#26 Jeff Callahan - Develop COMMUNICATION Skills to Supercharge Your Life and Career! - The Cluttered Path

Episode Transcript
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Todd (00:00):
This is the Cluttered Path, a compass for midlife.
Effective communication canreally make your career, it can
grow your business, and it canalso enrich relationships.
Yet we often underestimate itstrue power.

(00:21):
Imagine walking into a room,confident and articulate,
effortlessly interacting withpeople.
What if you could turn thatdream into reality?
But here's the kicker.
Most people think they'reeither born with great comp
skills or they'll just neverhave them.
What if I told you that anyonecan learn to be a master
communicator, regardless oftheir starting point?
Today I've got the privilege ofspeaking with Jeff Callahan on

(00:44):
the topic of developingcommunication skills to
supercharge your life, career,and business.
His coaching business is calledBecome More Compelling, and his
advice has been featured inplaces like Inc., Time, Business
Insider, Yahoo, and manyothers.
Jeff, welcome to the show.

Jeff (01:01):
Hey, I'm excited to be here.

Todd (01:04):
Good to have you, man.
I saw your story, man.
I've I actually saw you onYouTube and uh you were being
interviewed there.
And dude, it's it's compelling,man.
You have a cool story.
So I was I'm I was glad we'reable to hook up and uh yeah have
you as a guest on the showhere.
So let's start with this.
What why don't you justintroduce yourself to the
audience and tell them aboutyou?

Jeff (01:23):
Yeah, so so so I'll give your audience a little bit of
background on me.
So I uh all throughoutelementary school, junior high,
high school, I actually had aspeech impediment so bad, a
stutter so bad I couldn't say myown name.
And as you might imagine, thatmade uh socializing and
communicating a little bit morechallenging than it needed to
be.
Um but I realized at a certainpoint, I I even had this a

(01:46):
little bit into college and anduh in the professional world as
well.
Um, but I realized, you know,I'm planning on living a long
time.
I don't I don't exactly want tolive, having a difficult time
communicating, expressing myideas and and and uh you know,
to layer on top of all that, Iwas also painfully shy growing
up as well.
And you know, I realized like,look, don't want to live the

(02:07):
rest of my life that way.
I think this is something thatcan be overcome.
I think it's a skill that I canfix in a sense, and and so
slowly but surely but put myselfin a lot of a lot of situations
where I knew I would sort ofhave to sink or swim and become
more social and and get a lot ofreps in.
And lo and behold, what Irealized, well, I didn't know it

(02:27):
at the time, but uh I wasbuilding a skill that uh not
only applied to me, you know,they they say start a business,
scratch your own itch, and Ibelieve that.
Apparently, I'm not the onlyperson who had this this issue
in terms of the you know theshyness and um call it social
nervousness or overthinking isreally my my sort of wheelhouse
for for what I help people with.

(02:48):
And and uh since gosh, becomemore compelling is 11 years old
now, started it in 2014.
Yeah, I'll I'll at least countafter after after 10, it's just
like yeah, yeah, 10 plus.
But I now teach and help andcoach people who would tell you,
hey, I'm an overthinker, I wantto have better communication
skills, and uh I've been doingthat for a while now, and it's

(03:09):
doesn't really feel like work tobe honest.
It's pretty nice, but theimpact that I make in other
people's lives uh is reallygratifying.
And so yeah, I'm excited totalk about it.

Todd (03:19):
Oh, that sounds rewarding, man.
And I think every adult canrelate to the social awkwardness
and wanting to develop theseskills.
So, man, when I heard aboutyour story and you really
overcame a lot, man.
So I appreciate what you did,the work you put in to teaching
yourself, and now you're willingto share it with others, man.
That's cool.
So I appreciate that.

(03:39):
Yeah.

Jeff (03:40):
One one thought to add on to that too is uh uh, because at
this point I've I've interactedwith probably thousands of
people that want to improvetheir their people skills and
their communication skills, andand uh one of the things that I
see over and over is people tendto suffer in silence where they
they feel like they're the onlyperson on earth that struggles
with this, and it's like no,like if only people get together

(04:02):
and talk about it a little bitmore, and and I think that's one
of the things I could bring toto having a conversation like
this in public is simply likelook, if you're out there and
you're struggling, you're you'renot the only one.
Even confident people that youwould never expect also have
moments where they feel shy orthey feel like they're
overthinking, and and just toknow that hey, not the only one,

(04:22):
that really takes a lot of thesort of the teeth away from the
beast, so to speak.

Todd (04:28):
Yeah, that's me.
I mean, just going into I Ihave a lot of experience with
doing presentations, publicspeaking, speaking to large
audiences and stuff, but yeah,man, I I have to prepare myself
mentally to do that.
It's I'm afraid.
And and the net result is Iusually come across as less than
myself.
I get feedback from people thatare like, you need to let your

(04:50):
personality out because it's me,I'm afraid.
So I put up the wall ofprofessionalism and I'm playing
a role, I'm really not beingmyself, and so that's that's
something I have to work on.
So yeah, yeah.
Another reason I'm glad to haveyou here, man.
Yeah, please be selfish.
Yeah.
So let's start with thequestions, man.
Where'd you grow up?

Jeff (05:10):
Yeah, so I grew up in Arkansas, and so uh, if you're
familiar at all with Arkansas,you know that our two biggest
exports uh is Walmart and BillClinton.
And uh those are two sort ofclaims to fame.
And uh, as I was telling youbefore we hit record, a couple
years ago I moved out of out ofthe biggest city in Arkansas,
and uh now I'm on a little bitof anchorage and got some

(05:32):
chickens and I'm doing a littlelight homesteading, learning as
I go.
Uh so it's been it's been fun.

Todd (05:37):
That's cool, man.
Happy for you, brother.
So what activities were youinto as a teen?

Jeff (05:43):
Yeah, so as a as a teen, I was thinking about this
question, and one of the thethings that really I think it
was one of the small first stepsthat that helped sort of break
me out of some of the issuesthat I had was um as a freshman
in high school, I in the like acouple weeks after school

(06:03):
started, I I joined thecross-country team.
And I and I had never playedany sports growing up or
anything like that.
I was you know not particularlyathletic.
And with with running, it'slike, well, you know, you don't
need a whole lot ofcoordination, just try not to
fall down.
Uh go go that way, you know.
Uh, and and uh I joined thecross-country team.
Uh it was a very small schoolthat I went to and um ended up

(06:26):
doing cross-country and track,and those became because we had
a really good coach, we weactually ended up winning state
in uh cross-country back-to-backyears, and so it was the most
successful sports program thatour school had.
And you know, I was lookingback and and uh the friends that
I made on that team were reallymeaningful, and some of them I

(06:47):
still stay in contact with tothis day.
That's right.
Uh and and that really helpedin terms of you know, taking
that first little step of likebeing on a team, going towards a
common goal, which you know, alot of my clients want to know
how to make friends becausethat's a pretty important facet
of life.
One of the most importantthings is uh going somewhere

(07:08):
regularly that has regulars anddoing an activity that you like.
If you mix those three thingstogether, that sets the right
conditions where you're gonna beset up for success and you're
gonna have a good time no matterwhat happens, which I think is
is important aspect of it too.

