Conscious Communication For Better Business

Full Transcript

Note: the following transcript was generated by AI and therefore may contain some errors and omissions.

Ben Amos (00:00.398)

The quality of your words determines the quality of your life. So just think about that for a moment. What are the words that you were saying? Oh, geez, I’m stupid when I do that. Or this person’s that like, what are the words that you’re saying? And what happens is we react before we speak, but we’ve already thought something, haven’t we? And that’s why we’ve reacted.

Ben Amos (00:34.604)

G’day guys. Welcome back to the Coast and Commerce podcast. I’m Ben Amos from Innovate Media and on this show we share tips and strategies and insights and stories from business leaders across the Sunshine Coast and beyond. And one of those business leaders here today on episode eight is Cath Molloy. And Cath, you’ve got a fascinating story that I’m really excited to dive into, but can you just tell us a little bit just as we get in here, you know, who are you and what do you do? I’m a speaker. So that sort of came from the business that I started on the Sunshine Coast.

And now I speak internationally, my overarching tools, communication, and I work in leadership, sales and service, and I deliver tools through body language, mindset and behaviours. So we were talking before we hit record here that you’ve just got back from a speaking engagement in Antarctica of all places. How was that? Antarctica was absolutely phenomenal. And I believe in business, you need to say yes. Yeah.

Absolutely. Just open up those opportunities. And I guess that’s how you got there as well. An opportunity came up. You said yes. Next thing you know, you’re in Antarctica. Absolutely. Fantastic. So tell me, Cath, why communication? Why is that your passion? And why have you dedicated so much time to now writing two books about it and contributing to other books, speaking on stages around the world around communication strategies? So what is that for you? Yeah, I’d love to know actually myself where it first began.

You know, I was orphaned in Australia and then adopted. And as a young child, I used to, I loved fundraising, which I still do today. And I would fundraise for the children’s hospital and we’d send money there. And it wasn’t until later in life that I’m now working with orphans that I realised that, you know, I fundraised for children in the children’s hospital where I was actually, you know, lifted, lifted up from, lifted out of.

And now I’m with orphans. And so speaking has been a big part for me all my life, because if you want something to happen, people need to understand you, don’t they? And I saw so many friendships along the way. Friends, you’d be in a group and then next minute they’ll be falling out. And I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t be friends again.

Ben Amos (02:57.422)

for instance, after these fallouts. And I’ve seen it my whole way through business and life. And I think as a child, I played a lot of sport. So it was a little bit different to the environments when the kids are just hanging out with each other. It seemed to be a little bit more of that miscommunication because in sport, you’re communicating all the time. What needs to be done? What’s happening? Where you are on the field? Who’s going somewhere? So I do believe that

my whole life has been around, you know, being able to fit in, you know, obviously if you are adopted, then you are different to the people in your homes. You are always sort of searching what aren’t you good at, you know, what are you good at? And for me, it seemed to be bringing people together. I really love connecting and communicating. Yeah, wow. I mean, clearly that background, that history has led to a real…

personal connection to the power of communication, both I guess for positive and for negative outcomes too, right? I think communication is so personal, right? It’s something that we as humans that moves everything forward, but it’s also so critical in business, which is really where your passion has led you, right? So why is communication so important in business?

Just going to step back to when I was about 21, I was working in the bank. I started to study body language through Alan Pease. He was doing videos for Westpac and I was topping sales in Westpac and I never thought that I was selling. I was just speaking to the customers and just letting them know the new products that were better than the ones that they had. And why wouldn’t you want it? Obviously, you know, the bank puts out products for you and they’re to be better than some of the old ones. So.

For me, it was just talking to people that led to these sales. And so communication really started there, understanding that we actually, and this is what I’ve learned over these years, and I’ve done a TED talk on it, Think Before You Speak, is that we react before we speak. And that’s where most miscommunication happens. We also make up stories.

