S6E5: It’s Not Just What You Say: The Hidden Power of Language and Communication with Charlie Hanchett

A new episode of It’s About Language is now available.
Listen to the conversation, then explore the stories, quotes, and resources that follow.

In This Episode

What starts as a conversation about being snowed in quickly unfolds into a journey through Charlie’s early career decisions, including a pivotal leap into teaching abroad and the unexpected path that led him to Puerto Rico. Along the way, he reflects on how real-life needs—not classroom requirements—ignite true language learning, especially for adults balancing career and opportunity.

As the discussion deepens, Charlie connects those experiences to the bigger picture: how language learning shapes the way we listen, respond, and relate to others. From raising daughters to leading teams, he shares how communication is less about perfect words and more about tone, awareness, and intention. The episode builds toward a broader reflection on leadership, personal growth, and the role each of us plays in keeping communication alive—at home, at work, and in the world around us.

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You’ll Hear About

Charlie Hanchett shares how his early experiences teaching abroad shaped his perspective on language as a practical, real-world tool rather than an academic exercise. He reflects on what truly drives language learning, especially for adults, and how motivation and necessity change everything. The conversation explores how language learning strengthens essential life skills like listening, empathy, and adaptability, and how those skills carry into leadership, parenting, and everyday interactions. Charlie also discusses the importance of tone, body language, and intentional communication, offering insight into how we connect with others more effectively. Ultimately, the episode highlights how strong communication—both spoken and unspoken—plays a critical role in building relationships and navigating an increasingly complex world.

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Timestamps

00:00 Life in Massachusetts and communication at home
01:17 Journey to Prague and ESL certification
03:35 Teaching English in Puerto Rico
05:21 Language as a real-world necessity
06:24 Adult language learning and motivation
08:28 Why consistency matters in language learning
10:59 Language learning beyond fluency (soft skills)
14:23 Early language experiences and connections to real life
15:52 Language, curiosity, and human connection
18:41 Cultural awareness without travel
21:48 Language education and teaching philosophy
24:44 Communication beyond words (tone & body language)
28:45 Parenting and emotional communication
30:52 Applying communication skills in daily life
32:37 Communication at a societal level
37:17 Leadership, listening, and scaling relationships
42:33 Strengths, self-awareness, and personal growth
50:13 Coaching, feedback, and communication style
54:04 Finding focus and defining your message
56:55 Hope for continued communication in society

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Key Quotes

• “Language is not a luxury—it’s a necessity.”
• “When you have motivation as an adult learner, everything changes.”
• “It’s not just about fluency—it’s about the skills you gain along the way.”
• “We are communicating even when we’re not speaking.” “The ‘how’ in communication often matters more than the content.”
• “Start with yourself—then work outward.”
• “There is always something you can learn from someone.”
• “If communication stops, something more destructive takes its place.”
• “Focus is finding what truly matters—and staying with it.”

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Resources Mentioned

• ESL (English as a Second Language) teaching certification programs
• Teaching experiences in Prague and Puerto Rico
• Gallup StrengthsFinder assessment
• Concepts:
  • Active listening
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Non-verbal communication
  • Lifelong learning

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About the Guest

Charlie Hanchett is a former ESL educator turned leader in sales and operations, with a passion for communication, learning, and human connection. His career spans international teaching experiences in Prague and Puerto Rico, where he developed a deep appreciation for language as a tool for opportunity and growth.

Today, Charlie applies those same principles—curiosity, empathy, and intentional communication—in leadership roles, mentoring teams, and navigating family life. He brings a thoughtful perspective on how language shapes relationships, leadership, and the way we engage with the world.

To learn even more about my guest, Charlie Hanchett, visit his LinkedIn page. Click Here.

🎧 Listen to this episode wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to It’s About Language for more conversations exploring language, culture, and our shared humanity.

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Transcript

Norah Jones (00:01.762)

From the very beginning of my establishment of this podcast, I have wanted my listeners to feel the joy and the excitement and the astonishment and the miracle of language and language learning on all humans and how we connect with ourselves and with others. And that’s certainly true for this podcast today with my guest, Charlie Hanchett. Charlie also

has a philosophy that helps us to connect the language learning and language use to a bigger picture of how we relate to the world in general. The way we listen, the way we respond, the way we relate to others, how our own motivation comes to play in the miracle of language, and how we bring those parts of language that are not always expressed in words.

into the midst of our communication and connection with others. It was my pleasure to meet and work with Charlie Hanchett early on in my career with a publishing company. And I was struck by Charlie’s insights and philosophy even during the interview. And you’ll be able to tell during this conversation that we have a long history of sharing the way that language and language learning has an impact on the way we see the world.

I know you’ll enjoy this conversation with Charlie Hanchett, but I want you to take also time to reflect on how you have learned, used, and reacted to language in your life and the lives of others. Enjoy this podcast with my guest, Charlie Hanchett. 

How are you doing?

Chris Hanchett (01:47.31)

We’re all kind of like cooped up right now in our little house by the sea in Massachusetts and covered in snow. So there’s like, you know, small square footage and no one going outside. So we can, we’re trying to just be like super patient with each other. And when it comes to language, watching our tone as we communicate, you know, the morning routine and all that stuff. so it’s been,

It’s good. I’m looking forward to the winter break and getting into a warmer space. We haven’t been away for quite some time and we’re going to get to go down to Puerto Rico to visit some of the old haunts. used to live there and taught ESL there. And so that’ll be fun to stroll down memory lane and then also get out and get out West and do some paddle boarding and maybe even some surfing.

