Brenda Winkle 00:00:03 Hello and welcome to your yes filled life. I'm Brenda Winkel, and this podcast is for high performing, empathic women who are ready to stop second guessing themselves and start trusting what they know. Maybe you're successful in your career or business. People rely on you. You make difficult decisions every day. And yet sometimes the moment someone else's emotions, expectations, or opinions enter the conversation, your own clarity starts to disappear. If you've ever wondered, how can I be so confident everywhere else in my life, but struggle to trust myself when it comes to my own needs? You are in the right place. Each week we'll explore self trust, nervous system regulation, emotional energy, boundaries, intuition, and the everyday moments where your life changes not because you've become someone new, but because you learn to stay connected to yourself. I'll share client stories, my own experiences, practical tools, and honest conversations to help you stop abandoning yourself and start creating a life that's truly your own. Because I believe you already know more than you trust, and that is a yes filled life.
Brenda Winkle 00:01:24 I'm so glad you're here. Let's begin. Hello and welcome to your yes filled life. I'm your host, Brenda Winkle. So today on the podcast, we're going to be talking about communication. Specifically, we're going to be talking about something that Devin Bruce calls communication debt. It's where one conversation at a time becomes a pattern. And over time it creates misunderstandings and can escalate conflict and really interfere with our clean communication. And this is so important for everyone, especially empaths, because the more clear we are in our communication, the more we can accurately express our needs. And as empaths. This is something that most of us really work to do because for so many years of our lives, we have put other people's needs in front of our own. So Devin has a beautiful way of describing this, explaining it, and helping us understand how to get ourselves out of communication debt. And this is going to be applicable to you no matter what field you're in, whether you are in a healthcare space and education space and artistic space.
Brenda Winkle 00:02:48 A stay at home mom space, it is going to be applicable to you, I promise. But Devin specifically works with health care organizations, and I know that we have a lot of people in health care spaces who listen to the podcast because health care, by its very nature, attracts a ton of empaths. And so if you are in a health care space, go make sure that you check out the links in the show notes so that you can connect with Devin and bring her into your organization. Let's dive into this conversation with Devin Bruce. Hi, Devin, welcome to your yes filled life.
Devon Bruce 00:03:25 Hi, Brenda. Thank you so much for having me.
Brenda Winkle 00:03:27 I am glad you're here because we're going to talk about communication, and we're going to talk about the things that might impact communication. And before we hit record, we were just talking about the things that can get in the way of our ability to process communication. And yeah, you work in health care spaces and everybody needs health care. So whether the listener is a health care provider or a health care consumer.
Brenda Winkle 00:04:00 This conversation is going to be really good. Would you mind listening or just telling us a little bit about the work that you do, and we'll kick it off there, because that's going to be the beginning point of our juicy conversation.
Devon Bruce 00:04:19 Okay. Well, thanks for having me on. I'm so excited to be here and I'm very excited to talk about this. So what my team and I do, we help health care executives with their communication breakdowns across their teams before they become too much of an operational risk or too much of a safety risk, because communication is not a soft skill, and health care, it's infrastructure. So if the communication is not there, it can cause a lot of problems down the road that often start very small, very invisible, and a lot of things that in a lot of ways that people adapt to. So we help them identify where those communication breakdowns are causing big problems. And I actually call it communication debt because the communication debt is those small individuals, quiet, sometimes invisible breakdowns that just happen over time.
Devon Bruce 00:05:18 And then you look up and then you realize you have this huge problem and you don't really know how it got to this point. And that debt always gets paid with interest.
Brenda Winkle 00:05:31 Just like debt does, right?
00:05:34 So I'm wondering, how would someone.
Brenda Winkle 00:05:37 Know that they have a communication breakdown? What would the symptoms be?
Devon Bruce 00:05:43 That's a really good question. Especially in health care it really depends on the situation. But a good example would be, let's say that there's a deadline coming up and there's a few people on an email and someone sends an email to someone, but there's like a group of them and they're like, hey, when are you going to submit your information? And the person responds and says, I'll send that to you ASAP now, ASAP to the person who sent the email. Could mean lunchtime tomorrow. Another person on that email could mean the end of business today. The another person. It could be end of business in two days. The person who sent the email could be by Friday.
