Ep 469 - Effective Communication with Con Koutsikas

Ian Hawkins 0:02

Are you ready, ready to release internal pain to find confidence, clarity and direction for your future, to live a life of meaning, fulfillment and contribution to trust your intuition again, but something's been holding you back. You've come to the right place. Welcome. I'm a Ian Hawkins, the host and founder of The Grief Code podcast. Together, let's heal your unresolved or unknown grief by unlocking your grief code. As you tune into each episode, you will receive insight into your own grief, how to eliminate it and what to do next. Before we start by one request. If any new insights or awareness land with you during this episode, please send me an email at info at the Ian Hawkins coaching.com. And let me know what you found. I know the power of this word, I love to hear the impact these conversations have. Okay, let's get into it. Today's guest Concord's Gus is a trainer who helps people to communicate effectively to be able to present to speak in front of an audience. And he's pretty good at it himself. I really enjoyed this chat. And like most people, he's been through his fair share of big moments of grief. He's also a great storyteller. And from this really tough times he went through to the, to the entertaining parts of this chat towards the end, I loved every minute of it. Some great wisdom there at the end. Also, if you're a if you're someone who would love to be better at public speaking or communicating and he gives some really great wisdom. The bit that really struck me was just the sharing of some some really dark moments. And again, a great storyteller. As I always say, there's so much comfort in hearing other people's story and, and knowing that you're not alone in your pain and conscious really openly here and also talks about how he managed to get through the other side the lessons he learned, and then being able to share that wisdom with the world as well. Hey, everyone, and welcome to this week's guest concludes because how econ.

Unknown Speaker 2:20

I'm very well, thanks, are you?

Ian Hawkins 2:22

Good man, you are a public speaking or public speech or speaking in public trainer. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do there and how you come to be in that sort of role?

Speaker 2 2:40

Well, I'll tell you briefly what I do. So fundamentally, I help people achieve greater success through better speaking, and communication skills. And so what that entails I teach people how to speak in public, better presentation skills, but more importantly, effective communication, which is beneficial, not only in their professional lives, but also their professional lives as well. And so they're the key things I do I run public workshops, I do a lot of corporate work. But I'm also doing, I'm asked to do keynote presentations at the moment, which is definitely something that I'm looking forward to doing more of how I got into it. Well, I'll give you the short version, there was a time in my life. And we spoke about it very briefly, I was involved in a very toxic relationship was affecting pretty much every aspect of my life, including my business. And I had lost my mojo, I'd always been a really, really confident, outgoing person. And I just it just consumed me it just sucked the life out. And I was listening to an audio book by a famous American motivational speaker by the name of Zig Ziglar. And it was all about improving your confidence and your self esteem. And he mentioned Toastmasters by name, public speaking organization. And so because the first thing I did was Google it, it was a bit of a journey getting there in terms of, again, dealing with my personal issues, lack of self esteem, lack of confidence. But as that built, my skills improved, I had some received some really good feedback. And about 656 years ago, I was asked to help a gentleman co facilitate some workshops. And the rest, as they say is history. And it's it's been five years of really really following my passion, which I didn't even know what it was, which is, I guess the first lesson there for the for the listeners and viewers. You know, life just takes you in a direction that you least expect

Ian Hawkins 4:53

100%

Speaker 2 4:54

And and that's pretty much where we're at.

Ian Hawkins 4:59

Yeah, you There's also a great lesson that if you're searching for that elusive purpose, or, or meaning, just by asking the question finds you in ways that you can never expect, right?

Speaker 2 5:12

Absolutely. Might if somebody would have asked me 10 years ago, what I'd be doing now, and they said, you know, teaching people how to speak in public and keynote presentations, I would have had them certified. And I would have had them locked up.

Ian Hawkins 5:25

Yeah, so what were you doing before that?

Speaker 2 5:29

I had 30 years in the commercial furniture industry, as both an employee of various organizations, but also as self employed my own business. So as part of that, we did a lot of hotels, restaurants, cafes, in the corporate sector accommodation properties, which was very competitive, but it was, it taught me a lot of skills, particularly how to build relationships. Which thing is another another really important, but you know, we did more deals over a dinner table back in those days than we did in a boardroom. And, yeah, and people, you know, people underestimate the power of building a relationship and sharing a meal, whether it's, you know, a cup of coffee or a meal. And, and that was a massive lesson that I learned, you know, massive lesson.

Ian Hawkins 6:24

And given that most of the moments in our life are a sale of some sort, that building relationships is, is almost a foundational skill, right?

Speaker 2 6:35

Without question, and it's interesting, you say that, about, you know, sales transactions. One of the first questions that I asked people when I run a workshop is by show of hands, who's in sales. And the, the funniest thing is, you know, when you're in a room full of accountants or lawyers, very few, very few hands go up. And of course, it's at that time you go, well, guess what, everyone's in sales. At the very, very foundational level, you're selling yourself, you know, whether it's a job interview, whether it's, you know, whatever, we're selling ourselves, fundamentally, every every day.

Ian Hawkins 7:20

Yeah, it's a great point. And I imagined for the work that you're doing that helping people to see that that's what they need to be able to do, right? I mean, I'm sure you've seen this, there's lots of people out there in their business, and they're trying to hide behind a business brand. And they're trying to come up with this fancy name and a brand and, and I would have done the same thing, probably 10 years ago, and then realizing that, well, no, you're the brand. And no matter what you do, whether you work for someone or not, it's your ability to show up in your highest value, which is going to take you the first

Speaker 2 7:53

without question. And it's interesting. People have said to me, you know, many business associates are, you know, why don't you come up with a catchy business name or something, and I go knock on wood, on looking around at some of the, you know, best trainers and speakers in the world, and their name, their face is their brand. And I want, I want people to recognize me, for who I am and what I offer in terms of value, not only to themselves, but to their businesses as well. And that's really, really key, you know, you can't hide, you can only hide so much. But ultimately, people want to see, people want to see an app, and indeed other businesses want to see, who am I dealing with? Who is who is the face who is behind this business?

Ian Hawkins 8:48

100% I'm really fascinated by something you said earlier, which is talked about effective communication. And this is the case with often with business owners that I work with is that they think they're going to be working with business. And we do, but quickly it turns to work out well what's actually going on your personal life, that's the real problem that towards your business, right? And if you can't communicate in the home, then chances are that's going to spill forward into your communication, whether you're speaking out in front or just in day to day conversation in any work environment. Is that part of the context that you take them through?

