Communication Archives - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Pete Mockaitis
Janice, welcome.

Janice Omadeke
Thank you. Thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk mentorship, and I’d love it if you could kick us off with a particularly fond memory you have of a mentor of yours.

Janice Omadeke
Oh, gosh. Honestly, I mean, I have quite a few. I don’t think I could be in the business of mentorship without having some great stories. So, the first one that comes to mind is my very first mentor in corporate America, Amy. She was a creative director at PwC, which was my first big dream job over a decade ago. Her combination of grace, poise, and also intense program management, and a clear understanding of the value she brought in her role and to the organization was something that I was so thirsty to model, and something that I hadn’t seen coming from defense contracting at that time. And I just learned so much from her.

Working with her really showed that you can be both very intentional with the way you interact with people and also very passionate about the returns you deliver to either the company you work for or the company you build yourself. So, thank you, Amy.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, she sounds lovely. Could you zoom into a particular moment that really touched you and left an impression?

Janice Omadeke
Sure. My first six months at PwC, so I had come from defense contracting, my entire career before then, very much the old boys club, as you can imagine. I’m from the D.C. metro area, and so, oftentimes, I never felt like I really belonged. I felt like I had to deeply alter my personality or practice a high level of self-abandonment in order to meet my career goals and support the organization. So, my first six months, she really helped me just return to myself.

I would ask her a lot of questions. So, there was one conversation where I just asked her point-blank, “Amy, what is it like being a woman partner at PwC? Like, what is that experience actually like? Because coming from defense contracting, I know where I want to go, but I am scared of reaching those heights if it’s just me as the only woman on a team or in that particular career level and there’s no one else.”

And she was very open about the fact that, one, that organization was very diverse, but how she has been able to quiet that noise, quiet the naysayers, and just focus on her job and what she needed to do. And she communicated that roadmap so clearly with such a concise vision that I was actually able to replicate and model that the four years that I was at the firm as well.

Pete Mockaitis
When you say quiet the noise and naysayers, was there an instance of some naysaying that she quieted, and how did she do so?

Janice Omadeke
I think it’s the internal naysaying that, especially when I was in my early 20s, I had just entered the workforce, like brand-new, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at that time. And I am Congolese American, first-generation American, I did not come from a background where networking, mentorship, the career landscape that I was entering into, those weren’t common dinner-table conversations in my family. Like, it was just a big deal to get a full-time job with benefits and then proceed.

And so, I really had to learn through trial and error, through a lot of reading, through seeing other examples out in the market to figure out sort of what my professional identity was. But within that, especially in the setting that I had entered into, as I mentioned before, there were a lot of behaviors and traits that didn’t feel like they were in alignment to me, but I felt I had to adopt in order to survive.

And so, that self-abandonment I’m referencing previously is just the noise that you quiet, rather, is just the cultural norms from a very toxic environment that should have never been norms to begin with.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Can you lay it on us? Give us the down, the dirty, dirty here. What was going down that was disgusting? And how did that enter your head such that you were saying some things that weren’t so helpful?

Janice Omadeke
Well, you know, I’m grateful for the experiences that I had because it’s made me a better manager overall, because I never want to replicate those. But what I will say is that it feels wildly inappropriate to have VP-level leadership throwing an eagle paperweight at employees…

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, there it is. That’s real, whoa.

Janice Omadeke
…or cursing at them, berating them, you know, the verbal interactions, we’re at a point where, not me personally, but, like, my direct manager would sleep at his desk and not go home because of the culture of first one in, last one out. So, if our boss was in the office until 11:00 p.m., even if we didn’t have anything to do, it was sort of required that we stayed because that’s how our performance reviews were evaluated, or that’s how promotions or raises were evaluated.

And when you’re, in my case, an entry-level graphic designer with four roommates, and you’re really going after these lofty goals that I had of making six figures and paying off my student loans in a five-year time period, yeah, it was a very interesting dynamic, one that I learned a lot from and one that I am grateful that I experienced. I think it built some experiential scar tissue and definitely taught me the type of leader that I want to be and not be.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely, yeah. Wow. Well, I’m sorry you went through that and it’s good to hear that you were strengthened as opposed to torn down from those experiences. But it also sounded like there may have been an interlude in between being torn down and strengthened, in which you had some residual mental stuff going on.

Janice Omadeke
Yeah, I think everybody does.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. So, what were some of the things that you were telling yourself or the beliefs that you adopted temporarily that you were able to chuck off?

Janice Omadeke
I don’t think I ever let them fully absorb, but I don’t think that was an intentional decision on my end. I think there was a part of me that understood my worth, a part of me that understood everything I experienced in that timeframe was actually not okay, and so I just started putting the wheels in motion to explore other opportunities outside of that.

I think that was really the big lesson of, if you are undervalued, if you are being treated in a certain way, yes, you do have these lofty goals; yes, rent must be paid, yes; you have to survive in Washington DC, but it’s up to me to decide what that actually looks like, like, “What am I willing to forego in order to do those things?”

And once I knew sort of my internal bargaining range of what I was willing to accept and had those boundaries, I knew to prioritize myself and find employers and teams that shared those values, and I did. You know, later on in my career, pre-PwC, and I was still in defense contracting, I had great employers. I had great teams that I really enjoyed working with.

There are some people that I still communicate with over social media to this day, over a decade later, because of those relationships that were built inside those employers. But I think, for me, I’m very grateful to have had parents that established the need to prioritize boundaries in order to reach future goals.

Pete Mockaitis
And it’s great that you were able to identify that, “This is not normal. This is not acceptable,” as opposed to, it can happen in early career experiences, like, “Oh, shoot, is this what work is? Uh-oh. Well, that’s a bummer. I guess this is what my life is now.” But you were free from that.

Janice Omadeke
Right. Or where we throw a paperweight at somebody, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
“I guess things get thrown in the workplace, or a helmet.”

Janice Omadeke
Exactly. No, I think it’s a matter of I just really understood my values, I understood my morals, and I knew what I wasn’t willing to give up and what parts of my soul I wasn’t willing to sell in order to reach that, especially, in a corporate setting, it just wasn’t necessary. And thinking about it now, I’m so glad I did and I’m thrilled. Like, it makes me so happy knowing that that type of culture is just broadly unacceptable.

In 2009, it was just a different case, that kind of was a bit of the norm, those sorts of cultures. But now that would never fly, and I’m thrilled that people no longer have to experience that, and that they can really focus on accomplishing their goals, getting acclimated to a supportive culture, that they can really find their footing inside an organization, make it their own, while also contributing to the success of their team, their employer, and the organization overall. It’s really great to see that.

Pete Mockaitis
Very much. It’s good to see some improvements. And, unfortunately, though, toxic workplaces and bullying does appear in spots, but hopefully less so and people are more aware that that’s not cool. So, tell me, when you said that Amy helped you quiet some of the internal naysaying, what did the naysaying sound like in your head? And what was the contribution Amy made to that?

Janice Omadeke
I’ve always believed in myself and my ability to advance in my career, but the negotiation piece was always a big one in terms of salary. You have your Salary.com, you have Glassdoor, you have all of this information, but sometimes, when early on, when employers would ask what your salary is, they’re not thinking, “Oh, okay. Well, this person is actually making $10,000 under market, so let’s give them $15,000, that way they’re above based on their skills and qualifications.”

If you tell them that you’re making a certain amount and then market, they give you maybe a 2% bump, that was just what it was at the time. And so, Amy taught me how to remove that scarcity mindset of pushing back and negotiating and advocating for yourself in a way that’s both logical, empathetic, and helps you reach that goal of finding middle ground between yourself and the other party in which you’re negotiating with.

And that’s something that I still use to this day, not necessarily on the salary front, but just how are both parties coming together to solve this issue, and how are you doing so in a way that everybody feels seen, heard, and respected at the end. And at that time, the naysayer in me was just saying, “Say yes to the salary, that way they don’t move on to the next graphic designer that is vying for this fully remote managerial job in 2014. Like, just say yes.” And she helped me in my next round of being promoted, and just the internal review process, actually, bump up my salary to where I need it to be and then some.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fantastic. And that is something that you can read it but it’s very different when you have a human being advocating for you, and you can sort of feel the support and see what’s up with the mindset. And this is just a freebie bonus nugget. So, Janice, what’s the proper way to answer the question when I say, “So, Janice, what’s your current salary?” If I’m asking you that as a potential employer, and you know the salary is below market, and too low, so it’s not relevant a question in a poor anchoring position, what do you say in that tricky position?

