Less Chatter, More Matter: The Communications Podcast

#124 Why body language matters for your comms, even online (ft. Shea Evans)

• Mel Loy • Season 1 • Episode 124

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When it comes to communication, what you don’t say can be just as important as what you do. 

In this episode of the Less Chatter, More Matter podcast, we sit down with speaking coach, performer, and strategist Shea Evans to unpack the often-overlooked power of body language, and how it can elevate your leadership, boost internal comms, and build stronger connections.

With more than two decades of experience across performance and business, Shea brings a unique lens to communication. Together, we explore why body language is critical in both in-person and virtual settings, how leaders can communicate more effectively with diverse teams, and why internal communication deserves as much care as external messaging.

You’ll hear practical tips for building trust through warmth and presence, navigating communication across cultures, and using body language more intentionally—whether you're in a town hall, Teams meeting, or cross-functional team discussion. Plus, we get some insights on the myths surrounding communication, why “start with who” should come before “start with why,” and the surprising psychology behind open palms and camera eye contact.

If you want your message to truly land, with clarity, confidence and connection—this is one episode you won’t want to miss.

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Anything that sends a message is a form of communication. And one of the most powerful communication tools we can use is body language. Whether you're presenting at a town hall, having a conversation with a new colleague, or even talking to a customer or client, your body language can say a lot about who you are, your feelings towards others, and the essence of your message. But how do we know what body language is good, bad, or somewhere in the middle to demystify the art of body language? This week I've had a brilliant conversation with Shea Evans. Shea is a speaking coach, performer, and business strategist who helps people comm. Make, I'll start that again. Shea is a speaking coach, performer, and business strategist who helps people communicate with clarity and confidence. With over 20 years of experience in business and stage performance, including a decade of improv across Australia and internationally, he brings deep insight into how physical presence shapes connection. Shea has lectured at the University of Melbourne, led hundreds of workshops and believes that strong communication starts before you even say a word. He helps leaders, speakers, and teams use their bodies with more intention. So their message lands. Every time I first met Shea a few months ago when we both presented at the IABC APAC Fusion Conference in Manila, and I was so impressed with his presentation style and the content of his presentation that I had to get him on this show. So in this conversation you will hear why body language is so important, tips for using body language in your interactions with others, even through a Zoom call, and you'll hear Shea give me feedback on my own skills, which was very unexpected. So if you really want to up your communication game and help coach others to do the same, then this episode is for you. Without further ado. Let's get into it. Shea, welcome to the show. Thanks Mel. It is so wonderful to have you here. Uh, before we get started, tell us a little bit about you. What do you do? How did you come to develop your expertise in this space? Yeah. Um, good question.'cause I don't think I ever set out to develop my expertise in this space. I think none of us did. Yeah, they just did. They just happened. Um. So for the longest time I worked in commercial businesses, uh, and I was in relationship management positions, and I was in salesy and business development positions and strategy positions. Um, and the, and the common thread through that was that I was always dealing with people. Mm-hmm. I was always, uh, dealing with clients or internal teams. Um, and so I had a really strong thread of... Talking to people and dealing with people. Mm-hmm. Um, outside of work, my other passion, uh, is acting and improvising. So it always had that as an outside thing that I did. Mm-hmm. And was really interested in. Um, and at different times I often would think, uh, I wish the business world could learn some lessons from stage acting and improvising. Um, because it's just a bit boring and it's just a bit, it's just a bit stale in here. Um, and then two years ago I decided to quit my corporate career, uh, 'cause I was burnt out. I realised and kind of searched around for a little while about, and I was applying for other jobs and looking at other things that I could do, and then realised that there was actually nothing out there that was really... calling to me. And actually the thing that I cared about was making shitty presentations and