Speaker 2 9:22

Absolutely, absolutely. And one of the things that I say to people is you can't be to people, in other words, so what I mean by that is, you learn new skills, whether it's speaking skills or communication skills, they need to become who you are, they need to be a new habit. You can't demonstrate a habit when you're in a professional environment in terms of your speaking and your communication skills, and then resort back to something else when you're you know, at home or with your mates at the footy or at the pub. You know, it needs to be it needs to be Have a habit it needs to become habitual.

Yeah, absolutely. Because under pressure, that same bad behavior will show up, right? Absolutely. That comes to mind is congruence. Pay integration. Yeah. Sorry. Keep going.

Speaker 2 10:17

No, no, no. Got a congruence. Great word. Great word. That's it. And that's why I talk about Jekyll and Hyde. You can't be two people, if you're going to adopt a new skill set or a new practice, it needs to become who you are, you can't pick and choose when you're going to do it. And I had an interesting conversation yesterday with an organization on doing some training, training their presenters. And they they have a variety of length of presentations that they deliver in, in different environments. And one of the things that I've mentioned is that guys, you have to slow down, and you're just speaking too quickly. Yeah. And this issue of, of time kept coming up. And they said, you know, when we do our to our spot, you know, we can slow down and we can do that, you know, but when we're doing this other one, we have to speak quickly. And ongoing. No, no, no, you can't pick and choose, you're either over here, or you're over here, you make the decision.

Yeah, and the one that is the easiest for you to do is the one that's going to get you the best results, it comes back to what I talked about before the value that you bring. So from going gone.

Speaker 2 11:35

Now, what I was going to say is people revert back when they're under pressure, you know, whether it's any level of stress for whatever reason, they'll always revert back to their default position. Absolutely, always revert back to the default. And so if they're not, if they haven't really ingrained the new habits, the new skill sets, when the pressures on for whatever reason, they'll always go back to safety, always go back to the default position.

Yeah, and so for me, that was part of the motivation, inspiration, I guess you would say, for me to start making changes to my own life was I keep it all together in the professional situations. And then I'd come home and it would spill over, right. And what I learned was, is that after my dad passed away, there was a whole lot of stuff that was coming to the surface that I hadn't dealt with, and that there was an underlying anger and frustration that that spilled out. Did you find that after this toxic relationship that you mentioned before, which was the sort of motivation for you? Was there behaviors that came out in you that hadn't been there prior to that, that then started sort of spilling out in times when they shouldn't have?

Speaker 2 12:51

I'm a firm believer that some of these behaviors that we talked about the toxic behaviors, they're a bit like trying to hold a beach ball underwater, yeah, eventually, you're going to hold it down for so long. And eventually it's going to pop out and hit you in the head. Yeah. And, and one of for me with this relationship, because it was having such a significant negative effect on not only me personally, in terms of how I felt about me my self esteem, but also how it was affecting my relationship with my children who I absolutely love and adore. And one of the things that really brought to the fore was a lot of hatred. And when I say hatred, I mean, intense hatred, not only for this person, but it also brought it out in other areas. I mean, I I never had a good relationship with my dad. And, you know, may he rest in peace. But a lot of a lot of what I felt as a result of this relationship manifested itself, when I thought about my father as well. Yep. Yeah, I was, I was short in situations where I shouldn't have been short. And particularly, it took me a while to understand react versus respond, particularly when it came to my children and developing, you know, developing new relationships. So that was, that was one thing for me. That was really, really, you know, just it was that beach ball just jumping out and go and whack.

Yeah. So I guess we're kind of skipping ahead a little bit here for that for that sort of awareness. But I'm not going to take you back to that. Yeah, that moment of realization in the relationship. Was it with a specific moment? Was it a series of moments? Was it a buildup of pressure or how did it unfold for you to realize that there was something you needed to get out of?

Speaker 2 14:48

It? Look, it was it was certainly a number of events, that that that occurred over a period of time, which just built up and built up and I can see the angst that It was creating between me and my kids, and certainly between this person and my kids as well. And so that was that was something that developed and and I can tell you, you know, my son was living with me at the time, and we would go out and myself and my partner at the time we would go out and driving home, it would be pulling into the street and literally into the driveway. And my thoughts would be for my son, please don't be home, please don't be home, please don't be home. Yeah, well, you know, it was just, it was just this, this knot in your stomach, just, uh, you know, and if I saw his car there, my heart would just sink. It was it was just and it was just a range of events. And it culminated in one particular particular evening where, you know, I pretty well fell out of my tree, so to speak. But But, yeah.

So I keep going, con, I'm just about to run out of battery on my laptop. So I'll just

run out of battery. Right that that won't be.

So is that because you didn't want him to to witness what was going on in the relationship at that time? Or?

Speaker 2 16:23

Not? At all? I didn't want it. I didn't want him to be exposed to it and be a part of it. Really?

Yeah, I'll just might just pause and edit this bit out. Yeah.

That's what's all about preparation, isn't it? I bet that's what you teach your people.

Indeed, indeed a in preparation. That's okay. Stuff happens.

I would just write down these edit points.

Speaker 2 17:12

We were fortunate we have the opportunity to, to edit.

Back Back. When I used to do these live, there was one point where there must have been a building site across the road or something. And someone pulled up and my dog just went mental. And on live on air, I just said, Yes. I said, you just keep telling your story. I'll go sort this out. And I'll be back in a minute. Good, yep. All right. So yeah, I'll pick up where I left off there. And I'll work this out later. Yeah, so when you're talking about coming home, and like, you know, fingers crossed, he wasn't going to be there. Was it because you knew he would see, like, interactions between you and this partner? That wouldn't have been a great like role modeling? What?

Speaker 2 18:10

It wasn't? Not not that at all. In fact, it was it was the the interactions that potentially would happen between between her and him.

Right. Right. Yeah. And yeah. And so is that part of what you were seeing is the toxic part. It wasn't it wasn't healthy.

Speaker 2 18:29

He was completely justified. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't healthy for him, wasn't healthy for him. And it wasn't healthy for me. You know, but he was completely justified. You know.

We you and him and having conversations

Speaker 2 18:43

about Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

How old was he?