Janice Omadeke
I would say, “My salary is well within the range of the price point that you already set forth in the job description. Based on the market average of X and X, I am well within that bell curve and look forward to maintaining that in my next position.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, sure thing. Yeah, that sounds a lot better than, “None of your business. Back off! Shut up! Not relevant.”

Janice Omadeke
“You’re not supposed to ask me that anymore.” Yeah, no.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, “Is that even legal? What state are we in? Let me review the law?”

Janice Omadeke
Exactly, that’s a much more diplomatic way of saying that, and also shows that you’ve done your research, and you also have a bit of a backbone to stand up for yourself, so.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. All right, so mentorship. I appreciate the roundabout pathway, but so mentors make a huge difference in areas of negotiation, making you stand up for yourself, quieting the internal chatter. So, so much good stuff. I’d love it if you could share with us a particularly surprising or counterintuitive discovery you’ve made about mentorship over the course of your career and writing the book.

Janice Omadeke
So many people want a mentor but when you respond, saying, “A mentor in what?” or, “What would you like to work on with a mentor?” or, “What type of mentor do you feel would be most helpful to you?” crickets. I mean, that’s fair, right? Like, we talk a lot, and you see so much on, “Get a mentor. It helps,” because it does. You’re able to fast track your career five times faster as a mentee. As a mentor, you’re able to fast track six times faster, but there’s less information on what to actually work on with a mentor.

The fact that mentorship is not one size fits all. So, what type of mentor do you actually want to work with? What type of mentorship structure works for you? And who are the type of people that would be beneficial in this particular chapter of your career? And I think a lot of that is just left to assumptions versus actually educating people that are eager to find mentorship to understand that because they’ll be able to find their mentors much faster if they have that clarity.

Because, then, instead of just sort of a spray-and-pray approach, or just looking at everyone based on title or location or a high-level view of what that person could be, you’re now segmenting it the same way an entrepreneur would segment their customer market to know exactly where to spend their time, who to spend their time with, and how to communicate in a way that’s effective for the other party so that you’re both working together in that potential mentor-mentee dynamic.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Janice, I love that so much. A huge takeaway right there in terms of getting specific because I think when folks say, “I want to mentor,” if they haven’t really thought through the details then they might be embarrassed to say during the crickets, “Well, I guess what I wanted was a fairy godmother type figure who would just sprinkle career growth dust upon me and feel like a loving elder figure that can bestow wisdom and take me to places I want to go.”

As opposed to, “I don’t know how to navigate digital marketing with all of the different pathways and like what’s noise and what’s real, and all of the tools and opportunities and campaigns.” It’s like, “Okay.” Like, that’s something you can really work with, as opposed to just magical helper elder friend.

Janice Omadeke
Well, I think, too, yes, you do get some people that are saying, “I just want the magic wand fairy godparent that will take me from $30,000 annually to $600,000 annually in a month.” Like, that’s a great audacious goal. However, if we haven’t already started planting those seeds, that might be a steeper task than what’s in the realm of reality, right?

But with the right mentor, you can actually start breaking down those goals and saying, “Okay. Well, if the goal is that much, then how can you get there in a realistic timeframe?” whatever that timeframe is, right? And having mentors, plural, a series of mentors that could help you holistically look at your current career, look at your investments, let’s say, look at where else you could potentially build that wealth, if that was really the goal, to accomplish that.

And they might also have some come-to-Jesus conversations of, “That is possible, but if it’s not possible in a month, it might be possible in a couple of decades. It might be possible within the set timeframe, but the current one that you’re going after isn’t feasible. So, let’s take these pieces of the task list in order to accomplish that as the immediate next steps, and let’s get you to an exceptional level within those to continue moving forward.” Like, that’s a good mentor.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Understood. Thank you. And you mentioned a number, five to six times faster career growth with a mentor. Tell me, what is the source and the underlying data of this goodness?

Janice Omadeke
Yeah, I can send you the link to it, but, I mean, it’s everywhere, honestly. HBR has reported on that, Fast Company reported on that, Forbes has reported on that, other mentorship startups in the space, like MentorcliQ, I know has reported on that as well. It’s just a well-known statistic that those that are mentored are promoted five times faster, and those that do mentor have the likelihood of being promoted six times faster than those who are not mentored or mentoring.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fantastic. All right. So, we’ll totally link to the particular sources for that in the show notes for this episode. But tell me, in your own work, mentoring, being mentored, helping other people mentor and be mentored, has that been your experience, like, “Yeah, that sounds like it’s in the ballpark, five or six times the career growth rate with mentors or doing the mentoring” seems about right in your experience?

Janice Omadeke
Absolutely. I’m a living proof of that statistic actually, to have gone from a corporate graphic designer, to then expand within entrepreneurship, and to have climbed the summits that I’ve climbed with an entrepreneurship, like the 94th black woman to have raised over a million dollars for a seed-state startup, being Austin, Texas’ first black woman to have a venture-backed tech exit. I would not have accomplished that without the help of my mentors, 100%. It just fast-tracks your knowledge, it fast-tracks your self-understanding, your access to resources, the broadening of your network. Like, if you work the process, it actually can work.

Pete Mockaitis
Fantastic. All right. The size of the prize is large, so lay it on us, Janice, it sounds like the first step is to get specific associated with, “I want a mentor.” It’s like, “No, no, let’s get real clear.” What are the kinds of questions we should be asking and answering for ourself before we go on the hunt?

Janice Omadeke
Take some time to understand who you are and how you’re wired so that you’ll know if someone is a fit for you. The same way you would understand just meeting somebody out at a barbecue, let’s say, if they may be a potential fit for friendship or not. Based on your early conversations, you’ve done the work to know who’s a compatible fit for you in that space, and the same logic applies in mentorship.

So, look at how you operate within your career. Are you a morning person? Are you a night owl? What do you actually value at work? Are you the type of person that’s first one in, last one out? Or do you prefer working remote so that you can travel while also still working? Do you value family time? Is that really important? Or are you the type that wants to kind of work 24 hours a day? There’s no wrong answer, but being very clear in who you are in your professional identity so that you can find people that will complement it when needed, push back against it when needed, but ultimately will be a fit for you based on that is really important.

Understanding how you like to communicate, how you like to be communicated with, what type of feedback and feedback structure works best for you so that if you’re engaging with a potential mentor, and maybe their approach is more indirect that it’s preventing you from learning, you can circle back with that person and say, “Hey, actually, I prefer directness in my feedback communications. So, if you do have feedback, it drains my battery when I now have to spend time kind of sifting in between your words to figure out what you meant versus what you said. Is it possible for us to be more direct in our communications?”

If you want to have that conversation, great, but in this day and age when people are so busy, knowing that that’s your preference and finding people that will communicate with you in that way, or be willing to modify their communication to support that is great, and that’s what helps you end up expediting your mentor relationships.

Pete Mockaitis
I mean, that sounds delightful to find multiple mentors who can match us on all of these dimensions. I mean, is that possible? Is that realistic? Are we asking for too much? Can beggars be choosers if the mentor is bestowing generously their time and wisdom and expertise upon us? Can we get this level of fit?

Janice Omadeke
I think so because I don’t think it’s asking a lot to have a general understanding of how you and your mentor will communicate with each other. It is not mandating that every single mentor must communicate with you in this particular way. Just like you would with any other meaningful relationship, you understand where that other person is coming from. You understand their lived experience, you understand as much as they’re willing to share who they are, you’re presenting who you are, and then you both are working together to build a relationship that’s sustainable for both of you, and then figuring out what works within that.

So, another great example is if you are the type of person that likes to send one-off texts questions and appreciates that type of communication but your mentor prefers maybe meeting for coffee, a good workaround could be a virtual meeting, meeting once a month for an hour virtually. Ideally, if they are your mentor, you’ll do what it takes. But at the same time, I think finding some middle ground, if there is some sort of outstanding circumstance that prevents that from being realistic, it’s you’re well within your rights to figure out what works for both people.

I’ve seen relationships where the mentee just says yes to everything so that they have a mentor and they can say that they have a mentor without really thinking about how much they’re learning and how deep the relationship is actually being built. And when one party, as we’ve seen in most other relationship dynamics, if one party is consistently the accommodator and the other party is not aware of that, the relationship can only go but so far in comparison to actually just being vocal about additional preferences or wanting to work together.

