Unedited transcript:

you know what’s up everyone Dan coming back at you with another ask Dan anything question here today our question comes from a client of mine named Graham and essentially it’s comes from a session we had but the question was how do i express myself when I’m confused or how do i express myself when I don’t know what I’m going to say or I don’t know how they’re going to react and I’ve got no plan I don’t know where this is going now this is a huge one that comes up for people all the time and it’s one of the biggest barriers to genuine confident authentic connections and interactions I like to use the analogy of a restaurant now most people when they talk they are like a restaurant serving a meal the meal gets carefully prepared and cooked perfectly and then it’s brought out by a waiter and delivered as this final package something they can’t be argued against something that controls tastebuds and the experience of the customer and that’s how most people speak they carefully plan and plus and finish and polish the thoughts they have in their mind sometimes they might even take days to do this and now you’ve all set there once looking over a text message spending or an email you know spending hours getting it right and people do this in real life too they’ll go quiet and I’ll think of a good answer think of a good thing and then see it and so they only ever deliver these finished meals and a lot of people engage in this kind of paper behavior really struggle in certain situations particularly conflicts and particularly anything that is emotionally charged and unpredictable so people who think this way you think we need to get everything perfectly prepared and delivered and need to be in control when they speak they struggle especially in confrontation you know and they find it difficult to speak against somebody who’s quick-witted and quick to come up with something to say so this is all about control and at the part of this issue underneath that desire for control is a fear of confusion confusion fear of being a place where you don’t know what’s going to happen you’re unprepared you’re uncontrolled so I want to talk about how you can express yourself in those moments rather than waiting to finish the meal or get it prepared and then deliver it perfectly

sticking within that analogy expressing confusion is like taking someone from their table out to the back of the kitchen before the cooking’s even begun and having the sous-chef show them all the war ingredients you’ll be using letting them know that you don’t even have a menu ready yet you just have these ingredients the kitchens a mess there’s a fire of a stove their source spill over the floor somebody hasn’t done the dishes at the [ __ ] nightmare in there and letting them see this so that the two of you can clean up the mess together and come to a conclusion together so many people think independence mean to come into the conclusion yourself getting the thought prepared and your argument appeared and delivered it all by yourself whereas real connection and interaction comes from doing it together presenting a mess that they help you clean up while they present their mess and you help them clean it up and together you come to conclusions and understandings so stressing confusion is about showing them their mess now what does this look like a practical application it can be as simple as saying I don’t know what I’m trying to say so you might be about to express yourself and you feel that confusion you feel the sense of being out of control or being under pressure to wind of not knowing what’s going on there’s kind of frightened fight-or-flight response you can actually talk about that mess that’s going on inside you rather than trying to have a coherent conversation so for example let’s say I’m having a confrontation with someone and they’re really quick-witted and I feel intimidated and threatened by that I can save us I can say look man I see that we need to like argue these points out being so quick-witted and so articulate that I’m struggling to keep up I don’t know what to say even though I know I have some strong feelings above us that’s expressing confusion you could feel really attracted to somebody on a date and you’re waiting to think of the perfect way to say it while expressing confusion would be saying you know a Norma tracted to your non-traveling a perfect way to say it but I can’t right now that would be expressing confusion especially confusion is like starting a sentence with look I don’t know what I’m trying to say right now but X Y Z like allowing words to come out of your mouth with no end in mind without knowing how they’re going to end up now it’s critical to understand that for you to be able to do this you have to let go of control you have to give yourself permission to make a mess to not end up making a coherent to put the person off with your weird confusion to allow them to have an emotional reaction that you can’t handle right now now to give yourself this permission what I like to do is I give myself permission to bail and clean up whenever I feel like it so I can start making a mess with someone start speaking my mind without knowing where I’m going with it start talking about various emotional feelings I’m having without knowing why I’m having them or what they’re even about and giving myself full permission ear point I’m just stop doing that and clean up either leave or try to make sense of it with the person before I move on because you’re already good at this you spend your whole life preparing perfect meals so you know how to clean up a mess by yourself what we do it is simply allowing someone in earlier in this process so while you’re busy think of something good to say you actually tell them that I’m busy thinking of something good to say to you right now and rather than waiting three days for me to come up with an answer why don’t we figure it out together that’s expressing confusion you can do this by text message email you can do it in person let them see that you’re in process rather than only showing them the finished product and you’ll connect a lot a lot deeper for more on this there’s a lecture in my 3x confidence North it authenticity masterclass program about creating meaningful connections I’ll check a link down to that in the comments here and so if you want to go deeper you can check that out of course you can email me your questions dan at brojo co dot NZD and of course don’t forget to subscribe to the channel and I’ll see you guys next time Cheers