Or early 20s. At that time?

Yeah. So so he would have been fairly direct, I imagine them with his feedback.

Speaker 2 18:59

Direct is an understatement. One, one thing, my son is very direct. And he's, he's, he's definitely, I won't say matured, because he was always mature. But he's learned to become less direct. But But nevertheless, again, everything was justified. Absolutely. You know, there was there was never a time where I, you know, had to pull him up and go, Well, you know, you shouldn't be saying that, you know, because that's not nice. Never.

So what impact was it having on your mental health

Speaker 2 19:38

psychologist thinking of, you know, closing the business, financial issues, relationship externally. Lack of confidence, lack of self esteem. Just you name it, I had it. You know, just awful.

Yeah, so it's actually just tearing everything about your life. So,

Speaker 2 20:03

absolutely. But you know, at the end of the day, they're not. And I say this, I don't have these conversations often, because I don't feel I've moved on. Yep. And one of the things that used to consume me was a really deep seated hatred for her. At the end of the day, I made my decisions. She didn't put a gun to my head and say, This is what we're going to do. And I'm moving in and yada, yada. I made those decisions. And so I take responsibility for that. And so I have moved on from that. I messed up, you live in your learn?

Absolutely. You don't get to that point, though. Straight away. Right? You don't get to that realization that actually, this is my responsibility, you get very much in that external blind. I think that's true of any grief. Oh,

Speaker 2 21:02

it's been ongoing to guess, eight years since that relationship ended, you know, eight, nine years. And I can tell you probably took me a good four or five years. Before I could go,

you know, yeah.

Speaker 2 21:18

Let's move on. It's just not, you know, and one of the things that I read, which, which is I love it, is, you know, hatred and emotions like that is like, you know, drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. Yeah,

it's not going to work. From my experience, that's what grief does. And whether it's the end of a relationship, someone's passing another major life event, is that the initial reaction is, is one of blame, like, how could this possibly happen to me? Like what's happened to me, and it's a, it's a cultural thing. It's a society thing. And it's just, yeah, and we see it everywhere. And it can take years for me, probably about six years before I could get to that point, maybe even longer. So for anyone listening, it's just realizing that whatever you're going through, if if we're talking about concepts that seem really confronting well would have been confronting on how it was for me probably was for you, on the first time, you heard that concept of taking responsibility for all of it. It's really in your face, but it actually is the step that sets you free, right.

Speaker 2 22:26

We the one and the other thing that I've learned in my journey, and is that once we take responsibility, you know, Jim Rohn, famously said, maturity, you know, self acceptance and understanding that you're responsible for where you are, is the highest form of personal maturity. Because not only does it create that acknowledgement, that, hey, I created this on them on, but what it does, it then empowers you to understand that you can then make changes

100% It's not, you know,

Speaker 2 23:03

it's not woe is me, what's happened to me, I have, I have no control. Now, I have no power. Whereas when we when we accept that responsibility, and go, Hey, this isn't great, but I've got to own it. I've got to put my hand up and go, Mike, you've had a fair crack at this. And so it then empowers you to go, Okay, well, I created that. How about we look at changing some behaviors, changing our thought processes, what we do and how we do it to create a better outcome?

Yeah. And it's great that you mentioned Jim Rohn. I refer to him a lot on this podcast. He was like, Yeah, my very first mentor introduced me to Jim, I remember asking him are like, what else other stuff Can I listen to? I listened to all his stuff over and over again. And he has just keep listening to my stuff. And then a couple of days later, he posts the Jim Rohn little short snippet of when the student is ready, the teacher will appear and he didn't he won. And I spent the next 12 months just listening, like continuously listening to Jim Rohn. And, and moments where I just cringe like that, you know, the first time I heard that idea of self responsibility, I'm sure I swore a couple of times the first time I heard that. You gotta be fucking kidding me. Like, no way. This was my responsibility. But as you say, the moment that you choose to be responsible for everything is the moment you get your power back. You use the word empowerment. Yeah, it actually allows you to go well I can now because this is in my control. I can now change my destiny, I can now change what my future is. And so to me, that's just such a powerful lesson to learn and when it has to be learned,

not without doubt,

Speaker 2 24:54

a difficult a difficult one for some people. A dead one. But yeah, but one that is If anybody, you know, listening or watching ultimately, is going through some stuff, and life life's like that, as far as GM said, life's like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. Just Own It just take responsibility, and it just it. It's life changing. It really is.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, Ken, you've said, you're an open book, so we can go pretty much anywhere. I'm curious about how that relationship started, you did mention that you'd had a, an ex wife that actually passed away, like yet, as, as the parent of your child, that that must have been, I'm sure the separation was was difficult, but that, like her passing as, as the mother of your children, that must have been just excruciating for all of you.

Speaker 2 25:54

We married for many years, 2020 odd years and three beautiful children, one deceased, that I mentioned to you earlier.

But it was it was a very, what's the word that I can use? It was a very,

Speaker 2 26:16

very conflicted relationship. It was it was filled with quite a lot of angst. So the separation and indeed, with an indeed, the divorce was quite, quite anxious, quite stressful. For both parties. There wasn't, let's say, there wasn't a lot of love lost. And, and so we were estranged after the divorce, and we only run into each other, you know, weddings, christenings and Bar Mitzvahs, or, you know, when, you know, when the kids were doing something, you know, 21st, engagements, etcetera, etcetera. So, we didn't have, we had very little to do with each other. And she had some, certainly some health issues which, which progressively got worse and worse and worse. And when she passed away, we had very, very little to do each with each other. So, from my perspective, you don't wish harm on anybody? I mean, I certainly don't believe it's inhumane not even your worst enemy. And knowing and seeing what she did personally go through even in the later stages of our, of our marriage. It was It was torture on my children on our children. And so my, my, my pain, my grief was really more about my children and what they had to endure losing their mother. Yeah, rather than Yes, I absolutely had empathy and sympathy for for my ex wife. It's more about my kids for me.

Yeah, I can imagine that being the case. You You mentioned before he didn't have a great relationship with your dad. Was the the tension in your relationship? Do you look back in hindsight and see that any link there? Or was it something that like when you got together it was oh, goodness went downhill? Or like how did that all unfold?

Speaker 2 28:04

With regard to my dad or that I'd had on other relationships?

