The Talent Forge: Shaping Workforce Behaviors with Jay Johnson

From Broadway to Boardroom: Finding Your Authentic Voice with Jay Harris

• Jay Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 52

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What happens when a Broadway performer turns his theatrical training toward helping professionals find their authentic voice? In this captivating conversation with Jay Harris, we explore the powerful intersection of performing arts and professional communication that can transform how you show up in every setting.

Harris shares his journey from Dreamgirls and Wicked to executive coaching, revealing how the skills that made him successful on stage now help professionals overcome their greatest communication challenges. "I had to find my voice, my real voice, not my performance voice or my agreeable voice or my professional voice," Harris explains, highlighting a struggle many professionals face when trying to connect authentically.

For anyone who's ever struggled with presentation nerves, worried about being "too much" or "not enough," or simply wanted to communicate more effectively, this conversation offers both validation and practical techniques. 

Connect with Jay Harris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/javarusharris/

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Jay Johnson:

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where, together, we are shaping the future of training and development. Today, we have a special guest coming to us from Atlanta, georgia, jay Harris. Welcome, jay, hello, hello, thank you for having me. All right. So I learned enough just in our connection that I was definitely going to like you as soon as I saw your name. We share a name, which is awesome, but we actually share some similar backgrounds and I'd love for the audience to get to know you, jay, tell us how did you get into training, coaching, leadership? I'd love to hear that story.

Jay Harris:

Yeah, yeah, thank you again for having me and, again, lots of things in common, including our name. But I'll tell you this, jay, that I remember working with an organization that I was a part of before and I just started kind of entering into the executive realm of things, and I remember having a conversation with a woman who I'll share her name here it's Adrienne Massey, and she was over our learning and development program at that particular company at that time and she and I started having a conversation and I started sharing a little bit of my background and I said, well, what do you think if I get involved with trying to teach or coach that particular module that you have? And she said, yeah, let's give it a try. And I'm telling you, man, I fell in love with you. Man, I fell in love with it.

Jay Harris:

I fell in love with it because it's one of those things where I've learned with coaching, where you're not giving them you know the exact formula that they have to use. This is the way to do it. It's really helping people tap into something that they already have and something that they already possess, and I know how valuable that's been for me and all the careers that I've been a part of. And so when I got a chance to just see that transformation happening, you know from my perspective as a coach I never left and I don't plan on leaving.

Jay Johnson:

Okay, I love that. So you know, and that's the thing is, once you get a little taste of the experience of coaching or training and really helping elevate people, I do think it's like. Then it's like all right, when's my next?

Jay Harris:

when's my next coaching bump? When's my next coaching bump? Right?

Jay Johnson:

So let me ask you this question what kind of pressure were you feeling when you had you had jumped in, you had asked that question um to your colleague, and they said yes. And then, at that point in time, it's like all right, not only am I getting in front of people, not only am I going to have to, you know, take this module, but you're also doing it under the wing of somebody whom obviously you had some respect for. So what was that pressure like?

Jay Harris:

I'll tell you the pressure it was, um, it was a lot, because I'll say I like to frame it like this I was experiencing with a lot of our coachees experience when they come to us, you know, to talk about developing themselves. So one of the things that I was feeling right off, you know the top, is I want to do a good job, I want to meet this opportunity in the best way that I possibly can. So I definitely felt some pressure to get it right. I'll be honest with you too. I also had my own idea of what a facilitator or coach in this realm should sound like, should be like, and I had to find my voice, my real voice, not my performance voice or my agreeable voice or my professional voice. I had to really lean into being myself and finding my own path and my own way of delivering workshops as well as delivering coaching. But I felt that pressure of getting it right. So it took some time to get to that point. I also felt the pressure of being able coach others in a way that resonates with them.

Jay Harris:

You know, I think for a lot of us, if we're being honest, we, you know, we're assigned a coach or, let's say, you've been tasked with doing a corporate, attending a corporate training. Some people might say, ok, I know this is a corporate training, I got to do this, it's a mandate. I'm going to, you know, sit through this, get through it, get my credit and then I'm going to go away. And it's because you traditionally have an expectation of how it's going to be and how relevant it will or will not be for you as an individual and who you are as a person. So for me, there was another expectation of pressure of I want this to land and I really want it to make a difference, not just you know, not just it be a. We got to get through the agenda.