So, the goal isn’t to strongarm in any direction, but really to build something that’s fruitful for both parties where you’re building that muscle memory of real communication and making sure that both parties feel as though they’re equally contributing to the growth and development of that relationship.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. All right. So, if we’ve got great clarity on what we’re after, our goals, ourselves, and who would be a swell fit for us, where do I find such fine folks?

Janice Omadeke
Well, start finding their watering holes. Think about where you’re also interested in spending time. The great thing is that now, the virtual world is so vast. So, a good starting point, LinkedIn community groups are really great. They’re based on interest, industry, affinity groups, there are so many, so finding one that actually resonates with you is great. Social media is another great spot to find someone. I would not go based on followers. I would not go based on title. Actually, hear what these people are discussing. Join a virtual community there if you can.

Also, look at very niche and specific groups based on your interests. So, for example, when I was starting my first company, The Mentor Method, I was a graphic designer, I already understood the tech space, but I wanted to learn more about the intersection of tech and entrepreneurship. So, I found groups that I also felt very included and welcomed in. So, that included like DC Web Women, which consisted of a lot of entrepreneurial web development women, and it was great.

So, it hit a lot of those boxes where naturally I wouldn’t have felt comfortable going into that environment. But there was also that professional alignment, and because of the group and the culture that was established within that, there was a community that was very eager and excited to help advance and amplify other voices, especially people that were new to the group. There were a lot of opportunities to collaborate and there were a lot of opportunities to meet potential mentors, and I ended up meeting quite a few from those sorts of groups. But that’s also a very niche community based on the title, but I do find a lot of success within those.

So, yesterday I did a speaking engagement with an organization, and this woman is in politics, working on economic development and affordable housing. And so, depending on your thoughts on that topic and sort of who she’s reporting to, that could change things, but the advice was to start spending time within those spaces to find additional mentors that are within her vertical of mentor of marketing within that to then start expanding because that’s just such a niche focus.

And then by the end of the event, she had already found like three groups in Austin, Texas that she was going to join and try to find people within that niche environment. And I think getting very clear on the watering holes that make you feel good and make you feel comfortable that way, energetically, you’re giving off a sense of wanting to collaborate and being open to meeting new people while also knowing that just, in general, that could be a good target mentor audience is extremely helpful.

Pete Mockaitis
Alrighty. So, let’s say we’ve been hanging out in such places, we’ve found a couple folks we think seem fantastic, how do we proceed with approaching and asking?

Janice Omadeke
Do an internal gut check. Just confirm one more time. It can’t hurt. Like, why are you actually interested in getting mentorship from this person? Just again, what is it about them? What are you hoping to learn? Start having the informational coffees. I’m a slow burn person. Having at least three conversations with them before presenting the opportunity for mentorship because that gives you time to get to know them, get to see them in different environments, see if there’s actually a fit, if they’re interested in mentorship, if you communicate well together, all of the things that are really important in building a mentor relationship.

So, if all of that is checked off, then perhaps you make the ask. This is always a dicey part of the process because 61% of mentor-mentee relationships happen organically. But for 39% of the population, which typically ends up being the population that really needs that mentorship, and for whatever reason they just don’t have access to it, making the ask just provides, and having a structured program just provides that stability in those bounding boxes to really help them flourish.

So, if you’re going to ask someone to be your mentor, set the stage via email, or your next conversation, just saying, “Hey, I’d love to meet with you again to talk about the opportunity of having you as a mentor.” And then in that meeting, saying that you’ve really enjoyed getting to know them, obviously, based on their strengths in one, two, and three, and your goals of A, B, and C, they could be an impactful mentor to help you accomplish those goals. You would love to meet with them for an hour a month. You’ll set up every agenda. You want their feedback. This is what you’re hoping to learn from them. What are their thoughts?

This could easily be like a five-minute conversation just setting the stage and sort of creating that ask, hear what they have to say back, like, “Yeah, I’d be interested in learning more,” or, potentially, like, “Hey, I’m sorry, I don’t have the bandwidth,” which can happen, and that is totally okay. You want a mentor that has the bandwidth versus saying yes, and then falling off the grid for seven months. And so, that’s how I would structure it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, cool. And so, I don’t know if you happen to know, since there’s a lot of feelings here in terms of, I don’t know, risk, rejection, vulnerability, all that stuff. Do you have a sense for roughly what proportion of the time folks say yes versus no?

Janice Omadeke
No, because it’s a case-by-case basis. Depending on the person you’re speaking with, they might have availability, a life situation happens and now they don’t, or maybe somebody wasn’t available, but then six months later they do have the bandwidth. It’s really a case-by-case basis. I don’t have a percentage of the number of people that say yes or no, but I will say, in those early conversations, a key component is kind of vetting their interest in mentorship.

Overall, I will say, though, that people generally want to help other people, even if it’s an informal mentorship of just grabbing coffee once and being able to learn from them in that capacity, people are typically open to that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, how about for funsies, if you think about your own batting average, what does it look like?

Janice Omadeke
Oh, wow. Well, because I followed the process that I laid out in the book since early in my career, I’d say my average is like 85%.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Well, I guess what I was driving at is for those who might hear a no and feel sad, disappointed, and have their own level of internal naysaying responses, we can know the mentorship queen herself doesn’t get them all, so this is to be expected, it’s normal.

Janice Omadeke
Exactly. You can’t get them all.

Pete Mockaitis
And just kind of move on.

Janice Omadeke
It’s just part of the process. I mean, it’s like any other meaningful relationship, right? Sometimes they last, they last the test of time. Other times, people have to part ways. It’s just part of the process. I mean, there are different circumstances within that 15% rate of mine for them not working out. But, overall, I will say that if you receive a “no,” if the relationship doesn’t pan out the way you had hoped, there is always a reason for that. Trust the timing, trust the process, and the right mentors will reveal themselves in time. There is no rush. You will figure it out and you will be fine.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, let’s say you do get a “yes” and you’re off to the races, how do you have conversations that are productive? And how do you think about it being a two-way street?

Janice Omadeke
Mentorship is a two-way street. Like, I don’t even think about it at this point because that’s the foundational component of mentorship. You want to make sure that it’s a conversation where both parties are gaining something from it. Now, thankfully, on the mentor side, being able to share your lived experiences to help improve the quality of life, the quality of your mentee’s career, is deeply rewarding. I mean, it’s one of the best feelings. You’ve mentored before, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Sure, yeah.

Janice Omadeke
Yes, like you know that warm and fuzzy feeling when your mentee comes back and it’s like, “I took your advice and this happened,” or, you see them come up with these new concepts, and just watching their career flourish, it’s a lovely feeling. And I think there is that two-way street in that and just wanting to help the world be a better place through sharing your own bumps and scrapes and experiential scar tissue.

But, on the mentee side, you are the one driving the relationship. You’re setting the agendas, you’re requesting the feedback, you’re making sure that your mentor is available at certain times and just pushing that relationship forward. So, within that, the way that I like to structure it is sending the agenda maybe 48 hours ahead of time, if not sooner than that, broken down into, “Here’s the latest, like, here’s what I’ve been working on recently, just some great updates, some challenges. And this is what I’d love to discuss in our call.”

I like to touch base with my mentors in between my monthly meetings. So, let’s say they gave me advice on a proposal for a new initiative, and I just heard back and we’re moving to the next steps in that process. It takes 30 seconds to send a quick thank you email and say, “Thank you so much for your advice. Based on that, I was able to update slides two, three, and five per your feedback, and I think that really helped us in getting to the next steps. I’ll keep you posted on how this goes.”

“Oh, and by the way, I saw this article on gluten-free baking. I know that you were considering going gluten-free for a month, just given how you’ve been feeling a little more tired lately from our last conversation. So, here’s a quick article on that in case it’s helpful.” You’re delivering value. You’re being a person. You’re building a relationship. You’re showing that you heard them, and that you saw them as a real human being, and you’re providing your update in a non-transactional way. Like, bing, bing, bing, bing, like all of the stars, all of the boxes checked. It’s great.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, when you said updated slides two, three, and five, that shows that we’re getting pretty darn specific. This is not just sort of like, “Oh, hey, so I got a presentation coming up, and hope it’s good,” but rather it’s like, “Hey, yo, I got some materials I’m showing you. I’ve got some specific question about a specific situation that is brewing in the near future.”

Janice Omadeke
Yes, do the legwork ahead of time. You’re going to have to. And, in the example of the presentation, let’s say, you’re going to have to build that presentation anyway, and your mentor is so busy, and you’re eager to work with them because of their expertise. Do the legwork ahead of time of at least putting together a shell of that presentation. It takes this.

