How to be a Powerful Communicator: w/ Marshall Davis

people do have an unhealthy relationship with money they're afraid of it they're afraid to talk about it they think it's bad social manners it's culturally taboo to talk about money it is a sign of self-importance for some people it's a fear of rejection for others where if I say a number bigger than I think then they're going to say no and I can't handle the rejections because it's going to crush my soul yeah so I'm excited to have this conversation with you and I have spoken on clubhouse and we've also spoken on Zoom a couple of times and I think that what you do really fascinates me and I I have to admit Marshall I really don't fully understand the concept so I I think it's a new treat for everyone who's listening or watching this video to be able to understand a little bit about the power of your voice and the journey that you've been on so maybe before we continue too far for people who don't know who you are can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of story about how you got here oh man my name is Marsha Davis Jones I uh I'm a world Bridger and that term came uh to me by some weird accident but it was the best way to describe what I wanted to do in the world and that is connect one thing something else and be in the middle somehow and that started with spoken word so it was a competitive poet in the slam poetry community and uh it requires you to have a way with words but also to be able to bridge ideas powerfully to strangers very quickly who will rate you right now from one to ten based on how they feel and I learned a lot about how to read a room by making a lot of mistakes in communicating about how important it is to not necessarily just stand on your own opinion because that's what you believe to be true but to really tap into what others believe and understand and what they value and mastering words was like a thing you know like how do you put words together and I became really good at it in a very formidable in that Arena most likely because of my history and battle rap but one day I had a friend of mine get on stage and he goes you know tell them tell them about the blood leaching demons and he's and things like that but what stood out to me was one blood leaching demons like we need to talk like what's going on in your life but two the tone that he was using to convey his words I was like I don't I know you and I know that you don't sound like that what is that but I also knew that for some reason that was what was captivating everyone and when he won at the end of the night I said bro what's what's this he was like you know I'm in acting school which I knew he said the very first thing that they trained before they teach any other techniques is boys because the voice is life and that became a germ and that germ has led me here how long ago was this that was April 2011. Nash what was it the uh what would they call it they called it the the Grand Slam finals so basically it's like if you're a poet it's like right before you go to the main event it's like the the AFC Championship kind of thing and uh yeah man so everybody competes and it's the creme de La Creme and so a lot it brings in a lot of energy the new Eureka poets Cafe is a place that uh the bricks the bricks and those walls are covered in stories and you can feel that in that room and then when you bring all of the poets that are drawn to like the finals it's just a lot of like electricity so you really got to bring it and uh yeah so it was a great night and it changed everything you said a lot of things that I'm interested in and I want to follow up with but I'd like to ask you a question that if you're uncomfortable like let's not do this but you said that you used to battle rap slam poetry and the way that I Envision in my mind is poets write words and they internalize them so they're it's part of them is it possible for you to recite a piece of poetry or to give us an example some of the things you might have done in the things that you've referenced oh man so yeah so I have a poem I can do uh [Music] um introducing the new Apple I person complete with multi-touch doesn't it feel good to touch doesn't it feel good to touch compatible with your iPod and your iPad doesn't it feel good to touch doesn't it feel good to touch no friends there's an app for that no life there's an app for that you're a complete um we're working on it doesn't it feel good to touch doesn't it feel good to touch doesn't it feel good to touch my world has become so digital I've forgotten what that feels like it was difficult to connect when friends formed clicks now it's even more difficult to connect now that clicks form friends but who am I to judge I face Facebook more than books face me hoping to book face to faces I update my status 420 spaces to prove I'm still breathing failure to do this daily means my whole web wide world will forget that I exist but with five friends everywhere with five thousand friends online and only five I can count in real life why wouldn't I spend more time in the world where there were more people that like me within you so that's an excerpt from a poem I actually wrote in 2000 and eight called touch screen this was at the boom of um I was sitting in front of my computer I had Myspace and Facebook and like there was like five other competing social media platforms that were trying to be Supreme and my brain just scattered into and disintegrated into a few pieces and I'm like I can't I can't even fathom this right now not go outside and I just wrote this piece to speak to what I thought was happening and uh yeah that that particular poem wound up taking me a few places uh Will I Am asked me to perform for his transform conference um multiple technology conferences in fact um someone snuck into my ear that it made its way all the way to Apple headquarters uh like as something that they played in like a meeting it was like oh I mean I'm my address is here for the royalty check but um but it was interesting to speak to the world but it would resonated at that time was that everyone in the world was feeling the same way and uh tapping into that and it seems like people feel that way now but yeah man you know you float into it so quickly and you gave us the explanation on the backstory to it but I wanted to give you a moment to just acknowledge how cool that was I love the word play uh there's some memorable hooks that you dropped in there how friends create clicks and then clicks create friends and there's some other ones there that I'll be embarrassed to try to recite but I I just I just love that that was pretty awesome I can only imagine you on a stage in a darkened room with a spotlight a mic for a room full of people just listening in and probably clapping and and just experiencing that like you you're doing it here grounded at on a like sitting down with a microphone but the energy the electricity you spoke about I can I can visualize that at least in my mind just question about writing what is the process like for you to to come up with something like that and then how long does it take for you to then make it a part of like your whole breathing speaking so that it feels so natural to you you know and when I was uh when I was a kid I used to play with Legos and uh they were substitutions for the toys that uh I didn't get for Christmas and Legos and the idea of Legos has really shaped a lot of my thinking about how to stack ideas and play with them and break them and then put them back together and so um it depends on what it is like so when I'm a hired writer for a company that says oh we want you to talk about procurement like for example sap was like we want to talk about procurement and there's this like all right well what are the Lego bricks to procurement and then how can I put those Lego bricks together in a way where by the time I'm done I have you know something that is memorable so you know line for line for line the as far as the embodiment is concerned something about slam and the com the competition of slim what I loved about that art form is that it forces you to it forces you to have a heightened