Jay Johnson:

I think we all feel that at different points in time. So thank you, thank you for sharing that. I want to. I want to zero in on something that you had mentioned. It's about finding your sort of like coaching, training voice. Here's my experience and I want to know have you had anything like this or anything else? I have a voice, or like my authentic voice, when I am delivering on a keynote stage. I feel like that's pretty consistent with when I'm training. I feel like it's even moderately consistent when I'm coaching, the moment I move into video work or writing.

Jay Johnson:

It is like that is not. It just doesn't. It doesn't work, it doesn't flow and I think the first time I went to video I was like what the hell is wrong with me? I've been speaking for 20 years. I can't, I can't get a sentence out. I can't, it doesn't feel right. I looked at the video. I can't, I can't get a sentence out. I can't, it doesn't feel right. I looked at the video. I'm like who is?

Jay Harris:

this.

Jay Harris:

Have you had that experience or what do you think about that?

Jay Harris:

Of course, I think that so many of us in general have that, but especially when you're in, you know this realm of of um, you know delivering information, and when you're put in front of that video or you turn the record button on again, I think we all default to.

Jay Harris:

I want to get this right, I want to be credible, I want people to believe me, I want to appear seasoned and like I know what I'm doing, and so we kind of default to that thinking of what does a professional sound like? Or what does a person who has been speaking for years upon years, or people that we look up to or we watch on our own streaming platforms or YouTube or what have you? What do they sound like? And so you kind of get into that mode. And so you kind of get into that mode when you're in person and I've noticed this for myself, I should say when I'm in person on stage, I can see the audience. I get to kind of tailor what's happening in my room based off of whether they're receiving it or not. And I'll tell you this I am originally from Savannah, georgia.

Jay Harris:

So the longer the session goes, the more Southern accent kicks in and the storytelling ramps up and I'm using colloquialisms that people are falling in love with because I'm leaning into being myself and, even though they may not, it's not an ongoing conversation their reactions and the energy in the room I feel like we're having a conversation and I feel like we're building that trust as we go. I feel like we're having a conversation and I feel like we're building that trust as we go. When you're on camera, all you have is to assume how people will receive you, and so you're back into that mode of what you think is presentable, what you think looks seasoned, and so I've had that same experience. But I always tell myself I say you know what, I want to show up as me.

Jay Harris:

There's plenty of speakers out there in the world. There are plenty of people that do what we do. But it's actually when I show up as myself I told you earlier I can be a little tastefully unhinged, and all that means is I can be a little crazy, and I show up with that. And I see some people you know comments later. They're like you know what with that, and I see some people you know comments later. They're like you know what, I'm a little crazy and I get that, or you being that vulnerable about being intimidated for the first time speaking in front of a group, even though you know you can do this. That resonated with me because I felt the same way when when I got up to speak. So it's something about that authenticity that if you lean into it, you're going to hit a home run.

Jay Johnson:

And it's so. Spot on, jay, because that's exactly what I was doing was. I was coming in and all of a sudden, because the camera's there, so it all of a sudden became Corporate Jay, which I don't, I don't know Corporate Jay, corporate.

Jay Harris:

Jay doesn't really exist. I get it, I get it.

Jay Johnson:

But I realized and this is the funny thing is it was simply something as easy, as the camera doesn't laugh at my jokes. I always make the joke. I measure my success, yeah, on how much I have you laughing by the time that we finish our. You know talk, you know training, whatever it is, the camera doesn't laugh. So I was failing. Every time I get it yeah, I get, I get it Like oh, is that funny?

Jay Harris:

Oh, let me redo that one. No, I don't like that. Let me do that. No, I get it. I absolutely get it. A part of my tastefully unhinged-ness that I talk about. It is in my normal conversations, you know, with folks, and I rely on humor a lot because it's just a part of my personality, the it's just a part of my personality. The thing is, is that my style of humor is I am my audience of my jokes. Of course I consider who's out in the audience, but for the most part I'm the audience. So if it's funny to me, I can mess around and, as they say in the South, I get tickled at my own self. I can think something. I'm like that was funny. People are like what's wrong.

