“I forgot we were virtual. It feels like we’re in the same room together. We feel so close.”
Perfect Understanding
The essence of humanity is our individuality. Because of this, we each have unique viewpoints. Often we have emotions attached to them.
“Viewpoint” literally means, “the point from which you view”. If you’re at the bottom of the mountain looking up, the top looks very different than it does after you’ve climbed it. You’ve changed your viewpoint. You now see it from a different viewpoint. You now possess two viewpoints of the mountain top.
You can say what is true for you at the bottom. The truth will be different when you’re at the top.
The challenge becomes when we try to communicate our different viewpoints. Often it goes smoothly. But not always.
When it doesn’t, it’s generally because disagreement is overwhelming the conversation, and has overpowered understanding.
When there’s no understanding, there’s no real acknowledgment of what is said. And that’s when communication goes south.
Understanding and agreement are very different. “Understanding” means, “I can see it from your viewpoint, I see what you’re seeing from your point of view, I perceive it clearly.”
“Agreement” means, “I think the same way as you do, I consent, let’s do that, I have the same opinion, I even think you’re right.”
To simply see something from another’s point of view is often the greatest challenge people have.
They’re so busy disagreeing, they stop seeing.
The problem people have is this: when they don’t agree, they withhold their understanding. They say things like, “I don’t understand how you could feel that way.” Or they mistake this for understanding: “I totally understand you. You’re selfish, stupid, stubborn and you’re wrong.”
The moment you withhold your understanding, even a little, you suppress the one thing that makes communication, and relationships, work.
Understanding is a skill. A high level skill. A powerful ability.
The more you perfect it, the more magical your life becomes.
I received this email from a student who completed Causative Communication online training a week ago:
“I'm amazed at how quickly it allows a conversation to move on by acknowledging, and how finding the words is easy when you have affinity. It's exactly what we learned, but it has not stopped happening outside of class or at work. I've also shared the approach I learned with my kids, and I've seen them be successful with it as well.
“My son struggles with anxiety, and in particular he worries about making people angry by not agreeing with them. I told him about affinity, acknowledging, and the difference between understanding and agreeing, and with a little practice at home, it has completely changed his perspective on interacting with people, and eliminated that fear!”
I love that there is a young boy who is learning how to be causative, how to freely communicate and exchange viewpoints with anyone, while still a child. This is going to serve him well throughout his entire life.
It gives me great joy that his fear, his anxiety, has vanished.
This opens up the whole world to him, and endless possibilities.
With affinity, understanding and acknowledgments, you possess the tools to create magic in any conversation, to bring about affinity, understanding and acknowledgment in others.
When you have this certainty, you can achieve harmonious collaboration with anyone, and the ability to create the future you dream of.
Every service we offer, whether it’s online/offline, in a group or even one-on-one, will move you forward towards that goal.
Be the cause!
Crossing the bridge into the land of your dreams
Learning does something nothing else can. It engages and exercises your mind, fills you with well-being and makes you feel powerful.
Today I’ll tell you about Virginia and the transformation that learning created in her life…
Virginia is a really good person, but she never stood out. She interviewed for a number of exciting new roles within her company … and kept not getting them.
She works for a company that offers our classes to their employees, which is how I met her. Virginia showed up for Causative Communication eager and motivated to find out how to create a winning streak.
The following week she was in Mastering Virtual Presentations and, as I started the class, she interrupted, bubbling over with enthusiasm, and said, “There’s something I need to tell you:
“Right after the last class I had to do an extremely difficult series of interviews for a competitive position. I was interviewed by a panel of executives, followed by a series of one-on-ones with key stakeholders. The next day their HR partner called me and said, ‘I normally never tell anyone this so quickly, but we’ve all talked and you are for sure the person we want in this role. Everyone who interviewed you said that, compared with everyone else they interviewed, you really stood out. You created such a bond and trust with each one of us, we all felt you’re part of our team already! One of the execs even said that a wonderful positive energy comes from your eyes. We can’t wait to have you start!”