Devon Bruce 00:06:31 You know, a couple of days from now. Now everybody knows what ASAP means. But everybody has different interpretations of what that is. And so you have people, you know, that Judge Judy meme when she's doing this. You've got people going like, you know, what's going on here? And then the person who sent, it's like. What's the problem? You know, I said, I do it ASAP. That's communication debt because there's no clear definition on what the time is. Now, if the person who replied was simply just said, I'll have it by end of business Friday. Everybody is crystal clear on what is expected.
Brenda Winkle 00:07:13 What an easy solution exactly.
Devon Bruce 00:07:16 But the thing is, we use ASAP all the time, right? It's such a part of our normal everyday usage, but it can cause so many problems.
Brenda Winkle 00:07:26 That's right. And so I was thinking about the conversation that we had on your podcast, and we talked about different words and different phrases, meaning different things across cultures. And I'm a big Broadway nerd, and I have come across this Broadway singer named Kelsey Watts, Who's married to a neurophysiologist from South Africa.
Brenda Winkle 00:07:50 And he did this real recently about the ways in which communication can break down, even among standard English, with two English speaking people that have different contexts of where they've learned English. And so even even speaking the same language. And this is what your point is, even speaking the same language, we can have communication breakdowns if we don't define things.
Devon Bruce 00:08:20 Absolutely. Yeah.
Brenda Winkle 00:08:22 So if someone wanted to clean up their communication it seems like it'd be a really easy thing to do to just be more specific. But I'm betting you have other things up your sleeves.
Devon Bruce 00:08:35 Yes I do. And again it really depends on the, the context. But just to keep it simple, one of the fastest, easiest, most effective ways is just to be clear. Especially when it comes to deadlines and timelines. So instead of saying I'll get to it soon. Make sure that you say I'll get to it by and then have a specific time and date if possible. If you don't have a specific time or date, then you can say, I will let you know as soon as I get informed by this person.
Devon Bruce 00:09:09 Or once this happens, I'll let you know. But if you just say, I'll let you know soon, that's very unclear. So anyway, being very clear when it comes to timeframes, that's the that's the easiest one. Another way to, have better communication is to make sure that you watch your tone, because sometimes people are not really paying attention to the way that they say things, because in English you can say the same sentence five different ways. It can have five different meanings, and you don't have the luxury of knowing how that other person is going to interpret what you're saying based off of your tone. So another way, this is a little bit harder because it is more nuanced. But if you really pay attention to your tone and how you say things, that could also really help with communicating effectively.
Brenda Winkle 00:10:05 I love.
Devon Bruce 00:10:05 I would say, oh.
Brenda Winkle 00:10:06 And I have a question. Could we do some examples of sentences that have different meanings based on tone? Because for the listener that might be thinking, how can I apply this to my personal life? Or how can I apply this to my business? I can see that there's a lot of different potential examples and oh yeah, could we play?
Devon Bruce 00:10:28 Yes.
Brenda Winkle 00:10:29 Let's do let's do a phrase that we might be able to interpret five different ways. Do you have one in mind?
Devon Bruce 00:10:35 Okay. for this one I can do because I know that you're trying to do, like, personal and professional. We'll do for. So the sentence. I didn't mean that.
Brenda Winkle 00:10:49 Oh, okay. That's a good one.
Devon Bruce 00:10:52 Yeah. So so you can interpret it. There's so many different ways. So let's say if I'm, if you come to me and you're just like Devin, I didn't really appreciate the way that you said something. And I say, oh, Brenda, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. That sounds, you know. Yeah, that.
Brenda Winkle 00:11:10 Feels.
Devon Bruce 00:11:10 Good. Yes. You can tell that I was being sincere, but if you say the same thing and I'm like, I didn't mean that.
Brenda Winkle 00:11:20 Oh, I feel totally.
Devon Bruce 00:11:22 Totally, yes. Totally different. But in your mind, you might think that you're coming across like you're communicating effectively and you might not be fully aware of how defensive you're coming across, but the other person absolutely receives it.
Brenda Winkle 00:11:37 Okay.