Jay Harris:

You know. So it's just one of those things where, whether it lands or not, if it feels, if it's appropriate, it feels good to you. You know, sometimes it's the not having the audience and laughing at your own jokes that I've seen that resonates with folks. So again, it's just that authenticity, I get it.

Jay Johnson:

I am. I am guilty as charged on that one one too, jay. So, you know, let's talk about this, though, because I think it's kind of an interesting. I think it's kind of an interesting background where you have a performance background. You've been in theater, you've been in productions, and you know when people hear that oftentimes they're like, okay, so is your talk a performance? Well, yes, but at the same time it's an authentic performance, like how do we? What does that look like? Because I do know that a lot of trainers or coaches have at least done something like improv or worked their way, and it's really helpful. We can get into that. But how do you balance that sort of performative J versus the authentic J, and how do you merge those things together?

Jay Harris:

Well, the first thing I want to say, number one, that's a really good question and I want to say that it took some time to get to a space of it not being a performance, for many reasons that I won't I won't belabor our time. However, I do want to acknowledge that it, as I mentioned earlier, we all want to do a good job and we all want to deliver what insight, information, speaking according to sometimes an invisible rubric of success that we've created in our own head, or sometimes based off of things we've saw on. You know, we've watched on YouTube, or maybe someone that we really admire, that's a well-known speaker, things of that nature. So it took a moment to allow myself to just be inspired by those things and by those people, but to not take on their rubric as my rubric. How I resonate and land with people is unique to me and unique to your listeners and viewers. So I had to start with that kind of a mental reframing, if you will.

Jay Harris:

The other thing I want to say about the performance piece, because I've gotten this from people that say well, jay, of course you're going to do a good job, you're an actor or you've been in. You know all of these, you know, performances in theater, and what I like to tell them is that studying performing arts and studying improv and things of those, you know the artistic sense of speaking, the artistic sense of speaking. It wasn't a matter of pretending. Especially when we talk about improv, a lot of the performing arts world is helping you to get familiar with your instrument, which is your body, your own body language, your facial expressions, your voice, and it's all about helping you fine tune what's already there. And so I would say, for me it doesn't feel like a performance because in preparation, through improv and through those productions, I've learned how to completely own my instrument, which is me.

Jay Harris:

I know how you know my body moves and sways. I'm not going to, I'm not playing a character, so I'm not going to hide my Southern accent. I am, you know, I know me. I'm pretty expressive, I love to smile. I can't help it sometimes. And so, because I know that I'm going to leverage what's already there and things like improv and being able to think quickly on your feet, it's not like it imports anyone else's mind in your head, it's your mind. You're just fine-tuning it to learn how to think strategically and critically in a way that you're able to respond rather than react off the cuff, as they say, in acting. But what that means is just in the moment, so I don't have to really balance it, because I focus being myself and leveraging my instrument, which is my body and my voice.

Jay Johnson:

That's pretty amazing and since you seem to be incredibly humble about this now, I have mentioned in the past on this show that I did theater, but I did it in high school and I was Conrad birdie. But it's nothing compared to what you have accomplished in this space. Dream girls on Broadway, wicked Atlanta Broadway I mean, that is incredible and you know, I can imagine, I can, I can just imagine how you show up in a room. So that's pretty cool and I'm really glad that we get to talk about this. So let me ask this question If you were to tell all of the audience why they need to get into improv or even take a class, or why they need to practice this, I've already pulled one takeaway Get familiar with your body, your style, your instrument. So I'm stealing that one you can't use it again.

Jay Harris:

Why else?

Jay Johnson:

Why else I'm not getting to let you off easy here. Why else is that important? Because I have found it really impacted everything for me, so I'd love to hear it from the expert everything for me.