Todd (07:25):
Yeah, sports are so important for development, man.
It's uh it gets you out there,like you said, working towards a
goal, but connecting with otherpeople, you have a commitment
to the other people on the teamthat you're gonna do your best.
I mean, you're not just runningfor yourself.
I mean, you're alone out thereon doing cross country, but
you're thinking of the team.
You're like, hey, I want to dowell because of them.

(07:47):
And that's such a good thing,man.
I that I don't know.
Did you ever do this?
There's a running technique,um, like you run as a group and
you hold onto a little rope.
Did you guys ever do anythinglike that?

Jeff (07:59):
You know, we we didn't do that, but uh we did do I
remember this a few blocks fromour high school, there was a
nice square sort of section inin the neighborhood, and uh our
coach measured it out, and Ican't remember it may have been
half a mile around, somethinglike that.
Uh and we we played this gamecalled Rabbit, where if I'm

(08:20):
remembering it right, you'rejust bringing this back to me,
is uh the slower people wouldstart, and then there would be
gaps of 30 seconds, and then thefaster people would start, and
the faster people would start.
And uh, I mean, I wasn't I wasdefinitely middle of the pack,
uh, but it was a point of prideto like not let the fastest
person beat you, you know, uh,which you know is a friend of
mine.
So we used to do some sort ofspeed speed games like that

(08:44):
during during the like thenon-long run aspects where we'd
actually want to increase ourour speed and our fast switch
muscles and all that kind ofstuff.

Todd (08:52):
Yeah, very cool.
Yeah, we one time uh we were ina group running, we put the
fast guys up front.
I was not cross-country, I'venever been able to run well.
I've never really likedrunning, but I was in the
military.
Yeah, I had to do I had to runagainst my will, but one time
they did this exercise wherethey just got this big long rope

(09:12):
and we were just staggered andhad the rope in between us and
put the really fast people upfront, and you just had to hold
on the rope.
You could run so much fasterbecause you're hanging on to
that rope.
It was a yeah, psychologicalthings.
Yeah, that is so with thechildhood stuttering problem.
Can you talk about the impactthat had on you?
You alluded to it already, butcan you dig into that some more?

Jeff (09:33):
Yeah, it's funny.
I actually remember I rememberbeing a freshman in high school
and meeting my future coach,which was not my coach at the
time, for the first time, andnot being able to say my own
name.
And and part of it wasstuttered.
I'm sure there were nerves thatwere part of it too, right?
But that it felt like a prisonof my own making where it's
like, hey, I know that there'sthis problem, and it made it so

(09:56):
much more difficult to connectwith other people, much more
difficult than it than it shouldhave been.
I think we all have havesomething in our lives where it
might be a stutter, but it italso might be we replay awkward
memories from the past or orthings that are like un sort of
unnaturally limiting ourability.
Like if you weren't holdingonto that rope, you probably

(10:17):
would have ran a little slowerjust because there was no
forcing function to help you runfaster.
And if we key in on thosemoments where there are things
that hold us back, and that kindof becomes an internal
narrative of like, oh, you know,I I can't do this because this,
or I can't do this becausethat.
Um, now there might be sometruth to it, like you might need

(10:37):
some help to get over whateverthat thing is, but I I I like
what you said about sometimes wecan place some psychological
limits on ourselves where we'recapable of doing doing more than
we might think.
But yeah, for for me and thestutter, like to this day, you
can you'll you you may be ableto hear in certain words,
there's just a littlehesitation, and that's the the

(10:58):
only thing that happens thesedays.
But I think the difference isum I know it's gonna happen
periodically now.
I don't care.
Like it's the least of myconcerns.
Like, I don't you know, part ofthat I think is getting older
too, where you're just like, youknow, this is me, this is who I
am.
But those those things that youthink limit you it in a way it

(11:20):
can actually make you more umapproachable to other people as
well.
There's something called thePrattfall effect where you know
if you if you're seen ascompetent and you have a little
goof here or there, peopleactually like you more.
Uh and so there there's there'sadvantages to everything in
life.
And I think uh a mistake that Icould have made was zeroing in
on, hey, this is this is aproblem, it's always gonna be a

(11:41):
problem, I'm never gonnaovercome it, versus, hey, I'm
gonna do my best with the cardsthat I have because I can't
change the cards that I have.
And then over time, maybe I Iwouldn't have thought in these
terms growing up, but I maybe Ican make peace with it and
realize that it can actually bea little bit of a strength uh in
a non-obvious way.

Todd (11:59):
Yeah, that's a famous quote.
I can't remember the author,but they said life it's about
playing a poor hand well.
So I like that.
And uh yeah, you seem to haveplayed your hand well, so good
stuff, man.
So what was your social lifelike as a teen?

Jeff (12:15):
Yeah, so as a teen, the being being on a team really
helps.
And the first year that I wason on a team, uh, it was a
fairly new school.
Uh, and really a whole lot ofmy friends weren't on the team
at that point, uh, or or thepeople that would become my
friends, but then sophomore,junior, and senior year, I would
like to take credit for it andsay everyone gravitated around

(12:36):
me, and and that led a bunch ofpeople to getting on the team.
But I think it's just one ofthose things where you end up
hanging out and you want to dowhat your friends do.
Uh, and and and me and maybeone or two other people happen
to already be on the team, andso that really gravitated a lot
of people to the team and itmade it something really
special.
So a lot of our activities werecentered around running, going
to the movies and typical liketeenager type stuff, movie

(12:59):
nights at people's houses andstuff like that.
It's funny.
I was just talking to my wifeearlier today about how you used
to be able to go to the moviesand you know, it's like seven
bucks and you would just see seebasically anything that was
playing.
I remember.
I remember that.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, it's a littledifferent these days with like,
uh, I don't know.
I will never financiallyrecover from this this movie I
want to see.
Um but uh you know, like Spur,I just remember because I I

(13:24):
graduated high school in 2004,uh, which you know 20 20 21
years ago, which it doesn't seemthat long.
2004 just seems like yesterdayto me.
Goes by fast.
But one of the things I've beenthinking about is kind of just
the concept of I think there waslike a sweet spot in uh I'll

(13:44):
see, I'll get your opinion onthis.
There's like a sweet spot inlike 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006,
somewhere in there, wheresmartphones weren't ubiquitous.
You didn't if you had to checksomething, you know, social
media was nascent at that time,it it virtually didn't exist.
Um, but if you did want tocheck something, you went home
to get on the computer to checkit, right?

(14:05):
And when you just think kind ofthe forcing function that a lot
of that played, like GPS evenwas just pretty new at that
point.
It was new enough to be able todo it.
Yeah, you had to buy a unit andthat unit might send you into a
into a lake.
And the the reason I I I bringthis up is that I think that
there was kind of a sweet spotthere where you still had that

(14:27):
kind of last gasp of sort ofwhat it was like to be a
teenager in like the 80s and the90s and the early 2000s, where
you had to do a lot of in-personstuff.
You called someone's house andtalked to their parents.
Hey, you know, is Adam there?
Can I talk to Adam, please?
Uh, make it short, you know,and all that stuff that was
really, really awesome.