Norah Jones (02:39.022)

Wonderful wonderful well as a matter of fact it’s interesting that you bought a Puerto Rico so early on in our conversation because I was looking at You know the background that you had and the fact that you had taught there tell me a little bit more about what is it that Brought you to Puerto Rico. What were you doing there? How long were you there? And what did you what did you gain from that that the old haunts tells me it must have been a good experience?

Chris Hanchett (03:03.556)

my gosh, absolutely. yeah, so backing up right before I went to Puerto Rico, I was in my mid-20s. And what’s funny is I’m finding this is the career arc for a lot of people. And I thought I was somehow sui generis in like, well, like this is my, I’m the only one who did this. Started out teaching right after college and then realized, like I wanted to travel, but I also like wasn’t sure if that just

was going to be like my career in the classroom. And so I ended up leaving a position in a classroom in Maryland for another job that didn’t really pan out and it was in like the business world in New York City. like, thought I was, I thought I could do every, I could do it. And it, it just, the more it sat with me, it just didn’t feel right. So as luck would have it, a friend of mine went to, was like talking to me about his career.

And he was like a paralegal. And he’s like, this is not for me. I want to go get certified at TGSL and go abroad. So we got our certification in Prague, in Czech Republic, in like 2005. So we went there, took a month long course, got ESL certified. I taught in a Prague high school. I taught in like a business in the city. Really neat experience.

But as far as like so we’d all go branch out and find out where we want to go afterwards a lot of people stayed in the city I tried Barcelona for a bit didn’t work. I realized my gosh I’m I don’t have like I’m not a European citizen. So I can’t be here forever. So I ended up doing my Going back to the States after the certification and I was talking to a friend of mine we were waiting tables which is like, you know if you’re teaching a private school and

in the summertime waiting tables was great way to earn extra money. And he’s like, I’m thinking about going down to Puerto Rico. I’m like, what for? He’s like, just because. And I was thinking, well, I could probably find an ESL job there. And that’s exactly what happened. So we went down there in January of 2006 and, uh, you know, got a job at Pali language Institute in Guaynabo, like in the suburbs and, um, south of old San Juan and

Chris Hanchett (05:29.034)

you know, taught classes there, one-on-ones, group classes, night classes, all that kind of stuff.

Norah Jones (05:33.966)

What were some of the experiences you had there? What were some of the stories that came out of it? People were taking English for various reasons. What did you learn as well as what did you find that you were teaching them?

Chris Hanchett (05:49.87)

Well, I’ll answer with a quote that you know very familiar, know very well is that language was not a luxury, a necessity. And for a lot of those folks, so locals to the island, Puerto Ricans, they had English in school, but they found that they either didn’t pay attention enough. mean, this is one story that one of my students told me. He’s like, I just.

I didn’t, it wasn’t important to me at the time. So what happens? He, you know, I meet someone, his wife, and he gets a job and he moves up in his career and eventually there are state side options for him. But his English proficiency was at a level that really they couldn’t make that move until he was at a higher level. So he had this real, real life necessity to be like, okay, I want to do everything I can to improve my English.

And it was only in his adulthood that actually it just came alive for him. And the will to learn and the determination was there. And when you have that with adult learners, I mean, it’s so cool. They’re asking all these follow-up questions. There’s no motivation really involved because it’s all self-motivated. So that was a really neat experience to see folks that were like, they had the English in school and they…

If you live in tourist areas, there’s English spoken a lot. And so if you have folks who grew up in Old San Juan, they grew up speaking English. But for a lot of them, it wasn’t an everyday thing. And so until I think those career paths started to lay out before them, they realized, all right, how am I going to have to level up certain skills? And one of them being one of them was English.

Norah Jones (07:35.374)

That’s very cool. And you know, it’s interesting because I know that there are folks that are listening that tend to potentially think that because language learning happens so easily, organically for young people, that it’s hard to learn language as an adult. Would you say that the motivation, that idea that indeed language is, as you quoted back there, the necessity, not a luxury, that

kind of opens up options in the mind and the spirit so that adults do learn effectively.

Chris Hanchett (08:10.862)

Yeah, I mean, the idea of, I there are certain stories we tell ourselves the older we get. I’m 46 now at this time and in 2026, I have some language learning goals that I’ve had that have fallen by the wayside. I’m going to learn Portuguese and you get into it and there’s discipline involved, but it really wasn’t, it was…

It wasn’t a necessity for me to learn it. That I didn’t, um, I didn’t develop that discipline because I wasn’t, you know, highly motivated. Uh, I think, yeah, I mean, everybody, you know, Tolstoy learned to ride a bike when he was 70. We can all learn. We should all be lifelong learners. This is one of the big trends in, it’s a trend, but it’s, it’s true to life is that we all ought to be learning. think it is, I think it can be more challenging if you’re

If you’re not only doing school, know, I tell my girls, I’m like, hey, your job right now is be doing school and I’ll go to work. you know, and that is so that they understand that there are certain, you know, points of focus for them. And so when it’s all academic, you can really build in, you can excel better at language acquisition when you’re in school. And you don’t have as many,

And you can like make connections to the language, your own language and all the other disciplines. And that’s what’s the neat thing about the world language classroom, which is something I’ve always loved. It’s like, if you are thoughtful and you’re planning, especially as a faculty or, you know, group of teachers, you can really make kids have lots more connections in their other courses from the, from the language classrooms. think as an adult, I’m, I’m still, I keep up my Spanish. I,

I’m practicing more passively some other languages, it’s like anything. It’s a challenge if you’re not able to keep doing it on daily basis.

