From A People Perspective

Marty (00:02)
Okay, breaking news. In this, the next three minutes of this podcast, which you should definitely not skip, there's a point where I say 10 % off. That's not true. It's actually 20 % off. Our partner, SwagUp, has got an incredible deal for you if you place an order before December this year. So don't skip the next three minutes. It's important if you're placing order for swag and you've not used SwagUp before. They're incredible. You should do it. This is a great deal. If you've used SwagUp before,

You already know it's awesome. You've already placed order for swag. Not great because you could have saved 20 % and otherwise. Yeah, skip ahead and enjoy the show.

Marty (00:47)
Hey, my name is Martin Hawk and you're listening to From a People Perspective. It's a podcast for HR recruitment and operations professionals. If you're looking for a little bit more, you can check out the community at the people, peoplegroup .com. If you're a business owner or if you're HR person or a recruiter and you need a little bit of extra support, we've also got a fractional consultancy called Purple Umbrella. You can check us out at purpleumbrella .co.

Marty (01:12)
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Martin Hauck (02:26)
Like how long is this gonna be? I don't I don't want to be here for very long

Michaud Garneau (02:30)
Not that I don't want to be. I'm like, how much do need to milk? Milk my milk, the interesting things that I have to say. I'm like, I've got.

Martin Hauck (02:41)
I did I once did a three-hour podcast with someone I think that's a bit steep Unless you've got three hours worth of stuff to talk about I do have to pick up my daughter

two hours. So we got two hours if we want.

Michaud Garneau (02:58)
At two hours, okay. Great, great. Lots of time. Did you already do your spa day or is that tomorrow? then next?

Martin Hauck (03:07)
Spa day is tomorrow.

Michaud Garneau (03:11)
Okay. I was, I was inspired by your spa day and did a spa day on a weekend. This, this past weekend, I was on a, on a climbing trip with a bunch of people and

Martin Hauck (03:25)
You just did a spa day while you were climbing.

Michaud Garneau (03:28)
We did, back at the Airbnb, we did a little spa day. I have got a portable wood-fired sauna that fits like six people. It's like a, like a ice fishing tent kind of, but that fits a wood stove. And it's the best thing. It's the best thing. And so we had that, we had that set up.

Martin Hauck (03:32)
Now tell me about this.

No.

Okay.

portable smaller.

Okay.

Michaud Garneau (03:58)
and made some homemade like rubs and scrubs for exfoliators, got face masks and chilled cucumbers. And yeah, had a real DIY spa evening inspired by you.

Martin Hauck (04:16)
And that was was inspired by legitimately just me saying like, hey, we got to move the podcast because Friday my daughter's having a spa day at home because school school wants to be closed.

Michaud Garneau (04:28)
Yeah. And I was like, well, spa day at home. Great idea.

Martin Hauck (04:32)
Here we are.

Michaud Garneau (04:33)
Here we are. Do I look fresh?

Martin Hauck (04:35)
What was the best part?

Yeah. I feel like your hat is different. You have a different colored hat.

Michaud Garneau (04:41)
Yeah. You don't.

From, from what color? Hey, you know what? I got this hat. I got this hat from Disrupt HR.

Martin Hauck (04:48)
As a result of the spa day, probably.

No way.

Michaud Garneau (04:55)
Yeah. It's a good hat. It's like the best swag hat I've ever gotten.

Martin Hauck (05:00)
You're wearing it. Kudos. Kudos, Disrupt.

Michaud Garneau (05:03)
Way to

Martin Hauck (05:07)
disrupted Michaud's hat game for a little bit.

Michaud Garneau (05:10)
Yeah, yeah, now I'm on mustard yellow. Often I rock pink.

Martin Hauck (05:14)
Hahaha

Yeah, which is a good segue into what you've been doing a little bit lately. And we're going to bounce around a little bit today here, because we've done so many really structured podcasts as of late. It's just nice to kind of fly a little bit looser with Micho. So Micho, why don't you introduce yourself?

Michaud Garneau (05:39)
I feel like a little bit looser with me show could be the name of my own podcast.

Martin Hauck (05:44)
That's fair. Okay.

Michaud Garneau (05:49)
You

Martin Hauck (05:55)
I mean, yeah, there you go. Another inspirational moment. You're welcome.

Michaud Garneau (05:59)
Yeah, that's great. You're just giving me gifts left, right and center. First the spa, now the podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Me, introduce myself. My name is Micho Garnot. I'm the founder of Weird is Normal. Weird is Normal started off as a leadership development company and is now shifting into doing more

public speaking, presentation skills, sort of like embracing you and letting the world see who you are so that people listen to what you have to say.

Martin Hauck (06:41)
I find this a very fascinating topic. I did a podcast in Toronto, the video podcast with, my days, Mark Bowden.

Michaud Garneau (06:52)
yeah, yeah, yeah, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

Martin Hauck (06:56)
Truth plane.

They do not. Yeah, I can't. I have to do this. I have to just talk with my hands in front of my face. Yes. Yes. I love it. I love it. This is exactly what what we needed in terms of an unstructured podcast. This is a good podcast for like a Friday afternoon. Or maybe whatever day people want to listen to it.

Michaud Garneau (07:07)
We talk about T-Rex arms as a wave. Yeah.

Mm-hmm, or a Thursday. either.

Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (07:33)
That's what you're doing right now. And I am remembering when you and I connected for the first time. You sent me an interesting LinkedIn message. And I almost want to find it. then you get both.

Michaud Garneau (07:47)
wow, I would be... I would love if you... No, no, no, no, not cringe.

Martin Hauck (07:51)
And we do that or is that like just make you cringe, cringe, cringe? Cause it's, we, we talk as though we know each other quite well. And I think we do, but it's not like we're besties from like a hundred years ago.

Michaud Garneau (08:06)
No.

No, I think that was when you were at CoinSquare.

Martin Hauck (08:09)
I just sent you a link so 2019 and you say hey I met your colleague at disrupt HR Full circle And then we send some gifts back and forth and and then we grabbed coffee I think and I was just so intrigued by weird as normal cuz that that's that's what you were running with at that time as well cuz you had

Michaud Garneau (08:15)
You sent me a li-

Martin Hauck (08:40)
Another thing, Calmswell as well.

Michaud Garneau (08:43)
Calmswell was a brief.

blip in the, I guess maybe we tried to get that up and running for like six or seven months or something. It was not successful.

Martin Hauck (09:05)
as many things are when you're an entrepreneur.

Michaud Garneau (09:07)
Yeah, it didn't really get to the launch phase. got to the probably going to launch phase. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (09:14)
going to launch phase. Let's go back further because you've got some really interesting stories. What's your first real job?

Michaud Garneau (09:17)
Okay.

Lord, what does real mean?

Martin Hauck (09:29)
We're going to get to this two hour mark, trust me.

Michaud Garneau (09:31)
You

Real like like like declared on my taxes

Martin Hauck (09:42)
No.

Michaud Garneau (09:44)
You

Martin Hauck (09:47)
If you don't want to talk about this, then that's fine.

Michaud Garneau (09:53)
I guess my probably the first, for sure this would have been the first things where I was making money. Making balloon animals.

Martin Hauck (10:05)
Really interesting.

Michaud Garneau (10:06)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, my brother worked at a magic store. And yeah, older brother. So yeah, he was probably like 16, which would have put me around 12. And cool job, cool job.

Martin Hauck (10:12)
What?

Okay.

What a cool job, just in general. My brother works at a magic store. Ultimately, like, social status is just skyrocketing.

Michaud Garneau (10:27)
party magics.

You are so cool.

Martin Hauck (10:35)
I thought in my book... Yes!

Michaud Garneau (10:37)
Really? Well, I thought, I sort of felt like it goes a bit into the nerd category, which maybe now there's more, more clout.

Martin Hauck (10:46)
Yeah.

Magic's respected, because if you can do a magic trick, that's not nerdy.

Michaud Garneau (10:58)
Isn't it?

Martin Hauck (10:59)
hahahahah

Michaud Garneau (11:01)
You

Martin Hauck (11:04)
So many magicians feel attacked right now. It's just like.

Michaud Garneau (11:08)
Yeah, I mean, it's just I mean, it is is nerdy because of the amount the amount of practice that is required to be able to execute on on a trick well. Is it endless like Andre, Andre, my brother and I would would sit in the basement and watch these VHS tapes of.

how to do like close up, like card or coin magic. And you're just practicing flipping a card over for three hours. And you're trying to make it as like slick as possible and as natural, which is funny, like to spend three hours really trying to make something look natural.

so contrived and then...

