Speaking and Communicating Podcast

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because I spoke up in front of my business. I had never really been vulnerable. So I stood in front of my entire company that I had built and I had been perfect in front of, and I told them my marriage is ending and that I'm going through this thing. And all of a sudden I was human and it gave them the freedom to be human and to be vulnerable and not to be perfect. I believe that if I wouldn't have done that, we would have seen a lot of challenges in the business because nobody can be perfect. That's impossible. And I was projecting this perfection because when you open up,

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You inspire others. Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I'm your host, Roberta Ndlela. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development. And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review.

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Now let's get communicating with our guest today, joining us from San Diego, Jasper Calcara is a structural engineer, entrepreneur who has realized that both professional and personal success comes from mastering communication skills. And we'll be talking about that today. And before I go any further, please welcome him to the show. Hi Jasper. Hi, it's great to be here. Thank you.

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I'm glad that you're here. Welcome to the show. So you've spent about what, 30 years of your career in engineering? Yeah, so it's right out of college. I was lucky enough to kind of join a startup in an area of engineering that's not super common. It's supporting the construction industry. We design the systems need to build and repair structures. We don't design the structure itself. I learned day one.

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that it's a very fast paced environment and you had to communicate really complex things over the phone with contractors who were out there doing, you know, really urgent and very unsafe things. So I learned day one communication was going to make or break my ability to thrive in this career. Back then there was no internet or podcasts or AI or coaches who tell us, Hey, Jasper, it's very important you master your communication skills to be successful. What?

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brought that to your attention. How did you come to that realization so long ago? Yeah, I think the main thing is if you know what your goal is, what aspect of communication is gonna be required to reach that goal? So even as a kid, I realized like I kinda needed to control the world around me. was managing anxiety and such. So as I realized that I needed to be able to communicate how I was feeling or what I needed,

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so that I can kind of create the outcomes that I was looking for. So that was a need of mine. So now I'm at work, you know, years later, and I'm realizing I'm trying to solve these really complex problems in a very quick and efficient way. Well, I can't do that without incredibly, you know, high communication skills. So by knowing the goal, the outcome and how communication fit into it, I was able to really focus on that skill set. It would be like maybe preparing for a call by understanding, okay,

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What point do I need to get across as quick as possible? Because if you jump on a call or a meeting or a speech and you're searching for the solution, the end point in real time, it's not very efficient. But if you can take a few minutes to prepare yourself, really go in with a plan and even prepare some of the questions and some of the information ahead of time. That served me early before I built the skill set to do it on the fly efficiently, if that makes sense. Yes, it does.

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And did you find that when you communicate, the other party was able to receive the message the way you intended? Were there some instances where they did not interpret the message the way that you were planning for them to? Absolutely. Yeah, so many times. It happens every day. So I think the most important thing is that I developed a skill set

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to be able to describe it or explain it in different ways to ultimately get them there. And that's why I'm even comfortable sitting here today, not knowing what you're gonna ask me, because I feel like even if you ask me a complex question, I have confidence that I can describe it in different ways to ultimately get the point across, because I did it thousands of times with customers. I wouldn't give up. Like that was the most important thing is I wouldn't give up and hang up that phone.

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until I knew we got that point across because that was just going to put us in a bad position. So, Jasper, what's E equal to Emson squared? Oh, no. No thanks. It's a complex question. We don't need to get into Einstein today. Right. Yes, because you know how I can't remember who said it, but they said the biggest illusion we have about communication is that it has taken place. You may think I have said this as eloquently as I

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could, I'm sure Jasper understands exactly what I mean. Now, why did he not do what I asked him to do? Yeah, yeah. I never hesitate to ask if this is someone who understands it and I challenge them, you could even sense in my response or my eyes, did I get what you're asking me because people lie. They say, okay, yeah. So for me on the phone, you know, I was very clear if I wasn't sure they understood that I would, I would ask them.