Norah Jones (10:14.158)

Yeah, yeah. It’s true and interesting, isn’t it? It’s like people that say, you I took two years of X and I can’t say a thing. And I’m like, well, I took two years of phys ed and I still haven’t made it into the Olympics. You know, it’s like, seriously, you know, we can’t, we have to be able to do something daily to keep it up.

Chris Hanchett (10:17.232)

Every day.

Chris Hanchett (10:36.878)

Absolutely. I love that you brought that up because I’ve been thinking so much about that and from a, you know, I work in sales and sales operations, but I’m also, you know, a parent and I look at, you know, the school systems and principals and you know those experiences where when we talk about the value of the language classroom, they only think of it in terms of

Are we producing proficient to fluent speakers? And that is absolutely not the way to think about it. First of all, because absent immersion, it is really challenging to take 50 minutes a day, three days a week during your school year over the course of three to four years and have you know, advanced low or even like intermediate high speaker. Outside immersion, that doesn’t really happen, but it’s

It’s all the other soft skills that you’re learning in the language classroom that is going to determine your relationships, your career path, all sorts of different opportunities for you as you move on to college or work, whatever it may be. And that short-sightedness of, well, you know, all I learned was puer o ir a baño and, and, so therefore it has no value. They’re harkening back to their own experience.

is so short-sighted and I would encourage everyone to understand how learning a language and look up the research. I would love to ask you some questions about it, when you think about it. How it informs L1, our first language. And what are those soft skills that companies desperately need and that our relationships need?

in terms of communication and listening and problem solving that we can do in our L1, in our first language, because we had all those opportunities to play and practice with a second language.

Norah Jones (12:45.666)

That’s beautifully said, Charlie. And I think it’s interesting because as you were talking about soft skills in that global way, you then brought in a couple. And one of them that I think is key that people don’t necessarily think of as part of the language classroom because they’re thinking about talking and talking fluently is that listening, the listening skill. And

to be able to be aware and how it does play into then your first language that you know, any other language that you know, because it’s about the human connection going on. As matter of fact, the question I have is, in your educational background, you clearly were on fire in some way because of the language. And did you feel personally like the language experience when you were coming up through the school systems were helping you to connect with the

with other disciplinary areas and with the world in a way that made you who you are potentially.

Chris Hanchett (13:47.884)

Yeah, I mean, that’s really the question is going back there and saying, did those things actually take effect? My first Spanish course was in California. When you’re in Southern California, there’s a different vibe around your Spanish class because it’s so prevalent in that part of the country. my experience there kind of led me to think about

Well, first of all, I felt like I was really good at it. I had this sort of mathematical mind and the sequencing of the noun, verb, all that stuff and the conjugations, like those charts. I wasn’t afraid of those. I looked at those. Those are intriguing to me. And look at that. What is this vosotra? wait, we don’t have to learn that yet? Okay. But I’m gonna put that in the back of my mind. That was all interesting to me. And I was speaking Spanish with a

with a mathematic mind just very quickly putting these words together without real like fluency, so to speak, in quotations. So I was just, I just felt like I was really good at it. And in contrast to your question, I kind of felt like this was an oasis from some of my other courses that were either less interesting or didn’t have like immediate applicability to

in the sense that I could go outside and hear Spanish at the grocery store or in my high school job and I could immediately apply it. That was incredibly neat to be able to have a classroom experience, walk outside and apply it at 15, 16, 17. No other disciplines, mean, outside of maybe even English grammar, but that was the one other discipline. Both my parents are English teachers.

So you can imagine what the dinner table was like and the edification going on very sweet like in in retro say, know, like like so many things our parents Tell us when we’re kids we think We think we know better but then we become adults or we become parents and we’re like, yeah, okay That’ll make sense. But you were trying to get me to do or coaxing me to consider so with with my L1, know with English that was to me was fascinating when I learned

Chris Hanchett (16:15.81)

that in Spanish you don’t end your sentence in a preposition. I’m like, hey, wait, I think we used to not end our sentences and prepositions in English as well. Or was it the ellipsis, like he is older than I? And you would never say he’s older than me in Spanish. So there was all these neat connections I was making, linguistic comparisons with L1, and it really informed my English. And I even started like.

using certain phrases in English because I love the word in Spanish like conviviality and you know like like increasing my vocab power because of all these like neat cognates I was learning in the Spanish classroom. So that that was really neat. Otherwise like I didn’t really get into the cultural aspect until later in life you know like like really like until I went abroad in college and that was when

the linguistic stuff sort of took a backseat in that interesting mathematical approach I had to it, that curiosity. Now it was, whoa, like why are they, know, the body language, all those other ways in which we express our language non-verbally that you learn in a culture. That’s when it really like took flight for me and took on a different form.

Norah Jones (17:38.59)

that it’s an interesting two-step and both of them having to do with that interest. You I was thinking the other day and it just strikes me that I know I’m in the area of language, but I also feel like, honestly, Charlie, that people that are in the language space have a lot of energy, seem to have a lot of excitement about life and

Sometimes I’m wondering, is it chicken or egg? Are people that are naturally curious and excited about life tending to work, tending to go in the direction of this very humane thing called language? Or does language help to spark people feeling more engaged with the world, more alive with the world? Or kind of, guess it can depend on the person, but what do you think about the idea that language sparks something in people?