(14:48):
That you know, I wonder aboutkids now, like my nieces and
nephews and stuff, where they'regrowing up in a world where
just the landscape is sodifferent.
And and I think that that hasimpacted people's communication
skills in a negative way.
You know, technology's broughtus so much, but I think that uh
there's some trade-offs there.
Yeah, I'd be curious to get youropinion on that.

(15:10):
100%.
When we were kids growing up,you had to go physically talk to
someone, whether it was pickingup the phone physically and
dialing them, and you had tospeak to them, you could there
was no texting.
And we were just out and about.
When we as kids, we were justout and about playing and stuff.
You rode your bike and youshowed up back home around

(15:30):
dinner time or something, andthat was it.
And but today, man, ever allthe kids are we've got unique
problems.
I kind of feel bad for the kidstoday because of the screens,
and it, you know,psychologically, it negatively
impacts you because people arejust so accustomed to just
looking at screens, they're notinteracting with others, and so
I think there are a lot ofdevelopmental issues, even with

(15:52):
adults that grew up without theinternet, but now are addicted
to screens, and they're just onthe screens all the time, and
they're not accustomed tointeracting with people.
So isolation, social anxiety,so many things going on.
So communication skills havediminished a lot, I think.
I have to purposefully go outof my way to make sure I'm

(16:14):
interacting with people,otherwise, with the type of work
I do, I could just sit bymyself all day long and not talk
to anyone.
So yeah, not a good thing.
So yeah.
Yeah, I I I like having GPS, butman, there's there's some stuff
we probably gave up and wedon't quite realize it yet.
Maybe maybe we're just startingto realize it if we're having
these conversations.

Todd (16:34):
Yeah, in the military, they make you actually pull out
a map and a compass and learn tonavigate that way.
Because who knows if an EMP isgonna go off and you're not
gonna have a GPS to be able toget from one place to another.

Jeff (16:47):
So Yeah, one one thing that it it's a small brag, but I
mean I've taken road trips witha paper map.
That's great.
And it's just one of thosethings where it that's an
experience that I think everyoneneeds to have once, where you
know it's like, oh yeah, yeah,there's there's the curve, and
we can cut across here, maybe wecan skip some traffic and we

(17:07):
can go down this highway, youknow.
Yeah, all that stuff.
Like it's just one of thosekind, especially maybe I don't
know, maybe more of an Americanexperience where you you think
of the great American road tripand that kind of stuff.
Uh but yeah, it's just it's thegood stuff that uh uh hope that
that the kids these days theythey probably won't get it, but
man, it would be nice to just belike, all right, you're you're
taking this map, you're gonnanavigate.

Todd (17:29):
Yeah.
My dad, I remember we tooktrips, he had an atlas.
He was a truck driver, so heused an atlas.
But whenever we drove places,he had his huge atlas, and it
was just this big book that youopened up, and you could look at
an entire state and plot youryour route.
And that was kind of a coolthing because you get a sense of
accomplishment by plotting yourroute, and then you drive it

(17:50):
and get to your destination.
And it's like, ah, so verycool.
There's so many people todaythat can't get anywhere, even
around their town, without somesort of map application like
Waze on their smartphone.
So yeah.

Jeff (18:03):
Yeah, the uh safety blankets we create, right?
Where we like our we like ourapps, we and one of the things I
touch on in my book, uh thismay be a separate book,
actually, uh, but there's thekind of the rise of AI
companions, and like I thinkwe're at a very interesting
point in history where there'sthere's kind of a I'm I'm just

(18:25):
forming this idea, but it's theidea that there's sort of a I
call it like an isolationindustrial complex where no
one's no one's pulling thestrings necessarily, but there
are just incentives that arepointing everyone in a certain
direction of like, hey, get onthe screen, get in the
algorithm, hey, here's yourfriendship as a service, we'll

(18:46):
charge you monthly for.
And I wonder, I just I don'thave an answer for this, and I
probably won't write the book,the next book until uh uh I have
an answer, but I wonder ifthere's going to be some sort of
soft rejection of not oftechnology because technology's
here, but I wonder if there'sgonna be like a little step back
in future generations wheremaybe we're at peak technology

(19:09):
right now, and people are gonnabe like, uh we kind of went
overboard when they started likehaving us uh with AI friends
and a pod.
I don't know.
I don't know if I want to, Idon't know if I want that.

Todd (19:20):
Yeah, I'm seeing ads on online for AI companions.
You just mentioned that.
And it's for guys, you can havean AI girlfriend, and she's
never gonna challenge you, she'snever gonna ask you questions
about anything, she's just gonnado what you want.
But she's not a real person, soyou're not so you're not really
making a connection.
And then with social media,they just want us isolated.

(19:41):
And then there's so muchnegativity out there, and I
heard someone call itangertainment.
If they can get you outragedand mad at the other group or
this other party or whomever,yeah, then yeah, that's that's
clicks, that's likes, and it'suh it's keeping you watching,
and yeah, get being angry is agood emotional high.
And it's not good though.

(20:03):
So yeah, I think people arerejecting that.

Jeff (20:05):
So I hope so.
And a term I'm playing aroundwith right now is be a rebel,
talk to people.
You know, if there's if there'sa a complex thing that kind of
wants you to be isolated in inon on screens in in algorithms,
like you can be a rebel, you cantalk to people.
Um which that might that mightbe the rally cry for the next 10
years.
Yeah.
Uh, which is like take a pageout of like the good old days of

(20:28):
you know the 1990s and likelive live live a little closer
to that, maybe than uh you knowthat scene in the Matrix where
they're all plugged up to thethey've got like like the
extension cords in their headsand they're all in the pods or
whatever.
It's like uh maybe maybe wereject the pods a little bit and
we we gravitate more towardslike knowing your neighbors,

(20:49):
throwing housewarming partiesand and and you know, using
using the not the self-checkout,but checking out with people
and and talking to people injust a normal casual way where
you're having a lot of smallinteractions throughout your
day, and you'll notice for a lotof people that you'll actually
feel better, you'll feel moreconnected to people.

Todd (21:10):
Oh, yeah.

Jeff (21:10):
Uh and it kind of it makes you feel good.
Um and for especially theyounger generation, I know like
if you're if your listeners haveyou know kids that are around
college age, for example, likethey're gonna find out one way
or another that you have to talkto people.
You know, it's gonna it mm forsome of them I might be harsh,
some for some of them may beless harsh, but you're going to

(21:32):
have to connect with otherpeople, you're gonna have to be
able to network, you're gonnahave to be able to, when you're
in a job, be able to sing yourown praises and talk about the
things that you're working on inan easy, easy and digestible
way, and build connections withyour coworkers and your bosses
and all that kind of stuff thatuh you just can't do if you keep

(21:54):
your head down, focus on on thework and think that the work
has to speak for itself, whichin a perfect world, yes, but
that's not exactly how it works.

