How Asking Questions Builds True Communication Confidence

Tim Newman [00:00:09]:
Most people think confidence means having the right answers. Today's guest is going to flip that and show you why the best communicators ask better questions instead. Welcome back to Speaking with Confidence, the podcast that helps you build the soft skills that lead to real results. Communication, storytelling, public speaking, and showing up with confidence in every conversation that counts. I'm Tim Newman, a recovering college professor turned communication coach, and I'm thrilled to guide you on a journey to becoming a powerful communicator. Today's guest is Michael Ashford. Michael is a speaking and leadership communication coach as well as a longtime marketing executive and a two time TEDx speaker. He cares deeply about teaching you to communicate in ways school never taught you so that you might be better able to inspire change, drive action, and overcome conflict.

Tim Newman [00:00:57]:
Michael, welcome to Speaking with Confidence.

Michael Ashford [00:01:00]:
Tim, it is wonderful to be here. I'm looking forward to our conversation. My man.

Tim Newman [00:01:04]:
This is going to be great. A two time TEDx speaker. I've had a lot of TEDx speakers on here. I've had a couple of people who are in charge of their local TEDx organization.

Michael Ashford [00:01:17]:
Yeah.

Tim Newman [00:01:18]:
How did you get your two TEDx talks?

Michael Ashford [00:01:22]:
Well, it was a little bit of dumb luck and thinking I had a really cool idea that I wanted to share and other people agreeing with it. So when I, when I launched my podcast that used to be called the follow up in 2020, I, I just set out on this exploration to figure out how we find common ground and how do we communicate across those differences and disagreements and divides. And as I got into it, I, I more and more realized there's something here. I've uncovered something. My journalist background was like, there's a story that other people need to hear now. And how the heck do I get that out besides my podcast? And I just said, I know, I'll try to do a TEDx talk. And lo and behold, there was a brand new event just down the road from me here in Colorado, TedX Manitou Springs, a tiny little community, mountain community right outside of Colorado Springs. They were getting ready to put on their first ever event.

Michael Ashford [00:02:20]:
And so I reached out to the organizer, Nikki Gates. I reached out to her on LinkedIn, I said, hey, I've got an idea that I would love to bring to your stage for your first event. If you're still accepting speakers, I'd love to throw my hat in the ring. And she got back to me and she said, hey, we haven't even asked for speakers yet, but send me your idea. And it just built from there where she, she took me in and said, yeah, this is, this is what we want. And I was actually the first speaker at the first ever event and now I'm the head speaker, coach and the curator of that event myself. So.

Tim Newman [00:02:56]:
Wow.

Michael Ashford [00:02:57]:
Funny how those things work out.

Tim Newman [00:02:59]:
Michael, that's, that's an amazing story. I mean, there's so many learning lessons right there. I mean, to. Even before we even get started. Right. You reached out, you didn't sit back and wait. You had an idea, you developed an idea. And you're talking about something that I think as a society we need to talk about more.

Tim Newman [00:03:18]:
You know, in terms of the whole idea of common ground and finding that common ground and working on that common ground as opposed to focusing on what we disagree on. That's. I think we could, we could end, probably end the podcast right now and, and teach people some lessons on that. But one of the things that I really like to do is talk about failure first, because I think if, if our listeners see that the people that are doing these things have failed, they can accept that failure and move into success so much quicker. That it's not just them, it's not just them that struggle. Everybody has these struggles.

Michael Ashford [00:03:58]:
Absolutely.

Tim Newman [00:03:59]:
And you started off your college career in engineering and almost failed out of college. Walk us through that journey, how you went from almost failing out to in engineering, to journalism, to being as successful as you are.

Michael Ashford [00:04:19]:
Oh, well, thank you for that. I gotta tell you, the day that I got that letter in the mail saying that I was on academic probation in one more semester of less than a 2.0 GPA, I was going to be out. Man, that's a come to Jesus moment. If you ever, if you ever had one. That's, that's a lot of soul searching that happens in that moment where you've got that proof in front of you that you are failing.

Tim Newman [00:04:46]:
Yeah.

Michael Ashford [00:04:47]:
And that's what it had come to for me. I had spent years thinking that, hey, I'm, I'm going to go to Kansas State University. They've got a great world renowned engineering program. I'm good at math and science. I'm my valedictorian of my senior class in high school. I got my scholarships and my schooling ready to go and paid for. What I had done, Tim, is I had listened to a lot of other people's plans for my life and I had never truly stepped back and said or asked myself the question rather well, what do you want to myself what I want to do? It's great that I like Legos and I like building Things in construction. And you know, that, that could.

Michael Ashford [00:05:26]:
I could loosely tie that into engineering. But, man, once I got into those engineering programs, it just. I know plenty of engineers. I've got engineers in my family, but it was. Not for me. It just was soul sucking. And I think that's what happens whenever you're misaligned. You just feel drained of.

Michael Ashford [00:05:43]:
Of everything that gives you life and energy. And that's where I got to. And that letter, getting that letter in the mail, I finally took a step back and said, all right, well, hey, how do I fix this? And how do I not get my parents too mad at me? But at the same time, I finally asked myself the question, what do you want to do? What do you want? And that, that, you know, I took some time with those questions. I asked myself that a lot and eventually came down to this idea that I love people's stories. I think everyone has a story to tell, Tim, and I'm sure you agree.