state of arousal because you're competing like you're competing and you know that other people want what you want and that's the feelings you want emotion and what I had to learn when I first started slam I was very um I used to Pop Lock and move around a lot and it was sort of this indication that I was over expressing and I wanted people to kind of feel and see everything and it wasn't until I started doing the work on The Voice that there was like this gravity it was about having sort of like a controlled explosion if you will where it's like you have this energy but the audience gets to watch it and go whoa versus like a Tesla coil in your living room and that could be a lot and so you know the embodiment piece was something that came later it didn't start there it was like oh you know pure raw energy energy telling me now it's like well here are my bricks and I have a certain level of control over them now because I know what I can do I know how to stretch things I know how to speak within context and environments and you know that's that has now become you know the by osmosis poems that if you go on YouTube right now you'll find about four different versions of the piece I just shared and each of those versions will represent a different place that I was in this journey that I'm on so there's one where it's like yeah it's like whoa and it was cool at the time you know it was it was exciting it was fun um so I guess there's two ways to answer this question the first is getting it into the body and making the words dance will help because it does and usually heightened performance like that it does become like this choreographed dance if you will and then if you can settle in the body it's sort of like the dancer who has spent so much time dancing that they are able to have Grace and then it just falls into the body naturally is one of these things that once you internalize it you don't ever forget it you could recite it at any given moment yeah yeah yeah you start to lean into what the psychologists are starting to recognize is embodied cognition which is the understanding that the brain isn't just like up in our heads but that the body is a you know representation of the mind as well and usually for like even like actors it's like they usually want to get a code read then they say some people have that mentality to get the logic of the words just stuck in there and then they can play with it with their bodies I have a different approach where it's like the the body gets involved almost immediately and it helps because it encodes things if somebody is listening to this and they're familiar with slam poetry or battle rap and say to themselves all right that's a very impressive skill set that you have your ability to manipulate words to control your tone of voice and to embody these words and ideas in your physical self and they say I can't do that I want to be able to start to peel this back a little bit and to be able to give our audience something that they could try so that they can start to take steps towards where somebody like yourself is at you said earlier that voices life and you talk about Voice work so maybe we just need to step back a little bit and and just give people an understanding of what does that mean like what is Voice work if I've never heard that term before or understand that there's ways that we can use our voice for a different impact now uh in to different affect tell us a little bit about what that is a lot of times you'll hear someone say something like I don't like how you said that to me and then the personal response what are you talking about what do you mean it's like it's it's the way you say it you said that and it's this elusive kind of assessment or judgment that comes where you're like well this is the way I talk and deal with it or whatever have you most of the time when people think about Voice work they'll say oh you know they think about Pitch like you know there's guys want their boys to be deeper and in fact I'm gonna send you I'm gonna send you uh audio so you can hear where my voice was when it started because I sounded like a man I sounded preview best it's it's actually quite embarrassing but you need to be able to compare and contrast so that people aren't under the impression that this is puberty that is not like I was 26 years old when I started this uh situation in well past it but anyway tone or Timber is the is the quality of a sound and that is detected instantly your voice makes an impression on someone in a tenth of a second that's the same amount of time that Timbre of music makes an impression is a book by Zachary Waller horse or Walker if I'm saying his name is called um nothing but noise and it's about Timbre and music and he talks about voice um very briefly but that very small fraction of a second you ever like dial um when you're listening to the radio for those who ever turn dials on radios you know we're majoring myself but we used to turn in a car like we used to listen to an actual radio and and we had to allow ourselves to turn to different stations and you can tell like you're switching stations that split split split and you're deciding in that split moment whether or not you're going to stay at that station or not people make those kind of tonal decisions all the time and your voice is giving away that data like that so when I say Voice work what is the appropriate tone for the context of the discussion that you are having right now a lot of people are brilliant and they have amazing content and this is actually where I want to lean into Clubhouse and when I first came into your room in the future room you were speaking and I remember instantly being like I don't know who this guy is but I'm listening and then you told this really beautiful story and I again I had no idea who you were but I remembered the gravitas I remember how exceptionally uh how exceptional the delivery of your story was I'm like this guy whatever he does he does it well and he does it at a masterful level and then the affect of your tone was I cannot forget it there's a certain I was attempting to figure out how I wanted to describe it but you have like a a surgical warmth that's the best way that I could describe it it's like very precise and to the point but it's warm it's like the the neurosurgeon that really cares about opening up the person's brain and they're not just cold and looking at it like okay you know this is a person but I still have to open them up and I still have to do this procedure but I'm still dealing with the person and that affect is what people will remember your voice and the tone of your voice is what will indicate two things for people after what reminds them of you and what they remember about you there's Neuroscience that supports all of this where you know in Maya Angelou said you know people will forget what you said but they'll never forget how you said it then there's Neuroscience to support that like in certain memory tasks they can remember if you said words in a sad way they will remember that you set them in a sad way more than they will actually remember the word itself same thing with any other tone and we are drawn to tonal decision making for example I'll go to a restaurant you go to the waiter or the waitress and you say what's a good what's good food on this menu and they'll point out this year this dish like oh this is one of my popular ones but then they'll say something like this well you know but this right here blah blah blah and I'm like that why because in their tone I was able to ascertain that that experience was so enriching for them I want that and when we're speaking to people people are making decisions about whether or not they want to sound like us would I want to have the experience in my life that would make me sound like that so you take a you take someone who's who has a problem where they're like really agitated like you know I just uh and then you come in and you're like well I have a solution for you but that's the feeling that they're carrying they actually don't want it they actually want something else they want a different tone a different