Todd (22:02):
You have to communicate about what you're doing,
otherwise nobody's gonna know.
Bottom line.
And thinking about collegekids, there's this thing going
on these days where the girlswant to meet the boys, but the
boys won't talk to them.
I've heard a boy about this.
But the boys will go, hey, canI get your Snapchat?
So they'll come they'll friendyou, they'll follow you on

(22:26):
social media, the boys, but theywon't just come up and talk.
And it's I can't relate to thatat all because when we were
growing up, it was like yougotta go talk to a girl,
otherwise, you know, you're justgonna be hanging out with your
buds.
Yeah.
So I I think this what you'redoing, man.
Everybody needs this.
Even even adults that we'vejust gotten into this rut of

(22:48):
screen time and just beingisolated from each other.
So yeah, this is a timelyconversation, I think.
I think so.
So what so where'd you go afterhigh school?

Jeff (22:58):
Yeah, so after high school, I did some college, went
to school for journalism, and Istarted working right away.
Uh one of the things I knewthat would probably be helpful
is um I needed to get a jobwhere I interacted with people a
lot.
Uh because I had a sense thatyou don't get better at
something by not doing it.

(23:18):
You know, it's like I I didn'tget better at running by
thinking about running, youknow, it that's not how that
works.
So I got a my first job was ina running store fitting people
for running shoes based on theirbiomechanics and picking out
the right shoes and all thatkind of stuff.
So everyone from your 5Krunners to marathon runners and
that kind of stuff.

(23:38):
Worked there for a long timeand then eventually wound up
working for Apple at one of theretail stores.
Uh, and so you know, I estimatejust on the on the retail side
of things, I probably had over100,000 conversations.
But being a young person in myin my 20s, I was also, you know,
going out and socializing andall that kind of stuff too.

(23:58):
And so my ethos for for thatperiod of my life was just have
as many conversations aspossible.
And one thing I think wasreally fortunate was I was never
in, you know, I was in salesfor a long time.
And uh if you own your ownbusiness, spoiler alert, you're
also in sales.
So I've been in sales my entirecareer.
I was very fortunate to onlyever be in in sales sort of

(24:20):
situations where it was whatwhat you would call inbound,
where someone's interested insomething, they come and talk to
you.
And you're really it's moreabout building a relationship,
being a trusted advisor ratherthan cold calling on like I've
never had to cold call and youknow, I've never done anything
like that.

Todd (24:34):
Oh miserable.

Jeff (24:36):
Yeah, I'm sure.
Like I hear, you know, it'skind of kind of miserable.
Uh and luckily my business, youknow, I I don't I don't have to
cold call because you know I'vebeen around a while now.
And it's really nice becausewhen you get to just have
conversations with people, itreally becomes more about just
building rapport and finding theright thing for someone.
And this the same thing's true,you know, if you're selling a

(24:58):
computer or you're selling ashoe or you're talking to your
neighbor, and you're just like,hey, so what's going on in your
life?
You know, what's you know, ohyou're excited about this,
you're excited about that.
Like building that rapport,building that relationship one
uh one little conversation at atime.
Uh it it's all it's all thesame, effectively.
Right.
Just some some interactions inwith a transaction, you know.

Todd (25:21):
Right.
Yeah, no, doing research beforethis conversation, I I I came
across the phrase that youshared with you called it
reverse engineering socialanxiety.
So how did you get the ideathat you could reverse engineer
to build your social confidence?

Jeff (25:39):
Yeah, so you know, I thought about one part is is
reps.
You have to you're just goingto to to be competent.
Everyone wants to be sociallyconfident.
One of the things that I preachis there is no confidence
without competence.
You have to be competent first.
And you can't feel competent ifyou are zeroed in on times when

(26:04):
you are incompetent.
And when you're startingsomething, your percentage of
instances of incompetence isgoing to be higher than your
than your percentage uh of timesthat you're that you're
competent, right?
So w one of the very firstthings is starting as small as
possible and realizing that hey,anything counts as a social

(26:27):
win, I can stack wins and I canfeel more competent.
That will eventually lead to mefeeling more confident because
I I have had a high number ofrepetitions, and with that high
number of repetitions, I canmore uh accurately predict the
outcome of any one interaction.

(26:48):
You know, no two interactionsare gonna be the same.
That's not how socialinteractions work, and that's
part of the fun, because youwouldn't want social
interactions to all end up thesame, but you can reasonably
predict of like, oh, you know,I've been in this situation
hundreds of times or thousandsof times.
It's probably gonna be betweenthis range and this range.
You know, it's somewhere inthere, and there's probably like
a 98% chance that it's gonna bewithin that range.

(27:10):
And so you end up feelingreally confident because you've
been there before.
And so slowly but surely, Ireally keyed in on that aspect
of it, and lo and behold, thatalso works for other people.
And and uh as I'm finding outnow, so I'm having some clients
come back to me and say, Yeah, Iwas trying some of the stuff we
talked about with peopleskills.
I'm trying that on the golfcourse or the you know the
tennis court.

(27:31):
It's like, oh, this is actuallytransferring to other skills
that I just wouldn't have Iwouldn't have pegged that it
would work for that kind ofstuff, but uh well, it makes
sense because it's the sameframework of learning a skill.
You know, you learn any skillkind of the same way.
You want to be doing the rightthings.
If you practicing incorrectly,you're not gonna be good at golf
or be good at tennis or be goodat talking to people.

(27:52):
But if you're doing the rightthings and you're reinforcing
and you're showing yourselfproof that you can be
successful, eventually you'regoing to believe the proof.

Todd (28:01):
Belief is such a huge factor.
Knowing you can do it,believing you can do it.
I've I've dealt with socialawkwardness, being scared, not
really liking being in groupsand stuff like that.
And yeah, man, if if youbelieve that you can have a
positive interaction, that'sgonna get you 90% of the way
there, I would say.

(28:22):
But I don't have experience incoaching this stuff.
So now you said you reverseengineered over 90,000
conversations.
So what were some of thebiggest patterns or lessons that
stood out?

Jeff (28:33):
Yeah, so I'll break it down into a few categories.
One is I'll call it the likethe mindset piece of the puzzle.
If you're heading into aninteraction viewing yourself as
incompetent, then guess what?
That interaction's not gonnaend up that that that great.
You know, it's you're primingyourself to uh not perform well.

(28:55):
And so the first thing you haveto do, like we talked about,
and I won't rehash it, but youhave to instill that feeling of
competence.
You do that by keying in onvery small wins.
Everyone starts at a differentspot.
So for for some for one person,a a a small win might be having
a good conversation.
Great.
That might be advanced.
For another person, havingsmall win might be smiling at
someone and they smile back.

(29:15):
So we start where we start,that's okay.
So step one, get your mindsetdialed in.
Uh, an additional aspect ofthat is take the multitude of
ambiguous things that couldhappen in a social interaction,
and you don't quite know how totake it.
Well, most people, I see thisover and over, unfortunately
default to the most negative,least generous interpretation of

(29:39):
an event.
You know, one example might beyou text someone and they don't
text back.
What did I say?
Oh God.
You know, you you just run, youjust run the tape, you know.
It's like um uh like the sportsbloopers in the 80s where they
just run uh Jose Canseco, youknow, the the baseball bouncing
off his head over the uh fence.
And if you do that, That'sunhelpful.

