It takes courage to find your voice, open up, and invite others to open up to you. Step on a stage for a presentation, or walk into a clients office with a message to deliver, and we all feel something. Author and executive coach Michelle Gladieux sits down with Rob and talks about what’s hovering around all of us – a lack of confidence.
Originally Published: February 27, 2023
EPISODE NOTES
In this Pocket Sized Pep Talk, you’ll learn:
- Why her book, Communicating with Courage was so important for her to write, and a brief look at her writing process.
- Michelle’s take on imposter syndrome, and how to cope with it.
- A brief look at the four challenges that surround a lack of confidence; hiding, defining, rationalizing, and settling.
- Some hidden challenges that are the most difficult for Michelle’s coaching clients to overcome.
- Her advice to those who are afraid of speaking in front of an audience.
- Her advise for people to start the journey toward enjoyable public speaking.
- Mentors that had an impact on Michelle’s journey.
For more information on this guest:
https://gladieuxconsulting.com
Rob Jolles (00:00):
Look, it takes courage to find our voice, open up and invite others to open up to us, step on a stage for a presentation, or walk into a client’s office with a message to deliver. And we all feel something for some of us that something can be debilitating. Let’s have ourselves a pocket size pep talk because there’s a little bit of imposter syndrome hovering around all of us, and we’re going to do something about it,
Intro (00:29):
A pocket size pep talk, the podcast that can help energize your business and your life with a quick inspiring message. Now, here’s your host, Rob Jolles.
Rob Jolles (00:43):
Today’s guest, Michelle Gladieux, is president of Gladieux Consulting, providing executive coaching and strategic planning for clients in diverse industries, in governments and in academia. She’s mentored thousands of people in her positive effect on those she advises is evident even after just one interaction. She’s also the author of the book, communicate With Courage, taking Risks to Overcome the Four Hidden Challenges. Barrett Kohler’s, the publisher, and if you listen to jealous podcast, that’s my favorite publisher. Glad to have you with us. Welcome to the show, Michelle.
Michelle Gladieux (01:19):
Hey, thanks Rob.
Rob Jolles (01:21):
You bet. Well, it’s a pleasure to have you and I don’t mess around. I’m like diving right in. So with you, I want to start with the book real fast because a lot of times we ask people, you know, write the book, but in reality, how did that book find you? It’s usually the better question. So how do we get on this book?
Michelle Gladieux (01:41):
The writer, Elizabeth Gilbert says that you write about or work on what is causing a revolution in your heart. And there’s been a revolution in my heart since I could speak and write that I was just noticing a little bit more could have gone a long way in so many family interactions or student teacher interactions or grocery store interactions. I just have always been highly sensitized to how humans interact with one another. And that led me down master’s work in organizational psychology at Purdue and to be a young adjunct professor many years ago, more than 25 years ago, I started teaching at age 23 and have never looked back and never stopped researching communication. So because communication is the topic that causes a revolution in my heart, and I think it’s the key to a happy and healthy life, that’s what I wanted to write about. I waited until I had a lot of experience as an executive coach and trainer and instructional designer around communication topics before I felt it was appropriate for me to be dishing out any advice about how anyone could communicate better. And as you know, I am still learning. You are still learning. This is something we journey forever until our last breath. We can be better communicators. So you never really graduate, but it’s always been the most interesting thing in the world to me, maybe right up there with music, probably.
Rob Jolles (03:13):
Right. And I love your answer and I tell you and I, we both have people that’ll come up and say, I always wanted to write a book. And it’s really, it’s such a blessing. And yet I just want people to hear what almost every author says, which isn’t, oh, I don’t know. I didn’t have anything to do, or I was walking around kicking a can. I thought, what the heck? It chases us, it burns a hole in our belly. And that’s how writers write. That’s how authors become authors. And so I love the fact that this wasn’t just some sort of casual, I don’t know, I needed to tick a box off. You were moved to this topic and that already makes me interested in the book because this are going to be an air of inspiration in there and that’s what I want to hear. So congratulations. And is it your first book?
Michelle Gladieux (04:06):
Oh yes, but we’ve created hundreds of custom workbooks for different half day, full day kind of trainings around communication, client by client custom. But my first real book for sure. I wanted to ask you, Rob, did you consider yourself an extrovert? I would guess, right?