Devon Bruce 00:11:38 And then you can also. Yeah. And then also depending on where you put the stress as well. Like I didn't mean that. Meaning you know another person could or I didn't mean that. Meaning you could be referring to something else. So you see how that one sentence, depending on how you use your voice to communicate that it can cause so many communication breakdowns.
Brenda Winkle 00:12:04 So if we wanted to make our tone more approachable, more neutral, what do we do?
Devon Bruce 00:12:14 There's a few things that you can do. Sometimes when I know if I'm in a heated situation but I don't want to shrink myself, I just say it very calmly but confidently, like, oh, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. Something like that. You know what I mean? Like I say it confidently, but. But more reserved. so, so that's how that's what works for me. this is really dependent on the person's voice and what works for them because for something like this, it's really applicable to the person and how they operate.
Brenda Winkle 00:12:55 That makes so much sense because we don't I mean, there's so many varieties. Okay. So as you were talking about the five different ways that somebody could say something, you were getting ready to move into a new space, and I interrupted you to ask for examples. Do you remember what that space you were headed into was?
Devon Bruce 00:13:12 Let me see. Do I remember? Actually, no I don't. It'll probably come to me when we stop hitting the when we stop recording.
Brenda Winkle 00:13:21 Okay. So I, I was in public education for 26 years before doing what I now do. And one of the things that I saw in a breakdown was if somebody felt unseen, unappreciated, unheard, that a lot of times they would begin to. And this is very human. They would look for evidence that they were unseen, unheard, unappreciated. And of course, if we're looking for that, we find it. And I can imagine that that comes up a lot in different kinds of health care spaces.
Devon Bruce 00:14:00 Yes.
Brenda Winkle 00:14:01 How would one approach that and begin to heal or mitigate those kinds of feelings?
Devon Bruce 00:14:10 That's a really good question, because something that I say all the time is that silence is one of the biggest risks in healthcare.
Devon Bruce 00:14:17 And if people don't feel seen, supported or heard, then they will not speak up. And that can have dire consequences depending on the context. So to answer your question, what can someone do if they feel Unseen. There's a few things that someone can do. One is to soothe themselves. Let them know that even though they may not feel seen, that's not. That's not something that's dealing with their own self-worth. Like they're not bad, they're not wrong. They're not, you know, a failure. It just could be the situation that you're in. So if you can find a way to separate the two, that's really helpful. Another thing that you can do if you feel comfortable is speaking to the person or the people that you can, and just go in with an open mind. Now, I know that depending on the context, that's not that may not work. So that's why depending on the context, if you focus more on yourself and realizing that you are doing the best you can with the tools you have and that you are a good person, you're a kind person, then that will help your self-esteem.
Devon Bruce 00:15:33 And then once your self-esteem is risen, then you can take the action that you feel is best for you.
Brenda Winkle 00:15:40 I love that you linked the ability to say that with self-esteem, and I do think that there is absolutely a relationship between how somebody perceives themselves and their ability to to speak up for themselves. And I also would say it, if you're regulated, if your nervous system is regulated, it becomes so much easier to have those conversations, because if you're dysregulated, then it it feels like there's a fire in your face.
Devon Bruce 00:16:09 Absolutely. That's another thing that I say a lot to in my content is that communication issues there a lot of the times it's a nervous system issue. So if you are in the middle of a presentation and your mind suddenly goes blank because you're very nervous that a lot of that is not because of your lack of being able to communicate. It could be because you're you're feeling unsafe. You're feeling like you may. You might be feeling spikes of unworthiness. And so your nervous system is going haywire.
Devon Bruce 00:16:44 But if you focus on regulating your nervous system, that can really help clear up some communication issues.
Brenda Winkle 00:16:50 Absolutely. I'm seeing something, that's I haven't seen in the physical world before, but it is it is something that's coming through about you. There's some slideshow that you present, and it is connected to one of your presentations and my guides to be a little bit weird here. My guides are like, you need to ask her about that presentation, because there's some piece of gold that is in one of your presentations that you have a slideshow ready to go on.
00:17:20 Oh.
Devon Bruce 00:17:23 I'm thinking because I've done quite a few, especially in the last couple of months, and the spectrum is so wide. Okay. Even though my jam is like healthcare and things like that. But I also do quite a bit of work now in like women's spaces. So leadership development, money mindset things, how to redefine yourself. So I've done other things outside of healthcare.