Tim Newman [00:06:18]:
Absolutely. Yeah.

Michael Ashford [00:06:19]:
And. And just I love people's stories. I love hearing people's backgrounds. I'm curious about other people. And. And I also love sports, and I love, you know, college football and college basketball and NFL. Like, I love sports. So I came down to what do I want? My answers were either athletic training and kinesiology or journalism and communication.

Michael Ashford [00:06:42]:
And the reason I didn't pick athletic training in kinesiology, even though years later I would become a certified personal trainer, is because my dad graduated with that. And I just wanted to make sure that it was fully mine, that I wasn't just doing something because my dad's did it. So I went the journalism communications route, and my goodness, you want to talk about top five decisions I've ever made in my life? It is 100%. That's in the top five.

Tim Newman [00:07:11]:
Again, that's a great story. And how did those conversations go with you and your parents and the rest of your inner circle standing up and saying, you know what, I'm doing this for me, not for what everybody else thinks I should be doing or wants me to do. How did you navigate those conversations?

Michael Ashford [00:07:32]:
I'll be very honest. I didn't ever truly led on to my parents that I was about to fail out of college. I kind of kept that a little bit under wraps. I don't think I ever actually showed them the letter that I. That I received telling me I was being put on academic academic probation. But it was a look, I'm unhappy. I'm. I got an F in a class for the first time that I in My entire education.

Michael Ashford [00:07:57]:
Like, I had gone from kindergarten to high school without it, without getting anything less than an A. And then I show up my second semester of, of college, and I get an F, a D, a C, an A and a B. Like, I, I, I went right down, right down the line. And, and so I, I told him, like, hey, this isn't working out. This is, I don't think this is for me. I also had done an internship the summer after my sophomore or my freshman year and was miserable again. Just could not see myself doing civil engineering for the rest of my life. And I told them that, and my parents were wonderfully supportive.

Michael Ashford [00:08:36]:
They said, hey, listen, like, if this is not for you and this is not the direction you're going to go and you don't see yourself doing this for the rest of your life, don't do it. Like, they were completely supportive of that change and really gave me the time and space to figure that out. Credit them for just, yeah, taking that step back and saying, yeah, of course, do what you want to do. This is your life.

Tim Newman [00:08:59]:
Yeah. And I, I think for, for most of our listeners, you know, the idea of standing up and saying things that you want to do for you is a, it's a difficult decision for a lot of people because of all of the things that we, our inner, inner monologues that we have all the time. We don't want to upset people. We don't want to let people down. We want to make sure that we're meeting the expectations of other people. But just like you said, the reality is, most of the time, those people that are in our inner circle only want what's best for us anyway. And if we don't ever voice that, then they're just going to continue encouraging you to do the same things that you've always done.

Michael Ashford [00:09:45]:
Yeah. Believing that, believing that that's aligned with what you want. You also touched very briefly there on something that was really personal to me or what I experienced is it's that, that idea of the sunk cost fallacy. Well, I had already invested so much time and energy and effort and literal money into this that I better keep going. And the, the studies show the, the fallacy is real. We are much better served when we've come to that point where we have that realization, this is no longer serving me. Cut it off and move on. Go pivot.

Michael Ashford [00:10:19]:
Do something different. Don't continue to sink cost into this thing that you know is ultimately fruitless. Listen, that happens in the business world all the time. Yeah, we've already spent a year developing this product. Our customers aren't showing us that they actually want it, but we, maybe if we just added this more, this little feature more. My goodness. I mean it's just, it's, it's that fallacy that we tell ourselves is just really insidious.

Tim Newman [00:10:44]:
It, it is. And as, as we go down that route, you know, I look at, at your story from engineering to journalism to market leadership, and there's one common thread in there that's communication.

Michael Ashford [00:10:59]:
Yes, sir.

Tim Newman [00:10:59]:
Right?

Michael Ashford [00:11:00]:
Yes sir. I mean it is the, it is the lifeblood, the backbone of everything that I've done since making that decision way back in college to, to go the journalism communications route. Man, so much of life is communicating well, so much of life is knowing how to communicate your story, knowing how to communicate a position, knowing how to communicate through disagreement, knowing how to communicate through change, which by the way, the human experience has change. So you better well know how to communicate through it and do it in a way that can bring others along with that, along that journey with you.

Tim Newman [00:11:38]:
So take it one step further. What did communication give you that the technical skills never could?

Michael Ashford [00:11:47]:
Well, I mean you mentioned it in introducing me so kindly and that is the curiosity side of communication. The way I have experienced communication over the years. And what I now believe to be true is, is that what we're taught in our formal education, certainly growing up, unless you get into some of these communicative classes in college and in university, it's a very one way view of communication. Yeah, it's I've got the answer. I tell you that answer one way and you regurgitate that answer back to me one way and you're going to be graded on how well you complete that exchange of, of one way information. And it just misses the extraction of communication. What can you get out of somebody to better understand them? Their concerns, their lived experience, their perspective, their truth, however you want to describe it. Tim, just to communicate well means to communicate fully.

Michael Ashford [00:12:53]:
Both and that is bidirectionally or omnidirectional, however you want to characterize is it is getting out of this certainty mindset and opening up your curiosity and pointing that at others yet.

