If people don’t understand you, it’s not them. It’s you #655

If people don’t understand you, it’s not their fault. It’s yours. That sting of being ignored? It comes from unclear communication. In this episode, Lachlan Stuart shares the 3 practices that turned him from clunky to clear.

You’ll learn how to read to expand perspective, write to clarify thought, and record yourself to refine delivery. These aren’t theory. They’re lived habits that built The Man That Can Project and helped Lachie coach hundreds of men.

If you’ve ever walked away from a conversation frustrated that you didn’t say what you meant, this toolkit will change that.

Discover your blind spots across the 7 Domains of Life with the Man That Can Scorecard. 

Just 14 questions, instant results. I wish I had this earlier. 

It would’ve fast-tracked my success. 

Take the quiz now: TAKE QUIZ

Chapters

• 0:00 Communication as a Mirror
• 3:20 Read Other People's Thoughts
• 6:11 Write Your Own Thoughts
• 11:05 Record and Listen to Yourself
• 14:16 Bringing It All Together

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:30

Communication is the mirror of your mind. If the reflection looks unclear, it's not the mirror's fault. It's because the lens needs cleaning. And that's exactly what we're going to do today. Clean the lens. Because whether you're leading a team, you're raising kids, or you're trying to share your ideas online like I am, the way you communicate is the difference between understood and being ignored. And it's going to be interesting to see how many of you listen to this episode, or has this been something that's been ignored? We'll find out. This episode, we're going to share three practices that have sharpened my communication personally, and I know that they're going to sharpen yours too. They're simple, they're practical, and best of all, they're free. I was chatting with a client yesterday, we were talking about communication, and one of the things that he wanted to do was improve his communication, and I just went boom boom boom. And I was like, Jed, I think we just came up with a framework, like something that we can give to people. I'm going to credit you in the podcast when we do that. So that's exactly what we're doing. Because had Jed not asked that question and we just gone back and forth, this would not have come to be. So we're going to cover three steps. And if you're or if you have a pen in front of you and a pen and a paper, write these down. The first one, reading other people's thoughts, writing down your own thoughts and recording yourself so that you can hear exactly how you sound. If you've been following the podcast for long enough, you'll know that's exactly why I started this show in the first place back in 2017. I wanted to learn to communicate better. I knew that if I was talking to a camera, much like I am now, I would be able to watch it back and listen to it back and give myself feedback. Very uncomfortable in the beginning, but I learned to structure sentences better, learned to use my voice better, and so many other things that we'll dive into. But by the end of this, you will have the toolkit for clearer, more confident communication. So let's go to point one. And Jed, if you're listening, which I know you will be because you love the pod, thanks so much for giving me this. Because when I went down the rabbit hole last night on all of this and writing this out, I got so much clearer on it. So, first one, read other people's thoughts. Read, read, read. Not just skimming articles or scrolling social media, I'm talking like diving into autobiographies, journals, letters. Why? Because reading lets you step into another person's mind. You don't just learn what they did, you see how they thought, how they framed ideas, and how they explained themselves. Your journals, and this is exactly why, because of what I just mentioned, your photographs, and your book collection. I'm not going to dive into that quote anymore, but Jim Rohn, if you have not listened to him, highly, highly, highly recommend listening to him. But one of my favorite books and biographies was The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jacku. And if you haven't read that, go do yourself a favor and spend some time reading it. It is can't put into words how transformational that book was. But Eddie was a Holocaust survivor who lived through unthinkable horrors. But when he's what stood out to me was the way that he spoke about forgiveness, kindness, and perspective. His words weren't polished speeches, they were raw truths. And a rawness taught me more about authentic communication than any manual ever could. So, the happiest man on earth. Go give it a listen. There's a great quote as well by George R. R. Martin, and he once said, a reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. Now, every time you read, you gain another lens to see life through another perspective. And the more lenses that you have, the better you can connect with people, the better you understand their perspectives, and the more self-aware you become. Self-awareness is something that a lot of us are wanting to improve upon. How can I get better? How can I see my blind spots? Watching what other people went through, their thoughts, their ideas, their perspectives, their challenges is constantly putting sending little light bulbs off in your own life. And you can go, wow, I'm actually experiencing that. I didn't realize that or I didn't recognize that in the moment. So that can be a great thing to do there. So I would highly recommend reading. But a practical step, when you read, don't just absorb the information. Highlight the sentences, sorry, that land with you. Then ask yourself, how would I explain this in my own word? That's how you train the communication muscle. You have to start taking other people's ideas, other people's perspectives, other people's sentence structures, and start using it for yourself. That's how we learn. We do not need to, I guess, recreate the wheel. If it's already there, people are doing it well in a way that you connect with, you can learn from them. Now, step two, write your thoughts. So step one is absorbing and reading other people's thoughts. Step two is writing your own thoughts. Writing is thinking slowed down. I always walked away from writing, even when I was writing uh the script for this, or as I was writing down the ideas and looking for quotes and putting my own personal story into this, I was thinking a lot more. And initially, when I was talking to Jed about this, I was just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And it was obviously just coming fresh from my mind. As I took time to write things down, I started structuring it, and I go, okay, I could tweak that. Maybe I need a metaphor here to explain that a bit better because I don't have a personal story. And that allowed me to get more clear and concise. And that is one of the best things about writing. If you can't write something clearly, the chances are that you won't be able to say it clearly either. So think about that. If you can't, and I want you to actually write this one down. If you can't write something clearly, chances are you won't be able to say it clearly either. So for me, journaling has been game-changing. And I've actually just created Man That Can journals, which will be available