Transcript of The Million-Dollar Skill Most Professionals Are Losing: Fearless Authenticity, Communication, and Persuasion New

The way we connect is through oral communication. As human beings, we are hardwired for stories. We are most hardwired for stories that we tell to each other. I bet if I asked you what was on your to-do list for today, just off the top of your head without looking at your phone, you could probably remember 3 out of the 10 things that are on there because they're the most important things to you. If I asked you to tell me a story from a family gathering when you were 5 years old, I bet you could remember it. Why? Because you remember stories.

Most business advice is wrong, built on opinions echoed by people who've never done it. But the truth, it's simpler and harder. You don't win by following the playbook. You win by rewriting it. 700 episodes deep with the people who actually built something real. No theory, no fluff, no shortcuts. This is Write About Now with Ryan Alford.

What's up, guys? Welcome to Right About Now. We're always giving you what is here, what is now. We brought them on the show. We know they're right, so we want them to be right to you. I'm Ryan Alford, your host. Thank you for making us number one. It's never lost on us that we are number one on Apple marketing. We got the fastest growing YouTube channel. We know what's happening because we are bringing people like author and professional award-winning speaker Jean Sparrow. What's up, Jean?

Hey, Ryan, thanks for having me on.

My pleasure. I like to think of myself as fearless.

You seem like it to me. You seem like it just from the conversations we've had and what I've seen online of you and what you have done. Yes, sir. I would say fearless would be a very good adjective for you. And authentic too. You seem really real to me. If it's not, you doing a damn good job of acting.

I'm not a good enough actor. I'm just me, baby. Fearless Authenticity is her latest book. Jean, what's happening today? What's new?

I never thought I'd write a book. My work led me to this point where a book was the best way for me to explain how I think about things. When you commit to a book and you actually have it physically in your hand, it's a whole thing. That's where I'm living right now.

You've been a media personality. You've been in the media. You're now coaching and speaking and doing all these things. Where did it all start? Have you always had the media personality?

I started when I was 17. I come from a family of storytellers. My dad, he could tell the same story and listen, it didn't even have to be true. And to this day, I don't know which one of his stories are fully true or not, but they all made sense and they all made us laugh. We would always one-up each other during the holiday and this is both sides of my family. We would gather around for the holidays and talk and whatever. So I feel like I was trained as a kid to tell stories, to amplify other people's things. Like, because the thing is, the best stories are not the ones that are just about you. They're the ones about other people too. When I was in high school, I was in speech and debate, and the local radio station always liked to hire local kids because the nearby university had a great mass comm department. And so they were trying to keep talent in the area. They were looking for people. My speech and debate coach sent me over to the local country western station, I might add, to go and audition for a gig.

I got it. That was my after-school job. I would like get off school and then I'd go over to the radio station and work until it turned off. I don't know if you're old enough to remember when AM radio stations used to go off at night. I had a whole FCC license and I turned that bad boy off.

That is crazy. I've forgotten about that. That's jogging the memory brains. But I grew up with a dad and family that all listen to talk radio on AM and everything else. Maybe that's That's where my passion came from deep down. So I remember that.

The seeds are always sown and you don't see them until you like hit middle age and you start to realize that you have become your parents. You do things that they do for better or worse. That's where it all started for me. And I didn't even think it was a career, to be honest, because it felt like a hobby. It was, I can't make money doing this. It's too much fun. From there, when I went away to college, that's how I got up to Chicago, went to Northwestern, and I was working on the radio station. For fun, for free, and got an internship. And next thing you know, I have a whole career.

7-time Emmy winner at that, right?

Yeah, yeah, regional Emmys here in Chicago because I moved from radio to TV. It was an opportunity that came up, and then you just do work, you submit it, and people like it, and you're like, what, I got Emmys? Mine are packed away. I usually post about them, but I just moved, so I haven't put my shelves up and things like that to have my brag wall up. But the thing about awards is that they're for what you used to do, what you have already done. For me, it's always, what are you gonna do next?

I like that. I might take that.

Yeah, absolutely, you can have it, my baby. You can have it.

I'll put a little JS on the end. I'll give you attribution. Not gonna steal anybody, but I love that. If you've got kids in middle school or high school, you already know homework can turn into a whole situation. What should take 20 minutes somehow turns into 2 hours, and half the time it ends with frustration on both sides. I've got 4 boys, 3 of them right in that middle and high school range. So I see it all the time. They hit a problem, get stuck, and it's not that they don't want to figure it out, they just don't know how to get there. That's why I've been looking into Brainly. Brainly is basically a 24/7 AI-powered tutor that actually walks them through problems step by step, not just giving answers. By helping them understand how something works so they can build confidence and keep moving. And as a parent, that's the part I care about. It's not about the shortcuts, it's about them actually learning the material. It's also just practical. You don't have to deal with scheduling a tutor or trying to find things that line up around sports and everything else. It's there whenever they need it, and it's a lot more affordable than traditional tutoring.