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Same with my team and my employees over time. I'd say, look, if you don't know, don't pretend you don't know. Be honest about it, right? It's not going to do anybody any favors to let your ego drive this and you hang up with a disconnect. So for me, I was always like, you know, does that make sense? Are we good? Are we on the same page? Any questions? I give them a safe space to say, I don't understand. And safe space is about respect. I always wanted the customer

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or by team member, anybody to feel like we are a partnership and there's respect here. So when you're a partnership, you're trying to solve a problem together, right? You're not in conflict. And that means you can admit, I don't understand, I'm confused and you're not gonna be put down for that. So that was a core part of that. My career is focusing on that partnership. Right. I don't know how tangible it was back then to actually measure when communication skills aren't mastered.

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in that business environment because now they can actually quantify and say if this engineering or this IT department doesn't communicate well with our customers, with the sales team, with the front desk, we lose millions. They can actually calculate that. Was it easy to do back then or it was just something that was generalized, so to speak?

06:55
No, it was easy then and it's easy now because it's such fast pace and such short timeline. So you measure response almost immediately. Right. If I was working on a six year project, it might not show itself for an extended period of time that the disconnects. But I was lucky enough that many of our projects we would turn around in a day or two or three where if there was poor communication, we knew it were missing deadlines. People were getting frustrated. Jobs are getting delayed.

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So because everything got hyper intensified, I was able to learn really quickly what was and wasn't working. So if people are navigating these relationships that are more long-term, it just takes a different attention to detail, right? You have to look for it more intently. In this case, it just slapped you in the face because things went wrong very quickly if you weren't communicating well, yeah. Yeah, because that's the nature of the industry.

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Talk to us about what happened at four years old when you decided to put on the Superman cape. Yeah, so that was more just kind of a personal journey in terms of I was carrying some things internally and emotionally that I wasn't really aware of. And so I adopted the Superman complex and it was literally a physical gift I was given. I put this on, I wouldn't take it off. I needed to be amazing. I needed to be incredible. I needed constant affirmation that I was special because I didn't truly feel it inside.

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So a lot of people carry something and they cover with a mask or an armor or in this case, a superhero costume to kind of present a strength we don't truly feel inside. A lot of us just are carrying something like that. So that was something that allowed me to do incredible things in my professional life. I was very accomplished, but I didn't heal these things. I was hiding them under that costume so that when I lost

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my marriage and these really important things that I had been building everything for, I realized I need to take that costume off and heal. I need to take that off. And that really just opened up a whole new direction in communication, communicating from my truth, right? Who I truly am as such, what is the most powerful forms of communication. Right. When you explain it that way, I've always wondered, and shout out to parents, because that's literally got to be the most difficult job in the world.

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It doesn't come with a manual. You can have two kids you raise with the exact same rules in the exact same house and they turn completely different. you can teach your children whatever and you can say to them every day, I love you, you're the best, you're special, you this. And they still tell themselves something inside. Why? what do you tell yourself? Cause you sound like the

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Adults around you did say some positive good things to you know pep you up, but you still told yourself something different Yeah, I mean it's hard to tell where it comes from I'm not you know a specialist in that area But we all carry something from our childhood whether it's actual physical trauma or how we were raised a lot of us carry some some lack of self-worth something shame whatever it is and that presents itself in our behavior some

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A lot of us just bury it down because we can't really, we don't know how, especially as kids, we don't know how to address it. And if we don't have the support system around us to help us talk about it and heal it, which I think we're in a much better space these years than when I was a kid and my parents were kids, there wasn't talked about as much, right? The mental health side of things. So what I really focused on with my children is to be able to comfortably communicate how they were feeling.

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Because I was lucky enough that my mother really helped me do that when I was young. She wouldn't just yell at me, forget misbehaving. She would talk to me about, are you feeling? Why are you behaving this way? Look at the effect it's having on those around you. So I developed a vocabulary to express how I was feeling. And that's what I feel as a parent and as a mentor to employees, anybody, friends, is that if you can be in tune with how you're feeling,

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and how you're making people feel around you and can communicate effectively, it's the best chance of having healthier relationships. And so do you feel that in your personal life, you were communicating very well in your professional life, as you've explained to us. So in your personal life, that didn't translate. You were not as good with the communication aspect of it. I might have been good with communication, but I really wasn't addressing the true problem.