Tim Newman [00:13:07]:
And I really like the way that you describe this whole, the way the system is set up. It's I tell you something and then you tell me what I just told you so that I know that you have now learned this and that you can now communicate it back to me. Right? So just, just tell me what I already just told you and we're all good. And this is not a knock on the education system. I think you and I agree that the educational system is broken. And especially from a communication perspective and how we teach young people how to communicate. What's the fix and how do we get from where we are to, to some, to a 30 to 40 year old who now figures out, you know what? I should have been focusing on communication skills and curiosity and asking questions 20 years ago. How do we go from where we are to that?

Michael Ashford [00:14:11]:
Because, Tim, what you just described so much of that communication learning in that point, at that point in somebody's life is on the job training and that's a really terrible way to learn how to communicate well with others. I, I want to see the rigor shaken up a little bit. Like I understand things like math, science, you know, history. Those things have. Fact, those things have things that, you know, you, you have to learn how to solve, use the quadratic equation. Is that even the right word? I don't remember what it is.

Tim Newman [00:14:45]:
Now that's the thing. And I don't necessarily know what it is, but I know it's a thing.

Michael Ashford [00:14:51]:
You've got to learn how to, you've got to learn how to solve those problems. You've got to learn how to follow the proper steps. Yes, absolutely. But I want to see education become more well rounded. I ask people all the time, how many classes were you in in your entire education experience where you didn't have to have the right answer or your, your right answer could differ from the teacher or the professor's right answer. There has to be room in, you know, that you've labeled them the soft skills. I know some people take offense to that because. And I believe communication skills can be taught just like any other hard skill or trade.

Michael Ashford [00:15:32]:
But I, I want classes that leave space for nuance, complexity and the possibility that there may be more than one or even two right answers. How could that possibly be the case, Tim, that there is a right answer for someone's lived experience, for someone's perspective, for issues of morality and issues of emotion. How could there possibly be a right answer? There, There's a.

Tim Newman [00:16:01]:
It's not right. I mean, just the reality.

Michael Ashford [00:16:03]:
Yeah. One of my favorite. I'll give you one of my favorite dichotomies in all of this that I've learned recently. It was from a speaker that I actually coached as his TEDx talk. He was talking about in biology. There, this, there's this property called stochastic. Stochastic properties. I said that.

Michael Ashford [00:16:21]:
Right. Stochastic properties. Basically, you know, the, the half life of an organism, of a radioactive organism, a radioactive isotope. They can determine with incredible precision and accuracy when half of the radioactive isotopes in that organism, organism are going to be decayed. They know exactly the time period. You've got 100% at this point. By this point, you're going to have 50% of your radioactive isotopes left. Now here's the thing.

Michael Ashford [00:16:53]:
They have no way of knowing on an individual basis which isotope is going to be the next to decay. They just know that over a certain period of time, it's going to be this many that will decay. We have no idea to know which one will. Now you relate that to the human experience. Studies can tell us all. They want to tell us about high level views of how people interact, communicate with each other. But then you take that down to the individual one to one level. You have no idea how that person across from you is going to respond because they have a unique and genuinely personal experience and perspective on the world.

Michael Ashford [00:17:34]:
And you cannot account for that in any sort of modern classroom textbook test equation. Like you just can't.

Tim Newman [00:17:43]:
And that changes day to day, minute to minute.

Michael Ashford [00:17:47]:
Yes, it does. That adds even more nuance and complexity to the struggle. Right, Exactly. So I want classes like conflict communication taught from an early age. How do we, how do we actually expose ourselves to difference of opinion and difference of thought even from a young age? Yeah, you look at, you look at any childhood playground, you're going to see difference of opinion and difference of thought of how things are done. How do we teach kids to communicate well through that and build that? Like that's, that's just one example of how I'd love to see a change, but there's no right answer there either.

Tim Newman [00:18:28]:
Right.

Michael Ashford [00:18:28]:
And that's the hard thing. You can't test for that stuff, Tim.

Tim Newman [00:18:31]:
No, you can't. And from a, from an emotional development perspective as well, and especially what we've learned about the brain. Okay, so I'm 50. I'm, I'm, I'm old enough to know not how old I am anymore. I think I'm 58.

Michael Ashford [00:18:53]:
There you go. I like it.

Tim Newman [00:18:54]:
Okay. I'm 58.

Michael Ashford [00:18:55]:
Enough to know how that I'm.

Tim Newman [00:18:59]:
So if I go back 38 years ago. Right. And just kind of think about where we were, where we were and what we knew about the human development and brain development, how much we've learned and to understand how we've grown and what technology has done to that development, what alcohol has done to that development, what other Drugs have done to that development. And now we understand, as much as we may not like it, the brain doesn't fully develop till 26 years old now.

Michael Ashford [00:19:36]:
Yeah.

Tim Newman [00:19:39]:
And we're trying to teach these skills to people that they may be emotionally able to do it at 12, they may not be able to do it till they're 20. And understanding that and getting them to where we need them to be is. It's not an easy task. And like I said, there is no one right way or no one right answer to that question.

Michael Ashford [00:20:08]:
And I'll add another layer to the scenario you just outlined, Tim. I don't believe we as humans were designed to know all that we know today. I mean, within minutes of waking up. I can understand that there. Or I can know that there was an earthquake on this side of the globe that killed this many people and affected this many people. I can understand that there was a bomb dropped in this country. I can understand that the stock market went to this price. I can understand that in four towns over from me that, that a sinkhole opened up.