Martin Hauck (12:09)
It's not, it's the opposite of natural, because it would never happen that way normally. Weird as normal. There we go.

Michaud Garneau (12:13)
Yeah.

Weird is weird is normal. Weird is normal. That'll be our that'll be our beat. I am. Yeah, yeah. Ten cents. Ten cents per mention. Each each one's an individual. Each transfer too.

Martin Hauck (12:21)
You're paying me to say this.

Can you e-transfer me that? That ten cents?

But, you know.

If you... There's no reason not to at this point, apart from like you have better things to do.

Michaud Garneau (12:47)
Yeah. Yeah, but now that might be the best thing that I could do is just knowing that you'll get all of these. Do you have direct deposit set up?

Martin Hauck (12:57)
No, I have to approve it.

Michaud Garneau (13:00)
yeah, even better then.

Martin Hauck (13:01)
fuck.

That would be like, hey, we did this podcast episode. I can see it now. I could just have like a screenshot of all the like e-transfer notifications from you. $1.60 because it's like a buck 50 to send an e-transfer now anyways. So who's paying for that? Are you paying for the $1.50?

Michaud Garneau (13:25)
I'd be paying a dollar fifty for every ten cents I send you.

Martin Hauck (13:27)
So it's not actually ten cents, it's a buck sixty.

Michaud Garneau (13:32)
It's it's bucks 60 out of me you're still you're still benefiting the 10 cents Yeah, but it cost me a dollar 60 per mention. Yeah

Martin Hauck (13:40)
Weird is normal, weird is normal, weird is normal.

Michaud Garneau (13:47)
End of the podcast. Weird as Normal has officially declared bankruptcy today.

Martin Hauck (13:51)
So magic shop you can you are you good at magic?

Michaud Garneau (13:56)
yes.

I'd say a mid, I'd say what I'm good at is the performing side and the like, I'm gonna misdirect you and tell a big story about the things that's happening, which is definitely part of it. And then card tricks, I can do card tricks that blow people's minds. but in so far as like,

Martin Hauck (14:24)
That's cool.

Michaud Garneau (14:27)
Having seen people who are like really, really good, I am not that. I can just get people to not look at my hands while I do magic.

Martin Hauck (14:37)
You're humble, but you're good.

Michaud Garneau (14:40)
I'm distracting, I think, maybe is what I am.

Martin Hauck (14:44)
It's the yellow hat. It's the mustard yellow hat.

Michaud Garneau (14:47)
draw the eyes up here then my hands can do anything. Yeah, just like doing tricks. No, but the thing that I was good at, so yeah, Andre was the magician, but then we'd get these corporate gigs to go and be like entertainment, but they would need a balloon artist.

Martin Hauck (14:49)
Anything they want,

Hmm.

You're a corporate balloon artist under 16?

Michaud Garneau (15:11)
Yo, yeah.

Martin Hauck (15:14)
Okay, tell me more.

Michaud Garneau (15:15)
Yeah. Well, so, so Andre and his boss would get these gigs to go and do magic shows, but they needed a balloon artist. And so one day Andre came home with like a bag of balloons, a pump and a book and said, if you can, if you can learn how to do these things, then you can start coming with us to these shows, these performances. I guess you would call them.

And so then I got to practicing and practiced a lot, which...

some people might say I'm a little bit obsessive. And then got to the point where I could make them and then started going and doing these, these like corporate parties where they would, they would have this magic show and I'd sort of warm people up as they come in and like be making balloon animals for them and their kids. And did a few of those. And I remember we did an event at Ontario Place one time and.

Martin Hauck (16:24)
That's a big deal.

Michaud Garneau (16:25)
That was a big deal. Yeah, I thought that was a huge, that was the biggest deal for me. And yeah, yeah, I actually ended up doing balloon animals for income. One of many, I've had quite a few jobs, but stuck with doing balloon animals for income through till I was like 20 or so. It was like a street busker.

Yeah.

Martin Hauck (16:57)
That is so what do you avoid it all costs now or is it.

Michaud Garneau (17:04)
No, I'd love to do it. No, if you give me a balloon, yeah, I can make like, I can make like a bear juggling five balls riding a unicycle out of one balloon.

Martin Hauck (17:16)
That's it. So how did you learn how to make these?

Michaud Garneau (17:21)
Well, there was this book that my brother gave me. Yeah. It wasn't pre-internet. Couldn't have been pre-internet, but definitely pre-like anything you could ever need to know was on the internet times. And...

Martin Hauck (17:24)
Yeah.

see that there's a book for that. I guess, right? They had to do, so the internet was books before it was the internet, basically.

Michaud Garneau (17:47)
Exactly. Yeah. I learned from books and then...

Martin Hauck (17:56)
Learn from the greats.

Michaud Garneau (17:57)
Yeah, and then sometimes, you know, you're out at a festival and you see these people making these things and it's like, hey, how do you do that? And learn some of that from them. And then as I was older, like I helped some this guy, Sean Rooney, who makes these really elaborate, massive balloon sculptures, helped him make a big installation that went up on the Drake Hotel for Nuit Blanche.

one year, million years ago, and learned through him how to make sort of multi-balloon structures. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (18:38)
wonder if that was the Nuit Blanche where I ate half a chocolate edible bar. That was the worst. That was the worst Nuit Blanche ever.

Michaud Garneau (18:47)
Yeah, that sounds overwhelming.

Yeah, Nui Green, more like it. What'd you end up doing?

Martin Hauck (18:53)
Yeah, yeah, not a good time.

Crying. Yeah, no, it was bad. It was rough. Just didn't feel well. Went home, woke up at like three in the morning, tried to calm myself down, and then watched some show on Netflix. And it was just like one of those.

Michaud Garneau (18:59)
Really?

Martin Hauck (19:20)
one of those shows where they're like really big on food. I forget the name of it. The masterclass, not the top chef Canada shows, but the one where they like glamorize the making of food. And it was, it was one where they were just talking to this person who was a butcher. And it was just like all this, just they were in this like butcher shop. And I was just like, I cannot.

Michaud Garneau (19:39)
Okay.

Martin Hauck (19:49)
deal with any of this right now. My brain is just thinking about all these things. was, was, yeah. So I wonder if I had walked by your like balloon sculpture on the Drake hotel. Cause I know that was like, that was a general area.

Michaud Garneau (19:57)
It

Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (20:09)
wonder if the balloons brought me peace for a slight moment

Michaud Garneau (20:12)
I don't know, they were quite scary. It was like a big giant sort of scary looking clown thing with these large hands protruding from the building. I don't think it would have been, yeah, no. No, it strikes me that that maybe would have given you, that would have exacerbated the issues that you were having.

Martin Hauck (20:23)
That would not have been a good time. No. Kicked it off.

Yeah, 100%.

Michaud Garneau (20:34)
Yeah.

Martin Hauck (20:36)
So you go from balloons, doing that from like 12 to 20.

Michaud Garneau (20:45)
Yeah, I mean, I did other things in there.

Martin Hauck (20:48)
No, of course.

That's a very interesting first gig. And then to my recollection, which is extremely poor, you go from balloons to the circus.

Michaud Garneau (21:10)
in a way.

Martin Hauck (21:14)
So help me patch that together properly.

Michaud Garneau (21:19)
I would say like circus adjacent.

Martin Hauck (21:24)
Hahaha

Michaud Garneau (21:27)
Like, like I was never good enough to be in the circus. Like one of the most embarrassing things that ever happened to me was thinking that I was good enough to be in the circus and driving to Quebec city to go and audition for the Quebec circus school. And realizing upon arrival, just how good everybody that was there was and how.

I was. And I had to go through eight hours of

doing these like, they want you to do physical tests and dance tests and get on the trampoline. I grew up with a trampoline, but I also grew up in a small town where nobody was good at anything. And so because I could do a backflip, I thought I was like the best trampolinist in the world.

Martin Hauck (22:26)
So you can do balloons and backflips on the trampoline.

Michaud Garneau (22:29)
Yeah, I could walk on a tightrope, could spin fire, I could like, I could like do things.

Martin Hauck (22:36)
coolest kid in town, again, and you're gonna disagree with me.

