The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 189 - Review the Tape

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: I want to talk today about something I do with my clients at the studio that I imagine has much broader applications, and I think you might be able to help me figure out ways to more broadly apply it. And it's essentially the concept of reviewing the tape.

Pete: Reviewing the tape. Okay. Okay, the tape being the recording?

Jen: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pete: Alright, reviewing a recording. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I follow, I follow. Sorry, I was thinking of like masking tape, duct tape...where am I going with this?

Jen: Painter's tape, Scotch tape...going well, so far.

Pete: We're off to a flyer. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Okay, maybe I should explain how we even get to the phrase "review the tape", because that's really a sports reference. For like, when they're watching...they, being people who are making the calls. If they need to look at a play again, they review the tape and then they make a call.

Pete: Right.

Jen: Okay. So several weeks ago, someone who is not in my industry asked me if I could describe my clients to them. And the best way I could think of to do that was to say, "It's kind of like, all day long, I'm coaching the equivalent of Michael Phelps. Like, these are not beginners. These are people who are at the top of their game. And so we are looking to find the minute details, the little nuances that might shave one one-thousandth of one second off of their time, in an artistic sense."

Pete: Oh, I love that metaphor.

Jen: Yeah. So, one of the things we do is review the tape. In all of my classes, everyone tapes their sessions...and sometimes very begrudgingly.

Pete: Yeah. I can imagine.

Jen: Where it's like, "Oh god, oh god, do I have to?" And I always say to them, "You don't have to watch it. But I want you to have the option to delete it, as opposed to having never recorded it." But one of the points I always like to make, and this is where I think you could be helpful, is that if you do opt to watch the tape, if you review the tape, it's not to decide whether or not you like yourself or if you think you're a good person. It's to give yourself, as objectively as possible, an opportunity to improve. And one of the ways you do that is by knowing what you're looking for before you hit play, rather than waiting for something to jump out and surprise you.

Pete: I like that. That's a really helpful filter. Because I imagine what happens...I imagine what happens, but also I've done this myself. I know what happens when watching yourself back, is you look at like random personality quirks that you all of a sudden don't like about yourself, which is not the filter to put necessarily. I'm not watching this to realize, what are my quirks as a human? I'm watching this to see, what did I do with my hands when I'm, I don't know, delivering a keynote, or whatever the thing is that you're recording? Is that right?

Jen: Yes. Ding, ding, ding, ding.

Pete: Alright.

Jen: Because, I mean, there's so many things that you could nitpick. But the question is, what are the things that you need to look at in order to get better at what you are doing? So as an example, if someone is telling me that they are working on clarity around their physical storytelling, just as an example, I'll tell them, "Well, watch it back without the sound. No need to be seduced by or dissuaded by your dulcet tones. Just take a look at, what is your body actually doing without all the other stuff attached to it?" Or if you're working on clarity of diction, "Close your eyes. Listen up. How's the diction going?" And we can get a lot more nuanced, and specific, and micro. But that's just, you know, a couple examples.

Pete: Yeah. You brought up something that I haven't thought about since it happened, when I was twenty-one and I was first put into an account management/sales role at this startup that I was working for at the time. We used to do a few things that were kind of like trying to get Pete up to speed, as this very green twenty-one year-old with messy hair and an ill-fitting suit and like a total imposter. "How do we get this guy up to speed," I imagine is what they were thinking. And one of the things I did very early on is I, well, they, being my managers, recorded me doing a like client presentation.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And it was probably the most nerve-wracking, anxiety-inducing situation I can even imagine. Like, I feel like I've totally put this down in my memory bank because of how uncomfortable it made me feel. However, it was so painfully but so remarkably helpful to watch back...

Jen: Right.

Pete: ...and hear where I didn't sound confident. As someone speaking about a technology product and consulting services that were going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, potentially, for a company, you want to sound like you know what you're talking about. So, I was listening for the ability to articulate confidently what we did, who we were, who we worked for, how our products and services worked. And there were certain times and points where I just clearly looked like this flailing unknowledgeable twenty-one year-old, because I was, but just like that experience was so helpful moving forward, even though it was so horrendously painful.