Michael Ashford [00:20:43]:
Like I can, I can understand all of the world's bad news literally within minutes of waking up.

Tim Newman [00:20:50]:
Yeah.

Michael Ashford [00:20:51]:
That's not how we were intended. Like, no matter how you think we, we came to be on this planet, that, that is not how we're wired. That is not. We are not. I don't believe we are capable of taking all that in and processing that to a healthy level. And what that does is it makes us concerned about things that we ultimately don't have control over. That then when we bring it down to the one to one human perspective, we've got all these things we're concerned about and we forget about the interaction that's happening right in front of us and it begins to affect and degrade how we view another person. Because we look at it as, as a societal, as a, or as a, a global, from a global perspective.

Michael Ashford [00:21:36]:
Things that, with that we can't ultimately control. And then there's a human being across from us that perhaps we see as a, as a personification of that thing that we're really concerned about. And oh my gosh, now my emotions and my, my, my systems are going haywire here. And now we just. The whole thing breaks down.

Tim Newman [00:21:57]:
Yeah.

Michael Ashford [00:21:57]:
And we see that, we see it over and over again. How much, how much little, how little trust is built up when we try to have arguments or disagreements. How little grace we give for somebody else's perspective when they may represent a perspective or a belief system that we disagree with. There's just. We take that nuance and we just smash it. Smash between our hands.

Tim Newman [00:22:29]:
And then we may have it. Let's just say we may agree on 95% of things.

Michael Ashford [00:22:36]:
Yep.

Tim Newman [00:22:36]:
But if we disagree on that other 5%, what we've done is we've thrown the other 95 out the window. You're now. You're now the worst person in the history of the world.

Michael Ashford [00:22:48]:
Yeah, you're exactly right. We don't just say, oh, well, I disagree with you on that. I now place you off to the side and say, you're the other. Yeah, you're not like me. It's like, no, no, no. 95% of us are exactly the same. Agreed.

Tim Newman [00:23:07]:
And it's, you know, and I'm not somebody who blames technology and social media for everything. I do think that social media and technology plays a big part in that.

Michael Ashford [00:23:20]:
I think it preys on. I think it preys on our worst fears, Tim.

Tim Newman [00:23:24]:
Yes, it does.

Michael Ashford [00:23:26]:
I think it highlights and exacerbates those things. Always kind of latent beneath the surface. But in the absence of face to face, I know you, I trust you. I can see you. I can even, like, sense you. And, and the shift in the room when maybe you disagree with me, like, in the absence of that, it's heightening those fear responses that are just innate and ingrained in us over and over again. I mean, every time you log on to Twitter or X or LinkedIn or Facebook or TikTok, like, you're just getting those hits over and over again of, oh, this person disagrees with you. This person isn't like you.

Michael Ashford [00:24:01]:
This person, you. You. You disagree with them. Like just. It's constant, It's. And it's rapid. The studies do show, by the way, negative information spreads far faster than positive information on social media. Algorithmically.

Michael Ashford [00:24:17]:
It just, it spreads like a wildfire in Colorado after the winter that we've had where we've had no rain or snow.

Tim Newman [00:24:29]:
I'm not looking forward to your summer then. If that's.

Michael Ashford [00:24:30]:
No, it's. I'm very worried about it. But can I give you an example of exactly what I mean here, Tim?

Tim Newman [00:24:36]:
Please.

Michael Ashford [00:24:37]:
On my podcast, I interviewed two gentlemen back to back. I didn't interview them at the same time. I interviewed one. One man who was a political activist in the wake of the Brianna Breonna Taylor and George Floyd murders. He was very vocal as part of the Defund. The. The police community. He was very, very active in that world.

Michael Ashford [00:24:58]:
And I, I just wanted to ask him questions. I Did my journalism duty and I just asked him questions about what he believed, how he came to those beliefs, why he felt they were important. And then the very next interview, I interviewed a police officer and I did the same thing with him. What's your experience been? What do you believe? How did you come to those beliefs? Tim, when I went back and listened to those two interviews, it happened exactly as you just said it. They were even using the same language of what they wanted. They both wanted police officers and the system of policing to be such that police officers were showing up to situations that they were trained and equipped to handle, that people could trust them and that they were effective at diffusing situations of violence and crime with the most appropriate means necessary. They both said the same thing. But what, what social media, what, what people tend to focus on are those areas where they diverged.

Michael Ashford [00:26:01]:
Did they agree on everything? Of course not. They, they definitely have differences of experience and opinions on how to get that done. Yeah, but we can start at a baseline of, look, we're aiming for the same thing, right?

Tim Newman [00:26:16]:
Yeah.

Michael Ashford [00:26:16]:
And, and we tend to jump to the other side and just argue over the fact that we are arguing, disagreeing over the fact that we disagree, and

Tim Newman [00:26:26]:
then it becomes circular, right?

Michael Ashford [00:26:27]:
Yes, it does.

