How To Improve Your Self-Talk #546

Ever struggled with the little voice in your head that's all too quick to criticize? Join me, Lachlan Stuart, as I guide you through transforming that critical inner dialogue into a powerful ally. We'll venture into the realm of intrapersonal communication, shedding light on the profound impact our self-talk has on every facet of our lives. 

Learn how to turn disempowering thoughts into empowering affirmations through a practical exercise, and be inspired by personal anecdotes and updates from my travels with Amy, that showcase the life-altering effects of the stories we tell ourselves.

• The Three Stages of Communication
• The Power of Effective Communication
• Improving Self-Presentation and Influence
• Improving Active Listening and Influencing Others

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:55

The man Let Cam Project podcast, a podcast empowering rear-driven men to live more fulfilling lives. We are here to challenge your beliefs, redefine success and talk about the important stuff in a relatable way. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. My name's Lockestewit, let's get into it.

Speaker 2: 1:17

Good communication is the bridge between confusion and clarity. This week we're going to be talking about three stages of communication. I'm not talking about nonverbal, verbal and how you hold yourself, but more so the stages around intra-the conversations that you have with yourself, the relationship and communication there, the communication that you have with other people, but then also the communication that you have with the world around you. If you stay until the end, I'm going to give you frameworks for each of them so that you can improve them stage by stage. The most important one is definitely going to be the communication with yourself, and also the last one, which is the communication with the world. You'll understand why this week, amy and I are on the road. It's going to be a fun week where we're actually starting in St Louis, then we're heading all around the place up to Minneapolis where they have that cool sauna plunge place in the ice. It's actually a place at Fingers Cross. We have time to check out. If you're following me on socials, fingers Cross will have that. What it essentially is. It's a big lake there in Minneapolis which is frozen over and they have dragged some barrel saunas down to it, which looks pretty cool. Then they've just chainsawed holes in the ice. You can do contrast therapy, hot saunas, getting hot and then jumping in the cold plunge there as well. It looks pretty fun, looks pretty interesting. I think we will hopefully do it, because otherwise it's just going to be a long, long week on the road. Amy's got radio tours, I'm the driver, but I'll also be listening to a hip-hop podcast and thinking about upcoming episodes. If you're here for the first time, remember to hit that follow button so you don't miss any of the upcoming episodes. I trust that you really enjoyed the episode we did with Bradley Farquhar on Monday. We've got Forest Black coming up this coming Monday and there's plenty to learn from those.

Speaker 2: 3:09

Gentlemen, let's start with the voice inside your head Communication with self, intrapersonal communication, if you want to get technical with it. Many of us have that voice inside of our head. Some of us focus on it more than others and if you're like me, you probably spend a lot of time listening to that voice, which means if it's not communicating to you in a positive way, it can be quite a tough slog getting to where you want to get to. Every day it can feel like a bit of a grind. Now, not everyone is going to have that optimistic, positive voice on all the time. For me personally, I feel like it's more I wouldn't say pessimistic, but definitely more on the lookout for dangers and the ways to be screwed over, et cetera, which can be good to a degree, but I think it holds me back in a number of ways which you're about to find out.

Speaker 2: 3:58

Quite often for us, it can feel like we can't control that voice, that first thought that pops into our head. I definitely agree, we can't control. It comes from our attitudes, our beliefs and conditioning. However, we can control the second thought Now. The second thought is probably one that we want to fit think that is going to benefit our life and improve our communication with self. Because, if you think about this, there's a little exercise that you can do.

Speaker 2: 4:24

If you were to think of a time where you felt or when you were beating yourself up, you felt like a loser, you didn't feel like you had much to offer the world or people around you, I want you to notice the things that you were saying to yourself. Then I want to notice how saying those things to you, maybe right now, make you feel it doesn't feel very good when you're not feeling very good. How you show up in the world, how you communicate to other people, may not be the right level of energy that you would want to show up with or maybe need to show up within your career. I want you to flip that now and think about a time where you felt extremely confident, when you were winning and life just felt amazing. You might have won the lotto. You may have just received a text message with some great news, received a job promotion. The thoughts and the emotions that go with that are completely different, but I want you to notice how you feel then, even some of the things that you were saying to yourself.

Speaker 2: 5:27

I know for myself a real life example at the start of the year, financially, I was struggling and my mood was really impacted like that. The way that I was talking to myself was really impacted. Thank you all, genuinely thank you, thank you, thank you. Flip the script on its head. I started talking to myself differently and I started feeling different, when the reality is nothing had really changed. I know you can say the bank account changed in momentum. Of course. However, who I was hadn't necessarily changed.