Yeah, exactly. Because, I mean, you're, you're talking a lot about effective communication and that sounds like a big part of what you do. From my experience. Our greatest gift is the very thing that we've struggled with in so many different areas right.

Speaker 2 28:26

My dad was very, very authoritarian very, you know, you will do it's my way or the highway. And, you know, one of the one of the memories that I have when I first finished high school, I didn't want to go to uni I wanted to get a job or earn some money I wanted to become an entrepreneur, you know, I wanted to go out there and own the world. Yeah, and And back in those days when I was in high school, I had I had the worst hair the worst hair in the history of humanity. And I had mates that we played footy with that had these long blowing flowing blonde locks and and I had this wire that used to just grow sideways it was just an atrocious but I let it grow as best as I could in the in the hope that you know, a hurricane would come pass and it would flow in the wind that never never eventuated and so of course when I when I finished school and looking for a job first thing you got to do you got a job interview you got to go and get a haircut Don't ya? And that was the days when the the disco era you know You're probably too young for this the disco era and John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever and my mates and I we were you know, big disco duck's back in those days. So I've gone off and found a hairdresser and and I've got this this John Travolta number. It was just divine. It was just back it was it was just me Ain't it was divine? Yeah. And I've gone home and the old boy has just launched. What sort of an effin haircut is that you're never going to get a job yet effin Nisha effin that, you know, nobody's going to employ you. You're just gone. Okay, then. Thanks that. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the copious words of encouragement. Yeah. Wow. And long story short, I got the job. And yeah, it was definitely when I went home, it was a bit of a soldier. So

Speaker 3 30:35

but, you know, that, to me that had

Speaker 2 30:43

you know, they told a story about a father, who you know, who's an alcoholic and abuses his wife and has two children will one kid turns out to be an alcoholic abuser. And the other one turns out to be, you know, a philanthropist millionaire. At the end of the day, the kids make choices. And so for me, it wasn't about monkey see, monkey do. For me, it was about I've got to be better than that. I've got to I've got to do better. Yeah. And that's what and that's one thing that I'm you know, and I say this hand on heart and not from an egotistical perspective. On on, I honestly believe I'm a I'm a I'm a really, really good dad. I listen, I listen, I absolutely have an opinion when it's warranted. I don't demand I don't inflict, I let I let things go. But, you know, my kids, they can pick up the phone, and we can have a conversation anytime, you know. And in fact, you know, I spoke to my son yesterday for a little while. And I'm seeing him on Saturday, we're catching up at a football game. On my way home to join you on your show here gave him a call, Hey, you're going and I just have that really, really good relationship with my kids that, you know, we can just pick up the phone. Hey, you're going, you know, and it's just, it's just great. Yeah. So that's one thing that I learned I went the other way.

Yeah. Yeah. Such a blessing. Yeah, it's a great story. But you asked us you asked those two children who had that alcoholic Dad, why are you like you are because they had never thought like that. It's the same, same impact, but different choices. And I'll probably the other way was like, I'm not going to pair it like that. And I ended up repeating so many different things. So many were great. But then also repeated a whole lot of other things. And it wasn't until I went through my journey of change, that I was able to change so many things that that I needed to, again, because that place of blame. So if you look at the marriage then was like, Did it start off really well? Or if looking back where there's sort of some challenges already? Like, how did that lie

Speaker 2 33:04

ahead of it? There were there were definitely some challenges in the early days, and I questioned about that. But we we got on, we got on reasonably well. We were socialized. Well, we had a good group of friends. We were blessed with a blessed with a son very early on. When I say before somebody jumps on me as being a misogynist. He is blessed with a healthy child, he happened to be his son. And, yeah, and so, you know, to that end, you know, like life was life was pretty good. Life was pretty good. Did we have challenges? Yeah, of course we did. But at the same time, I believe everybody has challenges. It's just how you deal with them, rather than rather than, you know, do they consume you? Or is it something that you can sit down and have a conversation with? And I guess that's one thing that we we struggle with? And I'm as guilty as Pepsi was, in terms of the ability to sit down and and have a have a discussion without necessarily having an outcome? Yep. Having a discussion without necessarily somebody being right or wrong. Yeah. Having a discussion to understand rather than to react or respond

Yeah, that they're great points because that's will be commonplace in so many marriages is is all of those different things learned behavior? We see it same thing to society thing, this concept of needing to be right or now that was very much the case for me hand up and say recovering control freak, needed to control different situations and and that leads me right there was another one of those slap in the moment moments for me, I think it was from that original, my original mentor Wait, this this lesson of needing to be right. And it it changes everything. And I know and again, I imagine given that you you're helping people a lot with communication, I imagine that's a big part of it.

Speaker 2 35:17

One of the things that I've discovered in my journey, and particularly with the work that I do in is people's ability to communicate effectively, and speak to a group is directly related to their level of self esteem and how they see themselves that there's a direct correlation. Yeah. Part of the part of the component of my training is dealing with fear and anxiety and things like that. And the reasons that people come up with why they, you know, they don't want to do it, they're fearful, anxious, whatever, is all gets back to how they view themselves. You know, am I good enough? Will I, you know, will I do it right? Will I be accepted? Will they like me, and it's all about them, and their level of self esteem. Part of the absolute integral part of communication training, and this is where I feel that my programs, I guess, we'll call it my unique selling proposition, or my point of difference is that I have a strong a strong focus on the arts, the psychological aspect of communication, how we interact, how messages are received, how to deal with fear and anxiety, at quite a deeper level, rather than just superficial,

yet love it. Yeah. And from everything you've described, it sounds like that you've experienced a heap of this stuff already. And they would have been part of the unraveling, right? Is like realizing that when dad communicated these, like this, when this relationship communicated that was like this,

Speaker 2 37:13

very much, so very much so. And what you can do is, you know, we talked about, we can't live in the past. But I believe we need to learn from the past. Yeah. And so with an increased level of whether it'd be knowledge or self awareness, as we develop, you know, through our journey of life and, and work, it gives us the ability to look back and reevaluate and reassess those relationships and take something from it. Because one of the one of the biggest travesties is not learning something or not having something positive come out of an experience, whether it's a learning whether it's understanding of behavior, having a deeper level of empathy for the other person, if you don't learn and so we can't forget the past because it's, you know, it has a level of who we are, but it doesn't define us. But being able to go back and look at those relationships is completely different gives you context.

