The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 169 - Internal Google Translator

Transcript:

Jen: Hello there, Peter.

Pete: Hello there, Jennifer.

Jen: So the other day, you and I were having a chat-

Pete: As we do.

Jen: -and I mentioned my Internal Google Translator. And then, you stopped the conversation and were like, "What are you talking about? I've never heard of this before." Which truly was shocking to me, because I not only talk about but use my Internal Google Translator all the time.

Pete: It's very exciting, because one-hundred-and-seventy-odd episodes later, there are still things that we have not shared with one another. So I'm excited to hear more, and I'm excited for the listeners to learn more about this. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Internal Google Translator, tell me more.

Jen: Okay, so you know when you want to learn how to say something in a different language, you type it into the Google Translator (English to Spanish, for example) and then you get the words that you actually would need to say to communicate with someone in Spanish.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: Well, I have an Internal Google Translator that translates from negative to affirmative. And this is a tool, or a skill, or a muscle, or whatever you want to call it, that I have spent many, many years working on and then sharing with other people. So, it works like this...actually, it works multiple ways. So, here's the first way it works: You catch yourself using the words "can't", "won't", "don't", "mustn't", "never", "nobody", etc., and you go, "Ahh, I'm speaking the negative language. Let me translate that." And you replace "can't" with "can", "mustn't" with "must", "never" with "always", etc., etc. So that is one of the uses, and I can offer up some examples, if you'd like, of when said tools have been put into action. I might be interested in making a phone call, let's say, to someone who makes me a little nervous. So I'll say something to myself like, "I can't possibly call that person. They won't know who I am."

Pete: Mmm.

Jen: Then I go, "Oh, okay, speaking the negative language." So first, I have to say to myself, "I can call this person," and then I need to justify it. So I've got to ask myself questions about, "Well, how might I help them know who I am?" So, "I can call this person because when they answer the phone, I will introduce myself. 'Hi, it's Jen Waldman. We met at such and such a place.'"

Pete: Right. Right.

Jen: Okay, so I went from "can't" to "can", and I went from "won't" to "will".

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Great. And that's a pretty light example. Like, it's gone to dark places where I've been able to talk myself out of some serious darkness by catching the negativity.

Pete: Yeah, wow.

Jen: So I'll pause there and give you a moment to react, and then I want to talk about some other applications.

Pete: Yeah. I mean, I...my reaction is, I'm obsessed with this. Like, it feels like something that you probably take for granted. And I have a feeling our listeners right now, certain listeners are pausing this podcast, like, "Wait a minute. This is brilliant." Because that was my reaction when you said it. And when you told me about this when we were conversing, I started to think about how I think you've done it to me (which maybe is what we're going to get to). You've been that person for me, the translator for me, without me realizing what you're doing. And so, I love the idea that we can do it ourselves, we can catch ourselves. And it reminds me of a few things, which I think are related. One is the idea of "can if" from the incredible book, A Beautiful Constraint, which I'll pop in the Box O' Goodies for those who aren't familiar. And the summary of one of the concepts in that book is in order to unlock possibility, in order to provide more of a, I guess, innovative brainstorming kind of mindset where you're sort of rooted in possibility, instead of saying, "I can't,"...because my goodness, we do that a lot. "Oh, I can't apply for that job because I only qualify for four of the five criteria." Or, "I can't start that business because I don't have a business number, or I'm not registered as a business." Whatever the story we tell ourselves is, instead they invite you to flip that to be, "I can, if." So, "I can apply for that job, if I explain why I fit the four and why I see the fifth criteria as an opportunity." Or, "I can start a business, if I figure out how to register the business." So, it's actually like flipping it. It's using your Translator, I think. So, I thought of that. And then the other thing I thought of actually is the Imposter Two-Step, where I actually think that the Google Translator fits into that framework. Where, I've shared...listeners who are been longtime listeners will remember that the Imposter Two-Step, something I talked about on the TEDx stage, which is the idea that we can dance with our imposter. So, there's two steps. And we start by saying, "This is what my imposter is saying to me," and then we say, "This is what I'm going to say back." So first step is: Acknowledge the imposter. Second step is: Respond to the imposter. And I just wonder if that's some version of a Google Translator too. So I'm like-

Jen: Totally.

Pete: -excitedly fitting in all of these things that we've talked about before into this framework, and really like it.

