Becoming an Impactful Communicator with Russ Hamilton

Intro: Welcome to The Daily Bolster. Each day we welcome transformational executives to share their real- world experiences and practical advice about scaling yourself, your team, and your business.

Matt Blumberg: Welcome to The Daily Bolster. I'm Matt Blumberg, co- founder and CEO of Bolster, and I'm here today with my friend Russ Hamilton. Russ is the founder and CEO of ConnectionLab, which builds and delivers high- impact presentation, communication, and leadership programs. And I would say Russ is in my top three ever of people that I've worked with as kind of an outside advisor or consultant on all things related to communication. We love working with him at Bolster, and we did a return path. Russ, it's good to see you.

Russ Hamilton: It's so good to see you, Matt. Thank you so much for having me on the show.

Matt Blumberg: Yeah. So here's my question for you. You have at ConnectionLab, I think a very simple but powerful model. And I live in the world of the two- by- two matrix, but you actually have a two- by- three matrix, and I would love for you to just walk through what your formula is of the combination to those things for people to work on to become a more impactful communicator.

Russ Hamilton: Right? So yeah, here's the thing. People come at us with their own definition of communication, and we get everybody across the marketplace. We get every type of business you can imagine, because communication is the key, is the theme. How do we connect, how do we communicate, how do we transfer information? How do we values ethics, morals, ambition targets, all these things. So the six- box model was created as a breakdown of communication itself. People will come to me and they'll say, what is communication? We need to get better at it. What is it? And the truth is, science doesn't really know yet. There are 6, 000 languages in human history. 5, 000 of them are impenetrable to the other. So we're still trying to answer what communication is. That doesn't mean we don't know anything about it, but people have this kind of vast idea about what communication is. What we do is simplified by breaking down communication into three primary relationships. Primary relationship number one is relationship to self. How's my breathing? How's my hydration? How's my fitness? How's my sleep? How's my nutrition? I am the source of my communication. What am I in service of? All of these questions imply a set of competencies that we could practice or not in service of our relationship to ourselves. The second primary relationship is content. What is our content? What do I make every day? What artifacts do I create every day? What am I good at? How did I get good at? How do I teach it to others? How do I learn things? What are the conditions where I make it the best? What are the conditions where I make whatever I make the worst? All of these questions imply a set of competencies that I can practice or not in service of my relationship to content. And the third primary relationship, perhaps predictably, is audience. Who's watching me at any given moment? And there's some big questions in this one because yeah, does my audience feel seen by that? Does my audience feel heard? Does my audience feel necessary? And who decides? And if we could have a long debate about that, but ultimately the answer is the audience decides, right? You decide.

Matt Blumberg: You don't get to decide, right?

Russ Hamilton: I don't get to decide. So you can imagine this can be a long conversation I have with some men and women in the C- suite who inevitably take responsibility for everything. They take responsibility for things that they are not responsible for. And you don't even have to be in the C- suite to take responsibility for things you are not responsible for. I'm not responsible for your experience of me. I don't know how much sleep you got last night. I don't know what stress you're under. I don't know what you're dealing with right now. Does my audience feel seen? They decide. Does my audience feel heard? They decide. Does my audience feel necessary? Does my audience feel invited to inform my process? What is my feedback process? What's it really in service of? All of these questions imply a set of competencies that I can practice or not in service of my relationship to my audience. So those are our three primary relationships that we've broken communication down to simplify it. The other three boxes in the six box module is, well, they are lenses that we use to look through at our three primary relationships under different conditions. Our first, we call them primary questions. Our first primary question is, how do I show up under stress? And it's a fun question to kick around and start answering. But that's not the function of the question. The function of the question is, how can I clarify the lens to look at my three primary relationships? How do I show up under stress? And the follow- up questions are, what do you mean by stress Russ? Because what's stressful for you might be different than what's stressful for me. Which of my skills and abilities disappear first under stress that I have in abundance when I'm relaxed and chill? Does my audience know more about how I show up under stress than I do? Wait, what? Does my audience know more about how I show up under stress than I do? That's why, yes, it's a-

Matt Blumberg: That's a good lead- in to your second question, which is, how do I want to show up under stress?

Russ Hamilton: I love that you know that. I love that you know that. How do I want to show up under stress, which implies that I can choose? And historically, I don't know if you've met my stress, but it tends to choose for me, thank you very much. Well, how much sleep I've gotten, how far over budget we are, how long is the runway? Whatever stress we're dealing with, I tend to justify behavior. I let stress take the wheel. And so this idea that I can even honor my stress and still somehow choose how I show up under it, that is a highly developed response to stress. How do I want to show up under stress? So those are our first two primary questions. How do I show up under stress? How do I want to show up under stress if there's a gap between how I show up under stress and how I would choose to if I could? The third question emerges organically, which is, what do I want to get better at? What competency do I want to get better at? And that question implies a list of things that I may want to get better at, and I can put anything on that list. I want golf swing, making Thai food. But if I'm in a team lead situation, I may want to start identifying competencies that will help my team and I fulfill our potential. And so the hunt for competencies is what that third question is all about. So those are our three primary questions. How do I show up under stress? How do I want to, what do I want to get better at? We use them as lenses to look through at our three primary questions, self content, and audience. And we remember each one of those have their own set of competencies. So when it comes to communication and presentation, it's like playing three instruments at the same time. It's like playing piano, saxophone, and drums at the same time, the same time, which is why they don't want to play. They don't want to play in the band. People say, I don't want to give the presentation. And what's hard is people are really good at playing all three instruments. They know how to take care of themselves. You know how to take care of yourself when you choose to. Your content is exceptional, and you have an appetite to get better, which is amazing. And people, I've met them for a few minutes, and I wouldn't hesitate to say that they have people in their lives who feel seen, heard and necessary. It's just that under the stress of having to play all three instruments at the same time where stuff starts to go sideways.

Matt Blumberg: That is such a brilliant metaphor. I will add that to my list of Russ- isms that I use.

Russ Hamilton: I offer it to you.

Matt Blumberg: I will leave everyone with the thing that if I had one thing to take away from all the work I've done with you over the years, it boils down to the needs of the audience outweigh the needs of the presenter. So Russ Hamilton from Connection Lab, thank you very much for being here. Anyone who's listening to this and everyone who's listening to this should work with you. And anyone that wants to get in touch with you, ping me @ mattbolster. com and we'll go from there. Thanks, Russ.

Russ Hamilton: Amazing. Thank you so much, Matt.