Speaker 2: 5:56

So when you can become aware of that, you then go okay, well, if I can't control the first thought, I really want to start developing the skill of that second thought. And what would that look like? So, when you can start thinking about what some Constance are meaning constant thoughts that you have are, and if they're not empowering you, if they're not positive, if they're Damaging your self-esteem or the image that you have of yourself, write them down. Okay, get a piece of pen and paper out now and just start writing them down. It could be I'm a loser, I'm not good enough, I'm always struggling with money, whatever it may be. Write them down and then, in a column next to it, I want you to challenge that. Okay, if that's your first thought, what should the second or what do you need the second thought To be in order to overcome that? So, first thought I'm a loser. Second thought I'm in complete control and I'm winning.

Speaker 2: 6:47

Okay, it may feel hard to tell yourself that, but like developing anything, growing anything, it takes time and it takes repetition. So in the beginning, if you're getting in the gym, you may not feel comfortable in there, you may not have community in there, but if you continue to show up, eventually you're gonna meet people. Eventually you're gonna start seeing progress while lifting the weight. So it's the same process. You just need the consistency and you also need the frequency. But obviously, when we're looking at something like the conversations you're having with yourself, you need to schedule time to do that, and so, while a lot of the conversations are happening happening internally, people may be no, don't notice.

Speaker 2: 7:27

Some ways that I found that have been Extremely beneficial to improve those things is, firstly, is voicing it out loud. It's the reason why I love doing video. It's the reason why I Do the or started the podcast. Ultimately, because as you verbalize things, you may go that actually sounds quite ridiculous. Or maybe I just want to learn how to reword that. Okay, the great white thing with podcast or with Video, or even doing it in the mirror, I guess, is you can then get real life feedback and start changing and improving the things that you Want to change.

Speaker 2: 7:57

The second thing is writing it out. It's why I write every morning. It's One of the best things to really help you understand your own thoughts but really structure sentences better so that you can Say how you feel. A lot of men don't like going into confrontation. They struggle in their relationships because they can't say how they feel. So you can be on one side. We just allow that to be the reason why your relationships continue to break down. You don't get to experience all the benefits and and growth in life. Or you can jump on the other side. Where you actively start doing something about it, you go yep. At the moment, I cannot Do that. That's not a skill I have developed. However, I'm going to take time to develop that. So two things there voice it out loud. Secondly, write it out. Or thirdly, content. So some things that I've done.

Speaker 2: 8:48

Obviously, as I mentioned, it's like start thinking about whether you're more Positive with yourself talk or you're sitting in the negative side, and it doesn't matter where you are. Obviously, if you're in the positive side, awesome, but both have pros and cons. Okay, if you're constantly optimistic and positive, you may forget to check for things going on. You may miss out on opportunities to learn things, because I'm always seeing the good. I think there's a Nice balance and I think, through reflection, you can look at both, but start working out what that out, so what that looks like for you. And if you struggle with that, I've got a course coming out within the next ten days of this podcast that you'll be able to get access to. It's going to cost you 17 bucks, a little bit of investment, but it will start helping you develop these skills and it will give you worksheets and a workbook to sit down and just do the thing. You can listen to all of these Podcasts and go to events, but if you're not doing the thing and especially with self-awareness and emotions and communication that just comes with you you have to write, you have to speak in order to learn to develop those skills.

Speaker 2: 9:54

But some things I would look at. Number one start identifying the thoughts, whether they're positive or negative, as I've Mentioned, and your self image. So your self image is how you describe yourself, so you can think about features, hair color, eye color. But also, how do you talk about your body? Is it fat, is it muscly, is it Whatever? Because you're painting an image and generally we have ideas around specific images, right? People Stereotype obese people. People stereotype skinny people. People Stereotype those don't look after their physical appearance and those who do. Okay, but for the individual, you need to work out how you want your self image to be, because then you can start developing habits and skill sets to support that image Very important thing there. Number two create those replacement thoughts and build things, those skills and routines to develop your self image.

Speaker 2: 10:48

They would be two things that I would focus on for intrapersonal communication or communication with self. I do believe it's the most important place to start, because when you are building on that, you can then also. It then makes it easier for how you're going to show up with other people. Meaning and let's just go straight into number two. But intrapersonal communication or communication with others. You know, things like body posture, word choice, the way that you use your voice, setting boundaries, setting expectations, deciding who you want to surround yourself with are all things that are made so much easier when your communication with self and your understanding of self is dialed in.