texture and if you're like you know I see where you're coming from and you have the tone that is calmer that's smoother around the edges and they're like ah I want that I want to feel like that I test this with my nieces and nephews you know when I go visit them you know they have a moment where they're upset and because I understand that children children are aware of tone at four months old by the time by the time we acquire language we've already spent an additional 12 months just understanding tone kids don't get the words but they understand tone at least four months and sometimes even sooner and so if I want to get through to my nieces and nephews when they have a tantrum I get to their level and I know that I'm using a tone that is counter to the one that they're whining with because if I give them that or if I give them this because I'm agitated all that's going to do is exacerbate the situation but if I come into tone that is calming and now I'm in control here it's very interesting how fast it's it's it's amazing how fast certain things just dissipate because we're speaking in the tonal language so to answer the question about what is Voice work Voice work is that it is understanding how to modulate your tone to be assertive to de-escalate to move things along to slow things down to speed things up all of that information is in your tone I'll give you another example I was on a call and it was like this and it was a 15 minute call and the gentleman gets on he's like oh you know um I have um 15 minutes and we're here and you know I want to make sure I can be in this call and and so on and so on and uh you know let's just talk about what we're going to talk about and so you know we're going and he asks me so tell me something about voice I wouldn't know and I said well you know I can hear the urgency in your in your voice because the time is limited I can tell that you're already running to the next thing and I understand that you're trying to be as mindful of our time and I appreciate that and he took a moment to sit back and he because it was like oh wow he didn't recognize that his voice was betraying his mind where you are and where you're going that can be heard that's when we can tell when people are with us we can tell when someone is off somewhere else in the distance while we're having a conversation with them their tone will betrayed where they are where they where they're going and where they are and uh you know so you want to be able to create a space that's what people mean when they say like you know want to have a you know safe space it's tonal if I'm if I'm trying to de-escalate if I'm having a problem or an argument with a spouse or if I'm you know and I have a tone that's very agitated and it's pretty much like I don't care what you have to say I'm graded it's sharp it's pointed that tone says we have a problem here and so Voice work is being able to masterfully move and control the nervous systems of the people who are within earshot of you you had said something that on that sales call where the person seemed to be speaking faster or that call not a sales call where they're speaking faster and that we trade their their mind is it betraying their mind or is it reflecting their mind because I think people speak fast because they think I have a short period of time they're thinking about their next thing and they're also like you you were saying they're mindful that you have a 15-minute window and you got to get out as much information as possible so they're rushing because I feel that sometimes especially those people who are not super self-aware of their tone of voice and how they're communicating with people that it clearly says what they're really thinking versus what the words they're using like if somebody says I love you but they say it in a way that isn't reflective how they truly feel inside the people are paying attention will pick up on that right away he gave the example of the waiter or a waitress where they go through like here's what's popular probably what they were told to say they might even be pushing the special today because there might be an incentive for them to do that yeah but when they turn to you kind of like an aside but you know between you and me so the tone already changes it feels like they're letting you in on a secret or something they don't tell other people um my personal favorite is this other thing and not enough people know about it and then you said that's when they have you and you're in but they can also be using that consciously to manipulate you to think this is the what is you know uh things that most people don't know about and it's a real Insider Secret so it could be used in a lot of different ways one it can be used to manipulate you could use it could be used unintentionally to really communicate what it is that you feel inside or you're just totally unaware and you're just doing what you do lots of different ways to do this so as a person who's trained in this stuff who's Super Hyper conscious and aware of it how can you tell if someone's being genuine or can you when they're using their voice and ways to communicate certain ideas [Music] there is a saying and that's a brilliant question because it's the moral dilemma you know they said if you can feign sincerity right and it's true because that is the smallest unit of vocal communication so there's like a difference like these stages of amplification right like your tone amplifies your silence and then your voice amplifies your tone in that order and then your words amplify your voice so when you're able to get to the Core is what makes a great salesman a great salesman when they say the sign of a great salesman when they can sell anything and it was always like well why is this because they're like magicals like no's because they understand what it means to be completely infused with the belief that the product that I have in my hand is the best thing ever it doesn't matter what they touch it matters that in their possession like when they say sell me the pin in my possession this pen becomes valuable you might give to somebody else oh my gosh so the the thing that I find interesting is that this is this this kind of control is like giving loaded guns to people and sometimes a loaded gun is used to protect someone and sometimes a loaded gun is used to bring harm that was undo and so there's always this weird um you know like I'm pretty I'm pretty like like about where and when when I train people you know because I recognize like oh my God you can like really like get by if you understand that because most people think that content which has been which has been promoted that content is King well the King on the chessboard is powerful but then there's the queen and so maybe tone is Queen when when she moves when she moves she moves she moves the board and she moves people and so when you have Mastery over that that's what makes a great Storyteller a great Storyteller because technically storytellers have to suspend the reality that you're currently living in right now in exchange for a different one and one that is believable and one that takes you from this place and transports you to another place and so storytelling is you know in the business world is you know I guess you could say um well-intentioned deceit uh because this isn't real yet it's not real it's not true but I'm gonna give you a vision of the world that I believe could be and I want all of you to get behind me and that's where you have like the theranos lady right who is known for her voice the people be like oh it's her voice was there was something about her voice and you saw you see where that led people or anyone that has great Charisma that has led people astray usually they have these qualities about them that people were drawn to and so you have to become mindful of who you allow yourself to be drawn to in that regard the theranos lady let's bring that up because she got a lot of money from a lot of people and bought into a vision that was completely like it went against physics like it didn't make sense to anybody and when I when I watch her Ted Talk and then