on Amazon soon. I'm not making any profit out of them, I just want to get you guys books. I've ordered the first test copy just to make sure that I'm happy with it, but eventually you'll see that start coming out. But I think of writing like sharpening a knife. For anyone who's done it, you put it through the blade, uh the blade through the sharpener. The first draft is always dull and clunky, but with each part you shave away the excess until it becomes sharp enough to cut through the confusion. Be okay with sucking. Be okay with not being good at communication. I remember a story years ago, 2014, and I was at a pub, and I only actually took time to think about what was the event that was happening because I always told this story and I said, I can't really remember the question, I can't really remember the event. But I was at the pub Alfred and Constance here in Brisbane, 2014. Just started dating Amy, and they were talking about the death of Philip Hughes, who was an Australian cricketer who copped a ball and died, unfortunately, and it was a sad thing. And he asked what I thought about it. And my response was, that's effing effed. Thinking that that would that should tell him how I feel. And for some reason or another, this bloke just said, mate, stop swearing and tell me what you actually mean. In the moment, that pissed me off. Because someone had pulled me up on not being able to communicate my ideas properly. And I didn't, you know, continue that conversation with Old Bub because I was angry. But that has stuck with me ever since. And I start thinking, okay, well, if I use it's effing effed, what would I really mean? And at the time I didn't know. But if I were to have written down now to go, how could I expand on that sentence? How can I learn to communicate that and cut through the confusion? What would I have actually meant? And I probably would have said something like, Oh, that's horrific. It's such a you know a tragic loss that such an incredible sportsman had his life taken doing something that he loved. It makes me sad. That's probably what I wanted to say, looking back on hindsight. But for me, as I was saying, journaling has been game-changing. I've had moments where I thought I understood something, something, but when I tried to put it into words, I just couldn't. And that used to frustrate me, and maybe it may frustrate you as well. But I want you to challenge yourself to push through it, push through it, seek understanding, seek clarity, just write, review, revise, continue. You will gain clarity on it. I promise you. So I realized my thoughts were just scattered, and that's uncomfortable because it's also where the growth happens. It forces you to refine not just what you think but how you think. So a practical step for you guys: write one page about something that you believe in. Don't worry about sounding smart, just get it down. Then read it back and ask, would this make sense to someone else? This is a simple habit that's going to expose the blind spots and strengthen your clarity. Much like I started the podcast The Man That Can project, it actually used to be called Well Fit with Lockie Stewart because I spoke more on fitness and mindset. Over the years, it's grown and evolved as I've gone. I want to share more skills, insights, and interviews to help men who listen to this show become the best version of themselves. Now, finally, number three, what I am doing exactly right now, what you're listening to, and you can listen to yourself. Record yourself speaking. Think about athletes. They watch game tape to see if they see what they did right and where they need to improve. Singers record rehearsals so they can hear what the audience hears, and communicators should do the same. You should do the same. Game tape is where the feedback comes. It highlights the blind spots, it shows you, especially in video, you might just do audio on your phone and you don't need any special equipment. Anyone who has a phone now, uh a smartphone, I think they're called smartphones, you can use your camera or you can use voice notes if you don't feel comfortable just doing that yet. But listen to how you use your voice. It's so powerful. And you've got to ask yourself, how does the words that I how sorry, how are the words I'm using, how do they make me feel? Do they are they clear? Are they concise? Am I engaging? Am I speaking too fast? Am I speaking too slow? All questions that you can answer. But I still remember the first time that I listened back to one of my keynotes, and actually, I want to change the story here. I just thought of another one. When I was doing a sales course, probably around 2014, 2015, my coach at the time was making me record my cold calls. I was doing cold calls to get used to rejection, but also obviously to sell. He said, start recording yourself so you can see yourself. What's your tone of voice? How's your posture? What's your opening? Are you hooking them? All of these things. And honestly, I cringed watching it back. I noticed the filler words that I never realized that I used arm, but, uh, right, so. All of those words that I continue to use, and my tone didn't land where I thought it did. Right? We sound different to other people than we do to ourselves because our voice, right now, as I'm speaking, it's hitting all my bones and sounds a little bit different to me. Hopefully, to you guys, it sounds much better than it does how it sounds to me. But instead of beating myself up, I realized this was gold. These were the small tweaks between sounding average and sounding world class. And you can do this too. You can review all of these things to get your ideas across perfectly. So it's like lifting weights in front of a mirror. You catch the form errors you'd never see otherwise. Or if you have a coach, they also do that for you as well. A practical step record a two-minute voice note or video on your phone about your day. What did you do today? What was the highlight? What was the low light? What did you learn? Then play it back and look for three things. Firstly, was I clear? Secondly, how was my tone? Thirdly, did I use any filler words? So, filler words are essentially words that you're using that don't need to be there. So if you think about being clear and concise, do that. Repeat this once a week, or you if you want to fast track that, you might repeat this every day. And over time you'll hear yourself getting sharper, clearer, and more confident. So let's bring it all together. Firstly, read others' thoughts to expand your perspective. Secondly, write your own thoughts to clarify your perspective. Thirdly, record your voice to refine how you share your perspective. The better you can communicate with yourself, the better you'll communicate with others. And when you do, you don't just get heard, you get understood. So this week, pick one of these three habits and commit to it. Maybe it's starting a journal, maybe it's picking up a book, or maybe it's recording a quick voice note. If you stick with it, I promise your communication will improve and so will your confidence. And if you keep, yeah, so if you want to go deeper, take the free Man That Can scorecard at the ManThatCan Project.com. It'll show you exactly where you're thriving and where you're holding yourself back across the seven domains of life. Thanks for tuning in.