Yeah, absolutely. And the lesson is there in the past, we dwelling in it's not going to help you, but learning the lesson coming out the other side. And then being able to pass that knowledge on. That's what a gift. And that comes from, exactly like you said, at some point, we have to be able to see the good in everything we've been through. Remember unpacking this with my coach about four years ago, when I'd come out the other side of a couple of different programs that hadn't given me the return on investment that I thought it should be, rather than what I was promised as like what my expectations of it. And that was, the first thing that she got me to do is sit down and go, well tell me everything it didn't give you that it's funny how many pages of notes I took, and yet I was looking at it through a completely different lens. Despite the fact having learned all this stuff the same we've probably taken other people through the same process but having that ability to have just someone point you a bit of a smack in the face and point out the glaringly obvious sometimes

Speaker 2 39:33

glaringly obvious that we choose to choose to ignore.

Absolutely. Now, I mentioned before we came on air that I have had a few guests lately that have had either a stillborn child or a child that has not lasted a very long time and and that was the case for you and your ex wife that We were given any warning for that, or that was literally your child was born. And then suddenly you're told all of these all of these things that were going on

Speaker 2 40:11

very healthy pregnancy. Yeah, everything was one

when Joe was

and at 32 weeks

cold can hear me. Yeah, either. Yeah. Yeah, that just the whole thing doesn't close yet. Can you hear me?

Okay, so you'll have to do some editing there automat I'd imagine.

Yeah. 100%. So can you just start answering that question again?

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 40:58

We, it was a very healthy pregnancy, everything was going to get a boo. We didn't know where the sex of the child and, and we had no interest in that we just you know, as a parent good prime concern is a healthy baby two arms, two legs. And 32 weeks, she woke up in the middle of the night, my ex wife and hemorrhaging quite badly. And so I rushed it to the hospital. fastest I've ever driven, and it's quite bizarre, it's a kind of time you want the cops to pull you over. But they didn't try and make light of a bad situation. And we got to the hospital and, you know, checking the heartbeat of the baby and you know, all the vital signs and everything was everything was okay. But they made a decision that it was in the best interest that they they'd bring the baby on. Yep. And so Stephanie was born at about 6am That that morning, and pediatrician who was head of Pediatrics at the hospital, so he wasn't just some bloke running around he was he was the top of the top. Yeah, at the time

Speaker 2 42:20

grab Stephanie and you know, a little bit of a little bit of a very brief Holden. And he said, we're just sees a little bit jaundice, we're gonna pop in a humidity crib, and you'll be able to take a home in a few days. So, you know, everything was hunky dory and I had a furniture manufacturing business at the time. And of course, I hadn't made arrangements for me to be absent. And so I said to my ex, look on you know, you rest, babies good. I'm going to head off. Gonna have shower change, you know, go to work, do tidy up a few things. And I'll be back. Right? Yep. No worries. Anyway, this is in the days of pages. You know? Yeah, rather than I mean, we had phones but you know, the phone was yea big. So you know, it pages and and I got a I got a page from from the hospital. Please call this number urgently. So of course, you get that sinking feeling pretty quick. Yeah, sort of rang up the hospital and said, you know, was spoke to the nurse. Coach because he got a message. You know, what's, what's the issue? She said, You need to get here now. What's wrong? She said, Get here now. Okay, so get there and my ex is in, in the ICU, neonatal ICU unit them and Stephanie's crib, tubes everywhere surrounded by doctors and nurses and Simon the neonatal specialist there says we've got an issue. She's, she's got a contracted Group B strep, which is quite fatal in, in newborns. And what it is, it's it's, uh, don't quote me on the exact details here. But it's a bacteria that Simon explained, as humans coexist with, you know, it's all over our body, you know? Yeah. But if the baby contracts are on the way through the birth canal, it can have fatal consequences. It can if it's detected early, it can be treated with high doses of antibiotics, like penicillin and stuff like that. And, you know, generally a good outcome. However, Stephanie was 32 weeks, so she was eight weeks prime, which was was, you know, a bit of a cross there. Chuck in Group B strep, Chuck and a couple of other little factors. so that, you know, later on, and he said, Look, this is really, really touching guy. You know, we're we're administering high doses of antibiotics. And we're very, very hopeful it'll be a good outcome. But we're just letting you know. So that was that was pretty stressful. A couple of hours later, he came to see us and said, Look, you know, some of the signs are improving. We believe we've got it under control, too, we got a big sigh of relief. Okay, great. Go back to go back to the room about five o'clock. 530 said, look, what do you want, I'm gonna grab some Hungry Jacks or something, and she's there, whatever. So I'm just going to stick my head in, you know, see Stephanie, and I'll go and grab the food, and I'll come back and have walked in. And it's like, it's like ants on a doughnut doctors and nurses around her crib. It's just, it was, it was frightening. And, of course, Simon's come up. And he said, she's not gonna make it. You fuckin told me two hours ago, that it was under control. Yeah. He said, she's not going to make it, we're doing everything we can, but she's not going to make it. So, of course, I had had to get the wife. And she's, as you can imagine, not dealing with all that well. And it was backwards, forwards, we were in ICU, and they were administering all sorts of stuff. And, and it got to the point where it almost was like, there was a heart, you know, her oxygen, the oxygenation of the blood was quite low. So there was, you know, there was likelihood of some sort of brain, you know, brain damage, albeit minimal, you know, whether it be learning disabilities or something like that.

And about nine o'clock, he said to us, call your priest. And so we got the priest, he performed last rites.

Speaker 2 47:17

And they said, You have have your last hold. God, and I'm my wife, and I didn't, you know, again, it was pretty ugly when it ended. But I say openly and publicly, her courage and strength that night, to hold the baby she knew she wasn't going to take on was was bigger than Ben Hur, it was bigger than Texas. And I struggled for a long time in because I couldn't bring myself to hold my own child. Yeah. And I hated myself for that. I hated myself for that. Took me a long time. priest came, she had a cuddle, I had a look. I took her away. We never saw her again. We went home that night, empty handed. And two days, two days later, or the next day, we had we had a meeting at the hospital with with a doctor who explained, you know, fundamentally what happened, which we already knew, anyway. And it was, you know, nobody had done anything wrong. My ex hadn't done anything wrong. She hadn't taken unnecessary risks with a health. She hadn't done anything wrong. It was just Stephanie just was not meant to be. And, and that was, that was really, really painful. And couple of days after that, you know, we take this little coffin about that big little white coffin look like a shoebox. And we we buried her and that's it. And Stephanie would have been November the 14th of November this year, Stephanie would have been 99 help me with my messy 2390 She would have been 33 years old.