Michaud Garneau (22:40)
No, I had some swag. Yeah, yeah, I was the coolest kid in town, but in a small town where like nobody really did anything. And so I had this idea that I was way better at things than. Then I actually was.

Martin Hauck (23:05)
How'd that, so you're at this Quebec school of circusry? Not at you.

Michaud Garneau (23:11)
Yeah, I called it the silk came back or something, you know

Martin Hauck (23:14)
Okay. And that is terrible because you're just surrounded by professionals, people that are

Michaud Garneau (23:24)
Yeah, I go in thinking I'm amazing because my whole life, everyone's told me I'm amazing because I've never competed against anyone who's actually good at anything. And I get there, we're supposed to have a performance ready. And I'm like, whatever. I'll like play part of a song and like spin some, spin these fire poi around. Whenever I do that in Georgetown, everyone thinks I'm awesome. These people are also going to think I'm awesome.

Martin Hauck (23:27)
yeah.

Michaud Garneau (23:54)
and I get there and I just see all these people who are like the fittest people you've ever seen in your life and they're doing, know, like Olympic level tricks on the trampolines and I'm like, no, what have I done? And.

I go into some of the tests, like dancing one, and I'm like, man, these people are so good. I couldn't do anything. And it all felt pretty terrible, but nothing quite as terrible as when it got around to the point where I was going to have to do this show, this presentation. And I watched a couple people before me. And from the very first minute of that first person,

Martin Hauck (24:38)
Hmm.

Michaud Garneau (24:51)
frig, the first second, I was like, this is going to go so terribly for me. Because they had full story arcs, costumes, props, were good. And talent, they had talent. I had hubris. And

Martin Hauck (25:05)
Hmm.

Alan

Michaud Garneau (25:23)
I just remember looking for an exit and hoping I could slink away, but was like, no, Misho, you have to follow through on this thing. And like, I didn't even have a song picked out.

Martin Hauck (25:38)
Is is that the hubris talking or is that like a weird perseverance like you know like which voice is that?

Michaud Garneau (25:47)
I'm like, Omisho, go and try the hard thing. Don't do the work to be actually good at the hard thing. Just throw yourself under the bus. It's awful.

And so they call my name and I'm like.

have to do it now. And I go on stage and all I have, so obviously you can't, do you know what fire poi are? It's like fireballs on chains that you like spin around. And so I had those, but like you can't set them on fire inside.

Martin Hauck (26:28)
Okay, I am.

know.

Michaud Garneau (26:36)
That's what they said. so then effectively all I had was like charred balls on a chain.

to spin around to no music. And I hadn't prepared at all.

Martin Hauck (26:51)
No music.

Yeah

Michaud Garneau (26:57)
And I wasn't very good. And at the last minute, I just threw on a Daft Punk song from their 2007 Alive album. And...

bun fire poi around until I couldn't bear to do it anymore. And then stopped and walked over and stopped the music from playing.

Martin Hauck (27:22)
god.

Michaud Garneau (27:32)
and then walked out of the building.

Martin Hauck (27:35)
just just use like I'm gonna leave now I'm not wakening for the report card I'm not waiting for the assessments why did you just leave

Michaud Garneau (27:38)
I couldn't look anybody in the eye!

Martin Hauck (27:51)
That's fair, that's fair, my God. Did anyone stop you?

Michaud Garneau (27:55)
No, no, definitely not.

Martin Hauck (27:57)
They're like, so they just like, okay, that's wild. That's wild. So, okay, that's a hard day.

Michaud Garneau (28:02)
Yeah, yeah, definitely.

It was a really hard day. Also, I shit my pants driving there to get to the audition, like literally, which just thinking about how the journey started really set the tone for how it was going to end.

Martin Hauck (28:22)
Okay.

The optimist in me is like, well, it can't get worse than this. It's all uphill from here.

Michaud Garneau (28:40)
you

Yeah, yeah, got worse. Yeah, it was, I mean, so that was like a real low point for me. It was at that point actually, it was the first point I realized that there are people in the world who are good at things and that they try really hard to be good at them. And that if I wanted to be good at anything that I would have to also try really hard.

Martin Hauck (29:14)
Did you learn that lesson in that moment and it just became clear from then on or was it more of like a slow burn of a realization that like over time you kind of keep going back to that moment and then like you're just, it becomes almost motivation for you to, if you are going to do something, you better do it damn well kind of deal.

Michaud Garneau (29:41)
This, from that moment on, like it crystallized, yeah. Switch, switch. I was like, from now on, I'm a person who tries harder than, who tries harder than, or at least as hard as the people who are good at things. And I will not think that I'm good at something unless I've like really worked really hard and put myself up against people who are also good at things.

Martin Hauck (29:44)
It was... It's a switch.

which is why potentially you were so humble about the magic tricks and the balloons. Cause from my vantage point, you're an incredible balloon artist, I would imagine, because I can't make, I can't make anything apart from like a link of sausages.

Michaud Garneau (30:26)
That's pretty good if they stay like that. They have a tendency to come from the opposite. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (30:29)
You know what? can't even do that. cause it's just untangle. Good, good, good call. Classic call out from a Bloom expert. Classic.

Michaud Garneau (30:46)
Classic.

Martin Hauck (30:48)
And, so you've that crystallizes in that moment. And do you know what you're so how does adjacent happen? How does circus adjacent become.

Michaud Garneau (31:01)
Right, right. That was how circus property didn't happen.

Martin Hauck (31:03)
It's like, you know what, I'm never going back to the circus, but this is where I want to be to a degree in some form of entertainment and performance.

Michaud Garneau (31:13)
Yeah, it was interesting. It was like a full shift for me where my whole life up until that point, the things that I did came fairly easy to me or like, you know, I was like smart and so I got smart. don't know. I did well in school without ever having to try and got a lot of praise for things without having ever. Truly, truly after having never applied myself to anything.

Martin Hauck (31:40)
Hmm.

Michaud Garneau (31:40)
And after that experience, was like, it was such a wake up call where I was like, I need to try. And I went to go and do this thing and I couldn't do it. I failed. I want to keep trying. And so I enrolled, open enrollment at the Toronto Circus School. And...

Martin Hauck (32:08)
Go back!

Michaud Garneau (32:10)
So this is something that's a character either benefit or flaw, is I can't let myself stop doing a thing until I decide that I'm good enough at it to be able to freely decide to not.

Martin Hauck (32:29)
resilience. That's you say if I'd be interested. No, I won't go down that path. But that so you go back after that experience. this like three months, six months, 12 months, a year, five years?

Michaud Garneau (32:32)
And...

no, almost immediately. It's like, I get back to home, which was Georgetown at the time. And I was like, I need to get better at this thing. What's available? I can't get into the things where I need to apply. Yeah, yeah. And so...

Martin Hauck (32:55)
That's cool.

what all the TikToks in my entrepreneurial stream talk about.

Michaud Garneau (33:06)
Just keep going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (33:08)
keep going, getting back, know, consistency, not giving up. unironically, ironically, don't know, but like in a serious way, like, that's the thing is persistence, keeping like, you're being extremely vulnerable. Thank you. I appreciate it. But like, I've always had an itch myself to just build something and

you know, terms of like the things that are the most successful of the things I've built. It's like there's the people people group, which is, know, from a community perspective, that's something I can look back and be like proud of and impressed of. But then there's like 16 other things that I tried that were complete failures. And I just kept going back. And that part fascinates me. It's just like you do have to keep if you give up, you're obviously not going to get better.

Michaud Garneau (33:51)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (34:03)
at the thing you have like this innate desire to do. So right away though, that's the part that's interesting is right away, there's no give up. Like there's no like morning period, I suppose, or just like, woe is me.

Michaud Garneau (34:17)
No, think it just became really clear to me in that moment that I had never fucking tried at anything. And I was like, this is what I need. This is like the wake up call. Like if I want to be the type of person I want to be in the world, I have to...

work hard at things and try things and do things where I don't succeed and then keep doing them until I do. And like that is the type of person that I want to be in the world. yeah, something about that experience and just how awful it was really, yeah, really crystallized that for me.

in a yeah, in what feels like a really discreet way. Like, this thing happened, here's this change.

Martin Hauck (35:24)
Yeah, it's... You mentioned earlier that people were always telling you that we're giving you praise.

Michaud Garneau (35:34)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (35:36)
So that's happening before you go through the Quebec experience. And so you've got this confidence in yourself.