people who were a bit hopeless, a bit better. Love it. Um, and thus, you know, what I'm now doing was kind of born. And so what I'm doing now is helping people, uh, speak and present with better presence. And what that might look like for people is helping them out with presentations, helping them out with speeches. Uh, because what I've taken from the acting world and put into this is that every play that is put on every piece of theater that is put on has a director. Mm. You would never go on stage, um, without something having an outside eye, uh, uh, you know, cast upon it. So that's how I feel about, uh, workplace communication. Um, why are people trying to communicate to such large audiences, uh, without having a director, without having an outside eye to say, oh, actually you could tweak it here to make it more effective. Or, you need more of this, or less of this. Um, so that's what I'm aiming to do. Uh, I love it. Yeah. Well, I think you've absolutely hit the nail on the head there. Uh, certainly what I've seen in my own experiences is, you know, internal comms particularly has almost been... the poor cousin of external comms for such a long time, people were so worried about media training and all this sort of stuff. It's like, well, what about just, you know, employee communication training? They're your biggest advocates or your biggest detractors, so you know, you should be able to get them... excited and, and help them understand a strategy or a change or whatever it might be. Especially boards and senior leadership. You know, speaking about media training, how often are they speaking to the media? But they're always so worried about it."Oh, we must get trained! We must know how to speak to," they, they think that they're gonna be tripped up at every, you know, every, every time that they speak to someone. When actually internal comms is the day-to-day stuff. You know, they are talking to their teams and they are talking to their employees. Um, so much more regularly and ineffectually as well because they don't know how to present themselves or they don't know how to speak to people. Well, let's riff off that a little bit. Mm-hmm. So my next question is, well, what are some of those common communication challenges you are seeing when you are working with any organisation, but often I know that you also have a quite an interest in large and diverse audiences too. Yep. Yep. Um, some of the common mistakes. I see, especially if we're going to, um, be talking about internal audiences is that they just don't realise the impact of their words. Mm-hmm. Or they don't think about how they can contextualise it for certain work environments or workplaces. If we're talking about big businesses, they're often multi, you know, they have multi-sites, um, they have different, um, operational teams doing different operational things and they can't contextualise it. Um, they can't tell the person who they're talking to, why it's important for them. Um, which then, you know, if you don't have that in the beginning, you've absolutely, you've not won the room at all. Um, and a lot of it comes down really centrally saying, this is what we're doing centrally. We kind of don't care about the impact on anyone that doesn't get the message. Uh, and that can have really, that can have knock on effects I think for, um, for teams that just don't... care. They don't get it. They don't, they don't see why it should matter to them because there's no contextualisation. Mm. How much of that do you think is capability versus confidence? Or both? I think it is a mix of, mm-hmm. Both. Um, especially if we look at kind of, um, senior management, c-suite management, um, they come up through very, I guess, um, narrow streams in a business. So they might have started out in a sales team. They've moved to sales director, they've moved to sales executive, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They've come up in a very singular stream. They don't know how to talk to operational people. They don't know how to talk to finance people. And you know, the, the exact opposite is true. You know, people that come up through a finance stream, you know, they start as. They start in accounting, they work their way up into kind of higher fi finance and they dunno how to speak to people who are speaking to people outside of the organisation. Mm. So you got you. You get people who are very used to speaking in their silos to their people about things that matter to them. Um, and they can't diversify their message for their diversified audience. It's, yeah. Yeah. I, I've seen that in practice myself. Yeah. What are some of the common myths that you think come in when people are working with diverse audiences? Ooh. I think some of the common myths are that people will just get it. Mm. Um, that we all work for the same organization or we're all talking to the same audience. So of course we all have the same problems. Um, and that's just not the case at all. Um. And I think some of that is, um, people not