Rob Jolles (04:24):
Oh yes. I’m a card. I’m a card carrying extrovert. Me
Michelle Gladieux (04:28):
Too. Did you find the book writing process a little lonely?
Rob Jolles (04:32):
I didn’t because I wrote, I write most of my books in the air, meaning I, I’m a professional speaker, I travel, so I don’t, great news. I don’t come home and sit in a little corner and I’m on a plane. And quite frankly, as an extrovert, I practically put out a sign, no extrovert found here. I don’t really want to get engaged. I love people. I love talking, but not on a plane. So I like the white noise. I like not being interrupted and I’m usually charged and ready to go. It’s almost like an athlete who swims, sees a pool and the body just begins to react to it. That’s my pool. But it’s not very lonely for me.
Michelle Gladieux (05:08):
What a great use of travel time. It was very lonely for me. I don’t think I travel as much as you, but I’m definitely a traveler to speak and teach. Also, I hired one of my employees or asked one of my employees if they would please hold me accountable, be an internal editor, and then set deadlines with me and hold me accountable. So there was a meeting every Sunday night, for example, for me to get some feedback on what I had just written or I don’t know that I would’ve been able to do it. I think it’s a profession better suited to people who really enjoy their own company and quiet time. So how lu it’s out, it took four and a half years. I think it’s harder to write a short book than a long book because it was all about what to cut so that folks could read it from get on the plane on the east coast, fly to the west coast. It’s about two hour read, hopefully notes in the margins.
Rob Jolles (06:02):
How many, A lot of people will ask for a page count. I ask for a word count that really tells me so do you got an idea of how many words?
Michelle Gladieux (06:11):
Can I give you a page count?
Rob Jolles (06:13):
Yeah, give me the page count. All right. I like a put on, I’m
Michelle Gladieux (06:15):
Sorry, about 180.
Rob Jolles (06:19):
Yeah. Okay. So I’m going to guess about 40,000 is
Michelle Gladieux (06:23):
I would guess 35,000 maybe.
Rob Jolles (06:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Note
Michelle Gladieux (06:27):
To self know that answer for future,
Rob Jolles (06:30):
What it does is when I went to school and I had to write a five page composition, I’d bring the margins in. I might be kick up the size of the letters a little bit, but when we go word count, we have a much more accurate good point. Image of the size of the document. That’s a good point. Says so. Yeah, I would guess looking at it and I just, folks, I just was looking at it on screen, I would say, yeah, babe, 35, 40 ish. I agree. Yeah, I agree. Which is good. And then I got to carve into that book. But it’s good because I don’t want to read a 300 page book about communicating. And part of communicating is learning to communicate succinctly and lightly and bob and weave and tap and move. So it shouldn’t be Warren peace, it should be something light and moving and love the fact that we can get through that book on a nice West coast trip from the east coast.
(07:26)
I’m an east coast. All right, let’s talk, let’s go into the book now. I opened up, I and I threw out the term imposter syndrome and I’m, let’s just use that as a kind of symbol. But you seem to be breaking down the ability to, or inability to communicate with confidence into four basic challenges from what I’m seeing of your work. And I want to look at, take a look at a brief look at each one of them. So okay, share it with my audience. Maybe we could start with defining, but let’s go and just kind of break down the way you’ve broken this down cause it’s really interesting to me.
Michelle Gladieux (08:06):
Sure. And this is new, so I don’t have all those thousands of clients haven’t necessarily seen these four hidden challenges spoken outright or written in this way yet because the book is fresh just out. But in analyzing what holds us back as communicators, I think it’s probably all four different times in our lives. I’ve defined them as hiding, defining, rationalizing, and then settling.