Honestly, it just takes a lot of pressure off. Finals are coming up. Build your teen study plan now. It only takes minutes. Go to brainly.com/ryan to get 50% off your first Brainly subscription with my code RYAN. That's b-r-a-i-n-l-y.com/ryan. If you've got kids in middle school or high school, you already know homework can turn into a whole situation. What should take 20 minutes somehow turns into 2 hours, and half the time it ends with frustration on both sides. I've got 4 boys, 3 of them right in that middle and high school range. So I see it all the time. They hit a problem, get stuck, and it's not that they don't want to figure it out. They just don't know how to get there. That's why I've been looking into Brainly. Brainly is basically a 24/7 AI-powered tutor that actually walks them through problems step by step, not just giving answers, by helping them understand how something works so they can build confidence and keep moving. And as a parent, that's the part I care about. It's not about the shortcuts, it's about them actually learning the material. It's also just practical. You don't have to deal with scheduling a tutor or trying to find things that line up around sports and everything else.

It's there whenever they need it, and it's a lot more affordable than traditional tutoring. Honestly, it just takes a lot of pressure off. Finals are coming up. Build your teen study plan now. It only takes minutes. Go to brainly.com/ryan to get 50% off your first Brainly subscription with my code Ryan. That's b-r-a-i-n-l-y.com/ryan. I do see a lot of people that live in the past. I always like to reflect on the past, but I also say the only thing you get from looking back is a sore neck.

That's 100% truth. Or you end looking in the rearview mirror and you end up running into what's in front of you, and that doesn't do anybody good. Listen, we have to know and look at the past to learn from it so that we don't make the same mistakes going forward. But don't be that person that peaked in high school. There's better that you have ahead of you. You know what I'm saying? Some people, they had really great lives when they were 18. Like, fam, you 152 now. You really need to start thinking about something else other than that. That's just my perspective. I'm always one to look forward because I had a boss who said to me, in music radio, there's this thing we call forward motion where you're always pushing to the next thing. And I I think is, as, because a lot of what we do in radio is really related to your expertise in marketing. It's about pushing the message forward because people don't care. They already heard the song you just played. Yeah, we could tell you what it is if you really liked it, but what you really care about is what's coming up next because that's going to keep them listening.

When I learned that philosophy, it really helped me to start looking ahead because people who can project what's happening next are the ones who are going to be successful and always on top of what's going on. But it is informed by where we've been before, for sure.

What were some of the media background, your training? Fearless Authenticity, I think about that name and it's very direct, which I like, but I have to think some things in your life help paint that picture for you. Talk to me about some of the inspiration and where that came from.

Discovering Fearless Authenticity has been sort of a circular path because it started with my media work. I had a boss who told me one time, same boss with the Ford Motion, he was very influential and I think we all have those mentors in our lives that do it, but because they help us to see things, and that helps us to get to our philosophies. But he said to me, he was like, I don't pay you to play the hits. I pay you for what you say in between the hits, because that's what's going to make people stay, because they can get these hits anywhere else. And this is before Spotify and all the different streamers, iHeart, all of this stuff. When I went into TV, I realized every station is talking about the same 4 stop top stories. The reason why we watch particular stations, if we do nowadays, is because that's the perspective we want to hear that news from. Same thing with if we only get our news online. Some people love TMZ, some people love MSNBC, some people love Fox, because it's something about the people who are there that keep us there.

There are a bunch of other marketing podcasts. There's something about you that resonates with the people who vibe with you and the way you give that information. That was kind of the first realization that my perspective mattered. Then I started to realize when I looked back at how I grew up, because I'm adopted, and I started to realize that your identity has a lot to do to do with how people connect to you. What happens to a lot of us, like, our mamas and our daddies always told us the same thing when we went off to school: just be yourself, you're gonna find your friends, your friends are gonna find you. But nobody tells you how to do that when you get outside of your house. If you had a happy house to begin with, you start to have all of these other influences that tell you what you should be doing. And I hate that word should because it's more of a judgment than it is a direction. What I learned looking back at how I grew up, a lot of what I was doing when I was younger was trying to fit in, trying to please, trying to do these things.