You’re going to have to do it anyway, so why not do it a little bit earlier and have them react to it in the same way you’re hoping that potential customer, potential partner, whatever the situation is here, will react too, so that you’re getting that feedback in real time, and you’re just quickening your ability to get to a yes in that goal that you’re seeking to accomplish through the help of that mentor?

So, in the example of that presentation, maybe it’s a 10-slide pitch deck, just having quick bullets, like, “This is the title. This is what this slide will cover. Maybe there’s a graphic or something. Does that make sense? Is this the story arch that I should be using? Are there details that are missing? What are your thoughts here?” And just getting that so that you can actually respond to it is extremely helpful and very efficient, and your mentor will love that.

Like, give your mentor something that they can actually respond to versus staying in this space of sort of high-level theories. The more concrete you can get and the more you’re actually working on something together, the more fruitful those relationships will be. Also, the world is very small. It’s impossible to know everyone that your mentor might know.

So, let’s say you’re working on this, this actually happened to me, let’s say you’re working on this presentation or a pitch deck, right, and you’re going through it. That person might know a potential investor that would be a good fit. And if you stayed in that high-level sort of theoretical discussion of what your deck will be versus walking them through it, it would be a lot harder for them to start facilitating introductions.

It would be a lot harder for you to show that you are actually doing the legwork of building out your business or whatever it is, versus just showing them in that presentation. And I ended up getting introductions to multiple investors that ended up investing in my first company that way. So, just doing that legwork and giving them something to react to, and even outside of that, just an activity or something that you’re doing together that’s actually educational and helping you accomplish that goal tends to help build that sustainability in the relationship.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, totally. And that five or six X really seems all the more resonant in terms of like, “Oh, yeah, so you’re acquiring skills superfast because you’re getting feedback that may not be possible to get from folks inside your own organization.” And what you said about the specifics really resonates. I was thinking, just yesterday, I was chatting with a buddy who had some ideas, like, “Hey, I’m thinking I might want to become…take my experience as a doctor and an expert witness to do some keynotes and workshops associated with how to reduce the odds of a doctor getting sued for medical malpractice.”

It’s like, “Oh, that’s cool.” And so, we were having all these back-and- forth ideas of, “I’ll try this and research this,” all of these things. And it was really rich and fun for me, I guess I was playing the mentor role there, as opposed to, it was like, “Hey, so do you have any tips for if I’m thinking about maybe getting into speaking?” I was like, “Well, I mean, make a video.” Like, I’m pretty limited in what I could say, “I mean, you should get a video, research the competition, maybe write a book.” It’s, like, I don’t have a lot. I don’t know.

Janice Omadeke
Exactly. Yes. One of my friends did the same thing. I would say we’re peer mentors to each other in different spaces, but having written Mentorship Unlocked, they’re actually writing a children’s book, a different space. But we met up for lunch to discuss being an author, and he brought everything to the table. I mean, he had an outline, he had little sketches, he had the whole story built out bullet by bullet. He had the morale of the story, just first and foremost, like, “This is what I want children from the ages of 4 to 6 to get from this 30-page book.”

I have kids within that range. Like, he understood the problem he was seeking to solve for both the child and the parent. He had market comms. Like, he had really thought through it. So, in our hour and a half coffee lunch conversation, we were able to really dig into the nuances of it, and thinking about what the next steps would actually be, versus sort of the theoretical, like, “Should I write a book? Should I not? Do I need to make an outline? Like, what’s in the outline?” Like, he had already done the research.

And even if he was, let’s say, moving in a direction that wasn’t as fruitful for his book, like, let’s say his outline maybe wasn’t ideal. It was, but in this case, let’s say it wasn’t, right? At least I have something to react to, versus some theory around what he might hypothetically include in his book outline to hypothetically talk to publishers. Instead, we could focus our time on, “Here are some potential publishers that you could talk to after you accomplish these three things, because they will not take a meeting with you without these,” and then he’s off to the races so much faster.

So, to your point, it’s really helpful to do that legwork because you’re going to have to do it anyway. So, even if you’re moving in the wrong direction, at least you know now to make a left turn instead of right, and you can edit accordingly.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. And as I’m thinking about my own recent conversation, I felt fantastic and excited afterwards, and not at all like, I don’t know, taken advantage of, or like, he’s a taker. It was like, “I’m being drained.” It was like, “No, that was fun,” and that was, like, I feel like I just shared some gold with him, as opposed to if all I said was, “Hey, make a video, research a competition, maybe write a book,” I’d be like, “I mean, I think Google or ChatGPT could’ve told you the same thing in about four minutes, so I don’t know what we’re doing here,” as opposed to, oh, yeah, we got into some stuff, and it was a lot of fun and I’m excited to see what happens with it for him.

Janice Omadeke
Hundred percent. See, you’re a great mentor. Look at that.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, shucks. Well, Janice, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Janice Omadeke
Be kind to yourself. You are doing your best, and the right mentors and the right community around you will see that and help you amplify your efforts.

Mentorship is not a paid opportunity. If someone is saying that they’ll mentor you if you pay them a monthly retainer, they’re not a mentor, maybe they’re a coach or a consultant, but do your diligence there, and don’t be afraid to ask for introductions. It takes, I mean, it actually takes a while. I think for me, when I wrote my first LinkedIn post, “Hey, do you know someone?” or like starting to ask for introductions to potential mentors, I would rewrite my emails at least a thousand times before sending.

But getting into the practice of asking for possible connections, showing the vulnerability of saying, “You know, I really don’t feel like I’m that strong in whatever the skill might be, but I feel like you might know someone who is. Does anyone come to mind?” Even if they don’t have someone then, that seed will always be planted. They will be thinking about that at their next networking event, or somebody will enter that individual sphere where they will be able to make that introduction to you. Just don’t give up. It is a process. It takes time.

But for me in my own career, I didn’t have impactful mentors until six years in for my corporate career, so it can take time. And then in entrepreneurship, it was a lot faster because I’d already built up that process but it still takes a while to find the right people, and it’s just trial and error. So, all of that to say you’re capable. You can do it. Don’t give up. And Pete and I both believe in you.

Pete Mockaitis
We do. We do. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Janice Omadeke
I think a good one here, I say this aloud, “I am no longer going to stand in my own way.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Janice Omadeke
Yeah, that’s been a recent one for me. Another one is, “Your mind is yours. Take it back. Your time is yours. Take it back. Your peace is yours. Take it back. Your freedom is yours. Take it back.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And could you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Janice Omadeke
Recently, I have been looking at the intersection of AI and HR and what’s going to happen in that market, and where AI is the most applicable within the HR space. A lot of people are thinking about it in terms of recruiting and how they’re able to filter resumes. I’m looking at it through the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion to see how the technology is actually helping because we already had, you touched on a nerve, Pete, but you know we already had a lot of bias in the way in which people were even given opportunities to interview for jobs.

And depending on who’s building that technology, it’s just amplifying what the machine is being fed, which is by a human, which naturally has bias. So, I’ve been looking through studies. I’m not ready to cite one yet because I’m still doing my diligence on which ones are credible and not, so I don’t want to cite one and give them that shine yet. But I have been very excited and very intrigued, and spending a lot of time in researching who’s building the technology and looking at the differences in recruitment rates along different affinity groups, let’s say, and whether or not those stats are actually changing.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing.

Janice Omadeke
I know it’s a little different, but I enjoyed it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, no, different is good. You might just come up with some unique killer insights that are powerful, so that’s fun. Good luck. Enjoy. Hope it takes you some cool places.

Janice Omadeke
Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book.

Janice Omadeke
The Power of Positive Thinking.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah.

Janice Omadeke
Always a good one. Got that one early. I still refer back to it when I need a little bit of humbling and to just settle my nervous system. I think that’s always an oldie but a goodie. I think Masters of Scale, of course, I mean, just a classic. Lost and Founder is an exceptional book. I read that during, in 2018, during the early stages of my first company, The Mentor Method, and it’s beautiful.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool?