knowing, not doing their research around actually what they, what the messaging should be. Mm-hmm. Um, or not doing their research around what the people on the ground are actually facing or seeing. And if that's the case, those people are often pandered to saying, oh yeah, we understand your problems, you know, we understand your pain points. Um, if A CFO is talking to an operational staff, they're so far removed across an , organisation, an upper hierarchy. They often just don't understand each other contexts. Yeah. Um, and so I think some of those myths are, are really, um, also have to do with, uh, modality. Um, so I've worked in big organisations, um, and... You know that the executives or, or even the comms team will put out comms. They're like, oh, well, we'll just send this out in an email. It's like, well, you know that 75% of the operational staff don't have access to their email because that's not what they do every day. They don't sit in front of a computer. Um, or it might be put in a newsletter somewhere that nobody reads, or it might be, um, saved until a town hall. Um, and town halls are only every three months. And so actually the timing of the message is off. Um, so it's not, it's not adequately thinking, well, who is my audience and when and how do they need to hear this, um, message. Yeah. Yeah, we're absolutely singing from the same song sheet there, you know? Yeah. I always say yes. Simon Sinek talks about start with why, but Why is great for business strategy, but communication starts with who. Yeah. Because the why can be different things for different audiences, and as you point out the way you reach them, the voice that you use to reach them, how frequently... Is so different depending on which segment of your audience, there is no one size fits all approach, and I know that's a lot more work for people, but if you wanna get the outcome, the business outcome, then you've gotta put in the work into the comms to support getting that business outcome. Oh, a hundred percent. And then you see, you know, businesses racking their brains or banging their heads against the wall because they haven't managed to adequately, um, communicate, right? Mm-hmm. And they're like, oh, well, why, why aren't our staff doing what we want our staff to do? It's like, 'cause you haven't actually told them. Yeah, maybe. Maybe that could be it. That could be so and so that's really, that's a funny case as well in terms of then more money and time is spent often on trying to get people up to speed with what they need to know when actually, as you say, all they need to do in the initial stages was a bit of, um, understanding who, um, their audience actually was. Yeah, that's it. So. I know we, we met at, uh, IABC's uh, APAC conference. Mm-hmm. So over in Manila, and I loved your presentation, which is why I, I reached out to you to hop on the podcast. Part of a big part of what was discussed there was around communicating across cultures. Yep. How, and this is something, uh, you know, that is a bit of, I think, a challenge for some people, but how can we be culturally sensitive without risking cultural appropriation? Mm mm. I'm not prepared to answer that question. Fair, because I dunno. That's fair. Yeah. That and that's the answer, right? Um, and so that's my actual, that's my actual answer, is. Stop telling people what they should know and start asking questions in the beginning. Yeah. Um, because we do very good jobs of, um. As communicators do very good jobs at communicating to our own culture. And that might be our work culture. It might be a country culture. Um, we do very good jobs at that. What we don't do well is when the culture changes. And that could be, you know, going to a different country. It could be going to a different market segment. It could be talking to another team in your own organisation. Yeah. Yeah. Um, we just start talking and, and... fail to listen nine times out of 10. Um, and so saying, I'm not qualified to answer that question as the first thing you say. It is a really good tip for everyone, um, who is looking to speak cross-culturally. Um, and then not pretending to know, I think is the other thing. Um, what might have worked in Indonesia with this certain market segment isn't necessarily gonna work in Kuwait with another market segment because they are coming at your product maybe from a different point. They're looking for different things they understand or use it in a different way. Um, so not pretending to know. And just doing a one size fits all. Mm. And that can be painful. Like we were just saying before, um, people often don't wanna do the work initially because it, it is, it's work, yeah, I totally agree. I think it's, it's. Being able to be curious. And I was, uh, just at the IABC World Conference in Canada actually, and one of the sessions I attended was about, uh, indigenous communication campaigns. So they had three people presenting case studies. Right. Uh, which was excellent. And one of the key things that. Came out of that, that