She was the same person, but the result was completely different. Keep in mind: she created “a bond and trust” with people and execs she didn’t know and these interviews were all virtual!
REAL communication dissolves all barriers. It creates true understanding, trust and a closeness you wouldn’t think could be possible when you’re virtual.
Virginia had a clear and beautiful vision of success. And a firm decision to make it.
Learning enabled her to cross that bridge. And now she’s flying high with wings that will keep her airborne.
Learning enables you to cross any bridge into the land of your dreams. That’s why a great teacher is such a gift in your life and to the world.
Never let your current level of ability limit your dreams. There’s no ability you can’t develop. All the abilities you could ever want are inside of you, like many seeds waiting for sun and water.
Your dreams are there for a reason. They are waiting for you to live them.
And learning can make it all possible.
What are you going to learn next?
Be the cause!
KNOWING without looking…
Many, many people have been signing up for our online training. It’s very uplifting and, as one of my clients said, “It makes you feel good about the world and it makes you feel good about yourself.”
That’s one of my purposes, so it makes me very happy to hear that. It’s a good time for learning.
I’m coaching a lot of people on their virtual presentation skills these days. I have about 50 students this week alone, a combination of workshops and one-on-one coaching for execs.
Here’s one question that comes up a lot:
“I know I’m supposed to look into the camera, but I want to see their faces to see their reactions to what I’m saying. How do I look into the camera and see their reactions at the same time?”
My answer surprises them.
There’s a huge difference between:
A. Causing the reaction you want and KNOWING you caused it without having to look
B. Doing something and then stepping back to look and see what reaction they’re having.
When someone says they need to “see their faces” to know their reaction, it immediately tells me they don’t have enough ability or skill to simply cause their intended reaction and know they caused it. Without looking.
You have to be pretty good to do that.
This level of ability gives you a super high degree of certainty. It’s a, “I don’t have to look, I KNOW I did it.”
For example, when you can say, “I don’t need anyone to tell me no one was multitasking during my presentation. I KNOW they weren’t.” And you’re right.
Or, “I don’t need to see if they get it. I KNOW I delivered it so well that they absolutely got it.”
Or, “They don’t need to tell me. I KNOW they like me. I KNOW they agree with me.”
Or, “I don’t need to see if they’re inspired or are going to act. They are and they will.”
And they do.
In other words, you knowingly caused it and you’re sure you did.
This kind of certainty comes from being able to hit it out of the park, an expression describing an American baseball batter hitting a home run that makes the ball travel so high and so far, it flies way out of the stadium beyond anyone’s reach.
What I’m talking about is being able to tell by the perfect FEEL of your swing, by the impact when you connect with the ball, and the special sound of the crack of the bat … everything about that motion feels so right, you start running around the bases because you KNOW you have a home run.
It takes an incredible amount of intention to achieve that.
Intention is positive and deliberate purpose. Deliberate means you’ve decided. Positive means totally certain. Certain means no doubt. Intention means no doubt about the outcome.
When you have that level of intention, magic happens. Whether it’s baseball or communication.
Society encourages self-doubt, but surrenders to intention.
I think I’ve mentioned to you that my inbox is full of successes and wins from students. What a joy to read them!
This week one of our recent students from Mastering Virtual Presentations wrote that she’d been invited to present to 200+ people at a Virtual event earlier in the day. She wrote she created, “25 minutes of focused presentation, total connection with the audience, eye contact, Affinity, FUN and intention! It all came to life!”
She had 200 people watching her that she couldn’t see. Did she have any visible sign that she was connecting with them?
No, she just KNEW, just like the guy who hit the home-run knows.
It’s funny. When you have that level of ability, you can actually FEEL the energy of the audience coming back to you, even when you can’t see them. Don’t ask me how, you just do. It’s powerful.
What happened after her talk? Over 50 people spontaneously reached out and emailed her kudos. 50 out of 200. Spontaneously.
When does that ever happen? Home-run.
