Practicing Sincerity - Say What You Mean

Ever left a conversation wishing you’d said what you really meant? 

This week, we’ll show you a simple practice to help you notice - and close - the gap between your true thoughts and your spoken words, so you can build trust through greater sincerity.

In this episode of Practicing Connection, Jessica and Coral dive into one of the four key distinctions of trust: sincerity. Inspired by their recent conversation with trust experts Charles Feltman and Ila Edgar, Coral introduces a reflective practice called “What I Thought vs. What I Said.” 

This simple, powerful exercise helps you become more aware of the differences between your internal experience and your external communication.

You’ll learn step-by-step how to use this practice after any conversation to uncover where you might be holding back, why that happens, and how you can bring more of your authentic self to your next interaction. 

Whether you tend to avoid conflict, people-please, or just want to strengthen your relationships, this episode offers practical guidance for building trust - one sincere conversation at a time.

Links and resources from this episode:

The Thin Book of Trust (Third edition), by Charles Feltman

Transcript

JESSICA BECKENDORF: [00:00:00] Hello. Thanks for listening to the Practicing Connection Podcast. I'm Jessica and my co-host Coral is here as well. Today we're going to be talking about practicing sincerity, and Coral's going to be sharing a practice with us. Hey Coral, how are you?

CORAL OWEN: Hey, Jessica. I'm good. I've been really enjoying preparing for this month's practical series based on our incredible conversation with Charles and Ila.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, I was so inspired by that conversation, and I was so thrilled that they were willing to have the conversation with us. I haven't facilitated one of my trust workshops - you know, one of the reasons I thought to reach out to Charles is that I have been teaching off of his material for quite a long time, and I haven't facilitated one of them for a while. So it's been really fun to dig back into the content again.

CORAL OWEN: I'll bet and yeah, you were the one who introduced this whole framework to me, and so, you know, I'm just so thrilled to dig into [00:01:00] something newer to me and that fresh perspective on such fundamental practices. We're gonna go into a little bit deeper dive in each of the practicasts this month.

It's been really thought provoking and I'm just so glad that we get to share more with everyone over the next few weeks.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. I think that a lot of times when I read books that are, you know, these books that are supposed to help us have better relationships at work or whatever, they're filled with great content.

I have never found a book that's as, and I am not trying to push this book at all, but I have never found a book that's as actionable as this one. It's really inspiring stuff.

So speaking of tangible practices, let's learn more about practicing sincerity and saying what you mean. 

Coral, can you tell us a little bit more about the practice that you'll be sharing and why you chose it?

CORAL OWEN: Yes, definitely. So just to recap, sincerity is one of the four key distinctions of trust that we touched on in our conversation with Charles and Ila. And it's how [00:02:00] closely our words match our true thoughts, feelings, and intentions.

And the practice I'm sharing today is a simple check-in with a very simple name. We'll just reference it as, “What I thought versus what I said,” and this can help raise our awareness of any gaps between what we've said and what we were actually thinking or feeling at that time. 

This practice does come from The Thin Book of Trust, and it helps us slow down and bring intention to what we say or have clarity around what was said, and that way we can begin to align our communication with what's true for us in a way that still respects the other person that we're talking with.

I like this practice because it helps us connect with our own trust tendencies as well. For instance, if you tend to avoid conflict or lean into people pleasing, perhaps being direct in your communication, it might feel kind of challenging. However, this practice can encourage us to take small steps and adjusting how we communicate and react in situations that may take us out of alignment and ultimately helps us shift how we show up in relationships for the better.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: [00:03:00] Yeah, I love that. I love that angle of thinking about how our own trust tendencies and you know, that if we tend to avoid trust or lean into people pleasing, like understanding what that is. And one thing that I'm often telling people too, or hopefully I'm teaching them and not just telling them, is that also knowing our tendencies for, “Do we tend to trust first until it's been broken, or do we tend to make people earn our trust?”

Because if we do that and we don't communicate about it, and we don't learn to communicate about that or learn to kind of be in touch with their own trust tendencies, then it can be much harder down the road as we're trying to build trust with people.

CORAL OWEN: That's a really, really great point, Jess.

- break -

JESSICA BECKENDORF: All right, well let's get started. Please walk us through this practice, Coral.

CORAL OWEN: Absolutely, will do. So [00:04:00] as we noted, this is a reflective practice. So something you can do after a conversation or an interaction just to build your awareness around sincerity. And you can do it, you know, if you prefer to journal or kind of moving meditation, walking, reflection, or just in your head, it's totally up to you.

But we're gonna roll through four steps of how to think through and reflect through this process. So step one, simply recall a conversation. Think about a conversation where you perhaps held back, felt unclear or wishing, walking away, wishing you'd said something a little bit different. Choose a moment that ideally is a little bit more recent so that it's still pretty fresh in your memory.

And then step two, we're gonna ask ourselves two questions. So the first one is, “What was I actually thinking or feeling at the time?” And then secondly, “What did I actually say?” 

And if you're someone that likes to write these things out, you might divide this as two columns. The left side perhaps is what I thought or felt, and then what I said and you know, maybe just a [00:05:00] hypothetical example, what you thought or felt might be, this situation doesn't really sit right with me, but it may have come out of your mouth as, “Yeah, okay. That sounds good. I'll go with the flow.” 

And clearly, you know, there's a gap that we may become aware of. And that leads us into step three, which is reflecting on any gaps. And so we can walk through a couple of reflection points. You know, was there a difference between what you thought and what you said?

And then let's dig a little bit deeper. What's perhaps stopping you from speaking more honestly in that scenario? Is it perhaps a fear of conflict or not being ready, or not knowing how to respond. 

And then furthermore, digging a little bit deeper, what impact did that gap have on you? On the relationship? On the conversation, perhaps the dynamic in the room. And then finally, this is more of our [00:06:00] prospective look from there, considering what you might try next time. So if there was a noticeable gap between what you said and what you were feeling or thinking at the time, could you bring a little bit more truth into a similar situation going forward?

This is really one of the biggest things that hit home with me is what is one sentence. How could you have worded it differently, that could feel more sincere and still be respectful? So practicing that language ahead of time and even visioning yourself, going through a little head movie of replaying that conversation and then practicing in your head.

Or you could even do this with a colleague or a friend, practicing how you would respond going forward in the future. And that's it. It's very plain and simple.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Well, I'm just gonna call out an example that you actually wrote out in our notes that you didn't use, because when I think about a scenario like this, sometimes it's something like maybe there's a [00:07:00] power differential that kept you from speaking more.

Honestly, and I love this example, you put in the notes that next time you might say, “I'm not sure I agree, but I'd like to understand more before I respond.” You might even cut out the, “I'm not sure I agree part,” and just say, “I'd like to understand more before I respond,” right. So, depending on the person and the relationship.

So I don't mean to call out something you put in the notes that you decided not to say, but I thought it was a really great example.

CORAL OWEN: Thank you. And that's actually one that I've practiced using in the past, and it can be really helpful. But yeah, this is such a great practice for just getting clear on where we're starting from and then figuring out, we don't have to make big sweeping changes overnight or even in the span of a month or two.

But you know, just figuring out how to turn that dial ever so slightly more in the direction that we're hoping to step that will bring us closer into alignment is, it's a great place to start.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. Awesome. Well, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for joining us. If [00:08:00] you enjoyed this episode, click the share button in your podcast app to share it with a friend, or drop us a line at practicingconnection@oneop.org.

We'll be back next week with a practice for reliability. Until then, keep practicing.

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U. S. Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, U. S. Department of Defense, under award number 2023-48770-41333.