Janice Omadeke
My timer. The timer on my phone. I set it for meetings ahead of time. I set it to end meetings. I live by it. That’s when I know to get ready to go somewhere to meet my friends. I need my timer because I can get in productivity loops, especially with my work in AI and product development and everything else. And then with the book, Mentorship Unlocked, and my conversations with people, I can just get in a loop where I’m actively working on something, and that sort of reminds me to get up. I’ll set timers to get water. I’ll set timers to do a lap around my building or what-have-you, but without my timer I think I could easily lose track of time.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Janice Omadeke
Getting 85 ounces of water in every single day.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Janice Omadeke
Yeah, let’s connect on LinkedIn. You can find me, Janice Omadeke, on LinkedIn. You can also find me on Instagram @janiceomadeke. And you can also visit my website, JaniceOmadeke.com.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Janice Omadeke
Think about your goals for the next 6 to 12 months. Actually, I want you to take a sheet of paper, write down your goals for the next 6 to 12 months. Next to that, write down what your naysayer or inner saboteur is telling you, why those aren’t accomplishable. Then next to that, remind yourself what skills and strengths you have that will help you get there, and then what types of mentors and resources you’ll need to actually accomplish them if you left that column on why you think you can do it right now blank.

Get clear on what you want to work on over the next 6 to 12 months, and then do everything you can to tell that saboteur and that naysayer that it is possible, and start building community and resources around that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Janice, this has been beautiful. I wish you many rich mentorship conversations.

Janice Omadeke
Thanks, Pete. Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis

Valerie, welcome.

Valerie Fridland

Well, thank you. I’m so happy to be here.

Pete Mockaitis

I am, like, literally so excited to be talking about your work and the implications of language in life and business and professional careers. So, tell us, what is your area of expertise as a professor and researcher and writer?

Valerie Fridland

Well, that’s a bit of a tongue twister. I’m what’s called a sociolinguist, which you don’t want to say five times in a row at a party because it tends to get blurred together. But what I basically study is how the language we use comes from who we are socially, and this can be things like whether we’re young or old but also from the way we interact in particular social settings. So, it’s not, like, there’s just one system of language and we use that same system everywhere. Language is really fluid and flexible depending on who we are generally and who we are in moments, and that’s what I study.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Lovely. And you have packaged some of your insights into your book, Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English. Tell us, any particularly surprising discoveries you’ve made while putting this together?

Valerie Fridland

I think every chapter was actually something very surprising to me even as a linguist where I knew some generalities about it, but as I did more of a deep dive into the background and history of some of these features that we love to hate in our speech, like “like,” or, “literally” used non-literally, that they all had these really fascinating histories to get to where they are today. A lot of them are centuries old, even though we think they’re new things.

So, I think the biggest surprise for me was how old some of the features that we think are new are, and also how “um” and “uh” are incredibly useful from both a listening and a speaking perspective, and I had known that there was literature that suggested that we do them because we’re thinking harder, but I didn’t know the extent of how impactful they are on a listener as well until I started doing the research.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, Valerie, we just can’t wait. How is that impactful and useful to a listener hearing “ums” and “uhs”? I’m assuming you mean impactful not just in the “I’m so annoyed at this unprepared speaker,” but rather in some other ways.

Valerie Fridland

It might be impactful in that way as well, but I think “um” and “uh” are a great example of things that we feel are socially not helpful, that actually offer a lot of linguistic benefits, and that’s why we do them, because things don’t just spontaneously happen just because. In language, they happen because they’re doing something for us.

And “um” and “uh” are interesting because, A, they’re universal. We really haven’t found a language yet that doesn’t have some form of “umming” and “uh-ing.” They may not sound exactly like English, so it might be “a” and “ano,” for example, in Japanese, but they have similar traits of being these short words that we put in when we’re thinking heavily about what we’re saying.

From a listening perspective, I think what was fascinating to me is that there’s a difference between “uh” and “um” that I think people don’t realize. We typically “uh” when we simply need a very short break to process something in terms of what we’re going to say. But we say “um” when we are doing even heavier cognitive retrieval.

So, what we find when we look at research, if we measure the pause length that follows an “uh” or an “um,” people pause longer after “um,” suggesting they’re searching for a word more deeply in their cognitive archives, than when you use an “uh.” And, typically, people tend to have some sort of sense of how long they need to break for. So, they understand how deeply they need to think.

So, when we asked students questions that could have one-word answers but some of them were more difficult than others, so, for example, “What’s your dog’s name?” which should be pretty easy for you to come up with, versus, “What’s the name of the sport in which they award the Stanley Cup?” which people like me would have no clue, we find that people either used “uh” or “um” depending on how long they thought it would take them to answer, which is really fascinating.

But the even more amazing thing about your “ums” and “uhs” in the listening perspective is they seem to signal to a listener that you’re going to say something that requires them integrate new information. So, for example, if we’d been talking about names, and then I was using a name that we’d talked about before, I probably wouldn’t say “uh” or “um” before it.

But if I’m switching course and bringing up something completely different, I probably would say “uh” or “um,” which signals that my brain is actually connecting different cognitive resources and different neural pathways to this conversation. Well, by doing that, by saying “uh” or “um” as a speaker, what I do is I get you ready as a listener for harder thinking, harder processing.

So, what we find is when we give people pop quizzes about an hour after a conversation or a story, they actually remember the points that followed an “uh” or an “um” better than they remembered the ones that didn’t, which I think is pretty amazing.

Pete Mockaitis

Wow. Yeah, that’s fascinating, and I had no idea. So, they remember that better than if they didn’t have it. And part of me wonders then, have we also done the experiment, comparing that to just silence prior to?

Valerie Fridland

Yes, that’s a very good question because, right, one thought would be, “Well, simply because there’s a little more time between.”

Pete Mockaitis

And some suspense, “I’m curious, what’s he going to say?”

Valerie Fridland

And so, we’ve done it where it’s silence, so silent pauses, and also where there are other noises, like a cough, that is the same amount of time as an “um” or an “uh,” and those do not have the same effect. In fact, we find that coughing actually makes it harder for people to remember what came after, so it’s more disruptive to the thinking process as a listener. But a silent pause does not have the same impact, so it doesn’t help you at all. So, it’s specifically “uh” or “um.”

What’s even more interesting is if a listener is listening to someone who they expect will not be fluent in English, so it might be a non-native speaker or it might even be someone that they’ve been told has some sort of speech impediment, it doesn’t have the same effect because then they think it’s related to their speech disfluency rather than as a signal of heavy cognitive information retrieval. And so, it does seem to be very specific to what we know and do for us typically.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, that’s so fascinating. And I’m going to speculate, and you tell me what we know or don’t know or what the smarter speculators are speculating. I’m guessing that’s because somewhere deep inside us, we know or understand or have linked and learned that something which comes after an “um” is something that is thought out, it is considered, some effort has gone into it, and, thusly, we afford it, more value or significance or import, like, “Ooh, this is a treasure that is about to be placed upon me,” as opposed to some junk you can rattle off without thinking.

Valerie Fridland

I think it’s more like, “Oh, my God, they expect me to think by using that, so I better get ready.”

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, okay.

Valerie Fridland

So, when we look at the statistical distribution of where “uh” and “ums” tend to occur, they always occur in the average use before more abstract, more difficult, less common, or less familiar words, or at the very beginning of a sentence when we’re mapping out the sentence structure, especially of complex sentences. Which means that, as listeners, what we’ve been exposed to is that “uh” and “um” precede hard stuff, right? They precede things that are taking a little more cognitive effort.

So, that’s probably why we have learned to be trained into letting it signal to us that we better ramp up our cognitive resources to do some heavy cognitive lifting when we hear “uh” or an “um” in the speech stream. So, in other words, it’s sort of like a flag that says, “Hey, hard word here,” and I get my brain ramped up for that hard word because I know it’s coming due to the “uh” or the “um.”

Pete Mockaitis

And is there an optimal length of “um” or “uh” so as to maximize the powers of this effect?

Valerie Fridland

Well, “uh” seems to be more effective than “um.” and that’s probably because it signals shorter pauses than longer pauses.

And when someone “ums,” we find people are more likely to try to jump in and help them, and I think that’s because when you “um,” it signals to a listener that it’s a harder thing you’re doing, that you’re really searching more deeply in your cognitive word lexicon to come up with that word, so as a listener you start thinking, “Huh, what word are they meaning?”

Because have you ever had that happen where someone’s like, “It’s uh, uh,” and you were like, “Okay, I could come up with that word for you”? It drives my mother crazy, actually, because I do it to her all the time. But I think the “um” tends to signal that someone needs more help and, therefore, we don’t think about what they’re saying as much as what they are needing to try to say or get out, and it doesn’t help us.

Pete Mockaitis

Intriguing. And could you tell us a little bit about the magnitude of this effect? Is this a smidgen more memorable, or is this like dramatically, double, triple memorable?