Tim Newman [00:26:28]:
The same argument. Same argument, same arguments, you know. Yes, it does. And I liken that to the, to the example of, have you ever talked to anybody who doesn't want clean air, clean water? I haven't either, but, but we talk about, you know, global warming and pollution and there's never any agreement except for everybody wants the same thing. We all want clean air, we all want clean water, we all want food to eat. So why don't we start from there and then start to build some trust that, you know what, you're not a horrible person because you think differently. And let's start working together to figure out what, what a common ground solution is going to be for whatever it is, policing, clean air, clean water, the education system or police, whatever it is,

Michael Ashford [00:27:19]:
you know, and it's one, one example of that, Tim, is. And this is where curiosity comes into play. You've got to be curious enough to know the language and the background of that language from somebody else who is on the quote, unquote, other side from you. I interviewed one gentleman who did a documentary in rural Oregon about climate change, about how the, the changing landscape and environment are affecting rural workers out in, in eastern Oregon, heavy logging community, heavy agriculture and farming community that was feeling more and more disconnected from the western part of the state. That was, you know, more liberal, more progressive, we'll just call it what it is. And they did a documentary where those two groups came together, people from the western part of the state, people from the eastern part of the state, and they got curious with each other about what they cared about and they started to understand the language that each other used. So where you had people from the left saying that it was climate change and global warming and environmental destruction, you had people from the right saying that they deeply cared about environmental stewardship, that they were stewarding the land well, that they wanted to preserve and protect the, the livelihood of their people for their families. People who had been in that, in, on that ground and worked that ground for generations.

Michael Ashford [00:28:45]:
Now when you can use the language that people care about, how do you get there? You've got to ask them questions. You've got to be curious about their experience and where they're coming from. I can tell you if you go to somebody and say, let's, let's figure out a way together to be better stewards of the land, and they may be more right leaning, more conservative, more, more Republican leaning, like you're going to have a better conversation there. Don't do it for manipulation purposes. Right. Do it so that you can actually have a conversation about the real issue at hand and what people believe and care about. That takes curiosity.

Tim Newman [00:29:26]:
It takes curiosity. It takes the whole idea of listening like you're wrong and then there's follow up to that. You can listen like you're wrong, but then what are you doing after that? What's the next step after that? Are you acting on that information that you just learned or are you just, okay, I've listened, I've empathized and now I'm just going to go back, keep doing what I'm doing. Or are you going to actually take that information and do something with it? Right. Are you actually.

Michael Ashford [00:30:01]:
Can we find a third way? Yeah, can, can we find a third way to accomplish the shared goal that we have uncovered together? It doesn't have to be my way. Doesn't have to be your way. Can it be our way? Can we co create something? And there's, there's not enough of that happening. But that, that goes back to like, you've got to understand what's your goal here? What's your goal? And do your actions, your words align with your goal? Are they helping you reach your goal? Far often, more often than not, what I see is people saying that they want to affect some sort of change and then they act in Direct counter to how people actually like to change. We don't want to be forced to change. Nobody likes to be forced to change. We want to feel like it was something that we helped produce. Everyone agrees.

Michael Ashford [00:30:46]:
Tim, I haven't found a person yet that does not agree that the equality of human existence is change. It is. We are meant to change. It is a fact of life that things will and do change. But how do we want to change? Do we want somebody waving the finger at us and saying well you're wrong, so you got to change to my view and just believe what I believe. Absolutely not. It never works. It never works.

Michael Ashford [00:31:13]:
That's why wars happen. Uh, but if we could, if we could take a different approach, if we could take a more curious and understanding does not equal agreement approach to our conversations, how much better could we be in uncovering solutions that we hadn't even thought of.

Tim Newman [00:31:32]:
Thought of? Yeah, but I, I think the next question is why is curiosity so hard for, for, for people to, to do and develop, especially when they disagree.

Michael Ashford [00:31:44]:
Two things immediately come to mind. One is to go back to what we've already talked about. We just haven't been taught. We haven't been taught how to be curious. We've been taught to be sure and certain of what we know. We're going to be tested on it. Recall that just we, we have this and we. It's been modeled and incentivized that the people who talk the loudest, who say it the most, the most frequently are the ones that get the attention.

Michael Ashford [00:32:12]:
And so we just model that behavior, that one way behavior secondarily to that it's a little bit deeper, it's a little bit more perhaps uncomfortable for us to understand is that curiosity feels at times morally wrong. If I give oxygen to somebody that I believe is not just wrong about their opinion or their view, but I think they're morally wrong. For feels really dangerous to give them my curiosity, to point my curiosity at them and say I'm willing to listen to you and hear you out here even though it may make me uncomfortable. And I'm not asking for people to go into dangerous situations where they, they, they are physically or emotionally at risk. I'm asking for us to get uncomfortable and give our curiosity to somebody at the. For the betterment of understanding where they're coming from. And that feels really dangerous to a lot of us. We've got to be honest about that.

Michael Ashford [00:33:14]:
Is it uncomfortable or is it dangerous?

Tim Newman [00:33:18]:
Yeah. I look at that from, from the Gen Z perspective and their levels of anxiety yeah. You know, there's, there's data out there that, that talks about that Gen Z has levels of anxiety as mental patients in the 1950s had. And so it's, it's, to me, that's a scary, scary thing because they don't have resilience, they don't have grit, they haven't built that. And just the whole thought of being curious and asking those questions and feeling that level of uncomfortableness to the point of anxiety, sure, that's a, that's not a good or a good way forward to begin with, but we have to figure out a way forward. They've got to figure out a way forward to develop that grit, develop that resilience and put themselves in those, like you said, those uncomfortable positions. Because at least from my perspective, those uncomfortable positions, that's the actual learning that's taking place. That's the, you know, the growth that's taking place.

