Communication

Clear communication is harder than it sounds. In this episode of Three Questions, I’m exploring why we slip into vagueness, rely on automatic phrases, and sometimes stop listening before the conversation even starts.

In the episode, you’ll hear why fear often hides behind unclear messaging, how using “default language” can block real connection, and why listening, truly listening, matters more than crafting the perfect comeback. 

I also share personal stories about learning to say what I mean (even when it’s uncomfortable) and how communication can either open doors or quietly close them.

Whether you’re a movement professional working with clients, navigating tough conversations in your business, or looking to improve everyday interactions, this episode will help you notice where your words and intentions might not be lining up and what you can do about it.

Resources mentioned:
My Website
Connect with me on Instagram
Connect with me on Threads

Chapters

• 0:00 Communication
• 0:54 Are You Even Listening?
• 6:44 Are You Being Vague?
• 12:11 Are You Using Heuristics Too Often?

Transcript

Meghann Koppele Duffy: Welcome to Three Questions where critical thinking is king, and my opinions and research are only here to support your learning and deeper understanding. Hey, I'm your host Meghann, and I am so honored you clicked on Three Questions today to talk about communication. Now, I am going to keep this episode short.

You wanna know why? Because a lot of times we make our point and we don't need to repeat ourselves. People got it the first time. A lesson I have to learn a lot is stop selling a sale, so I'm gonna get right into it. The three questions I want you to think about today are great English. Huh? Are you being vague or maybe are you trying to make everyone happy?

Question two, are you using heuristics too often? And don't worry, I'll explain what those are. And question three, are you even listening? And I'm gonna flip the script today, and I'm gonna start with question three because listening is often so hard, especially in this day and age when information comes at us so fast.

And in order to get clicks, sometimes we need to be provocative. I'll give you an example. My Pilates and weight training podcast, it was about Pilates and weight training. We named a Pilates versus weight training. Why? 'Cause that's more provocative. That gets more clicks. Do I like that? No. But do I need to play the game?

Yes. So were there some people who saw Pilates versus weight training and already got mad? They're mad already. They don't even know what I'm gonna say. Then they saw a little clip. A little clip of a 30 minute episode and decided what my position was. So were they really listening or were they listening for something they didn't like so they could pounce?

So are you even listening is such an important question. And let me break down question three into three B, c and d, e, f, all the, all the bits. Are you listening or are you waiting to pounce? And don't be mad at yourself and don't kid yourself. I do this shit too, right? We hear something and we we're already getting that stance like we're gonna pounce.

Oh no, she didn't just say that. Oh no, she didn't say Then in order to build strength, you need to do this. Whoa, guys. There's so much nuance in conversation. So if you are looking for something you don't like to give them an aha moment, what is that achieving? There's no communication. It just creates a breakdown in communication.

So I'm gonna challenge us all, myself included, to listen to the full thought, the full episode. I hate when people take sound bites of co comedians. Our specials 'cause a good comedian. They telling a story and they do callbacks. So in the middle of the joke, you might think it's going one direction. Love him or hate him.

Dave Chappelle is the master at this. You think he's going in one direction. He flips it makes you think. You don't have to agree with him, but he is using humor to shift your perspective on things. So rather than listening to parts of jokes, parts of punchlines, can we listen to the whole thing? Can we let people finish their thoughts without getting angry?

I know it is a hard ask, guys. It really is hard, especially when there's so much information being thrown at us. And one of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast, I really think critical thinking can save the movement industry. And I know this is corny as hell, but like the world. Everybody's a little right and everybody's a little wrong.

If we just took the time to listen to people and ask them a question, so I say this all the time, but please, if I say something that rubs you the wrong way, I want you to ask me a question rather than assuming my intentions, my purpose. You guys don't know a lot about me. I am a pretty private person.

That's me. If you have any questions, I'll be an open book, but I'm gonna give you an honest answer. Okay? So ask me a question. My intention is never to say my way or the highway. It's never my intention. Sometimes I'm passionate about things and I, I, I can understand where it feels that way, but I never want you to feel that you're alone in your listening or your communication.