Speaker 2: 11:28

So you'll notice and I want you to think, you know, whenever you walk into a room, do you walk in with your eyes on the ground, your shoulders rolled forward, almost portraying a sense of low self-esteem, like you don't deserve to be there, and you may think that it's not a big deal, but it is because when we start going into phase number three, with the world around us and how we're communicating and you want leadership, you want influence this is where it becomes powerful. So don't disregard this. I think it's very important and definitely very underutilized, but when we're thinking about how we want to communicate with others, there are so many skills that we can learn. Obviously, you know, the world would work really easy if we weren't dealing with people who had different values, attitudes and beliefs, et cetera, and ways of communication. But because it is, the more you can develop how you communicate with other people, the better you'll be able to navigate and empower other people and improve your own life. So, when I go back to that self image, which really helps with how you're showing up with other people, how do you want other people to perceive you?

Speaker 2: 12:33

For me, it's you want to come across confidently. I want to be able to help people navigate to where they want to get to, which means I need to learn active listening. I need to learn how to problem solve. I need to learn how to make people feel valued and heard and, once again, much like the other things that we've spoken about earlier, they're all skill sets. There's so many books out there that you can start reading or podcasts, or even jump into the academy where we talk about this stuff a lot, and you're just going to constantly be fine.

Speaker 2: 13:03

Tuning that. Firstly, when you become aware, hey, I can actually improve how I show up in a social setting, I can exemplify more confidence, which maybe makes you more influential or more attractive to certain people. That's a skill that you can develop right, changing that self image. So some things that are important to think about when you're with other people. How do you actually want to communicate?

Speaker 2: 13:27

Some people in today's society it's like they sit behind a keyboard, like these keyboard warriors that if they were standing face to face with you they wouldn't say half the shit that they do. So for me it's like, when there's important conversations that need to be had, they have to happen face to face because you get all the sensors, you get the body language, the, I guess, the energy of the actual moment. You get to sit there through the awkward conversation or awkward pauses, et cetera, to really know what's going on, as opposed to sending you know if anyone's ever had a breakup via text message. You're like fucking hell, hell, what's happened here? And it's really hard to respond.

Speaker 2: 14:06

Or you may interpret a certain text message in a way, because you aren't hearing the tone of voice, you aren't able to necessarily ask questions straight back, you aren't able to read body language, and these are all things that once again influence conversation, influence communication with other people. So think about body posture, think about your word choice, think about the way that you use your voice, think about the boundaries and expectations that I've mentioned, because, once again, when you're communicating honestly with yourself, the relationships that you keep, they have to have boundaries, they have to have expectations, because otherwise you'll end up in a relationship or in a social environment where maybe you don't feel valued, you don't feel heard, and most people want connection, they want to feel valued, they want to feel heard. So when you can start thinking about that, it makes it so much easier with how you're going to communicate with people moving forward, and if I've forgotten anything, obviously we'll brush over that. But once again, if you listen to these episodes, you're in the academy, you have a greater opportunity to ask questions, get involved in our weekly calls to learn about these things. So, thirdly, I want to talk about communication with the world around us. And why is that so important?

Speaker 2: 15:16

So there's a good study done years ago where there was a case study of students and they obviously going into a school and the principal has told the teachers hey, this person, this person, this person, this person they're showing exceptional talent. These guys could be the next Duxes or Deans, or whatever it is in each country, but they have exceptional talent. Little did the teachers know that these kids were just picked at random. It was a placebo, essentially, and what do you think happened? How do you think the teachers communicated with these students that they were told had exceptional ability? They communicated very differently and gave them extra attention because they wanted to lift them up, and it's interesting. This is why I think it's very fascinating with where you're positioned in the world.

Speaker 2: 16:07

Some of us have more opportunities to learn about money. Some of us have more opportunities to learn about relationships or health, and that can really shift how other people perceive us. I was very fortunate with really understanding health, because it was something that I was always around and encouraged to pursue, which then has changed how the rest of the world sees me in regards to people come to me asking for health advice, asking for training, advice, mindset, because of the advantages that I had in that situation. The reality is, though, anyone can be put in that situation at any point, and it's why environment is such a powerful thing If you position yourself and this is the difference between, I guess, where I am now and now that I'm starting to understand that you can choose to position yourself in a way and if you want to choose to position yourself with influence, however it may be, people are going to start to interpret that that way.