Jen: Yeah. Let's be clear, this is not like good times, fun activity.

Pete: Yeah. This is like roll the sleeves up and get uncomfortable, big time.

Jen: Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So our experience inside an experience, as it's happening, is so different than our ability to perceive and experience from a third-person perspective, which is what we do when we review the tape. So in the book Thanks for the Feedback by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, they have this quote from the glorious opera singer Renee Fleming, talking about how the voice you hear when you are singing is different than the voice you hear if you record yourself singing and listen back. And they point out that this is literally a function of our brain, that we have this little finger-shaped part of our brain called the superior temporal sulcus, this controls our ability to process not just the sound of the human voice, but to also like read it for tone and intention. And when you are speaking, when you are in the act of speaking, it does not fire up. It is in the off position. But when you are hearing a voice, it fires up. And when you hear your own voice recorded, it fires up. So like just from a basic human function perspective, we're not designed to be able to really assess ourselves in the moment, and reviewing the tape gives us that distance, that third-person perspective so that we can really dig in and see what's actually happening...not what it felt like when it happened, but what it actually was.

Pete: Yeah. That's...I can think of an example that highlights what you just said. When I did my TEDx talk a few years ago on impostor syndrome, there was this weird moment that I've never experienced before, where I felt like I completely blacked out and I completely lost track of where I was in my talk. And I remember, everything, I guess, was in slow-mo. In my head, I was like, "Don't say, 'Um.' Don't say, 'Ah.' Just stop, just pause, just wait, and it'll come to you." And eventually it did, and I kept going. And when I finished the talk, all I could think about was that (what I assumed was) like five to ten second pause, while my brain switched off and then switch back on. And when I watched the TEDx talk back, when I saw the video, I couldn't even remember where it was in the talk, because it's not evident. There's like no pause. It's so weird.

Jen: Isn't that amazing?

Pete: It's bizarre.

Jen: That is so incredible.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: So incredible.

Pete: Really bizarre. So I've experienced that firsthand, for sure.

Jen: Yeah. So Pete, you know, we're talking about scenarios where someone is actually in like some sort of a performance mode. You're talking about delivering a presentation to clients. I'm talking about literally Broadway actors acting. How might one use the "review the tape" idea in a non-performance situation?

Pete: Oh, that's a good question. I was going to say...I guess this is still sort of performance-orientated. I was going to say, you know, I feel like at this point, most people (certainly most people listening to this podcast) have had to run a Zoom meeting or present in a like work meeting, at a meeting that you own and are responsible for facilitating. And the beauty of Zoom is, it's really easy to just press record. I was thinking of like, a really tactical way to review the tape is to just like record your next Zoom call. And I guess you could do this even as a participant, if you're participating in a Zoom call and it's being recorded, review the way that you show up, the way that your body moves, changes, adapts to the conversation, the things that you say. But I guess to your point right at the start of this episode, to the whole point of this podcast, is, do it through the lens of, "What is the thing I'm looking for? Am I looking for what my body language looks like when someone else is talking? Like, do I look attentive, like I'm paying attention?" Which, you know, if you're doing coaching, for example, is super important. "Or do I look like incredibly distracted, and like I don't want to be in this meeting?" In which case, that's something to learn. So the easiest thing I can think of is to review a Zoom call. A lot of leaders that I work with, for example, might be wanting to become a better coach for their team, so supporting their team members by coaching them as opposed to telling them what to do, very common at the moment when we talk about, you know, the idea of modern leadership and how to show up as a coach. And so one of the most important skills, I think, of being a coach is to listen. And to ask questions and hold space, of course, but it starts with really listening. And I could think about any one of these leaders watching back a, like a Zoom call of whatever meeting they're in, and just looking for, "How are they showing up as a listener?" And I mean, I've done this so many times myself, where you watch a Zoom call back, thinking you're listening. And if you are...you know, you could do this with the sound off. You just like watch your tile, and you can tell if someone is quickly reading an email, you can tell if someone is not paying attention, you can very quickly tell how well you're practicing listening, just by looking at how you are receiving or listening to a, you know, a Zoom call. I think it's a really easy one to do.

