This is an All Ears English podcast episode 2147.
Three language choices that can undermine your career with Julie Holunga.
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Hello, Julie.
Welcome to the show today.
How are you?
Good, thanks for having me, Lindsay.
Yeah, I'm excited to have you on the show.
So for our listeners today, I have Julie Holunga on the show.
Julie is a leadership speaker and trainer, helping develop communication skills that were never taught in school.
I totally understand that.
She grew up in Paris, New Delhi, Hong Kong and New York City and worked at Harvard University helping alumni advance their careers.
And Julie hosted a TED Talk in November of 2020 entitled, Don't Let Your Words Sabotage Your Career.
Welcome again, Julie.
Your TED Talk title really caught my eye.
Thank you, Lindsay.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun to have that conversation.
And I love talking about language with all my clients and people like you.
Yes.
I love it.
And so tell me a little bit about how you got into this track in your career around communications.
What kind of?
Was there some kind of a original experience you had or something that really got you into coaching on communication and how important it is?
Yes.
So I, as you said, I grew up in overseas and I started elementary school in Paris.
So I walked in that first day of class and of school in a uniform, in a very scratchy wool gray and blue uniform, and notice that no one else was wearing this uniform.
So there had been some language barrier that my mom and I didn't connect with, but it was in that, that moment.
And I can remember that vividly of, Hey, there is this disconnect.
And then, figuring out being six years old, figuring out obviously, upon reflection, that I could communicate right.
We, we went.
I feel very lucky that my recess in elementary school was in the shadows of the Eiffel Tower.
Oh, that's amazing.
It was amazing.
And I could figure out how to communicate in that setting, right?
Like, whatever we were playing the French version of kickball or whatever it was I was able, even without the words, to communicate.
And in fact that's what the science has shown is why young kids are able to learn language, a different language.
So Quickly, because they're not thinking about I don't know what I'm saying or I don't know an accent.
So we're out of our heads when we're young.
Yes.
As adults trying to learn the language.
I love it.
So that really, that was such a stamp in my life.
And those seven years living abroad, consistently being the outsider, needing to communicate, sometimes in ways that were different than what I was used to.
Learning new things. ways of new behaviors, new body language with each culture that it changed.
I mean vastly different between Paris and New Delhi and Hong Kong, three very different cultures and ways of communicating.
And I had to learn that.
And it wasn't, obviously it was not a conscious thing that I was doing, but it was something.
But I do remember a lot of conversations with different people at school or in our community about vacations and I remember vividly, vividly.
So I was in seventh grade, leaving Hong Kong to move back to New York, and all of the international, everyone was international.
We were at an international school.
Okay.
Everyone who was moving back to their home environment was brought into a counselor and we would have weekly sessions to help us reintegrate and prepare for moving back.
Okay.
And I remember this really young.
What I remember being a very young skinny guy telling us when you move back, no one cares that you have just had this unbelievable experience.
And no one will understand what it was like to be at school where kids were coming in and out every six months.
And that you lived in this unbelievable place.
And they will think that you don't know how to speak English, even though you're American and you were born there, and you may have even known these same people.
And that has stuck with me to this day that don't talk about that experience.
And it takes a lot to get it out of me.
And I've been coached to talk about it more often.
But even like the day after we were, my husband and I were married together for six years.
At that point we went to hang out with his family and And something came up about me growing up overseas.
Right.
My sister-in-law said, how have I never heard about this?
Interesting.
But that was so ingrained in me.
Right.
Don't talk about it.
Don't talk about it.
Yeah.
And I would say that's obviously bad advice.
Right, right, right.
For sure.
For sure.
Right.
The communication that we, it's how we interact.
It's how we build trust with people.
And when I then went into the workforce and was working at Harvard University and, you know, felt very like I have no experience,
I don't know what I'm doing.
And I worked with some amazing people that first job right out of school, who didn't care that I didn't have experience.
And they wanted me to take a seat at the table, like proverbial and real table.
Yeah.
And they would talk to me and say, don't tell people anything.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Don't tell people you've never done this before.
Okay.
Amazing, amazing people.
I'm still in touch with some of them, which, you know, is great decades later.
No, I really had that impact on me.
Like pay attention to the words that you're using, pay attention to your body language.
Okay.
So those two experience really honed in on.
Yes.
I love it.
That was, you know, not so good.
And then, really great to help me professionally.
Yeah.
I like the combination of the two, right?
So you've lived all over the world as a very young child, very kind of impressionable age, but you were able it sounds like you were able to thrive.
You were able to make it work.
And partially because kids don't have that filter, that self-consciousness, right?
So you break those connections on this show.
We talk a lot about connection and we say connection, not perfection.