Tim Newman [00:34:30]:
Yeah.

Michael Ashford [00:34:31]:
And Tim, the thing about that anxiousness is, is often what I've experienced is that that anxiousness comes from me feeling like, okay, I'm going to be challenged. My ideas, my beliefs, maybe even my morals are going to be challenged here. And I feel this pull of, well, I've got to have the perfect answer to rebut it. I've got to have the perfect, all the facts and information. And in the absence of that, I just default to character assassination. I default to ad hominem attacks where I'm, I'm attacking the person and their character.

Tim Newman [00:35:07]:
Yes.

Michael Ashford [00:35:07]:
Rather than the actual argument that they're trying to make. And my, my assertion here in being curious is one, asking questions releases you from having to have all the answers.

Tim Newman [00:35:19]:
Yeah.

Michael Ashford [00:35:20]:
And two, if there was something that you could be wrong about because you can't possibly know all the things, you can't possibly have every answer to every question or every, every. Can you just can't. If there's something that you could be wrong about or, or maybe said another way, if there's something that you don't fully understand, wouldn't you want to know it?

Tim Newman [00:35:39]:
Yes.

Michael Ashford [00:35:40]:
Couldn't, couldn't more fully understanding someone else's viewpoint that you disagree with actually help you create, create your argument against it? Like that's the, that's the logic that goes through my big old bald head like there.

Tim Newman [00:35:56]:
I, I, So yeah, I took a class and we, you know, I'm somebody who obviously believes in lifelong learning and getting better, you know, building your craft and that type of thing. So I took a class recently and yesterday I was the person who Led the class. We did a zoom call, and she was critiquing some of my work. And she kept saying, I'm sorry I'm being so harsh. I'm sorry I'm being so harsh. I said, you don't have to. That's why we're doing this. Right.

Tim Newman [00:36:31]:
I want you to tell me if I've messed up, if it's not right, because the whole goal is to make sure that it's right. And she said, well, a lot of people get upset. And I said, well, okay, first off, you're the instructor.

Michael Ashford [00:36:47]:
I mean, oh, this was the instructor. Not just another student.

Tim Newman [00:36:51]:
This was the instructor. And I said, you know, this is why I invested some money to you. I don't want you to just tell me it's good or it's great and have it not be good or great. And that's the. If other people get their feelings hurt because you're correcting them, well, that's more of a them problem than it is a you problem. And, you know, you're doing your job. You're doing what you're supposed to be doing. Don't worry.

Tim Newman [00:37:19]:
I mean, if my. If my skin is so thin that I get upset because, you know, my letters are too close together and you pointed it out on a PowerPoint, well, that's a. I need to go have a completely different conversation. Right? So that's. But that's where we are.

Michael Ashford [00:37:38]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It. And it could be frustrating. I get it. And I want to acknowledge all of that. This is not. This is not easy, certainly. I just.

Michael Ashford [00:37:52]:
As much as anybody else, when I. When my work is critiqued, when my ideas are critiqued, I just, like everybody else, have that little thought, like, little person sitting on my shoulder saying, no, you're right. Like, they shouldn't be saying that to you. Like, I have those feelings as well. But again, I. I want to. I want us to point our curiosity towards that, even if it's towards ourselves, and ask ourselves, like, what am I really feeling here? And I'm not. I'm not a therapist, but, like, what's really going on here? Why is this affecting me so much? Why is what that person just said to me making me.

Michael Ashford [00:38:28]:
Like, my pulse is starting to quicken and I can feel the blood rush in my head, like, what's actually going on here? I love moments of self reflection. I love moments where people say, you know what? I'm actually going to think about this a little bit differently here. And if we can consciously pull ourselves into those moments More then I think we set ourselves up for a higher level of success when it comes to not only understanding ourselves, but where somebody else is coming from as well. Tim.

Tim Newman [00:38:56]:
Michael, I'm so glad you just said that. I'm, I'm thrilled. I got goosebumps because the whole idea, confidence is like a muscle, right? It's just like communication is like the more you do it, the better you're going to get. Curiosity, being curious actually helps us be more confident.

Michael Ashford [00:39:17]:
Yes, it absolutely does. You're not going to get any argument from me. It's, it just does.

Tim Newman [00:39:25]:
It's, it just because explain to people how that works. I mean, I think you, I think you literally just did. But give them an example of how that works and how that makes us more confident. Because to me it's real simple. Right. Like you said, if you're curious and then you do some introspection, I mean, it just happens.

Michael Ashford [00:39:52]:
That's where it starts. That's where it's got to start. So I'll give you a great example for myself personally. The first time I ever expressed my political beliefs, I believe I was probably 13 or 14 years old. Now did that political belief that I spouted at that time, was it the work of my own deep research and consideration and asking myself the questions of like, well, what do I believe? And, and how do I think politically we should show up? And you know what, what resonates most with. No, it wasn't, it was literally an amalgamation and mashup of my grandparents and my parents and my pastor and, and you know, my friends and perhaps some teachers, like it was all the influence of my life that I was simply regurgitating now as a 40, almost two year old man, was some of it correct? Do I still believe in some of that? Yes. But when I got into my 20s and I began, started asking myself those questions of well, what do I actually believe? I changed because it wasn't mine. Those, those, those beliefs that I had had claimed for so many years, they weren't mine.