Brenda Winkle 00:17:48 Okay. It's it's one of those and it was about three weeks ago.
Brenda Winkle 00:17:51 They're telling me.
Devon Bruce 00:17:53 Three weeks ago, what is this, June 9th like?
Brenda Winkle 00:17:58 It should have been like the end of May. The end of May ish. Give or give it. Yeah. And it.
Devon Bruce 00:18:04 Okay. Yes. I did do a presentation on May 26th that I did that one. Okay. Oh. What was it? I got.
Brenda Winkle 00:18:16 A check.
Devon Bruce 00:18:17 I'm so sorry. I have to I have to pull up.
Brenda Winkle 00:18:19 No, I'm. I'm totally throwing this at you because we didn't talk about this. This is something. My guy they're being loud about.
Devon Bruce 00:18:26 Oh, well, I hope I'm. I hope I'm passing the vibe check.
Brenda Winkle 00:18:31 You're totally passing the vibe check.
Devon Bruce 00:18:33 Oh, good. I'm happy to hear that. Hold on. I gotta pull up my phone because, I have to see, what it was about, because, again, I, I don't really remember. what did I talk about? I talked about. Okay, so my topic was the hidden cost of building your business in the wrong direction.
Brenda Winkle 00:18:57 Okay, so I just got the chill bumps of confirmation. That's the one.
Devon Bruce 00:19:00 Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. This was a fun one to discuss. I had to really talk about my the way that I use the way that I spoke about it is that I really talked about my business ups and downs and how I was able to get in full alignment with my business and how basically me being a cautionary tale and like, don't do what I do or not what I do now. But you know, I tried to save people years of just pain and struggle with their businesses by using myself as a cautionary tale.
Brenda Winkle 00:19:34 Oh my gosh, that sounds so, so good. I definitely felt like that too. In my own business, where there was a time period, I went off kilter of what I know and started to try to follow a path that someone else had laid out for me, because they told me that was going to work better for me. And it it almost cost me my business because I wasn't listening to myself.
Devon Bruce 00:20:00 Yeah. Me too, me too. Yeah. And that was a really hard time because I was back when this was a real issue. I was trying so hard to prove people wrong, because I had a lot of people tell me that I was like a failure and I wasn't going to do it. And, you know, for your listeners and the and people watching. I'm a single mom. Two kids. And when I left a marriage that I had to leave, I had to leave very quickly and without a plan. people thought I was crazy, that I was nuts because he was the breadwinner. And so when I started my business, I had basically almost everyone told me that I couldn't do it and I'm going to fail. And so I was in this headspace of, I have got to prove these people wrong no matter what. And so that fueled me at the beginning. Sure. That was helpful to kind of like get things done. But after a while that became very toxic. And then I lost my weight a little bit.
Devon Bruce 00:20:56 And then when I realized that my path was like up here, but I was still down here, I had to go through a lot of personal changes in order to let go of my path and let go of the anger, and to finally see the path that was in front of me.
Brenda Winkle 00:21:17 We have so much in common, because that was how my marriage ended to very, very suddenly leaving. Leaving everything behind except two suitcases and my daughter and wow. So we have we have a lot in common. And in that rebuilding process, self trust is the only way through because nobody's going to tell you you're going to have to leave everything behind. And nobody dreams about that when they're like a little girl like, gosh, I hope this happens. nobody does that.
Devon Bruce 00:21:54 Exactly.
Brenda Winkle 00:21:54 And so learning to trust yourself enough to risk everything is such a gift, but it comes with the cost of having to have people around. You say, it's not going to happen. You're going to fail. Maybe you're crazy.
Brenda Winkle 00:22:15 I don't know about you, but that's what they said.
Devon Bruce 00:22:18 Oh, yeah. I was definitely told I was crazy for sure.
Brenda Winkle 00:22:23 Yeah. And so as you aligned the business with your inner self what happened.
