The Credibility Question: Who Said it?

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:00:06

Welcome to blank pages, the podcast. A podcast for people who appreciate the new beginnings of a clean slate, but strive for the courage, willingness, curiosity, and creativity available only on the blank pages of new possibilities. The potential to move beyond, to move forward, where P are willing to make new decisions from a fresh perspective, and are ready to write in a much better way. The world is waiting, and nothing listens better than a blank piece of paper. So hello my friends, and, I'm so glad you're here to get today and to join me, and we're together on this show. And, I'm your host, Tim Pecoraro, and I'm glad that you are here with me. This is episode number 12, and I'm so pumped up about jumping into this, new little season of podcast that, that I'm gonna be putting out. And, and I'm gonna be talking about some things that I'm running into a good bit, mostly as it relates to just, you know, again, just being better at, you know, learning to be a better human being, just getting better.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:01:18

And, there's a lot of blank page opportunity, I think. And for us to get unstuck and to try some new things and new strategies to move forward and just to be better, just at least in our part in contribution. Now, of course, it would be nice if the whole world cooperated, but that doesn't always happen. And I think we all, know how hard it is when, you may feel like you're a little bit on your own, and you're trying to make changes, you know, and, you feel like you're by yourself. But that's alright because you're not. There's a whole world of people out there just like you, just like myself who, who are looking to really take things in their life to the next level. So, thank you for listening, and if you haven't done so already, would you go to my bio link in Instagram at Tim Pecoraro, and would you select the, the the link there to join my newsletter, to subscribe to that newsletter? It's an email newsletter that'll come out monthly. I'm just getting the hang of it, so don't lock me down on the exact 4 weeks and this and that.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:02:21

So we're launching this newsletter, and, there's just been a lot of neat things happening. I have a book. My first children's book is coming out. I'm waiting for that to finish up getting printed and just some some cool stuff and, gonna update you all on it, but I'd it's in that newsletter. So if you would engage with me there on Instagram, I will be coming out more doing some stuff, some Instagram lives, and some other things as I continue to roll new stuff out. So let me jump into episode 12. My focus right now is gonna be around communication. And communication as it relates to, like, who said it? Right? Who said it? When when you when you think of people saying things, like, depending on who it is, you will say whether or not you'd listen to it.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:03:05

I'm one of those people that you listen to people say things. You hear them. You hear what they have to say, and and then from there, you weigh that information. You literally pay attention to it. You, you give some value to it. Now there are some things, of course, over, you you know, people will say or there's really no use or value in what they say, at least not for you. Some people, you know, find it, you know, I don't know, extra special to just talk and just say whatever without making any sense. I I don't know.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:03:37

I don't know anyone really that would do anything like that. I'm just, you know, maybe being a little flippant in making that statement, but sometimes it can feel that way. It can feel like people do they even know why they're communicating. Right? Even me getting this started, I know why I wanna communicate with it, but there's so many different ways that that you can approach what I'm about to talk about. But I wanna I just wanna get into this who said it question on communication. And I'm gonna cover different areas of communication and different questions that need to be answered. And the who said it question to me is something that I started learning a long time ago, which is about credibility. Now it doesn't mean that, I'm perfect in any of these things because I am not at all.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:04:21

I would never claim to be. But I am someone that is, again, working to be better. I've had to do repenting in my life, going to ask for forgiveness and lots of things. Things that you mess up. You mess up knowingly, you mess up unknowing knowingly. You mess up willingly, you mess up unwillingly. But the key is to learn and get better and to to work toward just investing in better things and also recognizing and knowing yourself and, and what's going on in your world. Right? Because everything you do and say communicates.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:04:57

Your most effective message is the one you live. Anything else is just empty words. So let's let's talk about communication. I'm gonna approach communication as communication should always start with you, And this is where it gets tough. Because remember, I'm talking about the question is, like, who said it when it comes to communication? Who said what? Right? Who said it versus who? Who is this saying this thing? And that is a credibility question. I feel like we've all said and done things that have harmed our credibility. I mean, at least if you're honest, you can say that. Right? And and don't look at anyone else and go, well, I'm not like them or this one.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:05:36