Jen: Yes. And you are right, that I have pulled this on you before. However, my role when I do this to you is, I'm External Google Translator.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jen: So as a coach, I'm doing this all day with my clients.

Pete: Of course.

Jen: I hear them say, you know, "I can't sing that note," or, "I can't possibly reach out to that person." And my job is to translate the negative into the affirmative.

Pete: Yeah. It's so interesting, because I think as a coach, I do that too.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: But I didn't know that it could be called, or labeled, or framed as a tool that is Google Translator. And it's just making me, in this moment, think of like the power of actually naming a tool or codifying this idea as something that is sticky, you know, that we can remember so that, hopefully (to your point earlier, and I'm sure what we're going to build on) is then you can start to do it yourself.

Jen: That's right. Internalizing it and embodying it, that's a lot harder than asking someone else to do it for you.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: And it is amazing how much we are conditioned to talk to ourselves in the negative. And I went down a very deep rabbit hole with this years ago, because I really wanted to make sure that what I was working with was scientifically sound. And one of the interesting things I realized was that when we are children, we are...or, many of us are instructed by our parents (and I'm guilty of doing this to my own child) in negative terms. "Don't touch the stove." "Don't hit your brother." Don't leave your things on the floor." "Don't cross the street unless you've looked both ways." And I realized as I was reflecting on that, that I was actually creating stuckness in my own child. And I'm sure I felt stuck as a kid, because if I'm not supposed to do that, what am I supposed to do instead? Which, I guess, is like a gentle segue into the next part of this. So catching yourself speaking in negative is one thing, catching someone else speaking to you in negative is another thing. And if you have a finely oiled Internal Google Translator, you can translate other people's words in the moment. Kind of like if you were going to hear someone who does not speak your language deliver a keynote, and you wear the headset and there's a translator who is in real time talking to you in your language, you can do that with other people talking at you. So, I encounter this all the time with my clients who perhaps get a note from a director or a casting director in the negative. So they will hear, "Don't move your arms so much." So actors get that note a lot, "Don't move your arm so much." And so, they don't know what to do. Because if I know I'm not supposed to move my arms so much...

Pete: Right. "What do I do with my arms?"

Jen: The note wasn't, "Don't ever move your arms," just, "Don't move your arms so much."

Pete: I can imagine standing there with your arms pinned to your side, like, "What do I do?

Jen: Which, you know, doesn't make for a great performance. So then, you run that through your Internal Translator. "Don't move your arm so much. Do find specific moments of stillness. Do edit out all extraneous movement. Move with intention." So then, you actually have something to do. And we're so used to receiving negatively constructed feedback that we have to push against it by strengthening this Internal Google Translator.

Pete: Yeah. Oh, my gosh, I find is so helpful. This might be a weird question, but I'm like, my brain is trying to work out if there's ever a time to...so in the same way on Google Translate, you might go from English to Spanish. Obviously, some people flip it and go from Spanish to English. So is there ever a time where it's useful to go from affirmative to negative?

Jen: Yes!

Pete: Okay. Alright. She's very excited, folks.

Jen: I affirm that. Okay, so we could do a whole other episode on this. I have this checklist that I call my Rules of Engagement for Effective Communication, which I use anytime I'm trying to have a positive, fruitful interaction with someone. And sometimes, you want to end the relationship or transaction. So several years ago, I began business dealings with someone who turned out to be super Slim Shady. And I wanted to make it very clear that I was on to it, and that at no point ever would we ever be doing business together. So I wrote in my own typical fashion where I construct everything in affirmative language, and then I went back through my email and I changed it all to negative, to be very clear. "Do not ever contact me again. We are never going into business together. This is not a fruitful partnership. Do not expect to hear from me again." As opposed to, "I'm unable to reach out to you again."

Pete: Right.

Jen: "I will never ever speak to you again."

Pete: Well, that's good to know. So, there is a time and a place for both. Hmm.

Jen: And it doesn't always have to be so nasty. But that was a time where I actually had to go in and translate for myself.