I can't imagine like, how difficult I've had people on here before talking about similar stories and having the what's meant to be such a joyous occasion having a ghost like that like that, that. Yes, you said not holding, not holding your baby was hard. Just the whole thing and that must last for a long time. They must stick with you for a long time.

Speaker 2 49:53

Again, you know, I felt I felt I had let my child down At the time when it needed its father the most one that had a real, real real impact on me have made peace with it. Now I go, I visit, visit Stephanie's grave site every year on a birthday. And we always used to take yellow roses. So I always make a point of taking the eye roses. And I've been there and I've shed some tears, I've shed some tears, and asked her forgiveness.

So there's the other side of grief. There's one blaming externally, but but this is the part that is probably the hardest to deal with. And that's the self blame. And then going through all of the different scenarios of everything that's unfolded and, and thinking about what you could do differently. What What have you learned about yourself from working through all of that? The self blame the guilt.

Speaker 2 51:16

The most important thing is, is there's no value to it. I don't, I don't make excuses or justify it. I mean, I was God, how old was I was, I was 30 years old. I was a mature adult, I was a father, I was a business owner. I can't blame my my youth, I can't blame my lack of maturity, I can't blame anything. It was a decision that I made a moment of weakness at that time I made, I made a decision and I owned it. And I had to make peace with myself. And, and now I look at situations and I'm a big one. You know, I talk to my kids. Every time I talk to my kids, sometimes I say it sometimes they don't. Every time I speak to my kids, when I hang up, even if we've had a you know, disagreement, or you know, we've crosswords or something. Last thing I'll say to him, I love you for hanging up every time, every time because truth is, I don't know if it'll be the last time that you never know. We you learn that we have no control over you know, we can control certain events. But in terms of the big picture, whether you believe in God, the universe, Mohammed, Buddha, whatever your belief system is, and hats off to you, there's a power bigger than us, in my view. And so whether there's, you know, you would want to call it destiny or whether our our path is preordained, or whatever the case may be, there are things that we do not have control over, you know, people driving home in their own, you know, coming from work and our own business and, and somebody's stolen a car and they're screaming 100 mile an hour and they plow in the back of them and kill somebody you have no control over that you're just at the wrong place at the wrong time. And and I believe that was the case, you know, again, my ex did nothing, nothing wrong. There were no, there were no behaviors or habits or anything like that, that you could go well, you know, if you hadn't have done that, or you had have done this, there's none of that. It's just one of those really, really unfortunate circumstances that you go, you know what, I can sit and beat myself up over this for the next 50 years. I'm not gonna live for another 50 years, but nothing's gonna change. Nothing's going to change. And so it's what I do what I do now, in terms of my current relationships, and particularly with my children, you know, I'm a grandfather now as well. So, you know, I'm blessed with, with with two beautiful grandchildren, who I love to bits and pieces, you know, so I just, you just got to look and go, okay, it was just, it was something in life that that, again, like you said, about, you know, bad experiences, and then your mentor saying, like, I write down the good things, and you go, what effing good things? Yeah. And before you know it, you've got two pages of it.

Yeah, yeah. 100% I'd argue that you didn't do anything wrong either. But in stead, you did the best that you could. In the circumstances, with everything you had within you at that time. We no one can prepare yourself for moments like that. And no one can say with any confidence of how they will react, because until you're faced with it, like no one really knows and I'm sure everyone who's been through dark grieving moments like that. we'll have something where they look back and go, Oh, wow, why did I do that? It's very much a, there's an unconscious pattern that just plays out and, and it's like the same thing that I'm sure you've heard it as well, like, it's not your fault. It is your responsibility how you respond, but it corrects your phone. It's not about assigning blame, whether that's external or within ourselves. Now, you mentioned a higher power, we've had a number of guests come on talking about having lost children. And you know, they, they obviously, were have meant to have a bigger role on the other side, and I'm getting goosebumps now as I say it, do you ever feel like you've had like connection to Stephanie, where she's been talking to you're sending messages or even just like, at one describer a wind chime that that had gone off that sort of signified to her that she was there with her?

Speaker 2 55:58

Look, but for the sake of, you know, theater, I'd like to say yes. But the reality is no, I don't believe and I certainly can't recall of an instance instance like that. Anything happening? Yeah, I, I've had a couple of experiences where with my mum, I was very close to mum. And, you know, there was a time where I'm laying in bed one night, this is after I was divorced, laying in bed, and my the door to the bedroom was directly in front of in front of the bed. And or I remember waking up one night and seeing a figure in the passageway, and I know it was my mum. But I just knew it was her. Yeah. And there was another time where the freakiest This is the freakiest thing, like, being in bed, and having the sense of you know, you know, you're in when you're in bed and somebody sits on the edge of the bed, the mattress sort of dips. I was I had the sensation laying in bed, and I felt somebody sit on the edge of the bed and hold the bed clothes to the point where I couldn't actually move my arms. I felt like I was gonna have a bundle babies until they can't move your arms. Yeah, it felt like that. That was just that that sent. Even now that sends shivers up the spine. And I reckon that was our reckon that was that was the old girl, I reckon it was mum, saying, you know, I say to my current partner now, who are juggling we were talking about last night, I wish I had a mirror 30 years ago. But nevertheless, my mother always used to say to me, you know, and it doesn't come across great in in translation. But in Greek, it's Valencia law, which means have some brains. You know, like, think about what you're doing. And then it's like, I've got a, I've got my mother on like a parrot on my shoulder. And every time I do something dumb, it's like, you know, the shaking of the head.

Oh, calm.

Speaker 2 58:16

Yeah, what have you done? Not again.

And it's amazing how many people have those stories where you can't? Like, how can you explain that any other way that you can feel that sense of someone sitting on the end of the bed? I love it. Love it. Chills, as you were telling that story as well. Now, con through all of these different ups and downs. Where do you think you learned the most about effective communication and then sharing messages to the world?