Ben Amos (05:19.31)

all the time. And what’s important to know is what you think isn’t always true. And when I started the training company on the Sunshine Coast, I thought everyone would want customer service because that’s the number one most important thing for your business to grow with is to have happy customers. But it was interesting when we started it, everyone was wanting leadership and management. So that’s really where my journey began with the communication side of it for leadership.

Interesting you say that in communication, people tend to react before they speak. So what problem can that cause in business, you know, when people are not consciously, you know, deciding on what they’re going to say if they’re just reacting and then speaking? Is that kind of where that problem lies? Yes. And people, they’ll have a thought in their head, someone will say, is everything okay? And they’ll go, yeah, it’s fine. But that person walks away confused because they saw,

something else in that person. And so for instance, say, you just completed a spreadsheet for me, you brought it in, and then I’ve looked at it, I’ve put my hand to my eye and gone, oh, that’s okay. Thank you. And you walked away, you’d be thinking, what’s wrong? What’s wrong with her? You know, I did everything she asked. Whereas because we react before we speak, if I put my hand to my face and then said, oh, I’m so sorry, I left out a column.

Would you mind putting it in or Hey, look, I can just do that. You’d walk away feeling quite good. Yeah. Because I explained what that reaction was that I just did, but most of the time we do not. Because it’s subconscious, I imagine. Right. Because we, the action that we take, we’re often not even aware that we took an action. No, no. And we could be talking next minute. I could think, Oh geez, is that, did I leave the iron on? And something will come across my face. That’ll be a little bit different in my body language. And then next minute that person will be making up a story.

about me, oh, she’s not interested in what I’m saying, she’s not listening, la la la. But instead of asking, is everything okay? We just continue on with the story that we’ve just made up. Yeah. And you know, it’s so much more than the words you say. And in fact, I think the actions that we, we take like our body language is giving much more context or subtext to the words that we’re saying. Right. And, you know, how, how important is that?

Ben Amos (07:42.958)

That’s that context. Like is, I guess where I’m going with this is, is there like a percentage? Do you think that there’s like 80 % of the meaning comes from the body language or, you know, what’s, how do you, how do you approach that? Well, once again, you know, we react before we speak. So what’s important to understand is people remember the way you make them feel. And so what they’re telling us is 93 % of our conversation will be in the way that we made you feel to what you remember.

So that’s our body language and our tonality. 7 % of the words is what people will remember. But the 93 % is how we made them feel. And that’s more powerful. Yeah, that’s so cool. So what are the, like, let’s just go down this body language path, because I think it’s fascinating to me. In business, what are the biggest mistakes that people do with their body language, probably unconsciously?

Do you have kind of the main things that people are not thinking about that they should be? I think it’s really important to stay open. I’m always telling everyone, don’t touch your face. So in conversations, you know, when you’re with your team, with your customers, don’t touch your face. Now, I loved when COVID came along and all the leaders of the world were telling you not to touch your face, right? To stay COVID safe. But once we start to touch our face, you know, I might touch my eyes or cover my eyes. Next minute, you might think,

What doesn’t she want to see? And the interesting thing is when we touch our nose, we also cover our mouth. If I rubbed my neck now, you might think I’ve got a pain in my neck. You know, have you ever asked someone a question? They rubbed their neck and they go, oh, I think it’s this. And you’re like, I don’t really want you to think. I want you to know. It would be better off saying, that’s a great question. Let me look into it for you instead of rubbing your neck and making up a story for that person. So.

I think a big thing is never assume anything. Always find out for your customer, for your team member, because that’s where we get into a lot of trouble and with our body language. You see, I see people do videos all the time for their business and they go, you’re going to love this product. And they touch their nose. And the minute you start to touch and rub your nose, when you were saying the words is you can see that they’re a little uncomfortable right now with what they’re saying. I’m going, I don’t know.

