We recently connected with Tabby Refael and have shared our conversation below.
Tabby, so great to have you on the platform and excited to have you share your wisdom with our community today. Communication skills often play a powerful role in our ability to be effective and so we’d love to hear about how you developed your communication skills.
I love people. And I love watching and learning from people.
When friends and colleagues learn that I have been a speaker for nearly two decades, beginning in college, they confide in me that they fear public speaking more than death. As for me, I fear routine manicures more than public speaking. In fact, I love speaking, presenting, engaging and even debating. I love looking into someone’s eyes just long enough to make them smile because they feel seen.
I initially grew up in post-revolutionary Iran in the 1980s, and storytelling informed everything I first learned about communication. There were ancient stories, such as Shahrzad’s (Scheherazade) “One Thousand and One Nights,” and modern nightmares, such as the stories I heard in the dark of the night between my parents and relatives, who constantly discussed the turmoil of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), a war that resulted in one million casualties. There were secret stories, such as the ones I told teachers and classmates when I feared they would learn that my family was secretly planning to escape the country. And there were hopeful stories, such the ones I concocted in my own mind about America, the West, and all of the wonderful freedoms (and junk food) I could enjoy if, one day, I could be allowed to enter the U.S.
But more than storytelling, the single most important factor in my ability to communicate with clarity and confidence was the fact that my rear end was always seated with the adults at the breakfast, lunch or dinner table, even if I was done with my meal and wanted to play,. This was coupled with the fact that I also grew up in the 1990s, a time when addictions to phones and devices was a non-issue, unless you couldn’t live without your Walkman or ridiculous pager.
Yes, I was actually forced to listen to adults conversing, and often, encouraged to add my own thoughts. In America, I had one cousin who routinely ran out of the dining room to return to his beloved Super Nintendo console to play “Duck Hunt.” Even as a little girl, I understood he was missing out on something.
Today, whether at dinner parties, birthdays or plain, old kids’ dentist or haircut appointments, I see a generation of children that cannot and will not engage with the greater world because of the device that is in their hands. I love them for their tech savviness, but if I hold my breath that one day, they will be even remotely interested in any of MY stories, I would have to wait for much, much longer than one-thousand-and-one nights.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Since 2019, I have served as a weekly editorial columnist for the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. I have also contributed to Los Angeles Magazine, Newsweek and other outlets. I am an Iranian American Jew, and I lovingly spend most of my time writing and speaking about my community. In late January, I experienced one of the most important milestones of my career when I was afforded a chance to sit down with Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince of Iran, during a one-on-one interview in Los Angeles. The interview was eventually published in print and online as a cover story.
Writing is a wonderful, maddening, replenishing, depleting, one-of-a-kind endeavor, and I wouldn’t trade it for all of the kabob and saffron rice in the world.
On second thought, it depends on the type of saffron.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
First, learn history.
TikTok is not history.
YouTube is not history. Not always, at least.
Second, don’t believe everything you think. Thoughts are like nails; sometimes, they hold us together. But more often, they leave too many holes in us.
Third, learn from everyone. Actively seek out the opinions of those with whom you disagree. Humanize them. Echo chambers can turn dusty and moldy so quickly.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
As a writer who is seeking to publish my comedic memoir, one of the banes of my existence is the never-ending, seldom satisfying, bottomless pit of needing and wanting more and more social media followers. Sometimes I ask myself, “If I post something while in a forest without wifi, and there is no one around to validate it, did I really just trip and fracture my fibula?” The answer is always “No.”
Contact Info:
- Website: www.tabbyrefael.com
- Instagram: Tabby Refael
- Twitter: Tabby Refael
Image Credits
Photo credit for Tabby Refael speaking at a lectern goes to Jonah Light Photography.