That's our trademark.
It's our slogan.
It sounds like you did that successfully.
Yeah.
And then you came home and maybe there was some self-consciousness brought on.
Don't talk about where you are.
You'll be considered different.
And then someone reminded you, hey, don't say, I don't know what I'm doing.
Just take your seat and give what you have to give and don't let your words undermine you.
Is that right?
Exactly.
Yeah.
I love that.
Okay.
And so that's where we're going to go today for our audience, for our listeners.
Again, the title of your TED Talk was Don't Let Your Words Sabotage Your Career.
And I liked your opening example of what, specifically what women tend to say when they are accepted, when they are offered a job or a promotion.
They question that right.
Yeah.
I was thinking today Julie, you could show us three language choice choices that all of our listeners might want to avoid, ways of framing things that we tend to do that we should stop doing, because it is hurting our career if we're working in English.
Does that sound like a good plan?
Yes, that's great.
And I have I have so many, but I'll narrow it down for you.
Okay, let's start with number one.
I'm excited.
Let's jump in.
The first one and this can be culturally different.
Yes.
Of course, all of this advice is pay attention to your environment.
Of course.
And who you're working with.
But the first one I always talk about is not apologizing when you don't need to own a mistake or something not happening.
Okay.
Give us an example of what you mean by owning a mistake.
So let me I'll give you an example of a client of mine who was responsible for pulling together materials for a board meeting.
And they're the CFO.
Quarter after quarter did not send her the materials on time.
So she would be scrambling or they wouldn't get into the binder or the materials.
He would look bad.
She would look bad.
There was all kinds of things not working.
And she tried everything.
She worked with his assistant.
She gave him a false early deadline.
She went to his office.
She called him.
I mean, she really was trying everything to help him look good.
Right, sure.
We came to her one day fuming, like, how did you not include my stuff?
And now I look bad to the board.
And she then said, well, I'm sorry, but you didn't get things to me on time.
Right, yes.
Yeah, and this was not her fault.
This was not her fault.
So she's apologizing for something.
Was he aware that he was late delivering the materials?
Oh, yes, yes.
Yes.
And by the way, he wasn't late by like an hour.
It was like three days.
You know, it was doing that example.
It was due on a Tuesday.
He got it to her Friday afternoon.
No.
The meeting was on Monday.
No.
Yeah.
And was he aware?
I hope so, Lindsay.
But, you know, I don't I don't know for sure.
But what she told me was that after she apologized for it, she had this sense that there was.
There was a shift.
And she had the sense that she had made a mistake and she didn't know exactly what it was.
And she you know, and and then we, you know, in in lots of conversations we figured out like she owned his mistake.
So then she started owning more of his mistakes.
Oh, wow.
So that was kind of a gateway to saying sorry more often.
Yes.
Interesting.
And then taking the blame.
Okay.
Okay.
So then he started publicly blaming her.
Oh no.
Oh my gosh.
Okay.
This is becoming.
He took responsibility.
Not good.
Yeah.
And I said to her, why were you apologizing?
What was going on?
She said, I felt for him.
He looked bad.
He was frustrated.
Well, of course, of course, but you can change the language.
And so what she said, instead of saying, I'm sorry, was she said, I hear your frustration.
Okay.
To help you.
And she said it was unbelievable the shift that happened because she saw him visibly relax.
His shoulders went down.
And then what eventually happened is he apologized and he owned up that it was his fault.
But when she was apologizing to him, he wasn't taking responsibility.
It wasn't changing his behavior.
So really paying attention to what you're apologizing for.
If you're late, if you miss a deadline, apologize.
Of course, if it's your mistake.
If it's your mistake, but just be conscious of that.
Right.
Don't apologize for other people's mistakes.
Exactly.
Don't own it when it's not yours to own.
That is really good.
That's such a great example of.
Maybe she wasn't very conscious initially that she was doing that, but then it became really clear and slid into a bigger problem.
And as soon as she flipped that, it's all about those words.
They matter so much.
They set the tone for the interaction and the power relationship between her and her boss.
I love that.
So is there a second thing that we might want to avoid then, Julie?
I'm going to keep us moving through, but I love that first example.
What would be the second one that we should avoid doing?
The second one is paying attention to when you're using conditional language like.
I think this is a good idea.
I believe we should take this course of action.
It's conditional.
You're planting subconsciously maybe, but you're planting a seed of doubt in your audience.
Right.
If you're in a position of influence, or you're trying to influence, or you're trying to make a sale or you're trying to get more budget, You want your audience to feel your confidence.
So instead of using that conditional language, use declarative.
So I suggest, I recommend from my experience.
I get a lot of pushback from people on this.
Really?
If I use that language, it's going to come back to bite me.