Ben Amos (10:09.294)

You’re really as comfortable with that product. So I get my customers to deliver their pictures. We video their body language. And if they’re doing anything at different stages, I say, why, why did you do that on this word? Oh, well, I’m not quite sure about something great. Well, let’s get really sure before we’re telling people about it. And it’s not like just fake it till you make it, but find out what’s going on and absolutely make that product the best that you can. Yeah. Is that.

always a reason why people are taking a certain action or can it be equally as impactful if they like maybe have actually got an itchy nose for example, you touch your nose. But I guess what we don’t realise is that communicates to someone something different than just you’ve got an itchy nose, right? Is that, am I thinking about that the right way? Body language is very subjective. It’s usually never just the one thing.

So for instance, if we’re in this room and we both had our arms crossed, it mightn’t be that we’re angry at each other. It could be that we’re cold. So you need to have a look at what the context is. But the interesting thing is when people are speaking and they’re the ones saying the word, their body language is very powerful then because they react before they speak. Yeah. Do you think for people in business, whether they’re in a sales role or a customer facing role or a leadership role,

Do you think that this is something that they should do some sort of formal training to improve on? Or do you think it’s just something that if you’re conscious of it, you can get better? If you’re conscious of it, you can get better. I do believe though, you should also delve into it. You know, education is one of the most important things that we can do. And if we think that we know everything, you know, I loved Wayne Bennett when he said, you might as well die.

Right? So I’m continually always studying, always researching and always working with people to get the best out of it, to share the best materials. So when we’re talking about body language as well, you have a book called The Million Dollar Handshake. So, you know, and that handshake is such a synonymous idea with business, right? The idea of shaking hands to do a deal or shaking hands to greet someone. And, you know, that’s a very business related thing, right?

Ben Amos (12:29.07)

So how important is a handshake? Well, in a handshake, you learn so much about the other person. Like I just recently met someone overseas running a massive company. He came in for the handshake. He came in sideways. He pumped a few times and he stepped back. And, you know, within a few small tweaks, we were able to make him look so much more confident and to stand his ground in that handshake as well.

So for me, it’s about creating win -wins, not win -losses. You know, some people have to be really firm every time, not understanding who that person is that they’re shaking the hand with. And some people are really soft all the time because they don’t want to hurt the other person. But what if you match them? What if you created more win -wins for your business? And, you know, I just love the handshake. Once again, it’s the start of that first connection, those first seven seconds. Gosh, Cathy, you’re me think.

when you walked in here to the studio today and I shook your hand, I should have thought a bit more about what I was doing. How was my handshake? Ben, are we live? No, it’s great. And it just shows who you are, of course. You know, you’re bright, you’re bubbly and you’re passionate about what you do. And we can do a couple of other things with your handshake. We might need to read the book. So,

Handshake’s one thing, body language is one thing. But when we think, when we do think about the words that we’re using to communicate in business, where do most people find that they’re miscommunicating with the words that they use? Yeah. The quality of your words determines the quality of your life. So just think about that for a moment. What are the words that you were saying? Oh, geez, I’m stupid when I do that. Or this person’s that like, what are the words that you’re saying? And what happens is.

We react before we speak, but we’ve already thought something, haven’t we? And that’s why we’ve reacted. And I love Eckhart Tolle. You know, he allows the words to come in, you know, if they’re not nice, they’re not kind, it’s not helpful, it’s not going to make a difference. Then maybe we can just allow those words to go back out and what, what could we replace them with? So for human beings that love everything really fast and we hate any friction, we need to take a little bit more time with these thoughts that are coming in because these.

Ben Amos (14:49.238)

Thoughts are the thoughts that are, and these words are controlling our life and they come out through our body language. They come out in the words we say, we write, we text, we speak. And I imagine it’s just as much the words we say to ourselves as the words that we say to others as well, right? Based on that? Absolutely. So when those words come into your head, you don’t need to speak them.