One of my favorite standups, Bill Burr. He goes after white women hard. It's a lot on the nose. It's all his humor is a little bit true, not about every woman, but we all have a little bit of that woman in us. Okay? I have a rule. If you laugh at one joke in a standup comedian special, you cannot get mad at another.

We all don't have to agree. I like to think of intention and it matters, but something can hurt your feelings. That is valid. That is fair. So to quote Bill Burr, he said something, and I want you guys to think about this. It's going to take me back to question one. As soon as the words leave my mouth, I have zero control over them.

Everything I say, I'm putting intention on it. That's why I wanted to do video with my podcast. My good friend Shante, who was a driving force, do a podcast. Do a podcast. I said I make a lot of faces. I have mannerisms sometimes. What if my jokes don't translate because of sarcasm or this? I feel like if I have the video, people see my intention.

I only give feedback to my students face to face. I. The reason is emails can read harsh. I'm a very direct person. Directness can be read with a tone. I wanna be direct. I don't want to placate you and kiss your butt so I can insult you and not insult you. Give you a critique. Pardon me? And then, yeah, I know that's sandwich techniques works.

But let's get to the point. We learn more from our mistakes. How can we all improve? People are paying me to mentor them to be better. I will be your friend for free. Okay, so as soon as the words leave our mouths, we have zero control over them. So what I always say is, when you're trying to communicate, are you being vague?

If you are being vague, that opens up the door to a lot of interpretations Now. I know why I am vague sometimes. I don't know why you're vague sometimes, but maybe if I share why I have been vague in the past and how it bit me in the ass, it will help you adjust in business. I can think of two occasions where I was vague and I was vague out of fear.

I was fearful they were gonna say no. So I was vague. I was vague in my price structure and how things worked. I was vague because I felt like if I left the door open, I could say, oh, well I need to do it this way or that way. It was all out of fear. And what's so interesting is on both occasions it went my way, but because of the vagueness in the email or how we communicated, I got taken advantage of.

Whose fault is that? It's mine, not the person who took advantage of me. I let them, because I operated under fear. I didn't want them to say no. So I was vague for a reason. It bit me in the ass. The second and last time I've been vague in an email. It still bothers me to this day. It's not my proudest moment in business and I stand by my word.

It's very important to me. I backpedaled a bit on that. 'cause I was pissed. I felt like I was taken advantage of. I backpedaled, I felt I compromised. My integrity still bothers me to this day. Nobody died. Everything was fine, but I'm never gonna make that mistake again. If somebody says no, you ask somebody else.

Don't be vague out of fear. Say what you mean. Mean what you say. If they don't like it, ask somebody else. Or go to AI and say, Hey, can you keep this message clear without sounding like a bitch? I do that sometimes. Don't laugh. I mean laugh. 'cause it's funny. Also, I find people are vague because they're afraid to upset people.

You are not a chocolate chip cookie, nor am I. Not everybody's gonna like us. Not everybody's gonna agree with us, but that's what makes the world go round. If everybody agreed with you, you have a bigger problem. If you have only yes men around you, you have a problem. That's when you become a crazy person.

And we all know those people through history. Okay? It's scary. Don't be scared of being canceled. Say what you mean and mean what you say. There's an audience for everything. I do think you should be kind. But that's none of my business. What you do, I find everybody is so angry and yelling their messaging, nobody's gonna hear you.

If you are yelling at them or lecturing them or belittling them or telling them they're wrong. They are not going to listen. It's not a great communication tool. So if something makes you angry, here's my rule of thumb. If you see something on social media that makes you angry. Two things you can do.

Number one, go do something else. It has zero effect on your life 'cause think about it. If you did not see that post, you would've never had any idea. I hide posts all the time. I snooze people. I've actually snoozed a very good friend of mine. Why? Because some of the things she was posting were really aggravating me.

