Before you speak
Most communication problems begin long before words are ever spoken.
A few years ago, I found myself in a conference room with about 200 other women. You know the kind - big round tables that seat 8-10 people, a stage with a podium and projector for the speakers, an always unsettling to me lack of windows, so many unfamiliar faces alongside a handful of familiar ones.
There was an excitable energy to the affair, and while I have been to dozens of professional and personal development weekends wrapped up in keynotes, workshops, and exercises, there was a key difference this time.
Somewhere between the keynote speakers and breakout sessions, I found myself paying less attention to what everyone else was saying and more attention to what was happening inside of me.
At that point in time, I had taken a long break from work, volunteer, or education related travel because I had and still do have young children. But, the time felt right and so I agreed to go.
Here’s the thing, though…I listened to five or six presentations and keynote addresses and can barely tell you what anyone talked about. I don’t mean this just several years later…I mean even the very next week.
That doesn’t mean that these women and men weren’t articulate, funny, brave, knowledgeable. On the contrary. I remember one woman telling us about her receiving the Mrs. Alabama (I think?) title. She was funny and vivacious and made me laugh. I remember a workshopping session on “design thinking” that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Perhaps what most stood out to me was a woman who shared a story about being late to her call with a client.
The founder of her own business, she was attempting to get her kids off to school, start a virtual work call, and make breakfast. Simultaneously. In her haste, she dropped the frozen berries meant for a smoothie all over the kitchen floor. I remember her sharing that she got on the call without having eaten breakfast and left the strawberries to melt and be dealt with later, because she had run out of time.
And, I thought, Huh, how interesting that as women we fear being honest with those we serve? How interesting that it’s still not safe for women to admit that we need a minute to gather ourselves after a tough morning? How refreshing it might be to embrace that we, too, are human even as we mother, manage households, run businesses, and work on missions we believe in?
Again, I know that’s nuanced. Who was her client? Could they wait? yada yada. Also, I don’t want to work with someone who is too precious to admit that they have stressful moments in life and refuse to offer compassion to another.
Back to her story, though, because I’ve thought about it for years.
Now, I believe in that conversation that she was trying to share a lesson in being mindful.
About being aware of how we are building businesses and shaping our days particularly as women and perhaps also mothers. I think she was trying to say that we must not recreate the stressful thing we already know (i.e. the way we currently work or do life).
This was never shared explicitly, but it’s what I internalized. And, it’s sound advice that I would offer, too.
Except it’s not that simple.
Because here’s what I’ve observed over and over again, both in myself and in the women I work with:
Most of us already know.
We know we’re exhausted.
We know we’re overcommitted.
We know we’re saying yes when we mean no.
We know we’re hungry, resentful, lonely, overstimulated, disconnected, or longing for something different.
Information is rarely the missing ingredient.
The challenge is that awareness alone does not create change.
Knowing that you need a boundary is not the same as setting one.
Knowing that you’re overwhelmed is not the same as restructuring your life.
Knowing that a conversation needs to happen is not the same as finding the courage to have it.
Somewhere between knowing and doing, something else is required.
Presence.
The ability to stay with our own experience long enough to hear what is true before we rush to fix it, explain it, optimize it, or perform our way around it.
We build from what we know.
We create and communicate from our own self-awareness.
So, it’s really not that easy to say:
Just be more mindful.
Regulate your nervous system.
Set better boundaries.
Design your life.
Examine your relationships.
Deepen relationships.
Repair relationships.
Have the hard conversations.
Express your needs.
Lead more authentically.
And, then you will have the life of your dreams.
Right?
I kid. But, truly it’s a lot like that.
The question becomes, what are some true pathways to get there?
How do we embrace presence, tell the truth without apology, express needs in the moment, set nourishing but not too restrictive boundaries?
How do we deepen relationships and engage in constructive conversations, communicate with both warmth and power and sometimes authority?
How do we not mask who we actually are in this moment? How do we allow our full persona a seat at the table, rather than taking on different roles for different situations (i.e. work, home, partnership).
Obviously, the expressions of communication are different in these scenarios, but the living persona beneath them doesn’t need to change. Because, frankly? Endless code switching is utterly exhausting.
Over the years, I’ve come to believe that better communication is not primarily a skills problem.
Yes, skills, language, and aligned frameworks are supportive. Without a doubt.
But without self-awareness, they rarely take us very far.
We need more presence.
We need embodied communication.
Not performance training. Not scripts. Not surface-level confidence work.
Embodied communication begins with self-awareness.
Most communication challenges are not simply a matter of finding the right words.
We struggle to communicate clearly when we don’t know what we need, when we fear conflict, when we second-guess ourselves, when we carry unspoken resentment, or when we become disconnected from our own experience.
Before we can tell the truth to another person, we must first become willing to hear it within ourselves.
This is where Before You Speak begins.
You’re invited to Before You Speak: a 90 Minute Communication Salon
What are salons? Salons - not the kinds for your hair! - were known as places where writers, artists, visionaries, and women came to think, connect, share, and reimagine. My own vision is to recreate that ethos both virtually and in our garden locally.
Before You Speak is for women who want to communicate with more clarity, steadiness, warmth, and truth - not by learning better scripts, but by learning to listen more deeply to themselves first.
This is for the woman who knows something needs to change, whether that’s at home, at work, in her creative life (they are all connected).
This is for the woman who feels exhausted, stretched thin, disconnected, resentful, uncertain, or stuck. Who may struggle to communicate her needs, make decisions with confidence, create meaningful boundaries, articulate what they truly want, or connect with their audience in a meaningful way.
The problem is not a lack of information.
The problem is that you may have lost contact with your own inner knowing beneath the noise of responsibility, expectation, performance, and endless demands.
This workshop offers a space to slow down, listen, and reconnect with the wisdom already present within you.
We’ll practice embodiment techniques - grounding, movement, breath, body awareness - before moving into a conversation about the sources of inner knowing, followed by journaling and reflection.
I’d love to welcome you. We’re meeting on Sunday, August 9, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. EST via Zoom.
You can join here for $55.
There is no sales page. No fancy sign-up’s.
Just a simple link and I’ll add you to the list. I also have a supported rate for anyone who needs it, especially stay at home mothers and caregivers. Just reply to this email and I’ll send you the link, no questions asked.
Jai Ma.
With love,
Leanne
P.S. If you’re interested in what I’ve been up to BTS, please read more about my work here: www.leannematullo.com. Between family life and the kids home for summer, writing about communication, and the garden, it’s been a full season so far. <3
P.P.S. Happy Father’s Day to all the wonderful dads out there (at the time of this publishing, it will be almost father’s day in the US).