As a young woman, especially— I'm a Gen Xer— there was still a lot of gender roles that I felt I had to fulfill first or whatever. But really, it's about what resonates with you, understanding that when you do something that feels right in your gut, then you're on the right path and you're doing what you're supposed to do. A lot of us wake up at middle age and wonder how we got where we were, and some of that is because of the choices we make along the way. And that's really what fearless authenticity is to me, is all of us staying true true to who we are, trying to grow in the way that we want to grow, to do the thing we want to do. And our purpose finds us that way because we're all like pieces of a puzzle, Ryan. We all fit together and we're all here to do something particular. We don't have to know what it is because it's going to find us, but we have to be true to ourselves to do that. It's the truest brand, if you will.

It's true. And a lot of people struggle with it. I'm going to go down two roads with you, Jean, because I got two sides of this that I want to break that down. What you just said, one, in short supply in today's world. Unfortunately, I'm gonna give 2 sides of the coin. Like any good marketer, I love speaking out of both sides of my mouth because they're kind of related. It's in short supply. Sometimes people think they're being fearlessly authentic, but it just rubs everyone the damn wrong way. There's this fine line for me of being not trying to be liked and to be yourself, but if you're selfishly authentic, that doesn't get you very far either. I'd love for you to kind of dig underneath. I think you know where I'm going with this.

Yeah, I know exactly where you're going because this is a conversation I have often. Part of fearless authenticity baked baked into it is the idea that this is how we really build true community. Because if we are true to ourselves, then we find our people and our people find us. It is also baked into this that we are in service to each other, not here to please each other, but to be in service. There is something that I can do that you cannot. There is something you can do that I cannot. And we are here to share that with each other, that it doesn't work any other way. That's what community is really about. As a fellow Southerner, you understand what I'm talking about. When you're from a small town, you understand how we are all connected, how the ecosystem is connected to each other. And this is not to down urban life because I love living in a big city. The thing is, is that if we keep in our minds and in our hearts the spirit of service, that what I am good at is to be used in service of a greater higher good, then we get away from the selfish part of it.

Now, some people's authentic selves might be kind of selfish. That means they got some growing to do. Though, as you look at yourself, you start to see where you need to grow and where you've gone wrong. and it's easier for you to take that feedback when somebody's like, you know what, that hurt my feelings, or that did not serve us as a group, as a team. There's nothing we can do, especially nowadays, that doesn't involve teamwork. And I can tell you, almost every company I go into that brings me in, a lot of times they bring me in to talk about their external communication issues. But I know you know this because you've probably seen it in your work. 9 times out of 10, the issue is almost always an internal problem in communication with each other. They need to get their story together inside before are they able to do it outside? We focus so much on what we put out into the world that we forget about what's happening on a smaller level. For me, Fearlessly Authentic is not a pass for you to be a jerk. It is a responsibility for you to be your best self, to be the highest version of yourself that is in service to other people, because that's the only way we move together as a world.

The world is getting smaller and expanding at the same time. Like, the way that technology has brought us together has separated us that the more we lean into the human connection, and I know that this is resonant with your work, the more we lean into those relationships and things like that, the better off we're going to be. But the only way those things are really real is if we are real about it ourselves.

Yeah, there it is. I love that breakdown. I did not think I could stump Jean Sparrow by any means, but I do struggle with that sometimes. I see some people that think they're acting authentically and I think they are, but I'm like, damn, we can't polarize everybody.

No, it's not about that. The more in touch I get with where I am, the more confident I am with where I am, and the better I am to let other people— I get to stay in my lane and I get to own my lane, and then I'm more happy to let other people do what they have to do around me. It's made me a better leader, it's made me a better collaborator, it's made me better for my clients. Some people get lazy and say that this is just who I am. When you start talking like that, then it's in service to you, it's not in service to somebody else, and then you're frankly just being a dick. No, No, don't do that. Don't do that.

Exactly. Part of the reason I was pumped to have you on the show, Jean, is I feel like this book applies to a lot of people and a lot of things. It's business leaders. I hope it does. Hell, soccer moms. It covers the gamut because there's a lot to learn here. Talk to me in your mind, who did you feel like you were speaking to?