Would you wish that people gave you less praise in retrospect?

Michaud Garneau (35:58)
I think I wish that the

that I got was aligned with the effort that I put in instead of

What felt like being praised for being good at things without trying?

Martin Hauck (36:22)
Hmm. So like the balance of criticism or a balance of like, Hey, that's pretty good for where you're at right now. But by the way, there's versus like this, sugar coating it, so to speak of like, my gosh. Wow. Best ever to like, admittedly, I that happens with me and my daughter.

Michaud Garneau (36:44)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (36:52)
every once in a while where I'll be like, she'll draw a picture. And like, nothing makes her feel more happy from what I can tell. It is just like the praise that she gets for like a good drawing. It's a kid's drawing. And I'm biased as a parent. But

Michaud Garneau (37:06)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (37:14)
So there's the question I got from myself based on this conversation is like, am I setting her up for a tough path forward or a wake up call one day that I'm actually not helping her realize.

Michaud Garneau (37:28)
Yeah, I think it's like a really tricky balance between celebrating people for effort and what they do and that they're doing things and putting it out and building that sense of confidence while at the same time helping them know that like,

Yes, it's good for where you're at right now. And if you have that lens of where you're at right now and someone who, you know, I think I was quite good at doing whatever, like slacklining and spinning fire and whatever for somebody who didn't dedicate their whole life to it. But people in the circus dedicate their whole lives to being good at those things.

Martin Hauck (38:01)
Hmm.

Mm.

Yeah, like somebody's always practicing harder.

Michaud Garneau (38:25)
And so then when, yeah, and to know, I think, where you sit in the context of other people and their dedication levels and their natural talents, I think is important because we tend to use this binary of like, you're good at that. But good is such, is so relative.

Martin Hauck (38:49)
Yeah.

Michaud Garneau (38:53)
And I think it can be really painful to think that you're, you know, to be told that you're really good at something and then meet people who are legitimately actually really good at it. And be like, shit, turns out I suck.

Martin Hauck (39:06)
Yeah.

I'm a hobbyist?

Michaud Garneau (39:14)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Martin Hauck (39:17)
How would you fill in the gap between?

Toronto Circus School and...

it making sense to message folks like me and introducing yourself as me show and I've got this company called weird as normal, weird as normal, weird as normal.

You

Michaud Garneau (39:42)
Friggin' nice latte that just cost me.

Martin Hauck (39:44)
Yeah, I had a decaf coffee, a small decaf coffee in Yorkville yesterday. Yeah, ask me did apparently inflation hit Yorkville to guess how much. Okay, well, they're just being ridiculous now.

Michaud Garneau (39:51)
New York though.

30 bucks.

No, okay, a small decaf. Eight dollars.

Martin Hauck (40:09)
756. Yeah, I was

Michaud Garneau (40:11)
Come on!

Martin Hauck (40:17)
my hand was shaking. It's like, inflation hasn't stopped anyways. Sorry.

Michaud Garneau (40:23)
That's wild and not like a latte or anything. No milk.

Martin Hauck (40:26)
No, it's black, black decaf coffee. I should have gotten milk and sugar just to offset some of the costs with some form of some form of value. Because they're giving that can I get a straw? Can I get another straw? Can I get a handful of napkins? Can I get an extra cup?

Michaud Garneau (40:30)
A wild.

Totally!

Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (40:50)
Yeah. And just tell me my tell me I look good something

Michaud Garneau (40:54)
Bolster me. Call me a show and say weird as normal 17 times.

Martin Hauck (41:00)
Okay, just for the record, does it count if you say it as well or? The self-inflicted. Okay, so how would you, how would you bridge that gap between?

Michaud Garneau (41:05)
think it has to. think that was it.

Right, so I started doing that circus school stuff which was way more like physical, sort of like tumbling silks, that kind of stuff. And also started getting into improv, like improv comedy. Did that for a while which led me towards theatrical clown, which is...

its own sort of beast. Yeah, it's like, think sometimes people think clown and they think birthday party clown. And I think especially because I used to make balloon animals, they especially think birthday party clown. But the two things are quite separate. The idea with clown is that the clown acts as a mirror for the audience. And so...

Martin Hauck (41:48)
it a genre of clown?

Michaud Garneau (42:13)
the work of the clown is to kind of get clear on themselves and understand their own.

foibles or like the vulnerable parts of themselves so that then they can show that back to the audience. The audience can see themselves in that vulnerability and together you create a sense of catharsis.

Martin Hauck (42:40)
through the performance, the entire theatrical performance.

Michaud Garneau (42:41)
through the performer reflecting their vulnerability to you as the audience, you see your own vulnerability in that and then collectively you get a sense of relief.

Martin Hauck (42:59)
It's like relatable.

Michaud Garneau (43:01)
Yeah, and so the clown, it's not really like you have a, you don't always have a bit, you just like go out and try to pick up on what's happening in the audience and feel what it is that they're feeling and move it through yourself and reflect it back to them through your embodiment, through your emotions so that they can see.

what they're feeling in you and then move through it. So say, so say like something really tense maybe happened in an act and then the clown comes out. If the clown like acts really tense and then takes a big deep breath and relaxes, the audience can, in that moment of seeing their tense, the audience knows that that's also how they're feeling.

Martin Hauck (44:01)
like taking cues, which is like if I look in a particular direction and look surprised, everybody else is going to look in that particular direction and look surprised, or at least look in that direction.

Michaud Garneau (44:01)
And that, yeah.

Yeah, the idea with the clown would be like, if you walk out and you notice everyone's looking in a direction and looking surprised, you'll also look in that direction and look surprised. Or you'll go and walk over into that direction and wave to the people. Something to like break or show that you notice what's happening with the audience.

Martin Hauck (44:26)
Hmm.

And what do you?

mean, there's a million questions there, but that won't help us to get to LinkedIn and sending random messages, but.

Michaud Garneau (44:55)
Yeah. Okay, so the main idea with Clown is that all of the training that you had, Clown doesn't have a fourth wall. And the fourth wall is the imaginary wall between the performer and the audience. And so...

Martin Hauck (45:09)
is the audience on stage, essentially.

Michaud Garneau (45:13)
Yeah, the audience is on stage, you're talking to them directly, you're like building something together instead of just being an actor on stage presenting something to someone. So all of the training in Clown is around like how do you listen deeply to people to see what's going on for them? How do you invite them in to co-create this piece or this movement or whatever it is that you're creating? How do you keep them safe the whole time and how do you make them look smart? And those are like the main tenets.

Martin Hauck (45:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Michaud Garneau (45:43)
And most of the training around that kind of just looks like really deep group therapy, where clowns get really comfortable being like seen. So having your emotions, your vulnerabilities be presented in front of other people and getting to the point where you can hold on to that and feel secure in yourself while still showing these really vulnerable components of yourself.

And so I trained a bunch in that, did a lot of practice in that, then ran a theater company, trained people in the theater company in that style of performance, the direct address with the audience helped. We had a style of creating theater called devised theater where everybody works together to create the pieces. So I was managing a lot of different personalities, bringing

people's ideas in, being clear about where you do have say, where you don't have say, the whole time while helping everybody interact with each other on this deeper grounded level. And I did that until I was about 30. And then it was around that time that companies like Google and other tech companies were talking about bringing your full self to work.

Martin Hauck (47:08)
Hmm.

Michaud Garneau (47:09)
and wanting more collaboration, more creativity, more like you. And that was what I had been doing both in the clown and in the training and running that theater company was helping people do that. And then for me, the jump to, doing this over here, I've been doing this over here, I can take this and apply those skills.

to this other world that seems to be yearning for this type of relationality. Yeah, it seemed to me like there was a clear line.

Martin Hauck (47:51)
They're clear lying, yes, as you say that, to anyone looking for it, they wouldn't look in that direction at all, would they?

Michaud Garneau (48:03)
No.

No.

Martin Hauck (48:08)
So that's a really cool discovery. How do you figure that out? How do you make that connection yourself?

Michaud Garneau (48:20)
It felt obvious to me, I think, when I heard this, like, bring your full self, collaboration, creativity,

it made sense to me that that was what was happening and that the work that I had been doing in Clown was like so deeply rooted in just being able to make authentic connection with people.

Martin Hauck (48:49)
And that's from a leadership perspective, getting into the corporate side of things here today, finally at 30 minutes and 30 minutes in or 45 minutes in.

