176: How Elite Communication Can Increase Your Income with Ty Hoesgen

[00:00:13] Zach White: It should be a great prepping for this was a blast because we have a couple of my favorite things in common and you might not know this, but one of them is saunas and ice baths.

[00:00:25] We got to start with saunas and ice baths. You made a comment. That one of your things is to see how long you can hang on in the ice bath. So what is your current personal best ice bath time? And I’m assuming we’re talking like legit, 32, 33 degree Fahrenheit ice bath. tell me your record.

[00:00:47] Ty Hoesgen: Well, it’s not that impressive. If I knew that was going to be the first question, I probably would have challenged myself before coming on. It’s about, it’s about five minutes, five minutes at that temperature. I am in Toronto, Canada, so I’m trying to do that conversion to Celsius. It’s right above freezing point.

[00:01:05] So like one degree above freezing. 

[00:01:07] Zach White: Yeah, 

[00:01:08] Ty Hoesgen: perfect. So it’s about five minutes. I would have tried to push that to at least six or seven if I knew you were going to ask about it. 

[00:01:16] Zach White: Well, for most humans, five minutes in ice water sounds like a life ending situation. I’m curious, when did you do your first ice bath and how’d you get into it?

[00:01:29] Ty Hoesgen: Very first ice bath would have been, it was about five years ago, around the time that Wim Hof was becoming very popular. 

[00:01:37] Zach White: I 

[00:01:37] Ty Hoesgen: think for a lot of us, he was kind of the first guy to do it. That popularized the heavy breath work and being cold and intentionally subjecting yourself to that cold exposure as like a cool, fun, challenging thing.

[00:01:52] So it would have been about five years ago and growing up in Canada. It was pretty easy. You know, I just find the nearest lake and hop in. You can do a cold dip a lot of months out of the year here in Canada. So. It’s not quite as luxurious as some of the setups that they have now. There’s really cool ice baths and cold plunges that you can get for your backyard that look really, stylish and they look cool, but I was just hopping into dirty cold water and Trying to stay in as long as I could.

[00:02:24] Zach White: Well, it’s like the latest trend is grounding. So you got both, you got the ice bath and the grounding to the earth at the same time, Ty. It sounds like an even better, a better situation. Uh, where in Canada did you grow up? 

[00:02:39] Ty Hoesgen: I grew up. In a very small farm, near a very small town, in the province of Saskatchewan.

[00:02:47] Actually, so our nearest town only had 800 people. 

[00:02:50] Zach White: Oh wow. 

[00:02:51] Ty Hoesgen: Very different than Toronto, where I live now, right downtown, right in the thick of the action. And so it’s funny growing up on that farm. Now that I teach communication for a living, some people think, Oh, this guy’s probably a naturally outgoing person.

[00:03:06] But growing up on the farm, I was a very shy, quiet kid. I like to avoid people. 

[00:03:12] Zach White: I had an 

[00:03:12] Ty Hoesgen: older sister, her name was Alana. And so Alana would jump in when someone would ask me a question. And she would say, Ty thinks this, I’m pretty sure this is how Ty feels. And I was actually on board with it. I was like, yeah, I could chill back, not have to engage.

[00:03:29] So some of those habits and patterns built when I was young actually didn’t equip me to be a good communicator. 

[00:03:37] Zach White: Right. I 

[00:03:37] Ty Hoesgen: really, really had to. Focus on this and learn it as an adult and I became so obsessed that I learned all of the things Through so much struggle that it got to the point where I can’t I want to teach now these things Without people having to struggle for years and years and years.

[00:03:55] Zach White: I didn’t expect us to have this in common I’m the youngest of three two older sisters who are amazing But when I was maybe four five years old My mom thought that I had a speech impediment, uh, like a learning disability of some kind because I would rarely speak and my sister’s, speaking all the time at a young age and I knew how to speak, but I wasn’t speaking often.