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So what I mentioned earlier in the call is if I have an engineering project and I'm making a phone call, I know the true problem I'm trying to solve. know that bridge that I need to support so they can fix this column. I know it and I'm going to design the perfect system for it because I'm going to communicate. When you're carrying a lot of emotional issues, if you don't acknowledge them, then you can't really address them. So I couldn't acknowledge them. I didn't have the capability or willingness or whatever it is because we bury them so deep.

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So that even though I felt like I was communicating at home, there was constant friction, right? At work, everything was going smooth. The projects were coming out successful, but at home, the relationships were unraveling. Even though I feel like I'm communicating, I'm getting frustrated because I didn't acknowledge the problem, right? The true problem was what I was carrying and the emotional damage I was bringing to the relationship. I do speak a lot about this these days is opening up.

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and identifying the cracks we carry. I talk about like a bridge. If you have cracks in the column, you better address them. And I just say, we are also structures that carry cracks and trauma. And we carry so much weight in this world, like I did with my business and family. And if you don't address those, then you really can't build a stable life. And did you feel that success professionally, because you're very successful professionally? Because we define success typically, obviously, now there's much more

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open avenues into how we define success. But when we are growing up, success just meant bigger house, nicer car, more money, more promotion at work. Did you feel that success professionally did not then put this bandaid inside of you, whatever you were feeling about yourself, it didn't make you feel like, oh, I'm actually good. So my self-worth is going to increase. No, I didn't.

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I think I tell people to pay attention to how you feel when you meet a goal, because a lot of people will work really hard. They'll meet a goal and they'll feel empty or they'll automatically reach for a higher goal. That's a warning sign, right? If you don't feel at peace and if you don't feel satisfied and feel comfortable when you meet your goal and you're always pushing for something higher like I was, it never was enough because it never I was never really healing what I needed to be healed through support, you know, the therapist and all that.

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So it didn't matter every success I made, it needed to be more and more and more. So I talked to people a lot about that is like really take a moment and see how you feel when you meet these goals. Cause very highly driven people often time are caring things like this. The most successful people don't often have the most healthy personal lives. And I've always wondered whenever people have goals, you know, for six months, 12 months, two years, five years, long-term and whatnot. When you

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get to the six month one. Do you actually take time to pet yourself on the bed? I actually did that. Oh, wow. Yeah. And celebrate and go drink champagne just that one day before you start working on the 12 month one. Yeah. Yeah. Most people don't. Yeah, most don't. I literally challenged a friend of mine. threw this event recently and I asked her, it's like, hey, how did you feel after that event? Did you take a moment to really appreciate the success because you worked so hard?

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Or are you just thinking about the next event? And she's like, honestly, I'm kind of already thinking about the next one. So I think it just happens so often. So I do challenge people when they do accomplish something to take some space from their life and the next goal and really absorb. How do I feel? What did this truly give me? What did it give the people around me? Am I doing this for the right reasons?

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because that'll really start to enlighten if we are carrying something that may be driving us in a slightly unhealthy direction. So when did you decide to take off your Superman mask? Sadly, it was when I lost everything I had been building this for. So I had this incredible success in my professional life. I had the house, I had everything. It looked perfect, a beautiful family, but I lost it. So when the marriage ended, I really just decided

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I can't sacrifice, can't lose anymore, I have to heal whatever it is that is really causing this problem in me. So was during that period of time that I healed and I started to let go of these things that weren't serving me anymore. The Superman response was rigid. I just kept going back to it. It's not flexible. Flexibility is what we want in our lives because things change. If you use the same response over and over and over and it doesn't give you the outcome you need, it's too rigid.