Speaker 2 58:59

She's had hard to choose really. Well give me a couple of the dozen instance, that one of the most powerful things that happened to me Well, lessons, I guess, and you don't appreciate the lesson until later in life. Yeah. And, and I guess it's more about communicating with my children more than anything, which is which is really important to me. Mum, I was living at home I was 1718 and you know, probably even 1617 anyway. And like a late teenager, high school, you know, the only thing you were interested in was was cars, cars, girls and booze. And Chuck in some sport from time to time. And so, you know, Saturday night was, you know, we're out of here, you know, we dancing, partying, et cetera, et cetera. And this is no mobile phones back in these days. No mobile's. No, no pages. This is all Cameras are old enough. I

will phone cameras thankfully or phone

Speaker 2 1:00:05

cameras, thank goodness. This was a telephone that was on the wall with a dial you know, you put your finger in the hook and and mum came out and you know so spruced up and she said, What time are you gonna be home? I'm gonna walk

Speaker 3 1:00:21

on Hi, and I want to get home. Should I worry what time you're gonna be home?

Speaker 2 1:00:28

She said, if you're gonna be any lights at one o'clock, or you call me I'm not ringing. You're at one o'clock in the morning. The old man is going to answer the phone. I'm never gonna hear the end of it. I don't care. You ring me if you're going to be lighter than one o'clock. Yeah, he Congos out in there and out there. Yep, no regard. No. No awareness. No caught nothing. Right? I'm just out. Sure enough. It's probably 330 In the morning, four in the morning. Calm strolls home. And mom's bedroom window used to face the street. And as I got out of out of out of the taxi, I could see her silhouette. Sitting on the edge of the bed looking out into the street. That goes I've gone facts on strolling the house, comes out of the bedroom. And I thought she was going to absolutely launch. And my mom was on my giant on you know, 510 511 ish, you know, depends on how you measure me. Mum was probably five to one as wide. And she's just given me this massive hug. Massive hug. And kiss me on the on the on the cheek and looked me in the eye and I could see the pain in her eyes. Yeah. And all she said to me. You'll understand when you have your own children. Yep. And at 330 in the morning, 17 years old, me becoming a parent was the last thing that was on my radar. I've done now you stupid a woman. And I've gone to bed. And guess what in my kids got seven 818. Guess what my kids did. They went out drinking and partying as well. And guess who used to sit up at three o'clock in the morning. Guess who used to go and pick them up at three, four o'clock in the morning. That would be me.

From that great lesson.

Speaker 2 1:03:01

And so that is something and my same conversation with my kids. You'll understand when you have your own. And guess what my son's My son has a father now to two beautiful children. Same thing. So I guess in direct answer to your question in terms of what have I learned in communication, it's the absolute importance in your ability to get your point across my mum, God rest her soul. She made a real strong point. But I didn't get it at the time. I'm trying to communicate with my kids about my lessons that they they get to experience in them understanding and being able to relate to what now?

Yeah, nice. Yep. The other thing that struck me is the parallels between someone sitting on the end of your bed and that vision of the silhouette of your mom sitting on the end of her bed. And

Speaker 2 1:04:07

my let me let me tell you do you know that is the first time the first time ever that somebody has said that? And maybe that is just that's just like a bolt of lightning through me now that has just sent a shiver up my spine. Because that's the first time I've ever put the two of or not I haven't you've you've made me aware of those two events in parallel for ever.

Yeah, it's like when she comes to sit on your bed again. She's like

you better listen up boy

goodness, man, I love those stories and and my mom was the same right? But we had mates who would go home to pick us up because you know they can change over at three o'clock. Same thing I like when my daughter's out to crazy, crazy o'clock, my call me call me I'll come get your rather, if you're going to be alone or you're worried about getting home then make sure you call because it's the best way to do or pay it forward. And they will they will never as much as you try and communicate effectively now they will never understand until they do. But you're absolutely right, we can, we can bridge that gap by explaining through stories. And that's one of the things I love about this platform is to get people on to tell their stories. This has been like everyone's been through a lot of stuff. But that the the three things there that kind of like every one of them, like just you got you can feel the emotion, the depth of it. And I appreciate you being so open with that comment. It's It's my pleasure. I'm sure many will get hyper value out of what you've shared so far. You know,

Speaker 2 1:06:06

and what I what I say to people in a commercial sense from the work that I do in corporates facts tell stories sell. And we can sit there in a corporate environment, present all these wonderful statistics about whatever. But until the best salespeople are storytellers. And if your audience and indeed any any of your audience that are in a in a sales role, or you know, management or anything like that, if you can master the art of storytelling. Mike, it's you've won the game. You've won the game.

Yeah. And bringing it back to what you talked about earlier. You know, we talk about every moment being a sale. It's that ability to tell stories. It's why people have been doing it for millennia, right? Like it's it's such a powerful way to share that content, I'd love to hear a bit of your expertise. What's a surprising thing that people need to know, that maybe they'd haven't considered about being the best possible presenter, I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Grief Code podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Please share it with a friend or family member that you know will benefit from hearing it too. If you are truly ready to heal your unresolved or unknown grief, let's chat email yet. info at Ian Hawkins coaching.com You can also stay connected with me by joining the Grief Code community at Brooklyn's coaching.com forward slash Grief Code. And remember, so that I can help even more people to heal, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform every