Rob Jolles (08:36):
Yes,
Michelle Gladieux (08:36):
I look at hiding is fear of someone seeing that we’re not everything we wish we were. So we’re hiding supposed weaknesses. Defining is being too quick to judge or being too damn sure or putting too much stock into our own assumptions. Rationalizing would be coming up with logical reasons that it won’t matter if you do try. So why try, right? That’s a sad one. So you might not apologize because she or they’re not going to accept it anyway. Or you might not negotiate because there’s no chance I’m going to get that raise or that job or that assignment. And then settling is the fourth hidden challenge. And that is stopping it good enough because you can get away with it. It’s satisfying. It’s a satisfactory amount of effort that will keep you out of trouble, but it won’t necessarily end up with the more positive outcome or the better advantage for yourself or others you care about
(09:37)
And we need to encourage, if we’re going to get past any of these hidden challenges, we have to dig deep within and some encourage something there that there is a seat of, it’s intangible. There’s a seat of it in all of us. And what I’ve learned is I can be with someone and help them find their courage or give them some reasons to have courage or listen to their fears. But I don’t think any of us can find our courage by seeking someone else to do it for us. This book is a guide to help people. Some encourage.
Rob Jolles (10:10):
Okay. All right. So let’s double back a little bit. You’re dealing with the next Xerox guy. I tie our shoe without some sort of process, but when you have a process, you have a way of measuring what you can do and when you can measure it, you can fix it. So let’s try and process, slow down process this a little bit. Now just cherry pick, defining for instance. Okay, so we’re too quick to judge. We kind of get lost in our assumptions. Give me a tip or two that would help us that I can keep up on the wall, just up almost a process behavior to try to avoid that or improve on that.
Michelle Gladieux (10:49):
How about today or this week, I’m going to test my assumptions. So if I have an employee who just had a baby and I would love to put her in charge of a project, but I’m assuming that she’s probably pretty tired and consumed with that newborn at home, I might look right past her and give that assignment, that plum assignment, that project to someone who hasn’t had that kind of big change in their life just recently without even asking my employee if she could take it on. So I am assuming, and then that is detrimental to others. So I guess if you wanted to put something on your wall, it might be today is the day I test my assumptions.
Rob Jolles (11:30):
Yeah.
Michelle Gladieux (11:31):
Excellent. So we see the world through, of course our eyes only, and it takes some emotional intelligence and humility to turn to someone and say, what do you think? Do I have that correct? Here’s how I see it. Here’s a beautiful question. How do you see it? Please tell me how you see. It overcomes a lot of conflict. We do a lot of conflict mediation. And I will instruct one or the other party to ask the other, will you tell me how you see it? And then just absorb how they see it. You might hear something completely new. So test your assumptions and then celebrate when you have the guts to admit that your hunch was wrong or that perhaps you were misinformed, which kind of sounds like being overserved, right? Not my fault, the bartender overserved me, but maybe you were misinformed or your hunch was off. And to say that’s great. Wow, was I wrong about that? I would follow that person anywhere. And I don’t meet many in the upper echelons of corporate America or any of the client organizations we serve. You don’t meet many people with a lot of positional power who are willing to say, oh man, I had that wrong. But they earn my respect every time.
Rob Jolles (12:45):
And I think when you were talking about how you wrote the book, you were sort of walking the walk because you were bringing other people in there. You had the courage to create an accountability partner. And that takes guts because,
Michelle Gladieux (13:00):
So many other people rob.
Rob Jolles (13:02):
Yeah, yeah. So it’s a village, huh?
Michelle Gladieux (13:05):
The whole team and the very smart nuclear physics study in Big Brother, 14 years older who doesn’t hesitate ever to tell me what’s not needed here and in very direct terms. So it has been cooked and then we get it to BK and g Jivan was a fantastic editor to me and made me, I thought I was a good writer and I teach a lot of business writing. He made me a better writer in those couple of years. In working with him, he got the book about a year or a year and a half before it was published. And then we started working together. And through his, he also made me a better writer and humbled me in that. When I brought it to bk, it was sort of like 10 chapters and each chapter is a topic I love and qualified to teach, but there wasn’t the overarching help this hang together and make it applicable to anyone from any walk of life that is interested in communication. And through, honestly, I remember arguing about it and he’s kind of pushing me. I want to know what are the main things that hold people back? And I’m saying, it’s all through the book. It’s all through the book. No, no, no. Summarize what are the main, I was like, well, and I just kind of blurted out, well they hide because they’re afraid of not being a good person or not being capable. Back to imposter syndrome, hiding, what else? And in that way he was drawing out of me the four hidden challenges.