Jay Harris:

So I'd love to hear it from the expert. Yeah Well, that's a really good question to add to just getting you know comfortable with your own body and your own voice. But something else that I would say is it kind of it's actually it supports learning your voice and your body because it gets you out of your head and into your body. When you are doing improv, you don't get a script and you're not told what to do and where to go and how to say it. And of course, you start off in your head but after a while you start to train your mind and your way of thinking to be able to be in the moment. So improv is this idea of yes and so, whatever you say to me, I can't, I'm accepting it and I'm adding to it.

Jay Johnson:

Would you like some? Would you like a Rice Krispies treat? No, oh God, that would be horrible Seen over.

Jay Harris:

Yeah, exactly so, and that's what we don't want. So when you think about it, when you're improv and you think about I've got to, I'm going to have to go with the as the punches are coming in, I got to roll with it. What does that look like for me? And you start to learn that, because there is no rubric in front of you, you're going to have to get out of your head and into the moment. You're going to have to get out of your head and into the moment. So you've got to be actively listening to what that person's saying so that you can have something of value to add, something that makes sense roughly makes sense to keep the narrative moving forward. So it really does condition you to again get out of your head and into your body and it allows you to get present and into the moment. So you're actively listening to what they're saying. You don't have an opinion because you don't know what they're gonna say. So you've gotta truly tune in to being present and in the moment.

Jay Harris:

The other thing I would say is it helps you expand your expressive range. Something I always say is we've all been there I think most of us have where you've gone to a conference, maybe not even a conference, let's just scale it down to your organization and maybe the leader, the facilitator of that meeting is someone who comes in saying you know, you know, we're pumped for this new initiative, we're excited. Yeah, you know yeah, I've worked on a long time and I feel it this is, this is it you got me.

Jay Harris:

Yeah, you know. And so it's like are you excited? Are we excited Is, are we pumped? What is this? So, when I talk about expressive range, improv and and just the performing arts piece of this, it gives you, it equips you with the ability to be able to stretch. You know how you show up and I always like to say it. I like to say it's aligning what you say with how you say it. So sure, I just did an example of someone saying they're excited, they're pumped for this new initiative. But if I come in, I think about how do I look and how do I sound when I'm excited about something, and I will share with you that.

Jay Harris:

I just returned from the Beyonce Cowboy Carter concert over the weekend. I will tell you, my expressiveness in that audience was not we're pumped, I was physically pumped. I left with no voice and I was excited and I was charged. You know the same thing if you're delivering something a bit more critical, you don't want to show up. You know cavaliers, if something is so, if it's not important, you want to show this is serious. So I would say that the other piece of that is it helps you to expand your expressive range. So, leveraging your body being in the moment and expanding your expressive range. So leveraging your body being in the moment and expanding your expressive range.

Jay Johnson:

I really love even thinking about that presence, because that's actually something I didn't consider as a skill that's being honed by that. I'd always thought about the, the, you know, being able to react, respond quickly, you know, without necessarily feeling the okay temper, the emotion, and keep going. So but that presence piece is really powerful. I guess that makes a lot of sense while you coach on executive presence and brand and personal identity.

Jay Harris:

So it seems like a great fit, I want to.

Jay Johnson:

I want to. I want to dig in on one other thing that I had heard you say and I think that sometimes now I'm going to tell you this I work as a behavioral scientist. I interact with neuroscientists, a lot of psychologists, and most of the time they're not all that expressive. So I felt that, as you were saying, and I think that sometimes it's like wow, jay, you're like a data science nerd that just gets really excited and talks about this stuff, okay, but anyways, I started my career coaching engineers on communication and I feel like a lot of times when I'm working with someone that maybe they say I just that I can't be that expressive, I don't have that in me. How do you help sort of like draw, because we as humans all have access to all of these skills and ranges. We just maybe are a little afraid to explore them, maybe it's a little nervousness. So how do you help coach somebody to sort of bring that confidence out when maybe they don't have the confidence or they don't feel the confidence internally?

Jay Harris:

Yeah, that's a really good question and it's something that comes up a lot where people again I mentioned earlier that people say well, jay, you know you're into performing arts, it's easy for you. And people have this idea that presence is something that you're born with. You either have it or you don't. But I like to think about presence from the perspective of you being present, you having the ability to reach out, build relationships, being expressive, as I mentioned earlier, and there's a component of being the self-knowing piece. So when I think about being present, that's being flexible enough to handle the unexpected in the moment. When I think about reaching out, again, that's building relationships through trust and credibility and connection through empathy and emotional and situational awareness.