[00:04:25] My mom thought maybe I had a hearing issue or a learning disability. And she took me to this specialist to get tested. And the specialist tested my ears and my hearing was fine. And The specialist said, well, why don’t we. You know, just take him and do some things. And I started talking to the specialist and talking their ear off.

[00:04:46] And they came out, told my mom, like, there’s nothing wrong at all with Zach. He’s completely fine. And he said, we have a hunch. You know, bring your daughters and let’s do something with all three. And. Same exact thing. They put the three of us in the room and my sisters did all the talking for me. And they would always take care of everything I needed.

[00:05:04] And I had learned how to play that game. I don’t have to do any work around here. My sisters will take care of me. And so that was the day my mom forced my sisters to stop speaking on my behalf. I was very slow on the uptake with this, maybe connected to my engineering brain as well, but here you are on the farm.

[00:05:23] Shy other people speaking on your behalf. Nowhere on the roadmap of Ty’s future is communications coach. So where did the first inflection point toward that desire to improve and master communication actually begin? 

[00:05:42] Ty Hoesgen: Remember, I just finished college and the only job I could get was selling life insurance, so I applied for probably a hundred jobs.

[00:05:52] And I was a pretty average student. There was nothing particularly impressive about me where any company would say, let’s hire this guy. We have strong hopes for him. 

[00:06:02] Zach White: What did you study in college? 

[00:06:04] Ty Hoesgen: So I took business. So I graduated with a degree in business, but just really general. And I majored in finance, but I didn’t actually want to do finance.

[00:06:16] It just seemed like the easiest one for me because I’m a bit of a math brain. And so I just applied for all these jobs and the life insurance broker was commissioned, right? So no risk here. 

[00:06:28] Zach White: Okay. We don’t have to pay 

[00:06:30] Ty Hoesgen: this guy anything anyways. And this is really when it became so obvious to me that I was a horrible communicator.

[00:06:40] Because you can kind of get through school just with your little close group of friends. It’s a lot of exams, a lot of assignments, that type of thing. And so I couldn’t avoid people anymore because my income actually depended on having conversations, but not just conversations. 

[00:06:58] Zach White: Communicate or starve.

[00:07:00] Communicate or starve. That’s an incentive. 

[00:07:04] Ty Hoesgen: And now I’m talking to people about, hey, Zach. I want you to think about what’s going to happen if you die unexpectedly. What will your family do? That’s not a fun conversation for anyone. That’s uncomfortable, even if you are a good communicator. So at this point, I’m actually nervous to ask somebody about their weekend, and my income now depends on having uncomfortable.

[00:07:29] Conversations. Yes. So it’s really got to the point where I just hated going to work. I hated waking up in the mornings. There’s no way to avoid these conversations. And even being around my co workers and having to talk in meetings made me super nervous. And so I remember late one night, just sitting on my computer doing research, looking up things like, How do I get rich without having to talk to people?

[00:07:58] How do I make millions without communicating? 

[00:08:03] Zach White: Oh, man. This That moment. Somebody needs to write down that question and build a business where that’s the Google keyword, because if, if like a website had popped up and said, here’s how to get rich without needing to communicate at all, you would have definitely bought that course.

[00:08:17] Ty Hoesgen: I would have paid all of the money for that course. And the results are not good. At best, you might find, not even find a result that says this, but you’ll realize, okay, maybe if I was a genius and I invented something, then I could kind of get by, but again, super average. Really average, not intelligent enough to build something good enough to make me millions.

[00:08:42] So I then realized I got to learn how to communicate. It’s 

[00:08:45] video1471554906: time 

[00:08:46] Zach White: to master this. Do you remember as you went on this journey in personal growth and development in communication skills, the first insight that really made a difference for you, where you saw. The results changed that you moved the needle in your ability to communicate.

[00:09:04] What was that first insider golden nugget for you? Do you remember? 

[00:09:08] Ty Hoesgen: was a really small change that I made. And I remember I was sitting in an office, it was a boardroom. There’s about six of us in there. Five of us were in the company that I worked with. And then there was one. Rep.

