PREFACE

THERE’S A LOT TO BE SAID for figuring out a mission, a purpose to which you can align yourself. Doing so helps you prioritize your precious time on Earth. My purpose? I’m here to advocate that you start taking more smart risks as a communicator. Decades of a calling to coaching and training have shown me that summoning courage to review and revamp our messaging is a wonderful use of time.

Most nights at 7:58 p.m., you can find me doing dishes and replaying the day’s conversations in my head. Sometimes, I’ll think of the next day’s communication. I imagine who I’ll be seeing, what might be said, and what I hope to achieve from those conversations, possibly a lifted spirit or an aired grievance on either side of the table. I find the full spectrum of human communication fascinating, and your journey just as fascinating as my own. Take it from someone who’s always trying to view messaging from as many angles as possible; an outside guide can really help.

This book is meant to assist in your work life as much as it was built to assist in your interactions with family and friends, immediately and well into the future. As you look at the four hidden challenges, you’ll likely see yourself in one or two, or maybe in all four. This is no cause for alarm; in fact, you’re in good company. If you’d like to overcome the obstacles, summon some courage to engage in the exercises that follow. Think of them as investments in yourself, in relationships you have now, and in relationships you’ve yet to form. You can try them more than once, building confidence as you go. Change can be scary, but you likely have an inner knowing about when it’s needed. That inner knowing may have nudged you to pick up this book and hopefully is calling you to step outside your usual ways of interacting. You may surprise yourself with guts you didn’t know you had once you start down this path.

It took me a while to realize I’m often knee-deep in several hidden challenges myself, sometimes all four in one day. I was likely hiding from risk for years, yearning to connect with you through this book but defining the time as “not right.” I rationalized that I didn’t have time, and settled for a consulting career that was “good enough” but missing two key elements. First, the opportunity to be pushed by my editors and publisher to refine these ideas and second, the ability to reach a larger audience with them. I avoided clear deadlines other than “before I’m 50,” starting in my 20s— impressive procrastination, don’t you think? Rather than taking a first step, I replayed a set of questions endlessly in my head: Where to start with content? How to find a publisher? I’d written articles but never a book. Would words even come when I needed them?

And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk to bloom.

—ANAÏS NIN, AMERICAN WRITER

I grew tired of worrying, and ready for risk. I implored colleagues at my hometown CEO Roundtable: “Don’t let me return to next month’s meeting without chapter outlines.” Our group advisor Dave shot me an email: Let’s have lunch. I want to hear how the book is going. My Project Manager Tim said: Take it one chapter at a time. I’ll give you deadlines. With each baby step, the risk in sharing the hidden challenges seemed less imposing. To write openly and honestly feels like exposing my soul and inviting rejection, but if not now, when? We’re only on this planet for a short time. We can get to where we’re growing when we get real about where we are. Taking risks to gain power as a communicator is often more important than what people will think or say about your messaging.

I also want to mention, as you work through these ideas and exercises—you are not alone if the idea of looking closely at your communication modus operandi makes you a little nervous. And know this: there’s something waiting on the other side of courageous risk-taking for you, something good, illuminating, and life-giving. Whatever it is, it won’t come fully into view until you deviate from the safe route as a communicator.

I hope you find many useful takeaways here. I hope you discover jumping-off points for conversations about communication with the people who make your world. That’s what I’m about, and what my company has always been about: learning through realistic (and brave) goal-setting in communication and leadership training, executive coaching, strategic planning, and process improvement programs. Our team has embraced taking smart communication risks daily and we’ve seen the payoffs. We’re overcoming our hidden challenges by building skills, not schemes. It feels fantastic to see hidden challenges in the rearview mirror, although sometimes they reappear in the road ahead. That’s OK. It’s still progress.

Get ready to try some courageous new communication thoughts and behaviors. Doing so will prove that you can see yourself and others clearly and fully, that you want to do so, and that you understand the power of words. Let’s go forward bravely with open minds and hearts and see what’s waiting down the road for us on this adventure. Thank you sincerely for reading!

Michelle D. Gladieux

August 2022