By the way, she’s not a senior executive. She’s not someone people have to play up to. She’s an individual contributor. With noticeably amazing communication skills.
You cause the reaction of the people in your audience. Or you are the effect of their reaction.
It’s all up to you.
That’s why it’s so important for you to have a clear decision about what reaction you want to cause and the ability to do it. Then you can go ahead and cause it.
And KNOW you did it, whether or not you see their faces.
Work on your abilities. Work on your intention. Work on your certainty. They will lead you down the path to magic.
If you want to fast track your journey down that path, I invite you to get involved in one of the events below…
Be the cause!
The magic of the weird…
I just received an email from a recent student who wrote:
“I did your Causative Communication online training to learn how to handle difficult conversations. The weirdest thing happened. I’ve stopped having difficult conversations!!! I haven’t had ANY since the training!”
Then she wrote two words that I’m very used to seeing in my inbox:
“It’s magic.”
Magic is when you produce a spectacular, even impossible, effect with very little effort, done so swiftly it’s invisible how you did it.
In difficult conversations, most people are used to expending a TREMENDOUS amount of effort and getting a mediocre or frustrating result. So, what she’s describing IS magic.
The other word you see in her email above is one I’ve also gotten used to seeing and hearing from our students and clients:
Weird.
I hear this word a lot. At one point I joked I was going to call it Weird Communication, but I knew that unless someone’s done the training, they wouldn’t understand.
Let me explain why it’s weird.
I have another client who recently put all of our online training into their corporate catalog to make it available to 100,000 employees. She sat in to observe our first three training sessions to make sure they were going well. A lot was at risk for her if they weren’t.
After the first session she said,
“That was weird. They were all paying attention. That’s really weird for 6 hours of virtual training that they would pay attention the whole time. What was even weirder was I was planning to multitask as I was listening and I couldn’t multitask. I’m the world’s busiest multitasker and I just couldn’t do it. I found myself riveted and being attentive the whole time. That was really weird.”
After the second session she said,
“That was so weird. I can’t believe how much people change in such a short period of time. It’s like they blossom before your eyes. They become compelling. You start to really LIKE them WAY more. That’s weird to watch how they are at the beginning and how they are at the end, so different.”
After the third session she said,
“I know I keep saying the word “weird”, but it really IS weird. I’m watching these people transform in these workshops and you do it so quickly and so consistently, that’s so weird.”
Then I overheard her telling her boss, “These training programs are so good, they’re weird.”
She’s not the only one who’s used this word. I hear it often. Almost as often as I hear the word magic.
When some says something is weird, they mean it’s really unexpected. They mean it’s hard to believe.
I understand. I know the world we live in. I know it well.
It’s a world where GREAT communication is weird. A world where creating a spectacular effect with very little effort is weird. Where a “normal person” being able to create consistent magic is weird. Where having a great teacher and learning how to do it in such a short time is really weird.
It’s weird to suddenly have everything going exactly the way that you’d like.
It’s weird to suddenly have a great relationship with someone that you haven’t been getting along with.
It’s weird to suddenly be able to influence an entire organization.
It’s weird to tell your child to go to bed once and have them do it cheerfully and willingly.
It’s weird to present an idea and have it immediately accepted.
It’s weird to be alone in a room talking to a virtual audience that’s far away and be able to feel their energy coming back to you and know they are swept away and totally with you even though you can’t see them.
Great communication IS magic. Creating magic is weird. Learning how to create magic is weird. They’re all spectacular. They’re all hard to believe.
Want to hear something really weird? I looked up the derivation of the word weird (where it came from) and, get this, the word originally meant the power to control your fate or destiny.
That’s precisely what being CAUSATIVE is all about. That’s precisely the PURPOSE of Causative Communication.
So, I guess in today’s world – that’s weird!
I personally don’t WANT to live in a world where great communication is weird. I want to live in a world where BAD or frustrating communication is weird. Where argument, misunderstanding, conflict, hostility, crushing disappointment, bitterness, not feeling heard, anxiety and fear are weird.