Michael Ashford [00:41:15]:
And as it relates to confidence, when, you know, deep down, and I believe we all do, when we know deep down that what we're saying or what we're standing for isn't actually ours, how in the world are we supposed to be confident in that?

Tim Newman [00:41:30]:
Right?

Michael Ashford [00:41:30]:
It's fake confidence. Yeah, it, it, there, there's no possible way that we can, we can delude ourselves from believing that it's anything but because we know we didn't do the work to create that belief on our own. So Asking yourself real deep questions about how did I come to this belief? Was this inherited or was this mine? It's okay if it's inherited. I'm not saying an inherited belief is wrong. I just want it to be yours, and I just want you to be able to understand and explain it as your own. Questions of, well, where have I disagreed? Where I have actually kept quiet? Where have I disagreed in moments with my. My stated belief, where I've actually kept quiet? Why did I do that? What's most important to me here? Is it keeping my tribe, keeping my family, my clan, and the harmony that exists there if I just fall in line and believe like everybody else? Or is there something deeper here that I need to explore? Our confidence in ourselves comes from when we know that we are free, fully aligned with what we feel and know to be true about ourselves. And when those two are incongruent, it's.

Michael Ashford [00:42:44]:
It is obvious to everyone that we are grandstanding, faking, or on the flip, on the opposite end of the spectrum, shying away, making ourselves lesser. Like, there are different ways that. That a lack of confidence can show up. It doesn't all have to just be, like, being mousy and in the corner. A lack of confidence is every bit as much that as it is being arrogant and narcissistic and pompous and a loudmouth. Like, yeah, it's, it's. It's a confidence because we're incongruent. We feel those incongruencies within ourselves and it comes out in how we communicate.

Michael Ashford [00:43:21]:
Of course.

Tim Newman [00:43:24]:
Yeah. And, yeah, I used to tell my students all the time, I said I would tell them. I said, you know, you're 19, 20 years old and your beliefs are your beliefs. But as you get older, if you don't do the introspection, if you don't do the work, and if you don't change some of your beliefs, then you probably haven't done the real work. And I. So I'm a sports guy. I mean, I worked in the industry and I use that as an example. You know, I never missed a listen to a baseball game on the radio.

Tim Newman [00:44:03]:
I never missed, you know, a football game. And now, yeah, I haven't listened to a baseball game in years. I haven't.

Michael Ashford [00:44:12]:
Oh, my gosh. Years.

Tim Newman [00:44:13]:
You know, if I can sit down and watch two Redskins games a year, that's good enough for me. Because it's, it's. Because I wouldn't say it's lost its importance, but there are other things that are more important for me in my life than to spend time doing those things and trying to get them to understand that where you are in your life cycle, you're going to, if you're doing life the right way, things are going to change in your life and the level of importance and the way you think about them is going to change.

Michael Ashford [00:44:52]:
I think that's beautiful and, and certainly what I advocate for man. It is. But that's change that you elicit from yourself. To go back to what I said earlier, like no, no amount of somebody showing up on your doorstep and pointing the finger in your face and saying what you believe right now is wrong. You should believe like what I believe and that doors that figurative doorstep could be your social media that could be, you know, what have you. That's not going to work like man. Tim, one of my favorite quotes from is from John C. Maxwell and he says people change in four different seasons when they heard enough that they have to, when they see enough that they're inspired to, when they learn enough that they want to and when they receive enough that they're able to.

Michael Ashford [00:45:37]:
Now one of those things is not like the other hurt enough that they have to. Like who wants to do that? People will literally go to the doctor after a heart attack and the doctor says you got to change your diet and exercise more and they won't do it because it wasn't their choice.

Tim Newman [00:45:52]:
Exactly. I'm there. I think that's him. Tell me, get it together Tim. But, but you're right. But you're absolutely right. I mean that's, yeah.

Michael Ashford [00:46:06]:
I mean when I, when I was a personal trainer, as I, as I said earlier, the whole message was not hey, lose weight, build more muscle, do all this. Like I was a personal trainer specifically for dads. My whole message was, man, when you're 80, do you want to be able to get down on the floor with your grandkids and play and mess around with them? When, when you, when you finally hit that retirement age, do you want to, do you want to go travel with your wife and not and be unrestricted from, from doing all the things that you want to do, like think about your long term vision for yourself, the things that you care most about. It's a perspective shift, no doubt and it gets us away from the immediate gratification world that we live in. But it's got to be something that allows us to be inspired to feel like we've received some sort of gift or to learn something that we previously didn't know. The, the human brain lights up when we we come to those aha moments, and that's when real change happens.

Tim Newman [00:47:11]:
Absolutely.

Michael Ashford [00:47:12]:
That's when we can be confident in, oh, I'm going to step into this, change into this conversation, into this environment and know that I'm doing it for this reason.

Tim Newman [00:47:23]:
Right.

Michael Ashford [00:47:24]:
Not just simply because I'm afraid that I'm going to get hurt if I don't.

Tim Newman [00:47:29]:
Yeah, that's. That, that's not, that's not a good motivator.

Michael Ashford [00:47:32]:
No. Nobody wants to be there.

Tim Newman [00:47:34]:
I mean, I'll just use me as an example. Okay. I think I've, I think you're 58. I think we've, I've already established that.