Michaud Garneau (48:53)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Martin Hauck (49:06)
And I mean, that's obviously the one of the first things I noticed about you when we were chatting was you just had this remarkable level of

with things that would normally be uncomfortable. And I admire that to this day, admired it in the moment and was as someone who always struggled with

the dichotomy between hiding who you are at work, not bringing your full self, right? Can I bring my full self to work kind of thing? Probably not. And just kind of like the whole suit and tie kind of this is me as a professional, but in the meantime, like I'm a completely different human being that that piece was exhausting. And I remember specifically just kind of my dad got me like my

for my birthday or Christmas, he got me like my full name as a URL, like a domain. So he got me martinhawk.ca. And I didn't know what to do with it. I did a bunch of like weird stuff, cause it was like, I wasn't really in the professional world at the time. But then at some point I had to ask myself, well, I'm a professional now. I have to come across as

Michaud Garneau (50:17)
Hmm.

Martin Hauck (50:39)
this thing or I can't really speak my mind or I can't really show like my creative weird side because what would professionals think about that blah, blah, blah, blah. And there's a real sense of privilege to be able to just get comfortable eventually with just being yourself, so to speak. and so I, that, that stood out immediately, but never really put two and two together in terms of

Michaud Garneau (50:50)
Mm.

Martin Hauck (51:08)
why I just thought like, that's your personality, right? But if you think about it, or if I think about it right now is like, how much work did you put into intentionally, and almost unintentionally, getting to a place where you were comfortable with that. So but you make the distinction.

Michaud Garneau (51:11)
Thanks.

Martin Hauck (51:27)
You make the connection that that is something important that people in the business world probably need or how does that come about?

Michaud Garneau (51:38)
So it's worth noting that I also struggle with like...

For me, I do, doing leadership development work feels, doesn't feel quite right to me anymore. And in doing it, that pressure that you're talking about, about like being a professional, presenting in a certain way, being what people expect, I felt very strongly and would like slip into and it, there's like a real internal tension.

Martin Hauck (51:58)
Yeah.

Michaud Garneau (52:18)
Like a real, a real like.

sense of imposter syndrome or like I shouldn't be there in a lot of ways because like I kind of shouldn't like I came from a totally different world or at least there's belief that belief or the expectation. And so I think like the thing.

Martin Hauck (52:40)
Hmm.

Michaud Garneau (52:47)
And I'm, yeah, this company got me to make a course for them about like balancing authenticity and professionalism in the workplace. And essentially my note was that you don't, I don't think it's necessarily safe to bring like your full authentic self into the workplace. And I think that there's a lot to be said for being selective about how you show up and the parts that you do bring. I don't think that it's really owed to you.

Martin Hauck (53:17)
Yeah.

Michaud Garneau (53:19)
The parts that I saw being beneficial in a corporate environment in the more sort of traditional leadership role was the tools around self-discovery that allowed me to feel more comfortable with somebody else being their own person and them having their own.

wants and needs and desires and trying to think about the world through the lens of your audience and what your audience needs to feel safe and what your audience needs to feel secure and what your audience needs to be able to contribute in a meaningful surprising way. And that to me is the more important takeaway from the working in clown way more so than

you know, show up as your authentic self, whatever that might mean.

Martin Hauck (54:20)
So that trend that was in tech and big business was sort of great direction overall, holistically maybe, but like missing the key point in your thesis and belief is that it's less about that and more about just giving people the tools to do what.

Michaud Garneau (54:52)
I think if you're going to tell a bunch of people to bring their full selves to work, you need to have a group of people who know how to handle full selves.

Martin Hauck (55:02)
And most people can't from like the history of how a company or an organization operates.

Michaud Garneau (55:04)
Yeah.

Yeah, most people can't. And that was the gap that I saw that was missing. I actually have no interest in trying to help people bring their full selves into work because I don't think it's safe because the people that are responsible for their livelihoods don't have the capacity to handle a full self and it's maybe not even the right place to bring it anyway.

And I think I saw what people meant by bring your full self to work was like, contribute ideas that might feel scary to put forward. Let us know if there are things that aren't working. Like less full self and more just contribute meaningfully in a way that feels real to you.

Martin Hauck (55:44)
Hmm.

Michaud Garneau (56:07)
And the environment that needs to be created to allow people to do that is a delicate thing to create. people, you talk about like safe space. It's cool that language has shifted to like safer space now. I don't think it's up to individuals to say that they've made a safe space. It's how people feel. don't think space is.

Martin Hauck (56:31)
The language changed around it so it's not safe space anymore. It's like safer.

Michaud Garneau (56:36)
That's, yeah, that's what I see. And yeah, just the, I guess the internal work that's necessary to be able to create spaces like that where people feel comfortable contributing ideas that might feel scary to them requires so much like.

Martin Hauck (56:38)
Okay.

Michaud Garneau (57:04)
personal work and self-awareness and

That stuff's really hard.

Martin Hauck (57:13)
Yeah, it's not something any amount of that was always sort of my takeaway. And I've been through a bunch of different sort of leadership trainings through a bunch of different organizations. And the thought that I always had, and I'll make this like four hours over the course of four to six hours over the course of four to six weeks.

isn't going to make me an expert in balloon animals or card tricks or anything. It's like you have to be a good leader, to be a good business person, to be a good

anything takes way more work than any kind of like

Michaud Garneau (57:58)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (58:02)
leadership strategy development, like there's good foundational stuff there that you're sort of like, if that's your jam in terms of like how content or how that information is conveyed, then you'll get something out of it and you'll but again, sort of like it's like going to a class on like working out and get some point, you're gonna have to lift the weights yourself to get into shape. You can watch other people do exercises on YouTube all day long.

Michaud Garneau (58:07)
Mm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (58:32)
It's not gonna do anything to the midsection.

Michaud Garneau (58:35)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. that's something that's always, the whole time I'd been doing that work is a huge struggle because people, or orgs want...

something that's like productized, easy, doesn't take their people away from the work for too long.

Martin Hauck (59:00)
It's a conflicting, yeah, it's looking like it's like, yes, we want this, but what's the least amount of time we can dedicate to getting it.

Michaud Garneau (59:02)
You know?

Totally, and I'm like, where I thought the work would be like incredibly satisfying, it sort of becomes incredibly dissatisfying because of the practical implications. Like, like I understand you have a business to run, these are incredibly busy people to take them away for six months and to have somebody by their side, like.

helping them, answering questions, helping guide them. That's a huge investment. And would it be beneficial? Yeah, would you see big results? Yes, and I don't know.

I think it's a hard thing to convince an organization to do and I don't even know that it would make sense.

Martin Hauck (1:00:08)
So at what point does weird as normal, weird as normal, weird as normal come about?

Michaud Garneau (1:00:15)
Damn it!

Martin Hauck (1:00:17)
We're up to like 20, 30 bucks here by now.

Michaud Garneau (1:00:23)
I know. Man. Yeah. Almost almost a coffee and a sandwich at this point.

Martin Hauck (1:00:25)
Thanks Canadian Banking Fees.

Not in your filth. No!

Michaud Garneau (1:00:36)
My, so guess when I saw this like kind of need in the market, I didn't really know anything that was going on. So I tried to get some work with some like other leadership development companies or team building companies or whatever, and got a bit of work with them and saw what they were doing. And I was like, I do not want to be doing this. Got a job with one person who eventually let me like come up with my own program for a half day facilitation thing.

I did it, I noticed the audience's response because I was like fine tuned to pay attention to an audience's response. And I was like, they really like this. Yeah, and from there, was like, I'm go off on my own because I wanna choose how I do this. And yeah, from there, my friend and I had a...

Martin Hauck (1:01:18)
They like it. They really like me.

Yeah.

Michaud Garneau (1:01:36)
phrase growing up where it was, everything is weird until it becomes normal. And that was where weird is normal.

Martin Hauck (1:01:42)
Mmm.

I remember that with cell phones, like Palm Pilots, where it's like people on the bus would just stare out the window or read a book. And I was the guy with the phone and I was like punching out emails on my BlackBerry or whatever before, like I'm an early technology adopter and it's just like.

My ex-wife at the time was just like, you're so like, why do you have to have like, why are you attached to this thing all the time? And so and then don't get me wrong, I don't like that I was at the time and I don't like that I am still to this day, it's gotten worse if anything, but that was weird at the time. And now it is 100%. Like, it's weird not to be on your phone, unfortunately.