one of the presenters said was basically, forget everything you think you know about communication. Mm. And ask, because particularly over there in in, or even here in Australia, in indigenous cultures. That's a very different kettle of fish. Yeah. To what we might have been taught at that corporate, with that corporate lens on. So, you know, ask the questions. I love that you talked about, um, body language mm-hmm. And how that is almost one of, you know, there's different body language meanings and things in different cultures, but why is it such a powerful tool as a communication tool? Yeah. I guess it's saying the things that our words can't a lot of the time. Mm. Um, it is making connections that our words often fail to make and it's also humanising us in a way. Um, you might have heard this stat that 93% of all communication is anything but words. It, it was coined in 1967 by a researcher in the US who was doing research around, um, communication. And basically he was kind of, he, he kind of came to this thing saying, oh, well only 7% are words, and has spent the rest of his, um, rest of his profession or the rest of his career trying to debunk his own myth. Um, what he discovered, um, and his name was, uh, Albert Moravian Okay. Um, and it's called, it's now called the Moravian Myth. Um, and what he discovered actually is that it's, it might be 7% words, um, and 93% body language and other things only when talking about feelings and attitudes. Ah. Um, okay. And that's only specifically talking about your own feelings and attitudes. So it's really interesting that people have kind of grasped onto this and, and have started to use other things other than words. Um, to try and communicate. Um, that doesn't answer your question though. Interesting. Language is important. Yes. Um, but yeah, as I say, I think it is about kind of that humanisation and connection. Mm-hmm. When we read words, when we read, read the written word, uh, we are just reading the words and understanding it. Right. Which is why this statistic doesn't make sense. You can read a piece of written lit literature and it make complete sense. Mm-hmm. Um. But when we are communicating face to face, um, person to person, what we actually want is that connection. Mm. Um, we want, uh, the person who is communicating with us to know How we feel or where we are coming from, from that particular moment. And I think that that's why body language is so important for connection. It may not have anything to do with understanding. Um, you know, I can say to you, I've got three points, or I can say to you, I've got three points and hold up three fingers. The understanding, you know, your, your ability to understand would be the same. Mm-hmm. Um, but it is about the connection of, oh, maybe if you're watching me use body language, I might look more enthused or engaged or happy or angry or, um, I might be more, uh, emphatic when I'm speaking. So that's why I think body language is... important. Um, and I think it's becoming increasingly more important as we move to things like AI. Mm. Uh, because we want to still have a human connection. Um, as an aside, I used to work in English language testing for doctors and nurses right. Yeah. So this is doctors and nurses going around the world, um, approving to wherever they end up, that they can actually speak, um, a, a proficient level of English to practice in wherever they end up. Mm-hmm. And the big thing, and this was ah, this is probably eight years ago now, we started talking about, well, what's gonna happen in the future when, you know, language models and AI really start to take off? And that was kind of the beginnings of the discussions around the robots are coming for our jobs. Yeah. Um, but in the healthcare field, that is of very little concern because what people actually seek in kind of patient. Um, healthcare professional interactions. Is that reassurance. Mm. Is that human reassurance. So I might be able to give you, um, I might be able to say what your, um, uh, what your treatment is, or I might be able to tell you what your symptoms or prognosis are out of my words. Um, and I could just give them to you on an A 4 printout, right? And you could read them. Um, but what you actually seek then, as a patient is that human reassurance. Um, so you want me to look empathetic, You want me to say that I understand how much it's hurting. You want me to, um, sit there beside you and comfort you? And that's, and that's a really good example of how humans love that interaction with other humans. That contextual interaction. Um, if I'm saying that, oh yeah, take these two pills and you'll be fine tomorrow. Um, you actually wanna see me as a human. Um, believe that and give you that information. Um, so that's a really, I think, a really salient point for anyone working in healthcare, um, that might be listening. Uh, the robots aren't coming for your jobs 'cause people actually wanna be comforted by a real person. Yeah, I totally agree. But using that as well, I think that