Just deal with yourself. We've all said and done things that have harmed our credibility. And let me go ahead and give you credibility what the definition. I'm just using the simple term of credibility. It's the quality, this is the adjective, the quality of being believable or worthy of trust. Right? Isn't that that's that's strong. It's the quality of. It's an it's an attribute.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:06:00

It's a quality. It's that of being believable. When you have a the quality of being believable or worthy of trust. So it's like, even in core human needs, we know that we're looking one of the core human needs that we have is we wanna know if we're worthy of love. Well, what about this credibility question? Are we worthy of trust? So that is pretty strong. But to be credible is that you're worthy of belief or confidence. That's where someone's gonna give you that. When you're credible, people are willing to extend that belief.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:06:38

You're worthy of belief or confidence. You are trustworthy. So think about, like, in court, like, if you were an attorney going into another attorney. Now I'm not a law professional or any of these things, but I have watched I've watched enough TV, right, to kinda somewhat ges, and I know it's not the exact same thing. And I'm I'm not that simple, but I do understand that the Hollywood and whatever these creators of shows, they do, they are good students, and they they may embellish on, on what what happens or they, you know, to over exaggerate something in order to really make it theatrical or bring the tension that they need in their story. But we get it that if you put a witness on the stand and you are the the whether your defense or prosecutor, the prosecutor put someone that that's their witness on the stand, or your witness, the defense is on the stand, that prosecutor is gonna try to discredit that testimony as much as possible to make that testimony not carry any power. Equally so, if the prosecutor has a witness, the defense attorney is gonna cross examine and do the same to try to take away the credibility. Why? Because judgment is in play.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:07:46

Someone's going to rule. A decision is going to be made. That's why credibility is so important. And are are you worthy of belief, or confidence and trustworthy? Right? So the idea is to search. Right? That they in courtroom, they're looking to search and find things to discredit or to tear down the testimony of someone else. That's in the court system. But I also understand in life, that should never happen. And a lot of times, there are people who just like to go and ruin things.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:08:22

They don't want anyone else to talk about their life, or there's an excuse for their life. There's always a reason, but they are really good at tearing down other people. So that is something that I hope no one does. Like, in in court, it makes sense. It's your job. You're trying to discredit the witness. But in life, we should not be running around trying to discredit people. If anything, we should be trying to help elevate and raise the credibility of others.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:08:47

And there are ways to do that, and that'll be a separate talk one day that I can do. It's like helping people who are not credible become credible. It's like a second chance ministry or an organization that helps people getting out of prison, who've gone through hard things, and they're giving them the 2nd chance to be able to work again. They're helping them to get credibility back. That is an admirable cause rather than a lot of people who would turn their nose up at those folks and say, well, they should never deserve to work again. How harsh that is. And that's a whole different thing. So credibility.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:09:27

I mean, I don't know about you, but have you ever had that gut punch where you know that you've lost some credibility? Maybe because of it was something that someone else was saying, maybe about you, something that something someone else was doing. Right? And you weren't aware. Or maybe it's you. You're doing this to yourself, and you've done it. Have you ever felt the gut punch? And when you know the consequence of where you've lost credibility, the consequence of the thing you've done, thing you said, someone else has done or said, but credibility now is at stake, at risk. It's important to remember how invite how vital it is. Right? That we have the ability to communicate. So if we know that, our credibility is gonna be very important.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:10:16