And that's because do they feel like they're putting too much of themselves, too much of an endorsement on it when they say I suggest, I recommend.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And what I say to them is look, if you're in a brainstorming session, then yeah, you can use.
I think I believe.
Sure.
But if you are influencing a client, if you are trying to influence a colleague like You by standing in a strong position of conviction and using declarative language, if you're going to get pushback, better to get pushback from that standpoint than from a weak standpoint of well, maybe this would be a good idea.
I'm not really sure.
Right, right.
You want to get pushback on the actual substance of the ideas, not the way you're framing the ideas.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And then yeah yeah yeah, and then the focus is on the idea or the recommendation, as opposed to on you as a leader.
So i love that.
So just make sure our listeners got that.
Use declarative language.
I suggest we do this.
I recommend we do that instead of conditional.
I think i believe these feel a little weaker and i think for our listeners, an added layer of challenge that we want to focus on is when we translate directly from our native language.
There may be certain native languages that are pushing us more in the direction of the conditionals.
I think I believe.
So that is something I want our listeners to think about.
Guys, as you are taking today's advice, think about what are the, what are the direct translations, and are you translating directly?
And how could we reframe that into more declarative language?
That is really interesting.
I, that, that is a new one that I haven't thought about, but it makes total sense.
Suggest and recommend also feel more professional.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And you, you just did it perfectly because your tone was very neutral.
People can pay attention to their tone where it's not overly aggressive, like we have to do this.
That, people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
But if I'm this neutral, I recommend we do this.
And then to follow it with a question, how does that sit with you?
What do you think?
What pushback could we get?
That tends to start the conversation.
But again, you're in this really strong position of engaging, building trust.
Right.
So it's not that you're not looking for feedback or not open to feedback.
It's just that you're framing the feedback as a question after you've made your recommendation.
Exactly.
Perfect.
All right, Julie, let's move on to your third tip.
What would be the third tip?
Yeah.
Is to not undermine yourself.
Don't tell people what you're not.
Like what the example I gave to you, you know, starting out my career, I don't know anything.
I didn't know anything.
No one knows anything when they start their career.
No, we don't.
The expectation wasn't that I knew everything, but don't tell people.
And it blows me away, Lindsay.
Like I hear bestselling authors.
I hear tenured professors, experts in their field sitting, you know, on panels or on guests on podcasts, saying well, you know, I'm just a professor.
I haven't read a book or I'm just, an author, but everyone else here on the panel is professors.
Or literally saying, I'm not an expert in this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You don't have to be the expert, but you probably are the expert in the room.
Right.
You're on the panel for a reason.
Exactly.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Just is a dangerous word, isn't it?
We've done a couple of episodes talking about how just can really undermine.
And we see women especially using just a lot but just in general, being really careful and listening to yourself when you do use, just especially when you're talking about your own career portfolio, your skills.
Right, Julie?
Exactly.
And what I always tell people is you may use just when it's in reference to time.
This just happened, right?
You can't say, I just wrote a book.
Or someone, one of my colleagues from the TED Talk.
The cohort said well, I've just done a TED Talk.
No, no, no.
No, no, no.
You mean yesterday you did a TED Talk?
Is that what you mean?
Right, exactly.
Exactly.
I love this.
This is so.
I wish we could talk longer Julie, we're running out of time here today, but this has been fantastic.
You know you've given us a chance to really reflect on some subtle things that may slip into our language.
We might not be aware of how that's setting a tone in terms of a relationship, a path, a relationship goes down, or how people look at our own expertise.
It's up to us to show, you know, how qualified we are.
Right.
That's right.
That is so good.
Thank you so much for being on the show.
Julie, where can our listeners find out more about you?
Do you have a podcast or a book you could let us know about?
Or should we go to your TED Talk?
Where should we learn more?
Yeah, so you can go to my website, JulieHalunga.com.
And on LinkedIn.
I love connecting with people and hearing.
Oh, I've eliminated this word and I've added this word.
And yes, my TED Talk can be found on YouTube, on TED.com.
Don't let your words sabotage your career.
Excellent.
And I really encourage our listeners to, as you said, to slow down and think about communicating clearly and directly so that they are able to influence those around them.
So good.
And could you spell your URL, your website, just spell your name for us?
Sure.
It's www.Julie, J-U-L-I-E-H-O-L-U-N-G-A.com.
All right.
Excellent.
So I want to encourage our listeners guys go over there, check out the other things that Julie has going on.
Definitely check out the TED Talk.
Super powerful topic and very important.
Julie, thank you so much for being on the show.
It's been great chatting with you today.
Thank you, Lindsay.
All right.
You have a good day.
You too.
Bye.
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