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just like in engineering, right? If something's rigid, it can crack and break and collapse, but if it's flexible, it gets hit by wind and earthquakes and things, it moves and it stays. So that Superman response was rigid and it was not giving me the results that I needed. So I had to shed that and learn new skills to heal and manage my life so that now when things hit me that used to really cause damage, I can navigate through them in a safe way.

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because you're not seeking that, would you say it was a seeking of external validation to reiterate that Jesper is worthy before that? 100%, yeah, constantly. Since I was a kid all the way through, it was a common theme that I had to be exceptional, but I really could never acknowledge why and what it was costing me. It's really tough when we live lives for decades.

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We bury them so deep that they become who we are. We lie to ourselves. It's so complex. You know, I just hate to have people lose what's most important to them to then finally realize, you know, what it is. And some people don't realize it. You know, a lot of men lose their marriages and then they just keep fighting, right? They're just angry and they attack their ex and their kids are lost in the middle and they're these empty shells of themselves afterwards. So it's not guaranteed when you lose everything that you'll heal.

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but I just don't want people to have to lose so much. I want them to start thinking earlier what this might be costing them. So communication, which is great that this is the topic, is not just outward, it's communicating with yourself. We lie to ourselves consistently. We wanna paint a prettier picture than is actually occurring. So as soon as we start to really communicate with ourselves what's actually happening, then we can start to move forward, I think.

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Which voices do you think were louder for you? Was it the outside voices or was it the voice in your head that was telling you this? There's definitely the voice in my head. My mind just never stopped. So I have some great things and some unhealthy things. I love to solve problems. My mind is a machine that can't wait to solve the next problem. But what's dangerous about that is you can create problems that aren't there. So we're going down some different paths.

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You know, so yes, I was constantly juggling all of these things. One was I need to be great and get positive affirmation to I love to solve problems. was super high paced. My anxiety was driving me to control the world. So for me, I was just wired in a way that proved incredibly successful for my work. Right. And that's what high achievers sometimes channel these things that are not healthy into creating wonderful things professionally.

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Unfortunately, it typically comes at a cost, whether it's the personal health or their relationships. It usually shows itself somewhere. And if you are so driven, do you find that at least from the feedback you receive from those closest to you, are you able to be a good listener or are you always achieving, trying to achieve the next thing and the next thing and working towards the next thing? So it almost seems like you don't have time to really listen.

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to what the people closest to you are saying when they are in front of you? That's such a great question. So my ex-wife and I tried for years. We went to therapy together as a couple. So these things were coming up. They were being communicated to me, but I was unable to hear them for whatever reason. Like I said, we bury things for so long. We lie to ourselves for so long. We're incapable of acknowledging these things.

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They're so difficult for some reason. So yes, that's a perfect example where people were trying to communicate things to me and I was unable to really accept it or understand it or do anything about it. So that was a blind spot that cost me a lot. So I think, yes, it's really hard sometimes to hear painful truths. I think that people face that a lot. Let's say, for example, that I meet somebody and you give them a compliment on whatever.

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You did so well here or oh, you're such a beautiful person. So many people say, oh, no, no, no, right? They can't really even acknowledge those things. That's an example. They call it being humble. Just yeah. Yeah. I think truly it's not though. In many cases, I'll stop and say, no, are you listening to me? You're an amazing parent. And then the no, no, no. I'm saying, no, listen, you're a wonderful parent. And almost every parent that you say that to, they get emotional because they just are.

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They put so much pressure on themselves. So I think it shows up a lot of different ways where we're trying to communicate, we think we're communicating, but certain areas are blocked. And that's just an example that I see. And that's actually truly the case, at least with the majority of the population. I can count on one hand people who truly, actively accept a compliment and say thank you. If some people, if they do accept the compliment, they'll compliment you right back.

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to downplay their compliment. Yeah. It's uncomfortable. mean, for me, I get it too. Like I have self-worth now. I know I've done a lot of work. So if somebody says you're very good at something, it's still little embarrassing. But to really just take a compliment and absorb it and be healthy with it. It's a rare thing. I always tell people try like focus on on appreciating you work so hard to be who you are.