People are not going to listen to you if they're not sure about your credibility. A couple of things that I wanna bring out or bring to your attention as we get into this whole topic of credibility is that we're looking to make sure that we understand the importance of credibility, the value of credibility, and understand that anytime you speak, whether it be it's your turn to talk in a room, in a meeting, whether it's your turn to talk, maybe it's your family, people wanna hear from you, and it's your time to speak up or say something, or maybe it's at work and, yeah, you're at work and you're you're finally getting the floor to be able to share your thoughts and your opinions, you know, in the community, whatever it is. It could be a team on a team sport, and you need to know that you have credibility because you're already most of us are at odds with the idea that there's a high possibility that someone may or may may someone may not believe us. Someone may question us. Those are normal things. People can wonder, is that true? Is that believable? I'm not sure. But you don't want it to be Maybe what you're saying is the thing, but you don't want it to be that they're concerned because it's you. And just because you feel someone is credible doesn't mean they're perfect.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:11:33

Because people that are credible make mistakes too. So maybe they may say something that doesn't have credibility, but it doesn't mean they completely lose their credibility. But it is damaging still, still has an effect. It's very there's a lot of tension there around that. So communication, why is it so important? Because communication is the connective tissue between humans. Holding the potential to bring us together, create shared understanding, align on, and execute initiatives. And so much of that of that credibility, at the end of the day, it's it's the communication. Because communication is going to be the vehicle for the transformation that you're hoping is gonna take place.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:12:22

So that's why it's important. It's that connective tissue. And so for us, if we are going to get to a place where people were trustworthy, we need credibility. In order to have credibility, we're gonna have to communicate. And in order for us to communicate, we're gonna have to connect. So we have to communicate to connect and connect in order to build trust. Equally so if we've lost trust or we lose credibility, we're gonna need to communicate to connect and then ultimately, hopefully, be able to rebuild trust. So let's get into this credibility thing.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:12:55

For me, credibility has not always something easy. I grew up around people that would have to embellish things or move things around and and and so I would always be in that dilemma of, okay. I I know I know what I can say to you. I know I know what I should say to you and, you know, but then I was always told that, you know, you maybe you gotta buy yourself some time to figure some things out or whatever. And and and when I was younger, I mean, that was, yeah. That was kind of the way I operated. And I just wanna be very honest with you about it. I wanna be very open and transparent because that is another thing.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:13:33

It's very difficult. People need to be able to talk about saying that, wow, I hit myself in my own credibility pocket. And why? Because it would lack the transparency. It wasn't clear. So the first part about this credibility is in order to have credibility, you have to be transparent. And then with that transparency, you have to be consistent with it. It's it's what you repeatedly do will tell other people who you actually are. So as you're trying to be credible, remember, and you want credibility, you must be transparent, but you gotta BL consistent lining up, like, for a teammate or a leader or or a presenter, then that is going to impact your credibility.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:14:27

And because you're not doing it consistently, what you say and what you do do not align, and it's a consistent problem that's gonna hit you in a credibility wallet. Then you also need to be competent. If you want credibility, you gotta be competent. You know, you can't give what you don't have. So, I mean, biblically it says to study to show yourself approved. I love that where it's basically, if you're gonna talk to people about the word, you need to study yourself, You need to show that you are approved, that you are a person who works. You can work with the word, that you can rightly look at the scripture and work with it. Right? So So it doesn't matter.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:15:01

So if you're gonna be a scientist, it's the same thing. If you're in physics, it's the same thing. You want to build your credibility based on being a competent individual in your conversations. So, yes, be transparent. Yes, be consistent, but be competent. Develop a high competence and knowledge, but also you wanna be trustworthy. So this is the other part, that trust is a person's greatest asset. So when you have trust, you're in a very, very favorable and positive situation.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:15:36

But when you don't have trust, that's where you have to understand, I'm missing a great asset, so I have to build it. So your credibility is so important that in your communication, if you are not transparent, if you are not consistent, if you don't demonstrate your competency, it's okay to not know something. It's okay to go, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. People are okay with that. But when you say that, you don't know, and then you say, hey, I'm gonna go back and find this out, and I'm gonna come back to you. Now, you may forget or whatever, but if your pattern is to consistently say that I don't know and then and then, I'll come back with an answer and then you never do, then do that repeat repeatedly, then your credibility goes down when people they're not gonna invite you into things because first of all, you're gonna come up with probably I don't know because it seems like you say that often. And then that when you say that you're gonna come back with an answer that you do not, so now you're not you're you know what I mean? You're not competent and you're not coming back and doing it.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:16:39

