
No, absolutely.
I think the thing with him, theceiling for him, was the
boundaries and limitations thatthis other person and then other
members of the founders of thecompany and the hierarchy of
that were sort of creating thisas, as you said, ceiling that he
felt he couldn't just get.
He couldn't get through becauseof his feeling of imposter
(39:08):
syndrome that he didn't have, hedidn't have the family
connection, he didn't go to theright school, he didn't speak
the right terminology, butactually he was the right man
for the job.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Yes, and when he realized that see everything
opened up yeah, and that's whatyou're helping them see, like
you're helping them see thegreater version of themselves.
It could, yes, exactly likethat.
Yeah, I think that's beautiful.
Now I was peeking on yourwebsite and I saw one of the
components on there aboutclarity and precision, and I I
(39:43):
have an assumption here, but Iwant to ask like which comes
first?
Is it confidence and acceptanceor clarity and precision in our
, in the way we communicate?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
That's interesting, I think, a lot of the time when
we're not confident because wedon't feel that we have the
clarity or the articulation toarticulate what we want to say.
So I believe that I've startedcoaching before, I've started
working on the confidence beforeI work on the voice, and I felt
(40:19):
obliged.
I still feel obliged becausemost people come to me about the
voice.
So we do start with the voice,but very quickly we get to the
confidence and that's generallyreally, because how many people
do you know that you cannotunderstand what they're saying
at all unless American Englishor British English is not their
(40:42):
first language, which issomething that I do deal with.
I'm not an accent coach, but Ido have some clients that
English is not their nativelanguage.
So that is definitely.
There's definitely a barrier,definitely a limitation, and
that's something that, eventhough I'll give you a story, I
(41:03):
have somebody I'm working withnow.
He works for, I think I can say,the company, because it's huge.
He works for apple.
He's a it guy with apple.
He's indian, english he's works, he lives in the states, he's
indian and but he he feels thathe's not getting his point
(41:23):
across or he's not being heardin meetings, generally speaking.
He came to me initiallythinking that it was his accent.
But really, how many people inthe States who are, say, indian
of inheritage, can you notunderstand?
Very few or very few, nativeand non-native speakers can you
(41:48):
not understand?
Because they've made aconsiderable effort to come to
the states or the uk, whereverit is to make an effort to most
people?
Let's not get into that.
But most people have made aconsiderable effort to integrate
into the culture andcommunicate there into the
(42:10):
culture because they have towork and I'm absolutely not
diminishing their heritage andtheir accents and their culture.
I think that's incrediblyimportant and I wouldn't want
anybody to get rid of theiraccent incredibly important and
I wouldn't want anybody to getrid of their accent.
But I can.
I can understand 98 of what he,99.6 of what he says.
There's the occasional word andthere's, with indian english
(42:33):
speakers, it's the t and the dand the retroflex tongue.
That's the couple of thingsthat might be something that
might be a barrier to him in hiscommunication.
But most of all it's his lackof confidence in himself that is
the problem.
It's not the voice, it's notthe articulation.
So, to answer your question,eventually I work on the
(42:54):
confidence, and then thepresence, and then the voice.
That would be the linearapproach that I would use.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
No, I one, I love the stories because I know people
can connect to the stories,right.
I mean, I'm in San Antonio,Texas.
I was brought up only speakingEnglish and my mom she was
brought up speaking Spanish, washer primary language, but they
decided, no, we're not going toteach you Spanish because of the
(43:20):
problems that they had inschool for speaking Spanish.
Like it was a bad thing.
Back then it was a good thingand now, who the hell knows,
with all the other stuff that'sgoing on, but we won't talk
about that.
I can understand folks thatspeak in Spanish, English,
jumping between languages.
I can understand people withheavy accents where I struggle
(43:43):
understanding people back to theclarity and the precision
people that I would.
That I label as very lowconfidence, because they use a
million words and before theyever say a damn thing, it's like
what did you just?
Was that a question?
(44:04):
Was that a statement?
Was that a burp?
Like I don't know Cause it wasso many syllables that were not
necessary that I say, Ooh,there's a confidence thing there
.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
I'm just about to forgive my ignorance, but I'm
just about to do a video.
I've just decided that I wantto do so.
The client asked me to do areview on somebody I did.
Actually, I did a review onAndrew Tate, but that's another.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
I saw that.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
No, I watched that today but I was quite interested
and I thought it might be quitesort of newsworthy and sort of
what's the word I look for?