the ensuing documentary films about her her voice sounds very fake to me it almost seems like is is an affect that she's applying very consciously and I wonder why people didn't pick up on that or maybe you have a different perspective can can you break some of that down you know how certain magic tricks don't work anymore like how someone can't sell you like uh open like a bottle and with water in it and say this is super Nitro juice like no one can do that anymore right because we all figured that one out and we got it so you can't pull that one over us I think every generation there is this thing that will go until it doesn't anymore when Elizabeth Holmes was doing her rounds she was something exotic to observe he's like whoa here's his voice and and like here's his idea and you know deeper voices are associated with a certain level of confidence and assuredness and you're like okay yeah sure once you find out on the other end of it oh man I got got there there are people who are magicians who watch other magicians and know exactly how they did the trick so for someone like you who does this for a living you're like really you guys fell for this crap but all of those Spectators that enjoyed being entertained they were P there were so many anecdotes about people being drawn to her voice which let me know that that was doing something but the documentary comes out and I don't really think people have leaned in too much into the idea that she had an affect that she was putting on and kind of opening that up it's like it's it's almost like that last place where the magicians don't want everyone else to know that you know there's these things that you can change or manipulate to draw people's attention and if you're doing it for a short period of time like for you know an investment call where you only have to put that on for an hour at most two hours you're not living with it then you don't really have to pay attention to it it's exotic for the moment um but she wouldn't be able to do that twice now people will listen to her with a more fine ear in fact I believe that Clubhouse started to filter for that as well all of these social social Audio Apps began to filter but even still people were getting scammed on the app why because for every for for in as long as humans have existed honesty and deceit have been polar ends of what is required there are there are animals that survive and thrive off of lying giving a different perception of something and then in exchange for the Folly of whoever gets caught they eat and then there's other other animals that thrive on look let me show you exactly what I am I'm a lion let me roar here I am right and we will always deal with those Ebbs and flows and so I don't think there will be a day where you'd be like no one will ever be able to pull the wool over my eyes or or the eyes of humanity will get more keen we'll get more fine but there will always be new tricks and new puzzles to solve and I think part of us we have to be predisposed to kind of wanted and otherwise imagine imagine a world where we just looked at everything it was like Ah that's crap that's BS we wouldn't go to the movies anymore because we would be like that's not even true yeah so I think that there's some part of us that wants to be lied to for entertainment purposes as long as we willingly pave you know eight dollars and fifty cents you know right I think we want to be lied to in more ways than just in in entertainment and my belief is that not knowing is a scary thing and we we don't have the time to understand everything that it that is in our lives and so we readily make up stories so we lie to ourselves that's the first lie and then we accept Eliza other tell us from from government from religion from society we accept all these lies and it just because it makes us feel a little bit safer so those who are able to tell a better story tend to be more effective liars I'm using that word kind of loosely here everybody I'm not saying everybody's intending to lie but we tell each other stories all the time we told ourselves a story about how the sun revolved around the Earth and the Earth was the center of the universe or how the Earth is flat and we want to believe in these stories because it makes us feel safe so when it gets storytelling you reference Clubhouse a couple of times here what makes for a great story from a voice point of view because you talked about it intellectually I'd love to have some examples from you so that we can make it super tangible maybe you can tell us a story in a couple different ways or to tell us what you're doing while you're doing it okay so that we can understand like oh that's what's happening okay so here's the thing I think that in this particular segment it'll be better if you do this so Chris I want you um I want you to think about the last great meal that you had where you were like man this was awesome okay all right okay so you have that image in your mind now I want you to share something that within reason that you're okay with that has been challenging in the last month but I want you to think about this wonderful meal as you share this story oh this is a tricky one Marshall you got me spinning around here because of that my brain is juxtaposing two different concepts and emotions let me focus on finding a challenge let me think about that first the tables have turned ladies and gentlemen okay I'll be super vulnerable and real with you I'll just tell you uh because I was trying to look for another story that it involves such a personal thing but I'll tell you okay so I'm gonna tell you the story but I'm gonna think about the Savory meal right okay one of the most difficult things that I have that I'm trying to work out is learning how to be on the same wavelength as my wife I think we secretly jockey for control and so when one of us concedes it's perfectly harmonious and when we have opposing ideas of control what what it might look like that's where the tension starts to Bubble Up and I have to learn how to understand to be able to control my my reaction and my tone in situations like that so it doesn't drive my wife into a place where she's questioning herself in her own opinions that's a real challenge well one I appreciate that you know that's honest right it's uh that is vulnerable and it's challenging because now you've challenged now the because the juxtaposition is coming so and then we can discuss what we're doing I want you to think about the most disgusting gross thing you don't want to touch it you don't want it near you don't want none of it and I don't want you to tell this story because I don't want you to Sully how you just told it but I want you to examine how your body feels right now thinking about that so you want me to tell you how my body feels just thinking about that thought like yeah that like I could I could taste it in my mouth almost like my saliva tastes different feel like my skin is crawling a little bit thinking about this thing and I want to stay clear like six feet away from this thing and it's super creepy so just whenever I see it is a creature so when I see one of these insects crawling around the house I just I want to grab a tool or something get rid of it as fast as possible there you go [Music] now the reason why and let's just go back to that other mindset just you know just to watch that image so what's happening the imagery the part of the brain that looks at parasites CR and crosstalks it's not it's not directly like 100 connected to every node but it cross talks to the place where we make moral judgment the word in Spanish when you like something it's uh me gusta which comes from the Latin gustar which means to taste which also lends itself to the English word gestation which is what we eat we say things like oh that left a bad taste in my mouth or we sweeten the deal now a lot of times when we think about flavor and taste we think about putting things in our mouths but we actually the nose plays a huge role in flavor perception you know anyone who's who lost their sense of smell uh also probably felt how boring life could be so what happens when you don't want