Rob Jolles (14:31):
Right. And for those of you we’re doing a little shop talk here. Givon is a one legendary editors at Kohler publishers and he is, he’s not my editor. I have a different editor. Giovan Na is a guy who will tell you like it is. And he’s quite the character, but a wonderful, wonderful editor. And again, I sing the praises of Barrett Koz. I have five different publishers and no offense to the other four, but wow. Not even close. Barrett Kohler is my favorite publisher for many reasons. All right, let’s stay on track here. Yes sir. We’ve been talking about rationalizing. Rationalizing. Give me a climbing on that one a little bit. Give me a process behavior or two,
Michelle Gladieux (15:20):
How beneficial is it really when you shield yourself from taking a chance as a communicator, how does that serve your future self? Yeah, you didn’t ask the person to dance when you really wanted to at the wedding reception. You didn’t ask for the raise, you didn’t face the conflict and say, I sense that you’re upset with me about something. Is there something I’ve done? This is the stuff where, this is the stuff of life where actual health and joy hang in the balance of one of the two parties or multiple parties. Somebody has to say, Hey, raise their hand. Hey, I have an idea, I have a suggestion, or maybe I have a need. So I also look at this as being brave enough to ask for help when you need it. How about brave enough to ask for feedback? We have designed a quick, and I think pretty wonderful way to find out how others see you as a communicator. And it’s called the feedback challenge. And it’s on our website and there’s a ton of free tools@gladioconsulting.com
Rob Jolles (16:22):
Under, can you spell that slow down a little bit? Cause somebody’s listening Cause I know how to I folks, I learned how to say gladieux, but I’m not sure I know how to spell it.
Michelle Gladieux (16:31):
It’s false. Sure. It’s glad. I E U X x-ray glad I E U Xconsulting.com. Okay. That’s where your listeners can find the feedback challenge. And it’s a form one page downloadable e fillable. So you download it now, it’s yours and the people you send it to will get this question, what’s something you like about way the way I communicate? And what’s something that you think I might be able to do differently or better? You send it to them and say, heard a podcast decided to send you this ex exercise, give ’em about a week to send it back and make it optional. You don’t want to be the bully who requires a response. The data that is received from our coaching clients that use this exercise and training participants around the world is life changing because they get the compliments from the exercise. What’s something I do well?
(17:23)
And then what’s something you think I could sometimes do differently or better? And how do I want to put this more smooth, more capable? Feedback givers will take the time to give you a piece of praise and a piece of hopefully constructive criticism, but even if all you get is constructive criticism, we can do something with that. And it’s a snapshot at this age that you are today, what does your significant other think? What do your kids think? What about a couple clients and vendors? How about your coworkers? And every time I do this exercise, my stomach hurts a little bit because I worry about what the person might say. I worry it might be a punch to the gut what they have to say. But so far in many years of me doing this and my coworkers also doing this to try to make us a better consulting company, no one has ever taken the opportunity to be unkind. They have said some things to me like you’re a very passionate teacher. However, you could listen better when you disagree. Something interesting is sent it around the United States to people who don’t know each other and the compliments come back is different and the criticisms come back as similar, which tells me that consistency in criticism, probably there’s something there for me to look at. And that was one of the big ones like chill out when you disagree and try to let the other person say something.
Rob Jolles (18:48):
Yeah. The one area I have to tell you, I’m fairly opinionated on feedback and it’s why sometimes I won’t work with some editors and work with others. I model balanced feedback. I’ve given feedback to students my whole life. I coach and I, it’s all even the superstars who will beg you and tell you over and over again, you don’t have to tell me anything I’m doing. I’m coming here to improve. You load ’em up with a bunch of negative things. Not only can they not improve ’em because you just dumped too many things out there, but everybody’s got a soul and a heartbeat. And they may tell you on the outside, I can handle it, but I’ve seen some very powerful people that actually it. It’s devastating. So I am one that will always balance the feedback. And one more thing, I don’t just balance it because I’m in a good mood or I’m feeling compassion, although I think I’m compassionate, I balance it because a lot of times we do things well and we don’t know they’re doing them well. We call those unconscious competence. And so I’m doing somebody a service by telling them what I liked, to make sure that wasn’t an accident and that they can repeat that as well.