You can just have a moment to analyse them. Is, you know, should this just go? Is this true? Because our system has been set up to protect ourselves. So we’re never wrong. It must be the other person. But what we think isn’t always right. Yeah, absolutely. So when we think about the value of the words that we say and the actions that we take in business and communicating things, you know,

What can be the downside of miscommunication in business from your experience? I mean, obviously just not being understood is a surface level downside, but there’s more to it than that, right? Yeah. The downside is you see doors closing. You see staff put off. You see someone’s life and passion disappear. And it’s not always a fast descent. It can be a slow one as well. And another business sets up.

close to them that’s doing what they do. And then the next minute they’re worried they’re going to lose their business and they’re all these thoughts and words are coming out. And this is where we start to miscommunicate to ourselves and to our clients. We do need to think about, we need to be more conscious where the conscious leader came through about what we’re about to say. And do you see, you know, I know just off camera here, we’ve got some of your, your books, the million dollar handshake, which are translated into Chinese.

I think you said Vietnamese, uh, multiple other languages, right? But as you’ve been kind of speaking around the world around communication, what are some of the differences you see culturally in the way that we should be, you know, approaching the handshake or communicating in that way? Yeah. So in the conscious connection framework that we developed in 2017, it works with body language mindset and behaviours. So behaviours to me are so important. It wants to, once you start to understand your own domino effect,

Ben Amos (17:10.062)

but the raw behaviour styles of people are the same worldwide. So when you understand this, you can really start to connect and communicate with anyone anywhere. So for instance, say you’re a little bit more quieter and reserved and someone’s a bit faster and they breathe a bit quicker and they might seem more demanding. It’s not about you. This is their behaviour style. And so once you can start to understand that you’re not under attack, these are just the different styles and that you can meet them.

and still create win -wins even if you’re different, like are people different or difficult? A lot of people say to me, no, they’re difficult. No, they’re just different. So when you talk about behaviours there in the conscious connection framework, are you talking about the behaviours that people exhibit when they’re in meetings or in communication? So…

the outward behaviours, is that what you’re referring to? Yeah, like even in the handshake straight away, I will know who I’m working with. But one of the most important things is I don’t look at, you know, all the personalities and everything else. I just want to know how you’re going to react under pressure. When everything’s going well, everyone’s great, right? But what happens when it’s not? And this is our domino effect. This is our domino effect. And this is where…

we need to be more conscious of these reactions that we have. So can you explain that domino effect idea? So what, what do you mean by that in this context? Okay. So if we were to hack our, hack our behaviour and understand that, say for instance, for me, if I get, um, under pressure, then I probably have too many balls in the air. I’m not completing things. I’m starting a lot of things. Um, and so.

I’ll be breathing a bit quicker and it might feel that I’m a bit overwhelmed for instance. For somebody else, when they get under pressure, they might get angry, they get frustrated, they get angry at someone else’s faults. And so their domino effect from that is going to be the people that are working with them may not enjoy working with them. Once they get under pressure, if they don’t understand what’s causing their anger, you know, I generally in our emotional intelligence workshops, I’ll ask people,

Ben Amos (19:30.19)

What are three emotions that you feel every day at work? And it’s really interesting. Can I just ask you for a moment? What are three emotions that you might feel every day? I think sometimes it would be, I mean, it probably changes, right? But I would say common emotions that I’d feel would be sometimes excitement, sometimes frustration, sometimes

Probably confusion, is that an emotion? I’m confused. Okay, we’re all confused. But yeah, I would say, you know, that’s a first come to mind. What a perfect example, because I was just going to say, frustration will either be the first word or the second. So some people like to put it second and put something nice around it on each side, you know, happiness, frustration, excitement, you know, and, or it comes out first, frustration.

And frustration means that there’s a problem, right? So we either need to solve that problem that causes the frustration or we have to learn how to work with it to take away that frustration because that frustration will come out in you. It will come out to your staff. It will come out to your customers. It will come out when you come home, even.

So it’s really important that we do look at that when you are feeling frustrated to write down, okay, so why am I frustrated? What can I do about it? How can I control these emotions at this time? I think anyone in non -work relationships, particularly in parenting, I’m thinking about parenting, is that this is so true. And I think where it tend to be, most people tend to be a bit more measured in the workforce or in the workplace, usually. But we tend to drop that when we’re at home.