there are a bunch of other professions that will also use that. Um. That theory as well, because we don't just want to hear, um, from robots or the written word, um, we actually want to hear from other humans, uh, to contextualise that human experience. Mm-hmm. Can you give us some examples of how body language can help us create those connections or, or bridge, you know, understanding gaps? Yeah, absolutely. Um, so one type of body language is, I mean, there are a bunch of different types of body language, right? That talk to different emotions or talk to different ways that we, um, see the world. And a really good one is warmth. Body language. Um, and this is something that I've learned from, um, Vanessa Van Edwards, who is an American social, um, researcher who talks a lot about body language and she's fascinating. Um, but she asserts that warmth, body language is a really, um, uh. Crucial thing for that kind of connection to happen. And warmth, body language looks like smiling and nodding and being inquisitive. Um, and it's big, warm, open gestures and opening up your body to the person, um, because the reverse is like cold or, um. Uh, I guess ignoring body language, right? Where you might turn away from someone or you might look down, or, um, you might turn into yourself, um, away from the person that is speaking. Um, so. Using like warped body language is a really good way to bridge that gap initially when you meet people, uh, when you're establishing a connection. Um, and as I said, it's things like nodding and looking people in the eye and, um, referring back to them and creating physical bridges. We, as humans, love, um, to create physical bridges between us. Um, and that's, that could be seen as problematic in a workplace, you know, if you're touching someone, um. But even leaning in or um, gesturing towards someone is a really great physical bridge. It makes them feel closer to you, physically closer to you, but it also creates that closer connection. Mm-hmm. Um, so you've got a bunch of examples of body language that do indicate much more, uh, again, I guess warmth, um, which then looks like a connection whether or not you are connected to that person or not. And you'll see people, you'll go to a party, um, Mel, and you'll see people who you think are radiating joy. And probably the reason that they're radiating joy is that they are quite warm. They're open, they're, um, willing to kind of make that those connections with people, be it physical or be it, um, I guess, uh, uh, metaphorical. Um, so you'll see that happen. Um, and that's a really good example of how body language is a key, um, uh, connector in in humans. Thank you for sharing those and. It, it kind of leads me to two other, I guess, potential use cases. Mm-hmm. One is what we're doing right now. So, so much of our interaction at work now is done through a screen. Yeah. And assuming people have their cameras on. Mm-hmm. And that's step one. It is step, it's actually step one, right? Yes. It's like, I, I can't, I can't imagine being in a meeting now without turning my camera on. Right. Because it's, we, it's otherwise, why not just have a phone conversation? Mm-hmm. Exactly. So body language through a screen. Mm, what can we do? Great, great. Um, you'll see people who will be sitting like right next to their computer like this terrible, um, because funnily enough, the, um, the body, uh, what's it called? Distance, proximity. Um, you know how you. If you meet someone new and they're a close talker, they get up like right in your personal space, mate. Personal space. Space. So personal space still exists online. Yeah. Um, so to remain like, you know, like a hand, like an arm's length away from your camera, an arm and a half even away from your camera, um, gives the impression of me standing. At a distance from you that allows you to have personal space. Mm-hmm. So personal space is really important, even online. Funnily enough, I'd never thought of it that way. Yeah. But you're absolutely right. Yeah. Um, another thing that we can do is also, um, so a turning on your camera B being a proper distance away from it. Hands, yes. Hands are so important. Spirit fingers. Spirit fingers, anything. Right? So we as humans, um, love an open palm. Okay. Um, an open palm is a non-threatening, uh, gesture for humans. Yeah. Um, and if people can see your hands and your open palms on a video call, and it doesn't have to be all the time, you don't have to be speaking like this the entire time. You don't have to have your palms visible, but as opposed to always having your hands under the desk. Mm. Looks a bit suss, right? Yeah. Um, so that's a way that we also establish connection and it's kind of like we were in the room together. Yeah. Um, and then finally the other thing I think would be, um, is making sure that you are engaging with the screen. And I find it super hard to not look at myself because there's a lot happening in my side of the screen here.'cause I'm waving my hands around. Um, but to look at the