Michelle Gladieux (20:07):
And you’ll get more of that behavior from the people in your personal and professional life. And so we have a praise recipe in the book that can help people. It’s pretty short as well. Excellent. Your comment there makes me think of my hometown fighter wing, the 120 second fighter wing of the Air force. And I’ve been out there to teach and train in leadership and conflict management skills. And when I told them we’re going to be doing this exercise and you’ll get feedback from superiors and subordinates, and for me they assured me, Michelle, you know what our motto is about feedback, feedback for breakfast, feedback for Brett. We don’t need to mess with the praise part, but to your point, Rob, even if they aren’t used to getting that praise, it is elevating to the human spirit. And as you said, everybody has a heart and a soul. And also I also have noticed through my travels and experience that we might really be hoping for a compliment from someone who has no idea that their opinion matters to us. And that’s when it can be a real pro move. And I define move as basically something that others might walk by because it’s not a have to as a communicator, it’s a nice to or it’s an additional stretch that’s a pro move is to go to the people you respect to see what they think.
Rob Jolles (21:21):
Right. Excellent. Okay, I’m going to move you because I got a couple more questions I want to get to, but I don’t want to miss one of those four pillars. So let’s go 60 seconds, seconds
Michelle Gladieux (21:32):
On settling. Yeah. That is when we do not strive towards the best that we could be in interactions and we miss out on rewarding outcomes for ourselves or those we are teaching loving that we care about. I’d say sometimes what we stop doing is just as important as what we start. So stop just getting by and start looking for an area where you might expend another five minutes or another five seconds to reread your email before you hit send or another five words to make sure that someone understands that you value the partnership or that you value their feedback. And it just beginning to live that way, you start to see all kinds of rewards. And they could be social or economic rewards or spiritual rewards, but I’m a big fan of giving 1% more every day when possible. I would love to share with you briefly, I asked an audience recently, if you would do 1% more in the last interaction you had with someone, whether it was a text or a phone call home or an email at work, what would that 1% look like?
(22:35)
And here’s what we heard. I would have picked up the call sounding like I cared. I would have reread my email before I had sent. I would’ve avoided saying something rudely. One person replied, I would have sounded more confident. And the guy sitting next to him responded. That’s interesting. I would’ve sounded less arrogant. I think I came across as a bit arrogant. We also heard I would’ve just let it go like a duck in the water. I don’t have to take everything personally. I would’ve gathered someone else’s opinion first before I spoke up. I would’ve listened longer to diffuse frustration. I would’ve not interrupted. I would’ve used their name. Good stuff, everyday stuff.
Rob Jolles (23:18):
Yeah. And you know what? I really also like the fact I, the fact you landed on 1% because everybody thinks that when we start talking about process behaviors and moves and how to feel more confident, maybe push back that imposter syndrome, that there’s this magic pill. You take two of these, you take some water, you’re good in the morning or that there’s a big move when in reality and see if you agree or disagree. It’s a lot of little 1% moves in a sense. And then they bundle together and then we find success and people go, wow, you’re so lucky. And you think, well no, it’s not one, it’s 10 little things I’m doing, it’s ten one percenters.
Michelle Gladieux (23:59):
Right on. And the good news is you have a couple thousand decisions you make every day. A lot of them about communication. So we could choose to exert a little more effort in a lot of areas of life. For me, communication is just one that’s always present no matter what our age or income or location.
Rob Jolles (24:19):
Yeah. Alright, so let’s take it to the stage a little bit. You’re a teacher, you’re a presenter. That’s what I do. I’m sure particularly maybe not in the classroom, but if you were in front of a business audience or something, there’s always somebody who wanders up and says, I don’t know how you’ll do what you’ll do. I always get nervous when I do that. And again, they’re looking for the one move. But I’d love to hear from your angle, when people are afraid to speak in front of an audience, what kind of advice do you give them? Because we want that to ’em to feel that thrill that we feel not just accomplish it, but feel that speaker’s high as we call it. What do you tell
Michelle Gladieux (25:01):
’em? Well start small and accept that things won’t go well. Start by practicing doing a toast at the wedding reception. And don’t have four glasses of champagne before you speak. Have an outline on a napkin or on a small index card or in your head or something that you can look at briefly so you can transition from point to point. It’s swimming to me. It’s like how I felt when I first got in the pool, not a fan. And they would as a little baby, as a little toddler, they would drop pennies and they’d ask us to go underwater pennies and get the penny and I devise, I’m tall, I’m long. So I devised a way to lean so that only my ear got wet and I’d get the penny. So I would say think of it as swimming or getting into a different environment.