Chris Hanchett (18:35.148)

Yeah, is it, you know, going back to the chicken or the egg, I was watching a video the other night, was like, you know, you don’t feel better to go outside, you go outside to feel better. And I think there are certain times in your life where the feeling will determine the action, but I’m finding more and more as I get older that the action determines the feeling. So do then feel kind of. And when it comes to, I think,

expanding your global experience.

Chris Hanchett (19:11.778)

I go back and forth on that because I think everyone should travel as much as they can. But I don’t think that the, if you don’t, you have somehow not experienced the full human condition. You know what I mean? Like for a lot of times when Americans travel abroad, they are speaking to and learning from people who have not traveled abroad, who know their local culture.

Norah Jones (19:38.702)

who but

Chris Hanchett (19:41.4)

better than anyone could because they are in tune with that culture. And there was a line from preacher Tim Keller in Manhattan. He references Miss Marple, who’s the Agatha Christie character, I think. And she’s somebody who was just so in tune with humans and how they behave and how they interact. She never left her small English town, but was able to intuit so much about human behavior and experience.

just because she was just so observant and she noticed everything in patterns and all that stuff. And she was curious. So, you know, she didn’t jet set around the world, but still had a full, I think, human experience as a result.

Norah Jones (20:28.014)

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I think about in my own background, I thought for sure that I was going to be living and working in Europe, the UN, of course, most people that like languages are going to work for the UN from what I understand. And just that was my trajectory. I was very confident in it. The man that I met and married that lived on a farm in Virginia was not a person that had gone all sorts of places around the world, had…

successfully studied a whole bunch of languages or anything like it. But his dad reminds me of the story that you just told, Charlie. His dad was a dairy farmer, an orchardist first, a dairy farmer, who read incessantly. And among the things that he read, along with Westerns, was the National Geographic. He read and read and read and was knowledgeable in a very humane way about how humans work and how the world works.

brought it to his three sons, including the one that I ended up hitching up with. that sense of enjoying humanity, understanding the cultural aspects, understanding diversity, definitely was part of what his father’s legacy was, just sitting in his farmhouse by the fire, reading National Geographic. So that you’re very…

Chris Hanchett (21:50.994)

Yeah, absolutely. I think those, we especially, Jan X and we, we have lots of things we think about when it comes to this world. We, we historically have had this sort of whatever approach to, you know, institutions or trying and I don’t know, I’m making generalizations, but they’re, they’re general because there are certain patterns you, you see with.

certain generations. And I think that what I love about that approach is that, you know, it doesn’t mean that you have to have certain ducks in a row or certain, you know, baseline levels of travel or exposure experience to live a full life, have had meaningful relationships that are not just

you know, topical or, you know, around, you when you think about the cultural iceberg, that’s just food and dance and music, it’s actual digging into beliefs and values and why we are the way that we are and how we treat each other. So it’s a good reminder for folks who are either reticent about traveling or don’t think that, or, you know, if you’re young and you’re in a classroom and you think you have to be

fluent or that you don’t and that, you know, life’s going to take a lot of twists and turns and whatever you learned in that classroom is going to inform you whether you’re speaking that target language or not, just from a human relationship.

Norah Jones (23:34.07)

That’s really neat, Charlie. Thank you for saying that. You know, one of the things that happened is you turned your attention to a job opportunity back in the early 2000s in the language education publishing field. I remember a conversation of asking you, what is it that you really, really are interested in when you take a look at materials from the point of view of what it is that you’ve

you would find joy in speaking about. You want to…

Chris Hanchett (24:07.704)

Do remember what I said? Are you asking me to remember?

Norah Jones (24:13.582)

I do remember, and the thing is I would love for you to say what it was that you were thinking, what you said, and the kind of impact that it can make.

Chris Hanchett (24:23.5)

boy, well, I don’t know if you have to tell me if I’m right or not, but if I have a chance to reconsider it or rethink about it, you know, just for your audience, you you were you were my my manager for a certain standpoint, but more more so my mentor for for a solid 10 years that we spent together with Vista. And I, I think about when you opened up that that book.

in that office during my interview and say, know, kind of, do you see? If I hadn’t had my ESL training the way that I did, I probably would have given you a less interesting answer. I see verbs and I see exercise and there’s a listening exercise. But I imagine that there was something about, you know, a progression or, you know, learning in context. There was a lot of

really neat, like, CI strategies I applied when I was teaching in Czech Republic and ways that I thought, that’s a really neat way to approach, if you have a curriculum or don’t, like, bringing it to life. Instead of just introducing it, why don’t you activate prior knowledge or why don’t you get folks to think about their own experiences and what tools they already bring to the classroom?

verbal, nonverbal, personality-wise, like all those great experiences that they’re bringing in, that whole universe of themselves that they’re bringing in the classroom. And you really brought that out from me and got me to think about those students, not as that sort of this audience that I’ve got to perform for, but these real individuals who can actually contribute to the outcome of a really successful class with the tools they already have in place.

which is so cool. What if you… I got a rift on that off of…

Norah Jones (26:20.312)

Isn’t it cool?

Norah Jones (26:25.134)

And the thing is that riffing can continue. What have you seen? What have you experienced over these years? What has been reaffirmed for you or strengthened? And where have you potentially seen other pathways from the way that folks approach language?

Chris Hanchett (26:41.954)

Yeah, you know, was thinking about, I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, I don’t know for some reason, maybe it’s like a show I found on, it was on like Fox, like the 20, the Aughts called Lie to Me. It was about a guy who picked up on body language and could tell anytime someone was lying. And the whole point of it was we’re speaking even when we’re not. We’re communicating.