Jay Harris:

I mentioned early expressiveness, that's aligning what you say with how you say it. And then the self-knowing piece. That kind of lends itself back to understanding your own voice, your own body. If you have an accent, sure you can speak slower. Make sure that people understand what you're saying, but don't let it be a barrier. If that's a part of who you are and that is a part of your genetic makeup, it's okay. Let's lean into it, let's use it. If you know that you are a person who relies on humor, find a way to leverage it whenever you are speaking you know those different categories to help people realize that we're not looking at something that you're born with or not, okay, that's fine. If you think it's something that I have, that you don't have, that's fine, okay. Thank you for that.

Jay Harris:

But let's look at these mindset yeah, right, right, that's fine, but let's just look at these categories and let's just see what happens. So when we talk about being present, you know, I start to run people through these different exercises of one, telling me a time of when they felt that they were most present in a work situation, and then times where they feel like they're not present, where they start to get into their head and start to second guess themselves and things of that nature. So I start to learn more about how that person views presence and we start to find, you know, what are the triggers for you or the things that make you nervous. You did a great job when you were talking to your colleagues, but as soon as the HR person walked in, you froze up. Or as soon as the director walked in, or your CEO walked in rightfully so I noticed that your voice started to sound a little bit different than what I've heard it before. So we start recognizing when are the moments where I am most present, when I am not.

Jay Harris:

I talk about the reaching out piece, and this all lends itself, by the way, to expanding expressiveness. I'm going to bring this home. When we talk about reaching out, people will say, hey, how are you? Oh, I'm great, oh, that's awesome. All right, so let's jump into this meeting or whatever it is, but I say being intentional. I'm not asking you to put on performance and do anything crazy or what have you. I say take some of that intentional time during that check-in, your conversation in the hallway or on that Zoom call to really connect with people, and that means sharing a little bit more about yourself. So we role play, getting a little bit comfortable, sharing something personal about yourself that's appropriate, of course and licensing the other person to share something personal about themselves. Now you're having a natural conversation. You've noticed you guys have gone from. Hello, john, it's nice to meet you too. John, you're crazy, okay.

Jay Johnson:

So funny.

Jay Harris:

You know, you start, the naturalness of it starts to show up through you building that connection. So we're not thinking about how expressive can I be right now. All we've thought about is how present can I be and what line or what thread can I find to connect with this person in a real way? And when you set the stage in that way, you find yourself getting comfortable, disarming the conversation, disarming the room in a way that you're able to be more of yourself, that you're able to be more of yourself. People are feeling more comfortable being themselves and the expressiveness starts to blend itself into the conversation, to the interaction, and it starts to show up naturally.

Jay Harris:

I will say, one of the ways that we fine tune that is through some role-playing and I'll say let me see you recite this line for me, this business line, and we have an important matter to discuss.

Jay Harris:

Let me see you say that in a way, that one line, as if you were really excited about something. And so when I go to you and I say, jay, we have an important matter to discuss, it's exciting. That's something there like oh, I want to know what this is versus if it's something that's more constructive feedback or maybe there is a warning of some sort or some type of consequence, then that looks a little bit different. You know, I have to say, john, we have an important matter to discuss, you know, and it's just aligning what you say with how you say it. So it's kind of like a path forward. You set the stage by being present, create that path of connection and then think about how do I want this person or these people to feel by the end of this conversation or by the end of this presentation, what it is, and lean into what that looks like. And that's where we start.

Jay Johnson:

I would say, lean into what that looks like and that's where we start. I would say let's body language is such body language tone.

Jay Johnson:

inflection is such an important part of our trust building, and I really like how you tapped into supporting people and navigating their way to creating vulnerability loops. I mean essentially. So I'm going to go back to a question on this before we finish, about how do we know is enough to share or too much to share, cause I've seen both sides of that. But I did want to stick with one other thing, and it was so funny because, as you were talking, it reminded me of a faculty member who I had gone to a number of of their courses. Actually, it was probably the number one faculty member that I went to dry as a bone, but wicked, smart, I mean just brilliant.