(25:45)
And then the more often you’re in the water, the more it begins to feel like, oh, I can function in this other world just as well as my usual world. And actually there’s a little bit of a natural high that I quite enjoy that even the most nervous speakers, after being willing to practice dozens of times, they begin to start feeling that as well. And that becomes an addictive natural high. Know your stuff. BSing never works. I really recommend that people try it just sure, just Bs and answer once or twice. Actually, you only need to do it once. It feels so bad that you just don’t, there are other ways, right? There’s throw that question back to the audience or I’m going to put that over here and get back to you on that. And then you really do. There’s a lot of ways to manage what people’s fears are as public speakers. So we try to work with them and name the fear, then overcome the fear through preparation and practice.
Rob Jolles (26:37):
Right. Well, preparation and practice is critical. Yeah. It’s a lot of times I’ll just remind people, well, have you ever spoken in the film? Oh yeah, I have. How did it go? And almost always, they go surprisingly well. In other words, a lot of times it’s the track record. We completely forget you’ve given a toast before. That’s true. Yes. You, you’ve spoken a meeting, you fritted sleep, but how did the toast go? Oh, everyone loved it. Yeah. And how did you feel? I thought really great. Okay. Ah, good. And double back on that track record a little bit because people seem to have amnesia. They don’t want to remember that this isn’t the first time. This is your imagination. I love this quote by my coffee bar. Worry is the misuse of your imagination. And I think a lot of times people are misusing their imagination. What if No, as a matter of fact, last thing. But what people forget is you have the two most important things completely in your control and you need no luck in preparation. You have your energy and you have your enthusiasm. And if you show up with that, kind of remind yourself of the track record that usually happens. Do exactly what I practice, do all those things, but let’s not misuse our imagination. Get up there and make it happen. People tend to thoroughly enjoy it.
Michelle Gladieux (28:00):
No. And tie it to your values. So decide what’s important to you in life and then speak about that which you love or that which, and you have studied and prepared. That’s the key tie, the first presentations back to your values. Also, it’s helpful for me to contemplate how very quickly life goes by another reason for writing my book. I’ve seen a lot of people receive terminal diagnoses and they’re not around the next year. And we’ve certainly seen that through the pandemic. What do you want as a legacy? What was your message while you were here on earth? And did you use the various mediums available to you to get your message out?
Rob Jolles (28:40):
Yeah.
Michelle Gladieux (28:40):
Yeah. I mean, there’s only one shot that we know of.
Rob Jolles (28:43):
Yeah, actually, yeah, actually, and I probably pushed this audience to this movie one too many times, but have you ever seen the movie Defending Your Life?
Michelle Gladieux (28:55):
I have not. But the last movie I saw was et I’m Not a movie. Really? Don’t Get to many.
Rob Jolles (28:59):
Well, I think as a homework assignment for you topic and book, because it’s a Meryl Street movie with Albert Brooks and it deals with almost what you’ve just described, a person’s vision of death. Oh, it’s a comedy. And the fact that the criteria they’re evaluating your life on isn’t what we think it is. I mean, to that person, did I steal all that? No. Did you overcome your fear or did fear hold you back? And there is a prosecutor and defender and they basically queue up moments with the best moments of your life. And we don’t have to see the movie. For people who are listening, the best moments of lives are when we lean back and go, oh, I was anxious, I was afraid, but I did it that day. I stepped on the stage. I was alive. And some of the worst days of our life, when we say I had the opportunity, I was afraid and I backed away. I didn’t do it. That haunts us. You’ll love that one. You’ll love that fear
Michelle Gladieux (30:03):
Or regret. Choose one. That’s it. There you go. Face the fear of regret. Something I go into in the book is how important self-esteem development is. And some of us have had a very lucky deal in the poker hand of life, and we’ve had role models and people who were tall when we were small, feeding us information about our strengths. And then many, many folks that we train and coach did not have the benefit of somebody to affirm their basic goodness. And so I addressed that in the book. What if you’re a person who wants to use their voice more and communicate more courageously, but you’ve been told you aren’t really worth much and no one wants to hear from you? What then? So I know it’s a short book, but I do my best to use my psych background to address that when people are carrying around false labels that were negative, that were given to them in their youth, or perhaps some of us were given labels and they were accurate because of our behavior, because we were making mistakes that were pretty serious or that we’re not in our best character, let’s say.