camera. Like you were looking someone in the eye. And that's not constant. Um, that's not constant visual engagement. It is maybe at the end of a sentence when you wanna get a point across looking into the camera. Um, or it might be when the other person, um, is listening to you and so they are watching you look directly at them. Um, so they're really important. Just really quick things that people can do. Um. For this online interaction, which I think we haven't thought enough about. Oh, another thing that I hate that I actually, ah, blindly hate is a fake background. And I understand that some people are trying to get rid of mess in their background and I get that. Um, but you wanna be a real person. And people, I think can see that. And if you have got a messy background, tidy it up or move or like shift your focus, right? So, some good tips there. Number one, start with your camera on number two, stay about an arm's length away from your camera. Yep. Number three, show your palms. Use your hands. Mm-hmm. Obviously within reason. Yep. Uh, and number four was, uh, look at the camera making eye contact. Yes. Uh, and then also avoiding the fake background. I think they're really good tips. Yeah. Um, one more use case for you because I've heard conflicting... Ideas about this when you have, when you are presenting on stage? Yeah. Or one of your clients is your C-Suite member that you support, whoever that is. Mm-hmm. Do they walk up and down the stage? Should they stand still and create presence? You know, obviously we don't want them sprinting up and down the stage'cause that's very distracting. What would you, what advice would you give to people who are presenting? Yeah. What I always tell people, um, is to do what makes them feel comfortable. They're already doing an activity that for the majority of people, um, makes them feel very nervous and very uncomfortable. Um, and that nervousness will either do two things to people. It will really, um, hype them up so they'll be really frenetic and they'll wanna move a lot or will absolutely turn them into a statue. Um, so it, for me, it's a, it's a, it's a use by use. Um, or a case by case basis for whatever user that I'm talking to. Mm-hmm. Um, and the way that I work with clients is, like I said at the start, I think that everything is a bit of a play, right? Everything is a show. Um, and I, as the director. And coming in with an outside eye, and I'm directing this play or this show to be, um, the best version of itself. So if I'm working with someone who does move a lot, um, my challenge to them and my direction to them would be move only on a point. So you're making a point about something, move across the stage and then stand and deliver the rest of that point, finish that point, and then you can move again. It's a bit of a signpost. Yeah. And I'm that kind of person. I do move a lot. Um, I get very, um, energetic on stage. I know that about myself. And so for me, when I'm not moving, when I'm not making those moves, I have to plant my feet. So then for the opposite, for the people that don't move, for the people that don't like to move, um, one or two moves for them might be... um, all that is appropriate, especially if you're a speaker standing at a, a lectin or a podium as well. So that's another thing, um, that can often, um, throw people off if they are a movement based person, Standing behind something static is really hard. Mm-hmm. Um, or if they're not, they might just stand there, clutching a lectin. I think we've all seen people do that. Oh yeah. Clutching, lectin. Um, and so for me, for those people, I'm like, yeah, all right. You will stand there for the majority. Of what you're going to say. Um, but what you might do is use your body, so where your body is facing and your arms to gesture, kind of that movement that would normally be across the stage. I'm not the type of coach that has a one size fits all.'cause I don't think that that is natural and it looks a bit fake. And, and watching you Mel. So I, so at the conference that we were both at, I was taking notes on everybody that spoke. I was, I was like grading people, not grading people. You're marking people. You do it very, I'm looking at my notes now. You did it very well. So you, um, are very good at calling in the audience to what you are speaking about. Um, so you are quite dynamic in that interaction between yourself and the audience and you used quite big gestures, um, to bring in the audience to you. You used kind of like a lot of sweeping gestures, which I thought were very cool. Oh, nice. Um, and you also, at one point, and I dunno what this is in reference to,'cause I didn't write that part down of course, but you were getting the audience to copy what you were doing. Oh, we stretched. That's, we did our stretch. That's what it was. Yes. Because we've been sitting down forever and everybody was on their phones, so, yeah. Which is a really good connection piece, right? Mm-hmm. So yes, you were helping out the audience to stretch and feel better and