Even when we’re not. I know there’s that stat. It’s like 7, 38, 55. It’s really around how meaning is communicated. They say 55 % of your meaning is communicated through body language. 38 % is through your tone of voice. And only 7 is through your spoken word. And we are…

We are hyperarticulate, I find, in our society these days. We’re doing podcasts, we’re communicating in all these different ways, and we find it to be very important, which it is. But when we actually are conveying meaning, so much of it can get caught up in our tone and our body language. So what was encouraging to me about that was that, A, if someone wasn’t, I’ve,

sometimes been read as the fourth of five. And so I didn’t exactly have a voice, you know, growing up. I was sort of just carted along and all that. And so it’s always been a challenge for me is when do I speak up? And I think that goes hand in hand with my own generation of Gen X. We’re kind of caught in between the boomers and the millennials, the two biggest generations that have ever existed.

and the boomers and their institutions and millennials and their activism and where is our role as Gen Xers and where is our voice? And often it can be communicated through unspoken things. So as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned especially with my daughters, my wife, is how important tone is.

Chris Hanchett (29:03.79)

communicating. You know, I’m from the Northeast, I’m from Long Island, and you, I mean, I don’t have an accent, but there is, it’s not just the accent, it’s the attitude in how people communicate. They’re direct. I mean, just like anybody in the Northeast, you crack that outer shell and they are warm and loyal and just as friendly as anybody can be. But they, they want to see a little bit from you before they, they open up and that’s, that’s fair enough.

A lot of that comes from nature and nurture that growing up and a lot of recent immigrants, Long Island and Greeks, Italians and just big communicators in all sorts of ways, gestures and body language and stuff like that. that’s been a part to me that’s been really important is when you don’t have the words, how can you communicate else otherwise?

You know, when your kids don’t have the words, how can you listen in other ways than your ear to see what they’re really trying to tell you? People are speaking in lots of different ways, but are we noticing?

Norah Jones (30:17.122)

That is interesting. And how do you go about that? Let’s go again to your daughters in particular, because they’re right there at their ages of the middle school. So how do you go about that? What are some of the things that you picked up?

Chris Hanchett (30:32.674)

Yeah, mean, my wife has just been so amazing at this, just being so gentle in encouraging them to find other ways to communicate, if I could euphemize, because sometimes it’s just come out in these very strong emotional bursts that can influence a whole room, you know? takes one person driving…

poorly on the highway to ruin it for everyone, know, and a household dynamic that can happen too. And, you know, my wife’s way of, you know, gently encouraging, like, how can we find another way to say that without invalidating their original expression and their original intent? That part has just been eye-opening for me because we bring our own familial dynamic to our new relationships, our marriages, and our children. And we sort of

Without thinking there’s so much there’s much default that we do in our lives without thinking like that’s what we bring into our new relationships and Me noticing her kind of validate the feelings that our our daughters are having but Helping them find another way to say it that not only calms the whole room the columns the speaker himself, you know comes them down makes them feel more confident expressing it unless

less exasperated. That’s been a really neat thing to observe and really emulate and copy. I see that be successful and I’m like, oh, I’ll try that next time as well instead of that impulse of, I’m the grownup, what I say goes, and I’m just gonna double down in my repeating the harsh thing I said, the mandate or the urgency to whatever.

getting ready for school or whatever it may be.

Norah Jones (32:31.16)

Does that have any impact on how you have communicated then outside of the home, how you work in society?

Chris Hanchett (32:40.942)

Yeah, I think so. I think I’m definitely more thoughtful about the how in communication than the content itself. Because I know that that has just as much, if not more, on a situation going well or going poorly.

anything like from running errands, if you have to ask a question in a store, how you approach them to, you know, whatever it may be, whatever situation, even if you don’t know exactly what you want to say or have the perfect words, your tone, your body language, your distancing, all those factors can make something go well, even if

You can’t find the right thing to say, you know?

Norah Jones, Connect with me! (33:42.426)

Hi, Nora Jones here. Please connect up with me on my website fluency.consulting to learn more about my guests, subscribe to know when podcasts, videos and blogs are released, to let me know if you’d like to be a guest, to get Team Humanity gifts for yourself and others, and if you can, to support my work with a donation. That’s

Fluency dot consulting. I deeply appreciate you listening know my style here. have to ask you, can you extrapolate that into the bigger society? Do you think that there’s about that that we can help each other in a community, state, national, even international way? Yeah.

Chris Hanchett (34:34.989)

Well, I know this has been a big theme in your your podcasts and your conversations is Are are we as individuals as people as groups? do we feel like we’re being heard by the people that need to hear us and If we if we aren’t heard with our voices, are there other? things that that destructive or productive that

we are inclined to do as a result of not being heard with our voices or the language that we’re speaking. Is our language not forceful, not persuasive enough? Does action need to take place? I think that’s when everyone has that moment of, know, what am I going to bring to this situation that’s going to affect the outcome? And I think that’s where a lot of us hit

know, loggerheads or, or, or differences because we will disagree on, you know, we used to disagree on, on just how to get to the same place. Now we disagree on the place we want to go. And I, I understand the instinct to, you know, people, know, those graduation speeches, were like, go out and change the world. Those that never, that never struck me because I always thought it, it really starts in my own.

little corner of the world. Let me get that right and then start looking further out. Maybe it’s, I don’t know why that is, but that was always seemed to be more important to me than trying to think that I had to fix the world’s problems by acting in some other way. I don’t know if that answers the question, but it’s certainly something that’s on my mind in this day and age.