Michael Ashford [00:47:42]:
We've established that.

Tim Newman [00:47:44]:
But, you know, the first, you know, let's just say 52 years of my life, I didn't care if I got hurt, beat myself up, you know, with sports, I was, I was, I was a paratrooper, you know, worked out twice a day for, you know, 20 some years. And so it's, the, the motivation for me isn't pain. Mm. What's that motivation? It's down.

Michael Ashford [00:48:14]:
Yeah.

Tim Newman [00:48:14]:
It's getting down the floor with grandkids.

Michael Ashford [00:48:16]:
Exactly.

Tim Newman [00:48:18]:
Having that quality time with my wife.

Michael Ashford [00:48:20]:
Yeah. And that, you know, we're talking about health and fitness right here. But can you extend that to, to all situations?

Tim Newman [00:48:27]:
Yeah.

Michael Ashford [00:48:28]:
Do you, do you. In, in, you know, 15 years time, when we look back at this point in history as history and we're reading about it and we're thinking about what we went through, do you want to know that how you acted was a, a characterization of who you truly are, how you communicated with others? Was how you truly wanted to show up in the world? Or was it layered with an insecurity, a lack of confidence, an inability to affect the change that you wanted to affect? And so you, you, you defaulted to the most unhealthy way like that drives me all the time. Can I look back 15, 20 years into the past and say the person that I was then, while things may have changed, how I like things may have changed. Did I act in a way that was congruent with who I want to be and how I want to show up, how I want to show up in the world, that's important to me.

Tim Newman [00:49:32]:
Yes.

Michael Ashford [00:49:32]:
But that is a long term focused view of, of communication, of confidence and everything that we've talked about here?

Tim Newman [00:49:40]:
So if we, if we take that a step further. Okay. If somebody wants to be a better communicator this week, today, not someday, what are two to three things that they need to start doing immediately.

Michael Ashford [00:49:55]:
Ask more questions, ask more. Set aside your certainty, your need to be right, your ego that tells you that you are right, and ask more questions. And my two favorite questions that I wish we would ask of ourselves more often is what is my goal? And what could I be missing?

Tim Newman [00:50:15]:
Wow.

Michael Ashford [00:50:15]:
If you ask yourselves, though yourself those two questions, especially in moments of change and disagreement and dysfunction, if you ask yourself those two questions, I guarantee you you will flip on the empathy switch in your brain like never before. I'm not saying again for you to agree with people that you disagree with. I'm not saying for you to advocate or. So much of, of so much of this is painted into a binary. Well, if I don't believe this, and that means I have to believe this, on the clear opposite end of the spectrum, no. So much of life happens in the gray, messy middle. Those two questions help get you more comfortable with existing in that gray, messy middle. So ask more questions if you can do of yourself, ask more questions about others and then ask more questions of others.

Michael Ashford [00:51:09]:
I think you're going to be in a much healthier place to have constructive communication, constructive dialogue with people. I would say. The other thing that I would something to be aware of, maybe not something to change, but just something to be aware of, is that at any given time, the max that a human being can speak is about 140 words per minute. On average, it's 125 words per minute. But if you're really excited and hyped up, it could get up to 150 words per minute. Right now, the average thinking speed of a human is over 900 words per minute. If you're really hot and excited and mad about something, that can jump up to 1200 words per minute running through your mind. And so I want you to slow down more, pause more, think before you speak.

Michael Ashford [00:52:06]:
Because you've got 1200 words per minute running around in your brain up here and you only have 140 words that you can get out in any given minute. So make those words that you do speak count. Think about what you want to say. Don't just go with the gut instinct all the time. Because good communication, while, yes, again, you may disagree with the person, yes, it may feel morally wrong for you to even be in that conversation. But for you to put thought and effort into how you respond to that person, that can help bridge the divide, the gap that exists between you and that person in a way that you can actually begin to drive some effective change. So pause thinking more often about what you say and have more of those things that you do think be questions rather than statements. Those would be the two major things Tim.

Tim Newman [00:53:04]:
And there you have it. We talk about that all the time. Ask more questions and the power of the pause. Love it. Michael, if people want to get better at asking the right questions and becoming more curious communicators, where should they go to connect with you and learn more?

Michael Ashford [00:53:18]:
My website is the hub of everything that I do, tim. It's Michael Ashford.com articles, newsletter, podcasts, coaching information. It's all there. Much appreciate you you having me on for this conversation. I just I geek out about this stuff if you can't tell so and would love if anybody's listening would love to geek out with them as with them as well.

Tim Newman [00:53:41]:
I'll make sure that's in the show notes. And Michael, thanks so much for spending some time with with us. I love the conversation. You know I talk about a lot. You know it's when I have guests on where we're whether we're aligned or not and you and I are pretty much aligned.

Michael Ashford [00:53:57]:
Yeah.

Tim Newman [00:53:58]:
The conversation really goes deep and I think that the listeners are going to take a lot of value out of this. So thank you so much.

Michael Ashford [00:54:05]:
I certainly hope so. And thanks thanks for inviting me. I enjoyed it.

Tim Newman [00:54:10]:
Be sure to visit speakingwithconfidencepodcast.com to get your free ebook Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and How to Overcome Them. You can also register for the Formula for Public Speaking course. Always remember, your voice has the power to change the world. We'll talk to you next time. Take care.