Aaron Finklea

I Ghostwrite Educational Email Courses for Mental Health Coaches to Help Them Own Their Audience and Build Trust so that They can Transform More Lives

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

I admire people who can literally, just out of thin air, talk to you and carry the conversation on their back.

They can:

- initiate small talk
- keep it going when it starts to fizzle
- talk when both people are reserved
- get through the awkward moment without looking for a way out

I still don't know why so many of us millennials who used to talk and laugh together avoid these conversations now.

I just know I want to be one of those people.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

About 40 feet away, small talk feels easy to me.

Up close, I'm thinking, “I don't know how long this is going to last. Hopefully it's not long.”

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

I've had someone I used to talk and laugh with act like they didn't see me when we passed each other.

And instead of getting offended, my honest reaction was, “Hey, I get it.”

I've done the same thing because I wanted the interaction to stay short and didn't know how long a real conversation would last.

So I can't really judge them for it. I'm working on the same thing.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

When I'm trying to build a skill, it takes repetition.

Find the sequence that works.
Practice it again in the real situation.
Keep doing it until your brain recognizes the pattern without all the extra thinking.

Once I put that on repeat, it starts becoming part of me. That's what second nature is. It just comes out naturally.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

At one point, walking meant moving a foot, shifting my weight, and trying not to fall.

Then, before I knew it, I was running while trying to catch a butterfly.

What changed in between?

My brain kept recognizing what happened. I moved my foot, shifted my weight, fell, and tried a different way. Then I made a few steps, fell again, figured out what made me fall, and avoided doing that the next time.

I kept doing it enough for my brain to recognize what worked.

It's just a set of patterns, man.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

If a child grows up in a home where the parents switch among 3 languages, those patterns are part of the child's surroundings. The parents interchange between all 3 all the time.

That's their lived environment.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

What am I paying a coach or course for when there are free resources and content out there?

For me, it's:

- knowledge from someone who's done it for years
- skills they've already put into practice
- help accelerating my results

Right now, it's not that big of a priority in my life where I need to spend money to accelerate my learning on that. So I'm using the free resources and putting them into practice.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

If you're trying to fix a weak skill, give yourself something to test in the next real situation.

Try it.
Pay attention to what happens.
If it works, keep doing it.
If it doesn't work, do something else.
Put the response that works on repeat.

It's going to take time. It takes repetition.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

I'm getting so much better at communicating. I've watched free resources, saved material to practice, and then used it in actual situations at work.

When someone objects to an approach I know won't work, I don't just say, “Okay,” anymore. I explain why I think we should do it another way and keep practicing that response.

At my job, that has become a lot easier because of the research and me going out there and practicing.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

Speaking confidently to a whole room doesn't mean a personal conversation comes easily.

I can present about a subject and keep going until people listen. But when I'm trying to explain something personal, those first few seconds can be extremely difficult.

I have to get through that initial friction point before I warm up and get on a roll.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

I can turn an appropriate workplace request into a confrontation in my head before I say a word.

What I think I'm doing:

- acting like I'm somebody's boss
- telling a younger coworker what to do
- inviting them to challenge me

What's actually happening:

- I've been at that restaurant for 3 years
- the other person is in their first 6 months
- something needs to get done
- I ask, and they tell me they'll handle it after their current task

That's the part I'm putting into practice. I look at the context, make the request, and pay attention to what actually happens.

I'm not coming at them in a hostile way. I'm making an appropriate request in a work setting I understand.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

I've started putting direct requests out there and facing the fear.

Even when I'm not approaching someone in a hostile way, I can get their response hyped up in my head before I've said anything.

I expect the request to be treated like hostility.

But that's not what's happening.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

I used to stay in conversations that only went one way.

What I learned is this: you don't have to agree with me. That's never been the point.

If I've given somebody my time, listening has to go both ways.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

Take the thing that's hard in your life, the thing you wish you could fix.

1. Name what bugs you.
2. Think about the next situation where it may come up.
3. Decide what you're going to do.
4. Put it into practice.

For me, it was speaking up when I felt like nobody wanted to listen. As I practiced that, the boldness started to round out more of my personality.

It's a funny thing. When you start fixing them, they actually start fixing other things as well as a side effect.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

Empathy doesn't mean I have to say yes just to keep everyone comfortable.

I say yes a lot. Sometimes I do things I don't really want to do because I don't want tension or drama.

But sometimes I need to be more stern. You don't have to put up with certain things.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

One of my best friends is Dominic Lovell. We don't have the same background, and we live pretty much totally different lives.

I've brought him ideas that sounded crazy and didn't make any sense yet. He didn't rush to end the conversation. He listened while I tried to make the connections.

That's what a receptive listener gives me:

- room to talk before the idea is clear
- attention while I'm figuring out what I'm trying to say
- expertise from a different background
- wisdom and input I can actually use
- love while the thought is still coming together

Then I can see what I need to do next.

There are only a few people in my life who have listened to me like that. I've gotten reception from them, and I thank God for them.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

When I talk, it's like pouring out a bowl of Skittles and expecting them to land perfectly in color-coded glasses.

In reality, the colors scatter. Some land in the glasses. A lot end up all over the floor.

That's how I struggle when I'm trying to speak. I'm putting everything out there and hoping it lands in the right spots.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

I can word vomit and just pour out all this stuff that's on my mind.

My dad used to call me Mike, my middle name. I didn't talk much, and the funny thing is, I didn't open up to him very often.

But when I did, he sat there and listened.

He's no longer with us. But now I think about how few people in my life have ever listened like that.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

In 2019, I made a video every day for a few months. People started reaching out. One person said they were in a dark spot. Another said, your videos just make me happy. They make me laugh. I appreciate you so much.

I knew my voice could reach people through a camera.

Then I was with a group of friends, the same kind of people who would tell me they liked those videos. There were 3 of us in one conversation, me included, and everybody had been taking turns. When one person spoke, the rest of us listened.

When I started contributing, one friend turned toward another conversation beside us. The other friend turned toward a different group at the same time. I think each one expected the other person to stay with me.

I kept talking for a second while I watched it happen. Then I realized neither one was in the conversation anymore.

I got quiet on purpose. I was testing it. I wanted to see if somebody would turn back and say, sorry Aaron, I didn't mean to turn my back on you. Nobody was paying attention to what just happened, so I drifted into another conversation and just stood around.

I don't know what they meant by turning away. I know it hurt, because these were people I already had deep conversations with about the content from my videos.

People had listened to me through a camera. In that room, I couldn't get through a sentence.

That's something I've struggled with, and it's something I'm actually working on.

[Aaron Finklea @aaronfinklea]

In 2019, after I started posting every day, I decided Saturdays would be live. I called it Transparency.

I was going to say something I don't normally talk about. Stuff that was on my heart. I didn't care about the view count, and I didn't care who was watching.

I don't care if nobody is on this thing. I just talk.

Because sometime in the future, at least one person's gonna watch this. And if it's still zero, it's fine. It's out there.