where people feel like they, know, those sad moments where you hear that people aren’t communicating anymore with people they had previously communicated with. Not because of we get busy, which is a total excuse. You if you want to get together with someone and be intentional about it, you should. You should do that. You should pick up the phone and shoot that note, send that email. But really,

Chris Hanchett (37:01.292)

I think I lost my thing there, but really it’s about like, if you want to communicate and you feel like you’re at an impasse with someone, really examine yourself first. know, start, there’s a line in, I heard this in management training. It was great. It’s like, when you think there’s a problem going on, start to examine the source or like start to examine like the location of the source of the problem.

with your desk first and work in concentric circles out. And it’s true. It’s like I’m starting with the man in the mirror. And when you go from that perspective, that small to large, when seeking to make sense of the world’s problems, for me anyway, that’s been my approach. And now if it’s generational thing or personality wise, I mean, I…

I can be as extrovert as the next person and as introvert as the next. I’m very grateful for learning that Daniel Pink term, ambivert, know, someone who can be both, who can get their energy from people and also from solitude.

Norah Jones (38:13.632)

When you, I love the thoroughness with which you address that particular aspect. And here comes the question about as especially you look inside and you think about what it is that you’ve just expressed about learning, starting with ourselves, with reflecting with the idea of language, but also the…

the tonalities, I mean kind of emotional tonalities as well, inside as well as expressed. How does this apply to what you are working with now? How does what you know about language work with where you are now? You can share what it is that you are specifically responsible for and how some of the things we’ve talked about, the way language works and the communication connections work.

how that affects how you do what you do, how you work with the people you work with, how you help them, however direction you want to take that. How is this all folding into where you are right now and what you are doing?

Chris Hanchett (39:21.134)

That’s a great question. It’s been on my mind, my heart a lot lately because, you know, and I was talking with a colleague about this recently. There’s a lot expected in positions of leadership and I’ve risen to position of leadership leading teams or leading people who are leading teams. And then of course,

you know, being a father, but also being a coach and a mentor in other ways, being an uncle, you know, and there’s all these different roles that of importance, knowing my experience as a young person, knowing how important my role models were for me, my coaches, my teachers, my bosses, even when I was, you know, before college. So it’s like, whoa.

you have all these hats you have to wear and they’re like the most important hats ever in people’s lives. Like, how do you do that? And you really have to find ways of communicating and ways of listening, ways of approaching these relationships that can be kind of universally applied, that can be scaled, if I’m to use a business term. How to scale your relationships, you know. But it…

It is because like where do you exert your energy, your time and energy? sometimes, you know, paying attention to our bodies as we get older, we really have to listen to them and realize like, what is sapping our strength? What is getting us animated and excited? And in those roles as a leader, luckily there are a lot of things that you can…

apply across the board. There’s these just universal approaches to how you handle your relationships. One of the things that I think about all the time when I’m speaking with someone is I know there’s something I can learn from them. don’t even if it’s what not to do, you know, but

Chris Hanchett (41:43.288)

but I know that mostly I know that they have something really important to offer and I’m gonna find out what that is. And it helps your, if you weren’t curious before, it starts to help your curiosity. And one of the things I love about, and I’ve done Gallup work and I’ve so many questions about it. I think about also, know, Jungian personality, communication styles, those types of things. I always like to geek out on that stuff, Myers-Briggs.

Enneagram and what I find is that One thing that I’ve learned is in all those Those roles that I have to play People are they all have a unique Approach they bring that is actually refreshing if you find if you’re interested in finding that out and so Things that could be I don’t know

annoyances or bugs become curiosities. Like, why are they the way they are? I bet I have an instinct about why they are the way they are. Let me learn more about them and see if that’s the case. So I think applying that, like, you’ve always got to learn something to learn from someone. that’s really helped me apply some, like, active listening skills.

and learning and like actually practicing and using particularly my kids like them as that daily practice to, you know, kind of try out some approaches on to kind of learn how to better communicate. But it’s a lot. I just going back to that conversation I was having with my colleague and there’s just a lot, there’s a lot of pressure and a lot of noise and a lot of voices in that.

If you don’t have good boundaries set up, you, you know, there’s a reason why practicing mindfulness is so important because we can drive ourselves nuts with, you know, the monkey mind or, or just constant input and, now I’m going to go apply this and, this leadership trend or this communication trend. you know, most of the stuff that survives is, the stuff that’s universal and applied. And I like to spend time with that, with those basic principles around communication.

Chris Hanchett (44:09.72)

so I can apply them to all aspects of all those different roles I have.

Norah Jones (44:14.702)

That’s really great. one of the things that you mentioned again was the Gallup, which we actually worked together with there some years ago. And I’m still fascinated by the fact that there’s words that have specific meanings, but the implications of those words. What are your top five?

Chris Hanchett (44:36.43)

Oh my gosh, so this is funny you asked that because I took it again. So the first time I took it was 2018 and then the next time I took it was like 2025 and I remember my 2018 ones because I made an acronym out of it and the acronym or the anagram whatever it is is I ACHE.

So I-A-C-H-E, and it’s not in that order, but they are the top five. It’s input, adaptability, empathy, harmony, and context. it was a lot of like, it’s funny because like my wife and I were both on our yearbook staff when we were in like middle school and high school, both my daughters like it. So we love to remember. have pictures from all sorts of.

you know, walks of life in the past. And I love a deep dive and nostalgia is really big nowadays. but I, and so I’m like, I’m on board with that. And so those were my, my five and 18 when I did my, and those are, you know, analytical relationship building.