(30:00):
I categorize uh I categorizethings between helpful and
unhelpful.
So that's unhelpful.
You need to explain things inin a more helpful way.
Because the spoiler alert is weare really good at making up
stories.
Our stories are going to beinaccurate.
So why would you make up aunhelpful, inaccurate story
when, if it's going to beinaccurate anyway, go ahead and

(30:22):
make up even just a neutral,helpful story.
Just a neutral one.
Like, ah, you know, they'reprobably busy.
I'm sure they'll get back tome.
That helps so much.

Todd (30:33):
Any thoughts there?
I do the same thing, man.
I I have an interaction, andthen after the fact I go, oh,
why did I say that?
Then I just zero in on that andI tell myself negative stories
about that.
Uh, this guy thinks I'm anidiot, you know.
I do that, man.
So what yeah, that's you'respeaking to where I'm living,
man.

Jeff (30:52):
Yeah.
And and it's a huge, hugeproblem.
And when when you once you keyin on the fact that, hey, I'm
gonna make up a a false storyanyway, I might as well make up
a helpful one.
That flips everything becauseyou're like, oh, well, I could
just explain this any multitudeof ways.
And explaining something in aneutral way is great.

(31:13):
That's probably the best thingto do.
But you you can't even lean alittle positive with it, which I
think is helpful within reason.
We don't want to put onrose-colored glasses and start
missing stuff.
But one of the most helpfulreframes that I walk clients
through is uh pretend thatsomeone like your best friend
came up to you and told youabout this situation where you

(31:34):
said something or you know, thisthing happened or that thing
happened.
What would you tell yourfriend?
You probably just tell them,like, dude, dude, don't worry
about it.
I'm sure they're just busy.
Like it's it's it's no bigdeal.
Because we give other peoplethe benefit of the doubt way
more than we extend that samekindness to ourself, which is a
problem in itself, where we areso a lot of times we're really

(31:55):
hard on ourselves.
Yep.
Where we I I've seen it athousand times where someone
will take a an interaction was95% great, but then there's five
percent that could be improvedupon, which spoiler spoiler
alert, look, every interactionis not going to be perfect.
Most interactions won't beperfect, that's okay.
But they'll take that 5%,magnify it, color in the the

(32:20):
rest of the 95%, and wad it upand throw it in the failure
bucket.
And my my goodness, if you'retrying to improve something,
that's not helpful.
That's not helpful at all.
And so sometimes shifting andthinking, like, hey, if I if a
buddy came up to me and told meabout the situation, here's what
I would tell them.
Oh, I could tell myself thatsame thing.

(32:42):
And just realizing that we havemore options than maybe we
might think.
Uh and so I call this choosingyour own reality, which is just
one of the most important thingsthat that you can do.
Uh I've got more thoughts, butany any thoughts on that?

Todd (32:57):
You made me think of when I met my wife for the first
time.
And be I'd just gotten out ofthe out of boot camp and I was
in a different mindset.
I was an arrogant young kid, soI thought I could just conquer
the world.
But it gave me a mindset oflike, what's the worst that can
happen?
I was like, what's she gonnado?
Say no?
And so I just went and talkedto her, and she's we just

(33:20):
interacted.
We ended up starting, we datedfor three years and got married.
So, but if I had met her inhigh school, I would not have
talked to her at all.
I would have been like, Nope,she's too pretty, not gonna even
talk to her.
I'm way she's way out of myleague, so not even gonna go to
bat for that one.

Jeff (33:38):
Yeah, you miss 100% of the chances you don't take, right?
Yep, yeah, and you know thatthere's something probably the
arrogance of a early 20s male,you know, there's probably some
downsides there.
There, but there's some upsidestoo, where you know you might
meet your future wife and andspend many, many happy years and
decades with that person, whichis which is huge when you think

(34:00):
of like life satisfaction andlife happiness.
Like who you pick to surroundyourself with could be could be
a spouse, could be a really goodfriend, whatever it happens to
be.
Yeah, that's really importantbecause that that color is so
much uh you know, joy and andhappiness in just your everyday
life.

Todd (34:16):
Yeah.
And man, you said it right,dude.
It's like we tell ourselvesnegative stories, especially
about ourselves.
We have to work through that.
And honestly, you gotta gethelp to do that.
I didn't even know that that'swhat I was doing, telling myself
a negative story until someonetold me that.
Someone had to tell me, hey,look, these are just your
thoughts, they're not you.

(34:37):
Yeah, and I'm like, okay, well,what does that mean?
Okay, you can entertain athought and not accept it and
just let it go on.
I'm like, what?
So yeah, you need we need help.
We're social creatures.
We do these things and we don'teven know we're doing them.
Telling ourselves negativestories, we need to learn how to
challenge them.
And just listening to us talkabout it, that's not gonna do

(35:00):
it.
You you need to put it intopractice, and getting someone to
coach you in these things is ofparamount importance because
you learn these things, but thenyou got to go out and practice
them in the wild with people asyou're interacting, and then you
can come back and talk it overwith the coach.
Maybe it's a therapist, maybeit's Jeff, where you you just

(35:22):
look at it and you do an afteraction and say, Okay, cool.
This is how that played out.
All right, cool.
The next time you encounterthis, this is what you need to
do, and tell yourself this, andyou know, just and yeah.
So you're gonna fail atwhatever you do, you're learning
something, you're gonna fail atit, and then you just come back
and regroup after action, jumpback in and try it again.

(35:45):
And over time, you just seethese incremental improvements.
So yeah, man.
I'm still working on this stuffthough.

Jeff (35:52):
It's it's a lifelong thing, right?
Like there, there's no endpoint until you know, I guess
after we pass away.
But it's just one of thosethings where every day we have
an opportunity to just improve alittle bit.
And uh if we're not getting theoutcomes that we want and we're
not learning anything from it,and we're maybe externalizing

(36:12):
the problem, like, oh, it's theworld, it's not me.
Well, I need uh just to makesure it's not just to make sure
it's the world, I need to makesure it's not me.
Like change yourself first andjust see what happens because
odds are you might be surpriseduh that things change and uh you
get different outcomes.
And then, like you said, thatafter action report, like I have

(36:32):
my clients do a version ofthat.
Uh, I call it a weekly notesdoc where they write down what's
going on with their actionsteps.
And it's so funny.
I'll I'll I'll literally seeclients write out like an
awkward moment that happened,and then they'll literally
write, you know, after writingthat down, that's not that big a
deal.
Yes.
That's yes.
Um we're of a certain age, soyou can probably appreciate this

(36:53):
reference.
I always think of Terminator 2where it's the liquid metal
robot, and you know, somethinggets thrown at it or whatnot,
and then it just kind of healsitself, right?
Yep.
You know, like right away, it'slike, yes, I'm turning, I'm
turning this person into intolike that police officer
Terminator from Terminator 2.
Yep, unstoppable.
Exactly.
Yeah, that's so good, man.