Michaud Garneau (1:02:20)
Mm.

Right.

Totally.

Martin Hauck (1:02:42)
So it'd be nice to see that thing come full circle just for the benefit of our mental health and just society and civilization as a whole. But no, it's a really cool. you choose this as the company name. You're like, I'm gonna build out my training my way. You come to a moment where you realize,

Michaud Garneau (1:02:44)
Right? Yeah.

Martin Hauck (1:03:12)
It's like going up against this immovable problem and a problem that you don't necessarily want to fix. And so now, now you're looking at it from a different perspective.

Michaud Garneau (1:03:25)
Yeah, now I'm going back to my roots. now because, pardon me? Going back, I do, I am in Quebec. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In a tiny little village in Quebec. It was funny when you were talking about like the butchering animals thing. There are three deer being butchered in the backyard right now. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (1:03:31)
Next

Going back to Quebec.

Yeah.

Okay, yeah. That's that's fine. I'm cool with that. I would I would but just not yeah, not in those circles. It was weird. It was weird classical music too. So felt like you Yeah, it was so off putting we digress so so you're

Michaud Garneau (1:03:55)
And.

Not in that, no, not a half a bar down.

No, that's so murder scene.

Yeah, yeah, that sounds terrible. We do. Yeah, so through, yeah, I've sort of been grappling with this, the industry. It's also like everyone in the world is a leadership coach now and I'm just like, meh, meh. And I think I can bring like far more value in,

in a more clear way by helping people with public speaking and with presentation skills, where those things people have agency and control over. Where how well you can lead within an organization, there's so many like external factors that are playing in. It's such a complex system where

Martin Hauck (1:04:45)
Yeah.

Michaud Garneau (1:05:11)
It was just too hard for me to see like, to see tangible results. And I love a tangible result. Like to see, you know, so if somebody is working on a talk and we work together within 45 minutes, I can see a massive change between where they started and where they are now.

Martin Hauck (1:05:20)
Michelle loves the tangible. What does that mean?

Hmm.

Michaud Garneau (1:05:41)
And there's changes in ideas that we can work through in that moment that that person can then take and apply to whatever it is that they're, whatever other talks that they're doing. it's, they're tangible skills that I get, selfishly, I get the reward of seeing them.

go through that development. Like, before when you gave this talk, you didn't pause at all and I couldn't understand a damn thing you were saying because you just talked and talked and talked and talked. And it was very hard to listen to.

Martin Hauck (1:06:24)
Mmm.

Michaud Garneau (1:06:26)
Now, half an hour later, you're doing the same thing, but where there's punctuation, you're taking a Mississippi. And just that subtle change is, to me, so satisfying to be able to see the benefit and to see this person who before went through all this work to put together this talk, but that then nobody could

really kind of listen to because it was just a wall of words. It could be so smart! Yeah! Amazing things. Amazing things that nobody's ever gonna hear because of the way that it's being delivered.

Martin Hauck (1:06:59)
Yeah, could be very smart words put together.

Could you critique me right now selfishly? Watch me? Just like a micro dose of coaching, not a half chocolate bar of coaching.

Michaud Garneau (1:07:16)
Sure.

Yeah, a single square of coaching. Yeah, do you have like a talk that you're working on?

Martin Hauck (1:07:27)
Single square, yeah.

No, just even just conversationally, I suppose, or I don't have a talk necessarily, but just even like on podcasts and whatnot, back and forth banter. I'll give you one thing that I feel self-conscious about is the ums, ahs, and likes, and ands filler words, as well as me actually getting to the point of a question and

Michaud Garneau (1:07:47)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (1:08:01)
rambling somewhat like I'm doing right now. Like I add, I could just be really brief. I find that self criticism that I have, I could just say one particular thing and ask the question and be really succinct and not do any like weird, tangential stories to get to the point, even though I kind of like doing that stuff. So I guess I'd be curious to get your take on that and just general.

live fire exercise.

Michaud Garneau (1:08:34)
Tell me what you just told me in 25 % of the time.

Martin Hauck (1:08:41)
I'd love for you to critique my podcast style.

Michaud Garneau (1:08:48)
Great. So far, I think that you're quite good at picking up on threads, at following a line, doing a callback. The tone that you take is quite grounded and curious. And for me, that makes me feel like you want to hear what I have to say.

and you're in a place where you can hear it and hold that. Sometimes in an attempt to be interesting, people can say too much or take on a really high energy tone. And for me that feels...

Martin Hauck (1:09:35)
Mm-hmm.

Michaud Garneau (1:09:45)
unapproachable where with what you're doing it feels approachable and welcoming and warm.

Martin Hauck (1:09:56)
So I don't do that.

Michaud Garneau (1:09:58)
You know you don't do that. No, you're you're like quite grounded

Martin Hauck (1:10:01)
These are all very nice things to say. asked you for criticism, my dear sir.

Michaud Garneau (1:10:09)
I think that getting people to do more of what's working is often better than getting them to do less of what isn't.

Martin Hauck (1:10:17)
Okay, yeah, like double down on your strengths versus work on your weaknesses kind of down.

Michaud Garneau (1:10:22)
Yeah. And I guess your point, like, people get so fucking caught up on these ums and ahs filler word things.

Martin Hauck (1:10:33)
I've seen quite a few TikTok videos on there. like, what's his name? Vin.

Michaud Garneau (1:10:38)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Guy loves telling you to not use filler words, but when he talks, I don't trust him.

Martin Hauck (1:10:47)
Because there's no filler words?

Michaud Garneau (1:10:48)
Yeah!

Yeah, it feels weird.

Martin Hauck (1:10:54)
This intimidating, right? There's a certain level of academic, like, I got to level up my wordsmithing with this person.

Michaud Garneau (1:10:56)
And like.

Yeah, yeah, and they come across as unapproachable and for me it comes across as unapproachable and unwelcoming. And I quite like when people use ums and ahs and look away and pause for a long time. I think that those things help to really humanize and make

Martin Hauck (1:11:15)
Hmm.

Michaud Garneau (1:11:37)
make a message easier to hear. There's a too far limit?

But that too far limit to me sits more on the line of there's no rhythm to what you're saying more so than the ums, ahs, and filler words being the problem. And what I mean by that is when people use and and like, then they're just constantly talking, there's always something coming out of their mouth and there's no variation in the rhythm because there's no chance for a pause or a silence or a.

Martin Hauck (1:12:00)
Yeah.

Michaud Garneau (1:12:14)
speeding up or slowing down because they're always going like this and talking really fast and it's it's hard to tell what's going on and even when they are trying to like and come up with a new idea it still comes out as like a wall

where

I feel as long as you're changing your pace, you know, sometimes you talk a little bit faster, but then you can slow down.

Adding in some silence so that people can hear what you're saying and process it, especially after a big point. And playing a little bit with like, okay, now we're really excited, but now...

This is something serious?

Martin Hauck (1:13:07)
Yeah, yeah.

Michaud Garneau (1:13:10)
and I want you to hear it. But if I'm always, thank you, but if I'm always talking like this.

Martin Hauck (1:13:13)
You're a fantastic job, the way.

Michaud Garneau (1:13:22)
It's gonna be boring. You're gonna worry about me? You're gonna come to expect what's happening next. Right? It's like, yeah, I think about the voice in music and there's this phrase that like the best pop songs in the world you can sing along to before the song is over.

Martin Hauck (1:13:25)
gonna worry about you.

Okay, it's catchy.

Michaud Garneau (1:13:47)
It's catchy. There's a rhythm, an expectation, pattern that's set up that you expect and then you can jump on and then you're satisfied by it. But it's not, it's not like, it's repetitive, but it's not consistently repetitive.

Martin Hauck (1:14:09)
Like where my mind went to the, don't know why, like that song. But like, how do you talk like that and then not have that rhythm continue?

Michaud Garneau (1:14:09)
like

It's the same way how songs go through like a chorus, a bridge, a verse. You know, that song doesn't go da da da da da for five minutes. It goes.

Martin Hauck (1:14:35)
Okay, that's fair.

Michaud Garneau (1:14:43)
Right? See? Right? Like it changes and then goes back into that, here's that thing that I remember. cool. Okay. Right? And then it's like, something different's happening. it's happening here. this is neat. and here's that thing again. Okay.

Martin Hauck (1:14:58)
And this?