And then the consistency is instead of instead of the, I don't know. Let me go find out. I'll come back and show you. It's, I don't know, I'll tell you I'm gonna come back, and I never do. And then we repeat this. Okay? People aren't gonna trust you. So let's talk about how can how can you what's the process to credibility? How can I get myself more credible or to be more credible? And I'm just gonna spend a little bit of time on this. K? I'm gonna give you some simple things.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:17:07

I think 5 or 6 that you can use. So what's a good way? What's the process that I can get into and get on the road to just building credibility? Even adding to my credibility, making my credibility better. Being better at being human. Right? Or getting better at being human. So the first one is find yourself. When you stop trying to be everybody else is when you can find yourself. When you realize that the person you're trying to become, you already are. I mean, it's amazing that as a coach, I mean, we say that.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:17:38

People say that, that they'll say, you know, you have the answers. They're in you. They're inside. Right? And we spend so much time trying to look outside of ourselves. We're so busy trying to become something that we already are. And the problem isn't isn't that we can't become it. The problem is is we're so clouded up in our thinking that it's it's just it's like fog over your soul and it can't see past it. So if you could clear all that noise out of the way and just focus on looking at the finding yourself, who are you, you know, what is getting into that space is gonna help you get on the road to credibility.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:18:17

And then when you find yourself, then you can begin to know more about yourself. And the way you know more about yourself is you have to examine yourself. You have to ask yourself questions. Right? You have to, you know, be honest with your answers. You have to be brutally honest with your questions. So you find yourself, the second thing is you know yourself, but the third thing is is you have to learn to, like, live in your skin, be who you are. And that is when you can accept that. You learn to accept it.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:18:49

That's an acceptance thing. A lot of us are so busy trying to change into a thing instead of learning to accept a thing, and this is where we are. Now it doesn't mean we have to accept that you're less than because I don't believe in that. I don't believe that any of us are less than. I don't believe that any of us are somewhat average. I believe that we are all fearful, fearfully and wonderfully made. I believe that there is amazing in all of us, every one of us, and we need to pay more attention to that. We need to recognize that that we ourselves are are valuable.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:19:23

You can you find yourself, you know yourself, and then you get to be this self because you accept who you are. And when you walk into the room, you can say out loud, right, if you needed to, but you could say, I am a part of what is missing and necessary in this room. I belong here too. And then the the fourth thing I'll bring up to you is you you improve yourself. If you wanna be on that process, you you make it a priority to just get better. So when you do that consistently, when I like anything I wanna do, if I wanna be better at public speaking, then I work at it. If I wanna be better at making podcasts, maybe I do voice memos. If I wanna be better at writing, I don't wait for a book to show up.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:20:14

I just get a pen and some paper, and I just start writing. You know, a songwriter, P, I wanna one day, like, you're waiting for a hit. You're waiting to do something incredible. You're waiting for this, but you're not doing anything to improve yourself. You're waiting to be the superstar songwriter instead of just writing songs. You're you're wanting to be found and discovered instead of just writing songs. Write your songs, paint your pictures, write your poetry, design the house, sketch the yard landscape. You know, whatever it is, start and you do it.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:20:50

That moves into finding yourself and that moves into when you when you know find yourself, you know yourself, and then you can be yourself, and then from there you can improve yourself. But then the the 5th one I wanna point out is you need to get over yourself too. Like, come on. Stop focusing on you, you, you, you, you, and you, and then you again. So it's important to reflect and look at yourself, but it's it's so that you can then go be better. That you can add, you know, into this world. It's it's stop stop looking and focusing at yourself and and and now look at yourself in in and how you're gonna show up and not so much about how do I look to others. And that is the I think that is the thing.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:21:41