I find so particularly as parents, if, if we’re frustrated, the domino effect that that can lead to with like parenting or if we’re overwhelmed or we’re tired or, um, you know, all of those kinds of emotions, I think we really get, at least personally, I really get that, um, domino effect when it comes to how that impacts on, you know, parenting and home life and all that sort of stuff as well. Equally true in the works in the workspace. Yeah. Really interesting. So, um,

Ben Amos (21:50.35)

If we’re aware of that and we’re conscious of, you know, those feelings and the potential domino effect that that can have on others around us, what are some practical ways that we can, when we’re in business, do better in that space? You mentioned like writing things down. Yeah. Look, reflection to me is the most important tool that any business owner, any leader,

can have and even at home, you know, with our kids reflecting at the end of the day, what went well, what didn’t. Sometimes we don’t even take the time to have a proper conversation with the kids when they’re trying to speak to us. I don’t know if you’ve ever had any, they’d fall around, mum, mum, mum. Oh yes, yes, what is it? And so being present, you know, as a leader, I think one of the most important things is to be really present. You’ve got to take away all those other thoughts at that time and be…

present where you are with the people. And I believe when you look after your present, you were looking after three generation time anyway. So we don’t have to keep creating for the future. We do need to look after what we’re doing right now. There’s a lot of talk around mindfulness these days. That’s kind of what you’re referring to, right? Is the idea of just being, taking that time to be mindful. And obviously the words we’ve just said are now in the past.

So being present in that moment, we know in a click of a finger, it will now be the past, which we will then reflect on. And the more that you start to reflect on things, the quicker you can do it, the quicker you can do it in a conversation, the quicker you can understand, whoops, I better explain what I meant just then because you’ll see a different look. You can get into an argument with someone just because you’ve said, oh, what a shame. We’ve got to go through another one of these processes at the airport. And they might say, oh, yes, but.

we did that last time you go, well, that wasn’t what I was talking about. I was talking about this time and then next minute there’s a whole conversation going pear shaped. We just need to stop things and bring them back and go, oh, I’m so sorry. This is what I meant. And so if we can start to reflect quicker, we can actually stop things before they get more pear shaped. And especially with our partners, you know, we react before we speak. So.

Ben Amos (24:07.758)

You know, husbands and wives can fight for up to two days because of the raise of an eyebrow at the wrong time in a conversation, right? And that happens in the workplace as well. How much does pride get in the way of that self -reflection or particularly taking action on correcting that, what you’ve reflected on? Because I, my feeling is that many people, particularly when you’re not as self -aware as you maybe could be is,

Even if you realise you said something wrong or you miscommunicated or that person didn’t quite understand what you meant, sometimes we feel too proud to correct it. Wow. So pride goeth before a fall, doesn’t it? So if you want to fall, you know, keep that ego, keep the ego up. And I’m glad that you’ve mentioned that because it is one of the practices in the contest leader to get rid of that, the ego around things.

You know, ego is a thing. Most of the time anger will be related to ego. Your ego, your pride is feeling hurt right now. But if you can take that out of it and just focus on what’s actually happening, then you can resolve it quite quickly. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I’m just thinking in my own experience, both from the receiving end and from the giving end, giving is probably not the right word, but often a lot of arguments or miscommunication or fights.

in a personal relationship come from ego, come from like not letting go or not taking the time to reflect and to think. And I think when we bring that into a business context, you can start to see that people are self -sabotaging themselves sometimes, right? Absolutely. So what would you say is kind of the key trait that a conscious leader needs to develop to be a better leader in business?

Are there some key traits like is empathy or self -awareness one of those like we just talked about? Think of the, think of, think of a phone and think of the wifi. You know, when you have one bar working, you know, you can get out sometimes, but it mightn’t be so great. And if you have two bars working on the phone, once again, it gets a little bit better, but having those three bars is, is that really strong wavelength. And so we practise.