(37:14):
But um And um I want to becausewe talked about mindset, the
other points that I'll coverreally briefly are what a lot of
people, the trap a lot ofpeople fall into is when it
actually comes to starting aconversation and continuing a
conversation is they think theyhave to have the perfect thing
to say.
And boy, that is centering youin your own head.

(37:37):
The more internally focused youare, the worse your
interactions are going to be.
The more externally focused youare, the better your
interactions are going to be.
And so what I tell clients allthe time is when you're looking
to start a conversation, theperfect thing to say does not
exist.
When you're looking atcontinuing the conversation, the
perfect thing to say does notexist.
The social answers that youseek are in the environment or

(37:58):
in the topic of conversation,waiting for you to uncover them.
What that means is that there'ssomething in the environment
that you you and this otherperson share that you can start
a conversation about.
There's something in thatenvironment that is helpful to
you.
And when you're in aconversation, you're looking to
prolong it.
Well, think around the currenttopic.
Like if someone's talking aboutmountain biking, well, maybe

(38:18):
you know something aboutmountain biking, great, but most
people maybe don't.
So maybe you think, okay,mountain biking, maybe there's a
I call this the spokes methodwhere it's like a bicycle wheel
and there's spokes coming off ofit, where you think, oh, maybe
they're into the outdoors, thatmight be, that might be
something.
Maybe they're into hiking,maybe that's something.
Maybe they're into triathlons,maybe that's something.
And so you've got options.

(38:39):
You know, it's kind of like ato mix metaphors, like a
quarterback with a bunch ofreceivers that are all great.
Like you've got people you canthrow to, right?
Spokes that you can go to,topics of conversation.
But that's much better thantrying to think, oh, I need to
say the perfect thing.
Because the only the reality isthe only way to say the perfect
thing is you have to knoweverything about that person's

(38:59):
life up to that point.
And guess what?
You can't read minds, you don'thave access to that, so you
gotta let it go.
Do the next best thing, whichis be flexible and uh sort of
like a shortstop getting readyto field a ground ball, be in
the ready position so you can beflexible and move when you need
to move and and adapt.
Right.

Todd (39:19):
And sometimes it's just not a good fit, the person that
you're interacting with.
Yeah.
And the interaction may beshort and you move on to the
next.
So it's okay.
It's perfectly okay.
And sometimes sometimes youjust encounter jerks in the wild
that they're not good socially,so you gotta kind of hey, okay,
and move on.

Jeff (39:39):
And and I think what really helps that, because
that's that's absolutely true.
If you have enoughinteractions, then you know how
most interactions end up going.
And so you know if there's anoutlier that's way far outside
of the landing zone of likewhere most interactions are,
then you're like, oh, okay,well, that one really wasn't me.
And I know that because mostinteractions are perfectly fine.

(40:02):
And so what's great about thatis that then you can really just
discard that interactionbecause it had nothing to do
with you for someone who doeswho doesn't have isn't getting
enough reps, if they have one ofthose interactions, then it's
hard for them to parse out wasit me, was it the other person?
And then that's that's when youcan kind of roll into, well,
maybe I'm just not good at this,or you know, all these negative

(40:23):
stories that you might tellyourself.
But uh reps are kind of thegreat equalizer.
It doesn't mean that you haveto have a million reps or a
thousand reps, it might behundreds, but that hundreds
might be over years.
But reps help the more reps youhave, the faster you'll
improve.
The less reps you have, theslower you'll improve.
It's like any other skill.

Todd (40:41):
That is true.
So now a lot of adults feellike they should have become
socially confident by now, buthonestly, we all struggle.
And why do you why is that?
Why are we struggling as adultslacking social confidence?

Jeff (40:56):
Yeah, so this is an interesting question because I
think there are a few possibleanswers.
One, a lot of the people that Iwork with, they have had to
focus on their technical skillsfor so long.
You know, the average age of myclient is 31, but I I've had
clients from their early 20s toclients in their 60s, and so
I've had the whole gamut.

(41:17):
Oftentimes it's hey, I workedreally hard in school, I worked
really hard in college, I had towork really hard at my job, and
now I'm like, oh no, Ideveloped my hard skills.
Where are my soft skills at?
Oh no.
And so I have to develop thosesoft skills to get to the next
level in my career or mybusiness, you know.

(41:37):
Maybe I'm an employee and Iwant to start my own thing or
something like that.
And so there's some of thatspecialization where people just
have to put their heads down atwork so so long, and and
especially in technical fields.
I think that's part of it.
I think when you layer on someof the stuff that we were
talking about earlier about therise of algorithms and screens,

(41:57):
every every pocket has a phone,every phone has has a screen,
every screen has an algorithm.
I think that there are looselyknit forces that aren't making
it as easy as it used to be.
And I think what layers on tothis too are the um the uh
dwindling of third spaces thataren't home or work, where
there's just less of thosespaces now than than there ever

(42:20):
have been.
And you know, the this kind ofstarted in in the 60s with there
were more suburbs and and uhpeople spread out a little bit
more, and then there's eventhere's even stuff about like
the purchasing power of a dollarand and the productivity wage
gap is is a little differentsince the early 70s, and so
people have to work a little bitmore, there's less time for

(42:43):
leisure.
So it's a combination of a lotof different factors.
Yeah, and that ends up causing,unfortunately, I think, people
to think that I should havelearned these skills.
Why didn't I learn them?
It's all my fault.
The reality is there's adichotomy there because it's
important to take responsibilityfor the stuff that you can
control.
So it's you need to take thatresponsibility if you're not

(43:06):
where you want to be, but youalso need to realize that, hey,
there probably are forces justin the modern world that maybe
aren't aren't all that helpful.
But that doesn't mean Iabdicate my responsibility.
I have to I have to takeresponsibility to control what I
can control.
And the the flip side of it iswe actually might be entering a
time when the pendulum'sstarting to swing back the other

(43:28):
direction a little bit, and soyou can kind of get out ahead of
the curve and uh be a rebel,talk to people, and improve your
skills, and you're gonna be setup really well, I think.
No matter what, no matter ifthat pendulum ends up swinging
hard or swinging gently, you'regonna be set up really well for
um your career and your sociallife, which is gonna bring you a
lot of probably a lot moremoney and probably a lot more

(43:49):
happiness.
And that's gonna that's gonnabe helpful.
You're gonna have a good life.

Todd (43:53):
True.
Now, for somebody who feelsstuck socially and they're
they're like, what do I do?
So, what's the first step thatyou typically take people
through to break that cycle?

Jeff (44:04):
Yeah, a couple things.
So one is look at your life,like just get out a piece of
paper right now and write downin detail an entire week for
you.
You know, maybe you're maybeyou're remote and you work at
home, or maybe you go into theoffice a few days a week, or
maybe you're full-time in theoffice.
Write out the entire thing.
And what you might find isyou're ignoring some

(44:27):
opportunities to be social thatare right in front of you that
you didn't even realize.
So, first step is kind of doingthat audit and saying, like, oh
well, you know, I can talk tomy doorman.
I just always walk past him.
Okay, I'll talk to him.
You know, it doesn't have to belong.
We're not talking a 25-minuteconversation, we're just talking
a couple seconds or maybe aminute if he's feeling really
chatty, right?