[00:09:19] So this rep would have worked for one of the insurance companies that we were selling. And I remember this woman was a powerhouse. She was six feet tall. She was confident. She was strong, experienced. I remember just thinking this woman is an absolute beast, such a star. I definitely want to impress her, but obviously I didn’t have the skills to do it.

[00:09:40] What I did remember to do, because I’d started learning about communication, Is to just shift my body length. So I learned that posture is one of the cues for how confident people perceive you as. So I remember just focusing so hard on keeping my back straight, my shoulders down, my head up, my chest open, arms on top of the table, just the exact things that I had read, and I just held that position so still the entire time.

[00:10:12] And then my boss had mentioned to this woman, Oh, this is Ty. He’s only been with our company for six months, something like that. And she said words that I will never forget. And she said, Oh, the way that he’s carrying himself, I thought he was way more experienced. And this was coming from this absolute powerhouse of a professional.

[00:10:33] She thought I looked experienced just because I had shifted. My body language and the way that I was sitting. So in that moment, I realized, Oh, I can change things that will then influence how people perceive me. Which will then influence my results. And I was like, I need to learn every single thing about this.

[00:10:57] Zach White: Every engineer I’ve ever met has monster opportunity, like, like big gaps and opportunity in this space. And it will, I think the ROI is, is almost unlimited when it comes to communication mastery. So Ty, if we were going to break down, what are the big pillars? Of communication that we need to focus on skill development and growth.

[00:11:23] You mentioned a big one here, body language, and maybe you’d categorize them differently, but how do you break it down? When you’re coaching someone, where do we need to focus attention? How many different areas do you see as the keys to success? 

[00:11:42] Ty Hoesgen: Really good question. Body language is absolutely one of the key areas.

[00:11:47] There’s going to be four key areas. I’ll go through them each one by one. So body language actually is gonna be the easiest one that has the biggest impact on how people perceive you. The second one is going to be your voice. So how are you using your voice? If I’m, um, sitting here talking to you like this, Zach, you’re gonna see me a lot differently than if I’m speaking to you like this, right?

[00:12:15] Um, I think there’s four. I feel that maybe there’s five. No, there’s four, right? So how does my voice sound there versus there are four areas? It’s a totally different vibe. 

[00:12:30] Zach White: Yeah. 

[00:12:30] Ty Hoesgen: So we’ve got our voice. There’s lots of elements into that. Let me know if you want to go into anything specific. 

[00:12:35] Zach White: Let’s, let’s do them high level first and then come back.

[00:12:37] I love 

[00:12:38] Ty Hoesgen: it. Okay. We’ll do high level first. We’ve got our body language, our voice, our words. So how are we phrasing things? What words are we using when we’re speaking? Thanks for listening. And then the fourth is your state of mind. So do you feel confident? Do you feel nervous? Do you feel unsure of yourself?

[00:12:59] Are you stressed and anxious? Or are you calm and relaxed? It’s going to be a lot easier to communicate if you’re in a more calm, relaxed state. Those are our big four. 

[00:13:10] Zach White: Ty, when looking at the four, I’m curious, you mentioned body language is the easiest to begin and get leverage on how people perceive you.

[00:13:20] Are these in that order of hierarchy of ease to make the change and get the return on your development? Or are these organized in any. Is like any particular order here. I’m curious. If there was intentionality, or these are just the four categories. 

[00:13:38] Ty Hoesgen: the first three are actually your skills, right?

[00:13:41] So, body language is number one. They were ranked intentionally, and this is actually based on research and science. Body language is going to have the biggest impact on how people respond to you. Voice, second biggest impact in terms of how people view you, respond to you. And then your words are actually a very, very distant third.