(31:03)
But that was at one point in time and we’re never the same person twice. So I did want to spend a little time in the book talking about how to build self-esteem if you haven’t had a lot of help or support in that area,
Rob Jolles (31:16):
Oh my goodness, how can you not go get this book, communicate with Courage, taking risks to overcome the four Hidden Challenges? And I don’t care if you do it for a living, I do it for a living. I want to see this book and the way we all look. Oh yeah, we all know. Hold
Michelle Gladieux (31:32):
On. Lonely Time for five years, Mike. I think it might be worth it.
Rob Jolles (31:36):
Oh, it will be worth it. And it’ll be
Michelle Gladieux (31:38):
oh, I know. I, its,
Rob Jolles (31:40):
And my audience knows we don’t just buy a book. We read the book and we review the book. And because that means a great deal to authors Amazon and in algorithms they like it too. And I’m assuming we can get it. Amazon and everybody else, everybody else is carrying this book online. I’m not going to have trouble finding it.
Michelle Gladieux (32:06):
They say everywhere books are sold. And with Audible, lots of books like to listen to books. I asked to be the narrator, although the publisher did offer me a few options, I couldn’t imagine someone else’s voice describing I’m 19 and I was losing my mom to cancer at the time, and I was a junior in college, so I was driving back and forth from college to her hospital bed. And she was a very strong advocate of education and she wasn’t having it. She did not want me to miss a quiz or to miss a class. So it’s hard to argue with someone on their deathbed who is in pain, but wanting you to get back to school. And I would lose, she’d say, I love you. Learning is more important. I’ll see you on the other side, get back to school. And as I thought about and wrote about these things, I couldn’t imagine somebody else narrating it too personal. Do you know what I mean?
Rob Jolles (32:54):
Oh, I do.
Michelle Gladieux (32:55):
Have you done any narration for any of your books?
Rob Jolles (32:57):
I have two audible books and is two, it might be three, two, I think. Okay. And I did ’em both for the exact same reason. It’s not an accounting book. These books come from our gut and our heart. And I may have a bit of a raspy voice and some people say it looks a little bit new. Yorkish Shalot. I never lived there, but it’s my voice. And that’s the voice I wanted people to hear. And I’m so glad that it’s your voice. I’m always quietly disappointed when I hear authors tell me that they had somebody else read their book for ’em. I don’t care what your voice is, it’s beautiful. That’s the voice I want to hear it what it sounds like. It embellishes the book for me when I can hear what you sound like. So really glad you did that.
Michelle Gladieux (33:42):
Okay. I think I could do it better. And I would love anybody who’s listening to it, I’d be happy to get feedback through our website about how it could be better. Interestingly, also, a lot of people listen at 1.5, 1.75, 2.5 in the, they speed up our voices. What do you think about that? They’re trying to fit more into their day, but I don’t know that I’d want to hear it that way.
Rob Jolles (34:04):
Yep. I, I’ll give an opinion. That’s an opinion. Yeah. You gave me an opinion. I hate it. I would never do that. I keep going back. To me, it’s all about authenticity. I want to feel like the author is sitting right next to me. And unless my author is Donald Duck, I don’t want to start. I know we can efficiently move through it, but again, please move through your micro biology book at double speed. Okay. But when you’re reading a book like the one you just wrote, and it’s coming from deep inside, and now I know a little about your mother. Okay. Yeah. Right, right.
Michelle Gladieux (34:41):
What’s driving this out of the hospital room?
Rob Jolles (34:43):
Yeah. I don’t want to speed that up. Okay. You ask an opinion, what Rob tells this. Okay. Very few mild opinions, but no, I am thrilled you did it. And I ban anyone from speeding that poke up. Okay. You are not allowed to speed it up. No. All right. Now one last, lemme ask you one last question. I’ll let you go. Yes. I think I already picked up on one. I think it might be mom. But tell me about a mentor or two in your life that maybe helped you get to this place. And it might not be a writing help, but just emotionally.