There are a few different people I was talking to. Most of all, myself. Some of it was just about how I move through things. When you go through the book, I tried to include a lot of different perspectives. I have a podcast as well that's on pause right now because the book has overtaken in my life. But the whole point of it was to find out how what I believe to be true applies in other places. So I've talked to people wide-ranging, from authors to business leaders, other marketers, entertainers, comedians, actors, writers, all these different kinds of people, to see entrepreneurs, to kind of see where this happened. And I found it to be true everywhere, in every phase of life. And when I first started doing this work, Ryan, there were people who told me— and it still happens in some of my trainings when I go in— they're like, I'm gonna try this out my kids today, because there's a part of my process that I call it Live It, Tell It, Sell It. Live It is about you. To me, it's the 3 elements of how we communicate. Live It is about you.

You have to understand how you affect other people. Tell It is about the vehicle by which we do it, the stories that we tell each other, because those are the things that— that's the connective tissue. And then Sell It is about the people you're talking to, because you're always selling something, but you got to know something about the people you're talking to, and you have to talk to what they care about. If you don't talk to what they care about, then all you're doing is having a monolog and hoping somebody else listens. It is not a two-way street, and unfortunately we don't do that with our young people. When I first wrote the book, I was really writing it for my clients, the different kinds of people that I encounter. But what I've learned, because now I'm teaching at Northwestern in a grad communication program, and a lot of my students are fresh out of college, still kind of searching for themselves, trying to find their voice— I have figured out that my work works best for people who are in transition somewhere. They're either trying to level up, maybe in the corporate gig they have, trying to get to the next level up, trying to break through to the executive level or break through to the C-suite, or maybe just get out of middle management or into middle management so they can start moving up the things.

For young people who are entering the workforce for the first time, the transition from college to real life is even harder than it's ever been because the job market, the competition that these young people have been under since they started, the shift from saying I'm trying to get grades to actually giving results is a very different thing. The first day of class last last quarter that I taught, I said to them, look, your grade in here doesn't matter to me. You're gonna get an A if you're better at the end of this quarter than you are right now. And they looked at me like I had sprouted horns. They were like, what? I was like, I got assignments and stuff like that, but legit, you will get an A in this class if you just do the work, and by the end of it, what you turn in for the first assignment— for the last assignment looks better than what you turned in from the first. And it's all about performance and how you deliver. So if you're better, then you got an A. So don't worry about the grade. And literally, some of kids imploded on me because they can't— I was like, but honey, at work nobody gives a damn about your grades that you got in college or grad school.

What they care about is can you deliver what it is you need to do? And they looked at me like, is that the key? And these are kids that are about to be interviewing for their next job. Maybe for the soccer moms, the ones whose kids are growing up and they're going back into the workplace, or they've started a side hustle that they've done while their kids were little and now they want to turn it into a legitimate business. I have a lot of entrepreneurs who've asked me for help. That's who I wrote the book for. It's not who I initially wrote the book for, but that's who it's for. It's anybody who's trying to navigate a change in what they're doing.

Yeah, I'd argue that any brand could learn how to take their brand this direction in a way. I want to talk about speaking sensationally while also validating a point. I graduated from Clemson with a 2.01. You had to have a 2.0. Let's just say my lifetime earnings, I'd put it up against anyone else I graduated with.

Oh wait, you froze on me, Ryan. Uh-oh, you froze on me. You said you graduated from Clemson with what? A 2.01.

You had to have a 2.0 to graduate. I'd put my lifetime earnings off of GPA up against anyone else in that graduating class.

There you go, brother. That's what I'm talking about.

Years ago, people didn't really care. Maybe your 4.0 got you in the window, got you in the door, but it didn't get you any further than that.

Maybe this is what goes back to what we were talking about earlier about the past. That was something you did. It is not what you are doing.

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Speaking sensationally. Talk to me as a marketer. That's probably what stuck out the most. Speaking, writing, talking. A lot of people are uncomfortable with that because I think they think very immediately that it's overselling or theatrical or something, but I don't think that's what you mean here.

Not at all. The reality is the way way we connect is through oral communication. As human beings, we are hardwired for stories. We are most hardwired for stories that we tell to each other. I bet if I asked you what was on your to-do list for today, just off the top of your head without looking at your phone, you could probably remember 3 out of the 10 things that are on there because they're the most important things to you. If I asked you to tell me a story from a family gathering when you were 5 years old, I bet you could remember it. Why? Because you remember stories. We connect through stories so many different ways. Our our brains activate in different ways, whether it's our vision, because we're imagining something, whether it's our senses, we remember what something smells like or what something sounded like. The neural activity that the more neurons that are firing off, the more likely we are to remember something. A list doesn't have that kind of context. To lead, the best people to sell, the best people to market, the best people to do anything are the ones who can tell the stories that people remember.