Speaker 2: 17:04

So the influence that I have decided to have in regards to how I want to live my life and how I want you guys to view me is that I don't want people messaging me to say, hey, locky, let's go partying, or Locky's the party guy. I want it to be from a health focus and from a life improvement focus. So what you would recognize that if I ever went off the rails, for example, and what I would consider that to be would be, if I ever went on a bender for ages and started acting weird with alcohol and all of that sort of stuff, most people would understand that that's probably not me, the way that I've shown up for the last 10 years plus, they would be able to tell that something's wrong, as opposed to someone who maybe is doing that every day. That's just the normal. So what you're choosing to do, how you're choosing to position yourself, and we can talk about positioning in a whole different podcast, but how you're choosing to position yourself will create or destroy opportunities that would come into your life, but also your reputation. They say it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and one poor experience to break it. So here are a few things that I'd consider you to think about. Is one, how others treat you or hold you accountable, and vice versa, if you were to go on a actually, I covered that story already.

Speaker 2: 18:20

So point one how do you present yourself currently? That was a long period of time and probably still in that. I'm only just learning a lot more about this now. But where my physical appearance? I was always just rocking up in joggers and sports gear and looking a bit scruffy, much like if you're watching on YouTube. Now I haven't had a haircut, but it's important to think about how you want to present yourself, based off the influence that you want to have and the positioning. If you look like someone who doesn't take care of themselves, then people notice that, okay, and if you, I sit in there thinking to self, well, they shouldn't judge me on how I look. The reality is that's just how the world works, so you can either fight against that or you can accept that and what try and work with it to get the outcomes that you want.

Speaker 2: 19:04

The second thing is like that positioning piece how do you want to be seen in the place that you're being? It's no difference. Okay, and here's a real life example that I've thought about. I do a lot of stuff online. Okay, speak to hundreds of people, have worked with close to a thousand men now and the difference between me being able to say that, having worked with people online, as opposed to me hosting a face to face event, having a thousand men there, the positioning would completely shift. Seeing me online with one to one people, etc. The group calls it's like yeah, that's cool, but if you saw me standing in a conference room with a thousand men around me, all of a sudden, my positioning would change. You guys would think I have a lot more influence and authority. However, it's the exact same impact that I'm currently having. So there's many ways that you can start thinking about how you want to position yourself in certain situations, and that's just a business front. But you can do this in your family life, in your with your health, etc. And it's something to consider as you start navigating your way to success.

Speaker 2: 20:07

The final point there is what is your influence? Okay, who do you? How do you influence yourself? And, by showing up consistently and frequently, what's the influence you're starting to have on the people around you? So, to recap and I managed to get that it done in time first one obviously, the voice inside your head. We all have and I believe it's the most important place to start as we start working on that. So the tips for improvement there number one is start identifying your thoughts and self image. Number two is create replacement thoughts and build on that self image. So consistently Working the reps on how you want to talk to yourself and how you want to, what image you want to build. The second one, with other people, is how you're presenting yourself right the body posture, the word choice, the way that we use our voice, the boundaries that you set, the expectations.

Speaker 2: 20:58

So think about things like how do I want to communicate, practice using your voice, practice talking, practice active listening. So think about once again you might do this in public or, if you're not quite comfortable doing that yet, use your phone and record yourself. Take note, grab a journal, start writing. That's going to help you. Practice using your voice. It's going to help you practice talking and then finally practice active listening. You can do that with friends and family.

Speaker 2: 21:26

Put on podcasts, and here's an exercise that I've done before, as I'll listen to a podcast and pretend they're talking to me so that I'll write questions back based on where the conversations going.

Speaker 2: 21:36

That helps you then improve your active listening and get better at questions, because the quality of your questions determines the quality of the conversation and, finally, the world around us, as with that example, how are people positioning you, how are you presenting yourself and what influence do you want to have? All things worth considering now. If you want help with these things, I would highly recommend once again applying to join the strongman of value Academy, because we're helping men live inspired lives by connecting, empowering and influence them, influencing them sorry to do so and our communities continuing to grow. All you need to do is head over to the man that cam project dot com, click on the strongman of value page and go through that application process. Then you will receive a phone call from myself. Also, if you gain value from this episode, share it, hit, follow on whichever platform and if you want to get involved in that conversation. Just drop some comments in the tab below. My name is Lachlan Stuart and, as always, do something today to be better for tomorrow.