Jay Johnson:

I loved the content, but there was points in times that I felt like I was going to fall asleep at nine 30 in the morning and then something strange happened. All right, another faculty who I happened to be good friends with was having a birthday party. That faculty member was friends with this faculty member. Wow, and we happen to be at a uh backyard barbecue with the fire. The dry, boring faculty member may have been one of the funniest people on the planet. Yes, and like I'm looking and I'm, I'm in stitches the whole night. I'm crying, I'm laughing so hard and I'm looking and I'm like who are you? Yeah, and why are you not bringing?

Jay Johnson:

this right into your classroom, yeah, and, and it was so interesting and it was just that it was that level of being comfortable being yourself. Yes, and that was what he said. He was just like I just you know it's it's a strange audience, and so I know that there's people in our audience here today, jay, that are probably experiencing a little bit of that. Like I can't, I can't be myself, I can't bring that fireside personality out into that space side personality out into that space. I got to imagine I've been asked a lot of times you do get nervous when you're speaking and at this point in time, for the most part, no flashback to tidex 2018 and they were like, jay, you've got five minutes before you're on. I was like, oh, that's what that feels like. Yes, I do. I do still get nervous in something. Right, how do you manage your nerves? Because there's, there's got to be something along the way. Whether it's, whether it's wicked, I do still get nervous in something right.

Jay Harris:

How do you manage your nerves?

Jay Johnson:

Because there's got to be something along the way, whether it's Wicked Broadway or even a coaching. How do you manage those nerves? How do you pull back on that?

Jay Harris:

Yeah, that's a very real common human experience to get nervous whenever there's something on the line for you, whether it's just to win your audience over, or whether it's a presentation to show progress on an initiative or a project that you're working on. Whenever there's something on the line for us, even if it's just our reputation, which is a big deal, nerves happen. You know, and it's very practical. The first thing I do is I notice, I do what I like to call a body scan, is my heart's racing or I start to feel that anxiety. It's very practical. This is a very practical method. It's not rocket science, but it is a little bit of behavioral science and it's simply take a deep breath. You got to ground yourself in the moment and take that deep breath. And I tell people a real deep breath, one from your diaphragm, not one of those, okay, you know, and you lock it all in right there. That's not a deep breath. It's taking a deep breath, allowing your diaphragm to contract and expand and really start to calm your nerves, because what you're experiencing is your amygdala doing its thing, that fight, flight or, you know, freeze response happening, and the way to calm that down is you've got to take that deep breath in the moment and crown yourself. And I tell people, if you're delivering something in person on your way up to the stage, find those opportunistic moments for you to take that deep breath. If it's walking up to the stage before you, the mic cuts on or you grab the mic or you get ready to go, do that. Or if it's right before you log on to that Zoom meeting, do that.

Jay Harris:

Even if you're in a meeting, you open a conversation, I say create an opportunity to get the audience involved right away. So if I say you know, jay, I appreciate you for bringing me on today, I'm excited. Now, tell me a little bit about where you're located, and you know, tell me more about your role and position. I want to understand that a little bit about where you're located, and you know, tell me more about your role and position. I want to understand that a little bit more. One, it gets you talking and involved. Two, it gives me some time to breathe and it gives me some time to relax into the conversation. So that deep breath is definitely one the thing I recommend to everyone. The second thing I wanted to mention yeah, you're going to say something.

Jay Johnson:

No, I'm just. I could not agree more with that, you know, and especially the diaphragm breath. One of the other biological things that that actually does is it creates additional space in and around the heart, it relieves some of the pressure off of that, which can actually have a really powerful impact of calming the body down and putting us back into the parasympathetic. So awesome, that's how I have something to steal from you. There you go, steal it, take it.

Jay Harris:

My own research. So, no, that's good, but it supports that idea of just relaxing yourself and getting back into the moment. The second thing I was going to mention especially hearing the story about your colleague is storytelling. Especially when you're delivering data, numbers and things that can sound put us to sleep at 9.30 in the morning, even though we just woke up, we should be excited is find a way to incorporate storytelling and, whether it's a personal story or a metaphor type of story that you can weave the data into to make it interesting and palatable for any audience.