(44:48):
I get into work, you maybe Ithe coffee I grab before work, I
talk to the barista if it's nottoo busy.
There are probably five or tenpoints in a typical day where
you could get reps in.
And and what's great aboutthis, this is stuff that you're
already doing.
This is not changing your lifeall that much.
Now, if you're a remote worker,you might have to change things

(45:10):
up a little bit more, andthat's okay.
Where it maybe instead ofworking from my house all day
every day, you know, you know,like you've got your home office
dialed in, and and you know,you you're you you really like
what you have, you might think,oh well, maybe I can go to a
coffee shop a couple times aweek and work there in the
afternoons just to mix thingsup.
Uh so it's about looking atyour environment and saying,

(45:33):
hey, what's what's helpful andwhat's probably not helpful.
That's one part of it.
And then you're stacking thosereps throughout your your day
and your week, and you'rezeroing in and stacking those
wins and saying, like, hey, Ican be competent, I was
competent here, I was competentthere.
Write them down once a week,flip back and look at them.

(45:54):
Right.
Because if you write them down,you forget about them.
Well, that's not really helpanything.
You need to instill thatfeeling of confidence by showing
yourself frequent proof of yourcompetence.
Yeah.
And so I think those twothings, it that's where you can
start.
And if if you feel reallyambitious after that, you start
looking at stuff in yourneighborhood or your city of

(46:15):
like, hey, what are events thatI like that have a high chance
of having regulars and happenregularly?
Oh, well, you know, I kind Ikind of like pickleball.
I guess I'll go to pickleball.
I kinda I've been wanting toget into a running club, I guess
I'll go to a running club.
Oh, there's a chess club that Ithink I might like, and then
start going.
And you'll start to develop ashared history with everyone

(46:37):
there just by virtue of showingup, and even if you didn't open
your mouth.
You know, if it's a big groupand you don't you you can't talk
to everyone for a few weeks,the fact that you came three or
four times over over a month,and then you talk to that one
person that you haven't talkedto yet, they're gonna feel a lot
more comfortable just becausethey've seen you around.
Right.
And so those three things,that's exactly where I would

(46:58):
start.

Todd (46:59):
Nice.
Yeah, so it's it's not likeyou're gonna go tell people,
hey, sign up for Toastmastersand give a speech next week.

Jeff (47:06):
So Yeah, I mean some people do that, and you're
starting small.
And that and that's okay.
I I'm a fan of, you know, ifyou when when motivation is high
and you're like, oh, I reallywant to I want to blow the doors
off this thing, and you know, Iwant to go hard, okay.
You could do that.
There is a higher percentagechance that you'll burn out.
Yeah.
I am a much bigger fan of like,hey, do something methodical,

(47:30):
do it consistently, and ramp upthe intensity over time.
Right.
And if you do that, then youwhat's nice is you'll constantly
feel like you're winningbecause you're putting in
effort.
If you've if you put in effortand you're proud of that effort,
you're in a constant winningstate, which is much better than
uh, yeah, I have some clientswhen they first start working

(47:53):
with me, they think, oh, well,I'm gonna go out and make a
friend.

Todd (47:55):
Well, okay.
Maybe no one likes you.

Jeff (47:58):
You're in a uh it could be uh you're in a constant losing
state until you make thatfriend.
Yeah.
And so how much harder like howmuch harder would it be to do
anything if you felt like youweren't good at until you did
it?
I'm not I'm not a fan of thatpersonally.
I was like, okay, right, startthose small conversations, feel
like you win multiple times aday, and you will feel like you

(48:20):
want to continue winning.
Yes.

Todd (48:23):
And that to me is where the secret is.
Yes.
I like that.
Yeah, I I heard I was talkingto an Iron Man athlete, and she
was saying, I learned this justwithin the last few years.
It's like when you're trainingto learn to be a runner, run a
marathon, basically you go outand run and you measure your
heart rate, and you don't exceeda certain heart rate.

(48:44):
So you're gonna be runningstupid slow initially.
You're gonna be running reallyslow, and you're just
maintaining that pace at thatheart rate.
And then over time, as you justkeep up with the consistency on
that, you'll you start runningfaster at the same heart rate.
So that's to me, that's ananalogy for getting better
socially.

(49:04):
So it sounds like that's whatyou're doing.
You're just like, hey, whereare you?
And then get a snapshot ofwhere you are right now, and
then okay, well, hey, let's makesome small adjustments and
build up those wins, and thenover time they get better and
get it's so rewarding, man.
When you just have when youjust talk to someone where you
just connect and you walk awayfrom that, and it's like ah,

(49:27):
whether it's business, your job,or just out socially, you're at
the park and you meet someoneand you just naturally fall into
a conversation.
That's just that alone isrewarding, but it just just just
pays dividends across thespectrum of our lives, man.

Jeff (49:41):
So yeah, and it it compounds over time, like six
months of focused effort, a yearof focused effort.
That may be all all you need.
Beyond that, it's maintenance.
And so it's shocking what youcould do over not that long of a
time period.
And the younger you are, youyou get that benefit of the long
tail of compounding interest onyour skills, where you get to

(50:04):
benefit from that for the restof your life, which is
incredible.
Um, and so yeah, just it it'suh I mean the same thing applies
in in fitness and and otheraspects where you get started,
and okay, it might be a littlechallenging when you get
started, but over time thateffort, I call this effort
gravity, which I don't think I'mcoming up with a new concept,
but it's very similar to to whatto what you said, where what's

(50:27):
hard now won't always be hard ifI keep doing it.
And if I keep doing it, theeffort decreases, and so it's
easier to do it.
And uh, and then it makes itreally easy to do it.
And then you're in maintenancemode and you don't even really
realize it, and uh you'regetting to reap all those
rewards.

Todd (50:44):
I love it.
And so eventually you decidedto flip the switch and start
teaching others what you'velearned.
Now, how did you decide tostart your coaching business?

Jeff (50:55):
I've always kind of had the entrepreneurial bug where
you know something about havinga job and realizing that, like,
oh, you know, I'm not you know,jobs are fine, a lot of people
have them.
But I think for me, what reallyflipped the very first switch
of even thinking that it was anoption was uh reading Timothy
Ferris's The Four Hour Work Weekfor like 2007, you know,

(51:19):
something like that, whenever itcame out.
And it was a whole new world,because I never even thought
that was an option.
Like, oh, you could have yourown business, like what like I
don't understand.
But I you know, I realizedthat, like, oh well, you kind of
go through that and you and youthink, well, what's a skill
that I'm doing pretty good atthat I could help others with?
Well, okay, maybecommunication.