And I'm kinda I'm struggling with that a little bit because I I know most people walk into a space, like, if they have on an outfit. They're walking into the room wondering who's who's thinking about the clothes they have on. And you might say, well, that's nobody does that. Ges. They do all the time. People like this haircut. Will I look stupid? Is that dumb? Or some people need to maybe pay a little bit more attention to how they walk into a room, which in and of itself can affect you and your credibility and can keep you stuck on yourself because you're not even aware of yourself. So you've got to get the place when you get over yourself, stop focusing on you and what how you think other people are looking at you.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:22:20

And then the 6th one, this is really important, is to give of yourself. Right? If you wanna get on the process or this path and pro for the process to credibility, you you give of yourself. Start thinking about others so much and how you can help them. How can I now just I don't think about them, but I think how can I add value to their life? And then if you run into the thing, well, I'm thinking about it, but I still don't know what to do, then you go and ask them. I want to offer myself to help, to be a part of what you're doing. So that's a simple 6. Right? Find yourself, know yourself, be yourself, improve or work on yourself, get out of your way by getting over yourself, and then give of yourself. That's so important.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:23:07

So important. But here's a big key part as you're doing all of that. Remember, you gotta get out of yourself too and looking beyond you, so you can add value to others, give of yourself. But much of what you become in your life is gonna depend on who you choose to admire and P, And that's a big one. So I want you to make sure that you're thinking about that. As you're working on you, finding yourself, knowing yourself, being yourself. Right? Improving yourself. All of these things that I'm talking about, remember much of what you become in life remember, you already are what you're trying to become, but what we do is we adapt, we color ourselves, we add things to ourselves, we borrow things from other places, and sometimes those things should not be in our life.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:23:53

So you have to make sure that you pay attention that much of what you're going to ultimately become in your life is not just your choices, but it's gonna depend on who you choose to admire and copy. And that was said by Warren Buffett. So as you're thinking about this, I want you to just embrace full on the fact that you can be on a path to better communication and to the pathway that gets you in this process of building credibility. I gave you a focus area to work on with that. I want you to also know through observation, pay attention to what's around you, and know what you are copying. And then this final thought is your conviction. You know, you have personal and and people conviction and and purpose conviction. Right? There's the convictions that are there, but you've gotta communicate that conviction.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:24:52

You have to be willing to believe enough in yourself that what's inside of you, that you can take conviction that will that's in you that gives you confidence, and this confidence that's gonna fuel that conviction. And as long as that focus is helping other people and not just advancing yourself, that is going to give you a great credibility in the way you communicate both with words and action. When you can get to where you know the story, what's inside of you, and it's credible because you're clear. You have a belief in the message, in who you are, and also who you're speaking to. That is a way that is gonna help you as you're growing in your credibility, how you communicate with conviction. And then also believe in the power of the things that you say. That when you carry conviction and you can learn to build a greater certainty in yourself, and that certainty is gonna show strength. And then your language is gonna no longer be passive, but it's gonna be active.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:26:00

You're gonna speak different. You're gonna say, I will instead of I hope so, I hope I can, or maybe I could. You're gonna change that. All of these things are going to help improve you. So at first, it's gonna start with you. You're gonna have to ultimately observe also as well to make sure you know what you're copying. And then with conviction, you've gotta put all this to work. And then when you talk and when you live and you do your life, you can do it with deep purpose, deep value, deep meaning, deep purpose.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:26:33

It is a good thing. It is a great thing. So I know this is opening up a communication, box here and I love it. I hope that it sparks some new thinking for you as it relates to the world that you're in and how you operate and how you show up. And I hope that you will just have an opportunity to to sit down and work with and they'll be in the show notes with those six things that I listed out for you, on your way to get on that pathway of building credibility in your life as it relates to communication. Communication. Who said it? A credibility question. Make sure that you know yours.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:27:18

Not don't worry about everyone else's. Worry about yours. So thank you for listening today. I can't wait till the next time we talk, but until then, we'll talk soon.