[00:14:02] Yeah. In that case, and now I add in the fourth, even though I love groups of three, it actually pains me to add a fourth. But if we’re not thinking of the state that we’re in, I could give you all of the perfect skills and tips and techniques to use. But if you’re still anxious and you’re showing up to these things nervous and sweaty and all over the place, your mind is impossible to control.

[00:14:31] That’s not a good place to be to communicate at your best. 

[00:14:38] Zach White: I totally agree with that. And while I appreciate the pain of walking away from a good grouping of three wise decision to add state of mind and in our coaching. With engineering leaders, everything is built on mindset as the foundation. And we talk about the pillars of career success are all sitting on the foundation of your mindset.

[00:15:00] It’s the same as you’re describing here. The skill sets without the mindsets leaves you lacking in terms of that edge and, and honestly, making it easier to execute the skill sets when you get into that right state of mind, just like you described, so, um, Body language is really commonly talked about. It is super powerful, but a huge number of people are only going to be able to hear us today, not to see us.

[00:15:26] And so I’m thinking it’d be fun to dig deeper on voice If you had told me when I was in my career, Zach, you need to focus on on development of your voice and how you use your voice, I probably would have said, Ty, my voice is my voice. What do you mean change my voice?

[00:15:42] that is what it is. It’s just part of who I am. I can’t change my voice. What do you mean by that? No one would have ever had told me anything about. This idea through engineering school at all in college is just to be a complete foreign concept. So when you say voice, what are we talking about? What are the must do’s and is there anything where we, we mess it up?

[00:16:05] Like this is the mistakes to avoid when it comes to voice. 

[00:16:11] Ty Hoesgen: yeah, we’ll cover a couple of the most impactful ones and some of the easiest things to change. So the first thing. That we can focus on is our pace, so how fast or slow.

[00:16:22] We’re talking first of all, Zach, you have an exceptional voice. I can tell you’ve done some work on this and I’m sure practicing with all of these episodes, getting your speaking in definitely helps because you have a wonderful voice. Just want to credit you there before I keep answering. 

[00:16:38] Zach White: Wouldn’t that be really awkward if you say, Zach, your voice is a big problem.

[00:16:44] Ty Hoesgen: A big, big, big problem. One of the most common, especially when. Leaders are speaking in important meetings, or you’re giving a presentation to your executive team, especially when there’s, there’s those kind of important people around that we want to impress or that we feel pressure around.

[00:17:02] That’s usually when we’re going to speak faster. And so if I’m talking to you like this, and I’m trying to explain something and I’m speaking at this speed, it’s hard to really absorb what I’m saying. You need to give people time to actually take in your ideas. So. Especially when you’re a little bit nervous, have extra intention to slow down, take your time, pause, because you’re actually going to allow yourself to relax more if you’re intentionally speaking slower, it’ll naturally make your voice sound stronger because you can breathe more.

[00:17:38] There’s so many good things that happen 

[00:17:40] Zach White: if 

[00:17:40] Ty Hoesgen: you’re taking your time when speaking. So that’s the first thing. And I’m going to say something that. The listeners aren’t going to like, but it’s, you need to record yourself. 

[00:17:52] Zach White: Uh 

[00:17:52] Ty Hoesgen: oh. You need to record yourself because if you don’t know what you sound like, this is common with every single person I’ve ever worked with.

[00:18:02] There’s always things that they’re doing that they don’t know about. Okay, so unless you have a podcast like Zach. You need to be recording your meetings, or your conversation, or just record yourself talking about any topic. Because you’re going to have to see the things that you’re doing right and the things that you’re doing wrong.

[00:18:21] Your voice is going to sound different on a recording than when you’re hearing it. So if it sounds weird, sounds off, it’s actually proven by science. Is interpreted differently by your ears when it’s coming from your mouth versus a recording. So expect it to sound weird, but I just need to put in that little tidbit.

[00:18:42] You got to record yourself guys. Pace. 