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Right? Take a compliment because you deserve it. Take a compliment, pat yourself in the back when you meet that one goal. Take time to celebrate. Yes. There's a lot of things that people don't do when they've worked so hard on so many different things. Absolutely. Do you think there's a bit of a stigma when it comes to men and seeking help through therapy or counseling versus cause us women is just

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General, it's just normal even when you sit with friends, you're like, oh girl, yeah, spoke to my therapist last week. But is there still a stigma when it comes to men? Because when you were talking about how sometimes things would fall apart with them and they don't see their children and whatnot, are they still seeing therapy as something that's taboo? I think still we're making progress, but I definitely still think that, you know, there's this

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male role that we're supposed to fill the provider, we're supposed to be the strength for our families at all costs. In many cases, whether we put that on ourselves, our parents do society does, it's very common, you know, that that's kind of this expectation to be strong, to be firm, to take on anything. So to admit weakness is really, I think, difficult for many men. Weakness, they think is vulnerability. Vulnerability is, you know, dangerous. You don't want to be vulnerable.

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When I tell people it's the opposite, it's dangerous not to be vulnerable. It's dangerous not to address these things and heal these things because again, you see it constantly around you. So all I can do is lead by example. I don't hear a lot of highly successful business owners, you know, out there really talking about deep emotional things. So I'm proud to try to be, you know, somebody that does that. But I do see it a lot more. It's definitely much more common and people are much more comfortable in

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discussing getting help and therapy, but there's a long road to go for sure. I'm glad, yes, because I mean, we all at some point in our lives need to heal something within us. And as you've mentioned, it does affect our relationships, especially our personal relationships. Now, we spoke about success earlier. You talk about success and turning it into purpose. What do you mean by that? Yeah, I think that so many people in their lives

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traditionally start to get to my age and they start to think, you what's it all about, right? We don't often in our twenties think a lot about purpose. We're just building. We're just learning to be people and adults in this world. You know, we're reaching our goals. A lot of people, whether it's building families or businesses or traveling the world, whatever it is. So I think that we tend to get into, you know, an age where you start to think about more, like, you know, what is my purpose? For me, I felt very purpose.

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driven in my work, luckily, I loved it. I love this all prom, I love to connect with people, I love to motivate and inspire people. So I felt very purpose driven, but I also knew that as I got older, and maybe my work wasn't gonna feel as fulfilling, my kids are moving to college, I'm aging in a different way. So for me, I just think it's more about being in tune with who you are and what you want at different stages in life.

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Don't put off exploring what's important to you until you're later. know, everybody puts things off. Right? I'll get to that later. I'll get to that later. Right now I'm building, I'm at school, I'm building a business, I'm working, I'm working. And they don't have time to reflect. And especially with our phones and all these things that distract us, even more rare for us to just take space and reflect on, am I happy? Am I living a life I'm proud of? Am I making an impact on the people around me that's healthy? And if not,

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What can I do to change that? So I think it's just more time about reflecting and creating a path towards something you're proud of if you're not quite there yet. Another angle of reflecting again, reflecting on what you've achieved, reflecting on what it is, the purpose of why you do what you do. Is the reason we are not able to take time to reflect, is it because of the times we live in? Everything is rushed. There's too much going on. There's too much we need to do.

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What is it? Because in the 80s, it wasn't this way, obviously. Yeah, we're definitely bombarded with just constant things that are designed to absorb our attention. Right? Like everything is designed to keep us focused on something short term. so people are losing, I think, a comfort with discomfort. We want to be kind of constantly distracted. So if you take the people's phone away and you tell them to go sit

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in silence for a long period of time, a lot of people that's extremely uncomfortable. Because what comes into your mind during that silence? Some of it's beautiful and some of it's really painful, but it's all super valuable. I really try to inspire when someone asks, what's the one thing that you could do to kind of improve their life? I'm like, take more time away. Get uncomfortable. Go seek discomfort because in discomfort, you have breakthroughs, you have growth, you have enlightenment.