Michelle Gladieux (35:16):
Yeah. Well, yeah. I dedicated the book to two people. My mom, Rosemary Gladieux, who as you all know now, I lost her when I was 19 to bone marrow cancer. But man, and she had me when she was about 50. So she was always in my ear saying like, Michelle, I’m not going to be around as long as your friend’s moms, so I want to tell you about this. So she downloaded a lot of insight about human psyche and the heart and soul of communication. She was a poet and a person who wrote and taught writing. So she, at her knee, I learned to edit and I learned to write pretty well thanks to her. And we fought a lot, two Scorpio women kind of fighting for the attention of dad is how I would describe that. And that poor guy, poor dad Gladieux, was stuck in the referee position.
(36:01)
But it also seeded my love of understanding conflict. So definitely mom glad and then dedicated to my significant other. Dan, in an intro it says, who is patient? When I fail at communication, I think a lot of times he can’t even believe what I do or that people pay me for communication advice after a long day of advising or teaching or coaching others. And now it’s 8:00 PM I’m not at my best as a communicator, Rob and I want to be better in my personal life especially. So really appreciate those two. And then from kind of a fun point of view, I would say Tom Petty, the Rock and Roller, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I was lucky to get to see him his last 40th anniversary tour in 2017. And it was like church, someone who believes so much in what he is writing and giving to the audience, the exchange of energy in that communication was holy.
(36:50)
H o l y was holy. And he also had the guts and courage as a communicator to stand up to record companies before people were really trying to stand up to record companies. For example, in the seventies, once he had some hits, his record company was planning to charge an extra dollar for his next album. And he fought and fought and fought to keep record prices low for his fans. And it cost him some things personally to do that. And he won’t back down. I miss him a lot. He comes up in our training and appears in our workbooks, et cetera, as someone I look up to as a communicator, both as an amateur based guitarist and love to play rock and roll, but really look up to him as a communicator as well. Yeah. They’re all around us. I guess my point would be you are a mentor to me. I’ve already got ideas about a movie I need to go watch and Cause you invited me on this podcast and gave me some hints about what we’d be discussing. I reread my book and encapsulated a couple points I wanted to make, which will serve me if I’m lucky enough to land more interviews. We can learn from everybody around us, the children too, and the really old people as well.
Rob Jolles (37:59):
That’s beautiful. And by the way, I’ve learned a few things from you two today, so I’ve really enjoyed it. How do people get ahold of you?
Michelle Gladieux (38:07):
People can contact me directly. My cell phone number is (260) 450-4202. We joke at the company that this is eight days a week. I don’t know that I have work-life balance yet. I’m working on that later. Another goal. And the website is packed with good stuff, gladieuxconsulting.com. I’ve started a quarterly newsletter called Breakdown named after Tom Petty song.
Rob Jolles (38:32):
Oh, Tom Petty keeps coming up.
Michelle Gladieux (38:34):
And there’s always a short music video and then there’s a look at what’s up and links to free resources that help people become better communicators. Sounds great. It’s not so much about selling our services as it is. More people deserve to have these kind of tools in hands. And not everybody’s employer is out looking for ways to invest in their development, unfortunately.
Rob Jolles (38:55):
Right.
Michelle Gladieux (38:56):
And understandably in some cases. Right. Sometimes there’s not budget, but you could find some good stuff at our website, gladieuxconsulting.com.
Rob Jolles (39:03):
Good. And we’ll have that on the website here as well when we launch. So you can find that here. You’ll find that on my website as well. And Spotify, whichever service you’re listening to right now, we’ll have it there. I want to thank you so much for being on. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I love the topic and I love your passion. I really do. Okay, so congratulations on your success with this book and taking it across the finish line. And thank you so much for being on the show.
Michelle Gladieux (39:36):
You bet. Keep rocking. Keep up the good work. Rob,
Rob Jolles (39:39):
I won’t back down. No, well, we’ll do it again as well as we can next time. Everyone. Until then, stay safe.
Outro (39:52):
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoy today’s show, please rate and recommend it on iTunes, outcasts, wherever you get your podcast. You can also get more information on this show and rob@jolles.com.