That’s WHY I’ve chosen this path. To help the world around me gain the REAL abilities needed to make magic happen.
I was grinning reading the email above. Nothing makes me happier than to know someone came to me to learn how to handle difficult conversations (of which she had many prior to the training) only to find that, MAGICALLY, after the training she doesn’t have any.
This is what I have to say to her:
“Welcome to this new weird world. It’s so GOOD, it’s weird. You have a magic wand in your hand called new communication ability. I know you’re using it to make the world a better place and we are all grateful for it. Continue on!”
Be the cause!
How to lead the invisible
Leader is not a title. You can’t get promoted into it. And you can’t get demoted out of it.
Nelson Mandela was a great leader even when he was in jail.
I’m coaching many leaders, and many individuals with high potential for leadership. As I watch them change, it’s clear that communication skill marks a leader.
Yes, you have to have good ideas. But lead means cause to follow. And people don’t follow good ideas poorly communicated.
For example, I’m coaching Steve, a new SVP of a major corporation. Steve’s first day on the job was the first day his organization sheltered from home. So he’s met no one in person. It’s all virtual.
Steve’s predecessor had been in the role many years and was well loved. But the organization had gone stale. They were seriously falling behind others in their industry.
Steve was hired to create breakthroughs. Not incremental change. Breakthroughs.
Steve was very successful as a technical leader in another major, but smaller, high tech corporation. He had risen through the ranks and proven himself, both as a technical leader and as someone people could talk to, as trustworthy.
The problem was, it took years to warm up to him. Mainly because his communication skills were those of someone who is, as he calls himself, a technical guy. It’s one of the first things he told me, “I’m a technical guy.”
It was his way of saying, “I haven’t worried about my communication skills.”
Over time you learn that he is a GREAT technical guy who actually SHOULD lead because he has GREAT ideas, but it’s not something you see right away.
About a month after he started, the CEO asked Steve to present his strategy for the organization to the thousands who would be watching him virtually.
The reviews he received after this presentation were lukewarm.
Steve was the new leader of an organization that was uninspired, and even skeptical, about following him. He desperately needed a breakthrough in their trust of, and enthusiasm for, his leadership to innovation.
Let me repeat this: Steve has GREAT ideas. But he did not get them across to the thousands of people watching him.
I watched him change as I coached him.
I never coached him on the words he was using. His words were fine. I coached him on the RELATIONSHIP he built with his audience.
Now, keep in mind, this was all VIRTUAL! So this is an audience Steve has NEVER SEEN. And it’s a LARGE audience.
I coached him on creating a strong CONNECTION with the audience and a powerful RAPPORT with them.
Also on HOW to make eye contact with a virtual audience. Everyone “knows” eye contact is important – but there are 1,000 different KINDS of eye contact. You have to make the ONE kind that really matters.
And I coached him on how to make everyone feel like he was right there WITH them – in the SAME room – and feel like, “He is talking to me.”
Steve just sent me the video of his most recent presentation. He looks like a completely different person. It’s powerful and compelling.
The feedback Steve received on this last presentation was dramatically different from the first one. Emails are flying through the organization by managers who had planned to work on their emails while listening to Steve’s presentation and they found it AMAZING (their words) – they were incapable of multi-tasking – they were riveted to watching and listening to him.
And (this is so politically incorrect), he looks really handsome in this one (don’t worry, he’s very happily married). I just find the people I coach look more handsome and more beautiful when they become GREAT communicators.
In short, Steve is now coming across as a LEADER. It wouldn’t matter where you put him in the organization. People will follow.
Great ideas + great communication skill = you’re effective.
Build the relationship with your audience. Communicate exceptionally well.
For decades, I have been on a mission to take will-be leaders like Steve and help them acquire the skills to fully step into that leadership position.
You’ll see the list of offerings below this message that we use to do that. If you see something that resonates with you, choose it.
Just remember this:
It doesn’t matter what your position is. If you learn to lead, others will follow. And when they do, you’ll KNOW you have just put yourself in a position to create powerful change.
Be the cause!