Yeah. So I'm going to pull this back into corporate world again for a little bit. How can people ops folks leverage? They do presentations and oftentimes I'm answering the question. So that's a bad idea. How can people in the people ops space sort of leverage?

an improvement on the way they present things.

Michaud Garneau (1:15:37)
The biggest and easiest thing that people can do is pause more.

Martin Hauck (1:15:46)
And that's uncomfortable. Like silence is your friend.

Michaud Garneau (1:15:51)
Silence is uncomfortable for the speaker and so welcome for the audience.

Martin Hauck (1:16:01)
Yes, it is. Yeah, 100%. That's what what's really refreshing about your videos and even just having a conversation with you, right?

Michaud Garneau (1:16:05)
100%.

Martin Hauck (1:16:14)
I'm nervous now. I mean, I feel like filling it.

Michaud Garneau (1:16:15)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (1:16:20)
And I did, technically.

Michaud Garneau (1:16:23)
I mean, you sold yourself out when you went into the pause with your face. I don't know if people are gonna see the faces or not here, but yeah, yeah, yeah. So there was like.

Martin Hauck (1:16:31)
They will,

Michaud Garneau (1:16:37)
And those things are natural. You're trying to soothe yourself as something that's uncomfort, as something uncomfortable is happening. And, you know, it feels weird at first, but when you do it more, it starts to feel normal.

Martin Hauck (1:16:53)
That one's gonna cost $3.50, fuck.

That's the wire transfer. That's not even e-transfer.

Michaud Garneau (1:17:04)
Just give me your direct deposit information.

Martin Hauck (1:17:10)
By the way, just for the folks listening, like there is no actual, like, yes, I really, really want you to e-transfer me at least three times just for the sake of it, but no, this is not a paid.

Michaud Garneau (1:17:24)
yeah, I was like, imagine people actually think that.

Martin Hauck (1:17:27)
This podcast brought to you by Mustard Yellow, disrupt HR.

Michaud Garneau (1:17:33)
It's from the HR mustard yellow version. Yeah, so I think the most important thing that people can do to make a direct, immediate, easy to do change is to really just pause after they say something that's important. And to count in your head one Mississippi.

because you have to count them in your head because otherwise you make a pause and you think you've waited an eternity and it's been a quarter second.

Martin Hauck (1:18:09)
Yeah.

I have a question for you. That is

Michaud Garneau (1:18:16)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (1:18:19)
Speaking adjacent.

Michaud Garneau (1:18:20)
Okay.

Martin Hauck (1:18:23)
which is when you say one Mississippi in your mind, do you hear one Mississippi? Like in the same way that if you had headphones on and you pressed a play button on your MP3 player that only had a recording of you saying one Mississippi, do you hear it as in the same way?

Michaud Garneau (1:18:48)
I don't hear it anymore.

Like, I went through this process and now I'm on the other side and now...

Martin Hauck (1:18:57)
You don't need to do that anymore.

Michaud Garneau (1:18:59)
No, now I go off of now I go off of like what feels like an internal metronome.

Martin Hauck (1:19:06)
Because it's a muscle.

Michaud Garneau (1:19:08)
because it's a muscle that you grow and you build. And so I'm trying to stay in rhythm whether or not I'm hitting whole notes.

or hitting something like staccato and I'm trying to go back and forth in between this thing and then slow down. But there's, I'm, through practice it feels like there's, yeah, like a metronome or like a timing bar within me that feels more situated. When I was learning, it would be, fuck, I practice this so much.

Martin Hauck (1:19:24)
Hmm.

Michaud Garneau (1:19:48)
just to like be clear, it's not a natural, it wasn't a natural thing for me either. But I would count, and I would say yeah, in my head, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, and then keep going.

Martin Hauck (1:20:07)
Now it's but now it's it's now it's a part of that. It's just it's just there. It's your it's your case. It's your normal cadence.

Michaud Garneau (1:20:11)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

It's my normal cadence, yeah.

Martin Hauck (1:20:18)
I was, that's helpful, but I was being hyper specific for, I'll give you the selfish reason, the selfish reason I'm obsessed with aphantasia and how the mind perceives things. And aphantasia is the absence of a person's.

Michaud Garneau (1:20:27)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (1:20:43)
visual ability to visualize essentially. And there's a subsection of that, that's relating to sort of inner monologue. And so when people hear this voice in their head, or you can hear a person's voice, or you can hear a song in your mind or anything, the one Mississippi specifically, I was genuinely asking like, do you actually hear it? Or is it just you know, that you're saying it in your mind?

Michaud Garneau (1:20:53)
Mm.

Martin Hauck (1:21:14)
Can you hear it as if it's a real sound?

Michaud Garneau (1:21:17)
no, I would hear it in the way that like if I'm reading the way that I sort of hear those words.

Martin Hauck (1:21:28)
So you hear the words when you read that. So this is my question. I'm just Jen. This is a sidebar. This is a definite sidebar because I'm just curious about it. Because everybody, the assumption, I'll preface this with the assumption that.

Michaud Garneau (1:21:33)
Here. Hearing.

Martin Hauck (1:21:46)
If you didn't know about aphantasia or you didn't know it's just some people have the ability to visualize. So they close their eyes and I say, imagine a red apple and some people genuinely see a red apple. And then some people see nothing. And some people see a fuzzy red circle with maybe like a green blob that represents a leaf. And then other people see like a 4k, 8k version of

Michaud Garneau (1:22:03)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (1:22:11)
an apple, it's crystal clear and you would call that something like a photographic memory kind of deal. But the same thing applies to sounds. And so when you're reading a book and you're reading a character's voice or like an actual thing, do you hear that person's voice in your mind as if you were listening to something on headphones?

Michaud Garneau (1:22:17)
Mmm.

Versus

Martin Hauck (1:22:38)
versus something else.

Michaud Garneau (1:22:41)
Well, I guess maybe I think I hear it like I would if I was...

Martin Hauck (1:22:46)
Interesting.

Michaud Garneau (1:22:48)
with someone on headphones. I guess, because I don't know what the other.

Martin Hauck (1:22:53)
You don't know what you don't know, yeah.

Michaud Garneau (1:22:56)
Yeah.

Martin Hauck (1:22:57)
So I don't hear anything period in my head. No, I, I feel like I'm baked in Zen to a certain degree. Like I've tried meditating, but I'm, I feel like I'm, my baseline is like, I don't have, I don't have visuals distracting me from anything. And then I don't have like voices in my, I have thoughts and it's interesting to distinguish the difference between thoughts and sort of like a voice. Like if I think,

Michaud Garneau (1:23:00)
Nothing. Okay. I'm interested.

Yeah. And it's just like...

Yeah.

Okay.

Martin Hauck (1:23:26)
about your voice four hours after this podcast, four minutes after this podcast, I can't hear your voice. And I don't even know how I would describe your voice to another person.

Michaud Garneau (1:23:38)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Hauck (1:23:39)
and I couldn't even compare your voice in my mind against someone else's voice and have two different voices in my mind. nor do I hear a song back either. Like I, like when I get a song, I can get songs stuck in my head and I might have the inclination to hum it, but I don't have.

that and so that goes hand in hand with like aphantasia I forget what it is for the audio side of things was just randomly reminded

Michaud Garneau (1:24:16)
Mm.

Martin Hauck (1:24:17)
So you have it.

Michaud Garneau (1:24:20)
where I could like hear something in my head. I think so. Yeah. Different from a thought.

Martin Hauck (1:24:23)
Yeah, yeah.

Michaud Garneau (1:24:34)
I'm

Martin Hauck (1:24:35)
How about the visualing, visualization?

Michaud Garneau (1:24:40)
Visualization I for sure have. I rock climb a lot and part of doing it is I have to memorize sequences of moves to be able to send, to do the thing from the bottom to the top without falling. And I can see very clearly.

the hold I'm going to the angle it is and like, and like really play out an entire sequence up a whole.

Martin Hauck (1:25:13)
It's a whole toolkit you have at your disposal. You close your eyes and you can think of a particular wall or a particular face of mountain and it's there.

Michaud Garneau (1:25:16)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think it helps me too with like trying to memorize bits of speeches too.

Martin Hauck (1:25:29)
wild.

Like the memory palace, you're familiar with that. So you create a museum, so to speak, in your mind. And this doesn't work very well for me.

Michaud Garneau (1:25:38)
no.

huh. there's certain places that you go where certain things live.