Devon Bruce 00:22:31 Opportunities just really started to present themselves because one of the things that I was I struggled with was taking up space because of just the way I was raised and, you know, just some other things. It was kind of like, if you take up space, you're in danger or, you know, if you, basically, like, you don't dream big, you survive. And there's a lot of like generational trauma with that. You don't dream big. You gotta just do what you need to do to pay the bills and when, especially when I was at my rock bottom and I had this big dream to do my business, I just had to do it because I was at my bottom. I had nothing to lose. I had less than $10 in my account and my daughter and son.
Devon Bruce 00:23:16 At the time, my daughter was nine and my son was six, and I had to humbly move back in with my parents, and I had less than $10 in my account, and I wanted to go get bread and milk, and I couldn't do it. So I literally put my hand up to God and I said, all right, failure is not an option. This is the lowest I'm ever going to feel. I got nowhere to go but up. What do I do? And I had this thought of Devin. What is the biggest, craziest, wildest, most unrealistic dream you can think of in this moment? Because I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. And that's when I decided to start my business helping non-native English speakers with their English. And so that helped me for a while. But the thing is, I thought being in that space was my like the the biggest dream that I had. I didn't know one day I would be working with health care executives all around the country.
Devon Bruce 00:24:10 I didn't know that I'm more of an operational thinker. I know how to deal with systems. I didn't know those things because those types of topics take up space, you know what I mean? And so I didn't feel comfortable going down that road. I felt like everything was pointing like up here, up here. But I'm like, no, I'm going to make this business work with non-native English speakers because this is what I want. And I got to prove everybody wrong. And when it didn't start working it, oh my gosh, it caused me years of issues, you know, because I couldn't I didn't trust myself. But now, thankfully, I'm on the other side of it and oh, life is so much better when you just kind of let go.
Brenda Winkle 00:24:57 Hey man, it's so much better when you just kind of let go and you start to follow your, your guidance and your trust. And so at the beginning of our, our time together today, there was a stressful thing that had happened, and we talked about it, we worked through it and all the things, and I, I kept hearing the guides around me say, this is an important conversation to have.
Brenda Winkle 00:25:22 And human Brenda was like, okay, I know we're talking about health care spaces, but that doesn't feel like what we're talking about. But okay, I know we're supposed to be here today, and it's becoming more and more clear why we're supposed to have this conversation today. Because even up till them showing me the the slide from three weeks ago, I was still like, I know we're talking about health care spaces, but we're also not talking about health care spaces. Help me. And poof, they gave me the right thing to say to unlock the thing. Meaning we have to trust our guidance. That did not come from me. Right?
Devon Bruce 00:26:04 Yeah, that's really cool.
Brenda Winkle 00:26:05 It is cool. It's really cool, and I didn't. I haven't always trusted that that was part of my own journey was to realize it's not my imagination, it's wow. It might be weird, but it is also very effective. And if I trust the guidance, they never lead me astray. They might take me down some curvy roads.
Brenda Winkle 00:26:25 They might take me in some dark alleys. But it's never wrong.
Devon Bruce 00:26:29 That's really cool. I really appreciate the fact that you that you embrace it and you embrace it publicly. You embrace it publicly. That is a flex. I think. That's so cool.
Brenda Winkle 00:26:43 Well thank you. Yeah, it was something I had to grow into. I was very self-conscious of my gifts for most of my life, and was told openly that I would be fired from public education if anybody knew. Don't talk about that stuff. The parents will be scared to have you around their kids. You're committing professional suicide? yeah, all the things. And I think that there are a lot of people that want us to conform to their vision of whatever it is. And so many times that's not good for us.
Devon Bruce 00:27:14 Oh my goodness. Listen. As a 45 year old single mom of two kids but knocking at 46, I'll be 46 on the 20th. And I am so happy being single and free and doing whatever I want, when I want.
Devon Bruce 00:27:33 Oh my goodness. The the backlash. So it's like, I get it because yeah, I am so happy doing what I'm doing right now. And a lot of people really don't like it and they don't understand, like, you can be single, like by choice and be very, very happy.
Brenda Winkle 00:27:58 Amen. Yes, yes. Being single means that I can go dancing 3 to 4 nights a week and have the best time. And it is literally fuel for me.
Devon Bruce 00:28:10 And yeah.
