Meet Chantill Lopez

We recently connected with Chantill Lopez and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chantill, thanks for sitting with us today to chat about topics that are relevant to so many. One of those topics is communication skills, because we live in an age where our ability to communicate effectively can be like a superpower. Can you share how you developed your ability to communicate well?

I love this question because I think it’s one of my magic powers, haha. It’s easy to suss out that, at least in part, my ability to communicate well comes from training as a journalist. I have always been an avid reader and have a wide breadth of interests both fiction and non-fiction, so I’ve consumed a LOT of words in my lifetime. As a writer, you’re always told the best way to improve your craft is to read as much as you can. So I did. I do.

In high school and college I wrote for the school papers. As a journalist and creative writing major in college I explored a myriad of writing styles, each of them pushing me to be more and more articulate. But most importantly, I learned how to THINK about what I said and wrote to such an intense degree that it’s ingrained in me.

When you practice this “meta” processing around communication you tend to take tremendous care with your words out of habit. It’s quite lovely, actually.

It wasn’t until I opened my first business that I really began to recognize this quality in myself. So many people communicate poorly both in writing and verbally, but for me it was always a joy, easy, a kind of puzzle to solve in a way. How can I convey an idea or help deescalate a situation? I loved it and I love it still.

These days, as an expert in behavior change and creating psychologically safe containers in a variety of domains, I find that this skill is both amplified and stretched. I’m always willing and curious to discover how to communicate better, how to meet someone where they’re at and to match my communication style to theirs rather than force mine upon them.

I find it all akin to a beautiful dance or creating art. What a pleasure it is.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

A friend recently told me about a book called “Range – Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World”, and I immediately thought, “That’s it! That’s me.”

My career has not necessarily been all over the place, but it has not been entirely linear.

I followed my heart right out of HS to pursue a degree in journalism and creative writing. I loved journalism for a moment and have never stopped loving to write, but my body and my soul needed more.

After some floundering, and a move to Hawaii to try a hand at starting a business, I decided to follow my second love, dance. Although I knew I didn’t want to make a living as a dancer, I did want to explore the realm of anatomy, movement therapy, and somatics so I could help people feel as good in their bodies as I knew they could.

Fast forward a few years, I had multiple certifications under my belt and had built and grown three different Pilates studios in Sonoma County, CA. I realized early on that I was meant to be a teacher. I started a company called Skillful Teaching and began to develop and deliver advanced functional anatomy and movement curricula online and internationally.

My career as an educator continued to evolve into a book about teaching called, “Moving Beyond Technique”, a podcast called, “Thinking Pilates Podcast”, and a new business called, The Embodied Business Institute, founded with Anne Bishop M. Ed.

The Embodied Business Institute serves small and large businesses, organizations, and founders in navigating change, transition, and reorganization, from a brain-based, nervous system, and Polyvagal-informed perspective.

We specialize in building cultures of psychological safety and helping leaders and facilitators learn how to leverage nervous system-based behavior change for the long-term sustainability and resilience of their business structures and the health and wellness of the people who work for them.

I am also the founder of Nervous System Works, a company designed to support individuals, companies, and organizations in bringing Polyvagal-informed and nervous system-based behavior change strategies to bare on their ability to navigate change,
complexity, to build cultures that are inclusive and uplifting, among many other things.

My personal passion lies in supporting driven and high-achieving leaders, who also live full and varied lives, in creating businesses that thrive because they thrive. Using the nervous system and cutting-edge behavior change science, we literally have an opportunity to systemically shift how we build, connect, communicate, tap into flow, heal, and expand joy. Work and life are not separate and your nervous system is the link.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Communication is definitely at the top of my list. Do as much as you can to dedicate attention to how you communicate, connect, build relationships and safe environments through your words, actions, and body language. In my opinion, this is not about learning how to pose the right prompt in ChatGPT to come up with the right “tone” or wording to have tough conversations. It’s also not about things like the “positive feedback sandwich”, nor is it even about studying things like non-violent communication, which of course IS deeply valuable.

What is at the very heart of our ability to communicate is whether or not we feel safe. To take notice and listen to how our bodies talk to us to tell us if we are safe or not. Unconsciously, our nervous system is always telling us whether a person, situation, or environment feels safe to us and if it doesn’t there is very little chance that we’ll be able to communicate well despite our best intentions.

My best advice, is to become aware of how you’re feeling when you’re trying to express yourself — no matter what the domain. If you’re feeling resistant, panicked, upset, stressed out, overwhelmed, have clammy hands or butterflies in your stomach, take three deep breaths and close your eyes. Notice what you can do or tell yourself that might ease the tension. Go outside, splash some water on your face, step away from the screen or person.

Putting your nervous system in a safer state puts your brain in a more optimized state. Once you learn how to do that, then go get some training. Read “On Writing” by Stephen King (seriously) or “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser. Take workshops on public speaking, on deescalation, on non-violent communication. I find lots of Buddhist texts have helped me learn how to communicate better, like “Dancing with Life,” by Phillip Moffitt.

Okay, that’s only one.

The other two are simple, and yet not easy, as they say: Patience and learning to “fail fast”.

The seem opposite, I know. In a way they absolutely are, which is why they’re not so easy.

Patience because we can’t expect results overnight or even over years. To foster patience stay close to your “why”, to that thing that you’re deeply, soulfully, spiritually connected to that drives you. Keep checking in with that. Ask, “Am I on the right path still?” and “Does this align with my heart/passion/values?” These questions will help give you the answer to whether or not to stay the course or get the hell out of dodge.

And that’s hard. Jumping ship on an idea, job, relationship etc. “Fail fast” is a thing one of my dearest friends taught me. It’s bold and it’s confident and it’s ultimately about self-worth. Do you have enough self worth to say no to something that isn’t working and move on? I’m still working on this, but I find that over the past 20 years I do this WAY better than most people. It’s always strange to me how long people hold onto things that make them unhappy. But it’s a skill. Not an easy one.

All-in-all, what I wish for you, reader, is to be able to fail fast, be patient, AND do your best to communicate well about all of it 😉

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

Yes, always. I love collaboration and believe deeply in a concept from neuroscience called “distributed cognition”, which essentially means two brains are better than one for stretching us creatively and conceptually.

My greatest desire these days is to examine how the nervous system-based and Polyvagal-informed strategies I use can be used to create powerful frameworks across a variety of domains.

Improving nervous system awareness and health impacts so many areas of our lives, indeed ALL areas of our lives personally and professionally. Particularly, in the areas of: communication, conflict resolution, change and transition, diversity and inclusion, stress management, parenting, caretaking, autism, mental health, menopause, and so much more.

I’m always looking for individuals and organizations who want to invest in creating a bigger impact in their lives, organizations, companies, and communities and who know that intellectual strategies only get you so far.

The best way to connect with me is by email at [email protected]

Let’s ACTUALLY make the world a better place! It starts inside your nervous system and mine.

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Amber Weir

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