to touch something you don't want to look at it you don't want it near you the body starts to do all sorts of things to protect you it shuts off the pathways to your Airways so you breathe a lot more conservatively it creates a certain muscular tension to prepare you to sort of make your body something a destroyer it's like I need to get rid of this problem in all of that imagine if you were to apply that energy to the story you just told me it would have had a whole different effect because your mind would be associating the problem with this thing that you don't want to look at and you don't want near you the body is always doing its best job to Keep Us Alive in our thinking and this is where I'd like to to to to to invite a Venn diagram of imagination where the middle of that Venn diagram is the word is right let me know this is that I think about this wonderful meal that I had and I think about my wife and I think about the conflicts that we have and I think these are the things that I could do to draw closer to this image that I have in my mind because I want to be closer to the image that I have in my mind I don't want to just I don't want to run away from it I don't want to avoid it I want to be right here but if I don't want to be with this image that's in my mind my tone is going to betray how I feel about the thing and so when we use the imagination which has been proven fmri scans you know we we can imagine this auditory imagery there's um you know imagery in the nasal area you can imagine certain smells that's not like a that's not like just like oh it's in your head it's like no you can conjure up these images and they have an effect on how you're perceiving things and we then diagram all the time is the reason why two people can look at the same thing and have totally different polarizing views vanilla or chocolate you'll get into a fight like no vanilla is better no chocolate is better what are you talking about vanilla's in it and nothing's changed about chocolate and vanilla besides whether or not your ice cream has melted because you're too busy arguing about it but the view and the point of view is embodied so one of the things I like to work on and you know very quickly is in a modular I just call it good food but you can use good food really to do anything it's not just about food we use the word taste to describe whether we like something or not taste the music Taste of food tasting clothing so there's a strong connection between that system in fact there was a small study in the 60s I've done a lot of weird research and found all these like it's like one paper that came out and they just didn't but there were these doctors that they um had hookups to this gentleman's esophagus and they noticed that when they said things that were displeasing that the esophagus would spasm and they were like nah I don't know so they were they were kind of playing this game of like walking by and just saying stuff that would just like suck around this person in the esophagus would like spasm so there's this connection to the desire to eat even when people are emotional was one of the first things they stopped doing stop eating so there's a connection between or people that also when they're emotional they eat a lot right they to to get certain things so there's this connection between how we feel and what we choose to ingest and if or choose to reject so this is a very straightforward way to within one context you know it's like the menu I like that meal there that was a really good experience versus yeah you know I wouldn't eat that wouldn't eat that I wouldn't eat that my tone is saying I wouldn't put it near me you shouldn't either right or I'll have what he's having right um there's a scene from that film where I'm trying to remember what the young ladies having a great time at the other table and the person goes yeah whatever that is give it to me right all right it's like When Harry Met Sally absolutely right what was your what was your feeling though you know because I know that we spoke to it but I'm curious on we saw how it felt on one end when you spoke about just describing the feelings but when you spoke about it the first time what did you notice for yourself about which part the when you were telling the story the first time all about my wife while I was having it's very hard to hold two opposing thoughts you taught you told me to to capture my mind the last great meal and and think about that in whatever it did for you from a food Savory senses and then to talk about something that's an ongoing thing that my wife and I struggle with so that's a point of frustration of course she thinks well I'm an idiot I can't get it and I think she's an idiot she can't get it so we're gonna have to just work through this for the rest of our lives I think and so it's hard to hold two opposing thoughts so I was trying to continually think about that savory meal while I'm describing this thing and I saw that it affected the way that I chose the words that I chose like I I I realized I would not use this word normally but I was like bubbling up so that's like a cooking visual thing right like imagine a pot boiling or something and and so holding one thought changed just my holding a feeling from a different experience and translating it to a story to tell change the story and change the way I thought about it what if I were to suggest to you that we most of the time are holding layers of thinking that every conversation is like in Photoshop you have layers and depending on what you overlay or blend determines the overall output of the final image sometimes what becomes challenging for us is if we're used to a certain image overlay let's say we have three layers to a picture and like in this that third layer usually is that second then someone says no take this image and put that there and it's like whoa whoa I'm used to this image being there that's the image that's the context with which I'm used to describing or talking about this thing when we shift the image it's a shift of context and that can be a bit jarring when we have repetitions with a certain conversational dialogue it's like you train you train a lot of people to get over the fear of asking for money because the context with which they when it gets to the ask part how much will this cost the image that they have that's there that's stuck is I'm not good enough I shouldn't be asking there may be too much they may not have it in all of those contexts they come to you because they trust you because they've seen that you've broken that context 50 Ways to Sunday and you have no fear and they want to be able to put that image in that spot so when they use the words it cost X there isn't a sign of shirking there isn't a sign of fear there's a sign of resistance or reluctance and sometimes it takes a little while to break that context you know if it was just watch one of my videos and Everything Will Change they wouldn't keep coming back but it takes its time it takes its time to cook the new context and bake it into your experience and so yes that feeling was like whoa however even noticing any subtle change in difference is enough to go wait a minute what's that maybe I can lean into that more and then it becomes just repetition like everything else that we've done and everything else that you've done Marshall can you make it real tangible because now you're entering into a space where I think there's going to be a lot of interest here where people do have an unhealthy relationship with money they're afraid of it they're afraid to talk about it they think it's bad social manners it's culturally taboo to talk about money it is a sign of self-importance for some people it's a fear of rejection for others where if I say a number bigger than I think then they're going to say no and I can't handle the rejections because it's going to crush my soul so if I'm imagining a taste is probably not a good taste it's probably not a good physical reaction a memory or an emotion holding in so can you make it real tangible and you're right obviously I've talked about it so many different ways but it takes multiple exposures