I can't think of the word, butnow in the present, being the
new mayor of New York, I can'tremember his name for the life
(44:51):
of me, but he I've watched.
I want to do a review of hisspeaking and because he's
evidently a good communicatorand I think that seems to be one
of the reasons that he'sevidently a good communicator
and I think that seems to be oneof the reasons that he's got in
is because he can communicateand he can represent through his
communication the community andthat seems to be the reason
(45:13):
that he's got it.
I don't know much about thepolitics.
I should do.
I'm very ignorant with thepolitics.
Unfortunately I skipped theheadlines really.
So that's my father-in-lawalways goes on to me about that.
I should know more about theculture and the news going on,
but life gets in the way.
But I want to do a review ofhim.
I've watched a couple of hisvideos.
He's very diligent in what hesays.
(45:35):
It's very purposeful and that'sthe key.
He's obviously also practicedit a lot, because he's probably
done hundreds of interviews likethis and that's practice, and
the more you do that, the betteryou get at it.
So that's the thing that'sreally interesting for me is
that he's very purposeful andclear about his message and
(45:56):
that's the key thing.
And you're absolutely right,somebody that lacks that
purposefulness, if you like, aregoing to use that type of
language, that type of speechlanguage, filler words, et
cetera, so that unfortunatelyundermines the expertise and the
intelligence when you'respeaking to people.
(46:17):
So it might be an inflection,it might be their vocal creak,
it might be a filler word, itmight be an accent.
Unfortunately, it might be justthe way that you pre-preface
what you're going to say, as yousuggested, but in in various
filler words or arbitrarysyllables that you know that
crop up, and if you can't get tothe point quickly, then people
(46:37):
are going to be judging you onthat.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
So that's really that's the key thing, yeah yeah,
yeah, I luckily again I'veprogressed through a bunch of
different things and ordifferent, we'll say uh,
demographics professionally, andI was an installer out there
doing installing plumbingsystems, cussing smoking
(47:00):
cigarettes, drinking beer, likeI was one of the got promoted to
foreman superintendent, spentmore time in the office and I'm
like ooh.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Oh well, you know what.
They're kind of human like me.
Then I went and that was like alocal business here in the San
Antonio area.
The next job I got was workingfor one of the biggest
contractors in the country here.
The next job I got was workingfor one of the biggest
contractors in the country hereand I totally in my brain it was
going to be this group of likethe titans of industry with the
(47:30):
highest level of intellect.
It always every word they usecounted and it was sharp and it
was empowering and there weresome pretty talented people
there.
But I'm like, oh wow, like Ican hang with these, like
they're kind of human, just likeme.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
And it was in that big step that I thought was
going to be.
I really honestly expected tocompletely fail and be fired
within a year and then said, oh,I can actually bring value and
help people in a meaningful way.
When I came to terms with Idon't have to try to sound like
anybody else.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
I act.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
That's actually misplaced energy If I just
conserve that energy.
And you use the word?
It wasn't a?
Oh gosh, it wasn't authentic.
What use the word?
It wasn't uh, oh gosh, itwasn't authentic.
What was the word you used?
Sincere?
Sincere, yeah, if I just givemyself permission to be
sincerely, yeah, you me,absolutely.
(48:35):
Yeah, I'm gonna do it and seewhat happens.
And my goodness, mr j, likewhen I did that and the first
time, like I saw the way the vps, right, all the vps of the
different business units acrossthe central united states, how
they responded, I'm like I Ithink I'm.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
This is absolutely and that's amazing.
So again, two or three things.
Here's I unpack this.
I'd love to that expectation foryou when you were introduced to
that circle of people yes thatgroup was that you were going to
be down the ladder, so to speak, socially or whatever it might
be.
So that's that, that's purelyyour expectation of what that
(49:16):
would be.
But what you didn't realizeperhaps at the time, if I may,
is that you were perfectlyjustified to be there because
you had been promoted.
And you've been promoted for areason because you have the
skills to be where, yes, youwere, and they're where you are
now, and otherwise you wouldn'tbe there.
If someone is at the cusp ofwanting to be somewhere, well
(49:39):
then they might need to work ona few things, but if you're
already there and you'restruggling, well, that's
definitely worth.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
You know, looking inside, Right, yep, yes, nice,
(50:38):
right, nice, yeah, mm-hmm,that's awesome.