Martin Hauck (1:25:51)
you walk through your house, but you associate, well, I put my keys on this nightstand every day. And so the keys are going to represent the five key pillars of becoming normal, whatever. don't know. And so it gives you the ability to sort of like plant symbolic representations of things you'd like to remember.

Michaud Garneau (1:26:07)
Mm.

Martin Hauck (1:26:20)
So to memorize, instead of memorizing word for word and sounding incredibly robotic, you're just like, I need to remember to talk about the five keys of becoming normal. so, and then, and then you go to another area in your memory palace, so to speak, and like the world's memory champions, like people that memorize the number of pi or whatever for as long as possible.

hundreds if not thousands of digits. They have like a memory palace that they walk through with like sequences of numbers and like a fighter jet will represent this pattern of like six or seven numbers or whatever. And then they move on. Okay, after the fighter jet, it's the lampshade and the lampshade represents these numbers, the sequence of numbers because of X, Y, Z that's specific to them. But so that's

Michaud Garneau (1:26:59)
Mm.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Martin Hauck (1:27:17)
That's a way of remembering things is complicated, but it's like being able to use that. I don't think you need that visually because I could do that in theory, because I can walk through my home and associate things to things that are always there. Like when I walk past the dining room and I get to the kitchen, the kitchen, whatever. So I don't need a visual memory for that to work. It just works better if you do have.

Michaud Garneau (1:27:45)
I'll try that. It's very fun facts. Yeah. I think you paused well, just for the record. I think you paused well. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (1:27:47)
Fun facts.

Back to hmm.

Thank you. I don't.

My pauses come from the fact that I don't know what I'm going to say next genuinely. So then I'm like, huh? That's where the.

that's where the I'm looking for the word right now, specifically. But that's where they come from, as opposed to intentional, I'm going to pause so you can process. My pauses are coming from like me scrambling around my mind, like I need a collection of words to say next.

Michaud Garneau (1:28:35)
Yeah, you still, you know, a lot of people when they're, when they're trying to think of what to say next, will just keep talking and talking and talking until they stumble upon it.

still having that ability to wait, formulate a thought, deliver a thought.

Martin Hauck (1:28:54)
One thing that challenges folks often is the ability to have a convincing...

argument or proposal for people in upper management. There's an imbalance of power in the conversation. I'm an HR and I got to tell the executive team that they're destroying the culture at the organization. And I'm emotional. have emotional data points on it. I have actual data points on it.

What would you suggest a person change about their approach if they have that message to share?

Michaud Garneau (1:29:45)
Try to understand the lens of your audience. So while you HR person might care that the culture is being destroyed, senior leadership sales exec person might not care.

Martin Hauck (1:29:59)
Why you picking on salesman? Sales never does that. We don't think that way.

Michaud Garneau (1:30:10)
Love salespeople, it's a called job, tons of respect. But they're seeing everything through a different lens, right? Like they're seeing things through a revenue lens. So then how can you present the culture being shit through the lens of how that impacts revenue? So is it...

Is it that some of the actual data that you have is your salespeople go out, they're pulling in leads, but then when those leads come in and they're going through a demo process, the person doing the demo isn't able to do a good job because there's something about the culture that's preventing them from doing it.

Martin Hauck (1:30:55)
Hmm.

Michaud Garneau (1:30:56)
How does the point that you're trying to make relate to the person that you're telling it to? And then frame whatever you're saying through the lens of what matters to them.

Martin Hauck (1:31:10)
Is it best to frame it from a place of negativity, like highlighting the pain point first, or is that kind of a...

like a path towards just a particular culture of culture of communication or a practice of communicating in a certain way as opposed to there's that you could paint it in a more you utopian kind of view like this is the ideal state that we want to get to. We should aspire to do this that versus like, you know, using fear almost as a driving motivator alongside data. What's your take on that?

Michaud Garneau (1:31:53)
were as humans way more likely to avoid pain than move toward pleasure.

Martin Hauck (1:32:00)
way more like okay.

Michaud Garneau (1:32:07)
So I'm more likely to take an action that prevents me from say like losing five cents or five bucks or whatever. At 10 cents. It's a literal short changing. Way more likely to do something that reduces a risk than.

Martin Hauck (1:32:16)
10 cents. You said 10 cents, come on, you're trying to shortchange me now.

Michaud Garneau (1:32:35)
than to do something that could potentially yield 20 cents.

Martin Hauck (1:32:42)
Interesting. So.

Michaud Garneau (1:32:45)
generally speaking.

Martin Hauck (1:32:47)
illustrate your points from a place of this is if we don't do X, Y, and Z based on the data that we have, then you paint a very colorful picture of worst case scenario. Does that make a person seem like a doomsday?

Michaud Garneau (1:33:02)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I don't think so, especially if it's real, right? Like, why would, if things right now seem fine, why would I change something to make it potentially better?

Martin Hauck (1:33:24)
Yeah.

Michaud Garneau (1:33:26)
when I have a million other priorities that I'm dealing with. priorities, typically people's priorities are to maintain the status quo or to put out fires. Often with like a hope of making things better, typically.

Martin Hauck (1:33:51)
the hope of making, status, maintain status quo, do what you can to make things better, but there will also be fire. So you gotta put those out.

Michaud Garneau (1:34:00)
Yeah, and most often people spend their time on making sure that things don't get worse, maintaining status quo and putting out fires. And if you look at the way that people prioritize their work days, it's often very little that's put toward the things that are gonna make things better long-term.

Martin Hauck (1:34:22)
Interesting. Interesting.

That was a call from my school, daughter's school. So I gotta take this. Give me one second.

Michaud Garneau (1:34:34)
Take it. Yeah.

Martin Hauck (1:34:38)
Hello.

Sorry about that.

Michaud Garneau (1:36:14)
No problem. How is everything?

Martin Hauck (1:36:17)
I gotta go. How do we wrap this up in one minute and then make sure we can connect again? Because I had a blast.

Michaud Garneau (1:36:18)
Okay.

Yeah, I also had a blast and we did, we're coming up on the two hour mark, aren't we?

Martin Hauck (1:36:33)
Yeah, yeah.

Michaud Garneau (1:36:38)
feel like we're just getting started.

Martin Hauck (1:36:39)
Yeah. Well, you're doing this new thing. You're pivot pivot. Insert Ross Geller GIF here. How do people you know if people are vibing with what you're putting down? How do people get in touch?

Michaud Garneau (1:36:42)
All right.

Yep. Have it.

Find me on LinkedIn. Classic, classic LinkedIn. You can find me on my website, weirdisnormal.com. I haven't updated it. It's still leadership development stuff, but all the contact information's still there. And...

Martin Hauck (1:37:04)
classical LinkedIn, not in.

But people should be reaching out to you for what?

Michaud Garneau (1:37:26)
Public speaking, so like if you're somebody that has to give a talk and you want some coaching and you want to work on some components or just generally get better at how you present ideas and how comfortable you feel in front of groups of people, message me. If there are people on your team that could benefit from going through a structured six-week program, I have that.

Martin Hauck (1:37:52)
Basically any leader that has to present things to a team.

Michaud Garneau (1:37:57)
Any leader, I'm pricing it in a way that would work for people's PD budgets. I know that with the leadership development work, it's a whole rigmarole to push everything through. And so I'm modeling this in a way that's easier for HR people to present it to their team and see if they want to just enroll with their own PD budgets to remove some of that hassle.

Martin Hauck (1:38:20)
So the unannointed PD is personal development, not peanut butter disaster.

Michaud Garneau (1:38:26)
Yep. Not to be confused with the very popular peanut butter disaster. The reason Kong was invented. Yeah, likewise.

Martin Hauck (1:38:29)
Don't confuse it!

Always a pleasure chatting with you, Michaud. Hopefully this is the first of many. And yeah, we'll be in touch.

Michaud Garneau (1:38:50)
Okay, amazing. Thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute delight.

Martin Hauck (1:38:54)
No, no, likewise. Likewise. For those of you still listening, my name is Martin and I run a little thing called the people people group, got 5,000 members of HR recruitment and operations folks. And me showed is in that community. So you can message them there as well. If you like it's I C H a U D. And on top of that, I just want everybody's

Michaud Garneau (1:38:56)
Yeah. Okay.

Martin Hauck (1:39:23)
emails to be read and all your candidates to be awesome. Thank you. Have a good one.