Pete: Yeah. So, that's helpful to know. The other example that was just really coming to mind...which, you know, I think you sort of alluded to in terms of taking this to a, for want of a better term, to a darker place. But I think the really common story or way that I see this manifest in my own life and in plenty of my clients' lives and creatives and friends and I would argue many, many human beings, is when...you might do something. So say you release a podcast, for argument's sake, or you, I don't know, post something on social media (let's use a really basic example) and you get 99% positive comments, feedback, encouragement from said post or said podcast. People love it. People like want to hear more. You might get hundreds of messages, you might get ten, you might get five, whatever. And then there's like one that's negative, or you perceive to be negative, and that becomes the overarching story you tell yourself about that thing. So our bias for the negative, I just feel like saying this out loud, is so important to recognize because...I think this is justifying why this tool is so important in my head. Is, we need something like this because we are so biased to go, "Boom. What did that one person say? And now I'm questioning everything. Now I'm questioning, 'Do I even need a podcast? Who the hell do I think I am to have a podcast? Why would I ever post on social media ever again? Everybody hates me. I'm terrible. This project sucks. This thing sucks.'" Like, I do that all the time, and I think a lot of people do. And so, I just think that...because of our bias for the negative, because of the fact that if we're creators putting work into the world, we're going to receive things that bump up against other people and they don't necessarily like. And so, how do we navigate that? And I think in that moment, it's like part of the translation is, "Don't do that ever again, because this one person clearly identified that it sucks." It could be, "Do that again, because 99% of the people loved the thing that you did." Like, I feel like that's...for me, at least, that's very helpful.

Jen: Well, I think this brings up a really interesting distinction between connotation and construction. So what you're talking about is negative connotation, when what someone means is negative, that they are expressing something negative. And there's also the construction of the sentence using negative language, negatively constructed sentences with "don't", "can't", "won't", "mustn't", etc. And what I think is really interesting about criticism is when criticism, even when the connotation of it is negative, if it is structured in the affirmative, if it uses "can", "will", "must", "always", etc., is useful.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: So...because you know where you stand. So if someone says to you, "Pete, your podcast is not good." How are you to know if it's excellent or a disaster?

Pete: Whoa.

Jen: All you know is that it's not good. And so, that story you're writing in your head is partially because of the lack of clarity around interesting the language. But if someone said to you, "Your podcast is disappointing, because...," and then they offered something clear, even if you didn't agree with it...I just use a negatively constructed sentence, caught that in the moment.

Pete: Translate, translate.

Jen: Even if you felt differently about it, you would have a sense of where you stood with that person and why you stood with that person in that way. So I think that that's an interesting distinction, and that reminded me of something. Okay, a couple years ago, I was at a retreat and one of the sessions at the retreat was facilitated by a man named Woody Driggs. (I'm going to find him on the interwebs and drop his website in the Box O' Goodies.) And he came in to do a session on choosing language. Instead of calling it "negative and affirmative" like I've been doing, he called it "inclusive and exclusive language". That when you use "can't", "won't", "don't", "mustn't", etc., that you are excluding possibility. And when you use "can", "will", "must", etc., you are being inclusive. And that blew my mind. And I had forgotten that until just now.

Pete: Huh. Thanks, Woody. I feel like the last five minutes just reminds me of...or probably the whole podcast. But it just I feel like it, like a lot of things, goes back to something Brene Brown taught us.

Jen: Doesn't everything?

Pete: Everything. It's like seven degrees of Kevin Bacon, it's just that everything comes back to Brene Brown. Like, "Clear is Kind."

Jen: Yes.

Pete: Clear is kind in the way that we talk to others or give feedback to others, but also in the way that we talk to ourselves.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Clarity is super kind. Hmm. Okay. So what do we do with this Translator, now that we've unpacked it, Jen?

Jen: Well, first, I want to offer a challenge to the listeners.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: It's like one of my favorite things to do when introducing someone to the Internal Google Translator for the first time. For one hour...just set a timer. For one hour, see if you can consciously speak in affirmative language, in positively constructed sentences. Even if the thing you're talking about is something that has a negative connotation, can you construct it using positive language, affirmative language? So, that is the challenge. Feel free to shoot us an email and let us know how that went.

Pete: Please. Hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.com, send us an email, say hi. And I think the thing that I'm taking away from all this is, it's such a helpful tool to help us reframe, rewrite, reconsider the stories that we tell ourselves. And I'm reminded of this really lovely idea (although confronting) which is to not believe everything that you think.

Jen: Ooh. Can you translate that please?

Pete: I can. Wow, what a meta experience. Do question everything that you think.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.