Valerie Fridland

I don’t think it’s a magnitude effect of in huge enormous order because there are a number of different things that can influence it. For example, if you say “uh” instead of “um,” also what type of speaker you are, if you’re native, non-native speaker, if someone thinks you have a speech disfluency, all those things affect us. It also depends on the listener and the speaker’s relationship and whether they know that person “uhs” and “ums” a lot, it’s just a habit, because we do have heavy “um-mers” that might say “uh” or “um” a lot.

And if that happens, you’re probably less likely to have this keeping on happening every time they’re using an “uh” or an “um.” And I think we’ve all met that person that “uhs” pretty much every word. Well, you just can’t devote that much mental energy to them. In fact, it can be kind of exhausting. So, I think we have to just sort of mitigate it to say “uh” and “um” are not bad things, in terms of how they signal to a listener that we’re actually coming up with some pretty important things that they need to listen and pay attention to.

The magnitude effect is that it’s certainly happening more than when they don’t do anything before those words. Whether you want to add “uh” in front of important words in a presentation, I would say that you probably want to hold off on that, but whether you want to eradicate them from your speech, that would be where I would spend more time thinking about.

So, say you’re preparing for a presentation as a speaker at a business or at a convention that you’re going to, I think what you need to think about is, “Do I ‘uh’ or ‘um’ as a habit where it’s distracting because what it’s indicating to a listener is I haven’t practiced enough because I’m searching for the words?” because that’s what “uh’ and “um” mean to us.

“Or is it helpful because it’s before key points that I might want them to remember later?” And I think that’s where the fundamental difference lies. If it’s before key points, it actually can be helpful. If it’s every other word, or even every key point, then it’s actually going to be distracting. So, I think you just have to be really strategic in what you choose to do with “um” and “ah.”

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I think the most striking thing you said is that it’s more potent than a silence, because I have found, sure enough in my own experience, when someone’s speaking, then they just pause for a while, “Well, what’s going on?” I mean, they’ve really got me. And so, if the impact of an “uh” is better than a silence, that sounds pretty potent indeed.

Valerie Fridland

Well, silences are confusing. I think what happens is when someone pauses, we don’t know why they paused. So, they could pause because they’re trying to give a rhetorical effect and really make us think about what they just said, or they could pause because they don’t know what they’re saying, or they could pause because they’re having a heart attack. I mean, we just don’t know.

And so, we’re, as a listener, trying to struggle to figure out why they’re pausing, but when we “uh” or “um,” we know what that is, and so it’s a really clear signal that someone is continuing, is planning to continue the talk, and also that they’re just needing a break to process things.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And tell us then, thinking about in professional context, if we are using “ums” and “uhs” or “likes” and “literallys,” what is the perception of us as speakers by those listening and hearing us, ideally in a professional environment, if you have that research available? Because I think that could be a concern is like, “Oh, my gosh, I sound like a moron with all my ‘ums,’ ‘uhs,’ ‘likes,’ ‘literallys.’” And to what extent is that well-founded versus a dream?

Valerie Fridland

I would say that one of the things people ask me a lot is how they can stop using “like” so much because they feel like it makes them sound like an idiot. I mean, that’s definitely something that people come to me to see if they can get any help, and there’s a couple things that I need to talk about before we break down the research on that. One thing is that “um” and “uh” are actually quite different than “like” and also “literally” used non-literally.

“Ums” and “uhs” are what we call filled pauses, and they actually are cognitive flags of processing. So, they’re really not having any semantic content or literal meaning. They don’t contribute anything to the meaning of what we’re saying. They’re simply indicating that a speaker is actually processing things in their brain, and that’s just a sort of verbal, “Hold on a sec.” “Like” has some content. So that’s different than a filled pause. That’s what linguists call a filler word because it fills a space in a sentence that could exist without it. So, I could say, “He’s, like, going to go there,” or I could say, “He’s going to go there,” and in both cases, the general meaning is the same. But if I say, “He’s, like, going to go there,” that actually gives you as a listener a little different vibe about what I’m trying to get across than if I just said, “He’s going to go there.” It might indicate to a listener, “I’m not 100% sure when or how or if, but I think he’s going to go there,” versus a statement like, “He’s going to go there.”

Or, if I said, “He’s, like, ‘I’m not going to do it,’” what that tells listeners, it might not be verbatim. If I said, “He said ‘Whatever,’” that tells you this is exactly what he said. But if I said, “He was, like, ‘I don’t think so’” that just means that’s the gist. It’s not verbatim. So, it actually communicates some literal meaning. I know it’s a really fine distinction, but it’s actually important in how we use them.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I’m laughing because sometimes when you’re communicating what happened, people might just make noises for the gist of what someone said, “She’s all like, ‘Aargh.’” And so, you wouldn’t ever say, “She said, ‘Wah!” “No, I’m sure she didn’t say that.” But if she’s like that, it’s like, “Oh, she was feeling kind of frustrated and irritated by your request.”

Valerie Fridland

Bingo!

Pete Mockaitis

“Yes, she was like that noise.”

Valerie Fridland

That’s exactly right. That’s a perfect example of the difference between “say” and “like.” The other thing we find with that quotative is sometimes people will say “I was like” when they’re talking about themself and then they’ll use a different verb to describe what someone else said. So, I might say, “Well, he said he didn’t want to do that, but I was like, ‘Hell, yes, I’m going to do that!’” where it’s more like you’re describing your thought process, and you want to make sure that someone doesn’t think you actually said it out loud. So, there’s actually a lot of nuanced meaning to “like” in those circumstances that it does communicate.

I think the “like” that people tend not to like is the one that we call a discourse marker, which is where it’s sort of just stuck in between things. So, it can be at the beginning of a sentence, it can be at the end of a sentence, it can be just stuck in the middle of a sentence, but people tend to think that it really has no meaning, that it doesn’t contribute much. And I think what we find is people tend to react more negatively in job interview settings, or in even communicative settings, to those kinds of likes than the likes that’s used as either an approximator.

And that would be something such as, “He was, like, 12 years old,” instead of, “He was about 12 years old,” or the quotative verb, because those actually serve a purpose, and the “like” that’s just stuck in at the beginning or the middle don’t seem to serve a purpose to us. So, I think what’s really important when we talk about, “Do people like or not like “like” in communicative or job settings?” is, “Which kind of ‘like’ are you talking about?”

As an approximator, “like” doesn’t really affect people’s interpretation of you because it’s so widespread and it seems to be across the age groups, and that’s the one where you’re using it instead of “about.” We do find a trend that younger speakers use it more in that context than older speakers, but even then, it’s quite prevalent in all ages’ speech. The quotative and the discourse marker “like” do tend to be typically younger speakers. And for that reason, when we look at how they sort of perform as speakers in job interview contexts and when they’re using “like,” they do tend to get a negative bent in their receptivity of job interviewers when they do that.

What that means is when you’re going to a job interview or a context that’s high stakes in a workplace environment, particularly if that environment or the upper management is older, using “like” in those other contexts does seem to give off a negative opinion of you. But the interesting thing is when we looked at that same research that showed that, that evaluators tended to rate people down if they used those kinds of “like,” we find that when they were in an interaction in that same interview, where they were having casual conversation about their families, or activities, or something that sort of switched from the more formal parts of an interview to the less formal parts, we find that that actually increased sociability ratings of that candidate.

So, I think what’s really the key takeaway here is when you walk into an interview, do you want to use “like” wildly? No. But, again, if you’re having a casual, more intimate conversation about something social rather than something occupational, it’s okay to let that more informal language out a little bit. You just want to be a little measured in your use.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, it sounds like when you say it’s okay, it may even, in some contexts, be superior. Like, if we’re in a casual, socializing, bonding environment, and I am speaking in the Queen’s perfect English the whole time, like, “Valerie, what plans do you have for your weekend? I am looking forward to going on a boat with some friends.”

Valerie Fridland

“With whom do you want to go on the boat with?”

Pete Mockaitis

With whom, yeah. And so, it’s almost like, are you, like, do you have a script? Or is this just how you talk? Or what’s going on here? In terms of there’s a time and a place where these components seem to reinforce the vibe in a positive, likeability way.

Valerie Fridland

Absolutely. And I think what you did is you hit on a really interesting fact about language, is we have a repertoire or a sort of continuum that we operate on between this very, very formal, in a really high-stakes context type of language, and then we have the really solidarity-based, friendly, intimate language, and we all vary on those two poles of our daily conversation. So, when I’m talking to my family or a friend over a beer, if I talk to them like I talk to my boss at work, I wouldn’t have a lot of friends to have a beer with.