Brenda Winkle 00:28:11 It's so fun. And you're right, there's a lot of people who don't want us to be free, to find our joy, to find our purpose. And I know that there's a lot of listeners that are yearning to trust themselves enough to take the next step, whatever that is for them. What do you think was part of your process in learning to trust your next step? I mean, obviously we've got the situation which like mine, that was a little bit like Trial by Fire. Either you do it or you don't.
Brenda Winkle 00:28:42 And it felt like it was really catalyst kind of lipstick. Is that the right word? It was a catalyst. Yeah. But beyond that, how did you how did you navigate all of those forces of oppression around you saying, conform, do it this way.
Devon Bruce 00:29:00 That's a really good question because that's something that I struggled with for a long time. If it feels right in your gut, your gut will never steer you wrong. I feel like I feel like for me, again, I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, anxiety yells and my intuition whispers. So I know if it's like super loud and I'm really aggressive, that's not my intuition, that's fear. But if it's quiet and it feels like a whisper in my body, then I know that's the path. Even if the 3D is not 3D ING in the way it needs to.
Brenda Winkle 00:29:40 Oh, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, we lack evidence, but we're moving forward anyway.
Devon Bruce 00:29:47 Yes, absolutely. So that was something that I had to really rely on, especially when I would have people tell me the exact opposite of what I knew was right for for me.
Brenda Winkle 00:30:01 And I having gotten to know you a little bit through your podcast and through this podcast and then online, I know that this is part of your genius is being able to listen to yourself, to be able to identify things. And I'm sure that's what brought you into wanting to help people communicate better is because it feels like you can see it. You can see the solutions, you can see the breakdowns, and you got a gift.
Devon Bruce 00:30:28 Yeah. Thank you. And that was one reason why I really struggled sometimes with my business when I was helping non-native English speakers, because there's still part of the conversation, don't get me wrong, because, you know, communication is communication, but English is no longer the focus. Clarity is now the the focus. So anyway, so one of the things that I really struggled with with my business is that when I was working with the native, the non-native English speaking doctors, I could see straight through why they were having problems. Guilt. So much shame. Feeling like failure for needing something as help with something as basic as English.
Devon Bruce 00:31:08 So it didn't matter how much my marketing was to help with the guilt and the shame and over needing to overcome, you know, perfectionism. It did not matter if they weren't ready, they weren't ready. And some people struggled with this for decades, like their entire career. And so it was very frustrating for me because I was like, I can clearly see the problem, but just as a whole, they just this the guilt, the shame was just too much. And that was really hard because I poured my heart, my soul, my everything into wanting to help them. But just they didn't really, but they just weren't ready to be helped. And so now when I'm working with healthcare executives and I'm talking about, look, these communication breakdowns are not only affecting your bottom line, which I know is important to you, but it's also affecting your retention. It's also affecting customer satisfaction. It's affecting all of these things. It's so much better for me because I'm because there's no emotions involved. It's just straight data.
Devon Bruce 00:32:11 And so that's more of my lane. But again, I was so focused on trying to make this one thing work. I shot myself in the foot for a long time because I was trying to make the thing that was not aligned with me work.
Brenda Winkle 00:32:31 And you're saying something really important and resonant. So if we're doing something and we're effort and we're forcing and we're still not seeing progress.
Devon Bruce 00:32:43 Oh yeah.
Brenda Winkle 00:32:45 It might be evidence. Yeah. Go ahead go ahead.
Devon Bruce 00:32:49 Yeah. That's one of that was one of my biggest points when I said you can tell you're out of alignment because it feels like you're pushing a giant rock up a very steep mountain. If you feel like that in your business or just in life, you are not in alignment. That's supposed to feel not effortless because, you know, you got to of course put in the work. But there should be a level of ease to what you're doing.
Brenda Winkle 00:33:16 Yes. And were there glimmers, were there people who asked you for different things or asked you questions that made you think, oh, I should be working on the communication for the whole healthcare system? What were those glimmers?
Devon Bruce 00:33:30 Absolutely.