[00:18:49] Zach White: Under pressure. We go fast. Plus we don’t even know what we sound like. Record yourself. One thing I have found is a pause when you’re new to this feels like an eternity to you, not a big deal to the listener. Could you speak to what you have found? Is the appropriate pause length or a way to normalize that as a speaker, as the communicator, because when you pause that first time, if you’re not talking, Practiced at this, it could be very, you know, you just have to break the silence.

[00:19:27] You can’t do it. If so, what would you suggest? Is it a, a three count? Is it a deep breath? Is there any insight as to how to get more comfortable with those pauses? 

[00:19:39] Ty Hoesgen: Oh, absolutely. There’s such a fear of that silence from a lot of people. The first thing you should understand is that. Even if it feels long for you, it sounds like a tenth of that length to everyone else.

[00:19:56] So it can feel like, oh my god, I paused for a full minute there. That was painful. But to everyone else, it’s, that was a few seconds. That sounded great. It actually sounded kind of powerful. So the first thing is to realize what you think is long and what you think feels uncomfortable. To everyone else, most of the time, it’s actually going to make you sound better, like a better speaker who’s very much under control and comfortable with that pause.

[00:20:25] So first recognize that it sounds a lot better than you think. And the other way is to really just overemphasize your pausing when you’re practicing. Okay, so you do have to practice a little bit. You can practice in your low pressure situations like friends or family, right? Practice your pausing to where it gets more comfortable.

[00:20:47] This is how you’re gonna avoid the filler words, too. If you can pause instead of the filler words, you’re just naturally gonna sound way more confident. And recording, recording as well. Once you hear Ooh, that pause actually sounded pretty cool. I sounded pretty confident, pretty powerful. It sounded intentional, even though I actually didn’t know what I was going to say next and I was just gathering my thoughts.

[00:21:12] It sounded great. So if you do those things, you’ll see the value in it. And it’s like anything else. You get more comfortable over time. 

[00:21:21] Zach White: I’ll speak for myself, Ty. When I started the podcast, it was the first time I’d ever not only disciplined recording myself over and over in practice, but it was the first time I ever read the transcripts.

[00:21:37] And when I saw a transcript of one of my interviews with an early guest, this was back in episode, you know, 10, 20 range in a 30 minute conversation, I had used filler words, you know, like, et cetera, so many times it was embarrassing. I looked at that transcript and thought, wow, This is brutal.

[00:22:07] So huge value in taking your insight here, just becoming aware of it. For me, that simple act of reading the transcript made me so conscious to stop using those words. I wouldn’t say I’ve completely nailed it, but I’m getting much better now. Zach, I’m actually 

[00:22:24] Ty Hoesgen: curious. Did you know that you were using them before that?

[00:22:27] Zach White: if you had asked me, then I probably would have told you, yes, I use filler words and I might’ve even known which ones were my top culprits. But I also would have told you I’m a pretty good speaker. I don’t use them that often. That would have been my impression of myself.

[00:22:45] I thought that I was already upper echelon and maybe in comparison to other senior engineering managers in career W2 land, that could have been true. Compared to. World class podcasters and public speakers. I was not even pinging the radar of, I mean, of failing grade in that category. So yeah, I would say I had either a lack of awareness or I was lying to myself about what I thought was true.

[00:23:14] Is that true with your clients? Would you say where people have a biased, overly optimistic bias of their own ability? 

[00:23:21] Ty Hoesgen: It’s either one bucket or the other. So one bucket is like you or they’re thinking, Okay, I think I’m a pretty good speaker. And then they hear themselves and they’re like, Oh my goodness.

[00:23:33] Or they hold themselves to such a high standard that they’re pretty good speakers, but they think, Oh, I’m terrible. Because I’m not like those, for example, top speakers, top podcasters. So it’s kind of a mix. Rarely, though, does somebody have an accurate analysis of themselves before we start. So, as long as somebody isn’t like, yeah, I’m a 10, I’m exceptional, and they’re just off in, you know, blissful ignorance land, which, you know, could be a fine place to live.