We remember commercials from 20 years ago. Why? Because they told a good story visually, actorially, whatever the word is, audio sense, whatever the case is, even if it's a catchphrase, the reason why we remember catchphrases from back in the day, "Where's the beef?" Because those 3 words have a story built into them. When I say speaking sensationally, I think that many of us have become way too dependent on texting people, emailing people, and there is not a lot of nuance in the written word the way we communicate through those ways. In books, absolutely, because we have a lot more characters that we can use. But when we talk about social media, when we talk about texting and all those different things, we've become so reliant on that, that it has damaged our relationships. And part of it, it has also damaged our way that we communicate with each other. A lot of the young people that I'm starting to teach now are the ones who were in important developmental stages during the pandemic when they weren't interacting with people as much outside the people that they were in their pods with. And you can tell because they're not communicating verbally as well.

I'm sorry, I don't care how good tool AI is, and it is, I don't care how good of a tool email and text and whatever other technology is next is, nothing will replace our ability to understand when somebody is explaining something to us. And nothing will replace the way we get motivated when we are inspired hearing other people speak. And that's the way stuff gets done. So if you can't speak sensationally, you're missing a part of what it is you want to do, whether that's selling your business or the products that your business or the services that your business whether it's leading your team to get the results that you've been tasked with doing, whether it's taking something to the next level or actually speaking to audiences or being on podcasts, whatever that is. If you can't do that, success is going to be hard.

It is. This is one of the biggest attributes I see owning an ad agency and hiring a lot of younger people, 23 to 30. The technology is great, but the biggest skill set I see missing is the ability to talk, they would classify what I'm saying as selling. I'm not necessarily saying selling, but making what they're talking about and understanding how to talk about it in an exciting way. That's a missing skill set.

There's nothing wrong with calling it selling. We have an aversion to calling it selling. Literally, we are selling people on something all the time, even if it's just what couch we're gonna buy, or I really want that piece of art or that picture, or we gotta go take a family photo for the holidays. Well, no, I don't really want to do— we're always selling somebody on something, and the better we get or more comfortable we get with that. There's a negative connotation to selling, as if we don't buy stuff all the time. Come on, man. We're always trying to convince somebody of something. Let's just call it what it is. Let's get used to it and let's make it enjoyable. Like, it's fun. Have you ever met like the best salesman in the world and you're just like, you know what, I'mma buy it?

Why?

Because you sold me on it. Let's appreciate that again. My daddy told me, he was like, gee, don't buy nothing from nobody you don't like. He says some people can convince you to buy ice when it's cold outside. He was like, they should be rewarded for their stuff. We all should be at least giving it a little bit of effort. Some of us are better sellers than others, but we're doing ourselves and each other a disservice if we don't learn how to sell to each other. It's respect.

Let's get hashtag bring back ABS. Always be selling.

Always be selling, baby. Always be selling. Close that deal.

Gene, what's the additional plans with promoting the book and locations people can find it and just what everything else you got going on the rest of the year?

FearlessAuthenticity.com/book is where you can always find everything about the book. That's where I'll have all of my appearances and things. I am doing book clubs and stores. So if somebody's watching and wants me to come and speak to their group, or whether it's virtually or in person, reach out at FearlessAuthenticity.com/book. We will get you on the roster. Anybody listening, here's the deal.

A lot of people write books. And they might be a wonderful book, but they don't have the personality to kind of get out and bring the whole thing to life. Jean has got it all. She's got the personality to talk the book, walk the book, and do it. You need to get her on the docket. She'll sell some copies, bring some people in, and entertain you because she'll speak sensationally.

Thank you, my dear. You're so sweet. That's an endorsement I can get behind. I appreciate it. It's been fun talking to you, Ryan.

It's been great. I really appreciate it. Hey guys, we're going to have all the links to Jean's stuff on the website, on social media, etc. Go to ryanisright.com, you'll find links to the show, highlight clips, everything included. Jean, it's been great. Can't wait to stay following what you're doing, and let's stay in touch.

Same, same.

Hey guys, thank you for making us number one. It's because of Jean Sparrows of the world that we are— we bringing you the best, the brightest, and hey, the most authentic. That's what we do right here on Right About Now.

Here's the truth: information doesn't change your life, execution does. So don't just listen to this episode and move on. Take the idea. Make the call. Launch the thing. Fix the problem. Build what you keep talking about building. For more, follow Ryan Alford on Instagram @ryanalford and watch or listen to every episode at ryanisright.com. This is right about now. Now quit waiting. Go win.