Devon Bruce 00:33:31 So we started working with global teams because my progression with my business, I worked like individually with doctors, and then we expanded and we started working with global teams. So people from all around the world, different cultures and they were English was like the the language barrier, but they were native English speakers on these teams. And when I was talking about these specific Breakdowns. I would have native English speakers tell me, oh, I go through those too. I experience those things too. Or I would have people on LinkedIn go in my DMs and say, listen, I know that you're focusing on non-native English speakers, but as a native English speaker, I get so much from your content. And so when I started noticing the trend, it allowed me to take a step back and realize, okay, I don't think English is really the problem here. And then when I did extensive research on communication breakdowns in healthcare, it was costing the system billions of dollars each year. I was like, that's it.
Devon Bruce 00:34:28 English is not the issue.
00:34:30 Clarity is.
Devon Bruce 00:34:32 The issue. And I'm able to see where it's not clear on a on an operational level. And that's the reason why I gave it a language communication debt, because that is how it starts, those breakdowns over time.
Brenda Winkle 00:34:50 This is so cool. And I'm going to nerd out for just a minute, because a lot of times people think that when we think about intuition, we think about somebody wearing a turban on their head with the crystal ball, which, I mean, I love a crystal ball. Who doesn't? But that is not how intuition comes in. For the vast majority of people. There's three main ways that I have have mapped that intuition comes in. One is through, you know, connecting to the field, meditation, breathwork, prayer, that kind of thing. The others through movement, whether it's walking, dance, interpretive kind of things. But the third hardly gets any airtime, and it's really important. And it's through structure, structure like forms, data, spreadsheets.
Brenda Winkle 00:35:38 And so there are so many intuitive people that are out there doing incredible work. You, for example, and you are tapping into Intuition. You're absolutely following guidance. It's so cool to witness. Thanks.
Devon Bruce 00:35:54 I never really thought about it that way. because, you know, I speak to I, you know, I'm very active on LinkedIn, and I speak to healthcare leaders across the country every single day, and I'm hearing the same things over and over again. And that fuels a lot of my content. And I'm able to like, for example, my my latest article, my, my, the one I posted yesterday, it was talking about how the one employee that you rely on is one of the biggest risks for your for your for your organization. And when you think that you'd be like, why is the person that I depend on the most the biggest risk? Because a lot of the times they're because they're so efficient, they're hiding a lot of operational problems. And also if that person leaves, you're going to have a big problem on your hands because that person carried the whole load.
Devon Bruce 00:36:45 So if that person leaves, you're going to have a lot of problems that you're going to look and be like, oh, well, where did all these problems happen? Where did all these problems occur? So then I started saying, listen, as health care leaders, you really need to start asking these very important questions, okay? The person that I really depend on the most, if they leave for two weeks on vacation, what problems are going to arise and start there? So, it's I'm just I'm saying this just because, it's I'm able to make the invisible visible. And I absolutely love it. It is so fun. It's very rewarding, too. I got a lot of good, feedback on that on my article.
Brenda Winkle 00:37:32 I bet you did, because the way it hit me was at first, like, really? That person's the liability. And then as soon as you described it, I was like, oh, I can totally see that.
Devon Bruce 00:37:44 Yeah, yeah. So it's cool to.
Devon Bruce 00:37:46 I like one of the things that I love is when I have like a health care leader, especially like the ones in charge, you know, the C-suite. And they will be in my DMs or they'll they'll talk to me and they're like, you know, I'm really thinking in a different way because of you. Or when I read your post, it really started making me think about things in a different way. I never thought about it like that. And I'm like, yes, that's the service.
Brenda Winkle 00:38:12 Oh my gosh, that's so incredible. And health care in us is so complicated. And so I'm so grateful that you are connecting with the leaders and helping them to survive, because we can be angry about the health care status in the United States, only up to a certain point when we realize the health care system is fueled by other humans, other humans doing very human work.
Devon Bruce 00:38:40 Absolutely. Yes. Yes. And so the thing that makes it hard, especially for communication in health care, is that it's not something that's usually measured, right.
Devon Bruce 00:38:50 You know, it's not a procedure. It's not policy. It's not technology, but it influences everything. I always say it's like a house and you don't really pay attention to the foundation of your house until you start seeing cracks on the wall. But it took a while for those cracks to appear, so you got to really pay attention to the foundation. So that way those cracks won't appear on your walls because it's not a soft skill, it's infrastructure.