to a concept for someone to really to embody and to be able to do on their own so maybe we can add to that repertoire tools by giving them something to do or think about so that the money conversation isn't as uncomfortable as as it might be for them today there's something in Neuroscience called affordances and affordance is the fancy word for anything that you can do with your hands so it's anything if I have a glass of water on the table and affordances that I can reach for it grab it and drink it I can do that if my wallet is on the table with my keys are hanging up my affordances or I can grab those keys I can move them I can remove them and put them in my pocket I can afford to do that when you're in a store for an expensive object the affordance is I have to be able to exchange a certain amount of money to be able to touch it if I buy it I can touch it so [Music] what is the affordance how can you feel that you can afford the the experience of receiving the funds that's actually the wrong way to look at it the way that we're looking at it is that you have this thing in your in your possession the the word sale actually comes from um reluctant when someone sells something they're not eager to give it up and I'm a rush they actually really want it but they're willing to give it to you for a price it's a different perspective like I want my time actually because when I'm giving up in exchange for your money is time control I will be beholden to whatever it is that you are asking of me and actually want that I want to hold it the curiosity is whether or not they can afford to have that from you there's two things that we can look at here when it comes to to you to lean into the food metaphor here McDonald's McDonald's is selling you a burger for two bucks so it's excitement in neon and bing bing bing bing bang bang bye and they're just getting people rolling in and out if you go to some place like um like a caviar Roos or something it's a very expensive restaurant to dining experience where there's a certain understanding that what has been prepared has been prepared well and that in order to have this experience you're gonna have to pay for so we look at the Venn diagram perspective and and lean into it if you know for a fact that what it is that you have and then in your body you know what it takes for you to prepare it what it takes for you to Plate it to put it down what it takes for you to design it what it takes for you to map it out you're very well aware of this experience and you are offering it to the other person I want um everyone to take a moment really quickly to do this exercise I want you to just gently extend your hand as if you are just offering someone something that you know they can take or not I want you to feel what that feels like here's this object this item that you are unveiling that you are showing and it is in your hand and I want you to feel it I want you to feel in this items like the person can take it or not but if they do there's a price and I want you to lean into what that feels like what does that feel like alternatively take that hand back I want you to put your hand out but in your mind's eye I want you to feel like that person needs to take it what does that feel like I'm not even trying to change my affect at all but just this gesture like just I need you to take this from me changes my whole being it makes it sound like I'm pushing the item on the person it makes it feel like why am I so eager to get rid of this thing it must not be valuable if you're willing to get rid of it so easily your time must not be so valuable if you're willing to get rid of it so easily this is an embodied feeling when we give of ourselves when we offer ourselves over when we open our hand what is the intent because that will shape the tone with which it is heard from the other person when you are there like you know you can have this right you won't it's okay I'll put it right back in my pocket because I'd rather it stay with me in that thing that we're talking about here is our time here's my time energy and effort and I would prefer it stay with me and my family and the people I care about I'd rather watch Netflix I'd rather play video games I'd rather do something else but for a fee I'm willing to let you have this and it's no longer about your affordances is about theirs same thing with the uh very expensive meal think about how it's brought to you at a nice restaurant how things are laid down how things are put down versus how a bag is handed to you at Chick-fil-A here you go boom thank you for your 14 bucks keep moving now if you can do that at scale because you have a product that's that's that impulse that's an Impulse Buy fine well the most of the clients I'm imagining are you talking to and the people that are that listen to you or people who want to have long relationships with the people that they're working with in in you know twenty thousand thirty thousand forty thousand fifty thousand hundred thousand two hundred thousand dollar relationships are usually a little longer then thanks here you go take your back and so it becomes an embodiment practice of where you how you value the physical form that you bring because it's not the fun the final product is a product of your physicality it's not just the final product most people who are very proud of what they've made think of a chef or a sculptor or a designer that knows what they're doing and then no one understands like the typography understands like why they put this weighted thing here in the essence of feeling like ah this is um if you value it if you value it that becomes apparent immediately when you try to exchange it when you talk about something think about a thing or an object that you have that is your most prized possession in fact if you want to try this exercise of imagining it right think about something you would never give away something that is unsellable foreign like I wouldn't I wouldn't not a day think about what it means to you then how it feels to talk about it to remember it because your body the embodiment your affordances the way that you would touch it the way that you would hold it right or something as of value you let someone you should let them see it like a baseball card or something like that you're like yo this is a Michael Jordan rookie card for whatever the way you would want people to handle it like this is precious cargo when we are able to handle our offerings with that same fragility that same value not and when I say fragility I don't mean um uh because people might make mistake me first for that saying like oh like you be fragiles like no you treat your time and you treat your energy like it is fragile you treat your relationships like they're fragile when people don't care they just bust through your house kick things over just whatever we're just making space and when you do that the people they feel that they don't like it unless you're playing football then you just knock them all over the place but when you're exchanging meaningfully the embodiment of how something is treated it's not separate from what's Happening up here so that it would be my suggestion and I think to the point is that something you do very well you're like this is valuable and I know it's valuable and you know if you wanted you can have it for this fee and if you don't that's fine I know other people that you can probably go to if I'm not the one for you and that comes across every single time I watch you examine someone who wants to like learn how to close or they figure out what the the it's the same energy people say Oh no you're worth and that becomes very abstract and ethereal when you leave it in the brain to abstract but when you think about what you're going to do with your hands and with your body in your physical form and you're like if I value this vessel how would I handle things then it's no longer abstract and in your mind but now it's in your body and then it's everything that you touch the way that you put your mark on it will be clear I like that approach it's a different one than the one that I try and help people with so it's adding