I hid my favorite uncle. Because some of the things he was posting was upsetting me and I love him, so I just blocked it. Because if I didn't know, if he didn't share that, I would never have known. It's not affect on my life. And if you're thinking, well, if that's how they truly feel, people are complex, I let it go.

That's how I choose to live. I'm not telling you to live that way. Your thoughts, so you are not gonna make everybody happy. Say what you mean and mean what you say. This is not how always how I live my life. I always think it's funny. I'm very close to my sister. I'm very lucky, very lucky. Like I legitimately not just love my sister, but like her, she always kind of was the tougher one when we were kids.

I was a bit of a people pleaser. As we've gotten older, I like to say we've rubbed off on each other. She's soft and is much more friendly, and I'm a bit tougher. I don't let people push me around. That's why I say to people, say it to my face. Say it with your chest. And if you wanna get into a debate, huh?

You better be ready for that smoke. Okay? I have let people underestimate me, me, my whole life. 'cause I lead with humor, not with intellect. And I've used it to my advantage. Keep underestimating me. He, he, he just wait. Okay? So use who you are, what you do, what you mean, and what you say to your advantage. But please think about trying to be vague, less, and not live in fear.

Okay? If you get canceled for some reason, it's an opportunity for you to reflect. Why did they cancel me? Why was that so jarring to people? Why my messaging clear? And that leads me to the next piece. Are you using heuristics too much now? When I first heard this word, I was like, I have never heard that word before.

What is it? They're literally, they help us with efficiency. It's patterns our brain knows. It helps reduce cognitive load. It's why when somebody dies, we say, I'm so sorry for your loss. Or when there is another school shooting, people say our thoughts and prayers. Okay. Heuristics are helpful because it decreased our cognitive load.

If you had to think and debate every conversation you had, that would be too much. So we use these heuristics or patterns or speech to kind of fill in the gaps. But I wanna challenge you and I wanna bring to your attention the book that brought this to my attention. Think fast, talk smarter. I believe that's the title.

I flip titles and sayings, um, by Matt Abrams or Abramson. Man, I'm really screwing this up today. Okay. But you'll find it. And I loved how he talked about it. I believe it was, I wrote this down, but I lost my piece of paper. I believe it was in chapter four, about beating, being just mediocre. And I loved that.

'Cause it's like everybody's always thinking about the most profound thing to say. I mean, don't just talk, say what you actually feel and mean for me with communication, there's not big thoughts. I think if you listen more, ask questions and stop being vague, you'll be a better communicator. So I wanted to ask you those questions.

So how can we use heuristics less? I'll give you an example of I what I do when it's important to me, when someone dies. I unfortunately lost my best friend when I was 27. I think that was the age when Jason passed away. It was also my cousin, he's like a brother to me, the shit people said was the worst, not because they're bad people, because they were using heuristics or they did not know what to say.

So when something bad happens to people, if they're really important to me. I don't say the normal stuff. I try to challenge my brain to think of something personal or to make them laugh if that's appropriate. If they know me well enough, I show up for them. I do something differently. Now, I would never have known to do that if it didn't happen to me.

Right. When somebody dies, people say weird shit and then they feel bad, and then you are trying to make them feel better. It's a weird dynamic, so don't feel bad. We've all said stupid shit about death. We all have, but that's okay, right? Maybe some other stuff like it's not bad to use heuristics, but when you're communicating, stop using the same old, same old.

Change it up, get people interested, ask them a question differently. Challenge them to think differently. Maybe you say to your students, I want everybody before we start today. You're the closest person to you. Something bad just happened to them. What do you say to them? Oh man. People have to think.

They've gotta think about, what should I say to make them feel better? Nothing you say is gonna make them feel better, but something you can say can make them feel worse. So what you can say is. This just happened with my dog. I didn't know. Everybody kept asking me how I was doing. I don't know. I lost a dog, which I got Charlie, right?

Charlie was kind of help me cope with Jason's death. So it was a big transition. Sorry, I'm getting a little choked up. So when people would ask me how I'm doing, not good bitch. Right, but it's also a dog. And I know people have had bigger loss than me, so I'm, now I'm comparing it. Do you know what I say? It took me a while to come up with this man.