(51:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,okay, okay, okay, yeah, yes,
(52:10):
absolutely, yeah, yes, yes, thisis dad.
Oh, man, but that's a beautifuldata point, right, it's because
(52:35):
he plants in your head likehe's memorable.
You can't forget him.
Now, is he being sincere or not?
Who cares?
Plants in your head Like he'smemorable, like you can't forget
him.
What now?
Is he being sincere or not?
Who cares?
You can't forget him.
Like.
I get people that think I'mbeing insincere, like it's so
often because, like, I'm on thepodcast, I do live streams, and
(52:59):
then I meet people in real lifeand they're like, oh, my God,
you're the same.
Like, what are you talkingabout?
They're like I just like you'rein, you're the same, like the
way you show up on the thing.
You're the same in real life,like, how do you do it?
It's like coffee man, I drink alot of coffee.
And the way to go back to thesincerity, I think it's for them
(53:36):
like, oh, that you are sincere.
You're not playing a role hereand then taking the mask off,
like you said earlier.
Right, yes, yes, yes, yep, yep,yep, yep.
(54:29):
That's a goal.
No, no, yes, yeah, you're not atag team.
(55:12):
We'll take days.
You'll get day one, I'll getday two.
That would be amazing, oh man,okay, so where do I mean?
I'm assuming I think you saidyou've got hell.
You're international, you'recoaching people from Australia.
You've had a client here fromthe States.
So if somebody said, oh, mygoodness, this is what I need,
how do they get a hold of you?
Nice Good, jimmycannoncom.
(55:39):
I'll make sure we put that inthe in the show notes.
Yes, yes, absolutely, and I'mgoing to include your youtube,
(56:18):
the link to your youtube channel, because it is something like
and I don't know if this is agood thing, maybe it's a bit of
a threat, mr cannon, but I'm Ilike watching YouTube in the
morning, not watching.
I'll just let YouTube channelsplay in the morning while I'm
journaling and kind of planningmy day out.
And I love the way you're doinganalysis of other people like
well-known, maybe popular,famous personalities, famous
(56:47):
personalities, and you'reanalyzing their speech and like
the physical part of it and thecadence and the tone and I'm
like, ooh, this is, I'm going tobe consuming me more of that.
And L&M family, y'all need todo it too, especially if you
want to elevate your game andinfluence people, to transform
your life and their life.
Now are you ready for the grandfinale question, mr Jimmy?
I know you are because the workthat you do, I recognize is
(57:17):
like, transforms the lives ofindividuals and transforms the
lives of the people that theylove and care about, and because
of that I know you're ready forthis question.
So here it is.
What is the promise you areintended to be?
(57:37):
Absolutely, I'll give you thebackground on the question.
So it was actually.
I just celebrated nine years ofsobriety three days ago, thank
(57:58):
you and I was in rehab the lasttime and one of the clients, one
of the counselors, told me.
He said Jesse, you're up hereplaying games.
You don't have a problemadmitting that you have a
problem.
He said your problem is youhaven't accepted.
And I said what's thedifference?
And he says you haven'taccepted that you will never
(58:21):
become the promise you areintended to be if you continue
living life this way.
And in that moment I knew ofthe aspirations, the hopes, the
dreams that I had for me.
I could feel the aspiration,hopes and dreams that my mom had
for me, had for me.
(58:46):
I could replay all thedisappointment that I and hope
that I stole from people becauseI wasn't on the path that I was
supposed to be, which is tobecome the promise that I am.
Does that help?
Yep, yes.
The contribution or impactyou're going to have on the
(59:21):
galaxy, okay, yes.
Legacy yep, sure, thank you.
(01:00:58):
Yeah, and you know what'sbeautiful is.
You're doing it right, Likethat's what you do, and you're
going to continue to do that.
Amazing, beautiful, well, didyou have fun?
Ah, yes, excellent, there we go.
(01:02:01):
It was medicinal.
Thank you for sticking it outall the way to the end.
(01:02:24):
Excellent, there we go.
Link in there.
You just click that and you candownload the PDF.
And if you share it withsomebody that you know who might
feel stuck or be caught up inself-destructive behaviors, that
would be the ultimate yousharing.
That increases the likelihoodthat it's going to help one more
person, and if it does help onemore person, then you're
(01:02:48):
contributing to me becoming thepromise I am intended to be.
Be kind to yourself, be cool,and we'll talk at you next time.
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