some ammunition to the Arsenal things that I can use to help people so your approach seems to be very much physical psychological and feeling based so once you are able to associate a positive feeling or experience and you talk a lot about Hands and Body then you can see it in a different light perhaps the body will tell the mind how to think and how to speak and the words to choose so I I quite like that that was really cool thank you when you say to think about something that's not sellable what comes to your mind when you say like I have something I would never sell to anybody okay this is going to be I guess a bit on the Ethereal side because from very young I've had to learn how to let go of things I valued for Life circumstantial reasons and so you know the it's not I don't have a tangible item that I can say you know what this this this does not qualify but if I were if I were to give it a moment you know it's uh it's it's the place where you know I don't know what people mean when they say they sell their soul but I think I've gotten to a place where I recognize that that isn't for sale and it's intangible which I don't like because I there's a part of my mind that always wants to be rooted in you know because to be fair Chris I don't have it many physical positions where I'm like oh you know no heirlooms the only things that I have that are fragile is the um because I've collected a lot of trust from people like people talk to me about things and they tell me things um and I have a lot of stories in here people that felt like my ear was the ear to hear a thing and I think it's part of my you know personality based and probably what makes this work work for me is in that the fragility of relationships those are the things that I you know it's like people like I won't trade one relationship for another like they're like oh you know um which which makes navigating business very interesting because you have all these different vectors and angles and people are willing to betray others all the time to get to the coins so that would be the thing which is I guess it's not it's not brick and mortar but I know what it is the reason why I asked you that question is because I think I netted out the same place where you do I have things but things are just that they're replaceable and I'm not an overly sentimental person like you said you don't have any heirlooms or something that's not replaceable because I even think about pictures of my children but they're digital so they exist somewhere if I needed to pull them down it's the kind of world that we live I think it goes to this whole Trend that we live in a increasingly dematerialized culture where we pay more for Less physical things we pay for experiences in and the iPhone is a perfect example of like how many different devices and physical things it's replaced from from the map books that we used to carry in our car you're old enough to know yes that was the way you can navigate Los Angeles otherwise you're kind of screwed to the camera uh to an appointed book just so many different things the daily planner and so it is increasingly becoming more difficult to come up with a physical thing that you can hold in your mind and hold it in in your imagination as something but it was curious how how you answer that question um I want to be mindful of time I've enjoyed this conversation with you um are there any other high-level thoughts that you wanted to share with us before I I tap into your brain about how people can dig deeper into what it is that you do how you and your offerings so there was one thing uh a tangible um and it goes back to the hands so there's this thing called Square breathing box breathing where you know you breathe four times the inhale hold exhale then keep the air out of your body uh used by the military to basically fall asleep in a war zone um and basically put the body in the state where it could rest despite um I want to bring attention to the hand too so when we take over our breathing when we um what's the word when we're breathing normally or without thought there's a different system that's operating that breathing the second we take control of our breathing which happens when we mindfully breathe and also when we speak the respiratory system goes into a different track in the brain to the body when this is activated the hands get involved and so what I want um and you can do this with me Chris so we're going to do a segment of box breathing but we're going to do it this way so when you inhale I want you to gently open your fingers on the four account right and then we're going to hold the fingers open just gently nothing massive for that four seconds and then as you exhale slowly close the fingers and then when the air is out of the body keep the fingers closed and then we're going to do that two more times so it's going to be four counts so three two one inhale opening your fingers slowly to three four hold the breath five four three two exhale slowly closing the hands two three four keep the fingers closed air out of the body two three four five slowly inhale opening the fingers four five hold the fingers open hold the breath two three four slowly close the fingers exhaling two two three four hold the breath fingers close to three four one more time slowly opening this three four hold the breath two three four closing the fingers exhaling hold the breath and release your hands 25 percent of the motor strip of the brain is devoted to our ends so 25 of what the body is gonna do 25 of what the body would do how it will move the hands get a lot of that space I want to invite everyone that's listening to practice this breathing when you recalibrate your breathing to synchronize it with the hands a lot of times people get very nervous on the first things that you know things are shaking but the hands start getting busy too people get sweaty Palms all sorts of things so when you bring that synchronicity or synchrony to the hands and the breath it just takes that mindful breathing thing to like one more level where you're not just thinking about it but you're embodying the opening and closing of the hands as it relates to the breath cycle I recommend you do that in every 90 minutes along with a nice yarn stretch like what you see your dogs and cats do uh if you have a dog or a cat at home or whatever when you see them do it you do it but uh but yeah bring that awareness especially if you're gonna be using your hands to do all of that amazing work that you're going to be doing you want to be in sync with them and become one with them and get after it what is that doing for us the yawn stretch and the Box breathing with the hands so yarn stretching or appendiculation your resets the nervous system so when we sit in front of our computers it's the equivalent of sitting with our car on and the headlights on still and we just sit there and what happens after a while is that the car battery will go out and you'll need a jump so the yarn stretches the body's way of getting that jump you notice that all the animals do it the birds do it the dogs do it they both do it bears do it and what they're doing is all of the muscles that they use to be mobile to to get after it they twist their necks they do all of that good stuff to turn all of those muscles back online to say I'm here we usually do this first thing in the morning but then someone told us that yawning was rude in the third grade and then ruined this for the rest of our lives it's true the body needs that kind of adjustment roughly every 90 minutes most people don't do it at that interval but if you have a pet and you're like how often is your cat or dog though they're like oh they do that a bunch of times a day and then my next next question is well have you ever seen them go to the gym like no but when they're ready to go or they are are they they're like yeah like well you know Nature has a built-in system I'm not saying don't go to the gym and meet your fitness goals what I'm saying is is that nature has a way of keeping itself alive in one of those ways to make sure that your body is online and ready to go so that's young stretching