Really in like harmony, was like, makes sense. I’m kind of conflict averse because, know, again, growing up in a big family, like you kind of don’t want the spotlight on you in certain ways. And then when I, so when I did it again, it was like ideation, like empathy stayed in the hot, like the top six or seven. Ideation came in there in the top five. Adaptability and context stayed. Intellection came in and then harmony stayed. So.

just a little more introverted, think, a little more like analytical and thoughtful as I’m getting older and less around influencing or I think my woo dropped, know, others over a little bit. And maybe that’s that idea that the older you get, maybe the less you care about what others think, so to speak. think it’s important to think about what those people in your

Chris Hanchett (46:53.344)

in your day-to-day life, those meaningful relationships. Absolutely, you should care what they think of you. But maybe in the broader scale, it’s letting some of that stuff slide a little bit more. So that’s what I’ve, I’ve gotten a little bit more introverted, I think, since my last Gallup test. So what do you think about that? It’s funny that I always go to my bottom five and I’m like, what am I terrible at? that approach is wrong. I know exactly that approach is wrong.

Like we need to clear it up and I think some people are reticent to even give those tests their due because they’re afraid of what they’ll find out. And there is a, and I haven’t really nailed this down, but like what is that way of looking at how we solve problems or how we approach things in life? I just look at it through those top five lenses first, right? Like is there a better way to explain how we

approach the bottom part of those 34 research-based skills.

Norah Jones (47:56.172)

You’re asking a real question here, aren’t Yeah, because we don’t worry about trying to access it through those pathways because we don’t naturally walk along them fluidly. We can admire them, but we don’t apply them almost seamlessly, invisibly, automatically. It’s just not the skill set that was

Chris Hanchett (47:58.308)

Yeah, yeah.

Norah Jones (48:24.846)

provided to us in the particular in our life. And we’re designed to be able to achieve our purpose by working with that which comes beautifully to us that we don’t even notice are our gifts because they’re so easily accessed and so easily used. I think you may remember that I was astonished, mortified, I would say, when I found out that communication was my next to the last.

Norah Jones (48:53.43)

Talking about communication, but when I read more about it, when I understood more about it, I recognized that the, you and I have talked about this, we have this connection. We want people to be heard. We want them to feel seen and to be included and to have the biggest of opportunities. And

Communication, it’s in this case a Gallup definition, is one that’s more like storytelling. You I’m not going to be in a pub standing up and telling stories, you know, while holding the third pint. That’s not how I work with communication, but I still accomplish the goals of having people understand things because of the way I approach them using my naturally fluent skill sets.

Chris Hanchett (49:48.558)

Yeah, no, that does it. It makes a lot of sense. And the whole idea behind it is to like, look at what you already have. And unfortunately, like going back to our default settings that we have, we’ve been designed to find negative things much more quickly and harp on them than the positive things. And so in that spirit of

Norah Jones (49:48.642)

Right.

Chris Hanchett (50:18.414)

self-awareness noticing and having that, making the choice in the moment to not revert to our default way of thinking, which can often be negative, to say, let me just bathe in these strengths and lean on them in the way that I was wired or in the way that I was nurtured so that I can

I can really lead with them and plan for all the places where I’ll need support or coaching or direction that we all need and ought to ask more for, rather than pretending like we know anything or we don’t have a bottom 10 or whatever it is. It’s just, you know, that kind of theater of life is grating on me. And it’s like, let’s just be honest. Like, where are we at with this particular

problem or approach or relationship. Like, let’s just let’s be honest about it.

Norah Jones (51:21.314)

think about good athletes are the ones that have coaches. Professional players are the ones where they the whole team commands demands excellent coaching.

Chris Hanchett (51:32.982)

Yeah. And I come from a long line of, well, maybe not a long line, but a lot of my contemporaries, I played division three sports and a lot of colleagues went into, or classmates went into coaching and the amount of attention they pay to technique. think that there’s something to be said for the going back to like tone. I think there are a lot of.

coaches, especially male coaches. But it could be universal that really just think like the harder they are, the more like their players hear it. it’s not really born out that way. think for every Bobby Knight who’s been successful, there’s insert mild man, John Wooden. John Wooden, somebody who’s been was incredible, never used profanity, never raised his voice and was

showed an incredibly respectful tone that also not only probably made fine gentlemen as they grew up, but also like one games, like made an impact was effective. so I find that when it, when it comes to coaching, like that, that approach and, and, you know, all aspects of our life is, is much more important than, any sort of, like, when you’re, when you’re dealing with like

technique or a problem, like here’s what you did wrong kind of thing. Where people’s defenses all of a sudden come up and well, well, I was thinking this and I want, you that default ego mode, like my ego is under threat. How you give feedback is just so important because it can shut the person down or it can get them to be like, okay, maybe I’ll try that next time. It’s everything.

The on how you give feedback is everything, and coaching and mentoring and stuff.

Norah Jones (53:34.99)

interesting that I’ve not had a discussion with anybody outside of this one here with you about the idea of that coaching is really a microcosm of both the linguistic part, right? And also those things that you brought up, the metalinguistic parts, the body language, the tone, it’s a combination of that and it is related specifically to the communication with an individual.

who needs specific information as well as encouragement. That’s a very interesting.