[00:24:06] But if you want to get better, definitely this is the best way to do it. Yeah, 

[00:24:12] Zach White: yeah. Making impressions, building your reputation, credibility through communication, if we’re still in this bucket of voice, is there anything else that you might point to where we go wrong? We talked about being too fast as one.

[00:24:29] Are there any other mistakes that are common, especially if you think about someone who’s, you know, More shy, more introverted, more technical, typical engineer profile. Any other mistakes that we want to watch out for? 

[00:24:43] Ty Hoesgen: especially with the typical engineer type of personality.

[00:24:48] Two big ones that I see is they’re either too quiet and that one’s self explanatory. So too quiet, you just sound less confident and less sure of yourself. Or they do something that’s called upward voice inflection. So it’s where your voice goes up in pitch. So I might say. I can get that done by Thursday and where I’m kind of saying Thursday, or yeah, that should work.

[00:25:15] So I’m starting here and then I’m going up here and then up. So when I end my sentences going up like that, it makes me sound like I’m almost questioning my own words, right? So if we’re saying, I believe this is our best option, it’s like, do you tie? Do you tie? Do you believe this is the best option? Like what’s going on here?

[00:25:39] So I see that, or rather I hear that a lot is this kind of going up and people will typically do this when they’re not fully comfortable, which in a lot of my engineering clients, they’re not fully comfortable in some of those big meetings. It’s totally fair. That’s people in any industry really. But this is something that you’re not going to know that you’re doing.

[00:26:01] Until you work with a coach or until you record yourself, because you might know your filler words and that’s kind of obvious. You might know that you talk a little bit quiet, but this voice inflection, so going up in pitch, that’s not something that people generally pick up on. 

[00:26:16] Zach White: Those are both huge. And I used to do the upward inflection thing a lot.

[00:26:22] And I also fell victim to the slowly getting quieter toward the end of the sentence or the end of my thought. Whatever it was, so it’s was too quiet across the board tie. And then I would drift off to kind of like the thought didn’t quite have the end. Everything was going great. And then it kind of disappeared and it was a combination of mistakes, you know, upward inflection and no volume.

[00:26:49] And people ask like, wait, what? You know, they can’t hear you or they just assume they heard you. And none of those are good for coming across with confidence and credibility. Like you’re describing

[00:27:00] this idea of prepping for the big moment. Yeah. The nervousness, the anxiety that might come with that, and this fourth bucket of state of mind, we’re delivering some great tactics here. I’m just going to keep picking your brain around how we can improve quickly, some how tos. Is there any way, if we’re not a 10 extremely confident speaker yet, we’re on that journey, that we can prime ourselves for those big meetings, those big presentations, and at least give ourselves best shot.

[00:27:33] Yeah, absolutely. There’s a couple mistakes that I often see people make when they’re preparing for a meeting or presentation or whatever it is.

[00:27:42] Ty Hoesgen: And we want to think about it, like, how do we make the level of uncertainty as low as possible? Okay. So a lot of times the anxiety comes from not knowing. Okay. What’s going to happen? Can you prepare for everything? No. But what you can do is practice in a way that is as close to the real life situation as possible.

[00:28:06] So if you know you have to speak about a topic, what a lot of people will do is they will type out notes of what they’re going to say or write them out and then they’ll read through them in their right? They’ll read them through. Maybe they’ll read them through 10 times. But are you going into the meeting and then reading in your head and the people are telepathically picking up on that?

[00:28:27] No, that’s not really practicing for what you’re about to do. And this isn’t as fun as Just breezing through la dee da through the notes, but you got to speak it out loud as if you’re actually doing it, right? So if you’re going to be sitting at a desk because you’re on Zoom or wherever, sit at your desk, look at your camera like you’re on Zoom, and say the words out loud.

[00:28:56] This is one of the biggest things, whether people prepare for, a big presentation, whatever it might be, they’re not actually saying the words out loud enough. Yes. That’s the very first thing. You need to say the words out loud. So simple, but people do not do this. I love this. 