The hurt is so big because the love was even bigger.

That's what I said. That's what I've been telling people. I want them to know that, yeah, I'm hurting, but I'm so appreciative of the love I had, what that dog gave to me. I am choking up during a damn podcast, and I'm don't mean to make a joke about it, but I like to make jokes when I'm uncomfortable. What I'm saying is taking the time to think up those words brought actual peace to other people, and multiple people have said to me, oh my God, that's such a good way to describe it.

So don't necessarily use that. You can feel free, it's yours, but take the time when you're communicating in important ways. To get out of that habit, those patterns challenge your cognitive load. And if you don't know what to say, guys, just say, I love you. I'm thinking about you, or,

I don't know. What do you wanna say when someone's hurting? Also, unfortunately, my dad has pretty bad cancer right now. So kind of first time I said that out loud because my dad will kill me 'cause he's very private, so don't tell anybody. But everybody keeps asking how he's doing and I'm like, dude's on like a cocktail and chemo.

It sucks, right? But what I say is he is doing the best that he can based off the situation. Right. So that's kind of a heuristic, but a little bit of a twist to it. I don't have the cognitive load to explain to you what my parents are going through. Also, it's my dad's story, not mine. So you don't always have to be profound with your conversation.

Right. So I promise I would keep this episode short. So let's do a quick review. Where did I lose you in the episode? Where did you stop listening? I'm sorry if I lost you. But I'm not. What were you doing? Were you walking? Were you driving? Did someone talk to you? What can you do better to listen when you have to?

I mean, the stakes aren't that high. You don't really have to listen to me. Okay? I'm gonna give you one more trick. When I'm listening to a podcast, when I'm studying, when I'm reading, when something really resonates with me, I turn whatever I'm listening to off. Why? Because I want my brain to simmer on that.

So maybe question one. You stopped listening after question one. 'cause question one was so big for you. Good. Focus on question one until you're ready to move on and come back to this episode. Work on being a better listener, being more present. Stop judging. Stop being so angry just because somebody disagrees with you.

They have a different life. They have different life experiences. Give them the grace to make a mistake. Ask them a question, have a conversation and find a common ground. Or fuck that guy, who cares? You don't have to agree with them. You think they're an idiot and you move on with your day, which I'm circling back.

I'm Dave Chappeling it. Remember I said there's two things you can do when you see something on social media you don't like. Number one is go do something else. And number two. Do a social media post explaining your point of view, but I'm gonna challenge you. Do not belittle the person you didn't like.

Don't even call them out. Do not step on somebody's back to lift you up. Be clear with your communication. Come up with your own words. Convey your message and help share some insights to help others, or maybe that person. Ask yourself if you're being too vague, and rather than stop being vague, identify why you are being vague.

I was vague outta fear. Fear. They would say no, not fear that people wouldn't like me. No offense, I do not care if you don't like me. But if you wanna know the truth, I would prefer that you do. It's okay to say that nobody wants to be disliked. I'd prefer if you like me, but it ain't gonna affect my day if you don't.

And number question two, but I'm doing it. Three, is use heuristics and patterns when you need to. When cognitive load's too big, they're, they're there for a reason, okay? We don't wanna analyze every decision and word that comes out of our mouth. That's not fun communication. But if we can think and put it in different words and think about what do you wanna convey?

Are you trying to convey love? Are you trying to convey humor and ask yourself, did my comment convey love, did my comment, put more stress? Ask yourself the question on what your comment is doing. And at the end of the day, remember, disagreements are a breakdown in communication when somebody doesn't understand, it's just a breakdown in communication, and we as humans can fill those gaps in communication.

Do me a favor, give everybody the benefit of the doubt. Not everybody deserves it, but I find leading that way leaves the door open for me to learn and hopefully one day become a better person. Thank you guys so much. I always appreciate you being here, so see you next time.