Chris Hanchett (54:09.902)

Oh, yeah. mean, I remember giving feedback to, I coached an eighth grade boys basketball team a few years ago and I was, we were in middle of the game in a timeout and I’m looking at him and this kid’s mind was elsewhere. Like there were so many things going on. First of all, in fact, he’s 14 years old and there’s…

Basketball is so intimate. The parents are right there on the sideline. And I’m sitting here telling him to do something different next time with urgency and flailing. And you can only imagine, is this really going to get getting through to him? he’s kind of nodding. And part of me was like, reflecting on that, was like, maybe I should just get him to speak it back to me. all right, so say it back to me like what I’m expecting of you. I think that would help a lot more.

because a lot of times in sports, you’re just like, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, anything to like get the heat off of you to do that. But I think with sports, there’s so much we can learn from it that is being played out right now outside of the hysteria or the fandom. Like that religious element, I’m not crazy about in American life, but the element of coaching, of…

practicing with people or practicing alone. All those little disciplines, think we can apply to so many other aspects of our life.

Norah Jones (55:41.39)

No question. Well, when you think about where you are right now in life and work, family, however you want to take it or all of it, where are you headed? What is it that’s happening? What’s important to you right now where you’re like, is what I have got to be able to do and say. This is where my message lies.

Chris Hanchett (56:04.172)

Yeah, I think regarding where my message lies, it’s really actually narrowing down that message and that focus. as someone in a generation that has had, I don’t know that we’ve had some prominent leaders in Gen X, but realizing that we do have to start finding our voice.

as people that grew up in that maybe wallflower kind of, I’m going to bail on the situation type generation. We have to start speaking up, but also we have to be reminded that our actions, it’s that idea of preach the gospel at all times and if necessary use words. So whatever your gospel is, live it out for sure.

Um, but while you’re doing that, um, finding the words and finding the best way to communicate that, uh, is really important, but it’s, mean, you gotta, you gotta focus on the message first and understand like, is, what are my values? Like what are, um, where are they and, and, and how do I need to communicate them out to the people in my life? Um, that, that need to hear them the most. So it’s, uh, I think with all the competing ideas.

and voices right now like focus and like concentration for someone like me who’s like always excited to open up a bunch of different tabs and learn about this and try that is really like narrowing down like, okay, Charlie, like for the next week, like what is that thing I can really focus on where I can make the learning last or solidify it so that I can bring that to whatever I want to do in the next

you know, the next stage of my life. And I am starting to think about those chapters. And I appreciate the question because it’s an important prompt you don’t get enough sometimes in your life that, yeah, what’s next for you? Well, you know, picking up the kids at three. No, it’s like, that’s your daily life. Like, zoom out, Charlie. Like, those are the trees. Let’s think about the forest. And…

Chris Hanchett (58:21.738)

what can you kind of connect with and secure as an area of focus for the next time. So really my focus is finding that focus, if that’s an answer.

Norah Jones (58:32.31)

It is an answer. It is an answer indeed. What do you hope for, for your family, for your community, for this country, for the world? What is your biggest hope?

Chris Hanchett (58:41.486)

continue talking, continued open lines of communication because when that stops, other things go in its place that are much less productive and much more destructive and divisive. So even if you aren’t getting to the heart of a matter with, an opponent, so to speak, keeping lines of communication and keeping,

building on experiences, those moments to get more aligned will hiccup up out of those continued exchanges together. But if you never have those exchanges, you’re never going to have an opportunity to get anywhere closer from your division than you are. So it’s just about staying in communication. That’s so important in our families and in our

you know, in our town, at, you know, state, county, all those things up. Once communication stops in whatever capacity, particularly with words and exchanges and just spending time together, there’s a, it’s a real challenge for what comes after that. So that would be my hope is staying in touch.

Norah Jones (01:00:03.438)

That’s a wonderful hope, Charlie. Is there any question that I failed to ask you today that you would be like, and I would have loved to have talked about that. I really would love to share that, but we didn’t get to it.

Chris Hanchett (01:00:19.446)

It’s so funny you asked that because I recently started asking that in interviews and just to see if there was something. And a lot of folks will say, you know, but the idea is that you want to give time to think about that. I think I actually love that we did.

talk about sports a little bit because one of things that I’ve really enjoyed about my life is being able to have parents who loved books or English teachers, right, and love literature and loved watching football. I loved basketball and sports and athletics, and it’s really so important to have that.

that full experience mind, body, soul. it’s, I find that we can categorize and compartmentalize our lives too quickly. So I don’t know that I’d wished you’d asked me about it, but I, maybe I inserted it anyway, because it’s, it’s a big part of my life. And obviously, you know, we’re here on the eve of, of a super bowl in 2026.

with the Patriots playing the Seahawks. So it’s certainly been on my mind living here in Massachusetts. And going back to that religious approach to sports, it’s certainly apparent here in this part of the country.

Chris Hanchett (01:01:59.598)

The chants, incense, the libations, all those things.

Norah Jones (01:02:02.318)

you

Norah Jones (01:02:07.918)

The libations in particular, I’m assuming, are being poured out all over the place in Massachusetts.

Chris Hanchett (01:02:12.91)

yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see come Monday.

Norah Jones (01:02:16.718)

That’s great. That’s fantastic.

Norah Jones_Closing (01:02:30.126)

and languages in your life. Please go to my website fluency.consulting to see more about this episode and my previous episodes, to check out the 15-minute language stories, and to check out my line of merchandise, Team Humanity. I look forward to welcoming you again to a new conversation, and until then, enjoy language. Go deep.

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