Jen: Yeah. You know, it's...I'm laughing because sometimes when I listen back to drafts of our episodes, one of the things I'm listening for is, "Is one of us talking a lot more than the other?" And we're pretty good at giving each other the space and the balance, but there have been times where I'm like, "Oh, wow. Reviewing the tape, Jen is definitely going for seven minutes straight here, and Pete hasn't gotten a word in edgewise. Like, I'm not sure this is the best episode to release."

Pete: I think if you listen to early episodes in particular, that comes up more and more. I remember when our very first episode was released, one of my very good friends sent me a message (in a joking fashion) and was like, "I'm six minutes in. Are you going to let Jen get a word in?"

Jen: Oh my gosh. Oh my god. Touche, touche.

Pete: Right, and if you go back and listen to the first episode, I did that. I just like steamrolled with like context, context, story, story for like five or six minutes. We're getting better.

Jen: Well, we were just finding our footing. So, I think you get a pass there.

Pete: Yeah. But I guess it's an example of, we listened back through the lens of, "Are we balancing the conversation? And if we're not, how do we improve that? Well, we can either edit it," which we do every now and then, "but more likely, next time we record an episode, we'll be more mindful of pausing and asking Jen what she thinks, or asking Pete what he thinks."

Jen: Exactly. So, a series of reviewing the tapes to actually witness the progress that you're making on the thing that you're working on.

Pete: Mmm.

Jen: I wanted to bring up how coaches might factor in to the reviewing of the tape. You know, in the world of sport, when an athlete, especially an elite athlete, is reviewing the tape, they've got a coach by their side, helping them to understand what they're seeing. And so a couple years ago, I used to say to my clients, when we would tape in class, I would say, you know, "This tape is for your eyes only. It's not to be shared outside the studio. This is just for you." But now, I amend that, and I say, "With one exception: Bring this to your voice teacher and let them see you in the wild, doing the thing that, you know, they see you do standing calmly next to the piano in their studio. But here, you know, it's a full-bodied experience, only they would be able to tell you, technically, what is going on with your voice." And so I'm wondering like what it might be like, if you, when you were working on your presentation skills at the old job, had a presentation coach reviewing the tape with you, etc, etc. So, I feel like there's opportunity to get someone else's input.

Pete: Totally.

Jen: Another good use for the tape.

Pete: If nothing else, they're going to look at it without all of your baggage that you're looking at it with.

Jen: Exactly.

Pete: Like we can say, "Review it through the lens of what you're trying to improve." I can say that intellectually. But you play me a video of me, and I am sitting there going, "Why am I moving around so much? What are my hands doing? Why does my hair look that way? Why aren't I wearing my glasses today? What's that bookshelf in the background?" Like, I'm looking at all of my quirks, as much as I'm trying not to. And so by bringing in someone else, trusted third-party coach, whoever, yeah, they're not looking at all of those random quirks.

Jen: Exactly.

Pete: They're looking at, "Is this an effective presentation? Or, is this an effective meeting," whatever the thing is you're reviewing.

Jen: Exactly.

Pete: And I feel like, you know, you and I have done this for each other, in sending each other recordings of keynotes and various ideas.

Jen: Oh, yes, I had kind of forgotten that we do that for each other, but indeed. And P.S...I don't know if I should be admitting this on this podcast, but here it goes. I record every keynote that I do. I turn on the voice memo, and I capture every single keynote that I do because I want to hone the stories, especially. I want to make sure I'm including the important details and leaving out things that feel extraneous. And because I work without a script, the only way for me to know how to get better is to hear what I actually said.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. So I feel like all of this ties into a relatively recent episode we did called The Groan Zone.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: That in order to improve one's craft, whatever that might be for you, whether it's singing a song, or performing a show, or delivering a presentation, or just like how I listen in a meeting, one way to improve is to review the tape. And undoubtedly, undoubtedly, that will put you in the groan zone.

Jen: Indeed, it will. But it will be worth it, because on the other side of that groan is the growth that you have been looking for.

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