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And we're living in a world where technology is trying to make everything so comfortable, but it's leaving us feeling more hollow. So that's really my recommendation is to disconnect from it as much as you can and challenge yourself. Would it be okay to ask you when you're sitting alone, no phone, and you talk to yourself, what are some of the things you tell yourself in silence? I mean, what I tend to tell myself, it's really hard for me to be to slow down. Even though that I've got

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you know, the professional success and the stability financially that I really needed and wanted. I grew up from a lot of instability financially, right? This was my goal. So I have it now, but I don't feel at peace. I'm still like constantly in go what's next. So for me, when I'm in quietness, it's about really appreciating this moment that I'm in in my life. I used to worry about either what was going to happen or what I've lost, right? Living in the past, worrying about the future.

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So I really try to focus on how am I now? What should I be thankful of at this moment? Because I'm thankful of a lot of things. And what can I do next to improve my life or those around me? So for me, those are the questions that I ask myself, but I challenge myself more than I ask. I challenge myself to be at peace, which is very difficult. Yes, but it's definitely worth working on. Any last words of wisdom? Is there anything you wanted to share with us today that you think?

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our listeners will really benefit from. I want to inspire people to share deeper things, things that they hide. So if you are carrying something, what I say is the moment that I spoke out loud for the first time that I had lack of self-worth and anxiety is I had hid that. I carried it. It was weight. It was pressure. It was stress. The moment you speak it out loud to somebody, you start to heal. The pressure starts to relieve. Just in that one moment of saying the words.

29:07
So I tell people that have been holding these things so close to themselves, judging themselves, carrying shame over it, find a safe person to share it with, because we're all going through it. You're not alone. So as soon as you share it, once you vocalize it, there's so much power in moving forward and starting to heal. And in that discomfort, when you were sharing that, did you realize that

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before you had the sphere and you thought, if I ever say this out loud, oh my goodness, the world is gonna end. And when you did, actually it didn't. Yeah, it was a huge relief. It's a physical relief. Because I spoke up in front of my business. I had never really been vulnerable. So I stood in front of my entire company that I had built and I had been perfect in front of and I told them my marriage is ending and that I'm going through this thing. And all of a sudden I was human.

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And it gave them the freedom to be human and to be vulnerable and not to be perfect. I believe that if I wouldn't have done that, we would have seen a lot of challenges in the business because nobody can be perfect. That's impossible. And I was projecting this perfection. So yeah, I'm very proud that I was able to stand up and say that it was not easy. It was the most difficult thing I've done, but it just took so much pressure off because you're sharing it amongst people and you know, you're doing good by helping people.

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open up themselves. Because when you open up, you inspire others. That's the biggest gift in it all. That's right. In almost five years of doing the show, we always remind leaders, no one expects you to be perfect. Yes, you lead people, but remember, you are still human. And sometimes them seeing the human side of you gives them permission to

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open up and it's all been proven that they're actually more productive when there's that type of work environment. Absolutely. Well, thank you very much for sharing your very powerful story today and being vulnerable enough to share it with us and our listeners. We appreciate you Jasper. Thank you. I'm happy to anytime. Of course. Before you go, would you like to share your website or online social media handle? Yeah.

31:22
Yeah, so I'm working on a book and more support systems for the world around me, you know, that I'll be releasing in the coming months and years. So the easiest way is just to search my name, Jasper Calcarra. That's my website, Jaspercalcarra.com and all my socials are linked there, or if you search my name. So yeah, if this has inspired any questions, you know, or any topics that the people, your audience wants to explore, I'm always happy to explore those things. And I loved our conversation.

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And I absolutely loved it too. Thank you very much. I'm sure it will inspire some questions because there's so much that you shared that's very relatable. So thank you very much for being here today. Jaspercalcara.com is where you can reach our guests and thank you for listening. Don't forget to subscribe, liberating and a review on Apple and Spotify and stay tuned for more episodes to come.