Ben Amos (26:33.966)

as conscious leaders, being conscious of self, conscious of others and conscious of the context that we’re in. So, so we have the three bars working. So if I could say one thing to anyone today, apart from the reflecting, you know, start to practise that at nighttime and, and always when you reflect what worked well, what didn’t and what could I change? The reason we want to say what worked well is so that we keep doing it. We’ve got to let ourselves know the good things too, right? Yeah.

But as I mentioned before, be present, be present for your teams, present for your customers, present for your family, present for yourself. And it sounds like a lot of work, but human beings were really on this planet to serve, not just ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. So you’ve written two books here, The Conscious Leader and The Million Dollar Handshake. I’ll hold them up here. There we go. For those watching on YouTube.

We have the books here and Cath’s also got some, she’s got some books that are translated into like different languages. How many languages have been translated into now Cath? Three plus English. That’s very cool. So quickly just tell us about your books. Like who should pick up a copy of your book and what are they going to get from reading these books? Well, the first one, the Million Dollar Handshake, it’s all about the way we connect and communicate in business and life.

And so it takes you through your body language, your mindset and your behaviours to create that domino effect, to be able to connect and communicate. And then the conscious leader actually takes you on a leadership journey because there’s so much said about leadership and leadership style. So the first chapter has every leadership style you can imagine with all the strengths and weaknesses and allows you to discover yours. And also if there are some traits you might want to take out and perhaps some you might want to put in.

It then goes into conscious, emotionally intelligent leaders. So we’re making the new seals for this new decade. We go into purposeful leadership. And it’s one of the big things that I’m working with boys around the world right now is looking at purpose. Unfortunately, you know, the gaming that’s happening isn’t healthy. It’s not creating those great mindsets. They used to be observers. When I was in Scotland recently and saw the buildings that the

Ben Amos (28:58.254)

people built and the castles and the steps, I think, how do they do it? People are no more intelligent today as they were then. We have different resources, but they actually worked together on projects more. And I think that is what’s missing. I’d love to see our young boys on more projects and doing things together outside of the home, getting the dads and boys doing things. I think that would be amazing.

Anyway, so purposeful leadership and then it moves into language for leadership, my favourite chapter, because it’s all that language that goes in and comes out. We work into managing others. And the last chapter is conscious currency. What are you transferring? What are your micro and macro legacies that you want to leave behind? I love it. Cath, I encourage people to go and pick up the books. So what Amazon?

Yes. Every bookshop. Like where do we find these? If you do go to bookshops, they can order them for you. They were out for years, but now they can order them, but you can get them on Amazon, Kindle, all that wonderful stuff. Fantastic. Cool. So Cathy, you speak around the world on this stuff. You’ve shared a very brief amount of insight here on today’s episode. So I do encourage people if they’ve learnt something from today or been inspired to improve their leadership, their communication.

improve their handshake, then go and follow some of what Cath has to go. Where do you publish stuff? So you’ve got your website, Cathrannmolloy .com .au. Is there other places where people can go follow what you do? We’ve also got Auspac BA, Auspac Business Advantage. It’s actually 10 years old this year, our social training company, and it’s got work happening in China and India as we speak. So it’s kind of exciting. Yeah. So Instagram, Facebook.

LinkedIn, websites, all those wonderful places. So through your training company, people can hire you to train their teams on this sort of stuff as well. Absolutely. Excellent. Cool. Well, we’ll have all the links to that guys on the page where we publish this episode. So you can go there. Cath, thanks for joining me. This has been super fun. And it’s made me think about being a bit more conscious about my leadership and my communication and absolutely my handshake.

Ben Amos (31:08.974)

Wonderful. Yay. Thanks for having me, Ben. All right. Thanks guys. And don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube and follow this podcast on your favourite podcast player. We are coming back for season two of the Coast and Commerce podcast very soon with a whole bunch more leaders from the Sunshine Coast and beyond. So see you next time.