Jay Harris:

I say is definitely gonna be one of your I start to say one of your best friends when it comes to delivering information, especially dry data. There's a study from the London Business School where they say that people retain 65 to 70 percent more information when it's woven into stories, versus 5 to 10 percent whenever it is just dry data and numbers and reports. And so I would say leverage storytelling. When your colleague was around that fireside chat, it's because he one felt more comfortable, but he's also just sharing stories. There's no rubric once again. So I say, find those opportunities where you can weave what you have to say into a story that is relatable to folks and to people of any audience.

Jay Harris:

I want to add a note to that, to say In terms of you know, of course you want to be thoughtful about the time that you spend when you're sharing your story, but just again, be yourself as a southerner. We tell stories. They can go on and on, and on and on, and I'm actually I'm still telling a story from 10 years ago. I should be finished this afternoon. But, with that being said, one of the things I like that we do when we talk about storytelling is finding a way to be strategic with your storytelling so that it doesn't have to take forever but it can be impactful and engaging and still win your audience over and you get to implement some of your own personality, which naturally shows up whenever you enter. Weave a story into any conversation. So I would. Those are the top two things I would say for the sake of our conversation taking that deep breath and leverage storytelling where you can.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, that's really powerful and storytelling is one of those things really well documented in the andragogical sciences about human learning and it's really something that does it's like memory recalls even six times faster on things where there's a visual component, and usually the story is what creates the visual capacity for it, cause we imagine ourselves, we see ourselves in the story so beautifully stated. All right. So I want to ask this kind of final question and I'm going to context. I'm going to put this into context because, with you doing the kind of coaching that you're doing for presence and brand, you know, one of the things that you said earlier was about reputation and you know we fear our reputation being damaged.

Jay Johnson:

And, interestingly, there's really really good cognitive neuroscience studies done on this exact same thing and what they kind of call it is a social death. All right, so we fear a social death. Nearly the same parts of the brain light up exactly when we are experiencing something like a social death. And to clarify this, imagine you're a junior lawyer walking in and two senior partners in a law firm just shred your document and you shred your brief and all of a sudden you feel this social death, this anxiety that comes from it because you're going to get kicked out of the tribe. You failed, you let down your elders, et cetera. I mean, this goes back way way deep into our human cognition and biology.

Jay Johnson:

Okay, so, whenever we want to step into this this is where I'm relating it to the question I wanted to ask you Whenever we step into vulnerability, we are risking social death. And if we know that the brain lights up the same ways when we're worried or anxious about the physical death, like an actual, like biological death, how do we know when being too open is too open, or how do we know what's the right you know? How do we I know, you know where I'm going with this how do we ensure that we're not over vulnerable but not holding so much back that we're not creating the connections that we need to create?

Jay Harris:

Yeah, that's a really good question and really quickly, I want to say two things I thought about when you talked to, when you were explaining this idea of a social death, and how that works for us internally. It's interesting. As they say, we are our own worst critics, so I tell people this all the time. I promise you you're an awesome person, but no one is thinking about you more than you're thinking about yourself.

Jay Johnson:

It's facts.

Jay Harris:

And because you are the one living in your own head, and so people forget about things more often than you realize. I recently thought about something that happened to me years ago in grade school and I thought this was yesterday and I thought, oh, why did I do that? No one's thinking about what I did in the third grade but me. So, number one, I'll start by saying no one's thinking about you as much as you're thinking about yourself, and so, as important as our reputation is to us, a lot of times the stakes aren't as high as we feel that they are. However, as it pertains to knowing when you overshare or when you need to share a bit more, that lends itself back to what I mentioned earlier about being present in the moment. By being both, it allows you to be both emotionally aware and situationally aware. It's one of those things where we have to get in the habit of training and fine-tuning ourselves to know if you have a relationship with the people in the room. Rely on that. You know their communication style. You know a little bit about where they the room. Rely on that. You know their communication style. You know a little bit about where they're from, or even just from stories that they've shared with you about maybe television shows that they like or pop culture. You know a little bit about them and so you have a degree of insight about how you can interact with that person and types of things you can share. Interact with that person and types of things you can share.