The same goes to say with my boss. If we have a more kind of distant relationship, if I take a too intimate tone with him linguistically, that will not go across very well. But what if I’m trying to build that kind of a relationship? Then I might want to add some more informal banter and talk about casual things in those tones because that will help us build a relationship. Because part of what makes us understand our relationship to each other is the way that we choose to talk to each other. So, if I use overly formal speech, what I’m doing is I’m distancing us.

And what we find, actually, is when we look at joking contexts or arguing contexts, joking contexts tend to have more informal speech. When we start to argue, we tend to actually use more like G’s on our I N G’s and more formal speech overall because we’re trying to take a power and authoritative stance. And I don’t think when we have a relationship with someone that’s friendly and casual, we want to have an authoritative stance with them. So, I think we do need to weigh carefully the types of relationships we have and what’s the most appropriate language to use in those contexts.

And, again, a lot depends on who you’re talking to. So, if you’re in a very white-collar field with older white men as who you’re going to be talking to, chances are a more distant, formal, linguistic environment will be what you find there. If you’re doing it at a startup in Silicon Valley, and they’re playing pool while they’re interviewing you, chances are you want to use a little more “like” and be a little more flexible, maybe even stick an “um” or an “uh” in and say “literally” non-literally about five times, because that’s the kind of language use that’s going to ingratiate you in that context. So, I think there’s no one answer. There’s a variety of answers, depending on the context you find yourself in.

Pete Mockaitis

In terms of thinking about professionals who want to be more awesome at their jobs, you have a wealth of knowledge about linguistic matters, we’ve covered a few fun nuggets here, what are some of the top do’s and don’ts that your research has highlighted for professionals in this context?

Valerie Fridland

Well, I think one really interesting do is that we should be a little more intense. When we look at people that use adverbial intensity, and what I mean by adverbial intensity is they use adverbs that pump up or ramp up how much they are trying to express of something. So, if I say, “I’m totally excited about this,” or “It’s really great the way our numbers have shot up,” that’s the use of intensity.

When we look at studies that measure how much people use adverbial intensity in workplace settings, we find that people that don’t use them, come across as very robotic and less sociable, and people that do use them not only come across as more sociable, but also as more reliable and as more believable. And I think that’s because when you use an intensifier, which is ramping up an adjective or a verb, what you’re expressing is, “I’m really confident in this. I don’t just feel like it’s good. I feel like it’s really good.” So, it’s basically saying, “I’m pretty committed to what I’m saying here, that I believe in its truth.”

Whereas, if I don’t use an intensifier, “You know, you take it or leave it,” I think there’s an ad that’s sort of, “Just okay is not okay.” Have you seen that ad? And it’s like, “How’s the surgeon?” “He’s okay.” I mean, no one wants a surgeon that’s just okay. You want a surgeon that’s really amazing. And it’s, again, this idea of intensification, highlighting how much of a quality something has, and my belief and commitment to it.

And so, as a speaker in a presentation or a business setting, I want to convince the people that I’m talking to, whether it’s sales or marketing, that I’m 100% on board with what I’m saying, and using some intensification can really help that. I think that’s one good finding that linguistic research can parlay into the job setting.

Pete Mockaitis

That is phenomenal. And we had Jonah Berger on saying similar things, that we like to hear confidence, totality, absoluteness, in so far as you could do that without being deceptive or, like, “Actually, we need a reasonable risk profile on this, and so your totally, absolutelys, are actually making me more nervous.”

Valerie Fridland

Right, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis

But in many contexts, we like a lot of absolutely, totallys, even if it’s a, “Hey, unfortunately, I know I said, ‘Absolutely, I could do that by Thursday’ but, you know, these emergencies have popped up.” Are you aware, do we lose face or credibility if we play the adverbial intense game and then don’t deliver more so than if we’ve played it safer?

Valerie Fridland

Well, I think it depends on how reliable you are, typically. I think that’s really a personnel-driven issue rather than a linguistic-driven issue. If you tend to do what you say, then I don’t think, whether you’re intensifying or not, people are going to be disturbed by you promising something extremely and not delivering.

But if it’s a pattern, then, absolutely, what it does is it actually makes people believe you less, and I think if you intensify more and deliver less, that’s absolutely going to be problematic. But I think that’s really personality-driven and how good an employee you are has a problem that’s less to do with your language and more to do with your performance.

But another thing that I would suggest that people think about when they’re trying to use language to help them in a job is we do a lot of speaking in our work, and sometimes we’re speaking to just colleagues and it’s really casual. Other times we’re giving presentations or we’re talking at a meeting and we’re representing something.

One thing that we find is when people are dynamic speakers, and that means that they use a fairly fast speech rate, and they moderate their tone up and down, obviously, you don’t want to do it in a weird way where it comes across like I’m doing it in a perfunctory manner, but just in a very excitable sometimes a little slower and more dramatic and others, that you’re moderating your tone a bit and your prosody, that those speakers come across as more charismatic.

And when people are more charismatic speakers, we don’t notice things like “ums” and “uhs” and “likes” as much. So, we filter them out because we’re really, really interested in what they’re saying. So, I think what we need to do is think about, “How can I be a dynamic speaker?” especially on Zoom, a lot of us are doing virtual meetings. And is there anything worse than having someone drone on and on in a monotonous voice, saying something very uninteresting without any dynamicity? Not really. So, think about being a dynamic speaker.

The faster you speak, and I don’t mean be crazy fast, make sure, obviously, people can understand you, but faster speech rate tends to correlate with better ratings of speakers, and a little more dynamic in your tone. And if you try to do those in a natural way, it can help you come across as a better speaker.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, thank you. Along the lines of don’ts, I’d also love to hear do you have any particular pet peeves that just annoy you so much? And also, there is scientific evidence, research to suggest, “Hey, it’s not just you. Most people can’t stand this, so maybe we should cut it out.”

Valerie Fridland

That’s a hard one because I’m supposed to know better. Of course, there are things that that annoy me. I’m personally really dedicated to LY on adverbs. I really love my LYs, so I like to go slowly rather than slow. And I don’t want to walk quick, I want to walk quickly. And research does show that those are going the way of the dodo, so I’m in a minority in terms of wanting to use them. But it is still something that prescriptively people do suggest you use. So, it does prescriptively seem to matter to people in writing, but in everyday speech it doesn’t seem to matter. But I also know that’s a me problem and not an LY problem so I’m trying to be more understanding of it.

The other thing that I think most people find annoying is those terms like “bruh” or “bro.” That actually drives me crazy. Well, the only reason is because I have a daughter who calls me “bruh” all the time, and I think there are a lot of older speakers that feel that way. But in general, I’m pretty understanding about almost everything we do in language because language change is fundamentally what brought us the English we speak today. I don’t think anybody wants to go back to the days of Beowulf, so I’m pretty open.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Well, I’d love to share with you some of mine and you tell me if there’s any research on this or I’m just a quirky fellow.

Valerie Fridland

Okay, I’d love to hear it. What is it?

Pete Mockaitis

I don’t care for, I think it’s kind of related to each other, when people say “obviously” as well as “right?” So, when someone say, “Well, obviously, this is the best podcast ever.”

Valerie Fridland

Well, obviously it is.

Pete Mockaitis

You know, it’s like, it just feels so presumptuous. I also feel the same way, like, with the newspaper headlines when it says that such and such issue. It’s like, “The Trump trial. What you need to know.” It’s like, “You don’t know what I need to know. You don’t know me. You don’t even know my context, my goals, my values, my visions. Like, what I need to know is wildly different than what maybe someone else needs to know.”

So, I guess I’m a little bit persnickety about, I guess, maybe just like the implied judgment. So, it’s like, “Obviously says to me, if you didn’t know that, you’re an idiot.” And it’s like, “Maybe they didn’t know that so don’t take any unnecessary risks here.” So, this is my view, but sometimes I’ve been told I could take language a bit literally, as opposed to just really absorbing kind of the emotional vibe that’s really what’s at work behind the language.

Valerie Fridland

I don’t think you’re alone. I’ve actually heard a lot of people that get annoyed with that “right?” that comes in as an agreement marker. So, Mark Zuckerberg actually uses that “right” form quite a bit, and there was even an article in the New York Times about his use of “right” in that way because people find it kind of insulting because what it’s assuming is he is right and you have to agree with him.

Pete Mockaitis

It’s like, “Actually, no, Zuck, I disagree vehemently.”

