The Stickie Note Method (or tiny communication nudges)
My office-mate, Elisa Wood, energy writer, editor, and publisher, has this stickie note on the computer where she regularly hosts virtual meetings, conferences, and interviews. “Talk slower,” is her kindly nudge from her composed self to her harried self. She knows her communication habit: she speeds up when anxious, when excited, when raring to go. My tendency is to do the same thing during talks and trainings—gallop breathlessly ahead. My inner stickie note is a mantra: “Are they with me? Are they with me?” This puts my attention on the audience, so that I am reading them as I scaffold my talk. I want to make sure they are with me every step of the way, that my communication is landing. This slows me down.
Another mantra I use is “click back.” I use this mantra when I feel insecure—yearning for praise, for attention, for validation. That ungrounded, chaotic energy as if I am outside of my body, is less and less familiar as I age, but can surprise me at the oddest moments. “Click back,” grounds me and reminds me to click back into my SELF.
When I was a member of the Circle Rep Lab in New York City, I had a surge of that desperate neediness each time I stepped out of the elevator and into the theater offices. What should I say? Who would I see? Sam Shepard? Olympia Dukakis? Laurence Fishburne? Ed Harris? Would they recognize me? Did they see the my last production? Did they like it? Do they like me? Am I important? That is when I found this mantra. It would bring me right back to self-possession, poise, and equilibrium.
I have no idea why this simple mantra, “click back” works for me, but it reminds me that there are no expectations for my behavior, that simply being present and paying attention is enough.
What are your communication mantras? What do the stickies on your computer say?
This week, think about one communication challenge and a simple reminder that we can fit on a stickie or carry in our minds to calm us, keep us present, remind us to breathe.