Jay Harris:

If you don't know the people, you want to pay attention to how they're responding to things that you've already said, maybe in just your opening hello, my name is or thinking about what you've heard them say in the room.

Jay Harris:

Maybe you've walked in the room a little bit before and just kind of listened to some of their conversations. So I have to say that while I think it's important to be yourself and be vulnerable and not to get too caught up in your head about being judged, you also want to pay attention to what's happening in the room, because that informs you know what types of conversations would be appropriate for you know where you are, and so that's the headline answer I would say is to one where you are, and so that's that's the headline answer I would say is to one. If you know the people, leverage your relationship with them and what you know about them already. But to the other thing would be recognized in the room what people are saying and how they're responding to you and how they're responding to each other, and that will inform you know how far can I go.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, whenever I am, I like that. No, I was just, I really liked that.

Jay Harris:

Yeah, I was going to say that whenever I'm facilitating in a room with a group of people and I start by asking them questions like you know, what are your communication? What would you say is your communication strength and what would you say is your communication challenge? I want you to think about this and I want you to share that with me, share it with others. But then I want you to, after you've shared what your challenge is, just outright. I want you to share what your challenge is, but using a metaphor.

Jay Harris:

From this I start, and when I hear people's metaphors, some people might say oh well, you know, my communication challenge is you know, sometimes I get too caught up in my head whenever I am, you know, trying to present. So it's kind of like a hamster on a wheel that's going round and round and round and that's what's happening to me. Other people might say I get nervous and I basically think about myself falling from a cliff in the Grand Canyon and by the time I get to the ground I'm going to be eaten by an alligator. So I start to pick up on the breadth and the expansion of how creative some people are thinking and just getting a better, helping myself get this arsenal of information from these folks about okay, I'm starting to understand how you think creatively versus if I just come in and say, okay, I want everyone to get up on their feet.

Jay Harris:

We're going to do some improv. Right off the gate they're like, no thanks, that's not what I do. But if I'm able to position it in a way where they're giving me real information but wrapping it in something that's visual, I start to get an understanding of the way they think creatively and then it gives me an opportunity to kind of build on that. That's brilliant.

Jay Johnson:

So trainers, coaches out there, don't just jump into the improv Just jump in. Ask the questions that'll help them sort of step into it in a really powerful way. I love it. Jay, I knew this conversation was gonna be awesome and you definitely delivered. So if our audience wanted to get in touch with you, how would they reach out to you?

Jay Harris:

Yeah, so I would say a few ways. One I would love to connect with, especially a lot of the other coaches and facilitators and trainers, hr professionals that are watching find me on LinkedIn and there you'll see my full name, which is Javaris, and that's J-A-V-I-R-I-S-H-A-R-I-S. But also I'm going to provide some ways for people to connect with me via email, because a lot of us face some of the same challenges, some of the same questions and a lot of times it takes a peer or someone who's already in that. In the same, you've been tasked. We want you to build a learning development program for VP plus go. Well, who are you going to talk to about that? I want to be able to help you with that, so you can connect with me via email as well. At the letter, jharris at aerial group A-R-I-E I e l groupcom and we'll make sure that's in the show notes.

Jay Johnson:

Jay, I want to say thank you. This has been an awesome conversation, I would say, with a fellow thespian. But I am not of that level. Uh, I can say that when somebody's like, yeah, I did improv once back in college, I can say that, but I can't say that to you. But I've gotten to learn, but it is uh, I'll. I'll say a, a fellow theater enthusiast. How's that? I like that.

Jay Harris:

I like that. I like that a lot.

Jay Johnson:

You have. You have given some great ideas and some great tactics and I really appreciate you taking the time to be here with us on the talent forge.

Jay Harris:

Of course, thank you so much Equally enjoyed our conversation. I knew I would also and just thank you so much for having me had a great time.

Jay Johnson:

And thank you, audience, for tuning into this episode of the Talent Forge, where, together, we are shaping the future of training and development.

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Jay Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements

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