[00:29:10] Zach White: It’s so, it’s so obvious sounding, but I didn’t do that for my entire career.

[00:29:17] Not once. Okay. Maybe, maybe a couple of key presentations I might’ve rehearsed out loud, but yeah, it’s not a, it’s not, it’s an uncommon practice, even though it seems like common sense, if you don’t say it out loud, you’re not actually getting the reps. I love that. actionable insight, Ty, just say the dang words, say it out loud.

[00:29:38] Super good. Uh, what else do you recommend? 

[00:29:42] Ty Hoesgen: There should be some time allocated before whatever the situation is for just getting into a better state of mind, okay? This is gonna be the best use of your time, actually better than, for example, reading through your notes again, or even saying them out loud again.

[00:29:58] If we’re talking about right before, if possible, even if you can book just like five minutes, where you’re then intentionally closing your eyes, adjusting your body language, taking some deep breaths. I teach a really quick process. It’s called SBVS. And so the S is just sit up straight, adjust your body language.

[00:30:22] The B is breathe. So there’s a breathing technique called the physiological sigh, and it’s a double inhale through the nose, single exhale through the mouth. Andrew Huberman, who lots of us know and love now, Stanford neuroscientist, big podcaster, he actually found this was the fastest way. To shift your state from anxious and nervous to calm and relaxed.

[00:30:46] So if you want a live training of that, just look up the Physiological Psy on YouTube or wherever it might be. So we’re doing our breaths while we’re sitting up straight. And then we’re visualizing either the meeting going well, or doesn’t matter which one, or it can be just something that brings you joy.

[00:31:08] Because you can’t really be thinking of two things at once. So if you’re thinking of, let’s say, your partner, or your kids, or a pet, or a vacation spot, something where it’s gonna make you want to smile, it’s gonna make you feel that feeling of joy, then if you’re in that state right before us, this is gonna make a big difference.

[00:31:32] Now, we got S, B, V, straight, breathe, Visualize. And then the last S this is super cheesy. It’s just smile. Now, if you’re thinking and visualizing of something that brings you joy or the meeting going well, the smell, the smile should feel very natural. If you do that for even if it’s just five minutes beforehand, or let’s say you’ve got back to back meetings, right?

[00:31:57] No excuses, do it before your meeting an hour before, right? But as long as you’re doing this at some point in doing everything that you can to prime your brain. Like that, you’re going to speak so much better because if you’re relaxed and focused, it’s going to be easier to remember the things that you’ve prepared to think clearly to articulate yourself and it’s going to be a lot easier to talk slower, to use volume, to not use inflection.

[00:32:29] Zach White: S B V S. Really love that. I really love that. so Ty, you spend your days helping leaders all around the world to crush it on their biggest stage, whatever that is, if it’s a meeting with a bunch of other engineers, or if it’s at a conference presenting their white paper on some new technical breakthrough and innovation, and I’ve seen, The results your clients have reported, it’s tremendous, incredible work.

[00:33:00] What is your biggest stage? Where do you want to take this ability to communicate any big dream or vision of that ultimate place for you when it comes to communication?

[00:33:14] Ty Hoesgen: next logical step for me is a TED talk, and I’ll probably do one of those by the end of this year,

[00:33:22] So the TED talk is probably the next big thing in terms of the vision. 

[00:33:26] Zach White: Awesome. Do you know what you want to speak about in your TED talk? 

[00:33:30] Ty Hoesgen: something around the way that we approach speaking and communication. Instead of just, here’s a technique, here’s a tip, something very powerful, but yet still easy to implement for the average person.

[00:33:47] So it’s TBD. 

[00:33:49] Zach White: Well, you heard it here first. Ty’s going to be a world famous Ted speaker any day now. Ty, thank you for investing the time and being here with us. So many tips and tactics we could go through, and you’ve given us some tremendous ones already. I would love to know. From all you’ve done in your own journey in improving as a communicator, what was the toughest thing for you skill wise or mindset wise to overcome?