Speaker 2 1:08:04

civillian liberals have the same confidence the way they view themselves. But what it is, is everything surrounding that, am I good enough? Will I forget things will the audience like me, everything is about them. And so that people create this, this, this unrealistic expectation on themselves, which drives anxiety, fear, etc, etc. Because it's they're making it all about them. If you make it about your audience, delivering the best experience you can the best that you can be do your preparation, do your homework, do your research. And, and being the best that you can be all that all that fear anxiety just melts away. It just disappears. Because immediately it's not about you. Yeah. And one of the exercises that I do is in a group ago, right? Okay, so your you know, fear and anxiety, what is it and I put them all up on the whiteboard or on the flip chart. You know, fear of forgetting things, fear of not being liked fear of tripping over fear of this fear of that, and I go right, okay, what's the common denominator to everything there and they, they look at you and most times somebody will go, me? Yes, you. You are the common denominator. And so it's all about you. And so and so that's the that's the biggest thing you know, 78% of the global population has some level of fear anxiety around speaking in public, right against typically two thirds women 1/3 Men, and that, and that plays out in my workshops as well, I typically have two thirds women 1/3 Men. And so understanding that is goes a long way to helping with that fear and anxiety. That's that's the, that's the one key thing. The second key thing that I've learned, and if if people get just this one thing, right? It just changes the game. And I talked about the Pareto principle. And for those of you that know, or don't know, what it's, it's the 8020 rule. And I learned that in my very early days of supermarkets, you know, 80% of your sales come from 20% Airlines, that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your activities, and so on and so forth. What I say to people in terms of the training is, if you can improve on 20% of the skill set, and that translates to an 80% outcome. And based on that, if you can understand about it's not about you, it's about your audience, number one, and number two, people speak too fast. They think that if they can get more out in there a lot of time that it's a better result. And nothing could be further from the truth. Yeah, how many times I hear presenters say, all look, we're running out of time, I'm just going to rush through this last little bit here. Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you, if you rush through it, don't bother doing it.

It also strikes me that that's making it about your ego rather than it being anything meaningful.

Speaker 2 1:11:55

It's your audience can't process it. You know, the brain, the brain picks up patterns. And if it picks up a pattern that goes like, I'm not interested, no matter, you see a lot of disengagement. Yeah. And so people please slow down, less is more slow down, and pause. And so if you can do just those two things, just those two, right, it'll make a significant impact on your conversations, the outcomes, and the results that you get.

Yeah, absolutely. The other word that came to mind to me was and to breathe. Because when we're going 100 miles an hour, it's usually because we're holding our breath. And we're thinking about this, and we're taking a deep breath. The other thing I learned, when you were talking about, it's all about you, and the audience are sitting there, they don't have daggers for you. They're actually cheering for you. Everyone in that audience wants you to do well. And so they're not they're like, because because, you know, when we get really self conscious of being in front of an audience or thinking, or they say, what do they do? Well, actually, they want you to do well, because they don't want to be uncomfortable. While this while the speaker is struggling over they want you. They want you to be great. And that was a big one for me. I really liked what

Speaker 2 1:13:13

I say to people. You know, when I, when I come to that part of the program, I say to them, right, okay, so you guys all got up this morning. You've woken up and you've got up and go great. I'm going to listen to Connor, we're going to console workshop tonight. I've paid of paper money. How many of you honestly put your hands up and go got off pay this money? I've gotten up this morning on, I'm going to hear him speak on I hope he stinks. God, I hope he's crap. And I look around and go, What the hell are you talking about? And, of course we didn't. Exactly. The audience and whether that's 10,000 or one having invested time and or money to listen to you. Of course they want you to succeed. Yeah, they want to benefit from your knowledge, your expertise. They want to learn something. They don't want you to be crap.

Exactly. Very good. What I love con is that a lot of people can talk a good game about different things. But all those things that you just talked about, then, like you delivered in this conversation as well. So that's to me, that's really important. That's that word conquer once again that were talked about early. Yeah. Well, I had a bit of a laugh before we jumped on because on that preparation for the key parts of speaking, we had to jump on and I realized that I've been at the cafe this morning and my laptop was in my backpack and I'm madly trying to plug everything in. We're getting ready. A good lesson learned for me

Speaker 2 1:14:59

and little thing, let me give you another little lesson about preparation. And there's an I learned this from from somebody else. So I can't take credit for this. But preparation has two components to it from, from a speaking and presentation point of view is two components. And typically what most people will do is they'll, they'll do their PowerPoint slides, they'll write out their speech, they'll write their own to note, practice that and they'll practice and they'll practice, and it's great. And that's, that's a big part of it tick. What they don't practice is the delivery. When am I going to pause? When am I going to make a point? So Ian really gets what I'm talking about? or at what point am I going to speed up to create some excitement with my audience? They don't do that. They focus on this bit, but not this bit. And this bit is as important if not more important.

Yeah. And the bit that struck me then as I was telling my story about my lack of preparation was so important. It's so important to be yourself, right? So so in these interviews, I've got my my son just got home and sometimes I just always really quiet. He's really quiet, right? But other times he's not. And so it's like, okay, but that's just that's just life, right? And there other times that the dog knocks on the door and comes in and, and so, in when you're talking, you will do those things more naturally, I think you'll you'll, you'll get the right inflection, you'll speed up you'll slow down. If you just try and be yourself. You don't try and be a speaker that someone else is you just be more of the who you are. And and again, I just from the conversations we've had so far, what I love is that it's been the experience with with UConn is that you've just been yourself and I've really enjoyed this chap, thank you so much for sharing your stories and your wisdom.

Speaker 2 1:16:58

Not Ian, thank you so so much. It's been an absolute pleasure and and I hope your your audience, viewers and listeners certainly get something from, from from my experiences and from the chat that we've had. It's been a delight. I thank you so much.

You're welcome, mate. And I'm sure they will, where can people find you on if they want to look up your what you do and who you are.

Speaker 2 1:17:21

Easiest thing is hit up my website, which is my name, Concord Superstock calm. And it will take you to the programs that I run the kind of work that I do. As I said the three key things for me are my my workshops, which which I run a public program, anybody can buy a bike seat to my corporate work where I'm where I'm training, corporate entities, but also my keynote presentation. So if anybody out there is looking for a keynote presenter for for your seminar or your meeting, you can hit me up and we can certainly have a chat have definitely got some some stories that I can share and some lessons that I've learned, let's say and, and I also have my own podcast in which I'll give a bit of a spruit to it's called least elbow with the con. It's called a cup with the conversationalist and and my daughter is the creative one in the family. I can't take any credit for that. But But yeah, if anyone wants to hit that up this and people say well, what's it about? It's an entertaining educational informative program where I interview a broad array of guests with unique experiences, perspectives and expertise in their chosen field.

Well played a lovely presenting to your daughter she's done a great job with you. She

Speaker 2 1:18:52

she's she's currently she's currently swirling around in Europe at the moment so tough. She's awesome. She FaceTime is a well deserved, well deserved holiday and for Natalie, I hope you're having a great time love.

Awesome. We'll make sure you get all those links in the notes so people can check you out again. Thank you coastal appreciate,

Speaker 2 1:19:14

Mike. Fantastic, great, great to be on. Thanks and cheers you have a great one,

too.