get their nerves out, but what you were actually doing is that you were getting the audience on side to copy you. And we love this thing in our brain. Humans love this thing of when we start to mimic someone, we actually just start to like them. Mm. Um, so you are already getting people on side. When you started to do that, which is such a great thing for a speaker to have early on, have a really kind, generous audience. Um, and I thought that was great. So, oh, thank you. They're my little notes on you that I took. Cool. Oh, I appreciate the report card. Shea, I've got, I've three questions I ask every guest on the podcast. Are you ready for those? Sure am. Let's do it. What is one of the best communication lessons you've ever learned? And how did it change the way you approach communication? uh... The best that I ever learned was from a previous CEO, who was a comms manager. Fun enough. Okay. So she came through, um, being a, a comms person and she said to me, seek to understand. Mm-hmm. And this was later on in my career where I'd already been doing a lot of sales and a lot of business development. Um, and always had done a lot of active listening, but I'd never just heard it put like that. And I thought for me, I was like, yes, that's what I've been doing this whole time, and that's what I'll continue to do. Um, so, uh, that was the best lesson that I ever learned. I think I, I agree. One of the best things I was ever learned as a leader, uh, was listening to understand not to respond. Yep. Because many times I'd just jump into solution mode. Mm-hmm. You know, it's actually sometimes people just wanna rant. That's okay. Like, yep. That's all they want. Next question. Apart from the, uh, teams backgrounds mm-hmm. What's one thing you would wish people would do less of or more of when communicating? I would love people to be more emotive. Mm. Um, and I think this comes back to my point around kind of leaders, you know, executives, leaders, talking to people in their organisation, be more emotive. Um, especially people in finance, but honestly, if you are not excited about it or you are not, um, upset or you are not trying or, or angry or anything, right, how are you ever gonna move the needle of your people? Mm-hmm. Um, you want them to do something, you want them to be fired up, usually to take action. You want 'em to take action. Get them to feel a certain way. So emotion is a huge thing, and emotion is a huge human connector as well. Um, so yeah, my thing is emotion and I, I think. I think we're kind of past the days of the idea of stoicism in business. Mm. Um, or I would like to think that we are, um, because we are, we are trying to move that needle on that real, um, human connection emotion is, uh, key to that. Totally agree. Last question, who do you turn to for communication advice? I've got three people that I turn to and for three different reasons. First one is my business partner, um, Susanna, uh, who is a, a trained communicator, right, like trained comms person, knows all of that. So any kind of question around that kind of traditional comms, like she's my absolute go-to. Um. Secondly, uh, my friend Catherine, uh, now Catherine is an improviser who has been improvising for over 20 years. Cool. Um, when I wanna talk about how to connect with another human, like on a, on a pure kind of physical level in the real world, um, Catherine is one of those brilliant people who can just see people for who they are and what they are in that moment. Uh, and I love her points of view. Around that. So I'm often, I'll often ring her up and be like, ah, I've got this problem. I'm speaking to this person. How do I understand what it is they're actually on about? And so she's really good at, at that information. Um, and then the third is my other friend Veronica, who is a barrister. Um, and so a very, um, methodical clinical way of stepping out problems. And really getting to kind of the minutia of what might act might actually be causing the issue or the gripe that I have. Um, and I think it's also interesting that I, for those three people, I mean the three women, um, the reason that I actually love speaking to each of them is because of their empathetic, curious, and connected way, um, that they come across. In the world, but also the way that we have kind of built our, our friendships. So that's who I turn to, um, for that. For any kind of in a advice because I, for me, it's that I need that connection. Love it. That's it's, and that's the thing, right? It's often not just one person. There's lots of people for very different reasons. Well, Shea, it's been a pleasure chatting to you today. Thanks. Now, if people want to connect with you and find out more about you, where's the best place to find you? They can find me on LinkedIn. So I'm on LinkedIn, uh, Shea Evans just, uh, Google me. I think I'm one of the first Shea Evans'. Um, or they can come to our website. Which is glass of water.com au. Perfect. Thank you so much for being on Less Chatter, More Matter. Thanks Mel.