[00:34:20] The thing you kept tripping over, the skill that didn’t come naturally, where you had to hire your own coach to break through, what was the toughest place in your journey towards becoming the master communicator you are today? 

[00:34:35] Ty Hoesgen: For me, the toughest thing was understanding that it’s actually not all about me. I put so much pressure on myself for years to show up a certain way, speak a certain way, try to do all the things that I was learning.It’s not actually about you as an individual.

[00:34:58] It’s about what you can give to others as you’re speaking. So even just thinking about, okay, I’m not actually here to impress them. I’m here to explain this in a way that they’re going to be the most receptive to it. They’re going to understand it. They’re going to get something from this and they’re actually going to enjoy hopefully listening to me, right?

[00:35:18] I’m not going to bore them and nothing like that. And so if you put your focus in terms of. Not the spotlight on you, but giving value to others. That was probably the hardest thing because it’s kind of in our human DNA to think, Hey, what about me? What’s in it for me? What do I get from this? But when I, when I truly changed that perspective, everything opened up and it just became a lot smoother for me as a 

[00:35:49] Zach White: communicator.

[00:35:50] Yes. A major inflection point in my growth came when I recognized the same truth and I now have in my daily. Morning journaling, a little affirmation that I write when I’m thinking about my vision and goals longterm, and even just for the day, it’s not about me. It never was. And it never will be. And I write that down every morning as a reminder of this exact idea.

[00:36:21] I still don’t always live it. I’m imperfect, but man, is it made a huge difference to remember that. Ty, thank you for this. Where can. An engineering leader who wants support and help and to take what you’ve shared and push it to the next level, go to get more from Ty and his incredible work. 

[00:36:42] Ty Hoesgen: Definitely. So LinkedIn and Instagram are the two platforms that I use the most.

[00:36:48] So feel free to message me on there, but I will give you a free resource if you’re on video calls ever, which Realistically, I know that you are. I know you’re on those video calls So I have a free training and it’s called five science backed video call secrets. Every professional needs to know So it’s really quick easy tips basically to show up better on video connect more on video show up as your best self You know In a way that you are being seen as confident.

[00:37:17] People respect you. They take your ideas seriously and you can get that at video call star. Dot com 

[00:37:26] Zach White: video call star. com. Amazing. We’ll put a link to that in the show notes, as well as all of Ty’s socials and ways to connect with him on every platform. So happy engineer. Go click in there, check out the training.

[00:37:42] Every single person in engineering and technology is spending an obscene amount of time on video calls. So please take him up on that. It’s going to be worth every minute. Ty, you know, as a coach, You live this every day, your clients are out there seeking the answers and questions lead, the answers follow.

[00:38:06] So if we want better answers, whether it’s in communication or life and career, any domain, we need to ask better questions. So what would be the question that you would lead the happy engineer with coming out of this conversation?

[00:38:19] Ty Hoesgen: I’ve often thought about how people lay awake at night thinking about, Making more money, wanting a better relationship, wanting a better job. But people are rarely laying awake at night thinking I want to work on my communication skills. Now this completely transformed every area of my life. So. The question I would encourage everyone to ask themselves is what would your life look like if you became an exceptional communicator? 

[00:38:52] Zach White: What would your life look like if you became an exceptional communicator? Sit with that, Happy Engineer. That is a radical, transformational question. Ty, I love it.

[00:39:06] Thank you so much again for your time, your energy, your generosity. I just want to acknowledge you and the work you’re doing. Tremendous. It is obvious that you’ve come a long way since the 800, person community and small farm of your childhood and have done the work. So I hope everybody takes you up on this offer, checks out your free course, gets coaching from you on communication skills.

[00:39:28] And I appreciate you being on the show, man. Thanks again. I 

[00:39:31] Ty Hoesgen: appreciate you, Zach. This was an absolute blast. Thanks for having me.