Brenda Winkle 00:39:19 That's right. And we don't want those cracks. We don't need those cracks.
00:39:22 No.
Devon Bruce 00:39:23 Absolutely not.
Brenda Winkle 00:39:24 So for the listener, that's either a health care leader or in health care themselves. What would you want them to know about communication? And then I'm going to ask you the same question. For somebody that has nothing to do with health care, but is just listening because they love the show, or they're an empath or they're an intuitive, What would you say to the health care leader or the health care professional?
Devon Bruce 00:39:46 So to the health care leaders listening, if you are having some issues on your on your operational side of things and you can't really pinpoint what it is, for example, if you're having a high turnover and it's costing you a lot of money and you might think it's the you're not getting the right staff or something like that, it could be the way that things are communicated.
Devon Bruce 00:40:08 So if so, if you can't really pinpoint it, try focusing on some of the communication issues that you may be having across your systems that might help you solve some of your the things that you feel like you can't really solve. and then for the non health care people like, you know, professionally, if it's something with communication I would say definitely focus on yourself trust because that's like the basis for everything. If you don't trust yourself, then you're not going to be able to trust another person when they're trying to communicate with you. So yeah, I'd say focus on that. Whatever that looks like for you in regards to honoring that and and developing it.
Brenda Winkle 00:40:54 So I'm smiling and laughing because we didn't know this at the time that we booked our conversation. But I have a masterclass coming up called Trust Yourself. It's literally all about self trust.
00:41:08 Oh, okay. Cool.
Brenda Winkle 00:41:10 I'm just kind of giggling about all the the synchronicities that are that are present in our conversation today. It's amazing.
00:41:18 That's so cool.
Brenda Winkle 00:41:19 How can people connect with you?
Devon Bruce 00:41:22 I'm very active on LinkedIn. That's the easiest way. My name is Devin Bruce. If you put me in the the in the search bar, I'm usually the first one to come up. But if you are a health care leader, you can go to our website institute. And if you're interested in me in other ways, you could go to my personal website. Com but LinkedIn is the fastest one.
Brenda Winkle 00:41:48 Amazing. And I'll put all those links in the show notes so that people can grab them.
00:41:52 Thank you.
Brenda Winkle 00:41:53 I am so grateful for you and for the work that you're doing and the way you show up in the world. And I'm just I'm inspired by you and feel a closeness just because our stories are so eerily similar in navigating challenging family dynamics and reinventing ourselves.
00:42:20 Awesome. Oh. Thank you. Yeah. And likewise.
Devon Bruce 00:42:23 Likewise. When we first met, we were just both like, ooh.
00:42:27 There's something here, there's something here.
Brenda Winkle 00:42:30 We're gonna be friends, I think.
00:42:31 Yes. Yes, exactly. That's so good.
Brenda Winkle 00:42:35 Exactly as we close. Is there anything you want to leave listeners with?
Devon Bruce 00:42:42 yes, I would say that. Go for it. you only have this one shot.
00:42:50 Yes. Just do it.
Brenda Winkle 00:42:51 Just do it. Stop thinking about it and go do it. You already know. Yes, yes. Words to live by. Thank you so much, Devin.
Devon Bruce 00:43:01 Thank you for having me. This was so much fun.
Brenda Winkle 00:43:03 It was really fun. I absolutely loved this conversation with Devin Bruce and hope that you got a lot out of it as well. I especially appreciated how she explained the importance of being clear and specific, and I know that this can reduce the number of misunderstandings we have in both our professional and our personal lives. I'm going to put all of Devin's links below. You can check them out in the show notes or on the YouTube description. And be sure that you connect with her over on LinkedIn. And as I mentioned in this episode, I am hosting a free masterclass on July 29th called Trust Yourself, and you can register for that by going to Brenda Winkle level, because trusting yourself really is the next level.
Brenda Winkle 00:43:57 Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you found value in it, would you please consider sharing it with three of your friends and connect with Devin and I on Instagram or LinkedIn, where Devin is even more active. If this really meant something to you, would you please consider sharing it with three of your friends and connect with Devin and I over on LinkedIn and let us know what really stuck with you about this conversation. Thank you so much for listening. Bye for now. Until next time.