(51:40):
I wonder if other people havethat issue.
And turns out people do, theyjust don't talk about it all
that much, uh, but they hire me.
And then they get to reap therewards, like giving a great,
you know, uh like a best manspeech and blowing the doors off
the thing, and and uh peopleare like, oh, how'd you do that?
And you just kind of wink andlike, oh, you know, I don't

(52:02):
know.
And so being that secret weaponfor other people is is
fantastic because uh the rippleeffect of what I'm doing would
become more compelling, I hope,is is making a big difference in
other people's lives.
And also, I think about likeyou know, if my clients, my
clients have kids and they'reteaching their kids, and so like
the ripple effects um you know,immeasurable, hopefully.

Todd (52:24):
That's the idea, at least.
Right.
So that's how you you youdecided on that.
So now I can only imagine howfulfilling this type of work is,
just helping people get betterat communicating.
Do you have any success storiesyou could potentially share?

Jeff (52:39):
Yeah, so on my site, I I have a bunch of case studies,
and one of them I I pulled isfrom my client Julian, and uh
one of the things that I workwith Julian on, and you can hear
all this by actually going tomy website and and listening to
to him tell you, but the gist ofit is uh he was having a hard
time getting promoted and andhaving a hard time advocating

(52:59):
for himself and talking abouthis successes in you know a
clear and concise and compellingway.
And we worked hard on ondialing in his message and
helping him kind of get out getout of his own way and and
delivering a really polishedmessage that was easy for other
people to consume and digest.
And lo and behold, like he gotlike a 10% salary bonus, which

(53:22):
is unheard of at his company,and like he's on the fast track
for promotion, and and uh, youknow, that's just one one story
out of out of a ton wheresomeone knew that there was a
gap.
So that's the first step.
They knew there was a gap thatthey wanted something uh that
better communication skillswould give them.
Because most people don't justlearn communication skills to
have better communicationskills, they they want something

(53:44):
on the other side of it, theywant more friends, they want you
know a better business, theywant an uh accelerated career,
whatever it happens to be.
And so helping him sort of jumpthat hurdle and get to the
other side and most importantlyexecute, because that's the most
important thing.
I can I can show people thepath and make the path as easy
as possible, but they have toactually do it.
They gotta put in those reps.

(54:06):
Gotta gotta put in the reps,and then for him to get the
results that he got, I mean, Iknow he's super excited about
it, and uh, you know, this isgonna have a big impact in his
life forever.
Just having the skill to relyon, and and uh it's really
gratifying.
And I some days I can't believeI get to do it.

Todd (54:23):
That's cool, man.
So that is cool.
So you're currently writing abook called Confidence Maxing.
So what inspired you to writethat?
And what do you hope readerswill take away from our
conversation here?

Jeff (54:35):
Yeah, so I decided to write a book because I kind of
have this idea of cloningmyself.
And uh, you know, like ifyou've there is a good old movie
from I think the 90s,Multiplicity with Michael
Keaton, he clones himself andgets in all kinds of hijinks,
and I'm like, man, you know,wouldn't it be great if I could
clone clone myself?
And and the the way you do thatis by writing a book.

(54:57):
And so for the people that wantto get a taste of what I do,
they can read the book, applythe lessons to their own life,
and and reap all the benefits.
Like, I'm not holding anythingback, I'm adding even more stuff
than I typically teach myprivate coaching clients.
And they're gonna have theirlife impacted where they're
gonna get a complete system onhow to be more confident and

(55:19):
become more compelling.
And and ultimately at the timeof this recording, the book is
gonna release in 2026.
Uh, it's effectively done, justneed to ship it off to my
editor, but there's a lot ofstuff that goes into a book
launch.
But it's been a it's been anexciting, exciting process, and
uh it's been it's been a lot offun.

Todd (55:37):
Yeah, that's cool, man.
Happy for you.
So yeah, we'll uh when yourelease that, man, I'll
definitely grab a link for itand share it with our audience
here.
But yeah, I would love that.
Yeah, so how do people connectwith you, Jeff?

Jeff (55:48):
Yeah, so two ways.
So if you're listening to thisconversation and you're
thinking, oh well, it soundsgreat for me, or you know, maybe
you have a college stage, akid, or or someone in your in
your life that you think thismight be valuable to them, or
you might just be interested inthe book when it comes out.
You can go to become morecompelling.com slash group, and
I will uh send you my groupconversations audio guide.

(56:11):
But you'll also be on the listso when when I do release the
book, you'll be able to uh snagit and all that good stuff.
And what I'll I'll tell you thesecond thing too is for anyone
listening to this, if you feellike you're struggling or
there's a gap and and you youwant a pointer of where to go
and what to do, you can email meat Jeff at
BecomeMoreCompelling.com andI'll respond to every single

(56:33):
person.
There's probably something thatI've produced over the last 10
years, an article, a video, apodcast.
There's something that I canpoint you to uh that will point
you in the right direction andget you going where you need to
go uh to help you improve yourcommunication skills.

Todd (56:47):
Nice.
Yeah, my takeaways here, whatyou've triggered in my mind is
being able to communicate withothers.
That just opens things up foryou.
First off, professionally, ifyou can't talk about your work,
if you can't communicate yourideas, you're not moving the
ball.
You're not getting to where youwant to be.
And so just, I mean, and in theworkforce, being able to

(57:09):
communicate what you need andwhat you're working on, what
help you need from others, beingable to connect with people to
get them to join you and whatyou're trying to accomplish,
communication skills are vitalfor that.
And I'll just point out so Iwent to engineering school, I
went to NC State, graduated witha degree in electrical
engineering, and I was surprisedthat the majority of what we

(57:31):
did was writing about the stuffthat we were doing.
So that was eye-opening for mebecause if you're working on
these things, coming up with newproducts and all of this stuff,
you've got to be able tocommunicate that out so that it
can be replicated.
And I'm so thankful for thatbecause you you think that
you're just gonna go work onsomething and in a vacuum and

(57:52):
you know, without reallycommunicating it out to the
world.
That's that's not reality.
You have to be able tocommunicate.
And thinking about the techindustry and startups and all of
this stuff.
The ma the majority of theactivity is communicating with
others.
So professionally, we needthese skills.
Socially, we need these skills.
We all like having friends, weall like enjoying social

(58:16):
activities together, and justbeing able to sit down and have
a conversation with a friend,that's so valuable.
So that's my takeaway here.
And I I think we need coachingbecause we have our blind spots,
we don't know what we don'tknow.
And if you can have someoneoutside looking in, giving you

(58:36):
pointers on well, hey, here'swhat you're struggling with.
Here's something you could tryto overcome that and get better.
We all need coaching, whetherit's martial arts, sports,
things like learning how tocommunicate better.
We need that.
So, yeah, reach out to Jeff.
We'll put links in thedescription of the episode here.
And Jeff, thanks so much, man.

(58:56):
We appreciate you being on theshow, brother.
Yeah, that was awesome.
I appreciate you having me.
All right, man, we'll talksoon.

Speaker 03 (59:04):
This is the cloud.
Stories of firefly.

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#26 Jeff Callahan - Develop COMMUNICATION Skills to Supercharge Your Life and Career!

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#26 Jeff Callahan - Develop COMMUNICATION Skills to Supercharge Your Life and Career!