Communication is Key... Monique Russell of Clear Communications coaches us on the best way to communicate in the business world!

The Chris DeBlasio Podcast

Communication is Key... Monique Russell of Clear Communications coaches us on the best way to communicate in the business world!

- We're missing connection, that's what we're missing. We're missing connection and all of it is not influenced just at your job, you are a whole person. So you bring all of your life experiences, you bring your successes, your wins, your divorce, your loss, your grief, you bring everything with you to work. So as the leader, it's really selfish of you to think that you can leave that outside the door and just focus on work and produce and execute.
- So Monique, thank you for coming out. You're a speaker, communications coach, which is really cool. And we're gonna hit on that today and a mom. So, tell me a little bit about like, where do you come from your background? How did you get into what you're doing?
- Alright, well first, it's a pleasure to be here. So thank you for having me. And, I guess a little bit about me is something that you must know I am from the beautiful islands of the Bahamas.
- Awesome.
- In case you didn't hear my accents. Sometimes it comes out
- I heard it come out.
- I can camouflage it kind of okay, but, sometimes it comes out
- Don't camouflage.
- [Monique] When I'm excited
- Oh, you gotta let that thing roll, c'mon
- [Monique] Okay just wait
- There you go.
- So the Bahamas and Nigeria, that's my cultural heritage. I grew up in the islands and I came over to go to school. Studied journalism. So pretty much was supposed to be traveling all over the world, covering stories and doing investigative reports, but it didn't work out like that. And I continued my schooling in public relations and advertising. And when I finished I said, I'm getting me a job, I'm gonna go ahead and travel the world, I'm gonna do all the big exposés, all that stuff.
- So publicity like PR for like major corporations and stuff or what ?
- Well, the truth is, so I studied journalism, and then you know, it's all about the objective truth, right?
- Right.
- And then you learn that that's not really the truth. And then I said, well, I'm gonna go on the other side, because the broadcast folks and the PR folks, they don't really mesh well. So I said I'm gonna go on the PR side, I'm gonna bust this thing all the way through once and for all. And I didn't, so I didn't pursue that path. It was really hard for me to get in, especially on the TV side, because, as you know, it's low pay.

- Yeah.
- It's grunt and really, at that time, I already had my first child, and I had a ton of student loans that I needed to get to work on paying, and I just started where I could get in. So that's kind of what I did to get started
- So just straight in, lowest, just to get in a door.
- I found executive support job, and that's what I did. It was temporary in my mind, and I said, that's all I'm doing. I'm coming in here and I'm just gonna start working. But turns out that that was actually my hands on training, which leads to what I do today. I didn't know it then though. It's only in retrospect that I said, wow, this is why I'm so effective in what I do. Because back then when you're an executive support, nobody considers you a threat. But you get to see and hear a lot of things, what makes people tick, what makes leaders tick, what makes them successful, what's makes them disliked. And because I already had that communications background, people would often come to me and ask me for my advice and opinion on how to get people involved, how to inspire the team, how to get engagement, and all sorts of other things like that.
- All because you took the risk, you went into a lower paying job, and you literally got paid to learn
- Pretty much and I never thought about it like that.