the Box breathing is resetting the respiratory system the way that we normally think about breathing is inhale exhale but there's actually a pause in there um in infants they do this where they inhale hold the breath a little bit exhale hold the breath and when you have small children you think oh my God my baby they're not awake it's like no they're fine they're just breathing normally and inhale exhale as a sign of respiratory distress so what you're doing by resetting the Box breathing this year resetting the pause in the breath cycle but then when you synchronize it with the hands you're creating this a full embodied Sensation that okay I'm here and I'm I'm breathing um you know when I go on long distance runs I use that method of breathing and synchronizing my inhalation exhalation with my hands as I'm running and I'm able to run very far and not be as exhausted as I would or as I used to be when I would run distance so there is a strong connection to that sense of embodiment in the whole body breathing with you and so those two things every 90 minutes get to it it's called box breathing because instead of going on two Dimension it goes on four there's inhale hold exhale hold yeah yeah okay it's it's a little bit uncomfortable I have to admit because the exhale and hold you're like I need oxygen but after a little while you're like no I'm okay and I have enough yes and that's the body getting okay with you know because usually when people gasp that needs for air but if you're able to like let's let's let's if we were to go back to the original thesis here it's like I'm in no rush to get more air in my body it'll come it's okay just like I'm in no rush for you to put this cash in my hand right now like it's okay like you know I can always breathe over here if we can't do this together I can always turn over here and take a breath right and then again it becomes that in sync right that everything that you're doing you know by the time you get to the what's the what's the euphemism they're like oh it's like breathing for you once it becomes so natural that's the same that's the the synonym oh he does it like he's breathing and so there you are okay that's wonderful talking to you today if people want to dig deeper do some Voice work and and they're turned on by this physicality this embodiment that you've been talking about how do they find out more about you and where can they go all right now so mindbodyspeak.com m-i-n-d-b-o-d-y speak s-p-e-a-k.com and uh you know you can get a before and after and hit me in the uh in the inbox where can I find you on social uh Marshall Davis Jones on Instagram Marshall Davis Jones on LinkedIn um and those two things I need uh I would need your your course Direction on like massive omnipresence on all of these channels Chris cause you got it on you're like yeah you're there everywhere the illusion of being everywhere at the same time forever and always yeah and are you still participating in any kind of audio spaces now you know I go to Clubhouse every now and again I mean I used to there I got over the the dojo part of it yeah um I was like all right you know okay it is interesting because you do you know when people are really really going and there's like a cacophony it's like whoa you know it becomes more about survival of the fittest at that point and it was more about keeping my nervous system um uh calm and recognize just how powerful it is how powerful the nervous system interactions can be in a room you're like okay there's a bunch of people upset in here and um your your body is sampling all of that as soon as you hear it you're sampling that information then that can be overwhelming and of itself so yeah you know I'll go in and in the air a room hear people talk and like whatever the Mystique or the the the all of that that it was and that has come and it's gone yeah I think it would require everyone being inside again to um to really ramp up it spoke to the need that we have to feel the vibration of the other and that's what Clubhouse really tapped into is like I need to feel something that feels like it's right now and they did a good job of that what about you yeah uh less and less I spend some time on LinkedIn audio spaces and also on Twitter spaces as well less and less on clubhouse um very rarely now do I open it up where it used to be a multiple times a day habit just checking on rooms and I think the Mystique The Lure of having these great conversations that people have gone because it's been replaced by marketers and drama rooms and I'm not signing up for that absolutely what um I would love to uh catch you on your LinkedIn audio spaces I didn't realize that that was a thing so yeah I'll definitely look into it uh I they're scheduled and I don't do them that often I mean back in clubhouse days I'd do like four calls a week maybe more now I'll do a call every couple of weeks but I I I maybe like you and and not so intentionally but I I found myself doing a ton of these audio calls in terms of like oh there's a story and there's a voice and people seem to resonate with what it is that I'm doing and and it was a unique experience where we don't have to mind what we look like what we're wearing uh all we have to do is focus on the word the tone and the pitch and the in the quality of the sound of our voice and that's that's all we have to focus in on it gave gave me a much uh it allowed me to focus more and and I think that was a good thing for me you know to that to that end it's interesting because I think it's like a metaphor is a metaphor in there somewhere about when when we didn't have to worry about what we looked like there was something truer to the essence less noisy and what if we were able to I hate that you have seven minutes or less because you just opened up like these thought patterns of like huh we get up we get dressed and maybe we get up and we could rest and we look nice because we don't want to have to think about what we look like if you can put on a nice outfit you don't have to wonder like man this is the thing to wear today but when you're not so focused on that what information what are you able to focus on what are you able to communicate what are you able to get to and why does that feel so good that's what they mean by the whole like dissolving the ego it's like when it's just the essence of you without a care of what you look like doesn't mean that you let yourself go but it means that you put yourself in the optimum place where you don't have to think about how you look somebody points out a staying on your shirt you haven't noticed that you're pointing to stay on someone sure you're like all of a sudden now there's like this corporal uh oh my God I'm dirty but if you're like you already know my office fly like let's let's talk about the thing here um so that that would be an advertisement for or a reason to dress well and to get people like hey you want to look great in these shoes because then you don't have to worry about if you're wearing horrible shoes it's like you you wore Jordans you already knew automatically when you went to school you had on the Jordans like there was no question there was no contest these are the Jordans that's it uh yeah yeah you're right so in a in a world where we have eyes ears nose and a mouth if you can get rid of the things you don't need to worry about allow you to focus on what really matters which is what do you have to say how you want to move about the world and how you move people absolutely absolutely I love it all right well Marshall it was a pleasure talking to you um and I appreciate your time and I hope everyone that's that's watching or listening to this finds value in that and they dig deeper into your content I think mindbodyspeak.com right is that correct that your mindbodyspeak.com is the perfect URL for what it is that you do I I can't believe you got that but it's perfect it says everything is super easy to remember too because everything that we've been doing all the exercises your stories are about your mind your body and how you how you use your voice and how you communicate with the world so thank you absolutely thank you