Valerie Fridland

“I disagree. Yes, I strongly disagree.” And so, I think what you’re talking about is this assumption that a speaker makes that you share the same background knowledge and belief system as they do. And, yes, it can be irritating when you get that idea, but I bet you have people in your life that say “obviously” and “right” that don’t annoy you that way. So, it’s probably somewhat dependent on who’s using the “obviously” and the “right,” but I don’t think you’re alone in especially the “right.”

I know that’s something that’s been written about a lot, because it’s not a “right” that’s simply asking someone to consider a proposition. It’s a right that’s asking them to agree with you on something and sometimes you just don’t agree with someone, and it sort of presumes that you should. So, I think you’re not alone in feeling that’s irritating. Rest assured.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay, certainly. And tell me, anything else, irritants that we’d be better off just banishing?

Valerie Fridland

You know, I know a lot of people that don’t like “hopefully” as a sentential adverb because it’s supposed to only be in front of a verb and not the entire sentence. So, that was a complaint that I think about 20 years ago, really, was a big one so, “Hopefully, we’ll go there tomorrow.” And proponents of very prescriptive usage say that you can’t use “hopefully” as a sentential adverb. But I’m here to say that I think we use it as a sentential adverb more often than not these days. So, that’s another one that has sort of gone the way of the dodo and personally doesn’t bother me. But I’m sure there’s someone out there listening that’s getting very irritated about my “hopefully.”

Pete Mockaitis

These scorching hot takes are going to cause some rancor, perhaps, in the comments or…

Valerie Fridland

Maybe. Oh, the other one I think a lot of people get annoyed, and I use this one myself, so I apologize to everybody that I annoyed through this podcast, is “actually,” using “actually” quite a lot, where you say, “Actually, that is exactly what I thought,” or, “He, actually, is going,” or,“Are you actually going to do that?” where you’re using “actually” quite often. That seems to be something that I hear a lot about that some people don’t like the use of “actually” in those contexts because they think it suggests that someone wasn’t going to do it otherwise.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, now when you say “actually” that reminds me of the phrase “to be honest.”

Valerie Fridland

Oh, yes.

Pete Mockaitis

And so, I think that goes without saying and I think you’re always honest. I have a friend who is a lawyer who, he was he was in court, and the judge said something to him. He was just sort of thinking for a while, it was like, “Well, your honor, to be honest, we…” and he said, “Counselor Doyle, I expect you to always be honest with me in my courtroom.” He was like, “Oh, yeah. Yes, of course,” which I thought was part of the “Yeah, that’s what we’re thinking, but we can’t say that because we’re not judges who could preside over the conversation.”

Valerie Fridland

It is really funny how we feel driven to tell people that we would be honest in this one circumstance, and not in every other one. But people definitely now are saying “honestly” or “to be honest” a lot more than they did before, and I think I have heard a number of people say that, “Well, I expect you would be honest with me all the time.”

But, again, that’s where we get that literal sense versus metaphorical sense of language use that people get really tied to, and this is a problem with “literally” used non-literally. People get really tied to what the original sense of a word was or the original use without realizing that there are so many things in language that we use every day that are the complete opposite of the meaning that they had a hundred, two hundred years ago.

“Literally” used non-literally is one of those that people get annoyed with, but “very” has changed in meaning drastically since the 17th century. When we look at Chaucer or Shakespeare or things from the 1500s, some of the Bibles, the Tyndale Bible, for example, we find that “very” was used to mean “true.” So, he would be the “very prophet,” meaning the true prophet, or you’d be “very” in word and deed, “true” in word and deed. And we didn’t find it used as just an emphasizer or intensifier until about the 17th century, where it started to take on, if something’s true, it has a hundred percent of something. It’s very emphatically true. It’s a high degree of something.

And so, we started to see “very“ used to mean extensively or extremely and not true anymore. Although, every once in a while, you’ll hear someone say, “On this very spot, this is where he died.” And again, that means on this exact or true spot. So, here’s a perfect example of a word that’s changed drastically and we use it for all sorts of purposes, every single one of us, and we don’t get annoyed by it. So, I think we just have to be a little more flexible in the way we look at language.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Valerie, tell me anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Valerie Fridland

I think that’s good. I feel complete.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay.

Valerie Fridland

Honestly. To be honest, I feel like we’ve covered it all.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I appreciate your honesty. Can you tell us about a favorite quote?

Valerie Fridland

My favorite quote is from a linguist called Max Heinrich, and he had the quote that said, “Language is a dialect with an army and a navy.” And I think that’s a very accurate way that we describe the difference between who speaks a dialect and who speaks a language.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Valerie Fridland

Well, I think the “um” “uh” study, where people were given, they were connected with electrodes on their head, and they were given sentences where there would be an expected or predicted word in it, versus one that was unexpected. So, it would be like, “Everybody has bad habits. Mine is biting my blank.” What would you put in there?

Pete Mockaitis

Nails.

Valerie Fridland

Your nails, right? But what they did instead is sometimes they would put nails and sometimes they would have what followed be something unpredictable. So, “Everybody has bad habits. Mine is biting my tongue.” So, is it possible to bite your tongue? Yes. But would it be a weird habit to have? Absolutely.

Well, when they found that if they stuck an “uh” before the unpredicted word, they actually decreased the brainwave activity around that unexpected word. It was called an N400 effect, which is something that indicates someone didn’t expect to hear what they heard and they were having problems processing it.

Well, when you stuck an “uh” before saying “tongue” instead of “nails,” you decrease that effect, meaning people were better able to integrate that unpredictable information. And I also think it’s hysterical to imagine people, all stuck up with these electrodes, talking about biting their nails and their tongue.

Pete Mockaitis

And a favorite book?

Valerie Fridland

I love The Professor and the Madman. I don’t know if you’ve ever read that book. It’s by Simon Winchester. Now, it’s, on the surface, the story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, which I know sounds kind of boring, but it’s actually about a man that contributed in the 1800s to the Oxford English Dictionary, probably more than any of the other volunteers that they had working on looking at first known uses of words.But the crazy thing about him was that he was this brilliant genius in an insane asylum. He had been sent there because he was a madman and he had killed somebody, but yet he was so brilliant and he brought with him to the insane asylum his collection of rare books, and he spent his life helping to construct what we now know as the greatest dictionary of all time, the Oxford English Dictionary, and it’s really a fascinating book.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite tool?

Valerie Fridland

I would say that my favorite tool is writing things down. I know I’m a linguist and I focus on spoken words, but what I find when I’m preparing for something is the act of writing really commits the grooves in my brain to what I’ve written.

So, when we just sort of orally practice something, we’re just not dedicating the cognitive sort of density of writing to what we’re trying to get across, and it’s a little more superficial of a practice. What I find is when I write something, it commits my brain to what I’ve written. In fact, I can visualize it when I’m talking about it orally, and it really helps me be organized and conscientious in the way that I’m talking to someone.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. Is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Valerie Fridland

In my book, I say, “There’s no right way to speak English.” And I’ve actually found that that surprised me but it was one of the things that was most often quoted. In fact, for example, in the Wall Street Journal review, that was one of the things that was quoted because it was so obvious to me that we all have different ways we come to language, and whatever is right for us has been developed because it has worked for us in our lives, in our neighborhoods, and who we talk to.

But we have such firm beliefs about bad English that I think that’s why that has resonated with a lot of people that feel justified in the choices they make linguistically because that’s what their truth in terms of language has become. And so, when someone that’s a linguist who studies language is able to say, “There’s no right way to speak English,” meaning we have a lot of different diverse ways that we talk in different circumstances, and what’s right for one person and in one context isn’t right for everybody else, I think that’s legitimizing, for example, people that use “literally” non-literally or say “like” a lot or vocal fry or choose to use singular they. It just lets people be who they are and make the linguistic choices that fit their identity.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Valerie Fridland

They can go to my website, ValerieFridland.com.

Pete Mockaitis

And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Valerie Fridland

I would say just relax and breathe when someone is doing something with their language that bothers you. Just remember, it’s probably you, not them, and we can all learn to just be a little more understanding and empathetic to the different types of ways that we’ve learned to use language, and what’s worked for me may not work for someone else. What’s been indoctrinated linguistically into another person may not be the same as what I’ve learned or been socialized into. And I think if we can just relax a little bit instead of be so judgy, it will help us be better speakers, better empathizers, and also better employers.

Pete Mockaitis

Valerie, thank you. This has been awesome.

Valerie Fridland

It’s been awesome to talk to you, too. Thank you for having me on.